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dismas-n-dismay · 1 month

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Hi! It's me again (I'm transferring to a bachelor's in biology this fall and I love the science that goes into the series so I love that you're exploring this)

Do either of them have hoarding instincts or dietary preferences or are they pretty much human in that regard?

They'd possibly be born with baby teeth, at least in Haze/Hazel's case, would that change anything? (Hazel would probably fit better because Falin is half French on her father's side from what I remember from the Adventurer's Bible and it feels even that they'd both get to name a kid but that's just my opinion)

Haru with his mouth full: Checkit!! Blegh!! Haize: Gross. Good job, Haru, you're a natural hunter!

Welcome back to part 10,000 of me talking about my silly ocs. Hi. hello. Thank you sooo much for coming back with more biology questions for these two hehehe >:]c

Diet Preferences?

These two are quite the oddballs. Haru is an insectivore by simple dragon nature while Haize is a carnivore by hers, though their elven and tallman sides balance them out to be closer to omnivores! Light dragons commonly eat bugs as they're the easiest prey to attract when ur big and flashy though this keeps them very lithe and they typically have more slender builds, though the proteins do help a lot. Conversely, red dragons being mostly carnivores results in their larger build and their obvious frequency to be the most dominant and persevering dragon species- y'know. Because they murk the other ones due to their weaker diets and builds.

Haru started to eat bugs right around the time it was warm enough for him to go outdoors without getting sick, I imagine he would've eaten a butterfly or a dragonfly much to Marcille's horror. Like that vine of the pug eating the butterfly with his owner screaming no! Backtracking a bit though to give some cool facts about baby light dragons because I decide the lore. I'm making them weird half mammal half bird-lizards because I think the variety is cool but this also means that - up until baby light dragons can open their eyes and properly attempt to hunt - they drink milk from their parents! (Whether or not this is crop milk like birds produce is entirely up to the reader's imagination, I will not judge but I will choose either one if asked)

So up until he started going outside, Haru was perfectly content just drinking milk like any other baby- Haize was not. Unlike Haru she was born with baby fangs!! Just little milk teeth to help her get a headstart for the world and such, but she grew hungrier for something more diverse than milk very quickly. Red dragons, unlike light dragons, don't do the whole milk thing so Haize was only partially satiated due to being part elf and tallman but the minute she was allowed to eat soft meats she basically refused to go back. So just imagine like a 1 year old eating various lunch meats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Honestly it was probably for the best, Haize's fangs bit into Marcille a lot and they were worried she might grow a taste for blood if she kept accidentally nicking her mom while trying to eat. She probably would have and it would've been a really bad habit to get rid of because she hadn't developed that big girl brain to be like "Hey maybe drinking blood isn't super cool."

All in all, the Touden-Donato sibs have slightly preferenced diets! Though Haize prefers meats, nectar, and citrus fruits while Haru prefers bugs, ground vegetables, citrus fruits, and any/all milk based desserts (he just really likes them). God if these kids ever got their hands on sorbet it would be a disaster, Falin and Marcille would literally spend a week trying to explain why they cant have ice cream for every meal and have to deal with whining dragonets the whole time.

2. Hoarding Instincts

They do have hoarding instincts! Though this is one of those things that differs from dragon to dragon on how they react with it. Light dragons tend to go for the flashiest treasures to make themselves more appealing and alluring, naturally they like the attention they draw in just from an instinctual standard. They frequently discard rusted, unpolished, or just not as eyecatching treasure all the time. They really just arent particular about the whole thing unless they see you have an interest in something they were previously disinterested in- then they're smug assholes who see their treasure as still having some renewed value. So essentially Envy = Worthy to them, but they arent extremely vain creatures despite their hoarding preference and are actually particularly generous within reason. It's very common for light dragons to gift their young, mates, or siblings with treasures from their own hoards or that they've taken for themselves to gift. Typically though the gifting of treasure is to help younger dragons start their own hoard and have an idea of what to go for when out and about for themselves.

That being said, Haru is a greedly little fucker who wants every single new treasure possible, fuck you. He's very grateful for being part elf and tallman because he's aware that he can make his beautiful treasures last long if he polishes, dusts, and cleans them! So his hoard isn't too huge if only because he's good at maintaining things. Still, if he sees something he tends to want it and is often reprimanded for trying to steal shiny gems, jewels, or artifacts just because he likes them- as Haru often gets tired with his new finds extremely quickly if they begin to bore him or don't compare to his other treasures. When it comes to his hoarding he essentially has the dragon equivalent to having eyes bigger than your stomach.

Haize, however, has your more traditional dragon's hoard of miscellanous treasures, artifacts, coins from birthdays, and prized family gifts. Much of her hoard consists of trinkets Haru grew bored with but that she still saw interest in and wanted to give renewed purpose, she isn't nearly as picky but is very curious and likes to inspect an item before taking it in. She'll often let Haru have a treasure knowing that he'll get tired of it within the hour- though she has been known to assert her place as the eldest sibling if there is a gift for her she particularly wants and Haru usually shies off. Haize doesn't assert herself as the eldest often so he knows it's business if she does for things like food or treasure. Haru keeps her hoard partially in and around the her nest as well as the family nest in Falin and Marcille's room! Her nest in the guardian is where she keeps most of her baby clothes, toys, trinkets, and cloths/blankets. She just feels they're safest there and prefers to sleep near them <3.

Also, fun tid bits on how dragons train their kids to gain treasure!: Typically young dragons get the urge to grab and snatch at shiny things as soon as they're able to crawl around functionally and protect themselves- which is pretty early due to them being predators of a mythical variety- so they'll often try and steal treasure from their parent's hoard! Older dragons use this as stealth training for their young and will often guard their treasure, sitting stop or nearby and continuously removing their children until they manage to sneak by successfully to take a trinket. Typically the larger/shiner/whatever is more impressive for the type of dragon you are is what is most rewarded for by parents but they do punish thinking a bit too big. It's good to know your limits! better to have 5 gold coins than 5 gold bricks you cant carry.

so Falin was very often having to train Haru and haize to amass their own treasures which was much easier for Haize due to her slinky and stealthy body allowing for quicker and quieter movement! Haru had to learn to fight, due to his regular baby limbs and range of movement, which didnt really work because he's so itty bitty but the thought was appreciated by Falin, learning to stand your ground is good too!

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momentsbeforemass · 9 months

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Follow me

“As Jesus passed by, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, “Follow me.” And Matthew got up and followed Him.”

That’s how today’s Gospel opens. And to many of us (myself included), the more you think about it the scarier it gets.

You’re going about your day – at work or school or whatever – minding your own business. And then God calls you to follow Him. With the expectation that you will just (literally) drop everything. And get up and follow Him.

I have so many questions.

Follow You where? What are we doing? What do You want from me? Etc.

But all of them really boil down to this basic fear – if I really follow God (and I mean actually give up trying to do it all myself and let God lead), am I going to lose me in the process? Am I going to become some sort of mass-produced, bland, nonentity lost in the herd?

Of course, a minute’s look at the saints (the ones that do the best job of letting God lead) and their massively different personalities and gifts would put the lie to all of that.

Joan of Arc, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Dorothy Day, Augustine Tolton? No bland, nonentities here.

But in the moment, when God’s asking, that’s not where my lizard brain goes. Because I don’t want to admit who the author of my life really is.

Not that any of that changes the truth about me (or anyone else).

Because the truth is that I’ve got it wrong. This isn’t an “either-or” (either I can be God’s or I can be me). The truth is that it’s a “both-and.” As the Psalms put it, “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.”

That is, if you and I understand what Paul is telling us in Ephesians (“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.”), then it becomes clear that in choosing to follow God we are choosing to be exactly who we were created to be.

That’s not an “either-or” at all. It’s a “both-and.” And a roadmap.

As C.S. Lewis puts it, “The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become.”

In short, Matthew got it right. All that remains for you and me is to follow his example.

To get up and follow God.

Today’s Readings

#Who God made you to be #C.S. Lewis #God #Jesus #Catholic #Christian #Church #Matthew #Follow #Both-And #Moments Before Mass

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cephaloclod · 5 months

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i had a thought today

what if there was a robot girl and she had a crush on you and you knew it and she was trying to ingratiate herself to you so she offered to run some of your computer programs for you on her cpu cuz haha why not haha and youre like aww thanks so you boot up your virtual doll game of choice (im talking ffxiv but you can use whatever in ur dumb brain) and download a bunch of modded clothes and start taking up all her spare memory and shes like uuuuh hehe thats a lot of mods… and youre like lol yeah i wanna try on a bunch of stuff and shes like haha yeah lol… and shes all nervous cuz you keep downloading more and more and she doesnt wanna tell you to stop obvs so shes just going along with it and then you get in the game and crank up the r-shade to the highest settings and you hear her fans kick on to overdrive and shes like uuuh whats up and youre like oh just taking a few quick pics of my heavily modded character haha i wont be long and her fans are getting louder and faster and you can see shes already getting hotter but shes still being nice and doesnt wanna seem mean so you start trying on all the modded clothes and taking a ton of different screenshots and ofc its like all horny big tiddie stuff cuz like thats the fun so shes just getting her already limited memory space spammed by whats turning out to be hundreds of super high fidelity high res screen shots of a hornily/scantily clad big boobed fat assed virtual character and shes like getting really overheated now but like soooo much of her cpu is being used to run this game and at all the highest settings with all those fancy shaders and all that junk so shes like struggling to keep it together and she cant really say much except make loud fan noises as you just sit there and spam her with more and more ridiculous pics at ridiculous angles of your character and her memories almost full but youre still taking more and she finally manages to squeek out something like a maybe we should take a breather for a second but youre like oh but im almost done and my character is just so much fun to take screencaps of and is soooo hot and shes just like yyeeahfh as you take like five more pics of ur toons ass and now the game is running really slow so its taking even longer to set up the shots to take the pictures and the computer girl is just like treading water in this lagged overheated state staring at your beloved characters huge modded rack as you try on another new shirt and realize you wanna go back and see what it looks like with those tights from earlier and she still just doesnt wanna say anything to inconvenience you and maybe this is a good way to die anyway she thinks well thinks is a strong word cuz like 99% of her cpu is being used to render the exposed midriff of your virtual cat girl or whatever it is so she just kinda feels it and the room you two are in is like getting really hot cuz shes just producing so much heat and you can see shes struggling to keep it together and the game is chugging alone reeeeeeeeal slow now and ur just like only a few more outfits im almost done and honestly you kinda would be annoyed but you know shes doing her best and you know it and atm she cant even really respond except to keep her fans going full blast so you like zoom in on your lizard girl or whatevers cleavage and just give her a good eyeful for a couple seconds knowing its literally taking up basically 100% of her processing power at this point and youre like thanks for doing this i loooove my character soooo much shes just soooo hot haha and just so great

#robot girl #computer girl #overheating #eroticism of the machine #is this yuri

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transmutationisms · 10 months

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can you say more about the way van der kolk conceptualizes trauma/our response to it & with what aspects you take issue?

it's been a minute since i read 'the body keeps the score' but my recollection is what irritated me was a continual invocation of pop-neurosci explanations that basically sought to exonerate people of moral culpability for their 'trauma responses' by presenting these things as quirks of biology that are mechanically driven, out of their control, &c. think like, the idea of the 'lizard brain'—rudimentary neurological architecture that responds to fear or threats on a more 'primitive' level than the outermost, higher-consciousness-producing anatomy. besides the fact that this builds on basically a recapitulationist read of evolution (meaning like, 'ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny' à la haeckel)—and the political valences of such discourses about 'primitiveness' or 'primordial organs' or vestiges / atavisms—besides all this, which is a whole different post, this type of explanation of trauma or any other psychological phenomenon is infuriating because it takes for granted the presumed dichotomy within which something can be 'biological' (mechanical, out of your control, not your fault) OR it can be 'psychological' (a spiritual / conscious / immaterial phenomenon that you are responsible for; your fault).

there's no room here for any further nuance, for example along the lines of "your psychological response / pain / suffering is not your fault regardless of whether there's a biological mechanism that 'explains' it, and regardless of whether we can ever find or 'fix' such a thing" or, "psychological phenomena can be biologically instantiated without being biologically caused", &c & so forth. i think van der kolk appeals to a lot of people because the dominant medico-psychiatric paradigms can't help them, and then blame them for having 'recalcitrant' problems or being 'non-compliant'. so to have someone like van der kolk saying "actually, it's not your fault, you really are suffering, and it's out of your control" is very appealing and sells a lot of books. but fundamentally his work operates within the same paradigm as doctors who will just blame you for your own suffering if they can't fix it with pills or diet; van der kolk just takes the opposite stance within this therapeutic model, and this is why he so often has to invoke really shitty, oversimplified, outdated or simply not evidence-backed models of neurology and psychology because they feel intuitively true and validating. again my position here isn't defending neurologists or psychiatrists; it's the opposite. i disagree with this whole paradigm, with the false binary between 'neurobiology' and 'things we consciously control', & with the idea that an experience being biologically or neurologically instantiated automatically means it is mechanically caused or can be mechanically 'treated'.

#bessel van der kolk

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shyanshippingsociety · 5 months

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Shyan Shipping Society - NY Fic Exchange 2024

hi everyone!

can you believe it's our fourth annual new years exchange? we had some amazing fics and art (hosted in our server!) and i can't wait to bring them all to you here! let's go!

CHECK OUT THE AO3 COLLECTION!

doll island by idkspookystuff | E, 3K, complete

So Shane clearly picked up something on the Island. Something that made him hot and sweaty and horny, apparently. It doesn’t sound like any spider venom Ryan’s ever heard of, or the signs of a demonic curse. Although, a curse- “Oh, fuck,” Ryan swears. it's 2016, shane & ryan are on the island of the dolls, and a demonic doll plays matchmaker

satan, you're a nerve-y one by icantturnthisthingoff | E, 1K, complete

After a series of unfortunate events, Ryan finds himself alone on New Years Eve wishing he had someone to keep him company Enter, Incubus Shane

The Sky In The Snow by Charmingwolf | T, 1K, complete

A group of backpackers stayed the night in an abandoned shed deep in the forest. In the dark, one was journaled their adventures until they felt the rumble of a massive creature just outside the thin walls. They looked out the window and saw a huge black thing with scales that twinkled like stars and huge fangs that dripped puddles of dark goo as it walked. That was all they got down before the creature attacked. It tore down the walls of the shed before killing the backpackers and dragging them into the crunchy frostbitten grass. That was 20 years ago. No one has seen the creature since. Ryan and the producers think it would make a great video to go hunting for the creature dubbed The Forest Hill Lizard.

one random night when everything changes by Artemis | E, 1K, complete

Ryan looks for Shane on New Year's Eve and finds more than just the person he was looking for that night. AKA Shane confesses his love for Ryan, they smooch, then they do something about it.

all in! by anonymous | T, 4K, complete

“I bet…," he starts, flashing a grin at Shane's flushed face. "you won’t kiss me on New Year’s Eve.” Ryan watches as Shane instantly runs the numbers on this, through whatever mental calculator he has in his brain. He imagines beeps and whirs, gears turning words into numbers. “Alright, Bergara,” he says, after a moment. Then, he slides his whole stack of chips sitting on the pool table and nods, slow and considering. “I’m all in.” OR: Ryan makes a bet. It escalates from there.

They Got Subway at 2 am by Charmingwolf | M, 1K, complete

After a very silly and kind of sexually charged shoot, Shane and Ryan explore each other's bodies like they have done many times before.

Given the Chance by PlatinumPussycat208 | E, 3K, complete

“It’s…I built a time machine.” Ryan and Shane blinked at each other. The other Shane and Ryan looked at one another, but stayed in the doorway quietly. “Fuck off, Steven. That’s not funny.” Shane’s voice was serious now. “No! I mean it!” Steven cried. “It’s how I’ve been keeping on top of everything here! It only goes back a little! It just gives me more time in the day!” Ryan barked out a laugh. “Oh my god…trust Steven to build a time machine to do more work.” - a fun, smutty fic for the SSS NY Exchange!

Scheming for a Smooch by Impala_Chick | T, 2K, complete

The boys both decide to make a move on each other with a New Year's kiss at midnight. Only problem is, they're both plotting to get a smooch and the other doesn't know it yet.

Their dynamic is... by tasty_littl_snack | G, 1K, complete

Food files from the cameraman's perspective.

With A Little Help From Our Friends by quackers | M, 3K, complete

Everyone thinks they know Ryan and Shane's secret. Everyone. They might be wrong.

thank you so much to all of the incredible creators who joined this event! happy 2024 from the sss mods! we have so many fun things planned so make sure you follow us here on tumblr or join the server so you don't miss out! we hope you had a great 2023 in our server/on our blog and we can't wait for you to continue having a great time in our server in 2024!

love you!

the mods

#shyan shipping society new years exchange 2024 #shyan shipping society #shyan #skeptic believer #watcher after dark #buzzfeed unclean #buzzfeed after dark #mod ve

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bunchashapes · 1 year

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any music recs?

i could have made this very short or entirely too long. i opted for the latter:

HAVE YOU LOOKED FOR SOME NEW MUSIC TO LISTEN TO? LOOK NO FURTHER, FOR HERE IS

I know. There's a lot of music out there. Well have no fear, because I've selected, organized AND categorized a fine number of music selections, just for you! I tried to keep it to just stuff you probably haven't heard of before, but I make no promises. Hopefully you'll find at least one new thing you can take with you into 2023.

MAKE YOUR SELECTION:

1 - MIKE, I'M LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO GROOVE TO. SOMETHING I CAN GET DOWN AND VIBE WITH OR PERHAPS LISTEN TO WHILE I WORK:

Sounds good! Let's start with a few of those:

Vulfpeck - Okay you may already know about Vulfpeck. Sorry. If you HAVEN'T, they're a wonderful group of dudes from Michigan that are all insanely talented. They have a wide-range of styles they cover and pretty much every member has gone on to do other solo stuff, which may also suit your interests. They also have a spin-off band called The Fearless Flyers that I'll cover a little further down.

Jacob Mann (As well as his Big Band) - Jacob's solo stuff has a nice laid-back feel to it, while his big band stuff is slightly more bombastic, but all of it is fun and groovy. Great example of a musician effectively switching between different toolsets, whether its a whole group of talented musicians at his disposal or just a bunch of nice Roland presets.

EMEFE - They haven't been very active lately but EMEFE is an incredible ensemble with plenty of amazing music for you to listen to. Their live album from 2017 makes me wish i could go back in time and watch it live.

Louis Cole - Louis Cole's also pretty popular, but maybe you haven't heard of him! Originally hailing from Knower, he's collaborated with a ton of musicians (including Vulfpeck AND Jacob Mann Big Band, mentioned above) as well as produced an impressive array of solo music. I can't understate how much I love this guy.

Thundercat - Know who else he's collaborated with? Thundercat. Have you listened to Thundercat? You should really do yourself a favor and listen to Thundercat.

Sammy Rae and The Friends - Only learned about Sammy Rae very recently but The Feeling (linked) was an earworm that lodged itself in my brain for months. Infectiously positive vibes, a great ensemble and really brilliant singing.

Silk Sonic - Okay they played at the Grammys so it definitely doesn't count as a deep cut but listen to Silk Sonic anyway okay? Okay.

2- MIKE I NEED SOMETHING THAT WHIPS ASS. SOMETHING TO COMPLETELY KNOCK MY SOCKS OFF.

Can do. Your metric of kickass may vary but at least one of these should work for you:

King Gizzard and The Wizard Lizard - King Gizz has put out such an unbelievable volume of music that it's hard to just recommend ONE thing from them. I've linked Nonagon Infinity, a great little album with the fun gimmick of seamlessly looping front to back. They really haven't put out a single bad album, so just go wild.

Royal Blood - Royal blood's bassist plays through an octave pedal, giving their stuff this fuckin' beefy sound that's well-rounded enough you'd never guess the band is just a bassist and a dummer. Their style has gotten poppier lately but it's still all worth listening to.

Tricot - Tricot's been around for around 10 years now and their stuff has only gotten better over time. I feel like Math Rock is kind of an obtuse genre for most people but their recent stuff is absolutely worth checking out even if that's not your usual sort of thing. Makkuro (真っ黒) is my favorite album of theirs by far.

Thank You Scientist - Stranger Heads Prevail is probably one of my favorite prog albums ever and you'll probably like it too. Insanely good ensemble (the amazing triple threat of sax/trumpet/violin is such an integral part of their sound) and really fun vocals.

Nova Collective - Another incredible prog group. As far as I know they've only put out one album but it whips ass.

Ask My Bull - These guys popped out of the woodwork a few years ago and I've been obsessed with them ever since, I can't wait to see what they do next. If you're a horn-loving freak like me you absolutely need to listen to them.

Fearless Flyers - The previously aforementioned Vulfpeck spin-off band, guest starring Mark Lettieri of Snarky Puppy and the incredible Nate Smith on drums. Their album Tailwinds is easily one of my favorite albums ever, the addition of a sax trio takes their stuff from incredible to legendary.

Daikaiju - Kaiju-themed surf rock. That's really all that needs saying.

3 - MIKE I NEED SOMETHING THAT'LL MAKE ME SAY "DAMN THAT'S COOL"

Well you're in luck! A wide range of things fit the bill:

Snarky Puppy - A powerhouse jazz/funk/rock ensemble full of insanely talented musicians. Just give this song a listen, you won't regret it.

The Dear Hunter - Dear Hunter (not Deerhunter. Different band) has remained my favorite band since high school. The band has a number of different projects, A collection of EPs for each color of the rainbow, a 5-part rock opera/narrative concept album (with a 6th part that may be a movie??) and other more straightforward albums that still cover a broad range of genres and styles. I think they're great and hopefully you will too.

Hiromi Uehara - Hiromi's probably my favorite pianist ever. Just watch that video. She's ridiculous. She also plays in an incredible trio and guest stars on my favorite Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra song! Preposterously talented and insanely fun to watch. I love her.

The Bad Plus - Speaking of great trios, you can't go wrong with The Bad Plus! Really vibrant arrangements and generally incredible musicianship throughout their work.

Esperanza Spalding - Obscenely talented bassist AND singer AND songwriter. As someone who sings and plays bass (not at the same time, of course) watching her do effortlessly do both at the same time is mesmerizing. I love her.

Chon - Chon's also pretty big now but I want you to imagine you're me at a Dear Hunter (see above) concert back in 2015 and one of the opening bands walks onstage and you're like "well okay what's these guys' deal" and then they start playing these fucking insane picking solos in perfect unison. I literally couldn't believe what I was seeing. I wish everyone could experience Chon through those eyes.

4 - MIKE THOSE ARE COOL AND ALL BUT WHAT I'M REALLY LOOKING FOR IS SOME MUSIC TO GET BUNDLED UP AND GO TO SLEEP TO

You need ambient? I got your ambient right here.

Hiroshi Yoshimura - I was first exposed to the wide, wide world of Japanese ambient music back in college and in all my years since then, few things have been able to beat Yoshimura's atmospheric soundscapes. If you need music to shut your brain off (and who doesn't, from time to time), look no further.

Chihei Hatakeyama - Another Japanese ambient powerhouse, Hatakeyama's got a huge discography of music and all of it will knock your lights out (very pleasantly).

Green-House - Very much inspired by Japanese ambient, Green-house is described as "music for plants". I only wish there was more of it.

Joep Beving - Not exactly an ambient artist but a masterful practitioner of minimal, atmospheric piano. His style is understated but filled with emotion, a great mix of more classical elements with a modern cinematic flair. Great to work to!

5- MIKE EVERYONE'S TALKING ABOUT JAPANESE CITY POP, JAZZ FUSION AND EARLY ELECTRONIC MUSIC BUT I DON'T KNOW WHERE TO START. GET ME ON THE GROUND FLOOR HERE

You got it boss:

Yellow Magic Orchestra - You've probably heard of these guys by now. I've only known about them for 6-ish years after they had a moderate burst of fame here but I think it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say these guys were one of the principle pieces of genetic memory that coalesced into the DNA of modern electronic music. All three of the principle members, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi (rest in peace) have all had really prolific solo careers in a ton of styles of music that are all worth your time.

T Square - An absolute titan of Japanese jazz fusion, their album Adventures is a veritable Rosetta Stone of video game music, directly inspiring a good number of video game songs including the dang mario brothers theme! Their stuff is an absolute joy to listen to.

Tatsuro Yamashita - Yamashita is often called the king of city pop and is (according to wikipedia) credited for pioneering Japanese "soft rock". Having grown up on the pacific coast, there's some ineffable truth in his schmaltzy surf music that touches me deep in my soul. You may not have the same experiences as I do, but I hope listening to him will allow you to tap into that divine spark and enjoy it for yourself.

Masayoshi Takanaka - Perhaps not quite as famous as Yamashita, Takanaka is a brilliant guitarist and musician known for that same schmaltzy pacific rock (just look at that damn guitar. I love him) as well as a number of other styles of rock and jazz fusion. He's got a huge discography and it's all incredible.

Casiopea - I would be remiss if I didn't mention Casiopea. I'm not an expert in Japanese music obviously, but I think it'd be fair to say they and T-Square are the two titans holding the glory of late 70's-early 80's jazz fusion like Atlas shouldering the world. Do yourself a favor and listen to Mint Jams.

Himiko Kikuchi - Truthfully I don't know much of Kikuchi's discography other than Flying Beagle (linked) but she absolutely killed it. Do yourself a favor and listen to that too.

6 - WELL MIKE THAT'S ALL WELL AND GOOD BUT WHAT IF I WANT SOMETHING WEIRD THAT DOESN'T FIT IN ANY OF THOSE CATEGORIES

I'm always happy to recommend unconventional stuff. Here's a few albums that I love to close us out:

Tom Waits - Alice - First of all, you should listen to Tom Waits. I know you know him as the Funny Voice Guy but he's had such an incredible musical career that starts great and only gets more and more amazing over time. Anyway, in the 90's, Tom and his wife (and writing partner since the 80's) Kathleen Brennan were scoring weird experimental musicals in Germany, namely The Black Rider (also worth listening to) and Alice. The musical is a strange extrapolation of Alice in Wonderland, namely inspired by Charles Dodgson's (Lewis Carroll) relationship with Alice Liddell, generally accepted as the real-life inspiration for Alice. Though the actual specifics of their relationship are uncertain, the age discrepancy and Charles' general fixation with Alice leads many to assume....the worst about their relationship, an interpretation the musical runs with. The actual musical is hard to find evidence of (there's some documentary footage from the 90's and I've found the script) but Tom rearranged his music for the show and released it in 2002, which in my eyes is the definitive version of the music. The album is unbelievably melancholic, heart-wrenching, at times deeply uncomfortable, and absolutely filled with beauty. Lost in the Harbor is maybe one of my favorite songs of all time. If ANY of this sounds even slightly interesting to you, I implore you to check it out. It also has Colin Stetson on saxophone and clarinet, which segues quite nicely to the next album.....

Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2 - You may have actually heard Colin's music before, he's scored films like Hereditary, Color Out Of Space and the newest Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. New History Warfare is one of his experimental solo projects, most characterized by Stetson recording basically everything in a huge room filled with microphones, creating this incredible impression of scale. It's filled with some of the craziest shit I've ever heard someone do on a saxophone; long, galloping phrases with no pauses for air thanks to circular breathing, mixing in the sound of the valves opening and closing, and an incredible unnatural-sounding delay all achieved with live recording. The Righteous Wrath of An Honorable Man is one of the coolest things I've ever heard in my life (you've probably already heard it before) but the whole album is absolutely captivating.

Caroline Shaw - Partita for 8 Voices - Caroline Shaw is an amazing musician, singer and composer. All of her stuff is really beautiful and worth listening to, but few things stand out as much as this composition, written for and performed by a cappella group Roomful of Teeth (which is probably the sickest possible name for a choral group). I feel like a cappella music has a woefully bland perception among most people (thanks in no small part to Pitch Perfect); all lavish arrangements of pop music with absolutely no soul. If this is what you think all a cappella music is, I urge you to listen to this album. It's a masterful blend of speech, song and energy, filled with a vibrancy and passion I have a difficult time putting into words. You really just have to listen to it.

#music reccomendations #this one got long.....

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steddiesupportpodcast · 7 months

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Meet the Podcast Team!

It's about time that we introduce ourselves, we're the team behind the Steddie Support Group Podcast 👋 Big thanks to @glitterfang for the amazing portraits 🎨🖌️

ALENA aka @peter-pantomime

Any Pronouns | Virgo | 30

I’m a veteran fan and amateur academic who loves analyzing individual characters and their interpersonal relationships, the plots, themes, symbols, and genre staples of pop culture media, and the dynamics between media fans and creators. I’m coming to Stranger Things from a long history of examining how fans participate in the process of making meaning through their interactions with media texts, and to Steddie from an even longer history of being emotionally devastated by blorbos and ships, the most notable being Destiel, Stucky, and Reddie. I love talking to people about all these ideas everywhere from Tik Tok comments to academic conferences, and so I’m super excited to have the opportunity to be a part of this podcast with so many wonderful people!

Guest & Host Appears on: Episode 4, 5, & 6

Twitter: @peterpantomime TikTok: peterpantomime Youtube: Peter-Pantomime

AMY aka @mojowitchcraft

She/Her | Scorpio | 33

I’ve been a fan of Stranger Things since day one, but fell headfirst into the Steddie hole last summer. There is no way out, I’m trapped, I’m stuck in here with them. Before Steddie I’d been an avid fanfic reader but I was always too shy to write anything. Over the past year my confidence in my writing has grown so much and I’ve met so many amazing and wonderful people in this community. Very excited to be part of the podcast team and lend my voice to our discussions!

Producer, Host, Guest & Promo Team Appears on: Episodes 1, 4, 6, 7, & 13

Ao3: weird_witchcraft Twitter: @mojowitchcraft TikTok: mojowitchcraft

ASH aka @steddiehands86

They/He | Gemini | 37

Joined the Steddie community around October and have been nonstop writing and cosplaying since. I have been writing on Ao3 since ‘09, but never so much as with this fandom. I’m so fortunate to be a part of this lovely group of people to talk about our brainrot in a safe, sane, consensual space… I’m also a Gemini, and like long walks in the woods.

Guest, Mod Tech & Transcript Editor Appears on: Episode 1, 8, 11 & 12

Ao3: steddiehands86 Twitter: @steddiehands86 TikTok: steddiehands86 Instagram: steddiehands86

BECCA aka @glitterfang

She/Her | Taurus | 35

I was a casual fan of Stranger Things up until Season 4. Now the brainrot’s got a hold of me and won’t let go. I’ve spent most of my time in this fandom as a small potatoes fan artist but have recently started writing fic as well! I love our little Steddie family and community and I’m just happy to be here.

Host, Guest & Resident Artist Appears on: Episode 3 & 9

Ao3: pizzabones Twitter: @glitterfangart TikTok: glitterfang Instagram: glitterfangs

BECKS aka @beccichu

They/She | Aquarius | 24

“Nope, you can’t start watching Stranger Things just because of him” were my thoughts last year after hundreds and hundreds of Stranger Things and Eddie Munson edits on tiktok. Well, after binge watching 4 whole seasons (the last one two times in a row) I fell head over heels for Steve and Eddie and into the Steddie hole pretty fast where I’ve been here ever since. I do write every now and then but my passion is cosplaying, talking about the blorbos nonstop and sharing my love for this community with others!

Promo Team

Ao3: MsBecciChan Twitter: beccichuu TikTok: beccichu Instagram: beccichu

BIRDIE aka @audacityofbird

She/Her | Leo | 39

Bird isn’t even her real name, but she wasn’t sure if going by ‘The Motherf*cking Lizard King’ would be appropriate. Bird has been a fan of Stranger Things since the start. The ensemble cast, nostalgia and the way the show wove music into it in such a beautiful way hooked her immediately. The brain rot didn’t set in firmly enough to scour Ao3 until 2022 at the release of Season 4 but then the rest was history. A fandom lover and fanfic reader/ writer at heart, but her favorite role in fandom spaces is cheerleading, beta reading and being a part of the community. The love for these characters and the stories run deep but her gratitude for the friendships she’s formed here runs deeper.

Guest, Mod Tech & Audio Editor Appears on: Episode 3 & 10

Ao3: audacity_of_bluejays Twitter: @audacityofbird

CADY aka @lostinadmiration

Any Prounouns | Capricorn | 33

Cady was a casual fan of Stranger Things until Eddie Munson flirted with Steve Harrington and then went and fucking died. She went online to cope with the grief, and stumbled onto Steddie art, which snowballed into discovering fanfiction, and landed her in a beautiful community of loving and supporting friends who love talking about those gay dudes! In the year of brain rot she completed two fics, has two neglected WIPs, and loves chugging out art. She also wants everyone to know she’s IYLO’s biggest fan and would love to discuss it with everyone and anyone!

Guest & Host Appears on: Episode 1, 9, 10, & 13

Ao3: lostnadmiration Twitter: @lostnadmiration TikTok: lostin_admiration Tumblr: lostin_admiration

DAE aka @strawberryspence

She/Her | Libra | 23

Dae has been watching Stranger Things from the beginning, falling in love with the friendships and found family tropes in its core. She has always had a soft spot for Steve Harrington, this only intensified when Eddie Munson was thrown in the mix. Dae spends her time writing Steddie fics (mostly angst), editing and having mental breakdowns about gay fictional characters.

Guest, Graphics Creator & Promo Team Appears on: Episode 4

Ao3: strawberryspence Twitter: @strawberrysomin TikTok: strawberryspence

JESS aka @mydarkdevotion

She/They | Pisces | 31

I’ve been watching Stranger Things since the beginning and fell in love so hard that I ended up getting Eleven’s 011 on my wrist in my cousin’s bedroom. I’ve been reading fanfiction way before stepping into Steddie and writing has grown more since then too. I guess you can say my friends see me as the person that would dive right into the danger (No tag reads/ No summaries) What can I say? I love surprises. Even if they end up in tears. Anyone who's seen my tiktok knows. But all in all just a real down-to-earth friendly person enjoying the thing I love.

Guest | Appears on: Episode 5 & 11

Ao3: MyDarkDevotion Twitter: @mydarkdevotion TikTok: MyDarkDevotion

KAYLEE aka @sweetz059

She/They | Libra | 24

Kaylee has loved watching Stranger Things since she was 16, reading cutesy Byler fics and appreciating all the found family the fandom had to offer, and always having a soft spot for Steve Harrington. They didn’t really dive in until Season 3, however, when she finally was given a character that they could see themselves in. One Robin Buckley. Which just intensified her love for Steve even more. Then Season 4 happened, and Eddie Munson happened, and Kaylee finally saw the perfect match for Steve. Now they’re one fic down, and who knows how many more to go, and she wouldn’t want it any other way.

Guest, Host & Producer Appears on: Episode 3, 6, 8, 11, & 12

Ao3: sweetz059 Twitter: @sweetz059 TikTok: sweetz059 Instagram: sweetz059

KK aka @knormalizeknitting

Any Pronouns | Taurus | 39

KK is a genderless void who has been a nerd since time immemorial so naturally they’re obsessed with Stranger Things. They were a “normal” level of into the show, for a total geek that is, until Eddie Munson appeared and the Steddie ship set sail. Now KK spends all their time projecting Steddie onto every fictional pairing that has ever existed in media and finding new ways to torture Steve Harrington before letting him finally kiss Eddie. They’re extremely excited to be part of the podcast, make new friends on the server and talk Steddie / ST with so many lovely people when they’re not giving Steve even more trauma on ao3.

Guest, Host, Audio Editor & Mod Tech Appears on: Episode 2, 8, 12 & 13

Ao3: knormalizeknitting Twitter: @knormalknitting TikTok: knormalizeknittin Instagram: knormalizeknitting

KRIS aka @kwills91

They/Them | Gemini | 32

I’ve written and read fanfic for many, many years, but it had been a while since I existed in a particular fandom. Then Season 4 of Stranger Things came out and I fell in love with Steddie. After mass consuming as many fics as I could get my eyeballs on, I decided that there weren’t nearly enough Steve breakdowns in them and began writing my own, and I’ve been unable to stop writing since. Hundreds of thousands of words of writing and millions of words of reading later and the brainrot is showing no signs of dying. And hopefully never will. Which is why I’m so excited to be part of this podcast.

Guest, Host & Mod Tech Appears on: Episode 2, 3, 8 & 10

Ao3: Kwills91 Twitter: @k_wills91 TikTok: kwills91

MANON @transmascsteveharrington

They/He | Aries | 26

“The binge watch format of Netflix shows hinders the growth and development of fandoms compared to linear released shows. Therefore it is unlikely that many viewers of Stranger Things will ever participate/form a fandom and read or write fanfiction-” is a sentence I once wrote in an essay in 2017 for my undergrad. Then the universe had a right laugh and several years, one gender crisis, and about 250k words of written steddie fics and countless words of read steddie fics later I am now here. I’m an avid writer and reader of stangst (Steve angst) and could talk about it for hours. That’s why I’m super excited to be part of this podcast.

Guest, Host & Producer | Appears on: Episode 2, 6, 8, 10, & 13

Ao3: ChristinMKay Twitter: @t4teddiemunson TikTok: ger_manon

SAGE aka @miserablekingsteve

They/Them | Virgo | 24

I watched Stranger Things back in 2016. Only because my mum was watching it in the other room, and I heard Joy Division’s ‘Atmosphere’ start playing. Causing me to come running out of my room and question what she was watching. Prior to that fateful moment, I was probably holed up, writing Torchwood fanfiction or listening to the audio dramas while live posting on tumblr. Safe to say I’ve been in fandom spaces for quite some time. Yet never had written anything with as much velocity as I did when Steddie quite literally dove into my periphery. What? Eddie Munson was doing Ketamine and being ridiculous, hard not to relate to that one. I’m super stoked to have had any opportunity to be involved in fandom this much and I’m excited to see where it continues to take me!

Guest & Promo Team Appears on: Episode 6, 8, 11 & 12

Ao3: miserablekings TikTok: miserablekings

SARA aka @3blackhearts

She/Her | Leo | 36

I’ve been watching Stranger Things since the beginning. I loved how creative and nostalgia-driven the show is. The death (maybe, hopefully not, let me be delulu a little longer) of Eddie Munson is what drove me to read my first fanfiction ever. I hadn’t resonated with a character that much in a long time and having his ending be so unsatisfying on the show led me to want a world where that’s fixed or never happens (shout out to AUs). Since joining the fandom I’ve found my niche by making podfics, and now this podcast. In real life, I work for a local non-profit and am a visual artist. President & Founder of the DILF Steve Harrington Fan Club.

Guest, Host, Producer, Mod Tech & Audio Editor Appears on Episodes: 3, 4, 5, 10, & 11

Ao3: 3blackhearts Twitter: @3_blackhearts TikTok: 3blackhearts

#steddie support group podcast #podcast team #ssgpodcast #ssgp #steddie podcast

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lil-gae-disaster · 2 months

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I need to get some stuff about spiderman and logistics and shit out of my brain so here we Go

(Disclaimer, I'm not overly educated in the following topics and only have access to the knowledge I was taught in school and my own logical connections, so there may be errors, so don't quote me on anything I'm going to say)

That Spider-Mans Spider was radioactive didn't make sense. At all.

Because:

In the Andrew Garfield movies, the spiders are protected by a door and I can't remember anyone wearing a radioactivity protection suit.

And a radioactive spider would've done more harm than just a few new abilities

I don't really know exactly what the side effects of exposure to Radioactivity are, but definitely nor Superpowers.

Instead, I allow myself to throw a speculation into the room:

The Spider was genetically edited.

Because, again, Garfields Spidermans dad was on the work of a top-secret project that involved those spiders. And, as far as I can remember, the Lizard was his colleague. And how did the Lizard become the Lizard?

He tried to combine human DNA with the DNA of a Lizard to let his limbs regrow.

PLUS, this would also explain the Superpowers more logically

Because the spiders would have to have been genetically edited to produce a serum that makes their DNA compatible with other species' DNA (although this isn't always correspondive, as seen with the Lizard)

And, more specifically, if one were to try to recreate the Spider, the essence the Spider injects into it's victim's body, in that case a human, would have to be able to replace certain parts of the DNA, or find a place to insert itself into the DNA string, of the human DNA and THEN also specified for the test person

This is why I made Novah's aunt a genescientist, because I couldn't comprehend how tf a radioactive spider would've created the same stuff and I needed a logical explanation

@ashlamsms @half-eaten-baguetteee @klick-klaack I think this might interest you

#noah rambles #spiderman #Radioactive spider #Gene science #science #genetics #dna #biology #I'm just a 9th grader idk what I'm talking about #< I'm forced to say this in case my thoughts are wrong

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destiny-smasher · 5 months

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Stuff From 2023!

List of things of note I experienced in 2023! A few things didn't technically release in 2023, I'm sure, but yea. Will contain my 'Top 10 Games I Played in 2023' as well.

Firstly, something I played a lot of this year in bursts but doesn't quite crack my Top 10 is Vampire Survivors. Very addicting, did some very fun goofy shit that had me laughing and engaged in a lizard brain way. Appreciated the many Castlevania references and jokes, too.

A couple of games I played every weekend for a few hours across many weeks this year were Project Zomboid and Roots of Pacha, both in a group 4. We had lots of fun with those two, and I think they're both great co-op time-sink games. Zomboid is a zombie survival sim that has way more attention to detail than its graphics may imply. It's still in early access but the depth to its is honestly pretty dang impressive. Pacha iterates on the Stardew Valley formula in a ton of small but deliberate, thoughtful ways that make for a nice twist on that Harvest Moon style game.

REMAKES

There were so many great remakes this year, on top of just amazing games in general, I can't fit them all into my Top 10. So here's a segment dedicated to most of the remakes I loved this year.

The remake of Super Mario RPG was such a surprise, and turned out very damn well. That game, turns out, is very near and dear to my heart and I did not fully appreciate that until this remake was revealed. It comes just shy of cracking my Top 10 list and that's honestly only because I finished Mother 3 finally right at the tail end of the year. This game manages to still feel weirdly fresh even today just due to how fucking strange it is, and the remake speeds up the pacing a bit while also adding in some new mechanics and a chunk of new post-game content. Everything was handled so well. This is like the new gold standard of complete one-to-one remakes of sprite-based games imo. I will admit the artstyle is a bit 'off' in some ways but I think it's very clean looking and captures that 90's CGI spirit really well, all things considered. And the music, OOF, so damn good.

The remake of Dead Space I don't have much to talk about, but it's very well produced. It's remade so well, in fact, that it felt like my memories of the original, even though I know it's not an exact recreation. Very well done and still holds up as a great horror action game with these improvements.

The remaster of Metroid Prime is so impressive it feels like a remake, even if the game is identical to the original aside from presentation and some control changes. It's an iconic classic, and yet I have no patience to do the Chozo Artifact stuff, so I actually did not roll credits on this version BUT still thoroughly enjoyed reliving the game with a very nice new coat of paint. It makes me excited to see what Prime 4 will look like on, I expect, more powerful hardware.

SHOWS/MOVIES

The year started strong with a TV adaptation of The Last of Us. While I've come to have conflicted feelings with the franchise at large, mainly due to its leading boss man, I thoroughly enjoyed the first season of this series. Very well done adaptation that picked and chose what to keep and what to change and honestly makes for a better story as a whole if you ask me, while not really replacing the game's tactile interactive tensions. Cannot wait to see what they do with Part 2 tbqh. I loved that game more than the original but also felt it was worse as an overall game/experience/narrative. But a fresh take on that same plot could potentially address a lot of the issues I had with Part 2, while simultaneously not really 'replacing' it, either.

The Bear. If you haven't seen it, it's just. Very good television. Two seasons in and it's sitting up there chasing Mr. Robot and Better Call Saul as one of the best live action series I've ever seen. Season 2 did such a great job of giving us deeper dives on the various characters and building toward an organic and rewarding conclusion that still leaves room for another season to theoretically wrap things up. Nothing too crazy with this show, it's super down to earth, and it owns that very well with editing and pacing that varies per episode, kind of in line with the different character perspectives.

Super Mario Bros.: The Movie had me worried for a while, mainly due to the animation studio and casting. And while I'm still not 100% sold on this celebrity casting, I will admit it didn't weight the experience down -- even if it's still the second weakest element by far. The weakest element is the writing. It's not, like, offense -- it's loyal to the source material and works, it functions. But it's not doing anything beyond pushing us from set piece to set piece. If anything, the movie is a bit too short for all of the stuff it's cramming in. But on the upside, there is a lot of amazingly rendered visuals and music to take in. A real treat for fans of the franchise, and the most loyal gaming adaptation in movie form, I would say.

Across the Spiderverse is in essence the first half of a two part film. That makes it kind of difficult to talk about, especially when it's also a sequel, and the production sounds like it was marred with bad management and crunch. But the results they came up with actually met my hopes and expectations for a sequel, and that is saying something, as I had very high expectations. I completely adore this film's stupendous sense of style, editing, framing, writing, and the way it's making meta-commentary on multiple levels on top of just being an effective narrative on its own. This is animated storytelling running at full capacity in my opinion, and in general just film doing all of the kinds of things film can do. So it's no wonder that there's still a rub -- this is the first half of the story they planned. The editing, animation, framing, effects, acting, action sequences, music, writing, theming, just Farore's sake, this is SUCH a damn banger of a film and one of the best movies I've ever seen, which, again, is kind of insane given the circumstances. I can only hope they don't fuck up the conclusion.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off was quite the surprise announcement, and as it turns out, quite the surprise adaptation. I won't spoil much but I will say that by the end of the first episode, it becomes very apparent that this series is no mere by-the-books adaptation, and does something unique and edifying, even if it still maintains a certain surface-level depth I wish the franchise would push beyond. Either way, I enjoyed it way more than I expected to going in, and I think it makes for a great companion to the rest of the series. The animation style was super fun, as well, with some great action sequences.

But Blue Eye Samurai sucker-punched me, having released before I'd even known about it. This show is something else, something unlike any other animated show I've seen besides Arcane. And it's not like it's mimicking Arcane, it's just the closest I can think to compare it to: a quality, thoughtfully framed, thoughtfully written, made-for-adults animated series. It tows the line between fantasy and realism in a refreshing way, its protagonist is great, its cast is compelling, its plot goes to some neat places, and things just feel very well thought-out and well-executed. Slap this in second place behind Arcane as the TV series I am the most excited to see more of in the future, just ahead of The Bear.

Something I did near the end of the year was watch The Hunger Games movies, back to back over the course of like, a week. Have not read the books but man, watching these sure made me interested in doing so at some point. I totally get why people were so enamored with this franchise, and honestly, I think its themes and messages are more relevant now than they were when this franchise was at the peak of its popularity. The films certainly have glaring issues for my tastes but yea, I managed to really enjoy them as a whole despite my lack of mainstream sensibilities. Looking forward to reading the books eventually.

Another thing my wife shared with me was 花ざかりの君たちへ (often called 'Hana-Kimi' for short). Specifically, the 2007 version, as, uh, apparently there are multiple adaptations of this. It was a live action Japanese drama about a high schooler who was born female but transfers into an all-boys school, identifying as a boy while she is there. There's more to it than that, and I won't say it handles everything the best (it's from the mid 2000's) or concludes things in quite the way I'd have preferred. Not to mention it's kind of weird seeing many tropes I'm used to seeing in anime rendered by physical, real actors. BUT it was overall a really sweet, adorable, funny, heartfelt, and reached for pro-queer expression in a time and place when that wasn't mainstream yet (and honestly kinda still isn't depending on who you ask).

Good Omens Season 3 also dropped this year. I actually don't have much to say partly because I think a big element of it is just not knowing what to expect going into it! But it was also very good, very fun, pretty damn gay, I really enjoyed it and am crossing my fingers hard they get to wrap it up the way they want.

All right! Onto my personal top 10 GOTYs.

TOP 11 GAMES

(I played and finished in 2023)

11) Mother 3

The one entry on this list that did not actually come out this year -- in fact, it's never technically released outside of Japan. Originally release in 2007 on the Game Boy Advance, this quirky RPG has developed quite the reputation. I started playing the fan translation back in like 2020, and only got around to finally finishing it this year. While that likely did tarnish the experience a bit for me, so does the final third or so -- it kind of drags on a bit, and any old school format RPG that requires grinding to progress can become a bit of a chore.

Thankfully, Mother 3 did earn its hallowed reputation in my eyes now that I have experienced it. I totally get the passion for this game now, and I am a convert. It makes me want to finally finish Mother 2, aka Earthbound. But here's the biggest thing about Mother 3 I weirdly did not expect going in, yet smashed my face in like a hammer by the time I finished it:

without Mother 3, there is no way Undertale/deltarune would exist.

The DNA for Toby Fox's works is achingly obvious in its relation to this game, specifically. I won't spoil anything and I won't go into my long list of evidence like an Ace Attorney case, but trust me, there is ample evidence to make this claim.

And that also means that Mother 3 stands on its own merits as doing things that RPGs just plain were not doing in 2007, and in some ways still aren't today. Aside from some pacing issues further in, the characters in your party aren't as developed as much as I'd like. BUT the overall narrative it tells, especially in those opening chapters, have a rare kind of earnest, human magic to them that most games just don't let themselves fall into. And it concludes in ways I did not expect and yet offered clarity as to why it is so beloved, and how Toby Fox was so inspired to put his own mark on the gaming landscape.

I owe a great deal to Undertale, personally, and as such, I also owe a great deal to Mother 3. You don't need to have played others in the series to enjoy it, you'll just be missing some referential stuff here and there. It's quite playable and unique by today's standards and I strongly recommend it if you want an RPG that is heartfelt, funny, fun mechanically, and has some simple but hard-hitting things to say about the world we live in, and what we are doing to ourselves and that world.

10) Super Mario Bros. Wonder

What can be said that hasn't been said already? Nintendo knocked it out the park with this one. This was everything I've wanted in a 2D Mario for like 15 years. The only thing 'missing' from it is playable Rosalina, but hey, we finally got Daisy in a mainline Mario game, so I'll take it. After a decade or so of dragging their feet with low-effort but enjoyable 2D games, Super Mario Wonder finally, at long last, captures what makes Nintendo games great and with their best foot forward. They haven't done 2D Mario this well since World on the SNES in 1991. And they have never put this level of production into a 2D game since... ever?

This is one of the all-time best 2D platformers out there, and for once it finally feels like 2D Mario is running on all cylinders as a big budget passion project kind of game. You love to see it.

9) Scarlet Hollow

This game isn't technically finished yet, as it is episodic, and its developers wanted to release Slay the Princess in the interim, but that doesn't stop its quality from being good enough to make my list. This game is doing the kinds of things visual novels should be doing, the kinds of things I wish to do in a sense with my own visual novel development.

It's a horror themed experience but balances the high tension with actual real stakes very well against mostly down-to-earth conversations, with lots of great tricks and touches of presentation you don't typically see in indie visual novels, along with a fantastic art style, charming characters (my favorite character has turned out to be the one I immediately disliked at first, and that's rare for me), and meaningful choices.

I can't wait to see how this one wraps up but even as it stands it's one of the best things I experienced in 2023.

8) Xenoblade Chronicles: Future Redeemed

I will admit I skipped Xenoblade Chronicles 2 after giving it an honest go in like, 2019 or so. A few hours in and i couldn't stomach it, the tonal whiplash from Xenoblade 1 (one of the best RPGs I've ever played) was too much for me. But then Xenoblade 3 came out last year, and is also one of the best RPGs I've ever played, even better than the original for my tastes.

But I wasn't prepared for the DLC to drop a whole ass side-game on us, a self-contained prequel to 3 that serves as narrative cohesion to tie the whole trilogy together with a bow on top, complete with perfectly tuned fanservice (and not the sexy kind, although grown-up Rex and Shulk, well, yes) that really respects its fanbase for investing hundreds of hours in this franchise.

Matthew is easily one of my all-time fav RPG main characters, probably the favorite RPG main character when I think of it (as main characters specifically go, anyway), and his game is a fraction of the length of many RPGs out there. But as usual, the entire cast had their charms, the story was nicely paced, the gameplay and overall length was just about damn perfect for what I could want from the genre.

As an expansion to a pre-existing game, this is one of the top 3 best expansions/DLCs I've ever played. When taken as a side story to an overarching trilogy, I'm not even 100% in on the lore and I still enjoyed the hell out of it, it's just the kind of thing that hits a tone of 'damn, video games are a fucking unique medium that we can do specific narrative things with across years of telling a story.'

I don't know where Monolith Soft is going next, though the ending certainly offers some intriguing teasing, but I suspect I will be there day one to see it, and am looking forward to it.

7) Pikmin 4

Given the long wait (10 years!) one might understand fan concern over the state of Pikmin 4. Turns out, that extra time was spent making this game fucking good. It's not the largest, most impressive, most complex, most inspiring, most 'anything' game I played this year, and yet I can't help saying that this is a damned good video game. It really nailed what it set out to do as a sequel, incorporating just the right ideas to spice up the formula while bringing things back to how Pikmin 2 was, and improving on the series in basically every way -- including stuff to do!

This is easily the most Pikmin game... in a Pikmin game. I still haven't 100%'d it. Without giving away any details, I'll just say that when a game rolls credits and you're only like, halfway through its content, and it just keeps going, that's just kind of wild. It would've felt like a great game even then, but the breadth and depth it ends up going to in order to keep giving you ways to engage with its wonderfully detailed world and addictive mechanics, I love it.

I just want more of it. Give me DLC with more Dandori content, the formula and feel just works so well at this point.

6) Sea of Stars

How the hell I forgot to include this one on my list initially is boggling. Easily one of the best indie games I've ever experienced. The writing is nothing to, well, write home about, but it's not bad. And in fact the story has a lot of great things going on, from an interesting world to a very potent arc with the leading support character (who, let's face it, is kind of more the main character than your two main characters).

The game's art and music are phenomenal, capturing the essence of 90's era RPGs but clearly doing things not capable back then. Made even sweeter, the game is a prequel to the studio's prior work, The Messenger, which I also played and adored in tandem, kind of going back and forth between the two once I was partway into Sea of Stars. The way this RPG repurposes songs from Messenger as well as all kinds of seemingly superfluous elements but makes it feel cohesive is pretty great.

The game also trims a lot of the fat you'd find in older RPGs, as well as lets you customize your experience in a modern way using collectibles you can toggle on and off to grant all kinds of effects, like increasing or decreasing the difficulty in various ways.

The homage paid to classics like Chrono Trigger and Super Mario RPG is clear but it's not at all copy-cat-ing, instead wearing those inspirations proudly on its sleeves and forging its own path with its own ideas. A fantastic collection of party members, a wonderful world, amazing presentation, and environments and pacing that help it stand apart from the genre that inspired it. I wish we got to know the leads better, there is a lack of character growth in many ways, but that's me grasping at straws to critique, it's just a fantastic experience and the studio should be very proud of what they've accomplished.

5) Hi-Fi Rush

This is gonna be a running trend from here on out, but on any other year, Hi-Fi Rush would've been my GOTY, easy. From this point on, we're talking measures of inches rather than miles in terms of my love for these games.

Hi-Fi Rush finally delivered on something I have waited like 20 years for: a rhythm action adventure where playing the game in sync with the music felt fucking cool and gave me emotional resonance in a way only this medium can. The humor was charmng. The visual aesthetic is almost peak 'my taste.' The music was groovy with a few tracks I did not see coming but loved seeing how they were incorporated. The story was surprisingly fun! The characters were fantastic, I loved the entire main crew in a way I rarely ever do and would jump at the chance to spend more time with (and hey, there's a whole bunch of post-game I have yet to do, so I intend to in 2024).

The only real thing I could reasonably ask for from this game is a way to play as those other party members in post-game content or new-game plus or something. And who knows, maybe we get that some day. Even if we don't, what they came up with here is the next best thing besides. And what we got is one the most video-gamey video games I have ever played, a real classic and one I think will go down as one of my all-time favs. A passion project given meaningful time, budget, and creatives to bring it to life.

Had this game offered multiple playable characters, a bit more development in its story, and maybe a stronger climax, it'd be higher. I still love it to death and want more games like it regardless.

Hi-Fi Rush is exactly what kind of game we could have gotten more of if the Internet hadn't pushed gaming into a 'live service' direction. It is literally the spirit of a PS2/GameCube game given modern form. And either way, we did get it, at least, in that form, and it fucking rocks.

4) Resident Evil 4 (Remake)

This year was big for remakes and remasters, but one stands tall above the rest, if you ask me. The original RE4 has stood as my fav in the franchise, the one that got me into the franchise, the one that got me into M-rated games in the first place. Lots of nostalgia, but it's held up surprisingly well over the years despite some limitations of the time (mainly the controls) and some older-fashioned sensibilities ("with ballistics, too~").

But Capcom fucking nailed it with this reimagining. Like Final Fantasy VII: Remake, this game is not a remaster, or a one-to-one recreation. It is a brand new game, built from the ground up, reimagining the original entirely, complete with new mechanics and story. But unlike with FF7, this is also shockingly authentic and loyal to the original at the same time. It remixes elements from the original game, maintains most of the original's map design, adds in new stuff, removes some of the more goofy shit -- and even 90% of what feels 'removed' is revealed to be repurposed for the Ada side story DLC.

It looks great, it sounds great, the adjustments to characters and story are improvements across the board, (except for Hunnigan, RIP) the gameplay is improved in intensity and feel and action and replayability. And yet despite all of this, it balances that campy tone of the original just enough to still evoke what I loved about the original's tone. And it doesn't outright replace the original game, either. The two are now like different recipes of the same sandwich or something. There's reasons to revisit the original, though for me this has now replaced the remake of RE2 as my fav in the franchise.

I really don't know where they go from here but I will look forward to it, and regardless, they fucking nailed this one.

3) Street Fighter 6

Two Capcom games, back-to-back? They had a fucking good year in my eyes. The interesting thing about this particular entry is that unlike the others on this list, I will be continuing to play this one for hours and hours into 2024, especially with more fighters still planned. And in another year, this would've easily been my GOTY.

After all, Street Fighter 6 is the single-best traditional fighting game I think I've ever played. And while fighting games are my overall personal favorite genre, I'm more of a Smash player who also loves the hell out of Street Fighter and then dabbles in Tekken and whatever else releases. Street Fighter has always been one of my go-to top multiplayer games since I got into the franchise with SF4 in 2010. While I did enjoy SF5 well enough, it just didn't keep me hungry to come back for more like 4 did. SF6 has fixed that problem by way of a multitude of changes.

It has easily the most fun single player mode I've seen any fighting game have. Like, yea, The Subspace Emmisary (and even then, I don't love that mode like other folks do, I kinda think it's... fine?) but tbqh World Tour is just better in most every way. You get to build your own fighter, earn and mix and match different costumes and individual character special moves with each fighter's fight style. You get to just hang out with the SF characters, get to know them as people, their hobbies, their fears, their insecurities, their passions besides just beating the shit out of each other. On top of this, the realistic art style shift (a by-product of the RE Engine) seals the deal on what Street Fighter 6 is aiming to do: humanize its cast.

Is it still wacky as fuck? Is it still comical and weird and goofy? Hell yes, it is. Is the story mode deep in its narrative? Not in the slightest. But it's still stepping confidently in a direction fighting games should be trying to, not being too self-serious, but also being earnest.

And I haven't even touched on the mechanics! The Drive System alone is a brilliant addition that adds a sort of 'stamina' system that works so well to add an extra layer of decision making and tension. The game's not perfectly balance imo but for how much is here it is surprisingly damn well balanced, especially given they have insisted on not pushing out a single balance patch since it launched in June. For most any other competitive game, that would be like suicide for the scene, but the game seems to be thriving and selling extremely well for the franchise. And it's earned it.

I will absolutely be continuing my warrior's journey into 2024 and I can't wait to see what else Capcom has in store for this game.

2) Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Out of every game I played in 2023, Tears of the Kingdom is easily the most technically impressive. From a design standpoint, from a 'how in the hell is the Switch doing all of this without exploding' standpoint. From a 'holy hell how is there this much stuff in a single player game' standpoint. From a 'oh my goddesses that stupid batshit idea I had 100% worked because it actually did make sense' standpoint.

Where Breath of the Wild opened our minds as to what an open world game could be -- fully designed like one giant interconnected 'level' -- Tears of the Kingdom replied in much the way I expected: it pulled a Super Mario Galaxy 2. What I mean by that is that this is a direct sequel, building directly off the foundation of the original. You know. Like video game sequels almost always used to. And which many very successful ones still absolutely do.

But Tears of the Kingdom somehow managed to wow me all over again by adding to that open world's verticality in insane ways -- the Depths alone are probably my favorite 'mechanic' from any Zelda game ever besides the time loop of Majora's Mask (and what that did for the story and gameplay). But beyond the scale of the world basically doubling and then some (floating islands and caves on top of Depths), I was curious how this game could stand tall after Elden Ring, which is easily in my top 10 favorite games of all time at this point. Elden Ring was Fromsoft's reply to BOTW. And yet Tears of the Kingdom still managed to have something new to say in spite of that very strong reply.

Tears of the Kingdom opened the door to let players essentially create their own mechanics. By removing the abilities Link had to engage with the world before, and replacing them with a brand new toolset that includes abilities you just... don't see games give you, because they'd be 'overpowered,' TOTK designs its massive world in ways that invite you to use those 'overpowered' abilities however you see fit.

Being able to interact with the world and objects in this way, being able to fuse them together to create all kinds of effects, or new methods of transportation, even interacting with things not just spacially but in respect to time, it's nuts and fun and I've already poured like 130 hours with still so much I haven't done. And that's the thing: this game wasn't designed to be 100%'d. It was designed to just... be experienced, as much or as little as you want. And games on this level of scale/budget just do not have the guts to let so, so much 'content' be missed out on. And this game does.

It's a technical achievement and while I had my doubts with how strangely little Nintendo had to show, I am very glad that the experience itself manages to breathe new life into one of my all-time favorite games while improving on it in so many ways. It won't convert you if you didn't love the original -- this is a Super Mario Galaxy 2 style sequel, after all. But it's essentially replaced the original in ways I didn't think would be possible.

The story? Oof. Uh, not so much the story, let's ignore that part. That's what Nintendo wants you to usually do, anyway. But everything else, just. Din-damn.

It expands upon the first game's already fairly open-ended nature in an exponential way that I suspect developers will spend years to come trying to pin down, much like how they've spend the past 6 or 7 years trying to replicate BOTW's open world design.

For much of this year, I thought this was personal GOTY. And for many it will be, because it's just an extremely impressive video game.

Number 1...?

Going into this list, I kept telling myself, 'man, on any other year, this would be my GOTY. And if you know me personally you likely have already figured out what my GOTY is by omission. But the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized just how close these top 5 games are, it really is like centimeters instead of inches, and they each -- well, every game I've mentioned here, beyond the Top 10, as well -- offered something edifying that I was very satisfied with.

And no, it's not Baldur's Gate 3. While I have spent hours playing it in co-op and a little bit solo, that game's just not really for me, exactly. Like, I can enjoy it, and I have massive respect for the dev team and what they accomplished with it. But I don't much care for D&D, and the game just didn't do very much for me personally, I lack the motivation to finish it. Remove Karlach from the game and I have next to nothing to really attach myself to, personally. I definitely get why it's many people's favorite game of 2023, though, and I do think it's a bit of a wakeup call for what can be accomplished by just making a GAME instead of struggling to contort it into a service etc.

Street Fighter 6 is fucking fantastic but it could still use some more actual fighters and incentives to keep playing besides monetizing its players in weird ways. I love it, and it will be the game from 2023 I end up playing the most (it already is, I think). But if it ended as it is, I would be very satisfied.

Hi-Fi Rush is oozing with originality and style and I adore it to death, and when I finished it, I was very satisfied.

Resident Evil 4 kept me addicted for over 100 hours, had an amazing DLC expansion, oozes replaybility in the specific ways I like for a single player action game (rogue-likes besides). I am extremely satisfied by it.

Tears of the Kingdom is so massive and fun to just explore that I know I will continue to play more in the months to come. Will I ever revisit it entirely? I'm actually not sure! That massive length does lend some repetition, even if it's the kind I find therapeutic and satisfying.

And that's what made me realize something. My personal GOTY did not just satisfy me. It made me hungry. It filled me up in a way I didn't think was possible and yet I still hunger for more, because I enjoyed it that fucking much. I played through it twice and still hunger for more. I know I will play it a third time eventually, but mainly I just have not been to remove from my brain the particular ways it made me feel, ways that only a video game can. Nothing about it felt like it needed to be overlooked.

SF6 and RE4 had dubious monetization, TOTK had a story I found to be like 90% boring and it still maintains many of the flaws of the original. And Hi-Fi Rush, while amazing, just didn't scratch the particular itch this game did for me.

1) Lies of P

If you told me that Lies of P was a game developed by some sub-division of FromSoft, I'd believe you. Which is to say I would also believe that it was made by people who wanted to break free from some of the shackles of the now infamous 'soulslike' genre.

A narrative that actually makes sense by the end? Opening up options for the player without requiring specific stat levels? Encounters and boss fights that feel ravenously challenging without just feeling like cheap bullshit? Music that crosses borders beyond 'angry chorus, angrier orchestra'?

Lies of P doesn't quite eclipse Elden Ring, but that's an absolutely unfair comparison given the utter scope and scale and variety that game packs. But Lies of P improves at the FromSoft formula in specific ways, while making concessions in others, and as a result it's just an experience that seeped into my brain like no other game this year, not even Tears of the Kingdom, despite that I put half the hours into this one.

I love all of the games I have mentioned here, you could honestly swap around the order of this top 5 and I could mentally meander a way to justify why, no, actually, this one was my favorite game of 2023. In a year so awful for the people who make games, yet so amazing for games themselves, Lies of P is exactly the kind of game I needed. I needed someone to show me that you can make something directly inspired by someone else's work, yet fine tune it in all the right ways to make it stand just as tall in terms of quality and design. Lies of P made me feel things in ways only a handful of games ever do -- and I would actually count Hi-Fi Rush among those in a regard.

But Lies of P also told a story I found compelling. It had mystery, tension, buildup, it started off seeming like it would do the vague FromSoft schtick only to 100% come together, make sense, be rewarding, and offer a 'true ending' that I got on the first playthrough, organically, without looking things up, because it just... felt right. Not only is the game adapting FromSoft's formula into something its own, it's also doing that with the story of Pinocchio. The gameplay and the story congeal together not in the 'perfect' way that it does with games like Celeste or Undertale, but rather in a more... messy way, like a puppet aching to become a real boy.

The game is full of loss, in its world and for you as the player, who will die many times. But unlike much of FromSoft's catalogue, I never once felt like I died because of bullshit. Was I trolled? Sure, the game definitely 'trolls' you in classic FromSoft fashion, lulling you into a sense of security only to sweep you off your feet. But unlike how FromSoft does it, these circumstances can always be avoided if you're cautious. And if you're not? Hey, 'We got you! We gooottt youuu, haha' and you lose a couple minutes of progress, rather than like fifteen minutes and also an entire level's worth of souls because oh right, this section you just got through is kind of bullshit cheap.

Don't get me wrong, I love Dark Souls. But the thing is, Lies of P takes the parts I love about Dark Souls, admits it can't pull off quite the intricate web of level design, but then throws away everything I do not like about Dark Souls, improves on the things I already liked, and then pushes me to meet it on its level.

The satisfaction of being a boss you spend an hour, two hours on, cannot be understated. It's a feeling unlike any other, and one only this medium can provide. And Lies of P kept me motivated, like Sekiro before it, to keep improving, keep growing, keep trying. And unlike Sekiro, it gave me so many more tools to play with, to learn, to balance in an arsenal with intent. Enemies have elemental weaknesses if I so choose to exploit them, the moveset of one weapon's handle can be applied to a completely different blade, my robotic arm can leverage things in a pinch, or be the backbone to dealing with a boss. Mastery is rewarded with practice. A vicious boss that annihilates you in five seconds can be defeated without a single scratch if you practice enough. Mastery, creativity, quick thinking, and reacting are all rewarded here.

I am more than the hands pulling the strings, I am more than a puppet, I am human. And games like this can only be made by humans, who get that specific itch that only video games that challenge us can scratch. It's not an itch everyone has, but that's why it's my GOTY and not yours, innit?

With its unique setting, its wonderful music, its cozy hub area, its narrative that offers just enough to make me care, but not so much that I am bored or feel misled, its amazing boss designs, and its wonderfully tactile and engaging combat, Lies of P is a game I just can't stop feeling something about whenever I am reminded of it.

It epitomizes so much -- not all, but much -- of what I love about what video games can do, what adaptations can do, and much like how Toby Fox was inspired by Mother 3, what people can do when they are inspired by someone else's work.

As far as I can tell, this is developer Round8's debut game, and just. Holy hell, what a way to come out swinging. I haven't seen a debut game hit this hard since, I don't know, Bastion.

Close your eyes. Come to me. Feel all right.

I did, and I do, and given what you teased at the end of this game, I have extremely high hopes of what you come up with next. And in a landscape where things feel more difficult to get excited for with each passing year, much less new IP, it's so damn refreshing to have both Hi-Fi Rush and this game standing out as signals that, hey, some folks are still willing to invest bigger budgets into new games, new ideas.

Again, a battle of centimeters here and at this point I should wrap this up and go to bed.

But yea, Lies of P reminded me of what makes me, specifically, human, in a very particular way that only it has. And I honestly think out of all of single player games of 2023, I think it will actively stand out in my heart the most in the years to come.

#GOTY 2023 #goty #video games #gaming #Mother 3 #scarlet hollow #super mario wonder #future redeemed #Pikmin 4 #Hi-Fi Rush #re4 remake #TOTK #LOZ TOTK #Tears of the Kingdom #Lies of P #long post #Sea of Stars

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mercurydancer · 1 year

Text

Burning Matches Pt 4

Contamination

Not again, not again, not again, was the only thought beating its way through Gwen’s mind, taking in the sight of Pete snapping back, the blood spraying through the air, the sickening crack, and the wet and solid thud as he fell to the ground. The Lizard stood there, the Lizard. The thing that took Peter, the thing that took Her Peter, that took everything from her, the thing that stole her dreams, her thoughts, the thing that took her friend. It took her friend, it took her friend, it took her friend…

It wouldn’t take this one. It wouldn’t take Pete, it wouldn’t take Peter.

Gwen leapt from the balcony without knowing the scream she was hearing was coming from her own mouth, her thoughts on vengeance and redemption.

Miles was baptized in the blood of Peter Parker.

Peter’s last words to Miles were etched into his brain, breathed out in kindness, in reassurance, even though he lied to Miles between his teeth. In a way, Miles as a hero had been born the day that he died, unable to do anything to help, only able to watch as Fisk pounded him into the pavement, as red spread around a hero that had given everything for the city. Had given his life for the city. For him. And all Miles could do was watch him die and then run. Run to save the life that couldn’t do anything to help.

The blood on his hands was visible in the red of his fingers, a reminder and a promise to himself to never let it happen again.

It wasn’t going to happen again. He couldn’t let it happen again. Miles was better, he was more prepared, he wasn’t going to run. He wasn’t going to run no matter how big or how slobbery or how jagged the teeth. Miles was ready. Miles was going to save Peter.

Miles didn’t recognize that his own voice was crying out, didn’t realize that arcs of electricity were riding up his hands, but that creature was about to find out what happened to people that hurt Miles’ friends.

Porker had never seen blood. Not in the way that splattered across the ceiling and floor, not in the way that seeped from a body as it lay on the ground unmoving.

Porker had the sudden horrifying, wretched realization that his friends were fragile. He had known it in a way, known it in the sight of a news-reel ticking that Peter Parker was dead, but it hadn’t really hit him until now. They couldn’t take hits to the head with an anvil, couldn’t take falling down a mountain and landing in your own personal crater. They couldn’t survive. They would die. They would die and it was a terrible, gut-churning realization that belonged with the sight of Peni being beaten and beaten and beaten by Scorpion, with no way out.

Porker needed to protect his friends. He needed to keep that from happening ever again, so even as he leapt out towards the Lizard, as his fingers balled into fists and his voice joined the scream that was pulsing in his heart and in his ears, he vowed to never let this happen again.

Blood just wasn’t funny.

My fault, my fault, my fault, my fault, rang through Peni’s mind with the beating of her heart, a constant pulse in the background that sped up as she screamed and screamed. Her mech launched over the edge of the balcony, her voice leaving it in the garbled sound produced by the vocal modifier.

This was her fault.

She hadn’t looked before she leapt, she had come into a world that she knew nothing about, and she had expected for it to be just like theirs. For the world to be sunny and warm and for him to be waiting for them with a hug and a shout of recognition. She had expected for maybe some tears, but not the kind of tears that were wetting her face now. Not the awful, large tears that swamped her eyes and made it hard to see the face of the thing that had kil-hurt her friend.

If she had only tried to make contact. If she had only tried to do something to let Pete know they were coming. If she only…if she only…

Peni refused to adapt to a world where Pete no longer lived. She refused to allow this thing to hurt him again, to hurt any of her other friends.

Peni had gotten them into this mess, she would get them out.

Peter B moved without thinking, flipping one of the cartridges in his web-shooters out for another with the grace and dexterity of one that had been doing so for decades as he crawled across the ceiling towards Pete’s crumpled body, knowing that if he could get there in time before Pete bled out too much he could seal the wounds with the web-fluid in his wrist. Sanitary, pain-relieving web-fluid, an invention that had taken a while to perfect, but one he never left the house without.

He dropped down next to Pete’s limp body, soft and gentle words dripping from his mouth without thought, his mind on autopilot, one part of him focused on saving Pete, the other on the battle that was happening across from him. He would join in a moment, but first he had to make sure that there would be someone that they could still save.

He’d lost too many people for him to be able to move on without knowing he’d done all he could.

Gwen’s blood pulsed in her veins, her heart hammering as she shot webbing on either side of the Lizard, yanking back and using the natural elasticity to send her flying towards the creature. En Pointe shoes kicked out, and Gwen almost cried out as she connected. She was grabbed and thrown before she could recover from the sharp and jarring feeling of hitting what felt like jagged concrete, the scales sharper than she thought they would be, jutting out. The claws of the Lizard had dug into her uniform and drew out beads of blood, but they were ignored as she flipped, landing on the wall in a crouch.

It was hard to see. Everything was in shades of black and gray and white, almost blending together, the Lizard only visible as the lights above swung, highlighting different parts of its large and crouched body. It was so big. Bigger than her friend, bigger than Rhino, all teeth and scales and claws and death, and Gwen didn’t know if they could stop it.

Miles landed in the next breath, slamming his hands down on the Lizard’s head, taking the opportunity she had created. Electricity arced out and cast light into the shadows, before Miles was thrown as well, an inhuman guttural cry rising out of the thing’s throat as Porker hit it with an anvil that seemed to come from nowhere. It barely flinched, only reaching out and grasping Porker’s entire body in its clawed hand before flinging him to the side. Porker bounced like a ball, careening back towards the Lizard and making contact with his fist into the thing’s jaw.

Porker reeled back, shaking his hand that had grown about twice its original size and pulsed red.

“New plan,” he cried out, “Never do that again!”

Gwen shot out a web as the Lizard moved to slice the pig with its claws, catching its hand and pulling back. She found herself torn from the wall for her trouble, plywood coming with her in splinters. The yelp that left her mouth was swallowed down, even as she let go and was sent flying. Peter B, switching cartridges once again, shot out his reloaded one.

“Fastball Special!” he cried out, and she caught the webline he fired instinctively, feeling as he turned on his heel and spun her, speeding up her momentum and sending her flying back.

She connected once again with a new understanding of what she was hitting, and this time the Lizard moved with her, letting out a shriek as she hit it. She kicked off, flipping back as SP//dr gripped hold of the thing while it was distracted and threw it through a wall. They took a pause to reevaluate and catch their breath, and then it charged back through the wall, throwing off brick and dust and letting out a shriek like nails across glass, like death itself given voice.

Gwen charged again, screaming back at it, and was thrown to the side by a whipcord tail. Miles was gripped by a clawed hand, only to be released as Peter B kicked it under its jaw, sending teeth snapping together in a way they weren’t supposed to. Peter B was caught by Lizard’s tail wrapping around his leg and slammed into a nearby table. Peter B gave a wheeze and then found himself thrown away.

“Always with that tail!” he cried out weakly, and grasped the line that Gwen shot out towards him. Gwen swung him around in the move that she had felt and sent Peter B launching back towards the Lizard. He webbed the Lizards’ claws as they launched out towards him, sliding under its reaching arm and driving his foot into its belly. It grabbed him with its other hand and slammed him down, its foot coming down to crush him, when SP//dr tackled it.

The two of them grappled, Peter B rolling out of the way, shooting webs at the Lizard’s feet as he went. It stretched out its claws, tearing through the webbing and shrieking in annoyance. SP//dr was the one hurled next, slamming into the staircase.

“Is that all you do, just throw us around?” Porker called out. “I could use some variety!” Several frying pans were launched at the Lizard’s head, bouncing off with an echoing clang at every hit. It shrieked again and charged at him. Porker gave a brief, “whoops,” before he was grasped and repeatedly slammed into the ground, before being sent out again, bowling into Peter B who had leapt forward to help. Miles made the jump onto the Lizard, crouching on its back and hands slamming down over its black eyes.

Electricity burst into being and the Lizard shrieked.

Shuddering and shaking it launched itself backwards, crushing Miles into the brick, and stopping the flow of electricity. Miles gave a wheeze, the Lizard moving to tear into his soft belly with its claws, when Gwen leapt again, and was caught in its hand.

SP//dr leapt onto its back this time, seeking to grasp it, trying to get it to let go, even as its grip became crushing. Gwen wheezed, when the thing gave another pained shriek. Lizard’s scales were peeled off it as SP//dr was thrown away, its grip literally torn away, that tail wrapping around it and pinning it to the wall. Peter B and Porker were grasped in the claws of its foot, slamming them down, and Miles was still catching his breath as it turned back to Gwen.

Gwen stared up into black eyes devoid of all light, and those teeth spread wide in a maw made for tearing flesh. Saliva and tongue spilled out, flicking across her mask, as it lowered its face down towards her, and the sounds of the other Spider’s screamed into her ears, and she knew this was it. This was how she died. This was her penance for killing Peter, this was her….

BANG

The sound exploded out of nowhere and the Lizard stopped in its movement, gurgling breath wheezing from its lungs as that black ichor that had splattered from Peter slowly poured from the Lizard. As another Lizard died, holding her, staring down at her, and Peter’s face and his voice and the smiles he would give her, and the light, all that light, snuffed out so soon and…and…

The grip around her became slack, the Lizard stumbling forward, releasing Peter B, releasing Porker, and Gwen was finally able to shove herself away, just as the Lizard fell to the ground in a cold, dead, heap. Blood poured from its back, from the wounds opened by SP//dr and finished with…with…

Gwen’s gaze turned to where the shots had come from and found Peter there, one hand forcing himself upright. A black streak of blood trailed behind him from where he had dragged himself to grab his gun, the weapon itself smoking in his other hand as he held it up, the limb wrecked with trembling.

Peter killed the Lizard, Gwen giggled to herself, a terrible, horrible feeling rising up in her chest. She thought she might vomit at the thought that Peter killed the Lizard. Peter killed her friend. Peter tore him from her life, and it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair…

Gwen focused back on the Peter before her now, forcing herself to focus on what was happening, on the now, fighting back the rising panic. Peter had rolled his mask up to reveal his nose, the sight of that black blood dribbling down from his mouth, from his nose probably the reason, his breath a whistling gurgle between clenched teeth. His skin was pale as chalk, all gray draining out of him with his blood, those teeth still grit, blood staining them and bubbling with his breath.

“Get…” he gasped out, voice a terrible, mangled little thing, more rasp than tone, “fucked,” he finished, and collapsed in a bloody heap, mouth gaping open and chest barely rising.

Peter wasn’t dead. Peter wasn’t dead. Peter wasn’t dead.

She could still save him.

SP//dr moved before the others, its hand carefully opening and flattening into something that could be used a bit like a hospital gurney. “Hurry!” Peni gasped as she pressed buttons and opened protocols like crazy. Her heart was hammering in her throat and she had managed to finally wipe away her tears. She could do this. She could save him.

“We have to take him to my world! I have the technology to help him, he’ll be okay!” Peni cried out, and that was enough to get the others moving. Limping and swaying turned to running, Porker the first one next to the limp body. The pig carefully reached out, but before he could roll him over, Peter B cried out,

“Wait!” he switched his web-cartridge yet again, carefully webbing the other into a cocoon of whatever made that web so special. “We don’t know if he has any internal breakages or if it’s hurt his spine. We have to make sure that we won’t make anything worse.” As soon as he was properly encased, Peter B helped Gwen and Miles slide Pete’s limp body onto SP//dr’s outstretched hand, Porker underneath Peter’s head and doing his best to keep him completely level.

SP//dr stood up carefully, metal sliding into place around Pete to keep him stable and changed into its spider-stance at the push of a button. She typed commands feverishly into her mech, inputting coordinates, and crunching numbers to make sure they appeared exactly where she wanted them to. A portal started opening up before them, and each of them grabbed hold of one of the legs, Porker holding onto the same one as Gwen. SP//dr jumped through as soon as it solidified and everyone had a good grip, and they all found themselves back in that void.

When they finally found themselves back on solid ground, it was to the familiar mechanical and utterly futuristic look of Peni’s universe.

“Hang on!” Peni called out, and each of them hurriedly braced themselves. Peni launched herself out of her own personal room, the only thing she knew the exact coordinates to, sending scientists and workers on the other side of the sliding doorway out of the way as she cried out a warning. The SP//dr mech rotated to run across the ceiling, Peter’s ‘gurney’ shifting to keep him bodily upright. The people they were running past kept looking up and gasping, but none of them made a move to follow them.

They knew better by now, knew that if she was running through the compound like this it meant that danger was quick to follow. They wouldn’t be bothered, and Peni would be able to concentrate on saving Pete.

Peni took them through doors that slid open before them and closed behind them in a long mechanical row, before finally turning off into the medical bay. SP//dr dropped down onto the floor with a smooth and controlled motion, Peter’s body was lowered even smoother, the SP//dr mech moving towards a see-through panel on the opposite wall. It was semi-transparent, made of a strange rose-colored plexiglass, and it was the best thing that Peni had ever seen in her life. The Spiders dropped down around her instinctively, watching as SP//dr reached out with its other hand and began pressing buttons marked in Japanese.

SP//dr carefully slit her way through the webbing, revealing the bloody and mangled body she was holding. Peni gave a tiny whimper, lowering her hand so the others could reach him easier, biting back her tears. It wasn’t the time.

“Get everything covering his torso off,” Peni ordered. Peter B was the one to take over in this regard, easily tearing the remains of the shredded leather vest and turtleneck sweater away from him, throwing the torn remains to the ground. The long jacket required a bit more finesse, but he was finally bare from the waist up. The webbing that Peter B had covered his wounds with was soaked through with blood, and she pressed a button to her left as soon as she saw the black. She couldn’t look at the chalk-white skin for too long, couldn’t look at the rest of the wounds that tore into his torso, evidence of sloppy stitching crawling across his chest. A slot opened up at the touch, a tray sliding out immediately, and SP//dr’s head turned to look at Peter directly. “B, I need a sample of your web fluid here, it needs to know what to get rid of. It’ll remove the web-fluid and fix the skin underneath, so we don’t have to worry about it tearing out any clotting.”

Peter B followed her directions without question, throwing in the whole cartridge with an easy flick. They watched as machines disassembled it as soon as the tray re-entered the slot, pink turning blue. The web-fluid was pulled apart by various machines, a constant oil keeping the web from getting stuck on them, as well as electricity that wired through the webbing and broke it into its base parts. A green light suddenly turned on as the last of the web disintegrated, the machine humming to life, and the doors opened, a plastic ‘bed’ sliding out. SP//dr lowered Pete onto it, and the ‘bed’ slid back into place.

Pete’s torso was suddenly highlighted in red in a panel above them, the machine finding the source of the wound in an instant. Relief started to spread through them, when suddenly Pete’s entire body was highlighted in red. The machine gave an angry-sounding beep, and a word flashed on the screen:

汚染

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wizardiest-wizard-of-oz · 21 days

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if anyone wants I have a musicals playlist that's over 200 hours that has I think around 205 musicals here's an alphabetized list let me know if I'm missing any I should add (I don't like Andrew lloyd Webber musicals and I'm also not a huge fan of jukebox musicals more specifically mamma Mia) and if anyone wants a link please ask me

21 Chump Street

25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee

35MM

36 Questions

42nd Street

The Addams Family

Aida

Aladdin

Alice by Heart

Allegro

Amelie

Anastasia

Ani

Annie Get Your Gun

Annie

Anything Goes

Avenue Q

Back to the Future

Bat Boy

Beauty and the Beast

Beetlejuice

Be More Chill

The Big One-Oh

Billy Elliot

Black Friday

Bombshell

Bonnie and Clyde

Book of Mormon

Brigadoon

Bring it On

Once More With Feeling (Buffy musical)

Bugsy Malone

Bye Bye Birdie

Cabaret

Camelot

Carousel

Carrie

Catch Me if You Can

A Catered Affair

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Chess

Chicago

A Chorus Line

Cinderella (Rodgers and Hammerstein)

The Colour Purple

Come From Away

Company

Crybaby

Curtains

Damn Yankees

Days of Wine and Roses

Dear Evan Hansen

Desperate Measures

Dog Man

Dreamgirls

Dreamland

Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog

Drowsy Chaperone

Duolingo on Ice

Elegies

Epic (all released sagas)

Everybody's Talking About Jamie

Falsettoland

Falsettos Revival

Firebringer

Flora the Red Menace

Follies

Fosse

Frankenstein

Frozen

Fun Home

Funny Girl

A Funny Thing Happened

A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder

Grand Hotel

Grease

The Great American Trailer Park

Grey Gardens

Gutenberg

Guys and Dolls

The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals

G*psy

Hadestown (broadway)

Hadestown (off broadway)

Hairspray

Hair

Hamilton

Harmony

Heathers

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

Hello Dolly

Honk

How the Grinch Stole Christmas (this one is just for Patrick page)

How to Dance in Ohio

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

Hunchback of Notre Dame

In the Green

In the Heights

Into the Woods

In Trousers

It Shoulda Been You

Jekyll and Hyde

Kimberly Akimo

The King and I

Kinky Boots

Kiss of the Spider Woman

Legally Blonde

Lempicka

Les Miserables (english and french)

The Lightning Thief

The Lion King

Little Do They Know

The Little Mermaid

A Little Night Music

Little Shop of Horrors (english and german)

Little Women

Lizard Boy

Love in Hate Nation

Love's Labours Lost

Mad Ones

Make Me a Song

Mame

A Man of No Importance

March of the Falsettos

Marguerite

Martin Guerre

Mary Poppins

Matilda

Mean Girls

Merrily We Roll Along

Miss Saigon

Monty Python's Spamalot

The Music Man

My Fair Lady

My Heart Says Go

My Son's a Queer (But What Can You Do)

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812

Nerdy Prudes Must Die (I only have one song because I'm waiting to watch it with my friend before adding more)

A New Brain

Newsies

New York, New York

Next to Normal

Nightmare Time

Nine

Octet

Oklahoma

Oliver

Once On This Island

Once Upon a Mattress

Only Murders in the Building (Death Rattle Dazzle)

The Pyjama Game

Parade

Pippin

The Prince of Egypt

Prodigal

The Producers

The Prom

Ragtime

Ride the Cyclone

The Rink

The Rocky Horror Picture Show

Schmigadoon

Schmicago

Scottsburo Boys

Seussical

She Loves Me

Sherlock

Shrek

Shucked

Six

Smash

Some Like it Hot

Something Rotten

The Sound of Music

South Pacific

Spiderman Turn off the Dark

The Spitfire Grill

Spongebob

Spring Awakening

Starship

State Fair

Sunday in the Park with George

Superhero

Sweeney Todd

Sweet Charity

The Theory of Relativity

Thoroughly Modern Millie

Tick Tick Boom

The Time Traveller's Wife

The Trail to Oregon

Twisted

Urinetown

A VHS Christmas Carol

The Visit

Waitress

Wait Wait Don't Kill Me

West Side Story

Wicked

Water for Elephants

Wizard of Oz

The Wiz

Zombie Prom

Zorba

#musicals #musical theatre

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xinambercladx · 2 years

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Cad Bane enjoying a vacation on the beaches of Scarif, pre-Empire control. @deepbluespace4 Made a fun request of Cad wearing Sunglasses, simply because of one of my previous illustrations of him suffering a migraine, squinting in the sun after losing his hat. XD It got in my brain so I ended up drawing it. Started out as just his head, but then quickly turned into a full illustration. I don't take commissions, as fanart is purely self indulgent for me. I might take trades though, if I have the time. No nips, because he's a lizard man. :p The black strip on his ribs? It's a Duros cultural taboo to expose this area in public! Yeah. That has purely to do with a personal headcanon of mine concerning Duros anatomy: oil sacs located on the ribs! According to Wookiepedia:

NSFW headcanon: uh... these sacs have a secondary purpose. These are one of a Duros' erogenous zones! When in love, the sacs produce a perfume or musk to attract a mate. When massaged with their long *padded* fingers, it also causes arousal. For a mate to rub there, it's also acceptance of the mate's personal scent, seeing as the oil would linger on the lover afterwards. ^///^; Since it's considered a sexual area, it's covered up in a similar manner to genitalia or boobs for other species. Both male and female Duros have them. My fanfiction doesn't have smut, but I do intend on hinting about it. Bane is a bastard, sure, but Idk, he strikes me as old fashioned in a lot of ways and might keep to this cultural taboo. The black strip sticks on like sports tape. Read my FanFiction "Figment" on A03 ----------------------------------------------- xInAmberCladx's Fanart Archive

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kalmiaphlox · 16 days

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If You Give a Vampire a Polymorph Scroll Pt 1

AO3 Link / Masterlist

If you give a vampire a polymorph scroll, he's going to sow a little chaos. When he creates that chaos, he'll probably want someone by his side. When he has that someone, they are going to be very, very naughty.

Alternatively: Astarion turns Kalmia into a little lizard. They commit crimes and have fun because Astarion likes some chaos, and Kalmia will never deny him.

Main Tags: Tiny Dragon, Astarion wants some chaos, petty theft, ruining a festival, fluff

How quaint.

It's just them, all alone in this big house for a few days. No one to disturb, no one to interrupt. That means it's playtime.

His darling lizard is cleaning away, righting whatever mess she made for dinner, leaving it just as-it-was so not even Gale can complain upon their return.

Oh, how he loves her.

And how she loves him.

They need some spice tonight though. Astarion has been plotting this for ages, ever since that first time.

Kalmia will forgive him, she always does.

With her back to him as she scrubs at the counter tops, he unfurls the scroll in his hand, reading off the words there. Hopefully she doesn't resist the magic too much, he won't be able to escape the punishment for a failed attempt. “Mutatio Forma! ”

In a burst of purple magic, where once stood a very charming woman, now lies a tiny bronze dragon. The rag she had been holding flops down on her body and she wiggles out in confusion as she takes in her changed appearance with a shriek. “You- Astarion! What do you think you're doing?!”

He sits on a stool with a malicious grin, pulling his legs up to protect them - not that she can hurt him like this. “I just wanted a little fun tonight, is that too much to ask?”

“Henich! Change me back!” She hisses and spits a small stream of celestial fire into the air. Awe, his little wyrm is throwing a tantrum.

“I shall do no such thing, lizard. Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting for this chance? Ah, ah! Watch the cabinets, you know Gale will notice any scuffs.”

The lizard is trying to reach him but the stool's legs aren't conducive to climbing, she just scrabbles fruitlessly at the wood.

Maybe he feels a little bad, Astarion won't torment his darling for too long when she can't fly. Of course, the second he picks her up around the midsection, the shrinking sickness kicks in and Kalmia is biting onto his wrist and arms like her life depends on it, but no harm comes to him. Funny as the scene is, he can't have her be mindless all night.

Pulling a leather satchel from his pocket, he produces a small, round treat, “Your mother gave me these, she said it would help. Eat up.” And she does, barely even chewing as the treat goes down the gullet. Ravenous little freak.

Her emerald eyes blink up at him, some semblance of her lizard brain returning to normal. “You both are evil.”

“Yes, yes. You will have all night to remind me of said evilness. Now, shall we have some fun or would you rather pout?”

“Is it fun or trouble that we are having tonight?”

He gives her a peck atop her snout. “Both, I hope. Let me change.” And with that, he deposits her on the countertop. Gale isn't here to shoo her away this time so she can have all the bread her lizard instincts command her to consume.

His clothes are already laid out in anticipation of this plan going well. And surprise, surprise, when Astarion returns back upstairs, Kalmia is gobbling up fruit left out in a bowl. He plucks her from her feast - is she already heavier? Gods below! - and places her around his shoulders where she cries for her lost meal. “Oh hush, I'll buy you more food at the market.”

“Why can't I enjoy it as myself , hmm? Think of how much nicer this could all be if we held hands , or I clung to your arm, or-”

Tempting… “Those can come later, little wyrm. Now be a good beastie for me and don't stray too far, I want to wander the festival stalls with a lizard on my shoulder.”

She nibbles on his ear and this time he can actually feel the edges of her razor sharp teeth. Interesting. “Oh, so I don't even get to enjoy the festival? I'm stuck being a beast, like some- like shoulder-candy!”

“Hah! How right you are, darling. Off we go.” The portal sends them to Gale's tower in the Dock Ward, and their destination is the Sea Ward. The walk would be long on these crowded streets, but he spider-climbs up a roof, and hops to the next as Kalmia clings to his shoulder, grumbling constantly.

She might not have said it in words, but clearly he's already been forgiven. The stubborn old wretch isn't one to go along with things lightly, but he doesn't doubt that she isn't already cooking up some just desserts . He'll enjoy what he can for the night until his retribution comes.

Finding an empty enough alley, they descend onto the streets, blending in with the rest of the crowd. Ahh, he should have left earlier to drop some orders off to Solixes’ and Leucian's stores, but his excitement at his little prank was too much, next time then.

Some magic festival is set up in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Waterdeep. These travelers know where to find the coin, but he's surprised that they could open here to begin with. Maybe this group caters to a higher clientele in general.

Lucky for Astarion, he's filthy rich no thanks to the teeny dragon perched upon his shoulder. Not that he will ever spend a pearl of what she gives him. They belong to him now.

“So, my love, we have a goal in mind tonight. Would you like to assist, be the proverbial devil on my shoulder?”

Kalmia rubs her warm, scaly neck against his cheek. “Oh, yes please.”

“There is a vendor here with the most luxurious fabrics I have ever laid eyes on, but darling, I don't want to pay the extravagant prices they've marked them up with. Even if they come straight from Myratma.” The pleading lilt in his voice is useless, she would help him even if he asked to slaughter every person on this street.

“And you need a distraction to steal it all?”

“I do! What do you say?”

There's a vicious glint in her glittering eyes. “There's a cart holding pseudodragons and faerie dragons that way,” She points with her snout. “Take me there and I'll create a very grand distraction.”

“Gods, I'm falling in love all over again.”

“Yeah, yeah. Before we begin though, the food you promised me - and it must be bought.”

Astarion groans in distaste but relents. “Fine!” He'll steal back what he can when their simple plan plays out.

Drifting from meat to dessert stalls, he buys up everything his lizard points out. It's a damned fortune when her eyes are a thousand times bigger than her stomach. His mistake was offering in the first place, but he needs to keep the lizard brain engaged.

A giant's feast now shoved away into his bags of holding and his wyrm devouring a meat skewer, he meanders his way to the cart selling the caged beasts. The fabric vendor isn't too far from here, once Kalmia is attending to her task, he'll be slipping into the shadows.

The creatures are definitely stuffed in too tight cages, it will probably be a relief to free them - if that is Kalmia's intentions.

“What a magnificent specimen you have there, saer. In all my days, I haven't seen one with such colors or scale patterns. Did you breed that beauty yourself?” The shop owner inquires.

Breed her? It takes all his power to not sneer in disgust at the man. She's not some run of the mill lizard, sold to ignorant parents! She's a full (half)- blooded dragon! His partner, who just so happens to be small at this moment…

Containing his snobbery, if only for this conversation, Astarion gives a tight smile. “No, I just found the beast wandering the woods and it took a liking to me.”

“Ay, amazing what bonds these little beings can form. Shame it lost its wings though. If you see one you like, or better yet, want to pass along that one's lineage, let m-”

Whipping around and stalking off to a secluded corner, he rips the skewer out of Kalmia's grubby claws, “Hey! I'm not-”

“Little wyrm, when you create your distraction, make sure that man can't recover any of his goods and services. You have plenty of food, hop to it.”

She growls like a cat before throwing herself to the ground. “Ugh, fine. Once this is done, I want to go to the beach.”

“As you wish.” He watches as she scampers off, weaving between people's legs and diving under stalls. When her green-tipped tail has slipped under the beast seller, Astarion takes that as his cue to get into position. Who knows what chaos this feral dragon is about to unleash.

Finding a scroll of gust of wind , he stands at the ready. Even if the fabrics get a little dirty, this endeavor will still be well worth the sacrifice. He needs these for his projects.

A shout from behind gets his attention. The beast seller’s clothes are lit up in white flames while all the captive creatures are in the process of being freed by one tiny green dragon. Each beast that escapes its cage launches forward onto unsuspecting patrons and vendors, burning, magicking and attacking everything in sight.

Maybe next time, that man will learn not to cage such creatures.

Taking this chance in the ensuing disorder, Astarion casts gust of wind down the street, upending stalls and tables so all their contents go flying.

People are cowering in terror and calling for the citywatch, he isn't going to wait for them to show up. Quickly locating the silks and patterned textiles that have scattered across the ground, Astarion begins the arduous task of shoving them into his bags of holding. He's not the only one looting though and he might have punched a random woman in the face when she reached for a bolt of his fabric.

Alright, he's collected all his spoils, there's no way he can steal back his gold from the food stalls at this point, he needs to grab that damnably old lizard and run.

Is he surprised to see that she sits on a pile of crates up high, breathing fire like the fiend that she is? No, of course not. He does also spot the beast vendor, trying to get to her. Now that won't do.

Astarion shoves the man to the ground, cutting loose his very heavy coin purse and attaching it to his own belt, he places his dagger against the man's throat. “If I ever see you again, know that I will gut you. A word of advice though - animal handling isn't really your thing. ” He'd relish the meal right now, but there's too many people. It can wait.

Flinging herself onto his shoulders, they make haste before the citywatch shows up. All it takes is one wrong person recognizing what he is and escape becomes that much more perilous, and he'd rather not break the polymorph spell yet. They're having so much fun!

Returning back to the crowd, Astarion listens as Kalmia directs him to the beach. It's not one of his favorite locales, on account of him not being able to step foot in the ocean, but she indulged him, so it's time to return the favor.

There’s a bite to the wind as they near the beach and he shivers, wishing he would have brought a warming enchantment, but alas, he'll have to rely on his personal heater for comfort.

Unfortunately, that won't pan out as the second his boots hit the sand, Kalmia dives to the ground, little legs kicking it up as she sprints towards the water.

My puddle-loving weirdo.

He follows at a distance, watching as she splashes in the shallows and cackling when she's buffeted by large waves.

This night could not have gone better.

Pulling two blankets out of a bag, he lays one on the ground to sit on while the other is wrapped around his shoulders, not that it does much, but it cuts the worst of the chill.

The beach is completely empty, so his frenzied love is making the most of it, barreling from one end to the other, flailing about tripping on grasses and rocks.

“Little wyrm, I'm feeling quite neglected at this moment. Where's my love and affection?” He whines.

Her head pokes up from some bushes, cocking curiously at his words before racing his way, taking a giant leap and landing with a splat before him.

Astarion frowns, unimpressed. Kalmia crawls towards him with excitement. “Irthiski, look! Look, look, look!” She wiggles vigorously, burying her body in the sand with just her head and tail kept above. Seems the pellet her mother provided is wearing off, her mind is regressing.

One wicked turn deserves another, hmm? “You performed well back there. Would you like one of your treats?” The tone is mocking, speaking to her the way one might a pet, but she takes no notice as she bursts forth from the sand, and runs in circles chasing her tail.

Ugh, he doesn't have the energy to entertain these deranged dragon antics.

A treat is proffered and she gnaws at it as if she's never eaten a day in her life. Her tail curls around his ankle and Astarion, against his better judgment, can't help but smile. Wild as she is, he wouldn't have it any other way.

But maybe it's time to return to normal, he'd like to be warm and-

“Evening! Rarely see anyone out here at this time of night.” A well-to-do young man approaches them from the beach entrance. Short blonde hair, soft features, an unmistakable innocence to him… Definitely the kind of man Astarion would have brought to Cazador once upon a time.

And also the kind he might be attracted to in general, but well, his tastes have evolved to angry old women. Or really just the one in front of him that is giving more attention to a chunk of meat than him.

Woe is me.

He offers him a small acknowledgement in the hopes that he continues on quickly, but that is a mistake, the man takes that as interest.

“I haven't seen you around, did you come in with the caravan?”

“No.” Does he look like some traveling carnie? These high born types, always expecting others to play into their mild interest… He knows it all too well.

The man has stepped closer, he's probably pleasant, Astarion doesn't care. He wants to spend time alone with his dragon, uninterrupted. They get bothered enough at home.

He's unsure what is running through that little lizard brain right now. She's frozen mid-bite on her meat, staring blankly, maybe she understands he's getting hit on right now or maybe she's just lost in a food haze.

Freak.

#astarion #bg3 #fanfic #astarion fanfic #baldur's gate 3 #astarion fic #astarion ancunin #ao3 #astarion x oc

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