#replaced by more but mainly worse games

[basslinegrave]

can we go back?

[shares-a-vest]

Eddie and Steve's apartment morphs into what can only be described as a baby-proofed cluttered mess when Joanie enters their lives. And it only gets worse once she starts crawling.

Wayne discovers this when he arrives for a short stay over after being called up by the boys, proudly announcing their daughter began getting around on her own.

He chuckles as he looks around the cramped and crowded apartment. He suspects its more a case of keeping necessities within convenient arms reach than anything else. Plus, giving the kid the run of the place.

The dining table is a sight, covered in textbooks and paperwork from Steve's studies. And judging by the highchair set up close to the only cleared dining chair, she must be keeping him company too.

Steve gives a hurried, “Hi” and rushes to said table, collecting up his work to organise into one pile.

The living room is another story.

Each piece of furniture is pushed to the edges of the small room, like it's bursting at the seams and ready to explode out the windows. Everything is out of reach too, including the relatively harmless television remote.

Relatively harmless when you consider Eddie once dunked Wayne's remote into a short-lived fish tank years back...

His old coffee table is pushed up against the wall, making space for a playpen. In the centre of the room is a playmat, where his granddaughter is rolling around as that demonic black cat, Ozzy, examines her from after before vaulting over the couch and disappearing completely.

God knows where that other grey nightmare has got to.

“We live on the floor now,” Eddie enthuses, clapping a hand on his shoulder.

Steve grumbles and nods with grave seriousness as he appears next to him. Despite the good thirty years between them, on a bad day, Steve suffers from the same level of back pain.

“Come on,” Eddie beams, “I gotta show you all the stuff Joanie can do.”

His nephew puffs out his chest, proud.

Wayne smiles. He gets it, he really does. Even though he didn’t become Eddie’s legal guardian until the kid was ten, he’d spent enough time looking after him during the earlier milestones to take pride in them too.

“Eddie, our daughter isn’t a dog!” Steve chastises, pinching his nose.

“What?” Eddie feigns innocence, “I just want to show off all her tricks to her Pa!”

“If anything, that made her sound even more like a participant in a dog show!” Steve reiterates, glaring before lowering down at a snail's pace to join Joanie on the floor.

“Don’t worry,” Eddie mumbles, leaning in with his typical lack of personal space, “He’s just grumpy because he has a bunch of studying to do this weekend.”

“I can hear you, Eddie!” Steve calls from his spot on the floor, “And I’ll have time for us to watch a game,” he looks at his surroundings and grimaces, “… Maybe we’ll go to a sports bar.”

Eddie practically lunges into the living area and bumps into Steve on his way to joining his family, almost toppling the boy sideways.

Wayne follows along slowly, his bad knee already paining him at the thought of sitting on the floor and also (mainly) the dread of somehow finding his way back up.

“You know you’re gonna have to help me up off this rug,” he gripes, sitting on the couch with a loud sigh, "If I had’a known I was gonna end up with a rambunctious granddaughter scuttlin’ around, I would’a billed that top-secret Doc for a knee replacement.”

His back pains a little as he goes, lowering to the floor as he braces himself with his arm on the couch.

“I can ask Nancy to look into that,” Steve offers as he spots him, “… If you want, of course!”

Wayne waves the boy away as he settles with his back against the couch.

Eddie soon slaps at his shoulder as Joanie rolls onto her stomach and pushes up with her hands.

They all sit up a little straighter eager and expectant.

Joanie takes off, crawling with vigour as she makes little grunting noises to spur herself on. She bypasses Steve, who whimpers with disappointment like a sad puppy. And she quickly zooms past Eddie too.

Wayne’s heart swells his granddaughter pauses to look up at him with a wide, toothy smile. But she goes on her way, making a beeline for a purple sparkly dragon plushie upended next to Steve's coveted recliner.

Of course that's what Eddie's offspring would prioritise getting her little hands on.

Joanie plops herself down, holding the toy up in victory as she makes spittle-filled whooshing noises and waves it about.

She remains with her back to the trio left for dust on the other side the living room, off in her own floor-based world.

More of this au HERE

[deathmetalunicorn1]

The reader (Replacement Fighter) and the gods/humans got invited to a wedding. The guys begged them to wear something that was not black, but the reader was not having it as they've always been obsessed with the color black. They tried to run out of the changing room, telling the guys they'd rather not attend, but the guys insisted. Some even tried pulling on the reader's arms or clothes. They finally settled with something that wasn't black for once in their life.

However as the wedding carried on, there was some drama (you can decide what it was about) stirring up amongst the other guests. But the reader being reader, they just indulged in the cupcakes nearby as everyone else was either arguing or fighting.

Gods: Odin, Thor, Poseidon, Hades, Aphrodite, Loki, Buddha & Apollo

Humans: Lubu, Sasaki, Qin & Tesla

-You scowled softly, arms folded across your chest as (Love) was holding up a different colored suit to you, something that wasn’t black.

-You had a very particular taste in your wardrobe, mainly anything black, as it was the color you liked and you knew you looked good in, “It’s a wedding, why can’t I wear my black suit?”

-(Love) was rather amused by your unwillingness to wear a different color, “Because the invitation said that nobody is to wear black, except for shoes.”

-You groaned, falling back on your bed like a toddler which made (Love) laugh, finding it rather amusing, seeing you acting like a child as you threw an arm over your face.

-After a moment you sat up, your pout still on your face as you looked at the different suits (Love) had prepared and you pointed at the dark purple one, as it was the darkest colors that had been presented to you, “Just for the wedding.”

-Several hours later, you walked into the wedding reception with (Love), stunning all who saw you in something that wasn’t black! You looked good in color- you should wear color more often, or at least that’s what everyone told you when they came over to you.

-(Love) was pleased that you were wearing something appropriate for the wedding, as everyone was in various colors, leaving only the happy couple in black, standing out against the sea of various colors, which you did have to admit looked good.

-(Love) was looking for you about ten minutes later, and after stalking the dance floor, thinking someone might have dragged you out there, they went to the one place that they knew you would be, the buffet table!

-And there you were, a plate in hand, trying the various sweets available at the massive dessert bar. (Love) couldn’t help but laugh, thinking it was amusing as they walked over.

-You offered them your plate, offering them a treat as your attention was on something else now.

-(Love’s) gaze followed your own and you saw two of the bridesmaids squaring up with one of the groomsmen, who was cheating on them both with each other, and they just found out.

-The drama was way more interesting than catching the bouquet or playing games, as you watched these bridesmaids tearing this boy down, both leaving him, reducing him to tears, which you mentioned to (Love), “Why do the cheaters always try to act like the victims? Is it to get sympathy?”

-(Love) didn’t answer, munching on a mini cupcake, as you watched this pathetic space for a man pleading with both women, begging one, then the other, not to leave, which made things worse.

-The happy couple were soon by you as well, trying the different desserts, watching this fallout as well, as the bride grinned at the groom, “You were right, it’s not a real wedding unless there’s a fight.” He just laughed, “That’s not a fight, a chair hasn’t been thrown yet!”

-(Love) shoved a cupcake into your mouth before you said anything about helping, you weren’t going to start a fight at a wedding.

-Chairs end up getting thrown after a third woman, a guest of another bridesmaid, came over to see what was happening and everything hit the fan very quickly, luckily after the bride and groom made their exit.

-(Love) helped you carry a few more plates of sweets out of the wedding hall as you both decided to get out before it got even worse and you both sat on your couch together, eating the food, relaxing for the rest of the evening.

[tanadrin]

i fired up civ 5 recently bc i wanted to see how it compared to my memory of it, and if anything it's actually much, much worse.

one unit per tile just... does not work with the idiom of the civilization series! units are not like armies in a GSG, they're like units in an RTS game: grist for the meatgrinder. you build them and throw them at your enemy and if they lose combat, they die. they don't retreat and recover morale, you don't get a chance to reposition and try again, they just go poof. but now in addition to that, you can only fit one unit of a type on a given tile, which means combat is forcibly spread out over a huge space. it's slow, slowed down further by the fact that it now takes a couple turns to fully resolve a fight--i guess the idea is that you can have your injured units fall back, except because of the way units get blocked in now, no you can't!--but you still need tons of units to take cities.

which means they didn't get rid of doomstacks. doomstacks are still logistically necessary to win wars! they just made them really fucking annoying to move around the map.

and on top of that, because OUPT applies to all units, it means you are also constantly having your scouts and workers and other civilian units being blocked in by your own units of the same type, or other players' units of the same type, meaning if you sign an open borders treaty with the AI you are frequently signing up to having your own units' movement being jammed up in the worst way by computer players. and on top of all THAT the units cancel their movement orders if the destination tile is blocked, even if the destination tile is on the other side of the map and you can't see it--which means, basically, any long-distance movement order is liable to be randomly canceled if an AI unit ends its turn on your destination tile.

it feels janky at every single level. the worst possible fix to something that wasn't even really a problem--and if they really wanted to they could have implemented some kind of very basic attrition mechanic. or some other kind of soft cap.

and and and on top of all that, it makes roads and railroads substantially less useful, bc frequently you cannot actually fit all your guys on one road or railroad--but you can't just carpet your territory in roads now like you used to do, because roads cost maintenance per turn. just. ugh. fractally bad decisionmaking! like different people were working at different ends of the design doc and not communicating at all!

the global happiness system means expansion is soft capped early in the game, which makes it feel less like an empire management game than a game of managing four to five cities. since very many units are now hard capped by resource availability now, and expansion is limited, AFAICT in most normal games this means you get like.. two swordsmen? ever? mainly it's strong attack units that are capped in this way, but their defensive counters are uncapped, which means actually playing strategically with your army composition is more annoyance than it's worth. in practice, what this incentives is just building the best trash unit you can afford en masse and throwing them at the enemy, but, of course, see the problems with OUPT.

they took out civics and replaced them with Social Policy trees. but everybody has the same set of social policy trees. and there's a bit of a tradeoff here in which trees you choose to fill out first, but you never then switch those old trees out for new ones like civics. they're just permanent bonuses. so there's no sense of, like, choosing your government type.

and then in BNW i guess they realized people missed that, and created Ideologies, which are just a bonus extra-big social policy tree where you get to pick between liberal democracy, communism, and fascism. but of course there's only three. and this isn't unlocked until the late game.

what they really should have done is added more civics and rather than just having you progress from early game civics to late game civics made all civics contextually useful. and maybe given you some extra civics that were unlocked early in the game so you could strategize around them.

as a part of this change culture is now more load-bearing, but cultural victory is just... weird and stupidly complicated. you have to build tourism, and do archeology, and build wonders that provide slots for great works that your three different kinds of great artist create, and all this other crap. versus domination, where you just conquer the other guys. or science, where you just build your spaceship. it's dumb and bad and awkward.

there's no conquest victory now. only domination. but because of the way domination works, it's now not possible to move your capital manually. this is awful and i hate it! let me move my capital, damn it!

buildings no longer go obsolete, which means that if i am founding a city in the year 1973, i still need to build a City Walls in it before i can build a Military Base. this feels ridiculous. and the series already kinda has this problem where it feels like late game it takes forever to get a city really up and running--don't make it even worse by making me build shit from classical antiquity before i can build modern facilities!

the AI is not very bright. they don't expand very much. on big maps, most of the map will remain empty most of the game, at least up through mid-level difficulties i usually play at (that are supposed to be "standard", so I assume the game is balanced around them)

diplomacy is irritatingly primitive. there are few ongoing agreements. declarations of friendship all last a fixed amount of time. the AI is constantly interrupting you to tell you it doesn't like you or it does like you or you and another AI player all like each other. just expose an opinion modifier and be done with it! harun al-rashid and i don't need to pass notes like it's grade school!

they nerfed the range of air units and especially nukes. which feels really weird. the 20th century saw the invention of strategic bombers that had a range of thousands of miles. why can mine only reach cities right next to my own? why do my nuclear missiles have a pathetic range? sure, sub-launched nukes are a thing, but they're only one part of a proper nuclear triad. there's no MAD anymore!

especially because the world congress can order you to stop building nukes and there's nothing you can do about it. you can't defy world congress bans and suffer a penalty. international law has some kind of magical force that even if you are the undisputed hegemon you cannot help but obey. this is very stupid! especially because they could not think of anything interesting for the world congress to do, so it's all shit like banning random luxury goods.

all the stuff i do like--the city-states, the hex grid, the core idea of the trade route system--is swallowed by annoying bullshit. to take the trade route example: you can make money by setting up trade routes. it can be quite lucrative! and you have to protect your trade routes from bandits and shit. but the menu for issuing trade route orders is a mess--way too much scrolling, you can't sort by lucrativeness of destinations, you have to constantly re-issue trade route orders, and the last trade route a unit was on isn't highlighted, or sorted to the top or anything like that. so it's lots of scrolling around, it's very annoying, and it's repetitive as hell.

the real stick in the eye is that this game was not only reviewed well, it was reviewed glowingly when it came out. which is bizarre to me! yes, it looks nice. the art is good and the music is pretty. but it feels awful to play! it is on almost every single metric less fun than civ 4! civ 3 is more fun, and civ 3 was terrible. i hope to god firaxis was bribing people left and right for good reviews because the only alternative explanation i can think of is that everybody who was reviewing strategy games in 2010 was also in the grip of a brutal glue-sniffing habit.

[pspkisser]

⚙️ This laptop was saved from obsolescence! [10 mins of read]

Hello!! i am making this post here to raise awareness for PC and laptop upgrades, and how it should motivate you to do that same thing to preserve yours for longer or to give it the power you need! this will feature my history with mine, as well as the steps i took to be able to make him breathe life better! this is the story of his journey, and how it went to this current day.

his name is samuel, he is an asus fx570u and i bought him back in september of 2018 after i turned 13! he was brand new during that time and priced at 800 euros, offering only 6 gb of memory and an HDD as his specs. however he does have an 8th gen core i5 as his cpu and a geforce 1050 ti for his gpu. for something marketed as a gaming pc, it's pretty low and it wouldn't allow him to run fast enough, especially for highly demanding software and causing some compatibility issues. it wasn't severe, but as i was stuck with an hdd, that meant operating systems would run pretty slow on it, also leading to long software loading times. this is made worse by the fact that its bundled system, windows 10, isn't designed to work efficiently on hdd in the first place, but at least that means i have my hands on a windows key to be able to use some windows exclusive programs..

i mainly used him to be able to use advanced video editing software and customize the games i have on it for my own taste, because back then i loved making youtube videos and it was a passion i've had for years until i've partially retired from it. i rarely bought games on it and instead opted for free-to-plays, and overall had a good time with him.

unfortunately within only 3 months, his HDD broke down and i sent him to technicians for them to replace it with another one. it was a minor accident i've had but it formatted all my data, even though it didn't matter much since i uploaded most of it to the internet. i just had to be gentle with him by trying to not moving him around too much to stop that issue from persisting... but it was still low-end in terms of system performance. i finally used him for 1 year straight before moving on to a tower pc, feeling tired about his slowness and believing i couldn't do much about it.

i used that other (unnamed) pc for almost a year, starting from 2020! they seemed to work better since it had windows 7, but embarrassingly enough that version itself stopped receiving official security updates months before i started using it, even though i was careful while accessing the internet with it. its performances were also low, but didn't really matter much since i didn't take so much advantage from the power of samuel. suddenly, i had the foolish idea of installing windows 8.1 on the latter to try to deal with the performance issues on 10, but it led to even more compatibility issues since the drivers i used were meant to be for 10 only. only by early 2021, i got win10 back on him and started using him again to get more power again.

so the low-end performance persisted for very long. back then i never knew how to upgrade pcs, so i was only used to replacing devices with others which wasn't cost-efficient. after realizing i used windows for well over 10 years, i had the idea of switching to a mac and as a result, for xmas 2021 i got myself a cute yellow silicon imac, who goes by the name of sarah! but switching to macos posed new serious challenges, such as getting used to the lack of windows compatibility and the missing features that i was used to for a long time. most of the creativity i did with her was drawings with firealpaca and krita, and cgi with blender, which wasn't really much. still, she is pretty glossy and also powerful for many of the tasks i'm performing with her. originally i also intended to sell samuel, but that never happened (i low regret that decision so much i swear).

in late 2022, samuel's performance apparently had had a big hit... he now takes approximately 20 seconds to open any program and it seemed to me like something was wrong with him. at that time i also gained interest in linux since it's a libre OS capable of much more flexibility, essentially allowing it to revive old PCs. i finally decided to get linux mint to work on him via a dual boot with win11 (what was i thinking when i "upgraded" him from 10?). the performance seemed a little better from then, but programs still took very long to open. for that reason, he had often been collecting dust as he finally became unusable.

finally we've reached 2023. this is the year i decided to take on tearing down devices to learn how to examine problems inside of them. after checking samuel's performance again, i noticed that his HDD was having extremely low writing and reading speeds compared to my tower, which made me feel disappointed. but that's when i finally decided i could be able to replace his hard disk with an ssd, a new generation which is more durable, faster, quieter and energy-efficient...

but i still had a good wait until it was possible. suddenly with my money, i found an ssd which only costed €30, and it made me happy that this would be a quick way of healing up samuel! so i rushed to get it, and finally opened him to prepare everything... unfortunately, his keyboard has to be lifted up in the process, and there are flex cables connected between it and the motherboard. but taking out the hard disk thankfully only requires a few steps; removing some screws, then inserting the SSD inside of it. after that i quickly put linux mint back into him. SO SPLENDID...

for only the price of a high budget indie game, now he can open programs very fast, close to how fast sarah can do, and just about any task works perfectly well on him with way less bugs! thanks to that fast upgrade he's become viable for daily drives again, even though i don't have other desks suitable for pcs which makes me less motivated to use him. really wish id be able to since the architecture he has (x64) means he has a lot more software he's able to handle natively...

but then, i hadn't upgraded his ram. i said before that he only had 6 gb of it, and that meant he could only work with a few programs before becoming bloated. and as i like doing power tasks on him, that obviously causes problems. so one day, i went to a pc part store out of curiosity, and became shocked when i found small ram carts that could be compatible with my laptop. after some talk with the seller, i bought 2 ddr4 carts each containing 8 gb and clocked at 2666 mhz, more than double of what i used to have. after that it was time to take on a challenge to be able to insert them myself.

when the seller asked me if i needed assistance to have the carts inserted into my laptop, i giggled internally because of my past stories with learning how to open devices and trying to troubleshoot or modify them internally. i obviously declined it which saved me money, but also meant i had to do it all myself. after an hour of painful manipulations which required me to take out the entire motherboard from samuel, while that next step was also difficult i was finally able to insert the carts into it, before placing all his components back into place. and after such a long time of waiting...

i've finally done it!

Samuel is feeling very well right now!! despite his cpu and gpu dating from over 5 years, now he can do even more tasks at a time, while also being able to read them faster, a massive improvement compared to when it was stuck with an hdd and only 6 gb of ram. i'm guessing those low specs were for the purpose of saving manufacturing costs, but until you'd find use for the components that you'd remove, they'd end up becoming waste. and with a free os like linux mint, it adds up to an even more optimized experience than windows 10, which comes with so many unwanted stuff and can't be customized very well.

have you had a similar story to mine? did that pose you challenges? i took over 40 minutes to write this entire piece of text, but it should at least be very well detailed! on the best case scenario i hope it would inspire others to do some research on upgrading PCs to preserve their lives and especially save costs. Thank you for reading the entirety of it, don't hesitate reblogging it if you think it would interest your own audience! peace for all of you 💙

[kiddbegins]

Take Care of You | Will Halstead [18+]

Requested: yes

Word count: 2,812

Warnings: drinking/alcohol mentions, smut; [sub!will, oral - m receiving, masturbation, praise kink, unprotected sex, riding, slight aftercare]

a/n: i wrote this within an hour at like 2-3 am and i honestly think that was actually a demon possessing me?

Masterlist

You could do one of your magical smut with Will Halstead where he and the reader (a scientist) are roommates and he's had a crush on her since she moved into his house. One night, after a lot of alcohol, things heat up between them.

Will Halstead wasn’t one to hide his feelings. It had just never been in his bones. He wore his heart on his sleeve and he wasn’t ashamed of it. Did it get him into some predicaments? Yes. Have you seen the end result of said predicaments? Also yes. 

But that mainly came with the roommate label nevermind that you’d seen him get reprimanded at the hospital. Granted you didn’t cross paths at work much, Will took a liking to you the second you spewed some bullshit out about the diagnosis his patient was given.

That alone sparked a friendship, him inviting you to Molly’s after a particularly hard shift, which led into meeting up for lunch when he wasn’t being run thin down in the ED. Which led to him being the first person you called when your apartment caught fire and needed a place to stay.

Which is exactly how you two became roommates. He insisted you stay with him, not only to help with the fact he needed help with rent anyway, but it was better than you having to search for the right place, with possibly another roommate that didn’t get along with you the way Will did.

So it worked, your schedules weren’t too off so it wasn’t like you were waking one another up coming home or waking up at odd times. Only time that happened is if he pulled a double which did happen more often than not lately.

What you weren’t aware of, was he was trying to put space between you. Not because he didn’t like you, but more so, the opposite. His friend feelings were slowly but surely shifting into romantic ones and he was terrified. Yeah, he’d caught feelings for pretty girls before but none of them had ever been someone he considered a good friend.

It was usually just girls he’d run into at the bar or out at the club. And that one time via the hospital. Firefighter, didn’t end well. But you were there for him at the end of that one and that was what sparked it.

Your goddamn loving and caring nature was what weaseled its way into the red haired doctor’s heart and the way you tried to check on him now made it worse. Every ‘Are you okay?’ when he came home with red eyes and blotchy cheeks just made his heart swell more.

Today was hard. He’d lost more patients than he’d saved and he was not above wallowing in his grief with a bottle of bourbon. You came home later than him, lab paperwork doing nothing but keeping you way past the hours you were meant to leave but honestly, you loved your job so it wasn’t horrible.

The sound of the door open would have made Will jump if he wasn’t already decently tipsy, Bears game going in the background with his eyes glued to it. The bottle just slightly drank from but he was a biiiit of a lightweight when he didn’t eat so his skin was flushed and gaze slightly swaying. 

“Will?” You slid your bag and shoes off, slippers replacing them as you made your way to the living room, sports announcer voice guiding you to where the doctor sat. “Halstead?” His last name a bit of a nickname between you two.

It didn’t take long for your eyes to find the glass in his hand along with the remnants of tears on his cheek, long dried but still visible. “Oh, Will..” You muttered, taking the bottle from him, only having to pull slightly hard for him to let go, placing it on the table.

He looked at you as you knelt in front of him, hand going to his cheek, empathy pouring out of your face. “Don’t look at me like that,” Will sighed, reaching up to wipe under his eyes, mind fighting to clear itself. 

“Like what?”

“Like you want to fix me, like you care,” He sighed out, the alcohol really taking its toll on his ability to keep his lips shut. Your face faltered slightly, eyebrows pulling together. How could he think you didn’t care?

Of course you did. “What? Will, I do care. I wouldn’t lie about that.” He shook his head slightly, eyes darting between yours as you shifted up on your knees more, face nearing his. “I do, so much,” Even with the lack of liquor in your system, it was hard not to let your thoughts slip.

Will might be the one with the major crush but you were well aware of how handsome he was, even with the tired or sad look behind his dark eyes. As if something pulled him by the front of his shirt he leaned forward, pushing his lips into yours. Unable to keep himself from doing so this time.

There were multiple occasions he’d wanted to do that before. When you had adjusted his tie before some charity gala for the hospital. After you’d downed a glass of whiskey like it was nobody’s business. Especially when you’d cradled his face after his dad died. All of those moments were wasted in the back of his mind.

But this time he let himself grab the side of your face, holding it the way you usually would. You pulled back slightly, looking up at him. “Don’t even say it,” He muttered, knowing that the next thing you were going to say was that he was drunk and he didn’t know what he was doing.

He knew all too well what he was doing, maybe too much that he was determined to get you to feel everything he felt for you. “I wasn’t gonna say anything,” You spoke before pressing up into the kiss, hands planting onto his thighs as you did.

The room fell warm quickly, his skin burning against yours as your lips moved together, breath catching in both of your throats, aching to get out but neither of you were selfless enough to let it escape before it forced its way out.

Will’s hand slid over your shoulder, lightly biting at your bottom lip, coercing a content hum out of you before you pulled back. “Let’s go to my room. I can take care of you,” You mumbled, lips brushing against his with each word.

You clearly heard his breathing hitch, a lust filled smirk growing on your face as you stood, hands finding his and practically pulling him into your room, lips once again finding his as you gently pushed him to the end of your bed, only parting to let him lay back.

In seconds your shirt was off and you were crawling over him, hair falling down to him. Will’s hand reached up, brushing the hair out of the way and over one shoulder, yours eyes meeting his before you leaned down to kiss him.

“Want me to take real good care of you?” You muttered, moving to kiss his cheek, then down his jaw. His hands slid up your bare sides, nodding faintly. Softly you kissed at his neck, lifting back to look at him. “Hm?”

Will’s head moved slightly, “Yes,” The reply was mumbled but emotion behind it clear as you felt him shift up underneath your hips. “Please.”

The added ‘please’ made your core burn, any sort of plan going out of your mind as you reached under his shirt, pushing it up. It was off only moments later and your mouth was against his skin even faster. 

His heart was pounding in his chest, the lower you went the more he grew in the sweatpants he had on, throbbing against his boxers. Almost teasingly you groped at his thighs, feeling over every section of them as you went higher.

The noises that accompanied them would make a whore blush as you barely touched him. “Oh, you’re sensitive.” You cooed, lips brushing over the dip of his hips, words doing nothing but making him buck them up, craving any sort of friction.

Firmly you placed a hand over his bulge, tingling going throughout his body. “Oh my god, don’t-” He mumbled, rocking his body up, the feeling pulling a groan from the back of his throat as he did.

“Don’t what? What do you want me to do?” You gently pulled at his sweatpants, ready for them to come off. Even with the confidence, you were just as turned on by his body and his noises, no doubt having heat already pooling in your panties.

Will’s gaze found yours, lip pulling between his teeth, “Touch me. And I mean, Touch me, touch me.” His words wavering as he tried to keep the gaze, unable to as you slid your hand over him again, the thicker layer being off sending new sensations across his body.

With a soft hum, you nodded, “Good boy using your words for me,” You mumbled, kissing over his skin again, head dipping down to his exposed thighs as your hands reached up, grabbing the band of his boxers and pulling at them.

He lifted up instantly to help get them off, hissing slightly as the cold air of the room hit his hot and bothered cock. Gently you took him in your hand, stroking slowly as you kissed along his base. 

A string of groans left his mouth, doing what he could to keep his hips pressed to the mattress. “This feel good?” You hummed, dragging your tongue up his shaft painfully slow seconds later, that sensation making him buck up, your free hand splaying out on his hip. “Uh-uh. Don’t.” 

A mark was bit onto his skin before you moved back, lips wrapping around his tip, looking up at him as you sucked softly. Will’s face twisted, mouth gaping slightly as your head dipped down, taking more and more of him in. 

When you said take care of him, he could barely think about what that meant but god this was worth all of his thoughts. Each and every single one of them. With each bob and twist of your head and hand, Will felt himself growing warmer and warmer, hands grabbing at your hair, pulling it all back almost into a ponytail.

With a pop you pulled off, continuing to smear your spit and his own arousal over his length. “You’re doing so well, I’ll let you decide. You want me to keep going, or move onto a more me centered task?” Your hand worked over him as you spoke, cockiness filling you as he mewled under your touch.

“You.” His reply caught in his throat but hit your ears just the same. Your hands leaving him made him groan, missing the feeling that had started to grow in his chest. But he couldn’t even begin to complain as you stood, dropping the jeans and panties you were wearing before crawling up him once again.

Your skin brushed against his, and all he wanted was to reach out and touch you but you swatted his hand away, leaning back slightly. “You, just watch.” One of your hands slid over your chest, gripping at each spot that you would want him to.

Across your chest, ghosting up your neck before sliding both over your boobs, tweaking your nipples just slightly. At the feeling you rocked your hips down, your cunt rubbing against his length, a tight breath exiting his throat.

Slowly, your fingers made their way down to where your bodies touched, Will’s eyes trained on each and every movement you made. The way you let one finger circle your clit slowly, working up the sensation. The way you’d slid it away, dipping into the wetness that was soaking out onto him and using that to work your way back up.

Will’s tongue dashed across his bottom lip as you leaned up, perfectly slotting your fingers inside of you, moaning softly as you did. “God, Will,” You let his name slip out, locking eyes as you rocked your hips against your hand.

His pupils were blown, so full of lust and arousal that his brain was practically mush as you let your thumb rub your clit, a knot building in your stomach as you did. “Yes, yes, just like that,” You breathed out, head falling forward as you sped your movements up, clenching around your own digits tightly.

Your eyes squeezed shut as you road out the orgasm, pulling out of yourself before leaning over Will, pulling his lip down with your thumb before sliding the same fingers into his mouth. “You taste what you do to me?” You bit at your lip, Will’s tongue circling to get any and every last taste in his mouth as he nodded.

“Think you’ve been good enough,” Your words were met with the pop of you pulling your fingers from him, instead reaching down to his length underneath you. “Do you agree?” Teasingly you brushed the tip through your folds, Will’s head nodding quickly.

You rocked against him slightly, “Say it then.” You cocked an eyebrow up, grinding down on him. He was throbbing against you, a faint whine leaving his mouth at your movements before he huffed.

“I’ve been good, please.” He spoke clearly, face flushed as he did. A smile grew on your face, lifting up and positioning him directly underneath you.

“Yes you have, such a good, good boy for me.” Each word was another inch inside of you as you sunk down onto him, stilling once you were filled. One hand rested on the small of his stomach, eyebrows now squeezing together as you let yourself adjust to him.

He moved his hands to your hips, thankful when you didn’t push them away. Each one of your walls felt perfect around him, so perfect it was a surprise he didn’t bust right then and there. Instead he sucked in a breath, looking over your body.

Slowly, you lifted, pushing yourself back down onto him, a wave of pleasure coursing through your veins, legs still shaky from the first orgasm you coerced out of yourself. Each movement was paired with a moan, from either Will or you, sometimes them melding together as you rocked against him, clit rubbing against his skin.

One of your hands slid up his chest, resting over where his heart was, faltering before moving up again, just barely wrapping at his throat. His eyes widened slightly, as if something just clicked in his mind. And with that touch he couldn’t help but buck his hips up, meeting your thrusts halfway.

Your eyebrow peaked slightly, “Oh you like when I put my hand here?” You muttered, just slightly adding pressure, watching as his eyes pulled down, your own heat spilling all over him with each movement against him.

“Please-” He moaned out, pushing his hips up to rock into you, creating his own speed that if it wasn’t for the immense pleasure already growing you would have pushed them down. It was hard to though when each thrust hit that soft cushion inside of you.

Your grip tightened, leaning forward as his arms wrapped around your waist, lifting you up to take over the movements. Any noise or words you wanted to say were forced into tight and short moans, lips attaching to his chest or wherever you could reach as you felt yourself clench around him, a tell tale sign you were close.

He took the chance to grip at your ass, pushing you over the edge as his last few thrusts were pointed to that sweet spot inside. Your hand slid from his neck, down his chest as you rocked your hips against him, riding out the leg shaking high.

His eyes fluttered shut, biting his lip roughly. Just as he was about to release you slid off of him, letting his cum cover his stomach rather than your insides, chest heaving as you looked down at him. “You did really well, are you alright?”

Will was also breathing heavily, eyes sliding over your face as he nodded. “I’ll grab something to clean up.” You muttered, leaning down to kiss his forehead before standing up, cleaning up in the bathroom and bringing out a warm and wet face cloth, running it over his messy skin.

Once he was all set you got up, tossing the cloth onto the dirty pile of clothes near the door before nodding for him to move up, head able to touch the pillow and slip under the covers easily. Will reached a hand out, grabbing yours as you took the spot next to him.

“You didn’t have to do all that you know.”

“I know, but it was fun. And you feel better don’t you?” You smiled faintly as he nodded, very obviously in a better mood than he had been earlier and definitely better than he had felt the entirety of the day.

Join Will's taglist here!

tags: @winchesterszvonecek, @everything-fandom, @thebejeweledwatercat, @mrspeacem1nusone, @wnbweasley, @alexxavicry, @halsteadbrasil, @firetruckstuckley

[banesberry-anomoly]

Geiger

New Scp oc just dropped

This is Dr [Geiger], aka Dr ☢☣, Aka Dr Radioactive Biohazard, aka Dr Geiger. Any and all pronouns, and is also able to use xenopronouns due to a part of hyr anomaly!

Left is Before Everything, right is after literally tearing out their identity

Their name is literally pronounced as Geiger Counter Noises and he Will Not Respond to being called anything else, maybe to Dr Geiger if youre lucky

More info below

Details about her Anomaly

Part of her anomaly is a mematic effect that allows people to pronouce its name after hearing fey say it, this persists for up to two hours after leaving either xier immediate vicinity (the room) or eyesight, whichever is larger. Those that interact often with him usually have a recording of geiger counter noises or an actual geiger counter on-hand, as it will react to them.

Fei can also mess around with peoples senses for up to 15 seconds at a time and is a walking soundboard, which is why xi can use xenopronouns. The mematic effect that lets people pronounce her name also lets people """""pronounce""""" xenopronouns, but for a longer period of time.

That being said, she's literally radioactive and needs to take foundation-produced medicine to keep it from getting Out Of Hand (its literally just fuckin Rad-Away like in the fallout games lmao). This makes it hard to sleep and has thus just resorted to staying awake for extremely long periods of time and uses large amounts of caffeine to 'help,' that is until it passes out for more than 24 hours.

Once shi became aware of the fourth wall, it was able to break it and somewhat interact similarly to Deadpool or Gwenpool can.

Basic story

Inspired mainly by the songs 'Hyperdontia' and 'Novacaine' (in specifically that order).

Not being able to sleep easy leads to boredom, especially at night when not very many other people are awake. Unfortunately this lead to the discovery of the fourth wall, which in turn lead to breaking it. He realized that xi was a 'side/background character' and wanted to become more important to the 'fictional' world shi lived in, and thus started ripping traits (similar to how one would rip something onto a disc) from other characters (both within their own world and from others) to apply to itself to become either more pallateable or just more noticable.

Eventually this lead to becoming a fairly popular character in certain parts of viewership/the fandom, but of course it ended up becoming too much. Thier body started rejecting the 'ripped traits' like someone might rejected a transplanted organ, which made the literal radioactivity get worse, among other things. More mental strain was put onto Geiger to keep trying to fix or replace these traits, and eventually the stress made fey snap and she had a psychotic break that made xim rip out every single trait, including a large amount from before they discovered the fourth wall.

He still fucks around with other character traits, but no longer cares about being 'pallateable' to the audience, and hir 'base self' is very different now, including several noticable physical changed

[best-romanov-monarch]

Description & Rules

Have you ever wondered why Russia is the way it is? You can thank these beautiful, beautiful people for at least the significant chunk of it! For better or for worse. And we are here to determine which one of them is... Most significant? Interesting? Best (least bad) person? Well, what does "best" mean here is an excercise best left to the audience. In any case, we are here to celebrate their lives and achievements, because Romanovs were historically a lot of things, but never, ever, EVER boring. Which is why they are the best royal house. No I am not sorry @best-habsburg-monarch and @best-hohenzollern-ruler

Okay, I am a little sorry, because they were the ones who gave me the idea. Love you, guys!

Rules:

One poll every Thursday, with regular bonus polls every Friday.

Since historically there have been 18 rulers from the house of Romanov and all of them are unique little snowflakes, none of whom I'd forgive myself for throwing out, I decided for a bit less traditional approach to this poll. Namely, there is going to be a big initial Elimination Round, during which 9 pairs of contestants will compete against each other. Of the 9 winners, the one who has won with by the most narrow margin is also eliminated. Regular Round will thus have 8 contestants and will be followed by Semifinals and Finals.

The contestants are more or less who you'd expect, with some caveats. Namely, I took the liberty to replace Ivan V. with Anna Leopoldovna and Peter II. with Sofia Alexeievna. Because unlike a certain dynasty, we do not involve children in our drama.

I am using English language transliterations of the Russian names. With patronymics.

Propaganda and antipropaganda are encouraged, within reason. You can refer to current events, but please don't make it into a political soapbox! This is ultimately meant to be a tongue-in-cheek historical game, same as the Habsburg and Hohenzollern polls. Also don't be dicks in general, like no racism, sexism, attrocity denial or any other nastiness. That hopefully goes without saying. Also: propaganda does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the admin! I will post any and all propaganda and antipropaganda that fits the basic standards of this poll. If you have any objections to the opinions expressed, argue with the original poster - unless, again, poster is just factually wrong or has said something horrible that I didn't notice.

UPDATE: The roleplay nonsense was transferred onto @best-romanov-monarch-official If you liked that aspect of this blog (which I doubt, or else I wouldn't have scrubbed this blog clean of it), check that account.

TAGS: #main bracket - polls and recaps of the main bracket #main bracket recap - recaps of the rounds of the main bracket #bonus polls - well, bonus polls #memes - well, memes #about us - what others say about this bracket (with our response or otherwise) #housekeeping - other posts, mainly about how this poll works, updates etc.

(PICTURE SOURCES

Thumbnail: https://www.rbth.com/history/326376-russian-blood-romanov-dynasty

Profile pic: https://heraldicjewelry.com/pages/romanov-family-crest)

[destiny-smasher]

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.

[pbandjesse]

The nausea was not as bad today! It was still there at times. But it was not as horrible and I was able to work through it for the most part.

And I had a pretty good day. I was very worried about going back to camp. I was anxious about not feeling good. I was tired. I didn't know what else besides my hammock would be broken. But it ended up being a really nice day.

I didn't sleep amazing. I had pretty intense nightmares again. And when my alarm went off my stomach hurt and I was not comfortable. But James would come upstairs and be all smiley and made me feel just a little better.

I got dressed and I really liked this shirt with this dress. I was feeling good about my look and that was nice.

James made me a breakfast sandwich and some snacks to bring to work. Which I would have for lunch later on. They would walk me to the car because they love me and promised to let me know how the fence install went.

I had a fine drive into camp. And when I got there I was pleasantly surprised. There was some stuff to put away but mainly everything was clean and good. A few of my toys that I have for the kids were a little worse for wear. A drum got broken. And was repaired kind of. But it was mainly fine.

I would get set up and worked on cutting clay into equal sized balls so that I could quickly hand out everything to the children throughout the day. And that was a nice little task. Just cutting and rolling and bagging them up. It was fun.

I had my breakfast and it was great. And I wished I and a second one. I knew it wouldn't actually make me feel great. But man it was good.

I had some time to hang in my hammock. And take a walk to the office to say hello to Heather and Alexi. Got a big hug from Heather. And checked in with her about picking up plaster at Home Depot this week. Which I may do on Wednesday but I need to check in about that.

My groups were great today. Everyone loved the project. I think it really helped that I talked about different scales, heroic, light sized, miniature. And how having such a small little munchkin of clay was a challenge I was giving them. And literally no one whined that they didn't have enough clay and I was so thrilled about that. And for the most part people worked really hard and it was great.

We had some fun pieces made. Video game characters. Animals. Food. Flowers. It's so fun to see what they come up with.

I teased the councilor who broke my hammock. He owned up to it and will pay me back for it. I already ordered the replacement. It made us have a real world example for why we have the hammock rules we do. Because he broke it flipping upside down! Which is a specific rule!!

I stayed at the art building during lunch. Ate my snack lunch and hung out in the hammocks and it was great. It made me feel a lot better. A lot more centered. And I only felt a little guilty for avoiding going to the dining hall. I just needed to be alone.

I got a lot of knitting today. And at the end of the day I counted and I have 66 squares done! I started using the last color I bought. Which is grey. I have two more skiens and then I'll have to get more. I think the rest of the squares will be black. I would like this to be majority a black quilt. I'm pretty pleased.

The afternoon was easy. Day camp was mainly great. We had one day camp one child who I don't think has ever been told no ever because the way he melted down was horrible. I couldn't even get him to breathe with me. He was just scream crying. It was rough. But then another child I realized I knew from the nursery school I subbed at! He was and is such a sweetie and he was so cute. I love when kids from my winter life intersect with my summer life. It's nice to see them grow up a little bit at a time.

My last group was bontkirchen. James had let me know when the contractors were there and starting the fence. But around this time they were leaving to go to a double header baseball game. So I would be there for the end of the job. And I would be leaving camp early to have my virtual rhumatologist appointment. Bontkirchen is always chill though so it was just fine.

The girls would do beads and bracelets and hang in the hammocks. Sew and play with clay and I enjoyed their company. I was chomping at the bit to go though. I was anxious about being late. It ended up absolutely not mattering. But at 3 I said goodbye and headed home.

The drive home was a struggle because I was so tired and the nausea came back the worst it was all day. And right as I was pulling into our street the rhumatologist called me to check me in. But the actual appointment wouldn't be for almost an hour.

I went inside and the contractors were in the kitchen filling a bucket with water for the concrete. I was excited to see what they had done so far.

And the fence was mostly up! And it looked great. But it wasn't the correct fence! I have decided that it's fine. That I like it. But we had ordered a lattice topped fence?? So this was confusing but I decided that I don't actually care that much.

The contractors were nice. James had mostly spoken to them in Spanish and they seemed nervous around me. I kept telling them they could come inside and get water or whatever they needed but they were so nervous! It was fine. They were great and working so hard. It was so crazy hot outside and they were doing so good.

I went downstairs to check on Sweetp and he was upset that he had been banished to the basement all day. He kept trying to escape and I bumped him in the head with the door and I felt so bad! But he was okay and just had to be patient.

I waited upstairs for my appointment. And it would take forever to get on the call but I did get on it and it was a nice chat about my pains and aches and such. And I was done by 445.

And that was good. Because soon the contractors were calling for me. And I went down and got them ice water. And asked them to add some extra wood at the bottom of the fence so there wasn't so much of a gap. They would do it on the one wall but not the other and I didn't notice until later so I'll have to deal with that soon. But that's alright. A small thing.

They finished up and I thanked them and they left. And I got to work putting things back together. And I am absolutely thrilled.

I struggled with getting the catio back in place but I got everything else. And I was just really happy. And also so incredibly hot. I have no idea how they were working out there. Because I thought I was going to die I was so overheated after sweeping and moving the rugs and planter boxes.

I was basically shaking and sweating. And went and sat in the shower and ran cold water on myself until I felt like a person again.

Only then would I wash my hair and my self and I felt a lot better. Still not incredible but a lot better.

Once I was clean and dressed I would do some cleaning downstairs. I soaked Crabcake. I wiped down the kitchen. I put up a fly strip because having the door open for so long today let I. A bunch of flies which I hate!!

And while I was doing that cleaning I had vegan fish fillets in the oven.

I laid on the couch and had my dinner and it was great. James was at the baseball game and was having fun with our friends.

But then there was thunder. And all of a sudden a crazy crazy storm came in. The backyard was flooding. The street was flooding. It was wild! I ran around the house making sure that there wasn't any water coming in. Cleaned up the water that was from the guest room and the back door. The power briefly went out. It was just a lot!

I couldn't even look out the door for any length of time because the rain was so heavy. I would post up in bed to watch it from my window.

James and crew were getting rained out hard at the game. James couldn't even leave to come home it was raining so bad. But once the rain calmed down they would come home to me.

And now they are there!! They moved the last couple pieces in the backyard and we are thrilled. The backyard seems so much bigger. And I'm just really happy. Even if it isn't exactly what we wanted it's so good. We have a few more things to fix out there but that's okay. I am just really happy. James is going to see if we can get some compensation for things being wrong and off schedule. But I will leave that to them.

Now it is time to rest. Tomorrow is a long day and I hope it is a good time. It is supposed to rain more. But that is okay. I am just looking forward to a good day.

Sleep well everyone. I hope you are safe and happy. Goodnight!!

[einsteinsugly]

https://www.tumblr.com/einsteinsugly/744716213340520448/ask-game

Jackie/Kelso & Donna/Casey

Agree. Both are toxic af. I'd say Donna and Casey are worse, because at least Jackie and Kelso loved each other (but Jackie and Kelso piss me off more). But Jackie and Kelso support each other's worst qualities, mainly their shared superficiality.

Jackie and Kelso were absolutely just plopped back together in T9S because of irl circumstances, because AK and MK are married in real life and such. They had to regress Jackie to an insane degree, and readily discarded major plot points in the OG show to make it happen (Betsy was inconvenient, so she was replaced with Jay). Even in season 8, when Jackie was in a really bad place, she rejected Kelso. She'd have to be insanely desperate, imo.

But then again, I don't know if even season 1 Jackie would marry Kelso three times, so...

[kulturegroupie]

Discover Jimmy Page

A complete list of his most famous electric guitars - pt. 2

from pageysartgallery

1953 Fender Telecaster

Finish: Brown

Years used: 1970s and 1980s, it’s still in his collection

Jimmy bought this Telecaster in November 1975 and first used it with Zeppelin for “Hot Dog” and “Ten Years Gone”. Later on, in the 80s, he used it as one of his main guitars with The Firm.

Apparently, he got the guitar from Robb Lawerence, who at one point left a comment on a Led Zeppelin fansite, explaining the story. According to Robb, the Telecaster was acquired with the intent to install the B-Bender system on it immediately.

The Telecaster originally came with a maple neck, which stayed on it up until late 1979. At that point, Jimmy replaced it with the rosewood neck from his 1959 Telecaster from the Yardbirds era.

“I still have it (referring to the Dragon Tele), but it’s a tragic story. I went on tour with the '59 Les Paul that I bought from Joe Walsh, and when I got back, a friend of mine had kindly painted over my paint job. He said, ‘I’ve got a present for you.’ He thought he had done me a real favor. As you can guess, I wasn’t really happy about that. His paint job totally screwed up the sound and the wiring, so only the neck pickup worked.

I salvaged the neck and put it on my brown Tele string bender that I used in The Firm. As for the body… it will never be seen again! [laughs]”

— Jimmy Page

1967 Vox Phantom XII

Finish: Black with a large white pickguard

Years used: Late 1960s to now

Jimmy acquired this guitar while he was working as a studio musician. He first used it in the studio with the Yardbirds, on their album “Little Games”, on the songs “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor” and “Glimpses”. Later on, he would use it with Zeppelin, on “Livin’ Lovin’ Maid” and “Thank You” from Led Zeppelin II, and “Stairway to Heaven” from Led Zeppelin IV.

“I used a Fender 12-string in the studio. And before the Fender, I used a Vox 12-string. You can hear the Vox on things like “Thank You”, and “Living Loving Maid”. On “Stairway” I used both my Vox Phantom that I used on “Thank You” and my Fender Electric XII.

They both sort’ve sounded the same. It was more about how they played. They felt different. On “The Song Remains The Same”, it’s just the Fender.”

— Jimmy Page (x)

1952 Gibson Les Paul Standard - ‘Second Number Three’ - Used exclusively on the 1977 tour as a backup guitar. Used on “Achilles Last Stand” and possibly “Heartbreaker”, but mainly on “Over the Hills and Far Away”

This guitar was always assumed to be his '69 No3. As more photos/videos became available online in the early 2000's, people noticed slight differences between his '77 red Les Paul and his No3 Les Paul. The main differences are:

- its 50s era Goldtop - re-finished as well, the colour is more cherry red as opposed to the more purple/red of the original No3

- it's a non-pancake body

- slightly smaller headstock

- different binding

This might be the 1952 Les Paul that Jimmy bought in December 1974 from Mike Corby, guitarist of the band “The Babys”. They deduced that this was the guitar that would become his second red No3. This would also fit in with the time frame as Page would have needed time to refinish and customise it, hence not seen until the '77 tour (acquired too late to be used on the '75 tour, they didn’t tour in '76).

Gibson Les Paul TransPerformance - used on “Kashmir” from the 1994 album “No Quarter” and occasionally for live gigs and in the studio

Finish: Metallic gold

Years used: Early 1990s to now

For better or for worse, Gibson did a lot of experimentation over the decades. Things really became interesting in the late 1980s and the 1990s. With the rise of the company’s Les Paul TransPerformance guitar, Jimmy Page quickly became its endorser. However, reactions to this particular model were very mixed. The TransPerformance guitar has basic features that you’d find on most Gibson Les Paul models. There’s the mahogany body with a maple top, mahogany neck, rosewood fretboard, as well as pretty-looking aesthetic additions, like the metallic golden finish, binding, and trapezoid pearl inlays on the fretboard.

But what was really groundbreaking at the time, was that it features a self-tuning system. This includes special Grover tuning machines and a TransPerformance bridge and tailpiece system. The system also includes controls on the body’s front side tied to the bridge and tailpiece that can tune-up automatically according to the set parameters.

Jimmy has three guitars with the Transperformance system built-in – one orange, one gold, and one purple. His favorite among them seems to be the gold one, at least based on how frequently he used it compared to the others.

Gretsch 6122 Country Gentleman

Jimmy used this guitar in the very early 60s, around the time he played with Neil Christian & the Crusaders.

“I went to see Jimmy with Neil Christian in 1961-1962, it was a lunchtime gig at The Boathouse in Kew Bridge. All I saw was this human beanpole with a Gretsch. It was four times bigger than he was…”

— An acquaintance of Page’s, ‘No Quarter: The Three Lives of Jimmy Page’

1959 Fender Telecaster - before the dragon design was painted

When Jimmy first got the Telecaster, it featured just a regular white finish. At some point in 1967, he glued eight circular mirrors on the body – four of them behind the bridge, three below the pickups, and one on top of the body. He was possibly inspired to do this by Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, who was famous for playing a Fender Esquire with the exact same mirror setup.

That's all - if you made it this far, thank you so much & I hope you enjoyed this!

[bluberimufim]

For the ask game!

12. 🎧 HEADPHONES: Share a song that inspired your WIP.

8. 🧢 CLOTHING: What is your MC currently wearing in the most recent scene of your WIP?

6. 🪩 MIRROR: Which OC is most like you?

Hiiii I took a few days to answer this because of the clothes question. I was waiting for them to change clothes in the story and also I wanted to illustrate it. Oops.

Anyway! Let's go!

12. 🎧 HEADPHONES: Share a song that inspired your WIP.

Ok, you can technically say that "Devourer of Souls" was inspired by the entire Once Upon A Time (In Space) album, but I've talked about that one too much, I feel.

In a way, I'd say that the song "Kimi was dekinai ko" (trans: you are a useless child) by Kikuo helped me flesh out the relationship between Jane and the Goddess of Time. I used to kinda handwave the whole thing like "yeah, she's just another clone, it's fine", but then I realized that the Goddess of Time would probably kinda hate her because she's the only clone who survived. Like, she tried to replicate Theo for decades and the only clone who was strong enough to survive was the one that turned out wrong - and she doesn't even look like the daughter she's trying to replace. And because of the "malfunction" in her soul that gives her violent tendencies, Jane would probably feel like she's worse than all her sisters. And also, despite being the one kicking her out, the Goddess of Time would probably feel sad when she leaves and she's alone again.

Juicy divine family drama.

8. 🧢 CLOTHING: What is your MC currently wearing in the most recent scene of your WIP?

I got this answer in the last ask and I wanted to wait a little because I knew Seth and Theo would be going on a little vacation soon and they'd change clothes then. Also, I just really wanted to draw them in cosy winter clothes. So I did a quick drawing of it.

I offer you: the girls on vacation.

I love drawing them. It's always fun <3

6. 🪩 MIRROR: Which OC is most like you?

Since this is a mainly DoS post, ig I'll try to answer for that WIP. Despite none of the characters really being like me.

I think probably Dora? I mean, her personality is very much not like mine, but I feel like she's a bit of a manifestation of my fears regarding the future. She was really passionate about art when she was younger, but then she got dragged away by the Goddess of Time, who showed up out of nowhere saying she was her mother.

And then she spent the rest of her life unable to actually make the art she wanted and serving someone else against her will. She says that her life felt basically meaningless because she'd been separated from all the things she loved, and she just wanted to die so it could all be over. That's kinda - although unrealistically - what I am scared could happen to me if I let go of my passions.

But I think that's more of a retroactive self-reflection instead of the deliberate writing of a character who is like me. Dora basically wins the race by sharing an interest with me (art), which is more than any of the others can say, really.

Hope you enjoyed this answer!

[gay-jesus-probably]

Okay this ended up being a little bit of a rant, I apologize

Most of the rewrite that my best friend and I are working on is just character devlopment tbh!! Like I think what totk tried to do was make their story both character driven and plot driven, they just failed miserably at both. Like imagine if Zelda and Mineru were parallels!! We have an entire plotline written involving making Rauru a secondary antagonist with that! And if Zelda and Sonia were foils instead of half assed parallels! Like yes, Zelda's a terrible character as is, but she has SO much potential because of her position, both politically speaking and emotionally speaking. It's like you said, it's really stupid that she's just in charge of all of Hyrule again. Why not like. Do something else with her?? Anything else??? And did we just. Forget about her father's abuse in botw? Because she shows exactly NOTHING as a result of that. This is an entirely different Zelda who happens to look the same. For all we care, the real Zelda in game could be the imposter and it wouldn't change a thing!!

Oh yeah, the characters in the game definitely needed more attention from the writing. Or like... literally any amount of attention.

For the record this might just be a case of me doing some sequence breaking and getting through things too early (via setting off the fifth sage plot AFTER finding all the memories and retrieving the master sword), but I truly, genuinely do not understand why Mineru exists. I can't tell what she adds to the narrative. Maybe she was supposed to tell me that Zelda's a dragon go rip a sword out of her head, just in case I hadn't figured that out? But it's kinda weird to have that failsafe, considering that the game is quick to spell it out for you that you should find the geoglyphs to learn what happened to Zelda, and we KNOW she was the last one to have the Master Sword. So Mineru is just a redundant reminder of something the player's probably already done, because yknow going to hyrule castle after four temples feels like a finale, so you'd obviously want to handle unfinished business first.

I mean, I guess the spirit temple boss fight was okay, if only because I found the robot fistfight to be so ridiculous that it was absolutely delightful (though the actual fight mechanics were tedious and annoying). But she didn't tell me anything new, I already knew that Zelda had vored a rock to become her fursona. Sharing that information was apparently the only thing Mineru was there to do, but the game had already spelled that out for me ages ago. She didn't contribute anything. I don't even know if she was supposed to contribute anything. Mineru was just there to force us to sit through the same fucking story about Ganon's sealing for the fifth goddamn time in a row. And then despite being literally the only person left from the actual war, she had literally nothing to contribute. WHY WAS MINERU IN THIS GAME. HOW DID SHE CONTRIBUTE TO THE NARRATIVE. I started jokingly referring to her as Mineral after I got started on the fifth sage plotline, because I knew from the dragon memories she was supposed to be haunting the Purah Pad, but she'd spent the entire game being about as important as a random rock. And apparently I was right, Mineru did literally nothing the whole time!

...Actually now that I think about it, what the fuck did ANY of the modern sages do? Their abilities were just the old powers except worse (give me revali's gale over tulin's thing any day of the week, jesus christ), except for Yunobo's ability which was just to replace remote bombs as a convenient infinite mining tool. The sages apparently were just there to show up at the end as a Big Damn Hero moment to rescue Link from the absolute terror of... red bokoblins. Seriously, WHY did they do all the 'ooooh ganons summoning an aaarmy' scenes using mainly the lowest tier of enemies??? Sir, I'm armed to the teeth, fully armoured, and loaded up on hearts and stamina, why the fuck am I supposed to be intimidated by enemies that were still cannon fodder when I was stark naked and armed with a tree branch. At least the four sages were characters we already knew from BOTW, and they got to do some stuff (though using Tulin instead of Teba was complete bullshit, I DO NOT WANT TO TAKE THIS RANDOM TEN YEAR OLD INTO A WAR ZONE. I FOUGHT A GIANT MECHA BIRD WITH TEBA, LET ME KICK ASS WITH BIRB DAD AGAIN)

Eugh. Just so much bad writing in this game, it's a constantly unfolding minefield of horrible decision making. Good luck with your fic though, and I hope you and your friend end up posting it! I've been finding pretty slim pickings on AO3 so far tbh; it seems everyone like me that's been trying to pick this story apart for good content is still trying to figure out what the fuck nintendo just handed us, so the AO3 has been mostly just people writing awful generic Link/Zelda content, mixed with the Link/Sidon shippers trying to fix the whole clusterfuck of Sidon getting a wife out of nowhere. Though I will say I have been very pleased with the fandom unanimously responding to that whole subplot with "Okay so this is some hetero nonsense because nintendo wanted to sink SidLink, BUT we love and respect Yona anyways". I guarantee if something like this had gone down like a decade ago, Yona would be the single most hated character in the game for it. I'm glad that she's being given love and respect despite having been made to be a shipbreaker!

Anyways my point is, I am a huge slut for character studies and worldbuilding, and dear lord have I ever been starved for content. There's so much ZeLink. All power to y'all that ship it of course, I'm glad you're happy, but their dynamic is the single most boring pile of dogshit I've ever seen in my life, and I'm way too aromantic to put up with it. My kingdom for some good character studies and/or platonic fics. Or even just interesting shipping fics that aren't focused on some shitty generic romance. There's a reason I love GanLink and it's not (just) for the porn, it's because those two literally always have some spectacular issues if they're together, regardless of the context. They're a walking psychological thriller, I love them.

[feifheadcanons]

Five years later [oof] and here’s the retainer bowling headcanons as promised!

Neutral:

Jakob - Oh he’s good. Maybe not pro good, but still really good. He’s currently playing in the alley’s Friday night league. Uses a customised 12 lb ball

Felicia - This poor woman is a regular in the alley’s pro shop. Something is always wrong with her ball. Despite this, she’s actually rather good and her best game was only two strikes away from a 300. Per Gunther’s suggestion, she’s considering replacing her customised 8 lb ball with an 11 as she may have “outgrown” the lighter weight and has her eye on one with a nice bull design on it

Flora - She’s not much of a bowler and that lack of skill shows every time she hits the lanes. She’s not necessarily bothered by this, though she is surprised that her clumsy twin is better at bowling than she is. Uses an 8 lb house ball, though Felicia has said she’s welcome to have hers if she ever does get that new 11 lb ball

Gunther - He’s the pro shop’s house pro and the reason Corrin even knows how to play. He may be retired and doesn’t play much these days, but when he does, there is no rust in sight. Uses a customised 16 lb ball and a wrist brace

Kaze - He’s just as good as the pros, but finds more enjoyment in semi-pro play. A teammate of Jakob’s in the Friday night league. He usually bowls with a customised 15 lb ball, but the finger holes need redrilling, so he’s using a house ball of equal weight for the time being

Hoshido:

Saizou - Another pro who can give Hinoka a run for her money and has won a couple of championships. Bowls left handed. Uses a customised 15 lb ball and a wrist brace

Kagerou - Surprisingly, she sucks at bowling. Every other frame is a gutter ball and it’s starting to frustrate her. Laslow and Gunther have offered to coach her, but she insists on learning on her own. Uses a 14 lb house ball, but Ryouma is trying to get her to use a lighter ball

Azama - He literally does not care for bowling. Yeah, he’ll bowl anyway when Hinoka insists, but he’s not particularly invested in the sport. He’s actually pretty good when he does put some effort into his playing. Uses a 12 lb house ball

Setsuna - Good Gods above, this woman cannot bowl to save her life. As much as she’s worse than Kagerou, people still intently watch Setsuna bowl, just in case she finally bowls her first strike. Uses an 8 lb house ball

Hinata - He’d rather play cheerleader for Takumi, but he’s not bad himself. His scores are always decent, consisting of mostly spares with some open frames and the odd strike, but Oboro feels he’d play better if he’d wipe the pizza grease off his hands before grabbing the ball off the ball return. Uses a 13 lb house ball, but rumour has it Odin’s planning on getting him a customised ball for his birthday

Oboro - She does like playing, but she’s not that good at it. She’s mainly just here to have fun, but she does at least try to do her best. Uses a customised 8 lb ball that once belonged to her mom and a wrist brace

Tsubaki - Okay, so you’d think this guy had never bowled anything less than a strike in his entire life, right? WRONG! Yes, he’s a phenomenal bowler, but he’s actually not perfect, something he struggled a bit to accept. Also in the Friday night league, though on a different team than Jakob and Kaze. Uses a customised 15 lb ball and initially didn’t use a wrist brace, but had to start using one when he sprained his wrist on a bad throw

Hana - She’s a fairly average bowler, but she’s very competitive. She and Selena are constantly trying to one up each other on the lanes, but this always leads to less strikes for the both of them. Uses a 10 lb house ball

Nohr:

Laslow - He says he bowls to catch the attention of the ladies, but the truth is that his dad was a champion pro bowler who met his mom, who worked in the lounge as the bartender, while at a tournament. His real reason for bowling is to keep their memory alive – meeting someone there like how his parents met would be a bonus. Another lefty. Uses a customised 14 lb ball that has his parents’ names engraved above the finger holes

Peri - She lives for the “glow bowl”, a term she uses for cosmic bowling. She’s campaigning to start up a cosmic bowling league, hoping to attract other league players who would rather play under the blacklights and disco balls like she does. As for her skill, she’s pretty good, though she would like to improve a bit. Uses a customised glow-in-the-dark 13 lb ball

Beruka - She’s new to the pro scene, but she’s a pro nonetheless. Another member of the 300 Club. Her customised ball is heavier than it ought to be at 15 lb, but it was a gift from her mentor and she’s used that ball so much that she can’t bowl with anything lighter. She had to have a new thumb hole drilled in to accommodate her smaller grip as the span was too wide for her to use

Selena - She wants to be a pro so badly just like her mom, but she’s not quite there yet. She has begrudgingly accepted pointers from Tsubaki, which has improved her playing significantly. She’s sticking to 10 lb house balls until she does finally become a pro

Niles - Split Queen Elise, meet Split King Niles. He may not bowl as many splits as she does, but he still picks them up without fail. One of Tsubaki’s teammates in the Friday night league. Uses a customised 16 lb ball and a wrist brace

Odin - He’s definitely a more for-fun bowler, since he’s not quite comfortable with joining a league yet, but maybe one day when he doesn’t bowl so many open frames. His stance and approach are definitely something to behold though. Alternates between using a customised 13 lb ball and a 14 lb house ball – he’s testing the latter’s weight to see if he needs to go up

Arthur - Arguably the worst bowler out of everyone present. Nearly every frame is left open, but sometimes he’ll pick up a spare. Despite this, he still has fun, and isn’t that the most important thing? Uses a 16 lb house ball

Effie - She didn’t start off so hot, but after three years in the Friday night league, she’s joined the 300 Club and her best series was a few points off from joining the more elusive 800 Club. Uses a customised 12 lb ball and a wrist brace, though she’ll grab a 13 lb house ball for some of the trickier splits

I LOVE these, thank you for submitting!

[templegate]

While I've seen plenty of criticisms of Outlast for ableism/stigmatizing mental illness (because your enemies are murder-happy asylum inmates), I honestly beg to differ—at least for the most part. For one thing, only a handful of inmates actually attack you. Most of the other patients there are either in shock or just trying to lay low and stay alive through all the chaos going on around them. Even the more proactive of the non-combatant characters, such as the pyro you encounter in the kitchen, are just trying to get out—and their desperation is made to be pretty relatable. Even the boss characters like Chris Walker and Eddie Gluskin were victims of the asylum. For crying out loud, the Whistleblower DLC opens with Eddie getting dragged into the morphogenic engine kicking and screaming and begging for help—it's what solidifies Waylon Park's determination to take down Murkoff. Even when you find Eddie's files later on and see that, yes, he was already a murderer before he wound up in Mount Massive, that also comes with notes about the sexual abuse he experienced as a child and his denial of it. It doesn't excuse his actions—of course it doesn't—but it shows that he didn't become the way he is from nothing. Furthermore, the entire Mount Massive arc focuses so heavily on the theme of abuse of power. The patients are enduring horrific experimentation at the hands of people like Blair and Trager, and that is what sets up the rest of the story. The people running the show are the catalysts for all hell breaking loose—not the patients, who are instead victims of a system that is exploiting them by pushing them past their mental and physical limits, and has no qualms about treating them as replaceable test subjects. They are already sick people thrust into terrifying circumstances. Some of them were already dangerous to begin with, but most of them were not. They were all in a place that was supposed to help them cope with their conditions and rehabilitate, but instead were exploited and had their issues exacerbated by being traumatized further, and that's part of what makes Outlast terrifying.  So yeah, the portrayal of mentally ill people in Outlast isn't phenomenal, sure, but it goes beyond making all the patients out to be horrible monsters. Most of them are just trying to stay out of all the awful shit going on and stay alive without completely breaking down. The games still makes you feel for those people after you see how desperate and terrified a lot of them are, due mainly because of the abuses they have suffered from the people who were supposed to help them.

Anon this is so fascinating cause I agree with you sm. I think all of this stuff is true. From the way I see it Outlast is an attempt to subvert all the other mental asylum horror stories. Which I think adds all this complexity you're talking about. But while I do think it's more nuanced and better written than contemporaries, I don't think they did a good enough job. The "evil asylum" trope is inherently ableist, and stigmatizing. And I do agree the main source of long term horror in the series is from the incredible abuse the patients suffer- it cannot be ignored that the majority of scary moments aren't from the abuse, but from the patients acting violent and "crazy". And yeah it makes sense why they're violent and "crazy" that doesn't change the fact that the average joe schmoe is gonna go through the game and take away the message that mentally ill people are violent, and scary, and mental health facilities are bad and scary. Which- as someone who's been to a psych ward- I find to be a very bad message. They have their issues but stigmatizing them makes it worse. I think Red Barrels realized this, and for the Whistleblower made more of an effort to emphasize the abuse as a front line horror. Jeremy Blaire, the Walrider, The Morphogenic Engine, etc etc. Although the complaints I have still stand. Overall I agree with you that Outlast is a nuanced portrayal of this trope. That point about how not all of the patients are violent, is one of my favorite parts of Outlast. How they're still humans. And that creates some really great moments, like Someones Playing Piano. But as I've said before I still think it's inadequate I really want people to realize that Outlast being a story about systemic abuse where innocent people are victimized, and Outlast relies on ableism to get it's scares- are two statements that can coexist. I think at this point I should just write a paper about outlast