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wore my N7 shirt today and hiked my lowlander ass up a goddamn mountain. whenever i started getting tired i thought "Commander Shepard's been through worse" and damn if that didn't work every single time.

#mass effect

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I'm trying to send super and evil boops but it just keeps telling me there's an error! And it's past my bedtime so I can't really keep trying. So just know that if we've ever interacted even a little bit, the super and evil boops for you are there in my heart.

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A while back, after The Witcher seasons 2-3 came out, I Liked a couple of its songs on Spotify. Specifically, a couple of Jaskier's songs. Well, after I did that, Spotify started giving me recommendations based on those Likes. In those recommendations, here was one band in particular that had a male singer whose voice kind of reminded me of Jaskier's honestly, but there was something about it that just ... I have never been more attracted to just a voice in my life.

Now, I like voices. I pay attention to voices. And this dude's voice ... isn't particularly special. But there's something about his voice and the way he uses it that makes me Feel Things that just a voice should not make me feel.

So I made the conscious decision not to look up a picture of this dude. Because if he was ugly I was gonna cry.

So for MONTHS I listened to this band on repeat. And aside from my particular feelings about this voice, they're a great band! There is also a female singer, and she is also fantastic, though her existence is somewhat eclipsed by my Feelings around the male singer. Overall they have this strange sort of fey quality about them, both in the style and in the fact that for some reason I cannot bloody remember any of their lyrics. (Seriously, I'll give a song a listen specifically to pay attention to the words and by the time I'm listening to one line, I've already forgotten the previous one.) Enough that it's a bit startling when there's suddenly a line that mentions a cell phone. And all this time I resist the urge to go looking for any information on them beyond the music itself.

And then one day Spotify recommends me a playlist based on their music, and there's a new band thumbnail attached. (Or, new to me anyway.) It's a slightly better picture of the two lead singers. And this is still a teeny little thumbnail image on my phone, still pretty indistinct, but ... it's more than I had before. And I sit and I squint at that picture for a while, and I go, ".....Fuuuuck, he might actually be cute."

So finally I break, and I decide to look up a music video of the song that got me into this band in the first place. So I pop on over to Youtube and type in the name of the band and the song, and sure enough, there's the official music video, and there's a thumbnail for it with a picture of the guy. And again, this is a small and indistinct picture, but again, it's more than I had before. And again, I squint at this picture for a while and go, "........Wait a fucking minute."

Guess whose band it is. Go on, guess.

I had a friend I'd told about all this months previous, and I had to immediately text her and be like "IT'S JOEY FUCKING BATEY! IT'S BEEN HIM THE WHOLE TIME! WHAT THE FUUUUUCK!!!"

(For those who don't know, the band is called The Amazing Devil. The song that got me into them is "The Horror and the Wild", but my current favourite is "Drinking Song for the Socially Anxious", and my favourite for his voice in particular is "Farewell Wanderlust".)

So anyway, all that's to say, I really like this music....👉👈

#the amazing devil #joey batey #jaskier

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aaaaaaaaall the shit in cazador's quest and not ONE option to hug! that! boy!

okay ive just BARELY met asterion but so far im right about how im going to feel about him

we met when he set a (flimsy) trap for me <3 so romantic, the way the sunshine glinted off the blade he held to my throat

and then after that "nothing to tell im a magistrate very tedious" like sir your pants are on fire do you need help getting out of them

#baldur's gate #bg3 #astarion

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Okay so I'm not though the game or Astarion's romance yet, but I am past the Cazador plotline and I've done some playing around with different options, and no matter what you pick or how it goes I have one beef with the way the romance is done overall:

Astarion just isn't into you enough.

(spoilers below)

So right from the beginning Astarion seduces you specifically to gain your favour. And that's fine! It's interesting to see how a relationship can develop from that! Except ... we don't ever see it develop. Given the right dialogue options, Astarion eventually tells you how your relationship started and that he eventually caught feelings for you, but we never see that process. We never see anything between the initial sex scene and the feelings confession. There's literally no acknowledgement that you're even together, or any confirmation that this is a continuous thing rather than a one-time thing. We get to see in his eyes when he lies to you about having to "hold back" -- and major kudos to the animators for pulling that off so well -- but we never get to see when the way he looks at you changes.

So when he says "Oh yeah I totally seduced you for my own gain and also it was really easy but it's all cool because I like you now!" it just feels ... cheap.

[And there isn't even an option to acknowledge how hurtful that information, and the way he presented it, is! If you want the romance to continue at all, the only options you can chose next are "I care about you" and then some way to assure him that you care. Which, yes, he does need that assurance because nobody has ever cared about him before, but right at this moment, I could use a bit of assurance too! Part of that comes down to the player character having a bit too much of blank slate syndrome throughout the game, but it's still really irritating.]

And then once he gives a bare minimum confession of vague feelings for you, he immediately starts calling you "my love". And then there's the dryad scene where you reinforce your "love". But ... we're not there yet. We've barely acknowledged feelings, much less figured out what they mean. Literally if you ask him he just says he doesn't know what you're doing or what you are to him, just that you're important and this is nice. And so again, it all just feels cheap. It feels like we're going through motions.

The scene where he takes you to his grave feels more genuine, at least, but again, it would feel more genuine if there'd been any real relationship development up to that point. Shit, just giving me the option to hug him literally at any point in Cazador's quest would've done wonders.

(Side note: hell yes to banging him on his own grave, omg. But then, of course, the one sex scene where he's not just going through the motions is the one that fades to black before anything really happens.)

But then on the flip side, if you let Astarion go through with the ritual, he goes back to being weirdly detached and going through the motions.

Now I realize, dear reader, that this is done on purpose, to show how the ritual affected him, so I'm going to preface this next bit by saying: I am really, really into fucked up relationships in fiction. I love a villainous love interest, and I love it when the woman is either trapped in his clutches, extremely into how fucked up he is, or that fun combination of "this is so fucked up so why is it so hot?!"

So, like, I get that the game is trying to show you that he's currently not really capable of love. But I personally would enjoy that so much more if that love were replaced with obsession rather than indifference. Once in the initial seduction scene and a couple of times in the post-ritual scene he offers you something that sounds really good and then ruins it by asking, "Isn't that what you want?" in a detached sort of way. He isn't offering because he wants to give it to you; he's offering to keep you compliant, even now. In the post-ritual scene, he offers to turn you into a vampire, he says that you'll be his forever in an extremely sexy voice, and then he ruins it by saying "Isn't that what you want?" He starts calling you things like "pet" but in a degrading way rather than in an "I'm going to keep you forever" way.

The entire scene where he makes you kneel, where he describes what he's going to do to you, where he tells you it'll hurt and you have the option of saying "Yes, please"... All of that would be so much hotter if he were actually into it at all. Instead it's just ... patronizing.

#posted on the wrong dang blog again #baldur's gate #bg3 #astarion

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Y'all I took the pictures and completely forgot to post them.

December 2023

Very little change this year. Didn't do much reading, but also didn't go out and get a bunch more books.

I had a running post where I’d update pictures of my bookshelf full of unread books at the end of each year to show my progress (or lack thereof), but I cannot for the life of me find it now. I think I may have accidentally deleted it when I was moving things over to my side blog. Fortunately I still have the pictures saved on my computer (at least, I think I have all of them…), so I’m going to recreate the post for my own benefit.

#progress #long post

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"Shadowheart, you know how I said a minute ago that I wouldn't judge you for your beliefs?"

"Yes?"

"I was wrong. That's pretty fucked up."

#baldur's gate #bg3 #shadowheart

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okay ive just BARELY met asterion but so far im right about how im going to feel about him

we met when he set a (flimsy) trap for me <3 so romantic, the way the sunshine glinted off the blade he held to my throat

and then after that "nothing to tell im a magistrate very tedious" like sir your pants are on fire do you need help getting out of them

#whoops reblogged this on the wrong side #baldur's gate #bg3 #astarion

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meeting a new Doctor always feels like meeting an old friend for the first time

#doctor who

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Stripes

Charlie had never been more comfortable in her life. She lay on her stomach in her bunk, perfectly relaxed, as Garrus lazily trailed a talon in lines across her back.

"I really do like your stripes," he commented, in an offhand sort of way.

"My what?" Charlie asked sleepily.

"Your stripes."

"... What stripes?" she asked, starting to wake up a bit.

"... Your stripes. These."

Charlie raised herself up on her elbows to look at him. "Garrus, what the fuck are you taking about?"

"What do you mean? These." He ran a talon across her arm, where she could see.

"Garrus, there aren't any stripes there. It's just skin."

"What are you taking about? Of course there are stripes on your skin. Here."

"Are you messing with me?

"Are you messing with me?"

___

"And he's convinced that I have stripes. Says all the humans have them."

"That's insane," Joker said. "You're insane. Raise by ten credits."

"... But you do have stripes," Tali put in. All the humans at the table turned to stare at her. "What? You do!"

"See?!" Garrus gestured wildly. "It's not just me!"

"Hang on," Vega interjected, putting his cards down. "You both see stripes? On all of us?"

"I don't see anything," Grunt said.

"Humans do have stripes," said EDI. Though she sat in on the poker games socially, she wasn't allowed to play, since she counted cards automatically. "Though they're only visible in the UV range."

Once again all the humans turned in concert, though this time there was a general uproar.

"Wait wait wait." Joker managed to raise his voice above the clamor. "What do they look like? Are they all the same?"

EDI, Garrus, and Tali looked the humans over. "No," Tali said. Some are blockier, some are more swirly, and they're all slightly different colors."

"So what do MINE look like?" Joker asked.

"Wish I could see 'em," Vega said, looking down at his own arm.

"... There's gotta be a marker or something somewhere on this ship, right?" Charlie asked.

Everyone went quiet again for a moment.

"Ensign Fowl does charcoals," Tali finally said.

___

There was a knock at the door.

"I'm not getting up," Ensign Renards said.

"If that's Checkov coming to borrow money again, you can fuck off!" Ensign Fowl shouted.

"It is not Checkov," a very familiar voice said from the other side of the door.

Fowl and Renards gave each other an alarmed look, then scrambled out of their respective bunks. Renards shoved sundry items that had been strewn across the floor under his bunk then stood at attention while Fowl hurried to the door.

"Commander!" they said, saluting in unison as Fowl ripped the door open.

"At ease."

They were decidedly not at ease. They did their best not to gape at the Commander Shepard in their doorway, her closest companions crowded in the hallway behind her.

"What, uh..." Fowl started. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

"I actually have a favor to ask you, Ensign. May I borrow one of your charcoals?"

Fowl stared. Behind him, Renards hurriedly grabbed a charcoal out of a tin and shoved it into Fowl's hand.

"Sure," Fowl finally said, still a bit dazed, and held the charcoal out. "Sure."

"Thank you, Ensign. As you were."

The two ensigns gaped through the open doorway as the group of some of the most respected and feared soldiers in the galaxy turned away and started whispering together on the way down the hall. They didn't catch much, other than "EDI can trace them" and something about... stripes?

___

___

masterpost

#happy n7 day #mass effect #me3

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are you ever going through some interactive fiction or another when you get to a moment where your character makes an automatic choice because it's an important plot point and you're just like, "Cool. But I would simply Not Do That."

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no wait there was also an invisible dinosaur

My dream last night involved both Loki and Edward Elric, but unfortunately that's about all I remember from it.

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My dream last night involved both Loki and Edward Elric, but unfortunately that's about all I remember from it.

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someone on iNaturalist: "Your view of the inside of this rare berry is a great contribution."

me: I'm going to get a good grade in iNaturalist--

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okay ive just BARELY met asterion but so far im right about how im going to feel about him

we met when he set a (flimsy) trap for me <3 so romantic, the way the sunshine glinted off the blade he held to my throat

and then after that "nothing to tell im a magistrate very tedious" like sir your pants are on fire do you need help getting out of them

#baldur's gate #baldur's gate 3 #astarion

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trope rating game

tagged by @suspiciouspopsicle (It's funny how some of our answers were almost exactly the same and others exact opposites.)

rules: How much do these tropes affect your decision to click on a fic? -10 -> very dissuaded  0 - don’t care either way  +10 -> very enticed  nope -> if it’s a hard no and you’d never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you’d insta click out of the fic if it wasn’t tagged.  Bonus points for explaining the rating and whether it’s conditional.

Age gap: -5

Not for me. Kind of icky.

Codependency: Either -10 or 10. There's no in-between.

Look man, fucked up relationships can be really fun -- if they're done right. But it's the way they're done/the vibes that determine if it's amusing or annoying.

Obsession/Possessiveness, jealousy: okay in my head those are two different things. So for obsession/possessiveness it's a good 8 but jealousy is -5.

It can be really fun to take emotions into extremes. That whole "You are mine" mindset where "you" are all the person can think about, all the person wants to think about, is great.

But the "You know other men?!" mindset is just annoying.

Opposites (grumpy/sunshine etc): 10

It's about completion, it's about being complimentary, it's about watching how they play off each other and interact, it's about filling in the other's gaps, it's about--

Enemies to lovers, Enemies with benefits: 10

@suspiciouspopsicle said: "Enemies to lovers is fine, but I have a lot of trouble wrapping my head around enemies that also fuck. like...are you using protection? is your weapon in reach at all times? can you really trust them???"

Yeah that's the POINT! That fear is what makes it fun! The inevitable point when that tentative trust is tested (and fails?) is what makes it interesting! The "I trust you with my life but not with my most basic goals" is fantastic! That decision to be vulnerable with that person anyway is what makes it so emotional when you realize "Oh shit, I CAN trust you!"

Friends with benefits: -8

Eh, I just don't find it interesting story-wise.

Sex to feelings: 0

Just depends on how it's done.

Fake dating/relationship: -9

Mostly because there's fucking ALWAYS a scene where somebody says "I don't believe you're dating so you have to KISS to pRoVe It!!!" or at the very least an annoying emphasis on obnoxious, obviously put-upon pet names. Bruh maybe I just don't like pet names and fuck you if I think I'm going to put my affection on display for your benefit. Some people's relationships are chill and that's none of your goddamn business.

Friends to lovers: 0

Again, just depends on how it's done.

Found Family: 0

If I go looking for fanfic it's usually because I want someone to bang but found family can be fun too.

Hurt/Comfort: 8

Aaaaaaaaangst!

Love Triangle: -9

Laaaaaaaaame.

Poly, open relationships: Again, two different things. Poly 8, open -10.

Honestly OT3s are something I used to hate but then I played When the Night Comes and didn't have to choose between the two most attractive guys and went "oh shit this is kind of hot actually?" and now lately I've been super into MMF triads.

Open relationships, on the other hand, are lame. My fictional romance needs at least a little bit of obsession.

Mistaken/hidden identity: 5

Mostly depends on how it's done, but it can be really fun to see how someone acts when they have no expectations to live up to.

Monsterfucking: 10

Seriously, I'm looking for recs, people. REAL monsterfucking, none of that soft shit. I want to be scared.

Pregnancy: 0

Again, I'm more interested in how you GOT pregnant, but the soft relationship stuff can be fun too.

Second Chance: -5

Mostly not interested in why you need a second chance to begin with. Especially if there was cheating involved it's a hard no.

Slowburn: -8

These CAN be fun but I'm impatient, haha.

Soulmates: 0

Again, I like the "love of my life" level obsession, but does that need to be actual soulmates? Meh. Not really necessary.

Not tagging. Do it or don't.

[carinavet]

Okay, it runs, but like, barely. I can only get so far before it either freezes or crashes, so I guess I'm just going to have to save every five seconds, and make sure NOTHING else is running at the same time.

y'all needa stop making me want to play Baldur's Gate 3 it's expensive and i don't even know if my computer can run it