#Hard Play series

[dragondawdles]

peace and love on planet earth

#the mounders #pearlescentmoon #mumbo jumbo #bdubs #bdoubleo100 #joel smallishbeans #smallishbeans #secret life #life series smp #trafficblr #mcyt #dragon doodles #id in alt text #this was supposed to be something quick and breezy but I got ill and went too hard. both separate incidents #I had the mario world ending music playing over it like the spinning monkeys meme but I couldn't figure out how to loop it right too eepy #anyways. inconsolable about these guys. mounders for life indeed

[somewhereincairparavel]

a little thought to ruin your day: After Piper broke up with Jason, he had to deal with his heartache all by himself, isolated in a mortal boarding school with nobody to comfort him. No family. No friends.

#I hope your day is ruined #bc mine is #This man gives me a heartache it's not even funny anymore. Like it's just one after the other for him tumbling down. #I can imagine Jason looking out the windowsill all sad :( omgg #He loved piper so much :( #He basically died for her even after they became exes #I just wanna wrap him in a fluffy blanket #It's kinda hard for me to not resent Piper for this sorry. #I mean #I'm glad she didnt cheat on him or smth and just broke up w him to not play w his feelings #But yeah. Still pretty upset. They'd been dating for a year at that point. So Jason must've had it pretty bad. #pjo #jason grace #pjo hoo #pjo fandom #percy jackson #pjo series #pjo hoo toa #pjo toa #toa #piper mclean #hazel levesque #leo valdez #annabeth chase #frank zhang

[thatgothsamurai]

babygorl

#yeah i watch pitbabe #just playing around with style #why is it so damn hard to anime #i thought it'd be easier since pavel's features are quite anime-able #smh #try again next time ig #pit babe the series #pit babe #pavel phoom #fanart #rkgk #thai series #my art #nandskarth

[anglerflsh]

ring around the isles

#[.art] #toh #the owl house #it took about- three hours and a half. because the poses were so hard even if I had a whole statue as a reference #luz noceda #the collector #gus porter #willow park #amity blight #hunter toh #philip wittebane #anyways you ever think about how at the start of the series luz was living out her childhood dream in a less twisted parallel to philip #''playing at being a witch'' season one Luz and ''playing at being a witch hunter'' philip etc etc #i just think those are neat parallels

[forevershereads]

Kiss Hard (Hard Play Series #4) - Review and Recommendation

I got an ARC for Kiss Hard Nalini Singh on NetGalley, and it brought me out of my book slump. It had been a while since I'd read a Contemporary Friends to Lovers romance and I completely loved it. I highly recommend it!

#nalini singh #book blog #book recommendations #book review #romance book blog #romance books #romancebookblogger #romance book review #romance book recommendations #book lover #reading #booklover #hard play series #kiss hard nalini singh #kiss hard by nalini singh

[hellspawnmotel]

I finished wild arms yesterday! what a great game

#wild arms #wild arms 1 #cecilia adlehyde #jack van burace #rudy roughnight #earth golem #art tag #i really really loved this one im so glad i finished it #its really fun and not overly long for a jrpg (about 30 hours) #also gets my seal of approval in that despite what all promotional material would have you believe cecilia is the main character #like its not even a question she just is. compounded by the fact that if you want to you can play as her the whole time #my biggest criticism would prob be that by the end of the game the party feels kind of unbalanced especially in boss fights #cecilia can do so much shit and the boys basically just do different kinds of big damage lol #cecilia can also do big damage but shes too busy healing and buffing and debuffing and all that #its not all that hard though so its not a huge deal just kind of funny #anyway i definitely want to play the rest of the series at some point. apparently theres an anime too?? exciting

[kathydavie]

Book Review: Nalini Singh's Kiss Hard

Book Review: Nalini Singh’s Kiss Hard

Fourth in the Hard Play cozy romance series set in New Zealand and revolving around the rugby-loving Bishop-Esera family. The couple focus is on Catie River and Danny Esera. My Take It’s a story of finding your way through life and exploring your passions. Oy, what a pair of parents! A mother who throws money at her youngest daughter so she doesn’t have to deal with her and a father more…

View On WordPress

#amnesia #author Nalini Singh #baking #betrayal #blizzard #book review #dental work #flash premiere #Hard Play series #honesty #Japan #loyalty #New Zealand #prostheses #reputation #romance #roofies #rugby #stress #third person dual protagonist point-of-view

[respectthepetty]

Because I have watched the long trailer for Unknown at least fifty times, I'm praying we get this scene at the beginning of episode eight where Qian wakes up and looks at a sleeping Yuan

Because it looks like he is wearing the same shirt that he passed out in at the end of episode seven

Therefore, even though Yuan left his room that night and closed the door, he still snuck into Qian's room during the middle of the night to watch over him.

But did not get in the bed with him like he did in the past.

It would make sense that Qian is going to be discombobulated next episode after waking up to this sight.

Amen

#unknown #unknown the series #please give me this #Yuan is too gone for Qian to play hard to get #I deserve this scene at the start! #so does Qian

[pamouche]

“He is not to them what he is to me,” I thought: “he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine.” x

ray before sand -> ray with sand in ONLY FRIENDS

#sand was the only one who saw the light in ray #the only one who saw that he was worthy and deserved love #he literally changed ray’s life with color and hope #as you might guess i interpreted this quote as if sand was talking about ray :’) #it's so hard to play with colors but i really wanted to make a contrast #<- at least i tried #sandray #sand x ray #only friends the series #ofts #oftsedit #firstkhaotung #first kanaphan #khaotung thanawat #asianlgbtqdramas #my edits🌱

[todayisafridaynight]

#rgg #ryu ga gotoku #yakuza series #ryu ga gotoku 2 #yakuza 2 #yakuza kiwami 2 #daigo dojima #crossover #shadow the hedgehog #snap sketches #//giggles and throws up// #shadow the hedgehog was released in japan today lke 18 years ago <3 just ove a week after y2 #ignore that y2 gets released in 2006 and StH in 2005 ok close enough #DAIGO COULDVE PLAYED SHADOW THE HEDGEHOG WHEN HE GOT OUT.. #anyway ive been waiting since august to doodle this stupid thing #i deserve this treat cause i finished my essay..... #it wasnt a hard essay but yk. :) #ok bye im gonna spend the rest of Later Today speedrunning comms before stream

[soursoppi]

more Chinese Zodiac inspired MDZS art!

Row 2: LWJ/dragon - LSZ/snake - WWX/horse - WN/sheepgoat

<< Row 1 | Row 3 >>

#Lan Wangji #Lan Sizhui #Wei Wuxian #Wen Ning #MDZS #Mo Dao Zu Shi #Zodiac Series #ahh...Sizhui was a hard one #he's so tiny it's hard to make him stand out #between his two huge dads #so I decided to give Hanguang-jun a ball of shiny glowing light to hold #for his little boy to pop out from #like...an egg I guess haha #with Wen fire to add to the effect #it's just coincidence that it looks like a dragon's pearl XD #ok but no that was an AHA moment for me when I remembered dragons had little light balls they played with all the time

[merlyn-bane]

turns out there is such a thing as 'phase knives' in star war, which seem to be like lightsaber knives but without kyber?? and anyway Obi-Wan definitely dug a pair out of the temple vault personally for his commander as a Totally Platonic Life Day Gift™️

#Cody actually really enjoys close and dirty combat and you can't convince me otherwise #Obi gave him the knives so he can finish droids off easier after he spin kicks and tackles them 😊 #i hate hate hate drawing clone armor I'm sorry #there's too many p i e c e s and they don't play nicely #and anatomy and dynamic posing is hard enough already #my black series figure saved my fucking sanity on this one #commander cody #art #digital art #my art

[tleeaves]

Folks going "WHAT they made a show about the Fallout franchise?? I've been hearing people say Bethesda messed it up, but I haven't watched it myself, so I'm going to trust the word of other people -- some of which also haven't finished watching it" is driving me insane.

Being a hard core fan of something obviously brings with it a lot of passionate feelings when adaptations come into play. Of course, there's going to be people going "but in 8 episodes of the first ever season they made, they didn't explore Theme C or D, didn't introduce factions E and F and G, and because the source company is notorious for its scams, we and everyone else who's a TRUE fan should hate it".

The Amazon Original series Fallout follows the videogame franchise of the same name. It is a labour of love and you can tell by the attention to detail, the writing, the sets, and YES THE THEMES ARGUE WITH THE WALL. It's clearly fan service. I mean, the very characterisation of Lucy is a deadringer for someone playing a Fallout game for the first time. She embodies the innocent player whose expectations drastically change in a game that breaks your heart over and over again. Of course, she's also the vessel through which we explore a lot of themes, but I'll get to that.

There're some folks arguing that the show retcons the games, and I gotta say... for a website practically built on fandom culture, why are we so violently against the idea of someone basing an adaptation on a franchise that so easily lends itself to new and interesting interpretations? But to be frank, a lot of what AO's Fallout is not that new. We have: naive Vault dweller, sexy traumatised ghoul that people who aren't cowards will thirst over, and pathetic guy from a militaristic faction. We also have: total atomic annihilation, and literally in-world references to the games' lore and worldbuilding constantly (the way I was shaking my sister over seeing Grognark the Barbarian, Sugar Bombs, Cram, Stimpaks, and bags of RadAway was ridiculous). Oh, and the Red Rocket?? Best pal Dogmeat? I'm definitely outing myself as specifically a Fallout 4 player, but that's not the point you should be taking away from this.

The details, the references, and the new characters -- this show is practically SCREAMING "hey look, we did this for the fans, we hope you love it as much as we do". Who cares that the characters are new, they still hold the essence of ones we used to know! And they're still interesting, so goddamn bloody interesting. Their arcs mean so much to the story, and they're told in a genuinely intriguing way. This isn't just any videogame adaptation, this was gold. This sits near Netflix's Arcane: League of Legends level in videogame adaptation. Both series create new plots out of familiar worlds.

Of course, those who've done the work have already figured out AO's Fallout is not a retcon anyway. But even if it was, that shouldn't take away from the fact that this show is actually good. Not even just good, it's great.

Were some references a little shoe-horned in to the themes by the end of the show, such as with "War never changes"? Yes, I thought so. But I love how even with a new plot and characters, they're actually still exploring the same themes and staying true to the games. I've seen folks argue otherwise, but I truly disagree. The way capitalism poisons our world, represented primarily through The American Dream and the atomic age of the 45-50s that promoted the nuclear family dynamic -- it's there. If you think it's glorifying it by leaning so heavily into in the adaptation, I feel like you're not seeing it from the right angle. It's like saying Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck glorifies the American Dream, when both this book and the Fallout franchise are criticisms of it. If you think about it, the post-apocalyptic world of Fallout is a graveyard to the American Dream. This criticism comes from the plots that are built into every Fallout story that I know of. The Vaults are literally constructed to be their own horror story just by their mere existence, what they stand for, what happens in each of them. The whole entire show is about the preservation of the wrong things leading to fucked up worlds and people. The missions of the Vaults are time and again proven to be fruitless, unethical, plain wrong. Lucy is our brainwashed character who believed in the veritable cult she lived in before she found out the truth.

So then consider the Brotherhood of Steel. I really don't think it exists in the story to glorify the military. We see just how much the Brotherhood has brainwashed people like Max (also, anything ominously named something like "the Brotherhood" should raise eyebrows). Personally, I don't like Max, but I am intrigued by his characterisation. I thought the end of his arc was rushed the way he "came good" basically, but [SPOILERS] having him embraced as a knight in the Brotherhood at the end against his will -- finally getting something he always wanted -- and him grimly accepting it from all that we can tell? Him having that destiny forced upon him now that he's swaying? After he defected? If his storyline is meant to be a tragedy, it wouldn't surprise me, because Fallout is rife with tragedies anyway. And a tragedy would also be a criticism of the military. That's what Max's entire arc is. It goes from the microcosm focusing on the cycle of bullying between soldiers to the macro-environment where Max is being forced to continue a cycle of violence against humanity he doesn't want to anymore because a world driven to extremes forces him to choose it to survive (not to mention what a cult and no family would do to his psyche). Let's not forget what the Brotherhood's rules are: humankind is supreme. Mutants, ghouls, synths, and robots are abominations to be hated and destroyed. If you can't draw the parallels to the real world, you need to retake history and literature classes. The Brotherhood is also about preserving the wrong things, like the Vaults (like the Enclave, really). They just came about through different method. The Enclave is capitalism and twisted greed in a world where money barely exists anymore. The Brotherhood is, well, fascism plain and simple.

Are these the only factions in the Fallout franchise? Hell no. But if you're mad about that -- that they're the main ones explored, apart from the NCR -- I think you're missing the point. These themes, these reminders, are highly relevant in the current climate. In fact, I almost think they always will be relevant unless we undergo drastic change. On the surface-level, Fallout seems like the American ideal complete with guns blazing that guys in their basements jerk off to. Under that surface, is a mind-fuck story about almost the entire opposite: it's a deconstruction of American ideals that are held so closely by some, and the way that key notion of freedom gets twisted, and you're shooting a guy in-game because it's more merciful than what the world had in store for him.

I mean, the ghoul's a fucking cowboy from the wild west character he used to play in Hollywood glam and his wife was one of the people who helped blow up America in the name of capitalism and "peace". There are so many layers of this to explore, I'd need several days to try and keep track and go through it all.

The Amazon Prime show is a testament to the Fallout franchise. The message, the themes? They were not messed up or muddled or anything of the sort, in my opinion.

As for Todd Howard, that Bethesda guy, I'm sure there's perfectly valid reasons to hate him. I mean, I've hated people for a lot less valid reasons, and that's valid. We all got our feelings. But the show is about more than just him. My advice is to keep that in mind when you're judging it.

#fallout series #amazon prime fallout #amazon prime video fallout #amazon fallout #prime fallout #fallout #besthesda #todd howard #fallout spoilers #some light analysis #the american dream #militarism #lucy mclean #maximus fallout #cooper howard #the ghoul #I know they're not planning a skyrim adaptation and that's fine #I prefer it remaining in its videogame medium while I write fanfics #so if they had to adapt any of their games I'm actually glad it was fallout #also please forgive me I wrote this very late at night so there's probably a bunch of mistakes #and I've played fallout for like six years and still don't know anywhere near as much as the hard core fans but I'm also not a newbie

[thelaurenshippen]

cw: harry potter, jk rowling, transphobia

I occasionally see posts/get messages about the various harry potter references in the bright sessions, etc. and I've gotten a bunch of new followers recently so just so any new/younger listeners of my shows know:

jk rowling is a terrible transphobe whom I hold zero respect for and I haven't given a dime of my money to her since she revealed who she truly is. I want the whole bright universe to be a safe space for trans people (including the trans folks in our cast and crew!) and if I could go back and remove those references, I would. but I can't! harry potter was an extremely significant part of my life until...well, until it became very clear who she really was. it makes me so sad to think that folks might be finding TBS now and get thrown out of the story by these references, but just know that the people who made the show do not stand by jk, and that in many ways, the show is a product of its time.

#the bright sessions #harry potter #jk rowling #transphobia #I know there's PLENTY to say about the bigotry in the actual books and I think there's a lot of merit to those criticisms #and I'll own to choosing not to see some of that stuff before all this went down bc the books were meaningful to me #(this is not HP specific - another beloved childhood book series that was EVEN more formative to me growing up) #(is also something I've grappled with in recent years bc I think the author is actually probably wildly misogynistic) #(even though he's never behaved badly (far as I know) in his public life - there's stuff in the text) #BUT ANYWAY #it can be so hard to remember that we didn't have ANY inkling of her bigotry in this regard until 2018 #all of the original run of TBS was written before that #and I'll admit I gave jk the benefit of the doubt in 2018 re: her liking that tweet! I wanted to give her a chance to learn and grow #and she did....not do that #but TAMA was written in that little grace period #and then a few references in TCT were taken out during recording bc june of 2020 was when she really started to go mask off #and so we were making changes in real time #we didn't know what to do about quidditch #bc we were like 'this is a sport that people play in college and it's just called that?' #'and it's already canon that caleb plays?' #and it wasn't called quadball yet #anyway not trying to make excuses! #just know that none of those references were put in with any malice #and I guess I *could* go back and rerecord all those lines and replace them #but I know enough about my original audio engineering to know that it woudl be VERY hard to make it sound natural #and idk I do think there's something to be said for not covering up errors in old work #I'm not going to try to pretend HP wasn't important to me #EDIT: I've turned off reblogs for this post #also this is not me trying to tell other people how to approach their own HP fandom #fanworks especially - there's no benefiting jo in that - and I think it's totally legit for ppl to want to take HP as their own!

[panncakes]

stuck thinking about when day gets crowded and overwhelmed on his birthday he calls out to gee of all people there to remove him from the situation; and how when day tells her he wants to be alone she makes sure he knows she wants to understand him and he can talk to her (not to help him or to fix things for him; simply to understand him) and when day reaffirms a boundary she accepts this and doesn't press further. he's her friend and she cares for him but he's still an adult and she has no problem treating him as such and i think that at the moment she is the only one from day's past who is actively able to do so

#last twilight #gee best girl #i know disability is difficult on loved ones as well and it is very easy for those closest to you to fall into pitying and babying you #but gee has been working very hard to not let that happen to her friendship with day #she is immediately ready to keep teasing and playing with day whilst also quick to adjust to the new aspects of their relationship #she wants to learn how to guide day through the badminton court to take over from 'his mhok' and is more than willing to take day #to the bathroom in the bar but when day assures her he can handle it she doesn't infantalize him #she immediately invites day to the bar without any hesitation and then continues to invite him to her game because that's #an important aspect of their friendship #and when he shows up she isn't afraid to joke around and tease him #she's extremely good at not treating him like a broken piece of porcelain whilst also quickly taking cues in how to adjust where it is #necessary #im glad day gets someone from his past who doesnt need as much time as his family to readjust to his new normal #and it is also an incredibly good parallel to how bad augustus' assessment of the situation is #last twilight the series

[fangirls-just-want-to-have-fun]

busy going absolutely insane over the latest episode rn this is the only coherent thought I can form at this time

#this show is so unserious i stg #when what is love started playing i laughed so hard #honestly it's enough to make me forgive the eventual lack of poker face #it's a law that every percy jackson adaptation has to have at least one absolute banger in it #lotus casino next week strap in folks #percy jackson #percy jackson series #percy jackon and the olympians #poker face #what is love #percy jackson movies #pjo