#i think i like video game adaptations better when they do their own thing with it lol

[quibbs]

just had SO much fun with the fallout tv show... i love you missus okey dokey

#fallout #fallout tv show #my art #lucy maclean #i was not expecting it to be so good but it was!! delightful #i think i like video game adaptations better when they do their own thing with it lol #such a relief to instead of seeing something regurgitated mindlessly for profit #its actually just a completely fresh story but in a familiar setting. cool balm on my skin #i guess that's where i'm at in the remake hell we all live in rn #ella purnell has the sweetest biggest eyes i've ever god damn seen

[dystopianam]

Tips on how to avoid and reduce the Pink Flashing - "Masterpost"

Look here for other masterposts!

⚠️ THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE ""GUIDE"". I won't be updating this post and I've explained why here. In this post I only wrote some advice, so you won't find an entire research on Pink Flashing. Please read other REAL guides if you are interested in that. Unfortunately, deleting the post wouldn't make sense since the reblogs would remain.

What is the Pink Flashing?

The Pink flashing, also called Pink Soup, is a graphical error that occurs when the game thinks it has reached the limit of its memory capacity to read the game's textures even if your PC is much more powerful and the configurations made to the game itself are very high and can hold much much more.

When this arrives, gradually an object or sim will start flashing pink and purple or even EVERYTHING will start flashing pink.

This type of error can occur both in game and on Bodyshop, and as many people mistakenly think, it is NOT a symptom of corruption. And it's not even a hardware problem of your PC. It's not your PC's fault, it's not dying, it's simply the game that's unstable.

What should I do when this occurs?

First of all, DON'T PANIC, it's nothing serious. The only thing you need to do is save the game before it crashes (because yes, it usually crashes after the pink flashing occurs), close the game and reopen it. When you reboot it, the pink flashing will be gone.

AND don't worry if some previews of your sims remain pink. They will update as you play (the fastest way to update them is to have your sim change clothes or change their appearance in the mirror)

@2fingerswhiskeysims added that another method is to minimize the game, leave the PC to rest for a few hours and then reopen the game. The pink flashing should then go away on its own (I would just recommend saving before doing so, because it's not a method that works for everyone. For example it often crashes immediately after the pink flashing appears or even just minimizing it makes it crash if it's like my game that even if you look to it by mistake it crashes)

Is there a way to increase the graphics capabilities of my game?

Yes, there is, and you should do it regardless of the pink flashing, to make your game more stable. This will NOT eliminate the risk of pink flashing, but will reduce it and make the game crash after hours and hours of play rather than after a few minutes or half an hour as happens to some.

What you need to do is make your own graphic rules that adapt the game to your video card and install the 4GB patch. This guide from Pleasantsim explains how to install both (as well as providing other tips for stability and improving graphics)

Another tip that many give is to use the Sims2RPC Launcher by LazyDuchess, as many say it has made their game more stable, while others say it has increased their Pink Flashing, so I think it's very subjective whether using this launcher is better or worse.

Is there a way to eliminate it or avoid it?

There is no fix for this problem and there is no way to eliminate it, although LazyDuchess is doing some research to see if it can be done. BUT I can give you some advice on how to avoid it for as long as possible (it will still appear after a few hours, but I can tell you what to do to be able to play safely for as long as possible)

From my personal experience, I understand that pink flashing occurs when the game needs to read a lot of thumbnails (of hairs and clothes expecially) and when you visit too many lots in the same game session or you visit a single huge lot full of objects. So, what you need to do is:

Save before changing your sims appearance (whether it's a change of hair or clothes) because the game almost always tends to crash after a long or sometimes even short makeover session. (It depens on how many ccs you have)

Avoid changing your sims hair if you don't have to. One of the causes of pink flashing is reading all the thumbnails of the hair in the game, especially if you have a lot of cc hair and getting to the last page or halfway through is very tiring for you and for your game that have to read all the thumbnails. It doesn't matter if the game already has them cached, pink flashing doesn't care.

Avoid changing your sims clothes if you don't have to change them (so avoid needlessly looking at all the clothes you have, in your wardrobe or in shop mode as if it were your closet at home). Just like with hair, pink flashing is triggered by reading too many thumbnails, especially if you have a lot of cc clothes. As with hair, it doesn't matter if the game has already cached thumbnails of all the clothes you have. Pink Flashing doesn't care. BUT unlike hair, for clothes I found a solution (which I hope is not a coincidence that only works for me). Unfortunately this took away the pleasure of going to the shops to buy clothes, but it avoided crashes and Pink Flashing. Basically, I discovered (and I don't know why) that if I use Pescado Clothing Tool, for some mystical reason the game doesn't crash and doesn't trigger pink flashing (I can even spend hours scrolling through all my many ccs and it doesn't annoys my game at all)

Last but not least, pink flashing can also be caused by reading too many thumbnails in buy mode or visiting too many lots during the same gaming session. Unfortunately there isn't much to do here, my only advice is to save very often when you edit lots, and to avoid visiting different lots too much if you don't need to (don't worry, your sims don't suffer from claustrophobia and can stay in their homes very well). If you have to edit a lot of lots, use a game session ONLY for that, because changing lots and scrolling through the buy mode there will be a lot of pink flashing very soon, at some point. At least you will have the knowledge that it will arrive any moment and you won't have to stress while you are in live mode.

To summarize, pink flashing is triggered by:

Scroll too much hair pages in "edit appearance" mode.

Scroll too much clothes pages in "change clothing" mode.

Scroll too much furnitures in "buy/build mode"

Open/go in many different lots in the same game session.

Use very big lots with a lots of objects.

Apartment lots (these ones are a hell for PF)

AND the snow. Yes, when the terrain change in "snowy" mode, this trigger the PF a lot. You can disable the snow with mods if you want or simply save the game before the terrain changes and hope that it will not happen.

@brandinotbroke added that the shaders trigger Pink Soup. But when it comes to shaders this time it also depends a lot on the hardware capacity of your PC, and it's not just a game problem. Both the game's shaders themselves, additional shaders and default replacement shaders downloaded from the internet could cause problems. If you think this is the problem, the solution is to use the "userShader off" cheat. BUT this doesn't always mean that your computer can't handle that particular shader. Often some shaders need to be downloaded in their version to be compatible with other shaders. So try to differentiate the difference between an unsupported shader and a shader that is not compatible with another, always read the description of the creator's post carefully. (For example: the "Better Night Life" shader conflicts with Voielle's water shaders and for this reason there is a BNL shader compatible with Voielle's water. IF you used the normal shader instead of the compatible one, any object that works with BNL shaders will be affected by Pink Soup.)

@goingsimcrazy added that many hood deco, high quality setting, high DOF and lot impostors can trigger pink flashing. However, this is a mix between "your PC's hardware capabilities" and basically...player luck. Sometimes players with latest generation gaming PCs cannot handle the hood decos and players who play with toasters play surrounded by hood decos, so here isn't very clear how The Sims 2... decides its capacity and compatibility criteria. But anyway, if you think that your hood deco, lot impostors, high graphics qualities and DOF (distance of field) are TOO MUCH and that your PC cannot support them, simply deactivate and lower the graphics settings from the settings!

BUT @goingsimcrazy also pointed out a detail that I wanted to add too but forgot. Basically, deleting the thumbnails cache is of no use, it doesn't solve the pink flashing problem, in fact it makes it worse. I won't give you a computer lesson but in simple terms I'll explain it to you like this: caches are used to store information so that when you open a software, the software takes information from the cache file and speeds up its reading capacity. If you delete the thumbnails cache every two days what you are doing is practically punching yourself, because not only are you slowing down the game, but by doing so you force it to regenerate the thumbnails every single time, thus causing crashes and pink flashing. Delete the thumbnails ONLY if you have changed a huge number of default replacements and need to update the previews OR press CTRL + right click of the mouse on the individual preview you want to refresh.

@fireflowersims also added this, that it's very important, please read!

Small clarification to finish:

Sometimes pink flashing is also caused by very long gaming sessions (so even if you don't do any of the things listed, at some point it will still happen, but I'm talking about more than 4/5 hours of gaming).

Many of the things listed may be stupid and already known, many of you will be reading and thinking "the genius has arrived", but I have seen many people suffer from pink flashing, not understanding what trigghed it and doing A LOT of the things that trigghed it the most. (I watched a lot of gameplay on YouTube where this happened).

So...I hope I helped someone and if someone know other things that trigger PF let me know, I'll add it to this post!

#the sims 2 #the sims 2 pink flashing #pink flashing #masterpost

[thatdeadaquarius]

@goldensunsetchild Asked:

Hello there! I know that you might be busy right now but I wanted to let you know an idea that I have, greatly inspired by your post: spanish reader who gets homesick but instead of getting depressed by it starts to do things they used to do back on their world. Dancing to their traditional dances while singing their accompanying songs, teaching the children the games they used to play when they were younger and also telling folktales to everyone who is interested in listening to. If you decide to do this idea and want to incorporate things from Costa Rica, please let me know and I'll help you with anything you need (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)⁠✧⁠*⁠。

(Content under cut)

HELLO YES SORRY IT TOOK ME SO DAMN LONG TO GET TO THIS!! 😭 /gen

I went to Costa Rica back in highschool in 2018? I think, and when I tell you I FELL IN LOVEEEE <3333

Costa Rica is a beautiful country and everyone was really nice, vibes were immaculate 🤌 ✨

☆

Sun: Costa Rican Reader! (you/they/them)

Stars: Sumeru cast

Comets & Meteors: Content Warnings: None known & Trigger Warnings: alcohol usage/drinking game.

Orbit: Headcanons-ish

☆

when u first crash landed in Teyvat, people luckily recognized you from when u were a player!

and u took in whatever culture and traditions everyone was so excited to show you as they were kind enough to give u clothes/food/shelter etc.

butttt… it did get overwhelming after a few months, and u got homesick more and more often :(

after all there wasn’t really an equivalent country to Costa Rica, and you couldn’t just take a plane back home, you were stuck here for… however long it takes someone to leave a video game universe??

You decided to actually do smth abt the crippling depression and “outsider” feelings instead of just rotting away, and went to Sumeru to get closer to the greenery of your home,

it made you feel a little better, but it could be the best, so u decide to lowkey force everyone in Sumeru to convert to Costa Rican LMAO

so ofc u did the most logical thing to convert ppl to a culture, the food!

u helped fund a small restaurant full of classic Costa Rican foods (coughandsoyoucaneatitwheneveryouwantcough)

(u still have the insane mora leftover from what u had in game so ur basically one of the richest ppl in Teyvat ngl 💀)

u recreated just the basic gallo pinto/casado with what was available (some beans from Natlan and rice from Inazuma/Liyue, the Ajilenakh nut from Sumeru acc kinda acts like plantains :0 and local fish/greens for salad)

Needless to say Sumeru is fascinated by the new cuisine and esp since its not a secret that you’ve funded it/made the menu from your homeworld

Alhaitham orders the casado most of the time bc he “admires the exact proportions, its all the nutrients you need, perfectly balanced” NERDDD

Tighnari likes barbudos bc there's not a lot of egg dishes in Sumeru but there are a lot of greens, so he “likes the familiar in unique combinations!”

unsurprisingly, Cyno likes Chancelta bc he can pick it up, eat it quickly, and go on with his patrol

Collei, Kaveh (and secretly Dehya lol) really like being able to munch and snack on sugar cane, (and the plantain imitation desserts!)

(u found sugarcane deep in sumeru forests, it was like on ur world, but sweet flowers sprouted out of the stalks too!)

You decide the next phase was to introduce dances and other fun stuff!!

Nilou was literally shaking with excitement to learn the traditional dances <3 (and also getting ur permission to add fun twists or Sumeru elements to them)

the kids that like to hang around and watch the troupe practice (and join) absolutely got obsessed with swing criollo, it was so cute to watch them all pair up and kinda trip over their own feet trying the footwork out

(u may or may not have teared up bc the band learned how to play a Spanish song for u guys to dance to, just for you)

teaching the theater troupes musicians how to adapt upbeat songs like Caballito Nicoyano or Ticas Lindas

omg getting Nilou Kaveh Faruzan Cyno Dehya (and Dunyazard!) to do the calipso limonense always cheers you up, (which is why they are so eager to do it when ur feeling homesick ❤️‍🩹)

Kaveh steps on too many people’s toes, Dehya gets dizzy from the spins/turns easily, Faruzan keeps spinning for too long, Nilou and Dunyazard are actually secretly latina bc they're so good at it (did they outdo you?? no, no they couldn't possibly-)

and Cyno just really likes the little dance line everyone makes lol

speaking of the General Mahamatra

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD

u CANNOT teach Cyno a new game from your home country, and expect him to NOT be the most competitive mf in Teyvat abt it

that's actually how u spread any games from back home, Cyno just does all the work for you and challenges ppl to things like jackses and no one knows what it is

which he then proceeds to strong arm them into learning and beat their asses at it

(yes Cyno wins against you a lot, sorry lmao)

You definitely had a drinking game centered around it one time and the consequences changed with each person who lost

like Cyno had to learn how to cook tamales that were edible, and more importantly..

Alhaitham had to at least attempt the swing criollo lol

(was it unfairly attractive? maybe. was watching Nilou, who was teaching him, and Alhaitham both do swing criollo 2x as attractive?? that's just for u and the Sumeru vision users to know)

SPEAKING OF ALHAITHAM

absolutely hilarious, yet also impressive?? how quickly he picked up ur slang

smug bastard picked it up based off sheer context/vibes too, u didn't even explain it to him, just u trying to go sit down in ur Costa Rican restaurant and he pulls u back before someone mows u down saying “hey, suave un toque-”

YOUR NECK FUCKING CRACKING BC U WHIPPED AROUND TO LOOK AT HIM SO FAST LMAOOO

(ngl u scared the fuck out of the poor scholar before he got all smug abt knowing slang)

accidentally spread this knowledge to other vision users bc he got in the habit of casually using it, tbh more often when ur not around lol (Alhaitham being caught having habits bc he's fond of other ppl?? never)

his favorite is “qué chante…😒 ” obv lol

so now the forest rangers use stuff like pura vida and tuanis sending each other off on patrols! Collei so cutely excited to explain to other Sumeru ppl or tourists where the words come from and what they mean, spreading ur Costa Rica agenda very well 👌

and the mahamatra like to use “Jale pa’la choza” when coming back from the desert to Sumeru city homebase! :)

ALSO bonus:

u absolutely got leyendas into the bedtime warning/ghost stories of the entirety of Sumeru children lmao

u start spooking kids like Dori (Nahida finds them fascinating)

and after awhile u notice Cyno and Dehya mentioning watching out at night for La Llorona or los cadejos 💀??

like you've genuinely made them paranoid, bc they wanna be sweethearts and protect you from them, like even if they don't believe they exist, they're worried you do and are trying to make u feel better lol <3

☆

an iced coffee? for me?? :O 

Blessed be Costa Rica, such a lovely country when I went, and as soon as I got off the plane coming back the first thing I did was make a Costa Rican meal the best I could

like got my mom to prep from dry black beans and rice etc. as fresh as we could get (nowhere near costa rica level btw) and made fresh guac and fried plantain chips and salmon I think? literally cooked the first night back bc I knew I missed the food already/knew id get sick

and I was RIGHT, that food I made was fine, but any other American food so bad I got nauseous

I literally got sick COMING BACK TO THE U.S like 😨???!!! I knew it was bad but not THAT bad lmao

and the first meal I had after that was still a homecooked meal, like my mom made it💀

love the coffee from there too, we even ordered coffee from the farm we visited when I got back to US it was so good (10x better than American obv)

THANK YOU BTW GOLDEN!! FOR BEING SO PATIENT AND LOVELY TELLING ME ALL ABT COSTA RICA <3333

I hope this did some amount of justice to ur beautiful home! :)

Safe Travels Golden Child,

💀♒

If you wanna join a taglist, DM me what for! "Pspspsss, please tag me for [All SAGAU posts, Only SAGAU Language AUs, diff fandom, etc.]!"

(If you ever wanna drop, just DM me! "No more taglists/specifically this AU/fandom, please!")

♡my beloveds♡

@karmawonders / @0rah-s / @randomnatics / @glxssynarvi / @nexylaza / @genshin-impacts-me / @wholesomey-artist / @thedevioussmirk / @the-dumber-scaramouche / @chocogi / @fallen-starr / @areaderofbooks / @devilangel657 / @esthelily

#genshin sagau #sagau #genshin isekai #genshin imagines #my asks #aqua asks #fuck i cant remember my tags #genshin impact #genshin impact sagau #genshin x reader #genshin x costa rican reader #costa rican reader #poc reader #gender neutral reader

[tossawary]

I think SVSSS as a 2D cartoon would be the best moving medium for it imo.

I mean, personally, yeah, that's how I'd enjoy seeing it as well! My ideal slightly pretentiously artsy SVSSS screen adaptation would probably look only a little more detailed than linograph prints (2D or shaded 3D?) (someone hit me up in like two weeks to draw an example of what I mean, if I don't remember on my own, I don't have access to art stuff right now), very stylized and vibrantly colorful, because that's one of the art styles that I particularly enjoy.

I'm not a personally a fan of the 3D SVSSS show because I find the characters a little too doll-like and same-facey for my tastes? It's fine! It works! It's serviceable! It's just all, backgrounds included, a little... safe? I tend to like over-the-top bright colors and intricate details and impractically weird shapes and yet also coherent world production design in my fantasy, which is a lot to demand of any production, perhaps especially with animation productions, which are always squeezed for time and money.

(EDIT: I know the SVSSS show was under heavy constraints and the results are impressive considering their resources; it doesn't change the fact that I just don't like the art style and nevertheless find the results underwhelming. I don't like a lot of "realistic" modeling / rendering styles, not just "anime" ones, even if they are extremely technically impressive. Believe me when I say that I know the vast majority of the entertainment industry is overworked and underpaid and creatively restrained.)

Slightly tangential general note: I don't think 2D is inherently superior to 3D (EDIT: NOT trying to imply asker is saying this, just having some general thoughts), especially because, with the realities of production, each have their advantages. 2D has a lot of stylistic advantages still, but 3D shaders are catching up and doing some incredible things these days! More advanced puppet controls and particle effects and such are doing some beautiful things for 2D shows as well these days. A lot of stuff has been subtly mixed media as soon as 3D became possible. It is potentially possible (note: not saying any studio would actually greenlight this) to do an equally slightly weird and artistically stunning 3D SVSSS show, given the freedom to work. (Good boarding and writing is also sooooo important in both mediums, obviously, it's not just about the art design. You can get away with incredibly limited animation with good boarding, writing, and art design.)

Another slightly tangential ramble: both 2D and 3D have the potential for stiff animation and poor character acting, which also comes down to production limits and animator skills? (I often think of character animators as a type of actor!) There are a lot of 2D shows that I don't really like because I find the animation incredibly stiff, both puppet and handdrawn (there's great 2D puppet stuff out there these days), which pretty much always comes down to production limits (deadlines and budget and software, saving up their animation for the coolest scenes). One of my favorite things about Studio Ghibli films (which as features get a lot more space to focus on art compared to the demands and restraint of television) has always been the squash and stretch in otherwise relatively realistic action, making things like hugs look SO nice for example. But 3D stuff is getting better at that these days! The ways characters slumped into each other in "Nimona" for example was great. And it's just fascinating to look at the elasticity / stylized sculpt of expressions in "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" compared to the technical limits of the models / rigs in "Shrek" or "Shrek 2".

Adding these side notes because I want to be clear about my respect for both 2D and 3D artistically! A lot of video games are doing cool stuff in 3D that looks very close to 2D with stylized shaders, which you can sometimes spot by the large or small rotations in character action / acting, which is difficult (and therefore often expensive) to do in 2D with all of those extra drawings / angle poses. Also, I think the current push towards funky shaders in 3D is so cool and it's hard not to gush about them!!!

#foreverliminal #tossawary svsss #ask tossawary #long post #tossawary watching

[crusherthedoctor]

Opinions That Aren't Mutually Exclusive:

"Sonic should be allowed to tell stories, and the dismissal of story in Sonic because it's a video game series is silly" and "It's still a video game series first and foremost, so the gameplay part is still the top priority, meaning anyone who doesn't like a game because they didn't like the gameplay is perfectly valid"

"Sonic is a Japanese IP, and no amount of western adaptations will change that" and "It shouldn't matter where in the world the people handling a Sonic product are from, as long as they're competent and humble"

"Alternate gameplay styles can exist in Sonic" and "You can't just do anything willy nilly, it should make sense for a Sonic game in some capacity, even if it's another character"

"Sonic's world should feel like a place that people could live in" and "It should be creative, inspiring, and not emulate the real world at the cost of everything else"

"Sonic does not think like a typical superhero, nor does he go out of his way to redeem villains if they show no remorse" and "Sonic is a compassionate person who is quick to befriend others if they're not evil or if things have mended between them"

"Sonic is the namesake character, and his influence in the world around him is key to the series" and "Other characters should be allowed to exist beyond Sonic, and not have their every decision and contribution dictated solely by Sonic's influence"

"Tails should have childlike traits" and "Tails should have agency, and not be useless or a submissive yes man"

"Tails' outburst in Lost World and his moment of weakness in Forces could have been handled better" and "The solutions fans come up with are often nonsensical and would only make things worse"

"The Master Emerald and Angel Island are important to Knuckles" and "His entire existence should not revolve around them"

"Amy's love for Sonic should not be flanderized to the levels of the mid-00's" and "Amy should not be a Strong Female Character™ who's too cool for mushiness"

"Eggman is a funny guy" and "He is also a huge piece of shit"

"Eggman doesn't do things for the evulz" and "He does things for himself, and his evil is not any lesser because of that"

"Other villains can exist" and "When two decades worth of upstagings have happened, no shit I'm going to be cautious and give every newcomer the side-eye until they're confirmed to NOT drag Eggman through the mud"

"Shadow can be aggressive if he has to" and "Shadow is never an arsehole for the sake of being an arsehole"

"Shadow's backstory is necessary to the context of what made him who he is as we know him" and "He's already confronted it and should be allowed to move on without having Maria's memory dangled in front of him at all times"

"Rouge is not in Sonic's immediate group in the same way as Tails, Amy, Cream, etc" and "Rouge is not a villain, or even that morally grey, since despite her jewel thieving tendencies, the amount of times where she's helped the heroes far outweighs the number of times where she hasn't"

"I don't think Silver is an interesting character, and he was artificially shilled at Sonic's expense in '06" and "IDW Silver is a deceitful portrayal of who Silver actually is"

"Elise was not used well" and "She did not deserve the hate she received, and is hated half the time for dumbass reasons"

"Metal Sonic's identity crisis is an intriguing idea" and "You can convey that idea without him usurping Eggman and becoming another dime-a-dozen giant monster, you can't use insanity as a handwave to throw anything at the wall to see what sticks, because the good and bad ways to establish insanity always depends on who that character is"

"Some of the IDW characters had potential" and "That potential was swiftly thrown out in favor of flanderizing them, turning them into Sally clones, or turning them into Eggman Usurper #59"

"Sonic shouldn't be infantilized as a series, like Sonic's portrayal in Prime" and "It also shouldn't be edgy for edgy's own sake, like the zombot arc in IDW"

"The games are not perfect, with some of them having much more inexcusable flaws and baffling decisions than others" and "The games are what started the franchise, and the cartoons/comics/etc would not exist without them, therefore you can't pretend the latter are the centerpiece of the franchise even if you prefer them"

"SA1 is one of my favourite games in the series" and "The direction shift from Classic to Adventure may have had understandable intentions behind it, but by making said shift so vocal instead of more graceful and seamless ala 3D Mario, ultimately it was responsible for creating one of the biggest divides in the fandom since SatAM"

"Shadow the Hedgehog is not a good game" and "But it is a funny one, so I can't hate it too much"

"Sonic '06 is over a decade old, and reviewers should stop bringing it up in every review where it's not relevant" and "It's worth remembering what '06 did wrong so that its mistakes aren't repeated, which is especially crucial in the wake of fans choosing to retcon it as an underrated masterpiece"

"No game in the series is perfect, not even your favourite one" and "Literal perfection is impossible to achieve, and would be highly subjective even if it was, the flaws shouldn't cancel out your fondness for the game"

"I respect Yuji Naka's contributions to the series" and "I don't necessarily like Yuji Naka as a person"

"SEGA of Japan have not had a flawless track record" and "It's still their IP, and SEGA of America, as well as fans and creators, need to respect that"

"I've not been that interested or impressed with Daniel Barnes' output in the series so far, and the mantra of ___ Can Do No Wrong is a dangerous slope that leads to egos like Flynn's" and "I respect Barnes' integrity that other IDW crewmembers have not shown"

"I favor adaptations that are faithful to the source material" and "I can like adaptations that do their own thing as long as it doesn't go against the core of the franchise/characters too much"

"We're on our way to the ARK" and "So I guess that means we're going too"

#Opinion #Sonic the Hedgehog

[meanieinspace]

So the Fallout show was good. It wasn't like amazing or mind-blowing or anything, maybe playing it a little too safe and doing the thing that writers usually do where everything fits together a little too neatly at the end, but it was good.

One of the problems with talking about Fallout the Series is that I can't really imagine what it would be like to watch it without being into the games, so lets start there (it's gonna be a lot before we get to the show).

If you would ask me what the best Fallout game I played was, I would have to say Fallout: New Vegas, like not even the Honest Hearts DLC can ruin it for me (edit: that's a really bad way to put it like who am I to let the game be ruined by that for me it's not directed at me, what I was trying to say is that I try to ignore it because it's really fucking racist and it does reflect negatively on the entire game). But one of the great things about New Vegas is that it's depth and fun comes from being an open world video game, where you can engage with the factions and the world on your own - and that is not really adaptable. Fallout 3 & 4 on the other hand have this disdain for history and space that is a real liability if a big chunk of the gameplay is navigating the world - it's not just that the world doesn't make any sense (who are the raiders raiding? why is the most historic event of the last 200 years a robot going on a killing spree? etc etc) - it's that it seems to be designed for a story in the vein of Gulliver's Travels, where you visit a bunch of cooky, satiric locations, and then move on; a linear travel, not a repeated navigation of the same world. It's the open world gameplay combined with the writing only accounting for singular, disconnected events and encounters that make Fallout 3 & 4 fall apart if you play them as much as intended.

Which is to say, for all their weak writing, they are much better suited for an adaptation into an adventure TV show - and they do have their strong points, even if those are uneven. I would love to go in depth about what I hate and love about these two games, because there is a lot in both categories, but I'm going to limit myself to what I think is relevant to talk about Fallout the show.

So Fallout 3 is a coming of age story - and if you engage with it on that level everything else kind of clicks into place. Like you're 19, you find out that everybody lied to you your whole life and you have to go out into a hostile world because your Dad has abandoned you, a world that abides by nonsensical rules, a world in which you can't rely on anybody to make your decisions for you and people talk on the radio about what you've been up to. I think that is a mindset easy to connect to and if you do it reframes the world and the game into something much more meaningful (but still at times badly thought out and racist).

Fallout 4 has it's good writing too, but it's much harder to appreciate. Personally I love replaying the Far Harbor DLC in survival mode over and over again, they kind of nailed that. But. In the main game, between all the settler colonialism (what were they thinking making the settlement system about literal colonial settlers? with making you murder all the raiders and supermutants and then, and then calling the supermutants greenskins? wtf??) and whitewashing there isn't really anything to salvage. But there are two/three moments that stand out: The Brotherhood of Steel and the moment you first get into the Institute (and the parts of Deacon's dialogue that don't relate to his atrociously written backstory). When you first enter the underground facility of the Institute in Fallout 4 you get to listen to a long monologue by its leader, and as the elevator lowers to the point where you can see the brightly lit, squeaky clean green and white main area of the Institute, he says something along the lines of "what we have to do at the surface, the killer robots and everything, that isn't us - this place right here, the people here, the work we do, that's us" and it's not subtle that that is horseshit. Like, you treat your in-group well and exploit whoever doesn't belong to that in-group however it's convenient to you? And you want to be judged by the former and not the latter? You're not special. Every political system is like that. But what I feel critical discussions sometimes miss, is that this bare-faced admission is not hypocrisy, it's a feature, an offer. We take care of our own and we do take care of our enemies. Having the leader of the Institute outright say it is not like a feat of great writing or anything, but it's a nice moment, having it uttered in a way that is an obviously ghoulish justification for his crimes, but you can see that it works precisely because it's obvious.

If you do the Brotherhood of Steel quests, there is a side quest at their base that is about how somebody has secretly trapped feral ghouls in the cellar of one of the buildings, and is feeding them. I haven't played it in a while, so my recollection isn't going to be super accurate, but you have to snoop around the base and talk to people to find out what's going on. And there is this one girl who is a gunner on a vertibird and when you talk to her about the ghouls and everything she goes on and on about how fun it is to kill the ghouls and how great it feels to swoop in on a vertibird and just mow down everything and how beautiful that is. When you find the guy who feeds the ghouls, he does it because he feels sorry for them. It's probably not as dramatic as I remember, but the monologue of the gunner gets at something that I honestly didn't expect the writers of Fallout 4 to be able to get at, with how almost everything else in the game is set up. So the Brotherhood murders ghouls and synths on sight, this is a racially motivated genocide policy by the Brotherhood, the problem is just, when you play the game, it does not care at all about racism. The Ghouls and Synths are a vague handwave-y reference to real world racism and slavery but there isn't really put enough work into it for it to be a real analogy. Like the game is designed for you to spend half of it killing raiders, ghouls and supermutants for settler's Lebensraum but now, with the Brotherhood, suddenly you're supposed to care? It just doesn't work. The monologue of the gunner at the Brotherhood base on the other hand? That works. It's not just a celebration of violence, it casts the mass destruction and cruelty of war as spectacle. At the end of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Walter Benjamin writes about the aestheticization of politics and gives examples of fascist poets that compare sounds and sights of destruction in war to orchestras and paintings. The thing is, I don't really remember if the dialogue with the gunner really is all that, but it does get at it. It glorifies, to very loosely paraphrase Benjamin, war as the highest expression of the mobilized capitalistic industrial forces of production, an end goal that in it's beauty and glory justifies all. Which is a core part of what Fallout is about, and this quest, that's easy to miss and not very dramatic, makes the case for the Brotherhood being a continuation of the very same fascist drive that destroyed Fallout's pre-war america much more successfully than anything else in Fallout 4, 3 or New Vegas. There are many signs that a society may be fascist, but waxing lyrically about how beautiful the machinery of war is in action has got to be up there. And again, haven't played it in a while, so I'm probably exaggerating here and there is probably no "waxing" in the dialogue, but the point is casting war as this beautiful industrial project the productive population is working towards. And I'm pretty sure it at least successfully hints at that. Because at the end of the day, Fallout's Brotherhood of Steel is fascist first and foremost in its relation to technology, as something that has to be procured, protected and harnessed by the righteous for the cause, which is nothing but violent expansion.

Anyway, now I have spent a lot of words on two parts of Fallout 4 that probably take only like 30 seconds to watch in succession on youtube, and definitely aren't worth playing the game for, but I did it so that you can understand what my reaction was, when, in the Fallout show, Maximus entered the scene as a fanatic believer in a Brotherhood that not only tramples him, but regards him as not even good enough to be cannon fodder - a fanatic believer who is fully aware of that fact. A Brotherhood that nonetheless actively seeks to produce people like him, who are fanatic because it's the only thing left to them. A Brotherhood with Elders who are dorky monks that preach about how true virtue, the only virtue that counts, is wanting to die for them. A Brotherhood that explicitly profits as much from the destruction as the pre-war corporations. And, to get back to Fallout 3, how I reacted when Lucy had to go out to come of age in "the real world" even though she is already very much of age. How her father and Moldaver talked to her.

Yes, my thesis statement is that the Fallout show takes the best parts of Fallout 3 & 4 and turns them into a Hero's Journey.

And it's like a bit boring (how interesting can a Hero's Journey ever really be? despite all my high minded bs it's still entertainment before all else (which is okay I like to be entertained but...)) but it's still good. I mean maybe it's just because I expected so much worse, but whatever. I think I'm probably going to go into more detail in a future rb, once I have rewatched the show, there is kind of a lot to talk about and I'm not sure how to do it yet and how solid my first impression really was.

#fallout #fallout show #fallout 4 #which is why i am raider overboss even though that is such a waste of time long live the disciples #im a robber #the peoples new california republic #the bear and the brotherhood

[ramoth13]

The Orcs and their Enemies:

Characterizations and Dynamics within The Rings of Power

With the introduction of "Adar" the influx of conversation regarding orcs has somehow diminished, rather than expanded. I see this as a huge fault and seek to remedy this immediately.

Orcs serve such an important role in Middle-earth because they are the vehicle by which we understand Morgoth and Sauron's greatest sin. Violence and destruction are obvious and constant, but the truly horrifying aspect of fighting them as enemies, is the knowledge you're fighting your own kind. Its a sick and twisted thing that these once beautiful people were malformed and tortured to become these husks of vile monstrosity. Getting them right is so incredibly important when it comes to Middle-earth adaptations. So I'll begin.

The first thing I noticed about the orcs, was that they were a new kind of terrifying. In Peter Jackson's films, they were scary, but more because of their numbers and their monstrous looks (practical effects are always better in my mind, and Jackson embodied that for me) rather than because of what they were. Jackson's orcs were a kind of infestation, a menace of the likes of violent pests.

These orcs are conniving, vicious, and sinister. But they are also very intelligent. They move like distorted elves and think like clever assassins. These aren't your run of the mill orcs from video games and "good-guys-always-win" trope badguys, that die immediately from a single smack. They have character. And what's more, they mirror everything the elves hate about themselves (in a culturally relevant way, the self-violent kinslaying etc.) and yet somehow remain connected with their former selves, or what they would have been if not for Morgoth's corruption.

Notice that the lesser orcs wear bones and cloth, whereas the leaders wear worn and mismatched Elven armor? And the scene where Adar ends the misery of one of the orc leaders, the orcs then remove the elven armor, obviously prized, and seem to pass it on to whatever the next leader will be. They haven't had access to forges, hiding away, they've become scavengers. Now, only relics of a bygone era, the armor that they do have have been passed down for a long time. I would bet that as the seasons go on, we will see orcs slowly assimilate other armor types into their ranks. And I also bet that the last season we will see forges and new orcish armors. Love that detail.

The second thing I noticed about the orcs made me smile. THEY BURN IN THE SUN. Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings made mention of this, especially in relation to the Uruk-hai, but did little else with this as the series went on. But the hobbit movies completely ignored this, having full orc chasing dwarves scenes in broad daylight. In Rop however, they are leaning into the beauty of that element.

Morgoth's inverting of all that makes elves, elves, is exactly the kind of legacy that is so important to consider when watching these moments between orcs and elves. That Arondir cries over a tree was just perfection, but that the orcs knew what it meant to those Silvan Elves was amazing. We see Morgoth's inversion of nature further by the light itself. Elves live in light, starlight, moonlight, sunlight. They thrive in it. The silmarills were so coveted not because they were gems, but because they held the light of the trees now long lost (though, one could argue that the sun and the moon are descendants of that light) and yet orcs are not just repelled by such light but burned by it.

The attention to detail regarding the orcs is very cool and fascinating. And of course, if we are speaking of orcs, we must also speak of Adar.

I have said previously that it would only make sense that some elves switched sides. And we have one instance of it seen in the Silm&Hist. What makes him so fascinating is that in his own twisted way, he seems to love his "children" and in a singularly fascinating way, they seem to genuinely respect him. Morgoth and Sauron rule by fear, this is explained again and again. But Adar really does seem like a different thing altogether. He does not seem to hate the elves (at least not so far from what we've seen with Arondir, but that could be because Arondir seems very young for an Elf, much like his "Children") rather they appear to be an impediment to his goals, whatever those are (ascending to god-hood perhaps?).

I've heard mentions of Adar being Maeglin and I think you are supposed to think of Maeglin. I think that is exactly the kind of character they are portraying here, but I don't think it will be an Elf that we know. I think Adar really is a whole new character. But, we'll see.

Finally, so far, every orc we have seen slain has been an incredible achievement. It felt like a real struggle, even for Arondir. These orcs are the orcs that could invade and conquer Gondolin. These orcs could attack swathes of elvendom and cause real chaos.

We will never know what happens to orcs when they Die, but I like to imagine these orcs showing up in the halls of Mandos, reformed into the Elves they should have been, finally in a place where their acceptance isn't reliant on strength or backstabbing. And these orcs are orcs that could become that.

Also, I know this is a orcs appreciation post, but I just wanted to say that I love Bronwyn in this scene and the orc slaying scene. She made it believable to fight a monster and survive, and that's wonderful.

Savo 'lass a lalaith, mellon nín!

~ Ramoth13

#ramoth13 #silmarillion #the hobbit #fandom #jrr tolkien #lord of the rings #tolkien #rings of power #lotr orcs #lotr rings of power #the rings of power #rop spoilers #rop #adar #bronwyn #morgoth #Sauron

[wellspokenrambler]

Rambler @ PAX East 2024

Hi folks! I just got back from PAX East over the weekend and, while I didn't really take part in the Expo Hall besides a couple of stalls, I did go to a decent number of panels - and thought it was worth writing up my thoughts on each of them. The only thing I love more than playing video games is hearing people talk about video games!

(I didn't take notes while I was there so this will be certainly more of a "vibes"-based assessment and why each one appealed to me personally, so apologies if you came here looking for a more objective description of each panel! I'll put links to the VOD of each panel where available)

Panels and thoughts below the read-more (it's long as heck! get ready):

Metroid: A Community Retrospective and Look Toward the Future

Having only played Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Metroid: Dread in my time, I wouldn't call myself a hardcore fan - but they are both games I've really enjoyed, and Samus Aran's pivotal positioning as a female character in video gaming history is always fascinating to me, so I had to check this one out.

It's so surreal to see the ways that a community like this had to adapt to long "dry spells" without any official new material for their fandom, and the joy that follows when something like Dread comes along to reaffirm their love for it. I don't know that I learned anything new from this panel myself, but it was still heartening to hear the panellists' clear passion for the games, and it does make me want to dip my toes into other Metroids (at the very least, the other two Prime games!)

Unlocking the Positive Potential of Gaming for Kids and Teens

I hadn't originally planned to go to this one, but met two of the panellists (Dr. David Bickham and Sam Schamm, MA) while eating brunch by the food trucks, and hearing them briefly discuss the subject matter fascinated me enough that I decided to pop along to it.

This was a deeply insightful panel on the ways that gaming can meaningfully help young people and foster their learning, agency, critical thinking, and other useful life skills - as well as thoughts on how to help them through the risks associated with gaming such as toxic multiplayer communities or, for want of a better word, the addictive potential of gaming. Having previously worked in a job which involved helping teenagers make informed decisions about their futures myself, it meant a lot to me to see serious academic thought being given to the subject given how prevalent gaming is as part of a child's social life these days. Excellent panel!

Mental Health and Gaming - Creating a Safe Space for Yourself and Others

While a difficult topic, I am nevertheless glad that I went to this panel as it covered the way that streamers and other "community figures" can navigate the creation of a safe space in the form of their community while also maintaining effective boundaries within that space. Of particular interest to me was reframing some of the language that often gets used in this context e.g. "trauma-dumping" and unpacking our own biases when dealing with uncomfortable situations.

If I had any minor criticisms of the panel, it would be that some of the suggestions occasionally felt like they veered a little too far into the side of... I guess trying to fix the lives of strangers? Now, in the interests of fairness I shall state my own biases that lead to this feeling, because it is not that I do not care about what happens to people: it is precisely because I've had to manage my own proclivity towards hyper-empathy in the past that I tend to take a step back from my emotions on that regard these days. Caring is good, but caring to the point of self-destruction helps no-one, and that to me feeds into what the panel was saying about boundary maintenance.

My own community is a small handful of regulars and a couple of hundred followers so this has not been something I need to worry about yet, but the panel has hopefully given me some tools with which to manage those situations if they ever arise, and for that I am thankful.

How Our Favorite Characters Have Real World Impacts on Us: A Look into Fictional Characters and ParaSocial Relationships

FASCINATING panel. I originally went to this because of my memories of being in the Gorillaz fandom and the weird and wonderful (and sometimes ugly) ways people interacted with the idea of the fictional band members in that space... But the conversation proved to cover a broad spectrum both of what constitutes a parasocial relationship AND what constitutes a fictional character; the panellists made the case that the personas of content creators and streamers themselves counted as fictional characters, and I think they are absolutely bang-on with that.

From my end as a Z-list Player of Games Online, even I am presenting a more polished version of myself there than I would have in the rest of my life - it's not "not me", but it's certainly not all of me, and that is enough to make "Well-Spoken Rambler" a somewhat distinct entity from the person who portrays them.

The inclusion of internet personalities into their definition ALSO meant, however, that at the Q&A I got to name-drop one of my favourite journal articles that I've read this year: The one-and-a-half sided parasocial relationship: The curious case of live streaming. This article holds deeply interesting connotations to me because of what it implies about the "half" of the one-and-a-half... which is that of course, behind the fiction of a "creator" is the person who creates, and that person is just as capable of developing fictionalised ideas of the people in their community (though with a more removed and likely self-aware perspective on it). The panellists had heard of the article and mentioned it was on their to-read list, but agreed it tied in well with the themes of the panel!

(... And yet the reason I was able to re-find the article so quickly is because I had linked it to a creator in a Patreon Direct Message a couple months ago because I thought it would be interesting to them... The irony is not lost on me. More on that later.)

Debate Club with Mari and PeeGTV

This was just a fun old time! I wasn't familiar with Mari or PG before watching this panel, but they have such a fun rapport here that I want to try and watch them more regularly now that I know of them. Jenna Stoeber acted as a firm but fair adjudicator of the panel - and I am definitely not just saying that because she is a recent convert to the Rambler channel and was pleasant and kind when we bumped into each other on the expo floor. She did a great job letting both sides of the debate (Millennial horror vs Gen Z horror) shine. If you listen closely around the 34 minute mark, you may hear a familiar little British voice raise a point about how you can't judge a horror by its synopsis!

Thinking Differently Together: Neurodivergence & Gaming

Folks... I am so so glad that there is a much greater emphasis on self-advocacy these days than there used to be. Look! Look at all those ND creators talking about their experiences and being listened to!! Look how it has a VOD so I can just link it and you can all see it too!!! Conversations like this one in a major event like PAX are a hopeful sign to me that progress is being fought for and won.

Only minor critiques for this one are:

could have used some discussion about more than just the usual ADHD/autism bracket that is discussed when it comes to neurodiversity (but then I think that about most ND discussions)

would personally have liked some chat about accessibility concerns while creating/streaming and neurodivergent (e.g. personally had to tweak my lighting because it was overstimulating me while I streamed)

Otherwise great panel!

Bridging the Gender Gap (13+)

Another great panel for encouraging diversity in the games industry - I appreciated the intersectionality of this one as well as the honest discussions about the ways in which things still need to be made *considerably* better throughout all corners of gaming. The panel also discusses actionable steps which could be taken to improve on these issues.

Surprised at myself for not having much to say about this one! I just think the panellists did a really good and succinct job at talking about the subject.

A Hunter's Dream: Bloodborne and Transness

I enjoyed this panel a whole lot - Having watched a playthrough of Bloodborne last year, hearing two trans women discussing the different trans allegories and interpretation of the characters and themes and lore of the game felt absolutely correct, even if it wasn't "canon".

If one was being pedantic one could call this the least polished of the panels I went to, but I honestly don't think that matters tremendously because both panellists were so utterly sincere about what they were covering that it carried the panel. You could easily tell just how much the subject matter meant to the two and it in turn meant a lot to me that they were willing to share it with a bunch of strangers as we were.

And then...

Um, Actually: The Panel

Hoooooo boy.

So remember earlier when I mentioned the irony of using Patreon DMs to grab an article about nonstandard parasocial interactions?

[ID: a meme image of Morpheus from the Matrix saying "What if I told you the guy I sent that article to is at a PAX East panel"]

So of course the panel for the Dropout show Um, Actually was being hosted by its two new presenters, Ify Nwadiwe and Brian David Gilbert:

Ify had been a wonderful host so far, and I really enjoy his work in general (especially his stint recently on Very Important People), so I was looking forward to meeting him.

...And then there's Brian, who has been streaming on Twitch for just under the past four years and who in that time has been subject to hundreds of my fun facts, insightful commentaries, and helpful actions (which he very much appreciated). That, alongside regularly taking part in Patreon livestreams, has led to a strange situation where I would not consider us friends, but we... don't not know each other? but we also don't know each other? Which is why the "one-and-a-half-sided" description in that article and the panel about parasocialness appealed to me (and why I sent the article to him too).

So of course when this panel got announced I wasn't gonna miss it. I really enjoyed what I've seen of Ify's hosting and Brian's fact-finding so far, and I wasn't gonna miss the chance to see the two chat about it - nor to potentially meet the guy who helped me raise £500 for ASAN last year.

But, turns out I wasn't the only one enthused by the panel, because it was Absolutely Rammed, like, an hour and a half before the panel started. I got lucky in that I managed to end up somewhere in the middle of the pack and got into the panel at all, but good grief did it remind me how I don't do well in crowds (even well-managed crowds, thank you PAX Enforcers xx).

It caused me to reflect a lot on the perceived casualness with which I interacted with Brian on Twitch versus the material reality of the level of interest from a LOT of people which he manages. It's the kind of thing which makes me wish to never become famous, because I don't know that I'd have it in me to manage that level of attention from everyone - even the very occasional instance of people recognising me online FROM Brian's streams and acting like it's a big deal always throws me off a bit (this has happened to me several times, I'm not even kidding!)

But then of course the Enforcers got us all in neatly and sweetly, and the panel was a delight! It was fun to hear Ify and Brian (and Jenna!!) talk about working on the show and the kinds of things they enjoyed putting in and what to expect next - such as another new season after the current one, as it deserves.

There was also a live session of Um, Actually questions which was at the time enjoyable, but since then numerous allegations of cheating and defamation have come to light against one of the participants, Gabe Hicks, and it is disheartening that something as grievous as this could have been going on that very weekend. I hope that justice and reparations can be made for the people affected by this, and I am going to move on out of courtesy to those involved.

After the panel, a meet-and-greet line formed for both Ify and Brian outside of the theatre and I was able to join it - it also felt important to me that I follow the proper procedures and not assume any privileges, since I know full well how that kind of thing can read and wanted to put my best foot forward, so to speak.

The play-by-play of our eventual meeting is as follows:

I greeted Ify first on purpose to let him know that he was doing a great job as the new Um, Actually host and I liked him in VIP

I then went to greet Brian, but at that point he had very blatantly already cottoned onto who I was and seemed very enthusiastic that I was there. I didn't feel any sense of star-struckedness, it was more like that sense of when you talk to someone online and then meet them in person - surreal, but not stressful.

Jenna took that moment to gently interrupt so she could rendezvous with the two men before the line ended - seemingly because of our vague familiarity and prior assumption of goodwill on our parts

I made sure to pass along some greetings from a few Discord servers formed around Brian's Twitch streams I was in, which Brian appreciated, and gave him a small gift which I brought with me - a small bottle of vivid iridescent nail polish (Ciaté London's "Forbidden Fruit", sadly out of production now), since nail painting and structural colour is somewhat of a shared interest of ours

Brian made sure to specifically compliment me on my shirt, to which I admitted the reason I wore it was because I knew Brian was the only person there who would appreciate it fully: it was from a game of Tee KO we played on Patreon at the end of 2022, which Brian won using a VERY existential t-shirt illustrated by myself:

(sidenote, after repeated success with these silly skeletons in subsequent games of Tee KO, I am very close to just selling my own legally-distinct skeleton shirt if I ever have a merch page)

Finally, I asked if we three could cap off the meeting with a video'd selfie, to which they graciously obliged me:

Having filmed what can only be described as a Cannes-worthy masterpiece, I said my goodbyes to them and made my way to the next panel...

The PAX Panel Show

...Which was just in the same theatre as the last panel, and with Jenna hosting and Brian on the panel. What a glorious event! I am so sad this one didn't get recorded - a truly deranged set of questions, including Portmantoad (guessing which video games have had their names spliced together based on the description of the resulting fusion), Ornstein and Sullivan (guessing whether a named character was from a Fromsoft game or from an opera), and a whole bunch of real-world questions about farming?? Joke's on all these city-slicker panellists, I grew up on a smallholding! So I was... actually no better at those farm questions than them. I can't tell you about industrial farming practices, but I can tell you how to hold a chicken! (gently, like a big hamburger).

After the panel, I approached Jenna one last time at the con and suggested that, given the inherent strangeness of our interactions (wherein we have become Twitch mutuals but still at best distant acquaintances) it would be funny if we took a selfie but made out like she was "the fan". She saw the funny side of it:

[ID: a tweet by Well-Spoken Rambler @wellspokentweet reading "Always a pleasure to meet a fan, @the_jenna", below which is a selfie featuring Well-Spoken Rambler and Jenna Stoeber. A reply from Jenna beneath this reads "HONORED TO MEET YOU, BIG FAN <3" in all-caps.]

Play What You Don't Know with DesiQuest

This was my last panel of PAX, and a bit of a last-minute wildcard! After relaying the above events to my good friend Hamish, he told me that his friend Omar would be doing a panel the following day, and that I should go and see it. And I am very glad I did!

It was really heartening to learn that a podcast like DesiQuest exists - a D&D actual play featuring an all-South-Asian cast and touching on the disparate cultures and themes that connect with them and their audience. As someone who is of Sri Lankan descent but without the cultural upbringing, it's something that appeals to me personally as another way to try and reconnect with that heritage. Definitely catching up on this one over the week!

I also got to say hi to Omar from Hamish, and it was a nice bonding moment cut short by my having to BOOK IT to a water taxi and conclude my time in Boston for good.

...

Phew!

Well, thanks for reading all of that if you did! It was a weekend that was at once fun, interesting, and thought-provoking. I still don't consider myself someone who seeks out big events, but being much more free and able to take part in those kinds of things now is super refreshing and I hope at some point (though not in the immediate future, boy was that expensive) I will be able to go again! Or at least do other events like that. Possibly something a bit quieter, but conventions don't usually run in flavours of "quiet", haha. Perhaps next time I'll bring business cards to recklessly self-promote better with.

See you around!

-Rambler

#pax east 2024

[sundaynightlive]

I’m scared to see Barbie with my partner.

I’m scared because she experienced girlhood and I did not. No—I ran from it, my father’s wrong ideas and conflicting words clanking against each other in my pockets like loose change—I hate the way pennies make my hands smell. Like iron, like blood.

He told me I could be anything, but Barbie could not. He told me I was different—that I was extraordinary.

And then he fed this lie to three more daughters, and they obliged him, like cattle at the trough.

I grew up thinking I was Barbie, but better. I called her tacky—I thought the girls who played with her and loved her and wanted to be her were brainless and cheap—I would stick to my Legos, and action figures, and video games. I would beg my mother for Beyblades so I might battle the boys in the morning before getting on the bus. I would relentlessly commit myself to softball and soccer and being the best in P.E. (though I never came close).

And then one day, they all wanted Barbie. And I wasn’t her. I had never been her before, and I couldn’t understand it—what changed? What they had valued before—boys, my father, my mother—became something else entirely.

And I wasn’t it.

Suddenly, on top of all these other things, I also had to be girly. I also had to be pretty. I had to know how to wash my face and curl my hair and how to stop being a friend and start being a game. I learned there was nothing wrong with Barbie—in fact, Barbie was the goal, because she could do all the things I had done and still be a girl.

But I could not.

I changed, slowly and quietly, but never enough. And I’ll never know if I changed because I wanted to, or because I had to. I’ll never know if I adapted to their rules, or if I wrote my own after I lost to theirs. I’ll never know if I was the creator, and therefore, I never will be.

Whatever childhood it was I experienced could not be shown back to me in a theater—I had Barbies, but I was never proud of them. I never loved them. I opened them excitedly on Christmas, and profusely thanked the adults, but I knew what my father thought of this, and I could not rightfully enjoy this gift of girlhood if I wanted him to love in me.

And now he asks me why he sees himself when he looks at me, why he sees masculinity where there should be femininity, and I don’t have the heart to tell him all I ever wanted was to please him—that this macaroni-art gender I wasted all my time on was so that I would be more relateable to him, more likable.

Lovable.

So as I don my pink and curl my hair and paint my face pretty and sit in a theater, watching the ghost of what could have been join hands with the person who is, I will feel, in that moment, woman, and afterwards, carry out the sleeping little boy who finally got to embrace a doll—a doll who was not just girl, and not just woman, but everything.

The next day, I will buy myself two—one for both of us.

#barbie #tomboy #nonbinary #for any person who felt the shift from elementary school to middle school #where being smart and athletic was for boys #and being pretty was for girls #and being ostracized was for the rest of us #I love you Barbie #and I know I’m gonna cry #greta gerwig #margot robbie #ryan gosling #kenergy #i am kenough #daddy issues

[vegitoswife-archive]

A/N: New indefinite fic project since, based on the last poll, a lot of people liked the idea of it! Certain parts may be chronological (which will be specified if so) but will in general be disconnected. Some parts may be lengthy, others short. It really depends on the prompt of them and what I can think up!

TAGLIST: @carnal-lnstinct / @yeowangies / @enayru (Like this post to be added to my tag list!)

Part 1 - Spending Time Together

CW(s): None.

★ VEGITO

-Despite how much he loved to train and exercise, you two actually got a lot of opportunities to hang around one another. Unfortunately, Vegito wasn’t really…used to it that much.

-All of Goku’s past friends very rarely sought him out for his company, his and Vegeta’s children all had their own lives, and he refused to go near Bulma or Chi Chi if he could help it, so he adapted to being alone virtually 24/7. Until you came along into his life, of course.

-He tried to hide it underneath his cocky and playful demeanor, but his fondness of you was incredibly obvious with how he sought out your company almost every day. You found it a little cute, but it additionally took on a different meaning when you learned that the chances of him being truly lonely were incredibly high. Too high. Even if he brushed off the questions, you could tell by the look in his eyes that he wasn’t the happiest. Overall, it would likely do you both some good if you spent time getting to know one another better.

If you’re a practicing marital artist or someone who simply likes fighting, bonding with him over either or will be easy. Vegito would even be thrilled to spar with you, and see just how you’d fare against him.

If you have absolutely no combat experience, you could still have some engaging conversations with him over his own love of it. Being a Saiyan, he’s quite literally built for it. Vegito would easily get wrapped up in discussing his techniques and style, whether you understood the terminology or not, that he’d basically ramble with an enthusiastic shine to his eyes. It’s endearing.

-Outside of fighting-related activities, both of you would spend a lot of downtime in the comfort of your home. You have your own hobbies that you could try introducing to Vegito, but there’s a moderate chance depending on what they are that he either won’t understand them much or will think they’re a bit strange. Goku’s hobbies were very construction-based (the Son family’s home needed regular upkeep) and Vegeta…didn’t have hardly any hobbies at all, so Vegito wasn’t exactly dealt a deck of cards that helped him view the world outside the lens of a recluse. He was admittedly technology-inept on top of it.

-Don’t get him wrong, he likes to join you in doing things you find personal enjoyment in regardless of how weird or pointless they might come across as to him, but you’ll have to expect Vegito to be somewhat awkward with them…initially anyway. For example, he’s not going to be the best at playing a video game with you at first, but you’ll be surprised at how fast he can learn the ropes.

-If you’re an avid movie watcher, one activity you can always fall back onto with Vegito is sitting down on the couch and showing him the films you either like or think he’d get a kick out of. Especially those of the horror genre. He would be very amused in getting to see what typical things Earthlings define “horror” as being.

★ GOGETA

-If he’s not training, then chances are he’s with you.

-He honestly doesn’t really try to hide how much he likes being around you. He wouldn’t show it much on his face as he’s the stoic type, but if you ask him if he enjoys your company he’ll bluntly answer with something like “Yeah. Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

-He doesn’t talk to Goku’s past friends hardly ever, and he overall is a very reserved person. Being alone frankly doesn’t bother Gogeta much, but with you, the realization that ‘hey having someone else around is actually kind of nice’ lit up like a light switch had been flipped on. On certain days, he might even act like a puppy in a way. Just…following you around or just observing you quietly with a rather soft look.

-He’d like to learn about your hobbies, but if they’re tied to social media, he’ll definitely be staying out of them. He really values his privacy. If you’re into them: the only video games he’d ever be remotely interested in are puzzle games (especially the innovative types), but since those usually aren’t multiplayer you can’t count on him to play anything with you unless you catch him on a real good day & he feels like humoring you.

-Sure, it’s easy to discuss matters related to fighting with him, but you’ll find that he’s surprisingly very introspective; if not philosophical. There’s a lot on Earth and out in the cosmos that’s either barely known or utterly unknown. It’s not an uncommon thing to find the mysteries of life and existence itself engaging, and despite being one of the most powerful beings in the universe who has personally dealt with supernatural things, the same goes for Gogeta. His nature as a fusion already throws what’s accepted as “natural life” into disarray.

-It might be cliché, but he would greatly enjoy settling down with you somewhere quiet at night to stargaze or the like and chat with you about your own feelings about a variety of things. You can be a ‘deep thinker’ too or the sort who maintains a simplistic view of life, it won’t matter. He just wants to put in true effort to understand you, like how you do with him.

-Something else you may find surprising is that Gogeta does like to read. Have any books? You could lend one or more to him (don’t worry he’ll take good care of them) and see if they catch his interest. After he potentially finishes them, you could have discussions with him over them. Maybe he’ll have the same opinions as you, maybe not, or maybe you both could have fun ripping into the terrible story or characters.

-In general, your time with Gogeta will primarily be you both enjoying one another’s presence. Unless he feels up to talking, he’s content to merely sit or lie in silence with you. He doesn’t care for small talk, and definitely doesn’t need it to remain keen on sticking around you if you both aren’t doing anything at the moment. Expect most days to be relatively chill.

#my writing #boyfriend scenarios #vegito imagines #gogeta imagines #self shipping community #selfshipping #dragon ball fanfiction #vegito x reader #gogeta x reader #x reader

[opalroots]

Netflix's new Castlevania Nocturne is an indulgent, incredible mess - a review

Following up the original Netflix Castlevania series was never going to be an easy task. Though it had its shortcomings, Warren Ellis' Castlevania redefined what a video game adaptation is supposed to be, and it managed to entice rows upon rows of non-fans through its complex characters and incredibly flashy action sequences. It's a modern classic, and one of the best things to happen to animation in the last decade.

Along comes Castlevania Nocturne, a new series created by Clive Bradley set a few centuries after the end of the original series, already ladened with heavy expectations. Not only was it forced to carry on the legacy of the Castlevania franchise through adapting one of its most popular and beloved games, but it also had to live up to the expectations set by the original series.

I've only barely played the games, but the original Castlevania show holds a special place in my heart. So when the announcement of a followup series came, I was stoked. I read reviews, watched and rewatched trailers, all the stuff. And Castlevania Nocturne was shaping up to be incredible.

Did it live up to the hype? WELL-

I finished the first episode with a bad taste in my mouth- and not in a good way. It's filled with pacing that falters, dialogue that feels unnatural and preachy, and blatant references to the original series and the games that sound like they're going "hey! look at this! don't you remember This Thing That Was Important?"

I think this is a good point to mention that I'm not one of these "Wokelvania" "Netflix is shoving the homosexual agenda down our throats" people. The show takes place during the French Revolution, guys. Of course it has anti-establishment themes. People forget that in the very first season of Castlevania, the main antagonist was the Catholic Church.

In fact, I think Annette's backstory, which touches upon slavery and colonialism, is a very welcome aspect of the show that reflects historical events of this time that aren't as often brought up in media of this kind. Annette herself is also a very strong character in her own right, and while the writers do her a little dirty towards the end of the season, her arc is very compelling and she's an excellent addition to the cast. Don't listen to the racist weirdos guys.

That's not to overshade the other two main characters: Richter and Maria. Both have deeply complex personalities and backstories and the force of their characterisation is felt deep in the plot. Richter, in particular, is a fascinating and incredibly well-developed departure from his predecessor Trevor Belmont. Where Trevor was a tired, depressed man in his 30s, Richter Belmont takes on the more conventional "plucky young hero" archetype. Don't let that make you think he's shallow, though: Richter has a deep, rich character arc and his youthful naivety and lust for life is genuinely captivating. There's no better character to be driving this new plot forward: I fell in love with Richter multiple times throughout the season's runtime. And not just because he's hot.

Outside the main trio, however, the characters grow shallow. Tera, Maria's mother and a mentor character of sorts, has the personality of brown bread, and her purpose in the show's writing is essentially as a vehicle for plot exposition. Save for at the very end of the season (if you know, you know) there was not a single moment of the show where Tera was onscreen that I enjoyed. Her story together with the Abbott (another major character the writers want to pretend is complex) is insulting at best, and her backstory just feels unnecessarily edgy.

This shallowness extends to the cast of villains that the show presents. One thing that the original Castlevania was known for was its excellent antagonists: unforgettable characters like Dracula, Carmilla, and Isaac, who all had deeply human characterisations and complex reasons behind their actions. Compare this to characters like Drolta, whose name I'm struggling to remember not even an hour after the credits have rolled, or Vaublanc, who starts off as nemesis character of sorts for Annette but gets shafted halfway through the series in an admittedly cool but wasteful moment.

As of writing this, I'm not quite sure what to think of the series' main villain, Erzsebet Bathory. Unlike most characters in the show, this one has no allusion to the video games whatsoever: she is a wholly new creation on the part of Bradley and the writers. She's foreshadowed almost immediately as a "vampire messiah", a phrase that makes Bram Stoker spin like a centrifuge in his grave. When she finally appears, she certainly commands respect, but as opposed to the previous series' villains, there is not a single layer of depth to Erzebet's character. She's just evil for the sake of being evil, and that's a real disappointment. She's not bad at being evil- there's a moment at the very end of the season that left me in pure shock and disgust in the best way possible (IF YOU KNOW, YOU KNOW). She's just disappointing when compared to the masterfully executed villains that defined the original series.

The one exception to this rule of shallow antagonists is Olrox. He appears very early on in the show and acts as a nemesis of sorts to Richter. While not nearly as complex as, say, Dracula, Olrox had my interest early on and only got more interesting as the season progressed, eventually becoming an anti-villain of sorts, without sacrificing what makes him imposing. The effect he has on Richter is palpable and their relationship feels extremely real. As does the relationship between him and another character, Mizrak. And when I say relationship I mean they have gay sex with one another.

This brings me to one of my biggest irks with Castlevania Nocturne. Olrox, the series' so far most prominent and active antagonist, isn't just queer-coded: he's gay. Very gay. And on one hand, wow he's just like me, but on the other, it makes you raise an eyebrow when every single "good" character is either explicitly or implicitly cis and heterosexual. As a queer trans person, it bothers me that the only explicit representation we get is the vampire who murdered the main character's mom and who will probably play a very antagonistic role for the rest of the series. Everything about Olrox's queerness is doomed to fall into all the classic pitfalls we're so used to in media, and so far, we've seen no representation from the "good guys" to counteract it. Olrox isn't the only one, either: Erzsebet Bathory (you know, the woman who wants to Eat The Sun) is also ever so subtly queer-coded, though the show is too busy turning her into a lion to make her explicitly gay. Count your blessings, I guess.

All in all, Netflix's new Castlevania Nocturne is a show of breathtaking highs and devastating lows. The animation is just as on point as it always was, and the new cast of main characters are a fresh new addition to the Castlevania franchise. There are times when the writing feels deeply triumphant and powerful. Other times, it feels slow, repetitive, and at its absolute worst, downright lazy and sluggish. From a rough first few episodes, to a well-paced and exciting second act, to a weirdly staged but deeply engaging ending sequence, I often felt myself losing patience with Castlevania Nocturne. But, every time I did, the show pulled out all its stops to win me over - and it succeeded, every single time.

The series, as a whole, has a sense of incompleteness at its core. It's a first draft of an otherwise excellent brand new story in the Castlevania universe. And now that it's finally found its footing and been renewed for a second season, I'm hopeful future seasons will be able to better live up to the legacy of the original series, even if it'll never quite reach the original's icon status. Netflix please pay your writers.

Thanks for reading.

#castlevania nocturne #castlevania netflix #castlevania nocturne review #richter belmont #maria renard #annette castlevania #olrox castlevania #not but seriously richter is so hot how did I ever think I might be a lesbian #olrox too. lowkey transition goals #this took me too long. goodnight tumblr

[theliterarywolf]

I think the worst thing about the whole welcome home situation is that it really brings to light 1. just how "commercialized" the perception around creative pursuits has become (it might not be the right word but I can't think of another one). like this isn't [insert random corporation]'s IP #67484934 but someone's own work they are still directly involved in and unaffiliated with any major company. and 2. somehow the basic concept of respecting boundaries has been lost not just on fanpol but some proshippers too it seems. "no nsfw of my original characters please" is a pretty reasonable boundary actually and if someone feels the need to do it anyways they should at least have the decency to keep it private and away from the og creator instead of mocking them for *checks notes* being so arrogant as to have one boundary on interacting with THEIR work that they were so kind as to share with others on the internet

"Just how "commercialized" the perception around creative pursuits has become"

No, that's it exactly and we can see this echoed and causing the trickle effect that has led to the current situation with art and creative media in general.

Look at how the concept of a good adaptation (books, games, comics, anime, etc) is a rarity and not the norm. It's because you have a bunch of talking-head studio-executives not seeing the IPs they're scrambling over as creations from individual groups and artists but just something to get eyes on a watered-down screen, milk for ad-revenue, and then repeat the process with another IP.

Look at how the Triple-A video game space has turned into less of a 'we want to create fresh new experiences and ideas' and more 'okay, let's get a skeleton crew to make enough of a game to justify DLC and live-services for a year or two... Okay, time to do the same thing over again!'

Look at NFTs and AI "art" and how, the only reason why those two things were able to rise to the plague they currently are is because you have this brain-dead portion of the population who refuse to see art as a practiced skill of human labor that should be paid for and appreciated as such but, instead, they just 'want something pretty to look at for a second before getting another something pretty to look at for a second before...' Ad-nauseum.

Two perfect recent examples of that last one: one dude who calls himself rapidly making 'better' art of Princess Peach when all he's doing is clicking on an AI and getting nightmare amalgamations that look worse than pre-Toy Story Pixar and one person who made a piece of Sonic fanart with a human fem!Sonic in the center but all the 'Sonics' around her looked more inbred than the Hapsburgs.

But, of course, even with actual artists pointing out 'hey, these look wonky/weird/bad', you have thousands of people who don't care. Why? Well, look back to a certain comment that people use to dunk on current Star Wars, Marvel, and other mainstream IPs:

'Don't ask questions; just consume product and then get excited for the next product'.

No one wants to think about the creators of their favored IPs anymore. They just want to be given the shiny new ball to treat (or mistreat) in any way they see fit for a while before dumping it to the wayside a month or so later to do it to something else. And if, heaven forbid, you get a creator who dares to want to have some matter of agency with how people engage with their creation, well...

'Why do you hate people having fun?'

'Well, I'm just going to do it anyway.'

'So... Anyway, these characters are now mine because the creator is obviously shitty and doesn't know them as well as I do'

And then

The Cycle

Repeats

Anew.

#long post

[zeico]

Long post request: how do you feel about BG3?

I didn't realize a new patch came out on final fantasy for about a week because Baldur Gate o Baldur Gate

currently in act 3 and trying to stock up on shit since I recently cleared out the bank. I'm TRYING to hold myself to not starting a new character until I finish this one but I see so many monk items and i want themmmmm (I have a half elf monk open in character creator right now)

Since I played a lotttt of dragon age origins, parts of the structure of bg3 felt very familiar to me like the camp itself and like how u interact with the companions. Like coming home in a way.

I'm also playing 5e a lot so that part of the structure of it was very easy to adapt to. I do still have trouble with like certain interface things like oh man gotta select the version of the spells BEFORE TARGETTING NO GALE WHY ARE YOU RUNNING TO THEM GET BACK HERE WHY ARE YOU HITTING THEM WITH YOUR 8 STRENGTH BACKED STICK

But its great and I do like the changes made to better facilitate it being a VIDEO GAME. Like I'm a Divination Wizard. My main Thing is portent dice. (There's also detect thoughtsing my way through all social encounters which is SO GREAT honestly scratches an itch I've always wanted to do but it would be such a pain in the ass for tabletop. Like first first ever dnd character I cooked up was an illiterate mind reading sorcerer that like got by through just that. But that would be so annoying to do with like.... PEOPLE AT THE TABLE of like 'so im just constantly getting ur surface thoughts...... i can't entirely control this... i'm sorry....' )

ANYWAY portent dice!!!!! in bg3 they have it at level 6 you fulfill little prophecies to get ur dice back to make the big boss miss their BIG attack or make SURE you hit (or my favorite, make the rogue crit on a sneak attack) instead of having it that when u cast a divination spell u get a spell slot back. since theres so few divination spells especially like using IN COMBAT so I understand the change.

I also like the variety of shit you can do. like my partner is one to summon 9 creatures btw the whole party so theres a small army of creatures following their main party. (also several buffed with mage armor and everyone has a higher level aid cast on them so they also have a decent amount of health its really funni to watch) I like wrote off the summon guys moves because I just dont like to have extra guys usually.

Something I wish I did on my first playthrough tho was simply long resting more I think I fucked myself out of a lot of social link scenes in act 1 bc I straight up didn't rest enough. The game is like 'oh no time is ticking' but things aren't REALLY like that (cept for like... 2 instances I can think of) bc its a videogame and thats fine.

It WANTS you to use all your abilities and not be dum like me and just cantrip my way through most the first act 'just in case i need my slots later' why am i like this. both short and lone rest more and just use all your moves its FINE

speaking of social links and companions theyre all great. I love them all. I DO wish some things weren't like... romance locked it feels??? well more like you HAVE to reject them???? idk I had a scene with gale when he's like 'but we're not THAT close tho' and i felt bad bc like... I want to be wizard friends with you. I'm SORRY I'm so weak to both vampires and elves.

heard some shit about astarion having like so much content compared to all the other companions and man imma feel so spoiled on my playthroughs where i dont smooch the vampire. I do wish everyone else had more scenes too its a shame.

something about bg3 thats HILARIOUS to me personally is that its all like 'recruit allies against the cult' and in another irl campaign im in thats been in hiatus for years but I still hope to come back its REALLY similiar. Oh no a huge looming death cult threat to the city. oh no the city has its own fuckmess of bullshit to deal with. OH NO a shapeshifting killer. Anytime theres strong parallels to that campaign it sparks joy.

A few technical problems I've had tho were around switching characters in and out of the party. like in a building and I wanna run back to camp to tag in someone. Wait why are they on the roof????

Or I tag in someone and WHY ARE YOU CLIPPING THROUGH THE FLOOR? Tbh the game is so enjoyable I just sigh and say "Video. Game." out loud and load a save. Like the last time that was REALLY frustrating is when it just would NOT let me out of a restricted area like please I persuaded u 3 times let me go I was on my way OUT.

Also why do all these 8 strength men have abs. This is Wrong. I'm bad with figuring out the technical shit of modding but holy shit I need them to not have abs.

Anyway I had this and the character creator open for like 2 hours now so Imma start that now.

#answers #mtgfan

[morningstargirl666]

director’s commentary on Big Bad Wolf chapter 33, please!

Oh, that's a good one. Yaaaaassssss let's see shall we?

So, first off, chapter 33 and chapter 34 were originally plotted out as the same chapter, so jot that down. The original outline was something like this:

(yes I have tbbw all plotted out in a separate document, all my secrets are in there, no you will not be seeing them hehehehehe)

You will see, Sam and Kol's scenes aren't even on there because it was something I thought of closer to writing the chapter, and after I wrote chapter 30, @stars-and-darkness was particularly traumatised over Sam's ordeal so I promised her some fluffy video gaming between the two (I'd already been thinking about it for a while, like those two playing mario kart was an image that would NOT leave me alone). I'd also forgotten to plot in some scenes addressing what happened to Sam and him waking from that...so that ended up in there too. Add Liz arriving, the conversation between her and Klaus becoming longer than I anticipated even though I'd already written some dialogue for it...

...Well, you can see why I ended up having to split the chapter into two.

[deep sigh]

ANYWAY another plan that changed when i finally wrote chapter 33, was the scene between Kiera and Klaus. Originally, Sam was going to be in the same room during Liz and Klaus' conversation, and after Liz left, Klaus would have this massive blowout where he destroys the room, kicks Sam outside for lying to him and Sam would wait, defeatedly sat outside the door, for Klaus to cool down. Then Kiera would arrive and that line - if you want to break something, break it, just don't let it break her - would come in.

That line, actually, has a story of it's own. It comes from the cinematic adaptation of Patrick Ness' A Monster Calls, which was both a book and film I loved, telling the tale of a boy that comes to terms with his grief over his mother (who's dying of cancer) by imagining a monster that visits him every night, telling 3 stories that turn into lessons. In one of the stories, the 'monster' destroys a town? church? (can't quite remember) and I seem to think the destruction was justified, like someone else had done something to earn the monster's wrath. The boy, Connor, wakes from the monster's story to realise he's destroyed his Grandmother's (who he's living with while his mother's sick) living room, smashing all her prized possessions. At the hospital the next day, his mother tells him - after learning about what he's done - that if he wants to break something, then break it. The monster's lesson was everyone experiences grief and anger and pain in different ways, and it's okay to be angry, it's okay to break something. Expressing emotion is part of the human condition, and when you start bottling those emotions up inside, that's when the problems start. That's when you become a ticking time bomb that's about to explode. (It's a fantastic book AND film, Liam Neeson voices the monster - go forth and educate yourselves)

Klaus is the same. Mikael has beat into him the need to not show weakness, to bottle those emotions up until he explodes and every single time he does, leaving carnage in his wake. Kiera, like Caroline, understands who Klaus is on a fundamental level, and she's probably the first person to say, it's okay. It's okay to break things. It's okay to feel fury and betrayal and hurt and pain. It's okay to show it. Just don't destroy everything - don't let your rage destroy the ones you love. No one can be King over a pile of bones.

But I digress, back to how that plan changed - obviously Sam was with Kol, so I had that blowout instead where Klaus confronts Sam upstairs and then Kiera arrives later to calm him down. Klaus and Kiera's relationship is so tricky for me to write because I'm trying to get across that they're very close - probably understand each other better than most do - without overshadowing or belittling the connection Caroline and Klaus share. It's a tricky balancing act, but I think I got it right this time around in that last scene. They have so many memories together - an immortal's worth - and the basis of their relationship is born of mutual respect for each other. I hope that comes across in that scene.

#klaroline #klaus x caroline #fanfiction #klaroline fanfiction #the big bad wolf #tbbw #morningstar writes #caroline forbes #klaus mikaelson #anon ask #ask me for a directors cut and i will provide #oof also #i wrote that chapter while sick with covid #so THAT was fun

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

hi

i just got diagnosed with me cfs about a month ago. I've been bedbound since July (doctors think I got it post-covid) and I'm extremely bored. I've been working on isolation by seeing friends once a week but it's just like... how do i fill the rest of my time? I can't stand to watch tv or scroll tumblr anymore, the internet is making me depressed. So what do I do? I'm sleeping like 16 hours a day. I can only get up to do simple chores and stuff. I struggle with reading/processing info and I lie down most of the day. How do I entertain myself? Especially with something that feels fun, satisfying, and "productive."

TLDR: newly bedbound and in need of a hobby I can do offline from bed, please help <3

hi, thanks for asking! I also spent the vast majority of the first 3 or so years I had CFS laying down, it can definitely be difficult to find stuff to do. Here are some things I did:

Video games. This one is a pretty common recommendation but I can't not recommend it because it's what I do pretty much all the time. If you have trouble positioning a computer like I did you can get an overbed desk (I have this one and it's served me pretty well). If you're looking for game reccs, the Sims 4 is now free and there's a ton of free custom content available for it online for when you get bored of basegame. For paid games, Minecraft, Don't Starve Together (even if you're playing alone the Together version is better), Oxygen Not Included, 7 Days to Die, and Sheltered all have a ton of replayability. I also recommend adding items to your wishlist and waiting for sales if you're buying games off Steam, Sheltered is actually on sale for $3 on Steam until Nov. 21.

Textile work. There's a reason a lot of textiles are considered "grandma" hobbies, they're easy to do with limited energy. There's a ton of disability adaptations for textile projects like knitting, crocheting, embroidery, weaving, etc. Choose one that seems fun to learn and go for it. I tried to do knitting but found it hard laying down so I switched to crochet and it's been going pretty well. It's fairly inexpensive as well, crochet hooks are like $5 and you can fine cheap yarn at places like Walmart for less than $5.

Art. You don't have to be good at it or have fancy supplies, either. I'm a big fan of coloring books, both physical ones and coloring book apps. I also use an app called Sketchbook to make digital art on my phone sometimes. You can trace stock photos to help you practice, or you can just make your entire art process tracing and coloring in stock photos.

Writing. Another one you don't have to be good at. Just think of stuff and write it down. You don't even need to write it down if you don't want to, you can just tell yourself stories in your head as well. Writing fanfiction can be a tool to help you get inspired to write your own stuff too. I got into writing by writing Warrior cats fanfic that was objectively bad, but it was fun and it laid the groundwork for making my own stuff. You can also just keep writing fanfiction if that's what you enjoy.

Origami. This one's a little niche but I find makng origami very satisfying. Some people claim you need special origami paper, you don't, regular notebook paper is fine. The instructions from this website have been useful for me.

That's all I have as far as hobby suggestions, if anyone has any other suggestions feel free to add!

[ketchup-monthly]

Lanternfam’s favorite vampire media

with the help by @space-specs

Hal- Monster High (the justice league hates when they do mental links via J’onn because he constantly has the first opening stuck in his head and doesn’t even realize hes humming it until someone says something and even then it doesn’t really go away until he has something else stuck in his head. he has also on multiple occasions cross-dresses as one of the female characters to match with Helen, who would dress as one of the guy characters. Hal kills it every single time. he looks so good its not even funny.)(the main two that Hal does are Rochelle Goyle and Operetta. Helen’s are Deuce Gorgon and Holt Hyde)(if anyone wants to draw Hal in either of those outfits please hit me up it would be so good and i would be forever grateful and maybe even owe you a kiss on the forehead for your troubles)

Guy- Twilight (he likes the side characters and wishes that SMeyer hadn’t fucked them all up like she did. he likes the baseball scene in the first movie bc it slaps, and Emmett and Leah are his favorite characters. Emmett is a lot like him and Leah was written so badly. They both deserved so much better.)(he totally doesn’t write twilight fix its on the internet but if you know the right places to go, there may be a fix it fic written by one EmeraldWarrior.)(the fics fix a lot of things about the series and are actually pretty good and god i wish they were real -ketchup)(jo doesn’t read his fics, but she has mutuals who are into Twilight and have read them, so she has heard about the fics in detail from them. she doesn’t put two and two together until she meets Guy and immediately is like “hey wait” and the secret is out but still between the two of them -specs)

John- The Argeneau Series (its vampires but they made it scientific and actually gave answers for why vampires do and require certain things instead of just leaving it down to “idk man. magic or something.” its also not too well known or talked about, so no one has had a chance to ruin it yet. just like how john likes it.)

Kyle- The Lost Boys (comics nerds have to fight vampires and look into comic books to find the answers. home alone with vampire fighting mechanics. need i say more?)(ketchup has never seen this before ever)

Jess- The Mortal Instruments/Shadowhunters (the series focuses more on the angelic and demonic than the vampires themselves, but they still play a large role in it. She believes Raphael deserved better and thinks its funny that the main vampire character is named Simon.)(the movie does not exist.)

Simon- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (fuck Joss Whedon but Buffy. he liked some parts of the show and hated others but thought it was a very interesting interpretations of an American high school.)

Jo- Castlevania (it is not anime but it is the closest western media will get to that. western animation can do things good too! -specs)(as soon as specs mentioned this, i went oooooooooooh *eyes emoji* bc i love the first two seasons sooo much -ketchup)(also yayyyyy video game series!!)

Keli- Dracula das Musical (she accidentally found it through the Korean version of Zu Ende with the redheaded Dracula on youtube and then watched a subtitled recording of it and fell in love. She likes all the versions of it that are not in English, but the German one is her favorite)(this is ketchups favorite musical)

Alan- Nosferatu (1922) (it is the vampire movie of all time and even though its corny as all get out, he likes the simplicity of it as well as the staying power it had through the depression and the world war. its also just a really hilariously stupid adaptation of Dracula.)

Carol- Vampire Academy (she can and will go on hours long rants about various things in the series. Hal has never read the books, but he did watch the movie on his own time so he could better understand her rants but that just made Carol more angry. the movie does not exist. Hal can still have a conversation with even the most dedicated of readers about the series based on what he has absorbed through osmosis from Carol.)(in this scenario specs is Hal and me and our roommate are both Carol. as this was typed, specs and i had a conversation about the plot in vampire academy lol -ketchup)

Kilowog- Hotel Transylvania (Keli showed it to him while deviously grinning in the corner, a grinch smile on her face bc she was determined to get the big tough alien into the most memeable animated vampire media ever. ‘wog doesn’t get it and ends up dealing psychic damage to the rest fo the earth lanterns when he says its his favorite of the Terran media they show him)

Razer- Blade (he likes knives so he likes the name. also. Blade is a vampire who fights other vampires and Razer is a red lantern who fights other red lanterns. it fits.)

Thaal- Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) (theres a weird monsterfucking scene that kept ketchup from watching it the first time they tried. Thaal would get a kick out of it because hes a kinky motherfucker, as well as the stupid butt wig. seriously wtf is up with the butt wig. its so stupid)

B’dg- Count Chocula cereal boxes (his preferred form of media is staring at cardboard boxes. he finds them very entertaining.)

Helen- Cirque du Freak (specifically the manga adaptation)(she 100% convinced Hal to dress up as Larten Crepsley so she could dress up as Darren for Halloween one year, and this series singlehandedly got her over her fear of spiders)(if you haven’t read the graphic novels they’re so good i promise -ketchup)

#hey look we did it again with the characters that ketchup is obsessed with and the monster that ketchup is obsessed with! #ketchup really enjoyed doing this one lol #i was looking through this going movie show book movie show show fucking cereal box it was very fun lmao #we have either seen or heard a lot about all of these on here #i highly recommend a lot of them because they are really good #that video that it talks about in Kelis part? real. and its so freaking good #it was my into to dracula das musical lol and part of the reason that i started dying my hair red -ketchup #hope yall enjoy! #let us know if you want more lists please!! #lanternfam #lantern family #green lantern #hal jordan #guy gardner #john stewart #kyle rayner #jessica cruz #simon baz #jo mullein #keli quintela #alan scott #carol ferris #kilowog #razer gltas #thaal sinestro #b'dg #helen jordan #the 'tism lists