#pinkpuffballdude

[sycamorality]

points. you inspired me to Do An Art, even tho I'm out of the house with no good tools. tried tagging you but tumblr wasn't playing ball, I can link it if you wanna see :0

yeah i have my tags off so i don't get masstagged by spambots in random replies and posts (because that has been an issue for up to a year now), but you're always free to send a link in my asks

[belovedgamers]

I think. 42. Jimmy "Codfather" Solidarity pwease

“So I try to be brave.”

Jimmy & Mean It by K.Flay

Send me a character and a number!

[damienthepious]

multiples of five :3

owo thank you!!

5. What is the perfect environment for you to write in? the PERFECT environment? probably a quiet, cozy office with a big window for lots of sun, maybe a birdfeeder outside to give me something to stare at while i'm Plotting or muttering dialogue to myself, with a warmer under the desk for my terrible cold feet and an electric kettle for constant tea.

10. Do you enjoy writing dialogue, exposition, or plot the most? DIALOGUE!!!!! when i was a kid i was obsessed with lush description but these days dialogue is my babygirl. I love dialogue. i think it's my strongest suit by a mile.

15. A Hollywood producer tells you that they want to film just one of your fics. Which fic would you want it to be? my immediate instinct is Scattered, BUT i think that Reckoning would make a better visual product, and it is the fic that i daydream about turning into a comic/graphic novel style the most often, which is BASICALLY like storyboarding, so.

20. What’s your favorite minor character you’ve written? of all time? for fanfic specifically? uhmmmmmm, oh man, maybe Damien's brother Aaron? i haven't talked about him in a long time but i fucking adore him and he breaks my heart......

25. Which idea came to you first in [x fic]? i was not given a fic to parse so uhhh. for the Amnesia fic that i just posted, the first idea was literally the opening. waking up together but having NO CLUE who Damien was? that shit is JUICYYYYY

30. Tell us an idea for a longfic you want to write in the future. :) i could give like eight is the problem, because i HAVE a problem. okay so there's this vaguely castlevania(show) inspired, Corrupted!Keep au that i do want to write, someday, but it's very intimidating as far as scope goes, so i keep putting it off. Basically Arum is Alucard, Rilla is the Belmont, and Damien is Sypha. but it's... loosely the whole thing, because i only watched the first season of castlevania and it's the SETUP that i'm stealing more than anything

[picrewer]

hey! idk if you just missed it or if they updated the picrew, but the needsanewbrain pronoun maker does have aro/aspec options! it's a little funky in that you have to click one of the other... styles I guess they would be? I found it for each section of the circle in the middle (second style) under the third color. I also saw demi-sexual/-romantic flags, but idk how effective they'd be if one used all three sections

Theres a possiblity that I missed it when I was looking through them or they updated it right after I posted it lmao, I'll go fix the tags now.

[stone-stars]

tonight I will be asking the hard questions: Prosper or Danu?

okay, listen, i know the ask meme is for me to Pick between them

however

have you considered: every backstory npc that loves them lives rent free in my head and therefore a riot would occur in my brain at either choice. unfortunately i can’t afford admiration personally setting my brain on fire, and danu’s family is already pointing knives at me after last week

and also consideration x2: i adore both of them with my whole heart they’re so fun to emotionally and/or physically stab on a weekly basis! (and also the amount of care key and blue put into their backstories and their People is so obvious, this is a stan account for my players holy shit (this includes all of you))

(is this a cop out answer? yes. is it the correct answer? also yes.)

[prokopetz]

If you're doing game recs, do you have any low stakes adventure/puzzle games, preferably without combat? Like Stardew Valley (without the mines), Grow Home, or the Witness. I don't mind if the rules aren't explained in game, as long as I can look them up somewhere else (clearly :P). Being able to drop everything and go somewhere else when I'm stuck is also good, if you can manage that. Thank!

That’s a tricky question – you said puzzle adventure games, but your first example is a title that isn’t an adventure game and has no puzzles. I’m going to treat this as two separate requests, then: for low-stakes life sims, and for puzzle adventure games where you don’t fight anything.

The first one leaves you with somewhat slim pickings, at least if you don’t want a bunch of Stardew Valley clones: non-violent life sims are almost entirely dominated by farming if you want the dialogue to be in English, and I’d rather not rec a bunch of games that are largely identical to what you’ve already played. Still, I have a few titles in my collection that might suit:

Corinne Cross’s Dead and Breakfast - A short-form life sim where you play as a young woman who’s been roped into house-sitting a bed and breakfast establishment during the off season, and ends up playing life coach to the various ghosts haunting it. Includes light gardening and crafting elements to complement visual novel style relationship building.

Eastshade - Here you play as an itinerant painter exploring a remote (but inhabited) island. This one’s at least half a walking sim, with the challenges of gameplay mostly revolving around figuring out what paintings will make people happy. As above, the major emphasis is on relationship building.

Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles - Probably the closest thing to a farming sim on this list, albeit a much less in depth one than Stardew Valley. Gameplay is mostly exploration based, with several opportunities to set up small farms throughout the world and hire NPCs to tend them for you, among other resource-gathering minigames.

The picture for forthcoming life sims gives you a little more variety; you might keep an eye on any of Hermina Lumen is Only Human (a sequel to the preceding Corinne Cross, if the title didn’t tip you off!), Mineko’s Night Market, Potionomics, or Summer in Mara.

As for puzzle adventure games with no fighting or high-stakes save the world stuff, in keeping with your “[b]eing able to drop everything and go somewhere else when I’m stuck“ criterion, I’m going to try and stick to non-linear or open-world titles. I’m also going to construe “without combat” broadly and stick to titles where there are no hostile NPCs at all; just let me know if those are bad assumptions. So:

A Short Hike - An exploration-based walking sim where you play as a young woman trying to hike to the top of a mountain in order to get a cell phone signal, which is about as low-stakes as it gets! The puzzles are mostly about routing, with a simple stamina-meter-based powerup mechanic that progressively opens up more of the map to you.

Heaven’s Vault - A piece of non-linear interactive fiction where you’re a planet-hopping archaeologist tracing a vanished colleague’s footsteps. The puzzles try to emulate the actual process of deciphering an unknown language, and while it’s necessarily a very simple language to give non-linguists a sporting chance, it definitely gets the idea across.

Hiiro - This one’s a bit like a Metroidvania, albeit without a formal upgrade system. There’s not much in the way of failure states, beyond the usual risk of falling off of stuff. Owing to the lack of upgrades, the entire world is theoretically open to you right from the start, though getting to certain places straight off will take some doing.

The Moonstone Equation - A side-scrolling puzzle platformer about investigating mysterious rocks. You can actually die in this game, unlike most other entries on this list, though you usually have to really work at it. Note: this one syncs the in-game time with your PC’s clock, so if you always play late at night, the NPCs you need to talk to will be asleep.

Submerged - A casual climbing game about exploring a flooded city looking for medical supplies for the protagonist’s sick brother. The challenges are entirely about finding the right route, to the point that it won’t even let you fall out of stuff. It gets pretty vertiginous, though, so may be not the best choice if you have a thing about heights!

TIMEframe - This one’s not really a puzzle game, but I’m throwing it in for general interest. Here, you experience the last ten seconds of a doomed world. You can’t affect anything; your only role is to bear witness. Time is stretched 60:1, so those ten seconds take ten minutes of real time to play out – multiple runs are needed to see everything.

I’m going to throw in an off-the-main-list plug for AER: Memories of Old, which is both non-linear and non-violent, but story-wise you’re playing for some pretty high stakes, so it’s missing one of your big three criteria; and another for Memorrha, which looks like what you’re after, but it came out yesterday and I’m only a little ways into it at the time of this posting, so I can’t promise it’ll stay that way. As for upcoming games, you might watch out for Manifold Garden, Omno and Sable,

[badass-sunshine]

playlist: a prosperous child (prosper playlist)

Abbey // Mitski

Icarus // Bastille

Mirror Haus // Lindsey Stirling

Run Boy Run // Woodkid

You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid // The Offspring

I’m Not Dead // P!nk

Dear Wormwood // The Oh Hellos

(spotify link)

send me a made up playlist title!

[ernmark]

You said that you might be taking writing prompts again, and I would really like some more platonic/queer platonic Talfryn and Angelo

I just think these two are darling, any way you put them together.

------

It’s funny, really.

Not funny in the way that it makes Talfryn laugh-- that seems like it would just be mean-- but funny the way people sometimes are, strange and confusing and driven by rules and patterns that don’t make any sense until they do.

Sir Angelo-- no, just Angelo now, because they’re friends-- Angelo is like that. He’s all kinds of confusing, but he means well, and often he’s just as confused as Talfryn is (but better at hiding it behind all that shouting). Trying to talk to him is like trying to talk to someone in another language, or like a cat trying to talk to a horse, and all the sounds mean different things and all the body language is off, but that’s... okay? Actually?

It’s okay. Because now that they know that they’re speaking other languages, they both know to slow down and listen. Really listen.

It’s so strange, the way Angelo listens. He leans forward with his whole body, the entirety of his weight shifting in rapt attention. If he had ears like a dog, they’d be pricked up, and just like with a dog he’s probably very frightening right now to someone who doesn’t see the loose friendliness in his shoulders, as clear now to Talfryn as a wagging tail.

“I’m afraid I still don’t follow,” he says, his booming voice lowered to a softer volume, and Talfryn makes sure to stop his explanation before he can get away from himself. 

“Which part?” he asks.

“If the moss doesn’t always grow on the south side of the tree, then why does it do so most of the time? It seems inconsistent to me.”

Had Talfryn not explained that already? 

Or... maybe he had, but it wasn’t as obvious to Angelo as it was to him. He chews on his lip as he tries to arrange the explanation into a different shape.

“It seems like the sun just goes all the way across the sky every day, but it’s actually a little bit off,” he says carefully. “Only a little bit, so we don’t notice it, because we move around too much for it to matter. But for plants, it does. So when the sun’s just a little bit to the north, then it casts just a little bit more of a shadow on the south side.”

“But what does that have to do with moss?” Angelo asks again, genuinely puzzled. “It isn’t as if it can move.”

“Moss-- any plant, really, even the monstrous ones I suppose-- they can move, but only very slowly. They can decide which direction to grow. And with some plants, they want the sun because they need it to live. But with mosses, they’d rather grow in the direction that’s cooler and more shady. But that’s why it’s off sometimes. Because maybe a branch broke off on the south side of a tree, and suddenly there’s nothing to block the sun on that side. So the moss will shift to a place where there’s more shadow.” He hesitates. “Does... does that make sense?”

Angelo ponders for a long moment, letting it sink in properly. “Do you know, it does! Ha-ha!” His laugh booms painfully for just a moment before he lowers his voice again. “Apologies, friend Talfryn.” But he’s still beaming, and he settles back on his haunches like a bear after a big meal. “Who knew moss could be so decisive?”

Talfryn smiles to himself and tips his cup to his mouth, trying to get the last few drops out onto his tongue.

Angelo turns away from him then, raising one massive hand into the air to signal the barmaid. “Pardon me, miss, but my friend has been giving me an education, and it’s worked up a tremendous thirst for both of us. A refill, if you would be so kind!” He glances at Talfryn’s plate. “And another round of sausages as well!” 

“Are you sure?” Talfryn asks, his own voice shrinking to something barely audible. “I really don’t need any more.” 

“Nonsense!” Angelo booms. “You’ve been working hard, and a hearty education demands a hearty breakfast!” And then again he catches himself, lowering his voice. “That is, if you want more. Your portions are for you to decide, of course.” He hesitates. “Would you like more sausages? And another drink?”

And Talfryn wraps his hands tight around his cup and smiles softly to himself.

“Yes,”  he says. “I’d like that.”