the locked tomb is a Hugo Award finalist for best series and nona the ninth is a finalist for best novel!

this makes ntn a double finalist (edit: as in for both the nebula and hugo awards) like gideon the ninth, as well as being the first time the series has been nominated as a whole! winners are announced in october

Uploading all my Tomgreg art at once from the past few week before season 4 hits, who knows in what kind of mental state i'm gonna be once it does :')

I am once again reiterating that Leo could and should be a figure skater because what are ice skates if not twin blades? What is dual blade swordsmanship if not a dance-like performance? Using the skates as blades themselves could let Leo make portals be his ice rink no? I rest my case. ⛸️

sharing is caring <3

Happy Pride month everyone B*) Allow me to reveal a little behind the scenes detail behind my Banner and Icon. Love was always winning <3

you are my sunshine, my only sunshine

you make me happy when skies are gray

(prompt fill for @mcspirkevents' mcspirk bingo prompt "gone with the wind".)

static frames below:

ouch! neck deep in aos bones feels rn... lmk if i should make a fix-it or somethin

I like to think that other Vulcans who date humans tend to seek out Sarek for advice

listen… listen, eos has… eos has her own little bedroom now

i am in tears. little fairy bedroom for the little fairy.

it's right next to eclaire's bed ofc

good morning, eos!

theres all sorts of different flavours and foods in the world but sometimes theres nothing more comforting and reliable than the "basic". vanilla ice cream. salted popcorn. white rice. toast. porridge/oatmeal. cinnamon doughnuts. plain chips. pasta with butter or olive oil. so humble and unassuming but where would we be without them

It's not fair that omusubi818 is so far away How am i supposed to throw my entire life savings at them

so. roy's sister is very clearly a decent chunk younger than him. sofia barclay and brett goldstein are like ten years apart which leads me to the point: do you guys think she was born after roy went to sunderland. and if so do you think thats maybe a little bit why hes So close with phoebe....... was so excited for his little sister and then he was fucken Not Around for her whole childhood and then when they really connect as adults, she wants roy as part of her daughter's life even if he's a little iffy about the idea because hes like a 30 year old grouch who doesnt know fuck about kids

Okay so I was going to do a really involved review of the Unhinged LotR Mobile Game (otherwise known as LotR: Heroes of Middle-earth) but I'm tired and don't have energy for that, so here are the quick hits:

It's a gacha game, and it's published by EA. Draw your own conclusions.

This review is based off of 100% free gameplay. I have paid $0 for this game.

Lore: Good. 8/10. Game is based on the book and plot elements were clearly designed by someone familiar with the source material. Hero lineup consists of characters from the book, characters that were mentioned in passing in the book but have been a little bit fleshed out and expanded upon, and completely original characters. The latter fit in well with the lore and have convincing names that are, for the most part, based in Tolkien's actual languages or borrowed from elsewhere in the legendarium. Dialogue is lifted directly out of the book in general; when it deviates from these the language used is noticeably different. Minus one half point for that, minus one point for using a ring of power as a leveling mechanic, and minus one half point for female dwarves not having beards.

Gameplay: Typical. It's a gacha game. 6/10. There's never enough energy to actually get anything done in one sitting, as per usual, purchase packs are WAY overpriced, and no particular effort has been expended to make plotlines coincide with the combat mechanic especially well. There has been one special event since I've been playing, where they released Arwen as a hero. There were six stages to the event and I was able to complete five. The sixth required me to have leveled Arwen to five stars in order to complete, and in order to do that I would have had to have either paid $20 for the real world money Arwen pack or got incredibly lucky with the RNG on the in-game gems Arwen pack. However, I am not torn up about this as there was no plot to the event and the rewards were gold and upgrade materials; nice to have, but easy enough to get elsewhere. I am unsure if there are any plans to repeat this event or whether Arwen and other event characters will be available after their events have ended, and this information does have a significant impact on my final opinion of the game. However I'm overall satisfied; it seems to me that the highest levels of this character are locked behind a paywall, but I got a good solid hero that I'm actively using on one of my teams. Points added back for not locking auto-battle until you've manually completed the battle already and for forwarding uncollected daily rewards to your in-game inbox, great quality of life features that other gacha games would be wise to take note of.

Graphics. Fine. 6/10. This rating will doubtless go up over time, as the game is currently plagued by graphical glitches. No apparent impact on actual gameplay but there's quite a bit of A-posing (Frodo and Sam have a combo attack that seems to cause all goblins to A-pose), the Mordor Taskmaster/Úzhan occasionally interacts with the wrong character during one of his skill animations, sometimes when closing out a gear inspection window and going back to a hero's main page will cause them to sprout a second head, which is a bit terrifying, and a few other minor gltiches that are really weighing down the score in this department. But as I've said before, the art style is really fun and unique, I love almost all the character designs, and there are a lot of really good artistic choices (for example: the homepage link to the events page takes the form of a stained glass window, with a really pretty image of whichever character is in focus in the current event). The only probably permanent issue that drags this point down is that some of the combat backgrounds are a bit silly; the heroes are standing on water, or obviously about to run into a wall as they run from one combat stage to the next. But overall the game is really nice to look at. The music is nice too.

Plot. I'm not gonna give the plot a number rating because I like it, but it's not for everyone. You, the player, find a random ring on the ground and put it on because you're not genre-savvy I guess. This ring gives you the power to influence characters from LotR in order to direct them as heroes on the battlefield. How this works is not expounded upon, and it doesn't matter because it's a leveling mechanic. But some other nefarious person is also influencing characters from LotR and they're trying to change the plot, and you have to stop them. Or at any rate, that's what I was told? It seems that sometimes I'm also helping them -- but as this is all just an elaborate excuse to pit completely random teams of heroes together I expect it wasn't thought out quite as thoroughly as it it should have been. Or maybe I just haven't got far enough in the plot to understand it yet. I'm always open to that. Anyhow, I've gotten invested in the subplots mainly through the mechanics of 'it's really mean to Aragorn' and 'they made Uglúk really funny.'

Overall I'm not gonna give it a number rating. Would I recommend it? If you like gacha games, yes. If you like that kind of plot, I'd recommend it just to run through the light and shadow campaigns and look at the pretty graphics.

EDIT: forgot to mention before that this game has been out for roughly one (1) month so that's why I'm so forgiving of the graphical errors.

WHATEVER i wanna talk about why the duel is hilarious 

because this is it: this is where izzy is not asking us to just believe he is why things happened. (aka: ‘i massaged the crew’s opinions of you!’ and then a smash cut to izzy not realizing his actual inability to massage the crew’s opinions are about to get his tight lil ass chucked over the side as lucius stares right into the camera like he’s on the pirate office in his soul, if i had to guess who would be the one staring right at camera in these moments) 

this is HIS THING. he is GOOD AT STABBING. he can STAB ALL DAY. there is NO SUBTEXT HERE SHUT UP HE WILL STAB YOU SHUT UP NOT LIKE T H A T & etc.

by all logical rules both muppet and real, stede really should lose this one. and he does! kind of! he gets stabbed. 

but stede is a fancy man with a fancy ship and a fancy mast: how the everloving fuck is izzy supposed to factor in ‘this motherfucker right here spent more money than i will see in perhaps even my lifetime! who knows! giving his gay lil’ ship the best that money could buy’. that is insane. that is NOT A THING IN HIS WORLD. 

WHO DOES THIS?

stede does this!!!! because if that hadn’t been the fiiiiinest cherrywood from brazil or whatever the fuck, izzy would have still won. it’s the fact that stede had the money needed to outfit his ship in this utterly insane way that lost izzy this duel, in the end, because even clever twisting to the side doesn’t matter when your mast is made out of wood The Poors can afford.

(also. stede won by getting subtextually fucked and izzy lost by subtextually fucking him??????? i am. this show.

the fuuuuuuuck.)

we are winning at levels never before thought possible it seems, after making the wrong choice of becoming an ada wong fan & having to subsist off the crumbs of characterization given to me in in-game files, supplemental material & scant lines of dialog it seems capcom is truly going to give me everything i have ever wanted :

probably giving ada the best DLC in the franchise, a meaningful relationship with a character that isn't leon that seems to take precedent in her story over her few chance encounters with leon in RE4R ( i have a feeling her & luis' history gives their dynamic far more meaning than his little rollercoaster ride with leon ), cool sci-fi contacts replacing the glasses she never really used in the original, integrating her grapple hook in her combat when it was sadly only ever used for traversal, actual content specifically designed for her campaign & not just reused arenas from the main game ( some of these are from the original carried over to ada but i think her performing the coolest thing leon does in the original, dodging the lasers, is sick ), finally positioning wesker as an antagonist in ada's story directly rather than him hanging over her like a school headmaster trying to play mindgames .

it's honestly so personally rewarding to see capcom go to such lengths for a character they have otherwise neglected, even in a game like re6 where she carries the emotional core of the story ( in specific her developing relationship with carla as she learns she is more than just some lab-made doppelganger, which was sadly undercooked - like most of the game, despite the explosions )

Bastian of Burgundy - Prince of Fomalhaut

He is a second son. He is a commander of men. He is more a creature of pride than hunger, if only just. His stoicism is paper thin. His eruptions shatter dynasties, sieges, families, the natural order. He will conquer the world, claim the throne of a god, and make angels kneel at his feet. This, he thinks, is within his capacities.

He has a fairy wife. She anointed him in stolen starlight. Now he sees the cold: the red: the sharp edges on everything. He will master them all. The antichrist must be a master of war, and a master of hearts, and he must stand in the threshold between life and death to order his allies and foes to one side or another. His wife tells him that he could be the antichrist if he earns it. Bastian believes that if he is given the chance to earn it, then there is nothing, actually, beyond his reach.

He is not liked, but he compels. He is reckless and fierce and cunning. His enemies say more about him than his friends.

He kissed his wife’s hand and swore her an oath: he would never see heaven but by violence.

the unpopular opinion that mikan and ruka’s relationship was actually super cute and amazing and important but with the extra spicy flavor of only liking them platonically. only the hottest people in the world will rly get it