#basically the finale has a lot of characters close to the rangers finding out their identities - either bc they figure it out | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gabriella-marino · 7 months

Text

Day 16: Character #Inspo

Katara from Avatar: The Last Airbender

The one, the only <3 getting the obvious out of the way we have the water vibes, their homes having been overturned by a dictatorship, soft, but also willing to bite your throat if you push them to that point BUT ALSO willing to show mercy when it is needed. they also caRE a lot about the Issues within their world and try to advocate for them. like katara trying to get the incarcerated earth benders to fight back or what she did for that fishing town as 'the painted lady.' gabriella also has ideals and morals she sticks to and wants the world to be better than it actually is, and knows that it can be !!! i also think they both share an ability to forgive those they perceived as monsters, but were able to find empathy for them in the end. as seen in how she treats zuko, hama, and yon rha when given the chance to pew pew pew, she doesn't <3

2. Sidney Prescott from the Scream franchise

when it comes to the beloved final girl that is sidney, i think her and gabriella's journeys to becoming that final girl are what are most similar about them. they were both just average gals, living their life, then boom, they were struck by a sudden harsh loss that left them with a lot of questions while also trying to deal with the grief of that loss. and then they both are always having to deal with someone trying to kill them. sidney's killers are obviously more proactive in their pursuit while gabriella doesn't have those moments, she does have that over arching threat to her existence just being a mermaid and if people found out, hunters would come try to get her, right? also, there's the theme of trust within this set of characters i picked out. within the movies sidney has to play the game of who to trust v who not to trust. esp in the sequels when she's so paranoid by her past experiences, she's really trying to pick and chose, only to be betrayed every time in the end. by a boyfriend, a friend, a sibling (but sorta her mom), and then a cousin. yet she still lets people in, still has friends, even goes on to have a family of her own <3 so, i put that into gabriella, that willingness to still care about people despite knowing that anyone could be her enemy if they knew the truth about what she is. also just that unwillingness to let the baddies win !!!! they dont deserve it!!! fuck them!!! what did sidney ever do besides be someone who made mistakes' daughter? NOTHING!!! just like gabriella, what did she do wrong besides be born a mermaid? nothing. they're just livin their lives!

3. Liz Ortecho from Roswell New Mexico

yes this is a CW show. yes it is a remake. no idgaf. she's my girlie!!! the things i think she and gabriella share are deffo the love of science and trying to keep to a more logical approach to life despite, in the end, the emotional one winning out. there is also a theme of forgiveness for liz, like the other girlies on this list, HERS especially because it is saaauuurrr insane that she actually forgave for this in my opinion lmfao. also shares that want to help people, to use her skills and knowledge to learn and grow and help the world become a better place!! even tho it has been pretty shit to her in return!! there's also an ocean thing she has, wanting to go see it and run to it and be near it. liiiiiike yeah. yep.

4. Jen Scotts aka the Pink Ranger from Time Force

deep cut i know <3 and this is NOT just because gabriella also has a pink character motif going on alright. i mean MAYBE that's what guided me toward picking a pink ranger for this task but if the shoe fits !!! like all these other girlies, miss jen is both soft and yet willing to kick someone's ass for her cause!! she's basically the leader of this gen's power ranger team, which is fucking fantastic, you love to see it!! she's also someone who we see starting her journey having lost someone close to her that she cares about DEARLY, has to go to another place that she is not familiar with and has to adopt to, and is trying to keep it together emotionally. tho unlike gabriella her story is about revenge, but she does have a whole arc about not turning into the people who hurt her, so while she doesn't have the whole forgiveness thing going on (besides forgiving herself <3), i think they do share a similarity in wanting these people who do wrong to be brought to justice for the crimes they committed and be held accountable like everyone else, and making the choice to stick to their morals on the matter rather than letting the emotional wave of anger take the lead on what needs to be done.

5. Christine Daae (specifically Emilie Kouatchou) from Phantom of the Opera, the stage production

ahhh christine <3 i love her so much that i think she might be the only one on this list that when i was thinking about gabriella, i was getting influenced by christine. like all of the above characters, she's a girlie who suffered a loss that shaped her. her dad died and that set her up to becoming susceptible to ol erik's ruse and influence which sets up the story the show tells us. she's someone who loves her art and is dedicated to it, like gabriella. she's someone who is soft and loving, but then at the end sometimes a christine will play the role to have a bit of a harsher vibe. esp in the lair scene, sometimes they kinda lay into the phantom after he puts the rope on raoul. which i love that interpretation, like she's finally fed up with his bullshit and doesn't want to just sit there anymore letting him play his little games with them. she sees his face, she knows who he is now, knows he deceived her, she's willing to push back. it's what she deserves honestly <3 BUT, and ahhh shit here we go again, she doesn't duke it out with him now does she? no, no, she sees that he is a lonely fucked up little sewer goblin who, in his own weird fucked up way, did help her when she was grieving. taught her to sing well enough to accomplish being a lead at an opera house, gave her comfort that her dad sent her an angel when he died. anyway this isn't a poto ted talk, there's plenty of those out there. what i AM saying is that while erik did a whole bunch of shit to christine very much warranted her just picking up one of the candelabras and whacking him with it until he let raoul go, what does she do instead? she kisses him, hugs him, and then kisses him again. and by this ONE act of kindness, she saves a lot of people. so, i feel like that is where i have grabbed from the character, having someone who is able to be angry and yet also show empathy to anyone, even those that have hurt her beyond measure. and i also say emilie koutachou specifically because she is someone who acts christine with her whole body! not just with her face and voice, she has arm movement and body language to go with everything as well, which is how gabriella mostly communicates, through body language.

the end <3

#swynwrimo

0 notes

chibigaia-art · 3 years

Note

Sorry for not following up immediately on the DND question. The one recently drawn by rerenah and with a flourish in the hat.

oh, Arcadia!! OKAY SO she's my first DND character that actually went through a whole campaign from start to finish, so I had the time to flesh her out a bit more

also this got super long so, under the cut

She's an half-elf, chaotic good bard with really bad luck when rolling for stealth actions (literally the first fight we had I managed to roll a 1 and ruined the stealth attack for everyone and immediately after I got a nat20 and critted an enemy to death)

She was raised by her human dad in a port city and has almost no memory of her mom who basically just left for no reason; she does use her mom's lyre tho, because musical instruments are expensive and elfic ones are hard to come by in a mostly-human city. She left her hometown to become the apprentice of a gnome mage along with what becomes the rest of the party for the story

Main fighting tactics during the campaign were 1) lie to the government 2) if you can't talk to the enemies, put them to sleep and let the orc and paladin of the party decapitate the monsters 3) if that doesnt work, pull out the sword or bow and disregard your personal safety

though some notable fighting moments were when she enchanted the captain of what was basically the royal army and made him laugh so hard he stopped beating one of her teammates to death / when she almost convinced the final boss dragon to fly to the opposite side of the country so the party would be able to finish the quest without getting turnt into french fries - this was before the half-orc teammate freaked out about how dangerously close she was to the dragon and snatched her up like a potato sack and ran away to safety (leaving the rest of the party behind to fight a whole ass dragon) (tho to be fair, we had to go and rescue a princess so)

there was like,,, a trend at the start of the campaign where she almost died twice so the entire party started looking out for her, especially the ranger, he'd send his wolf after Arcadia to make sure she was okay or had some help, so at the end of the campaign the wolf Churro and Arcadia had a really strong friendship :]

during the campaign she also got adopted by a powerful elf witch that lives in a swamp filled with illusions - basically Arcadia was lured to her house by an illusion that looked like her mom, and wanting to ask a thousand question she ignored the party and disappeared in the mist just to end up with this strange lady (along with the wolf that was sent to track her down but left the ENTIRE party behind so fsnds that was fun)

anyway, they spent alone a lot of time and Arcadia was really interested in her because she was also the same witch of a legend - bard insticts prevailed and she wanted to know EVERYTHING; once the entire party reunited and the witch Cassandra helped them out and gave them some more info for the quest, Arcadia gifted her a short poem she wrote during the night and in exchange the witch gave her a necklace; it was all really sweet and touching because Arcadia promised to visit her again and that she'd bring stories about the outside world and stuff, Cassandra referred to her as the daughter she never had, and then the rest of the party was like 👀 we want gifts/food too and it was ruinedhfdn

oh also it's noteworthy to mention that she didn't flirt with anyone -LITERALLY ANYONE- in the whole campaign, except for the tall, dark elf that was also the captain of the paladins/royal guards I mentioned earlier - and the moment he said a racist thing about her teammates she was ready to throw down; so basically the only moment the bard of the party tried to flirt with someone she managed to find The Asshole; that didn't stop the party from trying to convince her to flirt with the guy tho

anyway the second time they met him the dude had basically stalked them to the location of one of the quest items, one of his men had killed the butler of one of the party member's family and he STILL tried to reason with Arcadia before the party collectively lost their shit and started attacking the paladins - and that's how Captain Charming got hit by a laughter spell, tied up and left in a crypt with the rest of his beaten up/sleeping friends

we never really cleared up on what happened after the campaign was over but imo Arcadia kept her promise to Cassandra (the witch) and went back to visit her while also traveling with her party members whenever they were up to do something wacky or just traveling by her lonesome because that's what celebrity bards to babey

#chibiblabbing #my ocs #ah i need to post the art i did of her yet huh #its only on artfight #Oc arcadia

84 notes · View notes

david-talks-sw · 3 years

Text

About the supposed “dig at Rey” in the Mandalorian finale.

So a lot of people have taken to YouTube and social media, saying that Luke’s line about “talent without training (being) nothing” is a dig at Rey “bEcAuSe ShE’s A mArY sUe who’s good at everything and never trained!!”

No.

Quick recap: The Mandalorian is created by Jon Favreau, and he develops it with Dave Filoni (who created The Clone Wars with George Lucas, invented Ahsoka Tano, and created Star Wars: Rebels), among others.

As far as Dave is concerned, Rey is no different than Ahsoka, she’s not “OP”, she’s not a “Mary Sue”. He’s all for strong, independent, female characters.

He talked about this at the National Center for Women & Information Technology, you can find his full speech here. If you want to see the extracts specifically about Rey and female character in Star Wars, you can find it here (though I’d advise just ignoring the intentionally-triggering title and seeing the video for what it is).

All the backlash he saw about Rey? He saw it for Ahsoka too.

“Oh, she’s fighting Grievous and she’s only, like 13?! That’s so OP!”

“She feels like a Mary Sue written for a prequel based fan fiction.”

“Oh, she disobeyed an order from Yularen on Ryloth?! She’s so snippy!”

“Ugh, I hate her and her stupid voice!”

“She’s always pointing out stuff other characters have missed, like she’s so perfect! She's a Mary Sue with an annoying voice and personality.”

And honestly? I remember that period. People hated Ashley Eckstein and Ahsoka, just like they hated Hayden Christensen, and most Prequel-related content.

So no, that line is not a dig at Rey. If you expect that to ever come from Dave, big chance you’ll be disappointed. He is all for Rey, as a character (as am I, tbh). There may be issues with how she’s written, but none of it is related to her being too strong, or her being good at everything. Guess what? Captain America and Goku are good at everything too.

What The Mandalorian tackles, with that line, is a debate with bigger implications than just Grogu.

We get two sides of the same debate, from both Ahsoka, and Luke.

“I cannot train him. His attachment to you makes him vulnerable to his fears. His anger. I’ve seen what such feelings can do to a fully trained Jedi Knight. To the best of us. I will not start this child down that path. Better to let his abilities fade.”

“He is strong with the Force, but talent without training is nothing. I will give my life to protect the Child… but he will not be safe until he masters his abilities.“

The subject they really subliminally tackle is:

Should Anakin Skywalker have been trained to be a Jedi?

On the one hand:

Anakin has the potential of being the most powerful Force-user in galactic history, as the Jedi know it. It’s just a matter of time before he accidentally Force chokes someone in a fit of anger, or when submitted to extreme stress. He needs to be trained to hone his skills so he’s not a danger to himself and others.

Jedi Training would also help him get over the trauma of growing up as a slave on Tatooine, as it is aimed at keeping your emotions under control, whereas Anakin isn’t even acknowledging their existence (he pretends he’s not afraid in front of the Jedi Council, and seems to be the only person in the room to think that he should hide his fears). His hidden fears, his anger… Jedi Training would teach him to confront them.

Also, there’s a big chance the Sith are back! If they let this kid just go out into the wild, who knows, maybe the Sith Lords pick him up and make him one of their own. Better to keep the boy close.

Anakin is a good boy, raised by a loving mother, with a kind heart. If anything, he’s got the drive to do good as strong as that of any Jedi’s. Him being down-to-earth more than your average Jedi can potentially make him the best out of all of them. He could bridge the distance between the Jedi and the Senate, he could lead the Jedi into a new age. If anyone could be the next, better and improved Yoda, it’s Anakin Skywalker.

On the other hand:

Jedi training is for Jedi only. AKA, it’s perfect if you’re raised in the temple at a very young age to be a diplomat/wizard who upholds the values of the Republic, in control of your emotions and in Balance with the Force. But if you’re not? Then the strict rules of the Jedi Order will basically seem like an insurmountable (bordering on unreasonable) obstacle.

Any normal person will see these rules as attempting to turn you into a sociopath. Because if you’re a normal person, they might. For all intents and purposes, Anakin is a super-powerful normal person. If they take Anakin in, 10 years old, with the attachments he’s formed (his mother), the emotions he represses, the trauma from his upbringing - all of which, in a normal person, are totally fine and common - and try to force him in a mold he just won’t fit in, that’s just a recipe for disaster.

Of all people, Qui-Gon Jinn - Mister “I’m always right because I follow the Will of the Force and you don’t” - who is not the most forthcoming of people, as opposed to Obi-Wan, is insisting that he should train the boy. You give a chaotic Master a chaotic Padawan? That’s adding extra ingredients to the recipe for disaster.

The BEST thing to do would be Qui-Gon leaving the Order with Anakin, and raising Anakin as his surrogate son, teaching him his values, rather than training him as a Padawan and teaching him the values of the Jedi (which he’s too old for and which essentially make the Jedi the Senate’s lapdogs). But Qui-Gon’s insisting that he train him as a Jedi.

Anakin’s mind is too fragile as it is. If they add the stress of being a Jedi to that too, there’s a big chance he won’t be able to take it, and bring about the destruction of everything they are, stand for and care about.

And, to be honest? Both points are fair.

Because Anakin was both…

… the best of them…

… and their destructor.

But then, should Grogu be trained?

In my (and Luke’s) opinion? Yes.

Ahsoka’s logic makes sense… but it only applies to how things were before, back when the Jedi served the Republic as Force-sensitive diplomats/ambassadors, making decisions that impacted whole planets and their billions of inhabitants, keeping the peace through mediation, and occasionally investigating a crime.

But in Grogu’s case… things are a bit different.

The Republic is gone.

The Jedi’s mission of upholding its values seems to be gone with it.

So literally any surviving Jedi, has a new mission: just help people.

Be it Ezra & Kanan helping the Rebellion during the Dark Times.

Or Cal Kestis, saving the Force-sensitive children.

Or Ahsoka, helping the village of Calodan, after the fall of the Empire.

Or Luke, literally being a space-vagabond/Jedi archeologist for 10 years and helping out wherever and whoever he can.

The Jedi no longer have to deal with planet-sized problems, or mediations, or investigations, because the New Republic hasn’t included them in its government, seeing as they have their rangers, now.

So now, the pressure of “upholding the Republic’s values” and “going on missions which impact billions of lives” is gone.

Now, the Jedi operate at a smaller scale and just help people out. As they did, before they became Republic officials.

Sure, they still keep their emotions in control, but that’s simply for the sake of living a healthy life, rather than for the sake of objectiveness and diplomacy.

In these circumstances? It’s totally fine for Grogu to be trained, as he should be.

The line was about the fact that training Grogu to hone his skills is fine, and should be done, before he becomes a danger to everyone around him.

87 notes · View notes

grailfinders · 3 years

Text

Fate and Phantasms #131: Anne Bonny and Mary Read (Archer)

Bonny and Read are back again for another round of D&D in today’s Fate and Phantasms! Once again, we’re making a pirate duo who can sniff out treasure wherever it may lurk, but this time they’re in a bathing suit.

Check out their build breakdown below the cut, or their character sheet over here!

Next up: Met a boy, cute as can be!

Race and Background

No surprises here. Variant Human, and Pirate. This gives you +1 Dexterity and Charisma, and proficiency with Athletics, Perception, and Deception. You also get the Crossbow Expert feat because that’s the closest thing base D&D has to a gun. This lets you ignore the loading property, fire at melee range without disadvantage, and also dual wield, but that last bit doesn’t really matter for this build.

Ability Scores

Keeping your sea legs requires a lot of Dexterity (and so does stabbing and shooting). You also need to keep your Wisdom up to spot treasure on the open seas, so make that second. Your Charisma isn’t bad, lying and scaring the crap out of people is half the job. Your Constitution is above average, because you can’t have a gimmick about missing HP if you don’t have HP to miss in the first place. Your Strength isn’t bad because sea legs could also be athletics, but we don’t need it for anything. Finally, dump Intelligence. Your day job is theft and murder, that doesn’t usually require calculus.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: No surprises here, if we want to be two people there’s really only one class that can help with that. Before that though, you get proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves, as well as Intimidation and History checks. Pirates live and die on their ability to terrify their opponents, and also you’re literally history. That one’s a gimme for any servant.

You also get the Archery fighting style for more accurate arrows, and a Second Wind that can heal you as a bonus action.

2. Fighter 2: Your Action Surge lets you add an extra action to your turn once per short rest. You’re two people so you should get two turns per turn, but we’ll take what we can get.

3. Fighter 3: It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the moment you become an Echo Knight! Echo Knights can Manifest Echo, creating a copy of yourself that has to stay nearby or be destroyed and also has only 1 HP. That’s not too much of an issue though, as there’s no limit to how many you can make, and they only take a bonus action to do so.

You can also Unleash Incarnation once per action and a number of times per long rest equal to your constitution modifier. This lets your echo make an extra attack from its position, as long as it’s melee. Thankfully Bonny’s in charge this time, so you can use this more easily.

4. Fighter 4: For your first Ability Score Improvement we’re taking the Magic Initiate feat. You’re not exactly a wizard, but we’re only picking up Friends, True Strike, and Mage Armor this way. You’re naturally good at intimidation, aiming, and not dying in a bikini, so it’s not a huge issue for you.

5. Fighter 5: Fifth level fighters get an Extra Attack for an extra person. Now you can make two attacks per turn, four with your action surge, or up to five with your unleash incarnation. It would be six, but you still only have a +1 to constitution.

6. Fighter 6: Our last bit of fighter gets you another ASI, which is going towards your Dexterity. Like last time almost everything we want is in dexterity- there’s really no reason to spend ASIs elsewhere right now.

7. Ranger 1: Rogue’s such a winter class, everyone knows ranger is in this Summer! First level rangers get Investigation proficiency- sometimes looking for treasure’s a perception check, sometimes it’s investigation. Now you’re prepared for both.

Either way, you also get a Favored Foe proficiency times per long rest. This lets you concentrate on a creature after hitting it to deal an extra 1d4 damage once per turn. That’s not a lot, but it grows as you level up.

You’re also a Natural Explorer of the coast, doubling your proficiency for intelligence or wisdom checks made in the terrain for extra treasure detection, and you also get a bevy of travel benefits, such as:

Difficult terrain doesn’t slow the group

You can’t get lost

You stay alert while doing other stuff

You can stealth faster if you’re alone

Foraging gets buffed

You get extra information about tracking creatures

Niche? Yes. But you’re spending all your time at the beach, you might as well be good at it.

8. Ranger 2: You get the Dueling fighting style to help out Read, and you can also cast Spells now by using your Wisdom Modifier.

You can Detect Magic to find fancy treasure, or Absorb Elements to hit back harder after getting hit. This halves damage from an elemental effect, then adds 1d6 to your next melee attack. That spell is literally the closest thing we have to your Noble Phantasm, you do not translate well to D&D.

9. Ranger 3: If we can’t make you more deadly the more damage you take, we can at least make you more deadly the longer a fight drags on, and Hunters are pretty good at that. When you take the subclass, you become a Colossus Slayer, adding an extra 1d8 to damage dealt to a creature without full health once per turn.

You can also cast Longstrider since you’re clearly not being weighed down by clothes.

10. Ranger 4: Your next ASI makes you a Sharpshooter, letting you attack from further, ignore most cover, and take a harder shot to hit even harder. If you going to lug a gun around in the ocean, it’s best to make it as deadly as possible.

11. Ranger 5: This extra attack doesn’t stack with your fighter option, but you can still cast Locate Object to find treasures that aren’t magical.

12. Ranger 6: At sixth level your favored foe grows to a d6, and your Natural Explorer expands to the Underdark! That’s kind of like a cave, right?

13. Ranger 7: We continue your “take damage, get better” kick with the hunter’s Multiattack Defense! If you get hit by a creature once, you get a +4 AC bonus for the rest of the turn.

You can also cast Find Traps now. Traps aren’t treasure, but the two are highly correlated. I wonder if that’s intentional...

14. Ranger 8: Use this ASI for more Constitution, which equates to a bigger health pool, more unleashed incarnations, and better concentration saves. (This gives you +14 to your health, not +1: health gets changed retroactively.) You’re also Fleet of Foot, allowing you to ignore nonmagical difficult terrain, as well as nonmagical plants. You also get advantage against magical plants, like Entangle.

15. Ranger 9: Ninth level rangers get third level spells. Water Breathing won’t give you a swim speed, but a snorkel’s always useful at the beach.

16. Ranger 10: You move inland now, expanding your Natural Explorer to the Grasslands. You also learn how to hide yourself within Nature’s Veil. Normally a swimsuit’s about turning heads, but now you can spend a bonus action to turn invisible for a round a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus.

17. Ranger 11: Focusing on ranger instead of fighter left you without a lot of attacks, but we’ll fix that this level with your Volley, letting you attack any number of creatures in a 10′ radius circle with ranged attacks. There’s perks to this origin changing stuff!

If you’d rather spend spell slots on basically the same thing but worse, you can cast Conjure Barrage as well.

18. Ranger 12: Your last ASI is also going to Constitution for even more health! Your frontliner still only has 1 hp, but at least she’s replaceable. That’s a really mean thing to say about your girlfriend, I’m sorry. She is though.

19. Ranger 13: Your first and only fourth level spell is Freedom of Movement. Handcuffs aren’t your thing. Or maybe they are, I’m not here to judge. But seriously, escape from prison first.

20. Ranger 14: Your capstone level bumps your Favored Foe damage up again to 1d8, and you can also Vanish now, hiding as a bonus action. You also can’t be tracked unless you want to be, or they’re using magic. You don’t need anyone finding this treasure after you do.

Pros:

You have plenty of ways to pile on the damage when you hit a creature, which means you can really hurt them when a shot connects.

Are the ranger’s abilities situational? Yes, absolutely. That being said, your ranger goodies and spells combine to make you very hard to run away from. Can’t teleport? Good luck.

You have an effective Range of 400′, and most of your damage bonuses are totally effective at that range. Getting close enough to fight you will be a trial in itself.

Cons:

Are the ranger’s abilities situational? Yes, absolutely. Not only do plenty of your abilities only work in certain areas, a lot of your damage only affects the first attack, which can really hurt if you’re unlucky enough to roll a 20 on the second shot.

Focusing on all those tracking and utility spells means your magical combat is very lacking, both in the sense that you have few spells to help out in a fight, but also in that the ones you do have aren’t that strong.

Just like last time, one of you wants to be as close as possible, one of you wants to be as far away as possible. You’ll have to balance these mixed ranges to get the most out of this build.

#Fate Grand Order #fgo #D&D 5e #Anne Bonny #Mary Read #Ranger #Fighter

22 notes · View notes

tigerkirby215 · 3 years

Text

5e Quinn, Demacia's Wings build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Katie "TeaTime" De Sousa. Made for Riot Games.)

lol who gives a shit about Quinn?

I do. I do Riot. :(

Honestly while I haven’t played Quinn in awhile I still think she’s an extremely fun champion, and not just because you get to bully the enemy top laner with discount Vayne. Quinn has a very unique playstyle that’s so different from every other champ in the game which makes her real refreshing to play after sticking to other champs for an extended period of time.

But let’s be real the main reason I’m making a Quinn build is so I can have a cheat day. I mean she’s obviously just a Beastmaster Ranger, right?

GOALS

Valor, to me! - Burd up! I really wish that Quinn was called “Quinn and Valor” in game.

Stick to the plan, Val - When the going gets tough it helps to be a swift scout, dashing around the enemy and vaulting off them if they get too close.

I'd keep my head down if I were you - While it’s perhaps not the first thing that comes to mind Quinn is known for letting down a volley of arrows when she first engages with Valor on her back.

RACE

League of humans, at least until I go back to Ionia to make more furries. Regardless we’ll be switching it up a bit with a Mark of Finding Dragonmark from Eberron! You get a +2 to Dexterity and +1 to an ability score of your choice: I went for Charisma because “League of Legends female body types.”

You get an early set of boots with the Mark of Finding, since Courier’s Speed increases your base movement speed to 35 feet. And to help with backflips Intuitive Motion will let you add a d4 to your Acrobatics checks (or your Land Vehicle checks, but I’d perhaps discuss with your DM to change that to Air Vehicles instead?) But most importantly you get Magical Passage for a one-time use of Misty Step, for Flash!

IF DRAGONMARKS AREN’T ALLOWED: A Variant Human works fine. Take a +1 to Dexterity and Charisma and the Crossbow Expert feat a little earlier than usual.

ABILITY SCORES

15; DEXTERITY - Dexterity is tied to shooting and back flips, both of which you’ll be doing a lot of.

14; WISDOM - You have a bird’s eye view; the best advantage.

13; CHARISMA - This is partially because “League of Legends female body types” but mostly for multiclassing.

12; CONSTITUTION - Demacians are no easy prey, and spending so much time behind enemy lines has made you sturdier than most.

10; INTELLIGENCE - Intelligence is tied to military tactics among other things.

8; STRENGTH - This is partially because “League of Legends female body types” but mostly for multiclassing because we don’t need it over the other stats.

Feel free to swap Wisdom and Constitution if you want worse skill checks but better durability.

BACKGROUND

We’ll be going for Faction Agent not because it fits best but because it has the abilities that make the most sense. I’m sure you could refer to the Demacian Scouts as a faction after all. Regardless you get proficiency in Insight along with one WIS, INT, or CHA skill of your choice: I opted for Perception for that bird’s eye view. You also get proficiency in two languages so once again pick your poison.

The main reason we opted for Faction Agent was for access to a Safe Haven behind enemy lines. You can always find insiders to give you a place to hide, or to give you information. Not that Val needs any help finding people. "Sometimes I swear that bird is just showing off."

(Artwork made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - ROGUE 1

Starting off as a Rogue for the skill proficiencies primarily. Acrobatics and Stealth are the two main ones we want but I’d also recommend Investigation and Intimidation. (Persuasion may be more useful in the average campaign but it doesn’t fit Quinn well feel free to build the character however you want but I focus on making the character as lore accurate and gameplay accurate as possible.) Anyways as a Rogue you also get Expertise in two skills: I’d recommend buffing your Perception right out the gate, as well as your Stealth because... it’ll be useful as a Rogue I assure you.

Rogues can chat with spies and infiltrators behind enemy lines thanks to Thieves’ Cant, a mixture of words and phrases that don’t actually mean what they sound like. But of course what we’re really here for as a Rogue is good ol’ Sneak Attack, for a d6 if you sneak attack an enemy (duh) or if Val (or another ally) is distracting them.

I’m going to briefly mention what weapons you’re probably going to want to start out with: a Hand Crossbow is an obvious must but until about level 6 or so you can honestly just stick to a Light Crossbow to do more damage at a better range early on.

LEVEL 2 - ROGUE 2

Second level Rogues can further abuse their range thanks to Cunning Action, letting them Dash, Disengage, or Hide as a Bonus Action. Play around bushes to get the jump on your Harrier marks.

LEVEL 3 - BARD 1

Seeing as Bards are good at everything we’ll be taking some Bard levels. As a Bard you get proficiency in one skill as well as a musical instrument: pick whatever instrument you prefer and I’d of course take Animal Handling to take care of Valor.

You also get Bardic Inspiration to tell your allies of information you scouted ahead with your bonus action, letting them add an extra d6 to skill checks, attack rolls, and saving throws that they know are coming. You have a number of inspirations equal to your Charisma modifier, and regain all expended inspiration die at the end of a long rest.

But of course the main boon from being a Bard is access to Spellcasting! You get two cantrips from the Bard list: Light will let you see with your dumb human eyes, and Message will let you chat with your team behind enemy lines. You also get four first level spells from the Bard list: Animal Friendship is kinda an obvious one, as is Speak with Animals. Other than that Heroism will help you (or your allies) keep their cool behind enemy lines, and Color Spray (ty Tasha’s) will let Valor blind your foes so you can get away!

LEVEL 4 - BARD 2

Second level Bards get Jack of All Trades, letting you flex into whatever role your party may need. You also get Song of Rest to heal for an extra d6 of health during short rests to patch yourself up after getting into a scrap. And finally Tasha’s gave you Magical Inspiration, letting your allies with Bardic Inspiration add a roll on their inspiration die to the damage or healing of a spell.

You also learn another first level spell like Feather Fall, in case Valor needs to drop you.

LEVEL 5 - BARD 3

Third level Bards get Expertise in two skills: Acrobatics proficiency is a requirement for backflips, and Animal Handling would be good to handle Valor. (But more realistically expertise in Insight or Investigation would be more useful.)

But more importantly we can finally get some combat ability out of the Bard! The College of Swords gives you proficiency with medium armor and shields, neither of which we really need. It also gives you a Fighting Style you won’t use with a Hand Crossbow, but Dueling is probably better for your purposes.

What we’re mainly here for is Blade Flourish, which despite the name works on ranged attacks! When you take the attack action on your turn Harrier will increase your movement speed by 10 feet, and once per turn you can use one of the following Blade Flourishes:

Defensive Flourish increases the damage of the shot by a roll of your Bardic Inspiration and let you add the number to your AC as Valor makes it harder for the enemy to hit you.

Slashing Flourish will let you pick up a Runaan's Hurricane to deal extra damage to the target and everyone within 5 feet of them.

Mobile Flourish lets you vault off an enemy, dealing extra damage equal to a roll of your Bardic Inspiration and pushing them back a number of feet equal to 5 plus whatever you rolled on your Bardic Inspiration. If you want you can then use your reaction to run up to them, but I don’t know why you’d want to do that.

Basically no matter what your Blade Flourish does extra damage equal to your Bardic Inspiration, and you can choose to either make yourself harder to hit, do AoE damage, or push the enemy away. Oh and you can now learn second level spells like Animal Messenger so Val can get important information back to Demacia.

(Artwork by Michelle Hoefener. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 6 - BARD 4

4th level Bards get the first of many Ability Score Improvements but we’re actually going to take a Feat: the Crossbow Expert feat will let you ignore the Loading property of crossbows to attack more than once on your turn, attack in melee range without disadvantage, but most importantly if you attack with your hand crossbow you can make one more attack with your bonus action!

You also learn another spell, and another cantrip! For your cantrip Minor Illusion is great to make a distraction, and for your leveled spell Locate Object will help if you need to find an important artifact belonging to the enemy. Are there more useful spells? Yes, but I’m building what would make the most sense for Quinn as a character. Feel free to take Heat Metal or Lesser Restoration as you’re allowed to change my builds however you want.

LEVEL 7 - BARD 5

Grabbing the 5th level of Bard for Font of Inspiration, letting your Bardic Inspiration (and Blade Flourishes!) come back after a Short Rest. Which is good because your Bardic Inspiration increases to a d8!

You can also learn third level spells like Leomund’s Tiny Hut for a safe place to rest after a long combat.

LEVEL 8 - BARD 6

But of course the 6th level of Bard wouldn’t hurt, as you’d now get an Extra Attack from the College of Swords! You can also learn another third level spell like Sending to send information more directly. Again: feel free to take spells that you feel are more practical if you wish.

(Artwork by SixMoreVodka Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 9 - ROGUE 3

Going back to Rogue to get our Scouting badge, specifically with the Scout subclass! You get to officially be classified as a Skirmisher, and can move half your movement speed if an enemy ends their turn within 5 feet of you. This movement doesn’t provoke opportunity attacks either, so I’d flavor it as you vaulting off the foe to safety.

You’re also a natural Survivalist, with Expertise in the Nature and Survival skills. That’s why we didn’t get Survival proficiency earlier! And to top it off your Sneak Attack increases to 2d6.

LEVEL 10 - ROGUE 4

4th level Rogues get another Ability Score Improvement, and we’ve been sitting on an uneven Dexterity score for awhile now. So the Piercer feat will let you increase your Dexterity by 1 while also augmenting your skills with a Light Crossbow, allowing you to reroll the damage die of one of your attacks and deal triple damage if you crit!

I’d discuss with your DM if your Blade Flourishes count as “weapon damage die” for the sake of Piercer, because if they do you’ll likely get a lot more value out of this feat. If not well... it’s still useful regardless!

(Artwork by bekkomi on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 11 - BARD 7

Quickly going back to Bard for some 4th level spell slots to cast spells like Dimension Door to quickly get out of danger.

LEVEL 12 - BARD 8

But of course the 8th level of Bard will get you some more Ability Score Improvements: more Dexterity will mean deadlier shots and more AC. And you can learn another 4th level spell like Freedom of Movement to get out of sticky situations.

LEVEL 13 - BARD 9

9th level Bards get to pretend that a d8 Song of Rest die by total level 14 is valuable. You do at least get 5th level spells like Rary's Telepathic Bond to keep communication up with your team.

LEVEL 14 - BARD 10

But what we’re mainly here for is the 10th level of Bard. To start off you get Expertise in two more skills: Insight and Investigation would both be the most practical choices. Your Bardic Inspiration also increases to a d10, which means that your Blade Flourishes increase to a d10 as well!

But far more importantly you get Magical Secrets, and hey look by total level 15 we finally got Valor! Summon Beast will let you summon a beast of land, sea, or (most realistically) air to fight alongside you! The flying beast has a 60 foot flying speed, Flyby (which lets it avoid attacks of opportunity), and can attack using your spell attack modifier to deal damage equal to a d8 + 4 + the level of the spell slot you used to cast this spell. It’s only a second level spell but it gets quite strong when upcast, so you can choose how strong you want Valor to be!

Alternatively if you want to fly Behind Enemy Lines, look no further than Fly! It gives you a 60 foot flying speed, plain and simple! And if you upcast it Valor can even bring a friend, or several friends!

You can also learn another cantrip like Mending, because it’s good to keep your armor in check as well as your falconer’s glove.

LEVEL 15 - BARD 11

Seeing as we got Valor we may as well grab a few more small things from Bard. 11th level Bards get 6th level spells like Find the Path, to find the path to the objective. Again: feel free to take more practical spells I am merely taking what makes sense for Quinn.

LEVEL 16 - BARD 12

12th level Bards don’t get new spells but they do get Ability Score Improvements. I’ll leave you with a choice: more Charisma will increase your Bard saving throw DCs (and Valor’s hit chance) as well as give you more Blade Floruishes, but the Sharpshooter feat will let you consistently add more damage to your shots while also ignoring range limitations and cover.

(Artwork by Ina Wong and West Studios. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 17 - BARD 13

Grabbing 7th level spells from the 13th level of Bard like Teleport, to recall back to base when needed. You also get to pretend that a d10 Song of Rest die by total level 18 is majorly impactful.

LEVEL 18 - BARD 14

14th level Swords Bards get the Master’s Flourish, letting you make a Blade Flourish every turn without spending a Bardic Inspiration, as long as you make your Blade Flourish a d6 instead.

But you also get two more Magical Secrets! To call down a Skystrike try Steel Wind Strike, which will damage up to 5 creates in the area and also let you teleport to one of them after using it. Your other spell doesn’t really matter much so... I dunno. Blindness / Deafness so Valor can make a Blinding Assault? Again feel free to make your own choices to customize the build.

LEVEL 19 - BARD 15

We’ll be stopping at the 15th level of Bard for a d12 Bardic Inspiration, as well as an 8th level spell like Feeblemind to weaken an enemy beyond any capability of fighting.

LEVEL 20 - BARD 16

But we may as well grab one more Bard level for one last Ability Score Improvement. Again up to you if you want to cap out that Charisma modifier or take Sharpshooter for some more damage.

Now that that’s done it’s time for some Ranger levels! Oh wait...

WHY NO RANGER LEVELS? - Put simply it would’ve been very hard to get Quinn’s unique skill set without some weird multiclassing shenanigans or a Bard investment. The three things I needed for Quinn were the following:

* Bird companion (Ranger or Druid)

* Flight (Sorcerer, Warlock, Wizard, Artificer, or some weird stretches of logic like “be a Druid and turn into a bird to fly lol.”)

* Skystrike (either Conjure Barrage [bad] on Ranger or Battle Smith Artificer, or Steel Wind Strike on [high level] Ranger or Wizard)

Put simply there was no combination of subclasses that wouldn’t result in weird mix of classes other than Bard. Add in the fact that I really wanted Scout Rogue levels as well as Crossbow Expert (both of which would conflict with Beast Master Ranger) and Bard seemed like the most logical course of action.

The sad truth is that in all honesty Quinn doesn’t even use Valor that much in her kit is kinda the main thing. I wanted to prioritize the crossbow shooting of Quinn more than anything. If you want a more traditional Quinn build that prioritizes the Bird then Scout Rogue 8 / Beastmaster 12 (using Tasha’s Beastmaster companions) will give you more bird and just about everything that this build did minus the flight. (If you build like this I’d also recommend dropping Crossbow Expert and simply opting for a Longbow, or seeing if you can get an Artificer teammate to make you a Repeating Heavy Crossbow.)

If you really want flight and are willing to stretch your imagination then Scout 4 / Drake Warden (UA) 16 gets Perfected Bond by Ranger level 15, allowing you to ride the flying mount. Yes you’ll have a Fireproof Valor but you can just call that Phoenix Quinn.

Of course all of this can be avoided if your DM either gives you a magic item that provides Flight or lets you put Fly on the Ranger spell list. The golden rule is to always discuss with your DM if you have a particular vision in mind, or else accept the sacrifices you’ll have to make for practicality.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Just like hunting thresher geese - 3 hand crossbow attacks per round with a 3d6 Sneak Attack and a d6 (or d12) Blade Flourish adds up to some pretty decent damage per round overall, and that isn’t even considering Sharpshooter.

I'll follow your lead, Valor - Most of your spellcasting is utility based, meaning that you don’t need to worry about your spellcasting modifier. And hey: we got Valor without having to go for Beastmaster Ranger!

Buy me some time - Mixing Bard and Rogue together means that you have proficiency in quite a lot of skills! Expertise in 8 total skills, proficiency in one more, and Jack of All Trades for the remaining skills. You can fill any role that the party may need!

CONS

Look Val; snacks - It takes us quite awhile to get Valor; some would argue too long. Put simply there’s very little way for us to get the very specific spell list required for Quinn (Summon Beast, Fly, Steel Wind Strike) without doing some weird multiclassing shenanigans. You could go Lore Bard if you want to get access to Summon Beast and Fly faster (Scout 3 / Lore 6 = basically everything to play Quinn by total level 9) but then you’d miss out on Extra Attack among other things.

Still heart, steady aim - Low Constitution along with a d8 hit die really doesn’t do you any favors. You’ll likely have a little over 100 health, which means that it won’t take much effort to put you in Power Word Kill range.

Who's there? Jarvan who? - Honestly our Charisma is low for a Bard, and while most of the spells we took are utility based it still sucks to only have two Blade Flourishes. Feel free to use Point Buy instead for some better starting stats and less in those fairly pointless stats like Intelligence. (8 / 15 / 12 / 8 / 13 / 15 would be my recommendation to have the best Charisma you can get while still having decent Wisdom to boot.)

But your job is to scout: any kills you pick up on the way are a nice bonus. Soften the enemies up with Valor by your side and do what needs to be done to win the war without the enemy knowing you’re there. Fight differently, fight dirty, and remember that no matter what at least you’re not playing Vayne top.

(Artwork by Xu “Crow God” Cheng. Made for Riot Games.)

#DnD 5e #dnd build #dnd guide #dnd #League of Legends #League of Legends Quinn #League of Legends Valor #League of Legends Quinn and Valor #Quinn #Valor #Quinn & Valor #dnd rogue #dnd bard #dnd ranger?#bird up

16 notes · View notes

techouspeaks · 3 years

Text

Real Rip-Offs!: Fate: The Winx Saga

It’s the infamous show that takes the magic of Winx and flushes it down the toilet! May contain spoilers.

Where the frick do I even begin with this? Like what the hell!?

Like everyone else, when I saw the teasers and trailers for this I wasn’t too thrilled with the whole thing, but I decided I’ll give it a watch and boy...this is bad. Really really bad! Omg! Not very long into the first episode and already I wanted to turn it off! I usually get that feeling within maybe the second or third episode of a show but no! This was bad even from the beginning.

Let’s put a side the blatant obvious issue with replacing Musa and Flora’s race, which Captain Marvel kinda already did that. She was black for a while then they made her white again. No one gave a dang but okay. Priorities I suppose. But this series does things that fails already on arrival.

First, we’re introduced to Bloom AFTER she finds out her powers. Yup! We’re just thrown in there like Mummy Returns, she’s like boop! We’re there! Right after a farmer gets killed by something called a “Burned One” right at the beginning! A blatant shadow monster you only end up seeing in the distance in the shadows. When I first played the episode, I thought I accidentally played an episode of Goosebumps at first and I mean it in that sense. It wasn’t scary, it was pathetic! Are You Afraid of the Dark had more nightmare fuel and that show was on Nickelodeon!

The dialog already dated! Bloom actually says the word “mansplaining” and is already a total b@#$ to Sky and they haven’t even dated! Gosh, at least when Bloom had troubles with Sky they at least established they’re dating! Despite the whole “feminist” agenda, Bloom is a freakin moron and needs to be saved by Aisha and a teacher. The whole use of smartphones, at least in the older series, they made up their own tech so the series could take place at any time.

Let’s not forget the wonderful, unique personalities of each of our favorite girls (except Techna) has been replaced with “troubled teen with parent/social issues”. Like every single girl in this is awful! There’s no good guy to root for!

Like I don’t expect teens to be happy all the time. I suffer mental health problems including anxiety! I know that depression isn’t about being sad all the time either! I have friends who have it! My teen years weren’t the greatest and I wouldn’t relive those years either. However, even with all that, the way this show depicts emotional troubles and mental health, it makes it seem like if you’re not troubled all the time and you’re not moping about your problems more often than not, you don’t have mental health issues or emotional problems!

There’s taking light of it where characters don’t seem to face real issues and then there’s over exaggerating it and this does just that. It over exaggerates what teen life and mental health is like.

Not to mention, but none of the characters seem likeable cuz again, there unique personalities were replaced with “troubled teen”. You don’t even to know their names. The only thing that sets them apart is the reason why they’re miserable and the boys, don’t get me started with them. Just a heartthrob with no brain that has to back down when a girl gets mad at them cuz girls can’t be strong unless the man backs down to let her be. Which is the opposite of what that whole girl power agenda is.

News flash, a woman isn’t strong if they run into danger without a brain. Like they don’t need to be super smart but at least know how to think on their feet. That’s what old Bloom did at least and a woman isn’t strong if the man has to back down for her. What made Mulan (1999) a strong character was cuz the guys didn’t back down on her. She had to learn to fight and never gave up on it. Same with Bloom and the other girls of the old series. They fought a long side the dudes and saw them as equal. They didn’t use “mansplaining” cuz girls and guys were equal.

There’s also no comradery. I get that in the first episode, the Winx weren’t that close yet in the old series, but they at least weren’t mean to each other. They at least were chilled with each other, were polite with one another and thus would already be comfortable around each other. You could be friend any of the old girls and get a long with them fine. Had any one treat me the way these new girls did back in my day in school, I wouldn’t have befriended a single one! Everyone’s so riled up in their own personal problems and they just act mean that, even when they’re trying to sympathize with each other, it all comes across as insincere.

I get teens can be mean. I wasn’t always nice either but not this mean. Everyone gets so offended and that’s the thing. The boys get a long with each other fine. The girls always act like they’re ready to slit each other’s throat and already to mope about something or get mad about something. So basically this is the stereotype of what people think feminism is. Girls are total emotional which is somehow a personality, “so much better than the boys” and the guys are laidback idiots with “duh” as a personality.

I was even shock that the replacement for Flora “Terra”, nearly kills Riven by hanging him by vine. Like, she down right tries to kill him! That’s attempted murder, yet it’s brushed a side for whatever dang reason! Flora wouldn’t do this, not even to her enemies! She would get mad but she would never use her powers against someone that clearly wasn’t an enemy and even then, she wouldn’t go that far. If murderous tendencies counts as strong, the people who made this show and the people who agree with that scene, need serious therapy!

Flora was strong cuz she was kind. She used her abilities to the best of her own, stood up even when she was scared and showed kindness to even people being mean to her. That takes a lot of skill and to some that’s “unrealistic”. Well you know what? It is realistic! I know people who do their best to avoid conflict and always stay kind cuz kindness is a rare thing!

Now and I know people who attack people for hating Terra cuz they believe it’s body shaming if you do, but no! I don’t like Terra not cuz she’s not skinny. I shame on her cuz she like her I would say friends but more so they’re enemies under the same roof, are stereotypical “my life is bad or it isn’t perfect so I must act like a rude, stuck up brat and mope around a lot” and for showing that murderous tendencies = edgy and strong, which is dangerous. Sure, it was a quick moment and but I’m with Riven, he could have died and who knows, what if Riven had asthma or other breathing problems, Terra doesn’t know!

I also watched where Bloom finally gains her wings and the effects for that is so bad, even the effects for Power Rangers are more credible despite this series being a “adult version”.

This series is just bad! It’s not even fun kind of bad. All the characters are either mean or stupid or both, you can’t root for them. No one has a personality outside edgy, stupid or troubled teen. Has dialog and themes that make it dated on arrival. The school and settings are uninspiring. The effects are down right pathetic! The outfits are ugly! Not even as a teen would I wear stuff like that and I wore some tacky choices. I’m a 90s girl, I had tacky stuff but man! Bloom half the time looks like she’s wearing curtains from a haunted mansion and not even from the Haunted Mansion. More like a frumpy, sad knock off version of the movie.

Yeah, this series is the worst! It’s not even just the controversial stuff that makes it bad. It’s just all around bad in everything it gives! I can’t even stand watching a single episode. It’s so bad I don’t even want to use pictures or screenshots of it for this review! I give Fate: The Winx Saga 1 out of 10 stars! I would give it 0 if I could! Just don’t bother! Watch the old Winx and World of Winx cuz those two series for kids are surprisingly more adult than this piece of crap!

Now excuse me while I go enjoy another episode of Aikatsu Planet! At least that show is fun to watch and the characters don’t make me want to slap them!

Also for my rip off reviews I don’t read the notes usually. You can reblog, rant at me and call me whatever, but you’re writing to no one so have fun! If you like this show more power to you! Not everyone wants to worship it though!

#fate winx club #world of winx #winx club #Winx

19 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 4 years

Text

House of Mouse review: “The Three Caballeros” or State of Your Outfit Donald

The Ride of the Three Caballeros continues, and with reviewed paid for up until legend, we’re fueled up and ready to ride on for some time now. This admittedly has taken a bit longer than I like to get back on the ride, due to a number of reasons, but i’m back on the ride and these next two were both a pleasure to get to and cover a show that was LONG overdue to show up here: It’s the House of Mouse! For those of you who haven’t heard of it House of Mouse was a Disney show in 2000 that ran on it’s one Saturday morning block, the follow up to the Disney afternoon. It also holds a close place in my heart as these are the versions of Mickey and Co I grew up with, as I had Disney Channel as a kid and they reaired it a LOT, so the show is sorta soaked into my DNA, and is likely the reason why I like Donald and Goofy so much, as their shorts here and their personalities outside them really drew me in. I’ll still be objective mind, but the show means a lot to me and i’m not going to hide that.

The show has a really amazing setup: Mickey and Co run a club for Disney characters. While no tv characters showed up, anyone who had been in the movies was fair game, and everyone from Hades to both forms of Simba somehow to the horned freaking king showed up. The only exceptions were as I said Tv characters, though Pepper Ann makes a cameo in the pilot, and the Pixar characters.. which is more fair than you think. Keep in mind at the time of this series, there were only three Pixar Movies: Toy Story, a Bug’s LIfe and Toy Story 2, which came out the same year as house of mouse. Not only that Pixar wasn’t owned by Disney at the time, so there was likely a fear they could loose the rights to use the characters at some point and thus didn’t want to chance it. But yeah this setting is used for great jokes, it’s the source of the “No one does X like gaston!” meme and it’s funny every time they do that gag. Though the main stars of the show are still mickey and co with each having a fitting position in the club’s hierachy: MIckey and Donald, being equal stars, co-own the club, though Donald sometimes feels overshadowed. Mickey, with his people skills and cheer is the MC and host. Donald, given his jack of all trades nature and butt monkey status, is guest services, in charge of taking care of the club’s featured guests and naturally having it backfire, as well as sometimes envying Mickey’s spot and trying to take it over. Minnie, being level headed, keeps things running, planning the show and managing finaces as well as calming Mickey when he gets panicky. Daisy runs guest services while trying to break out on her own and is somewhat of a ditz in this series, though not overly dumb or incompetent, just a bit of an air head is all, and her sweet bubbly nature makes her very likeable. That and outside the shorts at least, she’s very nice to Donald here and their realtionship is very sweet, hence it being one of the four versions of it I like. Goofy is head waiter, which fits him because.. I dunno they needed one. But he does the job well even if he naturally screws up a bunch because Goofy. Pluto is also around as a personal assitant because eh why not. But what really stood out abotu the show to me, even more so as an adult, was the supporting cast. As a kid, I was introduced to a lot of the disney side characters i’d never heard of before, all of whom get a decent amount of screen time over the series, while as an adult, I find it heartwarming they brought these characters back and fleshed them out after not being used on screen for so long, with one big exception that was still nice of them to use and helps bridge the generation gap.

The rest of the HOM crew consisted of Hoarce, Mickey’s friend who was used a lot early on and who works as the club’s engineer and handyman, Clarabelle, also often forgotten but thoroughly defined here as a loveable gossip and acted wonderfully by the incomparable April Winchell. I credit this show for making me love both characters especially Clarabelle and wanting to see them more.

We also have Gus, a far more obscure on screen character. Gus is Donald’s Cousin, and as of this writing is the ONLY one of Donald’s three majorly used Cousins to have not shown up in the Ducktales reboot. Gus is also the only one whose not a comics original, to my shock, instead showing up in the short “Donald’s Cousin Gus”, communicating only through honks and eating all of Donald’s food. He was naturally adapted for the comics, where while still having a huge appetite became more bossed with being a lazy while working with Grandma Duck, his and Donald’s Grandma. He’s so different between mediums I genuinely forgot he was in this show and didn’t realize he and the chef from this show were the same person. Still it’s nice to see him and hopefully he’ll make the reboot before it ends. Finally rounding out the supporitng cast we have Huey Dewey and Louie, who mostly show up as the quackstreet boys to dance and are kind of inbetween their classic designs and their quack pack versions: They have the hair from quack pack, but seem more like their 12-13, a bit older than standard, but sitll not as old as they are in Quack Pack. They also don’t talk which is a vast improvement over Quack Pack. And finally, and more prominently, we have Max, who as I said bridges the gap between generations and I think was an amazing inclusion. He not only gave younger viewers like me a character they knew better, but allowed the character’s story to continue a bit, clearly taking place after xtreme but having him actually go on a date with Roxanne. Thank you House of Mouse Writers. your doing Golb’s work. Antagonist wise we have Pete, as usual trying to muck things up and presumibly flush with post divorce cash. He’s the club landlord, and wants Mickey out for reasons that are never explained, but as long as the show goes on and Mickey pays rent on time, the show goes on. Being Pete, he naturally tries to sabotage things. It’s a good device. The other is Mortimer, probably the series deepest cut alongside Gus as he only shwoed up in one short but the series easily made him one of my faviorites: A Sleazy asshole who tries to pick up on Minnie (who thankfully this go round is not at all receiptve), tries to get on the card, and constnatly says Ha-Cha-Cha. Maurice LaMarche, this show had a REALLY talented voice cast can you tell?, really owned the character and has been his voice since and really took him from a one dimensional douche to a LOVEABLE asshole.

Granted most of this.. really isn’t relevant as only the main cast show up, but it’s an aspect of the show I like so I went into it anyway. Plus i’ll defintely be coverng the show again so this saves me time for later. Back on point though, the show’s format was a problem of the week, ranging from guest troubles to pete shenigans to internal strife in the club to just general sitcom shenanigans, going on at the club, with shorts inserted in from a previous Mickey Show, Mickey MouseWorks. MouseWorks was a short lived, pun intended, show that didn’t do so good, so they had a bunch of these shorts sitting around including some that never aired on the show, and thus inserted them as cartoons being played for the club patrons. It was a great device and the shorts, while varying in quality , are mostly pretty good and were the first Disney Shorts I saw. It was a good format, allowing the main stories to have plenty of time, but not have to overpad them or anything and with so many shorts on hand they could simply write the story to be as long as they needed and then insert however many shorts were needed. It worked well.

So yeah as you can tell I truly love this show and it introduced a lot of stuff to me. And naturally.. that includes the Three Caballeros here, with their song here being stuck in my head for years and this being the first time they’d shown up in decades... which is ironically how long it took for me to see their movie but regardless. The boys were back, and you can see how the show did with them, under the cut.

Something to note, No Disney Plus this time.. because BAFFLINGNLY the show is not on there, despite no rights issues holding it up I’m aware of, and the show having every other mouse and duck related animated series on there. I know, I’ve talked about this before, even in this very retrospective.. but I keep bringing it up because it’s something you easily forget about. Something that may slip away. But don’t let it. Let them know, and get our shows on there already. Christ. Anyways, due to the show’s format of sliding the shorts in, and to make thing easier on me for house of mouse reviews i’m simply going to do the shorts first, then the main plot. Good? Good.

This one only had two, though it varied on how many they used, and some were just super short shorts anyway, so it all balances out and as I said, i’ts better they just told as much story as was there than tried to rush it. So without further adue...

Donald’s Fish Fry: Poor Poor Humphrey Yeah I didn’t like this one. The premise is using the old character Humphrey the Bear.. only here instead of being the antagonist the ranger present basically bullies the poor bear, while the other bears constnatly get more fish than him when it’s their registered time to fish. It’s just agrvating.. and when the poor boy finally GETS a fish, Donald snatches it. Donald isn’t unsympathetic here, he found the fish fairly.. but it’s hard to tell who we’re supposed to root for here. Humphrey, who just wants what’s his, or Donald whose oblivious but technically in the wrong. This kind of slapstick just.. dosen’t work as well with both sides being sympathetic. It can work with say bugs and daffy, because both are equal, but there’s clearly an antagonistc force in elmer fudd. But this type of shenanigan just dosen’t work when neither side deserves the punishment, and Humphrey did nothing wrong. I felt like this for supporting him the whole time.

And it ends with the ranger getting the fish. Because he wasn’t unlikeable enough clearly. Though Humphrey does get some beans so yay? Also the house segment after has Ranger Dickhead stealing Humphrey’s dinner, which given he’s at the club he CLEARLY paid for because it’s too fatty. Fuck you dude. I hope Goofy threw you out for that one. Just not a fun sit. I’ve seen this kind of shenanigan done better, in disney classic shorts even. I’ve seen Don as the villian better, See Trick or Treat for a good example> There’s just.. nothing here and it goes on forever. This is a good chunk of the episode! Lordy! Just a genuinely bad short. Thankfully the next one while not as word inducing is also not as headache inducing How to Be Smart: Now THESE were my faviorites as a kid. I loved goofy, so shorts about him were no brainer but even now.. these are still funny. Basically a narrator would follow Goofy around while he tries to learn how to do something, in this case how to get smarter after loosing on a gameshow .. and owing the show three milion dollars. There’s not much ot go into, it’s basically a series of jokes about Goofy going to school from elementary to college and learning his way up while Dealing with Ludvig’s bratty nephew and his own stupidity. It’s a funny short and really well done and these are easily some of the show’s best shorts and this is no exception. Unlike the Humphrey short, where this essentially happened.

My soul and I gladly enjoyed How to Be Smart. Dare to NOT be stupid and check this short out.

The Wraparound: And I”m Donald Duck! As for the main segment it’s pretty good. We open with Mickey hyping up tonight’s act, which is naturally the Three Caballeros! But trouble sets in as Donald, while proud at first, is rightfully annoyed that a man on the street segment shows NO ONE remembers he was in the group. Including his best friend goofy. Only Pumba does, somehow. I dunno maybe he dated Panchito once before meating timon. Point is Donald dosen’t take this well, even if we get a nice moment of Daisy swooning over the fact.. even if being HOM Daisy, she can’t get the name right. But given i’ve had trouble spelling it right, I’m one to talk.

So being Donald he overreacts, which I like as.. well it’s Donald. Of course when given a very resonable reason to get upset he takes it a step too far. In this case he’s gotten an army of lawers, refuses to speak to mickey and has put ... THIS on. I showed it at the top of the page but.. well it bears repeating.

It’s like every bad thing about the early 2000′s, from the douchey shades, to the rings, to the golden knuckles, to the hat that looks like a penis, to the no donald logo. There should be all the donalds, ALL OF THEM. He also has an army of lawyers, and naturally resorts to hot doggin and grandstanding: Signing autographs during the show, putting a giant poster of himself up. It works okay, as it makes him unsympathetic for the next part to work and is really funny which is the point. Even if again he looks like the feces that’s produced when shame eats too much stupidity.

Instead of just getting Dale Gribble in there, Mickey is at a loss for a solution till the boys show up and.. it’s a mixed bag. Carlos Alazraqui is excellent as Panchito, slipping into the roll well. Unlike last time the character showed up, they did NOT get a mexican actor, but Carols is still Latino, so it’s still better than what they did for Jose, and still big of them to actually bother to get a Latino actor to play a latino role. Jose on the other hand.. is played, and not very good, by Rob Paulson. And before anyone throws stuff at me, I love Rob. I will be gushing about him when I get around to reviewing the animaniacs reboot. He’s a god among voice actors and I love him. But his voice, at least in this ep dosen’t really .. FIT Jose, and he dosen’t really match the characters energy which is VERY weird given Animaniacs was right before this. The guy can DO energy and it’s one of his best talents. He STILL can as evidenced by both TMNT 2012 and the Animaniacs revival. It’s just not one of his better performances. I love the guy but even gods have off days. And of course there’s the bigger issue of the very white Rob shouldn’t be playing the very Brazilian Jose. Not matching nationatlies is one thing, it sucks, but The Three Cablleros had a much bigger budget than HOM likely did. HOWEVER, it couldn’t of been that hard to find two latino voice actors in 2000, especially when you found at least one. I get this wasn’t as big a thing but when the 1940′s did better than you, you know you screwed up.

But it probably dosen’t help the two.. barely do anything. Despite the episode being named after them, they only show up towards the end and just sorta say hi to mickey, get cool entrances, and then seeing Donald being a dick and Mickeya sking for their help, humble him with their musical number. And the Musical Number IS really good, it’s been in my head for years and is just as catchy as the classic “Three Cabllero’s Song”.. why they didn’t sing that I don’t know, but this original one, a light knockoff of la bamba is still really fun and bouncy and the gags are good. It’s a really good climax and Donald deserves his punishment. The only really issue is the ending, as.. no one leaned anything. No one acknowledges how forgotten Donald felt, Mickey dosen’t seem to get the issue as his “promoting Donald” at the end to make sure he’s not forgotten.. just has a bunch of jabs at his expense, and Donald dosen’t apologize..t hougH daisy is really sweet to him so we got some Donsy at least. It’s just a weak ending to an otherwise excellent wraparound. Final Thoughts: This one was.. okay. Shorts aside, i’ve said my peace about them, the wraparound is a lot of fun, as is the musical number, even if the “artist formerly known as” joke was played out even in 2000. I mean yeas Prince changing his name to a symbol was insane, I get that.. but by then everyone had clowned on that decision and given he did so in a bizarre act of defiance towards his label, at a time where we now know how scummy record labels can be, it hasn’t aged well. It’s just the weak climax, song not included, really drags things down. The Cabs are just.. a cameo in their own damn episode, even with the full musical number and could’ve been around more. They don’t get to show off personalities or really do anything but teach Donald a lesson and are basically one indivdiual here. It sticks out even more because Rosa had both be utterly distinct and showed the utmost care while here.. their just sorta tossed in so they could have Donald be a primadona.. which itself is funny but on the whole this episode was just.. disappointing to revisit. It was disheartening to learn one of my favorite episodes as a kid wasn’t that good. It is worth checking out if you like Donald or the cabs, provided you skip the first short. Trust me, trust me, but is far from the best the house of mouse has to offer and hopefully the next one will show that. Next time when the Ride continues, my gig at the house of mouse gets held over another night as Jose teaches Goofy manners and Panchito helps deprogram him from that. Before that I hope to get to the next chapter of life and times and some other stuff i’ve had hanging, including the next loud house and the next part of the tomtropsective, as well as some new things that have come up like said review of the animaniacs reboot and a review of Adventure Time: Distant Lands, Obsidan. Until then if you liked this review, please check out my other pages for more, follow me to see them, and if you’d like to comission your own, just hit me up in my ask box for my discord or personal message me here on tumblr. Until then, ther’es always another rainbow. I’m out.

#The Three Caballeros #the ride of the three caballeros #house of mouse #donald duck #Jose Carioca #panchito pistoles #mickey mouse #minnie mouse #goofy goof #gus goose #daisy duck #the 2000s

16 notes · View notes

just-a-gay-toku-girl · 4 years

Text

This chapter comes to a close

As you’ve seen by my posts I’ve recently been watching through Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, and just last night at the time of writing this I watched the final episode. This is significant to me because it was the first sentai I watched all the way through that was from before I became a sentai fan (Which was around the halfway point of Zyuohger). Why did I pick Shinkenger as my first? Partially because I like the suits, partially because the opening theme is a bop, and partially because I had seen parts of power rangers Samurai and I was just curious. So having finished the series (still having some movies to watch) I thought it would be fun to give my thoughts on the show and its characters, no note just talking about my thoughts on the show as a whole(Beware as I won’t shy away from spoilers). Starting with...

The Villains

Arguably the villains can be just as important to the success of a show or movie as the main characters are. They need to be intimidating and powerful to make them seem like a real threat to the team, and I think the Gedoushu manage to accomplish that well enough. The suit designs for the main generals are ok, very intricate but not overly so (The exception to that being Dokoku who just has a bit to much going in his design IMO). One of my favorite things about this group is their main goal: raising the level of the Sanzu river so it’ll flood into the human world, To do this they have to create negative emotions in humans. It’s not often that bad guys in these shows actually have a goal besides just world domination. This actually gives the individual monsters more purpose than just attempting to destroy the rangers, plus it means that whenever they attack their scoring at least a small victory as the river will raise ever so slightly. Another small thing to mention before I get into the main villains as individuals is that despite being evil there seemed to be a bit of comradery between at least the main 3. It wasn’t brought up too often but a scene that stuck out to me was at the end when Dokoku and Shitari seem to be just the least bit saddened by Dayu’s death. Granted that could just be them being thankful that her death made Dokoku stronger but I digress. Onto the individual villains from least to most favorite

Shitari

There’s not much to say about Shitari since I can’t actually remember him doing much throughout the show. He may have helped with the plots of a few filler episodes and commanded a few monsters but that’s about it. Really the most notable thing about him is that his actor also plays Brook in One Piece so part of me was always expecting him to ask to see Dayu’s panties.

Dokoku

Surprisingly the big bad of this season just barely escapes being the worst villain. Much like Shitari he doesn’t actually do much throughout the season, what places him higher than Shitari is two things: 1. he has a reason for being idle throughout the show being that unlike other Gedoushu he can’t stay in the human world for more than 3 minutes without drying up severely and being out of commission for the next week, though we never are really told why that is. 2. When he eventually DID actually do something he was damn powerful. Easily walking through the shinkengers in their first battle. Not to mention it was clear even with monsters that seemed more intimidating than him they still were afraid of him and his power.

Dayuu

Honestly I don’t have much to say about her either. Most of the villains were decent at being villains but for the most part kinda unremarkable. What puts Dayuu and Juzo is just the fact that they had backstories and pretty interesting ones at that. Dayuu after finding out the man she loved had married another woman was consumed with jealousy and burned him and his wife to death. That is friggin metal as hell and I love it. In a series like this where full scale invasions from aliens are common place in rare to see something so small scale like this to be treated as serious as it is. It really makes her feel more human as a villain, which I dig.

Juzo

Juzo was easily my favorite villain in Shinkenger. And no not just because he was played by my favorite character from 555. Like Dayu he had a really interesting backstory that made him feel a lot more human (Despite the whole point of his arc being that he wasn’t human.) Basically he found out he was dying and decided to take a couple people down with him which led to him becoming a Gedou. In the earlier episodes he seemed to be sort of an anti hero, not necessarily working for the Gedou and even saving Shinken red’s life on a couple of occasions just because he wanted so desperately to fight red himself. That is until close to the end of the show when he basically said “I don’t care if my family’s souls are suffering because of me, let them suffer.” to show there really wasn’t a shred of humanity left within him. Not to mention he had an amazing death scene that I won’t say anything because it’s best seen for yourself.

Now with the bag guys done I’m gonna move onto the actual shinkengers. like before it’ll be least to most favorite

Shinken Green - Tani Chiaki

In this case saying Chiaki is my least favorite really just means I didn’t like him as much as the others but I still did like him. Admittedly there wasn’t much to Chiaki in terms of an arc, just that in the beginning he had an inferiority complex that made him not want to follow orders but that kinda went away after one episode. What I liked more about him was his personality, very happy-go-lucky while still taking his role as a shinkenger seriously. He’s also very friendly, being the first to make friend’s with Genta when he joined the team as well as having a good relationship with every other ranger and even Jii. He really is fun to watch but not much else.

Shinken Pink - Shiraishi Mako

Mako is a very kind person and wants to help those in need, however she only helps those in need and as soon as they don’t need her she leaves them. She’s one of the older Shinkengers thus earning her the affectionate nickname of “Big sis” from the rest of the team. However that’s basically all there is to her. She doesn’t change that much and overall has the lowest amount of character focus episodes. But she’s cute so that puts her above Chiaki.

Shinken Blue - Ikenami Ryunosuke

Ryunosuke is easily the most dedicated to his role as a samurai,he’s kind, hardworking and he’s loyal to a fault which ends up creating an internal debate for him when he discovers the person he’s pledged his life to isn’t the actual Shiba head. Being that he was a kabuki actor his movements and mannerisms are very lively and wild, it’s really just a joy to watch how his actor portrayed him. He definitely carried the show’s energy for the most part. I also loved watching his interactions with the others and when he’s forced to work with them. Some highlights of his include the episode where him and Chiaki get glued together and the episode where Genta tries to follow him around to learn to be a samurai.

Shinken Red - Shiba Takeru/Shiba Kaoru

I lump both of them together mainly because we didn’t see enough of Kaoru for me to really make a judgement of her yet I still wanted to mention her. I’ll say this, I did like her. She was definitely worthy of being the first female red ranger. I appreciate that despite her recognizing herself as the strongest she never tried to put the others down for being weaker than her, even berating her retainer for doing just that. I’ll admit the thing at the end with her “Adopting” Takeru was kinda weird but it showed she recognized the team was stronger with Takeru.

As for Takeru himself I really enjoyed him. Stoic, intimidating, and cold at the beginning but as time went on and he developed relationships with the rest of the team he slowly began opening up to them more and more. So much so that by the end he was joking around just as much as they were. And the twist of him not actually being of the Shiba household I thought was executed pretty well, I would’ve been genuinely surprised by it had power rangers not done the same thing. He was a really solid character and easily one of my favorite red rangers.

Shinken Gold - Umemori Genta

Genta was a unique 6th ranger in that he was mostly comedic relief, but a damn good one. He had me genuinely laughing out loud a few times. despite being a comedic character they managed to have a few serious plots with him that turned out alright. Not much more to say about him, he’s funny and (as the show called him) an extraordinary good boy

Shinken Yellow - Hanaori Kotoha

Easily my favorite of the shinkengers, Kotoha is the youngest and therefore least experienced of the team. Originally her older sister was meant to take the role of yellow but fell ill before the events of the show leaving Kotoha to take her place. This of course makes her feel inferior to the others and ike she isn’t a real samurai, just a substitute for her sister. Eventually though after Jii learns of her insecurities he helps reassure her that everyone thinks of her as a real samurai. Although this part of her character isn’t really seen until close to the end, it was that which made me love her character, hell I even shed a tear or two during her last character focus episode. Plus she is downright adorable so there’s nothing not to love about her.

Final thoughts

Overall I think Shinkenger was a really good show, easily in my top 5 sentai (although that’s not saying much since most of the sentai I’ve seen have been pretty Meh). As I mentioned the suits are really well designed, and the opening song as well as the fight songs are just badass. The characters are all really good with the weakest of them just being the ones that were under developed. The story while not necessarily ground breaking it was still enjoyable to watch and I wouldn’t mind coming back to it pretty soon, but for now I need to move on to a different sentai.

I contemplated for a while what sentai to watch next, between Goseiger, Goonger, Dekaranger, Magiranger, Bioman and a few others. Ultimately tho I decided that since one of my favorite things about sentai is the crossovers I should go back and watch all the crossovers, so I’ll start with the season that made these team ups an annual thing. So if I ever make another Long ass post like this, then you’ll be hearing of the fight to protect earth against the evile Baranoia army in Chouriki Sentai Ohranger

#super sentai #samurai sentai shinkenger #shinkenger #shinken gold #shinken red #shinken pink #shinken yellow #shinken green #shinken blue #Umemori Genta #Shiba Takeru #Shiraishi Mako #Hanaori Kotoha #Tani Chiaki #Ikenami Ryunosuke

26 notes · View notes

neriad13 · 3 years

Text

Favorite Media of 2020!

There was a large swathe of this year during which I was unable to concentrate on reading (as there probably was for a lot of other typically-frequent readers), so, as a result, I ended up listening to way more podcasts and watching way more TV shows. Not a bad thing, but boy did I read way less books than usual.

However, for the first time in a while, the amount of fiction I read was about equal with the amount of nonfiction I read. Last year’s reading resolution was to read more fiction, so...success??

I did read a lot of phenomenal fiction when I had the energy to do so this year.

Books - Fiction

The Martian - Andy Weir

This book is the hardest of the hard sci fi I think I’ve ever read. Every single aspect of it is minutely researched and calculated. The author literally wrote equations to write this book. The science is insanely impressive and yet...it never loses its sense of humor or humanity in the mix. In fact, they’re the thing that drives the entire story.

Warlock Holmes - G. S. Denning

Way early in the year I was strolling down the fantasy aisle at the library, when this cover caught my eye. I took one look at it, went “oh, this looks silly” and...proceeded to devour the entire series in a matter of weeks.

It is very silly. Especially when it’s pointing out something that was silly in the original. There’s something so satisfying about Watson immediately answering Holmes with the correct number of steps in their flat when he’s trying to make his point about how most people don’t pay attention to things like that.

World War Z - Max Brooks

Every single scenario in here could easily support an entire book. A park ranger whose job it is to contain the yearly zombie spring thaw? HECK YES. I’d read tens of thousands of words about that. A Chinese admiral who defaults, steals the government’s premier submarine, loads it up with the families of his underlings and takes to the sea for years to live in the maritime economy that has sprung up in a world where everyone is trying to escape the shore? That could be an entire movie on its own.

Every chapter was more creative than the last and as a huge worldbuilding fan, this book was so, so fun.

An Unkindness of Ghosts - Rivers Solomon

In which a queer, neurodivergent protagonist solves a mystery on a spaceship which is a microcosm of antebellum era politics! This had a beautiful, mysterious, wonder-inducing writing style and it was a joy to peer into the wildly differing minds of every single character.

Books - Nonfiction

Underland - Robert MacFarlane

In every chapter, the author visits a different hole. Basically.

It’s an exploration of caves, catacombs, mines, nuclear waste facilities and the hidden underbelly of every forest. It was fascinating. And fundamentally changed how I look at time.

Rejected Princesses - Jason Porath

After years of having enjoyed the web entries, I finally got my hands on the first book and was not disappointed.

There are the more entertaining entries, of course and the art is as charming as always, but what struck me the most were the more difficult stories. The deeper you go into this book, the more horrific it gets. The author does not hold back on the indignities suffered by the historical figures he writes about. It’s terrible...but also very, very illuminating.

The Gift of Fear - Gavin De Becker

This book - while maintaining all the essential information in it - could be pared down to one sentence in a sea of blank pages and that sentence would be: trust your instincts. End of story.

But in a world where instincts are either customarily suppressed or going haywire, it’s not quite that easy, which is why I’m glad there is more to the book.

I picked it up thinking “ha ha, betcha can’t help a person with anxiety who fears all the time already” and...what it actually ended up doing was giving me the tools to differentiate between real fear and unfounded fear. And did help with the anxiety quite a bit.

Fanfiction

Watch Over Me - cakeisatruth

A Bioshock fic from the point of view of a little sister who is learning how to trust and be an ordinary child again. Dark and sweet. An excellent combo.

All That is Visible - Ultima_Thule

An exploration of a minor character in a well researched historical context? That’s my jam! How did they know?? A Tron fic about what it’s like to be a female programmer in the 70s.

Graphic Novels

The Adventure Zone - McElroys + Carey Pietsch

Yesssssssss! It was a running-to-the-library type event whenever my library got a new volume in. The jokes are so good, the art is so lively and the ways in which they added the details that the podcast couldn’t necessarily get across is *mwah*

Trail of Blood - Shuuzou Oshimi

Hoooooooly shit, the art style of this one!! It’s beautifully detailed and expressive, sure, but the real draw for me was how it changes with the emotional state of the main character. There’s this sequence in which he’s consumed with anxiety at school and all of his classmates become blurry and unfocused, until they can’t be recognized as humans at all, that particularly sticks with me.

It’s a horror story about a kid who witnesses his loving mother push his cousin off a cliff for seemingly no reason and is then obligated by her to keep the secret, which is eating him from the inside out. It’s so good, guys, please read it.

Level Up - Gene Lien Yang/Thien Pham

A story about a kid who is haunted by his late father’s desire for him to become a gastroenterologist. It’s funny and touching and the ending gave me what I can only describe as a feeling of exhilaration. Y’know that feeling when something unexpected but not out of left field, perfectly in tune with the narrative arc and gut bustingly funny happens, all in the same panel? That one.

Film

Searching

This is a fairly standard thriller about a dad trying to find out what happened to his missing daughter. It’s also found footage...but not in the usual way, which was what made it so compelling to me. It’s told through the dad’s phone calls, google searches, social media interactions, news footage, security cameras and webcams. It was such a cool way to tell a story.

Train to Busan

There’s a lot that’s already been said about this movie and I don’t think there’s much more I can meaningfully add to that. Suffice to say that ya gotta take care of each other if you’re going to survive a zombie apocalypse!!

TV Series

My Brother’s Husband

As close to a perfect adaptation as a person can get (barring the entire conversation in English which was...oof). I was so happy when they took it a step further and showed Kana and Yaichi actually getting to meet Mike’s family.

Zumbo’s Just Desserts

I watched a lot of baking shows this year. Like...a lot. They were my much-needed comfort viewing for the year and this one was my favorite, even over The Great British Baking Show (which I LOVE). Why? Because the pastry chef for whom it’s named makes such bizarre and wonderful desserts and fosters an environment in which the competitors do the same. I’ve never seen anything like a lot of the desserts that make an appearance on this show. Every single episode was an awesome surprise and so help me, this show had better get a third season.

She-ra and the Princesses of Power

There’s also a lot that’s been said about this one, so I won’t say much more. Suffice to say: DAMN. That’s how you do an 80s toy tie-in cartoon remake.

Infinity Train

This show’s premise is probably the most unique I’ve seen in recent years. Its balance of comedy, horror and existential dread is also *mwah* I also love how much it trusts the viewer to figure things out on their own.

Primal

A late entry sliding in before the year ends! I finally got to watch the second half of the first season last weekend and it was EXCELLENT. The pacing, the brutal fight scenes, the adorable dinosaur antics, the animation, the quiet moments - *mwah-mwah-mwah-mwah-mwah*

The most emotional moment for me was the part in which the protagonists watch, with sorrow, as the rabid dinosaur who’s been trying to kill them all night dies an excruciating death.

Also it sets up a fascinating new plotline right before ending in a cliffhanger!! Another one for the ‘had better get a next season’ list.

Games

Night in the Woods

This is one that’s been on my to play list for a few years and I was so glad I finally got my hands on it. It’s like...The Millennial Experience (TM), the game. I felt so seen, playing it. The character writing was fantastic.

Prey

I don’t know why I put off finishing this for so long. I guess I wasn’t in the right alien killing headspace for a while?? Anyway, the setting is gorgeous, the alien biology is weird and cool, the ethics are delightfully murky and the interconnectedness of the station was really cool, especially in the OH SHIT moments at the end.

Podcasts

The Adventure Zone

I tried to narrow this down to one favorite arc, but found that I couldn’t do it. I love Balance for its comedy and creative energy. I love Amnesty for its drama and acting. I am loving Graduation for the depth of its world and the way in which the real story behind everything that’s happened is slowly unfurling. It’s a good podcast all around.

The Magnus Archives

Who obsessively listened to every single season while playing Minecraft in about a month? Surely not me, nooooo. Of course not.

There’s also been a lot said on this one, so I’ll keep it brief. I’ve seen things in here that I haven’t really seen elsewhere in horror. My particular favorites were the creepy psychiatric hospital in which the horror comes not from the patients, but from the denial of the doctor to believe them about their mental illnesses and every single thing related to the Anthropocene. The one with the Amazonian village made out of trash - CHILLS.

#tma #taz #prey 2017 #night in the woods #infinity train #warlock holmes #she-ra #zumbo's just desserts #a thought

10 notes · View notes

matt0044 · 3 years

Text

Some say Jane’s still riding that bus to this very day...

Ladies and Gentlemen, our Bulk and Skull for the series. :P

Zayto is sporting his new civilian attire while reminiscing about his mother with the pendant she gave her once he received his Knighthood, telling Amelia about how he worries for his people after the first Sporix invasion. It’s basically a lot like Super Megaforce’s Orion except that they actually seem to be going somewhere with it. This is interrupt by Solon announcing a very strange signal.

The signal is traced back to Rafkon’s general quadrant with chances of survivors exciting Zayto until the communication module goes bust. Sixty-five million years without maintenance will do that. Hunter Deno does feel a bit stiff in some shots but it does feel like he’s not one to get too emotional rather than a socially awkward character trying to be passed off as a badass. Right, Troy?

Amelia and Ollie butt heads over seeing a psychic to have Zayto reach out spiritually as opposed to checking Dr. Akana’s observatory for any data on what they might’ve intercepted. Zayto agrees to try out both starting with Amelia’s before she realizes that she’s broke. Who says Power Rangers can’t be relatable? I’m honestly enjoying the comedic duo the team already has here.

On that note, the trio arrive at Madame Indigo’s tent where Jane and J-Borg are making a new video for their site. Needless to say, the madame has her put the scarf around her eyes because of its “strong psychic energy.” Jane buys it hook, line and sinker even as she walks out without any sight. J-Borg films the whole thing in what I assume will be a study on white people falling for anything.

Yep, our comic relief duo appears to be the head of a social media platform and her robotic assistant. There’s a YouTube algorithm joke in here somewhere but I’m sure it’ll come to me. Their bit isn’t too long as Jane ends up on a school bus in trying out her “psychic abilities” while J-Borg’s foot ends up in a bucket of quick drying cement. They’re not Victor and Monty but they’re no Burkes either.

Madame Indigo reads Zayto’s pendant and assesses accurately his general situation until Ollie decides to do an experiment. He actually claims that Amelia and him are in love with each other, even calling her “honey muffin” to sell the act. The madame reads them and claims that they’ll have a long relationship with many years ahead of them. Why do I get the sense that she’s not too off?

Before they can get to the observatory, Solon alerted the Rangers of Vipeera’s hatching and gets them to teleport onto the scene. Mucus beats them to it as Void Knight’s official second-in-command, observing from afar when she finds J-Borg’s camcorder. Vipeera doesn’t waste time right out the gate freezing Zayto with the eyes on her chest with Amelia and Ollie rushing in to cover him.

The two catch on that they can’t look directly at her which makes for a very hard battle. Luckily, Vipeera is more than honorable enough to allow Amelia and Ollie to take the time to morph. Seriously, she’s right there looking back and forth at them while they link to the grid. I know it’s joked about how the villains let the Rangers morph aside from when they don’t but this is ridiculous.

Amelia and Ollie manage to hang in there but can’t fight close-range with their eyes closed. Thankfully, Mucus cuts in to drag Vipeera off with her own evil plan and teleports out. I honestly like how Mucus is show to be left to her own devices without having to always bow to Void Knight. So long as he can get a powered up Sporix, she can just mess around and see what happens. Neato. :)

Zayto is unfrozen before Amelia and Ollie take him to the observatory. They sadly report that they couldn’t make out most of it, meaning they can’t relay a message to him. Zayto goes back to base for some time alone before Amelia gets a call from Buzzblast about their live feed going on the fritz. Vipeera takes ASMR to another level by broadcasting her eyes and freezing all of Pine Ridge.

I feel as though there was suppose to be a scene of Jane trying to navigate the city of petrified people with J-Borg trying to keep her from knocking over the living mannequins. It would help that Solon’s cybernetic eyes are unaffected by the stream and keeps Zayto from being frozen again. She then figures out that his pendent is exactly what they need to restore the interstellar communication.

Zayto takes a page from Daredevil and uses the Sonic Key to enhance his hearing while blindfolded, allowing him to even the playing field. Vipeera’s stream is taken offline while Mucus is, as she puts it, outsies. Seriously, I just love how she’s pretty much a far more adorable Scrozzle to Void Knight’s Evox.

Vipeera goes giant after taking plenty of damage just as Amelia and Ollie jump into the fray. Zayto zords up but doesn’t have a giant blindfold for his mech, leaving him back at square zero. Thankfully, the Tricera Blade and Ankylo Hammer Zord rush into the fray just in time with a damn good strategy in mind.

Amelia has her Zord smash up the street so she can levitate the debris with the Hover Dino Key before Ollie reconstructs the street with the Reverse Dino Key onto Vipeera’s eyes in a move straight out of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Seriously, I hope that we don’t get less of Rangers fighting giant monsters outside their Zords. This is the kind of outside-the-box thinking I love in a fight.

Of course, Dino Fury delivers Megazord after two whole episodes with Amelia suggesting a victory selfie ala Levi Weston. Void Knight attempts to take the dormant Sporix after the damage it absorbed only for the Rangers to beat him to the punch this time. Once again, there’s a real unpredictability to who will snatch the real victory in the end. Something villain fetch-quests before lacked.

Solon restores the message but finds that it’s either encrypted or in a language too advanced after millions of years. She’s also bad at French. Okay. Zayto decides to put out his own message to whoever survived the war on his planet. I’m hoping that this comes into play in the first season finale or the next. A real cavalry moment straight out of Star Wars. Yes, that includes the Sequel Trilogy.

Next time, the trio becomes a five man band at last.

#Power Rangers #power rangers dino fury #dino fury #super sentai #kishiryu sentai ryusoulger #ryusoulger #nick #nickelodeon #nicktoons #hasbro #hasbro studios #allspark pictures #toei #toei company #toei limited

4 notes · View notes

revchainsaw · 3 years

Text

Demon Wind (1990)

Greetings and blessings upon you my flock! Welcome to the Cult of Cult. I am your pastor and priest of pop culture, ordained minister of genre films, the good reverend Chainsaw McGraw. You may just call me Reverend Chainsaw. Come and accept our sacrament upon the altar of online internet reviews. Our first holy offering is an absolute treasure, 1990′s Demon Wind. An offering ripped from the blood inked pages of the Evil Dead’s Necronomicon Ex Mortis, Demon Wind is not quite an unofficial entry into the world of Ash and the Deadites, but if you have exhausted the Catalogue of Sam Raimi Horror flicks (and let’s be honest, if you’re reading a Tumblr review of Demon Wind, you probably have), then Demon Wind will scratch that itch for sure.

The Message

Our anointed offering opens upon a boarded up farm house owned by simple country occultists George and Regina Carter. There’s a Mean Girls reference to be made here. George and Regina are defending their homestead from an unseen force (A Demon Wind some might say) through a Christian/Witchcraft combination of gospel music, a set of holy daggers, and a diary full of Regina’s spells. Unfortunately it’s not very effective, and George is possessed. George kills Regina, drops a snow globe, and for some inexplicable reason the farmhouse explodes bringing the films epilogue to a close.

With that we are brought to the year 1990 where our rag tag group of heroes converge upon the supernaturally supercharged Carter farm with one mission in mind, helping a homie sort out his shit. What a great group of friends; I can barely get the crew together for a game night but our protagonist Cory has a group of friends so tight they are willing to drop everything and drive untold miles to nowhere in particular just because he had a bad dream. Speaking of “tight” friends, of our doomed party, no friends are so tight as Chuck and Stacey, but we’ll get to that, in short order. Let us meet the fellowship of ding dongs who will battle the blustery bogeys of Demon Wind.

Cory is the star of the show. A fairly blasé everyman who’s so caught up in his chosen one journey that he can’t even bother to be slightly interesting. He is the grandchild of the oh so fetch (see I got to it) Regina/George pairing from earlier in the film. Cory is haunted by mysterious dreams, and a tragic reunion with his demented father, which draw him to the Carter farm. There is however more to meets the eye, you see Cory is from the planet Namek. Watch the movie, you’ll catch my drift.

Elaine is Cory's girlfriend and wants nothing more than to pull her pants down in public to bring a smile to his face.

Dell is Cory’s friend? Bully? Enemy? it’s not entirely clear. It seems Dells role in this story is to be an unabashed asshole and chauvinist to every character that interacts with him. He is also perhaps Elaine’s brother, or someone's brother. Listen, you’d have to pay wayyyy more attention than this movie warrants to parse out all the relationship dynamics in this flick. Let’s just say, Dell is here, and despite how he acts, the other characters seem to be ok with that fact.

Terri is Dell’s girlfriend and a good friend of Elaine. Despite being on the arm of a typical 80s teen flick bad guy, Terri seems to be the most eligible bachelorette on the Carter farm. Or so it may seem, but as I’ll explain later I think there is a truer love than can be expressed that really keeps Terri from leaving Dell.

Jack is a Big Ol’ Nerd. He speaks like the writers were convinced using a thesaurus was enough to convince us that the guy is existentially unfuckable. The guy is basically just Billy from Power Rangers, but instead of piloting a badass Triceratops Zord he just kids very mildly bummed when the love of his life is transformed into a very judgmental spontaneously combusting doll.

Speaking of spontaneously combusting dolls, the victim of that very unfair end is Bonnie. Bonnie clearly had way more confidence in the love of her bookish beaux than she should have. The betrayal is immense, not that Jack couldn’t save her, but just in the fact that when she meets her demise (despite the fact that he promised he’d protect her) he is not at all distraught. Poor Bonnie, she is by far the most human feeling of the cardboard cut out female protagonists in this film and she deserved better. Let’s be honest, Jack was looking for an out, and Bonnie was just too real for this movie.

And Now, without further ado, I’d like to introduce the greatest power couple in the history of B Movie Horror Cinema: Chuck and Stacy. If you think my introduction is a bit much, I promise that the film goes much further. Demon Wind begins it’s love affair with this bromance in delightfully extravagant style. There’s magic, explosions, opera, karate, beer and bunnies and a big ol middle finger to fucking Dell. Chuck had at once been romantically involved with Terri, but things went south somehow and he claims that he still holds a flame for her. Despite this continued insistence I think it’s plain to see that Chuck found comfort, magic, and a ride or die hunk in the arms of Stacey. Stacey is a suave, sharp, smooth talking guy, whose only desire in life seems to be whatever keeps Chuck around, and that seems to mean a lot of stage magic and martial arts! I could write about Chuck and Stacey all day, so I’ll move on from here.

The cast of this film is wild and honestly even the weak ones are fun to watch. There is no character on the roster who is easy to mistake for another. That is why it is so fun to watch them meet their demise and even more fun to see them return under the possession of the demon wind as oopy goopy caricatures of their human selves. And this does go on for quite awhile. Unfortunately even Chuck and Stacey are not enough to protect the surreal landscape in which they find themselves. At one point in the film a second set of friends drop by to add 2 more bodies to the massacre. Willy and Reena, a gangly set of clothing accessories who are given legs, but hey Ear Ring and Beret, I mean Willy and Reena are still fun to see torn to shreds.

The movie ultimately reveals that the madness was sparked by the fact that a cult worshipping a Demon God named Delos had actually built the homestead and the cursed ground they stand upon is the stage for the cult leader, a preacher named Anders to finally become the host of said Demon God. As interesting as that lore may sound on paper, it’s not particularly well executed, and Cory’s role to play in all of this is even more vague. All in all the 3rd act of this film feels a bit anti-climatic even if it does feature a demon superhero fight.

All that said I’d like to move on to the next phase of our sacred liturgy. The sacred and profane, the highs and lows of this movie.

Benediction

Best Feature: What the What?

The best feature of Demon Wind has to be how bizarre it is. It throws everything it can think of at the audience. Burning Skeletons leap from Crosses, eggs that hatch into piles of worms, EXPLODING BABY DOLLS, Cow skulls with long sticky tongues made of human intestines! They certainly sacrificed logic in order to insure they provided the audience with something they haven’t seen before.

Best Kill/ effect: A Cowmen Album Cover!

The best effect in Demon Wind is also it’s best kill. while investigating a barn on the Carter property, which is full of occult symbols, animal remains, and fun Texas Chainsaw Massacre style crafts. One of the crafts catches the eye of Beret, I mean Reena. You know by her hat that she knows a thing or to about fine art. This particular piece of barn décor is a human skeleton with a cow’s skull. As she is inspecting this “beautiful” piece, what appears to be a human intestine, flies from the mouth of the cow skull and wraps around Reena like a chameleons tongue. The intestine begins to retreat into the jaw of the skull bringing Reena’s head along with it. The skull chomps down into Reena, we get a satisfyingly bloody show, and Reena’s body winds up hanging limp from its mouth.

Second place belongs to Bonnie, but we’ve already spoken to that bizarre spectacle.

Best Scene: I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Stacey!

Chuck and Stacey enter the scene. I know I’m inconsistent in how I spell Stacey/Stacy. This scene was mentioned above and you just have to see it. Watch until Cory intervenes.

Best Character(s): Stacey Cassidy and the Sundance Chuck

Stacey is the best character in this film, but as I’m sure he wouldn’t accept this honor alone I have to make it a tie. Chuck and Stacey are just so good. Every moment they are on screen is a treasure. The introduction of these two just received the honor of best scene, but they shine as Demons and in an even longer sequence leading to their demise. They take the watch at the Carter home and from the fog emerges a t!ddy ghost, my congregants will be familiar with this sort of creature, who attempts to lure them outside. Stacey puffs up Chucks confidence calling him “John Wayne”, Chuck proposes they go on a Tahitian vacation, but Stacey wisely wary of voodoo suggests Vegas. And there you have it, these two pure good boys are surviving this flick and they are getting married in Vegas. Unfortunately, they decide to speed things up a bit, and decide that although they are not tempted by the t!ddy ghost, that they can use their karate magic to defeat the demonic hordes. They march out into the woods, but we can add the power of love to the list of things that are no use against the Demon Wind. Our best boys meet their fates together like two old west heroes, guns blazing! Oh, oh, but they come back as demons and they eat Dell, so thank God for that.

Worst feature: I ordered these Deadites from Wish

The villains are not particularly interesting. It’s boring, goopy, bad mouth piece demons that have appeared in hundreds of demon flicks already by this point, and it really makes you want to go back to the unexplained paranormal happenings from earlier in the movie rather than fighting these dollar store Deadites. The fact that the film leans into this in it’s third act really makes the film feel incredibly front loaded.

Worst scene: Cory in the House

Pretty much any scene that focuses on Cory is a bit weak. He’s just not fun. He gets to transform into an anime character in the end of the film and he’s still melodramatic and boring. This is often a problem with main characters in films, the writers don’t want them to be unlikeable or too quirky so the fun parts are always the supporting cast.

Worst Character: Dude, you’re NOT getting a Dell!

Don’t get me wrong, I hate Dell. But Dell is a big dumb goon who is just so fun to watch suffer and act like an utter meathead, and being hateable is not the worst thing a character can be. For this reason I have to give the worst character award to Cory; for many of the reasons I spoke about above.

Summary:

How fitting that a B movie gets a B. But that’s really a great place for this movie to be. So many big Hollywood productions don’t deserve that spot. Though Demon Wind may drag in the middle, and the characters and effects may be quite corny, it is certainly not boring. Demon Wind is eye candy even though it looks so ugly. It has some of the most loveable murder lambs in the genre and one of my favorite bromances in all of cinema, If you are a fan of Gonzo Horror then Demon Wind is a must see. If you are not all that into that sort of thing I promise you’ll have a good time. I highly recommend it.

Overall Grade: B

2 notes · View notes

aseikh · 4 years

Text

Ranger’s Apprentice Quarantine Exchange Party Revealed!

Hi again friends! Thank you so much to those who supported this event and especially to those who participated! The amount of effort and dedication that went into these fics was astounding, and I’m so excited to be able to reveal these to y’all. Please feel free to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns relating to this event–I’m always looking for feedback and look forward to hosting another one!

Without further ado, here are the fics our wonderful writers posted for this event! Don’t forget to support them on AO3--leave kudos & comments for our lovely writers!!

You want me to do what? by @ranger-melany

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Crowley Meratyn & Gilan Davidson (Ranger's Apprentice) Characters: Crowley Meratyn, Gilan (Ranger's Apprentice) Additional Tags: Crowley's getting old, a new Commandant is needed, but who needs to take over the Corps?, Nice story, Friendship, Trust, RA Fanfic Exchange Summary:

Crowley is getting older and has to come to terms that, sooner or later, he should find a new Commandant. But who should he choose?

A Mouthful of Cake by @solarishashernoseinabook

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Horace Altman & Will Treaty, Horace Altman & Cassandra | Evanlyn, Cassandra | Evanlyn & Will Treaty Characters: Horace Altman, Will Treaty, Cassandra | Evanlyn, Alyss Mainwaring, George Carter, Jennifer "Jenny" Dalby Additional Tags: Comedy, Drunkenness, Underage Drinking, embarassing moments, Reminiscing Summary:

Based on the following prompt: Will, Horace and Evanlyn have a nice get together when they all remember something embarrasing they did in the past. Let’s hope the others do not...

Path of the sling by @araluenrangerdanger

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Cassandra | Evanlyn, Queen Deborah, Evanlyn Wheeler Additional Tags: Fluff, Friendship, Canon Compliant, (mostly), Deborah is a badass queen and you can't change my mind, it's mostly fluff, the end turned out a bit angsty, but don't worry!, there's not enough Cassie & Evanlyn content, or Deborah & Cassie, basically Cassandra deserves a full loving family just like all the other characters Summary:

Deborah has many useful things to teach to her granddaughter. Especially if they might end up saving her life one day.

High School Could Go Many Ways by @lifeofroos

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Horace Altman/Cassandra | Evanlyn, Will Treaty/Alyss Mainwaring, Halt O'Carrick & Will Treaty, Horace Altman & Will Treaty Characters: Horace Altman, Will Treaty, Alyss Mainwaring, Cassandra | Evanlyn, Halt O'Carrick, Sir Rodney, Crowley Meratyn, Gilan (Ranger's Apprentice), Jennifer "Jenny" Dalby Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - High School, Theatre Kids, Jocks, High school love, high school friends - Freeform Summary:

For a group of five orphans, the time for high school has come. Will is determined to get onto a sports team. Yet, is that truly what he wants, or has he been putting up an act for himself?

Birthday Blues by @aseikh (me!)

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Halt O'Carrick & Will Treaty, Will Treaty & Wardmates Characters: Will Treaty, Halt O'Carrick, Alyss Mainwaring, Jennifer "Jenny" Dalby, George Carter (Ranger's Apprentice), Horace Altman, Gilan (Ranger's Apprentice), Pauline duLacy Additional Tags: Birthday, Hurt/Comfort, Birthday Party, Surprises, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Childhood Friends Summary:

After attending George's birthday party, Will arrives back at Halt's cabin with some complicated feelings.

Slipping Through the Cracks by @rangerpippin

Chapters: 1/? Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Horace Altman & Will Treaty, Gilan & Halt O'Carrick Characters: Will Treaty, Horace Altman, Gilan (Ranger's Apprentice), Halt O'Carrick Additional Tags: Will and Horace being dysfunctional siblings, set five years before Choosing Day, bandits being bandits, featuring Gilan apprenticeship Summary:

A bold and fearless troupe of robbers have been sweeping through Redmont Fief, attacking villages left and right. The Ward staff are busy moving the children to one of the towers to make room on the ground floor in case Castle Redmont needs to shelter the villagers within its walls. If two ten-year-old children slip out in the midst of the confusion, who’s to stop them? Meanwhile, Halt and his second-year apprentice Gilan have caught wind of the robber band’s plans and are determined to put a stop to them.

We’re all in this together by @huff-le-punk

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Will Treaty/Alyss Mainwaring, Pauline duLacy/Halt O'Carrick Characters: Will Treaty, Alyss Mainwaring, Pauline duLacy, Halt O'Carrick Additional Tags: Fluff, Pregnancy Summary:

Will and Alyss find out they're pregnant and can't wait to tell their parents and mentors about the new addition to their little family.

Dont you ever forget by @rangerthursday11

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: General Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Horace Altman & Will Treaty Characters: Horace Altman, Will Treaty, Halt O'Carrick Additional Tags: I tried to do fluff, i didn't end up like fluff, and i am mad at myself, it's not angst though, just take it as some sorta perspective on the friendship between Will and Horace Summary:

After not seeing Will for a year since the return from Skandia, Horace finally gets the opportunity to visit Redmont and his friends. However, things don't go exactly as planned.

Quarantine, Brownies, & Belonging by @araluen-arrows

Chapters: 1/? Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Horace Altman/Will Treaty, Cassandra | Evanlyn/Alyss Mainwaring, Halt O'Carrick & Will Treaty, Will Treaty & Alyss Mainwaring Characters: Will Treaty, Horace Altman, Alyss Mainwaring, Halt O'Carrick, Cassandra | Evanlyn, Crowley Meratyn Additional Tags: i wrote 21k in eleven days for this, Quarantine, Slow Romance, Eventual Romance, Hurt/Comfort Summary:

Will Treaty doesn’t have friends. He hates talking to people, content to keep his head down and stay in the background. But that means when COVID-19 strikes and his university closes its dorms, he doesn’t have anywhere to go.

When a teammate offers to let Will use his spare room, Will should be ecstatic. Except for one thing: they hate each other’s guts. And now, they’re stuck together in the same tiny apartment for two months.

If COVID doesn’t get them first, they might just end up killing one another.

5 Times Crowley Asked Halt to Stay With Him and 1 Time Halt Asked Him by @bonana-split

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Crowley Meratyn/Halt O'Carrick Characters: Halt O'Carrick, Crowley Meratyn Additional Tags: Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added Summary:

exactly what the title says. lots of pining!

An Unstoppable Force & An Immoveable Object by @drowned-in-books

Chapters: 1/1 Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Cassandra | Evanlyn/Alyss Mainwaring Characters: Cassandra | Evanlyn, Alyss Mainwaring, Will Treaty, Halt O'Carrick Additional Tags: Seley El'then, Fluff, it's cute, alyssandra - Freeform, evanlyss, Pining, Yearning, There Can Be Only One Summary:

it's gay, it's pining. Special thanks to elizathehumancarrot for beta-ing!!!!

#ranger's apprentice #rangers apprentice #ranger's apprentice quaratine exchange party #ra fanfic

36 notes · View notes

grailfinders · 3 years

Text

Fate and Phantasms #172

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making Rider of Resistance, a.k.a. a good reason as to why Type Moon should just... stop. Just stop, please, this is an intervention. As usual, expect spoilers below the cut, which is where you can find his build breakdown. Otherwise, check out his character sheet over here!

Next up: She’s a lumberjack, and she’s okay!

Christopher Columbus is a Gloom Stalker Ranger for a noble phantasm that lets him seek out whatever he desires as well as the smash and grab tactics the conquistadors are known for. He’s also a Swashbuckler Rogue to turn him into a high-seas swindler.

Race and Background

Cumulonimbus is a Human, but I want a feat so he’s a variant human instead. This gives him +1 Dexterity and Constitution, proficiency in Deception, and the Silver Tongued feat from unearthed arcana.This bumps your Charisma score up by 1, and you double your proficiency bonus when it comes to deception checks. You can also replace one of your weapon attacks with a contested skill check: your deception vs. their insight. If you succeed, you can move without provoking attacks from them, and your attacks have advantage against them until the end of your next turn. If you fail, they’re sick of your shit for an hour, and can’t be deceived in this way.

Unsurprisingly, Columbus is a Sailor, which gives him proficiency with Athletics and Persuasion. We’re changing things up a bit here, but you’ll need that silver tongue on longer voyages.

Ability Scores

Columbo’s highest stat is his Charisma; he’s a very clever leader, and an even more clever liar. Second is Wisdom, it’s like he can search things out using magic or something. If you’re going to survive a long ship voyage, your Constitution has to be solid as well. For your sealegs we’ll make your Dexterity better than average. That also helps with you running into fights wearing regular clothes. Your Strength isn’t that great, but we’re dumping Intelligence. We just don’t need it.

Class Levels

1. Ranger 1: Starting off as a ranger is cool, it gives you proficiency with Strength and Dexterity saves, as well as three ranger skills; Investigation for up close “treasure hunting”, and Perception to spot land just that little bit faster. You should also grab Stealth proficiency, it’ll make surviving in Chaldea a lot easier.

You would have gotten more skills by starting as a rogue, but starting here gives you extra health as well as Favored Enemies. Grab the two kinds of humanoids most akin to natives in your setting for advantage on survival and intelligence checks about them.

You’re also a Deft Explorer, which at level 1 makes you Canny with Deception checks, doubling your proficiency bonus. Take a shot every time I double your deception proficiency. You’ll take 3 shots, but that’s exponential, so it adds up quick. It’s still level 1, and you’ve got a +11 to deception, that’s pretty damn good.

2. Ranger 2: Second level rangers can get the Mariner fighting style, adding 1 to your AC while out of heavy armor, and giving you a swimming speed so getting knocked overboard isn’t a game over.

You can also cast Spells now using your Wisdom to cast them. Hunter’s Mark is a gimme since we’re not taking Favored Foe, but we’re also dipping into a third Unearthed Arcana for Wild Cunning, a ritual spell that gives you one of several effects. There’s a lot, but they mostly boil down to finding stuff important to survival more easily.

3. Ranger 3: As a Gloom Stalker ranger, you know the benefits of getting the drop on people better than anyone. Your Dread Ambusher takes the chillage out of your pillage by adding your wisdom modifier to your initiative rolls. Also on your first turn you get an extra 10′ of movement, you get an extra weapon attack, and that extra attack deals more damage. The conquistadors weren’t called the conquistadors because they were bad at conquisting.

You also get Umbral Sight thanks to all those nights of watching for the shore, making your dumb human eyes less dumb thanks to Darkvision. On top of seeing in the dark, you also count as invisible to any other creatures that rely on darkvision while in the shadows. Chris doesn’t have his own evade to be fair, but honestly with all the races having darkvision humans get screwed over so much that I’m willing to overlook it this time.

For this level’s spells, Hail of Thorns will give you some light weapons fire from your trusty ship. You also get Disguise Self for free from being a gloom stalker. It’s not in character, but again it’s free, and god knows you’d put it to good use.

4. Ranger 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Piercer feat, rounding up your dexterity for a bigger modifier and the ability to re-roll one die of piercing damage per turn. Also, your piercing crits deal an extra die of damage when they hit now!

5. Ranger 5: Fifth level rangers get an Extra Attack each attack action. You can still only use a crossbow once per turn, but you’ve got a sword, I’m not worried.

You also get second level spells! Locate Object is what we’re here for, but you also learn Rope Trick for free. Camping equipment was nice, but it’s time we set out for real treasure.

6. Rogue 1: Bouncing over to rogue gives you proficiency with Sleight of Hand, so you can finally get those darn eggs to stand straight. I don’t know why they made a Portuguese man obsessed with a Chinese myth, but whatever.

You also get Expertise in two skills, Perception will help you spot land faster, and Deception is basically just a meme at this point. Both of them get their proficiency bonus doubled. If you really wanted a crazy modifier out the gate you could’ve done this at second level for a +19 to deception, but instead you get it here for a +27. At this point you could totally lead someone on for the entirety of a pseudosingularity and not break a sweat! Not that you would, obviously.

You can also Sneak Attack with ranged/finesse weapons (hey, look at your arsenal, what a coincidence) to deal an extra 1d6 damage to creatures that are next to allies or that you have advantage over. As the men of Agartha could say, you don’t fight fair.

Also: Thieves’ Cant. It’s a language.

7. Rogue 2: Second level rogues get Cunning Action, so now you can dash, disengage, or hide as an action. You’re always moving forward. And sometimes, “forward” means “as far away from the people you’ve conned as possible”.

8. Rogue 3: Is making a sailor a Swashbuckler stereotypical? Probably. Either way your Fancy Footwork means you can ignore attacks of opportunity from creatures you’ve made a melee attack against, and your Rakish Audacity adds your charisma modifier to your initiative rolls. So now your initiative can be added to your growing list of character traits with silly modifiers thanks to its +8. Also, you can sneak attack against creatures when you’re dueling them.

Also also, your sneak attack is 2d6 now.

9. Rogue 4: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for more accurate attacks and less accurate attacks against you.

10. Rogue 5: Use your Uncanny Dodge to get those sea legs working, dodging well enough as a reaction to avoid half the damage from an attack. And your attacks are scarier now, thanks to a 3d6 sneak attack!

11. Rogue 6: Use this round of Expertise to double up on Persuasion to figure how where people keep their valuables and Sleight of Hand to slip them into your pockets while no one’s looking.

12. Rogue 7: Admittedly, Chrissy Boy doesn’t have an evade skill, but he does get Evasion anyway, making his failed dexterity saves deal half damage and successes deal 0. I mean his guts arguably does the same thing at low health, but now we’re quibbling.

Also, 4d6 on sneak attack.

13. Rogue 8: We’ll go back to ranger soon, but first grab another ASI to bump up your Wisdom, speeding up your initiative and making your spells a bit stronger.

14. Ranger 6: It’s been a while, huh? You get another two humanoids to add to your Favored Enemies so you can terrorize a wider swath of natives, as well as Roving from the Deft Explorer goodiebag to speed yourself up and swim no matter what you’re wearing.

15. Ranger 7: Seventh level Gloom Stalkers have an Iron Mind, helping you keep your head on straight even during long voyages. Or against wisdom saves. Honestly the latter’s way more common, let’s go with wisdom saves. You have proficiency now, is what I’m saying.

We’ve also been seriously neglecting your magical damage, so pick up Magic Weapon so you aren’t mostly useless against a demon.

16. Ranger 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity one more time for better guns and AC. You can also use Martial Versatility to swap out your Mariner fighting style since it overlaps with roving, but I like it where it is. To be fair you could also make Columbus a Triton barbarian, but then he wouldn’t be Columbus.

You also learn Land’s Stride, which lets you ignore nonmagical difficult terrain, and you have advantage against magical difficult terrain like the one caused by Entangle.

17. Ranger 9: Ninth level rangers get third level spells like Conjure Barrage, which lets you conjure... a barrage. Like Hail of Thorns, this is basically your cannons firing off in the background. You also learn Fear for free. That smile is pretty creepy, after all.

18. Rogue 9: Ninth level swashbucklers get another feature, Panache, letting you make a persuasion check against a creature’s insight as an action. If they’re friendly, they become charmed. If they’re unfriendly, they have disadvantage on other creatures, and can’t make opportunity attacks against other creatures.

Personally I like Silver Tongued’s version better for combat, but the added utility is nice. Also, 5d6 sneak attack. That’s important.

19. Rogue 10: Grab the Tough feat with your last ASI for an extra 38 HP now and two more at level 20. You’ve survived at sea for over a month without getting mutinied, and you’ve got guts. Literally.

20. Rogue 11: Eleventh level rogues get 6d6 sneak attack as well as Reliable Talent, meaning you can’t roll lower than a 10 when using skills you’re proficient with. This means you’re guaranteed to roll at least a 16 on Athletics, a 25 on Persuasion, and a 61 on Deception.

Pros:

You are really good at deception. Like, ridiculously good. Like, literally can’t fail good. A minimum roll of over 60, in a game where DC 30 “nearly impossible”, is dumb. Especially since you can weaponize that check thanks to your UA feat.

Speaking of, if you’re willing to only make 1.5 attacks a turn instead of 2, you’ve basically got guaranteed advantage thanks to that feat. That’s really useful when it comes to setting up your sneak attacks.

You’re also pretty tanky, with almost 200 HP and most of the rogue’s abilities to avoid damage. You don’t have your own healing, but I’m sure you can talk Medea into helping out.

Cons:

Your casting modifier is only a +3, so your spells aren’t as strong as they could be. Most of them don’t use your modifier at all, but expect your cannons to be a bit lackluster.

You will never need to roll a 61 on deception. You could have used that Canny on another skill to make two skills busted, but when you gotta flex you gotta flex.

You are playing Christopher Columbus.

#fate grand order #FGO #dnd 5e #D&D #Rider of Resistance

14 notes · View notes

rowanelliis · 4 years

Text

hey hi hello i’m SLATER ( they/them ), twenty-five, currently living my worst life on the left coast ( pst ). i bring to you my twitchy, lonely son, ROWAN. he’s a part-time antique lover, part-time dishwasher, full-time ghost whisperer. ( or something like that,, we’ll get to it later. ) he fills the alone ranger plot, and you can find his bio/questionnaire HERE && some quick stats HERE. follow me under the cut for a TL;DR bio and wanted connections !! @phqextras

oh hello again ! as promised, here is the summarized bio, bc i get that it’s long and you have shit to do. that said ! if possible, i would really love if you read THE BIO before/instead of this. it’s just,,, better. and better is better. anyway, here we go !

rowan was born in pleasance to a 22 yo anita ellis and a father who bounced shortly thereafter, but we don’t care about him

he sees dead people! always has. they vary in shape from faded human to amorphous eldritch horror, and they’re supremely unhelpful. they mostly dont talk and the ones who do dont really answer what youre saying, they just say whatever they want. they moan a lot tho. its annoying. he hates them. kinda.

anita was a fraudulent fortuneteller and genuine psychic. she just knew stuff. rowan figures whatever he is, he got it from her.

he loves her sm guys. she was the mf BEST MOM. we’re talking blanket forts. we’re talking homemade stews. we’re talking going to alby’s to try on outrageous outfits they couldn’t afford and then shoplifting some little treasure to delight rowan with on the way out. the BEST.

when he was eleven, he spent an afternoon in the sequoia grove and when he got back he learned that to everyone else, hed been missing for five days

so that was a whole thing

following a years-long downward spiral of her mental health, anita showed up at rowans high school in the midst of a full-on psychotic episode. he was taken away by cps almost immediately and sent to a group home a couple towns over.

when he got back to pleasance at eighteen, she was gone. missing, not dead.

since then hes been devoted to the cause of finding her but its been eleven fucking years and no one else seems to care so he do get down abt it sometimes

his main theory is that it has something to do with the sequoia grove. he thinks that maybe whatever happened to him as a kid happened to her, but on a larger scale.

he currently lives in the house that he grew up in and that his grandparents built, a giant ugly thing that hasnt been updated in any way since the 70s

hes bad at holding a job. hes bad at feeding himself. hes bad at sleeping. hes bad at forming and maintaining relationships. basically, hes bad at being an adult human.

ok so maybe he doesnt see ghosts. maybe his mom wasnt psychic. maybe theyre just crazy. that is a possibility. but its also possible its true. you dont know. leave him alone

ok now the fun part ! here are some connections id like to see for rowan:

actual friends (one or two, three TOPS. hes a loner ok)

i honestly debated whether i wanted him to have any close friends at all but yknow what! hes been in this town for nearly 30 damn years he can treat himself to a friend or two. these would be people who believe him, or at least have an open mind. they could be from way back or more recently. just people he’s comfortable around, and maybe goes to specifically for comfort. he needs a lot more of that than he’s getting.

hookups (past or present)

i think hes kind of slutty?? not in any active kind of way, hes definitely not aggressive or even confident, but he’s so starved for affection that i think he’d have a hard time saying no to anyone offering it. his sexuality is Undeclared but Not Straight, so he’s up for grabs. he’s also weak for...... how do you say..... les milfs. i mean he would never use that word but it is what it is. mommy issues doesnt even begin to cover it. on a related note! if your character is on the amoral side of the spectrum, this guy would be wildly easy to manipulate. just like, brush his hair with your fingers or call him good or whatever. he’s Weak.

exes (maybe one serious, no more than a couple more casual)

here are some great reasons to dump rowan:

will not remember your birthday or anniversary or anything

obsessed w his mom

sometimes sleeps with his eyes open which is creepy as Fuck

usually broke

lives in that fucking house

kissed someone else at your birthday party bc they had really pretty eyes and were standing really close and kinda smiled at him and he got overwhelmed

routinely talks to the air, sometimes aggressively. thinks hes covert abt it. is not.

love interests (look im not actually into planning ships it just felt fair to rowan to balance this out a little)

here are some great reasons to date rowan:

will never, ever laugh at you or make you feel small

will give small, thoughtful gifts for no reason

cute floppy hair, doe eyes

once he feels safe with you, he will do anything for you, any time, forever

lives in that fucking house

you never knew a kiss could make you feel so wanted

maybe he’s special, you know? maybe he’s just something special

( ok that was gay ! now back to your regularly scheduled programming )

people who think he’s crazy (as many as possible tbh)

i know weve got a lot of believers here but honestly,,, even among believers i think hes kind of an outcast. the mf talks to himself. there are like 8 agreed upon stories around town and hes seen waaaaaay more ghosts than that. and non-belevers?? fuggedaboutit. i kinda see this as part of the reason he was rejected from the mystery gang. maybe someone it was like ‘ok im into checking this stuff out but that guys fucking nuts’. idk. what is life without struggle?? without conflict?? boring.

people who are using him for the story (whoever wants)

this could be a writer or reporter, but it could also just be someone whos interested in this kind of stuff. OR again, could be a non-believer who just thinks its entertaining to watch him. could be honest about their motives or straight up manipulating him into thinking theyre a friend or whatever. pretty open, i just think he would be a figure of interest to certain people.

someone who was present when his mom showed up at the high school (someones?)

this isn’t even a connection really so much as just A Thing I Want. i want someone who saw a tiny, angry-crying sixteen year old rowan drag his screaming mother down the hall of the science wing with their own two eyes. student, teacher, visiting alumni, parent or sibling who was at the school for some reason idk. maybe they pitied him and approached him later. maybe it was the thing that made someone decide hes a lost cause. it doesnt even have to ever come up. i just want someone to have that image in their brain. i want them to see it when they see what a mess he is now.

a final note! when rowan was a kid he was pretty open about the ghost stuff, mostly because his mom always believed him w/out question and he didn’t know it was something to hide. after the whole woods incident and the reaction of cps + the cops to his story, he learned to keep that shit to himself. unless he knows your character well, he probably wouldnt have discussed it w them directly. however! anyone around his age might remember the stuff he talked about as a kid or his mom showing up at the school (honestly that was dramatic enough the story may live on in the halls of nwhs today in some form or another). anyone around his moms age (40-50) might know how woo-y and sketchy she and her child were. there are certainly rumors about both of them. also, most people have probably seen him behaving strangely, ie. suddenly rerouting on the sidewalk to walk around what seems like nothing, telling something to fuck off under his breath, or just flitting his eyes over to a seemingly empty space over and over. he really does try to appear as normal as possible, but it’s difficult. i think most people see more than he knows, and more than he would like them to.

#[ roe; DEVELOPMENT. ]#phqintro #mental illness tw #i thought this wouldnt need a single tw #and honestly that would be a first for me #though only one is a first for me too sdjfnsjdfn #i really feel like i must be missing something this never happens #usually its like #just a parade of absolute horror down here in the tags

6 notes · View notes