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level2janitor · 3 months

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Introduction to the OSR

what's an OSR? it's a game that's kinda like old-school D&D. or is old-school D&D. or is compatible with old-school D&D. an OSR game generally has some or all of the following principles:

low character power with highly lethal combat. in old-school D&D a 1st-level fighter has d8 hit points and a longsword does d8 damage, and you die at 0HP. this is not to ensure characters die all the time but to emphasize the next bullet point:

emphasis on creative problem solving. most situations cannot be solved by straightforward use of your abilities (such as charging into every situation with swords drawn, if a fighter), so the game tests lateral, outside-the-box thinking.

emphasis on diegetic progression. spells are found, not obtained automatically on level-up. you get XP by finding gold more than killing monsters. most of your cool abilities come from magic items. making alliances & hiring followers is encouraged.

focus on managing inventory, resources, risk, and time. the players are constantly faced with meaningful decisions; this is the heart of the game.

very sandbox-oriented. the focus on creative problem solving means the game must be accommodating to players taking a course of action the GM didn't plan for. use lots of random tables to generate emergent story. some elements of new simulationism.

high tactical transparency, i.e., the optimal course of action is rarely system-specific, and ideally very possible for a new player to intuit.

usually semi-compatible with old D&D, but not always. usually rules-lite, but not always.

what does the OSR mostly NOT do?

focus on character builds. these change the focus too much to be on the rules than the fiction, can create situations where stuff everyone should be able to do is an ability locked to one class, and impede tactical transparency.

resolve everything with a die roll. combat uses dice to be scary, unpredictable and most importantly not your default course of action. everything else should bring up dice rarely - dice are your plan B when your plan A fails. the best plans need no dice.

use linear storytelling or put players into a writer/GM role. linear storytelling gets in the way of the decision-making so core to the playstyle; letting players write details into the setting is mutually exclusive with them discovering it.

rules for everything. 400 pages of crunch is worse at simulating a believable world than the GM and players' shared understanding. OSR games rely constantly on GM ruling.

mostly still applies to all the above. making your system a "pure" OSR game comes second to doing what's best for your game.

System recommendations

old D&D or a retroclone

old-school D&D - or old school essentials or basic fantasy or swords & wizardry, which are old D&D's mechanics repackaged with quality-of-life tweaks (and the upside of not giving WOTC your money) - are usually the go-to when recommending someone's first OSR game. they're actually not my first pick, though!

PROS:

very complete, with more robust rules than a lot of the lighter games on this list.

100% compatibility: most OSR adventures are statted for old school essentials. converting them to other OSR systems is usually simple, but not 1-for-1.

easier to find games for. anyone interested in the OSR space knows what old school essentials is.

CONS:

jank. these games largely still have weird saves, level limits for non-humans, some still have descending AC, etc etc. it's not that bad but it is there

i hate thief skills. lots of essential dungeoneering actions are locked to the thief class as abilities, with abysmally low success chances. this is stuff i prefer being handled without a roll. thieves in this system suck and make everyone else worse at dungeon crawling by existing.

there's just lots of really cool shit in other systems i'm about to go into that you just don't get here

Knave 1e and its various hacks

this is a 7-page super-lightweight system that boils everything down to just the essentials.

rolling a character takes like 5 minutes. roll stats, roll gear, roll traits, go. done. it's great.

characters are defined entirely by stats and gear, no classes. wanna be a fighter, have high strength and carry a big sword and armor. wanna be a wizard, have high intelligence and fill your inventory with spells. item slots are elegant and pretty limited.

initiative is instant: roll d6. 1-3, monsters go first. 4-6, PCs go first. swingy, but god it is so smooth and shaves like the most boring 5 minutes off of every combat

monsters are so very elegant. old D&D gives monsters a "hit dice" rating to determine their HP, e.g. a 3HD monster rolls 3d8 for hit points. knave takes this number (HD) and uses it for attack rolls and saves (aside from exceptionally bad/good saves), so a knave statblock looks something like this.

spells are all one or two sentences long & extremely easy to remember.

7 pages is so light. i have the system basically memorized.

DOWNSIDES: there's no dungeon crawling rules (standard for meatier OSR games & something i consider essential) and no real bestiary, though the second point isn't a huge deal cause they're so easy to make. it also kinda assumes you already know how to run OSR games, so there's very little real advice or guidance.

KNAVE HACKS

knave 1e is in creative commons & comes with an editable word doc for you to publish with modifications, so there's a ton of variants (there was a spreadsheet of them somewhere, but i can't find it).

Grave is a favorite - i'm two years into a grave campaign and it's fantastic. it's a dark-souls-y version of knave with some really elegant innovations.

you have a set number of deaths before you for-reals die, as every character plays an undead as is dark souls tradition. makes it good for OSR beginners! being able to tell when you're close to your final death is really good - it lets you emotionally prepare for losing your character & raises the stakes more the more you die. (though honestly you should probably cut the number of extra deaths in half, it's super generous)

XP and gold are combined into one resource, souls. legendary creatures drop big souls you can make into magic items. this has ended up being the coolest thing in my current campaign. my players love finding powerful souls to make into magic items it's so fun

uses preset packages of stats/gear instead of knave's rolled ones, filling the role of more traditional character classes. has the wonderful side effect of not making you get stuck with low stats cause you rolled bad one time.

you have stamina equal to your empty item slots. you spend stamina on spells if you're a caster, or free maneuvers (on top of your attack at no action cost) if you're not. it's super elegant.

there's 3 classes of spells: wizardry for intelligence, holy magic for wisdom, and witch stuff for charisma. nice and intuitive.

there's a page of 50 magic items each a couple sentences long. this PDF is worth it just for the magic items.

DOWNSIDE: see the downsides for knave 1e. all still apply.

i enjoyed grave so much i made a variant of it with the dark souls bits removed (and some dungeon crawl rules added!) to use for my standard fantasy campaigns.

Knave 2e

sadly knave 2e is not purchasable yet (i backed it on kickstarter so i have access, though). but when it comes out i highly recommend it.

much larger and denser than knave 1e. it finally has dungeon crawling rules, it has GM and player guidance, everything is refined and the layout is so so nice and readable.

combat is a bit more interesting than 1e. you can break your weapon against an enemy to deal max damage. you get a free maneuver on high attack rolls.

there's rules for stuff like alchemy, warfare, building a base. it all kicks ass.

there are so many goddamn tables. i rifle through it anytime i need inspiration.

DOWNSIDES: i personally can't think of any! it's a very complete good functional system.

Mausritter

you play tiny little mice! in a world full of big dangerous things that want to eat mice. cat = dragon. you get it. what more could you want

the mouse thing is just super intuitive. you get the dynamic between you and the big scary lethal world. fantastic OSR game to introduce kids

nice and robust ruleset; nothing feels missing

tons of super nice GM stuff! faction rules, tools for rolling up hexcrawls and dungeons, plenty of tables

super clean readable layout. font isn't too small to avoid being intimidating. guidance is really nice and clear.

combat is autohit. super fast & lethal.

100% free

look mausritter is just. good. i wanna run it so bad someday

Worlds Without Number

sort of a middle ground between OSR stuff and 5e.

lots of classes, at least in the paid version. the free version comes with just the warrior, expert and mage. there's feats and more of a focus on builds than most OSR games. if you like more mechanical build variety than a typical OSR game, this is a great game for you!

extremely good multiclassing. y'know how in most games if you just mash together two classes you think are cool you'll end up with a total mess? not here! every combo is viable and works fine! easily the best multiclassing of any game i've touched

an absurd amount of GM stuff and tables. easily more than any of the other stuff i've praised for also having them. but personally i haven't dug into them as much, so i can't really comment on them

skills the way modern D&D has them. you roll dice and try to beat a target number. i don't tend to like rolled skills, but most people do, so if that's your thing WWN has them

DOWNSIDES

the layout is terrible. everything is a huge wall of text with very little use of bold text or bullet points to draw attention to the important bits. the table of contents has like 15 things in it for a 400-page book! i couldn't find any of the paid-version-exclusive classes for like a month after i bought it! looking up rules is a nightmare.

the way the default setting handles "evil races" is like an exaggerated parody of all the problematic aspects of how D&D handles it. like, it wants so bad for you to have an excuse to genocide sentient free-willed people. but at least the default setting is easy to chuck in the trash

Dungeon Crawl Classics

the goal of this system is to take all of the crazy gonzo moments people remember playing old-school D&D in their childhood and turn all of that up to 11 while cutting the stuff that doesn't add to that. i think a lot of its innovations have ended up kind of standard in newer OSR stuff (like fighters getting maneuvers with their attacks), but it still has more to offer.

the funnel: you start the game with four randomly rolled dipshit peasants that you then throw into a meatgrinder to get horribly killed. you pick one of the survivors to be your 1st-level character.

maneuvers: fighters roll an extra die with each attack that gets bigger as you level. if it's a 3 or higher, you get to do a cool thing on top of your attack. pretty standard for OSR games, but this game popularized it!

crit tables: fighters also get more crits and nastier crits as they level. every crit, you roll on the crit table. maybe you chop off a dude's arm. maybe you just knock them over. maybe you shatter their shield. it's very cool

spell tables: i don't really like roll-to-cast mechanics, generally. but DCC goes so all-in on roll-to-cast that it still looks fun as hell to watch. you cast a fireball and maybe it goes how you want. or maybe you explode, or you nuke everything in a half-mile radius, or from now on you permanently ignite flammable materials you touch, or whatever. casters just have to put up with turning into a weird mutated mess across a campaign

there's no dungeon crawl rules, no encumbrance - this game is all about the big over-the-top wacky shit, and is not really interested in the more down-to-earth number crunching. it's more in the you-die-hilariously-all-the-time area of OSR than the you-avoid-death-through-clever-play area. not really my thing but the system knows exactly what it wants to be and i respect it

iron halberd

this one is mine! as the author i'm not qualified to tell you what isn't good about my system, so just assume it's worse than i make it sound, but here's a bunch of the selling points

semi-random character creation where you flip back and forth between rolling dice and getting your own input. roll stats, pick ancestry. pick starting gear kit, roll different dice based on which kit you picked. etc etc. stats are random but all equally viable (no rolling incredibly low or high stats). every time i run this game the character creation is a hit. seriously go roll up a character it'll sell you on the whole thing

you start out a lot stronger than a standard OSR character but grow way more slowly. i don't like 4th-level characters being 4 times as strong as 1st-level ones; HP never gets that high. emphasis is more on diegetic progression instead.

way too many subsystems for alchemy, crafting, strongholds, warfare, renown, rituals, likes 9 pages of magic items, a whole subsystem for becoming a cleric mid-campaign. i couldn't help myself i love this shit

in my current campaign we had a player permanently sacrifice some max HP to become a necromancer after deliberating on whether that's a good idea for like thirty seconds, which instantly made me think my necromancy system is a success

also free

Adventure recommendations

(in rough order of size)

Moonhill Garden (by Emiel Boven): look at this. look at it! this is like the best template for a little dungeon in an OSR game. all of the little factions are tied together. this would be a great oneshot to introduce people to an OSR system with.

A gathering of blades (by Ben Milton): a system-neutral, one-page sandbox. i ran this for an iron halberd game and it went super well. lasted like 7 sessions. highly recommend.

The Waking of Willowby Hall (by Ben Milton): a single dungeon with a million things going on. it's super chaotic with half a dozen different factions crashing into each other and a big angry goose. highly recommend, especially for kids

The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford (by Chance Dudinack): small sandbox with a fun fairytale vibe and a very fleshed-out little town. and a big nasty dragon.

Evils of Illmire (by Zack Wolf): this is a very dense, entire campaign's worth of hexcrawl in a very compact package for like $5. it doesn't do anything particularly new, but the value-for-money is absurd and it's a really good template for how to do a sandbox if you're used to 5e adventures

Ask me anything!

if anything here is unclear or intrigues you, send me asks! i love helping people get into OSR games. i'll link frequently asked questions here if i get any.

#osr #nsr #ttrpg #d&d #iron halberd #knave #worlds without number #dungeon crawl classics #mausritter #l2j archive

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xenodile · 3 months

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CyGames is funny for adding a character whose gimmick is that they whaled like crazy on the gacha for premium weapons.

These four weapons are incredibly overpowered pay-to-win options that require you to trade 100 gold moons, which are acquired by getting duplicate SSR characters from the gacha, for each weapon. She's wielding 400 SSRs worth of apple points cards. Her super power is a gambling addiction with unlimited budget.

#Relink spoilers #Granblue Fantasy

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thequiver · 5 months

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Who is.....Jonothan Starsmore | Chamber? - A Reading Guide

Jonothan "Jono" Starsmore is an X-Men affiliated mutant from Marvel comics first introduced in 1994. A native of London and explicitly connected to the grunge scene, Jono has always been the pinnacle of the "bad boy with a heart of gold" trope- the only difference being that in place of a heart he has a furnace of psionic energy. Jono is best known for being part of Generation X (the team he was introduced with) but has also been an official member of the X-Men. The manifestation of his powers left him disfigured and destroyed many of his internal organs as well as his jaw, leaving him unable to speak verbally, requiring him to utilize his psionic abilities to communicate telepathically. Jono's story chronicles one of self-acceptance and is one I'd highly recommend!

Below is a complete list of Jono's appearances as of 24. November. 2023, complete with links!

Generation X: A new team of mutants under the leadership of Sean Cassidy (Banshee) and Emma Frost (The White Queen) is formed at the Massachusetts campus of the Xavier Institute. The goal of this team is to earn an education and learn how to become the next generation of X-Men- their focus is not to fight villains.

Generation X (1994) #1-3 X-Men (1991) #41 <- This is part of Legion Quest which is expounded on here in my Legion reading guide - the whole event is covered in like 6 issues and is imo very worth the read as one section of it can be a bit confusing out of context Generation X (1994) #4-6 Wolverine (1988) #94 Uncanny X-Men (1981) #Annual '95 Generation X (1994) #7-9, Annual '95, 10-11 X-Men (1991) #49 Generation X (1994) #12-21 X-Men (1991) #Annual '96 Generation X (1994) #22-23, Annual '97 Incredible Hulk #Annual '97 Generation X (1994) #25-31 Marvel Team-Up (1997) #1 Generation X (1994) #32-40, Underground Special 1998, 41 X-Men Unlimited (1993) #20 Generation X (1994) #42-49 Generation X/Dracula #Annual '89 Generation X Holiday Special (1999) #1 Generation X (1994) #50 X-Man (1995) #50 Generation X (1994) #51 X-Men Unlimited (1993) #23 Generation X (1994) #52-56 Wolverine (1988) #141 Generation X (1994) #57-58, Annual '99, 59 New Warriors (1999) #5 Generation X (1994) #60-70 Uncanny X-Men (1981) #388 Generation X (1994) #71-75

Poptopia, a Delayed Joining of the X-Men, his own mini, etc.: Following graduation from the Massachussetts Academy, Jono was offered a position on the X-Men but declined instead going to London. After an unfortunate romantic entanglement Jono would return to the X-Men.

Unanny X-Men (1981) #395-398 The Order (2002) #5-6 Uncanny X-Men (1981) #399-400, Annual 2001, 402-407 Marvel Universe: The End (2003) #1, 5 Uncanny X-Men (1981) #408-409 Chamber (2002) #1-4 Uncanny X-Men (1981) #422-423

Defections + Countdown to Zero and House of M/M-Day: After altering reality so mutants were the dominant race, the Scarlet Witch then changed reality again, this time attempting to rid the world of the mutant gene, by casting another spell, "No More Mutants", de-powering the vast majority of mutants.

Weapon X (2002) #15-21 Generation M (2006) #1 New Excalibur (2006) #9

Secret Invasion: TW: THIS EVENT IS TIED PRETTY HEAVILY INTO ANTISEMITIC TROPES PROCEED WITH CAUTION The premise of Secret Invasion is that the Skrull empire, in a bid to take control of earth, replaces several super-powered humans/humanoids on earth with Skrulls.

New Warriors (2007) #2-20

Age of X: The mutants are almost extinct, tortured by a strike force led by Colonel Graydon Creed. The first signs of the Age of X appeared in X-Men: Legacy #244; the events were removed from the Earth-616 mainstream continuity, with no memories of the alternate lives. If you've taken a look at my David Haller Reading List you'll see this event explained as "David’s desire to be loved forces him to grapple with reality," and as a story that "places David in a role where he has to choose between a false universe where he is considered a beloved hero and reality where he must choose to be a hero despite the fear others feel about him." While that is the base of the event Jono also has some great moments to shine!

Age of X: Alpha (2011) #1 X-Men: Legacy (2008) #245 New Mutants (2009) #22 X-Men: Legacy (2008) #247 New Mutants (2009) #24 X-Men: Legacy (2008) #248 Wolverine and the X-Men (2011) #Alpha and Omega X-Men: Legacy (2008) #264-265

Avengers vs. X-Men: When the Phoenix Force approaches Earth, Hope Summers is assumed its next host. The X-Men and the Avengers are divided on how to handle the situation. The X-Men believe that the Phoenix Force will herald the rebirth of the Mutant Species, while the Avengers believe that it will bring an end to all life on Earth. This leads to a war between Marvel's two powerful superhero factions.

Wolverine and the X-Men (2011) #9-10 X-Men: Legacy (2008) #266-267

Jono's Miscellaneous Adventures: (which somehow keep involving David Haller?) This is now in with Legion: Son of X and the lead up to Krakoa! Jono does a lot of different things in this period (including Gen X Vol. 2) but things are a little more calm until War of the Realms.

Wolverine and the X-Men (2011) #19 X-Men: Legacy (2013) #2-6 X-Men (2010) #40-41 X-Men: Legacy (2013) #11-12 Wolverine and the X-Men (2011) #29 X-Men: Legacy (2013) #13-14, 22, 24 X-Men: No More Humans (2014) #1 Nightcrawler (2014) #3-4 Uncanny X-Men (2013) #600 Generation X (2017) #1-9 Phoenix Resurrection the Return of Jean Grey #1-3 Generation X (2017) #85-87 X-Men: Gold (2017) #30 Old Man Logan (2016) #39 Mr. & Mrs. X (2018) #6 Uncanny X-Men (2018) #11, 14-15, 17-18 Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (2015) #37

War of the Realms: Following the return of the Dark Elf, Malekith, from imprisonment, he ignited a civil war in his homeworld of Svartalfheim and emerged crowned as king. Malekith additionally began assembling a league of allies from across the Ten Realms, eventually forming the Dark Council which included among its ranks Dario Agger, King Laufey and Loki. If this doesn't sound like an X-Men plot that's because it's not, but the X-Men sure did get a tie-in and Jono's in it.

War of the Realms: Uncanny X-Men (2019) #1-3

Krakoa at last!: The following issues detail Jono's time on Krakoa and his role on the island.

New Mutants (2019) #1-2, 5, 7, 9-11 X of Swords: Destruction (2020) #1 New Mutants (2019) #15-18 Marvel's Voices: Identity (2021) - B Story X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic (2021) #1, 3-4 Phoenix Song: Echo (2021) #1 New Mutants (2019) #24 Legion of X (2022) #1 X-Men Unlimited Infinity Comic (2021) #39-40 New Mutants (2019) #26 Legion of X (2022) #3-5, 7-8 X-Men: Unlimited Infinity Comic (2021) #79 X-Men: Before the Fall- Sons of X (2023) #1

#jono starsmore #jonothan starsmore #chamber #reading list #reading guide #comic reading guide #comic reading list #marvel comics #x-men #xmen #x men

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runwayrunway · 11 months

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No. 2 - Kalitta Air

I’m really thrilled by how much you all enjoyed my Lufthansa rant. Here’s something...a little different. Just to rub in that I don’t inherently hate liveries just for having a mostly white fuselage, I wanted to talk about an example of that being done a lot better. I will also be doing so in a length which will probably be a bit more typical of this blog. I hope you all enjoy it regardless!

Kalitta Air (formerly Connie Kalitta Services and American International Airways; callsign “Connie”) is a cargo airline headquartered in Ypsilanti, Michigan. You see their planes around a lot if you randomly click on flightradar24 flights, especially over North America, but they don’t carry passengers, so to my knowledge they’re not a household name. At least, the friends I surveyed had never heard of them.

(image: kalitta air)

But their low profile conceals some pretty stylish planes. So, let’s discuss!

Like I said, I don’t blanket dislike mostly-white liveries just because most of them are super boring and Lufthansa’s in particular is terrible! So I wanted to follow it up immediately with an example of a mostly white livery which I really like - Kalitta Air’s sleek and iconic paint job, which the airline adopted (as far as I can tell from digging around) in the late 1980s.

It truly feels like Connie Kalitta’s main gig as a racecar driver transferred to the look of the planes with his name written on the side. (...what is it with racecar drivers and starting airlines? I mean, two nickels, but...)

The majority of Kalitta Air’s fleet are Boeing 747s, which does add to the look, in my opinion. Their fleet even contains the last 747-400 ever built! The iconography feels like it transitions well into the hump, and the entire thing looks balanced.

(image: kalitta air)

I’ll be honest, something is definitely lost on the remainder of the airline’s fleet, made up of Boeing 777s, in a pretty major way, but it doesn’t cancel out just how much I love the look of the 747s. Still, because the airline has kept this livery for so long, we can look back to the past to experience it on all sorts of shapes.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I still prefer the 747. That’s pretty incredible - I’m of the opinion that nearly all liveries look their best on a TriStar, so that opinion is a testament to just how incredibly good this livery looks on the Queen. It’s an acceptable-to-good livery on any plane, don’t get me wrong, but the core 747 fleet wears it transcendently well. (I am ignoring the 777s.)

If you’ve seen a Kalitta Air plane for more than a few seconds it’s likely the pictured N700CK, which got to flip a few assorted vehicles with her jet blasts in the 2007 Mythbusters episode “Supersized Myths”. Their 747s have been used in other media, but this is the main example. I think they couldn’t have picked a more striking plane to use.

Just look at the thing! The combination of red and gold makes it feel flashy and fast, a feeling which is added to by the swooping hockey-stick cheatlines which add a lot of interest to the fuselage with very little paint. It makes the plane feel streamlined and almost reminds me of the sort of paint jobs used on early high-speed trains.

(image: Science Museum Group Collection)

The font itself even feels fast, while being massive and quite legible even despite the shape of the A, and framed nicely on each side by the little wings. It does look a little like if a racecar was a cargo plane, and I love it. It’s not exactly maximalist, but every detail from the letters’ even heights to the ratio of gold to red feels perfect.

If you’re going to do a mostly white paint job (and there are plenty of reasons that airlines generally prefer to), this is how you do it.

Final Grade: A

N.B. For the sake of my own mental health, I am not going to touch on the atrocious revision of two years ago in this post. At the least, it looks like they’re not repainting old airframes and they have a small-ish fleet so they’re not bulk-buying new ones or anything, which means this livery will probably be around for the remainder of the service life of many fairly new freighters. Because of that, I do not consider the classic hockey stick Kalitta livery to be retired, and will not be tagging it as such. That said, since it’s not their current livery for new planes, I also am not classifying it as a 2020s livery.

#tarmac fashion week #grade: a #era: 1980s #era: 1990s #era: 2000s #era: 2010s #region: north america #region: united states #kalitta air #cargo carriers

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jq37 · 3 months

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.....fuck. Ok, so the simple answer is Cassandra's going Nightmare King. But that "she's at my side once more" thing gives me hope that this is something else and not entirely Kristens fault. Could be the Elf side of Galacaea reacting badly to the Wolf side gaining prominence and she's trying to grab for any piece of her old self to gain a controlling foothold. On the lighter side of things, Kristen believing she's a full-on actual political candidate and trying to give a speech to steel-workers was gut-bustingly hilarious. Less light-hearted, Adaine needs to stop attacking her financial woes as a teenager and start attacking it as a wizard adventurer. And lose the crap job, a 40% discount is not worth those 8 hours she's losing every shift. She can get a lot more done with that time. But she's a kid who's trying to solve this on her own instead of the common sense move of reaching out to adults who know more. Siobhan commits to the bit, I'll give her that. Bizarely, Gorgugs 400% course load is actually is the most solvable problem. Get Digby and Wilma to tutor him and help him speedrun through the Freshman and Sophomore material and then play catch-up on the Junior year material. He might have drop the Owl Bears, he needs those hours. Fig is killing it so hard in all her classes, it would be fucking hilarious if she's the Bad Kid who graduates as valedictorian. This one ran long, sorry about that.

OK, my quick thoughts on everything before I sit down to write this recap tomorrow (I finished my notes today--geez these JY eps are LONG):

Kristen: Wild that the thing Kristen has chosen to go all in on is her high school bid for class president and not *gestures vaguely* literally anything else. Funny, but wild. My best guess until we have more info is that this is an "As above so below" thing because the wizards getting ripped and aggressive is super random except for the fact that the main things that Kristen has been doing in the past few months is getting ripped and being aggressive to Cass. But we're working with incomplete info so we'll see.

Adaine: Girl, take Aelwyn's chest of rubies and sell it for cash and buy stuff with that! Or better yet, use your Oracle/general divination powers to figure out the lotto numbers/stock futures and exploit that! Honestly, even killing your mom is a better plan that working at Fantasy Auntie Anne's!

Gorgug: :( Hang in there buddy. It's wild when everyone else is dealing with kind fantasy problems--even Adaine's thing is tinged with Fantasy what with the absurdity of the items she needs to get--and Gorgug is just dealing with…a completely regular school problem. That's rough man. I personally feel like I'd try to join a club or something to show off my skills rather than doing it on the books if this requires a 400% course load but I hope he can make it work. Though, it would also be interesting for them to do a, "There's no shame in trying and failing," storyline because man that's just so much work and that's an important thing to learn.

Fabian: If you want Adaine to be at your party then give her some of your massive pile of gold so she doesn't have to work a crappy mall job. The girl is filtering gold flecks out of discounted booze and you know that because you're the one who gave her permission to do it. Either help her or don't be sulky when she can't make your shrimp party!

Fig: Fig as surprise valedictorian has the same energy as Annie realizing she and Shirley are neck in neck for the position even though Annie is the type A control freak (this is a Community ref for anyone who's like whomst?). That would be so funny. But also, it wouldn't be crazy! Fig was super preppy before she decided to be punk. I wouldn't be surprised if her grades were always good and she's also passionate about everything she does. If she wasn't set on sticking it to the man, she'd be so so so solid.

Riz: You didn't mention him but I wanted to give him a section anyway. Hi Riz :)

OK, that's it for now. Can't wait for next ep! (And no worries about this ask being long. I like getting long D20 Asks!)

#asks #farmer-10 #fantasy high #dimension 20 #fhjy #d20 #fantasy high junior year #spoilers

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spadecentral · 9 months

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🏺 Broken Vases | Mammon x Reader

>> requested: yes, by @bluesylveon2 >> a/n: omg finally got around to this one :3

>> masterlist: 400 fllr. event , house of lamentation >> summary: mammon tries to hide something he broke from you >> reader prns: they/them >> warning(s): none

You weren’t quite sure what you were looking at. Sure, your demon boyfriend looked guilty as fuck as he was trying to hide your prying gaze from whatever was behind him. But you weren’t sure what to do in this situation.

“I’m guessing something eventful happened?” you questioned, looking into Mammon’s blue and gold eyes.

“Ahahaha…” Mammon rubbed the back of his neck, “I suppose ya could say that.”

“And something went wrong.”

“Ye– no! Nothin’ went wrong! It all went perfectly!!” Mammon fumbled his words, shaking his hands to try and help his statement.

“You’re a terrible liar,” you stated, unimpressed.

His attitude turned into one even more embarrassed than before, if that was even possible.

“I might have…” Mammon mumbled the rest of his sentence under his breath, something that you were acutely aware your human ears couldn’t pick up on. But you weren’t sure if he knew that as well.

“What was that?”

“I might have broken a super important vase,” Mammon confessed. “But what’s the purpose of some old vase anyway?! Who needs that ugly old thing?”

Finally, you were allowed to look at the damage he had dealt. There, on the floor, were scattered pieces of an old vase.

“Why’d you touch it?”

“It looked expensive.” you understood Mammon’s scheme from that sentence alone. Somehow, he was always in debt, and forever making up the expenses that he had lost. You felt bad that he was subjected to stealing and gambling to try and break even once, but he needed to seriously learn some morals sometimes.

“You’re going to clean this up, right?” you looked at him. “Since it was your idea?”

“I mean…” Mammon trailed off. He most definitely wasn’t, if he could help it.

“If you clean it up and throw the shards out in the trash bin, I’ll say you were with me the whole day.”

“Deal!!” you could almost see Mammon’s eyes turned to sparkles when you offered to cover for him. He grabbed your hand in excitement, shook it, and then kissed it before dashing off to go find a broom.

“He’s such a dork…” you mumbled to yourself, turning around to go to Mammon's room, where’d you would wait for him to finish with cleaning the broken vase.

#mammon avatar of greed #obey me mammon #mammon x reader #mammon x gender neutral reader #om! mammon #om mammon #om mammon x reader #obay me mammon x reader #obey me #obey me swd #obey me shall we date #obey me x reader #@.obey.me.works

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hairscare · 10 months

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i dont know anything ab vivziepoop or whatever her name is and her work but could you give some examples and like. maybe explain how far they are from actual demonology? i love haterisms and i love learning things

kisses you on the mouth id love nothing more than to spread hate and infodump abt demonology. let me preface this by saying ive never watched any of their content so i cant speak on much besides what ive absorbed via osmosis of being on the internet and what i can see in their designs

so my special interest has always been on the 7 Princes of Hell aka the 7 Deadly Sins so thats what I'm gonna focus on. I'm also gonna bring beloved otome game Obey Me into the mix for another example of modern interpretations of them. also keep in mind im not a believer in these figures, though my research comes from both christian and pagan sources, i just like them a lot

so lets start with Mammon, the prince of greed. mammon is always depicted as a very money and power hungry kinda guy. in heaven, he was so obsessed with the golden pavement that they kicked his ass out first. hes super powerful and has 6,660,000 demons under his control that he makes build the capital of hell called Pandemonium. im not making this up demonology is silly as hell. hes associated with wealth, gold, jewels and emperors.

you may be surprised by this interpretation from the dictionaire infernal, but from my understanding/perspective, i believe this is supposed to be a lure to get more money as a begger? normally hes described as decked out in robes and gold and jewels and all that. but you can see in the illustration the bags of money.

so yeah hes like a super money hungry emperor type- in my mind i always kinda think of trump ngl. power hungry, money hungry, you get it. so if youre like me, for a character design, youre thinking a ceo with lots of expensive clothes and jewelery.

now, lets see what our friend viv has to say-

... they made him.... a clown? keep in mind, i literally know nothing abt the role he plays in the show, but... why? why is he a clown? if anything, him being a jester is the opposite of the typical emperor depiction. like a king vs a court fool. completely erases the whole idea of his greed for power. part of that greed is that he already has it but he wants more! this jester angle doesnt make sense.

okay, now lets look at obey me. theres a lot of things i dont like abt obey me's interpretations, but theyre so much better than vivs.

first of all, the white hair and blue eyes are actually accurate! the colored illustration above of begger mammon is actually colored wrong, hes often described as having very light hair and icy blue eyes. this interpretation of mammon, while yassified from the old man and the emperor, is fairly faithful. hes obsessed with money, hes constantly stealing money from other people, he wears the most expensive designer brands, and he has gambling issues. its not perfect, but hes clearly based on the demon mammon.

now Asmodeus. asmodeus has always been my favorite. hes the Prince of Lust, but he himself isnt horny. he teaches people Forbidden Arts and Crafts and also geometry, hes a disabled king (walks w two walking sticks), he likes messing with people and he hates the smell of fish liver. one time he threw someone 400 leagues and stole his identity. what a guy

asmodeus is particularly monstrous. hes got 3 heads, a bull, a demon, and a ram, hes got a duck bottom, and he has a dragon cat service animal. i think hes beautiful <3 but you can see a lot of potential symbols you can incorporate into a design! all these animals, esp his three heads, are just waiting for a cool design. so vivs, whatd you do?

... okay. hes... kinda got the heads, but its the cowards route. he has... that weird ass body that vivs loves to give men. theres... some feathers so he kinda has bird symbolism? im pretty sure he owns a casino, which is actually accurate. but like. thats #notmyasmodeus. this guy couldnt throw me 1 league if he tried. hes not monstrous looking at all. his legs are thinner than my patience.

since we couldnt really dissect viv's mammon, ill bring this up here. a big issue i have with these designs is that theyre afraid to make demons ugly on purpose. dont get me wrong theyre all ugly as hell. but not gross. not monstrous. these sanitized tumblr sexymen designs completely betray what makes the original designs so fun. asmodeus doesnt have 3 heads, he has one that looks like an evil sesame street character. the design is simultaneously trying way too hard and so fucking generic. literally if you take out the two tiny head motifs in his... hair? theres no indication that this is based on the demon asmodeus

okay, lets look at obey me.

again, hes sanitized, hes conventionally attractive, and he doesnt have any of the demon asmodeus' symbolism. hes also super horny. he doesnt do geometry or arts and crafts or even own a casino. not faithful to the source at all.

before you accuse me of being a hypocrite for liking obey me, hold on. let me get through beelzebub.

Beelzebub is known for being "lord of the flies". its literally what his name means. i cannot emphasize enough that he has fly motifs. he is the Prince of Gluttony, aka overindulgence. its typically associated with food. but beelzebub is *extremely* powerful. in Paradise Lost, hes Lucifer/Satans right hand man. all other demons respect him immensely. hes supposed to be so powerful that summoning him is supposed to run a high risk of seizures and death. he also fucking loves architecture. when a ton of demons were called on by solomon to build, the other demons were so appauled that beelzebub was being made to do manual labor, but his crazy ass was giving solomon building advice

hes a bug! hes big beautiful bug. the crowd cheers. so the motif is kinda obvious here. i mean, its kinda hard to miss it, right-

what the fuck. what the actual fuck. "but grim shes got a bee motif-" shut the fuck up. this... fox? wolf? furry thing needs to be put down asap. i genuinely think theyre using beelzebub as an bad excuse to introduce their kesha dog character. bro what the fuck thats not a fucking bug. thats not even a goddamn bee. i hate it here

i cant do this anymore show me obey me.

hes a fucking fly thank god. sure hes conventionally attractive but hes not a dog with the smallest waist ive ever seen and disproportionate birthing hips. he eats all the time bc hes gluttony. okay fine whatever as long as hes a fucking bug im ok

so. lets address why i like obey me and i hate vivziepops interpretations. first of all i just fucking hate vivziepop so jot that down. but more importantly, obey me doesnt pretend to be anything it isnt. its a dating sim. of course the characters are gonna be hot and fit into archetypes. ive made my peace with that. besides, the game actually makes their sins pretty interesting by showing how they affect their personalities, motivations, relationships and lifestyles. its not super faithful, but its not supposed to be.

but helluva boss isnt trying to do that. from my (admittedly limited) understanding of it, its supposed to be a dark comedy gritty adult animation. the characters are supposed to be questionable and unconventional because theyre literally in hell. so i ask the question: why are they so afraid to lean into that with their character designs? why does everyone have to have barbie proportions? why is no one (purposefully) unpleasant to look at or monstrous? its sad to see a creator trying so hard to make something thats supposed to be graphic and brazen in its depiction of hell and demons, and yet is afraid to actually confront the conventionally unappealing aspects of the source material, or even touch the motifs of the demons

i love the 7 princes of hell. if you want to read about the strangest characters with the oddest stories, symbols and trivia, go read some websites about them. none of it makes sense. lucifer and satan are the same person but also not and sometimes the other 5 are also the same guy. belphegor is in love with paris and is the infernal ambassador to france and has a toliet wheelchair. satan is depressed. lucifer is sometimes depicted as an whiny brat child and sometimes as a humongous terrifying beast. leviathan does jack shit and just boils the ocean and eats boats. its literally so much fun. also please feel free to add onto this! demonology is fun in part bc theres so many different interpretations and facts from all over the place that make it a wild ride

tldr: vivziepops designs are lazy and unadventurous when it comes to their source materials

#hair scares #demonology #long post #vivziepop tw

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lica-rca · 3 months

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2024.01 ひかり

#35mm film #nikon #nikon fe #film photography #期限切れフィルム #kodak super gold 400

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utilitycaster · 11 months

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If you could build a character to screw with Bells Hells (in an ideology way Deanna already did the other) how might you build them?

You know, this is a very difficult question for a couple reasons:

The first is that the party itself has a pretty wide range of ideologies! I think it's very hard to faze Fearne or Chetney (unless you're his ex, apparently) simply because she's so open to experiences and he's lived such a long life. Imogen and Ashton are both very cynical, but I think they'd mostly be disgusted at worst by a super perky and naive person. Laudna likes most people, as does FCG, and Orym is unlikely to make waves even though he does have plenty of personal preferences.

The second is that I firmly believe that you can make a character that intends to push people's buttons...but you are here to work with the party, if you're playing a PC. I've been thinking about this a lot actually, what with all the "Emily breaker of DMs" discussion, because on NADDPod's various commentary shows (both the Patreon-only Short Rest after show, and also a lot of their D&D Court/Hearthside Chat episodes) she always talks about being very sensitive to both party composition and wanting to play a character who very much has a reason to be there and to bring everyone together. I find that aspirational, and so some friendly ribbing or playing someone who will challenge a character ideologically is fine, but I'd be reluctant to be actually antagonistic.

So I think like, the true answer is "Aabria sufficiently messed with the party by being a cleric with a complicated deity relationship, which messes a bit with both FCG and Imogen, and also was Chetney's ex so that got him good, but at the same time her build was incredibly beneficial to the party composition; she has won, and no one's going to top that." But were I to attempt to compete: I mean, I'm going to take @captainofthetidesbreath's suggestion here and do cleric of the Dawnfather/Chronurgy wizard:

Cleric of the Dawnfather now is going to fuck with everyone, especially if you are just straight-up a generally nice person who follows the Dawnfather and has no specific ties to Vasselheim or the larger church hierarchy. I think a life or light are the obvious domains to pick; the domain itself won't really affect how the party feels about you.

Chronurgy wizard who just knows Ashton's whole deal immediately is going to totally mess with them.

I think the combination of cleric and wizard would do all kinds of wild shit with Imogen's understanding of power; following a different god than FCG and having very high intelligence/knowing the world isn't flat is going to be a whole fun thing there as well.

For maximum fuckery: Be an elf who's like...450-500 and a survivor of Molaesmyr. This achieves several things. First off, you can feasibly call Chetney a young man while being middle aged yourself, and see what the fuck happens. Second, you can just hate Ludinus for petty reasons. Literally if anyone breathes any positive words about the Vanguard be like "did you know? Ludinus HATES dogs." Go full Bitch Eating Cookies on him. This is hilarious and great because it shuts down conversation but you can just be like "no I have ideological reasons, obviously, but more importantly, he failed to reimburse me for 400 gold worth of high quality paper."

Be very slightly dismissive of druidic magic. Not in like a bad or hurtful way, but just enough to make Fearne and Orym sort of grit their teeth a bunch. Also, just be like...not into Pâté. Like, not freaked out, not upset, just. Not into it.

EDITED: I was so caught up in the flavor and details I forgot this was a cleric multiclass and your wisdom has to be decent so take either the observant feat or locate object and make it super hard for Fearne to steal from you. (Sorry, I am envisioning this as like 2 cleric levels and the rest wizard, so I'm thinking of them as mostly wizard).

Have an ring of mind shielding that you have made invisible.

#answered #Anonymous #cr tag #this was fun

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garys-classic-guitars · 3 months

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Magnificent 1970 Gibson Super 400

#vintage guitar #vintage electric guitar #gibson #vintage guitars #Super 400 #vintage archtop guitar

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iholli · 9 months

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I would absolutely love to hear about your faves 👀 Tell me everything you know 👀👀👀👀

AAAAAAVUYCDTIGCTUGCH YOU'RE A GEM THANK U FOR THIS 😭😭😭💚

this is super long bc I'm Completely Normal abt J'onn lmao whoops 😂

omfg where do I start. FIRST THINGS FIRST. HE. MY BELOVED. J'onn J'onzz, the Martian Manhunter, my favorite favorite of all time. no really it's coming up on 8 years and I still love him sm 😭 my one braincell may wander off to new fixations but I always circle back around to him sooner or later.

I have like 4747058 images of him ofc but these are SO good bc they tell a lot about him ??? he's cute, he's silly, he's dramatic, he's sassy, he's the heart of the Justice League twenty times over despite DC refusing to give him any time to shine (I'm going to fight them with my bare hands for that).

I've never posted this but it's been in my drafts for ever so I'll throw it in here 😂 I have so many thoughts about him omg

ALSO I have a whole thing analyzing J'onn's moral compass & development through Justice League Animated, Unlimited, and some of the comics a while back so there's tHAT WHICH,,, was super good imo 👏

uuuuughghghghh I could talk about him forever 😭💚

When it comes to people Superman wouldn't want to fight, J'onn is top of that list, that's canon. He's OP as FUCK. He has most if not all Clark's powers, shapeshifting, intangibility, invisibility, phasing, telepathy, seriously his powers seem to never end ??? But he's terribly underutilized :") like I get it but come on DC,,,

J'onn is addicted to Oreos. no, really. in MM 98 issue 24 Blue Beetle and Booster Gold have this Super Funny Idea to hide all the Oreos from J'onn, and you gotta applaud the dedication to the prank bc they literally went out and bought ALL the Oreos from the ENTIRE vicinity of the JL Embassy building. J'onn proceeds to Hulk out and tear up half the city chasing them for it. It's revealed by Batman that Martians can get addicted to Oreos. At the end of the issue it turns out this is just a story J'onn is telling Diana but... he winks and asks if she's got any cookies, so it's up for debate if it's really just a story [I think there's some truth to it. bc it's very funny.]. And the Oreo thing comes up many times in many places including JLTAS 😂

He also likes sweet things in general !! he canonically drinks coffee with a TON of sugary shit to take off the bitter taste. I also made the hc that was the case for him just days before reading it in MM Identity and I'm very real for that 👏

J'onn is a cat person. One of his aliases is even an Italian street cat named Tommaso. And he has an orange cat named Double Stuff,,, of course 😂

however,,, he's totally a dragon nerd, he knows everything about dragons, he likes reptiles in general but dragons are his fav. He shapeshifts into draconic creatures all the time and he talks many times abt a specific species of moon nesting dragon called quonars. He also telepathically connected with an iguana once and it was a wholesome experience 🥺

J'onn lives in Colorado, in a suburb named Middleton, which is actually the name of a real ghost town! it's interesting that Denver is his preferred climate bc you can assume Mars was similar 👀

He is THE sass master. He goes toe to toe with Batman constantly. One of these days I'll just make a list of every sassy line he delivers in JLTAS but I think that would be a whole book by itself. There's a video of sassy moments from Batman: The Brave and the Bold that I watch 400 times a week. One of my favorite comic sass moments is when Batman expresses his annoyance at J'onn for leaving on the middle of an important meeting, which J'onn happily counters with a "you're so right, it would look bad on the League if someone just vanished at random all the time, huh Batman :)." he then also takes a crack at Bruce's lack of people skills. iconic.

He's also a silly little guy. The Batman 2007? J'onn OWNS the noir detective role, down to the cheesy old fashioned music. He also has like, a whole list of quotes he's just waiting to use when the time is right. He waited years to say "You're probably wondering why I've called you all here today." love him fr

J'onn is canonically kind of an adrenaline junkie. He loves driving, particularly an 87 Chevy Impala which he affectionately says "vibrates like a Chihuahua with a head cold." He once physically linked with an entire damaged spaceship to steer it out of danger and got carried away bc he was just having fun. He also said it was similar to the video games he plays with GL-- so he's canonically a gamer, too 😂👏

I 100% believe he's got anxiety or at LEAST separation anxiety [and that may be the case for the entire Martian race]. I already thought as much but then JLU issue 24 kinda confirmed it and it was devastating :") the League is taken over by Starro, J'onn is the only one who dodges the attack and he's left to fight his teammates which. is already awful for him. and it triggers flashbacks to a time on Mars when he was separated from his family in a nasty sandstorm. J'onn went pretty much feral with panic until he broke down and then forced himself to calm down enough to think of a plan. Meanwhile back with the League he's frantically trying not to panic again bc, while fire is a Martian's greatest weakness, "being alone is a Martian's greatest fear." I cried the whole time I read that issue and then I bought a copy LMAO. can DC stop putting him through the PTSD wringer for five seconds thanks

One short comic run J'onn spends the whole time being chased by the Martian god of fire, H'ronmeer, bc it turns out he was psychically keeping the souls of the entire Martian population tethered to the mortal realm. he's super powerful and HE'S GOING THROUGH IT. ALL THE TIME.

I don't have the context for either happenstance at this time, but J'onn has been both a Black and a White Lantern in comics. I have no idea what any of it means, either, I just know it's happened. I'll get there eventually. maybe. [I think he's dead for the Black Lantern thing so...probably...not...]

^^^ this is up there with the whole "J'onn was actually an advance agent for the invading Martian species but rather than let them use him as a weapon he essentially committed suicide after fighting the whole Justice League [beat them easily, it wasn't even a competition] and somehow this split his consciousness into like 4 different people" of comic runs that I really don't want to read [even though I own this one] :") help

I don't know what it is about forcefields but his brain just shuts off when he gets near one fr. Multiple times when there's a forcefield, EVEN IF HE KNOWS IT'S THERE, J'onn just yeets headfirst into it. He's just generally super impulsive tho ??? This guy is constantly jumping into action without a moment's thought. pls stop handing off the braincell to absolutely no one when there's danger, J'onn [he does not actually have the braincell at any given time. only Bruce has it. occasionally].

He totally enjoys starting shit. J'onn is Here for teammate drama. He once gave Batman absolutely what for and called him immature just bc J'onn was annoyed with his attitude. He sends people on League missions that will either bring out complete drama or make them find common ground. Though he says the contrary, J'onn is absolutely in the background of every team squabble with popcorn like Thor watching Tony and Cap argue. "You're all so petty. And tiny."

J'onn's name means "light to the light" and it's so poetic 😭😭 of COURSE he's the heart of the League. akdjfndckdnxkd

I'm going to stop there bc I could go on forever but I've held this ask hostage in my drafts long enough 😂😂 ENJOY THE RAMBLING THANK U FOR SENDING THIS ASK AAAA 💙

#possum screms at this #sorry it takes me 5-10 business days to answer asks i get too excited #enrinchment but i am a dog with an egg. bark and bounce around it with delight instead of interacting Normally #ratkingresponds #j'onn my beloved #here tumblr have a bunch of infodumping abt my beloved #martian manhunter #j'onn j'onzz #dc #long post #i know ive dropped a lot of this info on tumblr before but now its all in One Condensed Post #I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT HIM. brainrot real #some other favs include loki death the kid shadow the hedgehog donnie rottmnt luigi bowser & king boo #but J'onn is like. my Main Guy yk 😭😭#THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS ASK I CANNOT SAY IT ENOUGH 😭😭#nothing brings me seratonin like talking about he fr fr

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ultimateaclrecovery · 4 months

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Japan day 4! More Kyoto!

Started with a photo op of the yasaka pagado part of the hokan-ji temple. And then we were off to the kiyomizu-dear temple known for its city views. It was a little cloudy but we still got some great views!

From there went the silver pagado temple and then down the philosophers path. It was raining but the path was very peaceful as we walked along the river. It ended at the Eikan-do temple. Eiakan-do had a really cool art exhibit inside and then the gardens were full of fall colors.

We then went to our tea ceremony experience. It was very curated for tourists but felt very respectful and informative. It took a lot more whisking to get the tea right than I thought, but it was all very delicious. And I got to wear a purple kimono so I obviously had a good time.

Overly long travel diary

Anthony 400 yen first temple kitomizu dera

Emma 500 yen each second temple, silver temple

Anthony 1000 yen each eikan do

We start the day at kiyomizu temple, stopping on the way to take pictures of a pagado. The view from the temple is really nice even if it is a bit cloudy. The temple itself is also a really pretty red.

We then walk for a bit and find a dog park to have breakfast in.

We take a bus over to the philosophers path. The bus is super crowded buy we survived.

We then decide to walk up to the silver pavilion the counter part to the gold pavilion we saw yesterday. Because sulver tarnishes more quickly it’s not as shiny but the grounds are still lovely. Sadly they don’t have a silver temple key chain to match my one from yesterday.

After we head back down to the philosophers path which runs along the river. Some of the leaves are really pretty colors but a lot have fallen already. The philosophers path was so full of cute bridges. It was pretty rainy but it kind of added to it in a way. There are also people with signs at various crossroads of the philosophers path to help direct tourists. There are also various public maps with the major tourist sites on them.

The philosophers path ends very near to our next temple so we head in. The ticket is more than a lot of them but we quickly see that it’s because they also have an art exhibit in the temple. They give you a little plastic bag to carry your shoes in while you walk through the temple and see the art. It’s pretty cold today so my feet are cold and the wooden floor feels extra cold.

Eikan do had lots of art and explanations about the pure land where you go when you reach enlightenment. The monk who more or less founded the temple thinks that anyone can reach enlightenment and you don’t have to spend endless hours in mediation. The temple also is one of the few or maybe only places where the two competing art schools of the day would have their art side by side.

The fall foliage around the temple is really gorgeous and their are some adorable bridges. I try to get a picture with a bridge from on another bridge but didn’t get the angles right so you can’t really see the bridge. But there’s still pretty colors and a pond. We also walk up to the pagado at the top and take in the views of the cities. I love how all the temples are nestled into the mountains/hillsides so you can get pretty views from them.

There are other temples nearby but we’re feeling pretty templed out and will see more temples tomorrow so decide to just head back to the area out hotel is in and get lunch.

Twntenyu for lunch ramen. Anthony paid 2180 for both. They had up little dividers between all the seats. It was in a big building full of mostly offices with stores on the bottom floor. Most of the other people seemed to be business people on their lunch break. I got ramen and gyoza and it was delicious but the gyoza burned the roof of my mouth a little. The warm ramen tho really hit the spot on a cold and dreary day.

We head back to the hotel to regroup. We end up taking a nap (and having some quality time)due to not finding anything else to see that we are willing to walk to. And I’m tired.

After we head out to go to a tea ceremony I booked online previously. We start with getting dressed in kimonos. They braid my hair and pin it up into a bun. I am allowed to picked my own kimono and I find a dark purple one with pink flowers. Putting it on is an experience. There are two ladies working together wrapping you all up and tying you in. There are a lot more little skinny ties than I would’ve expected. And then there’s a hard thing for your middle for the shape and then finally the big sash that goes around the middle and ties into a bow. It’s a little constricting but not too bad. I wouldn’t want to have run or need to do any deep breathing in it but fine for standing around and sitting.

They give you a pretty bag so you can take your phone and whatever with you (they know people want to take pictures in the kimonos)and then a big numbered bag to leave the rest of your stuff in. They also give you little toe socks to wear with the shoes.

We head back to the waiting room and take a couple pictures. My boyfriend tolerates the pictures. There’s a lovely women from Portugal on her honeymoon who takes a couple for us and gets one of my hair and the bow in the back

We head into the room where they show us how we can sit and how to arrange the kimono. She tells us to stay comfortable. I do not succeed in the little sweeping motion she showed to get the kimono to look pretty while sitting and it keeps gaping funny at the bottom but it’s fine.

She starts with a detailed explanation of what tea ceremony is. It’s all about the one moment and one time we have here together. And being full of respect harmony tranquilly and balance(?). She then shows us how to make the tea. There’s a lot of cleaning and the tools and doing everything deliberately and respectfully.

We start by eating the little sweets. One is hard like a smartie and has a swan on it and the other is rice paper wrapped around red bean paste. She has cut the pastry in half with a toothpick and it’s surprisingly difficult. She then shows us how we are supposed to whisk the tea.

I thought i whisked mine enough but when she comes around she says I need to do it a lot more.

The tea ceremony involves a lot more whisking than I tried to do at first, but it’s fun. The sweets before it our lovely.

We take a couple more pictures after in the pretty tea room. There’s art in the panels. The lighting isn’t great for my face (I think my head blocked a can light or something but otherwise the pictures are great.

It’s very much an experience curated for tourists and a bit of a sampler or intro to traditional Japanese cultur but it felt respectful and not gimmicky. Our tea group was all couples from different countries and about half were on their honeymoon.

We then walk through nishiki market and buy chopsticks. I buy some pretty purple ones. 6100 yen. I get three, two lavender and one sparkly. I realize too late that I probably could’ve gotten another of the sparkly and gotten a set of four but it’s fine. I also get three chopstick rests that are some sort of adorable sea slugs (I get three, one purple, but there was a fourth design but it was orange and I didn’t love it. The other two were blue and polka dot.

Apparently the yen hit its lowest in 30 years relative to the dollar.

Dinner is at a sort of americaish small plate place after we can’t get into the restaurant my uncle recommended. I try brown sugar shochu it is good but not as sweet as I wanted. We get garlic bread (with pesto), gapao rice, pork loin, and fried chicken. We then get a Dutch baby with gelato for dessert that they unexpectedly add fruit to. I hate when desserts do that because I don’t like fruits and then it can kind of ruin the taste of whatever it’s on with its sauce or whatever. And with dessert if it’s not delicious I don’t really want it. I eat the edges of my half of the pancake and then have my boyfriend finish the parts that got soaked with fruit juice

#travel diary #yes I am posting these back to back #and yes my trip was in early to mid November #I don’t very quickly but it’s fine #also too lazy to pull out my haphazard cash tracking from the diary #japan #japan day 4 #day 4 #japan travel diary #overly long travel diary

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mdhwrites · 1 month

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Fire Trailblazer is Slept on Too Hard

Since I got him, he has been a permanent part of my team. Literally only Skaracabaz has ever convinced me to take him out. He was my sole sustainer until Phantylia, at which point I rocked dual sustainers with him and Bailu and I have cleared up to Conundrum 6 of Gold and Gears with him as my SOLE sustainer running Nihility.

And very reasonably you might ask "HOW THE HELL DID YOU DO THAT!?"

They (and sorry that I'll likely use He a lot in this, I have Caelus) don't look impressive. They don't even look functional! A LOT of people have stories of what is supposed to be their showcase fight leaving only them alive to fight the Phase 2 of Jarilo 6's boss specifically because he couldn't keep them alive. So what gives? Do I just have the most cracked out Trailblazer on the planet with literally as high defense as you can get it?

No, I just have the defense set on and the Belobog Planar Ornaments on. I have okay defense substats but when I put together the set, I wasn't paying hard attention to substats and haven't grinded the set since. I admittedly have even defense boots on him so quite literally EVERYTHING gives him defense besides his gloves but that's it.

The thing that needs to be remembered about the role of sustainer, especially for preservation is that their job isn't to make sure you take no damage, it's about keeping you alive. Fire Trailblazer does that. Even if you're taking chip damage each round on your characters, he's still reducing the damage they're taking by roughly 10-20% of their health for most characters in the game. After all, max level of his ability might only be a bit over 6% of his defense but 6% of FIVE THOUSAND DEFENSE is still over 300, plus another 89 base on top. That's 400+ shield in a game where most characters have less than 4000 health at level 80, even when fully equipped, if not almost 3000. And the game's damage understands this, keeping damage a lot lower than you expect in most scenarios so that your DPSes in main content don't just crumple up and die from a light breeze. This gives them the extra buffer those DPSes need to stay alive A LOT longer.

And that's without recognizing two elements:

1: He has an emergency button for if aggro gets off of him and your DPS is getting hammered. His ultimate not only deals not an insignificant amount of damage (his damage scales off that giant defense stat after all) but also reups his shield because

2: Literally every action he takes gives you his shield. You don't need to spend skill points to get this buffer. If you do use his skill, not only is his defense already super high but he takes 50% less damage than he'd already be taking while giving a 15% damage reduction to your allies for those pesky AoE attacks. Which...

Let's admit one of the biggest issues for him: He doesn't have a natural taunt, he only has his skill. Admittedly, Preservation characters inherently pull more Aggro inherently but you DO want a Landau's Choice or Moment of Victory on him. I went from sometimes everyone ganging up on my DPSes and causing problems despite the party wide shield to that being a LOW chance of happening after getting Moment of Victory on him. But that only happened for me maybe two months ago. Slightly before Scaracabaz came out. I still used him before then because any defense Preservation LC works and I literally didn't get Landau's Choice until like maybe a month ago. My luck in this game is not good.

The other big detriment for him is that he is slow and his shield only lasts two turns. This is okay usually but it easily can leave your party open to the first attacks from the enemies (then again, there are enemies with 140 speed and so will outspeed most DPSes with their speed boots on so good luck stopping that damage with anyone) and there can be times where because your other characters lap him, they may briefly be without shields, especially if you don't hold back on his ultimate to be able to cover those blind spots. And the defense aren't insignificant. They give me 600 defense. Sure that's like 40 points of shielding but you are barely keeping your shields on people after an attack already. It can be daunting to want to swap out for that speed even if it means more consistent defense. But if you want speed boots on him with some good defense substats to help make up for what you're losing, it's the ONLY variable relic he has that has more than one substat you care about. Heck, his chest, rope, boots and orb could all be dedicated to getting speed substats if you wanted because they can't get the ONE substat he cares about otherwise which is Defense%. Unless you want to go Energy Regen Rope which is an interesting idea that I wouldn't go for personally but that's because I use his ult as a panic button.

I've saved his best role for last though, and frankly want to do a couple blogs about this game mode: He is the best sustainer in Simulated Universe. Aventurine is the only who is going to rival him in this and you get Fire Trailblazer for free.

That might sound even more insane than the rest of these claims but it's actually really simple. Shields are a lot harder to come by than healing in Simulated Universe. Literally only Preservation and Remembrance don't have a way to give you back health in their blessings. The only ones with any form of shield though are Preservation, Remembrance, Destruction and now Erudition. Erudition's requires using its keyword though so it's not easy to pull off while funny enough, the only one who can't heal in combat with a healing blessing they have without their keyword is Abundance. There's also only one relic that gives health during combat... But zero that give shields.

And hey, the way to get shields in these paths isn't consistent. The ONLY consistent shields (especially ones that are worth a damn) for multiple rounds in Preservation, the shield path, is a level 2 blessing that has an 80%/100% chance to give a 12%/15% shield, usually weaker than Trailblazer's already, and a level 3 blessing that gives its stackable shield. Meanwhile, the blessings that heal? Most of them are level 1 blessings with a couple stronger level 2s. Some paths like Hunt even get more options for healing once you have their keyword. That healing can turn on Abundance's blessings but you're going to hard pressed to enable Preservation through blessings alone.

Which is a kind of a big deal when one of the level 1 Preservation blessings just gives a flat damage decrease of 16/24% damage which is a LOT for the only requirement being that you have a shield on. Preservation in general has a lot of strong blessings that can be utilized by any other path, not just when you're focusing Preservation... So long as you have a shielder.

And Fire Trailblazer doesn't even stop there as his offensive ult makes him able to take advantage of some fringe elements like ANYTHING in Erudition and being able to be given a follow up attack from Elation. All while giving a shield that makes sure that your characters aren't one shot. Hell, I run dual sustainer a lot of the time with Bailu as backup and those teams literally HAVE to be oneshot to die at that point most of the time. I don't know if I've ever lost an SU run with those two as my sustainers.

So yeah, I REALLY like Fire Trailblazer. It'll be hard for any other version of trailblazer to be better than them in my opinion, especially as a free character. Aventurine after all is the one I said could dethrone him as the best sustainer in SU after all and he's a limited five star. The fact that no one else in my opinion has beat him yet is kind of a big deal. I won't say he's the best sustainer everywhere, Huohuo kicks ass and Luocha is honestly so mechanically perfect as to be a mistake, but there's a reason I haven't pulled on another sustainer's banner yet.

I already have one that has almost never let me down.

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Frankly, I could try to use Fire Trailblazer against Scarakabaz at this point. His death balls just kind of spooked me with their damage and so I actually swapped to running Bailu and Gepard for the fight so that essentially I could ult for ult his explosions. It's not a fast way to do the fight but it got me through it, even with Welt and Yanqing as my two DPSes otherwise.

And I am serious about wanting to talk more about SU stuff. I saw a comment of someone going "I can clear Memory of Chaos 12 but can't beat Swarm Disaster 5" and that has gnawed at me because it's a skill issue but a reasonable skill issue because not everyone is good at roguelikes. It's just that talking about that has so many facets it's probably going to be multiple blogs interlinked to each other because just general advice/rules I have on the mode would be LONG.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#trailblazer #hsr #Honkai Star Rail #Gaming #Analysis

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onetimetwotimesthreetimess · 2 years

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I think people are arguing that Alec loves Magnus more than how Magnus loves Alec because the fanworks usually focus more on Alec crushing on Magnus. And I think the fandom does that because the fanpeople tend to prefer Magnus over Alec so they prefer the Alec pining trope. I say that because I personally prefer Alec over Magnus and that’s the reason why I prefer the pining Magnus fics. But that’s just my theory.

It’s an interesting theory. It’s possible. People often tend to create their opinions on other characters based on their favourites. I approve.

I think there are a lot of others reasons too though. And one of the biggest reasons is the difference in their love languages.

1. Alec is very vocal about his love. Has been since day 1. He was the one who asked Magnus out. Alec was the one who started the discussion on marriage in born to endless night. He’s the one who proposed. Most of his iconic lines—he has announced it to the world.

“I don’t want the world. I want you.” - COHF

“Stop telling me to let you go. I will never listen. I want to be with you. I never wanted anything more in my life. If you fall, I want to fall with you.” - TRSOM

“You’re my heart Magnus Bane. Stay unbroken for me.”- TLBOTW

“Alec Lightwood loved one man so much he changed the world for him.”- QOAAD

All of these lines—he has explicitly said to Magnus.

While all the super romantic shit Magnus has said were more of his internal thoughts.

“Someone, long ago, had told Magnus that human beings could never love the way immortals loved; their souls didn’t have the strength for it. That person had never met Alec Lightwood, nor anyone like him, Magnus thought, and their lives must have been the poorer for it”- TLBOTW

“Some might have called it the presence of God. Magnus just thought of it as Alexander Gideon Lightwood.”- QOAAD

“If Jace was gold, catching the light and the attention, Alec was silver…….And silver, though few people knew it, was a rarer metal than gold.”- TBC

The point is that Alec is more vocally expressive than Magnus. Even Alec wasn’t very sure of Magnus’s love in TMI—which is where his insecurities came from, leading to the breakup.

2. TSC is about shadowhunters. There’s not much about warlock history or their everyday politics, right? So Alec’s actions/fight for their love has always been very visible. (Like kissing in the accord halls, changing the law.) So we have been able to see everything that Alec has done/sacrificed/risked for Magnus. The same can’t be said for Magnus—not because Magnus hasn’t faced backlash due to their relationship, but because what happens in the warlock/downworld is not given enough importance in the books/or even the show for that matter. We only see glimpses of that in the eldest curses books. Like that scene where Magnus was not invited to a party just because he was dating a shadowhunter.

So it might seem like Magnus hasn’t sacrificed/risked much, which isn’t true at all. This is a 400 year old man who has went through so much shit and was still willing to take a chance on a shadowhunter, who was literally the son of a family who was into genocide of his race. I don’t think people give enough credit to Magnus for that which is a goddamn crime y’all.

#ooooff I will write essays over essays about how much I love mr Magnus bane #malec #magnus bane #alec lightwood

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