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xemobladechromicles · 2 years

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Thoughts on Certain Xenoblade 3 Heroes So Far

I don’t want to rank them until I’ve both unlocked all of them and completed everyone’s quests. So this is just a ranking based on the impressions they’ve given me, I think there are 5 heroes I haven’t gotten: Nia & Melia, Cammuravi, Machine Assasin Person (her sillhouette looks cool I’m excited to know wtf is going on there), the hacker class, and the seraph class, so I’m not gonna talk about these guys even though admittedly I’m very excited to obtain all of them.

Anyways these are my current impressions of everyone.

Ghondor

She’s too powerful for the censors. Someone stop her. I love her, she’s so funny. Like, her accent is so thick. She’s too powerful. I’m intimidated. I’m in love. Ghondor is epique. You fucking try meeting her to save the world and she just calls you a loser and wants to fight. Yas girl, slay (the party). The phrase Bitchqueen is glorious. I mostly love her because she swears a lot and that’s funny. Like, Eunie may say “bitch” and “arse” occasionally but ultimately says “queen’s knees” and shit, but Ghondor is above censorship. She is too powerful. If she didn’t dub Monica as the Bitchqueen, I’d be calling Ghondor that (affectionate). She just makes me happy lmao.

Gray

I think it’s hilarious that he acts like a teenage edgelord with a dark and mysterious past but then I go into his affinity chart and learn that he’s fucking 60. He pulled a Riki. He’s not allowed to do that. Also his dynamic with Eunie during his recruitment sidequest is hilarious. I like how Eunie just insults him the entire time and he’s just like “im batman bro” “who tf is batman you edgy bitch??” Also his class is super fun. Like, you simply explode everything with guns that shoot lasers. I have criminally not used him much, mostly because if I need a Full Metal Jaguar, I’ll employ Eunie or occasionally someone else. It’s mostly that I was grinding everyone to class level 10 on his class, so there wasn’t room for him in the party when I already had 3 Jaguars. But I love his class and I love his dynamic with Eunie. He’s a funny man.

Theory crafting time. I’m actually kinda curious if this class could be used as a dodge-tank, especially if you’re given post-game gear to work with and stick the class onto a naturally evasive character like Mio. Due to being mostly AoE and dealing so much fucking damage that aggro management is necessary here, the class wouldn’t really struggle with drawing aggro. When using tank classes, especially Zephyr, I often combine their primary aggro drawing ability with Quickdraw due to QD both providing evasion for the art and it’s bonus damage from the front being a very useful tool for drawing and maintaining aggro quickly due to the ridiculous amount of damage it deals from the front, which is where tanks are going to be positioned most of the time. So I imagine the inverse of using QD with an aggro drawing ability supplementing it would be quite good. Alongside that, I want to draw attention to Demolition. When using the FMJ class, I like to either pair Demolition with an evasion art or another piercing art. I assume the piercing stacks (otherwise rip). But Demolition is so good with an evasion art because the attack animation is so long. In the context of a DPS character, this is usually long enough for tanks to draw the aggro back while you’re hiding in evasion frames, in the context of a tank, I imagine this ability would be great for dodging one to two key abilities (depending on how art-spammy the boss is). Side note, as FMJ, combining Dead Set with an evasion art can also be nice because it guarantees safety while you fully remove aggro, this class is super squishy normally and needs to remain alive to get the most out of its dps. The other thing I think FMJ would be able to do as a tank that other tanks can’t is kiting enemies. Since the class is ranged, it probably would be able to auto attack certain enemies outside of their auto range and if it does this while maintaining aggro, that would help get around squishiness, especially since FMJ uses timed cooldowns.

Since this is a dps class rather than a tank class, a tanky FMJ build would pretty much allow everyone to run Protector’s Pride and the accessory with the same effect, maybe combine that with someone on the Troubadour class and that would create a recipe for art spam. Since the mechanic is meant as an “oh shit” mechanic rather than something you’d have constantly active, especially if you get the level 15 version, which I don’t know what the amount is at rank 15, but with the rank 10 version, it’s a 40% increase, combine that with my current best recharge speed, that’s another 40%, which I’m assuming would result is an 80% arts cooldown reduction that I could theoretically attach to everybody. In FMJ’s case, Demolition has a 26s cooldown at Rank 10 (dunno if cooldown will decrease at Rank 15), so that with an 80% cooldown would be a 5.2 second cooldown, which isn’t that much longer than the art’s cast time. Tho, I imagine there would be some difficulties with the evasion art it’s attached to being auto recharge, especially since 3 doesn’t have Pouch Items like what existed in 2. Quickdraw has an 11s cooldown at rank 10, so an 80% cooldown reduction would result in the art having a 2.2s cooldown. The art itself lasts approximately half a second, so just using QD, you’d probably be in evasion for at least a quarter of the fight just by spamming that ability alone. Third ability would kinda have to be Superstorm since I don’t believe Fatal Barrage has a long enough animation to justify losing out on its back attack damage and deadset wouldn’t be particularly useful to this build for obvious reasons. If you combine this with the Dance of Barrages ability, which at rank 10 gives an 11% chance to keep the recharge when using an art, that would also be valuable to maintaining uptime, even considering its low procc rate. I’d probably combine tank FMJ with a troubadour anyways due to that class being designed around cooldown reduction alongside its passive 15% boost to ally accuracy and evasion (at rank 10, I don’t know what the rank 15 boost looks like). Since that class can also spread Ring’o Roses, I imagine that could be part of the build too, potentially even as the art that superstorm is tied to. Also, keep in mind that all of this cooldown bullshit would apply to your allies too. Which could result in something like, say, a War Medic with healing constantly up, or an Ogre being able to spam their hard-hitting arts, DPS classes in particular would be able to combine this with a crit build and Frenzied Combo. Unfortunately FMJ doesn’t have the best base crit, but considering how many multi-hit arts the class has, crit FMJ with Frenzied Combo could be quite strong, whether it’s attack or tank.

The main thing holding this class back as a tank is how naturally squishy it is, but I feel like with the right build that can be worked around. I just think this would be dedicated to the post-game because running tank FMJ would require an art-spam build that requires combining skills from multiple classes at high ranks in order to properly function due to how squishy this class is. I just feel like it would work as a tank if you’re post-game and building your team around a hyper offensive playstyle. I’m unsure whether Violent Streak of Gemini Strike would be the better choice of Talent Arts in this build. Violent Streak lasts longer and deals more damage but Gemini Strike has a shorter cooldown and also draws aggro. The biggest weakness I can think of that I don’t think there’s any getting around is that the player would basically have to glue themselves to the FMJ character since I sincerely doubt in the AI’s ability to not instantly die the moment you try to mess around with a different character for 2 seconds.

I also just realized that FMJ has weirdly high base healing power. In fact, it appears to be the highest healing power given to a non-healer class. It’s not enough to be used as a direct healer, but I wonder if combining some of its arts with stuff like Hornet (a heals nearby allies on hit ability) could result in the FMJ be used as the party’s source of healing, which would leave room for more buff-oriented healer classes like Signifier and Troubador taking up the party’s healer slot.

Idk, I just really like the FMJ class. It feels good to play and I just have an instinctive feeling that it has the potential to be used in some fucking disgusting builds. As a dps class, it synergizes really well with Eunie due to her role in chain attacks including ether penetration. As a tank, I’d probably elect Mio or Eunie. Mio has good natural evasion and Eunie is just generally very good with this class and I don’t have faith in tank FMJ’s ability to take a hit anyways. Noah on a tank class is usually really nice because of the Monado Arts giving him invincibility, but he wouldn’t be getting access to that in this case because he doesn’t get invincibility when playing a dps class. Overall, I love this class, I haven’t really done much with the character tho, but he left a good first impression.

Valdi

Mixed opinions gameplay wise. On one hand, he’s an automatic addition to any team where I have to fight mech bosses. His chain attack special is ridiculous for racking up damage multipliers and having a heal bot is really nice since it opens up room for me to spec the rest of my party into damage, but most of the major and sidequest bosses, especially after getting Valdi, are against either human enemies or Moebius. So, I rarely get to actually use him, but he’s a welcome addition whenever I can get away with it.

Personality wise? Irrelevant. Gun healers are hilarious. I like how there are four heroes with guns (if you count Isurd and Riku), two of them are healers, one of them is a damage class that synergizes with healer abilities, and the other one is the most utility-focused attack class in the game. Also, there’s a specific energy to, like, Taion pointing a gun to N’s edgy bastard face and unloading, like, 50 bullets while making a I:| expression. This class is fucking glorious and I love it. I have no strong opinions about Valdi’s personality. I do like how he’s one of the two small children healers who Lanz inherits the class from.

Fiona

Can we just take a moment to talk about how funny her weapon is? She literally beats you to death cutely with a flag. And the flag has a laser on it. I haven’t figured out how to properly use her class yet since I got her right next to several other heroes, haven’t gotten the characters I want with high ranks on this class, and I don’t really understand the value of giving everyone random buffs without having much in the way of direct heals. I do like sticking her spread buff ability on Yumsmith since I can spread crit and power-within fields both to give the other attackers higher DPS that’s less positionally dependent and to give the tanks better tankiness since most of the fields end up looking like 10 circles overlapping each other while (probably) Mio stands in the middle.

I play this game using the English dub. I like her accent, but I didn’t really care for how her VA delivered some of her lines. I also just didn’t have a strong opinion on her first quest and haven’t yet done any of the following sidequests. I imagine there’s a lot of potential for them to be good because there’s just a strong premise here, I just haven’t really gotten into the meat of her yet. Which kinda also describes my gameplay experience with her.

As a side note, I also think her character design is cute, but it doesn’t translate great into 3D and it doesn’t really match Agnus’s aesthetic or any other pre-established Aesthetics in the game. Her design is actually a pretty good example of many of the primary issues with Saito’s character designs even when barring how the horniness ruined so many designs in 2. This is still a massive improvement over what happened in 2, I just felt like it was worth pointing out in specifically this character design.

I’ve been wonder which heroes have the best and worst chain attack since it seems that they’re balanced by sacrificing player control, customizability, and being able to mix and match classes in favor of having ridiculously powerful chain attack effects. Like with most of this character, I haven’t really figured out how she’s best used in chain attacks, but she seems potentially really good due to her ability to artificially elongate regular chain attacks.

Ashera

I love characters who have problems with the concept of self-preservation. Ashera is so funny. Like, she decides “I’m going to storm my own base as an ego trip.” Since whether she succeeds or fails, it is an ego trip. Also I think her reason to want to be free from the flame clock is fucking hilarious. She’s not doing it to be free from fighting, she just wants to become enemies of Moebius so she can fight them. I also really liked Eunie in this sidequest. I really liked seeing Eunie get genuinely pissed off at Ashera’s antics and then they have some sort of understanding at the end of it. I honestly wasn’t expecting Eunie to have such good character work here of all places. It was a pleasant surprise. I haven’t really done any of her follow-up quests, but I should. It’s just that there’s so much to do in the game and there was a lot of plot stuff to do immediately after recruiting her, that I kinda forgot to go back to the town and now I’m overlevelled. I kinda want to do most of the overlevelled crap once I’m in the post-game since I do actually care about the sidequests, it’s just that doing side content for these games is difficult for me, mostly because my desire to progress the story or fuck around exploring the world is way stronger than my desire to slowly build up relationships with the NPCs and see everything come together. Something something instant gratification. Ashera slaps my ass and balls (even tho I don’t have balls to slap, sad day for her).

She was my go-to hero, especially during the mid-game because of her ability to instantly fill the chain attack meter to 200%, damage multiplication, and access to launch, which resulted in my mid-game chain attacks consistently taking out approximately half of a boss’s health bar whenever I used her. This is really helpful since I’ve been playing the game on hard mode and she effectively let me skip the second phases of several difficult boss fights. I mostly pulled her out for boss fights and used someone else when running around the world since I pretty much got everyone except Eunie and Taion to level 10 on this class because a universal launch art is just really useful, and her spread ability of damage reduction at low health is an amazing defensive ability, especially to slap onto squishy classes and other tank classes with bonus effects at low HP. Though it does sometimes suffer from opportunity cost, which wasn’t as big of an issue in the mid-game.

But she’s fallen off late game. I feel like her class is likely going to be very strong post-game because the long attack animations pair with evasion arts, resulting in you getting a lot of dodge-frames, especially since post-game you’ll be able to pair these abilities with evasion arts taken from DPS classes, so I wouldn’t be surprised if running a Lone Exile Crit Build would be viable, especially since this is a DPS tank class. Especially if the player eventually gets access to life-steal either from one of the classes I haven’t unlocked or from an accessory I haven’t gotten a hold of. The class feels like it was designed to be a somewhat squishy drain-tank with an emphasis on evasion, but the class doesn’t naturally come with life-steal effects or evasion arts, so it needs supplements from other classes in order to function, otherwise you’re left with a squishy tank that doesn’t really accomplish dps.

At the moment, I’m near the end-game. Got stuck on a boss and, after 8 hours of bashing my face against him, I’ve decided I want to do some sidequests rather than using my bonus EXP storage to do some side content that I’ve been procrastinating on. Mostly just to replenish my Nopon Coins and level some people up in some classes. The problem with Ashera right now is that I need to be able to have control over my tank characters to get through the late-game bosses otherwise they might not dodge key abilities and won’t draw aggro properly. Alongside that, her ability to start a chain attack with 200% has fallen off in power due to competition from other heroes, such as Ghondor instantly recharging herself, Alexandria’s crit modifier, and Fiona’s ability to recharge the chain attack gauge. Alongside that, enemies have much high break resistances now, so I can no longer consistently topple enemies during the first round of chain attack, which results in Ashera’s actual turn being inconsistent with its ability to combo. She’s now better with Ouroboros chain attacks due to them being shorter while a ton of late-game heroes are better than her in standard chain attacks due to their more consistent application during the attack. Her class also isn’t being very helpful due to just not being able to tank enough hits and me not having access to the stuff I said would make the class hypothetically one of the strongest classes in the game.

This class is pretty nice for grinding tho. Since I’m fighting low-threat enemies and just wanna be quick about it, an offensive tank is convenient for that.

I really like this character. I also really like the class conceptually, I’m just a bit disappointed that it’s fallen off end-game, especially since I have quite literally every character except for Eunie and Taion at rank 10 on her class (and Eunie is rank 6, Taion is literally the only character I haven’t used the class on, and I probably should get him there since I’ve been using him on utility-dps classes recently).

Riku and Manana

I love them. Riku has a gun. Manana has a laser cooking pot. Riku is my god. I’ve always wanted a Nopon party member with a gun, and Riku has fulfilled my wishes. I think the characters are a bit shallow for main characters, especially when placed next to the party members, but as side characters, I love them, and by them, I mean Riku (Manana’s okay, but Riku’s gloriousness elevates them). Riku just has military clothes and what I assumed was an afro. Execuse me sir, he is an egg. Why is his voice sexy? I’m so intimidated. He’s the one character to have experienced puberty. And his eyes are so soulful and hot, but again they’re attached to a fucking egg. I feel sexually threatened by a man who does not know what sex is. Also his gun, as far as I can tell, is a melee weapon?? Beautiful. I love him. I stan him. I fear him. Also the Hero Quest where Manana just spins and destroys those arachno is hilarious. Manana went brr. She is amazing and deserves good things for that moment and that moment alone.

As far as their class is concerned, it’s really interesting. It’s the only class in the game where I’ve gotten literally every party member to rank 10 on. Sappy-Sappy drain is a really useful ability, having a universal break art is really good, especially with Incursor’s universal break art of the opposite type. I think the class has really come into its own late game where the high break resistances on bosses means I pretty much need a dedicated break person. Since this is a dps/healer hybrid, I’ve been leaning into the class’s supportive capability and attaching my one memory locket to whoever I give this class to. I’m thinking Taion might be the best suited for this class because it lets him make use of his chain attack ability while still being able to make use of stuff from classes that I’ve already levelled him in. I kinda wish there was an easy way to check what everyone’s unmodified stats are so I could quickly tell what each person’s natural stats are best suited towards, since that would help me best decide who to stick this class on.

My guess is that this class will fall off post game once I have access to resources that let me build classes more wildly, especially since this class’s strongest abilities are shared abilities and its playstyle of stacking debuffs will most likely get harder the more enemies gain resistances and immunities to their debuffs. That said, the class probably would then be moved to a buff-oriented attacker, since Crit+ and the power within fields art isn’t shared, which means this class’s use post-game probably would turn more aggressive. Especially once I can swap out the Talent Art. Atm, I use the class more defensively than anything.

I really like the Nopon. I haven’t used them in my party much because I pretty much always had at least one person as Yumsmith when off bosses and I haven’t really been equipping them for bosses due to not remembering what their chain attack effects were.

Isurd

He just really failed to leave an impression on me. His voice acting kinda sucks. I like using his class on Eunie since he’s a more damage-oriented healer, which synergizes nicely with her combination of good ether damage and high heal power. I found the character to be kinda boring tho.

His story boss wasn’t very good. It looked like the devs might have been trying to riff on the Zu Pharg fight in Xenoblade X, but the fight against Isurde sort of failed because it had the stuff drawing away from the Zu Pharg’s spectacle without really any of the things that made the boss work. Like, it was a giant quadruped machine that summoned minions and you can climb around its wreckage after the fight. It shares the issue with the Zu Pharg where the camera is just not able to zoom out enough to really get a full view of it. But what made the Zu Pharg such a good spectacle fight where this one failed has to do with X’s scope as a whole, which was much bigger than 3′s. Basically the Zu Pharg fight had you chasing a mech that was quite literally the size of a mountain across an entire continent that you’ve explored up to this point while (most likely) flying in mechs. The fight had a series of fighting the boss, fighting its minions, and running past the minions to get back to the boss. This gave the player a good view of something other than the boss’s legs in the air, and on the ground it gave a good sense of the boss’s sheer scale because while you could not see the entire boss, you could get a leg into frame, which was fucking massive. The Zu Pharg was also by far the largest enemy in the game, which already had some gigantic enemies. This was also emphasized by the mech transforming from a gigantic flying fortress in Phase 1 into a literal fucking mech in phase 2. And yeah, the mech was the size of a fucking fortress more or less. So, the fight was memorable because it overwhelmed you with its sheer scale in a game that already had an emphasis on it. The fight against Isurde doesn’t really accomplish any of this. For one, the mech isn’t towering over the landscape like the Zu Pharg was, and two, you really can’t fly around and chase it like the Zu Pharg did, which was due to differences in 3′s and X’s mechanics. As a result, the mech’s size in 3 worked more against it than anything in terms of spectacle. The enemy summoning didn’t really do it any favors either. In the Zu Pharg, the summons were very good at selling its scale since you’re pairing enemies that are roughly the size of the player’s mechs with the mech itself, while in 3, the mechs the boss summons are larger than the player and Ouroboros isn’t as permanent of a mechanic as Skells were in X. There also isn’t the surprise of leaning that this massive space you’ve been exploring for hours is actually a gigantic boss arena. The differences in music for each boss was also a big deal. The Zu Pharg had a unique theme that was very stompy and crunchy while Isurd used the general boss theme (if I remember correctly). Idk, the Isurd fight just isn’t very good spectacle wise, especially compared to the boss it was clearly based on. And the surrounding story wasn’t very good since Joran is a pretty shit antagonist so “it was Joran making mud-puppets” didn’t really help.

Overall, the character is just very nothing to me. I like his class. I think his boss fight was bad. It wasn’t frustrating, but it just fails to capture what made the fight it was clearly based on so good spectacle wise. That’s probably why I never use him in the party. The other reason is that I don’t like his chain art. First of all, some characters in the party can get early Bravos, so him getting that turn one isn’t special, especially since he’s not combining this with him not being a damage character, so he kinda just hogs the momentum from them for no reason. He might be decent mid-game, but I found his chain attack ability to be outclassed by Ashera’s at that point in the game.

Zeon

I kinda assumed he was meant to be that one bully character from the intro cutscene, so I thought it was weird that the kid grew up to be this noble-natured man with no explanation from how he got from points a to b, but it turns out he wasn’t that kid, so I’m mostly wondering what the point of this guy is since the one interesting part of his character to me was a misconception. As far as his class is concerned, I also haven’t really figured out how it’s supposed to work. I have characters with rank 10 on him just for the topple art, I regularly use his taunt on tanks, and I’ll probably go for rank 20 on some characters in his class just because his talent art is useful, but I really just am not feeling him or his class.

Miyabi

I swear there’s an NPC in the City with her name. But I was kinda disappointed with her recruitment quest conceptually since it kinda just revived three dead characters with no real strings attached. Her ability to buff Mio up during chain attacks is interesting but odd. Which I’d probably describe her class as. I still don’t confidently understand how to use if effectively. I currently have it on Lanz because w i d e. Her class being centered primarily around regeneration and cooldown reduction seems like it’s designed specifically to buff dodge tanks and ability spamming damage dealers, so I imagine that quality makes her at her most useful during post-game where both the need for her stuff and the access to accessories and high impact arts will be at its highest.

Alexandria

I like her class. I also like her chain attack effects. I don’t really have an opinion on her personality one way or the other. She’s gives me similar energy as Lin from X, but with a more cunning attitude. I like that she’s a trickster who manipulates the economy, which I would like to point out, canonically does not exist. She’s conceptually a very funny woman. Extreme stonks. Her voice acting is kinda dry. Her class seems like a class that only gets stronger the later into the game you get because of her power mostly lying in her arts, crit rate, and counter attacks while needing to be kept alive in order to remain effective. She’s solid but I feel like I have very little to say about her beyond that.

Teach

His voice acting sucks. He sounds like a robot. I thought his sidequest was okay, but his role in Mio’s past confuses me. He’s one of the characters presented as a wisdom gained by age mentor, but Mio is older than him. If she wasn’t, he would be dead. He wouldn’t be the only mentor figure Mio has who’s younger than her, but the idea he’s supposed to represent really doesn’t mesh with the setting. Again, he’s, at most, 9 years old. He can’t be a wisdom through age character while also being 9. It kinda just breaks any other thoughts I have about the character. He is a child. They are all children. I am, like, three older than the average person in this universe because as far as I can tell, the average human being is, like, seven.

As far as his class is concerned, it’s really useful in the mid-game, but it hasn’t been very helpful lately. It’s a physical damage healer hybrid. I just don’t think it heals enough. The strongest art in the class is probably the bind, but every enemy dangerous enough for me to bother either has a really high resistance to the status effect or is immune, either way, it never proccs. Both the damage and healing are underwhelming too due to most of the class’s attacks being single-strike. The debuff removal and divine protection aren’t bad, but I don’t really want my burst art to be on the Talent Art of a healer if I can avoid it. Talent Arts generally take forever to build up and I’d rather have burst/smash on a damage character than a tank or healer since it’s a high damage effect. His burst talent art does have the usage of being the first burst ability the player is likely to get access to, and you can access Teach before you get access to a consistent launch, especially since his talent art and the Sword Class talent art both deal extra damage against stunned enemies. He’s also a good healer to put characters who you’ve levelled into the Ogre Class into because it will result in this class doing a ton of damage, especially since attack classes that use crit aren’t going to at best be looking at around a 30% crit rate. So, his class is a very good damage dealing class that has healing on the side in the mid game, but late-game, most physical damage dealing classes can be built with consistent crits, so his damage gets grossly outclassed, which is the main thing making up for his okay utility. I still use the class in late-game for its debuff resistance and Divine Protect being useful, but it’s not nearly as powerful as it was in the mid-game and I don’t really see it jumping back up in the post-game.

Juniper

I didn’t realize that the nonbinary character I’ve heard people talking about was Juniper, making them, like, the fifth or something nonbinary character I mistook for being a girl. I don’t really have a strong opinion on their character. They’re character arc kinda rings familiar to my personal life, and I mean the part about them just wanting to let the flame clock run and hesitating to accept the solution the protagonists offer. But then they realize that letting things just get progressively worse is not a good solution to their problems so they decide to be more proactive about it. Usually being like “oh I relate to this” is a benefit to people, but for me, I, like, just dealt with shit like this, so the character going through that arc registered as old hat even though it probably isn’t. Kinda unfortunate circumstances there.

Regarding their class, it took a bit for me to warm up to it, but I think by the time I grew to actually like the class, I was at the point where high bleed and break resistances or immunities started getting so common that the class’s value started dropping off. I don’t see this class being good post-game either due to its focus being on using high power auto attacks boosted by bleed bonus damage as its main source of damage. While post-game, maximizing art use and chain attacks seems more effective. This class is still decent in chain attacks if you can launch an enemy during the attack, but that’s getting progressively less reliable to do, which results in this class becoming less effective. I actually found Lanz to be one of the better users of this class because his high attack stat works well with this class’s playstyle of chilling and auto attacking. If nothing else, it’s not a bad class to just leave the AI on while you micromanage everyone else, which is also a mid-game benefit. Personally, I think this class would be at its strongest at the beginning of the game but the player just gets access to it too late. Like, if Juniper was unlocked around the same time you unlock Ethel, I think their class would have a good chance to shine before falling off.

Monica

Monica has my favorite damage sponge tank class in the game. I love tanks who make their allies tankier by existing and Monica’s class does this best.

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linawritesocs · 2 years

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MAKE A POST ON YOUR FAVORITE SHIP DYNAMICS DO IT DO IT DO IT

HJFJDKSKSLDL okay, here i go!

some of them get extremely specific

visual aesthetics are also very important to me, so here are some of my favorite ship color combinations! red x blue, pink x purple, black x pink (now guess one of my fav girl froups), pink x green, pink x blue and black x white! wow this is a lot of pink

i'm also a fan of pastel x goth and angel x devil ships (they don't have to actually be like that, they can just have angel and devil vibes)! + bonus if pastel/angel character is actually more dangerous than the goth/devil character.

the person that is more famous, powerful, important, etc x their servant, less famous partner, fan, etc. this can go in a more wholesome way, like "HAHA THEIR SERVANT IS ACTUALLY A HUGE SIMP" or in a more "their servant worships them so much that they can't imagine their life without them" way.

the classic "LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOO" x "go where"

"LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO" x "LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOO"

(this usually applies to mlm or wlw ships) protagonist x their best friend who they have A LOT MORE chemistry with than their actual love interest

love rivals realizing that they actually like each other more than their love interest? GOOD. love triangles becoming ot3? GOOD.

*clenching fists* i.. i love the sun x moon dynamic so much..

character a hates character b and character b doesn't know about it and keeps trying to become friends with character a OR character a hates character b because of how rude and mean they are, but character b doesn't actually hate them and maybe even likes character a, THEIR PERSONALITY IS JUST LIKE THAT. + bonus for the second version: character b is the only person who actually understands character a and character a REFUSES TO ACCEPT IT.

rude and violent character a meets character b, who is a huge crybaby and anxious wreck and they go "DUDE?? ARE YOU OKAY?? IT'S NOT LIKE I'M WORRIED ABOUT YOU BUT DO YOU NEED ANY HELP??" + bonus if the rude character becomes much more calm and patient around them BUT ONLY around them

AS I SAID. tsundere x yandere. IT'S JUST SO FUNNY AND INTERESTING TO IMAGINE.

and if we're talking about dere types, then.. kuudere x dandere. it's just. good. someone who's always chill, even kinda emotionless and someone who's very shy, soft and quiet.. CUTE..

i want you to imagine the character that the whole fandom simps for. doesn't matter which fandom. this character just has that "fandom crush" energy (NOT in a good way). now, please imagine this character, who is so powerful, smart, sly and morally grey.. with a character who has a "mom friend" energy and who is the only one that can make them stop if they go too far. + bonus: the "fandom crush" character is a huge simp for the "mom friend" + another bonus: the "mom friend" can easily punch the "fandom crush" in the face.

idk how to explain this vibe, but. someone who's very tired and is done with everything x a character who is so cheerful that it's actually scary AND YOU SHOULD BE SCARED OF THEM, because they can easily kill you and still have the :D face. and the tired character sees it and they either go "wow. cool." or they just SIGH

#i most likely forgot some of the dynamics #BUT HERE HAVE THESE #lina answers #friend: sol!#non oc post

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crystalelemental · 1 year

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If I had to pick which characte r was the most consistently good trainer for sync pairs, I'd probably say it's Serena. Girl never misses. I mean aside from Hypnosis.

Vs. Hala I love using P!Serena, but she's really demanding of specific buffs. SC Jasmine provides them beautifully, while P!Dawn supplies much-needed debuffs. Usually what happens is Serena nukes side for a nice denial, then Jasmine syncs while Serena goes ham on DPS on center. Her last Moonblast one-shot the side for like 11k. She's good.

Vs. Olivia So! I wrote that retrospective about the 2.5 anniversary units, and mentioned SS Serena really benefits from the other Dragon Protagon boys. But I have actually never used this comp before! So I decided this was a good opportunity, and friends? I am here to say this core fucks shit up. Good god with that damage. Serena hit the sides for like 20k under Zone and with full debuffs, then hit center with a Core Enforcer that hit, off-type, for like 14k. I don't think they were even fully debufffed, it was like -4. This core is ridiculous. We didn't even get to SS Brendan's double sync buff. Off-type. What the hell?

Vs. Acerola Okay. The most challenging decision was "How do I utilize Lodge Serena?" She's not exactly a great sync nuker, all things considered. There's been worse, but there's definitely been better, and easier to set up. In retrospect, I should have tried SS Hau for the Cakewalk/Inertia combo on sync 1, but I wasn't confident and didn't feel like trying. So, I opted for something stupider. Helping set up Cakewalk. This core was not exactly the best solution, but it did work. Because of stall-like shenanigans on offensive parameters. SC Lillie did keep the team alive here, and the double flinch potential was good for disruption. Satisfied Snarl on Clemont, combined with Serena's debuffs, did make them pretty tanky. We actually took first sync with only like 30% damage. The trouble was the Surf spam. See, Clemont is not great on damage, and relies on sync, which definitely needed two shots to take down Acerola. Which means you're taking a lot. But. Flinch disruption, combined with Serena's evasion boosting via Slippery on trainer move, and Clemont's healing through parabolic charge, actually salvaged it nicely. It's a stupid clear, but it worked.

Vs. Kahili And after that nonsense I was in no mood. Kris, kill this clown. Champion Serena hits like a goddamned truck, there are no issues with her performance. I brought in Eevee Lyra, since I don't recall ever actually running this core with Kris before. It's good. It's really good. The speed boosting is outrageously effective, and the special defense debuffing divine.

Vs. Kukui If there's one thing I've learned about base Serena, it's that Overheat DPS is honestly better than her sync. As a result, SS Dawn easily takes first sync for the bonus power, and Serena just obliterates left for a denial. Sure Hit on entry means an immediate denial of action, and SS Dawn with All Ramped Up can perfectly cap Serena's offensive needs. As always, Blaine is an ideal partner thanks to Fire Spin and Sun support. The only hiccup is that Kukui has +1 evasion, which is bad for Hypnosis. Thankfully, Go Viral means Serena can target the side, and the effect will spread regardless, bypassing that check entirely and stalling out a turn for DPS to finish its job after Blaine's sync sets Sun again. I love it, that's so stupid. There's a bit of gauge issue, I won't like, but they handled things well enough that I didn't notice much.

Final Thoughts Serena's really consistent. All of her alts feel really, really good. Which is staggering, because I feel like damage dealers can often fall off, but Serena's entirely offense and she keeps up. Her base form is still a very respectable damage dealer. The only one even slightly off is her Lodge form, which I don't think is even strictly bad. It's kinda nuts how good Serena is.

#champion stadium #character clear #serena clear

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moonastrologys · 3 years

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aspect patterns in astrology

every chart has aspects, and those aspects can fall into a pattern. probably the most well-known is the grand trine. the element or modality in which the pattern falls is also important for the meaning, so i’ll explain the 4 most important patterns (imo) (and a bonus one :P) with elements and modality explanation and how it’s formed.

i also made a key at the bottom of the post if you don’t know the meaning of elements, modality, polarity, or if you don’t know the signs of fixed, fire, feminine etc.

if you don’t know if you have any patterns in your chart, you can simply find it on https://astro-charts.com/, fill in your info and scroll down a bit (it should under the normal aspects), if you don’t have any aspect pattern, you won’t see this section (you might also have a pattern i won’t explain, such as a stellium).

i also recommend to google the patterns, since it’s kinda hard to explain on paper what they look like.

grand trine

the grand trine is formed when 3 planets make a trine between 3 different signs (≈ 120º), usually in the same element.

the grand trine is a very powerful pattern because the trines strengthen each other. even tho the grand trine encourages talent and expression, a thing that is overlooked a lot is that there is a lack of tension, which can make the person have increased self-awareness, especially if there is a lack of square and oppositions in general.

fire grand trines: this makes you a proud and enthusiastic person, you are creative and like to express yourself. but be careful, because this pattern can make you have a god complex (because the grand trine is the strongest in the element of fire), which can be damaging to others.

earth grand trines: you have a good sense of stability and security of yourself and others and you hold a lot of power. people with a grand trine in earth signs tend to be organized and are creatively resourceful.

air grand trines: you are very curious and idealistic and you have a broad view on life. you’re also very intellectual and easy going. people with a grand trine in air signs also tend to have a lot of friends.

water grand trines: this pattern makes you highly intuitive and very creative. you are empathic and understand others quite easily. you have broad imagination, and also this grand trine can make you idealistic and a dreamer.

grand square/T-square

since the grand square and T-square are really alike and share many things, i decided to combined to two.

the grand square, also known as grand cross, forms when a planet squares (≈ 90º) two planets (in different signs) and also opposites (≈ 180º) a third planet. so that it forms 4 squares with 2 oppositions, making a big cross and square.

the T-square does the same, except it misses one of the squares, which also means it doesn’t have the second opposition. it’s called a T-square because people say it forms a T, but i personally don’t really see that, so i’d rather describe it as a triangle with 2 squares and an opposition (i’m sorry if this description is chaotic, it’s kind hard to explain, so I recommend to look it up (just google ‘T-square astrology’) or check if you have a T-square on astro-charts).

what they have in common is that they both have oppositions and squares, which can be very challenging. the other thing that makes them alike is that the planets (usually) fall in the same modality. having a grand cross or T-square makes you in general very goal orientated and you are willing to work hard to achieve your dreams. it could also make you want to have power and control.

cardinal grand cross or T-square: with the cardinal energy in this pattern, you want to achieve your goals all at the same time, which makes you ambitious but also blinded by what you want to achieve. these people are natural leaders and like having power. this pattern can also make you disoriented, because your ideals can be quite contradictory.

fixed grand cross or T-square: this can be a very hard pattern, due to the lack of flexibility, you want to be secure in everything you do. even tho it can be hard for others, this pattern also makes you very strong, determined and high self-worth (this pattern gives me so much royal vibes ngl). you like your comfort, but in order to move forward, you have to learn to go with the flow sometimes.

mutual grand cross or T-square: a grand cross/T-square in this modality makes you a person that’s very focused on healing, reasoning, teaching and integrating. with your thoughts and emotions. unlike the fixed pattern, you have a strong desire to just go with the flow, but make sure you don’t wander around your ideas and that you stay focused on your goal. this pattern can also make you very spiritual and interested in witchy things.

mystic rectangle

this kinda rare rectangle forms with 2 sextiles (≈ 60º), 2 trines (≈ 120 º) and 2 oppositions (≈ 180º) forming a rectangle with each other. this is a quite mild and harmonious pattern, because it balanced with either feminine or masculine energy. as long there’s not too much energy focused on only one of the planets, it should make you a very mindful person. if the balance is off, you can become self-contained and crave and hold too much power. a wedge is a half rectangle (so 1 sextile, 1 trine, 1 opposition) and is quite common unlike the rectangle. it’s also definitely not as powerful, but you can still share the same traits that a rectangle has.

masculine rectangle: you’re probably quite extroverted and like to explore the world. you express your energy outwards and like to entertain others. your actions are powerful and strong and you like adventures.

feminine rectangle: great change that you’re an introvert. you like to explore your own mind and express your energy inwards. your mind is vivid and powerful. if there’s strong mercury influences, it can also make you quite smart.

yod (bonus)

the yod, also known as the finger of god, forms with a planet that makes two quincunxes with different signs (≈ 150 º) and a sextile (≈ 60 º) between those signs. it doesn’t hold a certain energy through an element, modality or polarity like the others, so that’s why it’s a bonus. In general, the yod is a very very challenging pattern, but with lots of learning and growing it’ll make you very spiritual and aware (like god or smth :P). there will be a certain ongoing theme in your life, which is usually a difficult theme, it will take time, skill and practise to grow out of this certain theme. Look at the planets (and houses!!!) involved in the yod to know where you should put your focus on in life in order to overgrow the difficulty.

key

element:

fire signs —> aries, leo, sagittarius

earth signs —> taurus, virgo, capricorn

air signs —> gemini, libra, aquarius

water signs —> cancer, scorpio, pisces

modality:

cardinal signs —> aries, cancer, libra, capricorn

fixed signs —> taurus, leo, scorpio, aquarius

mutual signs —> gemini, virgo, sagittarius, pisces

polarity:

masculine signs —> fire and air signs

feminine signs —> earth and water signs

#astrology #aspects #aspect pattern #patterns #elements #modality #polarity #zodiac signs #grand trine #grand cross #grand square #yod #rectangle #mystic rectangle #trine #square #opposition #sextile

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andrewsleftknee · 2 years

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i’ve been playing a lot of Dead by Daylight recently, so i’m going to self project onto Andrew. this is basically me just talking about the game with a sprinkle of aftg. sorry if this is boring/not like what i usually post.

have some Andrew playing dbd hcs:

he bought Nicky and Aaron dbd after playing it for a month on his own. he had gotten pretty good at playing survivor, and he wanted some people to play with because of the challenge of not being able to communicate with your team.

because of his eidetic memory, Andrew knows the layout of every single map. when he plays with Aaron and Nicky they are always confused as to how Andrew can find them based on a brief explanation of their surroundings.

Andrew is terrible at playing killer. the only killer he can play with some level of confidence is The Huntress. he’s spent hours perfecting the sim of throwing her axes and he can hit his target with a decently level of success.

Andrew is very good at looping the killers. after playing the game for so long combined with his knowledge of all of the maps, he can escape from a chase a majority of the time.

Neil doesn’t play the game, but he likes to watch Andrew play. he likes to help Andrew even though he knows Andrew is better at the game than he is. Andrew likes to do the plays Neil tells him to even if they aren’t the most efficient.

Andrew has taught Neil the basics on how to play the game. Neil knows the controls, but he doesn’t have enough practice to be too good at the game itself. Andrew is very patient on the days that Neil wants to try and play. he tells him what he did good and tells him how to dodge killers while being chased.

on the nights that Andrew and Neil talk on the roof, Andrew would tell Neil about the dbd lore if he didn’t have anything particular to talk about. Neil liked to listen to Andrew talk about the things he liked.

Neil sometimes buys Andrew dlc packs for the characters he finds the most interesting so he can watch Andrew play as them. Andrew always tells him that he can afford it on his own, but Neil replies saying that he likes buying him tho ha that he knows he’ll like.

Andrew is working on completing the archives, which is this huge web of challenges that reward you with blood points (how you level up characters) and more lore about specific survivors and killers. he’ll spend hours completing the challenges until it’s well into the middle of the night and Neil is curled up next to him on the couch.

he likes the challenge of the game. he enjoys that who you have on your team, the killer your against, and the map you’re on basically make your game. he thinks that the verity in rounds can differ so much for a game that has the same objective for every round.

-BONUS-

a few killers Andrew hates playing against because they suck and are terrible (not my opinions at all /j):

The Plague (TW for sickness/vomit) - her power is throwing up on people and getting them sick. it’s kinda gross, but if you cleanse yourself (make yourself not sick), then she can hit you with murder vomit. you can also get infected by generators? like what the fuck-

The Shape - you never know where this bitch comes from. you’ll be working on a generator or be casually walking around the map and just get hit out of no where. he’s not invisible but he basically is. you never see him coming. his exposed status, which is okay when they can insta-down you to the dying state, happens when he stalks you for a certain amount of time. it’s terrifying when you get the notification that you’re exposed because there’s a likely chance that he was stalking you.

The Hillbilly - he’s genuinely scary. his character design is awesome in the way that it’s terrifying. his main weapons are a cattle hammer and a chainsaw. sometimes you can hear the heartbeat meaning you’re close to the killer and then suddenly the chainsaw is revving and a chorus of “fuckfuckfuckfuck-“ is playing in your head because this bitch is fast. this bitch will down you instantly if you can’t dodge him. Andrew is good at dodging, but it’s harder when his own heart is pounding. he likes The Hillbilly when watching gameplay of him, but he hates playing against him.

The Doctor: i don’t even need to explain this one. he’s the worst. his power is electricity and can find you by basically sending shocks through the floor which result in the survivors screaming. The Doctor laughs after sending out one of the shocks and it’s more annoying than it is scary. the electricity makes your character lose sanity in three tiers, the third tier making it seem like the killer is always on you unless you snap out of it, which is hard when you don’t know where the killer is and the skill checks are going backwards and fast. Andrew hates The Doctor because everyone hates The Doctor. he’s terrible.

#aftg #all for the game #andrew minayrd #neil josten #aaron minyard #nicky hemmick #aftg hc #aftg headcanon #aftg headcanons #dead by deadlight #op does not support the use of NFTs #i’m not aware of the entire situation #but i think the creators made one of the chapters NFT #this whole hc was self indulgent #i loved learning about the lore for years before i had them game #sorry if this was boring #i really like it tho

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dragimalsdaydreams · 3 years

Photo

ok soooo... I’ve never played Pokemon or watched the show or anything, but my dear friend @cobwebbing got into SWSH a while back and infodumped a lot of interesting trivia onto me, including the thing about fossil combinations. we were both horrified by the implications, to the point that she wrote a fun fic exploring the concept (HIGHLY recommend it), and I got invested in speculating the ACTUAL original Pokemon (also, these designs are technically ‘canon’ to her fic)

I tried to mimic some of the official art in lining/shading, but I don’t think I stuck fully to the ‘cartoony’ vibe of Pokemon. ah well, good experience either way

for ease of reading, I’ll be slotting both the image descriptions AND the extra “Pokedex” info about these guys under the cut-- I thought a LOT about their behaviors lmao. for the image descriptions, please assume that the style of all pieces is a mix of ‘cartoony’ and realistic in form, with solid lines and base colors

+bonus! to see the belly <3

[IMAGE ID: text above the Pokemon reads “Zoomzolt” with a yellow button underneath reading “Electric”. the background is a dull yellow with some areas of shade.

this Pokemon is shaped like a prehistoric raptor, with a small/round horizontal torso, a thin neck curved upright, small arm-wings, lithe digitigrade hind legs, and a thin tail held stiffly out at an upward angle from the body. most of the body is bright yellow with small areas of purple, as will be described. the Pokemon is standing cheerily, facing to the left.

the head has a long snout with a prominent bump emphasizing the tip, where a small purple nostril sits on the visible side. the mouth is held open in a happy gape, showing a purple tongue. the front half of the upper and lower jaws have serrated edges resembling sharp teeth, which seem to interlock. the eyes are closed, the lines of the eyelashes turned up with the smile. a small doodle to the left of the head shows the head with jaw closed and eyes open, showing off glossy black-button eyes with tiny eyelashes, and sparkles floating around the eyes. the head is framed by a crown of large, decorative feathers, all of which are a lighter yellow than the body and sport a couple spots of purple. each cheek also has a single purple spot.

a pair of small arms are held loosely to the sides of the body, each with three bare-skin purple talons with long claws, peeking out from under the fluffy yellow feathers of the arm. each arm sports a set of primary feathers resembling a simple wing, ending at around the elbow. these primaries are a lighter yellow than the main body, with a couple spots of purple near the edges. the overall outline at the trailing edge of the primaries forms a lightning bolt shape. there’s a long decorative feather on each of the wings, close to the body, which extends out into a simple zig-zag, before ending in a rounded tip which resembles a peacock feather with a small wisp and a couple purple spots.

the bonus image removes the closest wing primaries, better showing the lighter-yellow underbelly, and the hind legs. the hind legs are long and lithe, covered in yellow feathers up until the ankle, below which the skin is bare and purple. each foot has three toes, two of which are based flat on the ground with mid-length claws. the third toe closest to the body is raised high, sporting a large, sickle-shaped claw, curved sharply compared to the other claws.

a fan of long, light-yellow feathers spans out from the tip of the tail, resembling both the wing feathers and the crown of feathers on the head, adorned with purple spots. the overall outline resembles a diamond, with a vague zig-zag formed by a few feathers on the sides. two long decorative feathers resembling those found on the wings sprout from the sides of the fan as well.

END ID]

Name: Zoomzolt

Type: Electric

Animal Inspirations: road-runners, cockatoos, microraptors in general

Extra design notes: since the spots on the cheeks canonically match the other fossil in the pair, that gave me free-rein to choose whatever color I felt like, and I eventually landed on purple. I also redesigned the arms/wings b/c the shape was just kinda awkward and dull? I think the new wing shape adds more flair to the design, especially in combination with the tail. btw I only thought of the partly-arboreal lifestyle halfway through the piece, and I didn’t feel like changing the claws to fit it better. just know I’m aware that the wing claws should be curvier, and the toe claws (sans sickle) shorter, lmao

Pokedex entry:

Zoomzolts are a highly social species, roaming the moors and forests in groups of 20 or more. while individuals aren’t particularly strong, their tight social bonds more than make up for the lack-- several Zoomzolts can combine their electric powers and deliver devastating blows to even the fiercest opponents. if this isn’t enough, Zoomzolts are a quick and agile species-- they can race away across the plains or climb up nearby trees before their opponent can recover. their unique feet provide an advantage here-- a marriage between an arboreal lifestyle with the curved sickle-claw for climbing, and a grounded lifestyle with the rest of the flat toes for stable running.

besides scaring off predators, Zoomzolts mainly use their electricity to attract and capture prey. at night, packs of Zoomzolts will gather in the upper foliage of tall trees, settle down, and allow small sparks of electricity to arc across their purple spots-- from one part of the body to another, and from one individual to another. this creates a dazzling light show that many nocturnal Bug Pokemon simply can’t resist. when these bugs venture close, the nearest Zoomzolt will quickly snatch them up before returning to formation.

Zoomzolts are friendly and curious to a fault, known for snooping among human belongings if left alone for too long. they’re very easy to train and bond well with humans, but a Zoomzolt will always need more of their own kind to truly thrive. at least 3 or 4 other Zoomzolts are needed for an individual Zoomzolt’s social/mental health, but not all trainers are committed to keeping that many of one species.

~~~

[IMAGE ID: text to the right of the Pokemon reads “Dunkovish” with a tan button and blue button underneath reading “Rock” and “Water”, respectively. the background is a light blue with some areas of shade.

pictured is a fish-like Pokemon, with a typical torpedo-shaped body and a stocky, blunt head. most of the body is blue, with areas of orange and pale yellow, as will be described. the body is positioned in a downward curve, as if the Pokemon is poised to strike at something off-screen.

the head is heavily armored, with most of the main skull forming one large oblong-dish shape. much of this armor is dark blue, while other sections are a bronze-orange color. the jaws are formed out of large, jagged plates, creating massive interlocking orange teeth. the jaw is gaping slightly open, showing a pale blue inner mouth. the visible jaw hinge is rounded and prominent on the cheek. two small, round, bulging eyes sit just above the jaws, on either side of the head near the hinges. the eyes are pale yellow with black, vertical, rectangular pupils.

a few other large plates of armor (some dark blue, some bronze orange) extend out past the main head piece onto the body, arranged like overlapping scales. these plates all have lines at the trailing edges, implying a simple texture. the main body beyond these scales is pale blue, with splotches of dark blue and smaller spots of orange splattered across the body, arranged in a pattern to imply small scales.

there are two sets “limb fins”, one directly behind the lower jaw, and the other near the tail. both sets are built on prominent lobes extending from the main body and matching the main body colors, before the spines of the fin extend out from the ends, flaring out in a pale yellow. the front set of fins is medium-size, smaller than the head, while the back set is much smaller.

the tail fin starts on the back, in the middle of the spine, and extends down to the tip of the tail, then underneath into an extra lobe of spines. visually, this means the main fleshy part of the tail extends into the upper lobe of longer spines, while the lower, shorter lobe of spines flares out underneath, unsupported. this tail fin is pale yellow.

END ID]

Name: Dunkovish

Type: Rock, Water

Animal Inspirations: dunkleosteus, coelacanth

Extra design notes: added in a rock type b/c of the whole “armored fish” thing, and some orange to complement that

Pokedex entry:

this Pokemon roams the open ocean, traveling dozens of miles every day in search of large prey to attack. once spotted, Dunkovish will swim off an appropriate distance, then charge the prey at full speed, ramming their rock-hard skulls into their prey. these charging attacks can easily shatter bone and internal organs, leaving their prey weak and defenseless as Dunkovish feasts.

Dunkovish aren’t typically a danger to humans, as they usually steer clear of shorelines. small shipping vessels are more at risk, as Dunkovish can mistake the ships for prey and ram into them, causing shipwrecks and major losses.

while their power makes them dangerous for the inexperienced, Dunkovish are shockingly easy to train. they’re very food-motivated Pokemon, so all a prospective trainer needs is a lot of tasty chum and a bit of patience.

~~~

[IMAGE ID: text to the upper left of the Pokemon reads “Arctoise” with a light blue button underneath reading “Ice”. the background is light blue with some areas of shade.

this Pokemon looks to be a cross between a tortoise and a plesiosaur, with a large, rounded shell, two sets of long fins, and a paddle-like tail. the shell is mostly snow-white, while the rest of the body is mostly blue with areas of white, as will be described. the body is floating at rest, fins spread-eagle from the body for balance.

the shell is fairly tall and dome-shaped, with the lower half wrapping underneath the torso, between the front and hind legs. the shell has some ridges at the back implying “layers” of snow, which smooth out as they reach the front of the shell. the base color is snow-white, while the lower two “layers” get progressively darker, into a blue-ish light grey. this grey peters out into spots as it reaches the front of the shell.

the head is long, thin, and sharply pointed, making for a thin spear shape. the snout resembles a dolphin beak-- long and rounded at the tip. the eyes are sharp and triangular, with visible white sclera, light blue irises, and round black pupils. the nostrils are based at the center of the beak, raised up along with a small ridge of bone at the center-line of the beak, meeting the forehead. the nostrils are merged together into a small heart shape. a set of small spiral shapes frames either side of the cranium, implying some kind of auditory system. the neck is tucked into the body in the main art, but a small doodle to the side shows the neck fully extended-- long and serpentine like a heron. while the main body (outside the shell) is an aqua blue, the head itself is mostly dark blue, with a few stripes of aqua blue at the tip of the beak.

there are two sets of long, pointed fins, the front set slightly larger than the back set. the front set of fins sit to either side of the neck, settled into the open body cavity of the shell. the back set extend from the shell as well, just in front of the tail. each fin’s base color is dark blue, with white tips and white spots that vaguely follow the inner bone structure of the fins.

the tail is thick and somewhat short, smoothly transitioning from the wide main body-shell down into a pointed tip. lobes of short cartilaginous fins sprout from the top and bottom of the tail tip, the top lobe taller but not as long, and the bottom lobe shorter height-wise but longer. the main tail is aqua blue, while the fins are dark blue.

END ID]

Name: Arctoise

Type: Ice

Animal Inspirations: sea turtles, tortoises, plesiosaur, herons, anhingas

Extra design notes: in retrospect, the ‘shell’ is prolly meant to be a mane of fur, but I like my shell idea too much to change it (if I were to redo it tho, I might’ve gone for like... seal inspiration? selkie lore?? hm). also certain restorations of plesiosaurs shaped the ‘paddle’ on the tail like I’ve shown, which makes more sense to me.

Pokedex entry:

this Pokemon is closely related to the modern Lapras, as seen in their many shared structural features. many researchers even believe Arctoise to be a direct ancestor to Lapras due to genetic similarities, but this question hasn’t been fully resolved.

Arctoise are very successful predators of the frigid southern pole, utilizing a unique hunting technique. they float patiently out near glaciers, necks tucked into their shells and staying perfectly still for hours on end. when other Pokemon see the Arctoise’s shiny white shell, they’re fooled into thinking it’s a snow-covered glacier, safe to rest on. when the Pokemon settles comfortably on the shell, Arctoise snaps into action, quickly flipping over so their prey is thrown into the water. sometimes this is enough to drown the prey (often true for Flying Pokemon that dropped down to rest), but usually this only stuns the prey. this gives Arctoise the chance to snap out their long neck and capture the prey in their powerful jaws. once subdued, Arctoise will right their body in the water and enjoy their meal.

despite the ponderous size/shape of this species, Arctoise are still able to float quite easily due to air sacs located near their spine (thus, near the top of their shell). these sacs allow Arctoise to carefully control how they float, and help hold the large dome of their shell above the water.

communities of small Water Pokemon often form around Arctoise. the large shell and quiet demeanor makes for a stable underwater haven, and a steady source of food from the scraps that Arctoise leaves behind. they’re usually safe from Arctoise’s appetite, as they’re too small to be considered a proper meal. additionally, these small Pokemon often attract larger prey to the area, providing Arctoise more hunting opportunities.

Arctoise is an aloof species, and won’t respond well to “overly-affectionate” bond-based training. but as long as their space and solitude is respected, an Arctoise is willing to cooperate with a trainer towards mutual goals.

~~~

[IMAGE ID: text to the upper left reads “Dracoleon” with a purple button and magenta button underneath reading “Dragon” and “Poison”, respectively. the background is a light purple with some areas of shade.

there are two Pokemon in this image, one to the left with a “female” ♀ symbol, and one to the right with a “male” ♂ symbol. both Pokemon resemble stocky, low-set herbivorous dinosaurs, with short/thick legs, and round/heavy torsos. the female is far larger than the male, and sports two rows of large spikes along her back. the base color of both is a dark green, with large swathes of magenta patterns, as will be described. both are poised with their heads low to the ground, and the female’s tail raised in a defensive position.

the heads of both sexes are wide and triangular, with sharp points at either side of the skull, and a pointed beak at the tip. their round eyes rest underneath the flat top of the skull, facing outwards to either side. the female’s eyelids are pointed down in an angry expression, while the male’s eyelids are pointed up in a worried expression. their visible sclera are white, and their irises are dark magenta. their nostrils sit on either side at the point of the beak. there are prominent bumps on either side of the skull, just behind the eyes, implying an auditory system. the flat top of the skull is bright magenta, while the rest of the head is dark green.

the small head transitions into the larger body via a thick, short neck, held low to the ground. the torsos are both round, heavy, and somewhat horizontally flat like a lizard. the base color is dark green with a light green underbelly, while the magenta pattern on the head extends all the way down to the tail, covering the full back. several pointed spikes of color stick out from the pattern, trailing down the sides of the torso and legs.

the female has two rows of light magenta spikes sticking out from the upper-sides of her torso, 7 pairs in total. the front-most spikes are the largest, with a horn-like shape that curves out in a wave of out-up-out into a sharp tip. the shape of the spikes gradually transitions from round horns to triangular plates at the end of the tail. the sizes transition from the largest at the front, smaller on the torso, larger at the center of the tail, then small at the tip again. all the spikes point at an angle out/up from the body, except for the very last pair on the tip of the tail, which stick out flatly from the sides of the tail.

the legs of both sexes are short and stocky, with thick underlying muscles. the feet are all digitigrade, but the foot/”hand” sections are very short. the feet all have 3 main toes set flat on the ground, while the front feet have a dew claw set higher on the hand, above the ground. all claws are short/thick and hoof-like, though the female’s are slightly longer and sharper. the hind legs are longer than the front legs, pushing the hips higher than the shoulders. the legs are all dark green with light magenta claws. the female has extra magenta stripes running horizontal across the legs.

the tails are both thick, transitioning smoothly from the thick body down to a pointed tip. the male’s tail is short and stubby, while the female’s is longer, sporting the spikes.

END ID]

Name: Dracoleon

Type: Dragon, Poison

Animal Inspirations: stegosaurus, ankylosaurus. (also.... Kaim from Devilman......)

Extra design notes: I mostly color-picked for the other Pokes, but I shifted Dracoleon’s color a lot from the canon colors. the og colors were just a bit too much for me-- hurt a lil bit to look at. so I shifted the red more magenta, and the green to a duller, more subdued saturation. I’m hoping the purple-shifted red conveys the Poison type better. also added a couple more spikes to the tail for flair.

Pokedex Entry:

due to their heavy sexual dimorphism, researchers originally identified male Dracoleon remains as juveniles of the species. it wasn’t until this Pokemon was fully restored in the flesh that this misconception was corrected.

female Dracoleon are highly territorial, aggressively defending their territory against anything they perceive to be a threat. thus, females are generally solitary, only tolerating the presence of male Dracoleon. this aggression only increases during breeding season, when females compete for male attention, and then nesting season when defending their hatchlings.

male Dracoleon are much smaller and more docile than their female counterparts. while females will actively protect males when the males are still within their territory, males usually find protection in numbers by banding together into small groups. males are as attentive to nesting needs as the females, but since they end up mating with several females a year, they roam in small groups across several territories. they’ll visit one female’s nest to help with food and nest protection for a while, before heading off to the next territory for another round of nest-duty. these transition periods from one territory to another are where males are most vulnerable to predation, so they try to travel quickly.

females’ spikes are covered in a toxic oil which is mostly an irritant to fellow Dracoleon and Poison-types, but can easily kill other species if it penetrates the skin. their magenta patterns build an association between their bright coloring and toxicity, which helps protect the males from predation by association, despite the males not having toxic spikes.

while Dracoleon are herbivorous generalists of thick forest regions, they seem to prefer roots and tubers over foliage. Dracoleon territory is easily identified by scattered areas of dug-up soil and holes.

while male Dracoleon are generally easy to befriend and train, females are very stubborn and aggressive towards most training attempts. however, if an experienced trainer is determined enough to prove their worth to their Pokemon, Dracoleon can become one of the most loyal and trustworthy companions a trainer could hope for.

#pokemon swsh #arctozolt #arctovish #dracozolt #dracovish #pokemon #pokemon sword and shield #WHEW... that was a task

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notgalaxii · 4 years

Note

How about... how do the brothers act around their crush?

This one was super sweet to write I- I love them 👉👈. Thank you for the ask! I hope you enjoy 🤞💕✨

Pride

Lucifers crush is the absolute hardest to tell

To the untrained eyes and ears, it seems like he's just being himself, but to those who are close to him, it's a little obvious

Lucifer tends to be more caring in a loving way than in a strict, "do what I say" manner

It's less of "Go to bed so you can go to school and not disappoint Diavolo" and more of "Get some rest, it's not healthy for you to stay up so late."

He also tends to be a little more expressive near his crush

Lucifer's signature knowing smirk twists up a little higher, and his eyes glimmer with not only pride but a bit of satisfaction and compassion around them.

He makes sure to give them small compliments

Typically his pride wouldn't allow him to endorse others, but with them, oooh boy

He will let them know how they look ravishing in such a nonchalant way; it seems like it's nothing

But to him, it could be everything

Bonus: He stood up to Diavolo once for his crush. Sort of.

Diavolo had given them a list of tasks to do and Lucifer felt like it was a bit much

"My lord, do you really believe that some of these are the best idea?"

It wasn't much but lets just say that Satan and Mammon were near by and their jaws hit the floor.

Greed

A mess. He acts like an absolute MESS around them

When he's just walking down the hall, he's composed. All of a sudden, his crush walks by him and awakens this sense of "I must embarrass myself at all times around this person and then punch myself about it later."

He hypes himself up around his crush

"Hah, of course the GREAT MAMMON can open this jar for you! Bow down, little human. Revel in my strength!!" he struggles to open it a little as well

In more serious and personal moments, Mammon is very sweet

As sweet as he can get when he's still trying to aggressively deny ANY sort of feelings

"Don't ever doubt yourself. You're my human, which means you kick ass. I wouldn't pick a human that WASN'T a total badass. N-not that I particularly picked you out of a crowd- YOU FORCED ME INTO THIS."

Bonus: If Mammon has a touchy crush, he would absolutely melt into their hands as he aggressively blushes at them

They'd get close enough to play with his hair and he'd be jelly on the floor

Would get super sad if they left and forgot their hug because he got used to oh how soft they were

Envy

Leviathan tries the absolute hardest to hide it

Unless you count Mammon but come on, is he really trying?

Leviathan's biggest tell would be that he tries to share his otaku passions with his crush

Because if he likes them, they've gotta be into that kinda stuff, right!? They're definitely not a normie and would absolutely LOVE his Manga collection

Would play it off nearly as tsundere-esque as Mammon

"I've decided that you're really nice to me, so I'm going to let you come over today and play video games with me. I have a super special raid spot saved for the two of us!!"

He tries pretty hard to impress them with his vast knowledge on obscure animes and idols

Levi would be at his crush's beck and call

"I saw you called me, I was in a dungeon but I tried to finish it as fast as I could!! What did you need~?"

Definitely a blush-a-tron 3000

All of his crushes are anime characters! How does he deal with someone he likes IN REAL LIFE!?

I'll tell you how, he sticks his hand over his face and tries to freeze time with his super secret power that he has yet to unlock and probably never will.

Bonus: Leviathan tells Henry 2.0 about his crush every time he spends time with them

"They touched my hand Henry, they touched my hand!!" blushes just thinking about it.

Wrath

Satan is ✨gentle✨ with his crush.

He's pretty insecure about how intense his anger can be when it comes to people he doesn't want to hurt, especially if it's a human.

Satan will try to show them his softest side in hopes that when they meet his wrath, they can anchor onto the fact that he's not that bad

That being saaaaid, if he senses their discomfort whatsoever, he tries to put out the flames of rage that are constantly brewing inside of him

And then offer to take them to somewhere to hopefully make them feel better.

"You seem to be tense. How would you like to join me on a little excursion? We could go see the new art exhibit that just opened up."

If that doesn't work, he invites them to his room to drink tea and maybe just chat

If they're into reading, he'll offer to let them look at his collection and maybe even pick something to borrow.

Satan is also pretty playful with his crush

Sometimes he'll say something a little mean just to get a reaction out of them, then immediately reassure them to the max that he was messing around.

"And I should be seen in public with a human because?"

"Hey-!"

"I was kidding!" He'd chuckle, bringing a mischievous finger to rest on his lips, "I only wanted to see how you'd react. I'd love to go somewhere with you."

Bonus: Satan's best pranks are with his crush.

Satan would definitely catch feelings with someone that challenge his brain and make him think bigger. He'd fall for someone bold, adventurous, and smart.

So combining the two of them makes for some of the most CREATIVE pranks

"So you guys are telling me that you switched the body of Mammon and a random woman on the street and then made a bet with Asmo that he couldn't seduce said woman... who had Mammon in her body."

"Absolutely."

Lust

Asmodeus would make his crush so obvious that everyone just thought he was messing around

He'd shower his crush in praise all the time

"Look at you! So beautiful!"

"Tell me, doll, have I ever let you know that your face is so symmetrical? Oh and your nose is so cute!~"

But oh, he gets f l u s t e r e d by them

If they compliment him back, he'll have a brief moment to blush and try to recover immediately

I feel like Asmodeus isn't as narcissistic as he leads on, like part of it is an act. Honestly, he might even be a little bit insecure about a few things so he buffs up his narcissism to distract from it.

That being said, he probably doesn't buff his narcissism around his crush that often

He puts the focus on them

Tries his best to listen to absolutely everything they have to say

Will make sure that they know he's always going to be there

Bonus: Asmodeus will always dress up his crush when he gets the chance to be absolutely stunning, but then gets really jealous when they go out and people start staring.

"Ah! It seems like they're admiring my work a little too much! I think if these dogs aren't put on leashes anytime soon, I might just have to take you back home. You wouldn't mind some alone time with Asmo, would you?~" The last sentence slips his lips in a very smooth and almost sultry tone.

Gluttony

Beel is so fucking precious please lord save me from this puppy

He would talk a lot around his crush

Boy has so much to say, I'm telling you

He's just never found the person to listen

His crush would be THAT person

The rest of the brothers would watch like "What drugs did this guy take? He usually only opens his mouth to eat something or say he wants to eat something."

Beel would also be VERY protective around his crush. Nobody would say anything to them ever because Beel would be looming over their shoulder like "Say it and I eat you."

Bonus: Everyone talks about Beels s/o being an amazing chef but just imagine him falling for someone who can't cook?

Like even though the food is bad he will sit there and eat absolutely eVERYTHING THEY MAKE

Because hes supportive and just wants to make them smile

Sloth

A weird combination of flirty and shy

Sometimes Belphie will tease his crush a little like Satan would, making comments just to see their reaction

But Belphie would see how long it would take for them to catch it instead of immediately reassuring them

He would crush on someone who doesn't mind his lifestyle of napping a lot, taking things slow, and not really caring so he'd be comfortable with them

Sometimes if his crush was sweet to him he'd get a little blushy and shy

Bonus: Imagine Belphie with an insomniac crush who can't sleep at night and takes random naps during the day

They get really tired cause they couldnt sleep the night before and Belphie asks them to come nap with him

He'll get them a pillow and everything to help them sleep at night

#obey me satan #obey me lucifer #obey me shall we date #obey me belphagor #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphie #obey me leviathan #obey me levi #obey me mammon #obey me asmodeus #obey me headcanons #obey me

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someone-always-cares · 3 years

Photo

bonus 2, post chapter 4

first - previous - next

[image description: an sac webcomic page. 5 pages styled in a manner similar to a medical brochure titled “navigating your new abilities, what does this mean for me?”. the brochure is about superpowers, what the are, side effects and health risks, and job oppurtunities. the brochure has white and light blue for the main colours, with a dark purple accent. page 1: mostly showing a girl transforming, with the title listed above, with smaller text reading “created and supported by the paragon institute for superheroism.” the girl is a younger white woman who has a light purple colour scheme, long straight hair and bangs, a crop top, and elbow pads. shes shown from the waist up, half her body and an arm cut out of the photo. her transformation takes the form of dripping black-purple goop spreading, with a starry texture. a similar texture takes up the image background.

page 2: title: what are superpowers?. “Superpower is a term used for superpowered abilities that go beyond the natural abilities and conventional laws of reality. There are little limits to the potential types of abilities that a super powered person may possess.

It is currently unknown what causes superpowered abilities. Despite many theories, the only known way to guarantee superpowers is to inherit them from a parent.

London has the highest percentage of superpowered people in the entire world, in addition to having 42% of all supers in the united kingdom”

next to this text is a grinning woman in pink winking while posing with one hand on her hip, and the other in a fist held up. the woman has long wavy pale pink hair, light brown skin, many freckles, and hot pink eyes. her outfit is a pink dress and gloves, pale pink tattered cape, and a hot pink long sleeved undershirt.

“how do i use and control my abilities? Superpowered people will typically have an innate sense for how to transform and use their abilities,but like any skill it will take time and effort to fully control their abilities.

In some rare cases, a superpowered person may lack control over their powers to the extent where it can cause harm to those around them.

This is most common in those who have inherited their abilities. In these cases the P.I.S offers programs to assist these people in learning control with 24/7 care and supervision. If you or someone you know requires these programs, please call our number or otherwise contact us via our website.

Due to the range of superpowered abilities, there is no one-size-fits-all method of developing control, however, the P.I.S do offer training services, of which you can read more about atwww.pis.uk/pis-services/training

next to this is a teenage superhero, an androgynous boy with a grey colour scheme, smiling slightly, his arm turning into smoke. he has light grey hair and eyes, brown skin and a dark grey bodysuit. he has a grey poncho/cape conbo and gloves, both of which are lined with light grey fleece or fur. his outfit looks as if is was meant for cold weather.

page 3: what are some other symptoms of superpowered abilities? Superpowers are also accompanied by complete transformations, including bodily and outfit transformations. Body transformations will include a change of eye and hair colour, but can also include a wide variety of changes, commonly including changes to eyes, ears, and hands, animal-like features, changes in shape, colour, additional limbs and features, and more.

below that is 5 examples, inside circles with a white border: a close up of an eye, all blue including sclera, the pupil is pale and slit like a cat. next is a close up of a green haired braid. next if also from behind, a red haired person with red wings, the longest feathers of which are white. while the last three arent of any known character, the latter two are wraith, shown from behind, only showing hair and a cape, and part of an arm, and quartz, a close up of his elf-like ear.

Outfit transformations are even more varied in appearance, and will typically be in various shades of the persons 'main' colour. It is common for the outfit to contain additional accessories, tools, and weapons. Electronic devices created from these transformations do not need recharging and if using internet or data, will use the strongest available signal to do so. It is illegal to create, use, or otherwise have in the open, a weapon in public without a registered superhero licence.

The act of transformation will vary from person to person, but will usually involve a bright light, and is likely to reflect the user's powers of their effects. In the case of those inheriting their abilities, they will inherit body traits and transformations from any and all superpowered ancestors.

The effects of a transformation will likely change through a superpowered person's lifetime. A change will usually happen after a dramatic change in the person's personality, ideals, traumatic incident, or other life development, although a change is not guaranteed, and will rarely occur without these.

The first transformation will usually be the simplest aesthetically both in outfit and body, with simple details, but will usually get more complicated, and it's likely to gain more body transformations as more changes happen. A superpowered person may experience 1-2 changes every 10 years.

Objects and outfits created via transformation will dissipate upon detransformation, regardless of if it is removed from the person. The same goes for additional limbs and features that do not exist on the original body, although these injuries are permanent, unlike clothes and objects which will reform upon transformation.

page 4: other known possibilities of transformations:

- Partial changes to a transformation may occur in the event of permanent injury, such as gaining a prosthetic after losing a limb, but nothing else in the outfit changes.

-It is possible for a transformation's change to be affected by other superpowered persons. This is commonly shown by similarities in outfit transformations, as elements of the superpowered persons apperance change to resemble each other.

-Changes in colour are extremely rare and usually only occur in small aspects

other changes and risks: Some changes are permanent and may not disappear when a superpowered person detransforms.

-Reproductive changes: Any biological offspring will have the exact same powers as the parent. However, pregnancy will be risky, and have a high rate of failure, especially if the mother does not have any superpowered abilities.

-Dreams: While there is no known reason for this occurrence, supers will rarely be able to remember their dreams, except those with dream related abilities or legacy supers. However, despite this the people in question will usually be experiencing nightmares, and superpowered people are at high risk for night terrors and sleep terror disorder.

-A superpowered person's body will adapt to their powers and it is extremely unlikely for one to be harmed by their own power, but this may result in permanent changes that may cause inconvenience in daily life. If this is something you or a loved one experience, please inform your GP

-Overuse of powers: While powers appear to be adapted to not cause harm to the user, overuse of powers can result in a large amount of pain and possible long term damage

below that is an image of two people, on looking like a doctor, a pale man with dull brown hair and dull green eyes, dressed as a doctor and smiling with a clipboard, looking at a person shown from behind, with long mint hair.

page 5: what does this mean for me?

Discovering and controlling your abilities is often the first step one may take inbecoming a superhero. Here at the P.I.S we offer many pathways to doing so,including all required training, courses, and experiences.

We also acknowledge that some super powered people do not seek to become asuperhero, but the P.I.S still has a place for them! We offer many career pathsand courses for almost any job and our career advisors can match up the perfectpower-job combinations to give you a leg up if you are interested in using yourabilities in your career. For more information, visit jobs.pis.uk

Use of powers in a job, or to otherwise earn money using superpowered abilities,without a license is a serious offence that can result in fines starting from £5000,and a potential ban from working in that field.

below is the superhero arrow, grinning at a woman in a plain looking suit. he has one hand on his hip and the other is shaking hands with the woman. the women has red hair and eyes, and pointy red nails.

Due to the nature of superpowered abilities, it is important to gettailored advice and support for affected individuals.For more information call us at our support helpline at 020 7946 0xxx. Both our lines are open from 8:30am-10pm mon-fri and 9:30am-9pm sat.You can also visit our website for more resources at pis.uk/resources. end id]

sorry for last weeks lack of update, irl stuff is happening too much and too fast

anyway heres something ive wanted to do for a while, a pamphlet thats kinda medical style? it seemed like it would be fun and i wanted an excuse to try something new and im always down to infodump (affectionate) about my ocs

however im half asleep, ive already delayed an update for a week, and im a little stressed so i didnt get a proper proofread so sorry if theres any typo or if i left a placeholder in ill get it later if i see any late

edit: did i really forget to fucking finish the fake phone number at the end? anyway sometimes fake phone numbers are reserved for tv and stuff if a phone number is needed, thats the one used for london fake numbers, i just forgot to finish it until i went back to write the id there

#someone always cares #sac #webcomic #lore #worldbuilding #im nervous to post bc i was like. is this to self indulgent? will people like it?#and then i was like bro.#its my fucking webcomic OF COURSE its self indulgent that half the fucking point #some of this is stuff ive rambled lots to friends but realised oh it just hasnt come up in comic so here it is i guess #im hoping this is readable bc i can read it fine on my phone

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grailfinders · 3 years

Text

Fate and Phantasms #157

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re making Emiya Alter! No, not that one, the one they gave a really dumb nickname to.

Anyway, Demiya is a Vengeance Paladin to take down anyone who would threaten humanity (and protect himself from mind control nonsense) as well as a Hexblade Warlock to project whatever blades he might need straight into enemies. I know he made the deal with Alaya, but it made him good with swords, so it’s probably fine.

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

Next up: Man’s worst nightmare

Race and Background

Despite your arguments to the contrary, you’re still a Human, giving you +1 Strength and +1 Dexterity. You also get proficiency in Insight to be a better investigator, and the Fighting Initiate feat, because paladins don’t get the Archery fighting style normally. This gives you +2 on ranged weapon attacks.

What was it that turned you to the path of Alterness? Whatever it was, it made you a Haunted One, giving you proficiency with Investigation and Arcana, as well as a healthy hatred for anything Kiara-based.

Ability Scores

You’re good with guns and small swords, plus you fight shirtless, so make sure your Dexterity is as high as possible. Second is going to be Charisma. You’re a pretty scary guy, we need it for multiclassing,and it’ll help you shoot good later. Your Wisdom is also pretty good, thanks to your built-in mental protection. You’re too affected by your Alterfication to get affected by anything else. Your Strength isn’t that bad, you do use melee weapons too at times and we also need it for multiclassing, but your Constitution is rather low. Kintsugi is very pretty, but it’s not a great way to build a person. Finally, we’re dumping Intelligence. It’s less that you’re dumb, more that you just absolutely don’t care about stuff enough to get scholarly on most subjects.

Class Levels

1. Paladin 1: Paladins get better hit dice and the martial weapons we need for that Fighting Initiate we got, so we’re kinda stuck starting there. First level paladins get proficiency with Wisdom and Charisma saves, as well as two paladin skills. Intimidation is pretty self-explanatory, but you also get Athletics. Look, you’ve got pretty good abs, they had to come from somewhere.

You also get a Divine Sense, letting you sense threats to humanity nearby, and Lay on Hands for a bit of free healthcare for you or whoever else you touch. You get 5 hp of healing per paladin level per long rest, and you can use 5 points from that amount to heal a poison or disease.

Yeah, first level isn’t particularly in-character, but it’ll get better later.

2. Paladin 2: Second level paladins get another Fighting Style, so grab Close Quarters Shooter from the underdark UA for sick melee ranged attacks. This negates the disadvantage caused by making a ranged attack near hostiles, your ranged attacks ignore all but full cover, and you get another +1 to ranged attack rolls.

You also learn how to cast an prepare Spells using your Charisma. You can either use your new spell slots for, y’know, spells, or for a Divine Smite to add on extra radiant damage to a melee attack. Ranged attacks in melee range don’t count, sadly.

As far as prepared spells go, Detect Evil and Good can help hunt down baddies, ditto with Protection from Evil and Good.

3. Paladin 3: At third level, you can at long last devote yourself to Vengeance!, giving you the spells Bane to trip up foes and Hunter’s Mark to stick some serious damage onto your enemies over time. You also get Channel Divinity once per short rest that you can use in two ways.

Abjure Enemy spends an action to force a wisdom save (DC 8+charisma mod+proficiency) or one creature is frightened for up to a minute or until it takes damage. While frightened, it can’t move. On a success, the creature’s speed is halved for a minute or until it takes damage.

Alternatively, you can swear a Vow of Enmity as a bonus action, giving you advantage on attacks against a nearby creature for a minute or until it hits 0 hp.

You also get Divine Health, making you immune to disease. Like half your body is gold, it’s not like sniffles are a big concern at this point.

4. Paladin 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Crossbow Expert feat. There’s a lot of overlap with Close Range Shooter, but you can now attack multiple times per turn with a crossbow, and you can use your bonus action to attack with a hand crossbow if you attack with a one-handed weapon with your main action. Unfortunately, that’s the one kind of crossbow that won’t work with warlocks, but for now it’s fine.

5. Paladin 5: Fifth level paladins get an Extra Attack, letting you attack twice per turn anyway! Making great use of feat you just got.

You also learn second level spells! Your freebies are Hold Person and Misty Step. Admittedly neither are really in character for you, but if you want to power game Hold Person gives you guaranteed critical hits on the held person, which is super busted when combined with your smites. Food for thought.

Otherwise you can use Magic Weapon and other smites to make normal swords into fancy magic swords.

6. Warlock 1: Bouncing over to warlock for a bit puts you in a pact with an even fancier magic weapon: a Hexblade. You might not have a soul any more, but you do have a Hexblade’s Curse, which you can put on one unlucky bastard as a bonus action once per short rest. The target’s cursed for 1 minute, during which: You add your proficiency to damage against the target, crit on 19s, and you gain HP equal to your warlock level+your charisma modifier when they die.

You also become a Hex Warrior, turning one non-two handed weapon into a charisma based weapon instead of dexterity or strength. You can also use this on any kind of weapon made with your pact weapon feature later.

Finally, you get Pact Magic, which is pretty similar to your old magic except it recharges on short rests instead of long ones. While the spell slots don’t blend like other multiclassing builds, you can use warlock slots to cast paladin spells and vice versa.

Speaking of warlock spells, you get Eldritch Blast to summon gunfire and Sword Burst to summon swords right into people. You also get Cause Fear because that’s most people’s natural reaction to you and Expeditious Retreat to stay in archery range. Just because you can fight in melee range doesn’t mean you should.

7. Warlock 2: Second level warlocks get Eldritch Invocations. Like usual, we’re saving one for level three, but you still get Armor of Shadows now for free Mage Armor on yourself. Now you can finally rip your shirt off and make Kintoki jealous!

You also learn Comprehend Languages. Alaya probably wouldn’t drop you off in someplace without giving you the language to get around, right? Right?

8. Warlock 3: Your pact boon, as you can probably guess, is the Pact of the Blade, letting you summon pretty much any melee weapon you could want as an action. It also counts as magic for overcoming resistance, making the Magic Weapon thing from earlier pointless.

That invocation we were saving becomes Improved Pact Weapon, which expands your pact weapon choices to pretty much any ranged weapon you could want and it gives any weapon you make +1 to attacks and damage.

Honestly there aren’t that many second level spells that I think really fit Emiya as a warlock, but Blur is nice. If you’re going to be nameless, you might as well be faceless too, I guess.

9. Paladin 6: Going back to paladin for a bit lets you create an Aura of Protection, adding your charisma modifier to any save you or allies within 10′ of you make. It’s not an enormous buff, but a +2 is a +2, take what you get.

10. Paladin 7: Seventh level vengeance paladins are Relentless Avengers. When you hit a creature with an attack of opportunity, you can move half your speed as part of the reaction an ignore opportunity attacks. Like a lot of paladin goodies, this doesn’t pair well with your guns, but you do have swords as well.

11. Paladin 8: Another ASI at last! Bump up your Charisma for better saves and spells.

12. Warlock 4: Use this ASI to become Tough for an extra 24 HP now and another 2 each level. If you want to get in close, you’d better be able to take a hit. Also, you’re part gold. Sure it’s a soft metal, but it’s still a metal. That’s worth a few HP.

You also learn True Strike because I’m really hoping you’re aiming those things, and Shadow Blade for yet another sword you can summon.

13. Warlock 5: Fifth level warlocks get another invocation and a third level spell. Spirit Shroud makes all your swords a little bit sharper, dealing extra damage to and slowing down creatures in a 10′ radius. You also get Eldritch Smite, which burns through warlock slots to deal extra force damage, and can be used with ranged weapons.

14. Paladin 9: Ninth level paladins also get third level spells, like Haste which adds to your AC, bumps up your speed, and gives you and extra action for the duration. When the spell ends you have to take a turn to chill, but it’s totally worth it. You also get Protection from Energy, which... I mean if someone’s throwing around acid arrows, yeah go for it. Otherwise you can get more smites and Elemental Weapon for more fancy weapons.

15. Paladin 10: Tenth level paladins get an Aura of Courage, preventing allies in it from being frightened. I’d be more worried about charms, but honestly your wisdom save is pretty good at this point.

16. Paladin 11: Your Improved Divine Smite means you can add radiant damage to melee attacks even when you have no spell slots to burn; unfortunately that’s still just melee attacks, not ranged attacks.

17. Paladin 12: At seventeenth level you can finally use this ASI to bump your Charisma up past the point where your dexterity started, meaning your attaks finally get a bit more accurate thanks to being a Hex Warrior. This also bumps up your spell effectiveness and all your saves.

18. Paladin 13: Thirteenth level paladins get fourth level spells, like Banishment and Dimension Door. You also get access to yet another new smite for yet another new sword.

19. Paladin 14: Your last mainline paladin goodie is a Cleansing Touch, spending an action to end a spell affecting yourself or a willing creature charisma mod times per long rest. You’d think this anti-Kiara protection is coming late, but to be honest you probably should be level 20 to take on a Beast of Humanity.

20. Paladin 15: Your capstone level makes you a Soul of Vengeance, letting you make opportunity attacks on a creature affected by your Vow of Enmity if they try to attack anyone. Again, this only affects melee attacks.

Pros:

Mixing your Hexblade’s Curse and Vow of Enmity together means you’re really good at dealing crits with basically four times the odds of critical attacks each attack compared to your regular fighter. This is especially good for a character that can double smite like you can, dealing serious burst damage easily.

You also deal consistent damage with a +14 to hit and several different ways to stick more damage onto your attacks, like the afforementioned curse, Hunter’s Mark, or Spirit Shroud.

Thanks to your warlock slots recharging on short rests, you can go ham on smites a bit more than most people could, making your Unlimited Lost Works available to you more than other paladins.

Cons:

You’re a paladin specializing in ranged attacks. Admittedly the only things really making you a ranged fighter are your fighting styles, which can easily be changed, but if you’re playing to character you’ll find it a bit harder to use your paladin features.

Another reason staying at range is a good idea is your Concentration saves are really bad, with a total of +0 and no way to improve them.

Starting as a paladin but then adding in hexblade later means you have something of an awkward beginning, with your first couple ASIs not really contributing much to your character, with those first few mostly making up for your weaknesses rather than playing to your strengths.

#fgo #Fate Grand Order #Emiya Alter #D&D 5e #DND #Warlock #Paladin

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inkperch · 3 years

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Linked Universe Zeldas:

My takes on LU style- Zelda’s. Note: I don’t really follow Linked Universe, and I don’t like a lot of their takes on the Links, so uh, don’t assume these Zelda’s dealt with the LU versions of the Links.

SS: goes by Hylia, she jokingly suggests it when they’re picking nicknames, and everyone else just pauses for a second then realises who exactly she is and freaks the fuck out, so it kinda sticks as a combination of an in-joke and just... well, she’s Hylia reborn, can’t argue with that! The others are all low-key taken aback by how not-leadery she is, she tends to be the most hands-off when it comes to planning because well- she just guards the triforce, Link is the one who earned all 3 pieces and used it’s full power. Meanwhile her descendants picked up Wisdom sometime in the intervening centuries, so she’s pretty happy to leave the plans to them and stick to being a mediator. Third most likely Zelda to pick a fight she can’t win, most likely to win despite that.

Minish Cap: goes by Shortie, bc these beanpoles tried that with Tetra and she threatened to stab them, but Minish just found it hilarious so it stuck. Surprisingly quick to pick up how to fight, occasionally gets the other Zelda’s into trouble by running off, but they usually agree with her that whatever caught her eye was actually pretty worth it, because deep down they’re all massive nerds, no matter how functional they appear. Also tends to randomly grab gifts for the other Zeldas.

Four Swords: just goes by Four, jokes about how much her Hero(es) would be annoyed by that. Usually the first to notice encroaching danger, and always the first to investigate it. At first the more combat-experienced Zelda’s were Concerned(tm) that she is the one sticking herself into unknown dangers, until she pointed out that A) she is considerably less likely to get herself caught unless Sheik wants to go, bc she knows she has less leeway to get caught than they are and B) they won’t be down a fighter for the rescue if she’s the one who gets caught, which they reluctantly concede.

OoT: goes by Regrets, which like, the other Zelda’s just hear her bitterly pick as soon as the topic comes up and immediately decide they aren’t touching that emotional baggage. It’s an mix of Child and Adult timeline Zelda, which kinda fucks her up when she thinks about it- especially seeing as she remebers both Ganondorf breaking free and killing one of the Seven Sages in the child timeline, and what became of the Hero of Time... who she remembers clinging to the thought he got to have the childhood he rightfully should’ve in the Adult Timeline, as the waves climbed up over Hyrule to seal the awakened and unchallenged Ganondorf. So yeah, she tries not to. She also remembers the start of the Defeat Timeline, where she was too late to save the Hero and was forced to lead the exhausted and scattered remains of her people to war to kill the Demon King.

Wind Waker: literally just Tetra, she also is the first to look at the less murder-happy Zeldas and give them a knife. She’s currently working on getting them all up to basic pirate crew levels of fighting without magic, just in case, and she’s constantly pestering the fight-y Zelda’s to a spar. Regrets goes along because she’s had three slightly different Zelda’s merged in her head so her skills are a little rusty, Hylia likes to do it just because people keep forgetting she learned to fight at the same school Link did, and their responses when she reminds them are funny to her. Tetra is picked up from after establishing New Hyrule, and she looks up to Hylia more than she’s willing to admit, often going to her for advice on the whole ‘founding a nation in peaceful cohabitation with the locals’ thing. Second most likely to start a fight she can’t win.

Spirit Tracks: goes by Ghost, refuses to explain the joke to any of the others and thinks she’s hilarious for it. She is, but she doesn’t need the ego stoke. They find out about the ghost thing when she accidently astral projects in her sleep at one point and wakes up to them freaking out over her corpse, which is implied to happen often. Tetra notices that she’s really really weird to train as a fighter, because she already fights pretty well but she also fights like she’s a giant fuck-off suit of armour with a sword as big as she is. She finds it amazing to get to meet Tetra, and is constantly asking her if various stories she heard as a child are actually true or if her mother just made them up or exaggerated. They were not, and Ghost thinks Tetra is the coolest person on the planet for it.

Twilight Princess: goes by Twilight, out of tribute to Midna’s nickname for her. Absolutely misses Midna, respects Regrets more than Regrets thinks she should, but she still angsts a lot about how she just surrendered to the unkillable army its implied she’s the only one who could even see properly who could turn them all into ghos- ahem. I may or may not have opinions about people thinking it’s the wrong decision from out of universe. But yeah, she absolutely angsts about it, and really looks up to Tetra and Regrets bc at least they acted, she just sat in her tower and waited for the hero she knew would be coming. Saying that though, she indulged Tetra’s pestering to fite exactly once (1), and promptly kicked her ass and went back to her book. Because really, what else was she going to do with all that free time while Link was fishing to win a Heart Container and she couldn’t leave her room? Ganondorf had to get the idea to have her use a sword somewhere.

FSA: Even among Zelda's, she stands out for how friendly she is- more than once she brought a ‘new friend’ back to camp who’d been trying to kill them seconds earlier. This got her the nickname Torch, because she shines light into even the darkest of creatures- although, Hylia would like it if she never interacted with any of the mini-Imprisoned from HW ever again please and thank you, that was a step too far for exotic pets.

(I’ll do a followup post for the Defeat Timeline, it has a lot of the older games I haven’t played and need to familiarise myself with the characters in, and it’s already getting late)

Hyrule Warriors: goes by Sheik, was unironically ready to fight her ancestor for the name, but Regrets doesn’t really care. Speaking of regrets, upon learning that Regrets did the exact same disguise in the Adult timeline, Sheik immediately wants to go stab Cia (and maybe Lana too) for letting her think she was getting away with the disguise when Cia had literally seen the exact same trick just one timeline over. (post post-game definitive edition, so Cia has her redemption arc) She also was never meant to be the bearer of the Triforce of Wisdom, and views it as a burden- without Cia’s interference, the Triforce of Wisdom and it’s visions would’ve been passively sitting in the royal vaults instead of etched into her hand, but fate got confused when the Triforce had been split, but the one who should inherit Wisdom was much better suited to Courage. This leads to a bit of a disconnect sometimes, where fate has changed her into a suitable host for the Triforce of Wisdom, but she just kinda isn’t one. She’s also a MASSIVE nerd (I saw those TP references in Linkle’s Twilight stage Nintendo! She literally started dropping random history quotes after almost dying, the nerd) so she’s constantly fangirling over all her famous ancestors, because if anyone had managed to hear legends from all 3 timelines, it would be HW Zelda. The most likely to pick a fight she can’t win, she literally only pretends to be functional and have impulse control when they’re in her Hyrule and her people can see her.

BOTW:

Both BoTW Zeldas avoid each other like the plague because yeah, that’s a physical manifestation of my failures. They’re not consolidated like OoT was for bonus angst- because just merging them would show her there’s a happier timeline where all of her friends survived and Hyrule didn’t fall and crumble to ruins while she and Link took a 100 year nap.

AoC: goes by Terrako, because why the hell not. Has Terrako with her, which gets confusing, but he’s an adorable Eggy Boi, and basically team mascot. Is using her Master Cycle+Sheikah Slate movesets, bc she tried to use her Goddess bow moveset and reality just kinda glitched bc there were two Zelda’s using the exact same power, and they both agreed to never try that again.

BoTW: goes by Architect, because that’s what she spends half her time doing these days. Regularly nerds out with Sheik. Low-key dying inside from self-worth issues rearing up again now that she’s hanging out with all these legendary queens, but tries not to let it show and keep with a positive attitude, too mixed results.

#legend of zelda #linked universe #zelda #spirit tracks

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bornofbloodandwater · 3 years

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Pros and Cons of Dating my Muse

Name: Xiomara Aurelius Athanas

Race: Siren / Greek

Sexuality: Bisexual Biromantic (but uh...well you’ll see)

-List all the Pros and Cons of a relationship with your Muse below-

XIO IS DATING YOUR MUSE BUT IT IS MY GOBLIN CHILD AND SHE LOVES NOBODY UNTIL SHE’S BASICALLY MARRIED TO THEM. DO NOT ENTER EXPECTING REALLY ENCOURAGING PROS, THIS WAS HARDER THAN IT LOOKS TO COME UP WITH GOOD REASONS TO DATE XIOMARA.

Pros

1. Thoughtful of your emotions and needs, Xiomara can be very attentive. Paying extremely close attention to what makes you shine for her. Ignoring the fact that this is because she is being her temptress self, she gets joy out of creating such wonderful highs for others. You’ll feel like you are on a pedestal being lavished by a Goddess, but are you there because she wants you? Or because she wants to revel in her power over something beautiful? (If she truly cares about you she’ll let you read what SHE needs and let you see her in true moments of joy and pain.)

2. Xiomara is a fairly peaceful person in her downtime and very comforting to be around! If you’re permitted to be around her when she’s at home (which, her lengthier flings are) you’ll find a very serene life. Breakfast in the warming morning sun with a book in hand, trips to markets to sell what she grows in her gardens, yoga, naps, making bread and pastries, all between her adoring you, embracing you, pleasing you.

3. Extremely loyal, she’ll stand for you against anything. No stranger to slinging a cheeky quip at creeps any more than she is to tearing them apart, and she’ll do it all for you. Her loyalty extends even to more arbitrary relationships, while you’re around at least. If you have her undying loyalty even after an absence, you’re something special, she’s not forgotten you, she cares.

4. Xio wants to bring you around the world with her, take you on adventures, treat you to the best experiences life has to offer. She likes to keep those she enjoys the company of very close. So if you’ve ever wanted to see the world in all its glory for free, you’ve landed the right Murderous Sea Idiot.

5. Large breasts. That is all. (Yes I am struggling more with Pros than I am with Cons.) As a serious answer, she’s not quick to panic, she is level-headed, intuitive, discerning. If you are panicked or afraid or stressed about something she’ll come up with solutions to help with calm words and a controlled manner. It is very soothing if you find yourself in trouble fairly often or are an anxious person!

6. Xio is an unbelievably good cook and she WANTS to cook for you. There is no sense of obligation in her offering to treat you to anything you want. In fact, if she really cares about you (everything she does has a little bit of backwardness to it) she’ll make you whatever SHE wants. It is a sign that she isn’t trying to charm you, she’s not putting on the show and the flash to distract you from who she is.

7. Due to the society in which Xiomara was raised, she is extremely open-minded. She won’t be phased by any expression of gender, identity, preferences, any combination or presentation of any of those facets. You are a person to her in the end, she wants your experience, your energy, your desires. She wants to see you happy and thriving. She’s far weirder than most and loves embracing everything that makes someone just a little different. If she’s unfamiliar or wants more clarity she will ask if it is alright to ask questions and respect any answer you give her. Some mystery is certainly not the worst, in fact, she respects secrets and the unexplained. After all, she has many secrets herself. Yes, this open mind does extend to kinks 👀

(Her questions would mostly be boundary related, can’t see her being surprised or unaware of expressions of identity.)

8. This is for the dominants, because LUCKY YOU you’ve just stumbled across the subbiest creature in the universe. She is obedient, passionate, insatiable and an absolute tease. You’re also the more likely group to actually get her to enjoy your company as more than just a fling. In the end, Xio needs the control and the care, the relationship dynamics that typically come with a dominant partner.

Much like a tiger doing tricks, if she senses weakness she WILL take over or cease to follow your instruction. Power-bottom? Or situational switch? That depends quite how spectacularly you fail to take control.

9. So, you’re a bit of a brat! Or very specifically, an over-confident man/masc who won’t shut his mouth unless she chokes him? Hope your aim was to be brought to tears being edged out of your mind because Xio’s a total soft-dom. She’s not going to give you tons of bruises or make you sleep on the floor, no, Xio is going to tell you to be good for her, keep your hands behind your back, make as much noise for her as you want while she brings you to the edge over and over.

However, she isn’t someone who seeks a relationship in which she is in constant control. You’re less likely to have her become truly attached if you take a more subservient role outside of the bedroom.

10. Xiomara believes in soulmates. Even though I don’t write them as being real, she just believes in them. These are the possible pros of her belief. If your muse understands Xio and SEES her? Theres a high chance (seeing as they’re dating in this scenario) she’ll start to view you as The One. You have to know her for everything she is and for most people that will stop at trying to understand her cruelty, her prolonged suffering, her difficulty accepting love.

Bonus 11. So, you’re a bit of a monsterfucker ay? Even just a little bit? You can always go swimming with your hot sea-demon girlfriend, just a thought. Let her tease you endlessly about being a terrible swimmer, wrap her tail around you like a constrictor and cover you in kisses and bites. Y’know if you’re into that (we all know we are).

Cons

1. She doesn’t love you. It is nothing personal, but she needs full and complete acceptance and understanding. Usually in the form of someone who celebrates her, all of her, even her cruelty. That is quite a lot to ask of anyone; to love a monster. Something I will not diminish for her.

2. She kills people for money. I feel like that is a Con in most cases. Coming home covered in someone’s blood, probably leaving the bathroom splattered with red, occasionally returning to you half-dead and climbing into bed in that state. One might say that could be just a little traumatising.

3. Speaking of blood. You wanna deal with non-verbal BLOODLUST Xio? Because I sure don’t. Unable to communicate with you when she storms into her home hopped up on murder-adrenaline. Terrifying and with the ever-present possibility of killing you if you’re not very close with her? Having to calm her down? Being threatened by someone who softly kisses you awake? I don’t wish that emotional whiplash on anyone.

4. She’s stubborn as all hell. If she truly wants/needs something and you try to stand in her way you are as disposable as off-meat. She is not giving up. She has a long life to live, and no intentions of wasting it pandering to the concerns and morals of others. She’ll only be told no for so long before she moves on. (Just to clarify this is not about her wanting things from your muse this is about her wanting things in life or needing to do things and your muse disliking/attempting to stop her in any way)

5. She may have big boobs but that’s...kinda where the softness stops. Very bony, muscular, very little fat, not that much fun to cuddle unless your ideal cuddle partner is a tiny, bony, serpentine lady who screams in the night... speaking of-

6. NIGHT TERRORS. Oh yeah, enjoy that on a regular basis. Xio’s insomnia is your insomnia now! Hope you’re a heavy sleeper, but even then, occasionally being woken with a hand around your neck can’t be good for your nerves. The possible exception to this Con being the premonition-like nature of her sister’s appearances in her life, if Xio feels like she’s doing something very right (like being with you) they’ll die down. Xio can’t discern whether this is just reduced stress and having a confidant, or if her sister is watching over her and giving her insights on how to best live her life. She tends to lean toward the latter, so yet another Con for you is that she might toss you to the kerb if those nightmares get worse. Don’t you just love bonus Cons...

7. Xio can be a bit of a hypocrite. She can dish it out but she can’t take it. She will excitedly enter into volleying little quips, insults, banter, sarcasm, but as soon as she’s sat across from someone who can throw it right back she can get frustrated quite quickly. Xio knows full and well she doesn’t deal with her problems how she should, she doesn’t need to be told so.

8. Not sure if this is a Pro or a Con to be quite honest but Xiomara, and Sirens in general, are not very fertile outside of their own race. If your muse wants kids there will be considerable difficulty there. Xio doesn’t actually ever consider having children but might consider it if she had another long-lived partner. However, secret pro if your muse doesn’t want kids, I guess!

9. Xio will keep things carnal for the most part. She can be whisking you off around the world, treating you to beautiful things and making you feel comforted and cared for, but all she is able to pursue is sex. It keeps her participation in these relationships shallow. It is only in the back of her mind that she seeks love, however, she isn’t actually certain as to how that is displayed or what it means to her because she has never let someone love her.

10. Xiomara believes in soulmates. Which means if you aren’t everything you’re nothing. Something fun to toy with while she waits for the real deal. Bless you if you tell her you love her, you’ll get a flat, disinterested stare in response with maybe an “I’m sorry to hear that.” or “How unfortunate.” It is something that will end her relationship with you, especially if she knows you aren’t the one. While it is a mercy that she will not lie to you or lead you on, it is cruel that she lets people get so close to her when she is so removed.

Bonus 11. If this bitch falls in love with you you’re locked in. You’re basically married. She’s immortal and chaotic and would probably kill you if you tried to abandon her...proceed courting her with extreme caution.

Tagged by: @magioffire

I want you to know there is no pressure this took me three days to complete. ‘Tis a long one. Tagging: @derobergeist (you know who we all want to seeeee, give us the Stabby Doctor), @suresaint, @mettleborn (give me Igorrr), @sunbentsky (Oles or Villen?), @fourmarksmage

#;I feel like a person for a moment of my life (headcanon)

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princess-of-the-corner · 3 years

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I never watched Winx as a kid, so I really hope I don't sound like an idiot for asking this. What exactly does the Netflix Winx series do wrong besides giving it the "dark and gritty" makeover?

So like. There are a lot of problems here and I’ll try to tackle them. I haven’t finished the reboot because I have difficulty getting through things I like, much less things I hate watch. But anyway, this gets long and is separated into parts.

Let’s start with it’s issues on it’s own and not as an adaptation:

It’s still pretty garbage. Not ‘the worst thing ever’. Interesting enough. But it does have problems. Some racist and homophobic and fatphobic writing. The characters range from ‘kind of a jerk’ to ‘straight up assholes who will cause physical harm for petty reasons’. The nicest one so far is Terra, but even she kinda snaps and strangles a guy with her plant powers.

Now on to things it fails on as an adaptation!

First, the whitewashing!

Of the six main characters, 3/6 were poc-coded in the original cartoon(I say ‘coded’ because they’re not Humans from Earth but still). Aisha is black, Flora is Latina, and Musa is Chinese.

Aisha is the only one who remains black. I’ve heard varying testimonies on Musa’s actor, but the ‘best’ I’ve heard is that she’s 1/4 Singaporean and white passing. I don’t have the authority to say if that’s in the clear or not so I’m leaving that to other fans.

Flora gets the worst though. They cast a white woman to play her. Then backtracked and said ‘oh, this isn’t Flora. We replaced her with her white cousin Terra’. Yeah you can see the problem there.

Characters they got rid of entirely! I’ll only discuss characters that showed up in the first two seasons of the original show since Fate only has one season. (I’d say just the first, but they included Aisha who is from Season 2).

Let’s see. They got rid of Tecna, one of the main six girls. It’s likely because they’re going for a more ‘bootleg Hogwarts’ vibe, and Tecna’s magic being heavily technology based ruins that. So she’s just tossed altogether.

The boys! Oh my god my boys! Sky and Riven are the only ones who were kept in, while Brandon, Timmy and Helia got scrapped and replaced as well. The other boys like Dane and Sam? Totally could’ve just given them those names and been done with it.

Then there’s Icy, Darcy and Stormy! I’m counting them together because that’s exactly what Fate did! The three Witches are villains in the series, and instead of keeping a trio, they combined her into a single character. Beatrix.

I think Silva was also an amalgamation of the remaining Headmaster/Headmistresses and a few other staff members but considering they condensed it to just one school it kind of makes sense.

Sometimes there’s just a name change like the Headmistress of Alfea was changed to Farah Dowling instead of Faragonda which is so pointless.

Overall there’s other minor characters that don’t show up, like the rest of the school staff, Mirta and Lucy, so on and so forth. But I’m less upset about that. Still upset though because I love them.

Personality changes! And romance drama!

Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy.

I already mentioned how they made everyone an asshole in this reboot. In the original show, the only protagonist that was consistently a jerk was Riven, but he was more of the ‘grumpy but still a good guy’ type of asshole.

Let’s compare just one character and her relationships to others!

Stella in the Original Cartoon: Preppy and sometimes a little vain, could be blunt to the point of insulting, but never malicious. Very sweet and loves her friends. She and Bloom are best friends, Stella having been the one to bring Bloom into the world of Magix and will do everything she can to make sure she’s safe. Stella’s love interest is Brandon, who is bffs with Bloom’s love interest Sky. Stella and Brandon are very cheesy and cute together. They aren’t usually jealous, and can even make a competition out of ‘how many phone numbers can I get?’.

Stella in Fate: Total bitch to all her roommates. She’s getting the common ‘my mom’s a bitch who puts pressure on me so I’m going to be a bitch’ thing that’s become popular now. Since Brandon was deleted, they put her in a love triangle with Bloom and Sky, Sky being Stella’s ex bf. And despite breaking up with him, Stella sees him just talking to Bloom and decides ‘Hm. Let’s prey on her insecurities that she doesn’t belong here, and manipulate her into leaving!’ Which includes walking through a forest where there was recently a man attacked and viscously killed by some kind of monster, so I’m putting it up to attempted murder.

Yeah. Everyone’s kind of like that. It’s awful.

Bloom’s backstory and parents!

Okay, this can kind of fall under both ‘personality changes’ and ‘plot changes’ but it deserves it’s own section.

In the Original Cartoon, Bloom’s home kingdom was attacked and destroyed by villains searching for something called the Dragon Flame. Bloom was a baby with said power, so her older sister sent her to Earth, a world without Magic, where she would be safe and hidden. Mike and Vanessa find her and adopt her, loving her and raising her very well. They are good parents. Bloom learns she has powers when she meets Stella, and instinctively uses Magic to protect her.

In Fate, the only thing really the same is that Bloom was sent to Earth. I’m a little unclear on why, but instead of giving her loving adoptive parents, they made her a Changeling with emotionally abusive parents! Let me elaborate a little: Instead of adopting Bloom of their own free will, Mike and Vanessa’s real child died in the hospital and was secretly replaced with Bloom. Her parents are also, as mentioned, emotionally abusive. So much so that Fate!Bloom’s powers first manifested by setting them on fire in the middle of the night.

Fun. Ain’t it?

Now onto plot points!

Again, pretty much the only thing the same is ‘Bloom discovers she has Magic, goes to another Dimension to learn at a school called Alfea. Gets into adventures with her Roomates while trying to figure out where she’s really from’.

The whole ‘Burned ones’ were.... not a thing at all. There wasn’t any kind of ‘barrier’ to keep out ‘dangerous creatures’ or anything.

I’m not going to go over every single subplot but that was just. No. They were easily allowed to go outside the school.

The whole vibe

This is a big thing to talk about. While the reboot went for ‘dark and gritty’ over the bright colors and sparkles, it also went for ‘bootleg Hogwarts’ instead of anything interesting.

In the reboot, the merging of Magic and Technloogy is mostly like. ‘Yeah we go to school in this old ass castle and we don’t use guns in weaponry class, but we have smartphones and social media and Harry Potter!”.

In the Original??? The whole world was very Magitech. It was a combination of Magic and Scifi! Kinda Steven Universe style actually.

The transformations!!!

Look. LOOK. Winx Club is a Magical Girl show! They have those beautiful transformation sequences that last a solid minute or so of screen time. And they also have like. At least one new Transformation a Season, which comes with an ungodly amount of different cool outfits.

The reboot? One transformation sequence. And while the effects are nice, Bloom doesn’t even get a new outfit. Just a few flames coming off her that look vaguely like wings.

SPEAKING OF! They are Faeries!!!! But they don’t have wings????? What????

Look idgaf about your effects budget you could’ve made the cheesiest shit like the live action Sailor Moon stuff and fans would’ve loved it!

Bonus: The fact that they didn’t have to change anything to make it ‘Dark’!

So like. Netflix decided to take all the color out of it, and make it ‘dark’ by having the characters smoke and drink and have sex and say swears.

But they.... really didn’t have to! The original cartoon was plenty dark, despite it’s colorful aesthetic! If you wanted to do a more serious reboot, you could have easily done it by focusing more on those aspects.

Hell, there are many fans who have done it. I’m one. I know a couple others as well.

anyway it’s 2:30 am and this is long af so I’ll leave it at that.

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crystalelemental · 3 years

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“el-jarado: Looking at the bit about ascended heroes, it looks like it has to be a different boon than the one you already have. I could have my Gangrel's DEF and RES superboons active at the same time but I can't give him +8 of either.”

Okay, so it’s actually a transition against the stat comparison options. It is nice for a units like Caeda and Selena, who desperately need their attack superboon but also want the bonus speed. Or a tank like Sheena, who wants both defensive stats maxed out. There is value in the concept. But I think the implementation via an arbitrary resource exclusive to summoning, kept so rare as to be borderline unreasonable to use on anything that’s not top meta, is just about the most ass-backwards thing FEH has done since Dragonflowers being allowed to be used on the current units despite the higher BST. I like this better than doubling up on the same stat, and I do think this is FEH’s attempt to make stats more evened out after years of obscene min-maxing, but with NFU on every weapon and +5 spectrum buffs, etc; it really is the kind of thing where older units just cannot possibly keep up anymore, because now you have the issue of needing 2k dragonflowers, and this ascendant flower, and their PRF weapons are infinitely worse off, and they don’t have optimal superboons, etc etc etc.

It’s the exact same issue I had with Z-moves in Gen 7 for Pokemon, and why Mega Evolutions were the only good gimmick from a competitive angle. A universally applied but limited use buff does nothing but widen the gap between what’s good and what’s not, because opportunity cost exists, and why would you ever try to put valuable resources into some random garbage to get it on par with mid-tier stuff, when you can power up the strongest option even further? You wouldn’t, and so no one does, and so the entire concept is without meaning. Only this time, instead of just kinda being dumb because it’s based off a bad concept, it’s an active attempt at a cash grab by combining popular OCs with limited availability resources as a draw for their New Heroes banners they think are running out of options.

FEH has a massive, massive issue with powercreep and the finite availability of resources that make older units matter. Dragonflower costs are so bad that in an entire year, you’re getting the option of making like six of the newest options even stronger, or wasting the same resources on one or two old units who still won’t compete. And instead of...I dunno...doing something about that? They decided this was a better move. More powercrept bullshit that just drives people to summon and offers virtually nothing to adjust the balance of the game. Because really, if you play competitively? You can either use this for one of your AR-O carries, of which there are usually around 4-5 for counterpicking certain strategies, or you can use it on L!Sigurd and just never lose. Which means it’s a resource that benefits defensive teams more than offensive teams, and just makes the competitive modes more annoying to play.

#el-jarado

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clarste · 4 years

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Sorry if you've been asked this explicitly before, but what are your thoughts on Penguin Logistics, specifically in comparison to the other organisations/factions in Arknights? I recently started and managed to grab everyone within a few pulls, except Sora (and I guess Mostima, unfortunately.) and I think they're easily my favourites. Would love to hear your thoughts. Cheers.

No one's ever asked me that, but they probably should have since I've gone all-in on Penguin Logistics ever since I pulled Exusiai and Croissant early on. I then proceeded to never pull any of the others, forcing me to buy Texas and Sora in the shop and much later dump all of my accumulated gacha currency getting Mostima. Anyway, my goal in life is to use the entire team and also max them all out. PL4life!

Anyway, my initial impression of them was that they were the cast of a 90s anime like Cowboy Bebop or Bubblegum Crisis (...Tokyo 2040). Like, they're an eclectic band of hyper-competent misfits working for a small company operating at the edge of the law. “Penguin Logistics” itself sounds like a euphemism for being, like, smugglers or something. "We'll get your package where it needs to go, no questions asked." Then Code of Brawl came out and I was totally right except they are also very dumb in a funny way. Like, they accidentally got into a turf war with the mafia, but apparently that's just business as usual.

Anyway I want to talk about each of them individually now so apologies if this starts rambling.

Texas is pretty clearly the main character of Penguin Logistics, and you can tell because she's the hub of their whole relationship wheel on the in-game chart.

She's also kinda Spike from Cowboy Bebop, although less laid-back I guess. She's a former mafia assassin on the run from her past, but her past won't leave her alone. Incidentally, "mafia" in this case refers to the various wolf families from the fantasy Italy equivalent in this setting, although they make some interesting comparisons to wolf packs in the profiles. However, Texas's family is dead, which should make her a "lone wolf" that will supposedly never have another place to belong. Except PL itself is proof that that's wrong.

Theoretically she’s just the team’s driver, but because PL is always getting into ridiculous anime fights she’s also good at that part too, using dozens of little... lightsabers(?) that she throws around willy nilly. It would probably look super-cool to see in action, except this is not that kind of game so we’ll just have to wait for the anime or whatever. It’s noted in her profile that her fighting style shows that she unconsciously sees as the only purpose of a weapon as being to kill, and heck, she’s right.

She's cool-headed, adaptable, and the serious one you can always count on, but she's not above getting into friendly(?) brawls just to take out her frustrations out.

Her name comes from the extinct subspecies of Texas Wolf.

Next up is Exusiai, the angel who loves nothing more than guns, god, rock and roll, and apple pie. In that order. In other words, a stereotypical American. Even though she's from the fantasy-Vatican. Basically she's a cheerful, friendly, laid-back person who never really fit in back home where people are expected to be more serious and orderly. Not enough to be, like, shunned or anything but she's always been a weirdo. All angels have guns though, that’s like standard issue. She wishes she could have more though.

She's also super religious, but interestingly never brings it upon her own. I feel like she probably realizes how uncomfortable it can make people who don't share that religion to suddenly bring up Jesus all the time in casual conversation. Like, she's not ashamed of it or anything, but she won't shove it in your face either. Personally, I find that a pretty cool characterization for a fictional religious person.

Which is also sort of a hint that beneath her goofy exterior she's a thoughtful, deliberate person who doesn’t let anyone in by accident. Texas notes that they're exact opposites in this respect. She also has an extremely interesting relationship with the next person.

Her name comes from the Greek word for the order of angels in Christianity often translated as "Powers."

Mostima... where to start...? I guess first of all she’s a fallen angel, apparently because she pointed her gun at her own kind under MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES. Probably related to the whole war in Kazdel thing, where many of the other MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES in this game took place. Long story short, stuff happened in the war, she pointed her gun at another angel, Exusiai’s sister is dead under mysterious circumstances, and Mostima gave up her gun and now wanders the world delivering long-distance packages for PL. But that’s mostly an excuse for to be alone as much as humanly possible. She can also use time magic because I dunno why not. MYSTERIOUS.

She’s friendly enough, talkative even, and has a hobby of visiting new places and trying out the local food, etc, but her real defining trait is that she just doesn’t need other people. She’s explicitly aromantic, saying she has no interest in love, but she also has no need for friends or family or apparently coworkers either. Because of the way the world is, she spends most of her time driving through the endless wastelands between cities, with nothing but a truck, some packages, and her thoughts. There’s something... romantic about that (in the other sense of the word), but even she admits that the romance of watching the sun set in a desert with no one else around for hundreds of kilometers gets old after a while.

I feel like I should note that she has a very “best friend of her big sister” relationship with Exusiai, by which I mean she’s known Exusiai since Exusiai was a kid and to her Exusiai will always be that kid. Also Exusiai only joined PL in the first place to hunt her down and get answers about her sister’s death, but Mostima just laughs it off and leaves town for another year or five.

Her name is probably a corruption of Mastema, a rather infamous fallen angel in mythology.

Croissant is... well, to be honest everyone past this point is more of a minor character. Which is actually a weird thing to say since none of these people are actually major characters in Arknights, but I guess these are less important people even within the group?

Croissant’s gimmick is that she’s always trying to make money by selling stuff. I guess she’s a merchant? But not, like, a formal one who runs a shop, she just gets her hands on stuff through her connections and sells it. But in like, a friendly down-to-earth way, it’s even said that she lives paycheck to paycheck. She’s a girl trying to get by with a second job, I guess is what I’m saying.

Team-wise, she’s the muscle of the group, being a minotaur and all. She lifts the heavy packages and also smashes things with her MAGNETIC HAMMER which I don’t know why I find that name so amusing. Gameplay-wise her special move can knock all the enemies around her halfway across the map and I smile every time she does it.

Her profile notes that she’s really just living her best life as a normal-ish person, and that helps make everyone around her feel normal, and that’s important in a setting where half the people around you are dying of magical cancer (no one in PL is Infected though).

Her name comes from the French word for Crescent and also a type of Pastry. Leaning more towards Pastries in my opinion.

Sora is an idol singer. Because, to be perfectly honest, what ragtag band of misfits is complete without an idol singer? She can’t really fight, but I guess Texas must have saved her life at some point or something because she bullied both her agency and PL into letting her work there part time. And also she is obsessed with Texas. I guess saying it like that makes her sound kind of annoying, but she really isn’t, she’s just an earnest girl chasing her dreams.

There’s also this interesting thing where a lot of her basic information is censored by her agency in order to protect her privacy (”do not dox the idol”). Even including her race. She presents as a wolf, but her promoted E2 art has her as a rabbit, which raises some interesting questions that don’t really get answered.

Her name comes from the Japanese word for Sky.

Lappland is not really part of PL, but she’s PL-adjacent enough to be worth mentioning here. Basically she’s an old acquaintance of Texas from back in their mafia days, and she’s obsessed with hunting her down and... fighting her? Killing her? But in, like, a sexual way? She’s kind of a crazy psychopathic killer. Maybe. She can also be very calm and polite when she wants to be, although with a taste for gallows humor. That just makes her scarier because you don’t know when/if she’ll snap.

There are two kind-of explanations for her being like that: A) her family is dead and she has no “pack”. As a wolf, the stress of living without a pack is supposed to be maddening. B) She’s infected with Oripathy (magic cancer) and there are crystals growing in her nervous system. Which... can’t be good. The answer is probably a combination of both.

But the most important thing about Lappland is her base skill and how it interacts with Texas. Basically, in your base there are various jobs you can assign people to and different characters get different bonuses for them. Most people in Penguin Logistics get bonuses for working the Trading Depot, for obvious reasons. Lappland gets a “bonus” where if she’s in the depot at the same time as Texas, she loses morale slower but doesn’t actually get any bonus to productivity. Meanwhile, Texas gets a bonus to productivity when Lappland is around, but loses morale way faster. In other words, Lappland is slacking off and making Texas so uncomfortable that she works twice as hard just to get the job over with so she can leave. This is their relationship as defined by game mechanics.

Texas also has another bonus where she loses morale slower if Exusiai is there, which completely cancels out the penalty she gets from Lappland. In other worlds, Exusiai being there too calms her nerves enough that she doesn’t feel the need to immediately escape.

Oh yeah, I forgot to talk about Emperor, who’s the owner of Penguin Logistics. He’s a world-famous rapper wearing a Tupac shirt and also literally immortal.

#not touhou #arknights #penguin logistics

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