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maagicmushies · 2 months

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How Fates Classes Communicate Culture

It is kind of strange to say because horrible worldbuilding is one of the things that Fates has become known for, but I'm really struggling to think of a Fire Emblem game that manages to say more about its world through its classes. Nearly every single class in Nohr and especially Hoshido has a lot to say about the respective cultures of the two nations, either through their names or weaponry or design.

Religion

So, religious aesthetics have been a thing in Fire Emblem since forever. If you want to get healed in Archanea you don't go to a doctor, you go to a cleric. Jugdral with its myriad of references to Norse myth had Troubadours which sort of seem random for a northern european setting, but Troubadours went around reciting poetry and a lot of Norse myth was chronicled through poetry like the Prose Edda and Poetic Edda. The main religious house of Grannvale being House Edda also makes allusion to this. Even seemingly secular classes such as cavaliers and paladins can be seen adorned with crosses in most games. In Fates something interesting happens. Nohr has most of the "traditional" Fire Emblem classes, but loses all of these religious references. Troubadour stayed, but only in the English Localization with the class being called "Rod Knight" in the original Japanese. Troubadour's promotions in Awakening, Valkyrie and War Cleric, were pretty explicitly religious, but no more in Fates. Valkyries have been turned into Strategists, with designs that sort of resemble depictions of Viziers. In the place of War Cleric, we have the Maids, which I'm pretty sure are a reference to old mystery books and the cliche of rich statesmen being killed by their bitter servants. That's why they used hidden weapons. Another Nohrian class which is just a secularized version of an older class would be the Dark Mage and Sorcerer. Nothing within their names or designs have been changed, but they have gone from being followers of Grima in Awakening to a sort of analog to alchemists. I am a little torn on this because trying to draw the line between "religion", "philosophy" and "pseudoscience" with alchemy is EXTREMELY hard, but just like the maids this class has a reference to another icon of European literature - Frankenstein. The faceless that they create and can summon bare a striking origin and visual similarity to many depictions of Frankenstein's monster. That book is coated in a lot of religious subtext, but Frankenstein himself is staunchly a scientist and working within his world's realm of science. While Fates did remove these classes from their religious context, another take was to move classes with religious context over to Hoshido.

The way the religious Hoshido classes are handled is pretty funny because a lot of these classes have been in Fire Emblem before, but were references to western religion, typically Catholicism. Now they're mainly references to eastern religions. The most obvious case of this are priests and clerics who were turned into monks and shrine maiden respectively. This is one of the rare cases of Fates gender-locking and the only case of it having an actual effect on game play. Women in this class line are based on "Miko", Shinto shamans tasked with shrine upkeep and various other rituals. Shrine Maidens can promote into the very vague "Priestess", but the Japanese version once again clears things up by just calling them "Isuka Miko" or "Battle Miko". They're the standard shrine maidens, but with a slight bit more armor and armed with a bow, something that Miko actually would use both for ceremonial purposes and self defense in some cases. The male counterpart is the Monk. Before I go on, I have to clarify that I don't think that the localization made the wrong move by leaving out a lot of the cultural context, but I'm going to have to keep going back to the original Japanese to fully clarify what Intelligent Systems meant with some of these classes. While we got "Monk" they got "Shugenja", which is a lot more specific to what Fates' monks are. They are followers of Shugendo, ascetic mountain-dwelling priests. The lances that Great Masters use were likely a reference to walking poles that such a lifestyle would demand. I don't really like genderlock and it annoys me that Fates completely ignores it except for this one instance, but I sort of get why. Miko are one of the most recognizable symbols of pre-meiji Japan, so if IS wants to make a fictional country based on that era, it'd be such a miss to not include them. However, "Miko" is a strictly feminine title, so Fates used this limitation to just give us another cool cultural reference.

If all that wasn't enough, a lot of FE classes that had nothing to do with religion now do. Standard "mages" were turned into "diviners". One could argue that this was the localization actually adding in religious context where there originally was none, because the original word used for this class just translates to "spell user". I'm inclined to disagree with that because Orochi's entire thing is divination and the main Hoshidan scrolls revolve around the Chinese zodiac. Another hit against that view would be how Diviners, Shrine Maidens and Monks all can promote into the Onmyoji. For some reason, this is one of the few japanese terms that Treehouse refused to swap out. Sage would have worked just fine. Remember how I said Alchemy blurred the lines between "philosophy", "religion" and "pseudoscience"? The same could honestly be said about Onmyodo, from what I know. Going off of how Izana, the poster child for the class, comes from the Kingdom of the Gods and can straight up speak with the Gods, I'd say that Fates' interpretation of the belief is as a faith. By the way, Onmyodo means "The Way of Yin and Yang", a pretty clear reference to how Sages can use tomes and staves, black magic and white magic. Some other Hoshidan classes also got some minor religious flair to them, with Sniper, Swordmaster and Spear Master all having different japanese names in fates than they do in the japanese versions of other Fire Emblem games. In Fates they can be translated as "Holy Bow", "Holy Sword" and "Holy Spear" or “[Insert Weapon] Saint”. I will touch on this more in a bit.

So, that begs the question. What is Fates trying to imply with this? Well.... I don't really know? Like, sure, Nohr has scrubbed away almost all of its religious institutions while Hoshido holds tightly to them and even associates great skill with holiness, but why? As cool as all of this is, it doesn't really seem to mean much besides creating yet another cultural rift between Hoshido and Nohr. I could come up with something about how the Fire Emblem being in Hoshido means that they were favored by the Gods and decided to worship them while the Nohrians felt neglected and forged their own path but that feels like I'm veering off into the realm of fanfiction, it's pure conjecture. It is also possible that Hoshido's faith came from them hunting Nohrian monsters. Gaiden and Sacred Stones both had characters who mostly fought monsters and they came from religious institutions in both cases, with Bishops in the Sacred Stones being especially good at it. So perhaps that is why so much of Hoshido is themed as religious, but once again it feels like I'm trying to guide thread through a needle that just isn't there. There is one thing that Hoshido’s focus on religion says about their culture for a deeper level and I’ll get into that for the next section.

Warfare

If you’re a nerd about Fates’ gameplay, there may be something that you noticed about the “Holy” classes mentioned. They are all capable of attaining an “S” rank in their respective weapons. This could indicate that Hoshido views mastery in the martial arts as either a gift from the gods or something to be used in service of the Gods. In Hoshido, the “Art” aspects of “Martial Art” seems to be something they prioritize on honing. It isn’t just enough to pick up a sword and learn how to swing it, you should strive to master it. The S rank options in Nohr paint a bit of a different picture. First you have the Sorcerers and Maids, being the S rank options for tomes and staves. This is an extension of Nohr’s respect for academia. As Nohrian magic is a bit closer to Alchemy, this magic can be mastered and honed simply through learning enough about it. Nohr loves its Tomes, by the way. Dark Mages are the only base class to start with tomes, but Troubadours, Wyvern Knights and even Corrin’s Nohr Prince(ss) class can use them upon promotions. Leo and Camilla also start in tome wielding classes with it being pretty trivial for Xander and Elise to join them as well. If you want to be respected in Nohr, you seemingly have to be well read, even the nobility follow this rule.

While I think Nohr having the S rank option for staves fits their culture, giving this to Maids feels like a gameplay concession. Strategists have tomes, a horse and two really good skills, so perhaps IS thought this was needed to balance the two classes out. It doesn’t really work, I think Jacob might be the only one who likes that class. The last S rank class that Nohr has is the Berserker, which I think paints an interesting dichotomy with Hoshido. Here the mastery of the weapon is not revered, but instead feared. This could just be because axes are much more unwieldy than lances, sword or bows or maybe because axes in general are associated with lower class in Fire Emblem, so someone who is so proficient with them instead of switching to a more respected weapon should be seen as a mad man. While we’re on the topic of axes, this might be a good time to talk about how many Nohrian classes use those versus how few Hoshidan classes use their counterpart, the club. 4 classes on Hoshido vs 8 in Nohr. This could relate to two things mainly. The first is the status thing I mentioned earlier. On average, Nohr is poorer than Hoshido, so more classes would use this poor “commoner” weapon. The second is that Nohr is heavily forested and so axes would probably just be very common there. Just like how Bord, Cord and Barst went from lumberjacking to axe fighting, it wouldn’t be incredibly surprising to find out that most of Nohr’s army did the same.

Meanwhile in Hoshido, it seems to be normal for most soldiers, not to be equipped with a certain weapon, but to be equipped with some sort of non-scroll magic. And by magic, I mean the seal skills. We are never really told how they work, but because they fail to go off if the sealer dies mid battle, I am convinced it is some kind of curse. The poisoned hidden weapons do not work this way and will apply their effects whether you kill the user or not. Of the 5 stat sealing skills, 4 belong to Hoshidan classes that do not use scrolls. The odd one out, Seal Magic, belongs to the Nohrian Dark Knight, pretty much cementing this as a magical skill. The Hoshidan Kinshi Knight’s also have the magical “Amaterasu” skill, once again linking back to the Hoshidan religiosity. I suppose now that I’ve brought up Kinshi Knights, it is time to talk about another thing that shapes the warfare of these two countries and that is the wildlife. Whereas Hoshido has their Pegasi and Kinshi, Nohr has Wyverns. The most notable distinction here is that Wyverns are just bigger and suitable to carry more, so while Nohrians can afford to be heavily armed and armored while flying, Falcon Knights have to settle with one naginata and specialization into staff use, once again hammering in that link between Hoshido and Religion. Wyverns also bring up some more of that dubious Nohrian science because they have an entire class of “Malig Knights”, people who fight on crudely resurrected Wyverns. The thing I find interesting about this class is that its two skills, Savage Blow and Trample are implied to be the Wyvern fighting independent of its rider. Shooting flames in the vicinity of the rider’s attacks and also landing on people its rider chooses to fight. To my knowledge, this is the only instance of this in Fire Emblem. This could indicate that the resurrected Wyverns are hard to train and instead of seeing this as a weakness, Nohrians chose to experiment with how they could take advantage of this “downside”. The last wildlife boon that Nohr has is that they actually have horses! You might not notice it, but Hoshido has no ground cavalry. This gives Nohr a huge mobility advantage and they capitalize on that. Out of all of Nohr’s starting classes, the only two who don't start on a horse or have the option to get on a horse are the mounted Wyvern Riders and the Fighter class, which has historically had associations with poverty. This insistence to just hop on a horse might go back to how much Nohr seems to value versatility in combat. A sword fighting mercenary getting on horseback isn’t exactly the most natural progression, but it gives that mercenary a wealth of new options in how to fight. They don’t care about specialization and mastery, just getting their job done. Nohrian classes in general lack that flair Hoshidan classes have and while I could say that's because a lot of these classes were codified back in the NES days, I think it’s just an extension of Nohr wanting to be efficient. You don’t NEED to be ornate or masterful or graceful as long as you win.

Leisure and Arts

So, what do any of these people do when not trying to kill each other? Well, for Hoshido we have a wealth of answers. Hoshido is the nation that got the classic “villager” class, so we can pretty safely say that a lot of people in Hoshido just toil. They farm peaches and daikons and rice. The villagers can promote and I find one of these promotions to be very interesting. I’m talking about the Merchant. Merchants show up a lot as part of Hoshido’s army, but it is a bit strange that they would be deployed as merchants and not as any formally integrated part of the Hoshidan military. We could take this as meaning that Hoshido is not particularly suited for war, they need to arm common merchants to defend from Nohr and don’t exactly have time to properly train them into becoming Spear Masters or Sky Knights. Another possible take away from this could be that Hoshidan patriotism is such a thing that these people weren’t conscripted, they just decided to go out and fight for their country independent of their background. It wouldn’t be a first in Fire Emblem, as I mentioned earlier, most Axe Fighters from early on in the series were simply lumberjacks who wanted to contribute to the war.

On the topic of Hoshidan classes who don’t exactly fit the bill as soldiers, I finally get to talk about my favorite class from the game, the Basara. Basara is another japanese term that treehouse refused to translate, which basically means someone who lives unrealistically and with excess. Their skills further cement this with the flashy activation skill “Rend Heaven”, which can actually activate pretty often compared to other skills but it's pretty damn useless. And then there’s the second skill, Quixotic, which does not actually increase damage or anything useful like that, but instead increases the chances of these activation skills going off. If you like, you can see this as an extension of aspects of Hoshidan culture that I mentioned earlier. Basaras do not want to beat you, but instead want to flaunt their mastery. It’s just that while Swordmasters want to flaunt their mastery of hitting you hard with a sword, these guys want to flaunt their mastery of flashy skill combos. The skill name being “quixotic” is also a fun allusion to Don Quixote, but it only exists in the english localisation. Basaras sort of fill the role of wandering fighters which I find pretty interesting because that role has usually been held by Mercenaries and Heroes. The main difference is that Mercenaries and Heroes are going around and saving people to get paid while Basaras are doing it to prove that they can. It really shows the difference in priorities between these two cultures. It is also possible that most Basaras are nobles or former nobles, as the term “Basara” was coined to criticize the flamboyance of Japanese nobles during the 14th century. So perhaps they’re happy doing this for no pay because they don’t really need money. It is worth noting that Basaras promote from Spear Fighters and Diviners, two classes that I’ve already noted as having religious subtext to them. It was a common practice for noble families to have their second son adopt a religious life as the oldest would inherit their fortune. A family with a hand in both the secular political world and the religious world would have a lot of influence. These basaras could be sons who weren’t able to inherit their parents’ wealth, but also did not have the discipline to make it in religious life, so they simply absconded and lived as excessive wanderers. Not particularly exceptional, but very hard to ignore.

Does it feel like I’m dodging the topic of leisure in Nohr? That would be because I am. There are exactly two Nohrian classes which do not have a role in their military. There are Outlaws and their promotions, the Adventurer. That isn’t a joke, I’m not fucking with you. The only non-war hobby there is in Nohr is robbing people. If you’re kind, you could fit the maids into here, but it wouldn’t exactly be correct to say that they don’t have a role in Nohr’s military, they are the defining staff using class and seem to exclusively serve high ranking members within the Nohrian Court. You are either directly contributing to Garon’s war machine, subservient to someone who is directly contributing to Garon’s war machine or actively breaking the law. It paints a really dire picture of this country. Every aspect of it is literally just in service of this war. Let's pivot somewhat and look at art. Hoshido not only has a culture of poetry that is popular amongst its monks, but has the Mechanist class, tasked with making these very intricate puppets. When Hoshido wants to carry out missions without risking too many lives, they deploy these Puppeteers. When Nohr wants to do the same, they create monsters. The only form of artistic expression we ever get to see is literature, go figure. In general, Nohr just sucks. You would not want to live here under any circumstance. However, even if I am disappointed in how little flavor there is for Nohrian life outside of fighting, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A country so consumed with war that they forgot to develop a culture is in a certain sense a form of culture, look at how many so called “gross” british foods are just a product of wartime rationing. It’s bland and unpleasant, but it IS culture. The classes on display do such a good job of painting what life in these two nations are like and it’s sort of insane wondering what a slightly more tightly written game could have accomplished with this. One of the downsides of Fire Emblem embracing less and less restricting reclassing as the series goes on is that we will likely never receive anything that attempts to do this again, which is a shame to me.

#Fire Emblem #FE #Fates #Hoshido #Nohr #mucho texto #long post #god fates is so good when it isnt bejng bad

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yanderes-galore · 11 months

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Yandere rivals Lance vs Keith ~ (platonic/ romantic vibes for both if that makes sense ?) with a paladin in training ?

I haven't finished the show but I did do some research. If things seem wrong or out of character that's why. I got impatient and really wanted go write this also it's been in my drafts for a bit :( I may rewrite this in the future if it makes no sense.

(AU where Darling is trained to be the Blue Paladin by Lance and Keith-)

Edit: I actually want to flesh this out at some point, I can make this AU work with more tweaking lol.

Yandere! Lance vs Keith

Ft. Paladin-In-Training! Darling

Potential Voltron: Legendary Defender Spoilers/Black Paladin! Keith AU

Pairing: Platonic/Romantic - Rivalry

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Jealousy, Dubious companionship, I'm going against canon plot intentionally for once in my life, Manipulation, Leans platonic but either works, Possible OOC characters I apologize in advance, Overprotective behavior, Controlling behavior, Mature language at one point, Slight violence, This is mostly just them being competitive.

There's two ways I could tackle this.

I could've written this with Black Paladin! Keith and Red Paladin! Lance but I also could've done a more general version with them still as their previous colors.

For this I'll base it sometime after Keith gains the Black Lion and Lance swaps to the Red Lion with research I did but in an AU. (I'm sorry if things seem off due to this :()

When the Blue Lion lacks a Paladin after Shiro's connection got severed from the Black Lion, something needed to be done.

A Paladin is needed for the Blue Lion... and you were chosen.

How you meet Lance and Keith is through your training.

Zarkon is still a threat and you can't form Voltron without the Blue Lion.

Essentially the gist of this is Lance and Keith act as teachers towards you, that was the idea in my head even if it doesn't make sense in canon.

Let's bend canon a bit as much as I hate to.

Obviously Lance is going to want the job of teaching you.

He knows the Blue Lion better than anyone, right?

Meanwhile Keith wants the job as he thinks if you connect with him it'll help connect to your Lion faster.

Lance is still a bit teasing and playfully flirty with you but is mature.

Keith still has to keep him in line yet it's easier than when they were beginner Paladins.

Keeping this general they both mostly have a mentor role with you.

Hunk and Pidge help you with training at times but Keith and Lance are your main teachers.

Lance sometimes brags about being your main mentor due to his past connection with the Blue Lion.

Keith shuts him down by reminding him that he's still leader.

They're both protective yet stubborn.

There's times they'd fight as they've been rivals with each other even before their new roles (according to Lance for the most part).

In terms of who you'd be the closest with... it depends.

You could be close to Lance, due to how often you train together and how playful he is towards you.

Learning to be a Paladin can be stressful and he wants you to stay in a good mood with him!

He teaches you how to use your Bayard, which appears to give you a preferred weapon you'd use.

He even teaches you how to properly use your Lion, you need to truly connect, after all.

Lance loves to praise you... he thinks you're a good fit for the Lion he used to use.

Keith is more serious and protective with training.

As the Black Paladin he feels it is his duty to teach you bravery in battle and how to use your given weapon in battle.

It's mostly Lance giving you Lion training and Keith giving you battle training.

Depending on which training you like more is who you're closest to.

This kind of rivalry isn't entirely violent it's more just competitive.

Their obsession just starts as who can train you better.

When you get closer to them that's when it swaps to something a bit more than competitive.

The two trust each other but they get jealous.

Lance gets more jealous than Keith.

Keith didn't have to step in...

He could've taught you battle tactics and Lion techniques alone!

Keith thinks Lance is being petty as usual, but secretly wishes he could train you alone too.

Paladins need constant training, when the two do train together it's harsher than normal.

It's like they're trying to one-up each other and it's almost always Lance instigating it.

Lance tries to make the whole rivalry all about impressing you.

Keith hates that you make Lance give into past behavior and wishes the Red Paladin would get ahold of himself around you.

Keith's much calmer as a leader, more stoic even.

He gives into his protective behavior when you're threatened.

In fact, your safety is the one thing that makes them work together and drop the rivalry momentarily.

What kind of teacher would either of them be if they allowed you to be hurt?

In this scenario they aren't really the kidnapping type of yandere.

They are sometimes violent but keep their composure around you.

Pidge and Hunk admit they fight and are competitive with your attention, but tell you they mean well.

They both care for you, platonic or romantic.

They'll work together when they need to.

They'd both be controlling at times, unfortunately.

Lance manipulates you into staying with him longer by using training as an excuse.

Keith is... uh... busy! So, Lance needs to train you in battle now!

Keith finds this irritating.

Keith uses his role of leader to get payback by giving Lance another task instead of training, allowing Keith to help you with your Lion.

Which pisses off Lance.

They may fight but they can work together when it's needed.

They applaud you when you're able to form Voltron for the first time with them

They both know with their training, you'll be a good edition to Team Voltron and defend the universe alongside them both.

Even if they do fight over your attention behind the scenes.

#yandere voltron legendary defender #yandere voltron #yandere lance #yandere keith #blue paladin darling au #black paladin keith au #red paladin lance au

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artilaz · 25 days

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OC Meme - Vharloth Zal'arin

(Baldur's Gate 3 version)

Tagged by: No one directly, but @ex-textura's gorgeous boy Ilztaufein inspired me to do this for yet another OC

Tagging: Everyone who wants to do it and hasn't been tagged directly!

B A S I C S

Full name: Vharloth Zal'arin. He chose the name for himself. He'd rather cut out his tongue than ever speak his birth name again, since he associates it with nothing but misery.

Gender: Cisgender male

Sexuality: Bisexual

Pronouns: He/him

Class: Oathbreaker Paladin

O T H E R

Birthplace: One of the greater cities in the Underdark, but I haven't decided on a specific one yet.

Job: None at the moment. Before his escape, he was being kept as a slave and gladiator.

Phobias: He bears an intense fear of seeing loved ones suffer or die, but since that fear isn't irrational, it's not quite a phobia.

Guilty pleasures: There's not much that brings him pleasure to begin with, but he doesn't feel guilty about anything that does.

Hobbies: He doesn't know himself well enough to have many real hobbies yet, but what he does know is that he enjoys singing - mostly where nobody else can hear it, though.

M O R A L S

Alignment: He still has to figure out where his free will will land him, but probably along the lines of chaotic good.

Sins: None of the classic deadly sins fully apply to him, but negative traits of his include jealousy, apathy/reluctance, as well as a tendency towards judgmentalism, all of which he's aware of, and actively trying to overcome.

Virtues: Patience, tenacity/resilience, hope, and the willingness to learn and improve

T H I S O R T H A T

Introvert / Extrovert

Organized / Disorganized

Close-minded / Open-minded

Calm / Anxious / Restless

Disagreeable / Agreeable / In between

Cautious / Reckless / In between - strongly depending on the given situation, and whether or not there are lives at stake other than his own

Patient / Impatient / In between

Outspoken / Reserved / In between

Leader / Follower / Flexible

Empathetic / Unempathetic / In between

Optimist / Pessimist / Realist - not quite applicable. His past has left him with a pessimistic streak, but he's actively working on getting rid of that, forcing himself into a more hopeful mindset.

Traditional / Modern / In between

Hard-working / Lazy

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

OTP: None so far

Acceptable Ships: Vharloth x Halsin. They're not an absolute OTP, but they'd work nicely together, at least from Vharl's point of view. Halsin's grounded, wise, and kind nature is something he'd feel himself strongly drawn to. Maybe even Vharloth x Astarion. I don't think they'd last for very long, but they could bond over some of their past trauma, and misinterpret their understanding of each other's emotions as romantic feelings.

OT3: Vharloth x Halsin x Lythia (another OC of mine). Lythia is a young half-elf, her father being Aozhan, my main OC. She's sweet, gentle, kind, accepting, and has a strong heart. Halsin and Lythia are the actual OTP here, but since they've agreed to let each other roam if they wish, and since they've both got elven blood, I can also see them with Vharl.

Brotp: Vharloth x Karlach. Vharlach, if you will. Vharl gravitates towards people with a positive mindset, since he himself is actively fighting to allow optimism into his own life, so he'd probably enjoy spending time with her. There wouldn't be romantic feelings from his side, though, since he only feels those towards other elves or half-elves.

Notp: Probably a good few, but the most obvious one is Vharloth x Minthara. Being not only a female drow, but also a Paladin of Lolth just like he himself used to be, he'd be terrified that she'd make an attempt to take him back to the Underdark and have him punished for his insubordination, to a point he'd refuse to stay with the group if she was part of it.

B A C K S T O R Y

I don't have his full story developed, but here have some facts about him that I do know for sure - in no particular order.

He's the firstborn child of a rather well-respected family, but not of noble background.

He used to have a younger sister. She was his everything, but she was killed during an attack at a social event hosted by one of the high houses, which he was also present at. His parents never forgave him for failing to save her, and neither did he.

After those events, he was pretty much disowned by his family, and eventually ended up enslaved under another matriarch.

"His one redeeming quality," as his parents often stated, was that he was talented with the sword, which led to his mistress sending him into coliseum fights for the upper class's entertainment, and eventually he was encouraged to swear the Oath to Lolth. He didn't keep it out of true conviction though, but for the fear of consequences.

For almost his entire life, he's secretly dreamed of a life on the surface. The only person he ever told about this was his sister, whom he used to have a close bond to.

Having made it to the surface now, he's in a strange mental place, having bouts ranging from internal emptiness, to radical longing for any sort of experience for experience's sake.

A quote of his is: "I'd rather go blind from seeing the sun just once, than never getting to see it."

At some point in the future, he will renew his oath, but this time he'll swear it to Lathander, and this time, he'll mean it.

#Tristan talks #My OCs #OC meme #Vharloth Zal'arin #He's my edgy trauma baby #In the middle of his character development arc #And I love him to pieces

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gardenofchrome · 7 months

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Wild Flowers [Voltron]

Voltron Paladins x gender neutral Altean reader

Whereamiwhyisitsocoldwhereis--

You open your eyes, quickly closing them due to the bright light outside of the pod.

"Um, guys," a panicked voice says from outside. "They're waking up!"

"Who's...who's there?" You croak, slowly sitting up.

"It's going to be alright," a gentler voice says from the outside. "You're safe here."

You open your eyes again, bracing yourself for the sudden pain, but instead coming face-to-face with a white-haired woman, her kind blue and lilac eyes staring back.

So naturally, you scream and throw your fist out weakly, still distorted.

The woman catches your fist. "Please, we mean you no harm."

You breath heavily, and pull your hand away. "Princess Allura? Is that really you?"

She smiles. "Yes, yes it is; and you're Altean! I thought me and Coran were the only two still living..."

You nod, rubbing at your E/C eyes, markings prominently displayed on your face. "The last thing I remember was being launched from an escape pod:" you freeze suddenly, bile building up at the back of your throat. "My family-- mom, dad,-- [sibling]--" you start sobbing, the shock that your home world was destroyed and family was dead finally hitting you full force.

Allura gently puts her hands on you, the paladins standing awkwardly around you two. "It's going to be alright," she said softly. "It was really hard for me when I first woke up too."

"H-how long ag-go was it," you say through shaky breaths.

Allura was silent for a few seconds. "10000."

"Hours? Day's?"

"Years. Altea was destroyed 10000 years ago."

You made a strange choking noise in the back of your throat. "I was asleep for that long?!"

"You have a lot to catch up on," she grasps your hand.

"Sooo... what's your name?" The boy clad in blue asks.

You look up at him with your red-rimmed eyes. "My name is Y/N of Altea. Who are you guys?"

"Lance," boy from before says, flashing you a bright white smile.

"Pidge," the one with short brown hair and rounded glasses says. "I'm the local tech support around here."

"I'm Hunk," a boy who was holding your arm to stabilize you says. "Main chef I guess? Anyways I'm glad that you're ok."

The one in a red jacket, who was standing the furthest away looks at you catiously. "Keith," he says bluntly.

Finally, the most mature looking out of the group steps forward. "My name is Takashi Shirogane; you can call me Shiro. I'm the Paladin of the Black Lion of Voltron."

"Voltron?" You hesitantly say. "But you guys aren't the paladins..."

Allura looked away from a split second. "Much has changed in the 10000 years that we were asleep. The paladins of old are gone; and these are the new chosen ones."

You try to stand up, Hunk and Allura helping. "Zarkon...the Galra..." you mutter.

Their expressions all become muddled- a mixture of anger and disgusted. "He is still well and alive," Allura tells you.

You grit your teeth. "But how?! He should be long dead."

"We don't know," Shiro says. "All that matters right now is protecting the planets that his warlords invade and taking him done."

You struggle forward. "How can I help?"

Allura blinks. "Sorry?"

"You heard me. How can I help?"

"You should probably rest," Lance says. "You can't even walk properly."

"I've already been resting for 10000 years."

Shrio's expression softens. "You should take it easy for now, you're still recovering."

"Just tell me," you say through your teeth. "I'll do anything if it means taking that bastard down."

Honestly I'm going to do a Part 2- maybe bonding with Hunk a little as y'all cook something together, or helping Pidge out with some tech. Not the best but I tried.

Happy one year to the account!

#voltron #oneshot #voltrononeshot #voltron legendary defender #vld #fanfic #keith kogane #lance mcclain #pidge holt #hunk voltron #allura #coran #foryou #altean #y/n #alteany/n

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asharaks · 3 months

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thinking about tia (for a change of pace) and like. the thing w tia is that their gender is subsumption — whatever their thing is, the thing that's consuming them (and killing them) — that's the thing that defines them. willingly and consciously. when they were bhaal's special little guy, they weren't using pronouns or a name because you don't need one to be an angel of death, or a prophet of the end, or the patron saint of murder. all you need is bloodthirst and devotion, and as bhaal's chosen that is all they were (and. worth noting. that was likely the happiest they've ever been) and their presentation matched that. bhaalist colours religious garb never letting the people around them forget that they are anything but their god's hand on earth.

after waking up on the nautiloid, they were pretty dissociated from their body and their presentation (covered in blood 24/7) and they dropped a lot of the ostentatious aspects, and obviously they're limited by the fact that they don't own anything at this point so it's whatever they found lying around, but they made it to the grove and found the tieflings and suddenly— they're a tiefling. everyone addresses them as a tiefling. the other tieflings greet them as kin, or something approximate; the druids greet them with disdain and hostility, and so tia Becomes A Tiefling with their whole stupid heart. and they're using they/them at this point because their body is in many ways just a broken weapon, and they've got things to think about other than gender, and because that's how other people are addressing them and they're going with it, and also because in their mind they are, at this point, one of the tieflings. they, plural — they, you and your people.

by act 2, they/them and the neutrality/inscrutability has become a kind of shield, just another layer of obfuscation between them and the world. they're starting to establish a place in the world that is theirs, made in their own shape, and that's bizarre and uncomfortable and in a lot of ways they'd like to hide from it, but that's not possible so they opt for making it (and themself) as inscrutable as possible. and, again, they're thinking about other things. at this point mostly wyll.

as time goes on, they adopt more and more of the vengeance paladin persona — doesn't matter that they broke their oath (first because they're in denial and later because it matters to them less) but they're still acting on those tenets, freer and more flexible now but still a believer in those principles. after the tieflings die and are imprisoned in the shadowcursed lands, that becomes a real anchorpoint for them. vengeance for my people, vengeance for us, vengeance for the black hole of their past.

and of course their relationship with wyll impacts it too — back and forth, and they struggle endlessly with their body — their blood wants to kill him and their god wants to kill him and so they want to kill him, and that battle against the Urge is as defining for them as anything else. they are in constant battle with themself, and they come to hate their body as the source of this conflict, and later as a gift from a god they love/hate, and they love their body as the thing that grants them freedom and the capacity to exist in the world and make their decisions, and of course wyll being present and attracted to them and loving them adds a whole new layer of complicated feeling there, because they do view their body as a separate entity from themself, while wyll sees them as a whole. and through act 3 it's this learning to reconcile their physical self with their mental self that helps heal some of the fractured self image — reclaiming their agency by making their specific choices, even when it's painful, and after the temple of bhaal there's definitely a fear there that withers will take advantage of their body the way bhaal did, but also. unexpectedly. they're glad not to be dead. and they're glad they're in this body, and they like that wyll likes it. because at this point they're completely devoted to him because they can't be normal and love things a normal amount. and it's a thing for them that wyll, specifically, is their romance option — because they'll never compete with the People Of The Sword Coast as a concept, to him, because they'll always be the hand of bhaal and he'll always be the blade of frontiers (or avernus) while he becomes the thing that they base their life around. because even after everything they're not capable of moderation when it comes to the way they love.

#(tia voice) my gender is Wyll's Partner:)#this is 800 words of stream of consciousness ramblings on gender. not apologising #this isn't even getting into the Things It Did To Their Brain when they found out their body was literally made by bhaal #tiavyn

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warabola · 2 months

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26 and D for the ask game?

Uncommon OC Questions!

What is their preferred mode of transportation?

The Intemperate Director adapts based on their needs, but they really love any kind of transport in all honesty. I posted a while back that they're most at home on things like ships, trains, and eventually the locomotives from Sunless Skies. Funnily enough, most of the timelines where they are more honestly themself, they tend to have an identity associated with travel (train robbery if Nemesis hadn't happened, Captain in SSeas, The Late Conductor in Sskies, and the Railway Director now). So short answer, probably trains, but won't shy from a high speed chase on the back of anything.

The Silvered Assistant prefers walking! Yes, sometimes that means walking through a mirror to take a 5th dimensional shortcut, but it still counts. That said, she seems to have quite the fondness for Khaghanian ships:

Including one that no longer flies:

The Heedless Novice is, unsurprisingly, more concerned with style and reputation than the actual mode of transport.

Despite her transformation, she despises flying. Lessons with Mr Veils are her least favourite.

The Indefatigable Doctor is part of zub club :) Love zub club :)

D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?

Ooh, tricky question! Technically yes!

A lot of my characters come from previous AUs, with me putting them in a fun new enclosure (Victorian London) to see how they'd turn out. I've discussed briefly before that The Silvered Assistant was a DnD character before, and also has a MtG AU, so she looks much different than she would have as a moon elf. But little known fact is that Avci and Viva were also from a similar universe, and Avci in particular has much different gender expression depending on what their upbringing was like. They were a more femme presenting paladin back then.

Within Fallen London however, I'd say the only one with normal changes would have been the Assistant, who was at one point your typical scrappy urchin:

From this to -> this

She was My Fair Lady'd into what she is today, but has a similar appearance in Parabola with shorter hair and a less typical Victorian-era look.

Besides that, The Director is a Fractionist Licentiate, which involves some... questionably mutable identity as they even become their victims in order to truly understand how they are to die. But I assume Cabinet Noir type identities don't count.

#ask games #ty for the ask! i rambled.#the director #the silvered assistant #the heedless novice #the indefatigable doctor

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razzberrydazz · 4 months

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📌Pinned post📌

Call me Razz!

This blog may contain adult-themed content at times, viewer discretion advised 🔞

I strive to be a safe space for trans people, aro and ace people, and neurodivergent people! I am here for gender fuckery and silliness and T4T relationships and toxic yuri!

This is NOT a safe space for bio-essentialists, zionists, TERFs, aphobes, or anti-vaxxers! I'm apt to block those who attempt to argue or simply annoy me. I deal with enough draining conversations irl, I'm not here to deal with it on my blog.

Only free range cage-free home grown art and writing and voices here! I like my shitposts all organic made by a real person! Keep that grubby slimy stealing scraping database software away from my work!

My Ao3 (some of it is Explicit🔞)

My Bluesky (also may be Explicit🔞)

My tags

My art

My writing

My rambles

Main OCs

Tiffany - originally a D&D NPC in my first homebrew campaign (Heart of Atlantis my beloved), then I grew to love her too much to leave her be.

Tiffany Mereign, ie Tiff, ie Theophania Athaliah Wilhelmina Fen’U-darah Mereign the Third, Queen of Atlantis, formerly Empress of the Atlantean Empire (now dissolved). Sea elf royalty, born on December 27th 1049ce, took the throne with her father as Regent in 1087ce after the assassination of her mother Larethire II. She fully took the crown and throne in 1139-1140ce after killing her father Elias for his numerous crimes.

The D&D campaign Tiff first appeared in took place in 1139-40 where the player character party helped Tiff revive a dead goddess and use her and another dead god's power to kill the usurper king Elias and end a war that threatened their people. Said goddess cursed Tiff to die a thousand deaths (not by her own hand) before she can finally rest, all because Tiff rejected the offer of ascension to godhood.

Rana - Ranarox La'Rouge, originally started as a Haunted One Bard/Rogue PC in a Curse of Strahd campaign, then got repurposed and fleshed out as my Dark Urge OC for Baldur's Gate 3. Raised in a circus and wooed by every pretty face they see, Rana does everything in their power to fend off the Red that swirls around their vision that brings the Urge to kill. If their eyes turn red and you are within melee range, it is already too late for you to run away.

Ina - (Belongs to my friend Poe, I just happen to be obsessed with her and am the leader of Ina's fanclub) Ina the Kobold is a chaos entity, a zealous oath of glory paladin devoted to a deified Hatsune Miku. She came into existence after my friend rolled up a completely randomized character for a D&D game, and quickly speared her way into my heart with her wacky antics and hilarious zeal for murder.

A little known tidbit about Ina is that she's a sleeper agent, Ina is not her full name. Her true name is Ignition, which is the trigger word to temporarily switch her from chaotic stupid kobold to calculated smart dragonborn. Her Ignition alter ego is scarily competent compared to Ina. She was created in a secret magical experiment and hatched from an irradiated dragonborn egg. Ignition voluntarily switches back into Ina the minute whatever mission or danger she was dealing with is complete, as Ina takes far less mental energy to exist as.

Erinyes - My demonsona as it were, a self insert that morphed kind of into their own entity. They're a cheese-loving fury demon called Erin-yes. I often use them as a chaotic mini-me, and a personification of my silliness and rage. Sometimes I'll shove them into things with varied success. In D&D they'd be a tiefling or cambion as a player character, but as an NPC they've appeared as a literal erinyes devil that tried to sell cheese to the players and tormented them at various points.

Claire - My rage-filled half-drow religiously traumatized cleric. She was raised in a cult to a goddess that stole the name of other gods - Adrestia Andraste, the Lady in White, a homebrew drow goddess of death. Her drow mother was the high priestess, and in order to become the next high priestess, Claire had to kill her mother in a ritual battle. She walked over enchanted coals and was baptized in holy fire to become the next high priestess of the cult, and doing so made her fireproof to everything but her own goddess's flames. On her back they etched an intricate tattoo that brands her as her goddess's chosen, which also allows her goddess to cause her searing pain when she does something she doesn't like. A proverbial shock collar.

Claire is bitter and jaded and tries to escape the cult many times, and eventually discovers the truth of her goddess's identity theft and devotes herself to the goddess's sister Lotte (the victim of the identity theft) instead. Lotte is a drow goddess of fate, death, and magic, and gives Claire the power to mend and tear the weave of magic. Claire is a chosen of both goddesses, one willingly, one unwillingly, and her mission is to break her ties to the Lady in White for good.

Frownless - Ah my favorite eldritch edgelord. Frownless, also called The Frownless or Freddie the Frownless, is a shapeshifter known as a shadowless - he doesn't cast a shadow on the ground. Shadowless are akin to eldritch changelings that are descendants of fallen angels exiled to a demiplane. They appear as orange-tinged red haired elvish people with four yellow eyes.

Frownless in particular is a notable specimen as he got exiled for killing his cousin in a fit of rage, then made a name for himself as an assassin and overall nuisance. He actually was hired by Tiff's father to kill her but he failed miserably and ended up working for her in a weird toxic relationship instead. He tried dropping a chandelier on her and missed. He loves catfishing people since he's a shapeshifter. I love using him as a punching bag.

OT - My old self insert that morphed into their own entity. This one in particular became tied to their dragon age elf iteration as my main Inquisitor Lavellan. OT is a dalish mage Inquisitor and lover of Josephine Montilyet. Originally I named her Overtaker as a funny play on Undertaker, and then I shortened it to OT for brevity, and even made it stand for different names involving the initials O and T. I even used her the first time I every played D&D in a oneshot where she ended up dying via magic item enchanted to cast power word kill!

I have a lot of OCs but only a few I routinely use, which as of making this post consist of the above. Other OCs include Lyn, Vrei'Dara, Billie, Domi, Inanna, Dela, Johanna, Jorster, Francis, Lotte, Minaeve, Jamboree, Riff, Kestrel, Grimshaw, Veronica, Atlantea, and many others.

Others TBA

Anyways enjoy my blog I guess? I'm so wordy at times, I know this is a whole ass wall of text to scroll through. You get an appreciative pat on the shoulder for reading through all this.

#pinned post #razzberry rambles #razz rambles

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utilitycaster · 2 years

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Opinions on the subclasses that are frequently called OP or broken? I'm having a great time with my Twilight Cleric, but they're definitely stronger than my Crown Paladin.

This is a long ranting answer but in short I think that 99% of people using the terms "OP" or "broken" use them inappropriately or incorrectly.

So here's the thing: I think video essays are largely garbage and most people who make them should be fired directly into the sun, and I rarely watch them. As such I mostly hear "this is OP" from people asking me if something is OP, either because they genuinely want to know my opinion (good) or because they want me to say yes and they will throw a big old tantrum in my inbox (bad). On the occasions where they provide a source it is always someone on YouTube who wasn't getting enough clicks so he (technically people of any gender can do this but in practice it's always some prematurely bald white dude with glasses who looks like some kind of contemporary art installation entitled "mansplainers: a composite") decided to blurt out "THIS CLASS IS OP" for attention. And then people come to me to be like "is it?" And I'm just like. this man is clearly an idiot.

"Stronger" or "OP" or "broken" are all entirely subjective and contextual terms, and "broken" specifically sometimes refers to "too powerful" and sometimes refers to "beast master ranger". They are meaningless unless you have defined very specific parameters. This is also, I should note, why any out-of-context ranking of classes in terms of how powerful they are is equally meaningless.

Now. One can compare apples and oranges, and so too can one compare clerics and paladins, but you need to be far more specific than "stronger". A cleric will have a much wider-ranging spell list, cantrips, and can prepare more spells and have access to higher spell slots. On the other hand, a paladin will have a pool of extra healing and superior melee attack capabilities, is almost certainly a better tank, has various auras to buff saving throws, and will likely do far more damage per hit (and most builds will not have cantrip access). This is simply a fact of how these classes are built even without subclasses.

If your criteria for "stronger" include "has access to 6th level spells at some point" a cleric will always be stronger than a paladin. If your criteria for "stronger" include "gets two weapon attacks" then a paladin will be stronger than a cleric. Again, subclass doesn't enter into it.

So: when people call something overpowered you need to know why it's overpowered by what specific criteria, because on some level the entire premise of D&D is "your characters are really cool and can do special things because of who they are and how they have trained". The list of what gets called OP has always, to me, seemed totally arbitrary and largely based not in an understanding of D&D or encounter/class balance but rather a knee-jerk resistance to change (or, even more cynically, a calculated choice to capitalize on buzz surrounding new sourcebooks by claiming what's in them is too powerful). I also find it to be entirely inconsistent and irrational; purely utility-based skills (eg: the Chronurgist Arcane Abeyance) will be called out for being horrifically overpowered and then classes and subclasses that prioritize utility over damage (most bards, most rangers, undying warlocks, etc) are flagged as underpowered. The standard for "powerful" is often "does lots of damage" until it's suddenly not and there's no logic to when those standards change, because it's mostly an excuse for people to try to get attention on Twitter.

Twilight Cleric is really good though, I'll give you that.

#d&d mechanics

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aristocraticelegance · 1 year

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2022 Reading

Read: 51 books / DNF: 10

Top reads: The Bone Ship's Wake, R.J. Barker; Before They are Hanged, Joe Abercrombie; The Interview with the Vampire, Ann Rice (yes I'd never read this before); Under Fortunate Stars, Ren Hutchings; The Body Scout, Lincoln Michael; The Bayern Agenda/The Aleph Extraction, Dan Moren

Completely obsessed:

The Curse of Chalion/Paladin of Souls/The Hallowed Hunt, Lois McMaster Bujold: I am pretty bad at reading trologies/series in a timely fashion, but I pretty much inhaled these. They're a perfect example of fantasy writing that draws from history, rather than the sort of Fake Middle Ages that usually serves as the basis for secondary world fantasy.

The Bewitchments of Love and Hate, Storm Constantine: Second in the Wraethu trilogy. Ok, here's the thing: I'm OBSESSED with these books. Are they any good? I could not tell you. They answer the question nobody asked, i.e., what if, by means of Aleister Crowley-style occult magic, some humans created a new, magic species of human, who are, for obvious reasons, hermaphroditic bishonen. What of this story was set against the backdrop of a combination Mad Max apocalyptic landscape and some kind of 80's goth music video fever dream? What if, for Reasons, every chapter started like this:

I need someone else to read these books. I need someone who was an adult goth in the 80s when they were published to explain them to me.

Honorable Mentions: The Elric Saga, Michael Moorcock; Trouble on Triton, Samuel R. Delaney; Revelation Space, Alastair Reynolds; Byzantine Intersectionality: Sexuality, Gender, and Race in the Middle Ages, Roland Betancourt

#seriously read Wraethu #The first one is called The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit #books #reading #fantasy #sci-fi #2022

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mschloevalentine · 3 months

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Been writing a new character recently (partly via RP) and just- They give me so much euphoria, I can't even begin to explain.

Okay well actually, I can begin to explain. So you know how some people have characters that they play/write who give them Gender Euphoria? Well this character gives me a kind of... Autistic Euphoria. It's just so satisfying to be able to play them and sit comfortably in their body and embrace all of their weirdness.

Their name is Sir Westlyn Arnault- Also known as West, also known as Wes, they're a Knight/Paladin who is famously skilled and powerful but also famously... Simply very strange. Their constant silence and staring, their apparent emotionlessness, how they never ever seem to remove their armor and especially not their helmet, and many other odd behaviors have left people sometimes referring to them as 'The Strange Knight'.

But at the same time, people respect them. Because they are a powerful warrior, and a highly analytical tactical master. What they lack in social skills they make up for in battle training. They're extra observant and process information quickly, and can come up with a battle plan in a matter of mere moments, analyzing the weak spots and 'stats' of their enemies and adjusting accordingly.

Their fame actually even results in plenty of fair maidens flirting with them- They're just far too oblivious to pick up on any of the signals.

Also, their backstory is pretty simple. When still a young baby girl, they were orphaned, and the Order of Knights tasked a more mature Knight among them to go seek a person willing to adopt the child. But the child was strange, never crying and always staring. Even as it grew. People may have had her months at a time, but eventually grew too unnerved or intolerant towards her- Stating that she was cursed, a changeling child, and the like.

So the Knight who had been tasked with finding her a home adopted her instead, and she was raised in the Knights Academy, almost entirely amongst men. She was still strange, and treated as such, but the young Knights were trained with chivalry in mind, and mostly looked to her with respect, especially since her adoptive father was one of the more revered Knights in the Academy.

It wasn't long before they just began to be treated much like the boys and the men who surrounded them. They trained in swordfighting, tactics, they attended classes on history and chivalry, language and mathematics...

In their youth they ended up in a lot of fights due to their strange behavior, but they eventually learned how to manage themselves. They're lucky that their Father was tolerant towards their strangeness, and willing to work through it with them so that they could get by in the world. One of the things he taught them was to repeat lessons and tenets to themselves, a form of comforting stim that wasn't too intrusive, and also helped remind them to be chivalrous and virtuous.

Eventually, as they grew older, they showed more and more skill in battle, and their iron-clad grip on the ways of chivalry and the virtuous oaths resulted in them being regarded as a prodigy, and not long later, they were Knighted.

Most people by then knew them as Male, Sir West Arnault. They spoke in a masculine way (on the rare occasions people heard them speak) and they never removed their helm, so most people simply assumed. They were most comfortable with their helm now. Partly because of the comfort that sturdy armor brought them. And partly because it didn't draw attention to the fact they were apparently a woman. Because it hid away the features people always said were dead, empty, expressionless. It hid them away from prying, judging eyes that would question their very existence if they knew what was beneath the armor.

So most people know Sir West Arnault as the Virtuous Knight, who exemplifies their Oaths, even though they are a strange and apparently antisocial person. A Knight who rarely speaks and occasionally does strange things, or who stares far too long. A Knight who is revered in skill but a mystery outside of the battlefield. Who maidens swoon for but never get a chance to learn the truth about.

...

I just think West is a cool character. They have a weird relationship with gender (He/They/She Pronouns, by the way) and I play them as unabashedly neurodivergent and write them using my own experiences being an autistic adhd mess. And I can write them without excuses, I can write them without toning them down- They're simply my chance to be an autistic character who is successful and respected.

And what's more is the setting I've been roleplaying them in is a darkish-fantasy type setting, so there's no excuses of 'High, Bright Fantasy' being the only reason the character works with their neurodivergence. Their setting isn't all grimdark, of course, but it definitely has some Dark Souls-inspiration to it which I enjoy. And they get to be a cool silent protagonist with that dash of neurodivergency that makes me feel comfortable playing them...

Oh, also, in terms of physical appearance, I haven't completely fleshed them out yet, particularly because they wear their armor so much, but I have ideas in mind. For one, their armor and their sword have some slight Eagle symbology- feathered wing designs for the crossguard of their longsword and part of their helmet. They wear mostly blue cloth alongside their armor. And they're a bit tall, at 192 cm exactly. Beneath the helmet and armor is a scarred female body, some traits I've noted so far are Short, Black, Curly Hair that gets in the way of their eyes, and a diagonal scar along the left side of their lips and down their chin. I imagine their face has a few more scars, but I haven't decided on any more just yet. I'm thinking about maybe leaning a bit more into that eagle symbology for them by giving them a tattoo of feathered wings on their back- Perhaps?

Oh, also, in terms of sexual/romantic preference... I'd say Sapphic, most likely, almost exclusively interested in women. (Though other masculine women wouldn't be off the table.) Maybe also Demisexual, because I can make as many of my characters Demi as I want and you bitches can't stop me. (But also because it makes sense considering they are so uncomfortable without their armor, so they'd really need to trust a person before doing anything of that sort.)

Anyways. Thank you for tuning in to another irregular episode of 'Chloe rambles about a character for way longer than should be appropriate for a Tumblr Post', I'll see y'all next time.

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radio-charlie · 5 months

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It would probably help women more if it is seen as inevitable that certain segments of society end up with misogynist beliefs, and that no two misogynies are the same. Instead of vouching for a rubric and corresponding mode of punishment that will further polarise society and leave a whole bunch of people nuts or dead, lol.

I'm gonna be real with you all? Because I don't really give two shits who cancels, who doesn't cancel, who wants to cut ties or distance themselves or whatever. You are probably yourself a misogynist. A lot of so called social justice paladins here who bang the gong about women oppression all day every day are misogynists. You just choose to say the right things for approval and never examine why it is that you have all these ugly little voices in your head to shut up so you can remember what the most acceptable thing to say is.

I've worked with a women's rights org, have spoken and also worked with local feminists on other things. I don't know why we think the world is split so neatly into Men Who Say Mean Thing About Women and then everybody else. Some of the things social workers say would make you cry into your gender neutral coffee mug. But they don't say that stuff because they blunt-force-trauma hate women, or think they're inferior to men. They say it from places of resentment and bitterness, because frankly there's no one shittier to women than other women. It might be misogyny regardless, but it's a wee bit different from the kind your stereotypical sheltered narcissistic cishet dude harbors for a demographic he's never dealt with as human beings. And so it requires a different set of tactics to tackle. It requires consideration of the unique context in which women experience cruelty from other women.

It's 2023 and the social justice culture I see prevailing in these popular online spaces is still so stupid. Nobody needs to sabotage you. You do it so well all by yourself.

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vodoriga-art · 2 years

Note

Can you tell us more about your scourge assimar? I am absolutely invested, he has such an interesting and unique design

Of course 🥺🖤

✦ His full name is Karim yn Mahtab al Kelemvor yi Sheirlantar. (Calishite naming conventions...) He refers to most if not all people including close friends with at least their full first and last name, adding their titles and place of origin etc. if known. He's 25-26 y.o. I’d say he’s more lawful neutral than neutral good.

✦ He's male in the sense that it's his assigned gender and he refers to himself as such but ultimately gender doesn’t matter to him, he views himself not so much as a person, but as a tool or instrument of god(s) to be directed by his celestial guide, almost as a construct with one singular purpose.

✦ He was born in Sheirlantar to two human mothers - Mahtab works as an embalmer and some other things related to burials or funerals, Azam is a carpenter or woodcarver of some sort. They're a happy healthy family.

✦ Him not being human was evident immediately (unnatural eyes, echoing voice when yelling/crying). He was never given special treatment or anything for being aasimar, but with all the clergy in the city he knew he was different and in what way.

✦ Kelemvor is the civic deity of Sheirlantar so that's always been Karim's religious focus. He's not the kind of person to sit and study to be a priest or cleric (can't focus on reading..), but he picked up a blade early to help with the undead and necromancers that plague the area due to numerous old tombs in the city and surrounding mountains.

✦ He's very soft spoken, loves art, poetry, music, flowers, all beautiful things. He enjoys whittling as a form of meditation and he’s decent at it.

✦ He holds himself and sometimes moves in a weird way, and his proportions are not quite human (his torso and limbs are oddly elongated and at first glance he just seems tall and lanky but when you look hard it can be a little uncanny valley) and he's not a very elegant warrior (think Gael or Artorias from DS), especially when raging. He has a penchant for decapitations but in the heat of battle he’s more likely to stomp someone than give them a clean death.

✦ He has prayers, angels and such tattooed on his body, he paints his nails, and wears kohl eyeliner.

✦ The worst of his facial scarring is the result of an incident when he was about 20 years old. He wears radiance burn scars as proof of god working through him, and he sometimes lets the radiance burn him further while meditating (at a safe distance from everyone and everything of course).

✦ I often draw him with it but he doesn’t really have a halo. You might see a glimpse of it when he’s transformed and raging - like flames licking up an invisible disc or several behind him

✦ The mask he wears has a dual purpose - to cover up scarring (doesn’t want to make people uncomfortable), and to further diminish his identity as anything other than a servant and tool of Kelemvor (the mask is modeled after a statue of the god). His face isn’t very expressive anyway so it’s not like a mask has a major impact on his communication of emotion.

✦ He reveres priests, clerics, paladins, and all people who serve gods to the point where he could easily be manipulated by such a person, or someone merely claiming to be one.

✦ He has a playlist and a pinterest board.

#pretty sure sheirlantar doesn't exist since 4e but i'm going to ignore that.#i’m not going to pretend his appearance isn’t inspired by the Leper from DD / king Baldwin IV / soulsborne #but i’m working on making his design more unique #asks #not art #karim #he's a weird little creature man and i want to see someone make him worse

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spinnitegaming · 2 years

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Fantasy Life (Part 1) - Welcome to Reveria!

Hello and welcome again to my Fantasy Life playthrough! In case you missed it, I'm going to blog on my experience with my favorite, but underrated 3DS game of all time other than Pokemon. You can visit this link to learn more, but other than that, let's start the game!

So do you remember some videos and yourself on how you were stuck on the character creation screen on Final Fantasy 14 Online?

The same thing happened to me with this game! I spent a minute trying to match my character with my online persona, even trying to rely on Fantasy Online avatar so I could get the hair and voice right! Thankfully, choosing a Life was less tedious because the game lets me change it in the middle of the gameplay, so I decided to choose the very same first Life I chose on FLO, which was Paladin.

(Honestly, this is the easiest part of FL's character creation.)

As I mentioned, Life is another name for vocations and job classes in Fantasy Life. So if I mention Life or Lives, I might be talking about job classes or vocations in the game. Or probably the ones my Pokemon have that I'm trying to keep in my current FireRed Nuzlocke at this time of the post.

One small tip if you're planning to play Fantasy Life and Fantasy Life Online yourself: Always start with a Combat Life!

There are three types of Lives: Combat, Gathering, and Crafting. Combat for fighting, Gathering for gathering items. Crafting for...crafting stuff. But it's best if you start with Combat Life if you're starting the game. That way, you can learn how to fight quicker and gather items quicker from monsters. You can choose Gathering first if you want, but I don't recommend Crafting as your first unless you want to die because your only skill is cooking.

And a small spoiler alert for the DLC, but it's mainly gameplay spoilers. Later on in the post-game, I can change my character's appearance with an item. Unfortunately, the only downside is that I can't change my character's name and gender, which is understandable. I don't mind with the female clothing (which according to TV Tropes, female clothing has a lot of them, including the endgame gear), but I may play in a second save file, which I obviously can’t record on my blog due to redundancy, much preferably based on my certain favorite Pokemon Professor. (*coughs* Fanfic Foreshadowing! *coughs*)

But anyway, I named my new character "Spin" (because of character limitations) and started the new game.

(Click "Keep Reading" for the full playthrough post!)

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After I fell from my bed and woke up on the floor, my kind landlord, Pam came up to check on me and reminded me of my audience with the king of Castele for my first day as a new Paladin recruit. After I got my royal letter from a postman with a surprisingly good backhand, he directed me to the Guild Office where I could get my Paladin license and gave me her candy as she wished me luck.

Once I got my Paladin license, I heard a disturbance outside the office. I checked it out and saw a strange talking butterfly being harassed by two goofy guys. I know it was strange to see a talking butterfly, but I decided to ignore it and head to the castle.

That was until one of them suggested selling her for Dosh.

(...They're dead.)

Being protective of strange animals and who is against trafficking, I confronted the goofy guys with a knife. But they just grabbed me, shook me down like a ragdoll, and grabbed Pam's Candy from my pockets because I'm Doshless.

(Disclaimer: Most of it I've mentioned in the playthrough didn't really happen in the game, but it's my playthrough and I'm a writer. At least give me a chance to tell my version of FL's story!)

(BTW, had to add this god-tier line.)

After my attempt to rescue the butterfly ended in embarrassment, she thanked me for standing up and this was the part I started to like her and not think of her as a Navi wannabe.

BURN!!!

After we said our farewells, I headed to the castle to get started on my new Life. Unfortunately, the Paladins seemed to miss the memo and just denied me on the grounds that I didn't follow the castle's dress code and commented that I looked like I got out of my bed.

(But I just got out of bed!)

I left in defeat. But then, I saw the talking butterfly again, who also got denied because insects weren't allowed in the castle, which was a bit understandable, but still...

When we meet up again, we decided to go stealthy and let her disguised as my bowtie to get through the Paladins. Although I think it might have worked a bit too much.

Other than that, we finally made an audience to the king of Castele, Erik. Who for some reason looked like he's the Queen's child. After a long speech which I seemed to be the only one who was up, King Erik gave me 300 Dosh and a World Map to help me start my Life along with a Paladin armor.

(Even I'm shocked about it myself...)

With that done, the butterfly and I decided to part ways yet again. However, it kind of stings a bit on my itty-bitty heart. She wasn't like any Navi wannabes I know and she has the guts to insult those goofy guys before. But then, she suggested she want to stay on my neck and I quickly said yes. So welcome to the team, Butterfly!

(I agree!)

Although, calling her "Butterfly" might be a bit too long for me, so for the sake of my sanity, I'll just call her Flutter, which was her English name in the EU release.

After that, I headed to the Paladin Hold located near the castle where I met my Paladin Master, Captain Mustang, who had a big mustache and nose. He gave me a sword and shield to start with and my journey through Reveria has officially begun! But right after I start with the Paladin basics and rank up.

In Fantasy Life, you can get even stronger in any chosen Life by ranking up. You start out as a Novice rank where you spend the whole time learning the basics, getting to know your fellow characters related to it, and doing some big quest to rank up into your true first rank, Fledgling.

For my Paladin Novice quest, I got to learn the basics from my Paladin senpais, Roslyn and Isobel, namely how to use my sword without poking my eye out by accident. However, when we went to Porthos to help me learn how to wield my shield, he mentioned that something has happened in Appleseed Cafe and when he got there, the owner there told us that shipments of Castele Apples were delayed for some reason. I love Apple Juice next to grapes, mango, and orange, so we decided to investigate and stop a bunch of bandits before they took off with the bag of apples.

Turns out, the princess of the castle (who I forgot to mention went missing during my meeting with King Erik earlier) loved Apple Juice, too. And because of my bravery, I was promoted into a Fledging and officially the newest addition to the Paladins.

When I went home, I introduced Pam to my new friend, Flutter and agreed to let her stay with me as a roommate along with giving me a new chair. Keyword being "New" because all I got was an old beat-up chair. Great...

Eventually, I went to bed and my Fantasy Life has begun!

But the next day, I woke up on the floor again.

(Ow...)

After my rude awakening again, I decided to be Flutter's tour guide around Castele and showed her the Goddess Statue. There, we met an old man who told us the origins of Lives and the Life Goddess. Back before Reveria had Lives, the goddess came and helped create the world or something and even heard the wishes of the people. But it turned out that the goddess became a bit annoyed at hearing all of their wishes, that she decided to create Lives and shove it to their faces so they could shut up.

(Oh, wait. That's a bit of a rude retelling, was it? Let me try again.)

The goddess eventually succeeded in convincing people (in a civilized manner) to take a Life and because of that, she became a Life Goddess. However, the old man told us that lately, more people were wishing less, probably because they got what they wanted through hard work and sometimes, trickery and thievery. I'm a bit concerned about it, but Flutter won't stand for it for some reason and took it upon herself to collect wishes. I don't know why, though. But I applaud her determination.

She then asked for my wish, which was to become a writer. It's actually one of the choices prompted to me and honestly, that was my dream in real life and I would never change it for the better. Heck, I'm even living the dream just by doing this playthrough blog right now.

But back to the game, I toured her around the Guild Office where we learned how to switch Lives and multiplayer (which I doubt I can use for this playthrough) and the general store where I got some potion samples from the shopkeeper while Flutter tried them out by drinking most of them.

At this point, I should move forward to the story, but I decided to put it on hiatus so I could focus on trying out the other Lives. This is very important for my playthrough for what was to come. You have the option to skip the Novice tutorials, but I decided not to skip all of them for the sake of my playthrough. However, this is a bit long enough already, so I'll save them in the next post.

So join me next time as I take on all other 11 Lives in the game. It might be a long playthrough of tutorials.

I'll see you guys back in Reveria, probably tomorrow or so once I'm finished all of them. Stay safe and Happy Holidays!

#fantasy life 3ds #fantasy life #fantasy life playthrough #playthrough

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