#(the nuke level skills first)

[revelboo]

I send this upon you, to cash in at any time:

💣

Inbox Nuke. So you may close and do another inbox wipe should you so choose. No request or anything.

🤣 at this point, it’s morbid curiosity to see how bad it can get. I wish the inbox had a search feature, because it would definitely make my life easier. 🔞 🌶️

Cybertronian Relationship/Intimacy Headcanons

Let those Cybertronians make noises, delve into details and sensations, into the fact that they’re not human. They act human enough, their expressions so like our own, that they lull you into feeling comfortable and it’s easy to forget. The first time they growl when you’re touching them and it’s a vocalization underlaid with the rev of their engine. Hearing them rumbling with the soft click of their fan cycling on. Trying to climb in their lap and digging a knee into mesh inside a seam, both of you startling at the unexpected blare of their horn. A seeker getting too warm during and their turbines kicking on with a whine, if you have longer hair you look like a very small, benign tornado got you afterward.

The first time Ratchet, Red Alert, or Prowl get head, their lights and sirens go off. They’re mortified and you’re laughing too hard to keep going. The bots getting too warm during sex. Having to stop in the middle to hit the washracks and cool off because they’re not burning you, but your skin is flushed red from the contact and it’s uncomfortable. Trying to get some space from your bot after sex because they’re too hot and you’re sweating only to get dragged back into them because they want to cuddle. It’s like getting spooned by a space heater.

Pressure lines on your skin from the edges and seams of their plating when you lay on them. So many bruises on your hips and thighs. The ambient thrum of their spark sinking into you, getting so used to it that you can’t sleep without it. The random revs, whirs, and clicks of noise their internal systems make all the time becoming white noise after a while. The heat and breathless, electricity of their spark when you run your fingers through it. Feeling it pull at you, teasing yourself and them with every touch, bombarded with bits of them, emotions and memories sinking into you in little prickles until you want to drown yourself in it. In them. Wanting to lose yourself to them completely and feel them cradling you in warmth knowing you’re safe. Addicted to that sensation of being seen and accepted.

When they slip up and start murmuring sweet nothings in their own language. Confessing the things they’re too nervous to just say to you. The cultural misunderstandings. Innocent things to one partner confusing the other. Sharing a meal an act of intimacy for Cybertronians. Energon so scare that the act of giving their fuel or ration to another becomes an act of love. Giving up fuel that was hard to come by to make sure their partner had enough even if they go without. Driven to feed you because they need to take care of you, to prove you matter to them.

Elaborate or simple conjunx gifts made from bits of themselves to adorn you. Mostly made by themself, but sometimes they might ask for help for complicated designs beyond their skill level. A physical show of their commitment that should be given before bonding but might even be given before intimacy. If it’s not explained to you, it’s just a pretty bit of metal in your bot’s colors. And you can’t understand why your partner becomes irritated if you don’t wear it at all times, but the mech might be too embarrassed to explain why it’s not just jewelry. They also might just pinch the clasp closed to prevent you from removing it altogether to avoid explaining.

The shockingly, humbling intimacy of you riding in their alt mode. Of having someone inside them, touching parts of them that have never been touched. The reassuring warmth and barely there weight of you tucked inside them trusting yourself to them. Not understanding how big a deal it is, but the bot is losing it if you actually fall asleep inside them on a long ride, curling up in their seat. Trusting them completely.

Unconsciously pulsing or cycling their biolights for you trying so hard to telegraph what they want without just saying it. Almost coming undone at the feel of soft, human fingers tracing their biolights because they’re pretty and not understanding that you’re flirting back now. Human hands on wings, chevrons, and antenna. Just lazily exploring without realizing those are all so sensitive, loaded with sensory arrays and you might as well be caressing their modesty panel. Warm mouths on neck cables and mesh, biting softly, those blunt nails dipping into mesh between seams while your partner’s venting raggedly.

Being reluctant to pull out after, curling themself around you, your head tucked under their chin. Wanting more, wanting everything and unsure how to just ask instead of taking. Worrying in the quiet after if the differences between you both are insurmountable. If there’s no way to overcome them in the long run. Servos toying with soft hands, lazily playing with your fingers while you drowse against them. Not recharging even as your breathing evens out with sleep, kept up by their own worries. Knowing they’re not safe, that being with them when they’re actively at war puts you in danger and that the kind thing would be to let you go. And unable to, needing your warmth to fill out the empty places hollowed out by a millennia of fighting and death. Wanting to feel something real. Something that isn’t hate, anger, or fear. Wanting to be allowed this.

[talenlee]

3e: Backwards, on Rocket Skates

A few months ago I saw this artwork, on Tumblr, described as:

Deemed “impractical to the point of idiocy”, the “Wand Cannon” was later used to devastating effect against the very wizards that had dismissed it.

Art by Sketchbot9000

I, at the time, said something to the effect of ‘oh yeah, this is a thing you could do in 3rd edition.’

Let’s talk about it.

The conventional wisdom around 3rd Edition and D&D 3.5 was that the most powerful class available was the wizard. This is a pretty true thing, with a little asterisk next to it. For example, some interpretations of the rules allowed the Cerebromancer or Arcane Theurge to step into that spot, by taking the wizard shell and simply adding to it. Yes, the Cleric and the Druid were very, very powerful (because they could do everything), but the Wizard was very, very powerful because it could make everything about what it was capable of doing.

The Artificer, first appearing in the 3.5 book Eberron Campaign Setting, states that they engage with magic at a purer, higher level, because they could take any magical item, and influence that. And influence it they do, with a system of not-spells called infusions. Oh, they behave like spells and they did spell-like things, but they weren’t spells; they were interactions with the magical items of the universe that treated them as material things which could be made to follow rules. Which they were and that should work, so that’s very cool, but it still is a little funny that the rules say ‘An artificer is not a spellcaster, but they do follow all the rules for a spellcaster.’

The Artificer has a split spellcasting need; they need intelligence to determine their highest level of infusions available, and they need Charisma to drive the Use Magic Device skill that lets them use the magical items they’re messing with. This is the point at which the Artificer is about as reasonably normal as you might manage; the sort of concession that displacing the wizard can’t be done for free. The Artificer has its own reserve of special crafting XP, and what’s more, you can feed that reserve by breaking down other magical items into pieces. This means that you can turn the not-worth-the-effort-to-carry +1 swords of a gnoll ambush into a pile of XP that you can then turn into, say, wands.

And wands are important.

The doors come off when the Artificer hits level 6. That’s when Artificers get the ability to spend extra charges out of a spell-trigger item (like a wand) to apply a metamagic feat they know. Wands, by default, come with 50 charges for, say, a wand of a level 1 spell. Let’s take an example of a level 1 offensive spell, Ray of Enfeeblement. At 50 charges, this can be 50 uses of a level 1 spell that deals 1d6 strength damage, which is 50 of your actions to deal 50d6 strength damage. Or, because you have access to Spell Trigger Metamagic, the Artificer can instead empower it, then empower it to double its output —

You can apply metamagic feats multiple times, y’know —

and that means instead of 1d6, you’re getting 2d6 strength for 5 charges. And you choose how to apply these when you use the item. Which means hypothetically, for, say, a level 3 spell like Fireball (11,250 GP cost), you take the first, base charge, Heighten Metamagic to lift the spell level up to level 10 (9 charges) meaning the fireball now is a 10d6 blast, and that leaves you with 20 empowers – or, increase the damage by 10d6 10 times. An Artificer can take a single fireball wand and basically immediately snap it in half to do 110d6 damage, or ~385 damage, in an area, save for half. As an example, assuming everything saves all the time forever, that can instantly nuke multiple monsters of high challenge rating, like the Frost Worm (147 HP, CR 12), Cloud Giants (178 HP, CR 11), or the Death Slaad (142 HP, CR 13).

If you ever find a room full of Death Slaads, you can just wipe ’em all out in one action. Pretty cool. Of course, you’re not going to see that happen, but the thing is when you need this, this is an incredibly cool trick to have access to. Plus, that’s just _one _of your wands; when you have the feats and the skills, you can do this all the time, and you can just select a different single-target spell if you want to do something else. Consider that cannon from up above? Find the right metamagic feats and pump it through wands of the spell Shatter. One of my favourite tricks for an Artificer who wants to be an assassin is to use Quicken Spell and a Wand of Power Word Pain – free-action, hand-in-your-pocket _kill _most non-heroic NPCs, for the low low price of 40 GP.

Now this is a pretty extreme example, and not even the best spell for the purpose. It’s a demonstration of the process in the simplest form, using purely Players Handbook equipment. Spells that avoid spell resistance and don’t give saves are the most desireable. Metamagic feats that multiply effects — twin spell, quicken spell, elemental admixture — are really strong. Metamagic feats that change the relationship to time (like hi there, Persistent Spell) are really valuable, too.

A charge normally takes an action to get its effect. There are 50 charges in a wand which means that 1d6 strength damage wand can do hypothetically 50d6 strength damage. The problem with that is that that takes 50 actions. Turning those 50d6 over 5 full minutes into 10 free action shots using Quicken Spell is a lot more efficient use of your time, and at 50 charges for 750 GP, you can weigh up those prices. 15 GP per shot, vs 75 GP per shot — are these meaningful amounts of money? Would you spend 60 GP for an extra free action? Plus, the artificer can craft the wand themselves, using their craft reserve, which means that each of these wands is kinda half-price, _and _you’ll sometimes get random wands out of monsters and the like, picking up ammunition from the space around you and blasting your enemies with it.

This isn’t even about everything the Artificer can _do! _At level 10, they get the ability to do this with spell completion items (scrolls), and since a scroll doesn’t have charges, the Artificer gets to goose its level and improve the effect through a skill check, which is one of the easiest things for a player to goose really high! Being able to turn spells like say, Divine Power (a level 4 spell) into an instant cast buff (DC 44) or worse, persistent all day (DC 56) is just something they can do, and while you may think ‘hey those are high numbers,’ I want to remind you that Skill Bonus Items exist, and it’s _very _easy to pump those numbers up very high. This then means anything you can do to improve your Charisma or your skill in Use Magic Device is _incredibly _valuable. There’s even a feat that lets you can even take 10 on these checks if you’re not hurried, so you can’t even risk rolling badly!

Oh oh and this is just core too! Because there are other infusions that let you boost skills more, or infusions that let you apply metamagic feats _without spending more charges! _The Artificer has extra feat support! It has _items! _It has _wand loaders _in the expanded rulebooks! Imagine a forearm bracer, loaded with a bunch of free-swapping hot-pluggable wands! There’s even (craftable) magical items that let you ‘link’ wands together, meaning that if you jam 5 wands into it, instead of 5 wands of 50 charges, that can be treated as _one _wand of 250 charges, the mathematics of which I will leave as an exercise for the reader, but remember, you could get 110d6 out of a _single _wand of Fireball.

This was nominally to make sure you don’t wind up with wands with 1 or 2 charges left in them, but y’know, you can use one action to blow **all **those charges at once! Like, you know, the Wand Cannon up top!

It costs 56,250 GP to fire this cannon one time,

A long time ago I said that anything a cleric or wizard was capable of doing, the artificer could do earlier, backwards, on rocket skates. Everything I’ve been talking about here is an Artificer taking a big pile of money and slowly melting it to take the shape of a Wizard, doing the things the Wizard can do without spending that much money. They can get there earlier, they can overtake the wizard, but the wizard catches up and exceeds them, eventually.

But if you wanna make a big cannon out of wands? The Artificer gets that.

EDIT: Oh hey, the metamagic stacking was kicked out in 3.5 and I was mixing it up as a 3.0 rule! There are still ways to exploit the shit out of metamagic (and there are nuke options), but multi-empowering isn't an option.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[cerastes]

Any thoughts on stronghold protocol?

I think it's very fun and an excellent concept, but it needs fine tuning if they want to make it a permanent mode.

The concept is solid and I love it: Familiar units work differently because 1) of the auto-battler nature of it, where you set up everything and then let the game do its thing, especially important in this being the fact that skills activate based on effective auto attack range, and 2) there's no distinction between melee and ranged tile, and the maps are linear, simple rows that are designed around you having to necessarily meet the enemy yes or yes.

That in of itself is fun thanks to the variety of units and restrictions placed on the usual rules of engagement: You need to make sure your unit can actually activate their skill in a meaningful way, so you can't put Goldenglow or Laptop on the far back and global snipe, they won't activate unless an enemy enters their range. There's also a fun team-building aspect, more micro and immediate than Integrated Strategies, since you know what you'll be fighting from second 1 instead of having to gimmickproof your party in case of X or Y, with X or Y perhaps never happening in your run (ie: getting an Anti-Gopnik setup ASAP in IS3 if going for Last Knight ending). The items, cost opportunity, and ability to deploy doubles or make a strong Operator out of having three of them all make for a fun time, plus, every Operator costs 3 Coins no matter their Tier, meaning there's a very explicit incentive for you to upgrade your Supply Level ASAP so you can start getting those Tier VI Operators.

Now, what are the mode's weaknesses? Well, it's very hard to bounce back from a bad hand. If you just don't get something decent in the first 4 rounds, it's VERY hard to come back from that. You do have multiple lives and some rounds you just gotta lose and try again later, but if you didn't manage to win against an enemy, your odds are Very Bad for the next round because now they are even stronger while you may not increase in power significantly; Rerolling the shop is very cheap at 1 coin, which is encouraged until you can get a unit or item you can use, but at the same time, the deeper you go into the match, the more necessary it becomes to be able to make triples to get enhanced stats and free high rarity recruits, because Beagle can only tank for so long before she starts getting Bloodline of Combat'd out of existence in three attacks. In other words, RNG plays a huge, huge role, which is to be expected in a game mode that is as auto as its ever gotten in a game that has always had execution be involved in its endgame, but at the same time, it wouldn't kill to add some more consistency to your matches, such as the ability to spend perhaps 3-4 coins for a reroll that guarantees a Supply Level Tier recruit or a Supply Level -1 recruit, making it so you can pay a significantly more steep price in order to get something that's more likely to start paying dividends back when you are already on the back foot.

Now, this isn't an issue with Normal Mode, because that one isn't overtuned. It's Hard Mode (or Core Protocol) that really needs some fine tuning. I'm lenient on it because, well, it's literally the Hard Mode, it's meant to be hard and I want it to be more difficult, but there is a huge disparity in difficulty when it comes to the possible factions you are fighting: Hard Mode Sarkaz + Convicts is way, way easier than Hard Mode Sankta or Icefield + Anything. Sankta are insanely difficult, FAR more than any of the other factions in my opinion, with an enemy that's bulky, needs 4 block, and restocks Ammo to enemies that can use it meaning the Bomb Car Carts can produce infinite Bomb Cars to nuke the hell out of your composition, when they express counter to Bomb Cars is to not block them in the first place... Which is impossible due to the way the maps are built, as mentioned before. The way the HP scaling works, you'll never be able to meaningfully kill the Bomb Cars consistently before you get nuked, made all the more difficult by the Sankta units also including the Stun Crossbowmen from the Schwarz event and the freaking Lost Colossus from IS2 for some reason, so you are constantly eating long Stuns while you get Zerg Rushed by Bomb Cars that explode for lots of damage if blocked, or take Lives if they get past you, either because all your Block is already taken, or because your entire line is Stunned. Mind you, not even having two S3 Lumen is enough to take on this onslaught, as once you start actually blocking the Crossbows, they will stun their blocked, making for just too many units for Lumen to unstun, even when cloned. The only counterplay is literally to just have gotten a broken set up before this escalates. Which is... Kinda ass from a player experience perspective. I understand it's Hard Mode, but losing to the game not giving you the perfect storm of things you need, a very unlikely molotov cocktail of Operators and Items, to meaningfully play against this raw amount of units and crowd control, can be very frustrating. It's like I'm really playing late Overwatch 1 with all this crowd control.

In many ways, it's very reminiscent of SSS 1.0 where it was just very, very unfun because you could just get absolutely shafted by bad luck and Physical Damage was worthless. Unlike SSS 1.0, however, this is a temporary mode that they can refine and rebalance for an eventual permanent addition, which I think would be very, very fun. Overall, I love the game mode, and I hope they make it permanent. Right now, I think Hard Mode should be taken as something truly difficult, and Normal Mode for general play, because Hard Mode is pretty overtuned to the point where even factions that aren't the Evil Two, like Sarkaz, can completely shit over you with their Lifesteal guys, and if you get to Round 13 and have no counter to Mudrock, good fucking luck.

[three--rings]

So I am depressed by a spate of fansubbers pulling down their work, abandoning shows, gatekeeping access...

But IDK man maybe I'm old but the weird secret spy level hoops you have to jump through to access fansubs now is just weird to me. Like IDK imagine if fanfiction was like that. Yeah I'm doing this to share with other fans but first you have to prove you really want it bad enough to solve my riddles. And you don't appreciate it enough so I'm gonna take it down. Someone shared my work elsewhere so I'm not gonna translate anymore.

Like IDK is this about helping people access something so we can all enjoy it together or is it about making you feel special? Cause it sorta starts feeling like the latter thing after a while.

i know, I sound ENTITLED which is the worst thing a person can be, but also like...no one is making money here, no one is in competition, we're not making content or being influencers, this is a gift economy.

My fanfiction has been stolen over and over, it's been scraped to train AI, but I don't take it down to punish people. I don't say 'oh yeah someone reposted my shit in machine translation on a Russian site, so I'm nuking this fic. Certainly some people do, and that's your right but I also think that goes against the entire point of fandom which is SHARING.

Sharing your passion and love and skills and yeah it's now out there on the internet and people will do stuff with it and sometimes that sucks but also that's part of the whole thing. We do it because the benefits of building community and being fans together outweigh the negatives. We do it out of love for the property, because we want to share this thing we love, because we just have to share our ideas, whatever.

At some point it feels like it became about clout, like everything else on the internet, and like...IDK. Fandom, if it works, is people all contributing to it in their own ways. Some people write, some people draw, some people translate, some people run cons, some people cosplay, some people make fanmixes, some people right meta, some people mod challenges and communites, etc etc. And it all builds to Fandom.

And when I get out there and interact with a lot of fans I'm just like...are you trying to Win Fandom? Are you mad your Fandom Metrics aren't Optimalizing? That's just really...not how it works.

IDK I don't know if any of this makes sense and it's probably gonna get me a ton of shit, but like, whatever I've been in fandom since 97 you can't kill me in any way that matters. And today I'm sad and it feels like a symptom of a bigger issue.

[britcision]

Some motherFUCKER called Marcille’s practical magic skills questionable and Tumblr refreshed before I could finish reading the goddamn post

(Very good points otherwise about Laios’ general party makeup and Kabru’s interpretations of this I wanna see the rest 👀)

And listen

LISTEN

Full graduate of magic academy, renowned researcher, Learned Every Single Spell She Ever Used For The Dungeon Overnight, WENT TOE TO TOE WITH THE LITERAL DUNGEON LORD ON SPELLS NO ONE HAS SEEN BEFORE WHILE SAID DUNGEON LORD IS ACTIVELY CONNECTED TO INFINITE MAGIC Marcille Donato

Marcille Donato did fucking nothing to deserve being questioned like this

Her practical DUNGEON skills are a little questionable (she did die her first time out) but that’s because she’s still running the standard rulebook everyone Except Laios and Senshi have been using like “bring own rations” and “do not worry for health and safety of monsters”

She’s even better at explaining magic to Laios specifically, because Falin tried and failed at that preseries and Marcille gives him a single lesson and he can do healing spells

She doesn’t perform support and healing the same way Falin does because she’s a combat caster, not a support, and her main job is Explosions and DPS - that’s why they have two casters in the same group, they have different specialties and yeah, she’s being treated as interchangeable by her party because she can also cast the spells outside of her specialty

(Also the way Falin does her healing spells is actually super unsafe so it’s not even that Marcille can’t heal the same way it’s an intentional choice not to)

Marcille UNDERSELLS her competence significantly but because literally no one else in the current party understands magic even a little

(And before that only Falin ever did understand)

They just assume she’s bragging instead

She’s literally in the process of planning to build her own dungeon From Scratch as a fucking experiment to see what makes the immortality magic work

Not a tiny sprite dungeon. Full thing.

This is literally the problem with her practical dungeon skills, she thinks of all the monsters and threats of the dungeon as configurable challenges; she’s playing Rollercoaster Tycoon but the show is playing Slime Rancher

Tbh I think she and Shuro are the two highest levelled characters from the old party, and they’re both at least 5-10 levels above the others - Shuro is always the kill shot, Marcille is the nuke

[mariacallous]

Within just the last week or so, Elon Musk’s DOGE hit team of mostly young, almost exclusively male engineers and executives have done the following:

Pushed a website live to track “savings” that showed no savings for several days, and made it trivially easy for random people on the internet to make changes to it.

Published classified information on that same website.

Got called out for accidentally inflating that savings amount by $7,992,000,000, and doubled down on their inaccuracy before they fixed it.

Fired hundreds of people who work on nuclear security, then scrambled to rehire them, except they had nuked all the work email addresses and personnel files so they didn’t know how to get in touch.

Basically the same deal, except with the US Department of Agriculture employees working to protect the country from a looming bird flu crisis.

Rehired a 25-year-old engineer with a stack of racist tweets to his name.

Spouted a bunch of nonsense conspiracy theories about who’s getting Social Security benefits. (Okay, that was all Musk.)

That’s just a sampling. It doesn’t include the damage born of purging thousands of workers across multiple government agencies, the consequences of which will reverberate in both obvious and unexpected ways for a generation—not to mention the near-term impact that arbitrarily spiking the unemployment rate will have on the US economy. It doesn’t include the opportunity cost of tossing hundreds of government contracts and programs into a bonfire.

This is just the truly dumb stuff, the peek behind the veil of DOGE, the confirmation that all of this destruction is, in fact, as specious and arbitrary as it seems. When in doubt, tear it all down, see what breaks, assume you can repair it—maybe with AI? It’s the federal government; how hard can it be?

This is incompetence born of self-confidence. It’s a familiar Silicon Valley mindset, the reason startups are forever reinventing a bus, or a bodega, or mail. It’s the implacable certainty that if you’re smart at one thing you must be smart at all of the things.

It doesn’t work like that. Michael Jordan is the best basketball player of all time; when he turned to baseball in 1994, Jordan hit .202 in 127 games for the AA Birmingham Barons. (For anyone unfamiliar with baseball stats, this is very bad. Embarrassing, honestly.) Elon Musk is the undisputed champion of making money for Elon Musk. As effectively the CEO of the United States of America? Very bad. Embarrassing, honestly.

Just look at all of those firings. DOGE has targeted so-called probationary employees first, often without regard for their skill or necessity of their roles. Do you know what a probationary employee is? It’s people who have been in their position for less than a year, or in some cases less than two years. That means new hires, sure, but also experienced workers who recently transferred departments or got promoted.

Not only does DOGE not seem to understand this, it has given no indication that it wants to understand. These are the easiest employees to fire, legally speaking, so they’re gone. It even changed the length of the probationary period—from one year of service to two—in order to super-size its purge of the National Science Foundation.

It takes a certain swashbuckling arrogance to propel a startup to glory. But as we’ve repeatedly said, the United States is not a startup. The federal government exists to do all of the things that are definitionally not profitable, that serve the public good rather than protect investor profits. (The vast majority of startups also fail, something the United States cannot afford to do.)

And if you don’t believe in the public good? You sprint through the ruination. You metastasize from agency to agency, leveling the maximum allowable destruction under the law. DOGE’s costly, embarrassing mistakes are a byproduct of reckless nihilism; if artificial intelligence can sell you a pizza, of course it can future-proof the General Services Administration.

Worse still, none of this will actually help DOGE make a dent in its purported mission. What’s efficient about firing people you have to scramble to hire back? What are the cost savings of a few thousand federal employees compared to the F-35 program? What are we even doing here, actually?

There are two possible explanations for this mess. One is that Musk and DOGE have no interest in the government, or efficiency, but do care deeply about the data they can reap from various agencies and revel in privatization for its own sake. The other is that a bunch of purportedly talented coders have indeed responded to a higher civic calling, but are out here batting .202.

Musk did have a rare moment of self-awareness late last week, during an Oval Office appearance with his four-year-old son and President Donald Trump. “We will make mistakes,” he said. “but we'll act quickly to correct any mistakes.”

So far he’s half right.

[saanphoenix]

Due to me being a fool, I didn't unlock Knight-Enchanter until, like, level 15. After I had already used the skill point.

So I had to wait until Lv. 16, in the middle of the Fade, to get Spirit Blade. Which just so happened to coincide with getting to Nightmare.

And I like to imagine everyone's surprise when, for the first time ever, Mirevas just manifests his beam sword to nuke three Fear demons at once and then go for Nightmare's knees.

And when Dorian's like, "Why did you not use that before?" Mirevas is just like, "I am stupid, and also may or may not have needed an emotional trigger." "Arachnophobia was your emotional trigger?" "Yyyes?"

Dorian, your amatus doesn't know how he closes the Fade tears. He just wiggles his fingers and it happens. He also doesn't know how the spirit blade works. It just finally decided to work. He is quite literally pulling things out of his ass.

[strangelittlestories]

When one of the last fairy godparents died on my doorstep and passed on their domain to me, they made one crucial miscalculation: I was terminally un-magical.

Now, you might think I mean ‘terminally’ figuratively here. But you would be astonished how quickly foisting a fairy legacy onto fully mundane folks can produce lethal consequences.

In this case, the issue was the wishes. That’s a fairy godparent’s job, right? You’ve got a number of godchildren, selected because they are in some way magically deserving, of interesting destiny, or unfortunately cursed. These kids will usually have some problem that can be solved by tactical wish application.

But if you’re a normal mortal, you will likely spend your first week on the job in active denial about the wishes that start turning up. It’ll just be one or two at first, faintly glowing like stars beneath your skin, carrying with them the gentle suggestion that now might be a great time to start transmogrifying root vegetables into modes of transport.

Then more of them turn up. And they get brighter, bigger, more insistent. Suddenly, your skin is filled with a galaxy and there is no quantity of cleverly applied scarves and no amount of expensive concealer that will hide it. It’s as if your insides have become student accommodation and the residents have decorated with an improbable number of fairy lights because it will look good on the ‘gram.

You start getting sensory migraines that paint flows of impossible colours across the world. Your teeth feel like they are constantly vibrating and you can always taste cinnamon. You can feel your liver and your liver feels wrong. You look in the mirror and you seem to be moving in stop motion, winking in and out of reality.

And a dozen little tinny voices are hovering the back of your mind insistent that *only you* can solve their problems. These problems may seem inconsequential - a boy who really needs to go to the ball, a girl who needs horseriding lessons, a teen who for some reason needs to avoid arts and crafts - but the longer you ignore them, the more you *know* in your bones that they are vital.

Speaking of vital: this is roughly when the banshee showed up to let me know that the sheer quantity of magical potential in my body was now approaching ‘fae nuke’ levels. Apparently, if I did not start bleeding off some of the excess, this would get *very bad* for me and everyone around me.

In short: the critical mass of wishes contained within my pitiful mortal flesh was acting like a magical black hole. It was sufficiently aetherically dense that my body was becoming more a part of the Faerie realm than the mortal plane. If it reached the tipping point, it would effectively become a portal between worlds.

This wouldn’t be too bad for an actual fae. As the banshee explained, this was one of the ways fairy godparents got around. They call it ‘wishful blinking’

But I was not built for containing a magical wormhole, so yeah … fae nuke.

So … I started granting wishes.

Making dreams come true without magic, by the way, is a *whole production*. I called in every favour. I utilised every skill. I pulled elaborate cons. I tricked parents into hiring me as a party planner/tutor/life coach/etc. Then I used the income to hire help. The banshee even pitched in (we ended up getting drinks a few times).

Eventually, there were enough of us that we needed a home base. So I bought a warehouse/office space.

And that’s how I started the first ever Wish Fulfilment Centre.

---

Thanks to a Word of the Month Club member for the prompt of "Wishful".

Want to submit your own words to be used as puns in my stories? Consider supporting me on Ko-Fi with a recurring donation https://ko-fi.com/strangelittlestories

[shnebrght]

Why Sasagawa Ryohei is considered the 'weakest' of the Vongola Decimo Guardians || A META ANALYSIS

===Spoiler Warning to the Manga of KHR.===This is the only warning you'll be getting.

First, a clarification because this came out of nowhere -- Yes, Ryohei is considered the 'weakest' of the Guardians by both Dino and Reborn, at the start of the Varia arc. This is backed by him being ranked the 5th Strongest in Namimori Middle, preceding Kusakabe (Hibari's 2nd-in-command). It is only after training with Colonello that he gains a semblance of power reliable enough to protect the familiga, besides just being 'really good at punching'. Simply put, at the level required in the series, Ryohei's set of skills - that being a really good boxer - isn't enough to qualify for a powerful guardian.

In that regard, he's even outdone by Lambo, at 5-years old, thanks to his arsenal and 10-year jump potential. How is that possible?

-- To tackle this question, we need to consider what makes a character 'strong' in Katekyo Hitman Reborn. Simple physical strength is of course a factor, but it's hardly the only one; in fact, it's one of the least accounted-for factors. This is backed by the Maximum Cannon being literally the strongest one-hit move among the Decimo Guardians, probably outdoing even Tsuna's 20% X-Burner. So, we have a character who's physically capable of outputting more raw power than his boss in one hit, yet he's still considered the weakest. This is because, the conclusion I have arrived at is: In KHR, a character's 'power' isn't dictated by their strength, but by their effectiveness.

For a simple example -- I-Pin's Mahjong Mega Bomb is possibly the one single strongest nuke in the show. But it takes it 10 whole counts until it blasts off, in which I-Pin is stationary. Is this effective? Not at all. As displayed numerous times throughout the daily life arc, it's perfectly plausible to avoid and nullify all damage from the blast by stepping out of range in time, or just throwing I-Pin away. Sure, it's a gag move, but it exists and we must take it into account. By contrast, we have the Levi Volta. I'm going to be honest, this is one of the least interesting moves in the series to me. It's never even used again after Hayato dispatches Levi. However, we can't ignore its effectiveness. Levi Volta is a sure-hit lightning strike condensed into one spot. Unless you're someone like Hayato who just so happens to have a way to counter, or Lambo who's got immunity, this is a clearcut one-shot. It's even been said that Levi himself isn't impressive, but this move alone is what put him in the Varia Officers rank. Let me repeat that: This move, alone, made him a Varia Officer. This is how effective the Levi Volta is in what it does, without getting into more specifics.

In short, a character's power is dictated by their techniques' effectiveness and skill, as shown in two examples. This is why Hibari for that matter, who's simply strong, hardy and great at fighting, is as stupidly powerful as he is: he's simply that effective. Notice that Hibari does not have nuke-level attacks, or even building-level attacks. All he has is two Tonfa, and his skill brought him to the same level as Dino -- who also doesn't have big bombastic moves.

Back to the subject at hand -- what about Ryohei makes him 'less effective' than the rest of the Guardians?

Not to throw shade at Ryohei at all; despite being labeled the weakest, that becomes arguable once he learns to utilize the Maximum Cannon (and subsequent moves). But, he's still considered on the weaker side, and consistently doesn't win in his fights despite great showcase of strength. Ryohei's boxing skill is also immensely good; blocking isn't a big thing in boxing, fighters mostly using dodging to nullify attacks and open their opponents. In that sense, Ryohei managed to dodge a majority of the damage Koyo attempted to land, while still getting deliberately grazed to charge his Sunlight Bangle. This takes inhuman amount of skill, which Ryohei is able to showcase, albeit with a Cambio Forma. Safe to say, he's easily one of the world's greatest boxers-- in sheer skill alone. He's also the well-reliable Sun Guardian, as shown 10-years later.

But Boxing in general is not a great choice for martial arts. While popular, it is subpar, as judged by several real-life martial arts experts. Him sticking to Boxing exclusively makes him incredibly good at what he does, but limits him in that sense too. Moreover, there is one common denominator for many characters in the series -- and that's, the use of Weapons.

Reborn is the most classic hitman in the series, modeled after the stereotype of Italian mafia. Therefore, he's a weapons expert. But it doesn't stop there: Gokudera using dynamite, Yamamoto learning swordsmanship, Hibari's tonfa -- even Tsuna uses a weapon: while the gloves by themselves aren't 'weapons', the ability they bestow definitely is. How do you expect to throw hands with a guy that shoots fire??

In the weapons department, Ryohei only has his fists. And that already places him at a disadvantageous point. While he's on-paper extremely skilled at what he does, his skill level is compromised by virtue of lack of weapon in the series.

To make a quick run-down of the other pure-martial artists in the series for comparison (almost all of which Ryohei outdoes), we have:

I-Pin and Fon, who use Gyoza Kenpo, a form of martial arts incorporating garlic to disrupt the enemy's nerves.

Joshima Ken, while not a 'martial artist', he is equipped with his fangs to grant him animal abilities and traits.

Lancia, who has a giant steel ball.

Lussuria, who not only has insanely quick movement, but also a metal knee - which by itself is a weapon.

Zakuro, technically, who just becomes a T-Rex and attacks with heat and Storm Flames anyway.

All of these guys have something extra going on for them besides just raw power. Ryohei doesn't have that. Ryohei relies solely on his skills as a boxer, and the principle taught to him by Colonello, to channel the power of his cells. Maximum Cannon is essentially a technique, but it's still just raw strength -- and, it's not even that reliable; requiring a very long recharge time to even utilize at maximum strength. His fighting style subtly changes to suit the Sun Flames' attributes eventually, but in the end it's still a principle that actively requires Ryohei risk himself, oftentimes gravely.

The other reason I feel that is relevant, is the author's emphasis on the Sun Flame being 'not as strong' as the rest of the flames. At least, not by itself.

The maximum healing capacity of the Sun Flames is demonstrated in Daisy, which can regenerate instantly like a lizard. I personally was amazed that this is what they pulled, only to later have my impression thwarted in accounts of the other Millefiore Guardians having even more extreme applications to their Flames. Basically, Daisy is presented to us as the first opponent fought against, because - to be inferred narratively - they are the weakest of the Six Funeral Wreaths. And it just so happens that Ryohei also has this flame, albeit with a different, much more self-destructive tendency. It's worth noting, in terms of effectiveness - Daisy outclasses Ryohei by a landslide, too (in my personal analysis, Daisy is the epitome of Sun Flames effectiveness).

Sun Flames, either through its healing properties, attribution to Irie Shoichi or Gokudera's use, is narratively told to be 'the support flame'. Which means, it's hard-pressed to find any attacks that encompass pure Sun Flame energy. In fact -- Ryohei is literally the only character in the series to even do that.

Ryohei definitely received the short end of the stick, but by no means is he actually 'weak'. As a potential Hitman he's definitely the least efficient among the Guardians, that's for sure. But that's mostly because of the series' focus and variety in its power system.

That said -- KHR is a series with normal humans. Remember that there's not a single person in all of KHR (except Daisy and his stupid hacks) that can tank a Maximum Cannon. So in terms of raw physicality, Ryohei is at the top of the series' list. Does that help him in fights? ...Unfortunately, not so much.

I find it interesting that the strongest Guardian, is actually the weakest; as 'power' is established to be 'effectiveness', and not strength.

That is all for this analysis, You're all incredible.

Especially if you actually read all of that like, holy shit.

I wrote a lot, huh.

[generalluxun]

Part of the problem with Felix is that he's CLEARLY stuck in the wrong show. The way he's written doesn't match at all with the way everyone else is written, or the overall tone of the story. You're expected to read into HIM but not any other character.

Felix's debut works if you look at it as neurodivergence and/or a trauma response, I've seen that logic a lot in both- ESPECIALLY in people with underdeveloped emotional/social skills: Adrien was all he had -> Adrien 'leaves' Felix and makes 'real' friends, making Felix feel alone and forgotten -> Adrien hurt Felix and has to be punished -> if Felix isolates Adrien from all of his new friends, from Ladybug, then Adrien will have no choice but to turn back to Felix, and will eventually realize that Felix is all the companionship Adrien really needs.

But I've got no idea how intentional that was, or why we have to do work for Felix when everything else is plainly spoonfed to us. I can see him truly caring for Adrien, and putting his family first, but also there's no way to cut it where S5 Felix as a whole makes sense.

The easiest solution for Felix is to rewrite Emotion. All his actions in his debut episode were *petty*. I'm very willing to allow petty to exist while maintaining good intentions overall. I lile Chloé after all. 🤣

It's the gleeful genocide plot in Emotion that breaks Felix. You don't go from open unakumatized mass murderer to woobified widdle guy in back to back episodes. It does not work. Emotion should have been an angry/focused Felix going after Gabriel specifically and indiscriminately nuking people who got in his way(or who Gabriel threw in his way, let's give Gabriel the Chloe-Soul Crusher treatment for some humor)

This will still put him at odds with Ladybug. It will still have Kagami and Adrien oppose him. He can still have his 'what have I done?' moment. Only this time he's firmly in actual anti-hero methodology and not a level of sociopathic behavior beyond even Gabriel.

[frankiesmileshow]

Crystal Project Review

Ive been having a lot of fun with Crystal Project, a well made FF5-inspired RPG. The combat is very tightly designed and the exploration aspect is top notch. The art style put me off a bit at first, but I think it grew on me over time.

The game does a great job of slowly uncovering its breadth and letting you break its sequence through curious exploring. Lots of fun to search every part of its gigantic map for secrets. This is a game that loves hiding secrets within secrets within secrets. You might even occasionally stumble into a late game area, and exploring carefully could lead to finding items meant for the end of the game, giving your party a significant early game boost.

Exploring will often lead to surprise optional boss battles that are completely out of your league - but dying has few consequences in the game (you just lose a bit of money) and dying from bosses has no consequences at all, so you rarely feel truly punished for having explored too far, and its always worth it to have a peek at a boss battle.

Don't expect too much of a story. There is one, but it keeps a very light touch, this is mainly a game about exploring and fighting monsters. It does have characters and some personality, but dont expect something dense story wise.

It manages to avoid feeling like an open world game - it feels more like a linear game that just lets you break out of the confines of its intended path if you explore enough. It strikes a very good balance between having direction and having freedom. The world map just keeps expanding as you play, leading to many little shocks about the games' scope, a feeling you might be familiar with if you played Elden Ring.

The games combat uses a very well balanced, strategic system. Battles give you a lot of information to let you choose your actions carefully - you can see any enemies' next action in advance, and you even know who the enemy will attack next (notice the dotted lines in the screenshot above). Manipulating the enemies' current target is actually one of the fundamentals of the game- enemies choose their next target based on a "Threat" system which is entirely open to you as you fight, and many classes have abilities to help you manipulate this. Some class abilities also depend on the current threat state of a character - for instance, the rogues' many powerful skills only work if they are considered an enemy's bottom threat, and will otherwise always miss, which requires careful actions on your part.

The class system will be familiar if you played Final Fantasy 5 - you obtain new classes by exploring the world and finding large crystals, each unlocking a new one. The classes set a characters' stat growth on level-up, equippable items, main abilities and all have a unique "Innate passive" which are usually quite powerful (for instance, the base Cleric class receives a significant boost to all healing spells).

You can also add the abilities of a secondary class to your characters' moveset- like adding a clerics' healing spells to your Samurai. There is a lot of fun to be had mixing one class's abilities with anothers' passive boost - for instance, one class has an ability which makes the first action this character makes in a battle always target All enemies or All allies, allowing you to either massively boost your whole party or nuke the enemy party with a powerful spell usually meant for a single foe.

There are also passive abilities you can unlock from any class and assign regardless of a characters' current class, limited by a point cost system. These can range from a boost to max HP, to adding a poison effect to any weapon attacks, to allowing your character to equip a shield regardless of their class.

You can get very creative with the games' class system, there are countless ways to mix and match character abilities and classes to figure out some powerful strategy. The endgame has several challenges that might require you to make custom party setups just for them, turning the combat system into something resembling a kind of puzzle - though one with many possible solutions.

Boss battles have a way of feeling like a desperate struggle of improvising as your strategy falls apart - then winning by the skin of your teeth. This happens a lot. At least half of the boss battles for me ended with most of my party dead, and being one or two turns away from a full wipe-out.

I think the only real misstep is the games' analogue to chocobo breeding, introduced at the very end of the game. It feels tedious, I gave up on it after an hour of wasting my money on food for the creatures and not getting anywhere. Luckily it seems to be completely optional.

All in all I recommend it to anyone who likes FF5 and who likes RPGs that have a focus on exploring. Visually it might look a bit basic, but underneath that is an extremely robust game.

[ramunnae]

oK just found this in my drafts. was asked to share my 1 mil childe nuke build/ set up like.... 2 months ago, holy shit. @bewhyy here's the build post lmao! sorry i totally forgot, life got me. also this is a super long post, i took it as a chance to practice making longer blogs and explaining what i'm talking about better!

i'm no meta slave, and i've never made a post like this, but ill try and explain to the best of both my understanding and memory. first up, the clip of the 1 mil turn. specifically, i managed to get to 1,249,025 - and that was on an imperfect run.

from this i guess its easiest to explain the rotation first, since you can see it. in order:

drop into boss, Tartaglia elemental skill (whilst stood close to boss to apply hydro), Benny burst, Mona burst (as i was running mona on widsith, i was checking for the third music note, you can see i only got the second here unfortunately), Kazuha burst, Tartaglia elemental skill (stood away from boss as to not vaporise before his burst), Tartaglia burst.

a couple other notes before i talk about the actual builds, i used a delicious adeptus temptation for the food buff (the builds are so crit damage focused that the insane atk from this food is still the best buff), and i always do my nuke builds on the lowest level scaramouche boss i can. this both increases your damage and how easy is it to do the start bit of the fight, and also means you'll get your ultimates back automatically upon downing him. it being easier also helps those who may not be as smooth with gameplay.

ok, now onto builds.

As you can see i didn't bother screenshotting the weapons, but i will note what i used (and alternatives) for each character. i will also note other good nuke team alternatives at the end that i've tried, but wont go into detail. anyway,

first, Mr Worldwide himself - Tartaglia. nuke builds are pretty simple, and generally the same for all elemental nukes (any nuke build reliant on an elemental reaction such as melt or vaporise), but essentially you're focusing on atk, crit damage, and elemental mastery. how i did this is:

weapon: i have aqua simulacra, which is pretty busted for bow character nuke builds at 88 crit damage. i realise most childe mains probably dont randomly have yelan's weapon tho, so if not i'd recommend stringless as a more universal option. blackcliff war bow may also be a viable choice if you're desperate for crit damage.

talents: my Tartaglia is triple crowned, but for a nuke, his ultimate is what's important. just level it as high as you can.

artifacts: the important part, and the part that scares people. for nuke builds, i always do 2p elemental damage bonus set and 2p either em bonus or atk bonus (which i use depends on which i have better stats with). i run em sands, elemental damage goblet, and crit damage circlet. i find running an em sands to be a huge help, since this nuke is reliant on vaporise.

Next, Benny! I'll lay each build out the same way.

weapon: i lack 5* swords, so i run my Benny on an r5 prototype rancour as it's the 4* with the highest base atk. well known by now, but Bennett's burst buff is based on his base attack only. so whatever sword you have with the highest base attack is what you should run him on.

talents: only Benny's burst matters here. mine is crowned.

artifacts: 4 piece noblesse oblige, any stats. nothing else affects Benny's use here, so dont worry about the stats for these pieces. do keep in mind that the noblesse buff lasts for 12 seconds, so after doing his burst you're on a time limit. this isn't the only timed buff in this rotation, but use this as your warning that you wanna do the rotation quickly.

Mona. to be honest, Mona is the kit i know the least about, but i do know my build does it's job! a bonus point, i believe if you have Mona's C1, you should add a single attack after her burst before switching to a new character, but i dont have her C1 sadly, so this may be wrong.

weapon: i run an r5 widsith. in alternate teams i've also run thrilling tales of dragon slayers, however this would change the rotation, as dragon slayers only affects the next character on field. aka, after Mona you'd want to quickly switch to Tartaglia, then to Kazuha. this is both more complicated and dragon slayers isn't as good as widsith, so i only run thrilling tales if i'm using a team where someone else has widsith already.

talents: burst again, mine is crowned. you'll be seeing the pattern with that.

artifacts: 4 piece instructor, stats don't matter again. this is the other timed buff, being only 8s. this isn't a problem, especially with widsith and the smoother rotation, but again note that doing the rotation as quickly as you can is best.

and last but not least, Kazuha. kazuha has the unique aspect of only really being useful in nukes if you have his C2 like i do, but i'll mention that more at the end.

weapon: i have Kazuha's signature weapon, freedom sworn, but any 4* em sword, especially at high refinement, is great.

talents: ....guess. yup. that's right. burst. mines crowned, but as high as you can level for max damage output, since all 3 of these support's bursts provide varying buffs.

artifacts: 4 piece viridescent venerer, triple em, with as much em substat as you can get from the flower and feather as well. you just wanna stack kazuha to hell and back with em. i managed to hit 1k with my build! which did wonders.

and i think that's everything! everything i plan to explain anyway, a lot of the buffs here come from Benny, Mona, and Kazuha's kits - but explaining actual kits and how they function isn't something i'm any good at, so i'll leave that out, this post is so long already.

on a final note! the alternate build/ kazuha C2 issue i mentioned. most people probably don't have C2 kazuha (unfortunately, cuz he is a lifesaver), but a much more universally achievable team is using sucrose. exact same build as Kazuha, but you run her with widsith (which is then when you'd run Mona with thrilling tales). you also use her elemental skill, not her burst like kazuha.

this post was long, and a lot more of a tutorial than i originally aimed for, also my eyes hurt from my pc lmao. but i hope it helped anyone wanting a Tartaglia nuke build/ guide!

[12th-shavie]

Octopath Traveler II delayed playthrough blogging

[10 hours in]

Contains light spoilers of some early chapters I guess

I started the journey with Agnea because she looked like a sweetie (and she is) and she really has the most jrpg "leave of this small village to see the big wide world to make your dream come true" beginning

I got her to allure a villager that replenishes SP with every dancer skill she uses and she's been the cornerstone to most battles ever since

The second traveler I got was Partitio and he's a funny lad, I love his vibe, hat, jacket, and speech ! Also, the atmosphere of his storyline was a nice dramatic change of pace after the cozy first one I got

I headcanon that Roque's betrayal was in fact very much a divorce with Partitio's dad and I cannot wait to see how that applies to future chapters (I do hope it ages like fine wine rather than milk)

Partitio's combat performance was pretty solid despite a lack of AoE but the weapon variety for breaking was the early highlight

I ignored the fork in the road that lead to Hikari in favor of recruiting Castti because I wanted a healer and I feel slightly guilty (but also not at all)

Castti is literally so nice to people I can't wait to see if she really has an extremely shady past that will torment her for at least 1 chapter before she decides that she's going to be a good noddle in spite of all

Her concocting is pretty fun but I wish I had more diffusing serum (I can make do with latent power for now but it'd more fun to let her do some fun nuking)

Castti is also extremely tanky (she's the only one I have with over 1k HP so far) so she was a very welcome addition to the party

The next step in the journey was recruiting Osvald (I wanted to start with him but the 2 forced chapters made me decide to instead make him the reward for reaching the eastern continent) after I ignored the boat that lead to Ochette and wandered around until I stumbled upon a boat that lead really close to Osvald on the map and eventually found him face-down in the snow (which makes my decision to no start with him even better)

His first two chapters cemented him as one of my favorites beyond the visual vibes I got from the first selecting menu, and his skillset was a cherry on top

AoE magic nuking when I already have some buffing and BP donating in my party ? I'm sold. Free weakpoint reveals every battle ? Even better ! Osvaldo battle voicelines ? Yes please !

After that I found the scholar license and decided that Agnea should also learn to buff spell intensity to make my Osvaldo nuking engine even stronger (she's been doing great and I'm very proud of her)

Since it was on the way to Agnea's second chapter for which she was at the recommended level, I went on to recruit Temenos and he did not disappoint ! He really gave me an impression of being a seemingly upstanding fellow who is in fact not only shady but just the right blend of ambiguous tease with genuine words thrown in (props to his voice acting that really sells it)

His detective moment was also pretty cool, especially after seeing the duality of his abilities to get people to follow him without risk of failure and his (very shady) coercing to get more intel

I considered replacing Castti with him as my party healer but he is very squishy compared to her, and she also has weapon diversity and more consistent debuffing over him so for the time being he's just chilling at the tavern waiting for a party composition that makes him shine

On my way to the big city I found the inventor license and could simply not resist giving it to Partitio it simply fit him too well (and more weapons to break with is very nice), although I'm thinking of changing it later to try a Temenos build that would allow him to break even more and coerce better

Now onto the big city to recruit Throné and let Agnea's story unfold further !

[tods-void]

Breaking fictional canon isn't inherently bad actually

Gonna write something out that's been on my mind ever since I watched a let's play of Fallout New California. For those that don't know about it, it's a prequel mod for New Vegas. It's mostly pretty good, starts off great, some of the companion characters are uhhh... let's just say they have a faint stink of "my precious OC" if that makes sense. The story itself is for the most part interesting tho near the end it goes into some Mary Sue crossfic bullshit that might turn some people off and turned me off at first. But after watching that playthrough, there was one small part that made me reconsider my opinion of the ending, as well as what canon means for a piece of fiction.

=SPOILERS FOR FALLOUT: NEW CALIFORNIA AND FALLOUT IN GENERAL=

So the story's big reveal at the end is that the area you play in is what will become the Divide in New Vegas and you are the Courier. And the story is about a top secret government experiment using some pre-war symbiotic organism discovered in the Marianas Trench (i think?) that makes you basically immortal. You're immune to disease, radiation, don't age, can only be killed by taking a nuke to the face, that sort of shit. And you're the child of a super mutant who somehow figured out a way to not be sterile anymore. Oh, and you're also genetically a clone of the Vault Dweller from Fallout 1.

Now I know what you might be thinking: this sounds so fucking dumb, it breaks canon in half, all in an effort to canonically explain why the game's protagonist can do the ridiculous shit they do, like surviving a headshot at point blank, not needing food, water or sleep, getting stronger ridiculously fast (i.e. leveling up) and tanking damage that would drop a normal person if not outright vaporise them. And overall it turns both your character, the Courier and the Vault Dweller from opportune shmucks whose accomplishments were a mix of skill, perseverance and luck, into deity-like figures whose accomplishments were genetically predestined or whatever.

And yes, all this is true.

BUT!

Hear me out: in the mod when you are faced with that revelation as the character, there's a Wild Wasteland dialogue option which turns into a reference of the Vader/Luke confrontation from Empire Strikes Back where the antagonist that tells you all this breaks the 4th wall and goes "Damn your canon" and it's kinda cringy but also it made me laugh. It's honestly kind of funny. And it was the devs basically laying out their mission statement "Fuck canon, rule of cool, canon isn't a divine gospel to be followed". And I like that. I'm a long-time Fallout fan and the series as a whole has some great writing and worldbuilding but it has a lot of dumb shit in it as well. Dumb shit that was put in because the devs thought it'd be funny. No, it doesn't make sense that you find the TARDIS randomly in the desert or come across a weirdo in a robe guarding a bridge and asking you to solve 3 riddles to proceed or a group of BoS knights who are LARPing as medieval knights from Camelot (both being Monty Python and the Holy Grail references) or the cast of the original SW trilogy chilling around a campfire or a fourth wall breaking cafe where characters from Fallout 1 are hanging out and talking like actors discussing their roles off set. But it's the exact kind of dumb shit as the revelation in New California.

There's more tho. If it was just funny, sure, it made me laugh but it would still be bad writing. A decent joke at the expense of the writing wouldn't negate that. I'm someone who hates Fallout 3's story and worldbuilding for shoehorning in super mutants, the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel just because they're "iconic" to the Fallout setting and barely giving them the justification to be there. Super mutants?

"Oh, there was a vault experimenting with FEV."

On the other side of the country. Meaning that the entire plot and worldbuilding of Fallout 1 went from something unique with long-lasting consequences for the entire Wasteland to a cheap threat you can find anywhere from Alaska to Florida.

Why are all the mutants stupid brutish savage cannibals that scream at you and keep human remains in literal gore bags?

"Uhhh... there's one super mutant who's smart, friendly and will join you as a companion."

Why's the Enclave here? They were destroyed in Fallout 2. They were literally nuked out of existence. What few of them remained off the oil rig would not have had the resources or manpower to A) mount an expedition across the continent and B) present as big of a fighting force and threat as they do.

"*cricket noises*"

Why are the BoS here? They were isolationist pseudoreligious weirdos who were almost wiped out by the Enclave. How the fuck did they get here and why are they the default good guys now?

"*vaguely gestures at internal schism*"

Okay to be fair, there is a tiny bit more justification for how and why the BoS are there and the way they are.

Why are there fucking deathclaws in Washington DC?

"*radio silence*"

You get the picture, you know the song and dance. Hbomberguy made all these criticisms and more years ago.

So why do I shit on these retcons for feeling cheap and cynical on top of ruining established canon but the bullshit in New California doesn't feel as bad?

Well, I have a lot of love for Fallout but I've also embraced the reality that Bethesda doesn't give a shit about the lore or art of the series, or the labor of its original creators, and will shoehorn in whatever they need in order to churn out a marketable inoffensive product. I have no faith that they can make anything as even remotely good as New Vegas or as stupidly sincere and sincerely stupid as The Frontier or, to a much lesser extent, New California. I don't need Fallout to be gravely serious or follow strict canon and relative realism (although that would be nice), what I want most is to experience something that makes me feel, something that was made by people who wanted to make it, who had genuine love and passion for what they were making, and the source material they were drawing from. Does it matter if it's fanfiction? Not really. Fallout London is technically fanfiction and it's one of the best Fallout games I've played. It's also the queerest Fallout game I've ever played and as a filthy queer, that matters a lot to me. (You can join a faction of punk anarchists who are actual political anarchists and not just the pop-culture bastardisation of what anarchism is. Play it, it's great). All this to say that merely breaking the canon of a piece of fiction doesn't have to be inherently bad. It matters who does the retcon, how and why. Even moreso if the creators have the balls to say "we know it breaks canon, we don't care, we just want to do it".

(Also should go without saying that retcons made out of bigotry are pathetic and "creators" who do that should be sealed in a vault with a panther)

[toxic-lone-wolf]

How to Drag Your Half-Dead Fic Across the Finish Line

NOTE: This is a duplicate post to the original that I posted in the Fanfiction Writers Unite community.

This post was inspired by a post I saw recently from @ezrabjork, who asked for advice about editing already-written chapters from old, unfinished fics when you discover you want to finish them.

As someone who rewrites and reworks my own stuff constantly--I get it. Editing old writing isn't fixing typos; it's essentially time-travelling into your past brain and trying to make sense of what the hell you were doing. So, this post is just my method for when I want to revive an old project without losing my mind! Take whatever you'd like from this list--it works for me, and may not work for you in the slightest. Even if you just incorporate one bullet point or one question when editing, I'll consider that a win. Enjoy!

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STEP ONE: Reconnect with the project.

Before touching anything, spend time remembering what you loved about the story, or even just your idea.

Write down, or simply keep some things in mind:

What was the original vibe, plot, or character focus? Was it a prompt? Did you just want to write some PWP?

How do you feel about it now? Has any of the original concepts shifted in your head?

What's your new goal with it? Do you want to just finish what's there? Rewrite it at your current level? Change the plot entirely?

STEP TWO: Read what you've got.

Read your old stuff carefully, ideally more than once.

As you look things over with fresh eyes:

Are there lines/paragraphs/scenes that still feel good to you? What do you still like and find up to your current standards?

Does anything feel wrong? Is someone too OOC somewhere? Does the dialogue feel too stale?

The important questions: What do you want to keep as is? What do you want to keep but adjust or rewrite? What do you want to scrap?

STEP THREE: Diagnose the damage.

Make note of areas where things are absolutely a problem in your eyes. Things like plot holes, awkward prose, missing emotional depth, etc. These should be things that you try to include in your own writing; it will be personal to you.

Be precise, but be gentle! Old writing may look uncomfortable to you now, but it's proof that your drive and joy for writing have continued and perhaps even gotten stronger.

STEP FOUR: Outline the repair plan.

Update your plot outline if you have one. If you don't have one, try making one! Messy doesn't matter if it helps you stay motivated and on track!!

Remember the notes you might have taken earlier? Compile them, and start making decisions on your next steps.

*STEP FIVE: Create chapter-by-chapter lists.

*This step can be skipped if your work is a one-shot, or doesn't have enough chapters for you to consider this worth doing. You could do it by scene or section, too. Remember, it's all up to you!

Go through each chapter and decide what each one needs (minor edits, heavy rewrites, total nuke, etc...)

Make the semi-final decisions regarding the important questions from step two.

STEP SIX: Start editing.

Work chapter by chapter.

Fix the big issues first (plot holes, character consistency, missing scenes) before focusing on the small stuff (prose, line or dialogue edits, grammar).

If you get stuck, which is normal even with loads of planning, come back later. Momentum matters!

STEP SEVEN: Know when it's "Good Enough".

Perfection is a lie. Your writing now is better than your writing then--and your future writing will be better than your writing now. That's simply how developing a skill works. If you can't seem to look through unbiased eyes for a particular chapter or even a singular scene, ask a friend to read it for you!

Your goal shouldn't be to just "fix" the old chapters; it should be to get the old stuff good enough to support you moving forward!

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As I said in the beginning, you can take snippets of this list or nothing at all! It's all about bolstering your process with what helps you stay motivated. If lists get you going, make lists. If you run on spontaneity, make sure you've got fuel.

Reviving an old fic is a labour of love. It's weird and messy and often quite frustrating, but it's also really special--you're giving a second life to something you cared about enough to start in the first place. That, in and of itself, is worth celebrating.

Good luck!! You've got this.

[check-ur-squad]

Hey there! |˶˙ᵕ˙ )ﾉﾞ

It’s Roselei Respect Day, and I’m here with a silly little guide for every Charlotte unit in Black Clover Mobile. Some are incredibly useful, some a little less so, but all of them fill a particular niche that might help you out as you play the game! I’ll be posting one/two Charlotte(s) a day, so please stay tuned!

One thing to note before we start: ALL CHARLOTTES ARE ATK BASED. You don’t necessarily want to build some of them as attackers or damage dealers, but if you’re going to have main stats on small (four-square) pieces, you’d preferably want them to be ATK and NOT MATK. This gives damage-dealing Charlottes a latent advantage since the majority of units in the game are still MATK based, despite big names like Black Divider or Disloyal Rhya. 

Now, let's begin!

<CHARLOTE ROSELEI>

Type: Red Debuffer 

Niche: One of the best units for new players. Her [Mark] debuff allows you to get multiple extra turns upon killing an enemy, and this WILL save your bacon. She’s also free, so building her early on is a big deal. On her combination attack (not the one with Sol, the regular one), she puts an [Incapacitate] debuff on an enemy, which increases the damage they take by 70%. Even in the late game, this Incapacitate buff is one of the only ways I’ve made it through some levels. 

Main Stats to Focus on: SPD, DEF, ATK, CRIT RES

Enhance?: Not necessary. Doesn’t provide you with much of an advantage. 

Skill page?: Not necessary. I would recommend the Breath of Darkness ATK skill page for beginners and the Moonlight Necklace DEF page for late stagers, but if you want the extra 10% Reduced DEF debuff that’s good too. Remember that it’s better for her to be chonky, since she’s not going to deal significant damage compared to most attackers. 

Gear Sets: You can either choose to go with 2 pc ATK set, 2pc DEF set, and 2 pc SPD set if you want more variety for her build, or go with a 4pc SPD set for an even faster Charlotte and top it off with DEF or ATK. The nice thing about this unit is that she’s not dictated by any one build – you can adjust her depending on what role you want her to play in the game. 

Talents: For Defense (blue one), DEF + 20% and (DEF + 4% CRIT RES + 4%). For Attack (red one), ATK + 7% and DMG DEALT + 5%. For Support (green one), DMG RES + 10% and ON GOD AND MY MOMMA YOU BETTER PUT THE SKILL II COOLDOWN DECREASE ON THERE THATS SO IMPORTANT FOR HER. I recommend the SPD stone, the DEF stone, and the ATK/MATK stone if you have them, but don’t worry too much if you don’t. 

How (?) to play (new players): For new players, Charlotte’s burst/Special Skill isn’t as important as her Skill II and I. You want to hit the enemy with her Skill II first (I would recommend leveling up this talent first before any other unit’s in the game) and then spam her Skill I to do as much damage as possible. If an enemy is really giving you trouble, use her Combo. 

How (?) to play (late players): If the Tower is giving you trouble or you really want to make Langris regret getting out of bed this morning, run Charlotte with at least one Buff-removing debuffer (I’d recommend Rill or Lotus), a healer if you need one, and then either Black Divider, Fuegoleon, or your choice of DPS. Set up your nuke however you do depending on what unit you have, hit the combo, and then have a very good time :) 

There's the first Charlotte! I'm gonna go through in chronological order so <Academy Charlotte> is next :)