#and op makes a great point

[havelanca]

Life imitates art

all goofing aside I genuinely don't understand the urge to reimagine Taylor Allison Swift as a secretly queer icon when the pop music scene(TM) is like. literally overflowing with women who actually like women. Gaga and Kesha and Miley and Halsey are right there. Rina Sawayama and Hayley Kiyoko and Rebecca Black and Kehlani and Victoria Monét and Miya Folick if you're willing to get slightly less top 100. Janelle and Demi for them nonbinary takes on liking girls. like what are we doing here. like I'm not even saying you can't enjoy Taylor but why would you hang all your little gay hopes on her.

[invinciblevalentine]

atp i would snort reeve tuesti fic like cocaine.

if anyone knows any fics that put reeve through the blender like “Son” by She_sees_in_the_dark or “Through Another’s Eyes” by CorsairOriginal—

i need to see that man under enough pressure to make a diamond crack. For my health.

[anakinh]

arcane characters dnd classes

because im bored and hyperfixating

Vi: Monk. Pit Fighter Vi is Way of the Drunken Master. Drunken Master monks fight hand-to-hand 'mimicking the style of a drunkard'. Technically you don't have to be drunk to be a Drunken Master monk so maybe she still uses those techniques while sobered up later. I think she starts out as a Way of the Open Hand monk, which is just a monk that is Very Good at Punching. The gauntlets are a magical item.

Jinx: Artillerist Artificer. Very straightforward. Makes bombs and cannons. Can use magic (referring to her use of hextech as bombs)

Ekko: Scout Rogue/Chronurgy Wizard multiclass. Scout rogues are very mobile so I think it fits him. Later on he takes two levels in Chronurgy Wizard, which gives him chronal shift. This lets him rewind time briefly to change the outcome of an action - fits pretty well, I think. He only needs two levels wizard to mimic his rewind ability and that multiclass makes him fast.

Viktor*: Transmutation Wizard. In the DnD world, both Viktor and Jayce (and Ekko!) would be wizards because they can just study magic instead of trying to harness it via technology. At level 14 the Transmutation Wizard can use their 'Transmuter's Stone' to create a panacea - a cure to all ills (plus restore youth and raise the dead. sounds familiar). Luckily, I think Transmutation Wizard fits Arcane-Viktor as well (especially once he creates the hexcore, which could be his Transmuter's Stone).

Commune Viktor is an NPC with a three-phase boss fight. The first phase is so simple you know there are other phases. I'd probably add in a mechanic where you try to talk him down in the third phase.

(Alternatively commune Viktor as we know him does not exist because the spell Revivify exists and Jayce shouldn't have to turn to unlicensed necromancy to get Viktor back**. Speaking of...)

Jayce*: Hexblade Warlock/Paladin (Oath of the Watchers)***. Again, if left to his own devices in a DnD world, Jayce would be a wizard. I'd say Abjuration (tanky wizard with protective shields) because he wants to protect people (and he's tanky), Order of Scribes (if he's focused on learning/harnessing all magic). Divination to pun on the 'Man of Progress' thing or if you interpret his glitches in s2 as visions of another world/seeing the truth of the commune members/arcane spidey-sense, which tbh really works

However, If I wanted to create Arcane-Jayce in DnD, I would make a Hexblade Warlock/Paladin multiclass. Hexblade warlocks get magic from a weapon, so it can be flavoured as Jayce using his hammer to do/cast magic. The hammer blasts can be very easily flavoured as eldritch blasts. Paladin is added narratively after the post-apocalypse world but not needed if you just wanted to mimic abilities. I'd go for Oath of the Watchers because they literally protect the realm from extraplanar threats. I've seen some people go for Devotion. That's fair, but it's a bit too Knight in Shining Armour for me.

Mel: Divine Soul Sorcerer. Also pretty easy - sorcerers come by their magic naturally, divine soul sorcerers get their power from a connection with the divine + has the gold/light/shielding imagery/spells. Hell, she's probably an aasimar? I don't know enough league lore to tell.

However, she only got her powers later. I think before that she was an Eloquence Bard or a Mastermind Rogue. Mastermind Rogues are more insightful. Both are incredibly persuasive - the bard moreso. The bard has magic - could be reflavoured as manipulation or as her sorcerer powers poking out before she knew about it. Later you could even multiclass her with sorcerer - works better with Eloquence Bard, but it's still not the most optimal multiclass (that's Jayce's). It's not bad, though, and if you only make optimal multiclasses in dnd you're going to get bored. I'd honestly go bard, only two levels in divine soul sorcerer for sorcery points, get metamagic adept feat for metamagic, it'll be fine. Divine Soul sorcerers get wings and healing at higher levels but if she's an aasimar she already has those.

Caitlyn: Inquisitive Rogue/Battlemaster Fighter multiclass. If you want to play a gunslinger in DnD the general advice is 'battlemaster with a gun'. She probably has the sharpshooter feat (she should have the sharpshooter feat). Inquisitive rogues are intelligent and focus on investigating, unravelling secrets. Rogue/Fighter multiclasses are very good - you only need three levels in fighter (edit: but maybe go for five for extra attack.) (She should also pick up the observant and martial adept feats if she can.)

Bonuses:

Vander: Vander is a bartender NPC at the tavern all our players meet up at during the first session. He's a retired high-level monk. Way of the Open Hand, of course. Just like he taught Vi.

Mylo and Claggor: I only added this because I re-watched the first episode and Mylo was apparently the only one who could pick locks. So Mylo is a Thief Rogue and Claggor is, idk, a fighter? (funnily enough both the artificer and the monk would be good picks for resident lock-picker. Not as good as rogue, but not bad)

Silco: Honestly, Silco would be an NPC with a commoner statblock, but I give him ridiculous bonuses to insight, perception, intimidation, and deception. That said, he did fight Vander, so maybe also Mastermind Rogue? With expertise in intimidation? (Still goes badly for him, though. Do not 1v1 a monk in dnd).

Singed: NPC combo necromancy wizard/alchemist artificer, focusing on the alchemy. I'd probably stick some Spores Druid/Death domain cleric stuff in just to be fun since NPCs can be whatever you want. Honestly, in the average DnD world he could just pay someone to resurrect his daughter and we'd solve half of our problems right there. He's originally from Piltover, right? He can afford it.

Ambessa Medarda: NPC Battlemaster Fighter and she has Rictus' anti-magic item that all your players hate.

Footnotes

* Jayce and Viktor cast 'spells' with hextech that reverses gravity, creates lightning, teleports - but, in the immortal words of Ms. Aabria Iyengar, "anyone can cast fireball teleport." Those are conjuration/evocation spells but you don't have to be a conjurer or evoker. Sometimes I see people think of enchantment wizards as 'wizards who enchant magic items' so maybe we'd put Jayce and Viktor there, but actually enchantment wizards do mind control. And, like I said, commune Viktor is an NPC with a three-phase boss fight. Transmutation wizards are the only wizards who can resurrect without making undead and they do it using their transmuter's stone. Although I'd argue that Viktor's commune members are undead... but anyone can cast the Animate Dead spell. And he's an NPC at that point so his abilities are whatever the DM wants.

** UNLESS you assume the hexcore is Viktor's transmuter's stone (which is how he casts the spells panacea/raise dead that I mentioned). It got corrupted as Viktor created it and when Jayce uses it to cast Raise Dead it goes wrong. (Despite its name the Raise Dead spell is supposed to be a normal, safe resurrection spell AND it cures all nonmagical diseases.) Anyway, we're getting into fanfiction now

*** My problem with the Jayce hexadin class is that it's optimized for charisma. Jayce is very charismatic, but his main characteristic is his smarts. A somewhat popular homebrew is to make warlocks int casters so you could go with that. In that case I might multiclass him with abjuration wizard for the extra tankiness. It's still not as good as the original hexadin multiclass so as a DM i'd allow it. Or just keep paladin, ability-wise you only need it for smites and his charisma should be high anyway. Probably your DM shouldn't allow all three on an int warlock.

On the other hand hexadin Jayce's high charisma makes him well suited for the 'talking down Viktor' mechanism in his third phase bossfight, which ... tracks.

[moongothic]

So the One Piece brand has been doing radio broadcasts called Strawhat Space (/Mugiwara Space) where they bring in voice actors to chitchat about the series etc, most of the episodes they've featured just the main cast but they've started bringing in VAs for other characters too (one episode was Mayumi Tanaka/Luffy and Tomokazu Seki/Lucci, another was the OG three admirals etc) This week's broadcast featured Ryuuzaburo Ootomo and Yuriko Yamaguchi as Crocodile and Miss All Sunday respectively

The promotional images for Strawhat Space have been Extremely Adorable and I know I'm a simp but god, this one is so cute

Now unfortunately, while my Japanese listening comprehension is good enough to follow along your average kids anime where the VAs speak clearly and take their turns, yeah, a radio show where the VAs stumble on their words a little and speak over each other is too hard for me to keep up with (not to mention my vocab just not being suited for this kinda thing)

But, if I didn't completely misunderstand Yuriko at one point, she seemed to mention that she hoped Crocodile would remain in the position of an ally in the story (after having teamed up with Luffy during Impel Down), and like. Yuriko I love you, you so are so right

[moomeecore]

im so brave i blocked the op of a post bc it was rancid and shit and icky and middle school bully core even tho mutuals reblogged AND im not even going to screenshot the post and yell abt it. i very maturely am only vague posting abt it in an attempt to sooth my anger. anger issues cannot get me im blocking them and leaving . i do not need to engage with it. and it's ok if people i like reblogged it bc. maybe they didn't think for very long abt it idk. i believe in my mutuals i believe you guys didn't mean it . its ok!!!!! and i win bc i didnt say anything! even though one specific phrase just made me curl up in disguist! they actually started out like maybe they had something to say but they let it slip that they are just a pos and i caught it i saw it and i survived! i do not need to engage with people on the internet who make problems out of nothing and say they are "concerned" about the most non issue ever. you aren't concerned you just like being mean and hide behind language that makes it sounds like youre concerned about society deteriorating when in reality you just suck and probably spent all of high school throwing gum at people's hair and destroying their personal possessions

[good-to-drive]

I think Conan is my favorite comedian firstly because he's been to Calvin Coolidge's memorial and secondly because he likes to pause in between silly bits to remind us that eventually our graves will go unattended

[tw1stedthicket]

Re: harry potter shit ,,, I understand growing up with it, really loving it, resonating with it a lot at one point... to the point that it legitimately could've been a means through which you discovered friends, met people from all over, had tons of fun to escape a bad environment, discovered more about yourself, inspired your own path in life.... it can be meaningful i acknowledge but like. Can we at least acknowledge at that point you've integrated it into your personality. And at that point though, you still have an obligation to excise out of you that which ended up being shitty. I sympathize with the idea of having profoundly genuine love there but guys. We're not *that age* anymore, the age you were when you found it. Life has gotten infinitely more complicated and nuanced and sometimes even ppl who are capable of great creativity, imagination, world-building, and fantasy can simultaneously have views as an adult about the people around them they live in this world with that are incredibly bigoted. I get that we associate levels of depravity on jkr's level with some kind of creative bankrupcy toward an artistic imagination of that which we also associate with deep friendship, love, or connection but like... Hence one facet of the insidiousness of bigotry.

The lesson to take from this is the adult moral responsibility we have and if you have to re-frame that as taking what you truly believed to your core as harry potter's message of unconditional love and friendship over fear, then follow that to its natural conclusion with your re-frame that allows you to say, "yeah no, i really wholeheartedly loved indulging in what i viewed as something that brought so many people together in our respective cozy houses, and silly games, and abiding love for all who enjoyed such a fun, comforting story - but jkr's behavior as a human being completely contradicts the message she tried to sell. I can't stand by the product of something made by somebody who clearly didn't see in it what i did, which was an imperative to fight beside the people you call friends, and trans people are unequivocally my friend." Bro the magic of the stories was always in YOU, my homie.

If you made something part of your personality, ofc calls to excise that would feel painful. No one said you can't ever grieve something like that, its potential ties to someone who used to be in your life, or the way life looked back then experiencing it, unforgettable memories, etc. Fandom is a really cool community.

But understand that the well has been poisoned NOT because of the supposed contradictory -multifaceted- nuance of how jkr is simultaneously the author of an incredibly successful, hard-hitting, and beloved series that many, many of us grew up with and yet she also has hosted and fed directly-hp-condemning tribalistic, purist, exclusionary, reactionary transphobia deliberately chosen over a period of years with resistance from others to legitimatize away any goodwill toward trans ppl and in fact actually is emboldened to humiliate them and use her money proudly and vocally to support whatever will make their lives harder and outright deny and erase their existence.... Understand that the well is poisoned because of how deep the cognitive dissonance is for *you*. Because of how interwoven with your past, present, and at one time a future you believed in it is. Because of how conflicted you feel ethically just knowing trans ppl in your life and in her country who will be affected so unfairly, unnecessarily, and painfully by her desires.

A desire to continue latching onto what hp meant to you, fueling the desire for hp, indulging in it, etc is directly supporting her efforts in a way that is different than any dead artist you could say you love the art of but hate their politics. She has deliberately made it clear that attention, time, money, proceeds, downloads, clicks, views, merchandise, and the way it has gone down in history as such an untouchable piece of fiction are supporting what she genuinely feels is her mission. Supported at the same time by her belief that she is under a "witch-hunt"... meanwhile actual trans people are getting singled out for this and will suffer insane consequences in their material day-to-day life. Figure out what you need to and find a different way to be a different person who embodies what you used to like about it.

There are other fandoms, other books. You want classically beloved children's books from the early 2000's? There are lists everywhere and lots of hidden gems. It doesn't have to be a part of your life forever where you put your head between your knees to distract from the fact that ofc you don't support anti-transness.... you just support this thing made by somebody who made it very clear that devotion to harry potter is devotion to her and her causes. You can say all you want that it means what you want, that still loving harry potter and maybe being vocally against her and being pro-trans causes is helping, but you don't get her little women's center plans smashed if you keep giving it attention.

It's fine to still have love in your heart for it..and that it can be legitimately grief to consider abandoning it and moving onward with your life. It's possible to acknowledge the ppl involved who clearly had good intentions in the piece of children's media they were contributing to. And the many, many lives touched by it. But when you keep it sacred to you, you're keeping her sacred too.

You're keeping her on a pedestal of untouchability bc of her great work as she continues to make it clear that she has obviously moved on from whatever pro-acceptance views were part of it, and intends to use generations of loyalty to harry potter to further her vision of the future. Not your vision of the future? Cool. Consider that maybe with jkr you don't have that home for yourself to be the most loving version of you that those first dives into fantasy initially taught you existed in you and were important.

There are so many other things you can resonate with, I implore you not to let your pedestal of significance be mistaken as an altar for continued devotion or loyalty lest you betray it. She betrayed you, not the other way around. Be angry about it, man. Put the magical fantasy aside for a second just to be angry that there is a part of you that never thought a creator who felt as magical and wise as the characters in her books that guided you growing up could harbor such vitriol for a part of the living, breathing world and people who want happy lives as themselves, comfortably reading their own beloved books in a life that feels safe, affirmative, and protected.

The books made you feel that, no? Turn around and give the same support to trans people, pick up some of the other awesome reads out there, mourn your little mourn for your inner child, and teach that inner child how to be an adult who knows in reality, the way jkr clearly fucking refuses, that nobody deserves to be the target of such profound hate - especially from someone so concentradidly, willing-to-sacrifice-others, powerful on the basis of who they are. That was kinda the lesson from hp, right? That's what we call in deconstruction circles "graduating". You took it to heart.

Now lay it to rest. And move forward - with the fullest "fuck jkr and fuck hp" you can - to let her hbo shit die, and her next cash grab, and the next one after that.

[sskk-manifesto]

And so the big sskk shortage begins (no sskk for the next 15 episodes) (and the sskk episode coming after kind of sucks)

[seariii]

New person was blocked cause even tho I agree with most of what there saying, they're being way too aggressive about it and I do NOT need that negativity when I'm trying to enjoy something

whats with people having to attack others to try to make their own point valid?

[ms-all-sunday]

i say this with so much heart, one piece has more respect for mentally ill people being a dick because of trauma than i would have in that exact situation. like sanji in wci when hes fully being a massive huge wet pathetic asshole that. like. completely justified that nami reacts so negatively to that while the narrative has a lot of empathy for him because i would kill someone in real life if they did that to me. even if it was a beautiful blond haired man and i had been playing heterosexual chicken with him ever since we first met. the self control on nami there is literally neverending.

like its good that this is the case, well written narratives about mental illness should be this empathetic while fully understanding the consequences of someones actions LIKE wci. these two things are so often treated like theyre mutually exclusive but for op they're not. and i love that. but jesus. she really loves him huh.

[ri-afan]

Omg that’s great 🤟🏼😁🧡

There’s been a number of times I’ve turned away from fics because of their point of view. This is soothing to me.

[thekidsare-not-alright]

I think some mcr fans would rather die than acknowledge that the break up helped cement their legacy and popularity. everyone loves a martyr/what they can't get more of, yknow. it's a fact of life

[cherryhrat]

HELP DOES ANYONE HAVE THAT POST WHERE THE OP TALKED ABOUT HOW MADARA IS SIMILAR TO JESUS BC IM WRITING AN ESSAY ABOUT IT FOR COLLEGE AND I NEED INSPIRATION BUT I CANT REMEMBER WHO WROTE IT AND I CANT FIND IT

[dandyshucks]

this is one of those sketches where i stop halfway through and go "IS THIS ALLOWED???"

[designernishiki]

update on my y0 platinuming endeavors: two trophies left until platinum. frothing at the mouth

[shower-thoughts-last-responder]

It's almost as if literacy and education are complex, multiple faceted issues that's can't be simplified down into a single rage bait headline maximised for clicks and views.

"it's concerning if university students are genuinely struggling to read full adult-level books for class" and "don't overstate the reporting of a single news article" and "if this shift is genuinely real, it's reflective of broad curriculum changes in lower education levels, probably at least in part due to remote schooling during COVID, and doesn't mean the new generation is being willfully Stupid and Vapid" and "when reading for personal pleasure people should read whatever they like without shame" and "reading from a broad variety of genres, styles, and authorial backgrounds will improve your understanding of both literature and the real world" and "actively mocking people for their tastes in books does not encourage them to become more adventurous you're just being mean" and also "but seriously adult books are not just boringly pretentious nothingburgers padded with pointless sex scenes, and claiming they are just shows how little you've read" all can and should co-exist.