astroonaphel

[astroonaphel]

DnD as a loner

wanting to play dnd without any friends is a curse. Please i want to use one of my 20 different kenku character ideas at least once. Let me be a bird

[astroonaphel]

im sailing the high seas for phineas and ferb

[astroonaphel]

I did my daily panic while doing the dishes today. I feel so accomplish

[astroonaphel]

I am angry at the world and even papa's freezeria cant fix it

[astroonaphel]

champion rant – Jayce

Hi... it’s been a while, let’s just say I got shoved into an interdimensional portal for like 3 months. In my last post I said that I would do Jayce after Viktor in preparation for possible changes for Viktor’s vgu. It wouldn’t make a lot of sense for me to do a Viktor rant before the vgu and then do a Jayce rant after the vgu when these two character are kind of inseparable from each other. So, for this I will analyze and rant Jayce’s lore, design, gameplay and some of the skins that I think are notable. This will definitely not be objective at all, I am very opinionated, and all of this is based on my opinion.

Jayce is quite an interesting character cause technically I should like him. He is basically the tony stark of runeterra, and I like Tony Stark. I like witty smart asshole characters who are smug but there is something about Jayce that doesn’t feel right. And I want to know Jayce stans what do you guy see in him? And I’m not talking about arcane Jayce no that will be for the vgu post, I’m talking og Jayce and his lore.

Lore

Jayce came out in 2012 after Viktor and retroactively shoved himself in as the rival to Viktor. Jayce is the smart Piltovan scientist that gets stolen from Viktor and he builds his hammer to go stop Viktors evil experimentation. It’s a bit simple but it does the job of making Jayce the hero while making Viktor more of a villain which kind of made people a bit mad. In 2016 a lore reworked of Piltover and Zaun changed a couple of stuff. Better connecting viktor and Jayce through a backstory where they were classmates who were kind of competing but no hate between each other. They met at a dance and bonded over hating everybody there, truly a nerd experience. Jayce wasn’t challenged by anything except Viktor, he was bored of how everything came easy to him and Viktor the scrawny Zaun scientist was there to put him down a couple pegs. Jayce and Viktor worked at a project together where they had to build suits for divers in Zaun. the divers would have psychosis breaks and an ethical dilemma of how to deal with this separated Viktor and Jayce.This ethical dilemma basically came down to “Viktor stop imposing your will onto sentients”, “calling them sentients is questionable”. This Ruin their very not gay kind of friendship/ kind of rivalry. The next time they meet each other Viktor is already going through the process of GLORIUS EVOLUTION and Jayce doesn’t really agree with it.

Jayce in the lore is a smug man that everything has been easy, he is kind of funny because of how proud he is. The part that rubs me off in the wrong way about him is how he is written. He is so self-aware and yet he is even more of a dick because of it.

He also has a short color story with a random kid that shows up in his laboratory just like Viktor. The kid has a broken toy and Jayce after a while of being rude to the kid end ups fixing it. Make sense I hate kids too. It characterizes him as more than just the hero of Piltover, he has something of kindness in his heart. Ill say it give a story about them coparenting their kids riot you coward.

Overall Jayce tries to fit the Tony stark mold, a super bright mind that hides his heart behind the facade of being an asshole and is misunderstood because he is too smart. It just that he doesn’t do it well, not with charm and very boring, its overused and over played. Jayce in arcane was able to use some of those aspects while not making him an overused character trope.

Design

Jayce’s design isnt as messy as Viktors. It’s a good design for what it is. The red and yellow color scheme really brings out the heroism but also shows some extraness that Jayce def has. The pant legs and belt give a practical sense to the character. His hammer is good, nothing outstanding. The problem with jayce’s design is that is stuck at the time it came out, piltover has grown out of this type of steampunk. Now everything is more sleeked less bulky, less brightly yellow more tone down. The most obvious problem is that jayce came out before hex tech did, so the hex tech creator does not have any hextech in his design. Just by painting some glow parts blue they could put a Band-Aid on it until he gets a canon design which most likely won’t happen because his canonical designs are technically the arcane skins. So to play with a canon Jayce you have to pay money fun..

Skins

Jayce has quite a collection of skins, so its difficult to choose the skins I’ll talk about. Ill do some notable ones, then ill do the best one and the worst one, I won’t do the arcane ones cause that’s for the vgu and arcane Viktor/Jayce blog.

Resistance Jayce

Resistance Jayce is the hero in the battlecast universe. He is fighting against GLORIUS EVOLUTION by leading a rebellion group against Creator Viktor. The hammer is really cool, like I love the throught of him stealing a part of one of viktor’s machines and smashing some metal skulls with it. I like that he is kind of older in the they gave him a beard way. The jacket is interesting, the collar sets him apart from the other rebels as a strong figure.First problem I hate the bleached hair, I feel like im looking at a backstreet boy member, I wished it was more gray to add some aging to him. A lot of people really like silver foxes and Riot you could have tapped into that demographic. Second of all his outfit outside of the coat is kind of boring, it does the rebellion leader job but nothing else, doesn’t really tell much about him.

Jayce bright hammer

This skin is my favorite of his because it puts Jayce into world of warcraft. Jayce Bright Hammer is a paladin who has a bit of a rebellious streak instead of a hextech creator. This skin sets a character like Jayce the heroic engineer and creator of hextech in a different type of world. It fits his character, it doesn’t reinvent it, it doesn’t try to comment on it, its just a good match to Jayce. The skin itself is a good design, the large shoulder pauldron fits the world of warcraft aesthetic, the hammer looks good. The hints of red really bring a pop to the character design and I love the little detail of the note pasted on pauldron. It’s just such a charming skin, and I can’t not look at it without smiling

Zenith Games Jayce

So this is my least favorite skin that Jayce has, there is some competition like debonair just because he kind of gives the alcoholic dad in a wedding vibes or forsaken for being so boring but zenith games must be the worst one. It’s just a bit of a mess, colors everywhere and sci-fi tech puke all over the body to make it look futuristic. First thing the color palette is so messy, there is like 4 shades of orange, 2 different light blues, couple different shades of gray, the red of the symbol and the random green sprinkled in at the belt, pauldron and the body suit, it doesn’t help that outside of the gray everything else is almost neon. the body suit underneath the armor is messy in its design.   especially in the legs with the stripes that go diagonally and then for some reason there is like crotch window right at the front. The chest piece contradicts the patten of the suit and it looks like he strapped on a car piece with a couple of belts. The random eye piece that is neon blue is really distracting, and the hammer just looks so boring, nothing special.

Gameplay

I talked about Viktors game play last time, but that’s because I play him a lot, Jayce isn’t a character I play, so I won’t say much about his game play other than its kind of fun. I have played him a couple of times and what can I say, switching between the modes feels very nice. He isn’t a pain to play against, it doesn’t feel like he is bullying me in the top lane like other range top laners cough cough vayne cough cough. The only thing I’ll say is that acceleration gate  has tripped me up cause I always forget that its not a catch mechanic but it looks like it.

Final thoughts

Before doing this rant, my opinion of Jayce was one of indifference annoyance in league. Ill admit while he could be funny there is something so punchable about Jayce’s face. Like look at him and look at his voice lines, very punchable. And he still is but I can understand more what people see in him. I’m just preconceived to prefer the Victorian frail twinks of the world, we all have our weaknesses. But this version of Jayce is in the past, now we have arcane for better or worse. The next time I do a champion rant (maybe in like 7 months) it will be about Viktor, Jayce and what arcane has done to them.

[astroonaphel]

Lego star wars and scott the woz

Dude the high chance that the mustafar duel was spoiled to a kid in a random town in Virginia makes me so happy for some reason. Some one out there has a grudge against Lego for this. Also the game has no dialogue and it has slap stick comedy, imagine seeing a censored silent Padme giving birth scene and then she just goes bleh with crosses in her eyes and that's how you know she died. beautiful

[astroonaphel]

Daredevil season 2

I finished the season! So my thoughts have changed a lot. So uhm i like karen more than matt now. Her relationship with the punisher and her becoming a reporter was the best part of the season. I havent forgiven her for season 1 but she was less annoying and caused less problems, this time it was matts role to cause problem on everybody because he is stubborn and decides to do everything by himself. Honestly all of the punisher stuff was really good for the most part. Foggy kind of just got forgotten but im glad he had enough self respect to leave. Elektra and matts story line was really painful to get through, there was a lot of awkward breathing and melodramatic monologues , Elektra felt like my OC from elementary school. Spoiler start here.

I hated both of the twists, it didn't really make sense. Why was the colonel the drug guy, it never really got hinted and he spoke so well about frank and it doesn't make sense for him to do that. Why would he defend frank in a trial when he knows frank is trying to figure out what happened to his family and he is in the center of it. as soon as the big reveal scene comes in you know he is the bad guy not because he hinted at it but because its shot with weird angles, and does the quiet vague threatening voice that villains do. It just ended with me going "so that's the guy?" in disappointment

The Elektra story was even worse though, like the twist where she is the black sky was handled so wrong. I don't like the mystical thing they decided to go with and the dialogue of the last couple episodes felt more like a JRPG than daredevil. Her character arc was very flip floppy, she goes from insulting matt, to wanting to be together, she says killing is necessary, and then changes her mind when matt says no and then goes back to killing again, and does a dramatic monologue about how its in her blood. I know they were trying to do the archetype of dangerous sexy women that for some reason is always a POC like Talia al ghul but just like Talia, the writing really has to be good to make them charming and not just frustrating. Same thing with the whole stick thing. I rolled my eyes at the reveal that she was the black sky and rolled them even more when the speeches how she knew she was different and then again when matt did the whole you can be better speech for the 3rth time. There was almost no correlations between the punisher story and Elektra's story, they feel like complete different shows.

I now have to watch the defenders before season 3, at least its only 8 episodes and Elektra is coming back I'm sure. I hope they get better at pacing, the balance between the different stories and writing her dialogue. Also I expect a lot of groveling from matt to Karen and foggy who didn't really have to deal with his shit yet did.

[astroonaphel]

I have figured out my problem with Daredevil season 2

It feels like the Elektra and Yakuza storyline is ironically punishing and making the punisher story line suffer. I haven't finished it yet and its been difficult because as it keeps going that story line is taking over the show. I wouldn't have such a problem with Elektra story line if it didn't feel like everything else in the story is being actively undermined and suffering just to pay attention more to the Yakuza, Elektra and trying to make a character conflict for matt that feels force and out of character for him.

[astroonaphel]

This comic issue of moon knight and spiderman cross over came out in 1978, it is wild to think that star wars was only a year old and was already being mentioned in comics

[astroonaphel]

Moon knight had a homophobic arc in the 70s

also he is a ginger and its a jump scare

[astroonaphel]

Elektra has overpassed karen

I'm in season 2 episode 7 of daredevil and i no longer hate Karen that much. I want to formally apologize to her because someone else came in and became even more annoying. I don't like Elektra, her attitude makes me roll my eyes and i don't understand why matt keeps putting up with her. She feels like a Walmart version of Talia al Ghul, at least Talia is a queen and she slays while making batman's life hard just for the sake of it. Foggy is in the right for everything. I hate the fact that matt just keeps rolling over to Elektra, He is never present for the court case only to flirt with Karen. The poor girl has both her boss and boyfriend ( i guess workplace relationships are accepted at a legal firm) not showing up for anything, at this point Karen has done more work than matt and she isn't even a paralegal. I understand there is like a guilt and toxic coming back ex girlfriend conflict thing that matt is going through but they don't depict anything worth while about Elektra or the relationship. Their relationship feels so surface level and more like a fling they had in collage.

[astroonaphel]

Daredevil question

i come back to tumblr after a 4 month creative slump in trying to write my jayce champion rant because I Need help. I'm watching daredevil the netflix show to watch the new Disney show. I'm in season 2 right now, episode 4. I got a question for you all daredevil fans? Do you guys like karen? cause i kind of really hate her and i really hate whatever just happened with that damn kiss. I mean the nurse lady is right there? if they have to make him straight , why Karen? I have been liking this season so much more cause it has less Karen bein Karen but why the romance? also he is her boss just putting that out there. Not a very equal relationship. Truly, without spoiler for the rest of season 2 and 3. Do people like her? does she get better?

[astroonaphel]

Champion rant-Viktor

This is directly inspired by NickyBoi and T B Skyen . I really liked their videos about the champions and decided that I wanted to rant to the void about them. It was going to be alphabetical order but I decided to do Viktor first definitely not because he is one of my favorites (how dare you say that, there is no favorites here?) but because we will soon get a different version more based on the arcane story.  Next time I’ll go into Jayce as his bio might change to match with Viktor's vgu and I want to get ahead of that. For this I will only look at everything before arcane, that means no sick twink Victorian Viktor. So, enjoy a deep dive into the Machine Herald.

Viktor is in an interesting spot in league of legends, the result of riots obvious favoritism towards its golden children (Cough Ezreal, lux, mis fortune, Jayce cough), lack of consistency and a niche but passionate fanbase. Viktor was released in the end of 2011, like lot of different champion he has had different lore over the year until we get the modern version today.

LORE

Viktor lore is in a weird position because it contradicts itself and the fans don't really agree on it. Viktor is not a random villain of the week, but he is also not a pure puppy just helping. There is a couple things that are consistent throughout all the lore's, he is a scientist from Zaun who is trying to improve the city through technology, he builds Blitz crank, the credit of his invention get stolen, he decides to take away his emotions through augmentation, is a staunch supporter of transhumanism and he wants a GLORIUS EVOLUTION. Yet the rewrites have added more detailed or changed things to try and give Viktor a more sinister story. Notice that Jayce is not a constant, he didn't even exist when the first version of Viktor was released yet 8 months later when Jayce was released, Viktor would get his first big rewrite to link them together. Viktor whole "JOIN MY GLORIUS EVOLUTION" through free will or by force was not added until Jayce got introduce into the story, don't worry Viktor still had the GLORIOUS EVOLUTION thing just more of a "if you want?" Riot really wanted Jayce to be the good guy and Viktor to be the bad guy of the story, a foil to each other. In 2016 a bunch of rewrites happened to Piltover and Zaun, for Viktor it meant more detail and more links to Jayce, that's the lore we have today not counting arcane or the vgu.

Current lore has Viktor still be a scientist from Zaun who wants to make Zaun safer, he gets invited to the academy of Piltover and decides to attend. He meets Jayce and they are not friends more like rivals/reluctant classmates, Viktor still creates Blitzcrank from scrap to clean up a spill in Zaun and one of his teachers steals the credit and no one listen to Viktor about it, especially Jayce. This start resentment towards the world, Viktor and Jayce gets forced to work together in a project to build diving suit for people in Zaun but the chemicals in the water create hallucinations to the operator which end up causing them to attack and kill each other. Viktor realizes that this was a human error and decides "Hey why can’t we just take control of the body when this happens" Jayce and him argue about ethics and Jayce is a snitch causing Viktor to get expulsed. This adds another line to the resentment counter. Viktor goes back to Zaun and operates on himself to get rid of pesky emotions, and start operating on other people but realizes that he needed a crystal from Jayce to save a couple of people so he decides to steal it by sneaking into his lab and Jayce just goes "alright bet" and demolishes Viktor's lab and the crystal in petty revenge, in the process killing the people that Viktor was trying to help. That's the final line for Viktor and he decides "you know what humans are stupid either way, I’ll just get rid of all emotions, machines are better, they are my only friend" My favorite part of this Viktor is that people decide that he is a god and start a cult under his name called the Church of the Glorious Evolved but Viktor just ignores it? I could you not this comes from directly his bio

"Some in Zaun, hearing fragments of his philosophy and seeing the successes of his work, saw him as a messianic figure. Viktor couldn’t care less for them, viewing their quasi-religious cult as an aberration; yet another reason to eliminate emotional foibles and the belief in that which could not be empirically proven." -Biography

Don't you hate it when accidently you become a cult figure when the only thing you are trying to do is turn people into machines?

I like this lore, the part that interests me the most is his role in Zaun. I like to think about weather he is a helpful figure one who feels bad and wants to help his city or is he an opportunist who views the people who come to him as project that he can try his sketchy practices on. There is so much to explore about his character. Sadly this is riot and the only time they'll move forward in the lore of a character is if they are popular.

So yeah, that's lore Viktor according to his bio, which should be seen as the truest version of the character. This is important cause he also has color story which is not really like the bio? I mean in the short story he helps out this kid from Zaun who is being pressured into sneaking into Viktor's lab by other kids. he gives him sweet milk and helps the kid scare his bullies away. He talks some philosophy. monologues and says some killer lines like

“Humans consistently ignore the endless infinity of possibilities in favor of maintaining the status quo.”-Viktor

But it sounds nothing like how the bio sets him up as? Bio Viktor is most likely to look at the kid and be like "huh free test subject" or "kid I'm going to give you an extra pair of arms and cool laser eyes and no you don't have a choice" instead Viktor is more like "if you ever want more permanent illegal mortification, I'm here" also he talks about drinking sweet milk and this is something with his design which will be my next section, but he wears a mask, he is more like a cyborg than full machine doesn't really follow the whole GLORIUS EVOLUTION when he himself still has human parts and feelings. I mean it could be seen as a hypocritical thing, a character flaw but riot never acknowledges that so I am pretty sure it’s more of an inconsistent writing, bad characterization and no direction of the character whether Viktor is an evil scientist who forces machines onto people or just a work obsessed guy trying to fix problem through a really extreme solution.im not even going to go into Jayce bio cause that one has things that contradict Viktor bio! And honestly if we talked about the inconsistencies of league of legends lore, we would be here all day.

Design

Viktor design is kind of messy? I mean its dark color palette, the angry yellow eyes, the cape and voice lines all give the vibes of a villain. The extra arm is a cool idea, as Viktor feels like a character that would built something helpful that the human body doesn't have, an extra arm to help around the lab and be a cool laser weapon. The rest of his design doesn't really tell his story, I mean it just looks like a guy in armor. I already said it but the fact that he has a mask goes against becoming a machine deal. His arm is cool but it’s on top of a really thick pauldron that makes it look clunky, just an add on instead of it being part of Viktor. The most machine part of Viktor is his pauldron arm that's fully mechanical. The rest of his limbs from what could be seen in the model are just normal. One of his leg has a brace which is a cool idea, it hints at something about him and the arcane writer used it to add depth to his character by linking it to his desire for evolution and help humanity, It’s also representation of braces, disabilities and illnesses that's often ignored by media. But league doesn't have that, there is really no reason given for the leg brace that I could find, a lot of fans kind of head canon what arcane did but lore wise it doesn't really make sense. Viktor is obsessed with reaching his GLORIUS EVOLUTION and believe humanity is the error that should be erased yet he is more human than actual machine, it doesn't make sense for Viktor to keep something so human like a disability instead of replacing it with technology. Don't get me starter on the skirt thing like it screams 80s cartoon villain and I wonder what material is supposed to be, actually that goes with his whole outfit it’s an amalgamation of metal and cloth but difficult to figure out where it ends and begins. I like his cape, it’s a cool shape I don't know how I feel about the red sometimes I like it other times I feel like it’s trying to replicate count Dracula. The staff is fine, I kind don't like the random cable on the top mostly because it feels like a weirdly design flaw that Viktor himself would never do. In conclusion Viktor design works, but it’s trying to do so many things and yet not enough, it really doesn't fit Viktor as a character fully and also it doesn't really fit what we view as modern Zaun, it fits more into a random mmo.

Skins

Viktor doesn't have a lot of skins he is over 10 years old, and he only has 6 skins, and the skins he does have are a bit of a mix bag. I'll be talking about a couple important ones

His best skin in my opinion is death sworn Viktor, a lot of the Viktor's skins don't change him much, they keep him as a scientist engineer and often has a tech theme to them. Death sworn Viktor changes him from a man obsessed with machine as the future of humanity to a man who sees death as the future of humanity. It’s an interesting take of the character. The blue and purple color scheme is really nice his vfx are good, I like the hand as an eye and I like the hood and  skull mask, it manage to make him look less derpy with his animations and intimidating TBSkyen has a really good short about this skin.

Creator Viktor is ok as a skin, I'm personally not the biggest fan of it look wise, but technically speaking is the skin line where he is the most important in. Part of the battle cast universe creator Viktor is almost a what if Viktor really went with GLORIUS EVOLUTION to the max and replaced everything with machines. Creator Viktor is basically just a more accomplished version of normal Viktor. Sad thing is as the leader of the battle cast machines, he doesn't really stand out. I mean battle cast Skarner and battle cast Kog'Maw kind of overshadow him... by a lot.

Worst skin without a shadow of a doubt is prototype Viktor. It’s supposed to be kind of a lore skin, its Viktor at its early stages of augmentation, it’s one of the two skins he launched with which both are robotic themed on an already robotic themed character, innovation. There is a lot to say about this skin, the red and yellow color scheme is not appealing, it honestly hurts the eyes. It has too many buckles, it’s trying to be steam punk, but the colors are just off. I can’t get over them maybe if the colors were different, it could be less jarring. The hand is fine, it’s a bit weird that the hand alongside the pants and hair are the only things that's brown and grays.it takes away attention from the hand towards the bright top area My biggest gripe with this skin, that TBSkyen says so himself is that DAMN CAPE! the cape has bolts , it has a metal structure, THE CAPE HAS A METAL STRUCTURE. why? it screams add metal and that makes it steam punk. Honestly! Everything could have been done well and that god forsaken cape would have still landed it at the bottom.

Gameplay

I’m not a good player of any sorts so this is just my opinion as someone who plays Viktor semi regularly. I like his playstyle sometimes its kind slow. I find the coolest part is his passive with the evolve mechanic. Viktor’s passive is a stack every time you kill a minion or a champion you get a certain amount of point at one hundred you can evolve one of your abilities. It’s cool idea but it only has one evolution per ability, I feel like that’s a such a waste of a mechanic. If you play well as Viktor and its a longer game, you could by the 15 mark have more than 2 abilities evolved and by 30 mins you will have every ability evolved and then that's it, 20 more mins of playtime where technically speaking you should be at your strongest so it should mean more kills yet no more augments cause they are locked? His q is very simple, its a little blast that grants a shield and if evolved also speed, most of the game it just feels like an empowered auto. His w is a gravity field which slows down enemies and if evolved it grants slow to all abilities. this one is a bit annoying cause it’s so easy to just dodge, most often it can used as a way to deter an enemy from going somewhere but it’s a bit hard to actually make someone fall for it cause it’s so noticeable. His e is the most useful one though it can be clunky, it’s a laser you can choose where it hits. It’s fun to use and the evolved version just makes the trail explode. his ultimate is an electricity field that follows an enemy, pretty annoying to fight against but pretty funny to play with especially if you kill multiple at once.

Final thoughts

Here is when ill be talking about a bit of the vgu. I really the Viktor we have right now, he has his flaws. I like him in the game while he says “GLORIUS EVOLUTION” and I’m running around hitting people with lasers. As often is the case the game and the lore don’t match with each other. The lore is really inconsistent with itself too, the game version of Viktor just look like a villain, the bio says that he is a misunderstood yet mad driven scientist towards his goal of evolution no matter the ethics or consequences, and his story and a lot of his actions say that he is a scientist that is trying to prove himself to the world through a misguided solution. I am ok with his design, I mean it does the job better than Annie or Gragas, but it doesn’t really tell his story well, kind of I mean it does show case how contradictive this character is. and while I will miss this Viktor, I am hopeful that the vgu will make things more consistent and be for the better. I won’t say anything else because I will wait until it comes out for my full opinions and thoughts on the vgu.

[astroonaphel]

i love arcane

[astroonaphel]

i got hit by the dump truck of inspiration yesterday, decided that my life lacked arcane merch, yet i got no money for hot topic, fenty or fancy displate posters. so i decided gosh darn it ill do it myself. It is now at its early stages

either way long preamble aside this is the scene with the smexy lighting where silco gets offer his nation of zaun (the only way to read that is with his voice) in exchange of his daughter. fun times !

[astroonaphel]

Shut up and take my money

[astroonaphel]

This is a farewell to Glorious Evolution Viktor

And a Hello to twinkified evolution