#*posts this instead of doing the writing challenge XP

[smallest-turtle]

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV, Final Fantasy XV Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Noctis Lucis Caelum & Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gladiolus Amicitia & Prompto Argentum & Noctis Lucis Caelum & Ignis Scientia Characters: Noctis Lucis Caelum, Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Ignis Scientia, Gladiolus Amicitia, Cor Leonis, Prompto Argentum, Feo Ul Additional Tags: Female Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Named Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Post-Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers (Final Fantasy XIV), Chapter 6: A Way Forward (Final Fantasy XV), ffxiv/ffxv crossover event, Protective Chocobros (Final Fantasy XV), Uncle Cor Leonis, Friendship, Developing Friendships, Selective Mutism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Fainting, Other Additional Tags to Be Added Series: Part 39 of Deidre Hunt Summary:

To Noctis Lucis Caelem, Deidre was a Hunter who had helped him return from her strange land to his own. To Deidre Fortemps, Noct was a guy she went camping with. When the Prince ends up summoning his new friend to his world by accident, they get to find out that actually, something much worse is going on with each of them. Being chosen by a Crystal is good for nobody.

[bleachbleachbleach]

2022/2023 Fandom Goals!

At the end of last year I set out to accomplish what then appeared to be achievable fandom goals for 2022. 

WERE THEY, THOUGH. WERE THEY. 

Let’s see:

2022 Goals (Review)

1. be more shameless on Tumblr - I’m pretty sure I’ve gotten at least a little better about this, though I guess it depends on the day. Posting things on the Internet causes me anguish, and I consider doing so an intentional conditioning process. All the same, I would still like to feel less anguish. But I also don’t want to be actively annoying or boring and simply be *unanguished* about it, LOL, and therein lies my hangup.

2. stop damning reblogs to Draft Purgatory - I have been very good about this this year! Browser tabs purgatory, on the other hand…

3. prioritize accessible joy - This one was about not abandoning Tumblr for months at a time, and I feel like I’ve actually improved here and merely abandoning Tumblr for 1-2 weeks at a time. One thing that was way more helpful than it had any business being was making a special "mini dash" that just has blogs that primarily post original Bleach content and/or mutuals who are friends, so that if I get overwhelmed I can jump ship and use that dash for a while instead, and still get to see a lot of my favorite things. I say this like my normal dash isn’t mostly Bleach and like I follow a zillion active blogs. I do not. That’s why it’s ridiculous that my mini dash is as great for me as it is. XD 

4. finish reading the Soul Society arc - I am on… Chapter 68 LOL, and Ichigo has not yet so much as entered Soul Society. Making progress on this re-read is challenging because there are a lot of ways to enjoy Bleach and this reread is the only one that’s not a moving target—the manga’s not going anywhere; I’m not going to 'fall behind' if I don’t read it—and I have a regrettably limited amount of Bleach time. But I think I’ve become more confident in my reading/ability to search stackexchange and read about grammar, so I am still enjoying this!

5. write my fanfic - I wish I had done more of this, but this was a Year—a huge number of moving pieces IRL. I think last year I had written like… 10k of this fanfic? And now I have probably 20-30k, and most of that original 10k got scrapped. This fic has done a lot of shape-taking this year, which is very good. I had these grand plans of finishing two full chapters (Akon and Matsumoto 5) by the end of the year, which I have modified to finishing one chapter. I have *one scene left* but I think it’s probably in the Top 5 of Scenes in This Fic That I Already Know Are Going to be Hard to Write, and I’ve already written and deleted it once. There were so many bugs in the deleted version, so many bugs for absolutely no reason. I don’t know what the scene will ultimately look like, but I can assure you you’d never guess what scene used to Have Bugs, because there is so little reason there should have been bugs.

2023 Goals

1. Write my fanfic! For the sake of SMART goals, let’s say at least 1 line per day, every single day. Come March I will have been writing this for two years and WHAT do I have to show for it.

2. No more tabs purgatory! I don’t know how obvious B3’s posting habits are to others—but for my part of the equation, I tend to be That Person who reblogs 15 long textposts and adds 90 tags to everything, all the span of the same 2-hour block. I don’t think this is actually a good way of using Tumblr and I’d prefer to… not do that. XP And to find ways of being more with the flow of the dash. 

This is mostly me needing to carve out better interstitial space for fun time, because I want this for my own pleasure and I also because I want the OP to know how VERY EXCITED I AM TO SEE IT and tabs purgatory feels like the opposite of being able to do that. SMART goal? Uhhh don’t let tabs languish for more than a week?

3. Make space for fandom, and for fandom things that give me most joy. Again, this is part of a broader life assessment that in a better world would boil down to "working less" but in this world is not accessible if I want to continue being employed. So I’ll settle for being extremely intentional about how I spend my free time, and by consciously thinking about ways to create the kinds of interactions I most enjoy. That sounds very cerebral but I promise I just mean things like "that meme where I asked people to send in random stuff they loved about their Bleach faves was super fun I should do that again sometime" and "try to make friends" and "talk about fanfic with people” and “make progress on that bleach reread occasionally.”

4. Be more shameless on Tumblr. YEAH I have no strategies here, but I’m gonna keep this one on the list.

[maudfs]

Journal for August 2022

From now on, I’ll be posting my DeviantArt journals here as well. I only write these like once or twice a year, lately...I’ll also write on the Summary of Art at the end of each year, of course. Let’s see if Tumblr’s formatting is better for it! (probably!) It’s long so here’s a readmore. By the way...

The last time I was on my computer, a tree fell on our house! :O  Well, that's what it sounded like anyway! I was on my computer watching videos when I heard a crack, a rustling, and then a very loud crash. Me and my mom looked outside to find a pine tree in the corner of the yard had snapped in half and and fallen in between our house and the next house. There was also a large branch sticking in between the fence and our house! It appears the tree had fallen more or less parallel to the fence in our yard, except for that one branch which I think hit the roof above my room and broke on impact.  Surprisingly, no one was hurt and there doesn't appear to be any damage to the house, although the fence was knocked open. We're very lucky considering all the ways the tree could have fallen, including onto an AC unit (expensive, important!), into my window (where I was sitting!) or into the neighbors window (where they were probably sleeping!). But it fell almost perfectly next to the fence instead... Gosh!  We're very lucky it didn't hit that AC unit, because it was just replaced last month, as it had stopped working! At that point the heat was already in the 80's and 90's and somewhat humid...but now? Wouldn't THAT have been terrible... but, yes, we are okay.  In other news... I have ideas to work on my website, but doing HTML is sometimes very complicated so I don't have much to show for it yet. For example, my old Windows XP acted like it didn't want to start up, so I finally copied all the files off of it, and looking through them made me nostalgic for those old fan sites on the late 90's and 2000's (example, example)... so my site might get yet another style change to show. I'm at the very same time thinking about making/adding a Pokémon section with my Fakedex... but should I really be trying to do all that at the same time? Sigh. Oh well, we'll see if I update my website anytime soon. XD  My mom has had several procedures regarding her back, so I don't do a lot of drawing or other things around these times because I am helping her with a lot. Of course, I still haven't made a Commission sheet and it sure won't get done during any of these times, lol...   If you are really interested getting a commission from me, I WILL consider, just send me a message and I'll take a look... one day I might remember to make a sheet, It just makes me nervous for some reason? It's difficult to get started... hmm.   Oh right, I meant to do Smaugust and forgot about it. Whoops! I'll probably still draw some dragons but they will be late. Is it still considered part of the challenge if I don't do it in order or all of the days? Well, I'm always glad to draw Dragons, so I suppose it doesn't matter as long as I have fun.   Hmm... what else is there to say? I'm still wearing a mask. I'm still forgetting to socialize. Oh yeah, the branch that fell in our yard? It was very big, but I moved it myself. I'm very strong >:3... I just had to clip some of the branches off first... at least we will have firewood this winter? ...It must be the end of the journal, because I've run of out things to say.

  Thank you for reading! I hope you have a wonderful day.

[citrusella-flugpucker]

Posting snippets from that WIP challenge post one at a time, part 26

((This WIP challenge post!

Today’s fic from the random draw is #7: Untitled document - Similarly to the above… I’ll just say “teaching”

(“The above” being “Describing it with more than [x] would give away more of the plot than I’d like without specifically being asked to elaborate”)

I’m in a few different rewatch groups and one was watching I-don’t-remember-what-episodes and something about them (I think it was some of the Peridot ones) gave me the vibe Steven would be good at teaching?

But like also:

He doesn’t like giving letter grades because he feels like it’s pressure kids don’t need, and he advocates their abolition in general in his district because of this

His methods are “Frizzle-esque” because he didn’t go to K12 school and so he has a very hands-on style

He stops class if anyone is uncomfortable with how the lesson is going down in order to talk it out

Everyone in power thinks that perhaps this would lead to low scores but his class actually regularly achieves quite well compared to other classes with similar makeups

This snippet is most of the doc for this idea (all it doesn’t include is that Steven asks his dad about how to put together a homeschooling-type transcript and also his lamenting that getting a college degree is harder than he thought it’d be):

"Hey, I was thinkin'..."

"That's dangerous."

"Come on, Connie, I'm serious."

"...You know I wasn't being serious, right? What's up?"

"I was thinking… of going to college?"

"Interesting thought. Why?"

"Well. You know how for a while I helped a lot of gems learn about Earth and how to do things here, right?"

"Yeah?"

"And I quit Little Homeschool but I've been working at this childcare place for… like… half a year now?"

"Sure."

"I… They think I could be a good teacher. But you have to go to college to do that."

"...They do know you didn't even finish high school, right?"

"I mean… My resume says I'm homeschooled. Which… isn't 100% wrong?"

"...Do you think that'll be enough for college?"

"...I dunno?"

While writing this I think I considered Steven not being able to decide his grade and/or discipline to focus on major-wise and so instead of deciding he just says "por que no los dos" and Connie is just like "no pls u will immediately drop out under that pressure"

...That’s all, folks!

This was really fun and I will miss it. I kind of liked sharing stuff that wasn’t finished (without it being a “punishment” like that “finish your WIPs or post them unfinished” month I did a few years back...). Maybe occasionally I do something like this, when I feel like it?

(The complete randomly generated order is this:  9, 2, 6, 10, 18, 19, 22, 20, 15, 8, 14, 26, 11, 17, 16, 23, 21, 1, 3, 12, 24, 5, 13, 25, 4, 7 FWIW XP)

))

[paperanddice]

Sand hunters are a strange, intelligent form of pack hunters that live in the desert. They're the size of a large wolf, and have hairless, scaly skin and long, flexible necks. Their lips are quite dexterous and can be used to manipulate objects and even use tools.

The sand hunters' intelligence only exists when they're in groups of at least 3, after which point they form a simple hive mind. Communicating through high-pitched sonic calls and mild telepathy, they can act as a single being with many bodies and use their group intellect to hunt down prey. They can even negotiate and live alongside humanoids, though few pack minds choose to do so and most are content to live wild instead.

When in a group of 6 or more, half the pack will initiate combat by attempting to stun the opponent with their sonic howl, which vibrates through the body of non-sand hunters and pierces their ears, leaving the target stumbling and helpless for a few seconds so that the rest of the pack can drag the target down. Smaller groups will only use their sonic howl to try and facilitate an escape, the entire group howling together to create the best chance of stunning and slowing the threat so they can run.

Originally from Sandstorm. Their group based abilities are a little rough, I had several versions I went through and was never 100% satisfied with the mechanical writing for them. I hope the intentions for each of them are clear. This post came out a week ago on my Patreon. If you want to get access to all my monster conversions early, as well as a spot on the Paper and Dice Discord server, consider backing me there!

5th Edition

Sand Hunter Medium monstrosity, unaligned Armor Class 15 (natural armor) Hit Points 58 (9d8 + 18) Speed 40 ft. Str 15 (+2) Dex 17 (+3) Con 15 (+2) Int 3 (-4) Wis 12 (+1) Cha 12 (+1) Senses darkvision 60 ft. passive Perception 11 Languages telepathy 50 ft. (only works with other sand hunters) Challenge 1 (200 XP) Hive Mind. Sand hunters can share an advanced group consciousness in larger groups. If at least 3 sand hunters are within range of each other's telepathy, their intelligence score is treated as 12 (+1), and if any sand hunter within range isn't surprised, none of them are surprised. Keen Hearing And Smell. The sand hunter has advantage on Wisdom (Persuasion) checks that rely on hearing or smell. Pack Tactics. The sand hunter has advantage on attack rolls against a creature if at least one of the sand hunter's allies is within 5 feet of the creature, and the ally isn't incapacitated. Actions Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8+3) piercing damage. Sonic Howl. A pack of sand hunters can use their actions to produce a sonic attack. At least three sand hunters must participate, and no two participating members can be more than 30 feet from each other. Each creature within 60 feet of a sand hunter participating in this action that can hear the sand hunter must succeed on a DC 11 Wisdom saving throw or be stunned for 1 round. The save DC increases by 1 for each sand hunter participating in this action.

13th Age

Sand Hunter 1st level troop [beast] Initiative: +5 Bite +6 vs. AC - 5 damage C: Sonic Howl +3 vs. MD (1d3+1 nearby enemies) - 2 sonic damage Natural 18+: The target is also stunned until the end of its next turn. Limited Use: At least 3 nearby sand hunters must spend their action to make this attack. The attack gains a +1 bonus to the attack rolls and a +2 bonus to damage for each sand hunter participating after the first. Hive Mind: So long as at least 3 sand hunters are nearby each other, they all gain a +2 bonus to MD. AC 16 PD 14 MD 11 HP 26

[hyperzstellar]

hi please infodump about technology and old web stuff ty

OIGHFJFF hello!!! I'm... I don't know what to say I feel like I've got to sort of like. be given something to talk about but I guess I can start off by how I initially got interested in these things! this post will be very long and I've tried to format it the best I can BUT here it is:

so to start off things my mom always noted about me that I was naturally inclined towards computers. I kind of learned how to type from a very young age too because she had me by her old pc (it was a win 95 plus) and had word open and just told me to write things. it was fun and epic as fuck but FROM WHAT I'VE BEEN TOLD. I kind of just left it open one day and it was open for daaays so the computer just... overheated to death though. this sound (skip to 0:36) is super nostalgic to me. makes me go back to when we didn't even have internet and we got internet connectivity by like... 2009 AFAIK. yahoo messenger and windows live messenger were still a thing!!! before the former shut down and the latter was (don't remember this clearly) integrated with Skype technologies around the time Microsoft bought out Skype and then it was done for after a year or so of this happening.

but fast forward to about 2012-2013. you're me and you're 10 years old, and you find a LOT of content about old pcs. mainly how they looked and sounded like, as well as people absolutely going batshit on command prompt and deleting everything (these are called destruction videos). sort of everything led to another and I found a channel that exists up to this day that was focused around viruses! and even until now I'm still very interested in them. my primary interest in computers (and extending to phones as well) is how the insides work. it's super interesting to be picking apart the 'brain' of a machine you basically feed it commands to execute... and of course the process is literally done in the blink of an eye. nothing we would ever properly notice (unless for x y z reasons your machine is slowing down)

moving on from this talk I'd like to talk about a really famous and notorious virus, the loveletter worm! also commonly called ILOVEYOU, it was written in visual basic script (vbs) and caused a lot of destruction. its primary way of appealing and spreading quick is because of its nature, like it kind of takes advantage of the user emotionally (social engineering) like. oh you got a love letter! (except it's a worm!)

how do you not know that? windows automatically hides file extensions unless a user disables the option from file explorer (I can't. remember it entirely rn I'm not even on pc but this is a thing, in older windows versions it was in folder options), so an unsuspecting user wouldn't know this is a vbs file and instead would think it's a text file, as it appeared to be when you'd download it from Microsoft Outlook.

what loveletter would do -and made it one of the most destructive viruses with over a million computers infected and probably I think billions in damage- was when executed, it would overwrite all files with a copy of itself. so like... you would lose important data (didn't overwrite .exes afaik, just images and text files etc), which at the time was a Very Bad Thing. still is if you get a nasty ransomware. it was also very simple code wise if I remember correctly, which was a reason why there were so many variants of this.

overall I feel like old school viruses have more personality to them. like there was only one recent virus that did have attributes (mostly destructive ones but there were also annoying but harmless viruses) pertaining to old school viruses BUT as of late, especially with how bitcoin has become very lucrative and mainstream like an 'untapped' gold mine (bitcoin farmers die challenge), most viruses fall under the ransomware category, where all your files (not critical ones) are encrypted and under X amount of time you'll need to pay Y amount of btc to a specific wallet, unless you wanna lose your files. one in specific was so bad (I think it was wannacry? I cannot remember for the life of me) that Microsoft, a few years prior to ending Windows XP updates as it'd reached end of service, put out an update/security patch for said operating system. that's obviously like... big news, but also shows the magnitude of the problem.

um that's all I had to say personally!!! if you do want to check out videos not only about viruses and stuff but also computers in general I would suggest Enderman (has really cool experiments like installing windows on a RAM (that later cannot be booted from because... it gets wiped after a shutdown)), Flytech Videos (I suggest the Microsoft edge protocol series, as well as the fork bomb + regedit vid where they delete each major directory at the time and see the results) and all time favorite, and the channel that jump started my interest when I was in elementary school, danooct1 :)

thanks for asking and I hope this was cohesive!!

[lochrannn]

For the DVD fic commentary, can I ask about this passage from 'All Rest my Powers Defy': "Instead she turns and pokes him hard in the thigh with her finger. [...] his hand and lips still touching her ankle." (tumblr won't let me post a 500-word ask, dammit!)

Ah, the fic that started it all off XD XD

(All Rest my Powers Defy on AO3 I Tumblr)

Interestingly you picked exactly the scene I had in my head initially and then had to write 3k+ words to get to!

-

Instead she turns and pokes him hard in the thigh with her finger. “Why would I be avoiding you?” she asks with what she hopes isn't a pout. [I wanted this to be somewhat reminiscent of the scene on Elliot's bed. Sure, Lila was playing up the escaped psych ward patient thing but still, I liked the way she was sympathetic but kind of a bit silly because as becomes clear in the rest of that scene, doing sincere isn’t that easy for her. Like I’m 100% sure she deliberately elbowed him in the stab wound when she gave Diego a comforting pat]

Diego huffs out some air and quietly replies “I don't know.” [Diego can talk quite well when he’s helping others work through their shit or if he feels there are some truths they need to here, but so far the only time I remember him being challenged on his own feelings, was when Eudora talked to him after he turned Grace off and when Five asked him why he wanted to avenge Eudora and he ended up either struggling to talk or being a bit of a dick about it. To an extent, actually, both at the same time.]

“Jesus fuck, Diego, I came looking for you, didn't I? I've stuck around with your stupid apocalypse mission [Lila is so used to being part of the Commission and having an out out of time that in my interpretation she genuinely feels a bit like the Hargreeves are over-dramatic about their apocalypse nonsense. She doesn’t take it that seriously, she only came to help so she could stick around with them and maybe prove herself to the siblings and I think she’s annoyed that now she feels like she also has/had to prove herself to Diego]! Fuck, I've mostly played nice with the murderer of my parents [Yeah, she calls him that purely to guilt trip Diego...] for the last two weeks, what could possibly make you think I was avoiding you?” Lila looks up at him with exasperation and sees the guilt flash across his face at the mention of her parents [...and it works XD].

“I –“ he begins but when he can't get past the first word, he stops. And she suspects he does that so he doesn't end up stammering. She remembers him talking about that in group therapy at Holbrook, when, to Lila's horror, Diego would use his real feelings and trauma to try and soften Moncton to his cause. [I mean, I’m sorry, but he really was being a dumbass if he thought he was going to get out sooner if he just played along with therapy. Diego, my guy, you’re a pretty traumatised dude with a lifetime of bad coping mechanisms. Try something a little less dramatic than “My whole childhood was literally an experiment.” Sure, it’s true, but still, keep it light!] The thought of being that honest and open had genuinely caused cold fear to pool in the pit of Lila's stomach. Lying here in the bed next to Diego, though, with no one else around, she's reminded of the time she was lying on top of Elliott's fold out couch and had, for the very first time in her adult life, been honest and unguarded with anyone who wasn't her mother the Handler [you know what, I’m not so sure I like the strike out thing anymore. I had seen similar things done in other fic and really liked the visual representation of Lila’s issue with how to refer to the Handler now even in her own head, but I think those other fics did it better]. She's encouraged by the thought that she's managed it before, so maybe she can do it again.

Lila waits to see if Diego will go on. She knows he hated being talked over as a kid and wants to give him a chance if he has more to say [She definitely knows this because she was pretty bad about it at the asylum (just to get under his skin), until he blew up at her and threatened to never talk to her again, not because they had some calm and gentle heart to heart about it XD]. But he just slowly blinks and then looks down at his hands. 

[Ok, this interaction here, this is what just popped into my head one day and then wouldn’t go away until I wrote some fic about it. Again, it just seems like something Lila would do. There’s so much physicality to the way they interact that I just thought that if neither of them quite knew how to go on with words, one of them would do something physical, seek out some contact, and Lila is already being a bit silly in how she’s planted herself on the bed] On a whim Lila lifts her leg closest to him off the wall, swings it around and lets it fall diagonally across his chest, hitting him hard enough with her calf to make him huff out some air in surprise. Diego looks back at her face and she can see the beginnings of a smile. This is familiar. This is reminiscent of her antics at the asylum. It makes things just a little more normal and comfortable between them.

Diego grabs her ankle and she starts to roll her eyes at him but is interrupted by her breath leaving her in a gasp when she suddenly feels his lips brush against the sensitive, exposed skin between the top of her sock and the bottom of her trousers that have fallen up her leg a little [I agonised over the correct description here XD. Like ok, the trouser leg has gone up her leg, as in the top of the leg is in the direction of the hip, the bottom is ankles and so on, that’s the case whichever way round you’re positioned. But of course the trousers haven’t fallen physically up, like you might fall up some stairs, but rather they actually have gone downwards with gravity. So yeah, gave myself a minor headache trying to decide whether my personal instinct on this would make sense to everyone reading this]. [Also, unrelated to the trouser logistics, I squeed a bit myself at the thought that if Diego was holding her ankle and saw the skin he’d instinctively press a kiss to her skin without really thinking about it just made me feel things! There’s the fact that he’s of course been wanting to kiss her the whole time, he’s just been too dumb and angry about it. The arse over tit way that it’s almost a bit like a romantic kiss of the hand, and maybe even some implications of fealty and submission…. But I haven’t thought too hard about this]

She looks up at him almost in shock, her heart in her throat, and her expression must give him pause because he looks back at her like a deer caught in the headlights, his hand and lips still touching her ankle. [Because, as I said, he’s not even really thought about it, but he’s so caught out that he doesn’t even think to pull away XD]

-

Ok, I think I’m falling short on awful puns, but beyond that I hope this helps XP

[pixelfun20]

Flower Fields: Chapter 2

Chapter 1

Notes: Again, all credit to @give-grian-rights (hope you don’t mind the tag!) for the concept! Thank you so much! Also almost forgot to post this on Tumblr rip.

No fighting wars, no ringing chimes

We're just feeling fine

Tubbo started out by building his starter base.

It was a concept he’d learned about while living with Xisuma, and it was quite a good one, too. After all, megabases worthy of Hermitcraft’s admittedly lofty standards often took months to build, and he’d need somewhere to live in the meantime. In Season 6, he’d neglected that fact, and had suffered his fair share of mob deaths before he put up four walls and a ceiling to protect himself, back when he’d left to live on his own. And that was with a small, quickly-thrown together base, not the project he was currently planning.

Still, even setting up the basics of his starter base took a few nearly sleepless days. Finally, the framework for the build, a treehouse spanning more than a few trees at the edge of the forest, was up, and Tubbo was finally able to place a bed down in safety and sleep for a solid fourteen hours straight.

Xisuma dropped by, quite literally, a day or so later.

Tubbo had been sitting in his quickly-expanding living room, sorting through the loot he’d gotten from yesterday’s day-long mining session when he swooped down through the half-finished roof. While he was still wearing his bee-themed armor, now there were two glider-like wings, shimmering purple, strapped to his back.

“Heya, X,” Tubbo greeted the admin with a wave, closing one of his chests. “You got elytra already?”

“Tango and I defeated the Ender Dragon yesterday,” Xisuma replied, touching down softly. Tubbo made an ‘ah’ sound, recalling the achievement he’d seen out of the corner of his eye the other day. Right; he’d forgotten about that. Trust X to be as efficient as possible and defeat one of the toughest monsters in the world just for the ease of travel.

“I’ll have to go endbusting soon, then,” he said, more to himself than X. Before the elder man could protest (ah, he was getting good at noticing when he was going to), he added: “Stress and xB have already asked me to go with them, so don’t worry , alright?”

“Good,” Xisuma sighed. “It’s never a good idea to go out on your own, especially since this’ll be your first time seriously exploring the End.”

Tubbo rolled his eyes good naturedly. To be fair, he hadn’t gone out to the End before it had been conquered before. He’d had a fair few trips last Season, mostly with X, but it was generally for the XP farm once it’d been set up. He’d never left the main island before. Now that he had considerably more freedom at the beginning of the Season, he was excited to go exploring.

“Anything bring you over?” He asked, changing the subject.

Xisuma nodded. “Yeah. A bunch of the others are getting together for some sort of wrestling tournament this weekend.”

“And I’ve been invited?!” He grinned, clapping his hands together.

“As the referee.”

“Ah,” he pouted. “Darn.”

“Don’t worry,” Xisuma chuckled, setting down a shulker box. “It can be a lot funner to watch sometimes; I’m just going to be part of the audience, too. I think Doc wanted you because he thinks he can bribe you.”

“He can not !”

Xisuma raised an eyebrow. “Area 77.”

“Oh, that’s not fair. I am completely unbiased!”

“And that was why you became their lawyer and not for all the cool experiments they had. I don’t think Cleo has forgiven you for defeating her in court.”

“No one can defeat Big Law,” Tubbo sniffed, faux-offended, and Xisuma laughed. “Well, I’ll show him!” He declared, crossing his arms. “I’ll just have to make sure he loses, then!” Xisuma blinked, and he laughed. “Kidding! Kidding!” Mostly .

“So you’re going?”

“Sure! It’s nice to see the Hermits all in one place, anyways. What’s in the shulker?”

Xisuma tilted his head teasingly. “What do you think? Someone had to get the supplies for our honey farm.”

Tubbo gaped. “You’re ready to build farms already?! Man, and I thought I was ahead of the game with just having my base halfway done.”

The armored man shrugged, looking about the partially completed build. “Well, you’ve certainly put more effort into this than me. Truly, your building skills are already improving. I love how you’re styling the roof with peaks like you are; it looks like it took a while.”

“My last house had a roof like that, too,” Tubbo reminded him, glancing up as well. It had become a tradition, of sorts, to build curved, peaked roofs onto his builds. Last season it had been one of the few things he’d built slowly to make look as good as possible. In all honesty, it was his own way of honoring the person who’d made it possible for him to come here, to have a life worth living once again. Rushing through the technique just felt disrespectful.

“Yes, but you’ve definitely gotten better.” Xisuma bent down over the shulker box, checking its contents. “Do you have any good ideas for where to make the bee farm? I’ll admit, I’ve been a bit too busy to scout out a good area.”

“Really? Then where’d you get these guys?”

“Tree farming in the desert.”

Tubbo snorted into his hand, and he could practically feel Xisuma’s embarrassment. “Well, you did say you hadn’t scouted out a good spot.”

“Indeed I did.”

“I can take a look around here and see what I can find. Meadows are supposed to be excellent places for farming bees, right?”

“Indeed it is,” Xisuma agreed. “Do you have plans for your megabase, yet?”

Tubbo nodded, grinning. “And trust me, it’s going to be awesome .”

............

Two days later, a chicken appeared in his base. Tubbo found it laying an egg in what was starting to become the base’s storage area, with one of his shirts nearly ripped to shreds in what appeared to be a makeshift nest.

There was a nametag wrapped around its leg. After some chicken wrangling and a few feathers to the face, he got a good look at it and realized there wasn’t a name written there, but a set of coordinates.

A set of coordinates rather far away, but who was he to turn down such an intriguing mystery?

With the chicken now renamed Wilbur and placed in a pen (he’d needed a chicken farm anyways), Tubbo set out that morning with a few supplies to find the spot he was looking for. After crossing a fair bit of forest and ocean, by the next day he’d found himself cutting his way through the underbrush of an overgrown jungle and wondering why in the world Stress had wanted to wait a week before going to get their elytra.

He pushed a few low-hanging vines out of the way, checking his communicator for the upteenth time. He was getting closer, now. This better be worth going out a few hundred chunks in the middle of nowhere—hey, wait a minute!

There was smoke in the distance. He could just make it out through the leaves, and now that he concentrated, he could smell it, too. Tubbo rushed forwards, pushing through the brush to see several man-made wooden pillars sticking out. As he pressed forwards, he made out a semi-stone floor, several chests, and a small fire in the middle, explaining the smoke.

“What is this?” He asked himself, looking around the place. The coordinates were right, and yet no one was here. Just this outpost in the middle of the jungle.

Tubbo walked around. There were some papers pinned to the wall, and a few dispensers lying around. Idly he pressed the buttons on them, already starting to form a plan to enact revenge on whoever made him travel over a day to get this place.

He pressed the button on the dispenser in the middle of the build and nearly got an arrow to the face.

Tubbo yelped, his reflexes, honed from a half year of training, the only thing saving him from a sudden death. A bell rang behind him, but it took him a few more moments to calm his racing heart.

“Not funny! You nearly took my head off!” He shouted to the jungle. Still, he didn’t leave, instead turning to the bell the arrow had his, examining it. Huh.

There were some cookies in one of the chests, probably left behind by whoever had actually built the place. He nibbled on it, only half hungry, as he tried to examine the place better.

“HERMIT CHALLENGES!”

Tubbo shrieked , dropping the remains of his cookie as the voice rang through the forest air. He looked around, trying to find the source, but found that he couldn’t.

“INITIATION!”

A diamond-clad figure dropped out of the vines above, landing with a firm thud on one of the ground dispensers. He nearly lost his balance before righting himself with a huff.

“Mumbo!” Tubbo exclaimed, a little annoyed but mostly impressed.

“INITIATION!” He shouted at the top of his lungs. “HERMIT CHALLENGES! YOU ARE BEING INDUCTED.”

“How long have you been up there?! It took me over a day to get here.”

“No matter, Mr. Tubbo! Congratulations! You’re in!”

“...Thanks?”

“Of course, my friend! You have been inducted into Hermit Challenges! Of course, you could have eaten the entire cookie—” he glanced down at the crumbs at Tubbo’s feet. “But besides that you have acted perfectly.”

“Wait, what is Hermit Challenges?” Tubbo asked, blinking. What? This version of Mumbo was almost nothing like the Mumbo he’d seen at Spawn a mere week and a half ago. Who used chickens to deliver messages? Or perch in a tree for supposed hours on end?

Okay, he had to admit, that last one was pretty funny.

“Oh, it’s a game I’ve made up,” Mumbo continued. “Iskall and I have already had a go at it, and I figured I’d invite you next.”

“...Alright, then. How do I play?”

“It’s simple! Write down three challenges and put them in the dispenser. Then we’ll pick one at random from each other.”

Mumbo reached into one of the chests on the ground, taking out a sheath of paper and passing three to him with a pen. Tubbo looked at him, and Mumbo grinned.

“Go on! I’m sure you’ll have something fun in that head of yours.”

Ah, he was right. Tubbo gave in with a smile, leaning back and thinking briefly about what he wanted to challenge Mumbo. A few ideas came to mind, and he quickly scribbled them down, pushing them into one of the two dispensers on the side of the small build, Mumbo doing the same.

“Alright, then!” Mumbo announced with a smile. “You go first.”

Tubbo stepped towards Mumbo’s dispenser and clicked the button, causing a slip of paper to slide out. He unrolled it, then read it out loud.

“‘Steal everyone’s front doors for the rest of the season.’ What? The whole season?!”

Mumbo laughed. “Oh, that one! Man, you got the hardest one from me!”

“Well, I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what you’ll get from me.”

“We’ll see,” Mumbo said with a chuckle.  He moved across the platform, and pressed the button the dispenser Tubbo had put his challenges in. The dispenser whirred, and then another slip of paper popped out. Mambo picked it up and read off of it, face contorting as he did so. “...‘Act like you don’t believe in the moon for the next two weeks, and claim the sky is a hologram put up by the SCA (Secret Chickens Agency) to keep us from seeing the real overlords- the sky chickens.’ What?”

Tubbo snickered at that, covering his mouth with one hand. Oh, he was proud of that one.

“No, seriously, this is awfully specific.”

“What? It’s funny!”

“Funny for you!” But Mumbo was smiling, and Tubbo grinned back at him.

“I’m going to be having a fun few weeks,” he giggled.

“So am I,” Mumbo agreed with a raised eyebrow, tucking the slip of paper away. He clapped Tubbo’s shoulder. “I suppose I’ll have to make up a good story to go with this prompt.”

“And I have some doors to steal!” Tubbo laughed.

“Whoever gets the first complaint in chat wins?”

“You’re on!”

[jimmythejiver]

For the first time in a long time I went to the movies in forever and then to Target. At Target I see some Godiva bars on discount yellow tags and I was ecstatic until I read 70% Cacao, Dark, Salted Caramel and was deflated.

Anyway that's how I felt about seeing The Green Knight. What you thought this was about chocolate?

No see since the pandemic I've been back on my perennial King Arthur kick. I've for a long time since I was a young preteen thought, someday I too will write my own King Arthur epic and it'll be gay, magical, gangster and culty too, but for now I'll make up my own stories for practice and then with every story I got attached too, it got too involved and convoluted to the point that when it came down to actually writing a novel, I threw it all away and made a space opera I only planned in two weeks and wrote in a month. Anyway...so now I've been writing this very gay, magical, gangster and culty take on Final Fantasy XV with my boyfriend and just fell in love with Somnus Lucis Caelum who nobody has any insight about him than to make him the Mordred to Ardyn's Arthur, which is a strange flex, but okay, I thought about what if I wrote a Dark Age prequel about Ardyn and Somnus, but Ardyn becomes king and Somnus his shogun and they play games of seduction and power because I'm twisted like that. Anyway...I was like I'm never going to write this and I have to keep making up characters based on FFXV characters and King Arthur tropes because there's not a lot of stories that take place during the Dark Ages, it's always some Roman Empire story, or High Middle Ages and FFXV gave no room for either society to happen after the fall of Solheim and the rise of King Somnus...so we left with Dark Ages, y'all, the King Arthur comparisons are obvious, but Ardyn is no Arthur and Somnus is no Mordred, Aera is only Guenevere if you make up an affair with Somnus, Gilgamesh is no Bedwyr/Bedivere, but uh...they both amputees and the oldest companions to their respective kings so...I guess. Anyway making an ancestor of Cor Leonis and deciding well he's Owain/Yvain, or am Ignis type as idk Sir Cai/Kay I guess, they both cook, but Cai's more like Seifer Almasy than any FF character... Anyway I'm losing people.

My plan was to just scrap the FFXV prequel, leave my Somnus ideas into Overtime (a gangster and gods story) and just plan an actual King Arthur adaptation. I'd have King Arthur the treasure hunter, leader of a warband turned founder of Camelot who fights giants, giant cats and dogheads, but also fights King Claudas of the Franks and King Aelle of the Saxons and Cerdic a Briton who puts in his lot with the Saxons, etc. It'd been a a glorified turf war, meanwhile Arthur's gotta make alliances with King Pelles, The Fisher King and his strange cult he's founded because, why yes I find the ends justifies the means prophecy of the Holy Grail Quest very culty because Christianity then does not resemble it now. Meanwhile you got the secondary plots of Mordred, Gawain, Lancelot, Percival, Tristam and other's going on because they matter and too many modern King Arthur stories sideline the knights.

So many have always sidelined Mordred as a final boss eldritch abomination in mortal flesh conceived of sin and give him no personality, or complex motives, or even just a relationship with Arthur. I also have noticed the general sidelining of Lancelot, or give him a chad villain upgrade if you must include him at all, and the villainizing of Gawain to the point that you don't even have to have Mordred, or Agravain as a catalyst shit stirrer in court, just slap Gawain's name on Liam Neeson in a top knot and you're good. Mordred can just be a child offscreen until last act...fuck that, while Morgan Le Fay can either be a villainess plotting her cabal through men, or a well-intentioned, ineffectual idiot. Fuck that.

Now Hollywood just be doing King Arthur first acts that suck ass, only for said director to get rewarded failing upwards by giving this same jerk the Aladdin remake. The tonally shitty, crammed in blockbuster mess of a cliche heroe's journey that sucks.

With that background I was excited for The Green Knight. I read an illustrative version as a kid, I read Tolkien's translation as a teenager, I read Simon Armitage's superior, but with liberties taken translation. I was prepped to go knowing that indie, or not they were going to make changes to weave the disjointed poem together. I'm excited that because this movie exists Project Guternberg's finally thrown Jessie Weston's prose rendition up on their website. I'll be reading that at some point when this blows over.

The movie adaptation makes a lot of...choices, many I wouldn't love, but would forgive had their been a payoff. There was none.

The journey was fine, the cinematography was a breath of fresh air after crappy slo mo, glossy action scenes ruined another. Guys, I don't think I want to see a Zack Snyder Excalibur, it'll marginally be better than Guy Ritchie, but that ain't saying anything. Leave Excalibur to the post-Star Wars 80s where it is impeccable for it's time. I liked Green Knight's breathable pacing, it's color palette's in the forests and mountains made up for the muddy grey of every Ridley Scott send up in the castles and villages in every other Dark Ages/Medieval story in the last I don’t know since the shitty 00′s. For all the dark tones when there was blues, greens, yellows or reds, they were vibrant in this movie to contrast the gloom of Britain. The soundtrack was good. This isn't all what makes a movie, but it enhances it so let's get to the story and what I did and didn't like.

Things I Liked: Gawain is still a novice in his career The Costume Dressing Everyone pronounces Gawain's name different. I pronounce it like Gwayne, or Guh Wayne, but here you got Gowen (like Owen), Gowan (like Rowan), or even Garlon who I'm pretty sure is the Fisher King's heir in some versions of that Arthurian story, so uh... The reference to Arthur slaying 960 men with his bare hands (Nennius for the win!) The Waste Land that is implied to be a site of a battle (an important aspect of the Arthurian landscape) The Fox companion No long grisly, drawn out hunting scenes. The Fox lives! No misogynist speeches

Things I'm Mixed: This being a dream, is the magic real? Are the giants? Is the Green Knight a figment of Gawain's imagination from a spell Morgan casted in him to hallucinate? Is Lord and Lady also figments? It's...a way to interpret the poem, but lazy and I don't see why it's got to all fantasy, or all dream...this movie makes it too vague you're stuck picking one camp than to accept it's a fantasy with dream and hallucinatory sequences.

Things I'm Meh: Morgan Le Fay as Gawain's mom. Look I fucking hate Morgause as a character and these two get merged and steal each other's aspects so much at this point the difference is who did they marry, King Urien or King Lot? Both are attributed to being Mordred's mom, Mordred is Gawain's brother...both practice magic depending on certain incarnations, both love and hate Arthur their brother and are in conflict with him. Saint Winifred. I actually liked this sequence, but I don't appreciate her as the tacked on wife in the later dream sequence as like...a contrast between the wife you should marry than the whore next door you don't respect anyway? I don't even know what lesson I'm supposed to get out of the damn dream sequence, or any of it? That Gawain should've married his girlfriend and then he'd be a just ruler? That he shouldn't be king? That he'd never have to make the same heartless, impartial choices? I don't know, he seemed like a king doing king shit because guess what? It never gets easier. Wars will be waged. The world didn't become better because he married the right woman, respected her and lived in obscurity. The world didn't become better because he made her his queen. We certainly don't know the world would be better Gawain had his head chopped off and dead XP They never reveal the Lord and the Green Knight as one and the same because of this shit.

Things I Hated: Arthur withdraws from the challenge because he's old. In poem he takes it on and Gawain takes it so he don't have to and he finds himself more disposable than the king. Gawain only takes the challenge because of arrogance. Arthur and Gawain had no prior personal relationship. I'd not have hated this so much if it wasn't compounded by it cancelling out the first two things. Gawain is portrayed as having no respect for his woman, or any woman, maybe his mother? He has to be pushed by Winifred to regain her head. Gawain is portrayed as arrogant, covetous and ready to pass the buck, or the bare minimum than have any honor or decency. It didn't matter the kid in the wasteland was shithead bandit, the way Gawain acted towards him, when he gets robbed, it almost feels like he deserved it and Gawain doesn't learn a damn lesson. I'll admit him taking the sword to cut his ropes and cutting his hands was a neat sequence, it shows him go from stupid, to almost clever and having will to survive...you know traits he had in the poem, but he stops showing these traits or growing. Basically Gawain has to be dragged kicking and screaming to help people and shows no fortitude when facing temptation, or when showing respect towards others, it's exhausting. You don't make this kind of journey story without character growth. Why are you skipping this? Also is it just me, or is this like when you take Frank Miller Batman and transport him onto a Bill Finger story? This is at best Thomas Malory Gawain (and this is charitable) transported on the earlier Pearl Poet's story. Stop it. It's not tonally correct and goes at odds with the story and the set up characterization you'd need to tell it. Speaking of which, you know how I get through the oof... of Liam Neeson Gawain in Excalibur? By pretending he Agravain instead. Here...I don't even think Gawain could pass as Mordred in spite of his covetous nature, lust and entitlement. Why? because I don't think even Mordred is this dumb to warrant this hubris. Essel being invented as a tacked on love interest just to be shit on utterly and for what? I don't think I have much commentary here as there is no Essel I'm aware of to compare, or stack up. I just notice this trope of like...usually if you include a sex worker in Hollywood she often has a heart of gold, she often has her own sense of values that goes at odds with society, but is more true and less hypocritical than a privileged lady’s. I thought that's what they would've done with the added trope of back at home sweetheart to contrast and pit her against the despicable femme fatale of Lady Bertilak and her adultery and her ladyship...and I'm glad they didn't...but you did nothing with Essel than to shit on her for existing when you made her exist, you know. Lady Bertilak being portrayed as the seductress devil incarnate. Look I know adultery is a touchy taboo, but uh her and Gawain hit it off in the poem, dammit! Her values and his values come to clash, but here it's played off as Gawain is stupid and covetous and Lady Bertilak wants to prove something because...? If my brother's theory that she's a figment of Morgan Le Fay's magic, then I'll take this as a lesson of Gawain is impulsive and covetous and his mom knows it, but he don't want to fuck his mom, but he wants her power, and Morgan wants to teach him a lesson... I guess. Hey we don't have misogynist speeches in this movie, but we'll make sure to have the movie drip with it with no point, or commentary. Pass. Lord guilting, extracting and initiating the same sex kiss and only once. Poem automatically better that Gawain don't have to keep being reminded to keep his part of the bargain and he does it willingly more than once. What he doesn't do is give up his belt...gods how did we get more homophobic as a society that the homoeroticism here is worse? Catholics of the middle ages officially had no issue doing same sex, passionate kissing until it lead to sex. The Ending: The gods damn ending. In the movie as is, Gawain waits to uphold his end of the bargain and get his head chopped off. He imagines, even though we don't get any fuzzy or distortion to indicate this is a dream, but I already knew this was coming, he runs away and comes home, is regarded a hero, he sees his lady, takes her from behind and if you saw Brokeback Mountain (I didn't, but DJ has) you know this is a sign of disrespect to women. He gets her knocked up, pays her off for the kid she wants to keep, he is crowned king, marries the ghostly saint lady he helped retrieve her head earlier from a lake in the movie (this right here is the damn tip off). There's no more dialogue by this point and everything is montaging, so you know by now it's a dream, though nothing is out of focus. He rules as a heartless king, his whore son dies from war he waged, he has a daughter, his wife dies. Gawain then takes off the belt that would've saved his life and his head falls off. This would've been the one good twist, except... In this sequence of events he never had his head cut off so uh... now we back in present day. He decides not to bitch out, Green Knight in a sexy way is like "now off with your head," movie cuts to credits with no resolve...uh what the fuck? What the fuck? This is not good. You wasted the one twist in your dream when idk, you could've...

How I'd fix it: No dream sequence at all. No Incident At Owl Creek twist. Gawain comes home a hero and survivor of this game and ordeal. He wears this belt of shame. He becomes a well-renowned knight, but he bears a shame. One day he goes to take off his belt and his head falls off because he cheated to get this belt and to survive this encounter. There. Done. Improved your high concept movie that couldn't play any of the lessons straight from the damn poem without making everyone an asshole for no reason! Ugh! But nope you had to end it on we don’t know if Gawain lives or dies...because...it's dream magic made from his momma's witchcraft...?

Last Thoughts So then post-credits scene because Marvel because Pirates Of The Caribbean existed. A white girl who looks nothing like Gawain's daughter we see who didn’t pay off, or any child I can remember through this whole movie picks up King Arthur's crown that dream Gawain inherited and puts it on her head. Who is this girl? Are we gonna have an indie equivalent of of the Marvel Movie Universe/Universal Horror Monsters thing with ancient British legends? We gonna get a Life Of Saint Patrick next that crosses over? I don't know. What is this?

[dcsthoughtsaboutgames]

Dragon Quest Builders

Dragon Quest Builders is the most recent game I've finished and it's a fascinating game, I *think* it's a good game but at times I was ready to drop it and move onto something else. Part of the reason I wanted to write this post is to work through my thoughts on it and try and dissect what worked and what didn't for me. On it's surface you could cynically dismiss this game as a lazy Minecraft rip off. It is after all a fantasy themed, block based, crafting, survival game. But it differs in a couple of critical places that solidly makes it it's own game. The biggest difference is that the world is not procedurally generated, instead each of the four chapters has a hand built world that is carefully designed to make exploration and questing more streamlined so you can progress the story at a satisfying pace.The other big difference ties into the first, this game is an entirely solo experience eschewing the social and collaborative aspect that makes Minecraft really special, and instead plays into the strength of the Dragon Quest series and focuses on being a cosy single player RPG with charming characters and writing. The story premise is fun albeit a bit goofy. At the end of Dragon Quest 1 there's a famous part where you have a choice to side with the Dragon Lord, and if you do you instantly game over and are thrown back to your last save. Builder's is a direct follow up to that bad ending. The game opens with your character being woken by the goddess Rubiss and told that Alefgard has been plunged into darkness and you the legendary builder need to venture out and rebuild the world and to teach the inhabitants how to build, because everyone forgot how to build things since the calamity. This fact leads to some fun moments like the first person you encounter being completely in awe of you combining a stick with a mushroom and cooking it over a fire to make a roasted mushroom skewer. Just the idea of combining two things blows this poor man's mind. A really clever thing the game does to tie plot and gameplay together is to have the goddess reassure you that you are not a hero, you are a builder and fighting monsters won't fix the world. This manifests in the game play by having no traditional XP and levelling system, instead to level up you have to build up your town, and to get stronger you have to make better equipment and build new buildings which will provide passive buffs for when you do venture out. This insistence that fighting isn't the solution unfortunately isn't that well realised, the main ways to progress the story are to go out and defeat boss monsters for rare items or to defend your town from waves of enemies. And the combat is just bad. Enemies are HP sponges and you have so few combat options at your disposal that you fight 90% of the enemies the same way, move in attack, step back to avoid their counter-attack, repeat. The wave based defence sections are especially clumsy since it seems like the game wants you to build defensive structures to aid you but every tool they give you in this regard is basically worthless and you are always better off fighting the enemies with your sword outside the town instead. To cap off my combat thoughts there's the end of chapter bosses which are the only time the game makes fighting interesting by forcing you to use special items to overcome some gimmick, the problem is that it's only interesting until you figure out the gimmick because actually executing it is not at all fun. In the end it was the very satisfying resource gathering / building loop that got me through the game especially in conjunction with the iconic DQ style vignette story telling. Also each chapter having a unique twist to vary up the challenge was really welcome seeing as this game was not short at all, with my completion time clocking in at around 50 hours. Final thoughts, this is a way more ambitious game than I was expecting and probably the most fun I've had with a survival crafting game since Minecraft, it didn't always succeed but I'm really curious to try out the sequel now and see where they iterated and what they kept.

[commenter2]

Rift Apart State of Play breakdown

Here is a breakdown of the Rift Apart gameplay from the State of Play and the thoughts I had while watching it. SPOILERS and LONG POST WARNING !

We see Rivet activating an infobot. I don’t know what the writing on it says, hopefully they release an alphabet for that language soon. Its funny seeing Clank in a semi backpack form and seeing him waddle around while moving.

The bug ship from the recent trailer appear as it was looking for the infobot but instead it grabs Clank and flies away. You can see Rivet’s arm being effected by the magnetic tractor beam which makes me wonder if that will be a big weakness for her during gameplay ? This is the start of that segment we saw in the new trailer since we saw Rivet (who was Clank less there) chase that ship down and as seen here she takes it out. I bet while she is chasing Clank, Clank will sabotage the ship from the inside given that the ship is still missing a piece before crashing.

After what seems to be the opening title we cut to Ratchet in Nefarious City and we see how mission objections will be show in the game. Him saying Clank is charming was adorable !

One major change to the gameplay you can notice is the HUD, as its smaller, the XP bars are orange, and instead of the weapon XP being a circle around the weapons icon, its also a bar. They also grouped the number of bolts and raritanium together. To be honest I’m not a big fan of the new HUD.

Cool to see Ratchet still fooling around when he isn’t moving, and nice to see bolt cranks.

Ratchet: Please let there be good news behind here (see Nefarious statue) XD

“Does that mean, there are TWO Nefariouses now !” that one line just summarized what the R&C fandom has been thinking since the announcement trailer for Rift Apart XD

Ratchet has his hoverboots ! I though we were going to get them much later but this is awesome. Its also great as this could make Ratchet’s gameplay different from Rivets. I wonder if he can use them to high jump since Clank will be missing ?

Nice change having Ms. Zurkon be the weapon vendor for the game. Still hoping Mr. Zurkon won’t be a weapon. I can tell she is going to be a fun little character. She was actually seen in the new trailer but I missed it, thank you VTNVIVI for pointing this out.

Those holograms on Ms. Zurkon walls are the weapons we will be using in the game, and sadly it shows that the Buzz Blades and Warmonger will return, which is kinda annoying but I could think of worse weapons to bring back.

Ms. Zurkon thinking Ratchet is part of the resistance makes me think that other Lombaxes from this AU are a part of the resistance hence her confusion.

Ratchet can not only wall run like Rivet but he can also dash mid air like her, which is interesting but I’m still hoping for some differences between there gameplay.

I think those bouncing platforms were a reference to Sunset Overdrive ? Also before jumping on them you can see a Lombax face painted on a crate, which I think confirms there are more AU Lombaxes in the resistance.

There are a lot of Megacorp logos in the city, I wonder how this version of the company will be different from the one we know from Going Commando ?

You can hear Nefarious talk in the background which is cool, and there is a moment where he states he going to enact something called operation dreamstar ? I think that’s what its called. I wonder if its something serious or if he’s just indulging as being an Emperor. You can also briefly see that Lombax billboard I mentioned in the Clank bio and it looks like he was turned into a robot.

The Nefarious Day Spa, funny and reasonable as I remember Vorselon having one in ACIT.

I think the Phantom is a AU version of Skidd McMarx cause not only does it sound like him a bit but I remember that in UYA he had the codename “Shadow Dude”

The dash after images DO draw enemy fire, cool ! The ammo crates have changed in appearance, which is a nice little change.

The Nefarious Juggernauts looks awesome, they remind me of those mini bosses you fight from time to time in TOD and ITN. Its also cool how we can be randomly be transported to other dimensions while fighting. I think the place Ratchet ended up is that place in the trailer where he is hoverbooting and used that ball ramming weapon.

Alien snappers from the 2002/2016 will be in the game, yet for some reason there spitting out stuff.

Nice touch having Rivet’s HUD have different colors then Ratchet’s, being orange while her XP is purple. Speaking of purple you can see purple versions of horny toads here.

So the riding bugs are called Speetles, good to know for the future.

We finally get to see some new weapons. First is the Ricochet, which is that ball colliding weapon I just mentioned and as seen in the new trailer. Mr. Fungai, a weapon that as stated in the trailer “attacks and potentially distracts enemies”. He seems to be the Mr. Zurkon of the game but I don’t mind as I rather have him then Zurkon again. Then we have the Megaton Collider which “charges up to fire a beam that will go through multiple enemies” sounds great for dealing with a tons of enemies that are hurdled together.

Dimensional pockets, that must be that space between dimensions I talked about in the trailer breakdown. Also even though Clank is missing an arm, he still has 3 propellers.

New alien race, I wonder if there an AU version of Kerchu ?

So the Goons-4-Less ARE Thugs-4-Less, just rebranded which I recall VTNVIVI stating as a possible theory on one of his videos. I bet he will be surprised by this.

Nice to see the Megaton Collider in action, I think its gonna be a favorite of mine.

Before the demo ends, you can see a unstable rift, I wonder if this means Clank will have to fix it ?

We then get a lot info all at once so here are a few things I saw like how it seems Ratchet can hoverboot at a leisurely pace or just like in past games while exploring open worlds.

Though not much was shown, its nice to see some of Clank’s interdimensional powers and its cool to see that his segments might be like the Great Clock puzzles from ACIT.

These Glitch challenges look interesting, I wonder what they will be like ? Could that be what Rivet was doing to the infobot or is this the hacking mechanic of the game ? Also who is Glitch ? Is she Rivet’s Clank of sorts ?

Arena challenges confirmed. Its also confirmed that you will be fighting all kinds of enemies from the dimensions you visit, which is nice as we will have more variety then just getting the same few enemy types over and over again.

Aerial combat looks cool, especially since we can ride creatures instead of ships, though it would be cool to be able to fly Aphelion again.

Gold bolts return, no surprise, and some pocket dimensions are optional kinda like the ACIT moons. BTW there is a Big Al balloon in the screen here.

We were already told that we could mix and match armor in the game but its still awesome to know that we can kinda like in Size Matters. It also shows that armor can give you bonuses like more bolts and reduced damage. You can see tons of references here with the armor like Lombax Trillium armor, Q-Force, and Captain Starshield.

You can change the HUD ! That must be why its different from the August demo, and its cool what you can do with photo mode.

This is REALLY HARD to see but during that scene near the end of Ratchet fighting a Nefarious Trooper, I think that is a Lombax wall jumping ! Maybe he is the Phantom ?

After the State of Play, IG posted some new screenshots on there twitter: https://twitter.com/insomniacgames/status/1387891304072425475

3 are interesting as one depicts Ratchet with that machine gun weapon as seen in trailer, Ratchet looking at his Rift tether which I bet will be upgraded by the Phantom to let Ratchet dash, and a pic of Rivet and Clank in front of a well detailed Grunthor, which was also seen in demo.

Also today IG posted a small video on Sargasso: https://twitter.com/insomniacgames/status/1388115976915361792

There is nothing new here besides some Lombax writing that translates to “Resistance outpost four” meaning we could see more bases in the game, and more resistance fighters.

There is so much going on here and I cant wait to get the game however the only problem I have with it so far is that there isn’t much difference between Ratchet and Rivets gameplay, besides how they might travel. Hopefully there will be one more difference. I also hope we can see Captain Qwark and Talwyn soon and though Qwark is briefly seen in the trailer and even in the demo during the photo mode segment, we haven’t seen any sign of Talwyn which makes me worried that she might not be in the game.

What did you think of the gameplay demo ? Was there anything I missed ? What did you like about it ?

[solesurvivorpaigeargot]

Paige has her own story? what's it about?

... confused on whether your referring to the story I’m writing for Fallout rn, or the original story I mentioned in the tags of another ask, nonnie. Either way, I’ll answer for both. 

Paige first existed in my head as the protagonist for a post-apocalyptic story I was writing that was.... kiiiiiiinda like a zombie story but without the zombies? Basically some mad genius got it into their head to design a new family of beasties that would be genetically programmed [and optimized] for hunting humanity to reduce what they considered excess population and force global regression away from mass manufacture consumer culture back down to subsistence living to prevent global ecological catastrophe from over-consumption of resources. [I never got into where that mad genius got the funding or support for their project, shush I was like fourteen when I first conceived the idea XD] 

Instead of being about the end of the world, however, the main body of the story took place a good twenty years after society collapsed for lack of human capital. Paige was one of a larger cast who had all lost people, homes, and otherwise in the collapse, all of which were examples of how people deal with grief and loss. Paige was the example of Self Destructive Independence; refusing to trust others, lest they fail her and someone ends up hurt... but always offering herself up to others, and trying to do everything by herself. She was also an example of Denial, avoiding talking about the things she lost and turning to alcoholism to drown out the memories rather than deal with it. 

You can understand why she and her story maps so well onto Fallout 4 XD 

And she’s not the only one who’s arrived in the fic I’m writing with their themes intact. Another character who’s hopped the fence over into the fanfiction I’m writing [and happens to have an unfortunate name] is Nathan. Nathan’s major theme was Survivor’s Guilt, as he was never a particularly self-reliant or violent person before the collapse... he just happened to be away from the major hot spots when it happened. Pretty much everyone he knew and cared about, however, were not. However, where Paige sinks into self destructive denial, Nathan Grows into a leader for the group of survivors in the story. He accepts what happened, the trauma, and everything that came with it, and becomes the person he needs to be to continue on. 

I know, I could just change his name to avoid confusion with the male sole survivor’s default name being Nate, but when he’s been Nathan in my head for more than a decade... meh XP

ANYWHOOZIT, yeah I have a Fallout Fanfiction where in Paige is my protagonist, because when I played the game she’s who I modeled my sole survivor after... and pretty much kept her core themes intact. A big part of Paige as a character is she is still very much not over the death of her husband or the loss of her old life. She’s getting shit done, but I wouldn’t exactly say she’s dealing with it. [This also tracks because p much every RPG protagonist has issues with delegation XD] Challenging her idea of needing to do everything alone to protect herself is the budding romance arc with Hancock, who is already pretty much in love with the bitch but assumes she’d never keep him, so he’s not saying anything and is constantly mentally prepared for the day she drops him like a stone. 

... and then I’m gonna throw them into a life-or-death situation that tests both of their character flaws and see what comes out on the other side XD 

There’s a link in my pinned welcome post on this blog. If you’re curious, have at it :3

[citrusella-flugpucker]

Posting snippets from that WIP challenge post one at a time, part 4

((This WIP challenge post! Only a few days late because I decided to chill for the weekend!

Today’s fic from the random draw is #10: Untitled document - A doc that was probably more writing exercise than WIP, set in the same universe as Just a Little Something Else Instead (this was linked but I think it made Tumblr concerned and refuse to post this to the tag so I removed it, if you’re that interested in the fic it’s linked in the WIP challenge post at the top of this post)

Oh geez. This isn’t supposed to get out of the vault probably (mostly because I don’t like its tone even if I ever write more of this AU and it is rough--it mostly exists because I wanted to see if I had more AU in me at all). It’s Steven and Peedee on their buddy road trip technically committing a crime in the dead of night and the police rolling up on them because the way they planned their technical crime committing to be 0% dangerous and really not worth doing anything about if noticed meant it looked highly suspicious. XP Everything is okay in the end I promise.

A snippet which I think is written very well:

He closed his eyes; the harsh fluorescent lighting of the police station wasn't so stabbing like it was before, right when they'd been brought into what might as well have been the stinking sun from the comparative nothing blotted by little spots of light that he saw outside at this time of night, but it still hurt and there was little he could do about it.

Alternate snippet I have definitely shared in a place before: *Steven making a joke about Peedee’s food truck, to which Peedee responds in quiet horror* “Steven. This truck is my baby.”

(The complete randomly generated order is this:  9, 2, 6, 10, 18, 19, 22, 20, 15, 8, 14, 26, 11, 17, 16, 23, 21, 1, 3, 12, 24, 5, 13, 25, 4, 7 FWIW XP)

))

[firstdove15]

2019 Fic Roundup

I actually wrote enough this year to answer most of these questions. 😂 If you haven’t done this yourself, feel free to join in the fun! ❤️💕

Stats

Total words written: 18,030

Shortest story: The Death of a Montague (832)

Longest story: Akane One-Half (ongoing) (14k+ in general; roughly 11k this year, FFN)

Fics Posted (Gen)

Akane One-Half: More like updating because I’ve been writing on and off for two years but I did add three chapters this year.

Through the Forest: It’s technically gen because Pidge and Lance don’t have romantic feelings for each other (yet). It was completely inspired by @krissychan2 ’s art of them as nymph and fairy respectively.

Fics Posted (Plance)

Love from the Future - Inspired by a prompt generator that said to write about a person who gets a typewriter and finds a love letter from the future and they attempt to find that person. I didn’t follow the prompt to the T but I had fun with it. And getting encouragement from @rueitae during the letter part meant a lot because I was worried about it staying in-character and whether or not it was going to be too fluffy. X3

Chocolat - Self-indulgent oneshot inspired by a little college get together. XD It was actually originally going to be part of a multichapter story (that I thoroughly outlined from beginning to end, no less!) but it just didn’t work out. OTL

Fics Posted (Rosvolio)

The Death of a Montague - The prompt was to write a fic based on a song for Rosvolio and I knew right away I wanted to do it to Brendon Urie’s Death of a Bachelor. Plus I’m a sucker for guys taking on the wives’ last name. XD

Specifics

Best Title: The Death of a Montague. Only because of Brendon Urie though since his title was genius to describe a man happily getting married. Same thing here on top of Benvolio cutting off the last remaining ties to his abusive uncle.

Worst Title: Probably Through the Forest. I could’ve picked a better title to reflect the game Lance was playing on Pidge or his motives, but *shrugs*.

Favorite opening lines:

-

“I caught you, you sneaky little bastard!”

The fairy in her hands didn’t even try to struggle from her grasp. Instead he licked the remaining berry juice off the corner of his lips and grinned at her. “So you have, little nymph.”

-

I was fresh off of writing for Akane One-Half so, yeah, that’s why you’re seeing swearing from me here. XP

Favorite closing lines:

-

The card included two ticket stubs for the Killbot Phastasm movie that long faded. He wondered if Lance knew she kept it all these years.

He put the card down and got to work. He’d let him find it. It would be another opportunity for her to talk about her feelings with current Lance rather than past Lance.

He smiled at the thought.

Tonight would be a good night.

-

Endings aren’t my strong suits but I did like tying up the stable time loop. XD

General Questions:

- Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, less than you thought, or about what you predicted?

Given my personality, just about what I predicted. I wish I had done more though. Oh well, that’s what 2020 is going to be for. XD

- What pairing/genre/fandom did you write most?

Plance/fluff/Voltron respectively. Especially fluff because The Death of a Montague was fluffy and Akane One-Half had some fluff toward the end of the last chapter I posted on FFN.

- What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?

Rosvolio/Still Star-Crossed for sure! I wish I hadn’t taken so long with the soulmate AU but I’m still in the middle of writing it so it’ll be for this year. XD

- Did you take any writing risks this year?

Other than trying to get familiar with Pidge and Lance’s personality? Not really. 😅 I almost did with one of the oneshots in mind to take place after Through the Forest (I actually had a rough draft of it), but I was worried one of them would be too dark. I mean, I’ve written dark stuff before, but someone probably would’ve been like, “What the heck, Faye?!” and I wouldn’t have blamed them one bit. XDD

- Do you have any fanfic or general writing goals for the new year?

Well, I saved up and got a new laptop so I’m just hoping I’ll be more productive this year writing wise.

- What’s your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest?

Hoo, boy. Tie between Through the Forest and Love from the Future. The former because I was happy to write something coherent inspired by a beautiful piece of art and the latter because fluff. ❤️💕

- Okay, NOW your most popular story.

Definitely Love from the Future and I’m okay with that. XD

- Story most underappreciated by the universe:

Haha, Chocolat. Which I am also okay with because 1) It was literally just posted and 2) It was super self-indulgent. XP

- Story that could’ve been better:

The Death of a Montague. Most of my energy went into the sonnet (it took me HOURS to compose that sonnet alone 😂) so I felt like I didn’t put as much heart into the rest of the story. T_T. But a good amount of people enjoyed it and I appreciated that.

- Story with the sexiest scene:

HAHAHAHA! I JUST CAN WRITE A CHASTE KISS SCENE.

- Most “holy crap, that’s wrong, even for you” story:

N/A. Again, if I had gone with that oneshot as a sequel to Through the Forest, that would have been a different story. To be fair, it was going to follow the aftermath of the Thing™ rather than during, but still….

- Saddest story?

Eh, none of them really? I mean Through the Forest has super light angst but only toward the end. Pidge clearly missing her brother and the story alluding to Lance having lost someone permanently. The second other sequel would have been part fluffy part angsty but… there is a reason I haven’t gone through with them for editing/posting…

- Most fun?

Let me shake it up and say Akane One-Half. XD Everything is still a puzzle and I think I’m getting the gist of how most events will go.

- Story with single sweetest moment?

Chip and his scenes with Lance and Pidge, I think in Love from the Future. ❤️💕

- Hardest story to write?

I mean, I had challenges with the parts that were supposed to be the meat of the story (e.g. the love letter and the sonnet) but outside of that I could recognize when something needed to be cut or expanded on and I’m happy for that.

- Easiest/Most fun story to write?

Chocolat. XD Got to include Hunk being a troll and not being afraid of Pidge’s wrath because he’s currently overseas. He has to come back to America sometime. 😂

- Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

That’s part of the point of me writing Akane One-Half. Wanted to see if changing the situation would change their characters and I’m having fun figuring it out. Waiting for someone to complain about certain characterization later down the road but…*shrugs*

- Most overdue story?

Complete wise: The Death of a Montague

WIP wise: The Rosvolio soulmate AU. I got a bit ambitious on how the whole soulmate thing works in that AU and I’m working on it not being so info dumpy. 😅

- What are your fic writing goals for next year?

1) Finish the Rosvolio soulmate AU fic

2) Update Akane One-Half faster (Like I legit have two arcs written in first drafts and detailed notes for the two arcs after that. I have no excuse 😂).

3) Write that Plance Vampire/Fledgling-esque AU. I will figure something out, dangit.

4) MAYBE write a long ATLA oneshot based on that Probending AU an artist made for Katara, Toph, and Azula with Suki as their coach. It wouldn’t take me long to find the artist and give credit if I do go this route. Just thought it’d be fun to explore Azula’s character based on what Aaron Ehaz had in mind.

5) (super tentative) Write that oneshot idea I had for Dororo. I miss my babies. 😭

Welp, that was fun! Saw @rueitae ’s post and wanted to give it a shot if I published four things and updated one this year. 👍 Hope you guys have fun with this is you decide to do it!

[helenarlett-rex]

Want to use an eldritch horror in your D&D game? Why not Cthylla?

So like I’ve mentioned in my previous posts on this topic, eldritch horrors are a common part of D&D. One of the three pacts given for Warlocks right there in the Player’s Handbook is all about dealing with eldritch horrors... But there don’t seem to be many, or any... eldritch horrors listed in the Monster Manuel for you to actually use. This leaves you having to resort to homebrew but who to homebrew is the question? Naturally most people just jump right to Cthulhu but come on... You don’t want to be like everyone else, do you? Where’s the variety? How about this...? Instead of Cthulhu, have you considered Cthylla?

Cthylla, also known as The Kraken or The Secret One, is the youngest offspring of Cthulhu and his mate, Idh-yaa. Cthylla, like her parents, is a Great Old One. She came from the star Xoth, but now dwells on Earth in Yhe, where she is guarded by Cthulhu's minions. Namely, a great number of Deep Ones and Yuggya.

Cthylla has the appearance of a gigantic, red-bodied, black-ringed, and six-eyed octopus with small wings. Like her father, she is able to alter her body-proportions at will, such as by enlarging her wings to enable her to fly, or give herself a killer beach bod... don’t look at me like that... she could if she wanted to... In fact she has actually been seen to have given herself a humanoid form on at least one occasion. So who’s to say it couldn’t happen?

While she normally has eight arms like any octopus, she can extrude or retract additional ones at will and has been known to sport as many as twelve arms at a time. Each arm is equipped with dozens of razor-sharp claws, each about five inches in length. Picture trying to fight a giant octopus but instead of suction cups, each of its tentacles are lined with claws in their place. That’s not really something I personally would want to fight...

Cthylla may be the youngest of Cthulhu‘s children, and probably considered the least powerful, but she is by no means the least important. If anything, Cthylla is the most important of Cthulhu‘s children. This is because poor Cthylla is little more than an insurance policy for her father. You see, Cthulhu, in his great power, has foreseen that one day in the distant future he will be destroyed. And when that happens, Cthylla is destined to mate with Cthulhu‘s half-brother, Hastur, and give birth to Cthulhu once more.

This makes Cthylla critical to Cthulhu‘s plans. Insuring that she stays alive is the only thing that insures Cthulhu himself will be reborn after his death. This is why she is known as The Secret One. She’s so important that the members of Cthulhu‘s cult will go to any means necessary to insure her existence remains a secret, hiding all information about the goddess. Even going as far as defacing the Columns of Geph in order to remove any reference to her.

Should any harm towards Cthylla even be so much as attempted, Cthulhu himself will take action, unleashing the full fury of his wrath against those who would harm his daughter.

But Cthylla herself is not invulnerable, which is probably why she is so fiercely protected. In fiction we have seen that she can be wounded. She was wounded by a subterranean atomic bomb. She was also captured by simple researchers once who mistook her for a rare species of octopus and tried to breed her.

Cthylla has two other names she is known by. One of those is The Kraken. To which you may be asking, do you mean... The Kraken? Like, the monster in the Monster Manuel? Release The Kraken! That Kraken?

Yeah, that’s what I mean... And if you aren’t convinced, the other name she is known by is Scylla. As in the sea monster spoken of in Greek Mythology. We already know Cthylla can alter her shape, so it shouldn’t be much of a surprise if she goes around looking like other horrible sea monsters, especially considering she is supposed to be keeping her identity a secret.

So how would you use Cthylla in your game? As a patron for a Pact of the Great Old One warlock I would play her up as being very grumpy but also extremely willing to act as a patron and lend her power. Remember, she’s Cthulhu‘s youngest child and still rather physically weak. In Great Old One terms, she’s pretty much still a teenager. A teenager who is a Goddess but isn’t worshiped by anyone because her father’s worshipers have covered up her existence and removed her name and likeness from her own temples. In addition to that she’s essentially been grounded for life, placed under heavy guard, and told that her only purpose is to one day have sex with her uncle and give birth to her own father. You show me one teenager who is going to be okay with any of that...

Cthylla is going to be an extremely grumpy and ill tempered girl. But that would also make her very eager to lend her power to any warlock who actually manages to find out about her and go to her for a pact. Name me one reason she wouldn’t be thrilled to actually have followers who recognize her for who she is after centuries of being forgotten and kept a secret... Depending on what kind of game you are running, you may even want to play Cthylla as rebellious, ordering her warlock to work against her father’s plans. I mean, if I was an all powerful octopus goddess who had been locked in my room under heavy guard and told I couldn’t come out until I gave birth to my own father I’d probably be like, fuck you Dad! I’m going to give all my power to this warlock here and order him to kill my uncle so there is no possible way for him to impregnate me with you!

Just a thought...

But if you did want to go for that angle it would make for a rather interesting character. You could actually play Cthylla as an ally to the party instead of an adversary or some great cosmic being who is just indifferent to their existence the way most eldritch beings are. Or if that’s not your cup of tea, you could always make her completely onboard with her father’s plans and just play her as an evil cosmic monster happy to play her part in the destruction of humanity.

As for using Cthylla in combat, you don’t actually have to do all that much work to homebrew her. Most of the work is already done for you. Remember how I said one of her other names is The Kraken? I would actually just take the Kraken from the Monster Manuel and use it for Cthylla‘s stats. It’s already a CR 23 monster, which is about right for Cthylla. Although I would add a few things to it just to make it a little more on point.

The Build

As I said, start with Kraken base stats.

Next, change the monster type from Gargantuan monstrosity (titan), chaotic evil to Gargantuan aberration (great old one), chaotic neutral, unless of course you don’t plan to play her as the rebellious type, in which case you can keep the chaotic evil alignment.

Step 2, add a fly speed of fly 80 ft. (hover). She does have those wings after all...

Step 3, bump up her Dex to 22 (+6).

Step 4, Give her Damage Resistance to all spell attacks and all attacks from magical weapons. After all... if an atomic bomb only left her wounded, then she should be able to shrug off spells like Fireball.

Step 5, change her languages to Deep Speech; telepathy 300 ft. 

Step 6, add darkvision 120 ft.

Step 7, add Innate Spellcasting. Cthylla’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 24; spell attack +16). She can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components: At will: dispel magic, dream, 3/day: suggestion, feeblemind, 

Step 8, add Frightful Presence. Each creature of Cthylla’s choice that is within 120 feet of her and aware of her must succeed on a DC 24 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to Cthylla’s Frightful Presence for the next minute.

Step 9, add Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If Cthylla fails a saving throw, she can choose to succeed instead.

Step 10, add Change Shape. Cthylla magically polymorphs into a humanoid or beast that has a challenge rating no higher than its own, or back into it’s true form. It reverts to its true form if it dies. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying is absorbed or borne by the new form (Cthylla’s choice). In a new form, Cthylla retains her alignment, hit points, Hit Dice, ability to speak, proficiencies, Legendary Resistance, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores.

Step 11, remove Lightning Storm.

And that should sufficiently turn your Kraken into Cthylla. And just so you can see what it all looks like when it’s finished so you don’t have to spend the time writing it all down yourself, here it is...

Cthylla

Gargantuan aberration (great old one), chaotic neutral 

Armor Class 18 (natural armor) Hit Points 427 (27d20+189) Speed 20 ft., swim 60 ft., fly 80 ft. (hover)

STR ​ 30 (+10)​ DEX ​ 22 (+6)​ CON​  25 (+7)​ INT​  22 (+6)​ WIS ​ 18 (+4)​ CHA​  20 (+5)​

Saving Throws Str +18, Dex +15, Con +15, Int +14, Wis +12 Damage Resistances All spell attacks, bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from magical weapons. Damage Immunities lightning; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical weapons. Condition Immunities frightened, paralyzed Senses darkvision 120 ft., truesight 120 ft., passive Perception 14 Languages Deep Speech; telepathy 300 ft. Challenge 25 (50,000 XP)

Amphibious. Cthylla can breath air and water.

Freedom of Movement. Cthylla ignores difficult terrain, and magical effects can’t reduce her her speed or cause her to be restrained. She can spend 5 feet of movement to escape from nonmagical restraints or being grappled.

Siege Monster. Cthylla deals double damage to objects and structures.

Frightful Presence. Each creature of Cthylla’s choice that is within 120 feet of her and aware of her must succeed on a DC 24 Wisdom saving throw or become frightened for 1 minute. A creature can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. If a creature’s saving throw is successful or the effect ends for it, the creature is immune to Cthylla’s Frightful Presence for the next minute. 

Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If Cthylla fails a saving throw, she can choose to succeed instead. 

Change Shape. Cthylla magically polymorphs into a humanoid or beast that has a challenge rating no higher than its own, or back into it’s true form. It reverts to its true form if it dies. Any equipment it is wearing or carrying is absorbed or borne by the new form (Cthylla’s choice). In a new form, Cthylla retains her alignment, hit points, Hit Dice, ability to speak, proficiencies, Legendary Resistance, and Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma scores. 

Innate Spellcasting. Cthylla’s innate spellcasting ability is Charisma (spell save DC 24; spell attack +16). She can innately cast the following spells, requiring no material components: At will: dispel magic, dream, 3/day: suggestion, feeblemind, 

Actions

Multiattack. Cthylla makes three tentacle attacks, each of which she can replace with one use of Fling.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +18 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 23 (3d8 +10) piercing damage. If the target is a large or small creature grappled by Cthylla, that creature is swallowed, and the grapple ends. While swallowed, the creature is blinded and restrained, it has total cover against attacks and other effects outside Cthylla, and it takes 42 (12d6) acid damage at the start of each of Cthylla’s turns. If Cthylla takes 50 or more damage on a single turn from a creature inside her, Cthylla must succeed on a DC 25 Constitution saving throw at the end of that turn or regurgitate all swallowed creatures, which fall prone in a space within 10 feet of Cthylla. If Cthylla dies, a swallowed creature is no longer restrained by it and can escape from the corpse using 15 feet of movement, exiting prone.

Tentacle. Melee Weapon Attack: +18 to hit, reach 30 ft., one target. Hit: 20 (3d6 +10) bludgeoning damage, and the target is grappled (escape DC 18). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained. Cthylla has 12 tentacles, each of which can grapple one target.

Fling. One large or smaller object held or creature grappled by Cthylla is thrown up to 60 feet in a random direction and knocked prone. If a thrown target strikes a solid surface, the target takes 3 (1d6) bludgeoning damage for every 10 feet it was thrown. If a target is thrown at another creature, that creature must succeed on a DC 18 Dexterity Saving throw or take the same damage and be knocked prone.

Legendary Actions

Cthylla can take three Legendary Actions, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature’s turn. Cthylla regains spent legendary actions at the start of her turn.

Tentacle Attack or Fling. Cthylla makes one tentacle attack or uses her fling.

Bite (Costs 2 Actions). Cthylla makes one bite attack.

Ink Cloud (Costs 3 actions). While underwater, Cthylla expels an ink cloud in a 60-foot radius. The cloud spreads around corners, and that area is heavily obscured to creatures other than Cthylla. Each creature other than Cthylla that ends its turn there must succeed on a DC 23 Constitution saving throw, taking 16 (3d10) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. A strong current disperses the cloud, which otherwise disappears at the end of Cthylla’s next turn.

[edelwary]

when you were first getting into art, what and how did you draw? (like did you just doodle ur masterpieces on pieces of paper and posted-notes or did you have a proper sketchbook) how did you find motivation? bc ive been trying to draw but I always get unmotivated and stop while still wanting to get better just by doing nothing.

REALLY LONG, LOTS OF ADVICES FOR ARTISTS : 

TL;DR ; skip to the HOW TO ACTUALLY FUCKING DRAW part bc i have a megaton of shit to say lol + The MOTIVATION part 

mmh… I’ll get into details with this one tbh bc it’s a long ass process ahah : 

I live by the sea ; when i was youung i used to draw TONS of boat, but like, dollhouse boats, you could see the insides and stuff ; i loved to add tiny details and stuff, and imbricate everything together !

around 8 or 9 yo, i went to the public library with school and discovered the wonderful world of mangas ! I basically… Copy pasted an entire Mermaid Melody tome x) 

For about 2 years i alternated between reading mangas and trying to copy them ! Then i just kept drawing in the margins of my schoolwork for about… 5 years ! I have a Fuck Ton of sketchbooks of that time, it was… The start. Lol. Never say it’s bad because it’s never bad, just not there yet !!

Around my 13 yo, i went every saturday, for two years, under a bookstore ; there was a cave, and drawing classes ; that teacher was mean and harsh and stuff, but like… Not really. He would take away my eraser for the class, force me to use pencil, to draw something else (bulky boys instead of magical girls). 

I’ve learned a lot, more in terms of How To LEARN to draw than to draw itself, but i still progressed a LOT !! 

Then i kept drawing by myself for a year and i really worked hard on it ; about hours a day, trying watercolors and stuff ; i have a real problem with colors in traditionnal art, but i’m much better with lines (i should scan some RAD stuff i made in the weekend, yall ive never done anything this good i stg i dont know why i always forget im so much better on paper) 

This gets us to my sweet 16 ; i have to year of advance, bc i got ‘’’promoted’’’ idk how to say it ; anyways, i entered my (current) animation school for the first year at 16; vERY IMPRESSIVE AND TERRIFYING. 

And i learned. A fuckmegaton. Of shit there. 

Now i’m going for my third year there and i can make photorealistic marmora blades and cyberkpunk decors if i want to and that’s rad, but here is

 HOW TO ACTUALLY FUCKING DRAW : 

I have one HYPER important advice, and i’m keeping it to heart since i’m like, 11 : Have. Sketchbooks. Please !!! It’s very important. Here’s why : 

You keep everything with you in one place. You have 1 sketchbook, it’s basically easy to take every where (a A5, or A4 are pretty easy to carry, i have like, 12 of those, and around 8 of A3) 

You keep track of what you’ve done. It’s super important, bc first you can cry of laughter at your old stuff bc its cute but not so good, and second, you can just be like ‘holy mama’ and see how much you’ve improved

It’s very important to be organized. I WORK in art, and trust me, if there’s something that i’ve learned this year through tears and missing files and bugs : Be. Impeccable. Now if it’s for fun, go a little loose, and just have a folder for art on your computer, and a sketchbook, no need to stress, but the better you try to keep a record of where is what, the better you’ll see whats wrong

Notebooks are friends !! You can draw, write, glue stuff, make notes, lists, everything !!! I have my life in those. It’s more important to me than any of my phones. 

Be proud of it. Like, not everything, duh ! But try to tell yourself than it’s like a RPG ; even if it’s only 2 xp here and there, one day you’ll beat level 40, and that’s super important : art is. Fuckin. Long.

I cant stress it enough. It’s soooo long !!! SO LONG !! it’s years. It’s like karate and fishing and ANYTHING. To be good at it, it takes time, but it WILL COME if you keep trying. There’s no secret passage. 

You’re gonna me it, believe in me who believes in you. 

Use. References. 

Coming from a little shit who’s got a really good visual memory, that can sound like bs, but i stg everything is always AT LEAST twice as good if you’ve used a visual support. 

I’m not saying COPY EVRYTHING (even though thats a good training) I’m saying, if you really want to do that asian tiger, please have at least two or three pictures of it nearby. Take photos of your hands, and stuff ! 

Make it harder. 

No eraser. 

Paint. 

I draw all my backgrounds on my sketchbook with INDIAN INK; no returns, no refunds. 

Ink, Ink, INK !! Don’t allow mistakes.

And if you make mistakes :

New page, restart

It’s okay

It’s for you

I once started back again a whole EXAM bc it was bad, i got one of my best grades 

You’ll improve and be more assured if you know you just have to DO IT. Trust me. It’s VISIBLE; if you can erase, you fidget and hesitate and ‘’kbeujebez hahhaaa idkkidsd’’ ; stop ; do it, and if you don’t like it ? Try again, there’s no time limit

Draw as large as you can 

There’s no interesting story here, it just helps. Bigger movement of the hand, more place for details, breathing lines

Thin lineart helps

Thinner. Make it even thinner

Break the rules, but not the ones that structure your art 

Big lineart ? Why not

Unfinished lines, vaporeous colors ? Pretty

Cubism is actually based on extensive and intense practice of classical art, it’s not wibbly wooblly ; the anatomy is more correct than you think 

Structure and composition are important, but so is movement and life ; choose your fighter ; mine is fluidity and fun, i’m like, a rogue/archer in drawing. Some people are dwarf fighter. That’s amazing and great. 

Don’t be afraid to do nothing

Pages and pages of my sketchbooks are actually just lance facing right and smiling, you know… 

Sometimes it just doesnt work : two ways :

Take a break, Kiki’s delivery service style

Keep trying, break your art until it obeys and comes back

Take breaks. Breath. 

Don’t compare. I do it, it doesn’t help at all. You’ll make it ; and if you compare, keep in mind that everyone’s different

I’m not gonna lie, it’s NOT easy, it’s even hard 

But I really, really think it’s worth it 

MOTIVATION :

My main bitch 

I’m always pumped for art because i can LITTERALLY NOT do anything else ; i love reading and writing and stuff but at the end of the day i just want !!! to draw !!!! aaaaaa-

Fall in love with it, and with the possibilities ; i have stories to tell, tell me yours ! Do your best, one day it WILL work

Actual advices : 

I have an inspiration blog where i just reblogs stuff i like to draw them later

Find a picture, copy it. Do it again. Change the characters (i have 2 ocs and Lance and Keith as default characters) in the pic. 

Like an artstyle ? Break it to its very core, analyse it, copy it, redo it, trace it and ABSORB it. Don’t copy/past, LEARN from your heroes.

Do what you like. I have 86578 pieces of voltron, this is not a coincidence. I have ENDLESS ideas for this show, wtf. 

Try new things. Buy indian ink im begging you. It’s so cool. 

Have a game with yourself, or a challenge. STICK TO IT. 

Study. When you’re bored, usually it’s because you’re stagnating. Make it harder or do hands until you cry. 

Love your backgrounds; make backgrounds, study trees, and tokyo streets, and venice’s bridges. Decor is just as cool as characters, if not more

Mess a little with everything. My roomate more than one found me stained from head to toes trying to DO STUFF 

Draw outfits. Draw what you want but can’t afford 

MAKE YOUR LIFE A COMIC. Remember those sketchbooks ? Make a comic a week/month/every full moon, whatever, and draw your life (mine’s the roomates au lol) 

Prompts blogs are cool too 

Make fanart of a fic you liked ; you have the characters and the pose already, you just have to illustrate ; double bonus, you probably will make a writer’s day, if not year !

That little movie that plays when you listen to your favorite song ? DRAW IT

Your favorite scene in your favorite movie ? Redraw each shot. On post it. Plus it looks awesome afterwards to have the infamous TREX scene of Jurassic Parks in post it

Get bored. That’s inevitable. Dance, scream, get back to it. Walk, draw everything you see. 

Make a paper google map street view : Take a walk : every 50 meters, draw what is in front of you. 

Snapchats your friends. Draw their snapchats when they answer 

Draw maps. Invent places. Invent bikes, and hovercrafts, and monsters. Make your everyday inventory. Make your life a video game, and do the concept arts of it. 

FETCH your inspiration. I have approx. 20 artbooks, full of drawings and concept arts of my fave movies/games ; take what you like and add it to the story you have since you’re 8. We all have one. 

Ask for it ; your sis, your mom, me even ! If you dont have ideas, someone will have them. 

WELL i’m gonna stop there, even though i got like, 9864567 more to say, but with this you should be fine ! Anon, i’m rooting for you ! we all start somewhere, just hold on!!!!