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ct-multifandom · 3 years

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MLB ideas/hopes/predictions/prompts

Bunnix using her umbrella to fly like Mary Poppins

Ladybug coming up with an overly convoluted Rube Goldberg machine type plan with her lucky charm, but not having some of the components, so she just sends Pegasus to the store in the middle of a battle

Characters who are close slowly finding out about each other’s superhero identities in funny ways

Pigella picking up something massive and like 10x heavier than her and chucking it

I really want one of these heroes’ tools to be a comically large anime-style weapon, but alas I don’t think they’d do it

Season finale boss fight featuring all the new heroes, which is totally gonna happen at some point, but it would look really busy on screen to have them all running around at once, so I’d split them into smaller teams based on their skills to carry out specific parts of Ladybug’s Epic 36-Step Plan™️. It would make for a satisfying “oh yeah, it’s all coming together” montage and also give us some unique character interactions.

Ladybug picking unique combo teams of new heroes based on their skills to fight specific strong villains

Alya starting a school paper and getting the whole team in on it. I love the episodes where the class does one big project together, they’re so cute.

Someone/a group getting akumatized on purpose to disobey Hawkmoth and take advantage of their akuma’s power for a noble goal

Episode from the POV of a boring background character detailing how the life of the average Parisian is affected by LB and CN. Unreliable scheduling, monster traffic jams, the sheer embarrassment of getting got by an akuma...

I want an animal to get akumatized. Someone’s dog who feels lonely when their favorite human gets a new, demanding job and turns into a terrifying Cerberus beast or something.

Mayor Bourgeois allocates some taxpayer dollars into a LB bank account to support her, and she has to make the very important decision on whether to save it for a real emergency or buy 17 hamburgers.

Okay part of me doesn’t want to make kwami/future hero predictions in case I accidentally come up with something way cooler than what will really happen and then be disappointed, but the other part of me is like hee hoo predikshun. So don’t expect these to actually happen lol.

I won’t talk about Multimouse because we kinda know everything about her, but she looks cute and it’s nice to see two heroes who aren’t super skinny.

The silhouette of Minotaurox in the intro doesn’t offer a lot of insight other than his epic horns. I have no idea what his tool might be. His costume looks to be pretty simple/practical, though, which is in line with Ivan’s character. I heard a theory that his power will be increasing in size, and it makes sense looking at Stoneheart and the pattern of flipping the characters’ flaws on their head, but that sounds kind of boring to me, especially compared to all the other creative abilities.

Tigresse’s silhouette makes me think her design will be awesome. Her tail looks like it might be her tool. It kind of resembles Amethyst’s whip from SU so maybe she can use it to grab things like Ladybug does with her yo-yo. I heard a theory that her power will be invisibility which I support because it takes the flaw that turned Juleka into Reflekta (wanting to be invisible out of insecurity) and makes it powerful like the stealth of a tiger.

From the silhouette, Caprikid looks a bit like a beginner’s Trollhunters cosplay, but I’m sure he’ll be cool. I’ve seen people argue whether he’s Nate or Marc and I’m positive he’s Marc (making Nate CC) so if anyone asks for an explanation I’ll make the comprehensive post on why. He’s holding his tool, and I’ve seen debate over which direction it’s in. If he’s holding it pointed up it looks like a giant calligraphy brush, but I think he’s holding it pointed down and the “brush” is just a decoration on the end. I’ve heard a theory that it’s a shepherd’s cane which is my favorite one. Personal idea here: I’d make his power telekinesis. Pretty basic, but I can imagine it being very useful for the type of scenarios we see in the show without it being OP. I like the idea of using a cane to “shepherd” something through the air. This could reflect Reverser’s desire for control, but flip it to be more collected and useful.

I fully support Coq Courage’s ninja pants, they are simply Correct. It’d be cool if his tool was a bow and arrow, and that seems like a pretty popular theory. The shape to the left of his torso looks like it might be a quiver but it’s probably just his other arm. Thumb rings are used in archery, but what little we’ve seen of the miraculous (disguised on Marinette and Chloe) shows a different type of ring. Still tho. Also get ready for my crazy never-gonna-happen idea: the bow can turn into a hang glider. Roosters can fly, but not super well/freely, which could translate to gliding. It’d add some versatility to the way the heroes move around since a lot of the temporary ones can only run, and it would let him reach places LB might not be able to. I’ve heard a theory that his power will be supersonic voice which could contrast how Nathaniel is bad at communicating and quiet until he gets mad and blows up.

Orikko might be the kwami of illumination. Roosters are associated with the sun and Evillustrator’s power was sourced from light. At first I thought his transformation words might be “sunrise” and “sunset” but someone said the activation code could be “rise and shine” which sounds awesome.

Traquemoiselle, believe it or not, is actually in the intro, she’s just hidden at the very top and only a snippet of the head is showing. All we know is that she has round dog ears. Barrk is surprisingly one of the more fleshed-out kwamis as of now, having a few solid lines of characterization in Furious Fu. Kwamis are usually yin-yang to their holder, so Barrk fits Sabrina perfectly, being loyal yet independent while Sabrina is loyal and an absolute doormat. No clue about her tool. Her power is kinda in the name: tracking. Maybe she can track down some one specific thing of her choice, but maybe she can sniff out akumas. As seen in Dark Owl and Gang of Secrets, Hawkmoth can be creative with akuma placement, so she can probably save the team from some close calls.

I have no theories for the transformation words of the other kwamis. Ziggy or Stompp could include “horns” or “charge” and Roaar “stripes” but I can’t think of any phrase including those words that isn’t too similar to an existing one. There are some phrases based on powers, though, not the animal. Or maybe they’ll just give up and give us another iteration of “Sass, scales slither”.

I think the theme for one of these remaining new heroes might be “assertion”. A lot of them struggle with that as their civilian selves, and the animals that are left can all be associated with independence/dominance, not that the animal traits always play into what the heroes are.

Ok last one, long one: in season 3, Luka’s main traits were “cool and nice” which doesn’t make for an interesting, complex major character, and at first he seemed like the perfect love interest, but from an outside perspective the extent of his kindness is kind of disturbing. I’m hoping they can flip this around and turn it into a character flaw where he has practically no boundaries, and it turns into a problem. Maybe he could agree to run random errands for the background characters for nothing in return, and at first it’s just him being nice, but later people start seeing his help as an obligation. They get peeved when he’s unavailable one day and get akumatized into a “boss rush” of classic akumas, effectively trapping and forcing him to help them. Then Tigresse Pourpe comes and helps save the day, expanding on Juleka and Luka’s relationship. The resolution can teach kids that putting yourself first isn’t necessarily selfish, and that sitting back and letting people take advantage of your kindness isn’t heroic.

There’s probably some stuff I forgot which I can put in a different post later, but lmk if you want a separate post about any of these things in more detail! This was just me rambling out all my new hyperfixation thoughts. Also if anyone uses any of the hypotheticals/scenarios as a prompt I’d love to see it.

#miraculous ladybug #mlb #miraculous spoilers #miraculous les aventures de ladybug et chat noir #miraculous season 4 #miraculous lb #too lazy to add all the character tags #long post #brain go brrrr

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dreamerhideout · 4 years

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enhypen genshin impact!au hcs

characters: enhypen

word count: ~200 words each

warnings: mentions of alcohol for jay’s part, lore inaccuracies (i haven’t caught up on dragonspine event lore yet), spoilers for mondstadt + liyue main quest

a/n: i’m supposed to be working on something else but this brainrot got to me first... anyways, i’m assigning their visions + weapons based off a few fan theories i’ve read~ please enjoy my word dump! :D

more under the cut!

jungwon

okay so we’re starting off with our leader! hmm... i’d say that he has a geo vision

why? idk, i’m half sure it’s based off how calm and composed he is; i do kinda think jungwon is a picture of maturity and elegance (he literally has to take care of six children wdym)

it was kinda hard for me to choose a weapon because i kept going back-and-forth from sword to polearm, but my final pick for him would be polearm

yes this would mean that he is zhongli

a polearm would probably suit him because i see him as the kind to want some kind of control over his weapon (not saying he can’t control a sword). at the same time i feel like he’d want something lightweight which won’t bring him down

i think he’d work with the knights of favonius. working with the liyue qixing could also work for him, but considering the tension between the adepti and the qixing + the social climate of liyue makes me think that he’d want somewhere more calm

acting grandmaster jungwon? i’m down for it

spends time near the mondstadt church; he likes the peace and quiet of it

heeseung

from the get-go i knew he’d have a hydro vision

this one theory i’ve read says that hydro vision users have a strong sense of morality and justice (i guess i also interpreted it as balance) and heeseung seems like the kind of person who does

for weapon, i think he’d prefer to use a sword. we see that he’s good in a lot of areas when it comes to being an idol, so he’d perhaps want that versatility in the weapon he uses as well

hello xingqiu (wait i kinda think this fits)

i don’t see him particularly associating himself to any organization, so i think he’d simply be a wanderer. he goes from country to country as a vagabond, battling monsters along the way in order to perfect his skills

at the same time, i also see him making a lot of friends and having a bunch of connections from just about any corner of the land (more to acquaintances i suppose? heeseung doesn’t seem like the kind to let people in very quickly)

is probably very curious on elemental reactions and might be studious in a way; he would want to learn alchemy

likes stopping by mondstadt’s library when he needs to look up on something. probably keeps in contact with alchemists too

jay

oh man this is going to probably be very stereotypical

pyro vision, hands down. i was considering an electro vision for him at first but the amount of passion he has in doing the things he loves (primarily hip-hop) screams pyro to me

he would also have a claymore because let’s be real, he’d want something to get the job done quick; claymores are literally the weapon that causes the most damage

yeah he’d be diluc. or xinyan. whatever your pick is

bonks monsters for fun, fight me on this

association... i think he’d be a part of the adventurer’s guild. he strikes me as the kind of person who’d want some kind of reward for something he does for fun (in this case, mora. and a bunch of other items you can get from katheryne once you complete your daily commissions)

this is probably how he meets all his friends. if he wasn’t a part of any association, i don’t think he’d have many (not saying that he’s unable to make friends, he’d choose not to unless necessary)

strives to be a well-known adventurer, probably takes up more commissions than the average one

likes spending time in places with good ambience, food, and booze. probably is a regular at angel’s share and liyue’s street food stalls on days he comes to town

jake

i think he’d have an electro vision. it’s something about the way he fiercely cares for other people that makes me think that this suits him best

okay hear me out but i think he’d be amazing with a bow and arrow. he seems to have the tenacity and upper body strength for it, and i don’t think he’d particularly want something that could do a quick kill, like a sword or claymore per se

uhh... yeah he’d be fischl, i suppose. idk this realization was a bit weird to me but it doesn’t seem so far off from happening

sometimes uses his skills to shoot at fruit from trees; it’s a pretty good party trick

association-wise i don’t think he’d wanna join any, tbh. he’d be an “everyone’s friend” kinda guy. unlike heeseung who’d have acquaintances from all around, jake would generally want to befriend different kinds of people (helps around wangshu inn sometimes because of this)

still though, i think he hangs with members of the adventurer’s guild a lot

don’t be surprised if you catch him befriending a member of the fatui-

i also see him really immersing himself in the culture of each country he visits

he’s the guy who pets all the animals, especially the dogs

also seems like the kind to purchase or collect raw meat just to give to the stray animals he meets on his travels

sunghoon

oh boy am i excited for this one

okay so i know this is stereotypical but... cryo vision. honestly, having a geo vision would also be possible but remember that one time childe said something around the lines of the goddess of cryo having such a warm heart and she loved so much to the point it froze? yeah i think i’m basing him off the tsaritsa-

weapon would be a sword. i considered choosing a polearm for him but i think he’d want something slightly heavier that would get the job done, but not necessarily a claymore. do i think he has the capacity to use a claymore if he wanted to, though? sure why not

hello kaeya (or qiqi, if you’d wish)

okay okay this is where it gets fun... imagine sunghoon as a member of the fatui

mmm villain!sunghoon we love to see it

he’d honestly probably be on the road to becoming a harbinger? like, we see how he works very hard at ice skating and idol training, who’s to say that he won’t climb up the ranks real quick?

yes jakehoon brotp agenda is still on so they would be friends (though honestly their friendship is kinda uncanny)

when i thought of stuff to write for him i kinda think that he’d like liyue a lot; the tradition and order feel like home to him. this also fits lore because there’s more fatui appearances in liyue compared to mondstadt

also seems like the kind to wander around the city when things start to calm down for the day; if he’s not being tasked on a mission, he sometimes likes to head out to huaguang stone forest

sunoo

sunshine baby

okay i think he’d have an anemo vision (and this is not because he reminds me of venti). there was another theory that said that anemo vision-holders are hard workers who sometimes don’t give themselves enough rest, and sunoo seems to make the cut. he’s crazy hardworking at things he know he’s lacking at and strives to improve

i think he’d have a catalyst (yes!! we need male catalyst characters!!); i can see him absolutely fascinated by the way catalysts work like... “there’s no solid object engineering the attacks so... what is that? it seems so cool!”

so yeah he’d be sucrose, hello

i also think he’d want to be a part of the adventurer’s guild! it keeps him busy plus he likes helping people :D

would then be introduced to jay (and possibly jake) when he’s assigned to do a commission with him. honestly he’d prefer doing commissions with others rather than doing them alone

has a hard time killing monsters because he finds them cute (especially slimes). i think he’d also empathize with hilichurls to a degree

i see him residing in mondstadt most of the time; he’d also like talking to the locals a lot (has a high rep because of this)

loves trying out local cuisine, some of his favorite dishes include sweet madame and zhongyuan chop suey!

ni-ki

oh i’m also kinda excited for his too

so i initially thought he’d have a pyro vision, but after some time i figured he’d have an electro vision instead. i think it’s this weird sentiment i feel that he’d protect his passions with his life (in this case, dancing; he’s literally inseparable from it), so there’s that

totally looks like the kind to have a polearm. he definitely would want something lightweight that he could lowkey flex with

sadly he doesn’t have a genshin character twin yet :(

would also not have any affiliation whatsoever; he just traverses the land like the free spirit he is

occasionally would tag along with some adventurer’s guild members, but doesn’t like the idea of people telling him what to do; he creates his own adventures instead

am i the only one here who thinks that he’d honestly run really fast here (hehe speedy boi)

he’d love dashing through mondstadt’s plains (particularly springvale), sometimes slashing monsters left and right (he likes liyue’s scenery but the terrain is way too mountainous for him)

one thing he does like about liyue though is playing with the kids in the harbor. he’d get them toys with the extra mora he receives when helping people (big brother ni-ki agenda hmm)

#enhypen #enhypen imagines #enhypenwriters #yang jungwon #lee heeseung #park jongseong #sim jaeyun #park sunghoon #kim sunoo #nishimura riki #enhypen jungwon #enhypen heeseung #enhypen jay #enhypen jake #enhypen sunghoon #enhypen sunoo #enhypen ni-ki #jay park #jake sim

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allandoflimbo · 4 years

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Ashens (Part 3)

Summary: She falls in love with Bucky Barnes from the moment she sees him. Bucky, still in love with a woman from his past, hates Y/N and plans to make her life miserable. To both their dismay, they are assigned together to go undercover into The Capitol for six months. There, they develop a heartbreaking friend with benefits agreement. Dystopian.

Pairing: Bucky x Reader

Chapter Word Count: 3,036

Rating: M for Mature, E for explicit. Enemies to lovers trope, sharing a bed trope, friends with benefits trope, temporarily unrequited love, heavy angry sex, heavy on the angst, and very strong language.

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Month: February

Year: 2021

It had been three years since you saw your parents being murdered in your living room and since the civil war started.

Society had fallen.

First, it was the fight for the cure, then it was the fight for protection. Next, came the riots, the fight for food, and eventually, it all became a survival of the fittest.

Electricity and communication were no more. You don’t even remember the last time you saw a working TV. Family was no more. Violence and dishonesty were now the brutal answer.

These days, protection came in the form of clothing you owned and how much you had of it. After it became apparent that this virus was actually a bacteria born and flesh-eating disease, everyone did what they could to try and keep their skin protected as much as possible. It ate through the skin and took over your body like a plague. Heavy clothing equaled less chance of being infected. It didn’t take very long for clothing stores to be looted along with the grocery and drug stores.

Eventually, you’d have to make use of any clothing you found on dead bodies that were killed by assassination and not by the virus itself. You couldn’t risk that.

But even that was rare to come by. Everyone jumped at the opportunity of a clothed dead corpse. Whether it was for the scarf, the pants, shoes, or socks.

During the riots, most of the homes had all been destroyed either by fire or vandalism. Some tainted by dead bodies; murder scenes. Some eaten by the virus. You didn’t want to live in a home that was infected. Destroyed homes were ruined by the winter’s harsh snowstorms and the summer’s heavy rainfall. Because of their collapsed ceilings mixed in with the weather, it all eventually began to mold and collapse.

Life was no more, happiness and serenity were gone, except for in The Capitol.

No one could get inside The Wall. You heard rumors that it was guarded by heavy military and machine guns, and all of Hydra.

The Capitol was a place where your parents had planned for every single one of you to make use of to help you survive and live a happy life. It was supposed to be a safe haven, not this.

It was now the place that had been savagely stolen by Hydra and the evil rich. The migration into The Capitol had happened very soon after your parent’s death. The rich, elite, privileged, and only some certain politicians, were taken in.

The other politicians, you heard in rumors, had either killed themselves or were killed by other government officials, just like your parents had been. You heard rumors that this had been an undercover mission for years. They all knew how to take over the moment it was necessary.

Even the doctors and scientists had been taken with them. And you wondered if it was at their own will. Meanwhile, everyone else - people like you and Will and simple middle-class families with children - were forced to fight each other to stay alive.

A bloodbath.

The first few months you and Will had refused to fight anyone for food. That wasn’t in your moral plans. But it had eventually come a day when neither of you had eaten in three days, and the only thing left, in a dirty store off Route 95, was a loaf of bread. You, Will, and this random girl all argued until you eventually agreed on splitting it into three pieces.

The girl had been chewing her piece, devouring like she hadn’t eaten in days when her eyes landed on the tattoo on your neck, and immediately you knew she knew who you were. Her eyes grew dark and she jumped at the chance to attack you when Will came from behind, hitting her on the back of the head with a heavy bucket, making her pass out.

You knew that no one really knew what happened to your family. They all think it was your parent’s intentions for all of these horrible things to have happened. They blame you and your family for this. This only made you want to avenge your parents even more and even Will knew. This life wasn’t what they wanted, and it’s not what you wanted either.

You had been sitting one night, in the middle of a forest in Connecticut around a blazing fire, eating a fish you had just caught with your handmade spear. It had fed you both for many months. Will smiled over the fire at you, licking the meat off the bone clean.

“We’ll get there, Y/N.”

You stared at the fire in a daze. You hadn’t lost hope. Or at least you don’t think you did. Your feet had been bare for weeks and they were starting to chafe and bleed.

You wouldn’t admit it, but part of you did lose a little hope. You feared the first snowfall of the year. It was almost comical to you how your last worry at the moment was frostbite.

You took a deep breath, enjoying the taste of the Tilapia. You wrapped your heavy scarf over your shoulders.

“I know, I’m just tired. I wish I had more strength, I wish we had more strength. There’s two of us and thousands of them, Will.”

It was the first sign of doubt you had shown in months, and it surprised Will slightly.

“I know, but we can do it. I know we can.” he licked his fingers clean and then laid down on the wet and cold grass, his hands behind his head.

Could you do it? You weren’t sure anymore. You knew you wanted to kill Hydra and you wanted to overtake The Capitol. But were you two really capable of doing that? Have you two been delusional this entire time?

“Its been three years. Three years.” You said softly. Exhausted.

“True, but we’re young. And we’re smart. We have an advantage they don’t. That.” He bent one of his legs and stared up at the scars, a small smile tainting his lips, “We could always call The Avengers.”

You scoffed, running your hands through your hair as you threw the bare spine into the fire. You were a bit sad you finished it, your tummy still turning in hunger.

“What Avengers? Hydra destroyed their home, everything. They tried to fight and they lost. Worst than when Thanos beat them. And to make matters worse, this is a virus, it’s not something they can necessarily control. They’ve become overpowered, even the damn Avengers are overpowered now by Hydra. This is like a horror movie that will never end. It’s time we face the facts.”

Will smirked.

“I don’t know if I buy it. You mean to tell me even Bruce fucking Banner couldn’t break that damn wall?”

You gave him a glare.

“I don’t think the goal here is to break The Wall. If anything that would ruin the purpose, don’t you think?” you picked up a small and harmless rock and threw it at his chest, making him cringe, “dipshit.”

Will continued to stare up at the stars. The night was midnight black, and now since there was no longer any electricity, you could even see the milky-way.

“I don’t see this ending badly.”

You wish you had his good heart and good soul. You furrow your brows at him.

“What do you mean?” You ask.

“This whole thing. We’ll fix it, I know we will. I don’t know how, but it will happen. I’m sure of it.”

You consider his words and nod. You slowly take your time to get up and walk over to where he is. You pull your heavy apocalyptic-style hood over your head and scooch over closer to him. You cross your own arms behind your head, also looking up at the stars. They looked beautiful, and for the first time in a while, you allowed yourself to feel even a little bit serene. This is why you enjoyed Will. He was your best friend and your guardian angel.

“You really think so?” You ask.

Will turned his head over and looked at you. You did the same thing, staring back into his eyes.

You were suddenly afraid; afraid of losing your friend. What would you do without a good soul like him to keep you sane and strong?

“I do.” There was no trace of doubt in his voice.

Still, you tried to believe him, you really did.

You and Will began to fend for survival. You often thought of killing your parent’s murderer when you would both be laying under a tree in the cold of the night trying to fall asleep. You would never forget that face. You and Will would both alternate between being watchmen to guard your food and weapons. You mostly used the weapons just for hunting, but you never knew what could happen. Still, you remained alert and vigilant.

You both never ventured too much into the city, trying to stay on the outskirts as much as you possibly could. But one day you had cut your hand while trying to spear more seafood in a riverbed, and the cut ended up being deeper than you could manage. Not only did you fear it to get in the way of your hunting, but you also didn’t want your blood seeping in through your clothing, making it more versatile to the virus.

You both found a looted, but in not-too-bad-of-a-condition, dollar store just off the freeway. You both climbed over some of the abandoned cars, making sure to look in each one just in case there was something worth taking.

You got to the entrance of the store, and Will told you he would be outside waiting and keeping guard while you looked for some bandages.

The store was almost completely empty, yet you found your way into the med isle, stepping over fallen light fixtures and useless items like beanie babies and dusted up Happy Birthday cards. You were rummaging through some boxes when you heard it.

A scream.

Will.

Your heart jumped into your throat and you acted on autopilot. You didn’t second guess, you ran through the doors and over the fallen cable wires without hesitation. Your eyes searched the eery and abandoned parking lot. You didn’t see him and you screamed Will’s name over and over again, running around the deserted parking lot. You knew it was dangerous, but you had to find him. You heard a groan and you quickly saw him lying against the curb off to the side of the highway, his arm wrapped tightly around his waist.

You feared the worst.

“No, no,” you repeated to yourself. You tried to be careful to not slip on the black ice beneath your leather boots.

You ran towards his fallen body and the first thing you say was how pale he was. His face was emotionless. Most likely shock. You crouched down next to him and you pulled his arm away from his chest. You saw a knife sticking out from his upper abdomen and blood.

A lot of blood.

He was panting and it didn’t take you long to look up across the street. There was a man faced down into the pavement. You swallowed thickly, knowing there was a fight and Will had gotten hurt.

“He saw you and he kept saying he wanted your coat, he was a loon and he had a machete, and he — and he—” Will panted.

“Shhh, shhh.” You hugged him tightly to your body as you rocked him back and forth.

“I wanted to protect you.” “I know, Will. I know.” You cried, closing your eyes tightly together and holding him closer.

He barely coughed out, his eyes rolling back.

“It hurts.” He cried.

You saw heavy tears cloud your vision and you felt a sense of impending doom.

“I got you, Will, I got you.” You don’t know if you were speaking to him or yourself.

He stretched his arm up and grabbed yours, pulling your embrace tighter around his body.

“We’ll get them, Y/N. We’ll avenge your parents, I promise. I’m too strong for this.” He squeaked, “I won’t die.” He said through clenched teeth.

Tears ran down your face as you watched him grab his own open abdomen.

“You are, Will. You are so strong.” Your face tilted to the side as more sobs racked through your body, “Please, don’t leave me. I can’t be alone. I can’t do this alone.”

You felt his nimble fingers dig into your elbow, smearing you with his blood.

“I’m so sorry.” He whimpered, some blood escaping his lips this time.

“Please, please.” You cried over and over again, holding him tighter to your chest.

It didn’t take much longer for you to feel him go limp in your arms. Your body shook with your cries when you repeated it back to yourself: Will was dead.

You didn’t allow yourself to cry for too long. You wanted to but you knew you needed to keep moving, and being this exposed could only cost you your life.

You quickly found a nice area, the nicest you could possibly find in an arena of death, and you carefully laid Will’s body down. Ironically, it was in a field of dead daisies. You delicately draped his arms over his chest and you whispered your goodbyes to him. You took a moment to cherish who he was. He was a lonely son of a construction worker and an accountant. His bother died two years ago after being infected. He had been in pain for a long time, but he had a good heart, and he strived to stay at your side to help you. You let your tears fall on your hands as you held his for just a few more minutes.

No more than a half-hour later after finding some bandages, you were back in the woods, continuing your journey south. You pulled out the compass that Will had given you, just to be sure. It was close to dusk when you heard the sound of a river running down below. Your stomach grumbled, suddenly feeling very hungry again. You had been out of luck today, finding not even one squirrel or deer. Not even a bird.

You hadn’t eaten since that morning when you and Will had split a couple of spare pumpkin seeds. Your chest tightened at the thought of him again. You felt awful for just leaving him in the field like that. You knew someone would find him soon and take the clothing off his body to keep for their own. But you had no choice. And there was no time for a proper burial, at least not in the middle of a city like that.

You continued your walk more and more, the boots that you had stolen off a girl’s body, squishing in the mood and dirt beneath your feet. You were thankful it hadn’t snowed yet this year. The cold was already unbearable as it was, if there was snow it would only make your journey worst. You couldn’t take it for granted.

You don’t know how much farther you walked since you had no watch. No one had watches anymore. Time didn’t exist anymore. But, it would help in order for you to estimate your location and how far you had left in your journey. You were guessing, realistically, it had been about an hour, judging by how much darker the sky now was.

You knew you needed to find a corner to settle in and build a fire. You needed a place to sleep for the night. Food would have to wait until tomorrow, you would go to sleep hungry again.

You take a deep breath and rest your hand on a large tree. You were extremely fatigued, in desperate need of water. You had been dehydrated for a while. You knew your canteen was running low so you had to savor as much as you could.

You took necessary sips here and there.

You drift your eyes over the horizon and through the broken branches until your gaze lands of a patch of grass that looked decent enough for a rest stop. You would lay your dirty rag you call a blanket there and get some rest.

You slowly started your walk, tucking your canteen back into your bag.

You heard owls in the sky around you and you grew worried as you began to realize that with Will now gone you were truly alone. There was no way you could avenge your parents alone. You couldn’t go into The Capitol alone.

You had no chance.

Your hands grew clammy and you started feeling worried sick, your mind now in overdrive.

You were screwed. You were all alone and screwed and there was no chance in hell you were going to come out of this alive. Suddenly, you find yourself angry at Will. Angry for lying to you and saying that everything would be okay.

How could he say that? How could he lie to make you believe it was true? You wouldn’t be capable of doing this alone? Even the Avengers couldn’t do this, even the Earth’s mightiest heroes could not win against Hydra, yet here you were trying to overthrow an entire city filled with them?

You remember the people talking about how their compound had been bombed and destroyed. They didn’t have a home anymore. They had three missions where they tried to overthrow it and failed miserably. It pained you to see that your parents hope for the future had become a living hell of blood and war. How could Will have so much faith in you? You remember the feel of his limp body in your arms and your sadness is unbearable.

More tears found your eyes and you rubbed your wet nose over the back of your sleeve. Something heavy caught the tip of your boot, and with a shriek you found yourself tumbling down and down.

Then, everything went dark.

#bucky x reader #bucky x reader smut #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fanfiction #marvel fanfic #marvel fanfiction #mcu fanfiction #winter solider fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader series #ashens chapter 3

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mihidecet · 4 years

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Sbi&CO d&d AU: The Dream Team (Character Analysis)

Dream Team? In my Sbi d&d AU? More likely than you think!

As requested by the lovely @floofyboons, here are the character analysis for Dream, Sapnap and George!

[I will write an overall backstory for all three of them because it’s doable and they are also best friends your honor]

First up, Dream. If any of you caught my small preview in Calvin’s chapter, you already know what’s coming ahaha

The thing with Dream was being able to make a character that would manage to stick to all of his abilities. He was a bit hard to pin down.

A barbarian would reflect well how he’s usually dealing a lot of damage with well placed hits - like, choosing an axe that deals more damage in one hit and is slower, opposite to a sword that is faster but deals less damage per hit in minecraft.

But also, a rogue, for how fast and nimble he is, and to reflect his skills in parkour.

Since I don’t see him as a monk, Dream is, to me, a fighter.

Fighters have the bad reputation of being “basic”, but they are also the most versatile class you can choose (that’s why they are usually suggested for first time players, because they’re easy to pick up at basic levels and you get tons of things to choose from at higher ones).

So, fighter. But what type of fighter? As I mentioned, fighters get a lot to choose from.

But the thing is, Dream seems to enjoy using potions and enchantments and eyes of ender a lot. So this, to me, means that Dream is definitely an Eldritch Knight, which are fighters with access to spells, which he casts with Intelligence (this sounds so dumb but like, Bards cast with Charisma and Druids with Wisdom, I swear ahahah) and bonuses to casting attack spells.

Not to mention that at third level he gets access to a bond weapon, so he can’t be disarmed and he can summon his weapon directly in his hand instead of unsheathing. Which is cool.

Dream has always been an half-orc in my heart. I just really like half-orcs, and they get a bonus to strength which is pretty cool. Also green. And tusks. I rest my case.

[Listen this is my dnd au, I want buff frat boy Dream with tusks, and the ability of being just a bit unhinged. It’s what he deserves]

As for his background, I’d say soldier is pretty good overall (we can define being trained by Calvin as doing military time).

Sapnap was a mistery too for a while. I had a talk about him with my sister, because I literally could not think of anything that would fit.

And then! The realization.

A monk of the way of the Sun Soul. A skilled fighter, that not only can punch his enemies into oblivion, but also shoot orbs of fire? YES.

Monks are a bit like rogues, in the sense that they are dexterity based, but instead of dealing massive damage in one hit, they just punch very hard and very fast. They are also extremely quick - their speed increases by 10ft every 5 levels, more or less.

And the Sun Soul subclass, while not necessarily being very strong, adds a distance attack that scales in damage like the punch attack all monks get. And it is fire, which fits with Sap’s penchant for setting fire to things.

I’ll just have to accept this time that a variant human is the best option.

And since I do like the idea of Sapnap just zooming through the battlefield, the Mobile feat gives him 10 additional ft of speed, plus some additional mobility bonuses.

[this means that while a normal character's speed is usually 30ft per round, Sapnap's is 50ft per round. And if he uses a bonus action to dash HE CAN RUN 100ft IN A SINGLE TURN. A d&d turn lasts 6 SECONDS. And this isn't even the fastest he can go, he's at 70ft (140 total) from level 18]

[He deserves to nyooom]

Add maybe the urchin background, and Sapnap is all ready to kick asses.

And finally, George! This man is such a wizard, it’s not even funny. Maybe it’s just me tho, because I see a coding youtuber and go WIZARD.

In any case. George is a wizard coding nerd, but he also has a terrible sleeping schedule. So, you know what this man needs? Some more time.

Since Matt Mercer loves all of us so dearly, he shared with us the wonderful world of Dunamancy spells.

Now, the Chronurgy Magic subclass is spectacular. It feels a bit like the Divination subclass BUT. You can literally rewind time. Freeze enemies in time and prevent them from acting on their turn.

It is brilliant.

And like, George is smart, and enjoys pranking when he’s just with his close friends.

We can give him a nice time shaping spell as a gift.

Now, the only problem is whether his familiar is a cat or a dog.

George is also going to be an half-elf, with Wood Elf heritage because that gives him Mask of the Wild, which means that he can try and hide in most natural phenomena. Basically, if he’s out of his house, he can easily nope out of social situations, which I think he deserves.

He, like Scott, also gets the sage background. For obvious reasons (which will become more obvious in the next paragraphs).

So! In summary:

Dream is born a half-orc and, for all he knows, he is the son of nobody.

When he is but an infant, he is left on the doorstep of a random house during a stormy night - it is a miracle that its inhabitant discovered him before he froze to death.

Dream grows up resilient, under the watchful eyes of Calvin, a veteran that chose to retire in a town stuck in the middle of nowhere in hopes of helping people defend themselves from incursions.

Calvin trains Dream, but he also helps him grow, just like he helped another one grow several years before.

Most importantly, Dream doesn't grow up alone: alongside Calvin, there is a monk, and all around him are the two man's students.

One in particular Dream seems to bond with: a bright human with a heart of gold, always too keen on getting into trouble, and one of Fruitberries' best students.

Him and Sapnap become quickly best friends, and they train together so much they start to work as a single unit.

When they are both of age, Dream starts to display some latent magical abilities; Calvin is quickly able to recognise this thanks to his adventuring years, and he suggests moving a couple towns over, where a friend owes him a favour and he could train him.

But Calvin's home is what Dream has always known, and change is hard, especially if he doesn't know whether or not Sapnap would be able to stay with him.

After some time discussing about it, Dream agrees to "check it out", taking advantage of this to try and compete in the yearly tournament that is held by the very same friend of Calvin he would train under.

Of course, he leaves with Sapnap.

Meanwhile, in the town where the tournament is being held, Scott is celebrating because he finally got his best student to agree to participate, as long as he gets to choose who to team with.

In the end, he’s not even going to choose, because the two jackasses pester him endlessly until he agrees to team up with them.

#dream team au #sbi dnd au #now sbi&co #dreamwastaken #sapnap #georgenotfound #also mentioned is #cxlvxn

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theonceoverthinker · 4 years

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When Will My Life Begin (Fair Game 8/?)

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Summary: Tangled AU. Clover Callows has been confined to a tower for all of his life, and given the threat that his Uncle Tyrian says his semblance poses to his safety, he accepts that fate. It’s the only life he’s ever known, after all. But when he’s offered the opportunity to fulfill his greatest dream after a chance encounter with a thief -- or bandit, as Qrow Branwen insists there’s a difference between the two -- both Clover and Qrow will discover joys that they never knew life could offer them before. AO3

A/N: THEY’RE FINALLY GONNA TALK!!!!

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Unorthodox situations were anything but unorthodox to Qrow Branwen.

Being a bandit meant thinking on one’s feet, but the world, especially the world’s criminal underbelly, was a strange place to live in, one that moved in perpetuity. So in the scuffles of his day-to-day goings on, Qrow got used to inserting, disguising, and adapting himself into some bizarre situations, and some of those situations extended between one day and the next.

Qrow had woken up to shrieking sounds before.

Qrow had woken up to the sounds of birds before.

But he’d never woken up to the sound of both at the same time, much less both of them right in his damn ear!

To say it was an unorthodox way of waking up was to say the least -- absolutely a top contender, though not necessarily the strangest.

Qrow’s eyes snapped open upon hearing the screeching noise.

Even though he was awake, his mind took its time catching up with his still groggy self.

He shook his head, eager to get the very bird that had awoken him so rudely out of his ear. Judging by the small pitter pattering sensations in his shoulders that felt like solid rain drops jumping across his clothes as well as the less beaky feeling he had in his ears following the action -- Gods, there were plenty of things he expected to happen today, but to describe anything that touched his ear as ‘beaky’ was not one of them -- it seemed like he was successful.

That was good, at least.

Once the primary source of his annoyance was gone, Qrow continued to look around the room. The view he had access to was limited and mostly covered in shadows, though judging by his posture, he could tell he was in some kind of chair.

Where was he?

What happened to him?

And why did he have such a headache?

Qrow moved his arm so that his hand could massage his head, but much to his surprise, it couldn’t move.

He looked down towards his body to investigate, and he couldn’t believe what he saw when he did.

A life of banditry meant that he’d been tied up more than his fair share of times -- an effort on the parts of his targets or random bystanders to subdue him that was valiant as it was pointless. Qrow was fine with rope and even better with knots.

However, what he was tied in right now was nothing like the ropes he’d dealt with before.

What he was trapped in was some sort of metallic rope -- thin, but tight, bendable, but only to a point. The rope was crudely made aesthetically -- and honestly looked like it was in need of a good polishing -- but as Qrow attempted and failed to pull himself free from its confines, he realized its substance absolutely made up for any style it was lacking. Whoever made this knew what he was doing, and even though he prided himself on being pretty tough, Qrow was well aware no amount of raw strength was going to cut through what he was tied in.

It was also long, even stretching beyond the various loops it managed to make around his limbs, stretching out in front of him and into the shadows.

“What the hell is this?” he muttered as he tried to make sense of his situation.

Qrow had woken up in strange ways before, but compared to waking up to the sound of a screeching bird whilst bound to a chair by a long stretch of metallic string, none of those instances could hold so much as a candle to a strangeness of this magnitude.

...Well, maybe that wasn’t completely true, but it was still strange nonetheless.

With his eyes, Qrow followed the rope from its last point of contact with the chair’s base into the darkness.

The string was quite long, but it did indeed have an end, and its end landed at something that the tiniest glimmer of sunlight made look like a pair of feet.

Qrow figured it was safe to presume that that was his captor.

His captor clearly noticed that he was not only awake, but had a visual -- however obstructed -- of his form.

“I wouldn’t bother struggling if I were you.” It was a man’s voice that came out of the figure, a voice with an exaggeratedly cocky tone. However, even though he must have been over ten feet away, Qrow could feel a tenseness from him as if they were right beside each other that betrayed that tone.

He could hear his captor take a deep breath.

“I know why you’re here, you know,” the man continued, that abrasive cockiness still in his tone, but now more clearly faltering under the stress of that dominating tenseness, “b-but be warned that I’m not afraid of you.”

“Huh?” It was all Qrow could think to say -- not the most eloquent of sentiments, but it was at least a sentiment that was both accurate and honest.

Qrow could hear soft, but firm steps coming from his captor as he stepped closer to the outskirts of the shadows.

“Now, who are you,” the man continued, abandoning his cockiness for a more adamant tone, “and how did you find me?”

“What?”

For the next few seconds, another deep breath from his captor was all that Qrow was seemingly rewarded with for his question.

Then, he heard more steps, steps that stopped just as soon as they started.

There was a pause, as if his captor had arrived at some kind of threshold he had to dare himself to cross.

Then, he stepped fully into the light.

“I said,” the man carried on, “‘who are you and how did you find me?’”

At the sight of the man’s full form, all Qrow found that he could do was stammer both without aim or words as he took the man in from his head to his literal toes.

This man...everything about him was unorthodox.

The first things that stuck out to Qrow were his captor’s bare feet. Of course, not everyone wore shoes all the time, especially in the privacy of their own home, but especially for a situation like this, a lack of shoes stood out like two sore thumbs with five sore thumbs of their own each.

Frankly, it almost felt uncivilized for such an occasion.

Also standing out to Qrow were the man’s white clothes, or rather, how pristinely white they were. The man clearly wasn’t royalty -- Qrow at least hoped he wasn’t because any members of the monarchy should have had better things to do than capture mostly petty bandits like himself -- and while regular people of the kingdom like himself did wear white, apart from people of royal standings, those who wore white tended to really be wearing off-white after he first few times sporting them.

Was this guy just a neat freak?

Well, he was a freak, alright -- that was for sure, neat or otherwise.

Additionally, his shirt lacked sleeves entirely, exposing strong looking, muscle-packed arms, one of which housed a red armband. In his line of work, Qrow came across plenty of strong people, both allies and enemies. Those who had particularly large amounts of muscles often had ones that looked overblown, as if it almost was more of a hindrance to have them than a help, but compared to them, the ones this man had were more balanced between toned and versatile. They weren’t too much, and they weren’t too little.

That all having been said, large muscles or not, few that he encountered, unless they had tattoos to show off, lacked sleeves like this man did.

His hair was odd, too -- short and straight in the back, but messy and almost spiked in the front, resting just above his teal eyes.

Qrow didn’t even know what to think about that, apart from the fact that this man clearly had a lot of free time.

The man coughed, taking Qrow out of his thoughts.

“Who are you, and how did you find me?” he repeated, this time putting emphasis on every one of his question’s words.

Qrow took a deep breath.

Clearly, despite the fancy metallic string he was using, what Qrow was dealing with was an amateur at this whole capturing business.

Perhaps that wasn’t a bad thing for him.

Qrow felt he was a charming man…

Granted almost no one ever agreed with that sentiment, but hey, those charms -- either in abundance or absence -- got him this far.

Maybe they’d do the trick now and help get him free.

At the very least, Qrow felt it was worth a shot.

Luckily for him, unlike many instances of this situation in the past, the target of his charms this time was pretty handsome, and that always made this scheme in particular easier to pull off.

“I can’t say that I do know who you are,” Qrow said, throwing on his most vulnerable, awestruck-looking expression, “nor do I know how it was that our fates were intertwined, but, if you’ll allow me the pleasure, I must say...hi.” Qrow then put on the most outwardly flirty face he’d ever put on before in his life -- a raised brow, a toothy smirk, narrowed eyes, and a clicked tongue. “Qrow Branwen’s what they call me, but you can just call me a bandit after your own heart. But enough about me,” Qrow continued, letting his eyes drift to his knuckles as he casually admired his hands before drawing them back to the man. “Tell me about you.”

The man’s eyes grew -- startled.

That was a good first step.

However, it didn’t last before his captor strengthened his resolve, gripping the weapon in his hand tighter as he took a step back. Qrow tried to get a look at what the weapon was, but the man was at the ready to distract him with another question.

“Who else knows my location, Qrow Branwen?” he asked, placing a strong emphasis on his name.

Well, so much for charming his way out of this...at least, for now.

“All right, muscles,” he said, abandoning his act and returning his face and tone to normal, albeit not enough that he couldn’t return to it later if he wanted to.

“Clover.”

“Eh, ‘muscles’ works better, don’t you think?” The man glared at Qrow, but he ignored him. “Look, here’s what happened,” he carried on. “I was in the forest, there was a little...let’s say altercation, and I came across your tower.”

Suddenly, a memory jumped at him -- a memory of the very subject of that altercation that brought him to this tower in the first place.

Qrow looked all throughout his bound body as well as the visible floor of the tower, hoping against hope that this man -- Clover -- had neglected to take notice of his satchel.

He had no such luck.

“Where’s my satchel?” Qrow demanded, further dropping any and all charming pretenses he still had up.

Clover looked at him, openly smirking.

“Somewhere you won’t be able to find it.”

Panicked, Qrow’s eyes raced across the room.

Then, as his eyes met a certain location, the panic stopped.

Amateur.

“It’s in that pot over there,” he said, now matching Clover’s smirk with one of his own, “isn’t it?”

There were probably more unorthodox responses to having a bluff be called out, but as Qrow once more succumbed to the darkness of unconsciousness, he had trouble coming up with a list that was all that long.

()()()()()()()()()()()()()()

Uncle Tyrian was right about a lot of things.

If not for his opinions on the species that his best friend came from or his feelings on a quick field trip to see some lights, Clover probably would’ve said he was right about everything.

But in the moment he knocked out Qrow after Qrow successfully called out his bluff, he wagered that his uncle’s assertion that Clover was perhaps a little too sensitive for his own good was so right that it hurt.

Well, it at least hurt Qrow.

Qrow Branwen…

Clover didn’t know what he expected to happen when conversing with someone from the outside world that wasn’t his uncle, but whatever it was, it wasn’t that.

Qrow was by all means indescribable.

Weird.

That’s it -- Qrow was weird.

He wasn’t mean, he wasn’t nice, he wasn’t gracious, he wasn’t malicious, or anything in between -- he was just weird.

But just because he was weird didn’t mean he couldn’t help Clover.

After hiding the satchel again, Clover and Raven exchanged a single glance at each other before executing the same plan that brought he and Qrow to speaking terms in the first place.

Qrow yelped as he came back to the conscious world. His shoulder jumped and the impact made Raven fall to the floor.

“Would you stop that?” he yelled at her.

Clover turned to Raven.

“Are you okay, Raven?” Raven looked a little dizzy, but gave an affirmative squawk nonetheless before turning her gaze back to Qrow.

Qrow shot Clover a look, one incredulous, semi-confused, and almost pitying in nature.

“You named your pet raven Raven?” he asked. “Not exactly the most creative of names, you’ve got to admit.”

Clover casually brandished Kingfisher. “I will knock you out again,” he threatened, though only semi-seriously. After all, while those outside the tower weren’t monsters, he wasn’t, and it was important to show that, even when making himself seem tough.

Thankfully, Qrow seemed to get that, sporting a deadpan expression before, during, and after the threat.

“No need,” he said, raising his hands as much as he could given his bound state in a surrendering nature.

Then, he did something curious.

Qrow leaned himself toward Clover and started studying Kingfisher closely.

“What is that weapon?” he asked. “Some kind of fishing rod?”

He seemed genuinely curious, and even a little fascinated.

Clover hadn’t expected curious and fascinated of all things to be the elicited reactions.

Immediately, he fought off the heat he began feeling in his cheeks, his brow furrowing as he glared.

“What it is is none of your business,” he said firmly. “What is your business is that I’ve hidden that satchel of yours again, and this time, I know it’s somewhere you’ll never find it.”

Qrow’s eyes narrowed and he scoffed. “You sure about that?”

“Yes, I’ll admit that I may have underestimated you earlier, but I didn’t let that happen again.” Clover was proud of himself. Of all of his tower’s hiding spots, he picked a real winner this time. “Now, let’s get back to business,” he said as he approached Qrow once more, brandishing his weapon as he circled him. “What do you plan to do to me? Keep me for yourself?”

Qrow looked at him, confused.

“What?”

“Sell me?”

“No!” he shouted, gesturing his hands in a way that pleaded with Clover to settle down. Clover obliged. “Listen, muscles, the only thing I want to do with you is to get as far away from you as humanly possible.”

Well, that was good to hear...sort of...

“A little rude,” Clover muttered.

Clover swore Qrow’s eyes tripled in size at that comment.

“I’m trapped in your fishing rod!” he shot back, now shouting even louder as he pulled against his restraints. “We’re well past ‘a little rude,’ and newsflash -- I’m not the one who got us there!”

Another retort was just about to come out, but upon realizing something, Clover stopped it.

“So wait,” he said, loosening his grip on Kingfisher ever so slightly, “you’re not here for me?”

“You’re not bad at capturing people for an obvious beginner, but no -- I’m not here for you. Look, what happened was that I was being chased, I saw a tower, and I climbed it. That’s all.”

Raven squawked, and Clover turned to her. She was glaring at Qrow, scrutinizing him for lies. She then sent a resigned look Clover’s way. Clover had no idea how to take that, but upon receiving another nod from her, an ‘o’ shape formed in his mouth as he finally put the pieces of his friend’s reluctant message together.

Qrow was telling the truth.

He was just a man who -- for whatever reason -- wanted his satchel, some privacy, and nothing more.

There was still a question of why he was chased in the first place and why he needed that satchel so badly -- questions Clover had at least a guess as to what the answers to them were -- but Clover’s secret was still a secret as far as it related to this man.

His plan could work.

For a few moments, he and Raven communicated with each other through a series of squawks and exchanged glances, and all the while, Qrow was trying to helplessly scooch his chair away, no doubt to see if he could find the satchel’s hiding spot.

Even with his semblance always at play for both of their benefits, Clover knew that wasn’t about to happen.

Satisfied with his and Raven’s resolution, Clover turned back to Qrow.

“Okay, Qrow Branwen,” Clover said. “I’m prepared to offer you a deal.”

“Deal?” Qrow cried, incredulously.

“Look over here,” Clover demanded. He couldn’t believe he was showing off his painting to a second person today when up until today, only he and Raven had ever laid eyes on it before, but today was one that promised change, and Clover was intent on embracing that if it meant fulfilling his dream.

Without giving Qrow much of a chance to properly orient himself, Clover tugged Kingfisher so that his sight would align with the painting Clover wanted him to see. Unfortunately for Qrow, the pull wasn’t balanced, and while he landed basically where Clover needed him to, it was on the ground, face first. It wasn’t the kindest of moves, Clover would admit, but in this rare situation, he’d throw kindness to the wind to keep himself looking intimidating...or at least as intimidating as Qrow probably believed him to be.

“What can you tell me about these?” Clover said, pointing with Kingfisher to one of the painting’s green lights.

Clover almost felt his heart burst as he saw a flicker of recognition in Qrow’s eyes.

“What? The lantern thing they do for the General’s son?” he clarified, unaware of what truth he had just informed Clover of.

“Lanterns?” Clover gasped.

So Uncle Tyrian was wrong about them!

“Lanterns! I knew they weren’t stars!” The celebration was cut short as Clover remembered what he was trying to accomplish during this encounter. He coughed, regaining his composure. “Yes, as I’m sure you know, tomorrow night, those lanterns will light up the night’s sky.” He then pointed Kingfisher at Qrow. “You will guide me to the lanterns, and ensure I get safely there and then home. Once I’ve returned, then, and only then, will I return your satchel to you. That is my deal.”

Clover felt pretty confident about the arrangement he set up. It was fair, got both himself and Qrow everything they wanted, and would ensure Clover’s safety and timely return back to the tower before Uncle Tyrian even knew he was gone.

It was perfect.

“Can’t do it,” Qrow said.

Apparently, it was only almost perfect, but not quite.

Seriously?!

“Look, the kingdom and I aren’t on the friendliest of terms right now, so no, I won’t be taking you there.” Qrow gave him a deadpan look, but there was a certain element to how he spoke, one that reminded Clover of how he felt whenever Uncle Tyrian beat him at chess.

It was a lowkey smugness.

Clover could appreciate a lowkey smugness -- it seemed like part of that ‘outside-the-tower’ brand of humor that he’d love to one day understand -- but he wasn’t willing to put up with it, let alone settle for it where it concerned the difference between him seeing the lights and not seeing the lights.

No, Qrow wasn’t getting out of this that easily.

“Something brought you here, Qrow Branwen,” Clover said, pulling Qrow back upright and then closer to him with well-angled tugs on the fishing rod’s line. “Call it what you will -- fate, destiny-”

“A string of terrible life choices.”

“I’ve made the decision to trust you.”

“A horrible decision, really.”

“But trust me when I say this,” Clover insisted. His tugs had finally pulled Qrow close enough for him to be right in Clover’s face, albeit with Clover at a height advantage.

It was an advantage Clover was excited to have for what he planned to say next.

“You can do whatever you’d like to with this tower -- tear it up, tear it down, destroy it to the point where no one ever would believe that there was ever a tower here at all -- but without my help, you’ll never get that satchel of yours back.”

Qrow now seemed to come to terms with his situation.

“So I take you to see the lanterns, bring you back home, then you give me my satchel,” he paraphrased. “That’s the deal?”

“Exactly. I promise.” At Qrow’s look of disbelief, Clover strengthened his resolve even further. “And if there’s one thing I don’t break, it’s promises.” Raven gave Qrow an affirmative squawk that backed him up. Clover wasn’t sure if he’d get that, but either way, hurt.

Qrow took a deep breath.

That was a good sign.

“Look, muscles,” he commiserated, “I didn’t want to have to do this, but you’ve left me no choice.”

Clover was tempted to step back, but ultimately stood his ground.

So much for that good sign.

Qrow couldn’t hurt him, right?

He would’ve by now if he could’ve, right?

Without being given time to ask for an explanation, Qrow continued.

“Here comes the Smoulder.”

That was all he said before it happened -- the Smoulder.

Qrow pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes so that they formed crescent-like shapes in one way while his brows did the same in the opposite way.

...This man -- Qrow Branwen -- he was weird.

The Smoulder -- is that what he called it?

To say Clover wasn’t exactly amazed would be an understatement, and he made sure his expression communicated that without a shred of doubt.

Thankfully, Qrow seemed to get that message pretty quickly. “Today is just not my day, is it?” he said.

“Nope,” Clover smirked. “It’s mine. So, do we have a deal?”

“Fine!” Qrow at last relented, dropping the Smoulder entirely. “I’ll take you to see the lanterns.”

“Great!” Clover said, unable to keep how impressed he was with himself out of his voice.

“You broke my Smoulder,” Qrow grunted, though Clover could tell he was just a little impressed, too. “Didn’t think that was possible.”

“Well, as you now know, I’m full of surprises.”

“Can’t say I could ever forget that...no matter how much I try,” Qrow mumbled. “Now, let me out of here so we can get out of here and get this over with.”

“You got it!” Clover couldn’t help but jump with excitement.

There were a lot of things Uncle Tyrian was right about.

Perhaps he was right about what would happen during a trip to see the lights, too.

However, this was for once going to be a matter where Clover decided he’d figure out what was right or wrong for himself with his own eyes, and nothing was going to stop him now.

#fair game #qrow branwen #clover ebi #rwby #tangled au #raven branwen #fairgame #lucky charms

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vvarrior · 5 years

Text

[CLASSIFIED]

Advanced Advocate Case File: Warrior

BASICS

BIRTH NAME: Dane Pablo Angelos

NICKNAME(S): Danito, Pablito, Danny

DATE OF BIRTH: 11th, December 1996

AGE: 23

GENDER: Cismale

PRONOUNS: He/Him/His

NATIONALITY: Portuguese-American

HOMETOWN: San Diego, California

CURRENT RESIDENCE: Turnstone City, USA

OCCUPATION: Kickboxing instructor

APPEARANCE

HEIGHT: 6′2

WEIGHT: 192

BUILD: Athletic

ETHNICITY: Portuguese, Greek

HAIR: Dark brown

EYES: Hazel

DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: One tattoo - a swallow on his right hand

DISABILITIES: N/A

DRESS STYLE: Casual but coordinated

TATTOOS: Small swallow on his right hand

PIERCINGS: N/A

PERSONALITY/PSYCHOLOGY

INTROVERT or EXTROVERT: Introvert

INTELLIGENCE LEVEL: Above average

MENTAL HEALTH: Below average, undiagnosed

HABITS: Knocks on wood to divert bad luck, crosses himself when afraid

MANNERISMS: Holds his lower lip between his teeth, rubs his right bicep

HEALTH: Excellent

MBTI TYPE: INFJ

POSITIVE ATTRIBUTES; Amicable, nurturing, resilient

NEGATIVE ATTRIBUTES: Capricious, aggrieved, vain

LIKES: Coffee, animals, the environment, alcohol, fighting, crime shows, rain

DISLIKES: Arrogance, bullying, intolerance, The Office, squash, summer

HOBBIES: Exercise, cooking, reading

TALENTS / SKILLS: Very talented athlete, having practiced soccer and gymnastics from a young age and taken up track-and-field in middle school. Later on enrolling in kickboxing and MMA classes and excelling in those as well, though not after several years of work. Excellent physical performer and hand-to-hand combatant, but he still has a lot to learn.

FAMILY

PARENTS: Unknown biological father, Clarissa Silva (mother), Charles Johnson (stepfather)

SIBLINGS: Younger sisters Mariana and Angelica Silva

CHILDREN: N/A

MARITAL STATUS: Single

SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S): Single

OTHER FAMILY: Large extended family

PETS: Pomsky, with family

SEXUALITY

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Bisexual

DATING STATUS: Open, conflicted

DOMINANT / SUBMISSIVE / SWITCH: Switch

TOP / BOTTOM / VERSATILE: Vers top

TURN-ONS: Dirty talk, possessiveness, marking

TURN-OFFS: Toilet play, age play, blood play

SUPERHEROISM

ALIAS: Warrior

POWERS / SKILLSET: Forcefield Manipulation: Dane can create, shape, and manipulate force-fields, a field of energy without mass that acts as a matter/wall, so that objects affected by the particular force relating to the field are unable to pass through the field and reach the other side. This power, however, is currently limited to him as the strength of these fields depend on intense skill, power, and concentration, all of which Dane requires significant improvement on.

In theory, the fields may block or deflect certain forces/materials while allowing others to pass, such as air and light - the little experience he's had making them have shown that he requires practice on allowing air through these fields. Strong and/or repetitive impacts may be able to disrupt or destroy these forcefields, as can causing Dane to lose his concentration, and they can currently only defend against the explicitly physical.

The fields also demand great mental strain and energy uptake to maintain, so Dane must ensure he's in excellent shape and mindset when creating them else he runs the risk of passing out.

[ RESTRICTED ] Demigod Physiology, Type II: As a mortal-God hybrid, Dane was born from the union of a divine being and a mortal, inheriting his power from his magical, divine parent. Demigods may gain powers associated with their divine parent's domain, or a domain of their own, or just powers generic to divine beings.

However, those unaware of or unwilling to accept their divine nature may sometimes, over a period of time, experience extreme fever, migraines, and body pains, with the potential for seizures or even death as a result of their spirit struggling to manifest itself. Notably, if realized too soon, one may go into shock and experience these symptoms as well.

Potential abilities may include decelerated aging, enhanced condition such as agility, durability, strength, speed, and senses, as well as a regenerative healing factor and sometimes flight. After a demigod truly and completely comes into their divinity, these abilities may increase to extraordinary supernatural levels. Due to his magical origins, he can also resist many forms of magical manipulation

COLORS: Black, gold, sometimes navy blue or red

APPEARANCE: Handsome and tall, Dane provides a striking figure to most, and he knows it. He typically dresses casually and in low tones, alternating between t-shirts, shorts, and sneakers to jackets, jeans, and boots. He doesn’t necessarily have a superhero outfit, seeing as he’s brand new to the Advocates, but he does own a long sleeved, black, lightly armored shirt with some gold lining that he pairs with similarly colored leather gloves, athletic pants with greaves, and combat boots. Aesthetic-wise, he’s always been a fan of red, navy blue, black, and gold. Striking colors, but if used well can be calming and familiar, even soothing. He likes that aspect.

WEAKNESSES: When not protected by his forcefields, Dane may be vulnerable to any attack that may harm a regular person. Overexertion of his physique will render him exhausted and in need of rest.Telepathic or other mental-based attacks may also be effective against him, and as a younger, less experienced fighter, he may also fall prey to psychological manipulation.

[ RESTRICTED ] Dane himself, while not invulnerable, may be highly resistant to great amounts of concussive force, extreme temperatures, and some forms of radiation and energy attacks. However, edged weapons or projectiles applied with sufficient force are able to pierce his skin. While his body may be naturally resistant to most poisons, powerful enough toxins may render him incapacitated. Lastly, he is likely also vulnerable to powers or abilities that are solely capable of harming divine beings, such as divine power negation.

MENTOR / PROTEGE: N/A

LENGTH OF ADVOCATE MEMBERSHIP: Less than one week

SUPERVILLAIN ARCHNEMESIS: N/A

SUPERHERO HISTORY: N/A

#advocatetask #( about || 'who's asking?' )

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ganymedesclock · 6 years

Text

I’m aware that a lot of my headcanons for Ganon, Link, and Zelda is rooted in the fact that I love personality powers and there’s something interesting about what all three’s aptitudes say about them in contrast to the roles they’re given by the narrative and what we’re ostensibly told about them.

Buckle in, because this got... very long.

Zelda

In both OoT and BotW Zelda is tied closely to the Sheikah; in the former, she has been raised by one (Impa) and assimilates fully into their culture when it becomes too dangerous to exist as the princess of Hyrule. In BotW, she is fascinated by their culture and technology and wants to study it in detail. The Sheikah clan is established as the motif of a weeping eye- this connection is also implied in Twilight Princess with Impaz and the conspicuous Sheikah eye embroidered on Zelda’s cloak.

There’s a strong implication here of seeing. And Zelda’s powers tend to take two forms: one, perceiving herself or allowing others to perceive- and the other is penetrating the darkness by cutting it down.

A friend of mine aired the idea that the implication of the Sheikah weeping eye may suggest the Sheikah originated as exorcists- because any veteran Zelda player knows that the way to deal with virtually all of the game’s enemies is go for the eye. The implication of the crest would then be that the Sheikah are those who blind Demise’s eyes, preventing the original demon god from continuing to influence the world.

But an eye also sees. The gossip stones are traditionally hailed as a Sheikah invention. Sheik’s specific role in OoT is to guide Link by illuminating, revealing things to them.

Zelda as a character is correlated heavily with light; if we take BotW thematically tying Ganon to the moon as an enduring quality of his character (especially since in Wind Waker, he’s able to halt the movement of the heavens temporarily, over his home fortress and for a period of time over the entire sea, causing perpetual night) then the golden light conflated with Zelda would seem to be the rays of the sun. In Twilight Princess she is able to command the light spirits, and is the only non-twili truly unaffected by the cloud of twilight- a feat that the twili themselves weren’t capable of without seemingly turning their magic heavily unto their own bodies and losing the ability to walk in daylight as a result.

In Wind Waker, she takes possession of the Hero’s Bow and its Light Arrows, which, for anything less powerful than Ganon caught in its crosshairs, they’re pierced and immolated in a beam of light.

Light handily reflects the duality of Zelda’s powers as implied by the Sheikah: light can be blinding, destroying- and light can also be revealing, transmitting, clarifying.

However, taken together, this does not invoke a gracious and gentle maiden. If anything, it would almost suggest that the reason many Zeldas come across passively is because of active effort on her caretakers’ part to clip her wings and prevent her from actualizing. The nature of Zelda as implied by her powers is someone who pierces situations, who challenges and dismantles falsehood; an oracle and an executioner. Of the chosen three, she’s the destroyer- because while Link often wields the light arrows, they’re conflated much more with Zelda than they ever are with him.

Zelda is not presented as the gracious sun that presides over a warm field of wheat. She is not depicted as cruel, but there is an intensity, a veiled frustration, implied by her powers- it suggests that Zelda is someone who yearns to cut through obstructions in her path.

It implies Zelda, the detective, and most certainly, the exorcist. Her powers are for picking a target precisely, evaluating its nature and weaknesses, and, if need be, obliterating it with grace and precision.

Ganon

On the flipside, Ganon, who we’re continuously told is an element of wrath and destruction... has powers geared heavily towards restoration. The most powerful abilities he’s ever shown in terms of scale and effect are his darkening the skies in Wind Waker and, in Breath of the Wild, the rising of the blood moon.

Everything Ganon accomplishes in BotW is a testament not to supernatural resilience but his ability to reconstruct himself and spread that same power to his allies. No wonder in Twilight Princess Zant calls him a god; his command of flesh, blood, and bone is certainly impressive enough that he could be described as someone with power over life and death itself. He’s able to heal the mortal injuries of a huge number of people and creatures with disparate physiology, at range, while his body is overwhelmingly splattered across the countryside.

Hell, that power is so interesting and so strong that if you have Ganon as anything but final boss, you pretty much have to nerf it. It also could afford an interesting context to how in many of the earlier games and stories based on them, a point is made that Ganon can only be injured by certain weapons- holy silver, sacred light, or the Master Sword (which implicitly has a silvered blade; it’d explain that gleaming white blade it has).

It could be not that Ganon’s flesh has some power to repel harm as much as anything else turned against him merely has him regenerate, possibly, depending on how well he’s able to generate Malice in incarnations where his regeneration didn’t get disrupted repeatedly and smashed up in a blender, even colonizing the offending weapon, digesting it, and reconstituting it as part of himself.

Now, Ganon doesn’t have quite so clear and predictable a thesis to his powers; his ability to turn into various creatures and move undetected place to place tend to have different explanations but you can pretty easily rope them under the capabilities of a shapeshifting regenerative blob monster. And given the time he’s had to work with, it makes sense that he would have a much more versatile skill set than Link and Zelda, and enthusiastically dabble in any new form of power he gets his hands on.

The electricity he wields in ALttP and Thunderblight being the most formidable of the Blights would seem to suggest that’s a favorite of him- not only is electricity the element conflated with the Gerudo in BotW, but Ganon’s teachers and mother figures were Twinrova, who are fire and ice witches. Assuming Ganon’s a lightning user would neatly bracket the pupil in with his mentors and further indicate the land Ganon originally hailed from.

Where Zelda’s abilities are heavily focused in two areas and fit according to a concise thesis, Ganon’s standout power of healing and his implicit favored element of thunder don’t have so clear a notion behind them; only one conflates directly with his lunar motif. But this still suggests things about his character, and you can make a connection here:

While the sun is always the same, the moon continuously changes its face. While all of the Chosen Three are redesigned repeatedly, Ganon is overwhelmingly the same person deep down- so the transformations he goes through are just that. He changes, but a certain core of him remains the same. And as a healer- as someone who basically has an incredibly tenacious grasp to life so much so that when run to his limits in BotW, pieces of his body scatter, separate, and latch onto the landscape itself for survival- it makes sense that he would be the assimilating force of the three of them.

He’s the man with a thousand enemies and who has died something like a hundred times by now- he’s the pariah who lives at the edges of the world, refusing to stay down, refusing to stay in his grave no matter which new king of hyrule thinks they can stake him and put a rock over it. So he uses that changing face and seizes everything he can. Survival at all costs. No wonder his conflated animal motif is a creature once known in the ancient world for running the length of the weapon it was impaled with to kill the person holding it.

And, yet. The fact that Ganon is ultimately focused on his own survival isn’t the only application of his healing powers. He’s also someone who heals others. I mentioned that Zant’s reverence in TP makes a lot of sense in the face of BotW- but, we also have a pretty compelling argument why so many disparate groups, time and time again, unite under his banner. It’s not fear- it’s hope.

If Ganon just walked into people’s villages as a warlord and threatened them into fighting for him, that loyalty would wither easily. But we know that even when he’s doing absolutely miserable, Ganon tends to galvanize Hyrule’s “monsters” into a feeding frenzy of growth and development. The average moblin is a lot less likely to forget Ganon or turn their back on him if they have a scar from a mortal injury and know that it was Ganon, their savior, and his moon rising in the sky that personally saved their life and probably dozens of other people they knew.

It’d suggest exactly what Zant’s proselytizing does- that to the people who work for Ganon, he’s viewed in a messianic light, in contrast to his pariah status in the rest of Hyrule’s eyes. And that doesn’t appear to be insincere on Ganon’s part- while TP appears to end with Zant severing his connection with Ganon, it stands that Zant was in a position to do that after Midna killed him- which would tell us that Ganon resurrected Zant again, after a point when Zant was no longer useful to him.

Sure, Ganon’s not exactly an honorable person. There are plenty of accounts in various stories of him lying through his teeth or buttering someone up only to discard their corpse at a key moment. But the fact that Ganon callously throws certain people under the bus while taking pains to heal others is not necessarily contradictory- it just tells us that Ganon is a loyal compassionate person... to certain entities. To others, they can rot, and he won’t give a shit. But his healing power would logically, then, be a gateway to who he’s decided he really wants to live. And many of the entities with him, both sapient and non, would appear to be beneficiaries of his mercy, to the point that the implication of creatures like Helmaroc in Wind Waker is that Ganon could very well have hand-reared and personally trained that behemoth given its very exclusive loyalty and attentiveness to his commands. We see no one else- even in Forsaken Fortress- commanding Helmaroc.

Someone not capable of long-term kindness and patience towards what would have been an incredibly difficult baby to take care of would never have gotten access to a creature like that in the first place. I know Nintendo put Helmaroc there to be a boss monster and didn’t want us to think about it, but the watsonian implications are obvious and damning- Ganon isn’t backstabs mclovesmurder, and he is capable of spending a long time lavishly investing in an animal in a way that leaves it earnestly willing to fight, hunt, and kill on his behalf, and unafraid of him. Thus, Ganon being genuinely cruel to people is something that happens in situations he feels are personally warranted- where he feels he was wronged first. In short, he’s potentially petty, vengeful, and very good at holding grudges- but he doesn’t hate indiscriminately, and that’s a noteworthy distinction.

It’s another angle of that changing face, of that lunar motif- Ganon is not someone who’s easy to figure out, in part because he often actively does not want to be known. In Wind Waker, he appears to have a conversation with Link only to reveal Link was talking to a monstrous puppet while the real Ganon escaped. In ALttP he extinguishes all the lights and hides as a shadow. In TP he goes through multiple layers of hiding himself behind barriers and even inside Zelda’s body. A lesser theme that crops up here is evasion. While Ganon’s certainly not unequipped for a direct fight, he tends to try and avoid it as long as possible, divert attention onto proxies or shields.

In BotW, “the Calamity” is obviously clever, bringing about catastrophe by dramatically outfoxing the entire royal family and not just negating, but actively weaponizing in his favor things that were used against him in the past, guaranteeing that win or lose, it’ll be a long time before Hyrule is so friendly with the Guardians and Divine Beasts- and int hat time they’ll probably have forgotten about his intelligence again. Yes, Ganon hardly deliberately engineered being dehumanized, but, he’d be long used to it at this point- at this point, he’s probably able to set his watch to someone forgetting he was ever a mortal person, and he can play the role of a mindless beast easily enough. He can swing it in his favor.

In a way, it furthers that sense that Ganon’s not actually mutable at his core- if anything, he’s rather stubborn and brash- but he is very prone to accumulating and utilizing external ‘faces’ to try and stay protected, to stay untouched.

Which brings us to, finally:

Link

Link’s motifs are probably the most interesting because they tend aggressively mutable. Hero of Time, Hero of Winds, Hero of Wild, Hero of Twilight, Hero of the Sky. Unlike Zelda or Ganon, Link lacks an obvious conflation with either day or night. If anything, Link stands out because he tends to have balanced and contradictory associated motifs.

The fearful rabbit and the aggressive wolf, for example.

In Twilight Princess, the light spirit Faron councils Link that in order to defeat Zant, he must match Zant in power- and this starts gathering the Fused Shadows that Midna ultimately uses to destroy Ganon’s barrier around Hyrule Castle.

Zelda is mainly conflated with the harp (shown playing other instruments from time to time, but the harp is the most consistent between Sheik and Skyward Sword’s Zelda), Ganon the rare times he’s shown with an instrument the organ, and certainly Link’s most famous instrument is the ocarina, but he also takes up a huge number of different instruments throughout the games. Likewise, while the Master Sword is his signature weapon, he sometimes spends entire games without it, or using a different sword instead, and every game, without fail, sees him accumulating a large number of different tools and armaments and using all of them.

At a glance, this can seem like proof Link is an everyman hero without personality- an empty vessel for the player’s will. But unlike in, say, Undertale, there is no in-universe acknowledgement the player exists, ever. And Link does plenty of things without player input, or where the player can only choose one of a few options to respond with.

So in-universe, what does it say about someone who is incredibly versatile, but also consistently characterized as the furthest thing from weak-willed?

It suggests that while Zelda might be the sun and Ganon the moon, Link is the interceding force between them; perhaps embodied as the manifold and diverse light of the stars. It suggests a vague, yet powerful sense of self- Link doesn’t need to know who he is or where he comes from, it’s what he chooses to become that defines his fate for him. Which lends significance to how, while Ganon in ALttP was able to take possession of the full triforce, the only one who’s united the triforce inside their body was the first Link in Skyward Sword.

Many games feature Link actively taking qualities from his enemies- in ALBW, his ability to proceed at all is by stealing Yuga’s curse and using it against him. In TP, he very quickly exploits his abilities in his changed form to proceed even before he utilizes Zant’s “help”. In fact outside of ALttP, where he found a way to circumvent it entirely, I can’t think of a single time Link’s gotten cursed where he hasn’t fairly rapidly made peace with it and swung it in his favor.

Hell, it’s worth noting that in BotW Link would even seem to have an indifferent relationship with gender since he’s not particularly concerned wearing traditionally feminine clothes to enter the Gerudo city. (at least, that’s how I’m choosing to interpret that to save myself a lot of frustration,)

It ultimately comes down to a sense that while Zelda might conceal herself, while Ganon might adapt and change his outer layer, Link, out of the chosen, is the one prone to true metamorphosis.

This is the significance to Link always being conflated as an outsider- he doesn’t have a specific biased anchoring to Hyrule or it’s systems. And it’d reflect how, with the help of masks, BotW Link has absolutely no problem partying it up with a bunch of monsters- or, with masks again, Link in Majora’s Mask basically becomes a full-time medium helping the spirits of the dead find peace through his body.

Heck, Skyward Sword’s Skyward Strike, the mechanics of transformation in Twilight Princess, and Link’s unique ability to see Zelda’s ghost outside of her body in Spirit Tracks would seem to point to the idea that Link in general is ghost sensitive / kind of a medium. It’d also reflect on how, while Zelda and Ganon both tend to be established mages, Link lacks magical power until it’s bequeathed by some kind of outside source.

#Legend of Zelda #Link #Zelda #Ganon #long post #readmore

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techcrunchappcom · 4 years

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New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/best-fantasy-football-waiver-wire-pickups-for-week-4/

Best fantasy football waiver wire pickups for Week 4

After last week’s injury-riddled Sunday, fantasy football rosters stayed mostly intact in Week 3 (though there are still some injury fill-ins worth considering as free agent adds this week). That’s ultimately good news, but it makes our list of top Week 4 fantasy waiver wire pickups look a little thinner. Fortunately, several rookie WRs, including Justin Jefferson, Tee Higgins, and Brandon Aiyuk, broke out and teased fantasy owners with future stardom. Quite a few veterans, such as Rex Burkhead, Greg Ward, and Jeff Wilson Jr., also stepped up and might be worth considering picking up this week, though it’s unlikely any will require actual waiver claims (save for Carlos Hyde, pending the severity of Chris Carson’s late-game knee injury). Sorry — not every week features the consensus top-two preseason picks suffering serious injuries.

Our full free agent list has a bunch of potential pickups, though most fall into the “stash” category as we get closer to the bye weeks. Guys like Hunter Renfrow, James Washington, Andy Isabella, and Cordarrelle Patterson could have some value because of injuries to guys in front of them. Others, like Myles Gaskin, Logan Thomas, Mo Alie-Cox, and Corey Davis, keep seeing a steady amount of work even if they aren’t necessarily putting up huge stats. It’s all about opportunities in fantasy, so pay attention to more than just the yards and touchdowns. We also have some potential D/ST streamers at the end of this list because we feel much more confident about favorable/unfavorable matchups.

MORE WEEK 4: RB Handcuff Chart

Unless you’re really desperate for a receiver or low-ceiling RB like Hyde, Gaskin or Adrian Peterson, this doesn’t look like the week to use a high waiver claim. Some of these WRs look legit, if inconsistent, but they’re not worth top-five claims. It’s not a bad idea for owners with low claims to snatch these guys up before they hit the free agent market, but you don’t want to fall too far down the list because you know more serious injuries are coming this year. Hyde is the one exception if Carson is slated to miss multiple weeks. — Matt Lutovsky

Unless otherwise noted, only players owned in fewer than 50 percent of Yahoo leagues considered.

Justin Jefferson, WR, Vikings

Jefferson was a non-factor through the first two games (five receptions, six targets, 70 yards), but he broke out in a big way in Week 3, catching seven-of-nine targets for 175 yards and a score. A favorable matchup against the Titans and a 71-yard TD helped him have such a big day, but he’s capable of being an every-week starter if he gets regular targets. The Vikings haven’t utilized their TEs this year, and as long as that keeps happening, Jefferson will have the opportunity for targets. He’s well worth stashing ahead of the bye weeks. —Matt Lutovsky

Myles Gaskin, RB, Dolphins

The Dolphins utilized Gaskin early and often against the Jaguars on Thursday Night Football. He finished with 22 carries for 66 yards and five catches for 29 yards. Aside from Jordan Howard stealing very short-yardage touchdowns, Gaskin seems to be the main man in this backfield ahead of Howard and Matt Brieda. The Seahawks don’t have a great run defense, so if Gaskin continues to see touches, he’ll be worth using in a fantasy flex spot in Week 4, at minimum. –Billy Heyen

Brandon Aiyuk, WR, 49ers

Aiyuk didn’t do much in his Week 2 debut (two catches, three targets, 21 yards, no carries), but his versatility was on full display in Week 3. The talented rookie caught five-of-nine targets for 70 yards and added 31 rushing yards and a score on three carries against the Giants. Deebo Samuel (foot) is expected to be out until Week 5, so Aiyuk will have another chance to establish himself as a trustworthy contributor in Week 4. Grab him now. —ML

Tee Higgins, WR, Bengals

With A.J. Green looking like a shell of himself (despite getting frequent targets) and John Ross III being a healthy inactive in Week 3, a receiver other than Tyler Boyd figures to step up for the pass-happy Bengals. Higgins was that guy in Week 3, catching five-of-nine targets for 40 yards and two TDs. Higgins had six targets in Week 2, so he’s trending upward. At 6-4, 216 pounds, Higgins can do damage all over the field, making him well worth a bench spot. —ML

Carlos Hyde, RB, Seahawks

Chris Carson exitedlate in Seattle’s win over Dallas and was seen limping on the sideline due to an apparent knee injury. We’ll certainly find out more about the severity throughout the week, but Hyde should be on everyone’s radar as a top claim if Carson is expected to miss any time. Travis Homer would also be a potential PPR flex if Carson is out against Miami. —ML

Ward found the end zone in Week 3 on one of his eight catches (11 targets). The converted quarterback has worked well out of the slot for the Eagles since he took on a bigger role late last season, and he did see seven targets in Week 1 before a quiet Week 2. He’s worth considering in PPR leagues as a player with a decent weekly floor, especially against an injury-depleted 49ers defense in Week 4. DeSean Jackson (hamstring) and Dallas Goedert (ankle) suffered injuries in Week 3, so that could raise Ward’s ceiling. –BH

Jeff Wilson Jr., RB, 49ers

Jerick McKinnon was the primary back for the 49er in Week 3, but Wilson saw just about equal work to the shifty back. Wilson saw 12 carries, and while he only logged 15 yards, he did score on the ground. He also caught all three of his targets for 54 yards and another score. Kyle Shanahan loves to mix up his backs, so as long as Raheem Mostert (knee) is out, Wilson will be a solid flex play bordering on RB2 in a couple of good upcoming matchups against the Eagles and Dolphins.— Jacob Camenker

Corey Davis, WR, Titans

Reports continue to indicate that the bone bruise in A.J. Brown’s knee could keep him out of action longer. That means Davis retains his spot as the temporary No. 1 WR in Tennessee for a bit longer. That didn’t lead to huge fantasy production in Week 2 (though he did score), but he did log five catches for 69 yards on Sunday against the Vikings. Davis is still a former top-10 pick playing with one of the league’s most underrated QBs, a combination that should work out more often than not. –BH

Allen Lazard, WR, Packers

The Packers have one of the best passing attacks in the NFL helmed by Aaron Rodgers and they are taking on the Falcons and their turly awful secondary in Week 4. Lazard should have a chance to put up big numbers especially with top Packers receiver, Davante Adams, battling a hamstring injury.— JC

#10

Marquez Valdes-Scantling, WR, Packers

Stop us if you’ve heard this before: The Packers have one of the best passing attacks in the NFL helmed by Aaron Rodgers and they are taking on the Falcons and their truly awful secondary in Week 4. Marquez Valdes-Scantling should have a chance to put up big numbers especially with top Packers receiver, Davante Adams, battling a hamstring injury.– JC

#11

Hunter Renfrow, WR, Raiders

With Henry Ruggs (knee) out, Renfrow stepped up. He saw a team-high nine targets (no other player saw more than four) and caught six of them for 84 yards and a TD (and was a few inches short of a second TD). Garbage time helped him pad those stats, but he should be added based on his potential PPR prowess. –JC

#12

Cole Beasley, WR, Bills

After John Brown exited against the Rams with a calf injury, Beasley emerged as Josh Allen’s favorite target. He led the team in targets with seven, catches with six, and he logged 100 yards even on the day. If Brown misses time, Beasley should be a WR3 and could be a very strong play in PPR against a porous Raiders defense in Week 4. –JC

#13

Rex Burkhead, RB, Patriots

Three-TD games will always draw fantasy attention, but it’s important to note that James White (personal) and Damien Harris (hand) will likely return to the Patriots backfield next week. Because of that, Burkhead might be a one-week wonder who’s not worth owning, but clearly he has big upside if one or both of White and Harris remain out. White is the key, as Burkhead soaks up a lot of his passing-down snaps that White usually gets (as shown by his seven catches on 10 yargets), but considering White isn’t injured, it’s fair to expect him back soon. —ML

#14

Damien Harris, RB, Patriots

Harris (hand) has officially spent three weeks on IR, and the Patriots could activate him soon. If he is active, the second-year back and former third-round pick could work his way into a rotation that could use a potential bell-cow back. Harris could qualify, so scoop him up based on his ceiling even if his floor is low. –JC

Gore is still getting volume as the Jets’ lead rusher. He handled 15 carries against the Colts despite the Jets trailing for a majority of the game. He’s not a sexy pic up, but he does have TD upside as he’ll handle most of the red-zone carries for at least one more week. —JC

#16

Adrian Peterson, RB, Lions

The Lions backfield is going to be unpredictable because Matt Patricia likes to keep opponents guessing, but Peterson looks like the leader back there. Peterson handled virtually all of the backfield work (22 carries) for Detroit and he was their most effective runner. He may eventually cede carries to Kerryon Johnson and D’Andre Swift, but for now, the veteran should be the top back in the offense and owned in more than 52 percent of Yahoo leagues. —JC

#17

Andy Isabella, WR, Cardinals

The UMass product got a chance to play extra snaps with Christian Kirk out, and he made the most of it. Isabella caught all four of his targets for 47 yards and two TDs, and the Cardinals may opt to use his speed and quickness as a mismatch weapon in that red zone more often. He’s worth owning given his potential big-play ability. —JC

#18

Scotty Miller, WR, Buccaneers

Chris Godwin left the Bucs’ win over the Broncos with an apparent hamstring injury. It’s unclear if the Bucs were just being cautious with their receiver in a big win or if he suffered a soft-tissue injury that could linger. If Godwin misses time, that will open up an opportunity for Miller to step into the No. 2 receiver role once again. He caught a 47-yard pass from Tom Brady on Sunday, so he’s good to have around either way. —JC

#19

Alshon Jeffery, WR, Eagles

Jeffery (foot) might finally be back in Week 4. He’s a shell of what he once was, but he’s still a big target who might be counted on in the red zone. If nothing else, it’s worth keeping him in mind as you make your pickups this week. It’s easy to lose track of players who have yet to play a game this season due to injury. –BH

#20

Cordarrelle Patterson, RB/WR, Bears

Tarik Cohen suffered a bad knee injury on a punt return late in the Bears’ win over the Falcons. Patterson will be the top backup to David Montgomery. Patterson with Cohen out, and although he’s not yet RB-eligible on some sites, that’s the position he’ll be playing. He saw four carries for 13 yards against the Falcons, and the converted receiver could do some damage as a pass-catcher out of the backfield if given more snaps.— JC

#21

James Washington, WR, Steelers

Diontae Johnson suffered a concussion in the Steelers’ Week 3 win over the Texans. Now, he’ll have to work his way through the NFL’s concussion protocol, so he should be considered questionable for next week’s game against the Titans, who just had trouble containing rookie receiver Justin Jefferson. Washington could have a chance at a big game as a result, as he ended up with a team-high seven targets and five catches for 36 yards helping to replace Johnson in Week 3. — JC

#22

Mo Alie-Cox, TE, Colts

Even with Jack Doyle back from injury, Alie-Cox was the Colts’ top pass-catching tight end. He managed to grab Philip Rivers’ lone passing TD of the day and has a strong rapport with the veteran quarterback. He will be a solid low-end TE1 given his nice upcoming schedule (Bears, Browns, Bengals, Lions). —JC

#23

Jimmy Graham, TE, Bears

Graham has had an up-and-down season so far, but he saw 10 targets and caught six passes for 60 yards and two TDs against the Falcons. He has more upside with Nick Foles now (likely) starting at quarterback, and he could put up more consistent numbers as a result. He may be more of a TD-dependent start at TE, but he’s worth owning as the potential No. 2 target in Chicago’s offense.— JC

#24

Eric Ebron, TE, Steelers

Ebron caught a touchdown in Week 3, which is where you’re going to find fantasy value from him going forward. The Titans are a favorable TE matchup coming up in Week 4, so if nothing else, you can stream Ebron if you’re dealing with a rough tight end situation. –BH

#25

Logan Thomas, TE, Washington

Thomas has racked up 24 targets through three weeks , and that included seven targets for four catches and 31 yards against the Browns. His yardage totals haven’t been particularly inspiring, but Thomas is a TD threat and could be a starter in PPR formats. As long as he’s getting volume, he’s a threat to produce. –JC

#26

Laviska Shenault Jr., WR, Jaguars

Shenault continues to see a handful of targets and multiple rushes each game, and he’s proving to be a powerful runner. The Jaguars could bounce back offensively against the Bengals in Week 4, and Shenault should continue to see a consistent workload, especially if DJ Chark (chest) remains out. –BH

#27

Preston Williams, WR, Dolphins

Williams bounced back from a subpar Week 2 to catch a touchdown on Thursday Night Football in Week 3. He’ll continue to be hit-or-miss as the third passing game option behind DeVante Parker and Mike Gesicki, but he remains talented enough and a good enough red-zone threat to warrant a spot on fantasy rosters. –BH

#28

Braxton Berrios, WR, Jets

For the second-consecutive week, Berrios was able to reel in a TD from Sam Darnold. The Jets aren’t a very good team, but as long as Jamison Crowder (hamstring) is out, Berrios will see a lot of action in the slot and have a chance to catch TDs. And as long as the Jets are trailing, there will be plenty of opportunities for garbage-time points. –JC

#29

Dontrelle Inman, WR, Washington

Dwayne Haskins had four receivers that saw six-plus targets on Sunday against the Browns, and one of them was Dontrelle Inman. The veteran caught three passes for 38 yards but made a big fantasy impact by grabbing two TDs. He may not repeat this production each week, but he should be added given that Haskins seems to be looking his way in the end zone and Washington figures to pass a lot as they look to stay in games.– JC

#30

Olamide Zaccheaus, WR, Falcons

Julio Jones missed Sunday’s game with a hamstring injury and Russell Gage suffered a head injury and exited early. As a result, Zaccheaus ended up seeing six targets and catching four passes for 41 yards, all of which ranked second on the team behind Calvin Ridley. It’s also worth noting that Matt Ryan overthrew Zaccheaus for what could’ve been a big TD, so Zaccheaus should’ve done better. He should be added, as he could be a flex depending on the health of Jones and Gage. –JC

#31

Adam Humphries, WR, Titans

Humphries saw seven targets against the Vikings, good for the second most on the Titans behind tight end Jonnu Smith. As long as A.J. Brown (knee) is out, Humphries will continue to be a reliable slot target for Ryan Tannehill. His upcoming schedule looks solid, as the Steelers, Bills, and Texans have all had some trouble against slot receivers, so he could be a nice low-end WR3/high-end flex in PPR formats.— JC

#32

Curtis Samuel, WR, Panthers

With Christian McCaffrey out, Samuel took on a bigger role as a runner. Mike Davis was the top RB, but Samuel handled four carries for the Panthers. He only had seven yards on the ground, but the sure-fire touches are certainly a good sign. He also caught four passes for 45 yards, so he’s a solid bench receiver that can be a flex play in the right matchup. —JC

#33

Demarcus Robinson, WR, Chiefs

As long as Sammy Watkins (concussion) is out, Robinson will have more chances to produce in the Chiefs’ offense. He should be watched closely against the Ravens on Monday night, but he’s definitely a guy that could be a nice bench piece with flex upside while Watkins is unavailable. —JC

#34

Gabriel Davis, WR, Bills

Davis is distinctly a deep-league target, as the Bills have a lot of mouths to feed. But Davis showed off both his possession skills and his down-field speed in the first half for the Bills on Sunday. The rookie from UCF looks like he’ll be targeted often when he’s in the game, at least, and if he keeps making plays, he can at least push Cole Beasley for the WR3 spot in Buffalo or be a good fill-in for John Brown as he deals with a calf injury. –BH

#35

KJ Hamler, WR, Broncos

Hamler caught just three passes for 30 yards, but he did see five targets and one carry for the Broncos against the Buccaneers. In easier matchups, he should be a better play, and when Drew Lock returns from a shoulder injury, his ceiling as a deep threat could be as high as a WR3. —JC

#36

Justin Herbert, QB Chargers

Adam Schefter has reported that Tyrod Taylor is likely to miss Week 4 as he continues to recover from his punctured lung. Herbert gets a tough Week 4 matchup against the Buccaneers, but the rookie will continue to be worth starting in two-QB and superflex formats as long as he’s getting the starting nod. It’s also fair to expect that another good performance or two could keep Taylor on the sidelines even once he’s healthy, making Herbert worth considering as a backup in single-QB formats if you’re looking for one, as he does have consecutive 300-yard passing games. –BH

#37

Arizona Cardinals D/ST

Playing in Carolina would be scary most of the year due to Christian McCaffrey’s presence, but Arizona won’t have to worry about that in Week 4. That’s enough to fire this group up to chase after Teddy Bridgewater and likely force a turnover or two once Kyler Murray snags a big lead. –BH

#38

Philadelphia Eagles D/ST

There are streams better than this if the 49ers get Jimmy Garoppolo back, but if it’s Nick Mullens and one or more RBs are still absent from the San Francisco attack, the Eagles are a worthy stream. Mullens’ career TD:INT ratio isn’t much greater than 1:1, so the Philadelphia secondary could feast if the 49ers fall behind in this game. –BH

The Broncos are far from full strength due to injuries, but the perfect fix for that is a matchup with Sam Darnold and the Jets, who will still be without Le’Veon Bell and will rely on the ancient Frank Gore in the backfield. Turnovers and three-and-outs could be the order of the day for Denver’s defense on Thursday night Week 4. –BH

#40

Seattle Seahawks D/ST

There’s always a chance Miami breaks out Tua Tagovailoa for his NFL debut here after a 10-day layoff following Thursday Night Football. That means you’ll stream a defense either facing a QB in his NFL debut or facing Ryan Fitzpatrick, both of which are appealing enough to pursue this stream despite the trip cross country. –BH

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#fantasy #football #pickups #waiver #Sports

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saecris · 7 years

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HEADCANON DUMP #7

a majority of these headcanons were written either pre or post volume three. so a lot of them have been debunked by canon info, but i wanted to save my speculations.

sixty one accommodate story about ren’s parents backing and participating in the oniyuri project. this is where they were planning to elope. you can still incorporate parts of the butterfly lovers in their story. because ren did not recognise oniyuri and has only heard of it, we can assume he’s never been there. this was just a plan that his parents discussed with him in secret. might have to spectate about ren possibly being from mistral. nora did not recognise the story. spectating about a kind of special grimm associated with this part of mistral. edit: looks like it was a nuckelavee edit: it is now after volume four, and a lot of the information has been rendered redundant. however: i. ren’s parent’s plans to elope to oniyuri has now been incorporated into his backstory. ii. they did invest a lot of time and money into the project, most of the money having come from what zhilan was saving.

sixty two include ren’s sensory abilities into the mana manipulation headcanon, about how he can sense not only his own but the aura of other individuals. seen in rwby volume four episode six: tipping point, able to sense danger in the form of tyrian approaching rnjr at incredible speeds. this kind of sensory ability was seen right before his fight with the king taijitus, all the way in volume one episode six: the emerald forest. but also write down your new headcanon involving his semblance having something to do with empathy, and his ability to sense auras, manipulating his own emotions as well as others, even at a distance. edit: ren’s semblance is solely empathy until that headcanon is also debunked.

sixty three the lunar cult, often referred to as ‶the lunar kingdom‶ is the source of a major religion practiced in the area of mistral surrounding kuroyuri, oniyuri, and shion. the cult itself protects a white haired witch with as of yet undeterminable powers, but the mountain in which they reside is considered haunted, forbidden, dangerous. there is no record of outsiders venturing in and coming out alive. the lunar religion celebrates the moon goddess, as well as the belief that human kind descended from the moon men. it’s effects on the surrounding region include grand festivals for the winter solstice to celebrate the longest night of the year. mistral is heavily in tune with nature, so referring to your sweetheart as some kind of natural element is common, ie. sky and sea, moon and stars.

sixty four prior to moving to kuroyuri ren lived in a compound with all the other members of the lie family, a network of beautiful traditional houses of both large and small stature, interconnected with bridges, walkways, gorgeous gardens, made of incredibly elaborate architecture. the property itself was miles long and covered a mountain range. the entrance of it was around a twenty minute walk from kuroyuri. when his family was attacked by bandits three years prior to the start of the series, a lot of the of compound burned down. lie cuifen (ren’s grandmother) who had previously not been very involved in the business transactions of their family, managed to reel in a lot of the investments they’d lost, and still remains incredibly wealthy to this day. ren’s mentor, feng (oc based on mushu lore), takes in students from time to time and trains them in the lie compound, which is being rebuilt. he has built a reputation of being an extremely selective but highly successful teacher, with all of his students passing their combat academy entrance exams with flying colours.

sixty five ren has good leadership qualifications, but his characteristics fall more into the ‘unwilling protagonist’ spectrum than anything noteworthy. i’m not that deluded in my admiration to currently admit that ren and nora’s roles in the show are anything more than minimal (ren’s background story functions more as a case study than anything else). this is more of a conclusion i’ve come to when speculating on traits commonly shown in mulan’s case. not necessarily in disney’s mulan, but most other versions of the story including the original ballad, she does end up assuming a commander’s position in the army after a few years of dedication. ren is shown to have an adaptive and versatile fighting style, using the elements around him in order to gain the advantage (this has even extended to using other character’s weapons as of volume four.) he’s also incredibly observant, so there isn’t any reason he wouldn’t be able to use another character’s abilities to further their lead. he’s good with organisation, tactics, strategy, and also has a strong sense of duty. he has very good instincts; holding jaune back from fighting tyrian, understanding the right time to strike, knowing what they need to do in order to survive. what i believe makes him a better follower than a leader in his team’s case is linked to his personality. ren is not personable, and the way he comes across in the beginning makes it seem like he views others more as tools than people. he does care for his teammates, but his instinct is to protect himself first, to survive. he works better on his own. he can follow orders to a t, and oftentimes needs instructions to function so he is at his most useful as a subordinate under someone he trusts.

sixty six ren is hypocritical. mostly he is live, and let live, but he will chastise those close to him about taking care of themselves and not getting hurt, but he will indulge in some of the most self destructive behaviour like alientating himself and smoking. during beacon days he constantly nagged nora and jaune about being healthy but he was constantly drinking soda, coffee, and energy drinks to keep himself awake. when he is a professional huntsman, while he understands that getting hurt is inevitable, he will ask his loved ones to put themselves above his own welfare, and then go behind their backs and sacrifice himself if he can. it’s honestly infuriating.

sixty seven ren’s noticeable improvement with physical affection was, of course, largely due to beacon’s influence. my characterisation has a lot of his personable attributes increase because of his interactions at beacon. my ren’s personal space issues are rooted deeply in the symbolism of connection. he is deathly afraid of someone getting close enough to him to hurt him when they betray him or when they inevitably leave, even if it’s through no fault of their own. surrendering to his occasional want to be touched means that he is building up some kind of relationship and he’s deathly afraid of that. he also just doesn’t like being touched unless absolutely necessary; he likes being aware about what people around him are doing, and being touched by people he doesn’t want to brings up memories he’d rather not bring up again. throughout the entirety of beacon ren has show distain for being touched, in the show and in rwby chibi as well. any light hearted pounce he’s seen to be visibly shocked by ( although i have noticed that the two times jaune’s touched him, ren has responded appropriately and in kind. the only other person he’s reacted to similarly was nora. ) if ren initiates physical touch with you, it means that he’s either treating some kind of wound for you, or you’re special to him. he touches mostly out of habit, and to reassure himself that you’re actually real.

sixty eight some characterisation notes that run alongside ren’s association with he chinese folklore god nezha are, firstly that nezha is a protection deity. ren is a huntsman, and it is inherently coded into their profession to protect those who cannot protect themselves. parts of the lore that are applicable to ren are some familiar thematics, which i can only guess were taken into consideration when ren was made ( just from the wind and fire blades thing ? that just seems like a big coincidence that wind and fire disks are nezha’s preferred weapon and ren’s preferred dust cartridges. ) there’s also the the theme that ren had to grow up far too quickly, while nezha was born into a fully grown boy already, then forced to wage war. the storms left in the wake of nezha’s sacrifice i associate with li’s sacrifice in kuroyuri, some of those being metaphorical and remaining in ren’s mind. then there is the continuous resurgence of being reborn, rebirth, reincarnation through the lotus themes, which appear repeatedly through my characterisation.

sixty nine it’s sort of a given why now, but ren hates horses. he hates the sound they make, and he hates anything similar to the nightmarish screams of the nuckelavee. hearing sound effects similar used to induce a state of panic but now only serves to trigger an extremely bad mood which won’t disperse for the rest of the day.

seventy i was thinking about ren’s capability to do single handstand pushups in chibi. basically all the feats that ren was capable of in rwby chibi, episode nine: “ren plays tag”. i couldn’t help but remember that he performed a similar movement in the season finale of volume four. in my other extended combat analysis of ren’s fighting style all evidence i gathered alluded to his legs being stronger, after all, ren’s agility has always been impeccable: he is seen to be able to reach incredibly high tree tops on single jumps alone, jumps that ruby and nora needed mechanised assistance to reach. but i neglected to talk about ren’s arm strength. ren utilises palm strikes, in grimm eclipse in succession, when attacking which is said to produce more energy than a regular punch with far less injury to the striker’s hand. the shock absorption required when this attack is being amplified with raw aura ( enough raw aura to burst open a king taijitu’s head ) must be immense. his main striking force when it comes to his regular slashing style also relies on the speed and strength of blade control, especially considering he does the most damage with the blades ( and very minimal damage with his bullets. ) there’s also the fact that he held back the taitiju’s fangs with his arms, the force field generated by aura would have helped when it came to stopping the fangs from sinking into him, but that he wasn’t blown away by a two tonne snake was also impressive. he held back the snake for a significant amount of time too, almost seven seconds on screen, possibly longer. i do know that he’s not getting fuckin’ k.o.’d during fights anymore, so he’s definitely gotten stronger, which is what i’m all about. okay, but that elegant flip thing he did at the beginning of volume four, chapter twelve: no safe haven is everything. not only was it a perfectly executed one handed handstand with a spiral flip, but he did it while armed as well. this boy is incredible. that kind of movement requires a lot of strength, and i’m finding that that’s just ren’s style, it’s flamboyant and beautiful, a lot of grace in power. i can’t even remember if there was a point to this hc anymore, i just wanted to talk about how some things in chibi are being alluded to in the show. and also there were a bunch of cretinous annoyances prior to volume three speaking about how weak ren is, and let me tell you, training next to him would give you so many confidence issues man. this boy is strong. not only that but his fighting prowess is spread out in multiple different ways. he has one of the most diverse fighting styles in rwby so shut the fuck up.

#hc.#this has been in my drafts for a year #christ #long post/

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junker-town · 4 years

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K’Lavon Chaisson can be a chess piece for the Jaguars’ defense

K’Lavon Chaisson is one of the most versatile defenders in the 2020 NFL Draft.

Retired defensive end Stephen White says K’Lavon Chaisson’s position matters less than how Jacksonville uses him.

The Jacksonville Jaguars selected K’Lavon Chaisson with the 20th overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. Here’s what Stephen White had to say about Chaisson ahead of the draft.

K’Lavon Chaisson is the first edge rusher I’ve broken down this spring who doesn’t have that prototypical NFL size to him. He isn’t small at 6’3 and 254 pounds, but a guy with Chaisson’s build would’ve generally earned the dreaded “tweener” label back in my day (I should know, I was one).

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing now, however.

As I watched his film from LSU, I couldn’t decide if he looked more like a true linebacker, an edge rusher, or a hand-in-the-dirt defensive end. After thinking it over, I decided the best way to view Chaisson is as a chess piece rather that a guy tied to any one position.

What Chaisson does well: Sets the edge

If a team wants to use him strictly as an edge rusher, I think he could handle it full time. Chaisson is strong, powerful, and was able to hold his ground better than I anticipated a player his size being able to. He certainly doesn’t look in any way undersized when he takes on offensive linemen, and his ability to set the edge was one thing that stood out to me while watching his tape.

Chaisson didn’t just run around blocks all the time. He would get full extension with his arms and constrict the B gap inside to force the runner to try to bounce it outside, where he would be sitting there just waiting to take them down.

Normally I’m not a fan of guys who shoot up the field on almost every play because that can open up holes inside, particularly on running plays. However, Chaisson was so quick to react after he got a couple of steps upfield that he still usually found a way to get in on the play without putting the rest of the defense at risk.

His ability to escape off of blocks to get to the ball carrier was also impressive, especially when setting the edge. I see Chaisson as a very good run defender, and one who will end up making a lot of tackles behind the line of scrimmage because of his approach to playing the run. It also doesn’t hurt that he has a fantastic motor and is relentless in his pursuit of the ball.

In addition to all that, Chaisson is cat quick with his lateral movements. When he stunts inside, he can be as much, or even more, of a problem as he is when he shoots straight up the field.

Not only will he not be a liability against the run, I actually think people will have to account for him in the running game just like they will when he rushes the passer. I saw several teams leave Chaisson unblocked on running plays, expecting to be able to bait him into not reading his keys. It didn’t turn out well for pretty much any of them.

Regardless of how tall he is, or how much he weighs, I don’t have any knocks on Chaisson as a run defender. Hell, I’d trust him on the edge more than I would many bigger guys, and I think he will only improve once he gets in the league.

What Chaisson does well: His speed rush

Chaisson’s athleticism is even more on display when he rushes the passer, and it jumps right off the screen. On tape I saw a guy who can definitely make some noise off the edge. His get-off, speed, quickness, and ability to bend make him a major headache for any offensive tackle trying to keep Chaisson off their quarterback.

The fact he can turn a tight corner while keeping his balance gives him the potential to be special as a speed rusher. And once he gets tackles bailing out of their stances to try to keep up with that speed, that’s when Chaisson can unleash his counter moves to use their momentum against them.

With a nice, crisp spin move in his toolbox, along with a more than decent long-arm move, Chaisson makes sure tackles can’t get comfortable just trying to set for his speed rushes. If they were a hair slow getting kicking back out their stance, he could be around them in an instant. If they overcommitted to stopping his speed rush outside, he could shoot inside of them before they could blink.

The crazy thing about it is Chaisson spent a lot of time dropping back into coverage, so it’s not like he had a ton of opportunities to pass rush in the four games of his I watched. Yet he still managed to flash quite a bit even in those limited instances.

What Chaisson does well: Drop into coverage

You might be asking yourself, “why would a team drop a guy like Chaisson into coverage when he looks so good putting pressure on the quarterback?” The answer goes back to him being more of a well-rounded weapon than just a regular old edge rusher.

Chaisson looked at least as comfortable dropping back in coverage as he did rushing the passer, if not more so. He wasn’t just dropping to the flat on zone blitzes and trying not to get embarrassed like your average defensive end prospect. I mean, he walked out on the slot at times in press coverage. You might have thought he was a member of the secondary watching his feet on those plays.

He also at least appeared to be in man-to-man quite a bit against running backs and tight ends in the games I watched. When I saw him flip his hips to change directions on a few of those plays, he looked like he was born to back pedal. I was also really impressed with the way he broke up a couple of screen passes. It was a thing of beauty watching him react to the blockers, then take off like his hair was on fire to blow up the play.

As much as teams need pass rushers these days, they also need that guy who can win those one-on-one coverage matchups with tight ends who are too physical for most safeties and corners. We are in a golden age of production from the tight end position even with Rob Gronkowski’s recent retirement.

With the way he moved on the field, I believe Chaisson has the potential to be able to bang and run with the Travis Kelces and George Kittles of the world at the line of scrimmage or off of it. Maybe he can’t stay with them 30 yards down the field, but he can force the quarterback to have to make one hell of a throw over him to complete the pass. And maybe with a little bit of work, he can eventually be the kind of defender that those tight ends can’t shake deep down the field, either.

So the question in my mind really isn’t “where do you play him,” but rather, “how many ways can you maximize his potential within the scheme of your defense?” In that context, it matters more how Chaisson is used, rather than where he lines up.

Where Chaisson can improve: His technique

I will concede that no matter where he plays, Chaisson will likely have to sharpen up his technique a little overall.

As a pass rusher, he could stand to get better with being precise with his hands. Just throwing your swiper move out there will win every so often just off luck. But once he gets to where he can time his opponent’s punch better, Chaisson is going to have even more success getting around the edge.

His long-arm move would also be a lot more deadly if Chaisson learned to escape off it a little sooner. Too often he would end up stuck on the blocker peeking in the backfield, instead of just ripping outside. Those were plays where he could’ve been getting pressures rather than ending up a spectator.

The more he works on perfecting his long-arm move, the harder it is going to be for anybody to block that young man off the edge.

Chaisson’s NFL future: First-round talent

There are so many ways you can use him effectively that the one place I would love to see Chaisson go is to the Patriots. I’m not saying he will end up in New England; there really is no way to tell how this jerry-rigged draft will go. However, Chaisson looks like the perfect guy to replace do-it-all linebacker Kyle Van Noy after Van Noy signed with the Dolphins in free agency this spring.

That is probably more wishful thinking than anything else because I know Bill Belichick could get the most out of Chaisson, but the Patriots certainly aren’t the only team that could sorely use a defender with Chaisson’s skillset.

It’s a little hard for me to compare him to the other edge rushers I’ve broken down so far like Chase Young, A.J. Epenesa, and Terrell Lewis. That’s both because of the size difference, and also the difference in how I feel those guys will fit into schemes on the next level, as opposed to Chaisson’s ideal fit.

Still, I see Chaisson as possessing first-round talent. He definitely gave first-round effort in the games I watched.

I believe Young goes the highest overall of the group, but after that it’s somewhat of a crapshoot because of the different needs they all fulfill. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Chaisson go as high as the middle of the first round, either. There are just so many ways you can potentially use him to help affect the outcome of games for me to believe more than 20 teams are going to pass on him this year.

But I have been wrong before, so the fun part is now waiting to see if the teams agree with me or not. Regardless of where he’s drafted, however, I expect Chaisson to be an impact player in all phases of the game on the next level. His best days are likely ahead of him, especially if he goes to the right situation.

Be sure to check out my other scouting reports on Chase Young, Jerry Jeudy, Derrick Brown, Jedrick Wills Jr., A.J. Epenesa, CeeDee Lamb, Javon Kinlaw, Mekhi Becton, Terrell Lewis, Henry Ruggs III, Neville Gallimore, and Tristan Wirfs.

For the purposes of this breakdown, I watched Chaisson play against Texas, Florida, Auburn, and Alabama.

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junker-town · 4 years

Text

K’Lavon Chaisson can be a chess piece for any NFL defense

K’Lavon Chaisson is one of the most versatile defenders in the 2020 NFL Draft.

Retired defensive end Stephen White says K’Lavon Chaisson’s position matters less than how an NFL team uses him.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing now, however.

What Chaisson does well: Sets the edge

In addition to all that, Chaisson is cat quick with his lateral movements. When he stunts inside, he can be as much, or even more, of a problem as he is when he shoots straight up the field.

What Chaisson does well: His speed rush

What Chaisson does well: Drop into coverage

Where Chaisson can improve: His technique

I will concede that no matter where he plays, Chaisson will likely have to sharpen up his technique a little overall.

The more he works on perfecting his long-arm move, the harder it is going to be for anybody to block that young man off the edge.

Chaisson’s NFL future: First-round talent

Still, I see Chaisson as possessing first-round talent. He definitely gave first-round effort in the games I watched.

For the purposes of this breakdown, I watched Chaisson play against Texas, Florida, Auburn, and Alabama.

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junker-town · 7 years

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Panthers need to get swagger back after humbling season

Carolina’s Super Bowl hangover was a particularly rough one, but there are plenty of reasons to believe the team can rebound.

If 2015 was a wild party for the Carolina Panthers, then 2016 was the messy hangover. One year after riding Cam Newton’s MVP performance to a 15-1 record and Super Bowl appearance, the Panthers crashed and burned, finishing with a 6-10 record and dead last in the NFC South.

It was a harsh reality check for a team that once took the league by storm with its fun-loving, dabbing ways. Injuries and questionable offseason moves (such as taking Josh Norman off the franchise tag) exposed a flawed roster thin on depth. Newton in particular was banged up all year and couldn’t carry the team on his back like he did in previous years. The defense also didn’t play up to its usual standards and now has to adjust without coordinator Sean McDermott, who left to take a head coaching job in Buffalo.

Despite three straight division titles before last season, the team is facing more uncertainty than usual heading into Ron Rivera’s seventh year. With the Atlanta Falcons cemented as contenders, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on the rise, and the New Orleans Saints always lurking as a threat, Carolina is at real risk of being the odd man out in the NFC South.

Cam Newton needs help, for real this time

At his best, Newton is one of the most uniquely talented quarterbacks in the NFL. His combination of size, strength, running ability, and arm power makes him hard to game plan for. In years past, the Panthers have been able to get away with less-than-stellar weapons and let Newton carry the offense by himself.

That might not be the case anymore. Last year, a makeshift offensive line betrayed Newton, who absorbed 36 sacks and once again played through a variety of injuries, missing one game with a concussion. Of course, Newton isn’t totally blameless for his poor season — he set a career low with a 52.9 completion percentage, threw just 19 touchdowns to 14 interceptions, averaged only 6.4 yards per attempt, and had a 75.8 QB Rating. He also wasn’t the running threat he usually is, rushing for a career-low 359 yards.

Now 28 years old, Newton has taken a lot of punishment over the years and sat out most of the offseason while recovering from shoulder surgery. While he should be healthy in plenty of time for the season, the Panthers need to make a serious effort protecting him and surrounding him with quality weapons, or else risk his body breaking down for good.

For his part, Newton seems to have learned some lessons from last year’s struggles.

"The thing I have to realize is my job is not necessarily to always be the playmaker," he said, via Panthers.com. "I have to give other people opportunities to make plays. That's the hardest thing about maturation, especially for me.”

Fortunately, the Panthers are finally taking real steps to upgrade the skill positions.

Offense is both younger and more versatile

The Panthers used the No. 8 overall pick on Christian McCaffrey, a do-everything running back who rewrote the record books at Stanford, setting the NCAA’s single-season record with 3,864 yards from scrimmage in 2015. He’s a perfect complement in the backfield to Jonathan Stewart, who turned 30 in March and hasn’t played a full 16-game season since 2011. McCaffrey also gives offensive coordinator Mike Shula a ton of playcalling options with his ability to play receiver and return kickoffs and punts.

In addition to McCaffrey, the Panthers added Curtis Samuel in the second round to give the receiver corps some much-needed speed, and potentially replace Ted Ginn Jr. as the primary deep threat. The current plan is for Samuel to play in the slot position, but he also has ball-carrying skills and, like, McCaffrey, could end up lining up all over the field to create defensive mismatches.

Carolina also returns reliable tight end Greg Olsen, fourth-year receiver Kelvin Benjamin, and Devin Funchess. Returning from a torn ACL that erased his 2015 season, Benjamin didn’t look quite like his rookie-year self, managing 63 catches for 941 yards and seven touchdowns with a poor 53.4 catch percentage. He also drew attention for his weight in the offseason, but those concerns should be mostly blown over if Benjamin shows up to training camp in shape. Now two years removed from the injury, Benjamin should be much closer to full health, which will only help Newton in the long run.

Funchess has been a disappointment as a 2015 second-rounder, but the converted tight end remains an impressive athlete and it’s possible he can flip the switch in his third season.

How much did the offensive line really improve?

Carolina’s line was gutted by injuries last year. Michael Oher lasted just three games before a career-threatening concussion, and center Ryan Kalil got shut down by a shoulder injury after eight games, forcing the team to shuffle around players to positions they weren’t familiar in. The result was a line that Pro Football Focus ranked 17th, noting that fill-in left tackle Mike Remmers “was simply out of his depth.”

Oher is still out with concussion symptoms, and it's looking increasingly unlikely he'll be a factor next season. To that end, the Panthers drafted second-round tackle Taylor Moton, who's expected to make an immediate contribution despite making the jump from Western Michigan to the pros.

"Taylor's not a redshirt guy," GM Dave Gettleman told the team's official website. "He's talented, he's big, he's strong, he's powerful, he's a good enough athlete to play right tackle, and he's smart enough to go inside."

The Panthers also addressed tackle with their biggest free agent addition of the offseason, signing Matt Kalil to a five-year deal with $31 million in guaranteed money. Kalil is currently penciled in to man the blind side, but it's questionable how much of an upgrade he really is. Kalil was a huge liability on the Minnesota Vikings' line in recent years and missed most of 2016 with hip surgery. It's a risky investment for a player who hasn't shown much since his 2012 rookie season.

Defense fell short of expectations

This wasn't quite the same stingy defense we're used to seeing from Rivera's Panthers teams, finishing 21st in yards allowed and 26th in points allowed. They were still strong in certain areas, racking up 47 sacks (second-most in the league) and ranking 10th in DVOA.

The front seven was largely as good as ever, even after defensive captain Luke Kuechly missed seven games with a scary concussion. Kawann Short delivered another excellent season and got the marquee contract he’s been seeking, signing a five-year, $80 million extension after briefly getting the franchise tag. Mario Addison also got a nice payday after putting up 9.5 sacks last year.

The Panthers even brought in longtime fan favorite Julius Peppers, back with the team that originally drafted him in 2002. The 37-year-old is an oldie but a goodie, recording 7.5 sacks with the Green Bay Packers last year. He’s no longer an every-snap guy, but Peppers can still play and it’s good to see him back in a Panthers uniform.

It's the secondary that was a big problem all year. Carolina placed the franchise tag on shutdown cornerback Josh Norman, only to rescind it after long-term contract talks went nowhere. Norman signed with Washington and his absence left a big hole in the secondary, one the Panthers attempted to fill by drafting James Bradberry in the second round and Daryl Worley in the third. Results were mixed, at best. Despite some bright moments, the unit as a whole was 29th in passing yards allowed and got routinely burned on big plays.

It seems that the team is counting on development from its young secondary players. The Panthers didn’t make many big offseason moves to upgrade this unit, aside from drafting cornerbac Corn Elder in the fifth round and signing veteran Captain Munnerlyn, making his return to Charlotte after three years with the Minnesota Vikings.

This defense has some promising young pieces, but also showed its age in a lot of areas. Besides Peppers, Charles Johnson is 30, Thomas Davis is 34, Kurt Coleman turns 30 in July, and Mike Adams is 36. While the Panthers are doing an admirable job turning over its defensive core, there is still some work to be done.

How far can this year’s team go?

There is a lot to like about this team, on paper. If Newton returns to form, McCaffrey brings life to the run game, and Kuechly manages to avoid concerning head injuries, the Panthers could easily bounce back and become contenders once again.

But those are all big ifs, and in an NFC South that’s become cutthroat in recent years, the Panthers don’t have any margin for error.

2016 was a letdown in many ways. The Panthers suffered bad luck, lost their mojo, and overall just looked like they wanted the season to be over around November. But as a proud, emotionally charged group of players, it’d be hard to bet against them getting their swagger back. The NFL is more fun when Cam Newton is having fun, so here’s hoping they can get back on the saddle, get better results in the win-loss column, and dab on fools once again.

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