#I’m still stunlocked

[mrsreinhart]

Lili Reinhart. That’s it.

[oh-koenig-my-koenig]

meeting him at the pub

(cw: age gap)

I don’t know how it happened, how I ended up chatting to the tall metalhead at the pub. But I was meeting my friends there like every other Wednesday and when I got drinks from the bar, a dark, friendly voice piped up. “Hey, nice shirt.” My head whips to the side, looking for the person who gave me the compliment.

Right there at the table, sitting alone, a huge, tall guy with long dark hair. Tattoos adorned the big strong arms distracting from his bandshirt, I think it’s from Dark Tranquility. The drawings span to his hands ending at the knuckles, that moved as he grabbed the bottle of beer standing right in front of him.

My eyes close in on his face, a ruggedly handsome one. A nose that seems to have been broken at least twice. Lips formed into a friendly smile. Serious eyes looking straight at me, eyes that had seen some shit, but the laugh lines around them speak of a man who rather likes to laugh. He also looks a bit older than me.

I almost stumble over my own feet, halting for a moment to look which shirt I’m wearing today. It’s my Death shirt, the one with the Symbolic Album art. I look back up at him, smiling. “Thanks!” I continue my trip to the bar, a pep in my step.

When I walk back with the drinks in my hand, I shoot another friendly look in his direction. One that he answers with a nod and tipping his beer in my direction. And I totally blush at the little friendly gesture. I sit down with my friends handing them their beers, but I can’t help my eyes finding their way back to him every so often, to see what he’s doing.

He’s just chilling alone, at his table, drinking his beer, looking at the TV where some kind of soccer game was being shown, playing with his phone from time to time. It is so fucking tiny in his huge ass hands. And half the time I look in his direction, his gaze is already on me. Which is making me nervous. Not because it’s creepy or anything in that sense, but because he’s attractive. Oh my, ruggedly handsome, seeming like a gentle giant, while the way he’s sitting and observing everything around him is telling a different story.

“Just go fucking talk to him.” My friend sitting to my right grins at me. I shrug. “I don’t know.” They roll their eyes. “Just do it, you little chickenshit.” I throw up my hands. “Fine, fine, okay.” I snatch up my beer and hesitatingly make my way to his table.

He’s already looking at me, sitting up straight, as I approach him and ask with a shy smile on my face: “Can I sit here?” I point at the stool across from him. He seems a bit surprised, but he nods. “Sure, take a seat.”

I sit down and then a moment of silence falls over us where we just look at each other. The corner of his mouth is tilted up, a half-smirk making his face even more handsome, a few strands of hair falling over his left eye and cheek. He seems a little bit tense and I suddenly feel a little bit self-conscious. We just look at each other. And I can’t stop looking at him.

“So, you like Death too, huh?”, I ask him, and then I hear how that sounded. “The band, I mean.”, I clarify laughing. He joins in, a dark manly chuckle falling from his lips, and I can see his shoulders drop down a bit. Seeming a little more relaxed.

“I do.”, he answers. “Actually, one of my favourite bands.” His voice is a bit higher than I would have anticipated from such a big guy, he has a nice timbre and some kind of accent when speaking English, that he’s trying to mask.

“Understandably so.”, I say, going on a rant about my favourite bands. He just looks at me, stunlocked. His mouth slightly open. His eyes scanning my face, dropping down every so often. I don’t stop talking and he listens, nodding along.

“I also like Lorna Shore a lot, do you know them?”, I want to know. He shakes his head, still intently listening while only speaking every so often. “They’re a symphonic deathcore band, and my god, their music just blows you away.” He chuckles again. “And they’re in town next week, but I don’t have anybody to go to the concert with me.”, I say, turning down the corners of my mouth.

“I could accompany you.”, he chimes in which shuts me up. A friendly offer. But the way he’s looking at me is making it feel like so much more.

“Really? You would do that?”, I ask surprised.

He shrugs one of his shoulders, looking to his fingers that fiddle with the label on the beer bottle. “Yeah sure, I can be your company for that evening.”

I close my mouth and think about it for a moment. “Of course, that would be… very nice of you.” Great, I’m so eloquent when it comes to flirting with men. Especially older, tall metalheads. But the way he’s still fidgeting with the beer bottle, I think he’s having a hard time as well. Which makes his offer so much more surprising. But I’m not mad at it. Not at fucking all.

I clear my throat. “Maybe I can get the tickets and you can get the drinks?”, I suggest. I wouldn’t want this to seem like I wanted to mooch off him.

He hesitates for a bit, but then nods. “Sure.” I nod as well and drink some of my beer. So that’s that, huh?

“So, what do you do? For a living?”, I ask him. He halts for a second, and I add: “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, of course.” I tilt my head and push my cheek into my propped-up hand.

A smile forms on his lips, as he looks to the side for just a moment, but his eyes find their way back to me. “You’re a nosy one, huh?” which makes me hide my face in my hands looking at him through my splayed fingers, but he only laughs at my gesture.

“I’m actually a soldier, a mercenary. I’m currently on leave.”, he explains. My eyes widen at his words.

“Really? Damn okay.” That explains the aura around him that I couldn't pinpoint before. “So like, what’s your specialty or however this is called in the military?”, I ask, still being nosy.

His lips curl into a confident smile, his whole demeanor changing a bit. “I’m an insertion specialist.” And the way he says that makes my skin tingle, my jaw dropping down a bit. Because the tone in his voice makes me think about a certain kind of insertion. The ‘drop your clothes, get naked together’-kind.

He laughs again as he sees the expression on my face. “Get your mind out the gutter.”, he jokes.

“Huh, I didn’t say anything.”, I defend myself, weakly, holding up my hands in defense. He pulls up his eyebrows, donning a knowing smile and leaning back.

“M-hm.”, he says and his fingers wander to his lips, stroking over them absent-mindedly. “I specialize in breaking down doors and getting people out of whatever situation they’re caught in.” How he says it makes me smile, because he says it so non-chalantly, but I can see the pride behind his words.

A little silence falls over us again, but instead of being uncomfortable we just sit in it and look at each other. He drags his hand through his hair, his fingers threading through the brown strands. And I’m so normal about this. My god, why does he have to be so attractive?

“How old are you?”, he asks me, his eyes searching my face like I’d have it written on there. The first question he asked me this evening.

“I’m 25. And you?”, I return the question. He winces a bit, but he answers: “I’m 41.” I nod and sip on my beer. Well, I already assumed that he’s older than me, so I’m not really surprised by the age gap.

“I’m old enough to be your dad.”, he says and takes a sip from his beer. My eyes are glued to his lips, the way the bottle rests against them. Then he swallows and I follow the motion as the liquid flows down his throat.

I arch a brow. “No, you’re not.”

He tilts his head to his side, a little smile forming on his lips. “Well, maybe if I started early, I could be.” His eyes dart to me, for just a moment.

The other brow joins the one already sitting at my hairline. “Did you start early?”, I ask him.

His smile gets wider while he slowly shakes his head. “No.” He takes another sip and leans back a bit.

“So, not actually old enough to be my dad.”, I conclude the conversation, a grin turning up the corners of my mouth. “I’m gonna get another drink, you want one as well?”

He looks at me, his eyes boring into me. I see the little twinkle in them, but he shakes his head. “I’m sorry, I got to get home.”, he finally says, the expression on his face turning apologetic.

I hide my disappointment behind a charming smile. “Okay, no worries.”, I tell him.

He leans forward, coming a little bit closer, and I stand my ground, even as his scent hits my nostrils, and I have to damp down the excitement flooding my veins. He’s smirking at me now and raises his hand until his finger makes contact with my nose. He just booped my nose. “Tell you what though. Let’s exchange numbers and then we’ll see if you’re still up to going to a concert with me when you’re sober.”

I laugh a bit and pull out my phone from my pocket. “Okay, deal.” But his words also make me think. “Don’t you trust my judgement?”, I ask him as I hand him the device which looks ridiculously small in his hands.

He grins while tapping on the screen. “I do, but I don’t trust myself when I stare into the face of a beautiful woman.” He looks at me again and hands me back the phone, getting up. And he gets taller and taller and taller. I mean, I saw that he’s freaking huge when he was sitting down. But my god, he’s more than a foot taller than me. I have to put my head back to be able to look up at him.

“A beautiful woman, huh?”, I repeat his words back to him, ignoring the way this sentiment makes me feel.

“Aye.”, he says leaning down a bit. “Good night then.” He presses a small, almost chaste kiss onto the top of my head, while at the same time grabbing his leatherjacket. He puts the worn piece of clothing on and heads in the direction of the door.

I look down and see the new contact in my phone. His number, but instead of his name the little crown emoji sits on the top of the page. “Wait, what’s your name?”, I yell after him.

He turns around again, the long hair whipping over his shoulder, grazing over the worn leather. A grin lights up his face. “König, you know, like ‘king’ in German.”, he explains. He raises his hand again and waves goodbye, then he’s out the door.

He’s gone, but he’s still on my mind the rest of the evening while spending time at the pub, on my way home, as I’m getting ready to finally sleep. Especially the little forehead kiss lives in my mind rent-free.

When I wake up again in the morning, I contemplate what to do while I get myself a coffee. Finally, I gather my courage and shoot him a text.

metalhead!König has me in a chokehold, so this was veeeery self-indulgent. i hope you still like it <3more to come soon, because i can't wait to go to a concert with him :')

part 2 or more stuff in the Masterlist

[yamujiburo]

PLEASE tell me Jessie still dresses as a dude regularly. Or do you think that was her and James' team thing? Just a running theatrical gag they both got a kick out of?

I have a comic idea that’s been sitting in my notes for a while that I’m not sure I’m gonna follow through with:

It was gonna start with a bunch of gossipy customers at Delia’s restaurant asking when Delia was gonna finally get a man after her husband left.

Delia very kindly says something along the lines of “mind your business” (she’s got work to do! no time to talk)

But then as if she was summoned, Jessie busts in, dressed as a very handsome man. She gives Delia a kiss on the hand, says some sweet nothings and whisks her away. The customers are stunlocked

But then we cut outside and Delia’s like “Hon I still have to work please let me go” “O-oh sorry” “It’s okay. You look great though”

[huenyang]

pairing: choi yeonjun x gn reader / genre: meet-cute, fluff / word count: 1k / notes: very self indulgent im not going to lie, if theres any spelling mistakes no there aren't

summary: after having a terrible day, the handsome stranger you meet seems to know just how to lift your mood.

The smell of coffee - the cup which was previously in your hands, now all over your shirt and the floor of the convenience store - feels like it burns on the way down to your lungs. Accompanied by the frustrated tears that sting your eyes, you almost want to sink to the ground and rip your hair out.

Today was not your day.

As if having an already stressful day and dropping the coffee you’d paid for wasn’t enough, you had bumped into someone else. And if that wasn’t bad enough, the stranger seems to want to burn himself into your brain while doing nothing at all.

Gazing up at him, you feel your eyes linger a little too long. Maybe gods are real, because this man looks like he’s been sculpted by Aphrodite herself. Good god, you wince. You don’t even know his name and you’re acting like this. 

If you weren’t still stunlocked by the events prior, you would’ve made a conscious note of how his dark brown eyes widen in surprise and how his fringe looks just a tad bit too long. Or how his lips curl in a gasp.

It’s not just anybody who looks good under convenience store lighting, you reason.

“Oh my god-” he exclaims hurriedly, reaching out as if he wanted to try and save the cup from spilling. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking when I turned.”

You mumble something, it’s okay, probably. It’s like this one man has completely stolen your ability to be normal. But that’s stupid, he hasn’t done anything but apologize for running into you, like anyone with a drop of sense would.

He looks around, leaning a little to look past the many aisles and motion to the clerk that something had happened.

While he’s doing that, you crouch to finally pick up the cup you had almost forgotten while thinking about the pretty, nice stranger right in front of you.

Ew. None of that.

With a sigh, you hold the plastic carefully, trying to avoid the sticky coffee running down along one of the sides, and begin to make your way to the nearest trash can before it drips more and makes an even bigger mess for the poor employees.

It doesn’t take long for him to come back around, message delivered to the store clerk.

When the stranger talks to you again, he looks like he’s about to apologize, but you silence him with a shake of your head and a mirthless laugh.

“Man…” he sighs, shuffling his hands into his coat pockets. “At least let me make it up to you for ruining your coffee.”

You almost want to cry. Over the coffee, over this stranger who keeps being so kind to you, over everything.

“No no, you don’t have to. It’s just coffee.” but it isn’t. “I couldn’t possibly make someone else pay for my own mistake.”

Now it’s his turn to wave his hand dismissively at you, smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “It’s nothing! In fact, I insist. I think I’d like to know you better - without the coffee staining both of our shirts, this time.”

The mention of it brings you back to reality, the sticky beverage all over the front of your shirt feeling like it weighs a thousand pounds on your chest, now. You’re not sure if it’s the memory of spilling your coffee everywhere, or the air inside the store, or something else, but suddenly your cheeks feel significantly warmer. You hope the stranger doesn’t notice.

“I don’t have your name.” You say after a second of consideration. “How can I share a coffee with someone I don’t know the name of?”

The question catches him off guard, too, if the way you can see the realization dawn on his face is anything to go by.

“Choi Yeonjun.”

With a grin, you introduce yourself too. An employee with a mop and a bucket interrupts you then, saving you from an awkward conversation with the pretty stranger- Yeonjun. You both step outside, the small ding of the door opening and closing the only sound between you.

“So,” you start, shuffling your feet anxiously. “Can I have your number- for the coffee, of course.” No other reason. No other reason at all.It feels like the single beat between your question and his answer is an eternity. Maybe you sprung the question up on him too suddenly, or maybe he didn’t even mean it to begin with. But before you can think of even more reasons to go and change your identity entirely, he’s fishing for his phone and handing it to you.

“You can put yours in.” he breathes out. Maybe you’re more far gone than you thought, because it sounds almost dreamy. “I’ll put my contact in yours, too, if that’s okay?”

With shaky hands - from the cold, obviously - you quickly tap in your number, setting your own contact as your name and a little sun emoji. You can see him doing the same to his contact, his emoji choice being the fox instead.

Cute.

“We can set up a date later, whenever you’re free.” He says, handing you back your phone and tucking his own back into his pocket. “Just let me know!”

With that, you go your separate ways. On the way home, your mind wanders. It’s almost hard to believe that your shitty day turned into whatever this is. From spilling overpriced coffee you’d bought to cheer yourself up, to meeting a handsome stranger who not only offered to make up for said overpriced coffee, but also gave you his number? If this was a dream, you don’t want to wake up from it.

The dream doesn’t last long, however, because a ping rings from your phone, startling you out of your fantasy and back into reality.

You hope that the multiple people passing by you on the street don’t notice the way your face breaks into a dumb smile as you read.

From: Yeonjjunie 🦊 Hey!! Just making sure this is the right number!! haha Don’t feel pressured to pick yet btw, we can decide later

[planetxiao]

# KISS ME MORE.

꠵ PAIRINGS; gorou ; xiao ; kazuha ; childe x reader

꠵ SYNOPSIS; what would happen if you grabbed their face and randomly kissed them?

꠵ GENRE; fluff, headcanons.

꠵ NOTES; okay so this happened to me and i was stunlocked jdbdjs so i’m doing an uno reverse for this hehe

# GOROU

He would be frozen to the spot. As soon as your lips are pressed against his, he’s locked in place. Eyes blown wide, mind completely blank, lips tingling with the feel of yours. He’s whipped.

Takes about .2 seconds for a deep red blush to spread across his face. The moment replays in his head, so much so that he almost misses you walking away. You had done it so fast he didn’t have time to prepare.

Once it registers in his brain what just happened though, his tail begins wagging rapidly. He can’t stop the way his heartbeat quickens, nor the way his ears twitch. All that’s on his mind is being able to ask you for another kiss… or maybe two.

# XIAO

You caught him so off guard. He fully wasn’t ready. One second, you’re both gazing out at the scenery; the next, you’ve left a chaste kiss on his lips before he could even react. And boy, did it leave him a flustered mess.

Though, you know full well he won’t show you the full effect of your affections. Just as you see the pink begin to dust his cheeks, he disappears before your eyes. All you can do is giggle at his wide eyes and mouth agape.

He watches you walk back into the Inn from the rooftops, his heart still racing from the sudden kiss. His fingers graze his lips as if still able to feel the soft caress of your skin. It wasn’t fair at all, the extreme effects you had on the yaksha. He’ll be prepared next time. Or, at least he hopes so.

# KAZUHA

He is beyond happy. Anytime you grace him with one of your kisses, he’s over the moon. He was also half expecting it, as this is something you often do, but he decided to go along with it because it gives him butterflies all the same.

He just smiles in response, accompanied by the softest gaze anyone has laid eyes on. He is hopelessly in love with you, and anyone can tell. He watches you walk away, his lips buzzing with desire for another kiss.

He fully intends to repay you for your kindness. Though he lets you get away now, he’ll prove to you soon enough that you’re not the only master of spontaneity.

# CHILDE

A smooth talker rendered speechless; that’s what you had managed to do to him. Though, he’s quick to recover. You had made his heart skip a beat, but it’s gonna take a bit more than that to fluster him completely.

He takes your action as a challenge, and he’s into it. As you turn to walk away, Childe grabs your hand and pulls you back into him. He presses quite a teasing kiss to your lips, the kind that leaves you wanting— hoping— for more. He feels your body melt against his, and that’s when he breaks the kiss.

Ever the cheeky man, he leaves you with a teasing smile before turning and walking away. Though Childe had felt he had won this challenge, he still wasn’t completely satisfied. He hums a tune to himself, making a mental note to finish what he had started later.

꠵ TAGLIST; @sonder-paradise @snowbits

[koyoriin]

So I finally got around to getting both FFXIV PvP Series Pass sets! And well…I have some thoughts on PvP. tl;dr: If PvP is going to remain unbalanced, then the Series Pass and limited time on rewards should be replaced. If you feel like reading the rest, feel free to keep reading below:

I’d just like to preface this by clarifying that I’ve actually been doing FFXIV PvP for many years now, well before the changes that came with Crystalline Conflict (CC). PvP was not great back then, and doing it to farm Wolf Marks was almost a chore, and I never touched Feast because of the exclusivity behind its rewards (top 100 for the armour set). If you really like PvP in FFXIV; that’s great! More power to you, and I’m not here to shame anyone for it. This is purely to address the issues I’ve seen from hundreds and hundreds of PvP matches over the years, and the grievances I have with the Series Pass.

The changes for PvP that came with CC (the overhaul of the class kits for example) actually felt great after the old system! Most importantly a unique all-class armour set was no longer limited to Top 100 winners! Having simplified kits made it easier to focus on what was going on in the moment, which skills to use in certain situations, etc. But it was a double edged sword, and in turn it made Frontlines (FL) very, very annoying.

> Crystalline Conflict (CC)

CC itself is…not for me. I did it a lot to grind out the Archfiend set, and I personally was not fond of the format; in it’s early days, it was “whoever can stunlock and wipe the enemy team first wins” the vast majority of the time; and it still is now. It was really a coin flip whether or not you were going to win or lose a match, and frankly I also wasn’t comfortable having character names out during CC; it did result in people messaging me after matches as well, which was highly uncomfortable.

I will give CC the credit of being better than Feast, and more accessible; I do acknowledge that and I appreciate that the rewards from the Series Pass are actually obtainable by more than the top 100 for a change. But the grind was not fun, and even casual matches felt personal due to the names (again; I say this knowing that the format is not for me). A year later, and the state of CC is still the same.

> Frontlines (FL)

So what about FL? It was the format I was the most used to having done it for years; so this time, when the False Monarchy set came around, I figured I would do an experiment and see if I could get the set without ever touching CC (the answer is yes, you can, and there’s roughly a month of breathing room or so). I frankly didn’t even like the set; I did it because of a fear of missing out on the rewards. But with the advent of the CC kit changes, it also resulted in a lot of annoying strategies;

- MNKs and DRKs running up and camping bridges in Secure so they could knock people off for easy KOs and then run away without any consequence (I’ve also encountered groups of up to 5 doing this repeatedly per match)

- DRK and DRG/SMN combos using Salted Earth to pull people in before wiping out massive groups with stacked DRG or SMN LBs; and if you guarded through the first one, another DRK would just wait to pull you in (I’ve even seen two factions group up against the remaining one to pull off this trick repeatedly).

- SAMs using their LB and then countering any other counter with Guard before pressing the second input for an OHKO, or having a PLD cover them; I’ve used the SAM LB to take out entire teams before in CC and felt like it was unfair, and in FL it’s even worse when half the time you aren’t even able to see who you hit in a large group.

The really irritating thing is; all these things, from MNKs being able to stunlock repeatedly, bridge knockback KOs, DRK chain pulling, etc. were all here from week one of the CC PvP overhaul. A year later, and we’re still contending with this on a daily basis in FFXIV’s PvP, in both CC and FL.

> So what about the Series Pass?

As someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy competitive activities, it feels awful. Getting through the Series Pass simply to get around the fear of missing out feels like a chore. I think the worst part about it is that it goes against the previous attitude put forward by the dev team, where you could “unsubscribe whenever you like and do other things so you don’t burn out on the game.” I do other content in the game (Expert roulette, Tribal quests, Savage/Ultimate prog, etc.) every week, but farming out the Series Pass was by far the worst part of the dailies I was doing. It is, in my opinion, some of the worst content FFXIV has to offer, and myself and many others felt that we had to complete it in order not to miss out.

I do fully acknowledge that the current PvP is better than it was previously; the classes are more user friendly, FL matches are generally faster, and there is no longer the looming exclusivity of Feast rewards. However, it’s not great. It feels like a chore to participate, and this is largely due to the limited-time nature of the Series Pass.

I understand that having something time limited like that draws in numbers, but most people I have encountered who do PvP, do so because they;

- Feel like they have to, and the flaws of PvP “are what they are”.

- The others prefer not to touch PvP at all despite being interested in the rewards.

- And the remaining third are the minority I’ve seen who are vocal about winning, and tend to state that people who don’t care about winning shouldn’t be doing it.

> What can be done about that?

Well…all I have are opinions that I can share, which are based in experience from doing FFXIV PvP semi-casually for years. Prior to CC, being able to farm out Wolf Marks to purchase the rewards they would add every so often was fine; I do really like being able to access Feast-type rewards, but the time limit on them makes the whole process really not great. Being able to do it on your own time made it tolerable, and I had fewer complaints about it back then.

Going back to a system like that (being able to purchase sets/weapons with Wolf Marks) would be preferable; what they did with Wolf Collars and the Trophy Crystals is actually quite nice; being able to trade 1,000 for a Collar, and 10 Collars for a Hellhound Weapon. If they integrated something like that for more “prestigious” armour sets (ex. trading a higher amount of Marks for a resource = then 10 of that resource for a new set/weapon) would be fine to me. I know that would mean people would camp on Wolf Marks, but with a 20,000 cap anyway it’s not like you can really make significant progress when they drop new items.

If they really want to leave PvP unbalanced like it is, then I think they should remove time-limited content like the Series Pass. It works on FOMO (fear of missing out) to get people to play, and it’s a coin flip as to whether or not every day’s match is going to be “okay” or “absolutely awful”, and I’ve long since lost enthusiasm to keep grinding this kind of content daily when faced with the kinds of tactics people like to pull.The people I’ve met through PvP and seen on threads about the subject are largely unenthusiastic about the content, but do so because of an obligation to get the limited rewards before they go.

tl;dr: I feel like FFXIV’s PvP remains its weakest point by far. Rather than try to bolster it with time limited content, if they have no desire to balance the gameplay then the Series Pass and gating rewards with a time limit like that, should be removed. A system like the current Wolf Collar exchange would be a nice solution to bypass that, if each new set has its own “Collars” equivalent that can be purchased with Wolf Marks and is not gated by time.

Anyway, that’s just my two cents!

[fullscoreshenanigans]

whats your favorite ff trope for the full score trio specifically? your least favorite?

I’m blanking on specific tropes and extremes because the content curation I do for myself mostly avoids this, but I relate to what @officersnickers mentioned in this post a lot:

Things done in fanfic that annoy me: Ray being constantly annoyed with Emma and Norman; listen, he‘s sarcastic and sometimes loses his temper, but overall, Ray always takes time to explain things that annoy him, without too much scolding. In some stories, I get the feeling he doesn’t even like Emma and Norman, the way he acts, or he drank too much edgy juice™ this morning. Also Norman being all bashful around Emma. He‘s certainly not a casanova, but I like to imagine he cooled down over his crush for her and is just as happy as Emma herself to experience new feelings alongside her. That being said, I don‘t really see Emma being either too shy around either of them or drifting into turbo mode when she‘s in the mood. I like her as a complex, more differentiated character and not a child in a teenager’s or adult body. She’s not dumb and she‘s not over the top 24/7.

So I guess it’s the flanderization of their characters for least favorite?

In an effort to incorporate Ray’s cheekiness/playful teasing that’s most prominent during his time at Grace Field (which I do enjoy and feel like circumstances lead him to refrain from doing this more post-Goldy Pond, both in-universe and metawise), some writers will go overboard and have it descend into almost sketch comedy levels of antagonistic hijinks. Which is fine if people want to write it since it’s all in good fun and they’re exploring things with these characters that appeal to them, but I don’t vibe with it very much.

I do like to think that side of him would resurface more once he’s in the safety of the human world, especially among those he’s closest to.

(Chapter 161; whenever I look at this too quickly I think Ray’s lightly yet exasperatedly slapping Norman instead of Norman being so excited and invigorated by Emma’s speech that he accidentally bonks into Ray and Ray’s reflexively shielding himself djfkdjs)

Norman’s love for Emma being misconstrued into extremes ranging from being embarrassingly and uncharacteristically nebbish to a yandere is also annoying (covered in this post by @princesscringe with some additional tags I also felt were relevant). Again chalking this up as more of a balance thing because young love can be intoxicating and overwhelming, and when you’re specifically writing fic where the focus is the ship, greater emphasis on those feelings naturally happens. But to the point where it’s all-encompassing and Norman neglects other people who are important in his life or seems to lack any ambition outside of the relationship is so off-putting. That’s part of the significance of his first exchange with Emma upon their reunion in the final chapter:

He starts off by emphasizing how, through mutual effort and support, the cattle children have been able to finally start thriving in life instead of merely surviving, and stressing how they’ve all been well, because Emma would hate if out of worry and fear for her they weren’t able to create some new happy memories and appreciate the freedom she sacrificed so much for.

While also showing he’s taken to heart what she said about being honest and vulnerable around others by openly acknowledging how even with all the good that came from this and the fulfillment he found in other pursuits and interactions, he still missed her terribly and wanted her as a part of his life. (If this arc was longer I would have liked to see the children struggling with conflicting feelings of bitterness over Emma’s choice to do this without consulting anyone after how the narrative repeatedly stressed against this level of individual self-sacrifice, but with the amount of pages Shirai had left I’m happy with what he chose to focus on.)

I do enjoy him being briefly stunlocked/flustered by something Emma or Ray say or do because that’s more in tune with how they’re all dynamic characters who are constantly changing and challenging each other as they grow older, tying into the emblematic “I’ll show you something cool, so shut up and follow” line infused with an infectious optimism for the future.

Emma being shy for a prolonged period of time is also off for me with the amount of self-confidence she displays. When there’s something she wants and believes it’s correct to do so, she just goes for it. (It’s why I always maintain she’s the last one to consciously realize and articulate her feelings in a relationship because once she does it’s like, “wait, why aren’t we together? We should fix that,” and the progress on it dramatically picks up lfjldj I love her respectful tenacity and ambition.) Yet pigeon-holing her as a genki girl is also dishonest to her character, even if she is incredibly exuberant and plucky in her default, unstressed state; she’s energetic but it’s with an acute awareness. (This is something I give more leeway to in individual short comics with the hyperbole being used to quickly and clearly deliver a punchline with a limited amount of time and space).

For favorite…does hurt/comfort count as a trope or a genre? I like them taking turns with that for each other. 🖤🧡🤍

[sillyfairygarden]

:O i noticed ur pinned post says u like shoujuo manga! which ones, if i may ask?

:O hiii i saw this then i fell asleeb,,,, i was stunlocked by the eeby hehe

i dont have a definitive ranking on them but theres SOO many series that were/are like. load-bearing to my formative years…

tsubasa by CLAMP (and most of clamp’s early shoujo entries like angelic layer, cardcaptor sakura, XXXholic) 

vampire knight by matsuri hino..… the people who know me know this. vampire manga. yeah that’s pretty much it. super influenced by style as a tween. i love zero kiryuu !!

othello by satone ikezawa… if you ever wondered where the name thello came from, there’s your answer :D

sailor moon by naoko takeuchi SHES SOO IMPORTANT TO MEE i will admit i enjoy the manga more than the anime, if only because i’ve read it cover to cover 102,000,090 times. the 90’s anime is wonderful though. hashtag moonies rise up

dokuhime by mitsukazu mihara. this one hasn’t been officially translated into english as far as i know but it is SO wonderful. like genuinely if there was one series i’d recommend i would PLEAD for people to read this. its about poison and tragedy and succession but also bittersweet, hopeful, sweet love. its so <keyboard noises>

kamikaze kaitou jeanne by arina tanemura… some of my taste is shoujo trash ok but this one ive owned for over a decade. something about the religious imagery, the hopefulness, the beauty of it… it still lingers with me.

revolutionary girl utena by chiho saito and be-papas. well. glances at tumblr account. i think that one was pretty obvious.

i’m going to hail-mary the rest because im tired of looking up mangaka names, and i want to include them: hana-kimi, kitchen princess, our dreams at dusk, alice 19th, devil’s line, wotakoi, peach girl, say i love you…. ok i think that’s all my brain recalls)

there’s a lot more manga that was like. really important to me and stories that shaped my storytelling hand, but i’ve confined myself to shoujo for the sake of actually answering the question :P

[shoppncarticles]

BONUS: Gen 1 Glitches & Rumors

Now what I’m about to say may shock readers with weaker dispositions, but it should be no shocker when I say that the original Pokemon Red and Blue games are horrendously prone to glitches and game-corrupting bugs. I don’t exactly blame the developers at Game Freak for the technical states of these games, they were trying to fit over 150 battle monsters, 15 different types, and a large, interconnected RPG world map all onto a tiny Game Boy cartridge, after all. But even then, it really isn’t hard to crack these games wide open, even unintentionally. You may just be playing normally and get stuck in an infinite stunlock with the right moves and worst RNG, you might find a way to exponentially inflate your damage numbers, hell you could even wrong warp to the end of the game if you happen to hit buttons in the right order.

Among the most enigmatic and confounding glitches though, were ones that seemed to spawn entirely new Pokemon in the game, or ones far outside the usual level capacities. Thanks to Pokemon’s extreme popularity with children during the height of Pokemon, its relative lack of documentation, and kids’ tendency to lie in order to sound cool, several rumors and myths were sure to crop up surrounding weird glitches and ‘secrets’ kids ended up discovering by sneezing on their cartridges the right way. It’s doubtful these kids had any idea how video game coding worked, so if they found some never-before-seen encounter in their games, what else are they gonna think but that they’ve found some new Pokemon they can brag to their friends about. I mean, with all this info and pictures some part of it has to be true, right?

Besides the one infamous case, though, there aren’t a whole lot of famous glitch Pokemon to actually talk about, so I decided to cover some other classic Gen 1 rumor ‘mons as well for old times’ sake. I mean, encountering glitch Pokemon kind of opens the door for any other sorts of rumors to potentially be plausible, at least in kids’ minds. That’s my excuse.

MissingNo. (and Friends)

MissingNo. is by far the most famous of any glitched Pokemon encounter you can find in the original Gen 1 games, since not only is it a fully unique creature, but also due to it being remarkably consistent when encountered. You’d think an entity produced by the random jumbling of code and errors would be more incoherent when inspected closely, but MissingNo. tends to be pretty much the same whenever it’s found in game.

MissingNo., a name standing for the term Missing Number, thanks to its lack of a proper registry index value, is the result of the random Pokemon encounter system trying to find a Pokemon to battle before any proper lists of wild Pokemon have been loaded yet. Most of the time, wild encounters can’t be triggered without a corresponding species list being loaded, but there is one single-tile wide column of water in one of the game’s areas that can be surfed on before moving into the next route’s defined area. Most of the time, this isn’t an issue, since the game will just use the last species list it has loaded. However, by revisiting a scripted encounter cutscene from earlier in the game, that list can be unloaded, and without a proper set of Pokemon to refer to, the game will glitch out and summon MissingNo.

As I said earlier, MissingNo. is remarkably consistent for a glitched Pokemon. Not only is it extremely easy to come across if you know how to activate the glitch, but it also always has the same data once caught. MissingNo. is apparently a Normal/Bird type, and always comes with 3 learned moves. Wait, Bird type? That ain’t right, everyone knows that should be FLYING type. It’s true that the Flying type started in development as being labelled as the Bird type, but considering Flying appears in the final game as it should I’m surprised there’s still data to refer back to for the earlier Bird state.

Speaking of those 3 moves, they’re always Water Gun and two instances of Sky Attack. Normally, Pokemon can’t learn two copies of the same move. But MissingNo. isn’t a normal Pokemon, so I guess it checks out. Even MissingNo.’s sprite will stay pretty much the same whenever it’s encountered, which is pretty incredible once you think about it. This isn’t a sprite saved anywhere on the cartridge, nor a messy amalgamation of other sprites from the game. Instead, it’s just a splattering of random miscolored pixels.

MissingNo. also appears in Pokemon Yellow, but due to that game’s different sprite sets and style, it appears in a far less recognizable and iconic form.

I’m somewhat surprised Game Freak have never done anything to acknowledge MissingNo. in an official game. I doubt it would ever be added as a controllable Pokemon of course, but even having references to it here and there in dialogue would be fun. Sadly, it seems like this ancient glitch is the last thing on their minds, which is a bit of a shame. Some weird glitchy entity like this hiding in the background of the game is definitely an idea I could see capitalized in other games, and even has been already to an extent with stuff like Gaster from Undertale. So, the spirit of MissingNo. lives on at least, kinda.

Oh yeah, MissingNo. can also be replaced by other glitch Pokemon which use these sprites. The first is the sprite used for Gastly and the Marowak ghost before a ghost-viewing scope is obtained (something never really used again in any Pokemon game), and the other two are used when viewing their exhibits in the Pewter City Museum. While each sprite is used in battle-like styles like the regular Pokemon sprites, they aren’t attached to any of the real Pokemon’s data, thus likely leaving these sprites floating around in the relevant battle data, and thus being easy pickings when a new glitch Pokemon needs an appearance to attach itself to.

While the usage of these sprites and their subject matter is completely coincidental, it is kind of ironic that the unused sprites are kind of more spooky and unnerving in nature, as finding a weird and data-corrupting monster like MissingNo. is sure to spook a kid who wasn’t expecting it.

As long as we’re on the topics of glitches, it also isn’t uncommon to encounter normal Pokemon like Clefable and Charizard, only at extremely high levels they shouldn’t normally be at like 154. Not as noteworthy, but still deserved a bit of a mention I’d say. Kids typically knew you could only get a Pokemon to level 100 normally, so having an even stronger one must meant something fishy was going on... like you were tampering with the power of GODS, naturally.

Pikablu

Before its official reveal, Pokemon fans across the nation would see this blue little mouse creature, and believe it to be some kind of watery counterpart to Pikachu, and title is as Pikablu. Of course, now we know this to be Marill, but in the ancient years of the late 1990s most Pokemon fans were not lucky enough to have access to a wide-open internet connection they could use to verify what a Pikablu was supposed to be. Some people even christened it a PokeGod due to a translation error claiming that a Raichu is still able to evolve in-game when it actually can’t. Instead, people believed Pikablu was a hidden evolution to Raichu that was only obtainable when either given a Water Stone, or when something stupidly specific is done, like capturing all Pokemon, getting half over level 80, and putting a specific one in the first slot of your party.

I mean, that last one has actually been used in a game since, but who’s counting really.

Why Raichu would evolve from an Electric type into a Water type that so clearly did NOT resemble it is beyond me, though.

Doomsay & Doomsday

Some more sinister PokeGods, though, are Doomsay and Doomsday, being apparent bringers of the apocalypse which shan’t ever be awakened lest they destroy the Pokemon world entirely. I mean, sure, okay. That was bound to terrify some younger players out there. It’s really funny looking at these in retrospect, though, because you can clearly tell these are sprites from other games just pasted over a Pokedex template. They don’t match the artstyle at all. But hey, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t kind of fall for it myself when I first saw them as a kid.

Doomsday has two different versions, for whatever reason. I think this one is much cooler as some ambiguous mystery monster, since I can barely tell what that sprite is even supposed to be. Is it some weird crab or insectoid type beast, with like a plated carapace and pincers? Beats me, but it looks kind of neat. The description makes it more tame than an apocalypse-bringer, which is better in my mind too, but the fact that it’s apparently 91 feet tall is just a bit too much for me. These rumor creators ought to be more REALISTIC.

Apacolypse

Apparently not content with two (or three) world-destroying PokeGods, Apacolypse (distinctly misspelled) too would join the fray. Despite being called a gargoyle, it seems to have electrical powers too. I wouldn’t be surprised if this too was a stolen sprite from a more obscure RPG. At least Doomsday 2 tried to match the Pokemon style, somewhat. This guy’s not even trying!

Venustoise

A product of the early anime, one episode had Ash and the gang confronting a particularly mischevious Gastly who used illusions to scare people off from its hiding spot for fun. Part of this involved summoning a fake Blastoise and Venusaur which then preform a fusion dance before becoming an enlarged Venustoise, as it were. Despite, y’know, clearly being an illusion within the confines of the story, several Pokemon fans and young viewers utterly convinced themselves that Venustoise was a real PokeGod too that they could obtain somehow and use to obliterate their friends at the playground. You just know rumors about this thing had to involve extensive Elite Four grind sessions involving several dozen victory streaks and more. How kids had patience for this I’ll never know. Several other Anime-original designs and forms were considering potential PokeGods too, like the crystal Onix, but none seems as noteworthy to me as Venustoise.

It’s funny considering that Pokemon fusion, too, would become a feature in the main games like the obscure methods of unlocking hidden Pokemon. Only, fusion has been exclusive to a handful of Legendary Pokemon who can do such for story purposes. Sadly it is still impossible for Venusaur and Blastoise to become one, so Venustoise shall continue to remain out of players’ grips... for now.

Seems like the anime couldn’t help itself, though, since another fusion between Rayquaza and Mismagius would turn up in a later episode as well, also being a ghostly apparition rather than a real thing. Apparently people learned their lesson, though, since this one never took off like Venustoise did.

Uh...

Okay so. Bear with me. I’m definitely stretching the subject matter of this article here but. Look at this thing. It comes from Pokemon Pocket Monsters, the first manga adaptation of Pokemon and something which was clearly made alongside the games’ development and without clear directing or supervising since its art direction is. All over the place. I doubt the artist for this manga had any reference material to go off of besides the sprites because like, look at this.

Anyways, the thing I started this article with is so unusual since it hardly resembles ANYTHING from the first generation, let alone Pokemon as a whole. I really doubt there was any kid in America in the late 90s which told their friends that if you tried really hard, you could catch one of them, but damn it I still wanted to mention this thing. It’s so WEIRD.

It’s been mentioned that this thing could be a Diglett which was horribly misinterpreted from the original sprite and like... I guess that works?? I don’t have any better explanation in mind so. Sure. The terrifying, tentacled Diglett is a PokeGod too. Why not. Who’s gonna stop me. I just don’t get why it makes the WORST expressions. Who let this thing run free in the ecosystem.

Flareth

Next up is- hey wait. That’s just Ridley. That’s just Ridley’s artwork from Super Metroid but bitcrushed to hell.

I bet whoever put this together in 1999 felt real clever about what they did. Well, guess what buddy, here I am in 2023 proving that your little facade here was nothing more than a farcical RUSE. Surely this is as transparently fake as these rumors come, right? Surely no one could fall for something even more obviously false than this.

Yoshi

Well. Uh. Hm. I stand corrected. Because as it turns out, several people recall genuinely having fallen for this little prank, despite, y’know, the obvious warning signs. Not only is Yoshi being advertised as being available in Pokemon, but also as a supposed evolution of Dragonite, somehow being number 999 in the Pokedex, but also that it’s still called Dragonite for some reason! Rather unsurprisingly, this comes from the April edition of an old gaming magazine, and is credited as being written by a... J. Ester. Uhhuh. I mean, considering how closely the steps outlining the process resemble those told by actual kids on how to unlock several other supposed secrets in the game, I guess I can’t blame kids too much for falling for it. Just a little bit, though. Imagine how using Yoshi would go in-game. Do you think he gets any unique moves? Does he act any differently than a normal Dragonite? He’s still a Dragon/Flying type, for whatever reason.

That HAS to be the most outlandish rumor among them, though, right? You can’t get more blatantly unreasonable than Yoshi.

Luigi

...

[Gen 1 Archive]

[injestedsoap]

Graves Likes Soap

Chapter 6 (has been) up on ao3!

Time Together

Ghost did not want to wake up, pressing his face into Soap’s neck as he groaned. 

“Yes, it’s time to wake up, you walking Halloween decoration.” 

“Five more minutes.” Ghost slurred. 

“I asked, the pilot said no.” 

“Wanker.” Ghost grunted, sitting up straight and rubbing his eyes. 

They were two of about a half dozen stragglers, Soap didn’t even try to start waking Ghost until he was sure Graves was off, lord knows the man would make a last minute attempt to drag him away from his leave. Soap stood, collecting their bags and handing them down to a still bleary Ghost who shouldered his backpack and duffel. Soap shouldered his own backpack, extending the handle on his suitcase, the other men could make as much fun of him as they wanted but he wasn’t going to lug around a backpack and a duffel when he had the option to get something that rolled. 

Ghost stood, looking mostly awake, “Got everything?” 

Soap looked around the seat quickly and patted his backpack to make sure he felt the outline of the book. “Yeah, you?” 

Soap couldn’t see Ghost’s eyes through the dark glasses but he felt them on him. “Yeah.” Ghost replied, giving him a little tap with his duffel, “Now come on, get your rolling bag ass moving.” 

Soap laughed, swiveling his bag around and pushing it down the walk way, the sound of heavy steps behind him. 

They exited the tunnel and entered the airport, Soap pulled off to the side to stretch and yawn loudly, Ghost slouched against the wall, still looking on the edge of sleep. 

“Plans for leave?” Soap asked through a yawn. 

“Not really,” Ghost replied, “Gonna see Price, get some hiking and stuff in, eat real food.” 

“Mmh,” Soap agreed, rolling his head on his shoulders and looking sideways at Ghost, “Hey do you–”

“MacTavish!” 

“ For bloody fucking dead Jesus’s Sake ”

“I was hoping I’d catch you!” Graves, somehow, didn’t look like shit. He looked the same as he did when they got on the plan, hair high and tight, polo crisp, shorts pleated. God Soap wanted to punch him. “Hey, how about this, you skip your flight to Scotland, and you come with me, we’ll have steak and we can go to the race track, I can take you to my own private shooting range, hell, we can even get in a few games of golf!” He jerked his head at the opposite side of the airport, “What do you say?” 

Soap stared, he felt the urge to smile, to politely shrug off the invite with a ‘maybe next time’ or something else that left the door even slightly ajar for the sake of not pissing off Graves. Then he moved his bag around and looked Graves right in his grinning, target of a face, “You know, Graves, I can honestly think of nothing I would like to do less than that, so no, no thank you.” 

Graves looked stunlocked for all of a second before he threw his head back and laughed, “You’re a tough one, MacTavish,” He reached out and Soap slipped out of his grasp, Graves recovered with a finger gun, “I’ll figure you out one of these days!” 

“You won’t!” Soap called as he watched Graves walk away.

“Good lad.” Ghost said sleepily. 

Soap grinned and turned, moving his bag back to the side and pushing into Ghost’s space. Ghost looked down at him, he could see a peek of blue under the dark glasses. “I think you should get on a plane with me.” Soap said. 

“Oh?” Ghost asked behind his mask. 

“Aye, I think you should get on a plane with me and come to Scotland. I think we should spend a whole day sleeping and then when we wake up I’ll take you hiking, and prove that haggis is delicious, and we’ll watch Bridgerton while you winge the whole time, then I’ll take you to meet my mum.” 

“Will you?” Ghost asked like his eyes weren’t glowing. 

“Yeah,” Soap pushed closer, pressing into Ghost now, “She likes to know the boys I’m snogging.” 

Ghost raised an eyebrow, “Do we have to meet her before we snog?” 

“Nah,” Soap said, resting a hand on Ghost’s hip, “Just so long as we meet her.” 

Ghost cast his eyes around as his hand smoothed up Soap’s back, his pinky finger slipping under Soap’s shirt, “I think I can live with that.” He said, tugged his mask under his chin, and leaned in to kiss Soap. 

Soap sighed and melted into him like a tension line had suddenly been released. He wrapped an arm around his neck, his hand clinging to Ghost’s hip. Ghost was rubbing his back with one hand and cupping his cheek with the other, his thumb rasping over Soap’s stubble. Soap parted his lips, his foot lifting up just slightly when Ghost licked into his mouth, nibbling and sucking on his tongue. Soap pressed up into him, his nails scraping over the back of Ghost’s neck, pressing their bodies together. 

“We have to stop before I fuck you in the middle of the airport.” Ghost grunted.

“Call Price, get us immunity,” Soap whined, clinging onto Ghost as he tried to pull back from the kiss. 

Ghost shook his head, pulling his mask back into place, “Take too long, we’ll miss our flight and you won’t get your second book.” He didn’t take his hand off Soap’s back as he lifted his duffel, still absentmindedly rubbing along Soap’s spine. 

Soap was so lulled by the feeling, the joy from the kiss, and the perspective of spending his whole leave with Ghost that it took him a few minutes to register what Ghost had just said. “Wait, you got me another book?” 

Ghost looked down at him, pushing up his glasses so Soap could see the smile in them, “Well you had another flight, didn’t want you to get bored.” 

“Drag me to the bathroom, let’s spend leave in a stall.” 

Ghost laughed loud and open as he dragged Soap to their plane.

[dude1818]

The weather trio quest in Arceus fucking sucks. None of the dodge-and-roll gameplay is particularly fun, although it’s probably worse since I’m playing on keyboard instead of with a controller, but the genies’ attacks are particularly bullshit. You can’t really dodge them and just have to get lucky, and once they do hit you, you’re stunned longer than the cooldown period for the next attack. It’s trivial for them to stunlock you

That said, it’s still not too bad to deal with the first three. You encounter them in fairly open areas and the wild pokemon around aren’t too much of a problem. (The glalie around tornadus’s territory are rude, but they won’t respawn if you take them out first.) But enamorus is fucking bullshit

First off, it’s a stupid concept for a pokemon. Thunder incarnation, tornado incarnation, and I guess earthquake incarnation are neat ideas, even if they look a bit doofy. Then the fourth one is nothing but a Hallmark valentine’s day card knockoff. Love is fertility is spring, I guess??, but these aren’t the season incarnations, they’re the weather incarnations

And then the overworld fight is so much worse than any of the others. This was takes place in the mireland, so your speed is halved. Besides the water holes slowing you down, there are also just a bunch of rocks and trees in the way. There are a dozen wild pokemon constantly aggroing you, and unlike the glalie, most of them respawn immediately, and they all have long-range disorienting attacks. Because of that, I had to keep returning to town for more warding charms, and buying charms is excruciatingly slow. It took me so many attempts to get up next to the thing to break its shield, and even then it simply ignored that I initiated a battle about three times. It took me about 2 hours to catch this one fucking pokemon

[fallout-lou-begas]

Let me solo her.

Build details:

The Regalia of Eochaid is my favorite weapon in this game. I love the simplicity of the straight sword moveset, especially one-handed, and its weapon skill is one of Elden Ring’s most satisfying finishers. Uncharged, it’s a phenomenal mix-up and “get off me” move, but fully charged, it turns into a fucking nuclear meatgrinder. Additionally, the fact that its damage is split between physical and magic damage makes it feel more versatile than a standard straight sword. For this character, the unarmored warrior Kona, I beelined for the sword right away and fought the Grave Warden Duelist while tremendously underleveled to earn this prize, which carried me throughout the entire game.

What I learned over time is that the trick with the Regalia of Eochaid's corkscrew is that if you pick your opportunities perfectly for fully charged corkscrews, you can essentially stunlock enemies that go flying from the final hit. This is consistently useful throughout the game against armored knights especially, but is very high risk and high reward, since you’re a sitting duck both while charging and executing the move (especially in group fights, especially since Kona doesn’t wear armor). Still, this was vital to my strategy here of all but skipping Malenia's second phase. I did basically the same thing a while ago when I fought Mohg, but instead of immobilizing him in a stunlock like I did to Malenia, she's lightweight enough to get immobilized by knockback.

I achieved massive damage against Malenia through a combination of talismans, Physick, and frostbite.

The Blue Dancer Charm boosts physical attack power inversely proportional to your equipment load; with this current load-out it’s providing approximately a 6% boost.

The Rotten Winged Sword Insignia boosts your attack power for a brief period so long as you keep landing successive attacks, increasingly powering you up by 6%, 8%, and ultimately 13%; the corkscrew deals so many attacks in quick succession that it almost instantly reaches that +13% threshold.

The Shard of Alexander boosts the attack power of weapon skills in general by 15%

The Godfrey Icon boosts the attack power of only fully charged weapon skills by 15%

I began the fight by using frostbone arrows to afflict Malenia with frostbite, which increases the damage that she takes from all sources by 20%

Once I frostbit her, I drank my Flask of Wondrous Physick, which contained Magic-Shrouding Cracked Tear and Thorny Cracked Tear, which each last two minutes and increase the power of all magic damage by 20% and the power of successive attacks by up to 20% respectively.

When you combine all of these factors, a fully charged Eochaid corkscrew is dealing 20% more than its usual damage output due to frostbite...plus 6% and 13% and 15% and 15% from the talismans, and then +40% from the Wondrous Physick. This culminates in dealing well over double damage, improved even more in the second phase by the Bloodboil Aromatic, which increases my damage dealt by even further by an additional 20%, but with the cost of increasing my own damage vulnerability by 25%, mandating its use in the second phase only and the necessity to not get hit by anything.

Now, I’m not usually a metagame number cruncher or anything. I don’t think about these numbers much at all in-game. People can absolutely get even higher, more mammoth numbers in other, much more efficient ways, or just shred through Malenia’s healthbar with Rivers of Blood’s Corpse Piler ability or something. But I didn’t want to use Rivers of Blood, I wanted to use my favorite weapon in the game, and I crunched these numbers just to see how hard this weapon could hit in conditions that are essentially optimal without being overly complicated; I’m not stacking incantations or using a whole arsenal of weapons for multiple different buffs, after all. It’s just me, my sword, my bow, my flask, and my aromatic.

Anyway, this build (plus: an offhand Blood-affinity Whip not present in this fight to make up for the sword’s relatively short range, and usually using the Ritual Sword/Taker's Cameo [for a more consistent damage boost at full health, switching out when possible to maintain full health] or Lord of Blood's Exultation [for a more consistent damage boost after proccing blood loss with the whip] instead of the Godfrey Icon [since fully charged corkscrews can be too inopportune to do consistently]) has been the most fun I've had with a video game maybe ever, for both dungeon crawling and boss beating.

You may be saying I got super lucky because she didn't Waterfowl, or didn't do X or Y, and it was definitely a little luck-reliant, but my distancing, arrows, and immobilizing corkscrews all served to force her own movement and make her attack patterns more predictable. Malenia is a surprisingly passive boss in her first phase, given that she’s supposed to be much more aggressive in her second phase, but spamming arrows could force her into approaching and attacking, which is where I could get most of my arrows in while evading. And, of course, the second phase’s increased aggression is kind of moot because she spends the entirety of it inside of my magic metal meatgrinder.

And lastly, what you don't see are all of the attempts where I got my shit handed to me because I missed the spacing or the timing of the corkscrew. It's still kinda cheese, not Rivers of Blood level cheese but definitely still a little cheesy, but to me felt more like a high stakes sniper's duel where we could each kill the other basically instantly. Seriously, if you think this was an unfair fight, remember that I have no armor and only 40 Vigor lol

[gogtopia]

waking up to all of this at once is an indescribable feeling like i’m still stunlocked

[xxrat--punkxx]

I'm shy so I'm on anon lol but: Don't give up on Elden Ring just yet! It's hard, especially at the very beginning. (Rune) Bears, lobsters, crabs, rats, and dogs are all "just" regular enemies but they're known for being even more annoying than some bosses (they can force you into a stunlock easily, lobsters are snipers, bears are really fast, rune bears have too much health, etc etc). They can be ignored whenever you are able to. I'm at Level 130 and I still run away from bears and lobsters because they still terrify me and half the time they're not worth the fight lmao

You'll get into the habit of how the game works in time (learning how to avoid panic-dodging is a big part of the process). Don't be afraid to check the Elden Ring Wiki as they show you which attacks certain enemies are most vulnerable or immune to, it can make a huge difference. It also explains how to use items (the multiplayer items confused me a lot lol) and everything else, of course. The game will let you go almost anywhere and fight a boss whenever you want to, even when you're under-leveled for the area. So don't be too proud to turn back and come back when you're stronger!

Look up a few tutorials on builds and how weapon scaling/magic works, use summons whenever you can/want to, get a friend to help you out (if you don't have a buddy who plays Elden Ring, you can use a "Furlcalling Finger Remedy" nearby activated Summoning Pools to see if other players put down signs to allow you to summon them into your world. If you play on PS4 I'd be down to drop my PSN in your inbox too!). "YOU DIED" will show up at least a billion times until then and after that; you'll get used to it. Once you figure it out, the game becomes increasingly more enjoyable, I promise <3

Anon holy shit thank u so much that is unbelievably sweet of you, I really appreciate it Omg🥹

Thankfully I have too much experience on monster Hunter, which is a similar kind of game but I’d say it’s much easier now that I’ve played for a few hours (I’d like to credit that experience for me being able to kill that big dragon in the lake area😤💪) but yeah I’m starting to get the hang of it!

But checking the wiki is such a good idea! Thank u so much for the tip! I’ll definitely be doing that a lot 😭, right now I kinda wanna focus on getting my health and strength up, so I won’t worry abt builds until later but I will definitely take ur advice! Fr tho thank u so much, I’m wayyyy too scared to summon people tho out of fear that they’ll think I’m shit and my rule is ‘I have to beat everything at least once before I get others to help’ so thank you f or the offer that’s so kind of u, but I’ll spare u lmao😭

Again, thank u so much it really means a lot💞

[shikai-the-storyteller]

EVENT DAY making a text post of reaction’s to today’s events instead of blowing up my poor friend’s phone with text updates, so without further ado:

KARMALAND WATCH

man sounds so drunk is this a bit

OH He’s just exhausted. ok valid king, I’m tired as hell too

FRICK HES READING THE BOOKS

NOOOOOO KING NO ITS NOT FROM LUZU NOOOOO PLEASE QUACKITY RUB THOSE TWO BRAINCELLS TOGETHER YOU KNOW LUZU WOULDN”T SAY THAT

Meanwhile Luzu hasn’t read any of the letters left for him LMAO

Quackity: LUZU RACIST? Everyone in Karmaland: huh Illojuan: We canceling Luzu rn?

Illojuan is such a bastard WHY DID HE WRITE THAT HORRIBLE LETTER SAYING IT WAS FROM LUZU

WHY IS HE IN THE HOUSE

WHY IS EVERYONE IN HIS FRICKIN HOUSE RN LMFAO this is what you get for not building a house with a ROOF

Luzu: I’m racist? But I have white friends? LMFAOOOO

Luzu idk what you’re wearing but you look GREAT red/pink is your color

LMFAO WHY DOES HE HAVE THAT PICTURE

Yesss communication. DSMP could never /j

HE CALLED HIM QUACKS 😭😭😭😭 

Luzu: Quacks, when have I ever called you Quackity? I always call you Quacks Quackity: *GASP* That’s true! But who would have tried to make us hate each other? Luzu: I don't know but we should find out Me leaning into the mic: Telenovella

“AMISTAD”???

BEG YOUR PARDON???

Not the mods joining in LMAO

they’re all so cute lmao

they think it was frickin Sapo Peta

Luzu still has that stupid fart mod installed MY KINGDOM FOR AN OUNCE OF SERIOUSNESS, LUZU PLEASE THIS RELATIONSHIP IS ON THE LINE

Quackity keeps slamming the door and Luzu keeps opening it IM LOZING IT Im clipping that

The gang’s back together :’)

WHAT IS THAT PHOTO

Quackity: What's wrong with my umbrella? It's very masculine Staxx: Mary Poppins LMFAOO

My favorite thing is when Quackity’s giggling too much to participate in a bit

Too many people are talking I have NO idea what’s being said RN so I’m EW Ok ignoring what just happened, I was GOING to say I love when Vegetta and Quackity interact but

HUH

😒 😒 😒 😒 

Quackity really kissing every man in Karmaland huh

Good for Vegetta, I guess.

God bless translators because I was too stunlocked to actually understand what they said

Wait actually where the FRICK is Rubius

OHHH PRETTY BUILD??? PRETTY BUILD?

Ok apparently Lolito Illojuan and Sapo Peta are all in the vault of memories

Is no one gonna warn them about Alexby’s frickin contagious demon arm thing

gosh this build is so frickin GORGEOUS

Live Quackity Reaction

I want to know how Max makes his voice sound like that, Sapo Peta’s voice is SO GOOD

Vegetta: Rubius quien soy yo para negarte algo que tú quieras? Rubius: pues vegetta dios de esta serie y dueño de mi corazón PARDON

Vegeta: Rubius who am I to deny you something you want? Rubius: Well Vegetta god of this series and owner of my heart Me, dead on the floor (clip)

WAIT TITI??? I COMPLETELY MISSED THAT I GOT DISTRACTED WHAT DID THEY SAY ABOUT TITI

Whenever Staxx says “Mijo” I cry

CAN THEY SAVE TITI

YES PLEASE MAKE LUZU GET RID OF THAT STUPID FRICKIN MOD I CANT TAKE THIS ANYMORE

There is literally no other minecraft series that has builds THIS gorgeous. I will die on this hill, this is like INSANE levels of talent

KARMAJUANA

QUACKITY STOP HARVESTING KARMAJUANA THERE”S LORE GOING ON

NO NOT THIS AGAIN NOT SAPO PETA’S DUNGEON DONT LET QUACKITY SEE THAT

Everyone: NOOOOO Quackity: YESSSSSS

Quackity: I’m single 😏 Sapo Peta: Oh? Well join me in the dungeon 😏 STOPPPPP

Vegetta really acting like the babysitter making sure Quackity doesn’t wander off and get left behind LMAO

HARBOR SEALSSS OMG OMG SO CUTE

Rubius: Technical question, what is the difference between a seal and a walrus? Luzu: The size, like the difference between your brain and mine, blondie Rubius: Oh, okay DAMN LUZU, YOU REALLY WENT FOR THE THROAT LMFAO

STOP WANDERING OFF QUACKITY

man’s missing all the lore

WHOOOOAAAA THIS IS SUCH A PRETTY ROOM it looks like a giant toy room!

Are those all the little trolls???

lmfao the FPS tanking for Quackity

Man I haven’t seen Rubius and Quackity interact in AGES

A crystal heart?

It’s a good thing Quackity can’t grab that because he DEFO would’ve already grabbed it and ran off with it

STOP EATING THE WEED QUACKITY

Poor Sapo Peta trying to herd cats LMAO

LOLITO....

THE SONG LMFAOOOO

I love that Vegetta gets into it so much, he has such a cute little voice it’s so distinct

Vegetta: I’m 30, Rubius is 40 LMFAO

Sapo Peta: Let’s see what’s inside Vegetta: Please let it be Titi 😭😭😭😭

They’re all such dorks I LOVE THEM

OH BOY

Gosh I love Karmaland’s frickin cutscenes. No one does it like them

EVERYONE IMMEDIATELY JUMPING IN LMAO PLEASE WAIT FOR INSTRUCTIONS YOU DUMMIES

TITANICUSSS PLEASE LET US GET HIM BACK

THE PORTAL CORRUPTED KARMALAND?

PRETTY NETHER....GORGEOUS CHANDELIER

builds that would drive Foolish gamers insane

Vegetta: We have to go in there to see if Titi is there! Quackity: Get over it QUACKITYSTOPPPP

Dang this really does feel like the upside down

I cannot tell what’s happening rn everyone’s speaking and my spanish is NOT that good

LMAO Quackity keeps frickin dying

I love that this evil portal was open and people IMMEDIATELY pushed Quackity in it

LMFAOOOO HE DIED FOR REAL

Thanks to the gods of Karmaland for babysitting this moron

MERLON???

Alexby has the cutest little laugh

Sapo Peta warning them that the open portal will let evil in but Vegetta insisting they need to go inside because if there’s a chance they can find Titi, then it’s worth it 😭 

Sapo Peta forgot Fargan wasn’t there KEKW

Group 1: Vegetta, Rubius, Quackity, Sapo Peta Group 2: Alexby, WIlly, Luzu, Lolito, Staxx

Group 1 is going to be a Hot Mess

Awh Sapo Peta saw Vegetta and Rubius look at each other and put them in the same group 😭 😭 😭

QUACKITY STOP DYING CHALLENGE

Wait Sapo Peta split himself into two? I completely missed that LMAO

Quackity: I'm a little embarrassed to be falling so much in front of you Sapo Peta: ..that doesn't exactly... bother me... 😒 

QUACKITY BE A TEAM PLAYER FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE

Rubius wanted to impress Vegetta but he keeps frickin dying. L

Sapo Peta’s first mistake was putting the prettiest but dumbest Karmaland boys together on the same team

Quackity: I have an idea! We should kill the boss! Vegetta: That's an amazing idea! Quackity: Let's go! Let's go! *Inmmediately dies* Vegetta: I got him! I got him! *the boss kills him* He got me! He got me! Someone help me!

Me: I wonder how Luzu’s doing Luzu, the resident emo punk: This place is kinda nice Me: Yeah that sounds about right

Luzu: For some reason I feel better here than when I'm on the surface, I like being here. I feel an inner peace KING.........

Luzu: I want to stay here forever. I want this to be my home. SEEK THERAPY KING!!!!

Wait this might not be a bit he might be getting possessed

Everyone in Group 1: *exhausted from the fight* Quackity: WHO WANTS KARMAJUANAAAAAA

Vegetta’s entire armor was destroyed. I’d love to see a drawing of that, that’s a cool visual

Wow they weren’t kidding this is LITERALLY the upside down

No matter how dire the situation, Quackity CANNOT resist bullying Merlon LMAO

Of COURSE the final boss lives in the upside down’s version of Vegetta’s house, it’s the best house in Karmaland

Luzu and Lolito finding a way out of the maze before everyone else. Yeah that tracks

Alexby and Quackity being the very last to find their ways out of the maze also tracks

YOOOO FINAL BOSS TIME LETS GOOOO

It’s like a red version of Staxx!

THE BOSS FIGHT HASN”T EVEN STARTED AND QUACKITY IS ALREADY DEAD

awh who just revived Quackity? That was so cute. “I gotchu bro!” 1h 30m in? WAIT WAS THAT ACTUALLY LUZU THAT”S SO CUTE

QUACKITY STOP BEING A FRICKIN COWARD

I KNOW YOU ONLY BROUGHT IRON ARMOR BUT THAT”S YOUR OWN FAULT

Quackity if you’re not going to FIGHT then you better at LEAST go around and heal people

QUACKITY IS SO USELESS IM SOBBING

This is such an important lore event yet everyone is sob-laughing because this big boss fight is happening yet Quackity’s just on the floor rolling around half-dead. Absolute Magikarp flop

Quackity on the ground and everyone just staring at him judgmentally LMAO he deserves it

World’s most pathetic man

Sapo Peta: We defeated the king, maybe we can return home through the portal now? Staxx: But what about Quackity’s legs? Is it permanent? Sapo Peta: I don’t know. Can anyone carry him in their arms while we go back? Luzu: I’LL DO IT! I’LL DO IT!!!

FRICK WHY WAS THAT SO CUTE

NOOOO SAPO PETA SAID THE RITUAL FAILED BECAUSE OF RUBIUS NOOO HE ALREADY HAS SO MUCH GUILT AND TRAUMA OVER LOSING TITI DONT SAY THAT

Quackity making fun of Luzu’s age and Luzu shooting him with arrows Me: Haha nice Luzu: I don’t know why -- my arrows all go straight to your heart. I don’t know why that happens Quackity: I don’t know. I don’t know CAN YOU HEAR ME SCREAMING

Unrequited love 😭 😭 😭

RUBEGETTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA BESOS

Luzu Rubius and Quackity in therapy what will the do. They certainly won’t cope or get any help, that’s for sure

Quackity: You need to be arrested! Rubius: And you need to be deported WTF RUBIUS LMFAO??? (clip)

I don’t think I’ve ever seen Quackity laugh this hard

SAPO PETA ENTERING THERAPY WITH A STEEL CHAIR

LUZU IM GOING TO UNINSTALL THAT FRICKIN MOD MYSELF I SWEAR

Luzu’s doing important therapy work meanwhile Quackity, professional streamer, is watching a “How to play Minecraft” video tutorial

QUACKITY SHUT UP CHALLENGE

Not Luzu explaining the concept of consent to Rubius and Sapo Peta I’m in hell I hate it here

STOP RUNNING AWAY FROM THERAPY QUACKITY

HE INSTANTLY FELL AND DIED LMFAOOOOO

Rubius: Sometimes I feel uncomfortable going to his dungeon and doing... dances for him Sapo Peta: You literally come just so you can get enchantment books and other stuff Rubius: Yeah but I want to do something other than dances! RUBIUS LITERALLY NO ONE ASKED YOU TO DO THAT YOU KEEP VOLUNTEERING IT AND MAKING EVERYONE UNCOMFORTABLE

Rubius: But Luzu, how am I supposed to know who loves me? Oh wow I feel like I just got punched in the gut

nothing is frickin funnier than hearing Luzu absolutely LOSE it then go silent for a second and swearing in English

Rubius: I- I don’t even know who I am anymore since I met Sapo Peta! FRICK. WHY IS THIS GETTING SO SAD

Quackity you are the last person who should be giving romantic let alone THERAPY advice

uh oh

Quackity: I have a problem with both people in this room! Luzu: There are 3 people Quackity:

OH NO RUBIUS FOUND OUT MERLON VEGETTA DIED NOOOO

They’re forcing Rubius to accept that Titi is dead MAN this therapy session is rough

QUACKITY IS SUCH A BASTARD

:(

For as much beef as they have, Luzu is being very kind to Rubius about Titi’s death

Quackity: MY PROBLEM is that I let my two boyfriends meet each other and now they’re getting along and I don’t like that! And my solution is to make you hate each other! Luzu: ...I think it’s best if we let our session end here

Yeah Quackity you deserved that my guy

QUACKITY DONT EAT THE LIMES AT TITI”S FRICKIN SHRINE YOU ABSOLUTE DEGENERATE

OH BY I GUESS QUACKITY

[dabunnybuns]

Ok I don’t wanna get like filmbro in here but holy shit

We’re reading the Whiplash screenplay in my Screen Writing class, and I was adoring the script right

And then we watched the first 11 minutes of the movie

And I was like “oh wow they changed a lot”, and I’ve never seen the movie up until this point right

So I watch it at home just now

And oh my god

I’ve never been so thoroughly stunlocked by a movie in my life

I thought my copy was fucked up, and then there was this slow realization of what was happening and I’ve literally never seen editing like that. I’m still thinking about it.

When the movie finished, I was stunned in the credits when the sound just stopped and it cut back to playing- before going back to the credits again. I desperately need to finish the screenplay, I only was through act 1, and just. Wow. I should’ve watched this sooner.