#class abilities

[existennialmemes]

Imagine if dragons were real. And there weren't a lot of them, but each one was capable of destroying entire cities. Some could burn them, some had poison breath, some could freeze, etc.

Imagine if everyone had to pay them a tithe. To keep them from reducing you to ruin. And if you paid, sometimes they'd hold back. And sometimes they wouldn't, because no one could hold them accountable for their lies or betrayal.

How would you feel about those creatures? How would you feel about the people who worshipped them like gods? Who insisted that we actually needed the dragons. That the devastation they caused was good actually.

Anyway this post is purely hypothetical and definitely isn't about the oligarchs at all.

[cuubism]

i feel like dream in human aus is usually characterized as being more stoic and stern while hob is more easygoing, but i think it would be funny to have a university au where hob is the professor who's like "no work is deserving of 100%. find 27 more sources and do it again" while dream is just like "they put their dreams into it, hob 🥺 A+! A+! A+! A+!"

[beebooca]

she’s so girlypop

[the-balloon-shed]

imma be honest I want to make a fic of this one day but for right now you just get me running wild with this headcanon

you know how there's those videos of surgeons being "inspirational" to their interns and then saying the meanest shit in the world? yeah, I think that's Iceman as an instructor at TOPGUN. 

Just the dry, rough sense of humor? The perfectly attenuated phrase in order to knock the arrogance out of some of these scrappy pilots? That's Iceman. The evidence is there in TG86! it's ICE who is saying the most bratty shit to Maverick. His criticisms are almost always valid or born of a real curiosity that's worth looking into, which I think is key, but he expresses it in the rudest and most inciting way possible. 

"Who was covering Cougar while you were showboating --"; (in response to Slider's calling Goose and Mav "famous") "I think you mean notorious"; "I don't like you 'cause you're dangerous" -- I mean Ice is right but he's also a bitch. (we don't have time to unpack ALL of what went into Ice goading Maverick seconds after meeting him with "need help figuring it out? who's the best pilot?" like my god man). 

So, some contenders for some of the commentary Ice might have for his students -- 

"Keep flying like that, I'm going to assume you're getting kickbacks from the military hospital." 

"I can only hope one day you fly for the enemy." 

"I was thrilled to hear the Navy's policy initiative for accommodating more disabilities went into action this year, however, I do think they should reconsider sending me blind pilots." 

"Are you on your wingman's life insurance or something?" 

"What did I say about making the same mistake twice?" "At least tell you I've learned something?" "No. What I said is don't." 

"Resist the urge to help me."

"I'm not looking for the best you can do. I'm looking for the best, period. So if you can't do any better, I suggest trying to emulate somebody else who can." 

"Well, you're no Artful Dodger, but artless dodging kept you alive well enough this time, I suppose." (I think it would be funny if he incidentally gave this poor pilot the callsign Dodger because of this, or A.D. for Artless Dodger)

"Did the Academy change its curriculum? Emphasize the element of surprise?" "Um... why do you ask, sir?" "Because you fly like you've never been inside a plane before." 

And I think he might say this to a colleague trying to pull rank over him that he neither respects nor cares about:

"I've neither the time, nor the crayons, to explain this to you." 

I think Mav would be so annoyed, too. "why do I have the reputation for being hard to work with when you're going around saying the meanest crap to these kids?" 

All Ice would do is laugh. "Sounds like a personal problem." 

Not to say that Ice is an asshole without restraint. Hell, the Iceman is all about restraint. He doesn't kick people when they're down. He doesn't say cutting stuff like this to people who are genuinely trying and not being a showoff. This is to knock overly arrogant kids down a few pegs, not send people into a shame self-doubting spiral, and Ice is usually pretty damn good at walking that line. 

Like, I imagine one of the students not understanding something to do with the physics portions of their classes and so he goes to Ice super nervous about getting reamed, and Ice is very patient with him. When Mav comes in and starts talking to Ice about instructor stuff, the student goes "oh, I can come back later, you know I think I'm getting it!" out of fear of wasting Ice's time and Ice would chuckle and be like "no, you clearly don't get it, and that's fine. Easier to teach you on dry land as opposed to up in the air, so let's keep working through it. Long as Mav's not about to talk to me about anything confidential --" which Mav shakes his head no "--alright, then how about you sit right there and keep working at it until you get it, and you will get it. If you've got the time, I've got the time, so let's get it done," and the kid stays in the office and keeps working at it for hours, occasionally checking his work with Mav and Ice until, voila, he does actually get it and also has a whole new understanding of Ice. 

Or if, god forbid, anyone had an accident, Ice would be all over trying to help with that (and help Mav work through it too) and protecting the students from any fallout from the brass because fuck them, they don't know what it's like to be in the air anymore. 

I also think that before the TOPGUN class starts, Ice would find Mav checking on all the canopies of all the jets and, once Ice realized that was what Mav was doing, would spend the next several hours with him helping out and making sure everything was operating properly, even though engineering had already looked at them. Can never be too sure, and if it provides Mav peace of mind, then Ice will do it, no questions asked. 

And so, despite saying some of the rudest crap most of these students have ever heard, they all love him. They all respect the ever-living-crap out of him, and learn to find him actually just kind of funny. It'd be a lot harder to like him if he were wrong, but he's so rarely wrong that in the end even the ones who do get pissed off at him manage to calm down. Students, as they graduate and leave TOPGUN, would probably talk to other graduating classes when they meet them on deployments like "oh my god, what did he say to your class?" "he once said --" "I didn't find it funny then but now I laugh every time I think about it -- " "he helped me figure out how to do..." so on so forth. 

There are a couple of the brass that aren't amused, but I think that's where Mav would come into play in his own way. Because Ice is good at what he does, and Mav sure as hell wants him around, and so should everyone else. Ice is just also not afraid to be an asshole about being good -- which the last person this is news to is Maverick. 

Maverick's just the only one Ice has encountered who can give as good as he gets, which is why as instructors, they do a pretty damn good job working together to whip their classes into shape. It's just funny that never in a million years did Mav think he'd be the "good cop" in their good cop/bad cop instructor situation, but he's resigned himself to his fate all the same. 

[randomness-is-my-order]

since weak hero class 2 is gonna come out very soon (finally!), i had to do some navel gazing with regards to season one and even after multiple watches of the show, i’ll always find the relationship between beomseok and sieun the most tragic fucking bond ever because amidst the massive fallout and very much foreground animosity that rose between beomseok and suho, sieun was the figure providing the most grace to beomseok, till the very end. sieun was the one who was sensitive and empathetic towards beomseok when his bullies targetted him again, when beomseok was undergoing a change of character, when beomseok revealed his home situation. as much as i love suho, the show made it a point to show his callousness towards beomseok’s bullying situation—in part because suho has never been at the bottom of the barrel due his strength and general personality; he does not understand because he has never been the weakest in the chain, but sieun knows, he understands. he’s aware of how bullies work, how they target any perceived weakness, how sometimes the one being bullied can’t do anything short of sacrificing their entire dignity and value system to make it stop (which isn’t always a guarantee anyway). how the one being bullied did not do anything “wrong” to provoke a reaction from the bullies, aside from existing.

the tragedy of season one is just how avoidable the final conflict was, if beomseok just tried to accept the concerned voice that was trying to help him, if he allowed himself to accept sieun’s care to soothe his insecurities over suho. it’s not that suho didn’t reach out—it’s that beomseok and suho were not speaking the same language. what beomseok did is inexcusable and i hope we never see him again and he gains no forgiveness or redemption but it fucking sucks that beomseok blamed suho for not understanding him but then ignored the one who was going the extra mile to meet him halfway, to offer help and empathy. till the last moment, sieun couldn’t bring himself to be violent towards beomseok (which was honestly the biggest metaphorical slap in the face the guy could receive) because how could he ever outdo and avenge the kind of rotten, sickening violence beomseok chose to employ towards his own friend? (and also because hitting him then would mean scores were being settled but what suho suffered through was in suspension and it did not deserve to have a definite resolution and also, beomseok’s too used to being hit for any mistakes/faults/flaws of his, when it is both deserved and underserved and sieun was, once again, being graceful in a painfully ironic manner by leaving beomseok unscathed but with a lesson that should rightfully scar his soul. he held back).

[sweatermuppet]

i think some of the best literary + film analysis advice i was given was from my high school fiction into film teacher who told us she would grade us well on finding any meaning in any symbol or motif so long as we could back up that feeling or meaning from source material, no matter how personal, minor, or long-reaching that meaning was—if your argument was good & could be grounded, she would accept it, even if you were the only student who interrupted the book/film that way

[shaadowmilkcookie]

One of Shadow Milk’s many prop replicas of himself, left behind. Even though the eyes are forever staring straight into the distance… Oddly enough, you still feel like you’re being watched.

But surely, though, it won’t hurt to take it home and touch up the colours, right? :)

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 203

Another Hydra prompt! Because I am enjoying the designs I’ve made lol. And perhaps it’s a bit inspired by @radiance1 ‘s different dragon prompts too. 

So they’ve succeeded! They’ve managed to combine their powers- with a bit of shapeshifting helped along by so many ghost allies- and become a giant duck-you dragon! Well, originally they were going to do something else, but they couldn’t agree on an animal, so dragon it was! 

And how mighty they are! They’re giant, absolutely massive- dwarfing the couple of skyscrapers still in Amity. Damages via ghost attacks and general sparring made it where people really didn’t want to rebuild those types of buildings. 

But anyway, dragon! Them! They’re absolutely stunning! And did they mention powerful? Because boy oh boy, are they powerful. The GIW’s guns do practically nothing against their combined might, and barriers shatter before them! 

The uh, issue is that they erm… can’t turn back. Which is fine, they’ve all sort of outlived most of their generation- thank you possessions and ecto-contamination, it’s just a tiny bit of an adjustment. But really it’s not too bad, and someone needs to stop the GIW from trying to poke their heads into Amity. Like it’s been a solid couple of generations, it’s time to stop, thanks. 

Actually they’ve been a bit quiet. Meh, that surely isn’t a problem. Probably. Honestly they’re all going to use the opportunity to sprawl out where the school yard once was, their favorite place to sun their scales. Huh. Usually more people are around now that they think about it- or really, as Paulina points out, sharpening her fangs on one of the rocks. 

…

How long had they been sleeping, because it couldn’t have been that long. One of them was always awake, they slept in shifts after all! Yet there are things missing now as they patrol the skies, both Wes and Tucker pointing out specific buildings that the others didn’t particularly notice usually that now lay empty. 

Hm. 

Oh. That is a… strong barrier there. A really strong barrier actually. Pfft, they can take it! They’ve shredded every barrier together before- Ow. 

…

Okay this might be a bit of a problem. Shit. 

You want a general size reference? :P

[honourablejester]

Heart: The City Beneath – Major Abilities

It’s much harder to talk about a favourite major ability for each class in Heart, because the major abilities are more … they’re bigger, they’re what you want your playstyle to be. They’re almost like a subclass? Each class has about five or six options, and you start with one, and getting more requires some big story beats, so they’re fairly defining for you. So when I’m talking about favourites here, I’m talking about how I personally would want to focus a character of that class.

Each major ability also lets you pick a couple of extra minor ones that buff it once you have it, so you can improve your major abilities with minor ones once you get it going.

Cleaver:

BLOODBOUND BEAST. You are accompanied by a ragged cryptid that follows your commands – an ancient stone-browed stag, a razortoothed heartsblood hound or something stranger. You feed it your blood, and it fights for you. You gain the Bloodbound tag on all weapons as you and your companion work in concert.

The Cleaver has five major abilities to choose from, a support option that gives the party skills, a combat option that gives you a great big weapon, a hungry option that leans on the classes core ability to gain skills/domains by eating things, and a transformation option that lets you pay in stress to do more damage. And then there’s this option, which gives you a ragged companion, a strange, rough animal to follow you. If you want a pet, this is the ability for you, and it’s a Heart pet, so it’s weird and offputting and wonderful. One of the minor abilities you can get for this is FAITHFUL UNTIL THE END, which does exactly what it sounds like it does and allows your faithful pet to die in your stead, at which point you’re required to pick a different major ability and you can never take this one again. Which. If you want to smash your character’s heart to pieces? Could be a good narrative shout.

Deadwalker:

ECHOES. You can glimpse the remnants of what has come before. Roll Discern + Domain to witness ghostly recreations of the past in your current location. This will generally show the most interesting or dramatic thing that occurred within recent memory.

Deadwalkers again get five options to choose from, one that lets you hurl yourself into the shadow world faster, one that lets you push through the shadow world to the afterlives beyond, one that turns your death into a poltergeist that helps you out, and one that lets you sacrifice your protection to hit enemies harder. And then there’s this one, which gives you psychometry. And we all know from other games that I just really like psychometry? I like knowing things, I like sensing things, I like weird tools that let me see things I shouldn’t. Although, to be fair, the heaven-exploring option is also extremely tempting.

Deep Apiarist:

UNCHAOS. The Heart is a chaotic place, and you seek to undo that with ancient magic. Roll Mend+Occult to cast this spell. On a success, for the remainder of the situation, you or one nearby ally treats Risky actions as Standard actions (keep the highest rolled dice) as probability coalesces around you and crystallizes at your feet.

Deep Apiarists are about resetting reality. Their five options are one that makes their body inimical to the Heart, doing extra damage to Heart creatures, one that turns their body into a mind healing item for your party, one that takes any mind stress you have and inflicts it on your opponents via your core bee swarm, and one that gives you bonus dice if you roll 6s. And then there’s this. Which is you casting a spell to just make life a fuck tonne easier for you or a party member. You can also buff it to make it a small AOE, though people have to stay right beside you for it to work. But it’s … The reality-bending bees are out here doing the work with this one.

Heretic:

OATH OF SAGACITY. You have learned one of the secret names of Three-Fold Damnou, and when you speak it aloud your enemies are struck senseless by its power. The name of the Goddess functions as the following weapon: (Kill D6, Spread, Debilitating, Maddening, One-Shot).

The Heretics get five major abilities, linking to five of the six Damnic virtues of their faith, which I enjoy. The virtue they’re missing is Grace, and it’s an in-universe doctrinal question as to why that is. Your options are one that gives you and sometimes someone near you physical protection, one that turns you into a divine terminator that takes mind damage if they haven’t killed a worthy foe by the end of the session, one that lets you do more damage/get further if you take and succeed on riskier actions, and one that lets you mystically sense creatures in your vicinity. And you’d think, given the Deadwalker above, that I’d pick that last one. But I just enjoy the ‘knowledge man was not meant to know’ that’s inherent in knowing one of the secret names of a god and speaking it as a weapon.

Hound:

STARE DOWN. You have a reputation as a terrifying enforcer; just looking at some folk is enough to get them to throw down their weapons. Your gaze functions as a weapon (Kill D6, ranged). It only works when your target can see you and if they have the capacity to be scared of you – so criminals are fair game, but heartsblood predators aren’t. You can use this “weapon” in a haven or other landmark without causing a huge ruckus. Your gaze won’t kill people – it’s disheartening, and if you reduce an opponent’s resistance to 0 with it they surrender, try to bargain their way out or trip and incapacitate themselves whilst fleeing.

Hounds are so practical. I actually really, really like them? And they have a bit of a wild west vigilante vibe as well. Of their five options, one lets them mark people as criminals which gives them advantages against them, one kind of possesses them with the spirit of trench warfare which gives them better unarmed and bonuses to close quarters, one gives them a Pumpkin Scissors-style berserker state where the more damaged they are the more damage they’re doing back, one gives them the ability to prep for a situation granting themselves and the party a choice of several benefits (and can be buffed), which was extremely tempting. But then there was this. Which is the ability to Clint Eastwood stare somebody into submission. Your stare does actual damage to people. And yes, you can buff it with a minor ability so that it works just fine on heartsblood predators. And, like. I mean you’ve got to pick that, right?

Incarnadine:

KARMIC LEDGER. Once you know what’s keeping someone awake at night, it’s much easier to take advantage of them. Roll Discern+Haven to cast this spell on a target you can see and hear. On a success, you determine their deepest karmic debt: the greatest thing that they’ve taken from someone else (money, valuables, freedom, a son, etc). When you act on this information, roll with mastery.

Incarnadines are about debts and deals and backstabbing, and their abilities reflect that. Sometimes quite literally. They get six potential options. One that lets you literally backstab people for bonuses, one support option that lets you pray to the god of debt to help someone else out, one that helps with NPC interactions that compels them to want something, one that lets you add a haven to your god’s network and get bonuses for it, one tempting one that lets you channel an incarnation of your god to do continuous minor damage to any enemy that can see you, and this one. Which is … I feel like if you’re going to worship a god of debt, it should let you see the biggest debt someone owes? And not in the sense of something they borrowed, but in the sense of something they’ve stolen. Their biggest karmic debt. If you worship a god of ledgers, you should be able to read the books.

Junk Mage:

KISS OF THE DROWNED QUEEN. You have glimpsed the sunken Court of the Drowned Queen, where she slumbers and awaits the resurgence of her line. With a touch, you can conjure salt water in the lungs of those who oppose you. This spell functions as the following weapon: (Kill D6, Piercing.) If the target is at least shin-deep in water, it inflicts D8 damage.

Right. So. The Junk Mage’s major abilities are spells they’ve gotten that call on major powers. There’s four big powers that they draw on: The Red King, The Sky Court, The Drowned Queen, and the Stone Chorus. They have six options, two each for the Red King and the Sky Court, one each for the other two. The Sky Court lets you either induce an orgy and/or the purge, or it gives you hyper adhd for a while. The Red King lets you either smell money and desire, or set things (and people) on fire. The Stone Chorus gives you and your party access to a temple mid-travel to be safe in, which is tempting. But I just like the Drowned Queen. Of the two damage spells, I want the one that drowns people on land. You know?

Vermissian Knight:

AETHERIC FIELD. Your armour buzzes with static that makes your hair stand on end; this discharge can keep you safe from the body-warping effects of the Vermissian. Once per session, activate this power. You gain +3 Echo protection until the end of the current situation.

The Vermissian Knights are very tanky, and their options are quite similar to the Cleaver’s, now that I look at them. Again, five options. One that gives them a great big monster-killing weapon (and a buff that lets them summon the monster in question), one that lets them push their armour to the limits, paying in stress to do more, one that lets them protect their allies, one that lets them pay in stress to do more exploring, and this one. I don’t know if its just the techological vibe, but I enjoy using your armour to create a protective electrical field that wards off weird damage. You can also buff it to create an aoe, and make it rechargeable. I like wards, as a concept. I enjoy this.

Witch:

LAIR. You adopt or create a predatory building and claim it as your own; it still eats people, but it doesn’t eat you. The building in question is no larger than a small shop or study. Inside, the shadows crawl and scurry, the walls creak and whisper and a maddening heart‐beat thuds at the back of your consciousness – perfect for you, but unsettling for anyone else. Any non-witch who enters your lair must roll Resist+Occult and mark D6 stress to Echo on a failure or D4 stress to Echo on a partial success. When you are in a landmark, roll Mend+Occult to summon your lair. On a success, it’s always been here, as far as anyone knows. Your lair acts as a bond (p. 98) – if it suffers fallout, it’s either eaten someone who’ll be missed or been damaged by suspicious locals.

… Witches are weird magic werewolf people, which is a great standing start for fun abilities. They have six options, and they’re all pretty much delightfully weird. One that lets them make the area around them more occult, automatically letting them aid a domain dice to almost everything, one that lets them see omens of what’s to come in a mirror (which lets them warp reality more than see the future), one that lets them attack people using blood as a vector, one that gives them a weird pet that they can channel damage into rather than taking it themselves, one that improves their werewolf form, and then this one. Which just … gives them a cool sentient hungry shop that follows them around and can act as their base in locations? I just. I feel like if you have the option, you should always choose to have your own predatory tea shop following you around?

End Thoughts:

I love that all these classes are so weird and so interesting. And there’s a good selection of play styles that you can work with even within your class.

[callizinc]

If creators didn't want me to interpret every story to be about how Society Is Bad then they shouldn't have made Society Bad. Think about that

[lycoric3]

Do you know how lucky it was the Han Yoojin regressed to the day that he was going to go the awakening broker? Because if it was any other time there’s the chance that he and Yoohyun would’ve just gone their seperate ways.

First off, this is one of the only times that Yoohyun and Yoojin are alone, because if Seok Simyeon or Kim Sunghan were there, Yoohyun would’ve been apprehensive of being openly affectionate and Yoojin would’ve gotten dragged away (like all other times—) and thrown out with insults about his uselessness to his face. Basically, Yoohyun would’ve been more likely to keep up the act. 

Then, we have Yoojin awakening and using the keyword which he theorises caused Yoohyun to become doubly more protective as an effect since he’s already his recognised caregiver, which is part of the reason why Yoohyun was more inclined to keep Yoojin with him and make up.

Lastly, Yoohyun mentions that he thought Yoojin was acting weird. That he suddenly threw away his pride, apologised, and said he was going to stay away. That suspicion leads to being the main reason Yoohyun wants to keep a closer eye on him.

(and maybe, there was fear. That even though Yoojin said he loved him— all of a sudden he was okay with laying low, to stop chasing. His mannerisms seem to have changed overnight and if he looks away his hyung will disappear and Yoohyun never wanted this—)

So, it was luck. 

Sheer luck that the Han brothers ended up in just the right scenario that they could live together again. 

[clowningaroundmars]

so many mike chiltons in the motorcity tag!!! here are mine :D

[cherry-treelane]

There's something so poetic about how El is the centre of all the chaos, wanted by the government and military and Mike is her strong calm that doesn't hesitate to get sucked into her storm and stand by her side in the face of any conflict. Like guys. This little boy did not hesitate to protect her and stand off in the face of the government to defend her, going against all the typical patriotic rule-following norms of an American Suburbanite Middle class nuclear family. He comes from pure safe normalcy but doesn't hesitate to run in the other direction heading towards chaos and danger if it means she's there... because he feels safest with her and is driven by the instinct to protect her. 😭🩷 There's something so beautiful and inspiring about someone as hurt and troubled and chaotic as El being loved in such a simple, unconditional way. Mike doesn't see her for the chaos she represents which surrounds her, he sees her for the innocent goodness that she actually is— her calm, gentle demeanour and the warmth it makes him feel. He understands that all the danger that comes with being with her is through no fault of her own, and actively works to help combat all the forces against her. He knows that despite being the centre of the chaos she's not the cause of it, she's the remedy for the effect of it and that is an undeserved, exhausting punishment yet a burden she bears regardless without complaint— a sign of her innate goodness which Mike recognises and loves her for all the more. Even moreso, he works to share that burden with her and criticise it because he sees how innocent and undeserving she is of the responsibility infringed upon her. His willingness to take all of this on is so wholesome and exactly the kind of sweet effort-full love that a character like El deserves, which is so gratifying for the audience to see.

[toffeemugg]

the emerald trio funny as hell (id in alt)

[tavina-writes]

I'm not exactly sure how I want to phrase this yet, but I think a lot of the utterly weird takes I see sometimes float by me on our cursed blue hellsite (esp when it comes to mdzscql fandom) is coming from a refusal to meet the genre where it's at.

Like, why are we trying to interrogate classism in MDZS society, MDZS is a romance, the societal worldbuilding is just enough to support some general big ideas and the provide context for the romance. We can't get ANY kind of read on general classim/sexism/anything else from. this source material. if you think you can get granular when your sample size of characters from various social and gender strata are so small and we don't know how the vast majority of people in here live you are making stuff up.

Like, meet the story where it's at: it's a romance novel.

[tumblweeds-omegaverse]

omegaverse thought:

even in settings where alphas are dominant, it could be well known that there are certain scenarios where omegas are not to be crossed. not if you value your peace of mind. or various pieces of your body.

force your way into an omega's nest? you fool. you absolute nugget. that omega will turn from happy purring to a whirlwind of deadly claws and rending teeth faster than you can say "oh f-"

put a hand on a nursing omega's pup without knowing it's fine? "there are no alphas around, its fine." lol. lmao even. as if the alpha can save you from an omega that's protecting their pup. you should know better, idiot.

"how dare that omega not cater to my request specifically! i'm the most important person in the room!" do you want rumors spread about you? are you doing a "never get a date again" speedrun? cause that's where you're headed.

just...omegaverse settings where you ignore the power of omegas at your own peril. including settings where "you fight like an omega" says something about focus or determination.

(used omegas for the example here, but I'm very in support of this applying to betas as well! regardless to if you give your betas unique traits or not, they're still people. still members of a species whose greatest abilities include creativity, endurance, and social bonds.

a single asshole alpha can and should have their life ruined by a group of driven betas with the desire to do so. the less likely it looks, the more interesting it gets!)