#i need to consume every bit of info i can find on this game y'all dont understand

[roaringheat]

wtf do u mean the rdr2 guide book is $250 im gonna rob someone

[andreils-keys]

kay so ive been taking prompts from my instagram and

why would you tell me not to kill one and if i do to bring him back please you’re taking all the joy out of writing >:(

anyways lets get into it <3 (tw: small mention of domestic abuse)

(disclaimer yes i am a kandreil shipper :))

andrew is cursed in the same way blue was sort of where if he tells someone that he loves them they’ll die (yes i changed it a bit)

but instead of doing the whole 'you're cursed zap magic' thing (bc i don't think it'd fit very well in the aftgverse) im gonna try something else             

andrew had some pretty shitty foster homes when he was young

but the worst one was a small house by a family-owned ice cream shop

he remembers the ice cream shop very vividly. it was where he went when his foster mother was out working or drinking. it was where he went to feel safe.

he was pretty young, maybe 4 ? 5 ? impressionable. in that stage where santa claus and the boogie man were real, where hiding under a blanket protected you from nightmares. (he learned pretty quickly that hiding under the blanket did not protect you from anything.

he was bashed and battered with fists and words, words that cursed his very being and proclaimed that to love him was to die.

he was so young

he was only a child

and he did what children do best

he believed        

there was a time when he doubted

another foster parent, a run down house made beautiful with love and mismatched furniture

the road to healing is rocky and dangerous, but easier to traverse when you have someone behind you

finally, he let himself love

he let his foster mother in, little by little, and he thought: maybe im not a curse

and he said: i love you

the day after, she died in a car crash

the car brutalized

her body brutalized

his heart brutalized

coincidence? he says out loud at the entrance of another foster home. because it needs to be said. because lies always become crystal clear when said out loud.      

bc of this he's never directly expressed love for anyone and he tends to distance himself from people just to make sure there's 0 risk of him causing someone's death

but if he does care for someone he shows this through actions (no i love yous because that's what he believes caused his foster mothers death)            

he's always had people he's cared about, people he's wanted to protect and keep safe

but ever since the car crash, hes never had anyone hes wanted to say i love you to     

until     

[enter kevin day]         

the first person that consumed him was kevin, the boy that sought him out in high school with desperation in his eyes, raving about a sport that had made andrews days in juvie a little more bearable. 

the man that always appeared on television with a cardboard smile stamped onto his face, always a step behind riko moriyama, always hiding in his shadow.

the man that inexplicably made yet another appearance in andrews life, this time with a shattered hand and a plea for help.

the man that pushed and pulled andrew just enough to get him through another day, another week.        

and then neil, so different from kevin and yet so alike, as sudden as a gunshot, as tantalizing as death. 

the boy that's as invested in riko and kevin as andrew is. 

the boy that is impenetrable and distrusting, the boy that lets no one in. 

at first andrew thinks he's safe. as long as neil doesn't let anyone in, that means andrew won't have to let him in. and kill him.

aha sike. turns out neil is the trusting-no-one-but-andrew-minyard-and-kevin-day type           

the three of them form a twisted complicated pyramid; each side leaning against the other two. immovable. strong. inseparable, unless andrew deliberately pushes himself away when the feeling ballooning in his chest is too much.

(although he will always get pulled back in. the gravity of neil and kevin is too strong for andrew to stay away.)

he promises to protect them because that's what he does for the people he cares about.

but falling in love is a whole other ball game.

andrew is so afraid.

afraid to love them, afraid to let them in.

he knows he can't allow it; every time he thinks of how much he feels for them, he remembers the car, the shattered windows, the pieces of glass tipped with blood.

but andrew is only human.

even if he tells himself not to fall in love, the heart and body tend to ignore the mind.

he let’s himself be selfish

the hard press of kevin's lips against his, the gentle tug of neils fingers threaded through his hair, a hand clamped against neils neck and the other gripping kevin's arm.

that is all andrew allows

he doesn't mind if kevin and neil go gallivanting off somewhere on their own (s a f e l y; if those idiots get taken by the yakuza it would be extremely inconvenient for andrew)((andrew: dammit now i have to save them from the mafia nicky: you don't have t- andrew: no im gonna)), even if it prods unpleasantly at a sensitive point in his heart. if they're happy, hes happy. 

(well, not quite happy. satisfied is the proper word. and he supposes that's the most he can ask for.)       

he doesn't tell them about the nightmares. the dreams of fire and blood and twisted metal, of fists and a curse and a small, dark room. more often than not neil will wake to find andrew sliding out of his bunk and going to the kitchen for a bowl of ice cream.

neil won't pry, but he'll wake kevin and they'll join andrew in the kitchen, standing on the other side of the counter from andrew with their shoulders pressed together, a reminder to each other and andrew that they are there for each other.         

and then neil disappears. like a dream. like smoke. 

andrew took his eyes off neil for one second, and neil vanished in the crowd of angry fans.

they search and search but neil is gone.

all they find is neils exy racket lying on the ground in pieces, broken from the stampede of fans.

andrew whispers, the words dredged from a desperate, vulnerable place inside him: i love you. neil, i love you. come back to me. come back to kevin. come back to us.     

the next day, the fbi tells them that they found neils gym bag. it was covered with tire tracks and spattered with blood.

they couldn’t find neil.    

and the pyramid falls.

the grief and guilt and heartbreak andrew feels is unparalleled. never has he felt so broken. never has he felt so dirty. he did this. he did this.

kevin insists neil is still alive. lost and floating, but alive

but andrew knows better.

his nightmares get worse. sprinkled in with the mauled car and heavy fists is a shattered exy stick, a gym bag dripping blood, an unreachable figure with red hair and a slash of a smile.

andrew spirals. 

he refuses to speak to anyone. even kevin. he'll stay with kevin and press his palm into the side of kevin's neck, his pulse grounding andrew and keeping him in the here and now, but he will not speak.    

cabeswater brought gansey back right and i feel like the one closest to magic would be renee (thank you neils jortventures fairy magic huzzah) except she doesn't use magic. 

so remember how she was affiliated with a gang when she was young 

there was a member of the gang that continued to reach out to her, especially once they escaped from the gang a little after renee did

renee did respond to their messages, but she tried not to initiate conversation because they were part of her old life and she was living and loving her new one. 

essentially she was nice enough not to cut them out completely. 

unfortunately the kid got caught up in another gang that was closely associated with the butcher of baltimore

when nathan dies they text renee about how their gang is in pieces because the butcher is dead. 

renee isnt there to receive the message right away (she and andrew were sparring, as they were keen to do now that neil was gone and andrew was out of sorts) and kevin is the one to catch the word butcher when the notification pops up

he scrambles for renees phone and sees: the butcher is dead.

he is so relieved because the butcher, the man kevin always had to fear and avoid, is dead

and then he starts to think

neil’s father was the butcher. does this have something to do with neil? was the butcher the one that took neil? if the butcher is dead, does that mean neil is still alive?

it’s a bit of a stretch, but kevin is willing to believe anything if it means that neil is alive

he tells andrew

he doesn't expect andrew to do anything but he still wants to tell him, just so that andrew will know, just so that kevin himself can taste the words.

kevin asks renee if they can reach out and she's like wtf y'all doing going through my phone but she understands how hard it hit them, andrew especially, and if it'll help them she'll go along   

they meet up with the kid

renee seems nice enough, but andrew can tell how strained she is by the way she keeps cracking her knuckles one by one

they get the info from the kid about a red haired blue eyed cut up burned kid

kevin is distraught about the cut up burned part

andrew is close to vomiting from a whirlwind of relief (they never said he was dead) and denial and fear for neil

he refuses to get his hopes up; he said the cursed words. he saw the blood on neils’s gym bag. he saw the shattered exy stick. (or was that a dream? his nightmares and reality are so tightly interwoven he can hardly tell what's real)

the kid warns kevin and andrew that the last time they saw neil was in the basement and that the probablity of him still being there is relatively low

kevin makes a sort of impatient gesture at the kid and they bring kevin and andrew to the house (renee stays behind; she made a lame excuse about needing to make a phone call but she just wanted to give them space, either to reunite with neil or grieve their loss a second time)

from the outside, it’s a nice looking house and it doesn’t look threatening in the least, but andrew knows how deceiving appearances can be

once they go inside everything is in shambles. the couch overturned, the tv screen cracked in multiple places, ceiling plaster and pieces of porcelain all over the counters and dining table

the kid points them to the basement

kevin is the first to go down

andrew is surprised mainly because kevin is usually always so careful

andrew follows more warily, afraid to find nothing, afraid to find neil; afraid to have his heart broken all over again, afraid of the prospect that he has wasted his entire life living a lie.

he reaches the basement to find kevin wrapped around a small beat up, bruised, burnt, and shivering lump.

neil is hurt and bloody, and it drives a stake through andrew’s heart, but the fact that neil is breathing and alive alive alive causes a different kind of pain, the unique pain of relief and sorrow and love swirled together.

kevin is stroking neils hair and very obviously trying not to have a panic attack and andrew goes to them

sits down

both kevin and neil look up at him, and andrew watches as some of the fear and pain in their eyes fades.

he can feel the words bubbling up and he wants to say them, to scream them, but they are stuck inside his throat, twisted around his tongue.

it is a language andrew has taught himself to unlearn.

the road to healing is rocky and dangerous, but easier to traverse when you have someone behind you

it’s even easier when you have two people behind you, people who have seen what you have seen, people who make an effort to understand you.

andrew eventually does say it.

the words, no longer cursed, are still clumsy and fall in a messy jumble at his feet

but there they are, light as a cloud, heavy as a storm:

i love you

[callsignbaphomet]

Quick Tips for New Players pt. 2

You can roll through roars. Each monster type has different timing and will require a bit of practice to get it right but once you do it'll make fights a cakewalk.

To be fair you actually CAN roll through some lesser attacks but it takes practice to get the frames right. No, this isn't like Dark Souls where rolling through everything makes you invulnerable. Take some time to see which attacks you can safely roll through.

Every monster attack is heavily telegraphed and if you pay attention you can completely avoid all their attacks. For example right before Rathian does her air flip to hit you with her tail she will crouch lower, her roar will be a guttural growl and then she'll jump.

Every monster except for Bazelguese and Deviljho (correct if wrong) sticks to a certain path and area. As you get familiarized with the game you'll learn where they hang out and which camps to spawn in.

Gunlance users and HBG users. For the love of all that is sane please be considerate of your partners! When a Gunlance user uses Wyvern's Fire or an HBG user fires cluster bombs it sends your partner's flying. Not only will it prevent someone from attacking a monster and doing more damage to it it will also stagger a player and will prevent them from evading an attack and that could cause them to cart. The fault is all yours. So be mindful of cluster bombs and Wyvern's Fire. Don't be that person that spams that shit without regard.

Flashpods are only effective three times during the fight on tempered monsters. It's best to save them for when the monster is limping away to its nest where things can get super risky and hectic. Looking at you, Kushala.

Make use of the training room. It's fantastic! Spend some time labbing a weapon and get a feel for it. Also any items you use there will not be consumed so go ahead and test out a build and use some demon juice or powder or what have you to see how much damage you're doing.

Every weapon is capable of inflicting status effects (poison, paralysis, sleep, blast) it's just that some have an easier time doing it and with more consistency. For ranged weapons the best option is the Light Bowgun. For bladed weapons it's the Dual Blades. But even the painfully slow Great Sword can inflict ailments.

Speaking of ailments. Every time you poison, sleep, paralyze or add blast to a monster its resistances to that ailment go up. It doesn't mean you won't be able to do it again, it just means each time it gets a status effect it'll take more hits than the last time to get the effect. There are ways to make it easier like charms or decorations or you can eat for Felyne Specialist at the canteen.

Speaking of the canteen, if you scroll all the way to page 4 you'll have 6 slots to make your own menu. This allows you to save menus that have Food Skills you wanna make use of during a quest. Oh and FYI the "daily" skills ain't daily. They change every time you spawn back into Astera. I have no idea why they chose daily.

You can cancel any healing or buffing in case you need to get the fuck outta dodge or avoid an attack. Just roll. If you do it early enough the item won't be consumed.

When you heal using a potion or mega potion your character wipes their mouth. You can cancel that animation by rolling as soon as your health bar has recovered. Ain't much but it sure as shit could save your ass.

Lance users please stop "running over" your partners when y'all are attacking a monster. See #5 for reasons why you should cut that shit out. Now!

Low Rank and early High Rank players should definitely take advantage of festivals. Not only because of the events but because during festivals, up in the Gathering Hub, the canteen will have a special platter which is guaranteed to give you more health and stamina. You can only get it up at the Gathering Hub.

Do not throw away, sell or trade decorations when you start out in High Rank. Every decoration is useful and you never know how you'll change your playstyle in the future. Some of these are extremely hard to come by so keep them. Once you've established yourself a little better and are holding about 500 Palico Rally decos then you can trade them.

Hold off on trading Gleaming Stones at the smelder. I highly suggest you augment your armor first. I know it's tempting but these are a bit of a pain to come across and you REALLY will need augmented armors for end game and especially for when Iceborne drops.

Augmentation is unlocked the very second you get you hands on a Hero Streamstone or a Sullied Streamstone. Just do some tempered investigations, either threat level 2 or 3. Chances of getting one or the other are strictly RNG based. There is no way to know if you'll get it. Just keep at it and eventually one will drop.

The Siege of Kulve Taroth is super fun and can be done as soon as you're done with the main storyline. Not only do you get some really neat weapons but you can also make KT's Alpha, Beta and Gamma armors (I suggest the Beta and Gamma). Once you crafted the armor you want I suggest selling all of her materials for Zenny (the game's currency). You always end up with a bunch of materials and they sell for high easily netting you over a million. Just don't sell her gems.

With the exception of KT you should never sell any monster materials especially hard to come by pieces like tails and gems and plates. You never know which weapon or charm or armor piece you may need in the future.

If you wanna join a quest I highly advice you avoid any that have been ongoing for more than 8 minutes. Once the quest hits 10 minutes and you join you won't get any rewards. Unless you don't care for getting rewards, in that case join whenever the heck you want.

Deviation is the recoil or kick from each trigger pull. Recoil allows you to move as you shoot. All rapid fire ammo (the ammo with a white arrow pointing up) benefits from this. 3 Recoil Suppressor mods are mandatory for rapid fire ammo. You only really wanna do this for LBG. No matter how high the Deviation is it's super quick to adjust to and frankly after a few quests you won't even notice it. The wording in this game can be frustratingly confusing.

Insect Glaive users should also upgrade their kinsects along with the Glaive. Make sure you pair up the right kinsect with the right Glaive for maximum efficiency. Imma save you a lot of time and headaches. Grancathar III, Whispervesp III, and Pseudocath III are the best ones. All the others really suck. The kinsect from the Final Fantasy questline is absolute shit until you upgrade it.

If you're looking to hunt a specific monster with other players just hit Join a Quest, Respond to SOS and scroll down to Target and choose the monster you need. Some are easier to get than others but keep trying.

If you're going to join Low Rank quests don't be that asshole that never actually helps and just wants to show off. Actually help the host. Debuffing yourself is stupid as fuck.

It may feel a little intimidating at first but the hud has all the information you need. Pay close attention to it especially during a quest.

When you hover over a quest all the information about it is laid out right in front of you. It will tell you the time limit, reward, small monsters in the area, will say if it's a slaying, hunting or capturing quest so be sure to read everything carefully so you're prepared.

As you hunt monsters your Hunter's Notes get updated. Check back every once in a while to see what new info it has to offer.

Yeah, the game autosaves frequently but it's never a bad thing to manually save. I've had the game freeze and crash on me while I tried to join a game.

I highly suggest you get very well acquainted with the dive dodge. It will save your life! Remember, it can be done while running AWAY from a monster but it has to be within reach.

Some attacks will knock you down and if you don't press any buttons you'll just lay there for a few seconds. This can be super useful to avoid a fast follow up attack as NOTHING will touch you while you lay there. As you get familiar with the monsters and their attacks you'll learn when to get up and run and when to just lay there for a few seconds longer so that the attack completely whiffs.

HBG users, yeah you can put shield mods. In fact, it's kind of a really good idea to do so because putting away that weapon is painfully slow. However, you only really need just 1. Literally 1 is enough.

There can only be three monsters per map. Every time one leaves the area it's replaced by another. Do keep an eye on this HR as the missing monster can be replaced by Deviljho or Bazelguese.

Adamant Pills cure Guard Down.

Demon Powder, Might Seed, Adamant Seed and Hardshell Powder last for 3 minutes. Adamant Pill and Might Pill last for 20 seconds. Armorskin, Mega Armorskin, Mega Demondrug and Demondrug last until quest completed or you faint. Dash Juice lasts for 4 minutes. Also Might and Adamant Seeds, Adamant and Might Pills cancel each other out so you can only consume one or the other, can't eat both a seed and a pill.

Your buffs and debuffs show up next to your name on the screen. You can tell when a buff is about to go out when it starts rapidly blinking. Same for the powered up Kinsects. When they're about to go out they'll blink rapidly.

When you mount a monster quickly avert your eyes to the top right corner of the screen the game itself will tell you when to brace, attack or move. Don't look at anything else! Eventually you'll learn when to do what but it's just safer to watch the commands.

Your character doesn't level up in the traditional sense, your gear does. A level 29 could have far better gear and builds than a level 49. Don't let the Hunter Rank fool you.

Kelbi horns are fantastic items to have. Find a Kelbi with big horns and smack it in the face with a blunt attack, for example the shield of the Sword and Shield, to make the horns fall off.

Wanna talk to one person in particular in the session. Press options, triangle, hover over their name, click on chat, open the chat option and type.

Listen, no Elder Dragon in MHW (pre Iceborne) is weak to the dragon element. None. Taking a weapon with dragon element into an ED fight is just going to prolong the fight. You can get the Elder Seal effect by the dragon pods that they drop themselves. If you have the space for it the Elderseal decoration can up the effect of these pods. Dragon element weapons against Elder Dragons = horrible idea.