#i used most of my weapons. I PARRIED THEM

[devotedlystrangewizard]

not to be really sentimental but i think the relative ease with which i beat v2 in 4-4 after struggling so much in 1-4 less than a week prior to it is just. so neat

[foxstens]

turns out parrying isn’t that hard

[thenightcallsme]

Do I Make you Nervous? | Simon "Ghost" Riley

little re-upload from my AO3 :)

Synopsis: When Task Force 141 is betrayed by Philip Graves, they're forced to separate. Y\N fights her way through the foreign Las Almas with a broken radio and no sense of direction. Yet, somehow, she finds herself in the same church her lieutenant, Simon "Ghost" Riley, seeks sanctuary in. As they attempt to brave the storm sweeping through the streets, the infamously unreadable Ghost challenges their professional relationship.

Pairing: Ghost x F!141reader

Contains: fluff, kissing, use of Y/N, hint of angst but resolved in the end, vague mentions of blood/wounds

Word count: 5,874

• • • • •

It was all a set-up. A lie.

Disappointment and anger triumphs any sadness over Grave's betrayal. At first, he came across as over-confident in that stereotypical male way. Over time I had warmed up to him. But Shepherd? The man who has given me the most freedom I’ve had in a long time? I admit that my use as a weapon to him has put a strain on our companionship, but to station me with my own cousin only to lash out unprovoked? He’s crossed a line that he can never come back from. The small liking I had for the man vanished as soon as shit hit the fan. Everything seems to replay in my mind. Alejandro insulted and detained, Johnny shot at, Ghost cornered...

There were too many of them to fight off. I couldn't trust myself to hold my own with my mind worrying over Johnny, Alejandro and Ghost while also plotting Shepherd's death. So, though it pained me, I ran. Ghost and Johnny did the same. 

My radio was damaged in the incident. A stray bullet flew my way, and with a stroke of luck, grazed the radio instead of my ribs. The close call was enough warning to run, which is what I do now. The lack of communication only worsens the worry.

Shadows crawl in the streets of Las Almas like rats in a sewer. From door to door they go, yelling at innocent civilians in the late hours of dusk. From the conversations I've heard, they're looking for two foreign men and their female friend. They don't quite explain why we're being hunted, but the truth wouldn't change much. Every so often, a shot fires, echoing through the streets like a warning bell. A call of sorrow and fear.

With the Shadows forcing their way into civilian homes and raising their weapons against anyone who could harbour us, houses and shops aren't safe. The towering cathedral spires peeking above tin roofs and stacked houses catch my attention instead. Nobody would be inside at this time of night. For now, it's the best I can do. Also to my luck, the church isn't too far away. I take my time and keep to the shadows on my way. With a quick survey of my surroundings, I know I've bet the Shadows to this part of the city. That won't last long. The revelation has me jumping the gate within seconds of making it.

Inside the church is pitch black. Towering windows that tell biblical tales line the walls, casting light in intervals across the empty foyer. Rows of seats begin to emerge as my eyes adjust. Further back is an intricate, circular skylight tens of feet above the marble floor. Illuminating the altar below is a waterfall of silvery light. The giant cross, gold statues, and wooden altar glow like I'm looking through a blurred lens. The view is both eerie and magical...and not meant to be marvelled at in a time like this. My focus should be maintaining high ground. I begin to turn in search of a staircase when something shifts in the darkness.

A figure materialises, tall and built; easily a male physically capable of snapping my neck. My next best option is the gun strapped to my hip to parry the one in his hand. I go to reach for mine—

“Y/N?”

I freeze in surprise, but my mind eases slightly.

“Lieutenant? How—”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re here now.” He looks down at me with searching eyes. “You in one piece?”

“Yes. You—?” At that moment, my own eyes skim his body, only to halt at a worrying sight. On the left side of his waist, just above the waistband of his pants, is a blooming, dark red stain on his shirt. He’s been shot. “Jesus, Ghost. How bad is it?”

“I’ve had worse—”

He stops himself at the distant shouting. The surrounding streets haven’t been quiet since I’ve been in the church, but this time it grows closer. Angrier. Ghost doesn’t waste time ushering me along in search of a stairwell. The one we find leads to the second floor, then a third. Eventually, we discover the central bell tower. The room is dank and cold and decently big. Suspended in the middle is a gigantic bell. Even in the dark, I can see how weathered the metal is. The worn wooden floors creak as we cross it. On each wall are arched openings that allow entry to the cold night air and terrified screams. A small cluster of discarded furniture draped in white sheets huddles in a corner. From here, we have a perfect view of the sprawling city and winding streets. To those down there, we’re invisible.

Simon leans back against a wall and grunts, his hands brushing over the bullet wound. He pulls back his hands to inspect the fresh blood. However bad it is, it’s still bleeding.

“Show me,” I say. My voice comes out more demanding than I intend.

He gives me a brief exasperated look but doesn’t push back.

Ghost sits against the wall with his shoulders slumped just enough to reach my level. His jacket is unzipped, his black shirt rolled up halfway. Those tired, piercing eyes and muscular arms are the most I've ever seen of him. It feels like a reward when the weather is unforgiving enough to chase away his usual long-sleeve or jacket. His arms are tanned and muscled, with a tattoo sleeve working from the wrist of his left arm up to his elbow. I’ve begun to accept that it’s the closest I’m ever going to get to seeing him. But now I stare down at his bare abdomen.

The waistband of his black cargo pants sits low on his hips, offering a distracting view of a pronounced V-line and abs. In the moonlight, I can make out the reminders of war that mark his skin; a few silvery scars, some clean-cut, some gnarled and twisted; an old bullet wound healed closer to his ribs. The fresh one with the most of my attention is buried in a more acceptable spot. It nestles into the far right side of his waist, thankfully nowhere near any vital organs. However, it’s still a bullet wound and it still bleeds. That’s enough to worry me.

“Do you reckon it’s bad?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I wouldn’t say I’m dying.”

“But we aren’t in the position to get proper help. Maybe sit down for a bit.” Surprisingly, he does so without question. I get to my feet, draw a small knife from my thigh holster, and rip a strip of fabric from the white sheets. When I drop back down beside him, I take a deep breath. “Here"

He takes it with a mumbled thank you and wraps the fabric around his waist.

“You heard from John?” I ask.

Simon winces as he adjusts the torn sheet. “I radioed him multiple times. Never got an answer.”

“Are you surprised by all this?”

Simon leans back against the wall. “I tend to be less surprised by betrayal. But I had some respect for Shepherd.”

I sigh, shuffling around him so that I can do the same. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Survive,” he says. “Shepherd wants you alive. Graves will see to that. He can’t kill Alejandro, either. But Johnny and I…” He shakes his head. “Graves won’t sleep until there’s a bullet in our heads and Shepherd won’t care enough to stop it.”

There’s a moment of silence as I fold my arms and look away thoughtfully. How are we supposed to do this? The blanket of night and the ensuing storm may offer some cover, but getting out of the city will be a mission. I can’t bring myself to leave without John, either. My heart hurts when I think about him. He could be anywhere, alone and outnumbered while I sit uselessly in a bell tower.

“What do we do about Johnny?” My voice is quiet. Fearful. “My radio was damaged so I couldn’t reach out to him. Maybe his is the same. But not knowing… He’s the only family I have left. My only real friend.”

“Don’t worry about Johnny. He’s one of the most resourceful and strong-willed Sergeants I’ve dealt with in a while. Have faith in him.” He looks at me then, tilting his head to the side. “I wouldn’t say he’s your only friend.”

“I do quite like his girlfriend…” I murmur.

“And Alejandro? Ronaldo?”

I purse my lips as his question draws thought. I’ve been considering Alejandro and Ronaldo as allies. Companions. But I’ve grown quite fond of them. Considering them as friends would set me up for heartache if anything were to happen. So I haven’t… At least openly. Despite my attempts to create some distance in our relationships, my subconscious has decided for me. Those two are my friends. It explains the immense distress I’m battling over Alejandro’s capture.

“I guess so.”

“Me?”

Silence ensues from both of us.

His question stuns me; I was prepared for him to stop at Alejandro and Ronaldo. There’s nobody else in Las Almas or back at home that I pay attention to. Besides Ghost, at least. I could answer him in a second. I almost do.

Ghost is infamous for his detachment. He’s quiet, short-tempered, dangerous and mysterious. I’ve heard the comments that he suits his code name. Spiritual beings do not communicate through speech but through action. Ghost is the physical embodiment of the epiphany. Anybody able to coax a few sentences from him outside missions is admirable. Outside of that, his physical emotions require deep analysis and theory to understand. The mask only makes things more difficult. I’ve never seen him show palpable kindness through his aura or words to anyone, never heard him allow the use of his name, never heard him offer others insight into the raging whirlwind of his mind.

And yet he lets those things slide around me.

He lets me speak his name when no one is listening. He offers me comfort when I need it most — if not through limited words, through soft gazes and a hand on my shoulder. I’m usually able to get him talking. Sometimes I receive short answers, sometimes I receive enough to help me understand more of that whirlwind mind. He even occasionally shows pieces of himself that take away from the guessing game I usually play.

I shut people out because the last people I let in betrayed me.

I never consider answering personal questions, but you tend to have a lot of them. And every time you ask…I almost answer

I guess you and I are more alike than I thought.

All of it has me wanting more. More of his mind, his words, the soft gazes I’ve noticed are reserved for me. What I already have is nothing compared to every naked truth he could be telling me. However, what I’ve managed to coax from him seems to be more than he’s told anyone in a long time. At first, I marked it down as me being the only female on the team or Ghost considered me fragile. But I've proved myself, and nothing about being a 'fragile female' (which I very well am not) does not automatically give me all these passes. I now realise it is much more than that.

Never once has he called me his friend. I already have. Now it’s his turn.

“I don’t mind you, Simon, but friendship can’t be one-sided,” I say. While it’s a simple statement, a silent question hides between each word. Are you my friend?

“If it was as one-sided as you think, you wouldn’t be calling me Simon.”

My heart skips a beat. There. It’s an answer to my unspoken words, but it’s not plain as day. As usual, Simon tells me something that is anything but straightforward. There’s room for interpretation in his answer—something that is beginning to tire me. It’s almost as if the honest answer is criminal and he’s trying to cover up his tracks. Almost as if not speaking that honest answer can allow him to deny it.

I don't bother concealing my annoyance. “That’s not what I want to hear and you know it.”

“Fuck sakes, Y\N, I said it,” he says. His voice comes out both argumentative and exasperated.

“No, you didn't. All I ever get out of you is stuff that works around the truth. Stuff I have to think about to understand.” I'm crossing a line, I know. I just can't help it. “What’s so hard about admitting it?”

“Don’t.”

His tone is final. I don’t care.

“Does the truth scare you?”

His eyes squint, becoming barely visible against the black paint, the mask, and the low light. I can clearly picture a scowl jumping across the many faces I’ve imagined. While I want to flinch away, I don’t. Not for a second do my eyes lower, and not for a second do I grow offensive. I remain calm and collected, which I think annoys him more.

“You want the truth?” he growls. The accent of Manchester seems to thicken. “Fine. I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t want to admit I think of you as a friend ‘cause I bloody well want to ignore it. For years, it’s only been me and I planned it to be for the rest of my life. Then all of a sudden you and your annoying cousin appear and jeopardise everything. The only person with an inkling of anything was Shepherd and I was fine with that. But now you’re catching up to him. You’ve so effortlessly undone everything I’ve worked hard to maintain.” The growl in his voice dies down the longer he speaks. In the last sentence, his voice is quiet, defeated, but a little begrudging. “And I knowingly let you.”

“If it was bothering you that much, you should have told me,” I say with a voice equally as quiet. “If I knew you didn’t want me to know so badly, I would have respected that.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t understand. I think about telling you everything. I may get pissy at you over your questions, but…” A sigh. The truth is shameful to him. “I look forward to them.”

“If it makes you feel any better…” I laugh a little. “It’s really annoying how intriguing you are. Not just your past and your face… When I’m not trying to guess what you look like, I’m refraining from asking you stupid questions. Shit like if you’re a cat or dog person.”

“Dog person,” he replies. Any hint of anger or annoyance has disappeared. “Cats have too much attitude.”

I squint. “You just don’t appreciate them.”

“You strike me as a cat person.” He pauses in thought. “You just remind me of a cat, really.”

I raise my brows, giving him an exasperated look. “Are you going to tell me I have an attitude?”

“Maybe. But there’s more to it.”

I cock my head in question.

“Cats are friendly. Independent.” His eyes shift and I wonder if there's a smirk beneath the mask. “Curious.”

“Was that another dig at my questions?”

“Yes. Now shut up and listen.”

Before he continues, I find myself turning my body so I can fully look at him, my shoulder against the concrete walls and my legs folded beneath me.

“There’s that look in their eyes that they know your worst thoughts. Your secrets. They’re also graceful. Got that high-class elegance about them. But they can be unpredictable, striking out when you least expect. Once they sink their claws into you…” His eyes search my face. “You can’t get rid of them.”

I look up at him in wonder, my mouth slightly agape as I try to find a suitable response. Nothing I could say would express the way his words sink in. I’ve always coined Simon to be the observant type, keeping to himself and remaining silent. But I never expected him to relay his finds. His usual short, sharp answers contrast the compliment greatly.

“I think…” A small smile curves my lips upwards. “…That was the most meaningful compliment I’ve ever gotten.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Never. Now I have a question.”

“The floor is yours.”

“Do you have, like, Queen Elizabeth tattooed on your face? The British flag?” I grin. “Something mask-worthy, you know?”

“Why does it have to be something British?”

“Because there’s no way you’re the only Brit I know that isn’t somewhat stereotypical.”

Simon huffs a laugh. “No stereotypical tattoos. Sorry to disappoint.”

“A big scar, then?”

He tilts his head. “No scars that make me want to wear it.”

I raise my brows. “So you do have a scar?”

“Only one big one.”

“Good to know.” I nod my head with thoughtful eyes. “I’ll add that to a mental note.”

His eyes widen a fraction. The skull sown to his balaclava only offers the view of his painted eyes and nothing. Not even his eyebrows. I guess he’s raising them in question.

“How often do you think about this?”

I let out a long breath. “You have no idea. I change what I think you look like every day.”

“What do you think I look like.”

I go quiet in thought for a moment. As I said, the image changes… Only more frequently than I want to admit. Sometimes the change is small. Sometimes the change is big. I know I’m not the only one stumped by this, either. John and I joked over it once. He said things eluding to him being unattractive. A crooked nose, a huge scar, broken teeth. Every time he made a guess I would laugh, but never did the ideas seep into my mind. Nothing in an unattractive sense, anyway. Despite the possibility, I can never picture him as ugly.

“It varies, but…” I take one last second to collect my thoughts. “Without that skull piece, you have dark eyebrows. I imagine your hair is brown. And you’re eyes…it’s hard to tell with the paint, but they’re more deep-set and heavy-lidded. The balaclava is tight enough to make me think you have a straight nose, high cheekbones, strong jaw…” I shake my head. “Beyond that, I’m stumped.”

I can tell he thinks deeply about each characteristic. I sit patiently and almost wait for confirmation, but I know better than that. If he’s not going to show his face, he’s not going to—

“My hair is brown.”

I’m about to backtrack on my previous thought when he reaches towards the space between my neck and shoulder. In the frenzy that has been the last hour, my hair has come undone. The braid was unsavable, making me pull out the band and attempt a ponytail…only for it to snap in two. My hair now falls in dishevelled waves. A small part of my hair falls over my shoulder. Simon gingerly reaches for it, curling it between his finger and examining it in the low light. …Can he hear how fast my heart is beating?

“Not like yours. A few shades lighter, maybe. And that scar…”

Even more gingerly, Simon pulls one of my hands from its folded position, and I pray my expression doesn’t betray me. Rough, calloused hands press against the back of mine. The size difference is almost comical. He guides it to his masked face, working his fingers working around mine to spread them out. He drags my hand over his right cheekbone, across the hollow of his cheek, and towards his jaw. My mind is hyper-fixated on the shape of his face.

“Right along there.”

His eyes continue to search my face. There’s nothing but curiosity in the blue-grey of his irises. Curious at what, I can’t tell. Everything about this has my mind raging. The way he looks at me, the way he holds my hand against the black balaclava, the way he towers over me even when sitting down... The thoughts that surface are shameful. He’s your lieutenant, for Christ’s sake. Have some respect. The remembrance of his position has little help.

If anything, it strengthens the fantasies.

His hold shifts on top of my hand, the pad of his thumb swiping across my skin to stop on the inner side of my wrist and press down. He may not have been able to hear my heartbeat…but now he can feel it at the worst possible moment.

“You’re heart is beating fast.” He inclines his head. “Do I make you nervous, Y\N?”

God, is my breathing even? I can’t tell.

“You just caught me off guard, is all.”

Simon hums thoughtfully as his hand breaks away from mine and reaches forward. His fingers connect with my collarbone before finding my neck, exploring upwards in search of a pulse point. A shiver of excitement and nervousness runs beneath my skin like a ripple. His other hand slides over my knee and up my thigh. If my heart was racing before, this is a life-or-death sprint.

Slow are his movements. Calculated. He knows exactly where my heartbeat reverberates in my neck. Instead, he drags the moment out, coaxing out his desired reaction. But there’s something else in the slowness: a window for me to flinch away and draw the physical line neither of us has ever drawn. We’ve brushed shoulders and hands. We’ve sat with our bodies aligned in cramped cars. He’s held my hair back in a bathroom as I threw up after a panicked episode (something I would like to forget if he wasn't so surprisingly understanding). He's placed a hand on my shoulder for many different reasons. All are excusable moments. The ones that surpass professional boundaries can be marked as friendly. However, the intimacy of this moment is new. Scary. Exciting.

“Did you know your bottom lip twitches before you lie?” Simon asks. I find myself at eye level with him. When did he get so close? “I don’t like lies. Try again.”

“Sometimes…” I breathe.

“Sometimes, what?”

Bastard. “Sometimes you make me nervous.”

“Why?”

“Because…” I frown. “I don’t know.”

He’s definitely leaning closer now. Not just with his head, but with his whole upper body. Out of the nerves Simon is so adamant on understanding, I retreat, only making it a few inches before my back hits the other wall. Simon half hovers over me, the hand that was on my thigh now bracing himself on the floor. There are only a few inches between our chests. Even less between our faces. Not once does he lose his connection with my pulse.

“Another lie.”

“I don’t know how to word it. That's not a lie.”

Simon drops his head so that his covered mouth hovers beside my ear.

“Good girl.”

Never has praise sounded so seductive. It takes every inch of concentration to reign in my self-control. I might have ripped off his mask then and there…

Only, I think he’s beating me to it.

From where his head hovers, I can’t see his masked face. The wide, strong shape of his shoulder obscures most of my vision. He retracts his hand from my neck to reach somewhere I can’t see. The sound of moving cloth widens my eyes and upsets the rhythm of my breathing, the uneven rise and fall of my chest barely brushing his.

Maybe he’s adjusting it, I convince myself. He has only ever offered you little pieces at a time. What he’s offering me now is more than he ever has at once. While my body screams for more, my mind knows I can’t expect too much from him. Whatever he’s doing now is more than enough.

“You’re breathing funny.”

The feeling of breath skims the shell of my ear and down my neck like a warm, ghostly waterfall. It takes me a second to notice a difference in his voice. It’s low, it’s rough, it’s teasing. All are easily noticeable and nothing new. What is new is the enhanced clarity. An added sharpness lingers in his accented words. The slight muffle is nowhere to be found.

I was wrong. He’s lifted his mask.

“Because you’re taking off your mask." My answer comes out in a weak whisper.

He doesn’t speak about the mask, instead repositioning his hand to my neck to find my pulse.

“If you can’t tell me,” he murmurs, returning to the previous topic, “your heartbeat can.”

A warm feeling presses into my neck. A gasp slips past my lips as my heartbeat continues to quicken and stumble beneath his thumb. Against my skin…I think Simon is smiling.

Nothing about this seems real. Simon plants slow kisses on my neck with his bare lips. They’re a little rough, yet soothing. Whether they’re full or thin, I can’t tell, but the lack of obvious signs paints an image of something in between. His nose brushes the base of my jaw. Just above the pointed tip is where the balaclava begins. I can feel the hard edges of the sewn-on skull pressing into my left temple. Light stubble covers his jaw.

As his mouth works slowly against my neck, my jaw, and my collarbone, my hand slides up and over his chest. I slowly feel his bare neck. Beneath my fingers, his Adam's apple bobs. Further I explore, feeling the planes of his skin. The stubble scratches against my curious hand. Raised skin runs in a line over the right side of his face; the scar. It’s thin and generally clean-cut. He pulls back slightly as I feel his face. A deep chuckle rumbles in his chest as my thumb traces over his lips. I was right, they are something between full and thin. His lower lip feels slightly fuller with a deep hollow beneath that curves into his chin.

When I find it in me to speak, my voice is breathy.

“Kiss me.” He seems to still at that. When his reply isn’t instant, I continue. “You don’t have to… But I won’t look. I swear it.”

Silently, he reaches for my hand. He holds his over mine for a moment as he did with the mask moments earlier. Then he gently pries it away. Cloth shifts in my air as he fixes the mask and pulls back. I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I respect the decision. Simon looks down at me with lust-blown pupils. Mine must be the same.

He takes a second to examine me. My heavy-lidded eyes, my slightly parted lips, the way I slump beneath him, the glistening wet spots left on my neck. He whips it away before he speaks.

“Can I trust you?”

We both know the answer to that, so instead of saying the obvious, I one-up him.

“Do you want to trust me?”

Silence passes for a heartbeat.

“Of course I do,” he says softly. “I want to trust you. I want to touch you. I want to kiss you. …Undress you. I’ve wanted to for so long.”

Then he moves.

My thoughts go quiet as Simon’s hands reach upward. When his fingers brush the base of his mask, I reach out and still his hands. The action takes both of us by surprise. For months I’ve been thinking about this moment. Just now I’ve admitted how much what he looks like takes up my mind. Now I find myself stopping him, but not because I’ve changed my mind. I worry that this will be something he’ll regret.

“Simon,” I say. “You don’t owe it to me to show your face.”

“But I do.” He inclines his head. “Now keep your pretty eyes up.”

My breath catches in my throat as he pulls it off in one swift motion. I take in everything I’m seeing in amazement, wonder, and bewilderment.

He’s handsome. He’s really handsome.

The ruggedness and confidence he carries seem to be etched into the planes of his face. A light stubble shadows his angular, defined jaw. Just as I had imagined, the bridge of his nose is straight and strong. His high cheekbones, deep-set eyes and smudged black paint create deep shadows. His mouth is wide. The shape of them is a physical manifestation of what I had imagined. With an average fullness, his upper lip is slightly smaller with a soft cupid’s bow. Tracing the angles of his right cheekbone is that straight, silver scar. His hair isn’t as short as most other military men’s. It’s a little messy from the mask and, true to his words, a few shades lighter than mine. I can tell that, the longer it gets, the more it curls.

I stay silent as I take him in, eyes wide. Somehow I find the courage to slowly reach out. His blue-grey eyes dart to my hesitant fingers. When he doesn’t deny me, I close the space, this time feeling him without needing to imagine his image. I apply a little pressure as I brush his skin, feeling the warmth of his cheeks, the scar tissue on his cheekbone, and the stubble on his jaw. His eyes train on me. This is one of the few times I cannot understand what I see in them.

Whatever he’s thinking, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I stare back at Simon. Not Ghost, Simon.

“I was starting to think you weren’t real,” I say jokingly.

He laughs softly. One side of his mouth quirks up into a skewed smirk. My heart flutters at the sight of it. When he speaks, it’s with that teasing tone that always had me imagining a smirk. Matching his expressions to his tones is a strange thing to see, but I love it.

“Is this real enough for you?” he asks.

I hum in agreement. “You’re a lot better looking than I imagined.”

He raises a brow in mock offence. “Do I radiate unattractiveness? I’m offended.”

“I never said I imagined you ugly.”

I draw my hands back, taking another good look at him. My amazed smile remains. So does the awe in my eyes. Now that I know how good-looking he is, it’s going to be hard to get him out of my head. At least I can’t scold myself over falling for a faceless man anymore.

“I guess if I die tonight… I can go a little happier.”

The way he tilts his head and looks up through lowered brows sends my mind into a frenzy. I’m used to the action with his mask on, usually with the sewn-on skull. Now, with every part of his face laid bare for me, the feeling it stirs comes tenfold. He gives me a fake accusing look. Beneath the teasing air he gives off, that desire remains.

“A little?” he murmurs. His face grows closer, giving me a better view of the hollows and curves and marks of war.

“A little not enough?”

His eyes dip to my lips. “Not by a longshot.”

Then Simon kisses me.

Eyes fluttering closed, I sink into the feeling of his lips against mine. Gently. Hesitantly. Does he expect me to pull away? How could he think such a thing when I almost seemed desperate when I asked him? My hands slide over his chest, slowly linking behind his neck as the kiss deepens.

For a moment, everything fades away. The gunfire, the screams, the impending death we may face any moment... All of it reduces to a meaningless blur. Suddenly all that exists is me, Simon, and the secret embrace we share. In our kiss is a million unspoken words; a tidal wave of passion laced with a bittersweet sadness. The talk of ‘dying happy’ is no exaggeration. We very well may die, and seeing his face and feeling his touch eases the painful thought. Maybe this way I can find him in the afterlife - seek out his mysterious eyes and lopsided smirk and spend an eternity together. Or perhaps there is no afterlife, and this is my last stroke of luck.

Satisfied with the knowledge of what he does to me, Simon lowers his hand from my neck. The pressure reapplies near my belt. His fingers timidly skim the bottom of my tanktop, pulling the tucked part from my waistband. My own fingers weave through his brown hair as his hand slides further beneath. My kiss falters when he finds one of my breasts. His hand comfortably rests over it, his palm slowly kneading at the flesh. A low groan builds at the back of my throat.

After a moment, we pull away, chests rising and falling as we take deep breaths. His forehead rests against mine and suddenly I'm wishing we could do this over again. Except I picture less sadness to tinge every word and action. I picture the safety of home, the warmth of a bed, a carefree air that allows us to just enjoy the other's company. Reality comes back in a painful rush.

“I don’t want to die,” I whisper.

His hand retreats from my breast at my words. Instead, he takes a hold of my waist, giving me a comforting squeeze.

“You are not going to die. Not today. Not when there’s so much more I want from you.” He adds the last part with a teasing, suggestive smirk.

He looks down at my lips again—

“Ghost, how do you copy?”

We both freeze at the sound of a voice, so caught up in the moment that the radio is forgotten. Both the unspeakable things and sorrowful thoughts flooding my mind suddenly vanish at the sound of a familiar voice. There’s an equally received look on Simon’s face as he reaches for the small radio.

“I read you loud and clear, Sergeant,” he says. “What’s your location?”

“I…don’t know,” John replies solemnly. “Streets are crawling with Shadows. Where are you?”

“You see church spires above the houses?”

There’s a second of silence. Then…

“I see them.”

“Good. Head straight there and come inside. No Shadows here yet. They’ll be busy going door to door.”

“Affirmative. I’m on my way. Have you got any word from Y/N?”

Simon looks at me, silently giving me the floor to speak. “I’m right here, Johnny.”

There’s a sigh of relief on the other end. “Oh, thank fuck. You in one piece?”

“I’m all here. You?”

“Got a shot to the shoulder. Nothing I can’t handle.”

For the next while, Simon and I sit huddled side by side, guiding Johnny through the radio. I generally leave the talking to Simon. Listening to him speak and sinking into his warmth is good enough. Every so often, he'll say something that takes me by surprise. Sometimes it's a dad joke, either really good or incredibly bad. Sometimes it's something that alludes to Simon not minding Johnny. He never outright admits it, but saying 'I like you alive' to Johnny's 'so you do like me' speaks for itself. I smile at that. I have sunk my claws into him, and he's not going to be able to get rid of me till the day I die.

[turbofanatic]

Inks because I love inks.

I think Tiny's got four main weapons he keeps around. Writing on them under the cut.

-The Great Fairy Sword. His favorite by far. Currently used as a one-hander (I figure it's about five feet long in Majora's Mask) it's effectively a supersized macuahuitl and his best weapon for slaying monsters. It suffers in warfare though because it's heavy and the CG is further from the hilt and therefore trades nimbleness for power. He can kill most armored people in one blow with most swords anyways, using the Great Fairy Sword just tires him out quicker, and he's getting old.

-The Faster Sword. Look. He's dumb at naming things (and so am I). It's a larger replica of the Master Sword and is the one seen with the Hero's Shade in Twilight Princess. It's got a flared ricasso for half-swording (I think that's what that flared bit is... I dunno) and a few basic enchantments to keep it from breaking or rusting. This is the one he takes to war. Apparently knowledge on how to make these maintenance enchantments/sigils is lost by the time of Breath of the Wild... sorry Righty.

-The Gilded Sword. I'm going back on my idea that nothing but him, Skullkid, and the mask escape Termina (I was making the Great Fairy Sword be a different one before, but not anymore). Because guess what! The bow from Termina is probably the Hero's Bow in Twilight Princess. So he gets to keep some things (still no masks except the last one). It's very small for him now but it gets used as a parrying dagger in duels with quicker opponents (Tiny is extremely aware of how dangerous quick little guys can be).

-The Shattered Darkfire Fang. The head of Volga's spear during the War of Eras. Tiny lost his eye to the dragon but Volga lost more. Not very well suited as a sword as it was meant for the head of a spear, but it's a masterpiece when it comes to channeling fire and dark magic, two elements he's very good at. I may change this to be something else though, but he definitely ends up taking a weapon from the War of Eras back with him.

Despite being quite good with them, Tiny refuses to use two-handed swords after the War of Eras. The mere idea terrifies him.

[noosayog]

[IT'S ALWAYS BEEN YOU] - ft. knight! iwaizumi hajime

warnings/content: princess! reader x knight/personal guard! iwa. a bit of angst, a little segue into the final chapter. no reader in this part, just a bit of groundwork for the final chapter

wc: 700

part 4.5. directory here.

--

The next course of action is not ideal for Iwaizumi. He has no choice but to return to Aoba Johsai by himself per your orders. And upon his return, he gathers Toru, Hanamaki, and Matsukawa to debrief them on the situation.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa are quick to disparage the foreign prince, calling him a sleazy womanizer and threatening to turn him into fried chicken (a slight to his unruly hair), but Toru remains uncharacteristically quiet.

“Well,” Toru says. “It is not uncommon for royal marriages. And my sister’s marriage is exactly that. Just a union of families and a show of good faith for foreign relations.”

“The Princess deserves to be happy!” Iwaizumi fires back, genuinely shocked at your brother’s clinic response.

Toru tilts his head in confusion. “You couldn’t have not known that this was a possibility with the years you’ve spent with my father.”

Iwaizumi freezes.

“To be honest, Iwa, I’m not sure I can support whatever you’re planning. You had years to act on my sister’s feelings but you always prioritized following father’s orders. How is this any different?” 
“How can you even say that,” he yells. “This is not about me. This is about your sister’s happiness. They aren’t even married yet and the Nekoma prince already has no intentions to make her happy!”

“You could have made her happy. But you chose not to. I fail to see how this is different. Why is okay for you to hurt her but not someone else?”

“I-“

“And,” Toru barrels on. “You don’t know that she won’t be happy. This might actually be a nice arrangement for her. She might finally get the freedom she has always wanted.”

Iwaizumi falls silent at this, all his flimsy excuses sliced cleanly through.

Toru lays a heavy hand on Iwaizumi’s shoulder. “I won’t help you if you’re not willing to admit why you’re really doing all this.” he says with finality, before getting up and leaving the group behind.

—

Iwaizumi drags Hanamaki to the training grounds to clear his head later that evening. The frustration growing a tangled knot in his ribcage shows no signs of loosening as he swings his wooden sword, Toru’s words still echoing.

What more does he need to admit than the shameful acknowledgement that he, your knight, has fallen in love with you and yearns for something above his station?

“- thinking about?” He hears Hanamaki ask.

Iwaizumi grunts, swinging again.

Hanamaki parries the weak blow. “Are you still thinking about what Oikawa said?”

Iwaizumi doesn’t respond, bringing his sword down again. Hanamaki swings easily, knocking Iwaizuimi’s weapon out of his hands.

“I’ll give you a hint. You should think about what happens after. Even if you are able to stop the wedding, what happens to the princess after? She comes back home and His Majesty finds another match for her? Would that make her happy?”

With a hard clap to Iwaizumi’s shoulder, Makki takes off for the night. 

Frustrated, Iwaizumi throws a fist to the ground. Don’t you think he’d entertained the thought of whisking you away the second he realized he loved you? Risk treason to be with you? 

What would make you happy? 

He’s sure now that being able to be together would make you happy. But how could that happen without you abandoning your family, your friends, your beloved home? And he, himself. He didn’t want to leave the knights and Toru behind either. Is it even possible to  find a solution where he could be with you and you both could be with the people you love? 

“You could talk to him, you know?” 

Iwaizumi snaps around at Toru’s voice. 

“My father,” the prince clarifies. “You can convince him of most anything. Can’t you tell by now that he values your opinion more than any of us?” Toru grins ruefully. “Guess your years of being obedient to him have paid off for this moment.” 

Iwaizumi realizes then that while he was hurt from having his value tied to Toru since youth, the King’s words impact Toru equally. His own father, constantly comparing. 

“Let’s do it,” Iwaizumi says, finding courage in the newfound camaraderie with the prince. “I want to make the princess happy.” 

Toru grins, offering his hand. 

Iwaziumi takes it.

[level2janitor]

grid-combat sandbox thing!

i get distracted with new projects a lot, but lately my brain's been hyperfocused on one in particular. i wanted to take a crack at combining 4e-style tactical combat with OSR-style sandbox play, which on the surface seem like entirely opposite directions. and they kind of are, but i think i have something

since i started work on it i ended up dropping the words "OSR" and "4e" from my descriptions of it bc i think they end up evoking the wrong image. there's a lot that's core to both playstyles that i'm omitting to make it play nicer with the other playstyle. but it's far along enough now that i can talk about some of the design philosophy and how that manifests.

little to no scaling

the traditional way modern D&D (and to an extent even old-school D&D) handles progression is with big numerical scaling. a level 2 PC has nearly twice as much HP/damage as a level 1 PC. so you scale monsters to match, because the PCs have to get into fights around their level for the game to work.

skeletons are a real danger at 1st-level. they're manageable by 3rd, easy by 5th, and a joke by 7th-level. so you just stop running into skeletons, and when you're nearing the end of that level range any skeleton encounters that do happen will have a lot of skeletons.

this is bad for sandboxes! say i'm preparing a sandbox setting ahead of time and have a dungeon with a bunch of skeletons in it somewhere. i don't know what level the PCs will find it at - depending on whether they go through it as a 2nd-level or 6th-level party, it might be incredibly easy or so dangerous there's little they can do to mitigate that difficulty. or i'll just have to redo my encounter math the moment they find it, and that sucks for both the GM and players.

so, big numerical scaling is out. there's levels, you level up, but most of what you get from that level-up is a new ability. not a big pile of hit points and more damage. there's some scaling, your numbers are like twice as big at 10th-level compared to 1st-level, but it's a small enough range that a hard encounter at 1st-level will stay relevant throughout a whole campaign.

the game's far along enough i can create & fully level a fighter PC, so i made a 1st and 10th-level (max) character and put them side-by-side to get a feel for the scaling.

the warrior class

speaking of, the first class i made is the fighter, obviously. it's always the first thing i want to get right if i'm making a D&D-like system.

this is a good showcase of what each class is going to end up looking like: you start with a few core features & two perks (3 for warrior bc i like them being customizable). warrior perks range from a few unique moves to useful passives that let you resist statuses, strike multiple enemies, move further, equip heavier gear, parry weak attacks, etc.

the two core features, versatile fighter & combat opportunist, are designed to reward you for engaging in core combat mechanics. you get bonuses to attack from high ground, and this increases that bonus. every weapon has a unique special move you can do with it, and this lets you use any weapon you have with no cost to switch.

i've never liked the way most D&D-likes handle weapons, where you design your build around one specific weapon. you invest all your feats into being The Polearm Guy and when you find a cool magic warhammer or dagger you're just like. well i don't want this. it's not a polearm. so this fighter is instead designed to encourage you to carry around a ton of different weapons and use all of them.

exploration & the ranger

i used to hang out in the 5e community a lot, and people hated the 5e ranger. why? cause nobody used the travel rules, and you can't really blame them. the game has rules for how far you can travel each day, for random encounters & whether they ambush you, foraging, encumbrance, different travel speeds.

but most people who play 5e don't want that kind of experience, and 5e half-commits to it by leaving these rules scattered through the dungeon master's guide and making them too tedious. everything's measured in real numbers - miles, minutes, pounds. you track weight with pounds instead of item slots. of course nobody wants to track encumbrance when they have to stop the game to ask the GM how many pounds the macguffin weighs. nobody wants to dig through the DMG looking for the rule that tells you how many miles you can move. it just gets in the way and stops the game, so nobody does.

all of this screws over the ranger class which gives you bonuses to things like travel speed, not being ambushed while traveling, finding more rations, and tracking. people disliked the ranger so much that a supplement came out that replaced all of their exploration features with naturey combat features and some skill boosts, and since then that's the actual ranger when anyone wants to play one.

with that context, here's the exploration features my game's ranger gets.

the feature on the left is inherent while the right two are perks. there's combat features, but they're not part of the point i wanted to make.

the ranger needs to feel useful, and for that, the exploration needs to be front and center. so what better game than one designed for sandboxes?

i don't want this to be the kind of big-damn-heroes game where you skip to the next setpiece because the travel is boring. the travel is the game. that's where the OSR influence comes in.

you track rations. it's important - if a place is far from civilization, it feels like it because there's nowhere safe nearby to restock rations.

you track encumbrance. deciding how much space to spend on arrows and rations, and how much to spend on treasure, means more decision-making.

you do hexcrawling, you track time, and you care how many days a journey takes because the world changes as time passes. enemies & other factions progress their schemes, new developments come up. so sometimes you go, wow, good thing we have a ranger - we can move 3 hexes today instead of 2!

the ranger is better at foraging rations so you can venture further into the wilderness, better at moving your party faster, better at keeping watch. i want that to matter! i can envision it being so satisfying to play a ranger and constantly come in handy. and i want parties without a ranger to wish they had one in a way that isn't just tedious.

so hopefully that gives you a good idea of the sandboxy direction for this game. will be posting about it more as i make progress, and gonna continue to support iron halberd in between this sort of thing

[thathomestar]

dragon's dogma 2 thoughts so far, roughly 7 hours in:

out in the field, performance is mostly fine. it dips for me sometimes but it stays around 60 fps for the most part. being in the big city is rough, there's like 150 npcs all walking around doing their own thing and it makes the game chug, on my pc it drags it down to 30 fps average, sometimes 20 fps at the lowest points. they really need to clean that up.

i've just been playing fighter so far, and i'm enjoying the new combat system. it feels a lot looser than dd1, the soft lockon from dd1 is even softer. getting staggered and stunlocked by enemies is a real threat, you take much longer to recover from getting knocked over than you did in dd1. the revamped heavy attack button being more used for dealing decisive high damage hits on staggered or stunned enemies is such a good idea.

they swapped the buttons for block and special sword attacks and that kept throwing me off at first lol. perfect parry timing feels about the same as it did in dd1. you can actually use your heavy attack while mounting a monster without instantly jumping off, it's great. my pawn is an archer and honestly i think she does more dps than me sometimes, she's come in clutch so many times already.

the main kicker i've been feeling is the how they treat your health pool. in dd1 you could just spam consumables to cure your health back to maximum at any time, but they've changed how it works here in dd2. now, whenever you take damage, you lose a tiny bit of your max hp. whether a mage casts a heal or you drink a potion, you can't get all the way back up to full until you rest at an inn or a campsite. so now you play a longer-term game of "do i go find a camp and rest to full or do i go fight this ogre at 50% max hp". i enjoy being stupid so i tend to not rest until i absolutely have to lol.

you can actually preview which vocations have what augments now, which saves a trip opening up a browser and searching for that info. you do have to unlock warrior and sorcerer as well as the other new vocations, but warrior and sorcerer was literally "go to a cave, kill some goblins, get the stolen weapons back, ok you're good to go now". took like 30 mins after reaching the big city.

i have encountered every single microtransaction item within the first 5 hours of playing. they mostly either cost gold or rift crystals, and are relatively cheap. i got a camping kit for free for reaching the first oxcart. i got the harpy lure for free by helping a random person out and about. i've gotten four wakestones already. the microtransactions are stupid and so obviously mandated by some dinosaur executive but you're an even bigger moron if you think any of this stuff is meaningful or locked-off content.

uhh what else. turning your lantern on and off is nice and quick. your pawns actually talk amongst each other now. i don't know how different the inclination system is yet so i don't know if doing the d-pad pawn commands changes them. those commands seem to actually work properly now though. ran away from a fight and told my pawns "to me!" and they actually disengaged the fight and ran with me, so that's nice. don't like the music as much as the first game so far, we'll see how it fares once i actually fight a monster bigger than a cyclops.

[robogart]

I'm playing Dark Souls 3 right now and I have some thoughts/wonder if other people have experienced something similar?

So I've played through DS1, Bloodborne (favorite) and Elden Ring - really enjoyed all of those (except for the Lost Izalith area in DS1, woof) but I find myself really struggling with the enemies - specifically the Toughest Guys In The Area - so much? And it's sort of like "yeah, doy, that's what it's supposed to be?" but hear me out!

It just feels like that they not only have a lot of HP, but also punishing hits, SEVERELY long combos, and they also just don't stun or their parry windows feel SO small? Even trying to side-dodge or move around them is usually punished by the combo because they'll have back-reach that hits you anyways.

And the fact that they'll maybe introduce one of these Big Lads and you're like "okay cool, got it" but then from then on there are like 2-3 of them all together in your path (not like, guarding a good item in a little corner, they're in your progression route) and it's like?? What is going on? Granted I'm a dex build but that's what I play most my first/second playthroughs as, but I feel like the other games always felt more fair/surmountable in their encounters? I felt like I usually had a chance and the layout seemed balanced? But in DS3 I feel just SWAMPED by the amount of heavy-hitters there will be all together, and I find myself just having to run past them.

And it's not for lack of trying! I just feel like ONE misstep and I get caught in a Stupidly Fast combo! It's so much! ;; w ;;

And I'm ALMOST done with the game! Currently doing the Ringed City DLC right now before I get to the final game boss. And the boss fights have really been spectacular! I just did the Ariandel big boss and they were GREAT - had to summon help because I was getting spanked in the third phase, but it was SO FUN!! It's also so much fun to help other people! Jolly cooperation let's go!

But I don't know - I feel like this game is just less balanced feeling than the other titles? I love the weapons system, the boss fights, the areas and enemy design - but I feel like the enemy layout is just unreasonable at times - more times than I feel it should be? I feel like I've read that they used the same enemy ai as they had in bloodborne, so maybe that's where the misalignment sits for me? That game had a great fighting system that awarded aggression from aggression, your character is always meant to move fast and doesn't roll heavy or anything because armor isn't AS important as it is in Dark Souls, and the parry system was SET to be used in tandem with all enemies. And I feel like you could argue that Elden Ring is similar with DS3 with its enemies, but I feel like that game gives you SO much space, ease of movement (torrent) and the ashes system, so you're able to get some heat off you (especially if you're playing lighter builds). It just feels more balanced to me!

Ahh anyways - trying to gear up to maybe continue a bit more tonight! I'm so close... = __ =;; But I just wanted to rant and was curious is other people felt the same or not? I'll concede when something is a skill-issue in games - especially these games, where a lot of it IS learning the patterns and/or parrying - but somehow DS3 just feels weirdly stacked. Is it just me? Jesus?

[dragonclaude]

I was thinking more about the Monokumas for my action game AU. Now with some new ideas! (and sakura for size reference)

Because of how many Monokuma parts or scrap metal would be scattered once you beat them, I think it’d be cool if later Monokuma enemies will start using them to become stronger.

More descriptions about each one below!

Ibuki fight: During her stage, the monokumas will be cheering for her in the audience until you move to their part of the battlefield. They then get up and attack you as a pack with regular monokuma attacks but they make louder sounds. Ibukumas with the boomboxes appear sparingly and attack from long range with the loud music coming from the radio.

Mahiru fight: Despite it being a late fight, almost all of the Mahikumas are disruptive/stunners rather than fighters. They will disrupt you with camera flashes, spotlight blinding, false noises to trigger your alerts etc. But also, there is a recurring newspaper monokuma that will come to you at random parts of the story, giving you the latest Newspaper by Mahiru. One such instance that I thought of is depicted in this post.

Hiyoko fight: Could have more yokai inspired designs but I’m not sure which would be the most fitting for a mountain Dojo 😅 These monokumas attack on rhythm to the music in the level and you would have to counterattack on the beat to defeat them. Stronger Hiyokumas need several hits to be destroyed but will be pushed back and resume attacking you on beat yet again.

Teru/Akane fight: There will be a group of monokumas in the back of the room with Teruteru and another group along with Akane in their fight, but all holding similar weapons. Some Akanekumas attack with large kitchen knives, some throw cleavers, some burn you with blowtorches and some carry food for Akane to heal her. The Terukumas meanwhile will lob oil and fire towards you in order to make the battle more dangerous to traverse. If all Akanekumas (and Akane) is defeated, the Terukumas will lunge and attack to stop you from reaching Teruteru.

Armored Beast: This one attached parts of Guard monokumas onto their body. Using their new strength, these monokumas can move huge objects on their own and a pack of them could break down a small building. They would attack by lunging at you and block their weak eye when you attack their front. You would have to find a way to rip off the arm shields or its armored back in order to beat it effectively.

Scrapheap Junk: A junk monokuma that has attached many pieces of scrap from all over the land onto itself. Unlike melded, this monokuma is quicker but only attacks one way at a time.There could be different kinds of scrapheap monokumas that have special parts (ex: one only made of car parts, one only made of furniture etc.) and would have a slightly different attack pattern. But generally, just dodge or parry its attacks then hit it enough to defeat it.

Melded Junk: An amalgamation of many separate half-destroyed monokumas that attached to each other to make a functional robot. They have attacks like every monokuma type in UDG (except ball) and can attack many times at all angles despite being slow moving. They can also bring forth more enemies to attack you with the alarm on their arm. Depending on how many monokumas are operating it, you will have to completely destroy all of the heads from its body to fully defeat it.

Wrecker: A project of remnant Kazuichi. Instead of building a huge monokuma himself, he decides to program many engineer monokumas to collect parts and form a Big Bang Monokuma-sized robot. This one’s purpose is destroying buildings and bunkers to keep tragedy survivors from hiding. Wherever Wrecker goes, engineer monokumas are sure to follow to collect the scrap from its destruction. Also a priority to destroy whenever the future foundation finds one on their radar.

[bubybubsters]

Love of My Life part 3 (Azriel x reader)

a/n: Sorry for the big delay, I have no good excuse. Still winging it mostly, hope you enjoy, please don’t murder me.

Part 1 Part 2

Masterlist

⚠️: angst, weapons, death, think that’s it

After you told your friends what happened, Nesta made some very rude remarks that brought a smile to your face and Mor winnowed away, likely to go punch Azriel. But your high lady helped the most, she knelt beside you and said, “I’m sorry y/n but I think Azriel was acting without thinking and didn’t mean to hurt you. Give him some time and he’ll be begging for forgiveness. Make him stew over it, spend the week out here, with us, try to enjoy the present instead of focusing on the past.” Feyre gave you a sad smile and pressed a kiss to the top of your head.

Mor returned with a bag of your favorite foods and you couldn’t help but notice that her knuckles were very red. You smiled at them, your friends, your family, and you decided yes, you could enjoy a week with them and forget about your troubles.

*****

Azriel

Azriel sat in the chair in front of Rhys and for the billionth time that day he regretted his decisions from the previous night.

What had he done?! Kissing Elain then going and kissin y/n? Then saying those words?

his brothers voice pulled him from his thoughts and he tried to pay attention to his high lord. “I’m giving you the week off,” he raised a hand as Az opened his mouth to speak, “you need it, reflect on your decisions, choose which lady you want and hope they forgive you. Feyre says they’re taking a girls week off so y/n won’t be around but Elain is still here if you wish to talk with her. You fucked up Az, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make it right.”

Suddenly Cassian barged in and started yelling so fast at Azriel, neither him nor Rhys had any idea what Cass was saying.

But what Cassian was saying suddenly didn’t matter as all three illyrians suddenly felt a panicked tug on their mating bonds. Azriel stumbled as y/n’s side of the bond opened and panic, pain, and pure determination flooded his side of the bond.

Rhys grabbed both their hands and winnowed them to the spot Feyre had told him the girls were at. Azriel took in the scene and panic flooded his senses as he vaguely wondered what happened to the wards he knew Mor put up to keep them safe whenever they camped.

*****

Y/N

As you girls hiked back to the camp after a tiring, long hike you talked about many things. Everything but the subject of males, you were really starting to feel better and couldn’t help but smile as Nesta demanded the two of you switch so you were last and she could talk to Gwyn (is it Gwen?).

Feyre glanced back from the front, a lovely smile on her face as she told Emerie about her time in the human world, but her smile fell and a panicked expression crossed her face as she looked at something behind you.

Everyone glanced back. Everyone saw as a large, hideously colorful creature raised his paw and sliced your left shoulder, right by your heart. You gasped and fell into Nesta’s arms.

A spike of adrenaline rushed through you and you pulled out the dagger strapped to your thigh and stepped forward to engage the beast. You used the skills Rhys had taught you to create an impenetrable shield between you and your family. You looked up at the creature and your first thought was, at least the thing that kills me is as beautiful as me. The beast lunged and you parried, faking a swing then stabbing it in the side. It growled and you sent a bit of your power to distract it as you stabbed again and again. But you didn’t see the tail, it swept around and knocked you into your own barrier. You gasped opening the mating bond, sending panic, pain and your determination to keep your family safe. Feyre pounded on the barrier and you let it down, clutching your side where the beasts tail hit. Your friends swooped in, taking down two other beasts you hadn’t even noticed. Feyre came to your side, trying to heal you, she gave you her blood, but you knew it would work too slowly. She stepped back as Azriel came through, he tugged on the bond, lips moving but you heard none of it.

“I love you Azriel, I always have and always will. Even if you stop I never will. You’re mine and I am yours, I love you.” Azriel picked you up and winnowed you to the house, but you knew it would be too late. You smiled at his tear streaked face as the darkness swooped in.

*****

Azriel

Azriel heard your words over and over again as Madja looked up at him and shook her head. No. This couldn’t be happening, just as he found his mate, she died.

Madja spoke, “im sorry but I can’t save her, there is a poison in her wounds that I have never seen before. I don’t know the way to fix it, and it’s already made its way to her heart.”

Azriel fell to his knees and let out a guttural scream as he pulled on that bond one last time. A soft, gentle pull came back and hope kindled, but the bond was gone. Y/n was gone. His mate was gone.

“I love you too.”

a/n: please don’t kill me. I have no regrets but comments are appreciated

TAGLIST

@glaciuswduo @alexboshallex @wannabewolf @moonfawnx

[ritoposting]

Fierce Devastation Part 1

Hey y'all, so this is my first fanfic post. I'm not on AO3 quite yet, so be patient while I post everything here for now. Welcome to Fierce Devastation, a Linked Universe fanwork about just what happens when adult Time uses the Fierce Deity's mask, and just how dangerous the unbridled fury of a god can be.

Sky stands on a field of devastation. A horde of monsters had attacked during the night, when a majority of the heroes were still asleep and unarmed. It had just been Time and Wind on watch, there to fend them off as everyone else got themselves armed and ready for battle, but there must have been some enemies that snuck behind the two heroes and into the camp, as reinforcements from camp never arrived, the rest of the heroes there stuck fighting their own desperate battle against enemies they were not prepared for. 

It had been a long and grueling battle, mainly because they weren’t at all prepared for such a massive strike at such a Hylia-be-damned hour. ‘Rulie noticed it first, of course. Even after all this time, the boy still slept sitting against a tree, and would wake at the smallest sound. His gear still on him, he did his best to fend off the horde as he tried to wake the other heroes, but out of all of them, only Hyrule and Sky actually slept with a weapon, and it was nearly impossible to wake Sky up. Eventually the other heroes made it into the fray, some hastily grabbing whatever gear was near them, others using whatever came to hand. Legend still could remember watching Wild pick up a pot lid and parry a Bokoblin’s club with it before hitting it over the head with one of his prized pans, then taking its weapon to continue the fight, or Four fighting with a jar of winds and a pair of bladed mittens. The main problem was that they were outnumbered, surprised, and ungeared. Because of this, even though they did prevail in the end (with the heroes defending each other until most of them had some form of weapon in hand), it took too damned long, and the whole time they were fighting, Legend only had one thought in his mind; “Where are Wind and Time?” After a grueling battle, the heroes charged to where Wind and Time were stationed, expecting to charge into battle once more, Legend taking point with his pegasus boots so he could get there first and aid the two heroes, until… nothing. There was no sign of what must have been a huge horde of monsters, no sounds of fighting or monsters in the field outside of the last few corpses which were still fading into dust, and Wind was propped up against a rock on the field, seemingly unconscious. Hyrule ran directly to him, preparing to check him over for wounds, but the rest of the heroes went to search the field for some sign, any sign, of where Time might be.

Searching the field for signs of their aged leader, none of them could find anything. There was no sign of blood or even a struggle, the grass outside of an area around Wind wasn’t even disturbed by any form of human feet, even though it was obvious that there were monsters that were slain there due to the black blood that stained the ground. Not a single arrow, hair, or bootprint was left for the heroes to track, so as the dawn started to approach, Legend, Wars, Four, and Sky broke off of the tracking group to go check on Wind, who was being treated by the group’s healer, Hyrule. Most of his injuries were superficial, though there was a deep gash in his side that seemed to come from some sort of lizal blade; he had then passed out from the bloodloss, so there were no head injuries to worry about. Even as Legend and Wars approached, they could see the wounds knitting themselves up thanks to Hyrule’s life spell and the effects of a potion that had obviously been fed to him. The young hero also had woken up at some time during the healing process, and was helping Hyrule in his own healing by channeling Hyrule some of his own magic power (now when had he been able to do that?), and as the 4 heroes approached, he perked up and waved them over.

“Hey! Captain!” he called out, “Where is the old man? Is he alright?” The four of them watched Wind’s face fall as he saw the grim look that Legend had when he mentioned Time, and then blanched at the look in the captain's eyes. The boy was always the best at reading him, they had known each other for one of the longest periods of time, after all. “Is he… hurt?” he asked, a bit more tentatively this time, his cheery smile disappearing in an instant.

“He is missing,” responded Wars, having promised never to sugarcoat any information to the sailor, knowing how much the young boy truly could take. “There is no sign of a scuffle, or of him running after the monsters. Not that he would, the old man would have gone and fetched the rest of us before doing something that foolish.”

Wind looked up at him, face scrunched up in an effort to keep from tears, and whimpered out, “Captain, he used the mask again. We were fighting them off, but there were too many of them, and then I let a Lizalfols get under my guard, and I saw him reach into his pouch and pull it out and put it on. I didn’t want him to, but he did it to protect me. I’m sorry!” With that, the young sailor started crying and Wars went pale as a sheet. His hand twitched as he reached for his blade, but then backed off from it as if it was poison, and as he retracted his hand and instead kneeled down next to Wind.

“It’s not your fault, Sailor. You did the best you could against a horde of black bloods like these. Even if I had the master sword and Proxi’s help I couldn’t have lasted longer than the two of you did. Get some rest Sailor, I’ll need a report from you when you recover.” Wind nodded at this, and sank into Hyrule’s arms, clearly exhausted but wanting to tell someone. At this, Wars walked away, massaging his temples, and Legend followed him.

“Wars!” Legend exclaimed, following behind, obviously exasperated, “What are you and the sailor talking about?! What mask, what does he mean again! Is there something that you have been hiding from us about the Old Man… is he in danger?”

The captain sighed, and sat down on a rock, clearly trying to think. He knew that now that the Vet had gotten on to him, he wouldn’t let it go, but he really didn’t want to explain all of this right now. He stretched his back and neck to relieve some of the stress and then sighed, before launching into an explanation that would hopefully satiate the Veteran. “You know that I fought in a war called the war of ages, yes?” Legend nodded at this, waiting for more. “That title is more than just a way to denote that it took a long time, Vet. It was a war where heroes and Evils from many times got pulled in to fight on both sides. Two of those heroes were Wind and Time, but not as they are now.”

Legend looked confused at this, his forehead scrunching at that last phrase. “What do you mean, not as they are now?” He asked, oddly cautiously for him.

“Wind had just finished his journey,” Warriors clarified. “He still hadn’t gone back home, and was put out that he had to fight even more before he could. His wasn’t the most drastic change though.”

Legend just cocked an eyebrow at this, obviously impatiently waiting for further clarification. “Get on with it Cap, what was different about time”.

“He was young, Legend, younger even than Wind. He had also just returned from his second adventure. Two adventures before he was twelve, Ledge, you know what that does to a kid.”

Legend blanched at this, completely shocked at what he was hearing. His five adventures had worn him out to the point where he had lost all taste in travel after them, and he was only a teen when he had begun them. To have finished two adventures before even becoming a teen, he couldn't imagine. “So are you saying…”

“Yes, the item in question was the one he used in the war of ages to turn the tide of battle in our favor, a mask with the soul of a deity of war trapped in it. When he wears it, the god takes control and rampages across the battlefield, destroying everything in its wake, even allies and peaceful people. The only thing that had kept it from killing us was that 1 - we cleared out before it was used by him, and 2 - it was limited by the fact that he was a child, confined in the amount of power it could output at once, and limited in duration by his limited magic at the time, but even then, it was strong enough to directly compare to Ganon himself. I am afraid that now, this “backup plan” might have created a monster stronger than anything we have ever faced.”

[titikawai]

my first fanfic ever

SUMMARY : 

As Bo-Katan realises that Din is struggling to wield the Darksaber properly. She suggests that they have a one-on-one combat training session during which confessions are made and not all of them unpleasant.

NOTES : I made a theory surrounding DinBo this morning and brought it to life in my first fanfic ever this afternoon. I wanted to post the oneshot on AO3 this evening, just to realize you had to sign up on a waitinglist before they allowed you to create an account to post fanfics (I didn’t know that and I’ve been using this website for a decade).

I couldn’t wait next week to post this “masterpiece” (this is irony, I know it is far from perfect) and decided to update it first on Tumblr for my fellow DinBo shippers.

So without further a do, here it is !!!

FIRST AND LAST CHAPTER : 

Din Djarin held the darksaber tightly in his hand, feeling the weight of it as he practiced his swings. He had won the weapon in battle against Moff Gideon, but he still struggled to wield it properly.

Bo-Katan watched him from the sidelines, her arms folded as she observed his movements. "You're still not quite getting it," she said, stepping forward to offer him some advice. "You need to accept the blade, to let it become a part of you."

Din looked up at her, his brow furrowed. "I don't know if I can," he admitted. "It feels like a burden, like I'm not worthy of it."

Bo-Katan nodded understandingly. "I know it's not easy," she said. "But you need to master the darksaber if we're going to defeat Moff Gideon and reclaim our rightful place as Mandalorians."

Din sighed, lowering the blade. "I understand," he said. "But I don't know how to do it."

Bo-Katan smiled at him reassuringly. "I can help you," she said.

Din looked at her sceptically. "How?" he asked.

"Through training," Bo-Katan said. "We'll have a one-on-one combat, with me using a beskar sword against your darksaber. It'll be tough, but I think it's what you need to fully accept the blade."

Din hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Okay," he said. "Let's do it."

The two of them took their positions. Din raised the darksaber, feeling the weight of it once more.

Din held the darksaber in one hand, his other hand up in a defensive stance.

Bo-Katan attacked first, her beskar sword flashing through the air. He parried her blows, his movements slow and hesitant at first. She could see the struggle etched on his face as they sparred with each other.

"Relax, Din," she said, as he parried her blows with hesitancy. "Don't overthink it. Let the weapon flow through you. The darksaber will not yield to you if you are not at peace with themselves."

Din nodded, trying to loosen up his grip on the darksaber. But he could not shake the feeling of inadequacy that weighed heavily on his mind.

"I don't know if I'm the right person to lead our people," he admitted.

Bo-Katan raised an eyebrow, "And why is that?"

"I just feel like I'm not living up to the expectations that come with this title," Din replied, a tinge of self-doubt in his voice.

Bo-Katan stopped the fight, "Din, you need to understand that being a leader is not just about being the strongest warrior. It's about having a vision for your people, and most importantly, it's about having the heart to lead them." she smiled at him. "You are more than worthy of this title. You have proven yourself time and time again, and your people believe in you. But you need to believe in yourself first."

Din looked at her, his expression full of doubt. "But what if I don't have what it takes? What if I fail my people?"

Bo-Katan's eyes softened, "Failure is a part of life. You will make mistakes. That’s inevitable. But what sets a true leader apart is how they manage failure. I made countless of them. You have already shown that you are willing to put yourself on the line to protect your people. That alone is a testament to your leadership skills. You are more than worthy of your title. You are a strong and capable leader.” She waited some time before she continued. “The day you defeated Moff Gideon and wanted to give me the darksaber back. I resented you because I thought you stole my only chance at redemption. However, I couldn’t be happier that this blade found you : You not wanting it what makes you the best leader Mandalorians could ever wish for. You have to trust in yourself, in your abilities and embrace your destiny as our people’s leader."

Din took a deep breath before he spoke. "I've never seen myself as a leader," he said. "I was a bounty hunter, someone who worked alone. And now I have to lead an entire group of people. It's a lot of responsibility, and I'm not sure if I'm up to it… "

There was a long pause but he spoke again “You know… I lost my parents at a very young age”.  

Bo-Katan could sense the weight of Din's words and the pain in his voice. She knew that his past had shaped him into the man he was today, and that it was important for him to confront his trauma if he was going to wield the darksaber.

"I'm sorry, Din," she said softly.

Din shook his head. "It's not something I talk about often," he said. "But it's been weighing on me lately. I keep thinking, what if I'm not good enough? What if I fail our people like I failed my parents?" Din nodded; his eyes distant as he recalled the memory. "I was just a boy. They were farmers, living a peaceful life on a small settlement on Aq Vetina, the planet on which I was born. They were killed in a Separatist attack. I never got the chance to say goodbye to them. I was taken in by a group of Mandalorians after that," Din went on. "They raised me, taught me how to fight and survive. But sometimes, I feel like I'm still that scared little boy who lost his parents. I couldn't do anything to save them. I've carried that guilt with me ever since." As he spoke, he could feel the anger and pain bubbling up inside him, threatening to overwhelm him. He clenched his fists, trying to keep himself from lashing out.

But then, he felt warmth on his shoulder, and he looked up to see Bo-Katan had put her hand there, looking at him, her visor hiding the concern in her eyes. Her touch was gentle, but it sent a jolt of electricity through his body. He could not explain it, but the way she touched him made him feel something more than just gratitude. He tried to push the feeling aside, telling himself that it was just his imagination.

Bo-Katan sat silently for a moment, taking in what Din had just shared with her as it echoed with her past. She had listened to him with empathy, knowing that he needed to share his burden with someone. " Din, you didn’t fail your parents. You can't blame yourself for something that was out of your control," she said. "You were just a child. You couldn't have known what was going to happen nor done anything to prevent it."

Din looked at her with a sense of relief, as if he had been waiting for someone to tell him that. "You're right," he said. "I've been carrying that burden for too long."

Bo-Katan nodded at him, "It's okay to feel that way, Din. But you can't let it hold you back from being the leader that your people need you to be."

He looked at her, his eyes glistening with tears behind his helmet. "I know that logically," he said. "But it's hard to shake off that feeling of guilt."

Din could feel his emotions building up inside of him. He had always managed to keep a lid on his feelings, keeping them tightly locked away. But after this intense exchange with Bo-Katan, he knew that he needed some time alone. He excused himself, telling her that he needed to clear his head, and walked away from the group.

Once he was out of sight, he found a quiet spot where he could be alone with his thoughts. He took off his helmet, feeling the cool air on his face. As he stood there, tears began to roll down his face, and he felt his shoulders start to shake with sobs. It was a raw and ugly cry, one that he had been holding back for far too long. He allowed himself to feel the full weight of his grief and guilt, the pain of losing his family and the weight of being a Mandalorian warrior. He let himself feel every emotion, no matter how difficult or overwhelming. As he cried, he felt a small sense of relief wash over him. For so long, he had been carrying the weight of his past on his shoulders, never allowing himself to fully process his feelings. But in this moment, he was finally able to let go.

He wiped away his tears and put his helmet back on, feeling a newfound sense of clarity and purpose. He knew that his journey was far from over, and that there would be more challenges and struggles to come. But for the first time in a long time, he felt ready to face them head-on, with a renewed sense of strength and determination.

Finally at peace, he made his way back to Bo-Katan, ready to continue their session.

As he picked up the darksaber, the weight of the blade felt lighter in his hands, and he was ready to master its power.

As they sparred, he found himself moving with more grace and ease, his movements fluid and confident. It was as if the darksaber was guiding him, its power and history flowing through him. With each swing of his blade, he felt his guilt and self-doubt lessen, replaced by a sense of purpose.

Finally, he managed to land a decisive blow that sent Bo-Katan's beskar sword flying from her hand. He stood there, panting and sweating, his heart racing with excitement.

Bo-Katan grinned at him, her eyes shining with pride. "Well done," she said. "You've truly mastered the darksaber."

Din felt a sense of accomplishment wash over him. "Thank you," he said. "I couldn't have done it without your help. I needed that.”

Bo-Katan was thankful she was wearing her helmet as hearing him thank her brought fire to her cheeks. She couldn't help but think about the conversation they had earlier, when he had confided in her about the death of his parents. It was a heavy burden to carry, and she felt honoured that he had trusted her enough to share his pain.

Over the past few weeks she spent with the children of the watch, she had found herself drawn to him, admiring his strength. But she knew that as a fellow Mandalorian, she could not let those feelings interfere with her duty and had to keep her emotions in check, but she could not help but feel drawn to him. In the end, she knew that her duty to her people came first, but for now, she allowed herself to feel a sense of admiration for the remarkable warrior that Din had become.

The both of them sat side by side near the crackling fire, watching the sun dip below the horizon. The day had been long and tiring, and they were both grateful for the moment of rest. As they sat there in silence, their shoulders occasionally brushing against each other, Din could not help but feel a growing sense of attraction towards the fiery Mandalorian. He admired her skills, and he felt a sense of comfort and safety whenever she was nearby. Bo-Katan, too, was acutely aware of the closeness between them. She could feel the heat of Din's body against hers, and she found herself drawn to him in a way that she couldn't explain.

But as their bodies accidentally touched again, Bo-Katan's mind raced back to their discussion from prior and she remembered the fateful day on Aq Vetina. “I didn’t say anything back then, but when you mentioned the day your parents died, it brought back a memory. I still remember that day even though I was a teenager," she finally spoke up. "I was there too, fighting off the Separatists and trying to save as many people as possible."

Din looked at her in surprise. "You were there?" he asked.

"Yes," Bo-Katan replied. "As part of Death Watch, I was there to assist the locals and provide protection.” she said softly. " I'm sorry for your loss. I had no idea that you were one of the foundlings we saved that day and I wish we arrived sooner to save you parents."

Din was speechless. He had always felt a connection to the Mandalorians who had taken him in, but he had no idea that Bo-Katan had been there on that sorrowful day.

After a few moments of silence, Din spoke up. "You said you were part of Death Watch, what was it exactly?" he asked.

Bo-Katan sighed, knowing that this was a difficult topic for her to speak of. "Death Watch was a group of Mandalorians who believed in returning our people to the ancient ways. We didn't believe in the pacifist ways of the New Mandalorian government," she explained. “We thought we were the true Mandalorians, the ones who would restore our people to their former glory."

Bo-Katan took a deep breath and began to speak. "I joined Death Watch when I was 16. I didn’t know better" she said, her voice heavy with emotion. "I have to admit, Din, I've done some things that I'm not proud of. When I was a member of Death Watch, I was convinced that we were doing the right thing, that we were fighting for the true Mandalorian way. But looking back now, I can see how misguided we were." Din listened intently, curious about Bo-Katan's past.

"We caused a lot of pain and suffering," Bo-Katan continued, her voice shaking. "Innocent lives, like my sister’s were lost because of our actions… of my actions. I can never undo what I've done."

“You never told me you had a sister” Din answered, surprised she had kept quiet about her for so long.

Bo-Katan looked down, tears now forming in her eyes. "Satine was the Duchess of Mandalore," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "I can now objectively say that she was a great leader and a kind soul. She was always trying to find a way to avoid conflict and I hated her for that. I thought she was weak.”

Din listened intently; his eyes fixed on Bo-Katan. He had never heard her speak about her past like this before.

"Pre Vizsla, the leader of Death Watch, joined forces with Darth Maul. I opposed the alliance, but it didn't matter. Maul killed him and took over Death Watch, using it to gain control over Mandalore then killed Satine." Bo-Katan's voice trembled as she recounted the tragic event.

"I blamed myself for her death. If I hadn't joined Death Watch, if I had followed Satine's path, maybe things would have turned out differently. I could never forgive myself for that," Bo-Katan concluded, her eyes filled with tears.

Din took her hand in his own. Bo-Katan looked down at their intertwined hands, feeling a warmth spread through her body at the touch of Din's strong fingers. She had never felt this way before, not even with her late partners, and it both scared and thrilled her. His touch brought a sense of comfort and reassurance to her. She could not help but feel a flutter in her stomach. She looked up at him, their gazes held for a moment, and in that moment, through his helmet, she felt a tenderness, a vulnerability that he rarely showed to anyone but Grogu. It brought her back to when Din had taken off his helmet to look at his child before he joined Anakin and Padme’s son. The thought made her heart skip a beat.

"Bo, you can't blame yourself for what happened. You didn't know the outcome when you joined Death Watch and you couldn't have prevented it."

She shook her head. "But I betrayed her, Din. I let her down."

Din looked at her with a gentle expression. "You did what you thought was right back then, you were just a kid who made a mistake that unfortunately had tragic consequences. And now, you have a chance to make things right. You can honour your sister's memory by uniting and protecting the people of Mandalore, just like the Armourer said".

Bo-Katan nodded, feeling a sense of relief wash over her. Din was right. She could not change the past, but she could make a difference in the present and the future. She looked at him with gratitude, but also with a newfound sense of admiration. "You're right, but I don't want to do it alone. I want to do it with you by my side."

Din felt a jolt of surprise at her words. He had never thought about what their future could hold beyond completing their mission, but her request made him feel a sense of warmth that he could not ignore.  "I'll be there for you, Bo. We'll do it together."

As they sat there by the fire, the tension between them grew. Bo-Katan could not help but feel drawn to Din as she found herself feeling grateful for his support and understanding.

Her hand still in his, she glanced over at him and noticed how the firelight danced across his helmet, highlighting the curves and lines of the Beskar. She felt a sudden urge to touch it. Without thinking, she reached out and ran her hand over the surface, tracing the contours of his helmet.

Din's breath caught in his throat. Aside from Grogu and Omera, he had never allowed anyone to touch his helmet before, but something about Bo-Katan made him feel different, made him want to lower his guard. He turned to face her, his eyes meeting hers through the visor. For a moment, they just looked at each other, the tension between them palpable.

Bo-Katan took a step closer to Din, her hand still resting on his helmet. "Thank you, Din," she whispered. "I couldn't have done this without you."

Din felt a warmth spread through him at her words, and before he could even think, he found himself leaning in, his forehead gently pressing against hers. They stayed like that for a moment, the world around them seeming to fade away. It was a simple gesture, but it spoke volumes about their growing connection and the unspoken feelings between them.

Bo-Katan closed her eyes, savouring the moment. She had never been one for displays of affection, but something about Din made her feel safe and comfortable. She tilted her head slightly, and their helmets clanked together softly. It was a small, intimate moment, but it meant the world to both of them.

Din lifted her chin with a gloved finger, looking deep into her eyes. "Bo, I..."

Before he could finish, they were interrupted by a blaring alarm. Bo-Katan jumped to her feet, ready for battle, and Din followed suit. They ran towards the source of the alarm, their hands still intertwined, ready to face whatever danger lay ahead.

[stoshasaurus]

ladies, gentlemen, and other esteemed guests, I have done it.

I have defeated Minos Prime. FUCKING FINALLY.

APPLAUD!!

oh yeah, and here's the winning clip

(disregard my friends talking in the background, i did this on a call LMAO)

if you want to know my in depth analysis? well

i need to work on my parries. i can't parry to save my fucking life. there were a few moments in this last play that a parry could given me health and saved me a shit ton of time.

i rely way too much on the screwdriver railcannon. it's helpful to regain health over time and buy myself some breathing room, but there were several moments where a nailgun or a shotgun blast would have sufficed. i need to scatter the use of my weapons so i'm not just using the screwdriver as a crutch and depriving myself of valuable health waiting for the railcannon to charge.

and i need to keep better track of when my coins are charged. there are a few times where i just fire off to the side expecting to have fired a coin that I just couldn't because i'd already fired them all off just trying to chip at Minos' health. much of my attention was on dodging, or my health, so i'm never looking at my weapon itself to see when my alternate fires are charged.

other than those things, this is probably the most aware i've ever been while playing ultrakill. i stepped up my dodging game for this one, because, again, i can't parry to save my goddamn life...literally. i was generally happy with my parries, it's just this last attempt i got. desperate, to say the least. i've been trying to defeat minos prime for months now; suffice to say I am more than relieved.

farewell, and good riddance, you sexy fuck.

[alpaca-clouds]

Let's Talk Combat: Medieval European Swords

Alright. Let me try something.

As a writer - and a person - am a huge combat nerd. That is: Historical combat. I don't care much for modern guns. As such it is one of my personal hobbies, to watch movies and series featuring historical fights and battles and get annoyed about everything they get wrong.

So, let me have this. A little overview of Medieval European swords - and what they were used for.

Now, this is going to be mostly about just the swords and what they were used for. If you like this kind of stuff, I might go into other historical weapons or fighting styles.

One thing to start with: If you think that swords were super heavy and that a woman could not lift them, you are wrong. Most swords weighted between 800 grams and 2kg (which is 1.7 to 4.4 pounds). You have to see that people early on found ways to make swords lighter, because otherwise the arms would tire rather quickly, no matter your gender.

I also want to remind you of another thing: Swords where for most of history not the combat weapon of choice. In Europe it was the spear, pike and other kinds of polearms as they kept some distance between you and an enemy combatant. Swords were mostly carried as a sidearm. (And I just want to see one medieval fantasy, where it is displayed like this.)

So, let's start with the basic anatomy of a sword, shall we?

Most medieval swords were structired in this way, though there might be little differences. For example not all swords had a point and not all swords had two sharp edges.

Now, to explain some of the parts. I am rather sure the place, the point and the edge are fairly self-explanatory. The fuller was a little trick weapon smiths had found for themselves. It took care of two things: For one it took away material, making the sword considerably lighter. But also it added structure and made the sword more rigorous than it otherwise mght have been. The ricasso was the area of the sword, where you might put your index finger while fighting. The cross-guard was used to parry other swords. For once it protected your hand, when you caught your opponents sword with your own blade, but you could also use it as a lever and try to disarm your enemy. Now when it comes to the rain-guard there is this thing: Historians are not 100% certain, what it did. It was made of leather. One common assumption is, that it did not serve combat, but instead was used to help the sword lock into the scabbard.

Now let's get to the most underrated part of the sword in fantasy combat: The heft and the pommel. The grip/heft was, of course, where your hand would've been. It also helped you to have a lever in combat. Often times leather was used on it to give you a better hold. (Try holding a metal heft when it is wet. And I do have to asume it would only be worse if it was wet with blood.) The pommel served two functions: For once it was a counter weight to the blade, but also it could be used as a blunt weapon.

Let's start with the sword that was apparently the most common at the time. Not only is it the sword we see most often depicted in medieval art, but it is also the sword we found most often. It tends to be just called a "Knight's Sword".

It's a one handed weapon, that tended to be 70 to 80cm in length (about 28 to 31 inches) and would typically weight about 1kg (give or take 100 grams). It would generally have two sharp edges and a somewhat sharp point. It is what people would've thought of, if you said "sword" in the times. The cross guard in this was often in a slight crescent shape, as you see above, but there were those with straight cross-guards as well. In general they came with a point - but they were slashing weapons first and foremost. Knights might actually have engravings in the fuller. Rarely their own name, rather names of saints or the like.

This is a longsword. As you can see by the elongated grip, it was in general used as a two-handed weapon. Other than popular belief they were not super heavy - in general 1.1-1.8kg (2.4-4lb) to a blade length of 1 meter, give or take, giving it a total length to about 1.2~1.3m. I first hold one of those when I was about 13 and was perfectly able to use it. The French name for this type of weapon is épée bâtarde, which is where we get the term bastard sword from. This weapon, too, had two sharp edges. In general these had a sharp point, not only for attack, but also to balance the blade better.

Now one that might surprise you. This is a backsword, also called broadsword. No, it does not look anything like fantasy broadswords, because those would actually have been too heavy to fight with. It had a broader lower blade compared with a knight's sword, but it's most noticable difference to other sword types was the protective guard that secured the hand of the wielder. It was a one-handed weapon. It had at times two sharp edges, but often only one. For the most part it was a thrusting weapon though, so it had a rather sharp tip. Near the tip both edges were sharpened.

Let's get to one of the most overrated blades in fantasy. The Falchion. It had a curved blade and only one sharp edge. We often see them depicted with a knuckle-guard, but they were not always made with those. Why do I call this weapon overrated? Because it was the poor man's sword. It was often rather simply made, for example not using a fuller, making it less balanced. Mostly it was used by foot-soldiers. Only few of those weapons survived. Yes, it looks fancy thanks to the curved blade, but in general your knight's sword was just a better blade.

The estoc is another sword with a real fancy name. But other than the Falchion it had a rather prominent use. As you can see it has a rather long and rather thin blade and a really sharp point. We have found estocs with a large range of blade lengths though, ranging from 90cm (36 inches) to 1.30 (50 inches). This weapon was made for a very special usecase: It was a weapon designed to be effective against chainmail, made to pierce the chainmail especially. As such it was mostly a thrusting weapon.

Okay, we are nearing the end. The Zweihänder (German for Two-Handed) is a sword that came up very late in the medieval period. As the name suggests: It was wielded with two hands. They are the most heavy and one of the longest weapons on this list: Often they had a total length of about 2 meters (80+ inches) and weighted from 2 to 4kgs (4.4 to 8.8 pounds). Now, they were in general not a weapon used by armies, but rather by merchenaries of Southern Germany and Switzerland. In general they had two sharp edges, a really broad cross-guard and often times an second guard - though this one had sharp edges. In some cases they also had a seraded blade on one or both side (as seen in the picture above). Now, what was the purpose of all that? Well, rather simple. As I mentioned above: pole weapons like spears and pikes were more common in the period than swords. So Zweihander were specifically created to counter pikes and other pole weapons.

Now, at the very end I want to speak about this "weapon", the Curtana (Curtana, not Katana), which I came across being used as an actual weapon in video games - especially JRPG. Now, let's just make this clear: The curtana was not a weapon. Rather it was a sword used for ceremonial purposes and ceremonial purposes only. They often had decorated blades and were not balanced at all. Because they were created to look fancy, not to be wielded in combat.

Alright, that's it for today.

As I said: If interest is there, I will absolutely write more about swords, combat and such things. Also about pole weapons, because we need more love for pole weapons!

Till then!

[sablegear0]

Finished TotK Finally

As in, finished the story. End numbers after buying the last boss pictures and completing the Compendium were 87.72% complete. I may go back and do koroks and minigames sporadically when I want to wander around in the world again.

So I suppose people might expect my thoughts or a review. Idk if I have anything unique to say but I may as well so: Plot and BIG ending spoilers under the cut. Also extremely long detailed opinions. Like this one got REALLY long. TL;DR at the very bottom.

The End Bits The Light Dragon In a previous blog I applauded Nintendo for letting their women characters turn into incomprehensible beasties lately (TotK, Dread). For the record, I posted that shortly before being spoiled on the fact that Zelda changes back at the end. Needless to say I was re-disappointed. I get WHY they did it. Permanently removing the title character from the game via 10,000 years of ego death doesn't really seem like a great reward for the player seeking out the plot; BotW/TotK Link and Zelda have gone through more than most of their incarnations to get where they are, so it's nice to give them a happy ending, etc. It just... kinda sucks because that was a really cool move otherwise. But Nintendo will not tell us an intentionally tragic (or even bittersweet) story so we got our girl back.

Also she was fine, by the way. She just woke up fully able to move and speak like she'd just had a bit of a rough nap. She also canonically does not remember her millennia spent as a dragon in any fashion. I know the fan writers are probably having a field day with injury/trauma recovery fics for her and I don't blame them. 10k years of ego death and a monstrous transformation should come with some consequences, shouldn't it?

To be honest the nature of the deus ex machina in question bugs me more than the fact that it happened. "Idk Sonia and Rauru did something" is the actual explanation we get (thanks Mineru, you're a real one tho) and it feels... hollow. Like, if the two dragons had clashed and injured one another, and "dying" knocked Zelda out of the transformation the same way destroying the Secret Stone that Ganondorf had taken destroyed his dragon form, that would make more sense, right? You still get your dramatic ending that's a cinematic reflection of Skyward Sword and a symbolic close (presumably) to Ganon's cycle of reincarnation. The arbitrary "power of love" (and not even the Hero's love, come on) ending just doesn't sit right.

Ganondorf Neither did the actual fight with Ganondorf, to be honest. I prepped some pretty high-value weapons, assuming that like BotW I'd have to break a few swords on him before the fight was over. But they just, again, deus ex machina'd that the Master Sword was indestructible for that fight and at no other time. My big scary weapons did see some good use in the wave fight beforehand, which was kind of neat but also kind of underwhelming. I guess that's the point where the game checks if you can handle that many enemies (ie. did you bring enough friends), similar to how doing the Divine Beasts halves Calamity Ganon's HP in BotW.

The duel-style fight for the first two phases was kind of cool. Made a bit annoying by TotK's tighter timing on parries and dodges. And the fact that the legitimate pressure of having your HP outright destroyed (cool, stressful) was removed by the third phase (annoying, no consequences for doing poorly in that part of the fight).

Third phase was neat. It was cinematic, but with no actual danger. I don't think I took any damage that wasn't just gloom-ticks from standing on the demon dragon to attack it. Didn't even get to use my cool bows in the aerial battle. Additionally I didn't have any need for the cool armour I had worked so hard to upgrade. I spent quite a lot of time and effort upgrading the Ancient Hero's Aspect and a second high-defense set (Champion's Leathers, Soldier's Greaves, Amber Earrings). The latter I did use in the demon dragon phase because it looked cool. The former I completely forgot that I had (despite having had to kill an ungodly amount of King Gleeoks to complete it). I used the Depths set for the first two-thirds of the fight because of the Gloom resistance it offered.

The Mechanics Devices All that said, what TotK set out to do it did decently well. It expanded on the physics-heavy improvisational gameplay of BotW with the addition of the Ultrahand fusion mechanic and Zonai Devices, improving on their base engine to create a system that I have heard other devs consider basically magic. Devices and weapon fusion, however, were clearly balanced with the early-to-mid-game in mind. The devices were tools, not weapons, even the ones that were nominally weapons. They simply did not put out enough raw damage to be used offensively, and were better as deterrents or distractions for enemies.

Weapon Fusion I know people weren't crazy about weapon degradation in BotW and I think TotK managed to make it slightly worse. In BotW, all you had to do was find where a desirable weapon spawned and make note of it so you could come back to pick it up after the Bloodmoon respawned everything. In TotK, you have to do that AND fight a monster with a good fuseable part to improve it. You have to do twice as much farming for about the same amount of gain. And that's not even accounting for the weapons you'd break fighting something big like a Lynel - sure they drop good parts, but you might break 2 or 3 weapons taking one down, even with help from your sages. You're operating at a net loss.

Granted the fused part of a weapon does the bulk of the work, but TotK did the interesting thing of making each flavour of weapon ("Soldier's", "Zonaite", "Gerudo", etc) have its own unique properties. This is very cool, until you find a type you like and struggle to find enough of them. Again, you have to trek around to find them and also hope you have the materials for a good fusion. It has its moments, like sticking a Silver Lynel horn on a Gerudo weapon to get a damage value over 100 (which is absurd, most "good" weapons cap out around 50 on average, barring any extra effects), but again, you're usually operating at a slight loss with respect to weapons.

Armour Upgrades To be frank: It's bad. It's bloated and way too resource-intensive. In BotW there were a limited number of sets you'd actually want to upgrade, as each had its own unique thing and that's it, there's one of each. Even doing all of them for completion's sake was achievable. In TotK they have those basic sets, plus a few more unique sets, plus a few redundant sets, and a frankly absurd number of generic aesthetic sets (which flavour of Link would you like? Ocarina of Time? Twilight Princess? Link's Awakenng Remake?) And in all of this they never thought to rebalance the amount of materials required for upgrading.

And on top of THAT, I think they messed with the item drop-rates too! Most enemies can drop 2 kinds of resources, some potentially have more, some only drop 1. in BotW I don't think (thought I may have to check) each type was a guaranteed drop, but you saw every type fairly frequently. In TotK each enemy now has distinct rare drops. And they can be RARE. And the worst part is you need a LOT of them for some armour upgrades. For example; Lizalfos tails are the Lizalfos rare drop, and the armour sets that need them can need up to 15 of the stupid things from a particular species of Lizalfos. Have fun grinding, because now you're playing Monster Hunter instead of Zelda.

Vehicles and Horses The vehicles both did and didn't trivialize crossing the map; a significant amount of grinding is needed before you have enough batteries to cover any distance, Wings (the bird-shaped gliders) have a limited lifespan to keep you from just flying everywhere, and the overworld is generally complicated enough that any fast wheeled vehicle will not be useful for long, and any all-terrain vehicle moves only at a modest speed. Ironically, just use horses where available. They're faster, more versatile, and can be called to you if they're within earshot. Also horses can spawn with overall higher stats than in BotW, and can be upgraded, though with significant resource investment. (It is worth noting that the "best" horse in base BotW, the royal white horse, is only middling to above-average stat-wise when compared to a good wild-caught horse in TotK. They power-crept the horses!)

The most interesting vehicles/movement devices, to me, were the rockets and hot-air balloons. Both add a lot instant verticality in a game that is all about traversal. Fusing a rocket to a shield gets you a huge boost for little resource expenditure (rockets are a bit rare until you can purchase devices). And once you find the Autobuild schematic for a hot air balloon base, all you need to add is a flame-emitter and you can ascend as far as your batteries allow.

Shrines In my humble opinion, TotK knocked it out of the park with its shrines. The ones that have actual puzzles, anyway. There is an unfortunately large proportion of "blessing" shrines that have no puzzle in them, and not all of them even need to be worked for that hard. The ones that do have puzzles are excellent. There are quite a few that highlight different uses for devices, and a good handful that take the Eventide Island/Master Trials-style challenge of stripping you of all your gear and put some twist on it. (Notably these are most interesting in the mid-game, when you have enough hearts to survive but not to trivialize the no-armour combat difficulty.)

They also did the very classy thing of not locking outfit parts behind hidden chests in Shrines. All the hidden chests were perfectly optional bonus chests that required no frustrating re-visits after finding out where that last piece of armour was hiding. Also the slight variations on the music theme was a nice touch that kept the shrines feeling fresh. No shade to the Sheikah Shrine theme, but the strong synths could get a bit grating at times. TotK's gentle, plinky shrine theme variations were an improvement.

The Map The Overworld Probably(?) the most common complaint about TotK and one I share. It's too damn big. In addition to mostly recycling the map from BotW (which bothered some people more than it bothered me, I think), they added an equivalent-sized map for the Depths. Now, BotW's overworld already felt a bit sparse, but it fit the tone of a literal post-apocalyptic world and encouraged you to poke around looking for koroks and investigating enemy camps. TotK's surface overworld is dotted with far more enemy camps and significantly fewer koroks, so it is about as dense but more dangerous/annoying (depending on your hp and gear) to traverse.

There are some major changes to the surface, beyond adding ruins to some spots; most of Death mountain is now safe to travel on foot (probably to encourage use of vehicles) and is no longer superheated, and there are a few spots where the road network is broken, dividing the map into 2 halves that cannot be crossed between on horseback. (In BotW, by comparison, all the roads were connected and you could auto-pilot a horse from one end of the map to the other, provided you took roads marked on the map.)

The Sky The Sky islands were relatively few, for all the hype they got in the promotional material. However I think their self-contained structure and handful of unique features (the "death star" islands, the dive challenges) helped them not overstay their welcome. Besides, the islands themselves are technically also ruins, 10,000 years old and finally visible to the naked eye from the surface, It's a wonder there's as much left and it's as functional as it is. They are beautiful, though. I did enjoy just loitering around in the sky to take in the view and the relaxed atmosphere, as there are fewer enemies up there.

The Depths The Depths... I think I share the majority gripe with the Depths. They're too big. The Depths are another whole open world that is more hostile with even less in it. It exists to grind for resources and pad the playtime. The challenge of the depths is in initially traversing it, having to light your way through impenetrable darkness and navigate dense enemy encampments and find Light Roots to fill out the map. After that, provided you have enough battery power, it can generally be ignored by flying over it. Which is unfortunate. If I were to fix the Depths, I would make it more akin to the Sky Islands; more self-contained, make it a series of winding, interconnected discrete caves, like one big dungeon crawl, rather than a second open world to ignore. Still have the Light Roots be important to vision and mapping, but have the general landscape be more contained. Maybe even have a few more areas that are inaccessible at first except by dropping into the correct chasms, like they did with the Eventide Island and Tingle Island Chain areas of the Depths.

Everything Else Side Quests and Koroks Honestly I enjoyed the variety of sidequests in TotK, and also enjoyed that some of them were quite involved. TotK had two "Tarrey Town"-equivalent long-form side-quest lines; one being visiting all the stables with Penn (I am counting this as one quest because you get drip-fed armour pieces from a unique set throughout it), and the other being the Mayoral Election / Local Cuisine questline in Hateno Village. There were also side-quests to optionally construct the Champions' weapons, which was neat, and to build a house with crazy Ultrahand powers, which was totally frivolous but fun to do. The one thing that bugged me a bit about the side-quests was running into NPCs that reasonably should have remembered Link but didn't. It felt odd, especially poking around Tarrey Town initially.

The Korok puzzles had some new variety to them, which was nice. The block puzzles were given the extra interest of being able to rotate things with Ultrahand, and the vehicle/towing mechanics were given a chance to shine with the "help me reach my friend" puzzles. Having Hestu appear in some less-than-ideal places to begin with (and the whole Lost Woods thing omg what a pain) kind of sucked, but getting those sweet sweet inventory upgrades is always worth it.

The Characters I love all the Sages, I'm going to say it right now. It was really cool to see some familiar faces from BotW (that actually recognized me) and learn what they'd been up to in the ambiguous time-gap. Teba being the slight exception but honestly - meeting Tulin and realizing this sweet bean bird boy looks just like both his parents hit me right in the heart. Mineru was also very cool and I'm glad we got to hang out with her (and bid her a tearful goodbye... my lovely lanky lady...). I also appreciated that doing the Ancient Writings quest teases Mineru's introduction. That was a nice touch.

Penn and Purah are fun, and the Lucky Clover Gazette and Monster Control Crew quests add some depth and background progression to BotW's Hyrule. You get to see how ordinary people are faring and how things are advancing post-Calamity. Seeing the various peoples of Hyrule gather at Lookout Landing after clearing a regional temple was neat, even if it was really only for show.

I know some people have beef with Rauru and that's maybe a blog for another time, but I don't think I have a strong enough opinion to bother. I didn't mind him, I think his arc was clear enough, I think I would have liked to see more of him and Sonia interacting with Zelda in a more everyday fashion - it seemed like she had a lot of fun in the distant past and something more than just a text log of that and a couple cutscenes might have been nice. Honestly I think I would have liked to see more of Sonia especially, she seems like an interesting lady (again, something more than Chaucerian text as proof would have been nice).

I'm honestly kind of mid on Matt Mercer's Ganondorf? I get that he's a big name and people were excited to hear him in the role but idk if the voice was entirely a good fit. They rocked the hell out of his visual design, though. Very good updated look, borrowing elements from some of his previous incarnations. Again I would have liked to see more elaboration on him though; what was the Gerudo tribe like under his rule? Were there dissenters? Give me more worldbuilding or I'll be forced to do it myself.

Music Mostly the same, actually. Overworld themes were recycled. Shrine themes were different and an upgrade imo. Combat themes were slightly different but I probably wouldn't be able to tell them apart at a listen. The Temple music though, oh boy. I loved these themes; they took the ramping instruments from the Divine Beasts control panel gimmick and mixed the Divine Beast Approach themes with each Sage's unique motif to create some really cool but pleasantly unobtrusive tracks. The Depths ambience was appropriately spooky, and the dynamic theme that kicks in when you high-dive was a nice touch, especially since there are distinct versions for diving to the surface and diving to the Depths.

But the standout tracks for me? First, the intro sequence where you descend with Zelda into the foundations of Hyrule Castle and hear the ever-layering Zonai chanting with the spooky reversed voice clips? MMM. 👌 So spooky, so tasty. Genuinely had me on edge even though I knew nothing would happen because it was the intro. The return sequence by the endgame has it build even more intensely as you descend even further and it's fantastic. Second is the Gloom's Approach / Gloom's Source battle theme. The distinctly electronic drone and beat associated with the Depths/gloom-related stuff gets room to shine when this tense bass-heavy track kicks in.

The Little Things I am actually going to stop this one here because I think this part deserves its own blog. There are a ton of little details in TotK that I absolutely adored and I want to gush about them with proper space allotted.

TL;DR TotK is alright. I know I'll catch flak for saying it's "good", so I won't. Settle down. It's alright. Some things it does extremely well, some things could have been edited for time, and some things remained just kinda mid from the original.

If I have to give it a number, it's a solid 6.5-7/10 . Competently constructed, technically impressive, mostly cut-and-pasted, mildly bloated, narratively kind of boring with no sense of stakes and an ending that undoes some otherwise interesting choices.

[go-go-devil]

Dark Souls Advice for Beginners: A Mindful Approach to a Challenging Classic

Dark Souls is, without question, one of the best games I’ve ever played… Which is why it pains me to still see so much gameplay discussion regarding it being overshadowed by overblown exaggerations of its difficulty or judgemental opinions hurled at others over whatever they think the "correct" and "incorrect" ways to play the game are.

As someone who recently beat the game for the very first time, I want to dispel these unhelpful ideologies and offer some tips I’ve picked up on just from playing the game by myself in hopes that they can help out beginners who want to experience this wonderful game first-hand.

This will NOT be made up of objective gameplay tips that one can find in hundreds of guides at this point (ex: how to parry, best order of bosses to fight, where to get the grass crest shield, etc.). Instead, this guide aims to narrow down the most important mindsets one should adopt while playing to best ease themself into this game’s challenging-but-rewarding mechanics BEFORE they would need to ask for help.

Dying is a Lesson, not a Punishment

Most people who've heard of Dark Souls even in passing are aware of the penalty given to players every time they die: losing your souls and humanity, or basically the in-game currency and natural resistance bonus + bonfire kindler + icreaser of finding item drops, among other things.

And you will die in this game.

A LOT!

Although this game has become infamous for having a high difficulty, it actually handles its death penalties very fairly in my opinion.

Like its predecessor, Demon’s Souls, this game expects the player to die many times throughout the adventure, and the gameplay accommodates for this. While the cost of death is losing ALL of your on-hand souls and humanity, the game gives you a second chance to reclaim those lost souls by returning to the spot where you died and recollecting them on the ground. It is only if you die again before reaching your souls that they disappear forever.

If you find yourself dying over and over again without making any meaningful progress, it’s best to view this as the game not telling you “Oh wow you must be terrible at playing this game!” but instead as suggesting “Perhaps you are not fully prepared to venture through this area or kill this boss just yet.”

Dark Souls 1 offers a lot of open-endedness to its world-design. If you’re stuck in one area, then try exploring another one. You’ll always find something useful wherever you go, and you’ll keep on getting better at the game the more you practice with the freedom you’re given!

Don’t Be Afraid to Experiment

Hopefully this one is obvious to you, but I know some people might be afraid they crafted their Chosen Undead “wrong” simply because of the very first choices they made. Like I said in the previous tip, exploration is the name of the game; not just in the world itself, but also for the gameplay and leveling system.

While indeed some weapons have better damage output than others, and starting characters’ stats often imply that you should go for a certain build (ex: Clerics = Faith Build), what’s wonderful about Dark Souls is that you don’t NEED to stick with one build throughout the entire journey. The early portion is meant to be a time to discover your personal best ways of getting through the game.

For a personal example, I started out as a Thief: a class with great dexterity, but with only decent points in faith and intelligence. While I was primarily building my character around dex and endurance, I did experiment with the various magic systems in the game and found I really loved using various sorcery spells, so I made sure to level up my intelligence & attunement whenever I felt it best just so I could use more. This strategy led to my character being a sort-of-mixed build of sorcery and dexterity, which ended up being a lot of fun for me!

Experimentation is not just limited to weapons and builds either! Dark Souls does an excellent job with placing items to find in areas where you may need to use them, so be sure to try them out whenever you find them. You won’t know how useful an item will be to you unless you give it a go, so save the hoarding for only after you’ve grown to covet them.

Use (but Don’t Abuse) Your Shields

For a newcomer to the game, the shield is a tool that is just as invaluable as any weapon you'll find. In a game so full of unpredictable hazards, the shield is both your lifeline and an important tool to learn the attack patterns of your enemies. 

I hid behind my shield constantly when traveling through the first few areas of Lordran, which certainly saved me a good few deaths I would’ve otherwise gotten from still getting a hang of the controls (and with my limited estus flasks). More importantly, however, having my shield up allowed me to study the speed and variety of my foes' strikes. Once I felt like I understood them well enough, I naturally began using my shield less and less when fighting them, eventually reaching the point where if I wasn't two-handing my weapon I was using my shield for parrying enemy attacks.

However, this is where the don’t abuse part comes in.

While it’s certainly a good idea to always have one at the ready at the start of a new area, it is also unwise to fully rely on the shield for protection against every foe you meet. Eventually you WILL find some enemies that won’t stumble back after you block their attacks, or even ones that won’t be bothered by your shield at all.

Really it all comes down to using common sense when up against your foes. Think of the shield just as you would a weapon; if it isn’t going to work, then don’t wear it down for nothing!

The World is Your Oyster, and Won't Bend To Your Every Whim

Possibly the most important tip I can provide to those just getting into the souls series, so take this one to heart!

One major feature of Dark Souls is the fact that it constantly autosaves EVERY action you make as you play through the game, which in turn means that it makes nearly every action you do permanent.

If you used a rare titanite material to upgrade a weapon you’re still not entirely sure about using or if you killed an npc for their armor/item drops but then felt bad about it, you CANNOT simply reload your save and reset everything. Your actions have consequences, and you need to learn to live with them.

Thinking out your every approach is vital to getting the most out of this game. When you're upgrading your stats, carefully consider what you feel would benefit you the most for the next area/boss you plant on going to. If you have limited resources, then spend some time planning out when and where it’s best to use them. If you have a weapon that requires a TON of souls and/or rare materials to upgrade, then perhaps contemplate on if it's even worth the effort or not.

Dark Souls has very strong opinions on players who are driven by greed, so smart thinking can help you avoid how the game expresses those opinions so to speak ;)

Hopefully these tips will help you out on your own first journey through this truly amazing video game. So have fun, and Prepare to Die!