#i'll get to you in a while i just have to finish fire emblem warriors 3 hopes so i can finally focus on study and work

[anruraiocht]

TOA Anniversary Munday

from neffi (thank you neffi!!)

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

Name: limit

Pronouns: they/them

Birthday (no year): 3/8 (thats march 8th for my non-americans)

Where are you from? What is your time zone? US | EST

How long is your roleplay experience? 10+ years

How were you introduced to roleplaying as a whole? i was doing warrior cats roleplay on scratch dot mit dot edu at age 10 brother

How were you introduced to TOA? n was talking about it on call and me and the oomfs decided to play a little prank on him when he went to the bathroom. it was really funny to be fair

Do you have any pets? three dogs (australian shepherd, shiba, chihuahua mix) and a cat (stupid)

What is your favorite time of year and why? (Season, holiday, general period) fall; i have pollen allergies that give me really bad headaches and live in a pollen bowl you can imagine my suffering.

Some interests and things you like/enjoy? i like to play and draw

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play? i'm a visual novel (otome, yuri, general non-romantic) and rhythm game type of guy. jrpgs and action rpgs when i'm in the mood

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: the only pokemon type that matters to me is Dog

Tell us some funfacts and trivia about yourself! i used my wisdom teeth fun fact last yeah so uhhhhh did you know i can clap one handed but only with my right hand

How did you get into Fire Emblem? i think i saw awakening in gamestop and was like yeag i'll play that. my brother and i had just finished playing virtue's last reward together so we named our robins sigma and phi

What Fire Emblem games have you played? i've at least touched every game except for 1-3 (ymmv how much that means for each game)

First & Favorite Fire Emblem games: Awakening first, FE6 or Engage for fave

List your 5 favorite Fire Emblem characters across the series! honestly just look at my muse list for this one i only write my faves

Who was the first character ever to make you go “ooh I like this one in particular” and why? Can be any context and reason! lyn was the first fe character to really get me excited about fe i was writing essays about her in n's dms while in the middle of classes haha

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳 i am in love with nel like /srs /gen i opened engage on my birthday so i could hear her say happy birthday to me

If you’ve played (or are familiar with) the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays?

Awakening: Chrom (on purpose); married Olivia in my male run. i would still choose chrom Fates: kaden and keaton for birthright and conquest respectively. i stopped playing once i had my furry daughters. LMAO. Three Houses: never got that far. dorothea and mercedes probably. Engage: i have commitment issues and this is why i dont finish games

Favorite Fire Emblem class? Dark Mage(s)

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class and stats? Would you be playable? sticking with what i said last year; a mage that just completely sucks ass. repping my special girls by also being a character that makes people say "why would you use them"

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation? i apparently said golden deer last year. yeah sure

If you were an Officers Academy student, what would be your boons, banes and potential budding talent? Reason boon, Heavy Armor and Faith Banes, bow budding talent

If you were an Engage character, which nation would you originate from? i was gonna say elusia but then i remembered solm is partially brazil inspired and i felt my father breathing down my neck to not betray his country

How do you pronounce TOA? TOE-uh

Current TOA muses: Miranda, Marni, Reginn

Past TOA muses? Volug, Lyn, Sophia

Who was your first TOA muse? If you no longer have them, can you see yourself picking them up again? Volug; he's comfortably retired.

Do you believe you have a type of character you gravitate towards writing? the three limit muse genders are as follows:

-depersonalization and/or self-isolation (we're not the same and never will be) -my siblings are all i have (but i dont know if love is enough to save us) -oh god where does the anger go after everything is over ..............the bonus limit muse gender is "man who is funny" ftr

Do you have characters or types of characters you don’t think you can handle writing, but wish you could? i think i could do anything if i tried hard enough (hubris speaking) but i would have to become obsessed with them first which is the hard part because i feel like i'm pretty picky

What kind of scenes, situations etc do you believe you enjoy writing the most? i've really gotten back into my complicated sibling relationship era lately. i like non-traditional family relationships in general and having to work to keep that connection alive. i like relationships between women (not necessarily romantic but also yeah i'm a lesbian so romantic too) and the nuances that come with that. Honestly i like talking about gender in general HAHA

Do you have any scenario in mind for your muse(s) that gets you thinking “man I hope I get to write this one day”? just happy to be here tbh :)

Favorite TOA-related memories? my friemds :)

Present or past tense? present tense but honestly i think im really bad at tenses. LMFAO.

Normal size text, small text, no preference? normal size is my default. i'll match whatever my partner prefers

Got any potential muse delusions to share? 😉 wouldnt you like to know weatherboy

[viridescent-lance]

TOA Anniversary Munday!

Celebrating TOA and the people who contribute to make our group what it is.

Repost, don't reblog. Only fill in what you feel comfortable sharing!

Happy anniversary, TOA! Here's to many more years spent together.

tagging whoever wants to do this!

Name: Pat Gem! Patrick is the full name but Pat is what I go by most often in this group.

Pronouns: he/they

Birthday (no year): September 15! Same as my beloved kitty Cassie.

Where are you from? What is your time zone?: I'm from California, PST! I was born in the Bay Area, moved to Alabama where I spent ten years as a kid, and moved back to California. That's the truncated version.

Roleplay experience: I started roleplaying on the Warrior Cats Forums in like...2010, I think? I also did private Skype rps with my best friend at the time. This lasted for 3-4 years until both fizzled out around the same time. I have some experience doing group nuzlocke rp on the nuzforums, but that also didn't last as long as I'd like. Other than some ttrpgs, I had a dry spell, and in 2019 I joined a Friends at the Table tumblr RP that would change my life. There I met Maddie and some other friends, and while the rp wasn't super active after I joined it, Maddie and I started doing rp ourselves! Finally, in late 2021, Lucius invited Maddie to TOA and I also got the invite and tagged along.

Got any pets?: Yep! Cassie and Oreo, my beloveds! Both cats, Cassie is the one with a hairdo and she's almost 4, Oreo's a year and a half and a tuxy baby.

Favorite time of year: I love when it is nice and cool but not too cold. Fall is my favorite season, personally, but really I especially enjoy not sweating to death.

Some interests and things you like: I'm a huge Pokemon fan, which I'll elaborate on later. Here though I'll say that I have a huge interest in competitive Pokemon, both singles and the official VGC circuit. I'm a big TTRPG guy! I have a lot of systems and games I like but I'll single out Fall of Magic, Jenna Moran games, the Forged in the Dark system, the Belonging Outside Belonging system, and It's Been A Long Long Time! I have an interest in speedrunning, I watch a lot of videos about it and it's fun. I love Discworld, the Terry Pratchett series. Tales of Vesperia is a game of all time. Yuri Lowell your problems disorders. Ace Attorney helped mold me as a person. Warrior cats will forever live in my heart. Bionicle also helped make me the guy I am today. 999 is a visual novel of all time. Play it and do not look it up. I actually have a huge interest in media analysis, it's something I really really enjoy talking about and researching. Splatoon my beloved. Octopath Traveler 1 and 2! I love birds and bats and lots of animals! Okay I'm running out of steam and also this is very long so I'll just stop here but there's definitely things I am forgetting.

Some funfacts & trivia about you: - I'm a library and women's and gender studies student, and hope to some day work as a librarian! For now, I'm an afterschool program associate, and I love working with the kids. - I have met Nancy Pelosi while wearing a Pokemon button up. - I've survived a tornado that started above my house. - I have finished 34 nuzlockes. - Marth was one of my first smash mains but I didn't get into Fire Emblem for years. - I have the cilantro soap gene but I like the taste of soap. - I'm physically disabled and use a cane irl! - My girlfriend used to have me blocked on Twitter. - I've made it to playoffs every single Pokemon draft league I've been in but never made it past semifinals - I was very isolated as a kid and rarely left the house. As a result, I learned my vocabulary mostly from books, as well as how I talk and emote from books and shows. I've been told I talk and act like a cartoon character, which I suppose is fair!

What non-Fire Emblem games do you play?: I play a bunch of Splatoon, probably one of the main games I play! It's very fun, and I'm a Sploosh/Custom Jr/Tentatek triple threat main who constantly hovers around S. Octopath Traveler 1 and 2 have me grabbed so hard. I am hopelessly a Pokemon guy. I play nuzlockes, casually, and competitively, and I have almost every single Pokemon and its learnset and viable competitive learnsets memorized. I am very normal about it. I also really love the Zero Escape series. I've been playing the warrior cats procgen sim ClanGen recently. I used to play a bunch of No Man's Sky, want to get back into that soon. Honestly I struggle to consistently play and finish games, and I've been trying to work on that.

Favorite Pokemon type & Pokemon: Bug; Flygon. Yes, you can combine these two to get the logical conclusion: Flygon should have been a Bug/Dragon type! It's based off the life cycle of a lacewing!!

How did you get into Fire Emblem?: I've got two stories here, one of how I almost got into Fire Emblem and how it got on my radar, and the other being how I finally got into it for real. So, in 9th grade, I had a crush on a boy who played Awakening at lunch every day. I'd talk with him and he actually offered to buy me Awakening, but I, one of the only poor kids in a rich school, was flabbergasted he would spent 40 dollars on me and felt guilty and was like are you sure? And he was like well okay if you don't want me to. I kind of wish I'd taken him up on the offer because he sucked as a person and his family was super rich but oh well. I then played the hell out of the demo. Flash forward to 2019. I'm scrolling twitter and see a friend of mine is streaming Fire Emblem Three Houses. I've seen it before, and it seems pretty fun. A lot of my friends like Fire Emblem. I watch the stream and fall in love with the characters and style of the game, and I impulse buy Three Houses. I then tell Maddie and sell them on Three Houses. Thus, it begun...

What Fire Emblem games have you played?: This is a fun and complicated question for me to answer because if you count me backseating Maddie, it's some of fe4, most of fe7, fe8, fe9, fe10, over half of fe13, some fe14, fe15, and fe16. If it's just me, that shrinks down to some fe7 and fe8, some fe9, over half of fe13, some fe15, and some fe16. I was an active participant in watching the games so it feels like a smidgen of playing them but not quite?

First Fire Emblem game: Either the Awakening demo or Three Houses.

Favorite Fire Emblem game: Shadows of Valentia, Sacred Stones, and the Tellius duology. Hard to specify a single favorite, especially depending on what we are defining favorite as.

Any Fire Emblem crushes? 😳 : Where do I begin. I mean Lukas is like, perhaps one of my strongest ones. Though I'm also smitten with Forsyth and attracted to Python despite him being terrible boyfriend material. Recently I have been making eyes at Legault in Blazing Blade, and also playing Fates for the first time had me really surprised at how much Setsuna charmed me. Uhhh lemme think also. Christ Kent your problems disorders bewitch me. Claude you are my everything I will do anything for you. Shamir also if we are talking 3h, what a gal. Ranulf my beloved, he's got things together and he's playful and teasing and just has a great personality. Also Titania...pretty and strong and cool and just a fantastic character who I would not object to kissing on the mouth. I think i might stop here because if I keep going I am going to just take you on a tour of my numerous Fire Emblem crush tastes.

If you’ve played the following games, who was your first S support? Who would you S support nowadays? - Awakening: Panne; I'd also S support Libra or Say'ri. I need to mention that my first awakening playthrough was in 2020 though so if I'd gotten it in 2013 like I almost did I'd probably have gotten married to like...Libra if I waited that long, Chrom if I messed up and got automarried, or like. Stahl or something bc he's really nice and a knight. - Fates: I have not S supported anyone in Fates yet but Setsuna and Silas I am Looking. - Three Houses: I actually never have S supported anyone in Three Houses, as I never actually finished my personal playthrough! However, my big choices are Shamir and Claude, though w the latter I just pretend that's me bc I don't do teacher/student. - Engage: Not enough experience to say who I might S support. Will get back to you.

Favorite Fire Emblem class: Do laguz/taguel/manakete count. I'm also weak for archers I shan't lie.

If you were a Fire Emblem character, what would be your class?: Oh I know I'd be one of those frail little mages who has explosive firepower and waning physical ability. Honestly being that but on a wyvern would be fun. My good friend my mobility wyvern.

If you were a Three Houses character, what would be your affiliation?: Golden Deer 4ever baybee not even close.

If you were an Engage character, which Emblem would you Engage with?: I'll get back to this, I'm not sure if I have the info I need to make an informed choice. My first thought is that I would love to have Ike chilling with me though, Ike my good friend Ike.

How did you find TOA?: Lucius invited Maddie, and Maddie invited me! I was roleplaying Forsyth with Maddie's Python 1on1 at the time and the idea of a group RP was very appealing to me, despite me being swamped with work and school and health issues at the time. I'm so glad I made the leap!

Current TOA muses: Forsyth and Leanne!

Who was your first TOA muse? If you don’t have them anymore, could you see yourself picking them up again?: Forsyth! I don't see myself dropping him unless his narrative here is done, really.

Have you had any other TOA muses?: Oh Ranulf...I had a very fun time with him, but I just was not in the state to handle three muses and having two muses has been much more manageable, so he's probably not coming back for a while.

Do you think you have a type of character you gravitate towards?: I tend to write very earnest characters, especially in a group RP setting. I've pushed my comfort zone before, but characters who express themselves very openly and intensely are my bread and butter. Characters who wear their hearts on their sleeves, for better or worse.

What do you believe you enjoy writing the most?: Hard to say, but honestly I really enjoy writing relationships, and the ways in which they shift and change over time. I really like character-focused writing the most, emotions and thoughts and such, and exploring the connections between characters! This feels like a silly answer, but it's what I'm feeling!

Favorite TOA-related memory: Oh man this is a hard one. Hard to choose so I'll just pick one that came to mind which is Leanne and Vaida's bizarre adventure in Queen's Compass. What a good event that was, blows a kiss to the sky for Zyra. I'm also a huge fan of everything involving Forsyth's Jugdral meddling and the narrative impact of his deaths in KKE. There are so many funny little experiences and memories that stick with me forever, really.

How do you pronounce TOA? 🤔: Tee-oh-ay! Pronouncing it as a word is the same as Toa from Bionicle and to keep them distinct in my mind I sound it out.

Got any delusions that didn’t see the light of day that you’d like to share? 😉: The world if I could handle three muses...Legault scratching at my door. Ranulf also scratching at my door. Blows a kiss to the guys I would enjoy playing but don't have the time and energy for.

[randomcanbian]

.

[puncromancer]

March 9 2021 - Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

110 hours to 100% clear on Very Hard difficulty

spoiler free review under the cut. All of my thoughts on something that contains spoilers are after the review proper and are marked with a spoiler warning...

In this second installment Hyrule Warriors spinoff series you play as lovable Daruk in his quest to save Hyrule from Calamity Ganon. Or at least that was my experience anyway as Gorons are slept on and underutilized in the main series. You unlock all the Champions and some other recognizable units from Breath of the Wild in this game and are usually given free range on who you want to play as in a given mission. Any opportunity for me to play as Daruk was taken and I'll say I maxed out his weapon and character level with many missions to spare. Daruk gets his divine power Daruk's Protection that you unlock in BotW. However it is much more potent for Daruk as holding ZL gives you an impenetrable 360 degree shield that will block 99% of attacks (interesting to note is that great fairy kiss attacks and waterblight ganon's ice spear stabbing downward are the only attacks not effected by Daruk's Protection I think probably on accident)

The game takes place 100 years prior to the events of Breath of the Wild. Which adds a very prominent growing sense of dread as in the prologue of BotW- it is revealed that the Champions all died and Link fails in his mission to stop Calamity Ganon and had to go into 100 years of regenerative cryostasis to recover enough for round two. So every victory seems bittersweet as the player knows due to the events of BotW that everything must come crashing down on Link and his friends. Which gives the game a much darker theme than most mainline Zelda games.

The gameplay is fun and fresh. The warriors aspect shines through with outrageous kill counts and satisfying special attacks. Boss fights are a fun level of challenging and you get checkpoints after each objective in a given level so you don't have to pull an old school Fire Emblem and restart the whole chapter whenever you die. They also eased up on the tactical aspect of the Warriors games, Most objectives are not timed in the main levels and you are free to fight everything on the map as Daruk. Although you are able to swap between characters to make the levels faster. Usually the most stressful part of a Warriors game is managing when to move heroes where and doubling back to protect a base or intercepting enemy units. All of this is toned down immensely making a far more casual friendly gameplay.

They have also added gameplay mechanics from BotW like the flurry rush and perfect deflects (I've never done one in this game but I remember the tutorial mentioning them) as well as the shiekah slate runes. Boss characters will eventually telegraph their attacks and a big ol rune symbol will show up like their own personal scarlet letter. You just pop open the rune menu and select the shown rune to counter them and stun them giving you free reign to hammer down their stamina gauge and moving you closer to a cool finisher move.

Also sidenote: Link while using one handed weapons has a unique action of firing off five or so shots with a bow which if aimed at a boss' weak spot (same as in BotW like a lynel's head or a guardian's eye) you can stun it for a short period of time and open up the stamina gauge as well.

As you finish levels you unlock equipment for your characters and in the overworld map you can select different sidequests that help power up your characters for the fights ahead. It is a very helpful system that rewards players for playing alinearly.

The gameplay is not perfect, the camera can get really wonky at times- I had one lynel fight where the camera was firmly affixed to Daruk's ass for the duration. I was just lucky that I had all of Daruk's combos memorized and also that I was playing Daruk at the time so I could block all attacks while I was fighting blind. There are also sidequests that force you to play as Zelda and those are just absolute slogs because she is far and away the least enjoyable character to play as.

My least favorite mechanic are the sidequests with level timers. You need to complete all the objectives in ten minutes and you can see the clock running down as you go. On very hard difficulty the enemies have amped up attack health and defense so you do far less damage and take far more. So you have to fight bosses more strategically. Basically, for the timed missions you have to be so ridiculously overleveled to be able to complete the missions that you may as well just turn the difficulty down (also you don't get shit for completing everything on very hard). The timed missions just seem out of place for a game that did away with the timing headaches in the main story.

Overall I'd give the game a 5/5 stars- mostly because getting to play as Daruk was all I ever wanted since BotW came out so that more than makes up for any frustrations.

*Spoilers*

Just in case anyone wants to see my review and has not played or finished themselves I wanted to separate out the spoiler discussion.

The ending to this game is just the absolute worst fucking hand waving nintendo has ever pulled. Just when Calamity Ganon is reaching peak Calamity, and the Champions are all piloting their divine beasts while Link and Zelda are in the castle. You are on the edge of your seat waiting for that poignant emotional payoff of seeing the heroes fail and give into utter despair as they fail in their mission. The fucking descendant champions time travel and save their ancestors. At the time I thought this was a huge revelation, thinking maybe the descendants pull the original Champions through the time rift into the future post-BotW timeline and then maybe we'd get to see them or even hopefully play as them in the BotW sequel and explaining why they weren't in the timeline for the original BotW. But no, it's just another fucking alternate timeline in the already convoluted mess of the Legend of Zelda historia. Link and Zelda seal Calamity Ganon and bring peace to Hyrule- and it's totally underwhelming hand waving bullshit. All of buildup to Link's failure is just dissipated harmlessly like a leak in a whoopie cushion.

There is an attempt to make up for it as by completing a series of postgame sidequests allow you to unlock Calamity Ganon as a playable character. Daruk was maxed the fuck out a this point so it was fun to get a new main character to build up. And after you unlock his full moveset he is very rewarding to play as.

You also unlock the Great Fairies which are severely underwhelming. You fight all four fairies as sort of midgame sidequests. And they are the scariest fucking bosses you've ever faced. I had to burn through rods just to survive every time. And then after facing all four Great Fairies you unlock them. But they are so slow and large that they physically cannot dodge attacks. They have some great aoe attacks that make them great for clearing large swathes of enemies or trying to capture a base. But you better have another character there on standby because you straight up will not be able to face a boss encounter as them and live. Because even if you dodge an attack you still get hit by it.

Also getting all the koroks is a royal pain just like in BotW. The final sidequest requires all koroks be found in order to complete it and all you get for it is the fucking ocarina of time outfit for link but like you already have the barbarian armor at that point so what's the fucking point.