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shepfax · 9 months

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tagging all the posts about my personal BG3 run as #palustris, my tav's name, just so I can find them all at once.

and to help my brain build him up a bit I will write thoughts about my tav here. it's a long ass post

Name: Palustris Mancinell

Race: Green Dragonborn

Pronouns: he/him/his

Identities: Intersex, bisexual

Background: Sage

Class: Circle of Spores Druid

Romance: Astarion

Key traits:

Firmly established sense of self; confident in his abilities and identity

Reserved, unapproachable, sometimes intimidating

Wary and often cynical towards other thinking beings

Insatiably curious especially about natural history but slow to share his passion with others

When finally close to someone: nurturing, physically affectionate, top leaning but identifies as a switch

more off-the-cuff thoughts below:

he is that kind of nerd that is really, really private about his nerdiness to the extent that you'd assume he's a jock but when he opens up in private you're like goddamn this guy is a massive nerd. he's not particularly outgoing, preferring to avoid conversations outside of his companions, and is kind of scary by virtue of being a dragonborn. so while stat-wise he does have decent charisma, roleplay-wise it's explained because he has lethal resting bitch face and terrible social skills/no interest in selling himself as something he's not. so while he is basically allergic to outright lying, he is widely in favor of lying by omission. it's much easier to hold your tongue than to flick it thoughtlessly.

he has real issues trusting people at first. he's cynical, assumes self-serving/bad intentions from the vast majority of people, but once someone has made an effort towards him (e.g. meeting his needs unprompted, complimenting him, remembering something important about him, sharing something important about themselves) he invests a lot into maintaining the relationship. he believes in reciprocity and that a lasting bond requires effort from both parties. he shows he cares by spending time on people either directly by helping them with his bare hands in the moment or by doing things off to the side that he knows will make them happy when they notice.

Palustris has a tremendously solid sense of self, unwilling to change for anyone or anything, so meeting someone who both trusts him and doesn't have that security and stability (aka the entire fucking companion lineup) kicks him into a new gear: caring about people. he doesn't know what to think of it or do about it other than either firmly guarding them or, if that makes them uncomfortable, wait quietly and anxiously for them to ask for help. he doesn't like to admit it outwardly but he gets a lot of satisfaction from when people come to him for love and support since it's something that very few ever considered him for prior to the gang getting together.

his affection towards Astarion is... complicated. in his stupor and stress and desperation from the tadpole debacle he legitimately fell for Astarion--the honeyed words, the biting, the sex, all of which he assumed were mutually enjoyed. (I haven't reached the point where Astarion shares that he never intended to care about you and ended up falling in love anyway, but I know it's coming 😔.) it will hurt deeply when he finds out that Astarion's attraction to him was exaggerated even for a moment, to know that he was giving more than his partner ever intended to repay. it will be extremely hard for him to hear that he's been manipulated even if Astarion doesn't want to do that anymore. Palustris ultimately finds it easier to be casually and broadly distrusting than to deeply and lovingly trust anyone, but the shit that matters in life isn't easy. it's so much more rewarding to make things right than to give up. he made up his mind pretty early about Astarion (that he was both a formidable ally and a deeply intriguing/attractive personality) and has no logical reason to give up on him especially when trying to deal with the game conflicts. his trust is hard to win, yes, but he's also hard to get rid of once you've won. he develops a ridiculously strong patience over time.

moreso than Palustris being angry at Astarion for manipulating him, Palustris mourns for Astarion's lost agency. he feels an aching yearning love to find the man underneath all those scars clawing his way out through the cracks in that smug facade. he knows what it's like to be cynical and maligned by many, to make use of your abilities for personal gain. most importantly once he knows Astarion's reasons for acting that way are almost entirely out of his control, his heart breaks knowing that this poor man hasn't had a real say in his life in about 200 years. Palustris has a choice in the matter of his own behavior; Astarion does not. Astarion has no reason to believe anyone would want anything better for him. Palustris realizes he is someone who wants something better for Astarion, and he's upset with himself too. upset that it took him this long to realize some people act out because they're deeply mentally wounded, not because they're bad people.

#palustris

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dr3amofagame · 3 years

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Hello, idk if you’ll see this, nor do you have to take this request. But I’ve been thinking, and thought up: Dream joined the egg, but not because it offered him world domination or a happy family or any of that; no it offered to treat him kindly, to be affectionate, to be a friend, basically offering him human decency. (With an add on of everyone believing it was for some big reason, but the actual reason gets revealed somehow) if that made any sense. (Idk if this counts as an au or not)

[ask: if dream showed up to the red banquet, that would be very sexy of the writers to make him join the eggpire instead of the pro-omlette]

hehe egg!dream has so much potential ,, this is a ficlet i’ve been working on for a while (writer’s block my detested) but i finally finished it up !! it’s a bit unpolished but oh well - they cant all be winners lmao

tw: body horror, blood, injuries, implied torture/abuse, starvation, possession, dark/disturbing imagery, dark content, pandora’s vault/prison arc

Dream gets corrupted by the Egg, because of course he does.

Sapnap trudges through the vine-filled hallway, his face bundled firmly with a holy-water soaked bandana to keep out the worst of the spores. It’s a shoddy defense, but he doesn’t plan to stay long; he’s only been sent on reconnaissance, to see what public enemy number one is planning and get out as quickly as he can. As much as the entire server wants Dream dead, trying to defeat the man the first time was enough of a feat, never mind with the power of a giant demon egg on his side - to try and fight him now would be practically impossible.

The floor squishes underneath his boots, and his lips curl in disgust; the vines are thick and moist and feel ugly and rotten to the core. He can’t imagine anyone being anything but repulsed by the things, but he guesses it makes sense for Dream to be drawn here - corruption attracts corruption, it seems. It only figures that Dream would be desperate enough for power to let himself get possessed by the living - if you could really call it living - embodiment of decay and deterioration itself. The feeling of the floor giving way underneath his footsteps has another wave of revulsion crawling up his throat, though he’s not sure if it’s directed towards the Egg or his former friend or both.

He reaches the end of the hallway, an itching, pulsing feeling of wrong filling the air in the room just beyond the haphazard archway carved into the stone. With careful hands, Sapnap draws the bandana further up his face, making sure that it is tied securely behind his head - just beyond this wall lies the belly of the beast, the heart of the rot slowly but surely spreading its influence over the entire server. Something hums in the air; whispering, otherworldly sounds pierce through his armor and settle beneath his skin; he pushes on. He knows better than to listen, to try and make sense of the words within the noise - from what he’s heard, by the time you understand what it is saying, it’s too late.

He steps inside; the room feels, for the lack of a better word, red. He’s better suited for the place than most, being a Netherborn and therefore more used to the oppressive heat and heaviness of the air, but there’s something undeniably wrong about how this place feels, something entirely Other having made its home in the room. Every inch of the place feels hostile, angry, hungry, recognizing him as someone foreign and wanting nothing more than his destruction. Unlike the Red Forests, which teemed with life - piglins and hoglins and giant fungus - this room is little more than a twisted mimicry, sucking the air dry, leaving little more than husks behind.

His hand immediately goes to his sword, drawing it with a dull, metallic scrape. The room is eerily silent save for the Egg’s hissing whispers, and he frowns; he’d expected an attack, but the room is still, quiet; a mockery of peace that only makes the uneasy feeling in his gut grow further. He trudges forward, watching against the puddles of lava and smoking magma scattered over the floor, but nothing stirs.

There’s a growing pressure against his skull with each step into the room, and his hand tightens on his communicator; they’d set up a stasis chamber, just in case things went south, his way out of this place only a few button presses away. Still, nothing moves; no Bad or Ant popping out of nowhere, weapons in hand, no Dream driving an axe between his shoulder blades as he’s done so many times before in their spars. There’s only the sound of his footsteps against the rotting growths on the floor and his own heartbeat thudding in his ears and the Egg’s warbling voice, beneath it all - beckoning, almost kind.

He swallows, throat dry, and moves forward.

His feet carry him to the back corner of the room, to the rotting, pulsing core of the wrongness plaguing the entire server. Even through his bandana, the air feels foreign, nearly choking him, and he strains his eyes against the glare of the lava to look up at the vines’ rancid heart, the Egg. Up close, it’s almost underwhelming, only about three times his height, hardly coming halfway up to the ceiling of the room. What it doesn’t have in size, however, it makes up in sheer presence; the hissing whispers in his head grow louder, crawling under his skin and between his bones, and he curses under his breath as he prepares to call for his way back. Dream isn’t here; the mission is a bust.

“Sapnap?”

He freezes.

It takes a moment to realize that the voice wasn’t in his head, as raspy and unsettling as it was, and his eyes traced the edges of the Egg to a dull colored shape at its side, completely overlooked in his initial sweep of the room. He watches, a dull horror rising in his chest, as the shape moves, twists around on itself in an entirely unnatural way like a marionette pulled by its strings. A pale dot rises from where it had been hidden against the bright red of the Egg; it’s a face, Dream’s face, covered in clawing vines, stark against the bone-white of his sun-starved skin, vomit racing up his throat at the sight of the vines having made their homes in jagged wounds all over his face and neck and disappearing into the torn scraps of his prison uniform, each one spilling crimson in the form of writhing vines and thorns instead of blood.

“Sapnap,” Dream says again, his mouth moving with the words but something entirely other having made its home in the air of his lungs, a shivering rasp to his voice that lifts and falls with the same desperate hunger that saturates every tainted inch of the room. His neck tips to the side, shifted over by a twisting vine tangled within his hair and wrapping a crown of blood-red thorns over his forehead, tendrils drooping over his face and framing the gaunt edges. “You came.”

“Dream-” the anger comes back, familiar, at the other’s words - the same red-hot rage that had boiled within him in that first and only prison visit (you took so long) but it dissipates as fast as it comes. Dream - if this remnant, this shade, this corrupted, mangled half that seems more corruption than human can even be called the name of one he had once considered his best friend, his brother - stumbles closer, held up by the vines that twist over his shaking legs, one having the pale, ragged edge of a bone clearly having ripped through skin - and Sapnap does throw up, this time, dragging the bandana from his face and heaving bile all over the floor.

“What happened-” he cries, flames licking up his arms in defense when his friend-turned-monster-turned-this steps closer on a wreck of a leg that should not be able to bear weight, stumbles back to a roaring in his ears-

He is mine he came broken came shattered and I gave him everything I gave him his heart’s desire I am his savior his grace he asked for warmth and he asked for comfort and he asked for nothing but for someone to take his pain and he is mine he is mine he is mine

He freezes, hand tightening over his communicator; Dream stares at him with the one dull-green eye not covered by the vines splayed over his too-pale face, mouth moving but no sound coming out. The roaring, angry sound in Sapnap’s ears grows louder, follows the shape of Dream’s lips come join your friend come with me I will give him to you you have failed him once but not again not again he is mine but you can be mine also and you will be together together together

“-pnap! Sapnap!” Puffy’s words crackle over the communicator, harsh and loud and snapping him out of his thoughts, “Pull the switch, Sam! No, he’s not responding- pull the switch-”

The world dips, and he heaves in a shattered breath, lungs finally full as he breathes in clear air for the first time in what feels like an eternity, hacking coughs pulled from his throat as he tears the bandana off in one sputtering gasp for breath.

“Sap- Sapnap,” Sam pitches his voice low, comforting, a hand rubbing up and down his back, but all Sapnap can see is the skeleton of a man held together by red thread, the life leached from his skin and leaving nothing left, he asked for nothing but for someone to take the pain and he is mine he is mine he is mine-

“Sapnap,” Puffy’s voice is tinny with concern, “What happened? You stopped responding and the time passed so we pulled the switch on the stasis chamber- are you alright? Did he attack you?”

“I-” -you have failed him once but not again not again you will be together- “I need a moment.”

He scrambles away, feet carrying him away from Church Prime, away from the Holy Land, away away away until he’s standing on the Community House roof, staring at his hands at this home, destroyed, this home, rebuilt, this home, empty and wrong and a shadow of house for a shadow of a man, a shadow of a friend found, a friend lost- and sobs.

What had he done?

#tw body horror #tw blood #tw torture #tw abuse #tw starvation #tw possession #tw dark imagery #tw disturbing imagery #tw dark content #prison arc #pandora's vault #queue <3 #long post #my writing :D #my asks !!

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arcticwaters · 4 years

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i was looking through the mighty nein’s stats and i thought it would be interesting to see what possible choices the team has for multiclassing and what i think would be the most likely/interesting pick. (note, i’m aware that it’s unlikely most of them would multiclass, such as the two clerics who would miss out on automatic divine intervention, but this is just for fun.) gonna base these off of their current lvl 13 stats, and ignore the possibility of changes later, either from ability score improvements, or DM gifts.

beau

beau has access to: fighter, rogue, cleric, druid, artificer, ranger, wizard.

honestly any of these would work pretty well with beau, the only ones that i think she would balk at would be druid (i doubt marisha would dip into that again, plus beau doesn’t seem like the type) and wizard, because of her open distain for most of them. i doubt she has any desire in forming an intimate relationship with a god but cleric would be extremely interesting for her if she wanted to dabble in spellcasting. (knowledge domain?) she could use some range, so ranger wouldn’t be too bad. and artificer would be a great show of her smarts, but those tend to be a little more support, while beau prefers to get up in it. so i think the most likely choices for beau would be fighter or rogue.

dueling fighting style to get an extra +2 damage (assuming her staffs count as one handed? i’m actually not sure. if not then great weapon fighting i guess.) second wind is good and action surge would be amazing on beau, basically giving her six attacks. martial archetype, battle master would be an interesting pair with her ki points.

rogue i feel would be best for beau if she wanted to go ranged (because i don’t know if staffs and fists are finesse) to get that sneak attack unless she’s willing to trade her bo for a shortsword, however you really can’t go wrong with cunning action and expertise. archetype i’d go with scout for skirmisher or swashbuckler for fancy footwork. honestly mixing and matching between rogue and fighter is great for up close melee fighters, like lvl 2 fighter for action surge, and lvl 5 rogue for uncanny dodge. beau would be great with uncanny dodge.

caduceus

cad has access to: bard, druid, fighter, monk, rogue, ranger, sorcerer, warlock.

cad is not a melee fighter, so the physical classes are out (tho monk!cad would be so funny, imagine cad being like “oh ok, time to square up”) and of the spell casting ones bard and druid are definitely the best options.

for the longest time before i watched c2 proper, i thought cad was a druid, and i’m genuinely surprised that he hasn’t multiclassed yet. everything about him screams druid. unfortunately, i don’t know enough about druids to know what set up would work the best for him, but i’d imagine forest or swamp land circle would be good. (spores sounds like it would be a good fit on paper, but cad is really averse to the undead, so that doesn’t quite line up.)

cad’s no singer, but if they got him another bone flute he’d be pretty set with bard. it’d be a really interesting choice for him, just a little more extra support in the form of bardic inspirations and countercharm. jack of all trades would also help off-set some of his more lack luster skills. for college i’d say either glamour, or valor. (valor has that cool feature where you can add inspiration to a damage roll or ac.)

caleb

caleb has access to: artificer, bard, cleric, druid, sorcerer, warlock.

i honestly have no clue what caleb would multi into if he wanted to. none of these options really fit him as a person. i could see him maybe going warlock if he’d gone down a much darker path but he doesn’t seem to care for higher power. really the only option of these that i think he might even consider is artificer, as it’s the only one that uses intelligence. but even that, not really. college of lore bard for cutting words and additional magical secrets?? eh.

tho i will say, with just one more point in dex, he could be a monk, and wouldn’t that be an interesting story beat for the empire siblings.

fjord

fjord has access to: barbarian, artificer, bard, fighter, sorcerer

since fjord already has two classes, it’s unlikely he’d desire to pile more on, especially since he just got a new homebrewed oath and he’ll likely want to get as much as he can out of it. but if he did, i’d say go for bard with that max charisma, or fighter.

honestly i just think it’d be really funny if he leaned back into the texas accent and all his bard songs were country. college of swords (dueling) or eloquence. bard gives him more variety of spells and some extra support.

for fighter fighting style, go for dueling - unless he picked that for paladin, but i don’t think he did - defense, or protection. martial archetype, definitely eldritch knight for some bonus wizard spells.

jester

jester has access to: druid, fighter, monk, rogue, ranger, warlock.

i WAS gonna say “wild magic sorcerer” (various members of the team - who don’t seem to understand how clerics work - made a big point to be like “no jester the magic was always in you!” and it would be interesting if that ended up being true and she was a sorcerer.) but then i realized her charisma is just shy of enough, so i’m gonna say what literally everyone else has already said: warlock.

celestial. the moonweaver. i don’t really think more needs to be said on that, there’s some good metas about it already. (tho, i could also see her being an arcane trickster rogue, but i doubt that would happen because for one, laura already tried rogue with vex, and they already have veth. but if jester did want to try melee, that’s probably what she’d do.)

veth

veth has access to: artificer, wizard, fighter

while it would make total sense for veth to pick wizard, i feel like the arcane trickster part of her already covers that. honestly artificer would be the more interesting pick. i know sam already played an artificer, but so much of veth’s character already covers artificer, especially with how she tinkers around and makes things. it also gives her access to support spells, including cure wounds. honestly i just think it’d be so funny if the nein could ALL heal. (focusing so much on support and healing this campaign has really been the key to their successes honestly.)

veth has a lot of moments where she’s like “i don’t know what do, i can’t get sneak attack!” so having at least the option to heal or throw out a buff spell would up her choices whenever she feels stuck. support artificer spells like flaming sphere, faire fire, and grease can be clutch.

alchemist of course. it would just be such a great way to combine caleb and yeza’s influence on her.

i’ll also say fighter, with an archery fighting style for that +2 damage, extra attack, action surge, and second wind. really can’t go wrong with that. gunslinger fighter would also be super interesting, if matt allowed sam to replace guns with a crossbow, or if veth started using her gun more.

yasha

yasha has access to: fighter, rogue

yasha’s unfortunately low stats make her kind of a one trick pony of “hit things hard” especially since she should stay pure barbarian until lvl 15, where she will basically be unkillable. (plus at lvl 20 barbarians get a sweet ass boost to str and con.) but luckily, all three of these classes work really well together.

fighter: great weapon fighting so she can reroll those 1′s or 2′s, second wind so she can heal herself (that, if she already used up healing hands, pairs up great with rage beyond death and persistent rage. yasha would like, never ever die, never even get knocked out.) action surge for four attacks. martial archetype, go for either champion for that crit on 19, or battle master for those cool features.

rogue: barbarian/rogue has a ton of potential. she’d have to occasionally switch out her greatswords for some finesse such as shortswords and try out two handed fighting, but because she’s almost always fighting next to beau, she’ll get that sneak attack (tho also, wouldn’t going reckless automatically give her sneak attack too?) plus, finesse lets her use the str stat, so she should still be able to apply the rage bonus. there’s a ton of damage possibility here, along with the always good bonus of expertise for a skills buff (never roll a horrible stealth roll again, ashley johnson) and cunning action so she doesn’t have to choose between attacking or dashing/disengaging. plus, if she wants to sacrifice persistent rage, she could get uncanny dodge, allowing her to tank even more. she definitely should NOT do this, but she could also sacrifice rage beyond death to get evasion, letting her handle dex save spells better. like beau i’m gonna say scout for skirmisher or swashbuckler for fancy footwork.

really is a shame her wis is so low, cuz man i’d love to see her try out monk.

just for fun, i’ll do molly too. i only have his lvl 5 stats to go on, but i’m going to assume that by lvl 13, he would’ve focused on raising his already good dex or getting better con (or perhaps take some more feats, like veth) and any other stat under 13 at the time probably would’ve stayed that way.

molly has access to: fighter, rogue, cleric, druid, ranger

cleric (moonweaver) would’ve been really interesting, but i don’t quite have a handle on molly’s character to know if this is something that would’ve fit him. (and there’re a ton of cleric domains, i don’t kno the ins and outs of them all.) he also didn’t seem all that interested in getting some range. so i’m gonna say the best fit for molly going based on his build and fighting style is rogue

molly already used finesse weapons, so getting up in there for some sneak attack would be an easy fit. molly had access to two attacks, so being able to dash on a bonus action to get up to any just-out-of-reach target so he wouldn’t have to waste that action would be very useful. along with being able to attack twice and then disengage. archetype, probably assassin.

i’ll also be basic and say any character who has access to extra attack(s) can’t hurt dipping into fighter just for that sweet sweet action surge. (i currently play a fighter, so i’m a little biased.)

beau, fjord, and veth could also take blood hunter if they wanted. (caleb is one point shy in dex, and jester and yasha in intelligence, but they could too in theory by the grace of the dm.) i don’t know enough about the blood hunter class to know if this is something that would fit them, but considering where the plot is going, it could make for an interesting story beat.

#critical role #the mighty nein #d&d classes

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galadrieljones · 4 years

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As You Were (Chapter 5)

Fandom: The Last of Us | Pairing: Joel x OC | Content: Fix-it | Rating: Mature

Masterpost

When Joel and Ellie take a wrong turn on their journey from Pittsburgh to Wyoming, they find themselves lost in, what feels like a time warp: a beautiful place with a dark and dangerous secret. While there, they meet Cici and Noah, a mother and son fighting tirelessly for survival, and who have recently endured a terrible tragedy on their family farm. Amidst their joint desire to find hope for the future, the two groups decide set out west together, changing the course of the story (as we know it), and the very course of their lives.

This is an AU, starting after the events of the Summer chapter in the first game, and extending into the timeline of the second game. Joel lives.

Chapter 5: Living Room Jam Session

"There are a million ways we should have died before today, and a million ways we can die before tomorrow. But we fight, for every second we get to spend with each other. Whether it's two minutes, or two days, we don't give that up. I don't wanna give that up."

That night, Cici went out to the circuit breaker next to the shed, and she switched on the electric fence. It worked after all.

“It’ll use up a lot of fuel,” she said to Joel. “But we can’t risk it.”

The farm was peaceful. Almost like nothing had ever happened. A couple cows had escaped, earlier that day. Joel had offered to help wrangle them, but Noah said don’t bother. “We can’t feed them anyway." He shrugged. He slaughtered a cow in the early evening. He showed Joel how to clean and butcher the meat, and how to salt and cure it for longer term use. They had steaks for dinner that night, prepared this time with a few potatoes, seasoned with dill from the garden, which was picked almost clean.

Joel was beginning to gather that their time on that farm was coming to a rapid conclusion. They couldn’t stay there, not much longer. If there were spores in the tributaries, that meant they could get into the water table, too. Cici and Noah knew this. They had been making four hour drives to the Fox River in Fon du Lac for several months now, bringing back water sourced from Green Bay. They said this was how they were able to trade for their fuel for the generators, from the Amish on the other side of the hill—making long drives to clean water. Even with the rain, they could no longer water their crops or sustain their livestock, and the Infected were becoming more of a threat every day. They had a lot of reserves, but it was only a matter of time before they ran out of food, or worse. Like Cici had said, him and Ellie showing up like they had, it was almost happenstance.

“I can get you your fuel tomorrow,” said Cici. They were still outside, leaning against a tree, looking at the circuit breaker. “You made good on your bargain. Thank you, Joel.”

Joel had got a big old cut on his forehead from the events down at the trench. She had patched it up for him with alcohol and gauze. Hadn’t made a fuss, just did it. “Cici, I know we ain’t known each other that long, but I ain’t leaving you and Noah here to deal with this all by yourselves.”

“You don’t owe us anything.”

“I know that,” said Joel. “And trust me, I been wrestling with it myself. But it don’t change anything.”

Cici straightened up off the tree and looked around. Her hair was down now, kind of tangly and windswept. Noah and Ellie were inside the house. “Noah said he told you about LaCrosse.”

Joel looked down at the grass as if to count the moonlit blades. “He didn’t go into a lot of detail,” he said. “But yes, he gave me the gist. Said your husband, he died in a fire. I’m sorry, Cici. I truly am.”

She just shrugged her shoulders. “We never got to find out, what’s been going on,” she said, blinking back tears. “We couldn’t stay, after it happened, and then we couldn’t go back.”

“Noah wants me to come with him,” said Joel. “Back. To LaCrosse. He asked me after dinner.”

“There’s no point,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do. Even if you find the source of the problem, the farm is too far gone to save.”

“I think it’s more about closure,” said Joel. “He didn’t say as much, but I get it. I told him I’d go. I hope I ain’t crossing any lines in doing so.”

She closed her eyes.

“Me and him are gonna head up tomorrow,” he went on. “I figure, the sooner the better. Shouldn’t take more than a couple days. I was gonna ask if you wanted to come with us, or if you'd be okay staying here, with Ellie. I don’t want to take her, because she’s just a kid, and she’s been through enough, and I don’t know what the hell we’re getting into up there, but I won��t leave her here alone.”

“It’s okay,” said Cici. She didn’t even try to argue. “I’ll stay. I don’t—I can’t go back there anyway.”

“Do y’all have anywhere to go?” said Joel. “I mean, aside from this farm? Noah mentioned family down in Moline. The I-80 runs right through there. I don’t know what we’ll find, but we could take you.”

Cici shook her head slowly, staring at the earth. “My sister-in-law was trying to get back there like six months ago. She said she’d come back for us, if it was all clear, but we never heard from her again.”

“I heard about some turf wars going on in the Quad Cities,” said Joel. “Just warning you. It was the kind of place too small for a QZ, but it was too big and too isolated to try and save. The military all but abandoned it. Now that was years ago. Things could have changed. Either way, it’s right on the Mississippi, so if your little problem extends into Illinois and Iowa, it probably ain’t gonna be pretty. But we can try.”

She took a deep breath, and she opened and closed her fists a couple times. She had little bones. She was small, but she wasn’t a weakling. “I wanna think about it.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s go inside,” she said, pulling herself together. She had this way of tucking her hair behind her ears. It was like hitting a reset button or something. Truth be told, he was a little confounded by Cici. Not in a bad way. He just found it very hard to predict her, despite her seeming steadfastness, as a woman. “Ellie and Noah are into the vinyls," she went on. "Who knows what they’ve got playing in there.”

“You guys got a ton of records,” said Joel as they headed back to the porch in the moonlit grass. “What is it with that? You just collectors or something?”

“My husband was,” she said. “William. He used to say that if the apocalypse ever came, at least we’d still be able to listen to music.”

“Well, he was right,” said Joel.

The seemed to comfort her. He saw her almost smile, out the corner of his eye.

“What’s this band called again?” said Ellie. She was sitting on her knees on the floor, in the middle of a big old pile of records. Noah was on the floor nearby, sifting through the pile one-by-one. It had been a long time since he’d really taken inventory, since before his dad died.

He picked up the vinyl, examined it front and back. “The Wallflowers.”

“The Wallflowers?” said Ellie. “Weird name, but I like it.”

“Do you know what a wallflower is?”

“Uh,” said Ellie, “like a flower that…grows out of the wall?”

Noah was amused. “It’s a metaphor. It’s like, somebody who stands on the sidelines. They don’t really get in on the action.”

“Oh, that makes sense,” said Ellie.

“The singer for this band is Bob Dylan’s son.”

“Neat,” said Ellie. “Who’s Bob Dylan again?”

Noah started going through a stack on his left, where he kept the sixties stuff. “This guy,” he said.

“Ah,” said Ellie. “The Blowing in the Wind guy. Very cool.”

“Did you guys ever listen to music in the QZ?”

“Yeah,” said Ellie, “but we didn’t have records. And everything I wanted, I had to steal or trade for with my ration cards. It was like, music or food sometimes. I had a walkman though, so I would just listen to tapes.”

“Do you still have it?”

“No,” said Ellie. “It broke like a thousand miles ago.”

“Bummer,” said Noah.

“Pretty much.”

They listened to the song. It was called “Josephine.” I know you’ve been sad. I know I’ve been bad. But if you’d let me, I’d make you ribbons from a paper bag.

“What do you think this song is about?” said Ellie.

Noah thought about it, looking up at the ceiling. “I think it’s like, the end of a relationship,” he said. “The guy messed up, but he doesn’t feel like he’s good enough for Josephine anyway. He’s apologizing, and he knows he can’t get her back, but he still loves her. That’s what I get from it, but it sounds dumb as hell when I say it out loud.”

Ellie examined the sleeve. It was just a whole bunch of yellow stars on a black background. “It’s not dumb,” she said. “It’s just really sad. Why doesn’t he think he’s good enough?”

“I don’t know,” said Noah. “Why does anyone think anything?”

Ellie thought this was kind of funny. “Good point.”

“Let’s try this one,” said Noah.

He took the Wallflowers record off the platter, put a new record on.

“What’s this?” said Ellie. “Lightning Bolt. Pearl Jam? I think I’ve actually heard of these guys.”

“This one’s got a story behind it. You want to hear?”

Ellie straightened right up. “Hell yeah.”

“Okay,” said Noah, looking down at the sleeve. It was like this big, red eye, full of white lightning bolt decals. “So apparently like, this album was supposed to be released a few weeks after the day the outbreak officially hit in 2013. It got pushed back like everything else, and then the stores all closed and it just like, never happened. My dad had really been looking forward to it, so like six weeks after shit went dark, him and some guys went to a Best Buy up in Madison and looted all these unreleased vinyls from the warehouse.”

“Holy shit,” said Ellie. “That’s fucking awesome.”

“I know. He said he had to get by military guys and everything.”

“Dude, your dad was a total badass,” said Ellie. “You should be proud.”

At first Noah got quiet. Ellie hadn’t thought anything of it. She’d never had a dad, or a mom, or anyone to be proud of like that. She just thought it was so unbelievably rad that he had a story like this to tell other people, about his dad. Eventually, Noah smiled. She smiled along with him. He said, “There’s one song on here I like a lot.”

“Play it,” she said. “As long as it’s not about people breaking up. Because that shit sucks.”

“It’s not,” said Noah.

He set down the needle, and together, they listened.

The song was slow and beautiful, thought Ellie, but it grew. Piano—crisp and clean and rushing as the river—gave way to a man’s voice and the guitar, big as a boat. She sat without talking. She tucked her hands in her lap and looked down at her wrists. She closed her eyes and tried hard to let the music overwhelm her. It was hard for Ellie to let things overwhelm her. She wore heavy armor. She would make a joke. She would roll her eyes.

But this was different than the other song, thought Ellie. It was sad, maybe sentimental, but it was a good kind of sentimental. All the missing crooked hearts, they may die, but in us they live on. I believe. I believe 'cause I can see. Our future days. Days of you and me. It was strong, and it seemed to be about trying. Like, trying to be better, through the eyes of someone else. Loving, and being loved, even when it’s hard. You have to try. It put her back in time, almost to another universe, but she hammered it away. She liked this song much better than the last song. She wished to live inside the music.

When it ended, she looked at Noah, who was looking at the ceiling again, leaning back on his hands and listening, with intent. The song had filled the house with a purifying energy and brought it down, made it simple. The bad things that had happened that day, they were clean.

“That one was awesome,” said Ellie.

“Are you okay?” said Noah. He seemed like he was half-joking, but sort of earnest. It was enough joking to make her smile, but not too earnest to freak her out.

“Oh,” said Ellie, looking down at her shoe laces. “I’m fine. I just—these songs sort of remind me of someone I once knew. In another life I guess.”

Noah waited what seemed like a long time before he spoke again. He was mulling it over, with his elbows now resting on his knees. Then he said, “I get that.”

They played the song again. Then, they couldn’t take it anymore. They took it off and put on some emo shit by a band called Coldplay. It was kind of terrible, they agreed, but they listened anyway, as it was like a dream.

A little while later, Joel and Cici came back inside. Joel held the door for her and once they were in the living room, raised his eyebrows and made fun of the Coldplay.

“You guys okay in here?” he said. “Sounds like you made a wrong turn somewhere.”

“Oh, we’re great, Joel,” said Ellie. “You guys are seriously missing out on our jam session.”

“Ha,” said Cici.

Joel stretched and got real big, and then he leaned against the kitchen table. He seemed kind of faded, thought Ellie. He had that cut on his eye. He seemed very tired. “It’s been a long day,” he said. “I think I’m ready to head up. You wanna come Ellie, or you fixing to stay awake a while longer?”

Ellie got up and wiped her hands on her jeans. They’d gotten kind of dusty from handling all the vinyls. “I’ll come up,” she said. “I’m pretty wiped.”

“I’ll have breakfast ready early,” said Cici.

“Sounds fine,” said Joel.

“See you guys in the morning,” said Noah. He glanced up at Ellie then, as if thankful for something.

When they got upstairs, Ellie went to look in the mirror on the bureau and she took down her ponytail. Her hair felt like a rat’s nest. She started to brush it out, aggressively.

“Where’d you get that hair brush?” said Joel, taking his shoes off.

“Cici let me borrow it,” she said.

“Right,” said Joel. He put his face in his hands then, scrubbed them down his cheeks. “Ellie—"

She stopped mid-brush, turned around. “Noah told me about LaCrosse,” she said. “I wanna come.”

Joel took a deep breath, as this had caught him by surprise. “Ellie, no.”

“Well what the fuck?” she said. She set down the brush on the bureau, hard. “Why the hell not?”

He just took to staring at her. She wasn’t actually that mad, he thought, she just seemed genuine in her confusion. “Because,” he said. “I got no idea what we’re walking into up there.”

“Oh, but you did in Pittsburgh, when you drove us straight into a fucking trap?”

“That is beside the point.”

“How, Joel?” said Ellie. “Noah is only four years older than me. I can hold my own.”

“Those are four critical years, Ellie,” said Joel. He was trying not to raise his voice. “And honestly, it don’t matter whether you can hold your own, because this thing going on in, it ain’t about you. It ain’t about me neither. You understand? It’s about Noah atoning with his dad’s death. He needs help, and he asked me, and I am providing that for him.”

“I can help,” said Ellie.

“I know you two get along,” said Joel. “But you're helping most by staying put.”

“What about Cici? She doesn’t wanna go?”

Joel waved her off, started rubbing his eyes with his thumb and forefinger. “No,” he said. “Cici’s made her peace. Or what’s left of it.”

“She doesn’t seem…at peace.”

“I didn’t say she was at peace. I just said she’s made her peace.” Ellie seemed to understand this, and now, he could tell she was just scared, of being left behind. “Look, Ellie,” he said, shaking his head. “You can’t come. That’s the end of this conversation. But we’ll only be gone a couple nights. You got Cici with you. She might seem quiet, but I think she's pretty hardcore, and you two got the electric fence. Me and Noah, we’ll be okay.”

“I know,” said Ellie, like she was defending herself. She had flipped open her switch blade, was studying the tip. “I know.”

“We good then?” said Joel.

She hesitated, but then she closed up the knife and flopped back onto the bed. “Fine,” she said.

He was relieved.

“But then you better fucking bring something back for me.”

This surprised him. He gave her a look. “Bring something back?” he said. “Like a souvenir?”

“Yeah,” she said. “A souvenir.”

“A souvenir from LaCrosse?”

“You heard me.”

Joel tugged the covers back, was getting ready to crawl beneath. The day had become a heavy weight, all of it resting right on his eye lids. He was glad it was all okay. “All right,” he said, yawning. “I’ll see what I can find.”

“Good,” she said.

“Now get some goddam sleep.”

“Ay ay, cap’n.”

A few minutes went by. Joel was about ready to get under the covers for good when Ellie said, “I gotta pee.”

He looked at her. “Now?”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Just—just be quick.”

“You think I wanna take my time peeing in that thing? Outhouses are like the one bad thing about this place. Other than the whole, contaminated-water part, I guess.”

Joel took a breath, told her he would leave his lamp on. “Just hurry, and turn the lamp down when you get back.”

“I will,” she said.

Ellie went pee in the outhouse and did her best not to make any sounds. When she got out, she didn't feel tired, so she went over and stood by the river like a detour. She did not plan on staying long. She just looked at it, right down into it, and then it blinked back at her like the little bitch it was, bubbling deceptively in the moonlight. She suddenly hated that something so innocent could also be so deadly, and so fucking sad. The night was cooling down but it was still humid. She switched open her knife and wiped the sweat from her forehead on the back of her hand. She switched her knife closed again, then open again. She tried thinking about anything else, but that stupid Pearl Jam song had awakened something inside her.

“I haven’t seen you in…in I don’t know how long,” she said.

"Forty-five days?” said Riley. She was nervous. “Well, forty-six. Technically. Wanna know what I’ve been up to?”

The rain outside was like a drum. Ellie didn’t care. “All this time,” she said. “I thought you were dead.”

Riley felt everything, but just like everybody else in the whole wide world, she couldn’t show it. “Yeah,” she said. And she took off the dog tag. “Here. Look.”

“God fucking dammit,” said Ellie. She was on her knees now, overcome by something, and she stabbed the knife into the river bank. “Stupid fucking bullshit. Fuck you.” She stabbed it again, and then she felt like a complete dumbass, put it away. She thought about crying but she stared back at the river instead. “Go away,” she said.

“Ellie?” said someone. It was Cici, she was calling out to her from the porch. It must have been too long. “Ellie, you okay?”

“Shit,” said Ellie. "I'm okay." She got up, frantic, and her knees were all wet from the river bank. “I'm okay. I'm coming."

"Just checking," said Cici.

When she got back up to their room, Joel was under the covers. The lamp was dim. He lie very still, on his side, facing the wall, and she stood watching him for a second to see if he'd roll over and scold her or something. But he seemed like he was sleeping, and she was relieved. She didn't know why she cared, but she did. So she turned down the lamp right away and tried to be as quiet as she could so as not to disturb him. She took off her shoes and set them down silently, one by one. Then she took her jeans off, too, hung them over the bedpost to dry. She only had the one pair. She got under the covers and pulled them up to her chin, trying to sink into the mattress, forcing her brain to shut the fuck up. Please. For once, just shut the fuck up. But then,

“'Night, Ellie,” said Joel. He had not moved, by the dim light of the moon coming through the window.

She was near on startled. His voice was really deep and it always filled the room no matter how quiet. “Oh, shit,” she said. “Sorry, Joel."

"That's okay," he said.

"‘Night, Joel.”

Days of you and me.

***

On the record player: “Josephine” by The Wallflowers, “Future Days” by Pearl Jam, “The Scientist” by Coldplay

#the last of us #tlou #the last of us 2 #tlou2 #joel tlou #ellie tlou #as you were #cw: animal death mention

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butterfly-winx · 4 years

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its probably the helia stan in me but id love to read an origin story! idk if youre planning one for all of them but i really like your worldbuilding so id read them! and i know others would too! 💞 (also that fairy sketch was beautiful and if youre planning on it id love to hear more about him 👀)

Aahh ugh, I don’t actually have a lot fleshed out for Cyanox, except that he is the Guardian of Prometia and neutral to a fault. And also unintentionally the reason for why/how Layla gained the ability to modify Sirenix into Crystal Sirenix to adapt to cold and high pressure environments.

I am far too disorganised to make one collection post for the backgrounds of all characters I messed with, so I guess, here goes nothing. *cracks knuckles* Buckle in for the ride! (content warning for death and lethal illnesses)

Helia was born on Lynphea in a middle sized settlement in the moderate-warm Eastern Forests of Lynphea. I talk about the zones, culture and dangers of Lynphea here, so I don’t want to repeat myself too much, but Helia’s village was much closer to the borders of the Death Zone the virus has claimed for itself than what would have been advisable. Back then, they thought Viaj would exhaust the surrounding natural resources and its people would move on long before the spread of the virus would become a danger to them. Oh how wrong they were. All it took was the change of the wind one summer.

Helia had been only five and then some and the world was still too vivid in his eyes, lights filtering through leaves a spectacle every day he accompanied one of his caretakers on a simple errand. He was the one who found the earliest warning sign, a fungal growth on a long leaf of gras that was the manifestation of the plague befalling its plant hosts. Not quite comprehending what that meant in his young age, Helia struggled for a long time with guilt about the terror his discovery brought, wishing he would have never played in the prairie. Like that would have avoided anything.

The inhabitants of Viaj actually gained a head start through his discovery though that potentially spared other communities, however it couldn’t help theirs. They quarantined immediately, drew up a magic barrier to protect everyone from the airborne spores that carry the virus from plants to humans. But doing so they gave up hunting and gathering and were entirely reliant on the rations the other communities would send with the quarantine workers. Though even those trickled to a stop when the first person fell sick with the cough and the tell-tale black spots formed on their mucous membrane. People saw no use in wasting resources on people who were damned to die. The best they could do now was limit travel to the edge of the Eastern Forest and set more scientists on recalculating the projected spread of the virus.

Lynpheans practice a philosophy of “live and let die” not hanging onto things beyond their lifespan, so this was seen as neither cruel or unusual, but show me one person who is truly prepared to die such a horrific, slow death in order to upkeep the natural order. The people of Viaj didn’t want to die, and they certainly didn’t deserve to die. But people fell like flies, until about three months later only Helia, Naoqi, the last adult, and Tsilla, the very last baby born in midst of all that, were alive. Naoqi cared for Helia and the baby as best as he could and in doing so became a replacement parental figure in Helia’s eyes. He did everything he could to make the horrible experience slightly lighter to bear for the children, but when the magic barrier keeping the wind away fell, there was little he could have done to stave off the inevitable.

Helia was left alone, with a not even five moth old baby and no way of feeding himself or the baby. With nothing else left, he braved the forest and looked for the quarantine workers who were no doubt overseeing the area, which marked the last time Helia ever walked in the forests of his home. The quarantine workers were more than surprised by the tenacious boy with a baby in his arms and finding out he was still alive after what they thought was final exhaustion has set in.

The next thing after that that Helia actually remembers is waking up on Magics with Saladin greeting him, introducing himself as a distant relative. The truth was a lot more complicated than that. The quarantine workers have taken Helia to the nearest hospital to treat him for the effects of starvation, because miraculously, the disease had still not taken hold of him after five months of exposure. Hermetically locked in a wing of the hospital, he was the most prised and most dangerous person and study artefact on the whole planet. His comatose slumber was watched from behind plexi glas and every then available humoral test was run on him to find out why he of all people had proved to be immune. If he was immune at all.

Meanwhile Saladin arrived on planet as he heard the news of the demise of his hometown, of his family. Even back then he had not been the pride of the planet and his relationship with his family had been strained because of the wars he had chosen to be involved in. All of that didn’t matter the instant lives were on the line and Saladin wanted nothing more than one last exchange of letters he would never get to make everything alright again. No power in the world would ever grant him that, but having powerful friends in the right circles granted him something else. Information, that a young Viaj boy was still alive in the Epidemiology Research Centre. He may be the future, the solution to all of their problems with a DNA hiding the secrets to immunity. Saladin immediately inquired, dug deeper demanding to see the boy, but the Council denied him visitation rights. He had to strike an underhanded deal with the co-leader of the research project under a false name to find out Helia wasn’t even awake, but held in a magically induced coma for observational purposes. The scientist talked on and on about the possibilities and what they would do after they go the genes needed but Saladin blew up at that point. How dare they treat this boy like an object, like his loss wouldn’t be felt by anyone, should one of the procedures go wrong. Like all his life could hold from now on was an ultimate sacrifice for the benefit of the many. He wouldn’t even be able to comprehend that if told. With Saladin blowing a fuse, the research centre blew up too and he fled the planet that night with an unconscious Helia in his arms.

So what felt like a night of knocked-in-the-head-by-a-horse sleep to Helia was actually close to four weeks in real world time. He has no concrete memory of what Saladin saved him from, but enough peripheral perception of what transpired planetside to make sense of the ramifications. Technically, Helia’s DNA is public property of the Lynphea Council, and technically both him and Saladin have an arrest warrant hanging over their head for the destruction and property damage caused. If Helia were to ever set foot on Lynphea again (or even go to a country that has an extradition treaty with them) he would be taken back to the Research Centre to be dissected to the smallest molecules until he yielded answers.

While Helia was able to grow up in Magics in relative safety, the virus was still wreaking damage on Lynphea. Saladin (and to a lesser extent Helia) made the incredibly difficult decision to reject the experimentation on Helia and thus deny the population of their home a potential treatment to an otherwise lethal infection. It is an incredibly heavy burden and no day passes that they don’t question the rightness of their choice.

Helia can certainly appreciate the moral conflict now, but as a child he was much more difficult to manage. The switch from a huge nurturing family to one primary carer to rely on was harsh on Helia, who was already traumatised and needing love and affection. Saladin did the best he could, but running a school and otherwise being a Universe-wide known hero didn’t help. After they grew close on the tail end of Helia’s childhood, they explosively drew apart during his tweens, Helia not able or reluctant to understand the restrictions Saladin placed on his life.

First, he was unwilling to share as much about Lynphean culture and way of life as Helia wished to know, saying that he wouldn’t be able to apply it there on Magics anyway. The deeper reason for that is more likely buried in his resentment for Lynphea rejecting him as harshly as they did after he helped save the Universe from the Ancestresses, but Helia of course knew nothing of that. Then when he moved over to adapting to life on Magics “in the Magics” way, he begged to be taught magic for which he had developed a budding talent. Saladin refused again for related trauma reasons. He didn’t want Helia to wield a power that could potentially make him a weapon in someone else’s crusade. Being his only personal student would only paint a target on Helia’s back.

Helia was having none of that, fiercely objecting to the treatment. He had his own trauma to deal with. Like death by illness. (People falling ill was a lasting trigger he has been continuously working to overcome, but the first time Saladin came home with a cough Helia immediately worked himself into a panic attack so severe he couldn’t stop vomiting and had to be taken into a hospital himself. ) He shouldn’t have to shoulder the repercussions of Saladin’s problems too!

People who say old teens and their wilfulness are hard to deal with, haven’t met twelve year old Helia yet. To think he actually mellowed out by the time he hit Red Fountain. In any case, Helia and Saladin weren’t really speaking civilly with each other anymore by the time Helia met Krystal. (More on her side of things here) Krystal, ten and absolutely blind to seeing obstacles, offered Helia her books on basic witchcraft and with that the opportunity to take his magic learning into his own hands. After all, sorcery required a lot of detailed instruction, but witchcraft was available to any odd fool who could set up a passable reaction equation. It took half a year of trials and encouragement for his efforts to yield a result and for Krystal and Helia’s friendship to bloom. It took Saladin much longer than that to catch on to Helia’s secret tinkering. The old man should have suspected something to be up after their disagreements magically disappeared after Helia and Krystal met twice. The aftermath was ugly and lead to Helia and Krystal reluctantly parting ways.

Helia was inconsolable an dedicated a large part of his life to making it as difficult for Saladin as possible. His grades dropped, his art got angry and choppy and he had to be escorted home by peace keepers for having snuck into places he shouldn’t have been in. Year fourteen and fifteen of Helia’s life have been by far the most difficult to deal with with no improvement in sight. Under pressure from his school and Saladin to choose a path for higher education after his year nine exams, Helia thought it would be most spiteful to chose...nothing. He would simply stop going to school at 15 years of age and just become whatever. Maybe a full-time artist or a busker. “Hah, that’ll show Saladin!”- he thought, but he severely miscalculated.

Saladin had often threatened with making Helia enrol in his school if he didn’t behave and Helia never though he would make good on his words until he was dropped off at the main entrance with all his bags like the other freshmen filtering in through the gates. Being the headmaster, Saladin allowed Helia some liberties, trying to demonstrate to him that he shouldn’t see this as a punishment, but as an opportunity to further his life. Cue Helia’s biggest pièce de resistance, showing just how much he didn’t think so. As mentioned a few asks ago, he was given the liberty to chose where he lived and which team he chose, but not like that goddamit! He took shameless advantage of the loose wording Saladin used and hopped between rooms and teams completely ignoring conventions. He was the bane of the school, found on the roof, in supply closets and in the middle of hallways. Teams feared him, because they knew if Helia was assigned to them they might as well have been one person short, his flaky nature making it hard for them to work with him. Codatorta wrote as many warnings for Helia in that one year as he did in his whole career before that. Students at Red Fountain tended to be disciplined and dedicated to becoming Specialists, but Helia was the absolute antithesis to them. At the end of the year no amount of Saladin’s half-hearted excuses could save Helia from the overwhelming force of the teaching staff getting him sacked. Not that Helia minded, though. It was exactly what he wanted.

Saladin more or less gave up on him then. If he wanted to be on his own then fine. Saladin would help him with finding an own apartment and give him his first moth of rent, but after that Helia could go and find himself a purpose in the world alone. Fine. Fine. Alright!

It was not alright at all, but it was buried under a very thick layer of “I’ll show ya” which made Helia want to live his best liberal artist life. He enjoyed creating as much art as he wanted, but he craved social contact and being engaged in something with a common goal, so he started getting involved with local pacifist groups. He had always preached a path of non-violence, which was about the only thing that had been ingrained in him from his Lynphean upbringing. There he started to expand his horizon beyond what his gut feeling taught him about pacifism and got into reading theory seriously. He was surprised how many of those books shared around had originally belonged to the Red Fountain library and even more so that they have ben written by the founders of the Red Fountain Cavalry. And that was when Helia bust down Saladin’s office door.

“All of this theory was in the school’s library the whole time!!?? And all everyone was ever talking about was warfare!! Why was I never told the best pacifist philosophers of the century were all Red Fountain members???” “You never showed up to any of the philosophy lectures! How am I to blame?” A deep breath from Helia, re-evaluating all of his 17 years of life choices. “Dada Saladin, you have to let me back into your school please.”

And Saladin refused. To let him back without repercussions that is. Helia had to prove that he took his education seriously and was ready to commit by taking the entrance exam like everybody else to earn his place at the institute. He scraped the bottom of the scoreboard with his first results, but took the first year foundation course with a mile long stride. He was allowed to skip quite a few modules and ended up in the same year as the protag specialist boys with quite a reputation to his name. In the process of reacquainting himself with the school and its philosophy, he learned humility, respect, and when to keep his head down and mouth shut. The upperclassmen from his original year group barely believed he was supposedly the same person they got to know as an absolute menace . There are many rumours about twin brothers, brainwashing and Saladin’s terrifying magic might turning him into this new person.

Helia has come an extremely long way becoming the well-tempered and balanced person known from the show’s timeline. It is almost as if he compressed a lifetime of angst into three years, thus min-maxing his character development coming out more adult in the end at 18 years old than many people at 30. He lived through a lot of things and it shows in how he behaves and what he cares about. He is a passable fighter, but his main aim is always to protect and to avoid conflict if possible. He is a trained negotiator for that purpose and prefers to act as tactical support for his team. It all changes however once Riven and Sky both decide to quit the team leaving Helia, Brandon and Timmy with a very difficult decision on how to go on after that.

(Aand we have arrived at present day for my AU timeline with this. I hope you made it this far, I‘ve never written this much for a tumblr post before)

#winx club #winx helia #asks #see this is why I can't make a nice neat summary post about my headcanons because as soon as I start talking it becomes a word vomit #helia #butterfly fic #Anonymous

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vylette-takeda · 5 years

Text

People I’d Like to Know Better

– one / Name / Alias: Vylette, Vy, Alanorah, Mouse

– two / Birthday: August 25

– three / Zodiac Sign: Virgo. If you buy into astrology it’s..apt in many ways.

– four / Height: 5′

– five / Hobbies: Video Gaming (Though I really only play one heavily invested game at a time, it is FFXIV and I don’t expect to be going anywhere! XD), Building and painting models in 40K (I rarely play but love the models and painting), Collecting Funko Pops, Tabletop RPGs, Obscure and ridiculous trivia, Collecting spores, molds and fungus (not really, but if you know the reference I will do a happy dance).

– six / Favorite colors: My absolute favorite is red, but I also like pink, and lighter shades of blue like cerulean .

– seven / Favorite book(s): I don’t read anywhere near as much as I should or used to but some favorites are The Stand, World War Z, Lucifer’s Hammer, Dune, The Girl With All the Gifts

– eight / Last song listened to: Thinking Out Loud - Ed Sheeran

– nine / Last Film Watched: Leon - The Professional

– ten / Inspiration for Muse: It’s hard to pin down any one thing honestly. When I first started in FFXIV I had barely ever tried a FF game so I knew nothing about the lore at all. Now I know just slightly less than nothing. For that reason, I was very careful to not create anything too off the rails and something that could fit in to most settings with some modifications. In combination with this, my characters tend to be very “real.” I strive for characters that are not saviors of the world, but rather people you feel like you could actually meet, up to and including their strengths and talents as well as crippling flaws.

I did draw some inspiration from other notable characters that I enjoyed or admired but also took a few darker background twists in some cases. Leliana from Dragon Age Origins was one influence that stands out and for some of the darker elements of her past personality Stahma from the TV show Defiance is another.

– eleven / Dream Job

: Something that pays the bills and does not make me want to steer my car into oncoming traffic during my commute. Oh, and something with dental! Seriously though, I was in a career I really did enjoy but after getting laid off it has been extremely tricky to get back in. In all likelihood I am going to be switching careers, but the jury is kind of out on what that is going to be. My dream job would be to run a ranch that would serve as an animal sanctuary. Sadly, unless some private billionaire wants to be a benefactor that seems unlikely.

– twelve / Meaning behind your URL: Just my muse’s name! No mystery there :)

Tagged by: @yuki-yukichan

Tagging: Anyone else who wants to do this! I would love to see other people’s but I do not know who has and hasn’t done this at this point (also I know some people are very careful in talking about themselves!) so if you do do it? Tag me so I can see! @mai-takeda I know you did it so you are being tagged for not being tagged. Make sense? Clear as mud? Awesome! :P

#ooc things

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douxreviews · 5 years

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Star Trek: Discovery - ‘Point of Light’ Review

Burnham: "Show me a teenage girl who's never cried. You can't. I should know, I'm a xenoanthropologist."

By nature I love brevity: After last week's primarily standalone 'New Eden,' 'Point of Light' jumps right back into the season's arcs, developing some stories and beginning others. Most of it works, but a few slight issues remain. All in all, a strong episode.

The Klingons last season were very divisive. Though some appreciated the differences because they helped the Klingons feel alien again, others hated the very different general look of a race that has been a Star Trek staple since TOS. Specifically, a few things bothered fans. The Klingons' lack of hair was one; likewise the differently designed ships (especially one that was called the D7 but looked nothing like the TOS design) were hard to get over. The sequences that took place entirely in Klingon with subtitles got very tedious after a little while, as well; it's much easier to follow when you're able to understand what they're saying.

The Klingon portions of 'Point of Light' felt like an extremely overt attempt at correcting these issues. From the very beginning with the D7 to the deliberate switch from Klingon to English in the final scene, the whole thing appeared to be designed for the purpose of showing fans that the show would be doing something different. And each change, such as the hair on the Klingons' heads, was pointed out deliberately to the audience through lines like 'So the Klingons are growing their hair again post-war?' While I appreciate the modifications, and the explanations mostly make sense, it was at times a little too on-the-nose. I like that they're going out of their way to fix the problems of Season One, but every time they point to their solutions and say, 'See? We know you didn't like it and it's all better now!' it somehow feels both cheap and heavy-handed at the same time.

As far as the other half of the episode goes, three of this season's primary storylines progressed, some of them substantially. The first story that got some progress here is that of the red bursts and the Red Angel. The only thing that we really learned here is that Spock really has been seeing the Red Angel since childhood, and that it helped him save Michael. At first glance, this seems like more of the same, but when you think about it it's actually quite revealing. The fact that Spock saw visions of the Angel that were clear enough for him to get a message is interesting enough, but the fact that that message resulted in Burnham's life being saved is remarkable. This means two things. First, it reinforces that the Angel is not some vague presence, but that it actually intervenes actively in people's lives. Secondly, and I think more importantly, this is the second time that an appearance of the Angel has coincided with the rescue of Michael Burnham. The first was in the pilot, when Pike saved her, and here it was Spock saving her. It says to me that the Angel has a specific interest in Burnham and her life, which may be very interesting to watch considering Burnham's reservations about believing in a sort of higher power.

The appearance of Amanda also led to revelations about the Spock storyline. We learned that his condition has developed to the extent that Starfleet is keeping it classified at the highest level. It's telling that Pike tries to follow the rules, but is all too happy to break them when the need arises. This simply further cements him as a classic starship Captain, perhaps even too classic. One thing you could never say about Lorca is that we've seen Captains like him before. He was new and different; Pike is not. While this may not necessarily be a bad thing for the show at this point, I hope Pike is given distinguishing traits that will give his character more depth. The other tidbit of information we learned was that Burnham hurt Spock intentionally and for his safety. One can very easily see a young Spock, curious about humanity and unsatisfied by the intentionally reserved side of his mother, following Burnham around and wanting to be involved in her life. It would be appropriately devastating to have a childhood idol such as that hurt you deeply and intentionally. I only hope the final reveal of what Burnham did to him measure up to what they've built. The other thing is that the Federation believes Spock murdered three of his doctors. Burnham and Amanda aren't certain, which is pretty scary.

The last storyline that gets developed, and this one much more than the others combined, is Tilly's Seeing Dead People plot. Over the course of this single episode, we learn that May's appearance is connected to the green spore that landed on Tilly's shoulder at the end of last season, discover that May is a parasite who needs Tilly for something and calls Stamets the Captain, and pull the parasite off of Tilly in a bit of a cliffhanger ending. While it does feel a tiny bit rushed, I'm glad they aren't dragging this out. There are a limited number of episodes this season, and if they have to drag out a storyline to fill some time, they definitely don't have enough story to write for it. The other thing is that the way it would be dragged out would be more scenes where Tilly looks crazy to everyone around her when she talks to someone they can't see. Scenes like this are very hard to watch, and they get progressively more annoying the more of them there are. Moving on right to fighting the parasite means that we have less of these scenes to sit through. I have to applaud Bahia Watson for her great performance here; after playing 'unsettling, but not aggressively so' last episode, Watson suddenly turns the creep factor up to eleven in a way that both shocks me with its suddenness and at the same time feels like a natural and not-at-all rushed progression of the character. It will be interesting to see what I can only assume to be the finale of this storyline next episode.

All in all, I liked this episode a great deal. Several of the reveals surprised me (L'Rell and TyVoq's baby; the new information about the Red Angel), and I liked the way that Mirror Georgiou is being used to bring TyVoq back into the story. Though some of the Klingon bits made me roll my eyes at their blatant 'we're fixing what you didn't like' tone, on the whole this was a good episode. It's a bit hard to judge the developments of the ongoing stories until they come to full fruition, but 'Point of Light' seems like a good arc progression.

Strange New Worlds: Q'o'nos doesn't count as a new planet, so we didn't go anywhere new this time.

New Life and New Civilizations: We learned this week that May is a new type of life form that we haven't seen before.

Pensees:

-I really liked Burnham and Tilly's relationship in this one. It really felt like a strong, healthy friendship, and the way Burnham solved the problem made sense.

-One of my friends is really turned off by the invasions of Spock's privacy this season. First Burnham entered his quarters, and now they're breaking into his medical files.

-Another director's credit for Olatunde Osunsamni. She did a fine job with this one.

-They're calling Lt. Owosekun 'Owo' now. Was that an intentional cultural reference? I bet it was.

-The reveal of Amanda worked well. If I hadn't known she'd be in the episode, I would have been surprised.

-I like the idea of using the D7 as a way to unite the Klingon houses. If we go with the Season One idea that the houses have been split and in disarray, which explains the vastly different ships we saw that season, the one standardized design works well.

-Kolsha, Kol's father, was played by Kenneth Mitchell. He played his own character's father, which works, I guess.

-Spock's been taking EQ tests. It's good to see EQ being used as an accepted practice in the future, even if it is a fictional future.

-I liked the use of the split-screen effect when Burnham and Tyler were talking. It helped sell their emotional distance.

-It appears Tilly is prone to both giving up and making rash decisions when she's stressed or embarrassed. That's a good trait to give a character.

-Why the heck does Georgiou need the holographic face disguiser AND the Black Manta mask?

-Severed heads, especially severed baby heads, even if they are fake, is darker than Star Trek's been before.

-The new Section 31 starship looks kinda neat. I like the multi-level bridge.

-Tyler sent the baby to Boreth, which is the only connection to this episode's title. The legend believed by the monks of Boreth relates Kahless' promise that he will return 'on one of those points of light,' referring to the stars.

-So, uh... I know why Tyler isn't shocked by Georgiou, but wasn't she, well, dinner last time L'Rell saw her? Just sayin'.

-I don't think Javid Iqbal Shazad Latif quite got the memo about the less stilted, more natural dialogue this season.

Quotes:

Burnham: "You didn't betray your friend, Captain. You followed protocol." Pike: "That's easier to say than to believe."

L'Rell, to TyVoq: "You should not care what everyone sees when they look at you."

Georgiou: "The freaks are more fun."

4.5 out of 6 unnecessary Black Manta masks.

CoramDeo is climbing a mountain. Why is he climbing a mountain?

#Star Trek #Star Trek Discovery #Michael Burnham #Saru #Sylvia Tilly #Paul Stamets #Ash Tyler #Philippa Georgiou #Christopher Pike #Disco #Star Trek Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews

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mswyrr · 5 years

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DSC 2x05 [SPOILERS]

This one was a real mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed watching it! And I thought that certain parts of it were really well done. It had a unified plot in the way that 2x03 “Point of Light” didn’t, but it did have the same over-stuffed feeling that episode gave me.

1) Resurrections are tricky, particularly in Sci Fi (vs. say Fantasy where it’s often easier to pull that off via magic or whatever) and I was happy about Hugh’s return but also I wondered if they could pull it off well. And they did! The technobabble around what happened to him made sense because it had character heart: Stamets’ behavior in the face of loss that brought about this situation, in his messed up/inbetween state in S1, felt emotionally authentic and the way Hugh navigated his impossible/terrible half-life felt true to him too. Like, discovering and using the bark felt very ic for him as a scientist and doctor.

It works because it fits within the science/ecology themes of Stamets’ overall arc. During wartime he did what so many scientists have done, which is let his research be weaponized. But it was also an earnest reaching for the sublime too - and out of that comes both destruction and creation. And the necessity of respecting nature - which doesn’t mean rejecting scientific inquiry, it means also recognizing the importance of limits to our ability to instrumentalize nature and bend it to our will.

IMO Stamets’ is going to be the one who advocates for shutting down the whole spore drive thing and burying the tech ultimately. NOT in a denial of science and the beauty of exploration, but out of respect for the balance of nature and the worth of natural phenomenon separate from how we can make them into tools to enact our will.

2) I liked the Spore!May/Tilly stuff. My monsterfucker senses were tingling at their comments about the kind of union they experience together and how they’re both into it... but, otoh, last episode the emphasis was on Tilly’s feelings about human!May and her regrets there. So it was weird to totally switch tracks and have no echos of that: here it was like spore!May didn’t carry that baggage of memory and regret? I’m not sure. I feel like they must have more planned for this storyline, to wrap it up. Particularly since IMO it’s going to connect to the final closing of the spore drive/burying of the tech in Stamets’ plot. I liked what we got, but I am also on a “wait and see” footing re: whether the components of Tilly’s story will come together well and fit with the overall themes.

It’s definitely about reaching out and risking connection/having faith even against the evidence: Tilly choosing to have faith in Spore!May, Spore!May choosing to trust Tilly and let Hugh live. So... components are strong. But I want the two different things May represents (human and spore) to be handled more.

3) I’m fascinated by what they’re doing with Philippa. Like... I thought they’d skipped over her development but now I see that they want us, the audience, to be with Michael in her uncertainty about what Philippa’s deal is. What does she intend? What’s her bigger plan?

Sometimes faith and trust can heal past damage (like with spore!May) as much as it can be healed. But sometimes you’re the frog trusting a scorpion. How do you decide?

All the super obvious Biblical imagery - the apple, the “snake” stuff - was really... on the nose, but in a fun way? Philippa is Satan tempting our St. Michael?

I mean, last season we had the good and bad angels (Gabriel and Michael) warring over the soul of the Discovery (and then Michael warring with Philippa for the soul of the Federation), so... /spreads hands/ IMO the end of S1 will prove to have only been the first battle in a war over the soul of the Federation potentially; depending on how they take Section 31.

And I speculate that Philippa is going to offer some kind of very real temptation to Michael at some point. (And not just in the sexy scenarios playing themselves out in my brain lol). IDK how that is going to go, but it’s being set up and it’s looking VERY interesting.

I’m happy for them to keep Philippa’s game under wraps if we can have this shared tension/uncertainty with Michael as this plot plays out.

4) It was so nice to have Ash back... I feel like he’s going to get used as a cat’s paw/honeypot by Philippa and/or Section 31 though. He very much feels like a smaller piece in a much, much bigger game with the way he was reintroduced as a connection to Section 31 and the power conflict between Philippa and Leland going on there. (By which I mean Philippa is basically running that show, for better or worse; bald-y does not have half her talent for maneuvering) I don’t think the “tra la la all the misfits together!” thing is exactly as advertised. Poor guy. He is Looking Good tho damn... His hair is just luscious. And the beard even works for me now? A++ work, stylists! Thank you svm :)

I thought the interactions with Michael were well handled - they still care about each other but a lot of stuff has gone down and they need to get to know each other all over again. And this time maybe take things slow? Since the first time they did things really fast.

5) I liked the opening voice over but the one at the end felt like too much? Too on the nose? And not exactly what I got out of the episode.... like, it seemed to be about the open question of faith/trust in *other people* not in some kind of a supreme being guiding your path. So there was this strange disjuncture between what I felt like the episode was getting at and where the voice over took it.

Also sometimes the religious references here just felt sort of thrown at the wall to see what would stick? Though I DO love Philippa as the snake tempting Michael. But it seemed a little fuzzy to me at times.

#star trek discovery #dsc spoilers #dsc meta #my meta

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osmw1 · 6 years

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Poison-Wielding Fugitive Chapter 16

What should I do about this? Should I wash it first? And then disinfect it… with poison? Veno? Do you know how to make laundry detergent? I know how to make soap, but will that do? I’m not gonna destroy it if I don’t wash it a certain way, will I?

‘Calm down. After doing that, check your status. Another option has appeared.’

Huh? Being told to, I check my status. … oh? There’s a skill named Call Fungus. Was it there before I got back to the inn?

‘It was there when you finished hunting and were returning home this afternoon.’

I don’t want to dig deeper and ask when he checked my status, but it was already there then? Call Fungus… to take it literally, I would summon a mushroom? … hmm? There’s another layer to that menu. The second option is Call. As soon as I activate it, it blips, and yet another option pops up. At the same time, my moldy robe starts… squirming around. One of the mushrooms growing on it starts to expand.

“Whoa?!”

I shrieked out unconsciously and I back away from my robe. Come on, that’s scary. What’s seemingly like just a shiitake is plumping up.

A monster? Did I just find a parasitic monster on my robe? And now that it’s been found, the mushroom is showing its true form and gonna attack me? Before long, the mushroom that was on my robe grew to the height of where my hip is. Its cap is at an angle and its stem is slightly bent backwards. Blinking in surprise, I feel like our eyes met.

“Muu!”

It raises one of the slight protrusions from its stem—its hands?—to greet me. I gotta take a closer look at this thing. It’s got two big round eyes attached to its stem portion with a cartoonish mouth underneath them. And below that are its hands, one from either side… at the base of it are two feet-like protuberances. It has another mouth on its cap and from it a tongue sticks out. Its outward experience is both cute and gross at the same time…

‘Myconid or fungus is what one would call this monster.’

Veno explains it to me. Hmm…? Fungus? Its name is –… it’s blank.

‘It is because it is a servant you have summoned, is it not? Look, it shows on your status screen.’

“Huh?” “Muu?”

– Mutated Myconid Fungus Level 1 Acquired skills: Spore Scatter, Self-Regeneration, Stamina Recovery Rate Increase (Weak)

I can thoroughly check its status, but the part where the name should be is just a dash. Is it alright that no name’s been registered?

“Jump.” “Muu.”

I commanded it to jump and it did.

“Spin around three times and make a sound.” “Mu… mu!”

The mushroom splendidly twirled around and called out. Yup… there’s no doubt about whether or not he’s following my orders.

“Why is this mushroom getting tamed by me?”

In an MMORPG, you’d have to tame a monster for them to be your pet. Others might use a different word, but I like “taming.” It’s affectionate.

‘It is likely due to the influences of Hunting Sense. Or perhaps it one of the fruits of your labor, your training as a Poison-Wielder.’

You’re saying it’s not due to our Spirit Link?

‘It is not so that I am unable to create subordinates of my own, but it would be difficult for me to do so in my current state. I do not even have the mana to do so.’ “Muu!”

The mushroom points at the robe of which where he grew from, at me, the compounding machine, and at the direction of the swamp. Then after that, he points vaguely behind me… hey, cut that shit out. Are you trying to saying there are spirits here?

‘Is it not so that he is pointing at me?’ “Muu.”

It nodded in agreement and bowed to Veno. It can hear him?!

“Muu muu.” ‘Aye, indeed… somehow, the spores drifting in the air in the swamp clung on to the robe… the combination of the poison you release, the toxin of the swamp, and the miasma, along with the mixing of pharmaceuticals, and my powers all got mixed together, giving life to this mutated being. And now, it wishes you to be its master as you are the one who had sublimated it. That is my guess at what it wishes to say.’ “Muu!”

The mushroom nods in agreement at what Veno had said. Still, this is a lot to take in.

“So, what you’re saying… umm, the spores that were stuck onto the robe interacted with stuff like my poison and suddenly mutated… and the result is that it wants to follow me?” “Muu muu!”

If you keep nodding that hard, your head might come off loose. More importantly… I don’t get what the mushroom saying at all.

‘Even with my Seal of Solomon, it is not translating its words. It was no more than from its body language that I got my understanding.’ “Muu.”

Aren’t you a little too good at guessing? It’s probably because you’re both monsters, right?

‘Were you not wishing for comrades? Here is your chance, is it not? This solves at least one of our problems.’

You’re not wrong… but is it really okay? To take a monster into our group so casually? And not only that, how do people treat monsters working under them in this world?

“Am I to simply summon it when no one’s around?” ‘There exists a tool for this. A collar is used on low-ranking monsters or slaves by their masters. To imitate that, we could use a belt instead to signify that it is no threat to others. We can always buy the proper collar and have it wear it at a later date.’

You don’t have one on hand, Veno?

‘I do have one back at my lair. Unfortunately, I have none with me at the moment.’

Mm…

‘How about trying to craft a belt out of tanned hide? Aye, do it yourself.’

Alright, alright. Because of that, I cut the leather with my sword and shaped it into a belt. I tie it around the mushroom’s… waist? The part between its hand-like protrusions and its feet.

“Mu!”

The mushroom seems happy. But some time later, I should switch it out for a master-servant relationship-signifying collar, right?

‘For the mean time… that would be right. You should claim it to be a homunculus made through magic and pharmaceutics. Cohgray of the Swamps.’

Was it better to use my nickname there? What sort of position am I in right now?

‘Well, now… we must face the situation at hand. What shall you do about this creature’s name? It is necessary part of the process.’ “Hmm…”

While gazing at the mushroom hopping around for joy, I ponder on a name for it.

“Since it’s always crying out ‘Muu muu,’ how’s Muu?”

Honestly, it’s a total chore to think of a name. At least it’s better than names like Kinoko, or Matango, or Eringi.

‘That is considerably an awful list of names… and to say that it is the best of all of them…’ “Muu!”

It seems happy to be named Muu. There’s a certain charm to it, don’tcha think? Anyway, it’s not good to only telepathically speak to Veno.

“We’ll treat Muu like a fellow party member, but Veno, do you know what its growth is like? “Mu?” ‘I was just checking on that. It seems like it possesses both monster and human traits.’ “Ah, between Mutated Myconid and Fungus?” ‘That is correct. Normally, the former should be its race, but it is now its profession. As well, contradicting that, Fungus is also its profession. I have yet to come to a complete understanding.’

Two classes… or maybe not? Would it be right to call him a mushroom person? It’d probably be easier to confirm that just by levelling it up.

“Mu!”

Muu’s showing me his fighting spirit by shadowboxing. Oh, maybe it’s like that. It’s instinctual for him to battle.

‘Perhaps it is trying to say that it wishes to be the vanguard.’ “Is that right… well, that’d definitely help me out a lot, but will you be okay?” “Mu!”

Well, for now, we should go hunt to try and see. What kind of weapon would be good for it?

‘As it is still level 1, it would be fine for him to use your old sword, like a hand-me-down.’

Although I still carry it around, I only use it in case of emergency as a personal defense weapon. Since I have my crossbow now. If I’m in a pickle, I can use Poison Release and throw venom at the enemy. I give Muu the Flyiron sword. I don’t really understand how Muu holds a sword, but he does, and he swings it around a little.

“Mu…”

He doesn’t seem too satisfied with it. Maybe swords aren’t appropriate for mushrooms?

‘It is uneasy due to the sword being so light. However, the sword is rather sharp. If you wish for a heavy weapon, gain a few levels and prove your might.’ “Mu!”

Its right hand swished in the air and landed at his head to salute me. I wonder where he learned that. He’s less than complete happy about it… but oh, well. With that, I head to the swamp again. I leave my room and the inn, but not before passing by the front desk.

“Oh?”

Unsurprisingly, the proprietress fixates her sight on Muu who’s behind me.

“Ahh, that’s my underling who I created with medicine and magic. I believe you’ll be seeing it more from now on. If it’s better for you, I can borrow a shed to put it in.” “Mu!”

Muu bows to the proprietress. “Wow, how well-behaved. You’re well-versed in alchemy too, hey, Cohgray of the Swamps?”

The proprietress who gave me that nickname speaks with admiration. Ahh, she thinks I’m remarkable with only that much.

“No wonder you don’t need any adventuring allies with you. I see, I see.”

No, actually, I really would like some buddies. People to share the good times and the bad. You know, all I have right now are a my way or the highway dragon who can’t read the mood but yet I talk to in my head and, as well, a mystery of a mushroom. It’s hollow and I get real sad over it, okay?

‘The truth comes out. Nay, it comes pouring out. How terrible of you. It is not that I wish to be involved with you. Anyway, regardless of that you are a spineless coward, you are still awful.’

Gah… I have no comebacks for that.

“I’mma head out to try this new underling out!” “Alrighty. Take care out there. When you get back, I’d like for him to stay in the shed.” “Understood.” “Mu!”

Muu innocently gets close up to the proprietress and gives her the ol’ puppy eyes.

“U-Umm…?”

He tilts over to her to be patted on the cap. The proprietress timidly touches and pets it on the cap.

“Muu… muuuu… muuuuu.” “Oh, what a cutie. You’re a good boy, aren’t you? If you don’t get the room dirty… oh, what should we do about you?”

It’s nice to be cute. Muu’s acting cute enough for her to question her decision to have it stay in the shed.

“Just to try it out, I’ll… give permission for him to stay in your room. But be tidy, okay?!” “Muu!”

Muu bows to thank her. Oh, you’re good. This is what you call a pet, huh?

“O-Okay, we’ll head out now.” “Get home safe. Be careful out there… if anything comes up, call for me with this here bell and I’ll come help you.”

You, uhh, don’t look so good, you know? You’ve got a stubborn cold. With her permission, we set out for the swamp.

By the way, this happens some time later, but Muu begins to help out the proprietress with stuff like wood-splitting and cleaning. It seems like she’s taken quite a liking to Muu. Thanks to that, Muu’s boarding fee is only 500 lag, making the grand total 2,000 lag per day. She’s clever to charge per head and so our expenses increase too. I’ve got some qualms about that, but since she’s letting us stay for so cheap, I can’t really complain.

previously: /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /ch008/ /ch009/ /ch010/ /ch011/ /ch012/ /ch013/ /ch014/ /ch015/ /ch016/ /next/ (full list of translated chapters) (discussion thread) (support me on Patreon or Paypal)

#Poison-Wielding Fugitive #PWF #Average Translations #osm #AvgTL #毒使い逃亡者 #一般の英訳

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smoothvacuum · 3 years

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iRobot Roomba 805 Review: EXPERT reveals secrets

Whenever you look at the all Roomba 800 series from iRobot, you will notice a few things. First, there are many models in this series than any other. Second, each model has functions and options from unique series models.

How do you select?

The 805 is a perfect option for those searching for a mid-tier robot at a limited budget price. Is it enough for you? That will depend incredibly on your requirements and expectations.

This article will cover the Roomba 805 with the point of telling you everything you require to know about the model specifically, including if it’s the right fit for you or not. When your opinion might differ, our thoughts are that for the rates, there are better models currently available.

iRobot Roomba 805 Review

iRobot Roomba 805 Review – Features and specifications

Both models came out under the 800s series with Roomba, an earlier version compared to the 880. The functions of 805 could be said to represent what the manufacturer has in mind while they begin with the 800s series.

Specifications:

iRobot Roomba 805 robotic vacuum is six inches high or about 9.2 cm.

Roomba 805 has one hour of runtime when it’s fully charged according to the packaging. However, it totally depends on the usage; it can last for a long duration and possibly a maximum of 100 minutes before you have to dock it back.

Comes with an elegant charging station, the same as the dual-wall barriers. The builder also added an extra filter for your first change of 4 AA batteries. As well.

Roomba 805 includes everything you required to operate this device out of the box when the package arrives, so there’s no requirement to buy any extra equipment. In fact, you could quickly run it after plugging in the batteries.

And here are some main functions worth noting about the Roomba 805:

MAIN FUNCTIONS AeroForce three-Stage Cleaning System Brushing, agitation, and suction are the 3 stages this sentence refers to.

The vacuum ensures that specks of dirt are brushed and quickly sucked into the robot vacuum. AeroForce also refers to a filter-system within the vacuum cleaner which captures particles as tiny as 10 microns.

iAdapt Navigation It provides robot vacuum cleaners their capability to detect unique areas and obstacles in front of them. By using this feature, lets the robot to navigate through hard corners and furniture, such as the chairs and dining table, along the walls as well.

The robot vacuum comes with sensors that permit it to do this. Brush-less extractors These avert entanglement within its system. This is a big problem in homes with pets that shed hair and long-haired residents.

This deducts the maintenance one requires to do for the vacuum as it is a little bit heavy to work as a tangle postion. Keep in mind that you have to schedule your robot to clean a maximum of seven times per week; that means you’ll always be welcomed with a dusted house every day.

You just have to tap on the CLEAN key on the top of the robot to get it running. Dual Mode Virtual Wall Barriers This function provides the Roomba 805 the capability to clean your home according to the room you want to clean.

By making efficient use of the walls, you could use the Dual Mode to keep your robot out of a certain place or restrict it to only clean a specific room.

Roomba 805, being the predecessor, typically shows several weaknesses (well, just one)

Does not come with a HEPA filter.

iRobot Roomba 805 Review – Who is it for?

It is not a secret that the iRobot Roomba 805 robotic vacuum is an affordable model with a ton of good functions. Is it suitable for you, though? It can be if you:

Have pets that shed a ton and require to keep up on the pickup.

Require a robot that just jobs without a ton of fuss.

Require the capability to schedule cleaning cycles any day or time of the week.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON!!

Features that we loved in iRobot Roomba 805

The Robot Will Recharge Itself

Whenever the battery level gets drops to about 15 percent, the robot vacuum will stop its cleaning cycle and will start heading back towards the charging station. You do not have to tell it to do this task. However, you could send it to recharge whenever you require.

Even though when the battery reaches ten percent, the robot will go into panic mode, though. This is not a noted function; it only happens. You might read that some users complain that this vacuum cleaner frequently gets stuck and then dies without discovering the charging station.

This is because of this panic mode. The charging base requires it to be smoothly accessible, with 3 feet on all sides and also in front of the base. When the robot finding the beacon has to be able to discover the robot and then guide it in, while the robot vacuum is much far away, the search could take a lot longer than normal duration.

When the bettery gets empty, the vacuum cleaner will become more frantic in its discovery, heading to various places where the charging station might be. This is why you may find your robot dead in a corner or could be stuck against a wall or under a table, etc.

If this happens plenty of times, you must consider displacing the base station to a new and more centralized location in your house. Hard flooring is much optimal to permit easier docking. Moving your charging station will permit the robot to maintain closer proximity to your base and also find it before the battery level dies.

Product Design

When we discuss the iRobot Roomba 805 robotic vacuum’s design, it does stand out among many competitors because the design of this robot vacuum is in the shape of a nice circular disk.

It has 3 circular rings, the outermost consisting of a soft wall bumper. Also the innermost including the central processing unit, comes with an access key positioned on top. To operate the cleaning feature, all you ever need to do is just put it on the floor and just click on the key.

The disk will displace around the floor. Besides that, it will not just clean your room but the entire floor if there are not any pitfalls on the surface other than stairs.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON!!

The Dual Mode Virtual Wall Barrier

This device makes sure that the Roomba automatic surface cleaning robotic vacuum stays in places you desire it to be and away from the areas where you do not need it to be. The Dual Mode Virtual Wall Barrier has 2 modes.

In order to turn on any of the 2 modes, the dual-mode virtual wall barrier includes a switch, which flicks either down or up. The virtual wall mode is usable when the switch is “Up.”

It permits the robot to function as a wall, which could just be sensed by the Roomba automatic floor robotic vacuum. Disregarding the positioning, the robots make a trigonal field around themselves, which keeps the Roomba 805 away from them for as long as a maximum of 10 feet (3 meters).

Besides that, when the switch is turned “Down,” The Halo Mode is enabled. It does enable the robot to make protective layers across unique objects such as a bowl or a vase, so the Roomba automatic floor vacuum doesn’t bump into things and topple them over.

However, it spreads any obstacle control field over a place as large as twenty-four inches all across the place.

Filtration is Among the Best

When iRobot came to an end-gaining the HEPA certification for its filtration, there was a ton of concern in the allergen environment. The HEPA certification does let you know that the filter would collect particles down to 3 microns in size.

On top of that, This level of collecting allergen particles like pollen, dust mites, pet dander, and mold or mildew spores. But, a few years ago, when iRobot and several other big robot vacuum vendors just stopped getting the HEPA certification.

Their filters are identical; however, for some unknown points (we are guessing price), the HEPA certified label has gone away. Nowadays, Roomba boasts a “highly-effective” filter instead of any HEPA filter.

What you have to know: it’s the same filter. The high-effectivity filter still sucks up to 99 percent of in-house allergens and is only as efficient as it was before when it was having the HEPA label.

If you’re concerned regarding the HEPA rating and you are searching for a Roomba, look for those models with the high-affective filter. 805 is one of the models. But, you must also get aware that there are several filters on certain series that don’t have HEPA filtration.

These will definitely be labeled as AeroForce Standard or AeroVac Standard. When these filters still suck up particles down to ten microns in measurement. (The efficiently about eighty-eight percent of allergens), they’re not anti-allergen filters, just like the high-efficiency ones.

iRobot Roomba 805 review – Unique Design Feature

Cleaning ability is one thing; what every consumer tends to search for is a vacuum cleaner that looks aesthetically pleasing while roams around the home. The new iRobot Roomba comes with fulfilling both requirements, ideally for each of its users.

It’s an attractive and cool design enclosing captivating eye functions. But, the only downside of this particular design is that it is available in pitch black color.

Even though the device is pretty much lightweight and could be easily picked and then placed anywhere, you want it. It just weighs 8.5 pounds, as we have discussed earlier, which makes the device much portable.

Quick Cleaning

Unlike predecessors of the Roomba series, the Roomba 800 is equipped with not just powerful suction pumps, beautiful aesthetics, and efficiency filters alone. The Roomba 805 includes an advanced chipset that enables the device to operate cleaning in a more quick and sophisticated method.

It sweeps the surface in patterns and also avoids redundancy in moving around the home. Unless the sensor observes every particle in a specified direction has not been deducted yet, the vacuum cleaner doesn’t move any further onto the further point.

CHECK PRICE ON AMAZON!!

Includes Automatic Adjustment

The Roomba 805 arrives with automatic controlling functions. It includes spinning side brushes that are able to push out any kind of debris when performing the cleaning operation. The Roomba 805 makes good clean control on tiles and carpet alike.

It’s also programmed to control when cleaning laminate and hardwood floors. Also it can make transitions in between carpets and rugs successfully and effectively.

If you need a quick-paced, durable auto rechargeable, and also portable robotic cleaning vacuum cleaner where you could sit back and chill, watch the floors getting clean by themselves, then this vacuum cleaner is a perfect choice as per your needs.

With that said, right now, we also conclude our Roomba 805 article; we hope you have enjoyed it.

Let’s Conclude iRobot Roomba 805 Review

LET'S CONCLUDE

The Roomba 805 is a standard model with enough advanced technological upgrades to make it worth every penny. The huge collection bin means less time consuming while doing maintenance when the brushless extractors make the operation simple.

It’s great for homes with shedding pets and also those people with small children. It’ll get into corners and also along the baseboards where the crumbs and the hairs seem always to gather. What it will not do is sync with your phone or permit you to have voice controls.

Everything you have to run the device is right on the faceplate. Looking for a standard entry-level robotic vacuum cleaner that is easy to maintain as well as save a lot of money doing so? Roomba 805 is a viable choice.

#tumblrtextposts #tumblrstuff #vacuum #vacuumcleaner #cleaning #home

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howdoyousayghibli · 6 years

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Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind on a Cliff by the Sea in the Outlet by the Light Switch and the Goblet of Fire

Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is a pretty wild shift from Ponyo, let me tell you. It may not be a beginning-to-end delightful joyride like Ponyo was, but it feels much more important.

A quick note, going forward: Although Ponyo was picked essentially at random for my first review, from here on out my plan is to review every Studio Ghibli film in order of release. Technically, Nausicaä isn’t a true Ghibli film, being released before the formation of the studio, but most people consider it one anyway due to the people who worked on it and the general vibes.

A second, even quicker note: in Chrome, you can type ä by holding down the alt key while pressing 1 3 2 on the numpad. Now you can all write your own Nausicaä blog posts!

Alright then. A quick summary for those who haven’t seen it: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind is set centuries after our civilization has collapsed. Humanity survives, but their primitive settlements are threatened by the toxic jungles that cover much of the globe, filled with poison spores and giant, hostile insects. Our protagonist, a young woman named Nausicaä, is caught between warring nations who just might be about to trigger a fresh apocalypse before the old one's even worn off. There’s a bunch that I can’t include here; Nausicaä has a lot going on. You should really just go watch it.

This movie is outstanding in several ways. The first and most obvious way is its

design.

This proto-Ghibli film doesn’t quite display the incredible animation of Ponyo or the studio’s other subsequent films, but the designs of the characters and creatures in this movie are striking and create some truly memorable shots, like when Nausicaä finds the Ohm exoskeleton.

Great Design Highlights:

- Nausicaä: you KNOW that she’s getting her own section later, but suffice it to say that her design rocks. Her original outfit tells us a lot about her (practicality/experience with the jungle), but she’s also well enough designed that she remains recognizable through multiple outfit changes.

- The Ohm: Is “OHM-G” too obvious??? I don’t care, these bugs are incredible. Miyazaki purposefully gave the movie an uphill battle in making the audience care for these utterly alien creatures, a battle which it wins handily. They exhibit a perfect balance of creepiness and a strange, surreal sense of wonder. They almost remind me of the Great Owl from the Rats of NIMH, in that they come off as strange and dangerous but also wise and knowledgeable.

- The Great Warriors: If the Ohm have a sense of unease that’s tempered by wonder, the Great Warriors ditch the wonder and replace it with despair. Everything, from their first appearance in legend/flashback to their actual on-screen appearance, is calculated to instill a deep sense of dread, in me at least. A+++

Oh, and there’s this lady:

If you can believe it, she only gets cooler from here.

Ok, so the design is amazing. Know what else is? The

protagonist.

Nausicaä is one of my favorite movie protagonists in a long time, despite the completely unnecessary umlaut/diaeresis in her name. I like that when we meet her, she is already extremely competent. The film immediately establishes that she is experienced with travelling through the perilous toxic jungle, and comfortable enough there to take a quick nap on top of the Ohm exoskeleton. Every action we see her take, from loading and firing her gun, to flying her glider, to using her sword, to calming angry insects, speaks of mastery and practice. This could result in a boring protagonist who already knows everything; however, Nausicaä does undergo character development in this movie, it just doesn’t relate to her skills.

Despite the harsh world she’s grown up in, we get the sense that Nausicaä has enjoyed a fairly happy childhood. She loves exploring the world around her village, she is beloved of the townspeople, and oh yeah, she’s also a princess (and a scientist??? She’s the best.). She’s used to danger, but when her sheltered valley in caught in a war between to larger nations, she’s confronted with things much worse than danger: hatred, cruelty, and senseless violence. Nausicaä is used to the peaceful people of her village, and the dangerous but, to her, logical violence of nature; she is brutally awakened from this dream as an invading foreign power needlessly murders her ill, bedridden father in front of her.

She flies into a rage, defeating (I don’t recall it being clear if she kills anyone or not) multiple armed soldiers on her own and without much difficulty. This scene was critical for me, because by explicitly showing us that Nausicaä is capable of great anger and violence, is makes her later actions much more powerful. Nausicaä’s journey is about choosing compassion in the face of cruelty and kindness in the face of violence, which is absolutely something that more adventure movies could stand to build their character development on.

The movie may take a wandering path to get to its climax - the pacing is a little weird, there’s definitely a chunk in the middle where I wondered where it all was going and I think the movie could’ve worked with one less nation for us to learn about - but wow, that climax. If you didn’t already sympathize with the Ohm, GET READY. But yeah, it was basically the best possible resolution for a movie about the power of compassion and the bravery inherent in pacifism.

basically

while Nausicaä doesn’t have the same rewatchability that Ponyo has, it does have something to say, and it says it well. Everyone should watch this movie.

Next up: Castle in the Sky! How long will the streak of movies named “X on/in/of the X” continue??

Alternate review titles:

Nausicaä of the Children of the Mind

Nausicaä: The Movie That Made Me Care About Bugs

Another really good review of Nausicaä can be found here at Tor: https://www.tor.com/2017/03/29/nausicaa-of-the-valley-of-the-wind-a-new-kind-of-action-hero/

#studio ghibli #ghibli movie #nausicaä of the valley of the wind #nausicaa #film review

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whatdoesthejstandfor · 6 years

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Cool Smash Possibilities #3: Captain Toad

Welcome to another edition of this cute Tumblr series I’m writing! While personally, I would love to play as both Funky and Alm, I don’t actually think they’ll even be logically considered for Smash. But for today’s entry, I actually have a little bit of hope for this little fungi. Not only being one of the more prominent WiiU Mario spinoffs, but also being featured in quite a number of Mario games himself, there’s no better time to include Captain Toad into the Smash Brothers roster.

The Origin:

Toad’s been a pretty reoccurring character/species since the start of Mario’s Mushroom Kingdom adventures in 1985. They usually assume a minor role in the series, while also appearing in literally every spinoff game as a playable character. They even appear in Smash, though the use of Peach’s Neutral B special. I believe this makes sense, as Toad joining the Smash roster would be equal to a random Goomba or Koopa Troopa joining. Yoshi’s a special case, as the dino is sort of one of many, but he’s also starred in numerous games and has a much larger presence in both the Mario and Nintendo world. Plus, the Mario franchise sure does have a lot of playable characters as is, so having the Toad character as a special move tied to Princess Peach makes sense. So, you may be ask, what makes Captain Toad so different? Well, here’s some more backstory. During 2008′s Super Mario Galaxy on Nintendo Wii, Mario will sometimes encounter a wandering group of Toads, assisting the plumber thoughout the level. Sometimes they will give him the power stars he seeks, others they just sort of whimsically commented on the galaxies they explored. Regardless, the red Toad of this brigade wore a light on his head, and is essentially the prototype Captain Toad. They appear again in 2010′s Super Mario Galaxy 2. This exact group of Toads appear again in the next big console Mario Game, 2013′s Super Mario 3D World, with a major redesign. Not only do they show up during some stages, but you take control of the leader (now officially dubbed “Captain Toad”) of this brigade during special challenge levels. These levels have you control the Captain though diorama like obstacle courses, using the gamepad to control the camera. Captain Toad cannot jump, so he can only run to avoid obstacles in order to collect the 5 Green Stars and complete the challenge. These levels were ridiculously popular on the Miiverse Social Media community, and thus, the developers ended up using these as base for their next game. Thus, comes 2014′s Captain Toad Treasure Tracker! Captain Toad’s very own game that feature a comfy collection of diorama levels to complete, including even boss levels. Captain Toad is of course joined by Captain Toadette and the rest of the Toad Brigade, on their quest to find lots of treasure. It was announced like a month ago that it’s getting an updated port on Nintendo Switch, including levels featured in 2017′s Super Mario Odyssey... Which Captain Toad was also featured in! Hidden in the many Kingdoms, Captain Toad will give Mario a single Power Moon when found and talked to. Mario can also find Captain Toadette residing in Peach’s Castle after the game is completed, and gives Mario a Power Moon for every achievement he completes.

Smash Statistics:

So okay, before I start this, I want Toadette as an alternate skin for Captain Toad. I don’t think this should be a problem, as Corrin, Robin, and the Wii Fit Trainer have both sexes as Alternate Costumes. Now that that’s out of the way, Captain Toad should be similar to Little Mac in ways. He doesn’t have the jumping power that other Mario series characters have, but he should be very fast on the ground. That doesn’t mean he CAN’T jump, because that would cripple him severely in a game like this, but he has a hard time lifting off the ground. Captain Toad’s basic attacks would mostly involve him using his head and his feet, as they both have prominent size. Captain Toad’s Neutral Special would be a variation of Peach’s Neutral B, though while Peach’s spores shoot in front of her, Toad’s would cover his entire body. I guess it’d be similar to Corrin’s stupid Dragon counter, but not nearly as much knockback. I’d make his Forward Special a powerful Back Pack Swing. Not only would Toad use this to propel horizontally in the air, but also as a hard hitting swing attack with pretty decent range. I’m bringing back the Propeller Block from Mario 3D Land to be his Up Special, giving him a predictable recovery that causes slice damage from the propellers. Finally, his Down Special would be Turnip Pluck. While Peach’s turnips have different faces and gimmicks, Captain Toad would pull out a predictable turnip. He’d do it much faster than Peach, just to toss in a cute little nod to Super Mario Bros. 2. When Captain Toad gets the Smash Ball, he pulls from the ground his mighty Super Pickax! This cute little item is actually based off of the Hammer in Donkey Kong, and therefor will give Captain Toad all the benefits of said item, as well as invulnerability. The Pickax disappears after a while, so score your KOs!

Home Stage:

I feel like fighting on top of one of those Diorama stages would be really cute. I don’t really know which one, though. Maybe something with cute shy guys in the background, as well as the rest of the Toad Brigade hidden somewhere. Maybe the stage will change as it’s rotated around, meaning you have to adapt to new hazards you might’ve seen in the background, like those said Shy Guys. That, or toss Captain Toad’s stage into New Donk City or an Odyssey themed stage. IDK, I’ve never designed a video game before.

Reasons For!

-Captain Toad perfectly aligns within that timeframe between Smash 4 and the new Smash, and Sakurai heavily drew from that timeframe for the last game. -I feel like Captain Toad just appeals to everyone. Old School fans would love to see Toad in this game, newer fans get the major Captain Toad fanservice. Guys would find his hard hitting fast playstyle hilarious, gals would think he’s hella adorable. I can imagine all the memes just sprouting up like shrooms including this little guy. -I don’t think Captain Toad has much competition from other Mario franchise characters. Like, Pauline MAYBE, but Waluigi and Daisy haven’t appeared in as many mainline Mario games as Captain Toad has. Plus, Toad has been in the spinoffs since Super Mario Kart, I think he deserves a little more priority than those two.

Reasons Against!

-Sakurai’s usually super adamant on his choices in Smash. Toad has been Peach’s Neutral Special since Melee, and it’s unclear if Captain Toad will be enough to change his mind. -Toads have always walked that line between an Actual Character and Generic Series of Characters. I think Captain Toad is an Actual Character, but y’never know what the developers think. -Mario as a franchise has six characters and a clone already, while also semi encompassing the Donkey Kong, Yoshi, and Wario franchises. The Mario franchise has a lot of characters in Smash as is. Maybe after Rosalina and Bowser Jr., Sakurai would want to simmer down on those Mushroom Emblemed guys?

Overall, I think Captain Toad has potential. He could be really fun, if added! It just depends if Sakurai is willing to give the fungi the 12 Part Video Game franchise + Anime Adaptation he deserves. Anyway, my next Cool Smash Possibilities will be out on Sunday, but I’m going to provide an interesting twist: you guys can vote for the next Cool Smash Possibility. If you guys have any characters you’re dying to see, feel free to DM me, and the most popular one will be done on Sunday! I’m familiar with most Nintendo franchises, the 3rd Party characters I might have to do a bit of research but I mean y’know, that’s it. See ya Sunday!

#super smash bros #nintendo switch #super mario #captain toad #toad #captain toad treasure tracker

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ianmrid · 4 years

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...There’s A Chance To Begin Again!

Pokémon Pearl: Completed!

As is the norm, my second trip through a region is markedly quicker than my first, for a couple of reasons: I don’t need to explore anywhere near as much, and I also focus mainly on capturing just the version exclusive pokémon. So, although I spent less time on my Pearl playthrough, I still managed to rack up a pretty respectable 44 hours and 23 minutes of play time. When it come to number of pokémon captured however, there is a huge Pokédex drop off with just 150 seen / 34 caught in the main game, and only a slight bump up to 246 seen / 39 caught post-National ‘Dex. I really was laser-focused on just the pokémon I needed this time around!

Despite spending less time with them, I really liked my Sinnoh team. I had a fair idea of which pokémon I wanted to use beforehand - specifically wanting a Steel, Dark, and Ghost core - but there is always some wiggle room. Shall we look at them? Let’s look at them!

Scorchio the Infernape: I previously complained about the lack of Fire-types in Sinnoh, so sticking with the Fire/Fighting dual type starter line was a real blessing here. This is a great type combo for attacking, which is what Infernape is built for with a good stats for both Attack and Special Attack. Since I had a couple of strong Special Attackers elsewhere on the team, I loaded up my Infernape with all Physical Attacking moves. The dual STAB moves of Flare Blitz and Close Combat combined with a STAB priority Mach Punch, meant that not much wanted to take on Scorchio, especially with the Life Orb held item adding an extra boost (at the cost of some HP). The plan with this set is to defeat your opponent before Life Orb damage and Flare Blitz recoil knock you out! The set was rounded off with Rock Climb because Sinnoh has too many freaking HMs. Speaking of which...

Peanut the Bibarel: Bibarel, much like Lopunny, has a reputation as a bit of an HM mule, and since it is also part Water-type, meaning it can learn the Water-type HMs as well, it’s probably the best option in the game. However I still wasn’t planning on using one until, wandering through only the second or third route of the game, I encountered a shiny Bidoof! Thankfully I captured it and once I did, there was no way I wasn’t going to use it on my team! This is my first shiny since my Gen2 Geodude, who came far to late into the game to make my team, so Peanut (named after the all-powerful shiny Bidoof, Peanutbutter in Dorklys Pokémon Rusty webseries) became my first ever shiny team member! Moveset-wise, it should be no surprise that they are all HMs: Surf, Strength, Rock Smash, and Waterfall. Bidoof is gonna Bidoof, after all.

Diaz the Roserade: Named for Brooklyn 99s Rosa Diaz, I always planned to use a Roserade in Sinnoh and she would have probably made it onto my Diamond team if I hadn’t started with Turtwig. I think Roserade is a great example of how new evolutions can breathe new life into old pokémon. Before Gen4, Roselia was a standard uninteresting Grass/Poison type that I couldn’t imagine using on a team. This changed with the addition of a cool masquerade-inspired evolution! Roserade has great Special Attack and Defence, and I compensated for the lack of HP and Physical Defence with both the Leftovers held item and the Grass-type STAB Giga Drain to keep her healthy. She also has the very useful ability Natural Cure, that removes status conditions when you switch her out, so that also helped her avoid taking too much damage. In return she was also the paralysis-spreader via Stun Spore, a move that among other things, helps to improve catch rates of afflicted pokémon. Very useful since catching missing pokémon was the main aim of this run!

Ru Pol the Mismagius: The second of a trio of ‘new’ evolutions on this team, this time the evolved form of Gen2′s Misdreavus, Mismagius is another Special Attacker with great Special bulk, with the additional benefit of being lightning fast! Once I loaded him up with great special coverage moves - STAB Shadow Ball, Thunderbolt, and Psychic, all powered up by the Wise Glasses held item - I think Mismagius was probably the MVP of the party often getting several levs ahead of his teammates. Sure, his Defence was basically non-existent, but the healing move Pain Split helped to mitigate that a little. Most importantly, I think Ru Pol is my favourite nickname for a pokémon for a while! Mismagius is another pokémon that is somewhat female-coded in its appearance but with a 50/50 gender ratio, with mine happening to be male. This is almost begging for a drag queen inspired name and, although Ru Poltergeist wouldn’t fit, I think Ru Pol still gets the point across. What with Bunnytrap the Lopunny in my last team, it seems Poké-Drag Queens are my new favs!

Barksdale the Honchkrow: Rounding out the new evolution team members is Honchkrow, based on a gang leader or Mafia boss. Honchkrow evolves from Johto’s Murkrow and makes so much sense. Murkrow were always presented as a gang of petty troublemakers or low level criminals, so giving them a head honcho crow (ah ha!) as an evolution was a great design choice. Honchkrow is more of Physical Attacker, but since it ad to take on the HMs for Fly and Defog, I gave it STAB Sucker Punch for priority, then built my strategy around its remaining move; Night Slash, a 70 base power (bp) Physical Dark-type move. Night Slash has the added effect of improving the chance of a critical hit (up from 1 in 16 to one in 1 in 8. This stacks with both my Honchkrow’s ability, Super Luck, taking it up to 1 in 4, and its held item, the Scope Lens, taking it to a 1 in 3 chance of dealing a critical hit! Given that this move also gets STAB and Honchkrow’s base Attack stat is a very impressive 125, this guy could dish out some very strong hits indeed! Nickname-wise, I went for the modern equivalent of a Mafia Boss; the Wires kingpin of crime, Avon Barksdale. What do you mean that show finished over a decade ago? No, you’re old.

Bow the Bronzong: Finally, rounding out my planned Ghost/Dark/Steel trio, and providing some much needed Physical and Special bulk, is Bronzong. Named after the Great Bell of Bow (’cos it looks like a massive bell, obviously), Bronzong was very much a support pokémon. I had it learn both Light Screen and Reflect to increase both Defence stats for the team, and gave it a Light Clay to hold to make these buffs last for 8 turns instead of 5. I also gave it Toxic to help wear down difficult opponents and rounded things out with Earthquake as I wanted it to have at least a little attacking presence, so that it didn’t fall too far behind its teammates in terms of level. Although I don’t usually use too many defensive pokémon, Bronzong gave the team a nice balance and helped cover for some of the glass cannons I had selected this time around!

And here they all are - look at shiny Bibarel!! <3

Next up, the enhanced version of the games; Pokémon Platinum. After the Gen3 step up in quality that was Pokémon Emerald, I’m very interested to see what additional stuff they have packed into the Gen4 third game!

#pokemon #pokemon playthrough #e plays pokemon #nintendo #game freak #Pokemon Pearl

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anotheruserwithnoname · 7 years

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Thoughts on Star Trek Discovery after 5 episodes

(Spoilers for Discovery S01E05 and Orville S01E06)

Episode 5 of Star Trek Discovery aired last night in Canada (up here the network Space airs it, so we don’t need to rely on streaming to view it). “Choose Your Pain” was its title and it’s ironic that it aired a few days after The Orville’s surprisingly hard-hitting “Krill” because it actually allows for something very close to an apples-to-apples comparison.

I’m going to go into spoilers, plus this will be a very long post (apologies; this is Exhibit A to show why I’m not on Twitter), so I’ll put a break here. The tl;dr is that, although I’m still willing to give it a chance, I’m still not “feeling” Discovery, which after 5 episodes is a concern; whereas, I find The Orville not only captures the classic spirit of Trek better, it managed in one single episode to make its Klingon analogue more interesting than the real Klingons in their current incarnation.

Before I begin, I wanted to set the scene to explain where I’m coming from. There is a lot of Discovery-bashing going on, and I don’t support that and this essay isn’t intended to be a bash. Although I am very critical of the show and not 100% certain that I’m going to stick with it much longer (though I’ll probably stick with it till its midseason break, at least), it’s not my intent to become a basher because then I’d be a hypocrite. I was a defender of Star Trek Enterprise throughout its entire run, and was upset to see it bashed mercilessly, to the point where I divorced myself from Star Trek and Star Trek fandom after it ended in 2005. Fortunately, Doctor Who had just come back on TV so I switched my allegiances to Who (which I’d been a fan of since the early 80s, but it became more intense). Fast-forward to 2017, and due to a mix of disappointment over what the series has delivered since Christmas 2015, combined with decisions regarding the show moving forward, I'm now divorcing from Doctor Who (as anyone who follows my blog knows). So with Star Trek back on TV the opportunity to move my allegiances back to Trek exists ... but Discovery isn’t doing it for me. Not yet. Instead, The Orville, Seth MacFarlane’s underrated (in more ways than one) homage is the show that is earning my affection. I know I’m not alone in that.

But here’s the thing, and why I don’t really see the need to “bash” Discovery: because The Orville is so much like “proper” Star Trek - the optimism, the crew-as-family dynamic, the introspective and “ripped from the headlines”-inspired stories, and general sense of fun - this actually allows Discovery to seek its own path (even if that means delivering “improper” Trek), allowing both shows to co-exist (which they could regardless - it’s not as if they’re in direct competition).

But Discovery has problems. Before I get into that, though, some positive thoughts.

This week’s episode introduced Rainn Wilson as Harry Mudd, a character immortalized by Roger C. Carmel in the original series. And I thought he did a good job. I don’t have the same issues with recasting characters as some others do (I liked the guy they had playing Sarek earlier, too). My only complaint is they made him darker than Carmel’s version, which felt a bit inconsistent. But then again this is 10 years before Kirk encountered him and people change (it could be argued that Carmel’s version is more insane than Wilson’s, and maybe we’re seeing why in Discovery). I loved the reference to Stella, his wife, which was a great call-forward to the TOS episode “I, Mudd”. Trivia: Carmel was supposed to reprise Mudd for an episode of TNG, but the actor died before it was filmed; I believe some aspects of what was planned for Mudd - including a scene where he was supposed to actually pay tribute to his frenemy, Captain Kirk - were later reused when they brought Scotty forward into the TNG era in “Relics”. So having Mudd appear in a modern-day Trek is an idea that’s been kicking around for 30 years.

Obviously, Mudd will be back and I’m looking forward to it. I’d rather he be the recurring baddie than the new Klingons. More on that in a moment.

I also liked the on-screen reference to Jonathan Archer, Christopher Pike and Robert April early in the episode. Robert April was established in the animated series as the very first captain of the Enterprise, predating Pike. Since TAS is not considered canon (or at least it wasn’t considered canon during the pre-2005 era; it might have changed since), this is the first “canonical” acknowledgement of April in live action. I appreciated that.

I also liked Capt. Lorca in this episode. After two weeks of being just “there”, Lorca came into his own with this episode. And his backstory is interesting.

But I have criticisms of this episode, and of the show itself as we hit week 5. Starting with a minor point, after four weeks of keeping a lid on language, the swearing in this episode was awkward and clearly put in there “because we can” - there was nothing charming or cool about the first use of the F-word (twice in the same scene, yet) in the Trek franchise. I’m not one to go “oooh, swearing, bad” (The Thick of It is one of my favourite TV shows, for god’s sake), but there’s a time and place, and it just didn’t work - it came across as vulgar and awkward. If they’re going to have people swear in Discovery, fine, but don’t make it feel like “hey, we can swear now!” Torchwood ran into this same issue - and the swearing during Series 1 felt unnatural as a result. If they want Lorca and his crew to turn the air blue, they should get Armando Iannucci in to show them how it’s done.

What will be the deal-breaker for me is if this show continues to be populated with characters I don’t give a damn about. I like Michael (who was for the first time not the focus of an episode) and Lorca has potential - all the characters have potential - but 5 weeks in they should be further along than they are in terms of establishing them, even taking into account the two-episode prologue and the fact a core character only debuted this week.

Five weeks in, and without cheating online, I still don't remember the names of most of the main characters because they’ve made so little impression on me. Michael is fine, Lorca is fine, and I know the new guy is named Tyler (mainly because I’m curious as to whether he’s related to Jose Tyler of Christopher Pike’s Enterprise in “The Cage”), but the rest - by now they should have made enough of an impression for me to at least remember their names, not just call them “Michael’s roommate”, “the jerk who runs the spore drive and who might or might not be the chief engineer but we can’t tell”, “Odo 2.0”, “the doctor who lives with the spore drive guy and who I thought was the ship’s doctor until he mentioned that he answers to a chief medical officer who we’ve yet to see”, “the incompetent who got herself killed by the spore monster last week in a scene Seth MacFarlane would have rejected as too silly”, “the roboty woman on the bridge who kinda looks like Nebula from Guardians of the Galaxy,” and “the woman whose head is half shaved”. In fact I think this was the first episode in which those last two individuals were actually identified by names on screen.

By comparison, I had not just the Orville character names but their functions nailed down by Episode 2 of that show. And I had much more invested in them as characters, even early on (and by “Krill” I find I want to know more about what’s happening with Borus and Klyden and their child, Alara’s love life, and whether Ed and Kelly are going to get back together or not). With Discovery it’s almost as if they’re all being set up to be redshirts. (As it is, I really don’t expect to Michael’s roommate - I looked it up; her name is Tilly - to survive the season. Too much telegraphing about her being naive and having dreams for the future.) Maybe they are if the show is taking the Game of Thrones “anyone can die” approach and if there is a reason why we’ve never heard of Spock having an adopted human sister before now.

When I started writing this very long (sorry!) blog entry, I mentioned an apples-to-apples comparison between Discovery and Orville. This week, “Choose Your Pain” and “Krill” both involved captains boarding enemy vessels and learning more about the bad guys. And it really drove home the fact that the new Klingons are rather boring. Never mind the different make-up and all that - I’m sure they’ll come up with a workaround to explain that the same way Enterprise did back in 2005 with the Augments story arc (and I didn’t miss the fact they name-dropped eugenics this week) - they just don’t have the spark of the Klingons of old, or even the Abramsverse versions. Not saying there aren‘t promising signs - I kind of like the fact the show is shipping cult leader Voq with the female officer L’Rell. Every episode so far has included focus on the Klingons. But in only one episode, The Orville managed to develop a very well-rounded picture of the Krill, making them relevant, interesting, sympathetic, and “villains” we want to see more of. The Klingons on Discovery? I want more Harry Mudd, fewer Klingons. Of course, a big difference between Orville and Discovery is the use of humour. Discovery pretty much has none, while Orville is a dramedy. Which was driven home during the climax of the Discovery episode when we were actually treated to an unexpected piece of Orville-like comedy when the female Klingon captain, who has the hots for Tyler. Encountering him trying to escape, she let off with something like “After all we mean to each other, you’re leaving?” (not an exact quote). It was a funny moment, but poorly timed. Seriously, we’re supposed to see her as a threat (and an ongoing one seeing as Lorca doesn’t finish her off as opposed to every other Klingon he encounters), and she spouts dialogue more appropriate for a spoof? Compare to The Orville, which usually knows when to be funny and when not to be. Having Ed Mercer and Gordon Molloy facing the possibility of having to kill a bunch of Krill children in order to save a human colony, and Mercer saying “If we kill those kids ... we have no souls” was a far more hard-hitting and dramatic moment than anything “Choose Your Pain” offered. And once things got serious, they got serious. The ending of “Krill” was chilling as Mercer realized that instead of saving a bunch of kids, he created a bunch of future enemies instead, instantly giving the series a long-term aspect as the potential is there for it to revisit this fact years from now, if it survives that long. The Avis rent-a-car jokes were funny, and the opening sequence where Bortus does his best Matter-Eater Lad impersonation (Google it) was cute, and I loved the gag where Ed starts talking before Alara can open a channel, but it was the serious moments that made “Krill” stand out. The next episode looks serious as well as it casts a long-overdue spotlight on Lt. LaMarr.So to sum up: I’m not ready yet to say “Discovery sucks” as some have. I don’t think it does, despite all I’ve written here. It has issues, yes, but every Trek series has issues and teething pains. I am concerned that the characters aren’t gelling for me and that’s what’s going to make me decide to keep watching in the long term. On the other hand, The Orville is proving to be a great show that also has had its rough patches and its teething pains, but it managed to hit the ground running a lot faster in terms of establishing characters and stories and tone. I am in the market for a sci-fi show to replace Doctor Who, and so far The Orville is winning the battle against Star Trek Discovery. But I’m not willing to write Discovery off ... yet.

#star trek discovery #the orville #calling it as i see it

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