#this is the i want to do big ougi damage and i want to do it within 3 turns

[mavis-merry-magnolia]

next question

i think you will like this one...

what parts of hanekawa makes her your favorite? give me the full blorbo thoughtdump 😈

OH so you want it to be go time? It's go time? I suppose it's go time.

Note I am NOT a writer or well articulated so this is going to be ALL over the place fdjkhds.

So just to begin, Hanekawa is such a fun and mysterious character for a lot of Bakemonogatari. She's literally the first character we're introduced to properly other than Koyomi. And their very first scene already establishes that they have some history together, what with her seemingly being Koyomi's only friend. And shows us a couple flashes of Black Hanekawa but refusing to elaborate. And the season just continues to drip feed us that there is just something UP with the sweet little glasses wearing student council president. Allusions to spring break, and Something happening during Golden Week that Koyomi and Meme don't really elaborate on much. Her genuinely offputting comments about the way Koyomi hitting Mayoi and how he's "supposed" to do it, combined with the fact she could see Mayoi at ALL once it's revealed what exactly Mayoi is and how her mechanics work. The fact that whenever she's on the phone she's NEVER at home, always wandering the streets. It builds up so much subtle intrigue in what the hell is going on with her behind the scenes, given that Koyomi basically outright idolizes her and talks up how amazing and perfect she is in most cases.

I'm a very big fan of these kinds of setups for characters and their arcs. It's why i'm currently so fascinated with how information and scenes regarding Ougi are being dripped out and revealed across Second Season. But I digress.

And then Tsubasa Cat rolls around and begins to shed some light on just exactly how NOT okay she is by revealing information on her home life, as well as the beginnings of exactly what the hell went down during golden week. It's at this point that the narrative starts to pick at the part of her that it's kept hidden so far. How much of her Good Girl act is a raw self defense mechanism for her. She's never had anyone she could actually open up to like Koyomi before. She just so...casually talks about the abuse she's suffered to him.

To go on a small tangent, a character trait about Koyomi that I like is that he's really willing to throw himself under the bus for the sake of cheering others up if need be. During the talk where Hanekawa talks about her father hitting her, he realizes that he can't really...do anything about it, and can see that she's getting really upset and desperate when she asks him not to tell anyone. So he starts going on a goofy little pervy bit to cheer her up, since she likes his weird sense of humor. It's a really sweet moment for them.

Anyway, back on topic. Not to detail my own life all too much but, the way Hanekawa defends herself from her environment and the world around her hits VERY close to home with my own experiences. As someone who's had to constantly mask and people please her whole life, it hits so close to home seeing how she handles all of that and...the consequences it has, in the form of Black Hanekawa.

This is just me speaking entirely from my own experiences but, learning from the Nekomono Duology that ultimately even with the influence of the Sawari Neko, Black Hanekawa is STILL Hanekawa, hit really close to home, in the way that when stresses in my life build up like this, due to my own masking and outright rejection or ignoring of them, it manifests in....destructive episodes. I start thinking, talking, and acting erratically in a way that doesn't feel like Me at all. I've ended up nearly permanently damaging very close and important relationships to myself several times because of this. I don't feel like myself at all, like I become a totally different person. And, I dunno, I just...I really felt something seeing Tsubasa be pushed to her breaking point and lashing out at everything around her in a similar way. It made me really...invested. In seeing where her character would go after that.

Augh and speaking of where her character goes like...I've mentioned it in past posts but I love how absolutely dynamic of a character she is too. Like, we've gotten to see her ENTIRE journey through this story. From her mysterious introduction in Bake, seeing her chronological introduction in Kizumonogatari and just...seeing how MUCH her and Koyomi went through together. With Kizu you can just...it's SO easy to see how Tsubasa fell in love with him. Their budding friendship and complicated feelings for one another through the story arc are SO sweet and precious to me. Like. For every part of her that's a front, she really is just a sweetheart underneath it all. She just isn't able to express it all healthily. I mean, her persistence and care managed to break through Koyomi's shell at his MOST soggiest and cringiest. And then Nise...while she doesn't appear much, I REALLY like how she's shown here, taking the aftermath of Tsubasa Cat where everyone just kinda...puts a bandaid on the situation.

Okay doubling back to talk about that, something that I think makes Tsubasa Cat stand out compared to the other 4 Bake arcs is that each of the other arcs resolve themselves pretty soundly? Like yeah we know that down the road more complications arise but, looking at the story in the order it's written, pretty much all of the arcs have a solid and happy end. But that doesn't really happen with Tsubasa Cat, because the issue of Hanekawa being unable to express her feelings just isn't addressed at all. We just go back to ignoring it and hoping for the best. And I love how Tsubasa tries to give off the air that something has changed. Wearing contacts and cutting her hair. Hair cutting being a pretty common symbolism of change and all. But...it's both superficial. It's another act, and I love it. I've been there myself so many times. Acting like i've made a big change to fix something going wrong when really...it's a lie i'm telling myself and to others.

And then there's the Nekomono Duology just, making EVERYTHING come full circle. The full explanation of just What Black Hanekawa is and how she relates to how Tsubasa is. Tsubasa spending time with Hitagi, who helps her start to break down some of the barriers she's put up, with their discussion of cooking among other things. Kako manifesting at a time that Koyomi is NOT there anymore for her to fall back on and depend on, forcing her to take what she learned from spending time with Hitagi, Karen and Tsukihi to heart and just...coming to terms with herself. ALL parts of herself. Tsubasa, Black Hanekawa, and Kako all together. Finally coming to change herself for REAL and make REAL steps towards healing and growth, symbolized far more proper by Black Hanekawa and Kako's white hair mixing with her natural black....it all comes together so wonderfully. And it's really helped me start to figure myself out in a similar way and make real, ACTUAL changes for the better for myself.

It's the narrative in Monogatari that has hit me the absolute hardest to date and I love every second devoted to it.

...and on a much less personal level, I just think she's really funny and cute in how she bounces off of all the other FREAKS in this cast. It's hard to call anyone in Monogatari "Normal" but I think she plays a hilarious straightman in most situations she's thrust into.

Gods and I've barely even talked about Black Hanekawa or Kako have I? Silly cat and Angy cat. The fact that Yui Horie can have such a distinct range for Tsubasa and Black Hanekawa is amazing, on top of the fact she has to pepper all those nyas into her speech too. I just love that the manifestation of Tsubasa's repressed stress and feelings is just acting like a silly catgirl who fucking GETS you. I wish that's how my stress manifestations were.

I've been typing this for like, an hour and I still feel like there's more I can say jdkhdf.

Basically. I love her so much. All of her. And she's been helping me understand and come to love all of me too.

[adhdvane]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH HHHHHHH

I GOT HIM FROM A SINGLE DRAW TICKET

[tainbocuailnge]

Do you have any tips how to make most of Aoidos/Anthuria comp? What are the better pre-HL Danchou classes for it? What are other preferable team members for this setup?

the key is to ougi a lot to maintain aoidos’ self hype and anthuria’s increased dodge rate. you also want to avoid characters with increased hostility like societte or therese, or characters with blind like magisa and ghandagoza, because they prevent anthuria from doing her job (the game hates anthuria and dodging by means of blind doesn’t count for her skills)

since you can’t take societte you as danchou absolutely have to bring multiattack. I find running berserker(weapon master) with xeno scythe (doesn’t have to be forged, even a 0* copy is fine) works really well, since you’re guaranteed to ougi at least once every 5 turns and often more and it works as indirect uplift to the rest of your party. I’ve also had success with apsaras, but only because I went out of my way to make a helmwige so I can stack that class’ buffs into infinity and so that’s not very pre-hl accessible. you can still try with valkyrie though, but it lacks the charge speed buff apsaras has. gw dagger might do the trick for you too but in my experience xeno scythe makes for the most consistent data buffs

anila probably works great here thanks to her charge speed buff, although I’m not sure if her shield from her 5* ougi might interfere with anthuria’s dodging since the specifics of what counts as dodging are pretty finnicky. characters who naturally multiattack a lot like yuel, sturm, heles, and grea are also good choices since they’ll naturally charge their ougi fast (even if their skill costs charge bar usually the multiattack makes up for it). heles has the added benefit of extra party charge on her nukes, and both her and grea deal big ougi damage which is very sexy in a team built around ougiing a lot. tusbasa and event zooey have really high charge bar gain and additional buffs for your whole team so they’ll be useful in also giving you that indirect uplift. zahlhamelina has naturally low hosility that will indirectly boost anthuria’s hostility, plus since you’re playing the risky comp anyway you can drop a flare to make everything extra exciting.

[agoddamn]

could you explain how to put together a dodge team, or how yours works?

"just don't get hit lmao"

I assume you mean in dark, since that's where my most effective dodge comp is.

It's character-dependent more than grid-dependent. Lemme get the numbers down just for the hell of it.

Vikala is probably the most important piece; she has guaranteed dodge after ougi and boosted hostility to redirect heat to herself (and those guaranteed dodges). Her zodiac buff also gives dodge bonuses and it's stack-based rather than turn-based, meaning the more you dodge the longer it lasts.

Fantasy Festival is 30% dodge

Utopia field is 50% dodge, though only for Vikki and it doesn't stack with FF

Summer Anthuria is another powerful piece. She also brings heals, debuff cleanse, and partywide defense buffs for when you do get hit.

Passive 20% dodge

Two stacks of Dodge All

Ardent Dance's activation gives her three turns of 30% dodge

Seox, being farmable, is the most accessible dodge unit.

Two stacks of Mirror Image and one stack of Dodge All on ougi

Four turns (!) of Dodge All on his Eternal skill

Inflicts accuracy down

Orchid is a good addition, offering light damage cut and passive hostility down (which will help hits get redirected to one of the guys with guaranteed dodge stacks) as well as team echoes and DATA.

15% passive dodge

Light damage cap for when she does get hit

Tanya is a good utility pick. She brings delay, poison (not that poison is especially good but hey, maybe you're running Hollowsky Blade), and hostility up.

50% dodge for two turns

Take Predator if you want to frontload a shitton of damage and don't mind her dying after a few turns.

40% passive dodge

Inflicts Blind

One stack of Dodge All if she's in red health

For MC you want Tormentor, Masquerade, or Relic Buster depending on the battle. Tormentor isn't for daily use, just HL stuff. RB's shield and armor help to mitigate a lot of damage from whatever you don't dodge.

I run Tanya/Vikala/Anthuria for harder content, and switch out Tanya for Predator or Orchid if I just want big dick damage.

[mirroredtranslations]

Tsubasa Sleeping - Chapter 6

Wazamonogatari – Nisioisin p. 227-233

[Previous Chapter]

In fact, I made quite a big gamble on the amount of information I could obtain from Dramaturgie-san about Oshino-san, and on how reliable that information was in the first place—but now that I think about it, Dramaturgie-san may have made a similar gamble on me.

I might be a young traveler, but even though I was perfect to be used as bait—not false bait, actual bait—if there were any other options, I'm sure a professional specialist like him wouldn't want an amateur girl he'd just met participating in his work.

It wasn't a question of ethics or morals, but an excess of uncertain elements; unlikely as it might be, he couldn't even be assured I wasn't on the vampire twins', High-Waist and Low-Rise's side myself.

Whether or not I could be trusted, whether or not I could be relied upon.

It was more dubious than a ghost story.

But he must have accepted my request to collaborate and the transaction I proposed because he didn't see another way forward.

Using me to locate their hideout and settle the case before more damage is done—to borrow his words, “for the twins' sake”—may not have been the optimal plan, but it certainly wasn't a bad one; I had some oddity-related acumen, after all.

Ougi-chan might look at our intentions and appraise us both as fools, with that thin smile, that dark smile of hers—

(—looking back now, regrettably, we'd probably deserve it. Both me and Dramaturgie-san ended up imprisoned in that old castle.)

(Setting aside how that happened, weren't High-Waist and Low-Rise under constant surveillance? Yet you couldn't locate their hideout without using a decoy operation? Kinda idiotic, isn't it?)

(I also doubted that point a bit; but when I actually got kidnapped, I understood. It's because the hideout itself was an oddity of some kind. That is, the old castle that was High-Waist and Low-Rise's hideout... it was what they call a citadel, but in a town that didn't exist.)

(A town that didn't exist... the scope of this story's gotten bigger. I see, I see. That's why they couldn't find the missing tourists no matter where they looked.)

(And why they couldn't find the hideout. The style is different, but was it what you call a “barrier”?)

(If they controlled an entire citadel, then they must've been pretty important vampires. They're bound by silly names like 'High-Waist' and 'Low-Rise', but I certainly understand why dealing with them was delayed—it was really for the sake of conservation.)

(Like how they wanted to conserve Shinobu-chan?)

(Hah hah. Shinobu-chan in her prime could've controlled an entire country, not just a city. So, the vampire twins' hideout would only materialize when they brought kidnapped humans inside? Understood. That'd stymie a specialist like Dramaturgie. Unless he used a decoy or bait, that is.)

(Would you use a different method, Oshino-san?)

(I'm fundamentally a negotiator, so my job would be to go between Dramaturgie and the vampire twins—my job would be to butt in. I'd be in the same position as you, Miss Class Rep. Although, I'm not so heroic as to volunteer myself as a decoy.)

(...I'm heroic?)

(Anyone can see that. But compared to spring break, you're still somewhat self-sacrificial, but not so single-mindedly devoted. You make a good impression. You just have an ulterior motive to obtain something you earnestly desire.)

Quite right.

Even if it were a big gamble, I'd embarked upon it precisely because I detected a chance of success—it certainly wasn't a barbarous act done in ignorance of cost-effectiveness.

Thinking of the dangerous situation Araragi-kun was currently in, what I was doing was completely within the bounds of safety.

(I don't think that's at all the case... But, we all place weight on things differently.)

(Indeed. Dramaturgie-san as well, I'm sure.)

However, I can't report that Dramaturgie-san and I won that gamble—we both wound up in a dungeon, what more can I say.

Can't say anything but 'I told you so'.

This is why gambling destroys your life.

It might not have been wise to make poor calculations and act according to probability—I can't say entirely for certain, but if we were gambling, it may have been easier to achieve victory with a desperate suicide attack like Araragi-kun might do.

Though, of course, this was a decoy operation planned strategically by Dramaturgie-san, who was not a professional gambler.

For the sake of his honor as a specialist, let me just say that it didn't go entirely wrong—until halfway, the plan was being carried out perfectly.

(Until halfway, huh. Wouldn't that mean, in other words, that it was half-baked?)

(That's harsh, Oshino-san...)

But there's an element of truth in that.

If the plan had failed completely, at least Dramaturgie-san and I wouldn't have been confined to a dungeon with no hope of escape—oddly enough, if it were the case that our strategy completely failed, we would likely have had an easier time reorganizing ourselves afterward.

It's like how they say a home partially destroyed by fire is nastier than one completely destroyed by fire—well, that theory does have a certain persuasiveness for someone whose house once burned down like me.

To explain from the beginning, the part of the plan in which I played a decoy went splendidly—a happy result, to use an odd expression(1). As a young traveler and a Japanese tourist, I successfully got kidnapped.

As I was walking carelessly down a remote road in the pitch black night, I encountered them—High-Waist and Low-Rise.

The two vampires.

I encountered the vampire twins.

(Hah hah. Araragi-kun would've said “walking carelessly and carefree,” wouldn't he?)(2)

(I was not walking carefree. I was quite nervous—skipping along would be out of the question. I was practically walking on tiptoe.)

And I surely am not Araragi-kun.

I didn't technically “encounter” them—I was caught in a pincer attack from the front and back.

I suddenly felt a presence behind me, and turning around, I found a golden-haired girl clothed in a dress so pitch black it dissolved into the night.

That golden hair immediately reminded me of Shinobu-chan, but I might not have needed to see her golden hair to tell she was an extraordinary presence.

The color of her eyes was red.

I suppose I could compare them to being bloodshot.

(Araragi-kun would've said “like Chiba prefecture,” don't you think?)(3)

(Even Araragi-kun wouldn't say that. Chiba doesn't have a “red” image, does it?)

(But that's because he'd call it the Bousou Peninsula, right?)(4)

(If you're going to keep making fun, I'll stop talking. This is a serious scene.)

Returning to the story.

Reflexively, I took evasive action.

Gazed at by those red eyes and utterly quavering in fear at the faint smile on her face, I instinctively prepared to run away—I nearly abandoned my role of getting kidnapped by the vampires.

I'm a complete amateur.

All I'd accumulated was information, and I wasn't suited for praxis at all—Ougi-chan would scoff at me.

I certainly won't say I got lucky, but as soon as I turned around instinctively to start running, my feet suddenly stopped.

It was a pincer attack.

In front of me, where a short while ago there had definitely been nobody there, a blonde, red-eyed non-existence had come into being—standing in my way.

Like a wall.

Blocking my way.

In counterpoint to the vampire in the pitch-black dress behind me, the vampire in front of me was wearing a pure white tuxedo.

With a smart bow tie.

Smiling thinly, gazing at me with eyes that really did look bloodshot.

A smile thin as a knife.

(I see. The twins were a man and a woman? All the more unusual.)

(Well, thinking about it now, I honestly can't assert whether they were men or women... I'll call them “she” and “he” for convenience, but I couldn't really judge their sexes. They were both so very beautiful—as if they'd transcended sex itself.)

(Hmph. That's not all that unusual for oddities. All you need to do is observe their division of roles.)

(Division of roles?)

(Assigning themselves to be male or female... Even in a community of two, you can see there's a certain social sense about it. Very interesting.)

(Social sense... Perhaps. If so, it's a completely different mode of being from Shinobu-chan.)

They looked like teenage girls and boys not so different from me in age, but a vampire's appearance holds little meaning.

The important part is how they are on the inside.

The difficulty lies in how they are on the inside.

Even if they're not five hundred or six hundred years old like Shinobu-chan, I'm sure they've lived much longer than their looks would lead you to imagine.

Afterward, I truly realized that.

Following what Dramaturgie-san told me, the girl in the dissolving dress was High-Waist, and the boy in the bright white tuxedo was Low-Rise; but that distinction didn't seem to be very consequential.

They had successfully taken positions point-reflected from each other with me as the center—I could only see the two of them as forming a single body.

Surrounded by four red eyes.

Trapped by four red eyes.

Caught in the glare of twin vampires from the front and behind.

As if I was rooted to the spot, I couldn't move an inch—I couldn't even tremble in fear.

Although, I'm uncertain exactly how accurate it is to describe the twins as staring or glaring at me.

It seemed like their gaze was actually passing right through me, and they could only see each other.

Only Low-Rise for High-Waist.

Only High-Waist for Low-Rise.

I don't think they could see me—despite being in their line of sight, it felt like I was being completely ignored.

Well, you might say being ignored in that situation would be the best I could hope for, but of course, it didn't last—after that, I got carried off.

All according to plan.(5)

But that's as far as it went according to plan.

[Next Chapter]

Footnotes: (1) The expression used for “happy result” here is 上首尾 (joushubi), which literally means something like “upper, between neck and tail”. (2) Careless (lit. un-vigilant) (無警戒) is pronounced mukeikai, and carefree (lit. jaunty/casual) (軽快) is pronounced keikai. (3) Referring to Chiba prefecture in Kanto. “Bloodshot” is 血走っている, pronounced chibashitteiru. (4) A peninsula that makes up much of Chiba. (5) “Plan” means 計画 (keikaku).

[tainbocuailnge]

So I got Dark Sarunyan, and I have absolutely no idea on how I'll be able to use him efficiently. I don't have a solid dark team either and he's my first ssr dark character. He also seems to be a very situational character and hard to keep alive. I'm not sure if you have any advice or tips on what I can do with this stick loving boi

the big dsaru secret is that his skills are only for when you want to meme. his real power is in his ougi cause it gives him a jammed buff meaning he can deal some real big damage if he can get it off even if you don’t have a grid to speak of. just don’t touch his skills until you’ve got a grid and you’re golden

his dispel is situational but it removes ALL buffs and with the right timing also doubles as a clear so it’s occasionally really powerful. his unboosted nuke is just a small party refresh which never hurts but probably doesnt help much either. i basically only ever use his jacked up nuke if i know he’s going to die next turn anyway so he can get one big last punch in but if you’re say, in a raid with a parabot where you’re not at risk of being attacked then it suddenly becomes a reliable way to get and keep him at low hp so he can Smash, especially if you take his emp skill

[adhdvane]

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((for some reason uploading the video straight into tumblr makes it an ever shittier quality than it was before, like using quicktime to screen record is already not great, but dang, at least the sound is fine.)) it’s been nearly a year since the last cerb showdown and the previous one was my first ever and i was just a baby newbie who couldn’t even beat the nm lv70 without getting lucky. now i can beat nm lv 120 while using a kaguya support. i’ve come so far ; - ; i just need to finish farming for the dagger flb because i’ve been waiting all this time for the even to come back so i could even do it.