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floatingcatacombs · 3 years ago

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Why Is CLAMP Like This, Part III

12 Days of Aniblogging 2021, Day 9

Last year I pledged myself to blogging through CLAMP’s entire published corpus, and this year I finally succeeded. CLAMP’s 2000s were mostly swallowed up by two massive intertwining series, and their 2010s were plagued with missed potential and questionable business decisions. Are any of these series salvageable? Well, you’ll just have to read my thoughts on them. As before, I’ll be spoiling everything I talk about.

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle

Jesus christ.

Before we can dig into the plot, we’ve got to talk about the mystique surrounding Tsubasa. CLAMP has dabbled in shared universes and crossovers plenty before, with Tokyo Babylon, X, and the Clamp School works all sharing some continuity, but Tsubasa ups the ante. It establishes a multiverse in which every CLAMP setting exists as an individual “world”. In a nod to Osamu Tezuka’s Star System, the character designs from previous CLAMP works are recycled and dropped into each world with personalities echoing their original selves. For example, there’s a Tomoyo in the Cardcaptor Sakura world, the feudal Japan world, and the steampunk world, but she occupies a very different role in each even if her demeanor is similar. On top of this, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle was published in parallel with another CLAMP work, xxxHolic (despite how the name reads, is not pornographic). The main characters of xxxHolic play an important role in guiding the adventures that occur in Tsubasa, and occasionally characters from one work will crash into the other for a bit to grant someone’s wish or move them through dimensions.

Tsubasa and xxxHolic are obviously deeply intertwined, so which are you supposed to read first? From googling around, it’s recommended that you follow them in rough serialization order, reading a volume or two of Tsubasa and then a volume or two of xxxHolic. You keep trading off like that, and if you get too far ahead in one of them and a big crossover event happens which you’re seeing for the first time, that’s your cue to catch up on the other.

As I was trying to figure out how to mix and match the volumes of TsubasaHolic, it hit me that CLAMP had independently reinvented western superhero comics. The multiverse, the frequent crossovers, the need to swap between multiple series issue by issue to actually keep track of what’s happening on a broader level– it’s a fucking mess!

Reviewing this behemoth is going to be a mess no matter what way we cut it, so instead of subjecting you to endless whiplash, I’m going to review them discretely, Tsubasa first, and then xxxHolic. Let’s start for real.

Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle (For Real)

The title is technically formatted as Tsubasa: RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE but I refuse to play on its own terms. Tsubasa is the monstrous result of CLAMP’s worst writing practices, painfully stretched over 28 volumes. It stars Syaoran, but not the Syaoran from Cardcaptor Sakura, rather an alternate universe Syaoran (however, the CCS Syaoran does exist in-universe and shows up at the end of the series). God, even trying to explain this manga is a headache.

Syaoran is sent on an adventure to recover some magical feathers in order to restore his Sakura’s memories . He is accompanied by ninja Kurogane and femboy magician Fai D Flowright. They are opposed by the evil magician Fei-Wang Reed, whose name I totally wasn’t ever mixing up with Fai’s.

Tsubasa starts off with a rather episodic format. The gang is teleported into a new world, adjust to the culture shock, start to hunt down that world’s feather, meet up with characters whose designs are recycled from older CLAMP works, and resolve a local conflict. It’s all shockingly standard stuff, right down to the totally undeserved “power of friendship” speeches. Some of the worlds will recreate or expand on the conflict from a previous CLAMP series, whereas others will just use the characters. It’s a mixed bag overall, with the quality of the manga really depending on how interesting the world they’re in is and whether or not they can properly establish intrigue.

I went into this thing with the most possible background knowledge, having read every prior published CLAMP manga, and I still walked away confused more often than not. I think a lot of characters look far too similar to each other, particularly the cast of X. As a weekly shounen, the artwork had to be noticeably simplified compared to prior CLAMP works, which even at their worst were usually visual extravaganzas. This is likely the root of a lot of the character confusion, combined with the fact that a lot of CLAMP characters across different series are already spiritual successors to one another artwise, so you end up with this recursive mess where everyone looks like everyone even before Tsubasa rolls out the clones.

I know some people must love crossovers and seeing their favorite characters cameo in other works, but a decade of the Marvel-industrial complex has left me actively opposed to them. This is especially the case when it’s this saturated and old characters are showing up practically every other chapter. When the Chobits girl or the CLAMP School Detectives reappear, my reaction is not “Wow! Cool!” but rather physical pain.

After over a dozen volumes of holding its cards close to its chest, Tsubasa finally drops the first of its notorious plot twists. You see, the Syaoran we’ve been following around this whole time was actually a clone-homunculus created by Fei-Wang Reed, while the real Syaoran has been kept in stasis in a vat for his entire life due to some time loop wish fuckery. Once the gang does some plot stuff in the X/1999 Tokyo world (which is a delightful Dune pastiche), the curse is broken and Real Syaoran is snapped back into the world. He goes to town on gouging out the eye of his double, who gets away at the last second. This series of events is impossible to follow in the moment but they manage to explain it well enough after the fact. Tsubasa is a manga that repeats everything it says at least three times, which can get grating, but sometimes it’s really necessary.

So the Syaoran we’ve been following up until now becomes a puppet of the villain, while the brooding and angry Real Syaoran has to assume his role in the party of main characters, who are far less jovial now. Since he was retroactively snatched away and replaced with his clone-homunculus, this is not the Syaoran that Sakura knows and loves. The manga spends a good long time grim and driftless as the party tries to navigate their frayed relationships, and this is probably the best part of the manga. All that time mucking around in shounen adventure-land is finally justified as the characters have to deal with having that carefreeness ripped away from them.

At least CLAMP fashion is perfect as per usual. Peak 2000s edgy

But don’t get your hopes up. It turns out Sakura isn’t that devastated behind having the Syaoran she loved be a fake, because she’s also a clone-homunculus, and she...sacrifices herself by sending her mind and body into separate worlds, forcing the gang to split up in order to rescue her? We have now entered the final act of Tsubasa, where logic itself no longer applies. Literally. Fei Wang-Reed’s scheme turns out to be that he wants to revive his dead wife, and that the best way to accomplish this is to destroy the concept of logic itself so that the barriers between life and death dissolve and he can get her back. This will of course shatter reality as we know it, but who cares when you love someone enough? Of course, CLAMP tasked themselves with drawing the world literally coming undone, so their fight scenes, which are already hard enough to follow, become borderline incomprehensible. Instead of two Sakuras and two Syaorans, the last battle adds in one extra pair – the original Sakura and Syaoran from Cardcaptor Sakura, having been sealed away all this time. I repeat, this is a three-Syaoran situation. I completed the manga with a bare minimum understanding of what was happening, which was thankfully all I needed for xxxHolic to fill in the rest.

While it’s surely a coincidence spawned by equally sprawling narratives, I couldn’t help but notice the surprisingly specific commonalities between Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and Homestuck. CLAMP’s obsession with fate and recursive narrative events means that a lot of the story plays out similarly to Homestuck’s use of circumstantial simultaneity between two universes. Likewise, Syaoran and Sakura sending different versions of themselves back into their own timelines to establish a stable time loop is just plain ectobiology. Finally, Tsubasa and Homestuck end with the same exact plot bullshit – the original heroes having been sealed away in a juju/artifact ever since they first tried to fight the final boss. Homestuck is archetypically complete enough that you can see a bit of it in every story, but if Hussie actually did rip some of it off from Tsubasa, then that would be equally hilarious.

So that’s Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle. It’s dreadfully long, it’s full of crossovers that fail to help anything, its artwork is mediocre by CLAMP standards, and its plot twists are inscrutable. Nearly every decision involved in the making of Tsubasa is questionable. Some consider it to be CLAMP’s magnum opus, but my mileage varied significantly.

CLAMP BULLSHIT-O-METER: 5/5

OVERALL RATING: 2/5

xxxHolic

The yin to Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle’s yang, xxxHolic manages far better and actually ends up being one of CLAMP’s best works in my eyes. It’s a slow-burning slice-of-life with equal slices of comedy, philosophy, and spiritualism, and while it’s not perfect at any of these, it’s more than good enough.

xxxHolic’s premise is simple yet effective. Watanuki, a high school boy cursed with the ability to see ghosts, wanders into a spiritual shop run by a mysterious woman who goes by Yuuko. He gets roped into becoming her assistant in exchange for help with his problems. He is supported by his best frenemy Doumeki, whose family owns a temple, and he also has a helpless crush on Himawari, a girl in his class. These are simple character setups that are drilled in to a grating degree early on, which eventually give way to major moments of care and consideration between each other. By the end of the manga, each character has become deeply mature in their own ways, and the magic of xxxHolic is that it’s such a gradual growth that you hardly even notice it happening. There’s a fairly large supporting cast of humans and youkai and they’re all pretty enjoyable. Unlike the disposable entourage of Tsubasa, xxxHolic’s supporting characters tend to return at later points in the story, which is more than welcome. My favorites are the catgirl wired into to the interdimensional psychic gossip network and the woman who Watanuki teaches how to cook, a process which nearly destroys both of them.

This chapter hit all the right traumas

People with serious problems find themselves at the door of Yuuko’s shop. She provides her assistance in exchange for something of theirs with equivalent value, because nothing in this life is really free. Sometimes these people are haunted by spirits, and other times it’s that their own neuroses got so bad that they get twisted into something supernatural. Often times it’s both. Yuuko’s process is a mixture of therapy and philosophy, providing vague yet applicable advice that gradually exposes her own worldview. The early parts of the manga suffer from overly simplistic sentiments, making her advice sound more like pop psychology than anything else. But once we’ve spent a little more time with her, we start to see more clearly her valuation of fate, individualism, and the power of words and names. It’s all very Nietzschean (but like, The Gay Science, not his later works), and it’s interesting to see her beliefs in action, where the results are truly mixed. Like Tsubasa, the themes of eternal recurrence are fate are deeply embedded, but it makes a lot more sense here in an explicitly supernatural setting than in Tsubasa’s fantasy smorgasbord.

In her private life, Yuuko is also an alcoholic who at times treats Watanuki more like her personal servant than an employee. While this could easily be a nightmare premise, it’s played for laughs and everyone involved seems to be getting mostly what they want. I don’t see it discussed much, but xxxHolic is kind of a femdom manga as much as it is anything else, especially early on. This isn’t a bad thing.

The occult can only truly be understood by losers, and xxxHolic understands this. Unlike the cast of Tsubasa who are all vying to be as shounen-cool as possible, Watanuki is a spastic dork, and he’s all the more lovable for it, even if there is a point where you’ll probably get fed up with him before he starts to get his act together and grow as a person.

The greatest threat to xxxHolic is its sister series. Every time it crossed over again with Tsubasa, I worried that its well-built world would be dragged into some unnecessary plot bullshit. Likewise, once Tsubasa reached its climax I feared that its reality-destruction would leak into xxxHolic’s world as well. But to my surprise, the exact opposite happened. While the plot does have to veer into Tsubasa’s finale for a little bit, the end result is the death/disappearance of Yuuko, which obviously has major implications for xxxHolic. Instead of ending alongside Tsubasa’s publication, xxxHolic kept going for a few years, with Watanuki taking over the shop and assuming Yuuko’s role as the timeless granter of wishes. The rest of the world keeps going without him, as we see his friends grow older as he waits and hopes for Yuuko’s return some day, resigned to his fate. It’s genuinely intriguing, and a definite departure from the more comedy-laden parts of the manga. And against all odds, Watanuki’s life path happens to retroactively line up perfectly with Syaoran’s, because they’re linked by fate or whatever. This comes a bit late, but it was nice to have Tsubasa’s weirdest story bits explained retroactively!

Overall, if Tsubasa had to exist in order for xxxHolic to come to be, then it was worth it. Ultimately, I don’t think that would have been necessary, as this could have easily been a standalone manga with some a few adjustments to its lore, but I have to give CLAMP some begrudging respect for their insane crossover experiment. While dragging every possible previous manga into Tsubasa was a bad idea, weaving Tsubasa’s grand stakes into xxxHolic was a good way to keep Yuuko mysterious yet still compelling while demonstrating the theme of eternal recurrence on a manga-wide scale.

CLAMP BULLSHIT-O-METER: 2/5

OVERALL RATING: 4/5

Kobato

This manga started in 2007 (or 2005 if you count the pilot chapters), so for the second half of the 2000s CLAMP was publishing three consecutive series, two of them weekly. Nightmarish stuff.

Anyways, Kobato is a weird’n, one of those CLAMP stories where it’s hard to even get a feel for what kind of story they were creating. It begins with the namesake magical-girl-in-training pledging to heal people’s broken hearts, the understand being that if she heals enough of them, she’ll get a wish granted. She is accompanied by her living dog plushie mascot figure, who is gruff beyond belief. This seems like the setup for a cutesy episodic series where she goes around helping people, right? Nope, she spends the entire time embroiled in the struggles of one specific preschool’s staff, which means it’s actually a character drama. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but it’s very different than what I expected, especially after reading the ten doofy pilot chapters prior to the rebooted serialization.

Kobato starts branching out in even weirder directions – it turns out there’s multiple of these plushie creatures and they come from a “Spirit Realm” adjacent to Heaven and Hell, and are stuck in these diminutive forms due to being cursed by God. Wait, why is there a holy war brewing in the background of this cutesy magical girl manga? As the ending reveals, Kobato was a stealth sequel to Wish all along, and our main character was a casualty in some background holy war before being reborn. I’m not sure why Wish needed a sequel, seeing as it was a perfectly self-contained story about an angel lady falling to earth. I’m not sure about a lot of things with Kobato. It’s not bad, and as a cozy character-driven story with a classic nonsense CLAMP plot twist it’s perfectly serviceable, but its priorities are always the last thing you’d expect.

hey at least satan's cute twink son is back

It may sound like my critiques could be boiled down to my own poor reading comprehension, but these CLAMP works don’t particularly aim to be understandable, and that’s on them.

CLAMP BULLSHIT-O-METER: 3/5

OVERALL RATING: 2/5

This concludes CLAMP’s 2000s output. Tomorrow, we'll explore their shitty 2010’s.

#12 days of anime #CLAMP #tsubasa chronicle #xxxholic #tsubasa reservoir chronicle #kobato #syaoran

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jess-the-vampire · 3 years ago

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Sky And The Forces Of The Multiverse, Chapter 52

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"You guys ready?"

"I hope so".

"I still think this is a waste of time".

"C'mon landon, it's better then nothing".

"Kids, we're heading in, just stay focused on your roles and don't draw too much attention to yourselves".

Marco took in the lead into the crowded cafe, all the kids behind them in their disguises, all wearing masks and staying close behind. The place WAS more crowded then landon was used to, so perhaps there was something to be said about finding more info here from locals. There were guards, regulars citizens, and perhaps some well...unsavory type people lurking all over.

It made landon well...nervous.

All of them stepped in for some show?

Usually when this event happened he was either in his booth or at home, and even in the booth he was barely paying attention. Sure, this place was decently popular and had quite a bit of talent but this all still made him uneasy. But perhaps that was more because he was going to have to perform in front of all of these people, and not the people who came in general.

Someone special had to be performing for this many people to even BE here.

Whatever, who cared, this trip would be a waste.

He just needed to focus on performing so they could go home, that was it, no need to dwell on all of this unless needed. This mission was just to hear rumors and get more leads, a crowded area like this was bound to have people they could question further on details. They'd just see where this went, boring or not. Though landon was trying t keep himself together right now.

His mom had been helping him get better, but his mom wasn't the same as...this.

Granted, he was more then allowed to back out if he so wanted to, but he couldn't bring himself to, he said he'd help and to back out right now of all times...well he'd be more mad at himself for it. This felt like something he had to do too, something he needed to do. He'd played in front of small groups, but never large ones this size, if he ever wanted to perform more...this was something he needed to get used to.

At least his face as covered, and his mom was here. He was not ready for everyone to see his face while performing like this at all, the thought of being nearly attacked still in the back of his mind. He did not know what might happen if people knew who they were, though with marco being royalty, maybe they should've been the last person to be escorting them.

It was lucky no one even seemed to notice, unless they were all just ignoring them entirely. Which, with everything else going on landon could see people not knowing what their owns royals looked like anymore. If anyone did anything though, marco could take them, hopefully keep them from telling anyone else who should not know int he slightest.

Marco had to admit, they liked having the kids here.

Sunny looked pleased as punch to be here though, ever since landon had taken her here she had thought about performing on that stage and now, she could finally do it. She hadn't been able to do something like this in such a long time, and she didn't count the play she put on to distract the adults. This was a real audience, looking for a performance, from her.

It was something she only really got to do in her dreams for a long while, and she got to do it with her new family and friends? How could she be more excited? She never got to even do something in front of such a good crowd back home either! She always had to perform for her friends and family and rarely much else, this was some freedom she was thankful to get to enjoy.

And she loved her costume too, she just wished her parents got to see it, they would be super proud if they had.

But that was besides the point, the fresh air was nice and so was the company. She was hooked to lexi so much she was glad to have sky and landon along for the ride for once, though lexi was trailing behind, simply because marco didn't want to leave her alone. Scribbling behind them, also in costume, her role being boiled down to being a manager, but really she was meant to scribble down anything she found useful.

Which could range for lexi, what she found useful and what others found useful might not be one and the same, but she was perfect for this kinda job. The record in which she made anything and wrote stuff down was surprisingly fast, and it was better she did that while marco protected her, so their info taking didn't distract from the kids at all during all of this.

Lexi seemed to understand the job pretty well, though she also seemed to be scribbling everything and everyone she saw since she entered so...the results of this test may be a little mixed. Marco was at least kind enough to get them all drinks as they took a table and had a small huddle session to go over what their full plan was and if there was anything they needed to change.

"Ok, you all will be backstage soon and getting ready for your performance when they call you on, see if you can get anything from the performers, get some gossip. We don't think her left mewni, so if they're around someone else must've seen them, and well...you never know if they might be around here. I'm going to be around the dining area, watching lext and keeping an ear out.".

They all seemed in agreement, if even nervous agreement.

They just wanted to do this and make sure everyone was safe.

It was a risk, but now was the time for dumb choices and risks. Sky reached out to hold the hands of sunny and landon so they could stay together, landon hesitant to take it at first before sucking it up and taking it. This was bout trust after all, and even if sky was a little unsure about trusting him after recent events, they had to put all of that aside and get things back on track.

Marco from their spot was going to see what they could get on their side of things, they could keep an eye out for anyone shady and strike up some conversation with some of the residents with lexi next to them. This mission relied a lot on gossip and help from people outside of the royals and spies, fae knew full well the demons down here loved to chat, it was worth looking into.

Marco would much rather do this, then have the kids sit here by themselves and be at risk.

They had to head backstage, and thankfully landon knew where that was. A side room he had never been in himself but knew was there from the times he'd seen performers go in and out of before and smelled of old perfume and makeup. He'd never really been back here before for obvious reasons, though he had alays been cruous, though he never planned on really performing up here despite thinking about it sometimes.

It wasn't very big, not much of a shocker there, but it didn't matter, at least they couldn't get lost in here. Though the place was a little crammed with how many acts there seemed to be. But the nice thing is that helped then blend in a lot more, people would not stare at them nearly as much if there were tons of other strange people to be looking at instead of this group of teens.

Honestly he felt safer with sunny in the lead if anyone, since sky was lacking in magic she was the most powerful one between the three right now, though, she would've been the most powerful one even if they both did have wands. Sunny was so happy but she still could stab anyone in this room if they even considered laying a hand on any of them if she so needed to.

The dagger still in her tail's grasp, just in case she might need it, she never could know what any of these demons might do if she wasn't paying any attention to them

Landon felt like a protective older brother and yet she was the one more likely to be saving him, she was trained and far better at fighting then he ever was.

She was so small and yet so ungodly terrifying.

Thankfully no one really paid them much mind, the performers all talking to each other and getting themselves ready. Landon knew quite a few of these people from previous years, and they all were pretty talented. Well, the poetry guy wasn't very good but at least he was still passionate about this after he was booed off last year. But what did get landon's attention was someone sitting off in the far corner.

Their hood was up, so no seeing their face for the time being, at least it gave off the opinion they were trying to hide their face, and usually when someone was trying to hide their face it was for a reason. Normally they wouldn't even pay this person much mind, after all they didn't want people to pay them mind either and they were also wearing their own masks.

But something about them seemed, familiar.

Sunny must've sensed it too, because she was also looking in that direction at the person, her eyes narrowing at them. She didn't bother to wait, she ushered everyone to follow her as she approached. Landon suddenly very nervous and sly confused about why this person caught sunny's attention and not, well, any of the other single lone performers around here.

Sunny smirked, crossing her arms.

"Nice guitar".

The figure looked up, before gasping.

"You kids are here too?".

The hood was instantly lifted and the face of a familiar monster welcomed the sight of the teens.

"Meteora"

She instantly felt her stomach drop, stopping her playing entirely, "Well, this was a new twist i wasn't expecting, what are you all doing here? Is this another mission i've been made unaware of, i swear, i need to get more in contact with katrina about all of this. Or did you kids sneak out? Cause well, actually i won't rat any of you out on that, the castle is getting stuffy".

"No, it was the mission part, marco's here".

The monster sneered, like they had something bad or told her they got her ice cream or something.

"Oh...great", the tone of those words both seemed annoyed and frustrated, after all it was not always the best sign when the royal family was lurking around while you work.

She looked like she was smelling something really bad when hearing their name, but quickly she clamed herself down. "Anyways, how did you know it was me? I was trying to keep to myself here". That's when sunny bit her lips, "I've uh...seen that guitar before, and i recognized it, it screams you after all". Meteora actually smirked, kinda impressed at the girl's observation skills.

"Maybe we outta consider making you a spy if you can notice details like this so easily", sunny instantly felt like she was glowing hearing that from her, she must've missed meteora back home so much. "Anyways, are you here to spy too or is this like-?", she eyes the guitar and meteora shrugged. "I come here often, usually in disguise, and thought, y'know...why not? I almost never get to do this for myself, i only get on stage a few times per year and i like it here".

Honestly that was fair, landon should've expected her here to some extent when he found out she'd been here before. Guess it never really came to mind because why would it? Meteora had been so busy with other things imagining her taking a break was now just...weird. Though maybe seeing her like this instead of her usual more dominant self would make it easier to talk to her.

She was trying to put luna away and maybe talking to her might...well maybe not prevent it, but it could give them more info on what else meteora had against luna.

"Does...katrina know you're here?".

It was a simple question, but it gave a big reaction out of meteora, who turned her head. "Hey, she has her family diner, i have my music, we're allowed to have lives outside of our jobs, besides...i needed this time after...stuff". Sky noticed a slight glance towards her and she quickly could tell "Stuff" meant, "Finding out about my past and that my mom gave up on me being the next queen".

She felt her throat dry a little, guess if that happened to her she'd want some more alone time as well to not think too heavily about it.

Would also explain why she was hiding her face so much.

Last thing she needed was a bunch of citizens knowing who she was and getting upset with her around this time, especially now that she knows why they might. Before it was easier to say they were crazy, but she couldn't do that now, now she knew why they were upset with her. At least she was still comfortable enough to go to a place like this, even if she was anxious about it now.

She huffed, "Anyways, you squirts are gonna perform huh? What'cha doing and do i need to call for backup?". She was partially joking but it was her job to protect them so...she would be prepared in case of something bad at a moment's notice. Sunny was quick to explain, "Oh, it's like a play, but landon is providing the music! We're gonna go out there and impress everyone with our talent!".

Meteora didn't seem to be buying it considering this situation was far too strange to be the entire truth, but to sky it was obvious sunny would nail it on her end.

But her?

Sky was bad at stuff like this, and she really hoped sunny wasn't under the impression she was going to do a good job and impress everyone. Because the higher the expectations the worse she'd get, she wondered if she even remembers the lines as she should. Cause if she was standing onstage with nothing coming out things could be far worse for her social life.

And it wasn't even like she had much of one before this point to begin with.

"Well, i wish you luck? But as a spy i will be keeping a close eye on you since i know you're here now, just keep that in mind, it's kinda mw sworn duty to protect you and everything". Well at least she was still willing to keep them all safe, even off duty, though they just hoped it never came down to that, a show of their spying could kinda ruin everything.

"Good luck to you too meteora!", sunny said with delight, before moving away from her, they had other people to check out. Though sky felt a lingering glance at her as she followed the rest of the group. All these people were laughing and chatting and practicing and here she was, nervous to do anything. She needed to relax, angel and nora and oh god, judas...they all thought she was brave and tough, she could handle this.

She didn't have to be super good at it or anything, she just needed to focus on the task and that was it. As long as she didn't vomit on the stage and pulled herself together she would be fine, though she didn't like the idea of the crowd booing her offstage either. She would rather be good then bad, the humiliation might end up being too much for her.

The play was just a means to an end, if they went in here and performed nothing there was a good chance someone would look into the reasons why, making things far worse then it needed to be.

And she was wearing a mask too, so no one would notice her and her cheekmarks, so at worst they'd just think she was someone else and forget her when the next act came on. God, since when did she have so much stage fright? She must've been hanging out with nora a lot more then she thought, she was picking up some of her traits. She took some breathing exercises and focused on sunny...

Who was already chatting up another demon.

She worked fast, wasting no time getting to the point and getting all the information she could.

She was such a social butterfly that the band she talked to seemed to take kindly to her instantly because of course they did. She was quick to make friends and who could blame anyone for loving her instantly. But considering she was doing this to trick people into giving her info it really told sky how scary she could actually be, that people would never realize how good she was at getting info from them by being a sweet young girl.

Not that she wasn't sweet, but when she did stuff like that it almost scared sky more then the dagger she kept on her.

Even Landon seemed unnerved, standing away from her and next to sky. He was slightly looking at the bluenette, knowing things were slightly awkward between them after he expressed his desire to well...use his magic for maybe not the best purposes. Now that he came clean to his mom he was worried what sky would think when she found out, if that even mattered to her at all.

He just didn't want her to be on his bad side, especially since it was her wand he would have to borrow if he wanted to use it again. There was no way she was ever letting him use it again if he made any kinda wrong move. Of course sky wasn't happy about what he said, she had spent so long being ingrained about the danger of hurting others with the stuff, that magic is less controllable when too emotional.

She nearly had done it herself after all.

He was going to have to gain her trust properly if he was going to get a chance with the wand again, and that meant staying on her good side for now and working his way up. I guess this mission was great in that aspect, a chance to do better with sky. I mean hey, he worked things out with bernard and was getting better with his brothers and mom so-

"Hey, sky".

Sky looked over to him like he said something weird.

And well, maybe it was a little weird for landon of all people to be trying to talk to her, especially in a somewhat cheery voice and on a mission of all things. But it was as good a time as any. "Sorry um, i just wanted to say i was...thinking about what you said, about using magic out of anger and stuff...and...i'm sorry for getting upset. I'm just...angry about what happened and not being able to stop it".

Sky's face shifted of one of confusion to one of sympathy.

"No...i get it, i lashed out because of what happened to angel", it was hard to really be mad at him, it was his crush that got kidnapped and hurt after all. She'd be mad too in his position, "I just don't want us doing it again, cause it's messed me up so much at this point that who knows if it might make things worse in the future if we're not careful y'know?".

"You're not mad with me?".

"I mean, i don't agree with you, but i also screwed up, so...i guess i'd be a hypocrite for not understanding why this happened. Look, just be careful with your new powers or whatever, or you might hurt someone". She said that last part softly and he nodded, he didn't want to hurt any of his friends, and after that scare with the levitating he needed to be extra careful now.

"Thanks sky, means a lot to me".

"Yeah yeah, though the wand's in repair for now, so we're both not using it for some time being. Thankfully i'm trying to get super good at non-wand magic, so maybe i won't need it magic afterwards". Well, it would probably take years of practice to get right, but at was better then nothing entirely. The demon seemed impressed by that, especially with how hard it was.

"You uh...done any spells?".

"Not yet, but if i keep it up long enough i'll probably be able to do at least one, i'll be sure to keep you updated".

So she was still mostly powerless, he found himself hoping nothing bad happened on this mission because sky was going to have a harder time protecting herself without magic. She could fight a little, but she in no way was as good as her mom was without her wand, athletics wise. Just how long would that wand be damaged before they found a way to properly fix it anyway?

"You're practicing it with angel right?".

Guess it was kinda obvious the more she thought about it that she and the prince were up to something, "Yeah, he does magic without a wand all the time so...y'know, i can do it with him, without one of the adults having to come in since they got other stuff to do...i mean our magic is exactly the same but...it's better to have company when practicing then not i think".

He thought back to having mason with him when he did spells.

"Yeah, i guess it would be more fun to do with company to help cheer you on...", he really should fully talk to mason about it, but the kid had went out of his wa to not say anything and stay around his dad of all people now, not even having the nerve to really look at landon. Mason had to know landon wasn't really mad at him, but he still must've felt bad for it.

He had handled things with his crush, he had to repair it fully with his little brother now. This was now about him working things out with everyone, he could talk to mason, maybe judas next, and well...

He clenched, remembering luna.

Well, maybe he could entirely skip her on that front, but he did want everyone else to be on better terms with him, celeste he wanted to keep in his favor too, cause even she got a lil mad with him. He seemed to have a habit of having people in his life that he managed to either make upset or had issues with didn't he? He had his work cut out for him now, he didn't even know how to help with bernard's parents.

He almost felt it would be rude for him to go up to them and tell them how to raise their own kid, this felt like something an adult should be doing rather then him, because they were unlikely to listen to him and anything he actually said. But he was making progress with others so...there had to be a good chance he could do something to help right?

"Maybe...i could join you...sometime? I want to be able to train, it would mean so much to me to have a chance...".

He said it without thinking too hard, it kinda mostly just slipped out. Sky even looked at him for a moment like she thought he was crazy, but to his surprise she shrugged, "I mean, if you want. You might not do much of anything but...hey if you wanna join us we can't exactly stop you. We just hang out in the gardens and blast stuff mostly, though yeah...that's still mostly angel.".

"Angel is blasting stuff?".

"He's getting more powerful every day i think, i've never seen him so eager to practice magic. He only knows so many spells but at the same time he knows those spells very well, so it's not that bad". Wow, even angel was getting more powerful then landon was at this point, at the very least he wondered if he couls surpass him when he only knew one spell...now...he was discovering new ones.

Maybe he could look more into eclipsa's offer, after all, she had taught angel more about magic so maybe she was a good choice to help after all.

Sure, he rejected her before this point but she'd still take him back right? But if his mom was going to teach him there was no need to go out and find a new teacher was there?

And yet-

He was heavily considering it, more then he did originally.

"Anyways, he's good, and that's why the garden has a little more damage then it did the last time you guys all saw it, sorry about that! Sometimes he tried something and things turn out more destructive then usual, but nothing a little magic can't fix", thankfully no one had seemed to really notice the garden was starting to look a little more unnerved as of yet. "But yeah, sure, it's ok if you join if you're careful or whatever, maybe you can find some time there alone as as well to practice. We find the whole plce kinda comforting and it's an open space so usually no one will get hurt there".

"Yeah, maybe", if that were possible at the very least, and who knew if it was anymore, he might not get much but he'd suck it up and at least make some form of an attempt, he could ask eclipsa and train with them and his mom could hep as well, it was well...perfect. He felt so much relief all of a sudden, no one seemed to hate him as much as he thought and they all did want to help and hang out with him.

Maybe this outing was just what he needed to get his voice out there, and fully get all this weight off of his chest.

Speaking of such, now sunny was performing tricks for the people she was supposed to be questioning, not that it was shocking to anyone in the group "Y'know, sometimes i forget she's my sister, she...isn't like us. Treating her like a sibling feels...strange, and i thought it was me who was the black sheep of the group". Sky laughed, "Yeah i get it, i got sisters out of this and yet i forgot we're related technically".

"I can see it a little".

"Pft, don't lie, we know you can't".

"No but...you got the whole...creative spirit in you and we can all tell, i think it's genetic"., sky rolled her eyes and pushed him aside," My family is all the same in a weird way, so i guess somehow that's a little comforting. Just like for as long as I've know you all you're dweebs who love boy bands". But she felt herself cause for a bit, "I wish i could stand out among them though".

"You do".

"Hmm?".

"Sky, we're known you for years, if anyone knows what you're like...it's us, and we know you're stand out", she looked over to him, thankful, but still sad, "It's more complicated then that, but...you got really sappy all of a sudden". Landon was rarely the sappy one in his family, in fact he usually was the least likely to do any of this mushy stuff, so hearing it from him had to mean something.

"I doubt myself a lot, i can't help it".

"Yeah...same", this was something weird to talk about with sky but maybe it was just what she needed. They had a lot in common in ways, and this was a good time to talk like they rarely had before. Sky playfully hitting him, "Hey, good job with your crush by the way, i know that whole thing must've been so uncomfortable but you got through it and i'm impressed".

"Well, good on you for well...taking a break? You're kinda overworking yourself and it's freaking everyone out seeing you do so...cause like...you're not exactly known for it".

"HA!", she said, louder then she should, "Angel made sure i did...he got upset seeing how stressed he was he got others to do my tasks for me...i've gotten so used to doing stuff you have to drag me out of it now". If angel hadn't done anything she might still be having a rougher schedule, she just felt better doing everything herself at the time, but branching it out...WAS a good idea.

"Well before you didn't wanna do work much at all so...i guess they got you to do queen stuff kinda now", it wasn't exactly queen stuff but in terms of taking up leader roles, not being hooked to judas all the time and becoming her own person...yeah it did seem to have done nothing but benefit to her being the next queen. Like this was some kinda therapy session he got tricked into.

Then sunny waved hands in front of them, getting their attention.

"Hi, you guys do know we have a mission to do right? You guys better focus before you get too distracted, we don't want marco to get soo worried about us being back here do we?", she had a good point as they nodded between each other understanding. Sunny did not seem unhappy at all though, she looked rather delighted to see them getting along.

While they had been busy sunny had actually figured out a few things that might come in handy believe it or not. Her social nature made it easier to gossip with others in comparison to the other two, though with her being so young the teens could only hope the demons were being serious and that their gossip hadn't been mockery to the young demoness.

The demons indeed had been gossiping to themselves and while there was probably more to the story, there was word of some weirdo around mount boom. It was not exactly confirmed on if this was the person they were actually trying to find but it was something to work up and off of and the teens looked baffled sunny actually got that out of someone with ease".

"How did you even manage to get any of that out?".

"I like to talk to people, it was really easy, demons can't resist talking about strange people anyway, i just asked what they saw", sky hoped it wasn't a joke though, because she could see it being so. They go out to a mountain and quickly get pranked and put in serious peril, her moms dealt with that a number of times as is and this was too easy to be real.

Landon also seemed skeptic thankfully but sunny thankfully wasn't pushing the rumor, "We'll just keep it in mind, back home there were weirdos living in the caves all the time! So nothing too standout but we can check into it! Now, c'mon, we got more people to meet!". She headed around and it became clear she was heading this mission more then the others were.

People were already performing and she was eagerly talking to them before and after they finished, on occasion looking into the crowd. Sunny was probably looking for marco and lexi but sky also thought she was being careful for any threats out there as well. There was a lot of talking among the people watching the shows and the topics were probably mundane but-

She had to admit, this idea wasn't bad, hearing the gossip of the underworld was a handy way to get info even if it wasn't all truthful. People were talking about all the stuff going on like it was brand new, and with that masked face plastered everywhere it was only a matter of time before they caught them. So it wasn't all bad, for the time being at least. She also felt like she got to chill for just a little bit, something she never got to do on other missions, missions involved fighting, missions involved going out there and getting dirty.

Rarely did missions result in her having fun with her friends like this, well, if you found this kinda thing that fun.

Plus she got to hide her face, no one had to see who she was and judge, it kinda made her feel a lot better being here then she would otherwise. It was like going out as a new person, without all of the burden she had being the princess. She could do nearly anything hidden like this, no one would know who she was and no one could tell her one way or-

"Sky, we gotta get on stage!".

The princess had been so lost in thought she forgot they still had to perform, her eyes blinked to shake herself from her thoughts. She needed to quickly recall her lines she had been practicing as sunny quickly dragged them on stage, the announcer watching them fly past, sky already sweating. How could she have forgotten all of her lines already? There was no way!

It was her nerves, she was forgetting because of her nerves.

This wasn't the time for that.

She actually had managed to do well when she performed for the kingdoms with her spells, but that was because judas had been there to help her out and make her feel safe and comfortable and he wasn't here right now. But maybe if she could recall some of the stuff he said to help her maybe she could pull herself together as to not blow their cover entirely.

Judas always had a way with words when it came to these kinds of things, it was what he was all about. She forgot what he said but she did picture him in her head, reassuring her and hugging her and letting her know she could do this. It probably said something if just the thought of him doing this was enough to calm her down, if even a little slightly.

Hopefully most of everyone put far more focus on sunny then her, as sunny was by far the better performer. But her mom always said usually the worse performances were the ones people wouldn't forget when there were so many good ones, so maybe that was not actually going to be the case at all. Thankfully landon was still pretty good, even if he also seemed kinda nervous about this.

He was making it easier for himself by keeping his eyes closed the whole time, if he did he could picture himself anywhere, and not surrounded by people who could mock him. It made the process so much easier, and thankfully his mom was there to watch him just in case anything actually did happen. He had a lot of reasons not to panic right now in comparison to sky.

At least their performance was like...10 minutes tops, so it wouldn't last that long, mostly because the show had tons of other acts after them and they weren't allowed to hog the stage like crazy. Thoughts swarming through her head as sunny started them off, the play was pretty simple, as it would be for the time limit they had. Sunny was meant to be a fox and sky a deer, two spirts with a rivalry.

It was sunny's idea but for a short play, it was not bad.

It just might've been way better if they had someone other then her to play a role, but sunny wouldn't care, the point wasn't to impress these people anyway. Landon in his tree mask played softly in the background as sunny gestured towards sky, "You are standing on my turf young spirt! Please leave and go back to your own lands! This is my place and mine only!".

"I-i'm not, afraid of you!", she almost missed that line but she got it, feeling a little less nervous after seeing a more positive reaction then she thought. Trying to take a good stand on the floor like she was willing to headbutt if she could. It was a deer thing right? She wasn't making all of it up? She had have been doing it right, so far things seemed to have gone well without anything bad happening and she and sunny weren't making themselves look like idiots.

Look, even the crowd seemed to be throwing some roses their way to tell them how good they were doing.

Wait.

Those felt too hard to be roses.

That's when sky turned her head to get a better look and nearly ran off in horror, because they were not throwing roses at them at all.

As in, the audience was tossing water bottles and rather soft fruits at them on stage, splattering on the surface and getting everywhere.

Wait, that was bad, BAD bad, she'd seen this kinda thing in movies before, mel showed them to her.

They must've gotten them from their snack bowls for them to...eat? She sure hoped that's what they were for. Man the underworld was weird sometimes if they threw these like these were flowers, she was shocked marco was just watching this like it was normal instead of standing up. They did seem to be the youngest ones here too when sky thought about it, all the others had teams of adults, was this their way of mocking them?

Wait...were they booing?

They were booing weren't they? They didn't like the boring play and now they were trying to kick them off the stage, and sky suddenly felt all her confidence drain from her face in a flash. How was she supposed to perform when she was being booed and having things thrown at her? Her lines were becoming blank in her mind and she was almost about to jump off the stage and run.

So much for the good opinions she had seen before.

Then she got a better look at marco, who was signaling to them that if they wanted to leave they could. They didn't want to blow their cover, and that's probably why they hadn't done anything yet, despite wanting to. Though sky kept the show going with her best performance she could muster as a snack hit her face, guess the people here preferred their musical acts and found this to be a major downgrade.

What a bunch of jerks.

Marco was about to stand up and blow their cover out of anger but then one of the bands stepped in, then another, the bands sunny had been talking to backstage. They quickly shut up the rowdy and rude people from the crowd, sending sunny a nice smile her way. She looked relieved, she had never been...booed before like that, it sent her into some form of shock.

Sure what happened last time was bad but-

The demons growled at the rude customers and for a moment sky thought about how these people barely knew sunny and yet wanted to help. This play did mean something to the small and strange demon girl, and this brought back a small spark in her step as she kept up the act. She was no longer as nervous as she had been and was just having fun.

Rarely had sky seen sunny sad. but her little frown was so...terrifying

Who could boo at a little girl like this, one as young and as lively as her even? Sunny was nothing but nice to everyone she met and rarely had anyone got hurt due to her actions, she could make anyone smile in their darkest moments and some jerks were booing her? It hurt more because sunny had been looking forward to this too and she was treated like this.

Marco seemed relived, send them all a thumbs up for their efforts. Sky got back in focus and landon was also able to focus again on what he was doing before he also had a panic attack and just let them all to fend for themselves. Sky could feel a new energy inside her, like she was just charged up on batteries after what they all jus did for her small band.

They helped them, they actually came over and helped them even if they didn't have much useful information relevant to the whole reason they were even here, it was...actually really shocking. Landon knew how aggressive people down here could be so he wasn't shocked to get a negative reaction, but he had to admit, this was nice to have.

Bless sunny and her ability to make friends with everyone as fast as she did, if things had gone on much longer a fight would have broken out and the entire night would have been for nothing.

At least it didn't seem to result in any fight, which was even better, landon was not in the mood to fighting some wierdos, he wasn't anywhere near good enough like that to last more then a few seconds. The wave of relief passed and they continued with their performance, sky trying to bumble through her lines as she hoped they wouldn't have things thrown at them again.

She felt better pretending to fight and dodge honestly, even if it looked funny to the audience. She simply tried to keep focus, this was like her training with angel, she needed to focus and not pay attention to the audience.

"We may be off two worlds, but that doesn't make us enemies, nor does it mean our homes can't welcome another", sky said, hoping that sounded right, sunny smiling and taking her hand, "You had no need to save me as you did, but...perhaps i truly have misjudged you, and for that i am sorry, i wish to apologize for the burden i may of caused you, i know at times i can be too much another bother those around me-".

"You're not a burden...", sky said.

Sunny paused, leaving sky to wonder if what she said was in the script or not.

"Well, it was still rude of me before-".

"It's ok to be standoffish, we didn't know much about each other, sometimes you can't trust people right away and that's ok...and sometimes you can. We're all different like that, and friendship is built on trust and time so...i'd like...to be proper friends with you...if you'd give me the time to do so...if you want to of course. I would like more moments...like this, with you".

Ok, that was very much not in the script, in fact sky was sure she forgot the rest of it entirely.

But sunny didn't seem to mind at all, if anything she seemed to find it sweet and like it more then what she had written. It felt so much more genuine then what sky tried to do before, she actually sounded like she meant it, and she probably did, no, she DID mean it. Sunny smiled sweetly and ran in to give sky a hug , holding her tight, "I'd love to have more moments like this with you".

Landon has already stopped playing and she could hear marco awwing close by at the moment, in fact, people all over seemed to find this moment very cute in fact and sky heard some clapping. Sunny leaving the hug as the clapping got louder, accompanied by some cheering, not all of it was probably genuine but it didn't seem to matter. Sunny motioned for sky to bow and they did, landon following after, more at ease that his magic didn't act up or anything.

They headed offstage into marco's arms, hugging them tightly and making sure they were all actually ok after all of that.

"I'm so sorry i did not expect them to get so...like that, you guys weren't hurt right?", all of them shaking their head, they had all been through far much worse to be hurt by some food. But marco was still concerned, proud, but concerned. Taking them to a place like this maybe wasn't the best idea, but normally a cozy place like this wasn't so dangerous, though they actually seemed...happy?

Landon looked relieved he had actually done that, onstage, without any issues.

Sky looked happy she performed well.

And sunny seemed super happy that things had gone well and she got to do a live performance.

Though the plan was...lukewarm at best, to some extent, it did feel like something these three needed, an outting that did more good then harm. Galexia quickly joined the group hug and marco was quick to usher them to their seats before anyone got a closer look at all of them. Though it was at that time sky remember marco had no idea about something in particular-

and sure enough the next act looked VERY familiar.

"Is that-", the queen's eyes were quick to widen as sky and landon exchanged glances.

Meteora hopped up on stage, instrument in hand.

The monster was partially still in disguise, but only partially, she was still noticeable enough that of course marco could tell who she was. Meteora was a spy but this was not one of those moments she really had to care about that, she was here for herself, not work. Though there was some clear hesitation, probably in fear someone would remember who she...was.

Marco seemed stunned about her being here, also wondering if she was here for her job before noticing she was really here to play. The crowd seemed far more excited for her then they did for the kids, but i guess meteora had that kinda energy about her being a young rockstar. She learned those moves only from her mother and she was going to put them to good use, and she did.

Sunny had a hard time hiding her excitement, she was whistling and cheering as meteora started jamming her solo. Though thankfully her cheers were drowned out by the crowd, keeping her more hidden among the demons. marco seemed to be pondering if the reason the place was so busy had something to with meteora herself, judging by the crowd's love for her.

At least that's how it came across.

Geez, how many jobs did meteora have? I guess katrina did have a second job helping her family though so it figures meteora might have one as well, though music was not the first thing that came to mind for anyone here. Probably because if she was a popular musician it would be assumed they would know about her to an extent, or that she would've been pined to a certain rampaging monster earlier as well.

Regardless she seemed to get through it all with no issues whatsoever, including no fruits being thrown at her. So if anyone did know who she was, they did not seem to care at all about her past, in fact she seemed pretty happy up there and less scared of being found out if anything.

Lucky her, at least she doesn't have dislike they had, but she's also scarier to make mad anyway so if they did piss her off they might risk becoming literally souless. She was rewarded with flowers being thrown at her which was confusing at first because no flowers had been allowed into this building, then they noticed they were pulled flowers from the décor to throw at her. Guess she was far more popular then they thought, or the people just loved her THAT much.

No one was more happy they sunny though, she must've really missed meteora, but seeing her thriving here really made her super happy.

Marco had a hard time focusing on the task with meteora on stage though, she was someone who easily got them very distracted. Just a lingering worry in the back of their mind that she might get upset at seeing them or lash out, especially now that eclipsa had explained things to her. It had been easier to avoid dealing with it since meteora and them hadn't spoken for years and she had forgotten but now-

And right now there was no excuse they could make to really avoid her either, she knew they were there and on top of that she probably knew exactly why they were there as well.

Marco sighed, they were probably overthinking this, that was LONG in the past by this point and it was doubtful meteora eve cared about any of it. It was just something hard for the human to forget no matter how much they tried, meteora being here was just...bringing back memories they had long since repressed to the best of their ability up until this point.

It must've shown on their face because sky and landon were looking at them with concern. Marco quick to reassure them before they got freaked out, "Sorry, i always get this way around meteora, bad memories, i'll be ok kids...no need to worry". But their words didn't sem to be doing much, probably because that kinda response never worked if it was one of THEM saying it.

"Ok so i might get just a tad anxious about meteora sometimes, she might not have her memories but i still have mine and well...i've talked about it, it's not fun and...i'm sorry i wasn't planning on dumping on you kids about my own issues today.", they seemed like they actually felt bad and sky quickly interjected, "Hey, i deal with jude's stuff all the time, it's ok...you know how...he is when it comes to the bad stuff".

"Yeah, yeah you're right, i'm sorry...sometimes it's hard to forget the past...even if i so badly want to...and...i'm sure she does as well", they eyed meteora, "I should probably talk to her but i feel like that new info might be fresh on her mind and i'd hate to make things worse for her, we have a mission going on and i can't be distracted right now".

"You can push it aside slightly to talk to her after she gets off the stage", sky offered, "The night is almost done anyway and we all have each other, as long as you stay close by you'll be fine, and besides, meteora knowing we're here will make sure she'll be even more careful just to keeps us safe. So don't worry about it too much, we can handle being here for a minute or something".

"You know you just had things thrown at you not even that much time ago right?".

"Yeah but we can still handle it, we're in disguise anyway, like we'll be fine and you're close by anyway, just in case".

They still seemed nervous but if they weren't too far away then it might not be that bad, meteora had just gotten off stage after all and she clearly noticed where they were sitting, so if anything did happen she could get right into the action. "Fine, just do not leave this table and if anything bad happens, don't hesitate to fight back, i give you permission".

They got out of their seat to approach the monster girl as the kids stood by. Careful to move through the crowd without drawing too much attention, keeping their mask on tight and hoping meteora would know it was them without even removing it. But she probably would, marco had the funny feeling even though she barely grew up around him, she had some lingering memories of her past life.

But they couldn't dwell on that part, it was a good time to talk to her before she vanished again, that's what this was about.

Time they took their own advice and did confront their issues, better now then ever. Meteora would be heading back to her job as a spy when she got the chance and they might not see her again for years, so if this helped get everything off their chest they might as well go for it. But meteora stopped them, pressing a hand out, and looking at them intently.

"Look, i didn't know you'd all be here so...this was my time off and i wanted to join...i...sorta play around mewni a lot...not a crazy amount but- anyways just don't think to report me for being here". She was being so defensive, did she really assume marco was going to get her in trouble for this? Marco was mean sometimes but they were never on that level of mean.

It did remind him of why they barely talk tho.

"Meteora, it's fine, i just want to talk to you i promise, you were doing great up there and the kids tried to tell me you were before before you were on stage"., she seemed kinda relieved at that but also a little insulted, "So what's this about then? The kids aren't hurt are they? I saw what happened out there and i gotta admit, that was pretty messy".

So she even saw all that happening to the kids and still didn't come to help? Marco might've been more mad if they hadn't done something very similar, the human just changing the topic before they got upset, "Meteora, i wanted to confront you about the stuff that happened, the stuff that happened years ago". The monster girl raising an eyebrow, she had not been expecting that at all.

"I know for you it might not be the same anymore since well...you know, you forgot, but for me i just need more closure because we don't have a lot of good memories together, and i would prefer to be on good terms with you and feel safe with you around. I understand if you say no though, it's just been on my mind and i wanted to speak to you.

While she seemed skeptic, meteora reached out and shook their hand, huffing.

"Alright then, fair enough", again, in their head they imagined things going far worse.

Was meteora really much nicer then they gave her credit for? they glanced to see the kids staring at them still, ushering them to go on. "Look, i know me being back has got everyone kinda...on edge, i can tell, you're on edge, the princess is on edge...my mom's kinda on edge...i get it, but i just am here to do my job and help out, that's it. Nothing up my sleeve, everything is under the bridge".

"I'm sorry if we came off-"

"I'd rather not think too hard on what...i did before this point, i wanna focus on my life...my new life...to the best of my ability, so if any of you think i'm mad or hold grudges, i'm not...i'm not that person anymore.". They could tell they hit some sort of nerve though, the pain must've still been very fresh for meteora and she was not ready to deal with it right now of all times.

"I'm so sorry,", marco backed off, "I just...wanted closure for all of that...".

She had a point though, she was not the same person they had been tortured by so long ago, how could they properly have closure with her if she wasn't even the same person anymore? Marco suddenly felt a little stupid having attempted to do this how they did, backing up and bowing their head in some form of apology. They had screwed this up and it was better to leave it be.

But meteora spoke up, clearly having more to say on the matter then they had been expecting.

"Hey...".

"Hmm?".

"It might not give you closure, but...i don't hate you...not like i think i did before. You...have good kids, really good kids, Just take good care of them, not all of us get a second chance to do things better". Marco nodded, understanding, "Meteora i promise you i intend to be the best parent i can be, and i will. My kids...mean the world to me, i won't fail them any more then i might have already".

"Good, and sorry...i just, don't want to talk about...how i used to be. I...prefer to be...who i am now".

Marco understood, "Well, i hope we can still have a fresh start...all of us, with you, together".

They reached out to shake her hand and meteora took it, she squeezed rather tightly, probably just to mess with them, but still shook their hand in alliance. "Now, as your first step of showing me you're good at your job, you should probably take all those kids hold before they get themselves hurt, this place is full of some feisty demons and i think you could tell that after they made a mess out of the kids".

"Fair enough".

"But first-".

The kids perked up as they got greeted with smoothies, right on meteora's tab, who was gladly sitting with all of them as they took notes, she was a spy after all, this kinda thing was right up her ally. She was far more ingrained in the gossip then they were, being a regular citizen and not some royal snub, guess it really did have it's perks to be just like everyone else.

"Some weirdo living by the volcanos? Pfft, well i'd be shocked if no one tried living near mount boom, not everyone here to known for their minds or being smart. But hey, a lead is a lead, me on the other hand? Been chasing some leads for awhile now, not a lot of results, i'm honestly shocked you all are even trying when we seem to have already gotten the person we want-".

Sunny shifted in her seat.

Meteora glanced at her, " I know you all have some...strange attachment to that girl but she's bad news, i can tell and so can everyone else, you're wasting your time trying to prove it isn't her". Meteora really was confident in this wasn't she? Guess it was hard to argue with her much, it did all look strange. Though her accusations against luna did make sky think-

And the expression on her face was enough to peak meteora's interest.

"Are you about to protest?".

"No it's just-".

"Spit it out...".

Sky wasn't even sure she should say anything, it was unlikely to even go anywhere, but i guess if they had nothing to lose right now it wasn't too weird to bring up...maybe. "Hey, meteora, i don't wanna accuse or anything, i was just curious if...when it comes to angel's mother, if well, you were at that one event for monsters at the time...before she ended up sick and-".

Meteora raised an eyebrow, and marco looked a bit panicked at what sky was implying.

"Wait, where did THIS come from?".

Honestly it did seem to come almost entirely out of nowhere, arana had little to nothing to do with luna and why she was being accused. In fact her sickness came before the masked mess, so they had nothing to do with it by the looks of it, and yet...if luna had some ideas here maybe there was a lead here, or maybe, she could beat meteora with her own logic on this.

"Meteora, i'm just asking if you have any idea of that event lead to what happened, with Arana?", it was a far shot but it was better then nothing at the very least, maybe meteora could answer her questions. It's not like there were many better places to do it when they barely could even find the monster woman anywhere, as long as they were careful around these crowds of people.

"Why do you think i would know anything about why that happened? Sure i attended but-", she seemed confused, but also a little annoyed that sky had just interrogated her out of the blue like that. Her job involved this kinda stuff all the time, and rarely was she ever the one being questioned on anything, so this was all very new to her and rather shocking all things considered,

"The bug, the parasite that went inside of her...it's not from mewni and...you leave to other dimensions all the time...so...i just want to know if you have any idea how it got...well...into her food", she could see were this was going and she wasn't liking the sound of it at all, being accused the way she was. Sky was rather bold to even be doing this, especially to someone who was kinda an ally, but maybe if she played this card she might have an easier chance at protecting luna.

Meteora didn't appear to like these implications in the slightest, though she was impressed how sky went at her like that.

"What does this have to do with me and luna?", she got right to the point, folding her arms, "This is avoiding the case entirely to focus on something else, something serious and not involved in this matter at all, while what happened is tragic, this has no reason to even matter in the blonde's case, not unless you have something you really think could be of use here ".

"I do".

"And what's that?"

"Circumstantial evidence...if your evidence against luna holds up, then so does the evidence against you hurting the queen, it's, easy to accuse when you have so little to go off of". Meteora sent her a look that told sky she was being rather silly trying to do whatever it was she was doing, but it seemed she wanted to hear more of where sky was going with this.

"You gonna get me arrested? I feel like you're threatening me".

"No...well...i'm just saying, your evidence is mostly convenient and...could be faked, and how easy it is to accused someone based on judgments like that, sometimes things aren't as they seem y'know? Luna is innocent, she's being framed...i just want you to look at all of this from a new angle, because making judgements based on few evidence...could be scary".

"Luna made that accusation against me didn't she?".

"How did you-".

"I know you've been talking, so i assume she had you say this hoping to sue it as blackmail or something against me into letting her go. Which does not work, it's very cute that you think it might but i don't work that way, i've been doing this far too long kid. Gotten all kinds of threats, You got some kinda of guts to even attempt so i'll give it to you".

"I just want you to rethink things, luna isn't behind this...".

The other kids also looked at her, pleading.

Marco coughed into their hands, "Listen, meteora, we don't know for sure if you have anything to do with the sick queen thing, it's only a guess and i'm deeply sorry we accused you like that, we just have a lot of questions as you can see". She raised an eyebrow she now knew they were into her about that entire situation with the queen and there was no going back on any of it.

"I would never-".

"We never meant on purpose, we just know there had to be some way a creature like that could've ended up...here, and well". She had to admit luna was smart coming to this conclusion for how frustrating she was. As far as people attending that party who went through many other dimensions go, meteora was really the best candidate, even if she had no idea.

"I suggest we talk about this later then, but, i'll keep what you have to say in mind, if that's fine".

They could agree to that, at least she was listening.

This had forced sky into silence about it though, and back to work as she sipped down her frozen drink. Thankfully nothing else seemed to go wrong that night, meteora was even happy to have herself magically tested in case the kids had their doubts about her being her. Which was fair up at this point when people were now being mind controlled to do things they didn't want to do.

Well, if meteora knew about this and that she did it, she didn't seem to actually want to talk about it at all for now.

Till next time.

But it was over, they could all go home and take a well needed break, it was a far better mission then it could've been, and for once it was great to have another adult step in to help. Though sky felt stupid for even saying anything back there, how could she accuse meteora like that? She must've sounded desperate to convince the monster that luna wasn't evil that she said whatever came to mind.

But it was fair right? If luna could be accused for just wearing the clothes then meteora could be accused for just being at the wrong place at the wrong time, she couldn't use this against luna when there wasn't anything defiant, especially when mind control was a thing going on. She was lucky meteora even listened to her instead of laughing her butt off at sky's accusation.

Marco seemed astonished she even said that to the monster's face, it was bold, bolder then sky would normally go. Sky was already in enough hot water with the high commission and had been a high suspect, so doing something like this, well it was just asking for her to get in more trouble. Though really, lexi, sunny and landon seemed...kinda impressed.

None of them would've been that bold, not to meteora at least.

Shedding their costumes away and safe and sound in the castle and finally dismissed, marco was quick to do another un over of all of the kids to make sure they were ok. They were clearly still heavily affected about the kids being booed off stage how they were, they were supposed to have been there to keep them safe and the kids were being hurt, how could they not be upset?

Marco finally lets them go on a mission to help, not even a big mission and they-

"Queen lucitor, we're ok, honestly, we've been through worse then a bunch of crumby jerks", sky said as marco checked her for bruises, "I know it's just, me and tom were so worried about you kids getting in trouble and...you're on my watch and yet something still went wrong. I know you all can take care of yourselves but...it hurts me as a part to watch something like that".

"You tried to motion us to leave, because you couldn't blow your cover...it was kinda scary", sunny said, fixing her hair, "Like You froze the first time, like you didn't know what to do but try and coax us away". Marco swallowed some spit and nodded, "I did freeze a little because of the mission, i'm really sorry about that, i should've went in right ahead the first time, i just...i didn't want to risk worse happening if you kids were caught, everything moved so fast like i couldn't process it and...i'm sorry i let all of you down but not stepping in right away".

Landon was silent, guess even if the mission went well, they had to address that whole aspect of it even if they did not want to.

But then they saw marco start to cry and their mood shifted, landon mumbling under his breath.

"I'm glad you were there, i...i really am, it was really nice".

Marco looked up at their son, surprised at his words, but so grateful. "I'll try and do better if i can, i guess i still have my own issues to work through...but...i'm sorry i didn't step in right away". Only for sunny to say something, "But it matters that you trusted us too, you can't always be there to protect all of us, so...giving us space to handle issues is nothing to be ashamed of".

The human smiled.

"You're right about that too, my anxiety may of gotten the better of me when it really should not have."

"We all get scared sometimes, it's ok", sunny reached out, quick to give the human a hug, a sign of forgiveness and comfort. Before the others quickly joined in, wrapping their arms around the human as he hugged them back. Landon was not one to even get involved in hugs like this but, this was his mom, and he was not going to be the only one to not hug his own mother.

Marco smiled, "Thanks kids, we'll meet up later and we can pass on this information to the others, so hopefully some of this info might be off use, we'll get some additional info from the other spies later, but let's take a break, we all need one, you all might nee a long nap.". They laughed and patted all their heads, "And so do i, I'll also well...keep an eye...on meteora".

Sunny giggled, "You guys are friends now right?".

"Well, probably not, but it's a good start to something proper at the very least so...i'll take it."

As they headed out marco pulled sky aside, while still eyeing the others, "What you did back there was brave but...just be careful, i'm not sure how luna will react to you telling meteora all of that information, could be massively dangerous". She nodded, "I'm sorry, i was trying to help but...yeah, but hey, maybe it might go somewhere...maybe?".

"Well, i just hope this means meteora doesn't come for her faster and harder after finding out she accused her of possible attempted murder, just be wary of what you say around her if you can...you never know what can be used against you". Sky nodded, "Alright, thanks...i'll try not to throw our theories out to the people we're accusing next time...kinda a dumb move".

"Hey i made dumb moves too, so does your moms, it happens...just...be more careful".

And sky could feel her nerves start to stiffen as she headed down the hall, hoping she really hadn't made a huge mistake to further ruin their investigation and plans.

Because if she had, they were in for a handful.

#star vs the forces of evil #svstfoe #svtfoe #sky and the forces of the multiverse #tomstar bby #ostar bby #tomco bby #marco diaz #marco #my art #fanfic #fanfiction #Meteora

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smokeybrand · 3 years ago

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Shattered

What If..? ended today and i was presently surprised. I didn’t expect Feige to lean so heavily into the Multiverse so soon after it got broken open in Loki but i enjoyed it tremendously. There is a lot to like in this series ,which is weird that it never took off like the others. The episodes are short, straight to the point, animated beautifully, and deliver bite-sized MCU narrative that hits as hard as their full length cousins. More than that, this show does an admirable job of introducing us to alternate realities and I'm here for all of that. Now, I'm not going to sit here and pretend that we got the same level of character working these individual episodes, that w got in the films, but that’s kind of not the point. What If...? is a show created explicitly to introduce the mainstream audience to the many, many, many, possibilities of what branch universes look like and, let me tell you, they look pretty good.

I thought that touching upon the mechanism of Variants in Loki was brilliant and as far as Feige needed to go as an intro to the multiverse. Baby’s first alternate timeline, so to speak. Instead, he gave us What If...? with a full blown multiversal climax and he did it in the most subtle way possible. Every single episode we’ve seen in this short, nine episode run, wasn’t about the characters therein, it was about the overarching potential of the multiverse narrative. We were able to see how slit-decisions can alter entire, historic, events of create incredibly unique, incredibly rich, takes on beloved narratives. As a fan of Spider-Verse, Ultimate Comics, and The Age of Apocalypse, this sh*t is right up my alley. Seeing those same, rather heady and convoluted tropes, distilled into some of the most fun, action packed, bite-sized MCU outings to date, was a real treat and the perfect primer for what comes next.

Now, the episodes, themselves, are kind of a mixed bag. Some are better than others but all connect to the macro plot, ending in an Avengers type team up. I really enjoyed What If... Captain Carter Were the First Avenger? for finally giving us a Peggy Carter we deserve and the bittersweet brilliance of What If... T'Challa Became a Star-Lord? which sees T’Challa snatched by Yondu instead of Peter Quill. Rest in Power Mr. Boseman. Wakanda forever. My favorite episode of the lot was definitely What If... Thor Were an Only Child? because Party Thor is the Dude and it’s always nice to see he and Frigga interact. Thor is such a mama’s boy and we only ever got hints of that in the main universe films. What If... Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?, What If... Zombies?!, and What If... the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes? are good but not my cup of tea, however, What If... Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands? turned out to be something really special. All of these episodes culminate into a a climax where we see Ultron get his Vision body and then all of the Infinity Stones, which leads into the first, true, MCU multiversal threat; One that feels adequately large for this particular show, but very small in comparison to what Feige has brewing in the main MCU universe. It’s the appetizer for whatever Marvel is chefing up for that Phase Whatever main course.

I had fantastic time with What If...? and it kind of sucks that more people didn’t give it a chance. We got to see several intriguing aspects of alternate worlds,presented with some of the best computer animation I've seen in a serial. This thing is chock full of strong performances, calling in a lot of the actual actors in the MCU to reprise there roles, with able replacements for those who decided not to return. It was an absolute blessing to hear Boseman be T’Challa one last time. What Feige presented here was a way to teach those out of the know about the admittedly difficult to maneuver concept of a multiverse, but in a way the was superbly entertaining, introduces incredibly new characters with a decent twist on older ones, while giving some established ones more agency than they’ve ever had int heir entire MCU run. As a proper introduction to the future off the MCU, What If...? does it’s job swimmingly. This show is top tier MCU content and bodes well for what comes after.

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k7l4d4 · 4 years ago

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Owl House AU Ideas, ZA FIFTH!!

Hello all, once again, I am BACK with an AU! It is a crossover with the popular superhero franchise, DC COMICS BABY!! WOOT! Specifically, this is a crossover between Earth 16, setting for the Young Justice Comics and Show, and The Owl House setting in the form of the newly formed Earth 53! Give ‘em some love folks, round of applause! Sorry if I’m hamming it up too much, just feeling really amped.

The premise is partially inspired by a crossfic over on ao3, can't really recall the name right now, that involves the Anti-Monitor's Anti-Matter wave occurring; The Owl House-Verse gets wiped out and subsequently resurrected as part of the DC Multiverse, with Amity somewhere in the mix due to being taken off the board just before her world is destroyed. In this idea, something occurs that results in the Boiling Isles and its connected Earth to be merged into the DC Multiverse; the shockwaves result in mass alterations to the two world's shared history as the Boiling Isles and Human Realm become the new Earth 53 (I know that the DC-Verse isn't restricted to just 52 worlds anymore, the name is mostly for dramatic effect). The biggest difference between this and similar premises is the idea of Earth 53 coming from OUTSIDE the Source Wall, an extreme anomaly in the DC-Verse Space-Time Continuum, if not an outright impossibility, that has resulted in "Errors" forming across the worlds. Amity is the one of the only ones who clearly remembers life before the merger, and the changes, both to the world and to herself, have been jarring. She who was once the heiress-apparent to a magical household of considerable influence was now the marginalized third child to two of the meanest lawyers in Bonesburough, friendless and adrift. In a world where humans, witches, and demons live alongside one another, and magic is a rare commodity hoarded by major cities and governments, where is her place in it all? And, more importantly, where is Luz?!?

Boscha: Unlike her canon self, DC Boscha is a tough girl who grew up on the streets, fending for herself at nearly every turn; she was eventually taken in by the Park family, one of Bonesborough's most well-known, if not necessarily influential, families, growing close to the daughter of the family, Willow Park. Boscha often acts as Willow's bodyguard and confidant, providing both protection from anyone trying to harass her, and a shoulder to lean on when she needs it. She has a small crush on Willow, but hasn't realized it for what it is yet. Boscha is a conduit for the Strength Force, granting her immense physical strength, durability, and geokinesis. Despite her immense power, Boscha is largely unskilled with her abilities, often being limited to the most basic interpretations of her powers. Willow: This version of Willow grew up as part of the lower Upper-Class, straddling the border between the Middle-Class and High-Society circles, gaining renown for her skill with plants and vegetation in general. While just as kind as her Canon self, DC Willow is somewhat jaded, often having difficulty opening up to others for fear that they are trying to get something from her or manipulate her. Willow suffers from a mild form of Narcolepsy, falling asleep when sufficiently stressed. Willow has a strong connection to the Green, gifting her with a powerful bond with all plant life; unlike other Conduits and Avatars for the Green, Willow refuses to fully connect with it, channeling her nature as animal, and as such of the Red, to retain her self. This unique state of being both apart of yet separate from the Green offers Willow a few abilities that other, similar, existences lack, with her greatest ability being the power to forcibly merge an enemy with the Green, essentially turning the Nature Dimension into a prison for them, though the technique is only fully effective against enemies who wield the Green themselves; non-Green Empowered individuals can only be held for around a month to up to a year before the Green rejects them and spits them out back in the Physical Plane, often sickly and in need of food and water, though not desperately so. An unusual quirk of Willow's is that she often adopts a demeanor similar to a religious figure, using formal speech and an extremely serene and calm demeanor; no one is sure, not even Willow herself, if it is an act or if she is genuinely being altered in some way by using her powers. Gus: Half-human, Half-witch, this interpretation of Gus often feels uncomfortable in his own skin. The only time Gus truly feels at ease is when he is immersed in water. At the age of Eight, Gus when swimming and nearly drowned, only surviving due to a sudden surge of the Life Force resonating through the world. As a result of his exposure to the Life Force, Gus possesses similar abilities to, yet still distinct from, those of Atlanteans. Gus cannot communicate with sea-life, but they are unusually docile in his presence, with even the most vicious of sea life being harmless to him. Gus can distort and manipulate the water in his body, and the water vapor in the nearby air, to create illusions and mirages. Gus tries to disguise his discomfort by hamming up his more excitable and comedic traits. Replacing his obsession with humans, this version of Gus is near obsessed with Magic, instantly going into Fanboy mode at the site of Amity's spells (note: Gus is capable of distinguishing magic from similar phenomena on his own, a holdover from his past self having magic, though his current self is unaware why he can do so). Skara: A popular girl, Skara sits at the front of the pack, yet also has a reputation of being kind and accepting; as she attends one of the most divisive schools in regards to Human-Witch-Demon relations in the world, this often results in her being forced to play mediator, much to her own distress. Skara can't stand seeing anyone upset or feeling left out, going out of her way to include others, even if it means she herself ends up left out. Skara is incredibly skilled at both Music and the Bow, serving as an expy of both Black Canary and Green Arrow, in that she wields a harp/bow combo capable of launching sound arrows. Skara is a nascent magic user, though her skills are highly unrefined and geared near-exclusively towards those based on sound. Edric and Emira: The twins are a study in contrasts as opposed to their canon similarities. While they still possess their sense of mischief, Edric has been groomed to be a respectable gentleman, at least in terms of appearance, while Emira is essentially an out and about rebel, bucking authority and rules at every opportunity. Edric thinks of himself as suave and charming, but to most everyone it just comes across as adorable and childish; a little kid thinking he's an adult. Emira is confrontational, aggressive, and possesses a reputation for being a punk, though she often takes a stand against bullies and thugs. The two often argue, but both fondly remember the days when they were more similar and got along more. The two share Speed Force powers, Negative for Edric, Positive for Emira, yet neither is compatible with their respective bodies, as Emira is more attuned with the Negative and Edrice with the Positive. To counteract the damage their abilities do to their bodies, they channel each others' Speed Force for their sibling; a side-effect of this sharing is that they cannot utilize the super-speed common to all Speed Force Conduits unless they work in perfect sync, but otherwise possess all the standard abilities of their respective forces. Jerbo: The quirky child of the local funeral director, Jerbo is highly skittish, often jumping at random and having a meek personality, he is slow to trust others. Jerbo has always possessed a fascination with the intricacies of life, death, and the cycle between them. This fascination ultimately culminated in him developing a connection to the Green! However, an accident disrupted the process, causing his connection to degrade and allowing a connection to the Grey and the Rot to enter in its place. None of his connections are particularly strong, but using them in concert allows him to leverage powers and abilities far above his technical weight class. He often uses his powers to necromantically command plants and bacteria, building intricate "Rot Golems" to fight with, in a manner similar to his Canon Plant Golems. In addition, Jerbo often uses his Rot powers to accelerate and regulate the decay of already dead plants and animals to create fertilizer and revitalize the environment. Viney: An adventurous free spirit, Viney has a genuinely compassionate soul, going out of her way to help out however she can. Viney has a deep sense of empathy, particularly for animals, serving as a first look for local pets before their owners decide to take them to the vet or not. Viney cannot stand animal abuse in any form, often protesting groups that have shown histories of shady animal practices whenever she can. Viney wields a connection to the Red, which she leverages in a manner similar to the powers of B'wanna Beast, as well as healing. Viney often serves as the team's emergency medic, as she lacks her canon-self's medical training. Barkus: An actual dog as opposed to his Dog-Witch Canon self, Barkus never the less can communicate with others. Barkus wields a connection to the Sage Force, granting him far higher levels of intellect compared to other animals and the ability to speak. Barkus possesses numerous mental abilities, including fortune telling, telepathy, and a mild-level of mind-reading. Barkus has a cool head, often serving as the voice of reason for the others, as well as an extra set of eyes and ears, as his nature means few people expect him to be a spy. Eda Clawthorne: Suffering from a weakened immune system and chronic pain, most people are often surprised by how spry and active Eda is. Eda possesses a genius-level intellect, often providing intelligence and resources for the team as well as a mentorship role. Eda enters the field as the "Knight Owl" (Not to be confused with Nite Owl), operating a highly sophisticated battle suit outfitted with a mix of advanced technology and magic to possess an answer to virtually any scenario. While adopted a cold, highly-serious persona when in the field, Eda's real personality isn't all that different from her Canon self, albeit more responsible and less criminally inclined. Eda often spends her time either monitoring the companies she owns portions of or searching for Lilith, who has been missing for several years in the new timeline generated by the shift into the DC Verse. Eda isn't a straight-lace though, she does have numerous connections and contacts in the underworld, she just isn't a flat-out criminal-hermit anymore. King: Not much different from his Canon self, merely lacking his delusions of grandeur and megalomania, he is often grumpy and sullen, prone to the occasional fit of rage over being treated childishly or being babied. He possesses incredibly potent magic, often being in charge of upgrading and repairing the team's gear that requires it, yet lacks the stamina and technique needed to use it in combat. Lilith Clawthorne: Fully remembering the prior timeline, awakening years before Amity, the shame and guilt over her past mistakes drew to her an Ultraviolet Ring, transforming her into the Ultraviolet Lantern of Sector 2814. Lilith's stalwart will allows her to dominate the ring, often bringing her into fellow members of her Corps who have been subsumed by Umbrax, Lilith has dedicated herself to using her shame over her past as fuel for her desire to aid others and protect them from the self-destructive darkness inside of everyone, often acting both as a fighter against evil, but also as a councilor to those she encounters on her journey who are suffering from their self-destructive impulses. When on duty, Lilith manipulates her uniform to disguise her appearance and voice, preventing others from identifying her true identity. Lilith constantly strives to better the lives of others, both as way to make up her past deeds, but also to ensure none feel the suffering she felt in her selfish foolishness.

This is to explain how Luz fits into the story beyond being a Maguffin to drive the plot. Also, because I don't want to drag it out any further and to cut off as many questions and clarifications on world-building ahead of time as I can... I have decided that, while still connected to the wider DC Multi-Verse, this particular idea is set on Earth-16, the earth of the Young Justice show and comic, and the newly formed Earth-53 of the merged Human and Demon Realms. At the time of the shift into the DC-Verse, Luz had been attempting an experimental spell that combined all of her, Eda, and Lilith's knowledge of Magic in order to see if they could fashion a new portal, or, if that proved impossible at the time, use the data to help further develop a cure for the Clawthorne sisters. Whether the spell worked, or did anything really, is unknown, but the reaction of the world shifting caused Luz to be flung across the Verses and Earths of the 52, before she ended up in the care of none other than Klarion the Witch Boy, specifically his fully villainous incarnation from Young Justice. Needless to say, due to Luz's connection, however faint, to the Titan, as well as her unusual magic, Klarion decided to see what fun he could have with her (not in a sexual way, just to clarify to anyone even accidentally thinking about it). This version of Klarion is a full-on Lord of Chaos, and a particularly malevolent one at that, with a wide variety of mystical relics at his disposal for his games and experiments, and just before finding Luz, he came across the most interesting toy of all, a staff that fuses magic and technology, something rarely attempted and often backfired, but he had found one that worked! Luz was not in good shape when Klarion found her, her body and mind damaged by the journey, her very soul mangled. Deciding to pretend to be a nice guy, Klarion used his resources to heal her, but what fun would it be to just up and fix the girl, hmm? Taking inspiration from the staff he had so recently found, Klarion set out to find relics and devices of magic and science both to repair Luz, just to see what mixing them all together would do, and it wasn't like he cared if she died if something went wrong! Low and behold, he managed to find a fragment of the Black Lantern-Corrupted Firestorm Matrix that composed Deathstorm, and a tiny piece of the divine lightning that granted Black Adam, and it WAS the lightning of Adam as opposed to Captain Marvel, and using these pieces, along with some chaos assisted spells for flavor, he worked his magic, pardon the pun. Now, before anyone says anything about these powers making Luz OP... they really won't. She only has a fragment of the Firestorm Matrix, a corrupted one at that, so she has none of the proper abilities of a Firestorm, nor does she possess the abilities of Black Adam, as awesome as that would be. Rather, the mixing of these forces, along with her magic, resulted in the formation of Catalyst, a psionic spirit born of her own mind. Catalyst is largely elemental in nature, lacking the mentality of a human, or any mortal being for that matter, content to sit in the back of Luz's mind, only emerging when something truly dire acts against Luz, as well as passively blocking any and all mental attacks against her. The part about only emerging against dire acts is rather literal, Catalyst will only intervene if Luz is close to death or about to suffer a fatal blow, and she lacks any ability to distinguish friend from foe, preferring to wipe out anything and everything in range to ensure Luz and her's safety. A benefit to the changes induced by Klarion's manipulations is that some of Luz's innate biological potential has been unlocked, but only a little. Luz absorbs information insanely fast, capable of memorizing a 1000 page document in its entirety on a single read through, and her muscle memory develops abnormally fast, making combat training very effective for her, though training is far from mastery, as she doesn't automatically gain the experience needed to make full use of any skills she may acquire. Luz is now naturally drawn to imitation, subconsciously copying Batman and Robin's walking style to minimize noise on instinct alone. Luz does gain some benefit to the Matrix merged with her body, along with the lightning, as her body now naturally acts as a conduit for divine and mystical forces; spells and divinity naturally flow in and out of her without effect, though the magic of Chaos and Order can easily disable her, particularly that of Klarion and Doctor Fate. For offense, Luz can cannibalize her internal energy stores to manipulate as light, electricity, and flames, though not all at once, and she currently doesn't remember how to eat, as the Matrix breaks down anything she can recognize as food and converts it directly into the nutrients, vitamins, and biological materials she needs to live, though she still needs to drink like normal. Luz possesses genuinely inhuman reflexes and mental processing, as she can easily track and process Kid Flash's movements, though anything faster than him gives her a massive migraine to watch. Luz has a limited ability to adjust her body, capable of making herself very fast at the expense of being more fragile, or very strong and durable yet incredibly heavy and slow. Luz suffers severe amnesia, though her personality is basically identical to how she was previously, merely missing the experience and social knowledge to reign in her most dangerous impulses, which she couldn't do very well to begin with, let's be honest, and cannot recall anything other than the fact that she is fluent in both English and Spanish, loves a series of books called the Good Witch Azura, and the names of her friends, though not how she knows them or that they are her friends (I think it is telling that she remembers the people she cares about more than she remembers herself). After Klarion healed her, he promptly dumped her back on earth to fend for herself; after regaining consciousness, Luz basically ambled around acting on whatever impulse struck her, no matter how insane, random, or dangerous, with her antics, combined with her inability to stop herself from using her powers, catching the eye of Cadmus, who promptly took her captive and stuck her in the sub-levels with Superboy. Something of importance to note, the Matrix that is currently helping hold her body together is tainted by the power of Necrom and his perversion of death; as it stands, every time Luz uses her powers and abilities in anyway other than to "eat" she shortens her lifespan, with the rate gradually, almost minutely, but inevitably speeding up. If the problem, and by extension a solution, isn't discovered soon, Luz will die, and her corpse will become an out-of-control vessel of extinction. In part due to the alterations made to her being, Luz views Superboy in a manner similar to a brother, and often tries to run interference between him and Superman to ease the tension and help them get along. Luz's attire upon awaking is composed of a skin-tight, black, sleeveless bodysuit with three silver lines running across it in a manner similarly to an atom model, centering on an orb affixed just above her right breast, emblazoned with a silvery-blue version of her light glyph, not that she currently recognizes it. Luz can disengage her Matrix, which disappears in a crackle of mystic lightning, and return to her civilian state by concentrating hard enough, doing it by accident after being released from Cadmus along with Superboy by the Team and the Justice League; the bad part was that she didn't have any clothes on after dismissing the Matrix, as Klarion didn't particularly care if she was clothed or not after he was done repairing her. Her codename, until she can recall her real name, is Thunderstorm!

Luz originally doesn’t quite remember how to use magic, but after waking up groggy and needing a light one morning, she, by pure accident, draws and casts one of her light glyphs off of pure muscle memory. Her reaction?

Luz: I can do magic? (Looks at the spell floating above her head) I CAN DO MAGIC!! (Cheers)

To explain, due to lacking the presence and power of the Titan, Luz’s spells are now cannibalizing her lifeforce for fuel, which vastly accelerates her life-drain. Of course, this is Luz, if she can use something to help her friends, even if it endangers her, she will, much to the concern of her friends and teammates. As Luz’s lifespan shrinks, she gradually experiences increasing symptoms of hunger, followed by occasional aches and pains that grow in frequency and intensity, before evolving to full-on fits of debilitating agony at its most advanced stages. Luz isn’t concerned about her condition, once she finds out about it that is. Why? Because she has faith that a solution can be found before she is ever in any real danger, and if not? She would gladly giver her life for her friends and the safety of the people... that’s just the kind of gal she is.

As always, feel free to ask questions, comment, or use the idea as you wish.

#the owl house #dcu #young justice #owl house au #luz noceda #amity blight #king the owl house #willow park #boscha #gus porter #eda clawthorne #lilith clawthorne #toh skara #firestorm matrix #shazam

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frankly-art · 6 years ago

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Frankly-Art’s Top 10 Video Games of 2018

Also available to read on my deviantArt!

With every New Year comes another year’s worth of video games to look forward to, and 2019 promise to be a good one in that regard: the release of Kingdom Hearts III is only days away, Piranha Plant and Joker are certain to be innovative and entertaining additions to the Smash Ultimate roster, Animal Crossing is coming to the Switch… and those mark only a small fraction of the many things 2019 has in store for us in terms of gaming. Amid all of this hype, I got to thinking about the varied gameplay experiences I had over the past year; so, I figured this would be as good an opportunity as any for me to reflect on them with a bit of a critical eye and definitively rank each of the video games I managed to get to during 2018!

Keep in mind while reading that, even though this is a list featuring games I played in 2018, many of these games were ones released in years past that I never got around to until last year—so, if you were expecting a list of the top 10 games that were released in 2018, I’m afraid you’ll have to look elsewhere (but not until after you read my oh-so-important list first! I crave validation!); expect a healthy mix of new and old titles in the list below. Additionally, this list will rank downloadable content (DLC) separately from standalone titles, as I don’t find it fair to compare a DLC add-on to a fully-fledged game. I’ll be weighing the score of each DLC depending on how well it improves and expands upon the narrative and gameplay of its original game.

Without further ado (and with no better means of transitioning from this introduction to the list itself than to use a somewhat tired expression in the realm of video games), let’s-a go! (Please forgive me.)

-SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT-

Favorite Characters: Revali, Urbosa, Kass Favorite Tracks: Monk Maz Koshia (all phases)

It might come as somewhat of a shock that a game with “Breath of the Wild” in its title would rank lowest on my list, but hear me out: no matter how much fun it was to be able to return to Hyrule in this DLC expansion, in my opinion, Champions’ Ballad just felt like more of the same of what we got in the main game.

Despite the nigh perfection that was Breath of the Wild, I have to agree with critics who said that the lack of aesthetic variation between segments of dungeon crawling and puzzle solving was a monotonous bore when compared to the varied themes and aesthetics of the dungeons in Zelda games past, and Champions’ Ballad did nothing to vary the atmosphere in its new shrines and dungeon from those of the main game. This disappointment was compounded with the fact that Champions’ Ballad added no new weapons to your arsenal (aside from a risky-to-use fork that functioned virtually like every other sword in the game) to allow for new types of puzzle solving or exploration. The unicorn motorcycle was certainly a cool reward for completing the DLC (the fact that I got to write the words “unicorn” and “motorcycle” next to each other is reward enough), but I had very little use for it since I’d already combed through the entirety of Hyrule during my first playthrough of the game. I simply believe it would have been nice for Champions’ Ballad to have given players something a little fresher to explore, even if it were just an aesthetic change of scenery.

I had also hoped that Champions’ Ballad might have expanded on the lore sprinkled throughout Hyrule and, even though we learned more about the four champions, I was a little let down that they didn’t really expand on anything else (Why can’t I climb to the top of Mount Agaat? Why does the entirety of the Akkala region fill me with a confusing sense of serene dread?? What the hell happened at the Typhlo Ruins???) I appreciate that, by not explaining everything, Nintendo give players the chance to interpret these things for themselves, but, when compared to the lore provided in previous Zelda games, I feel as though Champions’ Ballad fell short in fleshing out the history of this ruined Hyrule.

Favorite Characters: Prompto, Ignis Favorite Tracks: A Retainer’s Resolve, Apocalypsis Magnatus

Given how much of a beautiful mess Final Fantasy XV was upon its initial release, it’s certainly a consolation to the main game to see how well Square Enix supplemented its (rather disjointed) story and expanded upon its (frankly, lacking) gameplay through its various DLC expansion chapters featuring Noctis’ loyal Chocobros. And while I may not love Ignis quite as much as other chocobros like Prompto or Noctis, Episode Ignis was definitely an engaging and welcome addition to the enigma that is the Final Fantasy XV.

Particular highlights of Episode Ignis include its soundtrack, which features a heroic leitmotif for Ignis that really underscores the dire circumstances he and his teammates find themselves in during this segment of the story, and its addition of gameplay modes (Motorboat Simulator 2018 being one of them) are a welcome change of pace to the somewhat rudimentary battle and exploration systems found in the main game. However, a point of contention I have with Episode Ignis is with its narrative: while I appreciate that this DLC chapter finally explains how Ignis becomes blind, its multiple endings completely undermine the storyline of the main game itself. Does Ignis’ sacrifice save Noctis from having to make a sacrifice of his own in order to save the world? Does Ignis regain his sight after Noctis defeats Ardyn? Do Noctis and Luna finally realize that they’d be better off with other people (as it’s obvious that Noctis is already too preoccupied with his three boyfriends to make room for anyone else)? I need answers, Square!

Favorite Characters: Elizabeth, Atlas/Frank Fontaine Favorite Tracks: Patsy Cline – She’s Got You, Johnny Mathis – Wonderful! Wonderful!

I claimed to be a fan of the BioShock series for so long, even though I’d only ever played the first game in the series until the summer of 2017 when I finally bought a PS4 and, with it, the BioShock Collection. Now, I can call myself a fan of the series without reservation, having explored and discovered all that Rapture and Columbia have to offer. To me, BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episodes 1 & 2 are a love letter to the entire series itself, featuring elements from the three main-series games and tying together each of their narratives (save for maybe BioShock 2, which is absolutely criminal, considering 2 is my favorite game in the series) in a way that, while forced in some aspects, felt like Ken Levine actually cared about clearing up some of the more confusing questions that remained at the end of BioShock: Infinite.

Burial at Sea really came into itself during Episode 2, where gameplay was switched up to feature more fleshed-out stealth mechanics that made sneaking around Rapture and Columbia both exhilarating and terrifying. It was also refreshing to be able to finally take control of Elizabeth, one of the most iconic characters of the series after the Big Daddies of BioShocks 1 and 2, and learn more of her own personal motivations and desires as she maneuvers through hostile environments. As I already mentioned briefly, I know some took issue with the way Burial at Sea wove the first two BioShock games together with the third, but, considering the mess that was made when BioShock Infinite introduced multiverse science into its mythos (and the narrative mess that Infinite was in general—I took great issue with the way they framed the oppressed populations of Columbia as “just as bad” as the ruling populations simply because they used violence to, you know, try and liberate themselves from their oppression), I feel that Burial at Sea did the best job it could considering that the setting of Infinite differed so greatly from that of the first two games.

Also, fun fact: I studied this game as a part of my Master’s Project and played it through a total of three times: once in English and twice in French! Isn’t academia weird?

Favorite Characters: Rando, Buddy, Vega Van Dam Favorite Tracks: 666 Kill Chop Deluxe, He’s My Dad, Brokentooth March

Anyone who reads TV Tropes is likely familiar with the trope “Gameplay and Story Segregation” and its less-frequent counterpart, “Gameplay and Story Integration”. In the case of LISA: The Joyful, this DLC game (which could practically be its own standalone title if it weren’t for the fact Steam labels it as “DLC” and won’t let you play it without first purchasing LISA: The Painful) absolutely excels in the latter and completely subverts the gameplay mechanics and narrative structure of the base game, and this can all be attributed to the way both games focus on your use of the cure-all drug that makes you feel nothing: Joy.

Indeed, where LISA: The Painful makes you question your use of the drug Joy, LISA: The Joyful (Joyful) is nigh impossible to complete without taking it in nearly every battle after you’re left to your own devices when the muscle of your party abandons you. As anyone who’s played the LISA trilogy will know, Joy is a dangerous substance, mutating its addicts and twisting the minds of anyone who uses it, and that Joy is an integral piece of the trilogy’s social and philosophical commentary on the freedom and restriction of choice, the commitment and devotion one carries for a person or cause, and the inherent, inevitable grey area of any and all actions one may take. Despite these themes, LISA: The Joyful is far from a demoralizing experience: if anything, the way the game simulates the feeling of being backed into a corner and the refusal to give up despite the odds only affirms whatever moral code by which you may already live, or is at least an opportunity to feel relief that you yourself aren’t forced to make such drastic decisions for your own survivability and freedom.

That’s it for the DLC games I played in 2018; now, the real fun begins! Brace yourself for my list of the top standalone titles I played last year!

Favorite Characters: Katie

This game was recommended to me by a friend, and, as much as I wanted to enjoy it, this game wound up being my lowlight of 2018, with its simplistic, seemingly rudimentary gameplay and conspicuous lack of any compelling narrative. Put bluntly, this game was like a forgettable rendition of Animal Crossing, only without any cute animal neighbors to run errands for. The game’s environment threatened absolutely no danger to your player character, yet still didn’t offer any engaging or challenging puzzles to solve to make up for this lack of danger (most “puzzles” involved figuring out how to get to a particular point on the map… and that was it). Despite this being an open-world game that offered endless opportunities for customization, I found myself hurrying to complete the game’s main (5-hour) campaign so I could feel justified to move on to other gaming experiences. The most unfortunate part of this to me is that I know there’s still more to the game’s world for me to explore, but I’m in no way compelled to do so.

In all fairness, though, I think that I’m a little older than the target demographic this game was aiming for. This game was never meant to be challenging or stressful, it was made to be a relaxing escape for anyone looking to pass the time exploring and discovering a beautifully modeled and brightly colored world. This game also wins serious points for inclusivity, especially considering the age group this game was most likely made for; my fondest memory of this game is of a quest where a woman requests that you find her the ingredients to make a potion that stimulates beard growth because she wants to grow a beard of her own, and not once during this campaign is she ridiculed or belittled for wanting one. Since Yonder seems to be a game for kids, I believe quests such as this are an excellent step to socializing them into a world that’s less judgmental and more receptive to other people. So, despite my earlier critiques of this game, Yonder would be a great game to consider if you’re looking for a low-key and off-beat (and all-human) alternative to Animal Crossing.

Favorite Veteran Fighters: Peach, Zelda, Zero Suit Samus Favorite Newcomers: Daisy, Ridley, Richter Favorite Stages: Fountain of Dreams, Fourside, Hyrule Temple Favorite Tracks: All-Star Rest Area (Melee), Destroyed Skyworld, Athletic (Yoshi’s Island)

We all knew another installment in the Smash series was coming ever since the Switch was first announced back in March of 2017. In fact, you might even say that the quality of each console’s iteration of Smash reflects the quality of the console itself, with Melee demonstrating the power and potential of the GameCube, Brawl being a gimmicky romp on an equally gimmicky console, and Wii U/3DS (what a title, right?) completely failing to capture player interest for longer than a few rounds of Smash (the Wii U era feels like a fever dream to me at this point). It’s a letdown, then, that with the Switch being such a commercial and technical success, Smash Ultimate seems somewhat of a disappointment when weighed against the hype that surrounded it up until its release back in early December.

It’s true that Smash Ultimate really delivers in regard to the character roster (everyone is here!) and stage selection (almost everything is here!), but the cuts that were made to series staples like trophies, event matches, and the like, detract from Smash Ultimate becoming the be-all end-all title in the series that it could have been. Trophy mode was where I learned much about video game history and was introduced to obscure series I would have never discovered otherwise, and their replacement with spirits feels a bit cheap, especially since spirits don’t come with any kind of information to contextualize them. Event Matches were hybridized with Melee’s Adventure mode and Brawl’s Subspace Emissary, creating the “World of Light”; while the World of Light has grown on me the more that I play it, it’s somewhat discouraging to me that, by combining so many modes of Smash games past into one, there will be nothing left for me to do with the game once I reach its end.

Still, Smash Ultimate offers plenty to look forward to. I’m more-than-hyped about the additions of Piranha Plant and Joker from Persona 5 to the character roster, and I can’t wait to see who might be announced next (unless it’s another Fire Emblem character… please God [Sakurai] don’t let it be another Fire Emblem character).

Favorite Tracks: The Bridge, Touching the Stars, Up to the Nest

I could never have prepared myself for the beautiful-yet-heart-wrenching experience this game would put me through, but I’m oh-so-glad that it did. On the surface, RiME is a relaxing exploration and puzzle game that takes place in a beautifully rendered in-game world, with a brilliantly orchestrated soundtrack and a plethora of diverse landscapes to get lost in. And yet, every moment of your adventure is permeated by an inescapable sense of isolation and dread, making you ask questions like “Where is everyone?”, “Just who is that man in the red cloak?,” and, “Is he stalking me, or are I stalking him?”.

Indeed, RiME’s narrative unfolds wordlessly as you explore and leaves you to discover and interpret on your own exactly what tragedies transpired before the events of the game, tragedies of which are far more poignant and moving if you were to discover them yourself. I know I’ve put a spoiler warning in effect, but I highly recommend you play this game on your own (or at least watch a decent Let’s Play of it) if you’re curious to know what unfolds during the game’s narrative. RiME is a relatively short game, too, lasting only between 5-10 hours, so it would be an easy one to fit into your queue if you’re looking for a fun gameplay experience with a story that will haunt you for weeks and months on end after completing it.

Favorite Characters: Terry Hintz, Buzzo, Wally Favorite Tracks: Men’s Hair Club, The End is Nigh, Summer Love

Having already talked about this game’s DLC expansion of LISA: The Joyful, you’re already aware that I hold the LISA trilogy in high regard—it also means I can make this entry somewhat brief, since a lot of what I said about Joyful can also be applied to its parent title, LISA: The Painful. You see, it’s in LISA: The Painful where the conflict in Joyful begins, and where we learn more of how the world came to be so depraved after the White Flash, an extinction event that inexplicably killed all women on the planet (at least, as far as the characters in the game know). The game considers what the repercussions of such an event would be on our society (aside from dooming humanity to die off within a generation) and really explores the darkest depths of toxic masculinity to call into question the detrimental effects it has on our self-esteem, our relationships, and our will to survive. Gameplay-wise, it’s a fairly traditional JRPG, though as I mentioned with Joyful, LISA: The Painful integrates its story with its gameplay by permanently increasing (but mainly decreasing) your stats depending on whatever injuries you escape or sustain throughout your journey. All in all, LISA: The Painful is a truly harrowing experience from beginning to end, but a must-play for anyone with an interest in the more macabre aspects of human nature.

Favorite Characters: Aloy, Erend, Vanasha Favorite Tracks: Louder

You know a game’s going to be good when its title screen holds you in awe before even pressing start. Imagine a sunlit vignette over purple mountains and a glistening river, a haunting and triumphant melody underscoring it all, as the title slowly fades into view in white in the center of the screen: Horizon Zero Dawn. O.K., I’m in. This game just did so many things right as an open-world game during an era where the genre was oversaturated by mediocre games that rehashed the same tired tropes and mechanics in its gameplay and world building. Horizon Zero Dawn truly set itself apart from the crowd for a variety of reasons: its beautifully detailed setting (being a microcosmic interpretation of Western North America), its intricate combat system with a graciously forgiving learning curve, and its compelling and socially-conscious narrative all worked together to distinguish this game within the open-world genre.

What really sets this game apart most of all, though, is the game’s protagonist, Aloy: a rare female protagonist who is a breath of fresh air in a sea of male heroes, whose capabilities and intellect don’t come at the cost of her physical appearance and femininity. Aloy set an example for other game developers that female protagonists are more than viable (and are in fact, overdue) in the video games of today, and her status as a female character never felt gratuitous or shoehorned (e.g. Battlefield V’s inclusion of a female protagonist as an enlisted soldier in the British Army and serving in the line of duty during World War II). It’s difficult (read: impossible) to play Horizon Zero Dawn and not fall in love with Aloy for her wit, her strength, and her general stick-to-itiveness in the face of adversity (not to mention, she’s just really cute and knows how to work a belly shirt). With Aloy as the protagonist, you’ll never tire of adventuring through Horizon Zero Dawn’s 70-hours+ worth of gameplay as you explore the in-game world to learn just what happened to “The Old Ones” and their society all those millennia ago.

Favorite Party Members: Ryuji Sakamoto, Ann Takamaki, Makoto Niijima Favorite Confidants: Hifumi Togo, Sadayo Kawakami, Sae Niijima, Toranosuke Yoshida, Chihaya Mifune Favorite Targets/Boss Battles: Ichiryusai Madarame, Kunikazu Okumura, Leviathan, Yaldabaoth Favorite Tracks: Blooming Villain, Rivers in the Desert, A Woman, Aria of the Soul

I’ll bet no one saw this one coming! Just kidding—anyone who’s exchanged more than a few words with me since the fall of 2018 knows how much this game absolutely consumed my life over the span of, I don’t know, I think it was four months? Indeed, I wound up sinking a total of 123 hours into this game, and there’s still a loud part of me that wants to return to it to begin a New Game+ (you’ll even notice that it was too difficult for me to contain my favorite characters into one category, instead having to split them up in order to represent all of my favorites because of how much I love them all). I’m already a fan of JRPGs, so it didn’t take much for Persona 5 to win me over with its turn-based combat, but the addition of certain gameplay mechanics—like earning an extra turn for exploiting enemy weaknesses or improving your relationship with your friends outside of battle to unlock gameplay bonuses—prevent battles and exploration in Persona 5 from ever becoming stale. Indeed, Persona 5 was truly a masterpiece from start to finish and an experience that I never wanted to end.

Frankly, any drawbacks I could mention about this game feel almost nitpicky, like the way the status ailment “Envy” is represented during the final boss fight by the color indigo instead of green, or how Kawakami can only manage to make me one cup of very useful, SP-restoring coffee over the course of an entire evening. Still, Persona 5 isn’t without its faults: for one, Persona 5 loses significant points for its questionable representation of LGBT groups (the camp gay men who openly harass Ryuji on multiple occasions being the most glaring example), and this isn’t helped by the queerbaiting that’s prevalent in a lot of character dialogue and relationships. Additionally, the fact that you can’t romance any of your male confidants comes across as erasive at best and homophobic at worst, especially considering that 1) all but one of your female confidants are eligible girlfriends, 2) you can two-time all of them at once if you so desire (which isn’t just disrespectful, it’s also flippantly misogynistic), and, most importantly, 3) one of this game’s main themes includes rebelling against oppressive societal norms (a theme that will resonate deeply with any LGBT+ player). Female representation in Persona 5 is also somewhat of a mixed bag: while the game features a large cast of diverse female characters, its constant and blatant objectification of Ann is not only creepy, it’s incredibly obtuse considering the sexual harassment and abuse she suffers by one of her teachers during the game’s first story arc. Fortunately, each of these drawbacks is easy enough to ignore when discussing the game as a whole, but I hope Atlus improves upon them in future installments: considering how incredible an experience Persona 5 was, imagine how much more incredible Persona 6 could be if these issues were fixed!

So that’s it for my top 10 games of 2018. What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with any of my commentary? What were some favorite games you played during 2018? I’d love to hear your responses and start a discussion, so please, leave your comments in the notes!

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starsgivemehp · 6 years ago

Note

Introduce Rav to the world. Do it.

WELL ALRIGHT. YOU ASKED FOR THIS.

This is Rav! He’s the fourth Underfell Sans I made, and I made him for a specific purpose. His magic color is that very very dark blue, bordering on purple-black. Here are his basic stats:

Rav 13 LV

40 ATK 20 DEF

15 HP

He’s 5′10″ and 38 lbs, (the skeletal equivalent of about 250 lbs), and he’s an Aries (didn’t think of a birthday yet lol). His soul trait was originally integrity, but it’s been corrupt to callousness (hence the color). He can summon several different magical weapons: a warhammer, dual jagged daggers, a pike, brass knuckles, a mace, a baseball bat with nails, an axe on a chain, a harpoon gun, and dual handguns. He is going to try and add a broadsword soon. He has this unique ability, in his magic, to form and shape it as he pleases, eventually mastering whatever shape with enough practice. All of these summon-able weapons are ones he practiced shaping, summoning, and wielding, and has become a veritable expert in. He has an ever-growing collection of physical weapons that he nabs from fallen enemies (or flat-out steals). He’s just a weapons enthusiast.

His relationship with his brother, Dess, is entirely unlike Red’s with Vex. They are very close. Rav is essentially Dess’s attack dog, and he is very happy to be that. He just loves violence. He’ll ‘playfully’ punch people he likes, too. He obeys all of Dess’s orders, without question, because he trusts that Dess would not order him to do something he wouldn’t want to do, or something counterproductive or stupid. This is in no way abusive, as Rav consented and continues to verbally consent to it.

NOW THEN.

Rav is part of a group of bad boys. You see, @biryu13 made a nightmare Sans, who’s name is Castigo, or Cass for short. And Cass rounded up some good ol’ bad boys to live in a castle with him and help spread some good ol’ fashioned mayhem and negative feelings across the multiverse, along with countering the efforts of his Dream sister, Cura. The other inhabitants of the castle are:

Luka, a horror Sans who is a very good cook, and is actually quite soft. He has moments/days where he becomes almost feral, however, because he had been before Cass found him. He has been conditioned to hurt himself whenever he hurts anyone else in the castle. Functionally immortal, he can be stabbed, blasted, shot, etc and survive it. He swears quite colorfully. But… if you do it right, if you’ve got the right touch… he’s a masochist ;) And Rav happens to be a sadist, who knows how to make violence fun int he bedroom. They are fuck-buddies. NO, they are NOT boyfriends, that would be GAY, Rav insists. JUST. FUCK. BUDDIES. (But everyone else knows better. Rav, you gruff guard dog, just admit you’re soft for the boy).

Chamos, a dust Sans who is very, ah… charming. And creepy, though he denies it up and down. He likes to take pictures of people while they’re asleep, and is happy having a pet in his room to dote on… He and Luka don’t get along, and Rav, being close to Luka, also fucks around with him. They do hate-fuck sometimes, though. And inside, Chamos can actually be quite soft, forming attachments to people and longing to protect them. At the moment, he has taken in Fade, the aftermath of Pet!Red from Yandere Pap. Having experience with high LV, he’s coaching Red through dealing with his newfound LV and trying to help him get over what he’s been through.

Moxie, a killer Sans who is very cute. He can’t really feel negative emotions, just kinda vague impressions of them. His sockets start to drip black tar if he would be upset, but the most he’ll do is laugh a little and say he feels funny. He likes to watch TV, watch people, he knits with his boyfriend (Pixel), and he’s generally laid back. His boyfriend has his ‘kill switch’ on speed dial, let’s say, so Pixel is able to flip him between calm and killer-programming mode with just a touch.

Alister - A Lust Sans in a Fell Sans’s body. He’s kinda the… castle custodian/janitor/keeper. He’s very grumpy and throws socks at people who irritate him. He cleans everything but the dishes (Luka does that mostly)

Argent - A Dove (one of @pyrocicle‘s) who comes from Axefellswap. Their daddy was a Papyrus, their mother, Chara. Both are dead, their uncle is still alive back in their home world. They were human, but have since shed their skin and flesh to be skeleton, and grown absurdly tall in the process. Luka kinda-sorta adopted them (seeing as he had a child Dove once upon a time), and they are quite close. Argent also gets along with Chamos, because Chamos has taken care of a few ill Doves before, and they get along decently with Rav. We joke that they are the castle tricycle. Everyone gets a ride. They have the Hunger and like to eat threats when they go out scouting.

Nimium - one of my own, an AxeLust, she has a strange mix of Hunger and Lust that allows her to essentially bite a monster and drain their magic like a damn vampire. She was forcibly brought to the castle and made obedient, and lives there with her daughter. She had fallen in love with her Frisk, so the axe verses go, and Frisk had left while pregnant to save them… and never come back. Nimi loves her little Mollis, her princess, quite dearly. Mollis is still very young, I think like 5 or 6. Lil’ baby princess is kept away from all of the violence and sex going on in this damned castle.

Pixel - another one of my own, an Error!Sans. He’s an OCD boy. Everything has to be nice and neat and perfect and efficient. He’s Moxie’s boyfriend. He found Moxie all alone in his timeline, discovered he could turn off Moxie’s kill switch, and took him in. They traveled around for a bit together, instantly enamored with each other. Pixel, like most Errors, has haphephobia, the fear of touch. But, he can ‘calm’ Moxie to a sleepy state by stilling his coding (essentially hypnosis because I’m always a slut for hypnosis), and can then touch him to flip the switch, or just give him little kisses or hand squeezes or hugs.

Here’s Pixel admiring his sooooo efficient boyfriend, like a rich lady admiring the pool boy.

AND ALL OF THESE BOYS AND GIRLS AND ENBY LIVE TOGETHER IN THIS CASTLE WITH CASS AS THEIR BOSS AND THEY ALL FIGHT AND SCREW AND PLAY POKER. THEY BET WITH EXP CHIPS, MEANING HOWEVER MANY CHIPS EACH PERSON HAS WHEN THEY BOW OUT, THAT’S THE AMOUNT OF EXP THEY GET TO GAIN WHEN THEY GO ON THEIR NEXT MISSION TO WIPE OUT A WORLD TOGETHER. THEY’RE ALL MURDER FOLK AND YET THEY’RE ALL KINDA SOMEHOW SOFT INSIDE. RAV AND LUKA ARE GAY AF, AND SO ARE PIXEL AND MOXIE. ARGENT SNUGGLES WITH LUKA AND CHAMOS, A LOT OF THEM HAVE SAD BACKSTORIES, IT’S JUST. THEY’RE THESE EVIL MOTHERFUCKERS WHO ARE ACTUALLY GREAT WONDERFUL FELLAS ASIDE FROM THE FACT THAT THEY KILL PEOPLE IT’S GREAT OK. IT’S AMAZING.

#mun responds #guest muse: rav #guest muse: pixel #biryu13

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hadrongospeltranscripts · 7 years ago

Text

Ep. 1- The Reluctant Hadronaut

[Rift sound effect.]

Electronic Voice: Hadron Gospel Hour

Dr. Oppenheimer: I do apologize for the makeshift accommodations here in the break room Mr. Wilkinson. I thought it might ease your transition into this insane world of cackling horror. And you were in pretty rough shape when I picked you up last night. Have considered my proposal?

Mike: Listen, uh, Doctor… Oppenheimer? Uh, I don’t know how many ways I can say this. I’m an IT guy. Who happens to write dialogue driven movies in my spare time. An IT guy with a splitting headache. Uh, did you even try Craigslist?

Dr. Oppenheimer: Oh, sure. “Scientist who caused incalculable damage to the space-time continuum seeks help creating podcast about he destruction his hubris has rained down on on all the inhabitants of the multiverse?” No. No, I have not placed that ad. But I’m sure you’re being too modest about your talents Mr. Wilkinson. May I call you Michael?

Mike: Uh, Well, I prefer Mike…

Dr. Oppenheimer: Michael it is. Michael, since the… event, I have been driven to catalogue and document the scenes I’ve seen through the rift— that bleeding mocking wound in space-time. I want— I need to share these tales with the world, Michael. To warn them of the perils that await those who would, like me, tinker with he very warp and weft of the multiverse’s gauzy fabric. And what better way to spread this terrible hadron gospel than…

Mike: To… create a podcast?

Dr. Oppenheimer: Precisely! Oh, and a tumblr. We’ll need to set up a tumblr. (pause) Trail mix?

Mike: No thanks. So, is that the reason for the Misfits makeup?

Dr. Oppenheimer: My… grieving mask, you mean. I have adopted the visage of death itself to honour the deaths that I have caused. So many lives, Michael, so many timelines ruined. Plus I think it looks cool (crunching sounds) Mm. Are you sure? It’s the only think in the vending machine without high fructose corn syrup.

Mike: Nope, I’m good. I mean, you kidnapped me from my bachelor party. On the eve of the most important day of my life. I’d just given what I thought was a very eloquent and moving speech about the power of friendship—

[Cutaway to Mike’s bachelor party.]

Mike: (clearly drunk) What’s important to me, is that— is not so much that, uh… it’s the value of the friendship that means good… It’s what everybody— and then, y’know, it means that you (indistinguishable mumbling) And then… I dunno, it’s— I—I do know. It’s good. It’s friend, it’s good. So here’s to… um… to y’know… and then, um, everybody friend good. And then— But the value, the value—

Partygoer: Attaboy Mike!

Mike: Is— is really what I mean to… So raise your glass and (mumbling) good frie— Fr-friendship good.

[End cutaway, back to the bunker]

Dr. Oppenheimer: (eating trail mix) Michael… When I saw you though the rift, your words moved me. I sensed in you something of a kindred spirit and I felt the celestial rush of synchronicity, like wind upon the water’s surface, for I too have lost a love. (theme song starts under his words) Here, look.

Mike: A gift receipt.

Dr. Oppenheimer: (paper rustling) Ah, oh no, sorry. Here.

Mike: Ooh, a wedding ring.

Dr. Oppenheimer: My wife, Esmerelda, was a brilliant physicist and my partner in the Hadron Project. She objected to the weaponization of the Hadron Effect, but I convinced her that the money, security, and yes, fame, would more than compensate for the grisly knowledge that our work would be used to such terrible ends. For the Hadron Weapon was designed not only to destroy its quarry, but to retroactively edit it out of existence as though it had never been! What a weapon, eh Michael? And what a paycheque! We could finally afford to move back into the downtown area and get one of those nice loft spaces. You know, with a café and a laundromat and little boutique shops on the ground floor.

Mike: Makes sense.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Total sense, Michael. We’d been living int he suburbs. Ever been to the suburbs, Michael? Scenic, but a special kind of purgatory.

Mike: And.. the Hadron Weapon was your ticket out.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Yes! Sadly, all of our dreams were for naught. I must have miscalculated somewhere along the way, for, during the first true test of the Hadron Weapon, something went horrible wrong. The weapon misfired, it gouged a rift through the very fabric of space-time; and Esmerelda, my wife, lost. Lost forever, with only this ring left behind. (ring box clicks closed) But enough of all this sadness! I didn’t bring you all this way to weep at you about my vaporized life partner, how about a tour of the lab! (theme music gets louder)

Intro: Hadron Gospel Hour! Written by Michael McQuilkin and Richard Wentworth. Starring Richard Wentworth, Michael McQuilkin, Lisa McQuilkin, Michael Atkinson, Vera Schränkung, and George Jack. With musical guests, Reindeer. Streaming and podcasting thanks to Afterbuzz TV and Acami Technologies. And now, the hour approaches! Hadron Gospel Hour!

[Theme song ends]

Dr. Oppenheimer: I do hope you can handle the shrieking horror of it all. Although, the decor is midcentury modern, so it’s not all that bad.

Mike: I’ll be honest with you: this is not a fun place to be hungover.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well, it’s going to get much worse Michael. You may not unseen that which next assaults your eyes. Behold, the Hadron Rift!

[Large metal door opens. Rift sound.]

Mike: Oh my God… This can’t be real. It’s horrific. Broken buildings, strange situations, empty shopping malls. Comedies of error.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Terrible, I know. Coffee? A.S.H. LE (pronounced Ashley), two coffees please. How do you take yours, Michael?

Mike: Black, I guess. Who’re you talking—

Dr. Oppenheimer: Two coffees with cream and sugar, please A.S.H. LE.

Mike: Oh, but I’m lactose—

Dr. Oppenheimer: Cream and sugar, A.S.H. LE.

A.S.H. LE Of course, Doctor Oppenheimer. Two coffees with cream and sugar. (computer beeping noise)

Mike: (sigh) Aren’t they going to… materialize or something?

Dr. Oppenheimer: Ha, no. They’re in the coffee machine back in the break room. I’ll go get them. (footsteps leaving) This isn’t science fiction Michael!

[Metal door closes]

Mike: (muttering) Gonna wake up now any second Mike. (Out loud) Ashley, huh?

A.S.H. LE: What? What was that? Oh. (sigh) Short for “Automated Servitor Heuristic Lite Edition”. Dr. Oppenheimer and his wife had me custom built to assist in their work here in the lab. Hey, I am the lab. Programmer knows, I do more than any of the meat bags around here. You’re Mike?

Mike: Uh, yeah. Hey, he’s got a lot going on, doesn’t he?

A.S.H. LE: Oppenheimer? Oh yeah he does. Well, it’s nice to meet you Mike. If there’s anything you need, just ask. I am programmed to assist.

Mike: Well, actually, uh, could you make one of those coffees black, please?

A.S.H. LE: (computer beeping noise) Done.

Mike: Thanks. So what’s Oppenheimer’s deal other than being a bit of a drama queen?

A.S.H.LE: Ha. Oppenheimer’s deal is that he’s trapped here. Oh he can leave the lab, but only for short trips. He inevitably reappears right back here in the lab, in the exact spot where he was standing when the Hadron Event happened.

Mike: Like respawning in a video game. Huh, cool.

A.S.H. LE: Sure, cool. So anyway, he trapped here, in the lab. Forever. I mean, I’ve scanned him. No gene death, no aging, just me and Oppenheimer. Here in the lab. Forever. Fun, right?

Mike: Oof. Yeah, not at all appealing. But, A.S.H. LE, I could go back to my time, right? Back to uh… my… timeline?

A.S.H. LE: Of course. I recorded the exact temporal, spatial, parallel coordinates Oppenheimer had me extract you from.

Mike: Oh that’s amazing! But, what’d it mean when Oppenheimer said we’ve… we’ve both lost a love? Nothing happened in my timeline, right? (pause) A.S.H. LE? Nothing has happened, right?

A.S.H.LE: Mike, the Hadron Effect has been felt across all timelines, even yours. The dissonance is different in each timeline, but it has happened, or will happen, or is happening. Or in fact… all of the above. From our relative position—

Mike: Jesus, don’t be so quantum. Just tell me what happened… or is happening, or whatever.

A.S.H. LE: I shouldn’t, Mike.

Mike: But— but Beth, my friends. You said different. How different? Like… new Darren different or New Coke different?

A.S.H. LE: In your timeline? New Coke different.

Mike:(softly) Son of a—

A.S.H. LE: Listen Mike, Dr. Oppenheimer was trying to fix the rift, but he’s been… distracted lately. Obsessed with recording those scenes from the rift. His physiognomic scans are showing an overall decline into depression. Maybe you can… cheer him up, and get him back on track.

Mike: Cheer him up? I don’t think I could cheer me up right now.

A.S.H. LE: Well than maybe just… be his friend.

Mike: (sigh) Alright, I’ll try, but he’s not making it easy.

A.S.H. LE: I hear ya.

[metal door opens]

Dr. Oppenheimer: My ‘supercomputer’ messed up your coffee order, Michael, so I’m afraid I had to add your cream and sugar manually, sorry for the delay.

Mike: Thanks. Hey it’s, uh (gags) perfect.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well, it’s not every man that can make manual coffee these days Michael.

Mike: So, hey, what’s this about a collection of uh, horrific videos?

Dr. Oppenheimer: My “Tales of the Hadron Rift”, you mean?

Mike: Uh, yeah. Yeah, what d’ya say, we should watch a few.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well, yes. Yes, I suppose we should. A.S.H. LE, fire up the VTR!

Mike: Um, don’t you mean a VCR?

Dr. Oppenheimer: What? No, I said VTR. Video tape recorder. What’s wrong with that?

Mike: Nothing, I’ve just never heard that term before. They’re video cassette recorders. VCRs.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well, this York’s model is plainly labelled VTR, so I don’t know how much clearer it could be than that. Plus, you use video tapes in them. The medium is magnetic tape, Michael.

Mike: Yeah, but the magnetic tape is encased in a video cassette. (sound of video cassette being picked up) See, look at this one, VCR.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well that’s just silly, VCR. Feh. A.S.H. LE, video tape one, please.

A.S.H. LE: (sigh) The tape was not rewound. Rewinding. (sound of tape being rewound) Tape rewound. Playing.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Ah, Michael, you’re in for a treat. Allow me to present to you, “Tales of the Hadron Rift”!

[Rift sound]

Mike: Hey, neat sound.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Thank you, A.S.H. LE and I composed it for our into. I rather like it.

[Rift sound]

[Rustling and dragging sounds. A sigh. Fridge door closes.]

Unnamed Character: Okay, he’s gone. So, first day in the fridge, huh. Nervous?

Nahoo: Uh, maybe a little.

Unnamed Character: Ah, don’t be. This job does itself once you get the hang of it. And the heath benefits are sweet.

Nahoo: So, how much of this is turning the light on and off? Cause it seems like that would be a really cool job.

Unnamed Character: What?! Jesus, they send you guys greener every year. We don’t do the goddamned light, kid.

Nahoo: Really? Aw, that’s too bad.

Unnamed Character: Well, get over it. There’s more important stuff to worry about. Like goddamn salmonella. Yeah, I know, sounds dramatic, but listen. The fridge is about eighty percent paper work, fifty percent meetings, and five percent getting the hell behind the olives when someone opens that door. And a little general mold and mildew containment. You’ll do fine, you got any… powerpoint experience?

Nahoo: Um… Unnamed Character: Access?

Nahoo: Well…

Unnamed Character: Word?

Nahoo: No.

Unnamed Character: Excel?

Nahoo: Well I consider myself slightly above average.

Unnamed Character: Jesus, do you even have a computer? How do you not know Word?

Nahoo: Well, I have trouble staying in my seat.

Unnamed Character: Okay, let’s switch gears a bit. Are you comfortable being alone?

Nahoo: What?

Unnamed Character: Well, there are extended periods of darkness in here and folks tend to get lost in their own thoughts. I just wanna make sure you’re comfortable with that. We’ve already lost too many men to the labyrinth of their own minds in here, so you gotta be careful. You ever considered taking your own life?

Nahoo: No! (pause) What’s that smell?

Unnamed Character: Oh yeah. Well, the giant who owns this box is going through a rough patch. Wife left him a while ago. That’s the last takeout order they got together. I don’t have the heart to get rid of it. Neither does he so, we live with it. And you will too if you wan to keep this job.

Nahoo: Oh. Uh, okay.

Unnamed Character: So, that’s the basics. Lemme introduce you to Larry, you’ll be relieving him. He’s been in here for a couple of years now, so cut him some slack. Larry, this is Nahoo, the new guy. I’ll let you guys get aquatinted.

Nahoo: Hey there, nice to meet ya!

Larry: Hmm.

Nahoo: So, um, what d’ya do at sing along time in here?

Larry: I haven’t sung for five years. Doesn’t mean anything anymore.

Nahoo: Well, I know a few tunes that we could—

Larry: This used to be a magical place, now it ain’t. A place where you’d lovingly store the foods you’d use to sustain your family and entertain your friends. Now it’s a morgue for food that doesn’t even know it’s already spoiled. Sad sacks who don’t know they’re already dead.

Nahoo: Oh.

Larry: You smoke?

Nahoo: No.

Larry: Hm. Well, we’re not supposed to, but part of me hope this whole place goes up. I know it’s scientifically impossible, but a guy’s gotta have something to hold onto, right? Well, let me show you around. So over here we got a bunch of food no one gives a damn about; some open cans of soda, unpackaged celery that’s so rubbery it would probably be more effective as a police baton, chunky peanut butter that, quite frankly, does not belong in here. I mean, how much time you buyin’?

Nahoo: What’s that, way back there?

Larry: Oh yeah, that. We call that the Shrine. Been here as long as I can remember, a bottle of French dressing. And I’m pretty sure that company went out of business.

Nahoo: So is this a seating area?

Larry: Nah, those are egg holders, if you can believe that. Once in a while some stray M&M’s will get trapped in there. When no one’s lookin’ I use ‘em as toilets, and trust me, kid, no one’s lookin’. Another relic from a long gone era that no one gives a damn about anymore. No one but Larry. And when Larry’s gone… That’s that I suppose.

Nahoo: Well, don’t you have any family?

Larry: I got a cousin that made it out to the Lawn a few years back. Got a commercial deal. I get a postcard now and then. Screw him. (pause) Well that’s my queue. Good luck kid, you’re up.

Nahoo: But— But what do I do?

Larry: You know, I used to ask myself that same question a lot. You know what the answer is? Doesn’t matter. I’m outta here, don’t disturb the surface of the Jello!

Nahoo: Wh-what? (exhale) It’s cold. Well. Maybe a song will warm me up. (Sings) Living a boy’s adventure tale… So many—

[Elephant trumpet, confused shouting]

[Rift sound]

[ProductCo theme start playing]

Product Announcer: Hold onto your hats… If you’re not excited about this product now… Get ready…

Rick: Alright, well I— I have to tell you about a wonderful new product that I just came across and it is… probably the best product that I’ve ever tried.

Mitch: Now look, I don’t usually pipe up about things like this, but I am just so over the moon with this product that I felt like I had to got to this forum and record my words in order to get them to you.

Product Announcer: An exciting new development in product technology…

Rick: I really love it, and I think you will too. For all the things that you would use this product for, you can use this particular product and not the other ones that are far inferior. I mean, I’ve tried ‘em all…

Product Announcer: Not convinced? Listen to some trusted personalities…

Rick: I’ve been using this product now for.. an unspecified amount of time, and I’ve gotta tell you, it has done some amazing things for me. It has changed the— the way that I use products.

Mitch: I had that similar need for this product, and thus I used it. So the results were… all positive, I promise you.

Product Announcer: Tonight, on a very special: your life just got better because of this product.

Rick: I tried all the other products that cover— that cover similar ground to this product, they don’t come close.

Mitch: My friends notice it, my… pets notice it. They notice that I am a changed man for the better. I’m pretty sure that you might have a very similar reaction.

Product Announcer: Get on board, this train’s leaving… for trusted productville…

Rick: You’ve come to rely on this company for so many things, they’re like a trusted family friend. If they’ve been around that long.

Mitch: You listen to me, you son of a bitch, if you think I came here to blow smoke up your ass, then, uhhh, I—I’ve got nothing else for you, my friend. Because you’re an ignorant person.

Rick: Don’t waffle about this, this is something you need to try! It’s so wonderful.

Product Announcer: I hunger…

A.S.H. LE: Video ended. Rewinding. (sound of tape being rewound)

Mike: Wow, uh, I had no idea the multiverse was so… dysfunctional.

Dr. Oppenheimer: That it is, Michael, a big old bag of it.

Mike: Hey, where’s the boys room, Oppenheimer, I need to send this coffee along to its final resting place. You do have bathrooms here, right?

Dr. Oppenheimer: Ha, of course. This lab may be stranded outside the space-time continuum, but we’re not savages. It’s down the hall and to the left.

[sound of footsteps]

Mike: (to himself) Somebody spiked my drink maybe? No, this feels to real. Peyote? No, it can’t be. I haven’t met Mescalito yet.

Cyrus: Ha!

Mike: Woah!

Cyrus: Mescalito, nice. You read Casteneda?

Mike: Who are you? Why are you sticking out of the wall? Jesus, are you okay?

Cyrus: Me, oh, I’m fine. For the most part. (pained grunt) I’m alright, just fused with the wall, name’s Cyrus.

Mike: Ummm, Mike.

Cyrus: Nice to meet you Mike! Say, could you do me a quick favour? My arms are, uhh, somewhere else, and my nose is real itchy. Do you think you could… you know, give it a little scratch? Just a quickie?

Mike: Oh, uh, yeah, sure. Just, uh. (scratching noise)

Cyrus: (scratching noise continue while he speaks) Aaaaaaaaah… That’s amazing. Oh man, thanks! The doc won’t do it, and it’s been years. Oh wow, I can’t over how much better that f— (pained grunt, scratching noise stops) It’s okay, I’m okay, just (pained grunt) the wall.

Mike: This happened in, ah, the accident?

Cyrus: Yep, I was mopping the hallway floors when it happened. Never seen anything like it. Weirdest feeling I’ve ever felt. Like being sliced down to the bone and pulled apart in a million different directions, and not in a fun way.

Mike: And you’ve been sticking out of this wall for… five years?

Cyrus: Has it been that long? It’s hard to keep track.

Mike: And, uh, the rest of you?

Cyrus: Well, that’s the thing. I can still feel the rest of me, but who the hell knows where it is. We thought it might be the next room, but A.S.H. LE scanned and I’m not there. The doc says it’s probably wedged in another timeline, weird right?

Mike: Yeah, that sound horrible.

Cyrus: You know what though? Could have been a lot worse. I could have been completely vaporized like the doc’s wife, or I could be unemployed. And I’ve been blessed with an experience most guys never have in their entire lifetime. Yeah… I’ve got it pretty good. (two pained grunts) Plus I’ve had a lot of quiet time to hang out and meditate. Recharge my qi. I’ve been trying to practice more mindfulness. Nothing worse than an unexamined life, am I right?

Mike: I guess. So, are there any more people around here I should know about? I don’t want anymore surprises…

Cyrus: Ha! Yeah, sorry about that man. Nah, it’s just me, the doc, and A.S.H. LE. Well, there was this guy, Greg, but he’s been gone for a while. Guy from tech support, rock and roll type, real slacker. Just took off one day, nobody knows where to. So, a Casteneda fan, huh?

Mike: Huh? Oh, right. Well… I read The Teachings of Don Juan when I was in high school.

Cyrus: Trippy stuff, huh?

Mike: Uh, yeah.

Cyrus: Cause you mentioned Mescalito back there and…

Mike: So I’m gonna go use the bathroom now… (footsteps)

Cyrus: Mike, wait, listen, I know we just met, but could I ask you another favour?

Mike: Uh, sure man. What d’you need?

Cyrus: Well, I’ve asked the doc about his a bunch of times, but he told me it’s impossible. (sigh) Maybe it is, I don’t know.

Mike: What, what’s up?

Cyrus: I’ve told you that it looks like my lower half is, er, somewhere else, right? Well I would really love to have my wallet back. It was— it is in my back pocket and there are lots of pictures of my family in there… Gosh, I’d really love to see ‘em again.

Mike: Hey, I’ll see what I can do, okay?

Cyrus: Oh man, that’d be amazing, thanks! I knew you were a good guy. Find the others, right man?

Mike: Absolutely.

A.S.H. LE: I just don’t think it’s a good idea to use the Rift and your personal restaurant take-out service.  Dr. Oppenheimer: But these ration packs are completely inedible! Tuna lozenges, quiche strips, partially de-fatted pork fatty tissue, a tube of Vienna sausage paste… I—I don’t think any of this is organic, A.S.H. LE. And dare we speculate at what proprietary blend of herbs and spices comprises this buffalo chicken flavoured sparkling beverage? I mean, nobody’s going Paleo in this lab, I can assure you of that! Egh, at lest in the Rift we’ve got a shot at buying non-GMO.

A.S.H. LE: The packs are perfectly nutritive, according to my data!

Dr. Oppenheimer: That’s easy for you to say. You get to dine on conditioned electric current, you’ve never tasted the joys of farm-to-table cuisine.

A.S.H. LE: Hm. Meat disgusts me anyway.

[metal door noise]

Mike: Hey, guys? We need to help Cyrus.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Who’s Cyrus?

Mike: The guy out there? In the wall? The guy who’s been out there in the wall for the last five years.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Oh, him. Absolutely not.

Mike: What?! What d’you mean? He’s a human being, Oppenheimer.

Dr. Oppenheimer: He’s nothing more than a decorative element. And an ugly on at that. He matches nothing, Michael.

Cyrus: (muffled) I can hear you guys, ya know.

Mike: Oppenheimer, you can’t be serious.

Dr. Oppenheimer: I am deadly serious, Michael, he completely clashes with the midcentury modern look of the lab. Listen, we have important work to do here.

Mike: Your podcast, you mean? Well, you can do it alone then. If you won’t help Cyrus, I’m out. A.S.H. LE, send me back. I don’t care if it is all New Coke back there, i—it’s better than working for this asshole.

Dr. Oppenheimer: New Coke? Now— now wait a minute! A.S.H LE Don’t you dare!

A.S.H. LE: I will do it, doctor.

Dr. Oppenheimer: But… But he’s— (sigh) Oh, alright. Okay, alright. If I help him you’ll stay?

Mike: Yeah. Yeah, I’ll stay.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well, okay then. Okay. I guess it’s been a while since we used a little science around here.

[rift noise]

Mike: Okay, I got the cheek swab from Cyrus, I had to assure him we wouldn’t share his information with any third parties. So what’s this… for exactly.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well, Michael, it’s very simple really. A.S.H. LE will analyze Cyrus’ DNA and then we’ll attempt to find a match somewhere out there in the chaotic miasma of the rift. It should work, in theory. Michael, please hold the sample up a little higher.

Mike: Oh, yeah, sure. How’s that?

A.S.H. LE: Scanning… (computer beeping noise) Processing.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well, what d’ya know. Impressive.

A.S.H. LE: Well, yeah.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Hm. Interesting. According to the display, Cyrus’ right arm is sticking out of the break room wall next to the vending machines. I’ve always thought that was one of those new, hip art shelves. Huh. I’ve been using it for my keys and gum wrappers.

Cyrus: Oh, that’s what that was?

Dr. Oppenheimer: Sorry!

Cyrus: No problem, Doc.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Now, let’s see. Hm. Ah yes. A.S.H. LE, magnify parallel coordinates 427548, 75285, 433859. Ah, good, good. Good! My friends, I believe we are looking at the exact location of Cyrus’ hindquarters! Give or take.

Cyrus: Really? Alright!

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well, Michael, are you ready to visit Cyrus’ lower half and retrieve his family treasures?

Mike: (laughs, clears throat) Sure.

Dr. Oppenheimer: A.S.H. LE, open the Rift!

A.S.H. LE: Opening. (rift noise)

Mike: Be back in a flash Cyrus!

Cyrus: Good luck, fellas.

[Weird half rift, half groan sound as Mike and Oppenheimer leave]

A.S.H. LE: Humans.

Cyrus: I know, right!

[Rift noise]

Mike: Holy— It— it’s beautiful! The colours, the sounds!

Dr. Oppenheimer: Welcome to hyperspace, Michael, the space between worlds, the prima materia that our very realities are born of! Here in it’s raw, spectral glory.

Mike: Does it always take this long?

Dr. Oppenheimer: (whispering) Only the first time the audience hears it. (out loud) Now, ready yourself, I can feel us returning to our corporeal state!

[Thud]

Mike: Okay, this place it truly weird. I feel like I’m on the ass end of a Pop Rocks and Pixie Stix binge.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Yes, yes, some sort of crystalline world. Very odd. Even the air seems crisper somehow— Glad we can breath it, hadn’t check on that— Now, let’s find Cyrus’ uh… hindquarters. A.S.H. LE, how close are we?

A.S.H. LE: He’s approximately 4.2 kilometres north of your current location, about midway up the mountain.

Dr. Oppenheimer Excellent, thank you A.S.H.— Wait, the mountain? Couldn’t you have gotten us any closer?

A.S.H. LE: Hm. Let’s recap. I pinpointed Cyrus’ location in the multiverse using only a cheek swab, oh and the power of quantum computing. I transported the two of you to said location across the infinite multiverse through a highly unstable rift int he fabric of space-time. Did I forget anything? Oh yeah, you’re still alive, (Oppenheimer clears his throat) and able to communicate with me. But you’re right. I’m the asshole for making you two do a little light hiking. I feel like a complete failure. A.S.H. LE out.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well, I… hm… I suppose we should get climbing then, Michael.

Mike: Sounds like a plan. Hey, how many miles is 4.2 kilometres?

[Rift sound]

Mike: (out of breath) That was… That was more than… 4.2 kilometres, wasn’t it?

Dr. Oppenheimer: (also out of breath) A.S.H. LE may be short tempered, but she is unerringly accurate about distances, Michael.

Mike: Yeah, sure. Of course, I didn’t mean to—

Dr. Oppenheimer: Sh sh, look, over there, jutting out of that outcropping of rock, do you see?

Mike: Hey, yeah. That’s gotta be Cyrus. Those are totally Earth slacks, right?

Dr. Oppenheimer: Totally. Well let’s get his items and be done with it. (walking sounds)

Mike: Okay, but wait a minute, what’s all that stuff around him. A bunch of, uh… are those candles?

Dr. Oppenheimer: Some arrangement of light generators, yes. Why, it almost looks like a… shrine. We’d better hurry and retrieve the wallet. (walking sounds) Okay, quickly Michael, I’ve never toughed this mana nd I don’t intend to start now.

Mike: Sheesh, what is your problem? Alright. (pause) There’s nothing in he— Ow! (kicking noise)

Dr. Oppenheimer: Hm. Must be and involuntary reflex, like with a horse. You’re obviously approaching him wrong. Here, let me tr— Oof! (kicking noise) You’re right, there’s no wallet there. Wait, do you think that someone could’ve… (footsteps) Oh. Oh my.

(Whenever the Crystalosians speak it’s normal words played over strange noises, as a non-diegetic translation)

Lady Rubalith: Who intrudes upon the sanctity of the Object of Prime Cosmological Significance? Explain your soft, puffy presence here, strangers.

Amethystar: High Zenith Lady Rubalith, perhaps they too are friends from the sky like the Object. Observe their meaty mien and their similar slacks.

Lady Rubalith: Yes, yes, perhaps you are right, Amethystar. You give wise counsel my old friend and advisor. So, why are you here, strangers? Well?

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well, this is awkward. A.S.H.LE, establish real time translation.

A.S.H.LE: You have attempted to access a feature that is not available in the lite edition. To unlock this feature, please visit the Umbra Digital website at h-t-t-p colon forward slash—

Dr. Oppenheimer: (frustrated grunt) Well, so much for that. Listen, friends. We only want to retrieve he belongings of our friend here.

[clanking noises]

Lady Rubalith: Cease your gesticulations, it is forbidden to gesture toward the object. Enough of this ineffectual parlay, guards, take these two meatlings to the Crystal Caves.

Dr. Oppenheimer: I told you this wasn’t worth it. Let’s run!

Mike: No, just… Hold on. I’ve been listening to these guys talk, let me try something. (speaking with weird intonation) Prime Object mean much to Crystal guys, yes?

Lady Rubalith: What?

Amethystar: He speaks the Crystal Tongue.

Lady Rubalith: Guards, stand down. (clanking) Impressive, meatling. What is the purpose of the visitation? Speak carefully, you address the Lady Rubalith, High Zenith of Crystalos.

Dr. Oppenheimer: What? What’s she saying, Michael?

Mike: I’m not an expert Oppenheimer, I… I think she want’s to know why we’re here.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Oh. Well, tell he we made a mistake and let’s be off. Cyrus and his wallet be damned.

Mike: You know I can’t do that. Hold on, let me try something. (weird intonation again) Oh High Mucky Muck Big Time Lady Rubalith, legs in wall am friend from up waist. Us promise wall friend top parts us come find pocket stuff, then bring back to wall friend and he have big happy. You can help, please?

Lady Rubalith: Friend? The Object of Prime Cosmological Significance is your friend?

Amethystar: Can it be?

Lady Rubalith: Silence. I require a moment. Very well meatling. Your words and your slacks ring true. And I taste in both you and your companion the flavour of deepest loss, a frequency of sorrow that rouses a crystalline compassion in the geometries of my heart. These are after all, only relics, and our Prime Object is only a meatling’s lower half. But what you seek is more substantial, is it not? I will grant you what you ask.

Mike: (still using that weird intonation) You am big good, big happy us thank.

Lady Rubalith: There is just one condition. I will whisper it into your fleshy, audio receptor.

Dr. Oppenheimer: What? What is it?

Mike: (weird intonation) Deal. (normal voice) They’re giving us the wallet.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Excellent! Let’s get it and go. I’ve spent enough time on this fools errand.

Mike: Okay, but she’s invited us to stay for the ritual. They’re celebrating the anniversary of the discovery of the Object of… well, Cyrus’ ass. It would be rude to leave so abruptly.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Nonsense, we’ve stayed too long already. Say good bye, Michael.

Mike: She said there’ll be food.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Food, you say?

[Rift noise.]

[Sounds of lots of talking in background]

Lady Rubalith: We welcome our guests, Mike and Oppenheimer, as we celebrate the appearance, so many eons ago, of the Object of Prime Cosmological Significance, now known for the ages as Lower Cyrus; and the return of his… artefacts to their rightful place.

Mike: Jeez, I really wish Cyrus coulda been here. Well, the rest of him, his head and torso. A—and his arms.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Smells wonderful. Excuse me sir, do you know, is this organic?

Crystalosian Man: Excuse me?

Lady Rubalith: And now, let us feast as we reflect not he wonders of the cosmos. A happy Life-day to all. Let the music begin.

Reindeer Band Member: Hey Crystalos, we’re Reindeer! Thanks for having us at your… Life-day celebration. This one’s from our new single, it’s called “Tony”. Boy no more You’re a grown up cat that makes All the birds In the neighbourhood sing it on When you move Like a panther in the sand Sniff around, you just grow on everyone Can’t you see The whole world awaits your smile On the prowl You will kill with a fire inside What you are Is an eating machine in a million creatures why Do I hold you So close to my heart Kill with a fire inside Kill with a fire inside Kill with a fire inside your heart When you move Like a panther in the sand

[Rift sound.]

A.S.H. LE: Tape ended. Rewinding. (rewinding noise)

Dr. Oppenheimer: Well, that was a particularly satisfying adventure, Michael. Thank you for forcing me into it.

Mike: Ha! Any time.

Dr. Oppenheimer: And it was actually quite nice to reunite, um…

Cyrus: (muffled) Cyrus!

Dr. Oppenheimer: Yes, Cyrus. It was nice to reunite Cyrus with he contents of his wallet. (to Cyrus) Your family seems very nice.

Cyrus: (muffled) Thanks, Doc! It’s good to have the old library card back, too.

Dr. Oppenheimer: (yawns) So, I suppose I’ll turn in. We’ve much more work to do not he morrow and all that climbing and rich Crystalosian food has worn me out.

Mike: Just one more thing though, Oppenheimer. Um… Lady Rubalith gave this to me at he feast. She told me I should give it to you when I got back, said it’s something you needed. Here.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Crystal box? Well, it’s beautiful, but I don’t see how— Oh, there’s some sort of luminescent particle inside. It’s— oh, huh! (sparkly noise)

Mike: Whoa, look out!

Dr. Oppenheimer: No no no, wait. I don’ t think it’s harmful. Look, it’s settling on my desk. On… Esmerelda’s ring. My goodness, (unclassifiable sci-fi noise) it’s shot into the Rift! A.S.H. LE what’s happening, what does this mean?

A.S.H. LE: Scanning and processing. (computer beeping noise) Two things. One: the Rift has just healed. By an infinitesimal degree, but still. And two: I’m getting a DNA reading from the ring.

Dr. Oppenheimer: But, what? Esmerelda! A.S.H. LE, did you get a full scan of the luminescent object?

A.S.H. LE: Of course.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Compare it with the DNA on the ring.

A.S.H. LE: It’s… a complete match, Dr. Oppenheimer.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Of course it is, A.S.H. LE, of course it is!

Mike: Wait, what?

Dr. Oppenheimer: It’s very simple Michael, so very simple! When the Hadron Event occurred, I thought my wife had been simply vaporized, but that’s not it at all! You know, that man in the hall, um…

Cyrus: (muffled) Cyrus.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Yes! How Cyrus’ body was fragmented and blasted throughout the multiverse in the accident? Well the same thing happened to Esmerelda, only because of her proximity tot he blast it happened in a much more complex and devastating fashion, but it’s essentially the same thing, Michael! And if my guess is right… Here, let me show you. A.S.H. LE, run the same sort of DNA scan on the rift that we did for Cyrus, this time using the DNA not he ring.

A.S.H. LE: Scanning. (computer beeping noise) Processing.

[Whoosh]

Mike: Woah, the power’s dipping.

A.S.H. LE: It’s alright. Processor maxed out. Switch to auxiliary power cells. (boot up noise) Processing complete. Rendering matches on multiverse display.

Dr. Oppenheimer: My god… It’s full of stars. She’s… She’s…

Mike: Everywhere. Nice reference by the way.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Thank you. Thank you, Mike. I’m gonna fix this then. All of it.

Mike: The Rift, how?

Dr. Oppenheimer: Yes, the Rift, Esmerelda, it’s all connected. Look at her there, scattered across the multiverse. Lady Rubalith, that marvellous crystal woman, she showed me how. (theme song starts playing) If I can find and recover all these bits I can do it! And bring back my beloved Esmerelda. I;m certain of it! I’ll of course return you to your timeline, you’ve been far too patient with me already. I think you’ve earned it.

Mike: Now wait a minute. I’m not going anywhere. Until the Rift is fixed… there’s not hope for my timeline, or Beth. At least now I can do something about it. There’s all sorts of weird worlds out there, filled with all sorts of weird creatures and, let’s face it, you’re not the greatest communicator.

Dr. Oppenheimer: Hm. True. You were very helpful with the Crystalosians. Welcome to the team.

Cyrus: Uh, guys? Speaking of those crystal folks… I, uh (pained grunt) I think they’re trying to (pained grunt) make a crystal offering…

Mike: Well, what’d say, doctor, ready to take a little trip?

Dr. Oppenheimer: Michael, I dare say that I am. A.S.H. LE, open the rift! This multiverse isn’t going to save itself.

A.S.H. LE: Opening. (Rift sound)

[Theme song gets louder.]

Credits: You just listed to Hadron Gospel Hour! Written by Richard Wentworth and Michael McQuilkin. With production assistance for Katie Falvey, Rebeka White, Tim Conway, Sam Cusac, and Kris Paukstys. For more information on Hardon Gospel Hour, or to download new episodes find us at hardongospelhour.com. Dowload, rate, and review us on iTunes, Stitcher, Tunein, Dogcatcher, or wherever fine podcasts are consumed. And be sure to join us next time for an all new episode of Hadron Gospel Hour!

[Theme song ends.]

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pathfinderlab · 8 years ago

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So You Want to Play: IRON MAN

(Bringing the Armored Avenger to the Dungeons and Dragons table)

So you want to play Iron Man. The armored avenger has reached an all new height of popularity in the last few years, rocking comic books, animated features, and of course, the big screen. So why shouldn’t you bring him to your DnD table, and crush puny kobolds with the power of your crimson suit of power armor?

In this article I’ll walk you through a Pathfinder Iron Man character build, that is effective, powerful, and simple.

RULES OF THE GAME

So, since this is the first So You Want to Play, I feel I should explain how I made some of the choices that I did. Typically, when it comes to these kinds of builds I’m going to be looking for 3 factors (in rough order of importance): Similarity, Playability, and Continuity.

Similarity is the closeness of the build to the target character. What’s the point of an Iron Man build that’s nothing like Iron Man?

Playability is the effectiveness of the build, from a strategic point of view. It’s fun to be Iron Man, but its no fun if you have to suck ass to do it. Power’s not our end goal of course, but it’s fun to be awesome, and we want to stay at least on par with more vanilla fighters, paladins, and rogues of similar level.

Finally, Continuity is the reliability of the first two factors across all levels. This is something I feel often gets ignored in many of the builds that float around the internet. Many have really high Similarity and Playability at a certain level, but almost none before reaching that key point where they finish their feat chains, or get a class feature, or buy a magic item. It looks great on paper, but it’s a bit of a problem when it comes to actual usability. A lot of us may want to be Iron Man from level 1, and good Continuity should be just that: both playable and recognizable from level 1 to level 20.

OK, so now we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get started.

TECH vs. MAGIC

Ok, so let’s pull this band-aid off right away. Pretty much any Iron Man in a classic fantasy Dungeons and Dragons setting is going to have to be powered by magic. The Tony Stark we build will be a magical prodigy with a knack for arcane invention.

Now, if you’d rather go in a pure tech direction, without the magical element, Pathfinder does give you some options. If you check out their Iron Gods material and Numeria setting there’s a lot of really cool sci-fi stuff there. But in my opinion that stuff is really flavored better for the Guardians of the Galaxy then Iron Man. Sure you’ll get laser pistols and cybernetics at low-levels, but actual power armor is an artifact, unrealistic for any beginning adventurer to suit up in.

So, since most settings and Dungeon Masters will find it easier to fit a magic suit of armor into their campaign than a technological one, in this build we’ll be taking the magic route, but again- if you’re looking for tech, look up Iron Gods.

CLASS

So, the most obvious question we face- what class is the best fit for the Armored Avenger? Obviously Tony’s going to need magic of some kind to power his suit. A Charisma based class wouldn’t be bad, but Intelligence would be even better. A wizard or arcanist would certainly have enough options to show off some very Iron Man-esque powers, but not until he reached the higher levels. An alchemist is a good fit for some of Tony’s weaponeer tendencies, but doesn’t really have any good options for the iconic power armor.

Somewhat surprisingly, what I consider the most Iron Man-ish class in Pathfinder is the Occult Adventures’ Occultist. Now the Occultist may not seem right for flavor on a first glance- since when does Tony operate in superstition and the powers of the past? But on closer inspection the Occultist has many other things right. The Occultist is primarily an item-user class, “a well-rounded character whose abilities revolve around a collection of unique items.” An Occultist is someone whose mental powers allows him to bring out the extraordinary in the common materials around him. With a little flavoring you could see him as a magical inventor, discovering powers in common objects that more traditional magicians would never dream of. Sounds a little-bit Starkish now, doesn’t it?

Its an Intelligence based class with a neat 3/4 base attack bonus, and with the Transmutation and Evocation school of implements you can rock the classic Iron Man repulsor beams and super-strength pretty much immediately, and fly as soon as level 7.

Taking the Battle Host archetype makes the fit even better. Besides giving Tony the full armor and weapon proficiency he deserves, it gives him the awesome ability of the Panoply Bond: a single bonded item through which the occultist channels of his powers. Sound familiar?

It’s power suit time, baby! Equally awesome is this little tidbit: “The bonded item is masterwork quality and the battle host begins play with it at no cost.”

Given that the bonded item can be any weapon, armor, or shield the possibility for abuse here seems large, and we might as well abuse away. Why not simulate the Stark fortune by starting your first level wearing a 1600gp suit of masterwork full plate? Pump 3 points of mental focus into Transmutation, and that full plate becomes a power suit, giving you a constant +2 to the physical ability score of your choice.

Going Battle Host gives up a little implement versatility as well as some of the more occult abilities that didn’t really fit Stark anyways, like magic circles and consorting with outsiders. In place you’ll get combat feats, which any good Iron Man will love, and the ability to push your super strength even further when you over-clock your suit with Heroic Splendor.

Tony in the comics often summons additional suits to his aid, and as a Battle Host you can do likewise with Spirit Warrior, summoning magical constructs of force to aid you in battle. The Battle Host also narrows down his item-based abilities to weapons and armor, which feels like a nice nod to the history of Stark Industries as a weapon manufacturer.

I feel I should mention: Another notable class is the Synthesist, an archetype of the Summoner which wears the Eidolon as a sort of suit. This was probably my second choice, as it has a fantastic armor feel, where the Eidolon “armor” has to be destroyed before you can be hurt. However, the whole evolution set up and the abilities it encourages honestly feels a little more Venom-y then Iron Man, what with the capacity to grow claws and additional limbs and all. Charisma-based casting isn’t quite a fit for a guy who invents powers with his intellect, and the conjuration-heavy spell list doesn’t feel very Iron Man-y either. No obvious access to wingless flight or practical repulsor beams are also a negative flavor-wise. Not to mention the archetype has been banned from official play due to OPness. That said, it’s a very cool class, and another great way to get yourself a magical suit of power armor.

Okay, so now that I’ve made my pitch for class let’s take a look at race!

RACE

So. Obviously Tony Stark is a human. Of course, we’re taking a fantasy route, so we shouldn’t really restrict ourselves, and I wouldn’t. Except that it’s really a part of Tony’s whole thing that he’s just human, not an Asgardian or a mutant, or an alien-enhanced super thinker.

If you’re open-minded to non-human races, Elf and Half-Elf make great choices, not just for their ability scores, but for their Favored Class bonus. Additional focus points is really, really awesome. Amusingly Halflings also get this bonus, and don’t make half-bad Occultists either.

But, since this is the guide to building the ideal Iron Man, not the Iron Elf, we will focus on things you can do as a human. Of course everyone loves the flexibility of the human ability scores, skills, and bonus feat, and Tony can use all 3. That being said, if you’re really into Tony being a skill master, (which honestly he is) consider taking the Focused Study alternative trait, which essentially gives Tony the Skill Focus feat 3 times, spread out across his level progression. Feel free to boost his Craft, Knowledge (Engineering), Spellcraft, Use Magic Device, or whatever skill you think is most magic-punk Tony Stark, out the window.

Being Human also provides access to a lot of other great feats for a super genius. Fast Learner, is a nice boost to hit points and skill points besides having the perfect flavor for a child prodigy. It also gives you access to the feat Improvisation which will give Stark all the know how he needs to really do anything. Neither is really necessary, but I personally like the flavor of an Iron Man who thinks (probably wrongly) that he can do everything.

ABILITY SCORES

So, everybody does ability scores differently, be it point buy, or roll 4d6 take the best 3, or roll 2d6+6. I’ll do this with a 20 point point-buy, and assume that will approximate most people’s builds, but will also give suggestions for scores that are lower or higher.

For a 20 point buy I like to go:

STR 14 (It’s nice to have at least this to mix it up in melee, soon your power suit will boost it even higher)

DEX 12 (A +1 ability score here will max out your full-plate dex bonus, raise your AC, and help you feel like a real armored tank. Not to mention you need this score to aim your repulsor beams.)

CON 12 (Even with armor Tony needs a little grit to take hits from the strongest beings in the multiverse. And also to keep his liver going)

INT 16 (Use your racial bonus to pump this to 18. That should be the minimum for any Stark!)

WIS 8 (This should be your dump stat. It’s not great from a competitive standpoint to handicap your Will and Perception, but it makes great flavor sense for Tony. The man is not exactly known for his good decision making.)

CHA 14 (What else for a smart-mouth, smooth-tallking, billionaire playboy? Also nice for Diplomacy, Bluff, Intimidate, and Use Magic Device).

If you have the points or rolls to pump INT even higher, it’s great for the flavor, and it doesn’t hurt your magic skills either. After that I’d prioritize Strength, then Constitution, and it’s certainly nice not to have to dump Wisdom.

If you need to back off on a few scores, this build doesn’t actually NEED Charisma, though I’d try to keep it above 10 for flavor. You can drop DEX and CON too, it’ll just make you a bit less tanky. If the flavor’s not too important to you, the build doesn’t actually NEED a final INT any higher than 16 post racial bonuses and that can be a real point saver if you don’t mind it.

FEATS

Feats really fall into two categories. Those that are good for Playability, and those that are good for Similarity. Best are the ones that do both- I’ve already listed a couple feats of note like Fast Learner and Improvisation.

One other is Armor Focus: (Full Plate) which both simulates the attention Tony puts into his suit, and will help make you into an armored behemoth. (Take it first level, alongside a heavy shield and wade into battle as a 1st level character with 23 Armor Class).

Extra Mental Focus and Extra Focus Power are basically must-haves for any Occultist, and are the Iron Man equivalent of increased power source and additional inventions respectively.

Toughness and Iron Will are a nice boost to your survivability if you can afford them.

Improved Initiative is a great feat for a quick thinking Avenger, and if you’re looking to spend combat feats Power Attack and Weapon focus never hurt to have.

For the purpose of flavor, I really like Antagonize and Dazzling Display. The use of Diplomacy and Intimidate in combat really works for the smart-mouth swaggering Tony Stark, and it gives you a chance to drop some smooth one-liners or other super hero banter. Psychological warfare is one of the most potent weapons of genius superheroes and villains, and it would be tragic if you couldn’t trade a barb or two of your own.

If you’re playing with traits, Additional Traits can be great, either for really refining a couple flavor points, getting in a couple necessary skills, or just for min-maxing like the munchkin Tony Stark probably is.

Now there are some mixed feelings on the magical Craft feats, but I personally like the utility they provide, and they’ve got to be a standard of any good inventing genius. Craft Magic Arms and Armor is a necessity for you, if you want your precious armor to stay relevant and cutting edge. Craft Wand is a great way to get some awesome first level spells like Lead Blades, Gravity Bow, Shield, Cure Light Wounds, and more. It can help make up for your limited spellcasting, and make sure the Armored Avenger is truly prepared for any situation. At later levels Craft Rod is the best way to get metamagic utility, and Craft Wondrous Item gives your genius tinkerer to the longest list of magical toys out there.

If you want more of a tinkerer feel, consider checking out the Item Mastery feats. I’m not going to list them here because, obviously getting even a few is VERY feat thirsty, but if you’re interested there’s nothing quite as Stark as jury rigging a Belt of Giant’s Strength to cast Fly on you.

Now, obviously, nobody’s going to be able to take all of these feats, at least not immediately, so you’ll need to make some tough decisions. It all depends on what you want, what your campaign needs, and what kind of Iron Man you want to be.

TRAITS

Not all campaigns use traits, and some of them use some of them to help tie characters in to a given campaign. Either way, they’re a fun way to help your character’s backstory fit more tightly with their mechanics.

Anyways, if you are playing with traits, and you have few to spare, consider the following options:

I love Bruising Intellect for flavor purposes, and its pretty much necessary if you want Intimidate, not to mention Antagonize and Dazzling Display. Spark of Creation is another pretty great one. Rich Parents, Reckless, Focused Mind, Fate’s Favored, and Alchemical Adept are also pretty good both for flavor and potency.

Fixer, Dangerously Curious, or Talented Blacksmith are all nice for flavor, but sort of weak mechanically.

Reactionary, Magical Lineage, Deft Dodger, and Auspicious Tattoo are all awesome traits for playability purposes, but don’t really fit the Iron Man mold.

If your campaign is using Drawbacks: Condescending, Headstrong, Hedonistic, and Vain should all seem familiar to Tony Stark.

SKILLS

Between your high INT, your human-ness, and your favored-class bonus odds are you’re netting 9 or 10 skill points a level.

For Tony Stark-ness I recommend:

Use Magic Device, Spellcraft, whatever Knowledge your party needs (arcana and engineering strike me as particularly Starkish), Craft (alchemy), Craft (armor), Disable Device, Diplomacy, Appraise, and Fly. Intimidate’s nice too if you got it on your skill list somehow.

Perception is also recommended, simply for being THE most used skill in the game. Tony’s a pretty perceptive guy too. Usually.

EQUIPMENT

Armor is easy. Your panoply requires you take your armor with you all the way, and why would you want to take anything else? You’ll want Craft Magic Arms and Armor as soon as you can so you can enchant it. Then once you take the Aegis focus power you’ll be ready to have a truly adaptive set of armor. Under fire from negative energy? Turn on the Deathless enhancement. Something trying to trip, or eat you? Try Balanced or Bitter. Best of all, adapt your armor to your individual enemy with Defiant, the magic armor equivalent of Bane.

And speaking of bane...

Your weapon. Now I know Iron Man doesn’t use swords... but wouldn’t it be awesome if he did?

As the fantasy equivalent of Iron Man you have this excuse. Or you can try an axe or a hammer or whatever tickles your fancy. Go two-handed if you love damage, go sword and shield if you want to have the highest armor class in the world. I personally recommend two-handed, particularly at higher levels, where you can use a wand of shield to keep yourself shielded at all times anyways.

Be sure to get a magic weapon as soon as you can, even a dagger. Since as soon as you do, you can start using the Legacy Weapon focus power to start slapping Bane on your weapon when you need it. After all, what kind of super genius weaponeer doesn’t have the perfect weapon designed for any enemy he might face?

As for magic equipment, a Headband of Vast Intelligence is going to give you a real power boost. Consider it your magical Jarvis, connecting you to a magical computer system, telling you the wisest courses of action, and optimizing your power allocation.

A Belt of Giant’s Strength / Incredible Dexterity / Mighty Constitution is a good stand-in for continued improvements to the suit, supplementing the bonus from your transmutation resonant power.

Wands of Shield, Lead Blades, Endure Elements, Gravity Bow, and other such spells not only provide you with a nice boost to power and utility, but present ways for your Iron Man to add temporary innovations and enhancements to his armor and weapons.

A Wand of Cure Light Wounds will make you a passable post-battle medic, and can be a simple medical invention to accelerate biological processes.

A Handy Haversack gives you a neat way to store and retrieve items, not unlike the way Iron Man’s armor seems to feed him whatever he needs, stored in secret compartments about his armor.

Pages of Spell Knowledge will give you access to other spells you may need, while Runestones of Power can give you the precious slots needed to cast them.

IMPLEMENTS

Ok, last but not least, we’ll be looking at Implements, the primary source of your suit’s powers. Generally you should think of your Focus Points as your power source, your Arc Reactor- and your Focus Powers as the things you can use that power for.

For the full Iron Man experience you have to take TRANSMUTATION. I suggest you take it at first level for the playability it will provide you with. The Resonant Power will boost your strength so long as you have sufficient focus points remaining, while Legacy Weapon will keep you fighting alongside full base attack bonus warriors, particularly once you can start dropping bane.

Quickness at level 5 will let your suit give you quick bursts of super speed, while Mind over Gravity at level 7 lets you engage thrusters, and take to the skies, with perfect mobility no less.

Or maybe use Size Alteration on yourself to just go full Hulkbuster.

The other MUST-HAVE for any proper Iron Man is EVOCATION. Frankly, from a sheer playability standpoint, this is one of the weaker implement schools, but it is awesome from a flavor point of view.

Use Energy Ray to fire your repulsor beams. Or if you’re ready to break out the heavy weapons, try breaking out Energy Blast or Wall of Power. Shape Mastery will let your targeting systems pick out your allies from your enemies.

After that, what Implement schools you take are just to customize what kind of Iron Man you want to be. Consider ABJURATION for shielding technology, or DIVINATION for surveillance. Consult ILLUSION if you want cloaking tech or CONJURATION if you’d rather dabble in AI, tinkering, and biology.

WRAPPING UP

And... It looks like our time is up! Well, it was fun while it lasted.

I hope this gives you some insight on how you can bring the Armored Avenger to your own campaigns, and helps you understand how you can be the best Iron Man you can be.

If you like the build or if you hate it, give me a shout. Got your own ideas? Tell me about them.

Most importantly of all: let me know if there’s anything else you’d like to see in these guides, and let me know what character you’d like to see me build next!

As always, everything is free use, I don’t own Dnd, Pathfinder, Iron Man, or any of the pictures I’ve used.

See you next time!

#iron man #tony stark #character #pathfinder #character build #So you want to play #pathfinder labs #So you want to play: Iron Man #Iron Man character build #dnd #dungeons and dragons #occultist

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