#(this post is not exclusively about sniper)

[blutig-hund]

Haha yeah you're so cool and mysterious, bro. What if I trace the line of your scars with a care bordering on reverent? Maybe, what if maybe, i can kiss along your body at the direction of your scars too? dude?

[wesleysniperking]

Welcome to Usopp’s 14-Day Tall Tale!

Hello everyone! I'm excited to share this post early so that everyone can get a head start. After discussing when to kick off our celebration, we've (admin and mod) decided to begin Usopp's two-week community wide birthday week a day early. Instead of starting on Sunday, we will begin today on Saturday, March 22nd, 2025. (community link)

The name of our community event is "Usopp’s 14-Day Tall Tale." Please use the hashtag #usoppdaycom2025 to let us know you're participating.

Read on for more details, including the infographics, to understand how to participate, as well as the writing and fan art prompts. There is also a separate event being organized on a Tumblr blog (by completely different people), and we encourage you to participate there as well. However, please note that their event is completely separate from ours, which will last for two weeks.

Further details about the rules, guidelines, and prompts will be provided later in the post.

Read more below:

We’re celebrating Usopp’s birthday with a two-week-long event — giving everyone more time to join in, create, and share their love for our favorite sharpshooter. This event is exclusive to this community, but feel free to tag your work with #usoppdaycom2025 both inside and outside the community so more fans can find and enjoy it.

How to Participate:

You’re welcome to contribute fan art, fanfiction, edits, or any other creative works inspired by Usopp.

A few important guidelines:

If your work is NSFW or potentially sensitive, please include a content warning.

No plagiarism. All entries must be original (it’s okay to reblog or share other people’s work — but to participate, submit something made by you).

Late entries are okay! If you miss a day or need to catch up, feel free to post whenever you can — just let us know.

This is a pro-Usopp space. Constructive takes are welcome, but if your post misrepresents or bashes Usopp, it doesn’t belong here.

Other Usopp Events:

There’s another event running separately — @usopp-week-2025. Feel free to participate in both! Just remember that this community event and Usopp Week are two different things. If you’re posting for Usopp’s 14-Day Tall Tale, please use the tag #usoppdaycom2025 so we can find and appreciate your contributions.

Where to Share:

You can post your work directly here or link to AO3, Fanfiction.net, Bluesky, Twitter/X, or wherever you usually share fan content.

Support Each Other:

Even if you’re not contributing, please take a moment to react to and support other people’s posts. A quick like or comment can really brighten someone’s day — and it’s free!

Need Help?

If you have any questions, need clarification, or want to help moderate the event, message @chowyunnafat or @theviolettulip. (We’re also looking for two more moderators — if you’re interested, reach out!)

Most importantly — have fun!

Let’s make this a celebration Usopp would be proud of!

PROMPTS BELOW:

Week 1: March 23rd - March 29th

Sunday - March 23rd – Usopp the Sniper

From his sharpshooting skills to his strategic mind, Usopp is one of the best snipers in the world. Show off his marksmanship, whether in battle, in a quiet moment of practice, or even in a scenario where his precision changes the tide of a fight.

Monday - March 24th – Yasopp and Banchina (Mom and Dad)

Usopp's parents shaped different parts of his life—Yasopp, the legendary sniper who left for the sea, and Banchina, the mother who stayed behind. Explore their dynamic, Usopp’s relationship with them, or how their presence (or absence) has influenced his journey.

Tuesday - March 25th – Modern Day AU (or any AU)

Give Usopp a new setting! Whether it’s a modern world where he’s a tech-savvy streamer, a detective in a noir universe, or something completely different, reimagine his story in a fresh way.

Wednesday - March 26th – Angst and Water 7

Water 7 left scars on Usopp, both emotional and physical. Revisit this arc through his eyes—his struggles with self-worth, the impact of his fight with Luffy, or the weight of being left behind. But does that pain still linger even now? Explore how it affects him post-Water 7, even in subtle ways, or how he’s grown from it.

Thursday - March 27th – Usopp Love

A day to appreciate Usopp! What do his friends love about him? How does he show love to others? Whether it’s found family, romance, or platonic bonds, this prompt is all about celebrating the heart of the crew.

Friday - March 28th – Usopp Keeping His Distance

Usopp often hides his emotions, keeping others at arm’s length when he’s struggling. Maybe it’s self-doubt, fear of burdening his friends, or lingering insecurities—how does this manifest, and how do others react?

Saturday - March 29th – Usopp Saves the Day

Despite his fears, Usopp has always come through in crucial moments. Whether it’s an epic battle, a clever deception, or a small but meaningful act of heroism, showcase a time when Usopp truly shined.

(community link)

[high-voltage-rat]

Part Three of my late submissions of RvB OC week! Day 3: Project Freelancer and Charon Industries

I chose this day to introduce the rest of the Canadian Division of PFL, whose origins I discussed in my first post.

Agent New Brunswick (he/them), also known as Brunie and Newb, are a DID system consisting of Matt and Jean-Luc Harper, respectively. Matt, the protector alter, is a CQC specialist, and his weapons of choice are a shotgun and combat knives. Jean-Luc, the host, rarely fronts in combat, but typically takes on a stealth role when he does, preferring to use pistols. Their armour is installed with a strength enhancement module. During their downtime, Jean-Luc enjoys baking and cooking, which he finds relaxing, while Matt likes to let off steam by lifting weights and going on runs through the ship.

Quote: "A bilingual clusterfuck who still somehow manages to be the most generic of the provinces. Guess our name's fitting."

(the picrew I used for these is unfortunately no longer available, but the artist is on tumblr at this link!)

Agent Prince Edward Island (he/him), also known as Prince, is Mark Rowe, an assault specialist with OCD. His compulsions stem off the number three, so he exclusively uses a battle rifle, which fires in three-round bursts, and bases his combat rhythm off timing in threes. His armour is installed with an EMP module. In his off-hours, Mark can be found making friendship bracelets for the team, convincing everyone with long hair to let him braid it, and knitting.

Quote: "I kinda think I was assigned this name because they clocked me. Not sure whether to be mad or flattered by the comparison."

Agent Newfoundland (he/him), aka Newf, is Angus Moore, a stealth specialist with GAD. This anxiety generally means he's extremely on guard, keeping hyperaware of all the variables and moving parts in a situation going on around him until he sees the perfect time to strike- moving in hard and fast with his pistols and combat knives. His armour is installed with a speed enhancement unit. During down-time, Angus plays the violin, which he credits for a lot of his manual dexterity, and keeps fish- a meticulous job full of checking water chemistry and tank cleanliness, but worth it to be able to watch them swim around.

Quote: "My social anxiety does not extend to situations where my fish are involved. I'll start a tilly gladly if you mess with them. Or rant for an hour if you ask."

Agent Quebec (he/him) is Eli Levesque, one of two leadership specialists in CanDiv. Eli's autism means that he communicates very clearly and directly- which ensures the team operates with very little room for misunderstanding. He prefers to lead from the front, where he can "feel" the situation, so favours an assault rifle and SMG, and his armour is installed with a healing unit. In between missions, Eli takes every chance he can to socially depressurize- he can usually be found in an observation room watching the stars, or alone in his quarters painting. Even though he doesn't bother to mask as much with the team, he can never seem to let it go entirely unless he's by himself, and he definitely needs time somewhere quite to recover from an overstimulating career.

Quote: "Turns out autistic people make pretty good leaders when we're not catering to neurotypicals. Funny, that."

Agent Ontario (she/her), or "auntie", is Laura Foster, the second of the two leadership specialists in CanDiv. Laura has schizophrenia, which manifests as blunted affect and auditory hallucinations of voices "reminding" her about things happening around her and help her to keep everything straight on the battlefield, so she gives very even-keeled and organized orders. She prefers to lead from above, where she can obtain better tactical information, so she wields a battle rifle and sniper rifle, and her armour is installed with a bubble shield module. During days off, she enjoys drawing, where she usually sketches surrealist art pieces reflecting her emotions, and baking with other members of the team (partially an excuse to watch food being made, which she finds relaxing).

Quote: "My ODST squad used to think it was incredible that I never got scared on drops. I didn't have the heart to tell them it was just blunted affect and I was terrified."

Agent Nunavut (she/them) is Amaudla Kalluk, an autistic recon specialist. They were raised a hunter, with a very formulaic understanding of both human and animal behaviour that they apply to enemies they observe on missions. Being frequently nonverbal, Amaudla often communicates through Inuit Sign Language and facial expression- though on missions, she instead will use an instant messaging system connected to her neural interface. She favours a DMR and shotgun combo, and her armour is installed with an adaptive camouflage system. On her off-time, she enjoys playing the flute and making jewellery, as well as doing photography when she can- though living in a space where most operations are classified makes that difficult.

Quote: "Talking's overrated. I have better things to do."

Agent Manitoba (she/her), aka Toba, is Rumaisa Badr, an infiltration specialist with OCD. Though they make her miserable in a lot of ways, her compulsions mean she has become extremely procedural and meticulous when she's doing infiltration work, with a lot of hyperattention to detail, which also means she's extremely effective. She uses SMGs and pistols, and her armour is installed with an adaptive camouflage system. In her free time, Rumaisa sews, bakes, and builds small robotics projects- usually things that allow her to train her fine motor control and precision. She also has a bad habit of compulsively doing maintenance on everyone's equipment.

Quote: "In your space marine helmet, nobody can hear you tic alhamdulillah."

Agent Northwest Territories (they/them), aka Terri, is Max Davis, an assault specialist with bipolar I disorder. Their manic and hypomanic states make them extremely confident and effective on the battlefield, a bit of a force of nature- though that comes at the cost of recklessness and chaos, as well as their performance suffering during depressive spells. They favour SMGs and a shotgun, and their armour is installed with a speed enhancement unit. Max has many, many hobbies- they play electric guitar, they paint, they play video games, they exercise... and they bake and cook, if with a teammate- they have binge eating disorder and don't trust themself around food otherwise, but they're an incredible chef.

Quote: "Someone has to keep things interesting around here. That's why you need my chaotic ass."

Agent Saskatchewan (he/him), aka Sask, is Keasik Calihoo, an assault specialist with ADHD-HT. His hyperactivity means he's become very good at processing a lot of things at once, and his impulsiveness means he adapts quickly to changing circumstances and will charge into the thick of a fight without hesitation. Keasik favours a classic assault rifle and magnum combo, and his armour is equipped with a healing unit. In his downtime, he likes to bead, play video games, and sometimes play pranks on his fellow agents- though he has to be careful lest it spiral into a vicious war.

Quote: "I'm pretty sure ass-kicking and chocolate milk need to be added to the list of sacred medicines."

Agent British Columbia (he/him), aka B.C. or Beece, is Shaun Park, a CQC specialist with ASPD. Without the ability to feel empathy for his enemies, and a tendency towards reckless lack of self-preservation, he doesn't hesitate in combat. He prefers leaning into intimidation tactics to scare his enemies shitless and give himself a leg up tactically, so employs the use of flamethrowers and combat knives when feasible, as well as his standard pistol sidearm, and also makes use of his armour's enhanced strength module. In his downtime, Shaun is a bit of a recluse, having social anxiety, but he can usually be lured out to play chess, to work out with Brunie or Terri, or to join in on a cooking session.

Quote: "I don't even like fire that much. But when stereotypes give you a convenient intimidation factor like this, you can't really pass it up."

Agent Yukon (he/them), aka Yuke, is Luke Marquez, an autistic infiltration specialist. Luke has an encyclopedic knowledge of locks, computers, and security alarm systems- they're his special interest, and he can get himself into just about anywhere. The problem comes when they're faced with the combat part of the job- Luke has such severe anxiety surrounding violence after accidentally killing someone in basic training that they essentially become nonfunctional in combat situations. Their armour is fitted with active camouflage, so in a combat scenario they generally just hide and continue working on infiltration or sabotaging enemy systems. In his downtime, he generally knits, crochets, and studies computer systems and lockpicking. They're also frequently recruited to pranks-based shenanigans whenever Sask starts something again.

Quote: "I don't think I can ever shoot someone again. But I can still sabotage their equipment so you guys can do it for me."

I haven't gotten around to writing anything with these guys yet, so they're still not the most fleshed out- but the intention is for their dynamic to be close-knit and accepting, trying to work with each others' neuroses and challenges, but also being dysfunctional and messy sometimes as is unavoidable in life. Sometimes Terri, Beece, and Sask encourage the worst parts of each others' impulsive and reckless habits. Sometimes Eli and Laura's blunt leadership style rubs people the wrong way. Sometimes the more chaotic members of the team clash with the more anxious ones, generating stress and conflict for everyone. Sometimes, despite everyone's best efforts, people are going to have bad mental health days that make it difficult, even impossible for them to work. They're an imperfect, messed up little family that are allowing themselves to be used because have nowhere else to go- or at least believe they don't. And when they finally realize the full extent of the exploitation they're about to be subjected to... well, they bite back hard and rip Project Freelancer a new one.

We hear about the Freelancers' "uprising" in canon, trying to free the Alpha and such, but we're only ever really shown Tex and York's one break-in. Personally, I choose to say there's more to it than that, that we never see- and CanDiv is part of the fun.

[five--losers]

The Boys and their Powers

[An archived SM Headcanon post]

SEDUCE ME HEADCANON

Most of the Boys’ special powers are not exclusive to them, but ‘their powers’ are where they shine best. They can all dash with super speed, they can all make flowers grow, they can all conjure various objects; but they each have a preferred school of magic, and/or are particularly gifted in a given school.

There are, however, a few exceptions.

Below the cut are my personal detailed HCs on the Boys’ powers and the intricacies thereof.

Matthew is both skilled and unusually talented with Conjuring magic - a school dedicated to materializing and dispelling inanimate objects that have mass (making solid objects without mass would be the Illusion school). Most demons/practitioners use it for creating everyday objects or weapons (see also: James). The length of time it takes to create an item depends on the practitioner’s skill and the objects’ intricacy. The quality of the item comes from how well the Conjurer is able to picture the item they’re making.

Matthew is special for a couple reasons. First, he is able to make extremely complicated knick-knacks in seconds where the average professionally-taught Conjurer would need around twenty minutes. It’s a talent that truly shines when he fights, as he’s able to create daggers with such speed and ease that one could easily mistake him for having hid them up his sleeves. Second, after the Boys arrived in the human world, any toys Matthew conjured would come to life. This is a huuuuge deal, but I’ll save the details of why for my stories.

I gave Erik’s powers a complete overhaul. I know his canon powers are tentacles, but that really… doesn’t feel right in my opinion. The obnoxious flirt, objectively the most sexual brother; giving him Hentai Consentacles is oversaturating the archetype as well as… gross. He deserves more dimension than that. So!

Erik is a master Botanist Life Weaver. Life Weaving is a school that, in broad terms, manipulates the growth and decay of all things organic. Almost all Live Weavers are Botanists - they manipulate the growth of plants and the like - as using the magic on anything else is considered cruel and dangerous, as well as heavily taxing on the practitioner. As of now, Life Weaving can only speed up growth/the aging process.

Erik uses his abilities to grow and breed flowers as a hobby. It isn’t uncommon for him to grow an acorn into a full tree in a matter of minutes. In combat, he is able to grow briar vines and wield them like whips, slashing and tearing up anyone unfortunate enough to get within range. He can also grow regular vines for grabbing things, hanging, climbing, and swinging. If necessary, Erik can summon roots from the earth to reach and wrap around his legs, literally rooting him in place. These uses are considered very unusual in demon society, and I’m willing to bet Erik is the only Botanist to ever weaponize his plants.

James is a Conjurer like Matthew, however he specializes in ranged combat. As the Crown Prince, he was well-trained in various forms of combat and quickly grew fond of the longbow. He didn’t like any of the bows he used though; they all seemed to lack something, be it range or power. Determined, he researched bow anatomy and created a weapon that suited him perfectly.

Upon arriving in the human world, James discovered firearms and immediately rose to the challenge. A gun is far more intricate than a bow however, not to mention the technology was entirely foreign to him. He dedicated whole days to researching guns, teaching himself about them from the ground up and practicing conjuring them.

Now, James is able to conjure most kinds of handguns in a few minutes and his favorite model sniper rifle in around ten to fifteen. Because of this build time, he tends to default to his bow in fast-paced, unexpected combat. The bow only takes a second to make. Guns, he has to reserve for fights with prep time, and for when he has more than plenty of energy to dedicate to their making.

Onward to our two exceptions.

Sam is, as we all know, unusually strong even for a demon. This alone is not his ‘Main Combat Power’ though. Sam was born with an attunement to a very archaic sorcery, and in fact taps into the power of the first demons that fell from Heaven. This power was so deadly, so chaotic and volatile, that it was deemed too dangerous for continued practice and nearly all documents detailing how to use it were destroyed or locked away in the Demon Lord’s private study. You can only imagine DL’s surprise when he learned one of his own kin had such a dangerous gift.

This sorcery, “Ancestral Awakening,” gives Sam the power to revert his physical form into that of an Ancestor. The first demons to ever spawn from Hellfire were among the most powerful and uncontrollable forces to ever exist beneath the Devil Princes ( “Chernabog” ). Sam can turn into that. It’s a very painful shift and without extensive training, the Ancestor will not yield to the shifter’s will. Sam doesn’t believe he can control the Ancestor at all; the Demon Lord assured him that such a thing wasn’t necessary, as Sam would always have his Lord to trust in controlling the beast once summoned.

Sam doesn’t always have to summon the entire Ancestor, however; he can attune parts of his body to the transformation without inviting a full shift. An arm and a leg, or a part of his face can shift into something Ancestral, but the more limbs he attunes then the easier it is for the Ancestor to take over completely. Sam meditates frequently and keeps himself on a strict martial regime, so his mental and physical strength never slip so far that the Ancestor can overpower him.

Damien is adept with various Mind magic schools, but he was never formally taught or even magically recognized for that matter. All the Demon Lord cared about was Damien’s mind reading, and it’s the sole reason he was allowed to stay in the castle. He was used as a tool to read the intentions of rival leaders at formal gatherings and find traitors among the ranks. Any other magical abilities he may have possessed meant little to Damien’s father. He could have been given formal training and learned to control what he heard, but the Demon Lord forbade it. If Damien could hear everything, then the Demon Lord could hear everything.

As for his combat powers… Damien is the most unusual case of the five. While Sam is unconventional, the Ancestral Awakening is at least a power that has been documented, can be recognized, and at one point did in fact exist.

There is a plane of existence, a dimension, beyond Hell, Earth, and the Abyssal Plains. Demons don’t know it exists. This dimension is a writhing mass of insanity. Anything unfortunate enough to pass through it would be mentally destroyed. Damien can warp himself to this dimension at will, through tendrils and black smoke and haze. Thus far, he is the only known soul capable of doing so, as well as the only known soul who can enter and exit mentally unscathed.

From this dimension, he can summon shadows to help and fight for him. These shadows, these doppelgangers, always take on a vague, darkened reflection of Damien, and he isn’t sure why. Damien can also swap places with any given doppelganger; a trick that has saved his life and allowed him to make impossible escapes.

If you were to ask Damien where his powers came from, he would tell you he doesnt’ remember. One day he didn’t have them, and the next day he did. That next day, he won’t tell you, was the day his mother died. He refuses to think about that.

[lilyblackdrawside]

SSS ROUND SIX

Stationary Security Service #6 dungeons and EC Unit overview. Long Post.

New round of Stationary Security Service. Always a happy occasion for me and like three other people!

This time we’re going to the desolate wastes of Great Britain Victoria and a market area in Yumen.

The previous round had dungeons that were themed around one having enemies with a lot of Res and the other ones with a lot of Def, this time the theming’s a bit more loose.

Yumen Market consists entirely of Where Vernal Winds Blow style stages, but does not exclusively use that event’s enemies. Mostly though. The mafia gets involved, which spices things up quite nicely.

The local boss is, at worst, annoying. She’s very ignorable, since she spends most of her time not being in range of important tiles (or important tile, since at least on normal mode a 5 Sniper Passenger can pretty much solo the stage, sans boss) and when she finally leaves, she only takes one life.

This one’s overall pretty easy and every stage can be cleared with the old standby „stack a bunch of Snipers and top them with Leizi/Passenger/Gnosis“.

War-torn Wilderness has a more mixed set of stages, some using the generic brown sand look that early story stages have while others take the Chapter 13 aesthetic and mechanics. There’s even a Lucent Arrowhead stage in there and it’s not very fun!

The boss here is... a witchcraft altar...? It can be pretty tough if you get to it blind (I lucked into having a good setup when I got there), but once you know what you’re doing and who to bring, it’s not so bad. Still the tougher of the two bosses by a good margin.

This dungeon is overall tougher than Yumen Market, but also more engaging.

I especially like Stage 5 on this one!

All in all, these dungeons are good and fun to play. On the previous round, I found myself always going to the Leithanien dungeon for the regular clears, since the Dossoles one has a really annoying boss. Or maybe I just feel drawn to Leithanien for some reason, who really knows.

In this round, I can see myself going to either of them.

The Danger Level Effect is +HP, ATK, DEF for both dungeons again, as is pretty much the norm at this point. I’m still hoping for more variety, thinking back to the Acahualla dungeon that gave enemies HP, ATK and Movespeed, which makes physical damage instantly more attractive.

War-torn Wilderness’ Emergency bonus effect is enemies exploding for 50% ATK physical damage on death, which is a returning gimmick from a past dungeon. The Acahualla one, incidentally.

It’s not so bad, I hardly ever felt it coming into play. But the increased enemy stats really make themselves felt on the boss stage, where the boss greatly capitalizes on having more ATK.

Yumen Market brings „Yumen Catastrophe Defenses have increased effects“ to the table, without any stage mentioning what these even do. (You can still click on them to find out).

I think it’s just a highground advantage. Do more damage/take less if you’re on them and attacking enemies that aren’t on them.Since you’re spending all your time on the defenses, this at worst does nothing and otherwise is beneficial for you. Not sure about this one!

Didn’t feel any tougher on Emergency than on Standard.

Both dungeons bring the Shoddy Flashbang as their faulty EC Unit for Emergency mode, which surprised me in Yumen Market’s case, since I did War-torn Wilderness first.

This is the first time this has happened and while I don’t mind dealing with the Flashbangs instead of the Conk Creet (heavy. insulated.), it is peculiar. Especially because in Yumen Market, they don’t actually trigger. The YCD tiles don’t count as high ground for the purpose of these, so none of your operators will ever get stunned, because there isn’t a single regular ranged tile in this dungeon. They’re of course still a dead draw though.

The EC Units this time around are Pinnacle Insights Port, returning from the previous round and still styled around using Rhine Labs operators to generate huge drawpower and defensive advantages, Security Talent Agreement, the new non-regional Unit, that also gives you more draw as well as a faster earlygame, Royal Academy of Sciences Telescope, the War-torn Wilderness exclusive, giving you increased damage against enemies that are far away as well as a deployable that grabs two Sniper or Caster Operators from draw and makes them cost 0 DP and the Cloudstepper, which is the regional Unit for Yumen Market and plays around with unorthodox methods of equipment distribution.

PINNACLE INSIGHTS PORT

This EC Unit makes it so that transferring Rhine Lab Operators grants SP and a Barrier to all deployed operators, with Rhine Lab Operators who are on field gaining twice that.

The deployable makes the next 4 Transfers refund half their Permit cost and when transferring RL Operators, it doesn’t count down.

Branch A additionally gives a huge ATK buff to all deployed RL Operators when transferring RL Operators, whereas Branch B gives a full Permit refund while the deployable is on the field.

Rhine Lab Operators are Muelsyse as a Vanguard, Saria as a Defender, Astgenne and Ifrit as Casters, Silence and Ptilopsis as Medics and Magallan, Mayer and Salter as Supporters.

With this in mind, most of these operators aren’t actually useful for staying on the field as your active operators.

Ifrit can be very powerful with other Caster equipment stacks, but can’t make good use of Sniper equipment, since neither her S2 nor S3 are good with ASPD.

Astgenne is a Chain Caster, which immediately qualifies her for performing well in SSS and her S2 is quite good here as well, however since she has the ChaY module, she cannot reach permanent Slow with 5 Caster Equipments. This isn’t a crippling disadvantage, but noteworthy.

Saria is a ground unit, Silence and Ptilopsis are Medics. Guardians are preferred over Medics if you want sustain, so if you have Saria raised, feel free to bring her, as both dungeons have at least one stage each where having a self-sustaining blocker is desirable.

I find Muelsyse to generally be a bit clunky, since she doesn’t work well in SSS due to her summon not benefitting from equipment (unless you’re using one specific sub-Unit that retreats an operator while keeping their gear, which Muelsyse’s summon might benefit from) and I don’t want Vanguard gear on my ranged operators.

Salter, Magallan and Mayer all are Supporters, which inherently makes them draw-neutral, so with this EC Unit, they’re draw-positive while the deployable is on field.

Mayer, Magallan and Salter are must-haves to make use of this one, Astgenne and Ifrit are highly recommended, as Caster Equipment is desirable and Astgenne is powerful in SSS, Saria is competent as a Guardian, the Medics can sit this one out.

Mayer is particularly useful in this round, as her Robotters on S1 are a great help for both dungeons’ bosses.

I recommend Branch B, as Branch A’s attack buff simply doesn’t work well for most of these operators and will largely just be converted into more defensive advantages by increasing healing output. Muelsyse, Magallan and Mayer don’t work well with it, since their summons are unaffected.

There is some strategy to using this EC Unit, which I will now over:

You want to keep your squad small. If you have to take extra operators, take Specialists or Supporters, Supporters much preferred and with Equipment B (the one that tutors).

You want to hold onto your Transfer Permits until you use the deployable.

It lasts for at least four transfers, ideally much more than that.

Once you put it down, you want to get your transferring over with quickly, as it returns to your hand once used up and goes on a moderate cooldown, so be sure to have enough DP to empty your hand as necessary.

When you draw a Supporter, immediately deploy them to get their tutoring effect and grab non-Rhine Operators out of your Preparation Area. This is done to increase the odds of transferring RL Operators to keep your deployable’s charges.

For this reason, you will want to pick the sub unit that tutors two operators from the Preparation Area when you get the choice on Stage 3. If you can’t get that one, get the one that tutors from the Recuperation Area and try to get Supporters. With this one it doesn’t matter whether it’s RL or not. If you can get two Supporters out of the RA, you get two separate instances of tutoring from PA, fetching two total operators from there, which is actually even better than the sub unit that tutors from PA, but isn’t very reliable and gets heavy on DP.

Once you have Branch B, you will have more draw power than you can even really use.

I quite enjoy using this EC Unit, much more than I expected, since I don’t particularly care about the Rhine crew on a character level. I do have almost the whole lot raised, since they’re interesting operators to play with and while this EC Unit doesn’t necessarily make you actually play with these operators so much as it turns them into a draw engine, said draw engine is fun to use.

SECURITY TALENT AGREEMENT

This EC Unit mostly gives you a much better earlygame, while then not doing much else after that.

Instead of having to create a full stack of operators that you then finish with the operator you actually want handling the enemies, with this EC Unit’s deployable, you deploy the stack topping operator, attach the deployable to them and then deploy the operators who are to provide their equipment on top of them, which will only grant the equipment, instead of replacing the operator.

It is active for quite a while, a minute or so, and while it’s attached to an operator, this operator generates 5 Transfer Permits per kill, instead of just one, so if used at the right time, you can get a lot of draw out of this very quickly.

On top of that, with the equipment granting effect, no DP is actually used up when „deploying“ operators on top of the the one the deployable is attached to. You still need to have enough DP to deploy those operators, but it simply won’t be used. So all you need is enough to deploy the stack topper and then you can dump your hand into them and have a fully-geared operator ready right away, who then quickly generates a bunch of Transfer Permits.

But after that, you’re not really getting anything else out of this one.

This is fine though, since what matters is getting set up. Once your operators are on field, you’re good after all.

I’m not sure how much I like this one. It feels a bit feast or famine, since it depends on you having a good opening hand.

It usually works out though and if you’re lucky, you can get a second use out of it halfway through the stage. At this point, it’s not nearly as impactful though of course.

Branch A says that whenever the deployable is transferred, the leftmost operator has their cost reduced to 0, while the rightmost gains +80% ATK.

This isn’t correct. What actually happens is that the lowest cost operator has their cost nulled while the highest cost operator gets the ATK buff.

There isn’t usually a difference between these two stipulations, since your hand autosorts operators by cost, but if you retreat an operator with a Specialist, putting them back into your hand with their cost increased, they’ll still be sorted by base cost, leading to them potentially snatching the buff away from who is sitting on the rightmost spot. This can also happen if you have Elysium or Muelsyse deployed, both of whom have cost reduction talents for Snipers and Rhine Lab operators respectively.

For the most part, it will hit the leftmost and rightmost operators, but I bring this up because the first time I used Branch A, the exact thing with retreating an operator with a Specialist and making them the highest costing one, while not being in the rightmost spot happened to me.

I think this is pretty good. It will immediately take effect, since the deployable always starts in your hand, and if - like me - you’re using rather high-cost operators (Chain Casters) to top your stacks, they’ll get the +80% ATK buff, which is equivalent to two equipment stacks and fully multiplies with any ATK boosting talents or skills they might have (just like ATK boosting equipment).

You may need to adjust your squad a bit for this and if you want to get a second use out of the EC Unit, will have to watch what your hand looks like before transferring, so it’ll hit operators you want the buffs on. The special property will also take effect if the deployable is tutored from PA or RA, so Supporters are useful as always.

Branch B gives the operator you attach it two a temporary equipment stack limit increase of 7 total, while also making them generate 6 TP per kill instead of 5.

I find this to be harder to make use of, since you have to either hold the deployable until you have enough operators to fully stack it or risk not getting all the stacks out (which is also fine).

Branch B essentially slows down the earlygame benefitting EC Unit, while ultimately not giving you a stronger lategame, because Branch A can give you a buff equivalent to having two extra Equipments, so long as you set your squad up right.

Of course, stacking 7 Sniper Equipments is still as funny as it has always been when they let you break the stack limit, so there’s still merit in this one.

Overall, I think this is a good unit. Both this and the Rhine Lab EC Units are geared around draw, but in a different way.

This EC Unit gives you a strong earlygame, leading into an average lategame, while the RL one gives you an average earlygame, with an infinite draw lategame.

Royal Academy of Sciences Telescope

This one’s pretty straight forward. It pretty much just makes you do more damage! No draw shenanigangs here, just nuking.

Well, the deployable fetches two operators from PA, but that’s it for non-combat stuff.

The distance-based damage buff is easy to make use of in this dungeon and 30% more damage is 30% more damage.

Branch A increases this boost to 80% and 80% more damage is 80% more damage.

Branch B gives all Snipers and Casters +20% ATK and lets them place their frail, dainty feet on those perilous low ground tiles.

This sounds really nice. I’m always happy to get the White Dance Shoes in Integrated Strategies after all, but since you get the Branch selection after stage 3, we can exactly quantify how useful this is by looking at the remaining three stages:

Stage 4:

Every ground tile is dangerous.

While you don’t get very many ranged tiles, the ones you do get are sufficient.

It doesn’t take a fully geared operator to clear The Spider Pit, for me Fiammetta handles it with splash damage while attacking the center lane.

Said center lane does present a juicy Blast Caster target, but unless you’re using Ifrit, you won’t get that much out of them, since the relevant enemies here are Sarkaz Vore Mops, who have very high RES and 0 DEF, so they’re always fully susceptible to physical damage. (the danger level buffs are % based).

Even when I used Branch B, I didn’t make use of it on this stage.

Stage 5:

This one has two very good areas that you can put a ranged operator on the floor in.

The first it on the right side, where having someone on those tiles is very beneficial for speeding up the payload cart, which is otherwise hard to reach. If you have Branch B, you can just put a supporter there and they’ll handle pushing the payload quite nicely.

Second is the leftmost fenced-in ground tile, from which any ranged operator can freely attack up into that general area. This isn’t as crucial, as for most of the stage nothing terrible tough comes out of there and with regards to fire support, the ranged tile to the right of your home or one of the central ones is perfectly sufficient.

Pretty good here though, just making pushing the cart on the right easier has a lot of merit.

Stage 6:

Having Branch B here allows you to deploy ranged operators closer to the boss, so normal people can actually hit it. I just point Fiammetta at it and from the top right tile of that square of ranged tiles, she gets her full S3 splash onto it so that part isn’t too attractive to me, especially since the enemies coming in through that narrow path will get caught on operators you deploy to the right of the ranged square.

However, you can also much easier attack the enemis that hang out in the top right area, which means you can take out the Guerilla Heralds. Their ATK buffs are quite noticeable, so getting rid of them is good and without Branch B, you either need infinite range ranged operators, Fortress Defenders or ones that you’re willing to just kinda throw at them. Branch B lets you do this without adjusting your deckbuilding.

Overall, Branch B has some good uses in Stages 5 and 6 and you also get the +20% ATK, which is nice too. Looking at the distance-bonus and doing a simple conversion, you’re doing 120%~156% damage with Branch B, compared to 100%~180% with Branch A (generally on the higher end), so either of them is perfectly fine, but Branch B’s +20% ATK does only work for Snipers and Casters. But since they can sit on the floor, this is hardly a downside.

Overall there really isn’t much to this EC Unit. It’s just a simple damage booster, but I find it quite charming.

CLOUDSTEPPER

Compared to the RAoST, this one’s a bit more complex.

It has a „High ground advantage“ buff of 10% more damage dealt/less damage taken for High Ground Operators, which may or may not even work, since Yumen Catastrophe Defense tiles aren’t necessarily High Ground tiles, if the Shoddy Flashbangs are anything to go by, but I’ll assume it works, since the +1 Equipment limit works.

And yeah, High Ground Operators also get +1 Equipment limit. This is pretty alright.

I’ve kinda cooled down towards equipment limit increases, since it’s kind of a hassle. It’s often just not all that worth it, since Chain Casters already get perma slow with 5 Sniper Equipments, so past that it’s just more damage pretty much. It’s nice, it’s fine. Just a bit of work to use.

The deployable immediately transfers an operator when you deploy it and the operator you point it at, will grant the operator in front of them one gear of their own Job.

The description calls it „class“, but this is wrong. It’s not classes, it’s Jobs. Please fix, John Hypergryph.

So let’s say you have Archetto looking left at GreyThroat, who’s currently displaying her immaculate skills by accurately dispatching several enemies with her crossbow and you point the deployable at Archetto, she’ll suddenly have the great idea to give GreyThroat one of her Sniper equipments to further boost her performance. How nice of her.

It’s simple on the surface, but does require you to oftentimes awkwardly turn your operators in certain ways.

Branch A is the same as not having a Branch, except everything’s more. More High Ground Advantage bonus, more Equipment limit increase. Simple and effective. Hopefully.

Branch B has two interesting effects:

One, the deployable immediately comes back into your hand after it’s done its job.

Since it transfers an operator, this is good for draw power. You can just not point it at anyone, if you don’t want to do any equipment sharing and just want to draw.

The equipment sharing effect is also upgraded though, causing the operator you point it at to give their equipment to everyone in a straight line in front of them!

So now Archetto can also see valiant May sniping away behind GreyThroat, as well as Leizi’s imposing figure further behind May and she’ll be giving all three of them a piece of Sniper Equipment.

This sounds nice, but is very constricting for your deployment.

The cooldown on the deployable isn’t very high, so the general idea is to have one Sniper hanging out at the end of a line of operators you want to give Sniper Equipment to and gradually buffing the whole row.

Let us once again take a look at the three stages this applies for:

Stage 4:

I like to sit in the bottom right corner for this one, since from there one operator can attack the top right intrusion point, two can take care of the enemies from the left and Skalter can sit on one of the tiles and do her thing.

Sitting on the far left vertical area is also viable though, but doesn’t change anything with regards to making the most of the upgraded deployable, aside from turning your line 90° counterclockwise.

Either way, you’ll have to turn one of your active operators towards the line, limiting their field of attack.

On this particular stage, this isn’t much of a problem however.

If you choose to sit on the right side, you can have a Flinger as both your equipment sharer and the operator who clears the rightside trash.I use Rosmontis for this, who is pretty good in SSS since her S1 has Offensive Recovery and an Arts damage portion, making her a good operator to sit on four other Snipers, waiting to be relieved by the actual stack topper.

Even when looking to the left from the rightmost tile, she can still do her job just fine.

If you do this, you can then field your other aggressors and have them get their Equipment this way, however if you want someone to have a different kind of Equipment you’ll have to get that done either first or let them wait until the sharing session is complete.

Stage 5

You can do a similar line of three operators here on the three ranged tiles in the middle.

Pretty easy to use here and keep unwanted operators uninvolved.

Stage 6

Playing into Branch B here is viable, but not easier than just having someone sit on the rightmost center ranged tile, looking right. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve had Passenger handle pretty much all of the trash from that tile.

If you want to make use of it here anyway, go for the bottom row.

Sitting on top is disadvantageous, even though you don’t get harrassed by the boss as much.

With the high deployment limit, you can easily set up a line of four operators for this sharing session. Just have to defend yourself against the boss while doing it.

Overall, Cloudstepper is a quirky EC Unit, but still quite effective. I recommend either Branch and if you go Branch B, you don’t have to play too much into the upgraded Equipment sharing. It’s enough to just get more draw out of the deployable going back to your hand after use.

Overall, I’ll probably just stick with the regional EC Units this time around. Probably depends on my mood.

For War-torn Wilderness, the regional unit is very effective and easy to use, for Yumen Market it’s pretty effective and requires a moderate amount of effort.

The non-regional ones are both good, but the Rhine Lab one is pretty involved if you’re using it as a draw engine. Effective, but you have to work with it.

Pretty good new round. I’m not very fond of the Yumen aesthetics, but the gameplay is fun.

Notably, on Yumen Market Stage 4, there’s blood debt but when it fills up, it doesn’t cause a Cleaner to show up, but a car. This has me hopeful that when the meter gets reused in the future, that we’ll maybe get some wacky stuff coming out of it.

Maybe it’ll be used in Il Siracusano 2? Who knows.

Have a good one.

[honkshoo-zzz]

How I see the Mercs within the LBGTQ+ Community

cause i keep seeing people posting things and EVERYONE KEEPS GETTING IT WRONG!! /j who cares i jus wanna make a funky list too

Scout: Def Bisexual, Trans ftm (can take or leave)

Probably has a preference for women

Probably doesn’t realize he likes men until he works with them 24/7 and all of his coworkers are hunky n sweaty and maybe a lil flirty

If trans, used Sex Bom tattoo to cover top surgery scars. Even though it’s definitely just worse than just having ts scars lmao

Soldier: Bisexual and Poly

I just love him dating Zhanna and Demo honestly

Fuck it, other mercs too, if they wanted

Tbh I also fuck with aro/ace vibes for him, he’s just kinda around for a good time with the homies in my mind. Both is good

I do see his preference being fairly equal though. Too busy thinking about his love for the US to think too much about tiddies/ass/etc.

Pyro: Def Ace, and either Aro or Lesbian in my mind. Also Nonbinary.

Either gender-fluid or just straight-up no gender enby. no in-between in my eyes.

I’m mostly all for Aro/Ace Pyro but I saw some Pyro x Ms. Pauling art and. love that. ugh, decisions…

Feel like they use whatever pronouns. Don’t gaf, will never gaf

Also no sex cause the suit just doesn’t come off. Also too busy setting shit on fire to care. More important shit to do.

Demoman: Pansexual and Poly

Again, dating Soldier who is also dating Zhanna

He’s also in a longterm relationship with Eyelander. Don’t ask too many questions about how that works though. But they are.

Also doesn’t have a gender-preference (obviously, he’s married to a sword). Semi-opportunistic in that sense, I guess (again he’s married to a sword. how many times do i gotta—)

Heavy: Bisexual, preference for Men

Idk man but Heavy and Medic have been married for a long time in my eyes

Also I feel like he participated in his sisters’ longing to “see another man” while living in Russia, had a similar reaction to meeting Medic upon taking the Merc job as Zhanna meeting Scout/Soldier

(For those who have yet to read the comics, that reaction basically just being: “you are man. I am horny. let’s bang.” and Medic would just be like o///o “aight” I think)

Biggest trans supporter tho, idk why but it just makes sense he would be the first to punch the teeth out a transphobe. Defends other mercs when confronted about gender shit 100%

Engineer: Bisexual, preferring Women; ftm Trans

The more top surgery art I see of him, the more I fall in love with trans Engie. It’s basically canon to me now. You can take this from my cold, dead hands.

Idk not much else to say. He’s a switch, though, if that adds much of anything HXSKFJEJX

No bottom surgery in my mind, either. Just makes his own straps n shit, cause he can (one of his 11 PhDs was in sex, actually, did you know?)

Medic: Gay, ftm Trans (again, can take or leave)

The most bottom-gay I’ve ever seen, personally (idk how else to phrase it, forgive me)

Again, I feel like he’s been married to Heavy for a long time

If trans, did his own top and bottom surgery, probably at the same time, cause he knew he could and he’s fucking insane (scars are a little wild as a result but he wears them with pride)

Sniper: Gay. das it HFSKFJEK

Gay, but the type of guy where you’d never know til his fuckin boyfriend walks out and kisses him or sum

Also he’s exclusively a top in my mind. Idk why but I feel like he’s got control issues HHEEKLEDP

Again, not super out-spoken about his sexuality, but *will* go out of his way to stab a homophobe. Not kill them from a distance, specifically stab. Shit’s more personal that way (is that too morbid? sorry)

Spy: Bisexual, Genderfluid

Another bottom, but will top if needed (like with most women, if he somehow gets with *another* bottom, etc.)

He’s also a whore. A slut, even. Good for him.

OH AND GENDERFLUID omg. Saw some stuff about that recently so it’s new to my pea brain but I like it.

Again, like Sniper, I feel like he wouldn’t really talk about his gender stuff a lot, but would discover this of himself when disguising himself as women and just feeling. Just as comfortable, if not more comfortable as them at times.

Kinda sensitive about it, though, probably. Will stab anyone who mentions it while he’s figuring it out. But gets better upon meeting the mercs and their gay-asses, lmao

“holy shit it’s not that crazy to like to have boobs sometimes” type-beat.

ok i’m done. again feel free to add stuff, fight me (like, as a bro), or whatever. Love talking about it cause I love these lil weirdos. Probably too much. oh well hdkafjejfk

[theriverbeyond]

re: love lies bleeding... i could be wrong but isn't there a difference between the type of steroids jackie was taking and testosterone? i assumed the increasing violence was due to steroid psychosis.

There mostly isn't! The main difference between "juicing"/bodybuilding steroid use and TRT or HRT is mostly just dose and frequency it is being taken. The brands might be different between medical vs recreational use, and some people take compounds that include things like growth hormone or other stuff, but "Anabolic steroid" doesn't mean "bad and used for bodybuilding", it means "hormone that mimics androgens". Link for WebMD overview of anabolic steroids

This is one of the reasons why trans men face issues when wanting to compete in "natural" strength/bodybuilding sports (not to mention, of course, the exclusion of trans women). USA Powerlifting does not specifically ban trans men from competing in the male division, but it bans any and all TRT, with no medical exemption available to anyone, which is effectively the same as banning both trans and cis men with medical conditions that require them to be taking testosterone.

Testosterone replacement therapy's (TRT) goal is to maintain the body's testosterone within a defined medical range. Cis and trans people of all kinds can be prescribed TRT for various medical reasons (post-menopause, being trans, erectile dysfunction, etc). People who use steroids for bodybuilding are blowing right past that defined medical range -- an example is you may see a cis man on TRT with a dose of maybe 0.25mg/week on the low end with the "average" being around 100mg/week. The dose is raised and lowered to maintain the body's T levels within the healthy medical range/the individual's transition goals.

A man using T for a higher performance in strength/bodybuilding sports is likely to be on way, way higher doses, 200-400mg/week or more, and may be taking T in "cycles" specifically intended to promote muscle growth, versus being on it consistently. There are material health risks associated with these high doses but it's not inherently the substance they are using, it is just the dose.

A woman like Jackie is probably going to be on significantly LOWER dose, even for recreational bodybuilding, because women who engage in steroids for muscle growth are usually not looking for the other masculinization side effects of T, so will necessarily want to stay below the TRT levels typically used by both cis and trans men. I mean, this movie takes place in the 80's so they were probably not using modern medical science because it was the 80's, but the reality that a "juiced" woman would probably want to avoid the normal effects of the average T dose remains true because most women body builders regardless of time period are not looking to transition to a T dominant hormone system. link to reddit thread i found

Steroid psycosis does exist, and "roid range" is a known side effect of any kind of steroids -- including non-sex-hormone steroids like dexamethazone. Just go into a children's cancer ward and you will see that steroids will absolutely impact a person's emotional stability on like, a temporary basis. Go on any r/ftm forum and you will see some people having increased irritability as a result of their bodies adjusting to a different hormone system, with much rarer cases of significant emotional challenges. But my critique isn't necessarily to say that it is like, beyond the imagination/too unrealistic, because it's a horror movie and those are rarely realistic. Exaggeration is the name of the game there. Like I said in my original post, it's not that I hate the movie, I'm just THINKING about the movie and how this aspect of the plot landed badly, for me. In this day& age did we have to make the big tall muscle woman w high T also be a crazy violent killer. We exist in the context of all that came b--(im taken out by another sniper)

Anyway. I hope that answers your question now where is that large hook. I need to be dragged off stage immediately before I write another 1000 words on

[electrikworm]

Human Shield: Part 3

Crosshair waits for news on Wrecker's condition, hoping his brother's life was deemed worth saving.

Later, Wrecker wakes up, something he hadn't expected to ever do again.

Final part of my "how Wrecker got his scar" fic :)

--

Content warning: Talk about death and self-sacrifice

Excuse me for the delay, I am very good at getting distracted by other projects!

Hope you enjoy the last chapter of this fic :) It turned out longer than expected

Inspired by this post by @squad-724

Part 1 Part 2

Enjoy :)

Read on Ao3

It's been hours and still nothing. Crosshair kicks at a piece of scrap metal Tech must have dragged into their barracks, flinging it across the room.

Tech looks up from the workbench to glare at Crosshair. “Breaking things solves nothing.” He scolds, making Crosshair want to kick the damn thing again, just to piss his ori'vod off.

After their initial post mission nap, Tech started working on force knows what and hasn't moved since. Hunter's been laying down most of the time, only getting up to drink a cup of caff. Crosshair doesn't understand how they can bare to stay so still, feeling like he'll lose his mind if he doesn't move.

So Crosshair paces, not knowing what else to do. At some point, he pickes up Lula, cradling her against his chest. The soft pressure of the tooka doll in his arms is comforting and she smells like Wrecker. And besides, if Wrecker can't hold her where he is now, in surgery or a bacta tank, Crosshair might as well hold his beloved stuffed tooka for him.

Crosshair has to believe that that's where Wrecker is, in surgery or a bact tank, because the alternative is so much worse. If he isn't being treated, he'll have been decommissioned, body laying cold in one of the morgues, or already recycled and disposed of. The sniper doesn't even want to consider that option, wants to hope they'd never considering decommissioning someone as valuable as Wrecker.

But Crosshair knows how this place works. Clones have been discarded for less, it happens all the time. And as defective clones, they're all already on thin ice. If the med scanner really did miss something like organ failure or bleeding in the brain, then they might not bother trying to save Wrecker.

Crosshair sits down next to Tech, wanting to distract himself from his darkening thoughts. Wrecker's broken helmet is propped up on the table. Crosshair picks it up, twisting it to inspect the jagged edges. Wrecker's blood has dried to the inside.

“It is beyond saving.” Tech says. Crosshair hates how that statement might end up being said about their injured brother as well.

“I can karking see that.” Crosshair spits. “Why'd you take it anyway?”

“I'm not entirely sure. It felt wrong to leave it behind.”

Crosshair huffs, but he gets what Tech means. On missions, they almost exclusively see each other with their helmets on. In a way, their helmets have become almost synonymous to their faces. The now cracked helmet in Crosshair's hands is nearly as disturbing to see as the actual injuries marring Wrecker's body. Seeing him was still worse of course. Crosshair almost feels sick when he remembers the state Wrecker was in.

Suddenly he can't bare to look at the helmet any longer. Placing it down, he resumes his pacing.

Time keeps passing, and still no news. Crosshair starts trying to tidy Wreckers bunk at some point. Not all of it though. It wouldn't feel right to see Wrecker's bunk entirely neat. That would make it feel like he's gone, and Crosshair doesn't want to think about that.

“What's taking them so long?” Crosshair hisses. He can't stand all the waiting.

“I don't know Cross.” Hunter mumbles, sounding tired. He's not been taking the situation well, none of them have.

Crosshair doesn't know what he'd do if Wrecker dies. He should be prepared for this, they've been trained to accept their own and their brother's deaths since day one. But Crosshair can't get his head around the possibility of Wrecker not being there any more. The two of them are closest in age, the two youngest of Clone Force 99. Wrecker's only a few minutes older than Crosshair, a fact he's always used to piss the sniper off.

But annoying as he is, and as much as Crosshair acts like he hates it, Wrecker's always been there for him.

Anger rises in Crosshair's chest. He can't believe they're being left in the dark about this. He's just about to kick another piece of scrap across the room when the door to their barracks slides open. A member of medical staff Crosshair doesn't recognize stands in the doorway.

“Where is he?” Crosshair spits.

“CT-9903 is in a bacta tank.” The staff member says. Crosshair has to put a hand on a nearby wall, tension from the last few hours suddenly leaving his body. He can hear the shaky breath Hunter lets out from across the room. “I have also been instructed to remind you that you have yet to report anything about the mission you were on.”

“We'll get it done.” Hunter says. Crosshair hadn't even heard him approaching. He'd like to ask if they can see Wrecker, but knows the answer would be no, so he says nothing.

As the door closes again, Tech gives him a knowing look. They'll sneak out to see him later, during the night cycle. Crosshair sits down. He can wait a little longer now, reassured by the fact their brother is alive. They'll get to see him soon enough, even if it is only through a sheet of transparisteel and litres of bacta.

--

Wrecker always expected to die for his brothers sooner or later. It's a fact he made peace with early, even before they gave self-sacrifice a number on their list of plans. So naturally, he'd imagine what dying would feel like.

After hours of careful contemplation and turning the idea around in his head over and over, he came to a simple conclusion: It would hurt, and then there'd be nothing.

And Wrecker wasn't wrong. Death does hurt and is followed by nothing.

But then the pain started coming back. Sometimes less, sometimes more, but it always comes back. An the nothing starts getting replaced by memories, and dreams and, worst of all, nightmares. There's nothing to stop them now, no vode, no Lula, nothing. After all, you can't wake the dead.

Wrecker longs for the nothingness he expected, anything would be better than an eternity of nightmares and pain.

Images of his vode torment Wrecker, images of them injured and dying because he didn't execute plan 99 fast enough. That's when the light appears.

Impossibly bright, blinding, so intense it hurts. Wrecker tries to twist away from it, tries to cover his eyes. He doesn't know why. Wrecker knows he's dead, doesn't have limbs to cover the eyes that don't exist nor a body to turn away from the white light. He can't do a damn thing against what he's exposed to now.

Wrecker can't breath. Confusion and horror rise in his chest as he heaves for air. Why is he trying to breath in the first place? He's dead, shouldn't be breathing at all. But he can't get himself to stop. He just continues to wheeze and cough as he struggles to get anything into his non-existence lungs, as the blinding light refuses to dim and everything starts hurting so much worse.

He sits up, another thing he shouldn't be able to do, not in the void of bad dreams and pain he's in. Tears and spit run down his face as Wrecker claws at his chest. He just wants it all to stop, wants all the pain and uncomfortable sensations gone.

Wrecker just wants to rest.

Colour swirls in the white light surrounding him, and Wrecker almost thinks it's another dream. But they feel too close, too real, almost like he could touch them if he tried. He doesn't, however one of the splotches of colours does try, and something touches Wrecker's hand.

In an instant, Wrecker's vision focuses through the blurs of tears and pain, through the blinding light. He can't stop the sob that forces its way out of his throat as he recognizes those before him.

Crosshair, Hunter and Tech.

“No, no no no...” Wrecker mutters as he backs away from them. They shouldn't be here, they shouldn't be dead! His brothers say things, their faces twisted in emotions Wrecker can't read. All he can do is uselessly gasp for air. He failed them, failed to live up to his purpose. Wrecker let them die.

“'m sorry.” Wrecker forces out between clenched teeth and failed attempts to breath. He hopes they're not hurting like he is, he hopes the pain is his punishment alone. As hard as he tries, Wrecker can't get a coherent string of words out. He wants to tell his vode how sorry he is for letting them down, that he tried his hardest even if it wasn't enough, that he wishes they were alive. It all comes out barely audible over his continuos struggle for air he doesn't need.

When Tech grabs him by the shoulder, Wrecker almost wishes his brother would hit him. Anger at his failure would be understandable, Wrecker can deal with anger. It's all he deserves for letting his squad down when they needed him most.

Instead, Tech shakes him almost gently. “Would you stop apologizing and listen for a karking second?” Tech almost does sound angry, if it weren't for the way his voice nearly gives out. “We're not dead, and neither are you.”

Wrecker doesn't say another word. Not because he doesn't want to apologize further, because he really doesn't think he's brought across just how sorry he is. It's the fact that Wrecker can't get his brain to understand what Tech is trying to tell him that gets the large clone to shut his mouth.

“Calm down Wrecker!” Hunter orders, a clear urgency to his voice. Wrecker is suddenly very aware of how loud his frantic breathing is. This time, he does manage to silence it, the white room suddenly oppressively quiet.

“Don't hold your breath, di'kut! Breathe.” Crosshair takes Wrecker's hand and presses it to his chest. Wrecker can feel his little brother inhaling, tries to match his own intake of air to Crosshair's. This is something Wrecker can do, it's hardly the first time they've had to resort to something like this. It takes a while for Wrecker's lungs to stop burning, but as they do, and Wrecker's head starts to clear, Tech's words start making sense.

Crosshair is breathing, he feels warm to the touch, his heart is beating. He feels alive, is alive . Fresh tears stream down Wrecker's face. It hurts to move, but Wrecker doesn't care, desperately needing to hold one of his brothers immediately.

“Stop squirming about, mir'osik!” Crosshair hisses, putting a hand on Wrecker's chest. There's an astonishing lack of venom to his words. “They only just fished you out of a bacta tank.”

“Don't care.” Wrecker takes hold of Crosshair's arm and drags him into a hug. White hot pain flares along the entirety of Wrecker's right side, but it's still the best thing Wrecker's felt in what seems like an eternity. His brothers are alive, that's all that matters.

“You should care.” Tech says. “Your bones have barely fused and there are still more bandages on you then there is exposed skin. If I am entirely honest, you should not be sitting up in the first place.”

If Tech doesn't want Wrecker to sit up, he'll lay down. He pulls Crosshair onto the bed as he does so. Crosshair complains loudly, surprisingly enough not about Wrecker hugging him, but about the fact Wrecker shouldn't be putting more weight on his injuries. Once Wrecker moves to the side to let Crosshair lay beside him, the sniper stops making a fuss.

Wrecker can make out that they're in a medbay now. If the look wouldn't give it away, the sharp smell of antiseptic is telling enough. Wrecker's glad his brothers are with him, he doubts he could stand the cold room alone.

Metallic screeching makes Wrecker aware of Hunter and Tech pushing one of the other beds up to Wrecker's. They're definitively not supposed to be doing that, but Wrecker won't complain. Two beds side to side, Tech and Hunter climb up on the empty one. Wrecker slings his arm across both of them, ignoring the way his body aches at the movement.

“Careful.” Tech warns. “You sustained multiple fractures in that arm, as well as your legs. It would be highly inconvenient for you to disturb the breaks.” Wrecker nods weakly.

“You're blind and death on the right side.” Crosshair sounds sad, apologetic.

Wrecker gingerly touches his face, hand brushing against thick bandages. “I thought things looked and sounded kinda funny.” Wrecker says with a laugh, making his chest sting horribly. His vode don't laugh, much to Wrecker's disappointment.

“We brought you someone.” Crosshair pulls Lula out from where she'd already been squished between them. A wide smile spreads on Wrecker's face, tugging painfully at the injured side of his face.

“Lula!” Wrecker takes the tooka doll from his brother carefully. “You kept her!” He holds her to his face for a moment, relishing the feeling of the familiar soft material against his skin, before tucking her between himself and Crosshair again.

“Kept her? Why wouldn't we keep her?” Hunter's face pinches in confusion.

“You know...” Wrecker says, waiting for them to guess what he's saying. They don't, so he continues. “If I died...”

“You think we'd get rid of her if you died?” Crosshair sounds so genuinely angry, Wrecker almost flinches away from him.

“I hoped you wouldn't...” Wrecker says, playing with Lula's ear to avoid looking at his vode.

“Maybe you did take brain damage, if you think we'd just get rid of your stuff like you never existed.” Crosshair still sounds angry, but Wrecker spots tears threatening to spill across his cheeks. Wrecker pulls Crosshair closer. He didn't want to make his brother cry.

“I'm sorry it took us so long to get to you.” Hunter says. He looks pained. Wrecker's chest aches at the sight, and he tries to pull him into a hug as well.

“What do you mean?”

Hunter swallows thickly. “We, I, made the decision to leave you under the rubble in favour of the mission. You almost died.” Hunter shakes his head. “Maybe your eye and ear could have been saved if I hadn't made that decision.”

Wrecker runs and uncoordinated hand through Hunter's hair, messing it up. “Eh, forget about it. I wasn't planning to make it out of there alive. This is a good surprise either way, missing organs or not.”

“If you try something like that again, I'll kill you myself.” Tech says, glaring at Wrecker half-heartedly.

Wrecker laughs at his brother's words, hugging his vode just a little tighter, but doesn't say anything. He knows, and he's sure his brother's know too, that if it comes down to it, Wrecker won't hesitate to call plan 99 again. He's glad to be alive, to get a bit more time, but the fact still remains: Plan 99 is Wrecker's duty and one day, it will be the last thing he does.

[monosanimegenericzone]

Hunter x Hunter: Post Mortem Nen (troupe business)

hi so the troupe and post mortem nen.

i dont ... actually expect them to be utilizing post mortem nen because that's not how they work. they're content with death and dont ever think of cheating it because its never been a threat before.

but. the brainworms started crawling with this very touching sentimental idea: a pact was founded between the 8 founding members that weren't chrollo to create post mortem nen contracts.

and this is entirely copium. take it with a grain of desperation.

the founding members all know- the second the untrustworthy number four was added that the spider has one glaring weakness. once it loses its original members, which is very much a possibility especially in the early days, the troupe's entire purpose would be swayed.

what purpose? good question.

the 8 excluding chrollo make an agreement to make post mortem nen agreements so that the spider's purpose and its drive would never be forgotten. and each of them do it differently because obviously they have different abilities.

nobunaga i fully believe just has a straight up post mortem hatsu. since we've never seen it and since he's based on the samurai. i fully believe that he exclusively focused his hatsu into his time after death. it allows him to be more careless with his life and apply his knowledge of nen more recklessly. if he is killed nothing happens but if he manages to end his own life via seppuku then it activates. idk what exactly but im thinking real hard about it.

feitan i think i talked about before but Mortem Vindicta. applied to his own death, whatever he suffered from the deaths of any of those he cared about would unleash in an attack so powerful it would vaporize anyone in its vicinity. and yeah i get that part of his immense power is that he has no control over it but in post mortem nen i feel like he could slip in a clause about not harming anyone bearing the spider tattoo.

machi could just keep sewing herself up remotely. like after she 'dies' her nen will fix her body to a state of plausible resurrection but needs an additional push to be fully resuscitated. so like someone would have to restart her heart but other than that she's perfectly healthy. and it doesn't ever expire.

phinks i cant think of a good one but probably something very simple since he is an enhancer. since his ability revolves around karma and he takes heavy inspiration from egyptian mythology, i'm thinking something about earning his right to live again in death. i'll come back to this when i get a good idea but there is something there i can mess with.

shalnark would have something to do with his pins and his phone. his power i believe is sourced by his phone being one of a kind. so therefore he'd tie an ability into that. i believe his post mortem nen would involve a consciousness transfer. if someone uses his antenna on someone else and presses ok on the prompt on his phone, then a copy of his consciousness will be downloaded into the target and overridden creating a perfect replica of shalnark in a different body. however this only works if same person is the one to complete both actions. and his phone has to be undamaged and functional.

franklin is hard because i feel like he'd be the least willing to indulge in post mortem nen. i dont think he would choose himself to come back to life but rather use his nen to protect another. since he's an emitter his post mortem nen could take the form of a nen beast similar to the ones in the succession war. maybe a large sniper rifle headed beast thats an amalgamation of different limbs similar to frankenstein. it can appear with any troupe member and as soon as any target the majority of the present troupe absolutely hates comes into view they get sniped into oblivion. it never misses. it has exactly 7 shots and then after that it's gone forever.

paku is hard because i think she'd be like franklin. she doesn't want to live again if her death was deserved, so she'll choose to protect others. and i think hers is very straightforward: exactly what she did in yorknew. she would share her memories and her desires with the rest of the troupe. keep the dream alive and therefore she lives on through them. call it Memory Bomb: remembering purpose.

uvo i think would also not want to engage in post mortem nen, but he would still make the contract with himself after listening to some reason. and i think he values the quality of new members very much. so he could set a condition on his number and then the approval or disapproval of his peers. so it would go something like: if i die and the one who replaces me/takes the number 11 is not approved of or betrays the troupe, his nen will resurrect him immediately and he will have the insatiable need to find and kill the perpetrator. after that tho he chillin. back to normal.

this is wild speculation and major amounts of coping. but i will admit that this intrigues me.

im intrigued...

bonus thought of chrollo seeing that extra clause in shalnark's entry in bandit's secret and meaning to ask him but by then the phone was damaged and shalnark was dead

and chrollo remembering that clause and holding shal's phone that has a single bullet hole through the screen.

guah.

[5eraphim]

tf2 mercs: least to most fun to go shoplifting with-

(unedited/rent lowering gunshot post) 

10. Heavy

he’s not too observant and can’t help but draw attention, though it’s unlikely anyone would try to stop him even if he was caught trying to make a get away.

while he might not stop you, he wouldn’t encourage this kind of behavior. in his eyes it’s just a silly way to get into trouble, and has a hard time understanding the appeal of this.

he’s a hunter, not a gatherer an is at a natural disadvantage here. heavy is a simple man, he lives within his means, and is content to abstain from this practice.

9. Engineer

like heavy, engie doesn’t really get the appeal, but would be able to get away with stealing way easier than heavy. 

he was probably brought up taught this sort of thing was very, very wrong and disrespectful to the employees or something- or like, maybe he was caught when he was really young trying to steal idk, a toy or a snack or something in school and got in trouble and he’s never been able to shake the guilt. (he’s not a cop or anything, but would have the “I’m not mad, just disappointed” reaction if you were to proposition going lifting with him. and if he were to see a stranger trying to get away with stealing, he’s not gonna snitch.)

he’s always wearing those overalls and his work belt, so theoretically, he could empty all those out and go in with a ton of free pocket-space. he’s also on the shorter side and could easily keep his hands below the employee’s eye level.

might have a bit of fun tinkering with ways to disable security mechanisms. might randomly decide to disable a bunch of security devices and walk out without taking anything with him. just to sow a little chaos for funsies.

ok with stealing things like food if he were in an extreme situation, so long as you were stealing from some corporate chain store, and not a smaller independent location.

8. Soldier

HE IS NOT SNEAKY, HE DOES NOT WANT TO BE SNEAKY, PLEASE DO NOT MAKE HIM BE SNEAKY

the best strategy you could hope to use with him would be to just straight up ask him to go beat the fuck out of the cashier while you grab what you want and make a run for it. 

7. Pyro

it’d be fun to convince them to do this with you by pretending it’s all some game, and whoever can walk away with the most without getting caught is the winner.

when you put it to them like that, they can do quite well for themself, but prefers to stick closer to you, rather than stray too far on their own. it’s impossible to get much of a bounty with pyro, but they want to win the “game” so earnestly it’s hard not to have a good time despite the lack of reward.

always rips off soft security tags, but also likes to wear them on their clothes like stickers, completely defeating the point and getting caught as a result.

6. Spy

realistically, he’d be the best lifting partner you could ever hope for, but he’s too aware of this and would be really fucking annoying about it. you would walk away with some great loot for sure, but that doesn’t exactly mean it would be fun.

exclusively goes for ridiculously expensive items he hardly even wants or would realistically use. he doesn’t even really have anything to prove, he just does this for the bragging rights.

spy knows he has the huge advantage of being the kind of person sales associates wouldn’t assume would try to steal, even if he doesn’t want to admit it.

to people he doesn’t know- he’ll lie and say he paid for all his luxuries bc he can afford it, but people who are tighter with him know he’s stolen a decent amount of his finer treasures. 

5. Sniper

he lives in a campervan and doesn’t have too much space for cargo/personal belongings, but he’d really be in his element here, even if he doesn’t completely get the point of “the fun of stealing for the sake of stealing”

while he’s sneaky, he’s also real lanky, and would draw attention on account of being so tall, making him a solid diversion. 

he’s pretty fun to go out with, but he also only wants to go out once in a blue moon, so you’d better savor the time with him while it lasts. (he was simply not built to compute with capitalism, though he can handle small doses for the sake of a good time)

4. Scout

he’s done this all before. scout’s the little guy and has always felt the need to prove himself, especially to his older brothers/teammates/friends growing up. scout was probably hazed/dared into stealing a lot during childhood and adolescence, and has gotten remarkably good with practice. (unfortunately much like spy, he too knows he’s really good at this and won’t shut up about it.)

as the one who’s been at this forever, he likely has his own hook, a neodymium magnet, and is really good at the tinfoil trick. (you know he’s got them fast lil’ fingies) 

he’s surprisingly good at keeping his tracks covered and getting away with stealing. excels with a blitzkrieg, “get in quick, get out quicker” strategy. he’s not in it to steal expensive things, just likes to stir up a little trouble every now and then.

though, with all that said, just because he’d be great at shoplifting, he’d also be great at getting himself caught. he’s the biggest braggard, and would be way too likely to get cocky and brag about his heist before it’s over, and get himself caught and banned.

he’d be the most apt to, and grateful to accept gifts from you if he knew they were stolen. likes the idea you’d risk getting in trouble for him, and would want to try and one up you, and get you something he stole himself.

3. Demo

he wouldn’t exactly be good at this, but it would be fun. he wouldn’t shoplift alone, but is into the idea of doing it in a pack, or just with you.

realistically, he’d get a couple lifts in before he starts to get overconfident and gets himself and everyone he’s with caught.

specializes in liquor lifting, but likes to pick up little gifts for his buddies. (maybe one of the only guys who genuinely likes to gift stolen goods, rather than receive them.)

having one eye puts him at a serious disadvantage here, and he’s not too sneaky, but he’s usually pretty good at scoping out the area before trying to make his move.

2. Medic

able to strike a perfect balance of stealing expensive items, but wouldn’t take himself too seriously, and wants to have a good time above all. it’ not about stealing expensive things, so much as it is about getting loot from as many different locations as possible.

he’d likely have the coolest little cashe of the weirdest stuff he’s stolen. he’s much like a magpie in that sense, medic likes the idea of pilfering and bringing treasures back to his “nest” and having his own little secret hoard. (he likes stealing and gifting for others too, but prefers to be able to keep what he takes)

his morality is completely relative and fickle- there’s no way he would have reservations about stealing from corporations or “big money” stores, or just about anywhere he thinks he could get away with

would hide stuff in his underwear bc he is a WHORE

1. Miss Pauling

would be the most fun to go shoplifting with. she has so much stress to burn off from work, and she could have a lot of fun winding down from a long day of mortal sin and heavy crime with some lighthearted crime.

would be willing to get tipsy or stoned before going out because she’s more interested in having a good time, rather than the bounty itself.

she’s feral, she’s evil, you know her hunter-gatherer instincts go fucking CRAZY.

women be shopping

[katy-133]

Some Ace Headcanons and Tropes

Happy June, I made this post for discussing characters who I headcanon as ace, as well as discussing some tropes related to ace coding.

Ace, or asexuality, is when a person feels little to no sexual attraction towards others. This is separate from being aromantic, which is feeling a lack of romantic attraction (though an asexual person can also be aromantic, not all ace people are).

For some of the characters I've listed below, I'll specify as romantic ace (aka, aceallo), someone who feels romantic attraction whilst feeling a lack of sexual attraction. Or demiromantic, someone who feels romantic attraction only after forming a deep emotional bond with a person. Others I'll use the ace umbrella word exclusively.

While you can headcanon characters that fly in the face of canon, I like my ace headcanons to be canon-friendly. Meaning, if the story were to ever confirm that the character is ace, it would not contradict previous characterisation.

Bertie Wooster from Jeeves & Wooster as romantic ace:

The entire book series (and tv adaptation) is about Bertie trying to find ways of getting out of arranged marriages and accidental engagements with various women. These woman are canonically stated to be beautiful--sometimes by Bertie himself. Therefore, Bertie doesn't want to marry them because he finds their looks off-putting, he doesn't want to be with them for another reason. So the plot can be read as an ace story (it is a common experience for ace people to feel pressured by their family to marry someone). Bertie can be read as specifically romantic ace. He's fallen in love (with Miss Wickham and Pauline Stoker). In the books, there's this running motif of Bertie (who narrates the stories) describing his butler-valet, Jeeves, in a way that a person would typically describe their love interest or spouse, with Bertie sometimes making the comparison himself. This has led to interpretations of Bertie being in love with Jeeves.

Crowley from Good Omens as romantic ace:

Is a demon who falls in love with an angel and proceeds to pine for him for 6000 years (which I'm sure is some sort of slow burn world record). There's this trope that demon characters will aggressively flirt and try to seduce another character (the trope's origin stemming from the idea that evil and corruption is seductive in some way, as well as links with the succubus in folklore), which Crowley markedly subverts. Also, take Lucifer in the titular Fox/Netflix series (also based on a work linked with writer Neil Gaiman) and compare him with Crowley in that aspect--Lucifer acts more allosexual and is canonically in multiple sexual relationships. Fiction isn't created in a bubble, so this trope's context helps to code Crowley as ace, as he's subverting a trope (human-looking demons) linked with allosexuality ("demons are seductive"--though ace people can also flirt, in fiction it's often used as a shorthand for allosexuality).

Tintin from The Adventures of Tintin:

Is never given a love interest in the canon, nor shows interest in pursuing it, despite the series being 24 albums and the other protagonists of the "globetrotting adventurer" genre often have love interests (James Bond, Uncharted, Indiana Jones). Similar to Crowley, above, Tintin is subverting a staple aspect of the genre he exists in.

Sniper (Mick Mundy) from Team Fortress 2 as romantic ace:

Sniper never shows attraction towards a woman in any part of TF2's canon (which is particularly notable to me compared to some of the other mercs, who do). We see that Sniper's closest loved ones are his parents; he has no wife or girlfriend (the Administrator only threatens his parents also in the comics). While Sniper's backstory is a direct homage to Superman and is about him being adopted from outside his place of birth, his backstory can also be read as queer coded (he didn't fit in with his peers and he felt like there was something that made him different from them). Sniper is considered to not be attractive by typical Australian standards (in TF2's universe, Australians have superhuman strength and grow moustaches, due to a fictional element called Australium), so Sniper may have never had a relationship while living in Australia, but wanted to. His design and character based on Crocodile Dundee (the lead in a romantic comedy film), but despite that association (and repeated references to it), Sniper has no love interest.

Nick Valentine from Fallout 4 as romantic ace:

He's a robot detective (in the Fallout universe, he's not actually a robot, but a "synth," or synthetic man, but in terms of his character archetype, he falls under the robot archetype. Unlike other companions in the game, you can't be physically intimate with him to gain stat boosts. He has a deceased fiance whom he remembers fondly, and whenever he talks about her, he doesn't allude to sexual attraction, allowing the player to read his love for her as exclusively romantic. Robot characters being ace coded is an old trope with negative associations (such as ace people being viewed as "cold, robotic, and/or emotionless"), but Nick Valentine (being a companion character who gets his own backstory and inner conflict) ends up feeling more human than other characters in the story, subverting the trope. Nick Valentine's symbol is a heart. A neon heart is on his detective agency sign, which you see before you even meet him, a reference to his surname (Valentine = heart). The ace of hearts is an ace symbol for romantic aces (with other card suits representing other aces). Though I would guess naming him Valentine was done to reference different noir detectives (whom Nick is inspired by) being named after card suits (Sam Spade, Nick Diamond), the ace association is still there for viewers.

Reigen Arataka from Mob Psycho 100 as romantic ace:

When Mob asks Reigen for advice on confessing to a crush (season 3 in the anime), Reigen cheats by reading advice he found online. His colleague Serizawa notices this and notes that Reigen is inexperienced with relationships. Later on in the conversation, Reigen tells Serizawa that he thinks he'd be rejected if a woman got to know him for who he really is. He's referring to being a con artist, but the scene can also feel ace coded if you read it as Reigen being worried that a girlfriend would dump him if they found out that he was asexual. Earlier in the story, Reigen has a conversation with the spirit Dimple about a spirit stalking a woman. Dimple says, "It's pretty uncommon for spirits to have any sexual desire. We couldn't reproduce if we wanted to." Reigen replies, "Is sexual desire always a part of love, though? I-I really don't want to talk about this with you." Meaning that Reigen separates romantic attraction from sexual attraction.

Dexter Morgan from Dexter as demiromantic ace:

Does not show sexual attraction in the books, as well as the first season of the show (but does show sexual attraction in later seasons that deviate from the books, but we don't talk about those seasons). He describes himself as not being interested in sex. As he puts it, "For me, sex never enters into it. I don't understand sex. Not that I have anything against women, and I certainly have an appropriate sensibility about men, but when it comes to the actual act of sex, it's always just seems so undignified."). Again, similar to robot characters, killers being coded as ace is an old trope with negative connotations. It equates sexual attraction with humanity, empathy, and good moral alignment--implying that asexual people are in some way inhuman or cold. While he's still an antihero or villain protagonist, Dexter in a way subverts this idea, as he only targets other killers, and as the story progresses, he learns more about humanity and it becomes clear to the reader that he's not as inhuman as he describes himself. Dexter also has a girlfriend, Rita, and they're in a celibate relationship due to her past trauma with her ex husband. This leads to conflict in their relationship when Rita later starts questing if they should remove the celibate part of their relationship and Dexter tries to find ways to keep it. Dexter agrees to being her boyfriend at first to help "blend in" as a normal human, but ultimately proves to genuinely care about Rita as a girlfriend. The dramatic irony of him being ace coded and living in Miami, Florida was also a great choice ("Every night in Miami is date night," as Dexter puts it). It leads to Dexter constantly bombarded with his allo colleagues talking about their relationship problems and him awkwardly trying to pretend to relate to it. This can be read as queer coded, as Dexter is trying to fit in while feeling like there's something about him that makes him different from those around him.

Sherlock Holmes:

Film (and to a lesser extent, television) adaptations of Sherlock Holmes have a habit of making the character Irene Addler as Sherlock's love interest. She is not this in the original books, she is known as "the woman" because she taught Sherlock the important lesson of not underestimating someone because of their gender. Sherlock shows no romantic interest in women in the books, with his strongest bond being with Watson. Watson, the narrator, frames it as Sherlock being married to his (Sherlock's) work, which is a trope that invites ace interpretations (read as: It's not just "the work" that keeps them from pursuing sexual relationships--it's their orientation that led to them pursing "the work," reversing the framing). Similar to the "cold killer" character type talked about with Dexter, the "married to their work" trope can have negative inference that the character is cold or unfeeling by valuing their work over their interpersonal relationships. Though in the Sherlock Holmes books, Sherlock is shown to care about Watson as well as show compassion to other characters, including the culprits of some of the storys' mysteries.

Tropes are patterns in storytelling. They're tools, and can be subverted and altered in different ways. They have a history, and learning about their origins and their purpose in a story can help inform you as a storyteller.

In conclusion:

"Aces!" -Sniper

[wesleysniperking]

Usopp’s 14-Day Tall Tale WEEK 2!

Missed the first week of celebrations? Don't worry! You can celebrate again during his birthday week which is this week! (join and participate here!!!!)

The name of our community event is "Usopp's 14-Day_ Tall Tale." Please use the hashtag #usoppdaycom2025 to let us know you're participating.

Read on for more details, including the infographics, to understand how to participate, as well as the writing and fan art prompts. There is also a separate event being organized on a Tumblr blog (by completely different people), and we encourage you to participate there as well. However, please note that their event is completely separate from ours, which will last for two weeks.

Further details about the rules, guidelines, and prompts will be provided later in the post.

Read more below:

Prompts

Week 2: March 30th - April 5th

Sunday - March 30th, 2025 – Usopp and His Place in the Crew

Usopp isn’t just the sniper—he’s the storyteller, the heart, the one who reminds the crew of their humanity. Explore his role within the Straw Hats, whether in combat, emotional support, or in the quiet moments in between.

Monday - March 31st, 2025 – Captain Usopp

The legendary Captain Usopp! Whether he’s leading a crew of his own, taking charge in a critical moment, or just keeping up the bravado, today is all about Usopp’s dream of being a fearless captain.

Tuesday - April 1st,2025 – Yasopp

Father and son, parallels and differences. How does Usopp compare to Yasopp? Do they ever meet again? Does Usopp resent or admire him? Dive into their relationship or Yasopp’s perspective as a father.

Wednesday - April 2nd, 2025 – Usopp’s Observation Haki

Usopp’s sharp senses go beyond just aim—his Observation Haki is one of the most unique in the series. Whether it’s his sniping instincts, future sight, or his potential as a Dreamweaver, showcase the depth of his haki abilities.

Thursday - April 3rd, 2025 – Usopp with a Gun

What if Usopp used more than just a slingshot? Whether it’s a high-tech sniper rifle in a sci-fi AU, a classic flintlock, or a moment where he has no choice but to wield a gun, explore what happens when Usopp takes up a different kind of weapon.

Friday - April 4th, 2025 – Usopp is Everyone’s Best Friend

Usopp has a way of connecting with people. Whether he’s cheering up a crewmate, befriending islanders, or forming unexpected bonds with other pirates, highlight his ability to bring people together. This is a great chance to explore rarely seen dynamics between Usopp and different crew members—what kind of friendships exist that don’t always get the spotlight?

Saturday - April 5th, 2025 – Usopp is a Brave Warrior!

Fear is part of what makes Usopp strong. He may run, he may hesitate, but in the end, he always stands up. Celebrate his courage, whether in a comedic, heartfelt, or action-packed way!

Important Info ‼️‼️

This event is exclusive to this community, but feel free to tag your work with #usoppdaycom2025 both inside and outside the community so more fans can find and enjoy it.

How to Participate:

You're welcome to contribute fan art, fanfiction, edits, or any other creative works inspired by Usopp.

A few important guidelines:

• If your work is NSFW or potentially sensitive, please include a content warning.

• No plagiarism. All entries must be original (it's okay to reblog or share other people's work - but to participate, submit something made by you).

• Late entries are okay! If you miss a day or need to catch up, feel free to post whenever you can - just let us know.

• This is a pro-Usopp space. Constructive takes are welcome, but if your post misrepresents or bashes Usopp, it doesn't belong here.

Furthermore….

If you have any questions, need clarification, or want to help moderate the event, message @chowyunnafat or @theviolettulip .

Most importantly - have fun!

Let's make this a celebration Usopp would be proud of!

FIRST WEEK PROMPTS

[themculibrary]

Clint And Laura (Claura) Masterlist 2

part one

blow a kiss ; fire a gun (ao3) - daredoll M, 12k

Summary: First day on the job and she gets handed a train wreck; you could say that Laura Mitchell’s hard work hasn’t exactly paid off in the way she expected it to. Still, she’s read the SHIELD handbook at least eight times by now so she’s sure she can more than handle some upstart carnie with a bow kink who somehow managed to beat her training score without even going through the academy.

Spoiler Alert: she’s wrong.

Distraction (ao3) - woamx G, 875

Summary: Clint gets a phone call right before having to go out on the field with his teammates.

Five Years in a Blink (ao3) - Gnb_rules M, 3k

Summary: Laura knows the world has changed in the past five years, and in the days after she and the kids return from The Blip, she realizes that she needs to learn how much of her husband has changed as well. Clint/Laura, post Endgame. Mentions of a very loving and deep but platonic Clintasha friendship. Please see tags for more info/warnings.

here is my hand that will not harm you (ao3) - andibeth82 T, 18k

Summary: It starts the day they assign him to Laura Morse.

It starts as something he wants nothing to do with.

And then, it becomes something more.

I'm Not Going Anywhere (ao3) - aberrations_reality T, 3k

Summary: They swore they were going to take it slow. They did. They really did. But Clint has always been terrible at planning; has always had the worst timing. At this point it was probably a curse. So it only made sense that the second he pulled out the ring the window shattered in a spray of bullets and glass.

Never far from home (ao3) - RedBatons T, 112k

Summary: Clint is crazy. Laura already knew this. But this time, Clint was seriously out of his mind crazy. He had one job, to kill the deadliest assassin known to man. And then he decides to keep her like a lost puppy found on the streets. But Laura trusts Clint. The Black Widow, not so much. A story about Laura and Nat's friendship over the years.

One thing, and three people that Laura loves (a non exclusive list) (ao3) - Maia_saura G, 1k

Summary: Laura loved math. She had loved math since the second grade. Other than an intense but ill-advised fling with theoretical physics right before the start of her graduate program, she and math had shared a rewarding and monogamous relationship.

Reconnecting (The Reclamation Remix) (ao3) - Huntress79 M, 2k

Summary: Sometimes, Laura thinks she has two babies instead of just one - her husband’s lingering trauma from his latest mission makes life at the farm not exactly easier, for no one. Until one night, it does. Or: how Clint and Laura overcome trauma and reconnect with each other.

she sees better from a distance (ao3) - andibeth82 T, 8k

Summary: This is the story everyone knows: Clint Barton is SHIELD’s best sniper. Laura Barton is the simple girl who fell into his life and learned to deal with aliens and spies; with secrets and firearms and security.

In this story, Laura Martinelli is SHIELD’s best sniper. Clint Barton is the man she falls in love with, and he’s never even heard of SHIELD.

Sleep Number Rule (ao3) - RecessiveJean T, 7k

Summary: Farm or not, Clint always had a firm policy against bringing home strays.

Well.

Firm ish.

The Ghost of Christmas Past (ao3) - mitchpell T, 28k

Summary: Clint takes his children to New York City to see Rogers: The Musical.

The Girl at the Circus (ao3) - Hogwartswonderland N/R, 3k

Summary: At the beginning of their partnership, Clint told Natasha a story of a beautiful acrobat nicknamed Rapunzel and how he fell in love with her. Five years later Natasha still doesn't know how the story ends. Well, until now. Otherwise the story of how Natasha met Clint's family for the first time.

This little light (ao3) - Builder G, 1k

Summary: “Daaaad!”

The complaint has Clint turning on his heel.  “What now?”

He looks at the coffee pot still in his hand and wonders what the fuck he did with his mug.  And more urgently, how the fuck is he going to get the coffee into his body without it.

we belong to those who live (ao3) - daughterofrohan G, 2k

Summary: The absurdity of the fact that he’s crying in his kitchen with the assassin sister of his dead assassin best friend who was hired to kill him and has only just recently decided not to do it after all almost makes Clint laugh.

You're Here Where You Should Be (ao3) - paperairplanesopenwindows T, 1k

Summary: Summary/Prompt Used: Natasha’s first Christmas with the Bartons + Clint and Laura’s first Christmas with Cooper doesn’t go exactly as planned + (an itty bitty little bit of) If love is for children, then so is Christmas. Clint’s determined to convince Natasha otherwise.

you were more than just a short time (ao3) - mayadrinkswater G, 2k

Summary: laura barton is all-too-familiar with the antics of her husband and his best friend. they always, even in the most serious and near-fatal of missions, come back with a good story. they've perfected their ability to recall them, too, in a near perfect push-and-pull that almost seems rehearsed even though laura knows that it isn't. laura never expected to miss it so much.

or

three times clint and natasha bring a good story home and the one time clint brings a new stray home in the form of kate bishop

[jupitermelichios]

so this is, as far as anyone can tell, not a joke. this is an actual list an alt right dipshit gamerTM made of 'conservative core' games and posted on a 4chan clone, and it's the greatest self own I've seen online in a while. guy is just out here boasting about his own lack of media literacy

I'll put the full list below a cut for anyone who wants it, but i just want to highlight a extra few special entries here first (minor content warning for mention of forced pregnancy, nothing explicit):

Toho Project: it's almost certainly on here because it contains anime waifus, but I've literally never met a toho fan who wasn't trans. technically i guess cis toho fans exist, but they're definitely not the ones keeping the franchise afloat

The 3 different Warhammer 40k games: 40k was created as a critique of reactionary conservatism generally, and margaret thatcher specifically.

Doom: just gonna quote the creator of doom here. "Trans rights are human rights, important rights, critical rights and society needs to do more to make this the case for everyone."

Sniper Elite: this is a game about shooting nazis in the balls. literally, that is the game. there are nazis, you shoot them. usually in the balls. that feels like a pretty firmly anti-nazi stance to me, idk

Persona 4: this game is about how conservative japanese society mistreats teenagers and denies them physical and emotional agency. gonna go out on a limb and guess it's on here because dipshit fancies one of the female characters

Silent Hill 3: silent hill three is about a teenage girl who is impregnated against her will and desperately wants to not be pregnant but a powerful religious organisation tries to force her to carry the baby to term and as a direct result the world nearly ends. in one of the endings, it does end. because of the lack of an abortion. i cannot believe the game about the importance of reproductive rights isn't even the stupidest entry on this list

Fallout 3: it is, granted,one of the less political fallouts. it's still a game about how the U.S. gonvernment destroyed the entire world by declaring war on china and then nuking the planet, and also about how unchecked capitalism and the replacing the social safety net with corporations will inevitably lead to those corporations abusing people, and how that is very bad actually.

Bioshock: literally the first thing that happens in this game is you are told libertarianism is a stupid ideology that will always fail and ayn rand was a moron. and then the game goes on telling you that. at length. in a variety of creative ways. for the next 15 hours.

Metro Last Light: see fallout, this is a game about war-hungry governments who don't give a shit about their people end up nuking the planet and nearly wiping out all life.

and finally, to end on the highest possible note:

Metal Gear Rising Revengence: not only is this an entry in a franchise which is entirely and exclusively about how awful the military industrial complex is, this game specifically is about a soldier who was abused by the military killing the president of the united states because his use of private military corporations to fight wars is morally indefensible. literally. that's the plot. it's entirely possible raiden just says those words in that order out loud in the game because hideo kojima knows writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.

anyway, the alt right are fucking morons and media studies needs to be a compulsory subject in every school on the planet.

full list below the cut:

Toho Project

Warhammer 40k: Darktide

Doom

Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Sniper Elite

Mortal Kombat

Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Persona 4

Rimworld

Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Quake

Silent Hill 3

Resident Evil: Parasite Eve

007: Goldeneye

Perfect Dark

Battlefield 4

Dino Crisis

Fallout 3

Counter Strike: Global Offensive

Arma III

Squad (no, I don't know what this one is either, it appears to just be called squad? it looks like a rainbox six knock off)

Ready or Not (disappointingly, this looks like a Call of Duty knockoff and not a game based on the film ready or not, which is about killing the 1% with a machete)

Company of Heroes

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

Devil May Cry 2

Fire Emblem: the Three Houses

Megaman Zero

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl

Bioshock

Halo 2

Battlefield 3

Call of Duty: Black Ops

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War

Ninja Gaiden II

Metro: Last Light

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine (fun fact, at the end of this game your character gets executed for heresy because they saved lives, but i'm sure that's not commentary on anything at all)

Killzone 2

Dead or Alive: X-Treme Beach Volleyball 2

God of War (the original, not the Dad of Boy reboot)

Metal Gear Rising Revengence

[lilyblackdrawside]

SSS Round Five has had its first reset and I’m going to talk about it.

Long post.

Dungeons

One of the dungeons this time is „Nomadic Border Town“, which is Leithanien-themed all the way through and aims to stifle arts damage you may want to be dealing. It features almost exclusively enemies with good to high Resistance, the cast being comprised of Leithanien, Sarkaz and enemies that have a special mechanic to gain Res, such as the Dublinns’ Refraction and HoSF’s Rockbreakers.

Danger Level here raises HP, ATK and Def.

Emergency mode also adds scaling Res to the Danger level, which I feel like should’ve been there in place of the Def scaling to begin with, where it then should’ve also been more extreme. You also get shoddy flash bangs in Emergency mode, which I consider to be much easier to deal with than the concrete.

Stages 4 and 5 feature Lingering Echoes’ Flux mechanic, with 4 not being very challenging about it, but 5 needing you to put some thought into it between keeping your sp recovery, not dying to Saxophone shots and not getting overwhelmed by unfluxed Collosi. (The LE kind, not the Mudrock ones).

The boss is quite manageable, especially if you deploy close to your home. It can however put you into kind of a lost state where your hand is full of junk that you can’t deploy, but that’s very avoidable.

I overall quite like this dungeon. The stages are fun, the boss is interesting and it tries to stop me from just going „Woe, Leizi upon ye“ once again. But you can still do that.

Even on Emergency Mode, the amount of control a ModX Chain Caster can provide is enough to wear down enemies, and none of them have any kind of res bypass. Of course, this isn’t optimal.

Here, physical damage is the way to go, which for me just manifested in deploying Fiammetta with full Sniper Stacks. Caster Stacks work too, but I prefer the better coverage of quick-fire and Snipers are cheaper to stack.

This dungeon implictly expects you to use physical damage ground operators however. I will go into this later when I talk about the regional EC Unit, but I still don’t think that ground units are good in SSS.

Incoming damage onto your ranged operators is minimal enough that, once you know what’s coming and position yourself accordingly, a Bard is enough for sustain (Skalter on S2 for me).

I find that a Skalter-supported Gnosis borderline „solos“ stages 3 and 4, by which I mean that he doesn’t need any meaningful assistance and really just anyone will do to provide support fire for him. This is the high Res dungeon by the way.

I consider this the easier of the two solely because the boss stage of the other dungeon is noticeably tougher than this one. It’s also more enjoyable, because it’s more consistently engaging.

The other dungeon is the „Dossoles Commercial Plate“, which forms the counterpart to the Nomadic Border Town and is themed around enemies with high Defense and takes place in Dossoles.

Danger Level here raises HP, ATK and DEF, with Emergency Mode adding extra Def scaling on top of that and giving you concrete. Heavy. Insulated. Concrete is tough. So this is just business as usual.

All the stages are filled with Defender-type enemies, with Stage 5 being the only one to feature anything with noticeable Res in Guerilla Heralds and Shieldguards.

Leizi solos stages 1 through 3, and this time I mean genuine soloing. I never tested it with Stage 5 but she might do that one too with Skalter support, because this is the only stage with ranged enemies.

The boss stage does have exploding boats though and those can hit your ranged units too.

Since all these stages are full of slow-moving defender-type enemies and you can clear them with one to two stacked operators, they’re all quite boring and very hands-off once you’re set up.

The boss stage makes up for this by forcing you to manage exploding boats that come in at inconvenient angles and the boss likely guaranteed stuffing your approach the first and second time around by timing its special in the worst way possible.

Once you learn when to not deploy, you can just throw Ceobe at it though.

This dungeon isn’t without merit, as it is still entertaining to watch Leizi and Passenger tear through hordes of enemies, but I do find myself doing other things like reading while the stage passes in the background.

Definitely not the worst SSS dungeon. It’s inoffensive. The boss is kinda fun.

EC Units

Chargeable Supervisory Speaker

This one has is now making its customary second round and is still as good as it was before, though a bit weaker because both the regional units as well as the regular newcomer are all quite competent.

It passively gives Vanguards +1 Block and deploying one, immediately fetches another from Prep. Its active deployable grants an operator +40% ATK, or +80% if you have at least 20 DP left, which it will consume. This doesn’t stack, but is the strong point of this EC Unit.

You basically get two extra equipment stacks - in this case Guard/Caster. It makes a difference and can be very easy to reuse, depending on your auxiliary deployables and the Branch to pick.

Branch A reduces Vanguard DP Cost by 10 and causes them to also fetch the deployable from Prep or Recupe. This way, it really is easy to get your whole squad buffed up with it.

Branch B gives Vanguards +20 ASPD and 3% max HP regen/s per piece of equipment on them, so up to +100 ASPD and 15% regen. This is a strong buff, but it’s on Vanguards.

You don’t actually need more Vanguards than usual with this. They’re transfer-neutral, due to fetching each other in one long chain, but if you end up transfering one the normal way or have more than one in your opening hand, there’s some lost value.

It’s good for the deployable more than anything else, but that deployable is really good.

Pinnacle Insights Port

The new allegiance-based EC Unit, this time for Rhine Labs.

The passive effect is that everyone gets 5 SP and 20% max HP barrier when you transfer a Rhine Lab operator, doubled for Rhine Lab operators. The deployable refunds half the transfer permits used for the next four transfers, with transferred Rhine Lab operators not using a charge.

It costs 5 to deploy, is always in your opening hand and returns to it once its charges are used, with a 60 seconds redeploy timer on it. Watch out with this, as when the draw that consumes its last charge fills up your hand, it’ll fall into Recupe.

Branch A upgrades the effect doubling for Rhine operators to effect tripling and also gives them +100% ATK for 20s when transferring a Rhine Lab operator.

Branch B upgrades the deployable to refunding all transfer permits instead of half.

If well-managed, the raw deployable already gives you all the transfer permits you need but if you want to get silly with it, Branch B can let you just sit on over a hundred permits. This is the best transfer-aiding EC Unit in a long time. It was on the very first round of SSS where we first had EC Units that had one this good. The deployable is so potent that you can run this without any Rhine Lab operators at all and it’ll be a good EC Unit.

But how good is it for Rhine Lab Operators?

For this, we have to take a look at the lot of them:

Saria is a Guardian, so she has easy merit as a blocker and healer. I find the Dossoles Commercial Plate doable without any actual ground operators, but having a Defender makes the start of the boss stage more comfortable. In the Nomadic Border Town, I find myself wanting a 3-block Operator for Stage 5 specifically, but nowhere else really. Saria doubling as a healer also gives her merit in the boss stage, where you may find yourself having to hold your deployment for a while so it’s good to have self-sufficient operators.

Dorothy is a Trapmaster and able to deal physical or arts damage with her traps, so she can find a job in both dungeons, especially because she wants Caster stacks anyway, which amps her damage enough to meaningfully hit enemies in DCP as well. Personally, I don’t want to mess around with trap gameplay in SSS because it gets pretty crowded but she has a lot of merit as a stay-in operator as well.

Muelsyse is a Tactician and among them the one with the strongest summon(s), so she herself doesn’t particularly need Equipment, which is both good and bad. She works really well as an early deploy, especially in DCP where she can make an arts damage clone and always be relevant. However, there her own physical attacks are easily stifled by mostly everything and I don’t see +100% atk changing that much. However, feeding her 10 or 15 SP on a regular basis is great for your DP economy, especially if you time your transfers when her SP needs refilling. As a ranged Vanguard, I often find her getting in the way of my equipment stacks because I don’t use operators that would rather have that over Caster or Sniper, but it is still a good equipment and she can just kinda hang out on the field and do her thing anyway. She also discounts all your Rhine Lab operators by 2, which is nice.

Astgenne is a Chain Caster, which is all you need to know because it gives her innate merit in SSS. She does unfortunately only have ModY, so no permanent Slow at +200 ASPD, but her double-targeting skills are quite valuable against the large crowds you’ll be facing.

Ifrit is a Blast Caster. All three of her skills benefit much more from Caster stacks than Sniper stacks, so getting her going is a huge DP drain and there are some reasonably useable Ifrit lanes, though all in pretty low-threat stages. But she doesn’t really need them anyway. As long as she has someone to hold enemies in place for a bit, she’ll be great at blasting and casting through the waves of enemies. Due to her very high Res-penetration, she’s even totally fine in NBT and helps other Casters (such as Astgenne) be stronger there too.

Magallan, Mayer and Salter are Supporters and as such, with Equipment Type B are immediately Transfer-neutral by acting as tutors. Combine this with the deployable and you can use them to fetch non-Rhine operators out of Prep to increase your odds of retaining your deployable’s charges for longer. Mayer and Magallan are Summoners, a Branch that doesn’t mesh well with the nature of SSS, but Mayer with her blocking ground summons is quite handy in a pinch. Salter as an Abjurer can be good to have on the field temporarily to supply some healing, but really the point of all three of these is to filter your Preparation Zone and be cheap to deploy.

Ptilposis and Silence are Medics. They can be nice with Equipment B in case an oopsie happens and so long as you transfer them with the deployable active, they are transfer-neutral, but they don’t do much to advance your gameplan.

A bit of a mixed bag, in some ways. The bad part is that you have two damage dealers here, both of which are Arts, but one of which enables Arts damage against high Res enemies. Saria also helps with Arts damage, if you want that. Saria is good to have in general and the Supporters are already good just for facilitating transfers.

Medics.

I do think that this EC Unit is very powerful, but not not because it lets you get Rhine ops onto the field and make them really strong. It’s a utility tool.

The issue is that you need to keep drawing Rhine ops to buff your deployed Rhine ops, so the more of them you have on field, the less you can utilize the buffs.

This is unlike the Abyssal Hunter one that we had a while ago for example, which worked to give them equipment through entirely different means than usual, so you could just field them and play with the deployable to gear them up.

Sound Recording Amplifier

This is the regional EC Unit of the Nomadic Border Town.

It passively lets your units deal 20% more physical damage, which can be doubled by deploying the deployable right in front of an operator.

Said deployable is a boombox that you can attack to make it record the single highest hit it took and when destroyed, will shoot five projectiles a long distance forward, each of which will deal the recorded damage in a small radius and then it returns to your hand on a short cooldown.

Branch A upgrades the damage bonus multiplier from x2 to x4.

Branch B causes enemies in the (rather long) range of the deployable to have -95% move speed for 10 seconds after you deploy it.

So the idea here is obvious: Put it down, smack it real hard, explode the enemies in front.

For ranged operators, this is very useful to effectively extend their range.

I found great use for this by deploying it in Fiammetta’s S3, allowing her to shoot from there into any direction and cover much more ground.

This of course forewent the damage bonus, so I looked through my roster to find an operator who could hit it really, really hard which brought me to Melanite. Generally, Dorothy is famous for the „single highest hit“, but recently Ray dethroned her, and even more recently Ulpian dethroned Ray in turn.

You can’t hit the deployable with Dorothy’s biggest trap, I don’t have Ray raysed and when I was messing around with this, Ulpian didn’t exist. No, Ines isn’t relevant here.

So anyway, Melanite. Give Skalter 5 Caster stacks, give Melanite 5 Caster stacks, bring Pramanix, get it below 40% health (it’s Freeze immune, so Prammy has 1% more fragile than Gnosis can do. Don’t have Suzu raised.) and lay into it with Melanite S2. You can do more, but I didn’t feel like going through that much hassle. This led to a like 50k+ S2 hit into the boombox, which I then made sure to land onto an enemy frozen by Gnosis for x1.64 damage, because yes you can effectively double up on Fragile effects in this way.

So this is funny. Unfortunately, not useful. Because the deployable needs to point directly forward away from an operator to give the physical damage buff multiplier, which just makes it unusable for ranged units in all but one stage, which is unfortunate Stage 2 where you can’t even have Branch A yet.

Everywhere else, you can’t really just shoot forward with it and meaningfully hit stuff and if you angle it, you don’t get that sweet +80% more damage. Of course, even the 50k hit is enough to just overkill any enemy, but it’s still a shame.

This is also why I believe this dungeon wants you to use ground operators, because they don’t run into this issue. I might redo this whole thing with Ulpian. Maybe next reset or something.

Branch B is also quite potent. Hard to argue with an easy to use 95% slow.

So what do I think of it? It’s good. Just not in the way the devs may have intended. I’d rather use it to extend Fiammetta’s range than use ground operators. You can’t make me use ground operators in SSS. If the Laterano Sweets Factory couldn’t, nothing can.

But I’d even more rather just use either of the two general EC Units than this one.

Arts Resonant Energy Field

This is the regional EC Unit for the Dossoles Commercial Plate.

It passively increases Arts damage dealt by 15% for everyone for each currently-deployed Caster operator. It’s active deployable inflicts 10%~80% Arts Fragility on all enemies in its large range, gradually ramping up over time. It gradually loses health, but is reusable.

Branch A upgrades the Arts damage bonus from 15% to 25% per Caster.

Branch B adds a passive 1500 heal to the deployable whenever an enemy in its range is killed.

This is. Fine. Both Branches are. Fine.

I like the second one because it lets you make use of the huge Arts Fragility debuff quite nicely.

I usually have two Casters deployed in the second half of this dungeon, rarely three so I’m looking at +30%~45% Arts damage or +50%~75% with Branch A, which is a 15% to 20% damage increase over not having Branch A, which is both more and less than 10%~80% from the Arts Fragility of the deployable, which is sustainable through an entire stage with Branch B.

The thing is that this EC Unit would have to instantly win you the stage or give you x4 speed to actually be useful, because none of the first five stages of this dungeon are threatening and end with you sitting around waiting for them to finish as all the heavy enemies crawl towards your home. You could do this dungeon with a negative EC Unit. Except for the boss, that one’s kinda rough.

So here too, I would rather use either of the generic EC Units to have more transfers and get my setup going faster, which lets me do something else more quickly on the non-boss stages and gets me past the kinda touchy opening of the boss stage more reliably.

This EC Unit provides things that in a vacuum sound really good, but are in practice not needed.

Overall, I like this round more than the previous one. The Dossoles dungeon isn’t much to my taste, but I really enjoy the Leithanien one and I only need one good dungeon for myself.

The EC Units are interesting, especially Sound Recording Amplifier.

It’s still no Abandoned Lighthouse and I still miss Thirster, but this is a good round of SSS.

[helix-enterprises117]

Halo Reloaded: Fancy

Under the opulent chandeliers of one of Earth's most exclusive dining establisments, members of Blue-Team and Silver-Team gathered at a high-end restaurant, one that catered to the elite. Yet tonight, it played host to Earth's mightiest defenders. John-117, having secured their reservation, was no stranger to the perks of his status within the UNSC. His commendations and heroic deeds had not only earned him respect but also a considerable amount of wealth, which he seldom flaunted but tonight decided to share with his comrades. The dining table was a battleground of culinary delights, yet the approach to the feast laid bare the contrasts among Earth's finest. The Spartan men, including John, Vannak-134, and Fred-104, dissected their meals with the same precision they applied to enemy fortifications. Each bite was calculated, a nod to their ingrained discipline, their plates curated to fuel their bodies with exacting efficiency.Opposite this display of restraint, the Spartan women—Kelly-087, Linda-058, and Kai-125—embarked on a culinary offensive that would leave the chefs in awe and the cutlery trembling. Their plates were heaped with delicacies, each morsel disappearing as if into the void of slip-space, only to be replaced by more.Kelly, with a glint of mischief in her eyes, glanced at John. "You weren't kidding about this place," she said, her voice a vibrant echo in the hush of luxury. "The food's fantastic. Who knew the hero of humanity had such a taste for the finer things?" Her plate, a once orderly arrangement of haute cuisine, now resembled a battlefield post-assault.John, maintaining the composure of a seasoned commander, even in the face of Kelly's teasing, simply nodded, allowing himself the shadow of a smile. "Hey, just because we can survive on MREs doesn't mean we have to," he quipped, his tone light, a rare indulgence in the levity of the moment. Linda's contribution was less verbal, her focus primarily on the art of vanquishing her steak, a task she undertook with sniper-like precision. Yet, her occasional, amused glances towards Kai—who was practically inhaling a dish that had been described with at least three French adjectives—spoke volumes of her dry wit. Kai, for her part, paused just long enough to cast a challenging look around the table, her expression daring anyone to comment. When no one did, she dove back into her meal with renewed vigor, a whirlwind of culinary devastation that defied the serene elegance of their surroundings. Vannak-134 watched the scene unfold with an expression of bemused admiration. "I'm startin' to think there's some competition here," he observed, his voice a low murmur intended for Fred's ears alone. Fred chuckled softly. "If there is, I'm content to concede victory to them. This ain't a fight we're able to win." His gaze lingered on the women, his amusement tinged with a hint of pride. Their conversation meandered through tales of past exploits and shared challenges, the camaraderie palpable in the air around them. For a brief interlude, they were not the galaxy's guardians but simply friends, reveling in the joy of each other's company. As the evening drew to a close, John's gaze swept over his team, a sense of contentment settling over him. Rising from their seats, they stepped back into the night, the memory of the evening a light against the darkness of their relentless crusade. But for those few hours, they had been unconquerable in a different arena, champions of camaraderie and the simple, profound joy of breaking bread together.

@biomecharnotaurus

@mrtobenamedlater

@asimplesimpsimping

@authortobenamedlater

@ionlymadethissoicouldleaveanask

@killer-orca-cosplay