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saecastrophe · 6 months ago

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fun questions - all odd numbers!

Jules! TYSM for the questions, I love you 💛

Answers below the readmore:

1. what are 3 things you’d say shaped you into who you are?

(whoops, I read this as "people" instead of things. not changing it)

-my grandmother

-my 5th grade teacher that read us Langston Hughes and Edgar Allan Poe

-the Japanese street fashion photographer Shoichi Aoki!

3. 3 films you could watch for the rest of your life and not get bored of?

Well, my favorite movies are Matilda and Holes, so definitely those two! For the last one...definitely a horror movie, but I'm not sure which. Maybe Saw?

5. what made you start your blog?

Most of my friend group used both it and Pinterest, and I already loved Pinterest, so I randomly decided to give Tumblr a try too. I remember it being about midnight and I stayed awake for another hour or two just going through my friends' archives and thinking "this is awesome, so much inspiration" aaaaaand here I am now 10 years later

7. what scares you the most and why?

I have a strong aversion bordering on a phobia of tornadoes. I have dealt with recurring nightmares about them for my entire life. What's worse is that I have gotten prophetic dreams about other life events before, so I worry that maybe these are prophetic too ;-; It used to be more of a morbid fascination, and I'd pass time looking at photos of tornadoes and reading about the deadliest ones. They were something I enjoyed scaring myself with, like horror movies...but at some point, that turned into anxiety, and I don't even like looking at pictures of them now. I get extremely anxious when there is a tornado watch.

I have been told (don't remember this at all) by both my mother and grandmother that we used to live in an area that got frequent tornadoes when I was a toddler, and one day, my mom and I got caught outside while one had touched down. It was close enough for us to hear that "freight train" wind, and my grandmother apparently heard me crying through all of that noise and shouted at my mother to guide her towards the shelter. Maybe that situation was hard for me to comprehend at the time and traumatized me!

Also, true story: A few months ago, I was sitting outside on a clear, windy day. There was a particularly big gust and then this moment where time almost felt as if it was in slow motion as I processed the fact that there was debris...levitating? in the air around me for a moment. Then the wind whipped up again; dirt, leaves, and dust smacked me in the face. It was over just as quickly as it began. Something about the weather circumstances that day and my exact positioning within my yard created this once-in-a-lifetime moment where I was essentially in the center of an invisible whirlwind. It was both incredibly fascinating and horrific!

9. tell a story about your childhood

OKAY I loved to read anything and everything I could get my hands on as a kid, and once I learned of the existence of online cheat code/walkthrough guides, my world totally opened up. There was one website I used to frequent to read about my DS games, and I noticed that they didn't have much info on a Tetris game I had. Sensing an opportunity to contribute to the Internet's body of knowledge, I typed up a how-to guide about unlocking all of the bonus music tracks in the game (which I had accomplished all on my own), made an account, lied about my age because I was definitely not 13 at a time, and submitted it. It was published! xD

11. what do you consider to be romance?

Devotion! Acts of service (to borrow from love languages). The irreplacable gift of your time in exchange for making someone's life that much better; the mundane and everyday tasks that you put up with for the ones you love. Spending half a day prepping and cooking a meal just so your loved one can savor that one bite--you know? Except apply that cooking metaphor to everything else in life.

13. what are you doing right now?

answering this! xD

but before that...I was watching an Ooblets playthrough on Youtube while savoring a dirt 'n' worms custard from Freddy's!

15. what do you think of when you hear the word “home”?

I think of the blue house that I grew up in for most of my childhood (and, by extension, that entire neighborhood since we lived about a block from my elementary school). It's not "home" in the sense of security or safety--some of my worst traumas occurred there--but it's always the home I return to in dreams. And sometimes they're good dreams, golden dreams.

Home now though? In the sense of joy and happiness? I'd say both of my grandmothers' homes in Puerto Rico, or the apartment I currently live in with its little patio <3

17. name 3 things that make you happy

my pets, my job, and Nutella!

19. favourite thing about the day?

-doing my petsite dailies because I might get cool items

-sitting outside with my dogs on nice afternoons

-dinnertime when it's McDonald's Night

21. are you a spiritual person?

in the wise words of a Tumblr post: "No religion except whatever Mary Oliver had going on" (so yes)

23. say 3 things about someone you hate

Oh, finally I have somewhere to offload my thoughts on Allistair Tenpenny. I play almost 100% Good Karma in F3 except when I meet him and, without fail, kill him on the spot because he is so out-of-touch and racist towards ghouls and it annoys me and there are no real-world consequences. What else can I say about him? It's a shame that his name is Allistair, because I've always loved that name. I also like his suit because I collect unique items and spend hours arranging them in my Megaton house. And he's right that he has a lovely view (though I disagree with the fact that Megaton ruins it)

I hate Eulogy Jones and Moriarty too, but you only asked for one, and, well, I give them some credit for being up front about how awful they are.

25. fave season and why?

Spring <3 because you can't beat wildflower season here in T*xas. The ground just erupts in a spray of blues, pinks, oranges, and yellows. It's unreal, and I'll never get tired of it, and I find it all so overwhelmingly beautiful that it almost negates the fact that my allergies are going to be on high alert for 3 months straight

27. any nicknames?

My family and childhood friends call me Cece! I usually go by that or Sal online. Sal came from "Sally"--my 6th grade math teachers called me that because they couldn't pronounce my real name, but it kind of stuck in an endearing way.

And I have a good friend who calls me Butterfly Girl because I love butterflies, and there was a point where I was somehow always finding dead ones around everywhere and writing poems about them ^_^

29. what do you do when you’re sad?

It really depends on the energy levels driving the sadness. Sometimes I need to totally distract my brain with a Treat and a video game. Sometimes it's a self-care in a "hot shower and perfume and unwind in bed with Youtube" type of way. Sometimes I just need to write my thoughts out so I can untangle them, even if I'm not writing/talking to anyone in particular.

31. are you messy or organised?

organized!!! Very! I have systems for everything, both digitally and IRL, as you can probably tell just from my blog tags

33. any hobbies?

reading and writing poetry, reading in general (though I don't do it as much as I'd like these days), listening to music and singing, tending to my plants, gaming, photography, arts and crafts, petsites, and Tumblr/Pinterest I suppose

also very slowly learning to knit. And I'm trying to practice ASL with a coworker as well

35. do you trust easily?

I can, but I don't mind it because there's not much I'm ashamed of when it comes to myself. My inner compass isn't perfect, but I believe I generally have a good feel on people, and if I quickly ascertain that someone seems to have a good heart, I have no problem opening up as needed.

37. share a secret

I haven't done this in years, but I used to randomly send anon compliments to blogs!

39. youtuber you’ve been obsessed with and why?

I was suggested Gab Smolders recently, and I think she's so beautiful and charming and I love her calm energy! She plays a mix of horror and cozy games, just like me, so she's great to listen to when I just want to relax!

#saecastrophe #wolfsskull #asks

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notebookmusical · 1 year ago

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Hi! Sorry it's taken me a day to reply. But I totally agree on the importance of the rerecordings just being hers and owning her work. For the fans, it's just a nice bonus. I don't think I've bothered disliking anything so far and even when fans spot differences, or even the BTR lyric change..I'm fine with it. I've actually saw someone complain how it sounds so rushed and how Speak Now was so badly mixed or something and the originals are so much better. It just doesn't make sense to me to complain about it..idk. unpopular opinion..I am pretty much a fan of all new covers and vault tracks lol. I would've loved Battle and Drama Queen though! It seems like she was having them each have six and maybe that's why but now 1989 only has 5 so idk. We will see if that changes with Debut or not.

I've never seen the Roman Holiday movie actually so I couldn't even compare it to anything. But I really wanna watch it someday haha. It's interesting what will and won't go to Broadway and sometimes you can just tell. Did it not have original music?

Anyway ooh that's so cool that there are two! I think they could be totally different too depending on the music and vibes. I loved The Mad Ones musical so it will be interesting. Just yesterday I saw that the composer also worked on Paradise Square too. I could totally see one being stripped down or focused on story and the Florence one being more glitzy and glam..since that's how the movie was, and her song from it. I wonder if they would be on Broadway at or near the same time though and how that could get confusing lol. It would be nice to be excited for Broadway stuff again lol.

I thought the movie was pretty good. I mean..it was fine, but it did feel like something was kinda missing. I liked the beginning and the cake scene..but then it kinda moved a little fast for the relationship after that. When he first kissed him..i didn't expect it right then and it was kinda like oh already? So it felt like it didn't have enough buildup I guess. Then they were kinda already somehow all over each other which is fine. But basically even by the end of the movie..it didn't feel as dramatic as it seemed, and like they were totally in love either. So I might agree that the movie probably didn't have as much heart as the book. Even with the email leak, I was just like oh okay..but I didn't even know exactly what the emails were other than their relationship being found out. It kinda reminded me of Love Simon I guess and the coming out stuff was handled a lot better in that movie. I probably wouldn't watch it again..and there wasn't that much to obsess over to me after seeing so many people love it or the ship on Twitter..so the movie was just okay I guess. I watched the movie Crush on Hulu after and I thought that one was better..even if they're totally different. The movie seems a lot different than the book from what you described and that they took a lot of stuff out which really sucks. I'm sorry you didn't like it! I might read it eventually..at least a little bit, to compare maybe. I remember hearing about it a lot..but then I heard the author hates Taylor. I've actually never read a book by her before yet.

you're totally fine! no worries on the delayed reply my love! and i agree — i think all the discourse around the rerecordings is very … silly! because the end goal is just: taylor owning her work (as she should). everything else is just as you said, a bonus! i believe drama queen has a co-writer which is part of the reason it wasn't going to be on SNTV, but i'm lowkey still hoping for a random surprise drop of battle, drama queen and sweeter than fiction taylor's version. i would love, love, love for debut tv to have at least 13 vault songs because there are so many of her unreleased songs that i've loved over the years but i'll obviously be happy with anything and everything we get!

the roman holiday movie is one of my all time favorites + just such a comfort movie, and it is one of those movies that should never be remade for many reasons, but primarily that it would never work in a modern day setting, with current technology. i think that's the biggest part of its charm; that and audrey hepburn and gregory peck being so good at what they do! the score was completely comprised of cole porter songs — and they fit fine, but they didn't .... do much for the story, if that makes sense?

ooh i didn't realize they were also involved with paradise square! i didn't really pay a lot of attention to paradise square actually, but i do remember hearing about some lawsuits and cast mistreatment :/ it'll definitely be interesting to see what comes of the gatsby musical — i saw on tiktok that there was a queue to get tickets, which is wild to me! and i do agree with your thoughts about florence's potentially being more glitzy and glam as you put it! it'll definitely be interesting to see which one does "better". makes me feel like i'm living smash (ivy vs. karen, smash vs. hit list) in real time!

i really, really loved the book when i first read it in 2019 (and then again in 2020, and then again ... all the other times i've read it), but it's by no means perfect! and as a heads up, the author uses they/them pronouns 🤍 and it makes sense that it reminds you of love simon — greg berlanti produced both love, simon and red, white and royal blue! i also really liked love, simon back in the day (and i still think the soundtrack to love, simon is unmatched). i don't know how rwrb would feel now, but i think some of its charm lies in when it was written + how the world was back then! if you decide to give it a go, let me know what you think! speaking of buddy reads, did you still want to do our buddy read? when works for you? 🤍

and i share similar thoughts about the movie (among others, haha). i haven't watched crush yet, but i've been meaning to! i am simply ... the worst at watching movies. it took one of my friends maybe .... six months? before i finally got around to watching her favorite movie. it'd been on the list ever since she recommended it to me, but sitting down and watching movies is just not something i'm very good at. but i've been making a bunch of bracelets lately, and i think the embroidery kits i ordered will get here this weekend so maybe i'll watch a few more movies soon!

hope you're doin well! x

#post: answered #🩷 anon

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vickyvicarious · 3 years ago

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Leverage by Character Emphasis

So, for fun over the course of my rewatch I kept track of who I considered to be the main character of each episode, or rather who got the most narrative/emotional focus. I kept track of all those in a list here. I got curious about how it all stacks up in the end, so I went to a pie graph website and stuck all those numbers in.

I only used the main character in each episode, even if on my original list I had put it as having secondary emphasis on another person or relationship. However, if an episode was split pretty evenly in focus between just two people (as opposed to the whole team), I counted it towards each person's overall percentage. And of course all these stats are based off of my own personal interpretation of the episodes. So this is by no means truly comprehensive. But I think it's still interesting to look at all put together.

I'm putting the overall breakdown here, but below the cut I've got individual charts per season as well - plus a bonus list of how many people we meet that the team already knows/whose past they hail from.

All Seasons

Percentage breakdown:

Team - 36.9% or 31/77 total episodes

Nate - 17.9% or 15/77 total episodes

Parker - 16.7% or 14/77 total episodes

Eliot - 11.9% or 10/77 total episodes

Hardison - 7.1% or 6/77 total episodes

Sophie - 4.8% or 4/77 total episodes

Parker/Hardison - 2.4% or 2/77 total episodes

Sophie/Nate, Tara - 1.2% or 1/77 total episodes each

The show is primarily team-based, and that's reflected in the largest percentage by with a 19-point gap before second place. Nate holds that spot, though Parker is right on his heels in third. There's a bit more of a gap between them both and Eliot, then similar gaps between him and Hardison, and then Sophie as the team member with the least number of dedicated episodes. (However, this doesn't reflect a lot of time spent in S2 on her). Then the pairings and Tara each get just an episode or two spent primarily focused on them.

Looking at it in pure numbers, you can definitely see that Nate as mastermind got a lot of attention, and that Parker becoming the next mastermind was built steadily with a lot of focus as well!

Season One

Percentage breakdown:

Team - 38.5% overall or 5/13 episodes

Nate - 23.1% overall or 3/13 episodes

Parker - 15.4% overall or 2/13 episodes

Sophie, Eliot, Hardison - 7.7% overall or 1/13 episodes each

It seems fitting that in the first season, most of the time was dedicated to episodes that don't focus on any one person in particular. Instead there's a lot of time spent establishing the team as a whole. We do see Nate in second place and Parker in third.

(I thought about counting the Juror #6 job towards Sophie and Hardison, but in the end I didn't since the main emphasis was still mostly for Parker. However, that would have bumped them up to the same number of episodes as her.)

Season Two

Percentage breakdown:

Team - 40% overall or 6/15 episodes

Nate - 26.7% overall or 4/15 episodes

Sophie, Parker, Hardison, Eliot, Tara - 6.7% overall or 1/15 episodes each

So there's a lot more secondary focus/running themes this season that don't show up as much in this chart. Sophie's storyline in particular gets a lot of focus throughout the season, but is rarely the main focus of any single episode, so it isn't as well represented here. (For example, the Lost Heir Job is team-focused, but specifically on the team coping without Sophie, so it could possible have been counted as a Sophie episode as well.)

Given the parameters I'm working with though, we see again team episodes first, Nate second, and then this time everyone else shares third place equally (including Tara!).

Season Three

Percentage breakdown:

Team, Eliot, Parker - 25% overall or 4/16 episodes

Sophie, Nate, Hardison - 6.7% overall or 2/16 episodes

It doesn't add up to 16 just by numbers because this season had several episodes I couldn't assign to just one character, but also seemed not really focused on the team. I gave Eliot+Hardison each a point for Gone Fishin', and Eliot+Parker each a point for the Underground Job.

This season bucks the trend of Nate getting the second-most episodes dedicated to him. Eliot and Parker actually get as many episodes as the team in general. They're all a lot closer together though in terms of numbers.

Season Four

Percentage breakdown:

Team - 27.3% overall or 6/18 episodes

Nate - 22.7% overall or 5/18 episodes

Parker - 18.2% overall or 4/18 episodes

Eliot, Hardison, Parker/Hardison - 9.1% overall or 2/18 episodes each

Sophie/Nate - 4.5% overall or 1/18 episodes

This season has a lot of episodes focusing mostly on just a couple of people so it was really a pain to break down. I ended up sharing credit for Grave Danger between Parker and Hardison as Parker/Hardison, and Queen's Gambit between the team and Parker/Hardison. The Night Out Jobs I just counted as team episodes since they divvied up the focus fairly equally between the characters who were in them. On my original list I put the Hot Potato Job as Nate and Hardison but on further reflection I think it's more of a team episode, so that's how I counted it here. Still, this chart is the one I was least certain how to break down, and I'm not really happy with it but I eventually just kinda gave up.

Nate is back up in second place, right after the team as a whole. Parker's right behind him, while the others trail a bit behind. The ships get a couple episodes dedicated to them, but Sophie doesn't actually get an episode of her own at all this season.

Season Five

Percentage breakdown:

Team - 62.5% or 10/15 episodes total

Parker - 18.8% or 3/15 episodes total

Eliot - 12.5% or 2/15 episodes total

Nate - 6.3% or 1/15 episodes total

I attributed the French Connection Job to both Eliot and Parker, and put the Rundown and Frame Up Jobs as being team focused since they split attention pretty evenly between the halves of the team each episode had. The White Rabbit Job had a secondary focus on Sophie which I didn't count; same deal with the Blue Line Job since for the most part it was still more team than Eliot focused.

This season bucks a lot of the usual trends. The vast majority of the episodes are team focused with no major emphasis on any one person; this is usually the biggest percentage but this season far more so than any other. The other major departure is that Sophie and Hardison both get no individual episodes at all, and Nate isn't in second or even third place. Instead we have Parker, then Eliot, then Nate. And if I had counted the Blue Line Job for Eliot, which I considered doing, he would've been tied with Parker.

Bonus - Known Associates

This chart counts how many people we meet from someone on the team's pre-show past. It does not count people they meet during their time on Leverage who later become important to them, such as Peggy.

Percentage breakdown:

Nate - 38.1% or 8/21 total

Eliot - 33.3% or 7/21 total

Sophie - 19% or 4/21 total

Parker, Hardison - 4.8% or 1/21 total each

If you want to know who these people are, that's listed right underneath here. Nate's people tend to show up more often, while Eliot has a lot but they're mostly one-off characters. Sophie and Parker not having a lot makes sense given that Sophie's true identity is a mystery, and Parker was a loner almost all her life. Hardison being at the bottom of the list is really at odds to how we know he has a large family and is such a sociable person.

Nate - An old friend in the Miracle Job, Blackpoole, Maggie, Sterling, the people from McRory's, Jimmy Ford, childhood friend Ed Kelly from the 15 Minutes Job, his old IYS colleague from the Van Gogh Job.

Eliot - Aimee from the Two Horse Job, Damien Moreau, General Flores, Vance, his grifter buddy from the Juror #6 Job, his buddy Shelley from the Boys' Night Out Job, and Vance from flashbacks/the Rundown Job.

Sophie - A friend in the Wedding Job (not sure they actually count since they just tipped her to the job but I don't think we met them onscreen), the mastermind from the Two Live Crew Job, the Duchess from the King George Job, and Tara.

Parker - Archie Goodwin.

Hardison - Chaos.

#leverage #leverage meta #my meta #again this is just for fun and i'm not particularly good at graphs and stuff #so don't take it as the be-all-end-all #but i think the general trends here are fairly accurate to the show #also my apologies to sophie getting a different color every time. it kept changing it for only her for some reason and i couldn't fix it

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yannowhatigiveup · 4 years ago

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My One And Only - Chapter 8

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So this chapter is longer than the previous one and hOpefuLly my writing will get better with each new chapter. One can only hope. And I’m updating this daily cuz I wanna be caught up with all of my chapters so I don’t forget to post one by accident. But the daily updates will unfortunately stop after chapter 13, I guess. For now, enjoy! *totally not debating if I should post chapter 9* also Gabriel, no

Uncle Jagged: Nettie! I got everything ready. Wanna record a bonus track for my new album?

'Oh god'

—————————————————————

Marinette kept rereading the message to make sure she had read it correctly. The message never changed. "Oh Tikki what if my voice sounds horrible? Uncle Jagged will be disappointed and then he won't have me as his designer anymore! He'll probably tell everything to everyone, to Gabriel Agreste, Clara, Chloe's mother and to the whole public!"

"Calm down Marinette!" Tikki flew out the bag and hugged the bluenette's face. "I'm sure you'll do just fine!"

"Thanks Tikki" Marinette said hesitantly. She then approached the hotel doors and towards the elevators. She had felt the gaze of the receptionists and one of them had got up with the intention to talk to her, only to be dragged back down by the fellow receptionist, the one who Marinette talked to yesterday. The bluenette had taken full notice of this but chose to ignore it. She then reached Damian's hotel room and knocked on the door. She heard something metallic drop on the floor followed by a slightly muffled word. Marinette knew exactly what he said but she was confused. She then heard the same voice again though much clearer this time.

"You can come in, the door is unlocked"

~~~

Damian had just finished showering, he was half dressed when he got a message from 'Angel'. He had changed used this nickname as her contact name.

Angel: I got an hour and half till my meeting with Uncle J, you want me to come over?

Damian smiled. Honestly, if he could he would give all his time to her.

Me: Sure, come over whenever you want I don't mind

He was about to put his shirt on when he got an urge to practice with his katana, which he did. He made a mental note about getting dressed soon and he went to the case which his katana was located. He then practiced different stances as well as practicing different motions with the blade. He thought of the bluenette. When he first met her, she struck him as someone defenseless and vulnerable. But he now had the feeling she could take down someone twice her size. Though, that didn't stop him from feeling obligated to protect her. He had become so focused that when someone knocked he tensed. Not that much but enough to loose grip of his katana. The blade sunk into his skin and left quite a deep cut on his upper arm and on the right side of his chest, causing him to drop his katana.

"Scheiße!" He didn't react to the pain, it was the thought of Marinette walking in on this situation. 'Since when do I know German?' "You can come in, the door is unlocked" 'Damn it that's not what I meant!'

Marinette opened the unlocked door to see a shirtless Damian. She probably would've metaphorically died at that point if she didn't take notice to the whole situation. Not only was he shirtless, he was bleeding. 'How did-' she noticed the katana. 'Oh, makes sense now'. The bluenette then sprinted into action. She closed the door behind her, put her bag down quickly but still being mindful of Tikki and turned her attention to the now flustered Damian. She grabbed the arm that wasn't cut and carefully dragged him onto the sofa, she also looked at the katana on her way there while taking some mental notes. 'Looks clean, no rust or scratches that could contain bacteria and seems so have been cleaned thoroughly before use. Great! That makes my job easier'.

"What are you-"

"Hush Shaytan" Marinette interrupted while going to the bathroom, searching for one of those medkits. "Let me take care of you" she said while getting one of the disinfectants in the kit. Marinette then carefully rubbed the liquid into his wounds.

"It stings" he grumbled.

"Awww don't worry little Dami, it will stop stinging soon" Marinette said lightheartedly, as if she was comforting Manon.

"Tt I am not five" he grumbled again. He shifted his body so that Marinette could properly bandage his chest and right arm. After she was done, he flexed his arm. 'She did extremely well' "Thank you, Angel. You really are a life saver". He subconsciously smirked when he saw her face turn a shade of pink.

"Thanks, did I bandage it correctly? I hope I did, oh no what happens if it doesn't heal correctly? What happens if-" she suddenly stopped as Damian had pulled her in close to his chest.

"Honestly you did perfectly Habibti, there's no need to worry" he stroked his fingers through her deep blue hair as a way to calm her down further, but he himself enjoyed it. He knew how Marinette would always think that she's the one at fault and he came up with a way to calm her down. From the looks of it, it was working.

Marinette blushed when Damian had pulled her into his chest, even more so when she felt his fingers brush through her hair. It felt like it had genuine emotion with it, not only just to make her feel better. She took advantage of being close to his chest, his wounds, and used her powers outside the mask to let the wound heal faster. Now knowing that it would heal soon, she enjoyed his embrace, burying herself further into his muscular body. The she remembered something. "So what are we gonna do about your spilt blood?"

"You say that like I deal with this often" he said with a smug looking face. Marinette then had a 'I know you do' face. He jokingly sighed. "I shall clean it and before you object, I feel fine enough to do a simple task such as this." Her giggling brought a smile to his face. "Also have you worked out what Jagged Stone has in mind for you?"

"I'll tell you that after you tell me how you know German" Marinette shifted so that he could get up. "If I recall, you told me that you were fluent in French, Arabic, English and Spanish and that you were learning Japanese. I don't remember German ever coming up" she said in a jokingly serious tone.

"Actually I'm fluent in Japanese now" Damian murmured while getting something from one of his cases, 'Something to clean the blood I suppose' "I was taught an easy way to learn languages, I might have crossed German once before but if so I just forgot about it. Also, how do you know German?"

"Well if you have any interest in learning a new language you'd want to know the swear words, am I right?" She giggled.

"Fair point" he chuckled while allowing his blood to soap into something he brought, a tissue or towel perhaps. "Now, do you know what Jagged Stone's surprise is for you?"

"Yeah, he wants me to record a bonus track for his album"

Damian paused just as he had finished disinfecting his katana. "Wow, that's great Angel!"

"Yes I'm very grateful to Uncle Jagged for organizing all this but what if I sound horrible? I do want to do it for him really, I don't want to turn the offer down but I-"

"Angel, there is no need to worry. If you're not comfortable with it you can tell Jagged, he'll understand. But I'm sure you have a beautiful voice"

"You really think so?" Marinette murmured. Damian nodded. She gave him a thank you smile before saying, "So, what's this quick way of learning a language? I've got 30 minutes"

Damian chuckled. "Well the first thing you would want to know is..."

~~~

'Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the only one in class whose been able to stop herself from getting akumatized. She must be very strong, physically and mentally. My point was proven when she became Multimouse, wearing nearly every miraculous that I've ever heard or come across. Ladybug must trust her greatly. I must find a way to akumatize her'

Gabriel Agreste stood in his observatory after recently detransforming. 'She can control her emotions well but when she's angry, it's incredibly strong. This girl could be one of the strongest in Paris, she could be one that senses auras. I must find a way. I will use her to eliminate all of heroes. All I need is time'.

———

Taglist: @little-bluestar, @miracleofadisaster, @frieddonutsweets, @jjmjjktth, @genderfluidmoma, @starlit-dreaming (ur the one who wanted to get tagged right? I’m so sorry I forget to write your name down so I’m not sure-), @icerosecrystal

#daminette #damian x marinette #maribat #maridami #marinette x damian #mlb x dc #did I get the taglist right please correct me if I didn’t

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dying-suffering-french-stalkers · 3 years ago

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For the ship game: prime numbers for Lupin x Jigen!

HERE YOU GO GHOST, THIS WAS FIVE PAGES IN A GOOGLE DOC AND TOOK ME SEVERAL HOURS

Under a cut, allegedly, though mobile has been known to just IGNORE THAT. Sorry in advance if this gets goofed for anyone.

2) Who is always horny and will have sex at any time, in any place?

Lupin, obviously (and canonically). Just the horniest man you ever did see. Jigen knows what he wants and when he wants it, but he has difficulty keeping up with Don Juan Triumphant over there. Lupin is also far less picky about locations and times than Jigen is. Jigen still has a FEW standards, thank you, and also a stronger sense of self-preservation. Lupin sometimes tries to start shit in public or during a heist and Jigen is like “I REALLY, REALLY APPRECIATE THE SENTIMENT BUT CAN WE NOT.” The closest to public anything Jigen will put up with is bar bathroom/back-alley hookups, and he doesn’t really tend to do that with Lupin or Goemon since they have secondary locations far more suited to such activity (or at least the damn Fiat, if nothing else). That said, Jigen is a spiteful bastard and gets a huge kick out of riling Lupin up over the walkie-talkie during jobs. He is more than happy to get jumped by his boss after they make it out and secure the loot.

3) Who is more into taking showers/baths together? Who tries to make it relaxing and who tries to make it sexy time?

Honestly, while I can totally see Lupin and Jigen doing this with their other partners, I have a harder time imagining the two of them doing this together and I’m not sure why. I feel like these two on their own both like the privacy bathing gives them, whether it’s to clean wounds or decompress from a job.

On the occasions when they do bathe together, I feel like it’s an unspoken kind of thing, where the other person quietly slips in the tub/shower with them and they just don’t bother protesting. I think Lupin is more likely to join Jigen in his bathing, but if Jigen is sleepy enough or lonely enough he might do the same. There is a lot of mutual appreciation of scars. They’ve definitely smoked in the tub before (Intricate Rituals™). Lupin is probably more likely to get handsy, because Lupin, but two can play that game if Jigen is feeling it, and also Jigen gives Lupin a run for his money in the staring department. No hat to hide behind now.

Lupin has also 100% done the whole “Hey Jigen, do you know if—stop screaming, it’s me—do you know if we have any more instant dashi? Goemon’s gonna slice up the sofa if I ruin soba night again.”

5) Who sleeps on the couch when they get into a fight?

Jigen, but to be fair, he canonically sleeps on the couch most nights (possibly to keep an eye on the door, possibly because he knows that place, at least, is always “acceptable” for him to occupy). It’s an odd night if you don’t see Jigen out there with a glass and a bottle of scotch and an old movie on TV. The main difference is that if he and Lupin have been fighting, he won’t bother with the formality of a glass and the TV will be playing far louder or not at all.

7) [A] Who said “I love you” first? And [B] who ends their arguments in a fight with “Because I love you”?

I hate to take the coward’s way out here, but I think the answers are A) either one - depends on the headcanon/fic/version of the characters I’m feeling that day, and B) both.

For A, they’re both the sort of people to show their love—true love/affection, not just flirtation/infatuation, LUPIN—in action, not words. Lupin is a man of many words to a fault, generous with his verbal and physical affection, so Lupin has to find a way to make sure Jigen knows he means it and how he means it. He may rightly fear that Jigen won’t believe him (or else believe him but take it platonically) if he says “I love you” to his face, so first he’ll show him through every little action he can. Jigen is a man of few words to a fault, so saying personal stuff like that out loud is both a last resort and the point of no return. Getting him to say it at all, unambiguously, and while sober is like pulling teeth. Once one of them finally spits it out, though, I think the other is quick to reciprocate (again, if they manage to say it clearly and under good circumstances and not ambiguously/while drunk or wounded/etc. They’re both idiots and selective cowards so this is a big if). The mutual relief is palpable and immediately followed by sex, because they’re both (horny) idiots and selective cowards who do not want to talk about Emotions and Personal Things any more than strictly necessary.

For B, ohhhh man, if it isn’t that same emotional avoidance coming to bite them in the asses! Looks like talking about deep emotions is strictly necessary after all! You know it’s a Big Important Argument for them if this is what it comes to. This is going to tie in somewhat to the answers for 11, 17, and 23, so stay tuned. “Because I love you” coming from either of them should give the other pause, but if they are angry enough, they’re both quite likely to storm off after that declaration anyway. They’ll come back and have a real discussion later, but the shock or frustration of that arresting declaration dropped in the middle of an argument is something neither of them are great at dealing with. Hearing that from Jigen might be enough to stop Lupin in his tracks, but Lupin might also be so dead-set on something that he’ll steamroll right over it even if he knows he’ll regret it later. Hearing that from Lupin probably only makes Jigen angrier because of his awful self-esteem (see answers 11 and 23), and even if he’s been working on that, his instinct will be to snarl “Yeah, right” and storm out the door. I like to think that one day they are able to get to the heart of the argument sooner (because this is almost always it) and work on the behaviors that worry the other so much, but alas, they are a mess.

11) Who makes fun of the other for having a crush on them, and who has to remind them that they are in a relationship?

Once again, either of them depending on the day.

As you mentioned in your JiGoe post, Jigen says it partly because he thinks it’s funny (“You have a crush on me, Boss? Fuckin’ embarrassing”) but also because he’s fishing for validation. His self-esteem/confidence in anything outside his shooting skills is shit and he still can’t quite believe that Lupin isn’t lying/he hasn’t conned Lupin into something. This is rather overestimating his conning skills and underestimating his many good qualities, but, well, genuine, lasting affection is kinda new for him. Much to Jigen’s annoyance, Lupin figures out exactly what Jigen’s up to after the first few times and answers him seriously (and positively) instead of continuing the “joke”. Lupin loses patience for this particular tactic over time but I like to think that Jigen finally begins believing in the affection, too, so it comes up less and less and one day Jigen might actually play the quip straight without the self-deprecation. Ideally he would just take the damn compliment, but it’s LupJig and banter is one of their love languages.

When Lupin says it, he typically is playing the quip straight and fondly giving Jigen shit for showing an Emotion and motherFUCKER I just realized Jigen could probably be considered a tsundere. I hate this. ANYWAY. Jigen then immediately snarks back that yes, Lupin, considering we’ve been travelling the world together and actively fucking for X years, it’d be damn awkward if I didn’t by now.

13) Who initiates duets? and who is the better singer?

Lupin absolutely initiates duets, or rather, he tries to; whether or not Jigen actually chimes in is another matter entirely. Lupin is also the better singer by far (when he’s sober). He loves singing along to pop and rock in the car (“This is the reason God invented America!”).

Much as it would please me personally to give Jigen a smooth operatic baritone, there’s no way in hell he sounds good after smoking a pack a day for twenty-something years. I think Jigen can carry a tune and he’s a decent hummer and whistler, but his singing voice isn’t spectacular.

Lupin occasionally succeeds in getting Jigen to join him in car karaoke, though as in all things, Lupin is much louder and more impassioned. Jigen frequently hums along under his breath, though, and Lupin loves hearing Jigen’s a cappella renditions of classical music (complete with hand motions).

When Queen starts becoming popular, car singalongs become much more involved because it’s MY silly headcanon and You Are Not Immune To Queen. Jigen cried the first time he heard “Bohemian Rhapsody” and he will kill Lupin if he ever tells Goemon or, God forbid, Fujiko. When the four of them are in the car it’s a full-on Wayne’s World headbanging party. (Pops is the drunk guy they pick up along the way. Also, seeing Payless Shoe Source in this clip dealt me psychic damage.)

Lupin and Jigen (and Goemon) are the living embodiment of the drunk friends singing “Sweet Caroline” post, and Jigen is specifically this version of “Sweet Caroline”.

17) Who is more protective?

THAT IS THE QUESTION, HUH, GHOST? Jigen’s job and, to a certain degree, raison d’être is protecting Lupin, but (to cheat slightly and quote your own DM to me), if you think Lupin won’t raze everything to the ground to keep Jigen (and the others) safe, you don’t know him at all. They are this meme to the deepest of faults. They are both so desperately afraid of losing what they have (and in Lupin’s case, this is tinged with a bonus, even more concerning “what is his”) that they will go full self-sacrificing, scorched-earth policy. This is, in fact, my favorite reason for Lupin to do the worst thing he does: fake his own death to protect his partners. Lupin never stops to think that maybe, JUST MAYBE, he should trust his partners to fake grief and keep the secret long enough for whoever’s on their tail to give up or let their guard slip. Lupin is willing to hurt them in an effort to protect them, so in that way, I suppose Lupin is the “most” “protective”. Jigen’s self-abasement to the point of unhesitating and perhaps even hasty sacrifice is painful, too, but Jigen would never dare go to the same level of deception (except in Goodbye, Partner, apparently? But 1) I haven’t watched it yet and 2) while awful, I still feel like fake betrayal pales in comparison to very convincingly (AND MAYBE REPEATEDLY) faked death).

19) Who drives and who has the window seat?

They split driving duties, but Lupin genuinely loves driving and Jigen is more than happy to prop his feet on the Fiat’s dashboard and smoke or sleep the hours away.

23) Who thinks they are not good enough for the other’s love? and who’s more afraid of losing the other? Who thinks they keep messing up, only for the other to tell them they don’t need to worry?

HERE WE GO AGAIN!!! I think the answer to all of these is ultimately Jigen, but that’s not to say Lupin doesn’t share the exact same worries.

Jigen has a very difficult time believing that his partners’ love is genuine, and since Lupin is the one he knew first, that’s where it first manifests. Jigen has had very, very few good romantic connections in his life (if any). He doesn’t know what Lupin could possibly see in an older, prickly hired killer with a drinking problem and a head full of demons. He’s willing to believe that Lupin keeps him around for his skills, for protection, and for sex, sure, but anything past that? Doubtful. This ties into the other two parts of the question: Jigen is afraid that if he fails in his sharpshooting or his protection, he will be cut out of the gang, or worse, Lupin will end up dead because Jigen slipped up. As mentioned in question 17, Jigen cannot bear to lose Lupin and he would never forgive himself if he believed it was somehow his fault. Accordingly, Jigen takes “failure” that exceeds his usual margin of error very seriously in the early days. Later, he is better about this, but the worst-case scenario still stands.

Lupin, on the other hand, has had plenty of romantic connections, some good, some bad, though it is perhaps telling that Fujiko is his longest romantic relationship other than Jigen. He is afraid that if he doesn’t put on the world’s greatest show at all times, no one will give a rat’s ass about some scrawny grandson of an old French thief (or the perhaps unwanted/disliked son of a ruthless crime lord, because I love that fanon for Lupin the Second). He must live up to and indeed surpass the previous Lupins, he must shower his partners in money and adventure, he must always, always come out on top no matter how south the plan goes, or else what is the point of him? It takes time for him to turn his persona off for more than a few seconds, to let the quieter, sometimes contemplative side that slips through the cracks come to rest out in the open. Years down the road, Jigen finally gets up the courage and the words to tell Lupin that he would love him no matter what he did or where he went, even if that was nothing and nowhere. And again, see question 17 re: losing Jigen.

29) Who does some crazy stunt to try and impress the other and who ends up driving them to the emergency room after it backfires?

Lupin is by far the most guilty of this. He’s constantly pulling dumb shit, whether that be for World-Renowned Gentleman Thief reasons or just He May Be Stupid reasons. Case in point: the tunnel scene in The First, after which Jigen was duly impressed. Fortunately for Lupin, Lady Luck must be head over heels for him because the bastard keeps surviving, but sometimes even she can’t save him from medical consequences. Jigen bulk-ordered “Stupid Hurts” band-aids specifically for Lupin. Jigen’s bad choices are more likely to literally backfire on him, but Goemon more than makes up for Jigen’s slack in the Crazy Stunt department.

#I CARE THEY #hope this is comprehensible bc i honestly cannot tell #i have many thoughts on these two human disasters #lupin iii #jigen #asks #the-golden-ghost #long post #meta #I GUESS #can you believe i wrote five pages of meta about 1970s comedy anime characters? fucking hell. i love this fandom.#ship meme

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paperanddice · 3 years ago

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A large number of dragonborn soldiers have been entering the Vale recently, all working under the banner of Dythan's Legion. An imposing force of nearly 500 total, the legion searches the region for relics and artifacts of a long fallen dragonborn empire in order to consolidate their history and grow in power. Squads of 20-24 legionnaires patrol the area, tracking signs of these ancient outposts and interrogating the Vale's residents to learn where the treasures of their empire have gone.

The legion has a strict hierarchy of ranks, ranging from a simple private to the Legion's general. Promotion is offered for great actions, on and off the battlefield, and the army is split into three corps of infantry, cavalry, or artillery. These regular warriors generally have the rank of private in the infantry corps, though any who have shown success through tactical planning or critical thinking will have received promotions to the lower officer positions and will oversee infantry squads.

Originally from the 4e Monster Vault: Threats to the Nentir Vale. This post came out a week ago on my Patreon. If you want to get access to all my monster conversions early, as well as a copy of my premade adventure Experiment X63L, consider backing me there!

5th Edition

Dythan's Legion Warrior Medium humanoid (dragonborn), any alignment Armor Class 17 (studded leather, shield) Hit Points 68 (8d8 + 32) Speed 30 ft. Str 16 (+3) Dex 16 (+3) Con 19 (+4) Int 10 (+0) Wis 13 (+1) Cha 16 (+3) Skills Perception +3 Senses passive Perception 13 Languages Common, Draconic Challenge 3 (700 XP) Draconic Ancestry. Choose one of the following dragon colors. The warrior has resistance to the damage type assocaited with that dragon, and its breath weapon deals that type of damage: • Black, Copper: acid • Blue, Bronze: lightning • Brass, Gold, Red: fire • Green: poison • Silver, White: cold Phalanx Formation. If the warrior has at least two allies with this ability within 5 feet of it, ranged attacks against the warrior are made with disadvantage. Actions Multiattack. The warrior makes two melee attacks. Spear. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 7 (1d8+3) piercing damage. Javelin. Melee or Ranged Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., or range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 6 (1d6+3) piercing damage. Breath Weapon (1/Short Rest). The warrior exhales elemental energy in a 15 foot cone. Each creature in that area must succeed on a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, taking 10 (3d6) damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one. The damage type is determined by the warrior's Draconic Ancestry.

13th Age

Dythan’s Legion Warrior 5th level mook [humanoid] Initiative: +10 Spear +10 vs. AC - 8 damage, or 10 damage against a dazed, hampered, stuck, stunned, or weakened target Natural Even Hit or Miss: The warrior can pop free from the target. R: Javelin +10 vs. AC (one nearby enemy) - 8 damage [Group Ability] C: Breath Weapon +10 vs. PD (1d3 nearby enemies in a group) - 5 acid, cold, fire, lightning, or poison damage (depends on the warrior’s Draconic Heritage) Draconic Heritage: Each warrior has a draconic heritage that gives it resist damage 12+ against one damage type and determines the damage type of its breath weapon. Pick from the following list for each warrior: • Black, Copper: acid • Blue, Bronze: lightning • Brass, Gold, Red: fire • Green: poison • Silver, White: cold Group Ability: For every 4 Dythan’s Legion warriors in the battle (round up), one of them can use breath weapon during the battle. Phalanx Formation: For each other Dythan’s Legion ally next to the warrior or engaged with a creature this warrior is engaged with, the warrior gains a +1 bonus to AC (maximum of +4). AC 19 PD 18 MD 16 HP 18

#D&D #dnd #dungeons and dragons #5th edition #13th age #homebrew #my homebrew #NPC #humanoid #long post

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tigerkirby215 · 3 years ago

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5e Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness build (My Little Pony: FIM)

(Artwork by SophiesPlushies on DeviantArt.)

Like, it took me a solid 5 minutes to find the first image in this post and I had to sift through so much softcore porn to find it. I didn’t even find it by searching DeviantArt I had to go on fucking derpibooru oh my lord.

Anyways: here’s another shit brony build because people don’t hate me enough! Well that and I do genuinely love the characters from My Little Pony, and think that they’d be fun to make builds for. But feel free to call me a garbage brony at your leisure.

These are the words of a man who has been beaten down after being a brony for around 10 years.

GOALS

I'm just good with animals - Fluttershy talks to animals. That’s one of the main things she does really.

I'm doing this because you're my very best friend - As the element of kindness we of course need to share our heart and soul with our friends.

Nopony pushes new Fluttershy around! - MLP Wiki makes an express point of mentioning The Stare in Fluttershy’s powers, so of course we’ll do our best to include that.

RACE

Before you say anything no I’m not a pegasi stan just because I did both Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash. Regardless Aaracokra still makes the most sense for Fluttershy unfortunately because there’s few bird races and fewer flying races.

As an Aaracokra you +2 to Dexterity and +1 to Wisdom which we’ll be keeping because I don’t know if your DM will allow Tasha’s rules. You also get 50 feet of Flight but you can’t be wearing Medium or Heavy Armor to do this, which means I don’t get to say “something something Medium Armor.” And finally you can buck someone to deal damage equal to a d4 plus your Strength; technically their Talons which deal slashing damage but feel free to view them however you want.

If I was to build Fluttershy I’d honestly use the Owlfolk UA race (which will hopefully be out in Wild Beyond the Witchlight and / or Strixhaven) for a multitude of reasons, the most notable of which being the fact that you can fly with Medium armor as an Owlfolk. But the Detect Magic Ritual ability is also nice as is the reaction to stop yourself from falling. Unfortunately Aaracokra technically made more sense since Fluttershy can’t detect magic.

Basically even I have to make choices which are suboptimal in order to ensure maximum roleplay, and even when I play my builds I change them to make them better to play.

ABILITY SCORES

15; WISDOM - You are compassionate and good with animals: both those things are Wisdom skills!

14; DEXTERITY - Since I can’t go “something something medium armor” for this build (yay Aaracokra) I guess getting a 16 in DEX thanks to your race is a good call. If playing an Owlfolk or something you can afford to having 14 total in DEX, as you can then wear medium armor.

13; CONSTITUTION - Look, roleplay stats are great and all but so is not dying.

12; CHARISMA - You are cute small pony... bird... Pony-bird...

10; INTELLIGENCE - Most of your time was spent taking care of animals and most of your knowledge comes from on-hand training as opposed to studying. Basically you’re not Twilight.

8; STRENGTH - As a young filly Rainbow Dash would do most of the heavy lifting for you. As a young mare Rainbow Dash still does most the heavy lifting for you. She is a Barbarian after all!

BACKGROUND

Most ponies know to come to you if their pets are in trouble, and if you’ve ever had pets you know the doctor that helps them is a true Folk Hero. As a Folk Hero you get proficiency in Animal Handling (yay) but I’d swap the Survival proficiency out for Stealth because well... you’re very good at hiding. You also get proficiency with Land Vehicles (most Land Vehicles in D&D are controlled by animals; usually horses! Wait... aren’t you a horse?) and an Artisan’s Tool of your choice: go for Carpenter’s Tools to make some bird houses and chicken coops!

After living in Ponyville for so long most ponies are willing to give you some Rustic Hospitality, giving you a warm place to rest and recover... as long as you can get over your crippling shyness! Eep!

(Artwork by probablyfakeblonde on DeviantArt.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - CLERIC 1

Starting off as a Cleric because I thought Wisdom and Charisma saves were more fitting for Fluttershy, and for the Insight and Medicine skill proficiencies.

As a Cleric you get to choose your subclass at level 1, and there’s nothing you love more than a little bit of Peace and quiet. As a Peace Cleric you get proficiency in Performance thanks to Implement of Peace, for those great MLP song numbers. But more importantly you can call on the power of friendship for an Emboldening Bond!

As an action, you choose a number of friends within 30 feet of you (this can include yourself) equal to your proficiency bonus. Your friendship bonds them together for 10 minutes or until you use this feature again. While any bonded creature is within 30 feet of another they get a d4 they can add to an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw once per turn. You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

And finally we can talk about the Spellcasting! You get three cantrips from the Cleric list at level 1: Guidance is always welcome among friends, and Spare the Dying can be a literal life safer! Other than that you are still expected to fight in D&D so take Sacred Flame to defend yourself. You can also prepare a number of spells equal to your Cleric level plus your Wisdom modifier. As a Peace Domain Cleric you can inspire Heroism among your friends, or protect yourself (and hide!) with Sanctuary.

Other than that Healing Word is a staple healing spell (we aren’t taking Cure Wounds right now for reasons but feel free to prepare it), Shield of Faith will let you defend your allies, Protection from Evil and Good will help you invoke the Elements of Harmony against the big bad of the season, and Detect Evil and Good will help you find the Elements of Harmony!

You could also take Bless, but I’m not going to tell you to take Bless because optimizers would crucify me for telling you to double up on d4s.

LEVEL 2 - CLERIC 2

Second level Clerics get their Channel Divinity once per short rest and you have a variety of options to choose from:

Turn Undead will make skeletons and zombies not want to hurt the cute little ponies, which will force them to run away for awhile.

Balm of Peace (the main reason we took the second level in Cleric) will let you run around and heal all your friends for 2d6 plus your Wisdom modifier.

And Harness Divine Power (ty Tasha’s) will let you recover a spell slot, but can only be used a limited amount of times per Long Rest.

You can also prepare another spell and be a little less nice with Command. Telling your enemies to “LOVE” isn’t going to be that effective, but making them grovel or drop works just as fine.

LEVEL 3 - RANGER 1

When you spend enough time around animals you’re automatically either a Ranger or a Druid. Quinn? Never heard of ‘em. Regardless multiclassing into Ranger gives you proficiency in a skill from the Ranger list and it’s good to know about Nature so you can find plants to help your fluffy buddies! Deft Explorer also gives you two language proficiencies (again: pick your poison) and Expertise in a skill. You’ll never guess which skill we’ll be getting... it’s Animal Handling. You’re good with animals.

We actually aren’t going to be taking Favored Foe because we aren’t using weapons for one, but more importantly despite it’s name Favored Enemy is also good for tracking friends! You have advantage on Survival checks to track your favored “enemies”, as well as on Intelligence checks to recall information about them. Go for Beasts to easily find a feathered or fluffy friend! Oh and you also get more languages because I don’t know why, so again pick your poison.

LEVEL 4 - RANGER 2

Second level Rangers get their Fighting Style, or as I like to call it your Helping Style because we’ll be going for Druidic Warrior! You can pick up two cantrips from the Druid list: I opted for Druidcraft (you can grow some flowers for your friends; yay!) and Mending to tend to your cottage.

And of course with cantrips we also get more Spellcasting! You can learn two spells from the Druid list: you’re never not going to want Cure Wounds (which is why we didn’t take it earlier btw) and Animal Friendship is an obvious must.

LEVEL 5 - RANGER 3

Third level Rangers get to choose their Ranger Archetype and we’ll be going for the Gloomsta- Ah you all know it’s going to be Beast Master. You get a Ranger’s Companion not from the PHB but from Tasha’s! The Beast of Land would make the most sense and while it’s probably expected that they be a wolf or something you can pretend that you’re playing Fighting is Magic and have Angel Bunny fight for you! Anyways here’s a crash course on your new fluffy friend:

Their AC is equal to 13 plus your proficiency bonus (currently 16.)

Their health is equal to 5 + five times your Ranger level (currently 20) and they have a number of d8 hit die equal to your Ranger level.

They have a 40 foot movement speed and a 40 foot climbing speed.

You can command it to attack with your bonus action; it has the same hit chance as your spell hit chance (WIS mod + Prof Bonus [currently 6]) and deals a d8 + 2 + prof bonus damage.

If they move at least 20 feet straight toward a target and then hit with an attack on the same turn, the target takes an extra 1d6 slashing damage and must make a Strength saving throw against your spell save DC (if they’re a creature.) If they fail they’re knocked prone.

You can command the beast to attack, dash, disengage, or hide with your bonus action.

If you don’t command it they take the dodge action.

You can revive them with a spell of first level or higher 1 hour after they die, and can change your beast after a long rest.

Man, who knew that taking care of a pet was so difficult? Well you also get Primeval Awareness (because Primal Awareness actually doesn’t work that well for this build.) You can use your action and one spell slot to sense the following types of creatures within 1 mile of you: aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead. This lasts for one minute, and doesn’t reveal the creatures’ location or number.

And you learn another spell: Goodberry is good to feed yourself and all your friends! As long as they’re okay with eating berries, of course. C’mon... they’re good for you! Pleeeease?

(Artwork by AssasinMonkey on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 6 - RANGER 4

Finally an Ability Score Improvement... or Feat? We’ll be going for Eldritch Adept, which is admittedly weird but it’s the only way to get Beast Speech so you can Speak with Animals at will! Is total level 6 a little late to finally be able to speak with animals? Yeah, but this is unlimited so it fits better and doesn’t spend your spell slots.

LEVEL 7 - CLERIC 3

Finally back to Cleric land which means finally we can prepare some second level spells! As a Peace domain Cleric you automatically get Aid and Warding Bond prepared, both of which are very good for keeping your friends alive. You can also finally get Hold Person to finally have The Stare!

LEVEL 8 - CLERIC 4

Level 4 in Cleric means another Ability Score Improvement: Wisdom is still your core stat so increasing that by 2 would be your best choice.

You also get another cantrip at this level, and can prepare two more spells! For cantrips I’d recommend Light to see with your dumb bird eyes unless you’re an Owlfolk, and I’d recommend preparing Lesser Restoration and Enhance Ability to further boost your friends.

(Artwork by Koveliana on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 9 - CLERIC 5

5th level Clerics can now Destroy Undead of CR 1/2 or lower with their Channel Divinity. Don’t feel too bad about it; they were big dumb meanies anyways!

You can also prepare third level spells too! As a Peace Domain Cleric you get Beacon of Hope to help with healing, and Spike can send letters out for you with Sending. You can also prepare Dispel Magic in case Twilight needs help with more dangerous spells.

LEVEL 10 - CLERIC 6

6th level Peace Clerics get Protective Bond. When a creature affected by your Emboldening Bond is about to take damage, another bonded creature within 30 feet of the first can use its reaction to teleport to an unoccupied space within 5 feet of the first creature. That creature then takes all the damage instead. It’s worth mentioning that since this specifies “creature” you can actually bond with your beast companion and have it use its reaction, or have others go in to defend angel.

You can also prepare another third level spell like Revivify, so you don’t lose any friends. And to top it off you can use your Channel Divinity twice per short rest! Woohoo!

LEVEL 11 - CLERIC 7

7th level Cleric, 4th level spells. As a Peace Domain Cleric you get Aura of Purity to protect your friends, and Otiluke’s Resilient Sphere to put your enemies in time out. You can also prepare another spell like Freedom of Movement, in case you need to run!

LEVEL 12 - CLERIC 8

8th level Clerics get a variety of features. To start off you get an Ability Score Improvement, which means we can finally cap off your Wisdom for maximum spellcasting! This also means you can prepare more spells, but we’re actually going to hold off on getting more spells for now.

You can also put a little more LOVE into your spells with Potent Spellcasting, adding your Wisdom modifier to the damage of your Cleric cantrips. And finally your Channel Divinity will now Destroy Undead or CR 1 or lower.

LEVEL 13 - CLERIC 9

The reason we held off on getting more Cleric spells last level is because now we get those big 5th level spells! As a Peace Domain Cleric you can help your friends out of any jam with Greater Restoration, and know what they really mean to say thanks to Rary’s Telepathic Bond.

You can also prepare some of those big hitter spells like Mass Cure Wounds to save your friends, and you can cast both Dawn and Summon Celestial to call on Celestia herself! Isn’t that Twilight’s job? Well, it’s still good to have contacts!

(Artwork by CigarsCigarettes on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 14 - RANGER 5

Now that we’ve got all the support we could need for our friends it’s time to return to our roots and focus on Angel! Feel free to focus more on Ranger instead of Cleric if you so desire when building this yourself; I simply opted for more healing instead of damage.

We’re finally 5th level with Ranger which finally means you’ll be getting an Extra Attack!... Which you probably won’t use because you can use cantrips instead. Well it’s still nice to have?

The good thing though is that you can learn more Ranger spells like Healing Spirit, which is a really strong healing spell that was kinda gutted by erratas. But it’s still nice and efficient regardless of what spell slot you casted it at, effectively being a 6d6 heal for a second level spell slot!

LEVEL 15 - RANGER 6

6th level Rangers can now add Roving to their list of skills from Deft Explorer. Your movement speed increases by 5 feet, and you get both a climbing and swimming speed equal to your walking speed. Is total level 15 a little late to get a 30 foot movement speed? Yeah probably, but every little bit helps!

Speaking of another little bit you get another Favored Enemy... I mean friend! ...I don’t know pick whatever you think will be relevant for the campaign. Also yes: you do get more languages, because Ranger.

LEVEL 16 - RANGER 7

7th level Beast Masters have Exceptional Training with their Animal Companion. You can use a bonus action to command the beast to take the Dash, Disengage, or Help action on its turn... which you could already do anyways thanks to Tasha’s.

I’d say that after Tasha’s this feature would work even if you don’t command your beast, but as always discuss the rules with your DM.

Well at least Angel’s attacks count as magical to overcome resistances, which is good because you were probably dealing with nonmagical resistance for awhile now.

You can also prepare another spell like Pass Without Trace, so you and your friends can sneak around unseen. Pass Without Trace is one of those spells that is always useful regardless of what level you are, so picking it up now is still useful!

LEVEL 17 - RANGER 8

8th level Rangers get another Ability Score Improvement. You’ve probably noticed our uneven Constitution score by this point: yeah that was because we were going to grab Resilient Constitution at some point. Increasing your CON gives you a nice +17 to your health and makes your Constitution saves (and concentration saves!) a +8 total.

You’ve also spent so much time on the ground moving through nonmagical difficult terrain costs you no extra movement thanks to Land’s Stride. You can also pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them or taking damage from them. Additionally, you have advantage on saving throws against plants that are magically created or manipulated to impede movement. You may be able to fly but that doesn’t mean being able to move on the ground isn’t useful!

(Artwork by AssasinMonkey on DeviantArt.)

LEVEL 18 - RANGER 9

9th level Rangers can learn third level spells, and you’ve probably spent enough time training with Rainbow Dash by this point to make a Wind Wall to protect your friends! (Basically the Ranger spell list sucks and we’re only really going down Ranger still for more subclass features.)

LEVEL 19 - RANGER 10

You get a new feature from Deft Explorer at this level: you are now Tireless! As an action you can give yourself a number of temporary hit points equal to 1d8 plus your Wisdom modifier (so 5.) You can use this action a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest. Additionally whenever you finish a short rest your exhaustion level is decreased by 1.

You’re also a master of avoiding social interaction. Nature’s Veil lets you turn invisible as a Bonus Action until the start of your next turn. You can also use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and regain all expended uses when you finish a Long Rest.

LEVEL 20 - RANGER 11

11th level Beast Masters can invoke Bestial Fury! With 11 level in Ranger and 20 total levels in this build your Animal Companion can now... attack twice! Look Beast Master is playable now, I never said it was good.

At least you can learn one last Ranger spell: in your ultimate stand against darkness Daylight will help you banish the dark! ...Or something. Look again: the Ranger spell list sucks.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

You do not hurt my friends! You got that? - Even with the multiclassing you still get spell slots up to 7th level, and have more than enough magic to shake a stick at. Not to mention that Angel will always be by your side to pump out a bit more damage with your Bonus Action!

You’re the cutest thing ever - Maxed out Wisdom was rather expected from a Cleric, but Expertise in Animal Handling combined with unlimited Beast Speech means that you can easily make friends with any beast you come across! Just make sure your DM is okay with you giving a hydra belly rubs.

Whatever you wanna do is fine... - You’ve got quite a good mix of features that will help you both in and out of combat, meaning that there’s plenty that your friends can rely on you to help with! In fact there’s a lot of things that only you can do as a Ranger which are quite helpful!

CONS

You’re such a loudmouth... - Most of your class resources only come back after a Long Rest, with only your Channel Divinity coming back after a Short Rest. You’re still plenty capable with just Angel by your side but don’t spend everything in one fight, or else you’ll be left with nothing but Sacred Flame and Animal Companion attacks.

Are you coughing because... - So let’s talk about Angel: even with 11 levels in Ranger they’re not great. AC of 19 is pretty good but they’ll probably max out around 60 HP. Your average Wizard will have more HP than this by level 20. Two maul attacks will do decent damage but you could get equal value out of Spiritual Weapon, and you only get the second attack with Angel at total build level 20. And yeah for most of this build Angel is going to be sitting around 25 max HP, meaning they’re likely to go down a lot. Aid can help keep your pets healthy and happy but don’t be upset when your level 4 Ranger companion keeps going down.

Awful, just awful! - We kinda miss the best of both worlds for the sake of a build that’s “in-character.” No 10th level of Cleric means no Divine Intervention (even if it’s only a 10% chance it’s still good to have), and no 12th level of Ranger means no ASIs. One good thing about this build is that it does peak around level 10 or so where the multiclassing doesn’t start to damage it, but if you really expect to run all the way to level 20 I’d sooner play either a straight Ranger or a straight Cleric.

But you’re coming along to share your kindness with everypony around you, and guide your friends to victory! Use your expertise to keep your friends alive while Angel kicks some major tail! Get down and be assertive, but remember not to push yourself too hard. Everypony already loves you for who you are, even if you’re in fact a little shy.

(Artwork by Rodrigues404 on DeviantArt.)

#dnd #dnd build #dnd guide #My Little Pony #Friendship is Magic #mlp: fim #brony #dnd ranger #dnd cleric #fluttershy #flutter pony #animals

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violet-t-9 · 4 years ago

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Check in on my (not very realistic) wish list for episode 135

1. The M9 eventually find a way to catch up with Lucien and Cree before they are able to go to the astral sea and at least start the combat (Bonus: Cree gets a wild magic effect that gives M9 some advantage or laughs).

Doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen. Well, I’m still personally REALLY happy that they all decided to explore a little bit much and ended up with combat lol. I love the heavy lore dump, reveals, map and the Aeorian nullifier/others combat, all part of the D&D fun.

2. Caleb and Beau somehow don’t get any extra eyes from their dreams (look, let me have some hope alright, last episode was kinda open-ended).

Noooo not on the clavicle and the palm... These stupid eyes are the reason why the empire siblings rolled bad rolls first thing in the morning, I’m telling you.

3. People on watch in the dome have some one-on-one conversations (Yasha and Fjord are doing the first watch, looking forward to it, also hoping for whoever on the second watch to talk).

Nope :( I’m a bit sad that they just kind of time skipped to the morning but it’s understandable.

4. If the empire siblings do get eyes can we at least have a morning eye check routine and Essek’s reaction to it? (Bonus: Essek examines the eye and offers help in some way)

I mean, we got part of a nice conversation about the eye so that counts as a reaction right. Essek is very wary about it, understandably. Don’t worry Essek, Fjord will take care of it if the eyes turn them evil.

5. More wild magic effects from casting in Aeor! Jester, Essek, Caleb, Caduceus, Veth and Fjord I’m looking at y’all. (Bonus: the effects are harmless and fun ones, like Bjald)

OH NO CALEB not first thing in the morning... wow never mind it’s a nice nostalgic smell! Apple tart, how awesome. I mean a lot of people used higher level magic and didn’t roll yet (or maybe they did we just don’t know)? This particular effect was harmless and fun tho.

6. They explore the Aeorian ruins even more along the way and discover cool relics/labs/history and lore (Bonus: clues related to the Eyes of Nine).

Ayyy genesis ward looks like a fun place, thanks to their high investigation rolls we found so much sweet lore. They also went into underground city ruins and basically wizard paradise lol. AND A BOOK ON THE SOMNOVEM! This is the first clue we have found so far. Also, Factorum Mollis project/Creator Hammer? Athodan’s rejuvenation/dunamancy? The plot thickens. THEY FOUND WHERE THEY NEED TO GO! B9!

7. Beau and Yasha have fun with some shameless PDA OR alternatively they get some super private time (bonus: cuddles in the dome).

I love their morning flirting. “That was amazing babe”, “Jump I’ll catch you!”, “Come here baby”, that’s some shameless PDA right there we love to see it. ALSO, Marisha said “we are doing PDA it’s a thing” and I feel so validated right now.

8. Jester and Fjord heal each other at least one time OR have a deep conversation (bonus: Jester complimenting Bjald).

They didn’t heal each other/converse BUT they had some nice moments! Fjord holds Jester’s ankles and waist at her request, how cute!

9. Continuing to hope for Essek’s fancy dunamantic spells OR magical items (I just love his style and flair okay).

OG Fortune’s Favour!! Thanks Essek. Identifying the keycard was also helpful. Essek giving Veth a pearl and telling her to aim it was so funny lol. LEVEL 4 LIGHTNING BOLT? What spell/item is that? Wow Essk is well-equipped.

10. They talk seriously OR laugh together about Bjald/smooth Fjord (Bonus: Veth disses Bjald just because) but Fjord eventually gets his hair back.

Wow straight out of the gate lol, Veth doesn’t wait (they are seriously expending spell slots for this). Also Veth cannot stop trying to grab his illusory hair. She also tells Devexian that Fjord is not a robot despite him not having hair I can’t even- Also, rejuvenation tube gave Bjald hair back and a long rest, great!

11. Continuing to hope for Caleb to polymorph into anything really, or using polymorph on any party member (polymorph! Caleb interactions my beloved).

Sparrow! Caleb my beloved! “I’m adorable” indeed, he totally is adorable. Landing on Jester, Fjord and Charlie must have been fun.

12. More moments of Essek’s trust issue (OR changes in his opinion) with Charlie and more moments of Charlie being helpful to the party.

Charlie was a very competent translator! Also, Essek does continue to have a lot of trust issues.

13. Jester and Charlie cute interactions OR Veth and Charlie interactions (Bonus: They reach the genesis ward to fix Charlie).

Charlie stopped listening when Jester asked him to, how cute! Veth also advocated for Charlie’s repair because she is already 100% attached - and they did fix Charlie I MEAN DEVEXIAN. Veth’s flirting with Devexian is... kinda cute? I guess?? Not sure how Devexian feels about it lol.

14. Cad attempting to speak with the dead on the remaining TT members (there is still Otis and Zoran right) and learning some useful information.

Well, speak with the dead was cast on the dead Aeorian warrior and some useful information was learned about the rejuvenation chamber I’d say. It was not cast on the TT members though.

15. Caleb casting fire spell challenge! I miss his signature fire magic that we have not seen in a long time, actually (Bonus: Essek is impressed).

Well fire bolt is a fire spell and actually does decent damage for a fire bolt.

16. Cad has a particularly badass moment in or out of combat (bonus: divine intervention success).

HOLY THAT BANISHMENT WAS SO BADASS, also that canceled nat 20 on Yasha. Wow Cad continues to be cool in battles, he is such a MVP!!

17. Veth has a particularly badass moment in or out of combat (bonus: HDYWTDT).

I mean all Veth’s sneak attacks are badass in my book.

18. The wizards nerd out about/investigate Aeorian magic together OR have another conversation (look, I love how they talk to each other okay).

WOW both happened! Essek stayed behind with Caleb in the record room and had a conversation to keep him on track. Right after, Caleb also reminded Essek of the same thing. Once again, I love how they talk to each other. Their dynamic is so fascinating. They also nerd out about/found dunamis (and a literal beacon piece) together in that chamber! That would make sense, time magic = rejuvenation and all that.

19. I know this is highly unlikely but I still kinda want to see the tower again with Essek getting a full tour! I want to see his room decor.

Nope, as expected lol. I don’t think we will see the tower until they deal with Lucien? We will see though, you never know.

20. We find out what exactly Capeleb/Caleb saw when Jester was casting commune/scry (it’s totally something Artagan-related, but what though?).

Nope, but it’s fine. It’s probably not urgent, otherwise Caleb would mention it.

21. Yasha pushes another red button and Beau enabling her out of love.

Yasha went “do it” as Fjord went in the tube lol so she was more of an enabler.

22. You know the drill by now - everyone remains relatively happy and alive by the end of the episode except Lucien and Cree (they can perish), and the episode ends on a terrifying cliffhanger as always.

Wow that episode was PACKED with so much information, I can’t even digest it all. Anyways, the score this time is 14/22, which is not bad at all.

Bonus:

Caleb shared half of his pearls with Essek! Also, wow that IS a beacon that they just found. The 3 magic users showboating each other at the end I can’t lmao I love them.

I just love all the noises of the Aeorian Nullifier, thank you Matt.

Jester, for that wand of smiles move, I love you even more (also she was the only one who actually tried to keep the party on task lol).

This episode will certainly need some re-watching to process all the information... but wow what an experience! Loving everything, as always. I cannot wait for next Thursday!

#cr spoilers #critical role spoilers #c2e135 #live blog #cr live blog #manifest list #the mighty nein #campaign 2 #critical role

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grailfinders · 4 years ago

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Fate and Phantasms #107: Angra Mainyu

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making the original Shirouface, Angra Mainyu! This angy mango can turn into a dog, track mud all over the place, and also warp time and space to cheat at grail wars. 🎵 One of these things is not like the other! 🎵 I’d say he’s also really good at killing humans, but in D&D most humans aren’t that hard to kill. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

Check out the mango’s build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: Yeah, I guess he is pretty great.

Race and Background

So... Angra’s kind of weird. He was human, but now he’s the sins of all mankind, so if you want the flavor build maybe a Tiefling? That being said we’re trying to turn him into a dog and we can’t wait three levels, so he’s going to be a Longtooth Shifter here. This gives him +2 Strength and +1 Dexterity, a bit of Darkvision so you don’t have to keep your tattoos lit, Keen Senses for perception proficiency, Fierce for intimidation, as well as the ability to Shift once per short rest as a bonus action. This bestial transformation lasts 1 minute, and during it you gain some temporary HP and can make a bite attack as a bonus action.

As for your background, Acolyte is a much nicer title than your real one, Ritual Sacrifice. (As long as you leave out your role in the order, Shelter of the Faithful should still work, right?) Either way, you get Religion proficiency, as well as Insight. You’re really good at sizing up your opponents, but that’s mostly because they’re always stronger than you are.

Ability Scores

We’re not doing anything fancy this time, just the standard array. You can roll if you wanna, but keep multiclassing in mind. First up, make your Intelligence as high as possible. It’s your casting modifier, and half the reason you’re so hard to kill is because you fight smart. Speaking of fighting smart, put your next scores into Constitution, then Dexterity for maximum survivability. After that I guess we can go with Strength for multiclassing and, y’know, hitting things. You might be weak, but you do have those abs going for you. After that is Wisdom to help with that insight. Finally, dump Charisma. Self-deprecation isn’t a good look king.

Class Levels

1. Barbarian 1: You don’t even wear a shirt, let alone armor, so Unarmored Defense is right up your alley. It gives you an AC based on your dexterity and constitution scores. You can also fly into a Rage for extra damage, advantage on strength rolls, and damage resistance, all at the low low cost of not casting or concentrating on spells.

One last thing for level one- you have Strength and Constitution saving throw proficiencies, as well as two barbarian skills. You’re great at hanging in there for as long as possible, so grab Athletics and Survival proficiencies.

2. Fighter 1: Now we bounce over to fighter real quick for Two-Weapon Fighting to help you wield Zarich and Tawrich properly. You also learn how to find a Second Wind as a bonus action for a bit of healing. You can’t really get a counter attack in if you’re dead after all.

3. Wizard 1: We’ll get a second level of wizard so it makes sense later in the build, but all you really need to know right now is you can cast and prepare Spells using your Intelligence, and when you take a short rest you can use your Arcane Recovery to regain a total level of spell slots equal to half your wizard level rounded up. This only works once per long rest though, don’t abuse it.

For your spells, grab the Light cantrip for your sick tats, True Strike for a spell almost as useless as you are, Infestation, Tasha’s Caustic Brew, and Charm Person for the beginnings of your grail mud, and False Life, Mage Armor, and Shield to stay on the defensive. Charm person isn’t quite Completely Rewriting Someone’s Personality; but I mean it’s a first level spell, what did you expect.

4. Fighter 2: Okay, enough multiclassing for now- back in fighter, you get an Action Surge for a surge of action. Once per short rest, you can add an extra action to your turn. Unlike the sorcerer’s quickened spell, you can use two leveled spells at once with this. Or hit people more. That’s probably a better option for you.

5. Fighter 3: At third level you become a Battle Master for some fancy skills. Your Student of War gives you proficiency with any one artisan’s tool. I’m not totally sure what the best way to make your tats would be, but it’s probably painter’s supplies. Anyway, you also get Combat Superiority, giving you three maneuvers that you can use with Superiority Dice. You start with four d8s, and you regain them on short rests.

D&D as a system doesn’t have much in the way of counterattacks, but Brace and Riposte are probably the closest you can get without dumping 14 levels into a barbarian subclass that doesn’t fit you otherwise. The former lets you make an attack when a creature enters melee range, and the latter lets you attack when you’re missed by a melee attack. In either case, you also add the superiority die to the damage. Your last maneuver is a Tactical Assessment, which lets you add the die to Investigation, History, or Insight checks. It’s kind of cheating when you know you’re worse than everyone else, but it’s still technically an assessment.

6. Barbarian 2: It’s been 6 levels and we’re still barely a dog- clearly we need to fix that too. Second level barbarians get a Reckless Attack, which gives you advantage on all weapon attacks for the turn at the cost of taking attacks at advantage too. To balance that out, your Danger Sense gives you advantage on dexterity saves.

7. Barbarian 3: At third level you can finally become the bad boy you were always meant to be thanks to your Form of the Beast. When you rage, you gain one of three natural weapons.

Your Fangs let you bite creatures, and once per turn you can regain your proficiency bonus in HP if you’re bloodied.

Your Claws let you make an extra attack once per turn.

Your Tail is long enough to get the reach property, and you can use your reaction to add to your AC by moving your tail between you and an attacker.

I don’t think dog tails are long enough to do that, but you’re more of a shadow werewolf monster anyway, so it’s not like you need to work with biology.

8. Barbarian 4: Eight levels in and you finally get your first Ability Score Improvement. Bump up your Strength for a more passible amount of attack power.

9. Barbarian 5: Our last bit of barbarism for a while nets you Fast Movement for extra move speed and an Extra Attack per attack action.

10. Fighter 4: One last bounce back to fighter for another ASI. grab some extra Constitution for more health and a tougher hide. This also makes your unarmored defense as tough as your mage armor, which should free up a spell slot or two for ya. Speaking of spells though...

11. Wizard 2: Yeah, we’re finally getting back to wizard. Your innate skill at messing with timelines will make you a Chronurgist. Unfortunately, D&D doesn’t do four day time loops. What you get instead is a Chronal Shift, spending your reaction to force a creature nearby to re-roll a d20. Unlike most roll messing-with abilities, this one takes effect after you find out if it worked or not. You can do this twice per long rest. A couple of seconds is way more convenient anyway- having to redo everything would be a pain in the ass. Your Temporal Awareness also lets you add your intelligence modifier to your initiative for better ambushes.

There aren’t other first level spells we really want, so let’s grab the low-magic Alarm and Snare. Being in a time loop is super useful for trapping people.

12. Wizard 3: Third level wizards get second level spells. Alter Self will let you become a dog boy without having to rage, and Darkness makes things dark. You’ve got this “edgy silhouette” thing going for you in the early ascensions, it’d be a shame to ruin it just because it’s day out.

13. Wizard 4: Now that you’re starting to get spells worth using, grab the War Caster feat. This gives you advantage on concentration saves, as well as the ability to cast spells with full hands. You can also use cantrips for your opportunity attacks.

14. Wizard 5: One last level of wizard for now gives you third level spells. Spirit Shroud gives you an aura of grail mud, slowing down creatures near you and letting you deal extra necrotic damage with each attack. This also shuts down healing! Bonus. You can also Summon Shadowspawn for more material doggos with one of three moods. Furious dogs get advantage on frightened creatures, despairing dogs slow creatures in mud, and frightful dogs can hide in darkness as a bonus action.

15. Barbarian 6: That’s enough magic for a while, lets get back to hitting things. Your Bestial Soul gives you magical claws, fangs, and tails while raging, and you also get a bunch of movement options that don’t really mesh with your character. I guess the jumping boost might be useful- most type-moon characters can jump a story into the air.

16. Barbarian 7: Your Feral Instinct gives you advantage on initiative rolls, and you can just ignore being frightened if you go beast mode immediately. Speaking of, your Instinctive Pounce lets you move as part of your rage bonus action, giving you an extra half-speed of movement.

17. Barbarian 8: Use your last ASI for even more Intelligence. You’d probably use strength more, but you’re supposed to be weak, so that checks out.

18. Barbarian 9: Your Brutal Criticals give you an extra die of damage on critical hits, but you use shortswords, so it’s not going to help much. Again, pretty on point for you.

19. Barbarian 10: Tenth level beasts have an Infectious Fury, letting you dab a little bit of that grail mud into your rage weapon attacks. When you hit a creature, they need to make a wisdom save (DC 8+your constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus) or they take one of two effects. Either they’re forced to attack another creature nearby, or they take extra psychic damage. You can use this a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus.

20. Wizard 6: Your capstone level nets you one last chronurgy trick- Momentary Stasis locks a creature in a time loop if they fail a constitution save, either until they take damage or the end of your next turn. While in the loop, they’re incapacitated and can’t move. You can use this a number of times per long rest equal to your intelligence modifier.

You also get a last couple of spells, which will really ramp up your mud production. Tidal Wave does exactly what you’d think it does, and after your foes are drenched in mud, hit them with Bestow Curse, another spell kind enough to tell you exactly what it does on the tin.

Pros:

You’ve got plenty of ways to deal damage when it isn’t your turn, and multiple effects to make those attacks more effective. Combine Brace with your Infectious Fury to drop two creatures at the same time before either have a chance to deal damage. Sorry I don’t have a pithy way to bold this one.

Even if you get stuck in a longer fight, you’re tough to kill, with 200 HP, rages, a shield spell, and ways to heal yourself, you can stick around for a long time even before factoring in any loops. (Oh hey, biting is another thing that your counterattacks make super effective)

Thanks to your multitude of multiclassing, you have a lot of variety. Your melee combat is solid, of course, but you can also use magical combat or utility spells, with just a touch of healing thrown in for when it’s absolutely necessary.

Cons:

The downside to that last point above is that you have a lack of focus, which is especially bad given the small number of ASI you have to work with. This means none of your stats are particularly impressive, so expect people to see through your illusions regularly.

You have a lot of reasons to keep your reactions open, and unlike the bonus action problem this isn’t something that you can reason out yourself- you never know when a party member will need you to chronal shift away a critical hit. You also have shield and your counterattacks tied to the same reaction, so in busier fights you’ll have to plan carefully.

Most of your low level spells involve Poison or Acid damage, two of the most resisted and immune-to types. They’re just not that strong, sorry.

#fgo #Fate Grand Order #DND 5e #Angra Mainyu #Fate and Phantasms

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sanstropfremir · 3 years ago

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it’s the episode 8 review!!! how many episodes is this show supposed to even be?

the stages from the episode feel like such a grab bag.... i still don’t understand why they didn’t put all the skill stages together, and then did the normal two episodes of the third round. i guess it makes sense that they didn’t want to have six stages in one episode and then three in the other two, but eh.

feeling kinda average on these as a whole, there’s a lot of good elements going on here but probably because of my own preferences (i don’t listen to ballads or blackpink) none of them really hit all the buttons. hopefully this will be a shorter review because i'm only going to do a quick rundown of the vocal stages; i dont really have that much to say about them because they are (intentionally) not very stage picture focused. i'll do the normal stage breakdowns for the other two though, even though i won’t rank them because we still need to see the other four!

vocal stages

sf9 + tbz + ikon

not much to say here other than wow, that’s RED. glad to see some more specific use of spotlighting and i always love when they light things on fire. i do wish they had fill lit with a brighter amber so we could actually get a bit more detail on their faces, especially because there’s six of them. i appreciated the simple blocking and only using one of the ‘stages,’ this stage didn’t need to be anything complicated and it wasn’t. i don’t love spinning camera shots because they make me a bit ill, and i'll forgive the constant cutting because it's a vocal stage and there isn’t any other real movement that we should be paying attention to. not my favourite of the two, i found it visually a bit too repetitive and complex at the same time. always love a crushed velvet suit though, so bonus points for that.

atz + skz + btob

i was braced for the worst and i dont know what kind of miracle happened but it was listenable! like i said, not a ballad fan but i could listen to eunkwang all day. i love a good plinth for a ballad stage, they’re one of my favourite devices in kpop design and i especially love it with a good groundlevel fog. glad they kept it black and white for the first half of the stage, it was in line with the blooming flower projections, and it made a very clear colour arc. they kept the visuals clean and simple with very little blocking at all, a very smart choice for this stage. not sure why they decided it would be the chanel time stage, which i disapprove of because i don’t like chanel, but i do love eunkwang’s shirt with the cameo buttons and the massive turnback cuffs, very 17th and also 19th century. i know they never do it because they dont read on stage normally but yes absolutely more thin chain pendant chokers on men, thank you! i also liked that there was emphasis on a more traditional lighting scheme, there weren't any crazy concert effects, just some good directional beam spotlights and the rear stacks in the climax.

third round stages

ikon

costume

the first look for them is definitely my fabourite of theirs so far. there’s enough variation in the jackets that the base layer of tshirt and jeans don’t look too repetitive. and i do love a good statement jacket. my favourite is probably donghyuk’s because i'm a sucker for fringe always.

i don’t like the backup dancers costumes, but given the way i’ve reacted to every other all black outfit for this entire show i don’t think anyone was surprised about that. these ones particularly irk me because they’re very matte; there's pretty much no texture or pattern differentials to define the shape of the limb, which makes them disappear when theyre all grouped together (mostly on the women). i think they probably were intending to make a statement/emphasis on the hands because of the sleeve cutoff point, but there were so many arm movements that were just totally missed because the costumes were just black voids. most egregious parts are here, with the female dancers up center. i can barely tell what the movements are unless i’m paying specific attention to them because there's so many black shapes. maybe it was the point for it to be an indiscernable writhing mass, but it wasn’t my vibe.

don’t love this styling on lisa. i hate peeptoe shoes in general but peeptoe boots are the worst offenders. they make you look like you have duck feet, no matter who you are. especially with a flat cutout like that. a universally unflattering shoe, and i would know, i worked in a shoe store for two years. this whole look is just pg-13 rihanna cfda awards 2014 and really nobody should try to run up against rihanna.

also i have to mention this because it’s actually really bothering me, but lisa’s backup dancers are serving very allgemeine ss looks and i do not like it. generally when we see ‘military’ uniforms in kpop theyre usually modelled off older styles (pre wwii) of western uniforms that usually aren’t in circulation, and they’re usually non-matching and embellished in ways that are deliberately not military. i know logically that it's a budget constraint+they’re backup dancers+current trend thing but the clean lines with only button detailing and the all black and that specific harness shape? it hit my brain the wrong way. i mean, technically those uniforms are designer because hugo boss did them, but the uh..... girlboss move didn’t land for me.

this is my PERSONAL OPINION please for the love of all that is holy do not come yelling at me about this. it’s all under a cut, you chose to read the post.

set

very glad to see some busy kitschy sets! this is a massive build, since there’s essentially three full sets here: the temple, the jungle, and the first tiny room. and all of them are very heavily decorated.

the starting room is just five walls on casters (wheels), that have been set into place with the cameraman and ikon inside at the start, and then once they exit the walls can be easily struck and rolled off set. simple, smart, and convenient!

i missed it the first couple times around but glitching out the projections in the temple for a split second was a neat little trick.

the silver and polygonal nature of the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a bit disconnected from the gold and the aesthetic of the rest of the stage for me. the difference between the original room set and the jungle tracks, but the cat head isnt able to make the same leap for me. i'm also not a fan of mixing metals so maybe that’s why.

the tiger/panther/cat(?) head is a fun physical transitional device; i'm a big fan of tunnels and small transitory spaces like that and if they’re well dressed like this one they do so much for establishing place and mood.

i'm very sure i’ve seen this style of polygonal animal head with laser eyes before....i cannot for the life of me remember where or for what. i know wang yibo did a panther stage for sdc3 that had a human formation panther with green laser eyes, i wonder if i'm just crossing wires.

OH nevermind it’s because it looks like the witcher medallion. wires were definitely crossed.

lighting

using purple/teal lighting for the jungle was a smart choice because purple is the direct compliment to the gold and also is much more flattering on humans than green. green is one of the colours that humans can see the most variations in, so when something is green when it's not supposed to be (like human skin), we register that very quickly and associate it with unease and sickness. you know how old fluorescent lights have that greenish tinge that kinda makes you feel ill? it's your cone cells and your brain recognizing that you’re looking at things that are not supposed to be green.

very clean colour arc, i love to see it.

sound

it’s.....fine? i don’t listen to blackpink and have no opinions on their music other than it's not my type. i dont really know what the thematic connection to the visuals is, which is not strictly necessary in a lot of cases, but i don’t particularly care for the conflation of ‘savage’ and a (presumably) precolonial religion that’s assembled from stereotypes of real colonized cultures. you can come at me about how ‘it's not that deep’ all you want but i am here specifically doing an in depth analysis, and i gotta point it out. i'm not here to pass judgement on you if you didn’t realize or don’t care or whatever, i'm just saying that it's important to consume content with a critical eye. what you do with that information is your own personal choice, but you should be aware of it at least.

staging

they took a big risk eating popcorn right before singing, and we definitely got some residual mouth noises of them trying to clean out their teeth. eating on stage is difficult in general because you have to make sure it's not going to dry out the performers mouths, because they dont have access to water and it takes WAY longer to chew and swallow something than you would expect. there’s a LOT of testing that goes into making stage food and guaranteed it’s not made out of what it looks like or what its supposed to be; i worked on a production of amadeus were we did literal weeks of testing amalgams of different desserts to make sure that salieri could actually eat the ones onstage without totally drying him out, because fun fact about that show, salieri doesnt leave stage like, at all, so there was no way to get him water. poor bloke.

i thought the blocking of this was really smart. the long take from the ‘normal’ room and transition into the jungle was super slick, even if that weird circle the camera did while pointed up at the ceiling was unnecessary and pointless.

bobby’s ‘acting’ was extremely funny and that’s the only way people are allowed to act surprised now. edvard munsch scream style only.

the pacing is a bit off and this time it wasn’t mnet’s editing that fucked it up. as fun as it is to have a feature, clearly she wasn’t allowed within proximity of the rest of them for covid or other yg related reasons, but it made for some extremely long transitions, especially the one out of her verse. it kills the momentum of the stage in that beat, even though they manage to pick it up after.

this is a very simple little narrative arc that’s easy to follow and doesn’t require any extra explaining. which is exactly the kind of arc that groups should be doing at this stage in the game. this is a good formic step up for ikon!

i thought the turning off of the monitor at the end was fun and a good callback to them watching the videos at the beginning of the stage. a nice clean way to make it circular.

skz

costume

FINALLY something different on the skz boys! these were mostly fun eboy looks for them, and i like it on the basis that it's not the same as the last set of costumes.

bang chan out there with his thigh OUT and a (fake) bridge piercing? LOVE to see it. great work.

(copy-paste every thing i’ve said about backup dancers wearing all black)

the backup dancers that were dressed as bystanders/extras were great! they should have kept that with all of them because it would have given a little more shape to the choreography and establishing what function the backup dancers were supposed to have.

set

that is meant to be a giant rice cooker on stage, right? i think so because it's a god’s menu mashup? if that's not a rice cooker i have NO idea what its supposed to be

there’s only two large setpieces here, which was a smart way to go. i LOVE the subway car doubling as the truck, even if the truck itself makes no narrative sense. what a fun way to double the use of a single big piece. you’ll be able to see the way it moves in the full cam but it splits down the centre and there entrance doors at the back with attached stairs that bang chan and the dancers use to climb up.

lighting

not a whole lot happening here. i like the cool white leds in the subway car and the contrast with the more warm tones of the outside, which is good atmospheric establishment, but i can't discern a visible arc.

not a fan of these projections; they’re in line with what we’ve seen from skz so far, which is: extremely literal. i dont think they’re that distracting, but they’re not to my personal taste. they really should have kept the comic panel theme that they did for changbin’s first verse, because that was inventive and fun to watch! and a great atmospheric indicator! i would love to see a bit more experimental projection use but it's hard when they don’t have a lot of time to build these stages and the lighting team is definitely working remotely.

sound

i love that they made the choice to do some actual talking, it’s a good gimmick and it works for the deadpool/comic book/fourth wall break theme, but australian accents take me the fuck out i am so sorry i cannot listen to either felix or bang chan speak english without laughing uncontrollably.

i don’t like this arrangement but i'm not surprised about that, given my predilections. i'm also tired of skz shouting STRAY KIDS in every performance they do. i know on music shows it's probably more relevant and yea producers tags are a thing but we’ve been watching this show for nearly two months at this point. we know who you are, you can stop yelling. be more creative with it!

staging

my biggest issue with this stage is that it doesn’t have a payoff. there is an arc here: they’re stealing the truck, but why are they stealing the truck? who are they stealing it from? who are they fighting against? it's kind of important in a stage where the theme is stealing and fighting someone that you tell us who that is. in both of ateez’s previous stages were they were both stealing (rhythm ta) and fighting (wonderland), they made sure to show us who the villain was. there needs to be tension for a big blowup climax to actually pay off. whether it be against a a balloon arm kraken or a fascist government. this stage could have reached that next step if they’d just done a little bit more exposition.

there were a lot of fun choreo moments here, and this is probably my favourite choreo of theirs so far. i thought the whole first bit in the subway car was excellent and a very fun play on those viral videos that we used to see roll around every so often of dancers doing routines in subway cars.

did it need the guns? not in the slightest. more on this point later. i could talk more about weapons and weight here, but i’ve done that several times already.

like with the tbz game of thrones stages, theyre relying a little too much on the audience's preconceptions of the source material in order to carry the theme. the guns are there because deadpool likes guns, but they don’t actually use the guns for anything? the most we get of the stealing segment is felix and the safe, which admittedly is a great bit with him leaping over and under the ‘laser’ lines (theyre likely led strips). because comic books are by nature procedural and deeply tied to narrative, it's unsatisfying when there’s no tension and no payoff.

HOW did we manage to get two stages that are blackpink covers with remote/tv static gimmick and durags? i know the slot machine of kpop tropes is not very big but surely the probability of hitting triple sevens on this one was pretty low. i’m pretty meh on both of these stages overall. skz was unsatisfying but i loved the choreo in the subway bit so that bumped it up a little ahead of ikon’s in my personal preferences, but i'm reserving my actual rankings for next week. assuming we get the other four stages next week and they dont do something stupid and only show two. which they very well might. i’ve stopped trying to understand why mnet does things the way that they do.

as always the ask box is open, drop your comments/questions/personal opinions, i love to hear ‘em! but don’t be rude just because some of this is touchier subject material.

#kingdom #ateez #btob #ikon #sf9 #the boyz #stray kids #military uniforms are a weird one and i always find it a bit....(squiggly face emoji) when they get used in kpop stages #everybody is one of the exceptions because its used as a direct critique #but this is a very personal opinion as someone who has done a lot of historical research on military uniforms in particular #so im hyperaware of that kind of thing #be cool about this one people please and thank you!#im so glad this came in under 3k #kingdom review #kpop analysis #text #ive had to write a lot of deeply critical art practice analysis in the last week and i would like to sleep

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hellyeahheroes · 4 years ago

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Playing Doreen Green in Dungeons & Dragons 5E

New year, some bad things out of my system, time to try coming back to regural activities before this year crushes me again. And I know a perfect way. Let’s make a build for d&d, since I haven’t done one of those in a while, using a Marvel character that bings cheers, joy and friendship whenever she goes.

Steve Ditko had an... interesting idea what Squirrel Girl should look like. Funny how people who say modern take on the character disrespects vision of artists who drew her traditionally attractive never seem to think these guys themselves disrespected Ditko’s vision, isn’t it?

Goals: As always I’m lifting the template for this from Tulok the Barbrarian, so let us start with what we actually want from this character. First of all, we need to be able to beat the ever living crap out of everyone. Second, we need to show our foes mercy and hopefully get them to change their ways. Finally, we need an army of squirrels.

Ability Scores: Usually I go with Standard Points Array - 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8 - because it is the simplest way. But this built will starve for Ability Score Improvements so I decided to, just like a guy from whom I’m ripping this whole idea from, cave in and use point buy. This will be simple take, however - we will replace standard array’s 14 and 10 with extra 15 and 8

Strength: 8- not something we need to be honest. Doreen is good at everything but in D&D we need to prioritize the most important things.

Dexterity: 15 - Doreen is quick and swift as some sort of squirrel....girl...

Constitution: 12 - if someone does manage to hit her she can actually take that hit and keep going.

intelligence: 8 - wish it was higher but again, we cannot have everything. Yet.

Wisdom: 15 - Squirrels love you, you have senses of a squirrel, you survived Savage Land like a champ.

Charisma: 13 - your have a thing of talking your enemies out of villainy, as long as no one runs in to kick them in the head while you’re at it, which is rude.

Now for D&D’s equivalent of species, Race. It is unclear if Doreen is a mutant or not but I feel like trying to stray away from Variant Human a bit if we can. There is not enough animal-like things about Doreen to make her a Tabaxi, so we’ll go with Swiftstride Shifter from Eberron. You gain +2 Dexterity and +1 Charisma, Darkvision allowing you to see for 60 feet in dim light as in bright light and in darkness as in dim light, but without being able to discern colors, proficiency in Perception and Acrobatics skills, extra 5 feet of movement, Common, Quori and third language of your choice (pick something campaign relevant) and an abilitty to shift into more bestial form as a bonus action, granting you temporary hit points equal your level + your Constitution modifier, another extra 5 feet of movement and an abilitty to move 10 feet away without provoking opprtunitty attacks as a reaction whenever an enemy ends their movement next to you.

Backgorund: Build a custom one for skills in Animal Handling and Persuasion, none they offer speaks to me.

Class levels: We will start as a Monk, gaining proficiency in Strength and Dexterity saving throws, simple weapons, shortswords, a set of artisan tools of your choice and two skills - Athletics and Stealth would be my pick.

1st Level Monks gain Unarmored Defense and Martial Arts, which all work as long as you’re not wearing armor or carrying a shield. As we see from the picture above, it would be hard to call a jacket and shorts an armor. You can add your Wisdom (WIS) modifier to your Armor Class alongside yoru Dexterity (DEX) modifier, you can substitute your DEX in place of Strength for attack and damage rolls of your unarmed attacks and you roll a d4 for the damage and you can spend your bonus action to make an additional unarmed attack. You can also use simple weapons that aren’t two handed or heavy and still get these bonuses

2nd Level Monks gain Ki Points, whose number is equal to your Monk level and replenishes on short or long rest. You can spend 1 ki point to make two unarmed attacks as a bonus action or take Dodge or Disengage actions as a bonus action. You also get unarmored Movement, meaning that when not wearing armor your speed busts up to additional +10 feet.

There is an option for Monk to also gain an additional abbility allowing you to between each long rest choose one martial weapon that isn’t heavy or special and you’re profficient with to treat as a monk weapon. This isn’t something Squirrel Girl would use, I’m only bringing it up because it was added in a book Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything. Tasha, also known as Iggwilv, is considered one of greatest villains in d&d. So it’s a good think Doreen has this whole thing about befriending and trying to reform villains because from next level on we’re gonna be best friends with Tasha and her cauldron. Consider Tasha your Kraven.

3rd Level: We will switch to a Ranger, getting proficiency in Knowledge Nature and we will grab variant Ranger features from that Cauldron. Deft Explorer makes you Canny, doubling proficiency bonus you add to one of your skills, I’d go with Persuasion so that you can convince people like Kraven to switch sides.

You also get Favored Foe - it lets you mark an enemy you hit with an attack for 1 minute or until you break a concentration check (as with spells, it is a Constitution Saving throw you make while taking damage, you need to beat either 10 or a number equal half of damage dealt to you, whichever is higher, or you lose focus). During this itme whenever you hit the target for the first time in a turn you deal an extra 1d4 of damage. You can mark a foe total number of times equal your prficiency modifier betwen each long rest.

4th Level: 2nd Level Ranger can choose a Fighting Style. Let us reach to that Cauldron and grab Unarmed Fighting, which lets your fists deal 1d6 + your Strength modifier damage, 1d8 if you use two hands and 1d4 a turn to a creature you’re grappling.

You may wonder why we picked it if we already have Martial Arts? Well, let us talk about Rules as Intended (RAI) vs Rules as Written (RAW) - the idea that the way rules in a game are written may not necessairly reflect what the author wanted and reason behind many, many, many rules debates in history of RPGs. As Intended you should use your Martial Arts dice with your Martial Arts attacks but as written there is nothing saying you have to. Talk with your DM how they feel about it and if they side with RAW, you can now deal damage like 11th level Monk - 1d8+your DEX modifier. If not, grab Blind-Fighting, which makes your senses so good you can effectively “see” creatures within 10 feets of you even if you’re blinded or in darkness and even notice invisible creatures who aren’t succesfully rolling stealth to hide. Only total cover (like, a wall) stops this, giving you some sweet Squirrel Senses.

Remember when Doreen beat Wolverine? I do.

2nd Level Rangers also get to learn spells. You know two spells of 1st level and have two spell slots you can spend every long rest to cast them.

Longstrider for 1 hour adds 10 feet to your speed. For those keeping track at home that’s now 50 feet while shifting.

Hunter’s Mark requires a concentration but let’s you as a bonus action mark a target and deal it extra 1d6 damage on every hit you deal it and have an advantage on Perception and Survival checks to find it for the next hour or until you break concentration. It it drops to 0 hit points on your next turn you can move it to another target as a bonus action. It’s Favored Foe but better. Mostly because Favored Foe originally was just Hunter’s Mark but many players felt it was too powerful and asked Wizards of the Coast to nerf it in official surveys. To the utter bafflement of everyone who discuss this game online. If I felt more political I’d make a joke this is the first case ever of silent majority being a thing but after last 4 years I cannot force myself to make it funny.

5th level: 3rd Level Monks can Deflect Missiles, letting you use your reaction to catch a ranged attack that would hit you, reducing its damage by 1d10+your Monk Level+your DEX Modifier. If you reduce damage to zero you can spend a Ki Point to send it back at the attacker, making ranged attack treating missile as a thrown monk weapon you’re proficient with.

You also get too chose Monastic Tradition and Way of Mercy from Tasha’s Cauldron will let you both show mercy to your enemies and kick some more ass. You gain Proficiency in Medicine and Insight, letting you read on villains what problems may haunt them and how to help. You also get Hands of Healing, which let you for one Ki Point as an action heal a creature an amount of hit points you roll on your Martial Arts die. You can also not spend a Ki point and replace one of your Flurry of Blows attacks with this. Doreen is kind enough to help patching up beaten enemies. Also, Hit Points aren’t meat points, they can reflect someone’s will to fight. So I don’t see why you shouldn’t use it to cheer your allies up if their spirits are down - Doreen is cheerful and friendly, she is a delight to have on a team and is sure to keep the morale up. Flavor it as a good pat on the back from your Squirrel-loving pal.

Also, you get Hands of Harm. Letting you once per turn and for one Ki Point deal extra necrotic damage on a single attack, its number equal your Martial Arts Die+ Your Wisdom Modifier.

6th Level: 4th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement, add +1 to your Dexterity and Wisdom, and Slow Fall, letting you reduce amount of damage you take from a fall by five times your Monk level. You can refluff this as gliding down on your flying squirrel gear.

Wish it could help me find better version of this appriopriate picture.

7th Level: 5th Level Monk gets an Extra Attack, letting you attack twice as a part of your action. You also get Stunning Strike, letting you spend a ki point to make the target suceed a Constitution saving throw or be stunned until end of your next turn. And your Martial Die bumps up to 1d6 - we do not use it for Unarmed attack but we do use it for other stuff, so keep a track on it.

8th Level; 6th Level Monks’ strikes become magical for the purpose of overcoming damage resistance and immunities. Also, your Unarmored Movement bumps up by another 5 fee, it’s not total of 55 feet of movement.

Way of Mercy gets Physician’s Touch, which also let’s you remove a single blinded, deafened, paralyzed, poisoned, or stunned condition from a creature you use Healing Hands on or apply poisoned condition to target of your Hands of Harm. No idea how that works. I mean maybe Doreen punches someone so hard they get nausea? And knows first aid?

9th Level; 7th Level Monks get Evasion, meaning that when you make a Dexterity Saving Throw to avoid damage, if the effect says you take half damage when you suceed, you instead take none. You also get Stillness of mind, letting you end one effect causing you to be charmed or frightened on yourself. Makes sense, Doreen clearly is not afraid of anything or anyone.

10th Level: 3rd Level Rangers gain an additional Spell Slot, an additional Spell and one extra Spell from Primal Awarenes class feature - that last one you can cast once per long rest without spending a spell slot.

You also get to pick Ranger Conclave. Swarmkeeper can summon a swarm of squirrels to aid you in combat. Whenever you hit an enemy with an attack you can dicide to make Squirrels bit them for an extra 1d6 piercing damage, force that enemy to make a Strength saving throw or be pushed away from you by 15 feet or have yourself moved up to 5 feet in any direction except up or down. You also get Mage Hand cantrip, except made of squirrels and an extra Spell you know. So for full list of spells you get:

Jump Triples your jump distance, it lasts for 1 minute with no concentration.

Speak with Animals let’s you talk to animals for 10 minutes, also no concentration required.

Faerie Fire let’s you set up lights on a 20-foot cube, making lal creatures in it roll Dexterity saving throws or be outlined, nuliffiling invisibility and giving everyone attacking them an advantage. Sadly, it requires concentration.

Mage hand can let you make a hand out of Squirrels that can carry objects no heavier than 10 pounds and do viarious tasks except for attacking or activating magical items. But this is effectively you sending a pack of Squirrels on an important quest.

11th Level: 8th Level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement, cap your Dexterity.

12th Level: 9th level Monks can now move on vertical surfaces and walk on water like Jesus as long as they don’t end their turn there. Which is good since canonically Doreen is a poor swimmer.

13th Level: 10th Level Monks gain Purity of Body, making Doreen so powerful she can punch poison and disease away from her body. I’m sure she’s still social distancing AND SO SHOULD YOU!

14th Level: 11th Level Monks' Martial Dice bumps to d8 and Way of Mercy let’s you now replace all of your Flurry of Blows attacks with healing and neither that nor touch of harm cost you ki points anymore. You can still only do the latter once each turn.

15th Level: I was sitting on 4th level of Ranger for so long, we’re taking it now for an Ability Score Improvenet....or rather a Feat. Magic Initiate let’s us learn two cantrips and a 1st level spell from the Wizard Spell list we can cas once per long rest.

Prestidigitation let’s you do small things more for mood than anything else, you can fluff it as squirrels helping you.

Message let’s you send someone a message only they can hear and let’s them reply. It’s your phone, basically.

Find Familiar allows us to conjure a squirrel that we can talk to telepatically or see through its eyes. It cannot attack but it can flank and take help action to give us an advantage on attack rolls and when it dies it doesn’t, instead it vanishes until you cast this spell again.. We can even decide to see through its eyes. That’s right ladies and gentlemen, we have Tippy Toe!

Tasha also grants you Martial Versitality, allowing you to change Unarmed Fighting to Blind-Fighting now that your Martial Arts Die caught up to it. This is the reason we waited so long for this level.

Level 16: 12th Level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement, invest in Wisdom for better Hands of Healing and Harm and Unarmed Defense.

Level 17: 13th Level Monks get Tongue of Sun and Moon, meaning you can now speak any language. I have no idea how in character it is but I could see Doreen learning extra languages to make more friends.

Level 18: 14 level Monks get Diamond Soul making you proficient in all saving throws. And you can spend a ki point to rerol a failed saving throw. Meaning now you can more or less tank everything bad guys throw at you, fireballs, Hold Persons, shove action.... And your Unarmored movement increases one last time, giving you speed of 75 feet.

Level 19: 15th Level Monks get Timeless Body, making you immune to effects of aging and no longer needing food or water to live. I kinda struggled to justifyu this one, then I remembered old Squirrel Girl from the future who is still kicking butts so here, you can now grow up to be her

Level 20: We will finish on 16th level of Monk and final Ability Score Improvement to round up Wisdom.

Before we go further let me take a moment to address possible alternatives Variant Human could let you grab Tippy Toe at first level and grab a Tough Feat.

3 levels in College of Rhetorics Bard could allow you to be really good at talking to people by making you unnable to roll lower than a 10 on Persuasion, Bardic Inspiration you could use to both support your allies and make your enemies worse with unsettling words, an extra skill, expertise in two more skills and spells like Calm Emotions, Enchance Ability, Heroism, Animal Friendship, Vicious Mockery and Tasha’s Hideous Laughter for puns. But I admit I could not fit them in any way that didn’t feel awkward, they did not mesh well with everything else and cost too much other features I wanted. If you want to go this way I recommend being Variant Human, taking Magic Initiate at first level and putting those Bard levels after Swarmkeeper Ranger ones, final build would be Monk 14/Ranger 3/Bard 3. Both this and previous bullet point would be fully legal under Adventurer’s League “you can use Player’s Handbook and one other book” rule.

Another option were two levels of Rogue for Expertise in Nature and Animal Handling and Cunning Action to decrease your Ki Points economy problem.

Finally I didn’t go for Path of the Beast Barbarian despite it letting you grow tail because that tail stabs people - something your do not.

Anyway, time for Overview:

Pros: First of all, Mobility. you have movement of up 75 feet, meaning with dash you can move 150 and with double dash 225 feet in one turn, ways to move out of enemy range and even move up walls or over water. Second, you make a lot of attacks and between Hunter’s Mark, Swarmkeeper and Hands of Harm can deal consistent damage and you have Tippy Toe to ensure you keep hitting. Finally you’re plucky heart of the team/backup healer, pretty good Party Face and a skill squirrel, making you a very good party member, someone others benefit from very much.

Cons: Your HP is somewhere below 140, which means that only vew hits or one big need to hit for you to be in Power Word Kill range. Second, your Intelligence and Strength are low enough you may fail some nasty saving throws even with Diamond Soul. Finally you have a lot of abilities that use Ki Points and Ranger spells that regenerate only on long rest, meaning you may run out of resources pretty fast if you’re not careful.

Overall, however, I do think this is a good build. You’re hard to hit, you hit hard, you unleash fury of squirrels on your foes and you can take care of yourself. Just remember you have many abilities that benefit your allies and play a very social character - d&d is a game best enjoyed as a social one - get some friends and fight evil.

-Admin

#Squirrel Girl #marvel #Dungeons & Dragons

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petri808 · 4 years ago

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Happy Halloween!

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

*Bonus Halloween chapter* it’s longer than normal (2k)

The biggest party in Tokyo was for a western holiday called Halloween, and the streets surrounding the heart of Shibuya that Saturday were literally crawling with a million young adults in every kind of costume you could imagine! Most of the revelers had no idea as to the origins of this holiday. All they cared about was dressing up and having a good time, including Lucy and her friends who’d dressed up as their favorite manga characters from Eden’s Zero. The businesses lining the streets in the area were used to the onslaught and welcomed it because it meant a nice chunk of revenue, while authorities did their best to control the crowds.

The group started off with Lucy, Levy, Erza, Gajeel, and Gray, but over time as others showed up or they ran into more friends, the groups numbers ebbed and flowed. Gray was the first to take off to meet his girlfriend Juvia, and once Natsu was off of work and joined them, Lucy and he split off to cruise by themselves for a while.

“Wow it’s so eerie how much you guys look like Shiki and Rebecca!”

“Thanks Mira,” Lucy blushes.

“Tch, I may look like the guy, but I’m not as dopey as him,” Natsu retorts. “He’s taking too damn long to make it official with Rebecca.”

“Don’t mind him,” Lucy giggles, “Natsu ships Shicca hard. But it’s even funnier to watch him and Gray argue over Weiszmura.”

“That’s because Gray is a blind bat who won’t admit they match!”

“Okay,” Mira laughs, “put the canons away. Are you two gonna check out the BUMP party at Womb nightclub?”

“Maybe a little later.” Lucy answers for them. “I heard they had some decent bands this year, but I’d rather go somewhere a little smaller like Sonidos.”

“Oh, yeah? Lisanna’s boyfriend Bixlow is the DJ there tonight.”

Lucy looks to Natsu, “we definitely should stop by and say hi.”

“Agreed.”

“Well it was nice bumping into you. I need to meet up with Laxus so you two have fun! I’ll catch you later!” Mira waves as she rejoins the flood of passerby’s.

Natsu takes Lucy’s hand and the couple continued walking around with no real destination. They stop in open stores to browse or grab yummy-looking finger foods from street vendors along the way. Despite the chaos around them, this was turning into a nice reprieve from their daily lives. It was already 1 am, but from the amount of activity going on, it was easy to lose track of time.

“Look, look,” Lucy points while dragging Natsu with her. “Photo booth!”

“Aww, really?” He whines, though the smile never wavered on his face.

“Yup!” She pulls him in and fishes out a bill from her wallet for the machine.

“Chi-zu!”

The pair chuckle and pose for the five shutter clicks. Each pose varying until the last one ending with a kiss from Natsu and genuinely surprised expression on Lucy’s face. It wasn’t their first kiss, but this would be a memorable one. For a few seconds as the machine printed out the slip of photos, Natsu holds her gaze, sweeping his thumb gently along her flushed cheek. There was a sense of intimacy in these confined booths where many a couple had hidden away from the public for this very kind of very moment.

“Thank you,” he smiles, eyes soft and pure of appreciation.

“For what?” Genuinely unsure of the reason.

“Giving me a second chance. These past few months have been the happiest times of my life and it’s all thanks to meeting you on that train.”

“I’m really glad too,” Lucy smiles sweetly. “Really... really glad,” she breathes out as she moves in to kiss him again.

“Excuse me?” A loud knocking sound stops them. “There’s other people waiting to use the machine!”

“Whoops. To be continued,” she gives Natsu just a quick peck and the pair get out of the booth. They apologize to the next group in line and race off hand in hand, laughing. That had been exhilarating!

Lucy’s heart was still racing even though they were long gone from the photo booth. She and Natsu had been taking things extra slow because of her earlier concerns. Aside from dates and a few kisses here and there, they’d never gone much further and she wondered who was the one holding back. Was it really her or was it actually him because he was too nervous to lose her? Tonight... in that booth... if they weren’t in public... her body flushes wildly just from the thought of it. Okay, so maybe she’s been dying to take their relationship further. Maybe not sex— yet, soon, or maybe... ‘argh! Not now!’ Lucy scolds her libido. But a make out session was a very tempting idea!

They check out Lisanna and Bixlow for a short time at Sonidos, before briefly hooking back up with Levy and Gajeel for some crepes. That’s when Levy quietly informs Lucy that she’ll be crashing at her boyfriend’s house instead of going back to the dorm. “You know... for some privacy,” the girl winks at Lucy. “Hint. Hint!”

“I-It’s too soon for that! W-with us,” her tips burn with lies through each syllable.

“Pfft, you can’t lie that you’ve never thought about it.”

“No... not all the way...”

“Uh-huh. Well, do whatever,” she winks a second time and stands up to leave. “See ya in tomorrow night.”

“Yeah. See ya.”

“Why are your ears all red?” Natsu asks Lucy.

Lucy stiffens up. “N-Nothing important.”

“Oh... okay,” he smiles. “So whatdya wanna do next?”

“Actually, I’m kinda getting tired already.” It was after 3 am and they’d been out and on their feet for over seven hours.

Natsu sighs relief. “Me too! I just didn’t wanna ruin your fun. Shall I take you home?” He squeezes her hand with a smile.

“Yes,” she returns the squeeze, “and if you’d like you can spend the night— I-I mean since you’re tired and all! I’d just feel better than making you back track.”

“I’ll behave, I promise.”

The couple ride the train the short distance between Shibuya and Shinjuku to where Lucy’s dorm is located, cautious of the other riders on the train. Even though alcohol is not allowed on the streets during Halloween, it didn’t stop people from getting drunk and few creepy peepers kept looking at Lucy. But luckily, the train wasn’t very packed despite the holiday because the Shibuya party wasn’t over till 4am and they beat the end rush. On the way, Natsu texts his roommate out of courtesy, only to find out that Gray and Juvia were already at the apartment. Figures. Well it was a good thing he wasn’t walking into that situation! Even if nothing happened, just watching Juvia fawning all over Gray wouldn’t have been appealing. Once they arrive at the dorms, they make sure no one had followed and proceed inside.

Lucy leaves Natsu in the small living room as she changes out of her costume and into something a lot more comfortable. He was lucky the men’s costume was still semi-normal and he only had to remove the jacket and goggles for comfort, but the black hair dye will wash out in a week. She then grabs them a couple bottles of melon milk tea before joining him on the couch. Thank goodness, they didn’t have school, or he didn’t work the next day.

“That was fun,” Lucy curls against his arm with a yawn. “So, tiring though.”

“I haven’t been to Shibuya’s party in a couple of years, but it sure hasn’t changed,” Natsu chuckles. He leans his head against hers while threading their fingers together. “Totally agree on being tired. It probably wouldn’t be as bad if I hadn’t worked too.”

A companionable silence falls over the couple for a few minutes and after some time Natsu assumed Lucy had fallen asleep resting on his shoulder. He would have stayed in that position till his ass was numb if it kept her relaxed. This beauty queen deserved it and more, and he meant every word he’d told her earlier. The second chance had become a cosmic wish come true and he’d be damned to let anything ruin this between them.

“Hey Natsu?”

“Yeah Luce?”

“Do you think we could pick up from where we left off... in that photo booth?”

He swallows hard. It was one thing in the heat of the moment, but quite another to put aside his nerves now that they were so relaxed. This was a different kind of intimacy and much more intimidating to say the least. A private apartment without anything or anyone to interrupt or stop two consenting adults from going too far... and the last thing he wanted to do was something wrong! A regretted decision would destroy everything built up until that moment. But he couldn’t tell her no either!

Sensing the turmoil, Lucy sits up and turns his face towards her. Her instincts were probably on point earlier about his anxiety. “We don’t have to, if you’re not ready, but I wouldn’t mind making out with you... just a little.” She adds in the goal as a way to allay his fears. And it works. Lucy immediately feels his shoulders relax again. She gently caresses his cheek, her eyes zeroing in on his lips. “I just… like kissing you Natsu.”

“I’ll let you direct then, a-and if I start going too far, just stop me. I won’t get mad, I just...”

“Shh, I know,” she smiles, “and that what I like about you.”

Lucy closes the gap and steals his lips, starting slow, then adding pressure behind it. Her hand slides behind his head, fingers weaving into his messy hair as she tilts her head to deepen the kiss. Their tongues tease and test, mouths molding together as teeth clack gently the further, they push each other’s oral boundaries. She could still taste some of the sweetness of the crapes lingering.

His own hands stay glued, one with fingers twined in her hair and the other to Lucy’s side, just below the rib cage. Natsu loses himself in her kisses, they were so soft and sweet, a little adventurous as she ran her tongue once over his canines and giggled. That brought a grin to his lips and a straight arrow through his heart. He wasn’t ready to say it out loud yet, but he loved Lucy. His heart knew it and that’s all that matters, so when the time is right, he’ll tell her, but not yet, he knew she wasn’t ready for that level.

Natsu’s so lost in the kisses he barely registers additional heat against his chest as Lucy’s hand has found its way under his shirt. It wasn’t doing more than simply resting against his pectorals, but it was much further than he’d expected her to venture tonight. Every few minutes her fingers would lightly curl against his skin or move slightly up or down, sending little shivers over his skin. As far as he was concerned, she could do anything she wanted to him as long as it was her choice.

It surprises him when Lucy starts to press forward. At first one of his hands moves to keep from falling back onto the couch, but her sudden whine triggers him to let it happen and the next thing he knows Lucy is using him as a bed. So, he wraps his left arm more firmly around her body to make sure she doesn’t fall off.

Lucy lifts her head to look Natsu in the eyes. “Is this okay?” She questions him. “Am I too heavy?”

“I don’t mind,” he smiles at her, “but are you comfortable? I could shift us over so we’re more on our sides.”

“That would be great. Just felt like snuggling more.”

He kisses her lips. “Works for me.” Natsu then adjusts their bodies carefully until Lucy’s back is resting against the couches backing with her head on his shoulder and chest. She wraps her arm around his torso and huddles close to his frame, while their legs are slightly tangled together. “Comfy?”

“Mmm hmm,” she nods her head against his chest and closes her eyes.

Natsu kisses the top of her head, bringing a smile to her face, then wraps his left arm over to rest his hand on her shoulder and cuddle her close. “Goodnight, Lucy.”

“Mmm. Goodnight, Natsu.”

Eight months ago, the only thing Natsu thought about was a career and now after that fateful train ride he knew his new goal in life had to include the blonde next to him. Lucy felt so perfect in his arms and oh, if only he could wake up like this every morning for the rest of his life, well than he’d be the luckiest man on the planet. With a smile of his own, he closes his eyes and lets the cadence of her heartbeat lull him to sleep. This was a very happy Halloween indeed!

Just to give an idea this is Shibuya on Halloween: I’m so sad I didn’t get to see it this year like I was supposed to ;-; but Natsu and Lucy got to have a little fun in my place lol.

Also a warning, the story gets much more angsty after this for several chapters 😅

#nalu #nalu AU #natsu dragneel #lucy heartfilia #nalu fan fic #nalu fan fiction #natsu x lucy #angst and fluff #it’s a bit of a ride from here #strangers on a train #fairy tail

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shanethvarosa · 4 years ago

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Music Review: 2020

My blog has been a lot of things over the years, but it did originate as something I used to publicly review music; especially in the Visual Kei scene. Since I began the blog so many years ago, I had actually been hired to review Visual Kei and J-Rock music for an actual website: VKH-Press.com, work I am very, very proud of to this day. However, with not much news to comment on or work to critique, I haven’t been as active. Plus, personal issues always seem to stand in my way. However, I always take the time to discuss my passions at the end of the year. There were so many incredible releases, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and so I wanted to take the time time to discuss my favorite releases and, maybe, the not-so-favorites as well. Quick shout out to Bastille’s Goosebumps EP and Megan Thee Stallion’s Good News LP as I did not get to listen to them before I wrote up my lists, but were still excellent releases. See my thoughts below!

Overall, there were about 75 albums or groupings of albums I listened to this year and split them between various tiers. Starting with the bad tier, there were actually only ten albums listed here and mostly just because they were seemingly unnecessary collection albums. For example, another Satsuki collection? Rides in ReVellion releasing two greatest hits LPs after only five years of work? Beyonce releasing The Lion King: The Gift again? None of those felt like necessary releases. There weren’t many albums that really screamed bad to me this year, but I really could not stand Vanessa Carlton’s “Love is an Art” or Justin Bieber’s “Changes.” The only other albums on this tier were just underwhelming compared to what I know the artist is capable of, but the “best bad tier album,” in my view, was The 1975′s “Notes on a Conditional Form.”

The mid-tier albums had all sorts of reasons for being only mid-tier. They weren’t quite bad or outright unnecessary, but are mostly by artists who put out work that was nowhere near the caliber of their usual work or were re-releases or other collection albums. For example, Tove Lo’s “Sunshine Kitty: Pawprint Edition” or Man With A Mission’s remixes/b-sides/covers albums. Nice to have with good quality music, but I wish we’d just have had brand new EPs or LPs.

The good-tier albums were all really excellent releases, but didn’t hit home the way anything on the “God-Tier” list did. Here, I’d like to share a quick top ten:

10. Taeyeon’s “Purpose: Repackage” & Japanese EP, “#GirlsSpkOut” 9. Charli XCX’s “How I’m Feeling Now” 8. Miyavi’s “Holy Nights” & “Holy Nights: 2020 Lockdown” 7. TK’s “Sainou” 6. PVRIS’s “Use Me” 5. Buck-Tick’s “Abracadabra” 4. Katy Perry’s “Smile” 3. Alicia Keys’ “Alicia” 2. Dua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” & “Club Future Nostalgia” 1. Ava Max’s “Heaven & Hell

Without furhter ado, though, the God Tier Top 25:

25. Acme’s We Are Visual Kei: Essentially a collection album of several songs that were b-sides that never made a full-blown album. This LP was loaded with some of Acme’s best work and shows that they are going to be here for a long time, despite Div not quite working out. Recommended tracks: Mononoke Requiem, Gekiyama Celluloid, Houkago no Shiiku

24. Alanis Morisette’s Such Pretty Forks in the Road: Admittedly, a huge fan in the 90′s and loved her cover of Seal’s Crazy. However, before this album I didn’t really listen to much of her body of work and I can see why today’s youth might not listen to this album. It is very “adult” insofar as it deals with her struggles in marriage, parenting, religion, etc. Her vocal performance is exceptional and her song writing remains some of the best in the business. Recommended tracks: Smiling, Nemesis, Reasons I Drink.

23. Niall Horan’s Heartbreak Weather: Not my usual cup of tea, but for some reason Niall’s music makes me feel softer than normal. He’s very cute and charming and his words are always so romantic. It feels more genuine than the music made by other members of One Direction and kind-of reminds me of earlier Taylor Swift writing, but from a male perspective. Recommended Tracks: Put A Little Love On Me, Arms of a Stranger, Still.

22. K/DA’s All Out: I don’t even really understand what this is, but I love it. There’s something to do with League of Legends? Cartoons? International pop stars? Whatever it is, I’m totally obsessed. These songs just completely slap. Recommended Tracks: The Baddest, More, Drum Go Dum.

21. Darrell’s Brilliant Death: This might even “officially” be a single, but there’s enough content to market it as an album. Darrell is a band formed from the ashes of Deathgaze and Ai’s solo project. Who knows why Ai didn’t just continue after his solo album, Confusion, but he decided to go back to the band-format with confusingly-named Darrell. This album is then, incidentally, mostly Deathgaze covers. It brings the production into the new era and gives you a lot of nostalgic love for old hits. Recommended Tracks: Brilliant Death, Evoke the World, Abyss.

20. Alice Nine’s Fuyajou Eden & Kuro to Wonderland: Neither album was particularly long, in fact these were glorified EPs that could’ve been merged to one two-sided LP, but in either case... Both albums had something really special to offer and felt like a true comeback after years of name changes and finally going back to their original, kanji-styled name. Recommended Tracks: Kakumei Kaika -Revolutionary Blooming-, Testament, Replica, Glow.

19. Mucc’s Aku: This album felt very long in the making after a series of weird singles that didn’t feel like they were going anywhere. Ultimately, a lot of those singles did not make the album including my favorite one: Taboo. The resulting album, though, did feel very cohesive and thematic and even featured one of this year’s heavy hitters: Hazuki. Recommended Tracks: Aku -Justice-, Memai, Ameria.

18. Miley Cyrus’s Plastic Hearts: This person is absolutely one of my favorite people in music. I’m pretty sure they have comeout as genderfluid/non-binary, so I want to stick with safe pronouns, just in case. However, they’ve always been a favorite and as they’ve come out as such a champion for the LGBT, I love them even more. The album though gave me a lot of hype for something very 80′s rock, but didn’t quite give me what I expected. All in all, the music was fantastic, just a little off-beat from expectations. Recommended Tracks: Gimme What I Want, Angels Like You, WTF Do I Know.

17. Rina Sawayama’s Sawayama: I didn’t expect to fall in love with this girl the way I did. My boyfriend recommended “STFU” to me as kind of a joke because the song discusses a lot of Asian racism that I’m always criticizing people in my life for falling into, but then the song was so bad ass I checked out the album. There were so many different types of music on it and she really did a good job with all of them. Then, with the deluxe edition coming out and the hardcore club banger “Lucid” being involved... Just really brought it all home. Recommended Tracks: Tokyo Love Hotel, Lucid, Fuck This World.

16. Amber Liu’s X: This was just an EP, but every song on it was great. Amber Liu was from f(x), a K-Pop Icon Group, but she always seemed like the odd one out. She was such a tomboy, so silly and funny all the time, and didn’t really behave like other Korean idols. I mean, really, she isn’t actually even Korean. I believe she’s Chinese American. In either case, the EP really noted some of her own personal strugles in the business and also remaining pretty fun at parts too. I saw her live in Philly before COVID-19 and she was truly excellent. Recommended Tracks: Numb, Stay Calm, Other People.

15. Blackpink’s The Album: Not much of an album at only 8 tracks, but that’s K-Pop for you. I bet next year I’ll be putting “Blackpink’s The Album: Repackage” on my top 25 list. The quality of the music was pretty dope though, all things considered. It was a very solid debut effort with all of their previous songs being somewhere in the same lane as this one. I still kind of believe they are a reminder of what 2NE1 could have been, but they’re doing well enough on their own. Recommended Tracks: Ice Cream, Lovesick Girls, Pretty Savage.

14. Hazuki’s Year Over All: Kind of a weird way to word it, but Hazuki basically released two albums this year in different formats. His work with his band, Lynch., was pretty magnificent. I’m not one to usually dwell on a Lynch. album. Their singles or featured tracks are what I usually get into, but the actual album (Ultima) really did a good job of showing how versatile Hazuki can be. His solo album, Souen -Funeral-, was an entirely stripped down, gothic orchestral album of Lynch. covers and other J-Hard Rock artists. Hearing it done like this was almost transcendental. Recommended Tracks: Xero, Idol, Ray, D.A.R.K.

13. Sam Smith’s Love Goes: They had me scared that their album wasn’t coming this year once they pushed it back, back in May. Then again, at the time, an album called “To Die For” was probably super tone deaf. In any case, literally every single released for this album had me in love. So, when they all got included in the final version, I was thrilled. Sam gave us a bonus song after the album as well, but I can see why that one didn’t get on. In any case, this is a huge step up from “The Thrill of it All,” which I didn’t really care for. Recommended Tracks: Another One, Dance (’Til You Love Someone Else), Forgive Myself.

12. Troye Sivan’s In A Dream: I love this kid. He’s so gay and so not shy about it and it really makes me smile. The EP comes after his last LP, Bloom, where the title track basically talks about bottoming for the first time and this new EP deals with a few other queer issues over weirdly produced beats that just... make sense. Recommended tracks: Stud, In A Dream, Easy.

11. Matenrou Opera’s Chronos: Unfortunately, this band just lost their guitarist again. Their original, Anzi, was basically the most consummate guitarist in the visual kei scene that wasn’t Hizaki and he left them. Their sound wasn’t quite right since and they seemed to just get it back with Chronos when Jay left them. I guess we’ll see what they do next, but I think Chronos could be their last great release. Recommended Tracks: Chronos, Silence, Reminiscence.

10. BoA’s Better: A very recent release that hasn’t had much time for me to digest. This is strange for me to put it so high on my list for that reason, but BoA is one of my all time favorites. She never disappoints me. This album was no different. It wasn’t exactly up to par with “Woman” or “Watashi Kono Mama de Ii no Kana,” but it definitely gave us some new and very iconic Queen BoA bangers. Recommended Tracks: Cut Me Off, Start Over, Temptations.

9. Kesha’s High Road: A semi-step down from Rainbow, only because a lot of the same melodic elements and, sometimes, even beats were used on this album too. However, her vocal performance was outstanding and she even gave us a new dirty-pop song with some interesting indie-pop tracks to go with it. Plus, who doesn’t love a Big Freedia feature? Recommended Tracks: Resentment, Raising Hell, Tonight.

8. Lady Gaga’s Chromatica: Anyone who knows me knows I don’t really love Gaga anymore. After all the drama with Madonna and her experimentation with “Joanne” I didn’t think I’d ever like her music again. However, she definitely won back big points for me on Chromatica. It was finally fun, weird, dancey, and then simultaneously emotional and I was really able to get back into it. She’s always had the voice, but on this one it also showed us that she still has what made us love her. Recommended Tracks: Rain On Me, Plastic Doll, Enigma.

7. Koda Kumi’s My Name Is... Angel + Monster: She is, very likely, my Japanese Pop Queen. She always makes these absolutely outlandish bangers of dance tracks that have such a great attitude and beat and when she released re(CORD)... last year? 2018? Who can remember... I thought she could never outdo herself. Then she released “Lucky Star” and I was floored. I was a bit disappointed when they were only to promote a “My Name Is...” collection album, but then, to my surprise, a full set of new tracks came out just after that just blew me entirely away. Guess the last 6 albums must be pretty great, huh? Recommended tracks: Killer Monster, Work It!, Alarm.

6. Grimes’ Miss Anthropocene: I’ve never been a big fan of Grimes, but when Violence came out I was really looking forward to whatever album this was going to end up promoting. The song is actual fire, but then the LP ended up being some kind of experimental Gothic Pop with Asian Pop influences I never expected. I doubt I’ll ever find something she does this good ever again, but it was really a musical light in the darkness of this year. Recommended tracks: Darkseid, Delete Forever, Violence.

5. Kylie Minogue’s Disco: Admittedly, my draw to Kylie has always been that she is like some kind of Australian Madonna. Madonna being one of my all time favorite artists... In fact, number 2 for all women I listen to, Kylie has some big shoes to fill with her sometimes generic pop that she puts out. However, I haven’t really truly loved a Kylie song since “Get Outta My Way” and then this album comes out filled with tracks to love for the rest of time. Recommended Tracks: Miss A Thing, Till You Love Somebody, Magic.

4. Chanmina’s Notebook/Angel: I don’t have really any way of knowing how popular Chanmina is in Japan or if she is as popular in the Japanese Queer Scene as she should be, but god damn does she know what she’s doing. Her music is raunchy, bitchy, and condescending at it’s highest and deeply personal at it’s most mellow. There is no “lowest.” “Notebook” was a two-sided album and “Angel” a strong follow up EP, but all the recommended tracks are from “Notebook.” If you have not listened to “Picky”.... go do it now, I’ll wait. Recommended tracks: Picky, Baby, Lucy.

3. The Weeknd’s After Hours: Incidentally, I got into The Weeknd after someone said something shitty about him here on Tumblr! I took their likely-valid criticism and went to check him out for myself and I gotta say, I love his work. The beats are literally always on point and his voice is like silk. This album provided more than a few iconic songs and I always can’t wait to see what he does next. Recommended Tracks: Alone Again, Heartless, Blinding Lights.

2. Halsey’s Manic: The singles and features she did between Hopeless Fountain Kingdom and Manic gave me such insanely high hopes and I was not disappointed. HFK was a strong album of course, but this was near perfection for me. I think the production of this alt-pop album was the star of the show because it wasn’t all one way, there were heavy-bass songs, interesting piano riffs, striaght up punk rock, all of it. She really made an album quite like it’s namesake. Recommended Tracks: Ashley, Killing Boys, Still Learning.

1. Dexcore’s Metempsychosis: A newcomer to the visual kei and death metal scene, they’ve been putting out single after single for years in preparation for their extemeley long and multidaceted debut album. With a total of about 33 songs, the entire second disc was rerecorded singles from their early days and some even got new lyrical treatment. The main series of songs were, of course, also totally flooring and all of the recommended tracks are the new ones. If you haven’t checked them out by now, you have to! Recommended tracks: Cibus, Scribble, Period.

#personal #music #2020 #visual kei #k-pop #dexcore #halsey #the weeknd #chanmina #kylie minogue #grimes #koda kumi #lady gaga #kesha #BoA

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ghostsofmemories · 4 years ago

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Writing My Obituary (context on my weird poetry collection)

I realized today that I very casually bring up my poetry collection all the time and a large majority of my followers have no clue what I’m talking about, so here’s a WMO explanation post thing! I should definitely give a content warning though: this book deals with suicide, abuse (both physical and emotional, by both parents and other people), homophobia and transphobia, allusions to major appetite and stomach issues (which while reading sound a lot like eating disorders), toxic relationships, just a lot of really heavy emotions in general. Please don’t read the book or this post if those things could trigger you. This post also ended up super long, so the rest is under the cut.

So. first thing’s first, this collection is being published by Pure Print Publishing this fall (due to covid there aren’t any exact dates available). I didn’t query it, someone reached out to me after reading my poems on Instagram, hearing that they were in an unpublished collection, and basically connected me with their friend who runs the indie publishing house and is an author himself.

A big part of the reason this book is so difficult to talk about in context is because that requires getting pretty vulnerable - most of this book is just me dealing with everything I’ve struggled with over the last 4 years of my life. So if there’s discussion about the book in the replies, please keep it to the content of the book and not the validity of these experiences or details of things that happened to me.

The collection is about me and my journey from 13 to 17, starting with my suicide attempt at 13. There are several poems from around that time in my life, but they’ve changed a lot over the four years of editing. However, you can definitely still see changes in the way I write and the way I approach poetry by the end of the book - which was the goal. The book is centered around learning about identity, about how relationships should work, about friendships, about learning to handle mental and chronic illness, and above all, growing. There’s really no “breaking point” where everything about the way I write changes all at once, so in context, the change is almost difficult to see. So to sort of represent these changes, I’m putting a poem from the beginning, from the middle, and from the end all right next to each other (and some bonus analysis of my own poetry!).

Call me a monster is probably the most stark change from the past to the present. I almost never rhyme my poems anymore and if I do, they’re fleeting and mostly for rhythm. The lines are also extremely short, which I only do now when it really fits - in general, I make an effort to avoid consistently short lines. I like to tell myself that it’s symbolism I did on purpose to represent how all over the place my brain was, hopping from one thought to the next, but I don’t think it’s symbolism. I think my brain was really too jumbled to have more than five words in a line.

I also took my own poems very seriously back then - writing a poem was an Occasion, so the first letter of each of those lines is capitalized like I’m some sort of English classics major. Both stanzas are also the same length (I still do that now sometimes, but back then it was in so many of my poems that I think I thought it was a requirement). Basically, I wrote this like I was going to turn it in somewhere.

Still pretty heavy on the capitalization here, but I definitely got more flexible with stanza length and slightly longer lines (7 whole words, yay!). This poem was somewhat of a turning point for me, basically realizing that I could not only vent through poetry, but still make it poetic and artistic in a lot of ways, and also explore contrast in my own emotions and conflicting feelings. For some reason, prior to this, I thought a poem could only be one emotion at a time, but now I think a poem can be one topic and the way multiple or conflicting emotions revolve around it. This is also one of the first poems I wrote that I was proud of from beginning to end.

This poem isn’t totally representative of the last couple changes I want to talk about (especially line length - for being relatively recent the lines are still pretty short), but I don’t want to use too many poems that haven’t been posted online before and this one has been posted and read aloud on an Instagram live, minus one stanza I added, which I’ll get to. I also wanted to choose this one because it has a direct reference to The Universe In You and several other poems, which gives me a chance to talk about how much I love referencing my other poetry in my poetry. Buckle up, this one might be long.

By this point, I had pretty much realized that there actually aren’t any rules at all. I’ve figured out what I want to say and I’ll say it however the hell I want to - I don’t need to capitalize things unless it suits the form, I don’t have to be totally consistent, I can repeat things as much as I want. I reached back into my 15 year old angst for this one, though, so I could more properly write about the relationship in a way that made sense.

Now, I could honestly write a whole other book about how I reference other poems in each poem, but for now I’ll just break down the ones here.

Sort of a half reference right at the beginning: I have so much to say. I bring that up in different words in so many poems, both about my relationship and my dad. This is probably because, growing up as someone who had a speech impediment (meaning I talked too much no matter how little I said because of how long it took to say it), I always felt like I never had the space to say everything I wanted. It’s brought up in at least 3 other poems.

lost signals: a direct reference to my poem Thread Unavailable:

We’re riding down a dirt road in the middle of a conversation and lost signal. Message failed.

empty spaces: a reference to The Universe In You!! Pretty much the whole reason I included this poem.

burned poems: this one is basically just a reference to all the poems in the collection that are breakup poems, or poems where I directly addressed my ex saying don’t read this, you don’t have to read this, I shouldn’t have written this, etc. Specifically, A Long and Lonely Letter, Tired Eyed (The Homecoming Poem), and The Poem That Shouldn’t Exist.

another July come and gone and I didn’t write about you: this reference is hard to really understand the context of unless you know me in real life, but in two other poems I mention the month of July, in a couple others I reference summer, but there are dozens of poems that didn’t make it into my cut of the collection that talk about July. Basically, in context of the relationship, it was the only time we were actually happy and we split up and got back together over and over trying to replicate that fleeting, 30 day feeling that was overtaken by school, seasonal depression, and our own instability as people. For so long, all I could think about was that one month, and that line was my way of showing how I was done writing about it.

you told me, once, that we’re soulmates: this entire little stanza is directly copied from Tired Eyed (The Homecoming Poem). In order to continue talking about it I’ll throw a piece of that here:

If you want to come back, be sure of me. Be sure of yourself. I don’t want to be a consequence of your impulses.

You told me, once, that we’re soulmates. That once you find a person you want to spend forever with, it feels like nothing else matters. Do you believe that like I do?

That’s just a really short chunk of a really long poem, but basically the re-use of that section goes to say that me truly believing nothing else mattered was not good and extremely unhealthy. I put it there even though the poem was just fine without it because I really wanted to get that message across, especially since most of my target audience falls between middle and high school.

I know love in so many shades and I give it in every color: this references a couple different poems that aren’t in the collection, but in terms of the book, it’s a reference to Red, Like You, which is about color association and love and stuff? I I still don’t totally get it. I say in the poem that I don’t totally get it. No one totally gets it, but all in all I went from loving just one person in just one way to loving everyone in tons of different ways and realizing that those other types of love are just as, if not more, fulfilling to me, and that romance is not the be-all end-all of love and happiness.

All the other references are repetitions so I’ve pretty much already explained those. But anyway, that’s my book! It has 77 poems total, quite a few of them more than a page, and some that are probably several pages once in paperback format because, you know, I never shut up. Since I did my mini beta reading round (I got a lot of necessary feedback but that was so much to keep track of, I’ll probably just get a couple feedback partners next time), I’ve cut 34 poems and added 16 newer ones, edited the crap out of the whole book, and gotten the perspective of a professional editor.

This book, even though there’s a lot of it I’ve grown out of, is super important to me and it’s so hard to let it go. Part of me wants to keep this book going forever and just keep growing until it has thousands of poems, but all of these “character arcs” in my life are finished. I left my toxic relationship and friendships, I figured out my gender and sexuality, I learned how to love openly, I cut off my dad for good. There’s obviously always more to learn about my relationships with these other people and myself, and I do that unconsciously every day. But in all honesty, I have nothing left to say about these people or events that would change the conclusions I’ve already come to - they would only further prove them to be true.

I absolutely always want to talk about this book, so if you have any questions, send an ask! Also feel free to scroll through the poetry tag on my blog and ask me about any poems I have posted there, there are a few that I’ve written since the completion of the collection that’ll (most likely) end up in whatever I write next. Basically, I’m obsessed with poetry and want to talk about it all the time. Please ask me about it.

#poetry #my writing #wmo #writing my obituary #adventures in publishing #shut up august

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