#I had the option to quit martial arts plenty of times because I was so shit at it

[shinystealingbirb]

genuinely adore that fact that Robin is so damn good at everything he tries EXCEPT beyblading, and that’s the one skill he wants to learn with all his heart, and the only skill he gives a damn about.

“But he should focus on what he’s good at!”. Seeing someone who sucks at beyblading trying so hard is a major point in the show. He’s got so many other skills he’s naturally good at, but rather than choosing based off that, he chose what he’s passionate about.

i don’t know if you can tell but I love this children’s show so much

[starry-bi-sky]

miscellaneous danyal al ghul things

specifically about the danyal al ghul from my post/prompt here and i wanna get my misc. headcanons/thoughts on him (especially in his early stay with the fentons) out here before i make any other danyal al ghul aus

list under the cut because whoops this got longer than i expected. which really i should have expected

the Fentons are unaffiliated with the League, which was perfect for Danny faking his death.

he struggles with empathy. Empathy was not taught nor encouraged while he was with the League, so it's a skill that's been pretty stunted. At 15 he's better at empathizing with people, but he still struggles with it. He's pretty bad at reassuring/comforting people and usually acts as an emotional rubber duck for Sam and Tucker to vent to if need be. He sometimes offers blunt and sometimes mean opinions, especially if its about another person.

Sam and Tucker do not know he's an ex-assassin, they are however, pretty positive that he used to be part of an eco-fascist cult with a focus on martial arts?? They've been helping him tone down some of his more,,, extreme views on humanity ever since they caught wind of his more extreme ideologies.

He and Sam are still avid environmentalists and feed into each other quite a bit. They spend plenty of time at protests and pestering the school into more eco-friendly options.

Dash is not dead on the sole fact that Danny knew he had to lay low in Amity Park and killing someone was not, in fact, 'laying low'.

he did, however, traumatize him when Dash first tried to bully him. Safe to say, Danny is not bullied at school and neither are Sam and Tucker.

Danny didn't make any friends in his first year at Amity Park. He was surly, grumpy, standoffish, more stubborn than Sam, and pretty self-important about himself. Jazz was trying to teach him against these things, but she is a 12 year old unaffiliated with the League. Danny did not respect her nor listen to a word she said. It wasn't until like, year two that he finally started paying to mind what she was saying and slowly started to improve on himself

Sam approached him first, he rebuffed her quite harshly, and then Danny approached her sometime afterward when he overheard her talking about environmental rights. Sam completely ignored him though when he agreed with her, and Danny had to later learn that he needed to apologize for being rude to her when they first met. He did so eventually, and they started to talk more with Tucker and Sam.

Danny's a bit more reserved than he is in canon, although he steadily learns how to act as a regular teenager when he's out in public. He's a bit more friendlier at least, although when he's around Sam and Tucker he drops the act. He still has a somewhat formal way of talking, it's just become more casual after a lot of ribbing from Sam and Tucker. When he's angry or annoyed he starts talking poshly though.

His humor is relatively the same as in canon, if somehow dryer and more insulting at some points

Those rare moments where he gets really pissed usually ends up with him insulting someone in arabic or any of the other languages he picked up from the league. He is the go-to for Tucker's Spanish homework. (Tucker makes that mistake and learns that Danny is a very strict teacher)

while Danny doesn't view the Fentons as his parents, even five years after living with them, he does respect them to some amount. He respects them enough at least that when Vlad Masters comes sniffing around, he is suitably offended on both Maddie and Jack's behalf. And when he finds out Vlad was the one who tried to kill Jack and tried to tell him to renounce him as his father/parental guardian, danny threw a suitably sharp object at him and insulted him quite horrendously

Vlad still wants him as his kid. In fact perhaps even moreso after this.

Danny trains with Maddie to keep up with his training. It's not quite the same but it prevents him from getting completely rusty

Sam and Tucker know that Danny has a little brother, but nothing else beyond that other than Danny cares about him quite a lot and that he got his facial scar from keeping him safe.

Danny cares about Sam, Tucker, and Jazz quite a bit, but he struggles to convey it. Especially early on when he realized he cared about them and like instinct started being harsher to them and more critical of their actions. This resulted in quite a few arguments with Sam and Tucker and Jazz until he got sat down and told outright that the way he was treating them wasn't okay. It's a process he's still trying to unlearn even at 15. He has become kinder towards them as a result, and has begun looking for what they did right rather than what they did wrong.

He harbors a lot of guilt over how he treated Damian in the League, and its a pretty big conflict he has with himself since he's torn between telling himself it was for the best to make sure Damian survived the League, and feeling like crap over how harsh/critical of Damian he was and realizing that he probably could have come up with a better way of training him despite being a child himself at the time. Danny comes to the realization that more than anything, that he just wants to apologize.

His ghost form, specifically is outfit, is a combination of his hazmat suit and his uniform from the league, and he carries a sword with him. He also doesn't know how to react to Dani, honestly. Although it is fair to say that he figures out she's a clone instantly because of her whole 'I'm your third cousin once removed' thing and he freaks out. She spills the beans pretty quickly after that. And Danny is pretty skittish around her - or the equivalent of skittish. Her being younger than him kinda reminds him of Damian, so he's uncomfortable by her presence but learns to warm up to her.

[apple-valley-gym-q2g7ybq]

Best Gym Hesperia

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I wanted to keep this section short, as I atmosphere as soon as most people already have a good idea of how to be healthy. Eating well, exercising, not smokingwe all know how it goes. But for anyone who needs some determination to attain these things, here's some advice on how to get started on a healthier lifestyle. The first concern you craving is a goal. What attain you want? Is it weight loss? More energy? Or most likely you desire to just be happier in your own skin? whatever it is, adjudicate what you want, and next figure out how to get there. If you're aggravating to lose weight, most likely begin as soon as a food diary and atmosphere in the works an exercise routine. If you just desire energy, most likely meditation would be a good place to start. as soon as you have a plot and begin taking do something towards your goal, it's important not to allow yourself drop into the surprise attack of self-blame or pay for in the works as soon as things don't go according to plan. Even if you think that dieting isn't in force because you ate too many cookies this weekend (which happens), don't prominence yourself in the works not quite it - just keep trying! as soon as plenty mature and practice, your efforts will pay off and you'll get to where you desire to be. And A healthy lifestyle is more than just eating the right foods and getting plenty sleep; it's not quite making healthy choices in whatever you do. even if the most common examples of this are similar to monster healthexercise, diet, etc.it actually applies to all aspect of your life, from how you handle your finances to how you maintain relationships as soon as friends and family to how you educate yourself.

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[chibimyumi]

Redesign Prompt RESULTS!

Alright, thank you everyone who has voted, the results are now in! Overwhelmingly our winner is Ranmao 🐈!

First of all, I need to insert a few caveats here. Unlike with Victorian fashion, I do not have years and years of studying of Qing dynasty-fashion behind me. So whatever results I show here are the product of a fortnight of reading up and meticulous studying of contemporary photographs. a.k.a. I am merely scraping the surface here. But! I do promise that everything shown here is done to the best of my ability to be responsible as a content provider.

Now without further ado, let us dive into Ranmao’s current design, the blatantly obvious inaccuracies, and how I propose to redes...ign... her outfit while keeping the original intact as much.... as possible????  Heck, this is not even worthy of being called a ‘redesign’, this is straight up designing from scratch!

Hair

Let us start with her bangs. Her bangs are in fact surprisingly accurate, as late Qing dynasty women would wear their bangs in a variety of Bettie bangs trimmed well above the eyebrows. Having sides of the bangs growing longer framing the face was usual too, though they would be cut slightly thicker than Ranmao’s. Though, we don’t know how much hair Ranmao has, so I see no reason to alter it.

Twin braids are very much associated with the “China doll look”, but they seem to have been branded into our image of the “Chinese Girl” because it was the go-to look for unmarried women in Republic China (which is many years later than Ranmao’s time, and also has more surviving images.)

In Ranmao’s time, unmarried girls would either wear the bottom part of their hair down, or have everything tied into a single braid behind them. Girls who preferred a more feminine look would often decorate the sides or the top with flowers or other ornaments depending on their wealth.

Yana’s notes say that the flower in Ranmao’s hair is a Chinese peony, which is also called the Empress of Flowers in Chinese as well as Japanese culture. I could find sources on how the peony was the symbol of the Empress of China, and how one better avoid wearing any type of peonies around the Empress herself for fear of being suspected of disrespect. But I could not find any evidence of such flowers being banned for other people, so presumably it was more an ‘unwritten code of politeness’ rather than fashion law.

Hence, I kept the pink peony design for Ranmao, and decorated them in the way Qing women would have.

Neckline

By far the most interesting thing I learned from this redesign attempt was that the “mandarin collar” - the thing that pops up first in most people’s minds when thinking about Chinese fashion - was in fact not at all common.

In this academic work on Chinese fashion history, Finnane writes that the ‘high collar’ was “not a common feature of costume before the twentieth century.” Instead, most costumes would have had a round neckline.

Finnane, Antonia. Changing Clothes in China : Fashion, History, Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. p. 93

The ‘high collar’ gained popularity in early 1900s in China after the Europeans brought with them the beauty standard for high collars, as well as slim-fitted silhouettes. The Chinese increasingly adopted this type of collar and the slim silhouette (the well known ‘china dress/qipao/cheongsam’), and the relatively many early photos that survived helped engrave this stereotype into our minds.

Sleeves

I do not think it requires any mention, but 19th century Chinese fashion did not include boleros... For many of the original designs of Ranmao I can sort of see where Yana got that image from, but this bolero-look truly beats me.

The sleeves worn in the late Qing period were relatively wide, though they were starting to slim down over time. Late Qing women enjoyed much more flexible clothing rules than earlier Qing women, and the width of the sleeves was in great part determined by personal preference, season, but mostly one’s wealth.

Needless to say, the larger the sleeves the more fabric and embroidery it would require, and thus more expensive. Also, the wider the more it would get into the wearer’s way.

I don’t know how much thought Yana put into Ranmao’s original design in relation to her function as elite bodyguard, but considering how the original has zero practicality and only serves to maximise Ranmao’s attractiveness, I have no qualms about giving Ranmao fairly large sleeves too. Besides, let us assume that Lau is responsible for providing Ranmao with clothes. Illegal money tends to fill the pockets quite deeply, I don’t think he can’t spare a few pounds for big sleeves.

Wider sleeves would expose much of ‘a lady’s precious skin’, as such a more fitted layer would have been worn underneath. (The sleeves under the wider sleeves obviously did not have to be orange-ish. This was merely coincidence that both my redesign and the visual source have this colour.)

Silhouette

The figure hugging silhouette x Chinese clothes was - as mentioned above - not at all a thing in Ranmao’s time. In fact, the accentuation of the “female curves” was considered very inappropriate if not downright ugly in the Qing dynasty.

Finnane, Antonia. Changing Clothes in China : Fashion, History, Nation. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. p. 94

Yana’s notes mention that the thing Ranmao wears is just an European corset and that that is the only thing ‘English’ about her attire.

Well... I don’t know where the idea that Victorians wore corsets on the outside comes from, but I myself admittedly was fooled by this a few years ago too... I promise you all now however, Victorians decidedly did not wear their ‘bras’ on the outside. I think even now this look is considered rather ‘questionable’ by most people.

Instead, Qing dynasty clothes were mostly cut wide and straight, loosely dangling around their bodies offering maximum comfort and space. You feared Ranmao killing you in her corset? Now tremble before her now blessed with maximised agility.

Trousers

Well... I considered ‘translating’ Ranmao’s attire to 2020 standard like I did for O!Ciel, but that would not be Tumblr-filter approved. Skirts so short they could be mistaken for a belt are nothing too surprising today, but wearing one with a split that deep is probably a bit too revealing even by today’s standards.

By the late Qing dynasty, men and women, rich and poor alike predominantly wore trousers. Long robes (skirts) were definitely in fashion too, but they were reserved for those who could afford to not have much agility. If you were a farmer, robes would not have been your first option. Perhaps the way long skirts were viewed by the Qing Chinese was not unlike the way we see them now; ‘more classy’ ‘more feminine’ and ‘less convenient’, but not the only way to express femininity.

In these pictures below we can see relatively rich women, married and unmarried alike, all wearing trousers.

Ranmao is predominantly a fighter, and as trousers are plenty feminine in Chinese fashion culture, I don’t see why she would not choose to wear trousers instead of a restricting long skirt. Hence I gave her a pair of trousers.

Shoes

Like I said before, “the shoes are correct...” But the anklets definitely are not!

Golden or silver anklets are something that are worn by very, VERY young children in China. Even to this day it is customary among many Chinese people to gift newborn children at least one piece of pendant, bracelet or anklet, for it is believed to bring the child luck. More practically, this piece of jewellery will become the child’s first piece of property then, which can be sold later SHOULD they ever run into a financially difficult situation.

These anklets or bracelets would not be removed from the child unless they have outgrown them, which happens fairly quick. Ranmao who is probably full grown should have outgrown them at least ten years ago. Hence, seeing these things on Ranmao would probably make it look like she is still wearing diapers or bibs.

Chinese people would likewise not have worn shoes barefoot. Instead, they would have worn cotton socks which were mostly white.

DOUBLE HAMMERS

HERE COME THE WEAPONS! Luckily Yana wrote the following note or I would never have guessed what they are for my knowledge about Chinese weapons is next to nothing.

“These are【SUPER】heavy. They are weapons called 双錘 (double hammers) and they in fact exist. I heard these were used by power-type warriors.”

So, I googled 双錘 and it turns out that the type Ranmao is holding do indeed exist! But... only in fiction and theatre.

The hammers that were used in actual combat were either very thin and long, or short and plump. Such hammers were one of the most primitive metal weapons in China, and quickly fell out of favour among Chinese warriors when more practical weapons such as the metal spear, sword and bows were invented. The hammers mostly retained their value because of their weight in heroic tales and myths about legendary warriors and deities.

I don’t have the full details, but apparently according to some legends or myths, one of such big-ass hammers could deal a force of 200kg, and thus 400kg combined. Regardless of this being realistic or not, it sure does sound very cool! It is therefore no wonder this primitive weapon retains its popularity even today.

Nowadays when these hammers are used, they are either the blown up theatrical versions, or the smaller versions for the sake of preserving martial arts.

I had a bit of a dilemma as to which version to give Ranmao, but in the end I settled with the short and heavy ones because I wanted to keep the idea of this small and innocent looking girl wielding solid metal balls. Two cheer-leading sticks would simply not have the same weight, figuratively and literally.

Alright everyone! Did you enjoy my response to your votes? I hope you did ^^ Non-European fashion history really is not my strong suit, so my deepest apologies if I messed anything up.

Pray tell if I did, I am always happy to learn ^^

[kinogane]

Meditations on Playing as Earthlings in Dragon Ball Xenoverse, Part 2

(previously)

The Dragon Ball Xenoverse games allow you to play as five races: Earthling (the default selection), Saiyan, Majin, Namekian, and the elegantly named "Frieza Race", with the first three races having an additional choice of gender. Compared to the Dragon Ball games mentioned in the previous post, Xenoverse probably differentiates the most between race/gender combinations. Each has a drastically different basic moveset that will be extremely relevant in combat, especially for strike-oriented playstyles, each have different stat spreads (and sometimes mechanics) that incentivize different playstyles, and arguably most importantly, each have their own unique techniques, the centerpiece of which is the race-specific Awoken Skill.

For context, in the first Dragon Ball Xenoverse, there were two problems with transformation skills like Super Saiyan and Unlock Potential. First was that they counted as Super Attacks, so you would have to give up a skill slot to make use of them, and second was that the transformations available to your character consisted of Kaioken, Unlock Potential, and variants of Super Saiyan. So like past Dragon Ball games, you weren't especially rewarded for playing a non-Saiyan character, since it meant you had to run Unlock Potential (or run a gimmicky Kaioken build), while Saiyans could at least nominally choose between that, and multiple variants of Super Saiyan that suited their playstyle.

This was remedied in the second Xenoverse game with the addition of Awoken Skills, which were transformations that occupied a separate slot. More importantly, Xenoverse 2 also added race-specific Awoken Skills, which meant that there was actually a compelling reason to pick races besides Saiyans.

In theory, at least. In practice?

Frieza Race characters probably gained the most in the sequel. Their Awoken Skill, Turn Golden, is relatively straightforward, both from a gameplay standpoint and an aesthetic standpoint. Your ki blasts are stronger and you do the Golden Frieza thing. Much like the form in the series proper, it's a bit dull and uninspired as a body recolor, but it is identifiable as a powerful transformation.

Namekians gained the ability to Become Giant, hearkening back to King Piccolo in the original Dragon Ball (and I guess Lord Slug in the movies), which as I understand was a fun transformation to use before it got nerfed in subsequent patches. Currently, it's a neat gimmick that's fun to mess around with and can be effective in bursts, but the stamina drain means it can't see the extended use that just about every other Awoken Skill can.

Majin gained the wildly unpopular ability to undergo Purification, which translates into becoming a Kid Buu with a special moveset. A Kid Buu that, mind you, only changes its skin and eye color as appropriate; regardless of how you customized your character before the transformation, your Purified Majin is going to look basically the same as any other Purified Majin, which is kind of a problem in a game where a significant portion of the userbase's interest in the game is at least partially in coordinating outfits for their player characters.

Earthlings got to ride on a Flying Nimbus and use the Power Pole.

The race-specific Awoken Skill for Earthlings is riding around on a cloud that kinda already loses a lot of its luster when, by construction, all characters can fly, and wielding a weapon/tool that hasn't been relevant since the original Dragon Ball. It's a nostalgia play that basically no Earthling character is going to use extensively, since you can't use your own skills and are limited to a moveset that loses its visual and gameplay novelty in minutes, at most.

It should be mentioned that Saiyans, as of the time of this writing, have access to five variants of Super Saiyan.

(Caveat that I can't speak for the PvP side of these evaluations, and quite frankly, I couldn't be bothered since Xenoverse PvP seems thoroughly unappealing, but I digress.)

So yet again, even when concessions are explicitly made to make playing non-Saiyan races an appealing alternative from a gameplay standpoint, Saiyans are still the clear winners and Earthlings are still clear losers. Furthermore, there's at least an argument that the non-Earthling Awoken Skills at least invoke an image of power as understood in Dragon Ball. For all the shortcomings of the Namekian and Majin Awoken Skills, you can at least point to King Piccolo and Kid Buu as signifiers of strength. If anything, the image of Goku on the Nimbus with the Power Pole is reminiscent of a time when Dragon Ball was significantly less concerned with displays of power, which is kind of counterintuitive when it's invoked as a method of attaining greater power.

Put reductively, it's kind of a bummer, but then again, isn’t this dynamic, of Saiyans being given the lion's share of power and relevance while Earthlings get virtually none, the most Dragon Ball shit ever?

Hindsight has only made Videl's presence in the early parts of the Buu Saga all the more fascinating. For that run of episodes, all the way up to the World Martial Arts Tournament, the degree to which Videl is an active participant and outright combatant in the action is kind of surreal. It's not entirely without precedent, since Chi-Chi had her moments in the original Dragon Ball and the occasional moment in Z, but unlike Chi-Chi, it really does seem like Videl's perfectly content to be this active for as long as she's around. What's more, the show explicitly makes reference to her being wildly more powerful than her dad, who himself is established as of legitimate world champion caliber, and it even goes out of its way to have Gohan teach her to fly. While that scene is absolutely primarily meant to set up her true purpose in the series writ large, there's a pretty good correlation in Dragon Ball between "people who can fly" and "people who can at least fight a little".

Then, of course, Spopovich happens.

I'm not particularly interested in litigating post-crisis Videl here, since it's been discussed plenty, and yeah, I also think it's more than a little bit of a bummer. But knowing the trajectory of post-Z Dragon Ball, especially Super, it makes Videl's irrelevance on an action level kind of an inevitability? Like, yeah, maybe if she bounced back harder and played a larger role after the Spopovich fight, you maaaaaaaaaaaaaaybe could draw a line to her at least being comparable to the likes of Krillin, Tien, and Yamcha, but given the reality of modern Dragon Ball, would that be anything more than a pyrrhic victory?

So really, when you consider that the frankly ridiculous power scaling of Super is really just the logical extension of the scaling in Z that was already well underway by the Buu Saga, it naturally raises the question of why they bothered to even make Videl this much of an active force in the first place. From square one, she's arguably destined to be relegated to Gohan's love interest and future wife, so why go through the effort of showing the audience that she's stronger than every Earthling that's not a Z-Fighter? It does parallel Chi-Chi's strength in Dragon Ball to help further foreshadow her pairing with Gohan like Chi-Chi with Goku, but then why make her be that into fighting when Chi-Chi was always clearly content to be a housewife?

And like, Jesus Christ, all that only to be that definitive with that Spopovich fight?

I bring Videl up because my main created character in Xenoverse 2 is a female Earthling. Ever since I booted the game for the first time, there was no doubt in my mind that I was going to primarily play as a female Earthling, because with it came the knowledge that I was going to control a female Earthling doing and achieving some frankly wild shit, like going toe-to-toe with Final Form Mira, literal deities, Jiren, and Ultra Instinct Goku(?!?), sometimes back-to-back in certain Parallel Quests.

And of course I can, because that is the entire reason for the Xenoverse games' existence. The game has always been an unabashed power fantasy all about defeating some of the most powerful entities in Dragon Ball history with your own created character on your own terms.

And yet, as I do all of this with my female Earthling, the knowledge that in canon, the most powerful analogue to my character is Videl, a character who almost literally gets the relevance beaten out of her in a brutal and unforgettable manner, makes the experience feel almost rebellious. It feels like everything from the godawful Awoken Skill to the subpar race/gender stat distribution for a strike-oriented build to the very nature and history of Dragon Ball itself is working against my character becoming a ludicrously powerful force of nature, and yet I not only can, but literally must push through and go even further beyond.

I cannot emphasize enough that this sense of transgression has no basis at all when it comes to the game. Absolutely nothing about the Xenoverse games explicitly suggests that Earthlings, female or otherwise, are somehow destined to be strictly lesser than Saiyans or any other races. Again, the game is an unabashed power fantasy; it's going to let you achieve that power fantasy regardless of race or gender, because to do so otherwise is completely antithetical to the entire reason people play the game in the first place.

But looking at past Dragon Ball games, at least to me, makes clear that they really didn't have to include the option to play as an Earthling. They clearly feel no obligation to do so, since they've excluded it in previous games. They completely dodge the need to include a human-like race option with the existence of Saiyans, who aren't even differentiated by the presence of a tail. I genuinely don't think any significant number of people would have even batted an eye over the exclusion of Earthlings. ‘Cause, you know, it's Dragon Ball, why would you play as an Earthling?

But they did. They let you choose to play as an Earthling, a race that Dragon Ball has essentially been drilling into your head, for years, is a strictly less powerful and less interesting version of Saiyans with practically no upside. They gave you the option, and I took it, all because it effectively let me play out an extended Videl what-if by proxy and stretch credibility into complete, unrecognizable nonsense.

I recognize that this absolutely reflects more on me and my relationship with Dragon Ball as a whole than it does on Xenoverse, but when it’s the only Dragon Ball game that embraces customizable characters to the extent that it does, it’s necessarily going to be the only game that actually lets me grapple with that tension between the source and the spin-off, and reckon with how that can shape the audience’s experience and perception of the bigger picture.

[lo-55]

Playing With Fire Ch. 3

Ignition

@emrysaf

You’ve decided. You’re going to marry Maki. 

You’re going to marry her and adopt Sputter and Flare, and you’ll all live happily ever after in the cathedral and- 

You’re broken out of your thoughts when Maki smacks you so hard you literally see stars and throws you on the ground. 

“... owe.”

If everything else hadn’t cemented the fact that you were really living inside Fire Force, the pain of Maki’s fist and the hard concrete under your cheek sure would have. Holy hell, how was she so strong?

You roll over on your back to look up at her. 

“I bet,” you begin, “that you could bench press me if you really wanted to.”

Maki’s cheeks pink and she huffs down at you. “Why aren’t you using your pyrokinesis? Do you think I can’t handle it?”

I have no idea how to do that! 

“Nope, Nope! I’m sure you could wipe the floor with me, it’s not that miss!” You said quickly. “I was just in awe of you, sorry,” you salute quickly, and watch pink crawl across Maki’s face. 

So cute!! 

“H-honestly! At least use your spear!” 

You perk up. Spear? The Sun Spear? Is that what you have here? An answer! Finally! An answer! 

Maki takes your surprise for something else. “No one told you that they’d sent it over ahead of you? You should really keep better of your gear.” 

You dip your head quickly. “Yes, yes. Sorry. Can you show me where it is, please?” 

“Sure,” Maki smiles at you, “We’re about done for now, anyhow. Let’s go back inside and wash up. Sister Iris and Shinra should be waiting.” 

Maki takes you back into the cathedral, away from the training area on the roof. The cathedral really is pretty run down. The walls could use a good scrubbing, the floor boards either need to be replaced or are missing entirely, and there’s a lot of cracks in the tile and missing corners. The windows are fine, if not dusty, and the stained glass pieces are really beautiful. The whole place smells faintly of burnt wood and gun oil. It’s not bad, but its certainly unfamiliar. Everything is so vivid. The way it smells. The sound of the building settling, and the birds outside, and the voices of your new comrades. 

It’s amazing. 

Kinda terrifying, but crazy cool too. 

After a quick shower for each of you Maki shows you to the weapons room, where a long, thin case is rested against a wall between two racks of guns. Obi’s shield is propped up in one corner, along with a couple of his weird stabbing things that he puts infernals to rest with. You’ve been here two days now, and you’ve seen him use it twice.

You don’t know how, but you know instinctively that that case belongs to you. 

You go to it. There’s a strap along the back, like the kind on a violin case. You carefully set it on a table, mindful of the bullets stacked on top of it. With a few clicks you undo the buttons on either end and open up the case. Inside is a long staff, deep red in color and capped at the bottom with copper colored metal that curves into a diamond point. On the opposite end is a thin band of the same metal, that reveals the inside to be hollow. 

You pick it up carefully, testing its weight in your hands. It feels natural. Even though you’ve never actually fought with a spear before your body knows where to hold it, and how to spin it around elegantly until you’re facing Maki again. Your body knows how much space you’re taking up, and how not to hit the walls, while your brain geeks out over the fact that you’re actually holding the Sun Lance. 

So cool! 

Is it conceited to say that you’re super cool? Or that this was hella badass? 

You were almost bouncing on your toes you were so excited. 

“Wow, I didn’t know you missed your spear this much,” Maki smiled at you. “You look good with it.” 

“Aha, you think so? It’s just nice to have it I guess. This has been, I dunno. An adventure already. I’m in a strange place, with strange people, and I’m in an awfully dangerous situation. It’s been an adjustment, ya know?” 

You feel like a fool for rambling, but Maki smiles at you kindly. 

“I understand. Even though I was raised in a military family, it took me a while to get used to life as a fire soldier too. Don’t worry too much about it, and you know, we’re always here to help. It’s not like you have to go it alone.” 

You’re heart warms with her words. “Yeah. Thank you, Maki. You’re really a nice person.” 

Once the Sun Lance is safe in its case the two of you leave the armory, and make your way to the dorm rooms. 

Since the company is so small, each person gets their own room. In bigger companies you would be in actually dorms, or barracks, but the eighth only has Obi, Hinawa, Maki, Sister Iris, Shinra, and yourself. Arthur will be here soon too, and Tamaki. Your small company will grow soon. 

Your own room ended up being at the top of one of the towers on the west side of the cathedral, opposite of the garage. Which meant that last night, when the alarm had gone off, you’d been the last to arrive at the Matchbox. Near the garage are the locker rooms, and the communal showers, although there’s more bathrooms scattered through the base. 

In the center of the cathedral is the courtyard where Sister Iris purifies herself, and grows flowers. 

It’s really a nice place. 

“Thank you,” you say again, and Maki nods to you and leaves you to climb the steps on your own. You shut the door and lock it behind you. 

Your room is scant, all things considered. A bunk bed it pushed into each corner, with a desk underneath it. You’ve claimed the one nearest to the window. There’s a wardrobe on the opposite side, and a small, stocky book shelf. 

You need to hang up some pictures or get a rug or something. It’s entirely impersonal. 

You rest your Sun Lance up against the corner by the window and go to sit at the desk under your bed. You’ve already unpacked your few belongings into the wardrobe and the drawers of the desk, including the diary from ‘Fuyuki’. 

Your ‘sister’. The game honestly hadn’t told you a whole lot about her. Just that she disappeared, and what few flashbacks you would have now and again. Like the one you got when you touched your ring and the lighter.  

You open it up with careful hands. 

Inside the handwriting is familiar, even if the words aren’t. There’s no mistaking your hand writing. It looks like a serial killer in a movie has left a ransom note made out of letters cut out of magazines. 

I wonder if there’s cereal in the kitchen. 

You always think better when you’re snacking. 

To keep your thoughts in order, you scatterbrain.

<3 Fuyuki 

 The first entry is dated for 193 AC. After the Cataclysm. It’s 198 now, so this was given to MAIN (to you?) five years ago. That would have been right before she graduated the fire academy and joined her company. A year before she disappeared, around 194. 

It feels invasive to read the diary of the person whos life you’ve taken over, but you need answers and you don’t have a lot of options here. 

I can’t believe Fuyuki gave me a diary! That’s so lame, and super girly. I don’t really want to write in it, but she gave it to me so I guess I should? Even if I am kinda mad at her. She left to go to school years ago and she never comes home! She’s so mean but then she’s nice and its so frustrating! Not fair. Stupid sister. 

But i’ll try i guess. There’s not much else to do in the house. None of the other kids really wanna play with me, and the Yagi’s are busy watching the littler kids. And maybe i’ll have kids and their kids will have kids will have kids will have kids and i’ll be their super cool ancestor and they’ll read this for inspiration or something. 

Good god, how old were they when they started writing this? Twelve? How old even were you? 

Fuck it. 

You kept reading. They/you weren’t a regular writer, with long months going between entries. Some of them were sad, some of them were happy, most of them were angry. They had a lot of complicated feelings on the sister who had abandoned them to what was basically a group home outside Asakusa, and then bitterness at themselves for being so angry when she disappeared. But most of it wasn’t that useful. It was about grades and teachers, and grief. They got into a lot of fights, and they were something of a scrapper. They were briefly enrolled in martial arts classes, but they had to quit because they were too rough with the other kids. So they were a scrapper, but that wasn’t anything related to fire. 

You rubbed your temples and glared at the diary. How did it answer your questions but leave you with more? 

Why is this my life now? 

So much here didn’t make sense, nonetheleast the fact that you were here to begin with. Well. At least you finally knew what your pyrokinesis was right? Even if using it was nearly impossible, and you couldn’t make sense of everything. 

Of course, there were plenty of things in this world that didn’t make sense. Like how sound could turn fire into ice. 

Bringing back the dead made more sense than that! 

You cross your arms and glare at the diary. So far the only useful bit is the part where you’ve had some decent training. Everything else is just the most vague information about the investigation into her sister’s disappearance. That much you already knew, although you didn’t have time to read everything in it. There were big gaps that you just knew were holding important information! 

At a loss, you flipped to the very last written on page, halfway through, and froze. 

Staring back at you was your own face. A small picture. It was your resume for the squad assignments, with your own check boxes and preferences listed. Underneath it was the list you had written before, of Everything You Knew. It was short, with little screen caps here and there. You flipped the page and found it filling itself in with ink that didn’t come from a pen, finishing up what it started on the page before. 

A new page started, this one listed your stats. 

In game there were a hundred levels. You had gotten maybe halfway through? A third if you rounded down. And it listed your level at 40. Underneath had your attack power, defense, stamina, agility, and your special moves. 

You were weirdly well rounded. Three out of five bars for everything, except the SM, which only had one. 

But, you hadn’t put that there! 

You quickly flipped it back and forth before you went to the very, very last page in the diary. On the back cover the ink finally finished filling out. A progress bar. 

You stared at it for a long, long time, trying to work over everything was happening. 

So. 

Now you knew what you could do. Just not how to do it. 

You were out of options at this point. You were just going to have to suck it up. 

You were going to have to ask someone for help directly. 

 ~

Shinra looks up from his work when you plop into the seat across from him, your arms crossed across your chest. It would be a lie to say you’re not nervous. You’re not even totally sure how you’re supposed to ask these questions, but you don’t have any other way to go about this any more. 

You tried the diary. You’ve spent two and a half days trying to get your ignition ability to work without help. Admittedly, you hadn’t even know how your ability was meant to manifest at the time, but even now you can’t get it to work.  

“Oh, hey there,” Shinra offers you an awkward smile. You grin right back, trying to project as much happy-go-lucky-nothing-wrong-here-!-  as you can. It’s made easier by the fact that prior to a few days ago, no one here had known you as anything more than a passing acquaintance. 

“Hi Shinra. I’ve got a weird question for you,” you announce bluntly. 

Shinra looks a little more wary, and he’s starting to smile. 

“Oh yeah? What is it?” 

“Ah, it’s pretty simple actually. How do you activate your abilities?” 

“Huh?” 

“How do you-” 

“No, I heard you,” he holds up his hand to cup you off. “It’s just a weird question.” 

“Hey man, I told you it was gonna be one.” 

You stare at each other for a long minute before Shinra huffs and looks towards the ceiling. He might not be the best person to ask. Maybe you should ask Maki, but Shinra makes you feel secure and you trust him more than anyone else just yet. 

“How do I activate my abilities? I dunno. I guess for me it’s more like I have to turn it off.” 

You tilt your head, listening intently to Shinra. 

“When I was a kid… I had a hard time controlling my flames. They started up suddenly, and burned through my shoes and pants. I ended up wearing these extinguisher boots, and shorts, so I wouldn’t destroy everything around me. It took a long time to figure out what was going on, but someone finally explained it to me. For a lot of third generation pyrokinetics, the thing that triggers out ability is the memory of the first time they happened.” 

You falter. “But, wait. Didn’t yours activate when-” 

“Yeah,” he cuts in, shooting you a grin that’s anything but happy. Your heart clenches in your chest. 

“Oh god, Shinra…” That meant that every time he used his powers, he had to remember his mother’s ‘death’ and his brother's disappearance. He had to think of pain and fear and grief, and he used his flames so often-

“It’s okay,” he cuts in. You can’t imagine what kind of face you’re making. “It was painful at first, and it still is, but it’s a good reminder for what I’m fighting for, and why I’m working so hard towards that goal. I will find a way to stop human combustion. I will make sure no one else ever has to grieve the way I did.”  

“Shinra,” you say softly. “You really are something.” 

Shinra tries to shrug off your words, but his smile is a little more genuine. “I just wanna be a hero.” 

“You will be,” you promise him. It’s all you can do not to tell him the truth then and there. His mother is alive, and suffering. His brother is alive, and suffering. 

They need help. 

But you hold your tongue. You don’t have any way of proving it to him, and there’s already so many things that are different here than they were in the game, or the show. Your presence being one of them. 

You let out a breath. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring up something so painful.” 

Shinra shakes his head. “What made you ask?” 

“Honestly?” you rubbed the back of your neck, “I’ve been having trouble using my abilities since we left the academy. I thought maybe if I asked you how you do it, I might be able to figure it out.” 

Shinra looks startled. “Really? I guess that explains why you haven’t used them in the last few days. You never really held back when we were training.” 

“Sorry to disappoint?” you offer lamely. “I just can’t figure it out.” 

“Well… Have you thought about when you first activated your powers?” 

“That’s just it,” you say sadly. “I don’t remember when it happened at all. So that’s not really an option for me.” 

“Oh.” 

You frown, and draw in on yourself. You can’t help it. You have no way to activate the powers you now know you have, and you’re in a bad place to be powerless in general. Not to mention these people are going to expect you to help, and you can’t help, and if you can’t help then- 

Shinra’s hands land on your shoulders, startling you. It’s a warm touch, one that sinks into you with comfort and kindness. Shinra looks seriously at you, his red eyes bright and intent. 

“Whatever happens, I know you’ll figure it out, and I’ll help you as much as I can. Even if I have to protect you in missions for now. So put your trust in me for now, okay?” 

Your heart thumps hard in your chest and heat spreads through your body. It grows hotter and hotter, centering somewhere in your chest and your back. 

Light blooms behind you and you barely turn your head to see a flicker of white fire over your shoulders, wings stretching over your back. They’re small, going no further down than you’re elbows and no further up than your jaw, pale and white and glowing. 

You recognize the feeling in your chest with a start. 

It’s care. Friendship. You want to help them. You want to fight for them and earn and keep their trust. The flickering embers of love bloom into a fire across your shoulders and flutter with undistinguished feather’s. 

~ ~

A/N So! Phoenix is my favorite power, but everyone else seemed inclined towards the Sun Lance, so I smashed them both together!

If you’re so inclined, let me know what you think :D

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms Far Sides #6: Ciel

Today on Fate and Phantasms, Magical_Biche and I bring you the final of Tsukihime’s heroines, Ciel! Her build breakdown is below the cut, and you can find her character sheet over here. I’ll let Biche do the talking now.

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Hello there! Today, we’re building the last of the main girls, Ciel. I’ll admit that I’m not the biggest Ciel fan, so I kinda delayed her until I had no other choice, and here we are! I had to finish the main heroines before moving on to the villains, after all. As usual, heavy spoilers beyond this point. 

At first glance, Ciel might seem quite straightforward, but she’s far from being simple to build. She shows plenty of abilities, many more than Arcueid or Kohaku, actually. I even learned a bunch of things in the Type-Moon wiki, like how she could use magic. However, I know how reliable that wiki is, and I’ve mostly built Ciel with my own experience of the games, and tried to stick to it. I will also have to do Powered Ciel, as she’s quite different from OG Ciel, and certainly simpler to build. While Shiki Nanaya/Tohno and the three different forms of Akiha aren’t too different from each other, Ciel offers a whole new dimension in her alternative form. 

As for what we need for this build, we need to be skilled at fighting with our staple weapon, the black keys. As they don’t exist in DnD, obviously, we’ll have to stick with daggers. We also need a bit of hypnosis, to blend in with normal people, and we need to be quite fast and agile, to fit our fighting style of swift strikes. We also need to be an absolute beast at tracking and slaying vampires, of course. Finally, while we can’t be immortal, there are ways to avoid death in DnD, and we’ll try to grab some. 

With all that said, let’s dive into the build!

Race and Background

Despite being an immortal vampire, the variant human is the race that fits our character the best. We look exactly like one, and we used to be one, despite our immortality curse. Being a v. human allows us to put a +1 to our dexterity and constitution scores, and to grab the Fey touched feat, giving us a free use of Misty step and Charm person per day, as well as increasing our wisdom score by 1. Those 2 spells are quite useful to us, as one allows us to literally teleport behind enemies, and the other allows us to charm people and have them accept us as a part of their daily life. Being a variant human also gives us a free skill proficiency, and we’ll be taking the proficiency in perception, as we can’t grab it otherwise. It fits our role perfectly, as we’ll often have to search for our foes. 

Next, we are quite obviously an acolyte. This gives us a proficiency in religion and insight, perfect for doing religious stuff (we’re still employed by the church, after all), and finding whether people are secretly vampires or not. We also always have a shelter for the faithful, allowing us to take shelter in religious buildings, always nice, but situational. The two language proficiencies are entirely dependent on the game, but abyssal and celestial fit a religious character quite well. 

Ability Scores

Sadly, we can’t exactly have 4 stats at 15 from the start, so we’ll have to be toned down a bit. We’ll have to use point buy for this build, as we need many ability scores to be quite high, and we don’t really need the other ones. First, our two highest stats should obviously be our wisdom and our dexterity. We are very agile, and we have an easy time to understand other people. We are also extremely determined. Next, our constitution should be pretty high. However, thanks to our classes, we will have a hefty pool of HP, so we don’t really need to have our constitution too high. 13, with our racial boost, puts us at a comfortable +2, enough to tank hits for a while with our good AC. Next, we have quite average intelligence and charisma. We’re not particularly bad at those, but we’re not really good either. Next, we dump our strength. We’re actually quite strong, but we need a dump stat, and strength isn’t of any use to us. With point buy and our racials, our stats would be an 8 in strength, 16 in dexterity, 14 in constitution, 10 in intelligence, 16 in wisdom and 10 in charisma. With that set, we’re on to the class levels. 

Class Levels

1. Monk 1: Naturally, with high wisdom and dexterity, a religious background and no visible armor, being a monk seems obvious. First level monks get proficiency in two skills, and we’re going to be proficient with athletics and acrobatics. This will add a lot to our mobility, be it for climbing or jumping over people. We also become proficient with strength and dexterity saving throws, great to avoid being pushed around the battlefield and avoid dangerous AOEs. Next, we become proficient with a bunch of weapons, but we’ll only ever use our bare fists and daggers, as we have ways to mitigate their low damage, as monks. Finally, we get proficient with the cook’s utensils. We’ll obviously only ever do curry, but we need to be good at making it. 

Our first monk level also gives us our martial arts-allowing us to be efficient at hitting stuff quickly-and unarmored defense, giving us a quite decent AC of 16 right off the bat. 

2. Cleric 1: Of course, as we were raised by religious people, we are tailor-made for the cleric class. Level one cleric gives us spellcasting, including the powerful tool that is ritual casting, and access to all of the level one cleric spells, as well as three cantrips from the spell list. We’re grabbing word of radiance, to add a bit of radiant damage to our sacred arsenal (preferably used right after hitting something with a thrown dagger), resistance, to help with survival, and thaumaturgy, a great dramatic tool to have a louder voice, or have our eyes radiate light. 

As for the first level spells we should have prepared, shield of faith helps with AC, cure wounds allows us to heal quickly, protection from evil and good gives us a powerful defensive option against our not-yet-sworn enemy, and guiding bolt is a great way to start a battle and give advantage to our allies. 

Next, being a first level cleric also means that we can pick a domain, and we’re a cleric of the grave, because of our sacred task of tracking the undead and putting them back into their grave. The subclass gives us an improved version of spare the dying, adding to its range and allowing us to cast it as a bonus action. It also means we always have the false life spell prepared, which does a great job at making us less mortal, and bane, which doesn’t really fit in our build, as we’ll have more and more concentrations as we level up, and we’ll already want to spend ours to maintain shield of faith or protection from evil and good. We also get the circle of mortality feature, which helps us revive our fallen allies with cure wounds. Finally, our eyes of the grave allows us to detect any undead within 60 feet of our person, as long as they’re not magically hidden. This is a great tool to track vampires, who are obviously undead. 

3. Cleric 2: Being a second level cleric gives us our channel divinity feature, once per rest. As with all clerics, we can use it to turn undead, a great way to turn ghouls created by our sworn enemy. As a cleric of the grave, it also allows us to pave our foes a path to the grave, giving them vulnerability to the next attack it suffers from us or an ally. This is a great way to bypass some annoying immunities, but it sadly only lasts for one hit. If our DM allows it, we can also use our channel divinity to harness divine power, allowing us to recover some spell slots. As it is dependent on our proficiency bonus, we don’t need any more cleric levels to make this powerful, which is great. 

4. Monk 2: We’re diving back into the monk to reach our extra attack, this time. We get our first ki points, allowing us to do a bunch of stuff with our bonus action. We can use patient defense to boost our survivability, flurry of blows to deal a bit of extra damage with our fists, and step of the wind to move a bit during our bonus action. Our speed also increases a bit thanks to unarmored movement.

5. Monk 3: We enter the second tier of adventuring with that level, and the third level of monk gives us our monastic tradition, the way of the long death. This gives us a nice little ability to mimic the immortality we are supposed to have, the touch of death. This allows us to gain a bunch of temporary hit points when we kill a creature while in melee range. Pretty neat! We also gain the ability to deflect missiles, which does what it says, and if our DM allows it, we can also get the ki-fueled attacks, allowing us to still keep on the offensive while we spend ki points.

6. Monk 4: Reaching our fourth monk level gives us our first ability score improvement, and we’re pumping up our dexterity by two points. We also get slow fall, furthering our agility, and yet another optional feature we actually need, quickened healing, allowing us to heal ourselves with a martial art die by spending ki points. 

7. Monk 5: Fifth level monks gain an extra attack, which increases our damage output a lot. It’s a simple feature that fits our fighting style of throwing things, as we now do it faster and better. We also get the stunning strikes, which may be useful to stun creatures that have bad constitution saving throws. We also get our final optional feature with focused aim, another great feature to help hitting stuff, if our DM allows it. 

8. Fighter 1: Now that we are actually good at hitting stuff and not dying too quickly, it’s time to become better at throwing! We become a first level fighter, allowing us to take the thrown weapon fighting fighting style, at last. This allows us to draw our black keys (daggers) as part of our attacks, which means we can now use our bonus action for whatever else. Like throwing another black key. It also gives all our thrown weapon attacks a +2 bonus to their damage, which is very nice, as our martial arts die is still only a d6. Being a first level fighter also gives us a second wind, which allows us to regain some HP on a bonus action, nice for our gimmick of not dying. 

9. Fighter 2: Our second level in the OG martial class gives us an action surge, basically giving us a second action per turn once per long rest. With that, we can throw as much as 5 black keys in a single combat turn, which can down a boss pretty quickly. It only gives us a second action, though, so we can’t use a second bonus action on top of it. 

10. Fighter 3: We get a third level in the fighter class so we can reach exactly one feature from a particular subclass. It’s not that eldritch knight’s spellcasting is bad or out of character, but we’re mostly here for the other feature, weapon bond. Thanks to weapon bond, we can bond with up to two weapons and recall one of them in our hand as a bonus action. That basically means that we can have unlimited ammunition, which is totally awesome. However, we can only recall one weapon per turn, which limits us if the combat is too long. 

Also, this archetype gives us 2 wizard cantrips, and booming blade will really help with our melee damage. It sadly doesn’t work with thrown weapons. Also, even though we clearly don’t have the intelligence to use it correctly, sword burst can be used to materialize a bunch of black keys around us to hurt anyone at our contact. 

As for our first level spells, we’re getting absorb element, giving us resistance to elemental attacks and allowing us to increase our melee damage a bit, shield, which is always great for a character whose survival is a selling point, and find familiar, which lets us call our faithful Nanako to help us. Not that she will, but having her here can be useful to tank a hit or two. Also, we’re forced to make her a rat or a weasel, unless our DM is generous and feels like allowing her to be a horse, like she’s supposed to be. 

11. Ranger 1: Yes, we’re adding yet another class to this build. Multiclassing into a ranger gives us a new proficiency, and we’re now someone who’s good at survival, which makes sense, given that we can survive in harsh environments. We also get the favored enemy feature, and we’re picking undead as our favorite enemy, because… they are. Our favorite enemy, that is. We’re taking this feature over Tasha’s variant, favored foe, because of the flavor, and that’s about it. We lose in efficiency, and that’s about it. We’ll still get hunter’s mark later, so it doesn’t matter too much. However, it makes much more sense to take the optional feature for the other trademark ranger feature, deft explorer. That feature is quite simple and gives us an expertise in a skill of our choice, in our case, acrobatics. 

12. Ranger 2: Our second level in the ranger class grants us a new fighting style: two-weapon fighting. This can be used with thrown weapons, which means that now, all of our attacks with thrown weapons can add our dexterity modifier to them. It also works when we hit things in melee, by the way. We also get yet another round of spellcasting, with the ranger’s unique spell list this time. We have fewer options, and a lot of them require concentration, though. 

We’re taking hunter’s mark, to add a nice little d6 to pretty much every one of our hits, to increase our ability to kill undead (and other things), and zephyr strike, which works perfectly with our hit-and-run tactics. 

13. Ranger 3: With this level, we reach our fourth and last class archetype. We become a monster slayer, giving us access to a new spell we already had (but now it’s always prepared, so it allows us to prepare another cleric spell instead), protection from evil and good, which makes us extremely hard to hit by our favorite enemy, among other things. 

While we’re in spells, we learn a new spell, which is going to be jump, making us even more agile than we were. 

We also gain a hunter’s sense, allowing us to peek into our target’s defenses. We also get the slayer’s prey feature, which acts like a watered-down (as it’s limited to once per turn) hunter’s mark, that can’t be upcast, but since it’s not a concentration, it can be cast with hunter’s mark. Also, the time limit is until our next short or long rest, which is great if our target manages to escape, for example. 

14. Cleric 3: Back into the cleric class for the last time. Third level clerics only gain access to their second level spells. However, there is plenty of great options there, like enhance ability, which obviously helps us moving around with the cat’s grace, or tank hits with the bear’s endurance, lesser restoration, allowing us to recover from many status effect affecting us, and hold person, which could be seen as us pinning down things with our black keys. At that point, if we add all of our spellcasting features, we are considered a level five spellcaster, meaning that we have 4 first level spell slots, 3 second level spell slots and 2 third level spell slots to use. We don’t know any third level spells to use our biggest spell slots, but we can always upcast guiding bolt and absorb elements. 

15. Monk 6: Back into our main class for the rest of this build so we can get decent martial arts dice. The sixth monk level makes our unarmed strikes magical thanks to ki-empowered strikes. This is nice in a low magic campaign, but in a regular campaign, magic daggers should be pretty common. Plus, we already have booming blade and a bunch of spells to deal magical damage already. We also gain a new subclass feature, hour of reaping. With this feature, we can literally scare off creatures that fail a saving throw, which fits our build quite well, actually, as we do not want bystanders to be caught between us and our prey. This can also be used to scare some undead, too. 

16. Monk 7: Seventh level monks gain the evasion feature, making us extremely difficult to touch when it comes to most damaging AOE spells. Needless to say, this fits our agile and resilient build quite well. We get even more resilient thanks to our stillness of mind, letting us end a charm or fear effect as an action on our turn. 

17. Monk 8: We become level eight in the monk class, and reach our second ability score increase… at level 17. Since we can’t exactly fit feats into this very varied build (not that we need to, although tough would have been great), we’ll have to increase our wisdom by two points this time, so we kinda keep up with our other party members when it comes to casting. 

18. Monk 9: At level nine, monks can finally walk on walls and water! It’s nothing too fancy, but that means we can now jump on walls, walk on them and take our enemy by surprise, which is incredibly cool. 

19. Monk 10: At their tenth level, monks become immune to disease and poison, thanks to their pure body. It’s about time we had this in the build, since we’re supposed to be immortal. 

20. Monk 11: At last, we reach the eleventh monk level. We only get one feature, in theory, which is mastery of death, which lets us not die up to eleven times per short rest, which means we are essentially immortal for up to 11 attacks. Yes, it’s that good. It’d be even better if we’d taken more monk levels. But we also get a “passive” improvement at this level: our martial arts die becomes a d8, which means our puny daggers now deal 1d8+6 damage when they’re thrown, and we can throw them up to 3 times on regular turns. We’re not even bad at hitting stuff in melee too thanks to booming blade and sword burst. 

Pros: Thanks to monk levels and 2 fighting styles, our black keys are a deadly weapon we can pretty much spam everywhere, making us effective at both close and medium range. We’re also quite mobile thanks to jump, being a monk, our single use of misty step, zephyr strike, hold person and booming blade. We also get a pretty good AC thanks to being a monk, and we’re quite the cockroach thanks to our monk subclass, healing from second wind, healing from the cleric spell list, false life, resistance, shield, absorb elements… Next, we also have a ton of ways to rack up damage, with booming blade, hunter’s mark, Slayer’s prey and Zephyr strike. Finally, we have quite a lot of useful class resources, including 11 ki points, 4 hunter’s sense and the ever powerful action surge. 

Cons: However, we’re clearly not a perfect being. We had to limit our constitution because of how little ability score increases we could grab. Also, mixing the cleric and ranger spell lists means that we have a lot of concentration spells. We also have an almost useless spell with sword burst, which uses our bad intelligence stat, but fits our theme so well. Finally, our bonus action is quite crowded, and we’ll most likely rarely ever use our potential 3 attacks per turn, since we have to set up hunter’s mark and recall weapons from time to time.  

[meichenxi]

Update: why I’m starting learning Esperanto + learning Esperanto through Chinese + 30 day challenge

resources at the bottom

Learning Chinese is a difficult, long process. I love it, but sometimes it can be intensely frustrating and tiring. Because I engage with so much Chinese media and am very interesting in Chinese martial arts in particular, as well as wanting to learn Classical Chinese, I don’t have to worry about losing motivation: that’s always there. I’m aware that I’m lucky in this. But that doesn’t meant there aren’t days when I am just...so frustrated with how long this is taking, and how I STILL can’t read properly. Having learnt German, French and Spanish to fairly high levels, and read my first novel in Dutch after only one month of learning, I can say for certain that I could probably have learnt two or three Indo-European languages to a decent degree of conversational fluency in the time I have spent on Chinese. I don’t regret it at all - speaking Chinese and understanding, especially when I felt so out of my depth at the beginning - constantly amazes me. But it IS tiring.

One thing I also miss is the feeling of making progress every day that you get when you first start a new language. Every day you understand something you didn’t before, and get to apply it. I do feel I’m making progress, but it’s slow and taxing doing flashcards every day, and...yeah, you guys know. 

So rather than get frustrated that my learning is slow, I’ve decided to pick up another language - namely, the easiest one I can possibly find. That way I can simply view them as different processes: Chinese my long-standing love, tirelessly chipping away every day, and I can get the quick endorphins of a new language with Esperanto.

I used to be fairly anti-Esperanto if only because of the (seemingly incessant) positive gushing about it in polyglot circles. There was nothing wrong with it: I just didn’t think it was particularly linguistically interesting, and it really annoyed me that it was the only constructed language that anyone knew about outside of language learning circles. What about Na’vi? Quenya? All the epic personal conlangs that people make that don’t get attention? 

When I went to my first (and tragically, since covid, last) polyglot conference in Slovakia, I was so excited the whole weekend I could barely sleep. Straight after our exams had ended, me and two friends jumped on the train down to Heathrow and, giddy with adrenaline, boarded the plane. One of my friends is an old hat at these conferences - he knows everyone - and another, like me, was going for the first time. I met so many incredible, inspirational people - people whose language tags had five, ten, fifteen languages that they could speak to very impressive levels. And I also came into contact with Esperanto speakers for the first time.

What impressed me about them wasn’t the language itself - I’m not a particular fan of Romance languages, and at the time I didn’t really know much about Esperanto’s own somewhat kooky derivational morphology - but the community that surrounded it. This was European, worldwide, and everybody knew each other. They were all joined by a common goal of international communication, and aside from Esperanto spoke myriad other languages. But most of all I liked that English speakers had an option for a international language that wasn’t English: that they, too, had to try. I think like many English mother-tongue language learners I feel constantly embarrassed for speaking English natively - if I don’t have a language in common with someone, I hate having to revert back to it, but I often do. So Esperanto offered a way of getting past that, of me putting myself out there to communicate with others. 

I also like the fact that it’s, well, quite easy. Being able to record a five minute (very slow, very stumbling) video after three days gives me BIG galaxy brain vibes. And I enjoy the fact that I can already read a lot, because traditionally I’ve always acquired languages through extensive reading (rip Chinese). It helps you both learn and internalise rules. 

Esperanto means ‘the one who hopes’, and in Chinese the name is 世界语 or ‘World Language’. Having just looked up a little, there are plenty of resources for learning Esperanto through Chinese - although my Esperanto reading is already probably better than Chinese (RIPPPPPPP), I really enjoy reading grammatical explanations and textbook vocabulary in Chinese, and so am planning to use Chinese to learn Esperanto. 

How? These are the few resources I've found with just five minutes googling, and I’ll update this later in a separate post:

https://learn.esperanto.com/zh/01/ - Learn Esperanto in 12 days (!), in many languages including Chinese

https://lernu.net/zh-cn - Lernu!, one of the most popular websites for learning Esperanto, is 82% translated into Chinese

https://www.duolingo.com/enroll/eo/zh/Learn-Esperanto - duolingo is hatching their Esperanto course for Chinese learners

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyl0zNntnOw and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP7syqnm0t4 are both examples of the kind of videos you can find on YouTube explaining history and grammar 

I’m going to be doing a 30 day challenge to see how well I can speak. I’ll upload a recording of myself speaking later (day 1), on day 15, and on day 30! Whoever wants to join me, can join me! Let’s learn together!!

- 梅晨曦

[jschllatt]

Hello!! I’m going to ask for some advice but if you’re uncomfortable it’s totally okay to not answer! No stress:)

My friend invited me to do this martial arts class with her as she doesn’t want to go alone. But before the pandemic I had to go to a local martial arts dojo for about 5 years then from the pandemic I quit. I had a wonderful time there but I’m happier now that I have so much more time for myself! I know that if I join her I’m only going to go for a year as after this year I’m going to highschool. And I’ll have to focus on that. But I would like an outsider pov if you are comfortable:)

Anyway thanks for your time<3

hi my love! it makes me really happy knowing you'd value my opinion/pov 🥺

i feel like this can go 2 ways! on one hand, you can agree to take the martial arts classes with her for one last year before you start high school! it would be enjoyable for you because you already have plenty of experience and you would be able to do it with your friend!

on the other hand, this is your last year of free time before high school! you could enjoy the stress free time by relaxing and spending time with friends.

i think it really comes down to which you favor more: free time or martial arts. i would probably decide not to take the class with her, but that's coming from a very unathletic person. whichever option would make you happier is what you should go with! i'm sure your friend would completely understand if you said no!

i really hope this helps!! let me know what you end up deciding <3 i hope you have an amazing rest of your day my love 💖

[novaviis]

Snaibsel Renaissance Fair AU

Read Part One

Part Two

So the next day Artemis arrives at the fair before opening, just as all the other employees are shuffling in for the day. She’s not the only newbie, thank fuck, so she doesn’t feel completely out of place, but she is the only new Knight, so there’s that. There’s a set of tents and temporary structures at the very back of the fairgrounds, shielded off from the main fair, where the employees can change and take breaks and generally be “out of character”. She heads back there to get into her costume for the first time.

There’s a tunic, a pair of tights, and leather boots and belts that she’d given to wear for most of the day. A little heavy but not too bad. They even give her a side bag to hide her radio and a flask for water. These people have thought of everything. She’s already sweating at that point, just standing in the tent and pulling her hair back off her neck – but then she’s given her armour. Actually fucking armour. It’s not a full suit or anything, but it’s chainmail, a gorget, greaves, plated armguards and gloves, and a helmet. By the time she’s helped into it, she can barely move let alone ride a horse, and suddenly she’s thinking twice about this whole thing.

Artemis is given a while to get used to it, try walking around, but not long after she’s been dragged off to the stable with the other Knights to set up. She’s told she’ll be shadowing some asshole called the Grey Knight at first, just until she’s learned how everything works and gets some practice in on the tournaments. She only gets a brief glimpse of the guy, already in full armour and practicing sword work on a straw dummy. No big, she figures. Once she gets used to the armour, she’ll have this in the bag. She didn’t go through years of fencing and martial arts to look like an idiot around a bunch of renaissance nerds.

She spends the morning getting used to riding her horse, a gorgeous paint named Alice. After a bit of practice, she gets a little more comfortable, and no longer feels like one turn on her steed is going to send her toppling off. She even manages to knick the hoops set up on the training course with her lance – though it falls out of her hand every time. That Grey Knight jackass laughs from the sidelines every time, but at least he’s offering advice (most of which Artemis pretends to ignore with a heated glare). Still, by the time she’s finished for the morning and is allowed to take a break from the armour, she’s completely soaked with sweat and every step feels too light, like she’s been wearing weight all day – which, of course, she has.

So, she’s getting use to how things work around here. Great. She’s sent off to explore and get familiar with the grounds. The place is basically set up on an obscenely large plot of land surrounded by forest with a small lake in the middle. Marquis tents, large wooden buildings, and a mildly convincing Castle have all been set up around the perimeter, the other laneways patches of greenery winding through. Artemis hadn’t gotten a very good look at it the day before, but it really did look like a full medieval village. They had a marketplace surrounding a wide square, and the stables and tournament area across a small field where visitors were setting up picnics.

This wasn’t exactly her scene. Artemis hadn’t applied for the job because she loved this kind of thing. She wasn’t a history buff, definitely wasn’t into LARPing, and had no other interest in the renaissance. To be honest, she hadn’t really applied for the job at all. Artemis had been in and out of Juvie as a teenager, and likely would have ended up in Prison by now had it not been for things taking a different course. Her mother won custody of her at 17, and although it hadn’t changed things overnight, she had definitely turned out better than she would have with her father. After a few more brushes with the law, she was given a choice, back to Juvie, where her sentence would have been long enough to transfer her to an adult facility, or she could take a shorter sentence and then be sent to a correction and therapy program. Naturally, she took the latter option.

The facility had been a ranch, where she’d learned some hard truths and got her ass kicked by reality more than a few times. She was all the better for it, though. Artemis still remembered the night she’d left, her mother holding her hands in her lap with tears in her eyes, begging her to give this a chance before she ended up like her older sister. Jade was already in Prison, having left her newborn daughter with her Ex. Artemis had vowed then and there that she was going to put the work in to turn her life around. It hadn’t been easy, and she’d wanted to give up more than a few times, but she was nothing if not stubborn. She made it through the program, took online classes to finish school, and had been working to catch up ever since.

One of the driving influences through all of this, aside from her mother, was oddly enough her Parole Officer. Even once she’d been released from the program, Artemis had been on a strict probation. She couldn’t so much as jay-walk without landing her ass back in jail. Dinah Lance had assigned to her even before Artemis had moved in with her mom, and had been calm and understanding while taking absolutely none of her attitude. She’d been the first woman Artemis had really looked up to.

Dinah and her husband Oliver were actually old school Renaissance Fair veterans themselves. They came every summer as volunteers, as a sort of Robin Hood/Lady Marion duo that was always a hit with the crowd. When Dinah had learned that Artemis was looking for a job for the summer, and with her obvious qualifications in fighting and horseback riding, she’d suggested her to the head of the Fair committee.

So, now here she is. Artemis knows that this isn’t just Dinah trying to keep an eye on her, waiting for her to mess up, but she has enough trust issues that the doubt is a lingering voice in the back of her mind. She’s determined not to fuck it up this time, though. She’s not a stupid teenager anymore, she’s a young woman in her 20’s and she’s got something to prove.

Artemis takes her time, wandering around the fairgrounds before heading to the stalls for lunch. She passes through a shaded lane just off the marketplace, and passes a shack that smells so strongly of herbs and incense that it immediately draws her attention.

The fair’s esteemed Sorceress, as she understood from orientation, runs a little shop during the week where she sells “spells”, herbal teas, and other “magical” novelties. She also does tarot, palm, and tealeaf readings, and entertained with magic tricks. From what Artemis had heard, she’s a pretty popular attraction, but the shop doesn’t look busy and – fuck it, she’s still curious. So, she walks in.

Zatanna is just wrapping up with a customer when Artemis walks in, placing some crystals in a small bag and handing it to a little girl who’s there with her dad. The whole vibe of the place seems to be leaning far into all that new-agey bullshit, but she gets points for having an actual cauldron in the room (holding what appears to be spiced lemonade).

The moment Artemis walks in, Zatanna smiles and points her out to the little girl. “Well, look who’s come to visit! It’s our newest, bravest night, Dame Artemis!”

As the little girl turns around to see Artemis, just in her tunic, tights, and chainmail, she completely lights up. Artemis is a little awkward, but she’s plenty used to being around kids like her niece, so she gives her a wave but doesn’t quite play along as enthusiastically as Artemis. The girl’s dad eventually coaxes her out of the shop, leaving Artemis and Zatanna alone.

Artemis reaches into her side pouch, and hands Zatanna the Queen of Swords card. “Figured you might want this back.”

“Keep it,” Zatanna smiles as she rounds the other side of her little counter. “Consider it payment for me dragging you out into my show last night. I didn’t embarrass you too much, did I?”

“Nah, not at all,” Artemis lies. She pauses for a second, slipping the card back into her pouch before crossing her arms. “So, how’d you do it?”

Zatanna mirrors her and crosses her arm, leaning back against her counter. “Really? You’re gonna go with that question? Have you never heard of a Magician before?”

Artemis narrows her eyes. “You had someone plant it while I was at orientation.”

Zatanna shrugs. “In your sock? Not unless you’re that unobservant, and you don’t strike me as oblivious.”

“Sleight of hand while I was walking on stage.”

“You saw my hands the entire time.”

“So, what was it?”

Zatanna grins and leans in, cupping her hand around Artemis’ ear. “It was real magic.”

Artemis pulls back and rolls her eyes. “Yeah,” she says sarcastically, “okay.”

“How about this,” Zatanna laughs. “I might tell you how I did it if…” she pauses, looking somewhere over Artemis’ shoulder, before her smile widens. “If you defeat the Grey Knight in the tournament by the end of the summer.”

“What,” Artemis scoffs, “that douchebag who never takes off his helmet?”

Zatanna snickers. “No, the douchebag standing right behind you.”

By the time Artemis spins around, nearly knocking over a jar of Mugwort in the process, the Grey Knight himself is clamouring into the shack. Artemis steadies the jar, already glaring at Zatanna for laughing, before turning back to the other Knight. She tries to stammer out an excuse, or to play it off like she hadn’t said anything, but before she can say a word, the Knight cuts in.

“In my defense,” the Knight begins as he reaches up to his helmet. “I was only doing it today to fuck with you.” He takes off the helmet, and standing before her is a model of a man. Anyone despite their preferences, can agree that this guy looks like he was taken straight out of a Vogue cover. Thick, dark hair, stunning blue eyes, chiselled jawline. Artemis isn’t even attracted to him and she’s attracted to him. However, there’s something unmistakably familiar about him that she can’t quite place until he smiles at her…

“Holy shi- Grayson?!”

She went to middle school with this kid. He’s a year younger than her and had been such a little dweeb. Puberty had obviously been kind to him.

Dick bursts into obnoxious laughter, with Zatanna echoing him behind her. He sets his helmet down on a nearby table and slips his gloves off so he can shake his hair out. “Long time no see, Arty.”

“Arty here,” Zatanna places her hands on Artemis’ shoulders from behind, resting her chin on her knuckles, “was just telling me how she’s going to completely obliterate you in the tournaments.”

“That so?” Dick raises a brow.

Now, Artemis could deny it. She could be honest and say she’d never agreed to that – but fuck it. “Please,” she scoffs. “I used to take your lunch money. I could still hand you your ass.”

Dick grins. “Looking forward to it, then. But, since you mentioned it, I think you owe me a Turkey leg.”

“…Fair enough.”

[tarithenurse]

On my mind , in my soul - 16

Prompt:  “Love your work, On my mind in your soul!!! Prompts: A collar, a chair, and “Movement” by Hozier. Hope this works for you ♥️” That’s the words of a wonderful Anon whom I’ve decided will be the instigator to…well…you’ll see ;) Pairing: Loki x Burglar!reader. Content: Swearing as usual, loneliness, isolation, tiny bit of angst, jealousy, possessiveness, Jotun, lemons with “leashes”, some fluff ? A/N: All I wanna say is...it’s not my fault. Anon made me do it. Please reblog if you liked! You know the drill by now.

Of halves and wholes

You move silently, body tight and breath shallow as you navigate the halls of the Stark Tower on your own. Dressed in your own training gear (which Romanoff had picked up at your place – without being asked to or told the address) the plan is to locate the gym because sitting cooped up is starting to drive you crazy. It’s been ages since Loki left with most of the Avengers. More than a week at least! After a heartbeat to count, you correct the estimation: three. Days. Shit.

This is worse than expected. The tower isn’t your home, and not even a thirsting curiosity can distract you from the discomfort of being somewhere that takes your freedom and control away. Not to mention the people. Despite some shady backgrounds here and there, the Avengers stand for law and order and although they don’t put the letter of the law before the spirit of it…well, shared interests aren’t exactly plenty.

It’s more of a feeling than anything else that makes you duck into a spin where your water bottle is launched through the air. But instinct or not, the container nearly finds a target below the belt of the only one of the heroes you can talk to: Barton.

“Close call,” he mutters, but there’s a smile on his lips, “guess ye’re not much safer to sneak up on.”

You push to your feet, a bit frazzled. “At least I’m not carrying weapons all the time.” Yeah, I’m not gonna feel guilty about this.

“Anythin’ can be a weapon.”

Barton lops the bottle back in a gentle arch, probably confident that you don’t stand a chance at beating him. Which you don’t. But still.

“That sounded like the Russian duo.”

The smile breaks with a snort of laughter. “Only one’s Russian. Sorta. But yeah, I see yer point.” He walks on the way you’d been headed. “So, let’s see what else yer capable of other than tamin’ an Asgardian and throwin’ bottles at nice guys’ private parts.”

It’s all junk.

Silently appreciating that you’ve got a guide now, you follow the archer down a few levels and into the private and (according to Stark) little gym.

Little my ass. Filled with the best equipment money can buy, the place is bigger than any training center has a right to be and sports several pit-like areas which probably are meant for sparring. Of course there are also an actual boxing ring, several machines where the pins in the weight still are at uncannily high numbers…not to mention an actual stack of sandbags by the wall. Bikes, treadmills, you could go on and eventually not even know what to call the different options for physical exercise displayed before you. At least the smell’s like it should be. Musty leather, dry sweat, and sanitizer. Your nose wrinkle at the familiarity, and a bit of the alienation you’d felt seeps away into the floor, leaving you calmer than you’d been for…since I got here.

“Alrighty, what ye know already?” Barton has found sports tape and wraps while you were ogling and is now waiting for you to hold out a hand.

You gingerly extend your left. “In terms of…what?”

“Self-defence. Martial arts.” He’s obviously done this before because his fingers move nimbly and without hesitation.

What do I know? Sure, you’d taken a few classes and generally kept in shape enough to impress any common thug or rich client getting handsy. Then there was the stuff you’d tried to teach yourself like when Loki was…the memory makes you sigh quietly at the realization that that isn’t so long ago even though it feels like a lifetime. Things could have been so different now if you’d made other choices. Would your life have remained what it once was? Would it have been smarter if you’d run away…or simpler if you’d given in to the demands of the Asgardian? He would never have opened up to you, bared his soul the way he had done when he explained why the Avengers forgave him…

“Hey?” Barton’s voice breaks through the storm of thoughts. “Where y’at?”

Both your hands are wrapped comfortably. “Sorry,” you mumble, “uhm…no experience worth mentioning.”

“Cool. Blank slate.”

You follow him into the nearest pit, finding that the floor is slightly padded. “Tabula rasa.”

“…s’that like Hakuna Matata?”

…   Loki’s PoV   …

What use is a wizard if he will not even ensure the quickest travel? Finally out of the dreadful confines of the jet, Loki can feel his body thrumming with impatience. The Jotun part of him is itching to break free from the restraints of the illusion and to be only with people he trusts unconditionally. And no, Thor - who is hollering after the raven-haired brother - does not exactly fit that bill.

Long strides bring him to the door that leads to what can be considered Loki’s quarters when he has to stay at the Tower. The god prefers his own home, but even he is a slave to practicality sometimes. And this time? A part somewhere in his chest does not disagree quite as much with returning to this place.

Without knocking, he barges in and is met with nothing.

A second stretches like elastic as Loki takes in the surroundings, finding no signs of foul play. The closet is ajar, a pair of jeans slung across the back of a chair next to it which has [Y/N] shoes tugged beneath. The wardrobe itself is near empty because neither resident had brought a lot with them.

This time the steps are rushed and nothing but pure self-restraint keeps the god from breaking into a running pace. Self-respect. Dignity. Loki tempers the roiling desperation, not wanting to let anyone else know exactly how great the urge to hold his mortal in his arms really is. But where is she? Stopping, he realizes that he simply has stormed off in any random direction which is a perfect example on how not to search for anyone.

“Jarvis!” the god snaps, for once appreciating Starks love for the disembodied servant.

...

I still watch you when you're groovin' As if through water from the bottom of a pool You're movin' without movin'

The Asgardian supposes he should be thankful for the facts that [Y/N] is learning to defend herself properly and for the fact that it is Barton teaching her rather than any of the others. The two men do not have a friendship, far from, but the archer had been the first to accept that Loki’s actions on Midgard had not been entirely of his own volition. And so a sort of unspoken understanding keeps them on common ground. Still, looking at the way the two sweaty bodies collide and wrestle for dominance awakens a jealousy within Loki.

Why do I stay in the shadow? It would be simple, stepping forward and claiming the woman he has come to consider his. [Y/N] would be furious if I treated her as a possession…and the god stays in the shadows to watch. And what a sight it is.

With careful perfection, she copies the trainer’s movements. Already, her motions are fluid and lithe, a show of confidence that empowers the once-upon-burglar more than Loki thought would still be possible, and he could swear on the Norns that no other sight is as captivating. Sleek muscles dance under glistening skin of back, arms, and shoulders with each strike or block. Strong thighs (that have been wrapped around his waist as pleasure wrecks the perfect body) powers each step as [Y/N] drives forward in a tantalizing onslaught. Full of potency and with satisfaction showing on the curved lips. My warrior.

A change in movement, bodies too close for Loki’s liking as the archer wraps the woman in his arm before spinning her away. Only as Barton backs out of the sparring match, does the Asgardian realize that he has marched to the pit. He can feel the jealousy spread like ice over his skin but can hardly find it in himself to stall the transformation…and either way: the bowman is leaving already.

“Loki?” The female voices reaches him through a fog of rage. “What’s up?”

She is so soft in his clawed hands, so pliable as lips meet with a force that clicks their teeth together. “Mine,” Loki mumbles in between the hungry kisses.

“Mm!” He does not allow her to break away fully. “M’not…a thin’…oh…you own!” Even so, she is returning each demanding action with a vigour.

“Still…mine…” [Y/N]’s skin is scalding on his lips as he trails the elegant jawline before latching onto the tender spot below the ear. “My pet.”

Nails scrape against his scalp, sending shivers down Loki’s spine. “No pet…” she whimpers, arching into him in response to the hands stroking her body, “got no collar.”

Finally pulling back, the god is met with a lust-blown gaze. Mouth half-open and chest rising and falling rapidly, she looks so prettily ruined. “Oh, but my dear…you do have a collar.”

And as he speaks, it appears in a shimmer of sparks: thick, green velvet edged with gold and no buckle or joint anywhere for [Y/N]’s probing fingers to find. He sees the challenge rise in her eyes, but simply decides to scoop her up onto a shoulder and carry her away.

… Reader’s PoV   …

Without anything sharp, there’s no way you can get the new accessory off and slung over the Jotun’s shoulder (Must be his “thing”) you really can’t do anything about anything. Instead you wait patiently. Almost patiently. With each step, Loki brings you closer to his room. With each step, he tells you all the dirty things you’ve been longing for while he was gone, making you squirm to prolong the contact as he massages your ass and legs, ghosting close to your clothed pussy when the nimble fingers explore the inside of the thighs.

But when the door finally does close, he doesn’t drop you on the bed, but perches you on a hard chair and before you know it, your ankles are tied to its metal legs and you wrists connected behind its back.

His face is so close you can recognize a turquoise shade in the sea of red. “I might not own you, love, but you’re still mine to do with as I please.” A large hand wraps loosely around your neck, thumb stroking the collar. “If you’re a good pet, I’ll reward you.”

I’ll show you “pet”. Like a dog wanting to lick its owner’s face, you try to rush forward but are stopped by resistance from the neckband. What the –? His smirk chases away the confusion – the bastard has tied the collar to chair too. You can’t move more than a few inches, leaving you completely at his mercy. There’s no doubt in your mind that he would set you free if you truly wanted him too…but you don’t.

When you move Honey, I'm put in awe of somethin' so flawed and free

Instead, you watch as he straightens before you, deliberately slow as he peels off one layer of clothes after the other before he stands naked.

“God,” you moan, following the ridged lines across his shape with your eyes.

His hand drops to stroke his growing cock lazily. “Correct. Your god, am I not?”

A nod is enough. And one more when he’s kind enough to ask if you want to taste him. Stretching as far as you can, you meet him with your mouth, tongue guiding him closer until you sit relatively comfortable again.

It’s messy at first, almost every lick and nibble along the shaft makes his erection bob up and down as if it too is nodding, but when Loki grabs the base the balance in power shifts slightly in your favour. Groans and subtle rolls with the narrow hips as your lips draw his cock in inch by inch until you nearly gag on it. Sure, size isn’t all and the dimensions of the Jotun erection can seem intimidating if it wasn’t for your intimate knowledge of how talented Loki is with it. Right now, however, you’re spellbound by the sinful sounds and twitches as you trace the ridges with your tongue and suck greedily to create a slobby vacuum.

“Such a…good pet…” His breath is ragged and thighs trembling as he dig the clawed hands into your hair for stabilization.

It’s hard to smile with a face full of cock and your jaws ache at the strain. “Mmmmm-mmm?” you hum before circling the crown with your tongue to lap up the salty taste of precum.

With a pop, he pulls out, stumbling back a step to take in the view of you there, drool dripping to your chin and a devilish grin because you may be tied up but aren’t powerless. Innocently, you bash your lashes up at him, making a deal out of admiring the athletic form. Damn, so fuckable. Your clit throbs with each heartbeat and you try to shift on the seat to soothe the need for some release.

Red eyes lock on the movement, glimmering with decisiveness. “Yes,” he whispers more to himself, “and good pets are rewarded.”

Falling to his knees between your legs, the cold of his body soothing on the hot skin, he kisses and licks the worst of the saliva from your face before tracing a path to the neckline of your top. Even through the layers of fabric, Loki can see the puckered nipples to bite them just hard enough for the sting to make you moan with want and distract you from the appearance of a blade. Rrrrrrrrp, and the front of your clothes splits to reveal your breasts and stomach. You would’ve scolded him if he hadn’t been so talented with his tongue and lips, making you arch your back and tilt your hips harder into the hand he’s holding onto you with.

When the god reaches the top of your shorts, there’s no denying the dangerous cold of the blade as it slips between skin and elastic fabric, but this time, you couldn’t care less that more clothes is ruined as long as it grants him access. Scraps fall to the floor, hand reach under your ass to lift and tilt your pelvis a bit and then…gooooods!

…   Loki’s PoV   …

Move me, baby Shake like the bough of a willow tree

Such sweet sounds with each stroke of his tongue, a danced melange of broad, slow, piercing, and fast until her lust is dripping onto the seat. [Y/N] has fallen back and her entire body is undulating with power that is building up within, like water behind a dam waiting to be released. Fine.

Never stopping the delirious torture, Loki only needs a thought to undo the bonds - although the collar stays (he likes the symbolism of it). And before she understands what is happening, he lifts her to the bed. Only then, as he lays down on his back, does his mouth leave her folds so he can see her captured in his grip above him. Perfect. Eyelids flutter and breasts rise and fall rapidly against the tension of being on the verge for so long, already the woman is reaching for some way to find release. Mine.

The Jotun physique is domineering and raw in its need, but Loki manages to move agonizingly slow as he lowers her onto his cock and then setting a snail-like pace for the next dozen thrusts until she whimpers in frustration.

“Pleeaase!” The mortal’s gaze is clouded with lust and desperation.

How can he deny her? Rutting upwards, the speed and depth of each stroke are increased, and the much smaller hands hold on with all they can to his much bigger wrists. Pretty cries fall from her lips, growing louder as a warning, together with the tightness of her cunt, of the impending ecstasy. There! All of [Y/N] seizes and shudders with bliss. Back arched, breasts pushed upwards, and the sight is beyond anything the god could ever want.

Rolling clenches of her core pushes him over the edge with such a force that everything disappears in a darkness where the only reality is the blurry shape of the woman. Her heat and his cold mingles, and Loki knows he must have cried out her name, but it is not until he comes to his senses with the mortal in his arms that he realizes it. Never another.

“Mine,” he whispers into her hair.

The god can feel her smile against his chest. “Yours.”

[ill-be-istj-if-no-one-else-is]

Hey Em. Fellow weight-lifter here. If you don't mind sharing, how do you usually go about your weekly workout routine (pre/post-workout as well)? Are there any sports or skill-sets (e.g. certain martial arts, dance styles, athletic events/competitions, etc.) you can see yourself attempting in the future?

I was going to say “bold of you to assume I have a routine” but as this is an ISTJ blog this is actually very reasonable of you to assume. Sadly, I’m in a slightly weird spot right now so here’s the brief rundown:

Pre-2017: worked out semi-regularly, but primarily cardio and body weight stuff with some light weights when I did.

Early 2017-early 2018: tried out powerlifting, loved it, did it regularly with a Stronglifts program

Early 2018: life intervened, moved to an apartment away from my decent gym, high stress, etc, took an extended break.

Like August or September 2018: signed up for new gym through work. Plus = cheap and not crowded, minus = no squat rack or bench racks and also it’s closed during holidays.

December 2018: because the gym was closed, sort of got back into running but continued lifting to the best of my ability given the tools I had

April 2018: left off running due to weirdly bad seasonal allergies I’d never had before, upped my weightlifting again

Currently: have gym access until the end of the month, will be moving again soon, would like to continue powerlifting but will be in between apartments in training for new job for a bit so my life won’t settle down until August/September. Ask me again in a few months.

Anyway: right now I am not doing much other than the main three lifts, adapted for what I have. I should warm up, but I don’t really other than maybe some bodyweight squats, and then I sort of count squatting as the warmup for my deadlift and bench. Post-workout I walk home, which is a 15 minute walk, so I pretend that counts. Occasionally if I have my shit together on the weekends for a longer workout I’ll do some cardio or maybe some minor bodyweight things, but as mentioned I’m preparing for a big move and change so I’m trying to keep my workouts to a short length so that I’m more likely to do them.

Content of the workout is: 5x5 dumbbell squats with 35 lb dumbbells on each shoulder. I can’t quite hoist 40 lbs on each shoulder yet; that might be my focus if I find myself in a hotel with a gym with only dumbbells and no barbells.

Deadlift: currently focusing on this as it’s the only lift I can truly do. I’m doing a smolov Jr. these past few weeks so the sets/reps vary, but previously it was 5 sets, however many reps I could do at the weight. I’m doing the Smolov Jr. to break 200 lbs as my current 1RM is about 195. Again, once I’m resettled, I hope to focus on really increasing the weight but right now I can’t do enough of the supportive/accessory stuff to really shoot for a major goal and I suspect I won’t have barbell access for a bit. During that time I’ll probably do a lot of dumbbell RDLs.

Bench: No rack, so I have to be able to clean and press the bar to do a bench press and I’m afraid to go too heavy and break my face. So currently stalled at 75 lbs though I’m slowly upping reps (5 sets, currently 6 reps but tomorrow I’ll probably go for 7). Again, will switch to dumbbells and pushups to maintain what strength I have until I can join a real gym again.

Once I join a real gym, I’ll probably find my new level and do a 12-week lifting program a la Stronglifts (which is how I started; I may try out Starting Strength instead just to see what it’s like) and set a baseline/regain any lost strength, and figure out next steps from there. Because I took a pause and was figuring stuff out in 2017, I feel like I never quite hit my linear progression plateau, so I’d like to actually reach that point before I explore more intermediate options.

I don’t like team sports, and I really like gym time as an alone time so something where I’d need an instructor, like dance or martial arts, are probably out. I have taken a karate class and I liked aspects of it, but the thing is I don’t like the spiritual/meditative element of a lot of martial arts - and I respect that it’s very integral to said martial arts and I wouldn’t want to bastardize it to meet my personal workout needs. I will probably get back into running (I’m slow, but I have decent stamina) as I’ll have at least a week or so with absolutely no gym but plenty of time. I’m also not very competitive when it comes to exercise; I spent so long being the worst at gym class that I sort of stopped caring as a defense mechanism, and in the end it worked out because now I want to set goals but I really do only compete with myself.

[c0njugaste-blog]

The 6 Abc’s Of Fitness: Tips for Beginners

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6 Abc Fitness Tips - Beginners Guide

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[luxexhomines]

S

Ahhh, thank you guys so much for asking!! I just compiled them all into one post so I don’t clog up your dash with several posts. Here we go! I’m going to tag this as discourse and put a cut because my answers to the letters might not please everyone, aha. It’s long, too. Major spoilers for NDRV3.

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

Honestly, I’m not super sure at this point. Surprise, surprise, I only just recently finished watching the rest of NDRV3 and started writing for it. And I haven’t thought about tropes that much, though I’m sure I’ve written plenty of them into my writing at some point, even if not posted on here. 

If we’re going to go Danganronpa-centric, as this is my side blog for Danganronpa writing, I’d say that I fall in love with characters that are contradictory and with seemingly bipolar or gray morals despite probably having morals as straight as an arrow myself, i.e. Nagito or Kokichi. The characters playing “straight man” and relating to the reader’s perspective are also my favorite; in a wacky situation, they offer reason and normal reactions, which I would peg Hajime as (maybe Kazuichi, too, although he’s more of a crybaby). In fanfiction, I just love hurt & comfort fics, especially involving–you guessed it–Kokichi. I am particularly partial to the Oumota chapter 5 and chapter 5 trial rewrites, which, lucky for me, both of which are quite often rewritten by spectacular writers.

If we’re going in general, I always end up reading manga with an independent, strong and decisive character that crosses worlds and/or bodies by accident or death and becomes incredibly powerful/influential in the world and dominates over other characters with skills ranging from cooking to fighting. I guess I read a lot of manhua with martial arts or other manga with game aspects to it.Writing-wise, I love reading slow burn fics, even if I haven’t read one in quite some time. 

T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

I have a feeling this is going to go into highly controversial areas, so if you ultra ship Kaito x Maki, please turn away now...

I just hate that “man saves woman” from herself or traumatic past trope. Don’t get me wrong, I love hurt/comfort like I mentioned, but to specify, what I mean is when a strong and independent woman needs saving by a man. I realize Maki has a lot of issues from her past as an assassin and that Kaito is a viable, good option for helping her out and facing those issues, but the fact of him being a man and the way he just swoops in and fixes things forcefully by pulling her along for training just irks me. And before you ask, yes, if Kaede did it instead as a woman I would have less of a problem with it, even if I don’t like that somehow after a couple days of training together Maki somehow is better able to get along with others and most notably Shuichi despite having spent the previous entire time cooped up in her Ultimate room alone, is willing to use her experience as an assassin to help out with the investigation when she just walked out in the past, etc. Problems from a past like that would never be so easily faced in reality; people and their minds are much more stubborn than we’d like to think, too. 

In general, I am also highly averse to the Women in Refrigerators trope. To some extent, I feel that Kaede fits this trope, as a.) she is an important, pivotal, incredibly fleshed out female character and even the initial protagonist of ndrv3, b.) she dies arbitrarily for a murder she did not commit, c.) a big part of her death is written into Shuichi’s character development for making him grow as the protagonist (he sheds the cap, faces the truth, and the memory of Kaede’s last wishes serves as his support to reveal the truth several times in trial), and of course, d.) her death in the execution is grotesque as befitting of a Danganronpa execution. Kaede deserved so. much. more.

There are probably more out there, but I won’t mention them for the sake of length & time. 

U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

Okay! So don’t hate me for this, but I haven’t been really keeping up a bunch with fanfiction writers or specific ones that much. It just hasn’t ever been a habit of mine in the past to follow one writer–ironic, I know. There’s one that immediately comes to mind, but she’s not part of the Danganronpa fandom, so unless someone asks, I’ll leave her out of it. However, there are a couple of writers that I recently discovered through the Oumota weekend event and which I follow on my main blog, and I thoroughly enjoy reading their work. Their work also contains mentions of NDRV3 spoilers!

1. @kirastrations

I recently reblogged her work on this blog because I have so much love for the Oumota fic she wrote (which deserves more love!). It’s called One by One, One After Another, and I simply adore the way she writes Kaito’s character and experiences with the other characters throughout the game and the overarching feeling that comes across as a result of the situation and what ensues. The diction choices she makes is absolute art; I see the imagery so clearly in my head, and not a single word of hers is wasted. It’s concise while being aptly and most beautifully descriptive. Even though I’m not a huge fan of Kaito, the way she writes him and his actions make me love him. I would describe the work as a futile yet desperate and exquisite struggling, an embodiment of angst that is so beautifully painful that it appears to be an illusion. I haven’t had a chance to check out other works from her just yet, but that’s on my to-do list!

2. @golden-redhead

I love, love, love their work too. They recently posted Lavender, a Kirumi x Kaede (Tojomatsu? Kaerumi? Kirumatsu?) work for femslash Feb, and it is a post-reality Virtual AU short fic. The way they write the interaction between Kirumi and Kaede offers such a delicate, carefully constructed image and story while creating some tension between the two. They also format the story with Kirumi’s thoughts in a simple and straightforward way that is just so delicious to read. Aspects of Kirumi explored are small things that unravel into a bigger statement about her character and the nature of the killing game and the impact it has left on her. It reminds me of the way a player might gently stack up a house of cards–attentively, with a sharp eye and feel. 

3. @starlightwritesalie

They wrote these two Oumota fics for the weekend that I fell in love with, especially the one for Day 1: Heroes/Villains. Sometimes when living in the world of Danganronpa, you forget that these tragic situations and the killing game are experienced, in essence, by children. You can argue that they’re older than high schoolers for the first two games, but mentally they are still high schoolers, and let’s face it–a couple years above the legal age of being an adult in America, 18, can hardly be counted as an adult, either. They reminded me of that sickening fact so poetically yet bluntly, and the story they write only serves as a further reminder of that fact. They write statements about the situation and how the pair act in the situation that are so agonizing yet irrefutable–as is the situation that they’re both trapped in. The ending is so unbearably cruel, packed with pain, but the way they create it is so decisively soft and snatches away my breath with the truth at the heart of the game, the situation. 

So there you have it! Sorry that my answers are so long... I have too much to say, and especially about the people whom I adore. Since it said to pick 3, I didn’t get to include these two, but I also love aroseandapen and mystic-mints dearly. If you ask, I’ll write a whole paragraph on why I love them, too, although I suspect by this time you all are getting rather tired of all my talking, haha. I also didn’t include imagines blogs, but if you’re curious, feel free to ask about that since I am still kind of a imagines blog! I guess at this point I’m kind of a fusion of an imagines blog and normal fanfiction writing blog.

Thanks for asking, and if you have any more questions, feel free to shoot an ask!

[styomi]

Flowers and gemstones | Chapter 5 | Sweet Pea/OC

In the spirit of new content in the fandom… I’m updating early! I hope you guys enjoy Sweet Pea being a ‘lil shit’ and ‘a conflicted piece of hotness’ as my dear fellow author Vulvarity put it so colorfully xD Thanks for the beta-read, hun!

Info:

Rating: T Word count:4118 Chapter count:5/? Faceclaim: Ruby Wolfe – India Eisley Jo Wolfe – Adrian Paul Mattie – Elle Fanning

Yes, I am complete Abba trash with this title but damn, does it fit!

Ah-hah, honey honey

The Twilight Drive-In was not quite what Ruby had expected. She’d entered the truck, only to see Fred driving and after an awkward conversation about Archie’s lack of a permit, where the girl and his father laughed about it, the three worked out an easy plan. Fred would drive to his office, since he needed to get some work done, still, and Ruby would take the wheel from there. At the end of the movie, they were supposed to call Fred and see if he was done, in order to pick him up. Then, the Andrews could drop her off home before calling it a night. It all seemed like a solid plan to the teens. Both of them were glad that they wouldn’t be left to beg Archie’s friend Jughead to get them a couple of chairs once Fred drove off.

When they got to the Drive-In, Ruby took her time looking around. She’d never had a proper date, much less an occasion which would take her to a place like that. The only movies she’d watched was with Mattie or her father, either in the girl’s room or at the cinema. And then, Mattie had insisted on huddling together in a couple’s seat like two idiots, because she’d been too curious as to what booking a space like that meant for her own good. Afterwards, it had become tradition for the two girls to sit in a loveseat at the cinema, just for kicks. But, the Twilight Drive-In was definitely not a cinema.

Archie had carefully instructed Ruby where to drive the family truck, which she only struggled with for a bit due to the stick that was a tad different from her trusty old Mustang. And, once they pulled into the southernmost part of Riverdale, he directed her to get off Main Street and enter the small parking lot in front of a large screen. Sure enough, there was a sign which spelled out that evening’s showing, Mamma Mia, right in front of the turn. As Ruby parked the truck, turning the front towards the small booth in the back with drinks and popcorn like Archie requested, she had a chance to look around some more. In essence, it was a parking lot. There were a few more cars and a couple of motorcycles in the back, people buzzing around before the showing. But, other than the booth and a large screen on the other side, it was just that, a parking lot.

“Popcorn?” Archie asked, nodding towards the booth.

“Oh, yeah.” Ruby eagerly agreed and the two friends walked over, Archie instantly perking up when he saw the server behind the counter.

“Hey, Jug!” he greeted the boy in an odd beanie, which Ruby was certain seemed familiar to her for some reason. “This is Ruby, who I told you about. The girl from the Wolfe house,” the boy behind the counter examined her with a surprisingly analytical look in his pale eyes. But, he didn’t seem hostile. “Ruby, Jughead.”

“The one who’s writing a book?”

“Novel.” Both boys instantly corrected.

“Right,” Ruby nodded sheepishly. “It’s very nice to meet you, Jughead. I’ve heard a lot about you,” the boy gave his friend a look which seemed accusing, more than anything. “I promise that I pressed him for details and that everything he told me was good.” The girl tried to diffuse the tension.

“Um, sure, yeah,” Jughead sounded a little awkward. “Welcome to Riverdale.” He didn’t seem to mean it. Regardless, Ruby chose to take the high road there.

“It would be awesome if you could join us for the movie, unless you’re working the whole evening?” She asked, looking between him and Archie. “I got only one side of the story, after all,” Ruby gave Jughead a mischievous smile. “I’d love to hear some embarrassing tales about this one.” She nudged Archie with her elbow and, instantly, the atmosphere changed. Jughead gave her a smirk right back.

“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised. “What will it be, guys? You’re holding up the line.” Despite Archie telling Ruby that it was unlikely that Jughead would join them, the beanie-wearing teen did. They huddled together, with the girl in the middle, in the back of the truck, a few buckets of popcorn in between them and a blanket over their feet. While Archie had actually been paying attention to the movie, as he hadn’t seen it before, Jughead and Ruby took the time to whisper and get to know each other a bit better. Unsurprisingly, the boy had plenty of funny stories about his childhood friend, making the girl giggle when she wasn’t singing along to the soundtrack.

By the end of the evening, Ruby had the awkward boy’s number memorized in her phone with a promise to hang out at Pop’s sometime soon. While they didn’t have a lot in common, they did realize that there was a long list of movies both had watched and desperately needed to discuss with someone. All in all, it had been a fun evening for her, despite it definitely not being a date in the end. Ruby, in all honesty, had preferred it that way. She liked Archie well enough, but she wasn’t one to dive into anything romantic before getting to know a person better. He seemed only interested in hanging out platonically, which was right up her alley.

Ruby had always gotten along with boys better than girls. When she counted the schools she’d attended, she realized that her only real girl friend was Mattie. The teen in question wasn’t exactly girly material, either. Ruby suspected that she had her father and their mutual obsession with martial arts to thank for her ease with befriending boys, even though Jo had voiced his worries over only boys coming by their home on a number of occasions.

Mattie was awake when Ruby got home from the Drive-In and called the girl after texting her half a dozen questions to make their conversation easier. There was just something lost in the voice messages and typing for her.

“So, spill. How was it?” Mattie’s voice was eager, even though she had dark circles under her eyes from the lack of sleep.

“We watched Mamma Mia!” Ruby eagerly supplied and the two girls started singing to each other, hitting some painfully shrill notes that made Jo pop his head into the kitchen to check on the situation. When he saw that it was just a facetime call, he retreated again, not wanting to disturb the two. And then, Ruby started telling Mattie all about Archie and the odd new character in her life, Jughead.

The last day of the Southside Serpents working at the Wolfe house came all too soon for Ruby. She’d built a nice friendship with Toni, a strange combination of pun exchanges with Fangs and the usual push and pull with Sweet Pea. Ruby had spent more than a few hours with Toni in her room, deciding on color schemes, furniture positions and various decorations together. While the purple haired Serpent wasn’t a fan of the girly setup the room had been steered towards, she was still a huge help. She had a whole bunch of fashion and DIY magazine subscriptions on her phone, showing Ruby various options which could change her room in different ways. Mattie was ecstatic to see all the new ideas and demanded that she meet Toni one day, hopefully in person. All of their brainstorming on decoration ideas got FP to send Sweet Pea to hunt down the girls more than a few times with a disgruntled expression.

Fangs and Ruby, on the other hand, had a different dynamic. While Toni was the perfect design and clothing advisor, the boy turned out to be gossip central. Ruby had always known that most boys had an affiliation for sharing funny stories, but he was in a whole league of his own. Fangs had plenty of stories from his time with Toni and Sweet Pea as kids which he was eager to tell. By the third day of hauling stuff around the house and painting walls, the two had a number of inside jokes which pissed off Sweet Pea to oblivion once he figured them out. That was without even mentioning Fangs’ love of bad puns. If there was a person who could make Ruby crack up at a bad joke in a single second, it was definitely him. Her retaliation had required a bit of Googling, but pretty soon they had been separated when it came to carrying heavy items around due to their tendency to lose their grip on them while laughing.

The only thing Ruby regretted over those few weeks was not spending more time with Sweet Pea. He always seemed to look for an escape when they were with other Serpents, so that he wouldn’t have to talk to her. The few times they’d been forced together by a food run or Ruby directing traffic in the house their conversation had been a bit strained. For the life of her, the teen didn’t know what she’d done to cause that kind of reaction from the tall boy. At times he would be doing their usual push and pull, piling on ridiculous nicknames that made fun of her height, and then, he would be frowning angrily down at her and grunting out one-word answers to her eager questions. Ruby was definitely miffed. But, also, intrigued. She couldn’t help her own curiosity sometimes. She liked things with character, after all.

When the last day of the Serpents working at the house arrived, Ruby was on a mission. She didn’t know if she would see some of the bikers again and she wasn’t sure what kind of a situation she would be facing at school with the younger Serpents. Ruby definitely wasn’t going to be pledging a gang and she’d already heard from numerous sources that South High was very segregated. So, she remembered Mattie’s request and started her work as soon as the bikers arrived.

“Hey, Toni,” Ruby entered the kitchen where the purple haired Serpent had made herself at home with a cup of coffee. “Look good for the camera!” And she snapped a photo as soon as Toni gave a soft smile.

“Am I finally getting a contact picture?” Asked the girl.

“Sure!” And Ruby bounded off with a small wave. She’d already tricked FP and Tall Boy into snapping a photo of them, which they’d laughed off. Now, she had an image of the Serpent King and his second in command standing side by side at their bikes, looking quite intimidating. Next, she needed Gorgon, Fangs and the dreaded Sweet Pea. She was honestly fearing the last name on her list. With the quicksilver temper he had, her phone had a fifty percent chance of flying out a window or something. Gorgonhead was easy enough, the teen eager to make a scary face and point at the camera like Uncle Sam.

“Fangs,” Ruby addressed the boy, sneaking up behind him as he was attempting to open a drawer of an old wardrobe. “I’d offer my advice on that,” she pointed to his current problem. “but telling a demolitionist how to do his job is destructive criticism.” There was a moment of silence before the two completely lost it. Ruby took the chance to snap a quick picture of Fangs trying to gather himself in front of the tall antique wardrobe.

“Oh, man,” the biker didn’t even notice. “How am I going to live without you when the job’s done?” He asked, shaking his head.

“You can always text me and we can hang out?” Ruby helpfully supplied. She saw Fangs’ eyes go to the side, avoiding her gaze. That was a telltale sign that something was wrong. But, when he just shrugged and nodded, Ruby decided to give him some time and space to figure it out. “C’mon, give me your phone,” the girl asked and Fangs obliged. “Here, text me whenever so I have your contact, too.” She smiled at him and bounded off, looking for a certain tall biker. The short teen didn’t see the way Fangs’ eyes stayed on her back until it vanished behind a corner, almost sad.

Sweet Pea was glad to get out of the Wolfe house. It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with the home in any way. He just didn’t think that he could stand Ruby being around him any longer. In the short few weeks, which seemed like months to him, Sweet Pea had worked beside her on numerous items in her new home. She’d been nothing but kind to him, he had to admit. Nothing but nice. However, a single glance at her clothing, the house which surrounded them and the items they were carrying out had Sweet Pea’s vision going red and his brain muddled with anger.

Ruby Wolfe was nice enough, sure. But, regardless of her personality she was a rich Northsider in the end. While she might be slumming it down with the bikers who were working on her property during summer vacation, Sweet Pea knew how their little ‘friendship’ would end. She’d shown him that by repeatedly ditching cleanup in order to hang out with her little Northside boy-toy. As soon as Ruby started school at Riverdale High, she would become one of those girls. Head held high, daddy buying her expensive things and occasionally wandering over to Southside for a thrill. She’d forget that Toni had put hours into helping her pick things out for her room. She wouldn’t remember that Fangs had lent her a hand in carrying almost all of her belongings upstairs while exchanging jokes. She certainly wouldn’t recall him driving her for a food run on his bike in the afternoon. Sweet Pea reminded himself a number of times that Ruby was a privileged kid. It was best not to form any kind of attachment. Except maybe to her dog. He could be attached to Chili all he wanted, because the pooch was a wonder.

On the last day of their work at the Wolfe house Sweet Pea’s suspicions were confirmed, though. With an eager look on her face, Ruby had told all the bikers how they could take whatever item they wanted from the maybe or discarded pile, like some kind of a charity dump. He didn’t need her charity, much less her trash. Sweet Pea hadn’t taken a single thing from the Wolfe house, despite eyeing a couple of old bike parts from the garage longingly. Instead, his temper had flared and he’d sat on his bike, listening to Fangs and Toni talking excitedly about repurposing some of the items and restoring others.

It wasn’t that Sweet Pea didn’t like doing that. In fact, he’d always been good at fixing things. As a young boy he’d helped his father with numerous old bikes and cars. Then, he’d somehow gotten roped into a number of DIY projects by Toni. She’d been surprised at how good he was with his hands and sworn to secrecy by Sweet Pea with a menacing threat of bodily harm. To that day he still enjoyed working on old things. There was just something about working on an old carburetor that made his fiery temper cool down. He could spend hours playing with a piece, figuring out what exactly was wrong and tailoring odd parts in order to get it back into action. However, Sweet Pea was above charity from a rich Northsider. He wouldn’t take a single thing.

He got pissed when he saw Toni restoring an old lamp Ruby had personally given her, despite wanting it for herself according to the purple-haired girl. It was an antique which looked pretty darn good when the female Serpent was done painting it with glassware-friendly substances. It now sat on her school desk at her trailer, a constant reminder for Sweet Pea of the dump it had been taken from. Fangs, on the other hand, hadn’t said no to acquiring a new kitchen table for his abuela, calling it the score of the summer. Sweet Pea had stopped going to his place for dinner, the telltale dark wood of the charity item making his blood pressure skyrocket. He wouldn’t be a pity case for some rich Northsider.

Yet, Sweet Pea still hadn’t gotten rid of the small piece of paper with a few digits on it. He had found it in the pocket of his denim vest with the Serpents logo on the back when he’d been checking the contents before putting it in the washer. Apparently, Ruby had managed to slip the small note with her number on it and a message to ring her sometime at some point. It wasn’t that Sweet Pea hadn’t tried to get rid of it. In fact, he’d tossed it in the trash bin in his kitchen a number of times, only to fish it out later. Now, it sat in his math book, a thing he’d gotten from one of the Serpents’ juniors for his sophomore year at South High. Frankly, Sweet Pea didn’t know what to do with the number. Or, if he wanted to do anything with it.

Days passed rather quickly for Ruby. Before she even knew it, her father was pulling into their driveway with a whole bunch of fireworks in the back of their old Mustang, singing a happy tune. One would think that, being a former army man, he wouldn’t enjoy the 4th of July. However, ever since Ruby was aware of herself, Jo became utterly giddy during the holiday. He bought so many fireworks that they barely managed to set them all off in their backyard during the night. True enough, he jumped whenever someone else used their own colorful ammunition, his hand flying to his side, where his gun used to be. Yet, he still set up his own arsenal and set it off with complete glee.

“Are we going to war?” Ruby asked, leaning in the doorway and watching her father jump around the car, deciding which monstrosity to take out first. He looked up at her and smiled wide.

“Oh, we’re going to war, honey,” Jo shot back. “I’m going to announce to the whole town that I’m back in my all former glory.” Ruby shook her head, but walked down the front steps regardless, Chili following. He eagerly rushed to the car, sniffing and trying to see if anything inside was meant for him. Jo took out a ball from the front seat, showed it to the eager dog and then chucked it as far as he could towards Fox Forest. Chili tore after it, wheezing in happiness.

“You’ve unleashed the monster.” Ruby chuckled, grabbing one box of fireworks and taking it to the porch.

“He likes it and we both know it.” Jo retaliated, carrying his own load of colorful tubes.

“You’re an unleashed monster, as well.” His daughter shot back with a grin.

“Says the girl who scared all the kids away from our building on Halloween.” So, Ruby went a little crazy on Halloween. So what? It was normal to do so. It was completely normal to scare kids during the holiday. It wasn’t her fault that the youngest ones couldn’t take it and ran back to their mothers, crying. It wasn’t her fault that the others were cowards and couldn’t pass her maze of horror doom and get to the good candy.

“They were spineless,” Ruby grumbled. “You’re supposed to scare them on Halloween.” Jo sighed as they continued to carry fireworks to the porch.

“Not enough to cry,” he was using his fatherly voice. “And certainly not enough to make them avoid our home on their second run.”

“Hey, you were happy eating all the candy.” She shot back.

“That I was,” Jo grinned, letting sleeping dogs lie for once. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with my workshop.” And he bounced away with a devilish smirk. Ruby slapped her forehead, knowing that her father wasn’t up to any good.

Ruby’s suspicions were confirmed when Chili started barking like mad, running at the iron gates of their property that afternoon. She poked her head out of the window, seeing the Sheriff’s car parked out front.

“Chili! Be cool!” The girl shouted and rushed down the stairs to greet the policeman. By the time she had the door open, the Sheriff was already walking up the front steps of their porch.

“Ruby, hello,” Tom Keller greeted with a friendly smile. “Is Jo around?” He eyed the pile of fireworks on their porch with a wary look. Ruby had a feeling that she knew what this visit was about.

“He’s in the shop out back,” then, she tried to diffuse the situation. “I swear that they’re all legal.” When the Sheriff gave her a dubious look, Ruby sighed. “He does this every year. I checked all of them, God’s honest truth.”

“Where is this shop exactly?” Sheriff Keller asked. Ruby smiled, waving him over and started leading the way. Chili followed them, his new ball in his mouth, slobbering happily.

“Jo’s secret shack of wonders.” Ruby introduced in a deadpan voice when they reached the small building, similar to a garage, with closed doors and an ominous sound of metal being cut coming from inside.

“God, he hasn’t changed at all.” Sheriff Keller sighed. Then, he pounded on the door with his fist, making them shake.

“He’s worse, if my mom’s stories are anything to go by,” Ruby laughed. “I’ll leave you to it. If you’d like coffee after that, I’ll be at the house.” She tossed over her shoulder. The last thing she heard before calling Chili to come back with her was the Sheriff asking her father if he was mad. Ruby could answer that question without thinking. Yes, on the 4th of July her father was quite mad.

Ruby had texted Toni first, asking if the girl had any plans for the holiday. And, she’d gotten a quick reply, as always, saying how the purple haired Serpent was planning on setting off some fireworks down at the quarry with the guys. Regardless, Ruby invited her over if she wanted to hang out later. Toni didn’t make any promises, saying that the guys usually brought booze and stayed the night at the quarry, not being sober enough to ride until morning. For some reason, the image of Fangs, Toni and Sweet Pea drunk got Ruby giggling.

Next, the girl texted Archie and the new contact in her phone, Jughead. The former never replied, but the latter told her that he could come over if she wanted to pick him up at Pop’s, because he was on foot and the Wolfe house was on the other side of the town. Ruby readily agreed, after yelling to Jo that she was having a friend over for the evening. The man offered only a muffled agreement from his workshop, hammering stopping for a second. So, Ruby grabbed the keys to the Mustang and allowed Chili to hop into the front seat.

Entering Pop’s reminded her of all the times she’d gone there with Sweet Pea. She had to open the door herself this time, after all. The teen easily found Jughead on the far left of the small diner, sitting with his laptop open. And, instantly, her memory clicked into place.

“I remember where I know that beanie from!” Ruby exclaimed, sliding into the seat on the other side of Jughead without a proper greeting. He looked over the top of the laptop, face illuminated by the light of his screen.

“Hello to you, too,” he sarcastically remarked. “Wait, you know my beanie from somewhere?”

“Yeah, I came here with one of the guys working on our house,” Ruby chose to leave Sweet Pea’s name out of the whole mess. She’d gotten the feeling that Jughead wasn’t a big fan of the biker gang. “I remember thinking that it’s a cool beanie when I saw you sitting here.” She laughed, shaking her head.

“Oh, um,” the boy was as awkward as always. “If you say so.” He replied with a small shrug. Ruby nodded.

“Super cool,” she told him. “Dad and I were gonna get some burgers for dinner, have you already eaten?”

“Do you really need to ask me if I want food?” Jughead laughed, finally in his element.

“Silly me.” Ruby hopped up, waving off his offer to pay for dinner. She just asked him what he wanted and went to the counter to order takeaway.

That’s all for now folks!

How did you guys enjoy the premiere? I found Archie’s car totally bitchin’ and I’m a bit sad about the dog abuse (Poor Hot Dog and poor Vegas!)

Here if the taglist (still open):  @enticinghell@projectcampbell@sweetscamille@xoxodege@mlvgren@this-is-the-way-it-ends @yerawizardharry99  @dinglemember

And, you can find the other chapters and my other work by visiting this Masterlist.

Let me know how you liked it!

[beatcroc]

ok so for once i’m gonna ramble about skullgirls in the tag where people might actually care so here we go

one of the first things that’s rightfully praised about skullgirls is how much personality there is in its character animations, but even the old concept sheets are worth a hell of a lot of commentary and carry a pretty impressive amount of insight to those that went unused [and largely overlooked], so i’m gonna have some fun and see how much extrapolation i can do for a few of them.  [all images taken from the official skullgirls and/or alex ahad’s tumblr]

first up: feng! feng had a relatively high amount of concepts done so she was fun to look at

feng’s movments are, in a word, fluid, and focus on carrying  several distinct strikes through one burst of momentum. 

  once she begins a motion, she’s always ready to follow up with another or two without needing to to give herself a new start point, but in the same token she can also land and balance at any moment during these movements. any successive points she launches herself from continues from/adds to the momentum of the previous, but it seems she never lets the inertia hit a point she can't instantly recover from or change the angle of the momentum with ease.  

a side thing that's pretty neat about feng is she almost always has those darn birds balanced somewhere on her, which means more often than not she has two horizontal and relatively stationary points throughout her movements and idles. there's not anything particularly telling about this, but it does lend itself to a lot of neat poses :b i guess it would imply she’s been preforming with them for quite awhile though...

as an acrobat, feng’s focus is on grace much moreso than power.  she's not a fighter by profession, but she certainly knows how to put her skills to use in combat [and will readily do so!] i wouldn't guess she's used to fighting a specific kind of opponent to have adapted to, or really even had much deliberate fight training, but some of her concepts seem to have a bit of traditional martial arts moments thrown in, so her fighting prowess may be self-taught, perhaps to accentuate movements in her performance. i'm not knowledgeable enough to know which style, exactly, but it's very reminiscent of air [rotational movements, ease of directional momentum shift] and firebending[dynamic kicks and stance changes] movements in atla.

now i don’t actually know anything about fighter meta or how to build a solid character, but were she in the game, she’d definitely be one of those characters that does shit for damage, but can combo to hell and back. she’s maneuverable and you’re toast if she gets to you, but she might also be easier to punish and have few options when it comes to ranged attacks.

next up, black dhalia

dhalia is really interesting because her sketches seem to to focus on snapping from one extreme to another

a mysteriously concealed stance to a swift sudden burst, dhalia’s posture is solid but poised; she’s always ready to spring to action and strike in any direction at a moment’s notice, and when she does she has TON of flair in it. black dhalia knows she’s good at what she does, and she knows she looks damn good doing it.

she also seems to have a knack for following up an initial action/hit with something bizarre out of nowhere that requires no further exertion from her than to hold whatever pose she just struck. she doesn’t usually put too much into any one hit; to get the job done she leans more into her ability to produce something damaging from pretty much any angle or stance. not one to be easily cornered or duped.

as an seasoned assassin, i imagine she's used to taking down targets with a great deal of variety in their strengths and weaknesses.[the medici certainly have many enemies and grudges, so those on their hitlist likely fall all over the place in terms of uh... competence]. she’s ready for anything. if given advantage, she waits to assess an opponent;concealed so as to not betray her plans to the target, and then delivers a precise, decisive blow. if ambushed or outnumbered, she looks to keep opponents at bay with her variety of gun...weaponry. dhalia seems most lethal at close range, but she has the tools and stamina to win a ranged game too.

In practice it looks like she'd thrive on unpredictability, plenty of moves that come out from the same pose super quickly, with slightly above-average power. not the fastest in movement or cooldown, but plenty of versatility to compensate.

on the third hand, we have annie, who is is…amusingly straightforward in all her attacks. 

annie’s pretty much the polar opposite of feng. she uses huge sweeps, fully exerting herself into singular concentrated strikes that are all about getting as much power as possible behind one motion. there is no stopping this girl’s momentum.

like dhalia, annie has a solid stance--but hers is for sturdiness, not surprise; for bracing and anchoring moves that have a lot of kick to them.

it’s hard to say exactly how much involvement sagan would have in her full spectrum moves, but in these examples whenever she uses him, it’s always a... fairly detached thing? like, when annie attacks, it’s either with the cleaver, or with sagan, and there’s not much overlap or synergy between the types of moves.  not that there’s any reason there should be; she utilizes both perfectly well on their own. the cleaver is also interesting because while she can, and often does wield it one-handed, it’s still got enough weight behind it to merit two-handed swings, though she seems to do dual-handed more if there’s some kind of effect along  the swing, like in Crescent Cut and North Sword.                                     

as a self-made skullgirl killer, annie’s targets have probably mostly been very durable and very powerful, but not incredibly mobile. to counter them, she looks to end battles as quickly as possible with defense-shattering strikes or blasts, while using her own mobility to stay out of harm’s way. float like a butterfly, hit like a truck i guess. 

despite also being an actor, annie has practically no deliberate visual flair to her movements [luckily for her, her sparkliness is part of the attack’s functionality so it doesn’t matter much if she’s actually trying to look cool and flashy, it happens regardless :b]. she has a lot of fights under her belt and takes this whole thing pretty seriously.

In practice I can see her being an agile hard-hitter, but slower to start and end moves than average, with relatively low combo potential. pretty balanced with options in terms of ranged/close combat

lastly, umbrella. she lacks a distinct fighting style so i have less to say about that, but honestly the sheer wildness of her concepts merits bringing her up.

her “stance” and lack of cohesion in attacks are at least indicative of one thing though: it’s clear she’s pretty much just a normal carefree little kid who hasn’t yet gotten any real fighting experience or training.

but even if she doesn't know much about combat, she does know about hungern, and how to utilize its, uh... odd capabilities [even if it’s... not always a very dignified use of them.]

like, i feel like these aren’t things a kid would immediately think a weird umbrella would be capable of doing, let alone pick up on how to do them. she’s had to have done some experimentation with it over the years to find out this kind of stuff. had someone taught her, i’m sure she would know a more skillful way to make hungern do its thing than literally just flopping down on top of it [but hey maybe it’s just fun :b] we know krieg is a renoir heirloom, so it might not be a stretch to say hungern was too, and if so it’s safe to say umbrella’s probably had it as long as she can remember, and she seems to have it with her basically at all times. she does seem to enjoy having and using it, though i’d guess she doesn’t  get much opportunity to really ‘unleash’ hungern like this, being sheltered and all.

anyway all that said, i think really the only thing preventing umbrella from being a true force to be reckoned with in-universe is some disciplne. not in the sense that sh’s a bad kid [though she certainly isn’t...exemplar either]; she’s got the willingness to learn and a good bit of know-how, she just need some structure behind it and practice applying what she knows to real situations.

in terms of gameplay...man. i dunno. lotta weird moves, looks like a lot of huge hitboxes that would make her a pain to get to without risk to yourself, though aside from that she’d be average in all ways i guess.

i’m still trying to wrap my head around venus and illeum’s sheets, among others... but there may be a few other posts like this coming ‘cause i love doing this shit; if you wanna see me do a particular [both used or unused!] hmu, i’d be down ;y