#and don't get me started on Miracle

[fioras-resolve]

Hey. Hey hey hey. I need to rant about one specific Fire Emblem skill that's been bothering me for years.

So you know Vengeance, right? It was introduced in Awakening, and it's been around in some form in every FE game since. For those who don't know or don't remember, Vengeance deals damage proportional to HP lost, so the lower your current health, the more damage you deal.

To be clear, I think this is a really cool idea. It's a risk-reward skill, and it means you can intentionally lower your health to potentially deal massive damage. This is the main reason Bernadetta can be so potent in Three Houses. I think, if this skill is done right, it's a really cool piece of game design, and a really sick strategy.

The issue comes with how this effect is activated. To be clear, I think that Vengeance should be extremely consistent. You're already taking the risk of staying at low health. It should be paid off accordingly. If this were a random effect, same as Astra, it wouldn't be worth using.

Some FE games agree with me on this. Echoes and Three Houses both make it a combat art, meaning you choose to activate it at the cost of either HP or weapon durability. The game that introduced the skill, Awakening, makes the skill randomly activate with each attack, with a (Skill * 2)% chance each time. However, because you can get your Skill stat above 50 with a combination of grinding and in-battle stat boosts, you can make the skill activate 100% of the time. This fits right in with Awakening's core gameplay of building up ultra-powerful killing machines.

Some games, however, don't see eye-to-eye with me, and feel the need to nerf this skill in some way or another. Fates, for example, gives Vengeance a (Skill * 1.5)% activation rate, and also makes maximum stats a lot lower generally. It's weak enough that it makes me wonder why the skill is still there. Like, I get that it still pairs well with Nosferatu, because with a draining attack you're gonna be recovering that health anyway. But it feels like just one of many design changes that Fates makes because it wants to be "balanced" at the expense of letting you do cool shit. Like, remember what it did to Javelins? Fucked up.

Also Engage has no excuse, it's an even lower activation rate, on a character with a weakness to a very common weapon, in a game where you can only use Nosferatu under very specific circumstances. And like, Engage isn't afraid to let the player feel powerful. That's what the Engage system is for. Very weird skill all around.

[lady-corrine]

Thinking again about how Suzanne esentially subverted the "beloved famous man that is actually a horrible person in real life" with Finnick, who is the complete opposite of that.

Finnick has this whole image costructed around him by the people that abused him for years: the Capitol's darling, their golden boy, the sex symbol of Panem, the man that has countless lovers but leaves them constantly and doesn't look back etc. And you would expect, initially, to meet a man that retains at least a part of that persona in his day to day life. But Finnick doesn't, not even one bit.

You see instead a man that is deeply in love and completely devoted to the one woman he quite literally adores, a man that protects Mags, his old mentor and his mother figure, as much as he can, a man that wouldn't leave Johanna behind, a man that gathers whatever strenght he has left to speak publicly about the abuse inflicted upon him at the government's hands; the opposite of what the Capitol's media and reputation made him out to be.

[cosmicdreamgrl]

hyung line x mots on:e concept photobook shooting sketch for @epiphanytear ❤️

[ryllen]

by some extreme luck (which is, having a very competent co-worker) horrorboros & cohozuna managed to be taken down in a triumvirate session

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

every time i rewatch the miracle aligner music video i am just flabbergasted. FLABBERGASTED. like. they really chose to make it like THAT. and by 'like THAT' i am specifically referring to:

1) “an attempt to extract the truth... approximately" *cue rosepetals and intense eye contact*

2) THIS being the opening shot of the two of them

3) miles legitimately spending the first minute of the entire video blatantly checking alex out

4) literal rainbow lighting around them

5) endless hand holding and twirling

6) that moment where miles's hand reaches ever so reflexively for alex's neck

7) the fucking closing scene?????????

[racke7]

It kind of occurred to me today that this:

is kind of... awkward.

See, as anyone with chronic-pain will tell you, your "daily activities" will warp around your pain.

Where instead of doing things "the normal way" you've figured out some kind of mostly-painless workaround, and so you don't even have to worry about it.

And then it's also difficult to say what amounts to "most" or "many" or "some". Is there a set list of things you need to be able to do? In today's world, plenty of people go from bed to computer to bed, never even needing to leave their apartment. How does that translate?

Not to mention what "all the time" really means. Does it only care about the worst days if you have something that flares up? Does it only care if it hurts even when you stop an activity?

And how come "talking / listening" is so high up? What if your brain decides to go non-verbal from just paper-cuts? What would be the appropriate "loss of function"-comparison in that case?

Basically? There's a lot of empty holes and abstractness muddling everything, even in this seemingly incredibly useful example.

I remember someone saying "your worst day - with no meds/tools", but what if that worst day only happens a few times a year?

It's complicated, is what I'm saying. And whilst this description is definitely useful, I wouldn't take it as gospel.

In fact, you might be better off ignoring your doctor when they start asking about "numbers" and just explain how the pain effects you.

"On a scale of 1-10" "I'll wake up in the middle of the night, nearly unable to move from the pain, and then desperately claw my way out of my bed. I'll then spend around two hours sitting up and letting my body recover, before being so tired that it outweighs the pain, and I can crawl back into bed for another few hours of sleep. At which point I'll wake up in pain again. During the day, I struggle to turn around or bend over."

They might not like this, and they might interpret the "number" in their own ways (which might screw you over), but at that point it's more about them being shit than you failing to describe things.

Obviously though, I'm not a medical professional and shouldn't be giving medical-advice. I'm just saying that 1-10 is so fucking arbitrary that I don't feel like you can give the "correct" answer, no matter how much thought you put into it.

[moe-broey]

IMMEDIATELY REPOSTING THIS BC THIS IS A DREAM COME TRUE FOR ME. ALFONSE CÉLINE FRIENDSHIP REAL. TO ME‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[2well2water]

i'm going to be alone forever oh my god. band of horses voice: NO ONE'S GONNA LOVE YOU.

[hannie-dul-set]

slams a fist on the desk.

[keeps-ache]

wink blink look !!

[gingerbreadmonsters]

its so important to me that you know how much ive already cried over this wip and its literally only been two days

[evilkitten3]

first this game makes me face konan for jiraiya's sake, then that old fuck sends me to fight a guy with the rinnegan. at least nagato calls him out on that... what the hell, dude

[echthr0s]

weird mood of the day: having one (1) cup of coffee and experiencing what you suddenly realise is what it must be like to have a regulated nervous system

[moinsbienquekaworu]

Translated almost 4k words today 🎉🎉

[airs-headspace]

I want to ask my friends very deep and substantial questions because all of my friendships feel so superficial (on my end specifically) right now and I want them to be deeper.

[sortanonymous]

I know expecting Congress to get anything right these days is like expecting to see a triple rainbow in the Arctic, but if we could just get sticky, scratchy, awful cardboard sleeves for physical media discs illegalized, that would just be lovely!