#and getting the highest scores I could get (almost all of them in the 9 spectrum)

[reginrokkr]

Once I'm done with this week's exams on Thursday, it'll be over for you 🔪 (gently).

[wyllzel]

🔗 Link to Google Doc.

AKA my variant of u/Victorvnv’s guide, The Terminator Bard build (r/BG3Builds).

This is how I’ve built Minthara for a Tactician playthrough! While this isn’t thematic at all for a character who’s supposed to be a Paladin, the Bard with a Machine Gun is a high DPR (>200!), powerful build – and we all know how Minthara feels about power, haha.

The goal of the Bard With a Machine Gun (8 Bard / 4 Fighter) is to get up close to enemies and shoot them in the face. 💥 The focus for this guide is on leveling, feats, and gear. This build wants to deliver maximum Piercing Damage via a melee Heavy Crossbow: 

Your Bard should be in melee to take advantage of the Bhaalist Armor’s Aura of Murder.

Heavy Crossbows are the Piercing Damage-type weapon with the highest Damage Dice (1d10). Also, they feel cool.

The Bard With a Machine Gun comes online in Act 3, but can perform well enough to keep up with Act 1 and Act 2.

This guide assumes that the Bard is Minthara, but this build can work with any one of your party members. No illithid powers are necessary.

(Fair warning: Possible spoilers ahead!)

Leveling

Please note that this guide is really just my personal preference! I recommend reading through the Wiki page on BG3’s Bard and Fighter classes so you get a good idea of how this multiclass synergizes. In this guide, I’ve added a star (⭐) next to each of the class features or spells that I especially like.

To start with, I’ll recommend these base stats:

In the early game (Act 1), it’s a good idea to keep Minthara's Dexterity and Charisma Ability Scores up. Dexterity affects Minthara’s effectiveness with weaponry, and Charisma affects her spellcasting ability.

However, note that Minthara won’t be casting a lot of spells. Because she’ll be using her crossbow most (if not all) of the time, she should take Bardic support spells that don’t rely on high Charisma (eg. Longstrider, Enhance Ability). I recommend focusing on Minthara as a martial who may occasionally rely on spells, rather than trying to run this multiclass as primarily a caster.

Because of this, I also recommend focusing on “martial-leaning” Skills that Minthara will make good use of on the battlefield. For example, I like to bolster her Acrobatics and Stealth.

📝 If you’re okay with respeccing… When I reached the githyanki crèche at the Rosymorn Monastery, I acquired the Gloves of Dexterity for Minthara so that I could dump her Dexterity score and take the Sharpshooter Feat instead of an ASI (for her Level 4 feat). However, I swapped the Gloves of Dexterity for the Legacy of the Masters gloves in Act 3, and respec’d Minthara to set her base Dexterity back to 16. I did this to improve her Attack Roll Bonus. By the time your party reaches Level 9, Minthara's base Attack Roll Bonus (without accounting for other gear and features) would be calculated as follows: - Gloves of Dexterity (sets DEX to 18): +8 = +4 (18 DEX) +4 (Proficiency Bonus) - Legacy of the Masters and 16 DEX: +9 = +2 (LotM) +3 (16 DEX) +4 (Proficiency Bonus) However, doing a respec around the Gloves of Dexterity may feel a bit convoluted. The following leveling guide will still give you an adequate build that becomes great in Act 3.

Because Minthara won’t really be using her spells, I will abstain from making any "must-take" spell recommendations. The following is an abbreviated example of her level progression.

Level 1 (Bard 1)

3 Bardic Inspiration charges (1d6) (Recharge on Long Rest)

Recommended cantrips: Mage Hand, Minor Illusion

Recommended spells: Healing Word, Longstrider, Sleep, Bane

Level 2 (Bard 2)

Recommended spell: Thunderwave

Level 3 (Bard 3)

Recommended spell: Enhance Ability

Select Subclass: College of Swords ⭐

Defensive Flourish (Melee/Ranged), Slashing Flourish (Melee/Ranged), Mobile Flourish (Melee/Ranged)

Fighting Style: Dueling

Minthara will almost always use Slashing Flourish (Ranged) while in combat. Slashing Flourish (Ranged) allows your Bard to make two Ranged Attacks at once, and adds a Damage Dice per Attack.

Once Minthara gains Extra Attack (Level 6), by using Slashing Flourishes, she can make up to four improved Ranged Attacks per round of combat. This gives the build that “Machine Gun” flavoring.

Level 4 (Bard 4)

Recommended cantrip: Vicious Mockery

Recommended spell: Invisibility

Select:

Feat: Sharpshooter ⭐

Level 5 (Bard 5)

4 Bardic Inspiration charges (Recharge on Short Rest)

Improved Bardic Inspiration (1d8)

Recommended spell: Plant Growth

Level 6 (Bard 6)

Extra Attack (College of Swords)

Countercharm

Recommended spell: Calm Emotions

Level 7 (Fighter 1)

Second Wind

Fighting Style: Archery ⭐

Level 8 (Fighter 2)

Action Surge

Level 9 (Bard 7)

Recommended spell: Dimension Door

Level 10 (Bard 8)

5 Bardic Inspiration charges

Recommended spell: Knock

Select:

Feat: Crossbow Expert ⭐

This feat lets Minthara use her crossbow to full effect while in melee combat.

Level 11 (Fighter 3)

Select Subclass: Champion ⭐

Improved Critical Hit

Level 12 (Fighter 4)

Select:

Feat: ASI (+2 DEX) ⭐

Final Composition

By Level 12, Minthara will have the following notable qualities:

Feats: Sharpshooter, Crossbow Expert

Gear

Fighting Styles: Dueling, Archery

Improved Bardic Inspiration (1d8)

Improved Critical Hit (19-20)

The goal of this gear selection is to maximize Piercing Damage.

Headwear: Helmet of Arcane Acuity

Battle Acuity: Whenever you deal damage with a weapon attack, you gain Arcane Acuity for 2 turns.

Dexterity saving throws +1

Because Minthara’s Spellcasting DC is going to be naturally low (16 CHA), this helmet allows her to build up Arcane Acuity from making weapons attacks. Therefore, if combat requires her spellcasting abilities, she’ll have a better chance of succeeding. As such, especially in Act 3, it may be a good idea for Minthara to hold onto Hold Monster scrolls.

I like keeping this helmet on my gish out of habit, but Minthara is foremost a martial. A good alternative headwear is the Marksmanship Hat.

Armor: Bhaalist Armor

Aura of Murder: Enemies within 2 m / 6.5 ft become Vulnerable to Piercing Damage, unless they are Resistant or Immune to it. ⭐

Ambusher: Gain a +2 bonus to Initiative Rolls.

AC 14 + DEX modifier

Aura of Murder doubles all of the Piercing Damage that Minthara does while in melee combat. This passive is why the build requires the Crossbow Expert Feat, which allows you to effectively use your crossbow while in melee.

Cloak: Vivacious Cloak

Arcane Vivaciousness: Gain 8 temporary HP for four turns after casting a spell while in melee.

Minthara is, technically, a caster (Bard). While she won’t be casting often, 8 HP can be a gamechanger.

Handwear: Legacy of the Masters

Arming Enhancement: Gain a +2 Bonus to Attack Rolls and Damage Rolls with weapons. ⭐

Strength saving throws +1

The +2 to Attack Rolls helps offset the Attack Roll penalty from the Sharpshooter feat.

Footwear: Boots of Brilliance

Restore Bardic Inspiration: Play your instrument to restore one of your Bardic Inspiration slots. (Recharge: Long Rest.)

Minthara may run out of Bardic Inspiration fairly quickly. These boots and the Wondrous Gloves increase Bardic Inspiration.

I also like the Disintegrating Night Walkers on Minthara - especially since these are drowish boots!

Amulet: Amulet of the Harpers

Advantage on Wisdom saving throws.

Shield: Cast as a level 1 spell. (Recharge: Long Rest.)

The Advantage on Wisdom saving throws (used against spells like Hold Person) offsets the Risky Ring, which is recommended below.

Alternatively, the Amulet of Misty Step can help Minthara with positioning.

Ring A: Crusher’s Ring

Movement Speed increased by 3m / 10ft.

Minthara needs mobility to ensure that she’s close enough to her enemies (for Aura of Murder).

Ring B: Risky Ring

Risky Attack: You gain Advantage on Attack Rolls and receive Disadvantage on Saving Throws.

The Advantage that this ring grants should help offset the -5 to Attack Rolls from the Sharpshooter Feat.

Melee Main Hand: Phalar Aluve

Performance +1

Phalar Aluve: Melody: The sword hums in anticipation, ready to Sing or Shriek. Effect ends when Phalar Aluve is unequipped.

Versatile

Melee Off Hand: Sentinel Shield

Minthara won’t be using her melee weapon much, if at all. Therefore, it’s more useful for her melee weapon to be a buffer (ie., Melody: Shriek).

Phalar Aluve is also nice in that it's a longsword with the versatile tag – meaning it can be wielded based off DEX rather than STR!

Heightened Awareness: Gain a +3 bonus to Initiative rolls and Advantage on Perception checks.

Shield Bash: When a foe hits you with a melee attack, you can use your Reaction to knock them Prone unless they succeed a DEX saving throw.

AC +2

Any shield here works, I just recommend Sentinel Shield for the +3 to Initiative.

Ranged Main Hand: Hellfire Engine Crossbow

Lightning Arrow: Cast as a Level 4 spell. (Recharge: Long Rest.)

Piercing Shot: Shoot a foe in the chest and possibly inflict Gaping Wounds. Undead and Constructs can't suffer Gaping Wounds.

Brace (Ranged): Spend 6 m / 20 ft of your movement. For the rest of your turn, roll Ranged Damage twice and use the highest result.

Reposition Malefactor: Pulls the creature 9 m / 30 ft closer to you if it fails a DC 15 DEX saving throw.

This is Minthara’s primary weapon, so you definitely want to give her the most badass Heavy Crossbow you can find. >:) An alternative is Gortash’s Fabricated Arbalest!

Ranged Off Hand: N/A

Number Crunching

The following table should give you an idea of how Minthara performs on the battlefield as a result of her gear synergy. This table assumes that Minthara is Level 12.

(The (A) means that Minthara is attacking with Advantage (Risky Ring).)

Since Minthara has Extra Attack (College of Swords, Lvl. 6), she can do up to 160-288 DPR for an average of ~224 DPR. Additionally, Minthara has a higher chance of landing a Critical Hit (19%) – which can significantly increase her DPR.

On a Critical Hit: 19% Chance

Note that Minthara is essentially making four Attacks per round (two Slashing Flourishes, where each Flourish is two Attacks).

Conclusion

This concludes my version of the Terminator Bard, which I call “Bard With a Machine Gun”! A melee fighter that takes advantage of ranged weaponry/feats is a really interesting concept, and is a lot of fun to play since it feels different from your standard hack-and-slash melee martial.

As always, there are probably ways to get your Bard even more optimized – but an average of >200 DPR is more than enough for me!

Another way to make this build interesting is to run your Bard as a dual Hand Crossbow wielder (rather than Heavy Crossbow). To do so, you should take the Two-Weapon Fighting Fighting Style at Level 3 (College of Swords Bard). Recommended Hand Crossbows are the Hellfire Hand Crossbow and a Hand Crossbow +2.

Thanks for reading, and hope this gave you some ideas for your Bard-based builds! :)

[xerith-42]

Redesign the Nine

[This post is very long. Just a heads up.]

I'm a member of the Jury of Redesign, proud member of fleshing out previously left to rot or forgotten content. It's a hobby. A passion. I have and will continue to go into entire novellas to describe the inter personal relationships of characters we know next to nothing about, but what about characters we know literally nothing about?

We know only 6 members of the total 9 that belong to the Jury. Technically seven if you include Garroth, but that last for like twelve seconds, that doesn't count. And one of them is only made known as a member in Rebirth (which I really like and I like Rebirth). That means there's three entire characters just waiting to happen! How have I never thought of this before?!

This idea really struck me when I was looking at the Jo9 wiki page and saw this comment

The rest of the comment goes on to their whole theory about Ein killing Blaze, but I am mostly against the idea of killing Blaze because nobody ever gives it enough story significance, weight, and meaning. Only I get to kill Blaze, you all lost your privileges.

That's not what's important though. What's important is that I actually love Teony and Ein. I think they're some of the most wasted Aphverse characters, and that's saying something considering how I literally never shut up about Blaze. So let's flesh them out in a... different setting.

Teony

I imagine Teony being in a very similar situation to Katelyn and Jeffory. She has someone she deeply cares about that Zane knows about and is threatening to put in danger. For Jeffory and Katelyn, it was family. For Teony, it's similar, but just a slight flavor different. A gay flavor different.

Teony belongs to a high ranking noble family in O'Khasis, like one step below the Ro'meave family. Originally the plan was for her to be married off to one of the Ro'meave heirs (probably Zane), but then she did something weird. She uhh... She started training to be a guard. And got strong enough fast enough that nobody could really stop her because Teony would just challenge them to a round of armed combat about it despite being literally 12.

So she was allowed to go to guard academy and go through full training. She was never going to be a lord, and she could still easily join the Jury and serve the same purpose with less arranged marriage. Also if they tried to arrange Teony into a marriage she might just pull a sword on them about it. She learned very quickly that her parents wouldn't be allowed to abuse or control her if they feared her. Caused a different kind of trauma compared to the other children of nobles.

And then she found out she was gay. While she was at the academy the person who was writing the Jury recruitment list was the newest member of the Jury herself; Ivy the Venom Scythe. Teony fell in unending sapphic love from first sight. Even if she had become wise to her parents controlling nature in search of power, she still respected and revered the Ro'meave family, and the Jury of Nine. She was set up for it, and she wanted that. And now that she was finally experiencing love for a member of the Jury of Nine.

As always, things in Teony's life were set up for perfection. And she was such an overachiever, are you kidding me? Top ranks in all her classes even though she didn't need to. She would half ass it sometimes and still get the highest scores on every test. When she put her all into something, there wasn't any competition. She was just showing off for Ivy, and she did not hide that in the slightest. Ivy was fully aware that Teony was not only showing off, she knew that Teony was in love, or at least lust with her. Teony is not subtle at all, it's just not a concept to her yet.

On the last day of her training at the academy, Zane Ro'meave himself shows up. I imagine Zane and Teony were almost sort of childhood friends. Zane didn't really like having friends, but he and Teony were personable and able to get along when they were forced to spend time together by their parents. He has a sort of fondness for Teony in a "I'll see where you're going with this" sense. He's heard how passionate she is about fighting and being a guard. And he knows it's not for a violent sake, but because of that nobility that is her bloodline and the baseline of her identity as a person.

She may be overzealous, she may be a know-it-all, she may be a show-off, but Teony always fights with honor. She always showers her classmates a great amount of dignity and respect when they fight her. To her combat is an art form, one that she takes very seriously. She won't attack unless provoked, and more often than not will just skip the talking it out phase and just jump to the dueling stage because that's the part she understands best.

She's autistic. That's what I'm saying. Teony is an autistic lesbian. Look at her go! However, Zane is terrible and evil and so is Ivy. When telling him the candidates, he brings up that Teony is a no brainier. Which is when Ivy tells him that Teony is in love with her and was fighting to earn her attention. She willingly threw away some of her nobility in the name of love. Which means she can do it again if provoked to.

What better way to provoke her than to give it to her and then threaten to take it away? Zane and Ivy literally manipulate Teony, putting her on the Jury, assigning her to work with Ivy, and Ivy starts actively feeding into it in a rather coy way just to drag her along. And right when Teony is ready to fess up, her parents show up at the Ro'meave manner. Teony remembers what they expect of her. That they don't know the truth about her.

She knows beyond a shadow of a doubt they'd disown her. Jury members aren't supposed to have family anyway. For a minute she thinks about outing herself to sever her ties. But then she learns that her mother is pregnant again. She... She has a little sister on the way. And if she cuts ties with her family now, she'll never get to meet her. She doesn't know Zane invited them at first, but when he talks to her later, she pieces it all together.

Zane says he'll let her family live, even let them be known as her family if she wants, but she isn't allowed to be with Ivy in any non-professional manner. Otherwise she'll give herself away, and while he doesn't exactly threaten it, Zane makes it very clear he will out Teony to her parents if she doesn't do as he orders from now until the end of time. It's then that Teony realizes she's trapped. She went from one gilded cage to another.

Until it got to be too much for her. Remember how Jeffory was apparently on the Demon Warlock Island in Gal'ruk? And it was literally never explained. What if he was there to find her? What if it became too much for Teony after meeting her sister, and she ran away? Zane doesn't know what happened when Teony met with her younger sister, but it was enough to shake her that she barely responded to Zane's taunting when she returned. And then she left that night.

Jeffory was sent to follow her trail. And he actually found her before she managed to break the Demon Warlocks curse. On a completely different continent, no guard escorts, and no way that Zane can hear them, they talk openly. They confide in one another. And they work together, as friends, to break the curse and get themselves back home. Teony moves to a different island in Gal'ruk, and tells Jeffory to give Ivy a letter the next time he sees her.

And he's not allowed to let it leave his hands unless it's Ivy taking it. No messengers. No leaving it somewhere she'll find it. Jeffory never learned the contents of that letter, but he did manage to deliver it to Ivy. Only she and Teony knows what's contained in those pages.

(Final note, idk what her funny anime villain name or her weapons would be. I would love council/jury/anyone to give input here. Same for the next member)

Ein

Ein being a big heroic softie is the best thing ever to me you don't understand.

Much like the doll anon, this anon changed my life. I love this idea so much. Listen, I like unrelentingly evil characters, just look at Zane. But that's the thing. Zane's already there. And so is Janus. And Ivy. And probably Lilian. And another character I've yet to get to. And even more characters when we get out of the Jury. We need more innocence that becomes corrupted in the Jury, everyone likes being evil too much.

So I want to make Ein a big ol' softie. He grew up in the Brightport Wolf Tribe with his best friend eventually turned lover Blaze. They mostly stayed within the confines of their tribe, which was small, but spacious enough for two wolf children prone to rough housing to get their energy sufficiently out. It was only when they were older that they started waking up to the... less than ideal circumstances of their relationship.

After being friends and being incredibly close and physically affectionate, when the two started thinking about mating and all that dumb romantic nonsense, it just made sense that they would be with each other in that way too. It's how they got through everything else in life. It was at the ruiner and creator of gay romances, that Irene forsaken Guard Academy that things got... worse.

Because Ein is definitely a very well rounded fighter. He's decently studious, wanting to keep up on speaking both the werewolf language and the more common language, and making sure that Blaze does the same. But Blaze finds these things to be dreadfully boring and doesn't put in more effort than Ein makes him. This is fine when they were kids and their plans weren't more ambitious than protecting their tribe. But their Alpha wanted to see if humans and werewolves could truly get along.

If anyone could prove that werewolves are just as human as they are, it would be these two dorks. But uhh, people are racist. And homophobic. So it doesn't go great. Couple that with the fact that the academy prioritizes individual excellence over collective greatness and suddenly things are just doomed to go wrong for these two. Ein naturally excels, and Blaze who's used to having someone to rely on starts falling behind without the consistent support system.

That was his emotional support nerdy jack of all trades boyfriend! How could you take that away from him? And Ein is stripped of his absolutely pure of heart dumb of ass boyfriend. They don't even get to stay in the same bunks as each other, and barely have any classes together. It's just awful. But Ein finds... something else. After doing particualrly well on a certain test, one of the teachers pulls him aside and tells Ein he might be able to qualify for the Jury of Nine position. Or at least be their bench warmer.

Ein's ambitions in life never went too far beyond the borders of their childhood home. He was the one who always pressured Blaze into going further than they were allowed, but Blaze was easily convinced anyways. But Ein was always an ambitious person. He just didn't know enough about the world to realize them. The highest he'd ever gone was thinking "Wow, it'd be cool to be the Alpha." And like that's it.

Suddenly he's told that if he somehow gets better than he already is he could hold one of the highest positions in the entire fucking continent. It's a no brainier. He has to go for it. He doesn't realize it means he's only being further isolated, pulled away from his few meet ups with Blaze to study, to practice, to do something that only a top student does and a near drop out student doesn't.

In fact the last time they see each other is, like with Teony, the day before the Jury posting for their class. Ein is sure he's on that list. Maybe not the top spot, but defiantly in the top five. Just as he's about to go introduce himself to Zane Ro'meave, try and make a good impression to sweeten his chances, he gets intercepted by Blaze.

Who just hands him a letter. And he whispers a single word under his breath as he's leaving; "Goodbye."

Ein reads the letter immediately, heartbroken to read that Blaze flunked out and is going back home without him. Blaze says he's proud of Ein for being able to go so far, and hopes he gets on the Jury. Ein knows he's lying. He tries to chase after Blaze, to try and make it up to him, but then suddenly Zane's there. He's caught Ein in a dangerously vulnerable moment, and while Ein manages to recover, he never gets the chance to wipe the tears from his eyes.

He never learns what rank he got on the Jury list. Just that he was one of the two who were filling vacant seats from this class. It's painfully bitter sweet. It's everything Ein wanted, but he realized that he never made room for Blaze in these dreams of grandeur. He tried to help Blaze at first, but Blaze eventually rejected his offers. And Ein couldn't even blame him. He'd been ignoring and neglecting the most important relationship in his life. And if Ein keeps going down this path, he realizes he'll destroy it even more.

In spite of that, he accepts the invitation and starts working as a Jury member for Zane. One month into his stay at the Ro'meave Manor as Zane's personal body guard, Zane asks him an odd question. A name he's apparently heard Ein muttering to himself and in his sleep. "Blaze."

Ein tries to say it's nothing, just an old friend he was thinking of reaching out to. That's when Zane makes it clear that Ein has absolutely no control here. Because he saw what happened between them. He asks if this old friend happened to be the one that gave him "that love letter". Ein tries to find it where he keeps it tucked into his armor, but Zane is holding it. He knows everything. And he's known the entire time he's had Ein in the Jury. It was all a test of loyalty.

If he reaches out to Blaze, he will fail. And again, Zane doesn't directly state what the penalty is, but he makes it abundantly clear that it's death for both Ein and Blaze. Ein was always easiest controlled when he was isolated. After this he was only paired up with two members of the Jury Zane trusted enough. Lilian, and the last member of the Jury. We'll get to him in a second.

As a result, Ein desired but never sought freedom. He knew Blaze was capable of a great life, he had a future, and was probably going on incredible adventures without him. He never forgot where he came from, and who he accidentally left behind. When Zane and Lilian disappeared... Ein was set free. His leash was just dropped for the first time. Mr. Mysterious wasn't even there to pick it up.

And he ran straight home.

There's only one threat that's unknowingly standing in the way of Ein's happiness. And his name is

Zachary the Plague

Nobody knows where the title came from. They don't want to. Zachary is one of the oldest members, sometimes referred to as the "shadow member" of the Jury. He's rarely seen, and scarily little is known about him.

And that's because he doesn't directly work for Zane. Unlike the others, who were all put under Zane's command after the other Ro'meave heirs died, Zachary stayed under the command of Garte. He did work for Zane here and there, Garte didn't get out much and was content to leave it all to Zane. And Zachary took a liking to Ein when they met, and when he requested that Ein train under him for some time, Zane wasn't in a position to object.

The only people who would be able to give more insight into Zachary are Garte, Janus, and Ein. Garte won't talk. Ever. Zachary is his most trusted guard, and that is all anyone needs to know. Janus just says they respect Zachary. It says enough given what it's known that Janus values. Ein freezes when he hears the name. Even when he says it.

He's only told Blaze what he knows, and neither one will willingly give up this information. He's a quiet fear in the back of Ein's mind, but Zachary stayed with Garte. Even when Zane disappeared, he stayed with Garte. He was never relieved of his duties officially or unofficially. The reason he abandoned Ein is because Garte told him to. He always followed orders.

It's unknown where he or Garte are now.

[zaptap]

really good run (fastest and highest score actually). by the end pearl was launching inkstrikes almost constantly. my only disappointment is i wasn't able to fill up turf drone gauge. all of the other ones were new though, and i got my first color chip badge!

going into this i knew i'd end up having to do a brush run to get moving ink speed (since it's brush/roller exclusive), and i left rush attack and rush knockback for that run. those three are the only mobility chips left, so i'll try to see if i can get them all in one run (maybe even see if i can get rush attack to 9, even though that's not necessary)

i think i'll save trying for turf drone gauge again for a run where range is at least the secondary common tone (like this one was) but i might continue trying to knock out a drone ability per run (after having previously done killer wail). having only one drone ability slot on means once i get the ability it'll be the only one that shows up, so that makes it fairly easy to find.

maybe after all of that i won't even need to do a drone chip run (and if i get one more drone ability out of the way i wouldn't even need to unlock the last slot hack if i were to try to get all the remaining ones in one run) but it might be fun. i could do it after i finish everything else if that's the case

[miochimochi]

<5% of adults were able to correctly identify all 12. That is, they got a perfect score of 12/12. It's not saying that only <5% were able to differentiate between fact and opinion, but that <5% were able to differentiate or guess correctly all 12 statements provided. This means that >5% got at most 11/12 correct.

Here's the Essay published by Harvard

If you don't want to click, I'll be providing its findings here.

The essayists took the questions they used in a 2019 YouGov survey (of which they did not provide a citation to - yes, they need to cite even themselves, it's an academic essay, this is a failure on their part - and I could not find). The survey isn't asking whether the statement provided is true or not, it's whether it's presented as fact or opinion. The 12 statements are below. The answers for each are only "statement of fact" and "statement of opinion". Write down your answer without looking at the essay and see how many you get

1. Diversity helps make America great

2. Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally have some rights under the Constitution

3. ISIS lost a significant portion of its territory in Iraq and Syria in 2017

4. Immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally are a very big problem for the country today

5. Democracy is the greatest form of government

6. President Barack Obama was born in the United States

7. Health care costs per person in the U.S. are the highest in the developed world

8. Spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid make up the largest portion of the U.S. federal budget

9. Increasing the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour is essential for the health of the U.S. economy

10. Government is almost always wasteful and inefficient

11. The Earth is between 5,000 and 10,000 years old

12. Abortion should be legal in most cases

Scroll down for the answer

...

...

...

...

A bit more

...

...

...

Ready?

Got your answers with you?

Great! The answers are as follows:

Statement of Fact: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 11

Statement of Opinion: 1, 4, 5, 9, 10, 12

I put them in a different order than presented in the essay because the essay had it 1-6 fact and 7-12 opinion, wouldn't have made as fun of a survey then, eh? Lol

The average percentage getting it correct is 59.9% with a range of 26-78% (they wrote 26-80% but the table provided shows a top percentage of 78% for the 2019 YouGov poll). The one that was most accurately determined was "Health care costs per person in the U.S. are the highest in the developed world" as a Statement of Fact. This means that 22% of the time, people answered "Statement of Opinion". The least accurately determined was "The Earth is between 5,000 and 10,000 years old" as a Statement of Fact. This means that 74% of the time, people answered "Statement of Opinion". What this is showing me is that people have an easier time determining a Statement of Fact vs a Statement of Opinion when it's a Statement of Fact that is true rather than a Statement of Fact that is false.

The authors had this to say about the 26%:

"We suspect many of the errors may reflect thinking to the effect of “people who claim that are wrong, but they’re entitled to their opinion.” Such rationalizations potentially enable misinformation to survive by reclassifying factual error as opinion."

I suspect many of you reading this also wrote down "Statement of Opinion" on #11. But it's presented as a factual statement, the correctness of the statement does not determine whether it's a Statement of Fact or a Statement of Opinion.

Hopefully this teaches you all to actually read first - and not just the little snippits!

Source

Source

[crystalelemental]

Limited CS clears. I opted to try to beat each stage with a type matching their ace. I uh. I somehow managed to neglect that there were two Ice types in this, and that is...that's not happening. So the Red fight is Flying instead. It matches the secondary type, I'm counting it.

Vs. Koga Poison Man vs. Toxic Ladies. I went with this fight first because I'm a moron. They didn't need higher status chance because Oleana is guaranteed, nor high Toxic damage because Emma is going to massacre them. Which is exactly what happened, by the way. 10k+ per shot off-type. Just no threat to her at all.

Vs. Glacia And now the exact opposite, the hardest fight I had. Ice on Ice violence could probably work on any who isn't Glacia. She also abuses Hail like crazy, and with Ice Zone, Blizzard is a guaranteed KO on any partner Irida could have. After much trial and tribulation, we settled on a solution. Ghetsis' Cold Snap. It's a bit risky, but if he lands it, it's a separate effect from the move, so he can re-queue and we can keep up pressure. So long as Icy Wind doesn't hit us, gauges are...well, still bad, but can be managed. And manage we did, after many attempts, as Irida threw down sync, and still didn't KO, but Ghetsis did get a clutch freeze against Hail and we were able to finish the job. This...was not our best work.

Vs. Molayne When I looked at my Steel-type options, I realized that Steel support is a rough time. They do not have many good options, so for High Score purposes, that's what DeNA should aim to release. My decision was between Registeel and Rose, or SC Jasmine and Summer Tate. There has never been an easier decision. Fun fact! Did you know that Tate's Flash Cannon into Doom Desire combo can one-shot sides after SC Jasmine's sync? Not even with Zone! And with like -2 attack, his sync was still like 30k. Summer twins were stupid good. That said, SC Jasmine is a bit of a weakness in the structure, due to Molayne being physical. Jasmine does not take Hammer Arm well, so Marnie needs to be on top of her flinch game. Marnie was not on top of her flinch game. This was the second highest number of resets to success due to her missing flinches early on and Jasmine getting dead. Pretty embarrassing!

Vs. Grimsley Idiot decided to be Dark type. Get SC Zinnia'd, moron. SC is so good it's disgusting. Legitimately think she's better than NC Marnie, that's not even a joke. Higher disruptive effects, no gauge considerations in 3v3, absolutely batshit sync with respectable DPS, complements Calem so well that in one turn they've capped the entire team's Atk/crit, etc etc etc. I love that it's Thievul who gets to do this. Justice.

Vs. NC Red I want to preface this with "I did make an honest attempt at Ice." I tried out Ghetsis/SS N, but it was not working. If I had SS N to 3/5 and EX, maybe it would, but I'm not about to invest that strongly into nonsense. Instead, we had to pivot to Flying, because Ice is just...it's bad out here, man. Once Irida's gone, when you're like me and refusing to pull Red, it's bad.

Thankfully, Articuno is also part-Flying and we're calling that. I did attempt Ghost against Glacia but my team uses NY Dawn as a tank and guess who's weak to Ice. This had to be the non-Ice clear. And despite the Hostile Environment 9 thing, I never saw Red even try to queue an Ice move. He always went for Brave Bird against Falkner, despite Falkner being weak to Ice. So I'm calling this legitimate. He's clearly maining Flying here. And...yeah, two tries. I got Anni Skyla to 3/5 on the paid select, and good lord what I have been missing all my life. 50% AoE flinch rate and Disarm is disgusting. On the lost fight, I need it to be understood that I only got Red to -2 special attack, and Liza still almost survived it, and would've won with another attack. Disarm, if I had gotten confuse earlier (or more flinches), would've salvaged that run. It's really strong as a supportive effect. Meanwhile Liza over here has absurd sync potential and DPS. She missed every sync crit on this clear and still just powered through with raw Giga Impact energy. Summer Twins, friends. Hilariously over-looked threats.

[undertale-data]

[Image Description: An Undertale chat box that has “WHY FANS LOVE UNDERTALE” at its center. Next to it are a line chart and an Egg from the Dating Hub on its left, and a CRIME measurer (also from the Dating Hub) on its right. End I.D.]

[Image Description: a pie chart titled, “LEVEL OF LOVE FOR UNDERTALE.” The textbox on the top right reads, “On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the least and 10 being the highest, how much do fans enjoy Undertale?” From the top going clockwise, 12 or 0% chose 5 and below; 23 or 1% chose 6; 98, or 4%, chose 7; 325, or 12%, chose 8; 529, or 20%, chose 9; and 1664, or 63%, chose 10. End I.D.]

It’s clear from all of the data analyzed so far that fans who took the time to answer our survey love Undertale. It is unlikely that they would have taken the time to answer so many questions if they had not, and even less likely that they would have come across our survey in the first place. Naturally, it comes as no surprise that 63% of our responders gave their love for Undertale a score of ten out of ten. 95% gave their love for Undertale a score of eight or higher, and only 12 responders responded with five or below, a number so small that their responses had to be lumped together to be visible on the pie chart. Of those, only 3 responders gave their love for Undertale a score of 1, and based on those responders’ other answers, it is likely that they were only intending to troll. We are very fortunate that the vast majority of responders took the survey seriously, enough so that responses like this are barely a blip in the data.

Now, for our final analysis post of the event, we will delve into the reasons that fans love Undertale so dearly.

(Essay and highlights under the cut.)

There have been countless essays on the impact that Undertale has had on people’s lives. I can hardly add more on the subject than what has already been said, but I hope this summary can provide a brief overview of what stood out among the over two thousand answers given in response to this survey. That said, due to the sheer volume of answers, I could not read every single one in depth—however, I did skim all of them, and some that stood out or were representative of several responses have been highlighted below. If you would like to see what every fan who consented to share their response had to say, you may view the full list of responses here. Note that these responses have not been edited in any way. This document may take a long time to load, as it is over 100 pages long.

(Warnings for mentions of suicidal thoughts in the following essay.)

Several responders loved the theme of choices mattering in Undertale. Whether people played the pacifist, merciless, or neutral routes, they enjoyed how the game reacted to their actions. For some, it even made them consider their own morality. One touching response explained the impact that the theme of mercy made on them. “I realized that Mercy isn't something that's given to those who deserve it. Flowey didn't deserve it. I don't deserve it myself. Shoot, we ALL need Mercy in our lives.” Many fans left similar comments about how the themes of Undertale made them better people.

Undertale changed how its fans treat others, and it also changed how fans treat themselves. The theme of staying determined and the messages of hope in the game were a light to a very large portion of fans. I cannot list all of the fans who said that Undertale helped them out of a dark place, or that they would not be alive if not for Undertale. “DETERMINATION became a metaphor for not killing myself at a really rough time in my life and I’ll always cherish that. Undertale isn’t afraid to go to really dark places but at the same time holds on so tight to its hope.”

Undertale brought fans together in unexpected ways. Some said they met friends or significant others through the fandom. “I wouldn't have met my now husband without Undertale,” one fan said. A different fan who is non-native English speaking mentioned that the game and the fan community helped them to learn English.

It would be impossible to discuss Undertale without mentioning the fan community. Whether for good or bad, many responders mentioned the fandom in their responses. Overall the feelings towards the fandom seem positive, though many made references to “toxic” parts of the fandom without specifying which parts they consider toxic. Others rejected the idea of toxicity in fandom. One response said: “[SLAMS FIST ON DESK] I KNOW MOST PEOPLE SAY THE FANDOM IS TOXIC AND CRINGE OR WHATEVER BUT OH MY GOD. The Undertale fandom, both the UTMV and the actual UT fandom, has been so much fun to be a part of. I've met countless friends because of our shared interest in something related to the game! The art people create can be breathtaking and so inspirational, and the fanfics are so so good!! I've seen people write incredible things for this fandom and it's what made me continue writing!”

One thing that makes the Undertale fandom unique is the way it embraces various AUs. Some fans are tired of AU content, but the majority of responses show a love for the creativity behind AUs. “Roll your eyes at the 50th AU Sans all you want, it's encouraging people to step outside the boundaries of fanart and pushing people to make their own ideas! I mean, hell, it was how I gained the confidence to start making my own original content.” The lack of a judgemental atmosphere seems present in the AU community, according to the responses we saw. There is an interesting balance between AU and canon (sometimes referred to as “classic”) content that another responder pointed out: “The fandom helped keep the game alive all these years, with all of its AUs. Although personally, I always enjoyed AUs that kept characters as close to the classic material as possible (dancetale, outertale) I do appreciate the creativity of the fandom. They almost created entirely new stories with new characters of their own! If it weren't for those people, the Undertale fandom would have probably not been as active as it is now. I do feel like we're getting a resurgence of classic content now too! (In 2021)”

Regardless of the many AUs the fandom has created over the years, the original game of Undertale still feels like home for many fans. They wished they could reclaim the feeling of playing the game again for the first time, but even though we can’t reset time in real life, there is still a special feeling for fans each time they play Undertale. One fan said, “Even the best fics I've read can't capture that feeling of nostalgia/almost-"coming home" that comes with hearing the music and talking to the characters.” This feeling is one that can be cherished time and time again. In the words of another responder: “It always feels welcoming like home or like comfort food that I never grow tired of no matter how many times I go to it.” Others pointed out the strength of the found family trope in Undertale, which likely contributes to this feeling of “home” as well.

As mentioned briefly earlier, the music is part of what makes Undertale feel like home for fans. Even when responses focused on other aspects of the game, many would throw in a comment about the soundtrack at the end. One comment focused on the music said “IT'S SO GOOD like I will literally go through the entire thing over and over and not be bored with it. It makes my monkey brain so happy you have no idea.” Like with the game itself, the music has incredible replay value, an amazing feat considering most of the tracks use the same few motifs. “I think what I like the most about Undertale is how the music attaches you to the story,” another responder said. “They're simple melodies that stick with you throughout the whole game, and they can remind you of both good and bad times.”

If the music sticks with fans in their hearts, then the game’s lore sticks with fans in their minds. Even six years after the release of Undertale, fans are still creating new theories and digging up new secrets. The way the game breaks the fourth wall in particular intrigued many fans and has stuck out through all these years. The awareness that the game shows for the RPG genre makes it memorable. The game plays with the player’s expectations and turns them on their heads, all while reminding the player that they’re in a game. There are few other games that do this on such a large scale, so it’s no surprise that fans cite this as one of their favorite things about Undertale.

Lastly, the LGBT+ representation in Undertale has been a huge draw for fans. Especially in 2015, the sheer volume of non-cishet characters was unprecedented, as one fan pointed out: “It's practically unheard of to see so MANY from just one source, especially during its heyday in 2015-16. Hell, you can't even GET the true pacifist ending without helping two gay couples hook up. It's really nice to see all of them being accepted for who they are and not judged for their sexuality or gender, at least in-canon.” The LGBT+ cast including Frisk, Chara, Napstablook, Monster Kid, Mettaton, Alphys, and Undyne each connected with fans in unique ways. It’s clear how important this is from responses such as: “There are canon nonbinary characters 🥺. i have never seen representation of myself before.” “It made me gay and trans so thanks for that.”

Once again I am overwhelmed with just how much there is to say about Undertale. One responder really understood when they compared Undertale to an iceberg, explaining that there are so many layers to the game that there is something for everyone: “everyone can find something to enjoy in the lore/game regardless of what kind of fan they are! Being able to appeal to various types of fans—from simple happy shipper people to deep dive lorediggers—is the mark of the coolest games!” I would have to agree with them.

It’s been six years, and despite everything, it’s still you. Thank you for reading, participating in this survey, and above all, staying determined.

Highlights:

DETERMINATION became a metaphor for not killing myself at a really rough time in my life and I’ll always cherish that. Undertale isn’t afraid to go to really dark places but at the same time holds on so tight to its hope.

I think the coolest thing was having the opportunity to watch the AU community grow from its bare roots. It's nearly insane how big and complex it's gotten, unlike anything I'd ever seen before. Roll your eyes at the 50th AU Sans all you want, it's encouraging people to step outside the boundaries of fanart and pushing people to make their own ideas! I mean, hell, it was how I gained the confidence to start making my own original content.

i love how the lgbt rep is so naturalized... there are just gay people! and its nobodys business!

The music is my go to answer, but what I really really REALLY love is how the minor characters have so much personality to them when you talk to them. They aren't incredibly important to the overall story, but they're all so likeable and diverse that you just can't help but like them immediately!

I think it was the first videogame I have played that broke the fourth wall that much. Of course there has been other videogames that broke it but just for one or two tongue-in-cheek jokes. The guilt of killing mama goat was also something intense as well that I appreciated as an experience and that I didn't think a videogame could cause on someone.

I love how no character can be seen as completely bad! Everyone builds up Asgore as some horrible villain, but he turns out to be a 'fuzzy pushover' who's broken and just wants his family back by the time you meet him. Then you think Flowey's an irredeemable killer who engineered the suffering of the monsters across many timelines, and he is... but he also used to be the kind and beloved Prince Asriel Dreemurr, traumatized by his death and subsequent rebirth, projecting his best friend onto you.

The fact that choices matter in the game. Your first playthrough and getting the golden ending for the first time. I can never replicate those feelings again, wish I could erase my memories and replay the game from the start.

I wouldn't have met my now husband without Undertale.

(Toxic parts of the fandom aside) The community is possibly one of the kindest I've ever met. Cringe culture is completely dead, and I feel like I can be myself. I felt a very close connection to many of the characters, and I loved consuming content about them when I was in a rough patch in my life.

just everything, the whole game has just impacted my life so much. i know it sounds really lame, but when the game first came out, i would purposely put my hands in my pockets and sway slightly, like sans' idle animation. of course i dont do that anymore haha, but undertale still really impacts me to this day, and i wouldnt have it any other way :)

it made me gay and trans so thanks for that

I realized that Mercy isn't something that's given to those who deserve it. Flowey didn't deserve it. I don't deserve it myself. Shoot, we ALL need Mercy in our lives.

The thing I love most about Undertale is no matter how many times I play or watch a playthrough it always makes me genuinely happy. It always feels welcoming like home or like comfort food that I never grow tired of no matter how many times I go to it. Toriel still makes me feel all warm and cozy in her home, the Skelebros always make me laugh, and I still cry on the inside watching Frisk comforting Asriel. And on the flip side the No Mercy run still invokes the negative emotions in me as well. In short Undertale just feels like a second home to me and I always wish I could stay.

The reader inserts are my favorite way to decompress after a hard day

I think Undertale helped me discover my love for 8-bit games, and made me realize how IMPORTANT music is in video games.

the worldbuilding and character design are my favorite parts of the main game apart from the music! I’m also a huge fan of the random AU music- not for like underswap or underfell i like the stuff where someone makes a megalovania for a random au where gru from despicable me replaces sans as the character. i think its funny

Just... the vibe, honestly? Even the best fics I've read can't capture that feeling of nostalgia/almost-"coming home" that comes with hearing the music and talking to the characters.

there are canon nonbinary characters 🥺. i have never seen representation of myself before.

[SLAMS FIST ON DESK] I KNOW MOST PEOPLE SAY THE FANDOM IS TOXIC AND CRINGE OR WHATEVER BUT OH MY GOD. The Undertale fandom, both the UTMV and the actual UT fandom, has been so much fun to be a part of. I've met countless friends because of our shared interest in something related to the game! The art people create can be breathtaking and so inspirational, and the fanfics are so so good!! I've seen people write incredible things for this fandom and it's what made me continue writing!

There's a scene where Frisk (the player) is going towards what is presumably going to be their death. They will fight Asgore and he will use their human soul to break the barrier and free his people. The music, despite the player's impending doom, is... triumphant. You are not the triumphant one here, and yet, the score invites you to experience the monsters' joy and happiness as they tell you the tale of their subjugation. The monsters are going to be free. This is their victory, but they don't hate you or want you to die. They're just... happy. That scene has always struck me very deeply. I feel it represents the best parts of Undertale.

I loved how well thought out the Geno route was. It really made me feel like I was doing something horrible, and the characters were very obviously reacting to dire circumstances.

I dunno? I like Undertale for it's characters, story, music, secrets and many more. I am not good with Headcanons but I also like the neutral endings and how different they can depending on who you spare and kill

I was very bad at english before, i thought i couldn't progress because i was very shy and not confident. But my sibling and i wanted to have the best experience with this game so we wanted to play it in english. It's this game and the fandom which helped me to make huge progress in english !

THE SOUNDTRACK. IT'S SO GOOD like I will literally go through the entire thing over and over and not be bored with it. It makes my monkey brain so happy you have no idea.

to avoid writing an essay i will say one word. Mettaton

It is like Toby specifically made the games to fit the iceberg meme and it's awesome, everyone can find something to enjoy in the lore/game regardless of what kind of fan they are! Being able to appeal to various types of fans - from simple happy shipper people to deep dive lorediggers is the mark of the coolest games!

I love almost everything about Undertale as a game on its own. The music, the art and especially the characters and how they interact. They made me feel at home. Undertale means a huge amount to me. (I even got a tattoo of the castle when you and MK walk together!) The fandom helped keep the game alive all these years, with all of its AUs. Although personally, I always enjoyed AUs that kept characters as close to the classic material as possible (dancetale, outertale) I do appreciate the creativity of the fandom. They almost created entirely new stories with new characters of their own! If it weren't for those people, the Undertake fandom would have probably not been as active as it is now. I do feel like we're getting a resurgence of classic content now too! (In 2021)

the mystery. toby fox refused to give answers to anything and i think thats very sexy of him.

I just feel guilty for liking it so much when I'm in my 30's. But I recently got diagnosed with ASD, so I guess it explains things a bit. Many ppl consider Papyrus to be neurodivergent, and some adult fans are too, so seeing that makes me feel a bit better.

i think about "Despite everything, it's still you" everyday of my life.

I like how it's just as funny as it can be serious. All routes are this way. I laughed as much as I cried when I played the Pacifist route and then once I opened the game again and Flowey was telling me to let them be happy, I immediately turned off the game. I somehow felt bad.

The Found Family Trope

The True Pacifist Ending is just...man. And the fanworks about saving everyone even when the game doesn't let you? MANNNNNN

I think what I like the most about Undertale is how the music attaches you to the story. They're simple melodies that stick with you throughout the whole game, and they can remind you of both good and bad times.

there's honestly a LOT to love about this game, but i think one of my favorite things about it is just how many lgbt+ characters there are??? i can think of alphys, undyne, frisk, chara, mettaton, napstablook, monster kid, asgore, mad mew mew, the dress lion, the royal guards, and arguably even papyrus off of the top of my head, but im sure i'm forgetting a few from just undertale alone (there's even MORE in deltarune)!! it's practically unheard of to see so MANY from just one source, especially during its heyday in 2015-16. hell, you can't even GET the true pacifist ending without helping two gay couples hook up. it's really nice to see all of them being accepted for who they are and not judged for their sexuality or gender, at least in-canon.

[Image description: A wordcloud in the shape of the capitalized word UNDERTALE. The text is white on a black background, and uses the font found in the game. Some of the most visible words are: Game, Love, Music, Life, AU, Store, Friend, and Feel, which represent the most common words in the essays people wrote about their love for the game. End of ID]

[limeinaltime]

R and X Switcheroo Thingie 3: My Rambles Have somehow Climbed an actual Tree

I'm back! And today, I shall be expanding upon X's angst lore! To be perfectly honest, I wasn't happy with where I ended things in my previous submission, mostly because it doesn't answer the question of why X is more dangerous in this au. So I'm gonna try to answer that in the part after this one! But enough of that, let's continue with the angst lore, shall we? Oh, and be prepared for a lot of reading. Sorry for making you read all this.

To start off this angst lore fest, R and X still get passed for deployment in favor of the disassembly drones squads. They told X that she was too valuable to be let go. She knew that was a lie. X was disappointed, and a little angry, but also relieved. She didn't really try that hard anyways, Besides, simulations and training were things she was familiar with, but to actually be out there...to actually kill someone... it didn't sit right with her. So she was glad she wasn't picked.

But then she turned to R.

R looked...betrayed. And afraid. so very afraid. And she understood why. The scientists' words still rung in her ears months after they were uttered. She wishes they didn't. She realized that this was was basically R's only chance to get away from them. From the experiments. From the scientists who broke her. From everything that wished her harm.

And she didn't get the chance.

It wasn't even an escape.

Then a thought hit her.

She overheard one of the higher-ups in the break room. She was standing guard, though she wasn't told to. Old habits die hard, I guess. One of them said that, "If one of those two giant-ass robots gets through the training in one piece, and manages to get the highest score, you have to send em both to that frozen husk!" he was making a bet. She hoped knew it was, what with the mildly angry reply the person got saying the she was "too valuable to let go." A repeat of what they said to her. Though they agreed to the bet anyways.

X would make the man who proposed the bet win. She had to. For R's sake.

The training began again, but this time, X was going to do her her best to make it through.

She was once again partnered up with R, and she was roughly the same as last time. But she had a more...different face than before. Before, she looked almost manic with joy, at the prospect of an escape. But now, she had a face of anger, and determination.

X couldn't let R down. Not here. Not now.

Not again.

And sure enough, after fighting oil and artificial sweat, the bet was won. They were going to Copper 9, with the other squads.

For the first time in a while, X was happy. She had helped R escape her hell. And though the company would be watching them, as long as they killed some worker drones, they'd be fine. She looked to R to share her joy.

She wasn't prepared for the absolute look of betrayal and hatred she got that dashed her joy in half of a second.

X didn't understand. Why wasn't R happy? Why does she look like she hates her? She should be thanking her! She was free now thanks to her! SHE...she...

...She had tried her best last time. And she still failed.

X realized that the only difference was that she herself was actually trying to win this time.

X wanted to apologize, but before she could, R stormed off.

Fine. Let her hate her. They were going Copper 9 together. R was free to an extent. As long as they didn't go against the company, and did what they were told to do, they would be fine. X thought the sky was finally clearing up.

The sky was getting darker.

Tomorrow, I finish Swapped!R's whole thing, answer why she's dangerous, and take a small break from rambling. Stay tuned :)

- - - -

Getting hyped to see how this ends! I’m really liking this little saga you’ve got going on with X and R, and I hope to see more of your ramblings going forward!

I like this dynamic between X and R a lot. Here, R has actual motivation for hating X, and an actual personality outside of being a Bitch™, and X is less bland and the two have proper history. I am currently rewriting their backstory/dynamic, and if it’s okay with you, I would like to take some inspiration from your ramblings.

Thank you for doing this. It really brightens my day :)

“I just wanted to help…”

[lalosalamcnca]

Scoring The Top TVD Ships From AO3

I’m bored and stuck in lockdown; this is based on the TVD relationships tab on AO3, so I’m giving the TVD couples with the most fanfictions written about them a score out of ten. This is NOT an insult to fanfic writers, they’re doing amazing work and I’ve read some fantastic stories.

PURELY BASED ON THE SHOW, I WILL TRY NOT TO LET MY FANON OPINIONS BLEED INTO THE SCORING. FOR NON-CANON SHIPS, I’LL DESCRIBE THEIR POTENTIAL AS A COUPLE; HOWEVER, THEIR RANKING WILL STILL BE MOSTLY BASED ON THE SHOW. LIST STARTS WITH THE SHIP THAT HAS THE HIGHEST # OF FANFICS WRITTEN ABOUT THEM, ORDER IS MOST TO LEAST.

KLAROLINE: 6.5/10

((TO scenes will be ignored)) they had really great chemistry, I found them fun to watch although their physically-romantic scenes were ok

Pretty interesting dynamic, I liked how they could be charmed by the other but they could also play their more fiery scenes very well

Could’ve used more development for sure, they definitely came out of nowhere. I did believe there was an attraction there but nowhere near klaus being in love with caroline. They weren’t that deep

Klaus still terrorized her and her friends, almost killed her and took her boyfriend away and then killed his mom. People love to excuse Klaus but no, he’ll be getting a lower score from me

I’d only be interested in seeing them in a toxic/dark relationship, they’re not endgame material to me

DELENA: -9/10

I wanted to barf looking through their gifs, I cannot stand watching their scenes

Toxic, unhealthy, half their lines were BS, Damon didn’t change at all, Elena enabled him, never had a real conversation, absolutely nothing in common, tried to compel her to kiss him in 1x03 and he basically forced her to turn off her humanity, didn’t respect her at all, killed her brother, still made moves on her after Stefan literally saved him, all about sex, not much chemistry, Elena lost her personality, took dying and a sirebond for Damon to finally be her choice after a year, he terrorized/abused her friends and she didn’t give a shit, became so dependent that she “couldn’t live without him,” I didn’t buy that he loved her when Isobel first said it, bad boy/good girl plot that went off the rails and straight into toxic waste, he just wanted a nicer version of Katherine

started with a sirebond where she had NO FREE WILL AND SHE WAS COOL WITH IT?? WHAT?? I was so pissed when that storyline went down, it’s so problematic

When I saw their 6x22 dance, I wasn’t impressed. I kept thinking “can u guys just have sex pls like this isn’t cute and sex is the only thing u guys really have”

STELENA: 9.5/10

THE DOBSLEY CHEMISTRY. ENOUGH SAID.

So cute together, Stefan supported Elena’s decisions, HE RESISTED COMPULSION SO HE WOULDN’T HURT ELENA, they had fun together and the sex was pretty hot (idk why people say they had no passion), they were each other’s first priority, Stefan always did whatever he could to save Elena even when he wasn’t with her, Elena chose him at the end of the day, Elena also resisted compulsion by thinking abt him, stefan supported her as a human and vampire, didn’t try to change her (despite julie’s lame writing tries to convince us), both were always so understanding with each other, Elena was never afraid of him and always tried to help him, saw her as her own person and not a different version of Katherine

My love for them really floundered in s4, after that szn I only got crumbs of them so it was kinda hard to ship

I do think Elena was mostly faithful to Stefan but some moments...girl, u clearly had feelings for Damon. And if I’m to believe Julie Plague, you first loved Damon in 3x01...but yeah, keep telling me how you were so devoted to Stefan

THEY SHOULD’VE BEEN ENDGAME!!!

BAMON: 7.5/10

they had such good chemistry together, I rmb watching the scene above where Damon saved her from the truck and I was like “KISS HER OMG”

Loved their friendship and buildup over the seasons, they could’ve been a great couple

I feel like the person they needed was each other, Bonnie needed Damon’s loyalty (fully) and Damon needed Bonnie to tell him when he screwed up; the two people that always seemed to come up second should’ve been the first for each other (nice symbolism in my opinion)

She was much more honest with him than Elena, generally held him accountable for his actions and I thought Bonnie could handle Damon way better; he had more respect and admiration for Bonnie

The show would’ve needed to gone through some serious rewrites and changed to make this ship canon, which is why I only love fanon bamon

STEROLINE: 4/10

I love Stefan and Caroline individually, but not together; on paper they should work, but in reality they kinda suck lol

I understand why people ship them, they had a nice transition of friends-to-lovers but they had almost no romantic chemistry; they were so much better off as friends

SE was constantly a shadow in their relationship, not to mention Stefan didn’t always treat Caroline well

I enjoy them as a minor/other ship in fanfics, but not a fan of them in the show

DALARIC: 5/10

Ngl, I laughed when I saw that they were one of the highest couples for tvd on AO3

Alaric was good on calling Damon out on his shit, they were a pretty good team so why not be a couple

Never really felt any romantic chemistry lol...wait I’m watching scenes of them and I’m kinda seeing a connection (I forgot how he would leave a seat for Alaric!!!)

Still kinda hard to imagine them as a couple, but you know what, they could’ve been pretty good together

FORWOOD: 8.5/10

Loved their development, they were so cute together and always leaned on each other for support

I feel like they were so dedicated to each other, definitely had their fair share of challenges and they both accepted each other fully

Always liked their chemistry, I feel like the tension with them liking each other but not admitting it was their peak

Didn’t like the way they ended, and I HATE that Tyler died; my fav ship for both of them, SHOULD’VE BEEN ENDGAME

BONKAI: 6.5/10

THE CHEMISTRY!!! HOLY IT FELT LIKE I WAS INTRUDING ON A PRIVATE MOMENT, SO PALPABLE JFC

I think these two could’ve had such an interesting and layered toxic relationship, or even a healthy relationship could’ve been cute (if developed correctly). I’d be equally interested in either storyline and I really enjoyed their scenes

I’m sticking to canon, so Kai did torture Bonnie and these two crossed the other more than once….I’m not about to endorse that which is why their score is lower

They had SO MUCH potential, imagine the storylines they could’ve had...ugh fuck u Plec

KALIJAH: 7/10

Not a lot to go on for them, I wish they could’ve had more scenes since I enjoyed what we got

I think they could’ve been a power couple; they balance each other out, and I could see them being really soft and vulnerable with each other but then really hot and dark

Idk why Jeremy’s death changed Elijah’s mind about Katherine considering Elena killed Kol...like what’s the difference

Both of them have done bad things but as vampires, bygones should be bygones so their score isn’t lower bc of that, I’m just not super invested in them

ELEJAH: 5.5/10

I wouldn’t have minded seeing them together, they probably would’ve had some nice moments

I think they had an interesting dynamic in s2 and s3, but I think allies/friends is the furthest I’d like for their relationship to go

Not a perfect match, I think they’re better suited for other people and I doubt they’d be long-term

Elena did kill Kol and help to kill Finn, while Klaus has terrorized Elena and her friends, killed Jenna so their score isn’t that high

Kind of surprised by the couples, but also makes sense LOL. Please, do not start attacking me in the comments, I’m fine with a respectful discussion bc I like to hear what others think. It’s fine if you disagree, idc who you ship and kudos to all the fanfic writers out there!!

((may be edited and changed over time, gifs are not mine))

[meandmyechoes]

Star Wars Visions review Part 1

binged them all in subs! will revisit the dub. first pass viewing order is 548621793.

[Part 2]  [Part 3]

The Ninth Jedi: Yay, Kara my girl! Look, I know it wasn’t the smartest decision to stan her out of all the girls even before we’ve seen the full series, but I’d like to be somebody different! I have, what you could call the highest expectation of this story. I heard it is actually two standalone concepts merged into one, that it has the grandest of a worldbuilding mechanism. Incidentally, that feels like it turns on itself - that the deviation from “canon” makes it almost its own fantasy story. And I say that going in knowing the rule book.

The aftertaste is: I watched a trailer. which is true, because that’s where the concepts started out. It feels like they set up a world, a quest, the main character and threw in the coolest fight scene to hook you on, and it frustrates me because Ninth has the longest runtime of them all. The lightsaber-smith is such a Japanese/traditional concept that I can understand the inspiration, just that I prefer building your own saber and a Jedi being more than a weapon. However that theme wasn’t lost in seeing Kara has to strengthen herself to earn her namesake. Kara turns out to be a bit ‘main-chara’ (in a perfectly fine but underexplored way) but I do like the confirmation of what I first saw in her: the optimism and fearlessness. Kind of reminds me of Ahsoka bouncing around with that green saber of hers! The character I’m more interested in learning though, ended up being the old pilot droid(s). My verdict for The Ninth Jedi is, I like its details and clues, but I’d like it better if it was its own story. 

8:2 / 7 (Japanese : Star Wars ratio + score out of 10)

The Village Bride: This one, expectation and reality matches up! This with T0-B1 are my favourites, but I think this is a close second because I’d have liked it to be a feature-length film! There are enough materials covering the village’s past and invasion, building up the characters like how Haru and Saku came to differ, Asu’s role, and how Van and F met! It doesn’t feel like a trailer like Ninth because instead of asking you to look forward to the next chapter, Bride feels like an extract with its dialogue delivering just the crucial story, and giving us a concluding climax. I super-love the costumes and visuals. The unconventional lineart and colour choices leave a refreshing impression. Music is killer. Chills every time the vocal hits. I think this hits that perfect mark of melding Japanese (mountain) culture (animism) and Jedi heroism.

5:5 / 10

Lop and Ocho: Lop puts a Japanese story inside the Star Wars framework more than the other way round. The industrialization and family feud works in Star Wars, while rooted in Japanese stories. Lop has the most palatable art style so it is very easy for a layman like me to go 'wow this has money' staring at the rich backgrounds and frame rate. The zinc rooftops, rundown alleys, shitamachi neighbourhood shops are very close to heart. I’m seeing old Kowloon while seeing old Shinjuku haha. The retrofuturism is an essential element of Star Wars that often gets overlooked (at least to me) and I’m glad it is the foundation for the aesthetic and conflict of this short.

And then I feel so dumb not realizing the time-skip haha! I was the one who sieved the trailer and I couldn’t make the connection! I was initially imagining more of a cheerful quest not unlike Ninth. Well wouldn’t you like to be wrong! I do like this more than I expected.

Felt just the slightest bit rushed. Ocho’s transformation and fight sequence are amazing. The final frame with the sakuras at the background just took my breath away. The inscribed lightsaber is a novel idea, but right where my mind swam towards the ‘Japanese’ side than the ‘Star Wars’ side. There were so many details in a frame I would go back to see the Easter eggs. This story is so pretty and when you peel all that away, at its core is a drama that is… an age-old tale. And I’m not complaining, because that's what Star Wars is, a ‘cliche’ that works. It brings novelty to Star Wars, but those are elements I’ve seen in classic stories I grew up with. In the end, Lop works, it is definitely a very high-quality work, but I don’t think it can quite secure a most special place in my heart.

6:4 / 9

[house-of-cakes]

Jamais Vu 

Masterlist || Series Masterlist 

Prev || Next

Chapter 17:  Gimme! Gimme! Gimme

Jungkook x Reader: enemy to lovers AU

Word count: 2164

Warnings: Swearing and mentions of slight bullying

Premise: “There’s an opposite to déjà vu. They call it jamais vu. It’s when you meet the same people or visit places, again and again, but each time is the first. Everybody is always a stranger… Nothing is ever familiar” – Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

AKA Jungkook goes in search of the girl who got him expelled.

I feel so bad posting late that I wrote a bonus chapter 😅 the extra chapter will be out this weekend.

If you would like to give feedback or be tagged in this story please send me an ask/message 😊

Tagged list: @inspinkyring @betysotelo18 @kardia-apo-marmelada @casspirit0705 @preciouschimine @therealsugababe  @lucedelsole97 @deolly @lexy9716  @thesweetest-peas @sannsia​

Bright flashing lights…catchy retro theme songs…the loud cheers of victory from teenage boys and girls defeating their opponents – these were the ingredients that made up Y/N’s favourite place in the world. While Namjoon found comfort on the stage, she felt most at home under the glowing neon lights of Reload.

A few years ago, Y/N had found the arcade a by chance after she had “run away” from home. She had just had an argument with her mother about her appearance and after countless moments of nagging and insults she had finally snapped and left home without permission…it was her first act of rebellion.  

Y/N’s mother was fixated on looks and how a “lady” should behave and present themselves. She always claimed that Y/N she be focusing on her physical imagine instead of having her face hidden behind a computer screen. It killed her mother that her youngest child spent all of her free time working in a place she deemed to be so juvenile. Y/N knew this for a fact and if she was being honest it only added to the appeal of working there. The job didn’t pay much nonetheless she loved it just as much as she did the Magic Shop.

A young boy runs through the arcade and finds Y/N sat on top of an air hockey table (a privilege that only she was allowed). Her attention is focused on her phone, trying to keep tabs on her best friends who are working a job without her. It was not very often that she could not attend an appointment however her elderly boss had caught a cold and there was no one else to cover the busy Friday night shift.

“Noona.” The soft whimper of the young boy catches her attention. “What’s wrong, buddy?” She jumps off the table and kneels so that she is eye level with the child “A-an older-r b-boy…” his words are choppy as his small body shakes with sobs “Stole my game.” “That wasn’t very nice of him. Can you point him out so Noona can have a chat with him.” The little boy continues to whimper but with some comforting words of reassurance and 5 free game tokens, she is able to convince him to point in the direction of the most popular first-person shooter game towards the back of the arcade.

“Thank buddy, that was very brave of you. I promise you in 10 minutes the game will be free for you to play.” She wipes the last of his tears and ruffles his hair for good measure “Come find me soon, ok?” The boy sniffling boy nods as Y/N quickly makes her way to the other side of the room.

At the game Y/N stands off to the side of the machine and pauses to analyse the teenage boy and his skill. The teen would get easily flustered each time a surge of villains would rush after his character and he would frequently let out a string of cuss words whenever he missed his mark, he was an amateur and it showed.

Suddenly his life bar at the top right of he screen started flashing, indicating that his game would soon end if he was not careful with his energy. This must have been enough motivation for him to focus better because his kill streak went from 3 to 9 in almost an instance.  A wicked plan formed in Y/N’s head as she he went in for the last shot of the level.

“Hey!” she called out to him causing him to flinch and miss his target. This caused a fatal error as the enemy on screen took the opportunity to shoot his character right in the face. The teen let out a sound of frustration as the screen read ‘Game Over’ in giant letters and request more tokens to continue. Y/N waited for him to insert the coins before making her presence known in front of him.

“You stupid bitch! You made me lose my game.” He grumbled and lift his gun to continue playing. Y/N reached over to the power point behind the game and switched it off.

“Get the fuck out of my arcade.” She spat and point towards the exit “Reload has a strict no bullying policy so don’t think for a second you’re getting a refund on those tokens.” The teen didn’t bother arguing, he has realised his mistake when he figured out who she was and walked away looking rather embarrassed he had been called out in front of everyone on a busy Friday night. He was sure his class mates would all be talking about it come Monday morning.

The screen of the machine flickered back to life as Y/N switched the power back on, she waited to make sure that the unexpected reboot did not affect the game. The download bar reached the end of the bar and loaded the high score screen. She read over the listed and frowned when she got to a name that had been annoying her lately – Nochu.

This Nochu person had climb two positions high on the leader board since the last time she had checked this game and the achievement displeased her. That name was popping up on the leader boards of many games recently and while she did not feel her abilities were being threatened, she was annoyed that she could not put a face to this person.

Hours later back at the Kim residence, the two cousins enjoy the cooling weather on their porch as Jin attempts to tune his guitar by ear.

“The Basement wasn’t closed tonight.” Jungkook states when he scrolls through his Instagram feed and comes across a new post by the club “I never said it was.” Jin pays no attention to his cousin, instead he fiddles with the knobs at the head of guitar and plucks at a string once he believes he’s tightened the key enough. The sound rings out and the pitch is too high. “So why did we go to Reload instead?” Jin repeats the process with the chord again, the pitch is closer to where its supposed to be however the sound is still off. “None of the guys had a battle or a performance tonight.” He explained as he plucked at the string again and again, trying to pin point why it sounded wrong “And Y/N had to work, so we decided to hang with her instead.” “So we went for Y/N?” Jungkook tone was accusatory “No one forced you to tag along.” Jin fired back, he had stopped trying to tune the guitar to face him “She’s always supports the guys at the Basement, sometimes we repay the favour by making an appearance there to help drum up business.” Jungkook scoffed “You told me Reload was popular because she attracts people with her skills…if that’s the case why would she need you guys?” “She doesn’t need us at all.” Jin moved his guitar from his lap and lent it against his seat. He was frustrated with it and this conversation was adding to the stress.  “That’s the thing about having a good relationship with people…you do things to support them, even when they don’t ask.” “Oh yeah? If she’s so good why is she only ranked second on all the high scores.” Jin rolled his eyes at his cousin, he was being petty again and completely missed the point he was trying to make. “Mr S.K?” Jungkook nodded in confirmation.

Jungkook was becoming a regular at Reload and it was evident to him that Mr S.K was clearly the real champion of the joint. The guy had dominated every game of the arcade by holding highest score and while Y/N’s name always sat below his, her score was always miles away from meeting his. To Jungkook this was clearly another instance of Y/N receiving praise and adoration where it was not merited… it was Mr S.K who deserved to celebrated and yet it was Y/N who stole his popularity. If he had to come up with an explanation as to how this occurred, he would bet all his money it was because Y/N was considered to be “beautiful”.

“Mr S.K has held the top for as long as anyone can remember. There’s no mystery to who he is…He’s obviously the owner of the arcade.”  Jin windshield wiper boomed out and filled the stillness of the night as his cousin’s face fell. 

Jungkook pondered on the last few weeks, there was so much background information he didn’t know and for some reason his brain chose to fill in the gaps by somehow hating on Y/N.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a car blaring loud music as it sped up and down the street.

“What the fuck is going?!” Jungkook exclaimed as he stood from his seat and made his way to the top of the porch stairs to get a better look at car. “Ah my Angel is home!” Jin jumped up and went to stand next to Jungkook. “Does she always carry on like this? She drives like a dipshit.” “Nah, that’s not even her driving. You see a while back she got caught at the illegal races, her parents made her sell her car as punishment... She must have gotten into a fight with her mother, this is how she always gets back her.”  

The car finally stopped doing laps down the street and pulled up into Y/N’s drive away. The pair watched as Y/N jumped out of the passenger side of the car and wave to the driver as they pulled away from the house. She was still unaware that she was being watched by them

“Hey Brat!” Jin called out, capturing her attention “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not take rides from strangers?”

Jungkook’s breathe hitched at the thought of Y/N allowing herself to be in a car with a stranger, especially someone who drove like a lunatic. He didn’t catch a glimpse of the driver but surely, she wasn’t reckless enough to put herself in such a dangerous situation…was she?

“She did, that’s what make’s it all the better.” Y/N bantered on smugly, Jungkook couldn’t figure out if she was joking or not. “Well it’s past your bed time young lady, you march right on inside and get right to bed.”  Y/N let out a sound of fake indignation and clutch her hand to her check overdramatically. “To think I raced all the way here with a surprise and this is how you treat me? You really are such a punk!” “A surprise?!” Jin’s eyebrows shot up in excitement, the façade dropped immediately. Everyone knew she gave the best surprises. “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” he demanded and waved her over to them. Y/N laughed at his eagerness and rummaged through her bag as she closed the distance between them.

“Sorry I didn’t have time to wrap it.” She purposely handed him a grey game cartridge face down so there was some kind of element of surprise to the gift. His eyes widen comically when he turned it over and read the title of the game. “Y/N…is this…??” For the first time in Jungkook’s life he had seen his loud mouth cousin speechless. “Yah! Don’t make a big deal of it.” She tried to brush it off “Consider it an extremely late birthday gift.” “Not a big deal? This is the original Super Mario Bros 3! I played this game every day as a kid then this idiot blew it up somehow.” He nodded his head in Jungkook’s direction who rolled his eyes in response.

The incident happened years ago and he still hadn’t heard the end of it, he pretended like it didn’t bother him but deep down he felt so bad for accidentally destroying something his cousin held so dear to him.

“I’ve been trying to find it ever since! This must have cost you a fortune.” “Like I said…it’s no big deal. I was cleaning out storage at work and found it packed away, we never got round to fixing game console for it so the boss-man was nice enough to let me have it.”

That was a bold-faced lie.

Y/N had known about the sentimental significance this game had to Jin and went in search for it many months before his birthday. She only managed to get the game after she traded a set of mint condition baseball cards, she had acquired as collateral when a client fell through their end of a deal.

“Y/NIEEE this is why you’re my angel! Thank you so much.” He pulled her towards him and wrapped her up in a big bear hug. Jungkook felt out of place as he watched Y/N shriek and attempt to struggle out of his grip as he showered her with love…he could help but feel jealous of the fact that she could fix a mistake that he had made so long ago.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #166

Bonjour and Bienvenue boys and belles to another bit on the BB Channel! For today we’re building the boisterous baroness of bacchanalia as one bit Berserk Bewitchment Bloodline, one bit Battery Builder, all for badass beatdowns! All this brouhaha is to say we’re building and buffing the beauteous brat known as BB.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet here!

Next up: Hacking the planet? I think you misheard.

Race and Background

The evil AI from the moon BB is about as Custom a Lineage as they come, giving you +1 Dexterity and Intelligence. She also comes packed with Darkvision to dunk on those foolish human eyes and the Lucky feat to tip the scales in your favor by re-rolling attacks, checks, or saves that directly involve you three times per long rest. Games aren’t fun if they’re fair, silly!

Again, Evil AI from The Moon isn’t going to be a background you can find in most games of D&D. That being said, she certainly likes to put on shows of life and death, so once you get past their obsession with fire I’d bet she’d find a lot of common ground with Rakdos Cultists. This gives her proficiency with Acrobatics and Performance so you too can twirl around on stage and put a little flair into your attacks.

This background also gives you an additional bunch of spells to tack onto your spell lists. When you unlock spellcasting in the first place, you get Fire Bolt, Vicious Mockery, Burning Hands, Dissonant Whispers, and Hellish Rebuke. Your free second level spells are Crown of Madness, Enthrall, and Flaming Sphere. Third level is Fear and Haste, fourth is Confusion and Wall of Fire, and your free fifth level spell is Dominate Person. Don’t look at me like that, how else are you going to keep your daughters in line? BB doesn’t rely on fire that much -yet- but the other spells are absolutely in her wheelhouse. And giving a computer virus a fire wall is just plain funny.

Ability Scores

As a hyper-advanced AI from the future, it’d be a little weird if your Intelligence wasn’t your highest ability score. Your smarts are almost as obvious as how great a kouhai you are, so make your Charisma the next highest. Your Dexterity is pretty good too- that outfit probably isn’t armor, at least not in the practical sense. Your Constitution isn’t too bad either. The saying goes, “if it bleeds, you can kill it,” but you’re made out of data so you don’t bleed at all. Your Strength isn’t anything to write home about, but you can warp reality, so why would you need to lift? Dump Wisdom. You’re not exactly the most stable person in Chaldea.

Class Levels

1. Artificer 1: First level artificers get Magical Tinkering, so now you can put minor magical effects into tiny objects. Most of them probably aren’t that practical, but every event shop needs some junk.

You can also cast Spells this level, using your Intelligence to prepare and cast them. On top of your rakdos spells, you can use Lightning Lure and Mage Hand to mess with people. You can also prepare first level spells, like Identify to scan enemies for their status effects, Tasha’s Caustic Brew to re-enact your extra attack card, and Cure Wounds for a bit of maintenance on your spirit origin. It takes work to look this good, y’know!

Finally, you get proficiency with Constitution and Intelligence saves, as well as Arcana and Medicine. You were built to look after humans, and you obviously know a lot about tech.

2. Artificer 2: Second level artificers can Infuse Items to turn dumb ol’ mundane objects into magical objects! You learn four infusions right now, but you can only keep two of them available at a time, and you can swap them out between long rests. Really lean into it, make the rest of the party fight for the affection of their kouhai.

As far as your actual infusions go, Mind Sharpener is a great one for spellcasters, letting them force their concentration to stick even if they fail a save as a reaction. You can also use an Enhanced Arcane Focus to make your spells even stronger. For magic items, the classic Bag of Holding is always in fashion, and Sending Stones will help bring party communication into the 21st century.

3. Sorcerer 1: Being smart is nice, but it’s time to make things a bit more.. interesting. As a sorcerer, you get another Spell list that uses your Charisma to cast. You also get your own home game version of BB slots thanks to your Wild Magic Surge. When you cast a sorcerer spell that uses a spell slot, your DM can make you roll a d20. On a one, you then have to roll on the wild magic surge table.

If that’s not wacky enough for you, the Tides of Chaos can speed things up. Once per long rest, you gain advantage on one attack, check, or save of your choice. Your DM can also force you to roll on the WMS table when you’d normally get a WMS to recharge it.

You get cantrips like Friends, to make friends with Senpai; Message, to send calls to Senpai; Light, to help with Senpai’s dumb human eyes; and Minor Illusion, for some cheap holograms. For first level spells, Mage Armor makes that outfit less of a tactical issue, and Tasha’s Caustic Brew frees up some prep slots for artificer spells.

4. Sorcerer 2: Second level sorcerers are Fonts of Magic, giving you sorcery points equal to your sorcerer level each long rest. Right now they can be used to refill spell slots, or you can empty spell slots to get more points.

You can also cast Magic Missile for some caster balls. I know you’re not a caster, but you do run around with a magic wand, it’s not that wild a concept.

5. Sorcerer 3: Third level sorcerers get second level spells, as well as Metamagic to make them a little bit more you flavored. Distant Spell doubles the range of a spell (or gives it a range of 30′ if it’s touch), while Subtle Spell lets you cast a spell without all that vocal or somatic component nonsense. Why waste time chanting when you could spend it narrating?

You can also cast Enhance Ability to alter your data in favor of one kind of skill checks, gaining advantage on them for the duration. You also double your carrying capacity for strength checks, avoid small falling damage with dexterity checks, or gain temporary HP with constitution checks.

6. Sorcerer 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Charisma to make Senpai notice you. And also to make your sorcerer spells harder to avoid.

You can also cast Prestidigitation to make more small magical effects, or Alter Self to further improve your being. When you cast it, you pick one of three modes. Mode 1 gives you a swimming speed and the ability to breathe underwater. Mode 2 lets you change appearance as an action for the duration, and Mode 3 lets you grow Natural Weapons that are magical against resistances. Honestly Mode 3′s a bad matchup for you, but you’re an independent AI who don’t need no humanity, I’ll let you make your own decisions.

7. Sorcerer 5: Fifth level sorcerers get Magical Guidance, letting you spend 1 sorcery point to re-roll a failed skill check. You can also cast third level spells like Dispel Magic to bonk Kiara back into horny jail. Probably. We haven’t built her yet, still not entirely sure how that’s going to work.

8. Sorcerer 6: Sixth level wild mages can Bend Luck, using their reaction and 2 sorcery points to add or subtract 1d4 to another creature’s attack, check, or save. You love playing games, but more in the ‘dungeon master’ sense.

You can also cast Clairvoyance to set up your very own BB channel studio wherever you’ve been before.

9. Artificer 3: Third level artificers can always find the Right Tool for the Job, creating whatever tools you might need over the course of a short rest. Thanks to being an Artillerist, you can also bring one of those weird geometric enemies from the CCC event to the battlefield in the form of an Eldritch Cannon, creating a freestanding small cannon or a handheld tiny one. They’re pretty customizable, but they all come in one of three flavors. Flamethrowers deal AoE fire damage, Force Ballistas deal single-target force damage and throw people around, and Protectors give out temporary HP.

You also get the freebie spells Shield and Thunderwave. 

10. Artificer 4: Use this ASI to bump up your Intelligence for better artificer spells.

11. Sorcerer 7: Seventh level sorcerers get fourth level spells, like Ego Whip! If your target fails an intelligence save, they get disadvantage on all attacks, checks, and saves, and it can’t cast spells. At the end of each turn it can try to make another intelligence save (still at disadvantage), but tbh most creatures aren’t that bright compared to you.

12. Sorcerer 8: Another ASI already? Bump up your Charisma to make it even harder to break out of your ego whip, and also grab Banishment so you can deal with that giant pain in your behind, Kingprotea (note: this level description does not contain the opinions of fateandphantasms. fateandphantasms does not condone any kind of Kingprotea hating.)

13. Sorcerer 9: Fifth level spell time! Grab Creation so you can warp reality and make pretty much whatever you might need out of thin air!

14. Artificer 5: Fifth level artillerists can make Arcane Firearms this level, adding 1d8 to artificer spell damage cast from a specific focus. This also means that your artificer spells and sorcerer spells can finally come out of the same wand, though I doubt most DMs would care to correct you before now.

You can also cast the freebie spells Scorching Ray and Shatter now, since you can learn 2nd level artificer spells. Use Heat Metal if you’re feeling sadistic, Invisibility or Spider Climb for some hacks, or grab Lesser Restoration for some cursed cupid cleansing.

15. Artificer 6: Your Tool Expertise doubles the proficiency of all tool-based checks, but you also get two more infusions, and one more concurrent infusion to boot! A Spell-Refueling Ring will give you more energy to deal with your many, many, problem children, while a Radiant Weapon will just make your wand shinier. Not that it’s a bad reason to grab it.

16. Artificer 7: At seventh level, you can speed up your processors to have Flashes of Genius, using your reaction to add your intelligence modifier to an ability check or saving throw nearby. You can use this Intelligence Modifier times per long rest.

17. Sorcerer 10: Your newest metamagic option lets you twin spells, turning a one-target spell into a two target spell. Now you can keep both your daughters under control at once with one casting of Dominate Person!

You also get the Mending cantrip, because let’s be real your outfit probably doesn’t look as good as it did 17 levels ago. Finally, you get the spell Far Step to bip and bop all over the place as you see fit. Remember, if you teleport off camera it’s not cheating!

18. Sorcerer 11: Eleventh level sorcerers get sixth level spells, like Tasha’s Otherworldly Guise! If you’re going to wear a nurse outfit, it might as well come with superpowers. You get immunities to certain damages and conditions, you can fly, your AC goes up, and your weapon attacks use your spellcasting modifier, are magical, and you can attack twice per action. Ramming a giant needle into somebody never felt so right!

19. Sorcerer 12: For your last ASI, grab the Tough feat. All these sorcerer levels have not done your HP total any favors.

20. Sorcerer 13: Your capstone level nets you a seventh level spell, so grab Plane Shift so you can finally escape the Mooncell and show Senpai all the hard work you’ve done!

Pros:

You have a ton of ways to cheat at dice, manipulating the world to always work in your favor. Re-roll dice with magical guidance and lucky, or just stick a finger on the scale with bend luck and flash of genius. Either way, your party will be thankful to have you.

You also make a decent variety caster thanks to the variety of technological goodies at your disposal. Support team communication with sending stones, spy on people with clairvoyance, create whatever the party might need with creation, or just blow people up with thunderwave and your eldritch cannon. You come packing a little bit of everything.

You’re particularly good at shutting down one or two opponents, with Ego Whip destroying their ability to do much of anything, Enthrall and Fear keeping you their main focus, or Banishment shoving them out of existence entirely.

Cons:

Those wild magic surges can bite you in the ass just as much as they help you, so try to make sure you don’t spin a bankrupt on the BB slots. Seriously though they can straight up kill your entire party at level 1. Don’t be unlucky.

Having a bit of everything means you aren’t focused on any one thing. Builds like Ishtar and -god help me- Mephistopheles?? beat you in magic damage, Scheherazade and Kogil beat you for utility, and Medea Lily and Irisviel beat you for healing. It must be nice to have so many senpais though!

Trying to keep on top of all those checks and saves means you’ll burn through your sorcery points really fast, so just... don’t push yourself too hard, you might not like what happens when you run out of power.

[ladyc0312]

A Jikook Guide to RunBTS: 20-29

I’ll be totally honest here - I was kind of worried when I took this on that looking closely would end up convincing me that I was just seeing things through shipper goggles. And, sure, there are moments that have had their significance overplayed because all of the guys are touchy. But overall, I've ended up being even more convinced there's at the very least something unique about this relationship!

FYI - I started putting these notes together a few months ago, so my memory about certain episodes has grown a little hazy. In the interest of not needing to rewatch these episodes for a third time, I’ve decided that if I don’t remember much about the episode, it must not have been that memorable, and that’s reflected in the (totally subjective) rating. 

Thanks so much to everyone who shared moments I’d missed last time around - please continue to do so! 

Ep 20 "The Taste of Korea" (Ep: 4 / KM: 2)

The one with Tae’s squirrel plate and JK’s sticky sweet potatoes 

01:45 - Jimin stands super close to JK

12:55 - Jimin laughs particularly hard at JK's glazed sweet potatoes sticking to the plate

13:15 - JM and JK lock eyes as they joke about the sweet potatoes. Then Jimin continues laughing at JK's antics even when they start going on a bit too long

15:05 - Jimin is the only one to laugh when JK makes another joke about the sweet potatoes 

17:44 - JM is the only one paying enough attention to laugh with JK at Jin's comments on the sweet potatoes

Ep 21 "Board Game Competition" (Ep: 1 / KM: 1)

The one I recall almost nothing about beyond that the room was ugly (and maybe in Chicago?)

12:44 - JK has moved next to Jimin during the cut. JK pats JM on the shoulder and starts to say something about him, but gets cut off. 

12:54 - JK compliments Jimin's card-dealing 

15:46 - JK tries unsuccessfully to get JM's attention so he can advise him what color to pick 

Ep 22 "Hangawi Festival" (Ep: 3 / KM: 3)

The one where the members wear hanbok to make food and play games

3:18 - When Suga comments that JK is good enough to be a songpyeon artist after retirement, Jimin says JK has a lot to do after retirement since JK told him he wanted to run a BBQ place.

7:01 - Jimin leans in close to JK and asks him to vote for his songpyeon (weirdly, hearts pop up on the screen when he does). Despite his desire to win, Jimin cheers loudly and puts his arm around JK when JK's songpyeon gets the first vote. He keeps his arm around him the entire time the voting is happening and as they start announcing the votes. 7:45 - When the other members go over to look at the dishes, JM and JK stay behind together. 21:00 - After watching Jimin spin in fascination, JK tells everyone that Jimin used to be a dancer (no idea why he says that like it's new info for anyone lol) 29:11 - JM and JK walk off together BEHIND 2:58 - JM and JK look over all the songpyeon together and Jimin compliments JK's 3:55 - more footage of the super long amount of time JM had his arm around JK

Ep 23 "Pet Friends" (Ep: 5 / KM: 1)

The one where adorable boys play with adorable dogs 

5:16 - Jimin seems to find JK's joke about eating dog treats as snacks hilarious and adorable  18:01 - JK and JM address each other when bragging about their dogs and have a moment of just looking at each other  19:50 - Jimin smiles when JK enters with his dog and the captions feel the need to clarify that it's a "brother-like smile"

Ep 24 "BTS vs. Zombies" (Ep: 4 / KM: 0)

The one where BTS (minus JK) is too afraid of zombies to complete any tasks

None

Ep 25 "Game King" (Ep: 2 / KM: 3)

The one that reminds us video games are more fun to play that to watch people play (but it’s super fun to watch Jimin dance while water is poured over him)

1:36 - JK walks over and puts his arm around Jimin when they get put on the same team. He does the same to Jin after and there are much better jikook moments in this ep, but including it for the sake of completionism  22:32 - JM sits right up next to JK and is kind of touchy when they pick a punishment. 22:56 - When the producer asks what song Jimin should dance to while getting water poured on his head, JK requests "'Blood Sweat and Tears,' a sexy one" and then gets shy and rubs at his ear.  23:32 - Jimin has his arm around JK when saying goodbye. 23:52 - When Jimin says he's nervous to dance, JK asks them to play the music loud. They're all staring at Jimin when he dances while getting soaked (because how could you not?), but JK's face at 24:16 after he gives JM a once-over is pretty great. And I think it's JK who yells "so hot!" at 24:23. He's also the only one still clapping at 24:43. 

Ep 26 "Secret Agent" (Ep: 3 / KM: 1)

The one where the boys wear tuxedos and drive go-karts

15:19 - Jimin comments that JK will like the laser part of the course. 17:38 - JK taps JM on the shoulder to indicate something. 24:30 - JM proudly tells JK that he heard he scored the highest (even though that is a. not true and b. would be bad for Jimin's team). BEHIND 0:15 - Jimin reaches over to pat JK's stomach even though Jin is the one who messed up.

Ep 27 "Welcome to Your First MT Part 1" (Ep: 4 / KM: 3)

The ones where BTS play games, sing karaoke, and have a BBQ

6:22 - Jimin points out that they shouldn't make things harder for JK's team and imitates JK's confused big eyes. 7:48 - Jimin is playing the nonsensical answers game and is doing well until they ask what JK's favorite color is and Jimin immediately says yellow. Then, looks over at JK with an embarrassed smile. 13:55 - Jimin loses again with JK involved and, after, keeps looking at him and sings something I don't recognize.  19:22 - When Jimin has to do the nonsense game again, JK cheers him on with a "Jimin fighting!" even though they're on opposing teams. 20:50 - When Jimin has to drink lemon juice, JK volunteers that Jimin will be good at that since he likes sour things. He then repeats that fact another two times.  24:30 - Not super shippy, but the sound effect JK makes for Jimin's die toss is pretty great. 24:44 - When JK argues that Jimin's team should get less time, Jimin looks at him and acts cute so JK laughs and stops arguing. 28:18 - When Jimin gets an answer wrong in a funny way, JK says "this is is how he makes the show awesome."  BEHIND 0:58 - Jimin complains that the shirts with JK's face on them make Jungkook look "too cute."

Ep 28 "Welcome to Your First MT Part 2" (Ep: 4 / KM: 1)

6:50 - Jimin doesn't even glance at J-Hope when he makes a comment to him while JK is singing

Ep 29 "...Be Each Other's Stylist" (Ep: 4 / KM: 4)

The one where the guys all dress each other 

10:18 - Jimin says he wants to try Jungkook's clothes because he thinks he might look great in them.  This whole scene, JK seems kind of nervous and keeps hovering near Jimin - it's especially apparent at 10:45

13:25 - When he gets picked to be styled by Jimin, JK celebrates, calls JM Jimini-ssi, and clasps his hand. 16:36 - Not a shippy moment per se, but the look on JK's face when Jimin holds up the pink shirt he's considering dressing him in is pretty great.  17:14 - Jikook keep joking around with each other about the pink shirt while the others are introducing their styles. JK swats at JM with the prop rose at 17:45 as part of this.  21:19 - While the guys are getting changed, Jimin calls everyone's attention to how he's dressed JK and gets them to compliment how good it looks. Then, V comments that it's the boyfriend look and Jimin says he wanted it to look great.  23:21 - JK trails his eyes up Jimin's body as JM poses. 23:27 - This starts the sequence of JK modeling Jimin's clothes, which involves a lot of laughing and looks plus JK imitating Jimin's hair sweep. At 23:54, JM calls JK Jungkook-ssi and says he looks even better than he thought. JK immediately stops posing and gets shy and earnest as he asks "really?" and says thank you. Then he takes JM's hand and holds it a few seconds and his entire face lights up.  (This isn't a moment I'd given a lot of thought to before, but watching it now, I actually think I'd put it on my "moments that highlight how differently JM and JK interact with each other than with anyone else" list) 29:10 - While doing his model walk, JK imitates JM's hair sweep again and then does a piece of JM's choreo from "Save Me." JM cracks up the whole time and they do a bro-hug when JK is done. 33:00 JM and JK crack up together in the middle of the final poses.  BEHIND 5:29 - As they get changed, JM and JK joke about the fit of the pants JM is trying on. 6:58 - JM and JK decide that JK should change into the outfit JM originally picked out. JK does and then starts imitating JM, which makes JM laugh and playfully smack him. They keep talking and at 7:40 JM briefly touches JM's back. 9:10 - J-Hope says that Jimin said before the episode that he wanted to dress JK. JM corrects him that he said Tae. 

[shadow-lord-by-day]

Undoubtedly the greatest sin of D&D is its treatment of skills. It’s actually pretty funny just how poorly they’re handled, to the point at which it’s genuinely sad that for so many people it’s the only RPG they’ll ever play, because there are much, much better ones out there. (Also, assume when I say D&D that I am referring to the fifth edition of that game.)

Ok, but why? What’s wrong with D&D’s skills? For a start, they’re almost meaningless. They’re presented as closer to specific appliccations of an ability score than they are as their own indepentent abilities. Ultimately, this comes down to the way proficiency works, as a one size fits all single modifier. You use your ability score and your proficiency bonus, the latter of which means very little at the levels at which 90% of play takes place. For example, the character I play in one of my games has been educated extensively in the internal workings of the multiverse, and has proficiency in Arcana and Religion to reflect this. Except... their intelligence isn’t particularl high. It’s respectable, sitting at 14, the second highest in the party, but when one of the other players, who hasn’t had the canonic education that mine has, has only one point of modifier to those skills lower than mine because their intelligence is 18... it doesn’t really make any sense, does it? How did they come by that esotric knowledge, introspection into the nature of reality and their own being? Yeah, no. I’m not buying that.

3.5, which I played for many years before 5e, got around this issue by allowing curated skill progression. Each level up, you assigned skill points, which you were given a number of according to your class and intelligence (I also seem to remember that humans got a few more per level). (Intelligence, by the way, has dropped from being an absolutely crucial ability score to (ironically) the no brainer dump stat for most characters, which while not inherently a bad thing doesn’t do great things for balancing wizards and artificers.) There were certain skills that it was harder to level up, as you had to invest two points to increase that skill’s modifier by one, which was dictated by your class. This led to enormous modifiers only a few levels in, but the game got around this by just inflating DCs as players progressed in level (which was incidentally an incredibly good tool for DMs to indicate that the player’s shouldn’t be attempting a certain challege too early on - they simply could not reach the DCs required at the level they were at. This also appied for AC, by the way). The end result of this was that in the late levels, the actual roll barely mattered, but at those levels, where characters are expected to be consistently good at things, that made sense!

Recently, I’ve started prepping for a game of Werewolf: The Apocalypse, a game that I absolutely adore, but haven’t really been able to play for a while because I haven’t been able to find a group until now. Anyway, while going through the rulebook, I was amazed at how much better skills are dealt with than in D&D (I’m not claiming that Werewolf is perfect, but Gaia is it a breath of fresh air after playing nothing but D&D for so long). For one thing, the rulebook is much more concerned with the concept of failing forward than that of D&D, and provides the Storyteller with help on how to do this effectively, but this isn’t as relevant. They can’t be compared as directly as with 3.5, because the die rolling system in World Of Darkness games is completely different, but the nice thing about them is that they aren’t tied to any one ability score (they’re not called that, but the equivalent of them). In D&D, if I, a lawyer, make a bulletproof case to a jury as to why my client is innocent, including indisputable evidence and flawless logic, I am asked to make a Persuasion check. In D&D, Persuasion is a Charisma based skill. This very plainly doesn’t make sense in context, my Intelligence should be the driving ability here, but it’s not. In Werewolf, however, the Storyteller (me in this case) asks the player to roll Intelligence + Expression, combining the Persuasion equivalent with the character’s mental acuity. Much better.

My final gripe with the skill system is just how of them there are. Look at this. Compare these, representing the numbers of skills in each of these game lines.

Call of Cthulhu: 59

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: 30x9 (As there are 9 different Traits (Ability Scores) with which to combine Abilities (Skills))

3.5: 36

D&D 5e: 18

By the way, in 3.5 the number is actually a lot higher than that because you can add other skills like Engineering, Law, and Economics based on what your character knows about or knows how to make. D&D falls massively short by comparison, with a lot of things left out entirely. I understand the motivation behind combining things like Run, Jump, and Swim into Atheltics, and Listen and Spot into Perception, but there are entire, and pretty useful, skills like Appraise and Craft which are completely done away with.

Ultimately, this doesn’t really matter, but it is the driving factor in why I am becoming less and less interested in D&D on the whole. I do completely understand why people like it, it’s simple and it has a larger fanbase than most other games, making it perfect to start out with in the hobby, but I just can’t help but feel that it could be doing something so much better. I’ll get back to planning Werewolf stuff now. Play whatever you want to play.

[ducktracy]

184. the woods are full of cuckoos (1937)

release date: december 4th, 1937

series: merrie melodies

director: frank tashlin

starring: mel blanc (owlcott, walter finchell, milton squirrel, wendell howl, fox, raven mcquandry), tedd pierce (ben birdie, tizzie fish, andy bovine), sara berner (polly gillette, canary livingstone)

this cartoon gets the honorable award of possibly being the most dated warner bros. shorts in its vast repertoire of cartoons. not to worry! this will be a fun cartoon to unpack—i love delving into the shorts that involve extensive research. learning something new is something that‘s very rewarding to me, and i hope it is to you, too!

a giant ode to the short lived radio program community sing (lasting from 1936-1937), the short chronicles a woodland radio show hosted by a variety of caricatured animals putting on various acts.

iris in to the ringing of a bell. a pudgy, bespectacled owl rings it as he stands illuminated by the moonlight, preaching to all of the woodland critters, ready to start the show. he introduces himself as “owlcott”, a take on commentator alexander woollcott. he “blandly announces” (his words, not mine) the introduction of the master of ceremonies, ben birdie--a bird caricature of radio personality ben bernie, “the old maestro”.

birdie’s caricature is not new to audience’s eyes. the caricature, along with a handful of others, is reused from friz freleng’s the coocoo nut grove from 1936, a short that is very similar in vein to this one. tedd pierce provides birdie’s suave, velvety vocals as he introduces the program, only to be interrupted by the nasally cries of mel blanc. out pops walter finchell, a caricature of bernie’s faux-enemy walter winchell, both of whom carrying a notorious (and fake) feud in the radio-verse. it was common for winchell to interrupt the smooth-talking bernie, either throwing pranks or remarks his way, to which bernie dismissed every time. indeed, a signature tashlin upshot angle reveals finchell dropping an egg on top of birdie, who blocks it nonchalantly with a handy umbrella.

art loomer’s backgrounds for the cartoon are absolutely gorgeous. they’re vibrant in color, very lush and painterly, but remain playful and sophisticated at the same time. they certainly serve as a highlight to the short. and, as always, carl stalling’s scores are a blast to hear--his sardonic, wah-wah rendition of “cause my baby says it’s so” is a jolly juxtaposition to the prior score of “love is on the air tonight”, the latter being the song’s cartoon debut. it would be reused in cartoons such as the daffy doc, whereas “cause my baby says its so” was heard previously in rover’s rival.

birdie introduces a clever squirrel caricature of milton berle, whose routine gets interrupted by a little parrot named polly. polly is a take on eileen barton’s character, little jolly gillette, who was portrayed as the daughter of the show’s sponsor. polly and milton go through their act together, polly bluntly (yet innocently) announcing “my daddy says ya gotta let me sing ‘cause he’s a sponsor!” you can listen to real recordings of their banter here!

volney white’s animation of milton and polly is lively and jovial, constantly moving. milton energetically introduces us to our next star, pointing in the wrong direction and fixing it last second as he gestures towards a bird caricature of country singer wendell hall.

even if viewers don’t recognize the bird’s counterpart, they will most certainly recognize his voice--mel uses his foghorn leghorn voice for wendell “howl”. of course, foghorn wouldn’t debut for another 9 years, but that’s another story. the animation of the raucous bird is fun to watch as he extends his neck and wraps it around in coils around the microphone stand. random? yes, but fun nevertheless.

perhaps even more commendable is the staggering crowd shot that succeeds wendell’s scenes. the crowd is mirrored horizontally, but that doesn’t lessen the blow from how claustrophobic it is. wendell asks the audience to get out their songbooks and turn to page “22... no, page 44. uh, no, uh, page 28. uh, 42, uh, 36, uh, 45...” 

wendell is transformed from an entertainer to an auctioneer, spitting out numbers at rapid pace as his crowd frantically tears through their songbooks. finally, he concedes. “oh, never mind. we won’t use the books.” off screen, the crowd roars in unison: “OH YES WE WILL!” with that, wendell is generously showered with a barrage of books, buried in the pile of rejected papers. the timing of the scene is comedically sharp and energetic, one of the more entertaining acts of the cartoon.

now, for the real song number, lead by goat and bear caricatures of billy jones and ernie hare (would a rabbit caricature be too on the nose?) respectively, animated by volney white. they march out onto the stage--er, tree trunk--and open the curtains to reveal a sing-along to the eponymous song. thus, the camera pans into the lyrics as everybody bursts into the all-too-earworm-causing song number. 

as the crowd, ben birdie and walter finchell all lend their voices to the song, a fox caricature of fred allen sings “swanee river”, clashing with the unity of everybody else. in a nod to friz freleng’s toy town hall where the same routine was executed, a little bunny excitedly coos “ohhhh, mr. allen! you’re singing the wrong sooooong!” the fox bursts into everybody’s favorite Mel Blanc Yell as he repeats a frequent ‘30s catchphrase: “WHY DON’T SOMEBODY TELL ME THESE THINGS!?”

featured in the song is a seemingly interminable cast of celebrity caricatures, all introduced as the camera pans across the screen, each lending their voice to part of the song. some puns require more effort than others (dick powell as “dick fowl” rolls off the tongue better than al jolson as “al goatson”). caricatures include: 

eddie cantor as eddie gander, sophie tucker as sophie turkey, w.c. fields as w.c. fieldmouse, dick powell as dick fowl, fats waller as fats swallow, deanna durbin as deanna terrapin, irvin s. cobb as irvin s. frog, fred macmurray as fred mcfurry, bing crosby as bing crowsby, al jolson as al goatson, ruby keeler as ruby squealer, lanny ross as lanny hoss, grace moore as grace moose, and finally lily pons as lily swans.

speaking of grace and lily, they’re both highlighted as they fight to out-perform each other, seeing who can sing the highest note. tashlin pulls of a rather intriguing camera move: as the pan settles on the two of them, the background changes. it’s a subtle maneuver, but smart thinking nonetheless--especially since the camera extends into a vertical pan. as both women fight to sing the highest note, their necks extend, both of them scaling high into the night sky, harmonizing on one final shrill note. they both crumple back into the stands, exhausted by their efforts. some fun exaggerated animation for sure--one wonders how much further this would have been pushed had this been tashlin’s second stint at WB rather than his first. his speed often rivaled, if not out-performed, tex avery’s.

birdie and finchell have a brief interstitial together before making way for a raven caricature of haven macquarrie (raven mcquandry). his sequence is almost jarringly short, but full of fun drawings and poses--the pose of him standing curtly with his arms crossed is awfully reminiscent of izzy ellis’ work under tashlin and later bob clampett in the mid ‘40s. mcquandry asks “do YOU wanna be an actor?”, parotting the name of his real life counterpart’s show so do you want to be an actor? the audience shouts “NO!” in unison, causing mcquandry to do a take and shrug dubiously. though the scene is only a few short seconds, the animation brings forth some much needed vitality.

next is a penguin caricature of joe penner, singing a hilariously out-of-tune rendition of “my green fedora”. the animation is reused from the cartoon of the same name (notice how he doesn’t have penguin feet!), which was also used in toy town hall. not a complaint, but more an observation--this is by far the most humorous performance of the song yet, sung by blanc rather than tommy bond.

another fun scene with some vivacious animation is a sequence featuring a mule caricature of martha raye (dubbed moutha bray), singing a cover of “how could you?”, which has been featured as an underscore in cartoons such as porky’s badtime story and its later remake, tick tock tuckered. raye’s large mouth served as prime material for caricatures, as we see here. the animation is snappy, fun, and vivid--she finishes her song by “swallowing” the camera, an old trick that beckons memories of the harman and ising cartoons of animation past. 

an interesting trend in the ‘30s WB cartoons is the trend of playing with the iris, whether it was the closing iris out or an iris in between transitions. tex avery would consistently play with the final iris out on his cartoons, whereas directors such as friz freleng and bob clampett would use one as a transition between scenes. here, tashlin uses the “swallow the camera” technique as a segue for an iris in, tedd pierce’s falsetto squeaking “hello folksies!” as we’re introduced to a fish caricature of tizzie lish, a character played by bill comstock on al pearce and his gang.

though tizzie has long faded into obscurity (as has the entire community sing radio show), it’s still quite easy to appreciate pierce’s vocals and mannerisms as he portrays the character. it’s always a joy to hear him doing voices for cartoons--he’s never been my favorite writer on the crew, but he was an excellent talent as a voice actor. his squeaky deliveries, matter of fact deliveries “mix them up... are you mixing? my friends say i’m a good mixer. are you? or aren’t you?” as tizzie haphazardly dumps food items and their respective utensils into a bowl and prepares the meal are nothing short of hilarious. the timing is very well executed and can be appreciated regardless of background knowledge.

after humming a pitchy rendition of “the lady in red” while waiting for her concoction to bake in the waffle iron, tizzie removes the homemade waffle and discards it, instructing the audience “now take the ‘wiffle’ out and eat the iron. you must have iron in your system. or should you?” thus concludes tizzie’s act, certainly heightened in hilarity by pierce’s vocals and timing.

for the final act, ben birdie introduces a possum caricature of louella parsons, the host of the radio program hollywood hotel, which served as a way to advertise upcoming movies by featuring guest stars enacting some of the scenes. here, we have caricatures of jack benny (as jack bunny, the first of his many reoccurrences), mary livingstone (canary livingstone), and andy devine (andy bovine).

tedd pierce voices andy bovine, whose voice burlusqued not only in this cartoon, but to a greater extent in friz freleng’s my little buckeroo not even a year later. devine, a western star, was notorious for his scratchy, shrill voice which was rife for comedic opportunity. indeed, this scene here with pierce’s vocals is nothing short of hilarious: 

the trio chronicle the prodigal’s return, in which bunny and canary coo over their baby son. out of the bassinet pops incongruously large bovine, who shrieks “HOWDY MAAAA! HI PAAAA!”, the sheer volume of his voice enough to blow both of his parents away and out of the scene. and, with that, the scene ends, red curtains colorized from porky’s romance marking the sequence’s end. short, sweet, to the point, and hilarious.

ending right where the cartoon began, the owl caricature of alexander woollcott bids us farewell, the iris closing in on the bell he rings as he exclaims that all is well.

like so many other cartoons i’ve reviewed, this is one that i slowly warmed up to upon rewatching it and typing out the review for myself. i didn’t entirely dislike the cartoon upon my first watch, but it’s undeniably dated and deserves its title as possibly the most dated cartoon. without further research, some of the jokes and caricatures (if not all of them) are difficult to appreciate. the animation has bursts of energy throughout the short, the highlights being the scenes featuring raven mcquarry and moutha bray, but otherwise remains relatively simple and conservative. tashlin does incorporate a few intriguing camera angles throughout the cartoon, but many other entries of his are far more cinematic.

however, despite all of that, this cartoon is not without its bonuses: art loomer’s backgrounds are stunningly gorgeous and rich, and as someone who loves the lush, painterly backgrounds of the 1930s, this is heaven to me. and, as i mentioned previously, tedd pierce’s scenes are great--the tizzie fish and andy bovine sequences are undeniable comedic highlights.

so, if you’re willing to dedicate time to put in the research for this cartoon, you’ll find it’s quite fascinating! i’m certain this was a much bigger gut-buster in 1937 than it is in 2020, but even then, this is a good cartoon for people such as myself who love to learn more information and seek out facts. as a result, i’d recommend it to people who fall into that category. if you’re just someone who wants a good laugh and a leisurely watch, there are more interesting cartoons that lie ahead. you won’t miss much by skipping it.

with that said, here’s the link!

[taylorswiftdiscographyrate]

#100-91

100. White Horse (6.881) Highest score was 10; Lowest score was 2.7

Just barely scraping into the top 100 is Fearless’s track 5! White Horse is one of the only Track 5s to get the single treatment, the only other one being Delicate (unless you count The Archer being a promo single). This song won Grammys! 2 of them, to be precise - Best Country Song and Best Female Country Vocal Performance. And yet, here it languishes at number 100. Shame on us.

Highlighted comments: @corneliaavenue​: “I think this is her track 5 that aged the worst” @yourivysgrows: “Another amazing track 5″

99. I Wish You Would (6.900) Highest score was 9; Lowest score was 3

Finally, we enter the double digits! This song has some excellent storytelling with the very classic Taylor motif of 2am, and yet it’s never really gotten a huge amount of love from the fandom. While it’s hard to really pinpoint any song on 1989 as being “the most slept on”, since the whole album dominated pretty much the entire year after it released, but if we had to choose one song, this would probably be a big contender.

Highlighted comments: @yourivysgrows: “One of the most forgettable on 1989 ??”

98. Tim McGraw (6.953) Highest score was 9.25; Lowest score was 5

Her debut! This is THE song that introduced Taylor Swift™ to the world. If you’ve been a fan since this song was released, you have bragging rights and you should absolutely use them. There’s just something so timeless about this song, while I don’t consider it a favourite of mine, I enjoy it every time I listen to it.

Highlighted comments: @onceintwentylifetimes: “Timeless classic.” @tobesolonely: “literally her best opener” @itspeterlosingwendy: “good song, makes me nostalgic” 

97. Afterglow (6.963) Highest score was 11 (@na-smetisti); Lowest score was 3

The second-most slept on song of the Lover era. This song tackles a fight with a partner, and the resulting apology Taylor makes for starting it. It’s a nice song, and it got almost no acknowledgement from Taylor (I think it was mentioned in one interview? I can’t really remember and I can’t be bothered to go digging for it). If LoverFest had actually happened, this was probably going to be the song that got the cut. You all know its true.

Highlighted comments: @yourivysgrows: “She's beautiful”

96. the lakes (6.981) Highest score was 10; Lowest score was 3

I firmly believe that this being a deluxe track with a delayed release harmed its standing amongst the fandom. Had we had time to digest this alongside all the other folklore tracks, I’m sure it would be a lot more loved. It uses a lot of big words, and that can be intimidating!

Highlighted comments: @corneliaavenue: “I'm glad this was a bonus track, the tweet line ruins the entire song for me” @yourivysgrows: “I never reach for her ??”

94. This Love & I Almost Do (6.997) This Love: Highest score was 9.5; Lowest score was 3.4 I Almost Do: Highest score was 10; Lowest score was 1

Another tie! This Love is poetry. Literally poetry - it started out as a poem that Taylor wrote back in 2012 (we even got a sneak peek at its original writing in the Lover journals!). The slow and atmospheric production really fits the lyrics - that being said, while I love this song for that reason, I suppose I can understand why others might dislike it.

Highlighted comments: @yourivysgrows: “Dreamy as hell”

Now, let’s talk about I Almost Do. This used to be my least favourite song on Red - I still like it, just as I like every song on Red, but it was the one that stood out the least for me. So, while it has grown on me since, it’s not a great surprise to me that it didn’t rank particularly highly here.

Highlighted comments: @leadinmeon​: “this song has good lyrics but i always think abt the "ooooowooooowooo" at the start of the bridge and it's a bit cringe” @liabilitys​: “one of my fav songs but v underrated”

93. hoax (7.016)  Highest score was 9.5; Lowest score was 4

There is something about the lyric “stood on the cliffside screaming ‘give me a reason’” that is just so haunting to me. We never quite worked out what this song was, did we? Or if we did, then I missed the boat somehow. Someone fill me in please <3

Highlighted comments: @yourivysgrows: “I actually like this one a lot”

92. The Moment I Knew (7.056) Highest score was 10; Lowest score was 1

The storytelling! The storytelling! The Moment I Knew is a song that slowly, slowly reveals itself as it goes on. Cast your mind back to the first time you heard this song, and that final chorus came in and dropped the bomb of “Happy Birthday to you”, and you finally have the full picture of what went down. Her birthday party! How could you not show up to her birthday party! It’s hating Jake Gyllenhaal hours.

Highlighted comments: @leadinmeon: “it's weird i used to relate so much” @yourivysgrows: “Fuck Jake Gylenhaal part 25″

91. Ronan (7.106) Highest score was 10; Lowest score was 1

This is Taylor’s saddest song for me, no contest. I’m not going to say anything more about it, because Ronan is not really the type of song that invites critique.

Highlighted comments: @tobesolonely: “for how she incorporated Maya's blog posts as verses to give her writing credit”  @itspeterlosingwendy: “sad but good”