#extreme battle clears

[crystalelemental]

Guys. I’m gonna keep it real with you. I’m calling this one. This fight is fucked. There is one (1) terrain setter in Unova that can overwrite Psychic Terrain. And it’s C!Elesa. Who can only do it once. It is a Bad Time.

I got one F2P clear. Elesa is EX, Skyla is EX. Without that investment, and double quad queue on each sync, you lose this guaranteed. Yes, the quad queue is required. Otherwise they heal too much under terrain, and you fail to KO on sync and get blasted by Endurance. If you have H!Caitlin and Champion Iris, you can have a slightly easier time. N is likely a good substitute for Elesa, since he bypasses Endurance, but I don’t want to redo this fight with Skyla and Colress to prove a point.

This one is brutal. We so desperately need modern Unova pairs that are good.

[cubbihue]

POV: You just got apprehended by your own lawyer.

Chimmy Changa spent his early years as a Public Defense Lawyer. He had to get really into shape because. For some reason. He kept getting clients who'd bolt from the court room.

[Prev] > [Next]

+ bonus sketches i tossed out becuase i couldnt draw them to my satisfaction >:I !!

[bacchuschucklefuck]

this has been a roller coaster of a design journey but finally I can present you: class swap artificer!adaine and rogue!fabian

[sunderwight]

I love HOTD fic concepts where Lucaerys and Arrax accidentally kill Vhagar. I want more of them so bad.

Mostly because of the black comedy potential. I could go either way for whether or not Aemond dies too, but jesus that's such a great idea. The oldest, biggest, scariest dragon on the fucking planet and somehow sopping wet twink Lucaerys Velaryon and his tweenage mount manage to take her out? One little alteration and the tone of the whole conflict shifts almost entirely.

Of course some kind of freak intervention is required for it to work, and most of that's still pretty dark. Options I like include Vhagar actually just being so old that she's nearing the end of her lifespan and so it's less that Lucaerys and Arrax successfully kill her, and more that she just happens to die at the worst possible moment for Aemond, or else something like lightning from the active storm striking some of the chains on her (prospects also not good for Aemond with that one), or Arrax gets in a single lucky shot via breathing fire right down her throat and causing a fatal blowback of the whole firebreathing system that is like a 1 in a million chance type thing.

But then what? Everyone at Storm's End saw Aemond flip his shit at Luke and go chasing after him, plus Arrax is like snack-sized compared to Vhagar, you can't even plausibly lie and claim that somehow they instigated the conflict, not even with Luke's history of successfully landing critical hits against his uncle. Not that the "we're the victims" approach would necessarily do the Greens strict favors here, since Aemond's a grown man now and his side are hinging a lot of their cause on appealing to the same brand of Westerosi toxic masculinity that views losing a fight as a sign that the gods don't like you enough.

I haven't seen it yet but I also think it would be really funny if the Greens tried to paint Lucaerys as this like, unholy terror? Like they just have to exaggerate how horrible this one teenager is in order to salvage any shred of dignity from the situation. He is death from the skies! Tried to murder his uncle in cold blood when they were but babes! Thirsted for violence and slaughter ever since! The mad dog son acts at the behest of the evil false queen who spawned him, truly he is Maegor come again! A sinister bastard! And they're talking about this Disney Channel ass kid:

We can all hear the dramatic score from the show gradually distort into circus music in the back of our minds, right?

[angeart]

5. What are your fanfic pet peeves? Do they have a huge effect on whether or not you decide to read something? :)c

i think one big thing that can certainly put me off the fic is formatting? endless paragraphs are one thing but...

ok, look, it can be an amazing story, but if i keep getting confused about who's talking, or especially if there are two different people talking in the same paragraph (something that bothers me endlessly), i might just give up and drop it.

if we're talking content wise, i think especially in romance (but this can apply to friendships too)— if i don't feel like the characters love or care about each other unless they spell it out? that's. not good. you know, when they say "i love you" and you're just there blinking at the screen like, DO YOU????? that.

i think these two points in general do sway me a lot.

--- question from this ask game

[lionblaze03-2]

Your friendly reminder that it's ok to commit murder as long as they aren't from YOUR society

[quaranmine]

you should all be scared i was having shower epiphanies and writing scenes in the shower earlier. that's when it gets real,

[perenlop]

not to complain abt a thing every pokemon fan and their mom has complained about but man i just realized another reason why not putting the battle frontier in oras was a failure of a decision- because the next game, sumo, and its postgame kinda hinges on you already knowing who anabel is, and i think a good chunk of the fandom either didnt know or didnt recognize her at all because the last time she appeared was in the deep postgame a game that had come out nearly a decade before. so having the battle frontier, or at least the frontier brains, in oras would have reminded the audience and told new fans who anabel was and given us a reason to care about her

[bonefall]

Thoughts on Riverstar? I find him interesting, especially considering he objects to early clan life but ultimately becomes a leader despite that

River Ripple is actually one of the most interesting parts of DotC and if the Erins actually cared about how Clan Culture evolved, they would have made him a much bigger player in DotC. But no, instead, we've smacked the climactic Battle of Fourtrees in the MIDDLE of the arc to make room for the Clear Sky Redemption Arc That Isnt Even A Redemption Arc.

But hey at least we got One Eye and Slash. We all remember One Eye and Slash right. Those were villains that definitely didnt feel forced and entirely completely didnt contribute to the 'evil foreigner' thing that warrior cats as a series is plagued with

No it doesn't count if you only remember One Eye through CheeCats, CheeCats has a massive brain and can do whatever they want forever. If you or a loved one has started shipping River Ripple x One Eye as a result of CheeCats you may be entitled to financial compensation.

i am included in this demographic.

But enough grinding my teeth over the parts of DotC I don't like. This is about Riverstar, a part of DotC that I DO like

Cats of the Park

The Cats of the Park have such a fascinating culture, and it seems to have a bunch of the 'missing pieces' that the Sun Trail cats don't share with their descendants. The mentor/apprenticeship system, the nature reverence, the changing of names after significant events, the rigid schedules and rituals of their daily lives...

Even the leap to worshiping STARS comes from River Ripple and the Cats of the Park.

Heck, it would have been super cool if the Clan cats actually got to react to the destruction of the Park. I think that would have been a really fun and horrific way to rise up the tension, put more stress on the forest to feed a sudden influx of cats, and establish that humans are starting to encroach.

ESPECIALLY if it happened after Thunder Rising, you know? Set up River Ripple as one of Thunder's good friends, helping him realize that his relationship with his biodad is toxic. Then he falls into the river but comes out okay, instilling a reverence of the forest in ALL of his friends

Riverstar Himself

It's really cool to see that River himself is so relaxed about everything, it's a fun and refreshing mindset that we don't get in very many cats, ESPECIALLY not after the rigidity of Clan life is established in later books.

I think that would have been a super cool contrast to the invasive mountain cats, with Clear Sky bringing his concept of borders and battles, and River Ripple trying to appease him with teamwork and diplomacy... and Thunder, Wind Runner, and Tall Shadow realizing it is not going to work.

So I think if there's one thing I really don't like about River Ripple as a character, it's how he doesn't get dragged into the bigger conflicts.

I don't think any character should have gotten that luxury, especially not someone who will become a leader later on. I think the writers let him have too much of an easy time hiding behind his river and watching everything happen from afar.

He does get involved in the One Eye and Slash conflicts, of course... but personally it just feels kinda weak.

Like, he understands the purpose of getting involved AFTER witnessing the corpse-making event at Fourtrees, not suffering loss or injury exactly because he minded his own business? Feels backwards to me.

So to be clear: What I WANT is for him to not want to get involved, but the plot should keep dragging him back in against his will.

Anyway, overall I really like the guy.

[paradoxlily]

Do you have a favourite ship?

It's tough to say, considering I always get a new favorite as I hop between fandoms! However, I think I can sum up almost all my favorite ships like this:

One character is goofy and silly, while the other is more grounded and serious.

Silly falls in love every time Serious lets loose and has fun, showing their own goofy side.

Serious falls in love every time Silly gets real with them, showing their own grounded side.

They kiss.

[crystalelemental]

For anyone seeking a non-limited (but very high investment) solution to Rose's Extreme Battle, here's mine. All general pool, but also all 3/5 EX.

Melony is very good for this fight because the accuracy boosts prevent missing on the sides. Melony is atrocious for this fight because the wide majority of useful Galarians are physical. As an independent buff bot, this puts Melony in an awkward spot, having ideal traits for some aspects of the fight, but ultimately being wholly irrelevant for anything that normally wants to take it on. Sonia, by comparison, is ideal for most of your offensive options, and is like the only solution you have to gauges. Team Swift Reaction rules. Their grids can be tweaked, notably for Endurance on Sonia, but there's not as much wiggle room as you'd like.

So, with the dual support thing out of the way, let's talk damage. Gordie. Gordie, listen to me, you beautiful man. You are the only reasonable general pool option we have. Bede has Clear Advantage 8. This is what I could call a Dick Move. You need field effects. Guess what Galar is really fucking bad at! Well okay, that's not fair, they have a few included Gordie. Your other damage dealing options are Bede (Sun or Psychic Terrain), Anni Raihan (extend Sand), Palentine's Marnie (Steel Wish), Winter Nessa (high Hail MPR), Leon (Fire Damage Field, massive DPS), and NC Hop (Fighting Zone). All of them are limited. If Nessa had Max Moves, we'd at least have a second option, but nooooooo. Fucking Galar. The worst part is, some of these aren't even viable on their own. Bede gets one application and likely won't finish the job, and Winter Nessa sucks for damage, so unless you have Winter Leon too, that's not gonna fly. You may also note that all of these, barring NC Hop, are slow as sin. This is why Sonia is such a good frontline tank; Team Swift Reaction is like your only Galarian solution to the issue of gauge.

Gordie was a fairly safe pick, because Sonia and Melony combo extremely well with him. Inertia is capped naturally via Sonia, while Melony gives him the accuracy for Rock Tomb. The goal here is to disrupt strategically with Sing, buying extra actions for Sonia to debuff defense, and Gordie to debuff speed. Given they're all EX, the structure is that while Melony is performing her disruption, let Sonia take first sync, Melony second, and Gordie all the rest. Gordie's third sync is pictured above. 60k is definitely enough for a one-shot. At present, I don't know how low you could shift that to still perform a one-shot, but 40k might be sufficient. I think 32k was close on a different run, so one of Melony or Sonia at EX might be sufficient. The main thing is to set up his GMax Volcalith just before he takes sync, so the damage reduction isn't in play.

The problem then is sides. Gordie is a great sync nuke, but a terrible DPS unit. Ideally, Melony can Sing again for a bit of disruption. If you can take out one of the sides, the other can be slowed down enough that they miss some turns. But only some, it's...worse than it seems. The issues are many. Their AoE alternates between physical and special, making the Sonia/Melony core particularly valuable for their defensive coverage. Sonia needs to be on her Potion MPR game, though, because things get worn down. It's also not a bad idea to, once both enemies are asleep/while they have Resistance to Status, to pop Melony's GMax Resonance for the shields. The last problem is accuracy. Rock Tomb has 80 accuracy, so even with +2 accuracy from Melony, you'll still miss. You need like +4, which is heavy on MPR, and not worth resetting for since you're aiming for sync. Also a miss means you take less time in animations and can get another action in, so my misses may have saved my life considering how close this came.

Like many stages for a Tech, dealing with Bede isn't so bad. It's taking out the sides that's the problem. There might be smarter rotations and ways to perform a denial on the sides with Gordie that makes it less risky, but given the timer on his Max Move, I wasn't about to test it. The sides don't have Clear Advantage 8 though, so you can at least save the field effect for when you're specifically aiming at Bede.

[humanmorph]

#hey op how are you feeling about cori now

preddy good, thanks : )

to get a bit more detailed though I'm super happy about the Perennial bond. I barely thought about it as a possibility & when it happened I got really excited, I just really love "I'm gonna prove her wrong" to a divine experiencing an existential amount grief about failing the galaxy over+over+over again & "I'm not gonna stop fighting if you won't" & I love Cori's goal for the finale... Excited to see how it all carries through!!! Especially with her obstacles ("your only tool is violence" had me 😊)

Cori hasn't quite managed to wrestle Millie from her spot of nr. 1 Sylvi character (though maybe I'll rethink this once the season is over. They could share 💙🩷) but her arc this season's been SO good and has all the way through felt super solid. Love to see character beats lined up & they hit & it's extremely good. homerun from sylvi!!!!!

edit:

picture. I'm still bored at work. I was just thinking about fun new Perennial outfits for Cori... I'd like to see it... this is still very plugsuit-ish but probably something that's actually more witchy could be cool... designing outfits isn't my strong suit but I might give it a shot

i really like putting these 3 next to each other. there's a lot of cool throughlines / parallels / contrasts that are SO fun to think about... like their relationship to (doing) violence! expecially excited for wherever Cori is gonna end up by the end of this season. on one hand i love going 'yes!!! kill!!!' when she does something sick. on the other : ( oh no

(quote is from Marielda 10: Four Conversations. it's said to Sylvi's character that season, which is additionally neat :>)

[iamthedukeofurl]

Scott Pilgrim is, I think, the best example I can think of for establishing a setting's Nonsense Limit. The setting's Nonsense Limit isn't quite "How high-fantasy is this". It's mostly a question of presentation, to what degree does the audience feel that they know the rules the world operates by, such that they are primed to accept a random new element being introduced. A setting with a Nonsense Limit of 0 is, like, an everyday story. Something larger than life, but theoretically taking place in our world, like your standard spy thriller action movie has a limit of 1. Some sort of hidden world urban fantasy with wizards and stuff operating in secret has a nonsense limit around 3 or 4. A Superhero setting, presenting an alternate version of our world, is a 5 or 6. High fantasy comes in around a 7 or so, "Oh yeah, Wizards exist and they can do crazy stuff" is pretty commonly accepted. Scott Pilgrim comes in at a 10. If you read the Scott Pilgrim book, it starts off looking like a purely mundane slice of life. The first hint at the fantastical is Ramona appearing repeatedly in Scott's Dreams, and then later showing up in real life. When we finally get an explanation, it's this:

Apparently Subspace Highways are a thing? And they go through people's heads? And Ramona treats this like it's obscure, but not secret knowledge. Ramona doesn't think she's doing anything weird here. At this point, it's not clear if Scott is accepting Ramona's explanation or not, things kind of move on as mundane as ever until their Date, when Ramona takes Scott through subspace, and he doesn't act like his world was just blown open or anything, although I guess that could have been a metaphor. there's a couple other moments, but everything with Ramona could be a metaphor, or Scott not recognizing what's going on. Maybe Ramona is uniquely fantastical in this otherwise normal world. And then, this happens

Suddenly, a fantastical element (A shitty local indie band finishing their set with a song that knocks out most of the audience) is introduced unrelated to Ramona, and undeniably literal. We see the crowd knocked out by Crash and The Boys. but the story doesn't linger on the implications of that, the whole point of that sequence is to raise the Nonsense Level, such that you accept it when This happens

Matthew Patel comes flying down onto the stage, Scott, who until this point is presented as a terrible person and a loser, but otherwise is extremely ordinary, proceeds to flawlessly block and counter him before doing a 64-hit air juggle combo. Scott's friends treat this like Scott is showing off a mildly interesting party trick, like being really good at darts. The establish that Scott is the "Best Fighter in the Province", not only are street-fighter battles a thing, Scott is Very Good at it, but they're so unimportant that being the best fighter in the province doesn't make Scott NOT a loser. So when Matthew Patel shows off his magic powers and then explodes into a pile of coins, we've established "Oh, this is how silly the setting gets". It's not about establishing the RULES of the setting so much as it is about establishing a lack of rules. Scott's skill at street-fighter battles doesn't translate to any sort of social prestige. Ramona can access Subspace Highways and she uses it to do a basic delivery job. It doesn't make sense and it's clear that it's not supposed to. So later on, when Todd Ingram starts throwing around telekinesis, and the explanation we're given is "He's a Vegan" , you're already so primed by the mixture of weirdness and mundanity that rather than trying to incorporate this new knowledge into any sort of coherent setting ruleset, you just go "Ah, yeah, Vegans".

[13daze]

no cjeat cards bc i spent my savings on painful and fruitless solomon bday pulls but im fighting thru the cb event anyways bc i Need Those UR+ Jokers

[notherpuppet]

I wrote the full parody to Ready For This in the Role Reversal AU because I wanted to lol.

Transcription below.

Ready For This (Role Reversal AU parody)

Alastor: Have you ever wanted something
That was so clear in your mind that you could taste it?

Susan: You mean like ice cream you get for a friend?

Alastor: Ha! No.
It's a feeling like a rumbling in your gut
That you could finally be faced with
A million greedy faces, I guess what I mean to say is

For the first time in my life
I might have to be ready for this
Ready to be the one who's leading from the front

Couldn’t do it on my own
And history has shown
Legends cannot win wars alone

The burden is a bit too heavy
So I need to be ready for this

Have you ever felt like you're willing to kill
To save the people on your own team?

Susan: I don’t know, seems a bit extreme…

Alastor: Not to me!
'Cause right now, we need a leader
And it seems to be that
Charlie is forcing me to be that
because she’s pissy

So who's with me?

Wouldn't it just be swell to see more of Hell?
Join up now if you like travel
Come on girls, prepare for battle!
Lotta sights to see en route to the hotel
Not to mention all of the glory!

Yes indeed, your enemies will cower

And heads will be severed!

Charlie: You’ll make a bunch of brand new friends!

Alastor: Whatever.

Exorcists: New friends!?
I'm in
Oh whoa
I’m so lonely

It's time now to act
They're on the attack
When they move to strike
Just know we’ve got your back!

We'll follow your lead
We're eager to see
everyone we meet
On the hellish retreat!

From this moment on, you can count us in
To be organized and disciplined

Our thirst for justice
keeps us strong, fierce, and brave
So I say, "Ho hey! Let’s join in his crusade!"

Alastor: Now thats the spirit! Can we amp it up?
Vaggie: Oh, don’t mind their hesitation, that’s just their new inclination


Alastor: But I can awaken their bloodlust!
Vaggie: Careful, kid. Don’t push your luck!

Alastor: Fair enough…

Alastor and Vaggie: We're super duper grateful
To have you gals aboard

Exorcists: We can’t wait to hug an overlord! (Alastor: Yeah, sure...)

Alastor: For the first time in my life
Maybe I can be ready for this
I can be the marshal leading the parade

I can come into my own
And I think I've always known
My destiny could never be postponed

When they come for the hotel

I’ll give em hell cuz I’m ready for this!

Vaggie: They're dancing along?
They're singing his song!?
Charlie: Surprised?
Why, I knew he could do it all along!

Charlie and Vaggie: He’s bound to be redeemed, the dream has a chance!
Though he seemed hopeless at first glance…

Charlie: He’s filled with potential that I could guide!
Vaggie: Fine, I’m in.

Charlie and Vaggie: Stick with him, he will surely see the light!

All: For the first time in our lives
We know that we are ready for this

Vaggie: We’ll show them we can forgive and forget!

All: It's time to lend a hand

Alastor: It is time to take a stand! (Exorcists: Woohoo!)
Against overlords and their deadly threat!

All: We can provide your support
The time has come to stop a war
Defend your home, we're ready for...
THIS!

Alastor: I really hope that they’re ready for this...

[finisnihil]

“They finally made this theme more blatant-" Why does it need to be blatant. What's wrong with subtlety? Concepts can be underused but subtlety is not neglect.

Blaring all your concepts and themes is not good writing. It's so disruptive to a story's flow when the characters look off the screen to be like "See? This is the concept. The idea. The theme."

If you can feel the hand of the author becoming too heavy that's bad.

For example: I see people saying Azula's abuse in ATLA is more blatant in the live action and it's good because "it's being discussed more". It already was discussed at length. The show made it clear she was a victim at every turn, every behavior, every reaction, it came from a place of trauma. It was made clear that she was scared of ending up like Zuko because Zuko was an example of what would happen to her if she failed. When she says she's better than Zuko it wasn't just because she was raised to think hersef superior to him but because Zuko failed and failures get mutilated and exiled, failures are abandoned. In that final Agni Kai the music is morose and somber because this isnt some epic battle its a fucking tragedy, the burning out of "Ozai's brightest light" and Azula finally succumbing to her terror and trauma she was repressing now that her worst fears are realized. How can you see a fourteen year old girl chained to a sewer grate wailing and writhing and breathing fire desperately as unsympathetic? Even Katara and Zuko are horrified as to what has become of her.

The writers weren't looking us in the eye and saying "See? She's a victim too" when they wrote this, they weaved it in. They weaved it into her obsesison with symmetry, her extreme perfectionism, the way she talks about Ozai, the ways she calls herself a monster, her isolation from those with healthy home lives, all the ways she held herself together and ultimately all the cracks and seams that she shattered down when she fell apart. It did not need to be blatant to be clear.