#its also a full instance of you helping everybody else just like always

[where-is-caithe]

I think there should have been a "you fucking died" moment in either the last part or this part instead of ONLY focusing on letting people down and letting people die. Dying is traumatic, and the commander came back from that, because of their sense of duty and that should have been and should continue to be explored. This sense of duty that drives them to come back from the dead. That's gotta fuck someone up eventually.

[doodlyreone]

Smiling Friends at Pony Town Memories ADVENCHA!!!

Part I

An experimental bit to compensate for my always delayed screenshottter phone and archiving ponytown instances to doodles. I roleplay as Charlie and these are the highlights of my interactions with a Pim kinner.

THAANNK YOU @mellowvisions !!!! So many inspiring moments i vividly remember with you as Pim !!!!! I luv you and i luv your friends and i luv our silli discussions and i luv Ponytown and i love God and i luv my country- implodes

It was our break, just hanging around by the cliff and there's flowers. Man, there's lots of flowers in that cliff. There's a bunny. And it was also like just hanging around in our spot for so long, it's really nice. Even when there's some coversation going on, something about falling into toilets and transported to a Flying Dutchamann-like dimension like in Spongebob and, Pim stands up and goes out of his way to smooch it. And like as if the thing is reactive, it stands up and closes its eyes as if returning it. Although my face was neutral •3• , couldn't help but chuckle and smile at the scene.

(I'll make this bit into full illustration actually. I just really love the colors of the scene at the time, with it being night and only a handful of lighhts surrounding us)

Doing some very original challenge I made up by myself, like it's totally original and never been done before. I sneakily start to eat all of the surrounding flowers. It was hilarious. At first, there's only turning heads. Then when there's just too many flowers gone and it's just buds, i got booped on the schnoze.

Everything turned fucking green it was no joke one of my most terrifying experiences in my life-

(Actual context: mobile lag is real bad I was lowkey panicking and screaming sentences as if that would solve my issue. It was later known through discord I look insane and was running to the cliff edge while my messages actually are sending, I just couldn't see everybody else. I like to imagine Charlie's small eyes got done covered by grass hence all the greenness.)

UNTEXTED VERSIONS UNDER CUT:

[flying-nightwing]

Gentle - Jason Todd

Hi people! It’s been a hot minute since I’ve posted anything, honestly it’s been a hectic two months and I barely made it out alive lmao. But Jason was never too far away in my mind, don’t worry kids. So this is something I’ve been wanting to write for some moments now, and I came through, well, right about now. 

I haven’t really written something axed on the emotions/feelings like that, once again I’m trying to expand my style to new stuff. This is my first hurt/comfort that was actively trying to be that, and yet another take on Jason because I’m a simp. This is also very, very soft. I hope you’ll enjoy xx

Pairing: Jason Todd x Reader

Word count: 1731

Warnings: mention of blood, Jason being heartbreakingly insecure and vulnerable, allusion to the effects of his trauma.

Summary: Being with Jason Todd often comes with its own load of complicated hardships, but you would never let him go through it alone ever again. 

You barely heard him come back.

You had a sharp ear and a light sleep, which means you always knew the moment Jason came back from patrol. Usually it would be followed by the sound of the shower and him joining you in bed, but sometimes it would not. And those times were usually when things had gone bad. 

Quietly, you got up from the bed and navigated the apartment in the dark. By now, your feet knew the way without needing the guidance of your eyes. Only the light from the stovetop was turned on, casting a weak glow on the common area. You could dicernate Jason’s still body on the couch, still in full red hood gear with the exception of his helmet. He knew you were there, of course he did, but he didn’t look at you. He couldn’t, you figured. Hard nights did that to him.

With a pinch in your heart, you went and knelt in front of him, just not touching him yet. His eyes were open and glossy, staring into nothing. The instances where you found him like this had become rarer in the last years, but they still happened. You were just glad he wasn’t pushing you away anymore. He once told you to just stay asleep and not bother with him, but you could never. Secretly, he was grateful for it. He would never tell you how much, though, because he didn’t want to make you feel like it was something you had to do for him.

“Hi babe” You spoke in a whisper, making you slide his eyes to you. You could see the hurt in them, reflected in the blue of his irises and the red of fatigue and frustration around them. His beautiful expressive eyes that could hold so much love could also hold so much pain at times. It wasn’t fair. “It’s okay. You’re okay now”

You didn’t expect an answer. He had a tendency of getting non-verbal in these situations.

“May I?”

You raised your hand lightly, and he gave you a little nod. Slowly, you enveloped his gloved hands in yours with one hand, while you pushed back a wild streak of hair out of his face with the other. You kept your touch light, knowing he would be already over sensitive as it was. He closed his eyes, enjoying the much needed comfort you provided him. You could feel the almost dried blood on his hands, the tensions in his jaw, the hurt coming off of him in waves. Not physical hurt, you were pretty sure he was unscathed beside the few bruises or cuts here and there. 

“Can I help you with it?”

He breathed out unevenly. The question really meant let me help you, it was a plea for you to help him feel better. Only a little while ago he had actually allowed you to take care of him at his most vulnerable moments. Still, he nodded again. You pulled yourself on your feet and gently helped him to sit up on the couch. Without rushing him, you then helped him stand up beside you and lead him to the bathroom. You kept the light dim so as not to hurt his eyes and guided him in front of the sink. In a slightly better light, you could see how tired and battered he looked. It must have been one of his worst nights ever since you had known him.

You began undoing his gloves first, taking off the blood and dirt soaked material from his hands, then pulled off his leather jacket that you threw in his Red Hood hamper. You could deal with it tomorrow. You turned on the tap to warm water and gently guided his hands under it. You softly rubbed the red and brown colors from his skin, letting the grime disappear down the drain. You made sure to wash it all; between his fingers and under his nails so he wouldn’t have to look at it at all when you’d turn off the tap. 

You carefully dried his hands with a towel before you moved to his shirt. You began pulling it off and he helped you pass it through his arms when it was too high for you, and the piece of his suit joined the rest in the hamper. Blood had seeped through the fabric, mixing with the sweat to taint his chest light red. You moved him to the toilet, where you softly pushed him down on the closed lid. You then damped a washcloth and came back to him. His eyes met yours as you gently washed away the remnant of a gruesome and violent night on his face. His glance meant everything, it was a little stitch on the wound to see your action seemed to help him feel better. 

You moved to his neck and chest, kneeling in front of him once again. You repeated your actions there, your hand still careful and steady. He closed his eyes and sighed, and you felt his muscles untense just a little bit. You observed his scars as you went, still wondering after all this time how he was so strong. It amazed you how he could pull through every curveball life threw at him, and how he could still remain the good man he was today despite all of it. As you washed down his arm, you picked his hand and left a little butterfly kiss on his wrist that made his breath hitch. Then you trailed up the inside of his arm with your lips until you stopped mid bicep. You met his bright eyes and slowly reached for his cheek. 

“How can you even look at me?”

You tilted your head at his quiet words, a saddened smile on your face. “How could I not?” You spoke back in a whisper. “You think your scars are ugly, but you’re so wrong. They write your story in a language very few understand, like a holy text kept in a secret temple meant to be worshipped. You’re strong and passionate, rash and beautiful. And never, remember that, never will I look at you with anything else than the adoration you deserve” 

The light of the bathroom reflected the tears pooling in his eyes like crystals as you rubbed your thumb on his cheek. He leaned into your hand, and his long eyelashes brushed against your finger when he closed his eyelids. He didn’t need to say anything more, you understood what he was trying to communicate. It was why he loved you so much, why he let himself be vulnerable around you. You were patient and kind, always there to help him up. You weren’t blind to his flaws but you accepted him as he was, not as everybody wanted him to be. You understood, which was more than he could say about most people in his life.

And when you looked at him like that, like he was your entire world and universe, he couldn’t help but feel safe. He didn’t have to run, fight, or survive. It was like he could breathe now, like he could finally live. And it scared him, it scared him so much because he felt like he had never truly left that coffin six feet under ground, until you began digging out the dirt to reach him. He was lost in the best kind of way, trying to figure out what to do with the sunrays that finally warmed his entire body after being subject to the coldness of the grave for so long. He was helpless to you, but he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted it to end. 

You stood up and grabbed a new washcloth, warming it under the tap and returning to Jason. You passed over his face again, then his neck and his chest to wash away the remnant of diluted blood on his skin. You placed a light kiss on his shoulder before you helped him up again, then helped him out of his tactical pants. You grabbed your washcloth again, but he gently stopped you with a hand on your wrist.

“Go back to sleep, my love” His voice was barely above a whisper. “I got it from here”

You stared into his eyes, trying to find a clue that he was trying to hide away. But he was way calmer now, his eyes did not hold as much hurt as when you had found him on the couch. His glance was tired and exhausted, yet soft and loving. “Only if you’re sure” 

He nodded, blinking slowly. In any other circumstances, it wouldn’t have convinced you that he didn’t need your help. But for now, it was enough. Just the fact that he had it in him to speak was the indicator you needed. You retreated to the joined bedroom and slipped under the covers that had almost gone cold in the little time you were out of them and rested your head on the pillow. Your eyes softly closed, not yet completely succumbing into sleep yet. The soft noise in the bathroom played in the background like a muffled speaker, keeping you conscious just enough to check on him from afar. After a moment, the door opened and the light shut off, followed by quiet footsteps coming your way. The covers lifted and the bed dropped, then you opened your arms for Jason to crawl into them. His skin was still a bit cold from the hand wash, but the warmth of your embrace made him sigh against you. You caressed his hair as you fought not to fall asleep just yet, but your movements became slower and slower. The world around you started to fade at the first birds began to sing outside your window, their songs gradually lulling you to sleep.

Just as you were on the edge of consciousness, you hear the faintest whisper reach your ears. Two simple words that yet meant the world, especially coming from Jason. Admitting he needed help was something big for him, and even more expressing gratefulness at something he thought he didn’t deserve. That little spoken note guided you to a peaceful sleep with your lover safe and sound in your arms, or at least for tonight. Two simple words that didn’t need to be explained.

“Thank you” 

[does-it-really-matter]

Your phone just cracked. It fell off the table, it bounced off a wall, or it was just a classic case of wrong place, wrong time and was crushed under something weighty. Either way, there is no saving it, and you are left with the only option of buying a new phone. Here, your friends chime in, urging you to buy the latest iPhone. No matter that an Android is cheaper, has the same features and is less likely to meet the same fate as your previous phone. Your friends make their voices louder, more demanding, and you finally succumb and buy an iPhone. Congratulations, you are now a victim of herd mentality.

Disclaimer- this article has no intentions to slander Apple products, regardless of the authors’ personal views.

So, what is herd mentality?

Herd mentality, according to wikipedia, is a mentality that describes how people can be influenced by their peers to adopt certain behaviors on a largely emotional, rather than rational, basis. People usually ignore their own feelings in this process, and make different decisions than they would have individually.

When in Rome, be a Roman

Humans have always been social creatures. To fit in with the rest of the group and be accepted, social conformity was the norm. Thus, ’herd mentality’ was born. It was first coined by Gabriel Tarde and Gustave Le Bo in the 19th century. This herd mentality led to the process of groupthink, where members of a group pushed aside their own dissenting opinions just to have the appearance of unanimity.

This conformity can be something as simple as applauding when the other audience applauds, or something as problematic as bullying somebody just because everybody else bullies them.

Why do we follow the crowd?

To be plain and simple, it's comfortable. You don’t stand alone and you won’t be singled out. You have the comfort of the masses around you. There’s no pressure to be actively individualistic, you can just swim with the current.

In society, we are also encouraged to be ‘normal’ and fit in with everyone else. Those who don’t comply with the majority are shunned as outcasts. Therefore, to be liked and accepted in society, most people suppress their individuality and change aspects of themselves, adjusting to norms dictated by others.

It is also assumed that walking the road more travelled leads to higher rates of success, because hey, everybody else succeeded, didn’t they? But this is a misconception, other than in select few exceptions. Most people think that this is an easy short-cut, and try to get the best of both worlds. But success and comfort rarely go together. To succeed, one must go through the mortifying ordeal of actively being themselves and defending their opinion, which just isn't possible when they are part of the crowd.

In India

A perfect example of herd mentality, and a very relevant issue in society, is the Indian education system, and the stigma that surrounds it. A huge chunk of the population prioritizes the science stream and ostracizes those who choose the arts. It’s assumed that "smart" kids take up science and the "stupid" kids take up arts.

While we were having this discussion, we wondered why this was. The first thing that one of us mentioned was how science was relatively more rooted in logic, and perhaps due to this, people leaned towards science. But one of us argued that our culture was rife with superstitious beliefs, so it didn’t make much sense.

The most common reason that children are pushed into the science stream, and encouraged to become doctors and engineers, is that it pays well. These two professions, in general, lead to financial stability. Here, herd mentality comes into the picture- the people blindly believe that only engineering or medical professions will pay well, without doing actual research. There are plenty of other fields that can sustain your average nuclear family just fine. But this is food for thought that traditional Indian households find hard to digest. This is probably because, in such traditional Indian households, the men are usually expected to be the financial providers, and there is a certain comfort in having a stable 9 to 5 job, like a desk job. Of course, there is stable work to be had in any field, but herd mentality has played its role once again in spreading misinformation, and family members claim that financial stability is to be had only in the engineering/medical field.

Arguably, the cut off percentages for the differing streams is also to blame. The science cut off is much higher than for the art streams, and thus it is assumed that “smart” students opt for science, while the “stupid” students have no other option but to go to arts, as they couldn’t clear the science cut off. This leads to the notion that those who take up science are inherently smarter than arts students, which prompts the typical Indian family to force their child to opt for science.

This herd mentality extends to the students themselves- we often see science students dismissing arts students, claiming that they “have it easy” as they are in arts. This stereotype also feeds into the bragging culture. People would prefer to brag about their child who is studying in science, as it is also a subtle way to show that their child is “smart”.

Blind Justice

Another relevant problem would be the reaction of the masses in protest against the controversial CAA bill passed in early 2019. Thousands gathered on the streets, demanding both the CAA and NRC bills to be scrapped. However, when some of the protestors were interviewed by news agents, most didn’t even know the full forms of CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act) and NRC (National Register of Citizens). Yet they appeared in the masses, calling for justice. Others did away with the farce of justice entirely and stated that they showed merely up because their leaders told them to.

A more benign instance of herd mentality is showcased on social media, particularly Instagram. Whenever a human rights issue goes viral, for instance, the Black Lives Matter movement and the genocide in Palestine, there is a barrage of sympathy that is poured through Instagram stories and ‘black squares’. But these stories and black squares, while acts of solidarity, aren’t ones that are particularly helpful, and are generally used by ‘influencers’ more as tools of performative activism. Where does herd mentality fit into this? People put up these shows of support because everybody else is doing it, and they want to fit in, and want their sympathy to be seen. The ‘thoughts and prayers’ message has the same qualities. Instead, why not put up links to petitions and fundraisers, or donate?

To be sheep or to not be sheep

But even if we are aware of herd mentality, can we be truly immune to it? It’s simply not possible. A lot of times, we are forced to follow the ‘herd’, either because of lack of other options, or fear of repercussions. At the same time, one must also think for themselves, and approach each situation rationally. The most logical thing to do would be to find a balance between the two. At the end of the day, we must ask ourselves if we can use this mentality for good, but really are there sides to being human?

[sugar-petals]

Can u introduce yuzuru to us the caro way?👀

so you want to know about the one and only. ♡😌

yuzuru hanyū (25) of sendai, japan: the most beautiful ice prince with a heart of gold.

….an artist clearly not of this world, he’s been sent to us from another realm. 19 world records, two olympics won, dubbed the greatest figure skater of all time. and the most precious bean on top of that.

but let’s start from the beginning, shall we ♥︎

so, want to spot yuzu on the ice? use this checklist. slender silhouette, an even slimmer waist, feather-like outfits (he sketches those himself; the fandom lovingly calls him swanyu), soft blushy face. he has great androgyny.

outside of performances, you see him either with a deer’s gaze or the brightest, biggest eye smile. also, he’s usually found sitting with his wife: 

which is the ice 😄 these two are together forever. you can discern yuzu from a mile away by how he treats his working ground. 

there is a purity to him. you’d not guess that this is one of the most ardent athletes if you didn’t see what’s around his neck after competitions. the guy’s cuteness is as compelling as his skating technique.

look for it: yuzu’s face is super suave and rosy up close, even after his most energetic performances. some men are handsome, others pretty, he is both. 

even acoustically, he’s hard to miss. applause is all around, and he’s highly expressive. if you see a crying young man getting the high score, that’s yuzuru hanyu. you’ve not seen more beautiful happy tears.

and score reactions, anyway:

so, aye loves, the rumors are true. a cutie-pie off the ice, animated, a real unabashed meme — yuzu is easy-going, talkative. cheery, cheeky, one of a kind. his facial expressions are a league of their own.

if you thought this is the sort of guy who watches cat videos, you are correct 😄

yuz-uwu hanyu, everybody:

his undoubtedly feline behaviour is often unexpected, it stands out with its adorableness, too. a sweetheart par excellence. 

and, how else could it be: vice versa, the big beast on the rink. he’s cutesy, dorky, very well-spoken in daily life, but when it comes to skating, his seriousness escalates. you blink once and suddenly hanyu is a bedazzling, strutting lion :’D his performances stun with confident elegance.

he becomes full of ardor, drama, and focus. you’d never suspect so much fire burns in him. a showman and ambition icon, hands down. 

his skating is dynamic, perfected, and emotional. if you want to see art and the extra mile, tune in when hanyu competes.

the downside is; more light, more shadow. it leaves him crawling on the ice afterwards. yuzu performs so hard, it’s worrying.

he delivers it all. you won’t believe it:

this guy is an asthmatic.

the symptoms aren’t as bad as they used to be, but there are still regular attacks. he said that he’ll never take it as an excuse and often recalls how he started skating because of it. he’s a badass, extremely inspiring. yuzuru defies all limits, including gravity. his jumps have legendary status. 

off the rink, you guessed it: he turns into a wholly different person. 

it all dissolves completely when he’s dorking around again. 

don’t let it deceive you, he’s the no other option than first place type. he could not be any more decorated with titles, he achieved the grand slam in all competitions as of 2020. and still, king of sportsmanship hanyu is respectful and smiley towards all colleagues and never lets anyone feel left out. especially when it comes to his juniors (e.g. yuma kagiyama, 16, below) which says a lot about him.

he bows in every direction before an audience, too. lower than a 90° angle, even. this is more polite than any existing formality in japan.

talk about audience: i introduced fellow japanese skater shoma uno last week, who’s more uncomfortable with social contact and aggression. yuzu, extrovert he is: the exact opposite. he withers away with no people and competition. he’s befriended rivals, had crises over not having someone who could challenge him. when a competitor retires, he’s the one crying in their arms (e.g. with team mate and bff javier fernandez from spain below).

beside his competitive spirit and princely wow factor, hanyu is popular for his winnie pooh tissue box that he caresses, squeezes, and carries everywhere. he loves good luck charms & rituals, pooh is the most important one.

fans throw pooh plushies on the ice after his performances because of it. since it’s gotten so intense, yuzu recently started cleaning them up himself on top of the flower girls for the upcoming skater who could get delayed otherwise. (more about what happens with the piles of plushies later.)

so, the burning question is. 

what made yuzuru hanyu emerge so outstanding an entertainer? how does someone causing so much uproar become like that? it’s not just what kind of appearance he was given, although he really looks his part to a T. you don’t have to be an insider to see it right away.

like literally to a fault. and you can tell the way his blades sound on the ice is different. it’s soft even if he does the most hardcore quadruple jumps. i think it’s because his drive to do this is a higher one, hanyu has an altered relationship with the ice. where his devotion comes from has a more severe reason so, massive trigger warning. 

this is no exaggeration: yuzuru is considered a hero to the japanese. a survivor of the earthquake 2011, he narrowly escaped the collapsing rink in his hometown on that very day. he’s often talked about how the ice shattered underneath his feet and it was the moment that defined his life forever. he could have been dead by the age of 16. his motivation has been set ever since. this man is compelled by something bigger, that’s why you hear it and you feel it. he wants to skate not just for himself but others and seize every day. 

much of his copious charity work — that’s where all the pooh plushies go — went to mend the consequences of the tsunami ever since, he’s looked upon as a great hope in japan. the minister gave him the people’s honor award in 2018. 

now you know why yuzuru has such a fanbase and treats the ice as sacred, you see it in every gesture. his manners are without a single flaw, he helps staff repair the ice after performances. 

you might think it’s odd, but he honors the ground. he’s invested in the integrity of it. that’s why he’s the best skater. it’s gratitude and the will to live fully.

he hates to fall on the ice, he hates to damage it. alongside his feathery weight, that’s why the sound he makes while gliding along is so tender. 

i think that’s also why hanyu’s signature element is the ina bauer. it doesn’t rely on brutal force, instead this element slides across the rink like a swan. yeah, oh my god.

it’s his most well-known dramatic move. the way he surrenders into it. 

hanyu’s back arch and perfect split allow him to do elements no other male skaters can. his biellmann spin, for instance. i know, it’s ridiculous.

and those are just two elements of dozens and dozens. hanyu is a kinetic wizard. i highly rec this record-breaking delivery of his olympic program. in front of his home crowd! he’s just… mind-boggling. i live for his smiles here.

exceptional skater, exceptional mentor: it’s time we look at another puzzle piece that made yuzu the way he is. the masterful brian orser is hanyu’s beloved coach. missing gold by just one mistake at the olympics 1988, brian is now committed to give others what he couldn’t have— successfully so.

orser took the ice prince to gold twice, this hasn’t happened in 66 years. brian is the nicest and most supportive pooh carrier and yuzu’s utmost rock. hanyu’s talent rests safely in these hands.

he gets strict about punctuality lmao! but other than that, his guidance is gentle. canadian he is, brian’s courteousness mixes well with yuzu’s politeness. their bond is strong. as. hell. 

brian picked up yuzu from rock bottom several times. most fateful being hanyu’s accident with a fellow skater during competition warm-ups nov 2014. they collided at a high speed, it was unspeakably nasty. yuzu got knocked out for half a minute and had grave breathing problems but still decided to skate on with what later turned out as an almost-concussion. brian was the most worried ice dad in the world that day.

yuzu cried and crouched and bled like mad and my heart has been broken ever since. i hope he never suffers like that again. promise me you don’t search up the video, it’s a harrowing watch like a stab to the chest. sadly enough, hanyu’s body has still been a notorious wreck, esp. ankle issues regularly give him a hard time 😔

it hurts like a bitch with every jump landing but he takes meds and still manages to win, god knows how. sometimes even with crutches on the podium. at his worst, he’s still the best, it’s a tragedy.

he’s been recovering, or always is, but he pushes himself through injuries. his ambition and perfectionism are boundless. the cause is more important to him than his well-being. this is not an easy guy to stan once you see how he sacrifices and self-destructs. so, it’s good someone protects him. 

mostly from himself because nobody has profoundly surpassed hanyu. he has let himself no choice than to contest himself. not even health, only age can stop yuzu. i think that brian understands this ‘curse of a genius’ effect. his mere presence can make hanyu say these rare words:

his two other coaches contribute to that. tracy wilson (left) has proven to understand his playful side the best while ghislain briand (right) helps yuzuru deal with his fears. so you got 3 people taking care of the golden boy. brian once said: “he is very sheltered” and you can see it’s true.

yuzu eased into learning english and communicates well with his coaches. like with everything, he studies hard and often forces himself to speak during interviews to practice. his skills are astounding. his speaking voice is also very soothing, very amicably low and high alike. yuzu is highly intelligent. he always says something eloquent and interesting.

now, privately, hanyu is very much like you’d expect someone so devoted to skating would be like. he doesn’t go out, has no social media, can’t eat nor sleep very well. no cameras allowed during practice. it figures he is attached to winnie pooh, think about it. in the cartoon, pooh is someone who sleeps, eats, and engages with friends plenty. 

these are the things hanyu can’t do, doesn’t have time/energy/incentive for. he is barred from balance in life but can at least admire this little carefree plushie for it. especially because pooh represents eating lots while yuzuru doesn’t have a good relationship with food (he says it doesn’t go well with jumps etc.), hanyu lives vicariously through him. 

what’s more, you have to see how he throws himself onto others and never wants to let go, yuzuru is extremely cuddly. 

to the degree that mere social customs can’t meet how much he really needs. so, what else can he resort to, he loves mascots and plushies. it’s how the tale goes in japan generally, tough work ethic, high responsibility, high pressure, so people turn to cute fluffy things.

he always fondles pooh’s head, even pretends he’s come to life so he has someone to snuggle with. i think that his isolated lifestyle doesn’t help. so, he gets his affection at least there, you can see how happy it makes him. and again: he does this all for charity.

that’s why fellow skaters are so important to hanyu. it really brings out his social spirit and comforts him best, it’s so wholesome. i’ve not seen someone react so relieved to being embraced, like he’s not been touched for months. skating this, skating that. at the end of the day, hanyu wants love.

as he once said, what motivates him is to express himself in the first place. hanyu is a romantic. it’s written all over him. it reflects in his music choices, his elegant motion, how he designs his outfits:

… and how thoughtfully he talks about marriage. he has big plans for starting a family and coaching after he retires. i won’t be the only one squeezing lucky charm pooh in my imagination so it turns out well for him. please make this heart of gold heal and see all his wishes come true ♡🐻

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #79: Paracelsus van Hohenheim

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making the Father of Toxicology, Paracelsus van Hohenheim! Hohenheim is known for his skill in potion- and homunculi-making, as well as his mastery of the four (five) elements! Also his weird qualifications for what does or does not count as a “medicinal” plant, but we won’t be adding that to the build.

Check out the full breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: What we all need is something steam powered / What we all need is a - Steam Powered Giraffe!

Race and Background

No points for guessing, but Paracelsus is a Human, giving him +1 to all ability scores. He’s also a Cloistered Scholar, for History and Arcana proficiency. You’re not mixing chemicals at random here, this is science. And magic.

Stats

Your Intelligence should be as high as you can make it, both because you’re a smart guy and because that what all our features are based on. Second highest is your Wisdom- you’re good at being a doctor, but medicine’s a wisdom check so we’ll have to be smart here too. Third is Dexterity- you don’t really use that sword too often, but you have one. Also, you’re wearing leather armor at best, and you don’t get mage armor. Your Constitution’s okay-you’re not really tough, just lucky. Your Strength isn’t very high, you are a caster after all. Finally, you’re dumping Charisma. You don’t cause much of a splash in London, and the only person you need to be able to lie to is a literal child, so it’s not that big of an issue.

Class Levels

1. This may shock you, but the famous alchemist is secretly an Artificer. They’re just coming out of the woodwork in London. First level artificers get proficiency in Constitution and Intelligence saves, as well as Medicine and Nature. You can heal people, and your Arcana comes from Nature, so that all checks out fine.

When you take up the class you learn Magical Tinkering, letting you add various minor effects to tiny items. You also get Spells, that’s right, Spells, that you can cast with your mind thoughts. Use your Intelligence to prepare and figure out their save DCs.

For your cantrips, Frostbite gives you a bit of water for your attacks, and Magic Stone does the same of earth. For some good 1st level spells to prepare, check Absorb Elements to charge your attacks and protect yourself at the same time, Catapult to fill an object with enough magical energy you can fling it around at people, and Grease. I know it’s called grease, but make it some ice to fit the elemental aesthetic we’re going for.

2. Second level artificers can Infuse Items, making and altering up to two magical items at a time. You learn four infusions though, and can swap them out on long rests. Like all casters, there’s plenty of leeway with what you take for spells and infusions, but I’d suggest Enhanced Defense for extra not dying on your part, an Alchemy Jug for raw materials (sometimes you have a hankering for 2 gallons of mayo),  Sending Stones for more earth-themed magic (the next time we get something for Earth is level 13, so enjoy this), and/or an Enhanced Arcane Focus to empower your spells.

3. When you hit third level, you pick your specialty, and let’s be honest here- of course you’re an Alchemist. At third level, you can create an Experimental Elixir at the end of a long rest that lasts until the next rest. Upon creation, you find out what its effects will be based on a roll of a d6. An elixir can heal, increase the drinker’s speed, give an AC bonus, give an attack and save bonus, grant the power of flight, or cast Alter self on the drinker. All benefits (except healing) last a varying amount of time. You can also make extra elixirs by spending a spell slot for each one as an action. You can also just wait a couple levels to make more on long rests.

You also learn how to make The Right Tool for the Job. Assuming you have an hour of free time and tinker’s tools available, you can craft a free set of artisan’s tools.

Finally, your specialty spells, which don’t count towards the number you can prepare, are Healing Word and Ray of Sickness. Throw the former at your party and the latter at your enemies, and make sure you don’t mix them up.

4. Use your first Ability Score Improvement for more Intelligence. That will net you more spells prepared, stronger spells, and plenty of other benefits later on.

5. Fifth level Alchemists are Alchemical Savants, adding their Intelligence modifier to one instance of spells that Heal or deal Acid, Fire, Necrotic, or Poison damage. That means everybody gets the amount you rolled, but one lucky person gets 4 extra.

You also learn how to prepare second level spells. Your specialty spells are Flaming Sphere for a bit of fire, and Melf’s Acid Arrow for... I guess this is void? Sure, why not. For other spells, Continual Flame and Enhance Ability are generic alchemical solutions, Heat Metal gives you more fire power, and Skywrite is a practical application of your air mastery.

6. Sixth level artificers gain Tool Expertise, doubling your proficiency bonus for any check involving tools. You also make a second Experimental Elixir at the end of each long rest.

You also also gain two more Infusions, and can keep a third up concurrently. The Homunculus Servant in D&D isn’t quite as intimidating as the ones in FGO, but it can be useful to deliver touch spells. Radiant Weapon also doesn’t have much use for you specifically, but it makes the Azoth Sword look really cool.

7. At seventh level, you begin to experience Flashes of Genius. When a check or save is made within 30′ of you, you can react to add your intelligence modifier to the roll. You can do this a number of times equal to your intelligence modifier per long rest.

8. Use your next ASI to become a Magic Initiate for a smattering of Wizard spells. These will round out your elemental cantrips and give you added flexibility with Gust and Fire Bolt, as well as Chromatic Orb. The two cantrips mean the full array of elements are always at your disposal, and the latter lets you attack with a variety of damage types, flavoring the orb to your preferred element. All three use your Intelligence to cast like artificer spells, and you can cast Chromatic Orb once per day for free, or with spell slots like any other spell.

9. Ninth level Alchemists use Restorative Reagents in their potions, and also learn third level spells. Any creature that drinks one of your elixirs gains some extra temporary HP when they do so. You can also cast Lesser Restoration without using a spell slot by using alchemist’s supplies. You can do this a number of times per long rest equal to your intelligence modifier.

Your specialty spells are Gaseous Form for more wind abilities and Mass Healing Word for stronger cure-alls. For spells you’ll need to prepare, Water Breathing and Water Walk turns your elemental skill over water into something more useful than just throwing it at enemies’ faces.

10. You become a Magic Item Adept, allowing you to attune to more items at once, as well as craft magic items with much less time and material cost. On top of that, you learn to cast Prestidigitation for more minor magical effects.

Finally, you learn two more Infusions, and can use one more at the same time. Enhanced Weapon should really go to someone else, but Boots of the Winding Path can be useful for anyone, yourself included.

11. At eleventh level, you can create Spell Storing Items. Once per long rest and one at a time, you can put a 1st or 2nd level artificer spell into a weapon or arcane focus. Any creature holding the item can cast the spell, using your intelligence and their concentration. The spell can be cast from the item a number of times equal to twice your intelligence modifier. 

12. Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for better swordplay and better not-dying.

13. Thirteenth level artificers get fourth level spells- Blight lets you literally suck the life out of creatures and mostly plants, and Death Ward does the exact opposite, keeping a creature alive the first time they’d die while enchanted. Mordenkainen’s Faithful Hound gives you a more attack-oriented servant, albeit one that’s invisible. Stone Shape and Stoneskin give you further control over the element of Earth. You can also pick up Elemental Bane to increase the power of several of your spells.

14. At this level, you become a Magic Item Savant, with the ability to attune a fifth magic item at once, and you can ignore all race, spell, class, and level requirements to use or attune to magic items.

You also get a new cantrip, as well as two new infusions learned and another concurrent infusion. Grab Create Bonfire for one last blast of fire, and then grab whatever two infusions you feel your party needs the most. Casters generally have a lot of leeway when it comes to building them, simply because of how varied “general magic specialty” can be.

15. Fifteenth level Alchemists can create a third free elixir, and learn Chemical Mastery. They resist acid and poison damage, and are immune to being poisoned. You can also cast Greater Restoration or Heal once per long rest for free, using your alchemist’s supplies.

16, Use this ASI to finally maximize your Intelligence for more and more powerful spells, stronger flashes of genius, and more free casts from Restorative Reagents.

17. With this level, you learn your highest level of artificer spells. You get Cloudkill as a specialty spell, helping you to create the Demonic Fog just a little bit easier. You can also Raise Dead as a specialty spell too; in Fate, death tends to be more permanent, but you could create zombies with pseudo-philosopher’s stones, so this is a straight upgrade for you.

For prepared spells, Animate Objects helps you bring larger homunculi and/or elementals to life, while Transmute Rock and Wall of Stone gives you more impressive earthbending powers. Finally, Creation will help you make items out of the void, lasting anywhere between 1 day and 1 minute. You can’t use this to create spell components though, so you’ll have to find the real philosopher’s stone the hard way.

18. You become a Magic Item Master, with the ability to attune six magic items at once. You also get one last round of infusions, bringing your total number of infusions learned to 12, and your total number available at one time to six. Again, take what you want at this point, you know what your party needs.

19. Use one last ASI to improve your Constitution and Wisdom for better health and medicine checks.

20. The artificer capstone is a Soul of Artifice. You gain +1 to all saves for each magic item you’re attuned to, and you can use a reaction when dropped to 0 hp to remain at 1 hp instead by ending one artificer infusion.

Pros

You’re a strong support caster, with healing, buffs, and magic items for the whole party. You still have plenty of ways to deal damage too, so you’re not doomed if the party splits up.

Soul of Artifice gives you extremely strong saves at level 20. Having a +5 on your worst save is still pretty good, especially since you’ll need good constitution saves for concentration spells.

You can deal a wide variety of damage through your spells. If an enemy resists one type of damage, that’s fine. Even ignoring Chromatic Orb, you’ve got poison, cold, fire, acid, necrotic, piercing, and bludgeoning damage to mix things up. And that’s not even going into what you can get done with Element Bane or elemental weaknesses.

Cons

Your AC is very low for someone with d8s for hit dice. Technically you can get away with medium armor, but the in-character choice would be leather, or even better, no armor at all. Try to stay out of the thick of things.

You also have very low charisma, so you might have trouble convincing people to take your medicine. You might also get shoved into another plane like you’re back in high school.

While you can deal a lot of different damage types, you mostly focus on Fire and Poison, two of the most resisted types in the game. You’ve got plenty of other options, but those are your specialties.

[jq37]

The Royal Report– A Crown of Candy Ep 3

Keep Sharp

On the Road Again

Welcome back to Calorum you guys. We last left off witnessing an actual miracle as a group of cheese assassins masquerading as meatlanders (and Brennan by proxy) failed to kill a single Candian, Tartguard included.

Now, everyone is picking up the pieces. Amethar is still messed up from the fight so he’s being tended to. Liam and some of the NPCs are working on clearing the tree from the road. Ruby, still covered in blood, is in one of the carriages and when she uses Prestidigitation to clear the blood from a circus flyer she was carrying, Calroy walks in and grabs her hand to stop her as a reflex. He quickly drops her hand--very bold move to grab one of the princesses like that--and tries to impress on her that the rest of the world isn’t like Candia and she really really needs to stop with the casual magic when they’re on the road. Ruby is really naively taken aback and frustrated by this information but Calroy describes it like it’s business as usual. Her aunt, Lazuli, has the title of Archmage but the official position is that the title is an archaic holdover from less enlightened times and she was simply a really good alchemist--even though everyone knows that’s untrue. That’s politics bay-bee! Lapin joins the conversation (along with Theo shortly after) and says that if people knew where he got his powers from, he’d be dead (which seems a weird thing to say with Calroy in earshot).  

Outside, Liam is chopping up the tree and finds these little peppermint acorn things called Heartseeds which are basically concentrated, ambient, magical energy that can grant small wishes. Preston eats them and gains a fly speed of 40 (but it’s like he’s a firework--he has to land after 40 feet). Jet finds Liam and asks for help with keeping an eye on Ruby. She’s pretty shook after seeing her almost die. Liam is down to do it for nothing (the kid just wants to be included) but Jet insists on being in his debt and--always on brand--he just asks for some cool seeds. She also finds a meat shield that’s made out of gross, burnt, stuck-to-the-pan meat bits that she names Burnt Ends. 

They get going again and in the PC wagon you have all the PCs but Jet (who is outside with the guards and Grissini) along with Cruller and his wife--Lady Donetta. She chats with Grissini for a little bit while the adults try to get her to get in the carriage. She’s finally swayed by Ruby but when she comes in she says she wasn’t (just) flirting. She was trying to get intel on how in trouble Ruby was. Liam offers that he speaks Ceresian so he can spy if they need him to and also did anyone have any dreams last night? Theo--who is trying to keep everyone alive and was like so close to being impressed by Liam--along with Lapin and Cruller try to get everyone back on track but Ruby--defiantly--is all, “They’re not gonna kill me. I’m a princess!” Theo points out that someone almost killed her literally ten minutes ago and Cruller points out that death isn’t the only bad thing that can happen to a person. She could get forcibly put in a monastery for instance. Jet is not even having that in hypothetical-land and says that as the heir princess, she would lay the smackdown on anyone who tried to do that. 

It looks like things are about to dissolve into overlapping gibberish but Amethar does the dad thing of putting his foot down and yelling at everyone to get along before taking a dad nap passing out from his injuries. Lady Donetta patches him up while Cruller once again talks about the importance of politics. It’s not just them that have to play this game. The Meatlanders are polytheistic generally but all Bulbian on paper. Jet thinks this whole song and dance is ridiculous and should be changed once she has more sway in politics, but she’s willing to shut up for now. She’s also willing to keep Lapin’s secret, but him bringing it up sparks Cruller’s interest. Lapin tries to gloss over it but Liam chimes in that he’s sorry about breaking his teacup. Lapin shuts him up (Liam on a low Insight check thinks he hates him) and rolls a 14 to get Cruller off his back.

Secrets and Lies

As they cross the border into Fructerra, Sir Theo invites Ruby and Jet out for some fresh air and they invite Liam which he goes along with even though it’s clear he wanted to talk to the sisters alone. As soon as they’re out of earshot of everyone Theo turns off the scold and says that regardless of everything they’re all saying, Ruby absolutely needs to keep studying magic. He says that he was a ward of Lazuli who taught him some magic (including animating Sprinkle) and he has a whole-ass lore dump for them that he was planning on subtly revealing over time but now’s the time for getting everybody up to speed ASAP not mentoring from the shadows:

He says that Lazuli--who, like Ruby and Jet, wanted magic to be acceptable and not relegated to the shadows of one kingdom--was doing arcane research into wild stuff like immortality that would have advanced the world a lot further than its current state. She died sacrificing herself in a battle where she was the only Candian casualty. Theo was there and, before she sent him away, she said that she needed to do it to, “save [their] people and save [their] world.” He didn’t get what she meant and why that would be literally the hill she--a princess and Archmage--would choose to die on but he knows she would sometimes have visions of the future and he thinks she might have known Ruby was coming and needed to ensure that timeline happened. Ruby--who is outraged that this is the first she’s hearing of all of this and shocked that Theo is suddenly cool (“I've always been cool! All of us are cool!”) still doesn’t want to do all this “book stuff” or embrace any kind of magical destiny and even Jet is like, “Come on girl.” Anyway, Sir Theo tells them they just need to be chill and lowkey and he’ll hook them up with magical training and banned books for Jet. He also promises to teach Ruby the Find Familiar spell. 

Liam helps Lady Donetta with herbal remedies for Amethar and he comes back at full health. Amethar gets to talking about Liam’s dad who he says had Liam’s knack from nature stuff and taught him (Amethar) how to fight. Calroy chimes in that his dad and Amethar fought together in the Ravening War. He also says that Liam being a hostage (he outright calls him a hostage) is what lets his dad not join the Concord (the kind of ride or die, post Ravening War pact everyone else is in) and remain an independent rebel state. Apparently, he seceded because, King Jadin (Amethar’s Dad--the past king), would not uphold Candia’s alliances. Liam’s dad (Duke Joren Jawbreaker) turned traitor to go fight with their Dairy Island allies.         

It takes another couple of days to get to Comida and, on the way there, Ruby learns and casts the Find Familiar spell--netting her a butterscotch falcon that she names Yak after the noise he makes. She hopes he’ll be friends with Sprinkle because Siobhan knows that the second real objective of every D&D campaign (after making friends) is acquiring pets and having them play with each other (which is in direct opposition to the DM goal of not letting any of your players have any pets).    

Cruller checks in with Theo about the secret magic lessons and also says that he’s looked into it and the imperial soldiers who saw Ruby do magic are gossiping. Grissini is shutting some of it down so it’s not spreading like wildfire but it’s really just a matter of time. Cruller tries to get more specifics about what Jet and Lapin were talking about (his Sugarplum magic) and Theo dodges the question. Cruller says that he can be more helpful if he’s in the loop but doesn’t push further. 

Faces and Names 

We have made it to Comida and, after a quick House Rocks family heart to heart, it’s time for a parade of a BUNCH of new characters:

Manta Ray Jack: Man at Arms of House Cheddar and one of Amethar’s Ravening War buddies. A literal 2 foot tall cube of cheese. He also has a tattoo of a Manta Ray on his arm  which isn’t important to the plot but is important to me that you know.       

Sir Morris Brie: Knight of House Cheddar, Master of State to the Duchess (who we’ll get to next) and another Dairy Island buddy of Amethar.

Duchess Primsy Coldbottle: A literal bottle of milk, 16-year-old regent of House Cheddar (Duchess of Lacramor specifically) and ruler of the Dairy Islands. On a nat 20, Ruby knows that Prince Tarthur Cheddar was the prince during the Ravening Wars but died. She also knows about…

Captain Annabelle Cheddar: (Captain of the Colby) who is this cool, naval, battle-ready lady that Ruby sees hanging out with a bunch of solider women fighters and having a great time while Primsy is talking to her advisors. Apparently, Anabelle should be the rightful heir to the Dairy Islands but was stripped of her title because she refused to marry (hmm) which Ruby thinks is sick as hell. She goes to chat her up and finds out that she’ll be fighting in the Melee part of the tourney.  

Senator Augustus Ciabatta: A full bread person who’s a senator from the very populous Ceresia and he’s throwing coins to the people from his palanquin. (I want it on the record that I feel an episode called Bread and Circuses coming.)

Prince Cabbage: The adult son of King Cabbage. His palanquin is the second largest. The largest belongs to...

Hierophant Rex Belizabeth Brassica: She is basically the Bulb Pope. She’s like a green woman with broccoli hair. She and Lapin have met before before she became pope. They quickly talk and she invites him to tag along as they pay their respects to the Emperor. He agrees to go. She’s followed around by Archbishop Onionpatch (another Primogen from Greenhold in Vegetania).

Theo is a little nervous about Amethar cozying up to all these dairy people considering the attack but Amethar insists he can handle himself. There’s a big feast set up and Amethar goes to talk to Primsy who is just super sweet and seems to know she has a lot of responsibility that she is trying her level best to uphold. She’s like the anti Jet and Ruby and Brennan...if something happens to her...I swear...  

Anyway, Theo is scanning the room for trouble and he sees (1) That Anabelle is looking at Amethar forlornly from across the room (maybe like she wishes she could be in the room where it happens so to speak?) and (2) there is a young Dairy nobleman stealth flirting with Primsy. Amethar asks Sir Brie about the attack and he says they had nothing to do with it. They don’t have the resources after the war which was fought largely in the Dairy Isles. He seems to blame Anabelle at least partially for the diminished power of House Cheddar based on the dirty look he shoots her when he mentions the state of the state. Amethar reiterates that the alliance between Candia and the Dairy Isles is solid and Manta Ray Jack pops in to casually drop that Amethar had a war girlfriend (lover? idk what the proper terminology is here) in the Far East Isles back in the day so I’m sure that’s gonna become relevant at the worst possible moment. 

Brennan also curses us by unleashing Thad (Jet’s avocado pen pal boyfriend) onto the story and as soon as Jet re-meets this poncy, French-y, horny, avocado she’s like “I made a huge mistake” and later gets him to “meet her outside” so she can ditch him.   

Theo goes with Liam to check up on Primsy because he’s concerned with whatever is going on with her and that cheese boy who he learns is her traveling companion--Lord Stilton Curdeau. And it’s covered by cologne but his cheese stink is familiar. He wants to alert Amethar but Amethar is currently eyeing Basha Myaso (Warlord of the Beef Clans and ruler of all of the Meatlands) who is glaring at him. On Calroy’s advice, he squares up with Basha who implies that Candia is responsible for the false flag attack. Amethar tells him to “watch [his] fucking mouth.” Diplomacy!

Meanwhile, Lapin is with the Pontifex in the Great Food Pyramid (which is, of course, a thing). She introduces him to Sir Keradin Deeproot who is this super buff super intense carrot Paladin. We learn that Lapin isn’t an archbishop and his title of primogen comes from his status as a “miracle worker”. Apparently, Miracle working is very uncommon even though the Bulbian church is so massive. When asked, Onionpatch says that things in Vegetania are fine except that King Belvedere Cabbage is infirm. Another Priogem--this one of Cersia--joins them, the Archbishop Fettucina Alfredi who is this very classically beautiful looking, toga wearing woman with glowing eyes--she’s also a miracle worker. Lapin is like, “Oh fuck,” because if she’s magic too then she might be able to tell that he’s not actually on the level.          

Lapin veers away from Alfredi and chats up the Pontifex who says Brightgarden is OK but they're currently dealing with a murder of an archbishop in the Meatlands (the Archbishop Raddica). Lord Basha is looking for who did it and the Pontifex wants them brought to justice ASAP. Alfredi brings up the attack on the road and wonders about the rumors she heard about strange magic. Lapin, sweating bullets, lies and says that he thinks it was the work of the Bulb. On a 14 Deception from Lapin, Alfredi thinks lavender fog would be a weird Bulbian intercession. It sounds more like something a false good she’s heard about from Candia would do. What’s her name? The Sugarplum Fairy? Lapin, with a 25 Persuasion check, is able to wave that off as primitive backwoods things that he’s working to stamp out in Candia. That’s enough to get the Pontifex on his side and they go up to see the Emperor. 

Outside of his room is his daughter--Lady Plumbeline Uvano--who is lowkey very upset about something. She greets them and then takes the Pontifex in to talk to the Emperor while Lapin waits outside with Alfredi and Kerradin. When she’s done paying the respects of the church, the whole holy crew goes back to the party. Before Lapin splits off, the Pontifex does a little pull aside with him about Candia’s role in the war and how she thinks, with him at the helm, Candia is in good hands.  

At Sir Theo's suggestion, Amethar has the Candy Crew stand with the Cheese Peeps during the announcement of the tourney which is a big deal because it’s a symbol that the alliance is still on even though they were attacked by cheese bandits. Primsy introduces herself to the princesses and gives them cool, milksilk handkerchiefs she embroidered herself with a candy cane crossed with a cheese cube on a stick with their house words: There is Strength in Sweetness. She doesn’t have one for Liam but gives him hers (it has her house words: Keep Sharp) on the condition he joins the archery competition and fights for her. With not a 15 between the 6 of them (even w/ multiple help actions) none of the PCs have presents for anyone else.              

The tourney is announced. There are three events, each with a dope prize. Winner of the melee gets a boon from the emperor at the end of his rule. The winner of the archery contest gets a seat on the Cornucopian Council, the title of Master of Arrows, and is made advisor to the next emperor (which seems like a LOT to put on a person whose main skill is “can shoot arrows well” but OK sure). The winner of the joust gets to name a candidate for Emperor from any class or house they wish and their choice must be considered. Ruby and Liam join the archery contest. Theo signs up for the joust. Jet is hesitant but Amethar convinces her to join the melee with him. She also scratches “The Dairy Islands Rule!” into a piece of wood for Primsy and she’s charming enough that Primsy doesn’t think it’s a slipshod afterthought.  

An imperial courier shows up and tells Theo the Emperor wants to talk to Amethar. He brings all the PCs and Calroy. Lady Plumbeline is still outside her dad’s room and she’s still pissed. On a 24 Insight check, Theo can tell that--as I suspected from episode 1--she is pretty ticked that she has all this institutional knowledge and competence and experience but, because of an arbitrary rule, she can’t take the throne. She tells Amethar (who she met when she was a teen) that they need to limit how many people go in as to not overwhelm him. He takes Lapin and Theo (who gives Sprinkle to Jet) and goes in to talk to Uvano.

Uvano, as we already know, was another Ravening War buddy of Amethar’s and another person he’s seen piss and shit--which we learn because that’s apparently how Amethar classifies who his best friends are. They talk the way old buddies do and Uvano asks what he would say about his life taking a surprising turn. Amethar says that if it was anyone else asking, he probably wouldn’t be on board but for Uvano? He’ll do it. That’s just what he wanted to hear.   

And that’s where we end the episode without rolling initiative because the combat in the next episode is all fun and games and to quote Lou Wilson--who I suspect is about to become the wrongest person in D20 history--“It’s all sparring. Nobody is going to get killed.”

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure.

You Should Know

Country Accents seen to be as follows: Dairy (Scottish), Meat (Russian), Fruit (French), Grain (Italian), Candy (American/British)

In the long awaited sequel to “Kristen Has -3 Dex,” Liam has a -2 to Charisma. 

Ruby speaks Lacra (Dairy-speak).

The Meatlander gods include The Great Cow, The Great Boar, and The Great Hen. 

The head beef dude has a super jacked T-Bone steak wife who I assume we’ll get a name for during the melee next episode. Update, courtesy of @fjordgofurther--we did get a name this ep. Her name is Scravoya.

The Bulbian concept of hell/the devil involves the “Hungry Ones” which just serves to underline that Brennan really did think this crazy thing all the way through and still decided to not do it but to DO it. 

Everyone levels up every episode I believe since D20 uses milestone leveling for the main seasons but Ruby and Jet leveled up twice to level 3 to help catch them up a little now that they have a story reason to be stronger. 

Things I’m Concerned About

Uvano is only in his 60s. Like, people die in their 60s but that detail casually mentioned in a setting like this always brings up the possibility of poison or some other kind of sabotage.

The second Brennan mentioned the daughter of Uvano in passing ep 1, I clocked it and the situation is basically what I was anticipating it seems. Like, of course she’s pissed. I would be too. I wonder if either the boon or the chance to offer up a candidate could be used to override the Concord rules? Either way, gotta keep an eye on her. Also, I noticed the little flippant remark she had for the Pontifex (“This is Fructerra, I’m dressed for court.”) and I don’t know if that’s distaste for the church or something more personal but it seemed interesting enough to mention. 

I know that the improvisational nature of D&D means that there’s not foreshadowing in the same way that you have in something fully set like a book or a movie but every time the Rocks family gets together for a sweet (ha) conversation (“We just want to protect you, Pop.”) I am just more and more sure we are being set up for a fall.  

Lou Wilson’s defining trait as a D&D player is doing what his character would do and letting it play out to its logical conclusion, consequences be damned--consequences be welcomed even. And Amethar is--como se dice--no Calroy when it comes to politics. I can’t imagine these facts at up to any kind of happy sum.  

Also, speaking of, I wanna trust Calroy, but I can’t. He’s too good at this. He’s too competent. He knows too much information and Amethar trusts him too much. Hope he proves me wrong but I will not be made a fool of by a slice of cake. Do you hear me Brennan? I REFUSE.    

I've only had Primsy for a week, but if anything happened to her, I would kill everyone in this room and then myself. No but, seriously, if she is just as she appears to be (and this is GoT so I guess it’s not off the table that she’s secretly like bad and it would have taken a 30 Insight check to find out) then MAN I am so scared for her. Characters who are just trying their best to do a good job are my Kryptonite and she is as much in the wrong genre as the twins are. Moreso even.  

I’m concerned Amethar has a cheesecake baby somewhere out there that’s gonna end up being a Problem. Oh my god what if one of the twins dies and their backup character is Amethar’s illegitimate kid? 

The Bulbian Church has so much power but so little magic which seems...odd. Also, just curious, what is a Paladin without divine magic? Isn’t that just a fighter?

I very much vibe with the concept of Alfredi as a character but lol I was STRESSED for Lapin during that whole conversation and I feel like that’s gonna be my default state for him all season.  

I’m concerned (or maybe just suspicious) that there’s more to the backstory with Theo and Lazuli than we heard. That little extra narration from Brennan about swearing he could feel her smile? Mmm, OK. 

Five More Things

The character art for this season cracks me up because Brennan clearly gave the artist for this season two lists and one list was labeled “Hot” and one was labeled “Ridiculous” and that’s how we got characters like Primsy and Calroy in the same scene as Anabelle and Grissini and the funniest part is Brennan’s absolute refusal to play any of these characters like they’re any more or less ridiculous than any of the others. He’s like, “The hot pasta woman is valid and the talking cheese cube is EQUALLY VALID.” 

“Not this season. Not season five.” Very bold of Brennan to be outraged about Emily trying to ride a living sprinkle dog like that's the ridiculous thing about a world with a living sprinkle dog.

The Sucorsi Road running into the Glucian Road for Sucrose and Glucose is the kind of worldbuilding detail that I love. 

I was gonna be so mad at Brennan for the nonsense that is the name “Belizabeth” but he said on Adventuring Party that he was specifically dunking on GRRM with that so he gets a pass this time. 

You know that famous Pixar meeting/lunch where they came up with Bugs Life, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, and Wall-E in one conversation? I bet Brennan had a similar brainstorming sesh where he came up with Garthy, Anabelle, and two other thirst traps that haven’t been introduced yet. Like come on. He described her hair as, “princely”? Brennan is trying to kill some of y’all. 

[elyvorg]

Kaito Momota: Even Better In English

Here’s a noteworthy topic involving Kaito that I’ve never really talked about before on here, not even in my ridiculously lengthy commentary of the entirety of V3: his localisation differences from the original Japanese. Specifically, the fact that he’s a better-written character in the English localisation. Only very slightly, but in a way that I’m pretty sure was done deliberately by his localiser. And it’s not even that he’s different, as in the localiser having made up something entirely new about him that didn’t exist in the original – it’s just that they took what was already there in his character and tightened things up just a little to make it come across more clearly and make more sense. Admittedly I’m still pretty new to my interest in original/localisation differences in media, so I don’t have a huge host of examples to draw from, but this is something I imagine doesn’t happen very often at all.

(Disclaimer: I am not fluent in Japanese and have therefore not played through the entire game in its original Japanese form. I just have enough grasp of the language to be able to more or less understand things with the help of a dictionary, and I’ve used this to check out the Japanese versions of various bits I was interested in, which, because it’s me, included a lot of Kaito. So my knowledge of this is definitely incomplete – if I’m wrong or missing something big, do let me know! Regardless, I still think the parts I do know about are interesting enough to be worth discussing.)

Maybe let’s not have him sound like an asshole?

The first and most general thing of note is that, in Japanese, Kaito’s speech pattern is really rough and rude-sounding. Like, delinquent-street-thug, almost-makes-Mondo-sound-polite levels of rude. Granted, I’m not an expert in this as I’m not fluent, but one thing that does stand out to me as significantly worse than your average rough-teenage-male-Japanese is the word Kaito consistently uses for “you”.

Most characters with this sort of speech pattern use omae, or perhaps omee, a more slurred equivalent of it, which comes across as kind of impolite, but only in a sense that the speaker is an informal and impolite person in general, not that they’re trying to be specifically rude towards the person they’re using it for, which is usually just everyone. But rather than omae, Kaito almost always uses an even ruder variant, temee, which in my (admittedly limited) experience is only ever used when you’re actively trying to insult the person you’re using it on. It can be pretty reasonably translated as not just “you”, but more like “you jerk” or “you bastard”. And Kaito uses this for everyone. Even Shuichi and Maki, his best friends whom he literally dies for.

It’s really bizarre. Rough speech full of contractions and slurring alone would probably be fine in that it wouldn’t change how Kaito appears to treat others. But the fact that he chooses to address everybody else this way makes it come across like Kaito is an arrogant, hostile asshole who doesn’t care about anyone except himself and sees others as beneath him, which could not be further from who he is, what the actual hell.

English doesn’t have such a wide variety of speech patterns and ways to address people as Japanese, such that it’s not quite possible to translate this kind of thing directly. But what English does have that Japanese doesn’t is a much greater variety of swear-word intensities, so one way that localisation often gets across this kind of nuance in speech patterns is by making characters use an appropriate amount of swear words to match the original level of roughness. If Kaito had been localised completely faithfully, his speech would sound a lot like someone such as Mondo or Miu, full of F-bombs and other high-intensity swear words, which would give him a much more unnecessarily hostile tone. (And while Mondo is actually a decent person who cares about others in spite of the way he talks, him sounding hostile on the surface is part of the point with him, whereas it really shouldn’t be for Kaito.)

So, happily, the localiser decided not to faithfully localise Kaito’s speech pattern, because they evidently realised it was unnecessarily hindering the way he comes across in terms of the kind of person he is. As it is, Kaito’s English speech is still very casual, but his coarse language only extends to the level of lots of “damn”s and “hell”s and only a few very choice instances of “bastard” towards Monokuma, with almost nothing stronger than that. He’s still not exactly polite at all, but, unlike in Japanese, it also doesn’t sound like he’s actively trying to be rude. Which is only appropriate, considering that one of the most important things about Kaito as a person is how much he cares and is always trying to help the people around him and encourage co-operation, and that he values communication as something that’ll let him do that. Being unnecessarily rude isn’t going to help, and you’d think he should understand that!

It must be a really odd experience for someone fluent in Japanese to play through the original version of the game and have to slowly come to the realisation that Kaito’s a hell of a lot nicer than he sounds based on how he talks. Turns out actually all the “you bastard”-ing is just a weird quirk of his speech that somehow doesn’t even remotely mean he doesn’t care about the people he’s referring to like that. I also can’t help but worry that a lot of Japanese players might therefore never actually realise just how good of a person Kaito is because of this. (Which, geez, there’s already enough of a problem in English of people somehow not managing to pick up on how one of Kaito’s most defining character traits is his selflessness and desire to help everyone, and that’s with his improved speech pattern. Imagine that but worse.)

…There is one possible reason I can see for why Kaito’s Japanese speech pattern is so at odds with the kind of person he is. It could be that this is meant to be a remnant of pregame Kaito, who was an asshole who really didn’t give a fuck about anybody except himself and whom I can definitely imagine casually referring to literally everyone with temee. It seems that the Flashback Lights that created everyone’s characters somehow weren’t quite able to alter their original speech patterns, despite rewriting everything else about them to the point that, for all meaningful intents and purposes, they’re completely different people and their original selves are effectively dead. So our Ultimate Astronaut Kaito just casually accepts his speech pattern as normal for him without having ever consciously questioned why on earth he calls everyone, even his closest friends, “you bastard”.

But while I can appreciate that being there as a hint to the twist, if that is indeed the reason it’s a thing, I still think it’s a lot more worthwhile to make sure that Kaito doesn’t implicitly come across as a hostile asshole every time he opens his mouth. So I still think the localiser made a good call to change this.

Luminary of the Stars! and its less-shiny (but louder) equivalent

Let’s move on to some more specific words and phrases unique to Kaito’s character. His most iconic catchphrase, even more so than the impossible being possible, is him calling himself the Luminary of the Stars. So what was this in Japanese? Something equally impressive-sounding, right? Well… only kind of. In Japanese, he calls himself “uchuu ni todoroku Momota Kaito”. Uchuu ni todoroku literally means “to be famous in space”, so to translate that as directly as possible while having it sound right in English, I’d probably go for something like “the universe-famous Kaito Momota”.

The first thing about this is that, while it seems to fit Kaito at a glance, I’m really not sure he actually cares that much about being famous. Sure, ideally he’d like loads of people to know about him, but I don’t think that’s quite the point for him. It’s less that he wants a lot of people to superficially know who he is and more that he wants to have an influence on people and to have inspired them and changed them in some way. I really believe he would much rather have a meaningful influence on just a small handful of people than to be only superficially known by thousands or millions without any of them really caring. So “famous” isn’t quite the right word for what Kaito really wants to be.

(Hmm, though it seems I’m overlooking a double meaning in that todoroku can also mean “to roar/reverberate”, which I guess gives it a bit more of a sense of him having an impact than it would in English, even though that meaning would sound kind of odd on its own. (The French localisation of his title apparently went entirely with this meaning and translated it as something to the effect of “Kaito Momota, the roar from space!”, which… I’m kind of losing my mind trying to picture Kaito actually doing that.))

The other issue with the Japanese title, though, is that it’s just provably not true. As a mere astronaut trainee, Kaito isn’t even world-famous yet, much as he might (potentially?) like to be. And even if he was, the only way in which that would equate to him being universe-famous is if aliens don’t exist at all and so the Earth is the only part of the universe in which being famous mattered. Otherwise, if aliens do exist (and Kaito very much hopes they do!), they have undeniably not heard of him, so he isn’t famous throughout space at all. He never will be; no matter how many space missions he might go on in his future, a human lifetime just isn’t long enough to actually meet, well, probably any of the aliens that are out there, but even more definitely not all of them.

So Kaito making a repeated point of calling himself “universe-famous” in Japanese just kind of comes across like… empty boasting. Which is not remotely how Kaito actually is – yes, he talks big about his intentions, but he always wants to follow up his words and is genuinely trying to do so even if he can’t always quite manage to live up to them as much as he’d like to. By that token, he shouldn’t want to make grand claims that he knows are already completely impossible for him to ever live up to. And, sure, he always says the impossible is possible – but the thing about that catchphrase is that he’s never actually talking about things that are literally impossible, just things that might seem impossible, in order to inspire people to believe they’re not and that they can make it happen if they try.

Kaito calling himself something that he knows full well is literally never possible for him to actually be only really works as a fiction that he’s putting on: something he knows isn’t true and everyone else knows isn’t true, but maybe they’ll choose to buy into it and pretend it’s true anyway because it’s fun and maybe a little inspiring just to imagine it. It’s similar to the ridiculous stories of his childhood “adventures” he told in his FTEs that were very obviously just make-believe even though he acted like they were real – and it’s also kind of like how Himiko insistently calls herself a mage. And, well, I suppose that works well enough for Kaito’s character in and of itself.

It would have totally been an option to just directly translate this as “universe-famous” and leave things at that. That sounds perfectly fine in English, after all, and it’s less silly than the French take on it. But Kaito’s localiser apparently decided that, no, they could do better by Kaito than that. They could do much better.

“Luminary” can mean, as far as I’m aware, three different things. One is some kind of esteemed, respected figure in an academic field. So that’s sort of a match to the “famous” part, but that’s definitely the least relevant meaning here. The second and far more important meaning of “luminary” is someone who inspires and influences others. That’s exactly what Kaito is, so much, to Shuichi and Maki and even to everyone else! That’s what he cares the most about being to people – far more than he cares about being superficially “famous”. And then the third meaning is “an object which emits light”, usually specifically in terms of celestial bodies like the sun or stars. Which isn’t literally what Kaito is, but isn’t that just wonderfully fitting with his space theme and the “of the Stars” part of his title? (And it also means that any metaphors about him being “bright” or “shining” or something to that effect are especially appropriate.)

In the localisation, then, while it may sound like an overblown ridiculous fiction, Kaito’s self-proclaimed title of Luminary of the Stars is actually completely true and accurate. Nobody can deny that he’s someone who inspires and influences others! And while the “of the stars” part could be taken as an untrue exaggeration that he’s also a luminary to aliens all across the cosmos, it doesn’t have to mean that. It can simply mean that he’s associated with the stars in some way, which he is, since he’s an astronaut. If Kaito wants to call himself the Luminary of the Stars, why the hell shouldn’t he? It’s not wrong.

So I love that Kaito’s “title” was changed to this in the localisation, not only because I like being able to use the word “luminary” as a neat shorthand for the way he inspires people, or because I like to use light-based metaphors about him being inspiring like that, but also because I love how it’s more than just a fiction, even if it may seem like one at first glance. Kaito calls himself the Luminary of the Stars not just as an idealised image of him that other people can maybe buy into and be inspired by, but also as something that he’s actually trying to be. Because he wants it to be true. Because he’s trying to make it true. And because, in the end, it is more true about him than Kaito himself really believes it to be deep down.

[Edit: turns out that maybe actually the “roaring” meaning I briefly mentioned above is in fact the primary meaning a Japanese-speaker would be getting from Kaito’s original title, and with that in mind I wrote some extra thoughts about this.]

There wasn’t anything better to call you, bro

There is one notable part of how Kaito is localised that worked better and was more nuanced in the original Japanese, namely the part where Kaito begins to call Shuichi “bro” sometimes once they’ve started training together. In Japanese, while everyone usually addresses each other by their surnames since that’s normal for Japanese high school peers even if they’re pretty good friends, this part is instead Kaito beginning to call Shuichi by his given name with no honorifics, which is a sign of extremely close friendship. It’s a lot more of a big deal and a meaningful gesture than simply the English “bro”.

However, losing that nuance isn’t the localiser’s fault, because the connotations of the names and honorifics people use for each other are completely different between English and Japanese and this could never translate directly. The localiser had to do the best they could, so while “bro” doesn’t quite have the same intensity as the given-name-with-no-honorifics, it does at least come across as a sign of close friendship and trust.

Because the localiser didn’t want to make Kaito sound as ridiculously over-the-top with this as Mondo and Taka do with their whole “bro” thing, they only had Kaito call Shuichi “bro” sometimes, and he still uses Shuichi’s name a lot of the time. Which is a sensible choice, but it sadly means that a bit more nuance from the Japanese was unavoidably lost. One delightful part of the Japanese that I wish could have been replicated in English is how, at the end of trial 4 when Kaito coughs up blood in front of everyone and pushes away Shuichi’s offer of help as he leaves, he reverts to calling him “Saihara” for the first time in two and a half chapters, making that moment even more painful than it already was. In English, since Kaito only calls Shuichi “bro” sometimes, there’s nothing meaningful about him not doing so on one specific occasion and so this just can’t work.

Then during their conversation through the hangar window in chapter 5 (after half a chapter of not talking to him at all and therefore not using either name), Japanese-Kaito pointedly calls him “Shuichi” again as soon as Shuichi tries to bring up Gonta’s trial. It’s the perfect way for him to make it immediately clear that things are okay between them and they’re still friends. This even causes Shuichi to think, “Thank you for calling me by that name again”, which is just adorable – he really appreciated having someone who cared about him enough to address him that way and didn’t want to lose that! (This line was replaced in English simply by “Thank you for being my friend”, which is admittedly also adorable but somewhat misses the point the original line was making about Shuichi being glad they’ve made up and are still friends.)

Heroes and sidekicks and… small businesses?

Back to things that the localisation improved on, it’s time for the most interesting part of all this, and possibly the most bewildering thing about the Japanese (if you can believe that things could get more bewildering than casually calling your closest friends “you bastard”).

In English, Shuichi and Maki are Kaito’s “sidekicks”, and in that context, Kaito refers to himself as the “hero”. While this makes it sound like Kaito sees himself as greater than them and that they only exist to make him look good, that’s actually the exact opposite of what Kaito means by this. Kaito only makes someone his “sidekick” when he believes in their potential to be amazing – perhaps even greater than him – and his role as the “hero” in this arrangement is actually to give them as much support and guidance and inspiration to help them reach that potential as he possibly can.

Obviously, Kaito’s personal definitions of the words “hero” and “sidekick” in this context are very different to the usual ones. But there is at least some sense behind him using these words. Kaito is training his sidekicks to grow stronger and reach their full potential, so one could say he’s training them to become heroes themselves. In the regular definition of the word, sidekicks don’t only exist to back up the hero and make him look good; they’re also essentially junior heroes who are working under the main hero’s guidance to eventually one day become just as good as him. So while Kaito’s own definition of “sidekick” only partially overlaps with the usual definition of it, it’s not the worst word he could have chosen for this.

So what does Kaito call his sidekicks in Japanese? Just the English loanword saidokikku, since he’s fluent in English and would know exactly what that means? A Japanese word that means basically the same kind of thing? No – it’s “assistant”. (This is joshu, and it’s the same word that Sayaka used in DR1 when she declared herself to be Makoto’s “assistant”, so it seems to have exactly the kind of connotations you’d expect.) And rather than a “hero”, Kaito calls himself… their “boss”. (This is the English loanword bosu, the connotations of which I’m not sure about at all. For these purposes I’ll be assuming it’s equivalent to the English word, but there may be something I’m missing here.)

Which… just makes things sound very bizarrely like Kaito is running some kind of small business here. (“Boss” alone may not necessarily imply a business context, but next to “assistant”, it totally does, unless I’m missing something in the Japanese connotations.) The words Kaito used for this in English may have been a somewhat misleading representation of what he actually means by them, but it’s way worse in Japanese. Assistants only exist to help the boss out with his jobs and follow his instructions. This makes it sound not only like Kaito is greater than them and they exist to make him look good, but also that all Kaito wants to do is boss them around and have them do exactly as he says, which is even more completely not the point of what’s actually going on here. From the word “assistant” alone, there’s absolutely no connotations that they’re junior bosses, bosses-in-training who are going to learn the ropes of “business” from him and eventually graduate to bossing other people around themselves. And even if they were, being a “boss” isn’t something they would want to aspire to be that would be achieving their full potential anywhere near as much as being a “hero” is. This whole thing is so much more bewilderingly removed from the actual point of Kaito’s training and guidance that I find it difficult to buy that even someone as ridiculous as him would have ever thought these words made sense to use.

…I will give these terms one thing over the English ones, and that’s the implication that the boss can’t be a boss on his own. Heroes can be heroes even if they don’t have sidekicks, at least in the usual definition and not Kaito’s – yet one of Kaito’s problems is that he’s afraid he’s not really a hero if his sidekicks don’t actually need him. And, well, a boss can’t be called a “boss” any more if he doesn’t have anybody to boss around.

(Okay, at this point I’m going to have to stop and point you towards my lengthy post about Kaito’s hero issues, because I’m starting to get deep into said issues and rather than repeating a lot of what I said in that post I’m going to somewhat assume people already know what I’m talking about.)

So, consider Kaito’s Harmonious Heart event and it’s key line, “I can’t show weakness in front of my sidekick”. Obviously, he’s wrong, and he should be able to feel safe showing weakness to his sidekicks and know that doing so doesn’t constitute failing them or make him any less of a hero. Part of why sidekicks are there – in the regular definition of the word – is so that they can help the hero out with things he’s not strong enough to handle on his own! Helping the hero when he needs it is supposed to be one of the points of a sidekick!

But, while it’s painful that Kaito manages to miss the point here so badly, it makes sense that he does, given the fact that he’s seeing himself as a hero. The core of Kaito’s issues is that he has an extremely childlike view on heroes and believes he needs to be completely invincible and perfect in order to truly be a hero who can inspire people. He has no grasp of the concept that the most inspiring heroes are really the ones who struggle and suffer but manage to win in the end despite it all, and therefore that having weaknesses doesn’t stop him from being a hero at all.

In Japanese, this scene has nothing to do with heroes; this line is instead something to the effect of “a boss can’t show weakness in front of his assistant”. And… this entire concept of Kaito’s issues doesn’t work nearly as well when put in this bizarre context of a small business that his Japanese choice of words brings to mind. Strength and weakness aren’t nearly as much the point in a business setting. Technically, a boss can show as much weakness to his assistants as he likes, because they work for him and so he can do whatever he wants. If anything, it should be the assistants who are afraid of showing weakness to their boss in case he decides to fire them for not being good enough. Obviously none of this applies to Kaito’s definition of “boss”, but then it’s just very difficult to grasp where he even got the misguided idea that he in particular can’t show weakness (even though it’s fine if others do), because it sure as hell wasn’t from that word. And it should be even more obvious to Kaito that his “assistants” are allowed to help him when that’s literally meant to be the point of an assistant. It’s right there in the word! They’re there to assist him! (And it’s equally right there in the word in Japanese; the first kanji in joshu is the kanji for “help”.)

So, yes, Kaito being completely misguidedly convinced that he’s not allowed to show weakness to Shuichi is the whole point of his issues, but it makes so much less sense that he would actually misunderstand this so badly in Japanese when he frames things using such bizarre terms. It only makes so much sense in English because he’s making it about heroes in his head.

I remember way back, when I was still figuring out Kaito’s issues, that for a while I was stuck at “it’s so tragic that he believes heroes can’t ever show weakness to their sidekicks or they’d be a failure; what kind of hero stories has he been reading to make him think that?” and assuming that was basically a rhetorical question with no real answer – until I realised that, wait, there was evidence of him actually buying into these sorts of too-simplistic hero stories and that this was the entire point. But if I’d seen the Japanese version of the game instead, I’d have just got stuck on the unanswerable question of “why the hell does he think bosses can’t show weakness to their assistants?????” and I’d probably never have figured out Kaito’s issues any further than that at all. Which would be a crying shame.

And, see, these terms of “boss” and “assistant” could just have been translated directly. They have direct enough English equivalents, so there’d have been nothing actively wrong with leaving things like that. But rather than just settling for that, evidently Kaito’s localiser looked at this, realised what the intended point was, and decided that they could get that point across much better using different terms, so they did.

More heroes and not-quite-heroes

There’s more to this hero thing than just bosses and assistants, though, because there’s a couple of other contexts outside of the sidekick thing in which Kaito talks about heroes in English.

Perhaps the one most pointedly relevant to Kaito’s issues is the part where he’s talking about how he looked up to Ryoma because of his own passion for tennis. He describes Ryoma as a “hero”, which is a word choice that’s absolutely vital for understanding why Kaito was so harsh on Ryoma’s weakness and never even realised he could maybe help with it until it was too late. Because that’s exactly the same unrealistically perfect standard for heroes that Kaito holds himself to: heroes aren’t allowed to be weak, ever, or they’re a failure to anyone who ever looked up to them. And in Japanese, Kaito’s line about Ryoma also calls him a “hero” (literally the English loanword hiiro). But the connection to Kaito’s own issues is a lot less clear, since the notion of Kaito not being allowed to show any weakness in order to keep inspiring people is instead framed with the word “boss”.

Yet I’m so certain that this connection, this ridiculously high standard that Kaito only holds himself and Ryoma and nobody else to, is still the point and something very much intended by the original writers. Kaito needed a very, very good reason to not be willing to help Ryoma with his obvious weakness when he usually always tries to help anyone weak and suffering – because if Kaito had reached out to him, Ryoma would probably not have died. And tennis is not the most obvious choice for Kaito’s favourite sport, since it’s not a team sport focusing on communication and co-operation. So the only sensible reason for the out-universe writers to have made tennis be his favourite sport anyway has to be that they wanted Kaito to be uncharacteristically harsh on Ryoma and only Ryoma, and the way to do that with Kaito is to make it so that he used to look up to him. On the surface this would seem like an entirely counterintuitive way to make someone want to help a particular person less than normal – but not if it’s Kaito, because of his issues about heroes. The writers had to have known what they were doing.

So it’s bewildering to me that the writers didn’t then realise that they should make this connection more apparent by having Kaito use the same word for both himself and Ryoma in this context. Obviously it makes no sense for him to think of Ryoma as a “boss” – but instead, surely, this would make the writers think that Kaito referring to himself as a “boss”, in the “can’t show weakness in order to inspire people” sense, is completely ridiculous, and maybe actually “hero” is a better word for it, just like he used for Ryoma.

(And it’s absolutely wonderful to me that, despite that the original writers who consciously wrote Kaito this way somehow missed the obvious thing to do here, his localiser got it and fixed things to be the way they always should have been.)

Another time Kaito talks about heroes is that he describes himself as a hero when he’s announcing his Brilliant Plan to help everyone escape in chapter 5 (the plan that’s really him desperately trying to prove himself to Shuichi after the mess that was trial 4). And this is also “hero” in Japanese, for once – the only time Kaito calls himself a “hero” and not a “boss”.

There might be some logic behind this. In that analysis post about Kaito’s hero issues I linked, at one point I talked about how there’s essentially two different kinds of hero Kaito’s thinking of – the luminary kind of hero who inspires people through words, and the action kind of hero who Gets Shit Done. In English, Kaito makes no lexical distinction between these two types of heroes, even though there’s almost certainly a meaningful distinction in his mind, since he looks up to Shuichi for being an action hero and feels like his own luminary brand of heroism doesn’t match up to that (even though it totally does; give yourself and your strengths more credit, Kaito!). In Japanese, these are two different concepts in Kaito’s head – the luminary kind is a “boss”, while the action kind is a “hero”, aka the thing Kaito is trying really hard to finally be when he comes up with his totally-not-haphazard-and-aimless escape plan.

But even so, I feel like using two different words for this is the wrong call. If we do that, we lose out on all the fun implications of Kaito questioning whether Shuichi is really his sidekick during trial 4. Said implications are that Kaito is afraid Shuichi isn’t really a sidekick because he’s already a hero and doesn’t need Kaito at all. In Japanese, Kaito still questions whether or not Shuichi is really his “assistant”, which he still actually means in his own Planet-Kaito definition of “someone who needs my support” – but because of the word he’s using, that doesn’t then come with the implication that actually Shuichi’s already a… “boss”? Because the inspiring type of person that the word “boss” equates to in Kaito’s head is not the same thing as the person-who-gets-shit-done that Shuichi is undeniably being during this trial – the notion that Shuichi’s the real “hero” here seems like it has a lot less to do with this whole “boss” and “assistant” thing that Kaito is questioning.

(So the localiser realising what’s going on with Kaito in trial 4 and changing his boss-and-assistant thing to actually be about heroes in order to better tie everything together and get that across was, again, the best call.)

The last context in which Kaito talks about heroes in English is when he’s talking about stories: telling Shuichi and Maki in chapter 3, shortly after calling himself a hero, “Each of you are the heroes of your own stories! So act more like it!”, and saying in the chapter 5 hangar conversation, referring to himself, “It’d be a crappy story if the hero gave up so easily!”. On these occasions, in Japanese, he uses the term “main character” (shujinkou) instead of “hero”. Which is appropriate given the context about stories, I suppose – but then again, the word “hero” also equally brings to mind the idea of fiction, and, since heroes are usually main characters, can be taken to mean basically the same thing in the contexts Kaito’s saying it here.

And since it’s the word “hero” in English, that means these lines can also be linked into Kaito’s hero thing in ways that they can’t quite in Japanese. By saying that Shuichi and Maki are the heroes of their own stories, he’s essentially telling them – just like I described when talking about the connotations of “sidekick” earlier – that they’re heroes-in-training who will reach their potential and become full-fledged heroes one day! Which doesn’t connect at all in Japanese when they’re just his “assistants” who are also “main characters”. Not only that, but the fact that Kaito’s already referring to them as heroes carries with it the slight implication that maybe they don’t really need support from him as his “sidekicks” and can already manage on their own without him. That is indeed one of Kaito’s biggest worries going forward, at least with regards to Shuichi, which has already very vaguely begun to surface there in early chapter 3. And that doesn’t work in Japanese either, because that’d be him worrying that Shuichi’s already a “boss” or something; see my point about trial 4 above.

Meanwhile, Kaito continuing to describe himself as a hero in late chapter 5, despite the utter mess that was his “heroic” escape plan earlier that chapter, is a rather lovely moment because it shows that he’s still willing to give himself a chance as a hero and hasn’t given up on his ability to make a difference despite everything. It could even be taken to be relevant to his standards for heroes, since he’s talking about what makes a hero story good – and all he’s saying is that heroes need to not give up, not necessarily that they need to not have weaknesses at all. So this could maybe be a sign of some very important growth from him on that front! This line has an impact in English that just isn’t quite there as much in Japanese when he’s only calling himself a “main character”, rather than a “hero”… or a “boss”, I guess, since that’s the one where he’s not supposed to have weaknesses and would make absolutely no sense in this context about stories, geez.

My overall point for this section being: in Japanese, Kaito uses three different words in different contexts for what he simply calls a “hero” every time in English. While there’s some kind of logic behind his choice of a different word each time, it still feels like the Japanese writers seriously missed a trick by not realising they could tie all these things together. Having him use the exact same word for it in English every time just makes the core point of Kaito’s issues so much more cohesive, even though they’re still exactly the same issues that he has in Japanese. I absolutely love that his localiser realised this and made these changes even though they really didn’t have to.

In conclusion: how even.

With the number of times I’ve gleefully used the word “luminary” to describe Kaito being inspirational, or talked about his standards for heroes in a way that is deeply connected to how he behaves in front of his sidekicks, it is so, so strange to me that none of that is even possible when talking about him in Japanese. Kaito is still the same character in Japanese; nothing meaningful about his personality or his actions or his beliefs are different (well, as far as I know from my limited knowledge) – but talking about him and the way he is just makes so much more sense in English.

Let me describe it like this. If you’d somehow shown me both the Japanese and the English versions of Kaito’s story without any prior context and asked me to guess which one was the original and which one was a localised adaptation (assuming I was fluent in Japanese, and also assuming the characters being Japanese wasn’t a pretty big hint)… I would have been dead certain that the English was the original, and then it was localised into Japanese afterwards. It reads exactly like some Japanese localiser saw the English version, didn’t quite pick up on all the nuance of Kaito’s hero thing and how vital that was, and so when they localised it into Japanese they changed a few things without really realising that that’d dilute the point and make it less cohesive – not exactly out of bad intent, but simply because they didn’t understand it well enough to know better, since they’re not the original writers.

It’s utterly incredible to me that the truth is the exact opposite of that. It’s incredible that the original Japanese writers somehow wrote this whole thing about Kaito’s issues regarding heroes (and I really am like 99% certain they knew exactly what they were doing here and it’s not me just reading too much into it) but somehow didn’t realise that actually having him use the word “hero” in more contexts, including the most important one, would help that along and tie it together more.

But not only that, it’s also incredible to me that this managed to get fixed in the localisation. I think it’s amazing that Kaito’s localiser was able to look at everything about him in the original version of the story, understand what the main point was even though it’s a lot less clear in that version and they’re not the person who wrote it, and then decide, “You know what? This is already really good, but I’m going to tighten it up and make it just a tiny bit even better.”

Mad, mad props to whoever that person is – I’m so glad that they and not one of the other localisers who worked on the game happened to get assigned to Kaito. If someone less perceptive than them had been given the job, everything would have remained the still-good-but-not-quite-so-cohesive jumble that it is in Japanese, and ultimately, I’d understand and appreciate Kaito’s character significantly less than I do today.

[sustraiii]

TEAM ZRCN ARC 4 - CHAPTER 3

In the aftermath of the explosion, the team hurries to secure the school.

NEELA

As they waited for Belleza Rossi to show herself, Neela and the rest of her team found themselves separated, accompanied by one of the Mob Ops as they patrolled the grounds of the university.

Neela had been paired with Morgan, and sent off to the music department, which seemed oddly fitting given Morgan's semblance. As they walked, Neela noted he seemed a little tense and on edge, so in an effort to lighten the mood, Neela had started a conversation with him.

What had started off as small talk, had developed into a very informative discussion, with Morgan sharing more about his personal life than she had expected. Neela now knew that he was an only child, that his parents still lived in Atlas and both owned small businesses, and that could easily list off his impressive number of accolades from the academy prior to joining the military if anyone were to press him for such information.

Unfortunately, their little conversation was not to last, as Morgan had to frequently respond to messages coming through his earpiece. The last of which was one from Wren revealing she was about to speak with Belleza Rossi. Morgan and Neela waited quietly for any updates. Being stood close to Morgan, she could hear some faint mumbled chatter from his teammates, as they too waited for any news.

"Let's hope that-"

Before Neela had the chance to finish what she was saying about hoping the trade off would go well, the sound of a nearby explosion silenced her words. Both she and Morgan stared at each with a mix of confusion and horror in their eyes, neither knowing exactly what to say in that moment.

"What just happened?" Neela managed to croak out.

The lights in the hallway suddenly shifted from their bright white colour to a full shade of red. A warning announcement quickly followed the change in lights.

"Emergency evacuation procedure is now in full force," A robotic female voice, crackled through the intercom. "Please remain calm and make your way to the nearest evacuation point."

Despite the plea to remain calm, the students were anything but as they hurried from their classrooms. Neela couldn't say she blamed them for their panic. She knew of a few occasions where a Grimm attack had forced the school to evacuate, but an explosion was unheard of.

A group of students hurried past them, and had it not been for Morgan pulling her back towards a wall, she might have gotten swept up in the crowd. When they had passed, Neela breathed a sigh of relief, and looked over appreciatively at Morgan. He returned the smile, before quickly turning his head away, speaking into his earpiece. A moment later, a hand went into his pocket, and he pulled out another earpiece which he handed to Neela.

“You had another earpiece this entire time?”

“I always keep spares,” Morgan explained in a brisk tone. “Now quickly, put it in your ear. You’ll want to hear what Wren has to say.”

Neela nodded and did as he said, almost immediately being met by several voices all taking at once, all questioning what had just happened and if everyone was alright. It was Wren’s voice, which rang out clear and steady, that managed to cut through the confusion.

“I understand that what just happened came as a surprise, but I would remind you all to remain calm and focused during this situation,” Wren spoke calmly. “Now, can each of you confirm your location and that you are safe?”

One by one the Mob Ops did as Wren asked, all except for one - Parson. The lack of communication from him nor Zelde or Cordovan did not go unnoticed.

“Has anyone made contact with Parson since the explosion?” Wren asked.

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news or anything,” Elio cut in, “but I’m pretty sure  Parson and the kids were heading in the direction of where that explosion was.”

“Are you certain?” Wren pressed.

“Not a hundred percent, no,” Elio admitted. “We don’t even know if Parson made it there or not.” He tried to sound a bit more optimistic with his last sentence but faltered near the end.

“I can go check if they’re okay,” Cherry offered. “Helia and I passed them not too long ago. I’m sure if we doubled back, we could find them."

Silence followed this statement, as though Wren was considering the offer, before Neela heard a small grunt in response. "Go. You have my permission," She responded swiftly. "Everybody else - help aid the evacuation procedure. Although our priority is to get the students and staff to safety, I will ask that you continue to remain cautious and on your guard. We still don't have any solid confirmation that Belleza Rossi - or at the very least none of her associates - are within the school grounds."

Elio and Cherry were quick to agree, followed by Morgan and Neela. With a plan now set in motion, Neela and Morgan began to move again, heading in the direction of where the group of students that had passed them earlier had been heading. Although said students had since moved on, they found a few other students lingering in the hall. Morgan was quick to take charge of the situation, urging them to move on in a calm yet authoritative tone. 

Once they were certain the department had been evacuated, Morgan suggested they head towards Parson's location to provide support for Cherry and Helia. As they turned to make their way to that section of the school, yet another explosion rang out. But with how the corridor seemed to shake, and a light fixture swung free, this second explosion was much closer.

"Was that another explosion?" Cherry asked with a worried tone.

"We'll find out," Morgan answered, whilst glancing at Neela. With a cock of his head, he gestured for her to follow him, and sprinted down the hall to where a row of windows looked out into the courtyard below.

Neela's eyes widened when she saw what had happened.

"The wall…" Her voice trembled. "They breached the wall."

As Elio had said, the first blast appeared to have struck near to where Parson had last announced he would be patrolling. She couldn't see the damage from this angle, but could still see the smoke rising in the distance. The second explosion had struck much closer to where Neela and Morgan were, blasting a large hole through the wall that was still smouldering even now. What made the second explosion even more damaging, was that part of the walls surrounding the town itself, also made up part of the wall that secured the university, and it was that part which currently had a gaping hole in it.

For the first time ever, Neela heard Morgan curse.

"Uh, guys, I might need some help down here."

At the sound of Elio's voice through the earpiece, Neela and Morgan peered outside, and down into the courtyard, where they knew Elio to be. Neela's blue eyes looked around, trying to find the source of the problem.

"Grimm." She said with a heavy tone, watching as little Krypterons began to make their way through the hole.

Morgan grunted in annoyance before tearing himself away from the window.

"Come on, let's go."

"Wait," Neela's voice halted his movements. "What about the evacuation procedure? Surely we can't abandon it."

"You're right," He frowned a little. "We'll have to split up, one of us can go help Elio, and the other can help keep the evacuation on track."

"I'll help Elio," Neela decided.

"You're sure?"

Neela nodded her head and Morgan shrugged a little in response. "Alright," He said, agreeing with her decision to help Elio. "Stay safe. I'll try and join you when I can. Good luck."

"You too."

The journey from the music department to the ground floor and by extension, the courtyard, did not take long and soon Neela was hurrying into the snow-covered courtyard, arriving just as Elio dealt with a Krypteron. In the time it had taken her to get there, Xanthos had also appeared to join him.

"Hey, you two," Neela called out as she jogged towards them. "Heard you needed some help."

"Neela." Elio turned to her and gave her a wide smile. By the way he said her name, it was clear he was relieved to see her and glad for yet another helping hand.

"You look like you've got a handle on things," Neela observed, looking around and not seeing any more Krypterons nearby. 

"Ahh, Krypterons are easy," He said with a lighter tone. "That is what concerns me." Elio pointed up at the sky.

Neela and Xanthos looked up where he was pointing, watching as a dark shape circled above, drawing nearer and nearer to the ground with every loop. Neela shielded her eyes with her hand and tried to determine what it was. "Is that a Nevermore?"

"Worse." Was Elio's response, readying his spear again. "Get into cover quickly before it lands."

Elio directed the three of them to a large bit of debris that had been blown out from the explosion, and they crouched down behind it for cover, as the large flying Grimm landed  on a sloping roof behind them. Peeking her head out of cover, Neela was able to get her first look at it. She hadn't been too far off when she had asked if it was a Nevermore - for the general shape of it was much the same. However, there were a few notable differences. This Grimm for instance was much larger and wider, and unlike the Nevermore which had wing-claws to grab onto things, this Grimm was capable of holding itself up with its large talons, which dug deeply into the small roof it was perched on. It hopped down from the roof, pausing to look around the area, before letting out a loud, piercing, screech, that forced Neela to duck back behind cover and shield her ears. So powerful was this screech a few windows nearby cracked and shattered.

"Damn," Elio said, once the screeching had ceased. "That Picolaton is going to be a bitch to take out without any ranged weapons."

Neela and Xanthos shared a glance with each other, before Neela gestured to her trident. "Triton's Maw has a harpoon function."

Elio nodded slowly before going silent for a moment, and Neela could see the gears turning in his head as he began to put the pieces together for a plan. "Okay, yeah, that might work," He mused. "Can your dust be channelled through it?"

Neela nodded, and Elio clapped his hands together in delight. He turned and put a hand on Xanthos's shoulder. "You up for a little distraction?"

Xanthos nodded. "Just tell me where you want me, boss man."

"That's what I like to hear," Elio responded, jumping to his feet. With a cock of his head, he gestured for Xanthos to follow suit before looking back at Neela. "Don't attack it until I give you a signal."

And with that, he vaulted over the debris, charging at the Picolaton, with Xanthos following close behind him. The two of them drew close to the beast, taking turns in striking at it with their weapons. With its large size, the Picolaton couldn't retreat in a hurry, but that didn't stop it from pecking and snapping at the heels of the two men, narrowly avoiding chomping down on Elio's ankle at one point as he rolled out of the way. As they went back and forth with the Grimm, it became apparent that is shared yet another trait with the Nevermore, being able to rain down an assault of quill-like projectiles on its attackers.

Elio stepped in front of Xanthos and jabbed his spear at it, forcing the Grimm to rear backwards. "Now!" Elio shouted, glancing back at Neela. At his signal, she quickly jumped over the debris and ran out. As she drew closer to the Picolaton she slowed her run, aiming her weapon, and proceeding to fire it as she came to a complete stop.

The spearhead soared through the air, over the heads of Xanthos and Elio, and directly into the chest of the Picolaton. It squawked loudly, before flapping its wings and trying to take off. Neela's eyes went wide, as she realised it was pulling her with it, unable to get a good footing in the snow.

"I can't hold it!" Neela cried out towards Elio and Xanthos. "I'm slipping!"

"Hang on, Nee," Xanthos said, as he rushed to her side. "I've got you."  He placed his hands on her hips, and stomped his feet, the familiar golden sheen of his aura encasing his body, indicating he had activated his semblance. Although this did work a little, even with Xanthos's extra weight from his semblance, the sheer strength of the Grimm trying to ascend, and the slippery surface were working against them. 

A spray of blue tinged bullets struck the Picolaton in its left wing, disrupting its attempt to fly away. Unable to support itself on one wing, the Picolaton crashed down onto the ground. 

“Hit it now!” Elio yelled.

Neela twisted the shaft of her weapon, making sure the channel for the lightning dust was appropriately lined up before she even thought about finishing her attack. 

“Eat. My. Dust.” 

Neela pressed the button on the shaft of her weapon, unleashing an electrical current that ran directly through into the spearhead currently lodged in the Picolaton’s chest. Although powerful enough to render the Grimm immobile for the moment, it was not strong enough to finish it off completely. Elio quickly saw to that, however, using one of its outstretched wings to climb onto its back and hit not once but three times with his weapon, before the Picolaton was finally defeated. As the remains disappeared, Elio landed with a soft thud on the ground, rising back to his feet with a small stretch. As Xanthos hurried over to him, Neela took a moment to sort her weapon out, before joining them.

“Nice job you two,” Elio complimented, looking genuinely proud as he spoke to them. “You handled yourselves well.”

“Thanks,” Neela returned his compliment with a smile.

“Well, we did learn from the best,” Xanthos said, which seemed to go down well with Elio. “I don’t think we could have managed it without whoever shot it.”

Elio smirked a little before raising a finger to his earpiece . “I have a feeling it's you I should be thanking for saving our asses, Morgan,” He said. “When this is all over, I might give you a kiss later.”

Nervous laughter echoed through the earpiece moments later. “Please...don’t do that.”

Neela, Elio, and Xanthos shared a moment of laughter between them, but their brief moment of peace was not to last.

“Hello?” Cherry’s voice came across the airway, a hint of urgency in her tone. “We’re going to need an emergency medical evac. I repeat, we need an emergency medical evac now!”

[pokecommunitycenter]

Hi Dash !! It’s Time to Meet a Member of the RPC !!

Ditto would like to introduce... Dun Duuuuuun !! 

It’s Jason ♡ !! Though some of you may know them as @haematophiliac​ !!

Established in Spooky October of 2018, they’ve been around the RPC for a good long while as a Team Rocket Scientist OC, but here’s a looksee at some things you may have not known !! Ditto hopes you enjoy getting to know the writer just as much as Ditto did !!

♡ Interview... START !!

Ditto would like you to introduce yourself a little bit. The url you go by, maybe how you picked it. Was it a joke at first that you just stuck with, does it have significant meaning?

The username is what people would call a lover of blood. I started Jax in … 2018? Octoberish and he had the common username including Rocket in it and I decided to pick a theme more fitting to him. Eventually I settled with the current one as it fits him as a blood obsessor to put it bluntly. I mean he likes blood, works around a lot of it and all that so it just… Well, stuck!

Was there something about Team Rocket in general that drew you in? Over other ‘evil’ organizations, Rocket is considered the OG & probably largest. But, over Plasma/Galactic, what made you choose Rocket?

I’ve always been a Rocket fan. I started in the Pokemon fandom (can you call it a fandom back then) in 1998 when I was only eight by watching the anime. You could say that Rocket started my love for bad guys actually! I used to adore Jessie and James so much. They were just so fun, funny and adorable. Maybe I had a crush on one… Ahem! But yes, as a kid I fell for the trio (I didn’t forget loveable Meowth there!) and ever since then I’ve been a fan. I love all the bad guys mind you but Rocket holds a special place in my heart. Just always been like that.

A bonus question !! Did any characters from the original Anime / Franchise…  help you develop Jax at all?

A good question but Jax actually was inspired by a character I role played in a completely different fandom. I mean you cannot compare them - Jax is a human with so many faults and the other character is… Well, a plain old monster. But when I first made Jax I put little bits of the old character into him, such as formal speaking and love for blood. He started pretty much as a clean slate. I evolved him over the first few weeks.

Do you think that, because you play a character that is not a ‘good guy’ or as you put it, a monster, that people that may not know you well find you hard to approach?

Indeed so. Though I only speak of experience in the past here! When I played my full out monster in another fandom, people would tell others they were actually scared of me on an OOC level. Needless to say I’ve spoken to many people who were scared and helped them realise that it is just a muse I play. When it comes to Tumblr I find the fandom much more open and less afraid? Though I don’t know for certain because people could be afraid for all I know and I just don’t know. I hope I’m approachable enough anyway!

So then !! To help the part community that may not know you well, or might be a little hesitant because you play a blood loving bad guy, what are some things that you may have in common with everyone? Do you have a favorite pokemon? Or a region that just was WACK & you loved it so much? What’s on that most repeated playlist you got? Or maybe a few movies that you really love?

I read every blog’s rules and I’ve noticed that a lot of people are socially anxious. Which to be fair… I am too! I get nervous around people I don’t know and aahhhh, well, I’m in the exact same boat. We all start as strangers and all it takes is one foot forward to break that ice but, like others, I do find that first step very intimidating. I’m just your average nerd to be fair haha. As for my favourite Pokemon? Sneasel! I fell in love with that little critter after watching the Celebi movie when it came out. Favourite region would be Hoenn. I just have fond memories of it I guess as a Ruby fan. It was the first game my battery ran out of energy on. My music is too horrific for anybody’s ears if that’s what you mean hah. And movies? … … Digimon the movie (1+2+3 in Japan and just the first (all three combined) in UK and presumably other places too).

As someone who feels that weird wiggle when trying to step out of your comfort zone to make friends. Do you have any advice for people that want to get to know you better? Or, reaching out to people in general?

When reaching out to me - or anybody else - I find the best approach can be a simple hello. It instantly shatters that ice between two people. Like… Many of us are afraid to simply say hello. But if you manage to break that first bit it’s amazing! If you don’t there is always another day. Conversation can escalate from a mere hello. Or even reply to an open post if serious or funny! That first step is the hardest indeed but things get easier after that first hurdle. The worst someone can do is walk away and then perhaps it just wasn’t meant to be. Everybody has friends in the end and making more is great.

That said. We all know how the Poke RPC has its ups, & its downs. Sometimes both happen in one day. LOL. There is always room for growth though, & Ditto believes that everyone can work together to make that happen. Is there anything you would like to see change in the community?

Everything in life will come with ups and downs, it’s just how things go. We can all work through things however. If something bad happens there’s always a light at the end of the tunnel. As a community it is great we can all work on whatever needs addressing. I understand some people rather turn a blind eye depending upon the situation. We all should work on what makes us comfortable. Nonetheless, if I could change one thing I’d change anon hate. Argh. That’s one thing that gets under my skin. We, as a community, should be open to criticism and praise alike and nobody should need to harass another person anonymously. If someone has a disagreement then they should tell the person. Only that way can they work on the issue. But then again there is needless anon hate without true purpose behind it and that makes me sad. But nobody is perfect and sometimes people will rear their ugly side. Yet when anon hate has popped up it has been utterly overwhelming to see everybody support each other with kindness!

Ditto wonders, do you think anon hate may… slow down, or go away, if it was ignored instead of responded to when received? Most times, the people that feel the need to do hurtful things to others is for response. The attention received whether it is good or bad.

I think it’s highly dependent upon the situation. As someone who has received hate in the past (not on Tumblr mind you) I found that even ignoring people doesn’t work. Yet every case is different. Some do it for response, some do it to just get under someone’s skin. We can’t tell which however. If, say, it is needless hate then to ignore it would be the best option, even reporting it to Tumblr’s staff. But if in the situation something needs defending like a misconception then it could be a good idea to clear the air. Keyword could though. I’ve learned that people will get ideas into their mind and battle for it rather than accepting what is truth. In those cases a good air clearing is good and then to ignore any further.... Jabbing could be best. But if people feel the need to respond they should have the freedom to, as well as the freedom to ignore it.

Is there anything you’d like to pass on to those in the RPC that receive anon hate? Maybe a word of advice, or just something supportive to remember if it ever happens?

Well, as long as someone isn’t breaking any rules, doing something bad OOC or whatever- Actually I was going to say they should keep going and doing their thing. And yet I feel the need to mention that all people make mistakes in their lives. Anon hate is a bad way to go. The person on the receiving end of a message is a person too. They have feelings and thoughts and a life also. If you ever receive anon hate then just remember that there’s someone sending it and perhaps they don’t realize their mistake. That isn’t to say it’s justified. Just that people do indeed forget there are real people involved. … I think I word things bad! I mean… Anon hate is wrong, end of. But it is so easy to forget that real people are sat to read it. If you ever get anon hate then it is best to ignore it. That spark could evolve into a full blown fire and make you worse off. Hm, I forgot my train of thought but in the end we all need less hate and to just enjoy ourselves. People tend to send hate from bad experiences with the person or disagreements if right or wrong on either side but words are just words on a screen. They can say all they want to you but you are you. You are a person who deserves a life and love and no mere text on a monitor - Or phone screen! - can ever truly harm you.

Ditto thinks you did a fine job. We all take time to find words in our own ways, & no one has the perfect ones all the time. So please do not worry about wording things. It takes some practice sometimes, when you’re put on the spot !! 

Ditto would like to wrap up with something uplifting & super positive. After your time here in the Poke RPC, what are some of your favorite memories? Things that make you stick around, or just enjoy seeing go on? Give Ditto a little insight ( & the RPC too ) on what makes you happy to be here.

I have a vast array of good memories. Mainly ones of that first move of saying hello to someone or just that first interaction. Then again you’re asking someone with a bad memory! I truly just enjoy seeing people having a good time, enjoying their time here. When people are comfortable enough to do crack threads, that’s something that makes me smile. For instance the RPC could have been super strict and look down upon anything not considered serious and yet there everybody is just having fun! I enjoy watching people get along all in all. When new relations are formed, plots explored, the crack-like threads that ensue. Dash commentary is always a favourite. It shows someone isn’t afraid to get involved. I like it when people aren’t afraid. As I said, we’re all humans with lives and just watching people have fun makes me smile, even if I’m not involved. And of course, being involved in things makes me happy too, to just be included :D

A big Thank You !! to Jason for allowing Ditto to take some of their time for this interview. 

Ditto hopes everyone has a good Monday !! 

See you next week for the next Community Interview. ♡

[megareviews]

Octopath Traveler Combat Review

Hello whoever’s reading this, I’m here to talk about Octopath Traveler’s combat system, and how it sucks. Now you might be wondering, why am I writing about this now, isn’t that game kind of old at this point? Yes, it is, but I only “finished” playing recently since I was working off of a borrowed copy and it’s more the level of disappointment I felt while playing it has stuck with me much more than many other games I’ve played. Since I want to go into game design and development, I thought that it would be good practice to do a deep dive on game mechanics, and it’s easier to write about something that I have strong feelings about to start with. While I have many issues with Octopath, the combat system is what the player is dealing with the most (which in itself is an issue), so the fact that it was lackluster dropped the enjoyability of the game more than if it were better balanced with story and exploration. I’ll try to hit everything that I had a gripe with, from minor things I personally would want changed, to what I view as major flaws that lower the enjoyment for everyone. I will be talking about the post-game boss, because a lot of my issues come into focus during it, so spoiler warning.

For reference, I’ll be talking about the game the way I played it, so I’ll give my main character loadouts in relation to the final boss. Team 1: Hunter Therion, Cleric Alfyn, Sorceror Cyrus, and Thief Olberic; Team 2: Warlord H’annit, Scholar Ophelia, Apothecary Primrose, and Runelord Tressa.

Now the big overarching problem with this game is its simplicity. Making a game simple can be a good thing, and definitely makes it more accessible, but there are a plethora of sub issues that I will be going into throughout this caused by how oversimplified many systems are in this game. For starters there is the lack of skill diversity, as in, there just isn’t very much that characters and enemies do over the course of the game. The offensive skills have 12 possible damage types, 6 weapons (Phys) and 6 elemental (Elem) and there’s only really 4 different ways these are implemented: single hit, multi hit, wide (hits all enemies) hit, and wide multi hit. Multi hits are generally just better due to the break system and damage limits, and wide hits are better the more enemies there are. Those of you good with numbers might have already multiplied those to get 48 ways of hitting an enemy, and I’ll add two, since the Merchant has an single hit untyped skill and the Starseer has a wide untyped skill, for a grand total of 50 that I can remember. Looking at that number I actually don’t know if that looks like a lot for somebody who hasn’t played the game, but the damage types only really matter in the break mechanic of the game and which stat is used for calculating damage. No particular type of damage is better for damage or accuracy skill wise, and the elem skills will do the exact same thing no matter which element is used since they’re only based on the user’s Mag stat. Phys attacks are a bit different since each one is affected by the weapon the user has equipped for that type, but they’re generally all +Str and then +Mag / +Acc / +Crit / +Spd / +Eva. Some Phys skills also have side effects that help differentiate between them, but the basic attacks are the same when the weapons are similar.

Since I brought it up, let’s talk about the two main mechanics of combat that this game has, the break and boost systems. Overall, these systems are pretty good on their own, and most of my issues are rather small here. First up is the break system: hit the opponent with their weaknesses a number of times, and they lose any remaining moves they have this turn, any they would take on the next turn, and all attacks against them deal more damage, though on the turn after the next, they are guaranteed to move first. This is where most of the fun of the game is, figuring out the enemy’s weaknesses, as they are hidden when you first encounter an enemy, only revealed when the weakness is hit, or with the Analyze skill, and then timing the breaks to be the most beneficial to your team. Many enemies belonged to groups with similar weaknesses, so it’s interesting to learn like winged creatures are generally weak to wind and / or spear attacks. The main problem I have with the break system is that once an enemy is broken, all damage types have the same effectiveness. Before being broken, an enemy that is weak to fire will take extra damage than if it’s hit with an ice attack, but while broken these attacks will do the same damage. Any accuracy bonuses don’t matter, since you can’t miss an attack on a broken enemy and speed bonuses only really matter if the order in which skills are cast is important, which there are some cases, usually with buffing allies. Then a bit smaller is how the weakness bar is always ordered, so some damage types are more useful to figure out all of the weaknesses. For example, if a weakness to staves is the leftmost weakness to be found, the player knows that there are no other physical weaknesses and to just start trying elemental ones. There were also some interesting extra mechanics that were only used a few times, such as shuffling weaknesses after a break, or, one mechanic used exactly once in phase 1 of the final boss, rotating through weaknesses when being attacked.

Then we get to the boost system, which complements the break system very well, with only minor annoyances. It makes the player decide between spending power against an unbroken opponent to break them faster, save up to deal massive damage to an opponent once they break, or how frequently turns need to be spent to cast buffs or debuffs. One issue that I have here is that magic users get the short end of the stick again, as basic attacks are the only moves (besides Bewildering Dance, the RNG move) that boosting will cause more instances of the move to occur. Boosting three times on somebody that will basic attack an enemy can cause them to lose 4 shields, while doing the same on a fire skill will just cause it to do more damage, which is objectively better to do when the enemy is broken. This usually isn’t an issue, as the BP can be spent on status effects and healing which will always be helpful, so besides Cyrus (laugh at him, he’s a nerd) there’s always something to spend BP on, thought your personal playstyle might dictate otherwise. Something that’s more personally annoying is how the limit is 5 BP max per character, since the most you can use is 3 per turn. What would be really nice and satisfying would be to break an opponent, have everybody spend 3 BP for full boosted whatever on the break turn, and then have everybody spend another 3 BP on fully boosted whatever else on the second break turn.

Next is another facet of the simple problem, is that there is significantly less character variability than the game wants you to think, and that’s not much in the first place. There are only 96 total skills for player characters, as there are 12 jobs with 8 skills each, and each character has their default job and may also equip a secondary job, letting each character go into battle with 16 skills, ignoring the path actions that grant others conditionally. The 8 base jobs can be simplified into 2 categories, DPS and Utility, 3 if you want to split the utilities into physical and elemental which I see as reasonable, or if you want to stretch it and split the 2 DPSs in the same way. I’ll stick with 3 since I can show how to best simplify them this way, watch. DPS: multiple damage type skills; Phys Utility: one weapon type set of skills, one single target elem skill, and a couple (de)buffs; Elem Utility: a single target elem skill, a wide elem skill, and a bunch of buffs. The advanced classes are even simpler, three of them being every attack type in either weapons or elements and then the remaining one being a bunch of buffs with one multi element skill so that every element had 5 related skills. I’m debating going into each individual job, but there are two that I will be getting into later for sure, Thief and Starseer, for opposite reasons.

Related to the lack of damage types and skills, is a lack of feeling of progression throughout the game. You gain access to 66% of the skills you will ever have by the end of the first quarter of the game, and the last 33% you won’t get until about the last quarter of the game. While the beginning of the a game it makes sense to give the players a bunch of tools rapidly, especially given the whole theme of versatility of the 8 different starting characters the game is based around, skills just scale up with the player’s stats, given through levels and equipment, otherwise they stay the same. While the middle half of the game can be used to mix and match secondary jobs on characters, it’s all just variations on the familiar. While this lack of progression just makes the game a bit boring until you start finding the advanced jobs, the actual issue is how SP scales through the game. The game ends up getting significantly easier as you progress further into the game since the SP costs become a smaller percentage of each character’s SP pools, and most forms of SP regeneration are percentage based, so characters get back SP easier too. For example, I had Ophelia with Second Wind (which I will get to in detail later) and a bunch of SP equipment, which by mid-game meant she could cast most spells and heal back more SP than they cost, and late-game everything was free outside of revive, which took two turns to fully heal. This is contrast to the beginning of the game, where a single skill cast could deplete a character’s entire SP pool, especially the physical jobs, as they usually came with smaller SP pools in the first place.

But where the runaway scaling is the worst, is actually on the thief job. Thief is a physical utility class, so it comes with dagger skills, the mandatory single hit fire skill, phys str and def debuffs, and some slightly more interesting abilities that falloff as the game goes on and you don’t need items or SP as much. All three dagger skills have special qualities, the divine skill uses the characters spd in the damage calculation, but HP Thief and Steal SP are the really broken ones. They both function the same way, hit twice with the dagger, then recover some percentage of the damage dealt to the stat in the name, 50% to HP or 5% to SP. The cost is also the same for each, 6 SP. There seemed to be a bit of a decrease in accuracy for each compared to just basic attacking with a dagger, so early on it was a bit of a risk to use it on enemies, especially if they were unbroken and not weak to daggers, as you would be losing SP to gain 30 health, or getting two dagger hits without boosting. But then, once the total damage of both hits reached 120, or even if you wanted to be safer, the damage of either hit, you start having a move that is free to use and hits more times than a basic attack without using BP, while also being able to heal yourself in a pinch. Now, the max damage you can deal in one hit without the Surpassing Power is 9,999, and you can very clearly see that a thief becomes an invincible slaughterer, as one can either heal themself for 9,999 HP, which is the max, or 999 SP, which is also the max, per turn. Now this might take a bit of set up, such as decreasing the enemy’s physical defense, which I remember mentioning is an ability that the thief job has, or increasing the thief’s physical strength, and there are a few ways to do that, but what I’m saying is it’s pretty much just all lined up for you to do way too easily with next to no drawbacks.

I’ve mentioned two support skills by now, so I should probably talk about them and the issues that they have. There’s 4 for every job, so 48 total, and each character has 4 slots that they can have support skills assigned to with no job related restrictions. This theoretically is about 200000 combinations, but since many support skills don’t synergize well with either the other ones or with the character or just are worse than others, there’s actually a lot less. The first way the options are culled are through support skills that are basically required. First on that list of required ones is that everybody needs Saving Grace, full stop. It changes the equipped character’s max HP from what is listed to 9,999, though if their HP is above their listed max, they can’t be healed any further until they have returned to a normal HP level. This gets very important for many late game bosses, and I feel like every paragraph is opening another two or more topics to go to, as most character’s 2k~3k isn’t enough. After that is some form of SP assistance, as the support skills are the ones with all the fancy %SP recovery. There’s 4 options to choose from: % max heal, heal % basic attack damage done, halve all SP costs, and heal % damage taken. Your magic casters will generally get the % max heal, since they have large mana pools to take advantage of that, and your DPSs will have the basic damage one, with much smaller mana pools and higher physical attack damage. Anyone with the Thief class can skip this, since as I’ve said, they will never run out of mana anyways. The % damage taken isn’t particularly useful as it’s such a small percentage and much less reliable than the others given it’s based on the enemy’s actions and targeting rather than yours. The Halve SP costs skill is situational, as some classes have higher SP costs, but losing the ability to actually regenerate SP makes the longer (and usually harder) fights more dangerous as you still run the risk of running out of mana. I used it on Tressa, since I played her as a caster and her mana pool is a bit lower than the other main casters, plus her Rest ability allows her to regain SP on her own. Third is either of the stat buff skills, once again the choice is based on how the character will be dealing damage. There’s Physical Prowess for Phys attack and defense or Elemental Edge for Elem attack and defense, and instead of being a stat boost like other similar skills from base jobs is that they permanently grant the combat buff to those stats, which means you don’t need to spend time casting the skills that do that AND that they can’t be dispelled by the enemy. What you do with the last slot (or two for thieves) is more open and is going to be where you can have ideas about different builds.

For me though, that last slot went to Surpassing Power on most characters, because by late game, most of my characters were hitting the damage limit pretty easily. Now the damage limit is just the fact that no single attack can deal more than 9,999 damage, because the developers said so. The support skill Surpassing Power, similar to Saving Grace, ignores that, and instead makes the max 99,999, though have fun trying to reach that before your character’s stats max out. Octopath unfortunately has a lot of these kind of arbitrary limits which only seem to exist to highlight an ability that can get around it, like purple treasure chests and Therion’s job ability. By the time I got to the post game boss 5 of my characters were consistently hitting the damage limit, and due to the sometimes absurd amounts of health that opponents had, Surpassing Power just made most of those fights so much faster.

Now a bit of time talking about enemies, because the difficulty scaling of the game is pretty boring, once again due to how simple the game is. This is really an issue among a lot of this type of RPG, since the game is just a numbers game and bigger numbers = harder fights. There’s two points specifically that make Octopath particularly bad with this, the lack of weaknesses on player characters, and enemy health. Since the player characters don’t have any weaknesses like enemies do, you really don’t have to pay attention to what specifically the opponent is doing, at most you can pay attention to whether you are taking physical or elemental damage, but the types are completely irrelevant. There’s a slight exception since there are accessories that reduce specific types of elemental damage, but as far as I could tell it was just better to use accessories that gave stat bonuses. Some enemies had abilities that could inflict status ailments, or had secondary abilities similar to player skills, but they were so few and far between that once again it doesn’t really contribute much. The other issue is with enemy’s health, in that they generally have way too much and causes the game to become so much slower. Fighting basic enemies is almost never a danger to your team assuming you are properly equipped, but the fights can still drag on for 5~10 minutes just whittling down their health. This even applies to fighting enemies that are much lower level than your own team, mostly due to the defensive bonuses that an enemy that hasn’t been broken has. This culminates to a final boss with about 700,000 HP, ignoring all the summons that it has and that it can’t take damage while the summons exist. Again remember that the maximum damage per hit is 9,999 in most cases and 99,999 in the other (which I’ve never gotten close to even with max offensive stats). Then also add in that you probably won’t be anywhere near that first max damage unless the boss is broken too, and you can see why the fights just take so long.

Ok, time to talk about the other job that particularly stood out to me, the Starseer. It’s a healing support job mostly focused around manipulating the party’s BP. Or at least the good skills it has are focused around BP. The divine skill is a wide untyped elemental attack dealing damage based around the whole team’s BP stock, and one of its utility skills also increases damage when the user uses BP, which you have to for divine skills. Another skill it has increases the BP gain of an ally to two per turn, rather than one. Unfortunately we’re already starting to get into the ok skill territory, as due to the way BP is gained, it is only useful for about half of the duration. After a character uses BP, they don’t gain any for the next turn, and since the max is 5 BP, there can only ever be two turns in a row where you benefit from this, and depending on support skills, the maximum benefit a character can get from this ability is an additional 4 – 6 BP. Now there is a Merchant skill that can give another character 4 BP instantly for the exact same cost. The rest of the skills range from decent but situational to worse versions of other job skills, and remember, Starseer is a secret job, meaning you don’t start with access to it, all the abilities are relatively expensive, and you have to fight a boss to unlock it. Continuing to a decent but situational skill is one that can target either enemies or allies, and prevents all stat buffs from being able to be applied to an enemy or prevents all stat debuffs from being able to be applied to an ally. If you know the enemy is a type to be able to apply either, this can be helpful if you can time it properly. The other skills of the job are mostly more expensive and / or worse versions of skills that other jobs have. From dealing multiple types of damage (worse than just 1 in 95% of cases) to healing over time (enemy’s damage considerably outpaces the healing it provides) to a counter that doesn’t prevent the damage like its counterpart, pretty much every active skill they have is disappointing.

I ran out of steam on that last paragraph, and stopped writing this for about 3 months, so I’ll just get one last point in. There are actually a lot of mechanics in the game that are kind of complicated, but since this game is about oversimplification, much of the most important nuance that the game actually has is hidden from the player. There are a ton of little bits of information that would make decision making in the game so much easier, but because the game refuses to display them, there’s a lot of guesswork. In some cases, this hidden information is obfuscating mechanics that subvert player expectations, so what they thought was an easy decision should actually be harder. The following is a non-comprehensive list of some of the worst offenders of hiding information in my opinion. The stat nuts, which raise character stats permanently, give different amounts of their stat depending on which character eats it. Moves that hit a random amount of times ignore all bonuses and penalties to accuracy and evasion. Items that reduce damage or recover HP/SP don’t say by how much, or whether it is percentage or a flat number. Healing skills scale with the caster’s elemental defense. What makes these and similar mechanics the most annoying is that there are some skills that do list exact numbers or percentages for their effects, so it is inconsistent too.

I will end this now and hopefully I covered everything I meant to. A lot of this was thought up while mowing the lawn or laying in bed trying to get to sleep so if something was lost in the recesses of my mind that’s unfortunate. I hope whoever made it all the way down here enjoyed reading, or at least thought it was interesting, and feel free to reach out to me if you’d like to hear more.

[dailymolliarty]

The Mouse and the Spider by I’m Over There: Jim Moriarty gets bored. Molly Hooper gets lonely. They’re just two planets revolving around the brilliant sun that is Sherlock Holmes, drawn in by his gravity. And his light. But everybody needs distractions… 

Song as Old as Rhyme by @wherestoriescomefrom:  Hush, the wind is blowing hard. Be quiet, child, sleep soundly - Or the Dark One will steal your heart. [Beauty and the Beast AU]

Nameless by @wherestoriescomefrom: The first name was expected - even welcomed. The second, on the other hand, left much to be desired. And Jim would never understand what it was about it that was compelling. [Soulmate AU: On one hand, the name of your soulmate, on the other - your enemy. Molliarty.]

The Rose Point Manor:  A young woman struggling in an unjust society takes a break from the theatrics of pretending to be her male counterpart, Mark Hooper, and decides to relax at the quiet but foreboding Rose Point Manor. There she comes to a realization that something far more sinister lurks there than at her morgue back home - Victorian AU

We’re Ancient History:  When Molly Hooper had begun her scientific expedition, she never knew her time on the dig sites would unearth more than the dead.

Forget Me Not:  “This melancholy London - I sometimes imagine that the souls of the lost are compelled to walk through its streets perpetually. One feels them passing like a whiff of air.” What happens when two lost souls find each other? Are they still forgotten? - Amnesia!AU

Capture My Good Side: “Photography is all about secrets. The secrets we all have and will never tell.”

Deus Mortis: "You can hide from the devil, but he’ll always find you.“ - Victorian AU

Face Value: “I’m not sure how to describe this nonsense, basically Molly looks good in a moustache and Jim notices.”

Not a Body Farm: Molly really should’ve known better than to download FarmVille on a criminal mastermind’s cell phone, even if it had been a hilarious joke at the time. Since one day she wakes up in a bed in some random farm in the middle of nowhere, and the deed to the property in her name.

Oh God, Not the Westwood!:  In which timid Molly Hooper must hide a heinous crime from a man who likes to watch a murder take place while drinking his morning coffee.

Life Preserver: “Missing you comes in waves and tonight I am drowning.”

Midnight Edition: The Bittersweet: Pop-rocks can be unpredictable. In an instance, a delight to the senses, or startling painful the next - smut

The Bittersweet:  Even delicious things can be sour, at another glance.

Third Date Syndrome: Long bouts of silence and awkwardness on first dates are inevitable, and for the hundredth time Molly wished she was exempted from it.

We’ll Always Have St. Barts: “I wish I didn’t love you so much.” - Casablanca AU

Apex: Molly Hooper thinks fondly of Jim from IT, but can’t get enough of Jim Moriarty - contains smut~

The Parting Glass: After Reichenbach, Molly Hooper is drowning. She receives a package, request and tradition from a very dead Jim Moriarty. She receives nothing but burdens from a very alive Sherlock Holmes.

Rust and Stardust: “The last long lap is the hardest. I shall be dumped where the weed decays, and the rest is rust and stardust.” - Jim is a ghost, and wouldn’t it just figure that he haunts Molly Hooper.

Wild and Precious: “Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon? Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” - How Molly fell in love with a ghost, and tried not to waste her life beside him. She failed. - settled in the same universe of Rust and Stardust

Release: Written for the prompt “Jim fucking Molly so hard and so good that she can’t even get a full word out, only moans and half-uttered curses “: In which Jim surprises Molly after work - contains smut~

A Love Outside of Time: There’s a lot of strange happenings at 2945 S Willow Street, shrieks and screams and moans that have terrorized the neighbors and left the house unsold for generations. Can the great paranormal investigator, Sherlock Holmes, exorcise the spirits living there?

Gifts Given and Received: Sherlock ruined Molly’s Christmas gift and Jim is determined to make her holiday better. - ASIB AU, contains smut~

Cabernet Sauvignon: Written for the prompt “Jim’s ready to propose, but wants the event to be special, and so he hides the ring in Molly’s wine. Molly drinks it down too fast and chokes on the ring”: A fluffy slice of life, where Molly makes Jim’s life just a little less lonely.

Power Dynamic: Molly can’t help trying to control the insanity that is Jim Moriarty. A framework for his mind to lean on, a collar to hold him together, a mistress to keep him mostly sane.

Asphodel: “When you need slightly-less-than-legal magic substances, you seek out ‘Moriarty’s Special Imports and Fineries’. A new branch of Necromancy, pathologist-in-training Molly Hooper returns a set of counterfeit goods and receives a job offer in return.” - Fantasy AU

Her beast feature: “As he studied her from afar, Jim thought Molly’s best feature was her neck. He really didn’t anticipate her reaction to Sherlock beating a dead man with a riding crop.” - Molly x Jim, PWP, set at the beginning of A Study in Pink

Junior: So what’s a beleaguered pathologist to do when the UK’s Most Wanted turns up to visit her cat?

Mr Sex: Jim doesn’t ask her what she likes or what she needs; it’s not necessary. But he asks her what she wants - contains smut

Sunday Afternoon: Sleep with Molly Hooper:  Molly canceled their date at the last minute, but no one messes with Jim’s precisely organized calendar and gets away with it.

Why Don’t You Do Right?:  Seb arranges for Molly to get an extra special, early birthday present. Jim gets to learn something new about Molly. And Molly discovers one of Jim’s deepest secrets.

Club Calavera: Downing five zombies doesn’t give Jim the liquid courage he needs to ask Molly a very important question. It only makes him forget that he and Molly are already together.

Happy Birthday, Jimmy Boy: Jim’s never had a good birthday. Molly’s determined to buck the trend. - contains smut

It’s A Nice Day For a [White Wedding]: The wedding of James Moriarty to Molly Hooper can be nothing less than a momentous occasion. In his speech, their best man recounts some of the juicier bits of Jim and Molly’s journey into matrimony.

Cold War: She had to admit Jim was creative. Who else would think to kill three ice cream salesmen from different towns and attach a one-worded note to each corpse, forming the sentence, “Ready to concede?”

My Persuasion Can Build a Nation: In a world where Eurus had a best friend growing up, she doesn’t go to Sherrinford, nor does she turn out as unhinged as she did in canon. However, she’s still Eurus, and her brothers absolutely forbid her from meeting Jim Moriarty. She’ll just have to fix that, won’t she? Also: Matchmaker!Eurus ftw.

What Sober Couldn’t Say: “(11:23 pm) Drinking again(11:24 pm) And since it makes me too sad to go on my blog anymore thanks to you, I figured it’s only fair you become my new place to vent(11:25 pm) You’re probably not receiving these messages anyway so no harm no foul(11:25 pm) Right?” - Molly drunk-texts Jim over the course of several months.

I Wanna Feel Like I Am Floating: “Now the question is…" He vamp-flipped them over so she was lying down and his body was pinning hers. “Should I tie you up and make you take it, or are you going to be a good little vampire and let Daddy have his way with you?” Jim & Molly’s journey: blood-sharing edition.- Vampire!Molliarty AU, s-m-u-t.

Coffin Shopping: Sebastian could only imagine what the other, mostly ancient customers perusing the store must be thinking of the couple in their thirties, bubbling with laughter and fooling around as they ran about in search of the perfect coffin.

Come To Daddy: Jim failed to see how Molly’s physicality could ever not be arousing. The size of her lips did nothing to detract from how amazing she was at sucking cock. The size of her breasts made it no less fun for Jim to cup them in his hands, tease her nipples into hard peaks, suck on them until she squirmed and made those delightful little sounds. - smuttish ;)

Intention: A take on how the brief but unforgettable office romance between Jim from IT and Molly from Pathology began and how it just might become more than just a simple office romance.

An Exchange: Jim Moriarty comes across a familiar face and realises, from just one exchange, that it is not merely Sherlock Holmes that connects them, but a connection of their own.

A Beginning: Jim Moriarty tries to make sense of new waves of sentiment as his office romance with Molly Hooper transits to become something more.

Interruptions: Molly Hooper is made to face a stunning revelation about Jim Moriarty, but it is her reaction that stuns him most.

An Enemy’s Gift: In the pursuit of his greatest enemy, Jim Moriarty makes an unexpected discovery.

On Fanfiction.net:

Life: James Moriarty is in trouble, so much trouble that he fears for his life. He soon learns, however, he has absolutely nothing to fear, not with Molly Hooper around.

Spiders: Molly and Jim have a casual chat laced with hints of their plans, revealing a side to Molly that both surprises and seduces Jim.

(Re)kindle: Jim Moriarty is perplexed at the lasting impression a certain Molly Hooper has left on him. When his rekindled fascination with her meets an unexpected obstacle, an animosity is ignited.

Other fics:

- The Demon I cling to

- The Anatomist

- What Slinks Unseen (one-shot)

- Safety in Small Numbers (one-shot)

- Heart Shaped Buttons  (one-shot)

- I.O.U (in progress, Season 4 AU)

- A change of clothes (one-shot, smut)

- The Uninvited House Guest

- Home is where (one-shot)

- Danse Macabre (one-shot) mine

- Lay your body next to mine (one-shot, mine, smut, dark themes)

- Symmetry (one-shot)

- Kisses for the Devil (one-shot)

- Descend (one-shot)

- Death and the Maiden

- The Number Is (one-shot)

- The Devil’s Own (warning: dark themes)

- Reality of Innocence (warning:smut)

- Gifts (one-shot)

- Thanaptosis (warning: dark themes)

- Pulse (one-shot)

- Yorick’s grin

- Hades (one-shot)

- Gay (warning:smut)

- Oaths, affidavits and Other Lies

- Brain Drain (one-shot)

- Counting Days (one-shot)

- A conversation starter (one-shot)

- Spinning Tornadoes (one-shot)

- Secret Veins and Arteries (warning:dark themes)

- Watching the world burn (one-shot, smut)

- Death and the Maiden

- Unloveable

- Sweet Dreams (one-shot)

- Frozen Feelings

- Forever and Always

- I will burn the heart out of you

- Choke  (one-shot)

- His Dark Mistress (one-shot)

- He saved the last dance for me

- Exsanguination (one-shot, very kinky smut)

- Almost Anyone  (one-shot)

- No Space between Us  (one-shot, smut)

- Brain Drain  (one-shot)

- Between the bars  (one-shot, smut)

- Troubleshooting  (one-shot, smut)

- Falling  (one-shot, smut)

- Knots in this noose of mine  (one-shot)

- Glass shatters softly  (one-shot)

- Victor, meet spoils (one-shot)

- He kindly stopped me  (one-shot)

- Blow the House Down (one-shot)

- The answer is one  (one-shot)

- Strings  (one-shot)

- Heartbeats in the Dark

- The Fox (one-shot, smut)

- Bad Romance

- Lion and the Lamb (one-shot)

- Red Song in the Night

- The Rules Are (one-shot)

- Molly Mine (one-shot, smut)

- Restless Things (warning: very dark themes + Johnlock)

- Intention (one-shot)

- At the End of it all (one-shot, smuttish)

- An Incorrect Deduction

[jjonassevilla]

“What’s a good conversion rate for my landing page?” [New AI-Backed Research]

Imagine you’re an ecommerce business using landing pages to sell sweaters for miniature pigs. Recently, you’ve done a round of A/B testing—adding a little more oink to your calls to action, let’s say—and tweaked your social ad targeting to reach the hardcore piggy people on Instagram. 

After all your optimization efforts, your landing pages now convert at 3.57%. 

But actually…even if it’s a big improvement against your personal baseline, how do you know you should stop there? How do you know that your hard-earned conversion rate is worth celebrating? Heck, how would you even know if a 30% conversion rate is any good for pages in your industry? (Maybe everyone’s getting a fat return off of pig sweaters but you.)

It’s hard to be confident in the numbers when you don’t know how everybody else is doing. Doubt settles in. Maybe you’re missing out on reaching your conversion potential without even knowing it.

Well, we feel your pain. That’s why, at Unbounce, we’re on a continuing mission to answer the big question for you. It’s the one we hear time and again from our customers:

“What’s a good, bad, or average conversion rate for my landing pages?” 

That’s where industry benchmarks come in—and that’s why we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh (and free) new version of our Conversion Benchmark Report. 

Benchmarks can energize your digital marketing strategy in three big ways:

They’re a form of competitive intelligence. They help you identify gaps between your performance and what the rest of your industry considers to be a good conversion rate. 

Our benchmarks reveal data-supported best practices, and you’ll waste less time and traffic testing unproven optimizations that our machine learning analysis shows don’t necessarily work. 

They help you build a culture of continuous improvement in your organization. It’s harder for your marketing team to be happy with “just okay” if they’re seeing something to strive for.

Sure, some folks like to pooh-pooh industry benchmarking—“Why should I care how other marketers are converting? Why don’t I just focus on how I’m doing?”—but they’re your best window into what success really looks like. Going forward blindly, when you could have both eyes on the prize, is just silly. Oh, and these benchmarks were generated with help from an honest-to-goodness AI crunching millions of conversions, so the results are far more reliable than the anecdotal best practices often found online. As part of the Unbounce Conversion Intelligence approach to digital marketing, these machine-derived insights help you pair your hard-earned expertise with AI to create the highest-converting campaigns of your career.

Introducing the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report

This year’s Conversion Benchmark Report uses machine learning to assist our data team in analyzing 186.9 million visits to 34,132 Unbounce-built landing pages. In terms of sample size, we analyzed more visits to these pages than the populations of Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, Laos, and Ireland combined. 

For full context, the previous (2017) version of this report was also built on machine learning insights, but in three years we’ve refined our approach to provide tons more real, proprietary customer data to feed the machine. Now we have even better, more reliable outputs—as well as a few new ways to break down our findings, like by conversion goal. (These are boundaries we’re going to keep pushing, too.)

But what kind of info does the report contain? For one thing, you’ll find median conversion rates broken down to 16 key industries. In many cases, we’ve got wide enough sample sizes to sort them into subcategories too, so you can see how your brother’s pest control service measures up against your sister’s HVAC company. (Or how your uncle’s cybersecurity software converts against your great aunt’s cloud accounting platform.)

The Conversion Benchmark Report includes 16 industries broken down into dozens of subcategories.

Why do we report on median instead of average (mean)? Our goal is to provide you with a realistic picture of where you stand, so this year’s report lists median conversion rates as our measure of central tendency instead of the mean. We found this reduces the impact of outliers (like pages that convert five times better than the rest) on the final benchmarks.

Not clear enough? Then imagine you want to find out, on average, how many eyes people have. The median tells us they have two eyes. According to the mean, though, they have slightly less than two. Because outliers (people with one or fewer eyes) bring that number down.

Both these measures are correct, but which one would you prefer to rely on if your business is selling sunglasses?

What if your industry doesn’t appear in the report? For this year’s report, we’ve tried to be even more representative. With machine learning helping us to sort thousands of landing pages in a logical way, we’ve increased the number of industries covered from 10 to 16, and we’ve even added subcategories whenever sample sizes allow.

If you still don’t see yourself represented, though, compare your conversion rates to industries with similar audiences and conversion goals. While we don’t actually recommend comparisons between very unrelated industries (except for fun), let your judgment be your guide. 

A note on COVID-19. The conversion data in this report comes from 2019, so we realize it shows norms that have been disrupted for some vulnerable industries—like travel, events and leisure, restaurants, and medical practitioners. These benchmarks show what you can expect in stable periods, and they provide insights about how your visitors typically behave (and why they convert). We hope they’ll help you set up your digital campaigns for success—and inspire your rebound. If you face uncertainty, though, please also check out the COVID-19 Small Business Care Package for a roundup of useful resources to help lessen the impact on your business.

Below, I go into more detail about the findings and insights we’ve been able to pull from them. But if you’ve got an itchy mouse-finger, you can jump right into the Conversion Benchmark Report now. (It’ll open in a new tab.)

Going beyond the benchmarks

Benchmarks are tremendously helpful, for all the reasons I talked about above. (If you work for an agency, you know this already. They’re a baller way of showing the value of what you do—and helping clients determine their true conversion potential.) 

How do I best communicate with my target audience? 

In copywriting circles, the received wisdom is that clarity comes above all else. If you’re looking to put up the fewest hurdles possible between audience and offer, it can make sense to keep your vocabulary basic and your sentences tight and untangled.

Our data, however, complicates this equation. Is simple always better? Nope. It turns out that different industries tend to convert more often at different reading levels (and some see weaker relationships between conversion rates and readability than others). 

There are even cases in which it’s good to sound sophisticated. B2B companies offering lead-gen consulting or instruction, for instance, appear to benefit from more challenging language. We see a drop in conversion rates as pages become easier to understand. (Frankly, that’s not what we expected.)

When it comes to reading ease, pages for lead-gen consultants appear to benefit from being harder to read.

Our machine learning analysis enabled us to look at copy from 34 thousand pages. Each page is assigned a Flesch reading ease score based on the average number of syllables per word and words per sentence. More syllables and more words means more…harder.

Here’s roughly how the scoring breaks down:

What’s the perf word length for my landing pages?

While it’s true that shorter pages tend to convert better, many industries have sweet spots that break the rule—which means, if you’re going to create a long-form landing page, you should go this long. This is especially true in the wild territories beyond 200 words, where unexpected correlations between length and conversion rate have led many a marketer astray.

At what length do landing pages for family services convert best? The graph provides answers.

Depending on your offer and industry, you may find that you need to use more words to get your point across, but graphs like the one above can let you know what’s ideal. For family services, that’s 300-500 words (if you can’t get it shorter than 150 words). For other industries, it can be more or less. Whatever the case, creating variants based on our findings can definitely be a good candidate for A/B testing or Smart Traffic.

What emotions might relate to better conversion rates?

You likely know in your gut that people’s feelings can impact their decision to buy, but which ones actually drive conversions on your landing pages? To find out, we ran an ML-powered sentiment analysis that looked at emotion-associated words that might relate to healthy conversion rates—and which might even be slowing you down. 

(Spoiler: using trust words isn’t always advisable. “Trust us.”)

For SaaS, the concentration of anticipation words on a landing page correlates with its conversion rate.

When it comes to SaaS conversions, for instance, it turns out that language that conveys anticipation (words like gradual, highest, improve, and launch) sometimes correlates with better conversion rates. Or, to put it another way: as we find more of these words, we also often tend to see better conversion performance.

You can explore this example, and many others, in the report.

A good conversion rate is one you can improve upon.

When it comes down to brass tacks, all this benchmarking is valuable insofar as you can use it to build a better conversion machine from what you learn. How do you do it?

Explore the insights in this report. The report is broken down into 16 industries. How are your landing pages stacking up against the baseline? Are you way out ahead? Are you falling behind? Start with your industry, sure, but take a look at others too. There may be insights that are worth exploring outside your own arena.

Apply the data learnings to your own campaigns. Create a variant (or more than one variant) of your page that applies some of the insights we’ve provided. For example, you might dial down the jargon until you hit the optimal Flesch reading score. (You can use the free readability formula tool here to test it for yourself.)

Optimize and test. Keep in mind that data analysis reveals trends and tendencies rather than absolutes. You’re making informed decisions when you apply these learnings, but testing is still your best way to confirm. Run A/B tests or, if you’re short on the time or traffic to do so, just publish your variants and turn on Smart Traffic in the Unbounce Builder. It’ll use machine learning to automatically decide which variant is right for which visitors, and it’s otherwise hands-off. (If you’re looking for more ideas on how to build variants, I’d recommend this post from Garrett too.)

In short, this year’s report uses ML to identify opportunities you simply couldn’t spot without the processing power of a machine. Optimizing your pages doesn’t have to be aspirational. We believe this is the future of digital marketing—and, going forward, you’re going to see more and more efforts like this from Unbounce to help you enhance the skills you already have. (If you’re curious about what else we have planned, you can read more about our push to bring you Conversion Intelligence.)

Whether you sell pig sweaters, chicken harnesses, or something altogether more practical—are you confident enough to swagger into your next meeting, snap your suspenders, fire those finger-guns in your boss’s direction, and let everyone know about your team’s big win? “Soooooooo-ie!”

Take a gander at the 2020 Conversion Benchmark Report, and let us know what you think in the comments below.

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/conversion-rate-optimization/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[fibrielsolaer]

Majora’s Mask (N64)

Hello people of Tumblr! Let’s talk about the most divisive Zelda game.

James Rolfe semi-reviewed Majora’s Mask as part of Angry Video Game Nerd, tying the game’s themes into both a Twilight Zone reference (as per masks) and the New Year ball drop (as per moonfall):

I DIDN’T LIKE WUT HE SAID HARUMPH. >:o[

The Nerd is, of course, a fictional character that James has to put on an act for, and I’ve found that this act is much more obvious and stiff than usual. The Nerd normally tries to balance criticism with praise, but the transition in this one comes across as especially jarring and abrupt.

(OOTA = Ocarina of Time Also = James / The Nerd complains about something that applies to OoT also, or doesn’t notice / appreciate something that he ought to as an OoT veteran)

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Graphics

For some strange reason, The Nerd begins by complaining about the graphics - possibly a reference to the Game Grumps playthrough of Majora’s Mask. Arin Hanson did not wait 5 seconds before blurting out “THIS GAME LOOKS LIKE SHIT“ in a tone that made it obvious he was simply trying to stir drama.

OOTA: Despite pointing out that Majora’s Mask reuses the engine and some other assets, James / the Nerd doesn’t include or compare to OoT while criticizing the derived graphics of Majora’s Mask.

Of course, Majora’s Mask is designed to take advantage of the N64′s surreal, creepy graphics and create a disturbing, uncanny world. I would say that “bad graphics” tend to work in the favor of such games, if handled properly. Just look at Puppet Combo.

One must keep in mind, and James would absolutely be familiar with this, that older games up to around the GameCube era were still played on CRT televisions. The color choices and jagged edges of the N64 were less obvious due to the color balancing and blurriness of these old TVs. As such, today’s better monitors actually make these particular games look worse.

While the console overall has definitely not aged well visually, Majora’s Mask is one of the most graphically intensive games on the N64. If I recall correctly, the scene where the Woodfall Temple rises from the swamp is the most graphically demanding scene in any N64 game.

The Nerd asserts that, in contrast to early 3D, certain 2D styles such as Link to the Past still look good by today’s standards. This is never going to be an objective statement - not only because of the strong bias most people have in favor of or against particular graphical media, but also due to the high emotional investment longtime Zelda players have in both LttP and OoT, which tend to jockey for the title of Best Zelda. (Link’s Awakening is usually a close third place.)

I personally find LttP’s color palette appealing, but many sprites are incoherent or anatomically malformed, and its Escher-esque viewing angle with every wall slanting away from you is absurd. This is underscored in A Link Between Worlds, which is in full 3D but copies the viewing angle by hilariously tilting everything.

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Cosmic Checkpoints

The central criticism of Majora’s Mask, which the Nerd for some strange reason prioritizes after the graphics, has always been an example of Time Limit Syndrome.

Time Limit Syndrome is the phenomenon where perceiving a time limit will make many players freak out and possibly make them quit playing the game permanently. This is true even if the time limit turns out to do absolutely nothing when it expires. After all, they don’t know that ahead of time.

I usually hear complaints about Majora’s Mask’s time system from people who quit within 5 minutes due to Time Limit Syndrome... but James / The Nerd has beaten the final boss and really ought to know better.

As James / The Nerd implies, Majora’s Mask does not expect you to beat the game within a single three-day cycle. Indeed, you are forced to “fail” the first cycle in order to teach you the underlying mechanic of resetting the clock and instill in you the idea that you do not have to “beat the time limit”.

Majora’s Mask runs on a cosmic checkpoint system.

At any millisecond you can simply play the Song of Time to return to the Dawn of the First Day and keep every “checkpoint” you’ve met up to that point; “checkpoints” are things like acquired items and learned Songs.

For instance, as soon as you have the Sonata of Awakening, you can enter the Woodfall Temple. You can and should smack the Owl Statue closest to that temple, then immediately reset to a new cycle and enter the temple fresh on the First Day, skipping the long-ass Metal Gear Solid segment you did to get that song.

The Nerd’s implication that you’re “losing progress” when you use the Song of Time thus makes no sense. It’s not any different than leaving a room in a dungeon and seeing that the puzzle in it has reset when you come back in. You don’t need to do that puzzle again if you already got the key item you get for completing it, thus you have not lost any progress. The proper term is replay value, since you have the option at any point of doing any part of the game over again, with any power-ups or self-prescribed inhibitions you like, without starting a new game. Why criticize Majora’s Mask for the #1 reason people love Super Mario World?

When you use the Song of Time to return to the Dawn of the First Day, you save the game. This is the only way to make a “permanent” save in the N64 version of the game (as compared to the 3DS remake); the other methods let you make a temporary save if you’re interrupted or have something else to do, which is deleted when you load it back up.

If you do let the timer run out by itself, then you get an amazingly horrific game over scene (as featured in the above video), and your current 3-day cycle is lost as you must reload the previous First Day save. The reason the N64 game will not let you override your permanent save mid-cycle is, undoubtedly, so that you do not somehow save a scenario where you will repeatedly game over without any chance to use the Song of Time (however unlikely that may be.) In addition, you can always count on your hard saves being at the start of everybody’s schedule, and you will not need to remember where in the middle of some convoluted three-day quest you were.

Personally, I would have made it so that the timer running out just forced the Song of Time effect. The only “good reason” I can think of to do otherwise is because Majora’s Mask is a very unsettling game and the anxiety of Time Limit Syndrome may actually be intentional as part of the mood... but I would prioritize consistent and intuitive gameplay over an inconsistent and unpredictable audience response.

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Time & Dungeons

Majora’s Mask does have a few frustrating consequences of its time system.

Minor annoyances include quests and rewards that only trigger at a very specific time (ghosts at night, The Other Link, etc.)

Moderate annoyances include quests that are not only that specific, but you have to trigger them first by doing something else specific at an earlier time, or intentionally fail another quest. (the Kafei & Anju quests that are not the Couple’s Mask quest)

Major annoyances include questlines that take place over all three days and which you have to completely restart if you mess up at any step and which sometimes have more than one ending (Couple’s Mask quest)

... but the dungeons semi-resetting is not a problem.

You should be smart and warp back as soon as you can access the dungeon, so that you can enter it at the very start of a new cycle. All you need is the Song that opens it and the Owl Statue closest to it (usually right in front of the dungeon entrance.)

Half of the dungeon is only there to block off the dungeon item. Once you get that, if you need to reset, you can skip half the dungeon next time because you’ve already got the dungeon item. You only need to get the Big Key and go fight the boss.

If you’ve ever challenged the boss, even if you had to quit the fight and reset, you can skip the entire dungeon and teleport right to the boss again on all subsequent cycles. (The boss will also call you out for holding its remains, if applicable.)

You only need to gather the fairies once per dungeon, since you keep all of the unlocked items across cycles.

It’s really quite forgiving except that it does not make it overt exactly where your checkpoints are. In fact, before James made this video and I looked it up, I didn’t know for the last 15+ years that merely challenging the boss let you skip the dungeon on subsequent cycles.

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But Why Tho

The entire 3-day nonsense is a necessity because of the illusion of life.

Similarly to Harvest Moon, major NPCs are scheduled to be in particular places at particular times of the three days. However, unlike Harvest Moon, this schedule is extremely specific for applicable characters. If you slow down time with the Inverted Song of Time, you will actually see these affected NPCs moving proportionately more slowly, because even their path from one place to another, and their exact departure and arrival times, are aligned to the time schedule. Doing certain things will also alter NPC schedules accordingly.

This, of course, helps deepen the characters and make them look more life-like in a game that is all about exploring them emotionally and learning about their fears, hardships, and heartbreaks. Link earns every single Mask in the game by healing somebody, even if he does not use the Song of Healing per se. If he gets every single last one, then he has the ultimate power of love and kindness that off-handedly obliterates the malice and hatred of Majora.

This level of detail would not be feasible, or at least not very intuitive, with a very long schedule, so the game takes place over the same three days repeated indefinitely.

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Comparisons

The Nerd compares Majora’s Mask to Breath of the Wild in other places in the video, but does not do so when it would not be favorable to the latter; specifically, his criticism of the Majora’s Mask banker and his/her talkiness applies ten times over to the Great Fairies in Breath of the Wild, who not only give their entire explanation of how they work every time you leave and return to them again, but also forcibly close the upgrade window when you run out of items you have materials for, without letting you look them over to see what you need to farm for.

You need to use the BotW Great Fairies all the time, but you only need to use the MM bank rarely. You can just deposit money into it once per cycle and ignore it otherwise, since you refill your ammo just by cutting bushes and never need to purchase any... unlike Breath of the Wild.

To deposit or withdraw all your Rupees at once, just enter 999 as the number. It will change it to however many you actually have. The reason you’ve given 5 Rupees in hand is (probably) because otherwise you might lose them when you had 995 or more Rupees in the bank, if indeed you can stand to grind Rupees for that long.

OOTA: The banker is the Termina counterpart of OoT’s beggar, and reuses the animation.

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Around this point, the “sequence breaking” in the editing becomes apparent. Like a videogamedunkey skit, random bits of the game are strewn into the video out of order.

This comes back to bite the review because the Nerd acts like he’s just gotten to a part of the game that has to be completed before what was shown earlier in the video (hence why I call it “sequence breaking”). This breaks the illusion of sincerity; the suspension of disbelief as to the video being scripted is lost and it starts to look a bit more doctored to color the perception of the game.

OOTA: The Nerd does not recognize obvious counterparts to or parodies of characters like the Organ Grinder / Guru Guru, and acts like he’s never encountered an N64 ReDead before.

OOTA: The swim sound is the same sound as in Ocarina of Time. Talk about fishing for complaints.

I disagree harshly with the statement that “all everybody talks about [in regards to Majora’s Mask] are the good things”. I’ve almost only ever heard people complain about the time system and how it’s “Not Really Zelda”.

The particular glitch shown - Zora Link rapidly colliding with the wall - must be intentionally invoked. That glitch occurs if you use the speed-swim against very specific spots of very specific walls... fittingly, any of the corners in the infamous whirlpool room work. All you have to do is let go of the buttons and it will stop. It’s kind of like sailing Mario under the log with a Green Shell in Lethal Lava Land, except Mario always dies (in the most hilarious way) when you do that and Link is only briefly inconvenienced (in the most hilarious way).

OOTA: Most of Majora’s Mask’s more common glitches are the same as in Ocarina of Time due to reusing the engine. Infinite Sword Glitch and Bombchu Hover are both still around, for instance.

The one glitch that is the most problematic is that sometimes, when you reset in the middle of a dungeon, the doors will lock but the Small Keys will not go back into their chests. You then have to keep resetting until it resets correctly, which should be the very next reset.

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Wart / Arrghus

Majora’s Mask may be the only Zelda game with two minibosses in every dungeon - one for the dungeon item, one for the Big Key.

That eyeball boss is Wart, the first of the two Great Bay Temple minibosses, who guards the Ice Arrows. It’s Arrghus from Link to the Past, who was always called ワート WART in Japanese. In the 3DS version, its name in several other languages is the same as Arrghus’s.

Wart is the most annoying enemy in the entire game. He’s a fucker and I hate him. The worst thing about Wart is that the only way to make his long-ass battle faster is to completely destroy your N64. You do this by shooting an arrow into his eye when it’s open, causing every single mini-eyeball to fall off of him, dropping your frame rate into the gutter. (It gets even worse when you start hitting them with the sword.)

You fight Wart again in the Secret Temple (which is basically a boss gauntlet.)

Fuck Wart.

And fuck the second Great Bay miniboss, the gecko in the blob.

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Bits and Bobs

Sometimes the game’s camera cuts (such as when night falls and the game pauses to announce it) interrupt the gameplay. I don’t remember whether the camera angle you had before the cut effects the camera angle after the cut.

While not strictly required, the Bunny Hood literally only makes you run much faster, and makes the skeleton captain sequence (and 90% of the game) much easier. Always use the Bunny Hood when you don’t need any other mask.

OOTA: You should always be tapping the Lens of Truth on and off to use way less magic. (Basically zero, if you tap it rapidly enough.)

The Goron Race is one of the most frustrating parts of the game, and you need to complete it by the 2nd Day or else you can’t get the Gilded Sword. To get the most amount of time possible to complete it:

Confront Ghot at least once

Save a lot of Rupees in the bank

Get the Powder Keg certification

Start a new cycle

Buy a Powder Keg

Use Fire Arrow to ready forge and turn in sword for Razor Sword

Defeat Ghot (necessary for races to start)

Use bought Powder Keg to blow up boulder (shoot it with an arrow to detonate it)

Complete race as soon as possible for Gold Dust

Get Razor Sword

Turn Razor Sword right back in

Get Gilded Sword

Nintendo has never had good control sticks; the N64 and the Joycon alike both have shitty sticks that experience drift or misalign after a few months of use. This is probably why James is unable to roll Goron Link straight forward, or stay on the pipes, despite the N64′s analog stick locking into an octagon to ensure the 8 main directions are easy to hit.

You have to hit the trees with the Hookhot, but the stupid turtle wobbles around, so the trees are hard to hit. I’m not sure how the game determines whether the Hookshot connected or not. Is it checked on fire? Is it checked on arrival? No idea.

The reason the Ice Arrows are not working is because James is shooting too close to the wall. The ice platform would then clip through it. The game could move the platform to be further from the wall but decides to just not form any platform at all. I remember being pretty pissed off with it myself.

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Video ending

The Nerd doesn’t have to do the entire dungeon over again, because he already has the Ice Arrows. He only has to get to and fight that stupid blob gecko again for the Big Key and then get back to the boss.

OOTA: Why would you walk into the giant exit light before you got the Heart Container. Hell, so far as I know, this is Every Zelda Game Also since all of them let you forget to pick up the Heart Container...

Majora’s a bastard. If you get every mask in the game and turn them all in to him, he will for some unfathomable reason give you the Fierce Deity Mask and let you completely whoop his ass with it. The Fierce Deity Mask makes the battle into an utter joke. In the N64 version you can only use it in boss rooms, unless you use a glitch. The 3DS version also lets you use it when fishing (which itself is not in the N64 version.)

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In summary

Majora’s Mask is definitely beloved more for its themes and characters than for its gameplay. It has some of the most beautiful music in all of Zelda, most notably the Song of Healing, and its advanced special effects and cinematography are top-tier by the standards of the N64. It is chock-full of bittersweet, heavy-hitting content and is a major source of inspiration for future "serious subject” indie games and creepypastas - not just BEN DROWNED and Spooky’s Jumpscare Mansion, but in general.

The gameplay is, for the most part, a weird Ocarina of Time mod. The mask forms play differently, and there are extra mechanics introduced by some songs such as the Elegy of Emptiness, but overall you solve puzzles and fight battles with the same “strategy” as in OoT.

MM has always been very divisive because of the time system, which the game does not adequately explain to most players, and which is particularly frustrating in regards to specific parts of the game such as the Gilded Sword or the Couple’s Mask quest. The Bomber’s Notebook helps keep track of some aspects (and is expanded in the 3DS version), but many players simply find the detailed scheduling and the sequence of events too much crap to keep track of and too many repeated chores in the event of failures and many resets, and do not develop a recognition - let alone appreciation - of when they have reached a checkpoint in the main game and can reset to a new cycle without losing anything, or how to gauge whether they have the time left to take on a new task whimsically rather than through planning.

When I first started playing I hated it, but over time I began to be okay with the structure around the time cycle, albeit a bit bored or frustrated when I had to repeat day 1+2 because I screwed up a quest on day 3.

There are so many cool moments in Majora’s Mask that, for me at least, it supercedes the frustrating parts of the quests that cover all 3 days, and some of the just plain annoying parts that are not strictly relevant to the time system.

How the dogs react to each form of Link

Any time you use the Song of Healing

Mummy-Dad and the Well

When you realize who the Skull Kid is

When you realize what happened to the Butler’s son

The full ending with 100% completion

I’ve often said that Earthbound is “a lousy game but a great experience”.

I suppose it’s not out of the park to say Majora’s Mask is in the same boat.

[precuredaily]

Precure Day 152

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 04 - “The Tranquil Cure Mint!” Date watched: 4 October 2019 Original air date: 25 February 2007 Screenshots: https://imgur.com/a/r27tc5L Project info and master list of posts: http://tinyurl.com/PCDabout

Okay I’ve gone this long without talking about it, so before we continue, it’s time for THE ROAST OF KOMACHI’S HAIR

Her hair is evenly kept chin length all around her head except for a chunk in the back that reaches to her mid-back. It’s not a ponytail, it’s a thin section of her hair that is wildly longer than the rest. Now of course, anime hair is known to be absurd, but in Precure this is usually kept to their transformed states. Everybody else on the team (or eventual team) has pretty standard hairstyles: Nozomi has two small pigtails, traditional bangs, and wears the rest of her hair at shoulder length, Rin’s hair is short and curls out from the sides of her head, Urara wears long twintails, and Karen has long loose hair with neatly trimmed ends. Komachi is the standout with her absurd style. When she transforms it gets even weirder: the body of her hair poofs up and resembles Cure Bloom’s hair, while the bit in the back splits into two extremely long strands that reach her knees. This is still pretty wild but she’s on a team with a girl with hair loops and another with hair cones so she shares the weirdness among the team. I will never understand what the character designer was thinking when they came up with Komachi’s hair. Maybe there’s an interview out there where they explain it, I’d really like to know, because it is ridiculous.

Okay now that that’s out of the way, let’s actually talk about the episode....

The Plot

Rumors are starting to spread around the school about the strange phenomena that keep occurring. Karen discusses it with Komachi one morning and they find it odd that Urara has begun hanging out with Nozomi and Rin. At lunch, Coco reminds the three of them they still need to find the Precures of Tranquility and Intelligence, but they’re interrupted by Karen and Komachi confronting them about their perceived connection to all the suspicious activity. Nozomi sees an opportunity and decides to come out and explain that they’re Precures fighting Nightmare to protect the Dream Collet, and would these two like to help them? Nozomi explains how she thinks these two fit the qualifications Coco described, but they don’t really believe or understand what she’s saying, and Karen leaves in frustration. Komachi lags behind to say it was a lovely story, and she’d love to hear more sometime.

Meanwhile at Nightmare, we find out Gamao has gone MIA after failing his mission, and of course Girinma is still in isolation, so a third agent is called in to collect the Dream Collet: Arachnea. (You get one guess what kind of animal she is). She boasts about how much more capable she is than the other two, and Bunbee basically responds “I hope so.”

Back at school, Rin has soccer practice, Urara tries to find Karen at a student council meeting, and Nozomi approaches Komachi in the library and discovers her writing. Komachi admits that she has wanted to be a novelist since she was very young, but all she gets is dismissal and mockery when she tells people that. Nozomi, however, encourages her and says she’ll support her dream! After all, that’s what she does best. They go for a walk outside and Komachi inquires further about the “story” Nozomi was telling earlier about Precure. Nozomi clarifies that it wasn’t a dream and explains the whole situation, and Komachi finally believes her but admits Karen is more stubborn. Before they can continue, spider webs suddenly come out of a nearby manhole and pull them down into the sewer, where they’re confronted by Arachnea herself, demanding the Dream Collet. She creates a Kowaina out of sewer water and chases the girls, who end up at a dead end. With no other options, Nozomi transforms in front of Komachi, kicks the monster, and they run off together.

she just keeps kicking and kicking and kicking and kicking and....

At the same time, Coco has detected the presence of Nightmare and tags Rin and Urara to try to find Nozomi. They manage to follow her down the sewer and meet up with the missing girls. Rin and Urara transform in front of Komachi, and begin to fight the Kowaina. Arachnea wraps Dream and Komachi in webs and screams that they had no right to dream, that dreams are just illusions. Komachi takes this personally, and retorts that dreams are important and Nozomi is the first person to believe in and support her dream, and in turn she wants to support Nozomi’s dream as well. Her strong emotions summon a green butterfly, which disintegrates the webs binding Komachi before landing on her wrist and becoming a Pinky Catch. Not missing a beat, Komachi transforms into the Precure of Tranquility, Cure Mint! The Kowaina tries to attack them, but Mint uses her special attack, Precure Mint Protection, which is a butterfly that takes the form of a rapidly expanding shield. The monster is knocked back and Dream takes this chance to finish it off with Dream Attack, and Arachnea retreats, muttering about how she’s going to explain this to Bunbee.

The commotion in the sewer has attracted a crowd, and as Nozomi, Rin, and Urara climb out, Karen comments that she knew they were the ones stirring up trouble. Then Komachi climbs out and Karen is confused as the four girls laugh awkwardly.

The Analysis

I know I keep coming back to this but I really enjoy how the various girls are active in investigating the mysterious occurrences resulting from the clash between the Precures and Nightmare. Even if nobody else has seen the actual fights, and the battlefields magically restore themselves, the noise and commotion of the fights attracts attention, and that’s how Komachi and Karen get roped into this mess. I also like how Nozomi is like “You know what? These two might be the ones” and just spills their secret. She recognizes that they have the qualities Coco is looking for: tranquility and knowledge, and Urara and Rin actually agree with her, though Rin is also self-aware enough to realize how absurd this all sounds to an outsider, and tells the seniors “I can see why you wouldn’t believe all of this, but it’s true.” It’s funny to me how Nozomi took a meeting where the two older girls were questioning their connection to the mysterious phenomena and turned it around on them into trying to make friends with them and have them join the Precures. She flipped the school hierarchy and power dynamic on its head, because she’s the pink. Also she’s that perfect combination of confident and airheaded that she can just go for it. I don’t mean this to sound bad, I honestly love Nozomi’s brand of earnestness and her sincere interest in helping other people achieve their dreams. Without getting too ahead of myself, she’s a lot more balanced than some other pink cures down the road.

Speaking of dreams, this is where we really get a look at what Komachi likes to do in her spare time. We might have seen her writing in the first episode but this is the first one to focus on it, and show how she’s a little embarrassed to show people her work because she’s had too many bad experiences with people mocking her. Nozomi’s earnest support of her dream to become a writer is encouraging, and we’ll definitely see her grow and develop her writing skills throughout the show. It’s one of the more memorable character arcs in the show.

An interesting facet of Cure Mint is that she is primarily defense-based rather than being offensive like the other cures so far. Her special attack is a shield, and we’ll see several cures in the franchise who mirror this ability, but while it can be a useful skill and is demonstrably strong in the right circumstances, it feels a little too drawn out most of the time. I guess I’m okay with the whole stock footage chant to perform an attack, but doing the same to summon a shield when the danger is IMMINENT seems wasteful when we know they can jump out of the way. If she had a quick shield she could pull out with less fanfare and used the special attack shield to defend from wide-range attacks or to buy time while her teammates set up their attacks, I’d like it more. Mint Protection does get some time to shine down the road, but far too often it feels superfluous. Maybe that’s heathenous for me to say in a show about teamwork and everybody having a role to play.

I’ll use this opportunity to briefly discuss the Kowaina since i haven’t properly done so before. Unlike Zakenna and Uzainaa before them, Kowaina are a bit more supernatural. The enemy of the week pulls out a full-face mask with a pointy nose and a creepy blank smile, then they throw it on an object, bringing it to life in a mutated form with the mask serving as the face. Also, they speak with a female voice rather than the brutish male voice of the previous shows’ monsters, and they always sound more creepy and spooky. It really adds to the mood and sets this series apart from its predecessors. The next episode will show us that the masks work on sentient creatures, not just inanimate objects, and that will bring some interesting implications.

On the topic of the villains, Arachnea is probably my favorite general from this series. She has the best design as a monster, she’s very serious and largely effective. Sure, she has to lose because plot, but her abilities give the team a run for their money. I’m not sure what she thought she’d gain by luring the girls into the sewer that she couldn’t do above ground, perhaps she thought she could limit their movement? It’s not that well-explained. However, that hiccup aside, I really enjoy her as a villain. Girinma is a close second but he often winds up as the butt monkey of Bunbee’s schemes, which is unfortunate.

Now, this episode has several instances of animation that is best described as..... questionable. Actually, it’s not just this episode, it’s been prevalent all along, but I haven’t had time to bring it up before, and it’s prevalent enough here that I needed to discuss it. The models used for the characters for mid-range and far range shots are not awful, but their features and proportions are a bit distorted. Their faces in particular have eyes that are the wrong shape, which really stands out, and these shots are long enough that even if you’re not the most observant, you’ll realize they look off.

For further out shots, we get the added bonus of noodle limbs.

It’s not a great look, but at this point, we’re used to so-so animation in Precure.

I’ll try to talk about the music in the next one, because the audio design of YPC5 is fun and well enough removed from its predecessors. Look forward to that and more. Next time, on Precure Daily, a false start!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 2 Kettei!

[osmw1]

Dimension Wave   Chapter 34 — Limited Dimension Wave

“What’s with all the ruckus at this hour?”

Alto sleepily rubbed his eyes. Beside him stood Yamikage and Tsugumi, both of whom were asleep minutes ago as well. Yamikage had adjusted to living on the seas and has been sleeping properly too. Tsugumi was still half-asleep.

“The ship is being pulled along by something.” “Surely ‘tis but a wave.” “If it’s just a wave, then I don’t know why my Helmsmanship skill isn’t working at all.”

I was able to keep the ship from capsizing when the storm hit us, but I don’t know why it’s not doing anything now. Was it because I caught the Humongous Squid? That shouldn’t have anything to do with it. But if it is, then my fishing must’ve affected something. I mean, that doesn’t really make sense though. We should’ve only been jostled around a little by the drag of the squid. Maybe we simply triggered a flag for the Sea of No Return… but that would be awfully optimistic thinking.

“Be on gua—What?”

I turned around to see who tapped my shoulder. But there wasn’t anyone there. I mean, obviously not. Everybody on board is standing in front of me. To my right are Yamikage and Tsugumi. To my left are Alto and Sheryl. Ahead of me is Shouko. Who would be there to tap me on my shoulder?

“Kizuna, what if there were ghosts on the sea?” “Well, I’d expect you to be a little more scared…”

The lady standing right in front of me seemed as if she could see more than we could. I’m not scared enough to be shrieking out loud, but Shouko looked extremely serious considering the possibility of ghosts and stuff… Well, I know Dimension Wave is only a game, but I wish she would at least pretend to be scared. But someone else was.

“… phantom ships.” “S-S-Su-Surely you jest, miladies!” “Well, I s’pose ghost ships and pirate ships are nautical staples.”

Neither Sheryl nor Alto seemed surprised. It’s true that MMORPG’s usually have them as dungeons or events. Hell, it’d be more surprising if they didn’t show up on a nautical RPG. And why are you pissing your pants already, Yamikage?

“Yeah, you’re right… That would explain why the mist and the sudden chilliness too.”

Visibility had rapidly worsened. The fog, eerie and disturbing, was extremely well done on the developers’ part. Drowsy before, but Yamikage was now trembling. Was she that terrified?

“Hey, Yamikage. It’s a little clichéd, but would you let me scare you with a ‘boo!’?” “How! You would be such a knave!” “Figured you’d get mad.”

I don’t think my joke went over very well, but I also don’t think it made much of a difference that I warned her first.

“Thy mere suggestion has wrought me with fury!” “Fine… then how ‘bout you, Alto?” “No way, José! I’ve got the heebie-jeebies already!” “Heh, I never said I was actually gonna do it, but your guys’ reactions was amazing.”

It might’ve been more fun to push them, but the other three…

“Do tell why you are looking at me like that.” “… try me.” “You’re so oopy spoopy, big bro!”

Yikes. I don’t know what I expected out of my sister, but I really don’t want her to act all cutesy with me like that again.

“But in all seriousness, a ghost ship, huh? Sounds like it’ll be tough.” “Even during the day~!”

Well, the whole party’s leveled up a bit and even I’m at about half the Energy I used to have. I’ve also been using Transmutation to get some Energy out of the squid I fish up, but since the skill is only at rank I, it takes quite a bit of time to cast. Plus, since I get about 5-15 Energy per squid, that’s only about 700 Energy per hour. I’ll probably have to keep using the skill to level it up to II, but it’s yet to pop up even though I’ve been at it for a while now.

“I-I-Is that the ship, perchance?! Oh, but I am so frightened!” “What’s truly frightening is that you still haven’t acquired Night Vision.”

She probably sleeps through the night, but I’ve had it unlocked for so long already. More importantly, though, I looked over to the direction she was pointing. It was glowing in a ghostly white light, emitting a full body sense of dread. The realism of it all truly spoke to the beauty of VR.

The ghost ship was absolutely colossal. Our sailboat was only about 20 meters in length, but we were completely eclipsed in comparison. Sheryl explained that leisure watercraft over 25 feet (approximately 7.6 meters) are designated as cabin cruisers. But this was more like a yacht. It had the space for multiple living quarters and other facilities on board. It was probably, what, ten times bigger us and it had suddenly appeared in front of us. The sails were in tatters and its planks crumbling. If it weren’t for the mysterious white light that it’s emitting, you’d think this ghost ship is just some floating rotten junk. If this were a horror movie, there would be a theremin playing in the score right now.

“Yamikage.” “Gah!” “I… I just wanted to speak to you. No need to be shrieking or anything…”

And just for kicks, I turned to look at Alto and then gazed past his shoulders. He seemed out of it. Whatever it may be, their reactions are top notch. You’ve just gotta have at least one person in your squad like these two!

“I think I respect you a little less now, Kizuna.” “Whaaat? Just because there’s a ghost ship?” “But the look on your face!”

Haha! Oh, this guy. But I suppose there are more important matters at hand. Like the ghost ship.

“Like I was saying, let’s be on guard and prepare for combat. Something like this has gotta have enemies on board.” “Understood.” “‘kay.” “Mm-hmm!”

The three of them replied with confidence if not enthusiasm. The other two? Cowards. Especially that Yamikage. Get a grip! At least Alto’s got an excuse. He’s been busy trading up till now, so he might be a little underleveled. Yamikage, though, has the strongest stats out of all of us. With her Drain, her numbers are better than even Shouko. But, I mean, if she’s simply afraid of ghosts and spirits, then there’s nothing you can really do about it.

“If you two are that bad with ghosts and stuff, you wanna stay behind?” “… Stay behind? Here?” “Yeah.” “I shall follow you till the ends of the Earth!” “I mean, it’s probably safer if you stay here and wait for us.” “Hell to the no! It’s a billion times scarier to be here alone!” “I guess? I grew up watching a lot of this stuff, so I guess I’m used to it.”

My sisters and I used to always rent horror flicks and watch them together. There’s even new VR horrors where you watch in first-person. I’m not crazy about the genre as a whole though. But enough contemplating. Let’s charge on board.

Vrrt!

There was a crackling noise. It was a noise I’ve heard merely two weeks ago. It’s here… With a bright flash of light, time and space warped—

—Limited Dimension Wave.

Kizuna†Exceed (Captain)

Hakoniwa Shouko (Vice Captain)

Yamikage

Sheryl

Tsugumi†Exceed

Altorese

A menu popped up with a list of our names. Once past the blinding light, it looked like the dungeon was located below deck. There was no information on the minimap except for each of our locations. Everything else was pitch black. It’s probably one of those hidden dungeons that pop up in games all the time.

“Limited Dimension Wave?”

I muttered aloud to myself, but everyone else was similarly confused by what it meant. Shouko had already readied her weapon. It’s like she’s some sort of disciplined soldier, ready to engage in combat at the drop of the hat. Sheryl was simply looking around with her usual blank expression. Tsugumi had her battle scythe wielded in both hands. Her lower body trembled while her animal ears twitched agitatedly. Alto seemed out of it, just as before. And then there’s…

“Eeeeeeeeek! No, it’s too scary! Help meee!”

There was about one person who was almost repulsively afraid. But wait. Where did that verbal tic of her go? She’s actually that terrified? I mean, she was scared before, but… I don’t know, I feel bad for putting her through this now.

“Yamikage, it’s alright!” “… Kiz!” “… Who?” “… Miss Kizuna.”

I have so much to say about her correcting herself, but I can save that for later. I’m not about to ask her what she thinks about me though. But Yamikage. Just what is she? I’m sure if I got to know her, I’d understand her more and guess to how she is as a person. Not her character, but rather the actual player behind the ninja. I mean, of course, it’d be rude for me to pry. In online games like this, you never know who’s comfortable sharing what with whom. This is all just theory, but in my mind, Shouko is from old money, Sheryl… I’m not so sure about, Tsugumi is obvious, and Alto is probably… a little older. You know what they say about books and covers though.

“Chill, Yamikage. We’re in a game. Even if there were ghosts, it’s all just a game.” “… I understand, milady.”

From below her, I looked up straight into her eyes… And seemingly calmer now, she nodded in agreement. Alright, with her out of the way, I had to get a handle on the situation. I just had to pay no mind to Dark Shadow holding on to my sleeve.

“So, what’s does ‘limited’ mean?” “… With restrictions.” “I mean, if we look at it literally, then I suppose it’s a restricted Dimension Wave?” “I believe it to mean that it is limited to the current party listed in the information screen.” “Ooh, that makes sense…”

This was something I’ve seen more than once in MMO’s. It’s not dissimilar to instance dungeons and party quests. Tsugumi had played one that was all about co-op with your party members. It’s a total cliché, but I’ll bet that we’ll have to clear this dungeon and then defeat a boss. We’ll get quest rewards and boss drops at the end too. And we’re probably limited to doing this once a day or once a week or something. I get it now. That’s probably why it’s limited.

“Alrighty. No point to standing around like this. Shall we?”

contents: /prologue/ /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /ch008/ /ch009/ /ch010/ /ch011/ /ch012/ /ch013/ /ch014/ /ch015/ /ch016/ /ch017/ /ch018/ /ch019/ /ch020/ /ch021/ /ch022/ /ch023/ /ch024/ /ch025/ /ch026/ /ch027/ /ch028/ /ch029/ /ch030/ /ch031/ /ch032/ /ch033/ /ch034/ /next/

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