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mobblespsycho100 · 5 months ago

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Surya since you like both HSR and dungeon meshi what paths would the dunmeshi characters be :0

PAIGE I OWE YOU MY LIFE FOR THIS 🙏💞 . excellent question... enabling my brainrots... I will now cook (rubs my autistic hands together)

Laios: Destruction, Imaginary / Fire. I think he has to be either Imaginary or Fire path wise, leaning towards imaginary because smth smth golden / yellow smth smth. I just think destruction would fit him well based on pure vibes <3 lots of destruction characters have this deal of dealing w/ loss and also having a strong motivation for something (firefly wanting to live, dan heng finally facing his past etc.). If we're talking unplayable paths though I think Laios would follow The Hunt or even The Voracity (even tho im p sure the Aeon of Voracity Ouroboros is like . missing iirc? but like cmon. Laios is Thee Devourer™ I think it works !!)

Marcille: Erudition, Ice. "Wait why not fire she uses a lot of fire spells" yes I hear you . I think fire could also b a good element for her but I think ice fits with her lore in a sense . of like her fear of outliving everyone and her wanting to preserve others lives in a way. Erudition I pick cuz in canon she is like a big range/can hit a lot of enemies combatant in a way so AoE dmg dealer gameplay wise fits me thinks and also shes a scholarrr :3 thee academiccc. Lore / unplayable paths wise she might still follow the Erudition still or the Remembrance or even Preservation (but with The Architects not the IPC) me thinks.

Senshi: Abundance, Fire. I will not be taking criticism hes definitely abundance . he would be a healer. believe in me . also fire because cooking <3 NOT MUCH TO SAY HERE. even like outside of gameplay i still think he'd follow abundance . Ik theres this upcoming character (Jiaoqiu) whos a chef healer whos nihility fire but he has a diff vibe from senshi so like uhm yea

Chilchuck: Nihility, Quantum / Wind. this ones easy peasy to me like . chilled chuck on the path of nihility... he is such a goofy guy. i think quantum or wind would work as the elements for him because quantum entanglement debuff being this slow + stacking mechanic works for his kind of cautious guy whole thing while wind is like . uhh hes quick on his feet i suppose. Gameplay wise i think he'd be like increasing his own spd and delaying the enemies or like giving a vulnerability debuff mark ( reference to him using his bow and arrow to shoot at the ice golems weakspot but he doesn't really do any damage akhdkshd ). Outside of gameplay he still strikes me as a nihility guy or maybe he wouldn't be following a path ¯⁠\⁠_(•-•)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ idk

Izutsumi: Nihility or Hunt, Physical. Nihility again ! I just think it works for her ! but Hunt could also work !!! she would definitely be a dps type character I can't see anythin else. Nihility can also be dps even if their official role is debuffer . I picked physical because physical break causes bleed and uhh izutsumis claw scratches . scratch -> bleed. Yee. I love her a lot I think this works for her 🐱😎 . i feel like Izutsumi would actually be a pathstrider of the Trailblaze . like shes looking for her own path and wanting to be free and travel around tbh like . yeah . <3

Falin: Harmony, Imaginary. Touden siblings the imaginariessss realness. I feel like she would be harmony even though yeah her primary role is a cleric n she was the designated party healer but I feel like in rpg settings she would be a buffer for sure. I think the idea of a harmony character who can like switch modes after ulting (like oooh she transforms into chimera Falin in combat) would be super cool also. it would be pretty neat. She also gives me Robin vibes so like tbh ? hashtag . I'm always right. Lore wise she would also follow The Trailblaze <3 a wanderer wandering she is full of wanderlust . to me

Okay now I'm faced with a dilemma of doing like everyone else who I like or not but I've decided I'll just do . Kabru Toshiro and Namari and their parties I will not give extra explanations and just jump into it aight . ajhskahdjs

Kabru: Preservation, Physical. A combination that is not yet in the game (woah). I think he would be preservation because they're a really strong class and legit the rarest one also, kind of crazy how they're sustain but barring March 7th and Gepard (and even then March can be used offensively too) they can honestly b p neat dmg dealers / offensive buffers also. I think its really funny to assign guy who keeps dying to be the protector™ path also help ajahsjah. I picked physical because um . sword / weapons guy llalalala <3 . Unplayable paths wise I'd say he would bee . following The Remembrance :3<

Toshiro (Shuro): Erudition, Wind. Wind because I associate him with green too much . but also y'know who else is a wind dmg dealer . freakin Blade . So It Works (Guy who is making shit up) ‼️ I think he would be erudition because erm... well 👍 he's cool like that . i mean he could be destruction too . whatever idk anything. outside of gameplay he has the vibes of guy who is forced to be in the IPC LMAO

Namari: Nihility, Fire / Physical. Yeah we back in the nihility zone 🔥🔥🔥 honestly my excuse for this is that she gives me huge Luka vibes so NIHILITY IT IS and fire is also mostly vibes while physical is because punch punch . and she is the weapons knower™ ... but tbh outside of gameplay maybe she would follow the hunt. just vibes. she could be a galaxy ranger 👊💥

ok now here comes the rapidfire assignments

Kabru's party:

• Rin -> Erudition, Lightning. easy

• Dia -> Hunt, Physical

• Holm -> Abundance, Ice

• Mickbell -> Elation Nihility, Imaginary

• Kuro -> Destruction, Physical

Shuro's party:

• Maizuru -> Erudition, Quantum

• Inutade -> Destruction, Physical

• Benichidori -> Nihility, Lightning

• Hien -> Hunt / Destruction, Fire (but Lightning could work too)

Namari's party:

• Kiki & Kaka (I can't seperate the twins) -> Erudition, Imaginary

• Mr. Tansu Floke -> Abundance / Preservation, Ice

• Mrs. Yarn Floke -> Harmony, Fire (to contrast with mr tansu idk i think itd be silly <3)

The Canaries:

• Mithrun -> Destruction, Wind

• Fleki -> Nihility, Imaginary

• Lycion -> Destruction, Physical

• Cithis -> Erudition, Quantum (Enigmata follower vibes outside of gameplay)

• Pattadol -> Preservation, Ice or Erudition, Imaginary

• Otta -> Hunt, Fire

extra:

• Thistle -> Destruction / Preservation, Lightning

• Yaad -> Harmony, Quantum / Imaginary

• The Winged Lion -> Preservation, Imaginary

okay yeah thats it Me Thinks. (scuttles away)

#paige !#asks #dunmeshi #my insane ramblings...#hsr #I've actually assigned the dunmeshi characters like hsr characters they would main once.#however i forgot most of my assignments akdhskhdjs

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phoenix-manga · 3 years ago

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If given the chance which one of the boys would like to become a Pokémon trainer?

Riddle which is surprising but let's say that all his life he's been told that he should be like his mom who are known healers? If i remember correctly but he figured that what if there was another path even if he could experience it once. He's got good strategy that would be fit for a trainer, he just needs to rough it up in the wild area.

Epel, he would definitely try be the strong trainer and plus he maybe has good handle on animals back home. But he will definitely be a bit salty on losses most of the time until he figures out a way to battle properly.

Jamil, he's always been told how trainer in the world of Pokemon are full of adventure with either a friend or with just your team. He would like that freedom, the thought of beating opponents with a carefully picked out team of magical monsters would make his heart flutter for the freedom it wants.

Idia and Ortho, though we haven't seen the entire chapter 6, would want to be somewhere else than be in charge of STYX. Idia feels like he has nowhere to go in his home but a new place to explore with no boundaries would be the RPG isekai he dreams of. Ortho is with him too along the way.

Cater, i have seen theories and posts that Cater is sad and tries to hide it but i dunno the reasons why. Let's say he wants to find something new that he can call his own. I think growing up with two sisters made him feel out of place. So maybe traveling the world as he pleases with loyal Pokemon would be the thing he needs.

#ask #pokemon #twisted wonderland #twst x pokemon #pokemon x twisted wonderland

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loser-hub · 4 years ago

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Valentine's Day Headcannons! Is it early? Yes! Do I care? Not a bit! A part two with some Pro's is coming soon!

Warnings: A hint of spice here and there, all characters are aged up to 21+ at least!

Izuku Midoriya

Has had your date planned for a month, at least, having planned since Christmas.

Valentine's Day is the day about love, couples, expressing your feelings and spending time with your significant other. Or that's what every commercial says when the month changes, bombarding everyone with pink, red and kisses.

Izuku soaks up every moment of it like a sponge.

He's not the best at expressing his feelings, always stuttering and tripping over himself, so he relies on acts of devotion, affection of gift giving to show you how much he appreciates and loves you.

Has a notebook dedicated to the day. Countless scribbles about what you like, what you don't, what you're allergic to, and any fact that could help him plan the perfect date.

The day starts and its all about you from the get go.

Gets you clean with a bath with candles, rose petals, bath bombs, bath oils, the absolute works. Spent way too much time and money at Bath & Bodyworks picking out your favorite things in case you were low.

Nervously picks at his nails while he waits, now second guessing himself and doubting if he might've gone overboard with everything.

Invite him in and he'd be on Cloud Nine!

The rest of the day goes however you'd like, whatever you want and he's at your beck and call. Driving you around to your favorite stores to staying home and chilling out on the couch, he just wants to spend time with you and see you happy. If you're happy then he's happy!

After getting cleaned Izuku takes you up to this scenic hill outside the city that looks over a field of flowers, allergy pills at the ready! He sets down a plaid blanket and breaks out his picnic basket full of your favorite foods and drinks.

He'll keep you there until the sun sets, holding you close to his chest as you two watch the sky turn to pinks and oranges.

Bakugou Katsuki

The polar opposite of Izuku's feverish planning.

He's more of an "oh, it's V-Day? Cool, I guess" kind of guy.

Shows up at your door out of the blue, no warning, no nothing, a box of chocolates under his arm as he thrusts a bouquet of flowers into your face. "Coincidentally" your favorite kind.

"Saw it was Valentine's Day and I'd be a fucking shitty boyfriend if I didn't bring you something, I guess. Get dressed, we're going out...somewhere...wherever you want."

Drags you out and pulls you along, opening his car door for you, closing it, being the gentleman that he secretly is.

Takes you to a little café on the outskirts of town he found one evening while patrolling, it seemed really nice and cute and thought of you when he saw it. So why not take you here for a little date?

Hands stuffed in his pockets he wanders inside, glued to your side.

Although like Deku, he's not the greatest at verbal affection. Sure he can scream and yell his feelings in anger but expressing how he felt about you? That stumped him.

Bakugou also prefers acts of service and gift giving as his love language, this man cannot articulate his love for you to save his life.

So moments like these are the most endearing moments of his character.

Let's you order whatever you want and subconsciously gets the same so you both can talk about how good/bad it was and so, if you did like it, he could cook it for you at home.

Shoto Todoroki

Oh dear please help this poor boy.

He has no idea what Valentine's Day is.

You'd have to be the one to suggest doing something or surprise him with a date, because he has no idea.

Its not that he doesn't care but he's simply never put stock into the lovey dovey holiday meant for couples, love and all that.

Show up at his door for a change!

He'll be pleasantly surprised and oh-so happy to see you there, even if he's rushing out the door so Enji, Natsuo and Fuyumi don't get wind of your arrival.

You'll never be left alone if they realize your there.

He prefers to drive, he doesn't know why but being in a car with you driving to a restaurant is strangely domestic. Since it is V-Day and you've so nicely explained to him what it means and the context around the holiday, you two decide to go to a fancy upscale place for a change.

Shoto decides to go all out, taking himself and you to a dressing shop and has you pick out an outfit while he gets a black suit with a red tie.

Its not often Shoto cleans himself up but when he does, wow.

Not to worry about reservations, all he has to do is show up and break out his gold credit card and the receptionist's eyes bug out of her head. Being Endeavor's kid has its perks on occasion and the staff takes you two to a secluded booth specifically for hero's and their partners.

Lit by candlelight you two share a multiple course meal, desert and feed each other rose topped chocolates.

An overall cheesy yet romantic date that he'll never forget.

Tomura Shigaraki

He's one of the ones whose bombarded with lovey dovey shit the second January turns to February.

Every MMO RPG in his collection does a Valentine theme in some way so its impossible for him to escape all the pink and red.

Those are the worst two weeks of the year.

He drops everything and plunges himself to the most gorey and eventless games he can find to get his mind off V-Day...well, before you came along.

Now seeing the themed events makes him pause, change his mind even, reconsider if you feel so inclined.

It all came to a head once he saw matching skins. Husband and wife, partners in crime, the list was endless for the game you two played together. Yep, he was going to do something.

Going out of the hideout during a busy holiday like today was out of the question so you rightfully suspected nothing would happen, Shigaraki wasn't going to whisk you away to a secluded hill and have a picnic. He wasn't that kind of man and he might scrape off bits of skin if put in that kind of situation anyways.

Nope, instead you were scooped up off the couch and hauled to his room. Plopped right down in the other chair of your couples gaming setup.

Your headphones on, game loaded up, hand on the mouse and your boyfriend mumbling how he needed "help" for the event.

"Tch, don't read too much into it Player Two, I get more XP if I'm in a group so you're coming with me. Just be my Love Healer and I'll DPS our way through the bosses."

Needless you weren't going to ask why your character was suddenly in a frilly dress with a bouquet instead of your normal staff.

Dabi

The most casual and uninspired ass you can possibly imagine.

Days all mix and warp together for Dabi so he doesn't know what day it is until he sees an abnormal amount of couples out and about. The shameless displays of affection was nauseating.

But hey, the shopkeeps were too busy with entitled Karens to notice some of their stock had gone missing.

No one pays attention to the burnt chicken nugget holding a massive stuffed bear and a plastic bag full of sweet on today of all days, normally he has to keep to the streets and be a sneeki beeki boi but this is the one day except for Halloween that he can get away with being in public. The stuffed animal a convenient hiding place when he gets looks.

His cover is blown when the plush is pushed into your open window first. He loves hearing your scream of surprise when he sneaks in but he can't do that very well with a four foot bear on his back...maybe next year.

Gets everything set up while you're worrying over him and making sure he wasn't seen or followed. You're too cute for your own good, worrying about him over yourself and what the police would do if they found out.

Today is definitely needed, for both of you. Time alone to just chill and cuddle.

Wrapped up in blankets, drinking some shitty stolen wine, eating sweets and laughing at how stupid the main characters of the rom-com marathon are.

The morning after you find yourself alone but at least now you'll never fall asleep alone with your Dabi scented teddy bear.

#valentine's day #Valentine's day headcannons #mha x reader #bnha x reader #mha headcanons #bnha headcanons #izuku midoria x reader #deku x reader #bakugou katuski x reader #shoto todoroki #tomura shigaraki x reader #dabi x reader #tw: fluff #tw: mild spice

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 4 years ago

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To you, how good are the vault crew at duelling and how do they duel? I think that Tonks is someone who uses more unconventional ways like in a courtyard making use of obstacles rather than a normal duelling club, Barnaby has strong spells and is able to tank damage, Chiara is the underestimated one who spams protego and episkey, takes no damage,winning through occasional offensive spells no one sees coming, and Merula duels offensively with cunning. I also can't believe MC just wins every time.

A very good question! Let’s go through the gang one by one.

MC - This is definitely open to interpretation. All we know for certain is that they’re either very good at dueling, very lucky, or some combination of the two. They’ve defeated acromantulas, dragons, unexplained ice golems, the list goes on. They’ve only ever lost to one person. So their style is open to interpretation (I think this was customizable during Aurelie’s quest) but in general, they usually win. This can be amended with head-canons, and I do have some of my own. Luca Fawley totally loses to the Red Cloak, to the Horntail, etc. But canon wise? Yeah...it is what it is.

Rowan - They’re not much of a duelist. I can’t imagine they have any experience in combat magic apart from helping MC prepare to face Merula all the way back in Year 1. Given their extensive knowledge however, they probably know more magic than the average person, and they’re probably the most skilled at casting spells nonverbally. To translate that to game mechanics, maybe that means they know all of the exclusive dueling reward spells? In terms of style, I feel like they’d favor defense.

Ben - This one is all about confidence. We’ve seen that Ben’s prowess at dueling seems to depend on whether or not his anxieties are holding him back or not. Most of the time, he seems like he would completely fail, but when he actually fights - either in Y6CH18, when he’s let go of his anxiety, or when he was the Red Cloak (So it wouldn’t come into play) he actually kind of kicks ass? I feel like he specializes in charms and would know which ones to use in combat. I also think Old Ben favors sneaking, New Ben favors offense.

Penny - Another character who wouldn’t specialize in fighting, but the inclusion of the Wiggenweld Potion as an option that is known to be useful in dueling suggests, at least in HPHM canon, that adept potioneers can use their talents in a fight. I don’t really see how that works, personally (The animation takes forever, why wouldn’t the opponent just hit them mid-swig?) but I can roll with it. Penny’s style would therefore be highly unpredictable, which would be her main advantage. No one would know what to expect because it’s not her spells that they’re primarily fighting.

Merula - Like you said, she’s cunning. She probably knows a fair few hexes that most people don’t know, at least early on. Similar to Snape, she would have had an early advantage thanks to learning stuff on her own (or probably from her mother) and while she’s not above using the dark arts, that also takes talent and an edge that I feel like Merula doesn’t usually have. She would have a blend of offensive and sneaking, and would play without any honor at all, which would be her main advantage. But she’d also get cocky, and probably celebrate a victory before it’s confirmed.

Bill - Here is someone who, at least to me, probably excels at Defense Against the Dark Arts. He’d have been in the D.A. if it was around during his time. But strictly light side magic, of course. He plays honorably, probably with a blend of offense and defense to help him manage particularly long fights. But he has a lot of natural talent, so that’s able to help him out.

Skye - As one can expect, her primary strength in dueling isn’t her magical prowess, it’s her physical fitness. Catch her dodging every curse like a bludger, ducking and rolling over. Throwing a punch because her opponent doesn’t expect that at all, and if she can snap a broomstick in half, odds are she also has a mean right hook. As far as magic actually goes, I figure she’d favor offense and be straight to the point. If there was ever a character to live up to the “Spam depulso” meme, it’s Skye.

Murphy - The opposite situation would apply here. Murphy can’t rely on dodging curses or moving around quite as easily. But I also feel like he wouldn’t spend a lot of time studying dueling itself. But he also knows a lot of trivia. Similar to Rowan, he’d pull out a spell that no one expects or has even heard of. He could also probably keep a few potions on his person, especially if he ever hangs out with Penny.

Orion - I’m going to be real with you. I think Orion does not duel. Period. This is similar to a head-canon I used to have about Yoda never carrying a lightsaber (which the prequels debunked, but that’s neither here nor there) I believe Orion is a pacifist and will never pick up his wand to harm another person. The most he will ever do is disarm or cast a shield charm. Even then, it’s not common. He prefers to talk his way out of situations, and something tells me it works more often than one would expect.

Rath - Here’s another case where physical prowess would be on her side. Not only that, there’s the intimidation factor. Rath is taller and bigger than most of her classmates, and it seems to be canon that she intimidates them for that reason. Beyond that, she also seems to have an ability to just shut down and go into a mode of focus, which includes focused rage. I know curses aren’t bludgers, but I feel like her training would still have an influence and make her aim, for example, twice as deadly. Yeah, she’d be a tough opponent and probably favor offense.

Andre - This boy has never dueled in his life, and I doubt he’s any good at it. His magical talents and creativity are undeniable, but when it comes to combat? He should probably just hide behind MC. If it comes to it, I think he’s going to favor sneaking more. Just seems more like his style, considering that by his own admission, he likes to spy on people.

Tonks - Okay, the main thing holding her back here is going to be the opposite problem that someone like Andre or Diego would have, and that’s dexterity and grace. We all love Tonks, but she’s almost certainly dyspraxic. I can see her aiming a finishing hex, only to trip over a nearby pebble. Apart from that, I agree. Her style would be resourceful and unconventional. I can see her transfiguring herself into different people to throw off her opponent. Definitely a sneaky type.

Tulip - Meet the most versatile duelist at Hogwarts. Seriously, with her inventive mind, her resources, and the influence of people like Merula and MC. Tulip can do anything that occurs to her, and she will. I feel like she favors carrying dungbombs and other pranks, to incorporate them into her dueling style. But she’s no pushover with magic, either. I’d say she doesn’t specialize but switches freely between offense, defense, and sneaking.

Ismelda - A more exaggerated version of Merula’s problem, in that in the early years, Ismelda would be simply terrible at dueling because she would attempt to use dark curses that she has neither the talent nor the cruelty to truly master. Other than that, we’ve seen that she has at least marginal talent for dueling and the use of curses and hexes. Practice doesn’t make perfect in this case, but it counts for something. She definitely strikes me as more offensive.

Barnaby - He plays most similarly to Bill in this case. I think he would focus more on offensive magic, given what he’d learn as a Slytherin rather than being in the Gryffindor Common room. But his code of honor would be the same as the Weasleys, and while dueling isn’t his passion the way creatures are, he does seem to enjoy it and is very good at it.

Liz - On the contrary, Liz is like Andre and Penny. This is not someone who ever draws her wand because she wants to, even for practice. That being said, that doesn’t mean Liz is not the argumentative type. Because she clearly is, and she’s clearly sensitive about being stereo-typed. In general, she seeks to protect the misunderstood and mistreated. If it came to it, she would draw her wand in those circumstances and likely play defensively. But she prefers to resolve conflicts verbally.

Charlie - Growing up a Weasley, you’d pick up a thing or two, of course. Especially being so close in age to Bill. These brothers definitely clashed and went to war (all in good fun) throughout their childhood. Fred and George probably ignited it, but Bill and Charlie do seem to exchange jabs with Percy as well. The main thing here is that Charlie would have learned a number of spells to subdue a dragon, and at least some of those probably translate to humans. So he’d be able to restrain an opponent in a duel.

Talbott - He holds back. He always holds back. Let’s think about this - his greatest secret weapon is one that he will always need to keep a secret and is constantly anxious about. He’s anxious in general, so similar to Ben, I think he could be a lot more powerful if he let loose. As a human or as an eagle. Seriously, golden eagles are fierce. Of all the animals to be in a fight, you could do a lot worse than a golden eagle. (I know this because I’m an Animorphs nerd.) So yeah, his biggest weakness is a mental one.

Chiara - Assuming that this is human Chiara, and not in her wolf-form, I feel like she’s another character who’s all but useless in combat. Though you’re right, this would lead to people underestimating her, and she is a Healer. There’s such a thing as army doctors for a reason. Between healing herself and setting up shields, she could probably tire out her opponent by tanking and playing defensively.

Jae - The embodiment of the sneaking archetype. Seriously, he is a living, breathing example of the Thief build from RPGs. While I don’t think he’d stoop to using dark magic, he definitely knows some less scrupulous spells. Probably Deletrius, and whatever spell is needed to break into Alohomora-proof locks. As for dueling? Here’s another character who would probably depend on potions or other tools that he has on his person, to supplement his own magical talents, since dueling wouldn’t be something he studied too much.

Badeea - In so many says, she is the most dangerous opponent on this list. Because her primary talent in the case of dueling makes her even more unpredictable than Tulip. Badeea...is a spell inventor. That alone gives her an edge, and she’s clearly an intelligent, talented witch otherwise. I don’t think dueling would be her first choice, mind you. Similar to Orion and Liz, I think she would see other methods to resolve conflict. But if it came to it, there’s just no way to prepare for an opponent like Badeea.

Diego - He’s probably one of the most talented duelists on this list, if I’m being honest. We know that like Barnaby, he enjoys dueling and probably gets a lot of practice. Combined with his talents in dancing, he would be physically fit and know how to move. I can see him having an extremely graceful dueling style where his wand is nothing more than an extension of his arm, and his preferred style would be whatever he felt like that day.

Beatrice - She would get destroyed. I love her, but it’s true. Her magical education is a year behind, and who knows what kind of long-term effects her time in the Portrait could have on her physical body. Not to mention that outfit looks a little too big for her, which would restrict movement. I think in terms of raw talent and overall effort and motivation, she could score a few hits, catch someone by surprise. But in a real duel? She’s not winning.

Alanza - I have no idea what Alanza’s levels of talent would be. But in general...she does seem to land on her feet, does seem to shrug off most things as water off a duck’s back. Survival skills apparently come easily to her, and she seems to just overall be a person who leads a charmed life. This is all assuming that there isn’t some other shoe to drop with Alanza, I think she would win duels entirely by accident.

#Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery #HPHM Headcanons #HPHM Analysis #The Circle of Khanna #HPHM TCOK

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thesalemsaga · 4 years ago

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𝟯 — 𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗻

— 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙥𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙖𝙡𝙚𝙢 𝙨𝙖𝙜𝙖.

𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩 : 5.9k words

𝙨 : getting the final three people to join her is proven to be much more difficult than realized, and along with that, seren is forced to deal with some realities before she comes to her final decision.

“ alright everyone, settle down, settle down! don’t keep me waiting! ”.

it was a monday morning, and dueling was the first lesson on the enormous timetable. it was why her nerves were much more jumpy than usual. it was also probably because her final candidate was present in the room with her.

the dueling classrooms were much bigger than most, huge as a lecture hall with a ten metre mat in the center where the demonstrations took place, where the teacher would often invite someone down for a short lesson. regardless of your class or semblance, it was not optional to skip dueling class.

it was perhaps the best subject seren had, as alchemy and engineering often tired her brain out to an extent where she would be unable to talk. she much rather preferred facing off a classmate in a clash of swords than anything else.

but her quest today was much more simpler than just a fight. in reality, seren’s attention was nailed to someone in particular, someone she desperately needed on her team to make this entire plan work. without a healer, they were as good as dead, regardless of their status and skills as trained fighters.

romeo and kailen had made their attempts at convincing alexander sallow to join them, both came back with disappoint written on their faces. and to add fuel to the fire, the last two members would only join if alexander managed to make it into the team.

it was all left to seren in the end.

the teacher who led the dueling lessons was no other than master lockhart, a close friend of the principal and a personal favorite of the girl, mostly because he often skipped her when it came to demonstrations. she could handle a fight like the next person but being observed critically perturbed her. the fear mainly manifested at the worry of messing up and being laughed at, which happened five or six times in the past three years and people tend not to leave her alone because of it.

today, of all days, however, they were speaking of something to do very closely to her semblance, as shown on the board behind lockhart.

speed vs power.

“ today, we’ll be doing something a bit different ”, lockhart announced. he, a man in his late forties, fortified as he carried himself with strength and purpose, truly could not be disliked even by the most complicated students. he was a fun teacher, one to leave you alone if you were uncomfortable and to accept if you were enthusiastic. he was a rather handsome man, with his blonde hair slicked back and a mediterranean smile dancing over thin lips. his eyes were truly remarkable, though. grey, a color of a wise man.

seren didn’t see any unfamiliar faces that day. she had actually walked to class with kailen and romeo after having breakfast with them, purposefully avoiding her father yet again but without ill intent, she just needed to stay focused.

among those faces, she also spotted the final three candidates, evangelos and perseus sat beside each other and alexander sat at the front, seeming rather uninterested.

seren didn’t get to peek for too long in fear that he had some sort of psychic semblance, but she got the impression that he was silent, distant and far from someone who could easily be convinced to join such a mission. but even though he looked stubborn, she needed the results. she needed to impress him, to get something across, and if it didn’t work, then she would have to approach him. and she wasn’t planning on being gentle.

lives were at stake, and if he didn’t want to join, then it was his loss. but it was worth trying.

“ speed and power, two opposing forces, as some would put it ”, lockhart began, motioning to the board. “ you can either have one or the other and when faced with someone with the opposite skill, you might find yourself struggling. because at the end of the day, they cannot top each other. ”

seren had heard of two soldiers in the past. one blessed with immense strength and the other with speed, and they made a rather impressive due what with the number of criminals they managed to take down. they left the military to become solo hunters, and ended up reducing crime rates when the people of the empire started to lose some of their previous morals.

the professor turned and glanced over his students, “ when these two meet in a fight, it is unlikely that one is going to top the other. they can both do some wicked damage against each other, especially if they’re at equal quality. so if you have two trained fighters representing one of these, and you force them to fight, they will not come out with at least some injuries. ”

someone behind seren suddenly blurted out a question, she recognized it to be a girl from her alchemy class. “ why are we learning about them, sir? most people tend to side with one skill anyway ”.

“ ah! but that’s exactly the problem. these two are just minor examples of an issue certain people have when finding their style of fighting ”, lockhart was quick to respond. “ they think they have to choose something to fit their look as a fighter. only fire magic, only ice magic. only big guns, only small guns. only power, only speed. folks, you’re missing the point! ”.

seren felt herself leaning against her desk a tiny bit more. lockhart’s lessons are the ones that tend to light up a flame in any ambitious and resilient fighter such as herself, she could see it through the eyes of her other classmates that the message was growing more interesting as the man spoke.

he carried himself to the center of the fighting mat, yet his speech never ended. “ the gift of being a hero is not just playing by the rules you see in old rpg games where you have the ice mage and the fire mage. no! reality is so much more fun, you can be anything you want and you don’t have to separate skills into two boxes ”, he looked among them and gave his usual smile. a comforting one, that of a man who had aged well and knew things that not many would imagine knowing.

“ you can easily have both. which is what i’m about to show you. i’m going to show you exactly what happens when you end up using these attacks together ”, he paused and looked among the students, and although seren quickly sunk back into her seat, it didn’t stop him from settling his eyes over her. “ miss armsend, if you’d please step up. ”

the girl sucked a breath in. the immediate shift of all the wandering gazes in the classroom landing on her triggered a dread in her stomach, yet seren could not simply reject the teacher’s demand if she wanted to keep being the perfect dueling student that she’s always been. her father wouldn’t be happy, and that was something she was not going to risk.

gulping, the girl settled with a smile and rose from her desk. teachers had access to the weapons that were kept in separate lockers, and since iron thorn had managed to find itself within lockhart’s grasp, something within seren told her he was going to pick her all along. he was a kind man, but not so when it came to dueling.

as she descended down the steps and paced onto the dueling mat, lockhart went around searching for someone else. “ as miss armsend has a speed semblance, i will need someone who majors more on the strength aspect of combat. maybe another swordsman, or a brawler . . . ”, whilst he contemplated, the girl familiarized herself with the grip of her sword, trembling in her uniform.

“ mr chrysanthos? ”.

oh you’re joking, right?

murmurs flooded out between the students, most of the attention turned to the boy sitting beside an amused perseus. seren glanced over her shoulder and settled her own eyes on evangelos, whose face gave nothing away. and that just made her tremble with a lot more fear.

evangelos was a brawler, and a fucking good one. tall, packed to the brim with muscle, and from what she was told, was always angry. it was why he could reduce people to ashes with his gauntlets, releasing out an ounce of anger through every punch and kick, trained seriously in martial arts and from what she could tell, he could crush her with his bare hands.

and the fact that the male stood and began to walk down to the training mat just made seren grow increasingly apprehensive. she was accustomed to facing her old man with his cane, and even at the age of fifty, years of experience in the military and a keen eye in combat, arthur armsend intimidated her less than evangelos.

one might say, she didn’t have to worry because she would not be fighting evangelos when he joins the team. the punches will not be directed towards her, yet seren was shocked to the core of fucking up here and spoiling her chances of impressing the male and losing a candidate. and with him, probably perseus as well.

she couldn’t lose this.

“ five minutes. i want to see a normal duel. knocking the person out is not the intention here, but pushing them to the ground is. regardless of power or speed, you’re useless if you’re on the floor ”, lockhart handed evangelos the gauntlets, which he equipped quickly. “ the rest of you can observe, and try to imagine what these two forces would be like when put together in a formal duel. ”

evangelos stood far from her, jaw clenched, disinterested as always. he seemed to have a similar strategy to her, of coating his emotions behind a poker face. however, it still felt like he didn’t have any worries to hide. he didn’t see seren as a threat.

and for obvious reasons, she felt the insult like a punch in the gut.

“ ready, set, and . . . begin! ”.

an explosion erupted long before seren could prepare herself and that came from evangelos lunging forward. he was quick! but what worried her more at that moment was how those gauntlets flared up with a red color.

with no armor or shield, seren relied on her speed. no essences were allowed to be used, so she shifted quickly. her semblance acts, well, quickly. you won’t really see her move, you’ll just find her in a different place at the blink of an eye. upon shifting, she found herself behind the male, but he cut through and turned right back to her. every bone in her body rattled with fear.

when the gauntlets collided with iron thorn, a sound thundered and shook the classroom, rendering both fighters stunned for a moment. thankfully, neither weapons showed signs of breaking, iron thorn was perfectly sharp and far from beaten. and nobody showed any signs of falling just yet.

given the position and the proximity, seren’s eyes widened when she swung the rapier hard enough to create that same auditory ripple that sent evangelos pinging back into the other side of the training mat, landing on his two feet, but not without some of those dark locks coming out of place.

thirty seconds in and seren felt like giving up. especially after seeing the seething rage erupting from the boy’s gaze, it could kill.

neither moved for a second, contemplating their chances and their moves and when they did move, it was in unison.

when evangelos threw his fist forward, she was expecting him to lunge, but he didn’t. from the other side of the training mat, seren witnessed a spark and cursed briefly under her breath upon realizing he had a ranged weapon, of which the shots resembled a shotgun, two that barely missed the girl, one cutting through a few locks of her pink hair.

when the third shot rang, seren was ready to receive it. the bullet came and almost within a sudden slowness in time, she lifted the sword in her hand and cut through it, and recoiled away just in time for the explosion to go off. had she stayed, it would have most likely shattered iron thorn in half.

the smoke cloud created engulfed the girl long enough to look down and peer at her sword, gleaming and steaming from having cut a shotgun bullet in half. in all honesty, she was not expecting the bullets to pack such a punch, and she could only imagine the damage it could do when facing it up close.

coughing through the smoke, seren prepared to be jumped, or prepared for someone to expect her to jump. yet she remained perfectly still, thinking deeply. her goal was not to demonstrate how speed could bide well with power, her only goal was to bring the boy to his knees and she could only do that with the skill she had. which was fine by her.

“ come on, armsend, i don’t have all day to play hide and seek! ”.

no response.

the next movement came in a series of blinks. the grey in which she had surrounded herself with was not disturbed when she breached through and spawned beside the male, before shifting again, and again, drawing a circle around him, almost as a taunt.

a taunt that most certainly worked, especially when the male groaned, turned to where she was going to shift again, and threw a fist. seren felt like she was going to feel the punch for the rest of her life, yet it never came as she expected.

because she shifted once more, this time, behind the male, fast enough to kick the soles of her school shoes against his back and sending him plummeting forward.

evangelos was not done, though.

to others, it happened at normal speed. but seren saw everything. she saw the way he turned before he could fall for certain, the way the gauntlet suddenly glowed with a heavy red, and the way the heat traveled in her direction. and if she blocked with iron thorn, she would have no weapon. so her forearms did the work.

the impact shattered against her forearms, first through the impact of the solid iron of the gauntlets, followed by a burning sensation that incited a bellow of anger from a usually silent seren.

as evangelos eventually met the ground with a grunt, seren felt her back scrapping the floor until she came to a stop. and when she did, the burning settled and with the lack of her blazer, the injuries became more obvious. students loomed over their desks and gasped.

her forearms were glowing with a bizarre redness, throbbing with agony that words simply couldn’t explain. the girl smacked a hand over her mouth to stop herself from screaming, yet once lockhart ran over to loom over her and check on her, he made the mistake of pressing his cold hands against the burning skin, and seren could not help the scream this time around.

“ relax, relax! it’s okay, come on, stand up. ”

despite the encouragement, the girl couldn’t go through with it. it hurt, it hurt like a bitch, it felt like someone had dropped lava over her arms and she was beginning to feel it in her bones, the tears had miraculously stopped before they could breach through the surface.

she had managed to complete the task but not before getting two giant burn marks of her forearms when trying to defend herself. great.

seren did not find the courage to look up once she was pulled to her feet. she already heard the gasps, the tuts, some laughs, and it was humiliating, to say the least. the redness in her ears could not match that on her arms.

evangelos had gotten himself up to his feet, face blank as always. the girl wanted to apologize for something so foolish, it was her fault for throwing herself into such an attack that she could have blocked with her weapon, but it was either her arms or iron thorn, and she was not sacrificing her rapier.

“ regardless of the injury, you saw it, folks ”, lockhart continued with the lesson regardless, keeping the two students on the dueling mat as he turned to everyone else. “ you saw the vibration that came from two powerful weapons coming into close contact, you saw how she was able to cut through an explosive and give herself cover, you saw how he slowed her down with those bullets. now, think of attacks like those put together. think of improving your speed to strengthen your power and vice versa. ”

seren didn’t look up when he motioned to her.

lockhart pressed on, “ many people have managed to incorporate both those skills into their weapons and fighting style. you will end up in teams one day and if there’s no one with those skills, you will be able to do wonders. there’s no use separating these repelling forces from each other, especially when you want to be a stronger fighter. ”

as they were allowed to chat amongst themselves, lockhart approached seren, clearly struggling to keep the tears in. he looked upon her red forearms and sighed, “ do you want to go to the nurse’s office? ”.

she quickly shook her head.

“ seren. ”

“ i-i’m fine, sir, really. it’ll pass. i’ll just ask someone to put some ice on it. ”

suck it up, nobody’s going to feel bad for making you cry on the battlefield, her father’s voice rang in her head louder than usual. she was a sensitive soul, she couldn’t mask her feelings as easily as others, most definitely when she was injured. her arms were burning and aching and she would rather someone chopped them off than have to face with it for any longer. yet seren stood, biting her lip, choking back the tears.

lockhart didn’t push. “ alright, return to your seat. thank you for your cooperation, miss armsend ”. with a nod, the girl kept her head down and shuffled back to her seat, walking past evan in an apologetic silence. when she sat down, only one person turned to her to ask if she was okay. she didn’t know how she managed to keep the tears in, but she did. smiling and nodding.

she was fine.

and besides, it seemed like her mission had made some progress.

from her seat, she could see alexander sitting down at the lower row, peering back at her with quizzing eyes. choosing not to stare him down, seren offered the boy a sweet smile and turned back to her books, even if she had no reason to. she was in desperate need of a healer right now, and this would repeat at some point in the future. she would need a healer then as well.

she needed alexander to be her healer. and injury or no injury, she was going to get him to join.

time skip . . .

“ i swear to fucking god, i’m going to kill evangelos! ”.

seren laughed shyly.

it was lunch time now, and her afternoon class got cancelled once her father heard of her injury. he said that he didn’t want her near anymore fire and so was willing to bring her out of alchemy class. it was embarrassing, she didn’t want it to be a big deal. it was her fault, anyway.

chatter had mostly died out yet some would occasionally look over at where they sat, most would roll their eyes. especially now. kailen sat beside her and was wrapping up bandages around her swollen forearms, listening as romeo rambled on and on through his meal, unhappy with the state of things.

any other party would claim she did it for attention, which she got, especially since she was being patched up by a pretty boy. yet her issue remained on evangelos.

she saw the frown on his face, a building frustration that made her quiver in fear. she would hate it if she got him into trouble, and it was why she came up to lockhart after the lesson and begged him to keep evangelos out of trouble and let her take the blame. because it was her fault.

she did it because of an inner quarrel of possibly breaking her weapon or breaking her arms and she chose the latter. if iron thorn got broken, she might as well just die on the spot.

“ he was going to fall anyway, so he saw it best to give her something else to deal with. a final move ”, kailen spoke for the first time since they arrived at the cafeteria. seren watched him go about his work quietly. “ it was just badly timed. it’s no one’s fault. ”

seren frowned, “ it was my fault. ”

a groan came from romeo.

“ seren, love, hear me out. nobody knew you were doing it to protect your weapon. looking at that sword, i can see it costs a fuck ton of money and time. i would rather throw myself in front of evangelos than have someone nearly break my beauty in half ”, he was speaking about his riffle, of course. “ and who asked him to throw that much of a punch? he was going to kill you! ”.

thinking about it now, seren couldn’t help but laugh.

she ran a hand through her hair and suddenly stopped when a few locks ended short. she recalled the bullet that had cut through her hair and her stomach was filled with dread again.

“ it was a duel, and that’s his fighting style. it just looks intimidating because that’s just how he fights ”, seren was quick to come to evangelos’s defense. he carried himself strongly through the fight, it was admirable albeit terrifying. “ it’s funny, something tells me iron thorn could have survived that. ”

kailen tied the ends of the bandage on her left arm and peeked up at her. “ then why didn’t you use iron thorn? ”.

“ because i wanted alexander’s attention. ”

that would have sounded very creepy if they didn’t know the context.

romeo’s jaw fell for a moment, almost to the point where the water in his mouth spilled. he choked and coughed suddenly. “ h-hold on ”, he gulped. “ you’re telling me you nearly shattered your arms because you wanted that idiot to consider joining? ”.

“ sympathy goes a long way. ”

“ seren, you sociopath. ”

the girl gave him an apologetic smile. call it stupid, something a sociopath or maniac would do, but seren could handle the pain if it meant she would have the results she wanted. sacrificing her comfort at the price of making the world safer was something she was willing to repeat a dozen times. she knew the injury would heal, especially if there was someone capable on the team to do just that, and it was why she was not worried.

she would be worried, however, if they didn’t have a healer. and the one she wanted was alexander, a boy she hadn’t formally met just yet but she knew she would eventually, especially after today.

the consistency of leaving the walls had been obvious within the top ten, and she doubted only one person would break that streak. they were young dreamers, surely he would show some interest. and from what kailen told her, he did hesitate before declining. alexander just needed a small push in the right direction, and she was willing to offer that.

“ all done. ”

snapping out of her thoughts, seren was met with bandaged arms and a fruit juice carton being held towards her by kailen. chuckling, she accepted it and enjoyed the short amount of time they had left till lunch was over. the two boys had to continue on with their lessons, meaning she would be left alone. it was alright, though, she could head off the library.

and when the bell rang, that was where she went.

the valhalla library was immeasurable in size, stacked to the roof with books of all sorts, most were history books detailing accounts of the old earth before the period of ragnarok fell upon them. ranging from world wars to killer epidemics that nearly rid the earth of humans, there was a lot on history but that was not what seren was searching for.

seren was not searching for knowledge nor aid in her exams, nor the comfort of a fictional adventurous or romantic tale. rather, she was searching for someone who had claimed the library as his domain.

the shelves were the same mahogany as her father’s desk, polished every day by the valhalla companions who were capable of floating or climbing or flying. she spotted ted-ee 012 carrying a seat of hovering books behind him, waving at her when they spotted each other.

non-fiction section, desk beside the window without a curtain. those were kailen’s exact words from yesterday and the girl made an attempt at not forgetting them, bringing herself to the said location where she hoped to find the boy who had been hiding from her this whole time.

and what do you know, he was there when she approached.

alexander had been the only boy she had not approached or spoken with, mostly in fear of being turned away. and after the day she had today, she didn’t want to struggle more than she already had. she wanted to leave the library with a smile on her face, and possibly get some rest for tomorrow.

being a healer, alexander and many others were posed with books and ancient scrolls with many enchantments, buffs and spells to learn that would come into effect when they came into combat with their teammates. it required time, energy, and a behemoth amount of patience as they cannot just be learnt overnight.

seren hated to interrupt him, so she didn’t. rather, she turned and reached for a random book within the shelves, and retrieved a book on monsters. dragons, to be more specific.

alexander’s table was empty of people, but it was covered in scrolls and sheets of paper in languages that she could not recognize, possibly ancient or made up ones related mostly to the work regarding clerics. ( another fancy word for healers. ) when she pushed the chair back and sat down as quietly as she could, the sound of her setting her book down still seemed to disturb the boy.

when she looked up as well and met his gaze, she offered him another sweet smile almost identical to the one she had offered that morning, and the boy swiftly returned to his studies. seren looked back, not wishing to disturb him.

the girl had the intention of talking to the boy eventually, but she allowed the comfortable silence in and began to enjoy the book she had randomly selected. the first few pages talked about the origin of dragons, the cultural depictions of them, versus the real life ones that people have begun to encounter.

they spoke about the different colors, the different breeds, the different sorts of treasure that the scaled beasts guarded, and the rarity of a golden dragon. seren had the imagination of a mere child, it was no wonder she began to daydream about her adventure even if it wasn’t happening for certain.

the grassy plains, the abandoned and crumbling pillars, abandoned castles, dense forests with trees of all colors, not to mention the dozen creatures they could encounters. faes, nymphs, maybe the very dragons that were so rare to find. maybe a unicorn, maybe a pegasus, maybe an alicorn.

seren read so many fantasy books growing up that she wasn’t certain any of those creatures did exist or if it was just a rumor spread around by bored military soldiers. but she remained hopeful.

fifteen minutes into reading, alexander suddenly cleared his throat.

“ does it hurt? ”.

seren took a moment to recall the burns. she closed her book for a moment, surprised to have finally gotten the male to talk. she lifted her two forearms with a curious tilt to the head, only to confirm that he was talking about them. when he nodded, she chuckled. “ no, not really. well, it did in the beginning. but now it’s kinda numb now that it’s swollen ”, shouldering the pain as she always does. in reality, she could still feel it aching perhaps ten times more than before.

alexander hummed, peering down at his papers. he seemed uncertain to talk, so she looked down, not wanting to take up any of his time. if he was forcing himself to talk to her, then she wouldn’t be happy with herself.

“ i’ve . . . uh, been working on this new healing spell. ”

seren immediately started shaking her head. “ please. i think i deserve this injury this time around. but hey, if we’re ever in a battlefield together, you can definitely help me then ”. was that too direct?

based on his confused reaction, it was. alexander looked puzzled, “ t-that’s weird, kailen and romeo both came up to me the other talking about the same thing. they want me to join a team or something. ”

“ yeah, they do. i am the one who asked them, after all. ”

the small oh from alexander caused a laugh out of the girl, the first proper laugh that day. his entire reaction was comical, from the widening of his eyes to the minor blush around his cheeks.

“ though ”, she continued. “ i will not be upset if you say no. well, i will, because i wouldn’t have the most qualified healer on the team. i would have to look for someone else, and lord knows how long that will take. and maybe by then, it would have been too late.”

with a minor pause to wince at the injury when she moved her arms, seren pressed on. “ i know the time and effort that goes into learning all of these spells and the pain of being seriously underestimated afterwards must suck. healers are essential ”, she voiced.

alexander mumbled softly, “ it takes me two nights to learn five spells. ”

“ see? it’s a lot of hard work ”, seren smiled softly and leaned back against her chair. “ we could use a healer like you, alexander. you’re powerful as hell, you’re second on the ranks, do you know how powerful that is? ”. the boy suddenly appeared shy. “ a prodigy like you belongs in a team of other prodigies. ”

“ i’m far from a prodigy. ”

“ oh, please! you’re amazing, alexander. my father talks about you all the time. but believe me, all this hard work is going to be for nothing unless if we don’t get up and do something ”.

their conversation came to a stand still when the librarian, a small and petite woman with a seriously receding hairline came over and shushed them whilst putting some books away. seren smiled apologetically and turned back to alexander.

she sighed, “ i’d love to have you on the team, alex. what good is a fighter without a healer to watch his back? ”.

the boy was conflicted, and she could very much understand why.

leaving the city would mean abandoning all previous beliefs of how the world worked and preparing yourself for what might be a major shock in your life as you see the planet for what it truly is, not for what others say it is. you’d face challenges that will deal with the mind, the soul, something that goes beyond bodily injuries.

and yet, she was able to shrug all of those worries off when she put her goal in mind. she wanted this because it would mean she could have a life when she made her return. a life of her own, not something relied on the decisions made by her superiors. it would mean freedom, freedom of choice. seren was willing to go through hell for that.

but some people weren’t, some people were scared but there was no use casting them back to their origins and letting them be scared for the rest of their lives. overcoming challenges such as these was the only way a human being can get out of the life they lied. and she wanted to encourage the boy.

“ i’d . . . i’d just feel scared of being out there. ”

“ as would i. as would anyone, these walls are the only things we’ve ever known. have you ever just thought about what lies on the other side? ”. the boy didn’t answer that. “ it could be paradise or hell. whichever it is, it won’t last for long with a wicked witch on the loose. and it’s going to take six idiots wearing their school uniform and carrying flamboyant weapons, so be it. ”

that was the first time she had seen alexander smile, and she had to admit, it was a pretty sight. she had manage to carve an opening through the timidity and glimpsed upon a boy who was just like her, but was scared. she wouldn’t mind helping him, though. they weren’t going alone, after all.

“ you’re very good at talking, seren ”, he said.

the girl shrugged, “ that’s odd, i’d say it’s what i’m worst at. i’m not even that great at holding a weapon properly. i’m not that good, believe me. i’m just really stubborn and really stupid. and really want to change the world. ”

he was the missing piece to all of this. she had gone through nights without sleep spent planning entire missions and methods of escape, hours negotiating until her voice was gone, and now her arms were burnt and swollen and she wasn’t going to give up now when alexander was right in front of her. if he said yes, then she would allow herself a sigh of relief.

if he said yes, then the journey would only begin. it wasn’t the end at all, nor even the very beginning, it was all preparation for something bigger, grander, far more important than anything she’s ever have to face in her life. she wanted to leave, she wanted to venture out, she wanted to carry herself with her own purpose rather than one that someone else had handed her.

seren wasn’t going to rest until this mission was complete. it was her purpose, she’d found her purpose and to give up on it now would be the biggest misfortune she could inflict on herself.

“ fine. ”

shooting up from her seat, seren grasped the boy’s hands and held them tightly. her eyes were glossy with tears already, “ really? ”.

“ y-yes, really. it won’t be easy. but i won’t be alone. and if it’s for a good cause -- ”.

“ -- then it’s all that matters. ”

her smile had never been brighter, eyes turned into crescents and cheeks looking rosier by the second. if happiness was embodied into one person, it was framed in seren’s figure at that moment.

alexander gave a smile of his own, though it verged more on the appearance of a smirk. “ so ”, he began. “ when do we leave? ”.

#chapter three #original writing #fantasy #magic #futuristic #dystopian

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pixelpoppers · 6 years ago

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Musou Tactics

After playing Fire Emblem Warriors, I thought I was super into Musou games. After moving on to the (earlier release) Hyrule Warriors, while I do still enjoy Musou it turns out that what I was super into was Fire Emblem Warriors. In particular, its tactical depth.

Cross-over Musou spin-off games (at least the ones I've tried - the above two and Dragon Quest Heroes) take on iconic aspects of their crossover franchise, and some work better than others. I think the key is how shallow or deep the mechanics are integrated with the core gameplay. For example, Dragon Quest Heroes retools the special attacks to be familiar spells like Zap that use MP and also provides monster medals for summoning friendly monsters. This was part of the normal combat gameplay, it clearly received a lot of attention, and it created some interesting possibilities. Meanwhile, other JRPG elements were integrated via town-like camp/airship segments between battles. These replaced the more direct upgrade menus found in other Musou titles, adding a bunch of NPCs in an explorable space and a lot of fiddly complexity in the equipment and crafting systems, more in line with mainline Dragon Quest. But this was a more shallow integration - in JRPGs, towns are important mechanisms for pacing (they might be several hours apart, as you use each as a safe place and base of operations while handling nearby dungeons or whatever) and worldbuilding (NPCs in towns can provide depth and detail as to the state of the world and how it's changing). But in Dragon Quest Heroes it mostly just feels like a menu that's harder to use shoved in between battles - you're ejected to it after every battle, which is every twenty minutes or so, and it generally just contains the same uninteresting NPCs to talk to over and over. (Maybe it gets better later in the game; I didn't finish DQH.)

Fire Emblem is a franchise of turn-based tactical RPGs, and while some of its iconic features were integrated shallowly and to poor effect (the Support conversation system ends up being pretty obnoxious) the more tactical elements like the weapon triangle (swords beat axes beat lances beat swords) and related rock-paper-scissors-like systems (flying units can cross gaps but are vulnerable to archers) turned out to be a shockingly good fit for Musou, to an extent I didn't appreciate until playing Hyrule Warriors.

In most Musou games, you pick your character at the start of the mission and that's who you play as for the whole mission. Any allies are completely controlled by the (not especially competent) AI. You generally need to run around the battlefield taking care of everything major yourself. This is why Tim Rogers called Musou games "Action-Flavored Strategic Job Responsibility Simulators."

This setup also has a homogenizing effect on playable characters. They can have different movesets, different offense/defense trade-offs, and different range/damage trade-offs - but fundamentally they need to all have the same capabilities, because they all need to be able to handle every situation that can occur in every mission. Some characters might be slightly better suited to certain challenges, but you can just pick your favorite and stick with them and be just fine.

Hyrule Warriors changes this formula slightly. You can in many cases deploy two or three playable characters and switch between them freely, and you can also issue simple commands to allied characters to send them where you want them to go. (I'm not sure it's the first to add these features, but it's the earliest Musou game I've seen with them.) But the characters are still basically homogeneous in capability - anyone can handle anything. As a result, the only real reason to switch between characters is down to location. Maybe you sent Link to the west side of the map and Zelda to the east, and as threats arise on either side of the map you switch between - but you could just as well have sent Link east and Zelda west. Or if you have time, just stick with one and run back and forth.

In some senses, this is good - you can still just deploy and use your favorite characters, and you basically can't have the frustrating situation where because you failed to predict the future, an urgent threat pops up on the other end of the map and you simply can't get there in time. But Fire Emblem Warriors is - as far as I know - the first and only Musou game to see and use the true potential of this system - by differentiating the playable characters.

As in its source material, playable characters in Fire Emblem Warriors are mechanically defined by their relationship with multiple rock-paper-scissors systems. The most significant are the weapon type (sword/axe/lance in the weapon triangle, and bow/tome/dragonstone outside of it) and the movement type (infantry, cavalry, flying cavalry), though there are a few other interactions (some characters have anti-dragon weapons and some characters are dragons, for example, and some characters are better healers than others). The result is actual difference in capability meaning not every character can handle every challenge, which creates much more interesting scenarios. You may have to send Pegasus knight Caeda flying across a gap to lower a bridge that sword-wielding Marth can then run across to deal with the archers on the other side blocking Caeda's progress, for example.

As a result, it's now important to survey the map before each mission and put together a balanced party capable of handling the mission's particular threats. No archers? Go nuts with the flying units! Going up against Falchion-wielders? Don't send Tiki or Corrin against them! Lots of Pegasus knights? Send in the archers and axe-wielders! And so on. Your party composition is then tested in the mission itself, which will go much more smoothly if you've put the right character types in the right places.

By adding this tactical depth, Fire Emblem Warriors reveals Musou as what it's actually been all along - a real-time tactical RPG. People complain that combat in Musou is easy, shallow, and uninteresting, but Musou has never been about individual combat encounters. You could put in a richer dueling system, but this would forgo the genre's strengths and what separates it from linear beat-'em-ups. In Musou, the challenge comes from managing the entire battlefield - understanding what's going on, prioritizing threats and opportunities, and managing your resources to handle them. Adding depth to those tactical decisions is how you improve a Musou game.

(Though I didn't try it, Fire Emblem Warriors can push things even further with its optional Tactician mode, where the controlled character can't deal any damage but allies are significantly more effective at following orders. I like having the player-driven action in there too, but the fact that this is even possible as an experiment says a lot about the nature of the game.)

It's been difficult to go back to Hyrule Warriors where there isn't any such thing as a balanced party and it doesn't matter who you use to deal with what. There hasn't been a new Musou crossover since Fire Emblem Warriors, but the next one has been announced - Persona 5 Scramble: The Phantom Strikers. The Persona games have always had fairly tactically-rich combat with an emphasis on exploiting elemental weaknesses - this could easily serve just as well as Fire Emblem Warriors' weapon triangle, if Atlus and Omega Force decide to go that way. I really hope they do.

#gaming #video games #hyrule warriors #fire emblem warriors #persona 5 scramble #musou

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zicygomar · 6 years ago

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I didn’t intend to revisit Xenoblade 2, or for that to coincide with its anniversary and the rare instance Nintendo holds a sale but here's my big ole "rant-ble" on my love-hate relationship with this game that absolutely no one asked for!

I haven't had as much fun with this game as I have right now, playing through it a second time. Knowing the systems and how to optimize for each chapter makes kitting for combat actually interesting. More importly, the combat itself becomes an extremely satisfying rhythm game in executing your rotations into rotations.

It's also like catnip for people who like grinding. Once you know the systems, there is a near endless supply of chill menial tasks to queue up that do have meaningful benefits to gameplay, and the Switch's portable mode is perfect for playing in the background while doing something else.

Which is its double-edged sword. I only watched a playthrough of XC1, but having personal experience with XCX and XC2, I can only conclude that Monolithsoft must have a fetish for systems, continuously pushing the size and scale of their RPGs. Systems upon systems; god it ain't turtles, it's systems all the way down, making it downright inpenetrable to newcomers. Remember when XCX came with an in-game digital manual, that was like, what, 700 pages?? I get that RPGs attract the kinds of people that like research and number crunching, which are inherently difficult to intuit but... well, maybe there isn't a better way after all.

The win conditions for combat are also unusual, by which I mean it's always hit something harder and harder until it dies. The system is built around multiplicatively scaling damage, literally combos, which means your true failure condition isn't really dying to a boss (death is cheap, interesting design choice), it's taking too long to kill something. Fully min-maxed endgame builds can evaporate superbosses with hundreds of millions of health, but newcomers without a firm grasp on the game's tens of individual systems will be punished with battles lasting 10min against a couple bunnies.

If a player coming in blind dies repeatedly to a boss, it's easy for the player to intuit that they're doing something wrong and reaccess their builds and strategies. A non-discrete failure condition like "why did this trash mob battle take so long" only makes them think "wow this game sucks." Satisfaction, the win condition, doesn't come from winning a hard fought battle, it comes from ripping through bosses like a hot knife... through buttahhh!!! We did get a glimpse of a what a more refinded set of systems might look like in the Torna Expansion, but I don't know that there's a way to fix the intuiting issue of scaling damage combat.

And while I may not have insider knowledge or anything, I'd hazard a good number of aesthetic and design choices were a result of being stuck with a skeleton crew for a triple-A title. More than half their staff was redistributed to a little known game called Breath of the Wild, so who knows if that was worth it.

So many QoL issues have been fixed one year later, like better stability and filters, so I guess there's no better time to pick it up? Now the only thing missing is character loadouts. Like can we all agree that this should be standard in games, particularly RPGs where's you're constantly kitting your characters out with different gear? You need a good item filtering system and sets of customizable item, gear, constume loadouts. Please. Then there's that whole waifu aesthetic which is kinda par for the course for gatcha-style games, and the multiple artists was probably to alleviate a dirth of staff, but that means the art style isn't unified and it's all over the place. Funnily enough, every fanart (even official art?) of anyone looks way better than the portrait graphics and 3D models. Must be the action and emoting that gives it more life?

I normally wouldn't pay for DLC just for extra items and trinkets and characters, but basically getting the season pass is paying $30 for the Torna campaign, which is a reasonable price, and then you get the extra stuff for free. Which is what DLC should be. Imagine that. Paying for actual content.

As for the bonus characters, so I got Crossette and she's adorable and I love her. She's a healer who hurts, balls with the best of them, dunks with the rest of them, and she's fireworks-themed and has rocket roller skates. She's great. So I'm having fun now that I know who to actually play the darn game.

And can Monolithsoft just make that darn MMO they so clearly want to make? All the huge open world exploration, the requiring an encyclopedic knowledge of their game, and the attack rotations are all so MMORPG... Nintendo, just let them. You already collab'ed with Cygames for a mobile game. I'd gladly sink my time into a XCX2 MMO on PC instead of a console with one foot in the grave.

#long post #text post #zicy uses a blog to blog #xenoblade chronicles 2

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grandnincompoop · 7 years ago

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Fire Emblem, Design Philosophy, and My Quarrels

Let's harken back to 2001 and the release of Super Smash Brothers Melee. I had an N64 and a Gameboy, so I was familiar with most of the characters. You had Mario and Fox and Samus- I had either played their game or learned about them from the original Super Smash Brothers. I didn't really know you could just go on the internet and look up how to unlock all of the characters when the game came out, and even when I did, we would just look up how to get Mew in the original Pokemon. Nor did I have a Nintendo Power subscription. I had one issue- 2003's Issue 173, probably because it had Star Wars on the cover. So in the daunting quest of trying to discover how to unlock every character, you meet Marth and Roy. As with most of the non-Japanese world, I was left wondering who these two sword guys were. I was 9, so obviously I wasn't in the market for importing untranslated Famicon games. My curiosity wasn't satiated until 2003 with the release of Fire Emblem on the Game Boy Advanced, but I was immediately infatuated.

The Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade is a highly linear game. This was an age long before sprawling open worlds were commonplace in every RPG or shooter. You merely progressed from quest to quest, accumulating an ever growing roaster with each mission. Except for the three missions that include Arenas, there's no way to deviate from the progression of game's 37 chapters. The experience points you can gain are limited, and honestly the game is stronger for that. As much fun as I had grinding Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced, such as the time I trapped a high level Malboro with a cycle of sleep/attack/heal, it diminished from the thrill I experienced with Fire Emblem with its terrifying combat where every critical hit mattered. Simplicity and transparency are core to the experience. Almost like a board game, the game takes a narrow concept- in this case rock-paper-scissors, the adds some elaboration to it to make it flow into a fantasy world of mages and magical creatures. There are stats like strength and defense, and you have health and there's a grid you move on and there's a percentile to hit, all of which are visible to the player. That's about it and the game was better for it.

The core elements could easily be fitted to a pen and paper experience which is what brought me to believe that the game had a Bottom Up development. I was introduced to this term by Mark Rosewater, the head designer of Magic: the Gathering, who describes it, along with its developmental opposite (Top Down), as "Top Down is subject matter based. I want to capture the subject matter. Bottom Up is mechanical based. There's a tool I want to make use of. How can I best make use of that tool." Not to insult the subject matter of Fire Emblem, but it, like its combat system, isn't complicated. They're collections of sometimes loosely related stories of a prince having to fight some evil in a world with dragons, drakes, wizards, EVIL wizards, undead/possessed/ etc etc. You could play them for their narrative, but most people I know and have read play it for the combat and support system (hold on, I'll get back to that in a moment). Looking at interviews with Shouzou Kaga, the original creator of the series, his initial intent was to create a "roleplaying simulation", which he describes as

"A strategy game. But strategy games typically are kind of “hardcore” and dry. (laughs) You only care about winning or losing the battle, and there’s no space for the player to empathize with the characters or story.

I love strategy games like that too, but I also love RPGs. By adding RPG elements, I wanted to create a game where the player could get more emotionally invested in what’s happening. Conversely, one of the drawbacks of RPGs is that there’s always just a single protagonist. Thus, to a certain extent, you can only experience the linear story that the game creator has prepared for you.

I wanted to create a game where the story and game will develop differently for each player depending on the units they use. Thus I added the strategy elements and arrived at this hybrid system."

This idea doesn't seem to fit exactly into either of MaRo's definitions. Concept isn't exactly subject matter, usually a story or pre-established setting, nor is it strictly mechanical based, although it's definitely closer to that. If we looked at a chart from a 2007 article on Gamasutra titled "Game Design Cognition: The Bottom-Up and Top-Down Approaches:

We see that beginning at a concept is part of the Top-Down process. So I guess my research proved I was wrong with my assertion when taking a developmental process from a relatively simple process, making a card with rules, and applying it to a highly complicated one, creating a video game.

The concept is a fascinating one, however, playing with ideas that a modern genre, the grand strategy game, has to tackle with mindboggling amount of complexity. Since the plot is designed to introduce you to the menagerie of personalities they've designed, the writings is. . . charming, but not patricianly nuanced. By no means is the game the pinnacle of writing in interactive narratives. The characters personalities attached to a colorful aesthetic, almost comparable to what Blizzard's Overwatch did in making such a wide spectrum of characters that at least one should be appealing to even the most surly of fans. You'll have a female caviler who is a tom boy or a timed knight who, despite his bulking armor, commonly goes unnoticed. They're archetypes, not fully realized characters like you'll find in more traditionally RPGs with tomes of backstory and goals. Overwatch and Fire Emblem develop their characters in the same manner- mid-combat dialog. Fire Emblem's greatest development (and what makes it stand out among the other strategy role playing games) is the Support System. Sure, it's fluff, but it evokes the feeling that there was a world before you arrived. Fire Emblems Awakenings main character, Chrom, will reminisce the past with his sister, another solider in your army. Except she can permanently die, unlike the Valhalla fantasy that is Overwatch where they we return to their friends to the next bout. Kaga always intended for your unit's looming mortality to cause shifts in how you view the narrative. "I wanted to make a strategy game that was more dramatic, something where you would really be able to feel the pain and struggle of the characters. That’s why characters can’t be revived once they’re killed, to impart a sense of gravity and seriousness. In turn, I think the result is that the more love you have for your characters, the more rewarding the game is." X-Com, a highly popular western SRPG for MS-DOS that came out four years later, attempted this with randomly generated names, nationalities, and looks for its characters. But unless you're willing to really lose yourself in the game and make your own narrative for the characters, their deaths will only have an impact in the loss of your highest level sniper, not the archer who was currently flirting with your barbarian. The game could create emersion through its characters and their deaths, but instead it becomes what I believe is the bane of the series. There's a universe where each battle is like a chess match, where you must maliciously strategize your moves so take the least amount of causalities and each critical hit will either make or ruin your day. But we don’t live in that universe. Instead we're plagued with problems twofold: the prevalence of a dominate strategy and the existence of the reset button.

"A dominant strategy, in the context of game design, is something that emerges due to game imbalance. A clear example of dominant strategy would be "blocking the opponent from getting three in a row", in Tic-Tac-Toe."

Fire Emblem is amazingly easy to get into and play, although maybe not to master. Unless you count the tactic I commonly refer to as the "death blob". It's like creating a delicious candy with a hard exterior and gooey center. Looking at another game for a second, Final Fantasy Tactics, you'll send your warriors and knights forward to pick off the prime targets while your mages and archers mop up. (Of course, there's another strategy where you carefully positioning yourself defensively into one corner, but they have means of combating this by starting you on the low ground to make you fight your way to high ground.) You can afford to have one or two units fall in combat because it'll only be moments before the healer arrives to mend any major injuries. It allows for the type of aggressive playstyle the computer utilizes against you, creating "drama". Fire Emblem is the antithesis. Dave Riley of the Fast Karate for the Gentlemen podcast and occasional game reviewer for Anime News Network says about action, "Most of the game is a creeping, careful crawl that moves the entire army in an ironclad block three spaces at a time. Movements are so fraught, and battles so carefully measured, that when the tide turns in your favor it's hard know what to do with the power." Usually your objective is to rid the map of foes that don't tend to move until you've moved past a certain threshold within their vacinity. As such, you'll surround your weaker characters, the mages, archers, the ones you're just now getting to leveling up, with those that have heavier armor or are higher in level. Then you move slowly across the map. And I mean agonizingly slow. Unless there is some sort of pressure on you, like a timed mission or some character you can interact with before the enemy overtakes them, it's three squares at the time for you. They've tried to counter this in some ways by having enemy units spawn behind you if you're taking too long, but that just leads to the second problem. Allowing the units to pair up to increase stats in Awakening was a good solution, but it showed to be highly overpowered when combined with the stats gained from the support system.

The second problem has coexisted with the game since inception. Instead of having gameplay be a carefully planned chess match (similar to the newly released Into the Breach which rewards sticking with failed "timelines" and even has a continent function to undo one turn per mission), we play the game like a speedrunner, resetting innumerous times in leu of missed attacks and unfortunate critical hits until we have such an intense knowledge of the map that we could perform it to lull us to bed. By adding Casual Mode in later games they've done some work to rectify this, and while the game might be more fun to play without having to turn off the console for the nth time, we loses Kaga's initial intent. In a joint interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi, he admits to Kaga that "when I die, I always reset". Even the creator of Final Fantasy has become victim to this pitfall! Kaga notes that "it’s not a big problem if some of your characters die in Fire Emblem; I want each player to create their own unique story. Don’t get caught up trying to get a “perfect ending.” Have fun!" But we just can’t because we have to see how the almost insignificant side dialog between the dark mage and pegasus knight will turn out. Will they become friends? We'll never know if we don't reset because an unexpected arrow saw an end to the purpled haired rider.

The problem has exasperated even further with adding generations to the games. Awakening saw those cute support conversations to their apex by having them result in children, but not just any children- super soldiers of your own siring. Instead of being something cute you do on the side, a treat if you will, they added mechanics to the system. Depending on the abilities known by the parents and the hidden stat progressions (a thorn in the side of the wonderful transparency of the game), the child might be an unkillable machine of death that gets to move twice after reaping another soul all while regaining any lost health. Fire Emblem has always had Uber characters. There's always the gallant knight, advisor to the lordling at the beginning of your adventure! (who is there solely to suck all the experience that should be going to anyone else) Then there's the sweet young lad who starts as the weakest possible unit, needing to be babied for dozens of hours until they've shown their true colors as the harbinger of all lives, capable of taking down armies alone. But the child rearing aspect of the later games really irks me. It makes the game feel like it's become an anime character breeding simulator, where instead of letting love naturally develop on the battlefield as it has, you have to comb through wikias to see what the best combination for a certain child is. For a game that has forgone the grinding experience, it surely got lost in not remembering what made it so great to begin with in its transparency.

There are aspects of Fire Emblem that reflect actual war. Every character is such: an individual with hopes, dreams, and interests. Taking a little time to get to know them leaves you with a sense of loss when they're lost in a pillar of flame from some nameless enemy mage. These games could be so much more with a little more finesse. The series has gone on for decades now, and this has caused the games to roll up increasing more systems until it has reached the point now that it is hard to see the game for what it once was. The concessions you have to make are never "there's no way I can do this without sacrificing someone for the noble cause" like the newly released Battletech RPG throws at you; the concessions are "time to waste a little more time and reset the game again." I believe the game I want to make can come- they just have to do a little more resetting.

#short essay #fire emblem #writing practice

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melyzard · 7 years ago

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11 questions again

Both @crazy-fruit and @sleepykalena tagged me back, so okay, I will answer yours too!

@crazy-fruit‘s questions:

1. Is there a place you seek when you’re upset?

Not really, mostly I just find somewhere quiet. Alternately, I pick a fight with whoever made me upset, if I think they deserve it and it won’t, you know, get one of us court martialed or something.

2. If you had to live in a different country than the one you’re currently living in, which one would you choose and why?

Canada. It looks really beautiful, and honestly, I’d like to see what all the fuss is about.

3. Favourite place in nature?

On the sea. Alternately, just above the highest cloud deck, although I’ve never been there without being thoroughly encased in technology, so not sure it counts.

Is there a movie which deserves a lot more attention than it got?

Kubo and the Two-strings, that movie was beautiful and clever and touching and I do not understand why more people didn’t fall all over themselves to see it?

Your preferred way of transport?

The F/A-18 F Super Hornet

A thing you would like to learn?

Magic.

Is there a book you re-read every once in a while?

The Last Unicorn, and also the Kate Daniels series, because it is amazing.

If you could be an animal which one would you pick and why?

Dog, but one in a good home with lots of loving people.

A place you’d like to see?

Most of Europe. I’ve spent most of my time in North America, the Pacific, and the Middle East, with forays to China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, etc. I’ve only ever been to France, otherwise never touched the European countries.

Is there a piece of art that has stuck with you?

Starry Night. A cop out, probably, but I always really like that one.

Your favourite myth?

Oh man, so many! I love mythology - I love what it says about cultures, and the people who perpetuate it. Favorite, though, might just be Hua Mulan, one of the most famous women to ever crossdress her way to several major military victories.

@sleepykalena‘s questions:

Personality-wise, are you more of a cat or a dog?

Dog. Absolutely. I’ll eat almost anything. I love chasing bubbles. Scratch behind my ears, oh yes, that is the spot. I have just met you, and I love you. This is my friend, mess with them and I will literally bite you. Why don’t cats like me? No, really, why don’t cats like me?

Coffee or tea? Iced or hot?

Tea, hot or cold, I don’t care, just give me tea. Coffee smells wonderful and tastes like a diabetic devil’s arsehole.

Is your dream career any different from when you were 5 years old?

I have no idea. Maybe? I can remember wanting to be a dragon rider at some point. I think I also wanted to be a werewolf?

What time range do you feel most productive?

I am a victim of the mad whim of fate and capricious mood. There is no “good” time, there isn’t even really a “bad” time. Conceivably, there is no time at all, and this question simply sends us spiraling down the existential hole until someone resets the Matrix.

Wear socks to bed, or go barefoot?

Ashore, no socks, even when I’m not asleep. At sea? Two pairs, because it is frickin’ cold on a carrier, man.

You get thrown into an RPG. What’s your primary weapon of choice?

Ah crap, that’s a tough one. M-76 Revenant, with Mist Quickenings ala FF12 as my Ultimate Move.

If you were a MOBA character, what class would you most likely be, and why?

Carry or Mage - basically whichever one lets me do the most damage. Look, I appreciate healers and tanks and junglers, but how do we win this encounter? We kill the bad guy. How do we kill the bad guy? Ideally, with extreme prejudice.

Are there any foods that you think are an actual, legit aphrodisiac? If yes, which food and why?

Juicy, perfectly seasoned (not too salty, not too blad) steak cooked just right, so that it melts in your mouth. But not too much, or else you feel like you ate a rock and are maybe going to shit a brick later (significantly less sexy, then).

Favorite liquor/cocktail/alcohol?

Creme de cacao, mixed with whipped cream vodka and coconut water like Bai Coconut or something. With maybe a touch of actual cream poured in. Alternatively, white russian. (What? I like sweet drinks)

What is the best kind of white noise to work with?

I like environmental noise, like ocean sounds or desert sounds or even city noises when I’m writing. When I’m working as in “at work,” this is what I hear, and love. (That’s landing and takeoff, even though the picture is just of aircraft sitting still).

You’re laying in bed and can’t seem to fall asleep. What do you do next?

At home: Trawl tumblr, or AO3. Write fic, sometimes. Pace around in the dark and try not to trip on my dogs, who are loyal and wonderful and follow me around without understanding why I won’t just lie down and sleep. Stare at the ceiling and think too much. Drink tea. Get back on the internet for 5 minutes, realize my eyes are too tired for that shit, go back to the kitchen for more tea. Trip over one of my dogs. Spend 10 minutes apologizing to him. Go back to bed. Stare at the ceiling. Count my spouse’s breaths.

At sea: get dressed and go back to the ready room. Someone’s probably up watching movies.

#tag game #crazy-fruit #sleepykalena #more questions

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major-artery · 7 years ago

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*cracks knuckles* *squirms at sound* *why did I do that* VIDEO GAME ASKS. Leggo: 1, 6, 8, 14, 26, 27, 38, 41, 49, 68, 69, 70. MWAHAHAHA.

AHHH. Okay for real I hate it when people pop and lock their joints around me. ;_; I get so squibbly. From the “Fun Video Game Asks”!

—• • •—

1. First game youplayed obsessively?• SUPER PUZZLE FIGHTER II TURBO. Holy SHIT I was obsessed with this game. Fun fact: I still am. I’ve purchased every iteration of the game I could find. I clocked so many hours into it. I get insanely competitive and ruthless when I play.

6. Ever buy strategy guides? • I mean, technically no? I’ve never purchased a strategy guide for myself. But they’ve been purchased for me. Does that count? I also came into a whole bunch through collecting games.

8. Rarest/Most expensive game in your collection?• This I need to think seriously about. Technically our Pump It Up cabinet is he most expensive game in our collection. It’s a full dance cabinet worth over $1k. Otherwise, my complete collection of Lunar 2 is probably the most expensive game I own.

14. Favorite game music? • RPG game music makes me ROCK HARD. But Final Fantasy VIII will always be my most favorite game soundtrack. Ever.

26. Ever form any gaming rivalries?• Not really. Maybe when I was competing in tournaments actively - but nothing really I would consider a full rivalry.

27. Game that makes you rage? • The Binding of Isaac. UGHHH my BLOOD boils. I’m somewhat decent at the game - no where near the level that my husband plays at. It’s a game I go back and play often, and usually die by my own mistake and RGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAH. *Controller goes soaring across the livingroom.*

38. A game you’re ashamed to admit that you like?• I can’t think of a single game that makes me ashamed that I play and/or own it—WAIT. I TAKE IT BACK. DJ Hero. I’m a fucking rockstar at that game. BUT IT’S SUCH GARBAGE. Also, the Sims. I really like playing the original Sims with ALL OF MY MODS AAAAHHH.

41. A genre that you just can’t get into?• As much as I love them, have purchased them, and have done my best to enjoy them, I cannot get into otome games. I much rather read through everyone’s stories / paths rather than play it myself.

49. In games where you can pick your class, do you always tend to go forthe same type of character?• Forever the squishy. Forever the healer / cleric. Always.

68. Ever save up a ton of tickets in an arcade to get something cool?• I haven’t really played many ticket redemption games until I started dating my husband. We’ve gotten video games from D&B with our tickets. (I think after our last purchase of The Last Guardian, we’re at about 36k tickets right now.)

69. In your opinion, best game ever made? • As much as I love my bae FFVIII which I pretend is flawless in every fashion, and as much as I adore my puzzle games and rhythm games like PIU and Jubeat… Tetris. Tetris is the best game that has ever been made. It’s addicting as shit. It’s competitive as shit. The soundtrack is classic. It’s just… amazing. Tetris IS THE SHIT.

70. Very first game you ever beat? • All on my own - Super Mario Bros. on the NES. And then I didn’t beat another game until I got Donkey Kong on the SNES. (My dad helped me complete Faxanadu though. Does that count???)

—• • •—

THANK YOU DOODLE I LOVE YOU.

#ask meme #video game asks #I really love these #I can talk for hours #I actually just itemized my entire video game collection #i have a LOT of physical copies of games #and a fuck ton of duplicates #oh goooood #atarostarling #jessi speaks!

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arcticferedir · 7 years ago

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Final Fantasy I

Final Fantasy, as a series, has always had a bit of a...special place in my heart. It’s my first video game memory, actually. My cousin was playing the first final fantasy on NES, and I was fascinated by what was going on on the television. Not that I could really...read anything properly, or understand what was really going on. I was only three at the time. But he was fighting the final boss, and I watched with rapt attention. I think it was realizing it wasn’t just like cartoons, but my cousin was making things on tv do what he wanted them to do and that fascinated my little kid mind.

I never owned the original NES version. I had an uncle that did, though never really played his copy much for a few reasons. Eventually I did come to own two of the ‘remakes’ for it. The PSX version, Final Fantasy Origins, which had 1 and 2 on one disc. The other was the GBA version, Final Fantasy 1 & 2: Dawn of Souls. That one had some extra things to it, but that’ll get discussed later. Eventually I also emulated(I know, shame on me) the NES version to play through what it was like. And I fiddled with the PSP version as well, also through emulation.

So, let’s get into the meat of the game, and my opinions on it, shall we? Though most of this will be from memory, so...bear with me.

Story: The story is simple. The world is starting to ‘fail’, the winds dying, the sea churning madly, the earth decaying. A prophecy tells of 4 young heroes that will come. Your four characters, each holding an orb, appear in the castle town of Corneria/Cornelia(depending on the translation). They visit the king, who tells them the princess Sarah has been kidnapped by former knight of the kingdom Garland and taken to the Chaos Shrine to the north. After you rescue her, you return to Corneria, where the king congratulates you and the princess gives you a lute handed down through the kingdom. You then travel north to the now fixed bridge, to restore order to the world, as well as the world’s crystals(being the driving force behind the main elements of the world: Earth, Fire, Water, and Wind), and hopefully save it.

It’s a simple story, you progress from town to town, entering dungeons, fighting monsters and bosses, learn more and more about bits of the world until you reach the final stage...but beyond that? It kind of runs like a possible D&D campaign. Your characters don’t really interact with each other or NPCs, so any personality is given by you, the player. But the general consensus is that your characters are just relatively good people, and are just out to save everyone.

For the first game in the series, it’s not the most ‘complex’ story, or really ‘nuanced’(though the final bits can throw you for a loop with the curve ball). But, personally, I feel it’s still solid in it’s own right.

Gameplay: The first bit of gameplay you get is choosing your four characters. They can be any of six ‘classes’, each that get an upgrade to a stronger class later: Warrior: Your strongest and toughest class. High HP, Defense, and Strength. Also the most equipment options and get most of the best/strongest equipment. So they can be somewhat...expensive to be the best they can be. They upgrade into the Knight, which gets up to level 3 white magic. Thief: Your ‘budget’ warrior. Generally faster, and with a better chance of escaping from a fight if you feel running is better than fighting and losing. They don’t get as much equipment as a warrior, but they are still solid in their own right. They upgrade into the Ninja, which gets up to level 4 black magic. Monk: Your ‘naked’ warrior. Odd for most people considering equipping weapons and armor could sometimes make it weaker than leaving it weaponless or armorless. High hp and defense and strength to make up for it. Upgrades the Black Belt. It doesn’t gain much beyond more equipment options like the other class upgrades, and the higher stats, but still holds it’s own(and usually ‘naked’ doing it) Red Mage: Your ‘magic’ warrior. Jack of all trades, master of none, while wearing a cape and fancy hat. Not as strong as your physical classes, but not as weak as the other mages. Not as magically superior as the other mages, but more so than the upgraded physicals that learn a touch of magic. They get both black and white magic, but not all. And with only three magic slots per spell level, you have to carefully pick and choose which spells they get. They upgrade to the Red Wizard, which gets even more black and white spells to choose from, but still not all. Black Mage: Your battle mage. This is the mage you want if you want wanton destruction on your side. They use Black Magic, mostly for elemental damage, instant death, and the almighty Haste spell which buffs up the damage your physical attacks can dish out. Their most famous spell, Flare(originally called Nuke), is raw non-elemental damage. They get most black magic spells, but once they upgrade to Black Wizard, they have the ability to learn and cast all black magic. However, black mages tend to be the frailest and weakest out of all the classes, so they won’t be doing much damage physically and can’t take a hit well. White Mage: Your healer. This is the mage you want if you want to survive without buying potions or running back to towns to heal status ailments or death/KO or heal up every time you take a beating. They use White magic, mostly for healing, raising defense to physical or elemental damage, or damaging the undead with their Dia spells. Their only pure damage spell(for anything that isn’t undead, but still hurts the undead) is Holy. They get most white magic spells, but once they upgrade to White Wizard, they have the ability to learn and cast all white magic. However, while a little stronger physically and defensively than the black mage, it’s not by much. So no matter how cool it is they weild giant fuck-off hammers into battle, they will pale in comparison to your physical classes.

Once you pick your classes(be they all different or all the same) and name them, you’re off into the world of final fantasy to explore and learn and figure out what a random battle is.

As you wander in areas, you can get into battle if there are monsters around. Basically the world map and dungeons, mostly. Your characters on the right, enemies on the left. You select what everyone is going to do that turn in the fight, then watch them go with the highest speed going first, and then going down the speed order. Fight, run, use an item, cast magic if able. The usual RPG deal.

I won’t go into every nuance of difference between the original and the remakes in terms of main gameplay. But the original did have more limited inventory and your item command was ‘drink’, meaning you couldn’t use a potion on someone else in battle. Those got abandoned in the remakes...maybe on the limited inventory but even then it was still greatly expanded from the original.

Remake Additions: While not going into all the changes, there were some heavy additions. Namely in the form of 4 optional bonus dungeons, collectively called the Soul of Chaos. Each one held an elemental theme, tied to the crystals, and filled with tougher enemies, stronger equipment, and bonus bosses that were from other games(3, 4, 5, and 6) that weren’t originally in the first game. They add a somewhat nice challenge, but are completely optional. Of course, if you can run through them, it generally means the final boss will be a relative breeze for you, especially if you beat the final one.

Final Opinion: Personally, I feel that the first final fantasy...it shows it’s age. In a time where story is a big driving point of a lot of games, ESPECIALLY Role-Playing games, it shows in any of it’s iterations that it’s an old game. But I feel that it’s a ‘classic’. Perhaps it’s nostalgia, perhaps it’s because it’s so close to my heart, my identity as to who I am and why I like video games and RPGs so much, it’s hard for me to dislike this game, and I do suggest it to anyone with patience and a willingness to try an RPG, especially the RPG that started the entire series that has gained so much popularity in the world.

I do suggest, however, maybe picking up a newer/remake version. If not for the bonus dungeons, at least because it makes a few things easier(limited inventory and items in battle). Or, if you’re like me, because the NES version runs a touch slow on battle text and leveling up is paaaaaaaaaainfully slow thanks to it.

#blah blah blah #final fantasy #final fantasy 1 #final fantasy I #ff #ff1 #ffi

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megatownac · 5 years ago

Text

I have 20 minutes before my train arrives. Better write, even if I'm out of ideas (which I am).

I heard about the remake of Trials of Mana, or, as I always used to call it, Seiken Densetsu 3, or maybe Secret of Mana 2 if I was feelin' feisty. I don't remember what I usually called it. I didn't "call it" very often, if I'm being honest.

Back a while ago, I wrote a very long post onq my main blog about #2 in the series, because I'd been playing it on both my PS4 and on my phone. Let me dig it up. It won't take any time for you, but it will for me.

Here it is.

I haven't ever finished #3, honestly! I came close, once, a long time ago. My party was the wizard girl, the thief, and the sprite. I don't remember their names. Angela might have been the girl? Hawk the thief? I feel sad that they were so unmemorable. The sprite and other characters escape me completely.

I remember thinking, as I played, that Angela was pretty sexy. I must have been at most twenty, since characters at that low of a resolution, in terms of pixels, haven't been sexy to me since then, really. Some exceptions, of course. Of course! "Every generalization is false," after all, "including this one."

But it was an okay party. I got really far. I forget why I quit, but I tried it again as the knight as the main dude. Forget the rest of the party. Got less far with him. Found him boring.

I'll play the remake, of course. I'll play the Switch version of the SNES game that's out now! I gotta. I gotta actually finish that game for real. That game and FF5 are the only retro RPGs I played but didn't finish, and I am sad about both. Regret? I guess. Bit of a harsh word, though.

Fuck. Asshole sat next to me eating his lunch. Stinks. Gonna get up and walk a bit while I continue typing. Hate that.

Anyway, it was a fun game, but I just didn't get as into it as SoM. There's a few reasons, but primarily it's because of how limited you are in any given playthrough of the game. By that, I mean that you have to pick only three dudes out of six, and they have to pick one of four classes. You wanna see em all? Play the game eight times. I kinda hated that. I wanted to play it once.

What I'm probably going to do is three playthroughs, and certainly not six, one for each character as the main one. Did I explain that yet? Did you already know it?

The game starts by making you pick one of the six possible dudes to be your main dude. Depending on who you pick, you'll get one of three endings. However, you also get two support dudes. Pick whomever. It doesn't matter in the fucking slightest, no matter what anyone says. Just pick ones who will make the game easier for you. Angela is a must, since her attack magic is so good. And a healer. Kevin, the monk, or whatever his name is, is garbage and should never ever be used. Even on a bet. Even if you're paid to do it. Don't. Die first.

Then off you go on your chosen dude's quest. That's the game. The plot? I forget it. I think you eventually have to fight eight themed bosses, one for each element, but you have some freedom about the order. Also, your chosen dude is the wielder of the Mana Sword, the titular Seiken ("Holy Sword"), which is weird since most of them can't use swords.

The other thing I remember is that levelling up forced you to pick stats to boost, which sucks, and that you had to grind like mad for the best gear. The best gear was also locked behind the final classes. You could class change twice, and each time you had to pick light or dark. So you had four final classes, for light-light, light-dark, dark-light, and dark-dark. The classes get some pretty heady descriptions, talking about how the dark-dark class means you've sold your soul and become a demon and stuff like that (the Valkyrie, Riesz, literally can do that), but there's no actual bearing on the plot or how your character acts. At all. You just say "I want this class" and they change color a bit and then they're that class. Do that twice to get your last class, with the last abilities, and the ability to equip unique items. Six characters meant twenty-four classes meant twenty-four sets of gear, though thankfully the game wouldn't even give you gear your chosen three couldn't use.

But it felt silly to me. Just let me level up my dudes and get all their abilities, man. Don't make me feel like I fucked myself by picking Kevin as a support dude and going dark-light with his class. If I do that, and I hate it, I can't undo it! I'm stuck! Gotta finish the game like that! I hate it.

Still, for $40, I will absolutely buy it and play it, even if I hate it.

I started playing Assassin's Creed Odyssey a few weeks ago. It's good. I want to keep playing it for now. I will buy the Mana collection later. I will not be playing it right away.

#non ac #text post

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xblackrequiemx · 7 years ago

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For Tales of Meme -- Xillia for you, Zestiria for me. :P

Yay thank you!!! In my opinion, Xillia needs more love.

best girl?

I love Elize! Especially in the first game, I was so protective over her. She’s a total sweetheart who deserved better, and I LOVE her character design. She’s the type of character I would play in an RPG, with a combination of healing and dark magic. She’s great. :D Plus I get a kick out of Teepo, although most people seem to be annoyed by him. XD

best boy?

JUDE!

any ship/s?

Ludger/Jude. :D I always have them linked in Xillia 2 and Jude’s affinity is usually maxed out before I’m a third of the way through the game. XD DON’T TOUCH MY SOFT BOY!!!

favorite part of the game?

There are so many parts of Xillia 2 that I loved! Some highlights are the first time you meet Chronos, any time Julius shows up and there are sibling feels, THE FIGHT WITH VICTOR, and chapter fifteen where you meet Julius before going to the Land of Canaan. (I get chills.) I just loved the entire game and I’m always excited to replay it because the story hit me so hard. Best story of any Tales game, in my opinion.

opinion on the mascot character (if applicable)?

Rollo is a good cat. Julius is a good cat mom. I would be more enthusiastic if there were a puppy dispatch instead of a kitty dispatch. XD

opinion on villain/s? (in the least spoilery way)

MAN ALL THE VILLAINS ARE GREAT. Especially in the first game, the villains all have understandable motives and none of them feel “bad.” I’m a sucker for stories where there are moral shades of gray, and it’s really easy to sympathize with the villains in Xillia. (Gaius is fantastic.) In Xillia 2, I especially love Chronos. (Even after getting my ass kicked on him on hard mode and hearing Joel McDonald’s voice shouting “TETRA SPELL!!!” in my nightmares. Good times.)

Fuck Bisley, though. XD

main team of 4, and who did you play as mostly?

My A team is Ludger, Jude, Elize, and Alvin. When I’m playing with others, I always play as Jude since he’s my favorite. :D I like characters that prioritize speed, and he’s a great healer, especially when linked with Elize. If I didn’t love Jude so much, though, I’d probably love playing as Ludger or Elize.

favorite town/city/area?

I love Fenmont because of the night clime! Everything looks like starlight, and it’s so beautiful. :D I was excited to go back to Fenmont at the end of the first game. I also like the Sillea Tundra, Tulea Tundra, and Kijara Seafalls.

favorite or most used arte?

My most used arte is probably Jude’s healing circle, but I also really like Cerberus Strike, Aqua Sweep, Rising Falcon and Dragon Shot. When I’m playing as Ludger, I have all of my artes set up to chain linked artes with Jude. It gets pretty crazy. XD Aside from Jude, I freaking love Ludger’s Rolling Thunder arte. The guns aren’t that powerful, but damn does he have style.

favorite music track?

“Hymn of Proof.” I play the version with Ludger’s lyrics to fall asleep at night. It’s so beautiful and emotional. *cries imagining Julius singing it*

favorite monster?

ANYTHING BUT THE GENTLEGNOMES I FUCKING HATE THEM. The dragons and wolves are cool though.

#thank you! i'm always down to talk about tales of xillia! <3 #tales of xillia #tales of xillia 2 #tales of #tales #neodiji #asks #about me

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myselfinserts · 6 years ago

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“Ssh. Stop fussing. I’m just braiding your hair.”

One, two, three. One, two, three. One bundle over the other. Longer became shorter.

As reluctant as he was.

“Come on, just stay still!”

“Mary, come on, I’m working!”

“There! Are you done?”

“Ssh. Stop fussing. I’m just braiding your hair. It was getting into the oil.”

“Yeah,” Regi sighed. “That’s bound to happen when you work in the support tech side of things. Everything gets into everything and you get messy. That’s just how it it.”

Marianne watched them bicker from her spot in the lab. Tanith was in class with Amaryllis right now and the three of them were supposed to go shopping for her birthday. It was the one time they were all home in the past month without having to tend to business. Such as Reginald’s upgrading of equipment. Or Mary’s latest charity D&D festival. Or Marianne’s ‘not really a raid’ assignments from the commissioner for the past year and a half.

God she hated that last one.

But it didn’t matter today. Because they were all home. They could all focus on Tanith.

At least, that was before Proto Postman’s Stun Stamp Gun started malfunctioning and Mr. Clifton asked Regi to personally take care of it.

Things just weren’t going right.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Regi said, his shoulders drooping. “But this is gonna be my biggest paid job to date, and it’ll look good for the team if we help Mr. Clifton. Plus, we need the cash. Fees on the training grounds went up and Tanith needs the space to practice until the entrance exams.”

Mary pouted, crossing her arms. “We probably wouldn’t need it if you cut out the IRN Bru and crisps. How much do those rack up a week?”

Regi’s voice when soft as he curled up on himself. “I need those snacks. They help me think.”

“They raise your blood pressure and cholesterol is what they do.”

“Enough,” Marianne sighed. “Look, how about a compromise. Regi can ask Amaryllis to hold Tanith for a little longer. Maybe have them teach her how to cleanse a place of negative energy, like the old Welwick house down by the private beaches. In an hour, giving Regi plenty of time to finish the gun, we’ll all head out and get the gift and pick up the cake and dinner. And tomorrow, we’ll also budget our books so that Regi can have his snacks and we don’t have to worry about paying the bills. Sound good?”

Mary and Regi looked at each other, smiling.

“Sure,” they agreed in unison. “That’ll work.”

Marianne smiled.

“Good. Now Mary, come help me prep the rest of the setup. We have a lot to do before Tanith gets home.”

Mary nodded and gave Regi a quick peck on the lips before scurrying upstairs. Marianne followed, pausing only for a moment to look back at her brother, who had returned his focus to the gun.

She almost could have sworn he heard him sniffle.

“Mary, come on! That’s enough!”

“Ssh. Stop fussing. I’m just braiding your hair.”

Marianne rolled her eyes as she tried not to complain about it. Mary did her best to try and put her hair back into its usual loop braids, but the constant tugging on her scalp was too much. She swatted her friend’s hands away, letting her hair fall back down. Lady L continued her barraged of paper balls at them.

“When she says no, it mean no,” L slurred. “She looks better with her hair down anyway.”

Mary glared at her. “Will you stop acting like a child?”

“Only when you stop acting like a real jerk.”

“Enough,” the police chief sighed. “We’re glad you two are okay. It probably would have ended a lot worse had you not been there.”

“It’s alright,” Marianne sighed. “I’m just glad it’s over.”

“Me too,” L groaned.

The chief looked at Marianne. “She okay?”

“She just got a dose of pain meds. She’ll be loopy like that for a while-”

L hit her with another paper ball. “You’re loopy!”

“Like I said, she’ll be fine. We both will.” Marianne smiled. “I should be let out in a couple of weeks. Just as soon as my quirk becomes usable again. Right now I can’t really use it, and I have major stitches, but other that that I’m good.

Mary smiled, ignoring the balls hitting her head. “Well, that’s good to hear. Because there’s something I wanted to ask you.”

L stopped the barrage. “No questions. Only glory.”

“Ignore her,” Marianne sighed. “Go on.”

The chief smiled. “Skald here wants to offer you a job. A position with the Elemental Geodes.”

The room went dead silent. Marianne couldn’t believe this. She’d been working towards this her whole life. Joining the Geodes meant tenure. It meant stability for your family. It meant unlimited travel and helping people. It was a Hero’s dream. A team of the best from across the world joining together against evil.

And she’d made it?

“You’re joking.”

“Nope,” Mary giggled. “We’re doing some shuffling right now and we all get one person to offer a position. You’ll get an Elemental title and moved into HQ, and everything will be taken care of for you. You’ll be free to do almost any hero assignment.”

L raised an eyebrow. “Almost any assignement?”

The chief nodded. “Each member of the Geodes gets a title and an assigned sector.”

“I talked with Cindra before coming,” Mary explained. “So this offer is 100% legit. I’d like you to come join us under the title of Salt, and you’d be given one of the top spots in our organization heading a department. With that, you’d end up being part of the commitee that assigns heroes to jobs, collects intel, making major decisions-”

“Which department?” Marianne asked excitedly.

“You’d be heading up our Special Operatives Raid Division.”

Marianne felt her throat get tight. She could feel a tingling deep in her bones. The breath against her ear. The rocky wall behind her. The sight of everyone convulsing and crying in pain.

The knives.

The blood.

The screams.

“Get out,” she muttered.

Mary and the chief looked at her, completely baffled. Mary gently took Marianne’s hand. “Mari-”

Marianne smacked it away, her voice raising. “I said GET OUT!”

Mary’s eyes began to well with tears. Marianne didn’t care. She could feel the pain. The pain wouldn’t let go. The ridicule of being ‘just a healer’. The inadequacy. The near death every time she was paired up with other heroes. She saw the pain everywhere. She saw it all over L’s masked face. All over Tanith’s whenever she’d caught them fighting. All over Regi’s face whenever Mary made a little comment about him.

Pain.

Nothing but pain.

Make it stop.

“Marianne, what’s wrong? Why are you-”

“You wanna know what’s wrong?!” Marianne got up and started pacing the room. Her breathing was getting shallow. She was dizzy. She didn’t care. She’d opened her stitches again. She didn’t care.

She was done.

“Here I am after nearly dying and you’re asking me to permanently put myself in that position again! I told you. I told all of you, ‘no more raids’! I’m not going to be some two bit RPG Healer to round out your teams anymore! In all my years as a hero, none of you treated me with any amount of respect! ‘You’re nothing but a rinky-dinky nurse with a flash splash power’. ‘You aren’t a real hero!’ ‘Leave this one to the real heroes!’ I’M SICK OF IT!” She kicked over one of the chairs. “All I’ve wanted to do since I came back to Elspie was see my baby brother! To hug him and tell him I love him and apologize for hurting him and not being there when he needed me most! And instead I had to go play bait for some villains and former heroes in a hideout raid!”

L snickered. “Go off, girl!” She threw a ball at the police chief’s head. “Hey. Hey, hey. Did you know Sparky Sparky bitch man was heading the operation on the villains side?”

Marianne froze, slowly turning her head to look at the chief, who crossed her arms as she leaned against the wall. “Did you know Zap would be there? That he had a grudge against me?”

The chief didn’t look her in the eye. “We had suspicions but weren’t able to confirm anything until you two brought him back in a body bag.”

Everything snapped shut. Marianne’s voice went cold.

“Get out of here. Both of you. I don’t ever want to see you two again. You can tell Cindra thank you for the offer, but I wouldn’t touch another raid party unless you tied me down and strung me up like a pig over a spitfire. As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have any friends or allies there. And I certainly don’t have any in front of me right now.”

“Marianne, I am your friend!” Mary insisted. “We’ve been friends for years! I’ve always been there for you!”

“Then call me once I’ve been permanently blacklisted by the Geodes. Then we’ll talk over lunch and start over. Otherwise, I want nothing to do with you right now. Get out of my room!”

Mary’s eyes went wide as she got up and ran out of the room, crying heavily.

“Marianne,” the chief said calmly. “If you turn this down, you’ll be blacklisted in every other major city across the isles. Turning down the Geodes isn’t a good idea. You’re not All Might. Hell, you’re not even Renegade. You’re not strong enough to manage a hero career on your own.”

Marianne didn’t waver. “Then I guess I’ll have to go and find a hospital to work at instead. I hear they’re always looking for doctors, and last I checked, I am a certified field doctor. Shouldn’t be too hard for me to breeze through medical school again.”

“Mither-”

“Get. Out.”

The chief shook her head and left without another word.

L looked at her, the medication finally starting to make her sleepy. “Hey, Marianne?”

Marianne looked at her, drying her tears away. “Yes, L?”

“You got at least one person in your corner.” L held up her fists. “I’ll give anyone who gives you trouble a mean right hook. So don’t say you don’t have an ally. That’s what I’m here for.”

“That so?” Marianne smiled. “Thanks...” She knew L probably didn’t mean it. She was higher than a kite being flown by the Banks family in Mary Poppins. But fuck it. She didn’t care. She was glad L was there.

For once, seeing her face reflected back at her was a comfort.

#myselfinserts #mybnhaocs #friends oc's #the au of class #dammit #I went overboard again #oh well #Anonymous

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