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grailfinders · 3 years ago

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Fate and Phantasms #155

Today on Fate and Phantasms we're going back to the Servant Universe to preserve the Saber Empire, thanks to Mysterious Heroine X Alter! This mysterious heroine is a Psi Warrior Fighter for her legally-not-a-lightsaber skills and some legally-not-the-force, and a Bladesinger Wizard for more saber skills and legally-not-the-force lightning.

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

Next up: Once again, we came so close to making a build at an appropriate time. Oh well, he’s not one for the spotlight anyway.

Race and Background

You might come from another dimension, but you're still Human (er, servant), giving you +1 Dexterity, +1 Constitution, Acrobatics proficiency to help with the impractical swordfighting style you specialize in, and the Mage Slayer feat to ruin the original MHX's day. If a creature within 5 feet of you casts a spell, you can use your reaction to attack them. Your damage also causes concentration checks at a disadvantage, and you get advantage on saves against spells cast within 5 feet of you. MHX is pretty far from a mage, but this will interrupt her saber-tracking efforts.

That being said, you're still about as Far a Traveler as you can get, giving you proficiency with Insight and Perception.

Ability Scores

You are renowned for your ability to knock back sweets, and it's really hard to poison someone who literally has a reactor for a stomach, so we're gonna make your Constitution number one here. After that is going to be Intelligence, you did come from a science fiction world after all, I'm sure you know more than the average bear. Following that up is Dexterity, your armor is at most light, and no matter what form your sword takes it's still a light saber. Your Charisma isn't too bad, you've gotta be able to talk people into buying you mochi after all. Staying under that kotatsu all the time means your Strength isn't great, but we're dumping Wisdom. You want more saber faces in the world, if anything an 8's too much.

Class Levels

1. Fighter 1: First level fighters get proficiency in every weapon, and considering your sword can turn into a chainsaw I'd say that'll come in handy. You also get proficiency with Strength and Constitution saves, as well as two fighter skills. Intimidation matches your dark knight schtick, and Survival will help you cook up some sweets when you're left on your own.

You also get a Fighting Style. Your light saber comes in a variety of packages, but most of them are one handed. That means Dueling will be the most useful for you, giving you +2 on damage rolls while using only one one-handed weapon.

You also get the bonus action Second Wind, letting you stuff yourself with sweets to heal a bit once per short rest.

2. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge, letting you add an action to your turn once per short rest. You spent so much time lazing around, you were just... saving up for when it counted. Yeah.

3. Fighter 3: If you want to be a sith knockoff, you can't go wrong with being a Psi Warrior. When you take the subclass you gain Psionic Powers, powered by psionic dice. They're d6s (that grow when you level up) equal to twice your proficiency bonus that recharge on short rests. Currently, you can use them in three ways.

Your Protective Field lets you spend a reaction and a die to reduce the incoming damage a creature near you is taking by the die roll plus your intelligence modifier.

A Psionic Strike adds the roll + int mod in force damage to a weapon attack to light up your saber once per turn.

You can also use Telekinetic Movement to move a large or smaller object/willing creature up to 30 feet. You can do this once per short rest for free, or by using up a psionic die.

4. Fighter 4: Use this ASI to bring up your Dexterity so your sword skills aren't as bad. You're a saber after all, you've gotta be on your A game! You are a saber, right?

5. Fighter 5: Fifth level fighters get an Extra Attack. It isn't exactly rocket science, but it is very useful.

6. Wizard 1: Moving over to wizard now nets you an Arcane Recovery, helping you recover a couple spell slots on a short rest once per long rest.

Speaking of, you also learn Spells. So many spells. They use your Intelligence for casting and preparation. You get stuff like Shocking Grasp for a cheap force lightning, Mage Hand for some telekinesis that doesn't use resources, your standard gish setup, Mage Armor to make your hoodie worth something, and Absorb Elements to put that magic reactor in your chest to good use.

And that's only some of the spells you could use! Check the character sheet for more.

7. Wizard 2: If you want to blur the line between nerd and sith lord like we do, Bladesinger is a pretty good choice. You get Training in War and Song, which gives you a bunch of proficiencies you already have from fighter as well as Performance. Foreshadowing!

You can also perform a Bladesong proficiency times per long rest if you aren't using heavy armor or two-handed weapons. The song lasts a minute and uses a bonus action to start. While active, you add your Intelligence modifier to your AC and concentration saves, your walking speed goes up by 10, you have advantage on acrobatics checks.

You can also Cause Fear as part of your membership with the Dark R.O.U.N.D.S., and you also get some sci-fi gadgets to Detect Magic.

8. Wizard 3: Third level wizards get second level spells, with Magic Weapon making your light saber a bit fancier and Dragon's Breath for a more dramatic (and consistent!) use of your lightning powers.

9. Fighter 6: Bouncing back to fighter for a bit nets you another ASI to bump up your Intelligence for stronger spells and telekinesis. Again, not flashy but very useful.

10. Fighter 7: Seventh level psi knights gain two new ways to use their psionic dice thanks to being Telekinetic Adepts.

You can use a Psi-Powered Leap once per short rest or by using a psionic die to gain a flying speed equal to 2x your walking speed for the turn for big anime jumps. Dramatically launching yourself at your foes for air combat framed by the moonlight has never been easier.

Alternatively, your Telekinetic Thrust empowers your Psionic Strike, forcing a strength save (dc 8+proficiency+intelligence mod). If they fail the save, you can either knock the target prone or push them 10 feet in any horizontal direction.

11. Wizard 4: Back in wizard for a bit. This level gives you another ASI, so grab the Telekinetic feat, which increases your Intelligence by 1, lets you cast Mage Hand without making it obvious and with an increased range, and you can make telekinetic shoves as a bonus action, pushing a creature 5 feet away or towards you if they fail a strength save.

You also learn the cantrip Green-Flame Blade which makes your saber give off a bit more light and the spells Enhance Ability to activate your true power that's been sealed away for millennia. You also also get Levitate to force choke some people. They don't take damage from the spell, but it opens them up for you walloping them, so same difference.

12. Wizard 5: Fifth level wizards get third level spells, Haste lets you run anime fast for up to a minute- you also get advantage on dex saves and +2 to your AC, but after the spell ends you have to take a nap. You also get the big guns- Lightning Bolt. 100 feet of range, dealing 8d6 lightning damage to creatures that fail a dexterity save. An elegant lightning spell from a more civilized age.

13. Wizard 6: Sixth level bladesingers get something very special: an Extra Attack! It still doesn't stack with your fighter one, but now you can use a cantrip in place of one of your attacks! Roast them with lightning then hit 'em with a sword!

You can also use Fear to be an intimidating presence to multiple people at once, and Catnap to pull out the kotatsu.

14. Fighter 8: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity once more for even better weapon attacks and AC.

15. Fighter 9: Ninth level fighters get Indomitable, letting you re-roll a failed save once per long rest. Don't even bother with the wisdom saves, it's not going to happen.

16. Fighter 10: Tenth level Psi Knights have a Guarded Mind, letting you resist psychic damage and burn psi dice to end effects that are charming or frightening you at the start of a turn. See? Told you you didn't have to worry about wisdom saves!

17. Fighter 11: Congratulations on yet another Extra Attack! To be honest, I'm not entirely sure how that stacks with your bladesinger attacks, but that's a headache for your DM to figure out!

18. Fighter 12: Another ASI, bump up your Int again for more AC, Spells, and telekinesis.

19. Fighter 13: Thirteenth level fighters get a second use of Indomitable per long rest, and it's totally not because WotC was running out of ideas, no sir!

20. Fighter 14: Your capstone level is another ASI, which we'll use to get your bond CE thanks to Servo Crafting! You use Find Familiar as a ritual to create a little robot buddy who acts mostly like a normal familiar. Aside from that, you can see and speak through the servo as long as it's on the same plane, and you can ignore one of your own attacks to let the little buddy attack instead. Honestly this probably would have been more useful way earlier, but it's a bond CE, what did you expect?

Pros:

Your various forms of telekinesis give you a great deal of battlefield control, helping you manipulate the positions of enemies and allies to your advantage.

You also have great saves with two of the big three: dexterity and Constitution. Add on the fact that you can shut down the biggest problems caused by failed wisdom saves practically at will, and you're a big threat for magic users.

While your physically aren't great at burst damage like assassins or paladins, you make up for that with gobs of consistency and longevity in melee combat. You've got almost 200 HP, and an AC of 13 + your dexterity mod (4) and your intelligence mod (4). 21 AC in a hoodie is not bad at all!

Cons:

While you can shut off the worst of it, your Wisdom saves are atrocious, and will still cause you problems against illusions.

While it doesn't come into effect until very late into the build, the weirdness surrounding how your extra attacks mesh will have to be addressed eventually

Servo Crafting really doesn't do anything for your build. Not only is it not useful, if you were willing to get rid of it you could invest more into wizard levels and get Bigby's Hand for a real force choke.

#fgo #Fate Grand Order #D&D 5e #Mysterious Heroine X Alter #dnd #Fighter #Wizard

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snarwor · 4 years ago

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moon and old stars - chapter 9

holy shit it’s been awhile huh. no warnings for this one <3

Masterlist | Read on AO3

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Din thought about frost a bit too much.

It made almost no sense. Navarro was a lava planet, sulfuric and burning in dangerous pools less than a klick outside of city limits. His missions took him through the hottest damn planets. One of his only memories of his childhood was whining at the cold, and feeling the heavy weight of his father’s jacket settling around his shoulders. Heat and warmth and weight, that was love.

Of course, the exception to this was the blurrg which had fallen on him on Arvala-7, which was hot and heavy and smelly.

But Grogu, the kid. He weighed barely anything and was no warmer than perhaps a Loth-cat, and yet the weight which had settled over Din the moment he’d shot IG-11, the warmth which had filled his bones when that little hand had reached out for him, it was unlike anything he’d experienced before.

Crash landing on the ice planet with Mrs. Frog and the kid had been an exercise in fear, in hopelessness, in compartmentalization. The Crest was damaged beyond reasonable repair, there was a very odd biological imperative happening, there were karking ice spiders, yet the thing that filled Din with the most dread had been the cold. It seeped in and leached the warmth and hope from his bones, staining his beskar with ice, splintering like cracks in stone. False fissures.

When they'd managed to get to the atmosphere again, he joked about all of them dying in the harsh vacuum of space, and it didn’t even register until they’d hit the balmy surface of Trask. He’d made light of an icy, deadly situation, which was, at its core, supposed to be heavy and blood-hot. He’d been horrified when he realized.

He remembered listening to Omera speak on Sorgan about the history of the valley they lived in, how everything had been ice thousands and thousands of years ago, a massive glacier which melted and froze and melted and froze until an entire mountain had split in two. Din couldn’t believe it, but when he’d gotten back on the holonet, he looked up the phenomenon, and marveled at how cold destruction could bring such an idyllic sanctuary.

He began to see signs of it all over his travels. Ancient canyons with split boulders, once-whole halves laying cleaved by no tool made by man or machine. Din told the kid his findings. “Frost did this. Water gets in everywhere, it settles deep and when the cold hits, that water expands, and breaks things if it’s lucky enough.” Of course, the kid only paid attention when he had dried meat rations in his hand, but he liked to think he was paying attention at least some of the time.

His sanity had sprung a leak on Morak. Boba Fett had taken an ax to that leak and filled every splintered part of him with water until he felt like he was near drowning. His first gasp of air was on the armchair at the safe house, when they had been the only people in the entire galaxy. The shame was his heart’s first winter after the flood. The setup on the Lothal moon was an early spring snowstorm. The safe house had been a mild summer. The water had not left him. But when they boarded the ship, when they fought the Dark troopers, when…

Don’t be afraid.

That had been such a shock to his system that all that latent love and affection in him, feelings left dormant and misunderstood in the abscesses of his heart, froze. It was so cataclysmic he couldn’t even hear himself think over the groaning heave of his every canyon and valley. He was broken. He could not be put back together at all. And when Boba had said those five words, the frost started to melt, sure, but the cracks and chasms remained, evidence of a too-cold climate for anything like love to grow in.

Unless.

The melting sensation Boba had given him, the weight and warmth Din had always associated with love, perhaps it had been as natural as a cleaved boulder, but thaw had been intentional as well. It wasn’t Boba’s fault for the freeze in his heart. It wasn’t Boba’s fault he had existing cracks in his foundation. But he’d cleaned up the aftermath, several times over, taken his broken pieces and patched them together, said “I know you’re not whole, but I love you just the same” with every soft pass of a hand over his hair. With every pleasured moan he drew from Din’s lips. With every suspended second their gazes held, and every gentle press of a kiss, Din realized that the crags in his heart had smoothed over in places, didn’t hurt him as much as they had before. It wasn’t Boba’s fault for this new fissure, and here Din was, cutting the man on his own broken edges.

“Why didn’t you let her just kill me when she had the chance?!”

And still.

“Din—”

And still.

“No. Tell me why.”

And still.

“Because I love you, Din.”

The words sat in the air between them like a physical thing, an old moon in orbit, waiting to see if the shooting star would strike it down or warm it back. The last words his mother had said to him, before she was gone forever. He’d always understood that love wasn’t something to be volleyed back and forth, love wasn’t supposed to be expected or returned, not the true love his mother had given, and not the shy, defeated love Boba was giving him now.

And still.

“I love you, too.”

Boba let out a shuddering breath, half a laugh, and a single tear. “Then you understand why I couldn’t let you go.”

Love could look selfish, but it never felt selfish. At least not to Din. He let go of the bottle, and hung his head in his hands instead. The familiar shame of crying in front of Boba washed over him, and as his shoulders shook, he mourned that freeze a little, because he could at least pretend he was solid when it was there. Not now, though. Not now.

With hesitation, Boba’s arm wrapped around the slumped line of his shoulders. Without hesitation, Din leaned into it. “He’s gone,” Din rasped.

Boba made a noise he probably hadn’t meant to before the other arm came up to pull Din into his lap, curl him up small and safe. With the beskar, he was much heavier, and less kind on his aching body, but Boba bore his weight without complaint. “Not gone, just somewhere else,” Boba said, stroking a hand over Din’s head in a well-practiced motion they’d perfected since Morak. “I’ll...” The promise sat on the tip of his tongue. “If you really want him back, I can help you find him.”

Din shook his head, cried out and drained. “You don’t have to,” he said softly. “Your debt to me is paid, you don’t—”

“I don’t offer this to you out of a sense of obligation. I don’t offer any of myself to you for that. Maybe once, but certainly not now, jat’ika.”

The name hurt Din like a punch to the gut. The objection sat behind his lips like a fathier at the starting gate. He lifted his head so their eyes could meet again. Openness sat in Boba’s expression, and Din realized, all at once, that the two of them had really changed in those soft weeks between Tython and here. Without breaking eye contact, he brought his hand up to cup the back of Boba’s neck, and leaned in to press their foreheads together. A stuttering breath left Boba’s chest, a flash of that softness Din didn’t often see in him.

“I’m sorry,” Din said. “For what I said about your father.”

“You were upset,” Boba hedged. Din shook his head, only a little, as to not break the mirshmure’cya too fast.

“It doesn’t excuse it. I won’t say anything like that again. Forgive me, please.”

“I understand,” Boba said, bringing his own hand up to touch the apple of Din’s cheek. “It’s forgiven. Don’t catastrophize a mistake, Din.”

Din couldn’t help but laugh, a little. “Catastrophize.”

“Exactly,” Boba said, returning the smile. “Do you need to talk some more? Are you injured from the mission?”

This time, Din hedged, “Cuts and bruises, rattled my brain fighting a darktrooper, nothing huge.” Boba leveled him with an unimpressed look. “If it bothered me, I would have taken care of it.”

“Forgive me if I don’t quite believe you can take care of yourself.”

“Hoverskiff daddying, are we?” Din asked, a smirk on his mouth that both endeared and infuriated Boba in equal doses. Boba leaned back to press a smacking kiss to Din’s forehead.

“Show you daddying. C’mon, up. We’ll talk while we get you patched up.”

As Boba removed the armor from Din’s body, the weight which pulled at Din’s conscience followed suit. He felt able to take a full breath of air again, letting Boba smear bacta on his cuts and bruises, like every breath got easier than the last. Boba made him laugh, made him smile and forget he was ever frozen, forget he was ever broken and jagged and rough-edged. And when Boba mentioned the kid, the memories came with an ache, but no sharp pain. He would have permission to grieve, later. He knew that much. But for now, they reveled in the feeling of being alive after another difficult day, a unique sensation to the two that felt more familiar than coming home ever had.

“Your helmet.” Boba finally reached that topic, which predictably pulled a sigh and a downcast expression from Din’s face.

“I broke the Creed on Morak. And again, on the cruiser.” He left out the moments with Boba specifically. You are not of a Creed you can disappoint while in here. The only truth is that you are mine.

“You were saying goodbye to your son. I know men who would raze whole planets to the ground for the chance. It’s an honorable thing, what you did. Not a dishonorable one.” Din can’t make himself believe it in its entirety, not really.

“But the armor—”

“You told me once I’d have to peel your armor off your dead body. Yet I had to, to patch your wounds, give you comfort.”

They looked at the pile in the corner, gleaming beskar and worn padding which had protected Din for years. Clearly, he wasn’t dead, and yet, the armor went. Boba continued.

“And that to hand mine over to me was against the Creed. Until the more honorable realization was proven, you were returning it to me.”

Ret’urcye mhi. How funny that goodbye sounds like return to me.

“Your helmet was in the way of protecting your foundling, until it was not. Ke’juri beskar’gam, but not at the expense of k’ara’novo aliit, nor ke’gaa’tayli aliit bralir, nor ke’ba’juri sa Mando’ade.” Din felt the tears fall, but did not look away. “You are no less Mandalorian for making the decisions you did. In fact, you are perhaps more suited to hold that saber because of it.” He took Din’s hands. “You have protected and cared for your family. One of your aliit is learning what you could not teach. Your son is Mandalorian because he is yours.”

“Then why do I feel so guilty?” Din asked, his chest jumping a little in a hiccup, eyes shining with yet-unshed tears. Boba brought his hands up to kiss at their knuckles.

“It’s not guilt. It’s grief. We carry it differently, but it does not make us. The same as our armor. It is something we wear, something sacred, but it is not the armor who protects a son.”

Din fell into his arms, pressing grateful kisses to Boba’s mouth, his face. Tears of relief, not shame, not guilt, fell across his cheeks and smeared onto Boba’s skin, but he didn’t mind. His soul was still redeemable, he was still an upright man, deserving of salvation and absolution, deserving of the love which patched him together.

He realized he was speaking. “I love, I love—”

“I know, I know,” Boba repeated, not in a volley, but letting Din know his love had somewhere safe and soft to land.

And that it always would.

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Mando'a - Translation

jat'ika - y'all should know this one by now mirshmure'cya - Keldabe kiss, soft headbutt for emotion, or apply forcefully for stronger emotion ret'urcye mhi - see you again, goodbye aliit - family, clan

Tenets of the Resol'nare (Mandalorian Creed) mentioned in m&os ke'juri beskar'gam - you will wear armor k'ara'novo aliit - you will protect family ke'gaa'tayli aliit bralir - you will help your clan succeed ke'ba'juri sa Mando'ade - you will raise Mandalorians

Other Tenets not mentioned because they don't make me cry as much ke'jorhaa'i Mando'a - you will speak Mando'a ke'shekemi haar Mand'alor - you will rally to the cause of the Mand'alor

#moon and old stars #my writing #mandalorian fanfiction #star wars fanfiction #din djarin/boba fett #bobadin

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aizawaskittenwhore · 4 years ago

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internal affairs

pairing: shota aizawa x poc!reader

words: 5.6k (LMFAOOOO I GOT CARRIED AWAY ENJOY) lowercase vv intentional

warnings/kinks: alcohol, swearing, degradation, praise, spit if you squint, breeding kink???ish sorta kinda yeah, begging, use of the pet name kitten, bondage, caught while masturbating

synopsis: aizawa thinks sex is generally a waste of time and energy. after finding you, (his close friend and coworker) in a...compromising position one night when he’s returning something to your dorm, he learns some information that has him wanting to waste some time with you..and energy. ;)

a/n: it’s been forever since i’ve written smut let alone with a poc reader so go easy on me LMFAOOOO

nsfw below the cut, let’s get it!

shota aizawa could, honestly, live without sex.

he just didn’t see the necessity of it, all the exhaustion and sweat just for a sudden rush of dopamine that lasts all of a minute before the stickiness sets in. before exhaustion settles over every muscle and renders you immobile, confined to the infamous postcoital wet spot while you make plans to wash your sheets—

as soon as you can regain control of the burn in your lungs, that is.

in between teaching during the day, patrolling in the evenings while still managing to grade papers, establishing lesson plans, taking care of his cat yuki and occasionally having to watch over his more “at-risk” students (cough midoriya cough) sex just didn’t take enough priority in his life for him to be interested in it. his right hand did the job just fine most nights, and he didn’t see the need to involve another person when it came to something he was more than proficient at handling by himself. he had no shame in the way he chose to live his life, it was practical and didn’t interfere with any of his responsibilities; a perfect setup.

at least, until he told you this same information over drinks one friday.

“please say you’re joking.” you chuckle, brows aloft in amusement. your fingertips dance along the rim of your shot glass before you raise it to your lips, the bitter and potent sake you ordered beginning to blossom warmly across your cheeks. “i’m serious. the hell would i gain from having some complete stranger try to learn how to please me when i can just do it myself?” aizawa queries, index finger and thumb taking residence along the upper neck of his beer bottle, grimacing harshly as he takes another swig. “i always get this shit every time we come here, and every time it’s always terrible.” he sets the bottle to his left, reaching for a shot glass instead to wash down the acrid taste. the bar is moderately populated today, with other pros scattered among tables and booths while engrossed in their own conversations; the background noise serving as the perfect buffer for the x-rated nature of your conversation.

you normally hate drinking after work, it always made you sluggish for the rest of the night, but aizawa owed you a favor after you took on the grading process of 1-a’s exams while he went out on patrol a few nights ago. he hadn’t wanted to ask so much of you as you were already training class 1-b and doing presentations for general studies that week, but after seeing the state of exhaustion the man was in you’d insisted, suggesting he get the bill next time the two of you hung out to make up for it. “but don’t you get tired of it? you know....masturbating?” you pry, right hand coming up to make a crude jerking motion to emphasize your point. “ i mean...you already know what you like, and the quickest way to get yourself there. there’s no exploration, no variety, you don’t get to really try anything new.” a teasing smile already settled across your lips.

aizawa falters for a moment, mouth pulled into a tight stance that signals his contemplation. head low, shoulders hunched, appearing to deeply ponder your question and how to answer it. you worry, for a moment, that you may have overstepped in your attempt to get a rise out of your quiet friend. however, worry soon liquifies into a fierce heat as a low chuckle rattles through him; shota glancing up at you through rebellious strands of hair that, regardless of his quirk, never seem to stay in place. “and what, y/n , would you happen to know about sexual exploration?” he shoots back, two slender fingers and a calloused thumb sending another shot down his throat with ease.

you flush, all your nerves on high alert as his rich, onyx irises seem to detect the growing arousal settling between your thighs, pleased at the reaction his question emitted. “i-i’m just saying that it’s got to get boring sometimes...just doing the same old routine whenever you’re in the mood!” you stutter, clearing your throat after you choke on the last syllable of your sentence. “that wasn’t my question.” he remarks, eyes slicing through any attempt at keeping your composure, yet you don’t budge.

“well, if you just have to know aizawa -“ you drag out the final consonant to mock his inquisitive nature, before continuing your tangent, “-sex doesn’t always have to be about the orgasm. i mean sure, it’s a pretty fucking fun part of it, don’t get me wrong, but it’s the foreplay, the newness of being with someone you haven’t been with before that really just...ties it all together. figuring out what they like, having them explore what you like, letting them take you in new and different ways...” you trail off, a blush now having settled across your cheeks, albeit impossible to clock thanks to the deep brown reach of your skin complexion.

“it’s worth the effort, is what i’m sayin’. you never know, you might like things that you didn’t think you would...like getting tied up or spit on or something..” you finish, now feeling his gaze settle over you like a blanket fresh out of the dryer. you quickly busy yourself with thanking your bartender as she slides you the tab, trying checking out the damage so you wouldn’t have to make eye contact with aizawa after that very honest admission. he quickly swipes the little book from your reach, depositing the black card inside with minimal resistance and returning the tab to its original position with a “don’t. i owe you, remember?”

damned cat-like reflexes.

fuck pro-hero training.

fuck the growing amount of slick saturating (and ruining) the simple maroon panties you’d chosen when getting ready for work today.

and most of all, fuck shota aizawa for being able to make your blood run hot by paying a fucking tab and giving you a look or two.

“right. thanks, by the way. but if i can’t get up for that meeting nezu’s holding tomorrow, i’m blaming you.” you’re hoping a bit of humor will distract you from the way your body is overheating from being within such close proximity to him, and the way your core is pulsing around nothing as if it were fiending for his presence. “not my fault you’re a lightweight, so blame me all you want sweetheart.” shota dryly rebounds, a mirthful smile on his face in response to the way you roll your eyes and suck your teeth, flipping him off.

“if you wanted to fuck me, you could’ve just asked.”

you’d pale, if you could.

your jaw collapses, eyelashes batting double time while you struggle to process what the fuck just came out of his mouth. six seconds go by before you begin babbling, voicing your opposition to his prior statement with phrases such as “wait wait wait, what did you sayyyy?” and ”bye because that didn’t even come out my mouth i-“

while he just...laughs. he finds your attempts to clarify your alleged non-existent sexual attraction to him hilarious, and even mentions that he finds it adorable as the two of you begin to make your way back to the teachers’ dorms. he holds the door open for you as you head inside, chuckling to himself as you continue to playfully curse him out while you walk to the women’s side of the building.

that was seven hours ago.

it’s currently 12:47am, and you’re struggling to catch even a wink of shuteye. you’re starting to regret having that sake earlier, since alcohol always fucks with your sleep schedule, but that isn’t what’s keeping you up tonight.

no, no, that would happen to be the unprofessional and honestly straight up shameful thoughts you’re having about your friend and coworker, shota. vivid images of those slender fingers sliding into you one by one, each one filling you more than the last, float past your lids every time you close your eyes. daydreams of his tongue on your clit, tracing patterns into the sensitive nerves while he calls you his good girl, his kitten, his slut, hands forcing your thighs apart as they shake from each and every time you cum around those devilish lips of his. fantasies of his capture weapon binding your hands behind you, fingers dangling helplessly while his hand rests on the small of your back to serve as leverage for each and every time he slides in. face pressed into the mattress as he fucks into you slowly, not wanting to give you the satisfaction of having him so deep so quickly. voice hoarse, tone pleading when you beg him to take you deeper, harder, promising to take it like a good girl would if he would just keep hitting that spot that makes your toes curl, yes right there, fuck-

you flip your pillow over in an attempt to cool the sweltering heat below the waistband of your panties, but it’s no luck. you should've been asleep two hours ago. staring hopelessly at the ceiling, lost in your mind as you watch the streetlights’ beams flicker through your window, streams of light disturbed by nearby tree branches. right hand slowly sliding down your body, from your breasts to the curves of your waist before settling right on the top of your panties. your fingers begin to flutter above your dripping core.

‘this is wrong. i shouldn’t do this.’ you chide yourself, but your body has already made up it’s mind.

and soon a cord wound so tightly within your body it could suffocate you...snaps.

the tip of your middle finger dips down to your pussy to collect the slick gathered there, and you groan at the sheer amount of it.

he really got you fucked up.

thinking of how he would tease, you circle your throbbing clit, touch feather light to the point where it feels like borderline torture. middle finger and ring finger conjoined to shallowly dip inside you once, twice, then three times before filling you completely.

but it’s not enough.

it’s not him.

you sigh at the way the tips brush against your g-spot, beckoning them forward until you physically arch into your hand as though it were connected to the subject of your little self love session.

“fuck...”

shota’s pov

he’d taken a short break from his current grading session to stretch, and grab a small snack when he noticed it.

you’d left your id tag with him when you’d turned in for the evening, as the two of you had used his id to get on to school grounds since your hands were full with your work bag, your purse, and takeout from the bar. he must have forgotten to give it back to you after you asked him to hold it, he was too busy admiring how cute you looked while trying to prove you didn’t want to fuck him.

not that he would mind if you did, of course.

he’d developed something of a crush on you over the past few weeks since you’d been working more closely together as hero course teachers, and he got to know you outside of a strictly work environment.

you’re funny, intelligent, clever (which is a turn on for him since he needs someone he can bounce off of), and it doesn’t hurt that you’re easy on the eyes.

really, really easy on the eyes. fuck.

he scratched the back of his neck as he felt the familiar flush begin to creep up his face, hoping the pain would will away the consistent hard-on he got whenever he focused too much on your smile, or the way your shoulders shake when you laugh, or the curve of your hips and how they look like they would be a perfect fit for his vice grip as he eased you onto his dick, looking you right in the eyes before drilling up into you. eyes shimmering with such pretty tears from how sensitive she was, neck littered with marks from his earlier ministrations, voice shaky as she begged him to fill her, pump her full of every last drop cause she’s been so so good-

‘damn it shota. just go give her the fucking tag, she’ll need it tomorrow morning.’ he snapped internally, looking at his tented black sweats with dismay. it took everything within him not to make a sly comment on how getting himself off is never boring when it’s to a different fantasy of you each time, but if there’s nothing else he prided himself upon, it was his self discipline.

forcing himself to remember the time he caught hizashi shaving his left testacle and only the left one to make his erection less obvious, he grabbed her id and his own, and made his way to the women’s wing of the hero course dorms. it was old school, men weren’t allowed on the women’s side and vice versa on campus, however with this being the hero course some were granted special admin privileges should there ever be an emergency.

he happened to be one of them.

making quick work of finding your room, he leaned against the threshold, left arm poised to knock when he heard a soft hiss. a little rustling, and another sound, indiscernible thanks to your door.

“fuck...”

body stiffening at the swear, he paused, wondering if maybe you had been hurt or perhaps injured. it was in his nature to, despite his sarcastic and faux-apathetic disposition, be a hero no matter what. using what little force he could in an attempt to not frighten a possible intruder or make a bad situation worse, shota silently swung your door open and scanned the room for any possible threats.

he didn’t find any.

instead he found you, lacy black panties around your left ankle as you curled your middle and ring finger inside of you, moans bubbling out of your throat with a hand twisting and pinching your pretty brown nipples as you went. still completely unaware of his presence you sigh before letting out the prettiest and neediest little whine that went straight to his dick.

“mm...shota..please baby~“ you keen, fingers quickening their pace inside of your pussy, the streetlights from the nearby sidewalk casting a copper toned glean on the strings of slick connecting your fingers to the soaked paradise that was between your thighs. he freezes, thinking you’ve noticed his presence when it hits him-

you were fucking your fingers as if they were his own.

you’d said his name.

you wanted to fuck him just as badly as he wanted to fuck you.

and despite being a pro and having been in life threatening situations, instances where he’s had to make split second decisions without worrying whether they were right or not....here he has absolutely no idea what to do. he feels dirty, watching you in such a...compromising situation. even though you just said his name with about two-

now three-

-soaked fingers sliding in and out of your cunt, he knows he shouldn’t be here. out of respect for you, he takes about two steps backwards and tries to leave the room as silently as he came in, willing the universe to just let him have this as a pleasant memory for when he gets into bed tonight. but, like most times in his 31 years of existence, he can never get a moment of peace.

so he manages to trip over your shoes from earlier right as he was about to hit the hallway.

oh, and drops the id tags, of course.

y/n’s pov

the noise sends a chill through each and every nerve of your body, eyes firing open only to be greeted with the sight of a very flustered aizawa vehemently cursing out a pair of your boots, two id tags pooled at his feet. “what the fuck?!” digits wrenched from your body and hands clawing for your duvet in a last ditch attempt to preserve what little modesty you had left. “i- i just came to give you your id, and i heard you swear so i thought you might’ve been hurt or something, i didn’t see anything!” aizawa spat apprehensively, while simultaneously cursing his dick for choosing this particular moment to get incredibly aroused, and thanking himself for tucking his erection into his waistband earlier before he’d walked over in case he ended up talking to you. “oh my god. oh..my god i am so fucking sorry i-i know it was wrong and i totally understand if you don’t wanna be friends anymore just please don’t tell nezu i really really love this job-“ you begin to wail, teardrops nestling into your waterline before finally pooling over and breaking you, causing you to cry even more.

“i’m not mad at you y/n.” aizawa coos softly.

“-and i know i crossed so many lines and it’s selfish for me to ask that of you but i don’t know what i would do without UA-“

“y/n.” he calls, sitting beside you on the pillow soft mattress, his capture weapon pooling to the floor and briefly reminding him he’d brought it with him to begin with.

“-and if i’m being honest i’ve had a crush on you for forever and i was just too much of a coward to come and tell you myself so instead of being a woman about it i kept having these fantasies and i’m so fucking sorry aizawa-“

“shota. call me shota.” he tilts your chin up with his right hand so he can see your pretty brown orbs swimming in tears, before taking his left hand and thumbing away the still-wet tear tracks. you blink away your tears, brows furrowing in confusion at why he’s not angry, why you’re not packing up your dorm and turning in your letter of resignation right now. “it sounded so pretty when you’d said it earlier, why stop now?” he murmurs, those powerful ebony eyes taking you in by the gallon, half lidded as he looks you up and down.

so he did see everything.

and he wasn’t mad.

and you swear on everything you love that you just saw his length twitch through those black sweats, so he definitely shared the same sentiment.

“s-so you’re sure you’re not mad?” you sniffle, hands reaching to cover his as you lean into his lithe form, needing to feel his warm and comforting embrace. “positive.” he looks down at the way you’re nuzzled into his chest, arms shifting so that they’re wrapped around your back as you let out a sigh of relief. he softly taps you after a few minutes, needing to shift to a more comfortable position as his dick is pressing into his stomach this way, and it’s only making him firmer.

“can...can i kiss you?” he asks gingerly, heart fluttering at the way your eyes meet his and your head slowly nods, fingers fumbling to find his hand so you can hold it. his lips slot against yours, moving tenderly at first before the kiss begins to increase in intensity, your tongue moving fluidly with his, pulling away only to breathe before diving back into one another.

“those pretty lips taste so sweet...makes me wonder if you’re sweet all over, hm?”

you preen at the compliment, body craving his touch, his energy, his undulations, everything about him.

“tell me you don’t want this, and we’ll stop.” he mutters against your neck, soft kisses quickly turning to him sucking marks into your collarbone. it drove him insane, watching the reddish purple hues blossom across your skin mingling with the mocha of the rest of your body.

you didn’t have any intention on stopping though.

not for a fucking second.

“please...need you so bad.” you sigh close to his ear, taking his earlobe between your teeth and dipping a hand between the two of you to paw at his throbbing length. that seemed to do the trick just fine, his pulse spiking before he flipped the two of you with a quickness you’d only seen him use in battle. hands reaching for the nape of his neck as he tugged his shirt over his head, you watched in awe; you’d known sho was fit as he patrolled nightly, along with the consistent training he’d engaged in with his students. you just didn’t expect a simple long sleeve sweater to give way to toned abdominals, slender yet powerful arms in addition to a thick black happy trail that dipped below his waistband.

it wasn’t until he’d tugged down the lace covering your slit, (so hard it ripped), that you realized just how much he craved you. gazing at your core intently he spread you apart with his middle and forefinger, eyes nearly rolling out of his head with how you were dripping so much for him. you tried to shift your hips in an effort to get him to do something, anything, but that was shut down with a hand forcing your right thigh outwards and spreading you even wider.

“no no. keep them spread. let me watch you try to keep them open while you’re shaking...let me watch you fall apart..” he demands, head diving between your thighs to lap at your aching clit like a man starved. your legs rise only to settle on his shoulders, ankles crossed behind his head while your toes curl in euphoria. there were men before him, but none of them ever took care of you like this, never looked you in the eyes as their fingers started to curl in just the right places, never sighed in content at your taste as their eyes rolled back. never pried themselves away from your cunt just to add a pornographic amount of spit to your southernmost lips, strings of saliva connecting your twitching hole to his deliciously long tongue.

shota was unlike any man you had ever met before.

and that was what made him so intoxicating.

“ah..s-shota, please-” you whine, sensing your climax within reach. “please what, kitty? i won’t know if you don’t tell me.” he remarks, dipping back down to suck harshly at your swollen bud as he adds a third finger, length throbbing at the way you arch into his tongue. “m-make me-ah-make me...feel good...please sho” you stutter, face burning. “mm. i thought i was already making you feel good love? unless...there’s something else you want..” he trails off, smirking. your thighs are quivering now, muscles burning as you strain to keep them from crushing shota’s head, although with the way he’s devouring your pussy whole right now he doesn’t seem to mind one bit.

“i need you..to make me cum..” you whimper, winding a few fingers into his unruly mane of hair while your other hand settles above your mouth, trying to hide the obvious embarrassment on your face from being so exposed.

“well why didn’t you say so baby? after all, you did exactly what i told you to, and good girls get whatever they ask for.” he grins before working double time to bring you to the edge, hero stamina and strength coming out in full force with the way his fingers never cease in their abuse on your g-spot, refusing to quit until your thighs finally tighten around his head and your breath catches. his tongue replaces his fingers and you briefly pout at the slight change in fullness, but it doesn’t matter the second he coils his tongue upwards and rubs into your sensitive bud at a steady pace. you cum all over his face, and you never thought you’d see such a typically serious and stoic man look so...elated, a permanent beam stuck to him with superglue as he swallows as much of your essence as he can. chest heaving, body weightless, you sit up.

you gently coax him back up your body, shota’s arms caging you to your bed as you kiss him deeply, fingers fumbling to palm him through his sweats. “s’ my turn...wanna show you how much i like you..”

he nods, opting to trade places with you whilst helping you slide his sweats and boxers down his thighs, length springing up in anticipation. you’d had a inkling of how big he was from small glances on occasion, but you didn’t account for a solid eight and a half inches down your esophagus. his dick was pretty, a few veins running up and down the length of it, and tip just as pink as his kiss-swollen lips. the only thing that intimidated you was how thick it was. but you’d cross that bridge when it came to it.

saliva floods your mouth and you grasp his dick at the base, eyes wide as you track a bead of precum rolling it’s way down his tip before licking it up in one long hot stripe. “hm. tastes good.” you giggle, eyes locking with his before you relax your jaw and swallow as much of him as you can comfortably fit in your mouth, a shot of electricity running through you when shota lets out a deep throaty groan. “fuck...such a good fucking girl. you look so pretty like this.” shota sighs, left hand working it’s way through your coils and tightening its grip, but never pushing. he lets you work at your own pace, his own cheeks flushing when you interrupt the bobbing motion you had set to coyly circle your slick tongue around his tip. your mouth is hot and slick, encapsulating his dick in a velvety vacuum seal while you work him over and over; you haven’t had an insane amount of experience, but you’re observant of what motions garner positive reactions. it’s a combination so dangerous that it has shota’s right hand grappling your comforter for stability, breath quickening as he wonders how the hell he’s managed to last this long.

“you’re gonna suck me dry kitty...” he moans.

at least until you take not one, but both hands, add an amount of spit so copious it’s obscene, and begin to stroke his length slowly and effortlessly whilst maintaining eye contact.

with that little stunt, you’ve officially opened pandora’s box. and there’s no closing it now.

“come here.” aizawa commands, sitting up straighter to pull your hips into his, and before you know it you’re on your stomach, wrists pinned to your black sheets by agile hands. “if you wanna stop here tell me now baby.” he croons in your ear, feather light kisses pressed into your shoulder. “we can watch a movie, cuddle, whatever you’re comfortable with. but if we keep going like this-”

his length presses into your ass and a shiver shoots down your spine.

“-i can’t promise you i won’t ruin you y/n. fuck you full of my cum, pounding into you until i leave you drooling and sloppy just for me, have you scream my name so loud even the League knows who you belong to. you’d be all mine. my pretty kitty. is that what you want?” shota asks, one of his calloused hands sliding down the curves of your body to grip at the soft, tender skin of your ass.

“shota.....please. it’s all i want, just take me already-“ you sob, voice gathering in your throat. a sensual chuckle, and then you feel it: inch after inch slipping into your tight warm walls, the stretch causing your eyes to brim with tears born from more pleasure than actual pain.

“ah! you’re stretching me out so much...” you keen, eyelashes fluttering in ecstasy. “aw kitty...i haven’t even started yet.” shota teases, stretching to his right to grab his capture weapon, and bringing both your wrists behind you. “now..you’ve been so good for me tonight, i think you deserve a reward. earlier, i believe you mentioned something about being tied up?” he binds your arms, leaving your digits to flail helplessly right above the small of your back, where his hand has now come to rest.

“f-fuck me! please...i’m tired of waiting- i just wanna be yours!” you beg, hips jolting back in impatience and need, your pussy throbbing at the sensation of his tip nudging the deepest parts of you. “so fucking needy. i’ll give you exactly what you’re craving sweetheart.” he smirks, before dragging his hips as far back as he can, length retreating from your warm walls before slamming right back in. one hand on your shoulders to keep your face pressed into your pillows, the other taking reign on your hips as a guide to rut against you. your back arches so deliciously for him, ass jiggling on every thrust as he watches your body impale itself on his length. he’s so deep, his tip consistently ramming into your cervix over and over and over; your body is so overwhelmed and so needy, so full but not full enough. it’s too much, but you want more. “fill me up sho! i want it— i need it so bad” you cry, tears spilling over and staining your pillowcase. “wouldn’t you love that, having me fill this pretty pussy up with all my cum hm?” “no wonder you’re moaning for me like a whore, you want everyone to know who’s doing this to you.” shota pants, quickening his pace. “yes! i’m yours all yours!” you moan, pussy throbbing at his fierce pace, you can feel the sweat gathering between your body and the sheets but you don’t care. you use the leverage from your shoulders to push back onto him, chasing your high.

“that’s it, come on, fuck me back. come on kitty it’s your dick after all~” he breathes, grinning at the way you’re drooling and how your eyes are rolling at the way he’s fucking you.

“fuck, you must really wanna cum again hm? such a greedy, slutty girl” you nod, head spinning as he tightens your restraints and strokes into you as deep as he can. you feel the familiar quivering of your legs, a tell tale sign you’re close to cumming. “sho—ah!-sho please! i wanna cum please i’m so close-“ you plead, voice unsteady. “well since you asked so nicely...of course kitty” he acquiesces, a hand slithering between your folds to softly rub your clit while he drills into you, and your body nearly self destructs. “f-fuck! ah—thank you shota, oh god, mmm you’re so good to me” you babble, body floating through space as he rubs you through your orgasm.

and once again, the ball is in his court. you shudder, head leaning over your shoulder with lidded eyes to try and look at aizawa. his hair is down now, and a deep blush has taken residence across his cheeks, chest heaving as sweat glistens on his chest and slowly drips down his toned stomach. he hasn’t stopped fucking you, but this time his rhythm’s gotten sloppy, and his teeth have sunken into his bottom lip so hard you think he’ll pierce through it.

he’s close, and you want every last drop.

“make me take it shota—show me what you do to good girls~” you purr, eyes widening when he loosens your restraints and turns you over, and practically folds you in half. your ankles are by your ears now as he pounds into you, and everything is so much deeper than before. your pussy tightens at the new angle, and you feel another orgasm beneath the surface, though you don’t know if you can take it. “it’s too much! i can’t take it—“ you whine, tits jiggling as he swoops down and paws at one, making you cry out. “yes you can baby, just one more, come on make me proud just give me one fucking more” he growls, the heat of his order hot against your ear. “god i’m gonna paint these slutty little walls white—gonna fill you up so good” he moans, shota’s dirty confession egging you on as your fingers toy with your achingly sensitive bundle of nerves. “that’s it. play with it, show me how you do it when i’m not there-“ and that slick fucking comment is what sends you tumbling off the edge for your third time tonight. “fuck! i’m gonna cum—i’m gonna make you all mine, all for me” you grin before raking your nails up and down his back to encourage him. “give it to me, i don’t wanna have anyone else kiss me without knowing what you taste like~” and soon hot spurts of cum paint your insides and flood you with a warm, thick feeling. shota immediately crashes his lips onto yours, holding you tightly. you can’t really explain the current state of your emotions, but you feel full, and content. meanwhile the current object of your affection is nuzzled into your neck, peppering kisses over all the love bites he’d inflicted earlier as a means of apology, though you didn’t mind.

it would be a pain in the ass to cover up tomorrow, but you could always just wear a scarf or a turtleneck to compensate due to the colder weather. it wasn’t until the two of you had cleaned up and rehydrated that he spoke: “by the way, i like you too. and have. for a while now. just in case that wasn’t clear.” he stated, arms wrapped around your middle as he began to doze off.

“you know you probably should’ve led with that-“

“shut up.”

so yeah, shota aizawa could live without sex.

question is: why the hell would he want to, when you’re here?

#bhna smut #bhna #bhna x reader #mha smut #aizawa x reader #poc reader #mha lemon #smut #aizawa smut #eraserhead #mha x reader #blackinbnha #shota aizawa #kittybutmakeitferal

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satoshi-mochida · 3 years ago

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Some thoughts on my last Gamefly rental, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot.

*Though most people are familiar with DBZ, especially the three main Sagas in this game, given how often they’re played out in games, I’ll put a spoiler warning here just in case. Also, I didn’t try out the DLC stories, yet, so this will just be about the base PS4 game with it’s current updates. I may buy the game and try those out in the future. I also say a lot about the game.

The game spans from the Saiyan Saga to the end of the Buu Saga(not counting DLC). Pretty much every important scene is played through, though a few parts are skimmed over or skipped, like:

Goku traveling Snake Way, his brief fall into Hell, and training with King Kai(shown a bit and mentioned but not playable)

Piccolo using Hellzone Grenade against Android 17(you can have him learn the move and do it yourself, though).

Future Trunks’ battle with Cell where he found out the speed-loss disadvantages of Super Saiyan Third Grade(that moment isn’t shown or mentioned, though he does still fight Cell in that form)

Vegito still attacking Super Buu after being turned into candy(which means we don’t get to see him beating Super Buu up as a high-speed jawbreaker). Also, Goku and Vegeta freeing everyone trapped inside Super Buu happens offscreen.

And possibly a few smaller moments. They aren’t too important in the long run, though, plus some were probably for better pacing or something.

There was some added stuff, too:

Several times, you’ll be able to meet, and occasionally do sidequests for, several older Dragon Ball characters, like Nam, Eighter and Launch.

A new fight for Goku against Kid Buu to end the main story before he launches the Super Spirit Bomb at him.

There's a fairly small amount of playable characters(who can also be put in a party as Support Members):

Goku

Gohan

Vegeta

Piccolo

Future Trunks(Android/Cell Saga and Epilogue, only)

Gotenks(only in two battles against Super Buu)

Vegito(in one battle against Super Buu, which, considering how powerful Vegito is, is more of an epic beatdown than a fight)

And a few characters that are support only:

Krillin

Tien

Yamcha

Chiaotzu

Goten

Kid Trunks

Android 18

All characters, Main and Support Only, have a ‘Super Attack Skill Tree’ that you can use Z Orbs that you find/earn to give them new skills and attacks. What you can get increases based on the character’s level and story progress(example, you can’t get Super Saiyan 2 for Gohan until he unlocks it during the fight with Perfect Cell).

Throughout the game, you’ll collect ‘Soul Emblems’ to place onto several ‘Community Boards’ to increase various ingame bonuses, like more EXP or cooking benefits. You get Soul Emblems both from the main story and side quests. They can be leveled up with Gifts to increase the Community Level, giving more bonuses. This seems to be the best setup for all of the emblems that I found.

At campfires and at Goku’s House, you can make food from items/materials you have to give yourself a stat boost. And Chi-Chi can be asked to make the party Full Course Meals at her home, which also increase the Base Stats of whoever eats them.

A certain filler episode from the original series where Goku and Piccolo are forced to get a Driver's License also happens in this game(though unfortunately without the outfits they wore in said episode). After doing so, you unlock the ability to make cars and battle walkers from Bulma, as well as Time Attacks for both types of vehicles(which I didn’t do much of).

Like the first Budokai game, this one has story’s events shown in cutscenes, which the later ones just had them happen in dialogue to speed things along, probably. And they did a really good job of animated said scenes, matching the look and feel of the series VERY closely.

The flying also feels well done, and true to the series. Aside from flying normally, which is fairly slow, you can hit L3 to start flying faster, at the cost of your Ki slowly going down and not being able to sense Ki with R1. This is the best way to travel the the large maps. Goku and Gohan can also use the Flying Nimbus, though you can’t pick up items that you need to hit Circle while doing so. Also, ramming into weaker enemies while flying will defeat them instantly and give you EXP. It’s a bit hard to aim yourself at enemies correctly, sometimes, though.

Going underwater functions the same as flying, except with an air meter to keep an eye on. If it runs out, you get kicked back above where you entered the water as the only penalty. Take a peek down under whatever bodies of water you find; there’s always stuff to see and collect, depending on the map, especially on maps with oceans.

You can also dash on the ground by hitting L3, and unlike when flying, you can still sense Ki while doing so.

I feel like this game’s flying controls are about what it should feel like for a Superman game. Probably might need a few tweaks to fit more with that series, but this feels like a good base for that kind of game.

The game’s many maps are pretty large, with lots to see and explore, including towns, caves that you need to be a certain level to enter, materials to gather, fishing spots, and more. They include plenty of well known DBZ locations, insulting Kame House(and the ocean around it), West City and Capsule Corp., Korin’s Tower and Kami’s Lookout, and so on.

Floating around these maps are enemies you can fight. They grow in strength as you do/the story progresses. If you’re strong enough and are fast-flying when running into an enemy, you’ll defeat it and gain EXP right away.

Speaking of Korin’s Tower, you can eventually unlock the ability to grow Senzu Beans there, which fully heal you. Once they’re unlocked, they will gradually grow and can be collected from Korin, with a Senzu Bean icon appearing next to it on the World Map if there’s any available. He will hold up to 9 at once, so check back once in a while.

Fishing is pretty easy to do; just hit one of the face buttons(X, Triangle, Square and Circle) when the marker is in a marked area, then hot one again when the closing circle is within another marked circle(this might make more sense when you see it yourself). You’ll get items for cooking from fishing, and some sidequests need them, or just certain types of fish, to clear. An amusing detail when fishing is that Goku and Gohan, even when he’s a teenager, use a fake tail as a lure while Vegeta and Piccolo fish like normal people(I forgot to check and see what Future Trunks does, but probably the latter).

After clearing the Frieza Saga, you can collect the Dragon Balls on Earth during Intermissions. They give off a small orange slow when sensing for Ki, and you’ll hear a low humming sound when you’re close to one. You can get several different wishes from them, with three of them always being for Z Orbs, Zeni or Rare Material Items. Other wishes are reviving certain dead characters to fight them again, and can only be done once, unlike the three listed above. At first, you can only make 1 wish at a time, but as the game goes on, it gets upgraded to 2 then 3 wishes at once. After making a wish(s), you ‘ll need to wait 20 ingame minutes before the Dragon Balls can be found and used again. They seems to have a couple set locations on whatever map they end up on(two locations are west of Orange/Satan City, for example).

Speaking of Mr. Satan...I know that his actually Japanese stage name, but I always end up calling him Hercule due to hearing that for so many years(and just liking how that sounds better). Also, ‘Satan City’ just sounds really funny. XD

You probably won’t need to really grind in the base game; you should get enough experience from doing sidequests and story events to get by. Gohan especially; he ended up quite a few more levels than everyone else just from the story EXP alone, and his Unleashed Potential ‘form’ from Elder Kai makes him do quite a lot more damage. Also, gained experience is shared among all party members, even those not currently set to fight.

One of the sidequests you can do throughout the game is defeating ‘Villainous Enemies’, who are fairly strong, and are covered in a red aura. You should at least be at or around their level before fighting them, since you can’t run from fights in this game. It may be best to do them during Intermissions when you can select your party members, and bringing someone who can stun with Solar Flare(like Krillin), can be really helpful.

In the epilogue/postgame, in addition to being able to play as Future Trunks(talk to him outside of Capsule Corp.), you can also use his time machine to redo Boss fights, and do any sidequests you may have missed.

The game’s opening has the old opening for the show, ‘Cha-La-Head-Cha-La”, and this is the first time I really listened to it. It’s really good, and kind of reminds me of the opening to Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, too, for some reason.

There’s a few parts where there’s some nice attention to the series’ details:

At several story points when Saiyan characters are healed, like with Senzu Beans or the healing pod on Namek, they gain experience, while others, like Krillin, don’t get that bonus, which does make them, admittedly accurately, start lagging behind in strength.

If you use Ki Sense on Androids, and a certain researcher in Capsule Corp., you won’t see anything emitting from them.

If you have Piccolo and/or Android 18 in your party while eating a Full Course Meal from Chi-Chi, they won’t eat any of it. Saiyan characters(again, forgot to check Future Trunks) eat it ravenously(even Vegeta), while human party members eat normally.

Only Goku and Gohan can use the Flying Numbus.

These aren’t really important observations, but some events in the game made me think:

Did Piccolo destroying the Moon to stop Gohan’s Great Ape form have any effects on Earth? Or did nothing really happen?

How in the world did Supreme Kai and Babidi survive being so close to Majin Vegeta when he used Final Explosion while Piccolo and Krillin hightailed it out of there with Goten and Kid Trunks?

I noticed a possible(intentional) goof at the end. In the cutscene after beating Kid Buu and going back to Kami’s Lookout to reunite with everyone, Dende is a kid again for some reason. Apparently, both the original anime and manga made this goof too, so maybe it’s a nod to that? It is kind of jarring, though. XD

A couple technical issues I found were that sometimes when loading a map, and in some battles later on, the game would hang for a couple seconds, and one time it crashed while it was loading into an area after traveling to another. Thank goodness for autosave. Also, be careful using the stronger version of Goku’s Spirit Bomb attacks; it caused major lag for me a couple times.

This ended up being one of my favorite DBZ games that I’ve played, close runners up including

Budokai 3

Budokai Tenkaichi 2(mainly for just how many characters that one has, including most of the movies from around that time, outmatched by Budokai Tenkaichi 3, which I didn’t play)

Legacy of Goku 2(I didn’t get the chance to play Buu’s Fury back then)

Next game being sent is: Nitroplus Blasterz: Heroines Infinite Duel

#Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot #Dragon Ball Z #Thoughts on my rentals

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pan-of-light · 4 years ago

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Crowded Break!

Octavinelle Trio on vacation. That’s it, that’s the fic.

Originally posted to AO3

Spring break was a time for productivity. Being home and sequestered in his childhood room was one of the few places he felt comfortable enough to sprawl around in his true, octopus merman form, and he had to admit: no matter the aesthetic advantaged brought about by the human potion, it was so much easier to work with eight extra limbs. There was always a lingering fear in his mind he'd be unable to get used to working at such a slower capacity when he went back to school, but they rarely lasted. Like the Ramshackle Dorm's prefect had told him, he was a hard worker. Azul Ashengrotto would not lose to the weakness of a human form.

But he was going to enjoy this time of working at a proper pace. Professors at Night Raven were hardly shy about burying their students in homework, since the school and their students has a reputation to uphold. They were the best of the best (besides the musclebrains of Royal Sword), and Azul was always one to outshine others. After a hectic fall term, this is what he needed. Peace, quiet, eight extra limbs--

And the door to his room slamming open.

Honestly, it was a feat to do so underwater, but after years of knowing the Leech siblings, it was just a thing Azul had come to accept. And thankfully, he'd gotten plenty of control of his ink glands and kept himself from making a mess of his room as Floyd and Jade barged in. Well, Floyd barged, Jade at least had the decency to shut the door behind him after slithering in.

At times like these, Floyd reminded Azul of Professor Trein’s cat. Much like how Lucius could walk all around the bookshelves and displays of the professor’s office and not disturb a single award or decoration, so could Floyd effortlessly maneuver through Azul’s setup on the bed and make himself comfortable there without disturbing a single book, phone or computer. Azul would be impressed if he wasn’t already so used to it.

“So why are you two here?”

“Your parents let us in,” Jade answered, setting down a tray of snacks on a nearby desk.

“Yeah, they complained we never visit anymore and said we were getting thin. You need to invite us over more, Azul~”

“That’s not what I asked,” Azul sighed, but knew that was about as much of an answer as he was going to get. Honestly, his parents. It was a miracle Azul could go through doors as a kid. He hoped running the Lounge didn’t permanently rewire his brain to associate loving others with shoving them full of food, in the future.

In the present, however, he had people who knew him far too well, so Jade had also bought a low-calorie all-natural wrap from a nearby health food shop, placing it on the desk along with the food Azul’s parents made in such a natural way it was like it had always been there. Efficiency born from practice.

“You should at least take a break to eat with us. Wasn’t it you who said the secret to a fitter form was more small, spaced out meals than few big ones?” when they were home like this, Jade never bothered to hide his teeth while smiling, leaving his appearances and manipulations refreshingly honest. There was no point in hiding their true natures from people who knew them so well, which just made their dances around each other that much more fun.

“I’m afraid I’m still too busy to take a break at the moment.”

“Boooring! Come eat with us, Azul!” Floyd sprung from his position on the bed, expertly knocking away or slapping all of Azul’s things with his tail in a single move, again much like Lucius would do to Professor Trein’s shelves when the cat decided it was treat time and would not hear anything to the contrary. “Not like you can work on anything now, right?”

Azul scoffed, pushing Floyd off his bed, a move that had no malice behind it and was almost incapable of causing any damage, since it was hardly like Floyd could hit the floor while underwater. Some might even describe it as playful.

“Or maybe I can just make you both leave.” “You’d treat your guests in that manner?” Jade raised a hand to his chest in mock surprise, letting out a dramatic gasp, “I had no idea your parents had raised such an uncouth host.”

“Yeah, your mom’d squee~ze you way worse than I could ever do if she hears you’re bad to guests, Azul.”

Oh, such a low blow, going for his parents like that. Especially since they knew he’d have little success employing that strategy since the Leech parents had far too many sibling to properly manage them. If Floyd and Jade were any more chaotic, it could be troubling for all the seas! Then again, Azul pondered, thinking back to his Overblot incident, it wasn’t like he was that much better. They might be named Leech, but he was the one who sucked power from others.

Not from them, though, no. He’d never seen what they had in him, but they willingly gave him their time and power in pursuit of amusement, that serendipitously aligned with his own goals. Their partnership was a thing of incredible power, and Azul made absolutely sure to never tell them that out loud, lest it go to their heads even more. (Plus, if they were even the tiniest bit close to him as he was to them, they already knew).

“You’re both awful guests, and my mother would see nothing wrong in kicking troublemakers like you out.” Azul only earned laughter in response, mocking and derisive and, well, proving his point. He shooed Jade off his chair and took a seat at his desk, grabbing the snack they’d brought for him while Jade took a polite seat on his bed, grabbing some food for himself while Floyd took the rest of the tray and sprawled out on the floor, stretching himself from one end of the room to another.

“I’m assuming you have actual plans for the day, then?”

“The community center stage is open, you haven’t played piano for us in a while, Mona’s salon is having a discount on full hair treatment days-”

“There are new documentaries being screened at the museum regarding advances in magic control study, I know you have some new board game prototypes to test for the club-”

“Oh! There’s also going to be a fried food festival thing in a few days, so you need to plan your diet so you can go, and we can look up new things to try in the lounge there--”

“And, of course, if all else fails, there’s always watching over our beloved schoolmates on MagiCam to make sure they’re spending their break properly, huhu…”

“That’s enough activities for the rest of the break, not just a single day.”

“Well, duh,” Floyd laughed, “did you seriously have any other plans? You’re a shut-in when you get left alone too long~”

“As vice-leader of Octavinelle, it’s nothing more than my duty to keep you stimulated and enriched during periods of rest.” “What am I, some kind of pet?”

“No, we’d have to feed you, then. You’re much less annoying when you can manage your own diet.” Jade was already looking all around the abandoned items on his bed, pulling out Azul’s schedule book and flipping through it until the current date, grabbing a pen and beginning to vandalize Azul’s well-made break plans.

“You’re giving me as much choice as a pet would.”

“But Azuuul, you totally have a choice! You can come with us, or we can start a throwback thursday on the Lounge’s MagiCam account! We have so many cute pictures of us as children, you know~” Floyd pulled out his phone to show his threat was far from empty, cloud storage noting a few dozen pictures of their childhood, Azul included.

Azul threw himself across the room, grabbing at Floyd’s hands, despite knowing that the pictures existed beyond his phone because it was the principle of the thing, damn it! while Floyd did his best to ignore all ten limbs of fury aiming for his hands. Bastard didn’t even need to use his unique magic for it, and when finally cornered, threw the phone to Jade, who had moved across the room just for this.

“Oh, and please do be careful, Azul,” he teased when it was his turn to end up with a facefull of angry octopus, “if you make too big a mess of you room, we won’t be able to go out today.”

By the time he saw his phone sail past him back to Floyd’s hands, Azul threw his arms in the air in exasperation. “Fine, fine, I’m going! Give me a minute to get my things in order!”

“Aww, isn’t this great, Jade? Azul finally decided the best way to spend his break is playing with us!”

“I’m so very glad out dorm leader is a capable man who always sees reason.”

#twisted wonderland #azul ashengrotto #jade leech #floyd leech #fanfic by pan #queue

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garagedoorinstallationil · 3 years ago

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Self-Help Guide: Just How to Repair Your Garage Doors

Though typically lots of people open and close their garage doors three to 5 times a day, they have a tendency to take them for granted till something fails. Garage doors allow and also cumbersome, averaging 100 to 180lbs in weight, with plenty of mechanical parts to break down, and also at some point, they will. Nonetheless, with a little TLC, a garage door will have a life-span of in between 15 and also three decades.

Right Here at A1 Garage Door Service, we've seen as well as fixed practically everything that can go wrong with a garage door. While some jobs are entrusted to the specialists, there are many repairs that an owner with some functional DIY abilities can fix without having to call out an expert.

In this overview, we will check out some typical garage door repair service problems and also troubleshoot them. We have actually likewise supplied you with a handy infographic poster that you can print off and also await your garage.

Just how Does a Garage Door Work? The very best area to start is with just how a garage door works and to recognize the different parts that maintain it relocating. Essentially garage doors work by using a counterbalance system that contains either types of springtime.

The most usual of both counterbalance systems uses torsion springtimes. Torsion springtimes are horizontally affixed to a turning shaft that sits over the garage door opening. When the garage door is shutting, the springs wind up producing kept power, and when opened up, the springtimes unwind, enabling the saved energy to raise the door. Torsion springtimes are commonly more expensive than the 2nd alternative of extension springs. However, they are a lot more sturdy, much safer, and also longer-lasting, so they are taken into consideration the most effective option.

Expansion springtimes are attached to the garage door's base with a lift wire that runs a pulley system. When the garage door is shut, the springtimes stretch and also, when opened, pull back. Extension springs are much weaker and more susceptible to damage; they are also thought about much more harmful.

Another important component of your garage door system is the garage door opener. While the springs do all the heavy grunt work, the opener allows you to open as well as close your garage door at the push of a button. You have five alternatives to pick from chain drive, direct drive, belt drive, jackshaft, and also screw drive. They vary in rate, intricacy, and also tranquility, with the chain drive being the less costly however noisiest.

Added elements include; tracks on both sides of the door to keep it abreast when closing and opening up, Rollers to aid the garage door in moving along the track, and wires affixed to the springtimes to help raise the door.

Why Does My Garage Door Open by itself? If your garage door starts opening on its own, after that you could assume it's time to call Ghostbusters! Supernatural goings-on or more rational factors to consider, you'll wish to find the factor fast, leaving it open for prospective burglars or the components might place you in jeopardy of theft or damage.

One of the most common factors is likely to be a blunder made by you or the last member of the family to use the garage, specifically when they remain in a rush. If you press the remote button while driving away, can you make certain it enclosed the starting point? Possibly the first thing to inspect.

The following point to inspect is the safety sensing units designed to ensure the door reverses when closing if something is obstructing its way. Check for debris or even an accumulation of snow or ice. It is additionally feasible for one of the sensors to become misaligned or break down. If so, they will need to be replaced.

One more common factor is that the buttons on the wall opener or the remote have actually come to be stuck down; tidy the controls, and also check the wiring and also connections inside the housing.

A final check you can make is the control wiring; a wire ranges from the opener's motor system in the center of the ceiling tracks to the control switch placed on the wall surface. A short circuit or a bare area can well be the root cause of your garage door opening up on its own.

Why Won't my Garage Doors Close? Just like a garage door that keeps opening by itself accord, a garage door that will not shut might position a danger to the safety of your garage and leave it exposed to the elements.

We have actually currently reviewed the safety sensing units and also how they are designed to open if they detect an object in the garage door course. If either of the photosensors has dirt on them or one is not in accordance with the various other, they can avoid the garage door from closing. Additionally, a cord can have ended up being inapplicable or severed, so inspect the links. Provide the sensors a clean with a cells, and also ensure they are straightened as well as inspect the electrical wiring.

Busted torsion springs are important garage components that permit your garage door to open as well as shut. You'll likely understand the reason for your garage door not closing as the springtime splitting will certainly sound like a gunshot. Luckily, torsion springtimes tend constantly to damage when the door is closed. It's the same for snapped wires; you'll see these quickly; frequently, they will snap when a torsion springtime breaks. These are jobs for somebody with the right devices and also knowledge to embark on.

If the tracks are obstructed or damaged, it can prevent the garage door from closing. In the best-case situation, it will certainly be a clog that can be conveniently eliminated. If the tracks are curved or deformed, you will likely need a replacement track.

When a garage door opener is mounted, limit setups are established as default. These settings can conform time. The garage door will typically quit prior to it gets to the ground or hit the ground, and also believe it has hit an item, it will instantly go into reverse. You'll need to change the limit settings, inspect the garage door opener manual, and change them per the instructions.

Why Doesn't My Garage Door Open? The word annoying doesn't do justice to the feelings you have if you can't get your automobile out of the garage since the door won't open. Normally, all sorts of expletives will certainly surround 'irritating' possibly ideal not explored in this overview! Most of the concerns with a garage door closed additionally apply to it not closing, such as obstructed, distorted, or curved tracks.

If your torsion springtime breaks when the door is shut, you'll need to switch off your opener and manually lift the garage door to get it open. Garage doors can be troublesome, so you may need help to do this. Use a lever to somewhat raise the door and also slide a piece of timber underneath to save any damages to your fingers. Then depending upon your door's weight, you may be able to lift it yourself or need aid to do so. When raised, secure the door with vice holds to guarantee it does not fall back down and also injure someone. Fixing a damaged torsion springtime can be an unsafe job for the uninitiated, so unless you have a lot of Do It Yourself experience and understand the technicians of your door garage, this is a work ideal left for the specialists.

Garage door openers include a cord to draw to disconnect the electric opener so that you can open the door by hand. For instance, you may require to open the garage door throughout a power interruption. Check that the garage door motor hasn't been detached; this is an easy as well as common solution.

Another simple check is to guarantee that it's not an issue with your remote control; it could be that you locked the remote by mishap or the batteries require changing. It could additionally be the antenna; examine it to see if it is damaged or blocked somehow. Ultimately, attempt resetting the remote control.

Finally, tak a take a look at the source of power. Is the opener getting power? Has it come to be unplugged? Otherwise, inspect that the breaker hasn't tripped as well as needs resetting or that a fuse hasn't blown and also requires changing.

Exactly How Can I Make My Garage Door Less Loud? Even if you can live with a loud garage door, it will be most likely that relative or perhaps next-door neighbors can not. Usually, a loud garage door is an easy problem to settle.

The most uncomplicated area to start is with a little lubrication, nine times out of ten, a little oil will certainly be all that is required for quieter garage doors. Making use of silicone or lithium spray lubricant especially created for garage doors, lube all the metal parts such as the springs, tracks, hinges, as well as rollers. When used, use a fabric to remove any kind of extra.

If you have a chain drive opener, the chain should be lubricated a couple of times a year as well. You'll also locate that a chain drive garage door opener is the noisiest of the different kinds you can buy. When it pertains to time to change it, maybe worth buying a belt drive system, which is a great deal quieter.

Examine the garage door, and track supports for loosened or absent screws as well as screws. Replace as well as tighten them with an adjustable or socket wrench, but do not overtighten as this could make issues worse.

After lubricating the steel components and changing or tightening up loose nuts and screws, you still have a noisy garage door; you'll require to inspect the different components for wear. If the roller is grinding or otherwise spinning openly on the shaft after lubricating, it could need replacing; we would certainly recommend selecting nylon rollers over steel.

If the garage springs seem the cause of the sound, be very careful and also don't attempt to adjust or repair them. They will certainly require replacing by preferably a specialist or else a person with a great practical knowledge of garage door mechanics. Without trying to seem melodramatic, the job can lead to death or arm or leg if not executed correctly.

You need to additionally evaluate the joints for wear, search for a much more oblong-shaped opening than round and dirt or steel filings around the pin.

Can Garage Doors Job Without Electricity? Getting locked in or out of your garage, especially the former, can be a troubling experience. Yet there is no requirement to panic, also without power; for instance, in case of a power outage, there is a way to open your garage door manually.

Standard garage door openers have an emergency situation guidebook release cable. You'll see the cable with its red manage positioned on the trolley track in addition to the garage door. When you draw the take care of, you will listen to a click. You can now by hand raise the door by ordering it at the base and raising it all the means up. For security reasons, do not leave the door open and neglected, as there is little in the means of precaution to keep the mechanism in position; even in the result of a strong gust of wind, the door could fall with the possibility of harming someone, specifically if you have pets or children.

Once you have electrical power once again and want to reconnect the electric opener, totally close the door by hand and after that draw the hands-on release cable; once it clicks, the button is re-engaged. Reconnect the garage door with the cart track by elevating it one to two feet It must snap right into location. After that examine the automatic opener to see if it functions properly by opening as well as closing the garage door.

Exactly How are Garage Doors Installed? For an expert garage door specialist, a garage door installment usually can take in between 5 and seven hrs. An expert garage door solution will certainly give you with distribution and setup and also eliminating your old door. The necessary steps are to connect the hinges, mount vertical tracking, attach the panels to the hinges, mount straight tracks, set up the torsion springtime system, and evaluate the door to make certain that it runs properly. In addition, you are likely to call for an automated garage door opener that is straightforward to suitable for your average Do It Yourself fanatic.

Is it Possible to Mount a Garage Door by yourself? If you want to comprehend far better how a garage door's mechanisms work for future maintenance and repair as well as minimize expenses, a Do It Yourself garage door installment could be a superb project for the appropriate person. For most garage door mounts, 2 individuals will be needed as they are hefty and unwieldy, as well as having a person around to pass devices to you when you get on a step ladder, as an example, can cut pause the work. What ought to be understood is that garage door setup can be hazardous; you require to be confident in your ability, educated in Do It Yourself, and also extremely safety and security conscious to take on the job. Thousands of people are harmed installing garage doors each year, so it's not a task to take on lightly.

Last Ideas We hope our guide has provided some valuable ideas for repairing garage door problems. If you maintain your garage doors in good order with normal maintenance and routinely inspecting the elements for indications of wear, they need to last you years. If you are experiencing a concern with your doors, keep calm, and be systematic in your approach. The issue will often be as easy as altering some batteries or eliminating some particles from a sensing unit or track. If you have actually attempted everything you can and also the solution still hasn't occurred, after that it's time to reach out to the professionals at A1 Garage Door Service, that will make certain to have your garage door up and running in no time at all.

Read our blog about Just how to Install a Garage Door

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gegenji · 4 years ago

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Gogonji Gegenji’s Multipurpose Blue Mage Loadout

It’s been touted by Martyn that Blue Mages can do eeeeeeverything.

And they can, more or less! They can serve as DPS, healers, or tanks thanks to Aetheric Mimicry - which was added in the previous patch that raised the BLU level cap to 60. However, with the cap now at 70 and even more spells to choose from, there’s a bit of an issue with this concept...

Fitting all three builds into one set of bars!

At least, that was a big issue for me! I wanted to be able to be able to swap from role to role at a moment’s notice - only needing to find the proper class to mimic off of after setting my loadout. And, for a little while, I thought such an option wasn’t possible with the latest patch.

However, I think I finally managed it! So, I present to you the results of my fussing and fiddling and investigating on what gets a slot and what gets dropped. Do keep in mind, of course, that this is primarily for clicking and may not work as well for those who primarily use hotkeys or are on controller.

That said, here’s what I ended up with:

This is with the DPS loadout active, just by the by.

Now, what’s extra nice about this is that you can make some minor adjustments to adapt to different fights. Specifically, you can turn off Magic Hammer or White Wind to grab Diamondback if you’re doing Alexander or Savage Omegascape v3.0 or something.

Technically you could also replace Peripheral Synthesis with Sharpened Knife (in which case you can either keep Sonic Boom as well or swap it for Electrogenesis or Blaze or something) or with any of the other 220 damage spells as your “spam” move... but I like my spammable attack being a giant robot fist. Can you really blame me?

Now, you may be wondering: “Wait, can this loadout really cover all three roles?” And even if not, I’m going to assume you are just to show each loadout separately.

Here’s the Healer loadout. As you can see, all those handy healer abilities on the right are all active now! And all that you lose in the process is some of the physical DPS boosts (but you can still spam that rocket punch!).

And, once again, this loadout can be adjusted some to take up more of an “off-healer” role that also gets to enjoy that Moon Flute goodness! Just turn off Libra, Gobshield, Diamondback, and either Glass Dance or White Wind... and you can pick up Whistle, Tingle, Triple Trident, and Moon Flute to add to the DPS at the cost of some of your healing capability.

You could also probably drop something else (Bristle, maybe?) to grab Final Sting as well... but I would think even off-healers would want to try and stay alive and a “Blow Yourself Up” button may tempt you otherwise!

And finally...

The Tank loadout.

Turning off a couple DPS options to turn on some tanking ones. That said, Final Sting is decidedly untanky, so you could always turn that one off to regain access to Libra, Bristle, or Glass Dance (Rose shares a CD with Chelonian Gate, though, so you can safely ignore that one). If you’re willing to drop White Wind (which is handy for generating big aggro if nothing else), you can turn on another one as well! In fact, I might go back and make a couple swaps myself later..

Still, those are just turning off/on abilities that are all still on this bar!

...

... That said, there are a couple missing pieces here that might worry some. Even with this setup seeking to cover all three roles, there’s still only so many spots for spells and a couple had to get cut for the sake of space.

The biggest one is probably the lack of Blood Drain for tank/healer, which means you’re missing that extra bit of MP regen. However, you could probably still slot it in your loadout and just swap it in place of Peripheral Synthesis. In a similar spot is Exuviation, but you could probably swap out Angel Snack for it (for specific fights or just in general) if needed. So those aren’t too bad.

Next is the fact that it cannot hit all three attenuations from Condensed Libra. There just wasn’t the space to fit in Blaze for that triumvirate of attack magics. That said, we’re still managing to hit two out of the three so you’d just stick to spamming rocket punches (or whatever spammable you choose instead) if/when that attenuation is chosen. And this also implies there’s someone with Libra actually slotted and actively using it.

Thirdly is the lack of any and all crowd control and/or trash clearing magics. No stuns or interrupts. And no Hydro Pulling into a Ram’s to Vibe either... or Level 5 Death, not even Missile! So you might have to deal with trash... -shudder- normally. Unless the rest of your team is packing it or you swap out... say... the defensive skills for tank to have Ram/Vibe on bars for DPS/healer.

Similarly, Surecast had to be pulled off so everything could fit, so you don’t have a handy “ignore forced movement” button and will actually have to pay attention to those sorts of mechanics. I’ve seen a guide for tank builds recommend Bad Breath, but it likewise couldn’t be fit in. And then there’s Basic Instinct for solo builds...

Honestly, there’s so much variety and good stuff for all three builds that, no matter what things you prioritize... something is going to be missing from one of the other builds. This setup just seeks to try and cover as much of them as possible without too much loss. And, as mentioned, some of them could just be swapped out.

... Or you could do some wacky hotbar swapping shenanigans to give each loadout its own custom bars.

Still, I think I managed to put together a pretty solid loadout (and one I’m rather happy with, which is what matters in the end, right?). It might not be able to do eeeeeverything like Martyn claims, but it can definitely do most of it!

And hopefully it might help you do (almost) everything on BLU too!

#ffxiv screenshots #patch 5.45 #blue mage #theorycrafting #wall of text

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weapvnized · 4 years ago

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*falls out of the dumpster behind your local Denny’s* Howdy, everyone! I’m Kip and we’re just not going to talk about how late I am to the party and just jump right into my intro that definitely got out of hand because yours truly is way to excited for this rp!

What’s that scent? The smell of BLOOD SPILT AGAINST COLD METAL, which would explain the appearance of JAVIER CRUZ. Continental records indicate they are known as PHANTOM, a THIRTY year old SPECIALIST. They have the unique ability of INTANGIBILITY. They were specifically selected for enrollment for the ASSASSINATION OF GRANT ANDERSON, where they ASSASSNITED A HIGH RANKING PUBLIC OFFICIAL IN A SUPPOSED SECURE LOCATION WITHOUT ANY SIGNS OF FORCED ENTRY, LEAVING MOST OF THE PUBLIC TO BUY INTO THE CONSPIRACY OF IT BEING AN INSIDE JOB. They can be VOLATILE and CYNICAL, but also ADAPTABLE and DAUNTLESS. We wish them well in their business to come.

BACKSTORY ! (death tw, murder tw, & car accident tw)

The first six years of Javier’s life were about as close to perfect as life could get — raised in a warm home by two doting parents that provided their son with all the love and care in the world. It’s clear his life would’ve been completely different had tragedy not struck. While at home, safe and sound, going on make believe adventures with his babysitter, his parents were killed in a car accident.

With no one to take him in and no place to stay after that night, Javier was placed into foster care. Still trying to process and understand his own grief, he found the transition difficult and behavioral issues began to arise in the young boy. Soon after his behavioral problems popped up, he found himself getting bounced from home to home — never finding the perfect fit.

Unsure of what else to do with him, Javier was moved into a group home when he was fourteen. He initially hated it there, but his opinion changed ever so slightly when he started to bond with two other boys there. As it turned out, the trio had a few similarities to bond over — all three were superhumans that had been juggled and mismanaged in the system from their early childhoods due to behavioral issues and all three of them were overall fed up with it.

Despite trouble brewing, the staff didn’t see Javier bonding with the other two as problematic. In fact, it looked like an improvement for him —like he was finally coming out of his shell and forming meaningful connections for the first time since his parents’ deaths. They didn’t overhear the lengthy conversations where the boys expressed their dissatisfaction with their lives in comparison to the well-off and completely intolerable peers they had at school. And they certainly weren’t aware that Javier was beginning to use his intangibility to sneak the three of them out at night.

Their night’s spent out started as a way to blow off steam — damage a little public property and run off laughing into the night. Slowly, Dustin — the eldest of the trio and unofficial leader of the group — came to the conclusion that there was so much more the boys could do with their powers. It all started with pure intentions — steal from businesses that could afford it and stage the stolen items as anonymous and generous gifts made to the group home. Naturally things started to escalate and they found themselves stealing from wealthy individuals as well — acting as a modern version of Robinhood and his band of merry men.

With the exception of a few close calls, their actions went largely unnoticed until one fateful night. Unbeknownst to the trio, the owner of the estate they were robbing was home and quietly watching the amateur heist take place. Impressed with how well they worked together and used their abilities, the man didn’t report them to the police and instead made plans to adopt the two that hadn’t aged out of the system yet.

Javier and the boy closer to his age were soon adopted seemingly out of nowhere and Dustin was even offered a place to stay with them by the man they stole from. Perhaps this should’ve raised some sort of alarms, but all three were all too delighted to have a place where it felt like they were finally wanted and cared for to pay attention to any red flags.

Shortly after, they started training more rigorously and eventually started participating in more largescale crimes. All the while they were treated like family — never suspecting that they were really nothing more than tools to the person who took them in. It wasn’t until later when Javier was injured in a training mishap and pushed to continue, that Dustin became suspicious of why they were really there.

There was little time to process all this though, as they were quickly dispatched to take care of a job for a “trusted contact.” It was, of course, a setup to get rid of the boys who would become a problem should they turn against the man that took them in. In all the chaos, betrayal, and confusion that came with this job, Dustin was killed while the other two were able to make it back home — only to face more betrayal. The pair managed to escape death for the second time that night, but not without Javier taking a bullet to his shoulder from his adoptive father.

After getting Javier proper medical attention, the pair decided it was for the best that they part ways in hopes that it’d make them harder to track down. Once he fully recovered, he went back to criminal work, this time working independently as a hitman in hopes to better hone his skills so he can absolutely wreck his adoptive father’s shit one day 😌

HEADCANONS !

Forgive and forget? Absolutely not! Javier is very much the resent and remember type. Screw him over at any point and he’ll be hellbent on getting even. Like even over little things — he can be extremely petty.

Very hotheaded — it doesn’t take a lot to get under his skin. And while it is something he’s sort of working on...it’s not uncommon to find him in the middle of a heated argument over something stupid or caught up in a bar brawl.

Is the type to take jobs very seriously and expects the people working with him to do the same. While he’s not going to call you out right then and there for a mistake, you can bet your ass he’ll have a lot to say once the job is over and will be brutally honest about it.

Teamwork is really hit or miss with him. He has experience at working well as a team and should in theory be better at it because of it, but his general distrust for others can get in the way and make things not go quite as smooth as they need to. Despite all his distrust, he is someone who can be relied on in the field and does make it a priority to make sure everyone involved gets out in one piece so there’s that.

Generally prefers to work alone or at least in some sort of leadership role, but he can adapt and take direction well if need be. And while he would prefer missions to go exactly as planned, realistically he knows that’s probably not going to happen and can quickly adjust.

It’s not easy to gain his trust or friendship, but once you do he’s very ride or die (unless you epically screw up and manage to lose his trust).

Not to call him out or anything, but he’s had very few meaningful or significant relationships of any type with other people so he’s lowkey lonely. Of course, he’d never admit it, but yeah definitely lonely.

His sense of humor, when present, is usually sarcastic and dry.

Can frequently be seen rolling his eyes, facepalming, and sporting an annoyed expression.

Immediate death glare to anyone who calls him Javi (if they’re not close).

The first vine that pops into my head when I think about Javier is the one where the dude is hanging off his bed and goes, “Alright, let’s tell each other a secret about ourselves. I’m going to go first, I hate you.”

EXTRAS !

Wanted Connections/Plot Ideas || Stats || Powers Page || Playlist || Pinterest (blood & images of weapons tw in the aesthetic section!!)

#mhq;intro #death tw #murder tw #car accident tw #you can really tell the exact moment my brain said let's just finish this ajfdsyffdhs #javier | intro.

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thanksjro · 5 years ago

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More Than Meets the Eye #1- Meeting All Our New Friends

Okay, let’s see what happens when you give one man way too much power over a franchise, and he doesn’t use it for evil.

Before we get into the story, let’s take a look at the cover art! MTMTE, as well as its sister series, Robots in Disguise, started off IDW Phase Two, a brand new run of main comics to replace the by-then completed The Transformers (2009). To celebrate this momentous occasion, each comic’s first issue got FOUR separate covers, which could be combined to create a large, overarching image. MTMTE’s looked like this when all the covers were put together.

The cover art here is by Alex Milne, who is on as the main artist for the series, but he’s not on issue #1- no, for our foray into this comic run, we see the return of Nick Roche.

The last time Roche and Roberts worked together was on Last Stand of the Wreckers, and other than MTMTE #6 and the Revolution one-shot, they won’t be teaming up again within the IDW run.

On a potentially-related-but-more-of-just-a-humorous note, it seems that Roberts is a huge stickler with his scripts, going into what sounds like an honestly horrific amount of detail for each individual panel. The average comic script is either between 20-23 or 28-30 pages long, not counting title and credit pages. Roberts has been cited as sending in comic scripts that approached 50 pages.

Which, if you know anything about the scriptwriting process, is a little… yeah. It’s a very good thing Roberts seems to be able to take criticism.

ANYWAY.

IT’S TIME.

The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye- Liars, A to D Part 1: How to Say Goodbye and Mean It- holy fucking shit that’s a long title- starts off with the Story So Far, a comic book classic to catch readers up on what’s happened prior to the issue. The very nature of a Story So Far will become plot-relevant much later down the line, but as is, it’s just reminding us what happened during Phase One, in as basic a point as it can.

And then the credits are right underneath.

I can’t even imagine how friggin’ good seeing this printed must have felt.

So, what’s going on in the premiere of the sad, gay, space comic?

Not my phrasing, by the way, but the Wiki’s.

So, the war’s over. What does that mean? Well, a lot of things, honestly, but the first thing we’re given in terms of what changes to expect with everyone’s favorite space robots is in relation to their wardrobes. Yeah, without a war to fight, what’s the point in having relatively identical blocky armor that protects all your insides? It’s time to get skimpy.

Rodimus has switched out his toned calves and discernible ankles for the Uggs that are now positively iconic to his character. Drift’s mass has almost completely gravitated to his thighs, making him the curviest thing this side of the Milky Way. Ultra Magnus didn’t get the memo about not needing to be in uniform anymore, I guess, but somehow I doubt he owns anything casual.

Rodimus, Drift, and Magnus are holding a rally to invite Autobots to come on their party-barge to find the Knights of Cybertron, in an effort to heal the planet, because Rodimus took one look at post-war Cybertron and said “no thanks.” Honestly, I think most would, if these properly colored characters are any indication.

Just the Autobots, by the way. We aren’t ready to be friends with the ‘Cons just yet. Swindle did some major damage on that front.

Prowl and Wheeljack are off to the side discussing this turn of events, and while Wheeljack seems to think that a lot of folks will be boarding the ship and getting the hell out of dodge, Prowl’s expecting nothing to come of it.

So, that was yesterday. What’s going on today?

Inside Kimia, there’s a dead guy. He wasn’t dead when he was brought in, but he is now. Who is he, anyway?

Oh, he’s one of the NAIL protesters, and he died because he was protesting by way of transforming on the steps of Autobot HQ, until his transformation cog burn out. Yep, that can kill you. Ratchet’s the one who performed the autopsy, as per Metalhawk’s request- he only wanted the best of the best on this.

Too bad the best of the best is starting to slump. After a brief scare with Rigor Morphis- the stiffening of the corpse into the body’s preferred mode- Ratchet explains to Bumblebee that his hands have started seizing up, and that’s why he’ll be leaving on the Lost Light with Rodimus. He just can’t do the work anymore.

This news is not well received by Bumblebee, who’s just about had it with everyone up and leaving him all by himself with the mess that is Cybertron.

Phase Two will not be kind to Bumblebee.

Bumblebee accuses Ratchet of having been insnared in Rodimus’ siren song of reclaiming the Golden Age, but c’mon, this is Ratchet! He’s too cynical to fall for that. He’s more interested in finding the Autobots who’ve been lost over the millennia to the war. Ratchet’s already well aware of the true purposes of this little galactic road trip, almost like he’s read the plot outline.

It’s about helping people, and adventure, and being unapologetically gay and sad in equal measures.

Up in the sky, Cyclonus is displeased. He spent six million years in the Dead Universe, under the control of a madman, waiting for the moment he could return to his beloved homeworld, and what does he get? A ball of half-baked primordial cookie-dough, and it’s not even chocolate-chip like he was expecting; it’s fucking oatmeal raisin.

Mmm, that is some tasty panel-breaking right there.

Of course, the I/D chip might not have worked anyway, seeing as Cyclonus got a little bit of a boost when Vector Sigma ejected everyone during the Matrix incident. It’s doing some weird stuff to his body, on top of whatever nonsense existing inside the Dead Universe does to a person.

Cyclonus is about to head over to the Lost Light- apparently he and Rodimus made a little deal off-panel- when he detects a familiar life sign and decides to see what that’s all about.

Over in Prowl’s office, things are tense. He and Chromedome can’t even look at each other, as Chromedome reveals that both he and Rewind are jumping on the Lost Light. Prowl doesn’t like this, not one bit. He needs Chromedome, needs his skills, his expertise. He tries to appeal to Rewind, knowing who wears the pants in this relationship.

Or, well, he tries.

Prowl, they’ve been married for over 250,000 years.

In all seriousness, this is slightly before the first tentative steps Roberts took towards making the franchise as gay as he possibly could, at least when going by the story’s chronology. The thing about professional comic script writing is that plotting/planning goes for a ways beyond the current script one’s working on, so that everyone knows where everyone else is. Considering the somewhat congruent nature between MTMTE and RiD, planning ahead was especially important.

Chromedome and Rewind were originally (like, first draft originally) meant to be best friends. This was to fill a void in the department of close relationships Roberts felt within the Transformers franchise. Then Roberts saw how handsy he’d been writing them during plotting and realized he’d made something a little different happen. Which still sort of went with what he was going for, just in a slightly different fashion. Chromedome and Rewind are a rare case of a writer NOT leaning into the “they’re just bros, bro” mentality and just letting the characters be together as romantic partners.

Also keep in mind that it would be another three fucking years before the United States would legalize same-sex marriage, which is where the IDW offices are located. You gotta ease that sort of change in, that way nobody realizes what you’re doing until it’s already been done, then you can go hog-wild. We won’t be hitting critical mass on the homonormative civilization that is IDW1 Cybertron for a solid year or so.

So this bit of dialogue is just the start of the setup, and the “best friend” line is either a leftover from earlier versions of the script, or Prowl really just is that big of an asshole.

Rewind is, of course, recording everything taking place on his handy-dandy little head-mounted camera, because history is his business, and he’s not going to stop recording for the likes of Prowl.

Rewind doesn’t like Prowl very much.

It would seem that the feeling is mutual.

Chromedome suddenly remembers that trying to reason with Prowl is like talking to a brick wall, and the two of them leave. Prowl responds to this slight by yelling in the hallway and then flipping a table.

I sure hope y’all like running gags.

Of course, Prowl wouldn’t be Prowl without having a few contingency plans in place for when things don’t go his way, and he makes a call to his inside guys to “load the cargo.”

That’s not ominous in the slightest.

Six million years prior to all this nonsense, a tiny little dude fell in a hole and broke his legs trying to get to work.

This is Tailgate, and he’s seen better days. Not many, mind you, but at least a couple. He was making his way to the launch of the original Ark, when he decided to take a shortcut that would change the course of his life forever. Hence the whole “stuck in a hole” thing. Still, he’s got to get out of here, because without him, the entire expedition is doomed!

For being an idiot, Tailgate’s pretty smart- he figures that if he sets off his energon rations, it’ll blast up through the roof of the cavern he’s in and someone will be able to find him. Good thing energon’s so incredibly volatile.

Speaking of volatile, let’s jump back to the present and check on our buddy Whirl.

It looks like Whirl also got a makeover between series, because he’s now sporting a much sleeker, angular frame, complete with long, tapered head.

Whirl’s currently busy thanking his new friends for spending so much time with him. It really meant a lot to him, their patience. Not many folks have been patient with him before.

Of course, it probably helps that all these guys are dead as hell.

It’s time for another Roberts’ staple- the suicide attempt. We won’t be using the robot-equivalent to Multiple Sclerosis though. This go around, we’ll be using a classic: self immolation!

Title drop! Bet you weren’t expecting it to have such a dark connotation, huh?

Cyclonus interrupts Whirl’s monologue and suicide attempt. He thought he’d seen his best buddy, Scourge, on his tracker, and his immediate response is to lurk in the shadows looking like a night demon wearing a party hat.

Fun fact: a group of Sweeps is called a Spring Cleaning.

Scourge isn’t here, and he won’t ever be. Scourge most likely died off-panel, never to be seen again, assumedly because nobody wanted to write for him. I think it’s the nails, puts people off.

Whirl doesn’t take kindly to the intrusion, and responds the only way he knows how.

It’s always embarrassing when your self-immolation gets interrupted, but maybe try taking a first deep breaths before committing to more war crimes, Whirlybird.

While these two morons fill the post-Bay movie explosion quota, Red Alert’s hard at work screening the passengers on the Lost Light. Currently, he’s checking Brainstorm, who’s making it as difficult as possible, both legally and emotionally. Red Alert waves him on with a grumble, without even getting a peek at what’s inside his mysterious briefcase.

Up next is Swerve.

His legs are so jacked, it makes me a little uncomfortable. Glad to see Swerve’s body reformat went swimmingly- seems he went for the classic “tires in the shoulders and ankles” model.

Oh hey, it’s Rung! Hi Rung!

This series will not be kind to Rung.

While Cyclonus and Whirl terrorize the folks just trying to get on board the dang ship, Rodimus is feeling rather pleased with himself with the turnout. Drift strokes his ego a bit, because they support each other, but things are still weird because Drift doesn’t know who he is as a person anymore, and Rodimus has a guilty conscience mixed with being the Matrix’s golden child, which really fucks with a guy’s head.

Ultra Magnus goes through the list of the folks joining their quest, and starts running through all their demerits and crimes like it’s his job, because it is. We get a little peek into Magnus’ world view and then it’s back to the Whirl and Cyclonus show.

Also, Drift doens’t have a nose right now. He’ll get it back in time for the next issue, don’t worry.

Over with the flyboys, Cyclonus has decided to land and attempt to reason with Whirl. Not that he couldn’t totally kill Whirl if he wanted to.

He just doesn’t want to.

No, Cyclonus is far more concerned with his meeting with Rodimus, the one that he’s already friggin’ late for thanks to the detour he took checking that life signature. Whirl doesn’t care, far more worried about the fact that Cyclonus saw him talking to desecrated corpses and, far more importantly, vulnerable.

Look at this jackass’ ensemble- demon helmet, a crop top, a skirt and bellbottom pants. What an icon. He and Eugenesis Wheeljack should trade fashion tips.

Whirl still isn’t done with him, even after scraping him across the side of a mountain. Feeling especially artsy, he scoops Cyclonus up and jumps into the air, since he apparently has a hundred-foot vertical leap.

Back in the past, things aren’t going so well for Tailgate.

More cool panel stuff going on here- every time the panels have had rounded corners, it’s been when the scene takes place in the past. Now that the last panel has proper right angles to it, Tailgate’s in the present with everyone else. That middle panel probably covers a couple million years, at least. Poor guy.

Up on the surface, Ratchet’s met up with Chromedome and Rewind, and they’re all walking over to the launch site, Chromedome bitching all the while about how they’ve got to use their legs since Rewind’s alt-mode isn’t a vehicle, but a USB.

Chromedome seems to have forgotten that his tiny husband is small enough to probably just ride on top of his alt-mode, if not directly inside, most likely due to his larger-than-life personality.

Whirl and Cyclonus fall out of the sky before Chromedome can say something that’ll get his ass divorced. Cyclonus gets knocked out cold, having taken the brunt of the impact. Unfortunate, seeing as Whirl’s taking the time to make up lies about him.

You thought I was kidding when I said the armor was skimpy, but here we are, with a shot of Whirl’s battle thong.

Ratchet, who knows Whirl, because he knows everybody, tries to talk him out of straight up murdering Cyclonus. Whirl doesn’t like it when people try to talk him down, and is about to turn on the good doctor, when Tailgate enters the scene, by way of explosion.

Whirl doesn’t handle explosions terribly well. Probably why he was going to use one to kill himself.

With Whirl knocked out, Ratchet and the power couple pull Tailgate out of his hole, where he manages to ask about the launch before freaking the fuck out and fainting at the sight of a rather dead-looking Whirl. To be fair, I can’t think of a whole lot of folks who’d survive getting their tits blown off with enough force to clear a tunnel in solid rock.

You said it, Rewind.

Ratchet grabs Tailgate and Whirl and brings them onboard the ship, seeing as Tailgate seems to want to be there, and Whirl’s too dangerous to be out of sight. They just kinda leave Cyclonus on the ground. I doubt the two guys who were on Kimia last month really want to deal with him.

Rewind breaks off from the group to see his dealer. This dealer isn’t selling the good kush though. He’s got something far more incriminating to offer.

But we don’t get to find out what the fuck Rewind just bought from Swindle for a few more issues. Rest assured, it’s nothing good.

On the bridge, Rodimus is in his captain’s chair, ready to captain it up. The Lost Light raises into the air, as Bumblebee and Prowl watch on, about to exit the atmosphere and begin a adventure filled with hijinks and mild peril.

And that’s a series wrap on everyone! I hope you enjoyed this wonderful one-shot written by James Roberts.

What do you mean there’s 56 more issues?

Alright, let’s see where this goes.

Back on the bridge, there’s alarms and sirens out the wazoo, as things have pretty much immediately gone to shit. The quantum engine the Lost Light’s outfitted with apparently went off prematurely, rocketing them into a completely random quadrant of space.

Also, there’s a hole in the ship, and vacuum physics are doing their thing.

This series will not be kind to Rodimus.

The Lost Light touches down on the planet they popped back into existence over to start looking for all the guys who got sucked out of the ship. They don’t have to look long, seeing as they’re all burning up in the atmosphere.

Welcome to the Lost Light. It’s a friggin’ mess.

Back on Cybertron, the aftermath of the explosion is seen, as Bumblebee and Prowl listen to a message that seems to imply a lot more heartache in the future.

Prowl, you could at least pretend to give a shit.

That’s the end of the story, but not the end of the issue. In the back of the book, we get a welcome letter from James Roberts himself, thanking the reader for taking the time to read the beginning of MTMTE, and holy shit does he really try to sell it to you. This is a guy who wants you to be excited about the story that’s coming your way, because he’s excited about it. He’s a big dork who loves Transformers, and he gets to write about them for the next six years! That’s awesome.

#transformers #jro #mtmte #liars A-to-D #issue 1 #incoming analysis #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing

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fuse2dx · 4 years ago

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December ‘20

Bugsnax

Bugsnax is an odd little title, landing somewhere between Pokémon Snap and Ape Escape. There’s a bit less of a frantic pace though, instead telling a tale of a remote island where the titular part-animal, part-snack race roam about, with a series of characters each having their own relationship to them that... typically involves eating them. The disappearance of one key villager has been the catalyst to everything heading into a state of confusion though, and as the new person in town, it becomes your job to pull everything back together, all while trying to piece together a better understanding of just what Bugsnax are in the first place.

The game’s main cast are loud, colourful, and full of personality, with some decent queer representation going on too. It’s regularly quite charming, but the story runs parallel to a pretty simple gameplay loop of going out to a new area, meeting an estranged villager, getting a new tool that allows you to catch some new ‘snax in service of a given task for said villager, that inevitably fuels their return to the village. While catching a good chunk of the 100-strong Bugsnax portfolio follows a fairly repeatable mould of trap-setting and capture, some require some slightly more creative thinking, and final smattering lean more on good fortune as you try and juggle a few different elements in a way that sets up the perfect snaring.

I’ve seen some talk of folks who found the last sections of the game a little out of character, but having gone through all of the side missions before heading for the finish line, nothing came as too much of a surprise for myself. As a PS5 launch game it might lack the flair and experimentation that one might expect, but in better handling one’s expectations and seeing ‘just’ a game with extraordinary timing, it’s a pleasant and sufficiently entertaining romp - just nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

Demon’s Souls

I was in two minds coming into this. I’ve played the opening few hours of Demon’s Souls about 5 times now, with each attempt before this one stalling at different points for a variety of petty and frustrating reasons. So this, a fresh chance to try again, newly polished and smoothed out, with active servers, and a revitalised community? Excellent! Yet on the other hand, how much of the magic is Bluepoint likely to have been able to recreate? Even as a shot-for-shot remake, what if they had diluted the experience?

While I can’t speak with any particular authority here, very little seems to have changed outside of the visual overhaul. Some areas might be a bit easier to navigate owing to their new lick of paint, but enemies still pose the same threat, and everything is still where it should be, as are the obtuse, woefully under-discussed karmic swings that underpin its tendency system. Let’s not pull punches; it’s most notably a mean platform to build a game upon that makes suffering players suffer more, and is likely not one that you’ll even be aware of it before near irreversible damage is already done. From have undoubtably done similar concepts much better since, and while I might bemoan it, there’s also something to be said for allowing it to still exist just as it did at the series’ outset. It’s likely a wise choice on Bluepoint’s part to have left it untouched, albeit a slightly cruel one.

While the lack of a single, interconnected world was not yet on the cards for this particular Souls outing, there’s still plenty of great level design, with each of the game’s archstones providing a theme that’s adhered to brilliantly. A few exceptions aside, boss battles are typically less about flexing combat chops too, proving more of a challenge in solving how to approach them in the first place. In doing so, it creates some truly memorable moments alongside those that are purely frantic and rewarding thereafter. The same can be said for the game at large too; while its punishment of new players might be its most infamous quality, it does do a remarkable job in having you learn its every inch, and how best to deal with everything it cares to throw at you. While the chase of 1:1 replication might mean some of its jankiness remains, its visual overhaul and silky smooth frame rate certainly do a good job in helping you overlook it all and in embracing the still best-in-class world building. One of the years’ best, and by far the most compelling reason to date for next-gen ownership.

Grindstone

Grindstone was front and centre right as the doors opened on Apple Arcade, and it’s a pretty easy to see why it’d be pegged for such honours. It’s bright, colourful, charming, and very easy to pick up. Some of Capy’s other noteworthy titles might fall more into the realm of the arthouse, but this is them at full power, exhibiting that ultimate strength of knowing just how to capture any given audience. Most of the game is spent planning out your turn, and it looks great even in this calm stillness - but as you unleash the mighty Jorj on each of his rampages, there is a satisfying spring into action that gives the same kind of satisfactory twang you might get from an elastic band, or a coiled slinky about to bound down a flight of stairs.

Within a few short stages almost all of the base mechanics are laid bare, with each turn asking you to plot a course through colour-matched enemies, and landing you far enough away from any enraged enemies that’d seek to do you harm. Chain for long enough and you’ll spawn a grindstone that’ll let you switch colours mid-combo, and building up enough hits can then allow you to expend that strength on monsters with higher health pools. The range of enemy types grows as you progress, as does the array of new tools you can build that allow you new ways of dealing with them all, but ultimately the balance that needs addressing is knowing just when to walk away. There’s typically three goals to each level - opening the exit being just the first of these - and while in some cases you might have a handle on things when the exit does open up, it’s often not the case, and hanging around too long carries the risk of losing all of your progress on the stage if you lose a clear path to your escape.

Some of its later mechanics and the level arrangements can be quite taxing, and while never completely unfair, it can definitely... grind... on your patience. For something that could easily be taken as a casual little puzzle game, it’s quite lengthy too - the path unbroken leads you through a whopping 180 stages, but without extensive draining of resources from each of these, you’ll likely need to try some of the side dungeons to help make your way to the end too. Very likely more than your bargained for then, and yet still plenty compelling to boot.

Necrobarista

Some neatly constructed character models and a snappy trailer might attempt to tell you otherwise, but let us be clear with one another that Necrobarista is very much a visual novel. A shock to the system this may be, but anyone reading this likely knows by now this is far from a bad thing around these parts, so let us look a little closer.

It’s quite a melancholic thing, set in a less than conventional, somewhat Purgatorial coffee shop, where the newly departed stop in for a brief spell and a brew before taking the next step into the great unknown. While there’s a setup here for lots of stories to be told, it really draws in on a small cast of characters who look after the shop, and how a few key visitors change the world built up around them. Between each of the game’s chapters there’s the opportunity to unlock new side stories dependent on which of the phrases you chose to identify with from the chapter just gone, and although short, these do some good work fleshing out some characters and breaking up the main tale. As the title would suggest, the particulars of coffee do come up as a point of conversation, but there’s no drink-making side shows here - just a lot of talking, scheming about how to cheat death, and the more chin-scratching topic of a more accepting approach to this great inevitability.

It’s fairly short - comfortably under 10 hours - but crucially gets plenty of character development from each of its cast given the tight focus. Rather than the still portraits that you might come to expect of the genre, characters are given a real depth with 3D models that convey just as much as their words, which also helps this effort. Perhaps most crucially, and whether it’s in spite of all of the death, or instead because of it, there’s plenty of quite thoughtful and heartfelt sentiment hidden inside it. Comes recommended.

Tangle Tower

I picked this up for Switch based on a recommendation, not knowing that I’d unknowingly be closing out an Apple Arcade hat trick for the month. So yes, it’s another more story-driven game, not too heavy on the input requirements, but instead good for getting you thinking.

It’s immediately very easy on the eye, with each and every character drawn in large format and animated with buckets of quirk and charm that runneth over. Every single one is brilliantly voiced too, with varying degrees of charisma, bluster, dry wit, and numerous other characteristics that shine through in brilliant harmony with the art. It’s a murder mystery, see, and while you’re putting together what everyone says has happened, looking out for who’s fancying who and the like, you’re also doing so with the critical expectation that at least one person is likely spinning you some tall tales. Luckily you’ll find clues that help you get closer to the truth and help deconstruct some of these falsehoods, whether they’re in plain sight or hidden behind one of many puzzles. These are exemplary in just how well-pitched they come, each being self-contained and just tricky enough to have you pause to really think about them, but without ever being too irksome or troubling to stop you enjoying yourself. Once you do start to get to the point of unmasking some secrets, there’s also a neat little interface the game rolls out for you to drop in and then verify these revelations; pairing numerous characters, items and statements to help demonstrate to it that you’re keeping up with it all, and things are clear enough to move on. There’s subtle little prods in the right direction just when they seem to be needed, further cementing the game’s solid grasp of when it’s best to say something, and when it can let you just stumble about and get on with it.

It’s a fantastic little game. I lost a day or so to this, and had a wonderful time doing so. I hope that it’s not too far away that I forget all of the details, so that I might do it all over again.

#bugsnax #demons souls #grindstone #necrobarista #tangle tower

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quicksilversquared · 5 years ago

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Stealing from Supervillains

S3 Finale AU

In a timeline where Hawkmoth didn't lose the Miracle Box almost immediately after getting it, Marinette has to get the Miraculous back some other way, even if that means stealing them back one at a time. Her first target is Chloe, Hawkmoth's one known ally, and failure is not an option. When Hawkmoth brings the Miracle Box along with him- well, Marinette is determined to get all of the Miraculous back, even if she needs to burn down the entire hotel to do it.

Companion story to Luka and the Jewelry Heist

links in the reblog

As Chloe paced in front of her window, Marinette shifted from foot to foot in her crouch, trying not to make any noise.

The advantage of being able to do stakeouts while transformed was that her leg muscles didn't cramp up. Without her Ladybug transformation, Marinette had no such advantage, and she just had to hope that her legs wouldn't get too stiff for her to be able to pull off her plan successfully once Hawkmoth finally arrived.

If she had thought to get one more kwami from her now-limited collection to help play lookout, then Marinette would have transformed for sure before Chloe returned to the room and just pulled on her biking outfit on top of her superhero suit so that Luka wouldn't see Ladybug instead of Marinette on the camera stream. But she hadn't thought of it, and now Marinette just had to do her best to not let her legs seize up.

Hopefully Hawkmoth would arrive soon. She just wanted to get started, darn it.

Marinette glanced at her phone again, making sure that Luka hadn't sent anything else. He was her long-distance lookout, letting her know well in advance if anyone came up, and Tikki was her shorter-distance lookout, making sure that no one could sneak up behind her if they somehow got past Luka, or if someone in the room was going somewhere that Marinette hadn't expected. He seemed less than convinced about the whole plan to steal the Bee from Chloe, but at least he was being a pretty good sport about it.

And then Hawkmoth arrived, with Mayura at his side.

Marinette watched the feed on her phone, taking note of where the supervillains and Chloe were standing. They were actually in pretty perfect position, right where she had expected they would go, and Marinette grinned. So far, so good.

And then Hawkmoth pulled out the Miracle Box.

Marinette gaped, only just resisting the urge to pop up over the couch and make sure that her camera wasn't just malfunctioning and making her see things. She knew that Hawkmoth had the box, of course, but why had he brought it along?

As soon as she thought it, the answer was obvious: Hawkmoth was going to visit Lila after this, and he wanted to give her a Miraculous- or, if she was interpreting his wording correctly, more than one Miraculous, because she was more trustworthy than Chloe and a more valuable ally.

That would be a disaster. Lila was quite bad enough without any magic powers on her side. If she had a Miraculous- if she could do damage that wouldn't necessarily be fixed by Miraculous Cure, if she had multiple Miraculous that she could switch between- that would be terrible. She would manipulate and twist and threaten her way into doing whatever she wanted, and it would be really hard to stop her.

So obviously, the solution would be to try to get the Miraculous box, too.

Marinette's brain raced as she tried to come up with a plan, all while listening for the perfect opening to steal the Bee. It would be hard, if not impossible, to pull a double theft like that off without prior preparation- but she could probably say that about a lot of stuff that she did as Ladybug, too. There was a way, she just had to find it.

She wished that she had backup in the room, a second person who she could work in tandem with. The lighter-hairspray-firework pellets explosion setup that she had readied earlier would provide a second distraction, one that she had initially planned on using to try to go for the Peacock Miraculous- after all, if she could figure out Mayura's identity, Hawkmoth's surely wouldn't be far behind- but it wouldn't be enough of a distraction for her to manage both Peacock and Box. Marinette wished that she had the Mouse, maybe- while her copies shrunk, splitting into two individuals instead of a whole slew wouldn't make her that much smaller, but even that could put her at a disadvantage in a fight- or had brought Chat Noir, or-

It hit her like a train. The Rabbit Miraculous! It was another Miraculous that would let her tag-team with herself, but this time she could stay at full size. It would be smarter for her present self to go for the Box, probably, and- oh, she needed to get the Bee now.

With one quick move, Marinette snagged the extra remote that she had stolen from Chloe and clicked the TV on. The volume was way up, just like she had set it earlier, and it made both supervillains and Chloe jump and turn towards it, their backs fully towards her. In a second, Marinette vaulted over the couch, swapped out the Bee Miraculous for a fake, winked at Pollen- who thankfully got the message and stayed floating next to Chloe, acting as though nothing had changed- and then rolled back over the couch and into her hiding spot, the faint thud of her feet hitting the floor easily masked by Chloe's furious shrieking at Hawkmoth.

Marinette smirked. She had known that it was a good idea to have Tikki mess with the TV over the past week. Sure, part of it had been because she knew that Chloe was getting away with collaborating with a supervillain and getting a bit of revenge, no matter how petty, was incredibly satisfying, but the possibility of using the TV as a distraction had been with her ever since Tikki found an entry in Chloe's diary detailing how Hawkmoth had finally decided to get his act together and give Chloe the Bee permanently.

And it had worked splendidly.

Back in hiding, Marinette went straight back to her brainstorming. Her Present-self would get the Box- that was most critical, after all, because Hawkmoth could not have those powers at his disposal- and then her Future-self would go for Mayura, providing an additional distraction. If all went to plan, Hawkmoth would be left on his own with no superpowered allies by his side and with his identity in jeopardy by the end of the evening.

She just had to believe that it would work.

Her next opening came quickly.

Hawkmoth was making signs that he was thinking about heading out soon and she could not let him get close to the window or pick up the Miracle Box, or Marinette would be out of luck. So while Hawkmoth and Chloe were talking- and their voices had raised a bit, clearly even though they were allies there was some animosity there- Marinette quickly pressed send on the text message that she had prepared, shook her can of hairspray (also filched from Chloe), pulled her lighter out of her tool belt (one with a long neck, for safety reasons), and sent a roaring plume of fire straight into one of the couches that she had seeded with the contents of several fireworks earlier.

The room lit up.

"Pollen, transform me!" Marinette hissed, feeling the transformation flash over her as she kept spraying fire. Two more couches caught on fire, and she could hear Hawkmoth screaming for Chloe to transform. Bumblebee dashed past as Chloe tried and failed to transform, her own screams turning from terror into anger as she realized that she had a fake Miraculous.

On Hawkmoth's other side, a shadowy figure attacked Mayura. Bumblebee glanced over long enough to catch the flash of a transformation coming undone and Hawkmoth's attention going to Mayura. With her opening well secured, Bumblebee snatched up the Miracle Box, vaulted over a still-flaming couch- thank goodness for the protective powers of the suit- and blasted straight through Chloe's windows to escape outside, immediately vaulting over the edge of the balcony and catching the rails so that she could hang there, not immediately visible to anyone coming out on the balcony but high enough that she would be able to see them.

Her future self was probably fine, but she just wanted to be sure.

"Ah, crap, the camera," Bumblebee muttered, frowning as Hawkmoth burst through the glass as well, carrying- well, what looked like an akumatized Mayura. How had he akumatized her so quickly? Had he brought butterflies along with him or something? She ducked down further, but Hawkmoth was clearly booking it, only sparing a quick glance around as he fled. Then she perked up. "Maybe my future self got it before it burned?"

There was a buzz from her trompo, and Bumblebee pulled herself back up onto the balcony, then jumped onto the clearly hastily abandoned upper deck. There was a message on her trompo from Bumblebun, which presumably was her future self.

Out of room. Got Peacock and camera. Hide Box in planters- I'll be up in a minute.

"All right," Bumblebee muttered, casting one more glance around before hiding herself among the planters and pulling out the Rabbit's watch. "Into the fire, one more time. Fluff, let's go!"

Bumblebun landed on Chloe's balcony as the first plume of fire lit up the inside of Chloe's room, slipping inside as everyone turned towards the flaming couch automatically. The flash of dozens of firework pellets lighting up as they were ignited by the hairspray flamethrower covered her past self's transformation- as she had planned- and the supervillains were all thoroughly distracted, squinting against the too-bright lights.

But Bumblebun had her target, and she wasn't about to get distracted. Moving fast, she vaulted over an end table that was in the way and pounced on Mayura, jumping up onto her back and freezing her with a well-placed Sting. After that, it was child's play to reach over the frozen Mayura's shoulder for the Miraculous, even with Hawkmoth rushing towards her. He was already pulling his sword free from his cane, oblivious to Bumblebee rushing behind him and grabbing up the Miracle Box.

The Peacock pin came free in a flash, and then Bumblebun was kicking away from Mayura, shoving the stiff-as-a-board supervillain towards her hidden camera and giving herself some distance from Hawkmoth as well. This time around, from this angle, she could see Hawkmoth pulling a boxed akuma out of his pocket- apparently he had come with a backup plan in place, maybe he wasn't a complete idiot- and slamming it into the former Mayura's jacket the second that it got revealed. Purple bubbled around her, and Bumblebun took the chance to make a break for it, snatching up her camera as she dashed for the door.

She hadn't been able to see who Mayura had been between the detransformation and the akumatization, but with any luck it had been caught on tape.

Fire alarms were blaring in the hallway, but Bumblebun ignored them. With a quick glance behind her to make sure that she wasn't being followed, she tore into the stairwell and dashed upstairs, sending Bumblebee a quick text as she did. Just as she reached the top, she could see the flash as Bumblebee became Bumblebun, and then jumped into the past. Seconds later, she rounded the corner, picking up the Miracle Box from where she had just hidden it.

"Mission complete," Bumblebun said contentedly, releasing Fluff and Pollen. Marinette grinned at them before they retreated to their Miraculous, and then tucked both back into the box. She took a moment to breathe- the past who-knew-how-many minutes had been absolutely insane- and ignore the sounds of Chloe's furious screaming from her balcony below.

Well, someone was clearly fine. Scared (and with good reason, admittedly), but fine.

"Oh, look at the Peacock!" Tikki exclaimed, and Marinette glanced down. "It's fixed!"

"How can you tell?" Marinette asked, but the answer was obvious even as soon as she said it. "Oh, wait. You figured out that it was broken before because of the energy being off, so now it's not off?"

Tikki wriggled. "Exactly! And it means that it's a really good thing that you got it now," she added, suddenly serious. "Because it had limitations on it before from being broken. Now, I bet we would be seeing sentimonsters every fight, and strong ones, too."

"Ugh." Marinette considered the Peacock, now more glad than ever that she had grabbed it. The thought of having to face both an akuma and a sentimonster- especially if they were working together, or two parts of a whole- on a regular basis? That was not appealing. She and Chat Noir would have been super overwhelmed.

But now? Now they were in a much better spot, with Hawkmoth left without teammates and all of the other Miraculous back on their side. It would be a bit hard to explain their sudden return to Chat Noir- Marinette didn't want to run the risk of him somehow hearing about her being involved, only for Ladybug to claim credit- but she could think about that later.

After another moment to catch her breath, Marinette picked herself back up, gathering up all of her things to leave. After a moment of deliberation- it was possible that Hawkmoth and akuma-Mayura might circle back around to try to get the Box back- she pulled out the Horse and Voyaged into the alleyway where she had stashed a change of clothes, completely changing her look up again just for good measure. She took a moment to make sure that the Miracle Box was safely stashed in her bag before setting out looking for Luka, weaving through the crowds on the sidewalks.

Hopefully he wouldn't be too annoyed with her for not warning him about the whole fire thing. He had just seemed so reluctant about the whole thing that she hadn't wanted to mention the bit about the arson ahead of time, in case he really thought that she was losing it.

It was arson for a good cause, that was how Marinette was justifying it. She had the entire box of Miraculous back now, plus Mayura's Miraculous and proof that Chloe had been working with Hawkmoth.

With Tikki's help, it wasn't hard to find Luka, who had joined up with Adrien and Kagami- and why were they in the area? That was such a strange coincidence-

-except Adrien had apparently been coming to do the exact same thing that she had with the Bee, and what were the chances of that? They were on the same wavelength, it seemed, which-

She wasn't going to overthink it. Overthinking could lead to her thinking about how well she and Adrien would work together, both as a team and as a couple, but that wasn't fair to him or Kagami, or to Luka. It was cool that she had a friend who thought in the same way that she, a superhero, did, and it was definitely confirmation that Adrien had some serious superhero potential. Maybe the Snake hadn't been a perfect fit for him, but maybe they could try a different Miraculous later.

Later, of course, would presumably be soon. After all, she very possibly had a clue to Hawkmoth's identity on her camera and it would be better to go after Hawkmoth sooner rather than later if possible, while he was still reeling from the attack.

Before she could think about that too much, though, Kagami's driver arrived and she had to leave. Luka left with her, taking her up on her offer of a ride. Marinette had shuffled her feet on the sidewalk as they stepped towards the car, sure that Adrien was about to leave, too, and then she would have to walk home alone- or, more likely, use Voyage to skip the walk and make it shorter and safer- but instead, he stayed.

"I'm really curious about who Hawkmoth is," he told Luka and Kagami, stepping back to stand at Marinette's side. "And I want to make sure that Marinette gets home safely, too. Thanks for coming along and helping out."

"Let me know what you find out, will you?" Kagami requested as she grasped the handle on her car door, tugging it open. "I'd come as well, but my mom will expect me home and I have very little desire to see what crazy, death-defying stunts Marinette pulled to get all of those Miraculous."

Luka just nodded, looking far more exhausted than Marinette could remember him ever looking. That was strange- had he really been that stressed out by the whole experience? She had thought that he had been kidding about the stress. After all, Luka had been a superhero before just fine, a little bit of lookout duty shouldn't have been worse.

"I think you broke Luka," Adrien commented with a small laugh as the car pulled away. They watched it go, and then he offered her his arm. "Shall we?"

"Is your father going to be expecting you?" Marinette asked, though she took his arm anyway and they started off. She kept one hand on her bag protectively and kept a sharp eye out for any lingering supervillains. "If you're going to get in trouble..."

Adrien shook his head. "I'm not expected home for a while. I told the Gorilla that I was going to be with Kagami and her driver, so he's off tonight. Otherwise, yeah, if I told him that we were going to the Grand Paris, he would already be here."

"Oh, right, because the fire would be considered pretty weird and dangerous, right?" Marinette glanced back at the Grand Paris. Now that the fireworks were burned out- and was she ever glad that she had picked those up as Ladybug, because then nothing could be traced back to her civilian self- there wasn't as much fuel in the room. What had been a blazing, white-hot fire had died down to barely a glow now, and no doubt there were firefighters all over inside of the hotel. "Are you sure your father won't call the Gorilla back?"

"He doesn't know that we were going to the hotel. I just told Nathalie that Kagami and I were going out to dinner." Adrien grimaced. "And then...didn't eat. I was planning on it, because from what I heard Chloe was going to be getting the Miraculous after dinner, but Kagami insisted that she would be too nervous about things going wrong to eat."

"We'll grab something to eat while we watch the footage I got," Marinette told Adrien. She was sure that her parents would have plenty of the food in the fridge that they could grab. "If that's okay with you, of course."

"Of course it is! I love your parents' cooking." Adrien grinned over at her, tugging her to a stop at a stoplight that she was about to walk straight through. "Although I don't know if I'll be able to enjoy it as much as usual. I'm too excited about potentially finding out about Hawkmoth. He's been attacking the city for so long- to potentially find out who he is tonight-"

"Wait, you're figuring out Hawkmoth tonight? What are you two up to?"

Marinette startled, and Adrien's arm tightened around hers as they both spun in surprise to face the voice. Behind them was Alix, looking simultaneously confused and incredibly intrigued.

Adrien recovered faster, flashing a bright smile at Alix. "Alix! I wasn't expecting to see you tonight- how are you doing?"

Alix narrowed her eyes, wagging a finger at him. "Don't think that I don't know exactly what you're trying to do, buddy-boy. Trying to distract me won't work. But if you must know, I saw you and Marinette over here and came to say hi- though do you want to explain to me why you look like you've been on a date, but smell-" she sniffed, wrinkling her nose. "Like smoke and gunpowder? And when there's just been a really strange fire at the Grand Paris?"

"Okay, shush," Marinette hissed, glancing around and trying to resist the urge to sniff herself. She hadn't thought that the smoke smell was that strong, considering that she had transformed pretty much right away, but maybe whatever smell got on her superhero suit (suits?) transferred over to her regular clothes. Her mind raced, trying to figure out if there were any ways to get out of this, but she wasn't coming up with anything and Marinette abandoned that plan at once.

Alix was going to be Ladybug and Chat Noir's permanent teammate in the future, after all. Why should she try to keep any information about Hawkmoth from her? She could come in handy for the final battle.

"Not here," Marinette continued, snagging Alix's arm and tugging her along as Adrien started across the street. "We'll talk at my house- uh, you didn't have anywhere to be, right? It'll be okay for us to steal you away for a bit?"

Alix grinned, waving her phone. "Dad's away for the weekend, so it's Jalil in charge. I don't doubt that he would appreciate you stealing me away for a bit so that he can play with his conspiracy theories in peace for a bit longer."

Marinette snorted. Ah, Jalil and his conspiracies. "What's he got going now? Still on the Egyptian pyramids?"

"Oh god. No, the pyramids are yesterday's news- lemme tell you about his new level of crazy..."

It didn't take long to get back to Marinette's house, pausing in the kitchen to snag a snack for all three of them before parking themselves at Marinette's desk, waiting anxiously for the video to transfer from the borrowed camera (partially melted in one spot from the fire, but otherwise fine) to Marinette's computer. While Adrien and Alix settled in, Marinette pulled the Miracle Box out of her bag and slipped the extra Miraculous that she had had from before- the Turtle and the Dragon- back into the box where they were meant to be, adding the Bee and Peacock last.

Outside, another fire truck raced past, followed by a police car, and Marinette frowned. Surely there were already enough emergency vehicles at the Grand Paris. Maybe the fire had been explosive, but it had died back fast after the gunpowder all burned off and the sprinkler system finally kicked in.

Maybe the mayor was just making a big fuss and the fire department had decided that going along with it would be easier than arguing.

"All ready!" Adrien announced, grinning with excitement as Marinette returned, setting the Miracle Box down under the desk. She was going to have to find a better hiding spot for that eventually, but this would work for now. "Marinette, there's over an hour of footage- how far from the end is the important bit?"

"Uh, not very long? I turned it off once I was well clear of Hawkmoth." Marinette watched as Adrien clicked forward in the video, scanning past flashes of Marinette getting things set up and Chloe pacing. He paused when they saw Hawkmoth enter, and Marinette shook her head. "It's past that."

"Can we watch this bit anyway?" Alix asked eagerly. There was a sly little grin on her face. "I wanna see Chloe dealing with Hawkmoth. Or Hawkmoth dealing with Chloe, we all know that it could very well be that way around."

Adrien laughed, turning the volume up a bit and hitting Play. "I'm honestly curious, too. And I want to see how Marinette managed to steal all of those Miraculous and get away with it. That's absolutely insane."

"Hell yeah."

Marinette turned pink, but was happy to have a bit of break to sit back and eat as Hawkmoth lectured Chloe. Adrien and Alix cheered in unison as the Marinette onscreen vaulted over the couch, stealing Chloe's Miraculous and vanishing again without being noticed.

"That was smooth," Alix said appreciatively. "Man, how is it that you trip over your own feet when walking to class, but you can pull something like that off?"

"Focus?" Marinette suggested weakly. "I mean, if I'm not watching where I'm going, it's easier to trip."

"And- hold on, pause, did Hawkbutt say that there was someone else that they were going to visit?" Alix demanded, slapping the Pause button again. "How the hell is this dude finding more people willing to work with him? It's absolutely insane!"

Adrien and Marinette exchanged a glance and, without a word, Marinette knew that they were on the same page again. "Lila."

"She's not even subtle about it," Adrien agreed, frowning. "I mean, I bet we won't get any evidence to connect her now, but she's certainly taken the akuma's side enough even without getting controlled by any powers."

Alix looked shocked. "What do you mean, Lila? I thought that she was Ladybug's best friend? And she was the one who got Ladybug connected with all of those embassy people, to arrange that agreement that said that if anyone connected with an embassy in any way was found to be working with Hawkmoth, their immunity would automatically be waived."

Neither of them could hold in their snort at that. When Alix only looked more confused, Adrien hurried to explain.

"Those were both lies," he told Alix. "Just like every other story she's told. I mean, I guess it's more just a hunch than anything else for that second bit, but for the friends thing- Ladybug called her out when I was nearby, and I think Lila swore vengeance then instead of, y'know, admitting that she was actually in the wrong."

"And then I've definitely seen her getting in the superheroes' way during fights," Marinette added. Lila had definitely grabbed onto that claim both because of the embassy connection, and because if she claimed credit for both idea and legwork, people wouldn't suspect her at all. "On purpose to mess them up, not just like what Chloe used to do because she's not at all self-aware. And Lila's gotten akumatized a few times when she literally wasn't upset at all."

Alix frowned more, then slouched. "Okay, that makes more sense than I want to admit, honestly. The name-dropping has been getting a little bit old. And way too convenient. And the whole thing where you got expelled, Marinette- that was weird."

"It was revenge for calling out all of her lies," Marinette told Alix. She nodded towards the computer screen, trying not to smile too much at Alix's 'oh, that is so not cool.'. "But maybe we can discuss that later, and focus on the whole Hawkmoth thing now?"

Alix nodded, and Adrien started up the video again. It wasn't long before the first plume of fire shot into frame, and then everything lit up at once.

"You said that that's from fireworks, right?" Adrien asked, pausing the video again. Quite a lot of stuff on the screen was on fire. "That's why everything caught so quickly?"

"Yeah. Three fireworks, taken apart and shoved in the couches." It had probably been overkill, but she had wanted panic to reign supreme. "Smallish ones, because that was what I could get, but they pack a fair bit of power."

"Shoved- hang on, explain that bit," Alix demanded, leaning closer to the screen in an apparent attempt to see what was going on. "How?"

"I used a seam ripper and made slits in the back of the couches to tuck the star balls in," Marinette explained, grinning. She ran a finger along the back of one of the barely-visible couches onscreen, demonstrating. "Those are the colorful ones, the ones that make the light we actually see in fireworks- or at least that's what Google told me. And then the gunpowder- it's pressed into what look like large rice grains. I could force those through the fabric." Tikki had helped quite a bit with that, which was great because otherwise Marinette wouldn't have been able to get the couches nearly as studded with explosives as she had. "And then some got stuck between cushions, too, because that was faster."

Alix was gaping at her. "How did- okay, I knew that sometimes you have a habit of stealing phones, but this is crazy more complicated than that. Like, you had to do a lot of preparation to be able to pull that off."

"Anyway, continuing," Marinette said loudly before Adrien could question the phone thing. "I brought along a lighter and snagged a can of hairspray from Chloe's bathroom to make a flamethrower to set everything off."

"Aha. Classic."

With the video restarted, all three of them were plastered to the screen again, watching as everything caught fire. There was a blur of movement from Bumblebee in the background, but Bumblebun was more front and center, dashing in from the opposite direction to Sting Mayura and snatch the Peacock.

"Slow it down, slow it down," Alix demanded, knocking Adrien's hand aside to claim the mouse for her own and rewinding several seconds back before slapping the slow-motion button several times, slowing the video to a crawl. She narrowed her eyes at the hybrid Bee-Rabbit wielder onscreen, then shot a look at Marinette. "You used the Rabbit to go back in time and tag-team with yourself, didn't you?"

Marinette hid her smile. Of course she should have expected that Alix would catch that. She was one of the few people in Paris who had seen the Rabbit get used firsthand, after all. "I did, yeah- oh, look, Mayura is detransforming!"

Slowed down as much as it was, the jerkiness of Mayura's detransformation was obvious. It was as though the kwami was trying to hold on, even though Mayura definitely didn't deserve the protection. Still, bit by bit, her transformation came undone-

"Nathalie!" Adrien gasped, recognizing the figure first, even through the smoke and flame. Bumblebun's parting kick had done its job and sent her toppling towards the camera. "Oh god- oh no. The only person she would ever help out is my father. And I know Ladybug suspected him before, but- he must have akumatized himself, that's the only way- oh god."

Marinette worried her lip as she exchanged a look with Alix and wrapped her arms around Adrien, comforting him in the only way she could. The jovial mood of only a few minute prior had completely evaporated in a second, and now everything was tense.

The goal of the evening, of course, had been to find out who Hawkmoth was, and maybe even call up Chat Noir and ambush their enemy before he had time to reset and recover. That was made harder by her friends tagging along, but- well, it was fun like this, and maybe she could use them as extra teammates to help. And now...

Adrien was reeling from the discovery, and needed his friends. Marinette wasn't going to leave him now.

"And he's sent akumas after himself- and after me!" Adrien's hand slammed down on the table, making both Alix and Marinette startle. "I nearly died several times in targeted attacks, and he always acted so concerned afterwards- but it was all his fault to start! And, and-" Adrien stopped himself mid-sentence, and his expression hardened. "He has to go down. I mean, I know why he's doing this- because of Mom- but that doesn't make it right, and if it weren't for Ladybug's cure, so many other people would have died!"

Marinette nodded, remembering all of the insanely destructive akumas there had been. Buildings had been collapsed, the entire city had flooded, weather extremes had given the city whiplash, akumas had caused car accidents...

It wasn't good. While a lot of people didn't talk about it, Marinette knew that more than a few people in Paris had nightmares about dying- because they had died before.

And that was terrifying.

Adrien's shoulders straightened, stiffening in determination, and his eyes flashed to Marinette, steely and resolute. "It has to end. Tonight."

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #chapter 1 of 2 #Arson for the Greater Good

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therainroguefanfiction · 4 years ago

Text

⁂ Winter Romance (Mukuro Rokudo)

Genre: Fluff, Romance ☁

Word Count: 2,371 ☁

Pairing: Reader x Mukuro ☁

World: Katekyo Hitman Reborn! ☁

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“Did you hear?”

“That’s twice! Isn’t Vindicare supposed to be a heavily guarded prison?”

“Apparently not.”

“What should we do?”

“What if he comes for us?”

Every mafia family in Italy was in a state of panic, knowing full well the power of the young illusionist. Whispers and rumors ripped through Italy like a raging fire, stirring up feelings of worry and fear in those that knew about the damage, the destruction, he had caused. Of course, being in Italy at the time, Dino caught wind of the rumors fairly easily. Being worried himself, he hopped onto a plane with Romario and headed to Japan to warn his little brother.

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Dino sat at the kitchen table across from a bleary-eyed, half-asleep Tsunayoshi Sawada, who was barely able to catch what the blonde was saying. It was about ten minutes after one in the morning and Tsuna had been sound asleep in his bed. That was until a loud and urgent banging on the front door woke him up. Ignoring the pain in his face from connecting with the floor, Tsuna had jumped up and rushed – nearly tripping – down the stairs, trying to stop the noise before it woke up the whole house.

“Tsuna? Did you hear me?”

“Huh?” Tsuna blinked, rubbing the sleep from his half-lidded orbs.

“Dame-Tsuna, wake up!” Reborn kicked the back of Tsuna’s head, causing his face to slam into the kitchen table. He moved to sit on the back of his head, a serious expression on his face, “Is it true, Dino?”

“I’m not a hundred percent sure, but with the way the other families are acting… I’d say the chance is pretty high. Mukuro Rokudo already escaped Vindicare once, but was caught. Maybe he used that time to work out the details that would set him free for good. Either way, he’s perfectly capable.” Dino paused, chewing on his bottom lip, “Do you think he’ll come after Tsuna again?”

“…” Reborn was silent. No one knew what went through Mukuro’s mind, not even the all-knowing Reborn. “We’ll stay on guard, just in case.”

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You walked down the street towards your apartment. In one hand was a steaming sticky bun that helped shield you from the cold. In your other hand was a white plastic bag holding drinks, snacks, and a pack of cigarettes. Your eyes were closed as you hummed happily without a care in the world. The night was quiet and peaceful, maybe a little too quiet.

The sound of a trash can being knocked over and hitting the pavement made your happy expression drop, causing you to whip around in surprise. All you saw, however, was a stray cat running away from the fallen can.

‘A mafioso being scared by a stray cat. I think I’m losing my touch!’ you let out a puff of air, shaking your head before continuing down the deserted street toward your apartment.

“Kufufu~”

The strange sound was faint, like it was far off, but echoed throughout the empty neighborhood. You froze mid-step, eyes wide and alert, searching the area for the source of the sound. After a few minutes passed without locating the source, you shook your head again and continued on. Was it just your imagination?

‘Maybe I shouldn’t have let Gokudera talk me into watching Krampus last night,’

Little did you know, a certain pineapple-haired male was watching you intently from the shadows, an amused smirk upon his lips and his red orb glowing under the pale moonlight. Mukuro was the snowy owl in the middle of the night, stalking his prey while waiting for the perfect chance to strike. You were the silvery mouse, scurrying along down the street with no knowledge of the predator that loomed over you.

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You made it to your apartment without any further distractions. Flicking the light on and throwing the bag onto the couch, you let out an involuntary shiver at the temperature of the room; it felt like you had just entered Antarctica! The air in the room was not only freezing but heavy too, making it hard for you to breathe. Your limbs were heavy, weighed down, your head filled with fog.

Shaking your head, you managed to reach the thermostat, jacking it up as high as it would go. It clicked and knocked a few times from not being used for a while before finally kicking on, filling the room with warm air.

You rubbed your covered arms, glancing around the room with uneasy eyes. A strange feeling of being watched washed over you, making the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. That feeling was horrible when you were out in the open, but it was ten times worse being in an enclosed area.

‘You’re letting your mind run wild,’ you told yourself, shaking your head before heading into the bathroom. Turning on the water so it could get hot, you began to strip the clothes off your body, letting them fall into a neat pile near the sink. Just as you stepped into the shower, the room grew cold again and the feeling of being watched returned, much stronger than before. You felt very uneasy, goosebumps erupting across your flesh.

Even with the thick shower curtain closed from end to end, the uneasiness lingered, but you tried to push that away and continue the shower. After rinsing the shampoo from your hair, you stepped out with a towel over your dripping locks. You stood in front of the sink, wiping the fog from the mirror before reaching for the toothbrush. When you looked back up, you saw Mukuro Rokudo in the mirror, his eyes shining while he licked his lips as if he were starving.

You gulped, whipping around with wide eyes, only to find no one there. Putting a shaky hand over your racing heart, you closed your eyes and took a few shaky breaths to try and calm your nerves. What was wrong with you tonight? You didn’t understand it.

“It must be bakadera,” you muttered to yourself, glaring at the toothbrush in your hand, “He’s driven me crazy!”

After finishing up in the bathroom without any more crazy feelings or interruptions, you returned to the bedroom, slipping into a pair of silk pajama bottoms and a white t-shirt before sliding under the covers. A good night’s sleep should put your mind at ease and, hopefully, bury the strange events that had occurred that night.

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Your mind was hazy, clouded. You didn’t know where you were. Everything was black. There was no light, no sound, no anything. You turned in circles, trying to find a way out of the darkness, but it was as if you were walking in place. You attempted to call out, but your voice failed you. You couldn’t even hear your own thoughts.

Everything had been muted as if your life had been turned into a silent film.

Something caught your eye and you glanced over to the left, noticing a small speck of white light. Slowly, it grew and grew until it finally covered the darkness. It was so bright you had to shield your eyes. When the light faded and you cracked open your eyes, you found yourself in an unfamiliar place, vastly different from the darkness you had just left.

You stood at the base of a tall mountain. Trees towered toward the sky, their dark leaves covered in freshly fallen snow which glowed under the full moon. The ground beneath your feet was covered in snow up to the knee, making it hard to move. To your left, a few feet away, was a small wooden cabin. Red velvet curtains covered the windows, but you could see the flame of a candle flickering across them.

The wind blew, rustling the weighed down tree leaves. As your body registered the cold, it started to shiver. You hugged yourself in a futile attempt to keep warm, but you were only in a pair of thin pajamas, and it had to be at least minus thirty degrees. How had you fallen asleep in a nice warm bed, only to wake up standing at the base of a snowy mountain? Had you sleepwalked there? You had no history of doing so and the thought just seemed so crazy!

You slowly moved through the snow towards the cabin, feet feeling like blocks of ice through the thin, low cut socks. Just as you reached for the door handle, you froze.

Hoot, hoot.

Glancing to your right, you noticed a large owl perched on a nearby tree, white in color, staring down at you. What stood out against the pure white coat was its oddly colored orbs; one a dark blue, while the other was a blood red. When the creature’s eyes met yours, it fluffed out its wings and hooted again.

The creature seemed familiar, but with your mind in such a haze, you couldn’t quite place it. A chill crept down your back.

Feeling a sense of urgency, you pushed the door open and bolted inside, shutting it quickly behind you. Warmth settled over your body almost instantly and a small sigh of content passed your lips.

‘My emotions feel like a rollercoaster right now, flip-flopping all over the place,’ you frowned, letting your eyes scan the room.

The cabin had a welcoming, almost calming feel to it. On the right side of the cabin, against the wall, was a large fireplace that had been lit and was cackling happily. Velvety blood-red curtains covered each window and below them sat small tables. A red cloth had been set on each of them, and there were about three white roman candles flickering on each one. The same setup was on the table beside the bed that sat in the corner of the room, on the left side. The bedsheets were also blood-red in color.

There didn’t seem to be anyone around and, with your bones still frozen, you decided it wouldn’t hurt to take residence in the warm sheets. You approached the bed, the wooden floorboards creaking under your weight. You reached for the sheets when the door swung open. You heard the footsteps enter the cabin before the door was shut again, but your body was frozen in place, eyes wide in surprise.

The footsteps grew closer until you could feel a person behind you, could feel their breath on the back of your neck. It created goosebumps on your arms and you swallowed hard to try and stave off the fear. A familiar chuckle reached your ears but before you could react, the person’s arms were tight around your stomach, a chin resting on your shoulder.

“Welcome to my world, my little snowflake~” Mukuro spoke into your ear, his voice husky and low.

“M-Mukuro!” you tried to break free but the male’s grasp was far too strong, “Let go of me, you damned pineapple!”

“Kufufu~ That’s not a very nice thing to say.” He chuckled, his tone mocking. His grip tightened and he moved to place a butterfly kiss on the back of your neck. He trailed a line of kisses up the side of your neck and jaw, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy the male’s hunger. Not even close.

One arm tightened its grip while his other reached up to grip your chin. Forcing you to look at Mukuro, he leaned in and claimed your lips as his own. You froze, eyes wide and face exploding with color. As Mukuro pulled away, you caught him off guard by smacking the back of your hand against his crotch, taking this as a chance to free yourself, but Mukuro wasn’t going to let his prey get away from him. He had been waiting far too long and had gone through hell and back to get to you. There was no way you were going to get away.

You tried to bolt toward the door but Mukuro was faster, grabbing your wrist and pulling you back to throw you onto the bed. Your face was bright red, glowing brighter when Mukuro crawled on top of you, straddling your waist. His hips pressed down roughly against yours, earning an involuntary groan, which you tried your best to bite back. The illusionist chuckled, leaning down and nipping at your neck. He bit softly at first before biting a bit rougher, not enough to draw blood, but more than enough to earn pleasureful groans from his new lover.

“Oh? Do you like that, my little snowflake?” Mukuro questioned, biting your ear as his hand slowly slid down your stomach, stopping at the hem of your pajama bottoms.

“O-Of course not! G-Get off of me, damn it!” You attempted to growl as you pushed at the male’s chest, but it came out as more of a whimper than anything.

“Hmm? Are you sure about that?” Mukuro purred, sliding his hand up and down your stomach, drawing patterns across your skin.

Your lips parted to say that you were sure, but the words didn’t come. You’d be lying to yourself if you said that you didn’t find the man attractive, that you hadn’t fantasized about him the last time he was around.

“Y/N,” hearing him say your name sent shivers down your spine. You loved the way he said your name. “You now belong to me, kufufu~”

“Wait, what – ” your words slurred as everything around you began to fade and the last thing you heard was Mukuro’s strange laughter.

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Your eyes snapped open, staring at the ceiling of your bedroom. You remembered everything clearly, from the scents to the feeling of his hands on your body. Had it really only just been a dream?

Your heart skipped a beat as you remembered how warm his hands had been, the butterflies that had erupted inside your stomach. You rolled over to face the wall your bed sat against, pulling the covers up to your nose.

After you finally fell back asleep, Mukuro stepped out from the shadows, standing over your sleeping form. He watched you for a few moments before smirking, his lips brushing your ear.

“Sweet dreams, my little snowflake. Kufufu~”

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