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claire-starsword · 1 year

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The Guardiana Magic School Run - Part 3

No doodle this time as I had no ideas, every joke about giant bats sucking has already been done I think. Also I've just realized I lost all my pre battle screenshots due to a emulation mishap so. Oops. We bad at pictures today, sorry.

Anyway. We return to Guardiana to sing our praises and maybe not dwell too much on the fact Gong just died. Resurrection is too a good display of Guardiana's magic. I guess.

We say hi to Mae and Gort and grab their weapons for extra money. We also grab plenty of stuff from the treasure room. The Antidote gets safely tucked in the item box as poison won't be a thing for the next battles. The Angel Wing is against my rules and thus to be sold. The Power Wine and Defense Potion also go to the item box as I don't see the need for them right now.

More importantly, the Rousing Ring. This thing is a gift for giant bat haters everywhere, preventing a character from falling asleep. Unfortunately there's only one in game (unless they show up in deals? but I sure haven't seen them there ever). I give it to Gong because Max is kinda overleveled right now, and Tao and Lowe should not be directly hitting enemies too often.

All the loot we could sell gives us a sizable chunk of money. I check the deals and there's still nothing there. The Guardiana weapon shop is also very disappointing. So it's time to start stocking on Steel Rings as I hoped. And by stocking I mean buy two. Definitely would like to have more, as for now, I move all three to Tao, who is by far the most frail character right now, and next battles will be more open so I don't think Max and Gong will manage to fully protect everyone.

I also replenish everyone's stock of Medical Herbs, which isn't a big deal since we didn't use many.

This is where I should have screenshots to show how absurd Max is getting in stats, his attack is like 20 compared to the others having less than 15, definitely need to let the others catch up on levels. Tao's base defense is 4, which is half of Gong's, the guy who died last battle. You can see now why I want those rings so bad. Especially since I recall now there being more Rune Knights next battle.

We cannot delay meeting them any longer. I save the game, and go on for the glory of Guardiana's Magic School.

The clear bonus is 400 gold for winning in at most 10 turns, almost enough money for another Steel Ring, so I want that, but perhaps I should have learned a lesson from last time. Also I don't think skipping enemies to get to Alterone is worth it, we'd miss a lot of exp. Let actually try to minimize deaths this time.

We have a couple of bats who I think will advance immediately, and a lot of dark dwarves. I would love if they didn't advance, which might mean taking things slowly and missing the bonus. Though they might advance anyway and then I'll feel very stupid. Oh well.

Turn 2, nothing happened. The dwarves indeed don't feel like moving, while the bats have inched closer. Let's see if we can deal with them quickly. I send Max to bait them as his huge stats should shrug off bats without much issue.

They take the bait immediately due to having great agility. Their position annoys me a bit, but at least every other character can hop to beat them up right now.

By characters I mean Tao. Lowe can't reach, and Gong gets dodged because flying enemies Do That A Lot. Tao does level up though, and gets Blaze 2, which is fun and exciting. I will mention though, she has yet to get a single defense point via level up. I'm beginning to wonder if it's ever a thing for her.

Turn 4. Gong has managed to hit the second bat and take more than half its HP so Tao can definitely finish it up after Gong tanks a hit, and he will not fall asleep due to his ring. Let's see if Max can bait some dwarves already, though I have little hope of getting the bonus. I just rather these guys come for Max than anyone else.

The dwarves refuse to come and are instead gathering to block the road, which is the fastest path to Alterone. But I said I wouldn't rush, so perhaps beating them from the forest side I can get some terrain bonuses. Unfortunately they too will be getting the terrain bonuses.

To put it plainly, I don't know what I'm doing.

Turn 6. Whatever I did was good, one dwarf came after while the others are now closer to the road and thus getting less terrain bonuses. Hope they stay that way.

Max and Gong team up flawlessly and Gong's level up makes him seem very determined to not die again.

Man, why did I even want the Demibuster.

Lowe is doing a whole bunch of nothing so I send him to heal Max from all the 1 damages he's been taking.

Everything proceeds smoothly and Tao proves that yes, she can get defense on level ups. Sometimes. Occasionally.

Lowe also gets to do something after Max kindly left a dwarf with 1 HP remaining.

Unfortunately we're at turn 9 with a mass of knights and bats remaining so it's safe to say the bonus is impossible. So let us be as cautious as possible and go through the forest, hoping dispatching the bats before the knights get involved.

The bats get baited and finally some snoozing happens. It's chill though, I legit skipped Max's turn to see if others can get the exp.

Lowe proceed to disappoint me as usual.

Eventually he does land a hit but it doesn't even do half and I don't have that kind of patience, Max reaps the rewards here and his level ups continue to be absolutely wild.

Knights are horrible in forests so I'm hoping it's okay to advance this much. Gong also heals himself for some exp, clearly no useful healing is getting done today.

I mess up again because they can still use the roads! Everyone thank the Steel Rings right now.

Gong is also reaping sweet rewards of his training. The reward is "dying less".

Tao spends her last MP on sweet revenge.

Lowe finally gets a level up from healing Tao, and learns Detox. This never happens in a timely manner on my usual playthroughs.

Nothing else to say, we wipe out the knights in this chill manner, with mostly Max and Gong. I try leaving this final guy for Lowe but Max counters because he's too good to share the spotlight. We're four or five turns beyond the bonus, I didn't pay attention, but the battle itself was pretty easy. I feel this will be a pattern in this playthrough, we're pretty overleveled for this part so we survive well, but with few characters we just don't deal enough damage to wipe the enemies fast enough. Obviously, this is because again I wanted all enemy exp instead of rushing to the objective.

There's only so much I can weep about it right now though. This is Alterone, the town full of loot. So money won't exactly be lacking. I might have one less Steel Ring by the end of the chapter though :(

after like ten minutes maybe more of opening chests, including the one after talking to the king, we have extra herbs, Healing Seed for the late game, another Power Wine and Defense Potion, a Life Loaf that might actually be from Guardiana and I didn't notice, some Middle Swords, plural, and useless wooden weapons, I can't understand why they're here. One Middle Sword manages to make Max more powerful than he already is. The rest of the weapons are going to make us rich as the average Alterone citizen.

The deals section decides to finally have something…

It is an axe. Which no one will use in this run. Also I would love to have data on these special weapons because the Jagged Flash tends to be the most useless of them to me, I don't notice any significant extra damage on flying enemies and flying enemies dodge it all the time anyway. This might be the worst thing we could have possibly rolled. Let's just check the normal weapon shop.

The Demibuster is a whopping 800 gold and actually weaker than the Middle Sword. It will still deal more damage against dark dwarves, but man, Max doesn't need it.

The Voodoo Staff meanwhile is a new weapon exactly between the Wooden and Power Staff. Makes sense, right? It can also poison enemies, which I guess could be useful, if we weren't killing anything in one or two hits anyway. With all that said, the Power Staff is debuting like, literally the next battle. I also don't have much interest in sending the blazing woman and healer guy to hit stuff when they could be blazing and healing instead, especially when their defenses still don't inspire much confidence. That's right baby this isn't the Alterone Magic School run this is the Guardiana Magic School, I'm going back there and grabbing more Steel Rings before the chapter closes!!

Just to complete the ramblings, Alterone has their own special ring too, the Evade Ring. In this version, characters have no natural chance of evading as far as I've seen, and depend on equipment like this instead. Of course, this one stacks to a chance of at most 6-8%, so it's very shaky compared to our great and solid Guardiana equipment. It is cheaper than Steel Rings though, so might be a good option for squishy characters once we run out of money.

For now though, we're off to funding the restoration of our glorious country. We buy three rings and store them safely in the item box for now.

We have an old friend to meet next time, after all.

Losses: 0 Deaths: 1 This episode: not yet sponsored by the Guardiana royal family but Queen Anri if you're out there I'd love the money

#shining force #shining series #guardiana magic school run #i feel both this and the next battle will be easy and boring #battle 5 is where i predict to have my first loss though

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mlek13 · 2 years

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Spring, Year 7: In the Neighboring Kingdom

After Nathen and Stacey died, Ione inherited ownership of the medical center. Science and medicine is not her or Earnest’s fields, so she sells it. I am taking inventory of which sims have which careers in my kingdom so I can play them more meaningfully. I hope to get someone high up in the medicine or science fields to purchase the lot. Maybe we can do more with it in the future than I have recently.

Tarquin and Kamala moved into their own place after Stacey’s death. They initially moved in so Tarquin’s parents so they could help out with the children after social services came, but now that they’re both gone I can’t see Ione having them stay, especially after the social worker visit and miscarriages that happened last season.

They didn’t have enough money to buy a house so I ended up moving them into the first university apartments I built and only used briefly. They are struggling with the new living arrangements.

The kids are growing up. Indira is a teenager.

Chandra lost a few days while she was a pregnant teen, so I decided I needed to age her up to a young adult. She is starting university at home and will move to the current university apartments next season.

Deven is due to go to university too, so he is also starting university at home before moving to the dorm apartments. I’m trying to get Chandra on an accelerated schedule to help maintain their age difference.

Chandra’s daughter, Anika, becomes a child

on the same day as her uncle Natesh.

The King household is much quieter and less hectic as a household of four.

Ione and Earnest’s daughter, Evangeline, becomes a teenager. I like her style, so I’m not even going to change it.

The boys are taking notice of her.

Sometimes the attention is a little too much.

Ione has a birthday. She’s an elder now.

At the Mellon’s Cassidy proposes to Jay

and her mother, Celeste, proposes to Drake (against Cassidy’s wishes, it appears.) Unfortunately neither engagement lasts long enough for me to get either couple married. :/

Cassidy and Jay have a second child, Casey.

Alida comes home from school with Cordelia. I know Lydia was not happy when she learned her daughter was a witch. Maybe Celeste can help encourage her powers.

Since Claire has passed on, it falls on Celeste to run the potion shoppe. She takes Corbin along to help out. Phoenix the reviewer is not pleased with the change in management.

At the Mace’s, Alon is ready to move on after the death of his wife, Hope. Also recently widowed Erin Cade is a good potential match.

Too bad he leaves her to try to hop in bed with his sister-in-law, Amy. It doesn’t look like it, but she does have the good sense to turn him down. I mean her husband, Rex, is right there, sleeping in a bed in the very same room . . .

He tries again with Erin, which is a much better choice. I think they only made out before their actions were interrupted.

Max grows up. He looks a lot like Vincent Rodiek (even though they aren’t related at all.)

Amy goes into labor.

It’s twin girls! Their names are Meg and Ren.

#royalkingdomchallenge #unofficial households #ts2 #the sims 2 #sims 2

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pagingdoctorbedlam · 3 years

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My final potion for @quirkyseastone ‘s “Brew a Love Potion” event is complete! Hope you’re ready for the fluffiest darn thing I’ve written for this fandom (and possibly ever).

Characters: Franky x Reader

Genre: Sci-Fi AU, Fluff

TW/CW: Mentions of loss/death

Inspiration: Kudos to “A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet” by Becky Chambers for inspiring this fic~

Word Count: 2.7k words

"Alright, we've successfully docked. Good job, crew." You sit up from the captain's chair and gaze out at the starport outside your window. It's been some time since you'd landed on one of the Sabaody Moons, but you've always found the view breathtaking. The moons are more tree than earth, and bubbles slowly float from the roots up toward the stars. While some of the moons are still hives of scum and villainy, others seem almost paradisiacal as beings from far-flung galaxies intermingled in the Sabaody ports.

Before you can get too far from the bridge, the intercom of the Thousand Sunny buzzes to life. It's Franky, the A.I. that runs your ship. "Hey Captain, can I nab a word with ya' before you go on shore leave?"

"Sure thing. Need me here, or down in the core room?"

"Core Room, if ya' don't mind. I've got a super new design to run by you." Though Franky works admirably as a ship A.I., he'd originally been coded to design ships, including the one he now ran, the 1000 Suns (colloquially the Thousand Sunny to you and your crew). Even though his focus is now centered on ship diagnostics and flight procedures, the A.I. still delights in crafting new machine schematics, and you have a rule that he needs your approval before he modifies the ship.

You wave off the rest of the bridge crew, and they're all too eager to touch solid ground again after months in space. You are too, but if Franky's waited this long to check on you, it's likely something for your ears only while the rest of the crew is offboard. You stride through the winding metal hallways that make up the ship's guts, flashing your clearance badge here and there until you are down in the deep bowels of the ship, close enough to the engines that you can hear the machinery thrumming as the ship went through cooldown procedures. It's familiar. You come down here more often than others would expect, enough that you've got a futon and blanket stashed nearby for nights you don't spend in your own cabin.

"Franky? Said you wanted to see me?" You call out as you entered the Core Room. The entire room is covered in segments of a giant computer, with retractable screens and limbs for interacting with others; all of this is Franky. In a way, you're standing in his brain, which is something you try not to think about too much. What catches your attention is that all the screens are down, a rarity when Franky has company.

"Sure do!" His voice echoes, but not from the speakers. "Got a surprise for you. Close your eyes a sec, alright Captain?"

"Franky..." You're sure no other ship A.I.s play games with their commanding officers, but then again, you've yet to meet an A.I. with half the personality Franky has. You close your eyes and cover them with your hands. "Alright, ready when you are."

You expect to hear wheels, a cart with some sort of prototype wheeling into the room. Instead there are footsteps, heavy and so in-sync that it borders on unnatural. Then a hand on your shoulder, warm and soft. Too curious to resist temptation, you open your eyes and peek through your fingers.

"Franky, is this...?"

"An android body? It sure is!" He spins you around and takes a step back so you can take in his full visage. He looks human for the most part, even if the muscles in his forearms are overemphasized and patches of metal poke out from his skin. Still, he has skin, the medical-grade sort often used for replacing lost flesh in humans, and hair that's sculpted into a bright blue pompadour. He must have borrowed clothes from someone in medical too, though he's only wearing a floral patterned shirt, sunglasses, and a speedo. You suppose he was too excited for the big reveal to finish getting dressed.

"You made this, Franky?"

"Yeah, alongside Dr. Chopper and the rest of the medical team, plus Usopp over in Engineering. Surprised none of 'em spilled the beans." He flexes to show off the musculature of his arms. "We'd talked about what happened to your last ship, and figured we should make me a back-up body in case I ever needed to leave the ship with you all. Not that I plan for anything to happen to the Sunny..."

"But better safe than sorry." You still miss Merry, your sweet A.I. lost with your previous ship. She and Franky would've gotten along well, you think. "It's a good plan, I approve."

"Excellent! Now I just need to take it for a spin, test it outside the ship. Seeing as we've docked for the time being..."

Ah. Now you see what he's getting it. Pretty sly, for an A.I. "As your Captain, I'll accompany you on your first excursion out on the spaceport, to make sure everything's in working order." You offer an arm. He raises an eyebrow. "Loop it with mine. Like this...there we go. Now let's get going, shall we?"

Even among the strangest aliens, Franky stands out in his own way at the space docks. This is only partially due to his lack of pants: he claims this is because he designed his legs to vent most of the heat his body builds up, and you wouldn't want him to overheat and faint on his first outing, would you? No, he stands out because even though he's clearly an android, there's an excitement to him that would rival even the most starry-eyed space explorers.

"Would ya' take a look at this, Captain?" You'd expect to find Franky gawking at any number of the docked spaceships, and indeed he's gushed about many of them already. Instead, he directs your attention to one of the tree roots. A trail of iridescent beetles scurry up the bark, and overhead, a couple smaller Southbirds (rare here, likely escaped cargo from the planet Skypiea) call to each other as they watch the busy port below.

"Thought you'd studied all these, Franky." After all, he's a powerful computer who can research multiple ideas at once, and innately curious as any inventor tends to be. And he's asked you and the crew many, many questions about the world beyond his metal hull.

"Yeah, but no matter how advanced the notes and visuals might be, it doesn't compare with the real thing. I mean, look at 'em!" He points at one particular beetle as its shell reflects the lights of the spaceport back with an opalescent sheen. "Even if you could theoretically simulate all this on a computer, most wouldn't think to do so on their own. Out here, stuff just...happens."

You have never seen an A.I. quite so excited about life outside, but then again, you've never met an A.I. quite like Franky. "Yeah, I guess that is pretty exciting when you put it that way. Part of the wonders of space travel; you never quite know what's going to happen out here."

Then a realization hits your brain with the full-bodied force of a supernova. "Franky, you've spent so much time traveling through the stars, but have you ever actually seen them the way we do?"

Franky looks up at the sky overhead. "Hard to see 'em from up here, even if I zoom out my eyes to max. Watch this!" His eyes...actually telescope out of his head. That's a bit disturbing with how human he looks. "Figure that's due to light pollution, though. Pretty bright out here."

"Sure is." You offer your arm to him again. "Come with me; I'll show you how folks groundside go out to look at the stars."

Years ago, you'd come out of the harshest space battle of your life. Your crew narrowly avoided becoming space dust, and after giving her all to save you, you lost Merry. The ship that had been with you since the beginning, the A.I. with the biggest heart you'd ever met. As her files corrupted and her hull fell apart, you'd honored her final wish and set her ablaze once you reached planetside, cremating her as one would a human. You still carry a vial of her ashes on a necklace, so you never forget what you've lost to get this far.

You'd wandered through the streets of the moon of Water 7 in a daze. Hadn't even paid attention where you went as the rest of the crew licked their wounds. Before you knew it, a robotic voice called out to you from the depths of a starship demolition yard.

"What's got you down, Captain? Can't be you're sad to be out among the stars!"

You'd blinked, not recognizing the source of the voice. But you called back, "I just lost someone important to my crew. My ship." You didn't care if most folks didn't see A.I.s as people. Merry had been more than a crewmate to you. She'd been a friend.

Even though the voice emanating from the demo-yard was auto-tuned monotone, it took on a warmer tone somehow. "I'm sorry to hear that. But you say you're looking for a ship? I might be able to help with that." A crackle of static. "And if you'd like, you can tell me about your lost pal. I can't bring 'em back for you...but I've heard that talking about these kinda' things helps."

"You don't even know who I am."

"No one does when they first meet, do they? Speaking of which, call me Franky."

Somehow, pouring your heart out to a stranger was easier than talking to your crewmates. You'd wandered into the heart of the scrapheaps and talked to the mysterious Franky, his voice surrounding you from so many static-filled speakers. You'd watched as overhead, he controlled cranes to start putting pieces of a mighty vessel together. He'd asked about your specifications, what you'd loved about Merry both as a ship and a friend. You'd cried. He did too. And when you'd asked how much the ship would cost, he said the only charge would be that he could come along.

You agreed willingly, overjoyed to have such a skilled shipwright onboard. It was only when you talked to the demo-yard owner that you learned that the person you'd poured your heart out to was an A.I.

That didn't stop you from doing so again once the Thousand Sunny was complete, and Franky took to his new home in his core room. You'd wander down into the depths of the Thousand Sunny whenever you needed a second opinion on the ship or a mission, and soon after that just to talk. You'd spent hours surrounded by the computer that served as Franky's brain for so long, talking and laughing just as you used to with Merry. Except, it was more than that with him. He wasn't just a friend, you'd realized over time. But you'd shoved those thoughts away. It was ludicrous, falling in love with an A.I. whose brain you could walk through, whose body was a starship you controlled with the push of a few buttons.

But now he has a body. You can squeeze his giant hand, and he squeezes back so softly as he gets used to his own strength. He smiles the way you always imagined he would, grinning with pearly white teeth and eyes that (literally) glow with joy.

He follows you with infinite curiosity as you weave through the Sabaody streets and gather supplies for your excursion. You ask about his body's capabilities and discover his fuel source is...astonishingly close to soda, so you pick up a few colas along with some food for you. Franky gets to carry a blanket hand-woven by the locals, and you catch him marveling at the texture when he thinks you aren't looking. Finally, you rent a small paddleboat to traverse the moon with, and a map that lays out the canals and waterways of this particular moon.

"You know, it'd be a lot faster if I rowed," Franky says, mouth quirked into a lopsided grin as your comparatively tiny arms pull the oars back and forth. It's amazingly, how perfectly imperfect he looks, more human than any other android you've seen even with all the metal bits.

"There's an old human adage about the journey being more important than the destination, Franky. Take in the experience."

You watch as his attention zeroes in along the waterways, eyes zooming in on every detail until they're pulled away to something new. You expect him to be interested in the flora and fauna, as opalescent leaves bigger than your boat stretch over the water to shade you from the encroaching moonlight and soft purple creatures vaguely reminiscent of otters circle your boat before chasing each other down the river. But the entire world is new to him, and you find him fascinated by even the dirt or the buzzing insects swarming your head.

"Aww, look. I think it likes me!" Franky lifts one giant finger, where a mosquito (why did those have to be a universal constant?) tries and fails at piercing his skin.

"It probably thinks you're human and is trying to suck your blood," you point out, as the bugs try to use you as a personal juicebox. This only gets Franky to smile. Must feel validating, having even nature recognize him for what he is in his heart.

It takes a bit more rowing, but you finally arrive at your destination. A small island, mostly shore, with a small field and a lone tree with leaves that glow silver in the moonlight. You dock the boat on the shore, then set up the blanket and food for a small picnic. You motion for Franky to sit with you, and can't help but laugh a little at the faces he makes when touching sand for the first time. Then you lay back on the blanket. Franky joins you, and his eyes go wide.

A ribbon of starlight glimmers overhead. Hundreds of constellations twinkle overhead. You'd ask if he knows any, but you keep quiet so you don't break his wonder-filled gaze.

His giant hand encases yours. "Space seems even bigger from here than it does when you're in the middle of it. I mean, look at all those stars! I read that you could see 'em from so far away, but seeing it in person..."

"This is what inspired me to go into space," you say. Your finger drifts up to the brightest star in the sky. "I'd look at that one and say, I'm going to go there someday! Didn't care how far away it was, or even what might be around it. Just wanted to head to the brightest star I could."

Franky narrows his gaze up at that star. "That's over eight light years away. Might take a bit, even with a warp drive like mine. But if that's where you wanna' go? I'll take you anywhere, Captain. Long as we're together, I'll explore every corner of the universe with you."

For a moment, both of you are quiet. The air fills with the gentle rhythm of the flowing water, the buzz of insects, bushes rustling as creatures move in the night. In the distance, the hum of a starship engine taking off from the port; you soon see its lights trail across the sky as it ascends back into that void above, the space that's so comforting because it holds planets and stars and spaceships and you and Franky all together in its embrace.

"I think this is the part where one of us says 'I love you'," Franky says softly.

You smile and squeeze his hand back. "You're such a romantic. But yeah, you're right. And I do. I love you."

"Love you too, Captain. And thanks. For, y'know, helping me be human."

"Franky, you've got more heart than most anyone I know. You're plenty human already. I'm just here to steer you steady. And I always will."

You pass the rest of the night watching the stars overhead. And for the captain and A.I. of a starship, you wouldn't have it any other way.

#seas brew a love potion challenge #bedlam writes #cyborg franky #franky x reader #scifi au #fluff

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books-are-my-life-stuff · 2 years

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Seven win streaks now, which was already higher than my previous gauntlet run. I’ll try to get at least three more wins, but if I cannot do it, then that’s fine. I could start farming. I’m already satisfied that I could reach this far.

First Moltres Team: So, I just realized the reason why Siebold needed to be EX for this team to be successful. It’s not his nuke, he could deplete Moltres’ second health bar even without EX. It’s also not his survivability, because he’s very tanky for a striker and could heal himself. The problem lies at his Water Pulse. Finishing Moltres’ first health bar before it sync-ed for the second time is needed, and without the stat boosts from 20/20, he just couldn’t do it.

As a comparison, 5* Siebold without EX, after Leaf’s EX sync buff and capped Special Attack with constant crits, couldn’t even reach 2k per Water Pulse, under rain. With EX, he could constantly reach 2k-2.5k-ish in the same condition. That damage difference is crucial in completing Moltres’ first half bar on time. Another comparison is that his second health bar nuke without EX is around 44k, while with EX it’s 53k, that’s a lot of damage difference. Both still nuked second health bar in one sync, but the phases before and after with lackluster Water Pulse damage without EX were painful. With EX, he’s more consistent in his DPS.

He had Foul Fighting on his grid, and having that with Tech Blastoise’s Aggravation 2 Water Pulse will significantly increase his Water Pulse damage, but taking that means cutting down his sync nuke, and there’s a likely chance he couldn’t nuke Moltres’ second health bar without his complete sync multipliers. I didn’t want to risk that.

So, yeah. Siebold is actually pretty good against Moltres, but EX-ing him is required for consistent result.

Leaf also got somehow lucky at flinches, but that’s at the cost of MPR at Potion not proc-ing at all. She spent two of them to keep Tech Blastoise and herself alive. Thankfully, it’s enough.

Latias: I talked about this team here and that’s it. This team is great. While Oak lacked recovery to be a proper tank other than First Aid, he at least tanked much better than Falkner. 308 on all stats except for HP (it’s around 400-ish) at 5* 0/20 is much higher than Falkner’s defensive stats under the same condition. Coupled with Swift that never missed and Unfortuitous to counter Latias’ gimmick, he’s basically the F2P Latias counter. And if you wanted him to nuke, you could do that too because he also had the multipliers available in his grids. Oak is very great and he’s worth my investments.

I’m actually quite proud of this clear, for once I don’t suck at team building. In hindsight I should have given the Psychic gears to this team to help Oak’s survivability, though.

Uxie: This team was a walk in the park. The only scary thing was Sycamore receiving 550 damage from supereffective Iron Tail, but as long as he has Impervious, he could regain his loss health with Horn Leech and be immortal as always. BP Erika is such a reliable status and trapper as well even at 4*.

Thanks to the Psychic gears, that gave a lot of boost on Giovanni’s special attack and helped his defenses as well. His pre-mega special attack with level 15 Psychic gears was around 580-ish. Since the Mega Evolution granted him around 103 special attacks (in max potential and level 140), that means with gears, his post-Mega special attack would be around 683, that’s pretty close to 700 (unless my calculation is wrong, I’m bad at math okay)! That’s nuts. Add Sycamore’s max Special Attack boost from Geomancy and with constant statuses from BP Erika, he basically speedran Uxie’s stage. Even when Uxie gained immmunity, Giovanni was strong enough to brute force the 40% damage reduction anyway.

I think I’ll use this team to farm Uxie instead of the Piercing Blows (N & Zekrom) team.

Second Moltres Team: This team continued to be great and sustained very well, though it had one catch that I just realized: SS Blue had to proc his trainer move MPR at least once, to offset the speed debuffs from Moltres. Plus, in this scenario, SS Blue also needed to DPS as well alongside Misty to finish the fight on time with his Hydro Cannon. I found that out by failing my first attempt with this team because he didn’t proc his trainer move and this team had to deal with severe gauge issues.

Once he proc-ed his trainer move MPR at least one time, SS Blue and Misty could go ham and spammed high-gauge damaging moves. Winona unfortunately wasn’t really lucky at flinches, but she survived and that’s all that matters. Hydro Cannon, boosted with rain, Smart Cookie, and Raging Rain 3, dealt pretty great damage even without super effective. It’s only 2-3k below Misty’s Hydro Pump with Smart Cookie and Critical Strike.

Even without rain (in second health bar and last half of third bar), SS Blue still could deal great damage with his Hydro Cannon, and combined with Misty and Starmie, could outdamage Moltres’ healing. It’s a very fun time for support to be able to deal great damage, just like how I used SS Elesa as electric DPS back then, and how I still occasionally used Hop as Steel-type DPS to this day.

Team Fist Bump and Team Triage Tank, while unreliable, could also mean the team’s survival, especially during second health bar where Moltres could constantly land a burn, and waiting for Healing Hand 2. 2/5 SS Blue could do this, I used 2/5 SS Blue in my first attempt a while back before Gauntlet, but 3/5 is just more consistent with Impervious, Raging Rain, and Team Triage Tank.

I really like this team. I had a lot of fun, and I’m grateful to Zinfogel to recommend this team.

#personal #pokemon masters #even though this gauntlet was much harder than the previous one #but my team has significantly grown since the last time #and i'm really happy that i could get this far

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miraculouscontent · 4 years

Note

What do you think would be if Agreste family was Childless (read: What if Adrien don't exist)?

I can’t get into too much detail because no Adrien means no Chat Noir and that’s dicey-er territory. Still, I’ll give it a go.

Obvious stuff first:

- Gabriel wouldn’t have as many on-screen moments of “sympathy” since no Adrien hug and no scene with them watching Emilie’s starring role together.

- We’re going to presume that there’s a new cat who is at least competent enough to follow Ladybug’s orders and get the job done.

- No Adrien means no book which means no potions at the very least; we will however presume that Marinette gets a Lucky Charm in “Sapotis” that leads her to Fu, even if the Lucky Charm confuses her so she has to ask Tikki about it (which then leads to Tikki taking her to Fu), so temporary heroes will still be a thing (otherwise this’ll be boring with me shrugging at a bunch of temporary holder episodes).

Anyway, episodes that would be significantly different without Adrien are bolded, episodes that are uncertain (i.e: ones that involve potions) are marked with a *, and episodes that are bolded and italicized outright/possibly would not happen at all:

Season 1

Stormy Weather (no visit to the park, possibly no Alya since Alya’s purpose in coming was to tell Marinette about Adrien; if Alya does show up, possibly just Marinette and Alya being gay moms to Manon)

Evillustrator

Lady Wifi

Princess Fragrance (new cat possibly doesn’t get hit by Princess Fragrance’s perfume, as it was Chat’s idea to open the windows in the first place, which let Princess Fragrance spray her perfume in)

Dark Cupid (new cat possibly not getting shot since they wouldn’t be distracted by confessing to Ladybug)

Mr. Pigeon (new cat likely not allergic to feathers; Marinette would probably still compete in the hat contest though)

Pixelator (new cat may not get shot by Pixelator as Adrien got shot protecting Chloe which... who would protect Chloe?)

Copycat (um... yeah)

The Bubbler (Adrien doesn’t exist, therefore no one for Nino to get akumatized over)

Simon Says

Rogercop (this one’s debatable, but Plagg might not see the bracelet from his vantage point, so he might not cause the whole incident that leads to Roger being fired)

Gamer (no Adrien means that Max and Marinette would be teaming up, so unless Max gets akumatized just out of being beaten by a girl, we’re good)

Animan (no Adrien to set up Nino’s date with Marinette, meaning Alya and Nino aren’t at the zoo, don’t get trapped in the cage, and thus don’t get together)

Darkblade (this one wouldn’t really be different exactly, but this showcases Adrien’s fencing ability while he’s fighting against Darkblade as Chat; it’s not significant but more like a fun fact)

The Pharaoh

Timebreaker (new cat might protect Ladybug differently rather than taking the time to hug AND shield her; possibly no time travel back and Marinette might drop the watch herself since there’s no Adrien to grab it first, though that’s really insignificant since the watch had to be run over by Alix for it to break)

Horrificator (Inspector Jones is different so no Chloe insisting on being the other role, though Mylene would still be chased away; hm, I wonder who Inspector Jones would be if not Adrien?)

The Puppeteer (possibly no Rogercop, so it’d be a different akuma)

The Mime

Guitar Villain

Reflekta (no Adrien, so unless the photographer still puts Juleka in the middle and Chloe insists on being there, which she didn’t in the original as it was only being next to Adrien that she cared about, Juleka wouldn’t be sent to the bathroom)

Ladybug & Chat Noir (Origins - Part 1) (This one is REALLY subjective and debatable so don’t take it too seriously, but it’s possible that the new cat would’ve listened to Plagg’s full instructions and Plagg might’ve talked about Ladybug’s purification; therefore, the new cat might’ve been like, “Hey, are you supposed to purify that or--” “Oh! Right!” meaning no second Stoneheart)

Stoneheart (Origins - Part 2) (Again, only relevant if you assume that Part 1 would have the new cat reminding Ladybug of purification)

Antibug

Kung Food (no Adrien to help Marinette with Chinese; honestly I feel like this is better because the writers would probably have to have her know Chinese instead of being taught terms by a white boy)

Volpina (no Adrien, no book, no Marinette getting upset at Lila dissing Ladybug and thus - in addition to no Adrien for Lila to flirt with - no Ladybug calling Lila out unless she does it differently) (either way, no Volpina in general because there’s no fox hero for her to base herself on, so it’d just be a generic illusion maker if anything)

Season 2

The Collector (no “Volpina” means no “The Collector”)

Prime Queen (depends on whether Ladybug and the new cat are ship-tastic enough for Nadja to do a story on and if the new cat would stand up enough for Ladybug that Ladybug wouldn’t feel the need to barge out)

Glaciator (no Adrien means no disappointed Marinette means no Andre the ice cream man being upset)

Despair Bear (no Adrien to tell Chloe to start being nice means Chloe shall make no attempt to)

Troublemaker (no Adrien pictures means Marinette isn’t as panicked so Penny wouldn’t have to kick everyone out so readily)

Gigantitan (no Adrien, no Gorilla to try to akumatize, so no butterfly to akumatize August)

Riposte (Adrien is apparently Armand D'Argencourt’s best student; thus, no Adrien means that Kagami would just get into the fencing class)

Befana

Frightningale (this one is a BIIIIIG “if”; Chloe would have to care enough to want to be Ladybug without Adrien as the cat, and then Marinette would have to be peeved enough at the idea of Chloe being Ladybug to interrupt, which she technically implies in the original by saying, “Chloé playing Ladybug? No way! Not gonna happen!”)

Gorizilla (no Adrien for Gorilla to lose)

Robostus

Sapotis (again, we’re presuming that Ladybug gets a Lucky Charm that either leads her to Fu or Marinette asks Tikki about the Lucky Charm and Tikki leads her to Fu)

Dark Owl

Syren* (no aqua powers; possible zodiac usage, like Dragon for water powers)

Zombizou

Captain Hardrock (no Adrien for Marinette to get depressed over but she’d obviously still meet Luka, whether on deck or in his room)

Frozer* (no Adrien for Marinette to third wheel for alongside Luka, but Philippe’s ice rink is still in jeopardy so he’ll still be akumatized; also, no ice powers)

Style Queen (new cat very well might not be turned to glitter, meaning no need to go to Fu anyway because the bee actually wasn’t needed to beat the akuma: Plagg/the cat was)

Queen Wasp* (no bee miraculous to lose, no Queen Bee, Audrey may or may not get close to Chloe because Marinette has less reason to help)

Reverser (new cat would get reversed into something else at the very least?)

Anansi (we’re assuming that this would be an episode where Nino gets his miraculous even if he’s not dating Alya; it just wouldn’t involve Alya)

Malediktator (no Queen Bee, no video to get into a huff over)

Sandboy (new cat’s civilian and hero nightmares would be different)

Catalyst (Heroes Day - Part 1) (if Volpina doesn’t happen, Hawk Moth doesn’t have his illusion maker, but that one was more debatable so we’ll presume he gets around it enough or Volpina did happen but very differently) (the subplot about Marinette preparing sweets is likely averted; in the original, Marinette went back on admitting that she lied because of Adrien being a sad boy which made her feel guilty) (bonus that Alya can’t use any “you’re jealous because Lila hit on Adrien” excuse with Marinette because Adrien doesn’t exist)

Mayura (Heroes Day - Part 2) (no Queen Bee so no Queen Wasp, and it’s debatable if Alya and Nino would’ve been close enough to care if/when the other got hit by Dark Cupid’s arrows)

Santa Claws (no Adrien means no final straw for Santa)

Season 3

Chameleon (no Adrien means no akumatization motive for Lila; also, no Adrien means that Marinette isn’t holding back from calling out Lila’s lying and Alya still can’t use the “you’re jealous because aDriEn” excuse, so we’ll presume that Alya trusts Marinette - an insane concept, I know - and looks into Lila’s lies)

Animaestro (no Adrien, no macaron, no last straw for Astruc and Marinette likely wouldn’t even show up for the premiere)

Bakerix

Backwarder (no Adrien love letter to accidentally give to Marianne, though it’d be hilarious to see Marianne’s reaction to being given the prescription; still )

Reflekdoll (no Adrien, no Alya intrusion, no Juleka blaming Marinette for no reason)

Weredad (based on if the love square is even still a thing, this could go any number of ways, but likely wouldn’t happen in the exact same way at least; also, I doubt the new cat would be curious about Marinette being on her own damn balcony)

Silencer

Oni-Chan (no Adrien means no picture for Kagami to get salty over)

Miraculer (no Queen Bee)

Oblivio (new cat might not be lounging around and calling them and Ladybug a couple; even if this episode still did happen, obviously it’d be very different)

Desperada (no Adrien means no guitar scene and no Aspik)

Christmaster (no Adrien gifts means no lie)

Startrain (depending on who the cat is, Ladybug might have to either go it alone or teleport away from the train to get them)

Kwami Buster (if the cat is someone who doesn’t go to Marinette’s school, possibly no Ms. Mendeleiev trying to catch the kwami)

Feast

Gamer 2.0 (this would technically be the first Gamer since “Gamer” very likely didn’t happen; ambiguous how the new cat will handle stressed out Ladybug or if they’re good at games in the first place)

Stormy Weather 2 (no subplot about Marinette delivering Adrien’s homework)

Ikari Gozen (no Adrien for Marinette to worry over so no phone-peeking and no sad Kagami)

Timetagger (new cat may no Cataclysm Bunnyx’s miraculous, which is what caused Bunnyx to be trapped in the past in the first place, unable to return)

Party Crasher (no Adrien, no party)

Puppeteer 2 (no Adrien means no museum means and no DJWifi dating for them to flirt and completely abandon the child they were supposed to watch)

Chat Blanc (no Adrien crush means no gift which means no Chat Noir figuring out Ladybug’s identity)

Felix (no Adrien means no video for Felix to sabotage)

Ladybug (Lila may’ve been called out by “Chameleon,” and even if Marinette was expelled, Alya still doesn’t have the “Adrien” excuse to pull, making it look even worse for her if she refuses to see Lila as a suspect)

Heart Hunter (Battle of the Miraculous - Part 1) (no Adrien means no sad Marinette which means Ladybug would be alert enough to go de-transform first or realize that Hawk Moth is following her) (also, Audrey possibly isn’t in Paris because she was planning on leaving before Chloe and her made up)

Miracle Queen (Battle of the Miraculous - Part 2) (Queen Bee never happened)

#((This was all off the top of my head because I have Treatment of Marinette Season 3 to work on))#((so I'm trying not to dig super deep into asks.))#MC's Adustments #adjustment: plotlines #other: ask and answer

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fenheart87 · 4 years

Text

Healing the Magic

For @bloody-no-kissu happy belated birthday!

-start-

“Well hello there, sniffer’s no good upwind.” Luka kept his relaxed posture, no need to scare the young woman, especially when he had no way of knowing what she was capable of. "Rest easy lass, just a wee break for the legs before finishing my journey. Beautiful women are welcome to the river beside me, I don't bite."

Marinette snorted and moved closer, much more at ease with the werewolf as he was coherent. Carefully she scooped some water from the flow of the river with a chipped bowl and carefully filled her canteen. Silently she thanked the river spirits that this one was untainted by the illness that was flooding the capital. Once her canteen was full, she filled a few vials and other potion bottles. She would need moon water but that was harder to come by, unless…

"Pray tell furry friend," she smiled at the eye roll and continued, "if I were to say leave a basin to be touched by Sister Moon would you place a watchful eye and help me to gather pure water from a full and a new moon?"

"Moon water aye?" Blue eyes narrowed in consideration and a healthy dose of wariness. "And what would a young lass such as yourself need any type of moon water for?"

"I come from the Agreste ranch, rescued as a healer for the ailing late Madame Emilie Agreste. Since her passing and resting of her soul, I have been helping to use my skills for those in the nearby town, most wounds heal best under a full moon. Other times I must raise defense for myself against those who wish to harm a skilled healer such as myself. I understand if you cannot help." Marinette simply returned to drinking fresh water from the river and making sure she had collected enough for her next round of potions.

"Lilly wheat grows yonder the hill to the west, right along the tree line. It can be tricking to navigate, I swear to watch yer things should you need to gather it."

Surprise covered her features, it was exactly what she was looking for and made her rethink this werewolf and wonder, how did he recognize the potion? "Many thanks, should you need flea repellent, there is thistle burn about two miles east of here."

"Ah the smell would be unmistakable." Nodding his shaggy head in thanks and reclined on the other bank, he seemed to be done with conversation.

"I'll take you up on your kind offer stranger, I'll be swift." Marinette heard the snort but paid it no mind as she gathered her dagger, amulet and her bag for the herbs she had collected. Swapping the jars of water for a few empty ones, she made her way to the west. Humming some disguised spells, Marinette committed the path to memory and found a few alternate routes for future trips. Sure enough she spotted lilly wheat from its lavender and pale blue coloring, it was a hybrid lookalike of wheat and blue bell flowers. Gathering as much as she could to fill the jars to the max and even stuffed her apron pockets to the brim. Making her way back, she heard a few twigs snap and the trees across the river had a slight sway, signalling the werewolf just left.

"Thank you kind wolf!" Upon reaching the middle of the clearing, she noticed both collection jars were missing. Smiling, she made a note to return in a month's time.

________________________________________

The walk helped clear her senses, too much magic and illness in the capitol had clouded Marinette's magical innate ability to sense other beings. Nature was usually at a neutral point unless tainted by those who lived in the area. Out here so far away from anything or even the manor of vampires she cohabitated with was still pure and loved to trade her negative things with a positive rush of natural magic. It was quite a boost and usually she stored it in her crystals, sometimes bringing them with her to recharge if she was able to stay for a long period.

The tree line broke and the sounds of the river filled her ears and the birds sounded louder than before. Marinette basked in the cheer floating in the air and made her way to the natural alter that she frequently used as her desk. Noticing a note hidden under a rock with a gem tied to it. Carefully she pulled the letter free, not wanting to touch the gem in case it was rigged with a spell.

'Hello Witchling,

I trust your fortnight has been fruitful and as you asked, I was indeed able to get both water from the new moon and the full moon. Untouched completely by every element but the collected water and the air itself. The gem is a family heirloom, there is a hidden cave and it shall lead you to it with just a drop of water from the river.

The Big Friendly Wolf'

Giggling to herself, she did as the note bade and with a touch of cursory magic, determined it was harmless. Dipping a finger in the river for a drop of water, Marinette followed the glowing red light to the cave where her collection jars waited for her, completely untouched. Taking care, she poured the water into the marked pots and carefully sealed them for transportation. This would be plenty for what she needed and Marinette made a note to make something for the helpful Were. Leaving the crystal with the note in the cave, she set off to gather the few missing herbs left. It took only a few minutes of scouting when her senses sparked in alarm, there was another magical signature drawing closer and it was unfamiliar. Deciding the risk was worth it, Marinette touched her amulet and teleported back into the agreste stronghold.

Dizziness filled her vision for a moment and she steadied herself with a few deep breaths. Looking around her room, she noticed nothing out of order and apart from the usual lingering traces of her magic and of Adrien's, everything was still. Grabbing a couple cookies to help her nausea, Marinette teleported back out of the castle and to the nearby wood. It would make it seem as if she skipped over the mountain and river instead of jumping right through every defense that Gabriel had set. Normally the elder vampire had no qualms with her use of magic but he disapproved of it greatly and even forbade Marinette to teach his son. The magic had chosen the young heir and there was not a thing she could do to stop it but that was a long time before they needed to discuss anything if her luck had anything to do with it, she dearly hoped she would be released from their service before then.

The guard, a quiet man whom Adrien called Gorilla, nodded in greeting and let her pass unharmed. Not many could come and go as they pleased, it was a hard earned honor to be rarely granted. Resuming her humming, her magic reached out and brushed against Adrien's, giving her a clear path to follow. Turning left instead of her normal right, the torches illuminated her way. The only thing King Gabriel requested to be enchanted at all times and now only let Marinette or Felix boost them when the stored magic was running low.

"Oh posh, you know as well as I do your father is hardly that." A foreign voice could be heard as she approached the heir's chambers.

"I'm not having this argument again, either you can shut up or I'll have your tongue." Adrien rarely snapped and it caused the witch's curiosity to peak even more. The moment of silence was her best bet, knocking in a familiar pattern and humming a containment spell, Marinette opened the door and slipped inside quickly.

"Oi! You never told me Tikki was here!" The blurry black form was hissing and thrashing in anger, the spell working like a charm.

"Oh you must be Plagg! I thought Mullo said you were a cute cat with a bad attitude?" Marinette wondered aloud, smiling in greeting to the frozen vampire.

"Mullo?! Wait wait wait! You're Marinette!"

Plagg settles into his hybrid form, acid green eyes and fluffy black ears being the first clear features to show. He stepped out of the transformation smoke and his body clad in black robes became solid, a slender tail flicking in excitement behind him.

"Oh no, you talk about me?!" Marinette shrieked in alarm, dropping the bag she had forgotten.

"Hold on, what in the Hell's Fires is going on here?" Adrien cut in, looking at the Demigod and his healer in anger and confusion.

"Oh Adrien, you know my true talents are not in healing so I know the Demigods when I see them. I've always known you're magic kissed like your mother." She smiled guiltily as the shock filled his face.

"Of course we talk about you, there's only one of you even century if we're lucky. A Destined is something to be proud of and you are definitely a very special one too. I'd love to see what kind of chaos we could create." His smile was full of fangs and a mischievous gleam shone from his eyes.

"Maybe one day, especially since I was forbade from teaching any magic and now you're contracted to Adrien." Marinette surmised, it was the only explanation as to why the demigod would actually be there in person.

"Father will never learn to trust me will he?" The blonde sighed deeply, defeat easy to read in his hunched form.

"He fears the illness that took your mother will take you as well…" Marinette hesitated, looking to Plagg for permission to disclose the truth; a move that Adrien noticed and pounced on.

"What are you hiding from me?" He rose from the chair, brow furrowed in anger and stalked towards the shorter woman.

"I cannot say, the King has his ways of forbidding even the most noble of truths." She turned her gaze to the floor in preservation, a vampire's thrall wasn't effective enough to hold her for long but it did cause severe damage.

"He marked you." They had nearly forgotten the demigod was in the same room. "That bastard! Touching a Destined with Darkened Magic is forbidden!"

"I had no idea I was a Destined, my powers never came in until I became lost in the Forbidden Woods." Her voice was soft with sadness but still clearly heard. "This means he will have to be put to death doesn't it?"

The silence from the demigod was loud enough in its own right. King Gabriel would pay the price of meddling with the Darkened Magic, the blackest of black magic and required sacrifices of souls and thousands of blood rituals or even contracts with demons. The penalty was raised even more for using the Darkened Magic on a Destined and stunting Marinette’s growth and endangering her life, a Demigod had chosen her and had been denied the right to connect with her because of Gabriel's foolishness.

"You'll rise to your place in the throne then Prince Adrien."

"You can't be serious, killing my father? For using magic on a witch?" Adrien cried, waving his arm carelessly.

"Boy, Magic Kissed you are but Chosen you are not! I will take you down with him should you choose to go against the wish of the Gods!" Plagg snarled, teeth glinting sharply in the candlelight.

Adrien started at the show of anger and reacted with fangs bared and eyes darkening to red. The predator was unused to feeling truly like prey, even in front of his father and his fight or flight instinct was set to fight. Marinette hummed herself, layering a few protective spells over herself and Plagg, surprising the demigod enough to whip his head and stare at her in disbelief.

"You're Tikki's chosen…" Adrien calmed a bit and glowered at the two that had suddenly forgotten him.

"I wouldn't know." Marinette whispered, barely heard by either male.

"Look kid, either he dies and you step up to be the man they need you to be or you'll suffer at the end of my claws as well. You have until sundown to decide. Little witchling, I shall keep in touch. There will be three parting gifts in your room and with your smarts you'll put it all together." Plagg bowed slightly, a show of respect to Marientte which had her and Adrien shocked as the demigod disappeared.

"We need to act normal for the time being. I'll see you at dinner." Adrien spoke dismissively, an echo of Gabriel's attitude behind his words. Marinette was left with no choice but to retire to her room.

Her room was alive in the way only a witch could truly achieve, the flora was bursting with healthy green leaves and big bright beautiful blooms. The air carried a weight of the magic she often conjured within the four walls, positive and practice vibes floating playfully past one another to create a safe atmosphere. Little did anyone realize the room itself was enchanted and she could move the entire thing at will, it was difficult as it required a lot of magic but with the help of Moon Water, she could do it and hide away to regain her strength.

"Alright, time to get to work." Marinette opened her chest and humming a light airy tune, the shelves floated off the walls and slowly drifted into the chest, allowing her time to select certain ingredients. Taking a deep breath she changed her tune and her furniture began to shrink and floated into the chest as well. The young witch was about three quarters depleted of her magic, Marinette had suspicions that Gabriel had something to do with it.

"Okay, time to juice up. Just a little bit, nothing major. Nothing ventured, nothing gained after all." She muttered under her breath, trying to shake off the sudden nerves. Tapping into the last of her power, Marinette focused on the new moon water and held the clear quartz above it, near breaking concentration as it began to float. Starting a soft hum, the water took a shiny quality and the crystal glowed in response. Very thin multicolored wisps of smoke drifted back and forth, showing a tangible power exchange between both stored magics. Once the water no longer shined and the smoke faded fully, she stopped humming.

"One more step and onto freedom…" Blue eyes took in the half packed state of her room, fingers already reaching for her Amethyst to charge with the Full Moon water. This was easier as there was only a little need for direction, the power was already there and no need to purify or mix with another essence. Gently she placed the crystal to float on top of the water and with a whisper of a chant, the process began.

Marinette moved around the room and tossed the shrunken furniture into the chest, convincing her plants to sleep for the trip and even getting some to shrink into seeds for packing purposes. Once everything was cleared and stored away, the young witch turned back to the crystal and pot, the process about halfway done. Steeling herself, Marinette grabbed a ring she rarely wore when staying inside the castle, strands of gold layered and twisted to form a beautiful rose. This was one of her more precious gifts, it also lent the ability to disguise everything tattletale from vampires.

"Now to make it through dinner… And hopefully out of here alive."

Dinner was a quiet affair, the tension could be felt by even the servants who were speedy about setting down the dishes and retreating as quickly as they could without triggering a chase from an angry vampire.

"I thought King Gabriel was to join us?" Marinette asked politely, forcing herself to enjoy the cooked lamb at a moderate pace.

"Father had some unexpected business to attend to." Adrien had finished sucking his peice dry and moved on to the goblet of blood wine.

"I hope nothing too strenuous."

"Father can handle anything."

Once she was finished, the table was cleared for dessert. The young witch knew this would be her moment as everyone else had left the room and if things were to go south, they would be spared from Adrien's wrath. Gathering courage, she rose from her seated position and bowed slightly.

"If you have a moment to spare, I would like to discuss something with you."

"So be it, speak your piece." Adrien leaned back in the chair, his persona more and more like his father every day but never closer than in that moment.

"After the events I am resigning from my position as healer for the Agreste Coven."

"Marinette, there's no reason to have this discussion." He sighed heavily and rose from his seat, turning to leave.

"There's no reason for me to be here any longer Adrien. My original reason for employment has been null for a long time. I feel it's time to leave and further my skills, that cannot be done while in here. There's nothing for me to learn." As a human she knew this would trigger what was left of his humanity and kept her breathing even to avoid the blow up

Adrien spun around suddenly, knocking off the dinnerware from the table. The plate was a near miss from cutting Marientte's bare feet but she stood her ground, after all no matter how nice Adrien was, there was still a predator in his heart. Green eyes blazed with anger and a low snarl ripped from his throat, it had no effect on her after so long of being in his service. "You dare mock me and then presume to leave me!? For the flea bitten mongrel at that?"

"I'd rather lay with that so-called mongrel and risk fleas than be with you a moment longer than I have to." Marinette calmly stated, pulling on her inner strength to not let her ring fail her and reveal how fast her pulse was truly racing.

"What is this really about Marinette? Did I not give you all the splendor and treasures you could want? I let you choose a trade and keep your money from it, supporting you and never asking for you to repay your debt with me. Have I ever hurt you?" Adrien spread his arms dramatically, appearing innocent except for the look of rage taking over his face.

"Adrien. Do not make this a big deal, Plagg is already watching you closely." Praying to the demigod himself that Adrien wouldn't be able to call her bluff. "I am not a prize to be won or fought over, I am most certainly not yours. You have never hurt me nor have I you, please do not change that."

"Then leave, when you get fleas do not come crying to me." Adrien spun and left the dining hall, anger leaking from him.

Marinette wasted no time, teleporting back to her room and casting a cloaking spell on the chest. The transfer was done and quickly she saved the water for both by sealing the collection pots temporarily. The crystals went onto the pouch at her waist, Marinette noticed that there was more than usual and smiled in relief.

"One of three found little witchling. Best hurry to get out of here before my kitten blows a gasket." Plagg commented lazily, floating above the opening of her door.

"Thank you for your watchful eyes Plagg." Dropping into a quick curtsey and drawing a quiet chuckle from the Demigod, the witch finished packing what little was left. Humming brightly, she gasped as the chest shrunk into a perfect sized bracelet.

"The least I can do to help rectify the wrong that has been done towards you. Mayhaps you should find a mentor that has knowledge of God's and Divination."

"Consider it done! Master Fu told me if i ever needed anything to go see him at the Temple of Heroes." Marinette smiled brightly and with a wink, teleported into the clearing she favored. She miscalculated how drained she was on magic as something solid but somewhat squishy.

"Well lass, did not expect you to fall into my lap quite like this." The werewolf's deep timber caused a shiver to run up her spine.

"Not quite my intention but I do need help and a certain big friendly werewolf would be quite helpful against the big scary vampires."

"Well lassie, you're in luck. Just hang on." He shifted her to his back and she clung on for dear life with a huge smile on her face. Time to live for herself.

#miraculous lb #miraculous fanfic #miraculous ladybug #miraculous au #luka couffaine #marinette dupain cheng #lukanette endgame #plagg is a little shit

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kennahbunny · 5 years

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Harry Potter Preferences Pt 2: Relationship Development

Disclaimer!: If you haven’t read my other HP Preference “How you guys meet” then this won’t make much sense. I also plan on making a single imagine for each of the boys for their storyline, so please be patient. I have to brainstorm then write drafts for each story then finalize, then edit, then post. So it’ll take a while to say the least. I also have so many ideas about a crossover with different shows! AHH! I’m so excited! Also, I’m posting these stories on Wattpad and Tumblr.

Part 1 Masterlist

Harry: After you helped him with his potions homework that one night. He noticed you more every day, he kept an eye out for you hoping to see you say thank you and hopefully make it a regular thing. When he did see you, it was in a class where he couldn’t just get up and talk to you and when class was over you seemed to disappear when class was dismissed. He was determined to talk to you, and when you weren’t in class when he saw you, you were surrounded by your girlfriends, laughing, gossiping. A week went by when he finally saw you alone, he took his chance to ask you for a study date. Harry wanted to know, you were so kind to him, you didn’t seem to care about him being the chosen one. He felt like he could talk to you, open up and talk about his past without somebody asking about ‘you know who’.

Months pass and now you’re close friends and your feelings for each other grew even more but neither one of you wanted to ruin the amazing friendship that you had. Every Quidditch match you went to for him, you weren’t as close with him as the golden trio they had their special bond. What you guys had was special, he kept telling Ron how he felt about you and how afraid he is to ask you out just cause of the fact that you might say no and that you don’t feel the same. Boys, right? So a week passed of you two being awkward, both contemplating to admitting your feelings and eventually, it gets to the point where you finally build up the courage to ask him.

You notice Harry in the courtyard with Hermione and Ron, you run up to them thinking, 'Oh what the hell.’ “Harry!” They all turn their heads when they recognize your voice, they say their hellos but your mind was on one thing. “Hey, Harry can I talk to you for a sec?” Hermione and Ron share a knowing look, Harry nods and says sure. I pull him to the side,

“So what is it that you needed to pull me aside to say?” You gave him a nervous smile, “Would you like to go to Hogsmeade?”

“Like all together? Sure.”

“No, like just us on a date?” He smiled, “I thought you didn’t like me like that. To be honest, (Y/n) I’ve fancied you awhile and was too afraid to ask you and I’m so glad you did.” You were so relieved you kissed him on the cheek, then blushed once you realized what you did. “Oh, sorry.” He didn’t say anything, he just simply returned the kiss and said he’d see you this weekend.

Ron: Days after the party Ron couldn’t shut up about you, it was starting to get on Harry’s nerves and Hermione’s not because she was jealous or anything she thinks you would be good for Ron, it’s just Ron couldn’t go one conversation without mentioning your name. For example,

“Ron, did you get that Transfiguration homework done?” Hermione asked.

“No, but I bet (Y/n) probably did, she’s so talented and smart. Did you see her today? She’s so pretty an-,”

“Ronald!” Hermione snapped her fingers in his to snap him out of his trance, “I get it, you fancy (Y/n) but that’s not what I asked.” she huffed, “Just man up and go ask her out.” Harry nodded, “Yeah mate, it’s getting old at this point.” He patted Ron’s shoulder and nodded in (Y/n)’s direction. Ron noticed and instantly stiffened up, his heart raced every time he saw you. So that’s what he did, well that’s what he attempted to do…

It ended up being a complete disaster… When he approached you at the entrance of the great hall, he froze but it was too late you already saw him and waved, excited to see him and get a chance to talk to him again. “Hey! I’ve been meaning to chat with you again,” You meet him halfway, you can’t help but smile every time you see him. There was just something about him that made you happy, meanwhile, in Ron’s brain, it looked like that one scene in Spongebob where his brain was on fire and there was mini Spongebob’s running around screaming. Yeah, that was what it looked like. Ron blackout, but from (Y/n)’s p.o.v his words came out fast and all jumbled.

“Uhhh… erm, Hiwouldyouli-want-tomaybegoonadatewithme?” He was visibly nervous, he swaying side to side, and you could guess his hands were clammy. You felt bad for the guy, you fancy him too.

“I’m sorry?” You gave a sympathetic look towards him, trying your best to understand what he just said. You think you heard the word date? He took a deep breath and tried saying it again,

“Would you like to go on a date with me? Please?” Ron wanted to punch himself for being such a git, he was thinking this is going very bad and he was so lost in his thoughts that he barely heard (Y/n) says yes.

“What?” He looked confused, “Did you say yes?” You giggled at his nervousness, “Yes, I’d love to go on a date with you.” He has a goofy smile on his face, “Great, so this weekend?” You nod eagerly.

Draco: The past few weeks, you dreaded going to potions class. Every day it spiked up your anxiety levels to the max, you try to stay as calm as possible but your thoughts keep running in circles about how good Draco smells and other things, then you tell yourself to snap out of it and by the time you do you’ve missed a section of very important notes or you knicked yourself with the knife when you were supposed to be cutting some ingredient. Damn. Before you swapped partners you were the 3rd best in class, right behind Draco who was behind Hermione. 'Maybe Snape did have the right idea putting use together, he probably thought we’d make a good pair considering how smart we both are. He’s probably disappointed with how many mistakes I’ve made since working with Draco, and Draco must be annoyed with my clumsiness. Why do I have to have a crush on such a git?! Merlin, I need to get a grip.’

When I’m not messing up it seems like Draco enjoys my company? Or isn’t completely annoyed by it anyway. We get along well enough,

“Hey, erm, do you have any plans later tonight?” I turn my head to look at Draco. 'Did I just hear that right? Did Draco Malfoy just ask me out?’ I turn my head to see Snape going over our homework from last week,

“Um, I just have some homework from other classes to go over but other than that I’m free. Why you ask?” I whisper back unsure of what his intentions were? These past weeks, Hermione has told me Draco hasn’t been harassing her as much which I find strange but I’m glad about that. “No reason, well it’s just that you could use some extra studying and I thought you’d enjoy my company.” 'Ugh, why do I like this guy?’ “Uh, thanks? We could study together after dinner, that’ll give us a couple of hours before curfew. Sound good?” He nods then goes on with class like that conversation never happened. 'What the hell just happened?’

Fred: Ever since that prank you pulled on that Ravenclaw word spread and still no one knew who pulled it off. Of course, there was an announcement saying that the staff knows who done it so they might as well come forward and accept their punishment but weeks went by and nothing happened, no surprise there. The only people who knew were Fred, George, and your two dormmates. Fred was so proud of you, well everyone was but Fred especially. After that prank you caught yourself spending more time with the Weasley twins and you started to develop a crush on Fred. There was something about his personality, he was so easy to talk to aswell.

Free period, I finally get a chance to breathe. “(Y/n)!” Noo~ I turn around to figure out if it was George or Fred calling my name so I know who to knee in the balls, they know not to bother with my “study” time. I just want to go to my common room and take a nap, that’s it. The time I waste talking to whoever, there goes how many minutes of sleep I lost.

Oh, it’s Fred. “Oh, hey Fred.” I move to the side of the hallway so I don’t get crushed by the stampede of students. Damn, he’s cute. “Hey, (Y/n) I was wondering if you wanted to join me and a few of my other friends this weekend at Hogsmeade?”

“Sure, I’d like that. May I ask why the sudden interest in me?”

“Well, if you must I fancy you” You’re taken back “Really? You fancy me?,” You pointed to yourself, “Not Angelica? Because I heard she fancies you, also I’m so boring. I don’t understand why you would fancy someone like m-”

“(Y/n)! I fancy you alright and there are reasons I fancy you. The more time I spend with you the more I fall for you. I find it adorable that you take naps after classes and one more thing you’re not boring! You’re hilarious, you’re so carefree and that prank idea you had was genius! So please stop being so down on yourself and please come to Hogsmeade with me this weekend” The entire time he was caressing your face, it was sort of difficult to focus on his words when you were so lost in his eyes.

You can’t stop smiling, so you just nod a yes, “Great, now will you let me join you for a nap. I could use one right about now.” You looked confused, “Wait, I thought you didn’t have a free period today?” You raise your eyebrow in confusion.

“You’re right I don’t but it’ll probably be boring and I would most likely fall asleep, so why sleep there at an uncomfortable desk when I could be cuddling you?” You laugh as he sends you a wink, “Who said anything about cuddling?” “I just did.” You laugh some more, “Now cmon slowpoke time’s a-wasting.”

George: The Yule ball was still a while away so you were glad George asked you when he did. On our date, we found out a lot about each other and we have a lot in common. And you became a little bit less mysterious to him and his feelings grew more for you. You had no idea what he had planned for the date so when he told you to meet him at the Astormany Tower at 11:00 pm you were a bit anxious, to say the least.

You try you’re best to walk quietly so you won’t draw any attention from a prefect or worse Flich or Mrs. Norris. It was freezing out so it was really difficult to look cute while not freezing to death. So just opted for a hoodie and some skinny jeans, you tried your best with your makeup skills, you decided to keep it natural and you left your hair down. You kept fidgeting with your hair and hoodie strings as you make your way up the tower’s stairs. At the top of the stairs, you see his read hair almost immediately, you also notice a blanket spread out on the ground with a woven basket sitting next to him.

He still hadn’t noticed you, and an evil idea popped into your head. You closer you snuck towards the less control you had of keeping a straight face, you couldn’t help a huge grin. You make a growling noise as you grab his shoulders quicky,

“Merlin!” George jumps up from his spot, “he turns around quickly to see me laughing. He can’t help but laugh as well, "Well hello to you too,” You calm down from your laughing fit and finally admire the scene George laid out in front of you. It looked absolutely beautiful out tonight, the stars were out and the moon was bright enough to light up the tower. You were at a loss for words, that was until George offered you a seat which you gladly accepted. The rest of the night was filled with laughter, endless talking and food lots of food. That date was only the beginning of something great.

Neville: Second year, you became friends, you always stood up for him against Malfoy or any other person that gave him a hard time. Third-year, he started to develop a crush now that both of you were changing, growing into your bodies. There was something about you that changed that only he truly noticed, you were more confident in yourself. You were before last year but you’re even more so now and it made him care about you, even more. Now it’s year four, a full two years later and talk about the Yule Ball has come into full effect. The talk about the ball is stressful but so is this essay for Muggle Studies.

You help him with his self-esteem problems, you’re his outlet when it comes to his feelings about his parents and his grandmother. Neville tells you things that he just can’t with his grandmother, every day you two grow closer but you’re too scared to admit the way you feel to him because you think he just sees you as a friend, nothing more than that. You like the way things are and you don’t want to risk anything by saying something you might regret.

“Hey, Neville,” You guys were sprawled out on one of the couches in the Gryffindor common room You guys tend to take up the whole couch which annoys some people, you were laying on your back while Neville was sitting properly on the couch as you were using him as a footrest. You tap him with your foot until he lifts his head from his Herbology book he was lost in.

“Hmm, yeah?” He glances at you then goes back to his book, “Ugh, Neville~~~ I need your help with my essay. Can you please reread it, I feel like I can do better with it.” He closes his book, to give you his full attention, “Alright, hand it over.” You hand him your paper, he takes a few minutes going over your paper and you take this moment to gaze at him. You think about how attractive he’s become since you first met him, he’s truly becoming a man and damn do you wish he will take you to the Yule ball.

“(y/n), did you hear me?” You snap out of your thought and come back to Earth, “Huh, sorry I was spacing out.” He laughs, “Well yeah that’s because you’ve been up all night and getting up early in the mornings to finish this essay.” He hands back your essay and starts to push your legs off his lap. You sit up, eager to what he has to say, “Well how is it? Does it more detail? Does it sound good enough, do I need to edit it anymore-” “Alright, I’m going to stop you there.” He turns to face towards me, grabs my hands and pulls me in closer. “It’s perfect. Now go to bed.”

Cedric: Every week you and Cedric would meet at a tree near the Black Lake and you’d swap books. You’d give him a muggle book and he’d give you one that he’d think you’ll love, and every week you’d talk for hours about how much would love or hate that book. He found your passion for books to be adorable, he found it so cute that you’d rant about how much you’d dislike a certain character or how a different character deserves to be treated better and that they’re misunderstood.

You were ranting on and on about how Luce from Lauren Kate’s “Fallen” doesn’t deserve Daniel because she treats him horribly for some reason?. He stopped listening after a while because he was too distracted by the way the sun hits the back of your hair. It sort of had a halo effect and he thought you looked absolutely stunning, he always thought you looked amazing even if you didn’t. He is so captivated by your beauty that his silence didn’t go unnoticed by you, you thought you were boring him so you stopped taking about starting blushing.

“Sorry, am I boring?"Cedric being the gentleman he says, "Oh no of course not, I just love how passionate you are about these things. It’s one of the reasons I fancy you.” He gave you one of his signature smiles. You stared at him dumbfounded, “Sorry what? Did you just say you fancy me?” You really couldn’t believe your ears. He sat up from his laying position to look at you properly, (Y/n) would you like to go on a date with me?“ Cedric hoped deeply that you would say yes, with a hopeful look on his face your mind was racing with questions. "Well? What do you say?”

“Uh, yes, of course, I’ll go on a date with you.” You were so happy you didn’t care what was the reason he’d fancied you but your mind did quickly fill with insecurities. “Ced?” He smiled, he loved the fact that you already have a nickname for me. “Yes?” “Why do you want to go on a date with me? I swore you like Cho?” He gave you a confused look, “Cho? I don’t fancy her at all, she’s pretty and all but you’re who I’m interested in. I feel like I already know you, you are so down to earth and I want to get to know you more. I need to get to know you more or I feel like I might explode, there’s something so captivating about you and I can’t put my finger on it.”

You were at a loss for words, and before you knew what you were doing you hugged him and he returned the favor within seconds. “I never have had someone say something so sweet about me like that, and that speech how can I say no?”

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thewritewolf · 4 years

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Two For Two Chapter 29: Against the World

The final battle. Dragonbug and Snake Noir versus Hawkmoth. The fate of Paris rests in the balance... but Hawkmoth was never one to fight fair.

(This chapter ended up being 5.3k words long, so I’m only posting a third of it here. The full chapter will be on Ao3, as usual.)

@ladynoirjuly2020

Enjoy!

First Chapter | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

Read on Ao3

After using the purple potions to sneak across the city to the Agreste mansion, they realized that of all the combinations of potion colors left to them, there was really only one choice.

There would be no elemental showdown. No space for flight. No need for true sight. Tricks and evasion could only get them so far. No, what they needed was power - and as much of it as they could get. With that in mind, they fed Tikki, Plagg, Sass, and Longg the orange potion and felt their bodies thrum with the barely contained power of two heightened miraculous.

“We’ll need to be careful,” Snake Noir said as he stared at his childhood home.

“Of course. We’re heading into Hawkmoth’s lair.”

“Not just that.” Snake Noir shook his head. “We’re breaking into Agreste Mansion. It has a lot of defenses. Defenses I had thought were meant to keep criminals out.”

“...But you think he might have always known it would end like this?”

“Maybe. He never liked taking risks or leaving things up to chance.” Snake Noir clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. “I don’t think we’ll have much of a problem. They probably don’t have it turned on to full because they’re waiting on me.”

“Right…” She put a comforting hand on his back. “Let’s get this over with.”

Snake Noir nodded and put a hand on his bracelet. “Just to be safe, though… Second Chance!”

She was about to jump across when Snake Noir caught her wrist. She turned back to see him standing there was a look of fury that took her aback.

“What? Chat, what’s wrong?!”

“The defenses,” he said through clenched teeth. “Are on max power and full alert.”

She blinked back at him in shock. “What- But doesn’t that mean-”

“If I had somehow managed to make it home, I would’ve been fried.” There was a dangerous look in Snake Noir’s eyes as he glared at the mansion. “I know how to get in now, though. Follow me.”

The specific route they took was a little roundabout. Running around the block that the mansion was on, breaking cameras along the outer wall - all in preparation for diving through the window above the front door. Both of them landed in superhero pose and quickly rose to their feet, Dragonbug immediately having her yoyo shield and her dragon sword drawn and ready to fight. She wasn’t sure what she expected to fight - maybe robot henchmen or something equally cliche - but only dead silence greeted them.

“Where to next?”

She looked toward her partner, but Snake Noir was storming up the stairs, baton drawn and ready in staff mode. The door he approached immediately had a metal plate slide shut over it, but he was undeterred. One swing from his staff saw the door shake and tremble in place. The second put a huge dent in it. The third put it hanging off its hinges. And the fourth one sent it flying.

Rushing in behind him, the first thing she noticed was a massive computer panel. It came as a shock to her because it definitely hadn’t been there the last couple times she’d been there. But then she noticed the scuff marks on the floor and the revealed button panel on the wall. That control center had been there the whole time, just kept hidden. How long had Gabriel Agreste been preparing for this?

Her racing mind distracted her from the professional-looking woman sitting in front of the computer bank. The look on her face quickly changed from startled to determined as she stood to fight off Snake Noir with her bare hands. Naturally, she didn’t get far, but not for the reasons Dragonbug had been expecting. Nathalie got to her feet and immediately clutched at her head before crumbling to the floor, the sudden movement enough to send her to her knees.

That was when Dragonbug noticed that her professional appearance was marred by an air of sickness and disheveledness. Strands of hair pulled free from her bun clung to the sweat on her unnaturally pale face. Her eyes were bloodshot and tired, with dark rings around them. And once she was on the floor, it looked like she wasn’t about to get up any time soon.

Still, whatever her other qualities - misguided loyalty, neglect of Adrien - she was doggedly determined. Nathalie latched onto one of Snake Noir’s arms, attempting to pull him away from the computer system.

“No! We’ve come too far, you can’t stop us now!”

There was a strange cocktail of emotions on her partner’s face. Pity. Anger. Bitter sadness. Disgust.

“It doesn’t matter!” Anger took the forefront as he shouted at her. “Can’t you see that it isn’t worth it?! We’re the only people not brainwashed in Paris!” Bitter sadness reared its head as he watched her struggle feebly in her sickness to tug on his arm. “At least, Dragonbug and I are.”

Nathalie’s face contorted into anger, a bizarre break from her usual cold expression. “I won’t let you take this away from Adrien! He will finally have his family whole again!”

For a moment she was worried that he was about to reveal his identity, so powerful was the look of dismay on his face. But it smoothed out into a cold, expressionless stare as he spoke one word.

“Cataclysm.”

A look of horror spread across both Nathalie and Dragonbug’s face as his clenched fist glowed with destructive energy. It seemed even more powerful than usual, wreathing his clawed gauntlet in black fire with a halo of green.

But she didn’t need to worry - his claws raked the computer, causing it to spark and glitch disconcerting. The mansion’s lights flickered and went out. After a few moments, dim red lights activated in their place. The omnipresent hum of power that she had been ignoring since she had arrived was significantly quieter.

“That’ll be all the defenses systems except for the exterior metal plates over the windows and doors going out.” Snake Noir said, staring straight into Nathalie’s eyes. “As well as most of the lights.”

Nathalie stared right back, suspicious and a little afraid. “How did you-”

“What can I say?” Snake Noir glared at her. “Cats get into all sorts of places and I suppose I’ve always been a bit of a snake.”

Dragonbug glanced worriedly between Snake Noir and Nathalie. “So… what are going to do about her? We can’t exactly turn her in to the police yet.”

Snake Noir shrugged. “Tie her up. The computer is thoroughly done for and she isn’t strong enough to break out of a paper bag right now.” He put word to action, tying her up as she failed to put up resistance. “No doubt because of the broken-” He froze and his eyes widened.

“...Chat? The broken what?”

Then it clicked.

“Wait. If she doesn’t have the peacock miraculous… who does?”

“I don’t know,” Snake Noir said, shaking his head slowly. “I can’t think of anyone else he’d trust with something like that, or with any of this.”

“What makes you think you know anything about Gabriel?” Nathalie asked angrily, tugging at the rope.

Snake Noir glared at her before grabbing Dragonbug’s elbow and walking away. “Come on, my lady. Let’s go talk some place where rude people won’t be eavesdropping on us.”

Once they were out in the hall, she asked him, “Where to next?”

He went down the stairs, eyes narrowed in thought. “I bet he has a secret lair somewhere in here. And he spends more time in his study than anywhere else in the house. We should start there.” He glanced back at her, a smirk on his lips but sorrow in his eyes. “Unless you think I should just cataclysm it all down and search through the ashes?” He flexed his claws.

“Chat…” They reached the bottom of the stairs and stood next to a door on the ground level. She put a hand on his cheek. “I know this is tearing you up inside. You don’t have to pretend it isn’t with me, okay?”

He sagged, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “I…” His hands went to his face as he groaned. “Later, okay? Once this is all done, I promise I’m going to fall to pieces. Can you pick me up after that?”

A flicker of a smile passed over her face. “I think I can manage it, yeah.”

He sighed in relief. “Good. Now, come on and I’ll show you what I know.”

The door was locked, but super strength alone was enough to bust it down, no cataclysm necessary there. A few tentative steps brought them inside the seat of Gabriel Agreste’s fashion empire. Her eyes scanned the walls where designs from all seasons were pinned in an orderly fashion.

There were few personal, non-work related items inside, but one of them was the large portrait of Emilie Agreste behind his desk. Snake Noir had gone to stand in front of it. She had thought it was for sentimental reasons, but her partner’s mind was all business as he moved the painting aside to reveal a safe. He held out his hands as if presenting it to her.

“Tada! This is where I found the book of the Guardians.” Snake Noir stroked his chin. “Come to think of it, its probably still in there.”

“We’ll remember to grab it on our way out. It won’t fit in either of our pockets and I don’t want to carry it into a fight.” She stepped closer and started rifling through the desk. “So… any clue on where the button or lever or switch or whatever will be in here?”

Snake Noir shrugged. “None. Maybe a lucky charm will give us a hint?”

“Good thinking.” She cleared her throat and tossed her yoyo in the air. “Lucky Charm!”

A spotted paint brush fell into her open hand.

“Hm…” Snake Noir hummed in thought. “Are we supposed to dust for fingerprints or something?”

“Good idea.” She smirked. “I can see I’m rubbing off on you. But I’m not sure that’s the right answer.”

He snorted. “Yeah, okay. I can have good ideas all on my own you know. But anyway,” he glanced from the lucky charm to her. “What are you thinking?”

“Well, it’s supposed to be a hint, right?” She looked from the brush to the painting. “Maybe the safe is only a diversion.”

#Miraculous Ladybug #Snake Noir #Dragonbug #Ladynoir #Ladybug #Chat Noir #LadynoirJuly2020 #nathalie sancoeur #Hawkmoth #Gabriel Agreste #ml fanfiction #my writing #Two For Two

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akimmito · 4 years

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Heroes are made by the path they choose

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Master List

Chapter 12

After his mother leaves, Damian contacts the MT base so that he can go there and train a little, getting Kaalki to open a portal and go through it taking with him Agatha and Edgar, the other German shepherd. He sneaks to avoid being discovered that he has brought his dogs to the scene, since he's not allowed to.

He goes to the weapons room, where the reserves are kept and they will not know if any are missing, not as if he were taking those in sight. He cannot choose a katana, everyone would see that he has it, and he cannot risk being found out by removing weapons from the MT without permission. Grab a couple of knives, Swiss knive and a few small tear gas bombs, barely the size of marbles (usually used by Chloe and Marc).

The next thing in his plan is to convince Kaalki to help him find John Constantine. He could barely find a location on his own and it must be one of two, London or Los Angeles, but he admits that it's easier to use the powers of a Kwami if he want to do it without someone noticing and Hugo is very good at noticing when something is suspicious. He doesn't want to risk it, so he can't be out past lunchtime, which gives him three hours to get there in time to eat and look like he's just had a backyard adventure with his two dogs.

Find the Kwami in the kitchen with Sass and Mullo, the three of them are eating their breakfast, so everyone is already awake.

"Kaalki, can you do me a favor?"Longg joins his friends to have a meatloaf and let Damian talk, he knows that only Sass will not agree with what the boy intends, but neither will he be able to change his mind and none of them will say anything if don't ask them directly.

"What is it?"

"Can you take me to John Constantine?" He doesn't especially enjoy being so nice when asking, but it's always better to stay in his good graces, especially if he needs his help (and he doesn't know much about all of them to know how to do the same as with Plagg).

"The man Plagg lives complaining about?" Kaalki swallows a cube of sugar after asking, he sees that th"What do you want? "He probes, maybe he can get it if he wants something specific.

"I want sugar cubes with muscovado sugar, the last time I ate one was when Marie had not yet founded the MT. Max doesn't like it and she doesn't buy it. ”She pouts, she loves that taste.

"I'll make it." Damian smiles, why do the Kwami love a certain type of food so much?

"Great. I will open a portal to his house."e boy nods and thinks about it. "Why should I? What would I gain?"

"What will you do, Damian?" Sass asks curiously, he doesn't trust the boy to carry two German Shepherds with him who are almost his size and who is reputed to easily drag adult men, nor does he trust that the boy doesn't carry weapons with him.

"Talk. "

"Then let's go." Kaalki opens the portal at that moment and they find the sight of an old place and many things. "I've come once we looked him with Marie. "The Kwami smiles proudly.

"Let's go. "

Damian enters the portal followed by four Kwami and his two dogs, he smiles. It was better than he thought.

--------

Marc @MarcAC_twt

I had a sudden urge to scold someone.

Chloe B. @BourgeoisQueen

@MarcAC_twt I thought I was the only one

Alix @LostHeroBunnix

@MarcAC_twt @BourgeoisQueen It's our instincts that already know when one of us has done something stupid, what did you do @Epic_originalChampion?

Epic Kim @Epic_originalChampion

@MarcAC_twt @BourgeoisQueen @LostHeroBunnix It wasn't me, I swear. I'm not the only one who does stupid things, @AdrienAgreste does them too

Adrien A. @AdrienAgreste

@MarcAC_twt @BourgeoisQueen @LostHeroBunnix @Epic_originalChampion Oh no, blame someone else. I just woke up

Marc @MarcAC_twt

@BourgeoisQueen @LostHeroBunnix @Epic_originalChampion @AdrienAgreste I don't know, but something has happened

---------

Marc looks for Luka and Max, walks through the main halls of the headquarters: the training room, the kitchen, the dining room and the infirmary. He goes to private areas like the food warehouse and then to the individual rooms, where he finds Max dozing again after breakfast.

"Max, can you come over? I want to talk to you about something I noticed. ”Max puts his glasses back on and follows him. "I didn't find Luka... although this place can sometimes be a maze..."

"Did you look it up in the library or Marinette's domain?" Max asks. Marinette's domains are four special rooms: a meditation room, a laboratory that serves to create potions and where all the ingredients for a large amount of spells are kept, a small library with all kinds of books on magic and the occult, in addition to a study where she locks herself up when she becomes obsessed with a case. That without counting the magic vault where the box is kept and where only she has access.

"No, I didn't go there... you know nobody enters."

"Luka uses the meditation room a lot." He replies simply, that room is Luka's favorite because of the acoustics and the tranquility it generates.

"Oh, it's true. Are you will wait for me in front of the computer?"

"Sure."

Marc runs towards the mentioned sector. The first time he entered the MT, he couldn't believe how big it was and how organized everything was, to fill any need they had. There's even a living room where they can store their art supplies and there are some great computers for art use or video game play, great graphics cards. Sure, it wasn't so well equipped at first, but as they were making money they were putting together an excellent place for them to socialize and spend time if they needed an outside location of their life.

Luka is with his guitar in the meditation hall, his eyes closed and practicing a melody that has been spinning in his head for weeks, but does not flow completely when he takes it to real life.

"There you are, I want to talk to you about what I noticed while checking the security cameras." Marc feels bad for interrupting, but they are there to work on the butterfly case and not on other matters, although he understands the creative frustration that can arise. Luckily he always steps in front of Nathaniel and never falls behind in his weekly deliveries.

After the small interaction, the two of them head towards the main computer... in the room without a specific name and that everyone calls differently, perhaps they should agree on a name so that they should mention the big computer as a frame of reference. But that, Marc thinks, is a concern for another time.

Max is already settled in front of the computer, he's looking around, the shadow of concern in his eyes.

"Something is wrong?" Luka asks, realizing that more than concern is strangeness.

"I haven't seen Kaalki in several hours."

"Leave them alone, they spend all day with us, they have the right to a break." Marc lets him through, Mullo enjoys exploring and running around, he must have convinced the other two Kwami to play and they must be flying around in secret areas that surely they exist because Felix and Marinette are so detailed (and paranoid).

Max says nothing about it, although it still seems strange to him not to have seen or heard them anywhere.

"So what did you see?"Luka let the previous topic die, after Marc explains everything, they can look for the Kwami and ask them what they have been doing. Not that it' of their business, but is for Max to relax and they not have to face a surprise disaster like when Trixx released the panther from the zoo, after being away from Nathaniel for a few minutes.

"I was struck by what I didn't see. "Marc explains and displays the cameras closest to the scene and the adjacent ones where the butterfly came from, plays the footage and can see in real time that the butterfly comes from nowhere, without passing through the other chambers, the butterfly is present in the one closest to its objective. "I was thinking that maybe our villain approaches the victims so that we don't have a notion of their real location, but it's also not seen that he or she wanders around... I can only assume that it's their civil identity, but suspicious people didn't appear either."

"What if he's in a car?"Max asks, Gabriel was traveling by car to contact Rossi (a pity that they didn't get strong evidence to blame her and Agreste didn't say anything). Max takes control of the computer to check all the license plates of cars that passed through those streets at the same time that the Akuma appeared.

Around twenty cars passed through the area, not counting motorcycles and cargo trucks, although he takes them into account anyway, leaving a total of forty vehicles and that is forty people who begin to track according to the license plates. .

The three stay reviewing the history of each person on the list, they continue like this until lunchtime, when they see the Kwami again because they look for them to eat. Neither thinks much in that later.

-------

It's not the MT

Needle: Guys, we have some new information

Almost Pretty: Tell me it's enough to have someone to hit

Kiss my ass: I also have information

Kiss my ass: While traveling through Romania, I heard rumors that someone is paying criminals to revive crime in Paris

Three balls: It's a joke, isn't it?

Kiss my ass: I wish it were like that, boy

Immune to liars: I'll see if any of my informants on the streets know anything

Almost Pretty: I bet my firstborn that he's the damn butterfly

The Antibiotic: This makes it more difficult... Maybe it's time to include a new vigilante, right?

It’s a Nara: We should not rush, when we have more information, we will devise an action plan

Aithusa: What if the pump was made to order?

Three balls: That would be gnarled

Dragon Tamer: We'll see if we get more information

Wild goat: I have a couple of witness statements and I have been putting together the case with Detective Fontaine, I will give my discoveries about the bomb when Mari returns

Needle: There seems to be a general meeting

Divine gift: I will clear everyone's agenda

Silent Hill: Also mine?

Divine gift: Of course, I'll also schedule you a flight and an appointment with Miss Marie to take measurements of the dress you've been requesting. The first sketches are already

Silent Hill: Unexpected. Thanks, Hugo.

Oscar de la Rosa: I will take care of escorting Master Fu and Miss Marianne from London, they must want to meet their grandson

Three balls: Who knows how to summon demons?

Immune to liers: Does this mean we will all know each other? Why so sudden?

It’s a Nara: I think Felix and Mari have something to do with this

Almost Pretty: The villain is getting into other leagues, this would already enter as terrorism and organized crime. We could end up dealing with Akuma internationally

Needle: Assuming he's the one who wants to reactivate the crime

Plasticine: It's obviously him

Silent Hill: or she

Perfect Crime: His Akuma are thought through in detail, not careless, he waited for something to happen that would attract a wave of negativity not only to get a victim but to take us all vulnerable. Furthermore, he managed to catch us off guard with a non-dangerous, but highly troublesome Akuma. He's just been analyzing us

For all shit: I think it's time for the network that we started to create a few years ago to be fully established, in addition, it will be the first official meeting of the new Order.

Three balls: Great. Mari, can you summon demons?

Not in Hell: No need to summon anyone, I just booked my flight

Plasticine: Oh, I wanted to learn how to invoke

Perfect Crime: Yes, don't even think about it. We have enough trouble adding more

-------

Soooooo.... what do you think?

#maribat #ml x dc #dick x marinette #dickinette #Damian & Marinette #mominette

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

Text

So I’m writing a short story in my Changelings ‘verse for a galaxy brain commission that was simply “Boyd gets a boyfriend.” Nothing wrong there. But it does mean I feel like I finally gotta nail down the full intricacies of Boyd’s magic, which is unnecessarily....extra, due to the existence of the Curse of the Specialist Snowflake that afflicts me.

Like, I couldn’t just give him one physical change and one magic like most other Changelings, nooooooo, he’s gotta be the Zodiac Kid and have twelve completely different changes and magics, one for each sign and he changes throughout the year in accordance to the changing of the signs. Why’d I do it that way? Cuz I gotta, obviously. Hahahaha, shut up, me.

I mean, there was a point to it originally, like, his sister Alicia’s Change and magic is that she’s surrounded by ghostly versions of a bunch of her alternate universe selves at any given moment, and she can communicate with them and call upon their skills and is sometimes called Sibyl around town, so like, the common thread/theme of her and Boyd’s magic is like, an infinity of self, but also, by “there was a point to it originally” I also just mean I couldn’t settle on and pick what I wanted Boyd’s magic to be so I was like here’s a fun thing I could do, make up a reason for him to have even MORE options.

.....I feel like, potentially, this self-created problem I’m having could have been avoided somehow, but gosh, fuck if I can see how.

So most of Boyd’s magic is hammered down....

In his Sagittarius phase, he’s physically a centaur whose lower half looks like a night sky studded through with starfields and moving constellations, and his magic from November 23rd to December 21st is uncanny intuition, a kind of off-the-top-of-his-head divination. He just instinctively knows the answers to questions when he’s in his Sagittarius phase, the more specific the question the more accurate his answer. He doesn’t have context, he doesn’t KNOW how he knows the things that he knows, he just knows them.

You ask him if you’ll meet someone who could very plausibly be the love of your life within the next week, and if he says yes, its absolutely, one hundred percent true and accurate.....but if you ask him then how can I find them, he might say well first thing you gotta do is get out of my face and stop bugging me, and then walk down the street and turn left.....and that too, would be absolutely true and accurately point you in the direction that answers your question but like, that’s all he’s got and you’re missing a few steps at that point. So. Its not an exact science or anything.

There’s definitely tricks to maximizing the intel you get out of him when he feels like being hit up for intel and doesn’t just string you along to be a total troll. Which he is. Hence why he also spends most of December filling in all of Alicia’s large stockpile of crosswords and sudokus, as he just instinctively and whimsically knows what to fill in even if he doesn’t actually have a clue WHY the Mesozoic Era is the answer to 49 Down. Alicia maintains this is cheating. He maintains he doesn’t care, and answers 64 across with “Johannesburg.” Fuck if he knows why.

In his Capricorn phase, he sublets his apartment in Bordertown and takes a month lease on a place underwater in Sub Francisco.....as for this period he’s more of a classical merman, but also if a classical merman has goat horns. But like, whose to say they don’t? Have you ever met one? Thought so. His magic during this period is horns of plenty.....he touches something to one of his horns, and comes away holding two of that item. So it basically only works on things that can be hand-held, but other than that it could be food, physical items, medicine, etc.

In his Aquarius phase, he’s physically the same as he was when a normal mainstream human....except that his skin has a faintly translucent quality as if that of water, with faint stars spiraling in distant patterns in the depths of his slightly watery form. He’s not invisible or actually translucent, like you can’t see through him or even see his organs or anything....rather, its more like most of the time he just looks like normal, human Boyd, albeit wearing a lot of glitter for some reason....but then he turns and catches the light just so, and for a moment you can see how the light is shining THROUGH him similar to the way it shines through the surface of a body of water. His magic in this phase is based on Ganymede, the cup-bearer of the gods.....water he touches becomes imbued with healing properties.

Like, he unscrews an ordinary bottle of Evian and reaches in with the tip of his finger, and whammo, you’ve got a healing potion whose magic will last until the last of the water is gone, even if its not used until after his Aquarius phase. Once he’s imbued a source of water with his magic, its a healing potion from then on out, which makes his shop a useful place to find healing magic year-round.....or at least until he runs out. You come into his shop even in late July, if he’s still got some healing potions lying around they’re as good as ever....but if he’s already out of stock, you’re out of luck until next year’s Aquarius phase rolls around, and you gotta go look elsewhere on Mercy Row for a healer in the meanwhile.

In his Pisces phase, he goes back to his Sub Francisco apartment as his physical Change here is that of a centaur-triton....kinda the classic ithyocentaur, but also he’s got kinda webbed-like wings spanning from his back.....its a whole thing. But a good look. His magic in this phase is ‘the perfect pair’....he cups his hands and forms a magical, elemental construct in the shape of a koi fish that’ll swim off in the direction of the perfect complement to something or someone. Like a personal, magical compass guiding him or whomever he makes one for to like, the magnetic north that exists somewhere as the perfect counterpart to an already present south pole. Whatever, this makes no sense and is super confusing, I get that. But it makes perfect sense and is not confusing in my head. Still just working on translating from point Head to point Paper without the concept getting lost in the translation.

In his Aries phase, he’s his ‘normal’ mainstream-appearing base form....but also he’s got golden wings and ram horns. And his magic is that he breathes fire. But its magic fire, and it doesn’t burn things it touches, it turns them to gold. Its a whole Golden Fleece thing mixed with a King Midas thing.

In his Taurus phase.....idk yet. I mean, bull horns seems a pretty obvious go-to motif, but haven’t decided for his magic yet. Mostly because @sunwukxng is a Taurus and he takes things like this juuuuuuuust personal enough that I know if I don’t come up with something good here he’ll decide its a mortal insult towards all Tauri and thus him as well, and he’ll declare a blood feud against me that shall last five hundred years. And he’s already got like, six of those in progress, so....trying to avoid racking up anymore.

In his Gemini phase, he splits into two selves, his physical self and astral self, so he’s basically followed everywhere by both his shadow and a spirit version of himself he can astral project elsewhere. And when his astral self goes through something, kinda like how there’s that idea that when a ghost passes through someone they feel a chill or as if they almost left their body for a second.....his astral self can kinda like....yoink other peoples’ astral selves out of their physical forms temporarily. Yoink is of course the highly technical, scientific term for the phenomenon. Obviously.

In his Cancer phase.....idk yet. Look, its hard to be classy and deep concept-y about crabs, okay? I’m sorry Cancers, but even in the original myths about the constellation the gods were like yeah, this crab constellation was a mistake, we just felt bad about Artemis kicking that one all the way up into the heavens after it pinched Orion, the only himbo she ever almost made a boytoy out of. A lot of other Zodiacs featured animals that had the common perception of being viewed as pushing the sun across the sky, so there’s maybe something there in that direction....idk yet.

In his Leo phase, Boyd mostly appears as his ‘normal’ base mainstream-human looking self....except he’s big in a way that is not exactly Giant Big (and there are a good couple dozen giant-sized Changelings living in Bordertown, so like, he isn’t officially anywhere near that) but he is possessed of a height and size that are nevertheless best described as Ridiculous. Like he’s bigger than the Strange Angel, but not as big as Teddy the Sun-snake. That means nothing to anyone but me. Whatever. Moving on. Anyway, in his Leo phase he also has a fiery red mane kinda....that’s threaded through with silver stars in the Leo constellation shape. His magic in this phase is his ‘roar of command’....basically, he can imbue anything he says with the force of his will, and thus like.....make inanimate objects do what he tells them. He’s like “Open sesame” and a locked door is like you got it, boss.

In his Virgo phase.....I am not entirely sure what he looks like yet. I’m pretty sure its mostly his mainstream-looking ‘base self’ but like.....with an unnatural charisma, but also something a little less generic than that. Needs a specific hook still, beyond just “I’m ridick pretty.” Like, he’s Sinqua Walls. He’s always ridick pretty. Its a thing. But his magic in this phase is like.....an aura of inspiration. He just sorta puts out a vibe that inspires people around him in various ways that are unique to the individual.

He’s also way shorter than he used to be even before his Change hit, or like, shorter than he is in any of his other phases. Like, we’re talking five and a half feet max. Is there any reason for this whatsoever beyond me being amused at the juxtaposition of him going from his Biggest and Most Ridiculous Phase immediately to his Smallest and Most Ridiculous Phase? No. No there is not. Fear the deep profundity of my creative process, for it is deep and it tis profound.

In his Libra phase....I’m not sure yet what his physical change is, but I do know his skin has a scaled texture, and I know those aren’t the scales normally associated with Libra but there’s a point to it, its just......missing some ingredients still to totally make sense. But he also tends to wear a blindfold a lot of the time during his Libra phase because I know his magic here has to do with viewing things in terms of overlapping possibilities and potentialities, like, he looks at things and sees not just the way they ARE but also a whole bunch of different ways they COULD be, and his magic enables him to kinda tweak things from the way they are more towards one of those other possibilities, in a sense that’s all about ‘balancing’ things.

However, the sensory stimuli of all those potentialities 24/7 is honestly overwhelming and gives him serious migraines, so he mostly tries to rest his eyes behind some kind of blindfold most of the time and just take it off to focus on specific things in order to utilize his magic, and only a little at a time. This is probably the most technically ‘powerful’ of his magics in terms of both versatility and scope, but it takes a toll and he really tries to pace himself during his Libra phase or it just gets to be too much, really fast.

And then lastly, in his Scorpio phase, he’s got a whole scorpion tail and barbed stingers along the outsides of his arms.....but rather than lean into the whole ‘eww Scorpios are duplicitous and manipulative’ and also ‘eww scorpions,’ his magic here calls back to how scorpions are actually protective guardians in a lot of mythologies and folklore, and there’s also plenty of Zodiac lore about the idea of the Scorpio sign being all about uncovering truths at any cost, etc. So his magic here is another ‘liquid/mutable’ type and takes the form of venom from his stingers that’s almost like drops of amber.....and that have various properties aimed at uncovering truths and exposing lies and falsehoods. Like, elixirs made during his Scorpio phase are another highly sought ware at his shop, because depending on the venom concentration he places in each, they have different properties. Like, he’s got vials where just a drop placed in your drink or on your food will reveal if its been drugged or poisoned, or vials of elixirs that basically act as magical truth serum.....and then other vials where like, you splash a little of it on something you suspect to be an illusion or a magical disguise of some kind, and it’ll dispel the false magic and reveal what’s truly there.

“What happens if like, I splash it in the face of someone I think is wearing an illusion disguise and it turns out they’re not and that’s really just what they look like?” A customer asks.

Boyd shrugs. “Then they’ll just be wet. And probably a little pissed, I imagine. That’ll be $49.95 please.”

“I thought you said it was $29.95!”

“That was before the Asked Stupid Questions tax was applied,” Boyd smiles placidly. “Will that be cash or credit?”

Okay. So. Typing that all out cleared up some of that for me but not quite as much as I was hoping as Cancer and Taurus apparently still persist in Vexing me.

Hmmmm.

#changelings 'verse #cast of characters

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jelloopy · 4 years

Text

Murder on The Rockport Limited Notes

Previous: Character Creation, HtbG, Moonlighting

Ch 1

Robbie is a halfling who is pretty shitty but he’s good at making “potions” (Robbie is the roommate that everyone really hates but doesn’t want him to leave because he is their plug)

Taako is on the top bunk, Magnus is under Taako, Robbie is next to Taako and Merle is under Robbie

They are woken up at 3 am to report to Lucretia (3 am really?)

”Yeah it’s like Mario Mario or Luigi Mario” ~Griffin (This is so funny because this actually proves that Taako’s last name really is Taaco. Before Justin played it as a joke but this kinda derails that)

Robbie asks them for Pringles when they leave (Thus the beginning of me and the boys not remembering him by anything other than Pringles)

They arrive in their PJs (Taako is in footie pajamas and Merle’s has a flap in at the butt with a Kenny Chesney tattoo on his ass) (When the hell did Merle get that tattoo. Also, why is Lucretia in her full BoB garb right now? Was she asleep and get changed really quickly? Do her robes double as PJ’s? Did she just not go to sleep?)

Taako says he gets night terrors that’s why he’s in like a full-body Onesie/sleeping bag (That is so fricking sad if you think about his backstory later on…)

Magnus just starts changing clothing right then and there when Lucretia tells them that they don’t have time to get ready (This man really has no shame or boundaries. I imagine it was the same in the century tbh)

Leimann Kessler (half-elf man) was murdered before he was even on the train but was able to secure the Relic on the train (Personally, don’t know a lot about how trains work but this to me is kinda odd. Who knew he died? Do their bracers know when the wearer perishes? Is there like a body temp check and a pulse check in there too? We know that it can track them but… how much more can it do…)

All the relics come from a different school of magic. They were never in the hands of someone long enough to learn what they are capable of (Potentially this is a lie. We would have already known the names, schools of magic, and possibly what they could do based upon that alone. I bet Lucretia is hiding that info in her office)

The Gauntlet deals with Evocation magic (Hmmm, I can only imagine why. Maybe because Lup also worked in Evocation magic?)

Avi is manning the cannon! The whole scene with Magnus High as hell. Avi Never learned how to Wink (Avi you’re adorable I love you. Magnus. Get your shit together man.)

Taako pulls the lever too early and they change trajectory into a swamp

Leech fight! (I honest to god forgot this even happened before listening to it again. Not my fave fight)

Ch 2

Merle gets a lot of blood sucked from him by the leeches

Merle is completely submerged in the swamp and Magnus pulls his ass out (Why is it always Merle)

”Scientists have yet to agree” ~Griffin (I personally use this phrase all the time. It just makes me laugh so hard every time.)

Taako can levitate (I really wished he used this more ngl. I would also like to see some more fanart of this)

They are in Rockport! Covered in swamp shit!

Tom Beaudette! We see his house and they get hosed off then they see him at the ticket station again. (What a nice guy!)

Leimann, Diddly, and Justin Kessler (10/10 best alias’ ever)

Taako Charms Tom (It’s a nice go-to huh?)

Merle really wants to murder tom he wanted him to step in front on the train (Merle really is the one who goes straight for murder)

Ch 3

Hudson, Jess the Beheader, Graham Juicy Wizard, ANGUSSSSSSSS, and Jenkins McShittywizard (My favorite train gang!)

Travis making fun of Griffin for how he needs to sleep with 100000000 pillows (I cherish all of these out of character bits where they really just dog on one another)

Angus, my sweet summer child don’t talk to strangers. We know your grandfather’s name was long forgotten even though you’re going to visit him in Never Winter.

The boys legit think Angus is evil and Griffin yells at them bc they are being racist. (1- how are they being legit racist? You haven’t introduced anything about Angus’ race at all?) (2- Jesus he is only 10 years old my dudes)

Graham is 36 years young and is crazy obsessed with trains and his real name is Percy? He is shadowing Jenkins in hopes of learning more about working on a train

Taako from TV! (And so his legend begins!)

Ch 4

Jenkins is harnessing a limited version of teleportation magic

Angus calling the boys out on their bullshit

Taako calling Angus “pumpkin” (Literally melts my heart. I wish someone called me cute nicknames. Also, Taako hasn’t even talked to this kid that much and that name is reoccurring)

Angus has a nondescript blue book that is able to intercept messages sent through magical means (Where did this child get this book and who let him keep it? This is legit just like letting children under 13 have access to the unrestricted internet. It’s literal Hell)

The bit with Angus and “PRYING EYES AND EARS!” (uh foreshadowing my guy)

They find “Jenkins” Dead body after hearing Graham scream

Merle is able to identify a lot of things by looking at the body (It still scares me that he is technically a Physician.)

Angus pulls a small CROSSBOW OUT OF HIS SLEEVE? (Where did he get this, how did he keep it from Hudson, Why the fuck does he have it)

Angus really said “you guys run I’ll get rid of him!” and grabs Graham and runs (How strong is this child. He’s legit lifting and pulling a grown-ass man without help)

”I’m following Angus I’ll see yall in hell!” ~Taako (Yes follow the badass 10-year old please)

”I wanna tell you about the time about this time there were three ogres…”~Taako

The Foley work bit and then Griffin just snapping “The train derails and you all die” (Another out of character goof that I cherish)

”I shit and take 14 damage” ~Griffin (are you okay? How much health do you have? What’s your max HP dude?)

Taako makes the Crab monster Levitate

Magnus punched the crab monster out of the window and it got scrapped up on the side of the train

Ch 5

They follow the Crab into their sleeper car and Magnus attacks with a chair and Griffin says “I imagine because you are so skilled at carpentry that you’ve had to attack someone with a chair before so you are in fact proficient in this attack”

Jess comes in and finishes the crab off with her Soul bound ax that she can conjure at any time (This legit just means that Jenkins did not need to carry her ax to the crypt safe. She let him do it for shits n giggles. We stan)

Jess got her last name legally changed to “Beheader” and Magnus says that he got his legally changed to “The Hammer” (Really Magnus… this isnt 3rd grade stop trying to impress her. It’s that or it could be another sad reference to “Hammer and Tongs” which would mean Julia was “Tongs” D: that is so depressing and cute)

Magnus and Merle are making good progress in solving the murder

”Alright lads” “oh fuck” When Merle keeps up his disguise as Leimann Kessler (It’s so funny because his fake Leimann Kessler is just his current Argonaut Keen.)

”I cast ZONE OF TRUTH” “Jesus you’re like a zone of truth cleric” (Oh honey. This is just the beginning)

Magnus wakes Graham up with a 5% smack with his left hand and then a 6.5% smack also with his left hand (Wtf is this BNHA? Alright Deku)

Taako is an Alcoholic? (He keeps asking for a drink ...This is a bit concerning but it makes sense)

Magnus slaps Graham again with 7.2% and he popped something in Graham’s jaw and he begins screaming but Merle heals him (OKAY DEKU COOL IT MY GUY)

”I wanna be a guy... with a head!” ~” Hudson” (hehe foreshadowing)

SCUTTLE BUDDY!!!!! (A short but adorable life you have my Lil man)

Ch 6

The “fisticuffs” scene with Taako and Angus (Now this is really concerning considering his backstory. I know it’s a joke because of how many people they accidentally kill all the time but like dude… little do you know…)

Angus leading them through the mystery is so cute. But also you know its Griffin trying to get his family to really think it through and I love it. (It really makes my heart really full to hear Griffin get really excited when they figure it out slowly instead of mocking them when they guess wrong)

MERLE YES! MAGNUS YES! YOU’RE GETTING IT! YOU’RE SO CLOSE! (Teamwork makes the dream work baby!)

Magnus jumps out of the train and Griffin gets really serious and gives him the “if you fail this you will actually die” speech (This coupled with the fight scene that Magnus accidentally skipped and the fact that originally Travis did want Magnus to die so he could re-roll a rogue is so wild)

Magnus is gonna become a wrecking ball Jesus (very Magnus-core)

Hell yeah, Magnus! Knock the meat monster into Jenkins!!

Magnus gets hit for 10 points at 1hp and paries it for 10 points! (Top ten anime near-death experiences)

Jenkins threatens to kill the meat monster. Horribly misses then is thrown off the fucking train by the meat monster (Get fucked wrecked Jenkins that’s what you get for being cocky!)

Ch 7

They find the dousing rod compass that Jenkins was using and find the monocle (Pirates of the Caribbean much?)

Taako grabs The Oculus because he has escaped the thrall of a relic before

It tells him that it can make anything he can imagine (This is really interesting tbh)

The Umbrastaff eATS JENKINS WAND!!! and a Lil sigil appears on the handle of the staff that also looks like an umbrella (Lup gets fed lmao. Don’t really understand the Sigil appearing tho. It doesn’t come up any other time I don’t think so it’s cool)

Taako grabs the teleport wand thing and asks everyone to leave and he grabs a bunch of shit from the Cryptsafe pile (Very Taako-core)

They make it to the engineer’s room and Graham tries to slow the train down but he can’t

Taako wanted to open the gate to Never Winter to Phandalin but they change it to Jenkins’ garden because it needs to be a room with “one entrance” (Solid idea on Taako’s part. If it were to work no one would have been hurt)

Taako pushed Angus off the train and he looses two teeth (This man pushed a whole child off the train… ‘Ight)

Magnus dies by jumping off the train (Top ten anime death scenes)

Taako successfully opens the gate into Jenkin’s garden and the train crashes into the garden

Magnus is stabilized by Merle (Awe so the Cleric can do his job!)

Angus gives them pringles for Robbie and the compass. Taako gives Angus one of the forks from his grandfather’s set.

They go to a nearby Never Winter Clinic to get patched up

Out of character, they choose to work on voices and Griffin calls them out bc he’s been doing 8 “different” voices and Clint goes “Yeah try doing that for 40 years” get fuckin rOASTED Ditto! (Also Griffin I love you but like 3 of the voices were the exact same and 2 were so similar it wasn’t funny. Don’t get me wrong different voices aren’t my strong suit either but ya did give it your best shot so.)

We goin’ back to the moon baby!

AVI MY MAIN MAN! (I will forever and always want and need more Avi screen time)

The oculus works with illusory magic (Which is very interesting bc I know it was made by Davenport because he also worked in allusory magic but I don’t ever remember him using any magic… who knows maybe he has and I just never realized)

Lucretia thought they were gonna get it off the train before it left... woman… (You’ve known these men for how long and you thought they were gonna w h a t?)

Next: Lunar Interlude I,

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thebibliomancer · 4 years

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Dark Crystal Age of Resistance Tactics liveblog pt 15

As loath as I am to admit it, I probably need to do some encounter leveling. Looking ahead, the Stonewood unite the clan missions are for level 37. I don't even have anyone level 30 yet!

I'm slightly agitated because up until this point the game has been decent at keeping the level progression tied to the difficulty curve. I hadn't needed to grind a lot. But there's a sudden spike in difficulty at this part of the game. Which I suppose is fair in one sense since this is endgame but on the other hand, boo.

Gobbles: Hup and Boggi leveled. Kylan learned Blinding Light. Naia learned Cleave 2.

Swamp: Rian learned Aughra's Ire, Kylan UNLOCKED SONG TELLER! Gurjin and Boggi leveled. And Hup learned Bad Broth which lets you detonate a cauldron.

Back to the tavern, oh god: Actually I executed this one flawlessly and killed all the enemies before they ever had a chance to attack. I don't love having to grind but I do love feeling how far I've come. Anyway, Naia, Rian, Brea, and Boggi all leveled but didn't learn anything. But I did find Shimmering Scale and a Sharpened Dirk.

Place where Chamberlain abandoned his car: Gurjin leveled, Deet leveled and learned Overthink 2, Rek'yr leveled and learned Opening Act, Hup leveled and unlocked Musician. TIME FOR A CAREER CHANGE.

I'm giving Hup a Custom Bass. He deserves it.

Place where Chamberlain abandoned his car, again: Rian leveled and learned Thorns. Naia leveled. Found a Heavy Cleaver, by the side of the road. Weird what people leave laying around.

Cave: I love when my entire party is beserked so I get to watch the game play itself. Its the best. But Wukki leveled. Rek'yr leveled and learned Spot Weakness. Brea leveled and learned Firemoss Bundle 2. And Kylan leveled and learned Scathe.

Swamp: Hup died. Boggi leveled. Naia leveled and learned Smite 2. Gurjin leveled and learned Tangle Up 2. And I found a spoon. Naia and Gurjin also hit max lvl in Paladin and Stone Warden respectively so I'm switching them to Soldier and Paladin respectively so they can learn more stuff.

Desert: Hup leveled and learned Perform, which I should hope so since he's a musician. But its a self cast ability that makes adjacent allies take their turns faster. Deet and Kylan leveled. Found a Student Thesis, just abandoned in the desert. Isn't it sad?

Bar again: Rian leveled and learned Cascade AND CAN BECOME A STRATEGIST NOW! Ivo leveled and learned Fleet Shot 2. Wukki leveled.

Bar again again: Rek'yr leveled and learned Poisoned Blades. And got Arathim Shell Plating! This is going right on Rian!

Swamp again: Geeze, I hate Threaders. Anyway. Boggi, Brea, and Hup leveled. Deet leveled and learned Earthen Roots 2.

Desert: Kylan leveled and learned Thrum of Power, which is an awesome name for a move. It heals and grants haste for one turn.

Road to Ha'rar area: Oh fun another encounter where my whole party gets beserked so I get to watch the game play itself. Why not, not being interactive sure saves me some time. Wow, look at it go. Hooray, I won. Naia, Gurjin, and Breg leveled. And I found a Warforged Battleaxe.

A different swamp: Alyadon leveled and learned Convalesce 2. Nobody else leveled. I think I'm getting to the point where this level of encounter is becoming less cost effective. This is leaving poor Rian the only member of the party who isn't level 30. Isn't it embarrassing, Rian? Also I found a Custom Bass just sunk into the swamp.

That road to Ha'rar place again: Ivo and Wukki leveled. Rian leveled and learned Flow of Battle. Also I found an Exquisite Poignard.

And that gets everyone at least level 30. Hopefully that'll do for now the next stretch of the game.

---

Mission: Podling Rush - Spriton Village

"A Spriton village is in trouble. Something has driven the neighboring Podlings mad! Help hold off their attacks."

Finally back to this! Where hopefully the podlings aren't revolting for their right to be dirty!

Oh, looks like I have some friendly Spriton villagers on this map.

... Oh. Oh, shit! Darkened Podlings! This possible global warming allegory has gotten serious!

Party: Hup because he is a Podling, Brea and Boggi because heals, Rek'yr because he was there, and Deet because this is her subplot. The Darkening, I mean.

Rek'yr: "This village is in terrible shape. What happened here?"

Spriton Villagers: "The Podlings are back! Run!"

... THE NPCS JUST RAN AWAY! Were they on the map just to ditch me? Rude!

Rek'yr: "Why are the villagers so afraid of a few Podlings?"

You've been in a party with Hup for so long and you can still ask that?

Rek'yr: "Wait... Somethign isn't right with them. We have to defend this village!"

Only three podlings on the map. I FEEL as if that will change.

Geez, these Podlings pack a wallop. One of them walloped half of Brea's health off with one wallop.

Deet has avenged her with a good book. That shoots death.

Rek'yr and Hup team up to knock down another one of the Darkened Podlings and whoops, that was the event trigger for more spawn-ins. And they brought darkened armaligs! Hate those guys! They're way too beefy!

Theres three new podlings and two armaligs. Grumble grumble.

-peer up at the top right- Why does that mission objective box say "Defeat the Podling Raids 1/3"? Are there going to be three waves of this?

Two of the podlings that spawned in for the second wave don't have ranged attacks so whenever they get close I just have Deet use Gust 2 to blow them further away. And Rek'yr is situated on a raised area potshotting them with bolas. I almost feel bad.

Hup lays out another podling with his instrument because that podling kept hitting Hup's good pal Brea.

ARMALIG ATTACKED MY DOGGO and the other armalig attacked my Brea. RUDE.

Brea avenges herself on the armalig with FIRE

Annnnd oops, triggered the third wave. Four more podlings, two more armaligs from the left and bottom of the map.

Note to podling potion master: Just because you silence Deet doesn't mean she can't use her rad spellbook to explode you. Sincerely, me.

Alas Hup. You were my first casualty. RIP you brave Podling.

The result of the three waves of enemies around about roughly my level is that I'm running out of MP on my peeps. But I did win with only poor, brave Hup falling (unconscious) for the cause.

Rian: "What would cause Podlings to go berserk like that?"

Brea: "We need to investigate the Podling village."

We'll probably find a lot of pissed off podlings. Although, hey, they made a bunch of podling assets for Hup so might as well find a way to use them, right? Good thinking, game!

So Boggi and Deet leveled. Brea leveled and learned Soothe 2. Rek'yr leveled and learned Death's Instinct, which is just an amazing name for an ability. And Hup learned Ad-Lib.

Also, I haven't talked about pearl rewards for a while but they have been increasing as the game went on. I got 4000 thousand some for this mission. Nice.

---

Mission: Interrupted Journey - The Long Road

"Your party journeys to the Podling village and meets an unexpected ally."

Ooo! Another new character for the game? I'm quite interested.

Iiiiiits.... POMBO! He's a Podling Musician. I'm filled with sudden dread that he's going to fill the last slot in my party instead of Tavra or Seladon. Which. I guess I'd be okay with. I don't know what I could do with Tavra or Seladon at this point. It'd be cool to have them but I've got a lot of Gelflings doing various things. Naia is a bombass paladin, Tavra would just have to play catch-up. And I got two fizzgigs so why not two Podlings?

Anyway, there's more Darkened Podlings to contend with.

Party: Gurjin, Naia, Breg, Kylan. Team Naia's Posse and Breg.

Pombo: "Gelflin tonpee apida. Bo nai! BAD WATER!"

Gurjin: "That Podling is asking for our help. What do you mean by, 'bad water?'"

Pombo: "Tonpo Gelfli-da, pyata Gelflin dzuchocho apyama-da!"

Gurjin: "Pombo says he will help us if we promise to save his village."

Don't have to ask me twice.

Rian: "Pombo is a Podling Musician. If we support him with Positive Status Effects, his music can change the tide of battle!"

I don't... remember if I have any positive status effect abilities equipped to my guys?

Oh cool, he's not controlled by me. He's just doing his thing. And he did

ULTIMATE SOLO! -thrashes on lute-

Which hurts every enemy and heals every ally. Nice.

Luckily, Kylan is a Song-Teller and is very motivating.

Having watched ULTIMATE SOLO a couple times. The animation for it is delightful.

Alas, Breg and Naia killed by Darkened Podlings.

I just noticed, right after a Podling hit him with an attack that took off half his health, that a win condition is that Pombo can't die. Whoops.

But good ol' Kylan Scathe'd the last Darkened Podling.

Rian: "Pombo, what is happening? Why are the Podlings attacking?"

Pombo: "Skeksisa lolemilod nai-da. Yotsa uchapapodche ada shopo-pida dze ulendzi Gelflin-da ya!"

Hmm, I'm not sure if Pombo is going to join the party if he doesn't speak... Gelflish? Its going to be hard for him to get random lines to remind us that he's still in the party.

Rian: "The Skeksis poisoned your water? This sounds like one of the Scientist's schemes!"

He rarely has schemes really. He mostly has other people yelling at him until he does stuff.

Don't know how I feel about the Scientist actively darkening podlings instead of the Skeksis just not giving a shit.

HOLY SHIT I DID JUST UNLOCK POMBO

MY LAST PARTY MEMBER IS POMBO I CANNOT BELIEVE

Anyway, everyone level up! Everyone learn a thing!

Kylan learned Enchanting Tune (stuns enemy at two paces)! Naia learned Sharpen Blade 2 (attack up and crit chance up), nice! Gurjin learned Edged Slice (high damage and recoil) and Vindicate (defense down on enemy on crit) because he leveled twice! So did Kylan, actually. Breg learned Daring Strike 2! Which I probably won't use! Its so much setup!

Oops Breg has hit the end of the thief tree. Guess I'm switching him over to Tracker!

Hm, now that I have Pombo who has just so many levels in Musician and Potion Master already, I think I'm going to switch Hup back away from Musician. Don't need two musicians but I am missing out on some high level abilities in other jobs.

WHY HECK HUP I GUESS YOU CAN BE A PALADIN AFTER ALL! Its a feel good character arc for him. He gets to live his dream after all.

AND I'M BUYING HIM A GRAND LADLE!

---

Mission: Dark Poison - Podling Hollow

"The heroes reach the Podling village. They must stop The Scientist's wicked experiment and save the Podlings."

Holy crap, do I get to beat up the Scientist? Heck ye!

... I don't see him on the map. Alas.

Party: Alyadon, Rian the smart hero guy, Ivo the guy, Brea, and Wukki!

Lets finish off the Spriton missions!

I'VE BEEN TRICKED! THE SCIENTIST SPAWNS IN AS SOON AS THE LEVEL STARTS! I GET TO BEAT UP THE SCIENTIST!

The Scientist: "Cursed Podlings! The latest formula increases aggression, but the effects are too temporary. I'll never create a new army at this rate!"

I can imagine the movie Scientist's voice saying this.

But ah ha! I understand how it fits in now! The spiders betrayed the Skeksis, probably, so this is Scientist's first attempt. An army of angry Podlings. Good try, SkekTek.

Ok so the Scientist is the weeniest of Skeksis according to letting the Ornamentalist fight in battle but not Scientist. So he only has 1500 HP compared to the General who had 2000.

He's also got a cool electricity glowy steampunk esque spear. Pretty neat.

He's got Scalpel Slice which is what his attack is called. He's got Explosive Cask, where he throws an explosive cask. He's got Salt the Earth where he poisons an area. WITH A RANGE OF 8?? GOD! And he's got Chain Lightning which chains lightning to two additional targets.

This is going to hurt.

All we have to do is defeat the Scientist. This is going to hurt.

This is hurting. I'm getting my asses kicked. But I hit Scientist twice and he ran off to the other side of the stage to unleash his latest invention.

Lightning Aura - increases his magic, magic defense and defense by 100%. Rude.

aww he shot lightning at the doggo...

Welp. Everyone dead except Brea and Alyadon...

On the plus side, I've almost killed all of the minions. On the negative side, everyone dead except Alyadon.

On the other negative side, Scientist just killed Alyadon.

On the other other negative side, Salt the Earth really does Salt the Earth. The poison lingers forever.

---

TIME FOR SOME LEVELING HA HA dangit.

That place with the car: Another one of those where everyone gets taunted so the game plays itself =\

Alyadon and Wukki didn't level because they died. Ivo leveled and learned nothing. Rian leveled and learned Unfailing Blow (100% hit chance attack, its going right on Rian).

The Gobbles: Brea, Boggi, Hup, Alyadon, and Wukki leveled and didn't learn a darn thing!

That tavern again!: Naia, Breg, and Deet leveled! Alyadon leveled and learned Thorns! I found some random Fang-Studded Armor!

That road to Ha'rar place: Rian, Brea, Wukki levelled and learned nothing! Found a random Sharpened Longsword!

Sinking Isle: It occurs to me that although the tides mechanic is interesting and anxiety inducing, it can also lead to a boring level if, for instance, the enemies are localized to one side of the map so most of the level is spent moving around the map not fighting anyone because the level has some chokepoints.

Boggi leveled. Hup leveled and learned Thwack! 2! Ivo leveled and learned Eye Shot 2!

Desert: Something else I've noticed is that encounter levels have the same level elements that they did in the story mode. Including the glowy exit square. They don't do anything. They just obviously didn't make a version of the level without it.

Deet leveled and learned Life Exchange 2 (can use Life Exchange on enemies)! And has learned all the things in Adept! Rek'yr leveled and learned Finish the Job (100% crit chance against non-boss enemy with less than 30% health)!

Citadel balcony: another one where everyone was beserked so the level played itself. Ho hum.

Naia leveled. Breg leveled and learned Aimed Shot. Gurjin leveled and learned Flurry of Steel. Kylan leveled and learned Stick and Stones (deal damage and inflict wounded may break your bones).

Hidden Grotto: Only Ivo leveled. BUT I found a Master's Opus. Its a magic book.

Drifting Dunes: Rek'yr, Pombo and Wukki level! Rian levels and learns Inspiring Presence (adjacent allies get critical chance up)! Alyadon levels and learns Cascade!

Sinking Isle again: Deet drowned =(

Boggi leveled. Gurjin leveled and learned Retribution.

Swamp: Deet leveled and learned nothing. Brea leveled and learned Awaken 2. Naia leveled and learned Bash 2.

And now that I've got a few levels under my belt, back to the mission.

Mission: Dark Poison - Podling Hollow

"The heroes reach the Podling village. They must stop The Scientist's wicked experiment and save the Podlings."

Bought a bunch of Nebrie Milk to make me immune to poison. That's just strategery that is.

No but seriously. Most of what Scientist does is lob poison. All of my party is either equipped with Nebrie Milk or Drenchen. Hopefully, I've hit this challenge in the knee.

And dang with Smite 2, Naia did six hundred damage! That's a third of his hpees!

But blah blah blah lightning aura and chain lightning time. It hurts. A lot. BUT: he can't target you from a distance if you're in the tall grass, with the velociraptors.

And boom, Scientist ass kicked. Mostly by Rek'yr who goes so often.

The Scientist: "This experiment is a complete failure! I must return to the Castle."

Rian: "The Scientist is dealt with, but what about the poor Podlings?"

Pombo: "A hup milasazabo pyata uchaahipu apyama-da!"

Deet: "A song? To put them all to sleep?"

... So. Are we just going to put the problem to sleep and hope it sorts itself out?

Gurjin leveled and learned Smite. Naia, Brea, and Boggi leveled. Rek'yr leveled and learned Silent Lunge (jump to an empty tile, Get Attack Up, rooted, and silence to self, does not end turn. So I guess you can jump somewhere and then attack? Worth a look)!

I also pick up the Leaf-Bladed Chopper, the Spriton Clan Axe! And the Scientist's Manual!

Oh, there's a cutscene of the zombie/darkened podlings surrounding our party on a hill and then Pombo does his music and puts them all to sleep.

Deet: "Tomorrow this will all seem a distant dream"

BUT HOW

Wait wait wait, shit. Scientist as much as said it. The formula is temporary so if we put them all to sleep they’ll wake up restored. You win this round, game writing.

The Leaf-Bladed Chopper has a higher attack bonus than the General's Hand Axe but the General's Axe has more assorted stat gains to defense, magic defense, and HP. So I'm sticking with that.

Scientist's Manual is a spellbook. It does even more damage than the Master's Opus so this is going right on Deet.

#dark crystal #the dark crystal #dark crystal age of resistance #dark crystal age of resistance tactics #THE GAME #liveblog #i have to level grind twice in the same session #what is happening to the difficulty curve?

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somethinglacking · 4 years

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Shooting For Stars Chapter 3

Summary:

Hyuna Lee just started college, and while procrastinating decided to give a popular MMO called LOLOL a try. Here she will meet new friends, battle monsters, part takes in epic quests, and potentially find love!

Most of this will take place in LOLOL at the beginning.

This takes place a year/ year and a half after Seven’s good end, and the secret endings. Yoosung x OC

Chapter word count: 3603

Smut in later chapters, of course Shooting For Stars: Chapter 1 Shooting for Stars: Chapter 2 ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

There was something strangely comforting about her new daily routine. Despite having to live off of instant ramen for a week, Hyuna didn’t regret buying her monthly subscription and a couple of the expansions for LOLOL. It’s only been 5 days leading into Saturday now since she joined the game. Without fail her new friend would either be online waiting for her or log in shortly after she did. They’d just do things about the map and chat and laugh. She was curious now of what he sounded like. It’d be nice to have a headset, but she already wasted enough of her money setting her account up for the month. It’d have to wait for her next allowance date. Also at the same time, she was nervous about chatting with a stranger over a microphone. She knew it was common for MMO players, but she couldn’t help but feel a little self cautious.

Another thing she appreciated about Yoosung, he never asked her gender. He didn’t seem to care if she was a girl or a guy. He never got pervy with her like a few nameless avatars in the world chat would get with one another. He was respectful and it made her trust him a little more. Yoosung never mentioned her lack of microphone when they play either. A part of her wondered if he thought she was a guy. It would make sense, he treated her like one. Not that she minded. A part of her was worried he'd get weird if they ever voice chatted and he found out she was, in fact, female.

She rinsed off and stepped out of the shower. It was Saturday and she had nowhere to be. Also, her only friend happened to be online, so it wasn’t like she was about to be invited out somewhere. It was warm for late September so she pulled on a pair of panties and an oversized t-shirt. The artist made her way to the coffeepot she had set up in her dorm and started brewing coffee. It wasn’t by any mean early, about eleven am, meaning she slept in. Yawn to herself she watched as her coffee pot made a single cup of coffee. She added three spoonfuls of sugar along with a hazelnut coffee creamer. The steam rising off her hot drink was nearly intoxicating as she moved to her computer chair.

The computer booted up as the heel of her foot swayed her chair from side to side while she blew at the steam rising from her coffee. Sipping it carefully she watched as LOLOL loaded up and checked for updates. The newsletter popped up, which she skipped in favour of getting into the game. Soon her now super cute and classy Avatar booted up. She was Level 23 now only after a few days of playing with Yoosung. Smiling she checked her friend’s list. Unknown was online but other than that nobody seemed to be around. Frowning a little the artist when to the brewing station in the town she was in. She wanted to build her skills before even attempting the revival potions Yoosung wanted so badly.

Hyuna opened the Wiki on her phone and quickly read all the ins and outs of potion brewing. Revival potion was basically and extra life, you use it at the beginning of the battle and once your hp became Zero you’d ‘revive’ with half a health bar. She could see how that was useful for a Tank that took the brunt of the damage. Though it only had a 5% brew success rate, and even with the craft level maxed at 99 it was a 10% craft rate. Her class gave her a brewing luck stat, but it wouldn’t help with the rarity of crafting the potion. She whistled at how difficult it was to obtain. They were missing a couple of ingredients, yet she did have a good supply of the rarer ones, the glow mushrooms.

The avatar moved to the pot in the back room of the item store, and she began crafting very basic potions. Hyuna soon realized she would have an abundance of them. Sighing she set to work leveling up her craft skills. It didn’t take much, her avatar would keep making this one potion until supplies ran out. So she settled for opening MeTube on her phone and sipping at her warm coffee waiting for the busy work to be done within her game. She typed in LOLOL and found a tutorial for her class. Looking promising she loaded it up and learned some info and tricks about being the parties, Arche Master.

Once the fifteen-minute video was over she noticed her character had stopped brewing potions. She smiled running back into the town square. Yoosung had told her she could sell items for a better price on the trade, but she didn’t quite understand how to do that. Plus her friend wasn’t online, so what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. She sold her potions for probably a fraction of their worth to an NPC and ran back to the brewing station. A notification popped up and her heart fluttered, then disappointment set in to see it was only HackerGod logging in, and not Yoosung. She bit her lip making her Avatar start brewing more potions to build the skill.

Her friend might have used the weekends to catch up on the sleep he was clearly depriving himself of during the week. Hyuna frowned wondering if he suffered from insomnia; if that was the case she hoped he was sleeping right now, and that she wouldn’t see him until later in the afternoon. She knew for a fact the boy needed all the rest he could get. While she was lost in thought worrying about the stranger she had been playing the game with a DM came in

HackerGod: lolol

HackerGod: You low balled your potions price

HackerGod: I saw that

HackerGod: Actually, Saeran did and tattled on you

Hyuna raised an eyebrow reading the messages before her face flushed in embarrassment.

Sapfyre: Shush!

Sapfyre: And whose Saeran?

HackerGod: Oh, he’s my brother

HackerGod: Guess you know him as UnknownUserName

HackerGod: But that’s a mouthful

Sapfyre: Oooh, I think you all were using your first names that night Yoosung tried to get us all killed. ^^;

HackerGod: Mmmhmmm~

HackerGod: Yoosung is usually a really good boy too

HackerGod: Wonder why he would take such a risk with only you in the party

HackerGod: Think he was trying to show off?

The artist read the messages. It was clear to see this person knew her new friend on a personal level. She flushed again, not sure why they were talking about Yoosung in such a weird way. Or even talking to her at all.

Sapfyre: Yoosung’s a good boy, huh?

HackerGod: Pbffft

HackerGod: If you talk to him like that he’d die of heart failure for sure.

Sapfyre: ^^;

Sapfyre: You’re the one weirdly speaking of him.

HackerGod: So my name is Saeyoung!~

HackerGod: My wife is AhaChaCha and her name is Mi-Cha

HackerGod: >-<

HackerGod: What’s your name?

Hyuna smiled eyeing the messages with suspicion. Clearly, this guy was trying to get information out of her. She doubted Yoosung had asked for him too, but you can never be too careful with strangers on the internet. It was odd he was introduction all of them with their first name.

Sapfyre: It's a pleasure to meet you ^^

Sapfyre: But don’t tell me you can’t read D:

Sapfyre: My name reads Sapfyre!

There was a silence between messages, she wondered if she upset them. Chewing her lip and loaded another round of potions to brew as new messages flooded in.

HackerGod: Haha you shy?

HackerGod: I promise you I’m not creepy ^^

HackerGod: Okay, I guess that statement made me look creepy haha

HackerGod: It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me

HackerGod: I admire your caution when dealing with strangers on the internet

HackerGod: Now only if Mi-Cha would learn some caution from you

The girl snorted as he dissed his wife so casually.

Sapfyre: Never be too careful!

Sapfyre: Wouldn’t want someone to kidnap me and sell my organs~

Sapfyre: I’m quite attached to them, you could say

HackerGod: You’re funny

HackerGod: Well Yoosung is about to log in

HackerGod: Shhh don’t tell him I was talking to you

Hyuna looked as HackerGod logged out and Yoosung logged into the server. She smiled looking at his now lit up username. He was in the same town as her, maybe he did log off after her last night. She hoped so at least.

Opening her forever long private messages with Yoosung; she messaged first

Sapfyre: I should sing a witch’s brew song as I make these potions

Sapfyre: Ahem!

Sapfyre: Bubble and Bobble

Sapfyre: My magic stew!

Sapfyre: If you burn another potion

Sapfyre: I’ll make a commotion

Sapfyre: ^^;;

Sapfyre: Good Morning

SupermanYoosung★: Hahaha

SupermanYoosung★: Should I come dance around your pot?

SupermanYoosung★: Sing your witches song too?

SupermanYoosung★: Good Morning~

She smiled warmly at the messages. Her rhyming and song weren’t very good, but at least he didn’t make fun of her for it. She made her Avatar dance as the final potion finished.

Sapfyre: Did you have a good sleep

Sapfyre: Have you eaten?

Yoosung’s Avatar loaded onto the page and he joined in with her dance. It looked silly and she couldn’t help the bubbly giggle that escaped her. This boy was something else, for sure.

SupermanYoosung★: Are you caring for me?

SupermanYoosung★: ^^

SupermanYoosung★: I got a couple of hours of sleep and had some cereal SupermanYoosung★: What about you Sap?

Sapfyre: I had coffee and my mandatory 6 hours of sleep.

SupermanYoosung★: D:

SupermanYoosung★: Coffee isn’t good on an empty tummy!

Sapfyre: Now who is caring for who, hmm?

SupermanYoosung★: Ahaha caught me

SupermanYoosung★: You should at least have a piece of toast.

SupermanYoosung★: And let me sell your potions for you

Sapfyre: Which one tattled?!?!?!?!?

Sapfyre: Was it HackerGod?

Sapfyre: Or was it UnknownUseName who tattled on me!!

Sapfyre: Tell me!

Sapfyre: I’ll have my revenge!

SupermanYoosung★: lolol

SupermanYoosung★: It was HackerGod

SupermanYoosung★: He sent me a text message with a SS of you being naughty~

Hyuna facepalmed and blushed re-reading the words, Truthfully they were harmless, but her filthy mind went to other places.

Sapfyre: Ya well he got all creepy

Sapfyre: Scolding me

Sapfyre: Speaking weirdly about you

Sapfyre: Asking me my real name

Sapfyre: Bullying his wife

SupermanYoosung★: ……

SupermanYoosung★: He did what now!!!

SupermanYoosung★: D:

SupermanYoosung★: What did he say!?!?!

SupermanYoosung★: Did you tell him your name D:

A smile form on her lips. Take that you god damn tattle tale. You and your brother! An almost sadistic smirk took root on her face as she cracked her knuckles and stretched.

Sapfyre: It’s so sad Yoosung!

Sapfyre: He can’t even read

Sapfyre: Clearly my name says Sapfyre

SupermanYoosung★: lolol

SupermanYoosung★: Good!

SupermanYoosung★: NEVER! EVER TELL!! THAT GUY ANYTHING!!!

Sapfyre: He is such a bully!

Sapfyre: If I was a higher rank and level I’d go set his guildhall on fire

SupermanYoosung★: Looooool

SupermanYoosung★: I’d pay to see that

SupermanYoosung★: He’s actually my best friend IRL

SupermanYoosung★: T^T

SupermanYoosung★: Can’t believe he got all weird on you like that.

That was an interesting development. They all knew each other outside the game then? Hyuna re-read it pondering the implication of what that HackerGod guy was trying to do. There was absolutely no way he knew she was female. They all had taken to using male pronouns for her. The safest bet, more guys than girls on the platform. Was Yoosung gay? He didn’t seem like it, but then again everyone can be something their not online.

Sapfyre: He did tell me-

Sapfyre: Maybe I shouldn’t tell you >-<

SupermanYoosung★: GAH!

SupermanYoosung★: Tell Me!

SupermanYoosung★: So I can yell at him later!

Sapfyre: It’s sooooo embarrassing

Sapfyre: But

Sapfyre: He told me you’re usually a-

Okay so maybe she was being mean, but she paused there. Waiting for his reaction. She just couldn’t help herself, he was sooo cute so riled up like this.

SupermanYoosung★: WHAT DID HE SAY ABOUT ME?!?!?

SupermanYoosung★: Don’t do this to me!

SupermanYoosung★: I have to know now!

Sapfyre: T^T

Sapfyre: He said

Sapfyre: You’re usually a good boy~

SupermanYoosung★: Eh?

SupermanYoosung★: …..

SupermanYoosung★: What the actual hell, Saeyoung…

Sapfyre: lolololol

Sapfyre: Ya, he didn’t say anything bad about you.

SupermanYoosung★: I swear I had a panic attack for a moment

SupermanYoosung★: He’s a prankster

SupermanYoosung★: I use to fall for his crap all the time.

Sapfyre: Well… I’d say you fell for it again

Sapfyre: Ahaha you’re kinda cute all worked up like that

SupermanYoosung★: Heh~

SupermanYoosung★: But seriously hand me your potions

SupermanYoosung★: I’ll sell them for you while you go AFK to have some toast

He left no room for argument. Heaving a sigh, she opened her inventory and started a share with Yoosung. She handed him a ton of potion’s so which he typed out his surprise. Well, she had been at it for a while, what did he expect. Hyuna then told him she’s gonna be a good and have something to eat. She left her Avatar crafting more potions while she wandered into her kitchen.

The coffee pot was turned on once again as the artist looked at what she had for food in her apartment. To say the least, it wasn’t much, but she did have some eggs, bacon, and milk. It would do. Sighing she grabbed them and set the ingredients on the counter and set to work making herself some food.

Half an hour later and 2 cups of coffee her scrambled eggs where bacon was done. Smiling to herself pleased with her meal she went back to her computer. Her Avatar had long since stop brewing due to a lack of items. Taking a bite of her food she checked her level and clicked on Yoosung’s name. He was in a dungeon with UnknownUserName. A little disappointed, but knew it would get boring waiting for her to return. It probably took him all of 2 seconds to trade and sell her good too. Opting to leave her friend to do his own thing, and ran back to the storage and stored what she had and took out her fishing rod. After that, she headed to the lack to start fishing.

It wasn’t much, but it was honest work she supposed. Truthfully Yoosung mentioned a farming farm where she could breed and raise livestock, but you had to be level 30 to get in. Hyuna eyed her taunting level 23. Maybe Yoosung would run a couple of dungeons with her as the day progressed. As it stood, she wouldn’t stand a chance in the level 70 dungeon him and his friend was currently crawling.

It took her half an hour to finish her food and coffee while working on her busy work. Her fishing and cooking were going good. No one ever wanted to buy cooked fish so she felt safe just selling it to the NPC and calling it done. After that, she went to smiths and browsed today’s selection of weapons and armor. Nothing stood out, after all, she had some nifty level 30 equipment that she was waiting to equip. She just had to hang on a couple more levels.

SupermanYoosung★: Why didn’t you tell me you were back? Sapfyre: You were busy in a dungeon with Unknown SupermanYoosung★: So??? SupermanYoosung★: We were just killing time while I waited for you! SupermanYoosung★: weren’t you bored? Sapfyre: I fished? SupermanYoosung★: I rolled my eyes sooo hard just then SupermanYoosung★: Let’s get on with today’s missions! Sapfyre: Yes Sir! SupermanYoosung★: How was your toast Sapfyre: I don’t have any bread Sapfyre: I ended up making bacon and eggs Sapfyre: I’m on coffee #4 SupermanYoosung★: You know SupermanYoosung★: I’m in this coffee making club at my school SupermanYoosung★: I’ve been practicing latte art Sapfyre: Wow Sapfyre: My schools tiny Sapfyre: Really only clubs is like a drawing, crafts, sculpting, dance, drama and things like that SupermanYoosung★: Those sound fun, you join any? Sapfyre: I started class this week. It’s my first year of college SupermanYoosung★: Wow I’m going into my third year Sapfyre: Oh you must be older than me then SupermanYoosung★: I turned 22 in March Sapfyre: I’m a baby Sapfyre: I’m only just turned 20 SupermanYoosung★: I’m so used to being the baby of my friend group SupermanYoosung★: It’s kinda nice being older than someone for once SupermanYoosung★: One of my friends is 29 nearly 30! Sapfyre: You must have a wide variety of friends Sapfyre: ^^ SupermanYoosung★: Ya! SupermanYoosung★: But the ones closest to me in age are the ones you’ve met here SupermanYoosung★: So naturally we became the closest in terms of friendship SupermanYoosung★: Though I’m pretty close to this other guy who is 26 SupermanYoosung★: What about you? SupermanYoosung★: What are your friends like? Hyuna frowned looking to the side sadly. She remembered the variety of friends she had up until high school. She was a loner now, and the idea of telling this stranger that she considered him her only friend was depressing. What was wrong with a little white lie? After all, they were only internet friends. No need to seem needy or pathetic. Sapfyre: They’re great! Sapfyre: We all kinda went our separate ways after high school Sapfyre: But we all stay in contact on social media ^^ A stray tear escaped and rolled silently down her cheek. Hyuna wiped it taking a deep breath. At least he couldn’t see her, see what a bad liar she was in actuality. SupermanYoosung★: That’s good SupermanYoosung★: Plus you’ll meet more people with the same interests as you at school! How was this guy so optimistic about literally everything! The forced smile turned genuine as she took a sip of her coffee. Sapfyre: Well I did meet you too Sapfyre: We are friends right? SupermanYoosung★: Hell ya we are! SupermanYoosung★: you almost finished? Ready to crawl a dungeon? Sapfyre: Sure! Sapfyre: Want some cooked fish? Sapfyre: I have plenty~ SupermanYoosung★: hahaha SupermanYoosung★: No thanks Sapfyre: Saying no to a gift coming from the deepest part of my heart! Sapfyre: I’m crushed Yoosung. SupermanYoosung★: Maybe I could take one fish >-> SupermanYoosung★: Just sell the rest to the NPC SupermanYoosung★: Wait! His Avatar ran over to her and offered a trade. SupermanYoosung★: I have the money from your potions! SupermanYoosung★: Here!!! Hyuna accepted her money back blinking. Okay so HackerGod hadn’t been wrong, she really did low ball herself out of some money earlier. She would really have to study the trade and sales part of the game, she couldn’t keep having Yoosung do it. She quickly threw 99 cooked fish over to his inventory before opting out of the trade screen. Sapfyre: Thank you~ Sapfyre: Sorry to keep bothering you for something simple SupermanYoosung★: I don’t mind SupermanYoosung★: I like helping you out Sapfyre: You’re like a literal ball of sunshine! Sapfyre: Like you’re so amazing! Sapfyre: I’ll stop SupermanYoosung★: No keep going SupermanYoosung★: Don’t stop complimenting on my account Sapfyre: Oh and the ego grows. SupermanYoosung★: I think you’re pretty great too though SupermanYoosung★: And tbh it makes me happy that I can help you and teach you the game Sapfyre: Mr. Sunshine over here SupermanYoosung★: Haha Sapfyre: I’m really glad you slid into my dm’s Sapfyre: I hadn’t even been in the game for 5 minutes when you messages >-< SupermanYoosung★: Seriously? SupermanYoosung★: Well enough being mushy SupermanYoosung★: We are gonna tackle a level 20 boss a few times for its rare drop! Sapfyre: Cool beans Sapfyre: I might be able to do something! SupermanYoosung★: Whooo-Hooo SupermanYoosung★: Progressing!! The entire day passed and stars came out while the duo played their game. Hyuna yawned rubbing her drying and strained eyes watching the avatars move about the screen together. They were headed back to guildhall where Yoosung was gonna put some items in the free to grab box in case someone in the guild needed them. The items where various monsters drop but didn’t sell for much. When she suggested putting her cooked fish in there Yoosung told her everyone would end up leaving the guild. Everyone has more cooked fish then they knew what to do with. She couldn’t help but laugh at how insulting cooked fish seemed to be to everyone on the server. SupermanYoosung★: I’ll be AFK SupermanYoosung★: I should shower >-< Sapfyre: Okay! Sapfyre: I’ll go cook more fish Sapfyre: Enjoy your shower! SupermanYoosung★: More Fish! SupermanYoosung★: Haha okay brb. More busywork it was! Heading down the street running past the busy town square she was on a mission. There was a daily field where you could harvest crops, so she decided to stop there first before heading to the fishing spot. After about half an hour, Yoosung logged back in and her heart racing in her chest. SupermanYoosung★: Hate to do this SupermanYoosung★: But a friend of mine showed up SupermanYoosung★: I guess I’ll be off for the night Hyuna frowned feeling utterly disappointed. Logically she had been playing with him all day. It made sense that he would want some actual human interaction during his weekend. Smiling in defeat she replied. Sapfyre: Have fun! Sapfyre: I’ll be on tomorrow sometime Sapfyre: We can pick up where we left off then! SupermanYoosung★: sure Thing ^^ SupermanYoosung★: Have a good night! Sapfyre: You too~ Just like that, he was gone, and Hyuna looked around her empty apartment sighing to herself. She might as well draw or something now that she was free. Swiftly she logged out of LOLOL and grabbed her tablet.

#Yoosung Kim #yoosung #mysme yoosung #mysme #yoosung x oc #yoosungxoc #mystic messenger #mysticmessenger #online relationship #LOLOL

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jeremy-ken-anderson · 5 years

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FFXV First Impressions

Impressions So Far (something like 2 hours in):

That opening scene of pushing the car was Actually Clever. It was trying to be clever, but if you succeed and ARE clever “trying to be clever” is allowed!

Running across open ground is a little boring. Definite “Open World-itis” there. They tried to mitigate by including fast travel back to your car. It...sort of mitigates it? But if you’re willing to shrink player perception of the space by including fast travel, then you should show less space and have more space implied.

Night is legit scary. One of the characters mentioned you needed to get in by dark because demons come out and I’m like, “Sure, but I’m an adventurer. Isn’t fighting demons my thing?” That night: I’m running around looking for a hunt target and the asphalt on the road in front of me starts boiling and then up pop a pair of red eyes (literally that’s all you can see of this thing if you’re not standing within 10′ of it). It’s an Iron Giant, and it is level thirty. At this point I am level three. I run. I run immediately and two of my friends still nearly die. I love how they handled night.

The conversation engine needed more time. It’s neat, and a lot of it is good, but it’s not good enough and like human face art it’s gotta be really great to fool humans because we’re used to focusing on it. Two hours in I’ve already hit two or three uncanny-valley type moments where people repeated lines - not just barks but whole conversations. When it’s barks it’s a person having a catch phrase. When it’s a conversation you’re suddenly watching Groundhog Day.

There are parts of this that remind me of the hashtags in KH3 - this weird and too-visible desire of the designers to incorporate some aspect of modern society and its relationship with media but it’s fallen apart because the media isn’t old enough (or the designer not prescient/deep enough) for the designer to conceive of how it really plays out, what it really means in a fantasy space. The mix of having digital GPS yet needing to get rumors about where stuff is on your local map from the local diners is...a weird choice.

When i realized you could mix any ol’ piece of junk you found lying around with your magic to make better magic? Yeah, that’s pretty hot. I wish the system had a faster cooldown for spells (As it is, spells are basically grenades you have to construct yourself before battle, using resources you only find in a couple locations - magic mining nodes, basically - plus whatever physical stuff you wanna combine with them. The magic nodes recharge daily, but you can only make 3 spell-grenades per grenade-slot and only get 4 grenade-slots as far as I can tell). Noctis, your main character, has MP, which should be WP because it’s used exclusively for Warping, at least so far in the game. Personally I think having to spend longer crafting a spell and then being able to use MP to cast it would be rockin’. Like, I would sit there farming up every possible combination of items and spell energy to fill out my spellbook. You could have crazy spells that use 3/4 of your mp gauge, and then you have to duck behind a rock to recover like a proper black mage would have to do and just...I don’t know, I had a similar response of “This was almost as awesome as the magic system I came up with just now that I haven’t tested” back when FFVIII came out. Who knows if my idea for a magic system would actually be any good in practice. It certainly feels good in my head, and frankly I appreciate how close this one came to awesome because this feeling of speculating about the one change to fix everything is really fulfilling for me.

I like the fact that there’s treasure points on your map, and food points on the map, and mining points on the map, but then every now and then you find something valuable that isn’t on the map. It makes wandering around feel just a little more rewarding - It’s better than the fast-travel system at making the open world feel like an okay decision.

I like how wide the range of survivability is! I ran from that level thirty Iron Giant, but I did a level ELEVEN hunt while I was still level THREE. Playing the fights well clearly matters.

I also really like the system for wounds! Basically you have a third score. Normal games have Max HP and Current HP. This game adds in “Current Max HP” which can be between the two. If you get knocked to 0 Current HP your character’s seriously injured and you’re literally limping around hoping for one of your buddies to heal you or trying to get out of immediate danger so you can drink a potion (or trying to limp and drink both at once). While this is happening your Current Max is bleeding out. Let’s say you had 100 max hp and you bleed down to 90 while you pull a potion out. A potion heals you by 50% of your actual Max (so, to 50) and if you can catch a breather out of immediate harm’s way you’ll quickly recover to 90, your Current Max HP. But you won’t recover to 100. Outside of combat, your Current Max rises by 1 every 3-4 seconds until it hits your actual Max HP. This makes it possible to get attacked again when you haven’t really recovered from the last fight, which...isn’t a feeling you get in a lot of these games, especially ones that have regenerating health systems as robust as this one. Just two hours in I’ve already had some really tense encounters where things started going really wrong for me and I pulled out of it but it built that sense of being winded, of being really rattled by the fight, in a way that doesn’t tend to happen.

I think Youtube videos about the game have already said this but I really like that you make your own photo album as you play. By the end of the game you’ve literally got the 200 most meaningful moments to you in that album, or at least your favorite pics. It’s just brilliant, in terms of making a retrospective of stuff that made the game great for you, personally, as the person who played this playthrough of their game.

The food looks delicious, and I’m precisely as disturbed by how much I want to eat it as various people are by how sexy they find cat versions of people in the new Cats movie. There’s one part of my brain that is telling me that it is cartoon food and not real (and that some of it, like the mystery lunchmeat “sushi,” would likely be Super Gross if you could smell it) and it is correct but is also incapable of shutting up the part of my brain that finds the same fake food appetizing.

The collector in me is starting by buying all the skills that grant AP. I have doubts as to whether the game is long enough that I’ll recoup the investment. Like, the one that makes it so Big Catches grant AP costs 99 AP. I think it makes them give 2 AP. Am I actually going to fish up 50 Big Catches in the fishing minigame? (It might even only increase the AP gains by 1, so I’d have to fish up a hundred to profit.) Well fuck it, I know I’m gonna buy every damn skill on every grid anyway so I might as well start with the ones that speed up that process, no matter by how small a degree. The camping and food ones, at the least, were no-brainers.

I have trouble telling the main characters’ voices apart. Say what you will about how dumb Donald sounds in Kingdom Hearts 3, but if Sora, Goofy, Donald, Kairi, King Mickey, Yen Sid, Axel, and Riku were all having a conversation there is no point where you’d be confused about who was talking even if your eyes were closed the whole time. The voices and speech patterns are as recognizable as the silhouettes, in the KH series. Not so much, in FFXV.

I love the way Prompto moves in combat. He is literally always tripping and scrambling to get back up. Seriously, if you have the game play the training session so you can see his move cycle in detail. He spends like half of it with at least one hand on the ground, and I just love it. It’s so dynamic, so expressive, so goofy, so immediately endearing. And then you think, “Wait, we armed our derpiest party member with a gun? What is wrong with us?”

#FFXV #review

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mister-maiden · 5 years

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Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. A love letter to metroidvanias

Betcha thought I was gone.

Guess again, Cultists.

From the faint sound of a piano in the background to the delicious plates of meat and apples hidden in the walls, Bloodstained just screamed Castlevania at me and I simply couldn't be more overjoyed. Just..UGHHNN man, this game scratched a certain itch that was lingering on the tailbone of a mildly neglected butt that is my Castlevania pants. And man this just DID it for me.

For starters. The graphics are absolutely stunning in most areas. From your roaring ships on the seas to your books flying from the walls. Nothing ever seemed out of place for its unique animation style. The only game I could really say it reminded me of was Castlevania: Symphony of the night.

It has this gorgeous atmosphere to it of Victorian style that played throughout the game, throwing a twist to every trope it could find. Water areas, fire areas, gearpunk are- you get the shebang. It's a wonderful adventure...however, this could be seen as a bad thing.

Several rooms made me feel like I was just...*going through* them you know? As in there was simply absolutely no substance to it besides having it be a room for a mid-weak level enemy. This made it worse having to go back and farm enemies for certain items and drops...Looking at you Dragon Eggs and Beast Milk...though honestly, this gripe may just be due to my personal tastes. Though this can be easily avoided if you use Johannes the alchemist to destroy certain items for their components...but this is hella expensive.

Speaking of ememies!...um...Well yeah.

Bosses were cool! Well. Some bosses. Half of the bosses made me feel like I was just smashing the attack button and standing in one place while the better bossfights forced me to change my playstyle, spells, hell even my equipment. They did a great job with the bosses that interacted with my own placement, but did a poor job with bosses that could be beaten without even moving.

There are many enemies as well. Several I recognized. The walking grunts that walk at you viciously. The giant that does tons of damage but is easy to read and dodge, the smalll....ANNOYING ENEMIES THAT DO DAMAGE AND ARE IS NIGH EKEHRJ-

The enemies were nicely done. All with their own weaknesses and strengths according to the abilities and weapons you used. A small enemy could be dispatched quickly through a broad stroke of a great sword or a bigger enemy with armor pierced with a spear, ect. I don't have anything good or bad to say about the enemies because they just feel...*alright*. I mean there's just really nothing special to these enemies compared to enemies in other games. They were just there to be there..nothing wrong with that though. The only gripe I had was the lack of diversity in demons. They were just three different stages of the same demons I face in the beginning: Weak, mildly strong/strong, Giant. That tactic of making the player feel like they are progressing felt sort of cheap. A darker enemy of the same model isn't different enemy

What was far more important and interesting was the ABILITIES each monster gave you.

See, through the game, every monster you face has the chance of dropping a shard which bonds to your character's body, giving her several abilities. Ranging from fireballs, bats, and burning acid to shadows, increasing your strength, and more.

You may equip up to four regular spells called conjure shards

A passive shard which passively increases a stat or provides some benefit

A directional shard which allows you to point the spell with your hand via the joystick.

A manipulative shard that manipulates objects and spaces around you.

Skill shards, which gives you passive skills you can turn on and off. These are probably some of the most important shards in the game which are generally found after a boss fight.

My FAVORITE shard: Familiar shard! Allows you to have a familiar along the screen! My favorite being this cool little silver Knight that blocks projectiles c:

Each shard has their own circumstances to be used and best creatures to be used against which is great. Just the rediculous wide range of spells allows the player any range of choice and playstyle. My favorite is flooding the screen with bats. You may upgrade.

Weapons and armor are always in supply. Some found in secret areas while others are only unlocked via finding recipes for the alchemist to make. All have their own merits with some holding special skills you can use on monsters (example: a specific spear or set of spears allows you to sprint forward at rediculous speed). Sometimes I felt like I wasn't doing any damage before realizing I had to move on to the next weapon tier. Sometimes this can workout poorly for games since the progression relies on how well you do damage instead of how skillful you are with how you use your weapon, but I didn't seem to mind at all of Bloodstained's usage of the tiered weapon system.

Now, with over 100 of spell choices and weapons to use against a wide variety of enemies, it can be a hassle to constantly switch between spells and weapons in the menu...which is why the game introduces the quick select wheel!..later...in the game...which was a huge issue for me personally.

The quick select wheel came a bit later in the game which was strange since I had quite the number of spells and weapons I had. A problem I saw immediately with it was that I had to actually unlock more quick select slots by finding them, hidden and scattered through the game. I think this was a poor choice due to how the game encourages the player to play with their setup yet constricts them by locking these slots that didn't need to be locked in the first place. Maybe it was to give more incentive to the player to experiment with their mobility, but I still don't enjoy it. They should have had all options unlocked.

So now that we have combat and art out of the way, I'll talk about the TOWN features.

As in other metroidvanias, we have a homebase like area which holds several quests and people of interest to talk to. A farmer which can be given seeds to grow crops, a nun which gives you fetch quests to find items in the field to say goodbye to the fallen, an older woman whos hunger knows no bounds. Another nun who is a merchant for you and will also buy your leftover shards, and a fellow alchemist who will transmute items into weapons, armor, and whip up a nice plate of food for permanent stat boosts.

The merchant Nun, or Dominique, will sell you potions, alchemy items, and ingredients. Generally these items are...fairly overpriced, but rightfully so so the player doesn't progress too easily. The prices never change too which makes her interactions pretty concrete. It was nice not having to farm for basic items for potions c: so thank you, Dominique.

Then we have Johannes, our resident alchemist which is where a lot of our time is going to be spent.

Johannes takes the items we find from monsters, and puts them to good use my transmutation. He's the man who helps us make our ultima keyblade!..well, stronger weapon. This can be a tad annoying as some enemies take quite some time to farm, but it wasn't a hassle as I could teleport to the room and kill them until I got the item.. honestly this felt...a tad tedious? Then again, not a huge farming fan of repeat killing a monster, but it was needed to get some items.

Johannes also has an option to make you food from the ingredients you find from monsters! (Great idea to cook meat from demons) these meals give you permanent stat boosts after your first bite, but subsequent meals of the same food won't give you anymore bonus stats.

A special interaction is the ability to upgrade your shards! Using items from the monsters you kill (generally the same demon that gave you the shard), you can upgrade your shards to give them a new effect and make them stronger! The shards can be leveled to level 9 and are maxed out from there. This is one of my favorite parts of the game because how ridiculously numerous these spells are in effects. Hell, I can summon a dragon so he can just SMACK the screen like a fly swatter. Nothing makes you feel as powerful as watching a dragon head you summon just spew fire on a defenseless boss.

Now quests. These are...pretty underwhelming and are accomplished simply as you walk along to be honest. You'll finish these without even realize it because of how simple they were. These felt pretty weak in comparison to the rest of the game, but I mean hey, gave me some cool items. These could have been more fleshed out or maybe given the player some better quests that weren't just *fetch this*. Quests were the weakest part of the game.

Story was..uh...well. I'll be honest. My girlfriend even witnessed as I called the plottwists one by one and it was sort of sad. Don't play this game for the story. Truly don't. There isn't a good story here. The story is only here to drive the action and gameplay which is what the developers focused on. The game comes with multiple endings, the true ending being a tad cryptic to get to without knowing a certain secret of what to do with a weapon, but regardless, the story atleast made sense...has just been done before.

Now. Should you buy it?

If you're a fan of metroidvanias...I'd say the price is worth it. About 20-30 hours of gameplay for the avid metroidvania fan..I think (I'll start recording how long it takes me to really finish something hah)

If not a fan: wait for a sale. It's something great to have and pickup. With some gripes about quests and enemies while also having praises for the enhance system and spells, I enjoyed myself. I really did. It was fun. I put it down a couple of times because it was just too much with how large the map felt sometimes, but after getting the hang of mobility and the teleport system, it really felt like a castle to run around in.

-------------------METRIC-------------------

Pros:

• Spell system is EXCELLENT. I wish games had this many spells.

• Combat was nice with weaknesses and different strengths to each setup and creature.

• Map is widely varied.

• Artstyle felt like a callback to Castlevania as well as the music

• Long and worth the pricetag.

• Repayable

•Freakin familiars, man

• Decent amount of weapon choice (even if all do the same weapon attack as a weapon in their same category, each weapon felt like an upgrade.

CONS:

• Reskinned monsters are not good replacements for different monsters. Please don't do that...it feels cheap.

• Story was uninteresting

• The quickslot should be available from the very beginning so I can customize my character. It shouldn't have been a skill.

So that was my review on Bloodstained c: I really enjoyed it after getting used to the controls...also fun tip...USE the backdash. It helps so much in certain boss encounters where every action counts.

Have a nice Sunday, Cultists c:

#cult review #metroidvania #gamereview #game review #bloodstained #adventure game #victorian #magic game #bruh #cultists #occult

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