#phoenix faction

[suspiciouscriossantaaa]

playing fallout new vegas as phoenix wright for enrichment and its the funniest thing so far . i gave him 10 endurance as phoenix wright cannot die .

so far he has failed every speech check, chased joe cobb with a machete into someone’s house, tanked the small army of geckos near the stash and obliterated them with ease before obliterating that one guy in seconds, got lost on his way to primm, got jumpscared by victor—

[warlocks-and-phoenixes]

GUYS ITS PART 2 COURTESY OF DISCORD

FUCK YOU RU’AN!

IF YOU’RE DUMB ENOUGH TO BE A LORD, YOU’RE A BIG ENOUGH SCHMUCK TO JOIN THE PHOENIX ALLIANCE!

NO PROTECTION, VILLAGES THAT SUCK, RELIC WARS!

IF YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE A GOOD TIME WITH THE PHOENIX ALLIANCE, YOU CAN KISS MY ASS. ITS OUR BELIEF THAT YOU’RE SUCH A STUPID MOTHERFUCKER THAT YOU’LL FALL FOR THIS BULLSHIT! GUARANTEED!

IF YOU FIND A BETTER ALLIANCE: SHOVE IT UP YOUR UGLY ASS! YOU HEARD US RIGHT: SHOVE IT UP YOUR UGLY ASS!

BRING YOUR SUPPLIES, BRING YOUR PEOPLE, BRING YOUR GUARDS; WE’LL FUCK THEM! THATS RIGHT, WE’LL FUCK YOUR GUARDS. BECAUSE WITH THE PHOENIX ALLIANCE, YOU’RE FUCKED SIX WAYS FROM SUNDAY!

TAKE A HIKE TO THE PHOENIX ALLIANCE! HOME OF CHALLENGE ROMANCE, THATS RIGHT, CHALLENGE ROMANCE. HOW DOES IT WORK?

IF YOU CAN JOIN THE ALLIANCE AND NOT GET INVOLVED IN A LOVE TRIANGLE, YOU DON’T HAVE TO KILL YOURSELF!

DON’T WAIT, DON’T DELAY, DON’T FUCK WITH US OR WE’LL RIP YOUR NUTS OFF!

ONLY WITH THE PHOENIX ALLIANCE, THE ONLY ALLIANCE THAT TELLS YOU TO FUCK OFF!

HURRY UP, ASSHOLE!

THIS EVENT ENDS THE MINUTE YOU AGREE TO JOIN AND YOU BETTER NOT BACK OUT OR YOU’RE A DEAD MOTHERFUCKER!

GO TO HELL!

THE PHOENIX ALLIANCE! EXCLUSIVE HOME OF THE MEANEST SONS OF BITCHES IN THE REGION OF RU’AN, GUARANTEED!

[kay-elle-cee]

in the latter days || Read the Prologue on Ao3 A First War AU || 1.4K || Rated M || Playlist

In February of 1983, a cataclysmic shift occurred in the wizarding world, plunging it into chaos. Four years later, revelations shake the core of James Potter’s new reality when, on a mission, he discovers another faction of the Order of the Phoenix — and with them, the woman he thought he’d lost forever.

Now the two broken factions of the Order must team up to finish what they once started, while James and Lily work through four years of loss and rediscovery.

Prologue

At 11:57am, on the 23rd of February, 1983, a curious, blinding light suddenly erupted from the Portishead coastline. A giant, glowing dome of silver and white rested upon the sand for several minutes before burning in on itself with a deafening crack—like wood splintering—and a powerful blast of hot air knocked the many spectators to their knees as they scrambled to see the aftermath.  At 11:57am, on the 23rd of February, 1983, Albus Dumbledore and Lord Voldemort both perished at the hand of the other, after years of war, after countless dead on each side. On a chilly shore in Portishead, the two most powerful wizards of their time fell, and the delicate balance of the wizarding world shattered. At 11:58am, on the 23rd of February, 1983, chaos enveloped the wizarding world in the aftermath of what would become known as The Fall.

[samueldays]

Sam Reviews: Phoenix Point, part 1

Phoenix Point is down to ten bucks on GOG, DLC included!

I bought it, figuring even a half-decent XCOM clone is worth it for ten bucks. So far it feels like a $10 game indeed. I'm probably not going to finish it before the sale ends, I have a job, so here's my initial impressions for those interested and I'll come back with part 2 later.

Tutorial missions, fine. First regular mission against crab monsters, fine. Second regular mission pits me against gun-happy human bandits, and I am unpleasantly surprised that they return fire whenever they're shot at, getting 4 counter-attacks in a turn if 4 people shoot at them, they even "return fire" upon having a grenade thrown at them.

Solution: run up and bash them in the head with the butt of a gun repeatedly, they don't get to return fire from that. I grumbled about that, and the game feels like 'that' repeatedly.

I didn't like the puzzle boss nature of infinite return fire. One return fire per turn would have been cool, and enabled tactical counterplay options. Unlimited return fire breaks the action economy, breaks my immersion for the game abstraction of "action points", and makes me feel this is going to be a game about cheesing AP limits and ruleslawyer combos. Also, the infinite return fire ability was on multiple nameless minions in that mission, not even reserved for a boss. Bash bash bash bash!

I didn't like the lack of game hints in this context. I had Hints turned on for a first run at low difficulty. The Hints make suggestions for what to research, how game mechanics work, and provide informative popups the first time a new strain of crab monster appears. But there was no Hint popup about the first encounter with an enemy having the Return Fire ability, no tooltip on mouseover of enemy, nor was there any indication of what actions trigger Return Fire, despite this being significantly more impactful than "this crab monster regenerates".

I didn't like the solution, which felt like a rules loophole rather than a sensible way to approach rapid-firing enemies. Oh yeah here's a guy who can interrupt your turn to shoot multiple times per turn, you should all walk up to him and punch him and he'll politely submit to the beatings.

I really didn't like that compared to recent XCOM games, Phoenix Point added a micromanagement tracker for Weapon Durability, and bashing the return-fire-goons in the head damages your weapon! Also they brought back ammo management, so now your weapon has two stats that can run out during combat.

But I also recognize that these things aren't bugs or crashes or typos or other objectively wrong things about the game, they're design decisions that I disagree with. The game runs fine. I have a series of grumbles and no dealbreakers.

Moving on from the Return Fire-associated crap...

This is an XCOM-genre game, definitely. It has base building, squad management, research and production, capturing crab monsters for research, psychic mind control, a strategic "Geoscape" layer and numerous tactical battle missions. The one thing that's oddly missing is gear upgrades. New gear is mostly sidegrades and tactical options, on the other hand it offers far stronger character upgrades than in most XCOM games, to the point of looking partly like a CRPG with classes, levels and skill points.

The Geoscape has more content than the waiting game that was some previous xcoms. There are other factions moving on the map, there's some trade and diplomacy with them, there are unknown sites to explore, you reactivate old bases instead of building them from scratch. Sometimes this means clearing them of crab monsters.

The Phoenix Point interface inherits a lot of XCOM 2's cutscenery that I dislike. It is very beautiful, very zoomed in, and wants to make sure you see it. There's frequent waiting to watch stuff resolve, and the game insists on having the camera follow unimportant actions like the run animation of every soldier's every move, and locking the interface during this. Move orders (particularly out of sight of enemies) should not hog control, I should be able to tab to the next soldier and begin giving a new move order immediately after the previous! Each individual animation is short, but multiply it by several soldiers, on each of several turns, on each of several missions, and my frustration at an unresponsive interface accumulates.

The zoom-out is limited. Soldiers will frequently be so far away from each other that I can't see them on the same screen, and have to pan back and forth. Bleh.

The gun system is quite detailed with damage types, damage values, accuracy modifiers, weapon ranges, armor, armor-shredding weapons, body part targeting and hit location, disabled limbs, bleeding, cover, et cetera. The game then offers options to skip a lot of this gunnery where enemies get to resist, and instead go for special abilities that Just Work, like War Cry:

AOE, autohit, no save, renders most enemies unable to attack for a turn.

About that limbs stuff, Phoenix Point has tried hard to make hit locations relevant. Crab monsters have game-relevant organs and limbs that can be disabled for far less damage than it takes to kill the whole monster. It's neat, but feels a little underwhelming. I don't blame the devs much for this, balance is hard when there's hefty player optionality plus RNG, and there's a fine line between making targeting relevant and making a monster the Shootmeinthegland monster where shooting it in the gland simply becomes the new default target instead of shooting it in the head/center mass.

Guns are weak, and armor is powerful as part of making limb targeting relevant. Also, armor-shredding weapons. This feels related to the CRPG class-and-level stuff: with the smaller squad and the more personalized characters and the more important individuals, the game has to give more leeway for characters to survive being hit to avoid player frustration. We've moved a long way from X-COM:UFO where casualties were routine and replacements were cheap.

I don't know if it's good or bad that the game plays "fair" about the least relevant nameless NPCs being similarly padded, but I know one of my mutuals will hate this combination of health padding and detailed targeting:

I have caught this thief at close range (2 tiles). I am about to launch a six-round burst from my character's assault rifle into his head. The targeting reticle, the highlighted yellow outline, and the info popup all agree that these bullets will go into his head if I fire here and now. The segmented bar at the top indicates that the result of close-range burst fire to the head through the front of the face is that the thief will lose about half his hitpoints.

To underscore that I've gotten a head hit, not a glancing blow off the helmet, the game displays the thief with a bloody face and blood-splattered clothes after the shot. But he lives. Somehow.

There's also a plot to Phoenix Point. I don't play xcoms for the plot, but there's definitely been some work on the plot beyond "kill and loot aliums :)". After the second world war, blah blah secret organization, moonbase, something something precursor civilization. It looks like good lore, I'll re-read the accumulated notes when I have more notes and fewer darkly hinting clue-scraps bereft of context.

(update: part 2)

[vintagerpg]

The Demon Pits of Caeldo is sort of the reason Gamelords existed. Kerry Lloyd had written it as a companion to Mines of Keridav, but Phoenix Games folded before it was published. So Lloyd founded Gamelords with some friends. It took a few years to get around to re-publishing Mines and then getting Demon Pits on shelves.

Largely worth the wait. The ruins of Castle Caeldo were detailed in brief as one of the hexes in Mines. The castle is reputed to be haunted, but it turns out demons roost there, not ghosts; it fell in a single night thanks to a summoning gone wrong (I love this concept) and has stood in ruin ever since. The thrust of the adventure is simple: clean out the castle in hopes that the player’s can claim it, and the surrounding barony. Despite being a mid-sized dungeon complex, though, reclamation is no easy task thanks to the power of the infernal defenders and the schemes of many factions of interested non-player characters. And, once the players pass through the castle proper to the titular pits, matters get decidedly more difficult, and surreal — there is a room full of nooses, a cursed treasure chamber and stranger things to be found in the demon-warped cellars. A classic of the early day, if a largely forgotten one.

VM Wyman on the cover again. Bob Charrette and Larry Shade inside, delivering some really nice illustrations. I particularly dig that demon prince, Aryok, who seems to be knocking off every cool villain ever, simultaneously.

[rogunetocentral]

Through the Ages: A look at the Roguneto ship.

Age of Apocalypse (Earth 295)

Set in an alt-timeline caused by a time travelling Legion, the ancient mutant Apocalypse has taken over the world and enslaved the human race; however not all mutants agree with Apocalypse’s tyrannic reign. A team of mutant freedom fighters know as the X-Men, led by Magneto, fight to save the world from Apocalypse nefarious hold. 

Rogue is a new recruit brought in by Mystique to help fight against Apocalypse. Rogue becomes Magneto’s second-in-command after both Jean Grey and Weapon X (Wolverine) leave the X-Men.

However, both Rogue and Magneto have developed romantic feelings for the other. Unbeknownst to Rogue, her current beau, Gambit, who is coincidentally Magneto’s best friend has previously commissioned Magneto to help find a way around Rogue’s powers. While interrupting a training session, Gambit asks Magneto to further research away around Rogue’s powerset. To which Magneto, knowing his own feelings for Rogue, reluctantly agrees to continue helping.

After sharing a rather intense personal moment while go over mission details, Rogue tries to speak with Magneto’s son, Pietro (Quicksilver) about her feelings for Magneto and her relationship with Gambit. Before anything could be said Gambit appears in front of the two, and after a quick exchange Rogue leaves to be by herself.

Rogue sees Gambit and Magneto speaking, about the aforementioned request, and asks to speak with Magneto alone. Once alone, Rogue reveals that to Magneto that she has feelings for him but doesn’t know if it’s right to act on them. Magneto reveals that while working on a way to neutralize Rogue’s powers, he discovered that he can create a biomagnetic shield around his body to shield from the affects of Rogue’s power, possible due to Rogue having permanently absorbed the mutant Polaris who shared Magneto’s mutant power of magnetism.

Before things can be further discussed the intruder alarms blares through the X-Mansion grounds and the X-Men quickly assembles to deal with the threat.

During the fight with “Wolverine”, Rogue chooses to save a injured Magneto from being killed leaving Gambit to be taunted by Wolverine. After the battle, Gambit decides to leave the X-Men after realizing that Rogue is in love with Magneto.

An undisclosed amount of time passes and we see that Rogue and Magneto are happily married with a son named, Charles.

However, due to the mysterious mutant Bishop arriving in their world and the startling revelation that their world is not the “correct” one. Rogue, now a leader of her own team, and the remaining X-Men kick into gear and take the fight to Apocalypse in the hopes of finally putting an end to his reign of terror.

After Apocalypse is defeated, knowing their world isn’t meant to survive, Rogue, Magneto, and their son Charles stand together as a bright wave of light sweeps over them.

In the 10th anniversary special it is revealed that the world of AoA, did not in fact die, but the phoenix possessed Jean Grey had saved everyone from certain death before vanishing.

When the people awoke to see that their world still stands they mistakenly believed that Magneto, in his battle with Apocalypse, found a way to save them all. Only Magneto knew the truth of Jean Grey but it kept it a long buried secret in order to focus on ridding the world of remaining factions loyal to Apocalypse and creating a new world where human and mutants can live in harmony.  This proved to be too much on his conscious over the years and when Sinister confronted him with the truth and a possessed Jean Grey herself, Magneto finally was able to clear his conscious and let himself be arrested (for lying or something, idk) leaving Jean Grey to be the leader once again. 

AoA was once again revisited In Uncanny X-Force vol 1.  X-Force of the 616  having traveled to AoA meet with the remaining X-Men of the world. It is now 10 years after the events of the anniversary.

Special note: There are discrepancies between the revisit to Earth 295 in X-Force and the two previous AoA stories as little matches up with the events of the special and several dead mutants from the original AoA are now mysteriously alive again and Magneto is no longer in prison or was even mentioned as being in prison.

During the Uncanny X-Force revisit, Apocalypse was revealed to be back but in the form of Weapon X (Wolverine) has become more dangerous than ever. After the 616 X-Force return home, it’s up to the AoA X-Men to deal with Weapon X. Sadly, Rogue and Magneto are killed by Weapon X before they can stop him from further destroying their world (as told in David Lapham’s 2012 AoA series).

The Relationship:

The relationship between Rogue and Magneto was very much one that was on equal footing both of them were devoted and loyal to each other to the end.

They were able to conceive and raise a son together something that would have been incredibly difficult given the structure of the world they lived in and the constant threat of attacked by the forces of Apocalypse.

Due to this constant threat Rogue became one of the leaders of her own strike team during the fight against apocalypse, something kept her away from her young son much to her disdain. Pietro, Magneto’s elder son, and Rogue became close friends and helped each other watch out for Magneto and Charles until Pietro’s death years later.

After Apocalypse was defeated and the world on the edge of re-building itself, both Rogue and Magneto were able to find a better balance between fighting the remaining apocalypse factions and raising a happy, healthy, normal 6 year old son.  

Throughout everything Rogue and Magneto remained fiercely protective of each other and their son. Even after the death of a 6-7 year old Charles Lehnsherr and Magneto’s paralysis, Rogue and Magneto stayed together until their untimely deaths at the hand of Weapon X.

[vgtrackbracket]

Video Game Track Bracket Round 5

We All Lift Together from Warframe: Fortuna

vs.

Pursuit - Corner the Culprit from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Propaganda under the cut. If you want your propaganda reblogged and added to future polls, please tag it as propaganda or otherwise indicate this!

We All Lift Together:

This song was originally used to reveal a new area and friendly faction. Endless workers, struggling under an oppressive regime who work together to make life better. But it has become also an anthem for the player base at large. It is the strength of the many against the powerful. As the song plays you are lifted up on the shoulders of your comrades. It is an amazing song

Pursuit - Corner the Culprit:

The second-most smug theme to ever exist

it happens to be one of the most epic song I’ve ever heard and I found it in a visual novel

[choiceofgames]

New game drop day

New game! “Magehunter: Phoenix Flame” by Nic Vasudeva-Barkdull is now available on Steam, iOS, and Android. It’s on sale until Dec. 4th. Please reshare this with friends! The more downloads we get in the first week, the higher we’ll rank in the App Store and Steam.

https://www.choiceofgames.com/magehunter-phoenix-flame/

Wield ancient technology to overthrow your mage oppressors! Can your secret order of mage hunters save the kingdom, or will internal strife tear you apart?

Magehunter: Phoenix Flame is an interactive fantasy novel by Nic Vasudeva-Barkdull, set in the same world as Battlemage: Magic By Mail. It's entirely text-based, 300,000 words and hundreds of choices, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

Generations ago, invaders brought magic to the Kingdom of Jubai, setting battlemages at the top of the noble power structure and leaving everyone else oppressed. Now, a secret organization of mage hunters has risen up, phoenixlike, to stand against the mages' power and overthrow their rule.

As one of these mage hunters, you wield the power of slipflame, a potent energy source that powers hunter technology. When you are called to go into battle against the mages, will you blast explosive bolts from your bow, throw silence bombs to cover your stealthy approach, or control your enemies from afar with puppet darts?

But the mages are not the only foes that you will face. The mage hunters have split into factions, and internal discord threatens their mission. Is there still hope for peaceful elections—and if so, which candidate will you support? What secrets lie buried in the history of your realm? When the time comes for your uprising against the mages, will you stay loyal to your order—or will the mages' power lure you to their cause?

[andscene-if]

L Alvarez pictured above. Photo credits to GreyLens images.

TROUBLE BEHIND THE SCENES ALREADY?

An insider has spilled piping hot tea on L Alvarez's lukewarm reception to the grand reveal of [MC] as their co-star and steamy love interest in Claire White's upcoming blockbuster.

Rumour has it, the Lumina-nominated sensation wasn't tossing confetti at the announcement—sources even suggest a colourful burst of curses escaped their usually poised lips.

Dear L Alvarez, if you're reading this, do the terms "undeserving" and "untalented" strike a chord? Friendly advice: consider trimming that circle of yours a teensy bit—those lips seem to be letting out more than whispers. ;)

While the cameras are yet to roll, tensions are already heating up hotter than a summer day in town. The million-dollar question lingers: Can L Alvarez, the master of mesmerising performances, rise above the backstage drama, cast frustrations into shadows, and once again dazzle us with an award-worthy showcase?

In the tightrope walk between love and hate, an awful lot of passion simmers, and fans are hedging their bets. Our recent poll paints a rather modest picture, with only 24% of the actor's fans placing their chips on L Alvarez and [MC]'s upcoming onscreen romance, begrudgingly admitting, “Well, at least they’d look hot together.”

Meanwhile, a vocal faction voices discontent with Claire White's casting of the Nepo Baby, yearning for the rumoured Phoenix Ryder—a rags-to-riches virtuoso with a sparkling résumé.

Oh uh, space is a luxury, and we're running out! But fear not, for any pulse-pounding developments fit for our gorgeous audience—you'll get the scoop first on your unparalleled celeb gossip hub, PinkCelebTea.

Keep those eyes sparkling and your gaze sharp, ready to catch the latest wave of celebrity drama. And if you stumble upon anything thrilling, discreetly drop it in our inbox—your secrets are safe with us.

Until then, stay hydrated, darlings! XOXO

***

NEXT UP: Ever wondered what type of fruit defines you? Well, ponder no more—dive into our poll and discover your fruity identity!🍉🍌🍓

[corsair-princess-nenime]

LELITH HESPERAX LIVEREAD

We’ve known NOTHING about the eldar since the tragic end of the Ynnari series and DISASTROUS phoenix rising plot. Fans of the best faction everywhere are asking, what are the eldar up to???

Mike Brooks of Brutal Kunnin fame has answers

(Cont.)

[neveromininart]

Oh yeah I made a webcomic!!!! Here's a trailer for it, it's going up on Friday the 13th

🩸Sunset Phoenix⚔️

There were 5 immortal criminal kingpins - until Emilia was framed for the murder of one. Now she & immortal Valentine have to find the culprit before Emilia loses her life and the city succumbs to war between the criminal factions.

Modern Fantasy Murder Mystery

[artful-browniebites]

Paranatural Joshua!

Joshua is the most recent in his family to be the medium of Phoenix, a powerful spirit that is said to be a portion of an even more powerful one that has the power to reshape the very world. In the city of Valisthea, there are different factions for some of these powerful spirits, trying to be the one whose spirit will absorb the others. While this is supposed to be what happens, it has never actually been done. Joshua hasn’t yet started to show any outward signs of change from being a medium.

A bit of a sickly kid with chronic health issues, it doesn’t stop Joshua from wanting to always be at his brother’s side. Clive indulges Joshua where he can - cuts his hair, even took him to get his ear pierced - but still worries over his brother’s health. The Phoenix can control fire and has healing properties, and hopefully it’ll help Joshua.

[sege-h]

Ashen "Sharp" the Wolf

Another @sonic-oc-showdown bracket means it's time for a new pinned where I ramble about my OC!

I do have a "Sharp" tag on my blog so check that out if you want, but here's where I'll be answering some questions about him in case you don't wanna dig through tagged shitposts and art with little context!

(Second pic is an edit of the Sonic issue #50 cover)

Bellow the cut I will be answering a bunch of OC questions, so it could get rather long!

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name?

Which one? 😂 He actually has 3 names--

Delan- his birth name. Nowadays only his romantic partner knows that name. That one popped into my brain so there's no special story behind it.

Ashen- The name he gave himself. I tried to think up a name an angry teen might come up with since that was where he was at when he gave himself the name. One idea for a name like that was 'Fenix'- a play on how he would've wanted the name for a creature that rises from the ashes, but with the wrong spelling since he didn't know how to spell 'Phoenix' properly. But that didn't quite fit in my mind, so he got named after the ashes a phoenix might rise from.

Sharp- originally it was his temporary name since I needed to call him SOMETHING while coming up with a name. But then I grew attached to it and kept it. In-universe it's his nickname because the resistance-not knowing his name- found it easier to refer to him by a nickname to warn people that he's coming rather than 'HEY THAT GUY WITH THE SHARP METAL CLAWS IS COMING'. It saves time SHGDHS

🌼 - How old are they? (Or approximate age range)

It depends on which part of the story things take place (I have a few aus where things diverged at specific points in his life)

While he was still a runaway living outside he was 11-15

While still working with Eggman he was 16-18

And after he ran from there, or 'present' time he's 18-20 depending on how early or late in the story it is

🌺- Do they have any love interest(s)?

Yes! Percy- who belongs to @hesfromsomewhere

Sharp and him went from enemies (one sided on Sharp's end) to secretly hanging out since Percy works for the resistance. Up until Percy got captured by Eggman, and Sharp chose to rescue him and run away to take him to the resistance. Initially Sharp was just going to leave him with them, but then he got captured by them a day or two later. Percy then very slowly built a bridge of trust between Sharp and the resistance faction he was a part of- though even if that hadn't happened they were determined to stay by each other's side. Things eventually developed into romance after that.

🍕 - What is their favorite food?

Pie! Any kind of pie, really. Sharp loves homemade foods in general. But there's just something about baked goods, and especially pie, that strikes him as The homemade meal that he always wanted to try, and then eventually got to

💼 - What do they do for a living?

His initial job really Was for a living, working under Eggman. He really took that up because it'd provide him with a roof over his head and steady meals. To him the bonus was that Eggman is the type of person that wouldn't pretend like he Isn't disposable. There would be no attempts at fake friendships there.

Nowadays he works with the restoration, trying his best to get used to being around people and helping out. Down the line the faction he's in will split off from the restoration, and become more like a group of mercenaries akin to the original Diamond Cutters

🎹 - Do they have any hobbies?

He likes playing video games! Initially they served as something to get his frustrations out on. The still kinda serve that purpose, but he also plays them when he's relaxed, and he's learning to play more games with friends.

🎯 -What do they do best?

If he was asked he'd answer that he's the best at fighting. It's what he's had to do most of his life, and he's kind of out of his element once he joins the resistance where he doesn't really have to do that as much anymore. Especially since even when he Does fight he'll get asked to retreat all because the people there care whether he lives or dies.

He's pretty hard on himself in other aspects. He's pretty good at cooking, but he does best when doing so over an open fire. So he views his learning attempts at using a stove as failures.

🥊 -What do they love to do? What do they hate to do?

Loves: Playing video games, spending time with loved ones, eating good homemade food, walks in the rain, seeing peoples faces whenever he proves he's more than they think of him. Also dancing but don't tell anyone.

Hates: Being around too many people, getting ordered around, backing down or retreating in general, having to confront people taller than him, being Perceived

❤️ - What is one of your OC’s best memories?

The night he realized that despite everything, someone did come for him and took him in. Just not the way he expected.

Him and Percy weren't romantically involved yet, but they slept in the same bed anyway. It'd become a habit after Percy's stay in the infirmary. And after they got to go off in their separate rooms, Sharp found he was too anxious to sleep on his own after everything, in a place full of people he didn't know and that he believed hated him (and to be fair, some did)

He woke up one night with Percy clinging to him. And it kind of hit him that he finally had someone that cared about what happened to him. And someone that felt like home. Both things he'd pretty much given up on ever having at that point in his life, but he'd gotten them anyway.

✂️ - What is one of your OC’s worst memories?

Ashen has a Lot of bad memories but the one that really haunts him nowadays is when Eggman captured Percy. He was locked up in a pod, intended to be used as a living battery since he's a being made of Chaos Energy. Sharp waited to see if anyone from the resistance would show up to save him (he still views this as a big mistake on his part)

But once the machine was activated, the decision to make a move and defy Eggman was pretty much made for him. He still has nightmares about hearing Percy scream and watching his form start to shift thanks to the energy getting sapped from him.

🧊 - Is their current design the first one?

Kind of!

His design has stayed relatively the same, it just got more refined. I got the hang of drawing his hair, and his ears are a darker color now instead of being the same as his main fur color. He's also gotten beefier. He also lost the cheek markings bellow the eye pretty fast, I think I got rid of them after the first 2 drawings of him.

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC?

Honestly I just wanted to go back to my roots and make a wolf character. Other than that, me and my friend wanted to make some OCs that worked on opposing sides during Forces thatd end up being together by the end.

🌂 - What genre do they belong in?

I said this last time too but I don't really slot my OCs into genres SHDGSH. I guess just. Sonic? Adventure with a side of shonen? Sharp kinda fits the shonen anime vibe, with his strongest asset being his willpower, making him get up every time he gets knocked down.

💚 - What is your OC’s gender identity and sexuality?

He's a cis man, and he's probably demisexual/demiromantic, though he labels himself as gay. He just doesn't have/know the words for demi, but he knows what gay is, and he's always fallen for boys and masc presenting people. Though the few times Percy goes for a more femme presenting form, he's noted there's no lack of attraction there. But it hasn't really spurred him on to investigate if there's any other label he could apply to himself. He just thinks 'I'm in love with Percy. And no matter what for he takes he's still Percy, and that's who I'm in love with'

🙌 - How many sibling does your OC have?

He never had any biological siblings! But later on him and Riley (also belonging to @hesfromsomewhere) adopt each other as brothers

He's a chinchilla that's also part of the resistance. And he was a runaway, so he very much understands what Sharp has gone through in life.

🍎 - What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like?

Absolutely horrid. They're dead to him, even if he's unsure if they're actually dead. He sure hopes they are.

They're why he's mostly thrown away his birth name. They gave it to him. He doesn't belong to them, and he saw taking up a new name as a show that he only belongs to himself.

They really only had him to insure they had a heir that'd take up their business one day. They were very strict, and were pretty much never pleased with Ashen. Everything he did had to be flawless- and that's impossible. They're a big reason for him running away from home.

Once he joined Eggman and was allowed to unleash legions of badniks to attack as he pleased, one of the first things he did was lead a raid to his old hometown. He saw to it that the house he grew up in was burned to ashes. He never caught sight of his parents so he doesn't know what actually became of them, but he doesn't care.

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC?

I like how silly he can get. His short temper can be both a source of drama, but also of silly moments. Because sometimes he gets so caught off guard that he doesn't know how to react other than with frustration.

And I just like his type of character. Someone kind of jaded that has to deal with wanting to become a better person, and the softness that comes out of those efforts.

✏️ - How often do you draw/write about the OC?

Very often! He's on my mind a lot, and I have several AUs with him. He's one of the characters I draw and write about the most other than Storm and Atos

💎 - Do you ever see yourself killing off the OC?

Nnno I get too sad at things like that HSGDHS

💀 - Does your OC have any phobias?

Despite his love of rain, he gets really stressed out and scared when it comes to really bad storms, with loud thunder and especially with strong winds. The winds stress him out more than the thunder and he hates the sound of it. His fear was more evident when he was younger. He's gotten good at hiding it, but someone that knows him well can notice the way he's tensed up while a storm like that is happening.

🍩 -Who is your OC’s arch-nemesis or rival?

His (one sided) arch-nemesis/rival WAS Percy, until they became friends.

An antagonist that pops up here and there in their story is Echo (owned by @hesfromsomewhere )

He's a tasmanian devil, and a hacker that lost everything to the war with the Eggman Empire. Once he finds out Sharp works for it, he attempts to kill him. Their paths cross again later, and even though Sharp no longer works for Eggman, that doesn't matter to Echo.

🎓 - How long have you had the OC?

I think I've had him since 2019, if not late 2018!

🍥 - What age were you when you created the OC?

25!

Thank you for reading!

[kay-elle-cee]

in the latter days || Read Chapter 1 on Ao3 A First War AU || 4.7K || Rated M || Playlist || Start from the beginning

In February of 1983, a cataclysmic shift occurred in the wizarding world, plunging it into chaos. Four years later, revelations shake the core of James Potter’s new reality when, on a mission, he discovers another faction of the Order of the Phoenix — and with them, the woman he thought he’d lost forever.

Now the two broken factions of the Order must team up to finish what they once started, while James and Lily work through four years of loss and rediscovery.

Chapter 1: Four Years Later

James blinks and the sounds of the pub—warm laughter, staticky music, the clinking of glasses and plates—flood his senses once more, pulling him from his thoughts as much as the hand squeezing his shoulder. He readjusts his glasses and looks to his right, where Sirius stares at him with hard grey eyes. “It’s your birthday, mate, leave it behind for a night.” Easier said than done, James wants to grumble in return, but he swallows it. He knows the three of them—Sirius, as well as Remus and Peter—all think he puts too much of himself into the Order. How, ever since it’s re-formed, he’s replaced one vice with another. But they’d made a big effort to give him a night free of that, covering and swapping intel missions with some of the others so that tonight they could be with him on his birthday. A celebration of another year older. He instantly wishes the butterbeer in front of him was something stronger, though he still tries to rinse the bitterness from his mouth with its sweetness all the same. “Right, yeah. Can do,” he nods with a forced smile.

Shhhh I'm breaking my rules of not posting a chapter until I'm done writing another because this month has been hell and I need the dopamine of people reading this and yelling at me in the comments.

[frasier-crane-style]

Have watched Twisted Metal, the loose adaptation of Sony's perennial car combat franchise. It's more in the Deadpool Lite cottage industry than (I assume) anything to do with the video games. I've never played them, so I can't speak to accuracy except in a Wikipedia sense (you know, that thing MCU writers look at before they adapt years of storytelling), only I know they're car combat games and this Twisted Metal looks to any excuse to get the characters out of the cars so they can get into fistfights, shoot-em-ups, or just gab. Mainly gab.

Nothing against Anthony Mackie--he's far more convincing as a wisecracking scoundrel here than as a brooding antihero or inspirational patriot in other projects--but the straight-to-video Death Race movies featured big names Luke Goss and Tanit Phoenix and managed some actual death races.

And in the seventies, shows like The A-Team and Dukes of Hazzard managed a few car chases every episode. Twisted Metal looks like a fanfilm in comparison. It's painfully obvious there's no actual pyrotechnics going off, just CGI muzzle flashes and the odd shattered window. The cars look to have not been modified at all and rarely take a scratch, much less any of the hundreds of bullets that are fired at them.

The writing, as you'd expect from Deadpool Lite, is fitfully amusing banter and 'emotional' scenes swiped from other, fairly recent media. There's a character who seems mute until she bursts out into verbiage, like Laura in Logan. There's one episode that pauses the narrative to focus on a gay romance, like in The Last Of Us.

Weirdly, Mackie himself plays a fast-talking rogue--sort of like Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hours--but he never actually manages to fast-talk anyone. According to the show, he's such a good 'milkman' (is that such a widely known term in 2002 that it'd become future slang after an apocalypse? I guess they can't spend eight episodes calling a black man "Pizzaboy.") that he's recruited for an important mission, but his attempts to actually con people either fail--in which case his obligatory modern-day Hypercompetent Sidekick Who Is The Real Badass actually does the conning--or he tries to con someone who maybe half-buys it and Hypercompetent Sidekick ruins his persuasion check by going aggro. He also can't tell when he's being flim-flammed by Neve Campbell. Dude, you're a conman and you're getting conned? What are you, the bad guy in an episode of Leverage?

Why is this guy our protagonist if his specialty is talking people into doing things and he's no good at it? Yeah, Fast-Talker and Real Badass is a time-tested buddy-movie dynamic... look at Rush Hour or Shanghai Noon... but the Fast-Talker has to be good at fast-talk and the Real Badass has to be a Real Badass. What they do here is have him and his sidekick Stephanie Beatriz both be kinda okay at fast-talking and kinda okay at fighting.

So they don't really have different strengths and weaknesses, they're just banter delivery vehicles and stuff happens and they make quips. It's weak writing, basically.

On the bright side, it keeps its episodes to thirty-odd minutes instead of straining to be an hour-long, which is a relief in this day and age. The Twisted Metal games have been rebooted so many times that every character has multiple iterations, so I'll cut it some slack on the 'adaptation,' although it feels a lot like the modern IP sin of coming up with a bunch of characters, then thinking up canon characters they vaguely fit to and giving them that name. Agent Stone, for instance, goes from a heroic black man trying to undo an accidental shooting to white mall cop who becomes a fascist warlord. Okay...? I guess they're both law enforcement themed so... great adaptation, guys.

I'd give them more credit if this iteration of the cast didn't align so neatly with "white men bad, browns and women good."

And it Surf Draculas hard.

Points for the "crazed religious faction" being a bunch of hedonistic atheists who have used the Apocalypse as an excuse to chimp out. That's novel, at least. We should encourage post-apocalyptic media to go beyond the usual neo-Nazi, biker gang, radfem factions.

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

Where would you rank Yvraine in terms of power scaling out of curiosity? Is she on-pare with Guilliman, a Librarian Astartes, or somewhere else that doesn't neatly fit into a specific human ranking?

This question was inspired by the comparison of Harlequins to the Custodes, which tracks since they've killed the golden coneheads before. Plus they have the advantage of being psykers.

Hard to say. We don’t get to see her do much, and her lore and actions are incredibly sparse, because her and her whole faction exist as a throwaway plot device that enabled Guilliman to be alived. See how you used an example from text to extrapolate on the Harlequins’ strength? We can’t do that for her. Because she doesn’t get to really participate in any text.

Logically, as the foremost champion of a god, and the leader of an entire faction, you’d imagine she’d be in the Primarch/Phoenix Lord category. That’s personally where’d I’d put her, given her apparent ability and significance. But her faction got shafted, so we’ll probably never know for sure!