#so Gen def understands Sage better than most

[ofviolentdeath]

"So he threatens to curse everyone for being annoying?" Honestly, she wouldn't be surprised if the answer to that was yes. He might have been grouchier than Blake. Or maybe it was just that Blake had never actually learned how to curse anyone himself. "I never actually asked but I know she's not old. When you spend enough time around things that are immortal or horrifically long lived, you catch on to the, I dunno, feel of age? At a guess, I'd say closer to my age, but still probably younger than me considering I'm old enough to have grown kids if that was something I was interested in doing."

He winced when she mentioned how the interaction had gone, but he couldn't say he was surprised. "He probably didn't dislike you. He's just... very picky about who he socializes with. It's mostly just me and even then he doesn't want to hang out about half the time." But Akira knew things would always be a little complicated between them. "...how old is the fuck buddy then? Any idea if that's a long time for her?"

[snow-system-wol]

Some thoughts we had on the first alliance raid :D (like, the duty itself)

First boss

-circles appear on ground- haha what's this. That was definitely the "oh right new mechanics" moment lol

I really need to figure out how to aim that thingy, like it targets with a mind of its own lmao

The multi hit stack marker literally does so much damage, especially if some people are down. Based on watching one of the other alliances when I was dead the first try, it can easily do much more than a healer's total HP even on a Sage by the time all hits are done so instas seem very needed here. (That WAS with more ppl dear though)

Dodged everything SO much better after our first wipe, easy to learn the fight blindly

Dragon time

MOST of this fight has pretty clear telegraphs that were guessable on first view. Not too difficult at all

I cannot imagine keeping decent DPS uptime with anything except ranged during the "concentric circles + roaming AoEs" bit though. Chaos

The Warriors of Darkness Ice?

Speaking of chaos

Most of the tells are easy enough to catch and a lot of the worse attacks have longer cast times than you'd think (270 cleave), but it sure is chaotic to keep track of the other two enemies while you fight your alliance's

Genuinely this was a super fun fight though

"interrupt this dangerous attack" okay! "The enemy tank is doing passage of arms in front of them" ohhh

The Boss

Woof

Some of the things were fun to figure out, like realizing the mechanics in the limited size arena or understanding the half room cleaves

Dodging the spreading line AoEs is, uh, hm

It's not the worst but the curving animation for the cleave tells makes it pretty difficult for me to tell the safe quadrant which isn't ideal when it telegraphs like 3

Speaking of telegraphs. Not me looking at the ground dodging ridiculous line AoEs and then realizing the boss started to telegraph directional cleaves and that I didn't know what the first one was. F in the chat

Overall a good fight but some parts of it are hard in a frustrating way

Gen. experience

It's a pretty raid area and I'm def enjoying the aesthetics (though nothing hit quite like seeing Azeyma's arena for the first time, but that's a pretty high bar to clear)

I'm glad there's some animation bits during the "wait for it...!" I think but I imagine that would be a lot more troublesome of a mechanic if deaf

The change to makes orchestrion rolls universal instead of specific is pretty nice imo (even if I didn't get any yet bc day 1 roll fighting)

I'm glad other people were having fun with the experience, that was the best part of it. Two of our party members were kinda being annoying and that took a lil fun out of it (tank seemed to think everyone doing day 1 content are supposed to be savage raiders in skill, and scholar was just frustrating)

(lmao, they got annoyed about potential dps loss from me being rezzed before the first boss instead of respawning. My colleague and fellow party member -- we all got very murdered in the first boss and had the status effects anyway. Also I'm a DNC, not a melee. It's just not that dire)

Even with that, it was a lot of fun, though I don't think it would've been half as enjoyable if not doing it on VC with a friend :D

Also it was like, 5 am and I'd woken up for it lmaooo

[roominthecastle]

I’m in this fb tgp group and there was this post abt how they said satan was her type and if they would end up together and all the antis were giving the usual “no they have a father daughter relationship” and like not a single one of them gave a logical reason other than Ted being nearly twice Kristen’s age like god these antis really embarrass me. (sorry if u get a lot of msgs abt this)

Yeah, sadly this is a thing you can never avoid w/ age gap ‘ships, anon, it will always be there. I personally have no problem w/ fans who are like “I prefer to interpret it this way regardless of what canon says or doesn’t say”. I don’t really understand the appeal but I don’t have to understand and I can certainly respect it; no explanation is required since we are all here to have fun. But I have a problem w/ those who act like this claim is canon-to-be-accepted-fandomwide and try to silence/shame/police/harass everyone who disagrees (which still keeps happening in this fandom in rather manipulative and sometimes straight up offensive, disgusting ways).

Claiming they have a f/d relationship in canon and not tolerating/shaming those who see something else there stems from a common thing among antis:

And they never offer a rundown of their thought process bc there isn’t one involved, really. They look at him and reflexively shove him into a stereotypical, one-note role and ignore actual characterization that clashes w/ it – this in the same fandom that keeps echoing “not a girl” 24/7, so we def don’t suffer from irony deficiency. Janet is not reduced to/defined by her looks (which is a good thing ofc), so why is Michael reduced to/defined by a human skin suit he did not even choose in the first place?

Ted “acts against” his appearance as Michael (if you wanna see him in paternal mode, watch him as D.B. on CSI, the difference is palpable). There is always a clash btw what you expect someone looking like him to be like and what he is truly like in this role, which is one major source of fun (the big S1 twist itself is built on fully subverting this expectation) and contributes to the peculiar complexity of the character. You wipe that away when you try to parent zone him.

Chidi and Janet (even Eleanor) have done more ~~parenting~~ on this show than Michael, and he was often the recipient of it, yet I have yet to see either Chidi or Janet (or Eleanor) being referred to as a “parent figure” w/ the pointed expectation that all “decent fans” should agree. Michael isn’t a centered and sage afterlife elder who guides humans. Not at all. He runs around w/o a clear direction, improvising and often ending up in a bigger mess than he started with. He remains inexperienced, lurches from one puzzling problem to the next, and always needs input/guidance from the others. Even in the latest episode we can see him needing/getting a time-out as an “assistant” & Eleanor using her breakup w/ Chidi as a teachable moment to further educate him in human affairs, then it’s Janet she turns to for answers/advice/consolation. I mean, how much clearer do they have to make this? (But I love how that “Satan is my type” comment riled some antis. Satan shape-shifts throughout the story, so - to me - the only plausible explanation for Eleanor reading Paradise Lost is that Milton’s Satan is also a messy bench who loves drama. He even ends up w/ a lil’ crush on Eve when he marches into Eden to mess w/ her, IIRC, but I digress…)

The S3 finale also highlights Michael’s borderline visceral need for occasional ego strokes bc outside his v limited comfort zone (=chained to a desk, following orders and meticulous, ready-made plans) he is still insecure and panics easily (he was already at a disadvantage and anxious when Gen cut his prep time short). The scene where Eleanor is trying to talk him up by calling him a great leader is a good example: it’s a lie, a quick ego stroke, and it doesn’t hold. Him randomly trying to play parent w/ her (= trying to exert control he never had over her and never will) in an earlier episode is a spin on this song, too. The word “self-appointed” is key there bc it literally means “behaving as if you had a quality/position without actually having it”. Both attempts are about his ego, both fail, both get shut down bc there is nothing to sustain them. A f/d dynamic would mean Michael is above Eleanor but that’s simply not true. But Ted summed this up much better here.

None of the core 6 characters has received positive parental guidance (maybe Chidi is an exception but we have yet to learn more about his backstory), so it’s only natural that now they take turns holding each other up to the best of their respective abilities. They all do it. Chidi teaches and guides. Janet protects and gives answers/stuff they need. Tahani organizes. Jason channels the team spirit. Eleanor thinks on her feet, leads, and lies for them. Michael tries and fails and tries again but he remains the most confused bc while he can read the entirety of the world’s literature in an hour, there are no “superior being shortcuts” to gain the experience and wisdom he clearly lacks. Gathering that takes time and quality interaction w/ the humans. It takes opportunities to fail and learn and experiment within meaningful relationships. These are the exact things he is deprived of in S3, so he is not wiser than he was at the end of S2 and he was no parent figure there either.

Locking him into the parent role (esp opposite Eleanor) bc “he looks old” and acting like that’s the be-all-end-all of canon is willful ignorance at best. I bet these are the same type of ppl who, after watching S2, claimed that he was a mentor when back then he was literally Chidi’s student.I don’t think M/E will be canon but they def do not have a f/d dynamic. They are friends and that’s all the labeling we need canon-wise, imo.