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danwhobrowses · 4 years ago

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One Piece Chapter 985: Initial Thoughts

Well that’s taking a turn, not 100% unexpected but still, we’re heading into the danger zone right now Today’s fan translations are a bit wonky, so a few things may be a tad confusing, but this is what I am taking from it, of course I’ll read the official to get the clearer insight

Spoilers for Chapter 985, Support the Official Release

And we start with a 3 Captains Color Spread, people will gush over how Law doesn’t get a parrot so is sitting on Luffy’s or the fact that Oda really does love parrots but my curiosity lies on Kid’s trousers (not that way you dirty minds!), that text feels like it’s hinting at something...

Just a note on the title, yesterday’s translation missed it, but this New Onigashima Initiative means that this naming is of Kaido’s choice, it’s like his Whole Cake Island or Fullalead

“A storm is coming” - feels like we’re gonna get some big stuff in a bit

Of course it’s this bitch Kanjuro intercepting the flank party, backed by his own artwork and some of Kaido’s men

Izo and Neko are taking this all pretty in stride for someone who are just finding out that Kanjuro is the traitor

Something irks me though that Momo - who has spent Wano training with a sword - could only do a papercut to Kanjuro’s hand. Like, I know he’s strong but if something that small would put Kanjuro into a rage mode then it’s a bit of an exaggeration

That is if we believe Kanjuro’s story, I don’t think he’s good, but I think it’s interesting that Kanjuro is completely darkened out when beating up Momo, as if to hide something. This hand injury may come back around

Kawamatsu and Kiku may be shaken, but Inu and Neko don’t give a fuck about Kanjuro’s speech XD

Kiku’s title being because her cuts carry into the afterlife does give off a similar vibe to Brook, who uses ice ‘from the afterlife’ in a similar manner

Also side bar, I think Kiku’s armor is the one Luffy initially wears in the pre-raid chapter, the old chapter cover (380?) and Volume 95, so that may explain where it went, but what about the Kozuki puffy trousers!?

Izo looking like some gangster with the samurai PACKIN’ HEAT

Neko had a gunhand so Inu raised him for a sword leg, nicking some Shiki traits there Inu?

Noticeably missing though is the Law Squad, so maybe they are pulling a sneaky

I wonder how far this Video Announcement Kaido is reaching? Like is it just Onigashima? just Wano? The entire world? Is the Revolution about to be Televised?

Yamato bluntly using Ace to convince Luffy to join...I’m not sure about it. As you would’ve seen I am not 100% on board with Yamato for Nakama, I think Oda is just playing those who are. It just, isn’t the right format, granted Nami asked Chopper to join and Robin convinced Luffy to let her join but Yamato saying ‘you’re Ace’s brother, so you let me join’ seems the wrong way about it all

The translation I have is really messy here, but Luffy seems to be as confused as me about Yamato’s kinning (is that the right word?), I think he’s also imply that Yamato just set off themselves if they wanna leave

The explosive cuffs make yet another return, first with Sanji, now with Yamato

We learn a little more info on Yamato, they appear to be 28 at least (2 years older than Hiyori) and wanted to venture with Ace last they met, so this has similar Tama vibes already

Yamato though going on this intense philosophical backstory of how Kaido would rather blow up his own child’s hands than let them leave and Luffy’s just all ‘I could take them off for you’ XD

Yamato definitely seems on board with beating Kaido, but we must remember, Kid and Law want to kill Kaido, it’s very different.

Also is that hesitation? Like, you want the cuffs off right?

Kaido with the current affairs updates, how is he getting this info though with Wano being closed off? But this is how Luffy and co find out that the Shichibukai system is gone at least, and Kaido is rating the choice

Kaido’s plan to combat it though is simple, we’re treading back on the Ancient Weapons route

Yamato’s horns peering out of the attic is somehow humorous to me

Big Mom strolls in though with her Homie army, a KO’d Zeus in hand too, it’s not a good look for Nami and Carrot as their disguises are removed and Nami’s power buff is gone, Shinobu is strangely missing though

A lot of people are picking up on ‘Ours’, but don’t get too ahead of ourselves, ours can mean any group, not just Kaido and Big Mom or the alliances as a whole, they could even be referring to their singular crews

Meanwhile Luffy is just ‘that shit is mine I called dibs ya bastard!’

The big decree though, Orochi’s men now have to make a choice because Wano is gonna be a pirate-led lawless state

Orochi’s head started to roll...and then it did literally! YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE!

I was half right then, Kaido did kill Orochi and kinda save Momo from him...surprised he used King’s sword though...though, Hydra’s do have a knack of surviving when a head is cut off...

However, this now bodes potentially well for the raid. Kaido is opting for ‘with us or against us’, either the Samurai join or die, but that means our samurai raiders are bolstered by anti-Kaido samurai...if there are any that is

Luffy of course almost blowing his cover to save Momo, surprised so few picked up on the roof falling

Kaido’s main initiative now is to turn all of Wano into his Pirate Empire and spread from there, a tactical fortress fused with the ancient weapons and technological advance, Onigashima itself will now be the Flower Capital and yeah, makes a lot of sense for Kaido

I’m not sure about the Kiku stuff, Kiku crying with a bloodied blade alarms me because we don’t see a body, maybe Kanjuro pulled another sketch trick and got away?

Kaido wants Wano to be called New Onigashima, and per the Yamato-based announcement, they are the new Shogun

But Yamato’s quick to blow their cover to refuse, and now the Flying Six are also on their way as Luffy chases to save Momo

Whew, that was a lot of stuff happening in the chapter, a lot of it feels like misdirects but things are still very dire Yes, on the plus side we may get some Orochi loyalists and Wano purists on our side to save Wano from Onigashima, it’s not just its weapons but its culture and people that Orochi had neglected in vain to stay on Kaido’s good side. We also can confirm that Yamato is an ally, Nakama is still 50/50 I think they just want out more than to join Luffy, they didn’t even consider the One Piece!

But the downs are still dangerous, Orochi is dead so Kaido has full command, Momo is still in danger, the back flank is halted, Marco is far away, Nami and Carrot are injured by BM (and this storm negates Su Long), Perospero is oncoming, half of the crew are stretched away from the main dome and the flying six are about to close in, not to mention that Yamato still does have their handcuffs on The raid hasn’t even begun and we have so many twists and turns, but there are still the AWOL factors; Apoo, Denjiro, Kin’emon, Hiyori, Drake, Hawkins, Speed, CP0, Perospero, BM’s crew, the Numbers, Marco, Team Law, Team Walkng Tank, Team Rhinocycle, the shady person Robin and Jimbei were near, Shinobu, Sanji, Team Kid, Team Ulti, Sasaki, Who’s Who, Black Maria and more Not to mention I think SJ is on break next week so OP will be delayed again! So we have to bear that as well

Like I said, we haven’t even begun.

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comfyspookyburrito · 4 years ago

Link

↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑

I may start preferring Tumblr blog posts over 3 twitter posts. Just link this crap there to the blog.

Nice.

Here’s the patch notes for the new smash update. I may come off a bit cryptic or vague because of the way I talk so please give me a mention if you don’t understand something I talk about. This happens a lot.

If you want my thoughts. I’m pretty disappointed for this patch. I hate it.

This is not about the top tier nerfs, I have no opinion on it and hardly matters for me really.

I enjoyed the small patch changes recently despite popular belief, the min min patch was pretty huge.

This time however not much thought went into this, rather a small regret patch fixing their previous changes. Not many characters this time.

Pichu got small baby buffs, I don’t even know what to say about that. That’s not good. These changes are so unnecessary for most of the characters. I did look into it and some got very good buffs.

Meanwhile, Joker. The most bane of a tourney’s nightmare in the game only getting a small slap on the wrist. Again.

I feel this is not enough. Only Arsene’s counter was heavily nerfed.

That’s not my problem, the problem is Joker’s down special or Down-B without Arsene.

The Rebel’s Guard is still the most bullshit counter I’ve ever seen.

Even my bros and most friends that played ultimate always had a massive resentment against it.

There’s no punishment like say Marth, for missing a counter. This means the opponent can perform a bait that can lead to the opponent counter spamming for the rest of the match and losing.

You can grab the opponent, shield safely in neutral, jump over or perform what is known as stale Nair’s to lead damage without the risk of being jebaited into the counter. There’s some risk/reward, fair double edged sword encounters from this bad but tolerable mechanic.

It is a very fair argument. A lot of tournaments I’ve watched online for melee smash 4 and ultimate came down to winning 1st place for the tournament by relying too much on countering.

Joker? Nope...

Spam the move every close approach and get free arsene.

Opponent not attacking? Safely let go and use Joker’s agile playstyle to jump or swiftly get away from the grab.

You can literally just, fucking spam the move making him more unapproachable than most of the roster. Because the move can be stalled for a whole 10 seconds. No consequences whatsoever.

Another reason this pisses me off, is how they got it wrong. In Persona, blocking attacks only reduced damage or increased the chance to take no damage with enough speed in battle. In order to say, get a buff for a Persona, it would cost a character 1 or 2 turns. You can equip persona’s that negate or even counter attack moves without player input.

In smash, it’s more like if you were a boss. Say every block would buff your whole team and refill your SP. And since you take no fucking damage for it you have to wonder even for a persona game. why this is even here?

I made Giant Dad... a mii fighter, surprisingly no-one else has done this.

I made some customs stages too, even though nobody cares about them anymore they used to get a lot of attention, especially hat kid and a fucking magma lava death volcano. Dude. That stage is bullshit and not even fair, fully intended to piss people off. It got inspired by a stage from Joel aka Vinesauce.

Yep, I stole the idea of lava legs. Oops. (As an artist I’m surprised people don’t call me out on that bullshit. For how obvious this is I should feel bad too but I guess stealing art is a normal thing now.) 👎 Thumbs down on my part. 🤮

Let me also add on top of this and admit that I also had a volcano stage from smash 4 and really wanted to remake some of those stages, but they were already made at that point. I love when people can make some awesome stages. I love the hell out of the mii’s and custom stages... I just wish that my buds would play or even look at them more... That’s a lot of hard work for a online community, and it probably gets ignored because it’s not a official smash stage, or just not fair. But, I got my Urchin Underpass that I always wanted! Thank whoever made these stages, someone even made that Tree from paper mario on gamecube.

THAT WHOLE CHAPTER 2 MEGA TREE AS A CUSTOM STAGE. AND NOBODY FUCKING KNO-

Also paying for mii costume’s for a

fighter’s pass,

and can be expensive over time. That is total bullshit to do that, smash 4 did the opposite even thought it was a money drop. Damnit I hate it and I wish this would never happen again. Include the fucking mii outfits in the fighters pass. Please.

At least it’s not like Smash 4 WiiU+3ds.

Thank god.

Now for the positives. Onward!

Mythra and Pyra are pretty cool. The stage feels like a reverse rainbow cruise, I like that. The additional music for Xenoblade stages is fantastic. And the fucking phenomenal Torna battle theme in smash is the best thing since Joker came out.

I prefer Mythra over Pyra. Both of them including mythra’s character models are the most lewd characters since Bayonetta. Yes. That is a good thing.

My advice and what may as well be the “Meta”, is uh.....

It boils down to just how badly you want to lose for playing Pyra.

Just pick Mythra. Never Pick Pyra. Never switch to Pyra.

Easy Game.

#super smash bros #smash ultimate #this is my opinion #but it is #a fact #pyra and mythra #big melons #thick thighs #anime ass #your waifu #top tier #fucking #waifu #lol hahaha

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themyskira · 5 years ago

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So....have you read the latest Avengers #20, about the current version of She Hulk? How do you feel about that?

I’ve made a point of avoiding Jason Aaron’s Avengers because I truly can’t stand what he’s done to Jen. He took a character who, for all her more recent traumas, for all she can struggle to balance her legal career with her the pitfalls of being a publicly known superhero, loves who she is and embraces being green wholeheartedly -- he took Shulkie and turned her into Lady Bruce Banner, retiring lawyer whose inner ragemonster is just waiting to break loose. It’s some deep-seated bullshit and I’ve been trying my best to simply wait for it all to pass over.

But it was hard to ignore Avengers #20, because this was the issue where Jason Aaron went right off the fucking rails. I mean, he really went full Aaron Sorkin on his readers, and that isn’t a compliment.

Classic She-Hulk: Charming. Witty. Sensational. The Jolly Jade Giantess. The sassiest super-lawyer in all of Brooklyn. More laughs than a barrel of Deadpools. Fun. For years, that’s how the world described my client. Until the accused came here and flushed all that global adoration down the gamma-irradiated toilet.Jason Aaron She-Hulk: Rrrgh. Objection. Some still like--Judge Jen: Overruled!Classic She-Hulk: The accused would like you to believe she’s not at fault for what happened to my client. That these changes in her personality are the unfortunate side-effect of her new powers, which were awakened inside her by some meddling space giants... and that since that happened she's been doing her best to regain control of herself. To do right by my client and give the world back the gorgeous, green, fun-loving bombshell they know and love. But that’s a complete lie, isn’t it? ... Ladies of the jury, I ask you... is this the face we want to present to the world? After everything we’ve worked to accomplish over the years, is this the sort of muscle-bound downer of a Hulk we want to be?

This sequence takes place in the context of a mental simulation being used by Jen in an effort to build her control over her powers, but in truth it’s just three long and excruciating pages of Aaron taking petty swipes at fans who are unhappy with his portrayal of She-Hulk. Through this exchange, he deliberately frames criticisms of his She-Hulk as shallow, over-the-top and sexist, suggesting that those of us who dislike his barely-recognisable ‘roidmonster Jen simply don’t understand good writing and that we just want a fun sexy green bombshell to wank over.

(Also implicit in this, and indeed throughout the comic, is the view that classic She-Hulk is less meaningful as a character because her comics are frequently humour-oriented. ‘Funny’ is situated in contrast to ‘deep’, ignoring the fact that Jen’s best writers have found room for both, and that Aaron’s She-Hulk fails to be either.)

And that sets the tone for the whole issue. From that point on, the entire comic is just Aaron transparently editorialising that no, you guys just don’t get it, my She-Hulk is better and deeper and more feminist than your She-Hulk.

“I was an omega-level threat in the charm department. I was the Hulk you’d want to have a glass of pinot with. And the craziest part was, my powers, for the most part... made me happy. An incredibly rare occurrence in my line of work. I actually enjoyed being a hero. I loved being the fun Hulk. I loved it a whole helluva lot. So how come I don’t miss it?

“There’s a war on. And the trolls have taken Australia. I’m part of the team that’s taking it back. These trolls come from a faraway realm, but I know their kind. They would’ve laughed at the old me. Made crass jokes even as I was taking them down. This time, nobody’s laughing. And I love it with my all big, green, glowing heart.”

The frustrating thing is, he’s right on the cusp of something genuinely interesting here.

Men who speak angrily and aggressively are apt to be seen as tough, forceful and strong-willed; women who do the same are more often viewed as shrill, nagging, hysterical, bitchy. Many women consciously or unconsciously learn to mask their anger, make ourselves smaller and less threatening. Asserting yourself can be the difference between being seen as the ‘fun girl’ and the humourless bitch.

And the sexual harassment he references -- the sexist jokes, the propositioning, the devaluing of women’s capabilities -- not only are these things that many women, from the most disadvantaged to the most powerful, face to different degrees, they’re relevant on a meta level to the portrayal of women in comics.

All of these themes would be ripe for exploration in the context of classic She-Hulk. Jen is a fun-loving character whose life isn’t governed by rage and the need to control it the way other Hulks are, but that doesn’t mean she can always afford to lose her temper -- as both a woman working in a profession rife with sexism and ‘old boys club’ attitudes, and as a female superhero in the public eye, “you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry” takes on a whole different meaning.

Conversely, we might also think about Jen’s privilege in this regard -- that by virtue of her public profile and influence and general ability to grind men into a pulp without breaking a sweat, she doesn’t face the same level of discrimination as other women. That other women (particularly women of colour and LGBTQI women) don’t have the same freedom to express their anger as she does, not without consequences. And that -- as both the superhero She-Hulk and as the high-profile lawyer Jennifer Walters -- she is in a position to help other women to be heard and ensure that their anger is answered with change.

As for historical sexism in comics, there’s no better antidote to the male gaze than hiring more women and nonbinary people.

None of that seems to interest Jason Aaron. Rather, in defence of his roided-out Girl Bruce, he seems to be saying... what? ‘I have fixed sexism by making Jen so buff that men are too scared to undervalue or sexually harass her’?

(Which, by the way, they still do anyway.)

Next, we get this exchange:

Deadpool: Why’d you stop being funny? I mean, you were really good at it. You were like... me before me.She-Hulk: Rrgh. Rather be free.Deadpool: How’s that?She-Hulk: Free to be ugly.Deadpool: Um, wait, can’t you be both?

So, the implication is that before now, Jen wasn’t “free” to be her whole self -- that she had to be the fun, funny girl to avoid being seen as too angry and threatening.

And aside from the fact that, as I said, I think there are many more nuanced ways to explore this without negating Jen’s characterisation -- this is just lazy goddamn writing. It’s not an idea Aaron has explored up till now, nor is it reflective of the ways in which Jen has been portrayed in the past. It’s just a messy retcon jammed into the story to justify the ‘superiority’ of Aaron’s version of the character. Once again, the writer is speaking through the characters.

We also see Aaron once again implying that being “ugly” -- by which he means physically imposing, buff, not resembling a typical comic book pinup girl -- ‘frees’ Jen from the constraints of sexism, which is full-blown outrageous.

You think that men only sexually harass women they deem attractive? Really? You think that sexism stops at catcalls and underestimation? You think that Jen, a female superhero in the public eye, isn’t going to be subjected to ugly sexist slurs no matter what she looks like? That is as insulting as it is naive.

Later, Aarons-via-Jen engages in some meta-criticism of the fact that She-Hulk has traditionally been portrayed not as a huge, buff ragemonster but as a sexy bodybuilder (and retconning in a shit-ton of sexual harassment while he’s at it, because remember, sexism only affects women society deems conventionally attractive).

“Cousin Bruce said something once, a few years back... about how envious he was of me. How easy he figured I had it. When he hulked out, he became a giant, deformed monster who couldn’t even wear normal clothes. While there I was looking like a bodybuilder who’d just been spray-painted green. I could wear suits, walk down the street without people running and screaming. Teenage boys hung posters of me on their walls. Must be nice, Bruce said to me, to be that kind Hulk.

“I’d never wanted to punch my cousin so bad. And that’s saying something. I told him about the parts of being me that he was oblivious to. About all the times I’d been hit on during team-ups. The bad guys who’d cop a feel when we were fighting. The sleaze ball who published photos of me topless when I was in the Fantastic freaking Four. (I’d really rather you didn’t Google that.) No paparazzi ever followed Bruce around taking photos of his butt while he was fighting the Leader. I told him... looking like a big scary monster didn’t seem so bad to be sometimes.”

And here we really get to the thesis underlying Aaron’s argument, the reason he feels She-Hulk needed a complete overhaul.

Like most superheroines, She-Hulk was shaped by the male gaze. It’s fair to say that played a lot into her original character design as a green Amazonian bombshell, whose appearance and comparative level-headedness stood in stark contrast to the huge, monstrous, rage-driven Hulk whose powers she inherited. Heroines in cape comics are supposed to be ‘fun’ and ‘sexy’ (as judged by the men they were typically being written by and for). Jen’s body has frequently been the subject of titillation and her promiscuity has frequently been the subject of crude humour.

Aaron seems to view this as the flaw at the heart of the character, and it’s something he’s set out to correct -- by making her the gigantic, buff, scary, angry Hulk she was never allowed to be at the outset. Sexism thwarted! Strong Female Character accomplished! Give yourself a pat on the back, Jason.

Except, here’s the thing.

It’s true that Jen has often been depicted through the lens of a male sex fantasy.

It’s also true that many readers have embraced her as a female power fantasy.

As the super-buff, super-strong, seven-foot-tall She-Hulk, Jen doesn’t feel the need to bite her tongue or moderate her opinions or diminish herself out of concern for how others might respond. She doesn’t have to hide her confidence or her sexuality. Through her transformation, Jen gains the freedom to embrace all that she’s been repressing -- the brilliant, witty, brash, assertive, body-confident parts of herself she’s always kept hidden from the world.

In looking at Jen selectively through the lens of sexualised artwork, instances of bad writing and a frankly snobbish undervaluing of humour comics, Aaron zooms right past everything that makes her such an appealing and empowering character to so many readers.

Which brings me right back to Deadpool’s comment earlier in the issue: Can’t you be both?

If your complaint is that Jen is portrayed in a male-gazey, overly sexualised manner that de-emphasises her strength and physical power, hire an artist who will draw her as the buff, badass giantess that she is.

She-Hulk doesn’t need a gamma power-up or a brutish alter ego to be formidable, she’s She-Hulk ffs. And stripping Jen of all her femininity in the process of turning her into a ‘roided-out tank raises some dodgy gendered assumptions in itself.

(For me, Peak Jen is a giant buff green woman in a bright pink designer suit. Not only can she be both, she already was.)

And hey, just gonna throw this one out there again, if your complaint is that since her creation Jen has been predominantly written and drawn from male perspectives for a male audience, resulting in some sexist and oversexualised portrayals, how about you hire some goddamn women and nonbinary people to write and draw her?

This is not the Great Feminist Reimagining of She-Hulk that you think it is, Jason Aaron. This is a slightly more pretentious rehash of that time David Goyer dismissed the character as a “giant green porn star”. You’re trying to ‘fix’ Jen by negating everything that she was previously, which is quite simply bad writing.

And when you find yourself dedicating a full issue of a comic book to calling your readers stupid for not liking your treatment of a character, that feels like a pretty sure sign that you’ve fucked up.

#whoops i tripped and wrote an essay #comics talk #she hulk #jennifer walters #jonsei93

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punkscowardschampions · 5 years ago

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Indie & Rio

Indie: [sends her the posts because no other way she'd see them] Rio: Shit, girl Rio: I was worried it might go down like this Indie: she's so extra Indie: never should have let him in the door Indie: the feds are gonna be hardcore @ it now Rio: Surely she let him out Rio: stupid woman Rio: but that's gonna pale in comparison now so Rio: What's Drew doing about it? Indie: boy was begging for a sick time & i gave it but its on me not him 😒😒 hold ur liquor u tourist Indie: hes flat roofin but other than that no thing to 👀 Indie: it b early tho & we all had a late Rio: They're a 24/7 services though, babe Rio: he'll be wanting to move his stash and generally clear his act up for the visit Rio: you too Indie: is it? on hols too thats a madness Indie: yeah the drum be clear of all his goods like that Indie: idk man mayb its chill like she gonna post that & not post up no harder than Rio: They might take xmas day off maybe but you know Rio: business as usual for all jan 1st Rio: well that's something Rio: maybe, but bitches like that LOVE making complaints about everything so maybe not Indie: she do have that talk to the manager vibe Indie: i done fucked up real didnt i? Rio: big time karen Rio: nah, in the eyes of everyone it's Drew that did Rio: but they won't be able to prove the drugs bit if they're gone so it's not enough to take you, a party gone wrong, bad judgment but maybe we can swing it that he was here somehow Rio: hmm Indie: but like he had mad trust for me & i brought him mad problems Rio: they're grown problems, he's big enough to fix 'em Indie: u too making ur nite go off on a real turn Indie: bet ur boy is bare vexed Rio: you know i'd rather you ring me than let it go more tits Rio: what are big sisters for Rio: but yeah, didn't even see him in the end so he ain't stopped Indie: innit Indie: tell him he can hit me up for something to take off that edge Indie: debts be paid around here Rio: um you ain't supposed to have no thing 'scuse you Rio: there's a plan here Indie: i gots places & heads to trust in Rio: nah, I'll make it up to him, don't worry 'bout that Indie: 😉😉😉 Rio: 😏 shush lil girl Indie: grown problems ur big enough to fix i kno 💋🤤🤤 Rio: so thirsty, go hydrate Rio: know you need to 😘 Indie: rude i got lipsed by bare boys last nite they were rigging dem bottle spins cos im 🔥🔥 dont b tryna put me out Rio: you need to cool off for a minute, bitch Rio: you in trouble Indie: not wit u Rio: yeah, don't push it 😉 Indie: 💔😢😢 dont do me like that on day 1 of the year 🙏🙏🙏 Rio: it started HOURS ago and I was still here with you cleaning blood out the carpet Rio: don't talk to me about day 1s when I'm clearly ride or die Indie: u kno im good for ious & i got mad love Rio: 🧡 Rio: i'm good really Rio: let's sort the actual situation Indie: u gonna charm the social for me? Rio: give it my best Indie: safe ✌✌ Rio: probably the straightest middle-aged lady Rio: so more likely your da will have to get on it Indie: 😂😂😂 Indie: what drew b good for Rio: init tho Indie: we all been knew Indie: he better werk so it works Rio: Sure it won't be too hard, like Rio: even if she ain't all that 😂 Indie: she aint gon b bangin but his exes show he aint need that to chirp on Rio: 👀 Indie: 😂😂😏😏 Indie: can u roll up wit eats im about to die Rio: bit rude to both our ma, like lmao Rio: 'course Rio: bring leftovers Indie: ur ma dont count as no ex cos she ✖ed him out Indie: & my ma got that permanent ✖ so bigger problems than my shade innit Rio: no problems when you an 👼 Rio: fucking hopefully Indie: u my 👼 bringing that energy Indie: that means u can jam Rio: is it? Rio: 😏 Rio: let Ryan know eh Indie: he kno u a 😈 too Indie: how he be livin Rio: mhmm Rio: well he gon' have to wait for now Indie: he gon have beef wit me Indie: soz boyyy Rio: nah we was already beefin' 'fore this Indie: yeah? Indie: what he do? 👀 Rio: nah, what I do more like Rio: you know I'm 😈 Indie: o shit Indie: gimme that 411 Rio: nothing exciting Rio: just be looking too bad to be giving him that much air, you know the drill Indie: hes so hyped for u Indie: its been weeks boy no u cant cuff it Indie: who u think u is Rio: can you blame him Rio: hot property, baby Indie: u did look 💣💣💣 last nite my bad Indie: theres a boy @ school tryna chat @ the rest hes my bf so i feel it fr Indie: boy please DO I LOOK LIKE Indie: not tryna hold ur damn hand Rio: is he cute tho Indie: if he werent he wouldnt be able to chat no thing Indie: 💪 fuck him up Rio: 😂 Rio: gotta 'tect the rep Indie: he kno it tho & its like tell me how 🔥🔥 i am dont b talking on urself all the time Rio: not a mood Indie: innit Indie: dry as Rio: that's boys for you Indie: & he didnt show last nite Rio: playing hard to get or just got parents who give a fuck Indie: year up x 2 so he could come thru the ends whenever Indie: but i 💋 all his mandem so itll hit back Rio: play @ his own game alright Indie: do u think i went too hard tho? Rio: do you want him to be your mans or nah Indie: idk Rio: then it depends Rio: beyond knowing he loves himself, idk how he's vibing Rio: might be too far Indie: hes vibing like hes about me but i Rio: but you? Indie: how do i live that Indie: trust it Indie: drews meshing a new every week he says u gotta keep free on it Rio: works for him Rio: everyone's different Rio: you don't have to trust him yet Indie: mayb hes only about me til i give him something & im not tryna be a show like that Rio: that happens, not gonna sit here and lie and say it don't Rio: you're too young to be thinking on that or worrying Rio: keep him and the rest waiting Indie: yeah okay Indie: gimme a few to have puberty roll up Indie: still waiting on that Rio: it'll happen Rio: not that it's a barrel of laughs, like Rio: nothing to be hyped about Indie: i dont want it Indie: freaky shit going on Rio: unless you gonna stop eating, which unlikely Rio: you fucked, babe, we all are, soz Rio: get boobies though, perks Indie: that best not be you tryna skip on bringing me a meal bitch Indie: bout to hit the afterlife running here like Rio: 🙄 omw you rude ass hoe Rio: like you said, none of us had earlies Indie: omw fr or like when u tell ur mans u @ the club but u still tryin on fits in ur room Rio: like fr when I ever done you like that Indie: dont b starting Indie: ily Rio: 🤞 never Rio: ily more Indie: drews back if u wanna spit at him how to sort his life Rio: i will Rio: he ain't ready for this Indie: resolutions b dashing past this postcode we all avoidin that change Rio: you gotta Rio: sort you both Indie: hey swerve me im good Rio: 😏 Rio: fine i'll focus on your daddy Rio: no love for you Indie: 👼👼🤞🤞 Indie: call him that when you give it & he'll give in Rio: oh you schooling me on how to get blokes to do what I want now Rio: ok miss thing Indie: just him i 👂 what i hear & i kno what i kno Indie: hes here for all that Rio: you poor child Rio: anything grosser than parents going at it 😬 Indie: nah man its nasty & long being under this roof sometimes trust Rio: 🤢 Indie: some of his girls got me tempted to 📱 the social my own self & my ma looking like a saint Rio: that ain't right Rio: negates any buffness he got going on Indie: why lads wanna get on or under ANYTHING?! Indie: true madness Indie: 😂😂😂 Rio: friction 🤷 Indie: yeah but like theres girls out there bringing it & you're gonna hit that Rio: he probably ain't got as much choice as he fronts Rio: lots of grown women ain't about his lifestyle so that leaves him w the younger ones who is Rio: stick at it too long, you get busted, just facts Indie: when you old & so is your baggage 😂😂✌✌ Rio: I mean Rio: I ain't say nothing 😉 Indie: keep that ☮ mama Rio: least he looks p young still Rio: nothing worse than an actual creepy old man dealer Indie: do he? 👴 to me Rio: nah Rio: he only what, 31 Rio: that's no thing to me, gurl Indie: mayb im just 🍋 cos he aint tryna gimme no 💸💸💸 Indie: & he aint caring my head hurts Rio: aw bb Rio: 'round the corner Rio: I'll look after you Indie: 💖💖💖 Indie: u didnt tell me it b like this tho partying Rio: didn't think i had to be that quick with the warnings Rio: next day hurts Indie: always? Rio: 'less you prepare and do it right Rio: it can be bearable Rio: better than you feeling, no doubt Indie: how i do that? school me yeah Rio: 'course Rio: on the to-do list now Indie: we doing the next as a back to school thing so you got a few to bring me up Rio: you best be doing it at some other fucker's gaff and all Rio: giving me grey hairs 🙄 Indie: 😂😂✌✌ Indie: imma make that boy host it Indie: if he love me Rio: You're getting a chaperone regardless Indie: serious? Rio: yeah Indie: 💔💔💔 Rio: don't start like you don't know why Indie: i aint trippin you are tho if u think i want a repeat Rio: what, you too cool for me now? Indie: innit 😏😏😏 Indie: but nah just Rio: you so is Rio: you think imma embarrass you in-front of your mans Indie: he aint gon b my mans if u there Indie: whos 👀 me over u Rio: nah don't be silly Indie: im being real Indie: ur 💣💣💣🔥🔥🔥 Rio: so are you Rio: and I don't think a lad who likes you will be into me Indie: every lad b into u they all chat on u fully 😍😍😍💘💘😍 Rio: sounds like plenty are into you too Indie: 😂😂 it was for the spin Indie: cant pussy out Rio: 😏 mhmm Rio: well I promise you I won't be joining in, like Rio: now come let me in if you got strength to get the door Indie: 💪💪 babyyy Indie: [lets her in cos fuck know what drew is doing, flexing in the mirror probably] Rio: [lol watch him rush out when he realize] Indie: [hears her voice & runs out pretending to be casual] Rio: [oh boy, do not deserve her sorting your life, temporarily, but it's for Indie so] Indie: [bless her she's dying rn & just wants to be snuggled cos literal child] Rio: [give them a sec 'scuse you sir] Indie: [I hate everything about this, Carly didn't die for this] Rio: [just making leftovers] Indie: [drew chatting to her like she's here to hang with him & we all know] Rio: [don't you touch caleb's food bitch] Indie: [is nothing sacred you slag] Indie: [indie just fully lying stretched out on the counter like its a bed like let me die] Rio: [getting a bag of peas or some shit in a tea towel and putting it on her head] Indie: [such a good mum but that don't mean you can step ma her drew] Rio: [not her fault she can converse more like a grown-up than you Indie: [we should send Indie running off to the bathroom no offense Caleb but I'm evil & wanna leave them alone for a sec for the mood] Rio: [shoulda gone to hold her hair but now you can level with him and he can pretend he's a responsible adult lmao] Indie: [& Ryan can be highkey & he can pretend he cares] Rio: [ah the joys]

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monstersdownthepath · 6 years ago

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Bonus Spotlight: Ahriman, the Shadow Across Creation

Neutral Evil Demigod of Destruction, Divs, and Nihilism

Domains: Darkness, Death, Destruction, Evil Subdomains: Catastrophe, Fear, Loss, Rage

The Complete Book of the Damned, pg. 12~13

Obedience: While praying to Ahriman, destroy something of monetary or sentimental value to another person, preferably in front of someone with a strong emotional connection to the item. Alternatively, willingly take 1 point of Constitution damage by flagellating yourself with a barbed lash as you pray to Ahriman. Benefit: Your true alignment becomes masked for 24 hours, or until you perform this Obedience again. Upon performing this Obedience, choose a particular alignment. You read as the chosen alignment to all forms of magical detection, and can fool both items and magic which respond to particular alignments.

just kidding about End of the World Month being over. It can’t be over, not until we talk about this world-ender.

Anyway THIS combo is very, very interesting! To my knowledge, Ahriman is one of the three deities in existence which allows you to mask your alignment, and unless I’m mistaken, is the only method in the game which does so for a full 24 hours without needing a spell slot. It’s not one that will give you an outright power boost like most benefits do, but it makes it much, MUCH harder for Good folk to sniff you out. Be careful, though, because your mask is so thorough and complete that you’re actually vulnerable to spells like Blasphemy and Dictum if you masquerade as alignments that those spells can hurt.

The mask can’t actually be dispelled, either, so anyone scrutinizing you can’t reveal your true alignment unless they keep you from performing your Obedience... But it also means you can’t just ‘pull off’ the mask to avoid being creamed by an alignment-reliant spell that gets hurled at you.

Speaking of the Obedience, though, this is a deceptively simple one to both perform and keep on the down-low. Flagellants are unusual--and often unwelcomed--but not unknown in many societies, and you don’t have to audibly pray to Ahriman as you beat yourself bloody. If you wanted to really push the illusion you could even do so publicly, chanting hymns to other gods as you scar yourself in “their name.” Whether you keep it secret or flaunt your status aloud, you may earn some sour looks, and perhaps you won’t be invited into polite company, but you won’t look evil. Just very, very odd.

The Constitution damage is annoying but not crippling as, say, Charon’s demand that you dull your mind every day, as 1 point of Con damage repairs itself the next time you rest.

The “primary” means of proving your devotion to Ahriman is also deceptively simple, depending on how hard you Murder Hobo your way through a given campaign. You may end up gathering a lot of possessions that mean a lot to other people, and the Obedience doesn’t indicate that they need to be sentimental to someone who’s still alive! So go ahead, shatter that bandit’s sword, which was gifted to him by his father! Destroy that sorcerer’s locket containing a memento of their one love! Desecrate and destroy that altar to Desna! Maybe even in front of the priests! Maybe not that last one if you’re among Good folk, though.

Unless you happen to be projecting a Chaotic Good aura and can convince them that the altar is somehow already desecrated and must be torn down...

It’s not a particularly hard Obedience to do, but it’s definitely finicky to keep doing. At least Ahriman gives you an out in the form of a blood sacrifice!

IMPORTANT NOTE: As Ahriman is neither a Horseman nor a Daemon Harbinger, you cannot take the Souldrinker prestige class to get Ahriman’s Boons early (without DM fiat). You must use the Evangelist, Exalted, or Sentinel prestige classes to get the Boons early, at levels 10, 13, and 16 instead of 12, 16, and 20.

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EVANGELIST

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Boon 1: Ahriman’s Word. Gain Command 3/day, Detect Thoughts 2/day, or Suggestion 1/day

Nice! Command is a decent Baby Save or Suck, and Suggestion is ALWAYS nice to see, but in my opinion the real utility star here is Detect Thoughts. Lock onto invisible foes, sniff out enemies through walls (some walls), read the minds of anyone who fails a Will save... It’s a pretty fun spell! Especially for finding out if anyone has sentimental attachment to any items in the area, so you can hoard them away for later Obediences.

Still, all three of these options are pretty good! Not particularly stellar, but useful.

Boon 2: Unassailable Conviction. 1/day, if you fail a Will save, you may immediately roll again and use the second result. If you succeed the second save, you receive a +2 morale bonus to attack and damage rolls for 1 hour.

This is actually a fairly weak Boon, all things considered... But it will absolutely, 100% save your life at some point. That morale bonus is actually you, the player, in real life breathing a sigh of relief as you wiggle out from under a Dominate, Feeblemind, or Imprisonment. Note that the ability only triggers if you already know you’ve failed the throw, so there’s no real chance of ‘wasting’ this ability preemptively.

The reroll itself is powerful enough that the morale bonus feels kind of unneeded.... But truth be told, despite its strength, when compared to other second Boons this is still pretty weak. You could have at least given it to your followers 2/day, Ahriman!

Boon 3: Force the Lie. 1/day, you may designate any point within 90ft of you to become shrouded by a 30ft mist of crackling black energy. You and other worshipers of Ahriman can see through this cloud with perfect clarity, but all others within the cloud treat it as Obscuring Mist. Creatures in the mist other than you must make a Will save (DC 10 + 1/2 your hit dice + your Charisma modifier) or have all luck, morale, or sacred bonuses they’re benefiting from twisted into a penalty so long as they remain inside the mist. This mist lingers for 1 round/hit dice you possess and cannot be dissipated by winds.

Evangelists of Ahriman just kind of get screwed, don’t they? Being able to drop cover for yourself or allies and screw up enemy ranged fighters is good, yes... But 1/day as a capstone ability? That’s really, really pathetic.

Morale bonuses are fairly common, sacred bonuses get thrown around like candy for Good-aligned folk, but both of them are less common than enhancement and alchemical bonuses, which are seen in more or less every fight with casters and martial characters using magic weapons. I won’t talk about luck bonuses, though; those are so rare I can only really think of two sources... Both of which apply to AC. Suddenly going from +2 AC to -2 AC is a pretty big deal, I’ll admit. Twisting huge benefits into penalties is more powerful than I’m giving credit for, I’ll admit, and the power to do that to everyone in a 30ft spread means that it’s likely more than one victim will suddenly be scrambled by it. I’m probably not valuing as high as I should be, despite the fact that high-level enemies often come pre-packaged with morale, luck, and sacred bonuses, or slap them on themselves if they know a battle is coming.

I probably am. It just seems pretty weak in a vacuum, and no ability operates in a vacuum. Perhaps one of the biggest benefits to this ability is the power to drop it directly onto yourself to grant yourself some impenetrable cover; you can see perfectly through it, but no one else can, and it can’t be blown away or otherwise removed. Amusingly, even against foes who aren’t running with any bonuses that Force the Lie twists around, you can still curse them by slapping your buffs onto them to have them turned to penalties. Just... pray that they fail the saving throw, or prepare to get yelled at by your team for buffing the enemy.

Alright, alright, sorry Ahriman. This ability isn’t that bad. I do like the touch that if you can convert the rest of the party to your nihilistic faith, they can see through the mist as well.

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EXALTED

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Boon 1: Hamper the Righteous. Gain Protection From Good 3/day, Touch of Idiocy 2/day, or Bestow Curse 1/day.

Oof, Bestow Curse? That’s a real nice ability to have tucked away. It IS negated by a save, but it’s a Save or Suck that keeps on sucking with penalties that last permanently until removed. Being able to eternally deny a target half of all turns they’d otherwise take is painful, and if you’re the creative type, you can even whip up curses of your own to plague someone with! Perhaps every time they tell a truth, they have to spend the next 6 seconds screaming. Or maybe they cough up a spider every time they lie. Or maybe their hands twist any weapon they wield back onto themselves.

There’s a lot you can do with the creative freedom Bestow Curse offers.

However, if you’re not a fan of 1/days being negated by successful saves, how about Touch of Idiocy? Sure, it’s a touch-range spell, which I--a lover and player of squishy classes--tend to shy away from, but it offers no saving throw and docks 1d6 Int, Wis, or Cha off the target for 10 minutes/level. It’s unlikely to make much of a difference past level 10 or so... Unless you use it against creatures who have extremely low mental stats anyway, such as most humanoids. It’s a Save or Suck but without the save! Unless you roll a 1. But that’s why you can use it twice!

In an Evil campaign though, the one that really shines here is Protection From Good, a lengthy spell that shields you entirely from the natural attacks of Good-aligned creatures and gives you bonuses to resist the weapons and spells of Good-aligned people. If you’re not in an Evil campaign, or are just Evil vs Evil, then the other two options are much better (I’d personally run with Touch of Idiocy for the potential shutting down of melee people breathing down my neck), but Protection From Good is always a fantastic choice for the times when you plan to launch attacks on the good folk’s towns.

Boon 2: Pierce Obfuscation. You can see perfectly through darkness of any intensity, including that created by Deeper Darkness. 1/day, you may cast True Seeing as a spell-like ability.

You get Darkvision Except Beefier, so beefy that you can see even through the otherwise impenetrable Deeper Darkness. Even if something ELSE gets in your way, you can immediately invoke True Seeing on either yourself or another. Everyone should know the utility of True Seeing by now, hopefully; the power to pierce just about any illusion or magical distortions in the game, utterly ruining the ability for Illusionist casters to do anything fancy.

Still, despite its power and usefulness, this is also an incredibly boring ability. The only real flair you can give it is dropping Deeper Darkness onto yourself and being the only one who can actually see in it, which pairs well with the power to Sneak Attack, either your own (somehow), or by slapping True Seeing onto an ally who can.

Boon 3: Call For Ruin. Once per day, you may call you may call either 1d4+1 Ghawwas, 1d3 Shira, or 1 Sepid Div to your side. You gain telepathy out to 100ft with any Div you summon. They follow your commands perfectly for 1 round per hit dice you possess, but will not perform any action that’s overtly Good, and will not follow any order to save any mortal life aside from your own, and may vanish immediately out of indignity if told to do so.

As we’ll eventually see, this is a powerful ability! No creature on this list is below CR 10, with Ghawwas being amphibious, resilient and poisonous fighters, Shira being powerful front-line brawlers capable of creating their own concealing dust clouds on a whim, and Sepid wielding extremely spooky spell-likes like Disintegrate, Enervation, Hold Monster and Baleful Polymorph. In most situations, calling a Sepid to your side is the best option, as it possesses powerful utility spells, powerful blaster spells, powerful melee abilities, and the ability to Call Debris 3/day to blast everyone in a 40ft circle with 15d6 damage... but both of the other options have their uses.

Ghawwas can all use Hallucinatory Terrain 3/day to scramble the environment (which you or an ally can see through with True Seeng), and the Shira can hurl out Waves of Fatigue 3/day in between their full-attack actions. Shira make excellent tanks as well, granting themselves concealment with their Dusty Pelts until they can close in and rip enemy souls from their body with their Consume Essence. Ghawwas can deliver Strength-damaging poison with every bite attack they make, and in an underwater battle they boil the seas around them to weed out life incapable of handling the heat.

Ahriman is pretty generous with this power, though summoning fiends tends to make your obfuscated alignment impossible to hide any further. I wish summoning the Shira was more reliable (like 1d3+1 or something), but as I said before, getting 1 Sepid is often more powerful than getting lucky rolls on any of the others.

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SENTINEL

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Boon 1: Break the Weak. Gain Inflict Light Wounds 3/day, Death Knell 2/day, or Dispel Magic 1/day.

‘Break the weak’ is right, because Inflict Light Wounds isn’t going to break anything above 3 or 4 hit dice. By the time you get it, it’s maybe useful to patch up any undead in the party or deliver a humiliating final blow to a particular enemy, but beyond that it’s likely not going to get brought out.

Death Knell I’ll forever harp on; it’s a spell with only one real, inflexible use, and it’s only a moderately good one. It deals a finishing blow and grants you a buff for doing so, but sacrificing your turn in the middle of pitched combat to use it can end with you getting walloped by the target’s allies. It is moderately more useful for the frontline Sentinel than a typical caster, though.

Dispel Magic, though, has a thousand and one uses. Getting rid of enemy buffs or glamours, shattering illusions, removing debuffs from an ally, breaking magic locks... It’s a good spell to just have available, even at 1/day.

Boon 2: Serpentine Lash. You gain Weapon Specialization (Whip) and Whip Mastery as bonus feats, even if you do not meet their prerequisites. Whips you wield take on the illusory appearance of a live serpent, and grant you a +2 on combat maneuver checks to trip opponents. If a whip you wield has a +1 enhancement bonus or higher, you may grant it the Dancing Weapon ability as a swift action. You may have your weapon animate for 6 rounds each day; they do not have to be consecutive.

This ability is deceptively useless. If you’re a whip-wielder by nature, you likely already have both Weapon Specialization and Whip Mastery by level 12, and if you don’t, what in god’s name is wrong with you? Did you just roll over and die whenever something with moderately thick skin came along?? Did you devote yourself only to disarming and tripping opponents for everyone else to deal with??? ... Alright that one sounds pretty cool, actually. But still, whips don’t deal lethal damage to their victims and don’t deal damage at all to enemies above certain armor bonuses if you don’t have Whip Mastery, and it can be taken as early as level 2. Waiting until level 12 (or 16 if you didn’t take the prestige class) to learn how to lethally wield a whip is agony.

However, if you’re NOT a whip specialist... That means that you’re unlikely to become one. Ahriman’s sacred weapon is the whip, so a Sentinel of Ahriman doesn’t have an excuse not to have one, but since you’re not specializing with a whip you’re unlikely to break it out in combat when the boring but practical swords, axes, and maces are available.

The Dancing quality is a pretty good enchantment to slap onto a weapon out of nowhere, essentially doubling the number of attacks you make each round, but whips aren’t exactly known for being devastating weapons, and the animated whip doesn’t have your Str/Dex bonus to go along with it and can’t use combat maneuvers, which is what whips are basically for. If you already have a +5 Super Duper Death Whip of Oblivion And Destruction, slapping Dancing onto it can be nice, but enchanted whips are difficult to justify creating and even harder to come by in the wild.

All in all this is a very, very disappointing Boon that more or less reads as “you get a +2 profane bonus to trip combat maneuvers when using a whip. Also, 6/day you can deal maybe 3d3+3 damage to an enemy as a swift action.”

Boon 3: Crush Opposition. 3/day, you may cause a corporeal enemy within 60ft of you to crackle with a black energy that attempts to crush them from every angle. They take 10 damage per hit die you possess, but may reduce this damage by half with a successful Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 your hit die + your Charisma modifier). Creatures killed by this damage are completely obliterated, all of their belongings falling to the ground. All individual items the creature was carrying at the time become cursed for 1 hour per hit die you possess, the curse blighting any nonevil creature holding, carrying, or wearing the item with a stacking -1 penalty on saving throws versus fear and insanity effects.

My jaw dropped when I saw this. This is a significantly beefier version of Szuriel and Trelmarixian’s third Exalted Boon, which respectively allow you to cast a nerfed Implosion, and a regular Implosion.

Implosion itself is a pretty nice spell, letting you put the squeeze on any corporeal target you can see (Constructs and Undead have no get-out-of-jail free card here), but its biggest weakness is that it can only target a particular creature once per cast, and it’s completely negated with a successful save. Not only will Crush Opposition’s saving throw typically be higher than Implosion’s (10 + 1/2 HD + Cha mod vs 10 + 9 + Spellcasting mod), but it still deals half damage even if they DO make their save.

At the time you get it, that means Crush Opposition will do a flat 160 damage to any victim you designate, and 80 damage even if they succeed. 80 will shave off maybe a sixth of a CR 16~20 enemy’s health bar and will outright kill most mooks the instant you hit them with it, letting you focus on the main boss more. Though this ability can only hit, at max, three targets a day... Well, Implosion can only hit a given target once per cast, but Crush Opposition can hit the same person three times. It’s a good trade-off, if you ask me.

The whole ‘all their items get cursed if they die’ bit is more of an amusing add-on than anything that could be potentially useful. Evil folk like you don’t tend to leave survivors that can reclaim the gear of their fallen allies... But maybe you’re not among Evil folk (which is impressive, considering that Good folk tend not to wield live snakes as weapons). Maybe you can convince your party that all that gear is really and truly cursed, but you can uncurse it for them! You’ll just... Hold onto all that loot for a while.

Not very feasible, given that you’ll likely have casters that can uncurse the stuff, but it’s still a potential roleplaying opportunity.

You can read more about him here.

#End of the World Month #body horror #Spiritual Spotlight #Sinister Spotlight #Pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

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8000lp · 6 years ago

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I Topped a Regionals with Noble Knights!

Holy moly I have not updated here in a very long time. I’ll keep this short and let the tournament report do the talking, but hot damn I’ve been playing this deck for what I think is six years now and finally topped at a premier event with it. Anyway! If any of you are still following me and reading my posts, enjoy!

Regionals Report - Finished 5th place, 5 Wins, 1 loss, 1 draw. 90+ people, forget exactly how many people.

Round 1 - 2-0 win vs Danger!Kaiju, lost die roll, went first

This guy pretty much opened the game with “I’m gonna scrub so hard, pretty much gonna lose to everyone” and then I saw him start using Danger stuff and feared for my life but then this happened. Game 1: I open usual stuff, resolve a Borz with two traps in grave along with Isolde, he clears Borz with a Kaiju and then Soul Charges where I start fearing for my life, but he just ends on Borrelguard, Witch and Bigfoot. So y’know, next turn I make King Custennin, bounce, then OTK. Game 2: I have Borz, Brothers and Isolde on field, Excalibur and Gwen and two set MSTs in the Spell/Trap zone along with a set Once Again. He throws Evenly Matched on me, but I just activate Once Again at start of the BP and then MST my own equips so they don’t get banished. He then ends on Hope Harbinger and Wee Witch, after popping Isolde, but I end phase summon something with Once Again, go into King Custennin and then OTK as you do.

Round 2 - 2-0 win vs TD, won die roll, went first

This was against my friend who I played in the online tournament and lost to the other week, so it was good to get some payback! Game 1: Opened Morgan and then a resolved Borz + Isolde, Morgan is so damn good in this matchup. They use their normal summon usually on Batteryman Solar and then, when they go Dragonhawk or Dragonroar to summon from deck/grave/banished, you negate it with Morgan, chain Once Again to summon Drystan, then pop the Solar. Which is what I did here and he couldn’t play beyond that, so I outresourced him. I think he could’ve actually made game though, since I had Isolde and King at one point and exactly 6k life, and if he’d made Borrelsword he could’ve won but didn’t, so y’know. Game 2: He makes me go first, outs my board, but am able to go Custennin > Crash > rank 5 Artorigus, clear his field, summon Eachtar, do wombo combos. Bedwyr is vital to ensuring I resolve Borz this game, as I have to use Borz as material to make the Custennin, then when I crash to make rank 5 Artorigus, I summon Eachtar from grave to use both as material for Isolde, the equips fall off King onto Isolde, then I revive Borz with King, summon Bedwyr off Isolde and use his effect to equip to Borz. We then got into time, I’m sitting on 8300 and he’s on 7400, I’ve got Isolde and three Noble Knights in defence, including Drystan, he’s low on resources but summons the 2800 Thunder Dragon guy and searches Matrix to buff its atk to 3600, he goes into battle phase expecting to attack Isolde until I remind him that he can only attack Drystan. We get into time and I win.

Round 3 - 1-1 Draw, lose die roll, go 2nd Game 1: I suck at die rolls, also bricked with 5 Noble Knights and no equips, so wasn’t able to out ‘Summon Kagari, Set 4 with Multi-Role, pass’ Game 2: Super grindy, opened 2 Traps in grave, Borz, Isolde, King on field, on his turn he has to literally consume all of his resources to out King and Borz but leaves Isolde, only manages to get one Widow Anchor set with Multi-Role. On my turn, I bait it with Arfeudutyr, he steals Isolde, then I summon Medraut off Once Again and then through some combo-combo shenanigans draw about 4 cards with multiple Bros, break what’s left of his field just in case, then put an Iyvanne on board along with the token, another Isolde, King and Drystan and manage to OTK through a Kagari. I used Drystan and Rank 5 Artorigus to kill the Shizuku he left on board and then Drystan to force the Raye out, so Artorigus had 4000 attack, attacked over the 2000 Kagari for 2000, Isolde did 2100, Iyvanne for 1700, Token for 1500 and Drystan for the rest. Game 3: We started siding with about a minute of time left, so the game tied.

Round 4 - 2-1 win vs Danger FTK, lost die roll, went 2nd

Game 1: FTKed Game 2: Resolved Borz, made King and had Morgan in hand, used it to negate an Armageddon Knight and that sorta heavily hampered his combos, as did some correct Danger hits. He resolved Soul Charge, but wasn’t able to FTK, and then next turn I just had to make King Custennin, bounce what was on his field, then rank up into King to OTK (he paid 4000 with Soul Charge and used Zephyros) Game 3: He opens garbo, I open Droll & Lock Bird but also opens Called by the Grave, but still can’t FTK, but does hit me for 1000 with Cannon Soldier before passing. This game really sucked, because for my turn I had literally 1 and a half minutes until time would be called, but I’ve opened the stones and summon four monsters from my hand, make Isolde, he lets it resolve but then bounces it with Firewall, then I summon Artorigus, use Caliburn twice and then it got a little gross, ‘cause I said “Battle phase” just as time was called and he had just Mermaid, Firewall and Cerberus on field. He started disputing it, but didn’t press too much so he allowed the Battle Phase and I won, but it still felt dirty. If he didn’t it would’ve been a draw.

Round 5 - 2-0 win vs Altergeist, lost die roll, went 2nd

Game 1: He opens double Silquitous, a dud trap, Marionetter and Secret Village. I open pretty awesome but also have lots of Spells I need to play, so I resolve the problem the best way possible: SUMMON THE CHIN. I beat over Marionetter with Gawayn and he doesn’t have Manifestation set or Faker in hand, so I can now activate Instant Fusion, Heritage and my Equip Spells, as well as the Shade Brigandine so I make a really solid board with Artorigus and a resolved Borz. He’s not able to come back from that in the slightest. Game 2: He opens double Silquitous AGAIN. He did manage to wall me for a little bit with Secret Village and a Kunquery in hand along with the Silquitous, but without Faker and with MST to destroy Protocol, he isn’t able to keep up.

Round 6 - 2-0 win vs Sky Striker, lost die roll, went 2nd

Game 1: He doesn’t get Multi-Role off, so after a super grindy game with me having no Noble Arms, I survive through 3 Widow Anchors, thanks to being able to summon Eachtar every turn and using Custennin from hand to gain additional normal summons and force him to use all his backrow. Eventually we get to a point where he makes Bomber with Hornet and Anchor set, I MST the Anchor, he then Bombs me when I go for a play with the Hornet Drones, he ends his turn with Raye, no backrow but Multi-Role (forgot to use effect) and the Bomber. I summon Eachtar to Bomber’s zone which forces him to use its effect and blows up his Raye, so then I’m able to make Sacred Custennin and then rank up into rank 5 King and since he’s so out of resources, he scoops despite being ahead by like, 7000 life. Game 2: He opens subpar with 3 sets and a Multi-Role. I start my plays but he flips Shared Ride in response to Isolde. I summoned Borz with Isolde and had Drystan on field, but decided not to use Borz since it would give him another draw, but I had Arfeudutyr to pop the remaining backrow and Destiny to give to Drystan to pop Multi-Role. Next turn I take down most of the board he makes, bring him down to 1100 and then we’re close to time, but for his turn he goes nuts and goes Engage, search/draw, draws Engage, searches, draws THE THIRD ENGAGE and then draws ROTA off the last Engage! I absolutely should have lost this one, but he misplayed and made Ningirsu to send Sacred King to the grave (after stealing 3/4 of my board with Widow Anchors and Shark Cannons), had Ghost Belle and Ash Blossom to negate Artorigus and Once Again, but was only able to hit for 5700 damage when he needed to do 6000 to win. Which is…how much Borrelsword would’ve done if he’d just gone for that instead.

Finals - 1-2 loss vs Sky Striker, lost die roll, went 2nd

This was such a chill game, haha, we were both just so stoked to be in the finals and guaranteed a top, so this game was super fun despite the loss. We also got deck-checked after we drew our opening hands, and mine was awesome and my opponent’s was awful, so kinda wish that didn’t happen but EH

Game 1: He sets two Widow Anchors, I have vanilla Artorigus and Arfeudutyr to play through 1, but not the other, then he just out-resourced me since he stopped my Isolde plays Game 2: Open the good stuff, he can’t out Rank 4 Artorigus, Borz and Isolde with a bunch of equips and two traps in grave and scoops after trying for like, 5 minutes of straight thinking to figure out how to break my board~ Game 3: He realised 2 Widow Anchors worked pretty well game 1 and gets those going with Engage and Multi-Role + Shizuku in the end phase to get the 2 set. I hold out as long as I can, but he hits the right cards with Widow Anchor despite having a few extenders. He also has Ash Blossom in hand which just shuts down my Isolde, so with Multi-Role against my inability to resolve Borz just ends it for me.

#Noble Knight #Noble Knights #Yugioh #Yu-Gi-Oh #Yugioh Tournament #Yugioh Meta #Sky Striker #Altergeist #Danger!#Danger!FTK #Dark World #Dark Worlds #Yugioh Regionals #Yugioh Regional #Last Chapter

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dunamanticarchivist · 6 years ago

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The Munchkin Nein - Mollymawk Tealeaf

Explaining this series

A Mollymawk is a genus of albatross...i honestly have no idea what that means, I am not a taxonomist, I just know it’s something birdy. And I can read wikipedia to get a feel for what they are culturally. Something something sailors and mariners (maybe that explains why he rooms with Fjordy our resident shady sailor)

Anyway, we’re here for the crunch. And admittedly, this character is one of the reasons I got into thinking about this series to begin with, since there has been discussion about how ...well, unimpactful Mollymauk has been in fights. Going to lay out a couple of my thoughts before we actually get into the mechanics.

[Also, edited one day after the post, before M. Mercer decided to whoop dee doo, it’s time to put an end to the naysayers and give the poor Ghostslayer some buffs. And here I was defending Molly as he was; oh well, gonna update the crunch]

First off, if you’re going to compare each character’s output with one another, there can only be one eventual winner and that’s no damn good for anyone. If you compare the options taken as compared to those available, then you’re going to be critiquing on choices and once again, De gustibus non est disputandum, so I’m not gonna go there.

So let’s take a step back and see what Molly has thus far presented himself as and is, from what we can see. I think first and foremost, Mollymauk Tealeaf is a carnie, possibly influenced a great deal by Taliesin Jaffe our pyramidal fey lord and saviour ‘s extensive carnival experience. I will admit, I have never met a carnie, or know what they actually do or are. But from my internet gleaning and perusing (and Talks Machina thank you Brian Cabbage head), I’ve come to think of them as style over substance, highly extroverted and verbose individuals. Competence is optional. Laughter is not. Which really makes for an interesting character, in D&D or real life, I would love to meet a carnie and talk about the meaning of life with them while being as drunk as a sailor on shore leave.

Anyway, back to Mollymauk, there is actually a very recent post on reddit on his actual performance in combat that paints him in a better light, and the usual reddit discussion shenanigans. The one part of that that shifted my view decisively, is the realization that dual wielding is an aesthetic. Molly isn’t a fighter; he isn’t a master swordsman whose blades are an extension of himself nor does he have an instinctive feel for moving his blades in a fashion to cause harm. His scimitars are made out of cheap carnival glass for god’s sake; it's a miracle they haven’t shattered yet. I get a sense that those blades were mostly for show, until they had to be more than that. Still, that isn’t the comfort zone of Molly, who would rather talk and charm his way out of a situation. Which is reflected in his repeated use of Charm Person, Enthrall, and the infamous Vicious Mockery.

So in my opinion, the combat style of Mollymauk reflects his partially revealed backstory. He wants nothing to do with his potentially violent past and is all in on his solely carnival memories. If he could choose, I think he would be a pacifist.

Nonetheless, this is D&D where unless you are an Oath of Redemption paladin, pacifism is not going to be all that attractive since there are so many things that want your hide. So violence it's going to be. With that in mind, that doesn’t always mean you leave behind what you are, going into combat. I can write a whole other series on the human behind the soldier, but that’s for another time, so I’ll just leave this quote from LotR here

“I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend.” -Faramir, The Two Towers

Right so, proper crunch time. Level 5 Tiefling (Devil Tongue Variant), Blood Hunter Order of the Ghostslayer.

Armaments: 2 Scimitars that do 1d6 + 3 (DEX mod) apiece, due to the Two-Weapon fighting style. Two attacks with the main weapon, and using a bonus action, can attack with the second scimitar, giving three strikes tops.

As a bloodhunter, one of the ways to increase your damage output is crimson rites to imbue your weapons with magical damage. In Molly’s case, he has Rite of Dawn and Frozen, to add d4 radiant or cold damage respectively. He will gain an additional option at Level 6, that’s just more versatility, but more importantly the damage die increases to d6 (which on average is worth 1 point more). Having 3 damage types is not really versatile, but not completely one dimensional either. Each rite comes at the cost of 1d4 HP deducted from the maximum that only recovers when the rite is deactivated (he isnt healed by that d4 when max HP returns)

At the moment however, this makes his scimitars 1d6 +1d4 + 3 if activated. As many have pointed out, it takes 1 bonus action to activate each scimitar and Molly only has 1 bonus action each turn. Also, striking with the second scimitar takes a bonus action. It doesn’t help that many of the blood curse options, one of which we do not yet know when Molly leveled to 5, takes up a bonus action as well.

Speaking of blood curses, the one we do know Molly has used is Blood Curse of the Eyeless, which has saved the asses of many of the Nein by inflicting disadvantage on one or two of the incoming attacks. Being a reaction with 60 feet range has contributed greatly to its usability.

Molly’s archetype of Ghostslayer is a situational benefit that contributes a WIS mod to damage undead creatures (+3), at level 11 this will affect all creatures, but for now, only undead creatures will feel this dual wielding sword swinger’s wrath.

[7/6/18 11pm GMT+1 update: Crimson Rite die is now d6 at level 5 bloodhunter, instead of the d4 mentioned above. Also, the Ghostslayer archetype halves the damage suffered when activating Rite of the Dawn. Considering the damage taken also increased, this is a welcome change (though compared to previously, on average, Molly suffers .75 damage less (rounded up to 1) per activation of Rite of the Dawn, though 1 damage more when using Rite of the Frozen. This downside would have happened anyway at Level 6, but now there’s at least a slight improvement.

Also, as part of the update, Molly would have the option to switch out Blood Curse of the Eyeless. I suspect he would, based on more metagaming logic of a greater variety of playtesting. So might bring us up to 2 unknown blood curses. There are many many other fascinating options, and we might see them within 4 hours of this update]

A couple of things grant Molly some durability in combat. He took the Feat “Tough” which gives more HP when levelling, so at Level 5, he already has the highest HP total of the Nein. Also, his AC is listed as 15 which implies either studded leather or chain shirt. That’s probably on the lower end for the Nein, but sufficient for combat (i guess? depends on how hot Matt’s dice are). Finally, he purchased the Periapt of Wound Closure, which stabilizes him if he goes down. Also, when he rolls dice to regain HP, the results are doubled. (I’m unsure if it applies to healing done to him, or just healing he does on himself; if its the former I can already see the disaster tiefling combo come to life).

Edit: I’ve asked around and it appears to be specific to interactions involving self healing with hit dice (d10s for Molly) such as healer’s kit and short rests. Still the point stands.

Regardless, it allows Molly to function like a glass cannon, just like his swords. Yes he’d take hits, but he’ll return the favour, and the difference is that he won’t break, while the monster will eventually be shredded.

And we move onto the Tiefling part of Molly, which mechanically, has 3 spells. Vicious Mockery, Charm Person and Enthrall. All of them involve the target making a WIS save against Molly’s DC 11 [ 8 + 3 (proficiency) + 0(CHA mod)] and if succeeded, the spell does nothing (which has fuelled the perception that Molly hasn’t done much)

The first is a cantrip, while the latter 2 are level 2 spells that can only be cast once per long rest.

For vicious mockery, failing the WIS save causes the target to suffer 2d4 psychic DMG and suffer DISAD on its next attack roll, functioning as a second blood curse of the eyeless. Of note, this and Enthrall, are the only abilities of Molly at >30 to 60 feet ranges, unless he chooses to pick up a rock and throw it. Not very effective, but definitely worth a laugh.

For Charm Person, up to 2 humanoids can be affected. The WIS save is made with advantage if Molly or the Nein are fighting it (debatable if they are being attacked and not fighting back would negate this). Failing the WIS save imposes the “charmed” condition for one hour, unless the spell ends prematurely or they start harming the target. The charmed condition gives advantage to social interactions checks, which with Molly’s CHA mod of 0, would probably be very helpful. Also, for 1 hour, the target cannot attack Molly with weapons or harmful spells

Finally, Enthrall targets visible creatures of choice. The WIS save is made at advantage if in combat. Failing it gives the target disadvantage to WIS (perception) checks on any creature other than Molly for up to a minute. Once again, probably not a combat spell. But Taliesin did use it successfully against the alligators to distract them temporarily from Kiri, so who am I to judge?

The only thing I could think of for these two spells, is possibly to use them together. So while Molly, this colourful spray of bright clothes, tattoos and energy of a tiefling, charms and enthralls a high value target, the rest of the Nein slaughter their guards and entourage.

So there it is, Mollymauk Tealeaf, performer extraordinaire and occasional sword swinger! I personally think that if this is what Molly is, there could be advantages in going full carnie. Make use of that acrobatics proficiency to climb the head of a giant, wield a scimitar in your tail with that sleight of hand +6, hell juggle swords in combat to look threatening and maybe force a WIS save or two to take the heat off of others. The options are endless outside of the book rules and it is up to Taliesin Jaffe to play out this disaster of a tiefling. Hopefully, Matt is kind in these rulings, to reward good RP which is what everyone is here for.

Fortunately, Taliesin is a very experienced D&D player as demonstrated by his extensive knowledge of other character’s abilities (I think he, Matt and Liam together could probably recite half the rulebook and write out the other half by instinct). If I had to make one mechanical optimization choice, for the next ASI, take a +1 to DEX and +1 to CHA to round that score up and get that bonus. It’s also an upgrade without drastically altering the RP choices that can be made.

Thank you everyone who’s reading and liking this series! It’s almost thursday and I’m pretty excited about the next episode like I always am. Maybe even more so now I’ve got a blog. Might liveblog it idk it’s at like 3am in UK when it goes live so depends on my sloppy schedule.

#critical role #taliesin jaffe #bloodhunter #the munchkin nein #cr2 #cr2 spoilers #kinda not really #theorycrafting #mathhammer #power of roleplay #disaster tieflings #mine

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back-and-totheleft · 3 years ago

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"Vietnam as it really was"

Oliver Stone sprang up in bed and found fear staining his sheets. A dream had startled him awake. He was 16 years out of Viet Nam, but in the dream, "they had shipped me back. Somehow they found me at the age of 38 and sent me back. I woke up in a sweat, in total terror." That was two years ago. Now Stone, who earned a Bronze Star and a MASH unit's worth of physical and emotional wounds in the jungles of Viet Nam, has transformed his war experience -- the bad dream he lived through for 15 months in 1967-68 -- into a film called Platoon. With craft, crackle, a little bombast and plenty of residual rage, he has created a time-capsule movie that explodes like a frag bomb in the consciousness of America, showing how it was back then, over there.

Begin with a birth: a baby-faced soldier, Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), is delivered from the womb of a transport plane into the harsh light of Viet Nam. He will find death soon enough: four patrols in the film, four wrenching revelations. On Chris' first night patrol he watches, paralyzed with fear, as the enemy approaches and another new boy dies. On a second patrol the platoon enters a village that might be My Lai; anger goads Chris to spit bullets at the feet of a petrified Vietnamese, and before the day is over the group's leader, Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger), has seen to the slaughtering of villagers before the entire place is torched. During a third battle, Barnes tracks down a woods-wise sergeant, Elias (Willem Dafoe), who had interrupted Barnes' massacre, shoots him and leaves him for dead. On the final patrol Chris flips into heroism or psychosis, wipes out a nest of North Vietnamese and confronts the demon he has almost become. End with a murder -- the last of too bloody many.

Welcome to the old nightmare -- the one neither Stone nor the 2.7 million American soldiers who went to Viet Nam can shake. Welcome back to the war that, just 20 years ago, turned America schizophrenic. Suddenly we were a nation split between left and right, black and white, hip and square, mothers and fathers, parents and children. For a nation whose war history had read like a John Wayne war movie -- where good guys finish first by being tough and playing fair -- the polarization was soul-souring. Americans were fighting themselves, and both sides lost.

Platoon pushes the metaphor further, thousands of miles away from the "world," into the combat zones of Nam. Platoon says that American soldiers -- the young men we sent there to do our righteous dirty work -- turned their frustrations toward fratricide. In Viet Nam, Stone suggests, G.I.s re-created the world back home, with its antagonisms of race, region and class. Finding no clear and honorable path to victory in the booby-trapped underbrush, some grunts focused their gunsights on their comrades. The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese army (NVA) were shadowy figures in this family tragedy; stage center, it was sibling riflery. Stone's achievement is to pound and hack this theme into a ripping yarn about a good man, an evil man and an Everyman -- a young, romanticized Oliver Stone -- suspended between them with his life and ideals in the balance. In vivid imagery and incendiary action, Stone's film asks of our soldiers, "Am I my brother's killer?" The answer is an anguished yes.

And a resounding "you bet" to the question, Can a ferocious movie about an unpopular war, filmed on the cheap with no stars and turned down by every major studio, find success, controversy and the promise of an Oscar statuette at the end of the tunnel? In its early limited opening, Platoon is already a prestige hit, and the film shows signs of becoming a blockbuster as it opens across the country over the next three weeks. It has captivated intellectuals, movie buffs and urban grunts -- astonishing, across-the-board appeal for a hellacious sermon. It has ignited a fire storm of debate, from political swamis and Viet vets, on its merits as art and history. It is the fountainhead for a freshet of Viet Nam exploration: We Can Keep You Forever, a BBC documentary about the mystery surrounding MIAs, will be aired Wednesday in 21 U.S. cities, and this spring will see two new movies set in Viet Nam, The Hanoi Hilton and Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. In a movie season of Trekkies, Dundees and dentist-devouring houseplants, Oliver Stone has proved that a film can still roil the blood of the American body politic. Platoon the picture is now Platoon the phenomenon.

It is a picture first and foremost, a series of pictures that lodge in the mind with other indelible images of war. The prop wash from a landing helicopter blows the tarpaulins off three bodies, their shrouds torn off, their makeshift graves defiled. In the village, after the slaughter, the soldiers carry Vietnamese children on their shoulders -- G.I. Joes, big brothers to the kids whose village they have just destroyed -- and the soldier who bashed a man's head takes a tourist snapshot of the holocaust. More than any other film, Platoon gives the sense -- all five senses -- of fighting in Viet Nam. You can wilt from the claustrophobic heat of this Rousseauvian jungle; feel the sting of the leeches as they snack on Chris' flesh; hear all at once the chorus of insects, an enemy's approaching footsteps on the green carpet and Chris' heartbeat on night patrol. The film does not glamourize or trivialize death with grotesque special effects. But it jolts the viewer alive to the sensuousness of danger, fear and war lust. All senses must be alert when your life is at stake, and Oliver Stone is an artist-showman who can make movies seem a matter of life and death.

Until Dec. 19, though, when Platoon opened, Hollywood had thought the picture a matter of indifference. It had taken Stone ten hungry years to get the project going. "For two years in the late '70s," says Producer Martin Bregman, "I banged on every door in California to get it done, but at that time Viet Nam was still a no-no." Tom Berenger, the film's showcase psychopath, imagines that "it must have made Stone feel like an old man, carrying the project around for so long. He said it broke his heart." Then something interesting happened: people went for Platoon. Most critics were impressed, many were impassioned, and even those who trashed the picture helped make it the season's top conversation piece. Soon long lines were forming outside the movie's Times Square flagship -- at lunchtime, on weekdays, in the hawk bite of a January wind -- and after midnight in early- to-bed Hollywood. In 74 theaters on the Jan. 9-11 weekend, Platoon averaged more than $22,000, the highest per-screen take of any new film.

In the industry, Stone's old colleagues and fellow directors have laid on their benedictions. Woody Allen calls it a "fine movie, an excellent movie." Says Steven Spielberg: "It is more than a movie; it's like being in Viet Nam. Platoon makes you feel you've been there and never want to go back." James Woods, who starred in Stone's previous film, Salvador, calls him an "artist whose vision transcends politics. Everyone from the ex-hippie to the ex-grunt can be moved by Platoon. And his passion isn't bogus -- he doesn't play Imagine at the end of the film to break people's hearts." Brian De Palma, who filmed Scarface from a Stone script, sees him achieving a volcanic maturity in Platoon: "He has now channeled his feeling and energy into a cohesive dramatic work. He's an auteur making a movie about what he experienced and understands. Seeing Platoon get through the system makes the soul feel good."

With its critical, popular and insider acclaim swelling, Platoon began to shoulder its way toward the front rank of Oscar favorites. By now it would have to be counted as the front runner, and Hollywood is furrowing its back with self-congratulatory pats for making this big bold message movie. To Stone, Hollywood's claim of paternity for Platoon must seem a rich joke. He and Hollywood both know that Platoon -- like The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, The Boys in Company C, The Killing Fields and nearly all the serious movies about the war in Southeast Asia -- secured its major financing from foreign producers. "It was a picture we wanted to support," says John Daly, chairman of Britain's Hemdale Pictures, which also produced Salvador. "We respect Oliver's passions. Besides, he spent only $6 million on Platoon" -- about half the budget of a typical Hollywood film.

The typical film, though, does not provoke a political free-for-all. Many conservatives have taken up arms against Platoon. In the far-right Washington Times' Insight magazine, John Podhoretz castigates it as "one of the most repellent movies ever made in this country." The film, he says, "blackens the name and belittles the sacrifice of every man and woman who served the United States in the Viet Nam War (including Stone)." Politicians are eager to return the salvos. Former Senator Gary Hart, aware of the electorate's fondness for presidential candidates with movie credentials, campaigns for the film by urging that "every teenager in America should see Platoon."

Now ask a man who's been there: David Halberstam, who covered the war for the New York Times and, in The Best and the Brightest, documented two Administrations' slides into the Big Muddy. "Platoon is the first real Viet Nam film," Halberstam proclaims, "and one of the great war movies of all time. The other Hollywood Viet Nam films have been a rape of history. But Platoon is historically and politically accurate. It understands something that the architects of the war never did: how the foliage, the thickness of the jungle, negated U.S. technological superiority. You can see how the forest sucks in American soldiers; they just disappear. I think the film will become an American classic. Thirty years from now, people will think of the Viet Nam War as Platoon."

Neither Sly Stallone nor Oliver Stone can put the whole picture of Viet Nam on a movie screen. There were 2.7 million stories in the naked jungle. Each veteran has his own view of the war, and each will have his own vision of Platoon. More than a few are disturbed by its presentation of a military unit at war with itself. Says Bob Duncan, 39, who served in the 1st Infantry at the same time Stone was in the 25th: "He managed to take every cliche -- the 'baby killer' and 'dope addict' -- that we've lived with for the past 20 years and stick them in the movie about Viet Nam." Says another veteran, Nick Nickelson, 43: "I hope this doesn't bring back those old depictions. God help us, I don't want to go back into a closet again."

Other vets deny the prevalence of dope smoking and the depiction of military officers as either psychos or cowards. But John Wheeler, 42, a veteran who is president of the Center for the Study of the Viet Nam Generation in Washington and chairman of the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial Fund, argues that "there were drug cultures; there were green lieutenants. Stone wanted to clean out the festering part of the wound. The next Viet Nam movie may be the one that tells the whole truth: that we were the best-equipped, best-trained army ever fielded, but against a dedicated foe in an impossible terrain. It was a state-of-the-art war on both sides. But Platoon is a new statement about Viet Nam veterans. Before, we were either objects of pity or objects that had to be defused to keep us at a distance. Platoon makes us real. The Viet Nam Memorial was one gate our country had to pass through; Platoon is another. It is part of the healing process. It speaks to our generation. Those guys are us."

Listen to these guys, and you may suspect that Platoon is not so much a movie as a Rorschach blot. But that is part of the caginess of Stone's approach. The French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard once wrote that when a good film is also a popular film, it is because of a misunderstanding. Platoon could very well be misunderstood into superhit status. The army of Rambomaniacs will love the picture because it delivers more bang for the buck; all those yellow folks blow up real good. Aging lefties can see the film as a demonstration of war's inhuman futility. Graybeards on the right may call it a tribute to our fighting men, in whatever foreign adventure. The intelligentsia can credit Platoon with expressing, in bold cinematic strokes, Stone's grand themes of comradeship and betrayal. And the average youthful moviegoer -- too young to remember Viet Nam even as the living-room war -- may discover where Dad went in the 1960s and why he came home changed or came home in a body bag.

"In any other war, they would have made movies about us too. Dateline: Hell!, Dispatch from Dong Ha, maybe even A Scrambler to the Front . . . But Viet Nam is awkward, everybody knows how awkward, and if people don't even want to hear about it, you know they're not going to pay money to sit there in the dark and have it brought up." So wrote Michael Herr in Dispatches, published in 1977, a year before the first spate of Viet Nam dramas. (The mid-'60s had offered a couple of World War II wheezes disguised as topical films: A Yank in Viet-Nam, so poorly received that it changed its name to Year of the Tiger, and John Wayne's hilariously wrongheaded The Green Berets, with its famous climax of the sun setting in the east.) 1978 brought three pictures -- Coming Home, The Boys in Company C and The Deer Hunter -- that touched on Viet Nam, and the following year Francis Coppola released Apocalypse Now.

Trouble was, most of these films were not about Viet Nam. Coming Home was a disabled-vet love story -- The Best Years of Our Lives with Jon Voight in the Harold Russell role. The Deer Hunter was . . . well, what was it? An incoherent parable about male bonding through Russian roulette. Bats and beautiful, it stood like Ishmael on the prow of its pretensions and declared, "Call me masterpiece." Apocalypse Now was fine as long as it accompanied its doomed, questing hero (played by Martin Sheen, Charlie's father) upstream on the River Styx; then it fogged off into fantasyland with Marlon Buddha. Only Company C, a standard-issue war film about recruits betrayed by their incompetent officers, spent much time in a Nam combat zone. But it really resided, with The Green Berets, in the twilight zone of World War II gestures and bromides.

Hollywood (and not just Hollywood) refused to see that Viet Nam was different. All the old givens -- beau geste, military master plans, unswerving belief in the officer class -- were fatally irrelevant to a guerrilla war. Forget the World War II narrative line of tanks and tactics, which moved with the ponderous sweep of a Golden Age Hollywood plot. Viet Nam, set in jungles without beginning or end, was a flash of episodic, aleatory explosions; it was modernism brought to war. And a new kind of war demanded a new look at the war-movie genre. Platoon fills the bill. It is a huge black slab of remembrance, chiseled in sorrow and anger -- the first Viet Nam Memorial movie.

Though Platoon is a breakthrough, it is not a breakaway. The film is traditional enough to connect with a mass audience. In its story line it holds echoes of Attack!, Robert Aldrich's 1956 psychodrama, in which a World War II infantry company is torn by a mortal struggle between two officers -- one messianic, the other deranged -- while a young man's loyalty hangs in the balance. Platoon's narration, in the form of Chris' letters to his grandmother, is often as stilted and redundant as silent-movie title cards. When a naive new boy shows Chris a photo of his sweetheart, you just know that, in the best '40s-movie fashion, the guy's a goner.

There are darker currents, too, of a passive racism. The black soldiers are occasionally patronized and sentimentalized; they stand to the side while the white soldiers grab all the big emotions. And the Vietnamese are either pathetic victims or the invisible, inhuman enemy. In the scheme of Platoon (and not just Platoon) they do not matter. The nearly 1 million Vietnamese casualties are deemed trivial compared with America's loss of innocence, of allies, of geopolitical face. And the tragedy of Viet Nam is seen as this: not that they died, but that we debased ourselves by killing them.

Of course, Platoon need not be every possible Viet Nam film to be the best one so far. It is enough that Stone has devised a drama of palpable realism that is also a metaphor for the uncivil war that raged in the U.S. and can flare up anytime in any family. Indeed, at the film's molten core is the tug of wills between two strong men, outsize figures of shameless strutting charisma, for parentage of their platoon and for their new recruit, Chris. Barnes, the staff sergeant, could be Chris' legal father; Elias, the romantic renegade, could be a spiritual father, even after his death. They are like Claudius and the Ghost wrestling for Hamlet's allegiance.

Both men are legendary soldiers who have survived long years in Viet Nam -- Elias by a kind of supernal sylvan grace, Barnes by simply refusing to die. Elias is Jesus crossed with Jim Morrison. He will literally take a load off Chris' shoulders, or share a fraternal toke with Chris through the barrel of a rifle, or moon over the night stars, or smile ingenuously at his killer. He is hard to know and harder to destroy, a creature of Stone's wild literary sentiment. Barnes, who says of some fresh corpses, "Tag 'em and bag 'em," has no sentiment at all. When he pulls a steaming metal shard out of a wounded G.I.'s side, it seems as much to display his expertise as to relieve the man's pain. He will do anything to achieve his objective: lead a suicide mission or send his rival on one; murder a village woman in cold blood or taunt his men toward murdering him. Chris, who feels an irresistible kinship to both men, says they were "fighting for possession of my soul." The film's most controversial question is, Who won?

At this point, readers who have not seen Platoon are excused for the next two paragraphs. The others, the grizzled vets, can ponder Chris' motives and actions at the film's climax. He believes (and we know) that Barnes has killed Elias in the jungle. He has already considered taking murderous revenge and been told, "The only thing that can kill Barnes is Barnes." On his last patrol, Chris' suicidal resolve turns him into a mean, obscene fighting machine -- a rifle with a body attached, as reckless as Barnes, as resourceful as Elias -- and he leaves half a dozen NVA in his wake. Now Barnes finds Chris and is ready to kill him when a blast knocks them unconscious. Later Chris revives and finds the injured Barnes ordering him to get a medic. The young man lifts his weapon and, when Barnes says, "Do it," does the bastard in.

In the movie theaters, this illegal shooting usually gets a big hand. Righteous vengeance. Good guy kills bad guy. It is the kind of movie catharsis that may make Platoon a megahit. But can Chris or the audience take moral satisfaction in this deed? Which "father" has he followed? Has Chris become like Elias, back from the grave to avenge his own murder? "You have to fight evil if you are going to be a good man," Stone says. "That's why Chris killed Barnes. Because Barnes deserved killing." Or has he emulated his enemy? Has he become Barnes in order to kill him? Stone has another answer: "I also wanted to show that Chris came out of the war stained and soiled -- all of us, every vet. I want vets to face up to it and be proud they came back. So what if there was some bad in us? That's the price you pay. Chris pays a big price. He becomes a murderer." A good man, and a murderer? It is a tribute to Platoon's cunning that it can sell this dilemma both ways, and a mark of Stone's complexity that he can argue either side and believe both.

The dichotomy was bred in him. Stone was born in 1946, the only child of a Jewish stockbroker and the French Catholic girl he met just after V-E day while serving as a colonel on Eisenhower's staff. Lou Stone wrote a monthly newsletter about economics and politics; his son describes the style as "right-wing Walter Lippmann, a view of the world every month. My father believed that life was hard. The important thing was to make a living." Jacqueline Stone was just the opposite: inexhaustibly sociable, the original bete de fete. "My mother loved movies," Stone says, "and every Monday I'd play hooky, and we'd go see two or three movies. From the start, I had the contradiction in me: my mother's outgoing, optimistic, French side and the dark, pessimistic, Jewish side of my father."

The Stones lived in Manhattan town houses and Stamford, Conn., homes; Oliver went to Manhattan's tony Trinity School and the Hill School in Pottstown, Pa.; he summered with his maternal grandparents and spoke French before he learned English. (From Viet Nam, Oliver would write his grandmother versions of the letters that Chris reads in Platoon.) At five he composed skits for a marionette show, casting his French cousins in the parts. At seven he wrote stories. To earn a quarter for a Classic comic book, he would write a theme each week for his father. And at nine he started work on a book, 900 pages about his family and his life.

Oliver stopped writing the book when he was twelve; the family stopped when Oliver was 16. "The news of their divorce came as a total shock," Stone recalls. "The Hill School headmaster was the one who told me. And when they were divorced, my father gave me the facts of life. He told me that he was heavily in debt. He said, 'I'll give you a college education, and then you're on your own. There's literally no money.' "

Lou Stone never recovered financially. "And yet," his son says, "I think his reversal helped push me to leave my privileged childhood behind. I finished Hill and spent a year at Yale, but I saw myself as a product -- an East Coast socioeconomic product -- and I wanted to break out of the mold. Then I read Lord Jim. Conrad's world was exotic and lush; it exercised a tremendous allure for me." It also propelled Oliver into a teaching job at a Chinese Catholic school in a Saigon suburb. It was 1965, the year a half million Yank soldiers landed in Viet Nam, and Stone was 18 years old. "I woke up in Asia," he says, "and it became an orphan home for me. It was everything I thought it would be: the heat, the green seas, the bloodred sunsets. In Saigon, the G.I.s from the 1st Infantry Division were just arriving. There were guys walking around with pistols, no curfews, shoot-outs in the streets. The place was like Dodge City."

Itinerary for a young wanderluster: on a merchant marine ship from Saigon to Oregon; in Guadalajara, Mexico, writing 400 pages of a novel; back to Yale, then dropping out a second and last time to concentrate on his writing. The book was now 1,400 pages. "It started out as a boy's suicide note -- not that I was going to commit suicide, but I was very depressed. It was Jack London- type experiences in a Joycean style. Totally insane, with great passages of lyricism here and there. I thought it was the best thing since Rimbaud. And when Simon & Schuster rejected it, I gave up. I threw half the manuscript in the East River and said, 'My father is right. I'm a bum.' I felt the solution was total anonymity. I had to atone. So I joined the Army. They'd cut my hair, and I'd be a number. To me the American involvement was correct. My dad was a cold warrior, and I was a cold-war baby. I knew that Viet Nam was going to be the war of my generation, and I didn't want to miss it. I must say, my timing was impeccable." If the young man had failed as Rimbaud, he might make it as Rambo.

Nope. "My first day in Viet Nam," Stone says, "I realized, like Chris in Platoon, that I'd made a terrible mistake. It was on-the-job training: Here's your machete, kid; you cut point. You learn if you can, and if not you're dead. Nobody was motivated, except to get out. Survival was the key. It wasn't very romantic." Each of the three combat units he served in was divided into antagonistic groups, as in the film: "On one side were the lifers, the juicers ((heavy drinkers)) and the moron white element. Guys like Sergeant Barnes -- and there really was a sergeant as scarred and obsessed as Barnes -- were in this group. On the other side was a progressive, hippie, dope- smoking group: some blacks, some urban whites, Indians, random characters from odd places. Guys like Elias -- and there really was an Elias, handsome, electric, the Cary Grant of the trenches. They were out to survive this bummer with some integrity and a sense of humor. I fell in with the progressives -- a Yale boy who heard soul music and smoked dope for the first time in his life."

Most of Platoon's starkest events come from Stone's backpack of Viet Nam memories. "I saw the enemy for the first time on my first night ambush," he recalls, "and I froze completely. Thank God the guy in the next position saw them and opened up. The ensuing fire fight was very messy. I was wounded in the back of the neck -- an inch to the right and I'd have been dead -- and the guy next to me had his arm blown off." He emptied his rifle clip at a man's feet, as Charlie does in the movie. "He wouldn't stop smiling," says Stone, "and I just got pissed off and lost it. But I did save a girl who was being raped by two of the guys; I think they would've killed her. I went over and broke it up. Another kid -- he's like Bunny ((Kevin Dillon)) in the movie -- clubbed this old lady to death and then kind of boasted about it. We killed a lot of innocents."

The battle at the end of the film was based on a New Year's Day skirmish less than a mile from the Cambodian border. "They hit us with about 5,000 troops that night. They laid bombs right on top of us; we dropped bombs right on them. It's possible that our high command was using us as bait to draw the Viet Cong out so we could inflict heavy casualties. We lost about 25 dead and 175 wounded; we killed about 500 of them. Their bodies were scraped up by bulldozers, just like in the movie. For that battle our platoon was on the inner perimeter, but two weeks later we went back into the same area and got hit by an ambush, like the one that gets Elias. We took about 30 casualties, and I don't think we got one of them."

For all the horrors of his season in hell, Stone admits he got what he went for, as a budding artist ravenous for material in the raw: "I saw combat at the ground level. I saw people die. I killed. I almost was killed. Almost immediately I realized that combat is totally random. It has nothing to do with heroism. Cowardice and heroism are the same emotion -- fear -- expressed differently. And life is a matter of luck. Two soldiers are standing two feet apart. One gets killed, the other lives. I was never a religious person -- I was raised Protestant, the great compromise -- but I became religious in Viet Nam. Possibly I was saved for a reason. To do some work. Write about it. Make a movie about it."

It would take Stone almost a decade, until 1976, before he could write the script of Platoon, and another decade to put it on the screen. But first he had to take his high, wired act on the road. The same month he arrived back from Viet Nam, he was busted for carrying an ounce of marijuana across the Mexico-U.S. border, and called his father, saying, "The good news is that I'm out of Viet Nam. The bad news is that I'm in a California jail, facing five to 20." Stone says his father helped get the charges dropped. "That was my homecoming," he says. "I got a true picture of the States. I hated America. I would have joined the Black Panthers if they'd asked me. I was a radical, ready to kill." Back home his mother noticed the change: "As a little boy he was impeccable. He had his valet; his closet was immaculate. But when he returned he was a mess, always leaving things on the floor. He was a different boy."

And now an unsolicited testimonial: "I know it sounds corny, but I was saved by film school." He enrolled at New York University on the G.I. Bill. "To be able to study movies in college, it was any movie buff's dream. It was cool too, like studying to be an astronaut. Martin Scorsese was my first teacher. He was like a mad scientist, with hair down to here. He was someone on an equal wave of nuttiness. And he helped channel the rage in me." Stone made a short film for Scorsese's class called Last Year in Viet Nam, about a vet wandering the New York streets; in another, Michael and Marie, Oliver's father played the victim. "Oliver was alienated, sarcastic and brooding," says his film-school friend Stanley Weiser, who is collaborating with Stone on a script about Wall Street crime. "A real macho man who carried the torture of Viet Nam with him but never talked about it."

In 1971 Stone graduated and married a Lebanese woman working at the Moroccan delegation to the United Nations; they divorced five years later. He wrote eleven scripts in his spare time, directed a low-budget Canadian thriller called Seizure, and in 1975 got an agent through the graces of Screenwriter Robert Bolt. A year later, as the tall ships clogged New York harbor, Stone sat down and wrote Platoon. "Essentially what I wanted to say was, Remember. Just remember what that war was. Remember what war is. This is it. I wanted to make a document of this forgotten pocket of time. I felt Viet Nam was omitted from history books. Like a battle I fought in during the war: a lot of people got hurt that day, and it wasn't even listed as a battle by the Army, as if they didn't want to admit the casualties we suffered. The script I wrote is pretty much the one I shot ten years later. But no studio wanted to make it; it was too 'depressing' and 'grim.' So I buried it again, figuring that the truth of that war would never come out because America was blind, a trasher of history."

A wild man who becomes a witness: that was Oliver Stone reborn. As he scythed his way through the Hollywood jungle, Stone earned the rep of a specialist with a social agenda. Four of the scripts that bear his name -- Midnight Express, Scarface, Year of the Dragon and 8 Million Ways to Die -- cataloged the seductive evils of the drug trade. Stone's third feature as writer-director (after Seizure and, in 1981, The Hand) laced his usual hip rants on pharmacology with a smart, anguished newsphoto montage of one more Third World nation torn by civil war and shadowed by the looming hulk of American weaponry. This was the gallivanting political melodrama Salvador. Stone dedicated the film to his recently deceased father. "I remember one conversation we had right before he died. He said, 'You'll do all right. There'll always be a demand for great stories and great storytellers.' So finally he forgave me for going into the film business."

In Salvador, Stone was learning to wind the cinematic mechanism until it coiled with productive tension, both on the screen and on the set. "Working with Stone was like being caught in a Cuisinart with a madman," James Woods opines. "And he felt the same about me. It was two Tasmanian devils wrestling under a blanket. But he's a sharp director. He starts with a great idea, delegates authority well, scraps like a street fighter, then takes the best of what comes out of the fracas." Says Dale Dye, the Marine captain who hazed Platoon's actors to firm them up for filming: "Oliver thrives on chaos, throwing together a crew of such diverse backgrounds and ideologies that there's constant friction. It's the kind of energy he thrives on." Platoon's star, Charlie Sheen, 21, found the director "brutally honest. Which is why we clicked. After a scene he'd say, 'You sucked' or 'You nailed it.' That's just my style."

Right now Stone is Hollywood's hot new guy. He is even entertaining the improbable idea of a Platoon TV series. But don't expect Stone to direct Indiana Jones III. Says Stanley Weiser: "Oliver's been around the block ten times and won't be seduced by money. He's not an easy lay." Stone and his second wife, Elizabeth, 37, look the family-album picture of swank domesticity in their Santa Monica home. They swore off drugs a few years ago, and now seem addicted only to each other and their little son Sean. "Success and Sean have made Oliver much mellower," Elizabeth notes. "But he's still a compulsive worker. Always reading or writing, he simply loves ideas. He's filled with them, and he's thrilled with them."

One suspects that the old troublemaker will find new trouble spots in the political landscape; the soapbox spieler will continue his spellbinding harangues. His mind and moral sense are too restless to relax in the glow of celebrity and the promise of statuettes. But for the moment, Oliver Stone has found for himself the one plot twist he would never have put in Platoon: a happy ending to his Viet Nam nightmare.

-Richard Corliss, Time magazine cover story, Jan 26 1987 [x]

#oliver stone #platoon #the vietnam war #time magazine #cover story #ptsd #richard corliss

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annsparksthegmr · 7 years ago

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Dangan Thieves AU - The First Palace

Many thanks to @ministarfruit for the design of Shadow Chisa and @shsl-shipper-gamer-fangirl for helping with the brainstorming this idea. (I swear our obsessive minds for this AU come up with might not let it die anytime soon). As you can from the title, I did end up writing a summary of the first Palace in the Au would be. The reasoning for Chisa was not only was the artwork amazing but it would work as an excellent introduction from a story standpoint. Also, there will be additional information and lines to be added or edited by Fanfic Mom herself, so stay tuned to when that’s added on. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy the 1st Palace of the AU.

1st Palace - Circus Palace

Keywords: Chisa Yukizome, Hope’s Peak Academy, Circus

“Playable” Thieves: Hajime, Izuru (briefly), Chiaki and Monomi/Usami (Not actually playable, but there)

The world within the Metaverse created by Chisa Yukizome. The Palace transforms Hope’s Peak Academy into a circus, reflecting Chisa’s Distorted Desire to protect her students but somewhere down the road, it got twisted with methods. While traversing through the Palace, each floor has shadows wear different masks depending on what level you’re on. There are four main floors in Palace: a clown level/floor, a human performer level/floor, an animal level/floor and then the show floor where you’ll find the Treasure and fight the boss of the dungeon. A main mode of transportation is on the trapeze wire and cannons scattered throughout. Other additions would be a puzzle involves them flying through rings of fire to a house of mirrors.

The boss battle between the Dangan Thieves and Shadow Chisa starts when the Treasure - an extravagant top hat - is taken away due to Shadow Chisa planning their arrival. As stunning evil, Shadow Chisa challenges the thieves to battle her for the treasure as she deems that the only way to eliminate them is through putting a show on. Snapping her figures, the dim lights turn out to reveal a cognitive audience and the boss reveals her whip while wearing the Treasure upon her head. Having a tiger come around, a metal cage surrounds them and the battle begins as she sits upon the wild beast.

Boss battle tactics begin with her summoning Shadows you’ve fought throughout the Palace to come to her aid while she remains out of reach. The main gimmick of the battle is with the cognitive audience watching the battle unfold; whenever Chisa gets the audience riled up through getting damage upon the Thieves or stylishly dodges their attacks after she makes a remark, the audience will cheer due to the “trick” and buff Chisa and the Shadows while debuffing the Thieves in the process. Only through sending Chiaki to perform a trick can the audience start to buff the Thieves and debuff the enemies. After a few times using that method, Chisa gets very pissed off and joins the battle, finally losing it and transforming into true Shadow form. (The form is based on Sati but she’s still riding the tiger and her main weapon is a whip on fire now).

The cognitive audience gimmick still goes on, but Chisa can pretty much activate it every turn since she can now have two actions per turn - one to buff her and the other to attack or order any remaining Shadows on the field. Getting her down to the last fourth of her health, Shadow Chisa will have had enough and prepares her final move. Being a devastating move, it manages to knock out Chiaki in a single blow without fail and Shadow Chisa prepares to finish off Hinata. Just before the final blow strikes Hajime to end the fight, a sudden surge of power has his awakening to Izuru, who negates the final blow much to Shadow Chisa’s dismay. In a single attack Izuru finishes off Shadow Chisa - and at this point, Blackjack replaces Ace for the time being - which results in the audience silently fading away by walking out after the Treasure falls off and in front of the Thieves. Emotionlessly, Izuru walks over and points the gun at Shadow Chisa’s head as she cries about her defeat and how she wished to be spared. Thankfully, Chiaki regains not long before the trigger is pulled and manages to intervene by stepping between him and the Shadow. Due to his boredom, Izuru vanishes and Hajime returns with no recollection of what happened prior.

Begging for her life, Shadow Chisa begrudgingly gives up the Treasure as Chiaki and Hajime tell her all the terrible things the regular Chisa had been doing to them and others. Distraught, the Shadow asked them how she could fix anything that she had done and neither of them truly had an answer. Suddenly, Monomi comes up with the idea that it is possible that by having Shadow Chisa return to the real one, something good might come of it… despite not knowing if it can work and only remembering that one little detail now. Not exactly wanting to actually shoot the Shadow and possibly cause something worse, they convince Shadow Chisa to return to the regular and the Shadow does so. Now with the Treasure in hand and no longer occupied by Shadow Chisa, the Palace begins to collapse. With the help of Monomi turning into a bus just then, the group escapes and return to the real world - Monomi appearing there as a cute little pet bunny. There, it is revealed that the Treasure in the real world was the group photo Chisa had taken of Chiaki’s entire class framed. Not really knowing what to do afterward, they have no other choice but to wait and see if anything changes with Chisa.

#dangan thieves AU #Dangan Ronpa #dangan ronpa 3 #danganronpa 2 #chisa yukizome #yukizome chisa #hajime hinata #hinata hajime #chiaki namani #nanami chiaki #monomi #usami #crossover #persona 5 #wow these are long tags

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downtroddendeity · 8 years ago

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SHARE WITH ME the thoughts and predictions on gameplay improvements...... I am Interested

ALL RIGHT SO. This is… really long, so, cutting it.

Things we know for sure about remake changes based on released info:

There are three difficulty settings

They’re adding a feature (I think only in easy mode?) where if you knock out enemies with Strike you can insta-kill them and get the XP and cash reward without fighting them

They’re willing to mess with order of events enough to change available party composition for at least one boss fight (there’s a Mist Spider screenshot with Marco in the party)

Enemy turn panels now have icons indicating what enemy they are, as well as where they are on the grid(THANK GOD)

Sound/music/voice volume sliders

Minimap

Possibly more if I spoke a word of Japanese and didn’t have to rely on incomplete translations

Things I’m pretty sure about, based on stuff that’s been released:

This was screenshotted from a status menu: icons for all the status effects, plus what looks like fire/ice/lightning. My bet is these are resistances, which implies that enemy attacks are going to have elemental attributes now- before, the game just treated it as magic damage or physical damage.

I couldn’t tell during the stream, but it looks like they’ve effectively switched the screens in the combat interface. The turn order now appears on the bottom screen, which hopefully means that when you’re changing turns/using Turn Break you can select them with the stylus.

The “condition” button here might just be the same old “Help”/skill description button we’re used to, but I’m hoping it means we can get a list of buff/debuff/status information for enemies and allies.

Stuff I think is likely:

The reason Rosch is always underleveled is because for some ungodly reason people you can’t add to your party get no XP. This is a really easy fix which would markedly increase Rosch, Gafka, and Eruca’s usefulness at various points.

Strike- that is, the ability to knock out enemies on the field- had a really wonky hitbox in the original, making it so you’d often juggle enemies four or five times before they got knocked out. I’d bet that one way or another, that’s not going to happen as much, though I suspect there will be different tweaks at different difficulties.

Giving enemy attacks elements and adding elemental defense is going to require a massive equipment rework and rebalance. I’m actually all for this- RH’s equipment balance is all over the place, and by about midgame a lot of equipment seems to be distributed completely at random, resulting in a lot of stuff being useless. Aht’s equipment is particularly bad: upgrades for both her weapons and armor (at least, ones that give her the magic and defense boosts she needs, rather than relatively useless ATK and MDEF) are thin on the ground until SH Ch. 6, when you get access to the ridiculously powerful Promised Knife and like five better pieces of armor shortly after each other. You can go to a lot of work grabbing a rare, unique steal from a boss and then find it’s worse in every way than the thing you picked up in a treasure chest five minutes ago (*glares at bear*). You can easily get Stocke’s second-best armor in SH Ch. 4, resulting in him taking a fraction of the damage everyone else takes for the entire rest of SH, and the best armor is only available as a rare drop from a random enemy in the final dungeon, so you’re probably going to keep the other one on him for the entire rest of the game. I think odds are excellent they’re going to straighten the mess out, in part by putting elemental and status resistances on more equipment.

Building off that last bit, I think we’re probably going to see a huge jump in enemies using debuffs and status effects, and the success rates of both in general. In the original, you could go through the whole game and never see a successful Fear, Curse, or Petrify. Debuffs had such a low success rate that you could often ignore them entirely from the enemy side, and you never wanted to use them on your side because that was a turn you could be having Eruca cast G-Frost again instead of doing a crap-damage phys hit that might make her next spell do more damage. I suspect we’ll see enemies weak to more status ailments than just poison and sleep, and maybe some skill set changes so there are ways to inflict the other ailments other than items.

I will not be surprised if enemies now have elemental resistances as well as weaknesses, somewhat reducing the efficacy of my favorite tactic, Will o’ Wisp spam.

More enemy manipulation of the grid. I expect we’ll see more formation attacks and effects, and probably either the ability for enemies to move and act in the same turn or a bunch of abilities that move the user on the grid when they’re used.

Speed buffs and debuffs get a boost, possibly directly rewriting the turn order the way enemy summons do. They’re essentially a waste of a turn in the original- you might get a single bonus turn for your efforts before the fight ends, but the odds of getting two before everything’s dead (which would actually make it worth it) are pretty much nil.

My personal wish list:

Ability to scroll through lists quickly with the left/right buttons.The lack of this is a grade-A pain in the ass in the original, especially when trying to select skills or use items.

Better scene skip function. The current one a) is never indicated anywhere in the game, b) will only skip one scene at a time, and some nodes have three or four EVERY TIME you visit them, and c) can occasionally cause you to miss scenes, because changes to events are registered as part of an old scene instead of a separate one. So, e.g., you can accidentally permanently miss the scene where Stocke scares the crap out of Hedge because you tried to skip the conversation with Garland before it. (I’d probably do a button you push that toggles skipping all scenes you’ve already watched but doesn’t affect new ones.)

Reevaluation of some skill sets. All the ladies have physical skills which you will probably never use because they don’t have the stats to make them worthwhile. Seriously, there is no point when you ever want Raynie to use Rush.

Reevaluation of some damage numbers. There are two separate bosses you can kill in two turns before they can even move by pushing them into a Volt Star Trap, and a third you can kill in four turns if you lead with Dancing Death/Heat Blade on the cannons in front of it, then push it into a Volt Star Trap. You can beat every one of Gafka’s skill boss fights in one round by popping Sky Hammer. Eruca gets G-Frost at level 32 and it’s her highest single-target damage all game.

Shuffling some nodes around, whether by promoting random events to nodes or strategically adding additional choices with bad ends. There are some points in the game where it’s annoyingly difficult to reach things because if you jump back in time, you have to go through several dungeons and/or boss fights to get back to where you were and it’s a pain.

Reevaluation of when you get some skills. Aht only picks up Frost Star Trap at the bottom of the Imperial Ruins… and there are no enemies after that that are weak to ice and can be moved, rendering it effectively pointless. On the flip side, Burst Light murders absolutely everything and negates all need for strategy while Eruca is in the party once you get it, and the pact for that is available before you even meet Master Vainqueur.

Final dungeon rework, so you get Eruca back halfway through instead of at the end. Seriously, it’s stupid to have one of your party members gone for the entire last three dungeons, and you really don’t need an extended “save the princess” thing to want to get on with the plot at that point. If anything, plot tension would be heightened by getting her back and then continuing along with her.

Improve Raynie’s bonus skills. The only remotely good one is Sleep Break, and even that’s not exactly something you spam in every fight. Resist Boost in particular is pretty much a waste of a skill.

Improve Raynie’s MP. She’s a black mage, why does she have worse MP than Marco?

Eruca’s Mana Bursts get changed from physical damage to non-elemental magic damage to use her stats better. Preferably Aht’s Imperion too.

More variety in Mana Burst effects. Most of them are just “heavy damage to one/all targets,” so there’s often not a lot of reason to use them over anything else (especially when Turn Break is a unique effect). The only interesting ones are Marco’s (multiple buffs, target all), Aht’s Lucky Breath (fill someone else’s MB), and Rosch’s Seyfried (launch everything into the air).

Eruca gets Frost. I think Mana Shot is supposed to do the same damage as a basic elemental spell, but in practice it doesn’t seem to, and it can’t hit weaknesses. And there’s a pretty good chance that if you’ve been skipping monsters, she might not have G-Frost yet when you get her, so her DPS is kind of crap.

Better armor for Gafka. For a character who’s clearly supposed to be tough and tanky, his armor sucks, especially early on- I usually end up giving him defense accessories just so he doesn’t die the first time some goblin mages sneeze in his general direction.

For that matter, Aht and Eruca also have armor problems- it’s often best to use armor that’s allegedly “worse” because their armor upgrades prioritize MDEF over DEF, but they have naturally high MDEF and terrible DEF.

In-game display of enemy steals (and possibly item drops). I’m not asking for a full-scale Etrian Odyssey bestiary here, but it’d be nice to not have to keep a running list of which enemies I’ve robbed just in case one of them has good loot.

One-on-one boss fights rebalanced, so there’s more to the strategy than “change turns and heal until you’ve got a bunch of turns in a row, then nuke them, taking off all their health in one round.”

Press B to walk/Press B to run toggle. Someone who can read Japanese might be able to tell me if this was in the config menu in the stream, but it’d be really nice to be able to turn off auto-run in the sewers.

A decent magic bonus on Historica. It’s kind of ridiculous that there’s an Endgame Sword of Plot Importance restricted to the main character with a special superboss fight to upgrade it… and the magic bonus is less than the Sorcery Epee you bought from a shop thirty levels ago. Like, no, screw that, I’m not taking a 27-point hit to Stocke’s magic stat when he doesn’t have any physical skills that even begin to compete with G-Fire/Heat Blade/Will o’ Wisp for DPS.

#sweebs #tez answers things #radiant historia #long post #overanalysis #radiant historia: perfect chronology #i wasn't going to post this until later so it didn't push more of my posts out of the tag #but i got impatient #so here it is

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marshmallow-the-vampire-slayer · 8 years ago

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MTVS Epic Rewatch #160

BTVS 6x10 Wrecked

Stray Thoughts

1) To me, “Wrecked” is “Dead Man’s Party”/”Empty Places” levels of uncomfortable to watch. It’s worse than a train wreck because you’re not morbidly compelled to watch in spite of yourself. I had to will myself to watch this, that’s how dreadful it was for me. Even more so because I find it hard to buy the parallels the writers were so eager to draw between Willow’s and Buffy’s predicament. Yes, Buffy and Willow are far removed from the characters we grew to love in the early seasons. Willow is hooked on magic, smug and reckless. Buffy is depressed, detached and apathetic. The difference is, Willow has found herself on a path she chose for herself (the writers suddenly deciding to equate magic with drugs does not negate the fact that Willow came to magic of her own volition and that the show had not treated magic as a drug prior to this season...), while Buffy is trying to deal with the wreckage of a situation that was thrust upon her without her consent (by none other than Willow...) Moreover, Willow’s abuse of magic and recklessness have tangible repercussions on those around her. It’s not even that her friends might suffer collateral damage, she had been actively using magic to manipulate and abuse them. Buffy’s “drug”, on the other hand, is Spike. While her relationship with him was definitely unhealthy, she wasn’t hurting anyone other than probably herself and Spike (although that’s not the reason why by the end of the episode she chose to stay away from him - sparing his feelings wasn’t her priority, she was trying to protect her friends ¿?) I think there’s a big difference between “My friends won’t like/will disapprove of what I’m doing with my life [the person I’m banging]” and “I am emotionally and physically hurting my friends with what I’m doing with my life [abusing magic]”

So, while I can understand why Buffy is reluctant to continue her affair with Spike (and tbh even as a Spuffy shipper I wish she would’ve drawn the line here), her sleeping with Spike is hardly equivalent to Willow’s abuse of magic in terms of the consequences for those around them.

Okay, long introduction over. I just had to get that off my chest before it had been nagging at me since I finished the episode.

BUFFY: When... When did the building fall down? SPIKE: I don't know. Must have been sometime between the first time and the, uh...

SPIKE: I just don't see why you have to run off so quick. Thought we could...

BUFFY: Not gonna happen. Last night was the end of this freak show.

SPIKE: Don't say that.

BUFFY: What did you think was gonna happen? What, we're gonna read the newspaper together, play footsie under the rubble?

Buffy wasn’t really tactful, but she was making a good point.

4) Of course, even if she didn’t picture babies and a house in the suburbs with Spike, she does enjoy fooling around with him. And I get it, girl. It doesn’t last too long, though, because Spike being Spike he had to be all gross and...

SPIKE: I knew. I knew the only thing better than killing a slayer would be f... BUFFY: What?!

That sets her off, and she quickly dismisses his theory that she’s a vampire groupie by setting Angel apart from him and calling Spike “convenient”.

And while that’s true, I don’t think it was only about “convenience”. If she only needed to have sex with someone, she could’ve tried and find someone else. Someone she wasn’t supposedly disgusted by. Or a dildo, which is far less problematic and occasionally far more efficient, lbr. And while Spike was convenient in the sense that A) he was there, and B) he was following her around like a puppy and declaring his love at every turn, Buffy wouldn’t have slept with him if she hadn’t been attracted/turned-on by him, you know?

5) OMG, Tara reverts to stuttering when Willow shows up with Amy, that’s how much it hurt her to think that Willow was already dating someone else.

And then Willow tries to set her straight by explaining it was Amy the Rat but instead of making things better, she makes everything a million times worse because that’s how Tara knows she hasn’t quit doing magic. And if there was something more hurtful than Willow dating someone, it was Willow doing magic in spite of the fact that was the reason Tara had left her. I think Tara definitely feels like Willow cared more about magic than she did about her, you know?

DAWN: You should rest. You're beat from monster-wrestling all night.

7) I know I’ve called Willow lazy before, but in all fairness, I would totally use magic to try and shut the curtains while I’m curled up in bed. Except Willow was all drained out of magic because of the previous night. See? That’s what happens when you go on a magic-binge: there’s none left for the important stuff like shutting the curtains without leaving the warm of your bed.

8) I believe this theory 100%

XANDER: Anya has a theory. She thinks that Martha Stewart froze that guy. ANYA: Don't be ridiculous. Martha Stewart isn't a demon. She's a witch. XANDER: Please, she... Really? ANYA: Of course. Nobody could do that much decoupage without calling on the powers of darkness.

9) See 1) above. Buffy tries to defend Willow because she’s seeing herself reflected in Xander’s and Anya’s comments, but the difference is, Willow’s actions were hurting others (as well as herself.)

BUFFY: She's just... helping Amy through a transition. XANDER: And making herself a playmate to do magic with. Someone who won't monitor her like Tara. BUFFY: No, Willow's a grown-up. You know, maybe she doesn't need to be monitored. You know, she's going through something, but we're not her. I mean ... m-maybe she has reasons for acting this way. And, so what if she crossed a line? You know, we all do stuff. Stupid stuff. But, then we learn. And, and we learn, and, and we don't do it again. Okay, so, you know, who are we to get all judgey?

XANDER: Not judgey, Buff. Just, observey. ANYA: Yeah, all we're saying is, she's acting different. You know, she's not herself.

10) Considering Amy had been a rat for over three years, that means she had been visiting Rack while she was a teenager... which is super creepy for all sorts of reasons but especially the one below...

11) If you read the whole Rack scenes in terms of the magic=drugs metaphor, Amy and Willow were basically prostituting themselves for drugs/magic...

RACK: Amy said. Amy said I could help you. But did Amy say how you could help me?

WILLOW: No, I-I have some money, a-a bit-

RACK: Not money.

WILLOW: Well, I could help you with your computer, I'm really handy-

RACK: Just relax, I'm not gonna hurt you. You gotta give a little to get a little, right?

AMY: It's okay. It's over fast.

RACK: That's right. I'm just gonna take a little tour.

Yikes, show. Y I K E S.

12) This scene is Trainspotting levels of creepy/scary...

13) This is so sad...

14) I love the running joke about how slaying makes you hungry... and horny...

DAWN: I'll leave a note for Buffy on the refrigerator. That's the first place she goes after patrolling. She's such a pig after she kills things.

15) This show is usually so good when it comes to writing metaphors into the narrative. I mean, the metaphors are not exactly subtle (like Angel losing his soul and ditching Buffy after having sex with her...) but they aren’t heavy-handed either. Except for the magic=drugs metaphor. I usually pride myself in saying that BTVS is a show that doesn’t underestimate its viewers’ intelligence, but let’s be real, the writers must’ve thought we were a bunch of dimwits if they thought they had to go this far to hammer the metaphor into us. I mean...

16) Oh, Dawnie! There’s nothing wrong with a meat party in your mouth, as long as you are of age and consent to it ;)

WILLOW: So, the burger was good? You liked it? DAWN: Are you kidding? It was like a meat party in my mouth. Okay, now I'm just a kid, and even *I* know that came out wrong.

17) Willow starts asking Dawn questions about Tara, like if she was sad or if she had mentioned Willow in their conversation. (which was kind of shitty in itself - I mean, you shouldn’t bring a 15-year-old girl into your relationship drama, you know? even if said girl has shown approval of your relationship and wants you to get back together with your ex...) And in my mind I was like: “Oh, okay, so this must be when she makes the decision to go to Rack’s, because talking about Tara triggered her and she needed the palliative.” Like, I could almost understand why she needed the magic/drugs. But then Dawn notices they have been walking down the wrong path for a while, which means that Willow was set on visiting Rack - and dragging Dawn along - before bringing Tara up. So, uncool all around.

18)

DAWN: Well, what about the movie? It starts at nine.

WILLOW: We'll make it. I, I'll just be a minute. And it doesn't matter if we miss the trailers.

DAWN: I like the trailers.

So do I, Dawn :(

19) OH MY GOD, SHOW, WE GET IT! MAGIC = DRUGS!!

20) I’m both Buffy and Spike, tbh.

BUFFY: Last night... was the most perverse... degrading experience of my life. SPIKE: Yeah. Me too.

21) Even as Buffy continues to claim she’s disgusted by Spike and herself for agreeing to have sex with him, she’s really not as adamant as she used to be when actual feelings - his or her own - were brought up in their conversations. Like, when he tells her that she knows he loves her, she doesn’t refute this statement as she would’ve done before (”you’re in love with pain” “you don’t know what feelings are”.) Moreover, when Spike argues that their night together made her feel something, she quietly tells him: “Not love” instead of dismissing the idea of feeling something for him altogether.

22) So, the super witch runs into ther magic-created monster, and she can’t do shit to fend him off? It’s the meek 15-year-old girl who has to do it.

And like 5 seconds after being scared shittless, she’s playing Mario Kart with the car she hijacked and laughing it off, not paying attention to the girl sitting next to her who is rightfully terrified and screaming in fear?

See? This is what I mean when I say Willow thought she was almighty. She honestly believed she could do no wrong. Even in a situation in which has clearly fucked up, she still believes she’s going to get her way. And yes, I get she was highor whatever, but this still was Willow only heightened.

23) ugh this scene is so difficult to watch, but damn did she have it coming...

(the screenshot makes it look kind of hilarious, though, but it’s so uncomfortable to watch)

24) But then Willow breaks down and it’s hard not to feel for her because we can tell she’s truly sorry. And this is why I love Buffy so damn much...

In spite of what Willow had put Dawn through and in spite of her own anger at her friend, Buffy still understands that Willow needs her, and so she casts her own feelings aside and finds it in her to comfort and help her. This is why she’s a hero - her never-ending forgiveness and selflessness.

25) Okay, this is why I believe Willow didn’t need a trigger (Tara’s death) to go dark...

WILLOW: I don't know. The magic, I... I thought I had it under control, and then... I didn't. (...) But I mean... if you could be... you know, plain old Willow or super Willow, who would you be? (...)

BUFFY: Will, there's nothing wrong with you. You don't need magic to be special.

WILLOW: Don't I? I mean, Buffy, who was I? Just... some girl. Tara didn't even know that girl.

Tell me if this doesn’t have “supervillain origin story” written all over it.

26) “It’s over.”

Easier said than done, isn’t it?

#Buffy the Vampire Slayer #BTVS #Buffy Summers #Willow Rosenberg #Joss Whedon #MTVSepicrewatch #BTVSrewatch2015 #Spike #Spuffy #mine #recap #Wrecked #btvsrecap

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crystalelemental · 5 years ago

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thewarriorgoddess replied to your post: It really is a mess, trying to combine everything...

You can’t tell me that Clive and Mathlida’s refine makes them better than Sharena. There’s just no way. I know my girl can’t be merged up but she does have access to null skills on top of her dull everything lance.

Clive and Mathilda’s refines, as far as I’m concerned, cemented their place in Tier 5. Those refines are hot fucking trash, and unlike Berkut, they no longer have the potential to become better down the line because refines already happened.

I didn’t realize Sharena had the ability to negate buffs when she was 5*. That’s...honestly really compelling. Like, triple bonds Lucina has been putting in amazing work for me, triple bonds Sharena can’t be that bad either. Like, probably not as good, since less speed, no omni-Bond on the weapon, and no dragon effectiveness. But definitely better than I realized she could be. I could see an argument for Tier 3 or Tier 4. Though really, Tier 4 lance units and Tier 3 lance units seem...conflicted. Like how the hell is Altena only Tier 4? And Mathilda and Clive are considered Tier 3?! No, no, that’s just stupid.

As for Alfonse...I dunno. The Brazen effect is nice, and does allow him to Triple Brazen stack, which is also really nice. But a gem weapon effect as the second piece? That’s...honestly, that’s shit. That’s super big poopoo. I’d say no higher than Tier 4, though frankly I’m struggling to consider many units that would be below him. Marisa, probably. I think Marisa’s pretty shit. She was near worthless when I got her at the start of the game, but with powercreep there’s no way she’s keeping up. Girl needs a preferred weapon and refine. I’d say Summer Fiora and Rutger would be down there too. Arguably Palla, though her double-strike effect and stat bonus on Flier Emblem teams does at least give her something over the other pretty bad units listed. It’s just a shame about the gem weapon effect; without that she could be a lot better.

#thewarriorgoddess

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ask-the-phan-site · 6 years ago

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The Lion Rider of Lust

>It’s time.

We’ve got some lions to ride.

I am really looking forward to this.

Our first space mission. Now or never, right?

Now, let’s carry out our plan.

>Mona and becomes our van and we head off to steal Daigo’s heart.

>The Castle of Lion at night. In the Bay room, the Voltron Force, former and currant, as well as future, were gathered around.

King Keith: Cadets Dudley and Daigo, tomorrow, you will undergo your final test. If you can pass it, then you shall raise up and take up the task Lance and Hunk will leave as members of the Voltron Force.

Queen Allura: We wish only that good fortune smiles on you both. If you both succeed, you will enter a new chapter of your lives. You will become Defenders of the Universe. Pilots of the Red and Yellow Lions.

Not to worry, Your Majesties. We won’t disappoint you.

And neither shall I.

King Keith: Good. Now get some sleep. You both will need it.

>With that, the Rulers of Arus head off... To their separate rooms.

Okay, you two. Tomorrow’s the big day. Are you sure you can do this?

Dudley: I hope so. I know I’ve done a lot of things that weren’t considered right and I know Daniel and the others are still cautious of me because of what I tried to do to them.

All water under the bridge now.

Just try not to go overboard if you don’t make it.

Dudley: Don’t worry. In case I do go overboard over how I failed, I’ve given Hunk my permission to beat me to my senses... Literally.

I’m not so sure about that.

I don’t know. He sounds serious.

Dudley: Believe me, I am.

Daniel: Okay.

Daigo: Vince, I look forward to working with you when I pass the test.

Uh, thanks.

Daigo: And Dudley.

Dudley: Yes, Daigo?

Daigo: I ask that you not worry. I’m sure... That the beating Hunk will give you after you fail won’t be so harsh.

Dudley: (sarcastic) Thanks, I feel so much better.

Hunk: You know you should be a little more nicer to your fellow cadets, Daigo. They might actually help you one day.

Daigo: Can’t I help it that the one with a dangerous obsession with Voltron will be joining us... Along with a leader with a dark secret.

Daniel: I’m not sure I should impressed about calling me that or offended.

Princess Larmina: That probably won’t last long. Especially after this morning.

Daigo: There is no guarantee that that calling card means anything. I do not fear mere thieves.

Lance: Alright, enough chit-chat. It’s getting late and we all need a lot of sleep. We’ve got a big day coming up.

Pidge: And I have some important guests coming in the morning.

Hunk: Good night all.

>With that, they separated for the evening. Daigo was half way to his room.

Daigo: It’s just the ramblings of some children. Nothing to be worried about.

???????: And this coming from another child?

Daigo: !

>A red wave passes and the scenery changes.

Daigo: Th- This is...

>However, this Forge was different. Instead of statues of the Krelshi, there were statues of Vince. And at the end, a destroyed statue... of Daniel.

?????: You look down on those you think have nothing to do with Voltron, yet Voltron has something to do with them.

?????: You have some effed up ideas about who is worthy and who isn’t. But that don’t mean you can decide for ‘em!

????: You claim that you have a right to become the Yellow Lion pilot just because your planet had something to do with Voltron, and yet you don’t act like it.

>A forge oven spits out fire. When it was gone, we appear.

Joker: Target: Daigo of Ariel.

You’re attempting to ruin the future of someone who dreamed his whole life of speeding to the stars.

You’re so focused on what Daniel is now that you have completely missed what he could be. And it’s certainly not an enemy.

You desire Vince so much that it’s putting a large strain on his friendship with Daniel.

Daniel may now have a darkness within him, but he can over come it, but only if you give him a chance.

But since you won’t, we came to make sure you do.

Fox: We won’t let you destroy the life of the leader of the Voltron Force before any hope can even come.

Skull: That makes you no different than the enemies Voltron fights.

Mona: Your distorted cognition will soon be defeated and no one will ever experience grief from you.

Joker: That’s right. Tonight, for the sake of the Voltron Force and Voltron himself, we will take your heart!

Daigo: Never! My intentions are pure. Daniel is not pure. He’s just some kid who go lucky to be on this ride.

Joker: Daniel thinks that, too. But did that stop him for doing what he loves? No. But you remind him in a way far too cruel and wish to replace him with someone who’s clearly better with the Green Lion.

Daigo: How would you know? You are but mere thieves. You seek only to side with some infected with Haggarium. The essence of the evil witch, Haggar. If you wish to side with him... That makes you enemies of the Voltron Force.

Queen: So you’re admitting that you want to get ride of Daniel even if you know how unhappy it will make others? And here I thought the people of Ariel were pure. But I guess when someone becomes obsessed with people with destiny, you lose all sense of reason.

>Daigo’s eyes were already yellow that we couldn’t tell if his Shadow had shown itself. However, the whites of eyes turn black. Now we know.

Shadow Daigo: Friends of the Unworthy One, you shall not take that what is rightfully mine. My place with the Worthy One.

Panther: Vince will only let you have a place with him if you share it with Daniel!

You’re just some perverted zealot who doesn’t know how heroes work!

Shadow Daigo: How dare you! You will pay for this outrage against me! The Foreman of the Forge!

>The Shadow then changes his shape.

Oracle: Time to check this out. Persona!

>Necronomicon scans the Shadow.

Oracle: Scan complete! Kumbhanda is weak to Ice.

Fox: Then I will fight. For the sake of Daniel. Persona!

>I change Personas.

Joker: Persona!

Noir: I’ll help, too. Persona!

Queen: And me as well. Persona!

Oracle: One more thing, guys. Don’t use any buffs. He’ll just negate them.

Noir: So we’ll just have to attack and defeat him as soon as possible. Got it.

Fox: Let’s hope we can.

Kumbhanda: You cannot defeat me. I have Voltron on my side.

>Kumbhanda uses Stagnant Air. Goemon uses Bufula. It knocks him down.

Fox: Now! Let us strike!

>After the attack, Kumbhanda was still up. Sui-Ki also used Bufula, but missed. Milady uses Tetrakarn on me. And Johanna uses Vajra Blast. It was a critical hit.

Queen: We can end this right now!

>After the attack, Kumbhanda was still up.

Kumbhanda: Is that really the best you can do? Let us see you can deal with this.

>Kumbhanda uses Wage War. Me, Fox, and Queen dodged it, but Noir became enraged.

Noir: Now you’re going to get it!

Fox: Not if I can help it.

>Fox uses Harisen Recover (fanless, of course) and snaps Noir back to normal.

Noir: Thanks. I let myself go there for awhile.

Queen: It happens to all of us.

>Goemon again uses Bufula, but Kumbhanda dodges it. Sui-Ki also uses Bufula again. But he dodged that too. Milady uses Psio and Johanna uses Freila. Both did significant damage. Kumbhanda uses Tempest Slash on me. It was a critical hit and I was down.

Fox: You'll pay for that one, lion boy. Go, Goemon!

>Goemon uses Deadly Fury. It made significant damage. I get back up and I have Sui-Ki use Bufula. But Kumbhanda dodges it. Milady uses Tetrakarn on me again. Then, Johanna uses Flash Bomb. It left him Dizzy. He tried to attack, but he missed. Goemon uses Bufula. This time, it knocks him down.

Fox: I will slice you to pieces!

>After the attack, Kumbhanda was still up, but now weaker.

Oracle: You're almost done. Keep going!

>Sui-Ki uses Headbutt, Milady uses One-shot Kill, and Johanna uses Freidyne.

Kumbhanda: I shall not... LOSE! Hear me, O Worthy One, grant me the POWER!

>The statues of Vince began to glow and they heal Kumbhanda and even removed his Dizziness.

Oracle: This looks bad. We’re going to have to deal with the statues before we can defeat this guy.

Fox: I shall deal with them. If they are art, then it should be no problem.

Queen: Right. We’ll try to buy you some time.

>With that, Fox runs off to deal with the Vince statues.

Joker: Let’s keep him busy!

>Sui-Ki uses Bufula. It knocks him down, but we don’t do an All-Out. Milady uses Psiodyne and Queen attacks. Kumbhanda gets back up and uses Hysterical Slap on me. Luckily, the Tetrakarn did its job and protected me, causing the attack to go on him instead. He didn’t go into a Rage. Then, Milady uses One-shot Kill. It missed. Then, Johanna uses Vajra Blast. Kumbhanda uses Hysterical Slap again on me. Luckily, I didn’t go in a Rage.

Fox: Now’s my chance.

>Fox moves a little closer to the front of the statues. Suki uses Bufula. It knocks him down.

Joker: Let’s do it!

>After the attack, Kumbhanda was still up. Milady uses Pisodyne and Johanna uses Freidyne. Kumbhanda uses Stagnant Air.

Kumbhanda: Try as you might, you cannot stop destiny.

Fox: (whisper) We shall see about that.

>Fox finally makes it to the front of the statues, his katana at the ready. Sui-Ki uses Headbutt. It didn’t make him Forget. Milady uses One-shot Kill. It took a lot of health. And Johanna uses Freidyne. Kumbhanda uses Hysterical Slap on Queen. She became enraged... But that won’t help him.

Kumbhanda: Wait. I thought there was four of you. O Worthy One, grant me more strength to finish this!

Not if I can help it! Be gone, fowl excuse for art!

>With one swipe of his katana, Fox destroys the Vince statues. This also causes Kumbhanda to be knocked down.

Joker: Now you see that Vince is no god. you want him so bad that you don’t even have real faith in yourself.

Kumbhanda: It... It can’t be! It just can’t...

Believe me. It can.

>After the attack, Kumbhanda was still up, but now weak. Sui-Ki uses Bufula. It knocks him down.

Kumbhanda: No! Vince is supreme! The Worthy One! Not that Daniel! He’s the Unworthy One! ... HE DOESN’T DESERVE TO BE THE LEADER OF THE VOLTRON FORCE!

Will you just SHUT UP!

>After the attack, the Shadow resumes his normal form and a light comes out of him.

Mona: The Treasure is ours!

>I take the Treasure. It was a lion statue.

You Arielians must really like lions, huh?

Daigo: Well, now we know why. Is Vince really not worthy?

Queen: (back to her sense) I’m sure he is worthy. And so are Daniel and Dudley. The Voltron Force is a team and a team needs to have faith in all of its members. If you focus more on just one member, you won’t know what the others are capable of.

Oracle: We know that Daniel is infected with Haggarium, but you shouldn’t give up on him... Some friends of ours are even coming to help Pidge find a permanent cure.

Daigo: They... They are?

Noir: Yes. I know Daniel may seem like just some kid off the streets... But he can be way more than everyone sees him as. Just believe.

Daigo: ...

Joker: Have faith in your teammates, Daigo...

All of them.

Daigo: ... I... I will. I’ll try to have more faith in Daniel since he will be leader of all of our future missions... I wonder if the Yellow Lion will still accept me as its pilot.

Joker: That depends on you.

>Daigo smiles hopefully as he returns to his true self. With the Treasure now with us, we take our leave.

>It seems we’ve had another successful heist. We’d tell you if it worked, but we wish to keep this post as short as possible. But don’t worry... You’ll see soon enough.

#phantom thieves of hearts #heist

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