#spread the love hp style

[thecreaturecodex]

Melixie

Image © Paizo Publishing, presumably, accessed here

[The melixie is in the Bestiary 3, but doesn't have art in that source, being one of three monsters in a two-page spread. @abominationimperatrix found this art for me on a Ukranian Pathfinder blog, and it's definitely PF house style, which makes me wonder if it was posted by the artist somewhere. Anyway, melixies are cute and fun, and I would love to use them in a low level game sometime]

Melixie CR ½ CN Fey This tiny humanoid has the features of a bee—antennae, solid colored eyes without pupils, and chitin over its arms and legs. They buzz about on two pairs of translucent wings.

Melixies are fey creatures with the features of pollinating insects. Bees are the most common, but melixies resembling butterflies, moths, hoverflies and even beetles or thrips are not unheard of. They have an insatiable sweet tooth, and their diet is predominately sugar based. If a melixie can resist consuming their raw ingredients, they can use them to make tiny candies, baked goods and other deserts. Melixie confectionary is famous for both its variety and quality, and some discerning gourmets keep a melixie chef on hand for making treats that both taste great and are less filling.

Melixies believe in working hard, playing hard, and resting hard. They are willing to do even repetitive labor that other fey scoff at, as long as they are properly provisioned with sweets. Consuming a large portion (for their tiny bodies) grants them a burst of energy, allowing them to move exceptionally fast for a brief period before needing to rest and recover. Melixies often use this ability if they are in combat, letting them make hit and run attacks with their acid splashes and stingers (all melixies have a short retractable sting, regardless of the specific insect they resemble). Melixies get along well with arthropods of all kinds. Many melixies raise both regular bees for their honey and giant bees as guard dogs.

Melixie CR ½ XP 200 CN Tiny fey Init +4; Senses low-light vision, Perception +5

Defense AC 16, touch 16, flat-footed 12 (+2 size, +4 Dex) hp 11 (2d6+4) Fort +2, Ref +7, Will +3 DR 2/cold iron

Offense Speed 10 ft., fly 40 ft. (good) Melee sting +7 (1d6-1) Space 2 ½ ft.; Reach 0 ft. Spell-like Abilities CL 2nd, concentration +5 Constant—speak with arthropods At will—acid spray, dancing lights, ghost sound (DC 14) 1/day—ant haul

Statistics Str 9, Dex 19, Con 15, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 16 Base Atk +1; CMB +3; CMD 12 Feats Weapon Finesse Skills Acrobatics +9 (-3 to jumping), Craft (confectionary) +7, Diplomacy +8, Escape Artist +9, Fly +17, Perception +5, Profession (beekeeping) +5, Stealth +17; Racial Modifiers +4 Craft (confectionary) Languages Common, Sylvan, speak with arthropods SQ sugar rush

Ecology Environment warm and temperate land Organization solitary, pair or hive (3-24) Treasure standard

Special Abilities Speak with Arthropods (Sp) This functions as speak with animals, only it can be used to communicate with vermin that are arthropods, such as spiders, insects, centipedes or crustaceans. This is the equivalent of a 1st level spell. Sugar Rush (Su) As a move action, a melixie can consume a large quantity of sugar, honey or other sweet substance (at least ½ a pound). When it does so, it can take an additional move action for the next 1d4+1 rounds. When this time elapses, the melixie is fatigued for 1 minute. A melixie cannot use its sugar rush ability when fatigued or exhausted.

[christiansorrell]

TTRPG Read-Through: Liminal Horror

Here is a read-through I did last year (originally posted on Twitter) of one of the my current go-to game for modern horror: Liminal Horror by Goblin Archives! - Christian

I cut my teeth learning to GM as a Keeper in Call of Cthulhu and I've really been jonesing for a game in this genre that's more in the style of rpg I enjoy these days. I'm hoping this will be it!

Really excited about this. Shifting away from mental illness and trauma, both of which have their obvious problematic pitfalls, is something I could see really opening up what a character looks like and goes through after having things go wrong in interesting new ways.

Big spread on Facilitator and Player Principles. I think this is all very solid advice as a one-time or just-before-play read, but it's definitely too much for quick reference. That said, I always love reminding folks that we "play to find out what happens."

I may be off the mark but these two bullets make me think Goblin Archives is a Friends at the Table listener. Both of these make me immediately think of Austin's openings on there (which is a very good thing, for me).

Very straightforward stats. I like the HP distinction here and how it seems to refill between events/encounters and when drained is when you see actual damage occur. More inventory structure than I expected (I like that tho!) Cool to see character AND party questions here.

I really loved the Backgrounds and character options in The Bureau, a Control-inspired megadungeon-like module for this system I did a read-through of about a month or so ago. Excited to see more of that here. Also, I really need to play as a Very Online character.

Nice open character creation. I enjoy these types of questions: why do you believe there's something weird going on? What ideology guides you? What are your connections in the world, important relationships, etc.? Those create way more juicy bits than stats alone can provide.

I first encountered these kinds of character bonds in Fate years ago, but it's been a go-to house rule of mine during Session 0/1 for anything my group is planning to do longer than one-shot play for. Even in a single session, it can add a lot. Cool to see it here.

It's a d20 roll-under system (no modifiers, yay). Adding fatigue to inventory slots is a great way to make a mechanic out of that. Also, associates were unexpected! Shows this game could be more than just 3-4 bumbling normies going into the unknown (which is what I envisioned).

Combat is fairly straightforward (in a good way). No rolls to hit, it's just damage that is varied. Props to not using Advantage/Disadvantage as a game term like everyone else. Again, the Detachments make me think this game could have some wild situations come up!

Open-ended spell casting here (reminds me most recently of Primal Quest). They come and go day to day which is interesting, potentially changing entirely. I like the failure being equal to the desired effect. Want to kill someone with a spell? Be prepared to die if things go bad.

Okay, these relics are extremely cool. A blade that does MIND DAMAGE and requires recharging by feeding it memories? Good stuff.

Fallout is really interesting. Take enough DMG to go through your HP and it ticks away your Strength until you die (or take crit DMG). Fallout is the same but wears at your Control. Gaining Fallout makes you odder/more open to the true nature of things, but makes you heartier.

This is a good approach bc it means leaning into the things most games gate behind "sanity" here makes you more able to cope with the weird in the future. Feels like a path to more interesting stories (rather than the CoC-style "you are in a sanitarium now" character ending).

Remainder of the book is a small bestiary with monster creation guidelines, spark tables and a lean but comprehensive mystery creation guide along with a sample mystery. The loose framework, a steady clock ratcheting tension, and a focus on lots of clues feels like good guidance.

Having a mystery take only 6 pages feels much more approachable than the very traditional heavy-prep and lots-of-writing mysteries of something like Call of Cthulhu or Delta Green. I homebrewed a lot of CoC, and the prep work there can be pretty huge. This feels nice tho.

Overall thoughts: the book is a very lean and focused take on creating horror that doesn't get bogged down in the other ttrpg pitfalls of the genre while also having nice mechanics for associates, large scale encounters, etc. so there's room for a lot of types of stories here.

I'll definitely be trying to knock out a mystery for this as part of the jam. I've got a lot of weirdness to get out of my system and this seems like an easy, streamlined way to do it. Also, excited to play The Bureau and The Mall.

You can pick up the most recent addition of Liminal Horror in print via Space Penguin Ink. You can also find it on Itch. The rules and additional content also available entirely for free on Goblin Archives github.

Also, I wrote an adventure for this system last year: Tunnels in White.

Old money siphoning new money from every corner of your city. An aging mansion, quiet and worn. An old corporation shifting its gaze from development to development, always hungry, always growing.

A warehouse bearing the name Singleton Solutions, small and unassuming in one of a hundred industrial parks like any other, takes in truckload after truckload but never sends anything out. It’s the same for the people. Sometimes, they arrive in towncars, other times in shuttle vans. None come out. Ever.

What you know is something strange is going on inside that warehouse and you are determined to discover what it is. What you cannot know is where and how far the mystery may take you.

You can grab a print or digital copy HERE. It's also available via Itch.

Lastly if you like seeing my thoughts on games and how I make stuff for them, here's my monthly newsletter (which now has a free TTRPG thing to take to your table each month): https://meatcastle.substack.com

[mamthew]

Some thoughts on Metaphor: ReFantazio. I avoid spoilers for the most part.

It’s maybe impossible to overstate how much I love Persona 5. It’s my favorite game of all time, and directly started me down the path to being a radical. It’s got some flaws – many of which were fixed in its rerelease, Persona 5: Royal – but it’s such a fantastic package in terms of story, gameplay, art design, music, and thematic resonance that it’s hard to fault it for them. I’ve played and enjoyed subsequent P5 material, but none of them are nearly as devoted to a political message as the original, meaning that even though they’re all good, they ultimately fall short of what I love about the initial game.

Metaphor: ReFantazio is a 2024 RPG by a good number of the folks who made Persona 5, and you can immediately tell. It has a very similar art style, uses many of the same sound effects, has a similar battle system, and is built around the calendar/social links/social stats system that the Persona series is known for. It is essentially a Persona game, but set in a fantasy world rather than contemporary Japan, and without Persona’s emphasis on Jungian psychology and the tarot. It’s also thoughtfully political, but in a way that’s maybe less engrossing and blisteringly relevant than Persona 5. That said, what it does have to say is worth engaging with, as it uses its more traditional fantasy setting to comment on the ideological underpinnings of RPGs as a genre and games more broadly, as both an artistic medium and an industry.

In many ways, Metaphor is “Persona does Final Fantasy.” It’s clearly an homage to Final Fantasy at its core. It may have Persona 5’s battle system, but it’s got FFV’s job system, and it’s reworked the “one more” mechanic to feel more like the Brave/Default system from Bravely Default, or the Conditional Turn-Based system from Final Fantasy X. The job system is especially interesting. There are 14 basic jobs, with each job having 1-3 class change upgrades that unlock at specific Social Link levels with the job’s corresponding character. Every party member can use any job, but have very individualized stat spreads that make certain jobs more viable than others. For example, Strohl starts with the Warrior job, which hits hard and doesn’t do much else. He could use the Mage job, but his physical attack is like double his magic attack, so that would probably be a waste of his massive attack stat. That said, some players might opt to train him through Mage anyway, because at level 20, Mage gets a skill that increases MP by 15%, which they could equip to Warrior so he can use more of his big hits that spend MP. I, on the other hand, trained him in Pugilist, which has powerful physical moves that spend HP instead of MP. It’s a bit more risk/reward, but Strohl has considerably more HP to spend. And that’s one of the seven party members, each of which has their own unique stat spread.

That customizability is fun and rewarding, but limited by the use of a Persona calendar system. I’m less inclined to experiment and try training characters in weird directions when I only have ten in-game days to reach the end of the current dungeon and only have about an in-game year to reach the end of the game. Due to the FOMO brought on by the time constraints, I spent about eight hours just mindlessly bashing enemies in old dungeons in order to unlock all the jobs, which was pretty decidedly unfun, and I ultimately only got to play around with maybe half the fully upgraded jobs in the end. Persona’s time-management (which often translates to some occasionally brutal resource management in dungeons) has always ratcheted up the games’ tension and forced a level of deliberateness in decision-making. That works fine in Persona, but dampens the freedom of choice I associate with job systems. The calendar generally feels like a weird thing to keep. On one hand, the narrative and mechanics have been built around it, but on the other, part of what I enjoy about the calendar in Persona is the mundanity of it. The changing of the seasons, interspersed with real-world holidays, as experienced by a protagonist who is attending high school and therefore at the mercy of the calendar, all help to complement the familiar contemporary setting of a Persona game. In Metaphor, there are no seasons or holidays, the weeks have five days instead of seven, and the one-year cutoff for the action is arbitrarily enforced by a spell rather than by familiar societal norms, so the days tend to blend together. This calendar has all of the anxiety of Persona’s system with none of the novelty, and that’s not a great place to be in.

That said, what Metaphor loses in variety from the calendar it gains from its much larger world and its travel mechanics. Each chapter of Metaphor is set in a different city, and the characters must travel to each city using their gauntlet-runner, a land-based version of the classic Final Fantasy airship complete with a pilot who’s clearly Atlus’s take on a Cid. Each city has several dungeons, landmarks, and surrounding towns that the party can travel to and explore as side-jaunts to juggle as options within the time-management system. Some of these can take several in-game days to reach, but traveling has its own activities that raise social stats, craft items, or even develop social links with party members. In Persona 5, many of the side activities had their own unique content but wasted precious days to do, and travel-time feels like a way to alleviate some of that sense of waste, by limiting you to just “bedroom activities” like reading books, cooking, tending to plants, doing laundry, cleaning the floor, bathing, or inviting party members to hang out. You have to go to the extra dungeon either way, so you’re stuck on the gauntlet-runner either way, so you might as well raid the pantry, use the shower for a small Exp bonus, cook some fermented meat with Hulkenberg, do some laundry with Heismay, and then read a fantasy novel while you’re there. Much of the traveling system feels like an iteration on the central premise of Persona 5: Strikers, allowing the characters to go on a road trip and see a bunch of cities but without the dearth of things to do outside of dungeons from which Strikers suffered.

Metaphor is in most ways an improvement on Persona 5. It’s a much bigger game, with a more strategic battle system and prettier visuals. That said, its dungeons are generally a bit less interesting. They’re more straightforward, without the verticality that made especially Persona 5: Royal’s dungeons shine. They’re also less colorful, less surreal and – I guess a bit ironically – less metaphorical. That makes sense, since all the dungeons are actual locations within the game’s world and must therefore follow the world’s logic, but it’s weird infiltrating a giant fantasy airship and being struck by how much duller it is than Persona 5’s Diet building – a real-world place known for being boring. The music, too, is less interesting than Persona 5’s. It’s still technically solid, and there are certainly some bangers, but because the soundtrack is aping Final Fantasy in genre and instrument choices, it’s much less engaging than the acid-jazz of Persona 5. Metaphor also has less to do than Persona 5 or especially Royal. The game doesn't require that you grind up relationship points with social links, which cuts out a lot of the frustration of the social link system, but also means that there's no reason to take characters on dates or to the movies or to play darts. The world feels less varied because the activities are much more clearly laid out by which social stat they increase.

Both this game and P5 are punching way higher than their weight class in terms of budget and team size. They’re both essentially AA games that have been catapulted into the AAA space, and both are a generation or more behind in terms of actual graphical power. Both games made up for that discrepancy with stylish artistic flair, and while that papering over succeeds in both games, the stylizing of Metaphor feels less relevant to the game than with Persona 5. Persona 5’s intentional use of color and effects make it feel both pulpy and like agitprop material, which are two of its major artistic influences. Metaphor’s stylings, however, mostly make it feel like Persona 5, which clashes a bit with its more classical fantasy setting. I’ve seen a number of people complain about the game’s graphics being outdated, and I think the fact that it retreads so much stylistic ground is why the unimpressive graphics are more noticeable this time around, even though it’s much better graphically than any previous Atlus entry. The game’s reuse of many Persona sound effects aggravate this issue. Those sound effects feel punchy and contemporary, and work great in the context for which they were created: a game that turns rpg genre conventions on their heads by using a contemporary setting. Here, in a game that’s purposely leaning into more classic genre conventions, they instead feel lazy and out of place. The game clearly had great sound designers; there are plenty of new sound effects as well as the old. I wish they’d had those sound designers replace the reused sound effects as well. The game's localization, however, does set it apart from Persona 5. Metaphor is another JRPG to outsource its localization and English voice work to the UK, rather than the states. Most of the characters are voiced by UK voice actors, and they all do an outstanding job. Honestly, the weakest link voice-wise is the protagonist's voice, which was clearly directed to try to be fairly flat and unaffected. Still, I'm just so happy to have a voiced protagonist that I didn't mind all that much.

Metaphor opens by posing a question to the player: does a story have the power to change the world? I figured when I started the game that this question was referring to Persona 5, and the difficulties of creating a story with a specific, clear political message and having to deal with its audience agreeing with the message and longing for that change but not working to bring it about – or even worse, a chunk of its audience refusing to acknowledge it as political at all. While Metaphor was clearly inspired by that initial tension, it addresses a much broader question than that: why do video games – works in a medium that tends toward fairly radical political theming – seem to attract audiences that refuse to engage with their theming? Much of the game’s use of Final Fantasy elements is in service to this question, since Final Fantasy is sorta the seminal RPG. The game’s antagonist, whose name is frustratingly spelled Louis and pronounced Luis, represents in some ways the ideological underpinnings of Final Fantasy and is even designed to look like the FF1 Warrior of light, with long flowing white hair and curved horns. The main plot of the game involves a powerful spell that forces the kingdom to hold a democratic election. When the king is assassinated, his voice thunders down from the sky that the crown will go to whomever the most citizens believe in their hearts should be the next king in about a year’s time. The protagonist enters the race because he opposes the two frontrunners – Louis and the head of the very racist Sanctist church.

The protagonist often reads from a utopian novel and communes with the novel’s imprisoned author, a man named More, probably because he represents the demand that society improve and offer us more. The novel discusses the workings of an idealized version of our contemporary liberal democratic system, and all the party members fight in some way to try to realize that system. The novel itself was banned and all its copies burned, while More was arrested and sentenced to exile for writing it. While both the protagonist and Louis love the book, they had vastly different takeaways from it. The protagonist and his party see the book as calling for a society built around caring for its citizens, protecting and providing for those without the means to protect or provide for themselves. Louis, on the other hand, sees the book as calling for a society built on “true equality,” where all are forced to fend for themselves and only the strong survive. In both cases, the circumstances of one’s birth theoretically don’t matter, and leadership isn’t decided by a bloodline, which makes both visions look preferable to the world of the game: a heavily racially stratified monarchic theocracy. With the crown up for grabs, both characters have the opportunity to try to realize their visions of this utopian system, if they can convince the populace to back them.

This conflict is, deliberately, the conflict at the center of liberal democracy: is our system meant to be more individualistic or more collectivistic? Does the “liberal” mean that individuals must fend for themselves without a societal support structure? Does the “democracy” mean that the strongest must sacrifice the fruits of their advantages to provide for those without the same advantages? That the game takes the side of the whole over the part is unsurprising, given that it was made by the folks who made Persona 5. And hey, that’s the side I agree with more, so no skin off my back. But, using liberal democracy as the basis for its core theming makes Metaphor feel considerably less radical than Persona 5 did. Most of the oppressor/oppressed relationships in Metaphor are ones for which we have answers, which stands in stark contrast to the real-world-inspired conflicts in Persona 5, and when the characters look to the utopia of the novel for a solution, they’re looking to the answers we already have. And as Persona 5 already told us, those answers are insufficient.

That said, what feels backwards about the game’s theming becomes more interesting when we consider it instead as a metacommentary on the politics of RPGs. Louis, the villain who looks like the Ur-FF Protagonist, is an individualist to the extreme. His vision for a perfect world is one where all compete to live and only the strongest survive. That’s barbaric to most folks whose brains haven’t been poisoned by weird sectarian internet communities, but it’s also pretty much how RPGs operate: you keep fighting guys who are weaker than you to make yourself stronger until you’re the strongest, and then your character uses that strength to change the world the way they want. This is – crucially – also how this RPG operates. The protagonist might oppose Louis’s vision, but he still has to do so on Louis’s terms. It turns out that the conflict at the heart of liberal democracy is also the conflict at the heart of many power fantasies: we imagine ourselves being strong enough to make the world fairer, but in doing so, we engage with an individualistic framing. When looking at the metaphor of Metaphor, we can think of the protagonist as the story of a game and Louis as the narrative told through its mechanics; ultimately, what a story says is still constrained by what the game does. So the question of whether a story has the power to change the world is complicated by the introduction of the constraints placed upon a story by its medium. Why didn’t Persona 5 change the world? Metaphor implies it’s because its audience is primed to see its brand of power fantasy as apolitical – not even about the world to begin with.

I think increasingly often about a time I got into an argument with the admin of a Persona 5 Facebook meme page. He’d posted a meme complaining about people’s need to inject politics into Persona 5, an otherwise apolitical game. I found this absurd. The game in which you infiltrate the Japanese Diet building to stop a fascist from stealing an election is apolitical? The game where the personification of humanity’s tendency toward rebellion leads the party into battle to destroy the god of wealth at the center of a panopticon? It was beyond comprehension. But an art form that constrains most of its narratives to center around accruing power through conflict in order to elevate oneself as an individual has maybe inevitably attracted an audience that’s allergic to the idea that fiction can and usually does say something about the real world. And when I say “allergic,” I don’t simply mean “unwilling.” We’ve crossed into a political moment where the arbitrarily-defined level of “woke” in a piece of media determines whether a chunk of people will deign to engage with it at all, but based on my googling, Persona 5 is hilariously considered “not woke” (though Royal is simultaneously both “woke” and “anti-woke,” the remake of Persona 3 is too “woke” to bear, and Metaphor ReFantazio is under scrutiny but they seem to be leaning toward “not woke”). So the line in the sand is whether or not a game comments on the real world, but that line is drawn by people with shockingly low media literacy.

One element of the story that confused me clicked into place once I considered this angle. The game’s world is plagued by huge and brutal monsters called “humans.” In the game's world, the word “human” refers only to these monsters, while the sentient denizens of the game’s world call themselves “people,” or refer to themselves by their fantasy races. It’s bizarre to hear characters talk about “humans” and mean big weird giants that massacre towns and aren’t recognizably human at all. But when we consider this through the lens of a metacommentary on games, this choice comes to make sense. In an RPG, the player is a human roaming through a world of non-humans. They’re infinitely stronger than everyone around them, and in the end, only the human’s decisions matter. Everything exists to placate the human, and if the human refuses to engage with a story on its terms, then that pretty much destroys everything the story is trying to do. Those characters who exist solely to make the human feel something become fodder, to be ground up and discarded by the human. If we look at the relationship between art and audience from the perspective of the art, the audience becomes something like a kaiju, applying its own warped reading to the text, forcing it to submit to that reading. A story only gets to change the world if it first wins that battle with the human, and humans are getting increasingly combative. Obviously, there’s story reasons for the word choice that I won’t spoil here, but they align pretty nicely with my reading.

I really enjoyed Metaphor. It took me 110 hours, and I managed to complete all the social links, beat the extra boss, and unlock every class with the protagonist. A run that doesn't do those things probably could finish it in like 85-90 hours. Either way, it's shorter than Persona 5. I still prefer Persona 5; its politics are much sharper, obviously, but it also has a much bolder and more unique style. But anyone who really enjoys Persona or old-school Final Fantasies should give Metaphor a shot, since it's a pretty fascinating merging of the two, and it uses those associations to comment on the video game medium, the purpose of art in fomenting societal reform, and the shortcomings of liberal democracy. And if you haven't played either, it's a long, complex, standalone RPG in a new ip, which makes for a pretty good jumping-on point to Persona, from which it takes many of its mechanics.

[notyouraryang0dd3ss]

hi, indian anon here ( I think I used the ⏳️) ig you can say I'm an ex swiftie, but in the sense that I was never exposed to western music until evermore and I listened to it and loved it. I never engaged with the fandom or anything, and didn't even know all these things taylor did, and I thought taylor was a decent person because of the documentary. This was until ofc, the matty healy incident which opened my eyes to her behavior, but idky I felt like I couldn't openly dislike her. Everyone in my school was obsessed with her and if you're a girl, and you hated her, or even disliked her, you were a pick me, and I didn't wanna get hated on more by my classmates (long story there). The last straw for me was prolly when 1989 tv was released (after the mh incident I just called myself a swiftie cuz I liked her earlier work) and I had joined an online swiftie group chat, and the people there were so vile and hateful. I remember saying it's wrong hating on harry styles for cheating on her cuz she did the same, or that Joe alwyn is just a regular dude, and so are all her other exes, except prolly matty and the John Mayor guy for dating a 19 y/o (SHE ALSO DATED MINORS THO??? no one talked about this shit) and I mentioned that she's not god and that she has done bad things, and the gc, which had 50 active members everyday, collectively not only hated on me, but also these people had access to my private insta acc. My face, my friends, my address, they knew it all. It was so scary, and while I have been in plenty of toxic fandoms before (my first death threats were by the hp fandom, which I've left long back), I actually felt threatened. It actually felt like a cult, and it was scary until my insta acc got shut down (idky), and the ppl couldn't find me anymore. The swiftie fandom is weird at best, and potential criminals at worst, because wtf. They don't have any sort of individual thinking, and if someone does, they will find a way to shut it down. Even now, when I interact with a swiftie and taylor Swift comes up, and I say I don't like her, their behavior is just like the ones online. Ik ppl get more confidence to do bad things online cuz of anonymity, but swifties are the same irl, too. They completely believe it is okay to treat ppl terribly, harass and spread disgusting rumors and even doxx a Palestinian woman and give her details to Isreali organization. Like that actually happened. I regret that I didn't leave the fandom sooner because I can't believe I was associated with something like this. Ik celebrities make mistakes, and that fandoms always have one toxic portion, but this is too much.

Sorry for the long rant tho 😅

- ⏳️

sorry it took me a while to respond, there is SO MUCH HAPPENING in this ask. like 3 diff asks rolled into one omfg

1. peer pressured into “continuing” to like taylor swift you are a different kind of victim im so sorry you went through that (and all to prevent you from being bullied…im so sorry)

2. THE SWIFTIE GROUPCHAT: that is horrible and TERRIFYING. all you did was practice critical thinking and you feared for your SAFETY. their reactions are not logical nor rational and speak to how dangerous her fanbase is.

if you feel like you cannot call out your fave for their behavior without your safety being threatened, that is not a fanbase, that is a cult. i think we should actually did a venn diagram of swifties and cults we’d have a perfect circle.

3. SWIFTIES IRL: this is so true about how they behave. ive had friends tell me theyre scared of saying they hate taylor IRL cause of the backlash they’d receive. THAT IS NOT NORMAL. even when BTS was at their peak ppl never felt threatened by the ARMY to that point 😭

you NEED to send more info/links/ss about the doxxed palestinian. i need the #SwiftiesforPalestine to see wtf their mutuals are doing. that is ABHORRENT behavior. that poor woman!

thank you sm for this ask, u are truly one of god’s strongest soldiers cause wtf!!!! is wrong!!!! with swifties!!!!!

(p.s. if you are a repeat anon go ahead and sign off your asks with an emoji so i can keep track! thank you!)

[perverse-idyll]

HP Rec Fest Day 5

@hprecfest - theme: non-AO3 fic

We'll Take a Cup of Kindness Yet by dueltastic, Aberforth/Minerva/Severus, balanced between a triangle and a threesome, 20K

Among those who have read her work, Dueltastic is celebrated for her astute, dry wit, appreciation for unsentimental and highly competent characters, and incisive storytelling. The prose is chiseled, lean and quick as a greyhound, emotionally sharp but not dramatic, and flavored with a humane, unfailing sense of humor. This fic follows the aftermath of the Battle of Hogwarts as filtered through the earthy, ironic sensibilities of Aberforth Dumbledore, aspiring bedwarmer of Minerva McGonagall, and witness to the secret she struggles to keep. The characterizations are marvelous, the chemistry abundant, and the feelings, although tightly reined in, are precisely detailed in pointed remarks and large-hearted acts of care. We have a very ill Snape, a Minerva at the end of her tether, and a shrewdly observant Aberforth who steps in where he's needed. This is what a love story between undemonstrative, deeply feeling adults looks like. (Hot tip: everything Dueltastic has written is worth reading.)

2. A Rowan in Winter by duniazade

2a. No Pepper-up for the Brave

2b. Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree

I've grouped these three short fics together because, while written over the course of three years, they're all set in the same AU. These are basically gen fics, glimpses into Severus Snape's impoverished childhood, departing from canon to give him a beleaguered but essentially loving family, a mother hounded by the unforgiving Ministry and a father helpless to keep them safe. There is also, on his mother's side, the heritage of an older, darker magic, a rather terrifying and implacable connection to ancient forces impossible for those of Prince blood to escape. The wizarding world looks very different from this point of view; Severus and his mum are persecuted by the Ministry, constantly under suspicion, and beholden to almost mythic powers that care little for their well-being or their survival in a hostile environment. The stories also shine a light on Severus's friendship with Lily, and the second fic follows them on a late evening detention in the Forbidden Forest that turns suddenly into a snow-bound nightmare. We get to see Lily's fierceness and the close bond between the two children - a bond that has snapped in the third fic, which shows the Ministry playing games with Eileen's life and Severus navigating his choices as an isolated teenager loyal to his mother, forced to grow up too fast, and trying to protect his sense of self while trapped in a game of fate he can't possibly win. He's nearly killed by an IRA bomb; has a reckoning with his mum; and tests himself against a succubus, alone in the dark. The prose style and the storytelling are beautiful and quiet, magical and real. The first story has a darkly luminous ending, but all three are haunting, and the characters who come and go are vivid, even the cameos. But Severus is the beating heart of these stories, and Duniazade will make you ache for him.

[ladyirisreviews]

Final Fantasy 3 3D Remake - Review

Final Fantasy 3D is the only version of the game I've played so far, this is the second time I've played it, in fact. But as a remake, I wish it would offer more than what it does.

I remember liking this game a lot when I first played it, like a breath of fresh air after my first playthrough of Final Fantasy 2, which was abysmal, but with this replay, I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would, maybe because I wound up enjoying Final Fantasy 2 this time around.

The plot is quite simple, you control a party of 4 orphans who were chosen by the elemental crystals to return the light to them, but this version of the game adds a little bit to it, instead of the 4 main characters being blank slates, they gave them names and unique designs, though they didn't do much as far as their personalities go.

There's Luneth, the first one to come across a crystal, who doesn't have any more major characteristics to talk about, Arc, a meek boy who lives in the same Village as Luneth, Refia, the only girl of the group, daughter of a blacksmith, and who I think has the most going on, but even still it isn't much, and finally Ingus, who I renamed as Bald, a knight who is in love with a princess.

While I appreciate the fact they added characters to the game, I am mostly disappointed because they missed a big chance of giving them more dialogue and character, they have the most dialogue and interactions at the start of the game, but the further you go, they start only giving one-liners every couple of hours.

The same feeling goes for the cutscenes. I like the 3D aesthetic, but they completely fumbled it by not doing anything special for them. They are as basic as they can get, even in moments that are supposed to be tense or action-packed. It's just the models in neutral poses not interacting with anything. It's not a huge deal, but the missed potential really gets to me.

Before I move on to another point, I want to reiterate that I really like the 3D look and how they chose to go for a cartoony 3D style. The original monster designs and the jobs translated really well into this 3D look.

Now for the gameplay, it completely abandoned everything that Final Fantasy 2 tried to do, thank goodness, and instead of completely going back to what the first game did, they created an entirely new system.

You can freely change the character's jobs, and these jobs level up, on top of the characters also having levels, jobs level up like every 5 actions you take in combat, while character level increases with exp.

Each job has unique abilities, on top of changing the stat spread of the character, with the exception of HP.

A job's stat spread will tend to favor either physical skills or magical skills, if a job has high physical attack, even if it can use magic it will most likely not have that much MP or magic power to take proper advantage of them.

I also really like the visual details of every class, they all have unique details for every character.

I like this system, even if I have some problems with it. I like the option of being able to freely change jobs, but jobs that you haven't leveled up first perform very poorly in combat, on top of you getting a stat penalty whenever you change them, which goes away after some encounters.

It is fun to experiment with the unique commands each job has, but I just ended up sticking to the best available jobs at the time, I really didn't feel the need for constant job switches, but whenever I replay the game, I really want to experiment with a different job combination for my party.

I would be more daring with job switching if the penalty for switching didn't exist, it forces you to go out of your way and fight weaker monsters for a while before being able to properly tackle monster from the current part in the game.

I think the penalty comes from how HP increases when you level up, all the jobs change every stat except for HP, it goes up depending on your vitality, so having an active job with high vitality would make you get more HP, and honestly I would just prefer if HP also changed around with jobs, instead of adding a layer of min-maxing that just increases grind.

The dungeon design also felt lackluster. Except for the last dungeon, they are all pretty short and simple, way more so than they were in the previous game. They are serviceable but I wish they had more meat to them.

The game added a zoom-in mechanic I feel is bothersome most of the time, you can find hidden items or buttons by zooming in, but its addition just makes me want to stay zoomed in so I don't miss anything, but at the same time being zoomed in makes exploring very awkward, which is a good way to describe it, it's an awkward mechanic.

Something else I felt ticked off by was that the encounters had a small number of enemies per encounter, at most 3 enemies at the same time, it's not a problem in isolation, but considering the job leveling system, it makes getting job levels slower than it would be with more enemies, it also made the game feel very easy, the last dungeon encounters are the only ones that I felt posed a challenge, and the very start of the game can be a bit rough too.

Something I really like is being able to change who your lead character is, letting you walk around with whoever you think looks the best at the moment, which in my case will always be Refia, there's also a system that makes use of this mechanic.

Mognet consists of a Mog that will deliver letters to you from characters you have met before, they are mostly flavor text with no big significance, but after you get a certain number of them for every character you unlock a short sidequest that rewards you with unique equipment. But it is a bit lame that you have to manually change your lead character to check every time, as all characters have only 1 of the playable characters that will make the letters appear.

It might sound like I am being rough on the game, but it comes from a place of love, I feel frustrated by the lost potential of some of its elements.

This is also a good game to grind while watching something, to get the most out of it, you need to pretty much master every job to get the best equipment for it, and to be capable of beating the superboss of the game (Which I skipped this time around).

The auto-battle option they included really helps make the grinding go faster, but I would still recommend watching something while doing all that grinding, I am happy at least grinding is not required at all to beat the normal final boss, the game is pretty well balanced in that regard.

I definitely want to give this game yet another go in the near future, along with the pixel remaster version to really confirm whether more enemies per encounter enhances the experience for me or not.

I can see myself enjoying this game even more on my next playthrough now that I know how to properly approach its mechanics, and I think it's a safe starting point for anyone trying to get into Final Fantasy, just don't expect a deep plot out of it.

[astarsmindd]

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: . FANGS　 :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧

⋆｡°✩ 𝒃𝒂𝒔𝒊𝒄 𝒊𝒏𝒇𝒐 ✩°｡⋆

┊◈ username ➳ Was fangssss2006 changed it to astarsmind

┊◈ names ➳ Fang / Fangs / star

┊◈ age ➳ 18

┊◈ zodiac ➳ Taurus

┊◈ chinese zodiac ➳ I think it's a dog?

┊◈ languages ➳ English

┊◈ tags ➳ #fangs yap time #fangs shenanigans #fangs x bf #fangs is losing it once again #fangs is not a happy camper #fangs ask #fangs🍃#fangs vision boards

┊◈ ask ➳ my ask are always open you can ask about my head cannons share yours just whatever. I also make mood/vision boards of characters and characters in specific aus and I will take requests so ask away please I love to yap (this is a cry for mutuals that will be my silly friends)

Guys I am not a white boy I'm light skinned 😭

‼️KEEP UP WITH WHAT'S GOING ON WITH THE WORLD OF FUCKED UP RICH OLD GUYS WITH MY HASHTAG #fangs news I'M SPREADING AS MUCH INFORMATION I HEAR ‼️

I cannot believe I have to put this here but please stop dming me for sexual things I'm not interested you freaks 😭

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: 　✿　 :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧

⋆｡°✩ 𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒚 ✩°｡⋆

┊◈ pronouns ➳ He/they

┊◈ genders ➳Demiboy/trans guy

┊◈ orientations ➳ Pansexual

┊◈ romantic orientation ➳ Panromantic

┊◈ ethnicity ➳ Nigerian and Scottish

┊◈ nationality ➳ American

┊◈ cultural background ➳ Uhh...

┊◈ religion/spirituality ➳ Idk I believe everything could exists and I do some craft

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: 　❀　 :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧

⋆｡°✩ 𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒅 & 𝒔𝒐𝒖𝒍 ✩°｡⋆

┊◈ mbti ➳ INTP if I remember correctly

┊◈ enneagram ➳ 2 the helper

┊◈ kintypes ➳ I'm not a kin I don't think

┊◈ neurodivergencies ➳ AuDHD

┊◈ disabilities ➳ Idek where to start...

┊◈ mental health ➳ Major depressive disorder, Anxiety, PTSD, DID, prob something else that I'm forgetting

System blog @sunnystarsystem

We do not want endos interacting with us on our blogs

┊◈ learning style ➳ Uh idk???

┊◈ personality traits ➳ Creative, artistic, anxious, chaotic at times, gay 😭

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: 　✿　 :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧

⋆｡°✩ 𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 ✩°｡⋆

┊◈ likes ➳ marauders, hp next gen, hp, twilight, dragons, etc

┊◈ dislikes ➳ homophobia, transphobia, racism, etc

┊◈ hobbies ➳ art, writing, crafting things, reading, video games

┊◈ favorite music genres ➳ a little bit of everything

┊◈ favorite movies/shows ➳ once upon a time, twilight, HP, hunger games, miss peregrine's home, supernatural, scream

┊◈ relationship status ➳ taken

┊◈ love languages ➳ rambling or listening, sending things of my hyperfixations, gift giving, sometimes touch

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: 　❀　 :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧

⋆｡°✩ 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒔 ✩°｡⋆

┊◈ political views ➳ left all the way

┊◈ fandoms ➳  all the shows I listed but this account is mainly marauders, next gen, and golden trio era for now but I'll probably dip into more eventually

┊◈ aesthetics ➳ I wish I knew

┊◈ beliefs/values ➳ Don't disrespect anyone's identity is my strongest

✧･ﾟ: ✧･ﾟ: 　𝔼ℕ𝔻 𝕆𝔽 ℙℝ𝕆𝔽𝕀𝕃𝔼　 :･ﾟ✧:･ﾟ✧

(template by sweetyamz1)

Divider by @mmadeinheavenn

[dragon-appreciator-fray]

Horizon's Gate has cemented its place as my comfort game.

It has PLAYABLE catfolk, lizard people, sharks! Some various other lovely furry races (+more in workshop) Crubs (Not to be mistaken for crabs. There are several crustacean races) and automatons (made playable by mods)

No genders, just a big Ole final fantasy tactics style job system with flat numbered progression where you buy individual health, mana, or proficiencies on top of a dizzying amount of skills.

It's an open world tho, with factions owning ports you can ferry supplies between, take on guild quests, and afford bigger + better ships (which can sink)

Spoilers for what I am currently up to under the break.

I am currently assisting a lovely modded companion lizard lady named Livia hunt down mages who all make really strong introductions.

The wind mage stands on a bridge backed by bats, with intent to knock you off of it.

The fire mage jumps out of a field of grass and starts a wild fire on the battlefield that spreads between turns.

I've encountered a cave full of high HP undead that I used wind magic to shove into some water to drown.

And I am currently working my way up through a tower via a rung ladder where I had to find 10 rungs hidden throughout the map in order to discover an alternate entrance filled with clothes that protect from various elements. (Great for fighting as many mages as I am)

This mod is called Mage Hunter and is absolutely lovely for showing off all the magic that alters the environment.

I am also playing with a party of 6. Because I prefer tactics games that let me field up to 10 people. (One of the most recent mods allows up to 20, if you're into that kinda thing)

[shadowjax]

Harry Potter Magic Awakened MC

In honor of the game closing its American server, here is my mc and some lore. I'd love to write a few fics about them and their life at Hogwarts. Since it seems like we won't get an end to the story then we might as well write one.

Name: Jax Lucifer (they/them)

Magical Status: Muggle-born

House: Ravenclaw

Wand: 11-inch Cherry with Dragon Heartstring

Patronus: Red Panda

Owl: Scops Owl named Lil'Nugget

Specialty: Easily create strong bonds with magical creatures, skilled cartographer

Personality: Strong-willed, patient, loyal, introvert

Likes: Magical creatures, maps, butterbeer, adventure, dancing

Dislikes: Poachers, disloyalty, unforgivable curses

Lore: A distant relative of a student from Hogwarts Mystery, originally adopted by a couple from America. Their family moved to England in their early teens due to a job relocation. Their mom is a conservation zoooligist while their mother is an environmental engineer. Jax is very introverted and the move was very hard on them, their parent's jobs taking up a lot of time. Supernatural things began to happen which made it hard to make friends and led to them being bullied by other students. When Hagrid explains that they are a wizard and have been accepted to a school of magic they never applied for, Jax is very nervous about the change. But it became the best decision because they have made so many wonderful friends and now consider Hogwarts their home. Jax has found a love for Magizoology which definitely stems from their mother and dreams of being a conservation Magizoologist. They plan to incorporate their love for cartography into their career somehow.

Jax, Ivy, and Daniel are like three peas in a pod. The three of you have been through so much in the early years of school. They helped the adjustment so much easier, it's a shame you didn't have the same support when you moved to England. While Cassandra may seem like a bully to most students, she has never directly insulted you. The two of you shared a mutual respect for one another, although her taunts towards your friends sometimes cross the line. you are surprisingly good at dance, enough for you and Cassandra to become casual dance partners.

Sometime during their 3rd year, there was an incident where they were dueling a dark wizard that overpowered Cassandra. Jax won the battle but at the cost of their wand and a scar that spread across their entire right arm, side of the neck, and just barely touching their jaw. Ever since the incident, the two found a new level of respect for one another, and Cassandra's attitude had subsided. Ever since the incident, you changed your dueling tactics, going from being summon-heavy to defense-heavy. Also a fear of a certain green glow illuminating from wands.

Their favorite classes are care for magical creatures, herbology, charms, astrology, and divination. Defense against the dark arts, potions, and the history of magic is their least favorite. They've never been big on sports but quidditch is something they have slowly become a fan of. Not only is it entertaining to watch but it is fun to play with friends.

This is only the beginning for Jax and they are excited to see what the future holds 0_0.

Legit sad that we only have half the story it is so much more entertaining to play than Hogwarts Mystery. The art style is sooo beautiful and I love the characters so much, they're better than Legacy's side charters. Personally, I prefer it over Mystery and Legacy in terms of story and a few other things. I was so excited when the global launch was announced bc I saw artwork and some gameplay and was like "I want to play that game". I put 400+ days into this, that's def more than any other HP game I have played lol. I do find it crazy that it's shutting down everywhere but Asia, I guess the audience is bigger there idk. I just want an ending at least o_o

Link to petition for NetEase devs to keep global alive

[isnt-it-pretty]

Hello, person who likes Cyno! I'm really sorry for randomly barging into your inbox like this, and you don't have to answer this if you'd rather not, but I'd like to ask for advice on Cyno's team!

I saw you mention that Cyno's best team is quickbloom, and I'm deciding between that or just regularly quicken/aggravate. I have Nahida who I'm definitely gonna use, but if I'm going quickbloom, the only hydros I have are Xingqiu and Barbara. There's also the matter of the flex slot. I was considering running Shinobu, because will Cyno be able to battery himself? I have Zhongli too, and Raiden and Yae and Fischl. Though I'd rather have some survivability. I'm gonna put PJWS on Cyno if that matters

Hi! I don't mind at all; I love talking about this! I didn't proofread, though, so rip any typos.

Everything I say here can be found on the KeqingMains Cyno Quick Guide and from Zy0x's Cyno videos (+ his second video), so you can reference those as well.

*One thing to note is that in my experience, KeqingMains calculated Cyno's ER requirements as too high. I'll get into that lower down.

This got way longer than I anticipated, so, short answer, TLDR: Cyno, Nahida, Xingqiu/Barbara, Zhongli.

The weapon is easy, so I'll mention that first. I have Cyno on PJWS as well; the only thing I'd say is that you may need an EM circlet over a crit since PJWS doesn't have the passive like Staff of Scarlet Sands does to give extra EM. That said, I'm not positive about it.

Cyno does a lot more damage with quickbloom, but it really comes down to a matter of personal preference in play style. I found him underwhelming in aggravate since my Alhaitham spread comp out damaged him in every circumstance, but I rebuilt him for quickbloom, and it's been great. He's been so much fun to play. Either way, make sure you have at least one dendro on your team holding 4pc Deepwood Memories.

Barbara and Xingqiu both work. Barbara is better for traditional quickbloom, while Xingqiu is closer to the hyperbloom end of the spectrum. Either would work fine. I use Xingqiu personally and picked artifacts with an hp% sub stat to give me some healing just in case I take a couple of hits. If you use Xingqiu and PJSW, then I absolutely recommend an EM circlet over a crit one. Hyperbloom scales entirely off level and EM, so you want to make sure you have EM sands and circlet, and an electro damage goblet, with crit rate sub stats and ER on your artifacts.

Flex Slot

Shinobu is a common pick for Cyno's flex because she heals and helps battery (whether you need the battery is up for debate). In aggravate, I'd 100% suggest running her alongside a different flex (run her with iron sting, EM sands, Dendro dmg gob, crit rate circlet. Any of those can be replaced with hp% for extra healing if needed. I run her on my Alhaitham spread team with an hp% circlet).

For quick/hyperbloom, it's deciding if the healing is necessary. Shinobu will steal some bloom cores, so I don't suggest running her in traditional quickbloom comps, but if you're using Barbara, you won't need the healing anyway. For closer to the hyperbloom end with Xingqiu, make sure you build her with EM/EM/EM artifacts so that it isn't a big deal if she steals some cores.

Don't run Raiden. She doesn't do much for Cyno, and honestly, she excels far better in other team comps. This is the KeqingMain's guide for Raiden if you want to build her for other teams, but she's wasted on Cyno.

You could run Yae with Cyno. People do it, but honestly, I wouldn't. Put her on a Raiden team, and they'll both excel better there.

Fischl is Cyno's best battery. She creates an insane amount of particles and is unlikely to steal bloom cores. The question is whether you really need that. Some people do! I run my Cyno as solo electro with 150ish ER on 4pc Thundering Fury and have zero problems generating enough particles to fuel his burst, so Fischl's usefulness entirely depends on if you find yourself needing a battery.

Zhongli, oh Zhongli. Zhongli is the best shielder in the game. You literally cannot go wrong with Zhongli on any team His shield also gives dmg shred, which everybody benefits from.

What I'm saying is that if you can use Zhongli, do so. Fav lance (try to get r5), 4pc Tenacity set, HP sand and HP gob with crit rate sub stats. Either HP circlet with CR sub stats or CR circlet with HP substats. The CR matters to proc the fav particles, which if you can funnel into Cyno can help fuel his burst in a pinch. If you don't have access to a fav lance, the 3* weapon Black Tassel is also solid because of the hp% sub stat (HP/HP/HP artifacts).

I could write a whole post about theory-crafting Baizhu for Cyno's flex (r5 prototype amber, 4pc Tenacity stacked HP + ER), but honestly, I'd just wait until he comes out and see what people better at math than me say about his optimal build and whether he's worth pulling for Cyno. (I am very, very bad at math).

4pc Thundering Fury or 4pc Gilded Dreams?

Okay, I know you didn't ask, but this is important to mention. To start, let's talk energy.

This was made by the CynoMains discord, and by personal experience, I can say that it's way more accurate than KQM's.

As you can see, TF dramatically lowers Cyno's ER requirements. This is because the 4pc passive means that whenever an elemental reaction is triggered, Cyno's E skill is cooldown is reduced by 1s (can only occur every 0.8s). More E skills during his burst = more damage and more energy. With 4pc TF you can comfortably run Cyno as solo electro with no fav users. 144% ER is stupidly easy to get.

Gilded Dreams means you need higher ER sub stats, which means you're losing out on potential atk%, crit value, and EM sub stats that will boost your damage. If you're running hyperbloom with Xingqiu or Yelan, that might be worth it since hyperbloom scales entirely off level and EM. If you're running quickbloom or aggravate, it isn't, since quicken is scaled off all those sub stats, not just EM.

Now lets talk teqctions themselves.

4pc TF lets you smash your E skill and try to time for when the eye is on the screen. That takes some practice, but you'll get there. In my experience, you can hit twice as many E skills. This means even if you run Xingqiu, the fastest hydro app in the game, you still won't run full hyperbloom on Cyno with 4pc TF. You'll still proc aggravate quite often. 4pc TF also gives you an additional benefit on the 4pc passive. Along with reducing E skill cooldown, hyperbloom dmg is increased by 40%, while aggravate is increased by 20%.

In my opinion, that's enough to sell me on 4pc TF, but you can also strongbox it to help farm it.

I'm sure there's several more valid reasons for Gilded Dreams, but tbh, I've been happy enough with Thundering Fury that I don't know them, so if you care, it might be worth looking into more on your own.

My build & rotation

Cyno: c0, lvl90, r1 PJWS. 4pc Thundering Fury, 155% ER

Nahida: c0, lvl90, r2 Sacrifical Fragments, 4pc Deepwood Memories, 144% ER

Xingqiu: c3, lvl30, r5 Sacrifical Sword, 4pc Emblem, 231% ER

Zhongli: c0, lvl90, r4 Favonius Lance, 4pc Tenacity, idk ER off the top if my head but I rarely use his burst anyway.

For rotation, Zhongli E -> Nahida E + Q -> Xingqiu Q + E (often E x2 for Sac proc) -> Cyno E + Q + E + E + E, etc.

Once Cyno's burst is filled, or if his shield drops, I swap out and start again.

I've easily taken this team to floor 12 in the Abyss, even when my other teams struggle to keep up. (Fuck you triple Kenki, my Cyno kicks your ass).

-

At the end of the day, Genshin is a game, and it's supposed to be fun. I like talking about builds because, to me, it's fun. I know several people who shrug, say fuck the meta and throw four selfish dps characters on the same team.

Build Cyno however you'll have the most fun with him. If that's meta, cool! If it's not, then that's cool too. Don't let anybody tell you that you're doing it wrong.

As always, my ask box and DMs are open for questions and thoughts ♡♡♡

[ruiination]

IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT && Persona 3 Verse

Natsuki Subaru retreated from the world and left school in his final year of high school. Becoming a hikikomori, he rarely left his room at all. But all of that changed when he left his home late one night to go to the convenience store. He heard a voice whisper to him.

'I love you.' A girl whispered to him right as the world changed around him. The sky darkened and the light look unnatural. Pools of blood formed and coffins surrounded him. There, he saw a girl cloaked in shadow.

'I love you.' A feeling of love swallowed him. And darkness devoured his body.

He woke up 3 days later at the base of a tower that he couldn't even see the top of. There he could potentially meet the members of SEES or simply stay there until the Dark Hour ends. Either way, his persona awakened shortly after. He will end up attending Gekkoukan. It is very possible for him to join SEES or simply be a weird shut in who is trying to slowly ease back into the world.

Subaru has been partially overtaken by a mysterious shadow. Due to this, he has two very different styles of skills.

Arcana: MOON

Persona: ATLAS.

Atlas is a support type persona. Subaru can act as a second navigator who is not as much a 'scan and navi' type and more defensive. He can also enter a second shift in which his persona is overtaken by the Shadow called Satella. This allows Subaru to briefly join the front lines as a fighter.

FIRST SHIFT: Atlas

Shamak: Shrouds an enemy in shadow and blinds them and stuns them for a moment. Enemies will gain the dizzy effect if used in battle. Outside of a battle, it can be used to stop enemies from seeing or chasing the party. If used in battle, the skill takes HP instead of SP.

Premonition: See the next move of every enemy when checking turn order, using this skill takes 50% of Subaru's SP and cannot be used in battle.

Cor Leonis (Static): This allows Subaru to see all allies locations. This ability only works if the other person also considers Subaru an ally.

Cor Leonis (Base Shift): Allows Subaru to take on the physical and mental strain of his allies. Prevents skills from using HP or SP from selected party member and uses Subaru's instead. If used while Subaru is in battle: the effect reduces damage he takes from attacks. Can last until Subaru's HP and SP reach 1

Cor Leonis (Second Shift: Division of Labor): Subaru can spread physical and mental strain among allies to prolong fights. While using this, single target damage will be spread evenly among all allies (weakness will not be applied to those that are not the target) and HP & SP use from skills will be spread among the party greatly reducing the amount used from a single party member. Lasts for 3-5 turns only.

When a party member dies: they can sometimes be replaced by Subaru if his second shift is charged up:

SECOND SHIFT: SATELLA

A dark shadow swallows Atlas, and a girl shrouded in dark takes his place. (Atlas changes to Satella. Absorb Dark / Null ice / (Can learn resist strike) / Weak Light). Subaru's SP will gradually drain by 1 each turn and he will be forced to leave the battle once it gets critically low. 30% of his SP will be returned once the battle is over.

Shamak: Shrouds an enemy in shadow and blinds them and stuns them for a moment. Enemies will gain the dizzy effect if used in battle. Outside of a battle, it can be used to stop enemies from seeing or chasing the party. If used in battle, the skill takes HP instead of SP.

Cor Leonis (Base Shift): Allows Subaru to take on the physical and mental strain of his allies. Prevents skills from using HP or SP from selected party member and uses Subaru's instead. If used while Subaru is in battle: the effect reduces damage he takes from attacks. Can last until Subaru's HP and SP reach 1

Invisible Providence: A shadow fist comes out of his chest and hits the enemy: Deals heavy darkness damage and medium strike damage with high likelihood to crit.- will give Subaru either dizzy, down, or lower his health/sp by a random amount.

Eigaon > Demonic Decree

Recarmda

Evil Smile

Ghastly Wail

Rakukaja > Heat Riser

Revolution

Heat Wave > Akasha Arts

Theurgy: Redo (Charges when party members reach critical HP or are knocked out): Revives the party to full health and reveals the next actions the enemies will take. Can only activate if at least one party member is KO'ed. Automatically activates if the protagonist dies ONCE per night. This will also revive the party member he stepped in for if he is on the front lines and Subaru will leave the battle.

Theurgy: I love you: Shadows cover the battlefield: Deals massive damage to all enemies ignoring resistance, has a 45% chance to instantly kill one foe that isn't resistant to instant KO. Reduces Subaru's hp to 1 after using.

[ohmygodshesinsane]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love

hihi! thank you for sending this 💞 i have been sooo absent it's not even funny. but i will rec my five fave fics atm that i've written!

Seventeen - 'James and Lily host a party they never thought they would get to see. Their miracle.' This is a Jily Lives! AU set on Harry's seventeenth birthday, written for AllThoseDarlings' Prongs Party earlier this year. I got surprisingly emotional writing this story, and it made my heart hurt for about a week.

you are sick and you are married and you might be dying - 'Daphne’s laugh is very unlike Astoria’s. “That’s the thing,” she says. “That’s the thing. You’re both too bloody busy people-pleasing." Gabrielle has seen too much to believe in asking the universe for anything, so she wants nothing and takes whatever she gets. When her life tangles with Astoria Malfoy's, this becomes significantly more difficult.' This one isn't Jily, but was written for a HP Femslash microfic prompt. I got out of my comfort zone for this one, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Mercy - 'The Potters are not killed that night in Godric's Hollow, but Lord Voldemort is defeated. Lily has to navigate the consequences of war and raise a family in the shadow of loss in a world that has been nearly torn apart. OR: Compassion to oneself, Healer Armitage says, is often the hardest to extend.' This was for a jilymicrofic prompt in April, and is essentially a character study of Lily if she and James had survived. Again, I got just a little bit emotional writing it 😅 and I think it really helped with my characterisation of Lily throughout my fics.

creature comfort - 'Look, James Potter is trying not to be an arrogant berk. Lily Evans has been given a prefect badge and the role of 'swot', but she has other ideas. Sirius Black would love to have a normal life, honestly, as would Remus Lupin. Severus Snape wants to leave his muggle heritage behind, and Dorcas Meadowes spends more time in her own head than the real world. Peter Pettigrew is sick of being left out, Mary Macdonald wants to fit in, and Regulus Black is walking a well-worn path. Growing up is hard at the best of times, and these? These are the worst of times. [1975-1976]' This one is a massive labour of love, and while the earlier writing isn't my best work, this fic has been a massive opportunity for me to improve my writing and to really get into the nitty-gritty of the way I see the marauders. It's helped me learn how to craft plots and write different dynamics. If you want, essentially, The Ultimate Guide to Finn's Writing Style and Progression Over The Last Three Years, this is it.

You're On Your Own, Kid - 'Marlene is on her own and fine with it, really, honestly, truly. She has her friends (until the war claims them) and her freedom (until the war takes that, too) and prefers flying to putting roots down (until that's stolen from her forever). But she'll manage on her own. She always has. What's a little bloodshed anyway?' This one is another character study, this time of Marlene McKinnon, and was written for the HP Ladies Fest. Writing this helped me work through a lot of my own feelings and is the only fic of mine I return to to read for pleasure, not just for continuity purposes.

So here we are! Five self-recs from me ❤️

[sugareey-makes-stuff]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💙

Hiya, friend! Thanks for sending this to me! This will probs be a mix of HP and TW (since I'm writing for both fandoms now), so here goes: Harry Potter: 🖊️ Where do we go from here? (Perciver, WIP series, G-T, 4/13 ficlets)

All the missing moments we didn’t get to see between Percy and Oliver. This is a one-shot fic series that explores their complicated journey of how they went from being friends, to friends with benefits, to eventual long-term lovers.

Okay, fine. This has 4 ficlets so far in this series, but I am soo proud of them all since this whole story arc was how I got back into writing again 2 years ago. Had it not been for this series, I definitely wouldn't be writing fic right now, and I owe it to Perciver for recharging and revamping my writing style to what it is today.

🖊️ Again and Again (Ginsy, E, 400 words)

Pansy never thought Ginny Weasley would get on her knees and go down on her in the Harpies’ locker room. But here they were, where anyone could see them.

This is a (spicy) drabble, and it was nice to write more sapphics fic this year. I love the energy between Ginny and Pansy, and it was a fun challenge to write something that captured the heat of a moment (with a hell lotta kinks) in so few words. Definitely a mission accomplished!

🖊️ Love you (for the rest of my life) (Deamus, 12-part microfic series, G-E, 600 words)

You're all my strength and my weakness, and that's when I knew you were the one... A collection of microfics that captures and highlights missing moments over the years between Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas.

It has been a hot minute since I wrote anything for Dean and Seamus, so I'm glad I got to write something fun for them during Microfic May! I feel like there are so many perspectives we haven't seen, so it just made sense to capture a glimpse of moments as friends who become eventual lovers. Each microfic can also be read individually under the tag #love you for the rest of my life.

Teen Wolf:

🖊️ Made From Scratch (Sterek, T, 2k)

Derek missed Stiles. He hadn’t realized how much…until now. Something had to change. But where did he even start? [Or: That one time Derek makes dinner for Stiles, thanks to inspiration from a family recipe and some nudging from Cora.]

I'm really proud of this one since a. I wrote this in 2 weeks for an exchange, b. the requirement was 2k max or less, and c. it was my first time writing in Derek's PoV. I loved doing all the cooking research and adding some Hale roots. Derek is so soft, even though he tries to deny it. Also, sibling dynamics ftw!

🖊️ Feel You Breathing (Sterek, E, 8.4k)

Derek: So, you need a distraction. Stiles: Maybe Stiles: It’d be better if you were here to help me with that. Stiles: ;D [Or: Sexy things start late one night when Derek gets a text from Stiles and escalate from there. A few secrets are revealed along the way.]

I just posted this fic up last week, but I'm reccing it (again) since it's my first text fic ever, it's stylized with a skin (but can also be read in plain text), and it's the longest thing I've written since I started writing again. This was my biggest writing challenge to date because it took 3 attempts to write a text fic. I had lots of fun making Stiles and Derek banter and choosing all the emojis though. It was such a different way of writing dialogue only (and much harder to code than I thought, heh). So worth it though!

[phantomato]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💙

Thank you. ❤️

I could have sworn I did one of these this year, but I can’t find it in the post history, so… 2023 fics only! I only have four that stand out.

In Fealty to Apollo (HP/Narnia, Tom Riddle/Edmund Pevensie)

I dedicated the month of May to this! Writing it was so rewarding. One of my all-time OTPs, meeting as middle-aged adults. It’s the sort of slow relationship growth, with many setbacks along the way, that I most love.

How Do You Start, Where Do You Go? (M/M Original Work)

This will almost certainly define 2023 for me. I don’t get to write a lot of stories set in America, but I live here, and I have so many big, wistful feelings about various parts of it.

My Darling Nephew (Uncle/Nephew incest based on a Victorian story)

Each year of my writing should contain at least one great pastiche, I think. I had such a great time emulating the Victorian first-person POV of the original, and I feel extremely proud of this as both a sequel to the canon and as something that works on its own as a sexy, incestuous homage to the style.

A Sense of Self in Decline (HP, Tom Riddle/Nott Sr)

I felt pretty terrible when I wrote this piece, especially the second chapter, which nets its inclusion on the 2023 list. It’s beautiful, though, and I love it for helping me see that I can still make art that feels worthwhile when I am at a low point in life.

[beantothemax]

The Final Phase: Divinity-Filled Palimpsest 

Floating in the air, feet together, arms spread Mattias-style is what used to be the pontifex

Floating above her head is the stone, which has fully cracked open at parts and is emitting green light

Her body is fully featureless and uncovered; imagine a mannequin fully made of skin

She is wreathed in green flame; at the stone, the vague outline of two heads - those of Orsa and Finis - are visible

Fabian, now named the Greater Vessel, has a similar appearance, just in the same pose he was in before and without the stone or heads

Finally introducing the gimmick for this one: just a real simple HP/SP drain that's constantly in effect, nothing too special

Not a gimmick per se but both the Divinity-Filled Palimpsest and the Greater Vessel are immune to fire damage, hitting them with fire attacks raises their Elemental Attack (DFP) and Speed (GV)

And now. Welcome to Shield Hell.

Remember the gimmick that Eldroy, Ablaze had? Yeah we cranking that up to eleven

The Divinity-Filled Palimpsest, before its first break, has fifteen shields and regenerates three each turn (never goes over fifteen)

After the first break the regen stops but it still has fifteen shields

You better be messing with that BP if you want to have a hope of breaking it

The Greater Vessel, on the other hand, remains frail and hard-hitting, but ditches Poison for Terror (The pontifex also LOVES inflicting Silence and Terror. It’s a whole thing)

Not much on it so back to the pontifex

Will switch between the Aspect of Orsa and the Aspect of Finis after each break

Aspect of Orsa has one action, focuses on buffing the Greater Vessel and launching AOE attacks

Aspect of Finis has two actions, focuses on single-target debuffs and attacks

After the Greater Vessel goes down, both Aspects gain one extra attack as the text “Insolent brat…” appears on the screen

The DFP also talks a LOT during the fight

Rather than having the text appear in a normal text box, they’re a little freak about it and have it appear shakily on the top and bottom of the screen

It does not stop the battle, they just scream from every direction every now and then

In-universe, this is represented by the fact that the Palimpsest itself is not speaking but rather the walls of the cave

After the first break Lylah runs onto the battle again and says that she’s going to try and do something about “that accursed rock” aka the thing that seems to be binding Orsa and Finis to the Palimpsest

I had an idea for the Boost Mode Attack that was called Finality and just. Removed one of your party members from the fight. But that was a little TOO broken even for this.

Finale:

The stone that was being used to channel the Makers just explodes

Full stop there's shards of it in the walls and everything

The Palimpsest maintains their form and wreath of flames, is positively livid

“MOTHER, FATHER, YOUR WORK IS NOT YET DONE! IS THIS NOT WHAT YOU WANT? PLEASE! DO NOT LET IT END HERE! PLEEEEAAAAASSSSEEEE!...”

Without divine power flowing directly into it, the Palimpsest is unmade completely, gone without a trace

Before anyone can respond, one of the shards of the stone floats towards Aestia, who reaches out to touch it

The screen goes black.

Aestia comes into focus, falling through nothingness.

A figure, dove wings spread wide behind her, comes into view. Another, hood over his head and a gnarled staff in his hands, appears beside her.

Orsa and Finis do not speak, but Aestia knows what they mean

She is loved. So loved by the world itself, along with all of those who walk along it. Her life is a gift. (this does not get said in-game. Aestia just has a thought bubble saying “I understand. Thank you.”)

[You can now use the EX Skill: Aid From the Earth]

Aestia exists her meeting with the Makers, and is in her damaged pose on the ground

Immediately gets up and tackle-hugs Lylah

Finally is able to admit what her whole story has been teaching her

“Mine is a life worth saving”

The two finally make up because by the Flame without Lylah’s aid (and the party’s) Aestia would have been dead truly in seconds

The group tends to the wounds of the townsfolk that joined the fight and departs from the spire of beginnings

Before leaving, Aestia looks back and gives thanks to Orsa and Finis one last time

Final cutscene details Aestia and Lylah’s work to get the church back in order

There are a lot of followers of the Pontifex that need to be flushed out before life can truly return to normal.

In the chaos of reorganisation, Aestia makes a proposal

“You know, a lot of people are getting moved around in this whole mess. Entire churches have been uprooted and had to be restaffed.”

“Where are you going with this, Aestia?”

“Well, I have noticed that you’ve taken great care to not leave any of the new clerics alone at their parishes.”

“Hmm?”

“Except for one. What say you to giving that poor cleric a partner?”

“Wait, I missed one? Give them my apologies posthaste, I hadn’t even -”

“Well, you can give me your apologies right here. Perhaps by moving a certain someone to join me in Ambersmouth, if you would have me.”

“Aestia are you -”

“I am.”

[pause as Lylah does a little drying-her-eyes animation] “I would be delighted, Aestia. I have missed your presence greatly.”

“And I you. Shall we?”

Fade to black, cuts to Lylah and Aestia arriving back in Ambersmouth to an incredibly happy group of townsfolk

Thus ends the story of Aestia Trititaka, Priestess of the Sacred Flame, Proprietress of the Chapel of Ambersmouth, and Hero of The Spire of Beginnings

Thanks for reading.

I. do not have words. ok that’s i lie I do have words but. wow.

her chapter ending in true jrpg fashion by fighting an actual god (or at least a bastardization of one) ((or two in this case))

aestia meeting with the actual creators of the continent and gaining new power through their love. her entire journey culminating with her realizing and accepting that hers is a life worth saving.

aestia and lylah both now living together in ambersmouth. the gays. back together. just.

chaotic, this hurt my heart to read in the best way possible. this is. yeah.

if you’ll excuse me I need to go cry in a pillow for an hour-

[catchydesignhillstuff]

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