#we’ll keep the super strength and immunity

[emonydeborah]

trektober day 13: superhero AU

To her enemies, she was the Huntress. Bomb manufacturers and drug kingpins disappeared in the dead of night and reappeared in maximum security prisons, if they reappeared at all. Politicians spluttered about vigilantism and CEOs bellowed about privacy when their illegal dealings ended up all over the internet, signed only with her trademark bow and arrow.

To her supporters, she was Number One. The first person you wanted by your side in times of trouble, the fastest responder to any hostage situation or natural disaster she could get to. There were stories about children lost under buildings after earthquakes and tornados, impossible to reach, turning up in their local ERs without a word. Tearful young women thanked her on tv and hoped she got the message. It was rumored she had once carried a grown man two miles to the closest hospital, something no human woman should have been able to do. She never commented on the rumor. She never commented on anything.

To her team, she was the Commander, directing their efforts and cutting off budding problems before they became a threat. Tall and authoritative, she demanded the best, and that was what she got. She never budged, never cracked, and never lost control.

To the people she loved, she was Una. Chris cleaned her cuts and kissed her bruises and held her when she slept, soothed the nightmares away. He whispered her name into her skin and she knew that was all he needed, just her, no superhero, no inspiring figure. Just Una.

[itsnothingofinterest]

What would actually be a fix for the quirk singularity theory, if the concept is as quirks get stronger they’re gonna hit a point where they’re too strong and toddlers with them can and will randomly cause mass destruction and devastation because they can’t control them. What can you do that isn’t just removing people’s quirks at a young age when they can’t control them? Decay may have been an artificial derivative from overhaul but overhaul as far as we know is naturally occurring as are new order and rewind so we know the scale of power for quirks can get pretty ridiculous.

(Kind of a continuation of my talk here. See here and here for other times I discussed the Singularity too.)

Well presumably science could’ve been a solution by going the Garaki route instead of the Overhaul route; improve the hardware rather than delete the software. Dr. Garaki had managed it once after all; developed that treatment that, among other things, was supposed to make Shigaraki effectively immune to the singularity and let him control post-singularity quirks.

In theory that part might’ve been replicable without the other changes (like the natural super strength and of course the AFO quirk…although afaik the finger thing might’ve been non-negotiable) if Shigaraki’s body could have been studied and his treatment reverse engineered. That option is probably off the table now though, so science would have to start from scratch and I honestly don’t know if they have the time for it; Rewind is supposedly a genuine, if early, post-Singularity quirk, so they’re already popping up.

That said, that’s the assessment with the data we have now. Hori could easily wrap up that plot line with some new information a la “Tomura’s soul damage means his body can’t contain OFA no more, and he can be shattered in two hard hits.” Maybe we’ll learn Garaki was just wrong, and most of humanity will just naturally evolve their ‘hardware’ to keep up with quirks so the Singularity was never a problem to begin with. Or maybe we'll learn that, despite what we were told about the singularity being treated as a conspiracy theory, the scientific community has actually cared a lot about it, been hard at work on a solution, and'll have something ready long before things get bad. I mean there probably are more elegant solutions in theory, but that’s the kind of hand-wave I’m most worried about us seeing if BNHA is ending in 5 chapters and has plenty of plot lines that are far higher priority to focus on.

[grailfinders]

Grailfinders #315: Habetrot

today on Grailfinders, we’re finally getting the hell out of lostbelt six! we’ve just got one more faerie to go and we’re free until summer finally kills us. all we need to do is Habetrot, so let’s take a look at her kit, probably just another sewing servant….

huh.

wow, I just spoiled so much of this lostbelt for myself! everything past this point is going under a cut.

so! Habetrot! she’s going to be an Ancients Paladin to literally be an ancient paladin (as well as to sew some sick wedding dresses), and she’s also a Witherbloom Warlock because literally no one in this lostbelt can keep their hands off weapons that will kill them. realistically she should be a hexblade, but a) we literally just did a hexadin, and b) the black barrel strikes me less as a sentient weapon and more as just. a giant ball of radioactivity.

so with that out of the way, let’s get building!

(as usual, a character sheet can be found here, and next up: sword baby)

Ancestry and Background

Habetrot is obviously a Fairy, unless you spell it correctly, then she’s a Faerie. who has Fairy Magic including Faerie Fire at third level. make it make sense. that makes the creatures in an area glowy if they fail a save, giving everyone else advantage to hit them, it’s a big boost to your crit star generation. off the bat though you have access to the Druidcraft cantrip, which is a more themed prestidigitation, just a billion tiny effects rolled into a single spell. and at level five you can Enlarge/Reduce creatures, and if you grow larger you can hit harder than usual, because a person-sized baby hits harder than a person-sized person. you can also shrink, but then you deal less damage with melee attacks. your faerie fire and enlarge/reduce share a single free cast per day, but you can also cast them (using your Charisma) with your existing spell slots. you can also fly, which makes your dirigible kind of pointless but we’ll get it anyway.

oh right, almost forgot. as a faerie you have free reign over your ability increases, but I picked +2 Dexterity and +1 Charisma here.

while I could use Habetrot’s waybackground, I’ll keep things kind of recent and call her a Guild Artisan. that gives her proficiency in Insight and Persuasion, and also means she has to pay regular dues to her guild boss. Boggart runs a tight ship, better not be late.

Ability Scores

Boggart hasn’t eaten you yet for some reason, so I bet your Charisma is super high. that and your Dexterity. balancing on a giant balloon is hard, and you’re also a crack shot with a gun. we have to make your Strength the third highest for multiclassing, but if you can convince your DM to ignore this you should dump it instead. she is literally a baby. physically, anyway. that being said your Constitution is still above average, babies can bounce back from just about anything. that means your Wisdom and Intelligence are low, having trouble learning things was your defining trait for quite a while.

Class Levels

1. Paladin 1: I promise this will make sense in the long run, just go with me here. starting off you’re good at Wisdom and Charisma saves, because magic doesn’t work on faeries that well. you’re also good at Medicine, it’s kind of like how Carpenters also used to be Surgeons, and you’ve got Religion down pat. the closest thing to a god in this land is rotting in a pit. there, that’s religion. you still know more than most people, tbh.

you can use Divine Sense to detect a couple types of creatures around you, but uh, spoiler alert! they’re faeries. they’re all faeries, you’re surrounded by faeries for thousands of years.

you can also Lay on Hands as an action, mending someone’s dress to give them some HP. you have a pool of five times your level each day to use, and spending five HP can heal someone from a poison or disease. when you say debuff immunity, you mean it.

2. Paladin 2: second level paladins can pick a Fighting Style, and you’re not really into fighting that much, so I guess you’re a Blessed Warrior. with this you can pick up two cleric cantrips of your choice and can even swap them out on level-ups, though for my money there’s only two we need. grab Thaumaturgy for the second of the three “do what you want” cantrips, and Mending, because making a character whose entire thing is sewing without the ability to mend would be a crime.

while we’re talking about Spells, you can cast those now. you get some spell slots, and your Charisma powers them. I’d grab Cure Wounds for your first skill, and Ceremony so you can finally find a use for all these stupid dresses you keep making since nobody actually gets married in britain. if they refuse to marry, you will make them marry. and get a +2 bonus to their AC for a week to boot!

you can also add a Divine Smite to a melee attack by spending a spell slot, but you don’t really use melee weapons. the only smite that doesn’t care what weapon you use is Branding Smite, and we won’t get that until fifth level. stay strong, habbe.

3. Paladin 3: but enough doom and gloom, let’s talk subclasses! as an Oath of Ancients paladin, you have an extended spell list, which now includes Ensnaring Strike to tie up an enemy with sewing supplies, or Speak with Animals to speak with animals. fey animals seem to be able to talk anyway, but still.

you can also Channel Divinity once a short rest in one of two flavors. you can spend an action to incur Nature’s Wrath on a foe, forcing a strength or dexterity save or they become restrained by vines I mean thread. you can also Turn the Faithless as an action, forcing every fey/fiend in thirty feet of you to make a… Wisdom save, or they become turned for a minute and have to run away from you.

you are a fey. huh.

this is the closest I could get to the downside of Habetrot’s third skill, WotC still isn’t big on players hurting themselves, even if they can’t get enough of shooting themselves in the foot.

4. Paladin 4: use your first Ability Score Improvement to bump up your Dexterity. if you have to pick up a weapon, you might as well be decent at it.

5. Paladin 5: fifth level paladins get an Extra Attack each attack action, as well as second level spells! as mentioned, Branding Smite is the only smite you get that is okay with ranged weapons, and it adds an effect to the enemy for up to a minute if it hits, preventing them from going invisible- kind of like faerie fire, in a way!

in a similar vein, your oath spell Moonbeam deals extra damage to shapechangers, and Misty Step is just a good utility spell to have. if you’re in a bad situation, stop being there.

you can also buff up your friends’ dresses with Aid to give them extra HP for the day, or you can Find Steed to get a balloon to ride on. it can’t fly yet, so I guess we’re still trying to find some helium.

6. Paladin 6: sixth level paladins exude an Aura of Protection, adding your charisma modifier to all saves you or nearby friends make, no limitations (aside from you being conscious). when you said debuff immunity, you meant it.

7. Paladin 7: seventh level ancient paladins finally get something that is 100% unequivocally useful- the Aura of Warding. you and all your nearby friends have resistance to spell magic. there’s a reason nobody in britain uses magecraft.

8. Paladin 8: I think we’re late enough in the build to break out the serious spoilers now. use this ASI to pick up the Squire of Solamnia feat and become one of Aesc/Tonelico’s most trusted knights. now you can mount or dismount for only five feet of movement, and you can make a Precise Strike when you attack with any kind of weapon, giving yourself advantage plus an extra d8 of damage. you can do this proficiency times per day, once per turn, though you only burn through uses if the attack actually hits.

9. Paladin 9: ninth level paladins don’t get much, but they do get third level spells! your freebies are Plant Growth and Protection from Energy, but I’d say your best fit atm is Crusader’s Mantle. it might not be crit stars, but it will make everyone’s weapons a lot shinier as they do radiant damage. this also works on ranged weapons, yay!

10. Paladin 10: if that’s not enough auras, here’s one more! with the Aura of Courage, you and nearby allies never have to worry about being frightened! I know, Morgan’s scary, but it won’t help any if her allies get frightened too!

11. Warlock 1: we’ve covered Morgan’s fall from… errr, “grace” doesn’t quite sound right, plus she actually became queen, so it’s more of a rise… whatever. she’s queen now, you’re hanging out with boggart when this pretty young thing walks in with a god-killing weapon on her back. it’d be best if you take that off her hands, right?

obviously the “best” fit for this would be making it a Hexbladepatron, but we just did that and it’s not sentient, so we’ll make do with Witherbloom. starting at level one you learn some Pact Magic, a separate set of spell slots you can cast using your Charisma. there’s not a lot of them, but they recharge on short rests!

right now you can cast Eldritch Blast for a quick burst fire, Prestidigitation to fulfill our “do anything” cantrip trio, and you can either Hex an enemy to further empower the black barrel against them or craft an Armor of Agathys to make a protective gown out of ice for a lucky maiden. oh this spell’s actually just for you. you look nice in it though, and we’ll get something else later.

you also get an extended spell list of Witherbloom Spells, including Spare the Dying and Cure Wounds for more dress patching. you also get Inflict Wounds, which both feels out of character and also is a melee attack.

of course the real reason we’re going to college is for Witherbloom’s Essence Tap. as a bonus action up to proficiency times per day, you can empower yourself in one of two ways for up to a minute. Overgrowth is nice, letting you spend your bonus actions healing yourself by spending hit dice, but we’re here to make a black barrel, and for that we need to make Withering Strikes. when you deal any kind of damage, you can turn it into necrotic damage while ignoring the typical resistances.

12. Warlock 2: at second level you get two Eldritch Invocations to help make your warlock levels tailor-made to your needs. we’re saving one for next level as usual, but pick up Armor of Shadows now for free mage armor… also on yourself though. darn. the warlock spell list is a little greedy, huh? Charm Person is nice though. that one’s barely magic, you’re just personable.

13. Warlock 3: at level three we’re taking the Pact of the Blade to make an Improved Pact Weapon. I would love to give you the heavy crossbow option for the black barrel, but sadly you’re too small and babyish for DND to let you use the big guns. so instead, you can spend an action to summon a light crossbow of any design you wish to your hand. it gets +1 to all attacks and damage rolls, deals magical damage, and can be used to cast your warlock spells. you can also turn magic weapons into your pact weapon if you like, so if you come across a real black barrel mid-adventure feel free to scoop it up.

speaking of spells though, you get plenty. as a witherbloom student you get Lesser Restoration and Ray of Enfeeblement for free, so… I guess giving an enemy weaker attacks is kind of like giving your friends defense buffs? we’re also stretching by grabbing Earthbind, helping you tie flying enemies to the ground with your sewing equipment.

14. Warlock 4: at fourth level you can bump up your Charisma with an ASI for stronger spells and auras. if your balloon is light enough, maybe Mage Hand will help it fly? if not, wait until next level. also, probably use Invisibility to stay safe in the meantime. it would be terrible to die right before a build comes together.

15. Warlock 5: at fifth level warlocks get third level spells. Fly will finally help your balloon leave the ground, while Revivify and Vampiric Touch… are free.

the real reason we stuck around this long was for the invocation Eldritch Smite, which finally lets your black barrel do the kind of damage you’d expect. it’s similar to divine smites, but they can only use warlock slots, deal force damage instead of radiant, and they knock stuff over instead of dealing extra damage to zombies.

16. Paladin 11: I don’t think that’s enough pain though. with Improved Divine Smite all your weapon attacks deal an extra 1d8 radiant damage! all your… melee… attacks. dammit, not again.

17. Paladin 12: okay, okay, we can save this. we just need to make a gun that can kill a god no matter what their health is in four levels. I’ve got it. Use this last ASI to pick up Metamagic Adept for two sorcery points and two kinds of metamagic you can use. we’re here for Distant spell to make your gun have some proper range, but Careful is nice too. I don’t think you have many AoE spells, it just feels in character.

18. Paladin 13: you’ve finally got fourth level spells, congrats! Ice Storm and Stoneskin are nice, but we’re here for two things. Find Greater Steed will give you a flying mount so you can finally stop wasting concentration on a balloon, and Banishment will help you kill gods.

well, not so much kill is permanently relocate them back to their home planes, but tomato tomatl. you can also use this on creatures from the plane you’re already on, but that’ll only banish them for a good minute.

19. Paladin 14: you can now use your Cleansing Touch as an action charisma modifier times a day, ending one spell on you or a willing creature. there is a reason. faeries don’t use magecraft.

20. Paladin 15: our final level of ancients paladin turned you into an Undying Sentinel. when you drop to 0 HP without dying you can drop to 1 instead once a day. you’re Mash’s guardian faerie, after all.

also, you don’t suffer the drawbacks of old age and can’t be magically aged. I don’t think faeries really have a “natural” lifespan, but if they did you’ve long since exceeded it.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

there’s a dearth of enemies in D&D with ranged options, so being a ranged fighter is always a smart move. a smarter move is being a ranged fighter who can fly. and you excel at that, with plenty of cool ways to pump out damage from a distance and keep even the winged bastards you have to fight from ever getting close. being able to ignore a semi-common resistance doesn’t hurt either.

you also come packing a ton of support options thanks to your auras and healing spells basically nullifying most-if not all- magical effects on your party, up to and including magical damage.

as a paladin faerie you’ve got plenty of tools in your kit for dealing with fae, demons, and undead, who tend to be the biggest troublemakers in the forgotten realms.

Cons:

while you have plenty of damage options, the best are reserved for melee paladins, which you aren’t. unless you risk getting close, you straight-up cannot use divine smite, improved divine smite, turn the faithless, or inflict wounds.

speaking of your support, guess how much of that requires you to be right next to your party! just about all of it, that’s right! having a gun is fun, but actually using it hampers both your offense and defense.

your highest level spell slot is fourth level. Find Greater Steed is cool and all, but is it really worth your highest spell slot? none of these creatures have more than 60 hp, so they will last at best a round or two in a fight. the biggest benefit of greater steeds are their ability to fly, but you can already do that.

[martyrxmade]

"the flowers listen. and sometimes, if you're quiet, they'll even speak to you."

riley keough  +  cis woman  +  she/her  ✧  welcome to new york,  pamela isley  (poison ivy)  !  as a  thirty-five year old  ‘villain’  you’re no doubt itching to get back to  your laboratory  —  but first, if you could repeat your story for the record. you woke up on new year’s day with  poisonous lipstick  beside you, right  ?  and you were dreaming about  taking over robinson park to protect the green  ?  thank you for your answers, and we’ll be in touch soon. 

canon: mainly new earth with prime earth influences ( see: new 52 did some weird things but brother it sure gave one helluva backstory ).

AT A GLANCE:

full name: dr. pamela lillian isley, phd alias: poison ivy age: 35 birthday: assigned march 14th by dc ( assigned pisces by dc ! ) gender: cis woman pronouns: she/her sexual orientation: bisexual romantic orientation: homoromantic career: botanist -- and the occasional eco-terrorist! notable traits: green hue, often wears gloves due to her poisonous touch ( which some characters, such as harley quinn and inexplicably harvey dent, have an immunity to ) threat level: high

SCRATCH IT:

affiliations: herself, the green, gotham city sirens (past), the injustice gang (past) birds of prey (past) (new 52) abilities: chlorokinesis, pheromone control, toxikinesis, toxic immunity, skin pigment manipulation, decelerated aging, regeneration weapons: n/a strengths: genius level intellect, see all abilities listed above weaknesses: sun deprivation ( tbh new-52 explored that in a really interesting way but like... it's across the canons ), instability

DIG DEEPER:

*all following connections are liable to change depending on muns ! positive personal connections: harley quinn, selina kyle, alec holland/swamp thing complicated personal connections: bruce wayne/batman, barbara gordon/batgirl, pretty much the entire batfam, oswald cobblepot/penguin, edward nigma/the riddler, harvey dent/two-face negative personal connections: jason woodrue/floronic man, joker

DIG REAL DEEP:

* expansion will be offered through task ! ( the lipstick is very important, mhm. ) mother: dead, murdered by ivy's father :\ father: dead, murdered by ivy <3 cause of ability manifestation: an experiment with/by jason woodrue gone wrong

ABILITY & WEAKNESS EXPANSION:

chlorokinesis: the ability to control and communicate with all plant life. through this, she is able to speak to a force called The Green ( a force swamp thing and floronic man can also communicate with ) and... you know... be their voice, but in a pretty violent manner :\

pheromone control: seduction turned up to eleven. even if she was in a pink gorilla suit ( a la 1997 cinematic feat batman & robin ), if she chooses to emit her pheromones, you are brainwashed under the sexy spell to do her bidding !

toxikinesis: makes it so she, as a plant-person, is literally toxic to the touch. literal 'kiss of death' ! hence why i decided she wears gloves in this universe, mhm.

toxic immunity: immune to toxins...

skin pigment manipulation: as a plant-person, she is naturally very green :\ but she's able to manipulate her dna to make her skin... like, human-passing ! still a lil green, but only if you're really looking !

decelerated aging: that plant dna is a real treat ! as long as she maintains solar energy ( and doesn't get murdered <3 ), she's expected to live longer and age slower than the average human.

regeneration: because she's part plant... she's kinda like those lizard that get their arm hacked off then a new arm just... grows in its place. that's ivy.

genius level intellect: girlie-pop has a phd and keeps getting smarter by the minute!

-

sun deprivation: if she's deprived of the sun/natural light for too long, she, like a plant, withers and becomes weakened. ( like i said, new 52 actually had an arc that explored this in a super interesting way -- i can't remember what the run was, but it was with barbara and it took her through the seasons without directly saying what was going on until the end in winter... like, new 52 did something right with that and with ivy's revamped backstory ! also her design was really cool but... i digress. )

instability: honestly i just lifted this from the wikia page bc it makes me chuckle. she's part of the batman rogues gallery, so you can bet that she's a lil unstable !

[dmsden]

Monster of the Month - Behir

Hullo, Gentle Readers. Welcome to the first article of 2022, which also happens top be the first Monster of the Month for 2022. This month, we’re looking at that weird crocodile/centipede hybrid that spits lightning, the Behir. As always, a big thank you to Scott Fabianek for the original art, as well as thanks for signing up for another year of working on the blog.

Behirs weren’t at the game’s inception, but they came along a relatively short time later. They were introduced in 1st edition module S4 - The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth, and they were weird and cool. In those days, you looked forward to each new module, because each one expanded the game’s monster quotient.

The behir is a creepy and versatile monster with several different kinds of attacks. It has a bite attack (which pairs nicely with its special swallow attack) as well as a constrict attack. And, of course, it has a devastating lightning breath attack that’s arguably its signature move. It’s immune to lightning damage, too, which means that it can catch a creature in its coils on one turn, then blast it and other with its lightning breath on the next turn, knowing it can’t hurt itself.

If it’s going to multiattack (likely due to multiple opponents), then it can both bite and constrict. It’s surprisingly stealthy for its size, and it has a climb speed, which suggests some possible tactics. The behir could ambush a creature, catch it up in its coils, while biting another creature with 10′ reach for sheer damage effect. The creature it’s constricting is then restrained, and the behir can move, carrying the restrained creature with it. Assuming it singled out a victim on their own and only made its bite attack with reach, it could scuttle up a wall away from most pursuers, and no one could make an opportunity attack against it. The next round, it can make its swallow attack with advantage if it still has its victim restrained. And it can keep climbing away from other attackers. If there’s no lone victim to grab, a lightning breath from stealth could be devastating, especially since it could be a surprise attack, giving an excuse to have everyone make their Dexterity saving throw at Disadvantage.

Behirs aren’t super smart, but they’re rather wise, which allows the idea of animal cunning. With this in mind, I think a few strong strategies like the above are within the realm of possibility for one. The description of Behir lairs definitely makes you believe that they’re cunning enough to find lairs that speak to their natural strengths. They can speak Draconic, so they can be reasoned with, but they are neutral evil, suggesting complete self-interest. They don’t even seem particularly excited by treasure...they want food, and plenty of it.

I think a behir’s lair will be fun to design. They might well carve out ledges and nooks and crannies up the walls that they can easily climb to and gain cover from attackers from below. They might pack the rubble into wider corridors to make narrow passages that they can blast lightning down in order to catch many opponents at once. They’re clever enough to use their stealth, climbing, and unique attacks to best effect. By designing a cool lair, you can make a behir encounter truly terrifying, as the reptilian monstrosity drags victims up the wall and drops them, only to blast lightning from a side tunnel a moment later.

I hope this has helped inspire you to add a behir to your story. Next month, we’ll look at a classic Underdark race that can really ruin any party. Until then, may your 2022 be full of natural 20s!

[tigerkirby215]

5e Vex, the Gloomiest build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Horace “Hozure” Hsu. Made for Riot Games.)

Writing this build in a dark room late at night, super tired and stuff... Stuck inside cause of this dumb virus... AFKing in TFT for a Prestige skin like a tryhard... It’s kinda aesthetic, ya know?

GOALS

Another person to kill... Shadow? Can you handle it? - You don’t need best friends: you’ve got your Shadow. He’s the only cool one, because he’s basically you.

Ugh. Can we get some rain clouds in here? - No one likes a debbie downer, but everyone loves a good scare!

Man, walking suuuucks - Nowadays even the anti-dash champion needs a resetting dash. “Do the thing, Shadow.”

RACE

I could make Vex a Harengon to justify her rabbit ears, but she doesn’t really do much “jumping.” That, and I didn’t buy Wild Beyond the Witchlight. So Halfling still works good enough for a yordle. Your Dexterity increases by 2, and while your movement speed goes down to 25 you have Halfling Nimbleness to move through people who are bigger than you. You’re also “Brave” for advantage against fears (when you hang around the Shadow Isles stuff really isn’t that scary) and of course have good ol’ yordle Lucky to reroll Nat 1s.

Halflings are normally pretty cheerful but Ghostwise Halflings are perfectly dark. You’d normally increase your Wisdom by 1 but I’d recommend increasing your Constitution instead. But I mean, it’s not a big deal if you take Wisdom instead. It is only +1. You also get Silent Speech to keep to team chat with 30 foot telepathy. I mean, they have to understand your languages but at least you don’t have to tell everyone what you’re talking about. And oh yeah you obviously speak Common and Halfling.

ABILITY SCORES

15; CHARISMA - Turns out when you don’t release any new yordles for (wait it’s been 5 years since Kled was released? Holy shit) people end up wanting them.

14; DEXTERITY - Just because you don’t like walking doesn’t mean you’re slow.

13; CONSTITUTION - Imagine dying like a normie.

12; WISDOM - Vex isn’t sad because she’s pessimistic. She’s just realistic.

10; INTELLIGENCE - You’re too cool for school. (And I needed everything else more.)

8; STRENGTH - Ughhh I don’t wanna lift heavy stuff! I’m tired...

BACKGROUND

I guess you’re technically a Haunted One, even if the black mist is the best thing that ever happened to you. You get proficiency in Arcana and Survival as well as two language of your choice to talk to your "allies.” (I guess one of them has to be exotic or whatever.) (I’d personally pick Sylvan as the language of yordles and whatever language the majority of your party knows as your second choice, but that’s just me.)

The thing that sucks about having a Heart of Darkness is that everyone keeps trying to help you, thinking that your sadness (and the living shadow on your back) is something to be fixed. I mean, at least you can get the NPC normies to help you, as long as you don’t spook ‘em. “No doctors! I told you: being sad makes me happy.”

(Artwork by @ToggleD0wnFall on Twitter.)

THE BUILD

or whatever...

LEVEL 1 - SORCERER 1

Starting as a Sorcerer for saving throws and stuff. Also proficiency in Intimidation and... Persuasion, I guess? Look, persuading people that you’re fine “no really” is a skill too.

I wonder what Sorcerous Origin we’ll pick... If only there was one based entirely on shadows and darkness... Oh hey Shadow Magic. As a Shadow Sorcerer you get Eyes of the Dark for 120 feet of Darkvision to see with your dumb Halfling eyes, and Strength of the Grave which will let Shadow take a hit for you. (As long as you make a good Charisma save.)

But of course the main appeal of a Sorcerer is the Spellcasting. You can learn 4 cantrips from the Sorcerer list and two level spells: For cantrips Mage Hand will let Shadow pick things up for you, Mind Sliver and Sword Burst will keep loud people off you both up close and from afar, and Prestidigitation will let you do all sorts of normie yordle magic. As for leveled spells Shield and Mage Armor are both kinda mandatory for some Personal Space.

LEVEL 2 - WARLOCK 1

What? Did you really think we wouldn’t get at least some support from adults? Work for that cool gloomy dude Viego and make a pack with The Undead. That’s because Undead are super dark and morbid and have a Form of Dread: as a bonus action you can turn on your Doom and Gloom for 1 minute. You get some temporary hit points, fear people when you hit them, and are immune to fears yourself. You can transform a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus and regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

You also get Pact Magic, which is different from normie Spellcasting because you get the cool stuff done with just a Short Rest. Anyways you can learn two cantrips from the Warlock list like Minor Illusion to have Shadow trick some normies and Eldritch Blast to Eldritch while you Blast. You can also grab some first level Warlock spells like Hex to mark people you don’t like, and Arms of Hadar if you really need your Personal Space.

LEVEL 3 - WARLOCK 2

Second level Warlocks get their Eldritch Invocations for extra stuff that you don’t have to put effort into. While Armor of Shadows does exist it’s honestly better for you to cast Mage Armor with a spell slot, so with that being said take Agonizing Blast to agonize while you blast and Eldritch Mind so you can keep your concentration around annoying people.

You can also learn another spell like Hellish Rebuke, because people just keep barging into your Personal Space!

LEVEL 4 - SORCERER 2

Now that you can agonize your blasts it’s time to go back to Sorcerer. Second level Sorcerers get a Font of Magic for Sorcery Points which currently don’t do much other than give you more spell slots. You can turn your Warlock slots into Sorcery points though, which is good because they come back on a Short Rest but the rest of your magic does not.

You can also cast another spell like Earth Tremor, to slow people down with Looming Darkness and sunder the land with your edginess.

LEVEL 5 - SORCERER 3

Third level Sorcerers finally get Metamagic! Empowered Spell will allow you to maximize your damage and retain your role as an artillery mage. Alternatively if you want to guarantee fears in your foes take Heightened Spell to give them disadvantage to resist Shadow’s influence.

If you want Shadow to stick around then Dust Devil will swirl around for quite awhile. Alternatively Shadow (Magic) also teaches you Darkness for free, and you can cast it with 2 Sorcery Points to see through it! Your friends can’t see through it, but you can team up with Shadow for some powerful combos when you can see them but they can’t see you!

(Artwork by @jpdiasarts on Twitter.)

LEVEL 6 - SORCERER 4

4th level Sorcerers get the first of many Ability Score Improvements, but I can’t take Fey Touched every time for Flash. That, and we won’t give into basic yordle society. So let’s get value out of our Halfling race with the Second Chance feat. Along with +1 to your Charisma you can also use your reaction to make an enemy you can see attacking you reroll their attack roll, potentially making them miss.

Don’t use this against an attack that you can Shield against, but if someone gets a really good roll you can use this to get your Personal Space back! You can only use this once per combat though (it comes back when you roll for initiative!) so make sure to use it when it matters to keep your spell slots in check.

Oh and you can also learn another spell, and another cantrip! For your cantrip Shocking Grasp will help you push people away if they get too close (folk tend to react poorly when zapped by a tazer!) As for leveled spells Web will keep foes from dashing around, and is also pretty flammable. Huhn; wonder if that’ll be useful.

LEVEL 7 - SORCERER 5

5th level Sorcerers get gifts from the Ruined Queen Tasha in the form of Magical Guidance. You can use a Sorcery point to reroll a d20 if needed, potentially squeezing a success out. Don’t use this all the time (even if Warlock slots means you’ll have plenty of Sorcery points to spare) but this can be very useful in an emergency!

You can also learn third level spells and hey: Fireball may be a normie spell, but it’s still pretty effective. It’s maybe a bit too flashy to be Looming Darkness but it’s a good source of AoE damage which isn’t as loud and annoying as Shatter.

LEVEL 8 - SORCERER 6

All this time being a Shadow Sorcerer and Shadow hasn’t even done anything for us! Well how about you go out there and get some work done, Shadow? For 3 Sorcery points you can summon a Hound of Ill Omen to target a foe within 120 feet of you.

Shadow is basically a Dire Wolf except he’s Medium, has temp HP equal to half your Sorcerer level, can move through stuff (but takes damage if he ends his turn in stuff), and automatically chases whoever you told him to go for. Shadow will appear 30 feet away from the person you told him to get, and will chase after him like I said. All he’ll really do is attack the target you told him to though; he won’t even opportunity attack unless it’s the person you told him to chase. But if Shadow’s near someone they have disadvantage on their saving throws, which is pretty cool. (Unfortunately it’s only against spells, not your Form of Dread.)

Speaking of saving throws: Slow is a really great way to keep normies from running around doing annoying stuff. And you don’t have to hit Shadow with it which is pretty cool.

(Artwork by @Lauriquess on Twitter.)

LEVEL 9 - WARLOCK 3

Third level Warlocks get to choose their Pact Boon: if you want a really small Shadow go for Pact of the Chain, and if you want your cool necklace go for Pact of the Talisman, but we’ll be going for Pact of the Tome because you’re mostly a spellcaster really. (And we definitely don’t have enough cantrips.)

You get a Book of Shadows (See? Books can be cool!) with three cantrips: take Thaumaturgy to be extra spooky, Vicious Mockery for some sick teenage burns, and Sapping Sting to make normies fall over when you fear them. Some might say that 10 total cantrips by level 9 is a bit overkill but look on the dark side: you’ve now got a cantrip for basically every type of saving throw in case you can’t hit with Eldritch Blast!

Honestly none of the Pact Boons are particularly important for Vex so I picked the one that made the most sense. Feel free to take something more practical since 10 cantrips is admittedly overkill.

Oh and you can learn more Warlock spells, so now it’s time to finally take Misty Step. For Flash!

LEVEL 10 - WARLOCK 4

4th level Warlocks get another Ability Score Improvement: getting more Charisma for better spellcasting is probably a good idea.

You can also learn another spell, and hey look another cantrip. For your cantrip even if more damage options are kinda overkill by this point Chill Touch inflicts Grievous Wounds, which might be useful. You can also grab another second level spell and Blindness / Deafness (which is on the Undead list) is far more useful than any of the other normie options you’d have at this level anyways.

LEVEL 11 - WARLOCK 5

5th level Warlocks get another Eldritch Invocation, and even if you’ve got a resetting dash you’re still a squishy mage. So grab Tomb of Levistus for Zhonya's Hourglass.

You can also grab third level Warlock spells now! Remember how I took Fireball and complained that it wasn’t a good replica of Looming Darkness? Well Hunger of Hadar takes your Concentration but it’s a lot edgier!

LEVEL 12 - WARLOCK 6

6th level Undead Warlocks have become Grave Touched by the mist, and can make mist of their own! Along with being able survive without eating, drinking, or breathing you can turn any of your damage into necrotic damage. If you’re in your Form of Dread however you can add one extra damage die to whatever you’re using to get people to buzz off, adding to that morbid and macabre aesthetic.

You can also add another spell and if you’re bored with Shadow being a wolf how about you make them a Summon Shadowspawn? Weaponize your Fury, Despair, or Fear (I’d honestly recommend Fury since it has good synergy with your Dreadful Aspect) and work together with Shadow to deal with all your annoying foes! I’d also suggest replacing Hellish Rebuke with Counterspell, because even if the former fits better the latter is way more useful.

(Artwork by Jennifer Wuestling. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 13 - WARLOCK 7

7th level Warlocks can finally activate Shadow Surge. Relentless Hex lets you mark a foe with Hex and then dash to them. And technically you can move Hex around after the fact to reset your dashes! And while you’re at it you may as well grab Dimension Door for Summoner Teleport.

You could also upgrade Summon Shadowspawn to Summon Aberration if you so desire, but Summon Shadowspawn is more than strong enough and far more fun and thematic.

LEVEL 14 - WARLOCK 8

Another Ability Score Improvement. Yay. Cap off your Charisma for the best spellcasting you can get out of Shadow. You can also learn another spell, but we’re going to wait for...

LEVEL 15 - WARLOCK 9

9th level Warlocks get another Eldritch Invocation: even if it’s kinda ineffective Ascendant Step is still pretty useful to have Shadow carry you around. I mean yeah it’s slow but not that much slower than walking for you, and Shadow can lift you up in the air. “Shadow; carry me...”

You can also learn 5th level spells. If one guy’s being particularly annoying Negative Energy Flood can get them to shut up and work for you. Alternatively if you want more Personal Space Antilife Shell is on the Undead List and will make sure normies keep faaaaar away.

LEVEL 16 - WARLOCK 10

Are you ever so sick of everything that you just want to explode? Necrotic Husk has two benefits: for one you’re resistant to Necrotic damage, and immune while in your Form of Dread because being around Viego for so long means you’re used to his work.

But additionally when you are reduced to 0 hit points you can use your reaction to drop to 1 hit point instead and cause your body to explode! Each creature of your choice within 30 feet of you takes 2d10 + your warlock level in Necrotic damage. You do gain 1 level of exhaustion after using this, and after using it once you can’t do so again until you finish 1d4 long rests. So I’d perhaps use Strength of the Grave first unless you really need to lash out.

I hope you weren’t expecting more spells because you aren’t getting them from Warlock: just a cantrip. By this point we’ve honestly got far too many cantrips so I dunno maybe just grab Prestidigitation again and swap it out from Sorcerer when you get the chance.

(Artwork by @DukkoArt on Twitter.)

LEVEL 17 - SORCERER 7

Finally back to our yordle roots: 7th level Sorcerers get 4th level spells like Storm Sphere for a sphere of darkness and angst. But I mean the real benefit is that you get more Sorcery points let’s be real.

Oh and you can swap out Prestidigitation for Gust I guess. Spooky winds and stuff. Either this level or next level depending on your DM.

LEVEL 18 - SORCERER 8

Your last Ability Score Improvement... You’re gonna have to ask: what’s more important to me? More Metamagic, or more Eldritch Invocations? If Metamagic is to your liking take Metamagic Adept for Careful Spell and Distant Spell along with two more Sorcery points to use on them. If you like Eldritch Invocations though Eldritch Adept has a ton of options as a level 10 Warlock. I won’t tell you what invocation to take (they’re all great boosts but none of them shout out at me as something you should prioritize) as there are plenty of options to make your own Vex now that they’re all grown up.

I can at least tell you what spell to take: none of them! Wait until next level!

Oh and you can swap out Prestidigitation for Gust I guess.

LEVEL 19 - SORCERER 9

9th level Sorcerers can learn 5th level spells which means you’ve finally caught up to your Warlock slots. And look at that: the good wish Tasha gave you one last way to weaponize Shadow. Bigby’s Hand does a bunch of cool stuff and is pretty much the ultimate way to make Shadow crush some normies. (Most literally.) Alternatively if you want to borrow from Viego Enervation will let you heal from the mist and also do some damage. Great if you’re stuck in a corner with a bunch of annoying normies.

LEVEL 20 - SORCERER 10

Our final level is the 10th level of Sorcerer for one last spell, one last cantrip, and one last metamagic option! For your metamagic it’s honestly about time you take Quickened Spell to up your DPS. For your cantrip take Mold Earth to dig holes in the sand and brood. And as for your leveled spell? Honestly I just like Synaptic Static, and there isn’t much else I want anyways.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

We’re all doomed. But you’re more doomed - 5th level spells pack more than enough punch, and you’ve got plenty of them. Warlock slots will always be at your fingertips, and Sorcery points give you plenty of flexibility too!

I can feel it: someone’s happy over there! - Along with giving you a temporary hitpoint shield Form of Dread puts a nice bit of CC on all your abilities. Keep enemies scared and sad with tons of Doom and Gloom!

Ugh. Stop copying me Shadow! - Hounds of Ill Omen are cool. Summon Shadowspawn is also cool. Bigby’s Hand is especially cool. And hey: even your lower level Concentration spells like Hex? They’re pretty cool too.

CONS

Ughhhhhhhhhh this is gonna take foreeeever! - You’ve got limited fumes, even for a coffeelock. Form of Dread has limited uses and there’s only so much spell slot melting you can do to get your magic back.

I’m dancing... Happy? - You’ve got a really boring set of really normie skills... and if you’re playing Vex the way she’s meant to be played you’re probably not going to use any of them except for Intimidation.

Yup; the glass is half empty - Half your levels are Sorcerer levels, meaning you’re squishy. You’ve also got Mage Armor on which guess what: also means you’re squishy. People who hit teenagers sure are lame but it’s really not hard to Power Word Kill you.

But I guess you’re pretty cool overall. Shadow’s an alright partner and you can spread Ruination even without Viego. Trudge around and get people to frown for once. There’s nothing wrong with being sad, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting the world to be sad. But do try to at least be happy out of character, because we play games to have fun. I mean, who’d play a video game that just makes you depressed and angry?

(Artwork by @AzzylumArt on Twitter.)

[sabo-has-my-heart]

Hi, I hope you're doing great! I saw your post about DF ideas/help so i'm going to share my Oc's DF, I feel like it's a little overpowered but here it is

Name: Kinzoku Kinzoku no mi (metal metal)

Type: Logia

Abilities: The fruit transform the user's body in metal, thanks to this the user gains super-strength, great resistance to almost everything (physical harm, temperature etc.). The user is also able to fuse themselves with any kind of metal and to shapeshift their body partly or completely (mostly to create weapons such as swords and axes). The fruit also makes the user immune to electrification and things as such

Weaknesses: The user can't swim, their body being made of metal can be fused and their body parts can't be regenerated if cut out with haki. They're also subject to other DF users powers (ex. Eustass Kid's mag mag no mi).

Once awakened the DF users is able to manipulate any kind of metal as long as they're touching it.

I'd like to know what you think about it and if you think that it can be improved

(Sorry for my syntax errors, English is not my first language)

First things first, your English is fine, you did great, second thing, yes it’s over powered. However I will say the same thing I will always and forever say when it comes to over or under powered devil fruits. If you’re happy with it, don’t change a thing! If you’re happy with your S/I, your devil fruit, whatever you’re writing, don’t worry about it and do what makes you happy. If you do want to change it because it makes you happy, then read onwards (or read onwards if you’re interested, either or)

So metal is a rather interesting… material? I can’t inherently call it an element as metal can be a number of different elements or made up of more than one element. That being said, for the sake of this power, we’ll assume a metal like steel instead of all metals. Being made of steel wouldn’t make you inherently stronger, so for a logia type, I personally think that it shouldn’t have super strength. Steel in a durable, strong metal, yes, but I would make it so that the strength that seems inherent in the power is actually coming from throwing a punch with a fist made of steel at someone, like hitting someone with a metal pipe, it’s not that the pipe has power, it’s the power that the person puts behind it combined with the steel’s natural properties. Steel does have great physical resistance, that’s true, but like most things in the world, it’s still subject to temperature, seen most often with extreme temperatures, metals can be melted away or frozen so cold they become brittle (very, very, very low temperatures). So while they can be heated or cooled to a certain degree without too much issue, I wouldn’t put a ‘great’ resistance to temperature, but a resistance would be fine and I can see some kind of resistance.

It makes sense that she would sink particularly fast, a logia is made up of whatever it is that the fruit allows (fire, ice, magma, etc.), and metals (as I know them) are generally pretty heavy. So while all devil fruit users are weak against water, she would probably have a particularly hard time with it as she would sink faster and be harder to pull up. I’m not sure why you put “their body being made of metal can be fused and their body parts can't be regenerated if cut out with haki” under weaknesses, that seems more like a power to me as just about anyone will have an issue with haki. Furthermore, in all the logia’s I can think of, they all share the same ability to not be cut without haki, so I’m not entirely sure this needed to be stated. I’m glad that they’re subject to other devil fruits like Kid’s fruit, it makes a lot of sense, she’s made of metal. If you want this to be an all kinds of metal devil fruit, then the awakened power works great, do keep in mind though, that not all metal makes for good weaponry. Gold, for example, is very heavy and not particularly durable and has less heat resistance.

I hope this is what you wanted, as I’ve been meaning to state (but forgetting to do so), if it’s not what you wanted, send me another request and I can give it another go.

[anarcoqueer1994]

So I wrote this and I'm pretty proud it. Some pre-serum 1930s Stucky, period accurate homophobia. If you like it I linked my ao3 for the other two chapters. Am I cringy? Probs but whateves

It is probably one of the coldest winters Bucky could remember. He was thankful that the end of the day was finally here. The biting temperatures were amplified by the air off of the cold water. More importantly though, going home meant he could go check on Steve, his tenement mate, and long-time best friend. Steve have come down with a bout of pneumonia a couple weeks back. He is still fighting to get his strength back, still breaking out in coughing fits and struggling to get around. His weak immune system made sure that it was not going to be easy to get over this. Honestly, Bucky hated that he had to leave him alone all day to work, but they needed the money to afford the rent, even if their tenement was too small and the heat wasn’t the best. So Bucky just spent the day going through the worse possible scenarios in his head. What if Steve got worse while he was away? What if Steve fell somewhere in the apartment because he is too stubborn to stay in bed, and now couldn’t get up? Was he laying their freezing not able to get back to his bed? What if he…dies because I am not there to help him? But now he could get home and check on Steve.

“James!’ Bucky turned around to hear Bill calling after, as he walking away for the day. Bill was another one of the grunt workers at dock. Nice enough guy, kind of rough. Probably his closest “work friend.” Bucky waits for him to catch up.

“Yea?” he says casually, trying not to show the impatience in his voice for the man that is unknowingly delaying him from getting to Steve.

“Want to go get a drink with some of the guys? Maybe we’ll run into some dames desperate enough for a good time to give your ugly mug a chance?” He wiggles his eye brows jokingly.

“No thanks, I’m good, actually.” Bucky replies, turning to leave.

“Oh come on, you never come out. Let loose a little, pal.” Bill pushes.

“I just need to get home…” Bucky responds, a little annoyed at this point because of the hold up.

“What’s the rush?”

“It’s just Steve is at home and he’s expecting me.” Bucky lies. Steve wouldn’t care if he went out. He would tell Bucky he deserves it. In actuality, he was too worried to go out and have fun, not when Steve was at home, miserable.

“Come on then, invite him out too. You guys can meet us at the bar.” Bill offers.

“Maybe another night, Steve is pretty sick. Getting over pneumonia.” Bucky goes to turn away again.

“Then why are you in a rush?” He laughs. “If he’s sick, he’s probably just laying down in bed. No need to babysit.”

Bucky ignores he question and just repeats, “Like I said, maybe another night.”

Bill lets out a little amused huff. “Interesting.”

His tone of voice gets the better of Bucky. “Interesting? What is that supposed to mean?” Bucky interrogates.

“Nothing, man. Forget about it.” Bill half-heartedly replies.

Bucky of course will not forget about it. “No, what did you mean?” His voice a little more irritated sounding then he intended.

Bill shakes his head and lets out a sigh. “It’s just some of the guys…”

“Some of the guys, what?” Bucky urges.

“Some of the guys say you’re a little funny, you know.” Many of the guys on the crew have grown up in the same neighborhood as Steve and Bucky and as such have known them, or at least seen them for a long time.

Bucky feels a sudden weight on his chest but does not let it show. “Funny how, Bill?” though he is terrified that he know what he means.

“You know, you and that roommate are pretty close and have been for a long time. Sometimes it just appears…” he hesitates, thinking about how to say it. “It appears like you treat him how you would treat a dame you were into. It just seems a little queer.” From behind Bill, he could see some of the guys eavesdropping. Some are smirking, and a few other are snickering. Some even are shooting disgusted looks at Bucky.

Bucky stops his face from faltering from the apathetic look he has put on. He replies loud enough for those assholes who are listening in to hear. “Well, I can assure you Bill, that Steve is my best friend, and that’s all, okay?” In reality, his heart is beating through his chest. Had it been that obvious that he liked Steve? How long have they been passing stories about this.

Bill cracks a smile and slaps Bucky on the shoulder. “Yeah, okay. I knew those guys had to wrong about you. Come out and join us later if you change your mind.” Bill gives Bucky the name of the bar they’ll be at, as he politely listens, not intending on changing his mind. As he leaves, he can tell a lot of the guys do not seem to believe him.

Walking home, Bucky was stuck in his head. He didn’t think people could tell how he felt about Steve. Did he act more like Steve’s fella than his friend? How could they tell? To be fair, he hadn’t been lying about Steve just being his friend. Just because Bucky was a little “light in the loafers”, did not mean that he feelings for Steve were requited. Steve was such a good guy and a model Catholic. No way was Steve into him the same way.

Probably for the best since guys liking other guys that way wasn’t looked on very favorably. The anti-sodomy laws made that clear. Plus, he didn’t particularly like the idea of having to get into fist fight with guys who may make a remark at him…or god forbid Steve.

He shakes his, getting himself out of his own thoughts. He didn’t want to think about these what ifs anymore. Maybe he would try harder to act less like a boyfriend to Steve and more like his super manly, non-homosexual, best friend. Its’s not like he didn’t like women, he just preferred Steve more. But he could be less doting. He didn’t need to babysit his best friend. Bill was right, Steve was probably just sleeping and didn’t need him. Maybe he would just stop at home, check in momentarily, and then take them up on his offer to drink with the guys. He hypes himself up in his head as he reaches the steps leading up to his door. These thoughts left his head as soon as he opened the door.

He could hear a pretty bad coughing fit from the bedroom. The place was freezing. The shitty radiator must be on the fritz. It was warmer than outside but not by much. It couldn’t be more than 40 degrees in that house, the paper-thin walls doing little to keep the heat in. Bucky makes his way to the little gas stove. The tenement was only 3 rooms, the front room that consisted of a little seating area and a modest kitchen (if you van call it that. It was a little sink and gas stove, with one cupboard), the bathroom (the only room with a door), and their share bedroom. He turns on the oven, and leaves it open so the heat could radiate through out the place. He discards his shoes and jacket in the front room. Then he quietly makes his way to the back bedroom, not knowing if the previous coughing fit indicated if he was a wake or not. If Steve was asleep, he didn’t want to wake him.

When he walks through the doorway to bedroom, his friend is huddled under some the blankets. He notices that Steve is still covered in his own blanket, as well Bucky’s blanket that he had laid on top of him this morning when he left for work. Steve’s face sticks out slightly even though he pulled the blanket over his head. He is definitely not feeling great. He is awake but kind of staring off in the distance. His usual pale features somehow look paler when punctuated with the dark circles under his eyes. Of course, he hasn’t slept well in a while, constantly being woken up in fits of coughing and wheezing. He hasn’t noticed that Bucky has walked in. There is no way Bucky can leave and go to the bar though after seeing this.

“Hey Stevie.” Bucky puts on a smile, knowing that Steve hates when Bucky stares at him like some pathetic sick thing. Steve looks up and for a moment it looks like a light entered his eyes that wasn’t there a moment ago. Bucky likes to think he did not imagine it and Steve genuinely lights up because of him. Probably wishful thinking but it’s a nice though.

“Hey Buck!” He tries to sound stronger than he felt. He hated making Bucky worry but he knew his friend, He inevitably is. He pushes himself up lamely to rest his back against the wall behind his mattress. He is still wrapped up in the blankets, still shivering faintly. “So how was work?” Steve asks, just kind of wanting to talk to Bucky. He would never admit it to Bucky, but he hated feeling alone all day while the other man was at work.

Bucky makes his way across the room, sitting on the little wooden stool by Steve’s bed so he could face his friend. His smile had disappeared momentarily when Bucky thought back to conversation he had right before leaving. But he recovers quicky to reply. “Nothing special. Cold as hell though. And this damn apartment is freezing, not making it any better.”

“Yea, I think the radiator is busted. Tried to tell the sup, but I couldn’t get out of bed. I’m sorry Buck.” He gives a sad smile. Times like this made Steve feel so useless, couldn’t even make sure the heat was working so Bucky was cold after working outside all day.

“No problem, pal. Tomorrow’s my day off. I’ll handle it.” Bucky smiles before realizing how sad Steve still looks. He leans over and puts his hand on Steve’s blanket covered shoulder. “Buddy, I promise it is not a big deal, you cannot help that you are sick.”

Steve sighs miserably. “Doesn’t mean, it doesn’t make me feel pretty worthless. For god sakes, look how pathetic I am. I have both blankets and am still shivering like some babe.” He averts his eyes to his lap, avoiding Bucky’s gaze.

This breaks Bucky’s heart, to hear how little Steve thinks about himself. Steve Rogers had the biggest heart out of everyone he knows. He has gotten into so many fights (that he could not win) just because he saw some in justice. Steve was the best person he has ever met so hearing this from him is difficult. “Stevie…” the familiar nickname instinctively causes Steve to look back at Bucky. “I hate to tell you this, bud, but you are wrong. You are pretty great and all this stuff about being worthless or pathetic, is bullshit.”

Steve lets out a nervous huff before quietly whispering “Thanks, Buck…”

“Anytime.” Bucky smiles back at him.

“But, umm hey Bucky…”

“Yeah?”

“Here...” Steve starts to shimmy out the outer blanket belonging to the slightly older man.

“Hey no…” Bucky puts up his hands to signal to stop. “You need that, it is freezing in here and you are sick.”

“Yea but we can’t have you getting sick, either Buck. You may not have my immune system but you can get still get sick.

“Steve.” Bucky says firmly. “I will not take that blanket from you.”

Steve sighs, sometimes Bucky can be as stubborn as he is. “Fine but I can’t have you freezing to death. Come up here. We can share the blanket,” Steve says it so matter-of-factly, like nothing he said was weird. And I guess it wasn’t it is not like they haven’t shared a bed before. Except, in light the conversation at work Bucky can’t help but to start to over think it. Luckily for him, Steve clears his throat to get Bucky’s attention when he notices him staring off. “Hey Buck…did you hear me? Come on, get up here.”

Bucky wants to get up there, god knows he does. To Steve it seemed to be a very practical thing, cold apartment, limited blankets, two bodies make more heat than one, etc. But to Bucky, it felt like so much more. He loved being that close to Steve. And that was his problem. Thinking fast he says “I should start supper. I’m going to heat up the stew for us that Mrs. Andrews dropped off yesterday.” Mrs. Andrews being the nice widow from upstairs.

“Oh…” Steve says before letting a smile come back to his face. If Bucky didn’t know any better, he would say Steve almost sounded disappointed. He did not allow himself to dwell on it too long. Instead, he quickly stands up and makes his way to the kitchen. He throws the small pot of stew on the stoves so he can warm it up.

After a few minutes, he hears Steve shuffle into the room. It really was much warmer in that since the oven, and now the stove, have been on. Steve takes a quiet seat at their modest table.

“You didn’t have to come out. I would have brought you dinner, Stevie.” Bucky says, eyes on the pot in front of him.

“S’okay, I needed to stretch my legs…” No sooner did he say that, did another coughing fit came on. It sounded almost painful, and Bucky could only imagine how raw Steve’s throat must feel. He made his was to his friend, carrying a handkerchief to help with the mess of snot and flem coming from the other man. He stops in front of his friend, crouching down to be on his level. Bucky patiently waits for it to pass before handing his friend the little piece of cloth.

“Thanks Buck…” Steve said almost like he was embarrassed. Bucky instinctively squeezes Steve’s knee reassuringly, before smiling softly and getting back up. He walks back to the pot on the stove. Okay, he thinks to himself. I may be a little too doting. What Bucky did not see when he turned around was Steve smiling at him.

The rest of dinner is uneventful, give or take a few coughs and shivers. When they finished eating, Bucky has to turn off the oven He doesn’t want to leave it on all night, doesn’t want to risk a fire. It is still pretty early in the evening, only about 7:30 but he can see Steve is exhausted.

Steve stands up, but momentarily loses his balance. Bucky, overreacting, stands up and catches Steve before the smaller man can even try to catch himself. They find themselves in a precarious situation. Steve is leaning is weight against Bucky’s chest, as Bucky’s arm is wrapped around the skinnier man’s waist. Bucky’s cheeks turn red as Steve stares curiously at him.

After what felt like years of silence, Bucky lets go of Steve, realizing his friend must be confused. “Uh sorry, thought you were going to fall.” Bucky nervously rubs the back of his neck.

Steve yawns and says “Thanks, I almost did.” He actually flashes bucky a warm smile that honest to god gave the brunette butterflies. Get it together, Barnes. He thinks to hisself, as he watches Steve walk away to their room. He follows noting the apartment temperature going down again.

When Bucky gets to the room, he finds that Steve has set his blanket on his bed. “I told you Stevie, you need this more than me.”

“Don’t be an idiot.” Steve says between shivers under his own blanket. “Can’t have you getting sick too. And you are being weird.”

“What do you mean by weird?” Bucky cocks his head to the side.

“Well, it would make more sense to share a bed, two blankets and two bodies would be warmer, and we have done it a thousand times. But ever since you got home from work, you seem off. So take your blanket, punk.” Steve stares at his bewildered friend.

Bucky hates that Steve is so observant. He hadn’t meant to be weird. But now his stubborn friend was going to freeze tonight because he refused to not let Bucky have a blanket. He lets out an exasperated sigh, plays up the drama of course. “Fine. You win. Sharing a bed it is.”

Steve beams at him. Bucky should of know Steve would win this out. With Bucky, Steve could have anything he wanted. He had to face it, he was wrapped around the younger man’s finger.

Bucky makes his way to a pile of books on the ground, grabbing his copy of The Hobbit, before stepping out of his pants, leaving him in a shirt and briefs. He takes the book and his blanket over to Steve’s bed. He scoots into bed with Steve, both men adjusting so that the blankets now cover of them, their bodies inevitably touching on the small, twin size bed. Bucky sets his book on the nightstand, knowing Steve will fall asleep first and he’ll probably do some reading.

Bucky suddenly freezes when he feels Steve lie his head on Bucky’s chest, his arm thrown over the other man’s abdomen. Bucky’s arms are currently under his own head. This is new. Usually, they only got in this position through accidental readjusting while they are sleeping. Stuff that Bucky could just brush off. But now an awake Steve Roger’s is cuddling with an awake Bucky Barnes. He hopes that Steve cannot feel his heart racing in his chest. He continues to look up at the ceiling, hoping to nullify the blush creeping up his face.

Steve doesn’t seem to notice the other man’s reaction, or if he does, he hides it well. He whispers “Is this okay? I’m really cold and I guess I am trying to steal your body heat.” Steve’s voice sounds shy, almost embarrassed.

Of course, when Steve puts it like that, how can Bucky say no? He internally scolds himself for reading more into it. He tries to let out a casual laugh, though it sounded way more choked then intended. He lamely jokes. “That’s why you were trying to get me into bed. To use me?” He finally looks down at his chest, trying to see if his friend laughs. Instead, he is met with questioning blue eyes, genuinely concerned if this was alright. Even with only the dim light of a small bedside lamp, he can’t help but notice how those eyes sparkle. Bucky lets out a small, controlled, sigh and quietly whispers, “Steal away, buddy.”

“Buck?” Steve’s voice sounding even smaller this time. Bucky can’t remember Steve sounding so nervous about anything. He begins to panic internally even as he tries to stay cool externally.

“Yea Stevie?”

“You can say no, okay?” Steve whispers nervously.

“Steve what is it?” His voice more audibly concerned this time.

“Will put your arms around me? I feel like I just can’t get warm.” The way Steve asks is heartbreaking to Bucky, like he was worried Bucky would be upset.

For the first time, Bucky notices that Steve is still shivering. He had been so wrapped up by the way he felt having the smaller man so physically intimate with him, that he didn’t realize that the cold really was getting to Steve. He can tell by the way Steve was acting, he was embarrassed to make these requests. He knows Steve could be a proud man and to be in the position where he had to be so vulnerable was probably hard for him. So Bucky didn’t want to make it a thing, where Steve would feel obligated to have to say more. This was obviously tough enough. So without a word, he wrapped one arm around Steve, as the other fell over his own chest so that he cook connected his hands, locking Steve in, and trying to pull him as close as possible, trying his hardest to warm his sick friend.

Steve didn’t say a word, just flashed a tiny appreciative smile. They laid there in silence for a while before he finally heard Steve’s breath steady in a way that indicated that sleep finally overtook him. Bucky frowned because even in his sleep, the other man’s breaths seemed labored and congested. He hated that this was Steve’s life, that he couldn’t fix this for him. But at least he could help him for tonight. Bucky would be content spending the rest of his life as Steve’s best friend, even if it broke his heart know he could never be with Steve the way he wanted to be. This could be enough.

~~~~

A few hours pass by. Bucky had fallen asleep a little bit ago, still with his arms wrapped around the blonde. It is around 1 am when Bucky is disturbed from his sleep. He had become alarmed when he realized that Steve was no longer beside him. He sits up and desperately looks around the dark room, unsuccessfully scanning for his friend. That’s when he spots the soft glow of candlelight through the doorway coming from the front room. He notices both blankets are still in bed with him, so he worries about the offending temperature in the other room where Steve must be.

He makes his way out of bed, wrapping one of the blankets over his shoulders, and walks to the front room. Luckily, he found when he got in there, that Steve had turned one the oven filling the tiny front room with warmth. He spotted Steve sitting on their tiny old couch, kind of staring off. Bucky clears his throat, but Steve doesn’t seem to notice, still lost in his thoughts.

So, Bucky steps a little closer, stopping when he is a few feet away from his friend. A candle sits on the little crate they use as side table, the dim light barely illuminating his friend’s face. “Hey, bud. Couldn’t sleep?” Bucky says softly.

Steve doesn’t bother looking up, just keeps staring a head. He mumbles. “Was woken…up by something. You can go back to bed.” Steve looks visibly shaken and Bucky was absolutely not going to be able to just go back to bed.

Bucky instead takes a seat next to his rigid friend. Something was definitely not right. The way that Steve was sitting so stiffly, his face was distorted into a broken frown. At this level, Bucky can also tell his friend had been crying, blood shot eyes lit a glow from the candle. “Steve…buddy what’s wrong?” Bucky instinctively goes to rest his hand on the other man’s boney knees. To his surprise, Steve pulls his knee away, repulsed, still not looking at him.

Fear flashed through Bucky’s head. Had he done something? Had something happened while they were sleeping. Had Steve realized the way Bucky looked at him was wrong. He was trying to panic but that seemed fruitless. “Stevie…did I do something wrong?” Bucky didn’t recognize the voice that came out of his mouth. It seemed so broken and pathetic.

Steve let out a pained sigh, before momentarily pressing the palms of his hands over his eyes, like he was forcing back tears. Finally, he turned and looked at Bucky. He sounded frail; his voice laced with sadness. “No Buck…never. You could never do anything wrong. Its me…I am the something wrong here.”

Bucky immediately got defensive, worry coating his words. “What are you talking about? You didn’t do anything wrong? Please tell me why you would say something like that?” He may have been a little louder than he intended, as he felt terrible as he watched Steve recoil at his tone. He lowers his voice before softly placing his hand back on Steve’s knee, this time the younger man letting it rest there. “I’m…I’m sorry for yelling, Stevie. Can you please just tell me what happened. I am sure you didn’t do anything wrong.”

He watches as a tear starts to well up in Steve’s eye again, as he obviously tries to will it to stop before it falls defiantly down his cheek. The dam is broken and Bucky watches helplessly as his best friend falls apart in front of him. Without thinking, he throws his arms around Steve pulls him into a hug. Steve buries his head in Bucky’s shoulder, repeatedly whispering “I’m sorry.” Bucky quietly shushes him, while running his hand over the back of Steve’s neck, trying to sooth his friend.

After what seemed like an eternity, Steve pulls away, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. Bucky’s eyes are still riddled with worry, his eyebrows scrunched together trying to figure out what could be wrong. Steve whispers “I might as well show you; you will see eventually anyways.”

Bucky feels his chest tighten. What could be so bad that Steve would be this freaked out. He tentatively nods his head, preparing for whatever it could be.

“Buck?” Steve questions.

“Yea, buddy?” He replies automatically.

“Thank you for being my friend and …” There was a sad hesitation in his voice before he continues. “And I get it if you don’t want to be my friend anymore after tonight.”

That thought breaks Bucky’s heart in two. A choked breath escapes him. “Trust me…that’s not going to happen. “

Steve can only give a disbelieving, sad smile in reply. Bucky is now terrified at what could have caused this all.

Without saying a word, Steve picks up the candle and walks to the door that leads outside of their tenement. Bucky gets the idea that he should be following him. When Bucky catches up with him, he notices Steve’s hand shaking as he reaches for the doorknob. Bucky does not rush him, knowing that whatever this was, it was hard. Before long though, Steve opens the door and steps outside. Bucky follows close behind. For as cold as it was inside, the outside was colder. Steve didn’t even seem bothered though, too consumed with grief about something to care.

Steve stopped a few feet away from their door and turned back around to face it. For a moment, he thought he was turned around to face Bucky. Bucky starts “Why…why are we out here, Stevie? It is freezing.” Bucky still only in a shirt, underwear and a blanket. Steve had been a little better dress but not sufficiently enough. The only thing that left Steve’s mouth was. , “Look.” As he pointed behind Bucky at their door.

Bucky turned around and he felt like he got punched in the stomach. On the ground around him were a few broken glass bottles, but that wasn’t the issue. The pale light from the candle illuminated 7 angry red letters, painted sloppily in red on their door. Bucky reads the word out loud, simultaneously deflating with each syllable. “FAGGOTS.” He feels like his world is spinning. Did someone know…about him? Was this the guys at his job? Had to be, after the way they looked at him earlier, knowing he was lying. Worse yet, they are throwing Steve into this. Steve didn’t deserve to be taken down with him.

He was broken out of his thought by the weak voice coming from the man slightly behind him. “I…I was woken up by the sound of these guys laughing outside. They sounded drunk…and you know how much of a light sleeper I am. I thought they were going away but then it sounded like they were at the front door. They were still laughing and I heard glass breaking. You were out.” Bucky silently curses that he was such a heavy sleeper as he continues listening, eyes still fixed on the door. “So, I got out of bed to see what was going on. By the time I get to the door, they are running off, and one called me…this before disappearing down the steps. I tried to go after them.”

“Of course, you did…” Bucky replies, not processing it all.

“Yea, well it was too icy and I am too sick, so I couldn’t catch up to them. When I turned to go back inside, I seen this. And…and I am so sorry Buck.” Steve’s voice crumbles, sounding pathetic and sad, and full of hurt.

That’s when Bucky finally turns to face Steve. “Sorry? Sorry for what? None of this is your fault.” His voice is soft, only focusing on his hurting friend, ignoring his own hurt and panic.

Steve lets out a sniffle, Bucky unsure if from the cold or from fresh tears. “That’s where you are wrong. They did this because of me…”

“What are you talking about?” Bucky stares in confusion.

“These guys…they must have found out…found out that I …I am one.” Steve looks to the ground, terrified of Bucky’s reaction. Tears falling to the frozen ground, his skinny body shaking.

Bucky is overwhelmed with emotions. The most prominent of these emotions though was sadness for his hurting friend. Understanding the irony, he was still heartbroken that Steve thought he had to keep this his dirty little secret. This is why Steve thought they wouldn’t be friend anymore. He was lost for words but needed Steve to know that He was there for the long haul and this wasn’t going to change anything. For the second time this evening, he found himself pulling the younger man into a hug, the candle dropping, putting itself out. “s’okay Stevie…it’s okay. I promise…” He keeps repeating as his arms threaten to never let go of Steve again.

After a few moments though, he noticed the blonde shivering. It was still the middle of winter after all. Without saying another word, Bucky pulled away from the hug(reluctantly) before grabbing his hand and dragging him inside. He drags him to the bedroom where the warm bed wait, Steve not putting up much of a fight. When they get to the room though, Steve pulls his hand away and quickly makes his way to his bed. When Bucky makes his way to Steve’s bed, Steve puts up his hands to make the other man stop in his tracks.

“Buck, thank you for not kicking my ass.” Bucky puts on a hurt look, not believing that Steve actually thought he would. Steve explains himself. “Most guys would have knocked someone out if they found out their best friend was a fairy. So, um, thank you for not doing that.” Steve nervously puts his hand on the back of his neck before continuing. “But you don’t have to lay with me anymore. I get that can be weird now knowing…” Steve still refuses to meet his eyes.

Bucky lets out a huff. He can’t let Steve sit here and feel like he is alone. After what Steve confessed, he thought it was only fair. Ignoring, Steve’s protests, Bucky walks to the bed and sits on the edge, facing Steve. The streetlight out the window dully lighting their faces. He rests his hands on his own thighs, suddenly clammy despite the freezing temperatures. He says “I know…” He stutters “I know… who did this.”

“Who?” Steve sounds surprised despite himself.

“Some guys from the job.” Bucky says sadly.

“Why would they do that?” The smaller man responded, confused.

“Today…they asked me if I was that way you know? They thought that I treated you differently then how a guy should treat his friend.”

“Oh…” is all that escapes Steve’s mouth, Bucky watching an “O” form on the other’s lips.

“I…um of course…told them they were wrong but I guess they didn’t believe me. I’m sorry Steve. I guess…um…” Bucky stops, unsure if he wanted to finish.

“You guess what?” Steve asks, curiosity getting the best of him as he finally locks eyes with Bucky.

“I guess I was too obvious, Stevie. Look, I…I don’t know if I am that way. All I know is that I only got eyes for one person and that person is a fella.” Bucky’s face turning pink with the admission.

Steve stares, visibly confused, unsure exactly what Bucky is getting at. He dumbly asks “Who?”

Bucky gives an uncomfortable laugh, obviously apprehensive. “Are you that oblivious, pal? You…Stevie.” As the other man’s name slips from his mouth, he finds himself trying to look anywhere to avoid the gaze of the blue eyes staring into him.

All Steve manages to choke out is “Really?” His voice sound apprehensive and shy But to Bucky’s surprise, it also sounded hopeful. Yea, he already knew Steve was queer but that did not mean that he automatically like Bucky back. But maybe…he did?

It was this hopefulness that gave Bucky the courage to look back at Steve, his own light eyes staring into Steve’s. He can tell his friend was blushing hard, It was adorable, and pretty impressive for someone who was so pale moments ago. Without thinking about it, Bucky reaches his hand across the bed, and rests it on Steve’s shoulder, still safe in the platonic zone if they wanted to turn back. He whispers almost too quietly for Steve to hear. “Yea…really. You know how much I love you, Stevie, Always have. And for a long time, I thought that love was just because you were my best friend, you know? But overtime, I came to accept that the love I felt for you went way beyond that of a friend, even a close friend.” He looks down before looking back up, sporting a small mischievous grin. “Plus, I think you are really fucking hot.”

Steve somehow manages to blush eve harder, Though he was blushing, Steve was never one to back down from something he wanted. With the knowledge that his best friend was just as into him as he is to him, He scoops forward down the bed, so he very close to Bucky. Bucky’s hand had made its way off Steve’s shoulder, to now gently rest on his hip. He moves his head close to Bucky’s. The older man could feel Steve’s breathe on his face as he replies with a nervous smile “Good, because I’ve had eyes for you since were teenagers. I always got jealous when I seen you with a random skirt instead of me.”

Now Bucky was turning as pink as Steve, red hues covering his face and ears. He made Steve jealous?! He couldn’t believe it. Steve really wanted him. He takes his free hand and moves it to the back of Steve’s neck, wanting so bad to kiss him. He whispers “Can I kiss you?” It sounds so silly coming out of his mouth but he doesn’t want to push Steve.

Unfortunately, to his dismay, Steve says “No, Buck…”

Bucky looks down, suddenly feeling defeated. Had he read the signs wrong. Was Steve admitting he loved him too but did not want to pursue such a risky relationship. His head began to spin as he pulled away. “Oh, I/m sorry.”

Steve lets out a little laugh, grabbing his hand as he went to pull away. “I said no because I am still sick, jerk. Trust me I want to kiss you.” Bucky can’t help but laugh at himself too. Steve continues, “But I would like you to stay in bed with me tonight, if that is still okay."

“Of course, it is...anything for you.” He beams.

A few minutes later, they were laying down, Steve’s head on Bucky’s chest like earlier. Except it wasn’t just like earlier. The action was the same but the feelings were different. Earlier, there was tense atmosphere of secrets they were both hiding. But now it felt like it should have always been like this. Like they were complete more complete. Something that had always been there could thrive. Bucky lazily runs his fingers through Steve’s hair as they begin to drift back to sleep. “Buck?” Steve sleepily asks.

“Yea?”

“So you are my best fella now, right?”

Bucky chuckles to himself that Steve would even worry enough to ask. “Right, Stevie.” only getting a soft okay in response. Bucky lays there, waiting for Steve to fall asleep first. Thoughts run through his head, uncertainties about what to do tomorrow about those asshole, and how this is all going to work. But the one thing he doesn’t worry about is the fact that Steve is his and he is Steve’s

Other two chapters, poorly written smut in the second half of chapter 3.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30749381/chapters/75892694#workskin

[whistlewhileiblogit]

Thoughts on TLoU Part 2....Again

Yeah, I am back with another vent, rant, thoughts on...thing. I wanted to wait a long time after writing my initial reaction to the game, because I figured I’d get more clarity or something. Anyway, so here are my unedited and unfiltered thoughts...8 months later. So as always, this is going to be rambly, and I’ll probably just bold parts of note in case anyone wants to jump around. So here we go!

Oh and, SPOILERS AHEAD

Things I liked: These pretty much haven’t changed. The game is obviously beautiful, the gameplay itself I enjoyed immensely (when mentally separating it from the plot), the Joel and Ellie flashbacks. They were fantastic, and made me feel very reminiscent of the first game. Jesse and Dina were cool, but I found them underutilised, which is a massive shame because they were cool characters.

Yara and Lev were also great, and again, Yara was another completely wasted character potential. But love them nonetheless.

So yeah...that’s pretty much it, I think?

Now for the things I didn’t like...

The writing is the biggest sin in the game to me, as it creates so many structural issues. The pacing is wild and jarring, we aren’t given enough time to bond with certain characters before they are killed off, the narrative itself manages to be incredible simple yet complex simultaneously, but it is a total mess.

Let me explain. The end of the game essentially comes down to “revenge bad”, no matter how you look at it. Sure, you can also include other aspects like, “do good deeds”, but they seem sort of tacked on, considering what happens throughout the game. Ellie goes through the entire story with vengeance for Joel being basically the only thing on her mind (or at least, at the forefront of it), and then just...doesn’t go through with it at the end.

Honestly, the game felt by that point that she HAD to go through with it, after all, how would she learn her lesson? Yet she learns her lesson, without actually getting revenge? So what was the point? Some have said that she learnt in that final fight with Abby to forgive Joel, but this makes no sense. Ellie had already started to forgive Joel before his death. Obviously, she wasn’t over it yet, but she clearly wanted to make amends with her father figure. Besides, she’s fighting Abby, after all. And she certainly didn’t forgive her.

I think a lot of people took Ellie letting Abby go as forgiveness, but in reality, it was in complete grief. There was no point in killing her anymore.

But again, THIS MAKES NO SENSE. Given every. Single. Thing Ellie went through the game, all to find and kill Abby. Losing others she loved and cared for, her family, her fingers (and her ability to play guitar which was the only thing she had left connecting her to Joel)...all of that and she just let Abby go?

It would have made so much more sense had she gone through with killing Abby, only THEN to realise it didn’t make her feel better in the long run. That she was still conflicted in her feelings for Joel. Why bother having Ellie go through every point in the game, only to have her back out at the last second and STILL lose everything? What is that saying? If you do the “right” thing, you’ll still get shit anyway? Ugh.

So speaking of Abby...I thought hey, maybe after all this time, I’ll be able to grow to like her! Yeah, nope. She is just as unlikable as always. Abby is a deuteragonist that we are meant to grow to care for, like we do Ellie. But here’s the thing; Ellie has an ENTIRE GAME beforehand PLUS a freaking DLC game that gives us so much time to love her. So you would think that the writers must think, we’ll make Abby super likeable! NOPE.

Throughout the game, Abby is stoic (which isn’t a bad thing on its own), serious, and just flat-out boring. Sorry Naughty Dog, but I don’t find a character who collects coins as her biggest personality trait interesting. She isn’t funny, or kind or particularly clever. She has her strength, and that doesn’t count as a personality. She’s also a shitty friend, and person, and gets called out for that in the game by Dr Preggers (still don’t remember her name).

Even Abby’s flashbacks do little to make me like her. Oh wow, she has a magical, amazing, super perfect animal-helping papa? And? I just can’t latch onto her character and story. Even if she were really well written and interesting, I wonder if I could have after the game presents her as a total fucking barbaric monster in the first two hours of gameplay.

No, I’m still not over Joel’s death. And despite what some people try and say, it isn’t BECAUSE he died. I went into the game fully expecting Joel to die (I was lucky enough to see no spoilers prior to playing), because I felt like that would be the next step narratively that ND would go. This was a terrible decision on ND’s behalf, but I’ll get into that later.

Joel’s death as the way it plays out, does not only Joel a great disservice- but Abby as well. If ND wanted us all to like Abby so much, they easily could have just made her show some remorse, or conflict, or even just a quick, somewhat merciful death to Joel. But instead, we get ~torture porn~, which becomes the first scene of many of these in the game. This scene is so fucking brutal and sickening, I personally cannot watch it. I have seen it ONCE, and after that I have avoided having to watch it again. And I am not a person with a weak stomach.

Instead of having a death scene worthy of Joel’s character, like having him save Ellie somehow or going out in a blaze of glory, as many have suggested...we got an incredibly beloved character being treated as merely a plot device.

Imagine if the roles were reversed, and Ellie had been killed in Part 2, not Joel. I doubt those saying they’d be cool with it really would be. Especially in such a disgusting, horrific manner.

And one of my biggest grievances with the game- the retconning. I’ve had some people argue with me, that the game doesn’t retcon anything. Those people are fooling themselves or just being wilfully ignorant. Part 2 completely contradicts facts from Part 1. Including:

- Joel didn’t completely lie to Ellie. He half lied. If Joel finds all of the recorders in the hospital, it is revealed that the fireflies DID find dozens of immune people. And killed all of them trying to make a cure...and it didn’t work. This is literal in-game proof that the fireflies never would have succeeded in their quest, had Joel let them kill Ellie.

- Part 2 would have you believe that the fireflies were doing well with their groups and their research. Part 2 shows a beautiful, modern-day looking hospital. But the fact is, as shown in Part 1, the fireflies were on their last legs, and killing Ellie to try and find a cure was their last-ditch attempt to find meaning in their cause. It never was going to work. The hospital is shown to be filthy, and barely up to scratch by all standards. The fireflies were struggling, despite what part 2 tells us.

- The character design changes. We have all seen the comparison pictures of the doctor in part 1 vs part 2. They tried to make Jerry (?) look so wholesome and kind, begging for humanities sake. That isn’t how it went down, and he isn’t the same person. They just wanted Joel to look like a total villain.

I also want to mention what a disservice the marketing was to this game. I know Naughty Dog is very anti-spoiler, for obvious reasons, but they went above and beyond hiding spoilers that they straight up falsely advertised the game. And no, I will not forgive them for that.

The game completely undoes what made the first game special. It was a story about two people, struggling to survive, and somehow through it all, finding a familial love and trust within each other, and fighting to keep it, no matter what.

Ellie and Joel ARE The Last of Us, and Part 2 literally kills of half of what made the first game so incredibly special. As soon as Joel was killed, I wondered how the game would remedy those moments, and aside from the few Joel flashbacks, there really isn’t anything comparable to these scenes. Ellie is alone, so she doesn’t get to develop, or show her personality. And even when she is partnered up for short periods of time, she is too miserable (for good reason), to be the joking, lovable character we knew from the first game.

Final thoughts...

All in all, I would say my opinions have stayed pretty much the same for Part 2. I will forever love Part 1 (played it not long ago for the millionth time), and it is always going to be special to me.

But part 2, as it is, is nonredeemable to me. It really could have been something truly special, like part 1, but I guess that’s just what made The Last of Us so special.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #248: “To Save the ETERNALS!”

October, 1984

Scarlet Witch: “It’s raining ETERNALS!”

Hallelujah?

This is a pretty striking cover. The white background is what sells it. Having an actual background would busify the cover too much.

So last times on Avengers: Bored after giving the chairman role to Vision, Wasp takes Starfox’s invitation to crash a party hosted by Sersi, a truant Eternal. Some other Eternals come to fetch Sersi for a Big, Important Eternal Thing and Wasp and Starfox end up getting dragged along when they try to stop the kidnapping.

After Sersi and Ikaris recap the Eternals’ ENTIRE HISTORY, Starfox realizes hey he’s an Eternal too! So he gets invited to the big, important Eternal Thing. Which is turning into a giant flying brain. As ya do.

But jerk fiend and eventual Great Lakes Avengers punchline Maelstrom takes advantage of all the Eternals being a giant brain and attacks, knocking out spectating Avengers Wasp and Captain Monica Marvel.

So thats a lot.

Vision and Scarlet Witch arrive in Greece after seeing Maelstrom on the video phone.

While Vision flies off in a big hurry, Scarlet Witch goes back into the Quinjet for some good exposition.

She continues to be worried about how Vision has been acting lately. Because after seeing Maelstrom, Vision barely said a word during the flight to Greece and kept pushing the engines until Wanda was afraid they’d blow up. But since he just took off and she can’t fly, she calls up what files the Avengers have on Maelstrom.

Which is Benn Grimm, the Thing, reporting on Marvel Two-in-One #72, where he teamed up with Black Bolt to fight Maelstrom who claimed to be the son of a renegade Inhuman. In the end, the Thing tossed a tube of anti-terrigen gas in his face and then Maelstrom appeared to die in an underwater cave-in.

Vision returns from his reconnaissance and does Wanda a startle so she finally unloads on him for how he’s been acting.

Scarlet Witch: “You don’t seem to be thinking at all these days! We haven’t had a real conversation since you became Avengers chairman! Half of our trip to Washington was taken up by a private meeting you had with the president! Afterwards, you didn’t even have the decency to tell me what you talked about! I had to hear from a reported that you’d discussed making the Avengers chairmanship a cabinet level post! We used to be so open with one another! What is happening to us? What is the matter? Is it me?”

Vision says ‘its not you, its me’ although in the context of him being at fault and not breaking up with her.

But he promises to do better and that she’s important to him.

Which would be heart-warming and romantic if he wasn’t making this face over her shoulder.

Why.

Anyway, with uh whatever that is handled, Vision reports what he found on his scouting nyoom.

He found the Eternal city on the side of Mount Olympus because of course its there.

Although. Wait. Where do the Olympians live? Are they neighbors? Do the Olympians live in another dimension or something? I vaguely remember something like that.

And Vision found Maelstrom who’s wearing a silly techno-harness connected to a big machine and has Captain Marvel and Wasp chained up at his feet.

You have problems, Maelstrom.

Not least of which is that his big scheme is to absorb the giant brain to make himself more powerful.

He blabs his plan to the Wasp who woke up when she sensed the opportunity to sass.

Wasp: “You seem awfully sure of yourself, Maelstrom.”

Maelstrom: “Ah, the Wasp! Back among the conscious, I see! Yes, I am quite confident... Supremely confident, you might say.”

Wasp: “But not so confident that you felt you could keep us here untied!”

Maelstrom: “If you are trying to shame me, it will not work. I am quite without shame!”

Curses, he’s immune to petty ego games.

Wasp also assumes he’s an Eternal which he’s quick to correct. No, see, his mom was a Deviant. And I guess his dad was an Inhuman, based on the Thing’s report on him. But its not like he wants revenge for all the Deviants being compressed into a giant cube.

After all, the Deviants killed his mom and raised Maelstrom in their slave pits.

In fact, after Maelstrom absorbs the giant brain, his next plan is to release the Deviants from the giant Deviant cube one by one and then do harm to them.

But, yeah, no. He does look like an Eternal. Easy mistake to make. The Eternals have been making that mistake as Maelstrom has just been hanging around for days with all the Eternals assuming he’s just some Eternal.

He’s actually maybe a little bit regretful that he has to kill them all to absorb the giant brain since the Eternals have actually been nice to him?

Maelstrom: “But power belongs to those who are willing to seize it!”

Interesting guy, Maelstrom.

He starts absorbing the Uni-Mind and totally spaces out doing that. But unfortunately, Wasp is in no position to capitalize on it because he put some leech manacles on her which are preventing her from shrinking. And Captain Marvel is completely out cold.

But Vision sneaks up intangible through the ground as he do like to do and intangibles his fingers into Maelstrom’s harness, shorting it out.

The energy discharge knocks Vision on his ass unconscious but Maelstrom just has to take a knee.

He yells up at an ominous figure standing up on a tower for not telling him that Vision was sneakign up on him. Maelstrom obviously thinks that this Deathurge is his minion but Deathurge has differing opinions.

Deathurge: For so long have I been with Maelstrom, yet still he does not understand! Still he thinks of me as his lackey! When will he learn... it is a darker power I truly serve!

Kinda wonder why he’s here. He doesn’t seem to be helping Maelstrom’s great brain heist and mostly just seems to... stand on a tower and look ominous.

But while Maelstrom was distracted yelling at a guy, the Uni-Mind breaks free of Maelstrom’s siphon and then explodes into a bunch of Eternals again.

Because it would be very improbable if that happened.

Your plan scheme just got Wanda’d, Maelstrom.

Huh. When I saw the cover, I wouldn’t have guessed that Wanda is the reason why its raining Eternals, hallelujah.

Goes to shows.

But since it was very improbable indeed that the Uni-Mind would explode into peoples, Wanda is wiped out.

Captain Marvel starts waking up and Wasp orders her to bust the chains, don’t even think about just go go go.

And Monica Marvel CHOOOMs the leech manacles.

It’s probably a testament to her power that she can bust right through the power dampening handcuffs but Maelstrom immediately hits her with some pink with kirby krackle which apparently is an energy field for sapping strength and down goes Captain Marvel again.

>=|

Wasp dodges the pink energy and gets out of the way so Vision can shoot his forehead laser at Maelstrom.

I sometimes forget he has that thing.

Vision: “Yes, Maelstrom, I have found your weakness! you are vulnerable to energy that is not purely kinetic! That is why you required the power siphon to absorb the psionic energy of the Uni-Mind!”

Maelstrom insists that he’ll still kick Vision’s ass except we’ll never know if he was talking out his ass or not.

Starfox wakes up from being a giant brain and decides to go punch the bad guy.

Except except except.

Punches is kinetic energy. Fool that he is, Starfox just recharged Maelstrom.

Starfox: “I am Eros, called the Starfox... son of Mentor! The blood of the Eternals flows in my veins... and I am an Avenger! Thus I have the greatest stake in seeing you fall!”

Maelstrom: “No doubt! But you’ll not accomplish it this way!”

And then suddenly giant Maelstrom just picks up Starfox and hurls him at Vision who is forced to super-dense catch Starfox instead of intangible out of the way and let the idiot hit a wall head first.

Hm. Guy absorbs kinetic energy and gets beefier? So he’s like a less stylish Sebastian Shaw?

That’s not a flattering comparison for you, Maelstrom.

Makarri, Thena, and Ikaris of the Eternals wake up and also try to jump on and pummel Maelstrom.

... God, its like they weren’t even paying attention.

Good thing they’re immortal because they have no survival instinct among them.

Maelstrom throws them off and then whips out the pink bio-kinetic energy again, using it to crowd control the Eternals.

Then he announces that yeah, sure, the brain thing was foiled. But he absorbed enough information while he was draining the Uni-Mind that he has an even cooler plan for even greater power now.

So his new plan is to just leave. And go do something else.

‘Walk away with no further conflict you say? Nuts to that!’ - Scarlet Witch, presumably.

In fairness. This isn’t really a no harm, no foul situation.

I wouldn’t give Maelstrom over to the Eternals to add to the Deviant cube but he’s just going to do more asshole things if he walks away.

Starfox wants to go over and start punching Maelstrom again because. I DUNNO! The man is supposed to be smarter than this!

Vision stops him and tells him that instead he’ll need to use his pleasure power on Vision’s mark.

Starfox is startled that Vision knows about his secret weirdo power but this isn’t the time for a conversation.

Instead its time for microwaves.

Vision signals Captain Marvel to do her thing and she flies at Maelstrom, turning into infrared and microwave radiation, toasting Maelstrom up.

Then Wasp pew pews with her pew pew, while staying ten feet away so he can’t absorb any kinetic energy. That’s apparently why her stings sucked when she tried shooting him before. She got too close.

Well, her stings are bio-electrical so him absorbing her bio-kinetic energy would probably weaken them? Probably?

Maelstrom actually panics a little because the Avengers aren’t being dumb. They’re pelting him with energy attacks from a distance, wearing him down and not giving him a chance to build up his energy stores again.

I’m proud of you, guys. I knew you could fight smart if you put your minds to it.

Then with Maelstrom weakened, Starfox tries to use his PLEASURE BEAMS and tells him that actually we’re all friends here, won’t you be our friend?

Starfox: “The others will tell you I’m not one to hold a grudge! Besides, you really don’t want to hurt anyone! You’ll be much happier giving yourself up!”

Maelstrom: “Giving... up? Y-yes, that does sound nice. I... No!! What are you doing to me?!?”

So since Maelstrom succeeds his will save against the persuasion check, or something, Scarlet Witch just casts a spell of ‘on your knees, asshole’ and makes Maelstrom fall to his knees.

Realizing that he might actually be defeated, in the city of his mother’s enemies no less!, Maelstrom calls out for Deathurge to attend him.

Deathurge: “At last, the call I have longed for!”

Hmmmm. Maybe Maelstrom should have been more specific.

I admit that its very possible that this is exactly what Maelstrom wanted Deathurge hanging around for. But having a guy standing by to kill you so you don’t have to tally an L sure is an interesting way of going about things.

Also, the narration says spear but Deathurge’s weapon is clearly a very anime scythe. A dude in Bleach had two of this exact weapon.

Captain Marvel, as the nyoomiest of the Avengers, flies at Deathurge as the “spear” returns to his hand. He tries to hit her with the “spear” but it goes right through her and then she goes right through him when she tries to tackle him.

Since they can both be intangible, Deathurge declares this a stalemate and drops down into the ground. Captain Marvel tries to follow as x-rays but loses the ominous weirdo.

So that was a thing that happened.

Maelstrom sure folded like nothing once people who knew how his powers work actually started fighting back.

And I can’t even ding him for explaining his powers because he didn’t. Vision just did his research.

Anyway, even though the Uni-Mind ritual was interrupted, the Eternals still learned what they should be doing. Since the Eternals have grown stagnant on Earth, THEY’RE GOING TO SPAAAAACE!

Most of them anyway.

Ikaris, Sersi, Thena, Valkin... Lets just say the main Eternals are going to stay on Earth.

The Eternals chosen to go out into space form a Uni-Mind again, grabs the Deviant cube, hurls it out of the solar system, and then takes off into space.

“So does the Uni-Mind, in all its wisdom, protect its native world from the Deviant menace.”

Eeeesh.

I thought squeezing them all into a cube was bad enough, now you’re sending them into space forever? You couldn’t find a planet where they can’t hurt anyone and just dunk them there?

Back down on Earth, the Avengers and Eternals watch a giant brain fly into space.

Wasp: “To think, this all started with Starfox and me crashing Sersi’s party! I certainly never expected to be in Greece at day’s end, watching the Eternals leave Earth!”

Really makes you think. That its a good thing that most Avengers’ day job is being an Avenger.

Captain Marvel asks Starfox if he’s sorry that he didn’t go with the giant brain and he says participating in one Uni-Mind thing was an incredible experience that he wouldn’t have missed but he’s a free spirit and there’s a bunch of stuff he still wants to do on Earth.

Which Sersi certainly agrees with.

The Avengers offer her a lift back home and she has perhaps the greatest of attitudes about everything that went down.

Sersi: “I hope my friends in the city have kept the party going! If they haven’t... well, we’ll just have to start one of our own!”

That’s the spirit!

But meanwhile, halfway around the world in a secret underground lair, Deathurge pops out of the floor.

Villains are villainous and all but you can’t beat the class of “secret underground lair.” Step up, heroes.

Deathurge struts over to some tubes and goes Everything Has Transpired According to Plan.

Because inside one of the tubes (or maybe all of the tubes??) is a fresh new Maelstrom body!

Deathurge: If all goes as you have planned, you shall soon awaken within this newly prepared body, ready to live again. And, as ever, I will stand by... ready to attend... Until all your lives have been lived!

Well!

No wonder Maelstrom has a dude standing by to pop him. He’s got extra lives!

Anyway, that was the unexpected Eternals three-parter nobody called for. But Avengers is the place to go to tie up loose ends from other books and concepts.

Avengers’ll accommodate you, they have room in their hearts and publishing schedule.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because there’s more Maelstrom coming! Wait, is that anything people want? There’s also Hercules! I know people like Hercules! He gives the best hugs! Also like and reblog if you like to reblog.

[emonydeborah]

snw 3x01

now I’m having Thoughts so I might as well

this would be how I want it, but trying to keep it realistic to the previous writing

we have our season 2 recap and end with Chris staring into the camera like he’s dying

we open on the Gorn ship. It’s dark and creepy and we hear the clicking. The prisoners are panicking. La’an and co. assess the situation and decide they are in trouble. La’an has an angsty line about the gorn being monsters.

it’s set up to be a Chris episode but I’m already so tired so let’s make it a La’an episode. I want flashbacks. IN FACT, we opened with a flashback. The creepy ship was a flashback, we saw little La’an, and then we went to grown La’an and crew talking.

back to enterprise. Let’s not make their momentary escape a big deal that takes up time, let’s just say they’re away somewhere safe-ish for the moment. The bridge crew- pointedly missing Erica, La’an, and M’Benga- discuss their options. After Pike insists they’re going to get their people back, Spock is assigned to find a way to get onto the gorn ship.

Pike dismisses everyone but Una stays. She knows what he’s thinking, but she’s absolutely not letting him onto that ship. He froze on the bridge and he’s compromised. Una has super strength, and as first officer she’s supposed to take the dangerous missions anyway. Pike is all “you don’t understand, I have to” and Una drops her friendly approach. My crew too. La’an is over there. Chris you are not fit for this. She convinces him but he’s angsty about it.

On the Gorn ship, Sam is panicking. La’an tells him to shut up and he gets mad, and Erica goes to calm him down. M’Benga checks on La’an and says he knows how hard this is. Our favorite tragic past girlie goes no you don’t. Erica comes back and reports on the morale of the prisoners. Second flashback, little La’an is being shoved through a gorn ship with other prisoners. Someone tries to run and they get eaten.

ENTERPRISE

Chris goes to check on Batel. She has accepted her impending death and he has Not. They have a little tiff about it. Chris reveals that a team is going over. Christine comes over with meds and Chris leaves. Batel goes get me stable enough to join the mission.

meanwhile, Spock, Pelia, and Una are discussing how to get to the gorn ship and back. They need a way to keep in contact without the gorn knowing. Una repeatedly emphasizes that they do in fact need a way back. Scotty and Uhura are hanging around and Scotty suggests something. Uhura builds on it. Something something phase harmonics something something transporters. Spock and Pelia go sounds legit. Una says do it.

GORN SHIP

La’an is briefing the other three on what the gorn are going to do. It is not fun. She’s going off about how they’re animals and monsters and Sam is like… they have spaceships. Let’s assume some rationality. La’an is like nO you don’t uNdERsTanD. We need to RUN. yes but we need a plan. They start to make a plan.

ENTERPRISE

chris gets a call from April and he’s ordered to retreat. They fight about it. April ends the call with a definitive get back here or so help me.

Una and her team (Spock, some redshirts, Scotty to set up a way to get them back) are suited up and ready to go. Chris comes to see them off. Batel walks in, also suited up, and Chris goes absolutely NOT but it’s not up to him. She’s immune to gorn it makes no sense to leave her behind. We’ll talk about this when I get back. They beam away.

Uhura calls him in a panic. The communication set up isn’t working. The away team is on their own.

GORN SHIP

La’an and co. are on the move. Sam works out where the transporter room is and he and M’Benga are going to get the prisoners there. La’an and Erica are going to find the engine room and lower the shields. Flashback to little La’an being dumped on the breeding planet.

The away team doesn’t have comms. They start to creep through the ship towards human life signs.

Flashback to little La’an being captured and put in the lifeboat. Erica and La’an talk as they head towards the engine room. If we want a little Erica backstory here we can do that. They mostly talk about the gorn. They get to the engine room and start to work with on the shields. Something clicks in the shadows. They don’t see it.

the away team finds the prisoners. M’Benga tells Una La’an and Erica went for the engine room. Una and Batel go after them while Scotty and Spock work on the transporters. Scotty has an idea about communication.

a gorn attacks La’an and Erica from the shadows. La’an is knocked over and her vision (and the camera) goes fuzzy. Little La’an is in the lifeboat, oxygen is falling, it’s very cold. Grown La’an sees/hears phaser fire, and sees the gorn go down. A figure in Starfleet gold approaches little La’an, kneels next to her. “Hello? Can you hear me?” The face comes into focus. Grown La’an “Una?” (This is the main moment I want. Do what you want with the rest I want this moment specifically). Una pulls La’an to her feet and I want a hug but I will settle for La’an about to break down and Una squeezes her arm or something. We see the gorn got her with the venom and La’an starts to panic but Una calms her down. One problem at a time.

Batel and Erica have done something to the shields. And they can destroy the other gorn ships, just for fun. Someone would have to stay behind, though.

Scotty is doing some wire engineering thing and goes I’ve got it!

ENTERPRISE

Chris is STEWING. Uhura is on the comms, doing her best. They get a signal. They start to beam people over.

GORN SHIP

the girls are fighting about who gets to die. Batel is like I’m dying anyway let me do this for my crew. Una goes well I’m dying too so checkmate. If she wants to fight dirty, Una goes what am I going to say to Chris? Batel is like it’s my choice. Also, you think Chris would forgive me if I came back without you? Another gorn drops by and goes for La’an, and Una puts herself in between. (Yes I realize if she’s been sprayed the gorn shouldn’t attack her. Don’t worry about it I’m working on it. It wouldn’t be the biggest plot hole in this show.) Batel jumps in front of her, and the gorn backs off. Erica kills it/knocks it out. Batel says she’ll call when she’s ready to go. Una sends La’an and Erica back but she’s going to try to stay. Batel calls for her to be beamed out and the enterprise obeys.

ENTERPRISE

Una goes no send me back!!! Or get her out!!! She’s trying to sacrifice herself!! Scotty works on it but for technobabble reasons it can’t be done. Chris talks to Batel and she says goodbye. We see her on the gorn ship, she does not look good. The lizard babies are coming and she’s running out of time. The angst. The chaos. Batel takes out all the gorn ships.

for whatever reason the enterprise is buffeted by the explosion or something. They get out. Chris is shell-shocked. This is when Una chooses to almost faint and La’an yells about getting her to sickbay.

IN SICKBAY

Christine is working on Una. Somber moment. They both try to banter a little.

chris is talking to M’Benga. I can’t lose her, too. M’Benga goes her Illyrian physiology is reacting in a way I have never seen, and cannot predict. It’s not a good prognosis. La’an punches a wall and storms out, Chris goes after her. They talk about Una and how much they love and need her.

there’s a ruckus from inside sickbay. La’an and Chris run back in and Una is glowing. It takes a long time, and she passes out. Frozen moment of silence. Christine scans her and says there’s no gorn. They draw some blood and labs. This could mean a cure. La’an and chris are on either side of the bed. La’an is crying. Una is tired.

LATER

Something something captain’s log. Headway against the gorn but they’re still a threat. Admiral April something. Is what I’ve lost worth what we’ve gained or some broody nonsense.

Chris is staring out the window in his quarters. Una comes in. She’s been released from sickbay, after they took a lot of samples. Chris pours her a drink, and they toast Batel, and the conversation gets to he doesn’t know what he’d do without Una. Una hugs him. Chris leans all the way into the hug, and we zoom out to the ship. We think it’s done.

WRONG. We have traumatized La’an so much so let’s check on her. Surprise surprise, she’s having a nightmare. Memories of Una pulling her out of the lifeboat, Una on the gorn ship from this episode, Una dying, everyone dying, there are gorn everywhere- La’an wakes up.

…obviously I am not a screenwriter. This would be fun though. Gets everything I want, anyway.

if anyone has any theories on where they think the first episode will go, I’d love to hear them!!!!

[sherrybaby14]

Fever

Summary:   You are sick.  Steve’s your boyfriend and wants to help your fever break.

Warnings:  Smut, flu-like-illness, I am going to label this Non Con (PLEASE DO NOT READ IF THIS OFFENDS YOU)

Pairing:  Steve x Reader

A/N:  I have been sick for a week (not like I haven’t been bitching about it non stop) So this is super self indulgent.

Words: 2500

It started with a tickle in the back of your throat.  You tried to ignore it, but an hour later you found yourself coughing.  Maybe it was allergies.  Time ticked away at your desk, you started to get cold.  Too cold.  You touched your forehead.  The temperatures didn’t match.  

You were sick.  There was no more denying it.  Your boss and coworkers would understand, they weren’t the ones you were concerned about.

There was a reason illness was contagious.  It kept people away and away they should stay.  You winced thinking about the last time you were sick.  Steve was giddy to take care of you.  At first you thought it was sweet, counted yourself lucky your boyfriend’s enhancements included an immune system.  But you had been wrong.  So wrong.

With a shaky hand you pulled out your cellphone and typed a quick text:

I have to work late.  Sorry.  Can’t hang out tonight.  I’ll call you tomorrow.  

Before you could even put the thing away the typing bubble appeared.  

Why are you texting?  You know I like phone calls.  

You didn’t get a chance to type back before his name appeared on your screen.  You took a deep breath and let out a coughing fit.  Keep it together.  You planted a fake smile on your face and answered.

“Sorry baby.  We’re just swamped.”  You tapped at the keys on your computer.  “If my boss catches me on the phone he’s going to freak out.”

“What’s wrong?”  Steve’s voice was stern.  “Your boss never cares.  Is he giving you a hard time?  Do I need to come down there?”

“Steve we’ve talked about this.  You can’t always be my hero.  I can handle some stuff on my own.”  The tickle and urge to cough came back, you tried to bite it down.

“And we have talked about you quitting that dumb job and letting me take care of you.”  Steve’s words were biting.  “Really, you’re not even happy there.  You could write or paint or work on whatever…”

You tried to cover the phone, but the cough exploded right in the middle of Steve’s chase your passions speech.   You pressed your eyes shut and hoped he didn’t hear.   Once you calmed down you realized another spat was coming.

“We’ll talk about this tommorrow.  I have to go.  Bye. I love you.”  You hit end and then started coughing into your sleeve, letting it all out.  

“You look like shit.”  Your boss was in front of your desk.  “Go home.  Take tomorrow off too, the next day even.  Don’t come back until you’re at one hundred percent.”  

You glared at your boss with an open mouth and dizzy head.   Why did he have to be so understanding?  Why couldn’t he demand you back the next day?  

But he was right.  You nodded and grabbed your purse, shutting down your computer.

“Feel better.”  He waved as you left the office.  

The entire time all you could think was fuck, fuck fuck.  

~~

When you got to your apartment the fever and aches had set in.  The cough strangely enough had disappeared, or at least your other ailments hurt enough that you weren’t paying attention.

Maybe a train ride to your parents was worth it.  You could hide out there for the week.  Your mom could take care of you like a normal person.  Lots of sleep and binge watching.  Chugging seven-up and a random glass of Hawaiian Punch.  Even a hot toddy or two to help you sleep.

Yes.  Steve would never try anything around your parents.  It was a safe space for you to recover like a normal person.  That was the ticket.  

The idea was so promising you crawled into your bed thinking about it, a smile on your face.  The perfect solution, and you would be able to rest. Rest.  Maybe closing your eyes for a bit wouldn’t hurt.  You would need your strength for the train ride of course.  You pulled the comforter over yourself, promising you would close your eyes for five minutes tops.

~~

The bed dipped behind you.  You let out a groan and hugged the pillow tighter.  You were equal parts too hot and too cold.  It felt like your head wasn’t even part of your body.  

A hand touched your shoulder and you winced.

“Shhh.”  The comforter was flipped away.  

“Wha?”  You started to turn.  

“You fell asleep in your work clothes.”  Steve guided you into a sitting position.

“Please.”  You felt a sob coming. “I can’t.  Not like last time.”

“Shhh.”  Steve put your arms in the air and lifted off your shirt.  “None of that.  Hush.  Let me take care of you.”  

“Everything hurts.  Please.  I don’t know if I’m hot or I’m cold.”  Your lip quivered.  

“I know Baby.”  He put your arms down and then went for your pants, pushing you back into the mattress with his other hand.  “Don’t worry about lying to me right now.  We will deal with that when you feel better.  And I plan on making it my goal to nurse you back to health.”  

“Steve, not like last time.”  Your tears were so hot they burned your eyes.  “I can’t.”

“Hush.  Save your strength.”  He picked up your hips and pushed your pants down.  

A shoe hit the ground with a thud.

“You didn’t even take off your shoes?”  Steve shook his head.  “You really need my help.”  

You squinted your eyes shut, unsure if you wanted to help the tears fall or fight them off.  Fighting didn’t seem to be in your wheelhouse at the moment as Steve tossed your pants on the floor, leaving you in your bra and panties.  

“I need rest.”  Maybe logic would work, but your head was swimming so much it may have not made any sense to him.  “Just sleep.”  

“Oh sweetie.”  Steve’s hands went underneath you and he I clipped your bra.  “You have no clue what you need.  That’s obvious.  You’re so lucky I am here to take care of you.”

You clenched your thighs, not wanting the reaction your body was already producing.  

“No.” You tried to wiggle away as he slipped off your bra, but once the garment left Steve pinned your shoulder to the bed.  “I’m too sick.  Please.  I’m so cold.”  

“That’s the fever talking.”  Steve’s other hand slid down your body to your panties.  He hooked his fingers under them and dragged them off.  “Don’t worry.  We will break that nasty thing together.”  

“Everything hurts.”  You put your hands to his chest and realized he didn’t have a shirt on, was probably already naked and you let out a sob.  “I can’t.  You can’t.  Please, just be normal.”  

“Normal?”  Steve parted your thighs.  “If you weren’t so sick I would think you wanted a kinkier time tonight.  Lying to me?  Now insults?”  

He positioned himself on top of you.  You brought you hands to your face, equal parts mad at yourself for disappointing him and not stopping him.  

Steve’s lips met your stomach and you shivered.   He kept moving until he arrived at your pussy.  His tongue ran up your slit and you cringed at how wet you already were.  

The realization snapped you back to reality and you sat up, trying to shove his shoulder as the room span.

“NO!”  You slapped your thighs to his head.  “NOT NOW!”

Anger flashed in his blue eyes as he reached up and grabbed your wrist.  

“This is the best medicine.”  His voice carried a warning that matched his features.  “You’re lucky I can take care of you this way.  Now LAY DOWN!”

Your shoulders started to shake as you fell backwards.  Were you right? Was he right?  Everything was so fuzzy.  Your brain couldn’t even began to process before his mouth covered your entire sex.  

Your hands went to the bed and you started to fist the sheets, now bending your knees and lifting your feet from the bed to give him easier access.  Steve sucked down hard, pulling you into his mouth as his tongue slid inside you.  Fuck. You were already so wet.  This almost seemed unnecessary.  

This was wrong.  A chill ran over your fever addled brain and there was an ache in your thigh and back from the position.  Your feet hit the bed and you began to pant.  There had to be a way to stop this.  To stop him.

“I’m going to puke.”  You bit your lip.  

Steve sucked hard before his mouth vanished, leaving your clit pulsing and pussy empty.

“Lying again?”  He shifted to his knees.  “There are no signs of that sort of distress.  You need my help.  Stop fighting.”  

“I’m sorry.”  You turned your head in shame.  Then a wave of heat covered your body.  Why were you feeling guilty?  You said no!  He should respect that.  

The bed shifted to your left.  You looked up at Steve as he put a hand on your cheek cradling your face.  

“I’m giving you some leeway because of your sickness.”  He turned you to your side and wrapped an arm around your middle before placing a kiss on your temple.  “And I appreciate the apology.  There’s my girl.”  

He held you tight to his chest.  Spooning.  Maybe he heard you.  Maybe he really was just concerned about you wearing your work clothes.  You let out a sigh of relief as you snuggled back into him.  

Then his hand came forward and he lifted your leg onto his thigh.  You grabbed the pillow and dove your face into it, biting as you felt him line up.  Shaking your head from side to side in protest.  

“We need to break that fever.”  He began to slide into you, easier than you wanted to admit.  “Get you to work up a sweat and beat those germs away.”  

The position made you feel his cock make it’s descent.  Your fever rattled brain couldn’t focus on anything, but he felt so giant.  If the rest of your body wasn’t already sore this would have broken you.

“Please…stop.”  You spoke into the pillow, unsure if he even heard you.

“Oh baby.”  He kissed the top of your head.  “I know, it’s hard to take your medicine, but I promise we will break this fever and then you will feel so much better.”  

He bottomed out and you winced into the pillow, feeling all of him.  

One of Steve’s hands was on your hip and the other on your shoulder.  He began rocking you into him as he pulled out and slid back in.  

“You’re so hot.  We need to cool you off.”  He kept kissing you. “Let your body take what it needs.  Shut off that beautiful brain.  Give it a rest.”

Rest.  That was all you wanted.  Not this.  

“You take me so well.  See your body knows what it needs.”  His hand left your hip and snaked down to your clit.  “We’ll raise that temperature until it crashes.   I know just what you need.  Let me take care of you.”

You whined into the pillow and realized it sounded like a moan.  Was it a moan?

“There’s my good girl.”  Steve rubbed your bundle of nerves harder and pulled you tighter as he picked up the pace.  “Taking the treatment.  Doctor’s orders.”

The tears were flowing freely now, but you weren’t sure if you were rocking against him or letting him take control.  Either way you were starting to give up.  

Then you noticed another reaction: the tightening in your belly.  You leaned forward, hoping it would satiate it.

“That’s it sweetie.”  Steve moved even faster.  “The best cure there is.  Take it.  You always do so well.”  

You screamed into the pillow, not understanding how your orgasm was forming anymore than why you were now humping against him, desperate for it, no longer concerned with the aches in your body or fever in your head.  

He was right.  This was what you needed.  You sobbed, not even bothering to think about the reason behind your tears as you let everything go, fell forward into the pool.  

“I’m here to take care of you.”  He grunted.  “Let me take care of you.”  

“Ahh!”  You let go of the pillow as you cried, the waves of pleasure melding with the illness.

Your body shook as the chills, fever, aches, and ecstasy melted into one.  

No thoughts came to mind as you passed out.  Still feeling equally hot and cold and confused.

~~

When you came back to you were on your stomach, Steve’s warm body behind you, still pumping in and out.

“Why?”  You croaked out with a horse ness.  

“Shhh.”  His fingers were on your clit, playing it into life.  “We’re getting close to breaking. Just enjoy.”

Everything was so hot.  You wanted to buck him off of you, your legs shaking as you were covered in sweat.  But then you noticed the tingling in your pussy.  

A scream left your lips as you bit into the mattress.  Your body shaking as an orgasm ripped through you.  What number was it?  Did you know?  Did you care?

Exhausted wasn’t even in your vocabulary as you collapsed into the bed.  

“There we go.”  Steve pushed into you hard with a grunt.  “You broke.”  

Sweat seeped out of your pores as Steve’s cum coated your insides.  

The heat vanished from your form as you popped your eyes open and gasped.   The swimming of your head slipping away.  

Steve kissed the top of your head and rolled off of you.  You were spent, unable to move.  

His hand appeared in front of your face with some pills and a water.

“We have to keep you hydrated.”  He put them in your mouth and brought the water to your lips.

You took them down and let your head drop.  Sleepiness covered your body, but before you could slip away his hands were on your calves, massaging deep.  

“I’m going to work on these sore muscles.”  He pushed hard into your leg.  “Then we’ll get you a nice warm bath.  But don’t worry, I’m here for the long haul.  If that fever comes back, we’ll take care of it again.”

You moaned.  Hating it that you already felt better.  

-

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #128: Tamamo no Mae (Lancer)

If you live in the northern hemisphere: With daylight saving’s finally behind us and the world once more starting to warm up, we turn our thoughts to summer, with plenty of beach-themed servants to tide us over until summer 4 starts proper. 

If you live in the southern hemisphere: As Summer winds its way to a close and fall shuffles in once more, let’s take a moment to remember all the good times we had this... er, last summer. With the help of some classic summer servants, this’ll be easy!

Today we’re building Tamamo Shark, a.k.a. Tamamo no Mae (Lancer)! This foxy gal has traded in all her magical prowess for a bikini and an elegant parasol, but she’s still a force to be reckoned with!

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: Summer Lovin’, had me a blast!

Race and Background

We’ve done this one already, so I’ll speed through it. As a Tabaxi Courtier, you get +2 Dexterity; +1 Charisma; Darkvision; the ability to double your movement for a turn with Feline Agility; Cat’s Claws for some slashing damage with unarmed attacks; and proficiency with Perception, Stealth, Insight, and Persuasion. 

Ability Scores

Here’s where things get interesting. Your highest scores are Wisdom followed by Dexterity. When you hit the beach, you’re all about grace That means socially and physically. After that is Charisma- you have a lot of people who’d like to touch fluffy tail. After that is Constitution, followed by Strength. You’re still kind of a caster, but this origin’s all about letting loose a bit. Finally, dump Intelligence. You’re not dumb, you’re just not here to think. Save it for Fall.

Class Levels

1. Monk 1: Don’t expect all the summer servants to have Unarmored Defense, giving you an AC of 10 plus your dexterity and wisdom modifiers while you’re wearing a bikini. There’s only so many ways you can fit that into a build, some of them are gonna have to put on some clothes eventually. That being said, monk works for you, for reasons that’ll be apparent in a bit.

You also get Martial Arts, allowing you to make an unarmed attack as a bonus action after attacking with a monk weapon as your action. You can also use dexterity instead of strength when making attacks, and your monk attacks deal a minimum of 1d4 damage, scaling based on your monk level.

You also get proficiency in Strength and Dexterity saves, as well as two monk skills; Acrobatics for parasol skills, and Religion for Being a God.

2. Fighter 1: We’ll go back to monk in a bit for your signature move, but first we should head over to fighter to mod up your umbrella. For the sake of attacks, I’m calling your parasol a spear, but you can also use the Interception fighting style to pop that bad boy open and block some damage, using your reaction to block 1d10+ your proficiency bonus on an attack against you or someone else within 5′. You also get a Second Wind to heal as a bonus action. A bit underpowered compared to your usual kit, but we’re not aiming for heals here.

3. Monk 2: Second level monks get a number of Ki points per short rest equal to their monk level, which they can currently spend to Dash, Disengage, Dodge, or make two unarmed attacks as a bonus action. You also get Unarmored Movement, giving you an extra 10 feet of movement to work with each turn, which also increases as you level up. Turns out a bikini’s easier to move in than those kimonos you like to wear.

4. Monk 3: By channeling your mana from spells into your body, you unlock the Way of the Open Hand, allowing you to align your strikes with your foes’... ki... to produce one of several effects. Your Open Hand Technique allows you to add these effects to your flurry of blows attacks. Either: force a dexterity save or be knocked prone, force a strength save or push them 15′ away, or make them unable to make reactions for a round. It’s okay I wouldn’t be able to react for six seconds either.

You can also Deflect Missiles, allowing you to block incoming ranged damage, and with a perfect block you can even bounce it back to sender!

5. Monk 4: We’re keeping it simple with your Ability Score improvements this time. Bump up your Wisdom for a stronger AC, more mystique, and stronger fancy fighting techniques. You can also use Slow Fall, which doesn’t feel like it’d be very useful on a beach, but you never know. There’s trenches in them thar seas. Finally, you get Quickened Healing to heal as an action by spending some ki points. Again, less healing than normal, but you’re on vacation! You’re not going to work that hard.

6. Monk 5: Fifth level monks get an Extra Attack each attack action, and they can turn those attacks into Stunning Strikes by using ki points. The target then has to pass a Constitution save, or be stunned for a round. Stunned creatures automatically fail strength and dexterity saves, opening them up for your open hand technique, and all attacks made against them are at advantage. Also, they probably won’t be having children afterwards. That’s not in the player’s handbook, but it’s true.

7. Fighter 2: We’ve got your noble phantasm down, so now we can go back to multiclassing for style points. Second level fighters get an Action Surge once per short rest, giving them an extra action in a single turn. You’d be surprised how much you can squeeze into a summer day.

8. Fighter 3: You’re all about grace, and there’s no martial archetype that’s more graceful than the Samurai! You can activate your Fighting Spirit as a bonus action, giving you advantage on all of your attacks for that turn three times per long rest. You also get some temporary HP to help out with the not dying thing. On top of that, you also get History proficiency. You literally lived through plenty of historical events, I’m sure you remember them.

9. Fighter 4: For some more blessings of the fox god, use this ASI to grab the Lucky feat. This gives you three luck points per long rest that can be cashed in for an additional d20 roll for an attack roll, saving throw, or ability check involving you. You can choose either the normal result of the roll, or your lucky roll.

10. Fighter 5: To make up for how powerful that last level was, this one gives you literally nothing. Extra attacks don’t stack.

11. Fighter 6: Another ASI already? Bump up your Wisdom for a better AC and stronger stunning strikes.

12. Fighter 7: At seventh level, you’re an Elegant Courtier, letting you add your wisdom modifier to persuasion rolls, and you become proficient in wisdom saves. We aren’t spending any ASIs to improve your fluffy tails, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t the center of attention.

13. Fighter 8: Your last fighter level gives you yet another ASI. Max out your Wisdom and start on your Dexterity. Turns out monks are pretty predictable.

14. Monk 6: Oh yeah that’s right, you’re a monk! This level gives you Ki-Empowered Strikes, making your unarmed attacks magical against resistances. You also gain a Wholeness of Body, spending an action to heal yourself for three times your monk level once per long rest.

15. Monk 7: Seventh level monks know Evasion, meaning you take half damage from failed dexterity saves and no damage from successes. You also gain a Stillness of Mind that lets you end a charming or frightening effect as an action. Freaking out ain’t gucci.

16. Monk 8: Eighth level monks get another ASI, bringing your Dexterity one step closer to perfection.

17. Monk 9: At ninth level, you get an Unarmored Movement Improvement, allowing you to run up walls and over water. You still go into the water if you end your turn there though, so swimming’s still an option.

18. Monk 10: Your Purity of (beach) Body makes you immune to disease and poison. It’s a shame you couldn’t extend this to master, it might’ve helped.

19. Monk 11: Your Tranquility makes you much harder to hit, giving you the effect of a Sanctuary spell after each long rest that lasts until your next long rest, or until you attack or cast a spell on an enemy. Creatures attacking you must make a wisdom save against your monk DC (8 + wisdom modifier + proficiency) or redirect the attack.

20. Monk 12: You get one last ASI for you capstone, so grab the Piercer feat. This rounds out your Dexterity, and once per turn you can re-roll a die of piercing damage. Also, when you score a critical hit, you can add an extra die to the damage. It’s not particularly useful, but it’s better than leaving one completely useless skill point lying around.

Pros:

If your enemies want to hit you, they’ll have to get past 20 AC, your parasol, probably a dodge, your evasion, your luck, and your tranquility. That is to say, you’re pretty hard to hit.

With maxed out wisdom and the ability to shove advantage on your attacks, your stunning strikes can be a serious issue for your enemies. Who needs a boss fight when you can just slap an immobile target for a bit?

You come pre-packaged with plenty of self-healing. Hitting you in the first place is annoying, but hitting you enough to make up for your heals is demoralizing.

Cons:

You don’t have a lot of HP, meaning someone who can reliably break through your defenses might make short work of you.

Playing to character means you only have your fists, your feet, and your umbrella. You might have noticed none of those are ranged attacks. Javelins and bows are always an option, of course, but playing strictly to character will be a problem.

Most of you levels are monk, which means you don’t get many attacks to use with your Fighting Spirit. It’s almost like we took the subclass purely to make you super elegant, and everything else was a side effect or something.

[raeynbowboi]

How to Play as Rayla in DnD 5e

This is one of the builds I was requested to make, so let’s dissect her powers, skills, and abilities and figure out how someone would go about playing as Rayla. I will be taking into account Unearthed Arcana. They may not technically be official yet, but it’s DnD stuff, and if it exists, I’ll use it.

Moon Prism Power

Rayla is a Moonshadow Elf. There are Moon variant High Elves that also get an innate talent for magic. Easy enough. As a high elf, Rayla gets +2 DEX and +1 INT, and a free wizard cantrip. We’ll give her minor illusion since moon magic is focused on illusions. While it’s true that Rayla does sleep, we can just say that Rayla’s clever enough to find a way to resist sleep spells like she did when Claudia tried to put her to sleep. Plus Half-elf’s added CHA stat would not help her build one bit.

Rayla does what she thinks is right, even if it breaks tradition or expectations. She’s also not selfish. She was okay with losing her hand to keep Ezran safe and alive. Rayla is True Good.

We’ll give Rayla the Adopted background since Runaan and Ethari took her in after her parents died, and will give her proficiencies with Deception, Persuasion, and Stealth. You could argue that as an assassin, she could be a criminal, but being an assassin doesn’t seem to be an illegal occupation in Xadia. She could be a Soldier, but whatever level she might have held in the moonshadow elf military is gone now, so it would only serve to make her skilled in athletics and intimidation.

In A Class All Her Own

Monk     Shadow: As an assassin and a Moonshadow Elf, this was almost too easy of an option. Ironically, Moon Druid didn’t work so well, but Rayla would realistically have a pretty high DEX and WIS stat, so a monk class would be great at raising her AC. Rayla doesn’t need a lot of levels in Monk, just enough for her unarmored defense, and maybe Extra Attack and Evasion, but the later talents to become immune to disease and poison go a little too far for what she’s able

Ranger     Gloom Stalker: Rangers typically do well with archery, but dual-wielding two short swords is another option for Rangers. By level 5, they also get Extra Attack, though Monk gets that as well, so trying to avoid doubling up is something to keep in mind. Rangers also get to pick a favored enemy so you can channel your racism into super potent hate crimes against those dirty humans. You can pick up a dash action, Hide without needing to move, Hide as a bonus action with no way of being tracked or followed, fight invisible enemies, and add your WIS mod to your melee weapon attacks. As a Gloom Stalker, you gain magic that actually fits really really well for a Moonshadow Elf, the ability to ambush effectively, see in darkness and become invisible in darkness, even to creatures with Darkvision, become proficient in WIS, INT, or CHA saving throws, turn a missed attack into a hit, and invoke the darkness to make yourself harder to hit.

Rogue     Assassin: As a Rogue, you gain cunning actions, skill expertise, uncanny dodge to reduce the damage when someone does hit you, and evade all the damage you’d take if you make a DEX saving throw, which you have proficiency in. As an assassin, you get proficiencies with Disguise Kits so you can convince people that you’re Human!Rayla, and when you manage a surprise attack, it’s an instant critical. However, Rayla is an assassin who has never killed anyone, so it might not be a great fit.     Scout: As a scout, you gain an improvement to your mobility and can move away from enemies without provoking an opportunity attack, and you get proficiency with Nature and Survival so that you can know to use a rose to keep yourself from falling asleep and follow tracks easily.

Stats and Proficiencies

As an elven assassin, your DEX and WIS scores are the top priority. You need to be flexible, nimble, and alert. A good CON stat will make sure you can shake off a kick square in the chest and run without getting winded.  Ordinarily, you’d want a good STR stat to do well with your melee weapon attacks, but as a Monk, you can treat your shortswords as Monk Weapons and swing with your DEX stat instead. and INT and CHA just aren’t super important to this build.

Acrobatics Deception Insight Intimidation Investigation Perception Persuasion Nature Stealth Survival

Name: Rayla Race: High Moon Elf Background: Adopted Alignment: True Good Class: Scout Rogue (8)             Gloom Stalker Ranger (8)             Shadow Monk (4) Base Stats: Strength: 10 (0) Dexterity: 20 (+5) Constitution: 14 (+2) Intelligence: 10 (0) Wisdom: 20 (+5) Charisma: 10 (0) Saving Throws: Strength: 0 Dexterity: +11 Constitution: +2 Intelligence: +6 Wisdom: +11 Charisma: 0 Combat Stats: HP: 151 AC: 20 Speed: 40 Initiative: +10 Number of Attacks: 2 Hit Dice: 8d8, 8d10, 4d8 Proficiency Bonus: +6 Passive Perception: 27 Dark Vision: 90 feet Proficiencies and Expertise:    Acrobatics (Rogue)    Animal Handling (Ranger)    Athletics (Rogue)    Deception (Adopted)    Insight (Rogue)    Investigation    Nature (Scout)    Perception (Elf)    Persuasion (Adopted)    Stealth (Adopted)    Survival (Scout) Skills: Acrobatics: +17                  Medicine: +5 Animal Handling: +11         Nature: +6 Arcana: 0                           Perception: +17 Athletics: +6                       Performance: 0 Deception: +6                    Persuasion: +6 History: 0                           Religion: 0 Insight: +11                        Sleight of Hand: +5 Intimidation: 0                    Stealth: +17 Investigation: +6                Survival: +17

Condition Immunities    Magical Sleep

Equipment:     Shortsword x2

Monk Feature: Ki    Ki Points: 4

Ranger Feature: Fighting Style   Two- Weapon Fighting: Add your DEX mod to your off-hand weapon attack.

Ranger Feature: Favored Enemy    Elf    Dragon    Human

Ranger Feature: Favorite Terrain    Forest    Mountain

Spell Slots 1st (4) 2nd (3)

Rayla’s Spellbook

Cantrips     Minor Illusion 1st Level     Detect Magic     Disguise Self     Hunter’s Mark     Jump     Longstrider 2nd Level     Pass Without Trace     Rope Trick

Actions:

Primeval Awareness: Spend X spell slot, Sense creature types for X minutes within 1 mile, or 6 miles in favored terrain.

Bonus Actions:

Cunning Action: Aim, Dash, Disengage, or Hide once per turn. Flurry of Blows: After an Attack, spend 1 Ki to make 2 Unarmed Strikes Martial Arts: Make an extra unarmed strike after an Attack Action. Patient Defense: Spend 1 Ki to take Dodge Action Step of the Wind: Spend 1 Ki to Dash or Disengage, Jump distance doubles.

Reactions:

Deflect Missiles: Reduce ranged damage by 1d10+9. At 0, return to sender. Slow Fall: Reduce falling damage by 20. Uncanny Dodge: Take 1/2 damage from attackers you can see.

Features:

Dread Ambusher: Add your WIS to your Initiative, your speed becomes 50 during the first turn, and make an additional 1d8 weapon attack on that turn. Evasion: On a successful DEX save, take 0 damage. Extra Attack: Make a second attack action once per turn. Favored Enemy: Advantage at tracking and fighting Humans, Elves, and Dragons. +2 damage against favored enemies. Fey Ancestry: You fall into a trance instead of sleeping and remain alert. Iron Mind: You gain proficiency in Wisdom saving throws. Land’s Stride: Nonmagical difficult terrain can’t slow your movement. Natural Explorer: In favorite terrain, double bonus proficiency INT and WIS saving throws, your group isn’t slowed by difficult terrain, you can’t be surprised, you can move stealthily at normal pace, double food when foraging, and determine the number, size, and speed of creatures being tracked. Shadow Arts: Spend 2 ki to cast Darkness, Darkvision, Pass Without Trace, and Silence. Skirmisher: move up to 1/2 your speed when foes end within 5 ft of you.  Sneak Attack: Deal 4d6 extra damage when attacking with advantage. Survivalist: Gain Nature and Survival proficiencies. Thieves’ Cant: Hear and convey secret messages in casual conversation. Trance: Trance for 4 hours instead of sleeping for 8. Trust Issues: Other elves have difficulty trusting and believing you due to your family history. Umbral Sight: Increase your darkvision by 30 feet.

How do you guys feel I did with Rayla’s build? If she learned more moon magic, a pure Gloom Stalker might have worked perfectly for them, but for Rayla who is less skilled, I had to fill out her levels with other classes and subclasses. Would you build Rayla differently? And this is the first of my many requested builds. If you have a character you’d like me to build, send me a request, and I’ll add it to the list.

[hellyeahheroes]

Building America Chavez in D&D 5e

Sorry I’ve been mostly quiet, but certain recent events made me wish to take a break from posting. I do feel bad I didn’t do more for a Pride Month, however so I thought of doing something that will let me combine both trying to lift my spirits up (especially since I haven’t done one of those in a while) and doing little fun thing for LGBTQ followers - letting them play a game that is known as a good escapist fantasy as one of our favorite characters. We’re building America Chavez today.

First of all, let’s define Goals for this build. First of all, we need to kick and punch hard and be able to take a hit as well and be super fast. Second, we need to kick so hard to open portals to other dimensions. Finally, we need to be able to fly and shine bright light.

Regarding Ability Scores America is one of those characters who should have 20 in everything, but we cannot really do that so I’m gonna prioritize what we need for the build. As always I’m taking basic template from Tulok the Barbarian so we’ll be unig Standard Point Array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8). If you want to roll or use point-buy, go ahead and use these as guidelines, just remember you’ll need 13 inWisdom and Dexterity for multiclassing.

Strength: 14, You can throw tanks at the moon

Dexterity: 13, we need it for multiclassing purpose. Also, I doubt any medium or heavy armor goes with short shorts, America’s outfits are light armor at best.

Constitution: 15, you can take hits from the likes of She-Hulk, Vision and Thanos

Intelligence: 10, you don’t need it but America did go to college to expand her knowledge of cosmic stuff.

Wisdom: 12, living on your own since being a child means picking up some survival skills.

Charisma: 8, low but we will bumb it with rracial ability scores.

Speaking of Race, America is from another planet, descendant of a race created by two celestial beings, who can fly and shine her star marks. and if that doesn’t speak Protector Aasimar, I do not know what does. You gain +2 to Charisma and +1 to Wisdom, resistance to necrotic and radiant damage and know Common and Celestial languages. Your Darkvision lets you see  60 feet in dim light as in normal light and in darkness as in dim light, but without abilitty to discern colors. Once per long rest you can heal a person (or yourself) for number of hit points equal your level. Finally, you get a Light Cantrip, which lets you make one object no larger in any dimension than 10 feet and make it shine bright light in a 20 feet radius and dim light in next 20 feet. Use it for your own stars.

Background: You are from another planet in another dimension so Far Traveller is closest to that. You gain proficiency in any language of your choice, pick something campaign relevant. You get proficiency in Insight and Perception and a single musical instrument or gaming set of your choice. You have an All Eyes On You feature, which makes you a center of attention and opens you doors of curious nobles and scholars.

Class Features:

Level 1: We will kick things off as a Ranger.  You gain proficiency in Dexterity and Strength saving throws, light and medium armor, simple and martial weapons, shields and two skills, choose Athletics and Investigation. 

We will be using Ranger options from Class Variants Unearthed Arcana, which is free. Deft Explorer lets you pick one of 3 options - Tireless lets you a number of times equal your Wisdom modifier per long rest gain 1d10+ Your Wisdom modifier temporary hit points as an action. If you are suffering from Exhaustion and take a short rest, you lose a level of it.

Favored Fore lets you cast Hunter’s Mark on a target without expending a spell slot a number of times equal your Wisdom modifier and don’t need concentration to maintain it. Hunter’s Mark let’s you pick one target and for its duration (up to an hour) you deal 1d6 extra damage whenever you hit it with an attack and gain advanate on Survival and Perception checks to find it. And if the target drops to zero hit points before spell ends you can move it to another as a bonus action. So if you are chasing after Loki again, this will come in handy.

Level 2: 2nd Level Ranger gets to pick a Fighting Style. Unarmed Fighting lets your unarmed attacks deal 1d6+your Strength modifier damage, 1d8 if you hit with two hands at once (or do a dropkick, I guess) and when you start a grapple and whenever you hit a grappled creature you can deal it extra 1d4 bludgeoning of damage. As with Tulok, we pick this one a lot because a lot of superheroes just use fists. If you feel YOUR America should be swinging a waraxe, go for it and pick something else.

On this level Rangers get spellcasting. you know a number of spells and cannot know spells of higher level than you have spell slots for, whenever you cast a spell you spend spell slot of appriopriate level or higher. If a spell requires a saving throw it is against difficulty of 8 + Your Proficiency Modifier + Your Wisdom modifier and the latter two you also sum up to add to a Spell Attack roll if a spell requires one. You start with two spells.

Cure Wounds lets you touch a creature or yourself and heal for 1d8+ Your Wisdom modifier of hit points.

Zephyr Strike lasts for a 1 minute on concentration and for this time you don’t provoke opportunitty attacks and when you deal your first attack you get to make it with an advantage and your speed increases by 30 feet for this turn.

Level 3: Once you reach this level Protector Aasimar gains Radiant Soul, letting you once per long rest radiate with positive energy, even spouting mings made of light from your back. If your DM allows you can probably gain the benefits without that visual add-on. This form lasts for one minute and gives you flying speed equal your regular speed and once on each of your turns you can deal extra radiant damage equal your level to a creature you hit with an attack or a spell.

3rd Level Ranger gets to choose a Ranger Conclave. Horizon Walker specializes in dimensional travel and interdimensional threats. You can as an action sense location of a nearest interdimensional portal once per short or long rest. You also become a Planar Warrior, which means you can use your bonus action to select one creature you can see within 30 feet of you. During this turn when you attack that creature you not only deal extra 1d8 damage but also all damage from that attack gets converted to force damage. Force is the least protected against type of damage in the game, there is literally a single creature immune to it and zero creatures with resistance to it in entire Monster Manual.

At this level Ranger also gains Primeval Awareness, letting you spend a spell slot to be able to sense all aberrations, celestials, dragons, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead within one mile from you for duration of 1 minute per spell slot’s level, but does not tell you their exact location or number. It is horribly situational, costs your valuable resource and is basically a shittier version of Divine Sense, an abilitty Paladin gets on first level. It’s actually a core Ranger abilitty and it does have a replacement in Unearthed Arcana.... buuut that replacement gives you a bunch of extra spells that aren’t really America’s style. At least I am far more likely to beleive she is able to pick subtle hints of presence of various creatures due to her years of experience fighting everything the Multiverse threw at her, than I am that she can detect and talk to animals and plants or be able to see through an animal’s eyes. If you want to sacrifice some thematic coherence for more powerful build, be my guest.

Hunter’s Mark is now added to your spells’ known as a bonus from Favored Foe and Horizon Walker gives you another additional spell - Protection From Evil and Good, letting you make  aberrations, celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, and undead  have disadvantage on attacks against yourself or another creature. The target of the spell cannot be charmed, frightened or posessed by these creatures  and if that already happend before you cast the spell, it rolls saving throws to shake it off with an advantage. A lot of lovecraftian horrors try to eat your teammate and future god for his future god powers, this will help against that.

Our regular spell for this level will be Absorb Elements. You can cast it as a reaction whenever you take acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder damage and it grants you resistance to that and next time you hit a target on your next turn, it takes extra 1d6 of that type of damage. This second feature is less impressive at higher levels where a lot of creatures dealing that type of damage are resitant or outright immune to it. Every dragon is immune to the damage dealt by its breath for example. EXCEPT that as a Palanar Warrior you convert that to force damage. Their offense just makes you hit harder.

4th Level: Sticking with Ranger for an Abilitty Score Improvement or a Feat. Resilent lets you add 1 to your Constitution and makes you proficient with Constitution saving throw. a large number of your spells is depending on Concentration so this is a good way to keep going even after you take a hit.

5th Level: Ranger gains an extra attack, letting you attack twice in a single attack action. Remember, those attacks are all affected by your Planar Warrior power.

You also gain access to 2nd level spells 

Lesser Restoration, letting you cure one disease or a  blinded, deafened, paralyzed, or poisoned condition from one creature. America heals fast.

Horizon Walker gives us Misty Step, which lets you teleport 30 feet to an unoccupied space you can see.

6th Level: You can pick second Deft Explorer feature. I will go with Roving to increase your speed by 5 feet and give you climbing and swimming speed equal to your walking speed. America is fast and with that you can move to your foes no matter where they are.

7th Level: Horizon Walker gives you Etheral Step. You can now once per short or long rest cast, as a bonus action, Etherealnesss on yourself without expending a spell slot but it only lasts one turn. It lets you step into Ethereal Plane where you can move without being affected by enemies or walls or magic effects on material plane. You can use this to move aout of the harm’s way or (more likely) behind enemy lines to punch that one guy who keeps hiding behind the tank.

You also get one more spell but I’m not feeling these 2nd level spells so we will pick Longstrider, which increases your movement speed by 10 feet for 1 hour, no concentration required. This means you can now walk, climb, swim or fly up to 45 feet per turn. And you cannot tell me America isn’t super fast, considering in her debut book she did this

8th Level: We will now jump to Cleric. America has multitude of things she could worship, be it Demiurge or Spirits Beracca and Sanar who created your home planet or even your moms and their messianic-like sacrifice. Or not, Clerics don’t need to worship a diety, they can draw the power from just believing this strongly in something the universe registers it as faith. Lou Wilson on The Unsleeping City plays a Cleric who is a doctor that draws power from caring about his patients so much, you don’t need to limit yourself just because you may dislike certain parts of character history.

Whatever your reasons, you get to pick a Divine Domain. Since America can travel between dimensions, she basically is a Planeswalker. Meaning she can jump to Magic: the Gathering setting Amonketh from one of Planeshift supplements and grab the Strength Domain. You gain proficiency in one extra skill, pick Survival, and heavy armor.

You also get Cleric spellcasting, which works as Ranger’s except you know all your Cleric spells and you prepare which spells you have ready each day. You also get cantrips, which you can cast as many times as you want. Your number of spell slots is determined by multiclassing table -  check out a level equal your Cleric level + half your Ranger level rounded down to consult how many spell slots you have for use.

You get 3 Cantrips, two spells and two extra spells and an extra cantrip from Strength domain so we have some work to do.

Guidance and Resistance each lets you add a d4 to a single ability check or a saving throw respectively. This shit is life saving. No, I did not spend my last game lamenting guidance is not on Bard Spell list after my bard failed an important skill check by 1, why are you asking?

Thunderclap lets you clap your hands so hard every creature 5 feet from you needs to make a Constitution saving throw or be dealt 1d6 thunder damage. It is a staple for powerhouses, Hulk basically patented it.

Bless lets you pick up to 3 creatures, including yourself. For the duration they add 1d4 to attack rolls and saving throws

Detect Magic lets you sense or see influence of magic within 30 feet from you unless it’s hiding behind a thick enough barrier. Again, America been around, she can recognize a lot of tricks.

Divine Favor lets you add 1d4 of Radiant damage to your attacks. America’s punches are that strong.

Shield of Faith meanwhile grants you +2 bonus to your AC. Again, short shorts can barelly pass for light armor, less alone medium or heavy so you need all help you can get.

9th Level: 2nd Level Cleric gets to use their Channel Divinity.once per short or long rest

The standard use is Turn Undead, which forces all undead who see you to make a Wisdom saving throw or be turned for 1 minute or until they take damage, making them unable to do anything but spend their turn dashing away from you. You may say it is not in character but America travelled across the Multiverse a lot. Do you know what you can find in Marvel Multiverse a lot? Zombies. Especially Marvel Zombies. And even then, regular zombies in D&D are also know as “PAIN IN THE BUTT TO FIGHT WITH” so whichever kind of undead is bothering you, this will help.

Strength Domain grants you another use of this, Feat of Strength. You can choose to spend your use of Channel Divinity to add +10 to an attack roll, abilitty check or saving throw using Strength.

Finally, Unearthed Arcana lets you spend your use of this feature to regain a 1st level spell slot. It’s situational, but could be useful in a pinch.

Our spell for the level will be Sanctuary - cast it on one creature of your choice to make enemies have to roll a Wisdom saving throw whenever they want to target it with an attack or a harmful spell or have to choose another target. You can play this one as goading enemies to fight her to distract them from civilians or your mroe squishy teammates like Billy or Loki. Warning, don’t waste it on either Kate or Quentin Quire, they are likely to just go and shoot someone and the spell ends if target attacks someone, casts a harmful spell or causes damage from an already active spell. So no, Quentin, you cannot cast Spirit Guardians and then have America Sanctuary you, stop asking and read an errata already!

10th Level: 3rd Level Cleric gets 2 2nd Level spell slots

Aid lasts for an hour and lets you increase hit point maximum and current hit points of up to 3 party members by fve, always useful as a form of a battle plan to keep everyone safe.

Warding Bond lets you for an hour create a bond between you and another creature for 1 hour with no concentration. As long as the target is within 60 feet of you it gets +1 to AC and resistance to all damage but whenever it takes damage, you take as much damage and if you get further than 60 feet away from one another or you drop to 0 hit points, the spell ends. So cast this on Kate, Monica or Billy who are squishy but know to stay in the back. Don’t cast it on Ramone, Eddie, Adam, Teddy, Carol, T’Challa, Noh-Varr, Gwen, David, Eli or Galactus who are likely to be with you in the front line. And don’t cast it on Quentin, he is squishy and should stay in the back but he cannot be trusted, this kid has no self-perservation instinc whatsoever. Same goes for Loki, who is supposed to be smarter but still keeps poking everything around for one scheme or another.

Strength Domain gives us Enchance Abilitty, which grants you an advantage on abilitty chekcs of chosen Ability score and some minor bonuses if you pick Strength, Dexterity or Constitution. As I’ve said, America is good at everything as if she was an anime character, this will help you emulate that.

Protection from Poison for an hour, no concentration, gives the target advantage on saving throws against being poisoned and resistance to poison damage and when cast removes one poison already affecting the target.

11th Level: 4th Level Cleric gets an Abilitty Score Improvement, invest in your Strength. Spoiler, this will be where all your remaining Abilitty Score improvements will go.

You get one more cantrip and one more spell

Virtue grants the target 1d4+your spellcasting abilitty modifier of temporary hit points for one round

Branding Smite, which was added in Unearthed Arcana, lets you deal extra 2d6 Radiant damage and if the target was invisible it now becomes visible and cannot becopme invisible for the duration of the spell as it shines bright light in 5-feet radius. America punching someone out of their invisiblity so hard they now glitter? Sounds about right.

12th Level: 5th Level Cleric can destroy all undead of challenge rating 1/2 or less who failed saving throw against turn undead. 

You get even more spells, gaining access to third level ones.

Remove Curse lets you remove effects of a curse from a person or break attunment to cursed item. Use it on yourself to simply shrug off the enemy curses

Tongues lets you understand any language and be understood by all other creatures for an hour. You ever noticed how all realities America goes to seem to speak English? This may be why.

Protection From Energy lets you get resistance to  acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder. for the duration, on concentration of course.

Haste also lasts on concentration. it doubles your speed, grants +2 to AC, an advantage on Dexterity saving throws and an extra attaction you can use to take Dash, Disengage, Hide or use object action or make a single extra attack. Once it ends you cannot take actions for a turn, 

13th Level: 6th Level Cleric can use Channel Divinity twice per short or long rest, gains a new use from Strength domain, letting you as a reaction grant +10 to another creature’s attack roll, ability check or saving throw using Strength. Sometimes you jsut want to cheer up on your girlfriend to punch someone harder, you know?

You also get to pick one more spell - magic Circle lets you ward an area of 10 feet radius and 20 feet height from celestials, elementals, fey, fiends, or undead, whichever you choose. You can either protect creatures inside from that type of enemies or trap them inside the circle. Either way the selected creature type cannot willingly cross the border of the circle, had disadvantage against targets on the other side cannot charm, frighter or possess and if it tries to circumvent this by using teleportation of any sort it needs to first succeed a Charisma saving throw.

14th Level: 7th Level Cleric gets 4th level spells

Freedom of Movement lets you for one hour, no concentration required, make yourself unaffected by difficult terrain and magic cannot in any way reduce your speed, restrain or paralyze you, you can spend 5 feet from your movement to escape nonmagical restraints and being underwater doesn’t impose any penalty on your movement.

Dominate Beast isn’t really in character so I will focus on second bonus spell Strength Domain gives you - Stoneskin grants you resistance to nonmagical Bludgeoning, Piercing and Slashing damage

Stoneskin is not an excuse to wear this awful outfit from Vengenace, tho.

15th Level: 8th Level Cleric gains Divine Strike, letting you once on each of your turns add extra 1d8 of that damage type. You also get to pick another Abilitty Score improvement and your Destroy Undead abilitty upgrades to undeads of CR 1 or less.

Your spell for this level will be Banishment, forcing a Charisma Saving throw on the target and sending it to another dimension if it fails. If the target is native to this plane, it is send to a harmless dimension and comes back once spell ends. But if it is not, it is send to its home plane and if you maintain concentration for one minute, it does not return. As with Magic Circle this is less something we hase SEEN America do but sounds like something she should be able to do. Open a portal under something and let it fall.

16th Level: 9th Level Cleric gets one spell of 4th level and one of 5th level.

Greater Restoration lets you remove from atarget a single level of exhaustion, one curse, one reduction of an abilitty score or hit point maximum, one effect that charmed or petrified the target. Use this on yourself to shrug off everything. Except perficication, kinda hard to use this while petrified.

Strength Domain gives you two extra spells, but Insect Plague isn’t very in character. Destructive Wave, however, lets you strike the ground, making every creature of your choice within 30-feet range take 5d6 thunder and 5d6 radiant or necrotic damage and be knocked prone, half damage on a succesful Constitution saving throw. You stomp the ground that hard.

Death Ward lasts for 8 hours with no concentration, first time a target would be dropped to zero hit points, they’re dropped to 1 hit points instead. If an effect would kill target instantly without dealing damage (say POWER WORD: KILL) it is negated. Either way the spell ends after a single activation. Sounds useful considering one of people on America’s shit list is COSMIC TITAN CHAMPION OF DEATH 

17th Level: 10th Level Cleric gains Divine Intervention, which lets you call upon the power of whoever you picked as your patron diety. You describe what you want to happen and roll a percentage dice - if your result is lower than your Cleric level, diety intervenes in a way choosen by the DM. If you succed on this, you cannot use this feature for a week, if you fail you cannto do it until after a long rest.

You get one new Cantrip and one new 5th Level Spell

Word of Radiance forces all creatures of your choice to suceed a Constitution saving throw or take 4d6 radiant damage. You shine so bright you literally hurt your enemies.

Legend Lore lets you gain knowledge about a legendary object, person or location, up to mysterious secrets. Again, America has been travelling through the Multiverse, she likely has seen everything and recalls things that seem to be happenning again.Information may be a bit cyrptic, tho.

18th Level: 11th Level Cleric’s Destroy Undead improves to undeads of CR 2 or lower. You also get an access to 6th Level Spell - otherwordly Form was added to Cleric Spell List in Unearthed Arcana. It lets you for the duration (up to 1 minute on concentration) grant yourself flying speed of 40 feet, use of your Wisdom in place of Strength for attack rolls, an additional attack that doesn’t stack with your extra attack and immunity to either fire and poison damage and poisoned condition or radiant and necrotic damage and charmed comdition. This will help if you out of your Radiant Soul and need to fly again, but it is sadly not as good on this particular build because we already have an extra attack and rely more on Strength than Wisdom. But Clerics don’t get Fly.

19th Level: Speaking of Strength, 12th Level fo Cleric and our Final Abilitty Score Improvement lets us finally cap it.

20th Level: Our captsone is 13th Level of Cleric for a 7th Level spell - Plane Shift lets you become your party’s ticked to the Multiverse, letting you transport yourself and up to 8 willing creatures to another plane of existence or to banish an unwilling creature to a random location on a plane you choose if you hit it with a meele spell attack you make as a part of this spell and it fails Charisma Saving throw.

Overview: So this is my take on America Chavez - Protector Aasimar Horizon Walker Ranger 7/Strength Domain Cleric 13. Now let us see how valiable this build is:

Pros: First of all, you are really tough, with around 165 hit points, a number of spells you can set up to buff yourself  and/or others you will be very hard to hurt. Second, you have a large number of ways to hurt your enemies and even combine them to deal some impressive damage. Finally, you have a ton of mobility options, letting you chase all most important targets all across the battlefield.

Cons: A lot of your spells require concentration and we didn’t cap this one, so it is mediocre. A lot of your offensive options compete for bonus action and your buffs require some prep time and forward thinking to set up or wasting your time during the combat. A number of offensive spells relies on your Wisdom modifier, which is weak.

However, you are pretty good at what you do best - punching and taking on yourself major threats. You are a reliable tank who can outlast her enemies in combat. Punch people and protect your friends, jsut remember you cannot do it all alone and your teammates are much more squishy - protect them and they’ll have your back

Alternatives:

There is a number of ways in which you could upgrade this build but sacrifice some of loyalty to America’s potrayal.

* Ranger 6/Cleric 14 lets you increase your Divine Strike Damage to 2d8, meaning you can deal 4d8 damage when combined with Planar Warrior.

* Ranger 12/Cleric 8 lets you increase your Planat Warrior Damage and gains extra attack from Horizon Walker’s 11th level feature, making you much more offensive but also with more hp.

* Change stats to STR 12 DEX 13 CON 14 INT 10 WIS 15  CHA 8. Pick Druidic Warrior as your fighting style, grab a club or a staff and pick shillelagh as your cantrip, letting you use your Wisdom for attacks made with said club or staff, then go Ranger 8/Cleric 12 or vice-versa, using your Abilitty Score Improvements to round up first Wisdom and then Constitution. This take on America will have much better offense AND defense but it strays so much from her as a character (no plane shift, no punching with your hands, less actual Strength and more trickery) it didn’t feel right. Sometimes you need to sacrifice power to stay loyal to the character. Then again, this build would sure be true to a certain aspect of America we know and love.

- Admin

[murasaki-murasame]

I honestly wasn’t planning to summon for Gala Thor at first, since I want to focus on saving for stuff like the end of year holiday banners, but he ended up looking really strong and also I want to make Tartarus less of a miserable slog to get through with my light units in any way possible, without resorting to ‘haha dark characters go brr :)’, so here we are, lol.

Results under the cut [plus some of my thoughts about the new Tartarus fight]

I started with about 260 summons saved up [which is part of why I wanted to skip it, since I prefer to have at least 300 summons before pulling on a banner], but in just 60 summons I got:

-Ramona dupe [one day I’ll get Gala Elly . . . ]

-Dupe Liger [now at either 1UB or 2UB, I can’t remember which]

-Dupe Pazuzu and Simurgh [they’re both now MUB so that’s nice, even though I don’t use them, lol]

-Ramiel x2 [I don’t really care much about him one way or another since I have other good shadow dragons but it’s nice to have him]

-Gala Thor

At first I was a bit disappointed by Gala Thor, since he gives a base 50% strength and an additional 45% bonus strength based on your energy stacks, which seemed kinda lame compared to Mars, but it turns out that having just one energy stack gives you a bonus 25% strength, with the other stacks giving an extra 5% each, so basically you almost always have 75% strength, which is really nice, and I think at least puts him at par with Daikokuten.

Also apparently his damage mods when shapeshifted, including his dragon skill, are super high, so he works really nicely with someone like Gala Euden, who I’ve basically ended up maining against Tartarus. 

It’ll be a while before the DPS sim updates, but I think Thor’s probably gonna have a pretty big impact on how strong the light roster is, so that’s neat.

Though tbh I think a lot of people are still gonna end up just using shadow units against Tartarus, even if Thor helps bridge the gap between light and shadow units a bit. Which is it’s own whole problem with the game’s balance, lol. I think if they just gave Tartarus poison immunity, that’d probably be enough to actually make everyone use light units in the fight, but I still feel like they need to give endgame bosses way higher off-element damage resistance.

I haven’t managed to get many clears of Tartarus yet, but I have a lot of mixed feelings about the fight. I’m happy to finally have a relevant piece of content to use my light units in, and I like most of the mechanics in the fight, but a lot of it doesn’t really work well in practice, and there’s some really annoying parts of the fight too. Mainly the fact that they decided to keep the enervation mechanic from Void Nidhogg, lol. I quit doing that fight as soon as the shadow Chimera came out specifically because it makes that fight such a goddamn slog, and it continues to be just as awful in Tartarus. And they somehow made it even worse by deciding to give it to you unavoidably at least once in the fight. At least in Void Nidhogg you could dodge everything and never get enervated, but you have to deal with it at least once in this fight.

Also, the whole portal mechanic is extremely cool, and I hope they experiment with more stuff like this in the future, but I feel like every time I go back to the main arena, I have like I have to immediately try and figure out which part of the fight I walked back in on, and usually I have like two seconds to react before one of the screen-wide attacks happens and kills me. It’s really disorienting, lol.

The prison mechanic in general is also kinda hard to wrap my head around, and I feel like it requires maybe a bit more team coordination than is reasonable to expect from a game like this, but really I think it’s just my punishment for never doing High Zodiark, since I think it’s one of the many parts of this fight that are really similar to that fight, and I have absolutely no experience with any of them.

Anyway, now that Tartarus is out it’s making me think back on the Agito bosses as a whole, before we move into the 2nd anniversary where we’ll probably at least get a hint at the next phase of endgame content, and in spite of the various issues I have with them, I think the Agito fights are a huge improvement over the High Dragon fights. You can really tell how Cygames [for better or worse] was trying to shake things up and figure out how to make engaging endgame fights, and for the most part I think it worked out.

The difficulty balance between all the fights [especially counting the Master fights] is kinda all of the place, like how eKai is extremely easy while eAO and eTart are kinda obnoxiously long and difficult if you do them in the intended ways, but I think that at least shows how they kept trying new things. mKai’s also apparently a lot harder than eKai [though I haven’t tried it], so they clearly learnt from the feedback they got from that.

I think Volk and Ciella are probably my favourite of the Agito fights at the moment, for different reasons. Volk feels really well-balanced for the current state of the flame roster, and has mechanics that require a degree of cooperation and coordination without being overly punishing like Tartarus kinda feels at the moment. And on the other hand, I really like Ciella’s fight because it feels like it’s just at the right level of difficulty for me to be able to reliably do by myself. At least on manual. I’ve never really managed to get auto solo to work, but I enjoy doing it manually. Either way, it’s nice to have endgame fights like this that can be comfortably soloed if you have a strong enough team, and I really like how for Ciella you have to build a really tanky, defense-oriented team in order to be able to solo it. I feel like 90% of the game basically punishes you for trying to do anything other than raw damage-dealing, so I really appreciate that Ciella is designed in a way that rewards you for making tanky team comps. It also lets Sylas be genuinely meta for something, which I’m grateful for, and it gave Templar Hope some redemption after he was initially deemed as being kinda worthless after he came out.

I also like how status effects are integrated into the fight mechanics, and [for the most part] both status resistances for each element feel like they have a purpose in their Agito fight. Compared to HDTs where it feels like every element roster is split between ‘units that are good for the fight’ and ‘units that are immediately handicapped’. This is actually one part where I think Tartarus works really well as a boss fight, since unless you can kill him before the poison portals happen, you really need a poison-res character to deal with them.

We still have three more of the Master fights to come out, but either way I really like the Agito fights, and I’m optimistic for whatever the next set of endgame content will be. Personally, I’m still hoping for them to build upon the Imperial Onslaught mode, since that feels like an almost obsolete part of the game, but that sort of wave-based content would be nice to have for endgame co-op.

Also, I still really hope that the Agito bosses end up being DL’s version of the Eternals/Evokers from GBF, where we can eventually get the ability to recruit them as playable characters by doing lots of grinding. They might just get released as gala units instead, but I’d prefer it if they were obtainable through grinding.

On the one hand they’re basically all villains, but on the other hand the recent story chapter made it pretty obvious that they’re probably all being warped and twisted by the masks Nedrick gave them, so it’d be pretty easy to explain how they could eventually be recruited. Also GBF has it’s own share of characters who probably shouldn’t be recruitable for moral reasons but they still are, lol.

Also when you fight them in-game it already looks like they have the same sorts of character model rigs as normal adventurers, and their attack animations all seem at least roughly based on regular weapon types [Volk being a lance unit, Kai Yan being an axe unit, Ciella being a bow unit, Ayaha/Otoha being dagger units, and Tartarus being a blade unit], so I feel like it wouldn’t be hard to make them playable. Ayaha/Otoha would probably be the hardest one to make work unless they get released as two separate characters, but it’s possible that they’d be a unique case where you use them both in combat at the same time, and switch between which one you’re actively controlling. 

It’s probably a bit too early for any of this to happen since the Agito have basically only just gotten introduced in the main story, so it probably won’t be touched upon for the 2nd anniversary, but I still think it’ll happen eventually.

Anyway, all that aside, at the moment I’m basically just gonna keep saving my summons for either a rerun of Gala Elly/Alex, or the holiday banners. In particular I really want to do lots of summons on the New Years banner. I know we’re gonna have Gala Zena or something next month for the anniversary, but if it’s anything like last year we’ll get lots of free summons during her banner, so I’ll at least wait and see how that works out before I spend any resources chasing her.

I also don’t really care much for Nevin and Pinon so even though I didn’t get them, I’m just gonna quit on this banner while I’m ahead, lol