The twst dorm leaders playing gbf, purely for meme purposes, something i spent too much time on. below the cut for long post.

Riddle

⁃ Rank 101

⁃ Plays casually but consistently, riddle is a perfectionist and wants to make his teams good, but he’s also realistic and pragmatic. He knows he’s a busy guy, and can’t join trains all day to bust up all his grids at once

⁃ The type to focus on one team at a time based on a predetermined order. Probably not in a crew (if he is, it’s just him, Cater and some of Cater’s friends) so he doesn’t worry about guild wars and building his teams based on that.

⁃ f2p, he’s responsible with his money. probably mains light since he likes the comfort of a high hp pool + stamina, and the typical light play style is reliable and safe.

⁃ Has only recruited one eternal—funf. Her voice probably drives him up the wall, but he likes the security of her heals to his light team. Is planning on 5*ing her!

⁃ favourite class is doctor. Practical, and he won’t admit it but sexy as fuck

⁃ He plays for the gameplay rather than the story/characters, the one exception is sandalphon, who he is incredibly fond of!!! he reads stories if the plot interests him, however, and if he’s got some spare time.

Leona

⁃ Rank 1

⁃ Leona doesn’t play he’s in it like a collecting game and so ruggie can use his randomly lucksacked mlb shiva as a support summon

⁃ like vil, plays on roulette season

⁃ reads some stories, but on ruggies account bc he cba to unlock them himself

⁃ ruggie made a joke about leona being percival ‘if he lost his sense of honour’ which made leona go and read the dragon knights stories

⁃ bruh he fucking stans percy so hard after reading between frost and flame but he won’t admit it

⁃ frequently throws money at the game just because he feels like pulling in gacha. ruggie is crying. leona don’t buy the scam star draw set you don’t even play the game please

⁃ is always really lucky in gacha

Azul

⁃ Rank 200

⁃ Only started playing recently, but was determined to catch up to Idia and become the best player so he got the twins and some poor unfortunate souls to help him grind and pay his way to instant victory

⁃ Doesn’t care for the plot, is purely driven by competition and wanting to have the best grids at any given time. Mains water for the Octavinelle Aesthetic and bitches about having to play the summer cagliostro crit setup to compete with other elements.

⁃ Likes quatre because they are both driven purely by spite and revenge, and is desperate for him to get a rebalance so he can run him w/ a clear conscience

⁃ Also likes Six, probably cried like a bitchboy during seeds of redemption which is to this date the only story he has read but you didn’t hear it from me

⁃ In a crew with idia and is waiting to overthrow him as captain

⁃ Has a weird spreadsheet showing exactly when to cast a status effect for it to land with the highest success that’s virtually unreadable to anyone aside from him

⁃ Plays chaos ruler as default bc he thinks it looks cool

⁃ sparks for the weapon rather than the character

⁃ hates farming for mats and gets the twins/his slaves to do his dailies when he’s busy a lot of the time god i wish i had slaves to farm ubaha host mats for me rn

Kalim

⁃ Rank 50 but his grids are the best of anyone in the game bc haha money go brrrr

⁃ He is cursed with bad gacha luck, and managed to deck himself out with the sexiest primal grid possible (puts idia’s to shame) thanks to jamils help, and a lot of money spent on trying to get Vikala’s ssr (before realising the spark function existed...)

⁃ He doesn’t favour any element, because he likes all the characters! He has a soft spot for Anila and Vikala though, since they’re so adorable and fun!

⁃ Doesn’t play seriously and mostly just reads the stories, idia wants to cry when he sees his fire grid with four flb ixabas going to waste

⁃ He likes Sarasa, and thinks she’s really funny, so when he does play it’s mostly grinding to recruit her!

⁃ Actually likes Vyrn and doesn’t find him annoying! has actually read the main story.

⁃ solos as soon as he has 300 crystals, he literally can’t save, i hate it here

⁃ his favourite class is lumberjack, but he hasn’t unlocked it yet ;-; ccws are hard to forge for rank 100 and below ;-;

Vil

⁃ Rank 25

⁃ seasonal player, shows up for roulette season and then leaves

⁃ downloaded the game because of the pretty art and the cute character designs, but can’t be bothered to learn how to play—he’s a busy man!

⁃ Europa was his first SSR and is still one of his favourite characters, she’s so pretty! He also loves michael and gabriel, and would start playing properly if they became playable mark my words

⁃ won’t admit it but probably wants belial to smear his makeup a little

⁃ kinda a basic bitch, has only read the wmtsb series cried at the ‘i’ll be waiting’ scene

⁃ criticises the fashion choices of every character he pulls, summons included. Won’t go into raids if the boss is ugly.

⁃ Does his makeup with zero playing in the bg and once parades lust...

Idia

⁃ Rank 275

⁃ that insane player who has soloed faasan hl in every element, has all the eternals 5*ed + the sexy blue skin, and all the evokers

⁃ a legendary figure in the community

⁃ plays as tormentor in every team bc he’s that bitch and also has a damascus knife mh for every element even if he doesn’t always use it

⁃ is both serious abt gameplay and the characters, watches all the gbf channel episodes and keeps up with news

⁃ was probably in a gbfvs tournament

⁃ his favourite character is caim, who reminds him of ortho with his childish innocence! Second is Nio, who is quiet and cute! He’s fond of a lot of characters though, like esser, funf, ferry and narmaya.

⁃ Strictly plays with his faves, but his grids are so good that he manages to make any setup meta.

⁃ Has siero scratcher ptsd bc it didn’t give him his third flb blue sphere but got tempted with it so. many. times.

⁃ Is in a guild w/ azul and ortho + some internet friends and if anyone doesn’t meet the gw quota in a day he screams at them w his hair all red and angry

⁃ owns the gisla body pillow.

⁃ He mains all elements. He has a primal whale grid for every element. His favourite to play with is probably wind, because he thinks it has the most flexibility in its play style. Hes a little mad that winds evoker is not as good as most of the others...

⁃ Idia: “i play for strategy” also idia: ‘gets fraux before alanaan bc the waifu is too strong’

Malleus

⁃ Rank 200

⁃ he can’t play, he’s just been farming tiamat omega raids daily since the games launch

⁃ he downloaded it to get closer to lilia, who is really *really* trying to teach him how to play with... little success

⁃ Still, he doesn’t give up!

⁃ Used his free gold bar uncapping a celeste horn

⁃ forgot to collect his free eternal

⁃ used parazonium as skill fodder (dw malmal i did the same and i live with the guilt)

⁃ uses auto select for his grids

⁃ lilia is crying in the background and often steps in to make the grids himself, but malleus always accidentally deletes them...

⁃ his favourite character is vania, she reminds him of lilia! and also, himself, in a strange way...

⁃ he also likes song, and has worked very hard to recruit her! he almost cried reading about how she was ostracised in her village for her talent at archery, and how lonely she feels, even in the eternals.

⁃ whenever the characters give him a seasonal message, he cries

⁃ gives valentines/white day/christmas gifts to every single character he has

Spoilers Ahead for Stargirl S1 E9 (Brainwave)

 I am tempted to just start doing youtube channel, but for now I am blabbing to a post on tumblr about Stargirl episodes from Episode 7. But let me just get to everything I want to for this week. 

All the spoiler will not only this week be in my opinion on the episode but will be also just spoilers over the 41 minutes of this episode. 

Overall episode: 9/10, I enjoyed this one more than last weeks. It had more moments with some of the character, and went more in depth of some of the storyline. Along with Brainwave, so I am excited for next week to see what happens. 

Summary: Alright, so we start the episode off with Henry King not Henry King Jr. with him starting to learn about his powers in a lab full of experiments. We see him getting muggled until he reads the thoughts of the man and then gives the man a seizure and then the man falls on the ground and dies. And then we see him go in front of a camera filming or documenting about his powers after experimenting on himself. Then we see Henry pulling out the tapes from his fathers vault and starting to watch that video which was marked Day 1. Next we see Courtney talking about how she wants to recruit Henry Jr. to the JSA, and use his powers to figure out what Brainwave’s Power is. Pat at first is weary and we see a picture of the Seven Solider’s Of Victory. Which of course Pat was apart of. But he explained how the stopped Cindy’s father or Dragon King in New York once since I have forgotten Cindy’s father name. Then we see more of the Janitor which I suspect he is either a JSA member or apart of the Seven Solider’s Of Victory. Because he sees a vision of him holding the staff which is his mop. Next we see Beth looking at Cindy’s house with the goggles and it says she went to study overseas with her mom which isn’t true as her father the Dragon King locks her in a chamber in the underground tunnels are. And then she talks about how she killed her mom. Her Mom seriously. And then her father puts gas that makes her go to sleep. Bye Cindy for just this episode. Then we see more of the videos or tapes Henry is watching, and then him using his telekenetic powers. And then we see the JSA fight due to Courtney wanting to recurit Henry and Yolanda storms off after what Henry did to her. Beth agrees with Courtney while Rick sides with Yolanda. (Civil war vibes). Next we see more of the Tapes, and Henry watching them. Later to see his dad’s hate for humans. And then he talks to his maid, and after that he hears her thoughts, and then hears his dads. Then we finally see the plans of the ISA when Dragon King annonces that Henry Jr has his fathers telepathic abilities. Which then the satelite would work and would make people fall under “the perfect world” under mind control across six states to make a perfect america. Like super serious villain vibes. Then we see a moment of Jordan in his office until Barbra interrupts him on his mission that he finished, and then she invites him to dinner. Like seriously I swear he will kill Pat. Then we see Henry reading minds of people when he goes to the hospital. Then Courtney and Henry have a moment where she is trying to recruit him and trying to tell him that their is good to every bad person and their bad thoughts you just got to look deeper because everyone loves. And she told him he can come to her whenever and help her. And then leaves. And PS. yes now henry knows Courtney was the one that did that to his father. Then we see that Pat wants Beth and Rick alone to do some research about the underground tunnels. So they get alone time but Beth reads all the books, while Rick tries to see more of his father’s journal since Pat needs to go to this Dinner. Oh I already told about the whole Courtney and Henry which goes after this but anyways it happens. Then we see more of Barbara and Pat talking as he almost tells her about everything that him and Courtney are doing before Courtney stops him and the guest arrives. We see the Mahkent’s enter and I just lit up when I saw Courtney see Cameron and his father and grandparents at the door. I just love the two. And then we see Henry get pulled into a room which is Yolanda doing it because she tells him or warns him she will kill him if he messes with her friends you know who the JSA. And she will kill him, but he reads her mind and I feel like she may be the reason next episode he helps since she said she loved him, past tense. Then we skip back to the dinner seeing that Courtney and Cameron are sitting next to another and then they say a prayer which only Jordan and Cameron’s grandparents know because it is in Greek, and he could only speak French or learned it. Then we see Pat get jealous like seriously death glares at Jordan, I want to see those two fight fist fight. Because I swear Jordan wants to kill Pat because he likes Barbara who is a married women. And then we see more of Rick and Beth (Hournite)  which Beth found something calls Rick who are then sitting together really close on a couch as Beth is reading over the history of Blue Valley and the tunnel and when they are built. And then we see how both of them talk about another to each others parents. Like oh my gosh they are so cute! Then Jordan asks about Pat and let me say I swear they are trying to rival another. Then we hear about “why Pat moved to Blue Valley” which is partily true. Then we hear a small bit of Barbara hating a bit of her childhood in Blue Valley. Then they both talk about remaking Blue Valley with what they are doing for families and Jordan and Barbara smile at another. And then we hear the grandparents talk about how Courtney worries them and how they might have to kill her basically. HELL NO! I love Cameron and Courtney and two those Grandparents need to go. They are speak Norwegian. And then Courtney does go get more food since she gets up then grabs the hot pot of food, and then she gets the gloves on since it stings her. Once she goes back and hands it to Jordan it doesn’t effect him at all. Then let’s go smaller we see Courtney and Pat talking in the kitchen on how Jordan could pick that up without gloves and with his hands.Then they talk more about him being icicle and then she suspects Cameron. Like ok I get it would be hard not to since Cindy is bad. But hey I love them together so please writers don’t let them flop. I NEED THEM TOGETHER. Then they leave and we see Cameron basically asking her out to hang out again, lets hope it isn’t at his place. But they do hug which is cute but I need more. Then we see Jordan and Courtney interact as he says he wanted to meet her and supports her basically giving her his blessing to date Cameron. Hey at least even though he is a villian he supports them dating. I love that. Then she runs down grabs the staff as Pat goes after her and she is about to go but Pat says they need to tell her mom. And in the end boom! Barbra sees it and she drops the staff which stops glowing. THen we see Henry in the hospital room with someone who says about a Will that is more trying to steal his family money. Then he does the same thing his father did by killing the man. Then at the end after that HENRY KING not HENRY JR. Wakes up from his coma and talks to his son. THEN End of episode. I don’t think this a summary more than a full recap because I swear this is the whole episode. 

HOURNITE SCENES FINALLY MORE BREADCRUMBS GUYS THEY MIGHT GIVE US A LOAF OF BREAD SOON.

YOLANDA BEING A BADASS!!! Like she goes after Henry and threatens him about her friends. So can she be my friend? 

Cameron and Courtney Scenes, I don’t want her to judge Cameron based on his father, I need them together and I want him to be good. 

HENRY READING MINDS AND KILLING A PERSON. Like yes he kills someone but I do suspect that is why he helps them too not only because of Yolanda, but because he didn’t enjoy it he wants to help people and sees what Courtney means. 

PAT BEING JEALOUS OF JORDAN!!!! I loved it so much the jealousy and tension between the two at the dinner was crazy funny and I want Pat to beat him up even if it’s in his Stripe suit. 

Learning more about Brainwave was cool because backstory time. 

DID I MENTION HOURNITE SCENES. 

BARBARA FINDING OUT COURTNEY AND PAT’S BEGINNING OF THE SECRET. Not fully but she saw the staff and heard a bit of the arguements between the two. 

HENRY WAKING UP HIS FATHER. I loved that scene because I knew it would happen I guessed it. I knew Brainwave would wake up. HE IS BACK AND READY FOR STARGIRL’S BLOOD IN REVENGE. 

I DON’T KNOW IF BRAINWAVE REMEMBERS YET IDK NEXT WEEK MIGHT TELL ME. 

HENRY NEEDS PROTECTION BECAUSE I FEEL BAD FOR HIM. RUDE AND HARD ON THE OUTSIDE BUT A CONFUSED MARSHMALLOW ON THE INSIDE.

Can you tell I’m writing this at midnight my time, and I’m tired but I wanted to get this done since I watched the episode 10 my time. 

What I believe and want in Stargirl S1 E10 (Brainwave Jr,)

To see the JSA kick some butt for once and get back in action.

Did I mention Training scene before, hmmmm YES YES I HAVE. I need just one scrap of a proper one from the team. 

When the JSA enters the tunnels and finds out about the plans that the ISA has. 

Barbara and Pat fighting about everything and how she was lied to. And how Jordan is flirting with her. 

More scenes of HOURNITE even if it’s just a loaf of bread this time. 

Cameron and Courtney scene like where she goes on a date with him. 

Henry Jr. decided to be good because he didn’t like killing the person and doesn’t want to be like his father or hurt the world so he decided to join or help the JSA fight the ISA. 

See Henry apoligize to Yolanda and where she can at least stand him for two minutes to listen to him. 

A kiss scene not long but just one not saying which ship it doesn’t matter I just need a bit of romance since things will get ugly once E11-13 hits us. 

More of Dragon King. I need to know more about him, and this Janitor. 

Thank you guys for reading it. Me and tumblr on my phone are fighting since I finished this last night and it wasn’t posting. But now it’s out, and now I can stop trying to save it on my phone when it doesn’t. I have tried posting it, so they’re are no fun colors really for me to play with on my computer. Ok but for now enjoy. I’ll be back next week for E10.

General status update for Dragalia Lost progress.

I’m getting my shit rocked at this point.  Not as bad as you think, but still pretty bad.

Every team is now at least 30k might.  So that’s pretty decent, definitely satisfied there.  We can beat every Expert Agito fight on co-op, which is also really nice.  We have not yet beaten a single Master level fight of them, however.  Which is distressing, to say the least.

Maybe I’ve over-emphasized the Shadow Agito weapons, but we really only have resources from Kai Yan left.  I focused on the trees, and have capped out Light, Shadow, and Wind.  Water I need to gather tier 1 drops, and Fire has another 5 upgrades now, so that’s fun.  But I don’t like farming them too much, so I’ve been making Dragon weapons for the non-Shadow teams, using the weekly bonus drops from the High Dragon Trials.  It’s been going alright.  Once I can get the Light Wand to 4 unbinds I’ll be satisfied.  I’m not about to spend resources upgrading the 5-8 unbinds, though.  Those are for Damascus Ingots, no matter how long it takes to farm them out.  Sure I need like 16 and currently have 2, but we’ll get there eventually and I’m willing to be patient on this one.

The main trouble is the Mercurial Gauntlet.  I’m four clears away from having the maximum amount of Eldwater I can get per month.  Yes, that’s only like 1900 eldwater, and that’s really not that much anyway, but I feel like it’s the principle of the matter and I’d like to get there before the payout this month.  Which is proving challenging.

Water is basically deadlocked, in large part because I only have maxed out Chimera weapons on them.  I can’t bring myself to upgrade further than that.  Farming Agito resources isn’t fun, and fuck the High Mercury fight.  To make matters worse, I’m...not exactly sold on the current team.  I have Gala Elisanne, and have been trying to make use of her.  While her attacking skill does incredibly good damage, it...really does not go off very often, so I’m not sure I like it that much.  Pinon and Lily are solid offensive support, but I’m also not that invested in either.  And Nurse Aeleen is...mana spiral when?  The point is, if I’m going to change them out, farming out Agito resources and the rupees needed to make those weapons is asking a lot.  So they’re my weakest team by far, and will likely stay that way until I can figure out what the hell I’m doing.

Wind team is solid.  Maribelle is great for offensive damage with Vayu, while Kirsty and Valentine’s Melody have great poison-focused damage output as well.  I run Akasha for right now, but honestly might swap to Formal Noelle once I can complete her last few mana nodes.  The added damage from Poisoned Punisher is really, really nice, and while I enjoy the faster skill charge from Akasha’s S2, it only happens like twice in the entire two-minute fight with Roy Fafnir.  Which is pretty bad, actually!  Akasha’s another I feel like kinda needs a Mana Spiral.  Maybe one day.

Light’s pretty good too.  Gala Zena, Yukata Curran, Radiant Xuan Zang, and I recently had to make the tough call to swap out Odetta for Summer Cleo.  Triple paralysis focus.  The DPS is strong, but also just slightly under where it needs to be.  I blame this largely on a lack of good dragons.  Seriously, we have Gala Thor, and he’s great, but my only other options are High Jupiter, Cupid, Liger, and Tie Shan Gongzhu.  Whose skill haste is nice, I will admit.  But lacking any unbinds is kinda painful for the overall might.  It sucks seeing your same-element dragon be applied and your might go down a few hundred points from just running Gold Fafnir.  We’re really close to beating the next step, but we’re gonna need a lot more than that to clear four rounds.

Basically, if either Wind or Light can clear their remaining rounds, we’ll make it to max eldwater rewards.  If Water clears, we’d still need one more.  So I’m focusing my efforts on Wind and Light.  And to that end, I’m considering using up my Sunlight Stones.

The big considerations are Vayu, and Tie Shan Gongzhu.  Both of them have no unbindings at all.  Vayu feels more valuable, given the raw damage output that another 20% increase to skill damage and however much strength we gain would do for Maribelle, who stacks skill haste and has Akasha to speed up those skills’ activation.  Tie Shan Gongzhu is mostly because Light is the closest element to clearing what we need, and she might push us over that edge.  I could also start working on farming out Cupid essences.  With ten days left, I won’t quite make max unbinding, but since we have two already we could at least make it to three, which could help.

That said, there’s another option that involves focusing entirely on Wind team.  4 stones to Vayu, two to Mids Zero, and two to Ariel.  That caps out all the dragons being used on Wind team, and would increase a lot of skill damage and skill haste effects being used.  Unfortunately that spends everything at once.  Which isn’t exactly ideal.  I know Sunlight Stones should probably be saved for Gala dragons, and in particular my Gala Poseidon should probably take them since he’s the only other Gala dragon I have.  And then there’s the fact I’d be doing all of this for like 1900 eldwater, and you get more than that just pulling a 4* duplicate unit.  So it’s probably not worth it.  But I am tempted.

Beyond that, it’s mostly just focusing on structures at this point.  I’ve pretty much given up on Master Agito.  It takes forever to even get into a room for one, and you lose pretty much immediately every time anyway.  It’s just not fun at all, and I have no desire to keep pushing for it.  The only other content I’m now stuck on is the Tier 3 raid battles in the current event.  Which I think counts as an Astral battle, so I’m working on getting Void weapons for the Light team up to 5 unbinds, so they can all pack Astral Bane, in hopes that helps.

I’ve spent a ton of stamina resources on farming out elemental orbs and the insignias from Imperial Onslaught.  I’ve capped both Lance, Staff, Wand, and Bow dojos, and am working on dagger and axe.  Those have direct benefits for Shadow team, Wind team, and Light team.  Less directly, it also helps Water team.  I don’t have a single Blade unit or Manacaster unit, and the only Sword unit now is Lea on Fire team, so that one can wait.  I’ve also got one of each elemental altar maxed out, so we’re approaching the point where individual character might is kinda hitting its limit.  Which is good, less to fuss about.

Last thing to note: I have 4 tenfold summon tickets, 30 single pull summon tickets, and over 10k wyrmite.  Which is not even nearly enough for a spark.  Fortunately, I also can’t say I’ve cared about anything since Formal Noelle.  And given the talk about Persona 5 crossover, and Gala Chelle likely not being for a few months, I’m pretty confident I’m in the clear.  With any luck, the pushback about wyrmite output being cut nearly in half will cause them to up their game again, and it won’t take so long to gather resources.  It’s probably because of that, but man, I remember people talking about this game as if it were the most generous thing in the world, and it very does not feel that way at all between limited summoning resources, AND not even getting a single free summon like you do in FEH.

Nanwum IV toolboxkit

I have a love/hate relationship with the word “tool”.  On the one hand, tools are awesome.    I like holding a big screwdriver and thinking about all the screws I can loosen with it.    I ordered a thing at work yesterday and I can’t wait for it to arrive.   There’s a rush of power in knowing some object will solve a bunch of problems.   Look out, screws.

On the other hand, it annoys me how people use the term “tool” in a more abstract sense, like statistical “tools” or using a flow chart to figure out what to do.    I can’t hold any of that crap, so calling it a tool feels like a bait-and-switch.   But I can appreciate the power of the term.   If you can liken a thing to a power drill, then you have my attention.   

Anyway, this weekend is for making preparations for National Novel Writing Month, which starts next Sunday, so I thought it would be useful to go over the stuff that I use to get me through it.  

1) The NaNoWriMo website.

Back in 2017, I seriously considered not even bothering with the website, because I figured it had nothing to offer.    I’m the one doing all the work, right?   But tracking progress is an effective motivator, and I like being able to see a chart that shows how well I’m doing.    There’s some bugs in it.    For some reason it doesn’t show my Camp Nano April 2018 as being complete, and when I tried to fix it, it doubled the word count instead.  

It’s also useful for where I’m at today.    Now that I’ve done this thing a few times, I can measure current performance against past years.  November 2018 was my personal best, so I’m going to use that as a model for this year.    I don’t need to beat 2018-me, but I do need to remind myself that I’ve performed this well in the past.  

2) George R. R. Martin motivational desktop wallpaper.

I started doing this as a joke, but looking at this dude sitting at his computer, not writing is a much more powerful motivator than I ever thought possible.  The idea is that if I minimize the writing window to do something else, I have to look this dude in the eye before I can look up Robocop clips on YouTube.   I’ve had months where I was struggling to meet the goal, and then I went “Oh, yeah, I forgot to change my desktop pic, and it pushes me over the finish line.   It’s like Popeye eating spinach.   

Now the Tone Police will take issue with something like this, and call it arrogant.   “How dare you put down a highly successful fantasy author just to make yourself feel confident,” they’ll say as they wag their finger.   “Don’t you care that you might be making procrastinators feel bad?”  To that I say: fuck’em.  

See, I’m a world-class procrastinator in my own right.   I have to get hyped for this stuff every year, because that’s the only way I can build up enough momentum to see it through.    Like all Sith Lords, I have to call upon all of my emotions -- fear, anger, pride, fernweh -- to fuel the creative monster.  I don’t make a dime on this, so if I can’t take some bloody satisfaction out of it then what’s the point?   

I’m pretty sure George doesn’t even know I do this, but in case he’s reading this, let me address him specifically: George, I’ve cranked out three of these Nanwums and you still haven’t finished Winds of Winter, which is well on its way to becoming the Duke Nukem Forever of modern fantasy.   I don’t know if you got soft, like Rocky in Rocky IV, or maybe you’ve lost your confidence like Rocky in Rocky III, but you have to kindle a fire under your ass, even if it’s a silly fire, like fear of dying before the book goes to print, or getting it done just to spite assholes like me.   But find something and use it.  

3) Kenny Omega vs. Sonny Kiss, AEW Dynamite 10/21/2020

This was a first-round match in a tournament for the right to challenge for the AEW World title, and it was Kenny’s big return to singles action, so I guess the idea here was to make him look strong by having him crush Sonny Kiss in under 15 seconds.   I’ve seen blowouts in wrestling before, but this one speaks to me on a different level, and I’m sorely tempted to swap out my GRRM image with this shot of in-the-zone Kenny Omega.

Because I feel this right now.    This isn’t like last year or the year before, where I got behind working on stuff in October so I wasn’t fully prepared.   I got all caught up a few weeks ago, and I have eight days to get ready.    I haven’t written a thing in weeks, and I’m itching to get back to it.    I want a big Day One total to start the month off, and seeing this match makes me want to aim even higher than 7000 words.    Can I hit 10,000 in one day?    The Cleaner sure thinks so.  Clapclap-clap clap clap.   

4) Focus Writer

You can check it out for yourself at https://gottcode.org/focuswriter/

The main selling point for Focus Writer is that it can be used for “distraction free” writing, in that it’s default setting makes it tricky to minimize the window to do other stuff.   But I turned that off a while back.    For my purposes, I just need the word counter.  

One thing I learned while editing work instead of writing from scratch is that you can just set the word count goal to 100 words.    That way, the percentage displayed at the bottom of the screen will keep track of how many words you’ve written in that session.   So if you write 1275 new words, the counter will say 1275%.  

I used to set actual goals, like 3500 words for the day or whatever, but I found myself constantly trying to calculate what 53% of that is, and that ended up being a huge distraction in itself.    So now I just stick to the 100 word “goal” and use it to track my actual progress, rather than setting lofty goals that I may not need to actually hit.   The Nano website does that for me anyway.

5) The Adventures of Dumplin

I’m essentially adapting the events of Dragon Ball Xenoverse 1 into this story, so I could break out my PS3 and play it through again to remind me of all the stuff I wanted to use from 2015, but it’s a lot easier to just watch someone else play it instead.   Team FourStar’s playthrough of the Xenoverse games is some of their best material, as far as I’m concerned, and knowing this is one of my go-to references is going to make this November pretty awesome.   

I’m not sure I could, or should, work Dumplin into my fic.  If I did, he couldn’t be the same guy who saved the day in this LP series, because I’m having Luffa do all that.   Early on, I envisioned a scene where she wakes up one morning after a night of heavy drinking and finds Dumplin in bed with her, but that seemed a little too goofy to use.    But I want you to have that mental picture anyway, so I’m writing about it here.

6) Diet Pepsi

Straight Edge, Hard Core.    Stephen King’s a wuss for using cocaine to help him write.   

Not what I expected

I feel like there will only be 2 more chapters at most as another fic is seriously tempting my muse!  Anyway, Enjoy!

first; 10; 11(here); 12

Chapter 11

The look on everyone's faces would have sent shivers down Nekane and Hawkmoth's spines.

The plan on how to expose Nekane was quick to form however it would take a while to actually come to fruition, especially if they wanted to draw Hawkmoth out at the same time. It would also require serious amounts of help from Interpol as Paris was not the BAU's jurisdiction. Cruz had been great in letting them all take off so suddenly but they knew that they couldn't push their luck too much. The IRT had been called away to a case in Belize so they wouldn't be able to assist in any way. Before they left, however, they had introduced Hotch's team and Clyde to Commissaire Clement. They had looked at bringing in Lieutenant Roger Raincomprix but they had decided he was too close to the mayor and that he might talk to the man out of loyalty. They knew he was a good man and that he tried to do the right thing but they just couldn't risk it with so much at stake.

They would execute the plan in two weeks time, as they needed Jagged's help but didn't want to call him away from his honeymoon. This would also give several other famous people that Lila had lied about, time to fly into the country discreetly. In the meantime, Commissaire Clement would bring in the school board as well as the education department to do their own investigation into the goings-on within the school. He believed that things should never have gotten as far as they had.

Clyde, on the other hand, had dispatched Interpol agents to each of the countries that Nekane had been in and start checking the friends and families of the girls that had died. They would also talk to Aisha and her family to make sure that it was Nekane at the core of the issue. They couldn't afford to leave anything to chance after all. His other stop was to the Italian Embassy. He made to sure to speak to the top diplomate and stressed the need for his conversation to remain confidential until the time was right.

They knew that due to the Vienna Convention of 1961 which focused on Diplomatic Relations, they couldn't even question Nekane without the Italian government waiving her immunity. They also knew that this would most likely be the most difficult part of their plan as governments didn't like lifting their diplomates' immunity except as a last resort.

Thankfully that meeting had been a success, Mrs Kelly's boss had had his concerns about her for some time as he couldn't understand the lack of reasons given for each of her requested transfers. With Clyde's information it was agreed that they would launch a covert investigation of their own to corroborate any evidence found on Nekane, but also to prove that Mrs Kelly was covering for her daughter rather than getting her the help she needed. 

Marinette also had her own part to play in everything. She had to record absolutely everything that happened in the next two weeks. She would wear a camera hidden in a broach on her shirt and the only time it wouldn't be active was during any Akuma attacks when she was Ladybug. They knew kwami's didn't show up on camera, and a little bit of editing would make sure any mention of her superhero activities wouldn't show up.

Slowly the celebrities started to arrive, and as each one did the BAU grew more and more amazed by how many of them Marinette had designed for, even more so that they all seemed very willing to take time out from busy their schedules just to help her. Each time one arrived, they would show up at the bakery after Marinette was done with school for the day and would hang out with Mari until they decided to head to where ever they were staying. 

Jack was having fun while this was all happening too because not only was his big sister spending time with him, he got to meet all these famous people too. He knew he wouldn't be able to brag to anyone when he got back to school but it was still fun getting photo's with them. The highlight for him was when he and Hotch arrived slightly early for supper the one evening and Jack ran into his sister's room without warning. She hadn't closed the door so he hadn't thought much of just going in, only to find her kissing a boy that Jack didn't recognise.

“I thought you liked that blond boy,” Jack's confused voice came through the fog that was clouding Marinette's brain thanks to the kiss. “Why are you kissing this guy when you like someone else?”

Marinette's cheeks were scarlet as she and the boy exchanged glances. His cheeks were just as red as hers.

“Adrian and I were never dating Jack, and after his most recent appointment with his therapist, he came to the realisation that while he loves me it is not romantic love. With everything that has been going on these last few months or so, I'd realised the same thing about him.” Marinette's voice was soft as she answered her little brother's question.

“So is this guy your boyfriend?” Jack demanded.

Marinette blushed shyly, “Yes, Jack, he is. But you can't tell anyone yet okay?”

“Oh, okay then. You'd better treat her right or else!” Jack said waggling his finger at the boy who was still holding his sister's hand.

“I'd better go,” the teen said softly to Marinette, “I'll see you when everything goes down?” Marinette nodded rapidly, still smiling. With that, he left and Marinette turned to her little brother.

“I'm guessing Dad is downstairs?”

“Yup!” Jack tugged Marinette's hand as he started to lead the way down. 

By the time the day to take Nekane down arrived they had everything in place. Celebrities from all over the world were waiting for their signal to act. Marinette had video footage of being threatened in the bathroom on two separate occasions. The Italian Embassy had enough evidence to fire and arrest Mrs Kelly for her part in keeping Nekane from flying under the radar, up to and including stopping an investigation in Basque, which should have taken place when Aisha's parents had filed their complaints.

Commissaire Clemont had made sure to have extra camera's put up in secret around the city, with Ladybug and Chat Noir's help to make sure that no one suspected anything. They had done this during their nighttime patrols so it didn't look suspicious. Thankfully there hadn't been many attacks in the meantime, it did, however, put everyone on edge. They knew from past experience that any Akuma attack that came now would be stronger than normal. 

Marinette knew that they were going to need extra help should that Akuma attack happen due to their plan. As a result, she made sure that Luka, Kagami, Marc, Nathaniel, Alix and Aurore all had a miraculous and they were ready to jump in at any second. Despite having been revealed as Viperion she had still given the snake miraculous to Luka, Kagami, on the other hand, had the fox and would use the name Kitsune. She had given Marc the dog miraculous and he had decided to use the name Akira. Despite knowing she would eventually give Alix the rabbit miraculous, she had given her the tiger as she felt it was needed more, as a result, Tigris would be joining the team. Nathaniel had the rooster miraculous and would use the name Oilarrak while Aurore had the Bee and had named herself Honey.

Marinette had the dragon miraculous on as well as her earrings as an added precaution. She was nervous about having so many miraculi out at the same time but knew she wouldn't be able to run for backup if it turned out that it was needed. She had asked Wayzz to protect the miracle box should anything go wrong. She had even brewed a couple of the potions that would strengthen the kwami's and extend their transformation times, each wielder had been given a set as an added precaution.

That's not to say she wasn't nervous, there was a lot of things that could go wrong but they had done their best to plan for almost every situation. For now, though all she could do was have a good night's sleep.

@moonlightstar64; @northernbluetongue; @wargraymon0709; @winter-gardenflower; @bee-wrecker; @starsshineandgivehope; @goggles-mcgee; @vivilakitty

Let’s Talk about Secret Lair

Now that we’ve had a week to stew and they’re coming out tomorrow, I’d like to take the time to give my full thoughts on each Secret Lair line and give them something resembling a grade of my own. I gave them initial thoughts on reveal, but now I’d like to speak a bit more structured.  This might get a bit long, so... After the Break!

THE BOX: I don’t have the box. I can’t judge the box. If the box is good quality, it could be worth like $10 of the price. If the box is bad quality, it’s trash. For my discussion here I’m going to be ignoring the box. The box looks sturdy enough, and pretty alright, so keep in mind that they each come with a special box.

Bitterblossom Dreams:

Value: Bitterblossom alone costs more than Bitterblossom Dreams. Certainly it’ll drop after this comes out, but Bitterblossom Dreams’ raw value is undeniable. It’s a cheap Bitterblossom, plus tokens. Style: Extended Art cards are always cool, especially on well-known permanents. it’s clearly Bitterblossom, but still has the text there for those who need it. The four tokens are each extended art as well, have different but matching art, and create a lovely panorama. My only complaint is that, for gameplay purposes, I think the panorama should’ve put the Bitterblossom itself either on the far right or the far left so that the cards would line up properly on the battlefield. As is, during gameplay the Bitterblossom will be to the saide and the tokens all together, creating an odd effect. Still, this is a relatively minor complaint. Usability: Bitterblossom is super usable. Very popular card in Legacy and Commander that sometimes sees real Modern play. 

Overall: Do you want a Bitterblossom? Bitterblossom Dreams is the most cost effective way to get it, and it’s super cool. Pretty straightforward. This is a good product, and yet...

Something feels off about the whole thing to me. Magic’s always been about selling cards and often including cool alt art versions for sale, but somehow the idea of a $30 product that’s just ONE playable card, even with the four tokens, feels very... off to me. I can’t complain about it because it’s a great deal, it just feels... so weird. Eldraine Wonderland:

Value: It’s five basic snow lands.  Yeah, these are like $8 each in foil for the Modern versions, but they’re still five basic lands in foil. Modern Horizons just gave us FULL ART foil snow lands. And regular full-art snow lands are 50 cents each now. The value here is terrible. Style: It’s... a foil land. Sure, the art is nice, but not ‘different’ or ‘special.’ It’s just nice art. In a normal frame. I award this no points.

Usability: Very low. I like the Snow-Covered Swamp... but a playset of Snow-Covered Swamps is not 1, nor is it 4. It’s 20-30, depending on format. And this set is all five. I don’t need Snow-Covered Islands, Mountains, or Forests. I need Swamps and Plains, and only if I can get two dozen of each. A set of one of each foil snow land does nothing for me. Even if I was willing to spend the price of $6 per foil snow land (which, to be fair, I might be- I’ve been amassing foil Zendikar and BFZ forests for one of my decks at about that price), I don’t want to have to buy all five at once and then go through the effort of trading/selling the ones I’m not using. Overall: This is bad and feels bad. Basic lands should not be $6 a pop for foils, even if they’re snow-lands, and buying them in separate sets of five instead of, say, getting to buy each in sets of five on their own, just means if I do want enough for a deck, it’s a pain in the butt. I award this product no points. Restless in Peace:

Value: Non-foil versions of these cards are at about the $20 range combined, and these ones are alt-art but... not foil. So the value here isn’t great.

Style: The art here is good, and I certainly think it’s better than the previous arts for Golgari Thug and Bloodghast. The style isn’t TOO far out there for modern magic, but it’s still abnormal, especially with Bloodghast.  Once again, the panorama has a non-permanent in the middle, which means it can’t be assembled on the battlefield.

Usability: It’s Modern Dredge. Do you play Modern Dredge? Are you interested in Modern Dredge? Consider buying four of these. Otherwise, you might want a suite for a commander deck, but they’re pretty narrow cards. That’s good, though: they all have a shared home. This is a niche product with a clear, obvious usability that basically guarantees that if you want any of them, you want all of them. Overall: ...Why aren’t these foil? Okay, I get it, not everybody wants foil, especially for a tournament deck because foils can bend, but they’re asking premium prices for printings with new art that’s... good, but not really out there. Feels like a waste of time. At the very least they could’ve been foil. That Bloodghast would look great in foil. Seeing Visions:

Value: Serum Visions is a $2.50 card and foil versions can be gotten for under $4 thanks to the admittedly-icky-looking FNM promo.  The value in Seeing Visions is godawful.

Style: I love these cards. They’re so weird and cool and freaky and abstract and unique. Sure, the frame is normal, but the arts are all stuff we basically never get on Magic cards anymore. Usability: It’s a playset of Serum Visions. You can find a use for it easily. Some people don’t like to have different arts of their cards in their deck because it gives the opponent ‘information’ but screw that. This is perfect. Just put them into a blue deck and you’re good to go. Overall: This is cool and beautiful and really neat and interesting and $30 just seems so high for them, but if you’re already running a playset of Serum Visions in Modern, they’re just soooo cooool that maybe they’re worth it as a pure pimp factor. Unlike with Bitterblossom Dreams and Restless in Peace, this wouldn’t be your way to get the cards to begin with. It’s not a ‘hey, if you want Serum Visions maybe get this version.’ It’s pure pimping. ...And I like that.

<EXPLOSION SOUNDS>: 

Value: These cards in normal printing total about $20. I’m not impressed. If these were foil, well, Sharpshooter’s only foil printing is over $40, but no, they’re not. So there’s no real value in here. Style: This is a nice, unique, cartoony style the likes of which we haven’t seen outside of Un-sets since Phil Foglio in the earlier days of Magic. I’m not positive that I LIKE this art, but I do like that it’s unique and I appreciate that a lot. I also love the flavor text setting them up as a team. Usability: I’m not actually sure what I’m supposed to do with these goblins. At $30 for the five they’re clearly for the more engaged player, but two of them aren’t modern legal, and the ones that are don’t really see play in Legacy goblins. I want to put all five of these in a deck, but the only deck I can think to do so is in a Commander deck using either Krenko at the helm. This set would be a lot better if, like Restless in Peace, they had made sure all the cards were part of a single deck that was decent in at least one format.  Hell, if a Krenko had been printed in this set, at least it would’ve been clear what to do with them. Overall: I want to like this set, but I have no idea who it’s for and what should be done with it. It’s a panorama that clearly all wants to be used together, but only in a goblin tribal commander deck or a kitchen table deck, the art is interesting but I’m not sure it’s actually GOOD (it makes me think of cheap mobile games), Goblin Lackey’s the only card that really needed a reprint, and they’re not even foil. I’m disappointed. 

Kaleidoscope Killers: 

Value: Non-Foil Sliver Overlord is currently $33. This set costs $40. This has value. The other two aren’t slouches.

Style: I really, really like the style on these, but style is subjective so what really matters is that the art is very non-standard and the sort of thing you don’t see much on regular magic cards these days. And all three of them are there to be Commanders, so if you use them they’ll be front and center the whole time. Usability: Let’s face it, you only want one of the three. Look, they’re all great, but five color decks are expensive mana bases so unless you’re rich or one of those weirdos who reassembles their decks on the fly, you’re only building one, and they’re all tribal lords so they don’t go into the same deck at all. This is the sort of thing where you buy it for the one you want and then try to trade the other two... And they’re all really cool and worthwhile cards so you’ll probably have an easier time with this than with Eldraine Dreams, but it’s still inconvenient that you have to buy them as a unit. If the value weren’t so good here, I’d be complaining more, but I’m seriously tempted to buy this just for the Reaper King (normally a $70 foil) and trading the other two. Because seriously. SO GOOD value. And I don’t even have a Reaper King deck... yet. Overall: So tempted. They look really cool (especially the Ur-Dragon), it’s a great value, and of all the cards to have in alt-art foil, Commanders are the coolest because of how they’re front and center of your deck. Very niche- the purpose of these is to have one of these specific cards as your commander- but very good.

OMG KITTIES!

Value: Even in foil, most of these cards aren’t worth much. The value in this as far as actual cards go is less than the $40. If you’re talking about raw financial incentive to get these cards, this set is not worth your time. That said...

Style: OMG KITTIES! They’re so cute and fluffy and snuggable and like nothing that normally gets printed on Magic cards. They’re unique art, with unique tokens, and cute flavor text, and they’re just so cuuuuute! This style is really something SPECIAL on a Magic card.

Usability: This... is for an Arahbo deck. Hell, Arahbo’s even here. But there’s nothing else to be done with these cards. At all.  Here’s the thing, though, Feline Ferocity is currently bouncing around $90. If you don’t have that deck, you’re probably going to have a hard time using these cards... but if you DO have that deck, you’re only getting two new cards that are pretty cheap to get in the normal version.. Also, there’s two cats that each make two cat tokens, and each has a matching cat token, but only one matching cat token. This set should have two of each of the cat tokens. Overall: This is a supplemental product to a supplemental product. Yes, you can buy it without owning Feline Ferocity, and two of the cards will be new to it, but you know what’d be totally awesome? If instead of selling this OMG Kitties as a set of five cards and two tokens, they sold it alongside a reprint of the Arahbo deck so that people who hadn’t gotten it the first time could get it now with this upgrade? Maybe even offer it in both “Upgrade pack” version of just the new cards AND a version where you got the whole deck, plus these cards as a bundle.  And another of each token.

I really like OMG Kitties overall as an option to upgrade an Arahbo deck, but I don’t have an Arahbo deck and literally the only thing to do with any of the cards in this set is to make one.

Final Thoughts: 

If the foils curl too easily, most of these are a waste of money. Assuming they don’t, Bitterblossom Dreams and Kaleidoscope Killers are great purchases, OMG Kitties!, Restless in peace, and Seeing Visions are very much niche products that are pretty cool if you’re that particular niche, and  Eldraine Wonderland and <explosion sounds> are both outright failures as unified products.

Rules: Name 10 characters from 10 different fandoms that you like, and then tag 10 people.

I was tagged by @thescarletgarden1990 I will need a lot of time to think over it...but I need to take my head off other stuff...like my thesis dissertation (which is tomorrow btw)...I'm not sure if I can find 10 characters but I'll try...

LUCIFER MORNINGSTAR (LUCIFER)

The Devil. Beelzebub. Mr Lucifer fucking Morningstar. Witty, charismatic, handsome (thank you Tom Ellis) and SO sexually awaken. But also gentle, caring, with his own sense of justice and fulled with unresolved personal issues that tries to deal with in every episode which makes him every day more mature and...human. If the Devil were to be like him I wouldn't be so scared at all.

HERMIONE GRANGER (HARRY POTTER)

I'm not the biggest Harry Potter fan ever but even I know that if it weren't for Hermione, Harry (and Ron) wouldn't have survived the Sorting Hat ceremony.

SARGENT TERRY JEFFORDS (BROOKLYN 99)

Mother hen has never been more funny. And the fact that is played by Terry Crew makes everything more funny. Sargent Terry cares for his men (and women) dearly and would do anything for them. Moreover, he is a very caring, responsible and attentive father and a loving and supportive husband. He is an absolute sweetheart. But don't eat his yogurt or you will see that all his muscles are not just for showing off.

BOROMIR (THE LORD OF THE RINGS)

My beautiful son of Gondor. My coragious and noble Captain of the White Tower. Fandom has not been kind with him but I absolutely love him. He is the only real HUMAN in the Fellowship and he represents all of us: if we were to be tempted from the One Ring, we all would have fall like him. He is the only person that is really tempted and fall for the One Ring, trying to steal it from Frodo. But he is also the one that tries to make amends by protecting Merry and Pippin, until he dies in the most heroic way possible. And Sean Bean portraits him magnificently, I cry every time at his death scene.

SALVO MONTALBANO (DETECTIVE MONTALBANO)

Only Italians will understand this, but what the hell...Salvo Montalbano is No 1 ITALIAN DETECTIVE that loves his land (Sicily and its people) to the bone. As a policeman he sometimes doesn't follow the rules but he always manages to bring justice. He adores food (and how to blame him? Sicilian food is the BEST), he has the best team to work with and he is afraid of commitment (he keeps a long distance relationship with his girlfriend Livia and sometimes he also cheats on her, but he always comes back to her). I have read Andrea Camilleri's book (the author of the Montalbano series) since I was a child and last year he died leaving me heartbroken...so I wanted to show my undying love for the world he created with his words.

MR. DARCY (PRIDE AND PREJUDICE)

If you have working ovaries, YOU KNOW WHO MR DARCY IS. And he doesn't need more information.

JIM HOPPER AND JOYCE BYERS (STRANGER THINGS)

I know they are two, but come on! They work and act as a single body! The only two people in Hawkins with some actual brain in their skulls, ACTUALLY listening to their children when things were getting weird and unnatural. I HAVE SHIPPED THEM SINCE SEASON 1

NEWT SCAMANDER (FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND IT)

A cutie pie. An awkward cutie pie with a boundless love for creatures and beasts and with a social life seriously compromise by his social skills problems. He just want to be left in peace with his private zoo of fantastic creatures but he is forced to pick a side of the upcoming wizards war. If that isn't bad luck...

BULMA BRIEF (DRAGON BALL)

The Japanese answer to Tony Stark. A genius, billionaire, playGIRL, philanthropist. She can be annoying sometimes but dear lord without her, Vegeta would have probably ended up pretty badly. Besides if it weren't for her the search for the Dragon Balls would have been much more difficult.

That was fun to do, but I just realise I've only picked up three women...oh well...

Tagging: @frostbitepandaaaaa @adecila @bloomsbury @dragonanddirewolf @elisebrave @ellimomo @fordaenerys @justwandering-neverlost @ashleyfanfic @lawonderlandwriter

Feel free not to do it if it is too long 🤣

The Dawn and Twilight with a Vampire AND Assassin MC

I’m going to clear up somethings that had plagued me while writing this because it really made them both hard to do unless addressed.

General 

The only people technically worthy of being assassinated would be Toichiro and Koga, the only nobles/super-rich men in the faction. 

The rest are otherwise just leading a supremely normal job/jobless existence 

(Squints at Kuya, Yura and Oji). 

Even if we could say that they could be targeted for their Ayakashi nature, it wouldn’t make sense for it to be super sneaky when the whole government is against their very beings but doesn’t want to alert the citizens. 

Too many of them disappearing all at once would just set the whole Capital in a state of unrest. 

I’m going to stick to Asian vampires but admittedly, some Western traces are going to be found. 

Out of all of them, Oji is going to be the most OCC I believe.

I’m going to be honest and say that I have been getting kind of tired of doing these headcanons especially after receiving a few... messages that were a bit insulting. So that’s why I closed the ask box. That said, Nonnie who sent this request, if this is unsatisfactory, do feel free to PM me. I’m really sorry if I sound irritable, I’m just really upset at some of the things in my inbox. 

Ginnojo

Honestly, this could be the start of something new.

A relationship fraught with sexual tension. 

Yes, even for this blushing Dragon.

No, seriously, imagine this. 

During the events of Book 1, and amidst all the chaos of being an Onmyoji…

On top of your other supernatural powers AND… unique job, you find yourself in the alleys, securing a target of yours. 

His scrutinizing gaze settled on your lips, which were pulled up with a teasing smirk.

Finally, a challenge.

He stood like stone, barely eroding even when you had started to show off your floating powers. You had to give it to him, he really was a warrior defending the Capital. 

And apparently, your best opponent. You may have easily snatched away his daggers, but he had easily grabbed your wrist and targeted the vein that should have been pumping with blood if you were alive. 

So why did you suddenly crumple to the ground?

The number of smokescreens between you two was seriously enough to choke everyone in the room. 

You did try to make sure though it did not affect any of the factions, and surprisingly, it had worked.

Seemed that there was an unspoken agreement that you were both looking out for the Capital, except his was more of a freestyle form while yours was conscripted. 

He could respect that. 

What was really hard was completely forgetting your beliefs and loyalties.

Suddenly gravitates towards the Mythology section of his bookshop.

And then... you talk. 

It’s a long talk. It may or may not have been about life, someone’s life you had to take, and everything about order. 

You guys end up working together to bring down a lot of opponents or threats and wow, what a tag team you both are.

Aoi

Finally, a gun-wielding AND sharp-tongued senpai!

… I’m joking, please don’t teach him any more violent/sassy stuff. 

And yes, technically, you’re not sharp-tongued, that’s more of your fangs just gleaming.

You, despite having been in this service and becoming a literal creature of the night, had made the most rookie mistake ever. 

Leaving. Your. Papers.

With all of your bloody targets.

Pun intended because the few red splotches scattered across the parchment certainly wasn’t just a teacher’s pen.

The thing is, Aoi at first hadn’t bothered looking at the content when he had first spotted them. 

He was only focused on just returning your ‘homework’ for Finishing School.

Even though he usually refused to look into anyone, his Seer powers couldn’t exactly tune out the presence of a heart. 

Except, apparently, you did not have one. 

Honestly, you were surprised he never called you out for it. He could have easily unravelled the whole situation.

"Trust me, I know you don’t have one. But you still feel. How can I hate someone who’s always considering her actions every time?”

Now, how to respond to a man so understanding as him?

Why by showing that you were JUST as tsundere as him.

Koga Kitamikado

He feels that he has no right to judge you for killing because at least you have determined if your intended victim was worth spilling blood over. 

He didn’t with Masanobu’s brother.

Honestly, you were always just the slightest bit worried that one day he would pay you to kill him should he ever submit to carnage. 

You and Kuya both want to shake this man so hard.

But for now, you stay. 

Sometimes, you even make sure the area is vacated if it looks like the illness is acting up again. 

For that, he is grateful and makes sure that you are properly covered as well. 

And I don’t mean just hiding your tracks from the public eye. 

This man will get you equipped to deal with ANYTHING.

Heck, even if you had turned human all of a sudden, you could fight an army in the sun thanks to the umbrellas, sunscreens and whatnot. 

It helps that thanks to your line of work, you HAVE to go to parties so while he finally has a companion to secretly diss the questionable crowd, you can gather intel on your next target and see if they were worth it, with inside info from him as well.

You both spend as much time together as you can, even if it’s just sitting in his office doing different things.

Ironically, he never says what you are aloud through it all.

Because the only thing that mattered was who was living at that moment.

Kuya

The boy is smart. He can tell something… 

That you were a bit too familiar with flying. 

At first, he had chalked it up to you being nervous about heights but with how you waved your wand around and almost seemed to be stabbing enemies mid-air, he knew something was… up. 

And he just confronts you the most easily out of everyone here. 

“So, are you a vampire who kills for literally and figuratively a living?”

A bit too morbidly fascinated with it. He’s already obsessed with wraiths, he needs to know how someone like you could battle it all. 

And now he knew.

Don’t expect him to read up. He WILL ask questions that are borderline uncomfortable and really make you question the nature of what you were doing and if there were really no alternatives. 

Always touching your dagger when you’re not looking and then looks like a startled crow when you catch him… before just outrightly asking to touch your fangs. 

Sweet goodness, Kuya, why?

Essentially, imagine him with Koga. 

Because he feels that you torturing yourself to kill just to survive was really not worth it. 

Yura

How he finds out is even more stupid than Aoi. 

You had smiled. 

Like, really smiled because how can you not smile at this pure jelly bean… 

Oh shoot, your fangs had been fully retracted. 

Again, one of those who feels that he is in no position to question your actions.

You even take pity on him by quickly removing all of the animals that he is forced to kill. 

Somehow, not seeing their carcasses alleviates his pain. 

Barely. 

What really made him relieved was that they also acted as a sort of substitute to 

At one point, you had wondered if there was any cure to you being a vampire.

Unfortunately, like with Koga, the most he can produce is a sort of potion to reduce your bloodlust. 

It does help you lower your hit list, thank god.

Maybe one day, the two of you will actually have time to clean those bloodstained hands.

Gaku

Are you here to harm his brother? 

What, you found his scent to be too saccharine? 

How Bloody Dare You. 

You better get diabetes. 

Gaku, not the point.

He found out thanks to Yura confessing. 

Sure, it had taken sheer effort to finally corner the both of you, especially since Yura knew more hiding spots in the forest than Gaku. 

When he did though, the first thing he did was to raise his drums for an attack.

Not surprisingly, he was more concerned with how you would be either against Yura rather than himself. 

Surprisingly though, he is the one giving you weapons much later. 

And I mean much, much later. Yura needed time to work his brotherly magic, after all.

He would rather you not even be doing this at all, it reminded him too much of the path Yura was forced to take. 

Only somehow worse because yours was directly related to your newfound nature. 

Still, if it helped you, he would make sure the kill is at least clean-cut and efficient.

Toichiro Yuri

Good, more resources for the Kitsune clan. 

Seriously, you don’t think there’s a bit of dirty work involved in ruling a bunch of Ayakashi, no?

He already knew of your kind thanks to not just his Western connections, but also because most vampires were related to ancient nobles. 

You had to be bloody pathetic to have not accumulated SOME form of wealth after 100 years.

Especially since your diet was literally JUST blood.

It would be no stretch to assume that Toichiro made use of his silver tongue to inveigle his questionable business partners.

That you were about to become a part of. 

And somehow even more well-hidden than the rest.

Will bug you at night on purpose just because he knows you will be up.

Asshole. 

Truly though, he does value your opinion, especially if whoever he needs info on is a potential victim.

Shizuki

Well, you could have at least told him of your dietary preferences before he had brewed up that pot of milk tea. 

And why you always seemed to struggle with meeting him on the midnight patrols. His schedule was literally thrown up thanks to YOUR secret one.

He somehow isn’t so thrown off at the fact you’re a vampire. It’s what you’re doing that gets him on guard. 

You’re going to have to work to prove that you are NOT a threat to Toichiro. 

So... good luck. 

You may even have to literally swallow your pride... in the form of milk tea. 

Low-key salty he is one of the few who didn’t figure it out and had to be told by Toichiro. 

And yet, you still did. You even tolerated his master’s jokes with an almost inhuman level of patience.

Oh, wait...

Sometimes wonder if freezing blood would help you keep it so that you won’t have to constantly hunt. 

Although you better do whatever Toichiro does ask you to do still.

Just that... he may or may not be slightly concerned with the other non-human in the manor.

Kuro 

Honestly, he is disappointed. 

It’s not about you being a vampire.

He’s probably thought his species was the worst and shameful enough not to reveal at all. 

No, it was the fact you had to murder people. 

Yes, he was glad that you had some sort of say in deciding who to kill.

The thing is, he already has one loose ex-Shinsengumi member risking everything for a few servings of justice.

He was hoping not to have a chance to lose you too.

Did try to accompany you the first few times but you were a bit too fond of the dark. 

For obvious reasons. 

Begins to stock up on random medicine he uses for physical training as an acrobat before wondering if they would even work on a vampiric body.

Still better than you not going to a hospital just because you would be tempted by the blood donors.

Hugs you tight before every mission that he knows he can’t take part in.

Someone’s gotta look after Nachi.

Oji 

For the first time, you will hear what Aoi calls ‘The Dead Voice’. 

For the longest time, you thought it was just one of his ways of covering up his affectionate slip up of calling Oji a ‘Dad’.

Now, you know. You heard right.

Strangely, he is the most aggressive. But remember, he has to consider someone. 

While Aoi may technically accept you, Oji has seen him completely vulnerable after losing all faith in humanity. 

He can’t imagine the state his ward would be in if you were to ever take it too far. 

Not only that, the resurgence of Asian Vampires started around his era so he had to grow up with the worst lot. 

Not the best memory to look back on. And he knows you can’t represent a whole species. 

Doesn’t stop him from having one or three eyes peeled open.

It takes some convincing from Koga to finally Aoi himself to reassure him that you wouldn’t do anything to harm the rest. 

And finally, you get back the adorkable manager(?) who is a bit too busy coming up with vampire puns, always offering a ‘bite’ for you.

Epilogue

After parting with your beloved, you flew. 

“Good job, my doll. I’m proud that you told him.”

With that, you smiled at the one who had turned your blood to one that lusted after another’s. Your daggers met not as an attack, but a sworn oath.

“Yes, Professor.”

My Review of The Rising of the Shield Hero

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!

Yeah, this warning because apparently I curse more than normal here. That should give you a fun indicator of what you’re in for.

Is this a joke? Is Medea really going to watch a recent Isekai anime?

No joke. I am. Yeah, since just about every Isekai I’ve ever watched was made before the year 2012, I thought it was time. And in case you’re not hip to the lingo, Isekai is where a random person is transported to a strange world (different from their’s) and go on an adventure. Things like Escaflowne, InuYasha, Fushigi Yugi, Kyou Kara Maou, and to a far-lesser extent, Sword Art Online! But because I haven’t watched anything made past 2012, and haven’t watched things like Konosuba, ReZero, or Overlord, my knowledge is shit and I should be ashamed.

So I’m going to start with one of 2019’s best animes, The Rising of the Shield Hero.

Naofumi Iwatani was checking out light novels when he was transported into another world. But unlike many other Isekais with this similar setup, Naofumi isn’t alone.

He and three other boys (from alternate timelines of Japan) are transported as well to the kingdom of Melromarc. These four boys are going to be the saviors of the kingdom as the “Four Cardinal Heroes” where they must combat against these entities known as “waves”. However, Naofumi is seen as the weakling from the very beginning due to being the holder of the shield (and is now known as the “Shield Hero”). But it goes even further than that! The king of Melromarc immediately shows his disdain for the shield hero due to the previous shield hero doing something to him. I don’t know what, just fuck the king. The kingdom, the other heroes, and the people of the kingdom did just about everything to Naofumi to make him feel like trash. If he was on fire, they wouldn’t even spit on him to put him out!

Being the lowest-level weapon user, no one will join his team and even if they did…they would swindle him, set him up for failure, and spread the worst lie you could ever lie about. But Naofumi can’t return home due to all four weapon users must be there until they defeat the waves. So Naofumi is stuck in a new world where literally everyone hates him or fears him.

That is until he buys a slave (named Raphtalia) and their EXP points can grow. Along the way, he obtains an egg that hatches into a filolial (later named Filo) who has the ability of turning into a human female. And every now and then, the second princess of Melromarc (named Melty) will come along with Naofumi. Trust me, she’s the nice one in that family.

Let’s watch the struggles and rising of the Shield Hero!

BETWEEN THE SUB AND THE DUB: So this is licensed by Crunchyroll (but I think FUNimation dipped it’s cookie in this milk). I know these two companies divorced some time ago, but FUNimation sees no problem piggy-backing off of Crunchyroll when they get a hit. And yes, this got an English dub and because of that, YES I watched the whole thing dubbed! Done by the good folks in L.A.! I gotta say this was a well-done dub. Well, they did one thing right by hiring Erica Mendez to play Raphtalia. Just about everything Mendez plays is friggin’ gold! Here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

JAPANESE CAST: *Naofumi is played by Kaito Ishikawa (known for Kiawe on Pokemon SM, Genos on One Punch Man, Mitsuo on Golden Time, Urui on Tokyo Ghoul :re, Sakakibara on Assassination Classroom, and Rinne on Kyokai no Rinne)

*Raphtalia is played by Asami Seto (known for Officer Jenny on Pokemon SM, Mado on Tokyo Ghoul, Young Yukiatsu on Anohana, and Shizu Delta on Overlord)

*Filo is played by Rina Hidaka (known for Last Order on Index/Railgun, Ririchiyo on Inu x Boku SS, Kohane on xxxHOLiC, Silica on SAO, Nemesis on To Love Ru: Darkness, and Urara on Food Wars)

*Melty is played by Maaya Uchida (known for Norman on The Promised Neverland, Rikka on Chunibyo, Rui on Domestic Girlfriend, Frenda on Railgun, Yoshino on Food Wars, Irina on High School DxD, and Yusa on Charlotte)

ENGLISH CAST: *Naofumi is played by Billy Kametz (known for Jousuke/JoJo on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Part IV, Osomatsu on Mr. Osomatsu, Metal Lee on Boruto, and Galo on Promare)

*Raphtalia is played by Erica Mendez (known for Ryuko on Kill la Kill, Haruka/Uranus on Sailor Moon redub, Emma on The Promised Neverland, Nico on Love Live, Yuuki on SAO II, and Tsubaki on Your Lie in April)

*Filo is played by Brianna Knickerbocker (known for Rem on Re:Zero, Akane on Durarara x2, Arisa on Love Live, Anna on The Promised Neverland, Iori on Charlotte, and Erica on Berserk 2016)

*Melty is played by Jackie Lastra (known for Conny on The Promised Neverland and Selka on SAO: Alicization)

FAVORITE CHARACTER: I know I’m gonna have fun with the next category, but I think I spent most of this series hating on several people where I forgot to pick a character I liked.

Well folks, I gotta say that I loved Raphtalia. And after her, Filo! Then Elhart, Queen Melromarc, Melty, and Fitoria! With the exception of Elhart, it’s all women! That’s rare! Don’t worry, there’s one woman that has received a restraining order from this category. On with the worst!

VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED!

Y’all know what’s coming!

DISLIKED CHARACTER: Prior to watching this series, I have gotten several warnings about one particular character! Princess Malty or Myne, whatever people call her. This woman is despised throughout the anime community and even going so far as to say she’s on “horrible character” status left only to infamous characters like Griffith, Makoto Itou, and Shou Tucker. And I’m like, “WOW, what did she do, kill a pope?” I mean seriously, how bad could she possibly…?!

*one episode later*

FUCK THIS BITCH: Oh this bitch can burn at the stake for all I care! Yes, everyone else who treated Naofumi like shit can go jump off a bridge. Because I hold no sympathy for towns-idiots that treat a hero with no respect (as I’ve said before with One Punch Man and Dragon Ball Z)! But Myne just took that zero respect and pushed it to a crispy 425 degrees of fuck-roast! In the first episode, she seemed genuine with pitying Naofumi because no one would join his team. That didn’t even last a whole day. Myne ends up faking a rape by lying to the kingdom that Naofumi sexually assaulted her.

Faking a RAPE!

Faking a FUCKING RAPE!

Bitch, this is 2019 (I KNOW IT AIN’T THAT IN THIS KINGDOM, I’M JUST FUCKING PISSED). Faking a rape is a big, fat, NO-NO!

After he spends the little money he had on her to buy equipment, she double-crosses him by setting him up for immediate trouble and switches to the Spear-Hero side. Well fuck you too, you skank! Have fun with your dickhead Spear Hero. And may that be the last time I ever see you!

*several episodes later*

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?! You cheating, lying, slut! Just when you think she can’t possibly get any worse, this bitch takes worse and shoves it off a fucking cliff. As if faking an assault wasn’t bad enough, screwing townspeople for your own gain is another story. She would take over a whole town and give no fucks if it’s destroyed by her or her fuck-face spear-hero. Add to that fuck-cake, every time you run into Naofumi, you find some way to screw him over time and time again. This bitch tampered with a fight between the shield and spear hero so that Naofumi could fail and they could steal his only team member away from him! You have your father, the church, your dickhead boy-toy of yours, and the royals wrapped around your little finger. Myne just continues to be worse than tainted peanut butter. I wish she would catch the worst STD imaginable and die a painful death!

*several more episodes later*

AAAAAAAH gabba da da ffuuuu worble BITCH FACE gararba fruznuss SET FIRE plskay adkkin aidnnlwjsnda UP DONALD TRUMP’S ASS galidamdh amoiejwm wwwaasosoh A POPCICLE! FUCK! AAkajrriaja DIDIA LEJHE KLHAEHAE FYUEEajejioqih3hv SSLLSHE3V ADKDKDDHEI333!!!!

Oh, you do not want a translation from my…whatever the fuck I just wrote. Just know that Princess Malty or Myne is worse than hemroids up the ass. I can’t believe this woman is still around, breathing and shit. Also, I’m tempted in re-writing my Top 10 Least Favorite Anime Character list because Myne would definitely be at #4 after Griffith from Berserk.

Okay…Okay…I think I’m calm now.

WILL SOMEBODY PLEASE CUT THIS FUCKING CUNT’S HEAD OFF LIKE A CHICKEN IN CHINA TOWN?!

Now I’m calm! Now then…

ANYONE ELSE WHO NEEDS TO DIE IN THIS SERIES?: So obviously I hate Bitch and Trash (Myne and the King). And I have the same kind of respect for the townspeople who treat Naofumi like shit. I ain’t got time to be dealing with townsidiots again. But if there was anyone else that should get a mention of how much I want for them to be set on fire and I’ll just sit there drinking my ginger ale, it would be Motoyasu.

Now by no means do I hate him more than Miss Bitch over here. But I hate him on the same level as Shinji from the Fate series (which is now teetering on my top 10). I question why he’s still alive and why no one has introduced his face to a jagged boulder. Unlike the other heroes Ren and Itsuki, this guy has got a vendetta against Naofumi from the get-go. And this was like before the sexual alligations came about. After that incident, this fuckturd tries at every turn to make Naofumi’s life worse than it already is by stealing away his crew and challenging him every chance he gets. And when he’s not doing that, he’s screwing over the townspeople and doing very little to be a “hero” (which is his freakin’ title). Then again, Ren and Itsuki aren’t great heroes either, it’s just I really need to lay into Spear-Dick for the shit he’s done.

SHIPPING: Hmm…aaaaahhhh….eeeeee…urrrrggggh…

Naofumi x Raphtalia: I know Naofumi doesn’t see Raphtalia as a romantic partner and more as a partner on his team, but Raphtalia doesn’t see it that way. She is 100% loyal to Master Naofumi. Who could blame her? Naofumi saved her from a lifetime of enslavement and cured her from an illness she’s had for years. She’s grateful and every other hero is crap in her eyes! She’s worshipped the shield hero since she was younger when she would hear stories about the shield hero. So imagine her worry every time Naofumi talks about going back to his home world, she gets horribly upset. Me being very skeptical here, I can’t really imagine this going any further than team partners. I can’t see at the end of the day Naofumi staying in Melromarc forever or Raphtalia somehow returning to Naofumi’s world when all of this ends. So for now, I’m just going to see where this takes us.

FUNNIEST MOMENT: Whenever Motoyasu gets conked in his frank-and-two-beans by Filo! If anyone deserves to be whammed in the nuts, it’s Motoyasu.

SADDEST MOMENT: I don’t usually mention sad moments in anime anymore, but one moment touched me and that was episode 15 where we learned a little more about Raphtalia’s past. Raphtalia, even after losing her parents in a wave attack, she tries her best to keep a smile on her face. But shortly after that, she and many other demi-humans were taken away from their homes and sold off to a nobleman. This is when we see some pretty inhumane moments where Raphtalia and many of her friends are whipped for the fun of it, starved to death, and sold off to traders.

In this episode, we learn about a few of Raphtalia’s friends (Keel and Rifana) from her younger days. The day Raphtalia got sold off, it looked like Rifana was teetering towards death. When the Shield Hero’s party came to rescue the surviving demi-humans (like Keel), Raphtalia went to see if Rifana could possibly be alive. And if the disturbing picture of Rifana’s skeleton doesn’t churn your stomach, I really don’t know what will. God damn, that was just messed up!

I CANNOT TELL A LIE, THIS ANIME HURT: I know I have sadistic tendencies and take joy in the misery of others. But I seriously cannot enjoy any second of the humiliation and degredation given to Naofumi. And it was because of the abuse put on the Shield Hero that made me feel sick to my stomach just watching all this happen to this guy. I thought it would last for a few episodes at the most, but it carried on a lot further than I imagined. Almost to the very end! And every episode you put on, you just wish for some kind of karma to kick in or for one more person to be nice to Naofumi or something, anything to happen!

But because the king has a vendetta against the previous Shield Hero, Naofumi has had to pay a heavy toll by having every horrible crime or offense thrown at him including rape, murder, attempted murder, cheating, witchcraft, and treason. AND HE COMMITTED NONE OF THESE OFFENSES! So you spend just about 20 episodes watching this poor boy having to go through this hell. I can’t even imagine having to go through this kind of torment and some of these moments make me ill in my stomach and quite pissed off. So like I said, this anime hurts to watch.

ENDING: As it turns out, the kingdom is corrupt under the rule of the king and his daughter, Princess Cunt (yeah, BIG shocker there). How corrupt? Well, they were in cahoots with the church that had their own religion praising only 3 of the Heroes (guess which one they don’t praise)! That was until the pope decided that everything must be wiped away because they are “unclean”. That includes the monarchy, the heroes, and their crew! Thankfully, they were able to put an end to this cult, with a little help from the true leader of Melromarc, Queen Mirelia of Melromarc. She finally shows herself and her powers on the battlefield. And now ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for the moment everyone and their mama have been waiting for.

JUSTICE IS SERVED: With the queen’s return, come some harsh sentences to her own family. Her husband, the king and her daughter, Princess Malty! I gotta tell you, seeing these two in chains makes my heart so happy. The king was guilty of summoning the four heroes prematurely and causing a lot of harm to the kingdom of Melromarc with the church. Then the queen puts a seal on Myne’s chest, giving her unimaginable pain whenever she lied. That still didn’t stop the bitch from lying! In one swoop, it’s proven that Naofumi was innocent the whole time and that the king and princess were worse than period cramps. And for their crimes, THEY ARE SENTENCED TO DEATH BY GUILLOTINE!

FUCK YEAH! BRING IT ON!

CUT THEIR FUCKING HEADS OFF!

Yeah…unfortunately for my blood-lust self, that didn’t happen. Instead, Naofumi stopped the queen seconds before blood was to splatter. Claiming that the princess and king should be stripped from their titles and must go through life with new names! The king will be named “Trash” and Malty/Myne will be named “Bitch” (or “Whore” when she’s traveling). Okay, I guess it’s all good. With that, the church of the three heroes is abolished and handled a lot better than I thought.

But seriously Queenie, was it really, REALLY a good idea to keep your daughter alive? I know she’s your own daughter and you felt severe hesitation (in the anime) before calling for her execution. But for fuck’s sake, literally a day after she’s spared from the guillotine, she’s poisoning food meant for her sister Melty, Naofumi, and his friends!

IN THIS AFTERMATH: Now has Naofumi finally obtained acceptance throughout the kingdom? Yes and no! Yes, it’s true that the people of the land respected Naofumi after all he’s done. It’s just that some of the other heroes and castle men who still treat Naofumi with such disrespect. The queen wishes for all four heroes to be treated equally and to get along so that maybe they can defeat the waves without too much trouble. Hell, the queen of the filolials also said the same thing! I think Ren and Itsuki have kinda been on board with this for a while (even if they are kinda dickish about it). It’s just that Motoyasu’s still a condescending dick to Naofumi! Sigh!

FINAL WAVE ATTACK: Final one for now! On their way to another land, Naofumi ends up getting chummy with two travelers (L’Arc and Therese).

We meet these fuckers three episodes before the finale.

They’re bad guys, aren’t they?!

Something like that! Yeah, the next wave attack was coming up real quick. And the heroes have to go up against Glass again (the woman who caused a lot of trouble in the midway point of the series). But it turns out L’Arc and Therese are in cahoots with Glass. But it gets really…complicated here!

Glass and L’Arc are both fan and scythe heroes from another world. And they’re destroying the waves on this side along with destroying the people of this world to prevent catastrophy in their world. Yeah, finale time guys! How many parallel worlds and heroes are there?

READ THE LIGHT NOVEL!

Fuck me! Well, Naofumi and the other hammy heroes were able to stop the wave attack once more. And we even get to watch Queen Melromarc in action again! In this aftermath, Naofumi gets a new member on his team. Yes, it’s another female, but at least this one is older than all the other girls that hang with him (making this a little less ewwwie). Rishia was abandoned by Itsuki’s team for…reasons. So she’s going to join Naofumi after she helped in the last wave attack. And we get some last-moment hopeful scenes as we see things that give me hope for people in this series. Raphtalia’s old friends and homeland is getting back into the swing of things and Naofumi will take control over the land. And we wait for this promoted second and third season Crunchyroll swears by. Seriously guys, when are we getting more Shield Hero?

DON’T KNOW! READ THE LIGHT NOVEL AND STOP ASKING STUPID QUESTIONS!

If you can’t already tell, I liked this series! Yes it was unbelievably painful to watch certain things where all of these people gang up on Naofumi and screw him eight ways from Sunday, but I guess good stories have a little struggle. Except here, it’s a lot of struggling! It was an interesting tale and is giving me a little hope for the Isekai genre as a whole. Will I get into all the other recent ones so I can one day watch Isekai Quartet? Don’t get too cocky! I’ll stick to this and maybe head on over to Konosuba later on.

Rising of the Shield Hero was definitely a tale and I highly recommend it. It’s just that if you’re prone to anger when it comes to absolute injustice, half of this series might be a little unbearable to handle. But there were several great moments (particularly from Raphtalia) that kept me going with this series.

Especially episode 4! Best episode of the series! Her undying devotion for Naofumi was definitely one to behold! I can’t wait to learn more about these different kinds of worlds, kingdoms, and heroes in the upcoming stories. In the meantime I will await for these seasons two and three Crunchyroll assures us are coming…They are coming right? You guys weren’t just blowing smoke up our asses in the last CRX convention, right?

READ THE FUCKING LIGHT NOVEL, YOU AUTISTIC TWAT!

I can’t do it! There are too many chapters!

Currently, both FUNimation and Crunchyroll have the entire series subbed and dubbed.

Okay, great stuff! What’s next on my Amazon/Netflix…or Crunchyroll licensed anime!

Magical Girl Site?

Oh fuck. I heard about that first episode. This is gonna hurt.

Ashes of Outland: Aluminium Reveals

With the arrival of the Rusted Legion, it’s best to keep your metals locked away. Unless you need them. In that case, you should probably take them out.

Spectral Sight is one of those Outcast cards. Not a bad top deck, since it replaces itself with two cards, but otherwise it’s not that amazing. Being a card you might not play for a while is to this card’s advantage, as it should slowly move to the left of your hand as the game goes on. Of course, holding onto cards you aren’t using can cause problems, so Spectral Sight isn’t the best option for card draw.

Imprisoned Satyr is the first of the imprisoned minions. It doesn’t look that great, since while you do get a discount on a minion, it takes a while, and the main body is only a 3/3. Probably what might save this is that paying three mana to do nothing might not sink you, and being able to drop a big minion ahead of schedule could work out for you if it’s the right one.

Tutor for Beasts with Scavenger’s Ingenuity. Probably worth testing out, since giving a minion +3/+3 can be pretty helpful. And Hunter tends to have a lot of Beasts that work better with more attack, so this could be pretty helpful.

Furious Felfin is stupid, but also probably good. Even if you use your Hero Power to activate it, a 4/2 with Rush is pretty good for three mana. Activated without having to pay mana for your attack it’s a really good deal. It’s probably something that will be pretty popular, since every deck likes a way to deal with minions in the early game.

Skull of Gul’dan is a pretty macabre topic for a card, but it’s here anyway. Absorb it’s dark energies to draw three cards at a fair price. The Outcast effect is another that’s pretty excessive, making all the cards drawn cost three less. It’s probably worth running anyway, even if you only get the discount occationally, because having more cards is generally a good thing.

Imprisoned Antaen is another minion that takes a while to do something. This is a problem, since your opponent gets two turns to make sure they aren’t taking ten to the face when this wakes up. Doing nothing on turn five is also a questionable move, since by this point, the big guns are starting to come out. Mix that with a somewhat lopsided statline, and you’ve got a minion that looks scarier than it actually is.

Soul Split copies a demon, an activity I wouldn’t expect a Demon Hunter to approve of. Has copying minions ever actually worked out? Usually you want to copy the big ones, but that’s often a an issue because you can’t play a big demon and copy it on the same turn. That leaves you only able to copy smaller demons, and at that point, you might as well just put in a card that works by itself. But hey, this card is free, so you can at mess about with it before replacing it will something more impactful.

Fungal Fortunes is like Book of Specters, but it removes minions rather than spells. This could work well in a token deck, since they generate most of their mnions via spells. And when your greatest problem is running out of steam, drawing three cards for two mana is a pretty tempting idea.

Imprisoned Observer is a new way to discourage your opponent from playing minions. When it awakens, it zaps all enemy minions for two damage, making it pointless to summon any with less than two health the turn before. With the added bonus of having more stats than the mana cost usually allows, Imprisoned Observer is a surprisingly proactive card for something that does nothing the turn you play it. Probably worth trying out, at least.

Dragonmaw Overseer is Shadow Ascendant, but more. It looks good enough, and as three mana minions go, it’s pretty useful. With Priest being shifted to a more board-focused class, this is the kind of minion that could help make that work.

What if Sap was better? Then it would be Blackjack Stunner, which costs one mana, and makes the returned minion cost more. The catch is that you need a Secret out to return a minion, but it shouldn’t be too hard to arrange that. Since this increases the cost of bounced minions, it’s a pretty strong tempo play, and can permantly deal with the most expensive ones. I’d expect to see a lot of this once Ashes of Outland drops.

Secret synergy needs Secrets, so Rogue is getting Ambush. Which is effectly just a 2/3 with Poisonous, since your opponent is probably going to be playing minions. Probably decent, especially since if your opponent spends all their on a creature, you can immediately kill it, and they’ll have little recourse.

Bogstrok Clacker is another evolver card. I have run out of words for this archetype. Reroll exhausted minons, hope for good replacements. Probably will be annoying.

Torrent is Flame Lance, except if you played a spell the turn before, it only costs two. Seems kind of awkward really, since you might not have cast a spell the turn before you need this. Plus, Hex is cheaper than an undiscounted Torrent, and deals with Deathrattles as well. Which probably means Torrent won’t see that much play.

The Dark Portal is a weird Handlock card. If you have lots of cards, you can pre-pay for the card you draw. Given that it’s not hard to have lots of cards as Warlock, this might see some experimental play.

Make spells hurt more with Mo’arg Artificer. For some reason, the effect counts as a downside. I guess because your opponent might get to respond first. Not really sure about this one, since although it provides good opportunities for board cleaning, it does apply both ways. And as an Epic, you can’t even test it out.

Warglaives of Azzinoth is just Fool’s Bane again. Sure, it scales well with extra attack, but sometimes you can’t afford to wack your face into four minons. Works well with Blur, at least, but even then you probably need to invest more cards into it to make it work. And at that point, you might as well play Chaos Nova.

Pit Commander is like Dragon Tamer except turned up to eleven. It has Taunt. It’s almost got a full statline. Shove it into a deck with only high-cost demons, and you can laugh all the wall to the bank. Or victory screen. Seriously though. This is super pushed. Did Team Five realise that nine mana minions show maybe be playable?

More evolve with Boggspine Knuckles. Big problem? When Evolve the card was in Standard, there were problems. Attacking is free, so things could be worse? How do developer learn from mistake?

Shadow Council is another one of those weird maximum random cards. Except now the new cards get +2/+2, so if you low roll you at least get some advantage from it. Honestly not sure what to think about this one, since Demon quality is still all over the place, but many of them are a lot better with +2/+2.

Teron Gorefiend is egg card of this set. The egg Legend. Sure, he isn’t actually an egg. But he can hatch all your eggs. Then when he dies, you get them all back, in a form capable of self-hatching. Outside of funky Deathrattle stuff, Teron probably isn’t as useful, but that’s okay. He’s a card with a stupid fun niche, and sometimes, that’s what you want.

Spend five mana to upgrade your Hero Power with Metamorphosis. Then after two uses it turns back. While doing five damage for one mana is pretty good, the overall mana economy on this card is less so. If you need something to close out a game, it’s probably not the worse choice, but it still doesn’t seem great.

The first of the Primes is Archspore Msshi’fn. The starting form is nothing to write home about - it’s just a simple Taunt, hardly even worth Silencing. But the second form is much more impressive. As well as a 9/9 with Taunt, you also get a second 9/9, with your choice of Rush or Taunt. That’s quite a lot of stats, and should hopefully stop a lot of decks from beating you to death. Then, hopefully, you can beat them to death with your giant minions.

The second Prime is Lady Vashj. The first form is completely generic, and will probably die immediately. The second form is... also pretty generic. All the value is front loaded in the Battlecry, which grabs some spells and makes them cheaper. Which is quite nice, I’ll admit. Depending on what spells Shaman gets in the coming sets, Vashj could be a decent choice for spell-heavy decks that want to do more during their turn. Plus, with the Quest reward, you can draw six spells, which is a little crazy.

Kargath Bladefist has a blade where his fist should be. Hence the name, I assume. He’s also the third Prime. Regular Kargath is pretty decent, as a 4/4 with Rush, for four mana. Since he has Rush, there’s a good chance you can kill him off the same turn you play him, to avoid any Silence or transform effects. Which you’ll want to, because Kargath Prime is fucking amazing. A 10/10 with Rush is pretty much able to delete any other minion on the battlefield, and at eight mana, he’s obscenely efficent. Oh, and as a small bonus, you get ten armor when he attacks and kills a minion. Which he will, because he has ten attack. Honestly, the only downside here is that Kargath Prime is so utterly threatening that your opponent will want to kill him immediately.

Oh yeah, and since Kargath Prime is a minion, Galakrond’s Battlecry can draw him. At that point, is there anything he can’t kill?

Finally, from the /r/customhearthstone pile is Bulwark of Azzinoth. It completely blocks four attacks. That’s it. That’s the weapon. Then you can bring it back with Hoard Pillager to block four more. Of course, it’s not actually that good against swarm-style decks, given that they only lose small amounts of damage. But plonk this down in front of a board of big hitters, and laugh as they can only chip away at your Bulwark. Definitely a strong choice for Control Warriors everywhere. It even stops (most) Combo kills.

Well, that was a lot of cards. But now I've caught up, just in time for a bunch more to be revealed overnight. Or at least, that's usually what happens. For now, it seems like there won't be anymore until tomorrow.

State of the Fics 2019

The WIPS and Dead Ends Edition

So: having recently had a few discussions with some fellow authors and talking about other writers and stuff... here is where I’m going to answer some/most/all of the MOARPLZ requests.

I have 440+ works on A03 and a lot of what I hear is MOARPLZ or “is there going to be any more of this...”

So, I’m kinda going through my list right now and letting you know what my plans are for 2020 and what, if anything, you can count on to see more of, and what is, in fact, truly over. If you don’t see a fic that you love and want to know more about it, feel free to ask me. 

Take Note and RSVP - every once in a while, we get asked about this story. This was my first jaunt into the fic world, and it’s unfinished. We lost our Steve writer because of some Fandom Drama (you can blame some stans who accused us of plagiarizing a fic we’d never read who continually attacked us until the stress just made it not worth the effort of finishing.)

Solar Powered Soldiers was my first solo effort. This fic, as far as I’m concerned, pretty much sucks. It was meant to be a Steve/Bucky fic, ended up with the only smut scene as a Nat/Clint piece, and didn’t really have a satisfactory ending. I am not likely to ever go back and fix this.

Steve of Oz was supposed to be mostly smutty foray into exploring Steve as the Avengers Bike. The plan was basically for him to end up having sex with literally everyone, while in a Wizard of Oz setting. Never happened, didn’t get much response to it. 

Lost in the Shadows Every once in a while, I get someone who asks me about this AU. Talk about your niche markets! On the other hand, I love me some ShadowRun, so I have not closed down the idea of writing more on this AU... 

So, here’s a fun thing: This particular AU is what’s been requested by my Marvel Trumps Hate winner, so, I’ll be writing a dragon-level event story for this, some 27 - 30,000 words. You ready, chummer?

The Communal Kitchen AU We have a few half-complete stories in this series; Vol 3, the Mating Habits of Hero Birds, a vague outline of a Team NuclearWinter side piece, and a couple of smut pieces that never got written. I may yank the sex pollen scene from Vol 3 out and post it as a stand-alone. We’ll see. If there’s interest in any of this, maybe we’ll come back to it. (I am currently re-reading the whole series, because honestly, I write the fic I want to read, and so I re-read my own stuff rather a lot.)

Anything involving Phil Coulson and Clint Barton - while I still ship this couple, and I’ll read stuff about them, I’ve pretty much given up writing them. Between Agents of SHIELD and everything with Clint starting in, say Age of Ultron forward, I just... don’t feel it anymore? Which does include the started and never finished Coulson’s Final Case 

Next Thursday Night - huh, I’d honestly forgotten about this fic. maybe i’ll revisit it this year upcoming... somewhere I think I have an outline.

Subject to PunTax - I love puns, and this story is very formulaic. I pick a topic, make up 5-7 puns on the subject, wrap a story around it and tie a bow with a suggestive pick up line. So, I leave this open to continue, the next time I’m feeling Punny.

Bucky Barnes has Kittens - Bucky as the crazy cat lady writer with bad anxiety. I’ve had a lot of people tell me this story has been great for them, dealing with Bucky’s anxiety issues. I do have more story ideas for this ‘verse, including Bucky finding out that Steve is also a writer and dealing with that. Decidedly On the List.

Eight Arms to Hold You - I have a handful of extra stories for these. Some of them went up on Tumblr for tentacletober... generally speaking, any mermaid fic of mine is subject to a continuation because MERMAIDS and OCTOBUCKY

All American Road Trip confession time here: I stopped writing this fic because of some anti-tonys who kept popping in my comments for this fic to rant about Tony Stark in a fic that was NOT ABOUT TONY. I’ve deleted all their comments, but they were nasty, and I stopped wanting to write for people who were being so abusive to Tony (and honestly, that much bile spilling in my comments, I don’t care who it’s about, it makes me sad) Like, they liked the Fic (steve/sam/bucky) but... eeeh, whatevs. I didn’t feel like dealing with it, and I’m not going to.

Also Prey - One of my more popular pieces, I reserve the right to add more to it when I’m in a fluff mood.

Kiss me Through the Phone - I wrote this with @27dragons and I have about... half a plan for a third chapter called Your Dirty Little Secret. So, with some encouragement, that could happen.

The Truth is Who You Are - my BDSM with religious song lyrics fic; this stuff is really emotional for me, and while I do have 2-3 more pieces planned, they take me a while to write and they knock the shit out of me while I’m doing it. There’s a lot of Tony working through his self-hatred that just... it’s deep. So... there will be more, it just... might be Some Time. 

The Killer and the Kid - this is literally my most popular piece. I get a MOAR PLZ ask on this at least once a month. I have been saying for a while I’m not planning any more of this, but I did offer it as an incentive for the Marvel Trumps Hate auction. This particular fic will ONLY BE WRITTEN for a charitable donation. 

Joyride - I’ve written a couple of addons for this fic loosely titled Bundle of Joy. They’re not quite Done Yet, but when I get there, I’ll be posting that.

Nights in Sandbridge - our most popular series, and I love these boys so much here. We have no major plans to continue, but if something strikes us, we may. 

WinterIron Pickup - a short story that spawned a second chapter. I have some ideas for continuing this, but it’s fallen by the wayside as I write other things.

What Good is the Sky - this piece is so angsty, and I keep getting requests to do moar of it. Trust me, you don’t want that, it will END BADLY. and I will cry a LOT.

Off the Menu - I really do have a LOT more of this story in my head. I just don’t know when I’m going to get around to it.

Bucky Barnes Prom CYOA this was SO HARD to format that I just gave up on it. I may come back and redo this as a few “completed” stories? 

Phoning it In - I do, in fact, have a few more of this AU in mind, I just lost a bit of the shiny after an amazing fucking against the sofa smut scene. So, there might be more of this in your future (also I kept expecting it to win March Madness, so I-- didn’t get back ‘round to it?)

A Poor Reflection - never got finished. Not sure why, I had the whole damn thing plotted out. Where is my outline??

The Enhancile War Series - mostly to play with the trope of naked girl in a box, this series originally had four plotted stories, but we just could NOT get the fourth story to GO anywhere, even pushing on it really, really hard.

Any Old Music Will Do - I have a plot outline for this one, with Bucky and Tony forming the core of the Defenders, along with Luke and Jessica, but I don’t know what I did with it... anyway, there’s more ideas here. a bit.

Indispensable we had a plot idea for a sequel and I actually think we wrote about 15000 words or so on it, but-- meh, it ended up not being very interesting. If we come up with some actual plot, then maybe?

Park(s) and Wreck(ed) - I have some more ideas for this as Tony and Bucky get their sexy on all over the office.

Stark, Naked - we did, in fact, do a sequel to this, which was rather short, but well-received. Not much ideas here for anything else, but we like this version of them, so if we get good prompts, we might be tempted to take up the reigns again.

Land After Time - We get a LOT of requests for Moar of this. If we had ANY FUCKING CLUE what was going on, we might. but we really, really don’t

We Can’t Eat That (It’s Dead) - I actually have an entire plot for this, on who the dead guy is and what happened...  I could be encouraged.

Forever Home - we wrote a full length sequel to this, but weirdly enough, it WASN’T the original sequel we’d sort of talked about. which means there’s potentially a third story here... (maybe a 4th one, too)

Excuse me, I think You Have My Suitcase - the further adventures of Tony and Bucky in lacy underthings. Yes. The next time I feel like PWP, I plan to revisit.

Dead to Rights - I still really like this idea... I just didn’t get as much traction from the Umbrella Academy fandom as I would have liked. Probably because most of my writer friends are Not Into It, which doesn’t give me many people to bounce ideas off 

New York: Become Human - there’s a LOT more story here to tell... maybe we’ll tell it.

Rejoice in the Sun - I started writing this fairly soon after Endgame, when I had a lot of feels, but between the absolute outpouring of hatred about that movie from the fandom. seriously, y’all were going all Annie Wilkes up in the house to the point that I put Endgame back on BLACKLIST to get away from the seething bile... it got really hard to enjoy post endgame content, and I got sick, too, so... that didn’t help any.

Once a Knight - Witch Bucky and Knight Tony... we have some more plot for this...

No Job Too Small - I think I even have another chapter of this WRITTEN. And some more plotted out. Tony and tiny children. What could go wrong?

(D)rift Away - Bigger Better Bugspray... what happens when the Rifters come back? There might be more of this, once I work out some plot. And honestly, stop getting distracted by the damn @heamarvel prompts.

The Door into Winter - I have a whole story for this, still working on it

Learning to Work Together (Good Omens) - we have some more feels for this, so possibly, if we can put plot together.

Pretty much everything else i’m posting in progress is still going strong, Blueberries, Hell Charger, Can’t Help you Fix Yourself, Reclamation, Draco Malfoy and the Rune... and I have a couple of other collabs with other people that are... bogged down with details right now.

We’ve got a couple of stories headed your way from the Marvel HEA Hallmark challenge, including what may well be my new favorite: Buck Barnes Got Married. We also wrote a Cyber Punk AU with companion Tony as an excuse to dress Tony up in skimpy outfits.

So, that’s like the general status of Old Fic... and having ideas is not the same as finding the time to sit down and WRITE them, especially since New Ideas are attacking me at the same time, honestly.

BB’s Games Of 2019

2019 as a year felt like it lasted two years, and a lot happened in my personal life. Got a new job, learned to drive, got my first car, moved out of the in-laws’ basement into our first real apartment, started my first long-term game of DnD (which in itself has involved a new relationship and an emotional breakdown)- and between it all I somehow managed to play 77 games. Backlog’s down to 35 titles, lads- at this rate, I’ll be down to zero by July 2020. (Not gonna happen.) In 2020, I’d like to explore the SNES catalogue a little more, but before that happens we have to review everything 2019 brought me, in a somewhat chronological order.

- Near A Tomato Carry-over from last year’s post since I was in the middle of playing it at the time. I definitely never quite got a handle on the combat and I think some of the themes went over my head, but I still had fun here, and the 9S hacking minigame never got old. It was a gift from an old friend who I miss. Was nice to reconnect. - SSBU With my new main Zelda, I cleared all of WoL and got every spirit on the Spirit Board. I never really used her before but she’s cute now! Really liked the attention to detail in the spirit encounters. Unfortunately, Cloud is still in the game. - Mega Mans 1 2 and 3 I actually spoke about my experiences with the Mega Men in my BBLC post for Mega Man Eggs, so you should read that right now. - Metroid Samus Returns It’s Good. Like, a solid Good. Never Great, never Bad, just Good. It’s nice to see one of the least accessible games in the series get a remaster, but it feels very disposable, if that makes sense. Like they just needed a Metroid to keep people busy while they reboot Prime 4 development. AM2R is vastly superior, go play that. One point of amusement- the game tells its story without narration, and also seems to pre-suppose you know Metroid lore. I was entertained by the thought of a newcomer to the series being completely mystified by the sudden space-dragon that comes out of nowhere to wreck you at the end of the game. - Khimera: Destroy All Monster Girls You can click here to download it, ‘cos it’s free, which is almost criminal. This is one of the higher tier games I’ve played this year. A little bit Mega Man, a bit Metroid, with hints of Touhou and Undertale, it’s pretty tough at times but never to ‘precision platformer’ levels. It’s a lot of fun and the dev deserves your support. - Steve And Ollie RPG Oh, I made this one. Making something else next year? Question mark? - Prof Layton 3 Feels like these are getting weaker as they go along. The story has always been absolute boohockey, but the puzzles feel like they’re degrading in quality too. With over 200 in each game, that’s not super surprising, and I’m glad they didn’t bulk it out with a load of the awful block-slider puzzles. Still, it’s Layton, if you liked any of the other games you’ll like this cos it’s the exact same thing. - Fault Milestone Two Yo, there ain’t a damned thing I can say about Fault, so go play the first one and then play this and you’ll understand. - Full Throttle I never bothered to finish it. The obtuse old Sierra puzzlers were hard enough to deal with back in the day, and just feel kind of inexcusable now. I don’t have the patience for it. - eXceed 3rd Slick and fun bullet hell with a nigh-incomprehensible story and great music. Touhou fans will like it. Music by SSH who is relatively well known in doujin circles. - ASAMU Finished it before writing my BBLC post! - Eternal Senia Everything I said in my post rings true- do your best to look past the wonky translation, because there’s a heartfelt story underneath it. Very accessible gameplay, by design. - Inivisble Inc You have never before been, nor will you ever again be, so aware of having left a door open. I fully expected to hate Invisible, but I got hooked pretty hard. Quite tempted to do another run of it once the backlog is clear. - Pyre GOTY. Supergiant’s best game so far, and that’s not an easy thing to say for this Bastion veteran. I sobbed by the end. I’m not being dramatic- literally sobbed. Please play it. Music and writing and, just, heart, are all top tier. All the Nightwings are the best, but Hedwyn is the best best. - Ellipsis Finished it before writing my BBLC post! - Just Cause 2 I found myself getting bored very quickly. The main missions are all identical (really, they are) and the side missions are very uninspired. Blitzing around in a jet or grappling around a mission target is a lot of fun but it feels very shallow. There’s a lot to do but not really any reason to do any of it. I dunno, it’s a kind of hollow experience, that I nonetheless had fun with. - LiEat It went over my head a little, but that’s more on me I think. These horror-esque, eccentric japanese RPG Maker games usually do. But, it’s neat, and short. If this sort of thing usually sticks on you, I think this is a good title. - Shantae Pirates Curse These games always felt non-essential to me; I’m not sure why they never stuck. They never really go below or above Good. Entirely enjoyable but I don’t feel like I’d have really missed anything if I hadn’t played them. It is, however, absolutely worth investing in for the utterly superb sprite work. That doesn’t sell a game by itself, I know, but Shantae is a pixel art masterclass. - FF5 I’d more or less finished it by the time I wrote my BBLC post, so I don’t have much to add. It’s a refreshingly goofy entry in a series known for taking itself too seriously, even compared to its predecessor. Look forward to my entry for this game in my Games Of 2020 post, having played the Four Job Fiesta! - Touhou 17 It’s mid-tier in the touhou hierarchy, IMO. Didn’t set my soul alight but I did enjoy it. Playing as Wolf Marisa makes the final boss too chaotic to really enjoy, but playing through again with Reimu made it more fun. I beat Extra on my third run through, which gave me false confidence that after 10 years I might actually be good at these games- to then be quickly humbled by attempting Th11’s Extra. Final Boss’ theme song has one of the greatest lead-ins of all time, especially given you start the fight by running away from her! Also really loved the Stage 4 theme as you barrel head-first into Hell (the real one this time), and the haunting, calm-before-the-storm serenity of Stage 5, overlooking the City Of Beasts. - HackNet + Labyrinths GOTY. (Yes, I know I already said Pyre was GOTY; it’s my post, I can have two GOTYs. Make your own damned post!) It’s hard to say what I loved about these games without spoiling too much- just know that they play very much like investigation games, and figuring out the puzzles feels great. Labyrinths technically takes place during the events of Hacknet, with a somewhat more Black Hat approach to things- despite this, play all of Hacknet first, and then play Labyrinths. The expansion introduces a lot of new stuff and much trickier challenges, such that going back to the base game afterwards to finish that would leave it a little hollow- a disservice to how great the ending is. - Mega Man X I said everything I wanted to say in my BBLC post, and anything I didn’t cover was better said by Egoraptor. - Octodad Finished it before my BBLC post! - Chroma Squad The final mission is disappointingly poor, but everything up to that point was pretty good. Huge variance and creativity in the bosses. However, the most fun I got from it was when I realised the game allowed me to customise my team name, transformation name, and other such terminology. Dave, Dayve, Davy, Davina, and Dehve shouting “It’s time to Chromatise, Chroma Squad!” very quickly became “It’s time to shit, you bunch of fucks!” and it was funny every single time. (Personal favourite bit of dialogue- “I tried to shit! It worked!”) - Pyrite Heart Finished it before my BBLC post! - Starfox 2 Finished it before my BBLC post! - Burly Men At Sea Finished it before my BBLC post! - Disc Room Finished it before my BBLC post! - Kokurase Finished it before my BBLC post! Should have broken these ones up a bit! - Metroid Rogue Dawn Very, very impressive romhack let down by a distinctly un-fun final section. They managed to fix so many of OG Metroid’s problems, I’m surprised the gauntlet of terribleness that is Tourian escaped with only a cosmetic change. Nonetheless, it’s free, and the other 95% of the game is superb, even from a purely technical standpoint. - Wuppo I dunno what happened here! I was full of praise for Wuppo when I played it, but somehow I just couldn’t stick with it and just never felt like playing it. It’s a very aimless game, and I wonder if that might be why? It’s a shame, I feel disappointed in myself for not seeing it through, but ultimately I play games to have fun and I just wasn’t quite there with Wuppo. - Super Mario Odyssey I loved it, obviously. I wrote my BBLC post towards the end of my time with Odyssey so most of that stands- I do want to add that the controls always felt a little loose, like I wasn’t quite as in-control as I was in Galaxy. Also Mario prioritises walljumping over ledge-grabbing and it’s super-hard to unlearn that instinct after 20 years. Finally- Long Journey’s End is just bullshit. - Secret Of Mana Dropped it pretty soon after Finning it. There’s some logic to the way the game works, some kind of hidden turn-order system, that I could not at all figure out. My AI companions (useless, btw) would hit an enemy which meant I couldn’t, except sometimes the hit would still register but only actually go through 3 seconds later, without any way to tell which way it was going to go. It takes like 7 months for your character to get back up after taking a hit. It’s just, wonky, and I couldn’t solve the puzzle of how to make the game do what I wanted to do. - Pokemon Shield Still working my way through it. It’s- yeah, it’s pokemon. Get a similar vibe to Sun/Moon with it that it’s kind of unfinished- lots of small (and some not so small) parts of the game just feel like there were bigger plans that couldn’t be realised in time. I’m still enjoying it! They did a great job of making the gym battles, and the whole process of 8-badges-then-champion, feel like a spectacle. I think only the anime has managed it to this degree before. - Earthbound Man, I really, really want to like this game, but the battle system is terrible. I need to play through the game again buffing my party up with cheats or something, because it’s so unbalanced and cheap. Everything else about the game is wonderful, but I got so frustrated with the fights! - Mario Kart 8 Didn’t play any of the single player this time, it was midgi’s christmas present so I just joined a couple of multiplayer games. Absolutely baffled that the game features F-Zero style anti-gravity courses, has Mute City and Big Blue, and even has the Blue Falcon as a selectable vehicle, but they haven’t put Captain Falcon in it. Like he’s ever going to get another game of his own? Let him have this! - Carmageddon 2 It’s pretty clunky by now, being 20 years old, but still plays well enough. The physics are super loose so you slide around like your tires have been buttered. It was more fun when they were zombies instead of just normal people. Missions are brutally hard and should be skipped with cheats. - Neopets After 15 years of playing, I finally got a Ghostkersword. The site as a whole has gone through a lot, and certainly its heyday is long gone, but there’s no other game quite like it. I’m playing the Food Club every day, still. - SIF New phone can’t run the actual gameplay section well enough, so I just log in occasionally to grab free scouts. Here’s another one whose golden years are behind it, sadly, but I certainly still have a lot of affection for SIF. - FF1 Mobile version, which fixes a lot of the bugs with the NES original. This year I completed a solo run with 1 Red Mage, a 4-black belts run, a low-level run, and a 4 White Mages run (which ended up being a lower-level run than the low-level run). I’m fairly comfortable in calling myself an expert in FF1, now. There’s still not really any other games like it- build a party as balanced or imbalanced as you like, and see how they fare. I’d like to build my own game in a similar style, one day. - Re: Live Gacha games and RPG just don’t mix! Both gacha and events do not gel with core RPG mechanics of your character(s) developing in strength as the game goes. It seems impossible to balance the game well- do you cater to the whales who spend and spend until they have the strongest teams possible, meaning the free players or the terminally unlucky can’t stand a chance, or do you cater to those players and give them no reason to spend for the more powerful characters? It’s a shame, because the anime was baffling but in that enjoyable way where you just kind of go with whatever it throws at you, and exploring that in a non-freemium game with a solid beginning middle and end would be really interesting. - Tiny Thief Mobile game that’s not available any more, I think my BBLC post covered it well enough. - F-Zero One of the criticisms most commonly levied against F-Zero is that it wont hold your attention for long. While that’s true, it’s not like you have to make a purchasing decision about it any more- it comes bundled in with the other games you’re buying, so the only investment is time. Ignoring that, it’s still fun to burn around the tracks, and the sense of speed hasn’t ever diminished. The music, too, is underappreciated, with Port Town being my personal fave. - F-Zero GX I can’t believe Nintendo hasn’t done anything with this ridiculous universe for 15 years now. The cutscenes are so hilariously overwrought, and the cast of characters is huge! It could so seamlessly intersect with the Starfox universe, too. There were rumours of a Starfox Racing title some time ago, and I really hope that’s the case. It’d work so well (by which I mean, a particularly enjoyable kind of awful). Anyway, the game still plays great, Story Mode is WAY too hard, Dr Stewart’s theme is a Tune. - Stratosphere This game is from 1998! Build a flying fortress, deck it out with fortifications and weapons and power supplies, then use it to destroy other fortresses. I only ever played the demo as a kid, never got the full game. Took some cajoling to get it to work on modern hardware, but eventually I got in and it wasn’t worth it at all. Wow, that performance, apparently it was designed to run at a terrible frame rate and it wasn’t just a result of my 1998 PC not being up to the task! A shame, but I guess it put one of my ghosts to rest. - DKC 2 The best of the three SNES games, despite the inclusion (and protagonism) of Diddy Kong. Lots to love here, but the OST is top notch. - DKC 3 Not as good as 2, but IMO better than 1. There was a much heavier emphasis on gimmick levels in 3, not all of which hit their target, but does provide a great deal of variety. Consensus is that 2 is better, but if someone claimed 3 was the best DKC, I’d let them get away with it. - King Arthur’s World (SNES) Speaking of putting ghosts to rest… We somehow always managed to get this game whenever we got a SNES, and kid!Beebs most certainly didn’t have the patience for it. Adult!Beebs barely does, either. It’s a very ambitious attempt at some sort of RTS/Puzzle hybrid, somewhat comparable to Lemmings? King Arthur must make his way from his starting position to the throne elsewhere in the map to claim it as his own, using the myriad abilities of his soldiers to get him there in one piece. I decided this year that I was finally going to play through the whole damn thing, start to finish, for the first time ever. With copious use of save states and rewinds, I was finally able to slay this demon. For as fiddly and frustrating as it is, I would still say people should check it out if they have the tools to do so- there’s not really anything else like it, on SNES or otherwise; you’re guaranteed a unique experience, if nothing else. - Oscar (SNES) Terrible. - Spanky’s Quest (SNES) With a name like that, how could I refuse? It’s a weird little puzzler, aping (wahey!) Bubble Bobble and Parasol Stars a little. You’re a monkey who can blow bubbles that stun enemies, but if you bounce the bubble on your head it gets progressively larger and can be burst to send a barrage of similarly-sized sports balls at your opponents to knock them out. You know, just like real life. - Addam’s Family (SNES) This easily-dismissible movie tie-in is actually a very competent platformer with some very, very light metroidvania exploration involved. Gomez has to go through Addams Mansion and rescue the members of his family who have been kidnapped by… something. There’s hidden secrets everywhere and the family can be rescued in any order you like. Genuine recommendation. - Panel DePon/Tetris Attack The only vs puzzler I enjoy (yep. Not even puyo puyo. I know.) I played the HECK out of this in my teenage years, and got crazy good at it. Tendonitis says I’m not allowed to do that any more, but once I shook the rust off I was still pretty strong! It was released as Panel DePon in Japan and was fairy themed, but for the western release they replaced all the fairies with Yoshi characters and renamed it Tetris Attack despite having nothing to do with Tetris at all. Up to you which you prefer- language isn't too much of a barrier here. Soundtrack is killer. - Subsurface Circular Finished it before my BBLC post. Still not decided if I liked the way it ended. - Master Of Orion 2 C’mon. After playing three other pretenders to MoO2’s throne, I had to give the real deal a couple of spins too. It’s Civ 5 in space. Customisable race builds. A whole galaxy to bring peace to, by whichever means you prefer. Would love for someone else to get into it. - Touhou 8 Last minute entry I just played yesterday ‘cos I wanted some Touhou and I haven’t played this entry in a long while. A Solo Marisa Normal Final B run, if you’re interested. Kaguya beast-mode tearing apart the Spell Of Imperishable Night at the end of the game is still an awesome moment, but it’s a shame you can miss the last couple of spells if you take some unlucky hits. - And here’s the list of Bins, which are all covered in their BBLC post: No Time To Explain MoO Skyborn Jumpjet Rex StH 4 Ballistick Munch’s Oddysee Outland Project CARS RiME Magicka Waking Mars Urban Chaos Divinity: Dragon Commander Strike Suit Zero Hell Yeah! Lambda Wars Beta Stranger’s Wrath MoO 3 XCOM Lots more Fins than Bins this year! Good to see!

Finding You Always

Also on Fanfiction.net and A03

Chapter 185: Home Again

As they enjoyed breakfast with their children, extended family, and new friends, Snow and David regaled just a bit of their lives to newcomers, Joe and Frankie, with the help of the book, allowing them to page through it, as they told the tales.

"So...the tabloids and their story about you thinking you're Snow White and Prince Charming?" Joe asked.

"It's true...just not like it happened in any of the movies," David replied.

"Wow...so that rainbow light we saw…" Frankie said, as he looked at the illustration of Snow in a glass coffin and David arriving on horseback.

"That was the breaking of the curse with true love's kiss. This time, it was our children that saved us," she said fondly.

"This is something...and all this happened?" Joe asked, as he flipped through the book.

"All of it...our lives are never boring, that's for sure," David joked.

"But it's nothing like the Disney version," Snow reiterated.

"Yeah, no singing at a wishing well. She hit me a rock," David complained.

"You tackled me," she reminded.

"Because you stole my mother's ring," he reminded in return.

"And then you trapped me in a net," she retorted. He smirked and pointed to chin.

"Exhibit A. Scar...still there after almost forty years," he presented to them.

"Oh please...you love your scar just as much as me," she cooed, as she kissed him. He kissed her back.

"When you're right, you're right," he agreed, as they kissed again. Emma rolled her eyes.

"Here we go…" Leo complained.

"Guys...we're eating," Emma whined. Their lips parted and they shared a smile.

"I take it they do this a lot?" Frankie asked in amusement.

"Oh, you have no idea," Summer replied.

"So...how did you go from armed robbery to true love?" Joe asked. They smiled.

"Well...I sort of sold the ring to some trolls and we teamed up to get it back with the promise that he could have the ring and I could have the rest of the jewels to make my escape from the Kingdom," Snow explained.

"He saved me from some Black Knights," she added.

"And she saved me from the Trolls. And I got my ring back," he stated.

"So you were together after that?" Frankie asked. He chuckled.

"Not even close. She tried on my mother's ring and I fell in love. But we parted ways," he replied.

"He was trapped in an arranged marriage and I was still wanted. But we couldn't get each other out of our heads," she confessed.

"Oh...then you broke off your engagement," Frankie said, as he flipped ahead.

"Yes, but only after the evil King George threatened to kill Charming if I didn't lie to him and tell him I didn't love him," Snow replied.

"Oh…" Frankie said in disappointment.

"Then by the time I went on the run after abandoning the engagement, Snow had taken a potion to forget me, because she thought we could never be together," he added.

"Mmm...fortunately, he found me and stopped me from going down a dark path. Without love in my heart, I became a dark version of myself. But true love's kiss restored my memories," she said, smiling at him.

"Then you were together," Joe guessed.

"No...I was arrested by King George's Knights and slated for execution," David replied. Their eyes widened.

"Thankfully I stepped in and stopped that. You're welcome," Regina chimed in.

"Only to use my life to get Snow to eat a poison apple," David retorted.

"You're focusing on the negative," she quipped.

"The next thing I remembered after that was waking up as he broke the sleeping curse with true love's kiss," she said fondly, as she caressed his face.

"Please tell me you were together after that," Frankie pleaded.

"Yes...we were finally together then. There was no separating us that night, but that part isn't in the book," David said, as he gazed back at her fondly.

"Seriously?" Emma asked in annoyance.

"We don't need to hear about those parts," Leo complained and they chuckled.

"That's just the tip of the iceberg though and all before the first curse," Snow added.

"And you don't age?" Frankie asked, trying to wrap his head around that.

"Not during the first curse, which lasted twenty-eight years, despite the fact that Emma returned our memories when she was ten. Then there were more curses, but even without that, Aphrodite told us that the Chalice slows time so much in Storybrooke that it appears that no one really ages," Snow tried to explain.

"Quite...time passes about three times as fast in Andresia," Fandral interjected, referring to their kingdom.

"And about twenty times as fast than in the nine realms I hail from. To me, it's been nearly twenty-years since I fell through that portal, but to Heimdall, it's only been days," he added.

"Same here in Starcomb," Henry confirmed.

"But you and your wife don't look any older than they do," Joe commented. Fandral chuckled.

"Ah, that's the Asgardian lifespan. I'm the eldest person in this room; something around fifteen hundred thirty if my arithmetic is correct," he replied.

"My Kingdom guards the largest library in all the infinite realms. It houses all books and historical accounts of not just this nine realms, but all realms," Rose explained.

"During my Uncle's tyrannical rule, the library fell into disarray. To make sure that never happens again, Hermes granted me an Asgardian lifespan so our family can maintain the library for centuries to come," she continued.

"Fifteen hundred years?!" Frankie exclaimed.

"For once, the Crocodile and I aren't the oldest persons in the room," Hook quipped.

"Afraid so, gent. I've seen more foes and villains than I care to remember. I was also quite foolish in my youth and frivolous in my love life, before my Rose," he confessed.

"You are not that man anymore, my love...you are a wonderful husband and father," she confirmed, as she pecked him on the cheek.

"Take it from me, mate...you're not the only one that has shameful things in their past," Hook offered.

"This is all incredible…" Joe mentioned.

"If you want us to take you back, we'll understand. We wouldn't be able to take you back to 2018, but we'd let you leave Storybrooke and return to Seattle in 2023 if this is too much for you," David offered. The two exchanged a glance.

"No...we've never felt quite right in Seattle, other than being together. We're ready for a fresh start," Joe confirmed.

"And we want to hear more," Frankie agreed, referring to the book. Snow smiled.

"I promise we'll tell you more and you can read for yourselves as well," she said, as she exchanged a glance with David and he gave her a nod of encouragement.

"But right now...there is something that I want to discuss with everyone. And it's big…" Snow said, as the room gave her their undivided attention. Regina gave her a nod and David squeezed her hand, urging her to continue, as she began to tell them of their vision and plans for the future.

~*~

Upon awakening in this strange realm, the Queen wandered aimlessly through the desolate land. There seemed to be nothing but gray skies and rocking outcroppings. She wandered for what seemed like a lifetime, but she had a feeling that time really didn't move much at all in a place like this. Wherever this even was. She was about to think that she must be completely alone...until she heard a peculiar hissing sound. Instinctively, a fireball appeared in her palm and she was glad it seemed that her magic was still intact here. Out from behind a rocky outcropping rose a very large, bulky dragon. It roared and breathed fire down upon her, for which she dodged, before launching her own attack. The beast didn't seem bothered much by her magic and growled, as his fangs dripped with saliva. She became genuinely frightened until a man appeared and raised his hand.

"That is enough, Fafnir," he commanded in a gravely voice and she watched the dragon shape-shift back into a humanoid form. In this form, he was still a very large man, with green-tinted skin and a haggard appearance.

"I apologize...he's not much better in this form," the figure offered, as she regarded him this time. He was a thin man that stood no taller than she did, but somehow commanded a frightening presence. Perhaps it was his eyes...for they were like pools of emptiness. Looking into them, she could feel the malevolence in his being and she knew evil when she saw it. But she would not show that she might be intimidated.

"I'm inclined to agree...what exactly is he?" she asked.

"Fafnir was once a frost giant. He encountered Asgardian warriors and got himself cursed with a dragon form, before they cast him out of Nastrond. He found himself here," he explained.

"Nastrond?" the Queen asked, as she was unfamiliar with such a place.

"An extra dimensional realm on Asgard," he added.

"Are you Asgardian?" Fafnir growled. Regina scoffed.

"Don't get your tail in a knot...I'm not Asgardian," she responded, as the being relaxed slightly.

"Perhaps you will tell me who you are," the shifty man stated.

"Where I come from...the identity I was born with has long been stolen from me and to them, I'm simply now known as the Evil Queen," she offered.

"Hmmm...I title I sense that you have earned," he commented, indicating that such impressed him. She smirked.

"I like to think so...though my only regret is not causing more pain and killing the ones responsible for casting me out," she growled. He smirked.

"There is a lot of that going around in this place," he mentioned.

"And what exactly is this place?" she questioned.

"It is a realm of the fallen...a place where some of us find ourselves when we have been cast out by so-called heroes and not granted the sweet release of death. We have come to call it Nephilim," he explained.

"And who exactly are you?" she asked. He smirked.

"The Devil," he replied with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.

"The Devil?" she deadpanned. He chuckled.

"Some have called me that, but I prefer Mephisto. I am mistaken as Satan, because I used to tempt troubled people, ordinary and heroes alike, into selling their souls to me in exchange for various favors. But as you can imagine, owing me their souls never worked out well for them," he replied.

"And who cast you here?" she questioned. He smirked.

"That's a complicated tale, as I sense yours is as well," he responded, as he seemed to be able to gaze right through her and there was a beat of silence between them.

"Come...there are more here like us. You will find yourself in good company," he stated, as she followed him and the hulking frost giant.

~*~

"And essentially, that's our plan. Of course, it requires approval from many lands. David and I plan to travel to those Kingdoms with our proposition, but we have the heads of three Kingdoms here right now," she said, as she finished her lengthy explanation.

"Mom...you really think uniting the Kingdoms is possible?" Leo asked, with hope in his voice. She smiled and nodded to her son.

"We think so. This wouldn't be a normal curse. The concept would still be the same, but by using the Chalice to facilitate the magic of the curse, it would bring us all together," she replied.

"And essentially, since this curse would be using light magic, there would be no need for any fail safes or requirements for breaking it," Regina explained. Elsa and Leo smiled at each other.

"Not to speak for my sister or anything, but I think she loves the idea," Anna said.

"Yeah, I think you can count Arendelle in," Kristoff added. Snow and David smiled at them.

"Definitely...this is a wonderful idea and for more than just us," Elsa agreed.

"Fandral and I agree wholeheartedly. It only makes sense to bring us all together, especially if your vision is true and the realms were all one in an ancient past," Rose chimed in.

"We agree as well. You can count this Kingdom into the mix," Tiana said, as Lucy ran up and hugged her great grandparents.

"That means I can see you all the time!" she said excitedly, as David lifted her onto his knee.

"That's exactly what it means," he agreed, as he hugged her.

"David and I plan to rest for a few days when we get back to Storybrooke, before we set out for the other Kingdoms, starting with Agrabah," Snow told them.

"And we need to tell Aphrodite of our plans. She'll have to sell the idea to the Gods on Olympus, but she can be pretty persuasive," David added.

"Maybe Aphrodite or Hermes can even tell us how the realms were torn apart in the first place. Now that's a story I want to know," Henry mentioned curiously. Rose gasped.

"I bet we can even find it in our library. It would be a very old and ancient text, but it's possible," she offered.

"It is, but in our experience, texts that old have either been in Greek or worse, Lunarian," Belle reminded.

"Translating the Greek is fairly easy for me, but Lunarian is a dead language. No one still living speaks it," Rumple added.

"It doesn't hurt to find the texts though," he added and Rose nodded.

"Then I guess we should get home now," David mentioned, as they rose from the table.

"At least we know that our separation won't be so long this time," Ella said, as Snow hugged her tightly.

"No...soon we'll all be together for good. I truly feel that's the way it's meant to be and we're going to make it happen," she promised. With that, those returning to Storybrooke gathered their things. At the same time, Rose and Fandral rounded up Carina, Ben, and Ari. Summer and Carina said goodbye and there were no tears, since they knew they would soon be living in the same place. Ben and Ari also shared a goodbye with Bobby, whom they had become fast friends with as well. They bid goodbye for now and returned to their Kingdom through a portal. The Charmings said goodbye to Henry's family for now, with Emma lingering back, holding her son tightly.

"I'll see you soon, Mom...really," he promised. Emma nodded and swiped a tear away, before she joined hands with Killian and they followed their family through a portal back to Storybrooke.

~*~

Andresia

Several hours later

Rose glanced up from her book, as she sat in the library that evening. She had kissed her babies goodnight and let Fandral have the task of reading a bedtime story to their young ones. She smiled at her husband, as he found her there, having finally completed the task of getting their precocious twins to sleep.

"How many did it take tonight?" she asked fondly.

"Three," he answered and she quirked an eyebrow.

"Four," he admitted and she giggled.

"Ari just bats her eyes and you are like putty, my love," she teased.

"Like her mother," he teased back.

"I cannot deny it and our son is very good at knowing just how to get me to regale them as well," he replied. She smiled, as he sat in the chair next to hers.

"More adventures of the warriors three and the mighty Thor?" she asked.

"Mostly about Thor and the other Midgard heroes. Though, I have to say, I think they enjoy my story about the time I battled the fearsome dragon Fafnir," he commented fondly.

"Mmm...I like that one too, though I love any story that stars the man I love," she cooed, as she caressed his face lovingly.

"And in my youth, such words would have only served to inflate my ego. But with you, they humble me and make me realize how incredibly lucky I am," he mentioned, as he kissed her tenderly.

"I daresay Volstagg, Hogun, and Sif would hardly recognize me," he added.

"You miss them...and Thor," she surmised.

"At times...but I would never trade this life, for it is everything," he promised. She smiled.

"I know...but that doesn't mean we can't quench your thirst to know what became of your people," she replied, as he noticed the book she was reading. It was in Asgardian and over the years, he had taught her to read it. She was now fluent in both reading and speaking it.

"It was extremely hard for me to get through the part where that demon woman ran you through with a sword...but I haven't gone further," she mentioned. He sighed.

"I've avoided asking about the details of the battle for all these years and Heimdall seemed less than willing to be forthcoming," he said. She gently ran her fingers through his hair.

"He knows you're happy and I think he wants to preserve that. We don't have to continue reading, my love," she said. He nodded.

"I know...but I think you were right. My mind will not rest those memories until I know," he replied, as she got up and he pulled her down into his lap so they could read together.

~*~

Storybrooke

2023

The portal opened and deposited all of them in the park by the lake. Snow's grin was contagious, as he smiled indulgently at her. They were finally home and it felt really good.

"We made it," Snow said, as David pulled her close and kissed her forehead. Leo grinned at Elsa and then whistled. Their friends from Arendelle had decided they would come back to Storybrooke for the day, before returning to Arendelle the following day. It did Snow and David's hearts good to know that they soon wouldn't have to be separated at all.

They weren't surprised when Graham and Wilby came running toward them and a bird flew over head, before diving and landing on Leo's shoulder. Joe and Frankie, not for the first time, were flabbergasted.

"How…" Joe uttered. David smiled.

"Leo has a gift with animals. We'll have to take you to the wildlife reserve later. But first, we should probably let Granny know we're back," he said.

"And the dwarves," Snow added.

"Then we can work on telling the town about our plan," Regina said. There was a lot of work ahead, but the most important thing was that they were finally home and it felt like a new beginning.

~*~

Rose glanced at her husband and her heart ached at the disbelief and sorrow on his face. When they had decided to read the story of what became of their people, they had expected some heartache, but not this much. Though he had been vague, Heimdall had revealed that while Asgard was lost, the survivors, including himself, Thor, and Loki had escaped aboard a ship. There was great loss, but their now King had set the course for Midgard or Earth and the survivors would settle there in peace. After an event like Ragnarok, it was the best possible outcome he could have hoped for his people.

Unfortunately, it seemed while they were in Seattle, much had occurred since Heimdall had helped them travel through the bi-frost, including Heimdall's own demise.

Fandral was in shock. He already knew the fates of his fellow companions were probably grim. Volstagg had been with him at the moment Hela arrived through the bi-frost and through the story, he learned that Hogun had fallen later in battle with her.

But he never expected more loss and despair to hit the survivors of Ragnarok after escape. But it seemed that is exactly what had occurred.

"Heimdall is dead...how do we tell the children?" he lamented. Tears gathered in her eyes, as she lay her head on her husband shoulder and consoled him with a soothing hand on the back of his neck.

"I am so sorry, my love…" she cried.

"I just can't believe this…" he uttered.

"We can summon Hermes...I would say this event would warrant an emergency visit," she said.

"Absolutely not...there is no way we can go there now," he refuted. She gave him a questioning look and he sighed.

"That ship being invaded wasn't just bad luck or routine space pirating, my angel," he said, as he brushed a strand raven hair behind her ear.

"Because of this name here...I could never risk going there with you and the children. To do so would be reckless and jeopardizes all of our lives senselessly, for there is nothing I could ever do in hopes of fighting this being. Thor and Earth's mightiest cannot even stand against him," he explained.

"Who is this man?" she asked, reading the name.

"Oh, he is no man...I would call him a monster, but even that is understating it," he replied. Clear alarm showed in her eyes at that statement.

"He is quite possibly the most powerful being in the nine realms that I hail from and it would not shock me in the least if he was one of the most powerful being in all the infinite realms," he continued.

"He is a titan and he is quite mad. He is the worst kind of evil, because he believes he is good. He believes he's some kind of prophet," he spat distastefully.

"Under no circumstances can we go there," he added sadly.

"Do you think that's why the writing has stopped?" she asked softly.

"I don't know…" he replied.

"Even if bad things were happening, the writing should still have continued, even if things are happening as we speak. But it just stopped here. No ending or anything," she lamented.

"And I think I may know why," a voice stated. They looked up and found the Goddess Hermes before them, looking extremely troubled.

"Can you tell us more?" Fandral questioned.

"Yes...will the children be safe here for an hour or so?" she asked. They exchanged a glance and nodded.

"The staff is here to tend to them if needed," Rose said.

"Then I need to show you both what has occurred. This may not be in our cluster of realms, but since you two guard the library for all the realms, you must be aware of this kind of story disruption," she replied.

"Story disruption?" Rose asked in confusion.

"Yes...as you know every author has a realm and even upon death, a new one immediately takes up the pen. To have story stop like this means an event of cataclysmic proportions has occurred. There is nothing we can do except hope this realm that has suffered so greatly can recover...but as guardians of the realm of infinite story, you must be aware when something so incredibly devastating has happened," she explained. They nodded.

"We're ready," Fandral confirmed, as she put them in a bubble and they traveled to Olympus with her.

~*~

Seattle

2018

Nick and Angela stared at Cecily Clayton through the window, as she sat in the interrogation room. The residents of Storybrooke had repaired the damage done to the city and then disappeared without a trace again. But this time, unlike New York, it was not going away. Social media was still blowing up and they expected someone from the military to arrive anytime to take over.

"You think she'll spill what she knows about Storybrooke, Maine?" Nick questioned. Angela scoffed.

"If the deal they offer her is good enough...of course she will. They better hope they've hidden their crazy little town well enough," she replied.

"There's no stopping this now…" he mentioned.

"What's the craziest theory out there?" she asked curiously.

"Aliens, angels and demons, reptilian overlords...you know the usual cuckoo stuff. But this time, they're getting some traction. People are putting on their tinfoil hats," he replied. She rolled her eyes.

"And the military won't let it go...they'll want to weaponize what they saw," she said.

"What do you think we should do?" he asked.

"There's nothing we can do, Nick. We need to move on with our lives and stay away from this. They're on their own, unless we want to end up in prison ourselves for helping them," she whispered. And he knew she was right and hoped for their sake, they never stepped foot outside Storybrooke again.

The door swung open and a woman entered. She was dressed in a military dress ware and had military decorations adorned her jacket.

"Agents…" the woman greeted, as she walked in.

"I'm Major Patricia Donovan and I'll be taking over this interrogation," she stated. The two agents exchanged a glance.

"With all due respect, Major...we haven't received any orders from our superiors," Angela refuted. She smirked, just as Nick's phone rang.

"It's our boss," he muttered.

"I'm sure he'll be telling you that this is now a military matter. Your assistance is no longer needed," she replied. Angela rolled her eyes and started to walk away.

"Oh...one more thing, agents. You're also being ordered to turn over the files you have on the Nolan family," she said.

"That's a classified file," Nick replied.

"Which now belongs to us," she retorted.

"We'll send it right over," Angela said.

"Good...and just to make sure there is no evidence tampering, my Captain will be following you back to Quantico to take custody of that file," she replied, as she went into the room with Cecily.

"Ms Clayton…" she greeted, as the dark haired woman looked up at her.

"You want information...then I want a deal," Cecily replied. Patricia smirked.

"I'm sure we can come to an agreement that we can both live with," she stated.

Can we get some headcanons of Gabriel in Miraculous Team? Is his relationship with Adrien different? How?

Thanks for asking! =D

I am going to keep some headcanons secret for the moment because it might spoil the plot too much -and also because I am still working on them ^^; . But I’ll try to sum up my version of Gabriel as best as I can (and sorry for my bad English):

Gabriel has had -and still somewhat has- a hard life, he has no more family or relatives and he seems doomed to go through tragedies in his life. He has serious trust issues because of of seriously bad relationships experiences, he became closed in himself and tends to work alone and refuses to ask for help. Emilie and some people, including Nathalie, managed to help him opening up, but Emilie’s death almost sent him back to square one.

For a moment, it was like Gabriel was a classical hero: a poor orphan going from nothing being finally recognized for his talent in fashion design and finding someone who genuinely loves him, then becoming rich and famous and starting a family… a perfect happy ending! Only to have it being torn from him: first Adrien’s life gets endangered, and barely a year later, his beloved wife is killed. So much for a happy ending.

Nathalie - whose relationship with the Agrestes is quite different than canon but that’s for another post- was the one to shake him up a bit after Emilie’s death, reminding him “You have a son, your little boy needs you. Do not let him down!”.

Gabriel struggles in expressing his love and affection, he appears cold and distant most of times, but deep down, he is not. He loves Adrien with all his heart, but doesn’t know how to show it. Most of times, he tries to in making sure he is/feels safe (bodyguard, a safe home, good and trustworthy teachers for homeschooling and activities…) and offering him whatever he needs and wants -unwillingly spoiling him.Gabriel was fine with Adrien choosing his activities like fencing, climbing and playing piano, he gave him some advices for what foreign languages he could learn but then he expects Adrien to do his best and be serious about them. “You choose to do that, then go down with it and pursue it to the end.” Which is partly why he is quite mad when Adrien sneaks out several times pretending to practice piano. (mostly because he doesn’t know where his son went to and there is a freaking akuma attack when it happened)

Having the butterfly miraculous and Nooroo helped him a lot in perceiving and understanding others’ emotions, which allowed him to open up again (slowly but surely), he and Adrien got closer then and when Miss Tigri was defeated, he promised Adrien he would let him go to school. Unfortunately, during the summer break, his miraculous was stolen from him. For a moment, he was tempted to cancel Adrien’s school enrolment; but it was confirmed without his validation.

“Nathalie, I understand what you are trying to do. But I would like you to not take such decisions behind my back.”

“…I didn’t do anything about this, sir.”

(Adrien: *whistles*)

First real act of “rebellion” from Adrien. After becoming “Dragon” (superhero created by a Tenshi) and then Chat Noir, Adrien gained more confidence and went to get what he really wanted: going to school like every teenager of his age and make friends he could meet everyday. Gabriel has some mixed feeling about it, but he lets Adrien go in the end after admitting he had restrained his son for too long (even if here he wasn’t ill-intentioned).

At the point where le Fiancé becomes the new main super-villain, Adrien and Gabriel’s relationship is mending, both of them are still mourning Emilie at their own pace -the fact was she was killed is what prevents them to come to terms- and struggling with their own problems and flaws. Adrien is a teenager and makes mistakes too, sometimes hurting his father (and others) without meaning or realizing he does while Gabriel is doing his best to show affection to his son and turn the page on his past at last. But the two keep quite a lot of secrets from each other, and not only superhero related stuff.

The main differences between MT!Gabriel and Canon!Gabriel are:

MT!Gabriel can be proud, but he developped his sense of pride from his hard work and to somewhat make up for his past self-esteem issues

he can be strict, but hes not that demanding or controlling. And when he acts controlling and he realizes, he reconsiders his actions

when he says the world is dangerous, he actually think it is and not because he’s the one sending akumas (duh :p )

 he still mourns his wife but doesn’t stare at her painting(s) as much

when he says he’s busy at work, he actually is (exception when he was Parnassius of course)

he has some hobbies/activities besides his work and superhero life (when he had the miraculous)

 less scenes with Nathalie holding the tablet up with him in video conference/call

Nathalie is officially his assistant, but for the Agrestes, she is definitely a friend - she and Gabriel met in college

he and Adrien are closer, they interect and see each other more often

more hugs for Adrien

Legends of Tomorrow - ‘Terms of Service’ Review

"The power is in the Palm(er) of your hands."

Is it rude to point out that the Emperor has no clothes, if you point out at the same time that the Emperor is super ripped and has been clearly doing a lot of cardio?

Because.... Damn, Emperor. You got it going on.

Which is, of course, my frivolous and subtextually homoerotic way of saying that there's an embarrassment of riches in this episode when it comes to things to like, but they all kind of rely on some serious glossing over of problem spots.

The problem in a nutshell can be boiled down to one thing. The basic opening foundation for this episode doesn't match at all with where things were left at the end of the previous one. I'm tempted to assume that I'd missed an entire episode worth of plot development, except that I know perfectly well that I didn't. It's almost as if the writers room broke a 17 episode series of stories and then just completely excised one of them when they found out they were only getting 16 to air.

For the love of God, CW, please start giving Legends a full boat of 22 episodes. It's getting embarrassing.

OK, so here's what I mean. A not insignificant portion of the plot development tonight entirely relies on the fairy godmother currently being under Gary's control. That's actually an inspired plot development, and his relationship both with Tabitha and with the next inheritor of the fairy godmother mantle were pure gold as far as both comedy and plot development goes.

The problem is, when exactly did Fairy Godmother bond herself to Gary? He calls to her at the end of the previous episode and she saves him from Mona as if their relationship was an established thing, but unless I missed something significant completely, that was not a thing they'd ever set up.

I'll be fair. I drink a lot of wine. If I missed something that explains this, please do let me know in the comments.

Additionally, at the end of 'Nip/Stuck,' Mona ate off Gary's evil nipple – not a sentence you get to type every day – and Gary was rushed out of the Time Bureau with unconscious Mona, Tabitha, and Neron in Ray's body. The implication strongly was that Gary's nipple was behind the mass hypnosis of the Bureau, and now that it had been destroyed the bureau was saved. Left behind to witness the bad guys escape was Nora, Ava, and Sara.

This week we open with the bad guys still in possession of the Bureau, only now it's due to Gary's influence over the fairy godmother rather than his fancy hypnotic nipple. Not only do we see no evidence of the bad guys leaving the bureau together, they aren't even all in a group anymore. Mona is imprisoned in the Bureau cells, which makes no sense if they were fleeing with her body ten minutes earlier. Neron and Tabitha aren't even there anymore as they're busy setting up 'PalmerX 2019,' a low key tech con with only one panel and one guest. Ava and Sara are back on the Waverider as if they'd never liberated the Bureau in the first place, and Nora is Die Harding her way to rescue Mona with no mention of how she got separated from them.

I'm sorry, show, but I have to ask. Did you smoke a gigantic bag of crack between these two episodes, or what?

It's all very frustrating, because I said earlier, where they take all of those plot threads is fantastic. Neron's plan to create fear using the monsters so that people will download an app in order to locate the monsters and in doing so sell their immortal souls through a lengthy terms of service agreement is both goat-shit crazy and completely brilliant. What's more, it would absolutely work. If you doubt it, just consider how much none of us noticed when the guests of PalmerX were shown agreeing to a terms of service agreement that they didn't read. Seriously, go back and look. The camera shots practically luxuriate on people swiping through the TOS as fast as they can, but nothing about that reads as unusual or sinister to us anymore and so we just blanked it out.

Similarly, Tabitha's plan to trick Nora into taking on her fairy godmother mantle was inspired, despite being lifted pretty completely from genie-lore, particularly Disney's Live Action Aladdin Soon in Theaters Near You. And God bless the show for keeping Jane Carr around as Tabitha. I absolutely expected that they'd find an excuse to recast Tabitha into the body of someone younger and sexier as soon as they possibly could, because that's the kind of gross thing that network execs tend to insist on. I love, love, love that they're keeping her around as Neron's love interest. And while we're talking about it, it's such a good choice for them to show that Neron and Tabitha do genuinely love each other. It would have been so easy to tumble into the cliché of a villain team eager to backstab one another.

But the best choice this episode made was in the nature of Gary Green himself. Wonderful reveal that Gary was perfectly aware the entire time that the fairy godmother was trying to get him to wish hurt on the Legends and so he was deliberately just focusing on wishing to hang out with them as a way of defying her. Even when 'Dark Gary' finally gets called forth, his glorious flow of vengeance never goes further than acne and tap dancing. Gary is a good man, fundamentally. And he's absolutely right, he does not deserve to be laughed at. I've been saying since the beginning of the season that the Legends need to face a consequence for the way they're played Gary as convenient bait that can be had for a little flattery. I think they finally learned that lesson here.

Which brings lastly to John Constantine, in a plotline I like to call, 'This should absolutely have been an entire episode all on its own.'

When they mentioned Hell's Triumvirate I briefly entertained the thought that they might be about to do the good parts of 'Dangerous Habits' that everybody always leaves out when they try to adapt it, but alas, no. It felt right that he chose Astra over Ray, as much as it broke my heart, and it felt equally right that Astra betrayed him. Can't wait to see what will happen there when Nora gets to Hell to rescue John. I do, however, which that they'd gone with the imagery from the comics and had Astra only have one arm.

Everybody remember where we parked:

There was actually shockingly little travel this week. The Waverider just hung around Washington D.C. in 2019, and a couple of our heroes went to Hell, which may or may not equate to the same time zone, it's hard to tell.

What is interesting is the reveal that Zari grew up a little outside of D.C. Did we know that already, or was that a reveal of convenience this week? Zari appeared to me to be in the 8-10 range, although I am a notoriously bad judge of age so she might be a bit older. That actually answers a couple of longstanding questions I was pondering last year about what baby Zari might be up to in our time period.

Zari mentions that it's only a few years away from when ARGUS takes over everything and creates an anti-Meta, anti-Muslim Dystopia. We're all kind of assuming they're just never going to deal with that, aren't we?

Quotes:

Sara: "Mick, Nate, do you think you can handle Tabitha?" Mick: "Granny’s dead."

Sara: "OK, can you guys stop being dragon baby crazy right now?"

Gary: "And now I have three nipples, because a spare never hurts." Having a third nipple was historically a sign of witchcraft. There is a zero percent chance the writers don't know that.

Calibraxis: "You’re dead, demon hunter!" Constantine: "I was gonna be a demon proctologist, but the pay wasn’t as good."

Calibraxis: "I’m a demon, not a pirate, John."

Zari: "It’s a demon app. I’m gonna read the fine print."

Charlie: "If I die, I’m gonna come back and haunt you." Zari: "I would love a ghost friend."

Nora: "Gary, you dick!"

Bits and Pieces:

-- This season has for some reason brought up a lot of embarrassing confessions from me. Adding to the list that already contains my love of semiotics and the assembly of flatpack furniture, this week I have to tell you how much I love logo design. Honestly. I bring this up because the PalmerX logo is a masterwork. The solid 3-D cube implied by the background framing device conveys an unspoken implication of solidity and dependability with the third implied square breaking the frame and shooting 'toward' the viewer implying a daring willingness to work outside conventional rules and by implication 'think outside the box.' The coloring, meanwhile, subtly underscores the 'Palmer' portion of the name, thus reinforcing the higher brand. Honestly, and with no ironic joking involved, the PalmerX logo is a f*cking masterpiece of work.

-- I actually have a startling number of opinions on the quality of logo design. Feel free to ask, but I warn you that the answers get lengthy.

-- I get that they were underscoring the connection between Tala Ashe and Zari's younger self, but that hairstyle just fundamentally did not work for her. That's actually kind of rare and notable for her. Just about every hairstyle they've ever given her has looked gorgeous.

-- Looks like Wixtable the dragon is hatching in time for the season finale.

-- I went back and forth on whether or not it was smart or stupid for Zari to have brought the egg with her on the mission. Ultimately, I think there was no guaranteed safe place for the egg, given how often messed up stuff happens on the Waverider when they aren't there.

-- I hope Nate is understanding about Zari leaving the egg behind.

-- So many questions about why Nate has a 'Kid Steel' costume hanging around. And why Gary picked it.

-- This week's fabulous dress watch. Jane Carr looked stunning in that evil black number she adopted once she'd ditched her godmother duties. Also, the designer of that asymmetrical sheath number that Nora wore to PalmerX is underpaid. Regardless of how much he or she is paid, they are underpaid. That dress was amazing. Please, please, Courtney Ford, tell me that you stole that dress and have it in your personal collection. Also, call me. We'll brunch.

-- They're really getting their money out of the Stein puppet. Bless.

-- Hell's triumvirate included Satan, not Lucifer. Which means a crossover with Lucifer is still possible. Fun fact, in the comics the triumvirate in Hell stepped in to rule when Lucifer left to go open up his nightclub in LA. Which means it all totally works together if they can get Tom Ellis to make a stop in the Waverider. And then possibly he and Matt Ryan could share a torrid embrace and... I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?

-- That's like the third episode in a row where they've mentioned Damien Darhk. Dare we hope to see him again next season?

If you squint at it and assume that we missed an episode of plot development, this would easily be a four. Sadly, we can't, and so I can't in good conscience give it more than three out of four fantastic logos.

Mikey Heinrich is, among other things, a freelance writer, volunteer firefighter, and roughly 78% water.

Pokémon Black 2 Randomized Nuzlocke Run [Part 7]

It is time for badge number seven.

Lesgo.

Vertex (Luxray)

Caspet (Gengar)

Nessy (Milotic)

Diego (Gardevoir)

Photon (Rayquaza)

Cerberus (Dodrio)

Squad goals.

Why won’t Unova Gyms ever just let me leave?

And apparently I’m not going through Twist Mountain? I’m getting a lift on a plane?

If that’s the case, that’s happening later. I think I’m going to get Cerberus up to level 40 in the sad death tower before I do anything else. I don’t want to have members of my team lagging consistently. You will all be useful. I will make it happen.

Also, something I haven’t mentioned yet (...I think, it’s been a while to get this far) is that Pokemon Breeders in this gen seem to be available to fight every single time you enter that route. Not like you can fight them if you want. After beating them, if you leave and go back to the route, they will do the exclamation point thing.

This is annoying.

Route 7, also known as that place before the sad death tower, has one.

It is not irritating enough to conjure up hate for. And yet.

Flash forward into the future a bit later, and we have a team where everyone’s above or at 40 except for... Photon. Photon, my friend, we’re just gonna slap the Exp. Share on you and continue with the plot. Your legendary status means me stacking the deck with levels is less important.

I can’t believe this place has a purpose in this game. Or that I get to fly in a plane (I assume, my memory on the sequel games is even worse than my memory for Black and White starting out). There’s something weird about using a plane to get around in a Pokemon game. Doesn’t feel natural.

Oh well, too bad so sad.

...Lentimas Town.

I have no memory of this place.

Hey, Bianca’s coming with us! Yay!

I really have no memory of this place, but there’s some Fire pokemon in Reversal Mountain, apparently, and also Professor Juniper reminds everyone that Black and White happened, so it makes no sense for Team Plasma to be trying to wake up a dragon; they’re all accounted for after all.

My exploits from last game mattered, you guys. They really did happen.

No, but I’m easy to please. Any time the games reference games that happened in the past for the current game, I am made a happy camper. Us and N catching a legendary dragon each is a good thing to keep in continuity.

I’m starting to maybe remember this place... maybe?

I guess we don’t stay here long, so time to not really care. I do continue to like how the setting is not an exact copy of the previous games, though. There’s a lot of repetition that comes from this being a sequel, but everything’s been thought out well enough that it really does feel like a new journey.

Now see, my question is if there’s a cave to this Reversal Mountain, and is it marked with a different title. I’m catching something very soon, but do I have the option of picking between outside Reversal Mountain and inside, or do I... perchance... get both?

It’s probably just one and I should just march into the grass.

I don’t wanna.

Ah, but it looks like I have to step through grass anyway. But there is the option of dark grass vs. normal grass.

I am too battle-weary and scarred. Normal grass.

!!!! A Normal pokemon for the normal grass! Hi Miltank! Let us be the best of friends and not roll each other into death. Photon’s the best bet for not accidentally killing the little lady (I did not check this with numbers and have no plans to).

Only while I was typing, Miltank used Bide, and I missed that, so Nessy with her excellent HP had to go out and deal with the consequences of Photon’s one attack. Nessy and Twister are taking Miltank down at a safe rate. She’s in the orange, so throwing time.

While she’s using Rollout.

Of course.

Hey, first ball! We’re Pokemon Going over here!

Her name is Bessy. Because it is.

But whoops, I need to head back to the Pokemon Center for a hot second and get her out of the Graves box. You’re not dead yet, darling.

Dark grass has Luxio.

It also leads to a strange house instead of fun cave time.

See, right there in the title. Can has pokemon?

Coool. Want to join my gang?

Nessy and Twister seem to be an okay catching combo. Let’s see if we can get it working twice in a row.

Damn it, Nessy. Your first one left him in the green. The green. Sigh.

Farewell, unnamed shark friend.

(he woulda been bruce)

Ahoy random Gigalith in the upstairs of the house with the moving furniture I can’t cap because these are stills. Sadly I’m not in the mood to deal with Sturdy, so I’m going to run from those instead of harvesting them.

Awww, there’s a Castform downstairs. Plus a Spell Tag.

Then the furniture moves and clears up a doorway. Behind which is a trainer.

I feel like a lot of the NPCs we meet in these games have very hard lives. Hello Sentret in the middle of the room. Are you keeping this one company?

Ludicolo is in the front room.

Caspet learns Dark Pulse. Bye-bye, Night Shade.

Waaaaaait. Wait. Aren’t you the ghost girl from the bridge in the last games? I remember you! Is this where you get something to do instead of just being odd? Note that it doesn’t count if it’s an event thing that needs a code or internet or special event items!

She’s looking for her parents.

And her Abra.

....Then a wild Abra shows up.

Is that scripted, or did the Randomizer just give me an amazing gift?

Weepinbell back downstairs.

I go through another door, and get a Full Heal for my trouble. With added wild Octillery. Fuck you, Octillery. You are banned from all my runs forever.

Ooooo wild Haxorus. Look at all these things I can’t have. Downstairs has a stray Riolu. The trouble I go through for a... Dusk Stone. Yeah, okay, that’s nice to have. Toxicroak is also here.

Then back upstairs, suddenly Gible. What’s this place usually supposed to have?

The second floor’s chairs have moved, so I go through one of the upstairs doors. Another trainer room. Yay. With a Mr. Mime. Yay.

I’m really sorry about your life/undeath, NPC Ghost Girl.

Oh, neat. Lunar Wing.

I have no memory of which legendary that belongs to. I want to guess Cresselia, but I don’t know if it’s even in this game. I do know it’s a gen four legendary, which would make sense for the sidequest feel of this house.

Oh wait it doesn’t matter because Randomized Nuzlocke.

...Well fine, but I’d still like to know.

That makes me feel surprisingly sad.

One last door to check out. Empty but for Golett (want) and a Rare Candy. Time to leave.

Back outside there’s an Exeggcute I wouldn’t have wanted. The normal grass has Whismur.

There was a cave after all. Ugh. I can’t believe this counts as the same route as outside. Cave and grass should get to be different.

Heeey! Bianca! Wait, before we team up and I abuse your healing for exp, I need to check the other side of the cave.

Oh. The other side of the cave has a Max Repel and that’s it. Back to Bianca, I guess. And she’s psyched for Heatran, which is a very relatable feel.

Zoroark and Tangrowth for the first encounter of the cave. I say, pretending it matters. Stoutland can also be found here. Knowing their propensity for knowing Crunch, I think maybe something not Caspet can be in the front. Photon, gain your own exp for a change.

Crawdaunt is another feature. It’s a dark, Dark cave.

I was checking to see if Cerberus can learn Acrobatics. No, but he can learn Fly. You know, that classic Dodrio usage. Fly. Which he is absolutely learning.

Aww, a wild Togepi. It’s gone now.

I love getting to wander with someone who handles the healing. It’s so nice battling without stress. Also known as grinding without needing to use up items.

Haa. See, normally you’d be right, but.

Huh. There’s a Magikarp and a Weedle through a different passage. Neat. You will not be missed. Then we come across a bizarrely gen-appropriate pair of Tympole.

Can Triple Battles not be a thing? I don’t care for them. They make me worry. Arguably I could help myself by arranging my team so I would have a good comp for whenever I fell into one, but where would the fun in that sane choice be.

Dust clouds come with Munchlax. Neato.

We’re in a legendary’s nest. They’re all like this.

...Why can you find Luxray and Ninjask here???

Ditto for Steelix and Porygon. Yay for Randomizer randomizing every single room of an area. It’s cool, but in the larger places it can be really disorienting. A male Nidoran also says hello.

I don’t know where to find the Magma Stone to get Heatran, so we’re done with Reversal Mountain, I believe. Geez I hope that’s the name of this place. I’m too lazy to check at the moment.

I have escaped!

And found a Shiny Stone. Win.

I didn’t recognize this place, then I remembered. Water. Bay. Post-game trauma. They messed with the map to keep things interesting.

What.

My curiosity is piqued.

But I want to get something random in the waves before I investigate.

Um.

Well this is awkward.

Level 39.

Photon should not be out front for this. Nessy?

Okay. Nessy gets Regice in the red. Regice knows Curse and Ancient Power. I do have a Master Ball. I can’t deny that I’m seriously tempted by it, but we’re going to try doing this like a standard trainer first.

Net Ball doesn’t work because of course it doesn’t (I just wanted to use it because Surfing), and Regice knows Superpower. Ah yes, the Regis and their. Stuff. First Ultra Ball doesn’t get anywhere. Same for second. Icy Wind is Regice’s last move.

My team has no Fire or Fighting on it. I miss having those options.

Have I been able to buy Timer Balls anywhere? Those would be nice to have right about now, as my Ultra Ball supply dwindles.

I am out of Ultra Balls.

Look, Pokemon Go legendary catching can be rough. You only get so many balls, and even if you do everything perfectly, it still might run on you.

But you don’t end up spending twenty minutes trying to catch one thing.

Seconds after I type that:

Heeeeeyo.

What do I name it, though?

Refrigerator.

That doesn’t fit.

Refriger8r.

Okay, so I have to stock up on Ultra Balls, and possibly also healing options depending on my mood when I look at the prices. Then we go see what Undella Bay and Route 14 have to offer.

The Undella Pokemon Center only has Luxury and Dive Balls. :(

My beloved Timer. Where...?

And then I bought 50 Ultra Balls.

I’m going to sell some stuff.

Okay Bay, what do you have for me?

Yeah, I can make this work.

Assuming I don’t accidentally kill it.

Thank goodness for Nessy still knowing Twister. Gottem.

His name is now Zentrotta. I think we can agree he’d be happier if I hadn’t caught him. Tragedy at its finest.

Caspet is back up front, and for now Nessy will carry the Exp. Share. She’s not had much to go up against, so she’s lagging a tad.

Aw, there’s a little Deerling on the water. Aaand it’s gone.

Hello what is this.

Indeed.

...I have questions I can’t really make myself care about enough to type.

So this guy only moves if we beat him, and before we get the chance to beat him we have to pass some game-acknowledged strength test. I probably need another badge or something. But there’s enough ground to walk back and forth, so what have you got for me, Seaside Cave?

Cool beans.

Nessy, come help not kill it.

Yay, caught.

His name is Blimperton now. Welcome to the box.

Outside, the deep water spots can be Venomoth. How pleasant.

Jelli to you too, good sir.

Huh, okay, they just give you a random Jellicent encounter here.

Game. I was just trying to speed along to the Pokemon Center. Please.

Unfezant down, Simisage down, Vertex can be in for Samurott. Level 41, so I’m. not as overleveled as I usually am except for Caspet. Caspet has reached 47 and I don’t mind her being completely overpowered.

For an update, since I think I’m pretty bad about keeping track of their levels in this: Caspet is 47, Nessy is 43, Vertex is 43, Diego is 44, Photon is 45, Cerberus is 43. Everyone is healthy and alive.

Geez I hate Triple Battles. Random trainers don’t share my feelings. This is an annoyance.

ROTATION BATTLES AREN’T THAT MUCH BETTER, OTHER RANDOM TRAINER. STOP THINKING YOU’RE SPECIAL JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE AN ACE OR A COOL OR WHATEVER THE HECK YOUR TITLE IS I DIDN’T READ IT.

And I can’t continue down through Route 14 because there’s a block of people in the way. So I guess all that’s left to do is check out what the sequel to this route has in store for me.

Last game it did not have anything I wanted.

But this time...!

Eh. I’ll catch you I guess.

Her name’s Tux now.

Meanwhile, in the dark grass...

Yep.

Wormadam, too. Such grass. Much excite.

Off up to Route 13.

New route means yet another new pokemon. ...After we fight a bunch of trainers because I care more about levels than pokemon I’m hoping to never use at the moment.

Several minutes later, the only other trainers are through grass, so let’s go!

Eyo. I don’t think I’ve had you before.

Cerberus, are you up for helping?

Well, one hit almost took half your health. So let’s say no.

Nessy!

...You know, given the amount of damage it’s doing. I think I’m going to Surf and risk fainting before it kills Nessy. Aaand... yeah. Mienshao out.

This grass also has Sandile. And Cascoon.

Nothing I have knows Cut. Languish there for all days.

That Ranger wants a Triple Battle.

Why is this route like this.

Hey, a Heatran! Bianca, guess what!

Oh so you don’t need Cut. Meh. I’m not in the mood.

Professor Juniper and Bianca say hello in town. Bianca, walk about twenty steps to the right so you can find something neat. You’ll love it, promise.

But no, it’s time to listen to an old lady talk about the Giant Chasm. I don’t wanna do that, either. I want my badges. I maybe should have taken the aquarium route to speed that along, but I don’t know if that would actually do anything.

Wait, I was spamming A. Was there a directive in there?

Hm. I sense plot ahead.

This villain understands me.

Oh cool battle time.

Russell, buddy, you run almost as much as blondie scarf from gen 4. Take a chill pill. You have won all the good big brother points you possibly could just by caring about a Purrloin this long.

So everything’s telling us to go to Opelucid. For Dragons.

Hard pass, where’s the surfer Gym? Water sounds way friendlier. I’m going to see if that one’s blocked off or not.

DAMN IT.

The janitor won’t let us pass. ;-;

Okay fine, I guess we’re heading to Opelucid. And plot, probably. The plot is of no interest to me. This is true in pretty much every single one of these games. I’m in it for the pokemon. The human with their human troubles are way less fun.

New route! What will it have for us?

I had to embrace fun when I saw one of the grass patches shaking. Our first route with a wiggly grass option! And it is...?

I’ll gladly take it!

...If I can catch it!

...Preferably without anyone dying!

I’m going to let Photon take a stab. Crunch should be super effective, but Photon doesn’t have STAB adding to it, and Metagross has rocking Defense. So this might be pathetically sad, but nothing should die.

PHOTON.

FRIEND.

NOT FOOD.

Three Ultra Balls in, I am sad.

But we get it! Huzzah!

Its name is Stormy. :)

Ouch, Caspet’s trying to learn Destiny Bond.

Caspet?

You’re not dying. This is the definition of a useless move.

What else does this here grass hold when it’s not wiggling?

ELEKID. Noooo. Why must we always pass like ships in the night... Claydol is also here.

The dark grass’ first entry is Jynx and Magikarp. Chingling is also here. Buizel too.

Cerberus has learned Drill Peck! Oh happy days!

Normal grass has Vaporeon, Huntail, and Spinda to go with what we’ve already seen.

Vertex is moving up front, and Diego is getting the Exp. Share instead of Cerberus for the time being.

Another bridge, another route.

Another set of trainers that really make me want to have a Fire type.

There’s dark grass on one side of the bridge, normal grass on the other. A pass through on my bike didn’t get anything to pop out of the dark grass, so normal grass wins the prize for this route’s catch.

Before that, there are trainer battles.

Of the Triple variety.

yay

Ooooooh. I like this. I like this a lot.

Vertex, do not murder.

Vertex follows instructions, paralyzes Vileplume, and dodges getting poisoned twice. This is why he’s allowed to live. One Ultra Ball later, and new friend acquired.

Named... Bongo.

Geez, this grass also has Mamoswine. We’re not fighting that. The water’s dark spots get Zebstrika.

Uh.

So she shoves me out.

Rude. I’m the protagonist. I go where I want.

I’m starting to rush a little since this part is getting long and I haven’t even hit the badge town, but hey! I do remember this sequence! I remembered it belonging to a different game, but A for effort, right?

Made it to Opelucid.

Since the game itself suggests via Iris to go to Route 9 first, I’m guessing I should clear up anywhere that offers trainers to fight before trying the Gym. Dragon is a pain anyway. I don’t have anything except Nessy’s Twister that’s super effective against it. I think even at the level I’m at, it should be okay, but I also think it could go incredibly badly, which I don’t want.

But before that, Route 11 didn’t force me to go through any grass, so I still have a pokemon to catch there. Let’s watch.

Huh, interesting. ...Vertex, let’s swap you out before something unfortunate happens. Though it is level 36, and he does know Crunch... Yeah, we’re going to be stupid. Magnitude 7 doesn’t do a threatening amount of damage. Yay.

She is caught, and her name shall be Winn.

Now the other side of Opelucid, after healing up.

Miltank! But we have a Miltank. Next.

I like.

Vertex. Critical hits are for trainer battles. Sigh. Farewell, Route 9. I think we could have been great together, but alas. Now to go through all the everything else to do in this route and then go finally get the seventh badge.

Hm. I think maybe I’ll just get everyone on the team up to 50, then go for it. Nice, even number.

Other things of note: I have found a Mart with Quick Balls. The world is bright. But for now, grinding. ...Against Torchic and Deerling, apparently. Maybe I want other grass. Oh, but dude. Glaceon in the dark grass. Nice. Ha, randomized and still offering super effective options outside scary gyms. Golduck and Nidorina are here, too. And Braviary and Pansage.

-winds the clock forward a few hours-

K, we’ve got folks at level 50 now. So, Drayden?

Dragons.

Cerberus is going to sit in first for a while. He’s on the fragile side, but his Attack and Speed are good, and Flying should be neutral to everything in the Gym. Same cloth as Caspet, only physical. Nessy might take over just for the comfort of tankiness, but this is where we start.

First person in the Gym has one level 46 Fraxure.

Dragons are scary.

Oh fuck you.

Fuck. That’s partially on me. If I had used Drill Peck instead of Fly, Fraxure would have been busy Dragon Dancing and would have done zero damage. But I used Fly to try to hit Fraxure hard while avoiding any of its attacks, and.

Look, the screencap’s right there.

Fuck.

Nessy’s going in, under the theory that nothing on my team is going before Dragon Dance x2 Fraxure, but Nessy’s the most likely option for surviving.

It uses Taunt so it doesn’t matter.

Great.

Great.

Cerberus, I like Dodrio. An Adamant Dodrio? Wonderful. You will be missed. Fly will be missed. Many things about this feel awful.

Bye.

Stormy is a Jolly Metagross that’s a little quick tempered.

Welcome. You’ll be given the Exp. Share while your new friends try very hard to make it through the rest of this Gym without casualties.

-drums fingers-

With Dragon Dance being a move everything in this Gym is probably going to know, I do not want to play the long game with any of the trainers. I want to go in and kill everything in one hit.

...Caspet is in front.

-hides eyes behind hands-

-gives Caspet a Spell Tag-

One trainer down as planned.

IIIIIII hate this gym.

Druddigon has Crunch. Things to keep in mind.

So now we have the most obnoxious part of this Gym. I get to choose between Rotation and Triple Battle for the next peg up it. My usual path says I do both. In case you haven’t noticed, I hate Triple Battles. Doing one is not high on my list of desired outcomes.

But I’d feel weird avoiding it. Famous last words. -sigh- Caspet, Vertex, Nessy. That’s the order. Let’s do this.

Easy part done. Rotation Battle win. Ugh.

For the sake of my sanity, I’m giving Caspet all three of my Rare Candy. Yes, I have a favorite, yes, it’s the closest thing I have to a starter. If I’m putting her so close to the chopping block, I’m going to make sure she’s fully equipped. Druddigons are surviving to attack her right now, and that’s no bueno.

Triple Battle. Weeee.

It ends in a round because Caspet wins at life. Awesome. Okay.

All that’s left is Drayden.

This guy’s face is a lot less scary when it isn’t up close.

Sooooooo. Level 46 Druddigon is first. Shadow Ball finishes it. Flygon is next. ...That one, I think I can trust to Nessy. Flygon isn’t as much about hard hits.

Level 46 again. Crunch gets a critical hit that just barely keeps Nessy in the green, Nessy uses Surf. Surf brings Flygon to a sliver of red, so I go with Surf again. Hopefully Flygon’s other moves don’t do more damage than a critical hit Crunch, or Drayden feels like healing it.

Yeah, Drayden goes with a Hyper Potion.

...Flygon’s next Crunch gets a critical hit too, what the hell.

Surf after that faints it, though. So that’s two out of three down.

Drayden’s last pokemon is Haxorus. Nessy’s too far in the red to keep in without healing, and Haxorus is high on the Dragon Dance strat list. But if Caspet can’t get it in one hit, I’m pretty confident in Haxorus’ ability to fuck Caspet up.

But I’m honestly pretty confident in Haxorus’ ability to fuck my entire team up. Caspet would be the best bet for ending it fast. ...So, you know. Caspet. Go. Go. not die.

Level 48 Haxorus. Yaaaaaaaaaaay.

CASPET YOU BEAUTIFUL GHOST.

THAT’S BADGE SEVEN.

WE’RE NOT ALL ALIVE BUT ENOUGH OF US ARE.

AND I WAS PREWARNED ABOUT GETTING TALKED TO OUTSIDE ABOUT UNOVA’S MYTHOLOGY, BUT FOR NOW THIS PART IS OVER, THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME.