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grailfinders · 3 years

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Fate and Phantasms #192

Today on Fate and Phantasms we're building the enchanting Caster of Okeanos, which despite her name doesn't actually show up in Okeanos, but rather the fourth pseudosingularity, Salem. She's also one of the last servants in the game (so far) to have her true name hidden, so pretty soon I can stop pointing out how her character build below the cut has true name spoilers. Specifically, this build also includes spoilers for the Salem pseudosingularity, so read at your own peril.

If you'd rather just check out her character sheet, you can find that over here.

Next up: The equal to the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, so just, equal to heaven, I guess.

Circe is a Transmutation Wizard, because she is a witch, and Transmutation is where they stuck polymorph.

Race and Background

Like her protege, Circe is an Elf, but if we want kindasorta falcon wings, that might be tricky. Just kidding, for some reason WotC thought winged elves were a priority, so we got Avariel Elves from an unearthed arcana. This means you only get +2 to a single stat, but we can make that Intelligence thanks to Tasha's for a brain blast. Your subrace gives you 30' of flying speed as long as you don't wear medium or heavy armor (not an issue), as well as the standard elf kit: Darkvision, Fey Ancestry to protect against charms, Trances instead of sleep, and proficiency in Perception thanks to your Keen Senses.

Circe lives on her island alone (if you don't count pigs) so that makes her a Hermit, privy to the secrets of the universe as well as Medicine and replacing the other proficiency (which we'll get back as a class proficiency) with Deception. Tricking men into turning into pigs is kind of a hobby for you.

Ability Scores

Your strongest score should go into Intelligence, that's how you cast spells, and also you're clearly more intelligent than the men who show up on your island. Speaking of, Charisma is next- you're a witch in the middle of a witch hunt that somehow never got caught, and there's also that whole Pig Island thing. Your Dexterity is also pretty good, it's hard enough to cast spells while walking, let alone flying. Also those heels, oh my fucking god how have you not broken an ankle yet. Your Constitution is above average mostly because I'd feel bad putting it any lower. That means your Wisdom is pretty low. You publicly introduce yourself as a witch in the middle of the Salem Witch Trials, and you're pretty flighty in general. Finally, dump Strength. You're a wizard, and you're clearly not that buff.

Class Levels

Circe is a wizard, meaning she starts off with proficiency in Intelligence and Wisdom saves, as well as Arcana and Religion. When you worship the goddess of magic, there isn't much of a difference, tbh. Speaking of magic, you can cast and prepare Spells using your Intelligence. Your spell slots normally only recharge on long rests, but once per long rest you can get a couple slots back on a short rest thanks to your Arcane Recovery, giving you back slots of a total level equal to half your wizard level rounded up. So when you hit level three, you can get back one 2nd level slot, or two 1st level slots. The thing about wizard is, they get a lot of spells. Six now, and two each level, plus whatever they can scavenge from other wizards. Since Circe's whole power set is "good at magic", there really isn't a set of spells that fit- any spell you could cast would be applicable. So rather than try to boil it down myself, we're just giving a rough guide here. There's a whole ass list on the character sheet, and we'll bring up the super important ones here, but really there's three qualifications: if a spell fits into one of these categories, Circe would probably have it. 1. Is it useful? The most open-ended, but just fill in spaces left by the other 2 with spells you want. I'm not a goddamn baby sitter, pick spells you like. 2. Can it turn one thing into another? Men to pigs, You into Medea, whatever kykeon is made out of into kykeon, this one's pretty easy to spot. 3. Can it help someone sail a ship? A bit specific, but helping the sailors she doesn't turn into pigs is also Circe's thing. Skill empowerment, weather control, that kind of thing. With all that out of the way, the big spells you'll probably want at first level are Mage Armor for not dying, Magic Missile for caster balls, and Sleep to knock out the sailors while you go around turning them to pigs. True Polymorph takes an hour per sailor and you need to recharge with a long rest, so this’ll take a while.

At second level, you become a Transmutation Savant, giving you all sorts of bonuses, like how copying transmutation spells into your book is cheaper and faster now. You can also make Minor Alchemy, turning 1 cubic foot of wood, stone, iron, copper, or silver, into another material on that list over the course of 10 minutes. You're not strong enough to shatter wooden chains either, but hopefully someone on your team is. This transformation lasts up to an hour or until you lose concentration, then it turns back to its regular form.

Third level wizards get Cantrip Formulas, letting you swap out one cantrip you know with a cantrip you don't know at the end of a long rest. You also get second level spells, like Alter Self to turn into Medea (among other benefits), and Gust of Wind to help out with sailing.

Use your first Ability Score Improvement to get a Keen Mind- always knowing which way you're facing and the angle the sun should be at are both really useful on the open sea. It also rounds up your Intelligence for stronger spells, and you can make your DM's life hell by remembering things up to a month after they happened.

Fifth level wizards get third level spells. Feign Death will help fake Mata Hari’s hanging later on, and Bestow Curse is super useful, since it can give a creature disadvantage on one kind of save. Like, say, wisdom saves. I wonder if there's a spell you like that requires a wisdom save coming up?

Sixth level transmutation wizards can create a Transmuter's Stone, a tiny object that gives its holder one of several benefits. When you make the stone, and if you're holding it while casting a transmutation spell, you can choose its beneft from the following: Darkvision, increased speed, proficiency in constitution saves, or resistance to one of acid, cold, fire, lightning, or thunder. You can only make one at a time after 8 hours of work, so don't try to stack them.

Seventh level wizards get fourth level spells, and you could get polymorph now if you really want, but you can also get that spell later for free, so if you're patient, you can get another spell now. If you do go for polymorph, it forces a wisdom save on a creature, and if they fail the save or they're willing, you can turn one creature into a beast with a CR equal to or less than the target's CR or level. All of the creature's stats are replaced by the new creature's, outside of alignment and personality. If it drops to 0 HP in this form, and hour passes, or you drop concentration, they turn back to normal. You can also cast other fourth level spells, like Control Water for sailing, Fabricate to turn... barley, just looked it up, into kykeon. Or any raw materials into a finished product that is Large or smaller.

At eighth level, you get another ASI that'll let you max out your Intelligence for super strong spells. That, plus your curses, will make your polymorph super hard to resist. When you get it.

Ninth level wizards get fifth level spells, like Control Winds and Skill Empowerment, as well as Scrying.

A tenth level transmuter is a Shapechanger, giving you the polymorph spell for free. You can also cast it on yourself once per short rest for free, but only if you turn into something CR 1 or lower. Sadly Medea isn't a beast or CR 1, but it doesn't hurt to practice. Also, yeah! You can now turn pretty much anyone into a Pig (CR 0, so there’s no excuse) or if you want to weaponize it, a Giant Boar (CR 2). Just promise to turn them back if they do your bidding. Still only lasts an hour, but they don’t have to know that.

Eleventh level wizards get sixth level spells. There really isn’t anything specifically Circe-like I want at this level, so just grab whatever your heart wants. There will be time for specifics later.

At twelfth level you get another ASI, and since your intelligence is maxed out we can diversify. Grab the War Caster feat for advantage on concentration saves (very good for pigmaking), the ability to cast spells with your hands full (not applicable), and best of all, you can cast spells as opportunity attacks if that spell as an action casting time and targets a creature. Oh hey, guess what spell fits that description?

Thirteenth level casters get seventh level spells! Again, not necessarily anything you need from here, but Plane Shift is always cool. Maybe you can stumble onto the pig dimension or something.

Your last goody from the transmutation specialty is to become a Master Transmuter, burning your transmuter stone in one go for a burst of magical power. Afterwards, you can’t make a new one until you take a long rest. You can use this for a Major Transformation, permanently changing a medium or smaller nonmagical object into another of similar size & mass (you also can’t cheese value out of this) over the course of 10 minutes. Alternatively, you make a Panacea, removing all curses, diseases, and poisons from a single creature, while also healing it back to full health. That’s some good eating. Going even further, you can Restore Life to cast Raise Dead without a spell slot. Death is a pretty hard line in the Nasuverse, but if anyone could do it it’d probably be Circe. Finally, you can Restore Youth to reduce a creature’s age by 3d10 years without extending their lifespan. You’ve clearly used that on yourself a couple times, but I can’t blame you.

Fifteenth level wizards get eighth level spells, and for once there is something I want to get. You might not use Scylla in-game, but hey, giant sea monsters are cool, so use either Summon Greater Demon, Dominate Monster, or Illusory Dragon to get one, depending on your preferred method.

You get yet another ASI, so bump up your Constitution for better concentration and more health- remember, health gets added retroactively, so that’s 16 extra this level, not one.

At seventeenth level you finally get ninth level spells, giving you access to Mass Polymorph for a proper pig banquet. This one is limited to only half the targets’ levels, but a pig is still CR 0, so it shouldn’t be a big issue. However, if you’re feeling really cruel, you can use True Polymorph for a more... permanent solution. If you keep concentration up for a full hour, the change lasts until it is dispelled. You can also turn objects into creatures, or creatures into objects, but none of those are particularly in character.

Eighteenth level wizards get Spell Mastery, giving you a 1st & 2nd level spell that you can cast for absolutely free, no restrictions. You can always change it later, but I highly suggest Magic Missile so you always have some damage on standby, and Alter Self for the versatility of it.

Your penultimate level grants you your ultimate ASI, so bump up your Charisma for an easier time tricking sailors. It doesn’t do much for the build, but at this point it doesn’t need to.

Your final level of the build gives you two Signature Spells, 3rd level spells that you can cast once per short rest without spending a spell slot. Sadly polymorph is a fourth level spell so it isn’t in the running, but Bestow Curse and Tidal Wave are good runners up. I never said you had to be nice to sailors, just help them out occasionally.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Polymorph is one of the easiest ways to utterly shut down an enemy if it hits, at the very least buying you an hour to run away and regroup. It’s also very funny.

The Transmuter’s Stone is a very powerful support tool, protecting you and giving you healing options wizards don’t normally get. You also come loaded with tools like Skill Empowerment, which is just flexible enough to be useful even when you’re not on a ship.

You get concentration free flight, which is incredibly useful for a spellcaster. Being able to completely avoid an enemy’s front line and turn their back line into pigs is very useful.

Cons

The reason your flight being concentration free is such a big deal is because a lot of your spells use concentration. Honestly, your saves aren’t that bad (esp. with war caster) but it still limits your options, especially when your signature move requires concentration.

While your stone is powerful, it has a huge recharge time to contend with, requiring a long rest followed by an extra 8 hours of work, and the entire time between now and then you might as well not have a subclass. It’s a pretty harsh penalty for actually using your class feature.

It takes a while for this build to go from level one to casting polymorph, so if you want a build you can jump right into and feel like the character, this build definitely isn’t what you’re looking for.

#caster of okeanos #DND 5e #D&D #FGO #fate grand order #wizard

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something-in-the-seas · 3 years

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Sorry to bother once again, (I had the Bioshock Infinite bullshit centrism ask and the Burial at Sea ask) but I’m replaying Bioshock 2 again as well and I can’t help but think...why does this one in particular have such a hardcore fan base? Returning to Rapture just isn’t very thrilling whatsoever, and the level design as well as even the graphic design of ads and art in the world is an enormous downgrade from the first game. Sure, the gameplay was good for 2008, but it has aged pretty badly a few things aside (the improved hacking creates great moments of tension). The color palette of the game goes from brown to dark golds, and the splicers just aren’t as engaging either. The world building and characters just feel incredibly expository and unnecessary. Sophia Lamb and collectivism just feels like cliche cult writing and not as wholly dangerous as objectivism/anarcho-capitalism and also feels like at times it’s just trying to do a critique of left wing politics and it doesn’t work. I understand Rapture is pretty much a post apocalyptic society and is just degrading rapidly, but the world just isn’t as immersive as the first and feels like a cheap imitation. Minerva’s Den really feels like the saving grace of this game, and it’s story is much better, but it is unfortunately relegated to being DLC. People complain about Bioshock Infinite’s retcons, but this entire game feels like it doesn’t have actual canonical parity to the first game and wholly unnecessary. I understand that 2k gave devs a VERY limited amount of time (like maybe a year and a half) and they got screwed over and that contributes to a lot of the shortcomings, but I just don’t understand why people in the OG fandom love it. Levine sucks, but even him and that team got shafted by 2k and forced to streamline a lot of the content they had originally made for Infinite(I was obsessed with the development of Infinite, and they brought in Gears of War and Call of Duty managers to streamline everything for the mainstream gamers from what I remember) Knowing this...why should Levine or that team consider Bioshock 2 a canon entry to the world they created? Through this lens I almost understand why Levine and that development team basically broke that universe with Burial at Sea, quite possibly knowing that studio would be dissolved and knowing 2k(a horrendous company tbh) would want to continue using the brand name and world of Rapture for a thing that team worked on for so long. As far as the Bioshock Rapture novel itself and canon...the novel itself doesn’t take a lot of the canonical events in Bioshock 1 into consideration and a lot of the prose just feels flat :/

Well, as a fan of Bioshock 2, I guess I’ll shed some insight as to why it has such a devoted fan base and why people have really turned around on the game in recent years. The game isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, and Minerva’s Den is fantastic, but it holds a special place in my heart.

Bioshock 2 absolutely still has the best game play in the series. Compared to the original Bioshock, which does feel a bit clunky, and Infinite, which doesn’t even have a weapon wheel, Bioshock 2 takes the combat system introduced in the first game and significantly improves it. Dual wielding plasmids and weapons is a game changer, you’re able to efficiently swap between the two without the wait time of pulling out your weapon. There’s a reason why people want the new game to have 2’s style of combat. Compared to Infinite’s shooting gallery style game play, it still favors exploration like the first but also experimentation when it comes to using your plasmids.

2’s designs and color pallets can still be absolutely gorgeous. It’s been eight years since Bioshock, so things are going to be rusted and in terrible shape. The game also focuses on the poorest parts of Rapture compared to the original game, which has you go to the richest neighborhoods and entertainment centers. Pauper’s Drop isn’t going to be as pretty as Arcadia or Fort Frolic.

Compared to Infinite, which is just twist after twist to try to out do the iconic WYK twist in Bioshock, 2’s story is simple: you’re just a dad trying to save your daughter. However, it does what Infinite cannot and gives you freedom. You’re able to kill or walk away and it changes the story. The characters you meet are less way expository than the ones in Infinite, who just appear to shed some backstory on Booker or Elizabeth and then die. Sparing Slate doesn’t matter, but sparing Grace does.

Grace, for example, is able to recognize Delta’s humanity and turn away from Lamb’s cult because her love for Eleanor is stronger than her fear of Lamb. As you read her audio diaries, you find out she’s an incredibly tragic character who isn’t a bad person, the world has just hurt her. Showing compassion to Grace is something she’ll never forget, and while Stanley and Gil are never seen again, I think if the team had more time, they would have included their responses. It’s implied through the statues in Persephone, though, that Delta sparing Stanley gets him to finally get his shit together and Gil is able to fight back against Alex the Great. The biggest twist 2 comes from Sinclair not being your Judas like Atlas was, even though the game hints at this, but he selflessly sacrifices himself for you and Eleanor because he’s grown to care about you.

Lamb is a controversial villain, but I think she’s miles better than Comstock when it comes to writing. She’s a terrifying, powerful figure who doesn’t rely on sexualization to get what she wants. She’s very intelligent, she runs circles around Ryan and Fontaine. Her ideals aren’t exactly terrible and she started off wanting to do the right thing, but she emotionally manipulates and gaslights people around her to do what she wants. She takes advantage of others and at the end doesn’t care about her “family.” They’re a means to an end for her, the end being Eleanor becoming her “utopian.” She’s emotionally and physically abusive to Eleanor and doesn’t respect her autonomy.

I see Bioshock 2 as less of a criticism of leftism, but more of a criticism on cults and organized religions in general. Unlike the original Bioshock, which has references to Judaism because the majority of the characters are Jewish, 2 has a lot of references to Christianity. A lot of people have a hard time understanding what exactly Lamb believes, but if you put in perspective the similarities The Rapture Family has to the Catholic Church, than things make a lot more sense. Lamb and her followers commit cruel acts under their “religion,” Delta commits good acts because it’s the right thing to do.

2 doesn’t feel very connected to the other games, though it should really with Infinite given the glaring similarities between the two. It feels like it’s own story and that works with me. There are huge stakes with Lamb possibly destroying the world if she wins, but it also has the sweetest father-daughter relationship in gaming. You have Mark Meltzer, who goes through hell and back to find Cindy and gives up his life for her, and you have Delta and Eleanor. There’s no animosity, there’s no tension, they just love each other unconditionally. Delta’s love for Eleanor is so powerful that a whole city full of cultish splicers and Big Sisters just couldn’t stop him.

There’s definitely things in 2 that are problematic like the homophobic brute splicers, but it’s not just my favorite of the trilogy, it’s my favorite game of all time. I love Bioshock 2. I love Bioshock 2 because it doesn’t try to be more than what it is. You’re a dad who loves your daughter, and she loves you. When I first played Burial at Sea, I was so glum that I played Minerva’s Den and Bioshock 2 and I felt so much better with this being the chronological end of the series (for now). Also the Little Sisters are adorable and the highlight of the game, they have so much personality now.

It’d actually break my heart if 2K actually listened to Ken and made it not canon, it’s not his decision to make. Thankfully, though, it looks like we’re getting more 2 and Eleanor content which is awesome. I can’t wait to see an adult Eleanor on next gen graphics in her prime showing off why she’s the GOAT of the OG series.

#bioshock #bioshock 2 #augustus sinclair #subject delta #eleanor lamb #sofia lamb #this game definitely isn’t for everyone but I love it #but a lot of people who hated on it when infinite was released are coming around #it’s a legit good game just not as grandiose as 1 and infinite #but being so grandiose hurts those games massively #after Ryan died the plot for 1 nose dives and infinite’s ending is an absolute mess #2 stays consistently good same with Minerva’s den

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tigerkirby215 · 3 years

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5e Kayle, the Righteous build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Jessica “OwleyCat” Oyhenart and Victor “3rdColossus” Maury. Made for Riot Games.)

You know I find it funny that I haven’t made a build for Kayle yet, given that I made Morgana awhile ago sort of as a spur of the moment thing. Despite the fact that I main support I really don’t play Morgana (can’t hit skill shots omegalul), but meanwhile I really like Kayle. She was one of the first champions I played along with Sona since I was told she was very similar to Terrorblade who was one of my favorite carries in DOTA 2. I dropped her for a bit after her rework but I picked her up again and she’s still super fun! I mean, shame she’s kinda trash in the meta.

Anyways it’s about time I make a build for her since Morgana was alone for so long, especially since she’s coming back along with Pentakill! Kayle’s probably the perfect character to play if you want to go Lawful Stupid, but out of respect for everyone else please don’t play her Lawful Stupid.

GOALS

On wings of fire, hope ascends - It’s the quest of all champions to eventually transcend mortals. Hopefully we’ll at least be able to fly after this.

Fire reveals truth - Kayle is also well-known for her Zealous attack speed, so we’ll need to be able to get out as much DPS as possible.

The worthy survive! - A little bit of Divine Judgement goes a long way. An explosion of flaming swords helps too.

RACE

This may come as a surprise to you but Kayle is an Aasimar. More specifically a Protector Aasimar, which is rather fitting seeing as she’s seen as The Protector in Demacia. As an Aasimar your Charisma increases by 2, but I’m going to increase your Constitution instead of the typical Wisdom increase from Protector Aasimar, for a bit more lane sustain.

You have Celestial Resistance to both your own Radiant damage and your sister’s Necrotic damage, have the Light Bearer feature for the Light cantrip, and can give yourself or an ally a Celestial Blessing thanks to Healing Hands. It only heals up to your level but it certainly helps!

You also get Darkvision and the Celestial language, and Radiant Soul at level 3 thanks to your Protector subrace, We’ll discuss that when we get to level 3.

ABILITY SCORES

15; CHARISMA - League of Legends body types, am I right? Sure you have a bit of an “evil must be purged” personality, but D&D Paladins like that a lot.

14; DEXTERITY - Something something medium armor. I would call what you wear Half Plate, which means that for once the choice of Medium Armor is accurate!

13; STRENGTH - This feels strangely familiar...

12; CONSTITUTION - Kayle is very squishy in League but I like not dying so...

10; INTELLIGENCE - You may have lived through history but most of that time was spent up in the stars. Basically we need everything else more.

8; WISDOM - Yeah I didn’t increase Wisdom with your racial increase because I was planning to dump it. Kayle’s fatal flaw is that she’s blinded by her sense of justice, which is a sign of poor Wisdom and critical decision making.

BACKGROUND

There isn’t a great background for “Half of the Aspect of Justice” but Celebrity Adventurer’s Scion works fairly well. You get proficiency with Perception as well as Performance (you were in Pentakill, after all!), a Disguise Kit (but I’d maybe replace that with something else or ditch it entirely), and two languages of your choice. (Pick your poison.)

Your background feature Name Dropping lets you tell people that your mom was actually a god. You might be able to find people who knew your mom (or more realistically worshiped her before... you know... you became half of her?) and folk might recognize that you’re... half a god, and give you free stuff.

(Artwork by Alvin Lee and Kan Liu. Made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - SORCERER 1

Starting off as a Sorcerer because Kayle is about as useless as a level 1 Sorcerer at level 1. (Also because CON saves are nice.) But you can also grab proficiency with Religion (you are a god, after all) and Intimidation. (Because you aren’t exactly nice.)

Sorcerers get to choose their Sorcerous Origin at level 1 and Divine Soul is like being a Cleric but you get to dump your Wisdom because you’re blind to morality. You get one free spell from your Divine Magic and I guess Bless makes sense since its attached to Law? Honestly there are other spells I’d recommend (Protection from Evil and Good would be helpful, and you can’t go wrong with either Healing Word or Guiding Bolt) but it’s honestly easier to just take Bless and call it there.

But of course since you get Divine Magic that means you get Spellcasting! You learn 4 cantrips from the Sorcerer list at level 1 such as Firebolt to smite the wicked, Sacred Flame for enemies with a lot of armor (but hopefully bad Dexterity), Thaumaturgy to make sure your words are heard, and Guidance because it’s good to provide aid to those who need it.

You also learn two spells from the Sorcerer list: we’ll be taking Mage Armor for the same reason you buy Doran’s Shield as a top laner (because laning phase sucks and you’re weak as hell at level 1), and we’ll also grab Healing Word for your Celestial Blessing. As a treat.

You are also Favored by the Gods, so if you miss an attack roll or fail a saving throw you can add 2d4 to the roll to potentially turn it into a success. Given that you’ll likely be making a lot of attack rolls later in this build it’s very useful to be able to give yourself some insurance.

LEVEL 2 - SORCERER 2

Second level Sorcerers get a Font of Magic for Sorcery Points equal to your Sorcerer level. For now all you can really do with them is get one of your spell slots back, but they’ll be more useful later on.

For something that’s useful right now take Ice Knife for the AoE burst of your Starfire Spellblade. Yes it does Cold damage, but you also shouldn’t have an AoE E by level 2. Hell you technically shouldn’t even be a ranged champion yet. We have to make compromises here.

If you want a single target Starfire Spellblade Guiding Bolt is a decent choice I suppose.

LEVEL 3 - SORCERER 3

Third level Sorcerers gain the power of the Aspects thanks to Metamagic. You learn two Metamagic options to change your spells in various ways: Quickened Spell will let you increase your attack speed to slay the unjust with Zealous fervor, and while it’s perhaps not the most practical choice Transmuted Spell will let you wield holy fire, instead of holy ice or whatever other damage type you pick up.

If you don’t care about doing specifically fire damage than Empowered Spell is a good choice to more effectively maximize damage.

As a Protector Aasimar your Radiant Soul lets you sprout wings as an action. For 1 minute you have a 30 foot flying speed and can add your Charisma modifier as Radiant damage to one target whenever you deal damage. It might not be much at level 3 but the extra damage from Starfire Spellblade adds up when you get more AP! Oh and to top it off you can also learn another spell like Misty Step, for Flash.

LEVEL 4 - SORCERER 4

4th level Sorcerers get the first of many Ability Score Improvements. Increase your uneven Charisma score as well as your Constitution score for nice, even, Lawful stats.

You can also learn another cantrip like Message to keep in team chat, as well as a leveled spell like Spiritual Weapon. Kayle summons hundreds of swords for her ultimate so I think it’s fine if you summon one sword for some more DPS.

LEVEL 5 - SORCERER 5

Normally I wouldn’t go out of my way to get 5th level spells but we kinda need Fly more than once per Long Rest. Sprout those wings or grant the gift of angelic ascension to an ally!

The bad witch Tasha also gave Sorcerers Magical Guidance, letting you spend a Sorcerery Point to reroll a failed ability check.

(Artwork by Zeen Chin. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 6 - PALADIN 1

I swear it wasn’t my intention to make two casters with Paladin levels one after another, but we’re doing it anyways because it’s not like Kayle wouldn’t be a Paladin. First level Paladins get Divine Sense to know of any villains who need justice, and Lay on Hands to save the righteous.

LEVEL 7 - PALADIN 2

Second level Paladins get to choose their Fighting Style. Normally I’d take Blessed Warrior for a character who’s more-or-less a pure caster but you kinda get too many Cleric cantrips as is, so we’ll settle for good ol’ Defense because you can’t go wrong with +1 AC.

Protection and Interception are also fine to help your friends if you’re willing to hold onto a shield (no reason not to), and if you want to do a funny joke you can take Blind Fighting because Justice is Blind.

But of course what we’re mostly here for is Spellcasting: sure you got the entire Cleric list at your disposal but Sorcerer spells known is very limited, so take the following from the Paladin list:

Command to force evildoers to grovel at your feet.

Detect Evil and Good to... detect evil and good.

Protection from Evil and Good to... yeah this is fairly obvious too.

Heroism to empower heroes.

Shield of Faith to protect the righteous.

You also get Divine Smite, which sure would be nice if you used your sword as a melee weapon. I mean if you want to hit someone in melee you can turn a spell slot into damage but I kinda have to wonder why would you.

LEVEL 8 - PALADIN 3

Third level Paladins get to choose their Sacred Oath. Honestly just about any Paladin Oath would work for Kayle, but an Oath of Redemption would probably be best after you failed to upkeep justice the first time. Along with adding Sanctuary and Sleep to your spell list you also get two Channel Divinity options: if you go for Emissary of Peace you can add a flat +5 to all your Persuasion checks for 10 minutes. But Rebuke the Violent works great as a recreation of Divine Judgment’s damaging effect! When a creature within 30 feet of you damages someone other than you they must make a Wisdom saving throw after you use this reaction. If they fail they will take the same amount of damage they dealt as Radiant damage, and if they succeed they will take half. This has no maximum limit so you can use it when an enemy nukes your allies to have them experience retribution! "Drown in holy fire!"

The vial witch Tasha also lets you Harness Divine Power with your Channel Divinity to regain a spell slot equal to half your proficiency bonus once per Long Rest. And finally you get Divine Health, because justice doesn’t take sick days.

(Artwork by John Yucedag. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 9 - PALADIN 4

4th level Paladins get another Ability Score Improvement so cap off that Charisma modifier, because we’re building AP in this build. Maxed out Charisma also means more prepared spells, but we’re going to wait for...

LEVEL 10 - PALADIN 5

5th level Paladins get an Extra Attack which sure would matter if you were actually swinging that sword instead of shooting Fire Bolts and Sacred Flames.

But what does matter is that you get second level Paladin spells! Along with Hold Person and Calm Emotions from the Redemption spell list (you should perhaps cast Calm Emotions on yourself at some point?) you can prepare spells like Aid to boost yourself and your allies, and Warding Bond (Tasha’s work once again) to take some damage for an ally. (Which is almost like making them immune to damage?)

LEVEL 11 - PALADIN 6

The only reason to multiclass into Paladin as a caster would be for Aura of Protection. Seeing as your Charisma modifier is maxed out already that means that you (and your allies within 10 feet) can add +5 to all their saving throws! I really don’t think I need to explain why that’s useful: your Constitution saves are now a +11 (meaning that if you take 22 damage or less you automatically succeed the Concentration check) and even your lowest save is still a +4!

You can also prepare one last spell but I’m actually going to take this time to remind you that Paladins are prepared spellcasters. Even though you have a relatively limited amount of Paladin spells be sure to swap them around to whatever’s the most useful for your task at hand. But if you must pick up a spell Detect Magic is never bad to have?

(Artwork by Alex “alexplank” Flores. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 12 - SORCERER 6

Now that the obligatory Paladin levels are done it’s time to go back to Sorcerer. Hope your party didn’t expect you to be the support because you’re only now getting Empowered Healing to spend a Sorcery point and reroll any healing that you or an ally within 5 feet performs. I mean by total level 12 healing numbers will actually get pretty big, so this becomes a lot more useful!

But speaking of healing we’ll be getting not that but Haste instead. While you can’t use it too well (can only use it to make a weapon Attack, Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object) you can turn your allies into an avenging angel! As long as you can keep your Concentration which I mean... you have a +11 to your CON save.

LEVEL 13 - SORCERER 7

Unfortunately there’s no spell to make someone completely immune to damage for one round (while also still letting them move as normal except the 9th level spell Invulnerability that you can only cast on yourself) so we’ll just have to settle for Death Ward keeping the target you cast this on alive after reaching 0 HP. No rain of holy swords either unfortunately.

LEVEL 14 - SORCERER 8

8th level Sorcerers get an Ability Score Improvement and I think it’s about time for us to grab Metamagic Adept for 2 more Sorcery points to use on your Metamagic options like Twinned Spell to spread your wrath amongst all, and Careful Spell to avoid hurting those allied to your cause.

Speaking of AoE damage Vitriolic Sphere may do Acid damage but it’s a great recreation of the AoE damage of a high level Starfire Spellblade.

LEVEL 15 - SORCERER 9

Behold the might of 5th level spells! Remember how I was a little disappointed that you didn’t have the ability to make flaming swords rain down from the sky? Here you go: Flame Strike! Sure it basically does the damage of Fireball (and hey feel free to grab Fireball if you’re so inclined) but it has the holy flair that’s to be expected of Kayle.

If you want something more interesting than “Radiant damage Fireball” Dawn is also a good spell choice.

LEVEL 16 - SORCERER 10

10th level Sorcerers get another Metamagic option! Seeing as weve already got plenty thanks to Metamagic Adept one of the few options left is Heightened Spell to make sure your foes tremble beneath your might! You can also grab another cantrip like Prestidigitation for more generalized divine power.

And finally there’s also plenty of great spells you can take but Dispel Evil and Good probably fits Kayle the best. Now is a great time to remind everyone that you’re more than welcome to make your own Kayle, and while what I take may be “accurate” it’s not even necessarily what I’d build if I was making the character.

(Artwork by West Studio. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 17 - SORCERER 11

11th level Sorcerers can finally ascend! I hope you kept your Paladin weapons because it’s time for Tasha’s Otherworldly Guise! Calling upon the power of the Upper Planes (or lower planes too I guess if you’re awful) you get:

Resistance to Radiant and Necrotic damage (which you already have. Oops.) (I mean Lower Planes would make you immune to Fire and Poison damage...)

Immunity to the Charmed condition.

A 40 foot flying speed.

+2 AC

The ability to use your Charisma to attack, meaning that you can finally swing a sword well!

And the ability to attack twice, which you already have.

And the cool part is that unlike Tenser’s Transformation you can cast spells and don’t Exhaust yourself after using this spell! If you want to finally use your Paladin levels to bright the fight to your opponents you finally have the power to do so!

LEVEL 18 - SORCERER 12

12th level Sorcerers get another Ability Score or Feat and I’m simply going to suggest the Tough feat. Even if Kayle doesn’t usually build health in League you can, and d6 hit die suck when it comes to actually surviving.

What? Did you expect another spell known? Nah fuck you lmao WoTC says no to Sorcerers having spells.

LEVEL 19 - SORCERER 13

13th level Sorcerers can learn 7th level spells and while this may seem like a copout I have none that I really want for Kayle. Pick whatever you think would be the coolest since you can make your own choices by level 19. (My personal vote for Kayle would be Fire Storm but you are kinda loading up on AoE spells.)

LEVEL 20 - SORCERER 14

Our final level is the 14th level of Divine Soul Sorcerer to finally ascend. You have Otherworldly Wings for a permanent 30 foot flying speed! You did it! You reached max level as Kayle! You’re now unstoppable!

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Kneel before the light! - Your spells known go up to 7th level, and your spell slots go up to 9th. I really don’t think I have to explain that a full leveled caster is extremely powerful.

What is dark in me, I will illuminate - Even your non-spellcasting has great utility. Both your Channel Divinity options are extremely useful, and a little bit of Lay on Hands healing never hurt anyone. Not to mention your Aasimar transformation providing a flat +20 to damage every turn while it’s active!

I am your salvation! - Even if you aren’t running up in melee range Paladin levels do help a ton for staying alive. +5 to all saves is no joke, especially when it means that your Concentration save sits at a whopping +13! (You have to take more than 26 damage to even have a chance at failing your Concentration check!)

CONS

Why have we wings, sister, if not to fly? - You’d think a high Charisma would at least make you good at socializing but... no you’re not even that. Proficiency in the “mean” Charisma skills and mediocre ability scores in everything other than Charisma means you’ll contribute very little other than divine wrath.

Wings of Immortal Flame, lift me from mortal temptation! - How much flight is too much flight? Between your Radiant Soul, Tasha’s Otherworldly Guise, and you know... the Fly spell you have quite a lot of ways to take to the skies which all become near-completely redundant by level 20.

Celestial justice, guide my blade - Ironically enough one of the biggest issues with this build is how long it takes to get online. The Paladin dip may keep you safe but it’s not making you stronger, and I doubt you’ll be sitting beside your friends like a support. If you don’t mind praying to darker powers Genie Warlock is actually a great choice to get considerably more damage (and “attack speed!”) with Eldritch Blast and easily accessible flight by level 6 in Warlock. (Celestial Warlock also exists if you want more healing utility and want to stay in flavor.)

Of course weakness is something to shed as you come closer to divinity, but remember that even if mortality makes you weak mortals are not. Your allies will fight by your side and its your duty to protect them, as they shall no doubt protect you. Treat them with respect and vanquish evil together! Because no one likes a lawful stupid top laner.

(Artwork by Atey Ghailan. Made for Riot Games.)

#dnd #dnd 5e #dnd build #dnd guide #League of Legends #League of Legends Kayle #angel #avenging #avenging angel #light #wrath #dnd sorcerer #dnd paladin #Pentakill

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frobin · 3 years

Text

Analysis: Do Franky and Robin count as married?

Okay let’s get this started! And how? With looking up the definition of marriage!

marriage (noun) mar·riage | \ ˈmer-ij, ˈma-rij \

Definition of marriage

1a: the state of being united as spouses in a consensual and contractual relationship recognized by law

1b: the mutual relation of married persons: WEDLOCK

1c: the institution whereby individuals are joined in a marriage

2: an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities

3: an intimate or close union // the marriage of painting and poetry— J. T. Shawcross

So, marriage is a consensual and contractual union/relationship between spouses.

Webster also adds, that marriage is a very controversial word.

And while they point out some very interesting facts, we will concentrate on only this part (because we don’t care for American law right now):

The definition of the word marriage—or, more accurately, the understanding of what the institution of marriage properly consists of—continues to be highly controversial. (...) Ultimately, the controversy involves cultural traditions, religious beliefs, legal rulings, and ideas about fairness and basic human rights.

So, when we call something a marriage we always have to consider the culture, traditions, religious beliefs, legal rulings, ideas about fairness and basic human rights. Which can become difficult, since we are talking about a fictional world. In the end we will have to consider our own cultural background and in my case it is very euro-centric but I’ll try my best to not make it too much about that.

In the next step we should answer the question... (after the read more)

Why should anyone marry?

Nowadays there are three main reasons for marriage:

religious reason

legal reason

love

But let’s be honest, the deeper we dig, the more we can put together religious and legal reason, because in the end, many religions were the original background to legal texts. What more are the 10 commandments than a rulebook for living as a group?

That does not change that it’s still important for many to have a religious wedding. Being married by a priest in a church, in a temple, with the customs of they grew up with. For some it means to be with their partner even after death.

The legal reason is becoming more important in many “modern” countries. Being married can mean that there are tax benefits, security in ownership, security with child paternity and adoption and many more. Often only legal family members are allowed to visit a patient in hospitals and are allowed to make decisions for the spouse.

(Sometimes it’s already enough to just be engaged.)

The last reason does not need any explaining I guess: Love. If you love and know your spouse and want to stay together forever and make it clear to everyone, marry them! Celebrate with your friends and family and tell everyone “we stick together through good and bad until death do us part”.

Now then let’s ask

Why should Franky and Robin marry?

Religious reasons:

We don’t know much about religion in One Piece. We see symbolism of Christianity, Satanism and Buddhism. Alabasta is inspired by old Egypt and the three weapons are named after planets or Roman god, while Big Mom named her homies after Greek gods.

Anyway, neither Franky nor Robin seem to be very religious. Robin met a “god” they both have seen how a following named Usopp a god. The celestial dragons are referred to as almost god-like. They’ve been to Thriller Bark and met Brook who is undead. Do they believe in a higher power? We don’t know but either way they don’t seem bothered by it.

So it does not seem like there is a need to marry because of religious reasons.

So what about legal reasons?

Both Franky and Robin are wanted criminals, not only in one country but in the whole world. As of now there is no reason for them to make their marriage legal because there is no law they abide to.

Officially they only exist as pirates within the Marine documentation. I don’t think either of them have their birth certificate. Robins place of birth is destroyed. Franky was probably born at sea. I think the only place where they would really sign themselves as citizens is Water Seven and - depending on what is going to happen - even that is highly unlikely.

They also don’t really seem to have anything in their possession of value. They basically live in an almost commune-like environment on Sunny where people probably do have their own things but also seem to share everything. So there is also no need to clear that up in the case of a divorce or of the death of one spouses. And again both being pirates, if they have children there won’t be any issue with child support or paternity. Because let’s be real, as long as they are part of the crew, Robin and Franky might be the parents by blood but kids will be raised by everyone.

There is no need to register with a government and no need for a contract. So no legal reason to be married.

So, love it is?

Yes. Yes it is. That is their pure reason to get “married”. But then again, what does marriage mean? Nowadays it’s always accredited by law or religion. Both seems unlikely and unnecessary for Franky and Robin.

So even if they love each other, can we claim that they are married? For whom should they clarify their relationship?

They are living within a small group of people so as long as they are openly in love it does not really matter if they are married or not.

BUT! Let’s take a look at the definition once more and more closely to point 2.

2: an act of marrying or the rite by which the married status is effected especially : the wedding ceremony and attendant festivities or formalities

If Franky and Robin decided to have a wedding ceremony of any kind just for the party, then there is no reason to do so in front of an entity or a government. And it will still be of the same value as any other marriage.

Now you may ask “Who is going to perform the marriage? And why?”

Good question! What about the captain? Well, there is no real evidence that pirate captains were allowed to or had the power to perform a wedding. We do know that Matelotage was a practice within pirate crews, comparable to a gay marriage and a contract. But I couldn’t find any fast information of how it was ‘legalized’. Female pirates were a rarity but maybe hetero Matelotage was a thing too? As for modern times, it really depends under which flag the ship is sailing, if the captain is allowed to perform marriage.

But again, we’re talking about a (fictional) pirate crew so they sail under their own flag and who is to say that Luffy is not able to do it as a captain? Heck, if Luffy does not want to do it, Brook used to be a captain, Jinbe too.

So, if Franky and Robin decide to celebrate a wedding of any kind and promise in front of witnesses whatever they feel like that means to be married, then yes. These two will be married.

So, are Franky and Robin married?

Sadly, no. Because we didn’t see the wedding ceremony.

By the pure definition of it, as our modern understanding goes, Franky and Robin are not married.

But...

Can I still call them married?

Heck yeah! Because we all know what we mean by it: that they are in a consensual and committed relationship.

And so it does not matter if you think it’s an asexual or sexual relationship. It does not matter if they are also polyamorous or monogamous. It does not matter which gender or sexuality you headcanon.

You can also headcanon that they indeed had the party that made it all “official”. You can imagine it in any way you want because that is what is so beautiful about your own mind. No one can take that from you.

In conclusion...

Canon? No. Fanon? You know it ;)

After all Robin already has her wedding dress:

Happy June, that is both pride month and apparently the best month to marry! ... Isn’t that an interesting coincidence?

PS. Feel free to use the exact same logic for any Strawhat Ship! Or any Pirate Ship for that matter.

#Frobin #One Piece #OP Meta #OP Analysis #Are Franky and Robin married?#Wedding in June #Headcanon #Analysis #pride month #canon #This took me way too long #huge shout out to Bones who did some beta reading #Also look at that dress #kon #Sorry for any remaining mistakes #they are my fault alone

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rurifangirl · 3 years

Note

chile, could ya explain the magic system in yo oc world more? im kinda confused w how it works👁👄👁

Oh boy, here we go bitches.

So as an intro to this, I said bout last oc post in Qiran's part that their fam was full of mages n shit, but also some of em weren't, n since they do have magic istelf Imma do more parts (3 parts)

First part- how does It all work (Humans/Mages)

First of all, not all of em have a connection with magic, for example Evelyn doesn't at all while Lyva does but only through a magical item so It doesn't really count.

Other then that, if you're born you can either be born with some kind of magic, or simply not. It all depends from your family's lineage, for example If you come from a family of mainly rougues it's hard to get some kind of magical power, while if your parents have both some kind of power or even if it's only one of em, it's more likely you'll end up with something really similar, or a mixture of the two. (In case both of your parents have magical powers of any sort.)

It also depends on where you're living, for example If you'd be born from a cold place it's unlikely ya'd have magma magic rather than snow magic.

Between humans/mages the system Is kinda the same, but that does change for Hybrids/Demi gods/anything that isn't born between the same species.

Between humans/mages it's more of how their ancestors managed to treat its powers, as some got even destroyed for not being worthy of its usage, so If anything at this point and time they're lucky about getting somethin.

Mages are far more cautious about It, having both a lot of hidden knowlege about spells or even origins of some types of magic, though that being the most "common" ones, (for example fire, water ect.), because it's not only them of course, there's far more variants and all are different from eachother.

They can also get stronger by the worshipping of certain gods, which I don't think I will really talk about, at least in this post. (And also because they're still a wip of mine)

But the gang until now really never relied on any of them, or at least Lyva/Rui n Naexi never really did, while the others absolutely did. This Is also why I will do another post as a sorta of a part 2.

Anyways back on topic, most people in all parts of my oc world aren't used to worshipping anymore, or at least a great part of It, mainly because of a loss of knowlege about anything about them.

It's kind of taboo even mentioning most gods names, as they fear something will go wrong if they would (*ahem*being suspicious n allarmin the cult*AHEM*). In fact it's hard to get on most religions because the only remains of It are extremely either hidden, or destroyed in the meanwhile.

I wanna say that another reason because the worshipping stopped Is also because of Rui's cult. Yes, remember that?

It's gonna be talked about on its own post, but let's just say that for them, it's a safe way to restrain anyone knowing far too much about how everything works.

They're the only ones owning most stuff about different coltures to avoid having them against their side,

If there's no worshippers, no knowlege, n more weak magic because people don't strengthen them, who's gonna go against em? (It'll turn out to be the shittiest idea they've ever had but that really did work for the longest time.)

Oh I think i forgot to mention this, but since magic goes lineage to lineage, It also weakenens as generations pass by, as THAT'S the reason they absolutely need those texts.

That's also the reason most humans struggle w keepin magic. Mages can manage, though it's a small portion, since sometimes not even what they've learned over generations works anymore.

Second part- how does It all work (Hybrids/Demi gods n stuff)

Oh boy, so, I'm also gonna use Shou n Naexi a lot here, so bear w me. As I said earlier, it's different from em, since it's not about lineage at all.

Apart that the union between different species Is both a taboo n seen as something "ashaming",so even if they had a child It was more likely they'd Hide It or leave It behind. So it's already a really, god-awful situation for them.

The magic works kinda randomly, in the sense that since the hybrid's nature is seen as unstable to begin w, there's no real critere to handle how the child born Is gonna turn out to be.

Sometimes it's really hard to notice, having yeah some features but can be hidden really easly, but other times Is just, a real mess between the two species, n the magic Is also uncontrollable, especially during their first years of life.

For example, in Shou's case he used to really switch a lot between em, that being the reason he later on prefers not to switch, n havin to learn as soon as possible how to learn how his magic n form would work w It, having again a lot of preassure comin from people he knew.

This Is unfortunatly a really common situation between most hybrids. And there's also no choise.

If you as an hybrid can control magic w/o anything to rely on then you can live, while if you cannot do It, it's a matter of time before you'd get zoned out by everyone and everything.

This Is a big issue, other than having everything fucked by the cult but that's another story.

Aight now bout demi-gods, they're also really not seen well. Most of them prefer not to interact at all with anything that Is not godly related, and in fact, most of em even refused to adknowledge their mortal parent, since they all have resentment over the sudden disappereance of all belivers.

If anything Naexi Is a weird one at that, as they did have a suddent interest in humans and ungodly creatures, though still recognized about how cruel any of them could've been, especially she's a demi-god and has a bad reputation at that.

The magic system Is relatively simple, they just get a certain amount of power from their god parent and are actually pretty capable of controlling them in confront of Hybrids.

That mainly comes from a special connection w their god parent's power, so in theory they're sort of devoted to them.

I wanna expand this when I'll do the gods post n finnaly introduce some of em (And potentially Naexi's mother👀), so I'll not go beyond this atm.

Third part- Magical items/weapons

Aight onto another important part, which Is basically how tf would that work. We have that comin from Qiran's sword n Lyva's earrings, so they'll also be later on disscussed bout.

Even though it's a tough and long procedure, you can transport some of your own magic onto somethin as ordinary as an hat or as sharp as a dagger.

This Is being mainly used in emergency situations, as that energy can eventually be re-used later on by its user.

The user can be changed as long as there's a deal between both parties, whether that being a gift, buying It, or anythin up to them really.

It can also be a great way to hide mage's power, since there are some parts where they arent exactly that respected, so they could blend in with normal humans.

In fact, Qiran does that continiously thanks to their sword, daggers and other lil weapons, and they keep a big part of It there, to seem rather a normal knight/adventurer rather than havin somethin supernatural goin on.

They have a great holdo it since their father did make them learn to fulfill their request to be freerly goin round.

With Lyva it's not really different, even if she kinda stole It n there wasn't really a deal at that moment, but before runnin away from everyone n everything she convinced her mother to give her something that she could use to defend herself, since they were never around and when they were, they would've kinda avoided her.

Oh, and to add this, you could also curse an item. It's a way to mainly punish since ,well, it's a curse,

and makes the user either completely obsessed with the object itself or makin them do somethin w/o any type of consent, whether physical or emotional.

In some cases It can also be a torture tool. Though, as some recent stuff happened, they're somewhat hard to find.

If you still have somethin unclear lemme know cuz idk If I covered everythin or if somethin ain't clear enough😭

Tags undercut:

@a-chaotic-dumbass @spoopy-fish-writes @dopesaladlady @damnfoxx @audre-falrose @nadi-117

(If you want your tag removed/added either dm me/go in the ask thing or do the tag thingy in the pinned comment‼️)

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emerald-amidst-gold · 3 years

Note

Sorry I know it's a lil late, but if you're still taking oc asks (these ones I mean), maybe 13, 19, 24, 38/39/40, 43, 45, 47, 64, and/or 74/75/76? again, for any OC you'd like

It’s never too late to ask me about my OCs! I could talk about them until the cows come home! X3 Not to mention, this is great since I’m currently working on my next chapter and I needed a little break! So, thank you! ❤️❤️

***

13. How many siblings does your OC and what is his/her relationship with them?

So, the only OCs that have a sibling are Fane and Mhairi. Fane is Mhairi’s brother and Mhairi is Fane’s sister. Fun fact: orginally these two were supposed to be twins when I made them because they looked very similar (Fane had platinum blonde hair like Mhairi and their overall faces had like features). Now, they’re three years apart (Fane is 24 and Mhairi is 21).

As to their relationship, it is 100% wholesome and devotion incarnate. Everything Fane does and has done is for Mhairi, and he takes the role of both a father and a brother for her. It’s one of the few times Fane is actually soft with another person. Mhairi is his whole world until Inquisition, and it makes everything later one even harder for him. *side eyes* Mhairi is in the same boat as Fane because she is highly obsessed with showing him that she can handler herself and that he doesn’t have to keep running himself into the ground to keep her safe and happy. She constantly bakes him his favorite treats, gifts him with raw materials for his weapon crafting, crafts him articles of clothing and trinkets to elicit a single smile to his face. Mhairi just wants him to be happy above all else since she can tell something changed him, but she doesn’t know what. As such, she does become a tad jealous when Fane and Solas’s relationship comes to light, but only because she’s just as protective with him as Fane is with her.

19. What does your OC think of children- either in general or about having them?

I wrote a fic about this actually! It was told from Solas’s POV, but it gave glimpse into how Fane responds to children. Fane adores children and he secretly craves a small family--just one child because he wants to give the love his mother had given him. Gentle, calm, and patient. He just thinks he doesn’t have it in him for that, especially because of what he is. (hint: watch for fics that have the appearance of the baby dragon that Solas and Fane adopt. It’ll be important waaaaay later. *winks*)

Estoria is along the same lines as Fane. She loves, loves, loves children. When she was traveling as a mercenary, the band would occasionally visit smaller cities where there were alienages and Estoria would spend her free time there. She would sing songs to the children, teach them how to do menial, but important tasks like washing clothes or planting crops, and would tell them stories of her time on the road. Deep down inside, she would adore a little girl of her own because she wants desperately to be a mother.

24. Who are the people your OC dislikes/hates?

So, surprise! Fane doesn’t actually ‘hate’ or ‘dislike’ anyone (other than his father lol). But if we’re talking in terms of the inner circle, again, he doesn’t hate anyone, he just feels indifferent towards them. The only one that he shows any kind of passionate distaste for is Cassandra, but most of that is from a lack of communication on both their parts in the beginning (Fane is not in a good mental state during Haven’s arc due to being framed divinity and the slow realization of what he is making him lash out violently).

Mhairi though...eheheh. She doesn’t like Solas. At all. For a very long time. They butt heads constantly because of elven history, religion, and magical theory, but also because of Mhairi’s main insecurity of being abandoned. She’s worried Solas will take Fane from her and that frightens her beyond belief. *side eyes AGAIN*

38. How does your OC react to and handle stress?

Reacting to stress, Fane either becomes incredibly overwhelmed and irate, or he shuts down completely. He turns into a shell that simply walks through the halls with a dead stare, or he becomes the warped version of what he is--breaking, smashing, and snapping anything in his path. When that happens, in either form, Fane hides away in the more desolate parts of Skyhold where no one can find him (other than Solas or Cole). He’s like a cat, actually. He can see everyone else, but they can’t see him. He’ll do that until he calms down enough to where he isn’t overcome wit the urge to snarl or crack open a noble’s skull.

39. How does your OC handle anger?

Badly. Well, Fane does anyways. Pffft. Mhairi tends to cry when she’s angry, so also badly. Estoria...ohhhh, boy. Watch the thorns because they are laced with poison. All my OCs handle anger badly. That probably says something about me, huh? *curls up in the corner*

40. How does your OC handle grief?

Due to his abuse, Fane rarely cries--he was commanded not to for five years and the fear of doing it lingers. However, when he does cry it’s because of something utterly heart breaking. In fact, every time the group goes to fight a dragon, Fane scurries off at the end of the battle to literally crumble into a heap of snot and tears because it physically hurts him. It’ll be revealed more in my fic as to why, but just know it’s a..bad time. Again, Fane’s go to is to be alone with his emotions until they settle down. It’s a bad habit of his and one that takes a lot of support from Solas, Cyfrin and his sister to work out.

Mhairi is very open with her emotions (her and Fane anathema to each other). So, when their mother passed and their father disappeared, she was inconsolable for months and the feeling of abandonment lingers with her still. Usually, Mhairi just goes to Fane or Cyfrin if she’s feeling lonely or grief stricken and just...cry until she passes out.

43. What kind of sense of humor does your OC have?

Fane’s humor is morbid. Cyfrin and he get locked in discussions of dark, dark humor. Such as:

“If you don’t stop commenting about how my eyes will make a ‘lovely’ ballad, I will crack your skull and make a vase. I could use some bright macabre decoration in that dismal aravel, anyways.”

“Do I at least get to be painted in pretty floral patterns and intricate designs of trees? Maybe roses?”

“I’ll make the roses blue. Just for you.”

“Ah-ha! Now we’re talking! A man after my own fluttering, flying heart!”

“I’ll make your heart fly in a minute..”

“A confession?! I knew it would be a joyous day!”

“Just shut up, Cy.”

I’m serious. This is them and I have no shame. *laughs nervously* It’s all empty, though. Cyfrin helps Fane relax a little and never judges him for his darker aspects. If anything, it helps mitigate a potential outburst because Fane can look as it as a joke rather than something that genuinely hurts him. Unless he’s in a really foul mood, then Cyfrin adopts his more caring side to calm Fane down. (I have a lot of thoughts with these two. Just wait. Juuuust wait.)

45. What are some things that annoy your OC?

What doesn’t annoy Fane? 🤣🤣 But specifically, Fane can’t stand when someone is willingly ignorant nor can he stand when they’re filled with disgusting forms of pride.

Estoria is highly annoyed by racial labels. She was taken in by a human, and as such, she got to mingle with a lot of different races throughout her time as mercenary. She got to see those races as people and when organizations like the Chantry and what have you only see race and see it as a bad thing sometimes, she goes off the handle. Estoria doesn’t shy away from being an elf, but she doesn’t believe that’s all she is nor does she believe anyone else is just their physical race.

47. How easily does your OC forgive?

Fane is slow to forgive, even if that person is highly dear to him. However, it does depend on what happened in the first place and there’s a big, big plot point later on in my story that shows a heavily development in this characteristic.

Estoria is an easy forgiver. She’s very openminded and realizes everyone has their struggles, but if it’s something truly deplorable with no other reason besides causing harm or death or gaining influence then that changes quickly.

64. What are some habits your OC has picked up?

Fane has picked up on a lot of habits due to how long he’s lived and what his nature entails. He has a habit of squeezing his arms if he’s agitated, crossing them in an attempt to steady himself, and growling. Fane growls constantly, even if he’s not irritated. It’s an involuntary reaction from being a dragon.

He also has a habit of tracing patterns in wood with his eyes--pointing out shapes and faces. He also has a habit of..twisting the truth. *side eyes once AGAIN*

74. What is your OC’s favorite color?

Fane -- Blue (Don’t look at me like that.)

Estoria -- Grey (reminds her of her father’s eyes)

Mhairi -- White (she likes the symbolism of purity)

75. What is your OC’s favorite scent?

Fane -- Gladiolus

Estoria -- Rain

Mhairi -- Vanilla

76. What is your OC’s favorite animal?

Fane -- Wolf (DON’T. There’s more to it, I swear!)

Estoria -- Cats (she used to play with them in alley ways)

Mhairi -- Halla (she adores being around them since her mother would take her to them when she was little)

****

Thank you for the ask, lovely person! Have a splendid day! ❤️❤️

#dragon age #oc: fane lavellan #oc: estoria lavellan #oc: mhairi lavellan #oc: cyfrin azurel #asks #always love doing these because it helps me flesh my children out #get the brain juices flowing too!

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hairphones · 3 years

Text

Why Libra is my favorite FE character

(if anyone knows the artist here it’d be appreciated to mention it)

Fire Emblem has plenty of characters people give a shit about. Most of the time it’s going to the lords or any of the really popular “waifu” characters, but in recent time I’ve found people who love all kinds of people in the franchise. The best thing about FE’s characters is there’s bound to be at least 1 person in here that you’ll consider cool. Despite there a lot of reoccurring archetypes I’m willing to say FE is still able to make something that feels unique in each game, even if not necessarily good. Anyways, for me one character who’s stuck out is of course the guy in the title, Libra. I’m always kind of weirded out this guy isn’t anymore popular than he actually is. Awakening is one of the most successful games that had a cast full of characters that ended up being way too popular for their own good. And yet, Libra is one of the few Awakening characters that doesn’t exactly get to enjoy the limelight like the other part of the cast back then. With that being said though I’ve found him to be one of the most interesting in the game and as you can read in the title he’s just flat out my favorite. I guess the best way for me to start is him as a unit.

Libra comes in as one of the more unique classes in the series, war monk. As a prepromote most people probably skipped over what’s given to you here despite what honestly is a pretty solid no investment unit. I say this from his C staff rank and his fairly balanced stats that lets him handle himself quite well for the first few battles he can fight in. Of course I gotta be realistic, Libra is no way a character who’s going to stay good at defending himself. Awakening’s real emphasis of making your units snowball means that ignoring to train Libra will only really leave him as nothing more than a staffbot, and even with training a glaring flaw is that Libra is too balanced for his own good to really specialize in anything unlike the other units. Another flaw comes from his rather limited class pool that leads to Sage and Dark Knight taking up spots in multiple class trees. This does give him access to helpful skills such as vengence or lifetaker, but unless you plan to grind only Libra I wouldn’t call it optimized to constantly reclass and train him. I’m in no way a hardcore FE fan that takes into account how units play in the challenge runs such as LTCs/Ironmans/Low recruitment, but I think it’s safe to assume that Libra’s overall performance will come in as primarily a support unit. But of course, judging him on his numbers isn’t my focus here.

I want to start off talking about Libra’s character with what you can already see from his design. It’s no surprise that most fans make the connection to Libra and other designs such as Lucius from FE7, another favorite of mine. In-game there’s a gag involving him looking female to other characters. However while his face is feminine, he’s actually rather tall and with a masculine frame. As one of the tamer Awakening designs I actually quite like his outfit as it perfectly fits with war monk ( I know crazy). Though you can chalk that up to being biased.

Hell on first appearances you’re most likely ready to assume this character is going to be a born again christian character with the only joke being he’s actually a male judging from the recruit conversation. The fact Awakening has it’s share of running jokes among party members definitely could lead to you assuming there’s nothing interesting about this guy. Yet, shouldn’t the fact he wields a weapon (as opposed to the usual magic tomes these sort of characters use) surprise you? and an axe at that? Lemme emphasis that, why an axe?

Sure FE has this tradition of the 3 main weapon types, but has it ever been used to add character? Not exactly, but it has been part of character archetypes for quite a while.

Think about what kind of character uses swords: The lords, the brave mercenary leader, the heroes, the flashy edgelords that become swordmasters. Swords almost always play a role as the legendary weapon made to save the day in FE games (as well as any jrpg). The sword will always be a symbol of courage in just about any video game.

(this screencap is low quality to stay consistent with the speaker)

How about lances: As far as FE goes the lance is primarily the weapon held by the jaigen archetype and the main weapon for the more chivalrous units such as cavaliers, knights, and soldiers. The kind of characters associated with these are often the diligent or experienced members of the army. You also have the usual flying trio of characters that range from happy go lucky to those that take the situation seriously.

Now what about axes? These weapons are more often than not held by the lower class characters. Hired fighters, bandits, pirates. These characters aren’t ever bad, but they’re not exactly fighting out of heroism or for their nation. In fact these characters are the most down to earth in the grand scheme of an army full of anime characters. Maybe not sooo much in Awakening’s case with Vaike, but every single one of these weapon types have their exceptions. Also wanna mention that one of the most (in)famous weapons in the series is called the fucking Devil Axe.

Going back to Libra, why would a character like him hold onto an axe when it’s pretty apparent he’s more of a gentle character? Why the weapon type that’s the most violent looking of the triangle? Obvious reason is purely gameplay reasons involving the odd design the war monk class is, but looking at it from a literary perspective only makes it look off (especially with the female clerics). This is also something to wonder if you take into consideration his C ranking, implying he’s at least somewhat experienced. Not to mention his high stats for that point in the game.

For better or worse this kind of mystery isn’t exactly answered in the base game of Awakening. However there’s some interesting conversations that’s found in the Summer Scramble DLC that gives an idea. Specifically the one with Lon’qu.

Lon’qu catching onto the dissonance of Libra’s appearance to his skill. The first conversation is only Libra claiming there’s no reasoning behind any of it. however the second conversation has Libra open up to talk about himself more.

As you see there’s no explicit answer to what kind of “darkness” Libra has ever committed before the events of FE:A, but given Lon’qu is the one to take notice of Libra’s supposed bloodlust the implication isn’t going to be anything peaceful. In fact, it’s that violent nature that gets questioned in another conversation in this same DLC.

Again, this conversation feels more important to take note of given what character is talking to Libra. In this case it’s the hyperviolent character who takes comfort in bloodshed (at least in the western release, perhaps Henry is different in Japan?). Either way, this conversation goes hand and hand with the Lon’qu one in a pretty easily. That is to conclude that Libra himself has had a pretty rough past filled with who knows what, and that past version of himself was most likely not justifying any murders as if justification was even something to consider. The Libra you meet in-game is of course still capable of killing, but it’s extremely obvious he has a concept of remorse.

There’s no reason given anywhere as to what changes this man to become the benevolent priest. Though really I think it’s better that Libra keeps it consistent with revealing almost none of the causes in his life and instead only showing the effects. Filling in the blank is not a new thing for FE characters, in fact fans of older games in the franchise seem to really enjoy that aspect quite a lot.

Still, even the current Libra understands himself to not be a person devoid of guilt or sin. A few supports touch upon this aspect such as the one with Sully.

Libra’s doubt that he’s anywhere close to being considered a good man in the fact of the gods adds something that I absolutely love: having skepticism to one’s own morality. There’s something important to follow up this with how Libra views morality in battles in one of the supports with Gaius.

Even as a supposed man of faith he refuses to deny that living a fight against the different nations in Awakening is just a matter of being on the side that’s doing more killing. Take away all the politics of any war and you’ll find people who are simply fighting for the right to keep on living. It’s what considered “just human”. I also find this conversation to be a little more profound given that is the same franchise where one of the biggest features is permadeath. These characters put their faith in their gods to escape death another day while the average player is the one avoiding death altogether.

Finally, a support with Tharja concludes mostly everything learned so far. Where she explores Libra’s memories only to find there was no peaceful childhood.

A newfound devotion to a religion isn’t treated as a fix to a life full of cruelty. To be a good person to many doesn’t absolve you of the terrible things you’ve done to others.. I’m sure this kind of topic has been explored in FE games before or after and in countless other video games/movies/books/pieces of media as well, taking away the religion part of course. Nonetheless the introduction to this kind of thinking to a 13 year old version of me had me really second guessing back then, and it still comes up to me from time to time. Sure I’ve done what’s considered “good” but will it ever outweigh any terrible things I’ve also done? Even today I can’t pretend I have an answer to that, and that’s just only thinking of what I’ve gone through personally.

To wrap it up though, there’s his ending card.

For such a simple ending it really brings out the fanboy in me. The entire game is filled with Libra having his doubts of being a good person according to himself and to the gods he worships. To end his story with him being believed to be a reincarnation of Naga due to his reformed nature just feels so sweet to me.

As much as I wish more characters could have a similar air to them in newer games, I get it’s just not really everyone’s preference. Fire Emblem is always going to be a series of good guys vs bad guys also dragons and with that comes making new characters for fans to get attached to. Still though, I really appreciate the attempt done with Libra. Once again the best thing about this franchise is everybody can find at least 1 character they love, they don’t even need to be playable.

I understand not everyone is going to grind supports to see everything a character has to say (especially not in newer FE games), but as you can see nearly all the nuance of this character was hidden away in dialogue. In a game full of joke characters and tropes, it is refreshing to see a character who acknowledges their own flaws and isn’t played for laughs. I didn’t write all of this to try to convince anyone in some clickbait manner like “THE DEEPEST FE CHARACTER INTELLIGENT SYSTEMS HID FROM YOU” or anything. Nah, I’m sure I sound like I’ve repeated myself many times here. But all of this was to attempt to put into words why I’ll stay with my opinion that Libra is my favorite FE character for being a reformed character done right. And for the fact that uncovering the secrets of this guy affected me personally all the way back from when I was a lot younger. And honestly a large part of it really stems from how Libra is in no way a major character, yet he clearly had a lot of thought put into him.

For anyone that bothered to read all of this I wanna thank you. Whether you liked it or not is up to you, no hard feelings. I know all this is the definition of “reading too much into it”, but I consider speculation on writing to be fun. Anyways hope I didn’t take too much of your time and have a nice day

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faithylilac · 3 years

Text

The Party Party Part 6

So... there was a bit of a situation... a very bad situation. Not a terrible situation, Faithy and Echo are doing quite lovely.

“Well we wouldn’t have been in this mess if I was the party leader!” Dax shouted at the shorter god. She simply huffed and started tapping her foot.

“Well I didn’t see you throwing any ideas around!” She looked around the dark cave they were in, double checking for a way out. “You twat” she said off handedly.

Dax’s eyes widen, sure what he said was rude... but not to deserve that.

What happened between the two residential celestial beings?

There they were, five papers spread across the floor, each with a different task. Cj explained that they decided to pick up side jobs to do on the way to wedding. Ash and Jo had realized they would be a week early if they went straight there, so this was a perfect idea.

Faithy just shrugged her shoulders. She wasn’t party leader anymore so if anything happened, it wasn’t her fault.

“Wait which one is first on the list?” Dax finally decided to pipe in, as he knew he was free of compasses.

Carter held up their’s proudly, “we’re going after this thing called the uh....” he quickly flipped the paper around to read, “Mortem Spera... I don’t know if I said that right.”

“What is it exactly?” Ash asked. Carter read some more and shrugged. Apparently no information on it... weird.

Carter on the other hand, was having a tougher time that the two gods. Both of Ash’s and Jo’s cloaks were ripped to shreds. So their ears were out and the open, reminding Carter plenty of what they truly were.... Nyah Nyah kawaii anime cat people.

Jo had on a large hat, thank Gjhar feiiled, but her tail was sticking out. Ash on the other hand was a free cat boy, disgusting...

Carter was scurrying to look for a blind fold, make it out of anything... But there was hinderance to that plan.

“So Carter... Do you like oranges?”

Carter pulled all of his mental strength to not freak out that this cat girl was speaking to him. He took a deep breath and shut his eyes tight. “Why?” Jo just blinked at him. “I don’t want to answer that” carter continued. “I swear it’s not a deez nuts joke.” Jo replied. Carter kinda just roll his eyes but not, being that they are closed. “Kinda... but that’s so random— I’m confused.”

Jo giggle, “I just wanted to know if you liked oranges.” She replied. “I don’t hate oranges.”

“Anyway, I guess you can ask questions about me, or I can ask more about you— whatever you are more comfortable with.”

Carter shrugged, walking past her to pick up something he spotted once he opened his eyes. It was a clothe that was sticking out of rubble. “Uhhhh...” The nymph examined the clothe, it was embroidered with strange writing and lots of stars.

“Ash, you’ve studied a few ancient languages right?” Jo looked over him to find him staring at a large tapestry on the other part of the cave.

“No, where did you get that idea?” He asked. Jo just shrugged, “I didn’t know if you did, was just trying my luck.”

Carter brought over his clothe to compare the writing. It seemed to be the same letters, but slightly different... maybe it was handwriting? Ash looked over at Carter’s finding but they jumped away from him, trying to keep some distance.

“Oh shoot I forgot.” Ash said, flattening the ears on his head. Carter frowned and took a deep breath and inched back toward the bard. “Take this hurry up!” Carter shoves it at him and scurries farther away.

“Ok I guess.” Ash went back to the tapestry, trying to figure out the reoccurring letters.

Jo scooted closer to carter and smiled widely. “So... what happened with cats that caused you to be terrified so much?” She asked sweetly. Carter pauses. “Uhhhh....”

Earlier....

“Ok, everyone stick together. The shop keeper says there’s major stress at the entrance of the cave.” Cj explained as she examined the map that they bought from a gift shop. It was a old mine that housed crystals, but now it’s a tourist attraction.

The whole surrounding town was super old and and had a temple for just about every religion in the land. Even Gjhar feiiled.... Faithy kept her cloak on put away any loose jewelry. The main temple was up north, so as they traveled that way, more and more of them were more common.

But I’ll stop there. The shop keeper said someone covered in dragon scales came through the shop with a large box and went straight into the caves. He seemed like he was running for someone, so whatever was in the box seemed important.

As they ventured in the unconsciously huddled into three separate groups, Faithy and Echo on the left, Carter, Jo, and Ash on the right, and Dax and Cj in the middle.

Definitely unrelated though, Echo was tracing a wall painting with it’s finger and the mountain started shaking. “WHO DECIDED TOUCHING SOMETHING WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?” Ash screamed. “IT WAS CJ” Dax yelled back.

Like it was an action movie or something, rubble came tumbling down and separated the party.

“Ok whatever. Can you use your plants to get us out of here?” Dax asked he traced the walls of the cave.

Cj’s face read “oh duh” but as she went to feel the walls for roots or anything else she frowned. “No good. If I call them I have no idea what it’ll do to integrity of the cave.”

Dax huffed, frail mortals had to be so... frail. Sure the two of them would survive, but his favorite humanoids definitely wouldn’t.

A whistling noise echoed through the tunnel and they taking a fighting stance. Dax signaled her was going further in and Cj followed. They walk around a corner to see a green light emerging from further in.

“You got a few more millennias to live, I’ll go ahead.” Dax said dramaticly. Cj rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. “Like someone would be able to kill, much less defeat a Chaos god.”

Dax slapped a hand on either side of his face and acted surprised.

“To think you’d have so much faith in me!”

Cj just punched his arm, “that would be Faithy, not you.”

“Can I help you two?” A voice from behind them caused them to scream and Dax jumped into the smaller God’s arms.

Even though she was a goddess, she didn’t have supernatural strength of any nature. So her small frame was having trouble keeping him up.

It was a very very very very very very very old person. Now, Cj and Dax had no room to talk, but they had a better skincare routine.

Dax jumped out of Cj’s arms suddenly and her arms flung upwards in a very fast motion, knocking her down in the process. Dax helped her up and they readjust themselves.

“Are you the reason I heard some rumbling?” He asked as he shown his blue lantern around.

A sweat ran down CJ’s back.

“Actually, it was a lizard thing.” Dax spoke up. Cj looked at him with audacity. He had just blamed her for touching the thing she shouldn’t have, causing the mountain to come down on them. So he knew....

The old person simply nodded, “ah well, it’ll take them some time to dig that out. It earns the nearby too much money from tourist to let it stay caved in.” He explained. “Now, why don’t we talk for a bit? I’ll pour some tea.”

They reluctantly follow him into his little cave house. Well it was a small cave room, what’s the term for that? Google isn’t very helpful because all it’s wanting to do is give me tips for a man cave layout.

“So what brings you into an empty crystal cave? You seem more like adventurers than tourist.”

Back to Carter and the cats.

“Oh yeah... cats.” Carter looked away, trying to avoid the question.

Jo sighed and took a step back. “Ok it’s ok, you don’t have to answer that.”

Carter sighed in relief and turned straight around. “But how did you learn to be so swag?”

Carter paused and slowly turned back to them and was about to answer when Ash interrupted.

“OK GUYS! The thing we’re are after is a weapon!” He then broke his instrument and tore off a part of his cape to make a proper torch. Now you might be wondering how they could see without a torch. Ash and Jo could see enough not to bump into anything and Carter could tell where the general area of something is. That piece of clothe was just pure luck.

“Jo can you light this?” He asked her. She nodded and snapped her fingers to start a flame and lit it like a birthday candle.

“How did you do that? I don’t think archers can do that.” Carter said in confusion. She laughed and pointed at her hat. “I can change my class depending on my hat. Not that I have any control of it... if kinda just happens and I can’t ever remember what hat goes with what, we kinda just got lucky.”

Carter blinked slowly. The hat made no sense and there was so no sense of making sense of the thing.

“Guys look!” Ash held up the torch near the tapestry to show the words formed a picture of a weapon. There were also stars scattered around it.

“How do you even know that’s the thing we’re looking for? It could just be something relating to something else?” Jo asked.

“Carter give me the flier.” Ash asked sticking his hand out. Carter scrambled around to remember where he stuffed it, “it’s on your belt of daggers.” Ash said. He grabs it and hands it to the cat boy.

Ash holds it up and looks for any similarity between the flier and the tapestry. “Well thats only convenient.” He said. Jo and Carter look over his shoulder and the weird drawing on the flier almost matches the tapestry.

“It’s missing the words that make up the weapon.” Jo pointed out. Now that was very apparent to Carter and Ash but ummm.... Jo is nice and is explaining what’s going on for you sweet Reader-Chan!

(Aughh that took thirty years off my life. I feel like I’m writing on Wattpad again)

But every single star was present. “Wow I feel smart for figuring this out.” Ash said proudly.

“Do they make a pattern?” Carter asked. Ash shoved the flier at him and started kicking random rocks until one fell apart. He picked it up and grabbed the flier back from carter and plopped down.

He used the fragile rock as chalk and connected each start. “Oooh smart.” Jo added.

There were five large stars and a few smaller stars scattered as well. When Ash connected them all together it looked like a deformed turkey.

“Surely that’s not right.” Ash quickly dusted off the flier and connected only the large stars. “Ok tell me if I’m wrong, but does this look like a straying path?” He pointed out.

It started at one point, split into three, then back to another. “Oh yeah I can see that.” Jo replied.

“Maybe we were going to split up anyway and the rubble just sped it up.” Ash purposed.

“I still don’t see how this has anything to with the Mortem Spera“ Carter replied. Ash thought on his question for a minute but shrugged. “Most of these stupid quest have no reason to link up together the way they do.” The cat boy replied.

“Wait, that means we should be able to meet back up with the others then.” Jo replied. Ash quickly rips the tapestry off the wall and rolls it up. “I don’t know if this will be helpful, but it’s worth a shot.” They then head off the find the others.

“So these star forgers are immortal?” Cj asked before taking another sip of tea. The elder nodded.

“The only thing known to strike down one of these beings is something called the Mortem Spera.” He replied, drinking some of his own tea.

The two gods looked at each other, remembering that was thing they were hired to receive.

“But hear my warning. No mortal has managed to get their hands on it, and if they did they would surely meet their end.” He added.

“So who wielded it?” Dax spoke up. Dax did not have tea, he was drinking black coffee. Not that the old man had coffee, he made it himself— French press and everything.

The old man fell silent and put down his cup. “I don’t know the answer to that question. My theory was a dying god.” Interesting, interesting cool story bro.

“But I don’t actually know that. But I don’t think too much about the subject.”

“Well thank you for your time, but we need to find our friends.” Cj announced and pulled Dax up with her.

“Thank you for humoring me, you young folk have fun.” He said as he was went back to drinking tea.

Cj and Dax scurried out and proceeded further into the cave. “I’m sorry I don’t think he knows what’s he’s talking about.” Dax said.

“How so?” Cj replied. The older god sighed. “As long as I’ve lived, I would have at least heard about a dying god THAT desperate to live. Sure some seek out the fountain of youth, but trying to kill something like a star forger.”

Cj thought on it and nodded, “he did seem like he belonged in a loony bin.”

They then turned another corner to find... Faithy and Echo having a tea party?

She had on a fake crown and Echo had on a fake mustache and top hat. But this wasn’t your average tea party, it was the real thing. With delicate dishes, a tower of Pastries, and Gjhar feiiled forbid... a white lace table clothe.

“Is this what you’ve been doing this whole time?” Cj asked, not that she was one to ask.

“We ran into this lovely dwarf who owns a restaurant in here and we’ve been waiting on the rest of you.” Faithy explained before drinking out of her cup with her pinkie at ninety degrees.

Dax and Cj looked at them confused, “how did you know we were coming this way?” Cj asked.

“Ahh... so the shop owner was telling us that the cave coming down on itself was just a illusion.” Echo replied.

Cj flops down onto the ground and leaves an indention around herself.

“Yeah the whole thing is tourist trap role playing adventure. At the end they trick you into trading a sack of gold for a wooden spear.” Faith added.

“That does explain why it didn’t get any darker when the rocks blocked the entrance.” Dax replied.

Cj shot up from her Cj shaped hole in the floor and started screaming incoherently. She then stop and narrowed her eyes at Dax. “You’re a Chaos god and you couldn’t sense an illusion?”

Dax just shrugged. “I’m a chaos god, everything I do is legit. I have no use for mortal’s artificial magic.” He said with disgust. “That and I wasn’t thinking about it.”

Then. A loud thundering noise echoed through the cave, causing everyone to get up and put up their guard. But here comes ash carrying a stupidly large tapestry and Jo carrying Carter like a baby. How were they making so much noise????

“Ok good, we all found each other and someone isn’t trying to get through rocks like an idiot.” Ash said in relief.

“How did you know about the illusion?” Cj asked. Ash raised his eyebrow, “what illusion? The freaking flier made a map. It’s stupid simple but it works I guess.” He replied.

So... this was so freaking long.

And color coding is a pain

Never again

Ever

I hate everything

Masterlist

Figure out who everyone is, I dare you

#saveethanchanfromsoup #the party party #friendfiction #original story #cottage core goddess might fight chaos god???#garfield #red herring #don’t trust old people #cat boys

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multiverseofimagines · 4 years

Text

Blinded By The Light | Smuggler!B.S

Chapter One - The Smuggler

Ben Solo, the son of Leia Organa and Han Solo, The Nephew of Jedi Master; Luke Skywalker, and Grandson of Darth Vader has chosen his path, rejecting the Jedi religion, and his call to the light. He decides that the galaxy has called out for him to follow in his Father’s footsteps in becoming one of the galaxies best pilot’s and smuggler’s.

playlist: BBTL

pairing -

Smuggler! Ben Solo x Fem! Reader

warnings -

swearing here and there. the use of female pronouns.clearly an AU, the plot has no relation to canon.

a/n | hi guys, bet you had no idea I was working on this for the couple weeks I’ve been gone but here it is. also let me know if the title has been used already, because I know it’s popular in the fandom for Ben. I also suggest listening to the playlist above when reading.

Ben sighed, rolling his eyes at his fellow companion and co-pilot, Chewbacca. “Yeah, yeah- I know what I’m doing.” Chewie groaned out at his friend’s ego, they were late on their shipment to their boss, Ubbal Novar, which could result in possible punishment. The Wookie didn’t doubt Ben’s ability to work his way out of trouble, he defiantly took after his late Father, War Hero and Smuggler, Han Solo, but something about this job filled Chewie with worry, something seemed off.

They arrived upon Dandoran, the home planet and base of their proclaimed boss Ubbal Novar. The sky was en-captured by darkness upon their arrival, the only source of light radiated from the moonlight. Ubbal resided deep within the mountain range, a hidden bunker of sorts, in hiding from the Galactic Authorities. After walking for miles, Chewie and Ben had finally reached the locked sliding door, after a few moments of standing by the door, a voice came from above the door panel, from the built in speaker, “ Ben Solo, Ubbal as been expecting you. You are late.” Ben bit his lip, thinking of an excuse before looking up at the camera, “ Give Ubbal my deepest apologies.” He put a hand over his chest, signifying his sarcastic empathy towards Ubbal. The door slid upwards, opening itself to reveal two of Ubbal’s guards, Ben and Chewie cautiously stepped inside, the guards following close behind them as they all walked their way to the boss’s briefing room. Chewie held the semi large package by its handle, the contents within being pages, from an old book, a treasure they had flown all over the galaxy for. The language within the pages was unknown to them, the only page readable was a random list of names, attached to different planets, the story behind why Ubbal would need these names shook Chewie with the worry. What was his plan?

They arrived upon Ubbal’s conference space. He sat upon the couch, his long cape draping upon his shoulders, as he sipped on an alcoholic beverage. As the door automatically opened, Ubbal’s eyes shifted up towards the doorway, his eyes meeting with Ben and Chewie’s presence. He put the glass down, on the table in front of him, before standing up to greet his smuggler’s. “Ahh! Young Solo, I have been waiting for your arrival all day it seems!” Ben bit his tongue, taking in the annoyance of his boss, before also greeting him, a smug yet fake smile plastered on his lips. “ Ubbal Novar, it seems as though it took longer than expected to find the package, But we are here now, with all the pages in pristine condition. We hope you can forgive our untimely fashion.” Ben attempted to seem sincere, though he often failed at that aspect. Ubbal chuckled, “ Take the package from the Wookie, look it over.” He ordered one of the guards. Chewie handed it over to the guard, whom whisked it away to be inspected. “ Now, sit.” Ubbal motioned Ben and Chewie to take a seat upon the opposite facing couch, sitting across from one another.

“ I have an important job for you two. My most important one yet.” He began, looking at them both before explaining himself, “ I need you to smuggle a person to me.” Ben rolled his eyes, “ We don’t smuggle people Ubbal. We’ve made this very clear.” His arms crossed against his chest, watching his boss search for the right words, “Look at this as a favor with a price. As a friend, I’m asking for help, and as your boss, I will supply you with an appropriate amount of severance for completing this task-” Ben’s eyes squinted at his boss, before interrupting his free loading speech, “ How much?” Ubbal looked taken a back, unprepared, “Pardon?” Ben chuckled, “ Don’t play dumb Ubbal. How much in pay?” Ubbal pondered for a moment before speaking his terms in a low whisper, “ I can’t say a solid number yet- but it would be enough for you to hide away, forever.” Ben took in the word; forever. Ben had dreamt of it many times before, disappearing among the stars, never to be found. Though his co-pilot, Chewie didn’t necessarily agree with Ben’s plan to cut his family out, he held a promise to Leia, to keep Ben safe, and if that meant disappearing with him, he was willing to do that. Ben turned to Chewie, attempting to read him, if this was a good idea or not. The Wookie shrugged, groaning out in sympathy, an “I guess.” Ben smirked turning to Ubbal, “ Looks like you have yourself a deal Ubbal.” Ben stared into Ubbal’s eyes with a fiery and dominant attitude after shaking his hand, “ But if you refuse to pay us less than bargained for, I’m not afraid to throw your ass to the galactic authorities. Understand?” Ubbal nodded, a toothy grin appearing among his face, happy to have the smuggler’s on his side.

Back on the Falcon, Chewie and Ben packed for their mission, they were silent whilst doing this, until Chewie spoke up, telling Ben that this seemed like a bad idea. Ben sighed, packing an extra blaster, “ We need the money.” Chewie groaned out again, his worry still evident. “ I know it’s not a job we usually do-” Ben looked up at Chewie, “ But if we don’t find the girl, he could kill us, and I don’t need a bounty on my head. “ Ben then smiled, reaching out to place a hand on Chewies shoulder, “ Plus did you hear what he said? Enough money to hide away forever. Isn’t that what we’ve always wanted?” The Wookie nodded sympathetically, understanding his friends reasoning, despite not agreeing with it.

Whenever Ben and Chewie were working for Ubbal, they often had no time to rest. Only for minimal moments here and there, taking turns between sleeping and piloting. Chewbacca had insisted that Ben get at least a few hours of rest before their lengthy mission. Smuggling spices and weapons was one thing, smuggling a person was a whole different game to them. Ben layed awake in his bunk among the ship. He stared at the ceiling above, his thoughts took over his mind, en-capturing him within an essence of guilt. Despite his desperation for the money and assured protection to be hidden forever as the severance for the particular job, he couldn’t help but feel horrible. How could he do such a thing? Smuggle an otherwise innocent girl to Ubbal. He closed his eyes, taking in a deep breath, clearing his mind, before reaching out through the force,something that was rare for him, he searched for his Mother’s wisdom. There was a strange presence among The Force, not that of his Mother, a feeling he had never felt before. He could see flashes of images within his mind, a jungle of trees. He felt a dampness among him, it wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t warm either, it filled his senses. He could see a mist of fog surrounding him within the damp forestry. He attempted to reach out further, find the answers he had been searching for. He then saw a black mass in the distance, walking towards him, the entity appeared to call out to him, but he couldn’t make out the words, before he had lost the energy, disconnecting from The Force within seconds, his mind filled with nothing but black. But this time his chest felt heavy, not because of the guilt he had, but a feeling that he was meant to do this, that he needed to find who called out to him, his answers lying within the Yavin System.

#ben solo #ben solo imagine #ben solo fic #ben solo imagines #kylo ren #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren imagines #star wars imagine #star wars imagines #star wars fic #kylo ren fic #star wars au #smuggler!bensolo #BBTL #ben solo x reader #kylo ren x reader #star wars x reader

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grailfinders · 3 years

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Fate and Phantasms #107: Angra Mainyu

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making the original Shirouface, Angra Mainyu! This angy mango can turn into a dog, track mud all over the place, and also warp time and space to cheat at grail wars. 🎵 One of these things is not like the other! 🎵 I’d say he’s also really good at killing humans, but in D&D most humans aren’t that hard to kill. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.

Check out the mango’s build breakdown below the cut, or his character sheet over here!

Next up: Yeah, I guess he is pretty great.

Race and Background

So... Angra’s kind of weird. He was human, but now he’s the sins of all mankind, so if you want the flavor build maybe a Tiefling? That being said we’re trying to turn him into a dog and we can’t wait three levels, so he’s going to be a Longtooth Shifter here. This gives him +2 Strength and +1 Dexterity, a bit of Darkvision so you don’t have to keep your tattoos lit, Keen Senses for perception proficiency, Fierce for intimidation, as well as the ability to Shift once per short rest as a bonus action. This bestial transformation lasts 1 minute, and during it you gain some temporary HP and can make a bite attack as a bonus action.

As for your background, Acolyte is a much nicer title than your real one, Ritual Sacrifice. (As long as you leave out your role in the order, Shelter of the Faithful should still work, right?) Either way, you get Religion proficiency, as well as Insight. You’re really good at sizing up your opponents, but that’s mostly because they’re always stronger than you are.

Ability Scores

We’re not doing anything fancy this time, just the standard array. You can roll if you wanna, but keep multiclassing in mind. First up, make your Intelligence as high as possible. It’s your casting modifier, and half the reason you’re so hard to kill is because you fight smart. Speaking of fighting smart, put your next scores into Constitution, then Dexterity for maximum survivability. After that I guess we can go with Strength for multiclassing and, y’know, hitting things. You might be weak, but you do have those abs going for you. After that is Wisdom to help with that insight. Finally, dump Charisma. Self-deprecation isn’t a good look king.

Class Levels

1. Barbarian 1: You don’t even wear a shirt, let alone armor, so Unarmored Defense is right up your alley. It gives you an AC based on your dexterity and constitution scores. You can also fly into a Rage for extra damage, advantage on strength rolls, and damage resistance, all at the low low cost of not casting or concentrating on spells.

One last thing for level one- you have Strength and Constitution saving throw proficiencies, as well as two barbarian skills. You’re great at hanging in there for as long as possible, so grab Athletics and Survival proficiencies.

2. Fighter 1: Now we bounce over to fighter real quick for Two-Weapon Fighting to help you wield Zarich and Tawrich properly. You also learn how to find a Second Wind as a bonus action for a bit of healing. You can’t really get a counter attack in if you’re dead after all.

3. Wizard 1: We’ll get a second level of wizard so it makes sense later in the build, but all you really need to know right now is you can cast and prepare Spells using your Intelligence, and when you take a short rest you can use your Arcane Recovery to regain a total level of spell slots equal to half your wizard level rounded up. This only works once per long rest though, don’t abuse it.

For your spells, grab the Light cantrip for your sick tats, True Strike for a spell almost as useless as you are, Infestation, Tasha’s Caustic Brew, and Charm Person for the beginnings of your grail mud, and False Life, Mage Armor, and Shield to stay on the defensive. Charm person isn’t quite Completely Rewriting Someone’s Personality; but I mean it’s a first level spell, what did you expect.

4. Fighter 2: Okay, enough multiclassing for now- back in fighter, you get an Action Surge for a surge of action. Once per short rest, you can add an extra action to your turn. Unlike the sorcerer’s quickened spell, you can use two leveled spells at once with this. Or hit people more. That’s probably a better option for you.

5. Fighter 3: At third level you become a Battle Master for some fancy skills. Your Student of War gives you proficiency with any one artisan’s tool. I’m not totally sure what the best way to make your tats would be, but it’s probably painter’s supplies. Anyway, you also get Combat Superiority, giving you three maneuvers that you can use with Superiority Dice. You start with four d8s, and you regain them on short rests.

D&D as a system doesn’t have much in the way of counterattacks, but Brace and Riposte are probably the closest you can get without dumping 14 levels into a barbarian subclass that doesn’t fit you otherwise. The former lets you make an attack when a creature enters melee range, and the latter lets you attack when you’re missed by a melee attack. In either case, you also add the superiority die to the damage. Your last maneuver is a Tactical Assessment, which lets you add the die to Investigation, History, or Insight checks. It’s kind of cheating when you know you’re worse than everyone else, but it’s still technically an assessment.

6. Barbarian 2: It’s been 6 levels and we’re still barely a dog- clearly we need to fix that too. Second level barbarians get a Reckless Attack, which gives you advantage on all weapon attacks for the turn at the cost of taking attacks at advantage too. To balance that out, your Danger Sense gives you advantage on dexterity saves.

7. Barbarian 3: At third level you can finally become the bad boy you were always meant to be thanks to your Form of the Beast. When you rage, you gain one of three natural weapons.

Your Fangs let you bite creatures, and once per turn you can regain your proficiency bonus in HP if you’re bloodied.

Your Claws let you make an extra attack once per turn.

Your Tail is long enough to get the reach property, and you can use your reaction to add to your AC by moving your tail between you and an attacker.

I don’t think dog tails are long enough to do that, but you’re more of a shadow werewolf monster anyway, so it’s not like you need to work with biology.

8. Barbarian 4: Eight levels in and you finally get your first Ability Score Improvement. Bump up your Strength for a more passible amount of attack power.

9. Barbarian 5: Our last bit of barbarism for a while nets you Fast Movement for extra move speed and an Extra Attack per attack action.

10. Fighter 4: One last bounce back to fighter for another ASI. grab some extra Constitution for more health and a tougher hide. This also makes your unarmored defense as tough as your mage armor, which should free up a spell slot or two for ya. Speaking of spells though...

11. Wizard 2: Yeah, we’re finally getting back to wizard. Your innate skill at messing with timelines will make you a Chronurgist. Unfortunately, D&D doesn’t do four day time loops. What you get instead is a Chronal Shift, spending your reaction to force a creature nearby to re-roll a d20. Unlike most roll messing-with abilities, this one takes effect after you find out if it worked or not. You can do this twice per long rest. A couple of seconds is way more convenient anyway- having to redo everything would be a pain in the ass. Your Temporal Awareness also lets you add your intelligence modifier to your initiative for better ambushes.

There aren’t other first level spells we really want, so let’s grab the low-magic Alarm and Snare. Being in a time loop is super useful for trapping people.

12. Wizard 3: Third level wizards get second level spells. Alter Self will let you become a dog boy without having to rage, and Darkness makes things dark. You’ve got this “edgy silhouette” thing going for you in the early ascensions, it’d be a shame to ruin it just because it’s day out.

13. Wizard 4: Now that you’re starting to get spells worth using, grab the War Caster feat. This gives you advantage on concentration saves, as well as the ability to cast spells with full hands. You can also use cantrips for your opportunity attacks.

14. Wizard 5: One last level of wizard for now gives you third level spells. Spirit Shroud gives you an aura of grail mud, slowing down creatures near you and letting you deal extra necrotic damage with each attack. This also shuts down healing! Bonus. You can also Summon Shadowspawn for more material doggos with one of three moods. Furious dogs get advantage on frightened creatures, despairing dogs slow creatures in mud, and frightful dogs can hide in darkness as a bonus action.

15. Barbarian 6: That’s enough magic for a while, lets get back to hitting things. Your Bestial Soul gives you magical claws, fangs, and tails while raging, and you also get a bunch of movement options that don’t really mesh with your character. I guess the jumping boost might be useful- most type-moon characters can jump a story into the air.

16. Barbarian 7: Your Feral Instinct gives you advantage on initiative rolls, and you can just ignore being frightened if you go beast mode immediately. Speaking of, your Instinctive Pounce lets you move as part of your rage bonus action, giving you an extra half-speed of movement.

17. Barbarian 8: Use your last ASI for even more Intelligence. You’d probably use strength more, but you’re supposed to be weak, so that checks out.

18. Barbarian 9: Your Brutal Criticals give you an extra die of damage on critical hits, but you use shortswords, so it’s not going to help much. Again, pretty on point for you.

19. Barbarian 10: Tenth level beasts have an Infectious Fury, letting you dab a little bit of that grail mud into your rage weapon attacks. When you hit a creature, they need to make a wisdom save (DC 8+your constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus) or they take one of two effects. Either they’re forced to attack another creature nearby, or they take extra psychic damage. You can use this a number of times per long rest equal to your proficiency bonus.

20. Wizard 6: Your capstone level nets you one last chronurgy trick- Momentary Stasis locks a creature in a time loop if they fail a constitution save, either until they take damage or the end of your next turn. While in the loop, they’re incapacitated and can’t move. You can use this a number of times per long rest equal to your intelligence modifier.

You also get a last couple of spells, which will really ramp up your mud production. Tidal Wave does exactly what you’d think it does, and after your foes are drenched in mud, hit them with Bestow Curse, another spell kind enough to tell you exactly what it does on the tin.

Pros:

You’ve got plenty of ways to deal damage when it isn’t your turn, and multiple effects to make those attacks more effective. Combine Brace with your Infectious Fury to drop two creatures at the same time before either have a chance to deal damage. Sorry I don’t have a pithy way to bold this one.

Even if you get stuck in a longer fight, you’re tough to kill, with 200 HP, rages, a shield spell, and ways to heal yourself, you can stick around for a long time even before factoring in any loops. (Oh hey, biting is another thing that your counterattacks make super effective)

Thanks to your multitude of multiclassing, you have a lot of variety. Your melee combat is solid, of course, but you can also use magical combat or utility spells, with just a touch of healing thrown in for when it’s absolutely necessary.

Cons:

The downside to that last point above is that you have a lack of focus, which is especially bad given the small number of ASI you have to work with. This means none of your stats are particularly impressive, so expect people to see through your illusions regularly.

You have a lot of reasons to keep your reactions open, and unlike the bonus action problem this isn’t something that you can reason out yourself- you never know when a party member will need you to chronal shift away a critical hit. You also have shield and your counterattacks tied to the same reaction, so in busier fights you’ll have to plan carefully.

Most of your low level spells involve Poison or Acid damage, two of the most resisted and immune-to types. They’re just not that strong, sorry.

#fgo #Fate Grand Order #DND 5e #Angra Mainyu #Fate and Phantasms

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bahamutgames · 3 years

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Nier Automata: [A]fterthoughts

Game: Nier Automata: Become As Gods Edition (June 26, 2018)

Console: Xbox One (Via Xbox Game Pass)

Alright so I’m trying something a little different this time with my opinions on a game. Usually I will share this on Twitter in a thread. However, I feel like I’m having more and more to say on games I play lately. And Twitter threads just don’t feel right for sharing massive amounts of text. So I thought I’d give this a shot now. However, this isn’t meant to be a review or an indication of whether or not YOU should try the game. This is just me pouring my heart out about what I’ve played and giving my honest opinions about what I just experienced. This is just for anyone interested, and I highly recommend you try out this game and any other game I choose to talk about in the future, to get your own opinions on how you feel for it.

As such, this isn’t a very well written piece either. It’s mostly just me throwing up thoughts into a post. But, if that’s your thing or you’re just curious about what I have to say, you can read my huge info dump on my feelings about Nier Automata in the readmore!

Spoiler Warning for some parts of the game, including the finale and ending.

Opening

About 2 days ago, I sat down and beat Nier Automata for the first time. And after sitting on it for a bit, I’m ready to talk about my time with it. I wasn’t originally planning on doing a big thing for playing this game (I was saving it for a different game.) But plans got sidetracked, and by that I mean Microsoft had a sale on 3 months of Game Pass for $1. And I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to try it out. I was really excited to see they had the game on the service, as I’ve been wanting to play it since it came out. So naturally, I jumped at the chance.

Stuff I liked

Honestly, I really liked this game. I thought was cool and loved a lot of the topics it covered, as they’re things I really enjoy seeing games tackle. Evolution of life, the existence of religion and our relationships with god and death, strange surreal things, androids and robots becoming more than just androids and robots. The story has so many aspects I really loved seeing. A highlight for me was seeing the robots start to become sentient and deal with grief, family bonds, how they should live outside of what they were programmed to do. It was endlessly fascinating to me.

Game also had tons of fantastic characters. I think my favorites may have been 6O and Pascal, if I’m being honest with myself. But also also really liked all 3 of the main playable Androids, and I found myself falling totally in love with the pods too. There’s tons of other great and interesting characters you don’t even get to play as or see that much, it has a fantastic cast I really loved. Particularly, I thought the designs of the androids were really interesting. Dressed in all black with white hair is a cool aesthetic. My favorite design may have been 2B’s, obviously I thought she was really hot. But I think her outfit is actually very cool and classy in a way that understands how to make a character hot without just being in your face about it? If that makes sense. I also really loved A2′s look, being able to see her joints is a really cool underused aspect for an android design. I wasn’t super into the robots themselves at first, but I found myself really loving how they looked by the end of it. Their weird and minimalist designs really leant themselves to the sad and peculiar story they had to tell.

Nier has a fantastic gameplay style too. I was shocked to learn that it was a Bullet Hell! Bullet Hells and Shmups are my “secret favorite” genre, that I really love but rarely actually tap into. I thought the game had really fun use of Bullet Hell gameplay, with fun Shmup sections and fun action RPG sections. I was particularly impressed with how much fun the crossover of the two genres would be. Fighting back against a bullet hell in this type of gameplay style was incredibly fun and endearing. And I think it handles these two completely different genres really well in a pretty cool way. I also loved being able to get multiple weapons for the androids and pods, though I did mostly stick with the same the whole way through. Just the standard weapons and the beast slayer. Plus the laser for my pod. Hey, if it works, why fix it, right? I also really liked the chip system. I had a ton of fun figuring out which chips suited my style the most, and I liked feeling powerful because of them.

Outside of all that, the game looks and sounds AMAZING. The aesthetics particularly really got to me. I’m a huge fan of cities and buildings reclaimed by nature, and I’m a huge fan of sci-fi aesthetics mixed with modern and medieval aesthetics. And the game has both of these used in really great ways. Mix in some of the weird and creepy visuals thrown in throughout some of the game’s darker and sadder scenes? And it’s beautiful. I thought the music was really good too. I wasn’t crazy about it while playing it. But listening to it in the background while writing this makes me realize how good of an OST it is. I really love Pascal’s village theme, Treasured Times, and the credits music.

I also really adored a lot of the interested 4th wall breaks and ways they play with game mechanics and tie them into the functionality of the androids. A scene that really comes to mind is that the settings are actually your android settings. And having to go through them for the story mode, then getting to see it again as 9S. I also thought parts where your vision gets glitched out was very interesting, and things like that were really charming to me.

One of my favorite parts of the game, was absolutely the finale. Huge spoilers for this part obviously. I was teetering between not really liking the game anymore, and loving the game by the end. So the finale was really going to make or break it for me. But ultimately, I think the finale was AWESOME. Having to play as the pods fighting the credits to get a better ending was really cool and genuinely exciting to me. I had a total blast blazing through one final, tough bullet hell finale. Also, seeing all the cool little messages players left was so nice and genuinely heartwarming. I got messages from the USA, Mexico, even one from North Korea! It was so cool! And such a good idea. And getting help from everyone at the end was so awesome. Ultimately, I chose to give up my save data because the ending scene was actually pretty tough for me and I’m not that bad at bullet hells. So I figured it’d be selfish not to lend someone a hand out there in the world. (plus... to be fair, when my game pass expires, I won’t be playing this game much more lol.)

Stuff I didn’t like

With all that praise though, I don’t necessarily think the game was perfect either though. There was a lot of stuff that really rubbed me the wrong way. The gameplay had a lot of stuff that just didn’t feel right and was oddly frustrating. A big one for me was the lock on just being completely useless for some parts of the game, jumping around the enemies far off when there was something right in front of me ready to get hit. It made killing some enemies genuinely more challenging than needed. A huge issue I had with the gameplay was actually that there aren’t enough Shmup sections in the flight units. Most of them take place in hacking sections, which, in my opinion. Aren’t that fun, or at least considerably less fun than the way superior flight unit sections. And that’s the type of gameplay the ending uses. Which is a shame.

And there are some parts I sang praises about but I still have issues with. Like, I enjoy the game messing with the way you play because you’re controlling androids. But when you have to walk somewhere and the game disables your movement, or you have to kill something and the game disables your combat. It’s mostly just annoying. I really love the concept, and I think it’s not THAT bad. But it’s still annoying enough that I thought to mention it. And while I didn’t run into this issue, the really cute and touching aspects of the finale. Are you just completely locked out of them if you can’t pay for online? That really sucks and kind of kills the vibe of that ending. Same with having to delete your save data to help others. It’s cute! But why is it there? It all just feels so antagonizing for no reason.

I also had a big issue with Story B. You play through nearly the entirety of Story A again as 9S. Normally, I love stuff like this. Sonic games come to mind right away for games I enjoy that do this. But for Story B, it is the exact same game and story with minimal changes through it. Sure the opening and towards the ending, it’s different. But mostly, it’s identical. And then there’s just small snippets of way more interesting stuff with the way robots became sentient lightly peppered in to break up the monotony of doing the same thing twice. This second playthrough should’ve focuses HEAVILY on the robots. Even if it’s from 9S’ perspective, more should’ve been changed to show the robots. The part with the singing robot was BRUTAL, and I LOVED it. But you get very few new scenes like that. Perhaps Story B should’ve followed Pascal or a random enemy robot instead of 9S. Considering you also play as 9S for a lot of Story C. Imagine how gut wrenching it would be if Story B followed a random enemy robot evolving and learning about life and free will, only to get killed at the end by 9S or A2 or something. Idunno.

There’s also some gripes with the story. A big one is the fact that, and this is a HUGE spoiler. But 2B doesn’t feel like the main character. It feels like the main character is 9S, who I like, but isn’t as cool as 2B by a long shot. You barely play as 2B or even A2. SO MUCH of the game feels like it’s all about 9S and I gotta be honest, I’m not that interested in 9S. I like him, but maybe we could learn some more about the robots and their interesting problems instead of just seeing more about how 9S is so smart and awesome and genius so he has to be killed a bunch. Speaking of which, I don’t think I care for that aspect of 2B either? She has to kill 9S over and over because he keeps learning the truth about Yorha. In the end, even 2B is just a part of 9S’ story. Maybe that’s just me though. I feel like that whole concept could’ve been removed, and you could’ve had 2B and 9S having to deal with learning about the truth together. idk.

Overall, my biggest complaint is just that the game spends a little too much time on 9S and not enough time on all the interesting aspects it skims over. Again, the robots, I talked about this at length but I really would’ve loved to learn more about them. How about the existential reality that androids and robots have been fighting a meaningless war for dead masters for centuries? WHAT THE HELL WAS EMIL? There’s so much cool stuff in the world of Nier Automata that feels like it’s all skimmed over in favor of stuff that just didn’t really need to be there? I think a lot of these are relegated to sidequests, but they should’ve been a part of the main story. Maybe it’s just me.

Final Thoughts

Well, even after all those complaints and nitpicks. I have to say, I liked Nier Automata. I think it’s a cool game that explores things I thought most people weren’t interested in exploring. Both in its world and its gameplay. Especially not from a big triple A title. Some of these are things I’d like to explore in my own games so it’s nice to see a game with an interest in the same weird topics as me. I’m certainly interested in this series. I only own Drakengaurd, but I’d like to give it and Nier a shot sometime in the future if I can.

I like the hopeful nature of the ending and I liked the emotions I felt through the whole playthrough. Even when the game was scary and sad, I still had a good time with it, and I hope somewhere out there in the multiverse, the characters are living a much better life in peace.

Thank you so much for reading, or just skimming through. Or just scrolling to the end! I appreciate it a lot! This is my first time really writing up my feelings about a game in a huge more organized way like this, and I hope you enjoy it. I’m certainly going to try and do more stuff like this in the future, maybe I’ll still make some of them twitter threads if I’m lazy or don’t have much to say lol. But, regardless, thanks for your time! I hope you have a fantastic evening! Play a video game that makes you feel something :)

#2021 #Thoughts

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pants-jones · 4 years

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What I think about Devil May Cry 4

Devil May Cry is known as one of the best hack and slash games around, with its latest release taking the crown as the best hack and slash game ever. This post would be about DMC5, but there’s so much to do in that game that I don’t think I could even speak about it all, especially with it’s Special Edition coming out soon. So, I decided to talk about the game before it.

I’m gonna start with the fact that this is the first Devil May Cry where you don’t play as Dante (at least until halfway through the game). Instead, you play as Nero, the guy you see in the picture above. Nero’s gameplay style is very different from Dante’s, with a couple similarities. The biggest difference is that there are no style switches, and Nero only has one weapon and one gun. For those who don’t know, the absolute best part about playing as Dante is his arsenal; he ALWAYS has a ton of weapons that you can use to do the hokey pokey all over your enemies. You play as Dante for style, to look cool. Dante moves fast and you have to use all four of his styles and all of his weapons to be good with him. I’ll explain Dante’s kit in this game in a minute, but right now we’re on Nero. Nero only uses his sword, the Red Queen, and his magnum, the Blue rose. He’s a bit slower than Dante, and a whole lot more angry, which is consistent with his character because Nero is a very passionate, hotheaded person. Also he’s like 16-17 in DMC4, so it could be those teenage hormones.

Now, here’s the biggest difference between Dante and Nero.

Now, if you’d kindly look at the top left of this shitty image I pulled off of google since I was too lazy to pull a pic from my own gameplay, you can see a circular gauge next to the green health bar. That would be Nero’s Exceed Meter. The special thing about Nero’s Red Queen is that it’s like... a motorcycle in a sword. The damn thing has an engine, it has a throttle on the handle and he revs it to make it heat up. I can’t even write all that without it sounding stupid and absurd but yeah, it’s real and it works. You can charge that meter up, and if i remember correctly you can swing the sword three times before running out, which is why if you press L2 or LT at the right time, you have a chance to fill up either one slot of Exceed or the entire bar, to continue your flaming onslaught.

Next is the blue rose, which doesn’t have much but it works for Nero’s kit. It has charge shot, which is self explanatory, and it has Color Up. With Color Up, Nero loads the Blue Rose with explosive rounds, which you can layer on top of charge shot too.

Nero has mostly the same abilities as Dante, with the only real difference being Table Topper. Table Topper allows you to dash around your enemy if you side roll at the perfect moment. The last thing in Nero’s arsenal for this game is his Devil Bringer. If you look at the picture above again, you will see a blue light coming from Nero, and if you look at the first picture I used, you’re obviously gonna notice his weird ass arm. I don’t know why he has this thing but its another big part of his kit. When an enemy staggers, you can grab them with this arm to play an animation that’s pretty cool. And when I say that you can do this move on every enemy, I mean every enemy. The coolest part is the game doesn’t say if you can or not, it just tells you what it does and you have to figure it out on your own. Using the Devil Bringer on bosses is probably the best part because it does massive damage, and when you do it with Devil Trigger activated it plays a much more aggressive animation. My favorite is when Nero uses Devil Trigger and triple suplexes an enemy. It’s so over the top for no reason and I love it.

Now, I would speak about Dante’s play style in this game but I literally remember nothing about it. I can say that it wasn’t that different from usual Dante. He obviously has new weapons but I don’t remember them that much. I’ve been replaying the game so when I get to that point maybe I’ll make a post about it.

Now I’m gonna talk about the bad parts of the game. Because it is very flawed and dated, and playing through it hurts a little. This game takes place on the island of Fortuna, inhabited by a people who worship the Dark Knight Sparda(Dante’s father) like a God. Nero is the son of Vergil, Dante’s brother, and was born here. This religion (named the order) had some weird plot to take over the world with a giant statue that they called the Savior ( I think it was supposed to look like Sparda), and to do this they needed demon energy, so they made these big hell gates. Demons started pouring out and that somehow affected this islands climate?

And it’s a noticeable difference. Here’s an example.

This is Fortuna Castle. This is a big castle that you go through twice (once as Nero and once as Dante) and the main climate in this area is snowy and very mountain like. On the backside of this castle is a bridge that goes into a waterfall that has a tunnel behind it, and once you go through this tunnel, you see this.

An entire fucking forest. No, it’s more of a jungle and the worst part of the game. This game is full of dumb old 2000′s styled platformer bullshit that is tedious, annoying, and the reason I’m still taking a break from my second playthrough of this game. In a game that isn’t a platformer, it sure has a lot of annoying jumping stuff in it. Plus, this area introduces one of the worst enemies in the game.

This is the Chimera Seed. It has no attack patterns that are easily recognizable, and even when it isn’t attacking trying to hit it only damages you. I have vivid memory of brute forcing my way through these enemies because I didn’t want to annoy myself actually fighting them.

And this is Mephisto. A floating enemy, that goes through fucking walls. You can’t hit them until that black shroud is gone, and that’s also difficult to get off. This game has so many annoying enemies, it’s the worst to play through. Blitz was no where near as bad as Mephisto was.

This was the best DMC game until DMC5 came out, and it wasn’t that good anyways. But now that DMC5 came out, this games problems are emphasized greatly. In my opinion, this game is a 6/10. It’s good but flawed.

#devil may cry #review #gaming

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goldenkamuyhunting · 4 years

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Ramblings and crazy theory time about GK chap 239 “Discharge”

So… well, Noda continues with a chapter whose sense of humor makes me feel what Kikuta is feeling.

Yeah, really, sorry, but this is not my sort of thing.

The cover is…

… well, it’s apparently based on this video from the movie “She Hate me” by Spike Lee. I warn you, watch at your own risk.

So we go back on the story that see Usami and our wannabe ‘Jack’ that after just a moment of standoff… pardon, jack-off attack each other with the ‘weapons they have at hands’ (I’m sure you can figure what I’m talking about without having me to spell it out), Usami yelling to a shocked and grossed out Kikuta that guy is the killer before… well, ‘firing’. In a “Matrix” like scene ‘Jack’ avoids and fires back only for Usami to avoid in a beyond spectacular manner.

Jack then runs away, only for Kikuta to pull out a more conventional weapon, one of his many Nagant M1895 and fire at him multiple times before chasing him with Usami, the two going to two separate ways to try to encircle ‘Jack’.

Too bad that Jack as a horse and, with it, slams against Usami, sending him flying.

Kikuta manages to hit both him...

and his hat, which falls.

If the image we’re shown is reliable Jack has short hair. Kikuta then tosses his now completely discharged beloved Nagant away (his eyes aren’t shown to better deliver how this pains him... will he managed to recover her later?)...

...and runs to ‘Jack’, managing to grab on him and climb on his horse. He then grabs another of his Nagant (honestly, if this was another manga I’ll expect Kikuta to have a hammerspace filled with them but more ‘realistically’ he has just more than one holster under his coat) and point it to Jack’s head.

Unluckily for him ‘Jack’ still has a good hold on his ‘very personal peculiar weapon of choice’ and is reading it to fire.

Kikuta, who might face an army of Russians trained to kill him but not THIS (and I don’t blame him that’s a job solely for people like Usami though I think Ushiyama might do good as well) starts sweating and, instead than blasting our convict’s head away, tries protecting himself with poor results.

In fact ‘Jack’ gets him in the eyes and causes him to fall off the horse (I guess congratulation are in order to ‘jack’ for his ability to accurately aim behind himself while riding on a horse with such weapon).

Usami reaches Kikuta, whcih complains ‘Jack’ managed to get his eyes (trust me Kikuta, you aren’t the only one who was screaming ‘my eyes!’ through this chapter), then the two resume running after ‘Jack’ but they’re neither Koito nor the Tsukinator and so ‘Jack’ on his horse, can easily distance them. They hear a woman screaming but get there too late, only to find her dead.

Kikuta wonders if he did this while in the middle of running from them. The scene switches to a running and panting ‘Jack’ who evidently has discharged the horse and, with his already bloody knife attacks another prostitute, murdering her as well.

I wonder if he’s panting also due to the shoot he got from Kikuta. He doesn’t seem to be blending though. On a sidenote our ‘Jack’ confirms himself to be left-handed. The first time he killed he used his left, he took care to… ‘charge his gun’ with his left and now he’s stabbing again this woman with his left.

It’s worth to point out that Japan at the time wasn’t a left-handed people friendly environment, with people being discriminated and people were afraid they wouldn’t get married if they were left handed and only from 1989 the percentage of children undergoing correction steadily began to drop -- although still around 60%... and it’s also worth to remember Japan isn’t the sole country which had bias against left-handed people.

I’ll quote Wikipedia on this just to give you a general idea as I find meaningful they even have a page devoted to this:

‘In many religions, including Christianity, the right hand of God is the favored hand. For example, Jesus sits at God's right side. God's left hand, however, is the hand of judgement. The Archangel Gabriel is sometimes called "God's left hand" and sits at God's left side. Those who fall from favor with God are sent to left, as described in Matthew 25: 32–33, in which sheep represent the righteous and goats represent the fallen: "And he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats. And he shall set the sheep on his right, but the goats on his left." In 19th-century Europe, homosexuals were referred to as "left-handed". In Protestant-majority parts of the United Kingdom, Catholics were called "left-footers", and vice versa in Catholic-majority parts of Ireland and Irish America. Black magic is sometimes referred to as the "left-hand path", which is strongly associated with Satanism.’ [Wikipedia: Bias against left-handed people]

… so, if ‘Jack’ is from another country there’s a huge chance he moved from an unfriendly environment to another.

It’s worth to mention that the original ‘Jack the Ripper’ was originally assumed to be left-handed when they speculated he would kill his victims standing in front of them. Later they figured out he first would render his victims unconscious by strangling them and then kill them while they were on the ground, likely positioning himself behind them so that blood wouldn’t fall on him.

So either our ‘Jack’ isn’t the original ‘Jack’ or Noda is constructing him according to earlier theories on his modus operandi (he doesn’t strangle, he kills the victim as she’s standing in front of himself, he uses his left hand).

Now, back to the story… I got the impression Kikuta managed to hit ‘Jack’ when he shoot him… but ‘Jack’ doesn’t seem to be leaving a trail of blood as he walks so it’s hard to say if he’s panting and running that way due to a wound whose bleeding he managed to stop or just due to fatigue.

It’s the day after.

Takuboku Ishikawa, our journalist working for Hijikata, is on one of the crime scenes,

still pesteringon details about the murder the weird policeman we met in chap 239 (remember him?)...

...while the latter is ignoring him. The policeman has the hat lowered on his eyes.

There’s another known face and it’s the photographer.

(Remember? He was there too and lol, in the exact some pose it looks as if Noda has copypasted him there.)

He doesn’t seem to be left-handed but since left-handed people were corrected, in everyday life ‘Jack’ probably can’t use his left hand so it might be useless to search for a left-handed guy using his left hand in a normal situation.

Everyone else among the bystanders seems to be a new guy... okay, maybe the old and partially bald guy might be the same in both pictures but I’m not sure. In this chapter he seems curious but, who knows, he might be a different character just drawn for background. Besides his hair seems too long to be ‘Jack’s’.

Well, to be honest there’s another guy who’s not a new guy but we’ll get to this in a moment.

Kikuta comments ‘Jack’ this time killed two women and wonders if he was just trying to create chaos to escape or was merely doing it to taunt them. According to ‘sperm detective Usami’ it can be just something he decided in advance.

It’s worth to mention the canonical victims of the original ripper were:

Mary Ann Nichols, found on the 31th of August 1888

Annie Chapman, found on the 8th of September 1888

Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes, both found on the 30th of September

Mary Jane Kelly, found on the 9th of November 1888

So yes, on his third murdering attempt Jack killed two women so we can speculate this is a copycat or, if he’s meant to be the real Jack, his backstory would include a reason to murder 2 women at his third attempt (in the real Jack’s case it was speculated he murdered 2 because he was interrupted during the murder of the first woman so it wasn’t planned).

Anyway Kikuta wonders if Jack will come back and how it’ll be troublesome for them to track him now that he has 4 ‘sacred places’.

However Kikuta now tells us something relevant. He managed to get a look at the side of his face… and at his dick. I hope he doesn’t plan to go demand people to show them to him so he could identify ‘Jack’…

Usami suggests they’ll go check the other crime scene so that Kikuta might try to spot him. Kikuta though, has spotted something else so he tells Usami to go ahead that that he’ll join him later.

What Kikuta has spotted is the ‘fail master of disguise’ Private First Class Ariko Rikimatsu, which starts sweating as hell as Kikuta speaks to him and who tells him not to turn around and that basically he could recognize the sexy bulky build of Ariko’s body everywhere.

Okay, Kikuta didn’t exactly said that but really, there are PLENTY of men with a bulky build so, unless Kikuta is a bulky build bodies expert, his words sounds a bit… unbelievable unless it’s Ariko’s bulky build body itself who’s special to him.

And anyway, really Ariko, don’t get so nervous. You fail at deceiving people it seems.

Kikuta says he never heard Tsurumi talking about Ariko being there so he asks him if he came there with Hijikata.

We don’t get to hear Ariko’s reply but it’s likely he confirmed it. Still it’s interesting it was cut as well as the fact Kikuta wanted to speak with Ariko away from Usami’s ears.

Did Kikuta want clarifications on why Ariko betrayed him? Or just make sure Usami won’t attack him again? Or has Kikuta his own plan?

We’ll see.

And is Ogata overlooking that meeting from somewhere? I bet he knows Ariko isn’t trustworthy so can it be he’s keeping tabs on him? Or is Hijikata who’s doing so? Or both?

Anyway the scene switches to the coast of the sea of Okhotsk…

and I find this interesting because we see that there’s a city there… but we aren’t given its name. As long as they weren’t Ainu villages Noda had always given us the names of the places in which the characters were from big cities to minor spots like, for example, the village of Fukagawa, regardless of them spending a lot of time on the place or just a chapter, like the coal mining town of Utashinai.

When this first happen in chap 225

I though it was because Tsurumi was on the move, from coastal city to another, although it really didn’t persuade me… and maybe it could also be Noda for some reason didn’t have material on that part of Hokkaido so the whole thing would be edited in the volume version with the name of the place. However quite a while has gone from chap 225 and we still don’t have an EXACT idea of where he is, not even through a map.

There are big cities on that coastal area, from Wakkanai, the city ship on which Asirpa rode was supposed to reach, to Okoppe to the well known Abashiri… but also various small cities.

They could have said he’s still in the Wakkanai area instead…

Is there a reason to leave us in the dark even when Tsurumi clearly is in Japanese cities?

Is it a Watsonian reason or a Doylist one?

Anyway Tsurumi informs his men he received a telegram from Kikuta (who therefore knew in which city he was and this means either Tsurumi warned him where to find him day by day or he’s not exactly moving around a lot).

He doesn’t tell us what Kikuta said but that he’ll only leave two men behind to continue searching for Asirpa (meaning he hadn’t figured she has long moved from the coastal area) and the rest will go with Tsurumi to Sapporo.

The final page shows both Tsurumi and Hijikata (who’s apparently outside the city looking at something… Ogata practicing with the rifle? Ariko secretly meeting with Kikuta? Sugimoto’s group ALSO coming to Sapporo?).

The implication seems to be that Ariko has tattled out Hijikata’s presence in Sapporo and Kikuta has relied the information to Tsurumi therefore Tsurumi plans to go there and have a faceoff with Hijikata.

Tsurumi didn’t see the need to move for just a convict but if it’s Hijikata, who might have the remaining tattooed skins as well as info... well, the thing becomes much more interesting.

So with everyone being or going to Sapporo, I wonder if Sofia (currently in Hokkaido), the candy seller convict (last time seen in Utashinai) and the still missing convict (whereabouts unknown) will also go there.

Only 3 more chapters are needed to end volume 24 but I wouldn’t dislike it if, before the end, Hijikata and Ogata were to have a chat. This volume showed us some of Sugimoto’s past.

More on Ogata’s past would also be appreciated but, if I’ve to be honest, I’m also looking forward to more info about Kikuta and about Kadokura.

When Hijikata finds the room in which Inudo kept all the material he had collected about him in his fangirlish obsession to get Hijikata, we can see on the wall a list of all the convicts that had been cellmates with Hijikata but also Kadokura’s name.

Or better ‘Kadokura Tanuki’ (門倉タヌキ), Tanuki being the nick Inudou gave to Kadokura.

Let’s start with this.

A Tanuki (狸 or タヌキ) is a Japanese folklore animal, commonly associated with the Japanese raccoon dog, which in folktales often played the part of foolish animal, often with really big testicles (that’s why Inudou said he pictured him as pathetic Tanuki with big balls in chap 118)… however if we compare it to the Kitsune (fox), which are the epitome of shape-changing animals, one saying is "the fox has seven disguises, the tanuki has eight (狐七化け、狸八化け)". The tanuki is thus superior to the fox in its disguises, but unlike the fox, which changes its form for the sake of tempting people, tanuki do so to fool people and make them seem stupid. Note that 8 is a lucky number, which might tied to how Kadokura is actually lucky. However it’s also worth to mention the kanji used to write Tanuki (prior to the linguistic reform of 1947) was "貍", and referred to all the middle sized mammals, especially to wild cats.

So… why all this rambling?

Well, not only Inudo didn’t write down Kadokura’s name, just the surname plus his nick but near Kadokura’s name there’s also written ‘real father’ and then what look like 4 kanji, none of them similar to the kanji used to write Kadokura’s surname.

So basically not only we don’t know Kadokura’s name but also Kadokura’s surname and we’re facing someone who, for association, is compared to an animal much more expert at disguising than the fox (Inkamart).

Now I wouldn’t question Kadokura’s loyalty to Hijikata. In vol 18 he was willing to die to save him. He also seems confident he’s unlucky… and he might have been forced to change surname because his father was on the losing side of the Boshin and therefore carrying his father’s surname would have been bad for him.

The point is if not even his surname is… well, his surname, Kadokura is a men shrouded in mystery, about whom we know nothing except he moved to Abashiri 7 years ago, with Sugimoto commenting he’d been looking over Nopperabou by 7 years… meaning he moved there when Nopperabou moved there (note that Asirpa said the gold incident happened 5 years before but then everyone when with the 7 year thing so maybe there was a retcon).

In short maybe this is all for fun and the truth behind Kadokura is nothing special… but it can also be there’s much more to him it looks like. We’ll see.

#Golden Kamuy #Usami Tokishige #Ariko Rikimatsu #Hijikata Toshizou #Tsurumi Tokushirou #Asirpa #Golden Kamuy Ramblings and Theories #Ishikawa Takuboku #Michael Ostrog #Kikuta Mokutarou

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angelsandacceptance · 3 years

Text

Are You There God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester

Harley and Chase sit at the table, a pile of books between them. They’re listening to Dean argue with Sam about Castiel as they research angels.

“What else could it be, Dean?” Sam asks.

“Look, all I know is that I was not groped by an angel.”

“Okay, look, Dean. Why would Castiel lie to you about it?”

“Maybe he’s a demon,” Dean says. “Demons lie.”

Chase rolls her eyes. Even Bobby looks up from his book.

“Yeah, a demon who’s immune to salt rounds, devil’s traps. And let’s not forget Ruby’s knife,” Harley says sarcastically.

“Not helping,” Dean says gruffly.

“Harley’s right,” Chase says. “Even Lilith is scared of that knife.”

“Don’t you think that if angels were real, that some hunter somewhere would have seen one? At some point? Ever?” Dean counters.

“Yeah, Dean. A hunter has. The three of us just did,” Chase says.

“Maybe they were laying low in heaven? It’s crazy I know, but so is everything else in our lives,” Harley adds.

“I’m just trying to think of a theory,” Dean says, trying to defend himself.

“We have a theory,” Sam says.

“Yeah, well, one with a little less fairy dust on it, please.”

“Okay, look, I’m not saying we know for certain. I’m just saying that I think we-”

“Okay, okay, but that’s the point. We don’t know for sure, so I’m not gonna believe that it’s a freaking Angel of the Lord just because it says so!”

“You four chuckleheads want to keep arguing religion, or do you want to come take a look at this?” Bobby asks, pointing at a lore book.

They all look at Bobby.

“I’ve got stacks of lore - some biblical, some pre-biblical. Damn, some of it is in cuneiform. It all says that angels can snatch a soul from the pit.”

“All the books I’ve read say that too,” Chase adds, setting her current book down.

“What else?” Dean asks.

“What else, what?” Bobby replies.

“What else could do it?”

“Airlift your ass out of the hot box? As far as I can tell, nothing.”

“Dean, this is good news.” Sam says.

“How?”

“Because for once, this isn't just another round of demon crap. I mean, maybe you were saved by one of the good guys, you know?”

“Okay. Say it's true. Say there are angels. Then what? There's a God?”

“At this point, Vegas money's on yeah.” Bobby says.

“I don't know, guys,” Dean says, reluctant to admit any of it true.

“Okay, look. I know you're not all choirboy about this stuff, but this is becoming less and less about faith and more and more about proof.” Sam says, trying to convince him.

“Proof?”

“Yes Dean, it’s this thing where you have evidence of something and it’s staring you right in the face.” Harley adds sarcastically.

“But why me? If there is a God out there, why would he give a crap about me?”

“Because you're amazing and fantastic.”

“I mean, I've saved some people, okay? I figured that made up for the stealing and the ditching chicks. But why do I deserve to get saved? I'm just a regular guy.”

“Apparently, you're a regular guy that's important to the man upstairs,” Sam says.

“Well, that creeps me out. I mean, I don't like getting singled out at birthday parties, much less by... God.”

“Okay, well, too bad, Dean, because I think he wants you to strap on your party hat,” Sam jokes.

Chase laughs slightly at the joke, remembering the year Dean got birthday hats for Sam and her, as well as himself for her thirteenth birthday.

“Fine,” Dean concedes. “What do we know about angels?”

Bobby hands him a book. “Start reading.”

“You're gonna get me some pie,” Dean says, turning to Sam.

“Ooo! Me too!” Harley pipes up.

“You know I always am up for pie!” Chase adds.

Sam rolls his eyes, but can’t fight the smile on his face.

***

Sam pulls up to Bobby’s house. He forgot the pie. Bobby walks to the car window and tells Sam to keep the car running because Olivia Lowry hasn’t been answering her phone.

“Olivia Lowry.. a hunter, right?” Sam asks.

“Yeah. We're gonna go check on her. You guys follow me.” Bobby replies, before heading to his own car.

Harley and Dean walk over to the Impala. Dean to get in and Harley to retrieve her pie.

“Dude, where’s the pie?” Harley says after peering into the car.

“I forgot it. Sorry,”

“Dammit, Sammy.” Dean says, realizing that there’s no pie.

Harley walks away towards the Lincoln. “Sam forgot the pie,” she sighs, getting into the passenger side.

Chase scoffs, starting the Lincoln. “‘When do I ever forget the pie?’ he says. Well, now, apparently. Just as I was getting hungry too.”

“So that angel, bit weird. I mean who says ‘perdition’?” Harley says starting the flow of conversation to take them to the next state over.

“We meet an actual, legitimate, awesome looking angel, and you decide to focus on his vocabulary before anything else?” Chase asks. She laughs, trying to keep her eyes on the road. “You are so lucky I love you, because you have some weird ass priorities.”

“Aww, love you too. But seriously it was weird and I stand by that. No one uses ‘perdition’ anymore. If they ever did, and he wasn’t really that awesome looking. He just kinda looked normal. Bit tax accountant-ish.”

Chase turns a bright red. She constantly does this. “I didn’t mean like, you know, good looking. I just meant like awesome. Like, I dunno, cool I guess. You know, the wing thing was pretty wicked. Plus his eyes are really blue. Kinda eerie looking. Though you are kinda right about the accountant thing. The trenchcoat was a bit much,” Chase laughs.

“So how blue are his eyes exactly?” Harley teases.

“Well, you know, just. Blue? A very crystal-y blue.”

“Aquamarine?”

“Well, no. More sky-blue. Like powder blue but crystalized.”

“You think he’s cute. No one pays that much attention to someone’s eyes unless they fancy them.”

“That’s so not true! What color are Dean’s eyes?” Chase demands.

“Green, I think? Dunno?”

“Uh huh, you ‘think’,” Chase scoffs.

“I’d have to look at them again. I think Sam’s are green too though.”

“Okay,” Chase starts, sparing a glance at Harley. “Now I can’t tell if you’re just trying to make me believe that you don’t know my brother’s eye color, or if you genuinely don’t pay attention.”

“I just genuinely don’t pay attention because I don’t fancy either of them.”

“Well, just because I’m a little less oblivious than you, though not by much, doesn’t mean I fancy some guy who may or may not be trying to screw us over. If any of the Winchester’s are going to do that, it’s gonna be Sam.”

“Okay fair point, but you don’t have to trust someone to think they’re cute.”

“Fair,” Chase relents. “But I wouldn’t say cute. His eyes are just cool. But I also have a weird fascination with eyes, which you already know about so I don’t know why you’re teasing me. Is this just to get back at me for the Dean thing?”

“Maybe? Who knows?”

Chase rolls her eyes. “I think I know.”

“Excuse you? I am an enigma.”

Chase laughs, shrugging off her best friend’s odd ways. “That is one of the truest statements.”

“I mean I only ever speak the truth, except for when I lie of course. Then I’m lying.”

***

Bobby enters Olivia’s house first closely followed by the rest of the younger hunters.

“Olivia?” Bobby calls.

Dean motions for Chase and Harley to go one way, while they search another part of the house. Chase nods and follows Harley, who is sporting her usual gun, while covering her by sweeping her gun across the room, looking for any movement.

While looking for movement, however, Chase misses that Harley had stopped. She bumps into her.

“What is it?” Chase asks, following Harley’s gaze. A woman’s body lays on the ground, covered in blood, quite literally torn into. Grimacing, she turns back to the hall. “Guys! We found her!”

The three other hunters come into the room. Sam’s the first to point out the line of salt at the doorway. They all started looking around the room. Dean walked over to Olivia’s weapon store and picked up an out of place EMF meter, “Olivia was rocking the EMF meter.”

“So a brutal ghost.” Harley comments on the state of the body.

“Yeah. I never seen a ghost do this to a person.” Dean says.

Bobby had left unnoticed while the younger hunters were talking and had just come back in the room with a worried expression on his face.

“Bobby, you all right?” Dean asks.

“I called some hunters nearby,” Bobby hesitated towards the end.

“Great,” Chase says. “We’ll probably need help with this one.”

“Except they ain't answering their phones either.”

“Well that’s fantastic.” Harley says, her voice dripping in sarcasm.

“Something's up, huh?” Sam asks.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

***

They made a stop at an empty gas station. Harley went in to retrieve a couple of pies.

“You replaced me,” Harley turned around to see her dead best friend Adina. She was the reason Harley started hunting. A werewolf got her. She had to put a silver bullet she got on Amazon in it. “You let me die, and then you replaced me!”

“I could never replace you.”

“You already did.”

“Adina love. You were like a daughter to me. You still are.”

“You watched as that thing ripped me apart!”

“I couldn’t get to you in time. I tried. I really really tried,” A single tear ran down Harley’s cheek. “I killed it. It’s my fault it was even there. It was because of what I am. It could smell it on me. I’m so so sorry. I love you so much.”

“Now you get to know what it feels like to have your heart ripped out,” Adina stalked closer to Harley who was backing up towards the door. She tumbled out the door of the gas station and fell to the ground.

***

Chase sits in the Lincoln, her music quietly playing in the background as she scans a book about ghost activity. She fidgets with her iron pocket knife, a nervous tic she has.

“Miss me?” A male voice asks. Chase whirls to look at whoever the Hell managed to get into her car undetected. Her ex-best friend stares back at her, unconcerned about the knife pointed at him. “I knew you would. I told you the last time we talked. You were going to miss me.”

Chase stares in horror, eyes wide as she takes in his appearance. He looked the same as he did in college, right before the accident. His blonde hair sticks up wildly, and his smile is painted on his face the way it always was; like he knew something you didn’t.

As if snapping out of paralysis, her body responds of its own accord while her mind stays as blank as before. She quickly jabs the knife through his body, already exiting the car as his body is reappearing outside of it. She runs in the direction of the gas station, hoping to find Harley alright, before she skids to a stop, avoiding running into him.

“Nathaniel, please, stop,” Chase says, her voice shaking. His image starts to flicker, flashing from normal to when he’d died.

“Why should I?” He asks harshly, water dripping down his body in quick streams. His normally blue eyes are white, his skin holding a sickly blue-green tint. “You used me for information and then abandoned me to die, as soon as I wasn’t convenient.”

“Nathaniel, I tried to save you! I tried so hard! I did everything I could.” Chase backs up slowly, fearing the anger radiating off of his ghostly apparition. Pulling out a pistol from behind her, where she’d kept it tucked in her jeans upon discovering the high EMF levels, she takes a breath, looking at him.

She aims it at him, only for him to disappear when she shoots. Cursing, she keeps the pocket knife at eye level, the gun straight out in front of her as she sweeps the area.

“I never forgave you, you know.”

Chase freezes, feeling the cold chill from behind her.

“I know I said, as I was about to be dragged into the water, that I forgave you. That I believed you. That you actually loved me. But I didn’t. I died, blaming you.”

Tears start to burn in Chase’s eyes. “I did care about you. I did love you. I never used you,” she says rapidly, trying to justify herself. “I know it was my fault you died. If I’d discovered that stupid bitch earlier. If I’d done what I promised, you’d still be here.”

“But you didn’t! You didn’t find her fast enough because you just didn’t actually care!” Nathaniel shouts, his voice echoing in Chase’s ears.

Chase spins on her heel and fires, shooting Nathaniel in the chest. He disappears and doesn’t reappear.

Taking a few steady breaths, Chase rushes to the gas station just in time for Harley to fall through the door, the glass shattering around her.

Looking up and seeing a girl with brown and neon green hair standing above her.

“Adina, come on it’s me, Harley!” she shouts, crying. “I love you!”

Chase shoots and Adina disappears. Harley slowly got up wiping away her tears. “Thanks, Chase. I just couldn’t bring myself to hurt her. Even if she is dead.”

“No, I-” Chase takes a deep breath and then speaks again. “I get it. You missed, uh, Nathaniel was here.” Chase had told Harley a while back about her ex-best friend who’d died from drowning. A witch had been going after the swim team of the college to get back at the coach.

Chase shakes her head, holding out her hand to help Harley to her feet. “C’mon. Let’s get back to the others.”

“Hopefully they’re having a better time,” Harley smiles, not a genuine smile more so for show. Unfortunately they weren't, not that the two girls knew.

***

Chase and Harley sit in the kitchen, flipping through lore and eating pie. The boys had gone down the hall to discuss their events with different ghosts. Bobby comes through the kitchen, the boys hot on his tail. He looks to the girls, points at them, then down the hall.

“Follow me.”

Casting a confused glance towards each other, they get up and follow Bobby.

“Okay, where are we going?” Sam asks, confused.

Chase nods, “Yeah, that’s a great question.”

“Some safe place, you idiots,” Bobby says.

Bobby grabs a few books off a shelf, hands them to Harley, and then leads them down into a basement.

“Is this…” Sam trails off, gazing at an iron door.

“Solid iron,” Bobby says. “Completely coated in salt. One hundred percent ghost proof.”

Chase whistles.

“You built a panic room?” Sam asks in disbelief.

Bobby shrugs. “I had a weekend off.”

“Bobby,” Harley says, nodding, impressed.

“What?”

“You’re awesome,” Dean says.

***

Each hunter works on something individually from within the panic room. Sam and Dean are making salt bullets in iron casing, while Chase, Bobby, and Harley read up on the symbol the others had seen on the ghosts. Chase fiddles with her pocket knife, sharpening it slowly as she reads. Harley is tapping her fingers on the spine of her book.

“See, this is why I can’t get behind God.”

The others turn to look at Dean, who hasn’t averted his gaze from his work.

“What are you talking about?” Sam asks.

“If he doesn't exist, fine. Bad crap happens to good people. That's how it is. There's no rhyme or reason -- just random, horrible, evil -- I get it, okay. I can roll with that. But if he is out there, what's wrong with him? Where the hell is he while all these decent people are getting torn to shreds? How does he live with himself? You know, why doesn't he help?”

“Just because he’s God, doesn’t mean he has to care. If you were God, how long would it take before you got desensitised to it all?” Chase says.

“I ain’t touching this one with a ten-foot pole,” Bobby says.

“Yeah,” Dean says bluntly.

“Found it,” Bobby says, getting up from the table.

“Found what,” Sam asks.

Chase rolls her eyes. “I dunno, maybe the symbol we’ve been looking for for the past hour and a half?” she asks sarcastically.

“The symbol you saw, it’s called the Mark of the Witness,” Bobby says.

“Witness? Witness to what?” Sam asks.

“The unnatural. None of them died what you'd call ordinary deaths. See, these ghosts -- they were forced to rise. They woke up in agony. They were like rabid dogs. It ain't their fault. Someone rose them... on purpose.”

“Who?”

“Do I look like I know? But whoever it was used a spell so powerful it left a mark, a brand on their souls. Whoever did this had big plans. It's called ‘the rising of the witnesses.’ It figures into an ancient prophecy.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Dean says. “What book is this prophecy from?”

“Well, the widely distributed version's just for tourists, you know. But long story short -- Revelations. This is a sign, guys.”

“Sign of what?” All four younger hunters chorus.

“The apocalypse.”

“Apocalypse? The apocalypse, apocalypse? The four horsemen, pestilence, $5-a-gallon-gas apocalypse?” Dean asks.

“That’s the one,” Bobby says. “The rise of the witnesses is a mile-marker.”

“That’s insane,” Chase says.

“Of course the world is ending in our lifetime.” Harley groans.

“Okay, so, what do we do now?” Sam asks, confused.

“Road trip. Grand Canyon, Star Trek Experience. Bunny Ranch.” Dean jokes, going to sit down again.

“First things first. How about we survive our friends out there?” Bobby says.

“Great. Any ideas aside from staying in this room until Judgment Day?” Dean asks.

“It’s a spell,” Bobby points at a piece of paper, “to send the witnesses back to rest. Should work.”

“Should. Great.” Sam says, disappointed.

“It’s a shot. Better than nothing.” Harley adds.

“Yeah. Let’s just hope we can stand their taunting long enough to do it,” Chase mutters.

“If I translate it correctly, I should have everything here at the house,” Bobby continues.

“If. I don’t like that word,” Chase says. “But sure. Better this than being stuck here with you guys indefinitely.”

“Oh, you’re still gonna be stuck with me indefinitely.” Harley jokes.

“Any chance you got everything we need here in this room?” Dean asks.

“When have we ever been that lucky?”

“Spell's got to be cast over an open fire.” Bobby mentions.

“The fireplace in the library.” Sam says.

“Can’t we just start a fire in here? The floor’s concrete,” Harley points out.

“True,” Chase says. “But, there isn’t anything here we can burn. All of these books are way too important to our jobs.”

“So the library,” Sam says.

“Bingo,” Bobby says. He starts to grab the salt bullets and hand them out to us. Chase, Sam, and Harley load their guns.

“That just doesn’t sound as appealing as, say, a ghost-proof panic room,” Dean tries arguing once more. He is ignored.

“Cover each other,” Bobby says, about to open the door. “And aim careful. Don’t run out of ammo until I’m done, or they’ll shred you. Ready?”

“Right, don’t run out of ammo,” Chase says sarcastically. “Maybe they’ll even refrain from attacking us if we tell them we’re getting low.”

Bobby gives her a pointed look, opening the door. “Just be careful.”

They all slowly exit the bunker, weapons raised, carefully scanning the room as they proceed to the stairs.

They pause, seeing a man in his early twenties sitting there. “Hey, Dean,” he says. “Remember me?”

Dean pauses before nodding. “Ronald, huh? With the laser eyes. I wish I could say it’s good to see you.”

“I’m dead because of you,” the ghost - Ronald - says, suddenly angry. “You were supposed to help me!”

A bang goes off, and everyone turns to see Bobby with his gun still aimed at where Ronald had been. “If you’re gonna shoot, shoot. Don’t talk.”

Everyone then makes their way to the living room with caution. Sam makes a salt circle while Dean starts the fire. Chase and Harley scan the room, ready to shoot at a moment’s notice.

“Upstairs,” Bobby says to Sam. “linen closet - red hex box. It’ll be heavy.”

“Got it.” Sam leaves as two girls reappear in the living room, focusing solely on Bobby.

“Bobby,” one of the girls starts. Chase shoots.

“Dean, in the kitchen. Cutlery drawer has a false bottom. Hemlock, opium, wormwood.”

“Opium?” Dean asks.

“Go!” Harley shouts at him. Dean rushes out.

The girls reappear. Bobby tries to ignore them as he draws with chalk on the desk. Harley and Chase don’t shoot just yet, taking caution with the number of bullets they each have.

“You walked right by us when that monster ate us all up.”

“You could have saved us.”

Harley and Chase both shoot one of the girls. Bobby continues to focus on his task.

“You know what I hate most?” Chase asks, the girls reappearing, but farther away. “When there are two little girls. Why is it the creepiest when there are two?”

She shoots.

The door to the kitchen closes suddenly, and the three of them snap to attention.

“Dean?” Harley calls out.

“I’m fine!” They let out a breath at hearing Dean. “Keep working, guys!”

They boys rush back into the living room, reloading their guns once they put the stuff down.

Ronald reappears.

“Ronald, hey, come on. I thought we were pals,” Dean laughs.

“That’s when I was still alive. Now, I want to eat you alive.”

“Well, I’m not a cheeseburger.” He shoots, but Ronald is already gone.

A college-aged girl with black hair appears in front of Chase. “Faith.”

Faith stares at Chase in melancholy. “You left me there, C. I thought we were going to do it together. You were supposed to be there that day. Why didn’t you show up?”

Chase shoots, blinking away tears.

Bobby recites some Latin words and the windows blow open and a wind fills the room. The wind moves the salt so they are no longer protected by it. Meg appears and Sam quickly shoots at her, as Bobby continues to recite the spell.

Ronald appears and they shoot at him. Sam and Dean continue to fire as the ghosts appear. Henriksen knocks Dean’s gun out of his hands when he is reloading, and approaches him. Dean grabs another gun, and shoots it, only to find it empty. He quickly picks up an iron rod and hits at Henriksen. Meg appears and pushes Sam against the wall, trapping him there with a desk. Sam tries to push the desk away without success.

Nathaniel appears behind Chase, reaching an arm into her chest. Chase gasps out in pain before the feeling suddenly disappears. Harley had shot him.

“Thanks,” Chase breathes out, shooting at Meg, who was still harassing Sam.

“No problem.”

Chase and Harley turn just in time to hear Bobby shout, “Dean!”

Dean catches the bowl of ingredients, which Bobby had dropped when Meg plunged a hand into Bobby’s neck. The two girls sit on his desk. Chase and Harley take one out each, but don’t shoot at Meg, in fear of hitting Bobby.

Dean throws the contents of the bowl into the fireplace. The fire turns a brilliant blue, before everything suddenly stops. The ghosts disappear, and the wind stops, allowing everything in the room to settle.

They are all breathing hard and looking to one another.

“Bobby?” Dean asks.

Bobby nods, indicating he’s okay.

Sam gets free of the desk that had been pinning him.

They all take the moment to breathe.

***

It was the middle of the night. Harley sat at the kitchen table reading up on angels. She would normally be on the couch, but that was currently taken up by a sleeping Sam Winchester.

Chase sat on the counter, swinging her legs back and forth as she quietly ate a bowl of cereal. She looks up to make a comment to Harley about the ghosts earlier that day, but stops short and almost chokes on her food at the sight of the angel, Castiel. He stands facing the living room, very still, as though waiting for something.

“What the hell?” Chase asks loudly. Castiel looks backwards only a mere second, his facial expression screaming indifference to her. Her eyes widen as she looks to see if she’d disturbed the boys’ sleep. Sam lay as still as ever, snoring quietly. Dean however, had heard her, and was now sitting up. His face hardens upon seeing Castiel.

“So, um...Castiel, right? Why are you here in the middle of the night? Some people actually need sleep,” Harley asks, increasingly confused.

Dean walks over, and Castiel, having ignored both of the girls, nods to him. “Good job with the witnesses.”

“You were hip to all this?”

Chase snorts slightly at Dean’s choice of words.

“I was, uh, made aware,” Castiel responds, his voice gravelly, as though it hadn’t been used in a long time.

“Well, thanks for the angelic assistance. You know, I almost got my heart ripped out.”

“Oh, me too,” Chase pipes up. “Interesting experience, really.”

“But you didn’t,” Castiel says, still not addressing Chase. Chase shoots Harley an irritated glare, gesturing to Castiel and mouthing, ‘What’s his problem?’ to her.

“Look, Cas. Can I call you Cas? Actually don’t bother. I am. You can’t just be all ‘But you didn’t’ to my friends. They are amazing and wonderful and the second you realize that you’ll be poofing yourself over here in a second to save their asses as much as they need,” Harley scolds the angel.

“I don’t ‘poof’,” Castiel says.

“I thought angels were supposed to be guardians. Fluffy wings, halos -- you know, Michael Landon. Not dicks.”

“Read the Bible. Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier.”

“He’s right,” Harley pipes up.

“Yeah? Then, why didn't you fight?” Dean turns to Harley confused. “Wait… How would you know?”

“I went to Catholic school.”

“You? You went to Catholic school? Miss Constantly-Avoids-Churches? That’s actually really hot. I bet you were a bad girl weren’t you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Castiel sighs, “I'm not here to perch on your shoulder. We had larger concerns,”

“Concerns? There were people getting torn to shreds down here! And, by the way, while all this is going on, where the hell is your boss, huh, if there is a God?” Dean practically shouts.

“Dean, you’re gonna wake up Sam,” Harley scolds.

“There's a God.” Castiel says, utterly unfazed and a little annoyed.

“I'm not convinced. 'Cause if there's a God, what the hell is he waiting for, huh? Genocide? Monsters roaming the earth? The freaking apocalypse? At what point does he lift a damn finger and help the poor bastards that are stuck down here?” Dean says.

“The Lord works-”

“If you say mysterious ways, Imma kick your ass,” Harley threatens. Castiel puts his hands up in surrender.

“So, Bobby was right... about the witnesses. This is some kind of a... sign of the apocalypse?” Dean asks.

“That's why we're here. Big things afoot,” Castiel says.

“Do we want to know what kind of things?” Chase asks.

“I sincerely doubt it, but you need to know. The rising of the witnesses is one of the 66 seals.”

‘Oh, look. He can talk to me. Miraculous,’ Chase mouths to Harley.

“Okay. I'm guessing that's not a show at Seaworld,” Dean jokes.

“Those seals are being broken by Lilith.”

“Bitch,” Harley murmurs.

“She did the spell. She rose the witnesses,” Dean says, stating the obvious.

“Mm-hmm. And not just here. 20 other hunters are dead.”

“Of course. She picked victims that the hunters couldn't save so that they would barrel right after us,” Dean concluded.

“Lilith has a certain sense of humor.”

“Well, we put those spirits back to rest.”

“It doesn't matter. The seal was broken.”

“Why break the seal anyway?”

“You think of the seals as locks on a door.”

“Okay. Last one opens and…”

“Lucifer walks free.”

“Lovely. I reckon now he has a chance to wear Prada,” Harley jokes.

Chase laughs and Dean smiles. Castiel doesn't even acknowledge the joke.

“Lucifer? But I thought Lucifer was just a story they told at demon Sunday school. There's no such thing,” Dean says, unsure.

“Three days ago, you thought there was no such thing as me. Why do you think we're here walking among you now for the first time in 2,000 years?” Castiel asks.

“To stop Lucifer.”

“That's why we've arrived.”

“Well... bang-up job so far. Stellar work with the witnesses. That's nice.”

“We tried. And there are other battles, other seals. Some we'll win, some we'll lose. This one we lost. Our numbers are not unlimited. Six of my brothers died in the field this week. You think the armies of Heaven should just follow you around? There's a bigger picture here. You should show me some respect. I dragged you out of Hell. I can throw you back in,” Castiel threatens before disappearing.

“Well…… That happened,” Harley stated plainly.

#AngelsandAcceptance #AaA #supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #bobby singer #chase winchester #harley pawlak #castiel

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