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angelltheninth · 2 months

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hi hi! i wanna request if you haven't done fics like my req.

mizu and fem!reader, reader is sooo horny and desperate for mizu after she came home to hunt the white mens. reader eating her outttt and grinding her pussy on mizu's thigh

Here's more Mizu, sorry for keeping you waiting.

Pairing: Mizu x Fem!Reader

Tags: nsfw, smut, reunion sex, cunnilingus, thigh riding, finger riding, teasing, kissing, nipple sucking, touch-starved Mizu

A/N: Lets get more Mizu here, I have more requests for her to get to.

After being gone for a while she very touch-starved for you and for your attention

Doesn't brag about the people she's killed, she's tired now and all she wants is you

Being without your touch for so long nearly drove her mad

She needs your kisses, your praise, your naked body against hers

Clothes are very quickly thrown to the floor or to the side, even her sword and glasses are set aside in her new quest to be close to you

"Already wet. Someone must have missed me. Can't say I can blame you, I missed you too." Mizu's smile was tired but just as cocky as always against your thigh. Her lips dragged up to where you needed them most but she didn't open them.

As you pushed yourself on your elbows against the wooden floor you saw her eyes targeting you now. Most people would shiver in fear when being faced with the blue-eyed demon but your shiver was for a different reason.

You knew she could see your slick dripping, she could feel it on her skilled, rough fingers. Mizu was shivering too, from anticipation of what's to come.

"I know you did. I can't sleep well without you these days. But also, there is that skilled tongue of yours." The same tongue that got her in a lot of trouble in the past. And then won your heart. And... your pussy too. Both were much appriciated by you. "Put it to good use, samurai."

Mizu quirked her eyebrow at you and pressed the whole flat of her tongue against your pussy. "Is this better? Is this what you want?" You nodded quickly, fisting her jet black hair between your fingers. She's not getting away anymore.

Mizu's tongue was as skilled as always, as skilled as her sword

She had way less practice with her tongue, unless you counted the biting words she hurled at her enemies, and sometimes her friends.

Her tongue licked you slowly, spreading your wetness across your pussy and thighs, humming every time you tugged on her hair

You were allowed to untie it but if you did then you had to keep it out of her eyes

That was the deal

She always had to be able to see you if she chose to

Presses two fingers inside of you and curls them upwards right as her tongue lashes at your clit

Doesn't care that her jaw aches, you're still wet, and so close too. She's learned to work through the pain to get the things she wants and she really wants to make you come.

"Mizu, hold on- I- mmm-! Wanna ride you!" You pleaded, voice broken by your whimpers. Mizu huffed against your clit before taking it in her mouth and giving it a rough suck, "Mizu!" There was no way to pry her off of you, she was a woman on a new mission now. And she wasn't quitting so easily.

"Not until you come for me. Pretty girl I know you can do it. Be good. I know you want to, I know you're so close. Do you really want me to stop what I'm doing and take this away from you?" Her voice deepened slightly like when it did when she was in the middle of a fight. "No you don't. You can't fucking take it when I pull away from you."

You were inclined to agree with her on that. You were a bit of a brat, always pulling Mizu back when she would say you were too bratty and giving her even more attitude. "Hurry up then. I missed the way you look with my cum on your face."

Those were the only words Mizu needed to hear to resume her attack. Her fingers remained inside your pussy the whole time, feeling the more and more frequent pulsing motions of your inner walls. Sucking her fingers in while she sucked your clit, her fingers then curling in a come here motion until your whole body trembled with pleasure.

Without pulling her fingers out she moved to sit down next to you

You immediately took your chance and straddled her lap, as she followed you, fingers slipping out just for a brief moment before going back in, while adding a third one

As you moved on top of her, up and down, your breasts pushed against her face she wrapped her arm around your body to keep you close

She missed you too, so much

But she was never good with admitting such vulnerable things to you

"You said you wanted to ride my fingers, so ride them." While her lips circled around your hard nipple, sucking and biting. You were so soft, so nice to cuddle up with, so warm and she missed that warmth, she longed for it as she moaned your name.

"I think someone is a bit needy." You teased and she affirmed as the palm of her hand pushed flat against your clit. "Hold still, love." She could do so but only if she you took over the moving instead. Small grunts of protect vibrated against your nipple every time you pushed up and left her fingers to feel the cool air.

Mizu moved to your other breast, her hand tracing patterns on your back before pressing against your shoulder blade. As you arched your back to press your body further against hers she smiled against your breast.

Before she felt the heavenly pulsing of your pussy against her fingers that she missed so much you moved off her fingers. "You'll get to see me, don't worry, but now I think I want your thigh instead."

"Such a brat." Mizu protested but pushed her thigh between your legs anyway. It was already slightly wet from you hovering above it but it felt so much better to feel that strong thigh against your pussy instead.

You only took a few full bucks of your hips close to her to come. You cradled her head close before kissing her, deep and with your tongue tasting yourself on hers. "Welcome back, my samurai."

#blue eye samurai #mizu #bes #blue eye samurai x reader #mizu x reader #mizu blue eye samurai #bes x reader #blue eye samurai imagine #mizu imagine #bes imagine #blue eye samurai headcanons #mizu headcanons #bes headcanons #blue eye samurai smut #x reader #x female reader

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cavewolf · 8 months

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actually i'm going to just make a post for everyone. SO you want to get into funger because it's trending. i have made a relatively spoiler free content warning list for anyone that might need it

important to note, these games are horror and 18+. they aren't designed for a younger audience. i won't tell you what you can and can't do but the game is age restricted for a reason

tl;dr / just give me the general stuff:

sexual violence, dismemberment as a core mechanic, gore, cults, religious violence, in-universe transphobia, one instance of the r and q slurs, body horror, regular sexual content, nudity, drug abuse, child endangerment, hallucinations, full-frontal nudity, fascism

fear and hunger 1 specific:

child endangerment: you can recruit a young girl as a party member. she can be hurt and killed in battle. you can also exchange her to multiple npcs; in particular, pocketcat wants to kill and eat her to prevent something from happening, but his dialogue has pedophilic implications. nas'hrah also implies that the new god valtiel is a pedophile.

sexual violence: several coin-flip attacks may result in a cutscene of your character being assaulted by the enemy.

gore: several instances. significantly a tunnel made of flesh and a required bossfight being a man who has flayed himself alive.

consensual sex: you can choose to participate in an orgy to replenish your health and mind. you can also choose to ask another party member (EXCLUDING the girl, moonless, the demon kid and nas'hrah) to perform a marriage with you, which involves having sex on a ritual circle.

cults: the bunnymask and wolfmask cults. one is engaged in a constant orgy and the other in the 'feast' (autoerotic cannibalism).

nudity: the vast majority of enemies in this game will be full-frontal. you can sometimes target breasts and penises as limbs to sever.

animal endangerment: you can recruit moonless. she's a wolf but acts more like a dog. she can be injured, killed and sacrificed.

substance abuse: your character will need to either drink alcohol or smoke tobacco/opoids during the game. it is not optional. the girl also needs to given these.

body horror: specific focus on mutations/transformations.

racism: d'arce attempts to convert the cavedwellers (allegorical-british people who became stuck in the dungeon and returned to primitivism) to allegorical christianity and is derogatory towards them when they refuse.

religious violence: you can sacrifice party members to gain affinity with the god of destruction. a man is shown crucified by priests, and it is also a significant part of enki's backstory.

bugs: there are a lot of insects in the game, and 'mastery over insects' is a learnable skill

suicide: valtiel hangs himself when you defeat him.

fear & hunger 2 specific:

fascism: the main antagonists are a direct parallel to the nazis.

in-universe transphobia: one of the playable characters, marina, is a trans woman. her father will misgender her.

r slur: if you play as o'saa, and do not skip the intro, nas'hrah will ask if you 'are r*****ed'

q slur: if you play as daan, karin will call you 'queer eyepatched foreigner'. it is probably meant in the other sense, though

stalking: samarie a character with obsessive tendencies who has formed a parasocial relationship with marina due to her mind-reading capabilities. if you play as marina and sleep in the mayor's manor, you can catch her watching you sleep.

body horror: moonscorching is a core mechanic. you can see the mutations it causes happening as a game over screen. villagers afflicted will tear their skin off.

substance abuse: mind mechanic persists from first game. heroin is added. if you play as levi, or recruit him, he will have withdrawals and require you to regularily give it to him for him to be useful in fights.

suicide: one of the contestants will kill himself before the night of day 3 to prevent moonscorching.

unreality: dream sequences. frequent hallucinations of an important character as part of the story. 'other side' of reality can be accessed. if you play as daan, pocketcat will also appear to speak to him.

ableism: internalised. olivia, a playable character, is wheelchair bound and implied to resent her condition. her moonscorched form emphasizes this ('ive been this way forever')

sexual assault: only one coin flip cutscene against a very rare enemy. additionally, if you lose to needles, a cutscene may occur where the player character will experience a 'massive orgasm' via a ghost-like figure and can continue from there, rather than getting a gameover. if you play as abella and sleep in certain locations, caligura will attempt to rape you. it triggers a battle where he is naked from the waist down (you can target his dick!)

cults: samarie is a victim of a cult called the ninth circle. there are also enemies called owl cultists and a late game boss is explicitly a cultist.

ptsd: multiple characters affected by war, significantly levi, who has developed a heroin addiction because of it.

kidnapping: marina will be kidnapped under certain circumstances. nothing happens to her though

child endangerment: levi is a child soldier. evidence of abuse in the orphanage

nudity: caligura as mentioned before. a boss will also go full-frontal on you.

i think i got everything! these are some really great horror games but i can't in good conscience recommend them without making people STRONGLY aware of its contents. available on itch.io and steam!

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bmaxwell · 9 days

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The World of Oath

Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile bills itself as "A game that remembers."

It's best experienced with the same group of players rolling from game to game with the locations and denizens changing over time. There is no provided lore in the game. There is no flavor text anywhere. No backstory. "The lore book" says designer Cole Wehrle "is your first 5 plays of Oath."

Like so many works of art, you get out of Oath what you put into it. I was the chancellor in our first game, and my wife and daughter immediately named their factions. Kat played as The Seekers, the blue faction represented by a mysterious cloaked figure of whom only a single eye is visible. Our daughter chose black and coined them The Shadow Clan immediately. "I took this name from something I read" she sheepishly admitted. "That's okay" I replied. "So did they"

When my initial run as chancellor ended after a single game, I took the yellow player pieces and declared that The Empire of the Sun would reclaim their rightful position upon the throne of power, which we did. Eventually. We've played a whopping 15 games in a little over 3 weeks. We have plenty of stories of betrayals and triumphs, clever gambits and colossal blunders.

What I've been thinking about lately, though, is the world of Oath. It's as much a character as any of the players at the table. There are 23 site cards in the game box, 9 of which will make up the available world in a given game of Oath. Players play cards onto those sites, representing the denizens and buildings that make up the societies in those parts of the kingdom. At the end of each game, the sites (and their societies) ruled by the winner are carried over into the next game, and the rest are removed. Each site can hold from 0-3 cards, and typically has a special rule concerning travel or, if the site is the homeland of one of the game's 6 factions, a bonus for playing a card of that faction there.

At the beginning of your first game, the 6 factions are fairly balanced. At the end of each play 3 cards of the winner's advisor faction are added to the card pool, and some cards from the discard piles and the losers' advisers are removed sight unseen. This means that, over time, your world naturally starts to tip toward some factions and away from others.

For example, our first few games saw the winner using advisers of the Arcane faction. This meant that Arcane cards were added to our card pool (and to a lesser extent, Order and Hearth faction cards were added as well). More Arcane cards means those are more likely to be drawn and used, so they're more likely to be used as advisers for the winner and thus more Arcane cards will be added, and so on.

What this means for us that our world is essentially a magocracy with a strong authoritarian bent. We regularly see Arcane cards like Fire Talkers (+/- 3 attack dice if you control the Darkest Secret), Portal (spend a secret to travel to or from this Site without spending supply) and the Dream Thief (Pay 2 favor to swap any 2 face down advisers). If you think of magocracy like a technocracy, it becomes relatable.

We're also very strong in the Order faction's cards. Things like Curfew (You have to pay the ruler 1 favor before you can trade with denizens), Toll Roads (You have to pay a favor to a Site's ruler when you travel there), and Tome Guardians (Enemies cannot target or take the Darkest Secret in any way) make frequent appearances as well, eliciting sly smirks or exasperated sighs depending on your game state. We're heavily tilted toward these 2 factions, we have a fair amount of Hearth and Discord cards, very little in the way of Nomad cards. and almost no cards from the Beast faction - and yet, one in particular has been a mainstay in our kingdom. The Roving Terror comes up quite a bit. It allows you to spend a secret to discard a card from any site then move the Roving Terror there.

Since the winner isn't always tied to ruling the most sites, sometimes the kingdom changes very little from one game to the next, sometimes is changes wildly. As I write this, we've had a stable regime for the last several games and our game looks familiar from play to play. Our world feels both fantastic and dangerous. There's a lot of neat, mystical shit going on, but you maybe don't want to leave the house.

The site cards themselves are also key in informing the story of our campaign. One site card in particular has been a thorn in our side: The Narrow Pass.

The Narrow Pass says that, when a player is traveling to its region, they MUST travel to the narrow pass. Oath is a game where players will only get 5-8 turns in total, and you never have enough supply to do all the actions you want to do. In that environment, a card that forces you to spend precious supply traveling somewhere you DON'T want to go...well, it's prompted more groans and eye rolls than anything else in the game. My wife will say "Okay, I travel here then I muster, then I'm going to campaign against..." only for me to hold up a finger, pick up her pawn, and set it on the Narrow Pass. Cue the slumping shoulders as she winds back and reconsiders all of her plans.

I love this.

When I say that our Oath world is oppressive, the Narrow Pass is an ever-present part of that world. It feels like a wasteland where the citizens are doing their damndest to enact change while the chancellor, looking down at all of the lands they rule and their pile of money and insists that no, life is actually very good.

My wife has snatched victory by playing the Vision of Faith while holding the Darkest Secret alone at The Hidden Place. I've Blackmailed the chancellor to steal the Grand Scepter, granting myself citizenship then using the imperial army to seize relics for myself. We've had negotiations for citizenship fall through and lead directly to a change of power for the next game.

Every card and site in the game is influential under the right circumstances, and it all lends itself to weaving an emergent narrative. In a game with zero lore and zero flavor text, this is an incredible achievement. Oath is a real bear to teach, at the end of your first game you might know how to play. Sort of. You'll understand the actions, but not when and why to take them. It's the old "it gets good after you've played for 10 hours, trust me" thing that I've said and heard dozens of times.

Some people will never like it. I'm surprised that I like it. The game can - and will - end on a die roll after 2-3 hours. There's king-making aplenty. There are fiddly rules and, after 15 games within a relatively short span of time, I still need to consult the rules and FAQ's when someone takes the Campaign action more often than I'd like. The winner will not always be the player who played the best. When I made a conscious effort to see the game as a shared story we were telling together rather than a competition, I fell deeply in love with this game.

I've bumped my rating from an 8 to a 9, and finally a 10. I'm currently at the "I need some time to decide where this ranks in my top 10" stage. It winds my clock in a way that very few games have.* * A Study in Emerald comes to mind.

#oath #board games

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burningvelvet · 11 months

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Lord Byron defending himself and Percy and Mary Shelley from rumours spread by his literary enemy Robert Southey, 1818:

Lord Byron to John Cam Hobhouse, from Venice, 11 November 1818:

“[..] the first Canto of Don Juan [contains] a dedication in verse of a dozen to Bob Southey - bitter as necessary - I mean the dedication, I will tell you why. - The Son of a Bitch on his return from Switzerland two years ago - said that Shelley and I ‘had formed a League of Incest and practiced our precepts with &c.’ - he lied like a rascal - for they were not Sisters - one being Godwin's daughter by Mary Wollstanecraft - and the other the daughter of the present Mrs. G by a former husband. - The Attack contains no allusion to the cause - but - some good verses - and all political & poetical. - He lied in another sense - for there was no promiscuous intercourse - my commerce being limited to the carnal knowledge of the Miss C. - I had nothing to do with the offspring of Mary Wollstonecraft - which Mary was a former Love of Southey's - which might have taught him to respect the fame of her daughter.”

Lord Byron to John Murray, from Venice, 24 November 1818:

“Lord Lauderdale set off from hence twelve days ago, accompanied by a cargo of poesy directed to Mr. Hobhouse - all spick and span, and in MS. You will see what it is like. I have given it to Master Southey, and he shall have more before I have done with him. I understand the scoundrel said, on his return from Switzerland two years ago, that ‘Shelley and I were in a league of Incest, etc., etc.’ He is a burning liar! for the women to whom he alludes are not sisters - one being Godwin's daughter, by Mary Wollstonecraft, and the other daughter of the present (second) Mrs. G, by a former husband; and in the next place, if they had even been so, there was no promiscuous intercourse whatever.

You may make what I say here as public as you please - more particularly to Southey, whom I look upon, and will say as publicly, to be a dirty, lying rascal; and will prove it in ink - or in his blood, if I did not believe him to be too much of a poet to risk it. If he had forty reviews at his back - as he has the Quarterly - I would have at him in his scribbling capacity, now that he has begun with me; but I will do nothing underhand. Tell him what I say from me, and everyone else you please.

You will see what I have said if the parcel arrives safe. I understand Coleridge went about repeating Southey's lie with pleasure. I can believe it, for I had done him what is called a favour. I can understand Coleridge's abusing me, but how or why Southey - whom I had never obliged in any sort of way, or done him the remotest service - should go about fibbing and calumniating is more than I readily comprehend

Does he think to put me down with his canting - not being able to do so with his poetry? We will try the question. I have read his review of Hunt, where he attacked Shelley in an oblique and shabby manner. Does he know what that review has done? I will tell you. It has sold an edition of the Revolt of Islam, which, otherwise, nobody would have thought of reading, and few who read can understand - I for one.

Southey would have attacked me, too, there, if he durst, further than by hints about Hunt's friends in general; and some outcry about an ‘Epicurean system,’ carried on by men of the most opposite habits. tastes, and and opinions in life and poetry (I believe), that ever had their names in the same volume - Moore, Byron, Shelley, Hazlitt, Haydon, Leigh Hunt, Lamb - what resemblances do ye find among all or any of these men? and how could any sort of system or plan be carried on, or attempted amongst them? However, let Mr. Southey look to himself - since the wine is tapped, let him drink it.”

Byron and Southey’s rivalry was infamous. Two books have been written about it. Byron frequently parodied or ridiculed people in his poems and Southey was his top target, mainly because he was an easy target. He was the Poet Laureate, disliked Byron, became something of a moralist and royalist as he got older, and due to popularity he generally sided with the status quo Byron despised. From Wikipedia:

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making-arcanum-the-ttrpg · 1 month

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Sorry for the delay between posts, life is kickin some of our asses. We'll try to get it a tad more frequent soon!

But anyway, we're here to continue introducing the actual features, so now for the actual playable classes!

Martials:

The Adept, designed to be a skill monkey that's capable of high utility in a fight, alongside delivering large single damage hits

The Berserker, designed to be a face tank that directs the enemy's attention to themselves by being the best target and having enough health to manage that

The Elusive, designed to be an Evasion tank that directs enemy's attention to themselves by being a threat, but also being very hard to hit

The Executioner, designed to be a high damage class that is easily hurt or killed (essentially a glass cannon) requiring lots of teamwork to properly manage, and running off of adrenaline from killing opponents

The Martial Artist, designed to be fast, capable of both defending the allied backline while also targeting the opponent's backline, along with being always dangerous in almost every situation due to not needing a weapon

The Vagabond, a backliner damage dealer, focused on firearms and bombarding does with high accuracy attacks, while also providing support by keeping an eye on combatants

The Warrior, a versatile Frontline, capable of taking a decent amount of hits and dishing out good damage and control effects due to being the best at using maneuvers

Half-Casters:

The Devout, a Frontliner capable of taking hits, supplying buffs, and providing healing, while also being able to dish out a decent amount of damage, making them very versatile

The Maker, a support class focused on keeping the party equipped and stocked, being the best at crafting and repairs (sidenote Arcanum has more defined crafting rules), while taking a more defensive role in combat

The Wanderer, a flanker which focuses on stealth and using spells to disrupt foes, with it's unique gimmick of letting you transfer the concentration of a spell to an external source

The Martyr, a terrifying frontliner with unique casting, focused on sacrificing hp to deal better damage, buff themselves, or apply debuffs

The Exorcist, a support class with some decent damage potential, focused on cleansing buffs and debuffs

The Magus, a more selfish, self-sustaining Frontliner, assisting the team by not needing excess assistance from the party

The Shaman, a Frontliner focused on AOE debuffs, weakening foes to keep themselves and allies alive

Casters:

The Mage, a powerful blaster focused on using magic through knowledge, allowing them to control the elements as if they were a part of themselves

The Innate, a caster blessed or cursed with magic, capable of controlling the fundamental forces (such as Gravity, Time, Light/Dark or Magnetism)

The Attuned, a controller focused on nature, capable of stopping foes in their tracks in a myriad of ways

The Priest, a highly versatile caster, whether it be divine blasts, buffs, healing, or whatever else, specialized by whatever they worship

The Creative, a highly variable and unique class that can take a myriad of unique rolls, whether it be setting traps through painting, dancing about the battlefield, blasting your foes with sonic rage, empowering your allies with peppy music, or suing your enemies

The Scion, a caster who has traded a piece of themselves for power, which we currently picture as weakening themselves to use magic out of their league (this one is a bit unclear, and is more subject to change than others)

The Enlightened, a psionic focused caster, gaining power from innate understanding of things others cannot

The Witch, a debuffs focused class, with access to a ridiculous collection of curses, from "you can no longer have kids" to "your hands are always dry and flaky" to "your blood now alights when it touches air"

The Channeler, a rather weaker caster in terms of direct combat, they support themselves and allies by summoning all myriad of spirits, monsters, robots, and whatever else to fight for them

#Arcmechanic #TTRPG #Arcanum #the executioner is my favorite class my baby boy - Aggy #Loser my fav is the elusive-Hazel

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lizzy-calaxio · 10 months

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SO! I’ve been re-working a bit of Lizzy’s canonicity, cause things got a little hectic and I think I want to make things a bit more simple. (haha...)

I'm still thinking about Lizzy stuff to flesh out and round her out, so if you have any questions feel free to ask c:

The General Timeline:

- Lizzy is born, as a male au ra in the ruby sea - Lizzy gets launched off a ship while travelling with her birth parents in the Ruby Sea as a result of a pirate attack. This leads to Lizzy having a phobia of water, as well as a phobia of pirates. She gets rescued by Kojin and brought to an orphanage in Kugane (she becomes a female au ra at this point)

- She bounces between a couple orphanages as no one wants to adopt her, until she lands in Gridania, where she is adopted by Simon (hyur) and Amandine (deaf, duskwight elezen) Frizzle, she is given the name “Elizabeth Frizzle”

- She learns sign language, gardening stuff, she climbs trees, and aspires to be a white mage like Amandine

- Her parents go as field medics to help the gridanian soldiers while fighting the imperial army, they get killed during the calamity

- after spending one nameday alone (12 years old), Lizzy starts wandering the shroud, after a couple months she gets picked up by the sylphs, she adopts the name Lizzy Frizzixio

- after spending several years with the sylphs, she gets caught pickpocketing in new gridania and instead of given jail time, she’s forced to become an adventurer and help recovery efforts, eventually being forced to join the scions

- Lizzy vowing to be a pacifist, tries to spend most of her time adventuring as a scholar, though as a part of the scions, they utilized Lizzy’s sneaking skills that she gained from the sylphs to run covert operations, often being sent into enemy territory for information gathering

- Lizzy was not gifted the blessing of light, like the primary WoL, but during the ultima fight her scholar shielding was able to shield her and several others from the blast (though, everyone insisted it was Hydaelyn, causing her to lose a little bit of self esteem in her healing abilities)

- During the fight with Bahamut in the coils, Lizzy and the whole team in there, gets wiped out, Phoenix resurrects them using Lizzy as a conduit, resulting in Lizzy’s aether being tainted by Phoenix, permanently altering her limbal ring and hair color to be reddish-orange (Lizzy frequently dyes her hair tips back to blue, as their original state, but whenever she taps into the Phoenix aether, her hair burns the dye back to red)

- After the Banquet, Lizzy loses total faith in her healing abilities and becomes a ninja, she becomes an assassin for hire on the side in ishgard, and gets incredibly good at killing people, she starts going by Lizzy Calaxio at the suggestion of Shio

- After thordan is out of the picture, Lizzy lays an egg thanks to Taraine, and a dragon hatchling is born

- After ishgard opens up, Lizzy gets reunited with Brilliant Caladium, and they swiftly get married (Lizzy get pregnant with twins)

- Lizzy tries to spend as much time as she can with her new family, but the scions ever need their hero, and send Lizzy off to various locations, continuing her information gathering role

- After the Nhaadam, Lizzy gets pregnant again, with triplets, from a newer partner – Hawk

- Lizzy learns how to do black mage things from Suzaku

- Lizzy gets dragged on to the first alongside Shio, despite not being the intended target, while Shio absorbs most of the light from the lightwardens, Lizzy begins siphoning off small amounts to help ease the burden (this temporarily turns Lizzy's hair white with red tips)

- Before Mt Gulg, Lizzy and Sadu share an emergency wedding, resulting in Sadu becoming pregnant (with one kid)

- Lizzy gets assistance from Feo Ul to become a Dark Knight and helps guide Shio through the tempest+

- Lizzy stumbles upon Iremia’s apartment in Amaurot, and Iremia gifts Lizzy a portion of her aether, as well as her knowledge of Psychology, and (a small portion of) her ability to manipulate the emotions of nearby people, as a byproduct Lizzy also gains some memories of ancient times

- After travelling to Sharlayan, Lizzy starts studying there, and begins pioneering the field of Psychology, drowning her in paperwork

#ffxiv #lizzy calaxio

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xxchumanixx · 28 days

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Here's my Magnum PI Thomas x reader request 🤗 it's some kind of the always loved enemies to lovers trope, with hurt reader, an annoyed Thomas with slightly asshole vibes but he improves during the story until we have our beloved cute sassy Thomas with his heart of gold. So let's go (please feel free to change the details, to ignore the request or just use some aspects).

Reader was a good friend of Rick and moved recently to Hawaii

She needs help cause she's threatening due to an investigation she made to write an article (I imagine her as a journalist, but of course you change that)

Rick is worried for the safely of his childhood beat friend and so he is determined to keep her safe. And what place is the safest on the island? Robin's Nest with the 24/7 protection of Thomas Magnum

Thomas is absolutely not amused to play "babysitter" as he refers to it

Reader feels really uncomfortable to intrude and Thomas complaining is making her more shy than she already is

She doesn't want to annoy Thomas more so she tries to be invisible in the house

Thomas often teases her in bad way

I picture reader as a shy but lovely young woman and to make it a bit more dramatic she suffers from bad migraine attacks when under stress and stress is what hee bothers her now. The bad feeling that Thomas hates her and having a target on her head makes her health spiraling

When one day Rick wants to visit his friend and Thomas he notices her feeling super bad (dizziness, nausea, bad migraine) and also explains Thomas the whole situation (her health, the reason she's threatened and her huge sense of justice). Maybe Rick also explain him that she's like a little sister to him etc

Thomas begins to see reader differently and his behavior changes. He takes care for her stops being an asshole

Soooorry I know it's long :D and I've got sooo many ideas but I don't want to waste more of your time. Even if I have another idea for a story in which reader works with Thomas and at first they don't get along sooo great and she hides a severe injury from him....

I hope my request doesn't bother you.

Love your work

Vitamins and Bulletholes

Thomas Magnum x fem!reader

Warnings/Tags: fluff, hurt, angst, reader has migraine attacks Word count: 4.786 Authors note: Hello love, thanks for the request! I'm always down for some enemies to lovers, so I'm very exited about this idea! I know this problem with having too many ideas, I also have so many of them (especially when I don't have time to write, like when I'm at work, have to sleep or whatever), and sometimes I even mix them up, because I lose focus. Whupsi... So I really appreciate how detailed your request is! Also, I'm a migraine patient as well, so I know how bad these attacks can be... Anyways, lets get going! Enjoy!

Hawaii.

It was like breathing the freshest and most delicious air on planet earth.

Fragrances you would nowhere else smell, sights you would nowhere else see.

It was magical, pure bliss.

The birds singing melodies in the trees, wearing the most colorful and beautiful feathers you could imagine.

After your first vacation on the island, you knew that someday, you would move here. Now the time had come, finally having made your dream come true.

Rick, your childhood best friend (and maybe your first crush) had helped you move, accompanied by his friend TC.

TC was like a big, cuddly teddy bear. He didn't have to do much to wrap you around his finger. He was nice and sweet, something you at first wouldn't have imagined, given his size and broad shoulders.

You had bought a house, a very nice one with a beautiful garden. It wasn't cheap, but after saving every penny you could, it made it even more worth the wait.

The whole moving situation, finding a new job and stuff, caused you to suffer from migraine attacks more frequently, though. You were prone to them, especially when you were under pressure or exposed to stress.

After settling in, starting your new job as a journalist, and finally getting to breathe more freely, the attacks luckily lessened again.

That was, until you did something dumb.

Very dumb.

You weren't new to dangerous situations, having your fair share with gangs and bad people, something that came along with being a journalist back in Chicago.

This, was something entirely different, though.

But how did you get into this situation in the first place?

When your boss, an ambitious and eager woman with zero tolerance for failures, told you to bring up something big, you inwardly rubbed your hands.

This was your chance to move up the ladder, to impress her.

That you would have a target on your back by the end of the day, you didn't know then.

Originally, you were supposed to get a statement of a young man, exposing a chemical company that was said to dispose off their toxic waste in a nearby river, contaminating the water and making people sick.

Originally.

That he was being observed by people hired by said company, neither of you knew - nor even noticed.

But they saw you, and when they broke into your house, threatening your life when you made the mistake to talk back, you slowly realized in what kind of situation you had maneuvered yourself.

That the man was killed only a few days later, gave you the final push to do something about it.

"Y/N, you're on Hawaii for barely a month now, and you already managed to pin a target on your back?" Rick yelled, frustration and confusion clear on his face, as he threw the towel he had used to wipe his hands with on the counter.

Rubbing your face, you sighed, only the more realizing how bad your situation really was.

"I know..." you groaned, sipping your coke, the dull pain behind your forehead returning. "But how was I supposed to know this would happen? I mean, he was at a damn safehouse, they shouldn't have even known where he was!"

Rick cocked a brow at your words, leaning on his elbows, his face inches from yours. "Did they exchange your brain for a dumb one, when you moved here?" he wanted to know, sending you a pointed look.

Rolling your eyes, you pushed him, causing him to chuckle slightly.

"You know how this works, you should have noticed them after being in this industry for the last couple years now." he spoke softly, sighing.

"I know..." you grumbled, rubbing your temples. He bit his cheek, scratching his chin. "Migraine?" he guessed, standing more straight again. You nodded slightly, digging in your bag for some painkillers.

Once you had found them, you swallowed them with the coke, before your gaze wandered through the bar.

"Did I mention how great it is that you own a bar?" you asked, smiling at Rick as you looked back at him. He chuckled, cleaning a few glasses.

"Free drinks for me?" you asked slyly, smirking at him, as you batted your lashes. He laughed, shaking his head. "No, even if you're my sister, you have to pay for your drinks like the others do."

You huffed playfully, emptying your glass, before you slid it over to him. He took it as he shook his head at your attempt. "Even Thomas has to pay for them."

Narrowing your eyes at him, you leaned more towards him, propped on your elbows. "When do I get to meet the infamous Thomas Magnum?" you wanted to know, tilting your head.

Rick had told you about him multiple times, they had served together with TC, were best friends. He was living on Hawaii as well, working as a private investigator.

"Infamous, huh?" someone spoke behind you, causing you to turn towards the source of the voice. "Huh." you made quietly, mimicking him.

Speaking of the devil, right?

He smiled at you, holding out his hand for you to shake. "Thomas Magnum." he introduced himself, as you took his hand. "And you must be the infamous Y/N Y/L/N, I assume."

You nodded, taking him in.

He was even more handsome than he was on the pictures Rick had sent you.

"Rick talks about you nonstop." he told you, smirking. You blushed a little, chuckling. "Only good things, I hope." He nodded, chuckling as well.

"Thomas, perfect timing." Rick mused, drawing Thomas' gaze towards him, as he cocked a brow. "Is Higgins with you?" Thomas shook his head, denying. "What do you need?"

Rick hesitated a second, licking his lips.

"Y/N here, works as a journalist." he started, motioning at you. "And she somehow managed to make some people very mad." Thomas mouth twisted, eyes narrowing. "What type of people?" he wanted to know, glancing at you.

You swallowed, sighing, as Rick answered for you.

"She was supposed to investigate in that case of Cleantec disposing of its chemical waste in a nearby river." he explained. "She interviewed a former employee, that was at a safehouse, because he was supposed to testify in court."

"He's dead now." you chimed in, licking your lip, before you bit down on the cushion.

Thomas' brows furrowed, as he looked between you and Rick.

"The people responsible for his death threatened her. Now we're worried that they're after her as well." Rick continued, hesitating again. "And the only place where she would be really safe at is Robins Nest."

Thomas' eyes widened, mouth agape. "And now you're suggesting that we let her stay at hotel Robins Nest?" he concluded, brows raised. He didn't seem all too happy about the idea.

Rubbing your eyes, you swallowed. Of course you were scared - Hell, the whole killer at your back situation scared the living shit out of you, but you didn't want to be a burden to anyone.

"I'm worried for her safety, Thomas." Rick pressed, sending him a pleading look. "I don't want to be a burden." you cut in, before Rick could have said more. "I can handle this on my own."

Thomas bit his lip, clearly torn between helping and not.

Then he pulled out his phone, dialing someone.

"Hey Higgins." he began, his free hand playing with a beer mat. "Ricks friend, Y/N, is being targeted by killers, and now she needs someplace safe to stay at. Do you think we can let her stay at Robins Nest?"

It was quiet for a few seconds, as Higgins answered him. "Okay, thanks." Thomas then said, before he ended the call. "You can stay." he told you, stuffing the phone back inside his pocket.

Eyes widening, you thanked him, still unsure if you should really do this. But it was better than constantly having to watch your back, right?

"You need to keep her safe at all costs." Rick clarified, leaning foward to underline his words. Thomas' brows rose, pointing at himself. "I'm not a babysitter." he made clear, gaze wandering towards you for a split second.

Ricks eyes widened in earnesty, not believing he heard him right. "She's my sister, Thomas." he pressed, shaking his head. "She needs to stay safe. If you won't do it, I will."

Thomas groaned in discontent, but you cut him off, before he was able to respond.

"Look-" you began, holding out your arms in a gesture of diffidence and surrender. "you don't have to keep a watch on me - I'm sure we can figure this out without you even noticing me."

Thomas sent you a pointed look, having trouble to believe your words.

"And if I bother you too much, I will just go back to my house. I'm sure I can manage just fine."

Rick made a sound of protest, the towel he held hitting your shoulder. "Y/N, you're not gonna be alone until these guys are either arrested or dead!" he told you, determined.

Sighing, you bit your cheek, giving in as you nodded slightly. "Whatever you say."

"Damn right, whatever I say."

____

Even though he was your brother - you had somewhere along the way of your friendship decided that you had to be siblings, people even mistook you as being siblings when you were younger - you could have hit him, hard.

Robins Nest was much bigger, than you had imagined.

Rick had told you multiple times about it. You knew that Thomas stayed at the guest house and that Juliet Higgins lived in the main house, but he failed to mention that it was this big.

It was intimidating, honestly.

So, when you arrived in your car - which was in no way a comparison to the ones parked up front - you needed a moment to catch your breath and slow down your racing heart.

How were you supposed to not get lost on this property?

Getting out of your car, you grabbed your bags that held the things you needed for your stay.

You just hoped you had packed enough. Who knew how long your stay would get?

Sighing, you walked towards what seemed to be the front door, ringing the bell. It took a few seconds for someone to answer, but when she did, you were sure this was not Juliet.

You somehow remembered her differently from all the pictures Rick had sent.

"Aloha, you must be Y/N." the woman greeted you, smiling warmly and you couldn't help but return the smile. "I'm Kumu. Come in, the others are already waiting."

Your brows lifted, not sure what she meant. "The others?" you questioned, following her, as she made her way through the mansion. She nodded, leading you to an open living room with windows as big as your bedroom was back in Chicago.

In said room were several people gathered: Rick, TC, Thomas, Higgins and Shammy.

Brows furrowing, you sat down your bag, gaze shifting between the people staring your way.

"Am I missing something?" you wanted to know, feeling the uneasiness creeping through you. "No, but mr. insecure told us to meet here." Thomas gave back, sending Rick a displeased look.

Clearing your throat, you noticed how your cheeks grew hot. Suddenly, you wished to be back at your place, immediately feeling unwelcome.

"I'm sorry for all this turmoil, I can just go back home and we'll forget about it." you suggested, feeling more and more uncomfortable. "No, you'll stay." Juliet spoke up, stepping towards you, holding out her hand for you to shake.

"I'm Juliet Higgins. Nice to meet you." she introduced herself, as you took her hand and shook it. "Y/N Y/L/N." you gave back, forcing yourself to smile despite the uneasy feeling inside you.

"The others are here, because Rick told us what happened." she explained, motioning at the others. "Thomas might not be happy about it, but we're not letting anyone down, no matter what happened. We want to help."

She turned more towards you, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Oh, and he'll come to terms with it, just give him a little time."

You nodded almost unnoticeable, swallowing.

"But, how are you gonna help me?" you wanted to know, fingers tugging at lose strings on your jeans. "Thomas and I are private investigators." Juliet spoke, walking towards a table to your right with a laptop placed on it.

"We will investigate in your case."

Eyes widening, you chuckled uneasily. "But, I don't have the money to hire you." you told her, biting your cheek. Suddenly, you felt ashamed, knowing that Juliet seemed to have already begun researching.

"Oh, don't worry." she told you, typing away on the laptop. "It's pro bono." Sighing, you nodded, feeling a little relieved. "Thank you." you said, looking at the others. "Thank you all, even if you don't really know me, except for Rick and Shammy."

You hat chatted with Shammy before, after Rick told you how they met him. He was a little grumpy sometimes, but he had a heart of gold.

The others nodded, even Thomas, though he still seemed grim.

____

When the others were gone and it was already dark outside, you had settled in one of the guest rooms of the main house. Juliet had the staff ready a room for you earlier, one that was bigger than your living room back in Chicago.

Robin had to have a lot of money, if one of his residences - one he barely visited himself - was this big and luxurious.

But you had read his books, knowing all about the white knight, so you understood where the money came from.

He was a genius.

The white knight had inspired you to start as a journalist, he gave you the strength when you doubted yourself - even if he was just fictional.

Swallowing, you sent the painkillers down your throat, sighing to yourself. You just hoped your stay wouldn't get any more complicated than it already was.

____

It had been two weeks, since you moved to Robin's Nest - Yes, literally moved.

You hadn't seen your house other than gathering more clothes and the mail. Other than that, you weren't allowed to leave the property of Robin's Nest.

It was hard, you had to take time off your job, explaining them the situation as best as you could, hoping they wouldn't fire you.

Meanwhile living with Thomas was... difficult.

Even though he resided in the guest house of the property, working on your case as well as on another one, you still saw him plenty of times.

Either he was plundering the wine cellar, making Higgins furious over the various missing bottles he never replaced, or he was getting himself something to eat or just lounging around whenever he had the time.

You had barely spoken to him, other than about your case or occasionally a hello or goodbye - or him complaining. You sensed his discomfort, knowing that he wasn't fond of your presence, even though you did your best not to stand in his way - literally.

The typical cliche moment of standing opposite each other, both stepping left and right to get out of the way, had occurred more than once.

You had migraine attacks almost every day, already having had to restock your painkillers.

Sighing, you shifted on the couch with your laptop on your legs, doing research. Yes, I know what you might think now, but after what happened, you couldn't just sit by and wait.

You had to at least do some research, using your skills and contacts to help.

That you came up almost empty handed, you didn't tell the others, though. They didn't even know you were doing research in the first place.

Your breathing hitched, heart pounding faster in your chest, as you suddenly felt a presence loom over you. You heard him breathe almost unnoticeable, he was quieter than normal people were.

Smelling his meanwhile familiar cologne, you relaxed slightly.

It was Thomas.

Still your hands began to sweat, heart pounding even faster.

"And here I thought we would do the investigation." he mumbled, causing you to flinch slightly at how close he really was. Taking a deep breath - of course as quiet as possible - you tried to calm yourself, as he rounded the sofa, looking down at you.

"I'm just doing some research." you defended yourself, holding his gaze, as his eyes narrowed slightly. "In case you have forgot, I am a journalist. It's my job to do research. And if I'm able to find something, even better!"

He cocked a brow at you, tilting his head mockingly. "Are you able to find something?" he wanted to know, even though he could already guess the answer.

Taking another deep breath as not to explode - your head already did that on his own - you bit your cheek, breaking eye contact after a few more seconds.

He truly had a way of getting under your skin.

"What do you want?" you tried to stir the conversation away from you, looking back at your laptop, typing away.

It took him a few seconds to answer, as his eyes roamed over you. You were looking uncomfortable, only the slightest bit, but he had a schooled eye - he knew when something was up.

"Are you okay?"

He surprised you with his question, causing your brows to furrow slightly. "I'm fine." you responded, briefly glancing up at him. "Why?"

He didn't respond, only sitting down in an armchair.

His presence made you all the more uncomfortable, his curious gaze burning holes into your skin.

He was handsome, you couldn't deny it, and yes, you would have hooked up with him, if it wasn't for his comments and him being so dismissive towards you.

Rolling your eyes, you tried to ignore him, fingers tapping on the smooth surface of your laptop, lost in thought. You had already browsed every platform you knew, coming up with nothing useful.

Biting your lip, you sighed, closing the laptop.

Your migraine was making it hard to concentrate, anyways.

"Don't you have anything to do?" you wanted to know, giving Thomas a pointed look. He only sipped his beer, shaking his head.

Only then did you notice that it was already dawn.

"What, missed the time?" he quipped, sending that pointed look right back at you. "Maybe you shouldn't waste your time doing research, when your not able to find anything, anyways."

He was hot, but his way towards you, made him colder than the antarctic.

____

Having lived at Robin's Nest for over a month now, you and Higgins became friends. You got along very well, having a lot of things in common.

Your case stretched on like chewing gum, having no hints or new findings. Thomas grew frustrated, never having had a case that went on for so long.

You hadn't got out of bed today, your current migraine attack causing you to have nausea, barely holding yourself back from vomiting.

Unfortunately, he let it out on you with witty comments and snarky remarks, causing your health to spiral further downwards.

He took every chance he got to pick on you.

You made out voices in the distance, recognizing Rick.

"Where's Y/N?" he wanted to know, his steps getting closer. "She's probably still sleeping, too exhausted from all the research she's been doing." you heard Thomas respond, their voices getting louder.

"What?" Rick gave back, shocked. "What research? I thought she wasn't working as long as the case went on?"

Someone knocked at your door and you groaned, causing the door to be ripped open, Rick barging inside. "Fuck." he breathed out, kneeling down beside you.

Swallowing, your eyes met his. You didn't need to tell him for him to know what was going on.

"Have you taken painkillers already?" he wanted to know, brows furrowing in worry. "Yes." you mumbled, sighing.

Thomas stepped further inside the room, his eyes scanning over you, taking in your distraught face and hunched figure. "What's going on?" he inquired, brows furrowing as well.

"Y/N is prone to migraine attacks." Rick started to explain, his fingers brushing through your hair absentmindedly. "When she's exposed to stress or is having a hard time it can trigger an attack. Sometimes, when the pain gets too much, she suffers from nausea and dizziness as well. She's having a migraine attack right now."

Thomas swallowed, now understanding what was going on with you. He'd been an absolute ass to you, only worsening your condition.

He felt guilty.

It wasn't that he couldn't stand you, in fact it was quiet the opposite. But after he was this way towards you in the beginning, he wasn't able to break out of it.

It had almost become a bad habit of sorts.

Rick straightened back up, motioning for Thomas to follow him as he left the room to gather a hot water bottle.

____

When you woke up, your head was doing a little better. Blinking the sleep from your eyes, you smelled herbs, causing you to frown.

"I didn't mean to wake you." you heard Thomas say. Looking up, you saw him standing at your bed, a cup in his hands. "I thought you'd like some tea, when you feel better."

Licking your dry lips, you sat up, taking the cup as he offered it to you. "Thanks?" you said, not sure how to react. "Is it poisoned?" His brows furrowed, as he huffed. "No, of course not."

Sending him a small smile, you sipped some of the hot tea. It warmed your body, spreading a nice feeling through you.

"May I?" he motioned at your bed, asking if he could sit down. You nodded, and he did. "I didn't know you were having these migraine attacks." he began, licking his bottom lip, as he looked at his hands, before his eyes met yours.

"Had I known I wouldn't have acted this way. I was a complete ass to you, which only worsened your condition - Rick told me about it. I'm sorry, that wasn't my intention."

You were taken aback by his apology, not having expected that change in behavior. "Wow." you breathed out, stunned. "I didn't expect that."

He chuckled, brushing over his chin.

"Yeah, I know." he gave back, smiling slightly. "Somehow everyone's surprised when I apologize." Rolling your eyes, you chuckled. Your head already felt a lot better.

"I've got you some vitamins as well." he explained, pointing at the package on your bedside table. "Oh, and we finally have a breakthrough in your case."

You sat up further at his words, eyes widening.

He grinned knowingly. "Yeah, we found a lead to the killers. But that's for later. What do you say we ask the cook to make somethin'?"

Your brows rose. "Who are you and what did you do with Thomas Magnum?" He chuckled, shaking his head. "Get up, I'll get us something to eat."

Huffing silently, you obeyed.

Getting out of bed you walked into the bath, as he left. The shower helped clear your mind a little, soothing your aching muscles.

When you stepped into the dining room, Higgins walked in from the other side. "Thomas!" she almost yelled in anger, her hands at her hips as she stopped in front of him.

Tilting your head, you watched them, curious about what had happened now.

"What happened to the ferrari?"

Thomas bit his lip, leaning on the table behind him, arms crossed over his chest. His gaze wandered towards you and he shrugged. "The lead I found might included them shooting at me." he explained, slightly shrinking, as Higgins inhaled sharply.

Eyes widening, you took a step forwards.

"Really, I don't know what to say." Higgins mumbled, shaking her head. "But hey, I've got her some vitamins for her migraine." Thomas added, smiling hesitantly.

"Vitamins and bulletholes." you said, shaking your head. "Sounds like an article I would write."

Even Higgins had to chuckle at that, as Thomas winked at you.

Maybe he wasn't that bad after all.

____

"Why is it always everyone but me?" Thomas grumbled, watching the dogs chase each other. Cocking a brow, you tilted your head at him. "What do you mean? They are quiet lovely, aren't they?"

He abruptly stopped, his feet kicking up some of the freshly cut grass. He looked at you in shock, spreading his arms. "No!" he gave back. "They are cruel monsters, trying to kill me every chance they get!"

You chuckled at his exasperation, turning back around towards the ocean. The view was breathtaking, really.

He huffed, following you as you started to walk further towards the beach.

Over the last two weeks you and Thomas had talked a lot, after he promised to be nice to you. He had no reason to be harsh or angry at you, he never really had.

Rick's words had shaken him out of his behavior towards you, showing him that you were more than the burden he had first expected you to be.

He had explained why you got into this situation in the first place - yes, you got into this situation when you talked back at the killers, but Rick explained why you had taken this upon yourself at all.

He explained that you fought for a better environment, Cleantecs diposal of chemical waste something you wanted to expose to the public, helping the people that had been affected by it.

The man that had been killed wanted the same.

His wife had been killed by it, her cancer having worsened due to the chemicals in the water. She didn't make it, too weak from the chemo.

You knew that feeling, your mother having died of cancer when you were still very young.

Even though you knew it was dangerous to talk to the man, you still had taken that risk, even when Rick had warned you about it. You wanted peace for him and justice for his wife.

Thomas watched you with amazement, as you walked in front of him, having created a slight distance between you, after he took a moment longer to follow you.

He had a small smile on his lips, as he noticed that he wanted to get to know you better. Even though you had talked a lot and learned a lot about each other, he still had the feeling that there was even more to you.

You turned slightly, as he caught up with you. "Are you going to continue your work as a journalist?" he wanted to know, watching you.

Biting your lip, you nodded. "Yes. Now that the case is solved and there's no target on my back anymore, I think it's time for the next one."

He snorted, his shoulder bumping yours. "I'm not gonna rescue you again." he warned you, chuckling to himself.

Higgins and him were able to solve the case, after Thomas managed to catch one of the killers red handed. You were relieved, now finally being able to sleep again.

As a bonus, you had managed to write that article, exposing Cleantech.

You stopped at a slope, looking down at the water. It was peaceful, the sun shining down on you.

Turning your head, you looked at Thomas, only to find him already looking at you. You swallowed at his intense gaze, the rest of your body turning towards him as well.

He silently stared at you, mouth slightly agape. His scent clouded your senses, heating your body up.

He leaned closer, as your heart hammered in your chest. You couldn't deny the attraction you felt towards him, and the urge to close the gap and press your lips against his, was overwhelming.

His breath fanned over your face, eyes darting to your lips, before he closed the distance, kissing you. Your hands wrapped around his neck instinctively, tugging him closer, as his hands wandered to your hips.

His lips caressed yours, tongue brushing over your bottom lip. You let it in, sighing softly.

Your lips parted, as you both had to gasp for air. His thumb brushed over your cheek, his fingers removing lose strands of hair from your face.

Breathing heavily, you smiled at him and he returned it.

"What do you say we go out for dinner?" he suggested, swallowing. He wouldn't admit it, but he was nervous. Your smile widened, nodding. "I'd love that."

His smile widened as well, sighing in relieve.

"How's your head?" he wanted to know, one of his arms wrapping around your waist, as you started to walk back to the main house. "Good." you gave back, nodding to yourself. "I haven't had an attack in over a week now."

He tugged you closer. "Good."

As you walked, you heard the dogs bark, Thomas stiffening and you chuckled.

"Damn these dogs."

#thomas magnum #magnum pi #magnum #thomas magnum imagine #jay hernandez #magnum pi 2018 #imagine #reader insert #one shot #fluff

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ce-heich-ce · 2 months

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I love and hate Shin Megami Tensei 1 so much because its such a game. (long text coming up)

On battles it uses this smart system where they cant fit too many enemies on screen, so the game puts only 1 type of enemy on regular encounters with a number of icons on top of it representing how many enemies are in that group, which is cool, its a smart way of fitting more enemies per battle and you can also know if any of them got hit with a status effects because the icon of the enemy you hit also changes. Now, you might be wondering how you choose which of those enemies and you actually don't, whenever you attack with a single target attack or ability the target is chosen at random, which is a real pain because these enemies come out in numbers of at most 9 per encounter, so hitting the same target twice is hard, you only attack multiple enemies on weapons or spells that target groups of enemies and for the player character that is only reserved for guns and spell stones that you have to buy (and don't do much damage unless you level his magic stat, which is mostly pointless because he can't use magic), with maybe some weapons that attack more than once, not every enemy, but attacking more than once gives you a better chance to do so. Only special battles against bosses or demon tamers have more than 1 type of enemy but there you just choose which group you get to target.

Also the encounter rate is a pain, during the first hours of the game its random how frequent and how unlikely you are to enter a battle, sometimes they appear every few steps and then you can run around tokyo for a while with no enemies showing up, even im dungeons it becomes as random, but then you get to the second part of the game and now you get battles every few steps everywhere, which sucks because you're no longer stuck to following roads in tokyo, you can go anywhere plot allows you to but exploring is unwise because thats when enemies appear in large numbers and you just got there so enemies are stronger than you at that point.

Some dungeons have some traps, like floors that teleport you randomly, make you fall to a floor below, one way doors, spinning floors, poison or even curses depending on your luck stat but they're honestly not that frequent as trapped chests that explode and take 25% of health of EVERY character in your party, that is the worse and it happens very often later in the game.

Something I do like and appreciate is that the game has a big number of enemies you get to fight with their own types and origins (though a lot reuse sprites with different colours and some modifications to turn them into something else) and thanks to the demon negotiation system you can talk to them and get a few good outcomes, like having them join you, give money, go away or give you items and since enemies are different they react accordingly depending on your friendly or hostile approach to them.

Getting to use most of the enemies you find is cool too because you have an infinite amount of teams you can make with them and whenever you get tired or don't like one of them you can fuse them to get something different, sometimes a better one or a worse one and sometimes ones you don't encounter naturally, making them even rarer and worth trying.

Having alignments define how the story goes is kind of cool, depending on your choices and interactions with demons you can shift to law or chaos and some plot points later in the story reflect that, like some demons helping you out while others impede your quest, getting alignment specific gear and demon allies, etc, which is good because it gives you an incentive to replay the game.

the final part of the game fucking sucks though, plot happens and now the final area is a giant maze with towns at each opposite side and up to 5 floors with corridors and enemies and you can't really go anywhere else at that point, so depending on your alignment you'll have to fight through 5 to 10 floors to reach the end, which feels almost like a chore.

#chc.txt #ranting about videogames

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catamaurrr-star · 3 months

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topaz & dr ratio & silver wolf & luocha would be a great team comp (specifically only for single target bosses though) and i will explain why

dr ratio and topaz have great synergy together cuz of dr ratios frequent and targeted follow up attacks which would advance numby for more and more damage

silver wolf and dr ratio ALSO have great synergy cuz of how many debuffs silver wolf puts on enemies and dr ratio wants debuffs on enemies so he can follow up more often

luocha could honestly be swapped out with any sustain unit but i chose him cuz he's imaginary like dr ratio so sw can implant weakness easier if needed. also he's skill point friendly if you wanna spam ratio and topaz skill every time they have a turn

#maurposting

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grayintogreen · 10 months

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WIP WEDNESDAY

HELLO AGAIN. I have 6/10 scenes finished for Chapter 25 and holding steady at biweekly updates, so since it's an off-week... Snippet time!

Have some Essek!

Ludinus’s clock was exactly on time for the moment and Essek wasn’t certain if that unnerved him more than the alternative annoyed him. Unnerved, however, was his general state of being these days when faced with the Martinet, currently seated at his desk, a quill pen balanced on the edge of a knuckle like a butterfly that didn’t have the sense to fly away.

“The Marchen woman is apoplectic about the Dynasty’s attack on Felderwin.”

Still? That was at least a month ago. “Did she suspect an easier recovery of her asset? The Ashguard garrison is overwhelmed.”

“Indeed. Ikithon’s building an army that he claims is for the war effort, but we know better, don’t we, Essek?”

Essek schooled his expression. That was useful information for the Nein. “He is putting, ah… What is the Empire expression? All of his eggs in one basket, yes?”

Ludinus chuckled, paternally. “Well, he was mangled, humiliated, and his hard work was destroyed. Who can blame him for being distracted? If Miriam were less loyal, perhaps she would turn her anger towards that, rather than Xhorhas, but I’m not in the business of directing ire away from the Dynasty.”

No. Of course not. Essek never asked why Ludinus disdained the Dynasty and the process of consecution and trying to now would likely be spycraft suicide. His disinterest in Ludinus’s personal matters had kept him in confidence for so long- whatever crumbs he was given had to be feasted on lightly while resisting the urge to beg for more.

Still, he felt like this conversation was building to something, so he carefully asked leading questions, tapping his fingers on his knee underneath his mantle. “She scries on her targets frequently, doesn’t she?”

The Martinet’s smile turned predatory. “She does, indeed. She knows they’re in Rosohna, knows that they are responsible for getting the halfling free. She even dropped your name as a possible accomplice.”

Essek regretted never having an anti-scry amulet made and wondered if getting one now would court suspicion. How much had she seen? How much could he spin as espionage? He swallowed down the bile rising in his throat. “I would not call myself an accomplice, Martinet. They did a favor for the Bright Queen and the release of the alchemist was what they asked for as a boon. It was transactional.”

He held his breath, waiting for Ludinus to drop something into his lap that was venomous and prone to strike him where it might hurt. Instead, Ludinus flipped the nib of the pen and caught it with surprisingly agile fingers for a man his age. “I would expect nothing less from the Shadowhand.”

He went on, tapping the pen on the parchment on his desk he had yet to write anything upon, leaving drops of ink in strange patterns. “Regardless, his obsession with this has turned his eyes away from me for the time being. Ever since DeRogna’s death, I have felt Marchen’s eye on me.”

“Is that why you refused to approve her promotion to Archmage?” The question was conversational, going back to an older conversation, back when this whole situation was less terrifying for him. Ludinus seemed pleased he remembered that little detail.

“I have no need for another Archmage that does not know their place in the hierarchy, especially not one so entrenched in loyalty to an enemy.”

Essek filed all these details away. It might be enough to take to the Nein, even if it only opened up more questions. He still hadn’t heard anything about Ludinus’s personal goals- the Chantry, those red-robed figures he spoke to often. He had not been offered a seat at the table just yet and he would not be able to back out of this corner he’d painted himself into without the invitation.

Curiosity was a double-aged sword, but Essek knew how to avoid taking the back-end by being an eager learner in the art of political machinations. He saw his opening and slipped into it, a rapier seeking a gap in the armor. “May I ask you a question, Martinet?”

Ludinus looked up at him, canting his head in such a strangely paternal way that if Essek squeezed his eyes shut, he could almost see the shadow of Lord Theylss transposed over him. “Such open-ended questions before teatime, Essek! But you have me curious now. Ask away.”

“If you hate Ikithon so much, then why keep him in the Assembly? He’s half-mad, hobbled and dependent on a system he created that you’ve claimed numerous times is outdated and borderline sycophantic. It would be easy to force him to step down with little political unrest.”

The Martinet considered him and then pushed his chair back to stand, pacing the length of his office in time with the steady tick-tick-tick of his clock. For a moment, Essek thought that he had dived too deeply and would not get an answer- or worse. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end as Ludinus crossed behind him and laid on a hand on the back of his chair.

And then he said, “Do you know what the four most terrible words to a politician are, Essek?” When Essek’s silence formed his response, Ludinus’s chuckled, like he’d just made a clever little joke only to himself. “’Don’t they look tired?’ It’s a death knell. Those words would unravel even the mightiest because the second the heralds get a sniff of it, it’s suddenly everywhere. If the public knew of the full extent of Ikithon’s condition, he would not survive it. His career would be in shambles, his Volstrucker disbanded and either executed for treason or sold to whichever members of the Assembly would love an attack dog on their payroll. In a week, they would find him dead with a bottle to his lips. It would be a slow death.”

Essek felt every word as if it was a threat to his own safety. Still he remained, rooted to the spot, as if his mantle was weighted down. He had to fight the urge to shudder as Ludinus leaned in closer, his shadow falling across both him and the desk, backlit by the lamplight.

“But for the same reason a person might keep poison in their own cabinet if they believe an assassin could come calling, so do I keep that sick old man in his seat of power. He is a blunt instrument in my collection- the poison in my cabinet. The ways that he remains useful to me are greater than the inconveniences he causes me. Do you understand?”

There was poetry in every word, but Essek had not survived this long not knowing where to read between the lines to find the meaning. He’s your weapon against your detractors. The shovel you’ll use to bury them.

All Essek said was, “I understand.”

Ludinus remained where he was, his shadow consuming Essek’s like some great beast. It could not have been any longer than a handful of seconds, but it felt like eternity before he patted the back of the chair and stepped back towards his desk. “I’ll ring for tea. Perhaps you would like to stay this time?”

It felt like a test. He swallowed down his fear and nodded. “Yes. I think I will.”

His eyes fell across the desk and he noticed, before the paper was cleared away, that the strange patterns that Ludinus had been tapping out were carefully outlined calligraphy of a single letter.

Specifically, a J.

#cr fic #wip wednesday #you can't deny high noon

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shoppncarticles · 1 year

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Every Binding of Isaac Boss: Part 5

So, if you’ll remember from the previous article, I said a particularly ambitious and expansive fanmade mod for Rebirth was being created at the same time as the Afterbirth DLC, and once it released it was met with a lot of acclaim and praise for just how expansive it was. It added a whole alternate floor path to the game, separate from the base game’s loop of Basement-Caves-Depths-Womb and featured speciall enemies and bosses exclusive to that alt path, as well as a collection of new items and two mechanically-unique characters to boot.

This mod, titled The Binding of Isaac Antibirth was so noteworthy and impressive for the time that it caught the eye of creator Edmund McMillen, and upon realizing how much more compelling he found it than the official Afterbirth and Afterbirth+ DLCs, decided to hire the mod team as official developers to port the mod into a new third DLC pack… with a couple original additions to boot.

And thus, after several years in the making, the Binding of Isaac Repentance was released, containing almost all of Antibirth’s additions to the game, making it all compatible with the previous DLC packs, as well as the mentioned new stuff just to make the deal even sweeter.

All the positive changes that Repentance made to the game can’t be summarized just in a paragraph here, but trust me when I say that the original Rebirth feels incredibly shallow and half-baked by comparison in retrospect. Repentance adds a ton of quality of life changes, such as giving unique door frames to special rooms found on floors, optimizing how certain RNG mechanics work to be more consistent, rebalancing a ton of items and characters, and more. Ut acts as an excellent cap to the game’s official support, and I really couldn’t ask for a better collection of new content as a major fan of the game.

So, without wasting any more time, let’s talk about the DLC’s new bosses. Get comfortable, because there’s a lot to cover here. Repentance adds more bosses than any of the previous versions of the game have before, including the original Flash game.

Baby Plum

Repentance’s first addition to the boss bestiary is a big, cutesy blood fly who pirouettes around the room, seemingly unaware of the rings of bloody tears she creates in her wake. Baby Plum was used frequently as a cute mascot of both the Antibirth mod and the Repentance DLC, and considering the other options available it’s not hard to see why she was chosen.

A neat easter egg is that if you don’t fight back against Baby Plum and instead dodge all her attacks for a little bit, she’ll fly away harmlessly and leave the unique Plum Flute item as a reward. It lets you summon Baby Plum to help you fight when used, which is an incredibly charming secret. The two of you can join forces against the vile monsters of the depths if you so choose, and ain’t that just the sweetest thing this blood-filled insect could do for you.

Bumbino

Bumbino is a monstrous version of Bumbo, a character created by Isaac who actually serves as the protagonist of a spin-off game with its own selection of demonic and unhygienic monsters. Bumbo is a brutish caveman-type character, obsessed with money, which is played up even further with this malformation of the character. He’s so obsessed, in fact, he’ll stop targeting you and go for spare change on the ground if any appears. He lacks feet too, and just has to crawl and shuffle along the ground to get anywhere. Not that he seems to care.

Reap Creep

Reap Creep is a really cool concept for a boss, being a big bad version of various wall-clinging spider enemies which shoot a variety of projectiles. Reap Creep combines the strategies of three of these types, with the ability to shoot linear shots, spread shots, or more of those giant blood lasers bosses are so fond of. Reap Creep also rotates its head to match each style it’s going to work with, which is quite a cool touch as well. As an additional touch, I like its spindly spider legs quite a bit. A very solid design indeed!

The Pile

The last of the new bosses which can appear on the game’s standard path is the Pile, an original posthumous boss from the Antibirth mod. Like the Stain, the Pile is a dead version of Polycephalus, but is even deader thanks to it being completely skeletal. It seems to have matured since being a lump of malformed baby heads, now just grumpily burrowing through the ground as it charges at Isaac and attempts to knock his block off with flying bones.

Lil Blub

So, like I said, the Antibirth mod and Repentance DLC adds an alternate path to the main game, featuring unique floors that hold special elemental themes and their own unique sets of enemies and bosses. Most of the game’s areas are some variety of typical caverns and stone dungeons. Meanwhile, the alternate floors have more varied setpieces like haunted sewers, magma-filled mines, occult temples, and more. These alternate floors are a bit more mechanically complex than the standard game as well, often coming with unique features or tricks that make them stand out quite a bit from the base game’s offerings. They definitely feel like an even harder hurdle to experienced players looking to test their mettle with the game’s challenges.

The first boss that can be found in these alt floors is Lil Blub, a different posthumous Duke of Flies who’s bloated from his apparent watery grave and filled with leeches instead of flies. He inhabits the Downpour, a flooded version of the basement that’s home to the little buggers and other enemies based on water and reflections. Lil Blub fights a lot like Duke did, hacking up his inner inhabitants, as well as splashing violently in the water to spew tears every which way and make Isaac’s day just a bit worse.

I like how the water has affected the Duke’s body quite a bit in this design, mostly in the facial region. The bloating has given him jowls, not only reflecting his corpulent nature but also making his face a bit fishlike in appearance as well. Also, you can’t really beat that delighted smile, can you.

Wormwood

The big boss version of Downpour’s leeches, Wormwood fights a lot like Pin and is even built like it, but it is completely different in appearance and has way more violent attacks at its disposal. Wormwood is violent, to say the least, since not only does it jump out of the water at Isaac and spew volleys of watery tears at the kid, it can also break holes in the ground with its jagged tail and burst out from the wall once its health is low enough. Wormwood feels like the most animalistic of all of Isaac’s foes, like some sort of violet deep sea predator that cares for nothing more than eating Isaac for lunch. Fitting, given its lack of any facial features besides a mouth and its inhuman, retractable teeth. Definitely one of my favorite monstrous designs here.

The Rainmaker

A much goofier member of the Downpour bosses, Rainmaker is a little ghost who, as his name implies, makes it rain by summoning volleys of tears during his attacks, even having streams of water pour down (harmlessly) on the room while he’s active. What’s incredibly charming about Rainmaker, though, is all his moves involve dancing and striking suave poses, as if preforming for an audience during the fight, helped by the rose in his mouth in the boss portrait. Can’t fault the guy here, he knows how to put on a show.

Min-Min

Another highly interesting boss, Min-Min is a fiery wisp that inhabits a completely dead version of the Husk, said to be “long dead and salted.” She acts as the boss version of several of the fiery flies which also inhabit the Downpour, seemingly contrasting the area’s watery grave theming. All good in my book, as it helps Min-Min stand out against her fellow bosses. The whole puppeting of a salted Husk corpse is very neat, and once she loses half her health and the corpse crumbles, she just dives into the water and summons groups of fire flies to help in the fight anyways.

Clog

The original Antibirth mod only included one floor type for each chapter of the alt path, but Repentance gave the first three alternatives of their own as well, as if adding just them to the game wasn’t enough. That’s only a good thing in my book, though it does also give us the overly shitty sewers of Dross to parallel the first chapter of the Downpour. If you thought Afterbirth went a little hard on the additions of fecal freaks, I must inform you that Repentance goes even further by giving them their own floor. Repentance’s bosses are a bit more varied, though, as Clog is a mass of various nasty sewer sludges that, as his name implies, clogs the pipes as he sits stationary and controls the flow of water in the room.

Hilariously, ending the fight with Clog doesn’t cause him to burst into gibs like other bosses in the game, and instead seems to cut him down to size as he gets flushed down an unseen pipe.

Colostomia

Colostomia is one of, if not the most viscerally disgusting of the game’s bosses if you know what it represents. This liquidy mass of digestive waste glides across the water as you fight it, leaving explosive gas in its wake before it spews explosive droppings behind to cause a chain reaction of fart bombs to quickly dodge. If that wasn’t bad enough, knocking down half of its HP causes the bag it's in to burst, making it merge with the water of the room while still managing to fight back against you. Finally defeating Colostomia causes it to lose its shape and dissipate into the water completely, turning it murky and brown. Disgusting for sure, but far more creative than the previous shit bosses have been, I think at least.

Turdlet

Edmund and crew just had to get one more poop boss into the game, giving us the perfectly segmented string of turds seen above. Turdlet is almost a direct translation of A Link to the Past’s Moldorm boss, coming full circle ever since Larry Jr.’s introduction so long ago. Turdlet even splits in half once it takes enough damage, like Larry before it. How quaint.

Tuff Twins

Speaking of Larry Jr., they also have a counterpart in the alt path’s next chapter, the Mines. The Mines are floors based off lava and explosions, as all of its bottomless pit obstacles are filled with molten rock, and several dispensers are placed in rooms which drop throwable bombs for Isaac to use to excavate enemies and collectables alike.

The Tuff Twins are a version of Larry Jr. which seem to have become acclimated to this harsher environment, giving them rocky exteriors and an immunity to Isaac’s tears. Thus, he has to use those throwable bombs to blast away their shells and expose their meaty interiors for damage. Really, the concept of these guys isn’t too terribly innovative, but the whole acclimation and evolution thing is cool to see brought into Isaac’s world.

Hornfel

Of course, what would a mine be without minecarts as well? Hornfel is a delightful little imp demon like Loki from the base game, who rides in and out of multiple boss doors around the arena like a Scooby Doo gag as he lobs lit bombs at Isaac in attempts to blow the poor kid to smithereens. He’s definitely one of the more entertaining bosses here, helped by the fact that he’s such a scamp. Hornfel even has an attack where two ragdoll dummies exit doors in carts at the same time he does. If Isaac breaks them (revealing lit bombs inside), Hornfel will taunt him by sticking out his tongue and blowing a raspberry in response.

Hornfel isn’t total hot shit, though, since depleting his health and breaking his cart, causes him to cry and run away from the fight in shame. Oh well, you’ll get ‘em next time Hornfel.

Great Gideon

During Isaac’s numerous journeys in his own subconscious, he’ll come across several stone heads which act as various obstacles, usually stationary turrets, rather than being enemies you can kill. Great Gideon is the boss version of these turrets, known as Grimaces, and incorporates nearly all of their different attack patterns in his fight. However, since those Grimaces are made and stone and thus invincible, so too is Gideon, and bombs won’t help like they did with the Tuff Twins. Instead, Great Gideon is fought in a wave-based system, summoning various hordes of enemies against Isaac as he periodically attacks as well just to make things worse. Once enough waves have been defeated, Gideon deactivates solemnly. However, he can also be killed with a special insta-kill weapon, giving him a total look of shock and surprise before he shatters into tiny pebbles, another cool easter egg for these new bosses.

Singe

The Mines’ counterpart is the Ashpit, a volcanic abyss of ash, bones, and tormented spirits that feels like a desolate wasteland in comparison to the explosive activity of the mines. In contrast to that, though, is Singe, a hyperactive freak who explodes into the sky like a Looney Tune at a moment’s notice, and also knows how to ignite his own farts with a lighter. He feels like the most unhinged and insane of Isaac’s foes, which is surprisingly rare among them. It should be noted that Edmund has gone on record as saying that Singe is his favorite boss in the roster, at least among those added in Repentance, and knowing him and his humor it isn’t hard to see why.

The Shell

The posthumous version of the Tuff Twins is quite interesting, since the name implies that only the rocky shell of the worms remains, somehow reassembled and reanimated to fight back against Isaac. Fittingly, they fight like the Hollow, Larry Jr.’s own posthumous form, but can actually target Isaac if he gets close enough instead of strictly traveling on a diagonal path. When this happens, the Shell also gets tiny glowing pupils in its eye sockets, making for an unnerving visual as it endlessly gnashes its teeth towards Isaac. Breaking the exterior of these ghouls shows they still carry necrotic grey flesh inside, or maybe it’s just masses of ash and waste that built up inside of them. One of the more morbid and decrepit bosses for sure.

Clutch

Clutch is a cool boss, being a purple specter who possesses and empowers the various skeleton enemies who populate the fight alongside it. Clutch itself is invincible when inside a skeleton, and frequently hops between the three in order to avoid taking damage. This doesn’t last forever, though, and eventually Clutch is forced to disassemble the skeletons and use their bony bits as a shield as he charges towards Isaac and spews purple flames everywhere. Clutch’s strong suit is definitely his asymmetrical eyes and jagged smile, a real charmer of a twisted spirit if I do say.

The Siren

The next chapter’s alt floor holds the Mausoleum, a great temple of sorts which holds several occult and magic-themed enemies, as well as various teleporter traps and puzzles to catch you off guard. The first boss found here is the Siren. Siren is actually a pretty neat design, being another strange all-black demon, featuring sharp deep sea predator teeth and no apparent bottom jaw. True to her name, Siren can even use songs to gain temporary control of any friendly familiar items that Isaac may have, bringing them to her side temporarily.

The Heretic

The Heretic is the much more interesting Mausoleum boss, though. Apparently being the Haunt brought back into this world by a ring of cultists, the Heretic starts its fight by exploding all their heads and turning them into shambling zombies before fighting with Isaac. The Heretic is an excellent design, keeping the Haunt’s true bony face and turning its skin into a torn hood-like coating, as well as coating the whole palette in black and giving it a special glowing eye flame. The Heretic is also maybe one of the deadliest foes here, being able to summon huge chains of brimstone lasers and explosive flame bombs, even slamming on the ground hard enough it dislocates its jaw and needs to snap it back into place. Absolutely one of my favorites, and a huge improvement over the Haunt’s previous posthumous form.

The Visage

The Mausoleum’s parallel version is Gehenna, a demonic red torture dungeon of an area, filled with glowing red runes, hanging chains, spiked walls and floors, and more. It appropriately feels like the game’s most unholy and demented location, beating out the demon’s home of Sheol by a longshot. The first boss encountered here, the Visage, is a posthumous version of the Mask of Infamy, also possibly brought back to life by unholy means as its heart is now coated in stone and is chained to the mask as if imprisoning it and preventing the pair from causing too much damage. The iron clad, furnace-like appearance of the mask is also quite intimidating, and the heart retains the ability to use the chain in combat even when the two are separated.

Additionally, the insides of the mask are shown to be flaming at all times when active, and peering into its backside reveals several circles which resemble tiny Isaac heads, as if that’s what’s fueling this horrid thing. Damaging the heart enough shatters the stone coat and reveals it to be made of pure fiery energy, and it has the ability to reignite the mask should it be put out. This thing raises a ton of questions, and feels quite at home in the twisted dungeon of Gehenna.

The Horny Boys

Yes, that genuinely is their name, and while the Horny Boys are incredibly goofy in name and appearance, the true nature of what they are still appears to be quite uncouth when looked at critically. Likewise found in Gehenna, it’s possible that the Horny Boys were created by forcefully stitching Hornfel and Loki together in attempts of creating a greater demon, given the unholy forces that inhabit Gehenna.

Hornfel and Loki don’t seem any eviler in nature though, and gleefully hop around the arena just as they always have while taunting Isaac all the way. What’s most amusing about them, though, is an attack where Loki hops up and down at an increasingly faster pace, spewing more and more complex rings of tears as Isaac attempts to dodge them. While Loki may be well accustomed to these tricks, Hornfel however is not, and grimaces as Loki starts the attack, and gets increasingly nauseous and green as it continues, eventually upchucking fiery bombs at its end, totally sick by Loki’s antics. That’s an incredibly funny attack pattern to give these boys, and does a ton for their charm and character as well.

Chimera

The alt path culminates in the counterpart to the Womb, now a festering mass of green-grey flesh known as the Corpse. This almost silent and empty floor is quite disheartening to explore, if I’m being honest, and has an effectively ominous and quieting atmosphere as you reflect on what it represents. The first boss you can encounter here is Chimera, a hideous combination of Monstro, Gurdy, and the Cage, that, while it keeps Monstro and Gurdy’s delighted nature, seems almost twisted in execution as it hocks explosive puke bombs at you and other malformed enemies found in the floor. The head even falls off the body at one point, causing the two parts to fight alongside each other like many bosses have before. I like that Gurdy’s fleshy growth around Monstro’s head almost resembles a lion’s mane, fitting the title given to this amalgamated beast. That’s quite a clever design touch.

The Scourge

The Scourge is quite neat, being some unseen, tentacled parasite that wears the skin of what is presumably its previous host, or a stitched-together coat of several victims. The hooded specter look here is really cool, as is its cycloptic eye. I do like Scourge a lot for what it is, even if I don’t have much to say about it. Another morbid inhabitant of this decrepit realm.

Rotgut

Rotgut is the final standard boss added in Repentance, being a melting mass of what was once a face, now embedded into the floor of the room it inhabits and forced to inhale anything that comes its way like an antlion larva. Defeating Rotgut and depleting its health actually causes it to swallow Isaac, forcing him to first fight a large maggot inside of it, then its rotting core before being spat back out. It’s surprising the first time you see it, and does act as a neat little parallel to Mom’s Heart before it.

What’s interesting, though, is that Rotgut had a completely different appearance in the Antibirth mod, being some multilayered Sarlaac-like parasite buried in the rotten flesh of the Corpse. I honestly like this interpretation a lot more, if only for being some ambiguous giant bug creature seen so little elsewhere in the game.

Mother

The final boss of the alt path is Mother, a truly monstrous and appalling version of how Isaac views his own mother. This giant mass of flesh traps Isaac in a small room as it towers over him, and tries to slam him with its fists, as well as throwing giant knives that cleave through the fleshy floors and summoning rotting zombie versions of Isaac and using them as projectiles during the fight. It’s not hard to see how Isaac envisions his mother’s treatment of him in this fight. Things only get worse for him during the second phase, in which the grotesque head bursts from the wall in a ball of flesh and fights with him further, spewing waves and waves of maggot-like tears against Isaac. This is effectively a posthumous version of the Mom boss, though it fights completely differently. She even reuses the same voice lines from the Mom boss fight, though heavily warped and distorted.

An interesting change is that the original Antibirth version of this boss was titled the Witness, but Edmund found the name didn’t fit at all, so tried coming up with a new one. Between him and the Antibirth team, they settled on Mother simply because it felt less personal and loving than Mom did, which I think is quite an effective distinction to make here.

Another thing worth mentioning is that Mother’s first form bears resemblance to a giant, dead version of Mama Gurdy. While Mama Gurdy doesn’t appear to have any direct connections with Mom or this boss, the resemblance isn’t unintentional.

Mother was originally conceptualized as a unique, posthumous version of Mama Gurdy titled the Ur-Gurdy, as seen in these mockup screenshots, made long before Antibirth was even a thing. It is quite cool to see these more unlikely origins of the boss, and seeing how far things have come today.

Dogma

That’s not all, though, since defeating Mother unlocks a hidden door on the game’s normal path that leads Isaac to rewind through the previous floors he’s explored, ascending between them as echoes of fights between his parents can be heard in the background music playing throughout. This eventually culminates in Isaac returning to his own bedroom, and walking through the modest house and sleeping in his mother’s bed… before being awoken by visions of a TV reflecting his own face in static. Returning to the central room and finding the previously off TV to now be on, showing only static, has a fetus made up of static emerging from the TV and screaming, initiating a boss fight with the only VS splash screen in the game that’s colored white.

This is Dogma, a representation of the rampant Christian televangelist broadcasts that turned Isaac’s mother into the abusive fanatic she is. As such, it kind of makes Dogma the true villain of the game, a greater threat than the idea of Satan and sin ever was, as it’s responsible for feeding all those ideas into Isaac’s mother who then forced it onto him. At least, it’s Isaac’s way of visualizing that sort of villain.

Edmund McMillen has said in interviews that he wanted to emphasize this part of the story more in Repentance than it had been in the games previously, that while religion can be a very positive and helpful experience for various people, it can also be used in a horrible, corruptive way that can end up hurting those seeking guidance in their times of need. Isaac’s mother was suffering through several arguments and fights with her husband, and turned to religion as a coping mechanism, and the broadcasts which she watched on TV only served to make her more emotional and tormented than she was before. I think this was an incredibly smart decision, especially since the story’s focus on religion and Isaac’s mother was kind of pushed to the side in preference of showing off Isaac’s inevitable death through several metaphors in previous DLC.

Dogma itself is an incredibly effective portrayal of this, in my opinion, representing not only the unnerving nature of old analog TVs with its hazy radio texture and oozing body, but also incorporates several holy and angelic-themed attacks as well. It’s a much more creative representation of religious horrors than the typical demons and devils are.

In battle, Dogma is initially invincible, and instead Isaac must damage the TV in order to fight it, and initially it seems to work as breaking the TV causes Dogma’s umbilical connection to the screen to break and for it to fall into staticky goo, before it reemerges as…

A proper biblical angel, at least one simplified into the game’s artstyle. No longer are angels represented by humanoids, now Dogma takes the form of a more ambiguous holy entity as it fights back against Isaac. It can even take form as an Ophanim briefly, the popular ring-like angel often used in biblically-accurate interpretations. Dogma can also summon balls of god rays in this form as well.

Special mention also goes to Dogma’s unique battle music as well. It’s mostly comprised of harsh guitar and drum beats, layered with droning static and hazy audio, fitting its appearance. However, once the second phase starts and Dogma becomes an angel, a second layer gets added to the music, as raging preachers begin rambling bible verses and claims of God’s wrath in the background, likely repeating the various things that scarred Isaac as he watched televangelical broadcasts with his mother.

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Dogma is one of my favorite bosses in any game I’ve played, since it reflects all the themes and fears it represents so well, not only in the simple effectiveness of its design but also in its accompanying music and excellent attack patterns. It’s one of my favorite things to come out of Isaac, and is honestly quite unexpected from this game about a kid who cries at poop. But hey, don’t judge a book by its cover and all that.

The Ultra Horsemen

Things don’t end there, though, since defeating Dogma causes Isaac’s house to shatter and reveal Hell, traditional lakes of fire and lava and everything. Granted wings by an angelic awakening brought on by the remnants of Dogma, Isaac must do battle with giant, souped-up versions of each of the Harbingers of the Apocalypse. Each of these are nicely detailed versions of their regular forms, though special mention of course goes to how grotesque and rotting Pestilence has become. Death is also quite cool now that he’s been given a scythe at all times. He even shakes his head in disappointment when all of the other Horsemen have failed and it’s up to him to clean up Isaac. Once he fails, however…

The Beast

The Beast of the Apocalypse emerges from the fiery pits of hell to put a stop to Isaac once and for all. In concept, the Beast isn’t a whole lot different than the red-eyed, shadowy-skinned horned demons seen elsewhere in the game, but its giant appearance and grotesque boils, veins, and unfocused eyes really help to accentuate how, for lack of a better word, beastly this thing is. It’s fueled and motivated only by destruction, and is by far the strongest enemy Isaac is able to face given how many screen-covering attacks it has. Originally, the Beast was supposed to have a laughing animation whenever Isaac got hurt during the fight, but I think not including it was the right decision. It makes the Beast less human than it would’ve been otherwise, and accentuates how utterly catastrophic it truly is.

An interesting detail with the Beast’s design is the seemingly out of place polka dot cloth wrapping around the bottom of its head. This is actually the same pattern used on all depictions of the dress Isaac’s mother wears, and thus it can be interpreted that the Beast is yet another representation of Isaac’s mother. It’s even referred to by the alternate name the Mother of Harlots to further this point. Given this reading, the Beast represents how corrupt and horrible Isaac’s mother has become since growing obsessed with religious preaching and scripture, turning her into just as vile and destructive of a being in Isaac’s eyes as whatever demonic force she fears. It’s not usunusal that those who fanatically claim to be religious saints and disciples of God can often end up doing extreme harm to those around them, which is what the Beast is meant to represent on the whole. Dogma is the dangerous teachings which fuels these monsters, and the Beast is what is created because of it.

Defeating the Beast leads to a relatively happy ending where Isaac ascends into heaven, forgiving himself for the fights his parents had which he believed had been his fault, only for it to be revealed that the ending (and by extension, the whole game, since its style matches that of the opening cinematic) was nothing more than a bedtime story being told to Isaac by his father. He asks Isaac if that’s really how he wants the story to go, before restarting it by repeating the game’s opening dialogue, only changing the line “Isaac and his mother lived in a house” to “Isaac and his parents lived in a house,” perhaps reflecting that there is a more optimistic end to this narrative than previously known.

Edmund McMillen has said the ending of the actual Isaac remains unchanged, that he still ends up dead inside a toy box, but I suppose the Beast ending exists for those that wanted to end their experiences with Isaac on a lighter note, and I think it works well towards that end. After so many final bosses with endings that show nothing has really been changed for the better, overcoming the source of the madness and its apocalyptic creation finally lets Isaac rest easy, which then makes a perfect ending to this DLC and story as a whole.

And thus, every official Isaac boss has been covered on my blog! It was fun to talk about them all, and discussing the story was interesting since I do enjoy how this endless roguelike game handles its story and themes in metaphoric ways. Isaac is a very important game to me and I’m glad I could spend some time discussing it here, so thanks for checking out the articles and reading. I appreciate it.

[Isaac Archive]

#binding of isaac #tboi #tboi repentance #monster design #design critique #creature feature

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silyabeeodess · 1 year

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FusionFall Headcanons: Bloodsuckers

These fusion monsters act so much in-line with real vampires that no one even bothered to add much to their description, simply noting that “you’ve heard the legends” and you can’t say that you “haven’t been warned.” Copying the species among the Underworlders that frequently explore Endsville, they’ve resurrected the classical monster much to the fear of a wider scope of people.

Since the Bloodsuckers have no legs, they can’t land on the ground to attack like a vampire bat would. Instead, they attack from the air, summoning globs of fusion matter into their hands and launching them at enemies. Only in rare cases, such as when they feel they have the element of surprise, or after a target is severely weakened will they pounce to bite. This is because they aren’t much stronger than humans physically due to a low muscle mass. They may look powerful, but it’s mainly the robes/wing-like arms giving them a bulkier look. Still, if they do latch onto you, they can be hard to shake off if their sharp claws hook into you.

The Bloodsuckers are highly intelligent, often using the darkness to their advantage to try to sneak attack their victims. They know how to chase people into corners and use fear to throw them off in a fight. If you have been warned about these fusion monsters lurking in an area, always pay attention to the shadows around you.

The bats that swarm around them aren’t the real animals, but rather an extension of the Bloodsuckers themselves. This follows the similar ability seen across various media with vampires and is confirmed in concept art, the latter explaining that the bats come from the cloak and showing one of them radiated with the green glow of fusion matter. While the fusion bats can’t fly too far from their host, this gives them a heightened awareness of their surroundings.

This can actually be a danger to real bats as much as fusion fighters, as they are social animals. If they do not immediately recognize that the fusion bats aren’t a part of their colonies, or if they try to fight them thinking that they’re rivals, they can put themselves in harms way.

In the mission “Blood Feud,” we’re ordered by Father to fight Bloodsuckers to test whether or not they’re more aggressive toward children. According to Mojo, this was likely just to put us in harm’s way, as more of a test on us than on the fusion monsters. While I do think this is highly likely, I do also see an edge of truth to that theory... if not in the way Father meant. I don’t think the Bloodsuckers or similar, spooky fusion monsters would target kids specifically, but that kids would naturally be more prone to fearing them because they are based on classical monsters that they’d think were scary while many adults would grow out of fearing/believing in them. Outside of Endsville’s constant experience with the supernatural, most of their looks and habits would seem corny or superficial to most people. They’d look at such fusion monsters as Halloween knock-offs and therefore be less likely to take them seriously. This can work both for and against the monsters’ favor. While some might fear them too much, others will brutishly target them as a recognizable threat. Meanwhile, those who dismiss them as hokey may act calmer in battle, but are also more likely to underestimate the monsters.

In the events of “Wish Upon a Weirdo,” Billy has us get him some garlic to protect himself from the Bloodsuckers. Despite this, however, it’s more likely that Billy was wrong to assume this would work since the Bloodsuckers aren’t actual vampires. The same would go for anything else that is a typical weakness of theirs. Whether or not the Bloodsuckers would have a natural fear of things such as garlic based on mimicked instincts though is a matter of study. For example, fusion monsters have no weakness to sunlight, but the Bloodsuckers nevertheless tend to avoid it and are much more active on gloomy days or at night. When a Bloodsucker isn’t active, they can often be found hiding in crypts or other buildings found in/near graveyards.

The Bloodsuckers have two stronger evolutions, the Batty and Baron Bloodsucker. As noted in their description, the Batty Bloodsuckers’ behavior is more bat than human-like, giving them a less intelligent and far more animalistic nature. Meanwhile, the Baron Bloodsuckers are the most powerful of their kind, described as “the king of the night sky.”

Dracula is very offended by these fusion monsters for not just copying themselves off vampires, but doing so and then forgetting to scrape and lick.

#fusionfall #headcanons #fusion monsters #bloodsuckers #batty bloodsuckers #baron bloodsuckers #video games

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6ad6ro · 2 years

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now that i've beaten elden ring, i'm ready to talk about it. i'll be vague in order to not spoil anything.

so it's in my top 10 favorite games ever, something that no game in over ten years has managed. it is BY FAR the best open world game that has ever existed. it's a game that ACTUALLY deserves the sort of praise that people were giving things like zelda botw a few years back. whereas zelda was maybe a little overrated, this actually goes above and beyond it's reputation. i can safely say that it's the most important game in the world right now.

that isn't to say i didn't have the occasional issue with it. but it just did so dang much to improve on the souls series. i always said that the souls series had the potential to be a masterpiece on the level of things like "zelda oot", and elden ring proves this.

anyways here are the things i think er did to vastly improve upon the souls formula (or are just good in general):

• more reasonable difficulty for most of the game.

• ability to "grind out" of areas that were too hard. leveling is so much more meaningful!

• the nature of it being open world means cheap bosses no longer act as artificial "walls" keeping you from playing the game. if something is too hard, you can go do something else and return later.

• most bosses are more fair, and often have spawnpoints or bonfires RIGHT before their fights. no more stupid runs to the fights.

• summoning ash. the permanent ability to summon in an ai cooperator for most tough fights is just amazing. you can still solo if you WANT, but this just makes the game way more fun and accessible for newer players.

• multiplayer is so much easier in general. co-op especially. less choke points for invaders to target low level players. and less opportunity for harassment by the worst players on the planet. invasion is way less frequent in general. invaders are now the ones at the disadvantage, rather than the invaded. as it should be.

• no more "hollow" mechanics to create unnecessary additional punishment associated with dying. being invaded in co-op is less stressful and more fun because you don't have to use a limited and valuable item every time you die just to play with your friends again. this was always a bad mechanic and good riddance.

• the inclusion of traditional souls areas in addition to the amazing open world. it feels like they combined the old formula with the new and nothing was lost. only gained. map design that puts even ds1 to shame.

• not only does this game feel like 10x bigger than the other souls, it feels bigger than ANY game. imagine a game larger than skyrim where every bit of content was actually DIFFERENT from each other and generally compelling? imagine if castlevania sotn had so much map that it was almost TOO much.

• FUCKING MUSIC! fucking actual music in the world and in dungeons. and it's good! sorry but "minimalistic sound design" is code for "i hate music". maybe they realised how badly breath of the wild was criticized after the fact for it's sparse music??

• more weapons and spells and abilities etc than anyone knows what to do with. they took the same approach as castlevania sotn did and said "throw everything in there". tho it's all fairly balanced (but not so much that it's boring).

• every build is fun and viable, often from the start. no stats are dead.

• poise is actually good but also optional.

• little things with how your player moves around and interacts with the world keep you from dying unfairly as often. player mistakes, rather than input mistakes, are what tend to kill you.

• JUMPING. thank god. a jump button. adds so much. fixes so much.

• removed the "press up on the analog stick as you attack" to do certain moves. nobody liked accidentally kicking in the older games. it was sloppy and thank god it's gone.

• enemy groups (and certain enemies) recharge your health and mana flasks. so you're rewarded for continuing to play rather than punished.

there's probably other good stuff i'm forgetting, but i also wanted to bring up my few complaints. if these were changed then it could have been even better:

• STILL NO DIFFICULTY SETTINGS 🙄... i cannot comprehend how anyone can defend this. even just having an OPTIONAL "casual" mode alongside the normal mode? would open this game up to tons of new fans. miyazaki's whole "joy of overcoming hardship" is frankly a moronic philosophy. and elden ring is actually objective proof that more people like souls games when they're easier. even the most insufferable ds1 tryhards ADORE this game and consider it the best. how can that be possible if an easy mode would "compromise the game's vision"?? the answer is simple. it fucking wouldn't.

• still no pause 🙄. most of us are adults. shut the fuck up and put a pause in your game so i can answer an important call without dying. hell, you can make pausing a toggle and disable it when online. stop making excuses for lacking basic functionality.

• while i still enjoyed some of it, the last 15% of the game is comparatively flawed and unfair. basic enemies suddenly soak up and dish out 10x more damage. the world design can feel obnoxious. and i'm being way less critical than most. a lot of people HATE this part.

• a couple of the bosses are pure shit. IT'S ONLY LIKE TWO THO! the first (and worst) offender is actually near the start of the game and it blocks off progress. it just doesn't make sense for it to be so hard considering where it's at. i know it was the final boss of the network test, but it should have been nerfed/moved/removed in the main game. the second was at least an optional endgame boss, but it was SO cheap. nothing about it felt fair. the fight is so bad that the main strategy used to beat it is "just respec and cheese it, then respec back after". to be fair, that's only two bad bosses in like... what... 70?!?

• still no way to make invaders optional. even if it wasn't nearly as much of a problem this time, it's still annoying. because most ppl who invade always try to cheat or exploit because they have no honor (or skill).

• nobody likes your poison swamps, miyazaki.

• a few other annoying mechanics too, like one hit kill death chariots. or teleportation chests.

• stop nerfing things via updates... you're gonna ruin a good thing if you overbalance. this is a single player game first and foremost. it doesn't really NEED a lot of balance patches. it certainly doesn't need to be any harder...

most of my complaints are fairly minor in comparison, and made less frustrating due to all of the vast improvements elden ring brings to souls. tbh most of the divisive aspects of the souls series are gone. and i finally have a souls game that i adore without compromise. i'd recommend this game to anyone who can play games. and if you can't play games? watch someone play it. because it's one of the most wonderful games ever made.

#i cant wait for the dlc #elden ring #long

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