#there were like 4 levels max that i could actually beat and they were all in world 1 thats how bad i was

[sonknuxadow]

when i was little i was so bad at video games that whenever i played mario on my wii i would just die over and over again because i sucked so bad and eventually i discovered that luigi could beat levels for you if you died enough times so i just started dying over and over on purpose whenever i couldnt beat a level. which was most of them. and i played through the entire game like this all the way to the end

#dont know why im posting this just felt the need to share this information #the specific game im talking about is new super mario bros wii btw #there were like 4 levels max that i could actually beat and they were all in world 1 thats how bad i was #i think it would be fun to revisit it. see if i can beat it for real this time #anyway shocking lore drop for tonight i played more mario than sonic as a kid #and its not that i didnt like sonic or anything i did like sonic i just had easier access to mario stuff

[wizkiddx]

bringing him home

complete fluff, sad lando, and not proofread so apologies x

Not to be dramatic but Lando was done. He’d had a crappy weekend of bad luck, damage, bad strategy and also (he would admit) a bad performance. It was the second last race before summer break, which couldn’t possibly come soon enough. 

He felt guilty. Felt guilty he couldn’t of performed more for the team; guilty he let his frustatration show on radio; guilty he’d been in a crap mood and not let the team even try to pick; guilty that he couldn’t let himself sleep on the plane.

It was a form of self torture. But he couldn’t stop.

He had been short with everyone, but especially Jon- who he knew was only ever trying to look out for him. All he really wanted to do was to get home and crash in bed for some more self loathing.

Mumbling a few quick goodbyes to the part of the team on the same flight as him, Lando swiftly turned his back on his friends to make his usual route.

Landing at Heathrow meant he had his usual, lone wolf routine to get back home. A guy he had known for years - Waleed- would pick him up.

Back when Lando lived in Woking, Waleed had been hired by mclaren to drive him to all the events his calendar was packed with. They had a mutual respect for each other but Waleed was a man of few words. Which right now Lando felt like he needed, a familiar face asking how he was might be enough to send the young man over the edge. 

Car park 2, floor 4, bay number 168. 

That’s where he was off to.

Waleed always came to pick him up from Heathrow. When it was good, Lando would invite a few team members of the preorganised coach to join him. And when it was like it was today, Lando would have only his own company to deal with. 

It wasn’t even home anymore, the young driver lived in Monaco and purely came back for mclaren and for social reasons. And right now he fancied neither. 

But duty called.

Cautiously, not to bring about any attention, Lando peeled off from the large group of mclaren workers who were on their way to the coach stop. With his hood up, shoulders hunched and staring at the ground as much as possible he thankfully didn’t garner any attention. He knew this route like clockwork- down the elevators and across the walkway to the multi-storey; get the lift up four floors and walk left to the back corner. 

Everything felt heavy as he dragged his notoriously over packed suitcase across the smooth tarmac. He just wanted bed.

But as he rounded the corner his mood only got stormier. Waleeds car was definetely not around. Instead parked in his space was a beat up black small car. Grumbling to no one in particular, Lando got out his phone to question Waleed - who was normally very prompt and reliable. 

Before he could though, the slam of a car door shutting directed his attention back to the space he was wishing Waleed was in.

“Car park 2, go to level four , park in bay 168. You don’t make this easy do you?” 

Yes it was sarcastic, but I’m the softest,caring and most gentle way. And Lando felt everything in his body and mind sag, with a familiar sigh.

“I got the afternoon off work, so I guess I turned up.” Lando still stood still, a confused look demonstrating to Y/n she needed to explain. “Max texted me and I think Jon told him you weren’t feeling great. Unfortunately, Max said you were now my problem so…” 

Of course, Jon had told on him. And of course, especially after their little ‘manly’ heart to heart a week or so ago, Max had decieded Y/n was actually the greatest comfort to him. 

“is…is it ok that I’m here? I didn’t want to presume but Max-“ she was inturrupted as Lando started taking great strides and threw his arms round her shoulders.

He didn’t verbally reply, instead nodding into her neck and then pulling her impossibly closer, which she assumed to be a sign he were getting a bit emotional. So she just stayed, hugging him tightly back in return.

Her insecurity was not without reason. Lando and y/n had known each other for years, but only got close and started dating 3 months ago. It had been an immediate perfect fit and felt like the most natural thing in the world. 

But this was the first time she was being exposed to his incredibly vulnerable side, and Y/n did not take this lightly. Especially given the fact he hadn’t really had a choice.

After what was probably not more than 30 seconds, Lando muttered a ‘thankyou’ and pulled away so they were face to face. Only then did y/n really see just how exhausted he looked. The normally glowing, tanned skin was abnormally pale and almost clammy. Unsurprisingly his eyes were sunken in- but worse was sort of dullness of his usually brilliant green eyes. He was more than just tired, he was mentally checked out too. 

“Get inside, left the heater on” she smiled warmly before pressing a quick peck to his lips. Following the instructions almost too well, Lando completely failed to remember his suitcase, which still stood aimlessly in the middle of the car park - from where he had first seen his girlfriend. With a sad sigh Y/n walked back to grab it - placing it in the boot before rounding the car to the drivers side. 

“So, we can go wherever you like. Max said Bristol, said your mums keen to see you.” Lando looked motionless at that, so Y/n attempted another option. “ Or you’re welcome at mine, or we could just got the hotel mclaren booked for you?” Impossibly, Y/n saw his face fall further at the last option, which she quickly crossed off her mental list. 

“‘m just really glad you’re here… wanna be with you.”  He kind of looked embarrassed, fiddling with his fingers as he muttered those words - not appreciating the way Y/n started glowing with warmth to it. 

“I’m by your side no matter what… you deciede where you want us to be for these few days.” 

Admittedly Y/n hadn’t planned such a sad way for her to meet Landos family, but they were serious enough that it was only a matter of time, so why not in hsi hour of need? She also firmly believed being around more people who knew him and could comfort him through it all. And, by the way he talked about them, Y/n wasn’t particularly scared to meet them - they all sounded lovely. She just wanted them to like her. 

“You’ll come to my parents?”

“If thats where you want to be then yes, of course I will. “ Lando nodded and tears started to water, just from how overwhelming the weekend had been compared to how impossibly calm he felt now just because Y/n was with him. 

She’d been prepared for this eventuality after Max described just how bad a state Lando appeared to be in, a little overnight bag and Max’s ‘shortcut’ way to get to the Norris family house avoiding the rush hour traffic. When Y/n held Landos eye contact long enough for him to know she was sincere, Lando leaned over the centre console to hug her tightly once again. 

“I’m really really glad its you here.” He wasn’t evn sure if she coulf hear it- but of course Y/n heard. 

“I’m telling Waleed you said that”

Even when he felt thihs exhausted, self-defeated and shitty, Y/n could make him laugh. He pulled back and just watched as Y/n turned the key in car, then started fiddling with her phone. 

“Right my playlist cos i’m driving and I want no complaints ok?” She shot him a fake serious scowl, before reversing out of the space. 

Lando just watched, watched the way she darted her eyes to the rear view mirror every two seconds  as thought she was taking her driving test again. And the way she bit the right side of her lip as she wound her way through the tighter exit ramps of the car park. And the way her fourth finger tapped to the beat of the Bruno Major song playing - such a small movement even Y/n probably hadn’t noticed she was doing it. Even to her crappy music. 

He was only caught out in his staring later, when her little 11 year old vw polo merged onto the motorway towards his childhood home. Predictably she blushed, rolling her eyes at him, whilst remaining lazar-like focus on the road in front. 

“Stop staring  creep.” He didn’t to that statement, choosing to start his own conversation.

“I really love you, you know that?”

“Of course I do, and I love you more.” Uncharacteristically for her normal driving to the rule book, Y/n took one hand off the wheel and rested it on the centre console - holding out for her boyfriends back. “Now, try get some rest hey? I promisse to try and not crash the car while you sleep.”

“I’ve never felt less relaxed.”

But, of course, he was joking and after an 18 hour journey of the equivalent of tossing and turning in an airplane seat, it took all of 5 mins in the safe and warm atmosphere of his girlfriends car to nod off. 

Because for the first time in a couple of weeks Lando was truly comfortable squeezed into the miniature car to the tune of an artist he normally hated. 

#lando norris #lando norris x reader #lando norris x you #lando norris fluff #lando norris imagine #f1 fluff #f1 x you #f1 angst #max fewtrell #lando norris angst

[lockefanfic]

I'm back, and:

I'll get to all the asks in my inbox soon!

I'll get back to writing soon (tm)

I have finished Persona 5, and I have (spoiler warning) 10 thoughts after the break.

So for context, I played and finished Persona 5 Royal on PC. I ended up putting 95 hours into it, beating the main storyline and doing a good amount of the Mementos quests/confidant storylines, but I didn't do the third semester (more on that later). Thoughts:

What a game. I'm a pretty big JRPG guy, and this ranks up there in my top 5 of all time. Easily. Great characters, great storyline (albeit with what I thought was some filler towards the end of the game), really fun (if basic) battle system. And it's easily the most stylish JRPG I've ever played, and a lot of that has to do with the comic-style UI and god-tier soundtrack. Loved the game, loved the characters. After I finished it, I felt like I was saying goodbye to legit friends I'd come to know pretty well over the past couple of weeks.

Makoto best girl, don't @ me. Sorry Kasumi/Sumire. Makoto was the real Phantom Thief, cuz she infiltrated my palace and stole my heart. I legit awwww-ed at a couple of points in her romance. Hifumi close third place behind Makoto and Kasumi/Sumire.

I didn't do the third semester because how the fuck was I supposed to know you had to max out Maruki's confidant level just to unlock it? I went into this playthrough blind, and Maruki was always kind of sus (I kind of assumed he and Akechi he'd end up being a big bad and I guess I was half-right), but I had no idea that a whole 20+ hours of the game was locked behind his confidant level. By the time I realized it, I was already long past the date he left the school, and there was no way I was going to re-play 80+ hours just to unlock the third semester. Bah. I think it's crazy that they would lock most of the new content behind a pretty random confidant that you can easily pay zero attention to. Shame, because Kasumi/Sumire and Akechi are locked to the third semester and Kasumi/Sumire might've had a better chance of becoming best girl if, y'know, she could actually join my party permanently.

Was Haru even a character? I'm pretty sure some of the lesser non-party confidants got more screentime and background than she did. I didn't use her much either, because Makoto, Ann, and even Futaba were more interesting characters. How adorable (and relatable) is Futaba lol. When she called Mishima an NPC I legit laughed out loud. She destroyed him.

And on the topic of Okumuras, fuck you Okumura boss battle. It was the one part of the game where I had to turn the difficulty down.

WHY COULDN'T I ROMANCE SAE edit: for god's sake I could romance my homeroom teacher but not her? c'mon.

I watched a video about how the characters are much more comfortable in the Metaverse instead of the real world, and damn, it really resonated with me. This game had a lot to say about masks and social/societal pressure and hierarchy and things like that, and I found myself saying damn, that's so true more times than I could count. A large part of why I grew so attached to the characters and their struggles was because in a lot of ways, I saw myself in them.

Loved how real and accurate Tokyo (and the in-game world) was. Loved the references to popular chains, specific streets, and small things like brand names. I giggled irl at the nerds walking around in Akihabara with their bags of merch until I realized I've been those nerds a few times and then I got semi-offended, lol.

Akechi was sus from the start. I mean, was anyone actually surprised when he did the heel turn? At least he had his anime last stand, even if the team went from "you betrayed us you asshole" to "omg akechi nooooo what a noble sacrifice sadface" pretty quickly.

This was my first Persona game and the entire calendar/time cycles were really interesting. The other games have a similar system, right? Should I bother playing Persona 4 or just wait for Persona 6? Is Persona 5 Strikers any good?

Anyway, that concludes my little hiatus from Tumblr. I have a few things on the go irl so I probably won't be as active on here as I was previously, but I'll always be around, even if I'm not posting every day like I used to.

I'm going to be hopefully finishing up a couple of fics I've started, and I've come up with a few ideas for some sequels/new fics (Gaeul sequel because I'm an IVE fan now), so stay tuned.

Love you all, and hope you're all being excellent to yourselves and to each other. <3

[simpingcowboy]

Ranking Pedro Boys as to Whether I Could Beat Them in a Fight

Pt 2 of this nonsense, featuring all the rest of 'em

0, no threat - 10, I live in fear of this man

Once again for all intents and purposes we're posing these as bar type fights in manual combat

Nico, 0

Stand type of spoiled rich boy. I don't imagine he's ever really fought someone before. He would likely think that I'm robbing him- and he would be mistaken. I'm not interested in taking money. I'm interested in taking his dignity. Though he'd leave quite shaken, it would be a good story for him to dramatically wax on about at whatever open house he goes to next.

Dio, 2

Probably the only Pedro boy I'd actually want to fight. A bratty teenaged boy that I will absolutely demolish. He's got spunk, but I've got hands. As a proud former (ehh well- still sometimes if the occasion calls) goth kid, I'd actually love to beat him up. Narcissism and misogyny are NOT punk! And that boy needs a good humbling that I can deliver. He'd be lucky to have half of his piercing still in him.

Marcus Moreno, 4

Picking a fight with Moreno would be interesting, but yield little results. Considering I'm not a national level threat, I don't think he'd even bother with me. It also wouldn't be a good look for the Heroics to be seen beating up a superpower-less civilian. Marcus would simply teach me a lesson by using his powers to helplessly pin me to a wall to hang there in my shame. Literally. He'd just leave me there and walk away laughing. It'd be utterly humiliating.

Omar Assarian, 6

I have admittedly never seen the entirety of Lights Out, but from what I know he's an overly cocky arrogant boxer. So unfortunately for me he does know how to fight. Unfortunately for him, I'm a dirty street fighter who has no problems playing unfairly. It'd be a fight worth seeing. There'd be trash talk, drama, sexual tension, and utter confusion on his behalf about my technique. It'd be close. Ultimately though, I think after a couple right hooks he'd have me.

Oberyn Martell, 8

The Red Viper gets knocked down a couple points as I think he's most accustomed to fighting with his spear and not his hands. Still- boy is lethal. He's agile, fast, intelligent, and has lots of stamina (don't get me started). It'd be hard to get my hands on him enough to do notable damage. Oberyn would wear me out until he felt he could safely get close without immediately getting hit then take me out. I'm unsure if he would kill me, but certainly leave me unfit to stand up for a couple minutes. Truth be told- the smack talk he'd deliver would be so entertaining it'd be worth getting beat up over.

Max Phillips, 9

Actually I probably wouldn't mind fighting Max either. Unfortunately for me though, this would be a fight I'd lose. The whole "vampiric super strength" thing he's got going on will most certainly grant him a certain victory. I'm not even sure I could defeat him unless I had a handy wooden stake on me, which I often do not. I would likely end up as a snack for him :(

Din Djarin, 12 since so many of you were so eager to watch him beat my ass

This wouldn't even be a fight. It'd be a slaughter. Even fully unarmed, Din is probably the most dangerous of all the Pedro boys. He's skilled in literally every type of fight. Not to mention his encasing of full beskar armor. His helmet would probably break my damn hand. Best case scenario here, I'm last 2 minutes TOPS and that's assuming I can somehow sneak up behind him to catch him off guard. But let's be real here... I'd probably be dead before I even threw my first punch <\3

#Am writes #this is so stupid lmao #pedro pascal characters #din djarin #the mandalorian #max phillips #oberyn martell #omar Assarian #marcus moreno #dio svu #the house comes with a bird #nico

[amememightywarrior]

Mom's Adventures in Eorzea I

Since Twitter is imploding, I'm preserving my play by plays of my mom adventuring with me in Eorzea and her reaction to MSQ.

Let's begin! Go to part 2

Aug. 31, 2019

So I've gotten my mom to try FFXIV and she is level 14 right now and practicing her targeting/killing moves!

Current skills we are working on: the basic archer rotation, targeting, switching targets when more than one critter is aggroed...and noticing when things are dead/she's being attacked.

She likes that chocobo porter thing

Cue eyerolls at Beatin's name

"Yeah, that's pretty creepy" - my mom about the Monoa mask

"Why are they all just standing there?"

"Small budget."

This just in, we made it to Limsa Lominsa! Next up: Ul'dah!

She is now roaming around Ul'dah, ignoring all unsolicited FC invites from strangers

*stares at Ifrit-egi* "What's the flaming thing?"

Level 16!

She thought the aesthetician was hilarious. We're done for the day, just before unlocking Sastasha. Not sure if she'll survive her first dungeon experience...I will have to conscript my friends into helping her!

Dec. 8, 2019

Okay, got a trial account set up for my mom so I could actually help her in-game...

...she went max-height max-muscle femroe this time.

7'3'' of pure power, smacks ladybugs with books

Dec. 15, 2019

weewooweewoo my mom's femroe is loose in eorzea again

eventually within the next hour this laptop will get it together and I will be able to follow her around in-game maybe

my fps is low so I'm running super slow my mom is now making fun of my short legs

I just took her for the laggiest ride in eorzea

She's doing the orange harvesting quest and whenever the flower wesp spawns I'm just yelling "BEES BEEEEEES BEEEEEEEEEEEES" the look on her face tells me this is not helpful

i'm so proud look at her go

she put on the level 5 caster gear and yelled "I LOOK LIKE SOMETHING OUT OF THE HOBBIT"

Feb. 16, 2020

Mom's femroe made it to level 12...lots of 'why am i getting hit???' 'oh my god' 'okay wait i remember how to do this' 'no i don't' meanwhile, I just cast a regen as she panics, get all the aggro, and Gravity everything to death once she's done beating up a couple mobs.

Apr. 19, 2020

*puts together a 'running around with mom' glam that looks like normal IRL clothes* LET'S SEE IF SHE NOTICES

My mom: "I noticed the shorts. I CAN RECOGNIZE THOSE CARGO SHORTS ANYWHERE."

Me: "Is it easier to tell what's going on with the voices [instead of reading the fairly small text]"

Mom: "....maybe...even if the voice acting is..." ARR voice acting gets a negative mark from my mom, officially

May 3, 2020

my mom just fell asleep listening to ARR Minfilia like...mid button press

Jul 4, 2020

My mom has named her chocobo Kweh.

"What do you want to name it?" "Hmmmm.....that sound it makes." "'Kweh'?" "Yes!"

Jul 7, 2020

Mom: "What's that blue thing following you" Me: "that's my friend he keeps me company" Mom: "that reminds me I should summon mine" *summons carbuncle*

Jul 19, 2020 (DragonQuest collab)

My mom's reaction to getting 'ze puff-puff' was a mix of '???' and 'wtf' and ' :O ' when the puff-puff was revealed XD

I also showed her my Cells at Work! cosplays and she thought they were pretty good although she was totally groaning at yet another reference to Cells at Work

Jul 28, 2020 (moonfire faire)

okay my mom is level 27 i can get her to get to 30 before the event and we can fend off giant muscle shark TOGETHER

Aug 15, 2020

doing the seasonal event at last with my mom~

she ran from the giant bomb at the very end and didn't get credit RIP

hmm she still didn't get credit, gonna have to try doing it for her...

okay she was not getting close enough to do the first dance...just imagine wild flailing and button smashing

her pride was injured since she got partial credit so she has gone back to do it again by herself

:D

"I didn't realize she was so green, can I change that" rip she'll have to get that free fantasia

Aug 22, 2020

Me as my mom is logging in: Eeeey look at you, in your summer outfit Mom: That's right, and I'm gonna wear it all summer!!

Wilred: "and sorry for trying to kill you" Mom: Lame she dislikes him already

Aug 23, 2020

My mom quickly formed a low opinion of Trachtoum and then laughed when the miller put him in his place. Then she lost the rock competition and said her ego would kill her if she didn’t beat him on normal

My mom did not like that her new upgrade did not disguise itself as her summer flame pareo immediately

Her max height Roegadame reeling at the smell of Brayflox's cheese was priceless, she practically vaulted out of camera view

Sept. 19, 2020

Mom: *sees someone on Midgardsormr* I want a dragon... Me: You'll get one Mom: Hmm...still not as cool as the sparkle lightning horse. Me: Oh that...I have that Mom: =_= Oh? Then why are we riding your flea-bitten chocobo instead?? Me: ...it's...not a 2-seater... Mom: figures

Sept 26, 2020

My mom is taller than Haurchefant

Oct 11, 2020

My mom was deeply offended by the professor's students who kept giving us the wrong kind of corrupted crystal, so when the third one tried to joke that we had gotten earth-aspected her face was like =_=

She's made it past Garuda in MSQ, right now I'm just unsyncing the trials to help her with mechanics

She has 4 whole minions now and decided to change it from her brickman...however she discovered she hates the goobbue sprout, called it a mushroom and went 'ew' when it sneezed XD She really likes the airship though

Oct 17, 2020

Your daily sploot as my mom plays through MSQ

mom just called Minfilia 'pink bustier'

my dog totally chewed up my second gaming mouse rip

I don't care about the teeth marks but I DO care that she deformed the rubber portion of the scroll wheel so I can't scroll...

Made it to Mor Dhona! yaaay

she's like half an inch taller than Biggs

Oct 27, 2020

it's getting to the point where I should probably learn how to play SMN so I can help my mom out I've programmed her crossbar for future and was like "THERE ARE SO MANY BUTTONS WHERE DO I PUT THEM ALL" Last time she played I set up the WXHB but I don't know how this will go

Our latest adventure involved the Gold Saucer, also. She got to do Air Force One and said it was fun XD She also enjoyed the Haunted Manor illusions although she had limited options due to being in ARR.

Fingers crossed I can show her leap of faith although the floating city is kinda rough, we might wanna aim for the other one...I think that's on a schedule, right?

oh good the catboy at the counter in GC gives me the schedule

ANYWAY she's getting close to the end of ARR now, so I have to make her do leveling dungeon once each play session XD fun times. I will most likely unsync castrum and prae so she doesn't have to deal with buttheads potentially

Nov 7, 2020

My mom hit level 49 today! I eagerly took her into leveling, thinking we'd get a good chunk in, but... ...fucking Garuda twice in a row =\

Anyway she should hit 50 tomorrow! Then I'll take her through Castrum and Prae (unsynced for Prae for sure, otherwise the usual PUG speed means she'll be running through in utter confusion and not processing anything)

I'm kinda on the fence about castrum unsynced. It's a bit less annoying with a full group so I don't have to do e v e r y t h i n g but I also don't like salty people near my mom so...hm.

also she was like "So when do I get to see the fanzine you contributed to?" and I was like "*NERVOUS SIDE-EYING* uh when you're caught up with me" the struggles of spoiler territory

Nov 8, 2020

Well mom and I were gearing up to hit castrum but then my dad called from the grocery store because he forgot his wallet

And then the internet died

made it through castrum! But with all the delays, no Prae today...ah well

Nov 14, 2020

it's time time to take my mom through prae

me: LOOK WE'RE IN A CUTSCENE TOGETHER mom: oh okay

mom, in old creaking voice while watching Gaius: it is your destiny, Luke

ground targeting on controller is tough :X

mom, watching Nero: so...a jealous classmate?

so in cutscenes she takes up the entire side of the screen she's on for me, while in her cutscenes Ameme is either hidden behind her or is just a little face staring in a corner

Mom: that was fun she likes dodging lasers???

The Praetorium completion time: 68:19

sorry lalas and lala fans, my mom still thinks lalafells walk like toddlers carrying a full load in the diapers

Well she unlocked flying but can't seem to fly with her company chocobo, not sure what we have to do to fix that...

Nov 15, 2020

mom used her free fantasia to make her roegadame less green

mom has just discovered minfilia's butt window

'is that her butt hanging out of a hole?' 'yep' 'whyyyy'

Nov 20, 2020

Nov 22, 2020

Nov 23, 2020

Nov 24, 2020

me: so the theme for this primal sounds just like This Is Halloween mom: *after a few measures* you know I'm pretty sure it IS This Is Halloween

elidibus is so small compared to her

on Teledji Adeledji: "A toddler with a goatee"

Nov 27, 2020

Mom back on MSQ, aka the rise and fall of alphinaud’s ego

So far most of playtime has been spent terrorizing her by asking her to find places on her own

Her sense of direction in games is a travesty because she does not look for landmarks ever

Mom was like “THEY STOLE THAT FROM TRUE LIES!! Is he going to pee his pants next??” after we got to Trachtuom

Leviathan vanquished~

She has found post ARR story much more interesting so far and I have promised her it gets better

Nov 28, 2020

and we are back at it again, time to watch my mom get lost in limsa

i will eventually get my mom to call mor dhona 'more donuts'

i drew a terrible map to show her what's going on with the refugees and Ala Mhigo in the hopes that she will remember somewhat in the future

Nov 29, 2020

last day of vacation, how far can we get my mom through MSQ...? maybe she will meet Ysayle!

mor dhona currently pronounced 'more dunna' after I said 'more donuts' she said 'didn't you promise me sprinkles' but she actually meant sparkly gear so she could see herself better

mom on urianger: "he sounds like a pompous preacher"

"Why do they call her Antecedent?" I had to look the word up, it means 'precursor', mom was like 'maybe she founded the organization' and I was like 'yep'

I'm waiting for her to get locked out because we haven't done the hard ARR primal modes yet XD

All right so we ended up finishing When the Cold Sets In because the cold has indeed set in so we have to walk Brie at a certain time every day so it's not too cold/dark. I think next session I'll have her do the primals since that's coming up soon anyway...

Dec 5, 2020

and we're back at it! Watching my mom run around the Toll trying to find the crystal brave recruits now

she's gotten more self-sufficient so I'm not leading her around by the hand anymore in small areas XD

"It says to talk to Tataru in Rising Stones" "and where is that" *excited* "WAIT IT'S OVER HERE :D"

I also showed her Yoshi-P showing off the snowman mount, the momora mora minion, and the giant beaver she asked where the beaver's tail was and I was like 'I dunno I'm pretty sure it's a vampiric hamster'

must...restrain...hatred...of ilberd...

she's really navigating eorzea all on her own...i'm so proud...

eeey she passed the 'find the rising stones after I dump you in a random spot in the Toll's aetheryte plaza' test

she failed the 'go to the waking sands' pop quiz, sadly

Ifrit hard down, and done for the day!

Dec 6, 2020

time to terrorize my mom with the 'how do you get to the waking sands' game

she hates titan once more

she just went 'eh *handwiggle*' at aymeric's voice the judgment has been passed

'you know what his voice reminds me of? those 17th century lords and ladies with their lace and their snuff. bleah'

her reaction to Lucia was just 'who's blondie?' and then a heavy sigh when I refused to tell her

upon seeing me riding the great serpent of ronka pot: 'are you riding a wine cask?!'

okay, quit just before snowcloak, we'll do that dungeon next weekend ran around the gold saucer for a bit at the end XD

verdict on the senor sabotender weapons: "No."

Dec 12, 2020

Mom just called Varis "Mr Discontent"

Ilberd: let's be sneaky Mom, sarcastically: Oh yeah I'll be very unnoticeable wherever I go

she just got her evenstar coat, I told her to put it on

"OH MY GOD MY BOOBS ARE HANGING OUT" "IT TOTALLY LOOKS LIKE I COULD BE IN A CASINO" "I THINK IT'S PRETTY COOL ACTUALLY"

*5 minutes later* "So when do I get to stop looking like a circus clown?" XD she doesn't like the skirt on it

Oooo we're about to meet Moenbryda!

She's taller than Moenbryda ahahaha

on Urianger and Moenbryda: "...he doesn't like her?" me: oh he likes her... *Moen picks Uri up* ...she just does that.

her current feelings: voice acting is better, story is more interesting, but there is a LOT of talking at least Minfilia isn't instantly putting her to sleep anymore.

Dec 13, 2020

Mom: "Alphinaud causing problems yet again..."

Mom, to Roaille: *muttering* gonna smack you with my book Me: your book with two ipads attached? Mom: yeah

Mom: *watching Teledji Adeledji be evil* ...is he about to bump [the sultana] off? I hope she keeps a blade in her bodice

"I can't imagine what my shirt would look like if I had chosen big boobs" ahahahahaha

NPC: "So she was a double agent!" Mom: "Sounds more like triple" Me: "...IT WAS THE ASCIANS WHO HAD HER FUNDING HERETICS!! A QUADRUPLE AGENT!!"

Yuyuhase casting aspersions on Riol's spy ability HOW DARE

keeper of the lake unlocked and ready for the next play session~

Dec 19, 2020

Mom and I successfully cleared Keeper of the Lake! No wipes even on Midgardsormr!

she's making fun of how slow Midgardsormr speaks ahaha

she promptly summoned him as a minion

"So now I've lost the protection I didn't even know I had?"

Middy: I REMEMBER, HYDAELYN...AND I CONSENT Me: Consent is important! Mom: What is he talking about???

It's Starlight time with Mom~

"I feel like we just finished watching a Hallmark movie" "...and not enough vaccines to go around...WHEN DID THEY WRITE THIS?? =\ "

she actually started wheezing at the snowman mount as we bounced around central shroud

when it was time to log out, she specifically went out of the Rising Stones so she could log out as a snowman

Dec 20, 2020

Mom: I liked her, it's a pity they killed her off RIP Moenbryda next up: HILDIBRAND for some whiplash

"It's very slapstick/vaudeville" after snorting with laughter at Hildy on top of the tower posing

"So...he's not a zombie?" "No...but he survived all of that..." "Including the burial..." "Yeah. We don't know what he's made of." "I'm going with 'mostly ego'."

sighs of annoyance as she gets lost in Ul'dah

I asked her if she liked it so far and she said 'Yeah, it's pretty funny!'

during the salamander oil section when hildy's getting all orgasmic: "At this point I would've knocked him in and held his head under the water"

"So...we didn't find anything." "I mean Nashu got the hair ointment"

her roe is so fucking tall the card went flying half-hidden at the bottom of the screen omg

Dec 24, 2020

here we go again

We are on Mask of Grief. Closing in on HW!!

Dragons fly overhead. “Where are they going??” “Ishgard!” “Well that’s not good”

Brostinien spotted

“Why can’t I ride my snowman indoors!!?? :( “

Alphinaud was such a terrible negotiator back then

Hahaha watching him get slapped down by Merlwyb...still funny

“You would entrust the future of Eorzea to a bunch of sellswords??” Alphinaud we are right here how DARE

Pranks mom by photobombing with snowman any time she talks to an NPC

Steps of Faith here we come! *sits in queue*

Success. Much easier nowadays I have to say.

Mom when Minfilia gets an invite to a banquet: “is this a trap”

I showed her Thancred and all his girlfriends and she shook her head

She wanted to log out on her snowman

Dec 25, 2020

it's time fingers crossed we can get to the end of post-ARR...

mom laughing at Tataru's arcanist mishaps

when WoL just nods: "well I'm certainly supportive =\ "

she loves the beach when there's no sand to torture her, like the real beach she was stuck at the other day

after Tataru glances back fondly in cutscene: "WHAT was that look. It PORTENDS something TERRIBLE. She's going to TURN INTO SOMETHING--"

Chewchewchewchew

Whenever my mom goes into the rising stones, she just smashes her character's face into the door before selecting the entrance

Minfilia talking about how she'd rather stay home than go to the party and I feel that

Riol briefing us, I remind my mom that Mirage Trust is owned by Teledji and she said "I had a feeling" he's one of the few characters she can remember XD

mom when she's flying to the place to meet Alianne: "Another chance to use my snowman :D"

just got the long cutscene warning, here it comes

mom as nanamo lifts cup to her lips: "She's being poisoned!!" as nanamo falls: "that wasn't obvious at all"

When the vial is revealed: "So that's what it was for!"

Ilberd: "The poison did its work swiftly. Her handmaiden can attest to that." Mom, pretending to be handmaiden: "Yes, I made the batch myself!"

Teledji Adeledji bisected: "*nod* I like it."

Raubahn's arm removed: "Gross!"

Other alliance members leave: "Abandon ship!"

Raubahn frees WoL: "All right! I'm gonna whip out my book and wave it!"

"They killed everyone off for the new thingy? And just when I started getting used to their names..."

Me: "Alphinaud's having a crisis" Mom: "~it's all my faaaault~" Me: "It IS his fault!!" Mom: "Yeah, it is..."

lord, post-ARR Midgardsormr voice acting

And we are done!! Next session: Heavensward!

#ffxiv #momventures in eorzea #ameme's mom plays #mom plays ffxiv ARR #a realm reborn

[semi-imaginary-place]

I Beat Verdant Wind New Game Maddening but Claude was Level 1 Until Part 2

I play a lot of maddening but I like collecting skill levels and what not so I've primarily been playing on one continuous file that's like 900+ hours long, so I finally decided to do maddening ng and collect the golden title screen but just doing ng seemed boring so additionally I decided to never use Claude during part 1 aka a Lord-less White Clouds run. I did have dlc because i hadn't seem the Abyss VW dialogue yet. I started this back in like 2022 and then put off finishing it because of the part 2 doldrums so it took me until june 2023 to finish this run.

So all the way until Hunting by Daybreak Claude was level 1, from the first chapter all the way until then Claude never faced an enemy or gained exp, and then during that map he gained like 20 levels and i forgot to screenshot it. The screenshot above is Claude at level 45 right before the final map, I threw all the stat items (minus mag) onto him before the final fight, and he got pretty close to some of his stat caps, 2 off max str and he could have gotten max hp but my last item was a +5 so instead of wasting 4hp hilda got that item instead.

I haven't done a more optimized run in quite a while (usually i'm running joke builds like brawl Marianne) so this was quite fun. Let me know if you want to know the builds or have any questions. I might edit this and ramble some more later.

edit1: NG Maddening wasn't that bad for me. I usually play on NG+ but that's just for collecting skill levels I never use the gameplay benefits of NG+ anyways so minus some grinding NG was the same difficulty that I usually play at. The biggest difference this round was resisting the urge to make another wacky terrible build and instead do things more optimally for once. Which is partly why I challenged myself to not use Claude in part 1. Early game was very hard as the game is designed for the player to rely on Byleth and the lord as power units. In early game most of the Golden Deer were just starting their builds and not very useful, and not only was I down a lord unit but I had 1 less deployment slot to work with. Part 2 was pretty easy as all the characters settled into their builds in advanced and master classes and I got a stronger Claude back so to keep things interesting I didn't actually use any of the stat boosting items until the final battle. I played with the idea of 1-turning the final boss but couldn't get the movement to work out, so I 4-turned the final map. I am S support grinding so maybe I can still shave time and turns off the final map. S support grinding was another reason I used this strategy in this run. So I did this all for 3 reason: maddening is boring otherwise, faster final map for S support grind, and lastly I did it for Claude.

edit2: Builds

Claude: bows tutoring focus, wyvern master. I mostly used Claude as a player phase unit but he had an enemy phase alt build that I used on the last map. I also picked up +1 movement for some more versatility. Also crit KING, I'd put a killer bow+ on him and have like 90 crit. Because of the White Clouds challenge Claude didn't start his build until part 2 where I picked up death blow. Was considering wyvern lord but wasn't worth it.

Byleth and Hilda: darting blow + death blow wyvern lords. Hilda also picked up alert stance+ and is one of 2 enemy phase dodgetanks. These were my 2 axe users this run, by the end they would sometimes 4x hit with a brave axe.

Seteth, Ferdinand, Sylvain: swiftstrikes wyvern lords (yes I had like 6 wyverns). Ferdinand was the other dodgetank besides Hilda and I gave him the Spear of Assal/Ochian shield to augment his personal. Seteth and Sylvain eventually picked up alert stance as well but I only used that on a couple maps. Ferdinand spent early game as an axe user because axes have higher might. Sylvain gets his relic easy so spent most of the game as a mixed lance/axe user. It's only once they got to rank A lances that I changed their builds to be lance focused. The builds of these 3 were pretty fluid depending on what I needed for the map like if there were a lot of sword enemies I'd use a swordbreaker lance build, if I needed enemy phase units they could all reasonably dodgetank, if there were a lot of lance enemies I'd use a lancebreaker axe build.

Leonie: bow crit machine. Leonie was very good. I swapped between sniper and bow knight depending on how much range/hit and run I wanted. I tend to use a lot of decentralized (no dancer or healer) hit and run guerilla tactics in my maddening runs. In some maps sniper was better like the final map.

Yuri went a similar route to Ignatz. He was my pick for this run's sword user and a dancer candidate. And like Ignatz I eventually gave up on swords because sniper is too good.

sooo yeah without my usual joke builds I ended up with a team of wyverns and snipers -_- maddening has such great balance huh /s. Above was my main team and then I'd usually have a few of the following characters to fill in the remaining deployment slots or replace someone if they needed exp.

Felix: brawling war master. What's more to say, high atk high speed high damage high survivability, crits like half the time. death blow + fistfaire + brawl crit

Ignatz picked up poisonstrike and spent a while in assassin. I considered keeping him assassin but sniper was just too good. He also made a good bow knight sapper/saboteur between poisonstrike, break arrow, or he'd just crit and kill them anyways.

Marianne: magic sword with high avoid, duelist blow, fiendish blow, sword avo. Marianne was the dancer and sword user of this run. She went down mage/bishop and her final class was mortal savant but she spend a lot of time in gremory for growths and trickster for duelist's blow. This is the most useful I've ever seen Marianne. I don't really use healers/mages, most mages can't double in maddening so don't have the raw damage, don't have the move to keep up with my guerilla tactics, and are too squishy. I didn't use Marrianne as dancer very often because I don't use dancers much, why field a dancer when I can have another wyvern, and I didn't want to tank her mag too much. I hadn't used Marianne in a long time and she wasn't MVP like Ferdinand or Hilda or Claude but she could hold her own on the front line and this is the most damage I've ever seen out of her. She was my only sword user by the end so Marianne got to have all the nice swords I'd collected all to herself.

Lorenz: frozen lance. I'd never done a frozen lance build so I decided to try it. Lorenz ended up good in the midgame but his early and late game were meh. He went up the mage line for mag+2 and fiendish blow. Early game suffered because he was a mage with a stick. Once he got into paladin and lancefaire Lorenz was doing very good, high enough damage to OHKO most enemies and canto made for a useful Lorenz. But staying in paladin made his mag growth inconsistent so his damage started to lag in late game, so he spend increasing time in dark knight which traded the power of lancefaire for the versatility of magic. With Thrysus Lorenz is probably the tankiest mage in the game.

Lysithea, Hapi, Constance: the mages. The standard mage build: monk, mage, bishop, gremory. Had them also take a detour to valkyrie for uncanny blow to fix their accuracy issues. mag+2 + fiendish blow + faire + range+1. Hapi didn't spend a lot of time attacking, she was probably the most healer-like unit of the game. Lysithea and Hapi also got dark knight for the faire.

Raphael and Balthus: brawl/axe war masters. I didn't use them quite as much since they get doubled on enemy phase sometimes. I had them using both weapon types for a lot of the game since sometimes a single strong axe hit was better for the situation. I mostly compensated for accuracy with batallions/rings instead of bothering to go archer.

Flayn, Anna, and Hanneman were there too. Flayn was healer when the other mages got over-leveled. I was building up Anna as a sniper but I always had too many units. Alois was built like Raph but kind of got dropped because I had more than enough better units.

edit3: don't know when I'll start another playthrough but I was considering a maddening AM no healing (no hp goes up ever) and no Byleth run, or maybe I'll get my final S supports on SS.

When Claude autoclasses into Wyvern Master he gets a massive stat boost so even if his numeric level is low his stats are on par with a much higher level character (this is also why he is more spd but less dex than a normal Claude since his unique classes have more speed growth while the archer line has more dex growth). My Byleth was on a wyvern so they could have soloed the map I had Byleth frontline, dodgetank, and soften enemies for Claude to finish. Because he's so low level Claude leveled up with every kill and got like half a level just for attacking so he gained levels fast on that map. Between Ashes and Dust and cleaning up after Byleth's leftovers I was quickly able to get Claude to like level 10 or something at which point he was one rounding enemies with Failnaught. I leveled bows flying and riding on him so with alert stance his survivability on that map was also very high. Lastly I invested in all the Golden Deer so they could all take care of themselves and didn't need to be saved.

All promotions are reclasses, Three Houses is very sandbox like you can put any character into just about any class. In maddening there's a sharp exp curve but the enemies are also higher leveled and I had dlc auxiliary battles which had higher level enemies. That said I took a break in the middle of this palythrough so I don't actually remember what level everyone was at the start of part 2. I might be remembering wrong and maybe Byleth was a wyvern rider.

#fe3h #fire emblem three houses

[claire-starsword]

The Guardiana Magic School Run - Part 5

We arrive at Rindo, home of the greatest weapon of all time.

I can't buy it :')

To be fair, I don't want the squishy characters anywhere near the next opponents so it might be fine. The Steel Rings were a priority due to being chapter exclusive.

I guess I also need to talk about this peculiar drop. The Evil Ring is a cursed weapon that greatly raises attack. I barely remember how curses work in this game because i don't have an habit of equipping these. It can also be used to cast an overpowered Bolt, but that's against my rules. So I don't think this will be seeing any use.

It's okay though, because as the center of commerce Rindo has no shortage of stuff to pick from.

We pick up the Speed Ring and give it to Khris, who is terribly slow, this +4 boost barely gets her around Lowe's agility. Speaking of, one of her Steel Rings goes to him, and now they're tied at 8 defense.

As for the usual speciality ring, Rindo has the Charm Ring, clearly a help against the Marionette we'll deal with eventually. As you can see though, it is Slightly Costly. I'm not as much in a rush to get these as I was for the Steel Rings, because everyone in this team has some magic resistance already, but it would be nice. Kinda depends on how important the power staves turn out to be. More on that soon. Or right now, actually. There's no more window shopping to do and this town is too fancy for our tour, so we must head to Manarina where our magic advertisement will be much better received.

The Doll Hater is a beautifully named staff. From what I recall it's already stronger than the Power Staff by itself, and also gets bonuses against Mishaela's dolls. Clearly this version wanted players to have an easier time at the circus battle. Given how I don't have Power Staves yet, this would be a massive help and save money.

Unfortunately I can't say I have hope to get it.

Most of this battle with be in the desert, where everyone sucks at moving. While the enemies at the start are simple fare by now, dark dwarves and snipers and bats and other stuff we can kill quickly, but then there's this group of zombies at the end. Zombies tend to be an absolute pain both offensively and defensively, I do have some hope due to being in a greater level than I usually am on normal runs, but I have few characters to beat them up, and they can gang up on a single character. And poison. And the mages can come up as a duo for massive damage.

I hate this battle, okay. I hate it so much. It takes a bazillion turns to get to the hard part and then you suddenly die.

So yeah. I want to not die so I'll need to be extra careful and I think that ruins our chance of getting the clear bonus. Alas! Let's move.

The start of the battle is boring and easy yet takes seven turns. Dark dwarves are pathetic at this point so Max and Gong wipe them out taking scratch damage, with Khris even managing to get a kill and a level up with +4 MP, sucks that it doesn't apply to the current battle. I wanted to save Tao's MP for the zombies, but the bat is annoying and dodges several attacks and puts Max to sleep, and I'm trying to move fast, so in the end Tao has to do everything with two Blazes on it. Thankfully Max already woke up, but god this is slow.

At least when Gong hits, he HITS.

He continues to advance as the team's one punch man, killing a sniper for breakfast. Since he can't reach the mage next, I do some healing as Blaze 2 is still a lot of damage at this point.

There are also two bats coming from the right, but I don't want to waste time going after them especially when I'm likely to miss, I hope they come.

They come after Max's ass of course, what else did you expect. The mage also came after Max's ass. The Sniper came after Max's ass. You wish your feeble mind could conceive just how attractive that ass is. He's doesn't share the excitement though and is asleep again.

And wakes up immediately! Honestly that's really lucky, having the guy stuck for long could be a real problem here.

We are at turn 12, this might be impossible. Gong has one punched the dark mage who was the only big threat, so I'm wondering if it might be possible to go on ahead and let the bats follow me. Even that might not be enough to reach the zombies in time though. Also, I don't want to repeat my one death by thirst of an impossible bonus again.

afraid to say i'm doing it anyway though

Obviously the bats continue to chase Max, and he finally lands a counter to kill one, he had attempted this last turn but missed.

Unfortunately, the other bat has more typical behavior, so he's asleep.

I think this is on the reach of a single zombie? Please?

I think this guy will go for Max and not her, so I'm hoping to do some damage while not wasting much MP.

Turn 14. One zombie successfully baited and doing 1 damage, Max woke up. This is probably as good as it gets here. Gong gets to punch the zombie for half its HP as well, and is rewarded by all his efforts so far by getting Heal 2. The only thing against us as usual is that we might not have enough time, especially since the healers won't be hitting for much, and taking massive damage from the zombies. They have 8 defense each against the zombie's 16 attack. Tao has 9 defense as well. I don't want any of these people taking damage.

"And remember kids, you can't take damage if they turn to ash first."

I'm doubting Khris will ever reach anyone to do healing up there with the zombies, and she'll be even less useful as a fighter, so I'm wondering if she can be more helpful dealing with these guys instead.

:/

She thankfully takes only one damage (Steel Rings :D), but she's asleep now. oops.

Lowe however manages to kill the Sniper, so that's something.

Turn 15, I think Gong can survive on this side and then heal himself, hopefully the others will have managed to move closer by then.

Turn 16. Lowe has defeated the bat, but I don't have the slightest hope of him and Khris doing anything else now. Max and Gong have survived, Gong badly because of Blaze, and both are poisoned. I didn't prepare with any antidotes and Lowe is the Detox guy, so I'm gonna have to count on healing spells and herbs to counter the damage only.

I do think Gong can survive this turn though, he'll kill the mage, take 1 damage from the zombie, 2 from poison, and nothing else reaches him. He should survive. Please survive, man.

He can because Max is just too sexy. Turn 17 and I think we can do this, Gong should still survive at 1 HP after killing the mage and the enemies should beat up Max instead, who has 5 HP even after the Blaze 2 he took to the face last turn. We can do this let's goooooo

It works. Gong kills the mage, Max kills one zombie, Tao blazes the other for 5 HP. Next turn Gong has 1 HP and has to heal himself immediately to survive the poison, Max has 2 HP and probably could kill the zombie but I'm irrationally paranoid so I actually used an herb. Who knows, maybe the zombie has an evasion of 0.0000001% and I was gonna be the lucky soul to find out! So Tao blazes it again. Nothing more fitting as she is the face of this stupid run and its glorious school.

YEAH BABY

Our great efforts give us the privilege of being big haters on Mishaela from here on. We trash her circus area like delinquents and prepare for the next battle. Thankfully, the preparations do not include healing from poison, that's not a thing in this version, I forgot. Everyone's fine, which makes sense as Lowe has Detox, he can just make himself useful off screen like SF2 priests.

Speaking of Lowe, he has 1 more defense than Khris so I guess he'll be taking the Hater. Look at that. That's +2 compared to the Power Staff. This thing is pretty much the reason I considered doing this run, staff weapons at this point of the game get ridiculous.

The deals section continues to disappoint, so I sell Lowe's old staff to barely make enough money for a Charm Ring. I give it to Max because of how targeted he is, but I don't think a single one will help much after all, I'm hoping to stack more later.

That's all we can do, next time we finally get to Anri. I expect things to be chill there, but the circus and abbey battles in the future could be dicey.

Losses: 0 Deaths: 1 The expected deaths on Narsha interludes: 0/3

#shining series #shining force #ressurection of the dark dragon #sf tao #guardiana magic school run #this was a lot of fun. i love the clear bonuses #and am quite surprised things worked out without many characters when chapter 1 wasn't as kind #i guess in the end this battle is kinda made so that tao will be dealing with the zombies #gong and max had good levels to help this time but sometimes it's not like that #and they do get punched a lot #i missed challenge from the previous battles so it's fine #love surviving on 1 hp #i feel it would have been smarter to have the rousing ring on max though #i forgot there were bats on the desert #and they are always gonna go for max #anyway. enough of this analysis stuff i have more important things to say #lowe definitely thought the barbie movie hated on men too much

[cannot-decide-on-a-fandom]

Character interactions and dynamics I really wish we got/will get more of in the show:

Max and Will-

Probably one of the most commonly asked for ones because...yeah it's weird we *haven't*. They're in the same friend group, they have a lot more in common than pretty much any other combination (both financially struggling, both with absent/abusive father figures, both clearly have significant self esteem issues, they're 2 of the characters for whom music has been a key motif (SISOSIG being kinda what kept Will sane in the UD and Running Up That Hill saving max) etc), and now they're the 2 characters who have been specifically targeted by the upside down. Plus they're kinda...inverse in many ways too. Will is outwardly very soft spoken and gentle but we have seen when he gets pushed too far he can be feisty and irritated and all that, meanwhile Max outwardly might seem super detached and unapproachable to some people but she's actually super sweet and kind internally. They would balance each other out so much.

Max and Mike-

Come on, these 2 are both polar opposites and exactly the same. They clashed heads so much earlier but are now friends but we haven't actually...*seen* them be friends. Season 2 they were antagonistic, season 3 Mike was mostly about El and thus only started interacting with Max when her and El became friends so again they were negative towards each other, season 4 she had all of 2 scenes with him while awake, one at the basketball game and one in a flashback. I want them to have a friendship that is very much like "I will never stop mocking him but I will also beat the shit out of anyone who crosses his boundaries" from Max and "She is annoying as all hell but I know I would die for her if necessary" from Mike. I need these 2. And I need a combo of Mike, Max and Will because that would be great.

Robin and Mike-

Part of this is Maya saying *she* wants more scenes with Finn, but also because I think it would just be good for Mike to spend time with her. She's almost too open with how she thinks and Mike kinda seems to have a bit of trouble with noticing that type of thing with some people. It would be cool to see him interact with someone who just...rambles about her thoughts like she does, would perhaps help understand her somewhat and Mike needs that. Plus Robin having a lack of a filter she might accidentally call out some things and give advice Mike has been needing to acknowledge. Also I feel that Robin would be such a cool figure for Mike with her being multilingual and stuff, I can't help but feel Mike, as a writer, must think that stuff is neat.

Robin and Will-

Surprisingly *not* so much because of their sexualities, though yeah it would be nice for them both, but also because I think that Will is a type of person who likes just listening to people be passionate and excitable as he can be quite quiet himself. I feel like the things that Robin does that some others may find annoying he'd be almost endeared by once he gets used to it. And as for Robin, it would be nice for her to have a person who I guess she feels she can kind of help bring out of his shell around her without worrying too much about coming off as rude since Will like...is barely capable of getting angry.

Steve and Jonathan-

Both of these characters have grown a lot but we haven't actually seen them interact much past season 1 when they were...well, not exactly on good terms. Nancy told Jonathan that Steve has grown a lot and he seemed hesitant about that, I think it would do good for him to see he actually has, and I feel like now that Steve has gone through his character arc, he'd be more understanding of Jonathan himself. Jonathan could see the fact that people like him can grow and change, and Steve could further see how unfair surface level prejudice really is, like he did with Robin in season 3

El and Will-

Despite them being siblings, we haven't actually been shown them together much. Up until season 4 they barely shared a word outside of life or death situations, and then in season 4 they clearly love each other to death and have great chemistry and are family but they were separated for so much of the story it still ended up surprisingly bare bones. I wanna see them just...have heart to hearts and teasing and being siblings together.

Jonathan and El-

Seriously one of my biggest complaints in season 4 was the lack of a relationship between these 2. I genuinely can't remember a single conversation the 2 of them had, I don't even know if there were any. El having a big brother has such great potential, someone who is neither a full authority figure, even a loving one like Joyce or Hopper, nor someone her age who is going through similar life phases as her. Plus both of them are protectors, Jonathan had to protect Will all his life, El felt responsible for protecting everyone. I so wish we saw more of them, or...*any* of them

Will, Lucas, and Dustin-

The only 3 I'm grouping together because every point kind of applies to any combo. They're clearly great friends and would die for each other, but the show has focused so much more on romantic relationships, Will's friendship specifically with Mike, Dustin's mentor type dynamic with Steve and Eddie etc that we don't really see just those 3 or a combination of those 3 spending time together. And I really, really wish we did

There's more but this post is long enough so I'm gonna leave it there. What I'm noticing is my God Will really needs to interact with more characters in the show because how is it that he has one of the weakest shown connections with Max and his literal *sister*? It's not even me loving him, I genuinely think it just makes so little sense it's weird

#stranger things #mike wheeler #will byers #robin buckley #steve harrington #jane hopper #jonathan byers #max mayfield #lucas sinclair #dustin henderson

[glapplebloom]

A blast from the past...

Michael Steven "Myk" Friedman, also known as Toonsmyth Productions, was a youtube animator who did fun and silly fights. Vegeta Vs Mordecai and Rigby, Doofenshmirtz Vs Ash from Pokemon, even Adventure Time Vs My Little Pony. Sadly, he passed away in 2014 at the age of 45. So for fun, I figured I would go over the Second Season of Ultimate Cartoon Fighting where Goku faces everyone and with my own research and mostly others, determine if Goku can truly win.

His first opponent is the Hulk. Now you would think with Thor Vs Vegeta that Hulk would scale to him, right? Well, there are two problems with that: First, Thor has a lot more powers than the Hulk and those were definitely the thing that gave Thor the edge when Vegeta could get stronger via Ultra Ego. And more importantly, as seen with this video, Thor tends to beat the Hulk more often than lose. So Goku can definitely beat the Hulk.

Optimus Prime is Next. He should scale to Megatron and a popular opponent for him is Frieza, so he should likely compare. Though I don’t think Prime can beat Goku since Goku will always beat Frieza. Next is Finn Vs Jake. According to Vs wiki they max out at Large Planet Level. I’m pretty sure the majority of the cast of Dragon Ball can do that at this point and Goku is way stronger than that. So that’s 4 for 4. Good job Goku! 

Next up, Super Mario. The Vs Wiki has him at lowest Galaxy Level and highest Multiversal. Not sure how much I buy his scaling via Super Paper Mario but even including it Goku has the capability of destroying multiple Universes as a Super Saiyan God. And most of his abilities do not require additional power ups, so I can say Goku can beat Mario. Now Popeye will definitely be his first legit defeat. Death Battle may have put him at Star Level, but with how much he can literally destroy the fiction they’re on and survive disintegration, it's a matter of when for Popeye to overcome the Saiyan.

And now Superman. We had two Death Battles already with Goku losing both, but a lot of things have changed since then. Goku has become a lot more powerful, but DC keeps showing up ridonculous feats. And honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if Superman can still beat Goku despite Goku now getting the multiple writers treatment. Also want to point out that most likely Hal Jordan, who was noping out after that fight, could most definitely beat Goku. And of course he can beat the Annoying Orange. Since that was an actual collaboration with the creator of the Annoying Orange, it counts.

Pikachu is next and he puts up more of a fight in the animation than the others. But can Goku beat the electric mouse of Ash Ketchum? According to the Vs wiki Pikachu has the potential to be High universal (somehow), he requires to be supercharged. So Goku can likely beat him or eat him. And I’m pretty sure Goku can beat the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, including the Rise stuff and those Dragon Forms. 

I’m going to skip a lot because there’s a ton of people who show up but don’t get an animated sequence like the others. So Sonic is next and I’m pretty sure he’s in the same boat as Mario. Naruto I’m pretty sure is also unable to beat Goku considering how often we’ve done calculations for him. And Inuyasha (I like to call him Inny) doesn't stand a chance against Goku. Pikachu comes back with Thor, Lum (an anime I actually know despite never seeing it) and I presume Nate Grey. Since I don’t know who he is, I’ll skip him

Thor definitely could beat Goku since we’ve seen him beat Vegeta and they’re both pretty comparable with each other. Ultra Instinct may help, but as of this writing Thor has access to all the Thor Force (Odin Force) and Goku doesn’t have the Ultra Ego “hit me makes me stronger” trick Vegeta has. Lum is apparently Star Level so she can’t win. And the final opponent is Skips from Regular Show. But in reality Goku from the Future. So by that logic, Future Goku should beat Past Goku right?

Well, he’s Future Goku alright… Future Goku of GT Goku. He isn’t the Goku from Super who shook the Multiverse, he’s a Goku who went higher than Super Saiyan 4. So he ain’t on the good stuff like God Ki Goku can produce. So Skips, either Regular Show or Future GT Goku, can not beat Goku. And of course Galactus can beat Goku. He could turn Goku into an inanimate object before he could do anything.

And that’s a score of 16 Wins and 4 Loses (if you count Hal Jordan). Pretty good.

#research bin

[bobzora]

GUESS WHO BEAT PEE3 TODAY (fes, the journey at least)

(lengthy) final thoughts:

ryoji is kind of. um. "that was my name for a while. i didnt mind it." hes kind of trans. is the thing. also bro 100% drew the shortest stick in this game lmao

obviously ryo/mina isnt quite the same as some of the other insane peesona gay people (2,5. 4 is gay but not rlly insane) bc like. in that form at least we only know him for like...two months?or so? but. u know what. they r t4t and both (kind of) dead. good for them.?

jumpscared by "the arcana is the means by which all is revealed." ive been seeing that shit in like. youtube comments since the day i was born. insane

nyx was like. pathetically easy. to the point where i felt kinda bad about it lol. at least its funny. this is what happens when u have level 99 protag + black viper lucifer (+ messiah for salvation for ailment healing. i could just use me patra gems but its more stylish this way). nobody ever got below half health and most phases (minus last bc of the halved non-almighty damage + gown) were a 1/2/3 hit kill. guys who overlevel because they just love the velvet room so so much (and im prolly not gonna do ng+, especially with portable port on its way (femc!). so trying to experience most that i can)

i did cheese the reaper a while back. used thunder reign strat. was actually harder bc new moon rebalance nerfed the shock rate so its not 100% lol. but took advantage of its ai to get it stuck in a break skill loop (akihiko dekunda sweep) the money was nice, and i spent soooo much time in monad levelling personas. wont be able to do liz fight bc not doing ng+. (slightly related: ive played pee5 so many times and ive never actually tried the twins/lvnza/jose fights. vanilla 1 time, royal 1 time, royal again for a friends playthrough but its not ng+, ng+ for 100% royal but only up to exams...royal for another friend's playthru. lol)

yuka/mitsu is real. to me. theyre even the colors of the lesbian flag

i maxed most social links besides magician (bc hes annoying. surt wouldve been nice tho), mitsuru (got up to like 8 then ran out of time), fuuka (trapped at rank 1. dont like her enough, not enough time. sorry. i played with english voices u know how it is), yuko (accidentally reversed her), justice (i know. who would have thought. started her wayyy too late.), keisuke (hes soooo cute like. i wanna look like that tbh. but fortune isnt useful enough and i ran out of time)

speaking of social links i literally hate how they work in this game so so so so much. i dont want to date all these girls! let me hang out with other girls please... this is the biggest example of romance making all these games so much worse. like. what the hell. (aigis is like. the only good female social link (that i finished) (maybe bc she isnt very much a girl))

another mechanic i hate: NOT BEING ABLE TO PICK INHERITED SKILLS. is every ps2 era megaten game like this? i love love love 'sona/demon fusion but it is so much harder to make stupid crazy builds when u have to reroll over and over again. literally just a timewaster. what could have been...i cant believe my lucifer is still weak to ice. WHO USES PEESONAS WITH WEAKNESSES. IN THIS DAY AND AGE????

the extremely strange continuity with 1&2 is fucked up to like. nickelodean sitcom cinematic universe levels. u know.

im still fixated on 5.i make that very obvious. and i do like 5's overall story better (royal being a very big portion of that). but GOD i love love love the theming of this game.

those strega guys r definitely fucking. i literally do not care about them but thats kind of just a fact.

the concept of artificial personas (that kill you) (that u have to take meds for which eventually kill you) REALLYYYY fucks me up what a BANGER CONCEPT. JESUS! JESUS. gg kirijo group.

chidori...(wretched)

akinari... (very wretched)

i dont think i have a favorite. tbh. like i like mitsuru because i like women and shes hot but character wise shes not actually super my type. i like ken because hes the most fucked up ten year old in the world (justice bias). aigis is crazycrazy theres stuff to be said abt her (characters who give metatron bias). yukari is a mean girl and i like that about her (lovers bias). ryoji doesnt have that much screentime for obv reasons but thematically hes cool (guys who beg u to kill them bias). i like the protag a lot (protag bias). yeah

OBVIOUSLY i knew we were gonna die. and when. and where. and how. but :( head in aigis's lap, brushing away her robo-tears... didnt cry but wow this game.

joshua peefee christ figure moment

kimi no kioku is the best 'sona song. period. nyx (avatar)&nyx (nyx) songs go hard too. but man!!!! kimi no kioku!! LOVE how its kind of a motif in so many other parts of the soundtrack, especially near the end...a unifying melody, an overarching theme.

forever from now ill prolly watch the movies just so i can make an amv. this game needs an amv. and unlike pee5 the animovies should cover most of what id want to say in one!

after the answer, ill finally be able to finish eternalpun. im so sorry ive neglected you guys, my friends...my pee2s....

kimi wo i will never leave you <3

#bobtalk #good game #if i missed a censor and u see this in the tags. sorry. lol #at least its so long nobody will ever read this. except me. because i know

[owlixx]

Looking forward as to what excites me for each CoD game:

CoD3: Treyarch’s first real game! And the final missing link before CoD4, which feels like the real first “modern” Call of Duty in more ways than one. Fingers crossed for sprinting to be in this game, and maybe the knife melee. I know that last one isn’t intrinsic to the CoD formula anymore but it’s been sorely missed in these early CoDs with their wimpy gun butt melees. Will anyone still be playing the multiplayer on 360? Does the MP just have “pick a weapon” like 2 or does it have a prototype version of class creation? Or just classes at all?

RoV: I mean, the idea of PSP CoD is just funny to me. Could be unplayable. Will try to beat this before 4 though.

CoD 4: I’m super excited to have the remaster and to finally get to see the proper introduction of Soap and Price, who have been omnipresent despite me never playing this game. Of course excited to see the nuke and All Ghillied Up and finally have a context for MW2 like when I relatively recently finally beat Halo 2.

The DS games: recently played the first of these in local multiplayer but using a faulty L button so I can’t wait to see how I do instead on my DSi XL with working buttons. I’ll have to play one of the later ones on Wii U or PC just to mix it up.

WaW: it’s been so long since I’ve played this game and even longer since I’ve done the campaign. It’ll be a good warmup for checking out the classic zombies maps too. I’ll have to play at least a match of multiplayer too. This was my first CoD so it has a special place for me. I may want to speedrun it on recruit on ps3 so I can comfortably do the coop later.

WaW FF: uhhh I mean it’s funny that this exists

MW2: Again, this one was so huge to me as a kid. I’d love to finally hit max level and max out a gun or two. Can’t wait to see the original boost, the big snowy cliff level, kill shepherd, no Russian, underwater infiltration mission, burger town, all of it. I loved WaW to death and I was a zombies fanboy then and maybe even now, but the modern weapons and setting were so much more appealing to me as a kid and MW2 just felt like the epitome of “cool” even more than WaW and even Black Ops 1 with their historical settings to the point where I remember being mad at the MP40 in BO1 zombies and the M14/Olympia in TranZit and such.

BO1: I barely can remember any of the campaign besides Reznov being in it and an awesome prison break. Other than that…very little comes to mind. I remember loving this campaign so I’m really in for a treat there. And this is one I’ll absolutely have to dig back into the multiplayer for to dig up old memories. I’ve even still got the first dlc from back in the day! And I owe it to myself to play Five and Ascension at least a time each. Oh, and my cousin had COTD.

MW3: now this one I played much much later in my mind, but looking it up, I actually beat it just a year later on 2012, so that’s funny. I beat it just a month before Black Ops 2 came out in fact, and I know I played that game day one. I had totally forgotten that part of the story. That means it’s been over ten years since I’ve touched this campaign. In retrospect, all I remember remotely is the juggernaut ending and the New York opening. I didn’t even recall who makarov was while playing the new MW3. Oh, I do remember the Paris gas mission of course. So this is going to be super fresh for me actually. I think I always wanted to like Survival mode since it’s a little like zombies and I always liked the idea of it being an option on every map. What’s funny is that I think I can only recall ever doing it on the one map. I need to try it on terminal if that’s an option. Maybe I can try it splitscreen on PS3 if that’s an option. I’ll also have to pop my head into the multiplayer here even if I don’t have as much nostalgia for this game.

BO2: oh man, this game was everything to me when it came out. I have a ton of nostalgia for the multiplayer most of all, i think. TranZit was a huge letdown to me at the time. I have a hard time remembering much of the multiplayer though since the maps from it have been recycled so much and now my memories of hijacked, raid, express, etc. are all jumbled. I remember liking the low recoil assault rifle with the threat identification scope and generally like the pick 10 system a lot. Im super curious to see my old class load outs and combat record. I probably won’t play much TranZit but I’ll have to at least do a round on Town and Bus Stop. Maybe get the game going on PS3 just for the DLC zombie maps once each. And of course the campaign - I remember making choices, the split timeline, a sniper mission, dragon round shotgun, and the weird RTS missions. I wanna say you also got to customize your gear a bit but I might be misremembering. I think this game hit a real sweet spot with the technology level that even AW/BO3 go too far past long before even IW/BO4 and I really want to play this game and envision my ideal next near-future CoD title. Plus I remember the weird avenged sevenfold credits and I have grown to like them a lot since then. Plus this story will be more fun with the events of BO1 fresh in my mind, and possibly help tie in to BOCW, not sure yet.

Ghosts: I had this game as a kid exclusively to help train my dad for the incoming release of Destiny 1, which is what we owned a PS4 for in the first place. We played exclusively splitscreen with bots. I’m sure I played a bit online or started the campaign but I have zero recollection of those. I only even remember the unique perk point system because someone on Reddit brought it up recently. I do remember the soldier customization but not how it works exactly so I’m excited to see that. I remember this game feels very slick and polished actually so I’m super excited to give it a second shot. I also wanna say that you can level up by playing bots? This has massively been on my peripheral vision from long before this current CoD phase so I’m pretty excited to check this out. Oh, I do vaguely remember Extinction so it will be fun to briefly pop my head into that, possibly drag a coop partner in too. And having the first map pack will be a nice novelty. We had this physical and sold it so I never played this past the launch of Destiny 1 which was a long time ago now. UPDATE: yep, I checked and I have 7/100/19 hours in SP/MP/Zombies confirming that of course I remember the multiplayer way more.

AW: now this one I think I just outright owned on PS4 digitally but I just never chose to revisit it. This one was just for me, I think, but I still only got a level or two into the campaign and didn’t get super far in multiplayer. I remember struggling with the exo suit controls. I think I did a bit of offline bots with my dad here but it’s all blurry now… The added context of comparing this to WWII/Vanguard/new MW3 will be fun. It’s going to be rough seeing Kevin Spacey so much. And I’m excited to try Exo Survival and Exo Zombies a little bit. I think this was also the first game to experiment with loot crates in CoD which I want to say ended with BO4? But tracking that from game to game is a point of interest for me since I hated that so much and to really defined the “dark age of CoD” to me especially when combined with a 50 dollar season pass that has all the zombie goodness in it. I mostly just remember using the 3D printing ammo gun (will likely continue) and having some kind of weird novelty gimmick LMG. Curious to see if this game has laser beams, im pretty sure IW does. Also curious to compare the customization in this game and Ghosts before things get Operator-based in BO3/4/CW and MW1/2/3 but I can’t remember what IW/WWII are like in that regard.

BO3: actually about 1/3 through this already since it’s the main coop friendly one, so not looking forward to a ton here besides Maybe playing some more multiplayer outside of splitscreen, seeing more maps than just nuke town. I always contemplate buying the deluxe zombies edition and I likely will one day but that’s for another phase. And I’m torn between whether to get that on console for the easier splitscreen or PC for the mods. This campaign kind of sucks so far to be honest, but it’s a nice excuse to do a bunch of coop shooting galleries. I almost wish this game had opted to have a spec ops mode instead of coop campaign or otherwise simplified the coop experience. It’s impressive to have skill trees, ability wheels, and custom load outs in a splitscreen game but I’d honestly have preferred to just be given a standard loadout and no abilities when playing splitscreen, and less rambling cutscenes too. I am continuously impressed by how much content is crammed into this one game, but I scream at the screen every time I heard about the 54 immortals. In conclusion, train go boom. UPDATE: forgot to mention that I owned this on PS4 but no longer have a PS4 so that’s where I did just a little bit of everything, but then I only have the multiplayer on PC. Also briefly owned all the DLC but lost access to it, don’t ask how. So I weirdly have these brief fond memories of zombie chronicles and the dlc zombie maps. But I do hate gobblegum with a passion.

IW: I definitely played this game, yep. I think I owned and sold it on PS4? But I definitely currently own it on steam where it says I have 16 hours currently. Most of my memories of this game are the stellar Zombies in Spaceland so maybe I could get the season pass or *cough cough* find a way to play it once or twice without getting the whole thing especially since it has Elvira and Kevin Smith. I loosely remember the faction system from the multiplayer but not a ton else. I’m very excited to play a campaign that stands out from the rest though. I’m rooting for this one to end up being a hidden gem.

WWII: similar, I want this to be a hidden gem. I do remember playing this on PS4 I think, mostly bots with my dad, a bit of multiplayer by myself, and a little bit of zombies. I’m excited to see the zombies again once or twice but mostly because I never even booted up the campaign. I mostly remember the war mode from multiplayer, the HQ, the “random” class that respawns you with a new gun each life. Excited to compare this to vanguard. I think this might be the final loot crate CoD, because I know Black Ops 4 has a battle pass AND a season pass which I found egregious but I can’t recall if it also had loot crates or not.

Black Ops 4: I’m hoping for the single player missions to end up being more fun than people online give them credit for. This game is really the end of an era for CoD, even if that era is what I consider to be its dark age. I own this on battlenet, so I’ll have to check my playtime later, but I somehow also own this on Xbox so I may just play there for the purpose of splitscreen. I did enjoy the multiplayer at the time but I especially loved having 3 zombies experiences with no extra purchase required and with bots and leveling up no less. I mostly played the Ancient Rome one because it was so much faster to spin up but I really appreciated all the zombie quality of life changes here. I know literally nothing about the rest of the dlc zombie maps so that could be fun to try sometime when I have even more cash to throw around on stupid nonsense. I never did the single player much, I literally can’t remember how it worked. I know it doesn’t have story mode but just training missions but in my head that still sounds fun to me. I also want to try our “operator mods” even if just against bots. Maybe a round of “heist” as well. I remember playing the beta for this one on PC, but also being stuck playing this game on super low graphics and being jealous of how good it looked on my dad’s pc. I also remember the beta for BO3, BOCW, Vanguard, MW2, and MW3 but can’t recall if I did any others.

Skipping MW2019, it’s the only one I don’t have access to at the moment. I’ll be nostalgic for it in a few years but it’s too recent for now. Did the campaign and lots of multiplayer on the old ps4. But this game really marked a new era for my relationship with CoD. The new camo system and gunsmith system really lit me on fire and reinvigorated my love for the series. It is similar to how I loved Smash Bros Melee and Brawl and 3DS but didn’t truly get halfway decent until Ultimate. I truly loved this series as a kid but as a teen from Ghosts-BO4 it was just something I was half interested in. MW is what pulled me back in and made me a fanboy again. Since 2019, I’ve gotten even better at camo grinding and in general but this game is the reason I pre ordered MW2/3 and even Vanguard sadly. This game was so good it made me suspicious of BOCW just because it was different. And what’s funny is that I’m sure for a lot of people who feel that way, it’s because of Warzone, but I played practically zero of it unless I had to for a challenge to unlock something. I just loved the look and feel and vibe of this game and the quality of life stuff a lot. This game invented camo grinding as we know it now and that meant everything to me despite just being a checklist. I love me a checklist. But I don’t get nostalgic for the campaign despite relatively enjoying it. And I barely touched spec ops.

BOCW: own this baby on Xbox AND PC. I reckon I’ll do the campaign on Xbox since it’s more cinematic on the bigger screen. Especially after skipping MW19, this is where we get into games that are still extremely fresh in my memory. Especially since I went back to this game after Vanguard and double especially since I played this one a fair amount recently with my girlfriend so we didn’t have to do split screen on MW2. The multiplayer of this game is seared into my brain which is funny because I bought this game on PC for the zombies after a free weekend and slight discount convinced me. I ended up really liking this game but I’d wager I played at least 10 times as much multilayer as zombies. But more importantly here - I never even booted up the campaign. I’m super excited to get a follow up to the original black ops once I have that game’s story much more fresh in my mind. I’ll also have to pop my head in and play the round based zombie maps once each since I was really into those for a time before zombies outbreak became the main thing for me since it was so much easier to play with more casual players like the people I know IRL. I would like to play more of the multiplayer map zombie survival mode too though. I’m very much done with the multiplayer though.

Vanguard: I pre ordered this game and very quickly got disillusioned with it after getting just 1 or 2 guns gold. I’m actually pretty excited to revisit it though. I quit the campaign asap after it was super goofy and lighthearted but now that seems like a fun change of pace and I’m really looking forward to seeing the final evolution of all these classic WW2 guns that I’m still in the middle of using. It’ll be a super fun reunion to see the M1 garand, MP40, PPSH back again after missing them for several several games. and I never played the post-launch zombies like shi no numa so that’s actually super exiting for me to check out as an OG zombies fan. I’m not eager to revisit the multiplayer though beyond a cursory re-inspection. The weird attachment-locked camo challenges killed the camo grind for me. And I remember this game being weirdly similar to MW19 in a lot of ways. I’ll have to at least check out the Waw maps one more time maybe.

And…that’s it! I beat the new MW2/3 campaigns when they came out so there’s no need to revisit those. Vanguard is the “cherry on top” so to speak (haha). I reckon step one here is to just see if I even have the time/willpower/energy/attention span to get through the campaign of each game, especially considering I won’t be able to stop myself from dipping my toes into the multiplayer and coop modes a bit as I go along. Then I’d make another step to maybe set a little goal for each of the multiplayers that I want to revisit, like hitting max level or maxing out all the guns. After that or instead of that would be getting ahold of all the map packs whether by slowly overpaying for them over time or nefarious means.

#retro gaming #gaming #cod #call of duty #Xbox

[crystalelemental]

Sync Pair Retrospective - Thunderbolt Red

UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH

I would love to know what they were thinking.  Look, gacha is not unaccustomed to powercreep.  An unfortunate reality is that people don’t actually like being challenged.  Not really.  They like feeling resistance, but not legitimate challenge.  So any time power scales up on the opponent, there is a reflexive jerk toward needing more power behind your tools.  In competitive modes, your tools are the same as your opponents, so it’s an endless cycle of garbage spewing into its own mouth.  Masters avoids this a bit, so powercreep, while significant, has been a lot tamer.  But there are still situations where you hit maximum.  Anni Lillie’s trainer move is still a maximum.  You can’t get better than perfect offensive buffs in one turn.  Aura Cynthia was the maximum in defensive profile; +6 defenses turn 1 and Double Potion MPR effectively cannot be beaten.  Ash was a maximum, or at least I hope, given the absurd level of overkill on that Buddy move that no one needs.  But SST Red is also an absolute maximum.  Specifically, the maximum number of tools you can shove into a single sync pair.

Terrain with extension.  Max Moves.  No penalty AoE 2-gauge spam that debuffs defenses and ignores passives that deny damage.  He always crits every attack.  He has passive recovery under terrain.  He is a tech, so he skirts the usual issue of no-penalty AoE Strikers where his EX still matters.  His grid offers Piercing Gaze to never miss, and Staggering 4 on Thundershock for his Gauntlet performance.  He gets 230% sync damage.  He’s a fast ramp almost by himself with Max Moves.  He can solo literally every stage.  This is not an exaggeration; he is the only pair that can solo every single Legendary Arena stage.  I don’t consider solos a typically relevant point when it comes to viability, but all of them?  He can solo on-type CS.  I would not be surprised if he could solo off-type CS.  He and Ash are the only two who successfully beat 1000 strength in High Score.  Meta changes and new modes exist for him to laugh at.  Even at 1/5, using him off-type can be significant damage and tremendous benefits, while on-type he outperforms basically every pair you could bring with how high the damage is after one turn of setup.  He is, by design, literally unstoppable.

And it is so fucking boriiiiiing.  UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH

What do you offer to the man who has everything?  What is the purpose of teambuilding at this point?  What is there to even talk about?  He’s still de facto the best sync pair in the game.  3/5 EX SST Red may as well just win the match by default at this point.  Even off-region matches with the 5x modifier don’t really slow him down.

Masters is a game designed around triple battles.  It is a game designed around the structure of a damage dealer, a support, and either a technical ability to further pump damage, or a secondary damage source.  Through consideration of strengths and weaknesses, you are meant to design a team composition that allows you to secure victory by supporting the damage of a striker, and ensuring the survival of a support.  The game is at its best when concocting teams with relevant synergy.

So what is the point of playing the game when you have a maxed out SST Red?  Why bother?  Is it any wonder that in the months following anniversary, a bunch of players kept calling for “harder content” because the game was “too easy?”  Of course it was!  You paid for the win button, bro!  It’s easy because you paid for it to be easy, and now you’re complaining it’s too easy because there’s no longer resistance!  This is the breaking of balance!  You don’t want challenge, but without resistance you start to feel like there’s no point.  Red makes it feel like there’s no point.  He’s been doing it for a year!

I have nothing to say to or about Red.  There’s nothing to be said.  If you pulled him, hopefully you kept him 1/5 for utility.  Failing that, hopefully you’re at least the type that enjoys being wildly overpowered.  Because nothing in this game’s history has been as annoying as seeing everyone cap this guy out and immediately get annoyed that things weren’t “challenging.”  What the hell did you expect to happen, man?  You did that shit to yourself.

#sync pair retrospective #thunderbolt red #sst red

[chewypussy]

feeling myself wish i could play more sonic frontiers but. i did everything to do in that game. beat the main story, did all the side stories, s ranked all the cyber levels. aside from maxing out my levels and getting every token on each island theres nothing to do, which makes those objectives pointless. such an empty game that could have been fun with actual shit to do. they were working on this for like 4-5 years what were they doing that entire time..

[bnhaficsforthesoul]

BNHA characters and their genshin experiences

I've been way into genshin for the past couple months, if anyone wants to play with me message me (I'm lvl 45 rn) but be warned I have shitty internet and am a partial razor main

but this is mainly characters I can see actually putting time into genshin

Bakugou

Mains: Yanfei

his main has probably been most every pyro character at some point

he wants diluc so bad, whenever someone else complains that diluc ruined their pity he wants to ruin their existence

before yanfei his main was probably hu Tao

hed definitely play klee if he had her lmao but he doesnt and is patiently waiting for her rerun

he has a lot of 5 star characters and is f2p, he can always get banner characters within at least the first pity, but for standard 5 stars hes gotten keqing and qiqi way too many times and hes livid

especially as a previous hu tao main, he was begging for Jean, still has yet to come home

hes probably a very high level, not fully maxed out considering he hasnt been playing all that long, he was probably forced to start when the rest of the bakusquad started playing it and he just took off

has really shitty artifact luck though, like his characters arent bad or anything but they could be so, so much better

and ugh hes livid

explores everything, has 100% exploration everywhere, but hes not bored hes still got artifact farming to do and he enjoys terrorizing enemies

in co op he will set you and everything around you on fire. cope.

Todoroki

Mains: Xiao or Ganyu

probably only started playing because Izuku asked him to

kaeya has also been on his team since day 1 and he is never leaving doesnt matter his friendship has been level 10 for weeks now who cares

was f2p until xiao, who didnt want to come home at all, and he finally got him on his 180th pull

now he doesnt care and will buy primogems whenever hes bored

he has a lot of constellations on kaeya and hes so proud of that, probably c4, is considering buying way too many primogems just so that he can hopefully get his c6

now his artifact luck is godly, you'll go into a domain with him and be like ugh I got nothing and hes like I got a 4 piece set with all attack or crit rate/damage main stats like haha I hate you

but yeah his characters are very strong cause of this, but he doesnt put effort into building a lot of them, he only levels up and gives good artifacts to his team and a couple other characters he likes but everyone else just sits there for a while

hes not super obsessed with the game, but he does think its funny seeing bakugou get so upset whenever they do domains together

doesnt even bother doing daily tasks really unless hes trying to save primogems

Midoriya

Mains: Venti

hes so good at building characters, like he looks up builds online and watches those "do INSANE damage with these tips" videos - and he sets out to get them done and he does

bakugou is once again livid whenever they play together, because Izuku barely has to try and can do so much more damage than him

he does have to put in a lot of work for his artifacts though because he doesnt settle for the okay ones he needs the absolute best

he builds his favorite characters the most ofc, but he evenly distributes things to other characters he knows can be useful- those characters might not have insane stats but they're still good

will not kill timmies pigeons, hell hunt birds in the wild for fun though

definitely a food hoarder

also does a lot of exploring and probably has at least 90% for each area

Kaminari

Mains: Lisa

he is 1000% in love with Lisa, he took her quest very seriously

and so many people say shes horrible, he hates it, hes made her crazy strong out of spite

his team consists of only his wifus- meaning lisa, beidou, rosaria, and mona

for a long time beidou was his second but then rosaria came along and hes like ugh big tiddy goth gf, but lisa still remains queen

these are the only characters hes built though, save for a couple like probably razor and xiangling that he used before he fully got this team

is an ayaka saver

he doesnt care too much about most 5 stars but will sometimes get them just to say he has them, but they end up just sitting there rotting away because he never puts work into them

he does have hu tao though and would get ganyu if she ever had a rerun

Kirishima

Mains: Diluc Razor or Beidou

they're all on his team, the last person switches out but it's most likely zhongli or childe

hes all about dps, support who, he just wants to hit hard and do insane damage , so yes he made dps zhongli

except his builds arent that great, with some help his builds are decent, but on his own hell be like ugh that's some sexy 300 damage

probably didnt know what 90% of the stats even meant and just put random attack ones on people and went yeah that looks good

doesnt really care though and is just having fun so hell play how he wants (as he should) but he does have to ask for help when farming bosses

loves exploring but misses so much, hell get distracted easily and end up just messing around

honestly probably hasnt bothered to ascend his world since he got to level 35, if he did the quest hed probably go straight to 45 and even then hed still have extra exp because hes been there for so long oml

but eventually he would have to and hed be trying to do it like :,) this is fine and it takes him a lot of tries but he gets there eventually,,, only to immediately have another one waiting for him poor baby

Mina

Mains: Klee or Xiangling

thinks baizhu is hot (and is correct) so shes desperately waiting for him

was a I must play 24/7 player until after the last story quest, then she got kinda bored but still plays frequently so she can save primogems and likes playing co op

goes into random peoples worlds a lot

shes got some pretty strong characters and is proud of her account

definitely makes tiktoks of her playing with the bakusquad cause it's always v chaotic (it's probably only denki and kirishima most of the time, but sometimes either bakugou or sero will join in)

does all the genshin tiktok trends

shes a pretty high level since shes probably been playing for a while and has most everything done

she loves helping lower level people though she thinks it's so cute and loves the power she feels when she one shots things

Sero

Mains: Xingqui

hes a pretty casual player, kinda only plays when hes bored or the others make him play with them

but his stats arent too bad, they're fairly average but he gets by

has so many primogems because he doesnt bother to wish on anyone, probably wants kazuha though

he does get super invested into the story though, hes so curious about the world and where the story is gonna lead

probably watches a lot of genshin theory videos and now he over thinks everything in the game

he explores a lot, not so much to find every single thing but more so just because he likes looking at everything, hes very excited for all the new places

Shinsou

Mains: Childe

hes a very thorough player, he explores a lot and puts a lot of work into building his characters

most of them arent all that great but he has plans to fix them

his main team is very well built, not the best, but still good

he struggles when he has to switch someone out for a domain or something because his other characters are so painfully mediocre right now and he feels so bad

shinsou, playing a character that can do like max 200 physical damage and biggest damage is like 2 thousand, repeatedly saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry, you deserve so much better, I'm so sorry

even if it's not the worst damage by far, he feels bad about anything under his main team's stats because they're just so much higher

broke. has no primogems. spent them all on childe and his constellations. does he regret it? well he sure does appreciate his c6 so- hell manage

yes he spent real money on his stupid mass murderer who he loves very much

fights childe every day even though he already collected the treasure, he is but a humble simp

probably decently lucky with wishing like he can beat the 50/50 almost every time

Tamaki

Mains: Chongyun and Sucrose

he only started playing recently, probably kirishima got him into it, but he immediately fell in love

kirishima was like tell me when you're level 16 so we can play together !!! and 2 days later tamaki was level 16 and kiri was shook because how the hell did he do it so fast

hates domains, the dread he feels when he realizes the lower level isnt going to give him anything anymore, and he has to move up to the next, and the next,,

asks kirishima to help him only to realize he isnt much help, is too nice to say that so he let's kiri keep trying- one day kiri gets deku to play with the two of them and tamaki almost cries because finally he can get through the level 90 domain and actually get things ugh

cannot get xingqui to save his life he refuses to come home and poor tamaki is so sad he wants him a lot hes even got all his materials saved up

Monoma

Mains: Ningguang

honestly doesnt play all that much but takes pride in making his account seem v good, is a whale

but hes very good at the game, didnt know what the artifacts were for at first and gave people ones based on how they looked but once he figured it out hes fixed them

is a very standard player, logs in every day to do his commissions and use his resin then logs out, he doesnt put too much time into the game and doesnt worry if he misses a day or two

worships ningguang, also really likes xinyan, his other team members are probably venti and albedo

has every single banner 5 star that has come out since he started playing, probably doesnt have klee though and is v upset about it, and is thanking the heavens for all the reruns lately

also doesnt have keqing and wants her a lot cause he likes her

accepts every single co op request he gets, and despite what a lot may think hes actually a very nice person to play with, not toxic at all - unless you're someone he knows then he might be mean to you shshshsh

Shigaraki

Mains: Razor

haha isnt it so odd that they sound so similar haha (if you dont know they have the same japanese va and I'm guessing hed play it in Japanese)

obviously he can be kinda busy ya know being a criminal and all that but when hes not he puts a lot of time into genshin

sadly doesnt have very good luck when it comes to characters or artifacts, but hes doing his best even with 0 primogems and his 50% crit rate

doesnt explore all that much, most of the exploring hes done came from him trying to get all the oculus

his razor is so good though, except that's the only character hes put tons of effort into

except for now zhongli, hes not replacing razor but ugh does he love zhongli

but his other characters are pretty mediocre at best, he could build them if he wanted to, hes good enough at gaming to figure it out, he just doesnt have the time to spend to do it so he focuses on his main team

also (spoiler alert kinda) when we had to go to the wolf spirit to fight the abyss herald and razor was there, afterwards how razor was saying how he was too weak and stuff and was super sad, at that very moment shiggy decided the entire abyss order had to be destroyed - sorry aether (he chose lumine) but razor is more important than you

#theres probably more charavters that would play but i can add to this later #did i describe myself througout these #yes of course #anyways diluc supremacy if youre not apart of the 70% of the fandom that hates him then youre superior i dont make the rules #bnha headcanons #bakugou #shigaraki #todoroki #kaminari #kirishima #midoriya #deku #shinsou #monoma #amajiki

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #150: Merlin

Today on Fate and Phantasms we’re finishing the last build in Observer on Timeless Temple, the man who broke the meta, Merlin! I’ll be honest, I really wasn’t expecting we’d make it this far. Anyway, you’re a Divination Wizard, because no shit. You’re a wizard, you can see the future, you kinda cheat at life, everything else just falls into place. You’re also a Fighter, because you also keep a shortsword stashed in your staff in case of emergencies.

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

Next up: A dimension-hopping bisexual. That’s not a phrase I ever thought I’d say, but I’m glad I did.

Race and Background

Merlin’s half Incubus, giving him immense magical power. Thankfully we can match that lineage one for one with the Abyssal Tiefling, an old UA that gives you +2 Intelligence, +1 Charisma, Darkvision, Abyssal Fortitude for half your level (rounded down, minimum 1) in extra HP, and Abyssal Arcana. That last one’s a bit complicated, so give us a second. 

Each long rest, you randomly get one of six cantrips by rolling a d6 (aside from the one you just had, you have to re-roll if that happens). You can get Dancing Lights, True Strike, Light, Message, Spare the Dying, or Prestidigitation. You can cast that cantrip like you would any other cantrip at your disposal, although awkwardly enough they never mention what ability score you would use to cast it. (I would assume Charisma, but feel free to argue with your DM.) After you finish another long rest, replace the old cantrip with a new one.

Being stranded on the other side of the world makes you the premier Hermit, giving you proficiency with Arcana and Religion. 

Ability Scores

You know literally everything, so make your Intelligence as high as possible. You also don’t have much difficulty avoiding the consequences of your actions, so it’s safe to say your Dexterity is pretty good too. You managed to catfish a not insignificant portion of the human race during the Goetia Crisis, so your Charisma is up there as well. Your Constitution isn’t as strong, you’re pretty much unkillable but I’ll be damned if Quetz didn’t try. Your Wisdom is rather low- you thought betraying the second sun was a good idea- but we’re dumping Strength. You are wizard, no big surprise.

Class Levels

1. First level wizards get proficiency in Intelligence and Wisdom saves, as well as History (you were there for quite a bit of it) and Insight (you watch people long enough eventually you notice patterns).

You also learn how to cast Spells using your Intelligence. Like all wizards you get an obscene number of spells, so we’ll just mention the ones that are very important to the character here, though the character sheet has a full list.

Mage Armor, of course is super important for any wizard, as is your caster balls (Magic Missile). I’d also grab Charm Person to make the whole Magi Marie thing a bit easier. You can also get Find Familiar, if you really want Cath Palug that badly.

Lastly, you get an Arcane Recovery, letting you regain spell slots with a total level equal to half your level rounded up on a short rest once per long rest. Not having slots sucks, don’t do that.

2. Second level wizards learn a specialty, and Divination basically lets you cheat at everything thanks to your Portents. At the end of a long rest, you roll two 20s and save those results.  At any time before your next long rest, you can use one of those results to replace an attack, save, or ability roll you can see, once per turn. If you roll high, give it to Artoria. If you roll low, still give it to Artoria, it’ll be funny.

You also become a Divination Savant, making it cheaper and easier to copy divination spells.

3. Third level wizards get second level spells, but your Abyssal Arcana also grows stronger, giving you a random first level spell each long rest as well. You cast these spells as if you were using a second level spell slot once per long rest. They are Burning Hands, Charm Person, Magic Missile, Cure Wounds, Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, and Thunderwave. You’re a Grand Caster candidate, so it’s not like there’s a reason you couldn’t cast any of those.

We’re also spending your spells this level to enhance party members, with Enhance Ability and Magic Weapon helping out in and out of combat.

4. I know we just got cure wounds last level, but that’s a one in six chance of using it once per long rest. I’d hardly call that meta breaking. We’ll fix that by using your first Ability Score Improvement to grab the Magic Initiate feat, giving you the spells Light, Minor Illusion, and Cure Wounds more consistently (the last one is still once per long rest though).

5. Fifth level Abyssal Tieflings get one last boost to their Abyssal Arcana, giving them one of six second level spells each long rest. You could get Alter Self, Darkness, Invisibility, Levitate, Mirror Image, or Spider Climb. 

You also learn Dispel Magic to break through Tiamat’s Chaos Tide.

6. Sixth level divination wizards have Expert Divination, recharging lower level spell slots after expending another spell slot on a divination spell. The recharged slot also has to be 5th level or lower, but that’s hardly an issue right now. Very useful for someone who’s technically in another plane most of the time.

You also learn Major Image, for stronger illusory power, and Haste to make a chosen warrior more of a hero.

7. We’re now going to bounce over to Fighter real quick, you’re surprisingly quick to pull a sword on someone if you feel like it. The Dueling fighting style adds 2 to your weapon damage with one handed weapons, and Second Wind lets you spend a bonus action to heal yourself. 

8. Second level fighters get an Action Surge, letting you add an extra action to your turn once per short rest. 

9. For your fourth level spells, Hallucinatory Terrain will give your allies a glimpse of Avalon (healing and NP charge not included).

10. Use this ASI to bump up your Intelligence, and learn Charm Monster to keep Cath Palug from smacking you upside the head for the eight billionth time.

11. With fifth level spells you can finally insert yourself into others’ dreams thanks to the spell Dream. It takes a minute to cast, but afterwards you can enter a trance to hop into a target’s dreams. You can shape the dream to your liking, or just watch the fireworks. You can also turn into a nightmare to deal psychic damage and prevent any benefits from that sleep if the target fails a wisdom save.

12. Tenth level divination wizards can use The Third Eye to gain one special kind of sight each short rest as an action. You can choose form Darkvision, sight into the Ethereal Plane, the ability to Read any Language, or the ability to see invisible objects and creatures. 

13. Sixth level spells like Mental Prison make things a lot harder for your enemies, charming one target creature if it fails an intelligence save. If it succeeds, it only takes some psychic damage. If it fails, it takes the damage and it becomes surrounded by an illusionary prison, so it can’t move, see, or hear anything beyond its space. If it’s forcibly moved out, or is attacked/attacks through the illusion, it takes even more psychic damage and the spell ends.

14. If you’re going with the standard array, you’ve probably noticed by now that your intelligence is currently odd. Thankfully we can fix that and make your DM’s life so much harder all at once thanks to the feat Keen Mind, which we’re picking up with this level’s ASI. Your Intelligence goes up by one, you have a great sense of direction and timing, and you have eidetic memory of the last month.

15. Seventh level spells like Mirage Arcane are another bump in power, letting you warp the landscape in a square mile around you. You can even add your fancy looking tower to the illusion now! Still not a lot of healing though.

16. Your last divination goody is the feature Greater Portent, letting your roll three d20s per day instead of two. Yeah, portent’s just kinda busted.

17. Eighth level spells like Illusory Dragon are a massive upgrade, almost as powerful as you usually are. This lets you make a dragon illusion that takes up space, is tangible, and can really breathe fire. I’m not entirely sure how this is an illusion, if I’m being honest.

18. Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for less dying and more stabbing. You also learn the spell Demiplane, to create your own Avalon! As long as you don’t mind your Avalon being a 30′ cube room and nothing else. Still, it’s hard to beat that level of security.

19. Seventeenth level wizards get ninth level spells. Seriously, just grab as many as you can. Merlin’s a grand caster, literally nothing is beyond his reach, certainly not anything a D&D character could do.

20. Eighteenth level wizards gain Spell Mastery over a first and second level spell, letting you cast them at their lowest level like cantrips. Silent Image and Magic Weapon are both good for support, I’d pick those. It’s not a huge issue if you change your mind later, too- you can change spells after 8 hours of study. You also learn True Polymorph. Artoria’s gotta father a child somehow.

Pros:

With your maxed out intelligence, plus ways to confuse your enemies and buff your allies, you make for a pretty good support caster. I doubt that comes as a surprise.

Divination wizards are kinda busted? Three portents per long rest can seriously reshape a campaign if you’re smart with them.

Wish is also kinda busted? You know how a lot of builds I mention not getting to ninth level spells as a con? Now you get to find out why.

Cons:

You’re squishy, which also isn’t too surprising. With an AC of 16 and HP barely scratching past one hundred, You probably won’t want to actually use your sword that often.

Despite healing being the big draw of your FGO counterpart, we didn’t really get that much in this build. You get one to two uses of Cure Wounds per day, plus your second wind. Not exactly meta defining.

Most illusions and buff spells use concentration, so good luck holding onto those with a con save of +1. It also means you have to pick and choose what you’re doing at any one time.

#fgo #Fate Grand Order #D&D 5e #DND #Merlin #Wizard #Fighter

[itsonlystrange]

So I would just like to point out that:

Will didn’t care that Mike was broken up with because Mike didn’t either!

This is one of the main (and essentially only) arguments that I’ve seen people use to justify Will hate. I don’t care if you don’t like Will. I don’t care if you don’t like any character, but people will take it as far as saying Will should d*e, that he’s selfish, spoiled, and a lot of other things. Yet when you bring up the flaws of their favorite characters, they turn a blind eye.

Will is a caring, compassionate, and loving and considering character. If Mike had actually been upset at Will dumping him, Will would have been there. But that’s the thing. Mike was treating it like a joke. We saw it with our own eyes. So Will and Lucas did too. A lot of people fail to realize that if you’re going to say that Will was the one who was being inconsiderate about Mileven’s break up- then you have to call out Lucas, and even Mike himself too.

Will didn’t take the breakup seriously because Mike didn’t. Mike didn’t look sad, or ‘heartbroken’ (seriously, what?) He looked more so disgusted, and arogant of where he (Mike) went wrong. We know Mike sucks at apologizing unless it’s Will, to the point where he literally refused to apologize to El first, and didn’t even apologize until the world was about to end, and even when he did, he didn’t even apologize for lying in the first place! El wasn’t mad that Mike was ‘jealous’ of El and Max’s newfound friendship, she was mad that Mike had been lying to her. Which, he continued to do, even after it was obvious El knew he was lying. Mike continued to lie, EVEN when the truth was out, and again, didn’t even apologize for lying in the first place!

If Mike had actually been heartbroken, for example, take the Jancy fight. When Jancy are in the car in season 3 episode 4, and they get into that big fight, it’s played out as emotional, and heart breaking. There is soft music in the background, there’s close up shots, and they both look visibly sad and distressed. Then, when Nancy gets home, she’s actually crying. She even tell her mom that she knows she messed up and that she knows that she was being ignorant towards Jonathan’s feelings, compared to Mike, who refused to even admit that he was in he wrong. The Mileven break up has up beat music, and El and Mike don’t cry over it at all! They even play “you’re as cold as ice”, a very up tempo song, and have El smile after breaking up with him, and doesn’t even look sad whatsoever after the breakup, and infact, she looked unbothered. She only really begins to miss/need Mike when the action begins, because Mike is her safe person. And that does NOT automatically correlate to romantic love. Mike was the first person to ever actually be kind to her. She attached onto him not because he is her “soulmate” or because it was “love at first sight” (he literally wanted to get rid of her up until she knew where Will was, how was that love?!) But because after being ab*sed for twelve years of her life, she grew dependent on Mike over the fear that he was the only person that could ever treat her like a human being, instead of a lab rat. But then Hopper, Kali, Max, Joyce, etc, came into her life, and she didn’t need him anymore! She was no longer dependent on Mike because she knew that there were other people out there that cared about her. She knew there were plenty of fish in the sea, and it wasn’t just “Mike + El against the world:” it’s almost like when a baby bird leaves it’s nest. Birds are usually dependable on their mom’s until they finally gather the courage to fly away, and then they aren’t dependent on their mom anymore because they now have the ability to not only defend themselves but to meet new birds that are able to replicate the same type of love their mom gave to them in the first place. Mike’s adoration over El is what makes her so attached, but after seeing that she can be adored and cared for by others, she doesn’t need his adoration because she knows she can get it from someone else, say Max, or Hopper.

Neither of them were upset at the breakup. Infact they both looked like they could care less. They even went it so far as to play off the scenes following the breakup as jokes, too! El only goes back to Mike after she feels as if the world is about to end, when she’s in high levels of distress or loss. Which is NOT GOOD! If you only go back to someone just to deal with your trauma or get over a intense situation, that’s not love! That’s not even in the ballpark of love. It’s just El being reminded of her trauma and going back to the first person who ever helped her get through her trauma in the first place. El is only ever dependent on Mike when her ptsd kicks in, or her, or everyone else, are in stressful situations. It’s a defense mechanism.

They both didn’t seem to care about the breakup, so Will didn’t either. He didn’t feel the need to comfort Mike because Mike didn’t look like he needed comforting. He wasn’t crying, like Nancy was. Jonathan and Nancy, who obviously love eachother, were actually sad over their semi break up. Nancy admitted to being in the wrong versus Mike refusing to admit or apologize to El. Jonathan very clearly was upset and crying over feeling misunderstood and also just at a loss, when El smiled and immediately started thinking about other guys. She even says that he’s her “first boyfriend”, implying she’s always thought of having one or even two more.

If Mike had acted like Nancy did during her break up, Will would have 100% comforted him. You know he would. Will loved his friends and he would do anything to make them happy, to the point of Will literally risking his own happiness for months just so that his friends can be in respectful and happy relationships. He sat by, watching Mike slip away, day by day, because he knew Mike was happy with El (to an extent), but when they broke up, there was no emotional song in the background. Neither of them seemed too upset by it, El even seemed relieved and powered by this. She seemed more like herself than she had all season. If we were meant to take the break up seriously, they would have framed it like the Jancy breakup or the Byler fight or literally any emotional scene thus far in the show, but they didn’t. That was a creative choice to draw thick line between what actual love is vs infatuation.

And I’m not saying you can’t dislike Will, you totally can, but saying you think he should d*e or that he’s spoiled or selfish, is disgusting. Even if he’s a fictional character, nobody should say that about anyone.

If you’re going to call Will out for not respecting the breakup, call Max, El, Lucas, and Mike out too. Because the break up was NOT meant to be taken seriously. At all. Whatsoever. That was the whole point! Mike and El are great characters. And I do not want to see El be swallowed by a relationship that clearly isn’t healthy for her as that will only add on to her trauma and lack of emotional growth. El deserves to be surrounded by friends and family and just overall platonic and familial love. And I believe that in season four she will finally recognize her worth and become the independent, authentic, genuine character she deserves to be, away from Mike, away from Hopper, or anyone else’s control. I’m not saying Mike shouldn’t be in her life, but on a romantic level, I don’t think it’s healthy for them.

El + Mike bestie supremacy!!

#stranger things #byler #mike wheeler #mike and will #will byers #eleven #el hopper #stranger things 4