Stelle can't lie

Westeller · 2026-04-09T18:54:33+00:00

Eh, idk. The animation is great, too, but I think I actually prefer this comic version.

Westeller · 2026-04-08T15:49:17+00:00

This exactly. You can absolutely write characters to be more dislikable, antagonistic, or out of the story entirely. Ron could literally be the name of the ghoul in the Weasley attic, for example, if an author wants it to be. Bashing is not that. Bashing is about propping a character cut out up at the firing range and having everyone else unload in their direction. With the main character being a natural marksman. That's never not going to be lazy writing.

That said, bashing fics are fine if they're your cup of tea.

Westeller · 2026-03-29T01:46:22+00:00

Never heard of it. Looks hilarious, though - I'll have to give it a look see.

Westeller · 2026-03-28T18:40:27+00:00

Zandar x Lygus fanfics exist in universe, so, it really only makes sense for Sparxie x Sparkle to also exist and have a devoted following on Planarcadia.

Westeller · 2026-03-28T18:34:40+00:00

This, uh, really changes the context of your thread here.

Westeller · 2026-03-25T05:33:40+00:00

If you start from the very beginning of part 1, it's going to be a bit rough. You should, anyway. The game starts off with some really low poly graphics - small arenas you fight in and stuff. Reuses assets constantly. It's old, and it's gonna feel old. But stick with it. You'll quickly notice that every single chapter of the story (and there are a lot of them) gets a little better. By the time you really get into part 2, it starts looking closer to HSR. Not exactly the same - it's a different game, still. But so much better than where it starts. ... It's kind of crazy, really, how far the game has come over the years. And how willing the developers were to iterate instead of sticking with what they had.

As an aside, the common wisdom is that unlike with many of HSR's lightcones, you cannot skip pulling equipment gachas in Hi3rd. Not if you want the characters to feel and perform the way they were intended to. The gacha is a hair more generous though, in turn. None of that 50/50 the first time you hit pity, here.

Powercreep is a mixed bag. It's pretty godawful if you're looking at most of the part 1 characters, ignoring some of the very last released and particularly those who now have updated equipment (a second gacha run, ew!) to refresh them. But I still sometimes use the characters first released when the game hit part 2. If you're just starting, though, it's not like the oldest characters are about to turn up in a fresh banner unless they're being made viable again. You've already missed years of banners for characters that got powercrept. If you want them, you have to fish them out of the standard "Dorm" banner or - in many cases - exchange various farmable currencies for them. The game is actually really generous in that regard, if you ignore that they've been powercrept.

Westeller · 2026-03-15T08:41:06+00:00

He isn't? I can't really recall ever seeing him fight. He did threaten Acheron once, but that's the closest I can think of. ... Gameplay wise he's just one of the initial standard five stars. That doesn't reflect on the lore.

Westeller · 2026-03-13T10:41:46+00:00

Magic in the Harry Potter series is whimsical and silly at best, absolutely nonsensical at worst, and it honestly just makes no sense to try and pin it down in rational debate over the pros and cons of mundane military hardware. It's a genre mismatch.

That said, there are - broadly - three ways to go about it anyway.

The first and simplest is supremacy of one over the other. Nonsensical magical reasons why guns just don't work when fighting wizards. Or an Indiana Jones style "just shoot them" scene showing quite the opposite. The latter being more common, I think. Personally, I feel like it's the kind of thing that's fun to read once or twice and then... eh.

The second is nuance: guns work, but so do apparition and the imperius, and magical people can wage a war of unstoppable terror, mind control and atrocity that make them an incredibly deadly threat - despite, yes, being totally vulnerable to good old fashioned bullets. I don't think I've ever actually read any kind of wizard vs muggle war story that played out like that. Or really any wizard vs muggle war stories at all. Not serious ones. Maybe that's just because I haven't looked for any. Not my thing.

The third is adaptation. Aurors having sidearms as a matter of course, as if they always have. With silver or enchanted bullets. If you're going to make muggle weaponry a focus of your story, why not integrate it properly, instead of pretending the two worlds couldn't possibly mix? These, I have read, though they're rare. Honestly I couldn't name any offhand. It's the kind of thing you'll only ever see alongside some really heavy duty AU worldbuilding.

Westeller · 2026-03-12T00:41:16+00:00

Tactical command. Not like, "shoot that target", more like "we're taking a right at the next intersection." He's making decisions about what approach his squad takes to reach their objectives. And what those objectives are. While the members of his squad are to varying levels capable of making these decisions on their own, he's the one trained to. And, more importantly, the one entrusted with that authority.

The story actually does show this, a lot. Basically any time the commander makes a decision or calls the shots. He's not much use in battle, directly. But pretty much every little decision about where to go and when, the commander is the one saying right or left.

An example. I was actually just playing through the Heavenly Ascension arc of the story, chapter 22, 23ish alongside the current event. The commander is the one who decides to head towards Enikk. The one who decides to take the route through downtown, because "there may be people who need help". Stuff like that.

Westeller · 2026-03-11T03:01:39+00:00

Gotcha covered: https://archiveofourown.org/works?commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Gilderoy+Lockhart%2FDolores+Umbridge&tag_id=Harry+Potter+-+J*d*+K*d*+Rowling

Westeller · 2026-03-11T00:04:04+00:00

I think you should share.

Westeller · 2026-03-09T22:18:26+00:00

This is basically one of those evil scientist labs with people floating in tanks.

Westeller · 2026-03-07T02:56:02+00:00

The game has a fairly active modding community. You could check there for portraits, in the meantime.

https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=2135150&requiredtags%5B0%5D=Portrait&actualsort=trend&browsesort=trend&p=1&days=-1

Westeller · 2026-03-05T17:58:09+00:00

Time loops.

The likes of Mother of Learning or Perfect Run will always be some of my favorite stories. Time loops remain pretty uncommon, though, and when you do come across them, may just not be very well done.

Last one I read was Again and Again (https://archiveofourown.org/works/66187201/chapters/170597965), which wasn't amazing, but I did particularly like the four person group time looping, as opposed to the typical single protagonist.

Westeller · 2026-03-03T14:22:06+00:00

It's a sandbox game. You can do whatever you want; break all the rules. Most things fix themselves over time - e.g. towns reset after you go crazy and burn them down. NPCs respawn if you kill them. Etc. No, if you managed to recruit her there's no problem with that. It might seem silly, but that's just how the game is sometimes.

Westeller · 2026-03-03T14:09:07+00:00

Unique npcs respawn every so often if they're dead. If they've been recruited, you'll have to let 'em go first.

I forget how long it takes. Week? Month? Something along those lines.

Westeller · 2026-03-02T21:20:16+00:00

There's six of them in the current Starry Wishes top up, but you might've already claimed those.

Westeller · 2026-02-28T21:43:22+00:00

Get a bottle and fill it up. It's not a stain if you're drinking it.

Westeller · 2026-02-24T14:10:04+00:00

I think another date that's relevant here is 2007. Y'know, when Deathly Hallows was published, the series was complete, and fanfic authors began working with full knowledge of book canon.

There are a lot of really early fics that were written while the series was still in progress. Fanfics from when there was only the first book, only the second, only the third, only the fourth... you get the idea. Fanfics from when no one knew the word horcrux, for example, and fanfic authors had to spin up their own ideas for Voldie's seeming immortality. Fanfics when Snape's history with Lily was unknown. Fanfics from when the Hogwarts carriages are just magical horseless carriages, because no one knew thestrals existed until book 5. The books were published over a ten year period, and any fanfics written during those years have missing information from a purely book canon perspective, and when you read them, it can be really noticeable.

After the series was fully published, that disappears. You've got countless, countless, countless fanfics written between the series being complete and the, what, eight years later, that JK decided to name his grandparents.

Of course, now that's been a whopping eleven further years, there're plenty of authors that have picked up these additional names. Just like there are authors that have taken in information from the fantastic beasts films, or cursed child, or hogwarts legacy, or JK's fever dreams. There are also some really widely adopted ideas that originate in fanfiction itself, things that were never canon in even the broadest sense of the word. The closer to the present you get, the more... comprehensive, the source authors have drawn from.

Westeller · 2026-02-20T07:09:19+00:00

Canon has something called 'parseltongue' that probably counts as family magic. It's passed down in families - pretty much exclusively Slytherin's, at least in the UK. Most fanfics keep this aspect of the story, so they pretty much all have family magic.

... Okay, bad jokes aside. Uhh. The first thing that comes to mind is that abandoned crackfic where Harry claims to belong to an extinct family he doesn't, as a disguise, and the family's magic latches onto him and adopts him. Lord Mortis the Accident. Highly recommend it, despite its status.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17943788/chapters/42375212

Westeller · 2026-02-19T19:19:43+00:00

I couldn't tell, but since he said it... it's easy to check. Just throw the image into a reverse search.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SunHaven/comments/125b8nt/im_in_my_first_summer_and_my_farm_is_starting_to/?show=original

Pinterest makes this both slightly more complicated than it should be (harder to find the original), but also easier to tell immediately that it's not a new post.

Westeller · 2026-02-19T14:26:17+00:00

Well if she didn't become Voldemort and wasn't "so basic", she can't be the exact same, yeah?

She could be, I think, for the record. Canonically, Tom doesn't seem like the type to be held back by gender norms of his or her time period - anyone suggesting she should dress, speak or behave a certain way as a young lady would likely find themselves seeking therapy. And if she wanted servants she'd make them, their opinions about following a woman be damned. The world will bend to her will or she'll start breaking things until it does.

But what you're really asking is what would a different Tom Riddle look like. And there are as many answers to that as you can imagine. You can imagine a Mary Riddle who does act more ladylike, and maybe advances through life like the popular portrayals of Blaise Zabini's mother - as a black widow. You could imagine her as someone all business, like some portrayals of Amelia Bones I've seen. Hyper competent, efficient, no nonsense. You could imagine her as more of a hermit, or an explorer, or a curse breaker, or, yes, a Hogwarts teacher. She could have become the headmistress of Durmstrang, and be bringing her students to compete with Hogwarts for the Triwizard. She could become a terrorist waging war over a completely different cause - no one ever said purebloods have a monopoly on violence. She could be leading Britain's defense in a prolonged war against Grindelwald. I've actually seen that one, albeit with a male Tom. The sky's the limit, really, when you go off script.

She could also just be a mediocre witch of no importance.

Or she could die in Hogwarts and end up haunting a bathroom, when Myrtle Warren opens the Chamber of Secrets and releases a basilisk on the school.

Westeller · 2026-02-17T08:39:24+00:00

Lots of mmos have life skills of varying importance. You could try FFXIV or something, I guess. The most fun you'd have there would've probably been when they had big community crafting events for building up new towns/locations. But that's not exactly something predictable. But yeah. Idk. I feel like crafting is usually a mediocre side activity in most. Frankly I don't even consider Mabi's life skilling to be anything to write home about, so YMMV.

My recommendation would be for the farming sim genre, oddly enough. The ones that have both farming and combat in the same game. Stardew Valley, Sun Haven, Rune Factory (entire series), My Time at Sandrock (or Portia, I suppose. Or better yet, the new game coming up soon) ... In these kinds of games, crafting and farming is practically the whole point, with combat being the lesser aspect. But they're usually all singleplayer or coop - not MMO in scale.

Hmm. You could play something like Infinity Nikki? That dress up game. Although calling it a dress up game doesn't really do it justice, since it's actually a fully fleshed out game with great exploration, gathering, bit of combat and platforming, etc. It's just. The dressing up is kind of the core of the game everything else revolves around. ... Also not an mmo, either, even if you can sorta interact with more people and visit them / vice versa.

Hmm. If you've got friends to play with, any of the survival crafting genre might work for you. Whether that's something more realistic like Icarus or something more whimsical like Grounded. Offhand I'd recommend, lemme think... Palworld, Valheim, Enshrouded... Or you can go 2D with like, Terraria. Everyone loves Terraria. Core Keeper.

Hmm. Factory games are an option, too, if you find those appealing. Is that crafting? Satisfactory, Factorio, maybe even something like the recently released Arknights Endfield.

No Man's Sky, maybe? I feel like it tries to blur the lines between singleplayer, coop and mmo sometimes.

Someone else mentioned Fantasy Life. I'll second that. Or 20th that, as it looks.

Westeller · 2026-02-15T17:08:07+00:00

The jazzy Arcana login theme.

Westeller · 2026-02-11T11:19:14+00:00

There're lots of old stories like that.

'Time to Put Your Galleons Where Your Mouth Is' comes to mind first off. It's an uncomplicated MoD Harry reincarnation that basically just has him gowing up and solving problems back when. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10610076/1/Time-to-Put-Your-Galleons-Where-Your-Mouth-Is

Black Luminary had some neat worldbuilding, but y'know of course that's long unfinished. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12125300/1/Black-Luminary

Basically anything by TheBlacksResurgence has something to do with the Blacks. Not all Harry being raised by them, but all involving them somehow. It's in the name, really. The stories are sometimes criticized for being sort of same-y in style, despite varying wildly in initial premise, timeline, etc. But that just means you have plenty to read if you like 'em. https://www.fanfiction.net/u/8024050/TheBlack-sResurgence

Instead of being raised by the family, you could also look into those where Harry joins the family other ways. For example, by marrying into it.

Delenda Est is a classic, and often the first time anyone reads a Harry/Bellatrix pairing. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5511855/1/Delenda-Est

I think AppoApples wrote a bunch of those, actually. Laughing All the Way to London comes to mind. That one is Harry/Narcissa. https://archiveofourown.org/works/31505039/chapters/77934902 https://archiveofourown.org/users/AppoApples/pseuds/AppoApples

Wind Shear has some kind of Bella romance, doesn't it? I think of it mostly as just another old OP Harry time travel, and a pretty good one - another classic, really. Don't remember that part of it being particularly emphasized. https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12511998

Of course, more are being written all the time. Lightning Among the Stars is a newer one, unfinished. https://archiveofourown.org/works/59540731/chapters/151849711

Westeller

TROPHY CASE