ntaelstrom.bsky.social
29 posts
89 followers
82 following
Active Commenter
comment in response to
post
Eve’s MV is so good. Just an alt rock love song about how Astra makes everything in her life make sense and feel perfect for the first time. Over domestic stuff but also running out of shadow towards Astra in the light. “Your eyes mirror the sky when the stars aligned” sung together in harmony…
comment in response to
post
Basically, yeah! Like a lot of those stories are super hot and I enjoyed them. But it’s okay to consider that something you find hot is messed up on some level, and it’s good to be able to reckon with that thoughtfully. Honestly that reckoning can be hot, too, or make the hotness more meaningful.
comment in response to
post
Like I enjoyed a lot of HDG during its run on ROM (kinda had to for a while there, lol), but Independence was incredibly well crafted and stuck with me (still haunts) more than any other in the setting. It’s sad if people are unwilling to engage with something deconstructive and thoughtful like that
comment in response to
post
That’s a shame! It’s absolutely haunting and an incredibly good exploration of the themes of the setting. Like it meaningfully hits where the setting started and kinda challenges where it ended up. Its climax left me hollow for a while. Identity death as murder was such a gut punch.
comment in response to
post
The whole hyperaffirmative, “this is good, actually” energy came later, and while often hot seems to miss the point sometimes and is vulnerable to these sorts of weird “this slavery is good, actually, for reasons” arguments. Not really slating it, just intrigued by that development.
comment in response to
post
Very interesting how HDG developed. The original story was just a fairly standard (good bad end) Evil Superior Empire of Plant Mommies enslaves people and destroys their identities. And the best works imo were ones that still engaged with the horror of that (IE In the Shadow of the Independence)
comment in response to
post
It’s doubly bad because they also voted to essentially expand the prison system and terms for which people can be imprisoned for some crimes. So between the two referendums California functionally voted to expand state enforced slavery.
comment in response to
post
Killed an initiative to limit prison slavery by referendum in the last election
comment in response to
post
Someone did in the thread. About the same as lesbians. Cis manhood is one of the more predictive factors for transphobia, unsurprisingly
comment in response to
post
I’m so sorry. Stay safe and be well, as best you can.
comment in response to
post
He’s a 1.x dps who was powercrept overall and directly powercrept by Feixiao, who simply does everything he does but better. Functional, but not very good.
comment in response to
post
He's the woooooorst. Like what if condescending mainsplaining was a character. Absolutely insufferable. Solidly fixed in my triumvirate of loathing with Aventurine and Sunday.
comment in response to
post
Pretty lesbians. Warm, painterly art style. Detailed and neat recurring characters.
comment in response to
post
Just gutless fucking collaborationist invertebrates. I’d call them worms, but worms are actually important and valuable.
comment in response to
post
Gosh... you never miss.
comment in response to
post
Unfortunate, but, given the state of powercreep currently, Yunli's probably going to fall further behind going forward. Castorice will be solid for a while, though she seems a little support dependent (luckily one of those supports can be Remembrance Stelle)
comment in response to
post
Personally, I think there's value seeing your older stuff and how you've grown in skill and occupied different lanes at different times. There's something inspirational and aspirational in that.
comment in response to
post
Nothing embarrassing in growing and changing, technically and personally, but I understand the discomfort with that being mapped and out there. Especially with how someone might set expectations from work that no longer represents you.
I struggle just to post, let alone have a record follow me.
comment in response to
post
Haha, yeah, I have. That's when I initially found your work, and it was so nice! It's been a seamless transition to enjoying your Stellefly pieces, since I play HSR and that's another favorite ship of mine.
comment in response to
post
In counter to that, your Stellefly and Sulemio art is wonderful and brings me tons of joy to see. Seriously, your Stellefly work has such range and never fails.
comment in response to
post
Yeah, Fu Xuan is a workable alternative to Lingsha. You miss out on the FUAs to stack ultimate faster, so it’s a loss but not too horrible a loss.
comment in response to
post
Kafstelle, Stellefly, Starch are all good Stelle ships. BronSeele is eternal canon in every Hoyoverse (and I bet it's coming in Snezhnaya). AcheSwan got a whole yuri dance. HertaMei, FeiKong, TopaJade, KafHime, and FuQing are also very fun. Lots of good yuri ships in HSR.
comment in response to
post
Quantum Remembrance, specifically. The Poet relic set seems to be made for her.
comment in response to
post
Take with a few grains of salt: She's supposed to be a slow HP scaling Remembrance dps that summons a dragon and drains team HP. Rumored BiS team is in flux with different leaks of either Sunday-RemStelle-Healer or Mydei-Tribbie-Healer. No solid kit yet to say how strict her teams will be.
comment in response to
post
Looking at your list, Sparkle can be an okay THerta support, and good with Seele (pretty severely powercrept pending the buffs Hoyo announced) and Yunli. I use her with E2 Acheron (and she's good with E0 as well).
She's kinda in an awkward spot with the meta valuewise.
comment in response to
post
You've got everything for complete Superbreak and FUA teams with FF/Rappa-RM-HarmonyStelle (Free E6)-Lingsha and Feixiao-Robin-HuntMarch (Free E6)-Lingsha, other than sustain overlap.
Sparkle's great but doesn't really have a home in your roster right now. Okay-ish with Feixiao.
comment in response to
post
Metabrain: If you're prioritizing FF, Ruan Mei is mandatory to make her a real character (like -40% damage without her). She's got strict team constraints.
Robin is Feixiao's apex support, and she's just great in every non-break team as well. She and RM are the best "value" HSR pulls.
comment in response to
post
But also you'll want Ruan Mei for FF since FF is barely functional without her. HSR really stands for Honkai Support Rail sometimes.
comment in response to
post
FF prolly won't run for a while, and Robin doesn't occupy the same niche as Bronya-Sparkle (both are hypercarry enablers and do kinda the same thing). She's great with hypercarries (she's arguably just the best character in the game) but her teamwide buffs help dual carries. Much more generalist.