mello

fun facts

i write sometimes. mostly for my current hyperfixation (ayn). and mostly on ao3

i like the colour purple

i enjoy the flute. music is neat

i like to play metroidvanias sometimes

activity will be very sporadic, whenever the mood hits me. i'm not actually a big social media person and prefer to keep to myself most of the time

i rly did make a tumblr just for the lbc memes at first. and then this turned out to be a void i shout into whenever i have Thoughts about lbc

lbc-related

ayn > clarence = lars > alkaid = cael in terms of the characters i talk about most

i uh. like the ayn most though. by far. lars and clarence i also rly like a lot tho. alkaid and cael i like to casually observe from afar

actually a full time mc fan, part time ayn fan

eden ayn my one true love. this rings true still even after seeing mist city ayn in the prologue

my main server is the global server! everything i talk about will be based on global server content. i try to avoid cn story spoilers like the plague, but don't mind looking at cn card art

i will however talk about cn card art from time to time, and if certain elements of it get me into a mood, i might also speculate about where global's story is headed based off of the cn art. i try to list all story spoilers/speculation appropriately though

story enthusiast (i mostly prefer to react rather than theorize)

also combat meta enthusiast (love love love building teams for people i think it's fun)

i will take any questions related to ayn as an invitation to info dump about him. do not ask me about ayn. i will explode. (please talk to me about ayn)

tags for my reblogs:

#lovebrush art

#lovebrush writing

#lovebrush memes

other tags:

#fic snippets — usually stuff from wips that won't ever see the light of day, quick snippets i wrote for one reason or another, or just me talking extensively about my fics

general comments on mist city alkaid

gonna just bullet point the negatives briefly:

thought the npcs were way underutilized (i was kind of hoping for more with warren since alkaid+warren had history, also hannah died like 4 chapters after meeting her hjkgffd) (also ethan exists i guess)

it didn't feel like mc actually learnt all that much; she knows little about alkaid's childhood, we don't see her interacting with the world that much here, and it kind of feels like her main role is to just be The Special Traveller who provides the Secret Third Option and Stays For Alkaid. she learns most things through ayn and alkaid just dumping it on her towards the end (ayn: ok now u r in a cage, let me tell you all about what's up. mc: you are saying words i dont understand. anyways moving on) (alkaid: okay so here is what really happened. this is the epilogue by the way)

moving onto the parts i do like!

i thought that the information presented in this route was really, really interesting and it really gets the ball rolling regarding the situation behind mist city's planet. alkaid is quite involved with the whole uriel thing and so ayn reveals a lot to alkaid with the intention of having alkaid be his successor (which in of itself is interesting, paralleling eden alkaid towards eden ayn)

we get an explicit explanation of what the crystals truly are, where they originated from, how the whole cycle began, how the cycle has been sustained, and we get a lot on ayn's thoughts about being the dream master and a clearer look at his despair (as opposed to lars' route where it was mostly Ominous Dialogue). so that was a lot to chew on at the end bc Wow okay

i also really like the specific theme tackled in this one, regarding the concept of self sacrifice and the whole mentality of "i will take on the burden and save the world. Alone"

i think this theme was really interesting specifically bc of the who the main ml is here: alkaid. it's incredibly relevant to him as someone who has a tendency of letting things go unsaid bc he tries to take on certain burdens on his own while endlessly punishing himself and not giving himself any reprieve. to me, it felt like this aspect of him was a huge highlight of the route (at least, more explicitly discussed) which i enjoyed

i think a large part of my enjoyment came from the segments where it was luchen's pov; i said earlier that i felt like mc didnt really learn much. this part is offset by there being more ml pov segments than usual, which really lets us see the kinds of dilemmas and responsibilities luchen has undertaken

general comments on mist city BEs

i realized i never talked about lars' BEs so i'm doing it here alongside alkaid's ahsdgahj

for lars, i thought his BEs were underwhelming and they all felt awkwardly placed. the choices felt really obvious and the whole set up felt, well, a bit silly to me hsdgfhjsg (ayn: ok make ur choice. ditch everything and ignore the problems at hand or actually tackle the problems at hand)

alkaid's BEs were much better imo. their placement felt more natural to me instead of them trying to write in a bunch of BEs, since it's this big decision and all. the answer of "well dont choose from binary options" is an obvious one, but it's made more interesting by the gimmick they introduce where your previous decisions will either let you pick a third option or lock you out of it

special shoutout to the second BE where alkaid becomes an arbiter, i thought it was a really good BE and a very chilling one where alkaid falls back into the past anyways even if the world is technically saved and people are rejoicing

about mist city ayn

(ayn main voice) i like the part in mist city routes where ayn shows up and ayns all over the place

(more seriously, i think some of his appearances are janky/awkward...... and kind of comedic bc he just. Poofs into existence "Hi There the plot needs to get moving so i'm here to terrorize you" LMFAO it was really bad in lars' route. it was better in alkaid's though he still had moments)

i do like his role towards the end of the route though, his outbursts are interesting to me. i think the ayn-alkaid parallels presented in this route are a lot of fun; theyre both set on a decision they've made in the past, both set on maintaining that decision, both set on taking it upon themselves to save the world...

they were both trapped in a mindset where, to them, they only had two choices. the longstanding habit of making certain choices eventually leads people to forgetting about other options, and they settle on a mindset of "it HAS to be this or that; anything else is truly inconceivable" (and this is where mc comes in, who comes from a different background) so that is a lot of fun

something that really stood out to me about ayn this time is his way of referring to the world as "my planet". he's very possessive of the planet as a whole, acting as though the entire world is his, and that alkaid + mc are taking it away from him when they try to let it (safely) split apart. he's crazy upset about them and loses any rationality he might've had left and i really do think it's driven by a strong sense of fear he has

he says that the planet is the only thing he has, and i'm actually kind of inclined to believe this based on ayn's ssr card story

people of the civilization seem to be unable to directly see him, and he outright says that he cant really communicate with him until they're knee-deep in crystal land which, by that point, they're already kind of screwed. ayn primarily resides in the dreamscape, and he can create anything he wants— anything at all. except all that he creates is hollow, only part of a dream

and i guess this must be where ayn's struggle with identity, or more broadly, existence, comes from. dreams are fleeting, and in the end, dreams are not reality; ayn is stuck in a place isolated from everybody and it doesnt seem like he's had much company over the years. the "company" he gets seems to be people who follow him blindly because he can fulfil their desires in a dream

a stark contrast that i saw between ayn and alkaid in this route was the existence of someone who stays, and someone who doesn't. as in, mc runs to alkaid without fail and trusts in him; ayn on the other hand has been "abandoned" once by mc (though she doesnt remember this) and so he flips tf out

but beyond mc, i think the true sore spot probably comes from patriarch— the one who seems to have brought him into existence, and also the one who seems to have left him alone without warning. i cant imagine that learning the one person who will directly interact with you as a person mightve potentially only done it on the command of That Guy (patriarch) feels good

i think ive already said this but mist city ayn really is just like. ayn. but abandonment issues amped up by 1000000. also his self-loathing is off the charts but also i kind of cant blame him given his situation

something else i'd been pondering is mist city ayn and his handling of life and death. initially, i was bewildered and curious. ayn's relationship with life and death is one that's been highlighted once before (explicitly)— during mc's first meeting of patriarch, and her bewilderment towards his flippant attitude where many ayns she'd encountered were more somber about it

alkaid's route all but solidifies it for me, where mist city ayn is striving towards life (with extremely questionable methods). i thought it was kind of funny; in the end, the one continuing the cycle of sacrifice and rebirth wasn't the person with uriel's abilities, but instead ayn. unlike alkaid who was able to break free of the past, ayn remains trapped at the moment of the second civilization— or, more likely, he's still stuck at the very beginning where he was brought into the world.

anyways patriarch has been so absent; governor being Everywhere in spirit world really got to me LMAO (started expecting the empire mls to be present but i guess governor is just Really Nosy)

but it makes sense seeing as (based on the card story) patriarch seems to have completely removed himself from mist city. or at least, he no longer interferes directly with it? i still dont really know what it is that went down between patriarch/mc for her to have approached mist city ayn. at the moment i think im still going to guess something related to cycles and finding the variable that will break a cycle caused by human nature, which mist city ayn is failing at but mc will probably?? succeed at??

bonus screenshot

SUMMARY

GLB MAIN

46 SSRs

currently has 613 pulls

GLB ALT

25 SSRs

currently has 293 pulls

CN MAIN

21 SSRs

currently has 142 pulls

GLB

MAIN

created: october 20, 2023

i actually rerolled quite a few times, this was before i decided on ayn as a fav. i mostly just did it to accompany another friend of mine who was rerolling a bunch HAHAH (i didnt really think about meta at this point, i never thought i would care that much about meta or pay much attention but well.)

i ended up sticking with my very first account, which is the one where i got ebon rook on my first 10 pull. for the longest time i was basically running u6 stellaris support + ebon rook + wonderful imaginations (free alkaid sr from magical halloween)...... i was f2p at this point and didnt start spending until january of the next year since i wanted to wait a bit longer to see if i would actually stick around first

the first actual event i pulled on iirc was book of tales 1? i actually planned on skipping rabbit ayn bc i didn't care much for it visually, but i ended up pulling for it because i was pretty nervous for this rumoured "trip of inspiration" and i figured that bc i had a fair amount of pulls saved up, i would be okay to pull one ssr (i end up getting it in like 20 pulls)

anyways so for a while i was running this budget crit team where i put rabbit tea party in slot 1 bc his ult increases the team's crit rate LOL. i highly doubt it actually did anything but it was funny to me

and then i got tender embrace which is the second event ssr i used frequently (sorry traveller's letter) and it was actually rly useful since at the time we had very little options for dmg mitigation. so the dodge and taunt was actually pretty nice to have around. for a long time i ran an emotion team and.... i still do LMAO

anyways fast forward and the next most substantial addition to my team was blood moon crown, and i still use it a lot as my sole ayn aoe dps. after i got blood moon crown, i've basically exclusively run a blood moon crown + ebon rook combo

ebon rook managed to stay on my team since day 1 bc somehow i ended up... getting him to u6 without having to use any enlightenment? why did i u6 ebon rook and not get a single afternoon nap. please. anyways, this is largely thanks to the 2nd bday ayn incident LOL where i was pulling to u6 the bday ayn card since it was good (at first i was skeptical of whether it would see any use but ive used it a fair amount in challenge stages, nice) ... and somehow came out of it with a u5 ebon rook. and then i got another ebon rook at some point lmfao

house ballad is probably the only other notable card i pulled, but it only comes out during trip of inspiration or other challenge stages; it's not as useful for daily stage clearing (bmc + ebon is faster)

i think my only regrets on this account are skipping princess day ayn + long night together ayn bc initially, my plan was to only pull for cards that appealed to me visually (which these two didn't)... but also that was before i knew i would be spending money and i dont want to chance reruns LOL

omfg speaking of which, i skipped seasonal hunt ayn sr (this is before i started spending so i was more stingy w my pulls) and decided to go for him on a rerun bc it's just an sr. it's not like i'm pulling for ssrs -> 40 pulls later and i somehow have 2 ssrs. okay??? sure man why not ???

i think the only other ayn card ive skipped is moment of fun but im not too hung up on that one bc meta wise it's pretty mediocre + it doesn't appeal to me visually + the story is just alright to me, nothing super interesting

i remember i made a whole doc with my friends and we went through the list of cn cards listing whether we would pull or skip for them HAHAH it's so interesting looking back at it now bc wow. past me had no idea what was going to happen

it seems like the first card i was planning on pulling for main was going to be house ballad, which checks out because i think that was one of the first cards i saw from lbc that i thought were cute bc i like guys in sweaters. omg some of the comments though i was so embarrassing 2-3 years ago. anyways

my fondest memory (other than when i got into lbc w my friends and we were all making docs and stuff) is when someone in a server made fanart for one of my fics hjsgd bowing down to that person i was so happy that week HAHAH

pull count as of today: 613

ALT

created: november 3, 2023

my "f2p" alt account for meta and misc. pulls. "f2p" in quotes bc i was rly tired one day while renewing my vip and um.... i bought vip on the wrong account sobbingjags never again. anyways so i have one month of vip on this account's history... strictly speaking it's not technically f2p

originally, i had 2 alts. i ended up dropping 1 after deciding to go all in during eden and pull for every eden ayn sr alongside the ssr, thus depleting any funds i had on that account

(okay i didnt plan on rushing for the eden srs, but i finished eden ayn's route on the day it was released a

nd. anybody who knows me that know that eden ayn is my everything. so i Had to read the rest of the stories but it was way too early for anybody to have recorded anything...)

(i also end up levelling a bunch of eden ayn picturas on my main bc i liked eden ayn so much LOL)

(this is also where my alts came in handy bc i want to read ayn's route asap but also want to follow recommended reading orders LOL so i would use one account to read clarence's route, then used my alt to get into ayn's. i did something similar with lost bloodline where i read 3 routes + common all in one go........... it was. a time)

anyways, so i dropped the eden ayn alt and kept the other. after i decided that i would pull for 99% of ayn cards on my main, this account was repurposed into a meta + misc. ml ssrs account where i pull for meta and occasionally for other mls (typically clarence or lars) for either a. pretty card art or b. story

ayn cards i pulled bc i skipped on main: princess day, long night together

other ml cards i pulled for story: eternal and unyielding, faint night light, broken corona

other ml cards i pulled for visuals: whimsical artistry, broken corona

perfect life form: i actually pulled this one after getting it on my main account. and it's because i didn't have stamina stockpiled (i used stamina daily until i hit max lvl, then i started stockpiling). i stockpile on my alt though (im lazy), so i was like. well.......... i want to read the ssr card story but i need to finish ayn's route (i didnt realize this when i pulled on my main). the only account that can get to ayn's route immediately is my alt. sooooo. i pulled on my alt LOL

the rest of the ssrs are meta cards, and if they're not, they were from losing the 70/30 or double ssr pulls

pull count as of today: 293

CN

created: october 20, 2024

(wtf exactly a year after starting in global?? i never realized i started playing cn one year after starting lbc. funny how that works)

originally i planned on keeping this account f2p but i caved really fast. embarrassing for me. LOL it was during cny ayn's (healer) banner where i bought the cat tree. there was one more instance, i want to say it was during highschool au ayn...? but im not 100% sure on that one, i dont remember? i checked my pull recordings and none of them have a cut or a comment, except for hsau ayn pulls which i forgot to record. it makes sense bc i really like hsau ayn the whale the goddamn whale (my pfp)

anyways, so my personal guidelines for this account is to just pull on whatever i like. HASDHAJH i've actually shockingly managed to get all of the ayn event ssrs that i really really wanted excluding idv ayn, which is my biggest regret (i think the card composition is fire as hell + it's a really strong ayn card and everyday i mourn my failed pulls for that event)

(seriously though my glb account is so lucky and then i go onto cn where i actually need the luck and i almost always have to consistently go to soft pity for ssrs hjsgdf whyyy)

the first card i u6ed here was actually healer ayn, even though i usually say that you should u6 dps first -- my reasoning for this though is a. cn trips hurt like hell omfg b. i didn't have a dps but trip wasnt gonna wait for me to get one and c. since stalling is viable and healers now are much better than early game healers, i figured it would be okay.

i think newer healers get way more mileage out of ult levels because most of them have an hp shield -- so, not only are you increasing the amount healed, you're also giving the team a stronger shield which is really nice.

my main team for trips was a heavy stalling team which worked most of the time: u6 healer ayn, shattered stars (my first ssr from the beginner 20 pulls), and borrow u6 museum clarence. it works really well (until i got hit by a stage where i had to kill enemies in x turns...)

it was rough for a while, not just bc i lacked dps (healer + shattered stars is. hmm.) but also bc my picturas were low level and i had very few resources for skills... i'm in a way more solid position now with 2 u6 cards and resources to spare.

i think 5th anni ayn + 6th bday ayn were the biggest turning points for my account bc 5th anni ayn is just such a strong card that supports and deals solid dmg + 6th bday ayn is the stalling card every ayn fan dreams of (almost) LMFAO

after that, my main team is

6th bday ayn -- ult freezing, berserk app, ult decreasing

5th anni ayn -- survivability, ult charging

cny ayn healer -- survivability

with these 3 cards, under normal circumstances, you can basically become impervious to all damage as playing a certain rotation allows you to always have some kind of dmg mitigation. i play based around anni ayn's dmg reduction skill, which has a 5 turn CD.

rounds:

anni ayn dmg reduction skill -- lasts 2 turns.

dmg reduction skill still active

anni ayn aoe incapacitate for 1 turn

bday ayn applies aoe berserk for 1 turn

healer ayn ults, applying a shield to tank most hits for 1 turn

and then anni ayn's dmg reduction skill is off cd and you repeat the rotation. it works in like 90% of situations unless enemies have certain gimmicks or immunities that make it really hard to make it work

clenching my fist if only i got idv ayn, then i would be truly invincible. the main issue i have for the 10% of situations is that i have no reliable way to substantially decrease enemy ult gauges

bday ayn can do it, but for very little. the main way of getting enemies ults out of the way is to use berserk, but that doesn't work when enemies are immune to berserk (this was a big issue for one stage in a recent trip)

idv ayn's main focus is all about decreasing ult gauges (88% chance clearing ult gauge, and ult at u6 decreases ult charge) which would've synergized very nicely with ayn's current meta cards.

i would say that, for ayn, arguably, the most meta team atm is:

bday ayn (ult levels dont matter; works well at u1.)

anni ayn (u6 preferrable for consistent incapacitate app on ult, but u1 works)

idv ayn (u6 high priority for substantial enemy ult decrease when ulting)

pull count as of today: 142

general comments on mist city lars

i enjoyed it! haven't read the card story, hopefully that's up soon, i would love to see what his card story is about

i think the npcs were really good this time around. to me, lars has always shined brightest when there are characters he can banter with (outside of just mc) and lorenz + rebecca provide just that. you can really feel the importance of the nightwalkers crocodile unit to lars with how he recaps their deaths and holds onto their items. i also appreciated rebecca and rando having a lot to them beyond just saying, oh these are lars's dead coworkers.

we have rebecca from a background where young girls were getting exploited, which was a big driving force behind her actions— this on its own is very nice, but i really like the involvement of another npc, bella who further cements this and gives perspective on rebecca's importance to people in the world (as well as being a fun little nightwalker-informant parallel to lars-mc), and there's also rando who is very much stuck in the past and haunted by his child's death which leads to him acting erratically despite the plans which puts people around him in danger ... these are things that imo make a world that much more dynamic

the main thing i have to comment is that is got really chaotic towards the end and the pacing felt like they really hit the gas pedal HAHAH so it ended up being a lot of telling instead of showing ...... i think the thing suffering most from the quick pacing was rando's section where it really felt like they were trying to cram everything about rando and do a whole chara arc in one chapter HAHAH

otherwise, i think the pacing for most of the route was actually pretty good! doing patrols and going on missions, trying to figure out lars' amnesia situation, and most important to me: the small, lighthearted moments that i always believe are crucial to building up a strong relatinoship/bond between characters. the chemistry between lars and mc here felt believable with them sharing in their shared amnesia situation and making memories in the present together. also the detail of lars sneakily adding the pin to stop mc's hairband from breaking was cute. very sneaky of u lars. pinches him

here's a line i really liked from lars as well that i thought characterized him very well:

(ch. 9-2)

in general, i really liked lars's characterization for mist city, very nice

about the ending of mist city lars

now onto the part talking about mist city ayn aka dream master, the takeaways i got from it were very interesting to me because we get what is basically an explicit confirmation that yes, mist city doesn't exist to harvest souls. it has a different purpose

from what i can gather, it seems to be mist city ayn reliving the rise and fall of countless civilizations falling to the same issue: greed. he's clearly seen it enough to the point where he seems to get bored very easily (you can see this in how easily he gives up certain things during scenes like the choices he presents to mc)

so, the ending of mist city lars and crystal city breaking out of the dreamscape is actually a good thing in his eyes. however, ayn does still express some doubt about if they can actually execute what they say they can do

so the natural follow-up question that came to my mind was: why? why is the dream master putting civilizations through the same things, trying to deter them from becoming over-reliant on crystals? what's the purpose of him getting involved time and time again, if he's only ever disappointed by these civilizations?

probably........ patriarch. it's probably that guy's fault LOL

i recall from ayn's ssr "the name for me", it opens with mist city ayn's conception: he is born into a world that is in a perpetual loop of destruction. there's an exchange between him and patriarch where the dream master is trying to do something but appears to never meet the patriarch's expectations— up until the dream master proposes something that the patriarch seems to accept. i can only assume this proposal from the dream master has something to do with him preserving all these civilizations (the purpose behind preserving them still isn't totally clear to me— it could just be the dream master's habit, or quirk, where he wants to remember these fallen civilizations, but i do wonder if there's more to it)

anyways, back to the main point: why? so, it's patriarch who probably set dream master on this path. but why?

if i had to wager a guess, i would probably say that mist city's reliance on crystals is a direct comparison to the empire's reliance on emotion as energy. it makes me wonder if patriarch is trying to find an alternative to harvesting emotions for energy? perhaps he recognizes that this might not be sustainable in the long run so he's been trying to figure out if there's an alternative? simulate a situation similar to what the empire is stuck in, and see what kind of methods people come up with to counter it

my other guess, which is an older one and from before i read mist city at all, is that patriarch is looking into the creation of civilization/planets and mist city was (one of?) his testing grounds before he seemingly abandoned it. this one draws less on actual in-game text and more on my own interpretation of ayn's common themes and how it might be reflected in patriarch and his own potential goals as someone who seems to basically be retired/abandoned by the empire. this mostly draws on a seemingly repeating pattern of ayn destruction (death, by his hand or to those around him), then creation afterwards (usually rebuilding)

oughjghgh please what has this guy seen i am very curious

general comments about the dream master and patriarch

even though the dream master insists on telling mc he hates patriarch, it seems that he still, to some extent, wants validation from him. this is assuming that the dream master's actions right now are still in accordance of what he told patriarch he would do in his ssr story ... despite patriarch seemingly having had abandoned the dream master (from the dream master's pov anyways)

it reminds me a lot about something that patriarch learned from crimson in his sr "thrownness" about seeking out expectations from others, where crimson tells him "yeah don't do that"

i really do think the dream master is looking for some level of validation here, and he still very much operates on the expectations set by patriarch at his conception. which isn't very surprising when you think about how he was born (only patriarch to influence) and how he generally lived until now (seems to have been incredibly isolated from civilization, always watching but never an actual part of it; that's why he reacted so strongly when he could actually talk to mc as a person) so i can't imagine he has much to go off of even if left to his own devices

patriarch and the dream master funnily enough remind me of modern ayn and mr. alwyn HAHAH

the relationships are a bit different, but they both expose a similar part of ayn where it's just so important to him that people understand what he's trying to express. initially, modern ayn acts as though he doesn't care at all for his father but we gradually learn that he cares a lot more than he says he does through events like corridor of fate and maudlin dream floating steam

most explicit is ayn's outburst in his end time route, where his father is trying to discourage ayn from getting involved further as ayn investigates the hall of dreams, and childhood ayn's questions to himself about if there was love between his parents, about if it was there and it was just that ayn wasn't able to be a part of it