At Full Bloom 2024, sirmeris brought an absolute stunner of a major performance with an excellent 4th place in singles, fueled in part by a dominating 3-1 set over a mang0 back on the grind again. This set was notable for a couple reasons – not least of which is that mang0 beat sirmeris 3-1 earlier in the bracket to send him to losers – but most prominently for a decision made in game 2 of their set. See, mang0 took game 1 on Battlefield in a last stock, last hit situation, which means that sirmeris went into the next game with the ability to pick the stage, and to pick character after mang0 did. Since the set was best-of-5, mang0 wasn't allowed to ban a stage, and as such sirmeris instinctively picked Final Destination. Mang0 upon hearing this, just as quickly switches away from his trusted Fox that took game one. See, FD favors Peach against spacies because she can chaingrab them extremely easily and for a very long time, meaning that, moreso than the vast majority of situations in Melee, one neutral opening often meant death for the spacie player. In fact, mang0's spacies are, across all sets analyzed by the pgstats.com database, 3-15 against Peach on FD. This results in a lifetime winrate of 17%. This is a game where people bitch about 6-4 matchups, and mang0 was staring down the barrel of a matchup south of 8-2, so he switched to a character that didn't get chaingrabbed, because getting chaingrabbed sucks. In fact, while this does not account for stage, a community matchup spread from 2022 puts the Doc-Peach matchup at 4.5-5.5 in Peach's favor. According to the PGStats page for Phorox, a solid upper-mid echelon Doc player, he's got a 20-17 historic record over Peach on FD. While this obviously isn't super solid information, it does say that, at the very least, this matchup probably sucks significantly less than Fox-Peach in the same situation. But when push comes to shove, mang0 didn't have all these fancy stats in his head, he didn't have PGStats on his phone, he didn't get coached by someone, he just knew that spacies didn't have a good time against Peach on FD, and he didn't want to have a bad time. Did it work? Nah, but it might work next time, and it doesn't change that, at least in my opinion, mang0 was right.

The Lanque Article. Part 1. The Safe For Work Route.

Lanque Bombyx. The most controversial character to come out of Hiveswap Friendsim and this includes the artist who paints in the blood of her victims, Zebruh, Zebede, and a clown whose armpits you can sniff and go into a trance from. Lets get the basics down first

Lanque is a trans male jadeblood, he is a prospit dreamer and is lifebound, the only life aspect character in friendsim. Let's talk about one of the most important things in his character. Let's talk about gender and jadebloods

Gender and Jadebloods

Jadebloods are all AFAB, that we know of. For all we know one of them could be trans and just doesn't say it iunno but anyway. Let's assume for now that they're all AFAB, as this makes the most sense and is the easiest to talk about. This makes Lanque the ONLY male jade troll EVER. Next there's something important about jadebloods: they're forced into a life of abstinence, and are disallowed from romantic relationships. This puts Lanque in a Tough spot personally. He's a character based in rebellion, as all the jades are. However, he actually tried his best to listen to what his guardians forced on him due to being the eldest. He was made to set the standards for trolls like Wanshi and Daraya, meanwhile Bronya and Lynera are going out, having relationships, leaving the caverns to which they are bound. He's fucking livid and he lets this out in both of his major routes. Today, we'll be going deep on his first one. His safe for work one.*

(* IF YOU CALL IT THE VALID AND INVALID ROUTES I WILL BREAK INTO YOUR HOUSE AND BREAK YOUR GOD DAMN FINGERS)

THE ROUTE

The route diverges when you can either go to a big crazy party with drugs and sex and all sorts of fun things like that, or a poetry circle.

This is a great time to talk about one of the first major criticisms of Lanque, and why it's bullshit and wrong

CRITICISM OF LANQUE 1: HE'S A BAD REPRESENTATION OF THE SOFT TRANSMASC ARCHETYPE

WHAT? NO. HE'S A POET AND HE WEARS A FLOWER CROWN BUT HE'S NOT FUCKING SOFT? HE FUCKING LAYS INTO LYNERA FOR BEING A PIECE OF SHIT. HE'S NOT SOFT. HE'S PISSED AND AN EMOTIONAL VAMPIRE. HE FITS INTO THE VIBE OF THE ROOM AND TWISTS IT.

Okay now that my explosion is over with. This is one of his “good” endings. This is something I've always hated in games and will get back to later. For now, let's talk about Lanque in this route.

Lanque is a pretty heavy criticism of common transmasc stereotypes in this route. He wears the flower crown but it seems more spiteful than genuine. This is likely due to anonymous writer V being a big fan of fucking with people like this. They also wrote the route for Marvus and you can see this is something they're quite fond of. Lanque in this route is a fun way to look at what he feels about his fellow jades. He feels angry. He's spiteful. He's pissed off at the fact HE CHOOSE to behave and was called out by hypocrites for breaking the rules that his guardians chose not to follow. He's a big personality, he's an emotional vampire, he's impulsive, and he is Fucking Irate. Anyone with restrictive hypocritical parents can relate to this. Anyone who has had to sit in front of their parents chastise them for the things they themselves just did can relate to this. This route shows WHY He feels this way. The NSFW route, the party route, the route where you can have sex with a character over the equivalent of 19 (he's not a minor. He's facing immediate threat of being sent off planet. He's old enough so that he can fuck.) is the fun one. This is the one where he see HOW he lashes out and gets these frustrations out. And maybe, in the meantime, we'll learn a bit about teenagers, angst, suppression, and the message sex can have in a narrative.

Following YCS Chicago and the HUGE SURPRISES THAT TOOK PLACE (NO ALTERGEISTS IN TOP, LUNALIGHTS WINNING) I think it's the Perfect time to return to a discussion that was massively popular when the January F&L list first hit: Do Sky Strikers and Altergeists need to be hit on the list?

No

But I still feel like there's a massive gaping hole where certain hits should have been. This engine has powered multiple FTKs, drove Fairy Tail – Snow to be banned, and played an integral part in the victory of Lunalights at this YCS. That's right, I'm talking about Danger!s. Now before then let's talk about why it's okay that Sky Strikers and Altergeists got off scot-free.

The answer is simple. They're strong, but healthy and not overwhelmingly strong. While sky strikers had their dominance hitting Hornet Drones took them down enough of a peg to bring them into fairness. Altergeists in and of themselves aren't an overwhelming powerhouse and more thrived as anti-meta decks. While multifaker impermanence is still an incredible strong “stop playing” move it's not game breakingly so.

Now, about the Danger!s. Dangers are played in decks as copies of Upstart. People will play ten-twelve danger monsters just to have access to incredible deck thinning, but is this healthy for the game? While it does give lower tier decks more access to their one key engine card, I honestly have to say no. Dangers, while may be mostly docile for now, have already reared their ugly head in DDW FTK and the theorized DTD builds that'd get massive +s off Fairy Tail – Snow, allowing you to Book of Moon your opponents entire board at little cost to you. While they may be okay for now, what they could do in future is a terrifying thought, and as such I feel as though Dangers need to be hit sooner, rather than later. With the Dangers in the game, Konami has to design decks around them being a splashable engine, much like 3 drones skystriker. This heavily inhibits the way Konami can move the game forward as one small oversight can lead to a destructive powerhouse of mixed engines like Trickstar Sky Striker or HAT. All we can hope for is that future sets don't blow the game open due to this one archetype.

Quirks are easily one of the hardest, yet most fun things about creating a fantroll if that's what you like to do. Some people it comes naturally but for many others it takes a significant amount of time to create something they are truly happy with. Hopefully these simple steps will help you when making your next troll's new quirk.

Step 1: Be readable

For the love of all that is good and holy in this world please make your fantroll's quirk very easily readable. A quirk shouldn't require a guide in order to read and should be accessible to anyone who is reading your quirk for the first time.

Step 2: Reflect your character

This is probably the easiest and most understandable step but never forget it. Quirks in most troll lore are seen as a way for people to distinguish themselves from one another and this should always hold true. Think of characters like Vriska, who's love of spiders and the number 8 drives her character, or Folkyl, who's voidrot has affected her speech patterns, or Kuprum, who is just a 4chan joke.

Step 3: KISS

Keep It Simple, Stupid

May be patronizing, but it's also a vital rule to follow for something like this that MAJORLY helps in the other areas.

Step 4: Be unique

This goes back to quirks being a feature of differentiation in troll culture. If you keep your troll's quirk unique, you'll be able to fulfill that part of the lore.

Step 5: Break any one of these rules

Any of em. Smash it to pieces. The key to all great things is that it looks at what it SHOULD do and doesn't follow them. Now while you shouldn't go out making an illegible quirk that's an amalgam of other character's quirk, none of whom are similar to yours, it does mean that you shouldn't feel obligated to follow all of these rules to a T. I ordered these steps in order from most to least important. Legibility should always be Point Number One as you need to keep in mind any dyslexic people who might be reading your quirk. Character reflection is also incredibly important but in ways you might think you're breaking this rule, you can follow it. KISS is always a good acronym to have on hand because it's very easy to go overboard, but don't be afraid to dip your toes into the water. And not being “unique” can be unique in and of itself. This isn't some be-all-end-all guide, it's got some play in it and use it as you see fit.