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breathe2-fr · 2 months ago

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The Day The Shade Came (pt 1)

Everything was normal. Nothing was out of the ordinary, and no one would have guessed otherwise. Of course, that's how it always goes; everything is normal until it isn't. Baerka napped lightly on one of the large branches of the willow tree, hidden from the early afternoon sun by the magical, color-shifting leaves. Spelldancer had been busying herself with some newcomers to the clan, which was expanding. Baerka hadn't bothered to count how many were in their clan at this point... surely it was below forty? But over twenty? The number itself didn't matter, he supposed... but the thought of it kept him from falling into a deep sleep by putting a smile on his face. Gloam, his freshly-grown son, had taken an interest in recording things the clan did. Said it was something about building a history. Baerka didn't care for writing, he knew his paws were molded for combat, not for holding pens. But Gloam's eyes brightened when he spoke about the things he'd written, and Baerka couldn't deny that he enjoyed hearing some fun events recounted back to him by his son. One of his favorite stories was when a spiral joined the clan. Her name was Venomous, and she'd traveled Sornieth all the way from the plaguelands. She fit the stereotype of a spiral almost perfectly, but the problem was she was borderline feral. She could speak, but was more interested in fighting, and was so energetic that she could barely focus.

When she first arrived, she'd ravaged their food stock, then lashed out at Spelldancer when the little queen had asked her to stop taking food. Before Venom could lay a claw on her, Baerka send a pummeling blow straight to her skull, knocking her clear across the pond. After that, the spiral seemed to respect him and began sparring with him; Baerka was able to help her burn off energy and learn new combat reflexes.

One day, an alchemist happened to be passing through, and was able to brew a concoction to transform her into a guardian. This finally tempered her focus and turned her into a powerful fighter. And she was the only one who gave Baerka a challenge when sparring. Baerka opened one eye and looked across the pond, where Venomous lay. Recently, a pale blue skydancer with oppressively dark wings joined the clan and had taken a liking to Venom, who now lay curled around her protectively in the sand at the shore. Fast friends. Good. Maybe after the skydancer has warmed up to them some more, she'll tell them who she is. Or he could ask Venom what she's found out. The skydancer had only managed to give a name, Winter, when she arrived. It seemed she'd been through a lot, as her fur was frazzled and some feathers had fallen out from her wings. Baerka lazily closed his eyes once more to try dozing back to sleep, but after he did, the light behind his eyelids darkened far more than he expected. He opened them once more and looked around. Had a cloud rolled over ahead? No. Nothing seemed different. He lay his head back down and closed his eyes again, and the darkness dipped deeper.

He opened his eyes and saw... nothing. It was pitch black. He snorted and tried to stand on the branch, whipping his head back. When he did, he saw some drifting, floating form move away from his face. What is that? Baerka stepped back from the misty vapors. He was no expert, far from it, but he'd never seen elemental magic like this. He was certain it wasn't some sort of fiber from the tree or nearby plants either. He looked around the lair grounds and realized this vapor was laying itself over the faces of the other dragons who didn't seem to notice it yet. "Spelldancer!" Baerka called out. His queen, who was busy talking to a new spiral clanmate, craned her neck over to look at Baerka. When she did, she began clawing at the air around her face, as if swiping away gnats. She glided over to her pair. "Yes?" "Do you see this mist?" He swirled his claw, motioning to the other dragons in the lair grounds who were becoming coated in the strange occurance, but didn't seem to notice. "I didn't until you called me. It was--" Spelldancer stopped and jerked her head back, swiping again in front of her face. "I don't know what this is. It's like someone's draping thin silk over my eyes!" Baerka looked around over their territory. During warm days such as this, most dragons were lounging at the shore of the pond, swimming in it, or flying somewhere nearby. Right now, everyone seemed to be dozing on the shoreline. Baerka grunted, then called out. "Everyone! Come inside! The weather is turning strange!" He shouted a few more times to rouse the deepest of sleepers, then watched as the dragons filed into the hollow of the willow tree. Over time, the clan had managed to dig out a comfortable amount of room underneath that was large enough to shelter everyone, even if it was only for sleeping. Spelldancer looked at him with concern. "You think this is the weather?" "Do you think it's something else?" he asked with genuinely. "I do not recognize this if it's magic. Is it?" Spelldancer didn't answer, but watched her dragons walk lazily toward the tree. A few stragglers continued to sleep, including Venom and Winter. Spelldancer floated down to a nearby sleeping skydancer and attempted to wake him, but seemed to be struggling. Baerka similarly glided down to Venom, landing with a thud - an intentional choice. As a Wind dragon, he can fly with ease and land softer than a feather. But right now, he was here to wake sleepers. "Venom." He waved the mist away from her eyes and put a paw to the large guardian's shoulder to shake her. "Wake, we need to go inside. The weather is strange." Venom snorted awake and raised her head, scanning the area. Baerka looked down to Winter to wake her, but realized she was already. The skydancer lay covering her eyes, shaking nervously. She must have been awake the whole time. But she's so rattled, she didn't move. Baerka reached out to help Winter to her feet. "Let's go." But the skydancer ignored him. "Come, Winter," Venom hissed gently, and nudged her shoulder. "We obey the king." Winter finally seemed to hear the words spoken and nodded, standing uneasily. Baerka watched as Venom, the vicious, hyperactive dragon, gently lead the battered Winter into the safety of the willow tree. It warmed his heart. He hoped they could find some way to help the skydancer as well.

He looked over to Spelldancer, who'd finally roused the other skydancer. She was working on a nearby spiral next, but her methods were so gentle, no wonder she struggled to wake anyone. He walked over to assist her. After a minute of waking dragons and continuing to wipe away the mist forming around their eyes, they headed with the rest of the stragglers into the willow tree. It was crowded when everyone was inside, as Baerka hadn't had time to make bedspace for the new clan additions yet, but everyone fit. Once everyone was inside, the murmuring turned to questions. "What's going on, Baerka?" "King Baerka to you!" The voice of Gloam rang out. "Always respect the king!" Baerka pawed his son, pushing his head down like a lion petting a kitten. "The weather is turning, we'll have to wait it out inside." "What weather?" Someone else replied. "The clouds are bright today!" Baerka shook his head. "Some sort of dark... fog?" Baerka tried not to show too much uncertainty, lest it scare his clan. But he wasn't the type to be afraid to admit he didn't know something, either. "It's hard to see honestly, but I think we caught it early." "This black strandy stuff?!" Another called out in alarm. "It's in here too! It's-- it's stuck to my face!" Suddenly the whole clan began to chatter indistinctly. Many were realizing the mist had not just followed them into the hollow, but was actively forming on them still inside. A few dragons began to panic and shove their way to the door, which rippled alarm throughout the crowd. Soon, nearly all the dragons were yelling, crying, and shoving their way out. As the dragons moved out of the hollow back into the open air, the most panicked that had made it out first began to cry out. "Monsters! Monsters!!"

#shifting wing clan lore #flight rising lore #fr lore

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geekynerfherder · 1 year ago

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'Face-Off' by Xue Jiye.

Giclée fine art print on 308gsm 100% Cotton Hahnemühle Photo Rag paper, in a numbered 39cm x 50cm limited edition of 300 for £60; and a numbered 77.3cm x 100cm limited edition of 30 for £450, with a signed and embossed Certificate of Authenticity (COA).

On sale Friday May 26 at 5pm UK through Black Dragon Press.

#Art #Xue Jiye #Black Dragon Press #poster #print #giclee

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waheelawhisperer · 1 year ago

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Since I have OCs of my own, I'm curious, how do you go about making yours?

Oh God there are so many ways

Sometimes a stupid idea pops into my head and won't go away until I turn it into a story or character (FUCKING @norondor put Rhine Labs Arthurian Yuri into my brain and now I want to write about hot babe knights and beautiful courtly ladies kissing in secluded castle gardens, for example). This is how I got Greedy, a powerful and ancient dragon who is obsessed with VTubers.

Sometimes I just want to have adventures in the media I consume and come up with a character that lets me do that. In these instances, I typically start by making them someone I'd want to be (skills, personality, physical features, etc) and then decide to give them flaws so that they feel like people instead of strict wish fulfillment. Blatant self-indulgence is nice, but I would typically rather my characters have enough complexity to feel real. Feilan came about when I decided to just make an OC to project on instead of using poor Jaune for the purpose.

Sometimes I have an idea for a story, whether that be in terms of plot, setting, themes, and need characters to bring that to life. For Agara's story, which I still need a title for beyond "Hot Demon Lady Causes Problems On Purpose", I needed Calvin's life to be shitty enough that he'd be socially ostracized and more open to her manipulations, so I created a classist bully to make him miserable. In a lot of ways, this story is about how vulnerable, isolated young men can be groomed and radicalized and how dangerous that pipeline can be, wrapped up in a fantasy setting, so when I created Calvin, I made him the type of person who would be very susceptible to that kind of manipulation - low social status, unpopular with his peers, not particularly conventionally attractive or charismatic, lacking a useful support system, and desperate to change all that. I am not ashamed to admit that I drew on my own experiences here.

Other times I just have a cool idea for a character design that needs a story to go with it, which is how one of the characters of my high fantasy WIP came into being - I thought he was interesting and crafted a world around him.

Sometimes (a lot of the time), I am inspired by other media (fucking Arknights God damn it it keeps giving me brainworms) and create characters based on that. I saw a lovely art piece depicting Texas Arknights permanently removing Mostima from Exusiai's life in a fashion very in sync with her mafia roots and built a setting, plot, and group of characters from it (including a woman who is The Worst Bisexual Representation Ever but I'm pretty sure would also make tumblr sapphics feral on main).

Sometimes I am just horny and create Women I Think Are Hot.

In terms of the actual character creation process, I first identify what caused me to create the character (and thus what's already in place) and then go from there. Sometimes the design/role is already there and the template is already partially filled, but if I'm making a character from scratch, I start by figuring out what their purpose in the narrative is. With Feilan, I knew that the goal was at least in part to let me live out self-indulgent fantasies and have adventures in a world I found interesting (later on, he became my chew toy. This bad boy can fit so much trauma and comedic suffering in him), so I designed a character with physical features I had or wanted to have at the time: tall, built like a linebacker, attractive (but not too attractive. I wanted him to be good-looking, but not so hot women swoon when he walks in a room), deep voice, smart, compassionate, good at adapting on the fly, etc - and I will leave it up to you guys to figure out which traits I have and which ones I want. Then I figured out how I wanted him to dress. I was big into Jojo's Bizarre Adventure at the time and Jotaro's hat/coat combo has infected my brain ever since I first saw it, so I gave Feilan a cool hat and a long black coat. Since he was built on the Jaune self-insert template, I armed him with a sword and shield so I didn't have to modify too much.

Then it was time to figure out, more or less, what I wanted the plot to look like and what traits Feilan needed to have to make that happen. I kind of folded this together with the "give him flaws" stage because I needed those flaws to prevent a quick (and distinctly unsatisfying) resolution in either direction, so I made him good at thinking on his feet and outmaneuvering people (often half by accident or because they overestimate him) and able to plan effectively, but I also made him a bit of a hypocrite, prone to lashing out, self-centered, and afraid of facing the consequences of his own mistakes and then packed him full of some wonderful self-loathing.

The next step was deciding what themes I wanted to delve into. I knew the plot (roughly) of the first Feilan story and what it offered in terms of thematic exploration, so I decided to investigate masculinity, specifically through the lense of male isolation, male insecurity, male physical and emotional vulnerability, and male physical/emotional/sexual abuse. I realized this gave me a great vehicle to discuss masculinity in general, particularly toxic masculinity and what it means to be a man, so I gave Feilan daddy issues by creating Sten-Bjorn Varg (how do I do the symbol on top of the o on my phone someone help me), a Tough Manly Viking Man who has no idea what to do with a son that is very much not a Tough Manly Viking Man and picks a terrible strategy for dealing with that conundrum. I gave Feilan a set of beliefs about how a man Should Be (strong, stoic, doesn't need to ask for help) and started challenging those beliefs and breaking them down over the course of the story.

Then I considered the relationships I wanted him to have with others. I knew I wanted him to be close with Team RWBY, so I needed reasons they'd want to be around him. Being good-looking and not a dickbag is a good start, but if I wanted a real bond, I had to give him a little extra. I made him very laid-back and friendly and a good listener (and willing to cover for/go along with their shenanigans) so they'd be comfortable opening up to him and made him good at book learning so he could help Ruby with her schoolwork and otherwise serve as a mentor figure (and all this gave me the opportunity for delicious angst that fed into his self-esteem/self-loathing issues because every relationship he has is built on the lie that he deserves to be at Beacon).

Then it was time to just come up with the little things that made him feel like a person but weren't specifically plot-relevant. He has a sweet tooth and likes hot chocolate, he enjoys reading and playing video games but isn't a huge fan of watching TV, he's not particularly artistic, he enjoys exercise but not really fighting (outside of a spar. He doesn't get a thrill from it like Yang does) or the brutal training most of his mentors put him through, he doesn't really understand how to dress formally (or dress himself to best advantage in general), he's not very good at flirting or handling being flirted with, etc.

Meanwhile Bluebonnet came about because I thought the world needed more tall blonde big titty bisexual cowgirls with thick Texas accents and I was so right for that. I've been haphazardly slapping bits of characterization onto her like a clay figurine ever since. I started with her appearance, then moved to her personality and fighting style, and built a backstory from there.

Tl;dr there are a ton of ways I make an OC.

#feilan varg #bluebonnet mckiernan #agara

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demon-blood-youths · 2 years ago

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A Deadly Battle pt. 5 || A Risky Solution???

Here are the previous drabbles by me and the great @the-silver-peahen-residence. This is part 5. To anyone whose interested, please read the the following drabbles.

Part one: King vs. Dragon heir

Part two: Aftermath

Part 3: The king vs. Matt Knack

Part 4: Aftermath Acceptance

-----

( Some oc devils, Jujustu characters canon characters ( especially Sukuna and Yuji) and some ocs ) belongs to Peahen-mun

( Ink, Vanity...and some of the devils ) belong to me. Now get this show on the show.

------ Brief Summary ------

After the aftermath of Sukuna’s rampage, the fractions remain hiding and told to remain hiding after the defeat of the fractions such as Ink aka Van Ink the Dragon and the following defeat of Matt aka Killer Night when he and his fraction encounter Sukuna.

The following few days were fill of anxiety wondering if Sukuna might find them, thinking he can cut a hole into the demon world. However....Ink who suffered the brutal defeat at the hands of King of Curses decided to resolve this in a way she knew how. What would be the risky solution to this deadly ordeal???

-----------

It has been a few hours now stretched into a few days. The fractions are still in Vanity’s domain as they are unsure if they can return to the human world with Sukuna around.

Duke visited Ink in her room. She watched the fight between Matt and Sukuna using an orb. Ink considers Matt a formable opponent. Of course, they are not friends but they are not enemies. It’s a complicated relationship, they’re more like rivals. After their first encounter, their battle ended in a draw and later on, they fight once a month.

Still....it didn’t made her come out of her room. She heard that Matt and his fraction was sent here thanks to his devil’s Chernoborg. So in a way, she’s glad that Matt and his fraction is alright even if they used to be their former enemies. Then someone walked in.

“Ink?” It’s Duke. Wearing a coa

“Duke....” Ink greets her quietly.

“Have you been watching?” Duke asked to which Ink nods. Seeing Matt being beaten like that. Is painful. From Sukuna’s clone no less. It’s rubbing salt into the wound.

“Have you been thinking what Vanity said to you?” Duke asked.

“Yeah.” Ink nods, her expression is unreadable. Duke sees her eyes were dried after shedding many tears. “And...” Duke hasn’t fought Sukuna but seeing the confident Ink like this reminds him of himself when he was around her age when experiencing a battle that wounded his pride, body and soul.

“I don’t know. I have to fight Sukuna sooner or later if we....no...I go back out. I don’t.....think I would be willing to kill him because Yuji. Yuji doesn’t deserved that.”

“Do you think he would be happy knowing that you held back because of him?” Duke said.

“No....but it’s not fair to him or to his friends. Yuji shouldn’t take the blame for what Sukuna does.” Ink heard from Taz of how she enjoys Yuji’s company. “I can’t kill someone that Taz cares about.”

“So it’s Taz. Kinie Ger’s heir?” Duke said to which Ink nods. “But also....I’m scared...” She said making Duke blinked. “If I fight again, I will be killed and what would happened to my team? I don’t think Sukuna would be able to stop if he killed me.”

“Well....I did heard that from your friends that Sukuna has a time limit. Although...I am surprised that he will possessed the boy for five minutes while....he defeated the fractions. So we should wait for time to passed.”

“Yeah but it doesn’t mean he won’t come back and take over Yuji again.” Ink sighs, “But if there is some way if I find a way to beat Sukuna at his own game, there has to be something I need to do. I just need to think....” Ink said.

And so Ink thinks for a long time. Soon, she begins to have an idea and wonders if that works.

--------

Vanity is in throne room as he sits down in his seat, sighing. His fellow devils were enraged, confused and unsure on what to do. They were angry that a cursed spirit managed to beat their heirs with little effort. Someone enter and Vanity shifts his head to see his second heir.

“Vanity. We need to talk.” It’s Ink. Vanity raised a brow. So she came out of her room, she doesn’t look to be heal. Not yet.

“Yes?” Vanity said. Ink steps forward as her head is down. “I think....I know what to do to fix this.”

Vanity waits.

“I’m going to apologize..”

Vanity blinked, wondering if he misheard. What?

“And then I’m going to request a rematch with Sukuna once I do.”

Vanity stares down at Ink wondering if she’s serious alright so he needs to make sure what he’s hearing from her.

“Apologize?” Vanity asked, repeating and narrows his eyes at her. “Do you think that the King of Curses would accept your apology and just accept your request for a rematch?” Such a thing is very navie and he highly doubts that Sukuna would accept that. Then again.....she sounds calm.

“It doesn’t matter what he thinks. But it’s not only to him but to the people who been affected by this.” Ink said seriously. “Also....I was thinking how to help Yuji at the same time.”

Vanity wonders what the girl is thinking. He heard from Senkai that Ink’s craziest ideas that is contribute by her and her fellow friends that got them out of sticky situations so what sort of solution is Ink thinking here.

“Go on..”

“I was wondering if....” Then the next words Ink said makes Vanity widen. Vanity listened and thinks.

“You want to make a deal with him? Something like that?” Vanity asked. “Well...it’s been awhile but.” Thinking about it, this might sasfify the King of Curses or rather this deal can surprise the cursed spirit if told. On the the other hand.....

------- the devils’ meeting -----

“Your heir wants to do what now?!” It’s Caym staring wide-eyed at Vanity in disbelief. “Has she lost her mind or has the battle made her head soft??!” Caym cawed. The devils became concerned. Vanity didn’t say anything but glares at Caym for his outburst. the bird shut up but inside he’s fuming. “Your concern is well-noted, Caym. Does anyone wish to speak?” Vanity said, looking at his fellow devils who are preplexed and shocked at what his own heir is proposing.

“I see....” Uriprayt thinks. The devils can’t believe what Vanity’s heir’s proposal but at the same time...

“Thinking about it, it might make sense. I mean-” Leonado thinks.

“Oh come on! He’s a human turned cursed spirit! An Imaginary Demon at that!” Cal yelled, not liking this at all. “A damn human is always a damn human, he died becoming a vengeful spirit after being beaten by humans. He’s just think he’s all powerful...because he’s a damn prodigy.” Cal is still mad about his heir Ashely being hurt.

“But this vengeful spirit beats all of our heirs. No one should dissupte that.” Kukuclan who is Ethan’s devil. A snake-like demon with feathery wings as he looks like he is wearing Mayan outfits as he rattles his tail.

Oski, Rex’s devil sighs, “ “I am conflicted, I understand what your heir is trying to do but...”

“This might save all of us and our heirs.” Ironia, Rust’s devil aka the Iron Madien who manipulates blood and iron. “Not to mention the boy that this Imaginary Demon is possessing.”

Goa, Shdwkyz’s devil as she closes her fan as she hisses her snake tongue, “Although her idea makes sense..but would Sukuna accept?”

“And what?” It’s Ymir, Fin’s devil the ice giant. “He’s going to laugh at us once he heard it and try to take us on next after he’s done! Heck...he’s probably going after everyone in the North America continent because he’s bored!!!”

Beezlebub nods as he buzzes his bug wigns, “Exactly....that man thinks he is god compared to us! Why would he listen to us?!”

Nagi and Orochi, Vivi’s devils is also concerned about this.”I agreed. Sukuna is not like other creature we seen based on what we saw so far. We should tread lightly on this. The last thing we need is provoking him any further.”

“I think we should allow it.” It’s’ Chernoborg, Matt’s devil who agrees with this plan making everyone turn their heads at the dark angel devil. “Sukuna is what he is and proves that to all of us despite his origins. I think we should consider it and see how it goes.”

“Did you just forget that he beat your heir to a bloody pulp?” It’s Ira, the Wrath demon who is Kali’s devil. He looks like a monster with four arms as he has blue hair and red skin. He can’t believe what Chernoborg is saying. “Doing that makes that cursed spirit our problem now!”

“Matt knows exactly what he’s getting into. Knowing Matt, he is reckless for his own good and I’m happy that he learns this experience from this.” Said Chernoborg as he shrugs his dark wings. “Not surprised that he survive this ordeal though. But that aside, we will provoke him either way no matter what we do. We can’t predict his actions but given what we see so far, this idea that Vanity’s heir makes sense. The King of Curses would be foolish to pass this up.”

“Speak for yourself.” Zek said. “My heir almost died and we have to do this to make him happy? I don’t like this.” The toxic flame Zek can’t believe this. “This guy thinks he’s too good.”

Yuki; Jinx’s devil a flaming feline devil with black flames hums, “He might be amused by this but surely he won’t want to stay in a human vessel forever and given what Van Ink the Dragon’s idea is. This sounds beneficial to him and probably to the heirs if we play it right...”

Allocer, Guam’s devil looks unsure but sees there is no other choice, “I’m still unsure. But we can’t go on like this and fighting for solution that won’t get us nowhere so I agreed with this idea.”

Yen-Lo-Wang sighs, “What other choice is there? It seems like Vanity’s heir must got an idea and after thinking about it. You might be right, Yuki. Vanity, I say we go with this plan.” She heard that Ink was in her room all day after her defeat and overhears that she took the defeat very hard than other fractions. Maybe she is reflecting on the situation and is trying to find a way to fix this. An admirable quality she must admit. She would bet on this gamble.

Most of the devils hates this but if they have to save their heirs and make sure they continue living as well as dealing with Sukuna, they have little choice so they go with it.

“Very well....then we must find this Gojo-sensei.” Vanity said. “I was told that this man is this vessel’s teacher and a jujustu sorcerer.”

“Gojo? Hold on....” It’s Rave, Oblivion’s devil, a tengu whose head is like a hawk as he has wings and carries a kanabo. “ A Gojo? From one of the three great Sorcerers families from Heian era???” He blinked

“You heard of them?” Vanity askede.

“Yes! That family tried to exorcise me in the past once around the Sengoku Era!” Rave chuckles, "I think I can pinpoint this sorcerer’s cursed energy. It should be easy.” Rave cackled.

Goa sighs, “My fellow clansmen also encounter some of the Jujutsu sorcerers and Gojo is the most powerful next than Zenin and Kamo clans. The Gojo is a formidable opponent but do you think he would listen to what we said?”

“If my heir said that we should talk to him then I assumed that this man must be reasonable to talk with.” Vanity said.

“Very well then. Let’s inform them.” Yuki said, knowing of the Gojo clan.

“Then Rave....find Gojo Satoru then.” Vanity said.

“Will do!” Rave smiled.

“So we’re asking a jujutsu sorcerer for help?” Ammit asked. “Great....”

“My heir that she knows this person well.”

------- human world -------

Five minutes were up and Yuji is founded.

Gojo-sensei is sighing. He found Yuji Itadori but he is hiding in his room. Gojo guessed that the teen felt terrible for what he did to teens of New York. Nobara and Megumi look exhausted but are sleeping.

----- Sukuna’s domain ------

‘Damn it! Sukuna! Did you really have to do that?!” Yuji yelled at Sukuna who is sitting on top of his skull throne, looking smug.

“What? Those brats with demon blood running their viens deserve it. Thinking they’re high and mighty with their powers granted by their devils. The only thing I feel pity is those demons giving them powers they don’t deserve. I bet those devils are regretting it now.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Yuji cursed.

“You can thank the dragon brat for that.” Sukuna retorted.

“For fuck’s sake, you’re going to get pissed by what Ink said?! What are you, five?!”

“Ha! She challenged me and I delivered!” Sukuna barked in laughter. “I showed them what a true demon is. Not those idiots playing pretending to be one!”

Yuji felt angry at Sukuna but mostly himself. He can’t believe that he allows this. But what’s next is something they didn’t heard in the next hour. Ink wanting to talk to them both.

------

Gojo is thinking on how to report this as he is on the rooftop. Not only that, he senses a prescene behind him. He turns to see two figures. Cursed spirits? No....they’re different.

Two that looks humans but they had wings. One that has bats and another that has bird wings.

“Are you an Gojo? We....demons wished to speak with you. It concerns Van Ink the Dragon and Sukuna.”

“And who you might be?”

“Ah....an aquantiance of your family centures ago. My name is Rave, a tengu during the Sengoku Era and this is my demon contractor, Senkai.” He introduces himself and his contractor.

“And what can I help you with?”

------------- Minutes later -------

“Gojo Saturo, I presume?”

Gojo turns around to see a dragon with long horns and black hair. He is sitting down and is huge that his head at Gojo’s eye level.

“And you are?” Gojo said.

“I am Vanity. Ink’s devil as you known her as Van Ink the Dragon.” Vanity introduced himself. Gojo hums.

“You must be the one who rescue all the demon fractions from Sukuna. And us.” Gojo said as he can sense their cursed energies, Ink’s including. “Nice to meet you, Vanity.” He smiles. “I wish our meeting could go different.”

“Likewise.” Vanity speaks, “and that is correct, we devils have to get involved because of Sukuna and I wish to speak with you.” Gojo has a blank expression but looks intrigued despite wearing a blindfold but hears him out. “Alright...although I don’t know how you devils work. No offense since I’m a Jujutsu sorcerer. But I will hear you.”

“That is quite alright. Cursed spirits are similar to demons in some ways.” Vanity speaks.

“So what did you brought me here?” Gojo asked.

“I think we might solve our problem.” Vanity said and goes to explain Ink’s plan to him.

------- Minutes later ----

“Is that possible?” Gojo can’t believe what he’s hearing. “That’s....crazy...insane.”

“Yes.”

“But doing so will mean....” Gojo wasn’t sure if this is a good but if the devils have trouble in coming up with their own and considering it then. Now thinking about it....

“Yes. But it could save the boy and everyone involved, solving this issue.”

“This is going to be tricky....”

“Hm?” Vanity raised a scaly brow.

“You see Yuji Itadori is scheduled to be excuted by the elders once he consumed 20 fingers of Sukuna.”

“20 fingers?” Vanity titled his head. Gojo sighs and goes to explain to the dragon about the situation that Yuji is in. “yes....Ryomen Sukuna as a cursed spirit was almost impossible to exorcise so he had to be seal in 20 fingers of his orignal body. Yuji swallow one of them and Sukuna is awakened. Because of that, the elders want the boy executed as they feared Sukuna's existence. To stall it, I had to buy time for Yuji by telling the elders to have Yuji consume 20 fingers and to destroy Sukuna forever.”

“By executing the body?” Vanity said, now understanding the situation. He wasn’t told this but it seems Ink didn’t know about it.

‘Yes if the elders find out what you devils trying to do, they will freak out even if the plan makes sense. There is no way the elders allow that.”

“I see..that is tricky. Still...how would that plan work? If he cannot be exorcise by normal means then a body such as a human vessel won’t stop a cursed spirit if the human flesh is destroyed. Hence this plan that we have might work for everyone else despite what those elders think.” Vanity said. Gojo shrugs. Vanity hums. “Then this plan is good as ever. You can save the boy and deal with Sukuna at the same time. Even close to death, Yuji Itadori would be fine.”

“Why is that?”

“We devils have our ways....” Vanity chuckled. “That said, Ink requested a match and issue an apology to Sukuna himself.”

Now Gojo looks conflicted and is considering this might be a bad idea.

“No offense to Ink, Sukuna would laugh his head off if he heard that and will kill her.” Gojo can’t believe that Ink wanted a rematch after what she’s been through. Why would she want to go something like that again? He heard that the fight from Megumi as he watches this from the sidelines. It was brutal.“But apologizing to Sukuna, the King of Curses....what would that accomplish?”

“That is what I said...but I am interested what would her apology be in detail.” Vanity said. “But....in your professional opinion, do you think Sukuna would accept the deal if he heard it?”

Gojo hums. “Well this is Sukuna here we’re talking about and he wouldn’t pass up the chance if he was told that. He would be too dumb to accept that. This is a gamble but I’m going to bet yes on it. But if anything happens, I would get involved and this deal will be void.”

“Good then let’s begin the preparations.” Vanity said. Like Gojo said, this is a gamble and he will bet on this too.

----- Back in the city ------

Ink waited. Ink waited on the Empire State Building’s observatory deck. She turns her greatsword around and around, pointing at the floor, waiting. The only eyes on this is Vanity, the devils and Gojo, they aren't here but they are watching. The fractions aren’t aware of what’s happening right now. Ink would prefer it that way until this meeting is concluded. Ink breathes in and out. She’s not ready yet but she needs to resolve this.

“Ink?”

Ink blinked and turns to see Yuji standing there. “Yuji....uh....” She expected Sukuna but not Yuji is in place. Maybe it’s because of the time limit.

“I heard...that you want to talk to Sukuna but....” Yuji sighed. Gojo told Yuji that Ink wants to talk to them both of them. Sukuna and him, saying that she wants to talk to them.

“He doesn’t want to talk?” Ink said.

“Not really but he did want to hear you out first before....he does anything.” Yuji said looking nervous about this. “Also he had me ask you questions like where your friends are and why you show your face after...getting face taste the ground or something.” There were questions that made the pink-haired teen frowned but didn’t want to say it to her face.

Ink begins to tremble but grips onto her greatsword tightly. “They’re safe. It’s just you and me.” She answered. Yuji can see how Ink is. He can feel something is wrong. Was....Ink nervous? Or was it something? Her face looks tired yet there is something in her words that he tires to make sense of it. Yuji is angry at himself for allowing Sukuna to terrorize Ink, Taz and their friends. He felt so horrible that he wish he should die.

“Look Ink....you don’t have to do this. you’re not fully healed yet and-”

“No, Sukuna has to hear this and you too.” Ink said. “Because...I want to apologize.”

“Huh?” Yuji blinked. “Apologize?”

“I want to apologize for what I did..” Ink starts to her bow her head, “I shouldn’t say that I’m the strongest or told you that I am. I....I was afarid and I was too stubborn because I didn’t want to know my place because of my pride. Because of me....you were disappointed because you had high exceptions and everyone got hurt because of me. So I’m sorry for challenging you...and not knowing any better because I know I won’t beat you like this...” She doesn’t know what else to say as she bows her head to him. Silence fills the sky and everything is silence.

“And Yuji. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t blame yourself where I’m the one who caused this. I take full responsible for this so....don’t beat yourself up. Taz still cares about you whether you switched with Sukuna or not.”

Ink looks up to see Yuji still standing there. “Ink.......” Yuji looks worried and felt guilty eharing this but also looking apologetically. “You don’t have to apologize. I...”

“Yuji....no....this is my fault” Ink sighed, “If I didn’t piss him off, you wouldn’t have to deal with this. You shouldn’t feel responsible...it....was out of your control.” Ink sighs as she grips onto the railing. “But also.....I’m sorry about this. But I also wanted a rematch. This time....I will give Sukuna what he wants if he wins..”

Wait what? Yuji widen his eyes at the girl. Ink....wants a rematch with Sukuna. What for?!

“HUH?! Ink! What are you talking about?!” Yuji look nervous now, “That’s not a good idea.”

“Brat....” Yuji pauses when aneye and mouth opens on Yuji’s cheek, it startles the girl. “Sukuna....” Yuji said his name.

“Hey Brat...Yuji....bring your hand up over your mouth.” Sukuna commanded as he said his name.

“I....”

“Don’t make me switch...” Sukuna warned. Yuji did as he told despite hating this. He hold his hand over his mouth where a mouth appears on back of Yuji’s hand. Ink watches and grips on her greatsword tightly.

“You know....if you really want to say you’re sorry. At least grovel at my feet while you’re apologizing properly, maybe that way I might accept your half-ass apology.” Sukuna speaks.

“....that won’t happened unless you beat me for a rematch.”

“Ha?” Sukuna said, as if he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “First you apologized to me and this brat,” He refers to Yuji, “and now you want a rematch??? Wow, you must be becoming more stupid and lost your mind or maybe I hit you too hard that you soft on the head..”

“I’m not stupid...I know what I’m saying....because in the next five months later, I will become stronger and you get what you wanted if you win.” Ink said.

“Oh? And what do you think what I wanted?” Sukuna laughed. Yuji wonders what would Sukuna would want from Ink. How can she appease him? It makes him nervous.

“If you win, then you can be separated from Yuji and have you become a real devil in the demonworld.” Ink said. There she said it. That was the idea. That was the idea Ink told Vanity. Sukuna became silent, there is no laughter from him as he stops. Yuji widens his eyes in disbelief. What did she said?! Seperated Sukuna from Yuji and Sukuna will become a real devil in the demonworld?! What the heck?

“Ink....” Yuji said her name so Ink continues but before he says anything. Sukuna speaks..

“Oi....what are you trying to do here, dragon brat?”

There is no emotion in his voice making Yuji tremble inside, a pit in his stomach. He can feel the burning glare onto Ink. Sukuna is mad. Ink still stands. She can’t show it, she needs to push through it.

“I want you to stop hurting anyone else.........” She said honestly. “ You made your point already. But I feel like you won’t stop....there so that’s why.”

“So...If I agree to your match and will win, you’re going to free me from this brat whose my vessel and become a devil like you?” Sukuna asked.

“No. Better. You can become a devil in your own right just like my dad.”

“Your dad?” Sukuna questioned.

“Vanity. He’s my devil, he gave me powers to become a demon after I signed a contract with.” Ink said,“And you get your form back or whatever you had back then...you can be free in the demon world, get your own domain and you don’t be stuck in Yuji forever.“ Ink said.

“Oh?” Sukuna said. “Demonworld, huh?” He muses. Yuji looks seriously worried, what is Ink thinking right now. Why would she promises something like that. That’s crazy!

“Yeah.....you will get what you wanted. So why not take it? I mean.....to everyone here, you’re the real deal and a devil instead of an imaginary demon like you says. Like I said you made your point. Even Vanity thinks so.”

"And what? You think that will stopped me?! Did the devils set you up for this? Because they hate seeing their punk-ass brats getting wiped the floor by me? And now they realize that the one who made this happen is you? I don't know...why the hell would I accept something like that?? It sounds like you want to appease me to make me accept it! Why the HELL would I want to take you up on that???"

Ink pauses for a moment and thinks. “Because I know.....you would be too stupid not to. The devils are different from jujutsu sorcerer and he will make it come true. Think about it. You won’t be the imaginary demon anymore. You will be Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses in hell. You won’t be just a cursed spirit anymore, Sukuna. You can be devil with your own domain, have followers, and you can be free. If you skip on that chance, you will be the King of Stupid here, not me.”

Sukuna stays silent. Yuji wonders what Sukuna is thinking right now.

“And all I need to accept your rematch? I just to need to win against you. Only you?” Sukuna said, making sure to confirm.

Vanity told her the meeting with Gojo. Ink nods, “Yeah....if you want all the details, you can talk with Vanity about it. But the only thing I can tell you is that I’m not going to make it easier this time. Give me five months to be stronger and I make sure you won’t be disappointed again. I’m going to show you why demons are stronger than cursed spirits.”

Yuji drops his jaw hearing this. Why is she doing this to herself. Even Yuji is not that crazy enough so why? Yuji gets it. Why is she doing this? Because she feels more guilty than he is? Does she want to take this on by herself? She doesn’t have to do this?

“Hmmmm....alright.” Sukuna thinks, but first things first. “But first. Remind me....why are you doing this? And don’t repeat all that like you said before. I want to know the true reason behind it. Your reason... ”

Ink blinks and looks down, gripping her sword tightly. “I want to regain my honor and pride....and want to solve this..on my own terms. Nobody else.”

Silence fills the observatory deck as Yuji hears this. Ink wants to do this because she wants to regain her honor and pride? Is that how she really feels? Was she beaten that badly? What is going through her mind right now? Yuji wasn’t sure what to think until Sukuna says.

“Brat. Let’s switch”

Ink became startled as she heard that, as her eyes slightly widen, gripping her sword tightly but she didn’t raise it.

“Huh?! No! I won’t...you can’t! I won’t let you klill-” Yuji argues.

Relax. I won’t hurt her. Just want to talk to her face to face. Personally.

But.

“Switch.”

#rp #ic #thesilverpeahenresidence #thesilverpeahenresidence ( The King of Curses - Sukuna Ryomen )#vaninkthedragon #A Deadly Battle || Drabble #A Deadly Battle|| A Risky Solution #you can have sukuna thinking in thoughts as Ink talks.#and gojo watching this go down...

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thebritishdragon · 5 months ago

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They just hate each other.

#lego monkie kid #my art #lmk fanart #ao jinhai #dushe jingshen #dragon #fanart #art #tbd art #lmk #Ping Coa #my lmk fanart

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docpiplup · 2 years ago

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More pics from Irati @asongofstarkandtargaryen

Eneko Ximenez at the battle of Roncesvalles/Orriaga

Kid Eneko Arizta

Belasko

Here's another pic from the filming. It's interesting because Eneko is wearing an amulet of a Eguzkilore.

The Eguzkilore: is a flower of the thistle Carlina acaulis, "the flower of the sun", named for the similarity of its shape with the sun.

According to basque mythology, Amalur, mother earth, created the Eguzkilore to protect humans from evil spirits. A thistle, which, located at the entrances of houses throughout the Basque Country, Navarra and other places of Aragon and Catalonia, symbolizes the sun during the hours of darkness, at night, thus preventing the entry of all evil beings.

This plant and its roots were essential during the plague epidemic that devastated the peninsula during the reign of Charlemagne. And it is that, according to what they say, the antibiotic properties of Eguzkilore helped to deal with this pandemic, hence its name, Carlina, from Charlemagne.

The Eguzkilore probably is going to be an important element of the film. In the Donosti Festival Edurne Azkarate is carrying a piece of wood with a Eguzkilore.

Probably Luxa or Irati gave Eneko a eguzkilore as a protection amulet.

Also the brooch of adult Eneko's outfit could be a reference to the Eguzkilore (idk the form reminds me of that) and the brooch also could be a reference to the coat of arms and the banner of the Kingdom of Navarra (and current COA of the community of Navarra), at least from the central part of the COA.

Pamplona/Navarra will not be a a kingdom until Sancho Garcés I in 905, but maybe this could be a symbol shown in the film, that in the film-universe would be recurrent and would derive into Navarra's banner.

One heraldy symbol related with Eneko is the cross of Eneko Arizta (A silver cross, kick pointed at its lower arm, located in a frank barracks, on a field of azure). It was used as part of the heraldy of Aragon (X), attributed to be Eneko's sigil, but probably that wasn't the case, and it could be a way of the Aragonese monarchs to reaffirm Eneko as their antecesor (although looking into the genealogy, the rulers of the Crown of Castile, Aragon, Portugal and even the Caliphate of Córdoba were descedants of Eneko). It has been used in Aragonese heraldy since Sancho Ramírez (ca. 1043–June 4, 1094), I of Aragon and V of Pamplona. This is his sigil (x).

There are some examples of personal sigils of some Aragonese kings with the cross: like the one from Peter IV (×), one of the sigils of Alfonso V and John II (X)(×) and one of the sigils of Ferdinand II (x)(X)

The cross of Eneko is also part of some coat of arms nowadays, like the shield of the community of Aragon (x) or the one from the Valencian Community (x).

In one of the covers of El Ciclo de Irati comics Eneko appears with a shield of an eagle (×) (in addition, the artwork of the eagle of the shield reminds me a bit of these Visigothic aquiliform fibulae from Alovera) it's similar to the sigil of Sancho VII of Navarra "the Strong" (Tudela, April 17, 1154 -Tudela, April 7, 1234), the last king of the Jimena dinasty in Navarra, his successor was his nephew, Theobald I "the Troubadour" (Troyes, May 30, 1201-Pamplona, July 8, 1253), son of Blanche of Navarra and count Theobald III of Champagne. The sigil of Sancho, a black eagle on a red field (×), is considered the primitive coat of arms of Navarra, but it was switched with the current carbuncle sigil.

Bonus track:

Sometimes in the Aragonese royal heraldy apart from the mantel with the cross of Eneko, ther was also the Royal Crest, that in Aragon was a dragon (×), or the old crest with a bat (x) and a black eagle for Sicily (×).

For the heraldy od Aragonese monarchs of Naples, the crest of the dragon was also used, for example the one from Alfonso V's bastard son, Ferdinand I of Naples (×)

The support may differ, for example Ferdinand II's sigil in his late years have two griffons as supports (×)

The royal crest of Navarra was the feathers of a peacock (×). For example, one of the sigils of John II of Aragon uses this crest (×), as king of Navarra. There's a contrast between the main sigil (x). Probably the two greyhounds have the helmet on their heads covering their eyes because for several years John was blind.

He suffered from cataracts, until on October 12, 1468, at the age of 70, he recovered his sight thanks to the Catalan Jewish surgeon Cresques Abnarrabí who operated the king on both eyes.

Apart from the Navarrese monarchs, John of Austria (Philip II's bastard brother) used a peacock feather crest in one of his sigils (×)

The royal crest of Castile was a lion and a castle (×) and there was an old one with a griffon (×). And the supports of the Castilian coat of arms were often two lions, like the heraldy of John II of Castile and Henry IV (×) or Isabella I (×)

The royal crest of Portugal was a dragon(×) and the supports of the COA were two green dragons (×)

During the Iberian union during the reigns of Philip II, Philip III and Philip IV (before Portugal became independent again) the coat of arms included the Royal crest of the Crown of Castile, Aragon and Portugal (×)

#irati #films #pics #costume design #eneko sagardoy #edurne azkarate #paul urkijo alijo #nerea torrijo #iñigo aranburu #kepa errasti #history #heraldy

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ketchhhaglendadelle · 2 months ago

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If you can invert Capri, say ...Reykjavik 3times quick

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countzeroor · 2 years ago

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Except, no, there's a reason why the OGL exists. John Nephew of Atlas Games got into it on Mastodon:

However, I'll summarize.

Yes, you don't have to have a license like the OGL to use game mechanics. Theoretically it doesn't need to exist. However, if you have bad actors in the roleplay field, they'll get litigious, and if you're a small company or sole proprietorship, it doesn't matter if the law is actually on your side, you can't fight long enough to win.

Take, for example, Mayfair Games. They put out a series of add-on modules for AD&D 2nd Edition called "Role-Aids". TSR sued them. Mayfair had the law on their side. TSR had more money, outlasted them, and ultimately forced them out of business and took ownership of the last Role Aids products.

A little later, Wizards of the Coast, then a brand new company, put out a product called "The Primal Order". It was meant to fit into a whole bunch of roleplaying systems, one of them being Palladium Fantasy Roleplaying. Palladium sued based on bad legal advice that said if people were allowed to make game materials that were interoperable with theirs, Palladium would lose ownership of their games and settings.

At that time, Palladium was, no joke, tied to be number 3 major RPG publisher with Steve Jackson Games (White Wolf was number 1, TSR number 2). Palladium nearly drove WotC to bankruptcy, forcing them to spin an upcoming game to a company called Garfield Games to protect it. Only the intervention of then-GAMA president Mike Pondsmith (the one whose name is in the opening credits of Cyberpunk Edgerunners), lead to a settlement that kept WotC alive and able to publish that game - Magic: the Gathering (and now you know... the rest of the story)

So all of that was very fresh in the minds of everyone who wrote the OGL, and agreed to use it.

Painting the people who made games with the OGL as suckers is, at it's most generous, ignorant of the history of tabletop gaming. At worst, it's condescendingly insulting.

I urge people to please read the Designers and Dragons books before saying crap like this. And yes, Mr. Doctorow, with all due respect, this is crap.

Good riddance to the Open Gaming License

Last week, Gizmodo’s Linda Codega caught a fantastic scoop — a leaked report of Hasbro’s plan to revoke the decades-old Open Gaming License, which subsidiary Wizards Of the Coast promulgated as an allegedly open sandbox for people seeking to extend, remix or improve Dungeons and Dragons:

https://gizmodo.com/dnd-wizards-of-the-coast-ogl-1-1-open-gaming-license-1849950634

The report set off a shitstorm among D&D fans and the broader TTRPG community — not just because it was evidence of yet more enshittification of D&D by a faceless corporate monopolist, but because Hasbro was seemingly poised to take back the commons that RPG players and designers had built over decades, having taken WOTC and the OGL at their word.

Gamers were right to be worried. Giant companies love to rugpull their fans, tempting them into a commons with lofty promises of a system that we will all have a stake in, using the fans for unpaid creative labor, then enclosing the fans’ work and selling it back to them. It’s a tale as old as CDDB and Disgracenote:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CDDB#History

(Disclosure: I am a long-serving volunteer board-member for MetaBrainz, which maintains MusicBrainz, a free, open, community-managed and transparent alternative to Gracenote, explicitly designed to resist the kind of commons-stealing enclosure that led to the CDDB debacle.)

https://musicbrainz.org/

Free/open licenses were invented specifically to prevent this kind of fuckery. First there was the GPL and its successor software licenses, then Creative Commons and its own successors. One important factor in these licenses: they contain the word “irrevocable.” That means that if you build on licensed content, you don’t have to worry about having the license yanked out from under you later. It’s rugproof.

Now, the OGL does not contain the word “irrevocable.” Rather, the OGL is “perpetual.” To a layperson, these two terms may seem interchangeable, but this is one of those fine lawerly distinctions that trip up normies all the time. In lawyerspeak, a “perpetual” license is one whose revocation doesn’t come automatically after a certain time (unlike, say, a one-year car-lease, which automatically terminates at the end of the year). Unless a license is “irrevocable,” the licensor can terminate it whenever they want to.

This is exactly the kind of thing that trips up people who roll their own licenses, and people who trust those licenses. The OGL predates the Creative Commons licenses, but it neatly illustrates the problem with letting corporate lawyers — rather than public-interest nonprofits — unleash “open” licenses on an unsuspecting, legally unsophisticated audience.

The perpetual/irrevocable switcheroo is the least of the problems with the OGL. As Rob Bodine— an actual lawyer, as well as a dice lawyer — wrote back in 2019, the OGL is a grossly defective instrument that is significantly worse than useless.

https://gsllcblog.com/2019/08/26/part3ogl/

The issue lies with what the OGL actually licenses. Decades of copyright maximalism has convinced millions of people that anything you can imagine is “intellectual property,” and that this is indistinguishable from real property, which means that no one can use it without your permission.

The copyrightpilling of the world sets people up for all kinds of scams, because copyright just doesn’t work like that. This wholly erroneous view of copyright grooms normies to be suckers for every sharp grifter who comes along promising that everything imaginable is property-in-waiting (remember SpiceDAO?):

https://onezero.medium.com/crypto-copyright-bdf24f48bf99

Copyright is a lot more complex than “anything you can imagine is your property and that means no one else can use it.” For starters, copyright draws a fundamental distinction between ideas and expression. Copyright does not apply to ideas — the idea, say, of elves and dwarves and such running around a dungeon, killing monsters. That is emphatically not copyrightable.

Copyright also doesn’t cover abstract systems or methods — like, say, a game whose dice-tables follow well-established mathematical formulae to create a “balanced” system for combat and adventuring. Anyone can make one of these, including by copying, improving or modifying an existing one that someone else made. That’s what “uncopyrightable” means.

Finally, there are the exceptions and limitations to copyright — things that you are allowed to do with copyrighted work, without first seeking permission from the creator or copyright’s proprietor. The best-known exception is US law is fair use, a complex doctrine that is often incorrectly characterized as turning on “four factors” that determine whether a use is fair or not.

In reality, the four factors are a starting point that courts are allowed and encouraged to consider when determining the fairness of a use, but some of the most consequential fair use cases in Supreme Court history flunk one, several, or even all of the four factors (for example, the Betamax decision that legalized VCRs in 1984, which fails all four).

Beyond fair use, there are other exceptions and limitations, like the di minimis exemption that allows for incidental uses of tiny fragments of copyrighted work without permission, even if those uses are not fair use. Copyright, in other words, is “fact-intensive,” and there are many ways you can legally use a copyrighted work without a license.

Which brings me back to the OGL, and what, specifically, it licenses. The OGL is a license that only grants you permission to use the things that WOTC can’t copyright — “the game mechanic [including] the methods, procedures, processes and routines.” In other words, the OGL gives you permission to use things you don’t need permission to use.

But maybe the OGL grants you permission to use more things, beyond those things you’re allowed to use anyway? Nope. The OGL specifically exempts:

Product and product line names, logos and identifying marks including trade dress; artifacts; creatures characters; stories, storylines, plots, thematic elements, dialogue, incidents, language, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, poses, concepts, themes and graphic, photographic and other visual or audio representations; names and descriptions of characters, spells, enchantments, personalities, teams, personas, likenesses and special abilities; places, locations, environments, creatures, equipment, magical or supernatural abilities or effects, logos, symbols, or graphic designs; and any other trademark or registered trademark…

Now, there are places where the uncopyrightable parts of D&D mingle with the copyrightable parts, and there’s a legal term for this: merger. Merger came up for gamers in 2018, when the provocateur Robert Hovden got the US Copyright Office to certify copyright in a Magic: The Gathering deck:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/14/angels-and-demons/#owning-culture

If you want to learn more about merger, you need to study up on Kregos and Eckes, which are beautifully explained in the “Open Intellectual Property Casebook,” a free resource created by Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle:

https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/openip/#q01

Jenkins and Boyle explicitly created their open casebook as an answer to another act of enclosure: a greedy textbook publisher cornered the market on IP textbook and charged every law student — and everyone curious about the law — $200 to learn about merger and other doctrines.

As EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kit Walsh writes in her must-read analysis of the OGL, this means “the only benefit that OGL offers, legally, is that you can copy verbatim some descriptions of some elements that otherwise might arguably rise to the level of copyrightability.”

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/01/beware-gifts-dragons-how-dds-open-gaming-license-may-have-become-trap-creators

But like I said, it’s not just that the OGL fails to give you rights — it actually takes away rights you already have to D&D. That’s because — as Walsh points out — fair use and the other copyright limitations and exceptions give you rights to use D&D content, but the OGL is a contract whereby you surrender those rights, promising only to use D&D stuff according to WOTC’s explicit wishes.

“For example, absent this agreement, you have a legal right to create a work using noncopyrightable elements of D&D or making fair use of copyrightable elements and to say that that work is compatible with Dungeons and Dragons. In many contexts you also have the right to use the logo to name the game (something called “nominative fair use” in trademark law). You can certainly use some of the language, concepts, themes, descriptions, and so forth. Accepting this license almost certainly means signing away rights to use these elements. Like Sauron’s rings of power, the gift of the OGL came with strings attached.”

And here’s where it starts to get interesting. Since the OGL launched in 2000, a huge proportion of game designers have agreed to its terms, tricked into signing away their rights. If Hasbro does go through with canceling the OGL, it will release those game designers from the shitty, deceptive OGL.

According to the leaks, the new OGL is even worse than the original versions — but you don’t have to take those terms! Notwithstanding the fact that the OGL says that “using…Open Game Content” means that you accede to the license terms, that is just not how contracts work.

Walsh: “Contracts require an offer, acceptance, and some kind of value in exchange, called ‘consideration.’ If you sell a game, you are inviting the reader to play it, full stop. Any additional obligations require more than a rote assertion.”

“For someone who wants to make a game that is similar mechanically to Dungeons and Dragons, and even announce that the game is compatible with Dungeons and Dragons, it has always been more advantageous as a matter of law to ignore the OGL.”

Walsh finishes her analysis by pointing to some good licenses, like the GPL and Creative Commons, “written to serve the interests of creative communities, rather than a corporation.” Many open communities — like the programmers who created GNU/Linux, or the music fans who created Musicbrainz, were formed after outrageous acts of enclosure by greedy corporations.

If you’re a game designer who was pissed off because the OGL was getting ganked — and if you’re even more pissed off now that you’ve discovered that the OGL was a piece of shit all along — there’s a lesson there. The OGL tricked a generation of designers into thinking they were building on a commons. They weren’t — but they could.

This is a great moment to start — or contribute to — real open gaming content, licensed under standard, universal licenses like Creative Commons. Rolling your own license has always been a bad idea, comparable to rolling your own encryption in the annals of ways-to-fuck-up-your-own-life-and-the-lives-of-many-others. There is an opportunity here — Hasbro unintentionally proved that gamers want to collaborate on shared gaming systems.

That’s the true lesson here: if you want a commons, you’re not alone. You’ve got company, like Kit Walsh herself, who happens to be a brilliant game-designer who won a Nebula Award for her game “Thirsty Sword Lesbians”:

https://evilhat.com/product/thirsty-sword-lesbians/

[Image ID: A remixed version of David Trampier’s ‘Eye of Moloch,’ the cover of the first edition of the AD&D Player’s Handbook. It has been altered so the title reads ‘Advanced Copyright Fuckery. Unclear on the Concept. That’s Just Not How Licenses Work. No, Seriously.’ The eyes of the idol have been replaced by D20s displaying a critical fail '1.’ Its chest bears another D20 whose showing face is a copyright symbol.]

#OGL #one dnd #tabletop gaming history #rpg history #osr #d20

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