#I would like I clarify that I am still trying to get through campaign 2

[captainsspnanon]

C2E64 - A Dangerous Chase - rewatch reaction

I think I’m ready for some journey to Bazzoxan tonight!  Definitely won’t get it finished, but ready to jump in.

(also I just bought a crap ton of dice.  I already have 10 sets.  I only play dnd once a month.  I am a full goblin at this point.  This was honestly one of the reasons that I was scared of getting into dnd, because I KNEW I would go goblin.  I tried not to for like, a year, and now I’ve given in.)

….So.  I also watch an Australian pokemon go youtuber, ProPlanty. …..I just want to know how he would react to this ad bit from Sam.

THAT’S a shirt that’s never been restocked!  Wonder what it looks like up close.

*removes a whole bunch of math in regards to locate object with the realization that the problem is not distance in dnd being bs, the problem is me and my failure to conceptualize any level of ‘higher’ math now that I’ve been out of school for ages.  I used to take calculus!  Now I use a calculator for everything.*  Well, one legit piece of info I did get is that when they sensed Obann at the edge of the 1000 ft spell, it would have taken one of them only just over 1.5 minutes to dash to get there.   ….wait.  *does more research*   World record for a 300 meter dash (which is 984 feet) is 30.81 seconds (Wayde van Niekerk from South Africa on June 28, 2017).   ….I am reminded of many posts online talking about how you really shouldn’t try to relate dnd to real life.  I am learning that lesson for myself.  (Beau with her movement of 45, using dash and step of the wind, would run 1000 feet in 44 seconds, so that’s at least

No I’m not going to continue that thought.  I am backing out of that tangent that ended up being useless and getting back into the episode.  I’m still only in the Last Time On!

For what it’s worth, I fully recognize that Laura and Taliesin both being in the black and yellow outfits means that I’ve seen clips or gifs from this episode for SOMETHING, but I can’t think of what it could be!

Ah, the discussion about “Orphanmaker”.  I still have quibbles with the reasons for the name, because it just plain confuses me.  I suppose it’s indicative of the attitudes of the tribe, that they give each other tough sounding names despite not living up to it, but it always ends up muddling how I feel about the name.  I also suppose that this is the point of the name though, that it ISN’T some narratively clear cut “Yasha earned the name through her actions with Obann but since she can’t remember it she doesn’t know how she got the name and thus how she would relate to being called it”. Instead it’s “Yasha was given the name by her tribe, basically just considered it a nickname/title, then actually ended up earning it under Obann which she doesn’t remember, which now adds a layer on to how she may feel or relate to the name once she knows about her past again”, which isn’t bad don’t get me wrong!  But it doesn’t slot easily into a story beat, which I guess is why I struggle with it at times (which says more about me than anything). To be fair, a reason for it may have been Ashley choosing the name to 1) sound badass and 2) give Matt something to play with during her amnesia times.  Does Ashley ever actually clarify out of campaign? (I also wish we knew what Zuala’s tribe name was.  As it is, I think we only ever know Orphanmaker and Skyspear?)

I love how Matt will present Option Safe and Option Cool and the group ALWAYS goes for Option Cool.  Travis’s delight at going through the Barbed Fields, the “ground zero of the calamity” is so palpable.  It also makes me even more happy that Travis was in the Calamity one-shot, he deserves it!  LOOK HOW EXCITED HE IS.

(I also love how Matt will sometimes take a joke and play it super straight – Sam asking Maruo if she’s seen Stranger Things and Maruo responding that she’s only seen half of the first season [hey me too], such a well balanced joke that throws everyone off)

Pike spoke Undercommon?  I did not know that!  Then again, I thought Yasha DID speak Undercommon.  No, critrolestats has her with just Common and Celestial.

Aw man, they never do get to Charis.  To be fair, I’m not surprised that Caleb doesn’t know what it is on a 26, I’m assuming it’s just a regular place in Xhorhas.  *looks at the wiki* Okay, a sweet little place, but not devastating that they didn’t get there.  Not worth a one-shot either.

I do love when this group is just all on different pages but all focused towards the same objective.  I think this is the most obvious moment of it playing out, with Maruo even referencing the mixed messages several times.  I don’t think any other group was this Messy, but it works when it’s the Nein.

I love the moorbounders so much!!  I think they’re about to lose them though, yeah?  Don’t they leave them in Bazzoxan and never get them back?  SAD TIMES.

I’m really glad that Ashley rolled high for Yasha to be able to share information about the Barbed Fields.  Because of where she’s from, she’s not really a PC created for infodumping, especially because the areas of Xhorhas that they have gone to are outside of her travels.  But being able to give a good chunk of info about the Barbed Fields has to feel good.

Ah, maybe this is the moment why I recognize the outfits?  Beau needing a short rest but refusing to ask for one, so Caleb immediately telling the group how weak he is and how much he needs a rest.  These two are SUCH a great pairing.

I don’t know if I remembered the joke before it happened, or if I just got it before they did it, but after Jester and Caduceus indicating to use spells at the end of the day, I did the little les mis singalong too XD

Ah no.  This is the Canon episode.  So far we’ve got “don’t shoot the messenger”, “don’t beat a dead horse”, and golf. Edit from later – and ravioli!

Slight spoilers for campaign 3, but I miss the sense of travel and exploration we have from C2, which doesn’t make SENSE because there IS travel and exploration in C3!  But for whatever reason, it doesn’t resonate as much with me like journeying through the Barbed Fields and stuff, and I have no clue why.

WAIT THIS IS WHERE YASHA GETS THE SKINGORGER???  I 100% forgot and thought Obann gave it to her!!  Maybe he only gives her the breastplate.

Fun fact!  I have no clue if this is just me or not, but I haven’t felt like any of Yasha’s swords actually FIT her, you know?  The Magician’s Judge, Skingorger, the Holy Avenger, Scaldsaber, they all SOUND cool AF, and apparently cleaver-style swords are her thing, but I dunno.  Maybe it’s because the fact that she did use so many swords that it ended up feeling like there wasn’t one that fit her well.  Unlike Fjord, where he has the falchion which just absorbs different characteristics, and then gains …. gains…. Hold on…. wiki help me….the Star Razor.  And both of those swords feel so strongly like they FIT, and the changeover has strong significance and character impact.  Whereas Yasha is just a little more like a videogame, swapping out one weapon for another when it’s better suited for it.  I suppose not everyone needs an Iconic Weapon though. How many weapons did Grog end up using?  Wiki shows EIGHT different weapons!  Plus just whatever normal axe he used at the beginning of the campaign which doesn’t even look like it’s on his wiki page so NINE?

For what it’s worth, cool combat!  Just not much to say.

Have I mentioned that I’m super mixed on the nickname Jessie for Jester?  Like, it’s a completely legit nickname that fully makes sense in context, and it’s cute that they all start having a nickname for her, so I do love that.  On the other hand, it’s just kind of a regular name?  Fjord, Yasha, Caduceus, Nott – all insanely unique names.  Beau/Beauregard?  Uncommon and rarely a female name.  Caleb is a normal enough name, but I feel like that 1) works with this concept, and 2) I mean, Bren Aldric Ermendrud is so not a normal typical name, and I feel like adding Widogast helps make it more unique.  And then “Jessie”.  *shrugs*  It’s a pretty stupid whine on my part, but it’s the bit of mixed feelings for the nickname.

Fjord giving Jester a kiss on the cheek, causing her ALL sorts of confusion!!  Honestly?  I’d love to know the out of game conversations that Laura and Travis had in regards to in game romance.  We know the bits said on Talks, but I’m assuming that those are exaggerated for humorous effect.  If I had to come up with and submit a question for the tower on 4SD, it would probably be ‘what is an example of some out of game conversations you have had with the other players or DM that you would feel comfortable sharing?’

Caleb uses Magic Missile more than I remember him doing so.  Then again, I think I underestimate this spell.  I remember being, not annoyed, but feeling like Matt wasn’t have Essek be super efficient during the Lucien fight when Essek just kept using Magic Missile. Probably just my own biases against the spell.  It IS automatic damage, no roll to hit or saving throw, so that is beneficial. Critrolestats says cast a total of 20 times, so it’s not like it was one of Caleb’s high use spells.  I think I think of it like Chromatic Orb – good for very early campaign and that’s all.  Can you tell I don’t play too much dnd yet?  (to be fair, also just played a druid, messing around a bit with a rogue now)

(looking at critrolestats, I’m sad that they didn’t track the spells that Essek did, but it makes sense because they don’t track NPC spells.  Essek is a PC in my heart, okay???)

I don’t know if this is the first time that Nott gets a nat 20 immediately followed by a nat 1 on the auto-firing, but I know it’s not the last!  I feel like this happens at LEAST three times.

Ooo, nice!  Obann name drop AND the Angel of Irons in the same questioning of the head!  Smart plays, good deception checks, and well picked questions.

I do wonder if this plot thread of the cult was always meant to be a sort of open closed plot revolving around Yasha, or if Matt has/had further ideas for Tharizdun.  It honestly could go either way.

I forgot that we got a canon reference to Marion’s agoraphobia before it actually came up for the party.  I like that!  I’d misremembered and thought that the party was the first time. Probably just the first time we clearly see it from her.

It’s very interesting seeing Caleb pushing so hard to stop Luc from being brought to the Chateau, because he’s so sure that Marion is now under suspicion.  Liam pushes it in many episodes, and while it’s discussed, it’s also discarded and Luc is still brought there.  In reality, it’s only in episode 128 that Marion is ever in danger, and it’s because of the break in at the sanatorium that the party do, nothing to do with the letter.

I love the games where they don’t want to stop playing and beg for more time.  This time it was an option!  But Laura needed to stop for health/baby reasons, and that takes priority.

[tinylittlealchemist]

My [redacted] is trying to make it though campaign 1 right now and needed someone to draw her a bear with armour

She drew the pikachu ears and did the colouring, I’m very proud of her @nicodranas-pastries

[utilitycaster]

would love to hear you elaborate on your updated Empathy domain thoughts!

So, Transfer Suffering sucks a little less...but not much. It's so crunchy, but like, in a way that makes combat harder to track.

Previously, I (and I think most people) understood the mechanic as this:

When you halve the damage of an attack as a reaction, you gain temp HP equal to your cleric level plus your WIS modifier. On your next turn, when you make an attack (I am still not sure if this must be a physical attack or if spells that require attack rolls count), if hit, you deal extra damage equal to your temp HP, which goes away and you've resolved the suffering. (well. you haven't resolved my suffering but you get what I mean.)

If you do not hit, on the turn following that, you take this damage yourself (ie, loss of the temp HP AND equal damage to your regular HP pool), resolving the suffering.

This episode clarified that alternatively, if you take damage such that you lose the temp HP normally through comabt you don't need to attack or take more damage.

This makes it a bit better in that instead of forcing you into attacking on your turn, you now can alternatively tank. However, this is still a problem, because you're now kind of acting like a barbarian (ie, to maintain something, you must hit or be hit) except you are also a cleric, so the things you need to do on your turn include not just "hit things with a big weapon" and "tank" but also "heal people". You also, unlike a barbarian, are tracking this potentially across 2 rounds of combat while also tracking who needs healing and potentially your sympathetic binding and whatever else is going on.

It's like if Taliesin were playing Caduceus and Ashton simultaneously as one character. It's immensely difficult and overcomplicated. I now understand the premise of it a bit better, and I appreciate that there's a way to try to maintain a reasonable cleric action economy...but it requires you take damage, thus putting the party at risk of losing their main healer.

In short: it's a mechanic based on constant gambles and calculated risks where there's no optimal choice. It requires a player who is exceptionally strong in combat in terms of both martial and casting strategies; enjoys tanking; and is extremely decisive. It also requires a lot of build choices that favor physical stats to actually make oneself into a viable tank and damage dealer (though again, this is less of an issue if spell attacks count...although clerics get no attack cantrips so that's going to burn spells, which means we're just uh, transferring the suffering into dealing with resource management). It also probably works best in a party with a significant secondary healer available.

My feelings on the class have therefore gone from "this should be incinerated in the dead of night and let us never speak of it again" to "It is exceptionally difficult and most players would not enjoy this but there are a handful who might see it as an interesting challenge, though I'd be shocked if anyone wanted to actually play it for a whole campaign unless they were themselves the secondary healer."

[jimines]

Whats actually happened between you and taemaknae? I read about it on the tea blog and still confused

This is an insanely long story so I'm going to put it below the cut so for anyone interested in this absolute shit show, continue on.

Essentially, I posted these headers about a month ago:

It was a set of like 8 colours and it was the first time I had ever posted any headers or anything. The issue nic had with these, was the ripped paper bottom. Because apparently you can trademark that. I had asked a (now ex) “friend” of mine if she knew where I could find the ripped paper effect because I had seen the effect on the header of her network blog and I had been trying to find a similar thing for months and google images never gave me anything good. She ended up referring me to google images anyways and after like an hour of dedicated searching, I found this ripped paper effect and used it. This ex “friend” went on to tell another friend of mine that I had "asked where nicole gets her resources for her headers" and then screenshotted my dm as "proof", which still confuses me because I never mentioned nicole there lmao. I've seen the screenshot.

Tell me where I said nicole. It was literally just a question born from seeing the header they had on their network lmao. I feel it’s important to mention I didn’t know this person ran said network at that time, which is why i said “these people”.

This other friend then came to me and just said my headers "may be seen as similar to nic's” and said she noticed it on her own and never mentioned my other “friend” approaching her. I was confused because other than that ripped paper effect that I know many people on tumblr use, I saw no similarities. Nic's headers are usually more complex and more than just a coloured background with a little effect in it. I just wanted to make some simple headers for fun because I was bored. But, regardless, I messaged nic about it to make sure she didn't feel the same way. I told her a friend of mine was worried nic might think my headers are similar to her's and I assured her that if she found them similar I would take them down, no questions asked. Nic told me she was surprised this friend brought it up and told me that it was entirely up to me if I found the headers similar. She never once told me she felt they were the same, never mentioned anything about them, she insisted it was up to me to do as I pleased. So, since I genuinely found no similarities, I left them up.

About a week went by and things between nic and I were fine, or so I thought, based off the fact that she was interacting with my posts, sending me cute asks and replying to a lot of my comments and stuff being kind and whatnot. Then, I decided to post a small list of my creations and the series I had running at the time. 

After that, all of a sudden I got an influx of rude hate anons:

To anyone I mentioned the anons to, they agreed with me, you cannot trademark circular icons. This anon also accused me saying “just the fact that you had an anxiety attack about it proves you copied them” Like no sweetie, it’s called three strangers walked into my house and I got anxious.

Despite me not seeing the issue, I messaged nic, assuming she wouldn't care about the icons (it wasn't like I was taking her exact work and copying and pasting them as my own) and that made her very upset. When she responded to me, she was incredibly heated and gave off the vibe she was waiting for me to message her about it. 

She said things like "this has actually been bothering me for a while", "i expected you to be able to read between the lines and delete the headers", "i don't know who that anon was but clearly they recognize my style". For starters, she never told me that she was annoyed with me, she was being very kind to me publicly. And I have no idea how I was meant to “read between the lines” of what she said especially considering how kind she was to me the following days. I also never accused her of knowing this anon, she just insisted it wasn't her and she didn't know them right off the bat. She also insinuated that I copied my gifs from others as well, which ticked me off because I made my 100+ layer psd myself thank you very much. But I kept my cool, and I told her I had no idea she felt the way she did, and I told her I would delete the headers (which i did as the conversation was going on), and that I would stop posting my icons and bringing attention to them because no one ever paid it any mind before that point. And I asked her “please tell me straight up the next time you have an issue with me because I am generally pretty dumb with social cues”, I have my adhd to thank for that. And instead of replying, she just blocked me. And conveniently, the hate anons stopped dead right after we blocked each other and I haven't received any since.

Also, these are the kinds of icons I posted:

Looks pretty generic and idk, universal, right?

Then, as I've recently found out today, she was in an "anti-loverjimin" groupchat with at least 2 other bloggers. 

Which explains why this all went and fell into place. I know who the two other bloggers are because of what happened two days later but I won't name them just yet, but these two people had been "friends" with me for several months. So, a day or two after nic blocked me, all of a sudden some good friends of mine were blocking me and not talking to me when I asked what was going on. I found out soon after it was because nicole and those two now ex “friends” of mine had taken old dms I sent them and were showing them to people. And I will go into detail about them but I won't name the people they are about for privacy reasons.

Before I move on, to clarify some lies nic has been spreading about me, I never once shit talked nicole to my friends. One of these ex friends also said I was trying to get people on my side. I would have reacted to this all very very differently if that were the case. I would be dragging everyone through the fucking dirt but I don't get off on drama or micromanaging what my mutuals do. My issues are with these people, if you're still friends with them that's your decision i could not care less. So, back to it, the only thing I said about nic was that she and I had a stupid small fight over icons and that she was spreading lies about me, based off of what nic said to jordan.

That exact message, or slight variations of it, was sent to anyone I interacted with because I didn't know if nic was going to stop at jordan or try and get to everyone I fucking knew lmao. Some of the people I messaged this to told ME nic had done this kind of thing before, that she has sent hate anons, launched hate campaigns, cancelled people, etc. Over stupid shit like icons lmao.

Here are some responses I received after I mentioned nicole:

And nic or one of her friends also took it upon themselves to send anons to that tea blog to blow shit up and named everyone and made it an even bigger mess when they saw no one was actively trying to fight me after the dms got out. 

I also love that in this following ask, they named my two “friends” that were behind the whole dm drama and backstabbed me, as well as two other people I never badmouthed, that story was twisted. But we’ll get into those details shortly.

And she also told people I clout chased big blogs and only cared about notes. At one point, yes, I did care a lot about my statistics. However, never once did I think clout chasing was worth my fucking time or energy, Nic is the biggest clout chaser on this damn site and there are receipts of that, ask jordan lmao. And I couldn’t give two shits about my statistics anymore lmao, much less anxiety that way. Do I still crave validation sometimes? Sure. But it's not a driving force of my tumblr experience like it used to be.

But, moving on to the dms, the first one was sent when I first came back to tumblr full-time and didn't understand why people self reblogged things, I found the pretence of self reblogging annoying and greedy and I complained about it and it was a comment fuelled by two bloggers that i would see sr a lot on my dash. But I never thought THEY were annoying, as these people are saying I did, it was self reblogging I found annoying and as you can see I have come to understand why people sr and I do it myself too. I didn't even know these two bloggers at this time either. That dm was cropped to hide the fact that this "friend" agreed with me and hid the date as well so it seemed recent, and was sent to one of the bloggers I mentioned as an example, someone I had since become good friends with. 

I didn’t befriend one of the people I mentioned there until mid to late June. That friendship is now over thanks to this drama and all the lies. The second friend of mine they went after was never spoken about in dms, they went and turned her against me through lies and manipulation so that friendship has ended too. And while those two were doing that, nic went off to try and turn jordan against me.

There was a particular user on here that I did say some nasty things about but we weren't friends, as many people have been made to believe. I was particularly mad at this person in those dms and was hurtful, I admit, and I have since apologized and owned up to all of it to these people. I did call them fake and/or two-faced. 

And what in the gassing me up bullshit was their response though lmao. I also sent this following dm before I even talked about the issue with this person. They urged me to continue and to name drop the person, and I stupidly thought they were trustworthy.

My reasoning for what I said wasn't unwarranted though, I don't make a habit of going around shit-talking people, unless they do something to me first. I vent when I am upset and this person had sent me a passive aggressive ask and then denied sending it when I asked and I thought that was just very fake, especially since she was so kind to me in dms before the ask came in. But all of these dms were cropped too to hide timestamps and responses, and in most cases, like those screenshots prove, these "friends" either gassed me up or egged me on to continue ranting or to name the people i was mad at and they had agreed with me on several, several occasions. Turns out they were trying to get dirt on me to use in their cancel campaign. But the point is, nic has made me out to be this horrible person that befriends "big blogs" (an overrated statement) and then shit talks them behind their back without remorse. Yet it was one person I said rude things about and I, again, owned up to it all and apologized to them the first day. I would've done it sooner had I a) remembered feeling the way I did all those months ago or remembered the dms themselves or b) felt that way still after meeting them. But neither is the case.

I find it really amusing though that these people wanted things to be kept quiet and didn’t want anyone they spoke to to talk to me about it because I was going to “out them on my blog” and “make a big scene”, then they three went and made it a big fucking scene and ruined my friendships. I’m familiar with this pattern of manipulation as it has happened to me in real life before and it’s the most childish bullshit to witness.

Before this callout day for nic, I had never once been directly rude to or about her, same goes for those ex “friends” that betrayed my trust and friendship. The fact that they plotted against me in a group chat while still actively talking to me and being all buddy buddy is just disgusting. Both of them were talking to me that day at the same time they were sharing the dms and shit-talking me to my friends. But yeah, that's my side, the untwisted side, of the whole story. I tried to be mature and talk to nic and when I didn't do what she wanted me to do, she blocked me and launched the hate campaign with dms and the power of photoshop. I’ve been hesitant to make any of this public because it was meant to be a silent ordeal but I’ve grown tired of her constantly publicizing everything without consequence while I remain silent like I promised.

[boltwrites]

Misfits - Chapter 2

Fandom: Star Wars - Clone Wars / The Bad Batch Pairing: The Bad Batch / Reader (Polyamorous) Rating: M (Rating May Change) Tags: Polyamorous Relationship, Force-Sensitive Reader, Slow Burn

Work Summary: After a year working with the 501st, you've been assigned a new post - Clone Force 99, aka the Bad Batch. You're concerned about the transition - you found it hard enough to fit in with the 501st, and now you had to acclimate to an entirely new squad. As it turns out, the Bad Batch is very accommodating.

Chapter Summary:  You're started to settle in with the Bad Batch. Introductions are in order, but one in particular leads down a path you never expected.

read it on ao3 | or read more below

You had said goodbye to Rex only a few minutes prior. He had wrapped you in a tight hug and told you not to get into too much trouble, and you had to try really, really hard not to start crying in front of your new squad. He’d waved as you entered their transport, and instead of dwelling on those emotions – loss, sadness, anxiety – you’d pushed them to the back of your mind. You learned long ago that acting as if they didn’t exist wouldn’t help anything, but right now, you needed to compartmentalize. You hardly knew these men, and you didn’t want to freak them out by sobbing about leaving your best friend behind.

The men in question had since been introduced to you by Hunter. The tall, slender clone who liked to lean against the side of the ship like some half-baked deathstick dealer was Crosshair, a sharpshooter and sniper. You probably should have figured that, judging by the tattoo that encircled his eye. When Hunter introduced you, he had made a noncommittal noise, looked you up and down, and then decided you weren’t very interesting, instead walking his way back to the cockpit. You hoped he was just antisocial, and didn’t hate nat borns, or women, or something.

The big burly one was Wrecker, who had wasted no time in offering you a big smile and a firm clap on the back. Honestly, you thought he was going to hug you – and maybe he was, and then he thought better of it.

“You’re our new Jedi, huh?” he had asked with a broad smile? You offered him a somewhat hesitant one back – he was intimidating, after all. He was broad and muscular like you had never seen on a clone before, and the large scar that encompassed half of his forehead and a good portion of his scalp was distracting. It made him look hardened and dangerous, but with his jovial tone, you soon found out he was anything but menacing.

“Yeah, guess I am?” you answered with a nervous laugh.

“She’s a force-sensitive, Wreck, not a Jedi. She doesn’t answer to the Council.” Hunter had clarified. You were somewhat shocked that he cared about the difference – but, then again, he had seemed pleased that you weren’t a part of the Order, likely because it meant you had less rules to follow.

“Oh, yeah!” Wrecker had grinned, clapping you on both shoulders now, as he leaned down to grin at you. You had laughed a little harder, because you were starting to see now, by both his force signature and in his voice, that he was really just a big goofball. “I never liked the Jedi anyway!”

“Weren’t you just expressing how excited you were for ‘our new Jedi?’”

That had come from the one with the glasses – er, goggles? You weren’t exactly sure what they were, or if he needed them for his bad eyesight or just tactical reasons. Either way, he adjusted him on his face as Hunter introduced him as Tech. It wasn’t difficult to figure out what his specialty was – much like it was easy to deduce that Wrecker liked to punch things in addition to blowing things up. Tech, of course, handled a lot of technical issues and data – but you were actually shocked at the fact that he wasn’t, well… tiny.

Tech was taller than Hunter, and even Rex, as he peered down at you through his glasses. He took your hand and shook it – you could tell just by his grip that he was used to intricate work – robotics, droid work, rewiring datapads – fiddly things that required a steady hand. You had nodded politely to him as he greeted you.

The last member of the team, and perhaps the most elusive, was Echo. He was paler than the others, and studded with prosthetics – most prominently, the jack that his hand had been substituted with. He had an aura about him in the force that spoke of pain – not the pain of war that the rest of the squad exuded, no. This was a deeper pain, something profound and lasting, and you had a feeling it had to do with that arm, and the bolts in his skull, and the way his cheekbones still looked sharper than that of even Crosshair.

“You’re from the 501st?” he had asked, after Hunter had led you to the cockpit and left to look at something in Tech’s travel plans for the route to their next mission. You were alone, but Echo still gazed out the front of the transport into hyperspace, his flesh hand fiddling with the textured armrest of the captain’s chair.

“Yeah – I’ve worked with them for the past year, most of the time. I get contracted out from the unit to do a lot of stealth work that the Jedi obviously can’t be pulled for. Stuff like this, I guess,” you shrugged. Echo had hummed in acknowledgement, glancing at you, almost curious.

“Were you with the 501st when Captain Rex last worked with… Clone Force 99?”

The wording was strange. Rex had mentioned to your that this squad usually referred to themselves as “the Bad Batch” due to their mutations. But Echo was more cautious – he almost hesitated on the name. His force signature didn’t give away much more – it only told you that he was being careful with his words, that he didn’t trust you quite yet. Which, honestly, was to be expected.

“No. Anaxes, right?” Echo nodded, and you shook your head. “No – I was on a stealth mission. Well, I guess it couldn’t really be called a stealth mission… I was working with a pirate named Hondo Onaka. Think I might have rather been on Anaxes.”

You chuckled, trying to make light of it. You knew Anaxes has been a mess, and honestly you had felt horrible leaving behind the 501st in order to take on what you considered a useless political mission. You knew the campaign had been long, grueling, and complicated, and you always felt guilty when you weren’t by Rex and Anakin’s side to help with something so important.

“Ah,” Echo made a soft noise, picking at some scoring marks on his socket arm. You bit your lip at the awkwardness that permeated the room, the conversation stagnating at Echo dwelled on… something.

“I used to be a part of the 501st,” he finally admitted, glancing up at you. His eyes said more than his lips – there was sadness, there. It was hidden behind his soldier’s veneer of indifference, but you could tell by the way he looked at you that his transfer to Bad Batch hadn’t been as straightforward as your own.

“Yeah?” you asked, sitting down in the co-pilot’s chair next to him. He nodded, sighing, relaxing into the chair before shooting you a glance.

“Yeah. Made ARC trooper at one point. Me and Fives – me and Fives.”

His eyes had gleamed the first time he said it – but as he repeated Fives, his face fell, and your own did as well, your first clenching.

“Oh,” you breathed, and he glanced at you, ducking down to try to make out your expression.

“You knew him?”

“He talked about you – I had – I’m stupid,” you laughed, trying not to think about Fives. You hadn’t known him or Tup long before the incident, but Fives had showed you the ropes, along with Rex. You got along with him easily – he had been funny, and kind, and if he tried to flirt with you a few times you just put it up to you being the only woman available.

You remembered him talking briefly about Echo – he had only mentioned Echo once, with gritted teeth and a set jaw, mumbling something about a previous mission, and how he and a fellow ARC trooper had handled the situation. You could tell that it pained him to mention his comrade – that this Echo had likely died – and you didn’t press the subject. You knew, even then, that Fives didn’t deal well with loss. Ironic, then, how he was the one to cause so die, to cause the grief himself.

“I worked with him, before…” you gestured vaguely, and Echo nodded, not wanting you to mention Fives’s death himself.

“He thought I died at the Citadel. Everyone did,” Echo sighed, staring out at the hyperspace lane. “Maybe I did.”

You stared at him. In the force, his emotions were a tangled mess – grief, both for Fives and himself. Pain – not only physical, but emotional, spiritual. You couldn’t fathom what happened to him – you could look at this physical evidence of his cybernetic appendages, more similar to those of a droid than any prosthetics you had seen before. You could see the pallor in his face, the way his cheekbones jut from his face, how he had squinted far too severely in the light of the Coruscanti sun. He had been through something that you couldn’t fathom, something you would never truly understand, even if he did wish to explain it to you.

But despite that, you could still feel him in the force. When he spoke of Fives – the way his signature sparked let you know that he didn’t just know Fives. You could tell they had worked together for years, that they had likely grown up together. The rest of the Batch – their signatures sang in harmony because they had grown up together, because they had known each other for many years. And you initially hadn’t caught onto Echo’s dissonance – the way that he was trying to fit in with them, but how he didn’t fit in quite as easily as the other men. And now you knew why. It was because, while he had changed, he still held onto those bonds. Rex, Fives, the rest of the 501st – even though whatever Echo had endured, those were still his brothers.

“Not completely,” you mumbled, looking down. You could feel Echo’s eyes on you, so you sighed and continued. “You – you still care about them. Those men. They may not be your men anymore – and I guess they aren’t mine, either – but you care for them. That has to count for something.”

When you looked up, Echo caught your eye. His expression was unreadable, and his signature betrayed nothing. He was hard to read already – the cybernetics clouded your judgement – but you could tell that he didn’t exactly know what he thought of your statement.

“Yeah. Maybe it does,” Echo mumbled to himself, staring out across hyperspace, as stars flew by, exploding behind his eyes as he contemplated his place among them.

After that, the silence wasn’t quite so awkward. It was comforting, almost. You knew that it wasn’t the same – that although you and Echo were both former members of the 501st, that the circumstances were wildly different. But you still felt a kinship with him. Because he still knew Anakin, and Rex, and Fives, and Jesse, and Kix, and all the others. Because he probably played the same drinking games you had with the men, he had fought beside them as you did, and he had watched them die, as you had. You knew he wasn’t ready to talk, and perhaps he never would be. But if he ever was, you would be ready to listen.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

taglist (get added!)

@killtherandomness @pastelpanda19

[thorne93]

The Softest Fire (Part 2)

Prompt: Rosaline Vaughan had it all: fame, money, power, glory, a high status job. Until, one day, she woke up, and realized something was missing from her life.

Word Count: 5413

Warnings: dealing with animals(??)

Notes: First Fantastic Beast fic! I could NOT have done this at all without @arrow-guy​​. They have created a counterpart to this fic, writing it from Nora Vaughan’s perspective (Rosaline’s cousin/adopted sister). Fic aesthetic done by @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​​.

Newt had dropped by my flat less than twenty-four hours after my imposed visited. 

“Rosaline,” he had begun, “my work is… well in some ways similar to what you do and in other ways it is quite opposite.”

“You mean how you deal with animals?” 

“Yes and no,” he responded, his head dipping in that shy, insecure way. “In your line of work, you deal with uncertain circumstances that must be dealt with quickly. The same is true for mine. But in your line of work, the target of your attacks are defending themselves against the law. My targets are defending themselves against us. You’ll have to learn the difference. The creatures I find, help, and study are just living in their habitat, trying to live, mate, eat… They don’t pose a threat to you, until you pose a threat to them.” 

I nodded. “Of course, Newt. I’d never hurt any creature.”

“No, of course, I know that. I just want you to have an idea of what you’ll be dealing with before I offer you the job. Also, your um, ensemble?” He eyed me up and down. I wore a blush pink satin dress with a dress over coat. 

“What’s wrong with my dress?” I wondered. 

“Nothing. If you’re sitting in an office. In the wild though, where we will be most of the time, or taking care of the creatures, it might be a bit more sensible if you dressed in trousers.” 

“Trousers?” I questioned, nearly as if I were offended. I couldn’t help it. I’d never worn trousers a day in my life. 

“If that’s a problem, Rosaline, I understand--”

“No, I don’t mind. Anything to get this job.” 

He gave you a twitch of a smile before telling me, “Then I’m pleased to say you have the job. I just hope it doesn’t bore you.” 

“I’m sure nothing we do together will bore me, Newt. Thank you so much for this opportunity.” 

------------------------

“I’m sorry… You’re what?” Mr. Briggs, my immediate boss asked, confusion and surprise on his face.

With a polite, confident grin, I reiterated, “I’m leaving. Two weeks notice should be enough, correct?” 

“Well… I… I suppose we can fill your spot in that time and have you train another recruit but--but why? Would you like to be put up for head of auror office?” 

I laughed at the offer. Not because it wasn’t a good one, but the fact that they were trying desperately to keep me was rather amusing. I shook my head and quietly replied, “No, thank you. That’s Theseus Scamander’s department, isn’t it?”

My boss shuffled awkwardly in his seat. I could practically sense the sweat soaking through his black and white pinstripe suit. “Well yes, but, we could relocate him.”

I waved my hand, dismissing him. “No, no, that won’t be necessary. I wish to leave the Ministry altogether,” I clarified.

“But… you’re campaigning to become Minister… What ever changed?” 

“I… I don’t know,” I stated. This wasn’t a lie. I don’t know what changed. I just knew my heart no longer lied there. 

“Well I can’t say I’m not sad to see you leave… But I support your decision, Rosaline. You have been nothing but an asset and a friend since you got here. I wish you all the best and you can expect a glowing reference from me, should you need one. I’ll start looking for a candidate to take your position, if you don’t mind helping to train them.”

“Not at all. I’d be delighted to help someone out.” 

--------------

Just like that, my time at the Ministry was over. In two weeks, I had trained another recruit who was still green, but promising. Newt was going to leave a week after my interview, but seeing as I needed time to exit my career gracefully, he agreed to staying behind until I was ready. 

It was odd. I thought it’d feel bittersweet, or that I may even have felt guilty for leaving, but somehow… it felt perfectly right. The transition felt natural, like a stepping stone. Most would say going from a Hit Witch to a magizoologist’s assistant might be a step in the wrong direction, but not for me. 

Life, as I knew it, would be different. No more heels, no more skirts, no more hair pinned neatly into a fitted hat. I would have to learn how to style myself to chase down and follow mysterious creatures all over the globe. 

My next step after finishing my last day on the job was to see Newt for my first day of work. For the first time ever in my life, I was nervous. I had no idea what to expect, what I might see, what I might work with. My love for animals runs deep, but I was still worried that I may encounter some creature I’d never seen or didn’t know how to handle. 

I arrived at Newt’s flat, knocked twice, and heard nothing. I knocked again, still nothing. I checked the door, it was open. Slowly opening the door, I peeked my head in. “Newt? Newt? It’s Rosaline,” I called. 

I heard nothing back, so I eased inside his quaint dwelling a bit more. I heard nothing, saw nothing, but I didn’t feel worried. I went into the front room, calling out again. 

Finally, I heard a noise coming out of the kitchen, so I followed my ears. This led me to a door half open that seemed to lead down some stairs. My feet carried me down, and my eyes beheld something absolutely wonderful. Creatures of all kinds in their natural habitats, seemingly eating or frolocking. 

“Newt?” I said, a little curious as I watched him run back and forth between his suitcase and some of the creatures’ areas. 

“Ah!” He looked up at me, a smile on his face. “You’re here! Just in time.”

“Yes, sorry, I knocked but--”

“We have no time to waste. Alright. I’m taking the nifflers, the murtlap, the demiguise…”

“You’re packing your animals with you?” I questioned, a bit of knowing in my voice. It was mostly rhetorical.

“Of course,” he stated. “I need you to join me to help study and rescue them. We can’t leave them here, no one could care for them.”

“Nora?” I suggested.

“She’s much too busy. Besides, we only have thirty or so creatures,” he stated. “They’ll all fit nicely in here. Now, could you help me with murtlap? I need to catch the little bugger and he’s in this pond here. He’s fast, and he bites so... be careful, hmm?” 

I peered at him, worry on my face. “Um, alright.” I took a deep breath. I’ve fought some of the most vicious wizards and most powerful beings out there. I could handle a little murtlap. 

I bent over the edge of a small pond and reached my arms down into the cold waters, soaking my coat sleeves. Suddenly, something soft, almost squishy, slithered around my fingers. I gasped at the sensation and tried to grab it gently. I lift the fat little thing out of the water. “Here you go,” I said to Newt, holding it out for him to sort it into his suitcase.

Newt was preoccupied with giant dung beetles before the last one went in and he looked up and a look of utter shock befell his face. “You...you’re just holding him?”

I shrugged. “Am I not supposed to be?”

“They’re… usually rather wild.”

I looked around, unsure what to say. “Maybe he’s tired?”

He nodded, not exactly satisfied with that answer but he grabbed him by the tail and lowered him into the suitcase. 

“Alright. I think that’s the last of them. Well, shall we go then?” he asked once he shut the lid on his suitcase and snapped it shut.

“Yes, my suitcase is all packed and ready to go,” I informed, politely. “Where is our first stop?”

“Moscow,” he responded.

“What’s there?” I questioned. 

“I have it on good authority there are some mooncalves there.”

“Mooncalves, hmm?”

“Yes, I’ll tell you all about them on the train. We should get going.”

“Right, yes, lead the way, sir.”

Newt stopped in his tracks to turn to me and laugh slightly. “Rosaline, we were at school together. We practically grew up together. Don’t call me sir, please. Theseus is a sir, I’m merely… Newt.”

I nodded, a small grin touching my lips. “Yes… Newt.” I bobbed my head, trying to wrap my mind around not being so formal. For Nora I’m sure this came as easy as breathing but for me, my straight laced, straight arrow life. I was by the book, I practically wrote the book on rules. The idea of working informally, with anyone, went against my very nature.

But, if I wanted to leave behind the life of idle, boring, strict, repetitiveness, I needed to embrace this way of life. I only hoped Newt would be patient with me, and help me with that.

------------------------------

“So what is our mission?” I asked sitting on the train.

“Our mission?” Newt questioned with a slight frown. “Oh, you mean, why are we doing this?”

“Mhm.”

“I’ve been commissioned to write a book about beasts all over the world.”

“I see… Why?”

“Because some people, myself included, believe that creatures should be protected and are merely misunderstood. It’s my job, well, now it’s our job, to find these creatures, study them, and learn everything we can about them. If we’re more informed, then we maybe we can save some, and the people in the wizarding world won’t be as quick to exterminate innocent animals.”

“I like that idea. Have you already started writing?”

He shook his head, pressing his lips together. “No, no, not yet. But I have many notes. I would really like us to explore all of the world before compiling the book. That comes at the end, after I’ve seen everything I can.” 

“Sounds like quite the adventure. I’m glad you have this opportunity, Newt,” I state happily, reaching across the car and squeezing his hand quickly. 

“As am I. It will help to have you here, too.”

The journey went rather peacefully. Newt informed me that he would like me to take notes on our discoveries and that we may come across creatures that may need to be rescued. Those who we rescued may need more help than others. It would partly be my responsibility to clean, feed, and care for them.

Newt’s informant ended up being correct. We did find mooncalves. 

“Go ahead and approach them,” Newt encouraged as we stood several feet away, watching the small herd huddle in an open field.

I spun to face him, bewilderment on my face. “You want me to walk up to them? I thought I was only here to dictate notes and only assist when needed!” Panic began to settle over my body. Loving animals and interacting with them in the wild were two different things. 

“Rosaline, you’ll be perfectly fine,” he assured. “Mooncalves are very docile. I really need you to be comfortable with animals. Many times they may end up being your responsibility so I’d like you to gain their trust early on.” 

I nodded in understanding. That was fair. I wasn’t sure why I assumed I wouldn’t ever need to interact with them this way. 

Tentatively, I stepped forward, my hand up and outstretched as I moved closer to the herd. At first, they didn’t notice me, but when I closed half the distance between us, they glanced up, startled and started to back away. I immediately withdrew my hand and took a step back so they would know I wasn’t trying to hurt them. 

I looked back to Newt who was observing diligently. He bobbed his head a few times for encouragement. Taking a breath, I tried again, crouching ever so slightly, moving closer again, but again the herd backed away. I screwed my mouth to the side and remained planted, hoping they would come to me. 

But they merely stood there, watching me. It was a stalemate. I wasn’t moving closer and neither were they. We sat watching each other for thirty seconds or so before Newt approached me from behind, a satchel on his side and he pulled out something. 

“Here, try this.” He poured the food in my hand and then placed his hand under mine, crouching even lower to the ground to where we were walking along in a crouch. The mooncalves must’ve gotten a whiff of whatever was in my hands because they slowly stepped towards us. “There we go. That’s it. See, these are babies… I wonder where their mother is…”

Then suddenly, they were right before us, eating out of my hand as Newt stayed beside me, assuring me that it was okay. 

“See? They’re perfectly safe. They’re kind creatures. You stay here and feed them, I’ll look for the mother.” 

In the end, their mother was nowhere to be found, so Newt brought them along with us. We cared for them and studied them. Soon they were old enough and strong enough to be released back into the wild.

--------------------------------

Our next time catching a creature, I merely watched. The creature was known to be more tempestuous than others, so Newt felt it was best he tried to call it over. And he was quite right. Watching him work was a treat. He not only knew exactly what to do, he also enjoyed it. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen. 

Back at the ministry, I worked with people who were good at their job day in and day out, it was nothing new. But with Newt, he got nothing but pure joy from it and displayed nothing but absolute compassion for these creatures. This wasn’t work for him, it was so much more. It was what he loved doing, he just happened to get paid for it. And paid for it, he should be, because he was the most dedicated person for the job.

He was absolutely brilliant. His knowledge of creatures was boundless and he taught me everything he knew.  When he taught, it didn’t even feel like I was forced to sit and listen to something I didn’t want to know. He made it incredibly interesting. I’d been taught by some world renowned masters in wizardry, and their lessons paled in comparison to his. I looked forward to waking up and getting out in the field every day.

We fell into a pattern. We set out for a new location, and he spent most of the  journey explaining everything about the creature to me. What they ate, if they were typically skittish, if they were harmful or poisonous or venomous in any way. I kept detailed notes and reviewed them at night when he’d fallen asleep.

Before either of us really knew it, I was becoming a natural. By my third trip, we were in Venice, Italy where we ran into a small cluster of bowtruckles. Sweet, little creatures, and I took to them instantly. Of course, creatures like these aren’t threatening or hard in the slightest, but I was falling into an easy regiment of helping these animals.  

In fact, Newt and I took turns all the time feeding all of the creatures in his suitcase, and often took turns in nature approaching them.

Watching Newt work had to be the most enchanting thing I’d ever witnessed. He made a complete ass of himself, but it was for the greater good. Maybe he did roll around to get Graphorns to trust him, or he made himself look and sound like a bird so that a Fwooper would come near him, or he would jump into freezing waters to take notes or rescue an animal tangled in seaweed. He truly was magical, and not in the sense of being a wizard. There was this purity, this innocence about him that I’d never seen in anyone before.

I believe it was when we got Frank that I really understood just how deep his love for creatures ran. We were looking for something entirely different, when we ran into some shady people who said they had a Thunderbird. Newt, being the genius he is, knew that Thunderbirds were native to the United States, Arizona mainly… 

“I’ll give you one-hundred galleons for this bird,” Newt offered frantically to a group of five wizards as we sat in a sand filled shack outside of Egypt. 

“This bird is very rare, very rare indeed… One-hundred is a joke,” the man leading the negotiation stated. 

“Three-hundred,” he proposed.

I watched intensely. The other four wizards seemed… on edge. I had a strong feeling no matter how much gold we gave these cretins, they weren’t handing this bird over, ever. Maybe it was my time as a Hit Witch, but I could smell something dirty going on. 

“Eight, and we may have a deal, and I may let you walk out of here alive,” the man stated darkly, his eyes only on Newt.

“Newt,” I calmly said from behind him, “get the bird.”

He started to object. “I--”

“Get…the bird,” I repeated, staring the traffickers down.

“You don’t touch that bird!” the man shouted, jumping to his feet as the four wizards behind him drew their wands. “Expelliarmus!” he yelled, pointing at my wand, already drawn, but I was waiting for the attack, deflecting it easily.

“Stupefy!” I retaliated to two men in the back, throwing a Petrificus Totalus spell on the other two. Lastly, pointing my wand at the man who tried the expelliarmus curse on us. “Forget us, forget that we ever came, and I’ll let you live a meaningless existence.”

“Why don’t you just obliviate me?” he challenged, his body shaking with anger. “Wouldn’t that be easier?” 

“No, because if I hear that you’re still trafficking, then I want you to remember my face. Because if you see it again, you will know your life is about to become a living hell. Do I make myself clear?”

He gulped and nodded, fear in his eyes.

“Now, my friend is going to take this Thunderbird, and you’re going to stay right where you are, unless you want to spend the next hour under crucio.”

His eyes watched as Newt unchained the creature, before coaxing him into his suitcase.

“So lovely doing business with you,” I said mockingly before I grabbed Newt’s arm and apparated away. We ended up on top of one of the pyramids of Giza.

Newt sat his suitcase down and looked at me for a moment before wrapping me in an embrace.

“How… That was very impressive, Rosaline.”

I tucked my wand back into my sleeve. “Well I’m nothing if not a good bodyguard.”

“I can handle myself.”

I nodded. “I know you can. But you needed to focus on freeing that poor creature. Leave the head-cracking to me.” I winked.

“That was incredible. Why did you do that? Why didn’t you just let me pay them?”

“You shouldn’t have to pay for an animal that’s illegally being sold. That poor bird doesn’t deserve that. Animal cruelty really irritates me. If crucio weren’t illegal, I’d not bat an eye at using it on miserable souls like him.” 

“That’s oddly comforting,” he said with a smile. “Well, shall we get some dinner?”

“Yes,” I responded, grinning, holding out my arm for him to take it. 

After that, it seemed as though being around each other was as easy as breathing. Before that, there was almost this invisible force keeping us divided. Nora practically treated Newt like a little brother. The two of them always working, joking, teasing each other. But I felt as though with him, for the first few months of working together, we were disconnected. A boss - employee relationship, or barely- more-than-acquaintances relationship. 

But that… the moment we rescued Frank together… I knew we were a great team, and Newt seemed to finally trust that I really was in this for the long haul. It didn’t take long at all to see why Nora had become very close to him. 

From there, our work together didn’t feel anything like work.

How could it when we saw the sun set in Paris together, watching it, eating, making sure Pickett, the most dependent bowtruckle got some food too. Or how could I possibly feel as though it was any sort of work that went into observing mermaids in the Black Sea? Wicked creatures, they were, but they had their purpose. For six months, we traveled all over Asia, Europe, and Africa. Each stop as stunning as the last, each new creature just as interesting as the first. 

Frank had a special place in my heart, and Newt said he would make plans to go to America to get him to his natural habitat. 

For now though, we had to return to Newt’s home, and setup a habitat for every one of the creatures to live in, while we studied them for a bit. Some of them had been wounded, some of them had been abandoned. These were the ones we would heal, rehabilitate, and send back out. In the meantime, study and record every detail we could on them. 

Six months in, Newt felt the need to suddenly ask me something that I wasn’t entirely prepared for. 

While we stood in his basement, he cleared his throat and gathered my attention. “Um, Rosaline… I must ask you something,” he began.

“Hmm?” I hummed, turning towards him, a book in hand. 

“This job is far beneath you... It's laughable... So why do you work here? The pay is poor, and the hours are unpredictable… Your life is your job. You haven’t seen your own flat in over six months…”

I closed my book and peered at him, softly responding, “No job is beneath me if I'm helping a living thing, Newt.” My eyes were tender on his adorable face.

He bobbed his head slightly to the side with a peculiar grin. “Yes, but you're one of the most powerful witches, both politically and in magical prowess... So why give all that up to help me feed and find some creatures?"

“I told you before, I had a change of heart. This experience has been… beyond anything I ever dreamed of, and I have you to thank for that. Doing what we do, watching you do what you do, is the most rewarding job I’ve ever had. Chasing down criminals it’s… it’s all very black and white in the Ministry, do you know what I mean?” I questioned, rhetorically. He nodded, slightly pressing his lips together. “The guilty are guilty, and that’s that. It got hard to stomach watching small infractions get the worst sentences. I wanted something where I bring joy to someone or something’s life.”

“Sounds very noble,” he remarked.

I laughed and shook my head. “There’s nothing noble about me, I promise you that. And besides,” I said, lifting my delicate, slender fingers to rest against his cheek, “Contrary to popular belief I haven’t given up anything. I’ve gained something far greater.”

Newt smiled and nodded before blushing deeply. I dropped my hand from his face. 

-----------------------

“Rosaline,” Newt gasped from his desk. I was sitting nearby organizing a feeding regiment and making a list for Diagon Alley shopping. 

“Yes?” I asked, looking up, worried he was upset with me. 

“Your notes are exquisite,” he complimented. “Thorough, accurate, this is the best I think I’ve seen.”

I beamed at him. “Really?” 

“Yes. This will be very helpful in the book.”

“Oh, good, I’m so glad I can be of some use to you.” 

He softly laughed. “You’re more than useful. This is like gold to me. Thank you for being diligent.”

I bobbed my head. “Well, that’s my job. I’m happy to do it for you.”

--------------------------

It was the middle of the night when Newt appeared in the floo of my bedroom. 

“Rosaline, I really need your help,” he stated as soon as I picked up the call. 

“Okay, I’ll be right there.” 

I dressed within thirty seconds and apparated to Newt’s home, calling out for him. He shouted up from the basement. I dashed down there, careful not to slip on the stairs. “What’s going on?” I inquired, calm but ready for whatever emergency had arisen. 

“The Graphorn has gone into labor,” he announced evenly, kneeling beside the pregnant beast as the father stood by, worried. 

“Okay, what do you need me to do?” I asked, instantly all business.

“Towels, lots of them, a bowl of warm water, and uh, baby oil.” 

Without a second thought, I ran up the stairs to grab the items as quickly as possible, and raced back down, working to not spill the water. 

“Is this alright?”

“Yes. Now, graphorns struggle to birth on their own so I may need your help.” 

“Just tell me what you need done,” I assured.

In that instant, the mother graphorn roared, assumably out of pain from the labor and the father began to dig his hoof-like foot in the ground. 

“Uh, you may have to birth it. The father needs to be held back. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with her and he may charge us if one of us doesn’t keep him back.”

“Why don’t you birth and I hold him back?”

“You’re a woman, your pheromones will calm her more than mine will,” Newt explained quickly before pulling out his wand, ready to either calm the beast or keep him at bay. 

“Alright,” I uneasily said as I knelt beside her, stroking her, trying to get her to remain calm and trust me. “So, when do I start? I mean, how do I know she’s ready?” 

“She’ll most likely--” a sudden, loud roar took over the area, forcing Newt and I to cover our ears “--do that.” 

The father got even more anxious, snorting, or what I assumed was the equivalent of a snort. 

“Okay, get behind her, she should be rather dilated, just reach in, feel for feet and pull.”

“You make this sound incredibly easy.”

“It is incredibly easy.... If you pay absolutely no mind to what you’re doing,” he noted, his back to me as he stood before the creature. 

I took a deep breath, keeping my hand on the creature so she knew where I was, where I was moving to, and what I was going to do. “Alright, girl, now this may be uncomfortable, but we have to do this to get your baby out,” I stated, talking to her. 

“When you’re ready, spread the baby oil on your arms and… dive in,” Newt tried, sounding uneasy.

I nodded. This was absolutely mental, but this was my job, and this creature needed help. I needed to overcome my squeamishness to help her. I quickly lathered my arms making sure I was coated up to the elbow and then slowly put one arm in, squeezing my eyes shut as I did so, ignoring the heat and sensation wrapping around my arm. 

“You will probably need both hands,” he urged, looking back at me.

I merely nodded and dug the other arm in. 

“Newt, I don’t feel any-- oh my gosh, I think that’s it. I think I feel the legs. Two fat, little limbs?” I wondered, peering over her body, hoping to hell she didn’t kick me. 

“Sounds right. Make sure you get a good hold on them, and tug, slowly, we don’t want her to tear inside.” 

Again, I nodded before making sure my fingers were wrapped around the baby’s legs tightly. “I think I have it!” Slowly, surely, I started pulling, the little legs coming with me. It seemed to be agonizingly slow, but before long, a little head appeared. “Newt! Newt! What do I do?” I questioned hurriedly.

“Go ahead and pull! He needs oxygen and to walk around.” 

At his command, I tugged, and the baby graphorn was pulled from his mother, half onto my lap, soaking me in blood and amniotic fluid. Newt left the father who seemed calmer now, now that his mate and baby were okay. He rushed to my side, helping to get the baby up. 

“Help me check for breathing,” he instructed as he leaned down, listening for a heartbeat. “I have a heartbeat.” 

Holding my hand in front of his mouth, I confirmed, “He’s breathing.” 

“Good. Get the towels and warm water, help me wash him, please, quickly.” 

I grabbed them, only a few feet away, and we set to work wiping the excess fluid off of him. Once all the mess was cleared away from his eyes, face, mouth, and feet, we stood up and stepped back, letting the bonding process start. The baby took a few shaky steps before stumbling right into his mother, earning a small response before she turned and finally nuzzled him. 

Overjoyed, I turned to Newt and wrapped my arms around him, smiling and laughing from pure joy. Something unlike me to do. Surprise overtook Newt before he finally returned the gesture and I let him go, staring back at the new family. 

“You did amazing. Good job.”

“Thank you,” I stated, nodding. 

I was still watching the family of graphorns when I sensed his eyes on my profile. 

“Is everything alright?”

He nodded, making me turn to him. 

“So, why are you staring?” I wondered, bemused.

“You’re just… different. That’s all.”

“Different from what? Different from school?”

He shook his head. “No, no. Not that. You aren’t the cold, hypocritical bureaucrat I took you for.”

I threw my head back, laughing at his boldly honest statement. Another one of his amazing qualities was that he didn’t cloud everything to be nice or polite, but he wasn’t rude either. He was just honest, no matter the cost. So when he complimented someone, everyone knew he meant it. “Cold bureaucrat, eh?” I smiled, nodding. “And when did you come to this conclusion? I rather thought we were good friends at Hogwarts.” 

“We were friends but that was before you had the Ministry and a political campaign.”

“So you do think I changed.”

“I suppose I thought you fell in line with what your career demanded of you.” 

“So I wasn’t cold at Hogwarts?” I questioned.

“Not in the same sense. Your distance came from the fact that you couldn’t favor anyone and I think you felt more comfortable with the faculty, than the students. But as an adult… well for one, you and I hardly ever saw each other after graduation, even though Nora came around a lot.”

This information somehow stung. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I did let my career consume my life, didn’t I? But you have too. The only difference is you’re actually making a difference, helping something…” I gazed at the graphorns as I spoke. “I think it’s easier to let my work take precedence, easier than to allow myself a potential heartbreak.”

“So you’d rather live in fear of a heartbreak you might never have, than to pursue one?” 

I turned to face him. “Newt, one way or another, my heart will break, if I allow people outside my family to be close to me. Whether I become a widow, leave a husband a widower, or any myriad of other reasons, relationships can go wrong. I simply don’t see a point of tracking that down for myself.” It was true. It was why I was so standoffish with people. I liked people. I always wanted to fall in love, be loved for who I was, but the truth of the matter was, heartbreak was inevitable. I dove head first into studies as a child because I loved it, and I suppose I unconsciously did the same as an adult, for fear that someone could never love me for me. Who could love a cold, orphaned girl?

“Is that really such a healthy way to live? Never letting anyone in? Keeping everyone at arm’s length?” 

“It’s protected me this long,” I murmured. 

“I think I understand where you’re coming from. For me, as…. socially inept as I can sometimes be, it’s much easier to interact with animals, than it is to try to communicate with humans.” 

A soft laugh trilled from me. “I understand. Perhaps we will figure out humans together,” I offered with a side glance and coy smile, to which he nodded and grinned.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tag List:

Forever Tag:

@essie1876​​

@magpiegirl80​​

@letsgetfuckingsuperwholocked​​

@iamwarrenspeace

@marvel-imagines-yes-please​​

@superwholocked527

@missinstantgratification​​

@thejemersoninferno​​

@rda1989​​

@munlis​​

@thefridgeismybestie​​

@bubblyanarocks3​​

@igiveupicantthinkofausername​​

@kaliforniacoastalteens​​

@feelmyroarrrr​​​

@kaeling​

@friendlyneighbourhoodweirdo​​

@damalseer​​

@heyitscam99​​

@yknott81​​

@sorryimacrapwriter​​

@glitterquadricorn​​

@xxqueenofisolationxx

@little-dis-kaalista-pythonissama

@bittersweetunicorm​​

@alyssaj23​​

@sea040561​​

@princess76179​​

@thisismysecrethappyplace​​

@sarahp879​​

@malfoysqueen14​​

@ellallheart​​

@breezy1415​​

@marvelmayo​​

@lyniboy​​

@paintballkid711​​

[nyxfury]

The Big Little Merman (Part 2: The Plan is Afoot)

Rated M for swearing

Pairing: Dramione Fandom: Harry Potter / Little Mermaid

Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Harry Potter or Little Mermaid(Disney) franchise. This is just fanfiction and completely demonetised. Thanks to JKR and Disney for the wonderful sandboxes to let our imaginations run wild. This is also not beta-d so apologies for any mistakes and errors. They are my own.

Summary: Draco Malfoy suddenly finds himself thrust as the leading man in the gender bended wizard play adaptation of a muggle story, The Little Mermaid. How did it come to be this way and who’s slated to play the female lead? (Hint: Hermione)

Link to A03

“Ginevra Molly Weasley Potter!!” fumed Hermione Granger with her shrillest impression of a banshee as she barrelled into the redheads’ office.

“I take it you received your letter.” nodded Ginny, keeping her gaze focused on the document she was working on. With a final flourish of dotting a few more i’s and t’s, she re-slotted her quill in its’ holder, steepled her fingers together and took her sweet time shifting her gaze slowly to look at Hermione. Her expression remained stoic but her eyes held a scheming twinkle. She gestured to the guest chair, inviting Hermione to take a seat. 

Huffing at the redheads’ calm composure, Hermione closed the office door and sat on the opposite chair out of spite. She liked to indulge in being petty when she was in a mood. And she was feeling particularly irritated with the redhead right now.

Ginny rolled her eyes, ignoring the childish behaviour. She was a mother after all and Hermione was acting like her 2 year old son on a tantrum.

“What is the meaning of this?” Hermione clipped, waving the letter in the air in annoyance. Her initial fury deflated a little, simmering into mild anger. She crossed her arms and levelled a glare at the redhead.

“Well, Hermione, I imagine it would’ve been self-explanatory really. You broached the idea, I floated it to my boss, the HR Department head. He loved it, being half-blood himself. And now we’re working on making it a reality.” Ginny explained patronisingly.

“You know what I’m asking Ginny. I suggested the play because I thought it would be a hilarious consequence for the losing team. I never imagined nor wanted to be part of it!” she protested, waving her hands in emphasis. “Now explain why I’m finding myself cast as one of the leading characters and playing opposite Malfoy as his romantic interest!”

“Ah and therein lies your answer.” sing-songed Ginny, suggestively raising her eyebrows up and down.

“Ginny!”, Hermione spouted indignantly.

“Hermione!” mocked Ginny. 

“When will you finally admit that you find the man devastatingly attractive?” the redhead asked, leaning back in her chair and staring pointedly at her friend. She had a suspicion that her friend was carrying a torch for the blond scion. She’s never confronted Hermione about it until she felt sure that it was reciprocated. After observing both of them dance around each other for months, she’s grown impatient that neither was doing anything to pursue the mutual attraction.

Clarity dawned on the brightest witch of their age as she realized Ginny’s true motives. “Ginevra, if this is in any way related to you insisting on dolling me up for the pick up match, or that time you insisted I wear…I swear to Merlin that..that…” she fumbled, suddenly feeling flustered. Her lower abdomen felt like it was tying itself in endless knots. “Argh! Self care my arse.” she uncharacteristically exclaimed in frustration, throwing her arms in the air as she stood and walked towards the only window in the small office. She was feeling a little betrayed. Hermione Granger did not often feel backed into a corner. So she settled on some distance as she contemplated on the newfound perspective, completely missing Ginny’s small triumphant smile.

Finally, progress! A semblance of acknowledgement. Ginny happily sighed, patiently waiting for Hermione to process her emotions.

“I didn’t ask you to play matchmaker.” Hermione declared indignantly after a few beats of silence. The urge to escape the anxiety inducing conversation felt strong and she was on the verge of bolting.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t live vicariously through you and appreciate fine wine.” Ginny quipped.

Hermione stared at her friend. “You’re married.”

“Yes and a few years in matrimony can make life predictable.” Ginny waved her hand dismissively. “So you’re not denying it.” she stated more as a fact than a question.

“If you’ve come to that conclusion then my struggle to understand what this is must’ve been terribly obvious.” she sighed, shoulders slumped as she found her way back to her chair.

“But the self care campaign, Ginny? Really?” Hermione asked incredulously.

“It killed two birds with one stone.” the redhead shrugged, looking smug and unrepentant.

“To be perfectly candid, I don’t know what this is I have with Malfoy. Or that if there even is anything at all.” the brunette confessed. “There’s just been so much going on. He just broke off a long engagement for Merlin’s sake!“ 

“Hermione,” Ginny paused dramatically, “you’re probably the only person in this Universe who considers a year and a half as something recent.” Ginny pointed out. “Also, no one would’ve judge either of you if you started dating right after his engagement dissolved. In fact, half the Wizarding World assumed you’d be married with Malfoy’s babies by now!” the redhead exclaimed.

Hermione responded with a pointed glare.

“Ok, maybe that was a gross exaggeration.” Ginny conceded.

Before the conversation could go on, they were suddenly interrupted by another person barrelling through Ginny’s office in exasperation.

“Ginny, what the hell!?” exclaimed one very flabbergasted husband, waving a missive similar to the one the brunette flourished earlier.

“Alright, I’ve had it with everyone storming into my office today. Have all of you left your manners at home and forgot to knock like a decent person?”, declared the redhead more to herself than anyone in particular.

“Let me guess, you’ve also been casted for the play.” the brunette addressed Harry, who was still standing in askance as the door behind him was left wide open.

Noticing a few onlookers gathering and remembering where they were, Harry closed the door so as not to attract more attention.

“Well, yes. But I don’t understand why since our team won the pick up match! Hermione was supposed to be the only addition outside the losing team.” he huffed.

“Harry James Potter, please tell me that you and your wife aren’t actively trying to meddle in my love life!”, Hermione demanded, arms akimbo.

The bespectacled Auror had the decency to look chagrined as he stared at Ginny, silently begging for rescue as he realized his Freudian slip. The redhead’s only response was a wide-eyed stare, non-verbally replying that he was on his own.

Then there was silence.

Hermione sighed resignedly, “At least tell me that your scheming hasn’t gone beyond you two.” 

The married couple’s silent debate with their staring told her more than enough than she needed to know.

“Oh Merlin, who else is in this ploy and why am I only finding out now?”

~o~ 

“Malfoy, drinks are on you since it’s technically your fault we’re in a pickle right now.” declared Ronald Weasley as he plopped himself on a seat and signalled for a server. 

Draco already expected as much since he initiated the invite. But the gangly redhead chose a table for a larger group than their current party so he felt the need to clarify, “Expecting more company, Weasley?”

“Yeah, I’ve invited Harry and Dean. Apparently, my sister’s gone mental and casted them in the play! They’re out for blood. We’re all on the same team now.” he casually replied after ordering a round for everyone.

Draco is unsurprised by the development. The production will be a charity event after all and it’s only logical to include the Boy Who Died Twice and Lived to ensure that the tickets will sell out. It would also follow that the last member of the Golden Trio be included to complete the ensemble and seal the deal with the sales. Thus, he finds himself curious if she’s been casted as well.

He sipped his firewhiskey, feeling the smooth satisfying warmth of the liquid spread through his system. 

Harry Potter and Dean Thomas arrived and settled themselves. Blaise immediately declared that Potter got what he deserved after being so smug earlier that day. Everyone, excluding Malfoy, went into a heated discussion about the ridiculous stipulations included in the production.

“How can they demand us to be fit and have defined abs to play shirtless Mermen!? I’m an Auror but pushing paper doesn’t require exercise!”, Seamus tearfully exclaimed as he nursed his pint in one hand and his slight but definitely there beer belly in the other.

“Hear hear!”, Thomas chimed in support as he raised his own pint.

The conversation remained rowdy in the background as Draco stayed silent and in deep contemplation. A few more sips of his drink and he felt confident that Granger’s been casted in the play. Slowly, he found his mood shifting from dread to anticipation for the coming weeks.

Blaise never missed a beat and was perceptive enough to notice that the blonde finally put two and two together. Deciding that it was the right moment to sow the seeds, he executed his play.

“Speaking of fit, I noticed that Granger’s been looking really fit recently. Doesn’t she Draco?” he asked the blonde point blank.

Unprepared to be addressed after staying silent for most of the night, Draco decided to just nod in agreement and completely missed Blaise signalling Weasley to take his cue. 

“That she does. I blame you for losing us the match Malfoy but I don’t blame you for getting distracted. She was especially lush during the pick up match.” Weasley unexpectedly mooned.

The blonde felt confused as he bluntly questioned, “Hasn’t that ship sailed years ago, Weasley?”

“It has. But I’ve been re-thinking our relationship recently. I feel like it may be time to try again.” the redhead wolfishly replied as he polished his drink and signalled for another.

Seamus patted Weasley on the back in solidarity as Harry declared his support for the redhead’s declaration; as did everyone else in the table save for the blonde.

Draco never wore his heart on his sleeve but he was unable to mask the brief flash of hostility that overtook his features before schooling it back to nonchalance. The sudden and intense protectiveness he felt over Granger after Weasley’s declaration startled him. In his distraction, he failed to notice the silent triumphant look everyone shared. 

Blaise silently praised himself for a job well done as he watched his friend internally brood.

[renaer-is-allegedly-hot]

session 13

wow i’m really out of it tonight lmao uh some highlights bc these r rlly atrocious:

adam shit himself and vomited over the dwarf in our basement

fought some ppl n killed; gotta hide six bodies

pregame !

Jacob n dom r talking abt other dnd campaigns

Jacob rigged explosives somewhere

They need souls to open coffins or smth

I REALIZED MY MIC IS MUTED SO THEY CAN’T HEAR ME SING THE GOLDEN GIRLS THEME SONG THE WAY MATTHEW GRAY GUBLER DOES HAHAHAHHAHA

Thank you for being a friend

Bum bum bum bum

Travel round the world and back again

If the truth be told you’re a friend and a confidant

Etc

Jacob explaining his eye scratch

I’m just sitting here singing the golden girls theme song

Tunnel vision in smash

I’m just renegading while they talk smash

Jacob wants to home alone our house the next night we have

Immovable rod is abt 3ft long

Last time on dnd asyna heard a window break

Roll initiative

Aerana and theo roll 22

Asyna rolls 21

Adam 13

Cel 6

Asyna was waking everyone up

Halfling size ballista ? In our turret ? Maybe

Ooh trebuchet is an interesting sans font

Aerana is going first

Double dash downstairs

You hear stuff on the first floor making noise; you and theo get to the second floor about to go downstairs

Theo in master bedroom double dashes towards where I am

Asyna

In watchtower, asyna's gonna try and do stuff from above ? Maybe .

Proposes turning into a hummingbird

Spike growth ? Grows spikes

Also creates rough terrain

In front of the door

Oop they're speaking goblin

Goblins

2d4 damage for each 5 ft they move

Some of them were able to get inside the house but still slowed down

Adam

Will cast cantrip

Thaumaturgy to boom voice 3x louder than normal "WHO DARES ENTER MY HOUSE PLEASE LEAVE WITHIN THE NEXT TEN SECONDS AND YOU WILL BE SPARED ,,, PLEASE"

Intimidation check

Lmao a 7

Entire house booms; everyone heard it but like effect?

Adam sleeps naked

Cel

Right in front of door to hall on second floor

Aerana

2 squares away from action at back of house

Theo

Also goes for pantry, same place generally as aerana

Asyna

Starts downstairs

Gonna turn into ape and try and make way down side of building as ape

Down p much by next turn

Goblins

Apparently being eaten up by spikes

Should I make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich I'm kinda craving

O shoot I gotta run soon for medicine

Adam

Dashing

This is just slow running in a dream

Cel

Base of stairs ?

Also heading towards pantry

Aerana

Bust in

Momentarily frozen

To the right next to basement hatch r two hulking figures covered in thick dark fur; kinda pointy ears, look kind of like goblins and v tall like easily 7ft

Big mauls

Bugbears

Can I fight?

23 to hit, 7 damage to closest one

The goblins trying to move the thing but not working well

Theo

I'M GONNA RUN TO GRAB MY MEDS

Slashes at the one aerana didn't hit lmao I rlly just did that I'm breathing

15 barely misses

Goblin blocks lillian's strike

Asyna

Srsly should I make a sandwich

On first floor outside

Bro my headache went to the other side of my head wtf

Gonna go through a window

Follows them in and attacks a bunch of them

Bro I kinda rlly want a sandwich

17 and 18 to hit, 6 and 4 damage ?? 10 damage ?? 10 damage for both ??

KILLS BOTH OF THEM N I C E

Bashes their heads together

I'm making a sandwich

"it's a very forceful kiss"

Third one readies self

Lashes out at asyna, misses

Goblins

R also gonna try and attack aerana and theo

12 damage to theo

I'm eating my sandwich

One of the middle ones is gonna go for asyna, hits, 5 damage

That was a good sandwich might get another one

Adam

Bro I kinda want another sandwich

Gets downstairs w max speed and peeks in, sees aerana and theo and two dead guys by window and two more living fighting an ape

Looks at theo

Bro again I kinda want another sandwich

Makes the one that hit theo make a wisdom saving throw

Did not make it, hideous laughter

Mans can't stop laughing, has to make wisdom saving throw each turn ig

Adam has to tell a joke

Comes down and looks at bugbear, locks eyes

Our party walks into a bar . But most of us walk under it

What

Is this a short joke ?

I don't get it yikes

Panicked dom laughing

Tells us to not hit the guy laughing; save him for last

Bonus action uses cutting words on the one aerana is fighting; "fuck you"

Cel

I still kinda want another sandwich

To clarify my sandwich was like half

I think yesterday or smth I like hit my foot lol and I did the thing where I compose myself rlly quickly to ignore the pain and up my pain tolerance and it left a mark but like it literally doesn't hurt so not saying I'm upping my pain tolerance but one day if I ever got like idk shot or smth I'm not gonna have a reaction

Cel hits the one that's doing better w a spell and then does shortbow 25 to hit, 12 damage

"how do you want to do this?"

Takes an arrow right through his brainstem and the arrowhead goes out his mouth

Aerana

Wasted insightful fighting, didn't hit

Scream of frustration that I missed

Theo

Takes bow and tries to hit, 13 misses

Asyna

Do I rlly still want another sandwich

Hm

Hits on one roll, 7 damage

Guy is barely alive

Goblins

One that tries to attack aerana misses, guy on ground is now up, guy attacking asyna hits, 11 damage

Adam

Cutting words on guy that just got up "oh you're finally awake"

"ever heard of the one where the guy got back up"

Goblin rolls nat20

Cel

22 to hit, 9 damage

Stabs him, hurts

Aerana

13

"next time remember it"

If an ally is within 5 ft of you you get sneak attack

If u have advantage

Don't need advantage if another enemy of the target is within 5 ft of it

Start over

When rogues have advantage, get to add sneak attack

Can add sneak attack when u don't have advantage if

One of allies is within 5 ft of you

And if u don't have disadvantage

Theo

Gonna try for the bow again

Going for the one asyna's fighting

8 damage

Guy is on last legs

Asyna

Kills

Fun fact apes have been known to rip off the faces of their enemies

Rips face off then gently puts him down

Still two goblins left

Goblins

Try and run

Attacks of opportunity from celandine, theo and aerana

Nat20 from cel

Theo and aerana miss

I've missed like every hit what is this

14 damage from cel

They're still able to get away

Asyna makes attack of opportunity

I still kinda want another saaaandwich

Neither hit

Adam

33 across board for both for sleep; both fall over and hit ground, asleep

Adam goes outside and looks if anyone is watching outside their window

Looks like one of our neighbors is at their window out of the apothecary

Uses infernal legacy to cast darkness, blocking their darkvision

Puts it between fallah's house and bodies

Then drag the bodies

Adam is kinda sweaty n exerted

Aerana is watching ot, asyna takes one body cel adam and theo take the other

Theo is rolling damage

Cel binds their feet first and adam prepares sleep

Theo rolls 13 damage and one dies, other 15 and also dies

Why is my eye glitching lmao

Maybe I still want a sandwich

What time do I need to be up tomorrow wait

Idk lmao

We've brought our bodies in, the night is ours

It's 10ish at night

Adam's gonna sleep in jeans

Adam was not naked in combat ?

Or maybe he was

Adam doesn't wear pajamas so he had pants

Sleeping downstairs shifts for the night

Adam takes first shift

Adam is sweating a lot, feeling a little odd; feels super weak and cold and feels a little sick like he might throw up

Constitution saving throw

"can I feel this coming and give myself bardic inspiration?"

"uh . Sure"

"hold it in hold it in hold it in"

Check to see if he can make it to the bathroom

"boi that's just nasty" adam wakes up someone ? Adam

Adam wakes theo up

"you must be real glad I'm wearing pants right now"

Rolls nat1

Adam vomits onto theo ? Vomits into theo's cloak

Adam becomes violently ill

The key eventually comes out the butt

A 4

Able to makes way down hatch towards bucket by ot

Vomits on ot

"ot is, like, weeping"

Adam is weakened

So adam shit and hurled

Adam stomps it down the drain ?

Next morning

Adam comes down with the key

Adam's exhaustion is cured after long rest

We're not talking to adam today

Adam sets key on table "did you wash that first" theo / adam slowly takes key back

Adam casts sleep on ot to kind of relieve him

Cel goes to jones, one of the goblins informs cel that jones is out ,,, just out

Cel can't find jones

Home alone-ing the house now ?

Aerana

House was in state of disrepair before

Spike spell tore up front of house, lots of windows knocked out from fireball explosion and were damaged during fight

Bad to a little bit worse

Theo 20 for investigation

Random ropes and bricks, nails, wooden planks

Intelligence check w advantage

19, sets up a few different traps; two swinging brick traps when a door is opened + simple nails stuck into plank so would hurt if someone stepped on it

Asyna 9 for investigation

Cel sees jones putting a bunch of keys into the lock

Jones can't find the key to open his door

Jones is maybe gonna get some stooges to remove the bodies

10 dragons

Henrietta is gonna dump em

Astigmatism lmao

Back at the manor

Adam is done cleaning

Ot asked if he could be set free, adam says "this is my fault, I got it buddy"

Adam is going to the apothecary down the street

Walks up to counter, fallah is there

"heyo what's poppin fallah"

Takes out potion of necrotic resistance

Adam says he bought it at sea ward, roll for deception; 12

Why am I sO LETHARGIC ALL THE TIME !!!

Offers adam 50 gold

Pushes for 60, 10 for persuasion check

Just takes it for 50

Fallah gives medicine, smells like oregano

Adam goes in for a hug, hesitates then retracts

Goes to bardic school to talk to master

Yava is there

12 insight check

Yava is usually v composed but today

Yava is an elf so is like bruh wdym u trust me after knowing me for like a month

Asks abt house security

Adam just straight up tells her he's in trouble w the xanathar guild and is asking for glyph of warning spells ?

Persuasion check, gives self bardic inspiration

11, yava agrees to help

She's willing to do it for free

Can cover 8 entrances to the house

"I'd b willing to do this but adam u must b more careful"

Adam tells her he's dealing w a large sum of money - half a million dragons

There was half a million dragons embezzled ?

Yava thought it was just a rumor

Adam is idiot

Adam asks yava if she wants in

Idiot

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Episode #100 Highlights!

That’s right: 100 EPISODES. That’s a lot of great questions, greater answers, questionable pronunciations of usernames, even more questionable uses of overlays, and a++++ excellent dogs. 

The entire cast is answering questions this week!

Max runs an (adorable) intro in the above puppet theater, and each cast member gets a title. Laura is The Heart, Sam is The “Funny Guy”, Travis is The Brawn, Liam is The Actor, Matt is The Brains, Marisha is The Face, Taliesin is The Pyramid, Brian is The Convict, and Ashley is The Favorite.

The cast’s entrance is majestic. There are balloons, sashes, tiaras, and champagne. Henry has a tiara too!

The Search for Grog will air this Friday, February 22 at 7 PM Pacific on twitch.tv/criticalrole. If you miss the stream, it’ll be available Saturday morning on CR’s YouTube channel!

Talks Machina and CR will air on CR’s official channels starting today! Starting next episode, TM will be available on CR’s YouTube channel on Thursday at 7 Pacific, and also in podcast form!

Stats: in 100 episodes of TM, there’s been 81 episodes of Brian’s glorious beard. There have been 9 Skype/FaceTime call-ins! There were 244 guest misnomers before that well ran dry. 93 episodes of pre-show hijinks (thanks to Max James!). 95 episodes of Arsequeef. 826 days of being on the internet!

Brian: "The concept of creating a talk show about a D&D campaign has always been absurd to me, so we wanted to embrace that terribleness.”

There’s now a Steve Cam (quietly reading, meal prepping, and ignoring the show), and a Zach Cam (staring at a monitor that’s all just Liam’s chest hair and the Fjord bust), and a Max Cam (dancing in a stripper cop outfit), Lockey Cam (practicing with a sword in front of a mirror and then charging at Daniel for filming it - Brian: “Hopefully Daniel’s non-union.”), Ed Cam (drinking scotch and counting down the days until football returns, and also lint rolling his new goatee), Chris Cam (rapping in the VO booth), Brittany Cam (dancing with a unicorn blanket, huffing compressed air - Brian: “You can’t show that on Twitch!”).

Matt is asked how his DMing style has evolved with campaign 2. “Well... I’ve been forced to embrace a little more of the tragedy in the characters’ backstories.” The internal and external conflict has been really interesting for him to watch and react to. “I’ve learned to be very proud of my players for mucking up my perception of where things are going to go.”

Coming to Xhorhas, Nott’s thrilled to no longer have to worry about the mask. Sam’s excited about the City of Beasts “to see what kind of fucked-up individuals we’re going to find and seeing how Nott will react to that.”

Yasha definitely sympathizes with Nott trying to save her spouse, but “there’s a lot going on with her going back to Xhorhas. It’s definitely triggering for her, but she understands the need to want to go back. I wish I could go to Xhorhas. We’ll see what happens.” Travis: “I’m pretty sure once we go to a place we can never go back.”

Favorite item on the Talks shelves? Taliesin mentions a magnetic Percy mini, Sam likes the tiny Sams (”It looks like my bedroom!”), Ashley and Brian are partial to the Sully painting, Laura loves the Pike painting, Marisha loves all the stuff the cast bought on a hungover voyage to the flea market when they were first building the set, Matt loves a very cool dice tower. Brian likes the Vecna with Marisha’s face. Matt: “I don’t know if I like that one.”

Laura doesn’t like the party using the derogatory term for the Krynn, because she wants people to be happy even if she doesn’t know them. Sam: “I haven’t been the best for that, but if Jester wants me to... I guess I’ll change.”

There are new wipe transitions featuring the Matt pillow and the Fjord bust. It’s glorious.

Gif of the week: Sam calling Travis “studly” for catching the candy. Laura: “...I like that I’ve been cut out of it completely.”

Arsequeef gets the Lifetime Achievement Award for Gif of the Week. He wins Max’s 2006 Honda Accord.

On Caleb taking off his bandages because there’s nothing to hide anymore: “Was that terrifying for him, or a relief?” Liam: “Yes!” He’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it feels good. He’s got f...r...iends?” Marisha: “I love that sitcom. (weakly) F...r...iends?”

Caduceus being a source of comfort, insight, and advice was built into the character. Taliesin looked at low INT high WIS, and Matt immediately started laughing and told Taliesin he’d do well with that. Taliesin: “There’s plenty of things that will eventually flap that, but we haven’t hit them yet.”

As a player, Travis doesn’t like to weigh things carefully all the time, so a lot of Fjord’s leardership has been a bit about pressing fast-forward. Marisha: “So what you’re saying is that your Grog’s poking through.” Matt points out that if both characters have a trait, it’s probably just Travis. 

Liam: “I’ve got a little Travis poking me from behind.” Marisha, musing: “So many conflicting beards...”

Beau’s prayer to Ioun mostly came from a “couldn’t hurt” perspective. “I’ll try it out. Give it a spin.” When Travis asks, Marisha clarifies that it was Ioun specifically because of the Cobalt Soul. Travis: “Oh yeah, I totally knew the relationship there. I just wanted to make sure the audience did.”

Bugbear friend or bugbear foe? Sam: “He speaks goblin, he seems cool, his name’s Gluzo. He has a hard-to-pin-down accent, but it’s amazing.” Taliesin: “You have a hard-to-pin-down accent, too. It’s something you have in common.” Taliesin gets asked if his insight check revealed that the bugbear is secretly pretending to be someone else. “Yes, he’s just pretending to be a bugbear. He’s actually Matt Mercer.” Laura: “I like him. ‘Cause he’s cute and he let me give him a tattoo.”

Sam: “Nott trusts her friends to be as strong as they can be, and at this point, I don’t know if she’s as concerned with one of them dying as just getting to her husband in time before he dies. If we lose one along the way, Nott will probably cry a little, but will move on.” What if it were Fjord? “Fjord’s expjendable.”

Matt: “I’ve reached a point where Travis controls Yasha in combat, but I don’t consider any of his roleplay canon.” Ashley: “I trust Travis. Barbarian respect.” Laura: “Don’t give him that.” Ashley: “Travis himself is like a Deck of Many things. This is risky, but it’s kind of fun!”

Sam: “That dunamancy shit is lit.” Liam: “And it’s tied up in everything that Caleb wants, so if he can get on the entropy shit and the gravity shit, you know he’s going to go back in time, motherfucker.” Sam is so excited to have these mystery spells because they’re so new, and they’re inherently something they don’t know how to counter or prepare for. Travis: “It’s almost like every time we play D&D.”

Fanart of the Week: a spectacular group shot.

Everyone freaks out over how good Travis looks with glasses. He takes them off and puts them back on sexily for a while. I was too slow grabbing a screencap, but don’t worry, the gifs will be everywhere.

Laura: “Jester hasn’t experienced a lot of emotions. She hasn’t experienced a lot of anything, really. She’s definitely dealt with sadness in her life, but I don’t think it’s been so in-your-face constantly, just the trauma of it all.” Liam: “Yeah, she’s with some very terrible people.” Laura: “While it is traumatic, it’s also been a great adventure, and she’s enjoying being out and doing things. Even if it might hurt her, it’s so much better than reading about it, drawing it, just imagining how it would be.”

Caleb’s still feeling out the shift in his relationship with Nott, but there’s no question that everything they’ve gone through can’t be forgotten or overlooked. “He sees her as an absolute ally no matter what, and will do anything for her. In a weird way, he feels like they’re even more alike than he thought they were, and he loves her and wants her to succeed in what she’s doing, and hopes that the things that he wants don’t fuck it up entirely.” Sam: “Are you talking about Liam and Sam right now?”

Caduceus’ thoughts on Xhorhas? “A new environment, certainly, and a new aspect of nature that he’s unfamiliar with. This is just more terrain to him at this point. He’s also very unaware of the political realities. He’s vaguely aware there is war. He’s still not sure why we can’t just go up and ask for directions from everyone.”

Brian: “That tiara is the most blessed image.”

Travis on the Captain Tusktooth tattoo: “Brand recognition is huge in Xhorhas.” Taliesin: “Viral marketing.” Laura confirms that it’s not likely to change apart from some small differences from tattoo to tattoo. “Each person gets a special google.”

Laura on fans actually getting this tattoo: “I am ALL ABOUT IT.”

Marisha: “Guys! How about instead of M9 tattoos...” Sam: “We let Laura tattoo us? I would legitimately be down with that!” Ashley: “I’m kind of into it.” Liam: “This is what splits us apart.” Laura: “Everybody gets a dick.” Travis: “How would we explain that to our kid? ‘What’s that?’ ‘Your mom did that.’”

Beau is holding back a bit since her impulsiveness started having negative repercussions. “I think it’s about accountability. She’s started to learn--- especially when she first joined M9, she didn’t have friends, really. I think you had to learn, oh, my actions do affect others around me. I think that’s something you can learn and you can grow in, but yeah, she is trying to not be a total fuckwad anymore. Trying. But old habits...”

Favorite TM moments? Travis: “Do you remember that episode where Brian wasn’t the host?” Brian remembers Travis throwing the card that almost took him out. Ashley fondly remembers PullOutKing. Laura remembers Taliesin saying the phrase “I love teenage assholes” (referring to Percy acting immature), and Taliesin is super glad someone brought that up again just when the tweets were finally starting to die down. 

Ashley talks about how proud she is about how far Brian’s come, and how great he’s doing at this. Everyone has an uncharacteristically sincere moment of applause for Brian. Liam: “Everyone take 30 seconds to drop the bit that we think you’re a total fucking weirdo. You’re so good at this, and you’re such a good friend, and we’re so glad you’re part of this family.”

Marisha pitches the idea of trying to sell TM syndicated on LifeTime now that they have 100 episodes.

Brian remembers having food poisoning that led to him running off-screen, throwing up in the middle of the show, and then having to come back. Marisha remembers Travis texting everyone that night with “lol, did Brian just yarf on TV?”

Matt talks about how proud he is of Brian for going from zero tabletop experience to co-running his own game.

Talks Machina After Dog ft. Sleepy Boi Henry

“This is the best dog-petting show ever.”

Liam was skeptical about TM initially, because he was worried it would take away from what would be shared in-game. Marisha: “I was stoked for it, not gonna lie. I was very misunderstood and people hated my character, so I was kind of stoked to just get to explain it.” Travis was sold once they picked the name.

Marisha: “It also set the precedent for really dumb, punny names.” Brian points out that, as a channel, they now can’t stick with serious names as their final choice.

Laura’s sister has been watching the show, and she texted Laura after the show to ask what the whisper was, so Laura’s going to tell her and no one else. Liam: “You’re gonna tell your real sibling?”

There’s a horrified discussion about giraffe fighting. Some segues happened in there.

What’s something their characters have done that’s made them proud? Liam: Caleb using the Wall of Fire. Marisha: the Plank King execution episode as a whole (everyone agrees). Travis: “I was proud of hooking up with an NPC when my wife wasn’t here to threaten me with death.” (he immediately turns to Taliesin: “Help.” Taliesin: “No god can help you now.”) Taliesin: “I sunk a boat.” Laura: Proud of not getting caught with Nott in the Platinum Dragon sanctuary. Sam: Taking the blow for Jester so she could escape. Liam: “Molly showing his dick covered in eggs.”

Matt: “I’m proud of you guys not entirely descending into evil madness. I’m proud of the character arcs of being broken, terrible people, and finding out that it’s okay to be broken; you’re not necessarily terrible.” Liam: “The entire cast went, ‘He’s talking about everyone but me’.” Matt thought it was going to be very hard to keep the group together, but the party turned it into character growth moments. “I’m proud of you.” Laura: “Thanks, Dad.”

Yasha loved the arm wrestling. “Oh man, it’s so fun to be the tank.”

Laura: “I’m really proud of us for saving Kiri!”

Everyone has Liam’s chest hair:

Wishes for the next 100 episodes? More Ashley. 

Brian: “I hate this coffee table more than anything in the whole, entire world.”

What’s something that should never change about the show? How ridiculous it is, the barrel, Dani. Also always have a dog. They fundamentally do the show for themselves, still, and that’s made it a really good environment for them to open up about the show and their characters.

Liam: “There’s a lot of beauty to what we do, but it’s also inherently silly. And to deny that is silly.”

Matt likes that it’s unpolished and imperfect. “Things are going to go wrong regardless, and you can either get angry and frustrated about the lack of control, or you can embrace it.” Sam: “None of this is real anyway.” 

Brian points out that this is not an excuse to stop paying him.

And that’s a wrap! This is the last After Dark for a while, but there are some big ideas in the works for the coming weeks!

[vulpinmusings]

Letters from Buxcord 2 - Razorback

After much delay, my RPG group returned to our Monster of the Week campaign for our second mystery.  This time, Ash and his new companions look into strange happenings surrounding a rich family and an old slaughterhouse.

Samantha,

Any doubts I had about sticking around Buxcord are well and truly squashed now.  It’s only been about a week since the Santa-squatch incident and I’ve already squared off with something much bigger and purely magical.

It started just a couple days after Christmas.  I was trawling about town for more details on local legends in the hopes of finding some common sources or threads to follow, and wound up at Bayou Boating, the main tourist attraction in this small town.  They had a list of “local cryptids” posted on the wall, but it included several creatures that, unless the names apply to different mythics than they do in Taryn, do not tend to live in or around wetlands.  The one person on staff at the time – it is the off-season for boat tours – proved to be less than well-informed about the one local legend I asked him about.  People occasionally go missing in the bayou after foolishly going out there on their own at night.

Well, I can’t really put all the blame for my not getting a lot of info on the clerk.  I‘d only asked a few questions before I experienced a major pulse in the magic fields.  It was almost a textbook example of the ripples caused by an inexperienced Mage casting spells beyond their ability.  The pulse carried some lingering effects of the original spell, as I had a brief vision of a grinning shadow floating over the bayou.  I set off in search of the source, but as messy as the spell had been it was also far enough away that the magic settled and the trail grew cold before I got more than a block.

Nothing else happened for a few days, until I crossed paths with Nollthep and Lea again.  I hadn’t really seen either of them since the Santa-sqautch, and the simple fact that Nollthep was not in his shop and was asking after somebody should have tipped me off.  Whatever that fellow is, he seems to work for some higher being and has little to no personal needs outside of running errands for his “Boss.” Lea is normal other than her instinctual persuasion magic, but her paths and mine just hadn’t crossed in the last week.

At any rate, we three happened to meet up at the local park where Lea was performing with some small-time Punk Rock band that sings in Spanish.  That’s… I think the language matches best to Iberrian.  Anyway, Lea’s singing was infused with a mesmeric effect that had everyone (except yours truly, naturally) in love with the whole performance despite her not knowing the language or the words very well. Nollthep wandered up to us after the show was over, asking everyone he came across if they knew of any Wiccans or anybody named Clemonte.  When he got to Lea and I, his questions turned to the topic of whether or not humans need blood and hearts to live.

I don’t think I need to say how concerning that was, but I didn’t get a chance to press for details before our attention was stolen by a group of local law enforcement suddenly taking off in response to a call from a “Clemonte mansion.”  That got Nollthep’s full focus, of course, and Lea finally recalled that the Clemontes were a wealthy but reclusive and disliked family in Buxcord.  She alluded to some previous encounters with them that had left her particularly soured, but she agreed to lead us to the house.

The Clemontes live on a hill on the southern outskirts of town, with their driveway reaching all the way to the base of the hill.  As mansions go, it wasn’t all that large, but the fountain in front had the ostentation of true Old Money.  The butler who answered our knock at the door sealed the impression, and he would have turned us away on principle if Lea’s magic hadn’t kicked in and scrambled his senses enough to make him tolerant of three random gawkers intruding on his employer’s private business.

I don’t want to become to reliant on that kind of manipulation, but without the reputation I’ve got back home I might not have much choice for a while…

The police – a sheriff and two deputies to be precise – were in the living room questioning a young woman and paid us little mind as we peeked in for a look.  The reason for the call was glaringly obvious: a disemboweled corpse had been hung on the wall over the fireplace with a graffiti-style pig’s head and the words “I’m back” scrawled in blood below it.  A most disturbing sight, although only Lea showed any physical reaction.  I, of course, am too experienced to let my revulsion get in the way of solving a problem, and Nollthep is too inhuman to even have a visceral reaction to such sights.

The sheriff and pair of deputies who were on-site were surprisingly fine with the three of us stepping in and asking our own questions.  I’m hoping that it was just them thinking that we must be welcome since the we’d gotten past the butler, but it’s too early to rule out general incompetence yet. The girl was Sophia Clemonte and the corpse had been a security guard at the Clemonte slaughterhouse and had no reason to be in the family mansion.  Sophia was shook up by the corpse, but she was more concerned about her younger brother, Cyril, who was missing.  The police told us that the rest of the family were upstairs, so we decided to go up and interrogate them while the police were still busy getting Sophia’s story.

The Clemonte parents are named Archie and Penelope.  Archie’s a bit of a boor and seems to hate magic on principle, while Penelope had the aura of someone with the talent for magic, albeit one she hasn’t used in many years thanks to her husband’s influence.  From Archie, we got an explanation for what the message painted on the wall could have meant.  About twenty years ago, an employee at the slaughterhouse had suffered a psychotic break after being fired and killed several people before committing suicide.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t get more than that out of Archie before Lea insulted him and he told us to get out.

On our way out, we decided to check in on the last Clemonte, the eldest son Zachary.  I didn’t get any sense that he’d inherited any of his mother’s ability, and he was callously unconcerned about the whole scenario and intent on heading out for a little walk despite all common sense.

Penelope caught up to us at the top of the stairs and, now out from under Archie’s gaze, opened up a little more about her history with magic as we headed back to the crime scene.  She used to practice the Wiccan traditions, but gave them up years ago and hid her books away. Young Cyril had shown an interest in those books, and Penelope had given him one of the less dangerous tomes to look through.  I convinced Penelope to show me where she’d hidden the rest of her books, and she took us to a surprisingly large room hidden behind a secret door in the kitchen.  The room was full of not just books but all kinds of the stuff you typically find in the collection of those who follow ritual-based magic traditions. There was a book missing from the shelves, but it wasn’t the book Penelope had loaned to Cyril.  Penelope said the missing book was primarily about summoning and controlling spirits.

(Be sure to clarify that I’m not talking about Spiriter Warlock stuff here when you relay this to the M’Dales.  They’ll probably have a conniption otherwise.)

The sheriff had already had the corpse body-bagged when we returned to the sitting room, but I took a crack at searching the spot where it had been hanging, in case there was any lingering magic I could trace.  I got more than I bargained for; somehow, I managed to briefly link myself to the mind of an otherworldly entity (other than Nollthep) for a few seconds.  Demonic seems like an adequate adjective.  I had to sit down and catch my breath, and Lea charmed the butler into bringing us some coffee while Nollthep went to search Cyril’s room and one of the deputies was sent out to bring Zachary back. Nollthep came back with the missing tome, and we discussed whether or not to let Penelope know about it. We opted to keep her in the dark until I’d had a chance to look through it.

After much too much time had passed without either Zach or the deputy returning, I felt a ripple of powerful magic underlaid with that same sense of the demonic and led the group outside to see what was up. Standing by the fountain, holding Zachary up like a stuck pig and with the deputy lying broken at its feet, was an 8-foot tall humanoid figure dressed like a butcher and wearing a leather pig mask that was bleeding from the seams.  Reacting quickly, I wrapped the figure up in a Tangler while Nollthep produced a stack of playing cards and flung them one by one at the figure, as expertly as myself but without any spells attached.  The thing barely reacted.

Lea ran over to try and save the deputy, but her magic betrayed her, draining life out of the man rather than putting more in.

I tried to engage the creature in conversation, just to establish that it wasn’t sentient, and then tried to see how it liked a bullet in the head.

Did I mention I acquired a revolver shortly after the Santa-squatch incident?  It’s not my style, but without Carmilla around to handle the non-magical aspects of combat I have to make do.

Not that the bullet did any good in this event.

Nollthep tossed the spellbook to me and told me to try to find a counter-spell to whatever had summoned pig-head while he kept it busy.  I quickly found a likely looking spell and started Weaving it together to the best of my ability.  I hadn’t gotten far, though, before pig-head sensed the gathering magic and fled via dematerlization.

So, I learned that in this universe, evil spirits can sense when you’re trying to counteract the spell that summoned them to the mortal plan and can just get out of range before you’re done.  That’s an unwelcome complication.

Once the dust had settled, an ambulance was called in.  By some miracle, the deputy was still alive.  Zachary, on the other hand, was missing all his internal organs as well as having bled out.

In the course of informing the Clemontes and the sheriff about what had happened in the driveway and some of our suspicions, Nollthep and the Sheriff got into a bit of an argument about whether or not magic is real.  I could have gotten involved, but I was occupied with more important matters such as studying the spellbook and only rejoined the conversation when Nollthep left the room for a private conversation with Penelope and I overheard the Sheriff mention to Archie that there were reports of strange noises at the old slaughterhouse.  Over Archie’s protests, the sheriff insisted that everyone stay put until the morning and left his remaining deputy to keep an eye on us.

Once the Sheriff was gone, I made it clear that I did not intend to wait around or leave the case in the hands of people who didn’t even believe in the existence of magic.  I tried to conjure a basic mage-light to convince the deputy that I knew what I was talking about, but wound up with a tiny fireball instead.  It was sufficient to convince the deputy, at least.  Nollthep came back from his business with Penny and, naturally, agreed to accompany me.  To my surprise, Lea also wanted to come along, because she figured that since I’d chased pig-face off once, the safest place to be was at my side.

It was a long walk to the slaughterhouse.  It must have been abandoned shortly after the incident twenty years ago, because the place was empty and full of rusted equipment.  I felt the presence of pig-face as soon as we entered the building.  We decided that since pig-face had a… particular theme to him, we should start our search in the pork slaughtering section.  The plan was to locate pig-face and figure out how to restrain him so he couldn’t escape while I cast the banishing spell on him.

In the pig area, we heard the sounds of actual pigs in the preparation pens and went to look.  The things we found were mostly identical to normal pigs, but their eyes and teeth were more human than porcine, and they were munching on offal that included at least one intact human hand.  Nollthep, working on the assumption that the pigs were sapient, attempted to cast a translation spell on himself and wound up just speaking gibberish and apparently losing his ability to comprehend Lea or me for several minutes.

Then we saw pig-face up in the rafters, holding a blood-soaked mallet. Nollthep produced his throwing cards and put some actual magic into them that briefly set fire to pig-face’s sleeve.  The beast dropped down on us and walloped Nollthep.  As I Wove a lightning bolt, Lea ran for cover behind me.  She grabbed onto me briefly and, in that brief moment, the magic fell into place with my normal natural grace. The lighting struck pig-face, then arced off him and unlocked one of the pig pens.  The pig-thing inside charged at Nollthep, but he swatted it up and into another pen with ease.

Pig-face came after me next, and I threw up a barrier to try and stop his mallet.  I must have miscalculated, because the blow shattered the shield and knocked me back a bit.  Could have been worse, I guess, but still…

Nollthep pulled out a chain of tied-up handkerchiefs and tried to tie pig-face up with them.  It held for a few seconds, but not nearly enough time for me to even start the banishment.  Lea suddenly ran off into the heart of the slaughtering area, and pig-face chased her once he broke loose.  I got him in a Tangler, but it barely held him long enough for Nollthep to club him once.  I heard Lea say something about finding the meat grinder that pig-face had first died in as I ran to keep up with the fight.  I pushed past Nollthep and, in a bit of foolish desperation, tried to tackle pig-face and flip him off the walkway and into the machinery. You can probably guess how well that went.  Pig-face had me by the neck and dangling over the suddenly active grinder before I could regain my balance.  Nollthep whipped his hankie-chain around the specter’s arm to try and haul me out of danger, but pig-face resisted the pull and tossed a knife at Nollthep with his free hand. Then Lea found a meathook and chucked it at pig-face, and I was falling toward a mass of whirling blades and serrated rollers.

Reflex kicked in and I cast my Transport spell without thinking about how it would need to be adjusted.  By pure luck, the spell not only worked but deposited me safely on the walkway away from the fight.  As I made my way back to the action, I saw that my companions were in a bit of a panic thinking I’d just died (Nollthep apparently thought meat grinders just magically transmute flesh into meat or something and Lea didn’t see what happened).  Lea’s grief was so great she actually summoned a big root up through the walkway and into pig-face’s arm just as the creature made a move to throw Nollthep into the grinder after me.

As for myself, I was starting to get annoyed.  I’d cheated death by pure luck and pig-face was proving to very, very bothersome.  Simply restraining him was no longer an option for me.  He had to suffer a bit.

So I set him on fire.  It didn’t do much on its own, but Nollthep threw on some sort of powder that exploded and knocked pig-face off the walkway.  The creature threw the hooked chain from its belt and caught Nollthep by the shoulder, but I broke through the rusted chain with a simple Breaking before Nolly got pulled in after pig-face.

For reasons I don’t quite understand yet, being subjected to the same form of death a second time proved to be enough to end pig-face’s return to the physical world.  Once he’d been thoroughly ground up, that persistent, buzzing sense of his presence vanished along with the human-toothed pigs.  The gore they’d been feasting on remained, however.  I took the hand I’d seen earlier for the police to check, in case it happened to have belonged to Cyril Clemonte.  Nollthep went into a panic when I mentioned that theory and he swiftly dug through the viscera looking for anything that could be a heart.  Once he found something, he vanished in a blink, presumably to deliver the goods to his Boss.

Lea and I returned to the mansion just long enough to tell the deputy what to expect when the cops went to the slaughterhouse and to hand over the hand.  I then made sure Lea got home safely before returning to my hotel room.

When I arrived, I found a card on the bed.  It invited me to visit a Madam Weaver, who apparently knows something that would be of use to me.

How useful it will actually be remains to be seen, but you may be seeing me or these letters sooner than I hoped.

With guarded hope,

Ash

[panticwritten]

Writing request! Carl and Sawyer (some version of you, I’m not sure where Carl usually fits in) have stumbled into the same dungeons and dragons forum and become closer through battling together (not 100% sure of Carl’s personality, be him not the type for this or totally the type). This can be a silly throw away or warmup up one since it is me.

Okay, so Cherry sent me this like forever ago. I wrote it, they read it because they live with me, but I forgot to actually post it! The name change to Kane is going smoothly, and I’m ready to never think about that asshole as Karl again lmaooooo

So, yeah, Kane and I play some DnD and he’s not subtle about anything ever at all. 

I’ll have to wait until after I post this to change the colors of the different people in the text chats because lord knows I look at those strings of chat-text and have a time sifting through it. Homestuck has spoiled me.

Word count: 2270

@asinwolves @avi-burton-writing @infinitelyblankpage @no-url-ideas-tho @jade-island-lives @ravenpuffwriter @spirit-wizard-nerd @steakfryday @alextriestowritestuff @cataclystr0phe  @perringwrites @davidvalencia323 @fluffpiggy @dont-trust-the-clogs @authorkimberlygrey @aclassilighthouse @cherrytying

I don’t think Kane knows I know.

If the smattering of ‘kid’ in our correspondences hadn’t tipped me off, it would definitely have been the way he made his character. I doubt anyone else would get the joke or see what he’s doing, but seriously? His character isn’t anything like him, of course.

If he were to be himself, he’d be a tiefling fighter. Either scout (ha) or cavalier archetype. He’d be a faction agent. Making a call between the chaotic alignments might be a shaky one sometimes. His attributes terribly skewed toward charisma and dexterity.

But he’s chosen a true neutral urchin. A mastermind rogue. An eladrin. The attributes are fairly balanced, save for dexterity always hovering above the others and strength a little lacking. Nothing like Kane. Not at all.

No, that’s the point.

He made a character that is exactly what I end up presenting myself as in the damn Cube. How I always play in console RPGs. Behavior just not erratic enough to be chaotic. Snarky and angry, never overtly because of the need to cover every goddamn emotion up. Inconsistent.

I’m not sure when I realized it was him. I thought it might be a member of the Collective when I first got the invitation from an unknown player. With Haz, j355, Hal, and Jax as mods of the server and tag-teaming as DMs, I slowly caught on to Kane’s game.

He’s making fun of me. He must have been playing with this character for some time, with their high level, and I wonder how long he’s been planning this.

It took me a little bit to even realize most of the similarities between myself and the character. My own character, a homebrew ice genesai, a brawler, bonded fairly quickly with them because they’re both urchins and saved each others’ asses when their time in the city overlapped.

He uses my lines, though. The whole ‘I’ll be fine’ shtick and his character has mentioned being a poet several times. After that, it took a few more days of play to start realizing it was him. That it was Kane playing such a long game.

The first time it occured to me, it was a bad call on what the endolin would do. We were looking for the deed to a seemingly abandoned manor. We hadn’t run into anything but low-level scavenging animals. In short, any good player would be a little on-edge and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Halexander (MOD): Alright. The second you both clear the door, it slams shut behind you.Match (SeeSaw): Crap.Videre (ANON): whats in the room?Halexander (MOD): It’s a pretty nondescript room. Pretty small, almost looks like a study with three desks lining one wall and a bookshelf on another. There’s a couch shoved into a corner, looks like it was slept in recently.Match (SeeSaw): Can we roll investigation real quick?Halexander (MOD): Go for it, dude.Match (SeeSaw): 5Halexander (MOD): You notice that, unlike the rest of the place, there’s no dust. The whole room is swept clean of it. That’s it. The epitome of observation.Match (SeeSaw): Okay. Videre?Videre (ANON): nah im goodHalexander (MOD): You sure? Just gonna barge in there?Videre (ANON): the doors locked right what else can we do?Match (SeeSaw): Whatever. I’ll get a closer look at the couch.Videre (ANON): imma look at the closest desk while the kid does thatMatch (SeeSaw): Fuck youHalexander (MOD): I’ll put some form of that exchange as being in character.Match (SeeSaw): GoodMatch (SeeSaw): Now, the couchHalexander (MOD): To clarify, you’re both investigating different areas of the room?Match (SeeSaw): YesVidere (ANON): yeahHalexander (MOD): Excellent.

I was so used to the DMs at least pretending to need time to formulate responses that Hal’s immediate block of text took me by surprise.

Halexander (MOD): The two of you cross the room in different directions, as if by silent agreement. Match is slower, being more hesitant, so Videre gets to the desks first. Before you can do more than peer at the desk, however, there is a cry behind you. The bedding on the couch lashed out and has taken Match captive. Match, a blanket has one wrist and a facemask has bound itself over your eyes due to your proximity when the animation first occurred. Roll Initiative.Match (SeeSaw): Whaaaaat. Not cool. Okay, 16.Halexander (MOD): Enchanted Bedding got 12.Halexander (MOD): Videre?Videre (ANON): am i far enough away that i can stay out of order and keep looking through the drawers?

Uh.

Match (SeeSaw): What the fuck. I’m being attacked here, your rapier would take care of this in like two seconds.Videre (ANON): you dont know that. i have a feeling the deeds in here just give me a minuteHalexander (MOD): You can stay out of the fight if you want, but you still need to roll so we can keep this orderly.Videre (ANON): fineVidere (ANON): 8Halexander (MOD): Thanks for cooperating.Match (SeeSaw): Okay, first off, Match is never going to trust you again.Videre (ANON): he doesnt even know im helping yet. he cant see rememberMatch (SeeSaw): WHATEVERMatch (SeeSaw): Is the blanket pulling on me or just holding me there?Halexander (MOD): It’s tugging something fierce. The rest of the pile of blankets and pillows are writhing as if alive.Match (SeeSaw): I guess I’ll attack the blanket with that dinky little knife.Match (SeeSaw): “you should empty your bag in case you find good loot” THANKS VIDERE NOW I DONT HAVE MY GOOD WEAPONSVidere (ANON): hey you should know better than to listen to me by now kidMatch (SeeSaw): When we finish this, I will find you and kill you.Halexander (MOD): Also canon, in-character dialogue.Match (SeeSaw): YEET, crit. 5 damageMatch (SeeSaw): Don’t think you’re off the hook here, HalHalexander (MOD): I resent that.Halexander (MOD): And that’s including your proficiency?Match (SeeSaw): 6 damage.Halexander (MOD): That’s what I thought.Halexander (MOD): You slash blindly at the blanket. You manage to cut the corner holding you clean off. You’re still blinded, but you’re free to move.Match (SeeSaw): OKAY YEAH I BACK THE FUCK UP AND ASK VIDERE WHAT THE FUCK THEYRE DOINGHalexander (MOD): You stumble back into the door.Match (SeeSaw): Hold up just a fucking second

I scrolled up to reread the chat.

Match (SeeSaw): Can I try opening the door?Halexander (MOD): Unfortunately, you’ve exhausted your turn. The mass of blankets shoots out another piece but cannot quite reach you in its haste. Obviously, you don’t actually see this because: The blindfold begins to tighten around your eyes. That’s it for that, what’s next on the agenda?Videre (ANON): how many of these drawers could i search in one turn?Halexander (MOD): Two.Videre (ANON): how many drawers in each desk?Halexander (MOD):Three.Videre (ANON): ill search two drawers in the first deskHalexander (MOD): Alrighty then. The first drawer is full of vials and tubes. Most of them stand empty, but there is a vial each of blue, red, and orange liquid. The second contains a weathered journal.Videre (ANON): ill snag those three vials and pocket the journalHalexander (MOD):Of course you will.Match (SeeSaw): Can I open the door now.Halexander (MOD): Since Sherlock Holmes over here can’t do much else, I’ll bite. The door, amazingly, shockingly, opens once you manage to find it with the blindfold currently limiting your sight and putting increasing pressure on your skull.Match (SeeSaw): Okay, we’re dumb.Match (SeeSaw): Videre, the door’s open, let’s get the hell out of here!Videre (ANON): im not doneMatch (SeeSaw): Are you serious right now.Halexander (MOD): Better make the rest of your turn good.Match (SeeSaw): K. I cut the string on the blindfold and join that IDIOT at the desksHalexander (MOD): I’m honestly just gonna take that as a free action.Match (SeeSaw): Sweet. Can I search a drawer?Halexander (MOD): You definitely can.Match (SeeSaw): I’ll start on the middle desk, I guess.Match (SeeSaw): I’ll deal with YOU later, VidereVidere (ANON): looking forward to itHalexander (MOD): The drawer holds a dusty lab coat. That’s it.Match (SeeSaw):Why the fuck not, I’ll take it.Halexander (MOD): You done?Halexander (MOD): Just kidding, I know you are. The blanket wraps around your ankle to pull your feet out from under you. Roll for acrobatics to see if you eat shit.Match (SeeSaw): Jesus fuck.Match (SeeSaw): 10Halexander (MOD): You slam your face into the desk on the way down. Take 1d4 damage for that, and your nose is bleeding.Match (SeeSaw): Why are you doing this to me.Halexander (MOD): You chose to let me design this campaign. What did you think would happen?Match (SeeSaw):2Halexander (MOD): While you’re down, another blanket catches you by the wrist. Again. Go, Videre.Videre (ANON): two more drawersHalexander (MOD): The first is full of pieces of metal. Mostly junk, nuts and bolts. The second is empty, so I’ll knock the action down and let you open another one.Match (SeeSaw): IF YOU WANT TO KEEP YOUR HANDS AFTER THIS YOU WILL HELP ME RIGHT NOWVidere (ANON): yeah ill open another drawer. that leaves three left right

They searched every single drawer before helping me, by which time I was almost dead and being smothered by a pillow. They found the deed and I chewed them out on the way back to town. They said they knew I would be fine, they needed to find the deed, and there was no harm done.

Having already seen the parallels this anonymous player was making between their character and myself, I bristled at my computer.

Match (SeeSaw): Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. You won’t stay anonymous forever.Videre (ANON): oh im so scaredVidere (ANON): are you gonna come kick the shit out of me over a dumb game? give it up and find something else to obsess over if youre gonna be like that kidVidere (ANON): im just staying in character

And I had a good idea who was on the other side of the computer after that. Especially after I found out he’d done a covert investigation check with Hal instead of sharing with me. He knew there was an enemy in the room before we even entered. Was likely planning on using me as a distraction from the beginning.

The next time he surprised me, we were working for the owner of an orphanage to find ways to exploit parents interested in adoption. Match goes along with it because why not. Also because fuck adults.

But Videre surprised both me and Jax.

Jaxabandit (MOD): u want to what?Videre (ANON): buy the orphanageMatch (SeeSaw): We won’t get paid if you do that.Videre (ANON): im gonna assume that was in character and not in this whole ‘ooc’ space or whateverMatch (SeeSaw): Duh. The guy’s slimy and gross. But just because you have money doesn’t mean Match does. He needs the paycheck.Videre (ANON): think of it this wayVidere (ANON): if dicks like this werent in power match wouldnt have grown up on the streetsMatch (SeeSaw): That’s not how he thinks about shit and you know it.Videre (ANON): and hes not the one holding a huge sack of gold right now

I didn’t know what to think. By this point, I knew it was Kane. The fact that I asked Haz helps, but I know the way he talks to me. He’s the only one that would do this and keep up with it for so long.

So now, I’m not exactly sure what to do.

Match just died, like D-E-D, dead, and Videre is flipping the fuck out. The two of them had become fairly close friends. They were snarky and prickly toward each other, but they were partners in crime and would likely kill for each other.

Videre gets really scary in the final stretch of that fight.

I didn’t realize Kane thought so highly of my intimidation skills. I didn’t think he thought highly of me at all, not outside of work. I was just a tool and a weapon and something to either give orders to or take orders from.

But Videre is a force of nature toward the end. Being a mastermind rogue, they confuse the ice devil as well as fighting it. They show a lot of skill they didn’t before, turning a few unlucky rolls into happy mistakes. Even they seem surprised when they win.

Videre (ANON): wellVidere (ANON): i guess i know what its like to be you nowThe Old Hazzle Dazzle (MOD): Are you done now, Kane?Videre (ANON): wow cats out of the bagMatch (SeeSaw): You’re awful at hiding who you are, though.Match (SeeSaw): Also, you’re an assholeThe Old Hazzle Dazzle (MOD): Did you want to make a new character and keep going? Or call it quits for now?Match (SeeSaw): I think I’m done. I gotta go challenge Kane to a fist fight.Videre (ANON):gotta find me first

- Videre (ANON): has left the chat -

He’ll have to try a hell of a lot harder than that to get out of actually hanging out with me like a person.

[thecartoonarchivist]

My Thought on The Dragon Prince

So, the first season of The Dragon Prince released on Netflix yesterday and like the cartoon nerd I am, I binged watched all the episodes at like... 12:00 at night. (Sue me.) 

And I’m gonna be honest: I have some opinions.

For those of you who don’t know who I am, or haven’t seen my posts popping up from time-to-time over the past month or so, I’m the Cartoon Archivist. I’ve watched a lot of cartoons over the years and I help people find the cartoons that they’ve looking for; in my spare time, I write exposés on different cartoons that used to premiere on various networks and rate them. I won’t go into detail about my “cartoon resume” but if you’re interested in what I do, go ahead and check out my blog, or read this post here to get started.

Regardless, I feel that it’s my duty to my followers and my blog as a whole to write an article about what I’ve seen thus far and my opinions about The Dragon Prince.

And honestly?

It’s not that great. Shocking, I know. Unpopular opinion? More than likely. Will I get flack for it? Probably, but I’m more than willing to accept that.

Here’s the thing. While watching this series, I was keenly aware of all the things that it lacked; I knew exactly what it could be and that’s just not a spot that you want to place you want to put your audience into. It then appears to be half-baked, rushed, and disappointing because you know how much work went into the show--- you know how much was sacrificed to get it out on time.

And that’s just sad.

Now, before I go into detail, I feel that I need to clarify a few things. 

As much as it seems extremely unfair to compare this series to that of Avatar: The Last Airbender, that’s exactly what I will be doing but for a good reason. You see, Avatar: The Last Airbender was a trailblazer in a lot of ways. Although it wasn’t the first western animation that featured a large, complicated, overarching plot, it was the first to do so with, not only a plan of how each season was to go and lead towards the finale, but to have such important character growth as well. Shows like Teen Titans, Ben 10, and Samurai Jack to varying degrees all had similar types of storytelling that was present in Avatar: The Last Airbender and these groundbreaking shows helped pave the way for Avatar to even exist. But it wasn’t until Avatar was released that it helped show western audiences the types of stories that could be told in animation. Anime was already telling these stories over in Japan, even premiering some of their stories in the west with television programming such as Anime Network, or Toonami--- but these never really seen such sweeping popularity, and for the most part, was catered towards kids and early teenagers. However, Avatar was so popular that I haven’t met a single person who was a child when this show was airing that hasn’t at least seen the show. (I’ve met one or two individuals who didn’t like the show, but they’ve at least seen it. [Needless to say, they turned out to be very nasty people but that’s neither here nor there...]) It’s probably one of, if not the, cartoon that went from being considered a “children’s show” to being a family show. My parents watched it! My parents loved it! It wasn’t a weird thing to watch this show because it managed to cater to many demographics. And for that, it becomes one of the most influential cartoons within the past 20 years. Avatar has turned 13 years old this past February and it feels like it could of been released this past year. It is simply, a classic.

However, aside from Avatar, there’s not many cartoons to compare The Dragon Prince to. I could compare it to shows that I’ve stated before: Teen Titans, Samurai Jack, Ben 10, Codename: Kids Next Door, and many others. But the problem is that many of these shows focus on one type of storytelling. With Ben 10 and Codename: Kids Next Door, there wasn’t so much of an “overarching plot” that drove the series forward as much as there was character development over a series. You could make a case for Ben 10, saying that Ben 10 gaining the omnitrix and trying to remove it was the overarching plot of the show, but to that I say, there wasn’t a particular finale planned for that “goal.” It was more of a vague possibility that they worked and not every season funneled towards it. There wasn’t an escalation. Not everything was working towards this goal. It was simply there. For Teen Titans and Samurai Jack, there was an overarching plot but at the expense of other things. For Teen Titans, there was an overarching plot for a season; it focused on the problems and the struggles for one of the Titans for a season, maybe even a couple of episodes within a season, but there wasn’t a particular end goal. There wasn’t a final boss to defeat. There wasn’t an overarching plot that connected the overarching plots. It was primarily focused on character growth. For Samurai Jack, it had an overarching plot at the expense of character growth. For the most part, Jack stays the same throughout the series. He may learn some new tactics, become more accustomed to his new surroundings, fight new and increasingly difficult challenges, but he doesn’t grow towards something. He continuously tries to go back home and defeat Aku, but there’s not the constant escalation towards a final battle like there is in Avatar. Because of this, The Dragon Prince is in the difficult position of not only having such a ridiculously small venue to compare itself to, but also the fact that it’s going to be compared to its spiritual predecessor. It’s unfair. It’s cruel. But it’s the only other show that uses the same complete range of techniques that The Dragon Prince uses. I may compare it somewhat to Anime, but seeing as that’s eastern animation versus western animation, I’ll try to refrain from that as much as possible. So while it appears that comparing The Dragon Prince to Avatar: The Last Airbender pre-establishes a bias and unfair advantage towards Avatar, I’m only doing that out of lack of options and opportunity. Otherwise, I will try to remain as objective as possible. After all, The Dragon Prince needs to be able to stand on its own merit, regardless of its predecessor.

Now that that’s out of the way...

One of the first things to comment on is the art-style, and for a lot of people, it’s a bit of a turn-off. For one thing, it’s animated using cheaply produced CGI, which leaves the animation rather choppy.

However, that doesn’t really bother me too much. The character designs are fantastic. The establishing shots and aerial angles of the backgrounds are absolutely stunning. And even while using such a generic type of animation, they were still able to create a unique look to their animation that anyone would be able to identify this cartoon from a mile away. For what the technology they were working with, they did a great job. Could they have used better technology? Certainly. But for what they had, I was generally pretty happy with the result.

On top of this, I was an individual who was able to sit through the awful animation of Ajin: Demi-human and still enjoy myself so... really... it’s not as bad as it could’ve been. (And for those of you who never saw Ajin, here’s a clip of the animation. It’s just... hot garbage...)

Watching all 9 episodes that released yesterday on Netflix, I feel that I can identify 3 major problems that I had with the overall quality of the series.

1.) The Plot Felt Rushed.

The best way I can describe the overall feeling I had from watching this series is if someone tried to explain to me their DnD campaign in the span of 9 twenty-five minute episodes. And to any DnD or Table-top RPG player, this seems like a dream come true. However, in practice? This is a very poor way to tell a story. Having watched way too many hours of DnD livestreams and YouTube shows, I can tell you that when you try and summarize a DnD campaign, it just doesn’t amount to actually sitting down and watching each individual session. Many of the things that the average individual wouldn’t include in their overall summary of the campaign help us feel closer to the characters involved! The weird, crazy antics and conversations that players get themselves into help reveal to the audience (and to each other!) the type of people each character is. If we don’t spend enough time with these characters, getting to know their personality, they’re speech patterns, their quirks, it becomes a whole lot harder to care for what they want or are striving towards. It becomes difficult to relate to them as people and you begin to view them more as symbols, or objects than actual living beings. Watching this series, I felt like I was constantly being fire-hosed with information and plot and world-building and backstory and character growth and new characters and my god how much can you fit into one fucking episode I’m so---- I never had breathing room. I never had enough time to get to know these characters. I never got to see them when things were dull, or they had a long stretch of road to travel, or just having a moment to process all that’s happened. To be honest, I wanted some filler episodes. I wanted an episode or two where we weren’t focused on all the terrible things that were going wrong. I just... I wanted a moment to breathe. And seeing as they only included 9 episodes instead of the standard 24, I can’t help but feel that they should’ve put it off. Now, maybe there was some pressure from Netflix to get this baby out to the public, but really, it was to the show’s detriment. It wasn’t ready. It needed more time. The scripts needed a better once over, another look to say, “You know what? Maybe we should put another couple one-off episodes to make this breathe a little better.” It just... it needed more time.

2.) The Characters Felt Like Chess Pieces, Not Characters.

What do I mean by that? Well, let me explain.

In writing, one of the major things that they tell you is that your characters should fuel your plot. Their actions and reactions should help push your plot forwards; in every scene, they should be working towards their goals and what they want, and if they aren’t well... you should cut it.

If you’re using your characters as chess pieces, that simply means that your characters aren’t fueling your plot, your plot is fueling your characters. Each character does a certain thing, not because your character wants to do X thing, or does something because of X reasons, but simply because the plot calls for it. When this happens, characters become wishy-washy. The small little problems that arise come, not from conscious character decisions and personality clashes, but from lack of communications and convenient drama problems. On top of this, small character quirks, lines of dialogue, actions that actually affect the plot of the story, could be fulfilled by any one of the cast of characters. They aren’t individual people with their own wants and desires, their own personalities and flaws. They simply become pieces to fill a role that’s empty and as an audience member, how am I supposed to empathize with that? How am I supposed to care about these people and their struggles when whatever “3- dimensional personality traits and backstory” could’ve been fulfilled by... anyone... 

On top of this, it causes character motivations to become muddled. They may have a “reason” as to why they act the way that they do, but it doesn’t really affect their personality. 

Let’s take Zukko for example. It’s goal, his motivation, is to capture the Avatar at all costs. Why? To restore is honor. To be accepted back into the Fire Nation with open arms. To make his father proud of him for once in entire life. Because of this motivation, Zukko is desperate. He wants so badly to be accepted by his father that he’s willing to do anything in order to capture the Avatar. This affects his actions. He’s very rash. He doesn’t think things through to their fullest extent. He’s a very angry character because of the fact that he’s so desperate for the love and acceptance that he’s never received from his father that every single failure, every single step back, every single moment that he has to wait and plan and think things through seems like a delay of his desires. If you were to place Sokka, or Katara, or Aang, or any other character in the same exact situation that Zukko was placed under, they wouldn’t react the same exact way and that’s what makes a character individual. If we were to compare Zukko to Rayla, we see that Rayla’s actions... could’ve been Soren’s actions, or King Harrow’s actions, or even Callum’s actions if placed in the same exact circumstances. The fact that she spared a random human soldier, or the fact that she’s teaming up to save the Dragon Prince doesn’t seem like a decision that she’s actively made. It only seems like she’s made those decisions because the writers wanted her to, or because the plot called for it. The writers say that it’s because Rayla wants redemption for her parents cowardice but I don’t really believe it. If Rayla really wanted to redeem herself, she wouldn’t have hesitated to kill the human soldier. If she found the Dragon Prince with the human princes, she would have taken the egg for herself and became the hero of her people. Why would she care about some war? Why would she care about the “fear in the soldier’s eyes” or “the right thing to do?” The only thing that is established that we know about is that she’s trying to redeem herself for her parents mistakes, which is why she’s the fastest, the strongest, and the most skilled in her group. All these... additional actions? They make no sense. They’re out of character. They just don’t... fit. And because of that, they don’t feel real. They simply feel like chess pieces that the author uses to further the plot. Granted, we’ve only seen 9 episodes of Rayla, but even in the early seasons of Avatar, every character’s actions had a purpose even if we, the audience, couldn’t see it, we could feel the consistency within the character. But with The Dragon Prince? There was no character consistency and because of that, the audience could feel that.

3.) Who’s The Villain?

Consciously, I know who the villain is. Viren is supposed to be this big man-ba-jama that’s supposed to be out to kill the prince. Why? Because he wants the throne... supposedly. But... why? What does he gain by becoming the King of an empire at war? Power, sure but... nobody wants power for the sake of power. If he really did, he would have killed King Harrow a long time ago. But instead, he’s simply trying to pull Scar (from The Lion King) with... no real reason? I mean, Scar wanted power because he wanted people to respect him. But I’m still baffled as to why Viren wants the throne...

And as far as The Dark Magic is concerned, I mean... I get why Dark Magic is supposed to be bad. Using someone’s life-force against their will is... it’s kinda horrific. Not to mention, the process appears to be pretty fucking painful, so yeah. Bad Idea™. But like.... what’s the benefit of using Dark Magic? What do you gain by using it? Like, we have 6 different sources of magic. We have multiple different magical ways to solve a problem, why do we need a new “evil terrible” one? On top of that, Viren isn’t... a threat? Like... yeah, he orders to kill the princes. Yeah, he places Runaan’s soul in a coin which is pretty fucking bad but like... with Firelord Ozai, he killed millions of people. He burned his own fucking son just because dared to speak out of turn, like that’s straight up sociopathic. He uses his children as tools and doesn’t care for anyone but himself. But Viren? He... actually cares? And he has legitimate feelings? And maybe he uses his children as tools but at the end of the day, he still actually cares about them and like... Viren legitimately seems like he’s just trying to do what he thinks as right, but doing it in the worst fucking way possible. 

And maybe that’s the point of the series. Maybe it’s the idea that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” but there just... isn’t enough indication of that fact. The series tries to paint these children as “right” and Viren as “wrong” and Runaan as “overzealous” and General Amaya as “misguided” and... when you want to use gray morality, you have to show the good actions people take along with the bad actions. You have to show that the villains are capable of good, that the heroes are capable of bad, and that there’s a reason for everything someone does.

 That’s how you write gray morality. But seeing as the characters aren’t solid personalities and there isn’t really a reason for a character to make any particular action, it becomes nigh impossible to do so.

So, where does that leave us?

Well, it’s not a bad show. The world-building is so vibrant and so alive that I would love to see a DnD campaign or some other form Table-top RPG to come out of this series. The animation was actually surprisingly good for what they were working with. Yeah, backgrounds were a little recycled and a bit bland from time-to-time. They could’ve used some more in-between frames to make the animation more smooth and connected. Even some shots leave me going, “Ewwww.... You really skipped that one for time, didn’t cha?” But at the end of the day, I could dig it. I could ignore it for what was happening.

The problem is that the writing was so rushed. The characters felt lost. The plot was running at a break neck pace. I didn’t understand why anything was happening the way it was. I was just... disappointed. While looking through some gifs for this post, I feel like this one really describes my overall impression of the show.

It needed more.

It needed more time, more character development, more episodes. Just... more.

Problem is that it’s a quality show. It’s so much better than many of the animations that I’ve seen in recent years that it really does become a cut above the rest. However, like I said before, I know what it could be. And that just makes me extremely sad for its lost potential.

Overall, if I had to rate it, I’d give it a solid 7 out 10.

I’m going to keep tabs on it. The first season is always the roughest one, so in the future, it very well could live up to expectations. But for now, it’s just... disappointing. It isn’t bad by any means. I’ve seen some bad animations in my time and this doesn’t even come close to that. But I just feel like it could be so much more and that really bothers me.

If there are any corrections you’d like to make in regards to this post, please feel free to send me a message with your corrections and I’ll get back to it as soon as I can!

Do you remember a cartoon your friends have never heard of? Got a scene from an animated film that you’re dying to know the name to? Send your questions to The Cartoon Archivist and I’ll see what I’ve got in the vault!

[covered-in-ash-archive]

eddie is horribly abusive and y’all need to be aware of him

i really did not want to have to resort to this. i fully intended to not call eddie out and just let this die off. since it hasn’t, multiple friends have convinced me to come forward with the abuse, stalking, harassment, manipulation, gaslighting, misgendering, etc i have been subjected to at the hands of eddie over the past week+. i haven’t used tumblr in... ages, so i’ve completely forgotten how to use coding in tumblr posts. sorry in advance for that. this is going to be both a call out and a “hey, this is what really went down” type of thing.

before i hop into covering the hot garbage that has been happening, here’s is where to find eddie. i fully encourage everyone to block him and warn others. he has been getting away with abusing people for years.

his twitter: https://twitter.com/mrgluskin

his horror blog: https://outlastwikia.tumblr.com/

if anyone knows the url for his main blog, please let me know.

update: been told his main blog is gluskin. i have not confirmed it for myself because i simply want nothing to do with eddie.

this is going to be long, sorry. tw for... pretty much everything. reblogs are encouraged and appreciated. let’s expose this abuser before he can abuse anyone else.

alright. for background’s sake, eddie followed me on twitter because we had a mutual friend, catherine. right off the bat, he bombed me with positive attention, liking all of my tweets, complimenting me, etc. a friend has since pointed out that abusers often do this before abusing their victims. i just figured he was a friendly guy and didn’t think anything of it. catherine and i had a falling out because she kept frequently using the r slur, despite not being autistic, and it was really making me, an autistic person, feel extremely uncomfortable (this is a whole different can of worms, though. catherine has also been outed as an abuser and a suicide baiter). disgruntled by the situation, i posted this to vent my frustration.

this is my personal opinion on the issue, as an autistic person with autistic friends and family, all who agree with my stance. i’m not here to debate this. i want this to focus on eddie and not get derailed.

eddie absolutely flipped his shit at me. he claimed that since he has adhd (which he went on to say is EXACTLY LIKE AUTISM... not even gonna bother to explain how wrong that is. i have both. i should know) he is entitled to use that slur, my feelings be damned. he said that me saying he should not use the r slur erases the ableism people with adhd face. again, this is... not how it works. i wish i had grabbed screencaps because it seems that his tweets have been deleted. all i have is my side of the conversation, where you can see that i was perfectly calm and polite.

i ended things by explaining that i could agree to disagree for the sake of our friendship & that as long as he didn’t use the slur around me i would be fine. he stopped replying to the thread after that.

a while later, i received this message from eddie.

i’m going to point out real quick that the last time i posted to twitter about my makeup was months ago. eddie could only know this if he dug through MONTHS worth of tweets. this was where his stalking began. he went through hundreds upon hundreds of tweets looking for any tiny thing he could use to attack me over. he was actively looking for conflict & things to be mad about. he needed something to demonize me over, because “they asked me to not say r*tard” is obviously going to make him look bad if he cites that as his reason why he has beef with me. we discussed jeffree star briefly & then he blocked me. i wrongly assumed that was going to be the end of it.

i noticed that, during all of this eddie/catherine drama, someone had stolen my url. i thought it was petty/funny, and posted this to twitter. this is the only thing i said about the url. this is literally it. i did not and have not accused anyone of stealing it. i honestly don’t care because i very rarely am on tumblr nowadays.

i’m not sure of exactly what happened, but i’m assuming either catherine told eddie i had said it was him, or eddie somehow convinced himself of it. eddie unblocked me instantly and sent this.

he reblocked me after this. at that point, i consider it harassment.

as i’m combing through his twitter for all of this shit he did to me, i just now saw that he posted screenshots of our conversations in an attempt to turn people against me, while omitting that this whole thing began because he wanted to use SLURS. he posted a handful of tweets gossiping about me.. he has been attempting to paint me as a racist transphobe and he has been telling everyone i accused him of stealing my url, even though i told him i hadn’t accused anyone.

a mutual friend of ours (who has since ditched him) then contacted me saying eddie was posting screenshots of my social media while shit talking me.

the green thing is a screenshot of my listography. i don’t like or associate with q*eer because it’s a slur. i’ve been distancing myself from the lgbt community as of late due to the influx of rape threats, misgendering, harassment, racism, and overall nastiness i’ve been dealing with from lgbt people. i shouldn’t have to justify this. i have my reasons. this is, again, eddie grasping for anything he can use against me.

because liking problematic things makes someone a bad person, amiright? it’s not like i’m an adult who can recognize when something is problematic & still have the capacity to enjoy aspects of it. to put into perspective... eddie is vocally kin with a serial killer from a game that demonizes mentally ill people. he has no room to talk.

this whole time, eddie has been telling people that he cut me off as a friend over me owning jeffree star makeup and was incessantly trashing my name publicly while spreading lies about me. we have mutual followers, so i posted this, trying to keep his name out of things in an attempt to not escalate the drama.

eddie continues to vague and obsess. meanwhile, i’m trying to move on with my life.

not wanting to be associated with a community that treats me poorly doesn’t mean i suddenly don’t face the same struggles as them or can’t have an opinion on the issues i face, just so you know.

at this point, i sent him a message politely asking him to stop talking about me all over his twitter and to move on with his life. he deleted the response but the preview is still on his twitter.

here he is, again, lying about me. i have not contacted a single one of his friends once. i have harassed no one. i haven’t even spoken with catherine since this all began.

anyway.

1) i’m 22 but that’s irrelevant

2) anyone else think him calling my friend ‘babe’ is kind of creepy? just saying

eddie began implying if not outright saying that i’m abusive. he posted this while talking about me. he was “confronting” me at the time so... who else could it possibly be about?

i tweeted these in response, because i take abuse allegations extremely seriously. as an abuse survivor, i do not appreciate even having it be IMPLIED that i am abusive.

after posting these, i hopped in the shower. eddie proceeds to have a meltdown. he had me blocked but i had not blocked him. at this point, i had blocked our mutuals. the only way he could have seen these tweets was by refreshing my twitter over and over again, waiting for me to say something about him/the situation. eddie unblocked me & quoted my tweets with this.

i haven’t lied about anything, as my screencaps illustrate. he just wants to be absolved of any responsibility. i also did not “throw a fit” - i very politely requested that he stop gossiping about me publicly. he also messaged me around the time he quoted my tweets.

again, have not lied about anything. he attempted to gaslight me by saying he was actually calling jeffree star abusive, which is absolutely not what he did. check the screencaps.

i was tired of being nice to the person who had so far harassed and stalked me, lied about me, and attempted to gaslight me.

*drops this here*

well i mean, at least he admits he’s been harassing me?

this tweet below was confirmed about me. in it, he calls me a trans man. i have explicitly stated many times that i am not a trans man. i am nonbinary. i have told my twitter following countless times that calling me a man is misgendering. it is in my bio.

@ranunculae aka fawn reached out to me late at night on the 21st. we had a 5+ hour long conversation in which they explained to me that eddie had abused them and has spent the past 2 years harassing and stalking them like he was doing to me. eddie and catherine had teamed up and suicide baited fawn until fawn had to go inpatient. eddie and catherine have been attempting to socially isolate fawn for 2 years now by spreading lies and doctored screencaps in a sketchy “call out”. you can read fawn’s statements here.

https://ranunculae.tumblr.com/post/166659734265/i-never-abused-eddie/amp

https://ranunculae.tumblr.com/post/166779554950/ranunculae-ranunculae-keythecoward

the 2nd link includes a conversation in which a minor talks about eddie grooming him and attempting to be sexual with him.

i’m going to post some things that fawn sent to me over chat just because they’re semi-relevant.

my irl best friend, cat, was close friends with catherine. fawn and i felt that cat needed to know that catherine was involved in suicide baiting and abusing fawn with eddie. so, we approached cat about it and fawn explained their entire side of things to cat.

eddie, through his relentless stalking of me, noticed we were all in contact.

i want to clarify that fawn/katie has not been on his twitter once throughout all of this. fawn’s boyfriend periodically checks eddie’s twitter to see if he’s still stalking and obsessing over fawn. fawn’s boyfriend saw eddie harassing me, and he let fawn know that eddie had picked a new target to abuse. then fawn contacted me. it literally is a smear campaign. and fawn said the smear campaign was against ME, not them, even though eddie has been posting libel about fawn for years. 

1) actual minors have come to me and fawn to tell us about eddie preying on them and grooming them

2) this was a response to cat taking mine and fawn’s sides

3) eddie called cat a ‘cuntbag’, which is misogynistic 

4) these ‘victims’ have not come forward because they don’t EXIST. meanwhile, i am nearly the 30th victim of eddie’s that has ACTUALLY COME FORWARD.

eddie attempting to guilt trip and manipulate cat, a csa/incest survivor, for siding with fawn.

again, more lying about me. as you can clearly see, i never threw a fit. i have been calm during this entire ordeal. also... this is, once again, him trying to divert attention away from what really started this; his NEED to use the r slur around someone who is uncomfortable with it.

cyberfuneral = cat’s twitter handle

cat sent me screenshots. eddie does not have her blocked. this is, again, lies and manipulation. if it looks like we’re sneaking around a block, then we’re obviously the bad guys, right? 

when cat confronted catherine about eddie calling her misogynistic insults, eddie lied to catherine and claimed he never called cat a cunt. he didn’t even bother to delete the tweets to hide his lies. 

scroll up to see him calling me a man, which i am not, thus it was misgendering. also, childish insults.

this is referring to something i added at the bottom of my listography. i’d like to point out that he posted this within minutes of me updating my listography. further stalking right there.

this is what my listography currently says. it is a temporary placeholder in lieu of an actual call out. it will be replaced or updated with the link to this post after it is published. you wanted the screencaps posted, eddie, so you’re getting your wish.

i can only imagine what filth eddie is saying on his locked personal twitter. i think i’d rather not know, though.

it has been more than an entire week of stalking, harassment, gaslighting, manipulation, lying, smear campaigns, misgendering, misogyny, etc etc from eddie. he is awful. he is abusive and a manipulator. do not befriend him. the second you upset him, he will turn on you and treat you like he has countless others. i am just one victim out of many. stay away. block him. spread this to warn people.

@eddieabuser2

[yourhelpfulaffiliate]

My Pinterest Suspension: A Cautionary Tale

I recently had my Pinterest account suspended and after a few days of back-and-forth with Pinterest Support I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s basically dead. I want to share the story of how I ended up here so that you don’t. Pinterest can be a very powerful tool for getting traffic to your website as well as a fun way for your readers to share and save blog post they like. As I’ve had some time to reflect and except that the suspension was probably the result of my own actions I can see an easy comparison between my story and the story of Icarus.

In the story of Icarus, Icarus escapes a labyrinth using wings constructed for him out of things that were just lying around. The construction of the wings was sound and he was able to fly out of the labyrinth. Unfortunately Icarus becomes drunk on his own accomplishment and flies ever higher and higher. The higher he flies the closer he gets to the sun. The closer he gets to the sun the warmer his wings become and since they’re just held together with beeswax eventually the wings fall apart and Icarus falls into the sea. I know my stories no Greek legend but I think people can still learn from my mistakes. It all started out so simply. If you don’t already know, when you create a new blog website it can take quite a long time for new blog posts to rank on search engines. This can leave your website looking and feeling like a ghost town for months. I had heard that creating a Pinterest account for your blog website was a good way to get traffic to it in this early stage. So I created and set up a Pinterest account for my blog website. When I adopt a new tool I like to create a step-by-step method to follow for posting content. When I first started using Pinterest this method was quite simple but overtime evolved to be my downfall. My method stage 1 Write a blog postDesign a basic pin for itPin that image linked to the blog post At the end of stage 1 my Pinterest monthly views were 7500.

Growing My Pinterest Account

After creating my account and posting a few pins I became very interested in how I could grow my account. I started doing a bunch of research on Google and YouTube to see how other people had grown their accounts. I have a blog post about these strategies which you can check out by clicking on the link below. https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/how-i-grew-my-pinterest-monthly-views-from-7-5k-to-20k-in-less-than-two-weeks/ I was proud up myself. I had done the research and then I done the work. After adding a few more steps to my method which I learned in this research I started seeing more visitors to my website from Pinterest. I want to point out this wasn’t a huge change in traffic. But when you have a new website in your traffic is zero and you’re able to make it go from 0 to 10 that can be pretty exciting. It can also lead you to try and amplify those results. It was this want to amplify my traffic that I think caused the most problems for me. My method stage 2 Write a blog postDesign a pin image using CanvaAdd image to blog postPin that image linked to the blog post Fill the whole DescriptionAdd 3 related hashtagsShare on 3 Tailwind Tribes I also experimented with a few $5 Pinterest ad campaigns during this stage. At the end of stage 2 my Pinterest monthly views were 20,000. This growth only took 2 weeks. I did post about 20 blogs in that time.

Flying Too High

This is where I think the trouble started. I had been so successful in such a short time at growing my Pinterest account. I wanted to see if I could grow it more and faster. This lead me to make some dumb mistakes. I think if I had just stuck with the method in stage 2 I would not have lost my account. Unfortunately I had to push it and when you push things to far they break. My method stage 3 Write blog post Design 3 pin images using CanvaAdd the 3 images to the blog postPin those images linked to the blog post Fill the whole DescriptionAdd 3 related hashtagsShared on 7 Tailwind TribesShare pins on Facebook group Repin threadsShare pins to multiple boards Follow 50 people in my niche a day Adding this many steps makes it difficult to judge which of them is effecting your results the most. On top of that it is just more work. I was focused on the wrong metric, monthly views. I was able to grow this from 1500 to 85,000 but in the end it wasn’t worth it. I should have kept my focus on website traffic. As my monthly views grew and grew my click through rate did not. I never got more than 15 views a day from Pinterest even with my huge monthly view numbers.

The End

Well this is how it all fell apart. After taking a break from Pinterest and visiting my family over thanksgiving I got back to it. I was doing my usual daily thing, following a few Pinterest accounts. After following about 15 accounts Pinterest gave me the boot. I was locked out of my account! I got an email saying my account had been suspended because of spam. I was stunned! All those hours of hard work and research wiped away in a single second. I couldn’t believe it.

Dealing With Pinterest Suspension

Almost immediately after reading this Pinterest suspension email I began going through the 5 stages of grief. Denial My first thought was this must be some kind a mistake. I’ll get in contact with Pinterest and they’ll reactivate my account and tell me they’re sorry. I was so sure I would get my Pinterest account reactivated I wrote a blog post on what to do if your Pinterest account gets suspended. You can find that blog post by clicking on the link below. https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/what-to-do-if-your-pinterest-account-is-suspended-with-pictures/ After actually getting in touch with Pinterest it didn’t look like it was going to go my way. Pinterest was set on keeping the account suspended and not telling me clearly why. The closest I could get to an explanation was I was participating in spammy behavior. Anger Now I was pissed. They won’t tell me what I did wrong. They won’t give me a way to get my account back. Pinterest had make their decision and their decision was final. And to think I pay Pinterest for ads, I added hundreds of pieces of content to Pinterest platform, and I shared hundreds of other peoples pens as well. It’s been hours sorting pins on the proper boards, creating interesting and descriptive descriptions, and designing eye-catching pins. And now it was all for nothing because Pinterest decided my account should be suspended. Bargaining After I cool down a little bit from being pissed off I decided to try and contact Pinterest again. I asked them if there was anything I could do to try and get my Pinterest account back. I apologize for whatever I have done to be suspended. I asked if they could clarify what that thing was so that I wouldn’t do it again. And then I politely asked to have my account reactivated. I was met with a brief email reply. Basically it said they decided my account should be suspended because some of my actions went against their anti-spam policy. They told me they would no longer be able to look into the issue and that it was resolved. Depression Now I knew there was no turning back. My Pinterest account was gone, Suspended, deleted, removed, and destroyed. Even my URLs on existing pins are now blocked. If you try to click on them you’ll receive a spam warning message and you will not be allowed to visit my website. It was all terrible news. I spent several days feeling very down on myself about it. Acceptance Well, as they say, time heals all wounds. About a week after being suspended from Pinterest I finally accepted that it was my fault. I knew pouting about it would not change anything. So I decided to make lemons into lemonade. If I could stop one person from making the mistakes I had made maybe it would be worth it. So I decided to share this story. It wasn’t easy to share but I think it’s for the best.

Pinterest Behavior To Avoid

I can’t tell you exactly what it was that got my account suspended because Pinterest would not clearly answer that question, but I can guess. Posting Too Much Too Fast If you combine the number of pins I physically posted everyday with the number of pins I had posted using Tailwind’s pins scheduler I was posting somewhere between 65 and 100 times a day. With Pinterest less is more. Don’t flood it with pins, they will notice. Posting The Same Pin On Multiple Boards This is straight up listed in Pinterest spam policy. Don’t do it. Just post your pins to the best possible board. That should keep you out of trouble. Using Pinterest Sharing Facebook Groups I am pretty sure this was a major mistake. Let your pins grow organically. Using this type of repin for repin group is dishonest and I’m pretty sure it is against Pinterest spam policies. Posting Multiple Pins For the Same Blog Keep it simple. One pin per post. Using Too Many Tailwind Tribes Don’t get me wrong, Tailwind is a great tool for growing your Pinterest account. Tailwind tribes can also be very useful but posting the same pin to many tribes is not the best idea. Mostly because if the tribes are in related niches chances are the same people are in those tribes. It is better to pick a few and share different pins instead of the same pin to a ton of tribes. To learn more about Tailwind click the link below. https://yourhelpfulaffiliate.com/new-tailwind-users-get-15-tailwind-plus-credit/ Following Too Many People Too Fast Take this slow. This is the last thing I did on Pinterest. Personally I don’t know what the limit is for this but you should try to stay as far away from it as you can. Putting Promoting Over Content The quality of your contacts should always be you’re number one focus. While promoting your Content is very useful it should not be your primary focus.

Conclusion

While sharing the story wasn’t easy to do I hope at least by sharing it I can help someone avoid the mistakes I’ve made. It really sucks being suspended from Pinterest and if you can avoid it I highly recommend doing so. While being suspended from Pinterest was not my favorite experience, I do think I can walk away with a few valuable lessons. The first one being Patience. Growing up presents online takes time. When you try to force this you’ll probably cause nothing but problems. I’m going to try and let my web presence grow organically from here on out. It won’t be easy but I think it’s for the best. The second lesson I learned was to put content over promotion. Now that I can no longer promote my blog on Pinterest I suddenly have more time to focus on creating content. I’m going to choose to take it vantage of this extra time I found. I hope this blog post was helpful or at least entertaining. Feel free to share your Pinterest story in the comments. Have a great day! Read the full article

[thewhimsicalfairy]

DAY 1 of NO CONTACT

Woke up crying today...i basically cried myself awake...

it first came as a few tears rolled off my face and then a consistent torrent like rain showers... the finality of it all...how i know that i was instrumental in this decision...still hurt like crazy (crying like crazy again, totally not gonna be looking my best at the wedding later...) the fact that i will no longer hear from you again...even if a text meant that it was just a bone for me to pick to ruminate...but no more...

cried in the shower last night...the silent kind cos i can't risk my mom knowing... everything in this was my choice my decision and i just have to bear with it...for now for however long it takes... but it just hurts so much now for some really odd reason...i really do have it bad for you...and now i single handedly denied my own personal drug and i'll just have to live without it and figure out how to move on... i know it will get better someday somehow but i just had to put this out here... consider this a physical documentation of this non-relationship...

x x x

i asked you out for dinner...wanting to put an end to this torment that you were putting me through...technically through no fault of yours but still...

you were WFH as you were still nursing that nasty throat (which developed into a scratchy cough no thanks to the haze - you are quite delicate eh?) so i trained down to your area to meet you you gave me pretty specific instructions on how to navigate the train station and picked me up at the bus stop. we had some convo of sorts while figuring out where to dine...pointing out to me your condo block etc...first choice Chinese place at Greenwich V was dead so we settled on Punggol White beehoon place...the only beehoon you eat (also a fairly pick eater) looking over the menu i vetoed most of the choices in view of easier options for your throat...cold drinks anything wasn't gonna do your throat any favours but you wanted barley cold...anyhow more convo over dinner...we touched on your side project and how i'm really am not the target audience (i am cheap like that...) i paid for this meal...consider this our last meal together... the drive back my home we discussed music...about Jay Chou's new track and me saying i dun get the hype and his previous track was better... played that track on your phone as it wouldn't connect to the car's audio system...(tried not to look cos i know i'd spy her name but i saw it anyway) played Maroon 5's new track, that 1 i really loved...and then it was back to radio and how the DJ was some love guru and how he basically only has one listener who calls in every night to dedicate songs that night was TLC's Waterfalls...and pagers and completely random stuff really...but i always enjoyed our convos cos they always took no particular shape and form but flowed naturally...

then A Great Big World's 'Say Something' came on...this track struck a chord in me...no less cos i have been listening to the Spotify 'Heartbreak' playlist on and off the past couple of weeks...

//Say something, I'm giving up on you I'll be the one, if you want me to Anywhere, I would've followed you Say something, I'm giving up on you

And I am feeling so small It was over my head I know nothing at all And I will stumble and fall I'm still learning to love Just starting to crawl

Say something, I'm giving up on you I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you Anywhere, I would've followed you Say something, I'm giving up on you

And I will swallow my pride You're the one that I love And I'm saying goodbye Say something, I'm giving up on you And I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you And anywhere, I would have followed you Oh, oh, oh, oh say something, I'm giving up on you Say something, I'm giving up on you Say something//

it is very apparent why it resonated with me now no...

after getting off the wrong exit cos you chose not to GPS it...we made it back at my place anyhow... and we began our usual heart to heart convos in the car...this time for the last time...

you kinda expected a convo was coming (it has come to this hasn't it...everytime we want/need facetime/ask each other out for a meal, it's because we need to talk...) i struggled a bit at the beginning as always and then you said maybe you should go first but i said i will do it...then sharing that i did consider just going mia and maybe saying everything via a letter but that felt too dramatic and it'd be terribly long (like how this blog post will be) you suggested email (well i could've looked your email up which is true) but anyhow here goes...

what are we now really..? i am really nothing more than a texting buddy and it is clear that you can't give me what i want... and it has come to a point where every text you send feels like a bone to a dog and i am said dog who will ruminate over the bone till the next one gets thrown my way and i don't like the version of myself i've become... i was on this roller coaster of emotions (maybe a kiddy size one compared to the huge one that you are riding but still a roller coaster nonetheless) for the first 2 weeks but after last Thursday's lunch convo i saw it with so much clarity... that you are not helping yourself to move on from the pain and i can't keep riding this dark wave you are on pulling us both down... and as much as you have not admitted it i firmly believed that i was just a rebound... i want my happiness back and so i need to remove myself from this pain...and i'm gonna do it cold turkey even it means yanking out a piece of myself forcefully and even if it hurts...(and boy does it hurt man)

you kinda already saw my response/decision coming cos yeah it's gotten pretty obvious my responses have been lacklustre of late (i was trying to hold back something, or my walls were coming up again) but honestly what i've been reduced to is a texting buddy and that i don't want to put myself through the mental torture of wondering when this stream of bones was gonna dry up, when will the next text be and all...

you shared how your emotions worked after a sesh with your sister (sisters are truly the best really)...how growing up you never learnt about emotions from your parents (typical Asian parents) that there was no touch or hugs as a form of communication in your family (again typical Asian household as well but i had my sister who was there for me for that) and how you only learnt what you know of emotions through relationships the first one being at 15 and how you basically invested your entire emotional wealth on this one person who has now basically left this huge void in your life and heart and you'd need time to refill this emotional mana (haha gaming speak) (but yes i get it which is why i said i was the rebound) you clarified that liking someone wasn't based on how tall they were whether they smoked or drink...those were just filters...cos liking someone is just that right you can't quite define it it just happens (this i wholly agree thanks and no thanks to you) and you confirmed that we had some good times even if they were short (thank you for acknowledging that cos i have been going crazy around my head wondering if it was all bullshit and a fantasy but it just might mean nothing to you on retrospect #becosrebound) (i mean in the grand scheme of things i'm probably just an asteroid vs a meteor shower and i can't beat that and i'm also not faulting you for it...) and you've had friends tell you the same thing (clearly whatever i said about removing the source of pain wasn't just a solo voice) 19 Sept was the hearing and you've already gotten the lawyer's letter that the Interim Divorce has been filed...so between now till 20 Dec if nothing changes the divorce will be final and somehow i felt that you wavered then...that if you were given the chance or indication to undo all this you will...but you've also went to see 3 condo units last week (to buy now not to rent) and with the Interim Divorce you can actually move forward with putting up a request with HDB to put your house up for sale... i've seen the space (random googling brought me there) and it's gorgeous (and i kinda can understand why you wouldn't want to give that up) but do what you need to do...

whatever been's said and done you obviously need way more time (i’m thinking closer to a year) to get over this phase and you also acknowledged that i was the kind of girl that needs a commitment not the grey zone shit that we’ve playing at and you are in no state to give me that...and as much as i said before that i was willing to wait and be there for you and all...i realise i can't...not after knowing that you've done nothing to help yourself...and as much as i want you, i want what we shared (before everything went to shits), you probably will not want me the same way when you are whole again #becosrebound so i had to do this the hard way which is to walk away...from this heartache from you...

towards the end, we talked about my take on this whole experience (basically a post campaign report if you will) i shared that i'm glad for the experience never mind how it transpired...this great white blank piece of paper finally has some graffiti (my choice of words) / colour (yours) and i also came to understand what i want better and that was someone who will place me as priority and always choose me no matter what and making everything so easy that i never ever had to doubt his intention or meaning... and when i meet that someone i will know (hopefully haha)

and then i just said 'well have a good life', popped out of the car, collected my things at the rear seat and left with a 'bye'. 头也不回的走了...i'm glad that i ended this on my own terms and not be a wastrel and dodged the subject and have it drag on to infinity because i know i deserve better and i needed to tell it to you ftf and that you will want to hear it from me... i never gave you the option of remaining friends or anything...my time my terms...

right now i need to pick up the pieces even if it was just a short 2 month span cos just passing by IP will be like 'oh he works here', walking past Oasia Hotel will be like 'oh we first met here' and all the little things that go off like alarms... but i'll get there...where all these will eventually be like 过眼云烟...

x x x

the tears come and go in bouts...in waves...i've never cried so much over a person before, not even when my dad walked out on us... i guess it really is true that you don't really forget your first love... maybe the frequency will let up in time...hopefully...

somehow the airport has kinda became our place in my head...cos of all the flying we’ve done in between this short 2 months... guess no one’s gonna be sending me to the wedding later today... or sending me to the airport tomorrow...or picking me up from the airport when i return...just no more... right now i can't wait to spend time with friends in Sydney, somewhere which i've never gone before (((: change of environment to create new experiences and memories...

[renaer-is-allegedly-hot]

session 14 notes

TO CLARIFY IN THIS SESSION AERANA DID N O T TOUCH ADAM’S BUTT SHE SLAPPED HIM AT THE NOTION AND IT’S A GOOD THING HE TOOK 11 DAMAGE AERANA HAS NO REGRETS also am i sorry for this format ? eh not really anymore

• Sylvia's siblings r screaming 

• Dom broke his brother's headphones

•  oh god we're starting but I'm still trying to fROST MY CAKE

• Yava I think her name is is like ok gonna join y'all

• Adam's racist

• GUESS EVERYONE HATES DROWS LMFAO

• Yava hates drows?

• Yava's gonna help protect the house

• I currently cannot breathe because there is a dirty diaper being changed around me and it is

• Aerana theo and asyna r downstairs

• Adam busts down the door and tells asyna to cook

○ Pushing yava into our house

○ "hi everyone this is yava this is my bard teacher she's gonna b basically our security for tonight"

○ Yava tugs on adam's shoulder and gestures to the pile of bodies

§ "yava remember when I said I got attacked last night . This was our self defense pile"

§ Yava apologizes to us for the nature of our circumstances

§ "if any of my friends - or you - " ok a/n: adam has put a suspicious amount of trust in yava given the amount of time and I'm shook

• Outside entrance doors

• Door opened by someone not a member of adam's party or by yava after dark, then spell set off

• All of our windows have been blown up but were boarded up

• Adam puts glyphs on doors and windows they used to get in last time and on basement hatchet and one on kitchen entrance

○ Making them all cold

○ Den on the second floor?

○ I wanna eat my cake

○ Glyphs will unspell around 8 a.m. the next day

○ I !! Wanna eat my cake :)

○ "when u wake up tmrw morning can u deactivate all the spells"

§ She would not b able to reactivate it if we did that

○ It won't dispel until the three days r over

• Jacob forgot celandine's name

• There r street vendors

• There's no ice box like no place to keep drinks cool in the house and apparently that's weird

• We need to feed yava

• "if asyna ,,, turned into a pig" marguerite, 2020

• Dom brings up lotr count: 1

○ Specifically namedrops "the fellowship of the ring" count: 2

• We're going grocery shopping

• Adam and asyna and theo r gonna go grocery shopping ? 18 for investigation

○ Not rlly grocery stores but ppl selling food everywhere

○ I want . Grilled chicken

○ Or like fried chicken

○ chicken

§ Maybe I'll microwave the pasta I made for dinner w some extra cheese on top

• Adam gets pork loins, potatoes, green beans, butter, bread, garlic, salt and pepper (which we have), strawberry sponge cake, heavy cream, chardonnay

○ Cel is making way back to house

○ Perception check, aerana 6

○ Aerana is looking around, sees yava making rounds; yava doesn't seem to treat aerana any differently

○ Eventually aerana sees cel arrive

○ Cel gets back

§ The bodies r not there anymore

□ IT SMELLS LIKE MISTLETOE

□ There is no mistletoe

• "heh. That could be scary" dom, 2020

• I'M H U N G R Y

• "tuesdays are pork loin nights" adam 2020

• Theo works on potatoes

• Cel pops in

• "adam did you make the garlic bread like I asked you to" theo, 2020

• Adam makes cooking intelligence check, 15

• Dinner is done

• Yava is done with one of the spells

• Something's happening I tuned out for two seconds

• Yava no longer considers self as one who goes on adventures but is now asking for our motivation for seeking this treasure

• Yava asks us for our motivations

○ Adam: revenge on bingbong

○ I don't remember the rest but it's not for the money

• Yava says she admirers the nobler goal of keeping the gold out of the hands of the xanathar guild

○ We don't know what we'll do w gold; cel is on team chuck-it-into-the-ocean

○ Could throw it into typ pit

• Oh my god. My cake slaps.

○ I want to focus on what yava is saying rn basically she's proposing we return the money if/when we get it but MY C A K E S L A P S

○ I N C R E D I B L E

○ Yava thinks there's a need for the money

• We don't know if yava is gonna report us

• Adam is gonna feed ot

○ Adam scoots the food back

○ Adam walks upstairs and says he's gonna b gone for five minutes and doesn't come back

• Cel asks yava abt her adventuring days

○ Was part of a nobles court years ago

○ Pirates too ig

○ I want cheese I want pasta with cheese

○ Has been to island of chault

○ Am I microwaving my pasta uh yes

○ Bet my fbi agent is judging me for how I'm reaching for my pasta from the microwave to avoid unplugging my earbuds

• Theo asks for advice from yava

○ Advises us to be safe but also to seek adventure where we can

○ Can get in over our head tho

○ MAN THIS PASTA IS G O O D I PUT MOZZARELLA ON TOP BRUHHHH

○ Yava is spending the rest of her time still guarding our house

• Never have I ever

○ Adam

○ Aerana

○ Theo

○ Cel 

○ Asyna

§ Been in a relationship

§ Been outside of waterdeep

§ Had drugs

§ A good relationship w parents

§ Not had Pets

§ Worn pajamas

§ Thrown up on someone

§ Education

§ Talked to a god or deity

§ Eaten meat

□ Asyna is a vegetarian but made the best pork loin

§ Met my mom

§ Swallowed a key

○ Asyna wins

§ Adam has to kiss ot

□ "this is super important the xanathar r upstairs" tells him to whisper kisses him on the forehead then runs upstairs

§ Cel and theo have to be one big person, go find yava and have a short chat as one person

□ Takes aerana's cloak

□ "do you want to be the top or bottom"

□ Theo is legs cel is heads and arms

○ Aerana has to hug everyone

§ Slaps adam when he accuses her of touching his butt; 11 damage

§ It's canon aerana can't hug

○ Cel sits on theo's shoulders (doing this bc yava is back)

§ Adam gives them a mustache w the purple wig

§ Gave up on walking in coordination

§ Yava is in kitchen standing near entrance, eyes closed kneeling, focusing on spell

§ Plans change cel and theo r gonna go to fallah's shop

§ They're gonna do it the next day w yava actually

• It's abt 11

○ Before yava leaves n during theo's shift, hear a knock at front door

○ Theo looks through peephole

§ Dwarf at the door wearing a guild uniform

§ Two other ppl w her

§ Gnome w them, one appears to b taller

□ Female dwarf, male gnome, somebody taller

□ Yava looks through the peephole and says they don't look to b armed

□ Theo opens the door a crack; the ppl had been repeatedly knocking

□ "female dwarf woman"

□ Half moon spectacles n long ponytail + taller human woman w cropped hair

□ They're all wearing a uniform

□ Utilitarian brown clothes

§ "hello there my name is kalima n these r mertram and harriet; members of one of the city guilds the plumbers guild"

□ Informed by city watch of magical explosion

□ Theo says to reschedule their inspection

□ Theo roasts n says they should've come earlier

® 5 persuasion check

□ They'll come back in two days

□ Lmao lavinia we learning

□ They step down the stairs and confer on the doorstep as leaving

® Look around house and discussing + carrying out informal measurements

® Can't hear anything then they walk away

□ Tells whoever has next watch what happened

□ Yava leaves during adam's watch

® Before she leaves adam thanks her for her work + says he's glad she's become a relevant character in this campaign

® "don't thank me yet adam"

• That's it

• Lord of the rings mention counter: 2