#Though I wonder if they're limited on making what creatures they want

[tropicalcontinental]

[mammoth-clangen]

I love seeing the colour patterns on your clan gen homotherium and smilodon.

They remind me of cat colours. Colour mutations in animals (cats and prehistoric animals on general too) are my special interest

I remember that my favourite smilodon design was the one from Primeval. I still have the box sets and they were my favourite as a kid (and now lol).

Sad that Smilodon was most likely tawny like lions. It apparently lived in open areas so most likely wouldn't have spots or stripes. But that doesn't mean we can't draw them like it. Also I wonder what mutations they did have in real life (like white lions, white tigers, "strawberry" erythristic leopards, albino leopard, and melanistic leopards and jaguars do appear in the wild)

I actually discovered your comic when I followed the homotherium tag after seeing the frozen cub. I once saw lyuba the mammoth at the natural history museum, London, at a limited exhibition. I'm completely obsessed with the permafrost mummies. I hope I get to see more in person one day.

Here's my kitty, Zoe.

Oh my goosh what a cute cat ;A;

here's my creature, Fat Tilly! She's an 11yr old Selkirk rex who likes loafing and lying in the sun c:

And thank you! I adore colour mutations in extant animals and I agree that it's really fun to contemplate them in extinct ones c:

I'm gonna preempt this getting long and put a cut here jhrjhrf

I'm sure you will already have seen this, but for anyone interested in paleoart depictions of colour mutations, I'd really recommend this great article all about it

White Cat, Gold Plains was actually all about the premise of a Homotherium with piebaldism. Pied is one of my favourite pigment mutations because it's so much deeper than integument patterns; it's actually a neural tube defect that leads to distinct behavioural changes. WC,GP was about Kiina, the pied cat, and her struggles with always being view as 'childish' by her peers and struggling to fit in. There was also more human impact in this story, as Kiina gets picked up as a cub by a group of early humans. It was sort of my own experience/musings on neurodivergency played alongside some thoughts on early domestication attempts humans must have had (though we all know that, sadly, Homotherium did not end up domesticated). Pied animals are typically more trusting, which is why you see so many pied domestic animals! (Fat Tilly and Zoe both are, for example lolol)

Also the Primeval Smilodon has one of the most gorgeous and distinct designs of any media sabercat tbh, I really loved the episode as a whole even though it had a sort of sad-but-expected ending.

I don't remember where I read it, but there was someone discussing Smilodon patterns and the conclusion was basically "we can't be sure". While lions are solid as adults, they're spotted as cubs and likely had spotted ancestors seeing Pantherines seem to have strongly contrasting patterns as the default. Machairodontids aren't even the same lineage as Pantherines, so we really can't know what patterns they had except for Homotherium latidens having dark brown cubs! They could just as easily grow into a different adult coat, like hyena do. (side note, I was sorta hoping that absolutely amazing Homotherium mummy news might drag some people to my comic so I'm glad it did lolol)

Smilodon was also likely very ambush dependent, being too bulky for pursuits even as long as modern lions. Disruptive colouration could have helped with this even in fairly open habitats. This is actually why I gave the Ice Fangs very faint stripes; high contrast tiger striping didn't make much sense, but breaking up the outline a little couldn't be a bad thing even in a steppe environment. I also didn't want them completely solid because there are actual lions to differentiate cx

[neerons]

Some of Sariel Noir's best quotes

"Know that this devil will stake his life on your pure heart, your wise gaze, and your fierce resolve."

"There is something I wish to protect, even if it means selling my soul to the true devil himself, and burning for all eternity in the fires of hell."

"Do you realize who you resemble, when you act in that manner?" (—Sariel to Emma acting like him)

"Rio, what in the world makes you think she could be in a flower vase? Calm yourself." (—Sariel talking about Emma to Rio while they're looking for her)

"There is no harm in sucking up to me."

"You have always been courageous, determined to put your emotions aside and process things logically whenever possible. And I certainly consider it a desirable trait to possess. But too much has happened this evening, and I imagine you're well past the limit of what you can tolerate. I do not mind if you need to prioritize how you are feeling right now."

"If you ever refer to me like that again, I must warn you that you may not see the next sunrise." (—Sariel to Gilbert calling him 'Daddy')

"At last I've found you. (...) I imagine a little discipline will go a long way with you... hehe..."

"It would seem you have a lot of confidence in your ability to remember things. (...) ...I am simply wondering whether you ought not be taking notes. While it's true books can be reread, much of the information I am sharing with you is not written down anywhere. As such, you may find it useful to write things down so that you may review them later."

"So long as the kingdom and its people exist, our noble beasts will give everything they have to protect it. As you know, they have very different ideologies, and they are a problematic lot, but... on this one matter alone, almost all of them can be trusted." (—Sariel talking about the Rhodolitian princes to Emma)

"It's a basic right. Everyone needs time to rest and relax, no matter who they are."

"I'm fond of those who are wise—regardless of gender."

"I'm talking about the creature that says 'squeak squeak' and begins with the letter R. I cannot even put that filthy word in my mouth." (—Sariel talking about rats)

"(...) Prince Gilbert, rude though it may be of me to ask, perhaps you would be kind enough to vanish for the time being?"

"There probably aren't many ladies that would be able to approach Prince Gilbert." (—Sariel talking in front of Emma, Keith, Silvio, Rio and Gilbert)

"...Now, now. I am a man, you are a woman, and we're all alone in your bedroom at night. How might you want this scenario to end?"

"To say that I'm relieved to have you beside me is an understatement." (—Sariel's lobby dialogue)

"(...) I did feel some murderous intent in the cane, however." (—Sariel to Gilbert pointing his cane at him)

"Dear Prince Clavis, (...) Apparently you made a child bawl in the middle of town? Please act your age. (...) There have been complaints that people who got wet because of you were close to catching colds because of it. It's winter. Please do not be using water or ice. This is not an invitation to make traps using fire. *NO MICE. The next time I see any, I will put them in a bag along with you and send it down the river. I have warned you." (—Sariel's letter to Clavis)

"...Prostate himself? (...) ...Ahh, I see. Wonderful, I shall have to make the hellcat do it the next time I get the chance." (—Sariel talking about Clavis to Rio)

"You damned hellcat—" (—Sariel to Clavis)

"I do not know what choice you will make going forward, but... For as long as you are able, do not let each other go. Especially because you love each other. It makes no difference whether you are a prince or a commoner. A person needs someone to love in order to remain human. I learned this after witnessing what happened to His Majesty." (—Sariel to Rio)

"What on earth are you doing curled up so disgracefully on the floor like that, Dog?" (—Sariel to Rio)

"(...) At that time, Clavis was the most innocent and childlike of the princes. I had to admit that I was easily swayed by his sweet grin. He took a keen interest in anything and everything, and he had a strong drive. Clavis was the student—well, disciple—I shared most of my knowledge with." (—Sariel's thoughts about young Clavis)

"Which do you like better, spending time with me like this, or spending time reading a book?"

"You are right, it would be tactless of me to speak ill of you when you are present. I shall wait until you are absent, and then I will be free to speak as much ill of you as I wish." (—Sariel to Clavis)

"(...) I'm the one who taught Prince Nokto and Prince Licht how to use their swords."

"I wonder how many times he and I have shared a drink now. I remembered the times where instead of amber-colored wine, there was water or milk in the cups in front of us. We had been partaking in these laidback meetings ever since we were both young. They were an absolute necessity for us." (—Sariel's thoughts about Jin)

"(...) You misunderstand me. I don't hate the man, I despise him." (—Sariel talking about Clavis to Emma)

"Now, now. Don't be so sullen. Another fundamental aspect of training someone is to make them want something but never completely satisfy them."

"I also despise hellcats, miscreants, oh, and the Third Prince." (—Sariel talking about Clavis)

"If you do, I'm not nursing you back to health." (—Sariel to Rio telling him he might faint because of how beautiful Emma is)

"(...) Since Emma isn't available to praise you, shall I do the honors instead?" (—Sariel to Rio)

"Hehe, I'm never going to let you run away from this palace of beasts. Will you continue to allow them, and myself, to enjoy your company to the fullest?"

"My hobby is teasing those who are worth teasing, such as yourself. Think of it as an honor that you met my expectations." (—Sariel's lobby dialogue)

"In that instance, I was considering binding Emma's arms behind her back and dumping her in the river. Hehe, naturally, I am joking. I have absolute confidence in my judge of character." (—Sariel talking about Emma potentially failing his test to Rio and Emma)

"I have one more order for you, if that's all right. (...) I'd like you to have a drink with me like this every now and then."

"(...) if it is to be a competition, perhaps I shall take part as well." (—Sariel reacting to Luke saying he would steal Emma away)

"The princes were all very excited when they discovered that today is your birthday. Happy birthday." (—Sariel's lobby dialogue)

"You allowed yourself to get so close to her that rumors began circulating that she was your mistress. Did you keep Belle at your side even knowing it would have no benefit for you?" (—Sariel to Chevalier)

"Prince Chevalier's faction are perhaps a little too free-willed, and at times the ache in my—"

"Consider it one of the perks of being Belle. You are permitted to keep a pet at the palace. (...) This is your pet, is it not? When I entered the bookstore, it started barking non-stop, so I had no choice but to bring it with me." (—Sariel talking about Rio to Emma)

"Hmm? Is something the matter? I can't imagine why you're blushing. Careful now, or you really will get eaten."

"Don't worry. It doesn't matter what kind of noise you make. If anyone overhears and finds fault with you, this devil of a man will take care of it. So please, won't you allow me to hear every last sweet sound?"

[elongatedtennisball]

A Beginner's Guide to the TBCU

First and foremost, what is the TBCU? The Tennis Ball Cinematic Universe is a silly little playground where we all make our tennis balls kiss and fight to the death.

While the "Tennis Ball" part of our name may be off-putting to some, we actually have a wide variety of creatures, including (but not limited to!) gods, the odd human or two, robots, and whatever the fuck this thing is:

Anyone can join, just make an OC like you would any other, slap a tennis ball label on it (i.e; husband-tennis-ball, acoustic-tennis-ball, tennis-ball-wizard), make a blog, and tag or send an ask to either myself or @i-want-tennis-ball to join!

But before you join, you might be wondering: "Are there rules? What sort of world setting is this? Can I make just ANYTHING, or should I go for a specific vibe?"-- and that's where this helpful guide comes into play!

Under the cut will be 6 things you should know before joining the TBCU*! (And if you know all of this, but aren't sure how to roleplay, #6 is the one for you.)

*Don't worry, though, if you don't want to read all of this (It is... a lot.)... We'll teach you!

Number 1: Want and Hate

@i-want-tennis-ball and @i-hate-tennis-ball are the two oldest members of the TBCU, and as I'm sure you can tell, there's a bit of tension between them... (Or, well. There was. I'm... not really sure what they're doing now.)

I Want Tennis Ball, also known as Sybil, is our leader, the owner of the House many of us live in (more on that below!), and has provided lovingly for our cult family since the very beginning.

Sybil takes in any lost or wandering tennis balls that come to them, so if you're looking for a place to stay, Sybil has your back! She's an incomprehensible entity, so if you have any sort of prejudice against non-tennis balls, this isn't the place for you. We'll defend him with our lives if we have to. (At least. Most of us will. Some of us. Probably. I will.)

And then there's I Hate Tennis Ball (or, Hate, for short), the mortal enemy of the tennis balls. He's also an incomprehensible entity, like Sybil, but unlike Sybil, he's determined to kill us all.

Just a couple of years ago, they came into our House under the name "Zion", disguised as a tennis ball. We accepted him, welcomed her into our House... and that bastard tried to burn us to the ground!

Hate lives out next to the Forest (again, more on that below), in a small cottage. If you see it... it's best to just avoid it.

Recently, however... Sybil and Hate seem to be getting along? It's been quite the stir among the House's residents.

Speaking of which...

Number 2: The House

The House is where we live! Well, most of us, anyways. It's surrounded on all sides by forests, (Like the Forest, the Fae Forest, and the Willows) and a bit further out there are a whole bunch of... other stuff. I haven't really explored beyond that, to be honest. I think there's a bunch of villages and stuff?

...

The House is owned by Sybil, but anyone can come live there. There's always room! In fact, it's practically... magical, how much room there is. Sometimes I swear the hallways change on me...

The House is taken care of by @nurse-tennis-ball, the Nurse, Maid, Gardener, and much more! She loves her job, and we're all very grateful to him. If you need anything, they almost certainly will have you covered! (Just... be warned. She's a bit... odd... at times.)

You don't have to live in the House to hang out with us, but we'd be glad to have you!

Number 3: The Forests

There's four major forests around the House, each with their own unique perks and residents!

The Fae Forest

Here lies the trickster @fae-tennis-being. If you know your fae rules, take a step instead! Otherwise...

Do not enter.

The Willows

An over grown forest, filled to the brim will all sorts of magical creatures, like @snake-tennis-ball, a huge snake woman.

...

Do not enter.

The Forest

Home to the God of Order in the East, their angels, and resting just on the edge of the ruins of a village, the Forest is also magical, and doesn't like visitors.

... ...

Do not enter.

A forest

This one is just a regular forest! Nothing interesting about it at all.

Feel free to enter!

Number 4: Gods and Religion

You might have noticed that I mentioned that the Forest is home to the God of Order in the East. In fact, there's many gods around, including the 3 other gods of order (for the South, West, and North!), and many, many others, too many to count.

The Gods are run by Creation, the force that drives the Universe, and are usually subject to the whims of Fate.

If you want to make a god OC to add to our lovely cast... Simply do! We'd be happy to have them. The only slots that are taken are the Gods of Order.

(For a more extensive look into the way the gods work, check out this post!)

Many of us worship the gods, and there's no one religion that defines us. Just... try to get along.

Number 5: Magic

Magic is abundant in our Universe, just ask our residents, like @tennisball-wizard, who dabble in the stuff. There are two kinds of magic, but most people don't know the difference, and figure out magic just fine, so don't sweat the details (unless you're into the details! In which case, this is the section for you.). Magic can do whatever you need it to do.

External Magic

External Magic is the kind of magic that fuels our very Universe. It comes from sources outside the user's body. This kind of magic is extremely safe to use, as no matter how much you use, you'll never drain your own energy reserves. You might, however, drain the reserves of the magic around you, and then you won't be able to use magic anymore. So be careful!

Internal Magic

Internal Magic is the kind of magic that comes from deep within you, and is typically a lot stronger than External Magic. Internal Magic can be extremely dangerous to use though, if you don't learn how to restrain yourself, as it draws from your very life force.

It also leaves an imprint of your magic on whatever you enchanted, sort of like a fingerprint that other people can use magic in order to see. Imprints are a little bit different for everyone, and you can be identified with them.

(Interesting note: You can gather the Internal Magic of someone else, wielding it like you would External Magic, and not only would it be safe for you to use, it would leave the imprint of them instead of you.)

Number 6: Character Creation and Some Roleplaying Tips

"This is cool and all, but what about my character? Are there things I shouldn't do? And how do I even go about roleplaying with other people? Do I just... start talking and hope someone joins?"

If you're here, you probably are asking these questions. I've got you.

Your character can do anything you want! Really, anything at all. The only limitations are: a) Your character can't dictate what other characters do. This might seem obvious, but it's always good to keep in mind. If there's something you want to happen, you'll need to communicate with whoever owns those OCs before deciding it yourself. b) Sometimes we have systems set in place (like the magic one I just explained). If you have a character that requires you to flesh out some world building, just ask! You can DM me, or join our Discord, and ask about a system, and see if anyone has got something in place*. Otherwise, it'll be yours to create! *Note: Even if a system is already in place, you can probably expand upon how it works if you need something specific. Don't sweat the details, the Universe is flexible, and we'll change it to help everyone's characters the best.

I know we're called the "Tennis Ball Cinematic Universe" but... You don't have to make a tennis ball OC! We have the Gods, of course, but we also have lots of characters pretending to be tennis balls, or tennis balls but slightly to the left, or incomprehensible entities, or creatures, or just straight up humans! Tennis balls was just a funny gimmick, and something unique to our Universe to help define us.

Now your OC just needs a name and title! We like to give our OCs a title, like I mentioned at the start. "Husband Tennis Ball", "Tripping Tennis Ball", and "Rizzler Tetanus Ball" are all some examples. These were mostly done out of needing a blog URL for our OCs, but we've worked it into the canon that most tennis balls have a title like that, even if they don't get a blog. (For example, Smoke Tennis Ball is the narrator for @assistant-tennis-ball, despite not having a blog of his own.) The title can be whatever you want, just take a glance at the Master List before picking, so you know what's already in use.

Now for some roleplaying tips! (If you already know how to roleplay on Tumblr, you can skip down to the bottom.)

How to start a roleplay - Locate the person you want to roleplay with. If you're in the Discord, go ahead and ask them if they wanna roleplay. Sometimes you guys can work out a situation to start them off together. You don't have to do this, though, because the simplest way to start a roleplay is to send an ask! Just go to their blog, type in an anonymous ask the same way you would type a roleplay normally (more on that in a second), and tag yourself, so that you get notified when they respond. - Remember that people are busy, and might not get around to answering your ask right away, or they might forget. DMs or Discord are good for asking people if they're available, or if they're still interested in roleplay. Don't be a dick, sometimes roleplays get forgotten, or life takes precedence. There will always be other people to roleplay with.

How to... you know. Roleplay! - Pick a format! For example, when I roleplay, there are three main things I do: Narration, Talking, and Thinking. Whatever format you pick, make sure you're consistent, so that people know what you're character is doing! - Example: ETB2 looks around, smiling gently when he sees you. This is what his narration looks like. He walks over to you, and then starts to talk. "Hey! You must be new here. This is what my talking looks like. And now thinking, right?" ((I like to put my thinking in bold, just to keep things different. Here's what that looks like.)) Your format doesn't have to look anything like mine. You can use different colors, symbols, and text formats to signify the differences. Feel free to get creative. Remember: The important thing is that you're consistent. - When roleplaying, try to think of how your character would react to the situation at hand. The best characters are the ones that are well defined, but don't worry about being perfect. It takes some getting used to, and every time you roleplay, you'll get a bit better at it! - You're on Tumblr, so I'm gonna guess you know how to use this website. Once you send an ask, and they respond, you'll use the reblog feature to continue the roleplay. And sometimes you wanna say something about your character, or your roleplay partner's. That's where the tags come in handy! Just type your message to your roleplay partner there. - You can also do an open roleplay, where you make your character do something, and then just wait to see who responds. Make sure you tag it as an open roleplay, so that people know you want interaction, and be mindful that this is less sure to get you a roleplay. - Finally: If you want to roleplay, but no one is reaching out? Reach out first! Trust me when I say a lot of us have anxiety about "bothering people". We're working on it ^_^;

Make an intro! - On your blog, introduce your character. Put down their Name, Pronouns, the Format you'll be using, and any Other Important Info.

Some of these narrators seems suspiciously like characters of their own... - And that's because, well, they are! Some of our narrators are sentient! There's no way to tell who has a sentient narrator and who doesn't until you get into a roleplay, and there's no obligation to have a sentient narrator of your own. But if that's your thing, go for it! - Just keep in mind, narrators are narrating. Unless your roleplay partner says otherwise, your characters can't hear the narrators*! *There are some exceptions, like @ball-ghost-tennis being able to hear her own narrator, and Narry (@ball-with-a-god-complex) being able to hear all narrators. But a good rule of thumb is, unless other wise stated, Narrators are Narrators, characters are characters. They don't interact!

Woah, that's a lot of color, Wiz. What's going on there? - Some of like to use colors to spice up our roleplay! A lot of times, if you see some extra colors, it means there's some sort of extra lore being hinted at. Most of us are normal, and didn't go quite as overboard with the colors as the Wizard did, but there are some... notable exceptions. (Looks at @tennisball-witch) - You can use colors, or you can leave it plain. It's entirely up to you, just like the formatting!

And... I think that's it for the basics!

Last but not least...

Other Resources for Learning More!

TBCU Masterlist of blogs! Note: Not a master list of characters, as there are so many more.

Our own Wiki!

TBCU Timeline!

You can join our Discord server (please ask myself or @tennisball-wizard for the invite.)

Check out @tbcu-polls, where there's currently a tournament being held, but they also do several non-tournament polls that you yourself can submit to! (It's a great way to see some new faces and learn about the sort of characters they are.)

Check out @out-of-context-tbcu, where some of our wildest moments are put on blast.

[sugudoe]

HI I am literally OBSESSED with your works and wanted to send in a match-up request after lurking for a hot minute <333 Please and thank you!! You are awesome!!!

I use she/her pronouns, and I'm of pretty average height with a pear-shaped body type. I have thick, wavy brown hair and moles all over my body. I wear thick plastic glasses and wear loose, comfortable clothes.

My personality type is INTP, though I'd describe myself as an ambivert. I really like talking to people, I just have a limited social battery and (medicated) anxiety. In public I'm cracking jokes pretty much all the time because I love making people laugh (I also think my jokes are funny asf so I'm usually laughing too). At home I just want to cuddle my cat and quietly recharge (parallel play rules!!). Also, if it matters, I'm a Pisces!

My hobbies include: playing guitar, D&D, reading comics and manga, and playing video games (though I'm lowkey bad at them). Mostly, I'm into nerd shit. I get really excited when I get to share it with someone, especially when they're just as into it!

I'm an adult, so I would appreciate if you could match me up with an adult too. Thank you again! Pls take your time writing this if you choose to and be well <3 looking forward to your next SMAU!

first of all, thank you for putting your pronouns and telling me to not pair you with a minor, sometimes i have to scratch my head with the other matches, fearing i might do something wrong or uncomfortable. anyways, thank you for enjoying my work, it means the world to me! hope you enjoy this!!

✶ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: geto suguru

How wonderful and scary it is to be your most vulnerable self with someone else? Geto Suguru had always hold his emotions into the deepest parts of his soul, trembling in fear of the face others would give when seeing his pure self. He should know that there is no way to hide himself from you, his best friend.

To his credit, he tries, at first. Holding his hands in a fist, letting his stoic voice shake while he recounts his life as of lately. That’s so out of character for him, it takes you no more than a second to hug him, desperately.

Truth be admitted, Geto crumbled into your arms and cried, cried. . . cried. Until, he begged you to take his mind away from this cruel world, let him be lighted by your presence, do whatever it takes.

And that’s what you do. Grabbing your guitar, you decide to stroke some chords, the soft melody blending with his quiet hiccups, before you decide to teach him to play.

“You have always looked like the type of guy to play guitar.” You mumble while you’re positioning your fingers on top of his. Geto laughs.

It’s like giving him medicine, if the world seems too chaotic, and his thoughts are spiraling terribly, he grabs your guitar. His emotions gallop around your room in the form of melodies, you dare not complain.

Suguru takes attention in other things you do, copying your way to cease his fears, have new hobbies and avoid the voices and fears plaguing his mind. He reads comics with you, even growing red in the face when you both disagree on a plot or losing a game. Unfortunately, he draws the line at D&D, not because it’s not his cup of tea, it’s just when you start to teach him how to play, his mind goes blank — not for bad reasons, his focus and thoughts goes only to you.

Your way of fixing your glasses, hands moving while explaining the game, your beautiful voice. And, once, you used a shirt that presented your upper body moles for him, and how beautiful it seems to be crafted with dozens of constellations, like a designed creature made by the universe itself. In that moment, he knew you were not his world, but much better you’re his whole sky, shinning bright the light of millions of stars.

He kisses you while you explained your character he could barely record the name.

It’s a habit he takes while your relationship is blooming and it will last until your very last breath. When you talk happily of your interests, and you move a certain way or the breeze flows into your body, he will kiss you, and you’ll let him. Geto kisses, specially, after your jokes, and he could get drunk on the sight of your lovesick smile mixed with your sweet laugh.

It shakes him. Your whole essence and presence, it all shakes Geto Suguru to a crazy extent. It can be admitted that love with him can be intense, but none of you would pick any other way.

──── ✎ ° ⋆ FUN FACTS.

◛ ₊· geto loves you to a whole extent, that being said, he would fight you for the chance to cuddle your cat.

◛ ₊· said cat also has a thing for your boyfriend, much rather preferring to be on his lap during hours to no end.

◛ ₊· you go to sleep and wake up in the same way everyday, peacefully into his loving arms, and his hands are always tracing your moles. he has been doing it for such a long time that he has them all memorized.

◛ ₊· if you leave your glasses anywhere and suddenly they are missing, chances are your boyfriend is using them and acting as if not. or maybe he forgets, he should be going to an eye doctor, actually.

[yearningaces]

Mr. Hallewell, can i please hug you? and maybe groom your hair? if you are in your beast form, way better! Let me see those fangs and claws of yours, so pretty... can i polish them? sharp them? i would like to have the honor to look them up close in their prime. A magestic griffin indeed, not some kind of copy and paste in a cheap photoshop program of an eagle and a lion (wait declan settles on medieval times right? damn i hope the joke reaches over there). I want to cuddle with a griffin, use the wings as blankets and yer chest a harm pillow, sure iknow its lacking the usual bpm but i can share it with ya

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa i luv declan muahmuahchuchuhugsandkisses

"THE HORNS I FORGOT THE HORNS, should give them some apreciation too

sorry but declan beast form is truly something coming from my wildest dreams, recording the anatomy, the biology, every detail and corner of his existence makes me wonder how such creatures go on without being at least documented at leat once!

(i must recall that if this rant sounds at least creepy please let me know but its just obsession with anatomy on mythical creatures....)"

I feel I can safely assume this was the same nonnie and listen, I live for the ramblings in my inbox

Declan will quite literally, roll over like a pup for you, so please please please give him attention. He would tear down mountains, he would rip stars from the sky, all for you to look at him with a moment of praise so please never hold anything back for worry of being too much he would just exist at a point of joy he'd never imagined possible before while melting around you as best as he could.

Yes he's in medieval times! I don't want to have the limitations of modern day stuff with my world building here, also because I like the idea of a Hallewell being a kingdoms dragon instead of an actual dragon it's amusing to me

And the answer for documentations is this! If he's not hunting someone they won't see him, not truly

There will be reports of larger and larger beasts that move closer to who he's hunting, and it becomes part of the Hallewell's legend. Listen for nature's approach through different footsteps sort of ordeal. If someone truly looked to see him in his shifted form. They wouldn't see him unless he wants them to. They might see a man, or a pack of wolves, or a bear, or maybe MAYBE a dragon. That's not to say Hallewell's aren't documented. But usually it's someone being hunted screaming about what they're seeing before they go missing(dying but yk) and humans pieces those together to form a general idea

Maybe someone sees one when they're not a target, but again that's rare and it would have to be the Hallewell's choice. Usually it's a warning. "Be better or next you see me you'll be the one bloodying my maw"

Back to Declan though, you're his heart. You want him to go beast mode? Of course! He holds the same sentience and logic regardless of form but he can't really speak without a human mouth. He'll growl, and purr, and roar, and make all sorts of sounds, and he'll understand you entirely, but he'll never be able to say words like that because the mouth isn't human so no human words

So yeah, do those things. Watch this horrifying creature melt like a kitten. If you fall asleep on him? He won't move, he will remain as still as stone and if any get close enough he'll bite them in two if they risk waking you

[monstersdownthepath]

There any rules / mechanisms for a big flying monster picking up some dude then dropping him? Wondering if they're unique abilities printed into the statblock or if just plain-old grapple rules of some kind would be used. Thought came to me after I was watching some LotR clips (rewatching, really, love those films) - just some big flyer, whether it's a griffon, a dragon, a roc or whatever - just overrunning a crowd then grabbing some poor dudes up in their claws, then dropping them a couple dozen or hundred feet.

------

As far as I'm aware, there is no monster with a specific ability to grab and drop people; the various creatures I've looked at who are known to grab and drop people (such as the Nightgaunt, Roc, and Lapsudaemon) don't have any specific abilities that let them do it better, but the Nightgaunt and Lapsudaemon specifically have the ability to fly at their full speeds when grappling someone, which is the important part! When you're grappling someone, you can only move at half speed regardless of the speed or size difference between you and your victim (as written; a DM may decide that two or more size categories of difference lessens or removes this limit), but you can release a grappled creature as a free action even if you're in the air.

The Flyby Attack feat allows a monster to make a standard action in the middle of its movement, but if it successfully grapples (or Grabs) a victim, its remaining movement speed is halved, which can severely impact a creature's ability to make off with its prey. This DOES make sense when you consider that most adventurers weigh anywhere from 100 to 300 pounds, enough to give even the likes of a Roc a struggle, and if your DM uses encumbrance rules in a really granular way, grabbing a fully-equipped adventurer might put a creature way over their carrying capacity limit. This gives the amusing but far less impressive mental image of a giant eagle attempting to snatch up a full-plate heavy-weapon-wielder and, instead of carrying them off, slamming face-first into the ground like a hammer because of the momentum.

But what you may want more than Flyby Attack is the Snatch feat (though the two work in combination very well), which gives a creature's attacks Grab even if it didn't have it before AND the ability to drop or fling a grappled creature at no penalty.

[tunashei]

First Impressions of Animorphs!

I'm listening to the Animorphs series while I work, through Animorphs Aloud - a fan made reading of the series. Here are my first impressions/random thoughts about them! Spoilers below if you haven't read them.

Book 12.5: The Andalite Chronicles (Part 3)

Well this part is titled 'an alien dies' and we just lost all the oxygen in the airlock sooo short chapter I guess :D

This might be out of the blue but I want to know more about the real Jahar. What is she like. How's she doing

But he LIVED

Appreciate that, although they do a lot of dumb stuff in Animorphs, they also make smart and logical decisions often. Working together is the only option here, I like that they acknowledge that and don't just start fighting for no good reason

Aaaand then Elfangor just tells the Visser how the time matrix works. You dummy

I wonder why Andalites live in scoops. Seems to be a mostly outdoor area, would it being in a hole not make it prone to flooding? I guess it would keep wind out

Ooooh they've glitched the matrix. The descriptions of the sky being panels of various planets sounds exactly like a texture glitch in a videogame. They've merged all their homeworlds together...that's going to be instant chaos. Andalites charging into Yeerk territory to finish the war while humans stand to the side screaming AAAAA ALIENS

The Andalite method of eating really amuses me. I mean it makes sense! We crush food with our teeth, they crush it with hooves. Though we have to then digest it and they seem to be able to instantly get the nutrients

Ah seems they've created an entirely new reality, not actually merged their real homeworlds. Is this universe they're in the only universe now? Can you just make whole new universes with the Time Matrix...it's like a developer program

WHEEL CREATURES. Didn't do it as well as Mulefa, but still neat

Heh, humans are pretty good at throwing stuff. It's one of our special skills

So Mortrons are like hydras, if you split them in half they form two separate Mortrons, split them in half and you have four. What do you reckon the limit is? Visser Three goes up to sixty four but like...where are they getting the mass from?

Oh my god Loren is mounting the man. That's GOTTA be taboo right?? Be the equivalent of going up to a human, wrapping your arms around them and spooning them from behind. Welp Elfangor doesn't seem to mind. Ride em' cowgirl

And now he's literally munching carpet

...just had a thought. How is Elfangor fitting in this house? It's not a big one, and he manages to climb the stairs. You could not fit a horse in a house surely? Are American houses that big? But he has to be big enough for a human to ride with no problems. Hm

Time Matrix DID create a whole new universe, powered off imagination. I want one. So bad

They've been feeding the humans grass oml 😭

If the food is real, the all-acne-no-eyes guy is also real. Sad for him

A bigmac meal for $4.00/£3.00...TAKE ME BACK

This might not actually be the case for Andalites, but I wonder how a species would evolve if it needed lots of space for each individual. Humans can go real compact with our needs, we can cram so many of us into small spaces and get by (although we tend to go slightly insane when really cramped)

Now he's into being ridden. Boooooooi

...why is time accelerating towards the middle though

aaaaaaa having toenails long enough to stick out of shoes sounds PAINFUL I legit winced at this. Also hair doesn't work like that it has a maximum length

Loren: I'll hit a motherfucker with ANOTHER MOTHERFUCKER

Elfangor: That's Hot

Very climactic final battle and then the Visser just walks away. Bye dude!

🤨

Most powerful weapon in the galaxy and Elfangor just buries it in the woods. Love it

I like that he got his yellow mustang when he became human

The rules of this timeline Loren has made are pretty confusing. It had to link with the previous kidnapping and acquiring Time Matrix events so the was continuity, but also you can alter it so everyone believes she was always 18, and now this Ellimist is saying Elfangor's brother doesn't exist in this timeline? Why wouldn't he?

Dick move Ellimist. But also, this kid has Elfangor as a dad, but Elfangor's human morph is made up of several other humans blended together. So the kid actually has like...12 dads or something

WAIT IS ELFANGOR TOBIAS'S DAD???

Kind of surprising the Time Matrix didn't just get dug up considering it's now in a construction site

Damn he totally is Tobias's dad. Didn't see that coming

Loren got so fucked over by this whole thing they didn't even ask her if she would be ok with 'fixing' the timeline. Just abandoned and memories erased but I guess not completely because it drove her crazy. Sad

Well. That was a wild one! The books that explore aliens are my favourite and this one was a real stunner, I'm glad we got to meet Elfangor properly and get to know him - makes his death hit way harder now :( Cool that Tobias is technically part alien, and Ax's nephew. Lot of twists and turns in this one I had no idea where they were going to take it. #Justice for Alloran

[inventors-fair]

Mix and Match Commentary: Putting it All Together

What a weekend... That's what I get for thinking I can juggle a dozen things this close to the end of the school year.

It looks like 13 out of 25 different adjectives were used in this contest, as well as 13 out of 25 different nouns! "Belligerent" was the most-used adjective, appearing on three cards, and "Choir" was the most-used noun, appearing on a whopping five cards, but oddly enough there was no Belligerent Choir today. I'll be honest: I'm shocked that nobody went for a Gargantuan Frog or something of the like. There were definitely some favored ideas on display with the given combinations.

And yet, there were a few that truly surprised me! I think that overall I'd call this contest a success. The words on the list were fairly straightforward and also 100% off-the-cuff, so perhaps if you all would like to see this again I can have a more curated list, perhaps taken from some actual cards with the idea that you can't use a name of an actual card in the combo. But hey, we'll see how it goes. How do y'all feel about this contest? It's something I've been wanting to do for a little while now.

There were quite a few cards that almost, but didn't quite, make the cut here, so I'll be talking about them as JUDGE PICKS. Check 'em out to see what we liked about them. Onto the commentary!

~

@an-anarchist-shapeshifter — Umbral Expertise (JUDGE PICK)

This combination checks out with the card superbly. I'm reminded of cards like Training Grounds, from a vibe perspective, or other cards that would probably depict a location in which a specific form of magic is practiced and honed. This card's mechanics are, to say the least, massively complicated, and it took me a little bit to figure out the real gist of why it works so well. The ability of each player to have shadow creatures makes those decisions harder to pick up on based on board state; I would worry about places where you're behind and have to continuously flicker your cards to make the best blocks, and then there's the option of blinking a creature after blocks if there's a shadow war going on—you get the idea.

Blink shells and aggro shells are both strange places to see cards like this that have the best of both worlds. What I will say is that I worry about how much board complexity this card adds. Making lots of tokens, for example, might be easy to track in digital but harder on paper if there's no good way to show how shadow counters are distributed. And even then, what indicator would be good enough? Would it be the theme of a set, or is this more Commander-focused where you can have these weirder mechanics? I've got a few questions about that, but complexity is my main concern. I can imagine someone being quite upset about a huge board that's inadvertently badly represented because of weird counter checks. Playing with it in a moderately-built board, though—I'd love that.

~

@big-golyat — Ossified Choir

I find it interesting that both cards that used "Ossified" this week used them with "Choir." Small world! When I looked at this card, the one thing that I wanted from it mechanically was something that it could do with that tap ability that wasn't just, y'know, tapping. Would it have been unreasonable for this card to have "2, T: You gain 1 life" instead? I don't think so. With the notion of a choir, though, exalted is absolutely one of the best mechanics you could've used for the flavor connection, and I totally get that.

Flavor's a strange one here, no? Not a bad one, of course, but I'm wondering if these things are statues, if they're just made of bone, etc. I'm imagining statues because of how it would work with gods, relics, all that stuff. Being enchantment creatures doesn't hurt with that, either. I think that it makes them feel a little more constructed and less naturally, well, that. Regardless of the cool flavor, though, this card would probably be a good addition to an evasive color combination in limited. Exalted is awesome and I like how you can see this as a pseudo-Enlist? Almost? I mean, tapping for extra power is related in at least one way. Smallest of notes: quotation marks go around the periods.

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@curiooftheheart — Unbound Tomb

Huh! I like the ETB on here, and I just had a throwback to Zendikar. For some reason I was thinking about cards that exiled without a specific ability tied to them, but then Bojuka Bog hit me, and yeah, this card totally works in that vein. Entering untapped is pretty crazy comparatively; then again, so is not hitting the entire graveyard. What're you going to do, play this against Dragon's Rage Channeler? Possibly. But I don't know if it would be strong enough to mainboard or sideboard, unless you're deep into graveyards and lifegain. Most graveyard hate wants the entire thing to be exiled. De-delirium-ing someone is fun, though, and I wonder if that's what you meant to hit specifically. All the same, though, gaining massive amounts of life ain't nothing. This can probably get 3-5 life fairly consistently in a grindy limited game.

I'm wondering about the name and combination, though. The tomb is in the process of being unbound, sure, and that may be enough; lands are hard to get through with action words if it's not repeatable, and that may be a me issue. And while I like the flavor text, I'm not sure how it precisely relates. Are the ideals mentioned there the things being exiled? It's not a major issue for the card itself, and it's a strange little card to be sure. I think ultimately I like it, and the life gained would only be a problem in formats where it's a) easy to bounce lands for some reason? or b) heavily graveyard-based AND grindy, like Shadows over Innistrad was.

~

@dimestoretajic — Tyrannical Response

Play this on your turn, and your opponent is basically boardwipe-or-scoop. Play this on an opponent's turn after attackers have been declared, and once more, boardwipe-or-scoop. I would've been totally down for this card making 2/2s, but 4/4s is such a massive swing for the number of creatures that you'll be getting that it's not worth justifying this even as a legendary instant. I respect that you put the limitation, don't get me wrong, and it was the right thing to do. The massive amount of power on board is enough to tip the scales in a way that's probably not as balanced as one might imagine it to be.

But again, one could argue the nature of legends and legendary instants/sorceries, whatever, I know where that's coming from—and I still say that it's too much. The last limited format with legendary instants/sorceries had almost fifty legendary cards that could fulfill that role. Maybe it's a pendulum issue, though... But no, I'm really iffy about this one. Maybe I'm just paranoid about the swingier board states that this could enable. Still, you picked the right combo, name, and flavor text for this kind of effect at the very least. The numbers game is the only thing I'd change.

~

@feyd-rautha-apologist — Belligerent Tomb

Conceptually, I like this card, so let's work on how to do some editing for it. Firstly: auras have to enchant either objects or players. Graveyards are zones, so a card can't actually enchant a graveyard. Rather, this card should probably be enchanting a player and should probably be a curse as well, so that the text can read: "Whenever a card is put into enchanted player's graveyard from anywhere, that player loses 1 life." For the flavor text, this should probably be in quotes, since it appears to be spoken from the perspective of a specific character and not a general ephemeral being or omniscient extrapolating voice.

This enchantment, however, has got a lot of power problems going for it. Turning something like Tome Scour into a Lava Axe, which you can do quite easily on turn three, barring any Hedron Crab shenanigans, is a bit much when comparing cost to effect. I know that it seems expensive, but I wouldn't be shocked if this had to cost as much as 3BB overall. 2BB might be okay, I suppose, depending on how much milling is in the set that you can force onto your opponent. Again, not a bad idea, but the power, practicality, and wording could use some work.

~

@hypexion — Belligerent Spirit

One must be punished for being alive, after all. This card's simple for sure, but it does the Undying stuff well enough for me to say that it's really a pain and I'd love to play it in limited. Swing, get in kinda, sac, etc. A four-mana 2/2 might not seem great until you also have extra damage and a recursive body to think about. Having it be a 2/3 wouldn't necessarily be out of the question either, would it? Or would that throw off some numbers... I dunno, but either way, I could definitely see this blowing up in draft tier lists.

Is it just modern sensibilities that make this card difficult to balance without being too powerful? I don't know, honestly; Murderous Redcap was good in its day and this is pretty much in the same vein, innit? I don't think that it's too far off from that design and I...honestly just noticed that it was that close when writing this. Heh. But in all seriousness, it fits the name, it fits the ability, and I don't think anyone would complain about a Redcap effect being in limited, the more I think about it. That said, I've never played with it. Last note, but the flavor text is 85% there. It's an awesome notion and I'd love to tweak some wording in the editing bay. The vibe is great.

~

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Impossible Notion

I think this card needed one more line of rules text: that you could spend colorless mana as though it were mana of any color to cast it. Would that have been too much? Or would that even be relevant? The point is, I'm not quite meeting this card on the mechanics side. The name and ability combination, though, not only makes sense but also feels like it wants to have some kind of Eldrazi invocation. Getting things back from exile by a) casting them and b) having to own them and c) having to spend colorless mana all makes sense for a restriction.

Then the question remains: should this card exist, and why? Getting things out of exile has long since been a bit of a thorn in R&D's side. Combining this with Karn, the Great Creator—or at least putting them in the same design-space room and letting them duke it out—makes for a deck that really puts a damper on things. Insta-speed Relic of Progenitus plus this is a real pain. In limited, what would this card do then? I honestly couldn't tell you. This card may not be too bad for a one-time use, I'll give you that. I'm struggling to find an argument in favor of its presence, though, strictly based on the rules that have been set for exile recursion and the prevalence of problematic possibilities for which this card allows. Still, a bold design for sure—even if the flavor text could be a little meatier.

~

@masternexeon — Ravenous Overflow (JUDGE PICK)

I was actually quite happy that multiple people took abstract nouns and made creatures out of them. This card is, additionally, a real pain in the butt and ravenous indeed. You know I really like how you framed this combination of green and blue here. There's a force of nature that's representative of consumption, but that consumption is also taking the form of flooding and overtaking the land (and its inhabitants) through how much it's flowing. Green gets its hunger sated, but not by flesh; blue gets its domain expanded, but is forced by ferocity. It's a cool balance. That's one of the major reasons I'm going with it as a Judge Pick this week!

Whether or not this card is balanced is another thing, and it's really funny regardless to turn everything into Islands. The thing to keep in mind is that turning something into an Island without it being a land... I honestly don't know what that would do. Seriously, I took a few hours off after reading the comprehensive rules—I know, long weekend—and I don't have a definitive answer. To be fair I wasn't sure what to look for but the point stands. I think the payoff might be a bit too swingy in limited, honestly. Sacrifice two random creatures to more or less shut off your opponent's big threats and/or mana sources, and then use any additional synergy to permanently keep your opponents off their colors unless they're also blue? Seems a bit hard to stem the flow, pardon the pun. But how can you scale the effect to keep this while adjusting the numbers? And also by putting "Island lands" instead of just "Islands." Saves me a headache.

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@misterstingyjack — Abandoned Choir

I did ultimately like this card even if I wasn't super convinced about it. That said, the card draw could be pretty neat—I suppose I was just more swayed by Amonkhet's designs and the use of counters as a resource, because this can kind of turn itself into a draw resource and/or potentially use other cards with defender and the ilk as resources, but it's a bit...narrow? Maybe Amonkhet had its different themes that it was working with, and Phyrexia is a little iffier on that front. I do like how you've used white card-draw to its strengths, though. This feels like reasonable space.

So how often will one have three toughness? Probably often enough to make a difference. I do wonder how this card would've played with the change to do a creature with power 1 or less instead. I honestly don't know if that would be too powerful considering an abundance of tokens and/or weenies, but hey, it's an end step effect, whaddaya gonna do. This card really is a thinker. I do appreciate the writeup, though, and I think that as an Aftermath-y card, I can totally buy what the effect was going for. What's a choir to do in Norn's wake? Sing the praises and all, which makes sense to me. I'm also very curious as to why this is the second mono-white Choir with an implied self-tapping theme. What's up with the psychic connection here?

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@partytimesdeluxe — Freshwater Tomb (JUDGE PICK)

There's this wonderful freshness to this design combination that feels great even if the practicality is a bit strange. What's the best-case scenario for this card in terms of mana-fixing? I suppose that a hybrid card dying would make for a great trigger, but beyond that, this card feels a lot slicker than I imagine it to play. Y'know? I think that a lot of folks liked this design because of how it feels. On the battlefield, I have to wonder if this card would do everything that one wants it to do. Protecting a creature from being animated and/or cycling the creatures that die is...also something.

I suppose I too want this design to play well but I'm not sure what the true benefit is. Perhaps I'm not seeing something? If this land was, like, Bloom Tender...hoo boy. Would that be too powerful? Or, if it was "1, T: Add two mana in any combination..." That way it could turn dying creatures into XX, XY, or YY, depending on if they were multicolored or now. Multiple ways of filtering. Honestly that sounds a lot stronger than the one-mana restriction. Child of Alara dying would help this card, sure, but beyond that... I think I'm picking this card because the possibilities and the slickness are absolutely there. It's just on the brink of being perfect in terms of actual gameplay; I absolutely need to praise the idea because, well, of how cool it feels!

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@piccadilly-blue — Plentiful Canyon

Alright, so, neat as the notion is, I think everyone is in agreement that this card doesn't 100%-functionally-work, and the only question is why within the comprehensive rules. As far as I can tell, the main reason is that playing a land is a special action that doesn't use the stack, and can't have costs associated with it, because playing a land isn't a spell and additional costs only exists for spells and abilities. Assuming that everything within the comprehensive rules is how I understand it, you could play this land and pay its cost with its own mana ability since there's no moment that this card would be on the "stack," i.e. it would exist on the battlefield by the time you would have to pay the "cost" to play it.

...God, does that make any sense? I hope it does. Regardless, the discussions have been discussed and I think that we're all in agreement. I've talked a zillion times about your envelope-pushing and how much it makes me think so we'll leave it there. The flavor text, then! I like the rhyme here. Feels like the western prairie ballad that you were aiming for, and that's a great addition to the vibe of the card. 

~

@real-aspen-hours — Draconic Absolution

The flavor text here is great, and the implication is pretty cool; it feels kind of like Jund's dragon worship but with less of a predatory-shaman nature and more aligned with the Phyrexian-style divinity that is creepy and powerful all at once. I'm starting with the flavor and feeling here because—and I'm not sure if this was intentional or not—this card is an upgraded Rip Apart from Strixhaven. Where Rip Apart destroyed instead of exiling and was sorcery speed, this card is just that but slightly better.

Is that enough? Not exactly. If there was consideration for Rip Apart, I really would've liked to see a mechanical distinction beyond "strictly better." If there wasn't, well, I don't blame you; it's a clean design and clearly someone at Wizards thought the same thing if the card was actually printed. Tried and true, I suppose? That's unfortunately all I got for this particular card considering all of the considerations. In the end, I think that we're left with one last request: make sure you put your rarity indicators in your text submissions! Argh.

~

@reaperfromtheabyss — Freshwater Lasso (JUDGE PICK)

I'll give this card the award for "most physically imaginative use of world tropes in conjunction with the name." Lassoing things is super on-par for Thunder Junction, and I love how you connected that to the name. And we gotta agree—this lasso is indeed fresh and watery. Hydromancy allows for this card to really come into its own, and I love how it can be something that revolves around potential dexterity for untapping creatures, or as a prison for your opponent's creatures.

I wish this didn't have to be a rare, but like, it really really does. Insta-speed gaining control of a creature is something that can't happen too often in limited. The fact that it is instant-speed definitely ups the complexity. I don't mind that at all! Could there be one additional thing that this card does to make it so that putting it on your own creature doesn't suck as much? Well, actually, gaining control of a creature that you can then untap is...really cool. Man, this card is cool. We had a lot of strong contenders for this week and this is as close to being in the top six as you can get, honestly. Maybe I've just been enamored with Thunder Junction but I don't care because of how darn cool this card feels. Good job.

~

@sombramainexe — Kindred Spirit

So for the render here, the name did have to change in order to fit the contest; pluralizing the names does indeed count as changing the words, ergo, disallowed. Regardless of whether or not is was changed, I'm not a fan of having the name and typeline be the same thing. Perhaps it was a mistake to have "Kindred" be part of the adjectives list considering the kind of cards that a name like that drives people towards. I'm still working on it. With this particular card I feel that the name could have been changed because of the fact that it's not currently giving as much without AD or flavor text. The tongue-in-cheek aspect comes across as ultimately derivative instead of subversive, which is what I imagine the intent to be.

Mirrorweave is still a valid card, though, and I think that this card is an interesting take on it. Turning things into Spirits could be an awesome blowout. Why do the names not change, though? I imagine that it's because of legendary rules, and I understand that—is there a different way to go about it? I think that this is honestly completely new design space, because as far as I can tell there's no mass copy effect that allows creatures to keep their names. I wonder what the design principle behind that is, and I'd be curious to hear.

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@stupidstupidratcreatures — Magnificent Mortar

Hey. Listen. Don't look at the card, look at me. Okay? I think that this is hilarious. This is a very, very funny card and I'm also a little bit mad. But it's still funny. But I'm a tiny-teensy-little bit mad. And I can't help but admire the fact that you designed a card with an implied second card that will, as far as we know, never exist. That's chutzpah if I've ever seen it. As for the interpretation of "mortar" here, I was thinking more in terms of salvos when I made this card and less about the combination, and yet you're here with one of the most creative combinations I've seen.

Mashing up creatures for mana is awesome, actually, and the way to activate it with a pestle is funny enough. As far as mana rocks go, I don't think that this card is the most powerful and I wish that it could've had one additional ability to really get the pestle's power online. You know how there was the whole "Blank of Empires" cycle of artifacts from some core set a while back? M12, that was it, right. But yeah, no, the abilities really ramped up because it's hard to get artifacts with the same name on the battlefield at the right time. Might want to consider that in terms of power level for next time. I'm gonna be very concerned if there's a future contest in which the Perfect Pestle can make an appearance, but hey, the world may never know if I accidentally do that one. Heh.

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@tanknspank — Draconic Choir (JUDGE PICK)

I think we're in the realm, once again, of having really cool cards with really cool abilities that happen to be so normally and pragmatically good that they just barely miss the ledge of greatness. Having that pseudo-flashback kind of effect, the Dreadhorde Arcanist ability, is really cool, and stacking those triggers is necessary for making this effect really max out. It's a bear that beats in limited and burns out your opponent before blocks. What more can one ask for?

The last question I could possibly have is why "Choir" was such a popular choice this week. What was it about that word that just made people go nuts with these collective designs? I'm not complaining, I'm just really surprised. A choir of dragons is still pretty awesome, though, so I won't complain about that. What world would this be on? It feels almost like a Baldur's Gate kind of style, but that's probably not it. Maybe the "choir" is a metaphorical one and all the roaring is what brings the fire to life. Who can say, who can say. All the same, this card is a self-evident wonderful piece of work and I think that it should be commended for its solid design choices as a support card for limited and constructed spellslinging decks.

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@wildcardgamez — Kindred Banner

We have a mix between Pillar of Origins and Rally the Ranks; Is that enough? I think, while this design is normal, its effects are really generic slash expected. Kindred means creature types, banner is an anthem. I feel that this could've been flavored somewhat, or given more mechanical significance that we haven't seen before. I'm actually surprised we haven't seen this exact combination, but it's a normal enough effect that I can imagine we'll see something like it in the future of design.

So, I'll say for the rest of this commentary to take a look at the uniqueness of the winners and the expectations for them. Or... No, actually, I won't do that. Because I'm not going to say that this card is bad. It's pure good design, based on the foundations of the creature-type-matters effects that we've seen printed before, and what else can one possibly ask for. I think there's the question to ask: are you submitting for the contest, or are you submitting to show you know what a good card is? That's something I can't answer, so I can offer only a couple small edits, and leave the rest up to you. Firstly: you probably want this as an "as" ability, like most of these creature type effects are. There are many reasons why, but the stack is a pain. Secondly: Like Pillar of Origins, you want to say "spend" instead of "use" in the text of the second ability, and you might also want to add that this is for abilities too if you want that.

~

There we go, whew. Have fun designing artifacts this week! — @abelzumi

[pessimisticpigeonsworld]

This isn't my usual content, but this has been bugging me all day. After watching one of those "cat haters meet kittens" videos, I think there are only two groups of people who actually dislike cats. People who had one or two bad experiences and people who want to be fawned over/adored constantly. Both of these are red flags in my humble opinion.

For the people who have had a few bad experiences, it's much more forgivable. Yes, it sucks that a cat scratched you when you were five, but hating an entire species for one encounter is stupid. Seriously, you're choosing to severely limit your understanding of the world.

Cats aren't toys, they're living creatures, with distinct personalities and sometimes trauma associated with humans. That's like deciding every human is evil because someone yelled at you. Grow the fuck up, honestly. The people in the video were in their thirties, like, seriously, how have none of you bothered to learn about why cats don't like you/your actions?

Something the people in the video kept saying was "they'll just randomly decide to scratch the shit out of you." Well let's examine why they'd do that. Cats will scratch someone most often for two reasons: their prey drive was activated or they didn't like what you were doing. So the cat was either trying to play or was telling you to back off. From what I've seen/heard it's usually the latter.

Children and people who don't understand cats will often try to force things onto the cats. Whether it's forcefully holding them, petting them, or grabbing them (cat owners do this too, we just understand what we're doing and what to expect). Literally in the video one of the people grabbed a cat's paw to shake it. That cat tolerated it, but if they did that to other cats, I'm not surprised they've been scratched. Cats will very clearly communicate if they don't like something, which these people apparently take offense at.

That leads into the other group of people, those who expect animals to adore them for no reason. Typically these people love dogs (no hate to dogs, I love them too), however their reason is because "They just love me, no matter what!" Now, what does that say about a person? Well that they don't want to have to earn something's love.

Cats will usually make a person work a lot more for their trust and affection than dogs will. Cats are more untrusting of strangers than dogs are. Certain people don't like that, they feel entitled to an animals love immediately, even though they're strangers. I always wonder if that thought extends to other people, do they expect everyone to adore them? Seems kinda delusional, just saying.

There are people that cats will never trust and they're usually this type of person. Cats are amazing judges of character, they can tell if you feel aggression or anger towards them. If you come into an interaction already feeling anger towards the cat, the cat won't want to be near you. Forcing it to be near you will only make it lash out.

Basically what I'm saying is, disliking/hating cats is a massive red flag and a mark of immaturity. There's always a reason for a cat lashing out, and choosing to hate all cats because of one or two instances is ridiculous. People who expect cats to love them and tolerate everything they do are stupid and entitled.

Please note: I am excluding people who have trauma related to cats, as those are extreme circumstances. The people I'm talking about have not been traumatized by cats, they simply chose to dislike them. This also doesn't mean I expect everyone to adore cats. Feeling apathetic or just liking them a bit is fine, it's when people actively dislike/hate them that the issue arises.

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

I've been dubbed! To honor this momentous occasion I, Boredom Anon, will let you in on a little something: I am in fact going to go through with writing the memory loss au, rest assured. Sorry I left you with only that small piece to chew on, but I needed a trusted source to give me an opinion on the idea before I got too in over my head.

To answer a few of your questions in your response:

His body is still there, yep, and I plan on this being one of the plot points because technically Spider is still in his body---the avatar up and walking is just a glitchy memory-holder which I thought would lead to an interesting question: where is the line between oneself? Is he even still Spider, in this case? This is something that Neteyam especially will be conflicted by.

The exact details of how he got hurt are something I've been playing with. For now I think having him take the bullet for Neteyam might be fun to play with, but who's to say. I'm willing to hear any suggestions you may have on the matter!

The Sullies are in Awa'atlu when Spider is first on the mend and getting used to his avatar body. The scene I gave you was when they're finally in the clear to come and see him at High Camp.

I didn't add in all of their reactions because I didn't want to get carried away, but you are very close to how I imagined I'd write Jake and Tuk's reactions lol. I plan on putting the elements you mentioned with Neytiri in there for sure though and you're correct Spider is going entirely off of what feels right so that'll be fun.

Another thing to note: one of the main points I have written down right now is that this avatar body is so fresh that everything is new and feels almost overwhelming in some cases. Pair that with his limited memory and you get some potent muscle-memory/instinct type shit going on, almost like how a newborn creature is just going off of what it feels. For example, the first thing he thinks when he wakes up in his avatar body is Neteyam, and this is quickly followed by a deep longing and it just starts to plague him because he doesn't know what it means but he knows he needs this "Neteyam" whoever he is (and he knows Neteyam is a person, he can feel it. It comes to him in broken images: a blurry face, a melodic laugh, "I see you, Spider.") Am I explaining this well? I feel like I'm making about zero sense lol but whatever you'll get what I mean eventually if you don't now.

Anyways, while I'm working on developing this fic I'll be sure to hop on the asks every now and then with updates if you'd like and when I publish it I'll of course send you the link if you want 👍. Your positive reaction has done wonders and since you aided in my final decision to write it I feel it's only fair.

BOREDOM ANON THIS IS THE MSOT EXCITING NEWS. WHEN I GOT THIS ASK I FREAKED, AND I ALMOST BUMPED IT TO THE TOP OF THE PILE. Instead I just went through the others a little quick and used it as incentive lol. I am thrilled to be a trusted source, I'd love to do whatever I can, feel free to dm me of course, or send me all the asks if you want to stay anonymous of course.

-Wow, that is very dark. There's a great opportunity for an examination of what makes one truly themselves. I think the Na'vi would be more understanding at first than the scientists, due in part to all energy being borrowed in their philosophy. They can visit the dead in memories when they are with Eywa, and that's almost like what Spider is. It just is a question as to if that makes him dead or not, kind of. I also wonder, does that mean they expect him to wake up, or will they try to transfer him into his Avatar body permanently once they think he's strong enough? Probably not questions for you to answer, spoilers lol.

-Hmm, well, the bullet is always good, because I've been saying (I don't remember if it was in dms or a public post) that I've yet to see a fic where Spider takes the bullet and I get to the see the direct fallout from that. I think the effect it would have on his and Neytiri's relationship would be fairly immediate. It would also drastically change the ship standoff, and I'm curious as to people's takes on that. He could also always just pass out from blood loss and then when Norm and Max arrive they notice the brain damage from the machine, and that is what makes them put him in a coma, because he isn't stable.

-Ooh, very interesting. I'm sHOCKED the Sully kids let that fucker out of their sight for a second. Kiri and Lo'ak attempt to sneak out with Payakan to go back to High Camp literally every night, Jake has to sleep basically on top them. He'd never suspect that NETEYAM is also a flight risk, the biggest of them all.

-Haha, no, I understand! Well, even if he can't remember much of before, he's never felt his mating bond before in a Na'vi body. The feelings are stronger and different, and he doesn't have the past knowledge to try to repress or ignore them. He just knows what he wants and what he needs.

OBVIOUSLY we'd love updates, but no pressure of course, and of course I want the link!! I am so so glad I helped with the decision, so many of you lately have said I helped inspire you to write and I cannot express how happy that makes me! Fanfiction is a fantastic creative outlet and a great tool and gateway into bigger literary work, so never feel nervous!

[itsu-saragi]

Devlog #6 - My Brain Hurts, but When Does it Not?

Good timezone! Sorry I'm late with the update, but the good news: we're so back. I've finally settled in and have resumed my work on this blasted project.

Writing

I reviewed my notes and decided to do another pass on the love interest character.

Ngl, he's really fucking hard to write. Usually, I can imagine how my characters act and speak pretty well, but this guy... this guy. I'm still struggling to get a grasp on him.

I wonder if it's because I'm creating him for a VN? Or maybe I'm just overthinking?

Actually, let's talk about this for a brief moment.

I'm someone who loves creating original characters. Just this past month, apart from this VN I made two other OCs for some DnD games, and that came easy. So in comparison, why has this LI-creating process been so hard for me?

Well first, it's worth noting that there's a specific method to creating characters in DnD. You pick your race, class, background, et cetra... And those selections in turn inform who your character may be. Does your character have the Soldier background and high intelligence, but low strength? Well, maybe you could interpret that as your character being a military strategist, but with little combat experience. Those rules allow for creativity within the limitations. On the other hand, I'm trying to create a character in my own homebrew world, plus there's no RPG system, so I have fewer constraints which can make my indecisive ass suffer.

Now that I think of it, it might not be a bad idea to try turning him into a DnD character...

I'm getting off track.

Anyway. Though I said there are fewer constraints when creating a VN character, I'm not totally correct there. It's just that I feel there's a different set of requirements that are more... challenging. At least to me.

You see, when I create characters I don't typically construct them with a greater purpose in mind. I just want to make them a cool little creature, and if there's an existing world or story I'll modify them so they make sense in the lore. I’ll add their shortcomings so that they have room to grow, but in a collaborative setting like DnD it’s not guaranteed that my character will go through their arc, nor do I know how that arc will play out, so it’s not my main focus.

But when creating this VN, I've realized that not only does this character need to be interesting and appealing, but I also need to give them a complete arc while simultaneously fitting the narrative and theme. And maybe more stuff I'm not aware of. These constraints aren't mechanical, they're more... structural.

I'm not sure if that's the right word. But it sure as hell made my head spin.

I don't know what the solution to this is other than keep drafting and iterating. Maybe it's turning them into DnD characters.

It's a fun challenge to think about though.

Programming

On another note, after weeks of dreaded avoidance, I finally cracked open RenPy again. And turns out it didn't suck, so yay?

I've added more scenes and choices in my prototype, which is satisfying to see when I run the code.

I think my next challenge is figuring out the scope and the UI. The scope can only be determined by working on the narrative outline so... I should probably prioritize that.

And on the days when my writing brain isn't working, I should tackle some of the UI. Hearing other devs talk about how annoying RenPy UI can be gets me a little nervous, but I guess it's time to find out for myself.

October Goals

Try to get this love interest character locked in holy shit

And if possible, figure out scope, if not try UI

Thank you for reading! I appreciate it.

[twoidiotwriters1]

The Curse of Oenone (Leo Valdez xFem!Oc)

A/N: I had lots of fun writing this and the next three chapters :) -Danny Words: 2,555 Series' Masterlist Previous Chapter // Next Chapter Listen to: 'Teen Feet Tall' -by Sawyer

V: Are Those Feelings? Get Them Away From Me!

Before leaving, Percy pulls Leo and Ara aside and tells them Hazel's story. Partly so they understand why she acts weird sometimes, partly so Ara doesn't go around saying mean stuff about Nico.

Ara isn't surprised to hear there is another big-three kid around, she's just angry that Nico never told them, not even Lily, about Camp Jupiter.

She keeps wondering if she pressed Nico and Lily to fit in so much that they gave up and now they're just pretending to be okay to get her off their backs.

These thoughts do nothing to brighten her mood.

Last week Lily got into a fight with an Ares kid and busted his lip. I wasn't there to stop her because I was with Beckendorf, where I made a fan catch fire. Whoops, I guess. We're about to drive Michael crazy and cause him early baldness.

"For the thousandth time, Lily Saggio," our friend scolds her while organizing the supplies in the infirmary. "You cannot fight the entire Ares cabin. You should know better than to become their enemy."

"It's not her fault," I defend her, though most of my attention is on the legos I'm playing with.

"And you're no better!" He snaps immediately. "You and Tyson are a dangerous combination. He tries anything you want and you turn into a mad scientist with the free reign he gives you, your inventions always get out of control."

"So we are the ideal couple," I grin. "Because Tyson is immune to fire."

"That doesn't mean you can't die in one," Mike raises a brow. "Look, beasts, I've thought about it, and it's about time you calm down."

"What do you mean by that?" Lily stops the fidgeting with her stygian dagger.

"From now on you have to limit your problems to one every two weeks. I can't be looking after you all the time."

Lily and I share a look. I turn to our friend. "Don't you prefer a massage?"

Mike kicks us out of the cabin and Lily scoffs, putting her daggers away and taking half of my legos. "I don't know why you like him, he's a grumpy little jerk."

"Hush!" I look around frantically. I told her about my crush on Mike in secrecy but sometimes she brings it up in public like it's nothing, it freaks me out. "I don't know either, alright? I just do."

As the day goes on, I'm still thinking about Mike's request. He's right, we abuse the fact that he's always there to fix our problems.

"Hey," I sit next to him during the campfire. "What you asked this afternoon... I'll do it."

He looks at me, raising his eyebrows as if he can't believe what he's listening. "Really?

"It's time I learned manners, I think," I shrug, fixing my eyes on my feet. "The fires are not that fun anyway."

Mike hugs me and laughs, his entire body glows a pretty leaf-green color. Michael isn't a fan of physical affection, but when he does it, it means that he's really happy.

"Thank you, bug."

"No problem," I smile at him.

I don't know what to call Mike nowadays, my best friend, protector, or some sort of platonic crush. All I know is there's nothing in the world that I wouldn't do to keep him happy. I think he feels the same way.

Leo cheers up during the horse ride, which is surprising cause he's not a huge fan of living creatures, except Pollo. Maybe he's a fan of dangerous, crazy pets. He keeps touching the horse's side, eyes shiny as he pays close attention to his movements.

Ara's heart flutters, which she dislikes, cause she wants to stay grumpy for a little longer. When they dismount Arion, he goes wild, showing off his power.

"Show-off," Ara mumbles, stretching as she moves out of Arion's way.

"He needs to eat," Hazel informs them. "He likes gold, but—"

"Gold?" Leo makes a face.

"He'll settle for grass. Go on, Arion. Thanks for the ride. I'll call you."

The horse goes away and Ara scowls at the dust he leaves behind, why couldn't she be born a horse? Then she wouldn't have complicated thoughts.

"Well..." Leo kneels. "One problem solved, anyway. This is lime."

"The whole beach?" Hazel asks in surprise.

"Yeah. See? The granules are perfectly round. It's not really sand. It's calcium carbonate." 

Leo gathers a bunch of it in a ziploc bag, then pauses. He stares at the ground with a weird expression. "Leo?" Hazel speaks. "You okay?"

"Yeah," he clears his throat and continues. "Yeah, fine."

"We should've brought a pail and shovels," Hazel crouches beside him. 

Ara stands behind to keep an eye on their surroundings.

"We could've made a sand castle," Leo retorts.

"A lime castle."

Silence. 

Ara looks back and sees them gazing at each other the way she and Leo would do during their first quest together. That makes her want to do widely different things at the same time: Cry, or stab someone with her sword.

"I'll take a look around," she announces, causing them to jump. "You two hurry."

As soon as she's out of earshot, Ara kicks the sandy ground and curses in Italian. She's always found that cathartic because of how sharp the words feel on her tongue. 

She supports both hands on her knees and takes a deep breath. What is wrong with her? Her mother said turning fifteen meant she could handle bad news better, but it was a blatant lie. There is raw anger inside her, and she needs to get rid of it before it becomes a real problem.

"Ara!" Leo calls for her. "This way!"

Ara makes the conscious choice of staying behind so she can glare at them as they move forward. She's so busy doing this that she doesn't notice Hazel stopping and the girl crashes against her, almost sending Hazel to the ground but catching her before it happens.

"Sorry! What's..." She spots a woman in the middle of the road. "Oh."

As they get closer, Ara's deep-rooted rage increases, she doesn't understand what's going on.

"What are you doing?" Leo stops and blurts out: "Aunt Rosa?!"

The lady looks up and Ara gasps so sharply she gets a coughing fit. 

That woman looks just like her! A prettier, older version of her. Like the picture of her Chiron keeps in his office.

"Is that what you see?" The woman asks, eyes fixed on Leo. "Interesting. And you, Hazel, dear?"

"How did you—?" Hazel stammers in disbelief. "You—you look like Mrs. Leer. My third-grade teacher. I hated you."

The woman laughs. "Excellent. You resented her, eh? She judged you unfairly?"

"You—she taped my hands to the desk for misbehaving. She called my mother a witch. She blamed me for everything I didn't do and—No. She has to be dead. Who are you?"

"Oh, these two know," the woman glances at Ara before going back to Leo. "How do you feel about Aunt Rosa, mijo?"

Leo's jaw clenches. "Nemesis. You're the goddess of revenge."

Why does the goddess of revenge look like an older version of Ara? That doesn't make any sense. She doesn't hate herself!

"You see?" The goddess smiles. "He recognizes me. But you're having a lot of trouble facing the truth, right, Arae?"

Coming from the goddess, her name sounds like a mockery. "I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, don't play dumb, you were never that kind of Aphrodite," the woman looks down at the fortune cookies she's tearing apart. "You will have great fortune when you least expect it—That's exactly the sort of nonsense I hate. Someone opens a cookie, and suddenly they have a prophecy that they'll be rich! I blame that tramp Tyche. Always dispensing good luck to people who don't deserve it!"

"Uh... you know those aren't real prophecies, right? They're just stuffed in the cookies at some factory—"

"Don't try to excuse it! It's just like Tyche to get people's hopes up. No, no. I must counter her." Nemesis flicks a finger over the text and the letters turn red and change. "You will die painfully when you most expect it. There! Much better."

"That's horrible! You'd let someone read that in their fortune cookie, and it would come true?" Hazel exclaims.

"My dear Hazel, haven't you ever wished horrible things on Mrs. Leer for the way she treated you?"

"That doesn't mean I'd want them to come true!"

Ara can't always be perfect, but something awful will happen, and it is her fault. It's been her fault all along, according to her mother, so maybe she does hate herself enough to be her own nemesis.

"Bah. Tyche would be Fortuna for you, I suppose, being Roman. Like the others, she's in a horrible way right now. Me? I'm not affected. I am called Nemesis in both Greek and Roman. I do not change, because revenge is universal."

"What are you talking about? What are you doing here?" Leo questions.

The goddess opens another cookie. "To answer your question, Leo Valdez, the gods are in terrible shape. It always happens when a civil war is brewing between you Romans and Greeks. The Olympians are torn between their two natures, called on by both sides. They become quite schizophrenic, I'm afraid. Splitting headaches. Disorientation."

"But we're not at war."

"Um, Leo..." Hazel frowns. "Except for the fact that you recently blew up large sections of New Rome."

"Not on purpose!"

"I know, but the Romans don't realize that. And they'll be pursuing us in retaliation."

"Makes you reconsider some life choices, right, Jackson?" Nemesis grins at her. "Leo, listen to this girl. War is coming. Gaea has seen to it, with your help. And can you guess whom the gods blame for their predicament?"

"Me," he replies darkly.

"Well, don't you have a high opinion of yourself!" The goddess laughs. "You're just a pawn on the chessboard, Leo Valdez. I was referring to the player who set this ridiculous quest in motion, bringing the Greeks and Romans together. The gods blame Hera—or Juno, if you prefer! The queen of the heavens has fled Olympus to escape the wrath of her family. Don't expect any more help from your patron!"

"So why are you here?"

"Why, to offer my help!"

"Your help," Leo repeated skeptically.

"Of course! I enjoy tearing down the proud and powerful, and there are none who deserve tearing down like Gaea and her giants. Still, I must warn you that I will not suffer undeserved success. Good luck is a sham. The wheel of fortune is a Ponzi scheme. True success requires sacrifice."

What she hates most about Nemesis's speech, is that it sounds exactly like what she yelled at Lily before leaving camp.It wasn't luck, I worked hard to get here! Someone's holding her face in place, forcing her to look at the problem she created, and that she's spent a whole year pretending not to notice.

"Sacrifice?" Hazel asks in outrage. "I lost my mother. I died and came back. Now my brother is missing. Isn't that enough sacrifice for you?"

"Right now," Leo's hands are tightly closed. "All I want is some Celestial bronze."

"Oh, that's easy. It's just over the rise. You'll find it with the sweethearts."

"Wait," Hazel blinks. "What sweethearts?"

"You'll see. Perhaps they will teach you a lesson, Hazel Levesque. Most heroes cannot escape their nature, even when given a second chance at life. These two keep running into the same wall when the door is right in sight," Nemesis vaguely points to Ara and Leo.

A week ago, Ara wouldn't have known what the goddess meant, but now... all she wants is to stuff the lady's mouth with fortune cookies so she shuts up forever.

"And speaking of your brother Nico, you don't have much time. Let's see... it's June twenty-fifth? Yes, after today, six more days. Then he dies, along with the entire city of Rome."

"How..." Hazel stammers. "What—?"

"And as for you, child of fire." She turns to Leo. "Your worst hardships are yet to come. You will always be the outsider, the seventh wheel. You will not find a place among your brethren. Soon you will face a problem you cannot solve, though I could help you... for a price."

Leo's fingers burst into flames. Hazel steps back in alarm and the boy suffocates the fire by hiding his hand in the pocket of his jeans. "I like to solve my own problems."

"Very well."

"But, um, what sort of price are we talking about?"

"Leo, don't—" Ara starts, but the goddess lifts a hand to silence her.

"He's allowed to ask questions," the woman muses. "One of my children recently traded an eye for the ability to make a real difference in the world."

"You were Ethan's mom?" Ara raises a brow. "No wonder he was such a pain in the ass..."

Nemesis smiles. "When people say that, they're talking about pains that don't let them sit on said asses and force them to get up and do the work. You'll be a pain in the ass to many, Arae Jackson."

"Wait, let me get this straight," Leo intervenes. "You... want an eye?"

"In your case, perhaps another sacrifice would do. But something just as painful. Here." She tosses him a fortune cookie. "If you need an answer, break this. It will solve your problem."

 Ara has to suppress the urge to slap the cookie out of his hand. She doesn't want anything to happen to Leo. She lost Mike, Lily's angry at her, and so is Percy. If something were to happen to Leo... she's pretty sure it would make her go insane.

"What problem?"

"You'll know when the time comes."

"No, thanks," Leo replies, but he puts the cookie in his belt anyway.

Nemesis looks at Ara. "You'd need a bigger cookie to solve your predicament, pretty princess." She breaks another cookie and reads the paper. "You will have cause to reconsider your choices soon. Oh, how fitting! No changes needed here."

She reaches for Ara's hand, placing the small paper on it. The girl snatches it away. The last thing she needs is to doubt herself now, especially when the people she loves most in the world depend on her, disappointing them is simply out of the question.

"Very few gods will be able to help you on the quest," the goddess continues unbothered. "Most are already incapacitated, and their confusion will only grow worse. One thing might bring unity to Olympus again—an old wrong finally avenged. Ah, that would be sweet indeed, the scales finally balanced! But it will not happen unless you accept my help."

"I suppose you won't tell us what you're talking about," Hazel scowls. "Or why my brother Nico has only six days to live. Or why Rome is going to be destroyed."

"Oh, it's all tied together, Hazel Levesque," the lady hangs the bag of cookies over her shoulder and stands up. "As for my offer, Leo Valdez, give it some thought. You're a good child. A hard worker. We could do business. But I have detained you too long. You should visit the reflecting pool before the light fades. My poor cursed boy gets quite... agitated when the darkness comes."

Nemesis gives a long, amused look at Ara before departing on her motorcycle. "I'll have fun with you, mighty daughter of Greece." 

Again, Ara knows the nickname is meant to ridicule her. The goddess knows exactly who she once was. She should've seen it coming, given that Ara's curse was born from a nymph's hunger for revenge.

Hazel picks up a small piece of paper the goddess left behind, most likely on purpose.

"You will see yourself reflected, and you will have reason to despair," she reads out loud.

"Fantastic," Leo grumbles. "Let's go see what that means."

Next Chapter –>

Taglist.

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[dumbfinntales]

After my ARPG addiction, I decided to finally try out a game that has been sitting in my library for over a year now, and a game which development I followed until release. The Sinking City. A very flawed game, but currently the closest one to a lovecraftian themed game that I enjoy. Strange cults, odd happenings, even weirder creatures and madness are a plenty in the sunken city of Oakmont.

I've always wanted a cosmic horror game where you explore a dilapidated town, or a fishing town of some kind with strange creatures and survival horror elements. The Sinking City seems to deliver this on the surface and succeeds somewhat, but also fails in many aspects. This game is a bit of a janky unpolished gem, and you'll either ignore its flaws and enjoy it for what it is, or absolutely hate it. I happened to enjoy myself enough, but I don't see myself playing this again any time soon.

If there's one thing this game gets right it's the right inspiration and atmosphere. The game is comically lovecraftian making it almost stereotypical, but it works. You got a private detective who's plagued by visions who then travels to a strange American town where even stranger things are happening. You got mad cults worshiping maddening horrors and you get to explore ancient temples dedicated to unknown gods, all that good stuff. The city of Oakmont is pretty in the dilapidated, water damaged and monster infested way and is a joy to traverse and explore.

The quests, or cases as they're called in this game are pretty fun and well thought out. You are a private detective after all so you go around looking for clues, finding missing people and solving mysteries. The game doesn't hold your hand at all and you have to figure out your own way. Sometimes I had to look up what to do because there are some confusing and cryptic things in the game. Especially when you have to go research at a library, or the archives of a newspaper.

The combat isn't much to write home about. It's serviceable. You got several different types of guns that you acquire as you go through the main cases and you can thrown grenades and plop down some traps. Monster variety is disappointingly low though, and you'll be fighting the same 5 monsters throughout the entire game. There are a couple rudimentary boss fights there to spice things up, but the questing and mystery solving is obviously the games main draw.

But the game does fail in some departments and has some strange design decisions. For one, at the start of the game they state that normal money has lost its use in Oakmont, so they deal in bullets. You don't actually get to buy anything as there are no merchants in the game. The oddest thing of all, there's a limit to how many bullets you can carry. The game might seem like you have to save your resources, but you'll never run out of bullets because the game showers you with crafting materials. You also get bullets as a reward from cases, but if you're at max capacity you actually get no rewards at all from a case, which is such a weird decision.

The city of Oakmont is very limited. Despite being a city there are only a few points of interest and very few buildings can actually be entered. Most buildings are static and most doors are locked. You usually have to run large distances to get to anything interesting, and chasing after clues in a case can lead to lengthy runs around the town. There are a lot of braindead NPC's around as well, who don't really serve a purpose other than keep repeatedly walking into lamp post or cower on top a trash can.

You'll also notice a lot of repeating assets and layout. Sometimes I'd walk into a random building and I'd wonder to myself if I've been there before. But I feel like this can be forgiven because the studio that made this game is far from a triple A company and it's actually quite amazing what they achieved by themselves. Despite the repeating assets Oakmont is a very pretty city.

I also dislike how the game calls itself "survival horror". I already talked about the bullets, but you really don't even have to worry about resources. Maybe at the start of the game you feel like every bullet counts, but not far into the game you have more than enough. The madness mechanic was really spooky at the start though, and I feel like our poor detective character starts to lose his marbles a little too easily. True to Lovecraft I guess, but this makes the madness mechanic a little tedious at times. There are a couple genuinely good spooks in the game that caught me off guard, so it does somewhat keep the horror elements going.

So, the Sinking City is a bit of a divisive game. It succeeds in ways that I enjoy, but also fails in some annoying ways. It is obvious though that the developers seemed to care about this game and tried their hardest to make a game true to cosmic horror to the best of their abilities. If you're a lovecraft nut, I do recommend the game. Maybe get it on a sale and remember to play on a gray rainy autumn evening.

[wearesorcerer]

Re: Best 3rd-Level "Smart Guy" (Divination/Rune) Spell

These were originally separate categories (divinations and runes), but I wanted to conserve time and space. 97 votes came in; the winner was speak with dead at 37.1% (36 votes), followed by tongues at 19.6% (19 votes). I probably could have separated this list out a bit better had I taken the time. I'll analyze the spells anyway.

Arcane sight is just detect magic without the waiting, which IMHO is how detect spells should work (but that's a tangent). Ofc, I think all casters should be able to use detect magic at-will as a baseline ability, so what do I know?

Clairvoyance irks me: in power, it's roughly equivalent to detect thoughts, yet it pushes arcane eye a level higher, forcing that to compete with the superior scrying. All this and it can't even be used to make a ring of x-ray vision, even though that's what it does.

I don't blame people for not voting for discern lies: it's too specific for the level it's at, you're usually better off with zone of truth and detect thoughts anyway, and it's poorly worded.

Explosive runes/glyph of warding is fun. Not the most fun, but fun. By which I mean "I have never used the spell, but I appreciate Order of the Stick."

Illusory script is annoyingly powerful for a 3rd-level spell. I mean, it takes true seeing AND another spell to decipher it? The 5e version fixes these complications, I think, so whatever.

I don't get linked glyphs. It's just glyph of warding with a special trigger? Can't you do that with glyph of warding?

Secret page got no votes, which is great. It doesn't hide a page, it just...is another version of illusory script. You know what else could be done to hide writing? A variation of 1st-level spells that operate identically. I mean, it's about as powerful as disguise self or Nystul's magic aura.

Sepia snake sigil is stupidly overpowered. It's a spell glyph version of glyph of warding but applies temporal stasis to the target -- an 8th-level spell effect accomplished with a 3rd-level spell. On top of that, it specifically has brown light. You can't have brown light: brown is orange plus gray, i.e. it's a shade and thus requires some absence of light.

So, all the chaff out of the way, let's get to the meat: spells that let you communicate with creatures you couldn't otherwise and therefore gain information.

Speak with dead won because of the movie. The only thing it has over both tongues and speak with plants is that you're almost certain to be using it on a creature you know will have relevant information -- but that's because you did the research first, not a feature of the spell.

Speak with plants has great potential use, given that plants are everywhere and (for the purposes of the spell) they're temporarily sapient in a qualitatively and quantitatively way similar to humanoids. 5e instituted a downside on memory, but this is stupid and isn't present either in Critical Role's use or in 3.5's. You're not limited to so many questions, either, which is great. The downside is that you're unlikely to get any in-depth information from Henry Crabgrass. (Seriously, look up animatics on YouTube, they're wonderful.)

Tongues is the most likely to provide you with relevant information, but that's only if you can succeed at relevant social checks. You might need to do so with speak with plants, but you will almost assuredly have to do so with tongues: first, you have to figure out who it is you need to talk to, then you have to cast tongues, then you have to convince that person to talk to you, then you have to do the actual questioning. However, the spell gives you all the time you need to do that, so you're probably good. The only downside of tongues in many editions is that it is theoretically possible to learn every language in a setting (especially once 3rd edition condensed most of the species-specific monster languages) and so not need the spell, whereas you have to rely on magic to converse with plants or the dead.

[magici-if]

Hello! I hope this is alright to ask but I remember one post saying Harley has body dysmorphia, I was wondering if it was any particular part of her body she felt uncomfortable with and, this is somewhat of a lore question, can magic be used to subtly alter a persons body, like shapeshifting magic and what not, either casted by the individual or a trained professional mage?

Very excited for this If and hope your day has been going well!

first of all hii & that's totally fine to ask :) and i've been doing great + hope you are too <3

Here's the short answers and under them a longer, lore-ish answer that's about things that will probably never be brought up in this interactive fiction but that are relevant in the broader 'Magici Universe'.

Harley usually just feels insecure about her body in general, some days it's more intense, some days it's barely there; but the parts of her body she continuously feels the worst about are her shoulders and traps.

Harley used to be diagnosed with body dysmorphia (BDD) but she's at a point now where she doesn't meet the criteria anymore; she still experiences insecurity and body image issues, though not at a 'clinically concerning' level, according to her psychiatrist.

You could alter your physical appearance with illusionary (Dark) magic, however it's only that: an illusion, and not actual shapeshifting. Say you have short hair and cast an illusion spell for your hair to be longer; if someone touched your hair they'd realise it's only an illusion and that your hair is short. Other mages with a strong Dark affinity wouldn't even need to touch your hair to know it's an illusion. That's the furthest a human on Earth can go, shapeshifting wise.

Harley has her best friend cast an illusion on her on especially bad days, which helps a lot but isn't a long-term solution. :(

People that can't cast illusions or can't have a mage cast one on them could buy an illusionary tincture brewed by a proper mage. They'd need to take it every week or even every morning, depending on how potent it is.

However illusionary potions are expensive and heavily regulated by specialised organisations because of how dangerous they can be (think wanted criminals changing their appearance, organisations spreading terror via large scale illusions, etc). They could be prescribed though, but it's very rare unfortunately.

(longer answer here)

So it's not possible for humans on Earth to literally shapeshift. However, there are several realms, and Earth is the weakest out of the known ones, magic-wise. That means that if magical creatures that don't belong to Earth tried to get here, their magic would be nerfed by a lot.

On other realms with higher magic 'density' there live creatures with three, four, and more affinities. So take Air, Dark, and Void and you got yourself a shapeshifter. Humans are much more flexible in that way 'cause they're not restricted to specific affinity combos, while for example shapeshifters or phoenixes are. So humans native to these other realms are by default much stronger than the ones on Earth.

There's ways to reach these realms and people from Earth have done it before; but only those with specific affinity combinations can even attempt to. A mage that reaches a realm with higher magic density can have another Awakening where they unlock one or two more affinities, though they're limited to that realm. So humans native to these other realms are by default much stronger than the ones on Earth.

It's said that some people have been able to capture shapeshifters and make shapeshifting mixtures out of them, and believe me when I say that governments have been going crazy trying to stop the elite from acquiring them (and to steal them for themselves) if it's true.

tysm for giving me the opportunity to talk abt this lmao