#Trade Courses Gold Coast

[peachinstitute]

https://pi.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/ict60220-advanced-diploma-of-information-technology.webp

[kurithedweeb]

It’s the same anon again because the MCD beetles are slowly consuming my brain, but what are you thought on clothing culture in universe?

Like of course climate plays a big role in how traditional dress looks, but apart from that there’s also things like religion that play a big role. We don’t really know what the climate is like in Ru’aun but Irene is a big thing, how does that effect clothing choices, what dyes are most common and how does that reflect in clothes?

I’m a sucker for world building

Hello again, anon! Lucky for you I, too, am a sucker for worldbuilding. I have been considering my answer for literal days. I’ve vaguely commented on modesty rules in Ru’aun before but we’ve yet to get into fashion trends and hierarchical or religious dress, not to mention personal ornamentation and the different meanings associated with that in different areas, so let’s talk about Ru’aun first.

Because of the impassable Sacred Forest, most towns are along the coast to facilitate travel, and it’s a very lush and green region. The majority of the land is either plains or various forests, with a variety of cliffs, shoals and a few mountains scattered around, plus stretches of swampland and beach. Dyes are usually made from whatever resources are nearby, so you’ll see a much wider range of colors in settlements near flower fields or birch forests. Popular port towns like Meteli, O’khasis and Bright Port also have more variety, but will most often stick to colors that have special meanings to the town. Whites, greys, and blues are popular in O’khasis and Scaleswind as the religious capitals of the region, but red is also pretty prominent in Scalesind.

The same general rule also applies to fabrics and jewelry—mohair comes from goats so it’s easier to acquire in Phoenix Drop where there are tons, there’s more precious metals in Scaleswind, and in Nahakra people take any broken glass they find and lay the pieces in fine mesh containers on the tideline to make sea glass for decorations. Fabric and dye are common trading goods, especially in more backwater towns where the physical currency used in bigger villages and city-states have about as much practical value as an especially shiny rock. The most popular kinds of fabrics in Ru’aun are mohair and wool for their durability and temperature regulation respectively, with leather, ore and ivory as the most common materials in ornamentation.

The primary religion is what I’ve been calling the Divine Faith, which worships the Divine Warriors as a whole under the figurehead of Irene and has various subsets that focus more on each individual Divine Warrior, with the grand majority of its followers falling under the Church of the Matron or cults dedicated to the Destroyer, with the Trail of the Wanderer as a close second. Which of the Divine Warriors you follow most closely definitely has an effect on your attire. 

Disciples of Irene wear small cloaks modeled after hers and members of the church hide their faces as a way to present themselves as closer to the goddess since you don’t look upon those of divine nature or close to divinity without consequences, most often using dark blue or white veils stitched with gold, since those are the colors she’s documented wearing most often and are therefore most often associated with her, though purple is too. Devout followers cover their eyes, members of the church like priests and nuns cover the lower half of their faces, and the High Priest covers his entire face, usually veiled or with a simple mask in public and with a more ceremonial mask during sermons and ceremonies. 

Followers of the Destroyer are much more subtle because they’re technically outlawed, they have a lot more to do with ornamentation than clothing. If you have long hair, it’s always pinned up and back, never in a ponytail and never left loose, usually in braids and buns and other hairstyles that wouldn’t be out of place on a guard, nothing an enemy can easily yank on. Hanging jewelry is also out. Hair is adorned with warmly colored beads and hair sticks that can be used as weapons and on occasion chains are woven into braids, most other accessories are close-fitting: there are nearly always cuffs around the wrists and ankles, subtly decorated wraps around the waist are more common in cities, chokers with detailing done in texture are uncommon but widely used, and earrings and ear cuffs are rare and usually kept for formal ceremonies. 

Those on the Trail of the Wanderer are nearly always found to be wearing travel-appropriate clothes no matter the occasion or setting, and there’s touches of pirate and backpacking aesthetic throughout. They tend to carry just about everything they own, dedicating their life to traveling and seeing the world the way Kul’zak did, and dress accordingly. Knee high boots, at least two layers, oil-treated cloaks, many wear jerkins and sashes with stitched depictions of scenes from places they’ve been, and leather harnesses and holsters are common. Hair is usually left down or half put up and decorated with feathers and ribbons found on the Trail. Meditation beads carved of wood or stone are nearly universal, worn around the neck or wrapped around the wrist. Trinkets and charms found on the Trail are important to the travelers, and you’ll find bowls of them left behind by others at shrines and trail markers that you can add to or take from, and in doing so you bring other travelers with you on your adventures and are carried by other travelers on their own, it’s a very dear tradition on the Wanderer’s Trail. Imagine geocaching but with religious connotations. Many of these items are worn as bracelets, anklets, necklaces, or on waist chains, usually put together while camping out. Flower crowns are also a bit of a thing and when they start wilting they’re left behind in places bearing Kul’zak’s symbol.

I’m thinking of making flower crowns also a thing with Enki’s followers since I’ve recently been turned onto the Kulki ship by @warlocks-and-phoenixes, but instead of wildflowers it’s mostly herbs and grasses. The matching flora crowns are a symbol of their union. Enki’s followers are mostly stuck on an iceberg, so they show their faith by carrying carvings of his symbols and making tapestries and records of their history, studying the world and spreading a love of knowledge wherever they go. Children usually start with embroidering their favorite/their family’s stories into their own clothing.

Embroidery! I love embroidery. In Ru’aun, it’s a very popular pastime, especially among stay at home parents and the sickly, so you see it pretty much everywhere. Colored threads are easy to acquire, but some colors are restricted. Purple is only for the clergy. Gold is for the highest ranking members of the churches and Lords’ family lines, as well as important personal staff of the Lord’s household like a close advisor and the primary caretaker of the children. Silver thread is for other people in powerful positions like members of a council or the highest ranking members of the guard (commander of the guard, second-in-command, reserve commander, Jury of Nine), which helps to distinguish officers from soldiers in larger villages and city-states that have a standard uniform and armor template. If you qualify for both, the gold usually takes precedence. For example, Laurance would have gold embroidery despite being head guard of Meteli because he’s also the son of Joh. Many small settlements don’t bother much with distinguishing personal importance based on thread color, though. They much prefer to use embroidery to keep a record of family history. Abstract depictions of personal achievements are stitched into the edging of most clothing, and the rank and position of the wearer and their parents + lovers go across the back on formal clothes and if you’re a guard around the neck and cuffs of your gambeson and also your sash if you wear one as a way to identify bodies after battle like modern day dog tags. It’s very simple and blocky on guardwear and incredibly elaborate and stylized to the point of illegibility on formalwear. Other common designs are flowers, symbols of faith, waves, landscapes, and elements of regional stories.

Modesty standards in Ru’aun. Here’s the basics: the average person should show nothing in the range of torso between the knees and breasts in public, midriff can be seen only by people very close to you, mothers should be covered from somewhere around the collarbones to their ankles, visible shoulder straps and undershirts are generally a no-no but off the shoulder and sleeveless attire are okay, and open shirts should not go further than the base of the sternum and should not show undergarments or nipples. Anyone fifteen or older is expected to follow these, but it’s not as important that children do. Some of them are negotiable based on climate and regional culture; Meteli and let’s say Pikoro are more lax and pretty much do whatever they feel like while O’khasis and Scaleswind follow the rules very closely and places like Brightport and Boboros are somewhere in the middle.

In Tu’la, how you dress is so important because it shows your loyalties. It’s a place filled with hundreds of clans all on the brink of beating each other up on any given day. In their culture, you’re not defined by who you are but who your family and their allegiances are. Symbology is important, families have their own color blends, patterns and even specific plants associated with them since gems aren’t very commonly found in Tu’la and sparkly things go to the monarchy and the king’s pets (the humanoid ones). Throwing away your clan’s symbols when you’re not on a covert mission of some kind is seen as a betrayal.

Cloth is very often uncut and styled by wrapping, pinning, and tying them into various shapes like you would a sari or toga or a variety of old African clothing styles I can’t remember the names of. Short sashes and waist wraps are very common. Many of the common people will also wrap their hands and feet in place of gloves and shoes. Cutting cloth is often reserved for important articles or the royal family and its vassal clans. It’s considered a wasteful expense since the excess cloth can’t be remade and isn’t recycled into other things like blankets. Scraps are distributed among the clan’s servants for them to wear to match their masters’ clothing as a sort of claim over them. Gladiators often wear their sponsor’s colors in the same way. When clothing is sewn, you’ll often see designs similar to the Japanese kimono and yukata and the Chinese hanfu and cheongsam/qipao. Designs with layers are more expensive and a luxury that very few, essentially only the king and his consorts, can afford. In most places, the only articles of clothing you’d find cut and stitched into new shapes are some forms of undergarments and a more form-fitting underlayer that covers the entire torso and cloth is arranged over top of.

Tu’lan clothing is essentially custom tailored by the wearer for the wearer, unless you’re super rich or a conscripted servant. Ideally it should allow you to be flexible, it should allow you to keep cool in Tu’la’s very warm climate, maybe with a window just above your butt if you have a tail, but easy to hide things in. Really the only rules about it is that you don’t wear enemy symbols and you keep your private parts private around everyone not your lover. It’s a war country, so most of the time the styles are very utilitarian and comfortable, but you’d only know how utilitarian it is if you were raised wearing them. To Ru’aun and Gal’ruk, even the simplest outfits seem fancy. Part of what makes them think that is the decoration and accessories.

Hair sticks. God do I love hairsticks. More formal ones are made of glass with a small hanging charm and common ones are simply carved from wood or made with the scrap metal shavings of weaponsmiths—those ones are usually sharpened into needles or knives in case you need it. Jewelry is usually close-fitting to make it harder to grab, so meditation beads would be wrapped several times around the wrist or ankle and no pretty hanging piercings. Humans are actually the only one of the three dominant species who get piercings because pretty much all meif’wa clans are warriors or their ears are too sensitive, and if a werewolf has to transform with a piercing in it’ll either warp super bad or hurt them when the change tries to push foreign bodies out of the werewolf. Cloth is usually made with patterns everywhere or very prominently displayed and accented. 

Sun and snow motifs are also fairly widespread since the patron Divine Warrior of Tu’la was Menphia, it very rarely snows in Tu’la but she had ice powers so. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything more on Menphia’s followers right now, I’m basically scraping and redoing her whole temple and worship at the moment.

Gal’ruk loves yarn and fur, since practically every living thing out there is covered in fur and spinning yarn is a good time consuming indoor activity. A lot of people spend considerable time weaving and tanning and sewing over the blizzard season when they get trapped inside by storms. Fur goes inside everything from gloves to hoods to pants. People make competitions out of who can knit the best hat or scarf from scratch before the next moon. 

For an idea of the style of clothing usually worn I recommend looking up ‘viking winter wear’ for some ideas. Plenty of layers, loose pants cinched at the knee, lots of fur cloaks and shawls, leather belts with pouches and space for your knife/sword/axe’s sheath over top. Leather goods like armor and belts are usually marked with subtle designs pressed into the materials and are padded. Nothing metal ever comes close to touching the skin directly. Clothes can either be simply pulled on or are closed with loops and clasps carved of wood or bone/teeth from a hunt. 

Nothing hunted ever goes to waste. Gal’ruk is a plentiful land but it can be a harsh one too. Pelts, furs, teeth, claws, bones and tails are all made into clothing, among other things. Pelts can be scraped and tanned and made into leather, furs are stuffed into everything as an insulator. Teeth, claws and bones are carved into accessories or combs or buttons, it’s very common for someone to make the spoils of their hunt into necklaces or arm bands or earrings as a mark of their achievement or to exchange as a betrothal gift to prove their worth as a provider. Married couples wear carved tokens of their family’s symbol made by each other instead of rings, presented to the other for the first time at the wedding and very rarely taken off unless one dies or they get divorced. Widows and widowers usually keep their tokens old, but they’re burned to make the divorce official and if a divorced couple gets back together new ones have to be made.

Unfortunately color is fairly sparse on the island. There’s not many plants to harvest  dyes from and clay takes ages to dig up and warm enough to use, so it’s mostly natural colors of the materials and some darker shades from smoking pelts over a fire to waterproof them. There are shades of green every so often from dye made with the kelp that washes ashore and sometimes if you can manage to grow beets there’s some reds and purples but not everyone is able to dye their clothing.

Gal’ruk has zero modesty standards. You wrap up to keep warm outside, but while you’re inside you can wear just about as little as you want. The public dining hall can get pretty warm with everyone packed in there, it’s not unusual for people to go titties out. They’re all warriors, they’re pretty chill about partial nudity and naked bodies are very rarely sexualized in such a close-knit warrior community, they’re all pretty much grown up seeing each other half undressed while tending wounds, so modesty isn’t a real issue. This is why I said in my post about Travis playing around with his shapeshifting that he needs to have Ru’aun modesty rules explained to him the first time he changes into a female form in public, because in his homeland having breasts show through an open shirt isn’t at all notable but in Ru’aun it’s absolutely scandalous.

And we’ve circled back to embroidery! Again, time consuming pastime, again, people who spend the majority of the year huddled inside waiting out the worst of the cold, again, followers of Enki. Personal history is recorded on parchment, but communal history is recorded on tapestries and clothing. They have very little in the way of colored threads, so designs are made with only lineart and shadows in mind to make it clear what they’re meant to be. Stories about Enki and the Divine Warriors are very common, and so are fables for the children. Animals bounding through the snow and their different tracks trailing behind them are used to teach the babies how to tell your prey apart by print. Kids are taught to embroider their own clothes to teach them patience and attention to detail.

These are all pretty general regional ideas, specific parts of the region and settlements also have their own deals sometimes. I’ll have to come back to this at some point to cover the rest of the Divine Faith properly. This was a fun question!

[batfambrainrotbeloved]

My take on Batfam, but Pirates- Dick's Origin

Hayleys were a group known among almost every coast, made of people still stuck in the "old ways" back when countries had no power over land of people who did not permenatly reside.

They were nomads, people who lived and breathed by the ocean and whose vessels called "barbaic" to some were some of the most skilled sailors to ever traverse the waters.

The "Flying" Graysons were the artists even among the most skilled, known for their expertise and ability to swing from ropes and rafters as if they were soaring through the sky.

But life as nomads in a modern time was far from easy. No longer were the lands free as the seas, and it seemed even the seas themselves were being claimed.

Zucco owned the docks by several major port cities, of course "own" meaning he had no papers- but if you did not pay his toll it was likely there would be grave consequences.

Tired of being extorted during one of their latest trading adventures they docked and did not pay. And they paid the price far more than gold.

The Graysons were targetted, caught on their own side vessel and shown no mercy. Even at the face of Dick, their little Kea, he was picked up by Zucco himself and thrown overboard for the seas to claim.

Despite his entire life off shore, the currents still proved too much for the boy and his strength was sapped away as he watched the dimming light of the monsters lanterns fade away as he drifted further and further from shore.

Dick gave a soft prayer to the sea, begging for her waters to calm and spare him. The waters did not calm, but Dick still believes she heard his prayer. Right as he was struggling his last breath, he saw a ship come into view, black sails, but his mind too foggy to recognize.

He slipped under the currents.

Only to come too Safe and warm inside the lower deck of Lady Gotham, having been saved by her elusive Blackcape, a notorius pirate, but one that did not pillage nor rape, but took justice out on open ocean.

Dick was nursed back to help by the captian and his older companion, but the rest of the ship was empty, not even a swabbie. It didnt take long for him to get the real story of the legand as just a boy like him, whose parents were claimed unwillingly by the sea via the hands of cruel men.

Bruce Wayne was his name, though few recognized it anymore now lost as sand drifted out. He explained Dicks rescue and insisted he would help get Dick back to Hayleys and back Home.

But of course, getting a kid back to a place that didnt exist only in people that never stayed still for long was easier said than done.

By the time they managed to track them down- they were overjoyed to hear Dick was alive, but the boy suprised just about everyone but his old family that he wished to stay on Lady Gotham.

Because to him, Home had never been a place, it was always people.

Bruce of course was not too keen at first, but it seemed his new sons stubborness was stronger than even his own, and soon enough Lady Gotham gained a First Mate.

Blackcape gained his Kea

Pt 1- Pt 2 (this)- Pt 3(WIP)

[canonicallysoulmates]

J2 Gold Panel Minncon 2023

Quick psa/reminder that this con took place while the actor’s union, SAG-AFTRA, is on strike. This means the boys cannot talk about any past, present, or future projects. But for the sake of clarity, I will be mentioning projects the boys are referring to by name.

Before the panel starts Jared notices a fan with an I heart Jensen sign, and says he does too.

Jared shows off a bit of his and Jensen's unspoken lingo, he does the sign for a brief pause. They got it from their director, Jensen says they had a lot of different hand signals for communication, and they also had names for certain types of shots. Jared mentions they had a friend in Van who's a larger individual and was always smoking pot so if they start the scene with a high and wide shot they'd call it the Murph. When the camera is on the dolly track and does a creep in if it's a little creep they'd call it a Mickey Rooney then Jensen says there are other ones they won't mention because they're very inappropriate.

Jared reminds fans that actors are currently on strike and thanks the fans for their understanding if there are any questions that they cannot answer. Jensen says that Jared can talk about his gardening skills and Jared says he loves him some zucchini and that he harvested some the previous week...I'm not gonna say it, but you know what I'm thinking 😉

Do they follow the Texas country music scene?

Jared always goes back to when in High School or Middle School Robert Earl King. Or Pat Green.

Jensen mentions Jerry Jeff Walker. He also says Texas certainly has its own country core, it's not like traditional Nashville country. x

The next fan had already asked Jared this question and now they want to know Jensen's answer: what kind of car would he have if money was no problem?

He doesn't have a holy grail and the reason he doesn't is because if he did he'd spend all his time figuring out how to get it; he'll watch car auction shows, used to watch them with Clif, and every one of them he'll want. He did see one car once, he and Jared had the opportunity to go to Concours d'Elegance which is the best, greatest car show there is in Pebble Beach. They close off the 18-hole golf course and line up the cars all along the fairways. It's right there on the coast and they were walking past the pre-world war cars and he saw an Austin Martin that took his breath away. He was like "this is outrageous you probably can't even get your hands on this" but if he ever had the opportunity to own something like that- he took more pictures of that car than any other car. x

The next fan doesn't have a question, they just wanted the boys to wish her a happy birthday and also show the tattoo she has of Jensen's face on the inside of her thigh, which took her 6hrs to get done. Jared jokes Jensen can't last six hours 🤣

What's the backstory behind the bracelets Jensen sometimes wears?

They've all been gifted to him by someone in his life, usually his wife or his daughter but he has friends that he has also traded with; there's always some sort of a back story to what he's wearing he doesn't usually go shopping and just buy stuff.

Then they get told a naughty joke: if a blackbird has black babies and a bluebird has blue babies what bird has no babies? A swallow. Both men have to walk away from the mic 🤣

Jared asks the next fan if they have any babies and even he's wondering why he says what comes into his head 😂

If they had to pick tattoos for each other what would they pick out?

Jensen points towards the fan that has his face tattoed on her inner tigh and says she already has it he would put his face on Jared's and Jared says "yeah I'd be more handsome." Gentlemen 👀

Jensen then says would put a bear growling on Jared's right hand. And Jared's like "why do they exist?" and Jensen just goes "to scare big things like you." Which I found a cute little exchange.

Jared would make Jensen get an enter at your own risk and an arrow pointing to somewhere that he's not gonna say but it would be in an old English cursive writing. Again 👀

Jared asks the fan what they would put on them and the fan replies that they would ask what they love and what describes them

Jensen comments that he and Jared had talked about getting something that represents SPN because when you're in it you're not thinking about how long the show is gonna go and so you know they talked about maybe getting the anti-possession tattoo or there was also talk about symbols of MOL but it's really come down that now that they're a few years removed from it and they're able to look back on it they're able to realize how big that part of their lives was for them and how forever it will be. That's not to say tattoos always have to be amazingly meaningful, some are just fun, but he feels they would because of how that show impacted their lives. x

If they were in Van and had a ping pong tournament with the cast and crew of SPN who would make it to the gold round and come out the victor?

They would. Jared says he thinks it happened a few times and they had to hide said ping pong table from them because they would sweat their makeup off.

Jensen says they would play that game so intensely as if they were running a marathon. They would be called back on set and be out of breath, show up panting- they had very intense games. I wanna make a dirty comment so badly involving the other things they were probably might have been doing on that ping pong table but I'm gonna keep it moving.

Jared says they represented Texas pretty damn well, and they're asked if they doubled up or destroyed the other. Both say it was pretty split, pretty even. It got to a point where they were just exposing each other's weaknesses like Jared would figure out Jensen's forehand was a little weaker that day so he'd send it straight into his forehand. x

Next is a fan wanting to know what they thought of her tattoo, and if they could give her artist a shoutout. They thought it was really awesome and the artist did a great job. x

If they go to a diner how likely is it that they would actually order a salad and a cheeseburger?

Jared says at a dinner he's kind of greasy spoon type of guy so like a burger or something. That's at a diner, but he probably orders salads more than burgers.

Jensen would probably go burger or burrito if they have it. And Jared says that's cause it's probably 2am, probably on the way home. He knows hubby so well 🥰

Jensen comments there's a dinner close to where he lives that they go to sometimes, and he's a creature of habit so they have this big massive burrito that he has no business eating all of but he does.

He mentions it has hot sauce so the fan asks if they like spicy food, they do, and Jensen says he likes jalapeños on his pizza all the time. They also mention Hot Ones and how they'd like to do it. x

J2 Gold Panel Minncon

[theneverfadinglands]

Here is the map for my story "Etude of Singing Sands", which will be a part of the larger series "Lament for the Fallen." Although this map is most useful for EoSS.

The coastal cities are named in quenya because of the Black Numenorean influence in these lands. Havens of Umbar were taken by Herumor and Fuinur took over Kipura and named it Tar Liduinos. There are of course many more human settlements across the coast, but I did not named them as they are mostly small cities and villages. The coast is rocky and it is quite hard to grow any crops which would support a large population. So people of these lands are mostly fishermen and traders, transporting goods by sea from South. I suppose there should be a large kingdom at the riverbank, but I still need to think about that for sure.

The native people of coastal lands were killed, enslaved or ran to the desert with the coming of Black Numenoreans. I suppose they took man of their women as unwilling wives too.

The people of desert are divided to two categories – these who lived there as default and these who escaped the invasion. The divide is quite important because these two groups do not like each other much. There are not many resourcas in desert and when the men of the coast ran, they also invaded the desert dwellings. It had been thousands of years of course and many tribes merged with each other, but the two groups are still quite distinct. The people of sea who call themselves Yawith regards Kipura and Achniwt (Umbar) as nearly legendary heavenly place of their origin. Before the War of the Ring begins, Sauron's lieutenants promise them these lands in exchange for military help. These people do not see any difference between Gondorians and the Black Numenorean usurpers and so they fight for Sauron.

One of the smaller coastal city states is Falmos, a merchant city, they specialise in trade with dwarves of Isteniwt who are mining diamonds, but they also bring other goods from South as well. As I said Isteniwt is one of the two dwarven cities, the other being Ketedhut at the oase of Palisor. The dwarves of Isteniwt are mainly jewelsmiths and jewellers, mining precious stones and gold. The mountains at Palisor are rich in iron and so Ketedhut make swords, shields and also items of ordinary use, but they are great at enchantment and also mine salt. Ketedhut has good relationship with Gwirhaed, but the ties with Eiracha went sour. From Gwirhaed they export their spider silks through Isteniwt and Falmos. These two cities are connected by a tunnel as you can see. The tunnel is not entirelly artificial. The black desert of Erumorna was formed by volcanic action and there still is active volcano, although two more were awakened during the War of the Ring. These volcanoes formed many caves under the desert and these run very deep and were even more deepened by dwarvish explorations. Dwarves mapped Erumorna very well and they are great friends of the desert's maia of the same name.

There is probably mannish kingdom at the sea of Palisor for sure, but let's talk about Eiracha. Eiracha is a city of many stairs, it's heart floats on a great underground lake and there the palace was build. The caves are filled with the dwellings of Hisildi who are one of the Kinn-lai. There are many hot springs and it is said by some that it's waters are holy and mortal flesh could not touch them for they would boil in the water, on the other hand men believe that those who drink the water gain eternal youth and some even said that bathing in some river will make them untouchable. Eirachini do not sell the water and it can only be given as a gift.

What I know about the people of the sea of Palisor is that they used to be friends of Eirachini, but over time grew more bitter and ultimatelly stood with Ketedhut (which was also much more important for them due to trade) in the conflict and so their ties were severed. Palisor is kind of lonely and less open to visitors than Gwirhaed. Any information regarding Gwirhaed would be probably spoiler so I'll say neigh of it!

Saebwaha is offiicially under the rule of Umbar (Achniwt) but there are many factions and semi-autonomous city states which constantly fight for their rights and lands, they would very much like to free themselves of umbarian rule. The lands of Near Harad are also sparsely populated by smaller colonies, mostly farmers and herders, they breed horses which are rare comodity in South as they are not very suited for caves nor living in the searing hot desert and only the rich can transport and care for horses in Tar Liduinos, Falmos and other smaller merchant cities where horses are a symbol of wealth and the families are very proud of their steeds lineages. Sadly the populations of these horses were decimated during the War of the Ring and only few remained preserved by the people who refused to ally with Sauron and drove their herds away to the desert where only few of the people and horses survived.

What I omissed are the goats. Goats are very important animals, they are not native to Erumorna but over ages they assimilated. These goats live in caves and mostly eat mushrooms and lichens which they lick with their long tongies of the rocks and crevices, they of course also graze on mosses and epiphytes which may grow in some caves. As you can imagine these goats spend most of their life licking stones. They have very big ears aiding them in thermoregulation. Otherwise the cave goats are quite small and lanky, since the caves are still active and eruptions of gases may occur as well as earthquakes and gas capsules, they are very sensitive to these things and excellent predictors. Their navigation ability is also superior to all creatureš

However the dwarves of Isteniwt crossed the desert goats with more studry mountain breeds and created the royal goat line. These dwarven goats are taller and more sturdy with elegant long bodies and legs they resemble more a gazelle. They can drive a cart or carry some supplies for their are strong in despite of their delicate appearance. The royal goats are very proud and opinionated too and may refuse to be sold or given away, their trust must be earned.

I am still not sure how to name the island or who lives there..

[sapphim]

I'm thinking about making the three prefab world states that you can choose in DA2 (as opposed importing your own save) customizable. So I had to go through and note down what their default flags were.

The Hero of Ferelden worldstate is a male human noble. The Martyr worldstate is a female dalish elf who performed the ultimate sacrifice. And the No Compromise worldstate is a male dwarven noble. We'll call them Hero Aedan, Martyr Lyna, and Uncompromising Duran.

Martyr Lyna, by nature of being a member of clan Sabrae, will be mentioned quite a lot in dialogue, particularly Merrill's, as opposed to the other two heroes. None of them initiated a romance with any of their companions.

Uncompromising Duran recruited the templars and the werewolves, while Aedan and Lyna recruited the mages and elves. Aedan convinced Zathrian to end his life and cure the werewolves, while Martyr Lyna killed them. Duran enables the quest Changing One's Nature while the others lead to an encounter on the Wounded Coast.

Martyr Lyna placed Bhelen on the throne and receives the Last of his Line quest, while the lads both supported Harrowmont. Only Hero Aedan sided with Caridin and destroyed the anvil. The other two aided Branka in securing it.

All three heroes defended a beseiged Redcliffe Village. Uncompromising Duran knocked Isolde out cold and killed Connor. Hero Aedan and Martyr Lyna both called upon their allies at the Circle of Magi to enter the fade and confront the demon. However, while Hero Aedan defeated the demon and set Connor free, Martyr Lyna cut a deal for power in exchange for allowing the demon to play dead and return and possess Connor at a later date. Hero Aedan would have received that cut Teagan and Connor quest, had it not been cut.

It is only in Martyr Lyna's worldstate that news of Andraste's sacred ashes has been revealed to the world, activating the Miracle Makers quest, which raises an interesting question. The only way to secure Genitivi's silence on the matter is either to tell him you've defiled the ashes, or kill him. So, which did Hero Aedan do? Perhaps I'm overthinking this and he simply ghosted him, instead.

Hero Aedan placed Alistair on the throne at the Landsmeet. Loghain did not survive that encounter. Martyr Lyna spared Loghain's life, and Alistair left the party to rule with Anora. Uncompromising Duran supported Anora, recruited Loghain, and drove Alistair into exile. Bioware doesn't give a fuck about Warden Alistair so this all checks out. All Alistairs, of course, have cameo appearances.

Only Hero Aedan accepted Morrigan's offer and performed the Dark Ritual with her. Martyr Lyna, of course, martyred herself, while Uncompromising Duran martyred Loghain.

All three heroes recruited Zevran, unlocking A Murder of Crows, and Leliana. Martyr Lyna (or, well, her successor anyway, we'll call her Shmartyr Shmyna) and Uncompromising Duran recruited Nathaniel, of Finding Nathaniel fame, while Hero Aedan instead receives the Fool's Gold quest. Did he execute Nathaniel in cold blood, as he did Genitivi? The world will never know. In a bold move, Uncompromising Duran refused to recruit Anders. It's an interesting choice, considering Anders blatantly doesn't care whether or not the import says he was recruited.

Hero Aedan and Shmartyr Shmyna both pledged their forces to defend Amaranthine's farmland, and defended the city from assault (Secret Rendezvous), while Uncompromising Aedan patrolled the arling's trade routes, and left the city to fend for itself while he repelled the attack on Vigil's Keep (The Conspirators). Unlike the lads, Shmartyr Shmyna failed to establish the renowned Silver Order.

Hero Aedan and Shmartyr Shmyna both allied with the Architect, while Uncompromising Duran killed him.

None of the prefab world states set variables for DLC other than Awakening. We may never know how Hero Aedan reacted to meeting Morrigan again, after the birth of their child. There were no witnesses.

[darling-archeron]

Masterlist

On My Mind, In My Heart

Summary:

Elain Archeron is tired. Tired of tiptoeing around people, tired of sleepwalking through life. Luckily, a diplomatic trip to the Summer Court gives her a much-needed chance to see the world beyond the Night Court. There’s only one problem - Lucien is there too, and she can’t avoid him forever. When he catches her alone, it will give them the chance to begin something new - or to tear it all down.

3.7k words, rated G.

-

As Elain sat through dinner, she realized she didn’t quite regret coming on this trip. It was a surprise, considering she had been expected to be wracked with dread and anxiety the whole time.

The Summer Court was beautiful this time of year, even if the heat was stifling. The sea breeze provided blessed relief, a distraction from the sweat slipping down her spine. A distraction from the other things prickling her, too.

Four years ago, if someone had told her she would trade the town's ballrooms for three nights aboard a High Lord's pleasure barge, she would have laughed in their faces. And yet, here she was.

She was on a diplomatic trip on behalf of the Night Court to the Summer Court. In honor of newly forged alliances and successful efforts to rebuild Adriata, courtiers from Night, Day, Dawn, and Winter were spending three days coasting along the Court’s sunny shores.

The first night had passed by uneventfully. It was the kind of thing Elain was used to. Playing the entertainer, laughing and smiling along with these people she didn’t care enough about to know. They were on the second night now, over half way through the trip.

Presently, she was seated next to a nosy Dawn Court noblewoman named Haldyne. They had been making pleasant small talk for most of the lengthy dinner.

“I must say, I was surprised to see none of The Night Court’s inner circle with us. You’ve brought such a small party,” Haldyne remarked.

“Ah, yes. The High Lord and Lady are excited about this progress, but, their attentions were needed elsewhere,” Elain said carefully. “I hope my company will suffice.”

Altogether, there weren’t more than thirty guests, but the Night Court’s party was by far the smallest. She wouldn’t have thought it would be so hard for a High Lord and Lady to find suitable diplomats, but options for attendees on this trip were sorely limited.

Rhys and Feyre had their hands full between managing the court and their baby. Cassian had been pardoned for destroying a building, but Feyre thought it best not to push it. Azriel would likely scare the shit out of half of the people there – as would Amren. This was not meant to be a match of political intimidation, but one of goodwill and peace. Mor had planned to come, but she had been unavoidably detained by some minor disaster on the continent.

Fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on how charitable Elain was feeling – this was a relatively unimportant trip, meaning the Night Court could manage with just sending two representatives.

Her, and Lucien.

The movement of his red hair caught in her peripheral vision. He was seated diagonally from her, chatting up one of Kallias’s cousins. If she looked past Lady Haldyne just right, she could get a glimpse of him.

He looked handsome tonight, she had to admit. His hair had been neatly braided, and he wore tight-fitting pants with an embroidered white and gold tunic that brought a glow to his brown skin. If she looked closely, she could glimpse rings shining on his fingers.

Not that she was looking all that closely, of course.  

So far, they had managed the trip well. As well as could be expected when they had barely spoken before this week, despite him being constantly in the orbit of her thoughts. He had winnowed them onto the palace grounds, holding her hand stiffly. From there, they had made a point to only speak and touch when necessary. Their rooms on the ship were next to each other, but not adjoining, thank goodness.

Since they were here to talk to other people, and the other delegations far outnumbered their own, there hadn’t been much need to speak with each other. They could both hold their own in all sorts of social settings.

Although, that didn’t explain why her wretched thoughts kept drifting back to him.

It doesn’t matter that this trip is with Lucien. It could be with Mor, Cassian, or Rhys, and it would all be the same. We are nothing to each other. This means nothing. She repeated the words over and over in her mind, thanking her lucky stars Lucien wasn’t a daemati like Rhys. Feyre had told her several stories that involved Rhys slipping into her mind unannounced before they were mated – often with embarrassing results. She couldn’t imagine such a thing with Lucien.

“I’m sorry to hear that your Court is so busy. I hope nothing too troubling?” Haldyne pried. In all honesty, she might have meant well, but Elain knew she could never be too careful.

“Not at all. We’ve had much to celebrate these past months.”

“Yes, allow me to extend my congratulations on your court’s new heir.”

From the corner of her eye, she watched Lucien turn to speak with someone across the table. Within seconds, the other person had their head thrown back in laughter, no doubt from some amusing little remark Lucien had made.

“Thank you, it’s appreciated. I’ll relay the message to my sister.”

Trying as much as she could to maintain eye contact with the courtier, she kept glancing at Lucien. It was stupid and shouldn’t have mattered, but she couldn’t bring herself to look away.

Suddenly, Lucien turned towards her, and their eyes locked. There was a tight yank on the string between them, and it sucked her breath out of her lungs as it pulled taught.

She felt like the wind had been knocked out of her

“Are you alright, Lady Elain?” Haldyne asked her, hazel eyes darkened with concern as she twisted around to see what Elain had been looking at.

Elain swallowed, searching for coherent words. Damn faeries, and their damn bonds and instincts.

Mate, mate, mate.

Mine.

The female turned back to Elain, a knowing gleam in her eye. Of course, it was common knowledge that they were mates.

“I think I could use some fresh air. My apologies – I’ll be back in a moment,” she said, tossing her napkin on the table before she could hear something she didn’t want to. Her knee banged against the table as she stood.

Shit, that hurt. 

Painfully aware of all the eyes on her, she hurried out of the room with her cheeks blazing, trying to remember the layout of the boat. Down would take her to their rooms, up would take her to the deck…which way was the staircase?

Turn after turn, she finally located the staircase that took her up to the top level. The scent of the sea washed over her as she stepped out onto the deck.

The sun was beginning to set, casting the pearlescent color of the floor and sides with a rather enchanting glow. Another thing she would never have found in the human realms – even now, she couldn’t name the strange material the boat was made of. She made a note to ask someone from the Summer Court later.

She made her way over to the high railing encircling the deck. From her position, she could see Adriata in the distance – they were keeping close to the shore. The clear sea sparkled below her.

Alone at last, she released a long sigh.

It was peaceful out here, and this was the first time she had been alone in hours.

Cauldron, she had spent all day in Lucien’s orbit. It had happened before, of course, at Court functions and family events, but always under the snooping eyes of Feyre and her court.

This shouldn’t have been any different. She was simply trading a Solstice with the Inner Circle for a cruise with fae nobility.

Get it together, Elain. Lucien is nothing to you. You’ve been civil to each other, and that is enough. 

She had to get him out of her head. It was incredibly embarrassing, the way everyone knew that there was a bond between them. If it happened again tonight, it wouldn’t have been the first time someone she barely knew made a sly remark about the whole thing.

Though the bond had never drawn taught like that purely from eye contact. Even now, she could feel the lingering tension in her chest.

She didn’t care about Lucien and his clever remarks. She didn’t care that he never made those remarks to her. She didn’t care that she never let him close enough for him to even try.

A breeze whipped across the deck, splashing salt spray on her skirt and teasing a few strands of her hair from her braid.

These past few months, things had been…stagnant. Accepting the loss of her old life had been hard, but she had begun to move past it. But she still didn’t have much of a new life, either. All of the roads seemed to point back to Lucien, and she didn’t know how to feel.

Suddenly, a shiver crept up her back, giving her the sense that she wasn’t alone.

Couldn’t she have five minutes of peace?

Let it just be a servant checking on me. 

Even as she thought it, she knew it wasn’t true. The ache in her chest had tightened again.

Letting go of the railing, she turned around to see Lucien.

Why had he followed her up here? He never followed her, never chased after her. He was so respectful of her boundaries that it almost hurt. And yet he picked now to come after her?

There was nowhere to run. The boat was large, yes, but not large enough that she could flee without making an obvious statement. He stood at the threshold of the stairs, watching her.  

“Am I needed downstairs?” she asked, straightening herself even as she turned back to face the waves. Maybe if she pretended to be unbothered, he would leave her be.

Would it be so bad if he didn’t? That intrusive little voice in the back of her skull nagged at her.

“You’ve been flitting around all afternoon. They’ll survive your absence for a few minutes,” Lucien said. He crossed the deck to stand by the railing as she was doing, six feet down from her. For a moment, neither of them said anything as they watched the waves below.

“Why are you here?” Lucien finally asked, bracing his muscular forearms against the railing.

“I wanted some fresh air. It was too stuffy on the lower levels,” she replied. “I hope Tarquin isn’t bothered by my absence.” 

“I’m sure Tarquin is managing just fine. But you know that’s not what I meant.”

I don’t think you know me at all.  

“If you mean to ask why I’m on this barge, it’s because Feyre asked me to come.”

“And do you do everything Feyre asks of you?” Lucien challenged.

“She is my sister. And there was no one else.”

“You never deny Feyre when she needs you,” he mused.

Elain shot him a sharp glance. “I would hardly say that’s true. But what of it?”

Lucien only shook his head, wordless. A few strands of his autumn-gilded hair had come loose from his braid, catching in the light of the setting sun.

When Feyre had approached Elain about coming, Elain could tell without her seer abilities that her sister expected her to say no. Even now, she was probably waiting to hear if disaster would strike and Elain would chicken out. Three days in Adriata aboard Tarquin’s pleasure barge – with Lucien? Nowhere to escape but the open water?

She hadn’t let herself think about why she had said yes to Feyre’s request.

Elain realized she had lost herself in her thoughts again. Silent for too long.

“Why are you here?” she retorted. “Not on this trip, but here – on this deck.”

“The same reason as you. It’s too stuffy down there,” he responded, but with such glib in his voice that Elain knew it wasn’t the truth.

She itched to call him out on it, but she would be the biggest hypocrite alive to do so. Silence fell again as she scrabbled for anything else to say, and came up woefully short.

It was just…he was so polite. Just like everyone was with her. She knew he wasn’t like that with everyone – he threw back and forth sarcastic remarks with Feyre all the time.

It was ridiculous. At every turn, people were telling her to just talk to Lucien. It shouldn’t have been hard. Back when she was human, one of her friends had told her she could make conversation with the shrubbery. And she had been doing a fine job of chatting up her fellow guests minutes before.

It was different with the male before her. There was no room for frilly formalities and small talk with him. Not when silence had defined their relationship for so long, and there was so much that needed to be said.

All of the sudden, a burst of restless energy pulsed through her. Enough silence. She was Elain Archeron. She could charm anyone when she put her mind to it. The least she could do was make some sort of attempt at conversation. It didn’t have to mean anything more.

“The sky is lovely tonight,” she said, aware that they were both looking up at the darkening heavens.

“I suppose, though it all pales in comparison to the Night Court, I suppose,” Lucien pointed out.

Elain shrugged. “Perhaps. But I’ve never been stargazing in Summer before. I like the unfamiliar, sometimes.”

“The Autumn Court may not be good for much, but their sunsets are beautiful. I’m sure Rhys would disagree with me there, too, but I think they’re beyond compare.”

“Perhaps I’ll have to see them, sometime,” Elain remarked.

Faintly, Elain began to hear a lively, unfamiliar tune from down below.

“The dancing’s started,” he said.

“Don’t let me keep you,” she insisted with a wave of her hand. “Truly, I just needed some fresh air. I’ll be fine.”

“What makes you think I want to go back down there and deal with them?” he said softly, stepping closer – so he wouldn’t be overheard, Elain assumed. He smelled like cinnamon.

She raised a brow. “I’ve heard you’re a passable dancer. And they’re not so bad, down there.” 

Lucien’s mouth twitched, and he made a sound that half sounded like a laugh. “Who told you I’m a passable dancer?”

“Feyre mentioned it.”

Lucien scoffed. “The last time Feyre saw me dancing, she was drunk on faerie wine at the Summer Solstice celebration in the Spring Court. I would hardly count that as a reliable endorsement.”

Half a dozen mindless phrases to end the conversation gracefully came to the tip of her tongue, but she paused.

Lucien was fun to talk to, she realized. It had been a long time since she had someone who would play these verbal games with her. These days, she was always skating through things, half paying attention. Never really trying. 

Maybe it was time to change things.

“So, is Feyre’s estimate too generous? Are you a poor dancer?” Elain challenged. Truthfully, she couldn’t imagine Lucien as anything but utterly graceful, gliding across the dance floor.

“I am an excellent dancer, Elain. Ask anyone who was sober.”

“Well, you better go and prove it downstairs. I’m sure there’s someone still looking for a partner. You can prove to everyone you won’t trample their toes.”

She meant it all in jest, but Lucien paused for a long moment, hands braced against the ship’s railing. He turned away from the sea and towards her. She made herself hold his gaze – one eye russet, one gold. 

When he finally spoke, his tone was as light as ever. “Are you really so desperate to get rid of me?”

She froze. All of this had been a light conversation, jesting while skating around anything too serious. There was a truthful question embedded in his last words.

The truth, Lucien, is that I can’t think straight when you’re near me. 

“I don’t mind you being here. But you shouldn’t feel obligated to chase after me when you think something’s wrong.”

Lie and truth, skating a very thin line.

Indignation flared in his gaze. “I never said a thing about obligation.”

“You know precisely what I’m talking about.”

That lit a fire in his gaze. “So, you wish to bring the bond you resent into this at last? Yes, I know about it all too well. And we both know that I have never chased you down. I have left you to sit in silence, as you have wished. Just this one time, I thought I would make sure you were still alright. Can I not be obligated to you as something other than a mate? As a fellow emissary?”

“No! How can you, when everything else is dwarfed in comparison to this?”

Oh, she was making him angry now. This was quickly turning into an argument, and she didn’t quite know how it had happened. Nor did she wish to stop it. Not entirely.

“Why even bother coming on this trip, then? If there can be nothing between us other than a bond you don’t want?” he spit back. His tone was angry, but he kept his distance physically. She noted his posture was tense, but not aggressive.

“I came on this trip because I wanted to try!” she said, realizing as she said it how loud her voice was getting. Frustration thrummed through her. How could she make him understand she was making an effort, however unapparent?

 “Again – you’ve been avoiding me the entire time, same as you have all these years. How is that getting either of us anywhere?”

“Can you blame me for reacting like I did?” she shot back, throwing her hands out. “I know this hasn’t been everything you wanted. Can you honestly say that if I had run into your arms after the bond snapped, no reservations, that you would have been ready for it?”

“No, I can’t say that. But I’ve always been honest in my intentions.”

“What do you want from me, then?”

“I want you to be honest, too.”

Of course, he did. She couldn’t even be mad at him for it.

That realization had her anger fading away as quickly as it had come. Here they were, both trying to understand each other at last. Wasn’t this what she had wanted? An unfiltered, real conversation?

“You want the truth?” she said softly. “The truth is that we’ve both made mistakes, but you’re still assuming one thing wrong.”

“And what would that be?” he asked skeptically.

There was no turning away from this. It terrified her, but she couldn’t lose him – not now. Not like this, during a silly argument that had spiraled out of control.

“You’re assuming that I resent the bond – resent you. That’s not true. I resent how it was thrust upon me, and I resent everyone’s expectations of me. I don’t know how to talk to you because of it. Anyone else, I can make nice with, but I don’t know how to pretend when it comes to you. So the alternative has been to do nothing at all. And by the time I thought I might want to change that, it seemed so impossible. That is the truth.”

He sounded a bit breathless, anger evaporating and being replaced with hope. “What are you saying?”

Carefully, she reached out for his hand. Lucien drew a sharp breath when their fingers made contact, but didn’t pull away as she held his hand and intertwined their fingers.

“I’m saying I do want to try. Truly. I’m not sure I know how to begin. I’ve been a fool in my approach, and I don’t blame you for being angry. But if you’re willing, so am I.”

Cautious joy bloomed on Lucien’s face as he smiled. She couldn’t recall the last time she had seen a true smile on his face – certainly, it was never directed at her – but it was beautiful. He was beautiful.

Her smiles were rare these days, too. But looking towards the future between them, all of it uncertain, she couldn’t help but feel a pulse of excitement – and she smiled back.

Music drifted up from the level below. No doubt the dancing was still going strong.

Lucien looked down at their intertwined hands. Hers, callused from gardening, with a simple bracelet adorning her wrist. His, with rings on nearly every finger and a thick scar across the back of his hand. “Perhaps we could start with something we both know. Will you dance with me, Elain?”

A simple test, to see if she could back up her words.

“It would be my honor,” she said.

He adjusted his grip on her hand and placed his other hand lightly on her waist – and then they were off.

It had been a long time since she danced like this, and at first her feet were a bit clumsy. Lucien was leading her through a dance similar to one popular in the mortal lands, but with some of the steps a bit different. After a bit of stumbling, she began to get a feel for the quick, romantic piece that had them spinning across the deck.

It wasn’t nearly as awkward as she feared. Lucien’s hand fit perfectly against her hip, never straying lower or higher. The sun had nearly set, but she found she could still make out the details of his face in the dim lighting. Another gift she had the fae to thank for.

“So,” he said softly, leading her into a quick turn, “are my dancing skills passable?”

“For now, I can say that suffice. But I think I’ll need more dances to determine it for certain,” Elain replied, a bit surprised by her boldness. She felt the heat rise into her cheeks.

“I’ll look forward to proving to you just how wrong Feyre was,” he said.

“And I look forward to being proven wrong.”

The music faded, and Lucien withdrew from Elain at last. He bowed to her as if they were at a formal ball, and she curtsied to him in turn.

When he kissed her ungloved hand, she had no lies to tell herself about why her heart was beating so fast.

“Until next time, Elain.”

She gave him another small smile. “No more silence, Lucien.”

It was a simple promise, but at last, it was one she felt she could keep.

-

AN: Thank you for reading! Writing Elucien intimidates me a bit, but I had a lot of fun working on this! I’m still working on getting their voices perfect, so please be kind! Reblogs are always very appreciated. <3

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[homo-rashi]

Roommates (Original Work) Ch 1.

The Start of Something (contains Omorashi)

Read it on my Ao3 here: Link

Augustine truly did not think this through. When the idea came to him a few nights after his parents sat him down and broke the news, He thought he was an geneious! It would solve everything. Having to see his mom and dad go though the whole process of selling the house and moving out. Not to mention, alternating weekends with his mom…Right now and for the foreseeable future, he would do anything to avoid that. August could only imagine it being unpleasant at the least and mildly suicide inducing at the worst, if he is feeling dramatic.

Which he was, feeling dramatic that is. Something about the cold, silent air of August’s bedroom at three in the morning, The feeling of time being liminal, like nothing else exists outside of the four poster-ridden walls, always makes his brain think he can do anything, like suddenly out of nowhere deciding to become a five-star Chef by binge watching every single episode of bon-appetit test kitchen. Or randomly gaining the motivation to transform his physic two weeks before break ends by following a single Chloe Ting workout video, but skipping all of the jumping because well, it's three in the morning and his parents are asleep downstairs. 

This time however, his three in the morning delusion led him to his current reality. He will admit, going to his mom with the cheesy powerpoint presentation he made about why boarding school would be the best thing for him after he refused to talk to her for a week, was probably teetering on the edge of being manipulative. But at the time, he found little shame in his well-devised plan.You can pretty much justify any morally-unjust action when your Mom recently admitted to her sixteen year-old son and her husband of 25 years that she had been unfaithful in their marriage with her boss of all people. 

It all went a lot faster than he had envisioned. They broke the news during summer, that way the move wouldn't have interfered with August’s school work and thanks to his somewhat good grades and rather impeccable attendance record (Just because his dad didn't know about the cheating didn't mean being at home was all that great…His mom didn't cheat for no reason, and school was always a great way to escape hell for a few hours) He was able to apply for a scholarship and get accepted to attend the one boarding school he found online that was still accepting new students this last into summer. St.Milton’s Academy for Boys.

Getting to St.Miltons was already too much for August.. The stress of getting on a plane without his Mom or Dad made him restless. Having never left the west coast before, Jumping on a plane with nothing but himself and his duffle bag from summer camp, trading coasts to live in Maine sounded fake. But here he was, duffle bag in tow, his childhood stuffed shark plush hanging out of the mesh outer pocket for everyone to see, boarding a charter bus to take him to his new life. Actually, being just stressed in an understatement, August is terrified. 

“Augustine Harrington?” The scary women with the crooked nose called his name seconds after him and twelve other boys, who were definitely younger than him, offloaded their things from the bus and lined up outside the large, intimidating brick building adorned with gold cross embellishments knockers on both of the large black front doors. 

“Yes?” August sheepishly puts up his hand, of course all eyes gravitate to him, 

“A simple ‘present’ would suffice.” The woman says with a slight twinge of annoyance in her voice that immediately steals August's ability to speak. He simply nods in response. The woman finishes taking the roll.  Everyone else gives her a firm ‘present’ in response to their names being called following August’s blunder. He has never wished someone named Aaron Anderson would have been by his side more then in this moment… 

“My name is Priscilla Constentine, But to all of you, I'm Mrs.Constentine or simply enough, Headmaster Constance.I make the rules here at St.Milton and enforce them, so see to it you follow them…” The headmaster looks down the row of students, Her beady black eyes stopping on August. “The lot of you, besides you, are all freshmen. The head of your floor and the person who you will come to with any questions you may have about your living situation is waiting for you just past those doors on the first floor, you are dismissed.”

Augusts watches as every single one of the other boys bealines for the two large black wooden doors, disappearing behind them without even looking back. The Headmasters eyes still laying rest on him. 

“Follow me. Since you're our only new sophomore, I'll just show you to your room myself, no use bothering your RA for one student.” August once again just nods and follows the women through the same black doors, but instead of going straight, She abruptly takes a left, leading to a large wooden staircase. “The sophomore dorms are on the fourth floor, don't ask me why, I make the rules not the floorplans, and yes, before you ask, there is no elevator, this building was constructed before such frivolous things were put to use.” 

The trek to the fourth floor is less than pleasant. Still carrying his duffle bag on one shoulder, combined with the lingering heat of summer and the humidity everyone back in California warmed him about, makes for his entire person to be coated in a thin layer of sweat by the time they reach a door marked 301. 

“What the fuck! Come on-no your left!---Your other fuckin left you cock-suckin piece of-” The headmaster opens the door with out announcing her presence, the loud screaming from beyond it stops abruptly. “I gotta go.” August follows in her footsteps, taking his first glance into the room, seeing a boy with start black hair taking off a gaming headset that's glowing red. 

“Mr.Wright. I do hope you atleast completed some of your summer reading and chores before you started playing…whatever that is?” She motions to the computer monitor tucked away on a dark oak corner desk. 

“Counterstrike.” The boy replied casually, rolling his desk chair away from his desk and towards one of the two lofted beds taking up most of the room. “This him?” He motions to August, before bending down and opening something under his bed, and pulling out a large green and black energy drink. 

“Augustine, meet Maxwell, Your roommate and the constant pain in my side. Be nice, and get along. He is in most of your classes besides swimming, so i'm sure you will be more than happy to help him out when classes start?” Maxwell offers a tilt of his drink to the Headmaster, who just shakes her head at the gesture before making her exist, leaving August awkwardly standing in the middle of the room. 

“You can call me-Aumax” The two boys words intersect into one jumble of words,

“August,” 

“Max,” They both say, this time being able to understand each other. “Okay look, This is my side, obviously. There should be uniforms and shit in your wardrobe, I had to clean my shit out with very little notice thanks to you so If it's a little sticky, it's just from spilled booze, confiscated now, of course. Didn't get the chance to clean it, not like I would have anyways… but yeah, If i'm not back before lights out, cover for me yeah?” August can barely move out of the way before Max is walking past him, quickly grabbing a gray and blue suit jacket off of the back of the door and throwing it over his shoulder. 

“Hold on! What time is light’s out?” August asks quickly, his voice feeling tense in his throat, 

“Whenever our lame ass RA decides he is done studying!” Max shouts, halfway down the hallway. The door slowly creaks shut, closing out any of the cold air that the breeze from the hallways opened windows was letting in. 

August lets out a breath he didn't realize he had been holding. The air that left his lungs was probably what was left inside of him of california. The reality of where he is and what he is doing seems to settle into the quiet loneliness of the dorm room. 

“Maxwell Wright…Sounds like a rich-kid name but…” August says to himself, looking around the furnished side of the dorm. The computer is clearly the main focus of his roommate's side. The desk has multiple empty cans of energy drink placed randomly, not a care in the world for the faded circles the cars have clearly left all over the dark stained wood desktop. Nothing about him screams 'vaguely religious private school kid’ besides his name. 

Random posters line the walls above Max’s bed. The largest one being a spiderman:homecoming poster, with Tom Holland front and center. August takes a second to appreciate his roommate's taste in movies…or more his taste in men. At Least that's why August has seen any of the Spiderman movies from 2016-present. 

August looks closely between both of their beds, noticing they share the same bedding. Clearly, it's been provided by the school. This brings his attention to his side of the room, and he decides its best to take advantage of having his room to himself for the afternoon. He wastes no time throwing his duffle down and stripping the bed. 

At first he thought he could get away with it. The color difference between his special white sheet and the default white that bed was made with aren't that different, but the texture is far too obvious. If he wasn't to make his bed completely one morning, someone would be able to tell the sheet he was sleeping on is more coated, rubbery and thicker. 

He begrudgingly puts the thin cotton sheet on top of his waterproof sheet, being only slightly annoyed that that means when the invendible happens, he will have more laundry to do then he would have liked. But he quickly accepts that hiding his nighttime problem is more important than reducing his trips to the laundry room.

He finished unpacking, giving his very sticky wardrobe a wipe down before placing his runners and shower shoes in the bottom of it. The only decoration he technically brought is his stuffed ikea shark. He decides it's not as embarrassing as a teddy bear and throws it up by his pillows, making a mental note to look for a magazine or two at the store (do they even get to go off campus to the store?) to get some posters to hang up. Feeling content with his side of the room for now, and feeling like his skin is going to ment off from the lack of air-conditioning, he decides he should have a look around and find out where a few other important rooms are. 

His floor seems to be all bedrooms. He looks around every corner of the large square building but finds nothing but wooden doors with gold number plates, the occasionally one having a funny/mildy crude doormat placed in front of it. There is a small common area at the top of the stairs with a microwave oven and fridge, but other than that, nothing.

He ventures down the next three floors and finds the same thing. The only difference he spots between the two is that floor three has different flooring then the rest, possibly due to a renovation that was done at some time, not what he was looking to find. 

When he gets to the first floor he spots his first sign of life. A guy with blonde hair similar to his is sprawled out across one of the large green sectionals in the common room. Immediately when stepping into said room he sees the sign for laundry. Not ideal, but better than it being in a whole different building. He would have to be sneaky, so as to not get caught running through four flights of stairs with soiled bedding, but it wasn't the end of the world.

“Hey! I thought everyone arrived earlier? Did you need help finding your room?” August is started by the high pitched voice seemingly addressing him. He turns around and sure enough, the lounging boy is now sitting up with a bright smile on his face. 

“Oh- No! I got here earlier, I'm on the fourth floor…” He awkwardly motions upwards, as if it's not obvious that's where the fourth floor would be. 

“My bad! I thought you were one of my freshmen, but still, Can I help you with anything or are you just exploring?” The boy laughs gently, standing up from the sofa and walking over with his hand outreached, “I’m Rowan.” August reaches out and introduces himself, the one question he has lingering in his throat. 

“Floor four you said? Were in the same year then! Sophomores are always freshman R.A’s, Juniors are Sophomore R.A’s, Seniors…well they are their own R.A’s but between you and me, they don't really do much besides routine candle checks.” 

“Candle checks?” August asks, not the questions he wanted to ask, but it's what slipped out in his curiosity. 

“Banned item. You know like Hair straighteners,” Check, August thinks to the red and blue mini flat-iron he uses for his bangs every morning sitting on his desk in his dorm currently., “Candle and incense,” He brought the lavender incense his aunt gave him as a parting gift to ‘help him sleep in the dorms’ when she found out he was coming here…”and like hotplates and other cooking things that heat up, Basically if it can make a fire, you aren't allowed to have it.” 

“Oh okay, yeah don't have anything like that.” August smiles awkwardly, Rowan doesn't skip a beat in keeping the conversation going. 

“Hey, if you do it's none of my business, remember, Freshman RA, not my floor…not my problem.” Rowan winks, August immediately feels less awkward and afraid, He seems normal unlike his seemingly rouge roommate. 

“Um speaking of floors, Where is the bathroom on our floor because I couldn't find it.” August finally asks, the words no longer stuck in this throat. 

“Oh! yeah…Apparently like ten years ago there was a bad flood on floor three that caused like thousands of dollars worth of damage to the building's old ass structure, so the only restroom is on this floor, down the hallway opposite the stairwell.” August looks back to make sure he heard that right and sure enough, he sees a small arrow pointing that direction with a small stick figure of a man on it. 

“One bathroom for…how many of us?” August asks, in disbelief. 

“It's really big! Don't worry! You only run into issues in the mornings for the first like two weeks and then everyone falls into a routine. You barely even notice you sharing a shower with seventy-five guys after a while.” 

“Seventy-five guys…okay I'm gonna go check it out.” August say turning around rather abruptly, 

“I'll come with you, don't want you getting lost!” August freezes in place. Red flags going off in his head. 

“No that's okay, I was just gonna take a shower, You dont wanna have to wait for me.” August lies, again. He figured he would be doing a lot of that considering his issues, but two times within the first hour is crazy.

“Dude… You’re sharing with seventy-five teenage boys. Trust me, you don’t want to do that without shower shoes and the school doesn't provide toiletries so you have to bring your own shampoo and shit.” August sighs, he knows that, hence why he has all of that and a shower catty he bought at Target shoved in his wardrobe. He would have brought them if he was actually planning to shower… But he isn't. He was planning on finding the laundry room and then having a quick piss, a quick piss he can only take if he is alone.

“Yeah, okay I'll be back then.” August says as friendly as possible, trying to distract from his obvious annoyance. He turns the other way, up the stairs deciding he will just wait. He isn't desperate, no. He knows better than to let himself get desperate in an unfamiliar setting, but he still just got off a long bus ride from the airport and indulged in a few in-air ginger ales to calm his nervous stomach. 

“Dinner is at six, Just follow everyone and you should be good!” The callout is faint from the bottom of the stairs, but echoes up the tall empty space. August doesnt say anything back, but instantly devises a plan. When he sees everyone leaving the dorms for dinner, He will get to pee in peace, without fear of locking up because everyone will be busy eating in presumably, a whole different building. 

The problem with that plan is, it's currently three. That means roughly three hours, give or take however long it takes for everyone to get out of here and go to lunch. August isn't desperate right now, but in three hours…The problem is that he doesn't have a problem. It's not like he is sick or has some sort of condition, well not one that would normally cause issues of his kind. It's just anxiety. From his pee-shyness to the bedwetting. It's all brought on by stress and anxiety. No matter what meds doctors have given him throughout the years, starting when he was 10 and was still consistently wetting the bed, none of them really worked. 

Sure, they took away the surface level feeling of anxiousness that he lived with constantly. That was nice, but he was still worrying, constantly, deep down. The bed wetting and various other bathroom issues never got better, if anything, the meds not fixing him like the doctors swore they would, only made him stress out more, in turn making everything worse. So he was stuck like this. 

It’s manageable. He has found ways around the bed wetting. At home he would often wake up just as it would start and could manage to get to the bathroom with only having to change his boxers. He wouldn't even consider that an accident at this point in his life. 

His pee-shyness is a little more tricky, but he has found solutions…ones that aren't so practical when you have a roommate. If his dad was cleaning outside the bathroom at his house and he needed to go he would simply go to his room a whole floor away and find the nearest empty fast-food cup or coffee mug he had ‘conveniently forgotten’ to take out of his room and make use of that. Nobody would ever think he was peeing in his bedroom so he could always, without a doubt, pee in there. It's only in bathrooms he has trouble actually going.

He instinctively looks around his dorm once he closes the door. The steps having jostled his bladder far more than he would have liked, making him realize he would like to not feel like this for longer then he has to. There aren't any cups he would pee in, mostly because they aren't his, He isn't really picky. There are plenty of energy drinks cans he figures if worst comes to worst he could use, it's not easy but he has done it before.

Knowing his roommate, Max, isn't going to be back until what he insinuated was going to be well into the night, August decides he will try to wait it out. If he starts to feel desperate at all, then he will use the can and throw it out on his way to dinner, disposing of any and all evidence. The perfect plan.

* * *

The perfect plan that depended on one thing. His damn roommate. The roommate who made such a big deal about not being back till ‘lights out’ who just so happened to walk through the door the second August decided he was past the point of desperateness. 

He admittedly waited too long. The want to wait till six was in the back of his mind, along with the anxieties about someone coming into his room, Mac, or an RA for a ‘candle check’ or whatever it was Rowan mentioned. Both sort of froze him with anxiety, instead of working through it, August chose to sit on his bed and scroll on tiktok for the last two hours, becoming increasingly aware of his legs becoming crossed, and then his hand slowly slipping between his legs. The moment he felt the first bit of wet tricking into his boxers, he jumped up and grabbed the energy drink can. 

“Hey- Did you get into my stash!?” Max, because of course he would, barged through the door, immediately making eye contact with August who had the empty can in his grasps, getting ready to figure out the best place in the room to pee in it would be.

“What? N-no! I was just cleaning up!” August quickly looked around the room, spotting a small metal trash bin under Max’s desk. He bends down and chucks the empty can inside it, trying not to squirm around as he does so. 

“Okay…In case you didn't get the memo, My side” He points to where August is currently standing, “ And your side. We don't ‘clean’ each other's sides, got it?” His tone was less than savory. August just nods in response, quickly going to his side of the room and sitting down in his desk chair at his empty desk. He watched Max bend down and plug his cell phone into a charge by the side of his bed, before plopping down at his own desk. 

“I-I thought you were gonna be out all night?” August asks, seeing Max grab to slide his headphone on and power up his gaming computer. 

“Phone died, would be bored as shit without it, plus, it's almost dinner and I slept through breakfast. Now if you don't mind.” Max slipped head headphones on, tuning his back from August, who immediately shoved both his hands between his legs. 

‘Okay this is bad, very bad! Can you make it down the stairs?’ August thought, Even if lunch wasn't for another forty-five minutes, He could just go outside. Find a nice secluded tree and water it. He decided to stand up- ‘no! Nope! Bad, Bad, Bad!’ immediately his brain and body decided that was the wrong idea because not a little, but a lot of warmth coats the palm of his hand upon standing. 

Panicked, He jumps forward less than gracefully, practically throwing himself onto the lofted bed and under the covers. 

“What the fuck was that?” August rolls over to look at Max who now has one headphone off and is staring at him with an annotated look. “Your fuckin weird, Are you taking a nap? You know you have to go get dinner when they say right? You can't just go to the cafeteria whenever you want.”

“jetlag…I'm not hungry, just gonna have extra breakfast tomorrow.” August feels very, very proud of that lie. His best one of the day. He is just glad he got under the covers before Max was turned around because his hands are the only thing keeping him from squirming around like an idiot. 

“Where are you even from anyways?” Max asks, August does not want to talk right now, He wants to pee, He needs to pee. 

“San Diego, it's a town in Califor-” 

“I know where San Diego fuckin is-Wait, doesnt that make it like what, 2:00pm there? Shouldn't you be the opposite of Jetlagged?” August curses under his breath, That is true, He searches for an answer and finds it staring right at him, behind Max, 

“I stayed up late gaming the last few weeks with my friends, my sleep schedule is all messed up.” August does not in fact play any videos games, if anything they make him anxious and a little nauseous. 

“Oh, well, Fix it because I'm not gonna wait for you if you sleep in next week when classes start.” Max turns his attention back to his game, slipping his headphones back on. 

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck. This is bad. He isn't gonna leave until dinner? What should I do? I can't hold it that long and I can't walk all the way downstairs to the bathroom like this!’ August panicked, Internally freaking out while laying completely still under his covers in his bed…

‘Piss in the bed.’ His brain leapt at the idea, causing his body to force a long spurt out of him, this time no doubt showing on his clothes. Now he really can’t get up…But he couldn't just wet the bed while awake…He doesn't do that. Sure while he is asleep it happens, more than he would like to admit but doing it on purpose, that is a whole nother level of terrible. 

He rolls over so his back is facing away from Max after making sure he looked like he was really into whatever game he was playing. 

‘If I pee I have to do it slowly and make sure it doesn't get on the comforter, only the sheets.” August reasons with himself, because realistically, it's his only option. He spends another few minutes deciding if he should actually take himself out of his jeans and piss directly into the sheets, but decides he already has to wash his pants so he might as well use them to soak up some of the accident. 

With nothing but the sound of his roommates tapping away at his keyboard, August slowly removes his hands from between his legs. At first, when nothing happens he thinks either he misjudges how desperate he actually is or his pee-shyness that only exists inside the restroom extends to peeing while in a bed with someone in the room, something he has obviously never tried to do before. Both theories are thrown out the window when a thin stream starts to leave his slit. 

August bites down on his lip, trying to get control over the speed of his release. He can feel his pee soaking into his pants and then his leg and then the thin cotton sheet. Usually when he wets the bed like this, he is asleep and only wakes up to the smell of ammonia and the uncomfortable cold wet feeling that comes after, he has never felt himself actually fully wet the bed.

It's painful. It's actually painful to release his abused bladder as slowly as he is, but the waterproof sheet does not absorb much, that's kinda the whole point. So he has to wait for his accident to spread out and be absorbed by the sheets to avoid it pooling and getting on the comforter or worse, spilling off the side of the bed. 

After a few minor lapses in control causing him to release far more than he meant to, he finally started to feel relief. It feels amazing. It shouldn't because of the circumstance, but he really left it far too long this time. He is usually better about this, or well, back home it was easier to go if he let it get this bad…here he is realizing that it's not considering he is actively purposefully using his bed as a makeshift toilet, something he doesn't ever want to do again.

He finally feels his stream beginning to taper off. When he is finally done, he feels the familiar feeling of cold, itchiness up his legs. He can almost pinpoint the exact moment he usually wakes up from the discomfort. It's slightly disheartening how soon after his accidents he must be waking up. He always thought it must have been hours ago he had wet the bed and only noticed when his body started to wake up. Its annoying to know he was waking up less than a minute after pissing himself, meaning it could be avoidable if his dumb brain would just wake him up. 

“You awake?” August stifles a jump at the quiet of the room suddenly becoming not so quiet. He doesn't respond, immediately slamming his eyes shut. He hears a few sounds followed by a faint dial tone. “G, I’m on my way— No, it still needs to be charged. I’ll have to get it after dinner.---- No! fuckin lame ass you dont have to save me a seat, what are you a fuckin fag? wanna hold my hand too?---- yeah, no.----Shut the fuck up, i'll be down in a sec.” A few seconds later and August hears the door slam shut. 

‘Shit. He is homophobic??? He has the spiderman poster because he genuinely likes Marvel movies not because Tom Holland has a great ass… He didn't think he would have to deal with Homophobia as much here, considering it's an all boys school…He mentally notes that his sexuality is now on the long list of things he has to lie to people about at this school. 

His bout of self pitying is pushed aside when he realises just how gross he feels and he starts to actually smell the fact that he is covered in his own pee. His mind switches its train of thought instantly, when he looks over and see’s Max’s phone sitting on his desk on the charger but he remains Frozen in place wondering just how the hell he is gonna do all of this laundry and remake his bed before Max gets back from dinner…

[cannibalisticskittles]

OC + Random Associations

tagged by @fiendpact, thank youuuuuu <3

Animal: i always waver between a dog and a cat with her – she's got the teeth and claws of a cat, the propensity for sleeping in and laying around in random bits of sunlight, and her mouth has a bit of that catlike :3 curve, but she is also extremely full of love in a way that radiates out from her much like a dog enthusiastically wagging its tail around exciting new people. either way tho – house pets that will love you deeply and also grievously wound someone who tries to harm you.

Colors: gold + vibrant blues and greens

Month: september?? i will be honest, i hadn’t had a month association before 

Songs: make the grade - jack conte, i won't hurt you - the west coast pop art experimental band, my dog’s eyes - zammuto, existential crisis hour - kilo kish, birdsong - regina spektor.

Number: 1 because she always feels lonely maybe, haha

Plants: asphodel – and I always think of strawberry blossoms when I think about what flower would best fit her, even though she is Very Allergic To Strawberries. sorry babe, but the imagery of the humble little strawberry flower is just too fitting.

Scents: ash, sulfur, whatever the hell bat guano smells like bc of all her spell components – but also something pleasantly warm and earthy, like rocks in a hot spring

Gemstone: i feel like i’ve got to go with amethyst bc. purble. 

Time of day: late late late at night, creeping into the very early morning, when the world is quiet and you can’t help but hear your thoughts (or your worries) clearer than ever before 

Season: autumn – the warm colors and dry crackle of shed leaves for her well, and even more so because she’s recently accepted the patronage of equinox, an autumn eladrin-flavored archfey

Places: caves with bioluminescent plants/fungi, places with strange and magical flora like the feywild, but also busy, crowded city streets where it's easy to get lost in the noise 

Food:  stew! and traveling rations like hardtack or jerky or dry, aged cheeses – things that would keep for a long time on the road. she’s an obligate carnivore, but she does try to pad her diet with as much non-meat as she can.

Drinks: really shit ale that you can buy in bulk at the local tavern as you daydrink with your adventuring party and discuss what steps to take next to fulfill your quest as you also take turns sneakily refilling your friend’s mug so that he remains convinced that it’s magically self-sustaining. (and also, a shitload of water. to wash down the dry ass jerky and hardtack.)

Element: fire

Seasonings: cinnamon and clove! also maybe saffron because she spent so much of her life traveling with trading caravans and saffron seems like the kind of coveted shit that would justify long-ass journeys by guarded caravan.

Sky: night, somewhere in the wilderness where it's so dark that the stars fill the sky everywhere you look

Weather:  hot, dry, windless summer days – if faerûn had wildfire watch levels, it would be stuck on extreme 

Magical power: fireball babyyyyyy (+ a dash of hellish rebuke)

Weapons: daggers. and more daggers, hidden in various places on her body. and teeth. so many sharp teeth. 

Candy/Sweets: honey candy, soft caramels – and pop rocks. she would be delighted by pop rocks.

Method of long distance travel: walking. just… long slogs on foot. walking across distances that are truly miserable to traverse – the sort where you’re ready to give up halfway through but can’t, because turning back would take as long as soldiering on, so you soldier on anyway? that. 

Artstyle: my memory of art styles has not really been brushed up on since my middle school days, i admit, but i think i lean towards impressionism for her

Fear: being useless, being alone, being Known; and, of course, the combination of those fears combined – having someone get close enough to her that it feels like they really know her and see her for who she is and then reject her as not being worth their time. 

Mythological creature: fairies/fae! they're beautiful, terrible, awful little winged shitheads and she adores them. and, to a lesser degree, unicorns, lmao. an association with and an assumption of goodness while also being fully willing and capable of skewering someone.  

Piece of stationery: an old, old notebook filled with small, cramped notes; various plans and calculations and details about people she comes across (‘naming day is just before the winter solstice; remember, they dislike most sweets and pastries’)

Three Emojis: 🥰🔥✨

Celestial body: stars, but distant and far off – she views herself as one of many, not standing out, and she’s very content with that! (imagining herself as one star in a sea of stars would delight her, actually. would feel a little less lonely.) perhaps she is a sun to someone, but that will never be how she sees it.

tagging @amphyn, @biknuckles, @brekkie-e, @fangmich, @lesbianaloy, @meishuu, @riddlcr, @stellamancer, @wasserpl – no pressure tho, haha

[miraclemaya]

i have had an idea forever about a magia record "fanfic" set in the east coast of North and South America in a world where the automatic purification system reaches their last and the idea is that the union who at this point has grown into a major influence, has very little reach in this region. magical girls that live her are all mostly nomadic, having gone in and out of the automatic purification system, treating the region as almost like a gold rush type area as very few magical girls stayed there before the system covered it. wraiths of course would start existing eventually, and being independent of magical girls witching out, a huge grief cube trade would flourish. of course with the coming of the system, the area is like truly inhabitable.

but one city has something really weird going on and the last meguca sent there by the union hasn't come back in weeks so they send a few to scout the city out. the reason the city is weird, it would quickly be revealed, is that there is a mega witch underneath it in the sewer systems, asserting control on local reality in strange ways.

[shadeops21]

Blogger Vs Blog

Seen a few of my artist mutuals put up something along these lines for their end of year recap. Given I'm not an artist by trade, I still wanted to showcase the year I've had on my blog, probably my most active and most notable year to date.

And while it's not the first face reveal (plus I've shown my face in other media that I'm sure you can find if you look) it's probably the first after the rapid influx of followers that I've earned over the course of the year.

Thank you for all of your support, I hope to post more in 2024 and have a few projects in the pipeline already!

(Image description under the cut)

In L-to-R, starting TL:

The V1 Cosplay Guides for MWII (which was a project started in late 2022) really kicked into high gear the start of the year and was the bulk of where I gained a following. I am glad to have shared my knowledge of all things tactical apparel and gear for cosplayers, artists, and nerds alike!

Just a picture of me taken during a skirmish event I attended earlier in the year. I posted this here as I wear TF141 insignia in these events and because it helps me get in touch with my OC .

The first in the "TF Satisfaction" project, a fun idea I had after listening and watching to Benny Bennassi's Satisfaction video and thinking there should be a male equivalent.

F/A-18F Super Hornet dumping flares as it flies past for the inaugural Pacific Airshow Gold Coast. One of my top three highlights of the year, and got some amazing photos from that day.

It's me! Wearing the same camo santa hat that I wore with the Ghost selfie. Homemade, sacrificed a t-shirt for it (it wasn't fitting me anymore so it's a worthy sacrifice)

Was able to have my boy sketched up by the wonderful, talented, amazing, humble, and wonderful @sleepyconfusedpotato. The best rendition of Shade that's out there, tbh. Waiting for the day that comms open so I can have more of Shade made up!

Released "The [Un]official Modern Warfare Cosplay Guide", which was a revamp/update/retooling of my V1 guides from earlier in the year. Refined to be more accurate and more detailed, hopefully this is a handy resource for cosplayer and artist alike.

Had some fun in the lead up to the MWIII Campaign Early Access and made an anti-spoiler meme. It blew up a bit more than I was hoping, heh.

I cosplayed as Ghost! I used my own research and guide to put together a cosplay of the man himself in his urban ops kit. The number of times my buddy (who went as Price) and I got stopped for pictures was insane. It was a lot of work, but totally worth it!

[peachinstitute]

https://pi.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/sit30816-certificate-iii-in-commercial-cookery.webp

[manorinthewoods]

When I arrived to Arkis Rock, on the very outskirts of the continent, it was barren.

The isle is quite remote. It lies just beyond the Bastion Archipelago, safely ensconced in a position of complete strategic irrelevance. Though it was quite large for an island, the population, when I arrived, was a few hundred, concentrated in two fishing villages on the coast. The island was dominated by crags and forests, with a small mountain in the center where I was to make my castle.

It was exile, no doubt about it. I was too high-ranking to be tossed out like a common criminal, but that was cold comfort, this far from the mainland. There was almost no trade. The villages were impoverished. The villagers were growing inbred, for want of fresh blood. I and my retinue were the first outsiders they had seen in decades, aside from miscellaneous bureaucrats and officers who lived some way up the island.

The only thing that could have saved me was luck. And luck I had... for some measure of it.

The island had no economic potential. I could have perhaps attempted to open a mine, but without the assurance of something worthwhile in the rock I could not do so in good conscience. The soil was poor. The wood held no value for shipbuilding.

But then there was a book.

The official who owned it said that he had taken it from an older fishing family, whose health and fortunes had declined rapidly over the generations, in lieu of taxes, which they could not provide. Supposedly once they had been wealthy - the whole isle wealthy - but the money dried up. But there were no records which recorded the source of this fortune, nor memories remaining in the town of those days.

The book was unassuming. The paper had been manufactured from local reeds, and tore easily under my hands. Pages were missing, or ink smeared. Half of the whole, perhaps, was illegible or destroyed. And yet, in what remained, I found something quite curious.

The book bore reference to some old reef off the coast. Supposedly, if one sailed to this reef, and threw a sacrifice to the waves, one could draw something from the deeps. The pages describing what it was were missing, of course, but the effects were outlined clearly. One could extract youth and health, knowledge and power. And gold. And fish.

So I rowed out to the stormy seas, and threw a black cat into the water, and the next day, a chest washed up on the beach.

The chest alone could be worth a fortune. It was eerily ornate, covered in oceanic iconography and engravings of strange and coiling things in the deep. There was a starfish on its front, and gold framing the whole structure of the thing. The stone was a bleached white, like limestone, only incredibly dense. A chisel could not scratch it, nor pry the lid off, until I approached.

Perhaps what could have been inside was some terrible book, teaching dark rites one is not meant to practice. Or a trident, woven of enchanted gold, ominous, with seafoam green blood twisting and warping along its engravings. Or it could have just been gold, ever so much gold. But none of these were what was inside.

What was inside was a thing, which could open the lid of its own accord when I drew near, a thing with eyes and tendrils and beaks, and far too many teeth. And it chirped, a terribly discordant noise, in no tongue of man, no tongue my ears could even hear. And I bled, and I understood, and I began my work.

Honestly, I don't regret it much. When you look at it from a greater perspective, our lives are... insignificant. There are places men cannot dream of, heights that cannot be reached except with blood spilled. And though my acts were perhaps reprehensible, they were not unclean. I am purer than I have ever been.

And no matter how great an army you muster, to march upon my fortress, you cannot think to claim my life. For before it mixed its blood with mine, entered through my heart and filled the hungry void, I had already finished my door. And although I could have waited, stood at the threshold just long enough to look you in the eyes as I ascended, I am not a fool.

You will not find me here. But you may find my grail. And your army has quite a lot of fresh blood in it. And I have no doubt, at this point, that you know how to reach me.

You offended a high ranking noble and got reassigned to the remotest location possible. Two years later and this 'banishment assignment' has resulted in you becoming fabulously wealthy.

[chococsun]

Chocolate in the Americas

The production of chocolate making was a commodity; its final product was for the elites to consume. Acquiring the materials needed to make chocolate was done over the Americas, where institutional players like Spain had built colonies to oversee cacao production, as the beans were a cash crop that helped expand their empire. What means did institutional nations like Spain need to maintain the production flow from the Americas to Europe? The means used were dark and often abused by the hands of the colonizer and at the expense of natives and enslaved Africans. 

Indentured labor played a pivotal role in the production of chocolate, as many Europeans believed they were above performing manual labor. So, they placed the task upon natives and eventually enslaved Africans. The first form of indentured labor was a similar system called tribute and labor, where native rulers received tribute from the work of their people. Only this time the Europeans place themselves as ruler of the natives. But this system of ruling didn’t last very long as there were debates on whether natives should be enslaved. The concluding answer would be they should be exploited in a different way, thus came the encomienda system. 

The definition of the system according the video lecture titled “Cacao in colonial times: production” by Patricia Juarez-Dappe, is a “grant by the crown to a Spaniard to collect a specific amount of labor and tribute from a given number of natives, usually for life..the terms of the grant, the encomendero was to protect the natives under his care, instruct them in the Christian faith, and take up arms for the king in defense of the new land. In exchange, the natives could live in their own villages, cultivate their own fields, and fulfill their obligation under the raiders of their own native leaders” (Juarez-Dappe, 4:02). Through the encomienda system, the empire and the many new cities in the Americas thrived at the expense of thousands of natives. As mentioned before Spaniards usually collect a specific amount of labor for the natives to perform, but oftentimes that was exploited: labor that was meant for a couple of years, had turned into someone’s lifetime. The encomienda remained until the 16th century, but declined as a result of the native population dying from diseases given by the Europeans.   

But as the demand for cacao increased and the number of native kept declining, Europeans needed to find a new way to meet that demand. The answering being slave labor, now connecting cacao as an aspect to the slave trade. While slavery is one of the oldest and most widespread labor systems dating all the way back to ancient civilizations like the Maya and Aztec, however slavery done by the hands of Europeans was the most barbaric and disgusting form of forced labor. The slave trade was “perceived as a permanent solution to replenish a labor force that was always declining due to abuses and exploitation. It supported European economies and created important capital foundations that will eventually fuel the industrial revolution and capitalism” (Juarez-Dappe, 11:20). Europeans had established trade with African chiefs where trinkets, hardware, weapons, and fabrics were exchanged for human lives. The enslaved Africans, most commonly being the Yoruba (Gold Coast) and the Bantu (Angola) ethnic groups, were forced to board ships and travel through the Middle Passage. The conditions on these ships were terrible, as diseases were rampant, the forced proximity, and being chained down for several months had caused mortality rates to be at 50%. Once the ships had touched down in South America, communication among the enslaved Africans was not common as many were from different ethnic groups with their own individual languages, this is intentional as plantation owners and traders did not want resistance to happen. 

The continued operating system, called the Atlantic system or Triangle trade, ran its course from the 16th to the early 19th century on the practice of purchasing slaves in exchange for manufactured goods to maintain the flow of cash crops which in all helped funnel capitalism in nations like Europe. Some of its practices were legal or illegal. The result of exploiting natives and enslaved Africans had created strong trading networks between countries, which then helped produce lots of money and resources. With that money, Europe could invest in the industrial revolution, taking chocolate production to new heights. 

Sources

Cartwright, Mark. 2022. “Encomienda.” World History Encyclopedia. https://www.worldhistory.org/Encomienda/.

Juarez-Dappe, Patricia. “Cacao in colonial times: production” YouTube. August 30, 2020. Video, https://youtu.be/f7JcLNm94cI?si=Qai6uRLnUEyMHBob

[absolventiia]

i've got you, okay? everything's going to be fine. @ aurane

TARGARYENS ARE SUPPOSED TO RIDE DRAGONS. some part of their blood demands it, screams for it. the dragons can sense this and bond with one. to be a targaryen and not be a rider is something of a disappointment. dragon eggs are placed in cradles with the newborns, hoping for the sound of dragon song with a baby's cry. and yet, for AURANE, there was no sound other than the harmonizing of his twin. he follows aegon, unknowingly getting the moniker of the KING'S SHADOW since then. it does not help that his features are also dark, the brown hair a standout when all of his siblings have the platinum silver - gold of targaryen royalty. 

when aegon gets sunfyre -- when that brilliant, magnificent beast takes him to the skies, it is the one place aurane cannot follow. for years, the targaryen prince is more hightower, brown hair and the spitting image of his mother, & no dragon will even look the prince's way. until, of course, SYNDOR comes along. it's as if the black and silver toned dragon claims him, instead of the other way around. ( ironically, syndor and sunfyre are from the same clutch of eggs. PERHAPS HE AND AEGON ARE BROTHERS IN EVERY LIFETIME. )

still, even after he and syndor gain a bond many would kill for, AURANE does not ride very often. syndor is active, more temperamental, and often liked to be left alone to hunt and fly at any time. as such, aurane only flew when he felt in the mood, or when necessary. necessary, like rook's rest.

he watches aegon take off on sunfyre to that old place, that castle in nowhere's land on the coast. nowhere, except for the perfect spot for the blacks to gain trade routes. aemond had already left on vhagar, that ANCIENT war machine. aurane follows aegon on syndor -- and then quickly lands at the battle. fighting in the sky seemed reckless, even for aegon, and aurane had never taken syndor into battle. instead, what came most naturally to the prince was the SWORD instead of dragon fire. perhaps he was less TARGARYEN than he thought. the only time aurane gets back on syndor was after watching sunfyre tumble from the sky. 

it is after everything, when aurane flies syndor back to the red keep, fearing that his twin may have stopped breathing at any moment, and doing so ALONE, that aurane realizes the exact position he is in. lords and ladies of the court bow a little lower as he rushes to aegon's chambers. he knows, with some sort of numbing shock, that if aegon were to die, he would be next. THE IRON THRONE would be his, as the king had no other heirs at that moment. aurane did not want it. 

he does not cry upon seeing aegon's body, his gaze watching intently as the burned body before him does move, if only slightly. the maesters around him whisper, servants move through the room in some sort of sick rhythm. his mother is somewhere, trying to tell him something, and yet aurane cannot answer. he evacuates aegon's chambers in a rush, as if suffocating. PERHAPS HE IS.

it is only when aurane collapses along a wall closer to his own chambers ( only now does he realize how far he and aegon actually stay, their rooms a bit of a walk from each other -- WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN ? ) does he allow the tears to fall. he does not notice criston until he speaks. it was a shallow comfort. aurane is still covered in blood and ash from the battle, his brown hair almost black with the dark smoke of dragon flame. his inhale is stuttering, and aurane's shoulders shake erratically. thank the gods, the two were alone. " -- he cannot . . he CANNOT die. " is the only thing aurane can get out, his voice STRANGLED with grief.

[cksmart-world]

SMART BOMB

The Completely Unnecessary News Analysis

By Christopher Smart

Oct. 1, 2024

LIFE ELEVATED — TWENTY THOUSAND RUBBER CHICKENS

Utah and it's residents can be proud of a lot of things. True, the state legislature often acts like a bunch of circus monkeys, the state liquor store doesn't sell cold beer 'cause it would promote drinking and... well, the list goes on. But we have cool stuff, too. Wilson did you know that the first KFC was right here on Salt Lake City's State Street. True story. Think of it, Colonel Sanders is now worldwide — you can get drumsticks in Vietnam and India. Utah had the first department store — Zions Cooperative Mercantile Institution, aka ZCMI, and it's still here. A Utah native, Walter Fredrick Morrison, invented the Frisbee. But get this: Another native son, Philo T. Farnsworth, invented TV. You're right Wilson, that is big. Here's a shocker: Loftus International based in Salt Lake City sells some 20,000 rubber chickens each year. That's a lot of rubber chickens. Why don't we have that on our “Life Elevated” billboards. Utah, of course has many natural wonders but this is not one of them although it is notable. Lake Powell — it's actually a man-made reservoir — has more shoreline than the U.S. West Coast. (Put an asterisk here, it's drying up.) Imagine what might have been if when Brigham Young arrived at the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in 1847, a soothsayer had told him all this stuff would come true. Rather than saying, “This is the place,” he might have uttered something like, “Holy shit.” Then the edifice at the mouth of Emigration Canyon would be called the Holy Shit Monument. Just a thought.

RELAXED AND DEPRESSED? YOU MUST LIVE IN SALT LAKE CITY

If you're just checking in to see what condition you're condition is in you might be interested in a new study that finds Utah's capital is one of the most relaxed cities in America. Wilson and the guys in the band are just one example of how mellow and laid back we really are — unless driving or talking to missionaries. But there is a catch, according to a study by Ben's Natural Health that analyzed 31 U.S. cities. (We are not making this up.) It found that 22.7 percent of Salty City residents suffer from depression. Bummer. But Wilson does make a good point: How do you distinguish between “relaxed” and “depressed” — some depressed people look relaxed and vice versa. One metric might be the assumption that depressed people eat more ice cream and drink more Mountain Dew than other folks. By contrast, Salt Lakers who are simply relaxed but not depressed tend toward iced caramel macchiatos. Wilson would like to make another point about herbal self- medication, but we'll skip that for now. It's not all bad news: Salt Lake City is not in the top 10 for ice cream consumption. Some other places might be even more depressed. However, we are still Numero Uno when it comes to Bill Cosby's favorite desert — Jell-O! Leaving Jell-O vodka shooters aside, you've got to believe that's a good thing. It is our state snack, after all. And like Jell-O, we do jiggle a lot.

TRUMP E-BIKES — WORLD'S BEST — GET YOURS NOW!

Hey Wilson, do you need a new watch? You and the guys in the band might want to jump on this.The Trump Victory Tourbillion watch is only $100,000. It's a deal 'cause they're already historic. How many former presidents hawked watches? Just imagine how much they'll be worth later. On second thought, never mind. “Exciting” is the only way to describe the Trump World Catalogue: Bibles - $60; digital trading cards - $99 each; gold “Never Surrender” hightop sneakers $400; Trump coins - $100 each. But wait, there's more. Soon to be released, according to unnamed sources: Donald Trump E-Bikes! These Trumpozilla E-Bikes blow the competition away. All Trumpozilla bikes come standard with the heavy-duty Mar-A-Lago frame, Stormy-D disk brakes and unparalleled E. Jean Carroll drivetrain. It's a steal for only $7,999. And get this, they have Trump's signature in gold paint. And you'll be stylin' in your Trump Apparel spandex onesie. This beautiful unisex gold cycling outfit comes with Trump's name on the front, back and down the legs. And with the purchase of any Trumpozilla E-Bike you get the onesie for only $499. Be the envy of your red state neighborhood. Get 'em while supplies last. Next week look for Don's Cheater Championship golf clubs. You'll never shoot a bad round again.

Post script — That's a wrap for another beautiful week here at Smart Bomb where we keep track of LDS general authorities, so you don't have to. Here's an interesting headline from The Salt Lake Tribune: “He’s a Democrat and an environmentalist. How did he end up an LDS general authority?” Just shocking! Here in Zion, Democrats and environmentalists are thought to be in league with Beelzebub. The headline more than suggests a liberal tree-hugger. Of course, we're talking about Steven E. Snow, the former historian for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He once said climate change is real and he still has a Temple Recommend. This could be a breakthrough Wilson. Other Mormon environmentalist might think it's safe to come out of the closet. They might say stuff like, it's OK to save the Great Salt Lake. Well, maybe that's going a little too far. If God wanted to save the lake he'd tell legislators that it's time to stop using Bear River water to grow alfalfa that is shipped to China. Maybe start with something a little less in your face, like regulations aimed at reducing industrial pig-farm waste. It's a slippery slope (no pun intended). Here's a headline from the Deseret News: “Former GOP Sen. Jeff Flake ( a Mormon) explains his endorsement of Kamala Harris.” Next these rebels will be singing “This Land Is Your Land,” a known socialist anthem directly in conflict with free market capitalism. What's next, Social Security and Medicare? Oh wait...

Well Wilson, your pal Kris Kristofferson has ridden off into the sunset after 88 years on planet Earth. He was one helluva singer/songwriter and a good movie actor to boot. One of his many songs became a popular anthem that still resonates today, “Me and My Bobby McGee” — made famous by his friend and fellow Texan, Janis Joplin. So what do you say Wilson, get the band off their duffs and let's send old Kris off in style:

Busted flat in Baton Rouge, waiting for a train I was feeling near as faded as my jeans Bobby thumbed a diesel down just before it rained And rode us all the way to New Orleans I pulled my harpoon out of my dirty red bandana I was playing soft while Bobby sang the blues Windshield wipers slapping time, I was holding Bobby's hand in mine We sang every song that driver knew Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose Nothing don't mean nothing honey if it ain't free, now now And feeling good was easy Lord, when he sang the blues You know feeling good was good enough for me Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee From the Kentucky coal mines to the California sun Hey, Bobby shared the secrets of my soul Through all kinds of weather, through everything that we done Hey Bobby baby kept me from the cold One day up near Salinas, Lord, I let him slip away He's looking for that home and I hope he finds it But I'd trade all of my tomorrows for one single yesterday To be holding Bobby's body next to mine Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose Nothing, and that's all that Bobby left me, yeah And feeling good was easy Lord, when he sang the blues Hey, feeling good was good enough for me, hmm hmm Good enough for me and my Bobby McGee (Me and My Bobby McGee — Kris Kristofferson)