#also i know that in the games neither of them should have full teams but also have you considered: let me have my fun

[amaryllis-sagitta]

Hi again, going through the different endings of DAV, I was pretty surprised to hear Solas being all like "I am a god!!" when Rook beats him in a fight. I know he has pride issues but that felt so OOC to me?? I was wondering if you had an opinion on it?

Hi, thanks for asking again!

There are 3 tiny (or not so tiny?) moments that I think push the envelope on Solas's characterization in a way that allows us to portray him as more genuinely sinister than the main line established in Trespasser, post-Trespasser media and most of DATV, which is the "Pathetic, stubborn man ridden with massive unprocessed guilt and shame, who can't make a choice without some catastrophic collateral for the life of him, and the unforeseen consequences of his choices repeatedly push him to double-cross people and have them do his dirty work".

One moment that had me thinking is the third memory of the rebellion - I mentioned earlier how Solas's pose and facial expressions make him unduly smug when Felassan calls out that they were supposed to do better than send out an army of spirits, appealing to their nature in seemingly good faith, when they were really a distraction doomed to fail. It shocked me because it seems to strike at one of Solas's core values. It's supposed to hurt more in relation to spirits because we know how much Solas despises wasting, destroying or twisting spirit purpose. And yet, in his confrontation with Felassan, he seemed content, smug even, about achieving victory against Elgar'nan and didn't show a trace of regret.

Another moment is the jab in the Fade that "at least you have Varric to talk to", again with a smug sense of satisfaction. Learning about this line took me by surprise because for all the disingenuity Solas is capable of, I never had him for someone who takes delight in such petty cruelty, especially when the matter is also personal to him to a degree. Varric's death should have hurt him by virtue of their mutual respect gained in DAI, so has the game underdelivered in representing this? Or are we really pushing a narrative that he never really changed his mind on non-elves, or chose not to acknowledge them as people, so Varric was just a disposable fool?

The third specific moment that shows Solas in a worse light is the moment you mentioned in the ask. Though, watching this scene, I feel we need to cite the full sentence:

Rook: [...] I am not alone, but you will be. The Veil needs to be tied to the life force of an elvhen god. And now it is, Dread Wolf. Solas: You sneer at me as though you understand. You are mortal! Compared to you, to your infinitesimal existence, I AM A GOD!"

This is a conditional state of an ending, when you decide to fight him and at least the companions in your party have reached the Hero status, which means they survive Solas's counterattacks, so in the end Rook doesn't stand against him alone, and does not end up in the Fade prison with Solas. This is where Solas is at his most desperate, I think, because when Rook remains alone in the Fight ending, it's a pyrrhic victory. Solas doesn't lash out then, because he isn't done with Rook. The context of "I am a god" is that Rook will soon perish while The Dread Wolf will prevail for centuries still, and no mortals can stop him in a way that matters.

But could it also be a trigger for his greatest fear: that there's a realistic chance he can very nastily die alone with his regrets and self-loathing? Because he does not say he is immortal - he never bound a dragon, so he can't take advantage of the Evanuris perk. Neither does he accept a definition of godhood. It's a matter of scale and comparison; in this final moment, he's looking for a way to belittle Rook and their team.

In fact, the "I am a god" in this context represents the extreme of the views he's held about mortals before - arguably, before joining Inquisition. Though I think that even then, he had trouble humanizing races other than elvhen. If his mind has really swayed throughout DAI, it feels barely half a step towards acknowledging that mortal elves, especially the Dalish, might have a point in their approach to history. Then, in Tevinter Nights, he says to Charter that the elves who survive the un-Veiling might find the "new" world better. Not really a win.

I believe a proper background for this is found in two conversations. First, when Rook keeps poking at Solas's plan to tear down the Veil and he stops eluding the question, Rook says "Spoken like a god". Solas's reply in this moment frankly sounds... too deflective. Like it's coming from someone who genuinely needs someone to constantly whisper "Remember you are but a mortal, Caesar" in his ear.

The second moment is when, after having the loud argument with Elgar'nan to get Rook out of a Fade pocket of despair, Solas admits Elgar'nan is who he feared becoming - callous, tyrannical and contemptuous. I guess Solas's worst moments are supposed to show how close he really could get, because the "I am a god" most definitely defines an ego trip that comes from a place of great insecurity.

If I were a hater looking for a hook to make an uncharitable argument that "He was amoral all along and his gentler side was a mask that just waited to slip", I'd start there.

[monarchamos]

I know nothing about ur pokemon au tell me about Chuuyas team pls- i wanna know the poke-parallels between his team and Dazais

Ah!!! i'm glad you asked!!! :D

In this AU, Dazai is the strongest of Yokohama's Gym Leaders. He specializes in Ghost types! His team consists of a Dragapult, a houndstone, a spiritomb, a froslass, a mimikyu, and a lampent! here's so fun(debatable) facts about his team!

he used to be an admin for the Port Mafia, so he still has like. a big fat kill count. So that's where the Spiritomb comes from. yeah.

Dragapult is usually the one dragging dazai out of his attempts. It's been with him since even before Dazai joined the mafia, so it's his signature pokemon

His mimikyu likes playing with children. Dazai often leaves it with Kyouka and Kenji to play with whenever the gym leaders get together

Dazai found Lampent when he visited Lupin after Oda's death. It was hanging around the alleyway, and he decided to catch it.

froslass is always freezing him. yk like james in the pokemon anime with all of his pokemon. bc he's pathetic like that. Dazai caught froslass on a mission with Kunikida, shortly after becoming a Gym Leader. (yes this froslass is the nightmare of all of his challengers).

Chuuya tried so hard to convince Dazai to catch a Greavard. Dazai eventually relented, but only because he could name it chibi. eventually he got actually attached to it and evolved it to Houndstone

Chuuya, on the other hand, is still an admin for the Port Mafia

His team consists of flying types. This is because, as his brother Verlaine is French from Kalos, got Chuuya super into sky battles. he prefers sky battles, but he's obviously just as formidable in normal battles. In Chuuya's team he has a corviknight, a skarmory, a honchkrow, a mismagius, a talonflame, and an oricorio (sensu style)

Honchkrow is his signature pokemon! it's been with him since he was in the Sheep

the oricorio, believe it or not, is actually from Kouyou and not Dazai, despite the ghost typing. its usually the pokemon to drag chuuya away when he's overworking himself.

the talonflame was gift from Verlaine! yk. as an apology. for killing the flags. Chuuya raised it from an egg. Verlaine battles with it every once in a while to see how it's doing. the battle's just an excuse to spend time with his little brother though

Corviknight was a gift from Adam as well.

Mismagius used to be Dazai's, but he left Chuuya its pokeball when he left the mafia so its his now :P

Chuuya had to add skarmory to his team during the DHC but ended up bonding with it and now its a staple in his team

Back when they were in the mafia, soukoku were often paired up for double battles on missions.

[ryeriy]

shout! | daniel ricciardo

-> summary: daniel goes to his first bills game with the reader

-> pairings: daniel ricciardo x bills fan (fem)!reader

-> request: Can I request that the reader and Danny are dating and she's a bills fan and takes him to a bills game bc he's also a fan??

-> a/n: as a bills fan, I literally love this idea and most definitely will do it! Also this is a shorter one but it's really cute or at least I think so. The second half is rushed and really bad because I did more detail into the first part 😭

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"Does this look good?" Y/n said, pulling the jersey over her head and her hoodie. Daniel looked at her and laughed at her struggle.

It's "off" season for Daniel, even though there's always off-track training to do. His last race was a few weeks ago and he was now enjoying his time with his girlfriend at a football game.

"It looks fine, honey."

He helped her pull the jersey over her head as she was struggling. It was a bit big on her but it kept her warm. Daniel had a wide smile on his face.

"You enjoy your surprise?"

"Is that even a question?"

She let out a laugh as she looked at him smiling. There was no doubt that he wasn't enjoying his time. Y/n and Daniel were at their first Buffalo Bills game together. Daniel was so excited when she surprised him with tickets. Now here they were, in a very crowded parking lot with thousands of strangers and people who call themselves the 'Bills Mafia'. Most of them were drinking alcohol, playing games, or simply just having fun.

It's very cold in the small town of New York. Both of them were bundled up with layers of clothing. Under both of their jerseys was a sweatshirt and additional shirts underneath. She adjusted the hat on his head and kissed him on the cheek. He softly smiled at her.

"You know, this was a great idea, I love you so much," Daniel smiled widely.

"And I love you so much," she replied. Seeing his smile she couldn't help but smile too.

After getting to experience pre-game tailgating with locals, they both decided to head into the stadium. It was beautiful weather, the sun was about to set and it was cold. Exactly how it should be in New York in November.

They navigated their way through the crowd swerving and dodging bumping into people trying to get to their seats.

"Wow..." they both said as they looked around the stadium and up into the sky. Y/n and Daniel were shocked at the moment.

Both of them pulled out their phones and took pictures of their surroundings and of each other too. Y/n recorded a video and panned the camera to Daniel, "You enjoying the surprise, Danny?"

She knew it was a dumb question but it was quite funny to see his wide smile looking at her camera. "Very much!" He exclaimed as he laughed himself.

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The game was 23-15 in the fourth quarter with five minutes remaining, the Bills were winning and the stadium was full of cheers and clapping. Daniel and Y/n were both screaming and laughing along with all of the thousands of people that were surrounding them. This whole experience felt like a fever dream to them.

It was visibly dark now and the only lighting was the bright lights above their heads. With the end nearing, it only started to get louder and louder.

Daniel and Y/n were next to each other yelling, clapping, screaming, and shouting for their team.

"Touchdown!!!!"

Those words were being projected onto the jumbo tron as the famous 'shout' song. The crowd filled with ayy ayy ayy. It was such a fun experience to be in right now. Neither of them would trade it for the world.

With 1 minute remaining, everyone started celebrating and cheering. Daniel turned towards y/n and gently grabbed her face, turning it towards him. He crashed his lips against hers and they kissed. A celebratory kiss.

"I love you so much for this, thank you," he said as he smiled at her.

"I love you too," she replied to him as she smiled.

The Bills won the game and everyone was happy. Y/n and Daniel were holding hands and cheering with the other thousands of people in the stadium. Neither of them will ever forget this experience.

[hwsforeignrelations]

A Fogged Up Plan

Summary: For three weeks, the Kingdom of Spades’ royals have been held captive in Diamond’s Fort Shellac. After one weevily meal too many, they hatch a plan to escape.

Made for @usuknetwork's USUKUSTwicePer zine: Cards, With Spades to Start. Read the full collection here (hehe I also designed the cover, please show everyone some love!!)

AO3 Link // Words: 3,812

Five moons before Queen Arthur Kirkland’s coronation, the isolated swamps of Southern Spades were inhabited by an insect known as PB Cup. 

Previously known but unstudied, a small population found itself in the hold of a cargo ship en route towards the Kingdom of Diamonds. 

Once docked, it is rumored that a seawoman unloading barrels and crates of imports carried the insects to her town on the outskirts of the port, where the red buzzers settled onto a Camellia sinensis farm. There, the small population decimated the crops. When customers purchased the expensive processed leaves in tea, it tasted of woody, bitter peanuts. 

Diamond’s PB Cup population quickly spiraled into millions and one of the kingdom’s primary exports, tea, crashed. 

With it, Diamond’s economic influence sank to match the impoverished Kingdom of Clubs. 

 Through no fault of his own, Queen Arthur inherited one of the world’s worst foreign affair conflicts in history as the Diamond government demanded compensation for their introduction of the bug to their crops, and Spades denied any responsibility for the lack of preparedness on the part of Diamond’s farming protection or economic infrastructure. 

Thus a war broke out between the two kingdoms. Luckily, the Queen of Diamonds, Francis Bonnefoy, and Queen Arthur Kirkland had fluttered in similar social circles on opposing navy forces, during earlier military careers, before Oracle selected them for positions of royalty.

Due to their previously-held relationship, the conflicting countries maintained (albeit strained) contact.

However, twenty years later, the strung out conflict saw no resolution in sight. Neither party would budge. In the last two decades, Diamonds had mostly recovered, converting and subsidizing previously small industries to make up greater lumps of their exports. 

Diamond GDP had mostly recovered, and the occasional skirmishes along the Spades-Diamond borders had lost their impact to both sides' citizens.

Mentions often paralleled this tone:

“Hey mom, Junior’s little league game’s canceled. Queen Arthur just announced Diamond shots fired near the field.”

“Gee, I’m in absolute shock. Let’s order a Continental basket for the other team. I know those sweet kids were looking forward to a Spadian roast but it can’t be helped.”

“Yes, ma.”

“Our government should really step off their high horse- it’s practically a soap opera! ‘You sent our kingdom into a depression!’, ‘No, your lack of planning sunk your economy!’ Honestly. Time for Gen. Jones to call it cuts… bring the phone while you're up, let’s reserve that basket before we forget.”

“Yes, ma.”

And so you see, neither kingdom withheld reservations to mock the ongoing conflict. So far in, it was nothing more than a contest of resolve between two too-proud kingdoms.

Bi-annual tea shortages, sport game cancellations, flight and ship delays, internal division among governments… but neither party appeared to be dismounting their positions, and as the conflict neared its twentieth anniversary Spades-Diamond tension surged.

Unbeknownst to regular citizens, the jack, queen, and king of Spades had disappeared from the castle three weeks prior. 

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Drop-drop-drop sounded a mysteriously originating source of water, droplets plopping onto a moist stone ground. 

The Jack of Spades, dressed in creased gold, purple, and blue fabrics cast his eyes towards his hands where he organized a cheap deck of playing cards. 

The action demonstrated disinterest to anyone unattuned to Yao’s discreet mannerisms, but the way his fingers twitched to swipe brown hair behind his ear was telling.

“...I beg your pardon?”

Drop-drop-drop.

Army General Alfred Jones raised thin eyebrows above round glasses in a look that read “everyone in this dungeon heard me loud and clear”, but continued in a patronizingly careful tone. 

“You need a command like brown bananas to banana bread, or day-old rice to fried rice. Something that suits your past-prime station, y’know?”

Drop.

Arthur Kirkland’s forehead actually twitched but his expression remained unaffected. “Well done, dear. I’ll be the first to admit, never in a million years would I imagine you capable of something so complicated as a simile”.

“Har har, Your Majesty,” Alfred reached across the cramped cell to knock his knuckles against the wrought iron bars.

Drop-drip.

“When I met you, 200-odd years ago, those magic bones would have no problemo melting, or-or slicing through these bars like butter.”

“-OH be silent for once, blathering-”

“And now look at you!” Alfred flung his hand in the general direction of his husband, himself  melted on the floor, head balanced on a rock. “A washed-up seadog, no good for nothing but a semi-ok fuck. What the hell happened to you, man? You used to bring dragons to their knees. Now some Diamond-fired metal’s too much? Y’all know their quality’s shit,” he yawned.

“Retirement might be on the horizon, sweetheart. But no offense.”

Drop-drip-drop. Drip. 

Yao didn’t even blink when hands lept for King Alfred’s throat.

“Gah-!” Vague choking escaped Alfred’s mouth while his oily hair tossed wildly and his cheeks went red from the loss of air.

Drop-drop-drip.

“Worthless excuse for a leader, I’d sew your thin lips shut before these stinking walls hear another lie from them. Seadog I am- and proud, too!” Arthur gave one last throttle before throwing Alfred aside in disgust. 

It could have been his breath, too. They hadn’t exactly been given a toothbrush. Three weeks into captivity and their last frigid bucket shower was over four days ago.

At least they had a toilet, even if it was awfully cold when you sat. Stars above, Alfred wanted out. 

Patience, Alfred reminded himself. That voice in his head sounded suspiciously like a certain magical queen, and the king ignored his own internal voice which insisted self-restraint would never be his specialty.

Drop-drop-drop. 

The queen had retreated to the opposite wall to collect his composure, Alfred’s own ragged breathing filling the chamber and he coughed, once, before resuming his idle splay on the floor.

 Arthur ascertained the damage choking his spouse had cost his nails. 

“As for the jab at my sexual performance, love, I think everyone in this room can deny that claim with absolute confidence. Isn’t that right, Edison?”

Drop-drop-drop.

“H-huh?” Their guard startled at his post, not expecting to be addressed by name. His feet kicked at the ground, “Um. I-I guess rumors do get around.” Arthur turned smugly towards the army general and received a playful scoff for his troubles.

The jack spoke up, unimpressed by the exchange, “Do be mindful of others nearby who may not be so invested in his co-workers’ thrilling sexual escapades, please and thank yo-”

“Chow time!” Interrupted another guard, sliding three portions of beige sludge through a small slit in the bars, accompanied by biscuit. 

All three groaned.

“C’mon! I get the prisoner thing, but is this,” the queen knocked his biscuit against the bars and three weevils fell out, “really necessary?” said Alfred.

The guards shrugged with indifference and Yao dipped the corner of his flour ball in their water, softening it enough to break off a piece and chew. He paused, fiddled the bite with his tongue, then pulled a long, curled hair out from his teeth.

Both guards had left for a smoke break. 

With stony resolve, Yao declared, “We’re getting out of here tonight.”

“Fiunwwy!” said the king through his porridge. 

“Ditto,” Arthur scowled. “And, these meals aren’t so bad. Navy ships serve far worse.”

“Ugg. That doesn’t make you look good, Admiral.” Alfred took a small handful of his food and fed it to a cluster of shadows in the corner of their chamber.

Gotta keep his slimy friend nourished, Alfred smiled as the shadows accepted the grub.

Meal finished, Arthur tossed his tray through the bars and sat against the wall, joining Yao where the jack dealt out three piles of playing cards. His technique was quick and clean, and Arthur would never admit to admiring the show. 

Not even magic could put on that performance.

 Envy forced him to deign his husband with a response. “Do us all a favor and shut your trap.” 

Alfred clutched at imaginary pearls and Arthur smirked. “And finish your plate. Besides, army rations hardly pass as food, General Jones.”

Cramming the rest into his mouth with hardly a gag, Alfred discarded the plate and crawled towards the pair. He added an ass wiggle while Yao’s attention was elsewhere. The queen’s ears glowed red and he sneered at Alfred, disapproving of his husband dangling treats with no ability to give in the confined space.

Alfred laughed to himself. The queen was afflicted with an unfortunately high libido. Something which Alfred eagerly satisfied, even if his own needs paled in comparison. However…

Restricted to the meager dimensions of their cell with the observant jack… well, all jokes aside, the king looked with a mixture of trepidation and delight at the demolishment of his ass the moment they found a private space. 

They were lucky enough to acquire the deck of cards and spent their time playing every game under the sun- and some new. With Arthur’s unmet sexual needs and most forms of exercise impossible, stir-crazy was an insufficient descriptor for the kinetic energy burning through them. 

Cards helped starve off frustration, and offered an iota of normalcy.

Their favorite guard, Edison, returned from his break and all three royals exchanged glances. Alfred straightened up and humm-ed, “Did I ever tell y’all ‘bout that time Major Maisie single-handedly rallied the marines through Norbrandy?”

Yao and Arthur, having heard Alfred’s stories a million times, shook their heads. Alfred laid down a Four of Clubs and dove into his narrative, smiling behind his cards as Edison’s head tilted to hear their conversation better.

“Soulda heard from the boys direct-like. Said she flew in like a cannon. Fort Potomac was occupied by Hearts. Maisie rode in under the shield of fog, took one look at the opaque path ‘round the hill, and led her advance in the dead of night. Bombarded out of nowhere, King Kiku’s soldiers resisted heroically. But,” 

“Potomac was conquered by dawn, with only five Spadian casualties.” 

Arthur inspected his nails, ignoring the swell of power growing in his breast. “Impressive, I’m sure. What were the odds?”

As an ex-citizen of Spades (likely hired by Diamond forces for better wages than Spades’ less impressive salary), Edison’s vague admiration for his home-kingdom’s success fed the royals’ power. Having been away from the appraisal of most Spadian citizens for a month now, the ignorant guard was their only supplyant.

“Four Hearts soldiers to every one of ours.”

Alfred shivered in excitement when that number reached Edison’s ears and their unknowingly-benevolent guard emitted a burst of patriotism.

“Capital.” The queen spun a card onto the pile.

Yao delivered Arthur a sharp look. Sarcasm was fine, but not when a deaf person could hear it.

“500 points”, Yao announced in a tone which attempted neutrality but failed, tossing the last trick towards himself.

Arthur and Alfred groaned in unison, scratching one more check to the scoreboard on the stone wall. The box under “姚” had comically more checks than the “Al” and “K” beside it.

Alfred thought dreamily of their own castle’s gameroom, which displayed a point board of less comparatively devastating results. 

The king’s husband stared hard at their score board, then exchanged with Alfred a look he recognized as offense. Eyebrows drawn to etch little wrinkles above his nose and the tiniest sneer curling the right side of his mouth. 

The admiral’s tisk made Alfred break out into pearls of laughter and Yao allowed his own expression to revel in the satisfaction of besting his co-workers.

It was these shared moments which reminded Alfred of Oracle’s excellent match-making.

Drip.

Behind them, soldiers shuffled their shoes into the floor and small movements clinked metal armor. 

Probably jealous they weren’t in on the joke, heh.

Yao caught his eye, subtly jutted his chin towards their window. A few miles off an oncoming fog made itself known. Alfred nodded, canines flashing in his grin.

It was go time.

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That night, all men finished their trays of food, persevering through the mealy texture. 

Finally, after three weeks of drawing on Edison’s flaky Spadian patriotism, Yao, Arthur, and Alfred felt strong enough to fuel their escape. 

But that had been true for three nights now. There was something else they needed to ensure a successful breakout from Fort Shellac. They knew it was only a matter of time, in Diamond’s chilly forest climate, for moisture to collect in the air. All they had to do was intensify the natural way of things.

 In the ancient and clammy foundation of their prison, fog poured in through the bars and it only took slight encouragement from Arthur for a Féth fíada to emerge.

“Maisie’s a mage as well as a scientist, no?” asked Yao as the mist grew thicker.

Alfred nodded proudly, cupping something close to his chest so he wouldn’t lose it in his blindness. “Made her own fog machine and bribed some fairies to superpower it- resourceful as always.”

Their security was starting to notice the clouds curling at their metal feet and muttered in distress while their prisoners whispered and waited.

Moonlight cast its reflection on the fog, and as the minutes passed the damp room filled with blue hues.

Drop.

“H-hey!” Edison finally addressed them, kicking spastically at the vapor as though it could be intimidated by violence. He pointed an accusatory finger at Arthur, who played a game of Patience against the tilted wall, “You’ve something to do with this, necromancer?”

Drop-drop-drop.

The Queen of Spades didn’t respond, pulling an ace from the stockpile and whipping it at his captor. 

It bounced off Edison’s helmet.

“What on Earth?” The guards watched in horror as the fog swallowed up their legs and began on their chests. “Find the director,” one snapped. Edison didn’t waste a moment, keys clanging in his grip as he scrambled to the exit. 

His hurried footsteps echoed through the stairway while silence enveloped the prison. Yao could smell anxiety pouring from the invisible guards, the gentle clinking of their metal armor interrupting an otherwise soundless environment.

Suddenly the cast iron bars screamed, brute force bending and tearing through the metalwork. “Merde!” cursed a Diamond accent.

“That’s a lad,” complemented Arthur, patting his husband’s back while the King of Spades huffed another breath before finishing the job, ripping the door out of its hole with one last ear-splitting jerk. 

With inhuman speed Alfred was gone in the fog. Before the unfortunate Diamond soldiers realized, their prisoner smashed them apart so they couldn’t see the other. 

“Heh- happy to help.” Alfred smothered the unnamed guard’s mouth, delivering a fist into the armored abdomen. The force was enough to penetrate the protective metal and padded fabric and the body slumped instantly, held up by Alfred’s hand gripping his face. 

Yao stepped over the raw metal of their prison door and into the face of Alfred’s catch. The Jack of Spades reached into the guard’s fauld and produced a string, on which he pulled and produced a small sheet of inscribed metal. In complete blindness Yao skimmed his finger beds along the sheet, memorizing the meaning of the indents, before stepping back and handling it the the Queen, who confirmed his interpretation with a hum.

“Thank Oracle for y’all’s Diamindortic, couldn’t read it even if I could see an inch from my face,” Alfred said, dropping the unconscious body and listening with satisfaction as it crashed into the floor.

Dusting off his hands, the cluster of shadows from their cell made itself known against Alfred’s prosthetic leg, oozing up the complicated gears and bolts. It chirped.

“Butters would like some gravity, Arthur,” Alfred said, taking “Butters” from his thigh and flailing in the air before locating the queen’s outstretched hand.

Butters slid the languid journey onto Arthur’s palm and waited patiently for the kiss which Arthur pressed to its head. “Erg. Revulsion doesn’t scratch the surface of your pet’s chosen skin.”

“Yeah, I know. But the mucus keeps ‘im healthy!

A large silhouette, barely discernible in the air, expanded before the three Spadian royals. It stopped growing at around six feet tall and sneezed when Yao touched its nose, approximately the size of a bocce ball.

“What a fine boy,” the jack complimented Butters’ chosen form, petting what felt like an enormous panda.

Yao felt the round ears under his hands and the strength behind the bones of its face. The doublecoat swallowed his fingers when the jack adoringly brushed them under Alfred’s pet’s ears. Beneath Butters’ muzzle were thick canines, and from the animals’ stomping Yao sensed hoofs rather than paws.

“Excellent form, bao.”

Butters wiggled at the praise.

With reluctance Yao released Butters from his coddling and stepped back, allowing the king’s approach towards his service animal. 

Steps hurried down the staircase towards them, the sound bouncing off the walls like a stampede of metal-wearing bison. 

“Time to go,” Arthur said, dragging a sword off an unconscious guard and advancing towards the stairwell, blade tip forward-facing. Yao chose a barbed mace from his own casualty and wasted no time in singing it through the air.

Alfred cringed against Butters’ neck after mounting, listening with unwanted familiarity to the shrieks and groans of wounded men and women. He had blown off many faces in his long career, but avoided violence when he could. 

Right now they could not, and Alfred didn’t bother looking away when he held out two fingers and punctured a soldier through the neck as he and Butters rounded the last turn. 

Ignoring any pain emitting from the base of his amputated leg, Alfred ushered Butters onward, the overgrown puppy smashing a recovering enemy back into the stone as they ascended the stairs behind his queen and jack. 

Arthur’s weapon, guided under the experienced swordsmanship of a centuries-old navy admiral, sliced through Diamond flesh like butter. The queen was momentarily distracted by Yao’s comment and jammed the mental length through a ribcage up to the hilt. 

The soldier’s scream was cut off as blood pooled up her throat and over her teeth, and when yanking went nowhere Arthur pressed one foot against the woman’s side and pushed, orange blood spurting all over him as the body crashed, limp and lifeless. 

“Somehow,” panted Yao mid-run, “I didn’t expect so much blood.”

“We didn’t correctly anticipate enemy numbers,” Arthur nodded. “Either our previous estimations of Fort Shellac were off by hundreds, or Diamonds has since fortified its defense.”

“Fucking Francis,” Arthur grumbled to himself, sweat pouring down from his hairline and mixing with the Diamond blood on his cheek.

In Alfred’s marital opinion, his husband looked actually terrifying- and handsome as heck.

“You better not be,” Alfred laughed. In front of him, Yao groaned in a mix of exasperation and disgust.

“Spare me,” the jack pleaded.

Two pairs of feet and one set of hoofs ran along the fort’s main floor, evading who they could and decommissioning any who they couldn’t with little regard for the permanentness of the blow.

With poor Edison’s admiration for Spades to blame, amassed over weeks of captivity, the three royals utilized their inhumane strength without restraint, bulldozing through room after room, leaving behind a trail of massacred soldiers, heads and limbs and organs soaking the stone floor with orange and yellow blood. Like a line of sheets hung out to dry whipped up by a hurricane, screams tore and ripped themselves out from the throats of the wounded and dying. 

“And that’s why we don’t wear white to the wedding,” Alfred joked at a guard’s white armor soaked through with orange “wine”. General Jones maintained a light mood with breathless chatter and the queen and jack responded in kind.

Anyone watching might express disgust at their attitude, might expect more from such experienced political figures. 

The seasoned monarchs had no reason for suppressing resentment, for the trust broken and their own time wasted and negligent treatment, and did not benefit by acknowledging the graveness of their actions in the moment.

Kidnapping a suit’s royalty was a serious crime, war or no war. It would spell out a dreadful escalation back home. The Spadian monarchs were no wet-behind-the-ear politicians- they were representatives of an empire, with a responsibility to their kingdom above all else.

King Rajesh and Queen Francis would regret their decision, and the first part of Spades’ retribution began with the public condemnation which would befall Diamond royalty when the media caught wind of Fort Shellac’s heavy casualties.

Finally, Yao caught sight of sunlight streaming in through the squares of the portcullis. "सृष्टि डायमंड्स के साम्राज्य और इसे बनाए रखने वाले सभी लोगों को अच्छे अवसर प्रदान करे।, “ said the jack without much relish, quoting from the metal sheet’s engravings. 

Only four women stood guard and they jumped in surprise at the correct spell, frozen with disbelief as the gate lifted.

The moment they advanced, the three royals were gone. Beneath them Butters galloped past, encouraged by Arhur’s remaining strength. They rode mile after mile, thoroughly exhausted by their massive expense of magical energy in so short a time.

The Clock gave them inhumane tolerance, but it would never be enough to keep the strain off their bodies in a fight like that. 

Eventually, Butters’ pace petered until he came to a complete stop on a road.

Arthur and Alfred had passed out against the soft fur off Butters’ back, too exhausted to stay awake.

The weight of Yao’s eyelids threatened him with the same fate, but sleep wasn’t an option until they were with Spadian authorities. 

Thankfully, Spades and Diamonds shared a long boarder and Yao only had to encourage Butters for another hour before a Spadian soldier’s blue armor could be spotted up the road.

She saw them immediately and grabbed her sidearm as she walked up. “Identify yourselves,” she demanded.

Without the energy to even speak, Yao peeled Alfred’s head from between Butters’ ears and used his sleeve to wipe the grime and caked blood from his face.

She recognized her army general immediately, even beneath the thickly remaining dirt, and dropped her weapon to fall to attention.

“Y-your majesties! My deepest, sincerest apologies, I didn’t recognize-,” She stumbled over her words, clearly struggling to find the next course of action.

“It’s fine,��� waved aside the jack, feeling himself losing against consciousness. The woman before him might be a fresh recruit but he could care less. The sparkling spade over her breast was all that mattered.

“Just lead him to the nearest lookout,” Yao pointed to Butters. “Don’t bother waking us up,” Yao said before he slumped like a deck of cards with his king and queen, dead to the world.

[aerodaltonimperial]

Maybe darby and jack getting stuck in an elevator game type situation?

"Let's play another game."

"I'm not playing fucking 'I Spy' again, the last time you made me guess through every fucking button on the—"

"I said another game, Jack. No wonder you sucked so bad at that one."

"... ugh, fine. Whatever. What game."

"Twenty questions. Someone in the company. You can pick first."

"Ugh. Alright."

"Man, woman, or neither?"

"Man."

"Tony Khan."

".... what the fuck?"

"You're so predictable, Jack. My turn. I'm ready."

"I'm gonna fucking murder you when the fire crew gets those damn doors open, you know that, right?"

"I'm gonna count that as your first question. And yes."

"Darby."

"Nineteen left."

"Oh my god. Man, woman, or other?"

"Man. Eighteen left."

"Fuck. Uh... does this person have executive rights in the company?"

"No. Seventeen."

"Jesus. Uh... okay, is this person currently in a stable?"

".... hm. No. Gonna go with no. Sixteen."

"What does that mean, how do you not know?"

"That's another question, by the way. Fifteen left."

"Fuck off, Darby, c'mon."

"Fifteen left. Better make 'em good."

"You counted the last one and didn't answer, you fucking cheat."

"I don't know, because things are unclear. That's the answer."

"That’s... ugh. Does the person actively wrestle?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Is... is this person over the age of 30?"

"No. Thirteen left."

"Do you like this person?"

"Yes."

"Okay, so not Nick. Helpful. Uh... did this person just win the tag belts?"

"No. Eleven left. And you're a dumbass, that means they're in a stable."

"A tag team isn't a stable!"

"Yes, it is!"

"No, it isn't! A tag team is two people, a stable is more than two."

"That’s... no. That's not correct."

"Yes, it is. Those are two distinctly separate things. You can be in both, but they're different."

"You're fucking full of shit—"

"Darby, the Bucks were a tag team. And they were also in the Elite. Two different things."

"...fuck. Fine. I'll give you that. No, did not just win the tag belts."

"Jackass. Uh... okay. Do... do they actually get booked on Dynamite?"

"Ouch. Yes. Ten left."

"Is... Moxley currently trying to kill them?"

"... no. Nine left."

"C'mon, there aren't even that many people who fit this description. You like them? That's like two people max. Are you talking about Sting, because he doesn't count anymore."

"No, I'm not. Eight left."

"Darby!"

"You suck at this game, Jack. Keep going or give up. And if you give up, by the way, I'm not gonna tell you who it was."

"Fuck you. Not a question, don't even think about it. Fine. Uh... shit. No one qualifies here. Does... uh, does this person hold a belt?"

"... yes. Seven left."

"But... there's no one who matches this! You said they didn't just win the tag belts, so... I mean, is it Pac? But he's sort of in the Deathriders, so—"

"It's not Pac. I hate Pac. Six left."

"What the fuck. I don't... there's no other belts. Takeshita is clearly in a stable, and so is Mox, and so the only other..."

"... I don't hear a question."

"Did... did you pick me?"

"Yes. And look at that: you still had five questions left."

"No, you... you said you like the person. You said that."

"I didn't lie."

"What? Darby, we tried to murder each other! You can't just—"

"I didn't fucking lie, Jack. You were the one who put the emphasis on the word."

"The emphasis on... on what word, the word like?"

"Seems like what I'm talking about, doesn't it?"

"As in... hold on, as in you like me like me?"

"Hm."

"... Darby."

"Hey. Fire crew is here, I can hear them on the other side."

"No. No, you can't... you have to explain this."

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do! You can't just drop that bomb and fucking run, that's not... Darby, what the fuck?"

"What? Yeah, we're stuck in here. The doors half open should be fine, we can slip out."

"No, no, no, listen; stop. We need five more minutes!"

"Why are you telling them to stop, it's been over an hour."

"Five minutes! Darby. What the fuck?"

"I think you're out of questions now, Jack."

"All I have are questions now. Holy shit. When were you—?"

"When was I, what, gonna tell you? Ideally never, but guess I'm an idiot when trapped in elevators."

"... what do you mean never, why would—"

"Yeah, just a little bit wider would be perfect. We can shimmy right out."

"We cannot shimmy out. Darby! You are not running after this."

"Oh, I'm very fast; watch me."

"Fuck off, no. No. I'm not letting you just walk away from this like you didn't detonate everything. Fuck you. We are going to talk about this."

"I can't think of anything I want to do less than get yelled at by—"

"We are going to talk about this without clothes on. Pretend you guys didn't just hear that, thanks."

"... Jack."

"Get your dumbass shimmied out those doors before I tear that fucking pink coat off of you, so help me."

"Oh, I'll help you, alright."

"Go!"

"You're so bossy. It's fucking hot as shit."

"Darby!"

"Going, going, jeez."

[yzafre]

it could've been so good - a possible interpretation and extrapolation of 2012 April O'Neil

So, 2012 makes me want to take every character apart and put them back together like a jigsaw puzzle.  The characterization drives me crazy because like.  It’s messy but not entirely incoherent.  It’s like... someone was making a bracelet and picked out a bunch of matching or complementary beads, but then just left them scattered on the table instead of finishing stringing them up.

Similarly, 2012 puts a lot of fascinating character moments on the table but then doesn’t really... do anything with them, or thread them together with any kind of intent, and it makes me insane. 

So this is me, frantically putting my own strings between them like a conspiracy board.  I’ll probably end up meandering through most of the main cast but we are STARTING with April because I’ve already alluded to my thoughts on her in a couple posts. 

And I know, I know, it’s always easy to talk shit and say “they should have done this” in hindsight - and it very much seems like the writers just.  Didn’t know what to do with her for a long time? 

But if you look at the scenes/episodes she’s given, you have the skeleton of an interesting character arc focusing on the desire for agency and control over your life, chasing strength/power, and the difference between the two.

Starting point

Okay, we’re going to start with two key themes I’ve found and go from there: April’s desire to become a ninja, and her whole family-kraang situation.

When it comes to April and fighting, one of the first things I noticed was this exchange between April and Splinter, when he offers to train her:

“If I do this… does that mean I can kick everybody’s butt?”

And then, when Splinter is against it: “Oh yeah, me neither… but I could, right?”

That is the attitude of someone who wants to fight – and not only fight, but to win.  To beat others.  That was… interesting.

We also see, as time goes by, that – when the writers remember to include her – she wants to be involved.  To a reckless degree.

Metalhead: she set up her own research avenue, gathering information on Krang sightings.  Then she immediately goes to sneak in, even though the turtles can’t go out yet – and has her own mini-adventure!

Panic in the Sewers: she approaches the Purple Dragons with the pizza plan of her own accord.  She volunteers to spy on the meeting with the Shredder the moment the turtles look to be giving up – even when they are very against it – and keeps going when her first plan doesn’t work.

In the next season, after she’s been training for a while, you have the Kraang Conspiracy (incidentally, where she gets a big lore dump about her family’s connection to the kraang): she’s trying to get involved in their training/missions, upset about not being able to keep up -  she refused to be left behind to wait “like some stupid sidekick”.

“I want in on the action, too.”

She’s not theatrically bombastic about it as Casey is, but… She wants to be in the game so bad.  She is consistently frustrated when left behind, when reminded of ways she can’t keep up.  She volunteers herself to get involved, even against the turtle’s recommendations at times.  Insists on it.

This continues even as she improves, as she’s more often on the team – look at City at War in season 4.  April is so thrilled to finally be a “full fledged ninja”, but frustrated when Raph points out how much further she has to go, and does not deal well with being defeated by Shinigami so easily.  First it’s simply self-doubt, yes, but when she sees Shinigami again there is impulsiveness and anger. (yes there is some influence by the Aeon crystal here, BUT).

((Also sidenote, it was also Raph who specifically brought up time spent training with Splinter, and what it takes, back in the Kraang Conspiracy.))

((Also also, don’t love the cattiness/pitting girls against each other way this episode is written.  But for the observation section we use what we’ve got.  Sigh.))

All of this put together: they are giving April a very active, driven personality, who is interested in being able to fight, being involved with taking on the bad guys, and being a main player in confronting the world around her.

HOWEVER – she's often only middling-levels of successful, when she’s not side-lined.  It’s a show about the turtles, so they have to save the day, right? ....right? no

Now, the other half of her we’ve got to talk about is her, the kraang, and all the effects that has on her family.

When we start the show, her mom’s already gone, and it’s just her and her dad – thus why she ends up staying with an Aunt.  We don’t know it yet, but that’s important.

So, she loses her father in the pilot – it's how she meets the turtles, why she continues to interact with them (and at this point from the writing it’s not entirely convincing she would stay in touch otherwise – to me Mikey's “You have to like us” comment feels very real, early on).

She gets her dad back, but he’s compromised, leading to events in the Season 1 finale.

((Not her family, but the one “normal” friend we see her with turns out to be a Kraang in disguise, so like.  That’s also interference in her life.))

Season 2 opener, she loses him again – this time to mutation.  Her hallucination in the fear mushrooms episode was about bats/her father, remember, so the state of her father is front and center for her – and with only one parent, why wouldn’t it be?

When they cure that, it’s not long until the invasion.  And he gets mutated again, left behind with the rest of New York.

We found out her family line – her mother specifically – was part of a project by the Kraang.  April is the end result of this genetic manipulation, a tool to finish their goals.

These are all things that are done to her, which she has no control over.

So, we get an (ostensibly, when April isn’t being put on the shelf by the narrative) active personality, contrasted against plot developments in which things keep happening to her.

These are the two rocks I’m banging together to create the lens I’ll be interpreting her character through.

What do you do when your fate is never in your hands?

So, let’s go back to the beginning, and let me show you the context I’m looking at:

You are a smart, promising, self-motivated girl, who despite the loss of a parent has a generally good life.

And then you get attacked, and though you are rescued your father is not, and despite your best efforts, there’s nothing you can do about it.  You’re helpless, largely having to depend on these strangers to save your future.

But then you get the offer for martial arts training – you can learn to fight back.  Where you have been made powerless, you can reclaim power.

As you go deeper in the rabbit hole, you learn more truths – you have a strange power, the enemy is somehow connected to your lost mother, your very DNA has bene tampered with, your fate altered for someone else’s benefit before you could even walk.

You get your father back – he's mutated again.  You cure him – he's lost to an invasion.

You can’t do anything about it.

You find out the real truth of how the Kraang stole your mother from you.  More ways you never had control of your life, your fate – how everything about you was manufactured, out of your control.

You keep trying to get stronger.

And yet, despite your best efforts, you keep getting left behind.  This entire situation has to deal with you: your life, your father, your history – but they keep saying: you can’t keep up.  Your best is not enough

Even when you finally graduate, you’re met with reminders of how much further there’s left to go.  You’re met with enemies who are better than you, who you can’t defeat.

You keep trying to get stronger but it’s never enough.

…hey, The Power Inside Her is making more sense now, isn’t it?

((Aren’t you tired of being nice?  Don’t you want to go ape shit?))

Even the trope that she occasionally touches on – which generally annoys me – of “character who is clearly unqualified tries to force their way into the mission” gets a different view to it, because it’s not about a generic “want to be included” or “but I am good” (you are not).  It’s... it’s this tension of “my agency keeps getting stolen from me, so I’m resisting when people tell me no to something that will let me get it back”.

Now, to be clear, I don’t think this connection was well executed – and I’m extremely skeptical whether it was even intentional, but you can make the connections if you want to, and isn’t it interesting?

Where could we go with this?

This is the extrapolating section, and is admittedly just a fun thought experiment for me to indulge myself with – but if the story were to take this direction more explicitly, what could you do with it?

First off, to make anything work, you need to let the POV sit with April and her grief occasionally.  Show her away from the turtles, how she’s handling the change in her living situation, and also how losing her Mom young affected her/is currently impacting her.

To adapt the story we already have, I think you could lean into her not being personally invested in the turtles early on – her focus is on getting her father and her life back.  It’s not that she dislikes them, it’s just her headspace isn’t in the “make friends” mindset – they're co-workers or team-mates, not real friends.

(Of course, that’s not going to hold up, long-term.  Genuine affection for them starts slipping in when she’s not looking – but it’s always competing with her focus on her dad, and will frequently lose to it.)

I think you could – probably mostly in season 1 – make some interesting tension between her acting with a sort of professional distance, versus the turtles (maybe minus Raph?  He was always the most skeptical of humans) wanting to make a friend for the first time.  You’d have to actually dedicate time in the episodes for relationship writing rather than just the plot, but it could be done!

Then, the period where she splits from the turtles at the beginning of season two could be a really make-or-break moment of clarity.  Her (mostly subconscious!) view of “turtles as tool to regain what she cares about” vs the honest affection for them that snuck up on her.  Grappling with the way her anger is complex and misplaced – she's angry this keeps happening, that she’s involved with this at all – angry because – even if she can’t put this into words – the turtles were supposed to be the thing that makes this better and now they made it worse.

Again, you need the camera to be on April more for this to pan out in any kind of sympathetic way!  Show the empty spaces where her Dad should be once more, show her thinking about/instinctively reaching out for the turtles for little social things, but then stumbling over it.  You gotta show how she’s feeling about the separation and not make it all about Donnie.

So when she comes back it’s a firm choice on her part to move past (a part of) her issues – and yes, you can still have Casey Jones be the one to hit her over the head with this emotional revelation, I liked their interactions in that episode.

Jumping tracks, this interpretation is also a big part of why I think she should have been positioned as closer to Leo, rather than Donnie (apart from just giving her some space from the love triangle).

Of the turtles, Leo is the most invested in The Plot – and April is obviously personally invested in the Kraang side of it.

Beyond that, April shows investment in getting better as a fighter.  Who else values improving their martial arts?  That’s right, Leo.  And April’s quitter than Casey, enough that I think she’d be interested in discussing some of the more philosophical parts of it that Leo likes, you know?  What it means to be a ninja, or whatever.

Under this paradigm, I think they both would exhibit a.... a demeanor of responsibility?  Feeling the weight of importance of dedicating yourself to getting better?  But their underlying reasons are a bit different.

Leo has the burden of being a leader – and the tension he feels with the weight of it, wanting to be able to let loose, to do something just for him. ((Not to mention living up to Splinter’s expectations.))

April is desperate to get her agency her father back.  In this circumstance it would have this feeling of... if she’s just strong enough, she can fix it all.  She can prevent it from happening again.  She can control her life.  Even when she moves past the subconscious “the turtles are supposed to fix it”, it instead could move on to an equally subconscious, “if I’m strong enough it will fix this”.

And – okay go with me here – I think this has April showing vaguely Leo-esque behavior, with a vaguely Raph-esque reason.  And that tension/dynamic could be fascinating.

I haven’t really seen a lot of talk about April being angry – other than I think I’ve seen some bashing takes of her being “bitchy” in the worst sense – but.. she kind of is, isn’t she?  Just a bit?  And with this interpretation you take it and let it run deep underneath it all.

She is angry and doesn’t realize the depths of it.  She is hanging all her hopes on martial arts giving her control back over her life and doesn’t realize how desperate she is for it.

With that, you could do some really interesting things of having her be close with Leo, have him think he understands her... but as she begins to crack, and everything she’s been repressing starts spilling out, have Raph start recognizing parts of himself in her, gaining understanding of her while Leo is still floundering.

I think it would add some texture and push growth for all three characters!

...and, -sigh-, if we’re going to talk about the love triangle.  You could look at the mess with “the boys fighting over her and making moves in uncomfortable ways” (she can’t control them, its confining, she needs the turtles to like her early on) for some thematic relevance – perhaps with a hint of “trying to gain back control, she begins to try and manipulate/control their reactions/affections”?  Not particularly healthy, mind you, but it could be done to make it more of a clusterfuck all around.

But honestly if it has to be here, I would prefer for it to just affect Donnie’s development and be more of a background thing to April while she focuses on all the above aspects.  Her biggest actions would be just trying to dodge it all, until she shuts it down for good, given she seems generally uninterested.

So, there’s my emotional conspiracy board on April O’Niel.  Obviously with this level of interpretation (and blatant re-writing) it’s a subjective, YMMV type thing, but I think the groundwork is there. 

And it could have been so good.

[behindthesoul]

MK Characters and Thanksgiving

Masterlist

Note: Happy Thanksgiving to those who celebrate! I figured I should post something for the holiday. This is also my announcement to let everyone know it’s time to send in the Christmas/winter themed requests!! <3

Characters: Johnny Cage, Liu Kang, Raiden, Kenshi, Kung Lao, Ashrah, Syzoth.

Warnings: Food and alcohol mentions

Note: This is all based on things my family and I do/have done for Thanksgiving.

Johnny Cage

His own family is kind of ehhh so he jumps at the opportunity to host his new pals for Thanksgiving. He’s happy to be the one to introduce the holiday to the non-Americans/non-Earthrealmers. Can’t cook for shit so most of the food is catered, but he does know Grandma Carlton’s apple pie recipe by heart and tries to make it himself. Surprisingly, he isn’t bad at cooking.

He shows everyone the classic special A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. It’s important for everyone to view the cartoon that shaped his childhood. Has the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade on TV and later watches the Cowboys, Lions, and whatever other NFL teams play that day.

Johnny Cage is your stereotypical American whose favorite dish is apple pie.

Liu Kang

Says he’s only coming to show his face and wish everyone a happy holiday but he truly wants to be there. It brings him a sense of nostalgia and comfort. Johnny Cage from his timeline used to throw holiday gatherings. Seeing everyone together “again” is bittersweet. He’s emotional, sad that he’ll never see his buddies again. No one could ever tell what he’s feeling; Liu Kang has mastered stoicism.

As a god, he doesn’t feel hunger, nor does he eat much. He may try a few bites of something after Johnny nudges him to, only out of sheer politeness. Liu Kang prefers watching everyone else eat and talk to each other. Everyone’s happy, Earthrealm’s at peace, he’s happy.

Liu Kang thought the turkey was fine, even if it was a bit dry.

Raiden

Accepted the invitation immediately. Enjoys what Thanksgiving is supposed to represent, a little miffed to see no cares about that; only the food. Tries to instill gratefulness in the get together. Makes everyone go around and say what they’re grateful for. Probably stands up and gives a speech about how he’s grateful for Lord Liu Kang and his new allies. It would be annoying if it was anyone else lmfao.

Tries almost everything just to be nice but mostly eats food he’s used to. Can’t blame a guy for having his likes! Raiden eats until he’s full. He’s the one telling Kung Lao to not take so much food so everyone else can have some. Raiden talks to all of his friends but probably sticks to Liu Kang and Kung Lao. It’s just natural for him.

Raiden liked the mashed potatoes.

Kenshi

Wanted to leave Sento at home so Johnny wouldn’t get ideas but…he also needed to “see” so Sento was brought to the event. He just made sure to keep it far away from Johnny. Probably shows up with alcohol.

Only eats “normal” food. Anything that looks like it came out of Johnny’s imagination will not be consumed by Kenshi. Like Raiden, he only eats a modest amount. Most of his time is spent bantering with the others. Jokingly says no when Johnny asks if he wants to come back next year. He definitely will though.

Kenshi liked the alcohol he brought the sweet potatoes with the little marshmallows on top.

Kung Lao

Is the one who eats several plates of food and packs several to-go plates. Almost starts a drinking contest with Johnny but is stopped by several people. Just decided to postpone the drinking contest to another day. He’ll bet on the NFL games with Raiden. Neither of them know what the hell is going on. Gloats when his team wins.

Tells Johnny what food he wants to see next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. Promises to ask Madam Bo to make some food to bring to the next Thanksgiving. He and Johnny have the next 10 years planned out.

His favorite dish is probably something savory like roast beef.

Ashrah

Delighted to be invited to a group event. She never expected to have a home, Ashrah is forever grateful to Earthrealm for letting her in. She’s very happy to have her first taste at an Earthrealm holiday. Ashrah shows up bright and early! She and Johnny watch the Thanksgiving parade together. There’s a childlike gleam in her eyes when she sees all the balloons. She also watches the football games on TV. Not because she particularly cares about it, but because she wants to participate in all the traditions.

Ashrah tries each dish but can’t find one she likes more than the others. All the new textures and tastes are a bit overwhelming, so she passes on the opportunity to try more. Maybe next year!

Ashrah doesn’t have a favorite dish, she still has to get used to Earthrealm food.

Syzoth

Same as Ashrah - he’s just happy to be there. Spends most of his time talking to others…and by “others,” I mean Ashrah. The food is hot and makes the air slightly warm. It makes Syzoth incredibly happy. He’ll come back every year just to feel the warmth in Johnny’s house.

Syzoth can’t stomach human food. His stomach rejects food by giving him intense pains. It usually doesn’t bother him, but today he’s a bit upset. Everything smells nice! He wants to try everything :(

Maybe someday Syzoth will be able to handle human foods.

[aerowolf]

How Medic Had VHS Tapes Before They Were Allegedly Invented

Emesis Blue, the psychological horror film based off of the hit first-person shooter game, Team Fortress 2, created by the studio Valve, is by all accounts an odd and unexpected masterpiece of film. Though most are set on explaining various time loops and the ending, I am not. Regardless of the fact that I understood neither of those things, I have arrived with a theory of my own. Because I have spiralled into a chaotic mode of over-analysis, specifically over a scene which is, at best, five seconds long. Should you choose to follow me and indulge in my delusions, I can guarantee you that I have something that may not interest you, but is long and heavily interests me.

PART I: WHY AM I LIKE THIS?

I’m literally neurodivergent and a minor. I have no answers for you. Moving on.

PART II: HOW COULD MEDIC HAVE VHS BEFORE IT EXISTED?

The point of this over analytical essay is to discuss why the Medic, also known as Doctor Fritz Ludwig, would have access to VHS tapes in a time when they did not in fact exist at all. The film is set on halloween--October 31, 1968. VHS tapes were not widely available to the public until 1976, and it is said that the development of VHS began sometime in 1969. Neither of these facts account for Medic’s possession of them. So where did he get them from?

We can begin by breaking down what they are and who made them.

These two images clearly display some of the VHS tapes which fell out of the box during the first couple of scenes of Emesis Blue. They are labelled “das grinsende gesicht” and “der könig in gelb.” These translate to “The Grinning Face” and “The King in Yellow,” both of which are pieces of media. The former is a silent German horror film released in 1929, and the latter appears to be the German translation of the title of a collection of short stories written by Robert W. Chambers. The title is also the title of a play within the collection which is said to drive anyone who reads it mad. However, the latter was never made into film. This information, while interesting, is not really important to my theory. But now you know. There’s symbolism to it of course.

Now, these tapes are clearly marked with the Mann Co. logo. This infers that they are produced and distributed by Mann Co. Considering their involvement in covert operations, projects, and their possible or perhaps even outright government connections, it is possible that Mann Co. invented or at least had production access to VHS before anyone knew about it. Perhaps they had a reason for holding them back? The box in his office is full, but it is not the

largest collection it could be, and it appears to be a mix of both legitimate or pseudo-legitimate films and personal or corporate videos. Considering the fact that VHS tapes are only seen in Ludwig’s possession, and that they contain the Mann Co. logo, it is safe to assume that they are produced by Mann Co. and solely distributed to those employed by them.

This offers a simple explanation as to why Medic has them before they should have existed. Mann Co. is not known for their transparency, often keeping things secret, even things that would objectively change the world. However, this does not offer an explanation as to what happened that led to the public release of VHS afterwards. So this brings us to our next section….

PART III: HOW AND WHY DID VHS BECOME WIDESPREAD?

It is said that production and development of the VHS began in 1969. Over the course of Emesis Blue, the Mann brothers, Redmon and Blutarch, are murdered. This occurs sometime in early November 1968--likely specifically November 3, as the agent who debriefs Soldier at the end of Emesis Blue--Agent Stemmons--mentions to him that the funeral of Governor Archibald is on Sunday. Assuming that this debriefing takes place directly after the events of halloween 1968, which fell on a Thursday, that leaves November 3 as the most likely date.

Seeing as the Mann brothers are now dead, and as there is no mention of Gray Mann interfering with the rest of this plot, it’s possible that Mann Co. is now disbanded, leaving them no means by which to distribute this technology. It’s then highly possible that the sole survivor of the Conagher slaughterhouse, Soldier, also known as Jane Doe, is the one who brought VHS to the world. While it is also possible that Gray could have done it, we’ll assume he doesn’t even exist in this universe, as his role is noncritical to it,

Here is how Jane could have single handedly brought VHS to the rest of the world.

Scarred by the events of October 31, 1968, he decided that the VHS tapes invented by Mann Co were actually a useful invention, and that the public should have access to them. After the death of the Mann brothers he tried to spread them and rebrand them, but quickly learned that they had some form of mind control within. This led to him bringing some of the tapes to a group who could disable this feature. However, that in turn led to them having to be completely redesigned, as the manipulation was ingrained too deeply into their design, which hence explains the delay of them being released widespread. VHS was first publicly released in Japan in 1976, which also points to the group Jane went to being Japanese. Shortly after, in 1977, VHS was also released in the United States.

And that is the story of how Team Fortress 2’s Soldier single handedly caused the public release of the VHS technology across the world.

[dogshit-enchantment]

okay i was joking about writing an essay about Cid and while i don't have the brain power or time to do all that, i will expound my thoughts on his relationship with Shera. They're coworkers, first and foremost. She's a rocket scientist assigned by Shinra to stay in Rocket Town and help with the space program. Why exactly she lives with Cid is ??? I don't know if it's ever explained or if its just a matter of them being roommates. Regardless.

I will state that it is wrong that Cid yells at her, but in the same instance I will also say that she herself is also in the wrong for what she did. She's supposed to be a professional in charge of checking equipment and making sure it's all working as it should, and when she notices a problem she doesn't say anything. She doesn't tell anyone and get the launch delayed, she doesn't tell Cid so he can stall for time, she instead decides 'yeah I don't care if I die' and silently continues working while within the blast zone. The scene of the launch gets translated as "Are you trying to make me a murderer, Shera?!" because that's how Cid assumes it to be: She is trying to commit suicide by his fucking hand. That would make anyone fucking pissed off. Imagine having to live with someone who tried to get you to tie their fucking noose. Yeah, he probably shouldn't be yelling at her and it's shitty that he does and they should talk it out, but how realistic is that? They don't have therapists at Shinra, and they sure as hell don't have therapists in the boonies. Cid copes by chain smoking and holding onto hope that the one thing that almost destroyed both of their lives will still come to fruition. And it does, and Shera is still fucking there, and it come full circle with the oxygen tank exploding and almost fucking killing him. Her failure to alert others almost cost Shera her life and almost cost Cid his life on two fucking occasions. Neither of them are blameless, and even the small "sorry" when he's trapped under shrapnel is monumental. He knows he's being too much, but what the fuck else is he gonna do?

Clearly they make amends and become better friends considering in Advent Children he names his newest ship after her and in DoC apparently they get married??? (I don't agree with that one but its at least something to show that he did finally make it to the other side of like, all that)

Cid went through the trauma of almost killing his fucking coworker/roommate/friend because she wouldn't speak up, lashes out because of that trauma and the fact that her inaction cost everyone on that team the hope of space, not just himself. He's flawed and he's aggressive, but he comes around, he makes the effort, and most of all he cares, whether the people around him want him to or not.

Shera is not entirely blameless and Cid is not off the hook by any means, they both got issues and they both need therapy but alas, they are video game characters and this is all just bullet points to make the plot go forward.

me, a liar: I'm not gonna write an essay about Cid >proceeds to write a mini essay about him instead of doing whatever the fuck else i was doing with my day

[diemannschaftblr]

@/iMiaSanMia: Julian Nagelsmann: "Ilkay Gündogan remains captain. But Manu's word will continue to have weight. The captain is intended to be a contact point for his teammates. Players should feel like they have a leader in their ranks. He’s a representative of the team"

On Hummels being dropped: Mats hasn’t played as much recently as before. We now have a different system and one less centre-back. There are currently other players there. I don't see Mats as the ideal choice. It’s not always just about finding the best players, but perhaps simply the most suitable ones.

On who will start in goal in the next two games: We will have a conversation with both of them [Neuer and ter Stegen] - and then decide.

On dropping Goretzka: The decision was not between Pavlović and Leon. Leon's last few games have been much better, that's right. It's about finding the right players for the roles, I see other players ahead at the moment. We had others in mind. Through very good performance and an understanding of the role, the door is not closed. It wasn’t a pleasant conversation [with Goretzka], as you can imagine, but you have to make decisions.

On Pavlović: He has shown very strong performances recently. He was one of the best players at Bayern. Of course this was not a political decision. We didn't have to convince him. That was the consequence of the performance principle. We'll see whether it'll be enough for the Euros. He talks in the dressing room and doesn’t hide despite his young age.

On his future: I currently have a contract with the DFB until after the European Championships. I don't have any other contract available. My full focus is on the European Championships and the national team.

But, Nagelsmann is definitely thinking about his future: I would advise that to anyone whose contract is about to expire.

On Thomas Müller: He’s been playing a lot recently. He knows what his role is, he knows what importance he can have in each role. Thomas could also settle for a spot off the bench. He already knows the role at FC Bayern. Thomas is a player who also has a role off the pitch. He is an intelligent player who doesn’t focus on himself but on the team.

On Kroos' comeback: He is very important, but also not the sole savior. He knows what he can do. On the other hand, he also knows what he can't do. He has a very good instinct, a good calmness. He can be a brilliant link between defense and attack. There is always this expression in Germany “Querpass-Toni” [sideways pass Toni] - Anyone who says that knows nothing about football. I'm extremely happy that after many conversations I persuaded him to come back. I give him credit for that.

On 4 Stuttgart players called up: That’s also momentum. This year they are doing very, very well. I could have called two or three more from VfB. Waldemar Anton is a very good defender, also with an offensive urge. He won't demand to play every game from the start, but he'll still give it his all. Maxi Mittelstädt is currently the most stable left-back in the Bundesliga. Statistically speaking, he is by far the best left-back in the Bundesliga. Chris Führich is an extremely valuable player, with 1v1 and good finishing, that can be key if we need a goal. Deniz Undav has a great ability to read spaces. He runs a lot, is hard-working and has a good nose for goal.

On Jan-Niklas Beste: He can play an offensive role but also at the back and can play left-back without any problems. Plus he is an exceptional set piece taker. He deserved the nomination with the goal involvments he has.

Nagelsmann says Rüdiger and Tah will be the starting CB duo: Toni and Jona are initially the starters in central defense. They can confirm this through good performances.

On BVB players (except Füllkrug) being dropped: The assessment is not always about talent. I spoke to Edin (Terzic) and Sebastian Kehl on the phone, I can imagine that neither of them are happy. I think other players have better momentum. Everyone knows what it will take to get back in. From the discussions we had, they know what is missing so that they can be called up for the Euros. The player decides at the end. I’m just the executive body. Julian Brandt was a tough decision, Führich probably has the better momentum at the moment.

[brightlight-dazzlingeyes]

between the lines | chapter 02

rúben dias x original female character [+18]

synopsis: isabella is a sports journalist covering the premier league. she has sworn to never get involved with a football player. that is, until she meets a handsome portuguese defender. warnings: incorrect journalism references; timeline of events are not faithful to real life; i have never been to england; mutual pining; romantic comedy;  minors dni.

previous chapter | masterlist | next chapter

Chapter 02 — There’s only one F in Fulham

The very first Premier League game that I’ve covered was at Craven Cottage; it was a sunny day on the riverside and the home team tied with Liverpool, 2-2, on the first matchday of the season. Ever since then I’ve held an over sentimental feeling for the Fulham stadium and the press boxes where you can’t really see the field thanks to the structure poles. On colder days, the Cottage is not as charming and I’m reminded that I actually chose to work in England so I just have to deal with it.

Regardless of the weather, it was always nice to watch City play on a Sunday. Makes the rest of the week feel normal. Melissa, who accompanied me on the way in and on the way out, was having a great day planning what I should wear and what kind of makeup I should put on for my date the next day.

“You have to shave. Full brazilian!" She said, way too loudly, as we were leaving the stadium.

“It’s a first date with a stranger.” I emphasize.

“You never know, honey, better to be prepared.”

She lent me a red dress and a pair of black Louboutins, and it took hours for me to convince myself to wear them. I do look hot, the type of ‘hot’ I'm constantly trying to avoid looking given the circumstances of my job. The dress is tight on the top, with thin straps and it flows to right above my knees.

“Oh my god, I feel like I’ve been standing here for three years.” I speak to myself in the mirror. It was almost time to leave and I didn’t have a second outfit option. Alright, what did Mel say? I’m interesting? I can fix Chelsea? Yes, I can wear a red dress and go on a date. Okay. I call an Uber. It was a penthouse restaurant, and we were supposed to meet at the table. To my surprise, when I reached the elevator, the last person on earth I wanted to see at that moment, was right by my side.

“Oh. Hi.”

“Hi, Isa!”

We both look at the elevator and then back at each other, as if we were waiting for the other to make a move. Neither of us do. Instead, Rúben says:

“I didn’t see you yesterday.”

“Oh, yeah, I was interviewing the Fulham players.”

“You should be interviewing the winners.” He smirks and I smile at him. He looks at me from head to toe and I glance back to the elevator, embarrassed. 

We both decide, at the same time, to press the button. Our hands touch. Barely, but they do. I pull my hand away from him immediately, on instinct, and I hear myself gasping. My face is bright red and the situation becomes even more awkward because I realize he had the exact same reaction as I had. So I stare at him, partially waiting for him to smile again and tell me another joke, partially waiting for him to mock me and reject me. But he just stares right back. The interaction lasted for less than a minute, maybe less than a second, maybe for just a moment. The elevator door opens up and I’m just standing there wondering who the hell pressed the button.

“I think we’re supposed to go in.” Rúben says holding the door open.

We walk in together and I know for a fact that my face matches the color of my dress. I try to avoid looking at him or thinking about how hot he looks. Is he here for a date also? Well, fuck me. At least it is a pretty big space, there’s no way we’re seating close to each other. Right? We don’t say another word to each other until the door opens again, finally at the restaurant entrance hall.

“I hope you have fun on your date.” Rúben is not really looking at me when he says that.

“You too.” I reply and we finally make eye contact again. He shakes his head.

“Oh, no. I’m not on a date. It’s a business lunch.”

“Okay, have fun on your business then.” I wink at him and he smiles, agreeing.

We go search for our tables and of course, of course, we are sitting close to each other. In the horrible angle where I could, if I wanted, to spend the entire lunch just looking at him. I won’t do it, of course, but it pisses me off that I could. Sexy doctor is very sexy in real life so my anger lessens for a second.

“Hi.”

“Hi, you must be Isabella!” 

He has a beautiful voice. We shake hands and start to make small talk. About my sister-in-law and my little niece, about the weather and what it's like to live in Manchester. I have to hold back and not just straight up point at the table at the back to our left and say: ‘Hey, Rúben Dias is sitting right there. And yes, I have a crush on him. So this date is going great.’ Instead I just nod and listen to him talk about his work. Are business lunches supposed to last longer than a date lunch? Who knows, but my brain just turned that into a competition. I’m not leaving this table until he leaves. I’ll show him, for some reason, that I’m having more fun than he is. Fuck, what’s the name of sexy doctor? 

“Turns out it was a racoon the whole time!” He laughs and I accompany him, even though I completely lost the start of the story. “Can you believe it?”

"Unbelievable!" I’m still laughing with him. “A racoon!”

Our order arrives and thank God for inventing the culinary arts. The food is delicious and, at least while I’m eating, everything else seems unimportant. I decided to try once again. He seems like a nice guy and he could be funny if I paid attention to what he was saying. So I excuse myself to the bathroom and text Sienna.

Isabella: girl  whats sexy doctor called?? help

Sienna: oh my god his name is peter warren lol

As I walk back to the table I make the mistake of making eye contact with Rúben. He smiles at me, that handsome jerk, and I smile back, instinctively. When I sit down, I’m blushing again. Peter Warren, huh?

“Sienna told me it was your favorite restaurant.” Peter says.

“Yes, it is!”

“I’m loving it, honestly, the food is heavenly. How did you find out about it?”

He asks and I have to physically hold myself back from facepalming. “Oh. It was through work. I come here a lot with my colleagues.” I answer. Yes, me, my colleagues and literally everyone in Manchester that works with football comes to this restaurant. What an idiot, why did I agree to come here on a date? You know what, at least, is Rúben. It could have been my boss seeing me in this dress. I relax with the realization.

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it, Peter!” I speak, casually making him aware that I know his name.

“We could go to my favorite restaurant next? I mean, as far as blind dating goes, I feel like this is worth a second date?”

“The racoon story definitely earned you a second date.”

Peter laughs loudly when I say that. I really wish I understood the context, though. We’re having dessert and as I look over, Rúben is still talking with God knows who, his agent, maybe? They don’t seem like the’yre leaving the table anytime soon. So I convince Peter that I always order a second dessert, that is a tradition. That buys me more time. Rúben gets up to leave when I’m in the middle of my second tiramisu slice.

As he leaves, I look at him again. Just to make sure, I guess. But he notices, and waves goodbye. Handsome and polite jerk. I can’t help waving back at him, and of course Peter notices.

“You know him?” He asks.

“Just a football player.” 

I take another bite.

Mel: so how was the date?

Isabella: terrible but we already agreed on the second one

Mel: did you kiss :(

Isabella: no but he shook my hand? is that something?

Mel: :(

[polyabathtub]

Harley-Foerster primer

Making my case for why you should ship these two rookies

Tyson Foerster

He’s a rookie on the Flyers with really excellent advanced stats, whatever that means. He had a slow start to his season, but he stayed positive, and he recently hit his stride. Lately he’s been scoring a ton of goals:

All of his cellies are just him flinging his arms up in the air in pure joy. He is almost always smiling.

He cares about his teammates and doesn't like beating them even in pointless competitions.

In this clip, Tyson wins a meaningless accuracy shooting competition against Cam York and a few other Flyers. When asked how it feels, Tyson answers "not good, he's my teammate." We love a professional athlete who just wants to have fun with the boys.

When he isn't smiling, he's extremely expressive:

He has a well-documented history of frolicking

Also one time he dressed up as a playboy bunny. How that alone has not yet launched 1000 fics, I do not know.

So: Tyson Foerster is a sweet ball of sunshine and an A+ goal scorer, secure in himself and his masculinity.

Thomas Harley

From Syracuse NY, he’s the star (heh) rookie defenseman of the Dallas Stars. 

We love him because he's a total babe and also very good at hockey.

He was highlighted on the NHL Network for leap year as a player who's taken a bit leap forward.

drysdalc on Twitter created a dizzying fan edit of him scoring goals and running his hands through his hair, if you'd like further justification.

Personality-wise, The Athletic said the following:

"Harley has always been a soft-spoken individual, especially in front of the microphone. There’s a looser version of him, one who picks playful fights with Wyatt Johnston in practices and during warmups, as he did on Saturday. But the most impressive thing about Harley has always been his maturity."

Sometimes he looks a bit deer-in-the-headlights during interviews. In my opinion this only adds to his charm.

Foerster/Harley

I hope I've convinced you that they're both at the very least plausibly nice boys. But why the two of them together?

I invite you to cast your thoughts back to September 27th, 2019. Harley is a recent draftee of the Dallas Stars. He played a few pre-season games, then was sent back to the Mississauga Steelheads of the OHL.

He gets off the plane and immediately plays a game against the Oshawa Generals, which he loses 5-6. The very next day, he plays another game, this time against the Barrie Colts. Thomas's team loses again, 7-3.

That season, Tyson Foerster was playing on the Colts. In that 7-3 game, Tyson recorded 6 points, including 3 goals.

"Foerster put himself squarely on the draft map on a late September day against the Mississauga Steelheads. He recorded six points including a hat trick. Then he went on a crazy point streak recording points in 13 straight games which including six consecutive multi-point efforts." - The Athletic

See? Huge deal for Foerster, and he got there by absolutely grinding Thomas's team into the dirt.

Thomas responded aggressively the next time their teams played each other, on 12/20/2019. In that game, Harley recorded two points and two assists, and the Steelheads beat the Colts 8-2. They played a few more times, including an overtime win for the Colts and an 8-1 Steelheads win.

After that season, Harley and Foerster didn't face each other again, as they both spent time in the minors. But this year, they're full time with their respective clubs. The Flyers and Stars have played two games this year.

The first, on October 21st, 2023, went to overtime. The Stars won 4-5. Tyson got a couple of shots on goal but neither player was particularly decisive.

The teams faced each other again on January 18th, 2024, AKA Tyson's 22nd birthday. This time, to the shock of basically everyone, the Flyers beat the absolute shit out of the Stars—but it took them a little while to get there.

As the second period was winding down, the Flyers were only up by 1. The shots differential was dramatically worse, at one point  28–3 in favor of the Flyers.

In the final minute of the 2nd period, Thomas high-sticked Tyson in the face. Miraculously, the Flyers scored on the associated power play, and it only got worse from there. The final tally was 1-5 in favor of the Flyers. Arguably, the Harley/Foerster penalty was the beginning of the end.

To summarize:

9/27/19: Thomas Harley plays 5 pre-season games with the stars and gets sent down back to Mississauga  9/28/19: Foerster’s Colts win 7-3 against Harley’s Mississauga, Tyson Foerster gets 6 points including a hat trick  12/20/19: The Colts play Sauga again, Mississauga wins 8-2 and Thomas gets a hat trick  2023–2024: Thomas Harley and Tyson Foerster are finally up with their respective teams for the season.  10/21/2023: Harley and Foerster play their first game against each other in the NHL. Neither of them does anything particularly of note.  1/18/2024: Harley and Foerster play their second game against each other in the NHL. Thomas highsticks Tyson at the end of the 2nd, arguably costing the Stars the game. Oh, and it’s Tyson’s 22nd birthday. 

In conclusion, you should ship them because:

sunshine-quiet is a fun pairing

their games against each other, while few, have a lot of drama

they're both very cute

edit 4/22/24: additional information has surfaced for me personally, which is that Tyson's roommate Joel Farabee is a longtime friend of Thomas Harley. This is very important and relevant information that everyone should know.

[dweepgwooves]

So, I wrote this a while ago...

But now I have a tumblr so I thought why not post it here? I will post half of the first chapter, so you decide if you like it or not. Also the first chapter is long af.

Backs bruised and fingers broken on AO3

“Nathaniel” was all he heard through the phone. He’d never held one before, let alone use it and it was odd he thought, that all the days events would lead up to this.

Nathaniel was alone in the nest, or as alone as one could be, with the security guards all over the nest and the rookies sleeping away in their rooms, but he considered himself alone. There was no master tonight, no Jean, no Kevin and certainly no Riko. He had considered himself lucky to be left alone for once, but now he wasn’t sure he was liking it at all.

The team was out, Christmas banquet on its full glory. He could almost imagine it, with all the stories Jean had whispered to him in the middle of the night. Riko and Kevin sitting all proper and nice in the middle of the table, taking all the attention sitting in their plastic chairs and in their black suits on. Talking bullshit about exy as if it wasn’t the vain of Nathaniel’s existence, their little tattoos shinning from their faces, thinking they were above everything else.

The day had started bad and somehow ended even worse, but now he was on his splendour, lying in bed with no one nagging at him. His sore muscles relaxed from the warm shower he’d taken and comfortably lying in his pyjamas. It couldn’t get any better. So of course, something had to go wrong.

“Nathaniel” he heard again. He’d never used a phone before, so when the thing had started ringing from the air vent in the bathroom he’d been scared to death. Jean had gotten the phone from a girl in his class that was way too interested in him having one. Nathaniel had stashed it away in the vent because they had nowhere else to hide it, their room was a big no, Riko almost always trashed their place in his fits of rage and there was nowhere outside to put it, so that little hole had been it.

He didn’t understand why they needed one, in fact they had no one to call, they had no contacts except from the girl, who Jean never called. Also there was no reason for it, in fact it gave the master and Riko another excuse to beat the living hell out of them.

Now he knew.

“What?” Nathaniel answered after a while.

“Nathaniel” jean said in a whispery hush.

“What Jean, what?” Nathaniel said exalted, this whole thing had him on edge. This was all unexpected and he didn’t know how he was supposed to react. Had something happened? Was Jean hurt? Why was he calling? How was he even calling? From where did he get a phone and why was he allowed to use it?

“Get up” said Jean. Nathaniel stood up from the little hole he had made in the bed.

“I’m up, now what happened?”

“it’s Kevin” Jean whispered, he sounded grim and Nathaniel swallowed the lump in his throat, there were so many possibilities, out of all the things Kevin could have done, what was it that prompted the call.

“What did he do?” and a thought struck. He said something about us. Nathaniel inhaled a shaky breath. But what had they done wrong?

“he” there was a pregnant pause where neither of them dared to speak “Riko broke Kevin’s hand” and so the dam broke, and the world seemed to stop because there was nothing that could have prepared him for that. A shudder passed through him as his head raced in thought.

Kevin, the prodigy son of exy, Kevin that only lived for and because of exy, Kevin the striker, the best striker there was got his hand broken. And it shouldn’t have been as surprising as it was. He should have at least expected it. The events of today had been out of the ordinary, they had been, in retrospective, detrimental. Today’s game had been a battle and at the same time a court, deciding which side was on the right. There had just been so much talk going around lately, inside and outside the nest. Forums, sports magazines and networks saying, repeating, what if? But inside the nest there was no what if, Riko was the best, he was number one and that was final. Riko was king. But talk still seemed to go around. And so, the match had happened, and it had been the end for all. There shouldn’t have been a match, and Kevin, he shouldn’t have won. But he had and he had played amazingly, he had ran across the court like his life depended on it, he’d made impossible goals and lit the whole court red. After that Riko had just left and everyone seemed to forget about it, but the air still held that tense quietness.

There was no chit chat, there was no feedback, even the master had stayed quiet. And that had been a sentence of it all. To whom, at the moment seemed unclear, but now it was obvious who would have to take the fall for the other one to rise.

“Nathaniel, you need to get out of there” but he couldn’t hear him, his ears still ringing from the news. Maybe the shock had passed but the grief was still there. It may have been the fact that perhaps deep down he still cared about Kevin, despite his reluctant persona to show it. Maybe he just cared about Kevin, maybe he cared about his Kevin, not the one who beat him in the court, not the one that looked down on him as he got cut up and looked happy about it. His Kevin, the innocent child who loved exy, that would play with him in his free time, the one that cared about him back. Maybe he still cared about Kevin, even when he wouldn’t admit it, not even to himself, it may be that that got his guts turning and bile crawling up his throat. perhaps it was the prospect that if Kevin got his hand broken there was no limit now, Riko was truly and fully unhinged.

“You need to get out of there” Jean said, but there was no response “Nathaniel- Nat” at that his head snapped and he took a deep breath, he couldn’t let himself go on that route yet, he couldn’t grieve what wasn’t his. Nathaniel wasn’t one of Kevin’s fans, the one who would give anything for him. He was his own person; he couldn’t let himself be beat down because of Kevin.

“yes” he responded.

“you’ve got to get out of there” jean said in a stern tone.

“What? Why?” asked Nathaniel, why would he get out of the nest, how was that even possible. He couldn’t even dream of it. His head was still turning, slowly trying to catch up to Jean’s words.

“I’m helping Kevin get out. I’m giving him to the foxes”

“What, Palmetto? You’re sending him to Wymack?” Nathaniel asked.

“What else am I supposed to do? At least Wymack cares about him” they both knew the explanation should be left unsaid. They both knew about the situation, they had been there to live it.

The morning Kevin walked through their door holding a piece of paper and crying had been a life changer, at least for Kevin. though they never spoke of it, it was a constant reminder that Kevin had someone out there who could love him, he could possibly have a home, a place he belonged to. But dreams were dreams, not realities. Word never got out about that letter, and they all knew it was for the best. Riko not knowing about Kevin’s dad, believing that Kevin was an orphan much like himself aided their relationship in a fucked up sort of way. They were equals, at least in family, both without parents, alienated, only to fend for themselves. It was good for Kevin too, all up until he found that letter, he’d thought he had a brother, no matter how cruel he was, having someone to be by your side, to not be alone. Kevin feared loneliness, even when everyone surrounded him.

That letter became a secret, a lethal one.

“Nat you need to leave, Riko’s going home soon and he’s feral” but wasn’t he always? Walking down the dark hallways of the nest, chest out and head high, as if he owned everything, as if he owned them. Even if in a way he did. between his father selling him off and the hits with racquets, the yells, the vowing down.

Riko was a wild card no matter how you looked at it, he was a monster born and raised. When riko would sneak into the room he shared with Jean, making him hold Nathaniel down as he cried, cutting slowly into his skin, yelling at him for whatever stupid remark Nathaniel had made in court, making his regret it. Nathaniel would scream until he had no voice, begging him to just stop.  Only to receive “Call me king and I’ll stop Nathaniel, just say it”. But he wouldn’t, blood clogging his throat, choking as he tried to swallow, because as much as he owned them, his father’s pain and his mother’s snarky tone were engraved in him and no amount of cuts could take it out of his blood. So Nathaniel would smirk and spit in his face only for the pain to start all over again.

“Jean, he’s always like that” Nathaniel said in a low voice. He didn’t want to be heard even when he knew that everyone was sleeping or too far way from the room to hear.

“You don’t understand, Nat. he’s about to lose Kevin. he already broke somebody’s nose. He’d fighting the master now” but there was no way, was it? To get out of this place, escape, finally. Flee the nest that was built like a fortress, his own personalized piece of hell.

“fuck” he whispered, and there was silence, because finally he was getting it. The call, the timing, everything. He wasn’t there but he understood the situation all too well.

“Jean I can’t” he whispered; his voice shaky. He wanted to, God, he wanted to so bad. But the logistics were impossible. The front doors were guarded apart from the police roaming campus. there was the whole Moriyama deal dangling above his head. He was merchandise, an object, a thing. He and Jean were not people, they were profit. And if they left- there was no chance he could ever leave.

“Get out of there. Just run” and now that the seed was planted, there was no going back. All he had to do was run, just like his mom had said years ago, just like he and Jean had dreamed millions of times when they shared a bed, when they were kids. Whispering in each other’s ears, afraid the master would brake into their room and drag them to the court. All he needed to do was pass those doors and make a run for it. It was a stupid idea, it was all stupid in general, he’d gotten the bad end of Riko’s wrath before, but it’d always been for petty things. Now though it was about to get him killed. But he decided that if he was going to die, he’d rather it be out of his own volition than because of Riko’s temper tantrum.

“But Jean, what bout you?” Nathaniel worried his split lip, biting at it and making it bleed. He looked around their room and took out his duffle bag. His eyes were watery, because he knew Jean, he was as much of a self-sacrificing idiot as he was. And he already knew what he was about to say.

“It doesn’t matter, you just- you need to leave” Jean said back.

“Jean, no, I can’t leave you” he pleaded, he knew there was nothing he could do, but he ought to try.

“don’t worry about me, you know he can’t do that much to me. It won’t be that bad” his voice was hurried and there were people talking in the background, the sound of a door opening and the turning of an engine.

“I can’s leave without you, Jean please” he felt weak at the knees. What about Jean? He couldn’t leave without him; he had been there since forever almost. Jean was a part of him now, he couldn’t just leave him behind, not to fall into Riko’s arms.

 “Jean” but he wasn’t listening. He heard him talking to someone else from his side of the phone. Then he heard a stutter in his breath and-

“Nat, you better not be there when I get to the nest” and he hung up. Nathaniel was on the ground; he didn’t know when he fell but there was no getting him back up. He was basically leaving Jean to die. How was that possible. How had it come to this? 

Jean’s voice hung to the air for a while as Nathaniel gave himself a second to miss him.

Then he stood up. There was no point in wallowing, he had something to do. So, he turned around and put as much shit as he could in his duffle bag and left.

There was no one to see him leave. 

The world outside the nest was something Nathaniel thought he would never get to see again. Not like this, not with his body filled with wounds and all alone. When he and Jean dreamt of running away, their backs bruised from the hits the master had given them and their faces smudged with ink from the numbers Riko had written in marker, cuddled up in one bed, trying and failing not to cry, they envisioned something that, looking back now, was impossible.

At first, they used to dream of their parents coming back for them, even when for Nathaniel it was impossible. Maybe Jean’s mother, taking a plane to America with his sister, sneaking into the nest, taking him from the Moriyamas and leaving. Being free and loved. Far away from what tormented them.

For Nathaniel it was a little bit more farfetched, even in their imaginary thinking.

“Maybe” he voiced to Jean. His hand clutching the others shirt. “Maybe she’s alive. I mean, think about it Jean, she had a whole plan. Maybe she got away and is with my uncle. Trying to get me back. Safe.”

“Perhaps” Jean had said. His face grim. He knew. They both knew it would never happen. But sometimes, when the Master was in his office, and Riko and Kevin in their room, they let themselves be kids for a moment. Let their imagination run wild, to imagine a world where they were both safe, and with their mothers. A moment where they could cry and hug without getting yelled at, without having to perform.

“I never saw her body, I- Jean, why didn’t I see her body?”

When they grew up, those dreams where gradually left behind. Someone saving them then became a plan in asking for help.

“we’ll get a phone and call the police; they’d have to do something right?” Jean’s accent was still heavy, the accentuation in weird places making his words sound funny.

“Mhh” Nathaniel’s face was turned towards the pillow, his hair covering his eyes, Jean knew they were closed. 

“Nathaniel”

“Mhhh” he moved his face. He had a black eye, just like Jean and a split lip, but somehow it just made his face look younger in comparison to Jean’s, in which the bruise made him look older, his eyes darker than they truly were, his features sharper.

It was easy to forget their own ages sometimes. When they were supposed to act like rookies, better than them even. But their own faces reminded them, looking in the mirror after practices, curating their wounds, just how small they actually were. 

“we’ll just run” Jean said and squished his hand.

“Yes Jean. We’ll run” and squished back

Going up the stairs to the roof had been easy, he had gotten the idea from one of the ravens. One of them had said something about an emergency exit, and Nathaniel had overheard because of course he had, he was nothing short of interested in all things related to the nest and its nooks.

Nathaniel didn’t know he had filed up that information until he had stood before the threshold of the Nest’s front doors, the ones that lead upstairs and then outside and thought to himself “there’s no way in hell I’m scaping through that”. Then an idea had come to mind. The roof. And of course, the roof it had been. After that it was just going up the stairs and crawling down from the emergency exit ladder. Easy. Maybe too much so.  It had thrown him off. He had expected something, anything at that point to chase him, grab him from the back, taken him to the master, even when he knew the master wasn’t even in the nest, beat him black and blue. It was confusing to think he had been trapped there for eight years, craving the outside, the sunlight, the fresh air. When he could just as easily gone up there had escaped.

“How?” he voiced to himself. How was it that easy?

As he stood in the side of the stadium for the first time in what felt like months Nathaniel felt the wind on his face and saw the sky. The sky, dark and beautiful. No stars were out but it didn’t matter. For years he had been in the nest, with the black walls and furniture and clothes and everything, everywhere he looked it felt oppressive, as if a hand were personally constricting his chest all the time, but here the dark sky gave a sense of infiniteness. He could go anywhere and be anyone as long as he was under the sky and not the punishing hand of Tetsuji and Riko.

If he was under this sky, he was free

Nathaniel ran, past campus, past the dorms and into the main street. He hadn’t seen it in years. There he stood, hand out and waiting, internally hoping, praying to anything beyond him that a car would pass and take pity upon him. But the night was cold, and few cars were out.

Obviously. he thought to himself, what idiot is outside late at night days before Christmas?

But after a while a car pulled up to the side of the road. Two girls were on it, and he guessed they were students at Evermore, with the hoodies they were wearing and the stickers in the car.

“Where can we take you cutie?” the girl in the passenger side spoke.

“Where can you get me?” Nathaniel answered. The girl driving smirked.

“Well, we’re going to the airport, down the highway. Maybe we can drop you on the bus station?”

“Yes, that’d do” he said and got in. Inside the car was warm, and filled with bags and suitcases, also the floor of the car was covered in what seemed to be blankets and jackets. He left his duffle on the floor and tried not to step on anything.

“Excuse the mess, we´re just going out of state, so obviously we’re taking lots of stuff” the blonde commented with a giggle. “Where are you going?” the driver asked.

“Out of state too” he responded with a shrug. In the background some pop song was playing, and both girls were bopping their heads along to the beat.

“well, we’re going to Ohio, I have family there so we thought why not spend Christmas at home?” as the blonde rambled Nathaniel tried to put a story together, something to not make him look suspicious, but also something that satisfied their curiosity enough to make them not ask too many questions.

“I’m going to Florida” the blonde turned on his seat and looked at him, wide eyed. “yeah I know a bit far” he said with a chuckle. Willing his body to relax and act more natural.

“Do you have family there?” the driver asked. She looked through at him through the rear-view mirror, an eyebrow cocked up. Nathaniel leaned against the door.

“Yes, some family is taking me in” he responded with a frown.

“Taking you in? oh honey what happened?” Internally though he was grinning from ear to ear.

So, the poor me angle actually works, huh?

Though he felt a little bit bad for lying to them, they seemed like nice people, picking him up from the side of the road and asking questions about his life, his safety came first, and honestly he couldn’t go around yelling to people at the top of his lungs that the mafia was after him. If the Moriyamas were to track him down and somehow get to the girls, it was better if they didn’t know anything. With the lie he was not only helping himself but them too. He felt a little better with that knowledge.

“Not much really, got kicked out. The usual”

“Aww, well I hope you get there safely” she answered at the same time the driver said “we’re here”

Nathaniel sighed. Finally, he thought. He had been anxious to get out of the car since he had gotten in. It felt as if they were going 5 mph and he needed to get as far as he could from the nest as soon as humanly possible.

Also, there were millions of questions running in his head and he couldn’t seem to get a possible answer to one before another slip into his mind. Had the ravens arrived already? Had Riko and the master noticed he had left? How was jean? had he gotten beaten? Had they sent people after him? And if yes, who’s? Riko’s or from the main family?

But he couldn’t focus on them. At least not yet, he had to get his shit together and keep himself focused. Get on a bus and out of the state. That simple, or at least he let himself believe that.

If you make it more complicated than it needs to be, you’re helping no one Nathaniel.

“Thank you for the ride. I owe you” Nathaniel said as he got out of the car. They were in the parking lot, a few feet from the entrance to the place.

Outside was freezing compared to the warmth of the car, and the wind was strong, blowing hair into his face and mouth as he tried to speak.

“Hey, kid” He turned around and the girl in the driver seat had her hand stretched out to outside the car, trying to give something to him.

“What?” he inched closer, and she thrusted the item at him.

“Take care, okay?” he nodded as they closed the window and smiled at him.

He looked. It was money. 20 bucks to be exact.

Lucky me

[f0point5]

If you could change next year driver line up, how would u change it?

Hmm this is a tough question because I don’t have too too much knowledge of F2/other series to know who are the best options for replacements, but I’m going to fill them in where I can and and if I’m not sure I’ll leave it blank.

Red Bull - MV1 and DR3 - I actually don’t think Checo has been as much of a problem as people make out this year but I think next year when the field begins to converge and the top teams start coming for Red Bull, he’s going to be a constructor problem. He might even be a driver problem around those street circuits if it’s not guaranteed that Max will win everything else. I think Daniel would happily take the number 2 role from day 1 while Checo struggles to settle into it for the first few races.

Mercedes - GR63 and LH44 - I personally wouldn’t change it, because they’re two great drivers, and I’m here for the chaos. I think Merc would potentially shoot themselves in the foot by binning off one of two good drivers. Neither of them will win a title with the other in the same car but for constructors, I’d keep them both. Also I don’t like Merc as a vibe so these two tripping each other up next year is banter for me. I actually do think LH should retire but I can’t think of anyone on the grid who deserves (both in a positive and negative way) that Merc seat atm so I’m leaving him there.

Ferrari - CL16 and NH22 - Wild I know but hear me out. I think Hulk is SO much better than a Haas. He has dragged that disaster of a car to places it shouldn’t even see on a map in qualifying and he does all that can be done in the race before the tyres cook like Uncle Ben’s rice in a new microwave. I think he would be a great second driver for Charles. He could settle into the role easily, he could provide support not competition. I think he’s mature enough and would be grateful enough to do what needed to be done in a support role but also stern enough to speak up when there’s a problem, which maybe Charles doesn’t as much and Nico could be a good ally for him. I just think Charles could do with a big brother in that team and I think Nico could do that as well as scoring valuable points.

McLaren - LN4 and OP81 - This driver line up will cook by ‘25 imo but I think they’ll be good for another year.

Alpine - PG10 and EO31 - Just leave ‘em there, they’re not bothering anyone except each other.

Alpha Tauri - Liam Lawson and another rookie (Iwasa?)- I know AT are trying to move away from their RB junior roots and they want a strong development driver but it’s my game I’ll play it how I want. I like that they’re a place for young drivers to show their potential and that it’s the F1 finishing school. I think Liam Lawson deserves a chance to show he’s a contender for the post-Verstappen era, and I think Tsunoda is not their plan for Red Bull so he shouldn’t be taking up a seat in AT. I don’t know if they can get a really experienced reserve/sim driver to help with development, maybe give a chance to one of the other guys I’m mentally throwing out of seats, but I think AT should be for the up and comers.

Alfa Romeo - Theo Pourchaire and ZG24. I don’t know Theo Pourchaire too much, but I know he’s doing well in F2, and was in talks with AR for ‘24, so unless there’s another more promising rookie, give him a shot. I’d maybe like to see Arthur Leclerc in the seat just because I think he’s downright adorable but I don’t know anything about his driving. But yeah I think Bottas has had his time, he’s not providing points, Zhou seems to have a good handle on the car I don’t think Bottas is providing much in the way of mentoring. Sometimes you take the old horses out to pasture, I think it’s time. I’m leaving Zhou there another year or two because again I don’t have the knowledge of who else really needs a seat in junior categories, but if there was a stand out junior I’d chuck him. I think the line up would change again in ‘26 because I full believe there’s a seat for Sainz if he wants it, so I say give youngsters a chance while the team is in a transition period.

Aston Martin - FA14 and CS55 - I’m caveating this with it being contingent on Aston Martin recovering some form, because I wouldn’t want Sainz that far down the midfield as they are currently. That said, I think those two in the 3rd/4th fastest car would do BITS. They get on, Alonso is a man who can handle the pressure, and I think could handle Sainz and his family very well. I just see it being a competitive but harmonious pairing, and I think Sainz would calm down somewhat knowing he would for sure inherit free run of the team once Alonso retires (if Sainz doesn’t go to Audi). Also, Lance just has to go. I’m sure he does enjoy it but there’s any number of thing he could enjoy that don’t involve the negativity he deals with in this sport, that don’t involve the spotlight which he seems to hate, and frankly don’t involve being painfully mediocre. Buy a track, buy a car, race for fun. I think the Stroll situation has gone beyond a joke tbh.

Haas - SP11/YT22 and KM20 - I don’t even rate KMag but I don’t think Haas deserve a rookie and I don’t think they can afford one. I don’t think mick Schumacher was any real loss to the grid but it’s clear the Guenther didn’t have the energy, impetus, or indeed the money, to nurture a young driver. I’d give Perez first option in the seat and Yuki can have it if Perez would rather retire. I know it’s my choice but honestly I don’t think either of them would make inroads in a Haas so it doesn’t matter to me, I think they’d both produce an equally exciting performance once or twice in a season. I just think Haas needs to stick with solid, comfortable, and decidedly more experienced drivers.

Williams - AA23 and Felipe Drugovich - I think Alex is a good driver, and I almost gave him the Merc seat, but tbh I think he deserves to be a first driver, I think he deserves to have a team that believes in him built around him, and I don’t think he deserves to have his friendship with George ruined by being his teammate. So I’m leaving him at Williams, to see out that development project, and wherever they get to, he can have the credit. I’d like to see them in that Aston Martin/Alpine fight. I think Sargeant can see himself out; he’s a Mick, too expensive for a small team. I think Williams have the capability to develop a young driver, I think James says and does the right things, I think Alex has amazing mentor potential, I just think it’s wasted on Sargeant. Drugovich has a decent amount of experience, he presumably knows how not to bin it and cost a team money. Worst case scenario he’s a Sargeant, but that’s like a 1% chance. I think there’s a 99% chance he at least costs less.

These takes may be unhinged lol be glad my name isn’t Stefano Domenicalli.

[kaetiesmindpalace]

Your Turn to Roll--A Project Fear Fanfiction: Chapter 2-Sessions Begin

Chapter 1/2

With check-ins from the crew on topics to avoid and what types of game play they wish to see; like many puzzles, large amounts of roleplay, or large amounts of battles, with the campaign and hours of brainstorming; 7pm on Thursday arrived in no time. The quartet brought their character sheets and pencils while Chelsea and Dakota also brought along notebooks to potentially take notes on the happenings of the session. Luckily you are a dice collector and so had enough to let the crew use some until they figured out if they wish to continue playing DND before purchasing a set for themselves. After sitting themselves around your table, Alex, Dakota, Tanner, and Chelsea all turn to look at you in anticipation. 

Sitting behind propped up books to avoid wandering eyes on your notes, you smile and ask, “You guys ready for this adventure?” 

You get nods from everyone before you continue, “Our story begins with a group called Project Fear arriving at the town of Spectre’s Cove, a coastline town known for being haunted. The group consists of two elves, a dhampir, and an aasimar, and seem to be the best of friends. They travelled to this town after word got to them of the Day of the Dead celebration. It is currently 2pm so you have a day full of events ahead of you. As you look around the town, you will notice the dichotomy of the decorations: both life and death present such as flowers and bright colors as well as graves and ghosts. While it is called Day of the Dead, it is more so a celebration of the connections we nurture at both ends of our lifetime. There are booths for crafts, plenty of food, and some shops to check out at this moment. So, what do you want to do?” 

The crew look at one another, waiting to see who would respond first. 

Chelsea is the one to break the silence, saying, “I want to do one of the crafts. No preference for which one, maybe just find the first booth with a craft available.” 

“I want to join you!” Tanner states. 

“I kind of want to check out some of the shops,” Dakota responds. 

“I’ll join you,” Alex mentions to Dakota. 

“Okay,” you say while chuckling a bit to yourself. 

What the group does not know is that splitting the party is not always the best idea such as if there is a potential bad guy one way rather than the other. Luckily, this is an instance where there is no harm in splitting up.  

“Which duo should I start with on their endeavor?” you ask your four friends. 

The group look at one another before shrugging, neither side really caring who goes first. 

“Okay, how about we have play rollies to figure this out? Each of you will grab your d20 and roll. Highest roller and their partner will go first. Seem fair?” you inquire. 

The crew nod their heads before grabbing their d20s and rolling. 

“I got a 14,” Alex announces. 

“Dang, I got a 2,” Tanner utters. 

“10,” Chelsea states matter-of-factly. 

“I got a 6,” Dakota reveals. 

“Alright, Team Shops will go first. Are there any specific items you are looking for or are you just perusing?” you question. 

 “Just perusing mostly. Maybe checking out little trinkets or something?” Dakota mentions. 

“Can we have discussed a meeting point after doing these things?” Chelsea pipes up. 

“Of course. Where do you want to meet up after these endeavors?” you inquire. 

“You mentioned lots of food. Maybe by a food cart or something?” Tanner suggests. 

“The food is all on a long banquet table in the center of everything,” you explain. 

“Sounds like a perfect meeting spot then,” Alex proclaims. 

The other three nod their heads and give some variation of “yeah,” confirming their plans. 

“Okay, back onto the activities you all wanted to do. Amongst the many tents are a few shops. One contains handmade marionettes of skeletons decorated in floral and bright designs. Another contains those little dancing car hula girls, but in the shape of ghosts. A third contains bobbleheads of both ghosts and skeletons. Have any of these shops caught your attention?” you ask Team Shops. 

The two look at each other before responding. 

“The dancing ghosts piqued my interest. The concept just sounds wonderful,” Alex proclaims. 

“Same here,” Dakota agrees. 

You nod your head before speaking, “Alright. You approach the tent which has the dancing ghosts. There are two people within the tent: the shopkeeper and one patron. The shopkeeper is a vedalken woman, lithe, bald, and blue skinned in a vibrant and almost patchwork two-piece ensemble while the patron is a young halfling woman with a flower crown on top of her curly light brown hair as well as a cream floral dress and a brown floral vest on her body. They are both at the back of the tent near the register as it appears the halfling woman is purchasing one of the dancing ghosts.” 

“I want to wait for the woman to finish purchasing before going into the tent to ask the price of the trinket,” Dakota states while Alex nods after his response. 

“Okay. It does not take long for the purchase to be finalized and for the halfling woman to leave the tent, happy with her purchase. The shopkeeper looks up and notices you two, a smile appearing on her face,” you explain before continuing in a soothing, almost monotone voice, “‘Hello there, anything I can help you with?’ she asks.” 

“Yes, we were wondering how much one of your trinkets costs,” Alex questions. 

“‘Ah yes, they are 3 copper,’” you say in the shopkeeper’s voice before returning to your own, “10 copper pieces make a silver piece and 10 silver pieces make a gold. If you do want to make the purchase, you will get nine silver and two copper pieces back.” 

Alex and Dakota nod before Dakota responds with “I tell the shopkeeper ‘I’ll take one,’ and hand her a gold piece.” 

“I’m not going to purchase anything, but will give her a nod,” Alex says. 

“She gives you your change back, gives a curt nod to the two of you, and says, ‘Have a nice day.’ Dakota, make sure you note that you have the dancing ghost and your current coin amount on your sheet,” you say. 

“Can I try to steal one of the trinkets on the way out?” Alex asks. 

Dakota turns to look at Alex after making note of the changes and gives him a “what the fuck” type of look before saying, “Dude, why? If you get caught, we both could get in trouble!” 

“You can certainly try,” you tell Alex before explaining, “Roll a sleight of hand check. You will use the d20 and then add your sleight of hand modifier to the number on the dice.” 

Alex quickly rolls the dice before checking his character sheet. He counts with his fingers for a second before saying, “That’s an 18.” 

You roll your dice and look at the commoner stats before telling them, “She rolled a 16 and has no modifier to add to her perception check. Alex, you successfully steal the trinket without the shopkeeper noticing.” 

“Can I roll to see if I notice Alex stealing it?” Dakota asks. 

“Go right ahead,” you tell him. 

Dakota rolls and immediately grimaces, “Well, that’s a 1 on the die so that’s…” 

“A natural one, which is when the die rolls a one, is automatically a failure. It happens to all of us at one point or another, so don’t sweat it. Alex, you managed to go unnoticed in your stealing from everyone,” you mention. 

Alex pumps his fist in the air and whoops at his success. Everyone at the table giggles at his antics for a moment before continuing with the game. 

“Let’s take it over to Team Crafts. Chelsea, you mentioned just going for the first craft station. Is that still the plan?” you ask. 

Chelsea turns to look at Tanner and asks, “I like the idea, but does that sound good to you? I don’t want to force you one way or the other.” 

“Sounds good to me! Let’s head to the first craft booth,” Tanner responds with glee. 

“Alright, the first craft you two see is making daisy chains and flower crowns. This seems to be a hot spot of activity as many people from kids to adults of varying races seem to want to participate. You can find space on the ground to work on your chains. Roll a dexterity check to see how well you do. The modifier is within either the big square or the oval, rather than what is under the saving throw modifiers,” you disclose. 

The two roll their d20s and do quick math before responding. 

“I got a 22,” Tanner states. 

“Dang, I only got an 8” Chelsea sighs. 

“Tanner, were you just making a chain or were you going to go full flower crown?” you ask him to clarify what you are going to describe. 

“Let’s go all the way, baby. I want this dang flower crown,” Tanner exclaims. 

You chuckle before continuing, “You nail making this flower crown. Different sized flowers are intricately woven together, creating a kaleidoscope of colors into one wonderful piece. You notice that your artistry has caught the attention of a few of the kids, who crowd around to look at your work in awe. What do you do?” 

“I imagine that I’m wearing a hat already, so I put the crown over the hat. Do the kids look like they may want help or just want a piece I’ve created?” he explains before questioning. 

“You could always ask,” you mention. 

“Okay, I turn to the kid sitting closest to me and ask, ‘Do you want some help making a flower crown?’” Tanner proceeds. 

“The closest kid to you is a little orange tabaxi boy. His green cat eyes stare wide-eyed at you before nodding,” you describe. 

“I smile at him and start demonstrating and explaining how to create a flower crown,” Tanner explains. 

You give a quick nod before turning your attention to Chelsea to tell her “You seem to struggle with connecting the flowers together. Before you give up, a small harengon, which is a rabbit person, comes over to you.” 

“I look to the rabbit and wait for them to speak,” Chelsea states. 

In your best attempt at an Elmo voice, you say, “I noticed you struggling. Can I help you with your flower crown?” 

You noticed your players stifling their giggles at the voice you were doing, which made you smile. Not everything needs to be serious in a game of DND, so you are glad that they are enjoying themselves. 

After composing herself, Chelsea responds, “I nod to the harengon kid and tell him ‘You may.’” 

“The child proceeds to sit in your lap and helps demonstrate how to create a flower crown, with your guidance as to what flowers you wanted to use. Once the two of you finish the crown, he stands up and puts it on your head,” you describe. 

“I tell him ‘Thank you,’” Chelsea proclaims. 

Going back into the Elmo voice, you state, “It’s not a problem. Would it be alright if I put flowers throughout your hair? If I had longer hair, I’d do it to myself, but I don’t.” 

Chelsea chuckles out, “Go for it.” 

“You start to feel your hair moving in what you assume is this harengon child putting flowers in your hair. After a little bit, there is a longer pause than normal, but you see that there are still flowers in a pile the kid was using. What do you do?” you ask. 

“I turn my head as best I can towards the kid and ask, ‘Everything alright back there?’” Chelsea explains. 

You smirk at what you know this character will be doing before telling her, “You turn your gaze to the harengon, only to notice he is chomping away on a couple of small flowers.” 

“I smile and chuckle a bit before telling them ‘I don’t think that’s where those flowers are supposed to go,’” Chelsea mentions after shaking her head a little at what the character was doing, a smile on her face. 

“You notice he blushes a little bit having been caught in the act before responding, ‘I’m sorry. They just looked so good, and I got distracted,’” you say, getting into the character voice when needed. 

Chelsea nods before responding, “I want to give him a little pat on his shoulder and to reassure him that he did nothing wrong. Can I look at how my hair looks? How good of a job did this kid do? Oh, and I should mention that my hair is in what our fans call the ‘Chelsea braids.’” 

You nod your head to Chelsea before grabbing your d20 to see how the harengon did. After the roll, you look up and say, “What the harengon managed to do was expertly place a beautiful arrangement of colorful flowers in your braids, even ranging the sizes of the buds. The braids aren’t fully covered in flowers, but around 12 flowers are in your braids in total. He also does seem reassured by your words from earlier.” 

“I want to thank him for the wonderful job he did,” Chelsea states. 

“You do so, and he smiles at that before saying ‘You’re welcome’ and doing a little happy dance,” you note, yet again going into the Elmo voice when needed. 

The table shares a collective “awwww” expression at the adorable picture you presented in the harengon child. 

After a short lull, you ask, “Are there anymore crafts or shops that either group wants to try out?” 

The quartet look at each other and shake their heads. 

“I think that’s all I want from the shops,” Dakota states with Alex nodding in agreeance. 

“I finished making and explaining that flower crown for the tabaxi child during the time Chelsea’s hair was braided, right?” Tanner questions. 

“You certainly did. The kid looks so happy for the help and is even trying to make another one himself with more confidence than before,” you tell Tanner. 

He smiles at what you mention, glad that he could help someone even in a small task. 

“I’m done with this craft and think we should head towards that banquet table,” Chelsea proclaims with Tanner saying a quick “Yeah.” 

You acknowledge what the group says and continue into some narration, “You all reconvene after about an hour at the long banquet table in the middle.  It is covered in a plethora of meats, sweets, and other accoutrements. Before you can tell one another what you have gotten into while away from the others, you notice everyone is heading towards the outskirts of the area, such as in between some of the booths to see the street surrounding the festivities. It seems the Day of the Dead parade is about to start shortly. Do you want to join everyone in seeing the parade?” 

All four of them nod their heads quickly, allowing you to continue, “Okay. You get as close to the outskirts as you can. Jovial music seems to come out of nowhere while floats and elegantly dressed people come up and around the street. Much like most parades, some people are throwing out little candies and costume jewelry like fake flower necklaces and beads. Do any of you want to try to catch anything?” 

The group nods their heads while Tanner lets out a “Hell yeah,” simultaneously. 

“Okay, roll a dexterity check. The DC, or difficulty class, is low as this is a minor thing, but a roll that doesn’t beat it may get hit in the eye with something rather than catch it,” you tell your party. 

The group roll their dice before shouting out their numbers at the same time. 

“Hold on, one at a time as I caught none of that. Alex, what did you get?” you clarify. 

“I got a 12,” he states. 

“Okay, Chelsea?” you inquire. 

“A 7,” she says, grimacing a little thinking she may be getting hit with an object. 

“Okay, Dakota?” you ask. 

“A 10,” he presents. 

“Alright, and Tanner?” you question. 

“A 15,” he answers. 

“Okay. No one gets candy or a costume jewelry piece to the face. You would have had to roll a 1 or 2 for that. Your successes are a bit different though. Chelsea, you catch a couple pieces of candy after almost batting them away from you unknowingly. Dakota, you catch a beaded necklace that started to slip through your fingers, but you manage to get it before even half of it has fallen. Alex, you catch one of the fake flower necklaces. It’s a decent catch, but nothing to write home about. Tanner, you catch a beaded necklace and a handful of candy. You seem more prepared for it than your comrades and so get the bigger haul,” you explain. 

The four jot down their prizes, Tanner fist pumping a bit at getting the biggest catch. 

“The parade lasts 2 hours and was full of merriment, song, dance, and many a treat. The sun is starting to set, and most are heading towards the banquet table now. Some take a seat at the table to eat while others grab food and either sit on the ground or walk about. What do you do?” you explain. 

“I don’t really want to sit at the table, though I think us sitting together on the ground or checking out the town more would be great,” Dakota proclaims. 

The others nod before Tanner mentions, “I think we should sit together and eat before we go exploring the town. We’ve got the time.” 

The crew nod yet again and make noises of agreement, allowing you to know that you are good to continue. 

“Alright, the four of you grab your fill of food and drink before finding a cozy spot on the grass to circle up and enjoy each other’s company. You explain what you had gotten into in the time before the parade as you chow down,” you describe. 

“Before we actually sit down, I would want to ask some of the townspeople more about the holiday and the whole ghost situation here,” Dakota interjects. 

“Totally. Do you want to ask any specific person or just get the general consensus from a few?” you ask. 

“I want to find one of the oldest members of the town as they are probably the most knowledgeable on the topic,” Dakota explains. 

“Alright, you see an older dwarven woman among the crowd around the banquet table grabbing a tankard. She has white hair in two braids that hang down while the rest is braided intricately into a bun in the back. She has a short white beard that is in a small ponytail and is wearing yellow and green,” you illustrate. 

“I approach her, grab a tankard as well, and say, ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but my friends and I are new to the town and would like to know more about this festival and the ghost situation. Ghosts have been a subject we’ve all been interested in for years,’” Dakota mentions. 

“Why of course, young man, I would be happy to explain it all to you. Spectre’s Cove is named for having a plethora of ghosts, though we do not know the reason why we have so many around compared to other towns. Also, most towns’ ghosts aren’t the nicest and have been known to battle many an adventurer while ours are more kind. The Day of the Dead celebration happens every year to commemorate those who have passed. It is more so a celebration of the connections we nurture at both ends of our lifetime, which I think is the reason why many ghosts stay as they are never forgotten. I don’t know when it all started; I just know that it’s been going on for all my life, which has been hundreds of years,” you say in an old woman voice. 

“I tell her, ‘Thank you for explaining this. It is a wonderful way to honor those who have passed,’ and head back to my friends after giving her a nod and smile,” Dakota discloses. 

“She gives you a smile and nods back as she returns to grabbing food from the table,” you describe back in your normal voice. 

“When I sit down and eat with my friends, I tell them about what the woman told me,” Dakota expounds. 

“I just nod along to what you say as I eat,” Alex explains. 

“Same,” Chelsea and Tanner say in unison. 

“After a lull in conversation, can I put the flower crown that’s currently on my head onto Dakota’s? He’s the only one without anything floral since Alex caught that necklace from the parade,” Chelsea inquires. 

You turn to Dakota to see how he would respond. 

“You can. I don’t think I would fight you on it, but chuckle once it’s on as now we are all floral,” Dakota says. 

You nod and then continue your narration, “Once you have eaten until you were full, you clean up after yourselves,” giving pause to see if they objected to that, which they did not, “and head towards the buildings of town. There are shops and little homes, most not having their lights on as the occupants are currently at the festival. Night has approached now. What do you do?” 

“What buildings have lights on?” Alex asks. 

“It appears The Hungry Trout Inn & Tavern and 4 houses have their lights right now,” you explain. 

The group turn towards each other to figure out what their next steps are. 

“What time is it currently?” Dakota questions. 

“It’s about 6:30 to 7pm as it took a while to get food since most people at the celebration chose that time to eat as well as the time for you guys to eat and chat,” you answer. 

“Taverns probably have some entertainment in them, so we don’t have to just go to sleep right away if we go that route,” you hear Chelsea mention. 

The boys nod at her statement before turning their attention back to you. 

“We’d like to go to the tavern,” Alex states. 

“Yeah,” Tanner and Dakota say in unison. 

“Alright, so you walk on over to The Hungry Trout Inn & Tavern. It is a small stone building with a wooden sign outside. The sign has a trout with an open mouth on it with lettering in white that is outlined in a dark green. Once you open the doors, you see a small yet warm and homey tavern. In the northeast corner is the bar. Sitting in two of the stools at the bar are a couple. One is firbolg woman with very long, curly red hair; her cow-like ears stick out through her hair. She is pleasantly snuggled up to a water genasi, who has their arm around her. Their hair looks like waves of the sea, which even move as such, and are adorn with pearls. The two are currently waiting for their drinks, which the githzerai barkeep is currently working on. The barkeep has her black hair pulled up in a twisted bun with a couple tendrils framing her face. Her tanned and speckled body moves around the bar expertly as she hands the firbolg a glass of wine and the water genasi a tankard of mead. To the northwest is a decent sized stage which is currently being swept for the performance of the night. Interspersed throughout the tavern are tables; longer ones up against the southern wall while circular ones in the space between the stage and bar. The other occupants in the bar currently are at a circular table towards the middle of the tavern. There are 4 people playing some sort of card game: one older halfling man who is just chugging some ale; a younger pimply-faced, braces-wearing halfling boy in green; a wider and taller-than-average half-elf man; and a hick elf in very short overalls with a possum in her lap. The last person is also at a circular table; he is an average looking young man. So, what would you like to do?” you detail. 

“How about you guys grab us a table and I can ask about getting a room or two? Maybe even grab us some drinks,” Alex suggests. 

“Go for it. I think we should go for a circular table closer to the stage and try to grab me a cup of wine like the firbolg got,” Chelsea requests. 

“Sounds like a plan. I’m down for any beverage really,” Dakota mentions. 

“Same,” Tanner agrees. 

“I nod to them and head over to the bar,” Alex says. 

“As you get up to the bar, the barkeep notices you and asks, ‘Anything I can help you with?’” you say, switching to a sultrier voice. 

“Yes, I was wondering what the cost for a room for the night may be,” Alex asks while leaning on the table as if it were the top of the bar. 

“Well, a room costs 1 gold if you only need one bed or 2 gold for a two bedder,” you reply in the same sultry voice. 

“‘I’ll take a two bedder’ and then I slide her 2 gold pieces,” Alex proclaims. 

“She takes the two gold and goes to grab the key for the room before responding, ‘Here you go. Anything else?’” you explain, shifting voices when needed. 

“What types of drinks do you have? One of my companions noticed the wine, but the rest of my group and I currently don’t prefer a certain type of drink,” Alex inquires. 

“Well, we have dwarven ales, elven wines, a few meads. Anything seem enticing?” you query in the githzerai’s voice. 

“I’ll take a glass of the wine the firbolg got, a couple of ales, and a mead. Surprise me on the last three,” Alex requests with a smirk. 

“Coming right up, that will be 2 silvers for the drinks,” you respond in the sultry voice, smirking back at him. 

“I slide a gold over and await my change,” Alex says. 

“She quickly and expertly gets your drinks and changes for you. Make sure you note what you spent so that you have the correct numbers of everything on your sheet,” you declare. 

After marking down what was spent, Alex states, “I grab my change and the drinks and proceed to head to our table. Once there, I hand Chelsea her wine and place the ales and mead in front of the boys, sit down, and say, ‘Your choice, I don’t have a preference and I told the barkeep to surprise us.’” 

The boys all look at each other and shrug before almost simultaneously saying, “I’ll take the mead, I guess.” 

Everyone at the table laughs a bit before you ask, “Want to do rollies to see who gets the mead?” 

The boys nod, grab their d20s, and roll. 

“I got a 15,” Dakota exclaims. 

“Shit, I got a 10,” replies Tanner with a frown. 

“Hah, I got a 17,” Alex shouts triumphantly. 

“I’ll say that in game, the three of you did rock paper scissors to see who got the mead with Alex winning, unless someone has a dice set in their inventory,” you declare. 

The boys look at their character sheets, shake their head “no,” and agree to the rock paper scissors decision. 

“I take the ale that is closest to me,” Tanner states. 

Dakota nods in agreement. 

“While you guys sit and enjoy your drinks, it appears that the stage is fully set up for the performer. A cajon is in the middle of the stage with a foot pedal ready to be used. A red tiefling comes out with his lute and sits on the cajon. He starts to play this,” you say as you start the Bardcore version of “Master of Puppets” from your phone before continuing, “His white and black almost pirate-like tunic’s ruffles swish as he fully starts feeling the music just as much as he is playing it. This is not his first time playing this song before, and it looks like most of the other patrons are fully entertained, flicking some coinage towards the stage to tip his performance. The young man has gotten up and left the tavern, probably the song was not to his liking, but you can’t please everyone.” 

You notice that Dakota seems to have his thinking face on. You know that your reference would not go unnoticed, making you smirk as it seems to have only partially click. He knows it sounds kind of familiar, but from where? 

“I want to flick a gold towards the stage for our performer. I’m loving this music choice, and I can appreciate when a different bard is doing well,” Tanner states. 

“Okay, you flick a gold piece to the performer. Anyone else want to do the same?” you ask the others. 

The trio shake their heads “no” at this, which is perfectly fine. 

You continue to set the scene for what you planned to be an upcoming battle, “The bard finishes his song, giving a pause for applause. He is about to start another song when the door to the tavern bursts open. In walks four men: what appears to be the head of the group is a large, hairy, imposing man. To his immediate right is a human man who has his entire left arm covered in tattoos. To the head of the group’s left is a warforged with a green hooded capelet on his metal body. The last person is an aarakocra who looks like a hawk. They all take a few stomping steps into the tavern before stopping to look at the stage.” 

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Alex states. 

The others nod their heads but wait for you to finish what you were saying. 

“The head of the group lets out a gruff chuckle before saying ‘Well, well, well. The rumors are true then—Sir Edward the Banished has decided to show his face in yet another place where he is not wanted. Why don’t we show him a lesson.’ The warforged and human give a nod of their heads and start to head towards the tiefling,” you describe, changing your voice to be raspier when the head of the group speaks. 

“I want to get up and get right in front of the human to try to stop him, saying ‘Woah, what’s with these drastic measures? This is a place where people are trying to enjoy themselves; you’re causing a ruckus,’” Chelsea states. 

You were surprised it was Chelsea that was the one to step up in the situation. Tanner seems to be the one to want to get in front of people to protect them. May be this time Chelsea just beat him to the punch. 

“The man roughly pushes past you, not caring about what you said as he only has one mission. Sir Edward tries to make a run for it, but the warforged and human each grab him. The tiefling struggles in their arms, saying, ‘Let me go, you dicks! I haven’t done anything wrong.’ The head guy laughs before stating, ‘Your entire existence is a mistake. Let’s take him out,’” you say, going from your normal voice to a gritted out one to yours again before coming to the gruff one. 

“Not on my watch, you aren’t! You don’t treat people like this. I then take out my rapier,” Tanner exclaims. 

“And with that, let’s roll for initiative. You should have a noted number under initiative, so make sure to add that to your roll,” you proclaim while getting the battle ready. 

You had decided to have a physical map and miniatures to help the group visualize what the layout looked like. Some people go to a drastic extent of creating three-dimensional maps and individual minis that look like their players’ character while others may just have a grid they draw on and use whatever was around to represent who was fighting. You had decided to print a map you found to use. For the minis, you used bottle caps with the characters’ faces—artwork for the characters you were moving around while Project Fear had actual pictures of themselves—taped onto them. Once the map and non-player characters (NPCs) are set up, you give each of your friends a bottle cap with their face on it. 

“Place yourself on the map where you think you would be when Tanner decided to take out his sword. I will also need to know what you got for initiative, so I know the order everyone is going in. I will ask by number amount rather than willy-nilly. This way, I already have the order figured out,” you say while rolling initiative for the bad guys and Sir Edward. 

The crew quickly place themselves on the map and look at you. 

“Did anyone get a 20 or above?” when no one responds you continue with, “Did anyone get between a 19 and a 15?” 

When only Chelseas’s hand goes up, she states, “I got a 17.” 

You quickly write it down before continuing, “Did anyone get between a 14 and a 10?” 

Both Alex and Dakota’s hands go up. 

“I got a 14,” Alex explains. 

“I got an 11,” Dakota says. 

Once you write them down in the initiative order, you look to Tanner. 

“I got an 8,” he says with a frown. 

As you write down his initiative, you reassure him, “The dice have their mysterious ways. We can’t only have good rolls. Where would the fun be in that?” 

He nods his head, and the combat is ready to start. 

“Okay, up first is Chelsea with the human on deck and Alex in the hole,” you tell them. 

“I want to go after the dude who pushed me away by sending a fire bolt at him,” Chelsea states. 

“Sounds like a plan. Roll to see if you hit. Remember to add your spell attack bonus,” you proclaim. 

Chelsea quickly rolls her die, looks at her sheet, and grimaces, before questioning, “Does a 10 hit?”  

“Unfortunately, it does not. That was your action. You still have a bonus action and movement you can do. A reaction can come not during your turn. For example, if an enemy runs past you, you could try to hit them,” you inform. 

“Wait, which of my things is a bonus action?” Chelsea asks. 

You look at her character sheet, which she put in front of you to help, before stating, “It does not look like at this point you have anything that could be a bonus action. Some spells’ cast time are bonus actions. Some classes and subclasses get traits which can be done as a bonus action like an echo knight fighter having their echo emerge or a feat which lets you use an offhand attack.” 

Chelsea brings her character sheet back in front of herself before looking at the map again. After a pause, she states, “I am going to move myself over here, so I am out of the way. My AC is not that high, so it probably isn’t the best idea to be in the fray.” 

You nod your head, allowing her to move her miniature before continuing, “Okay. Up next is the right-hand man to the main dude. Alex is on deck and the head guy is in the hole.” 

The group nod their heads and so you move on, rolling two d20s and stating, “The guy, his name is Thain if anyone wanted to know, is going to attempt to grapple Sir Edward. This is a contested strength check, which Thain succeeds. Sir Edward is grappled, which means that his speed is reduced to 0 and will only get out of this if Thain is incapacitated or is removed from Sir Edward’s reach. That will be his turn. Alex, you are up. The main dude is on deck and Dakota is in the hole.” 

Alex nods and quickly gets to the point, moving his miniature accordingly “I want to go after this main dude that Tanner is in front of with my shortsword. Does he have a name too? I feel like that’s something we should have asked before all of this.” 

You quickly reply since you had these names prepared in case these guys decided to ask the names of everyone “Yes, he does. His name is Urso Acerbi.” 

Alex gives a thumbs up before rolling his d20. 

“Does a 16 hit?” he asks. 

You smile and reply, “Yes it does. Since Tanner is also right next to Urso, you can roll your sneak attack damage with it.” 

Alex pumped a fist in excitement while grabbing his d6. 

After rolling it twice and adding his modifier, he states, “That’s 7 damage and I just want to stay behind Urso. That’s my turn.” 

“Nice job. He’s got a gash on him but looks healthy still. Urso is up next with Dakota on deck and Tanner in the hole,” you let them know, giving time for their acknowledgements before continuing, “So, this thug can take two swings with his mace. One will be at you Tanner while the other is at you Alex.” 

You grab two d20 and roll them before asking, “Does a 14 hit you, Tanner?” 

“That is my AC,” he explains. 

You nod letting him know that meeting your AC beats it before turning towards Alex, “His attack on you was a 9, which I know doesn’t hit.” 

He smiles back, knowing he was safe for the moment. 

You grab a d6 and roll it, telling Tanner “You take 4 points of bludgeoning damage.” 

He quickly grabs his pencil and notes it on his sheet. 

You then continue, “Dakota, you are up, with Tanner on deck and the other goons in the hole.” 

Dakota sits up a bit more, prepared to give his turn and says, “I want to cast Toll of the Dead on him. He doesn’t seem to be the wise type, plus if it hits it’ll do a decent bit of damage since he was hit earlier. He needs to make a wisdom saving throw.” 

You quickly grab a d20 and smile. He was thinking strategically, and you could not be prouder. 

After rolling it, you look to him and say, “He rolled a 9 and does not have any bonuses to add. I am pretty sure that does not make the save.” 

He smirks and goes to grab a die, but hesitates, “Wait, which one is the d12 again? Sorry, that’s probably a dumb question.” 

“That’s not a dumb question. I’d rather you ask than be confused. This one is the d12,” you say, pointing to a die with pentagon-shaped faces. 

He grabs it and rolls, whooping when he sees that he rolled well, exclaiming, “That’s 10 damage!” 

You make note of it and ask, “Is there anything else you want to do?” 

He looks at the map for a second before responding and moving his mini, “I’m going to give some space between myself and the action, so I’ll move myself over here.” 

You acknowledge this and continue, “Okay. Tanner you are up with the goons on deck and Sir Edward in the hole.” 

“I already had my sword out, so let me try to slash at this dude,” Tanner says while grabbing his d20. 

He rolls it and asks hesitantly, “Does a 12 hit?” 

“That just hits,” you tell him. 

He whoops, excited that he did in fact hit that guy, before grabbing a d8 and rolling it. 

“That’s 5 points of slashing damage and I think that’s it that I can do,” he informs you. 

You write it down and tell the table “Urso is now bloodied. This means he is at or below half his hit points. Well done so far. The goons are up next, Sir Edward is on deck, and Chelsea is in the hole.” 

“Do the goons also have names?” Tanner asks. 

“Yes, they do. The aarokocra’s name is Ancel and the warforged is Giolla,” you inform them. 

“Nice,” the crew say while nodding. 

“Okay, so Giolla is going to head over to help Thain with Sir Edward. Since Sir Edward is already grappled, this would be to see if he is then restrained, which is a lot worse. Again, this is a contested strength check, and Sir Edward is not the strongest,” you let them know while rolling two d20s. 

You sigh when you see what you rolled and explain, “While Giolla has no modifiers for his roll and got a 7, Sir Edward rolled a nat 1 and has a -1 modifier, making this a 0. We already know that a nat 1 is an automatic fail, I just wanted to share that it would have become a 0. Sir Edward is restrained. His movement is still 0 while also any attack rolls made on Sir Edward have advantage while his attacks have disadvantage. He also has disadvantage on his Dexterity saving throws. Giolla has made sure Sir Edward’s mouth is covered as well, so it is hard for Sir Edward to cast spells. Ancel noticed how much damage you did to his boss, Dakota, and is going to go up to you and attack.” 

You grab a d20 and roll it, asking Dakota “Does a 15 hit?” 

He nods his head and your grab a d4 to roll, letting him know that “You take 4 points of bludgeoning damage.” 

He notes how many hit points he has left now, and you continue, “Sir Edward is up, Chelsea is on deck, and Thain is in the hole. Sir Edward is going to try to bite Giolla’s hand to he can speak.” 

You grab a d20 and roll once, stating, “Well, that’s a 2 on the die so even if I roll lower, he is going to miss. Chelsea, you are up. Thain is on deck and Alex is in the hole.” 

“I want to go after Ancel with a fire bolt and say, ‘Get away from my brother!’” Chelsea says matter-of-factly, even yelling the line she wanted to say. 

“Okay, roll to hit,” you state. 

Chelsea grabs the d20 and rolls it. She looks bug-eyed for a moment and turns towards you. 

“What does it mean if I rolled a 20 on the die?” she asks. 

“That means you crit. You are going to roll the damage die twice and double the bonus to the damage as well, at least at this table,” you explain excitedly. 

Chelsea grabs a d10 and rolls twice, laughing a bit as she tells you, “That’s 15 points of fire damage.” 

“So Chelsea, how do you want to kill Ancel?” you ask. 

The boys start screaming ecstatically, hyped that their friend had done so well. 

“I imagine that as I said, ‘Get away from my brother,’ that I whipped my arm around and essentially launched this fire right at his head, which goes right through his skull,” she explains in excruciating detail. 

You smirk at the details and grab Ancel’s miniature to take it off the map, “And with that, Ancel falls forward, dead. Thain is up and is just going to hold onto Sir Edward, so we are going to move right along with the order. Alex, you are up with Urso on deck and Dakota in the hole.” 

“I’m just going to do what I did last time...and that’s a 6, so I assume I miss,” Alex says while rolling his d20.  

“Unfortunately, a 6 does miss. Up next is Urso with Dakota on deck and Tanner in the hole. So, again, Urso is going to do the same as before: take two swings with one going to Alex and one going to Tanner. Does a 20 hit you, Alex?” you explain, letting Alex mention that yes, he was hit before continuing, “And does a 12 hit you, Tanner?” 

“That misses,” Tanner tells you. 

You grab a d6 and roll it, letting Alex know that he took 3 points of bludgeoning damage. He proceeds to note the change in his character’s health on his character sheet. 

“Okay. Dakota, you are up. Tanner, you are on deck. Giolla is in the hole,” you remind them. 

“I want to send an eldritch blast at Urso,” Dakota states plainly, grabbing his d20 to roll. 

“Okay, roll to see if you hit,” you tell him. 

“You said a 12 hit last time, right?” Dakota asks while looking at his die. 

“Yes,” you say. 

He sighs in relief before grabbing his d10 and rolling it. 

“That’s 6 points of force damage, and that is the end of my turn,” he explains. 

You note how much damage he took before explaining the order again: “Tanner’s up with Giolla on deck and Sir Edward in the hole.” 

“Is anyone badly hurt?” Tanner asks the group before continuing after receiving that they are all good from everyone, “With that, I’m just going to swing at Urso again...and I miss. Uh...oh! I forgot to do this last time. Bardic inspiration is only for one person, right?” 

“Yes, you will have to choose who you want to give inspiration to,” you explain. 

“I want to give it to Sir Edward. He’s been the one struggling the most out of us,” Tanner suggests. 

You smile at the kindness he is showing toward their future quest giver and nod before saying, “So Giolla is up and is going to do the same as Thain-- holding onto Sir Edward. It’s now Sir Edward’s turn, and yet again he is going to try to bite Giolla’s hand. He rolled a 4, but there is the potential of the bardic inspiration to let this hit if he rolls a 6 on it...and that’s a 1 for a total of 5. Sir Edward misses and is still struggling within Thain and Giolla’s arms. Chelsea, you are up. Thain is on deck and Alex is in the hole.” 

“While you guys are focused on Urso, I think I want to focus on Thain to try to help Sir Edward out. Magic missile automatically hits, right?” Chelsea asks, waiting for you to nod before continuing, “So all 3 missiles are going to Thain. That will be 10 points of force damage.” 

As you are noting the damage Thain took, you explain, “Thain is bloodied. I am going to roll a strength check to see if he still has a hold on Sir Edward. He got a 16, which means he is still holding on while blood is just running down his face. Thain is up next, and he is just holding on to Sir Edward. Up next is Alex with Urso on deck and Dakota in the hole.” 

“Well, let’s try hitting him again. Does a 17 hit?” Alex asks. 

“That hits,” you answer. 

After picking up his d6, he rolls it twice and tells you “That’s 6 points of damage and that will be my turn.” 

You jot down how many hit points Urso has left. He’s close to going down, but you are not going to tell them that just yet. You do have one trick up your sleeve for him to stay up a little longer. 

“Okay, Urso is up. This big hairy dude is about to get hairier. You watch as the bit of chest hair he has thickens and also migrates up to his neck. He is a race called a shifter, meaning he comes a bit more bestial. With this, he gains some temporary hit points. That is his bonus action. His main action is to take two swings—one at Alex and one at Tanner. You guys have stayed right up in his grill and have gotten him pretty badly, so that’s his focus right now. So that’s a 15 and a 14 to hit, which I think gets both of you, right?” you disclose. 

The two nod their heads as you roll the damage dice. 

“Sorry, sometimes that is just how the dice roll. That’s 6 damage to you Alex and 3 to you Tanner. Dakota, you’re up with Tanner on deck and Giolla in the hole,” you expound. 

The two note their current HP with grimaces on their faces. 

Dakota then starts to explain his move, “Okay, I want to cast witch bolt on Urso.” 

“Okay, roll to see if you hit,” you tell him. 

Dakota picks up his d20 and rolls it, shouting, “That’s a nat 20!” 

The crew whoop out at Dakota’s success before you remind him that he gets to double everything for his damage. He reaches for a d12 and rolls twice. 

“That’s 12 points of lightning damage, and I can keep that on him since I hit,” Dakota explains. 

You look down at how many hit points Urso had left before looking back up at Dakota and saying, “That won’t be necessary. How do you want to kill him?” 

There’s even more screaming out in excitement from the group before Dakota describes that he is going to follow Chelsea’s example and have it go right through the head. 

“There are still two enemies and I do not know how you want to go about this, so we’ll remain in initiative. Last we left off, Tanner is up with Giolla on deck and Sir Edward in the hole,” you reel them back in. 

“Right, sorry for going off the wall there,” Tanner apologizes. 

“Don’t worry about it. Being hyped over killing a big enemy is great, and with a nat 20 to boot, how can you not be excited?” you point out. 

The group nods at your comment before Tanner speaks up again, “Is Thain within 30 ft of me that I could move to him?” 

You quickly count out the squares and let him know that Thain is just out of reach for him to use his sword. You also remind him that he has spells and cantrips he can use but can’t cast two spells during his turn. It would have to be one of each. 

“Okay. I want to use vicious mockery on Thain. He must make a Wisdom saving throw,” Tanner states. 

You roll your d20 and ask, “Does a 12 save?” 

He shakes his head “no” and rolls a d4 before saying, “That’s 4 psychic damage.” 

“What do you want to say to him as you kill him?” you inquire. 

With a smirk on his face, he says, “I tell him ‘I love nothing more than a well-matched battle with a truly skilled opponent, so if you see any around here, please let me know.’ You can choose how those words kill him.” 

“With your insult, you see a tear come down his eye as he grabs his chest. You gave him a broken heart as he flops to the ground dead. Is that all you wish to do?” you question. 

“With my bonus action, I want to look to Alex and ask, ‘Need a hand there?’ which is me casting healing word. I heal him for 5. That is it I’m going to do as I don’t think Giolla stands a chance with us,” Tanner reveals. 

“Thanks, man,” Alex acknowledges as he adds HP on his sheet. 

“Not a problem,” Tanner answers. 

“Up next is Giolla who is going to keep holding onto Sir Edward. We’re now onto Sir Edward, who as a free action is going to lick Giolla’s hand so he would take it off his mouth. His other tactic wasn’t working, but this one does as no one likes feeling their hand licked. With his mouth no longer covered, he is going to cast suggestion on Giolla. They must make a Wisdom saving throw or follow the instruction Sir Edward gives them for the next 8 hours,” you disclose as you grab your d20 and end up rolling a 9. 

You continue, “And Giolla failed the save. Sir Edward tells them ‘Let go of me and run as far away from me as you can.’ In a dazed look, Giolla does just that and books it out of the tavern away from anyone’s reach. That ends your combat.” 

“I want to go up to Sir Edward and ask him ‘Are you alright? What was that all about?’” Alex tells you. 

“You approach Sir Edward with the questions as he huffs and puffs for a second, before responding, ‘I’m good, just frazzled. All of that was from a misunderstanding about my past. Say, from that fight alone, you all seem to be capable adventurers. Would you be willing to help me out?’ and that is where we’ll end the session,” you describe. 

The crew groan because you left them on a cliffhanger. 

“Can we please keep playing?” Tanner asks with a pout. 

“We will next week, same time and place. Not everything will be wrapped up neatly with a bow,” you tell them. 

“This has been really fun so far,” Dakota tells you. 

“Yeah. Thanks for such a cool session. I can’t wait to see what’s to come,” Chelsea politely says. 

The others thank you as well, which you acknowledge as well as the fact that they were enjoying themselves. Once they pick up their things, you hug them and wave goodbye as they get to their vehicles. 

With the following session, the crew agreed to help Sir Edward return his magic to him via a heist to get his instrument back and eventually save his friends. They travelled to many terrains with varying challenges, puzzles, and fights. The larger task was revealed to them once they reached the kingdom where Sir Edward’s instrument was hiding: many beings from the Shadowfell were coming through a portal, which had been an initial task for Sir Edward’s friends, but somehow it has gotten way worse. In the end, a character they briefly saw in the tavern turned out to be a lich causing all of this to fulfill the dreams his father had that Sir Edward’s friends thwarted. With one final fight, Project Fear cleared Sir Edward’s name, killed the lich, and brought peace back to the kingdom, finally being able to close the portal. The crew had a lot of fun, and they seem to want to continue playing....so back to the drawing board to come up with a new idea. 

[inkedmoth]

Not-Yet-Written-Fics Game

Thank you @erathene for tagging me, especially since I haven’t actually started posting anything but still have a bajillion ideas I want to talk about lmao

0. On Swift Wings – Has very much been started/written, but its where most the other ideas stem from so I’m listing it here, that way you’re less in the dark and more in low level lighting.

Rhosynel is a Messenger of Gondor, she and her Messenger bird Ilmara, are tasked with carrying a missive to a Ranger somewhere around Bree. What should be a simple trip there and back again, results in her becoming press-ganged into trailing after the Fellowship, something she is very much Against. Naturally she becomes far too attached to all of them and finds herself unwilling to leave any of them behind or let any of them die, and in a truly unsurprising turn of events, ends up becoming more than a little close with a certain Lord of Gondor.

A reluctant tenth walker Boromir lives fic which already has 50+ chapters written :’D

1. Falconer AU – Also has a lot written.

What if Rhosynel never became a Messenger? What if she took a different path in life? Rhosynel finds herself foisted into the role of falconer for the Kings new hunting birds and must rapidly find her feet despite her own doubts. Set a full year after the destruction of the Ring, this fic is entirely written for Certain Scenes™ and because I adore falconry and birds so wanted to write about that.

Also Boromir lives again. This one is less of a slow burn and more of a flash fire lmao

(was meant to be a thief au and failed spectacularly)

2. Rhosynel’s Backstory Plans – Next to nothing written, could be multiple fics

Follows Rhosynel’s path to becoming a Messenger: Her brief stint in the Southern Rangers before losing someone she loved, which prompted her subsequent career change to become a Messenger. Will absolutely include shenanigans from her Ranger years, various Messenger trips, including one to Mirkwood where she earns herself a messenger bird for her troubles. She nearly dies like, three times.

3. Arranged Marriage – vague idea

Set very shortly after the Ring is destroyed, the kingdoms are scrabbling to find their feet and stake their claims. In a bid to settle things amicably, a marriage is proposed between the daughter of a chieftain (who? where? why? all valid questions) and Captain Boromir (he lives again are you surprised yet?), neither of whom are impressed with this idea in the slightest. Possibly some political intrigue, maybe she was sent as a spy or assassin??, either way there’s culture clashes, disagreements, some pride and prejudice vibes, and whoops it started out with a kiss how did it end up like this.

(Was originally going to be an AU for Rhos again but honestly at this point I may as well just slap a different name on her and call it original lol)

4. Thorongil & Pirate Problems – vague idea

I was reading the wiki and found the sentence “Thorongil travelled to Umbar where he severely damaged the Corsairs fleet in a surprise attack” and my brain promptly decided this was a GREAT idea for a fic and that I should bookmark it for later. It would follow Aragorn and a small team travelling from Minas Tirith to Umbar, with possible detours to Dol Amroth for funsies. I haven’t got much plot beyond “go fight pirates” but I’ve written more with less info so it’ll be fiiine.

(Also potentially Aragorn x OC mischief wink wink)

5. Single word fic ideas

Mulan – Women aren’t permitted in the army, solution; be swift as a coursing river (possible one shot??)

Distractions – Boromir’s working too hard, Rhosynel has a plan to distract him, there’s a desk involved. (less like spice and more like filth)

Stables – Rhosynel backstory on meeting Faramir as a teen while she works as a stable hand, teaches him some Rohirrim and gets flustered.

Mead – People get drunk mischief happens. It’s all self-indulgent filth, I legit don’t know if I’d have the courage to write it.

Picnic – Ladies Day Out, they have a lovely picnic, ride their horses, and gossip about the men.

Missing – After the Rings destruction Boromir goes missing on a diplomatic trip, Rhosynel proceeds to go apeshit in finding him. She may or may not throw someone out a window.

Dark – Boromir takes the Ring and goes rogue, entirely @emilybeemartin’s fault for drawing Dark Boromir and now I’m feral

6. PLOT TWIST it’s a Narnia fic

Because Narnia was my first true fantasy story and I should enjoy myself.

You’re a regular modern girl who’s into home renovations to distract from your boring retail job. You find an old wardrobe at an estate sale, and repurpose its doors for your home. After a rough shift at work, you come home to kick your feet up and zone out to trashy tv, but there’s a problem. The house you’ve entered doesn’t seem to be yours. Promptly exiting it, you find yourself in the middle of a forest. What, the, fuck. That’s it, that’s all I’ve got.

No-pressure tags for @scyllas-revenge and @esta-elavaris because besides @erathene you are the only people I know who write fics lmao