#and which is interested in art as a way to do more than just survive

[thevagueambition]

my dad was obsessed with station eleven for all of 2022 and he was correct

[eggsistential-basket]

thinking about the person i could have been if i tried a little harder to find my own way

[windvexer]

Crafts of the Witch Useful to Learn

Welcome to December 25th, here's some stuff about witchcraft to think about because you're on your phone looking for a distraction :)

So anyway here's stuff that's really useful to learn how to do before you actually need it because putting it all together for the first time on game day is stressful.

Creation and Desecration of a Poppet

A poppet is a deeply sympathetic representation of someone or something (usually another person).

According to the law of sympathy, whatever you do to the poppet will happen to the person it represents. You could cleanse and bless it, or smite it.

Poppets can be made in a wide variety of ways, from paper dolls, to clay figurines, to crocheted stuffies - anything you like. They also must be worked over magically to link them to their target.

The most ideal poppet is decorated to look very similar to the thing it represents, and is imbued with a taglock (such as hair, nail clippings, footprint dust, etc).

Learning Prompts:

The handicraft of creating the poppet - start with any arts and crafts you're interested in and see if they'll work for you

Practice making several poppets - you do not need to consecrate them. How easy is it for you to decorate it just like the real person? How easy is it for you to include taglocks?

Find a disposal plan. ""Voodoo dolls"" are steeped in public awareness; will it be safe for you to throw away the poppet in the trash when you're done with it?

Consecration or enlivening poppet as target. Find or develop a ritual to fill the poppet with magical life so that it becomes the target. Practice this once or twice (perhaps on a poppet of yourself, to cast blessings or prosperity magic on yourself)

Desecration or severing link. Find or develop a ritual to end the sympathetic link between the poppet and its target. Practice this once or twice.

Storage and tending of enlivened poppets. They are alive and they act like it. If you intend to have poppets sitting around for long-term spells or to use as-needed, you will need a system of storing them so that they "go to sleep" and remain undisturbed until you need them.

Consecration, In General

Here I mean "consecration" to be an act of magic which anoints an object as sacred unto a purpose, and therefore primed for magical use. In crude terms: you're making an object magical and giving it a purpose at the same time.

Consecration is a very useful thing to know how to do. In and of itself it can form a kind of minor enchantment (I consecrate this mug of oolong tea to be a potion of survival +1), but it can also prepare the way for powerful enchantments (I consecrate this ring to become a divine protector, ready to receive the powerful enchantment I soon cast upon it).

Learning Prompts:

Find or create a minor consecration spell which can be cast in under a minute. Strive to obtain one which is covert and can be done even in the presence of others. (Perhaps we could call this a 'cantrip'). Such a spell tends to be suitable for moving fate a few degrees over, or to dig a shallow pool in the tides of reality.

Find or create a hefty consecration spell. Consider what abilities or access you have that allows you to redefine the fate and purpose of an object. Contemplation of this spell can provide great insight into one's own belief and path. Such a spell may completely reorient fate, and carve new channels into the waterways of reality.

Practice minor consecrations on 5 different types of objects. Consecrating the tea, that's easy - stir it a few times. But how to consecrate a hairbrush? How to consecrate a mirror?

Practice major consecration twice, unto two very different domains. Perhaps a pepper oil of fiery smiting, and a crystal bracelet of deep soothing. This is an opportunity to compare and contrast the powers you raise when you work within different domains.

Desecration, In General; and Spell Reversal

To make profane; as in, to remove the magic from something and make it no more than a lump of physical matter, or a meaningless event like scattered dust on the winds of fate.

In my opinion, all witches should learn this - "don't raise up what you can't put down" also includes "don't enchant shit if you don't know how to undo enchantments."

To know how to nullify magic also means you can nullify unwanted and harmful things around you, and take the force and energy out of them.

Learning Prompts:

Find or create a minor desecration spell, one that you can cast on the fly and without tools or ingredients. Such a spell may be like a slapping a broom on a dusty rug; it will shake free things not tightly held.

Find or create a major desecration spell. Such a spell is like steam cleaning and shampooing a rug; it must remove every particle of magic and leave nothing behind but stripped fibers.

Practice minor desecrations 5 times in day-to-day life, targeting stank vibes and irritating situations that do not serve you.

Practice minor consecrations and desecrations 5 times by consecrating a stone, candle, etc., unto a magical purpose, and then removing the consecration.

Find an opportunity to cast a major desecration, which you may find the opportunity to do the next time the need for banishment comes up; or when sorting through old magical tools you no longer need, etc.

Find or create a solid spell reversal, one that you can use without having to have physical spell remnants on hand. Note that reverse to sender is not the same as nullifying your own magic.

Binding Divination Tools to Veracity, and Sundry Divination Management

Or if you like, binding veracity to divination tools. Binding is not baneful magic. Binding means to attach one thing to another thing, or to prevent something from being ways.

You can cast a binding on your divination tools to constrain them to only tell the truth, to truly peer beyond the veil, and only deliver what it can see; and never reflect your personal whims.

There's plenty of magic you can cast for your divinatory tools to make your life easier.

Prepare a binding spell to constrain a divination tool to only reflect the kind of truth you want. Do you want a tarot deck to only show your true state of mind? Do you want a set of runes to only read the will of the gods? Do you want your charm set to only read on the future, and not the past?

Find or create a protection spell to stop undue influence on a divination tool. This does not mean "evil spirits are manipulating your reading." Undue influence also means the strong emotions of querents, random psychic garbage, and the like; but it can also have an impact on the way you phrase questions and work with the tool itself.

Find or create a spell to enchant your tool as a magical seer/oracle. You can use a tarot deck out of the box, of course. You can also enchant it to be a magical object that obtains truth from mystical sources. Try it and see if you like the difference.

Find or create a charging ritual to revitalize your divination tools. This is a good opportunity to examine elemental energies; what kinds of energies are best suited to the purposes of divination and seeing beyond? The full moon is classically used for such purposes. Challenge yourself to recharge your divination tools once a month for 3 months, and see if you like the difference.

Blessing, In General

You have the power to generate and coalesce benevolent and helpful energies, and to distribute them into the world around you. You can bless anything you like, and perhaps the more the merrier; it's a very fine way to transform a space, and put love into the world.

Try considering blessings to have 2 parts; the first is to evoke a desirable force, and the second is to apply the force in a certain way: You could evoke the winter dawn as a blessing power, and then ask it to do something specific (provide a calm day, to make wise choices, to avoid bad traffic, etc).

Write your own minor blessing spell that you can perform in a minute or less. Try centering this blessing around a wonderful and benevolent force, whether it be a certain god, mushrooms, unconditional love, and so forth.

Write a separate minor blessing spell using a very different focus. Try the deep blue calming waters of the deep ocean, or the sprightly breezes of alpine hills, or the feeling of the first sip of a perfect bowl of soup; but make it have really different vibes from the first blessing.

Practice both minor blessings and see the difference. Challenge yourself to use each blessing cantrip 5 times. Try clustering the blessings to fill a space with that kind of energy (such as five items on desk blessed under the alpine breeze, and five items in the bathroom blessed under the deep ocean). Can you feel a difference in the spaces as you move in and out of them?

Write a major blessing using the various benevolent and lovely powers of your practice. This is another good opportunity to explore your practice. When you are in need of love, kindness, grace, and softness, what part of your path rises to meet your needs?

The Big Practice

Consecrate a poppet unto yourself. Bind and enchant a divination tool to be a powerful oracle of truth, and read on the most helpful equipment the poppet needs (RPG style: weapon, armor, familiar, potion?).

Whatever the answer, make a tiny container spell which serves the purpose. Consecrate it to be the tool that the poppet (you) needs.

Give the enchanted container spell to the poppet and cast a blessing on it, to be empowered with the new tool it has been granted in life.

Carefully store the poppet and its tool.

Periodically, perhaps between 1 to 6 times a year, recharge your divination tool and discern what new tools the poppet might need. Desecrate the old tool if you need to (or let them stack up), and consecrate new tools.

Keep the poppet and its tools for as long as you like, carefully severing the link between yourself and it when you're done with it.

[okiedokrie]

All Is Fair In Love And War Pt.1

Summary: Joshua is nothing if not determined. If he wants something, he'll get it; not that he even had to try before. But sometimes, like Icarus, he flies a little too close to the sun. But hey, all is fair in love and war!

Characters/Pairing: Aphrodite Incarnation!Joshua x Fem!Detective!Very Mortal!Reader

Genre: smut, fluff, crack, angst if you really squint

AUs/Trope Info: Greek God!AU, Partners In Solving Crimes, Strangers to Lovers, "time isnt linear" trope, "holy shit im kind of obsessed with you" trope

Word Count: 3,194 (Full fic is around 10k)

Warnings: Depiction of a crime scene (gore, blood, gun, conspiracy), depiction of drug use, character death (major and minor), smut warnings in the next part

Rating: 18+

A/N: I decided to split this into parts since I'm not confident ill be able to finish this within the deadline, this is part of the The 13 Gods of Olympus: A Seventeen collab hosted by @beomcoups and @wooahaeproductions! This is just the first part, so if you enjoy it, please consider signing up for the taglist. Thank you!!

In the summer of 2000, Joshua Hong was almost five years old. People always commented on how pretty he was for a kid, that he’d surely grow up to be a very handsome man.

Which is why it was a tragedy when he died from a freak truck accident.

Yes, Joshua Hong died at the age of five. For like, 10 minutes.

The doctors called it a miracle - a small child should not have survived a whole six of the twelve truck wheels, but somehow he was resuscitated, much to his parents’ delight.

This incident caused two things to change dramatically - Californetherlands now has stricter trucking laws and Joshua woke up to memories of literally being Aphrodite.

Throughout the years, from that fateful summer day to the present day, Joshua flopped back and forth between believing that the memories were just fever dreams and genuinely considering that he may be a reincarnation of the goddess. But ever since he got to hone his powers, he’s been more inclined to believe the latter.

By the age of 28, he has mastered the art of seduction. No, not sleeping with people constantly. It was more so the art of getting people to say ‘yes’ to everything he asked of them.

This made Joshua a very powerful and influential figure in Los Amsterdam; You see, the way he dealt wasn’t by out-witting people or being richer than them. He dealt in favors. If you wanted to be a popstar, he’d introduce you to a famous producer, and get you a record deal that would solidify your career - all for the low, low price of free.

In turn, you’d owe him, like the many powerful people who owed him large favors.

Joshua found himself in downtown LA, in the club that he owned, just under his penthouse. He enjoyed playing the guitar and performing for his patrons, everyone seemingly captivated by his voice, or his beauty, whichever one caught their attention first. He finally strummed the last chord of his song, enjoying the applause of the crowd as the DJ started to play the usual club music. Just as he was about to retreat to the bar, a feminine voice stopped him.

“Joshua! Hey!” She said, hair bouncing over her new fur coat, jumping excitedly, calling him over.

Joshua smiled widely at her - she was one of the people he had helped start her career as a singer. He didn’t do much other than introduce her to the CEO of her current label, it was her natural talent that got her this far.

“Ah, Diana, good to see you!” He said, going over to meet her in a friendly hug, the kind that didn’t touch at all. “How has being a singer treated you? Any good news?” He said, making small talk with an old acquaintance.

“Oh please,” she started, her new haughty attitude showing, “It’s all over the news! I just got nominated for a Grammy!” She said in a sing-song tone. Joshua just nodded Truth be told, he didn’t really have much interest in pop music, but he did try to match her enthusiasm.

“That’s great! I knew you’d make it big.” he said, remembering the first time she came to him, a girl in clothes that almost looked like rags, now decked out in every designer brand you could think of. “So, what brings you back here then? Surely you already have everything you ever wanted?” He said lightheartedly. Even if all of Joshua’s connections owed him favors, it was quite uncommon for them to come back to him after having achieved their dreams.

“Well,” She said, her old, meek bashfulness coming to the surface. “I just wanted to see you again, to thank you for what you have done for me.” She tucked a hair behind her ear. “And I know no matter what favor I do for you in return, I could never break even for just how much you’ve impacted my life. So, thank you, Joshua.”

Joshua genuinely felt relieved to hear her say that - usually, people’s pride and greed got in the way of them acknowledging those who truly helped them along the way, but as he suspected, this girl still had a soul so pure. “Let's get some drinks by the bar and chat some more, yeah? My treat.” He offered, which she gladly took, the conversation between them flowed naturally, Joshua enjoying her tales of success.

It was an hour after the club closed that Diana decided it was time to head home. Joshua offered to see her off, like the gentleman he was, and so they walked to the sidewalk, her hand around his arm.

Joshua opened the taxi door for her, offering her a few bills in cash to cover the fare, “It was nice seeing you again, hopefully, you’ll make time to catch up with me in the future.” he said through the taxi window.

“Yeah, I hope I get the chance to see you again soon. Goodnight Joshua.” She said as she rolled up the taxi window.

Joshua watched the taxi drive until the end of the block, and everything seemed to be going smoothly. Then, another car intercepted her in the intersection.

It happened so quickly, too quickly for Joshua to even register the new car’s window sliding down, holding a gun out to the taxi Diana was in. Gunshots echoed through the street, the sound of tires popping and glass shattering but all Joshua could make out was the sound of two sets of four tires screeching against the concrete. Diana’s taxi collided with a nearby lamppost, the taxi flattening and curling around it.

That was the last time Joshua saw her alive.

It was all over the news “Beloved Grammy-nominated rising star, Undyne, passed at a downtown intersection in a successful assassination.” Headlines went crazy with her story, telling her life before her short-lived success as a pop star.

The police were on her case, and the street cameras identified a black car with a non-existent plate number. they couldn’t find the people who owned it, but they did have enough evidence to call it a homicide.

Joshua, being close to the scene at the time when it happened, was one of the key witnesses to the whole case.

Currently, Joshua is in the waiting area of the police station, waiting for the detective on the case to lead him to the interrogation room where he will give his statements. He was just mindlessly scrolling through his phone when a voice snapped him out of it.

“Mr. Hong? Correct?” One of the officers asked him. He nodded to confirm it, repeating his full name. The officer just nodded too, “Okay, please follow me. Detective L/n will be there to ask a few questions.” He turned to the direction of the interrogation room, Joshua trailing behind him quietly.

The officer stopped in front of a door, “Here we are, just head on in.” He said, nodding at him. He walked into the interrogation room, the chilly air making goosebumps rise on the surface of his skin, the thin cardigan he wore did nothing to shield him from the cold. He took a seat at the chair facing the door, poking at the cold metal table as he waited.

“Good Morning Mr. Hong, I’m Detective L/n. I’m here to ask you a few questions, everything said here will be transcribed as evidence for this case, do you consent to this?” You started, taking the seat in front of him, your tone was very professional, as he expected, you didn’t even bother with pleasantries other than introducing yourself, which didn’t bother Joshua. He confirms his consent verbally, politely smiling at you with his hands clasped over the table.

“Great, I’d like to ask a few questions about you first.” You said, taking out your folder for the case, “You’re Joshua Hong, born on the 30th of December, 1995. You own the club downtown where your place of residence is also. Is all of that correct?” Joshua confirms all of the information is correct.

“You can just call me Joshua, by the way, Mr. Hong makes it seem like I’m someone important.” He said bashfully, scratching the back of his neck.

You just nod, writing something down in your notebook, “What was your relationship with Diana Kamatayan?” You asked, reviewing the official file which states that she is one of Joshua’s ‘clients’.

You were well aware of how the king of Los Amsterdam does his business, favors for favors. That’s how he got this far, and if you don’t hold up your end of the bargain, he’ll take away everything he gave you. You knew asking for Joshua’s help would make this investigation go quicker, but that would mean you’d owe him.

Owing Joshua Hong anything is a dangerous position to be in.

So while you have him in this interrogation room, you’re going to try to milk every bit of information out of him while it’s free.

“Well,” he started, getting comfortable in his seat, “She was one of my clients, I’m sure your file on me already knew that. Other than a professional relationship, I don’t really have one with her. That night was the first time I’ve seen her in a little over a year, actually.”

You nod, the timeline matches up, “And why did you meet her that night?” You ask next, trying to get more out of the nature of this last meeting.

“She approached me while I was in my nightclub. I was just about to turn in for the night when she came up to me to catch up. She thanked me for introducing her to a producer and wanted to catch up.”

Joshua really wasn't giving any information for free, as the interrogation went on you could only collect information you already knew. He didn't reveal any more than a simple google search did.

You drop your file folder onto the table, where Joshua's posture remained calm, cool, collected across from you, the small, charming smile still on his face.

“Did you get what you needed, Detective?” Joshua asks politely, tilting his head with his query.

“All I got was everything we already knew.” You sighed, rolling your shoulders in your seat. You turn in your seat, facing Joshua head-on once more. “Joshua, you are one of the most powerful and influential men in Los Amsterdam. We need your help in solving this case. All our leads have gone cold. We need your connections.”

Joshua smirked, the only time his expression changed from the relaxed and polite smile he had for the rest of the interview. His posture relaxed, leaning forward over the table, he placed his palms down on the cool metal surface, and said, “You do know what that would mean, right? The price you’d have to pay?”

You nodded, “I know all too well.”

“Asking me for a favor would mean that you’d owe me, do you think you can afford to pay that price?” He raised his eyebrows, you’d think your eyes deceive you when his irises glowed a soft gold—tilting his head in an almost teasing manner, taunting you.

Your breath hitched as you looked back at the one-way glass, knowing your co-workers were watching every detail of this interaction. “I promise I’ll deliver what I owe you. Just- please help us.” You said, not being able to look at him directly in the eyes.

He straightens his back once more, his polite smile returning to his face. “It’s settled then, I look forward to working with you Miss.”

Driving through the streets of a somewhat more affluent neighborhood, you stop in front of a well-known party den. There are plenty in Los Amsterdam, but this one was popular because of their ‘free-love’ policy.

Essentially, if you want to fuck, every surface is available to borrow for the duration.

You don’t look forward to entering the den, especially since you don’t know which surfaces are good to touch, but your partner beside you seems to be relaxed and content to visit such a place.

“God, I haven’t seen Jackson in forever. I hope he’s still having the time of his life here.” Joshua said with his bright eye-smile. You turn back to him, eyebrows furrowing in disgust. How could he find a place like this enjoyable? You don’t understand how the minds of party-goers work.

“Okay, how exactly is visiting a party den supposed to help with our investigation?” You finally ask him, he refused to elaborate on how relevant this location was when you met up with hiim, or during the entire car ride to said location.

“Well, Jackson still owes me, and he’s Diane’s ex’s first producer. If there’s anyone with a motive to get her killed, it’s her ex. I asked him to get Johnny drunk enough to pass out in one place. Now you have the perfect stage to corner and investigate him!” He said, with a smile on his face as if his plan didn’t just open up a whole new can of worms for you.

“You do know it’s illegal for me to just interrogate him without a warrant right? He might lawyer up if he figures out we’re onto him.” You said running a hand through your hair.

“Which is why I got you this,” he pulls out a skimpy party dress and matching heels from his duffle bag, “We blend in with the party-goers, that way you’re not interrogating him, you’re just having a conversation.”

“Joshua Hong you are insane.” You said, tone raising, “I’m not walking into a sex den looking like a hooker!”

“Don’t worry, we’re just trying not to stand out, please, just trust me.” He said handing the outfit over to you. You think over his words, it would be wise not to draw too much attention to yourself. If you made it obvious that you were a cop you’d have to resort to improvising.

You were never good at improvising.

Joshua gave you the decency to turn away while you changed, he was already in his usual relaxed suit that already made him look like a pimp, so he was already dressed for the occasion.

You both step out of the car, your heels clacking on the pavement below you. How Joshua managed to find your shoe size is in itself impressive, but you don’t have the time to dwell on that.

You both enter the bustling house filled to the brim with people indulging in their vices, whether it was alcohol, drugs, the ‘free-love’. It was a mess of bodies and fluids that you’d rather not inspect closely.

Joshua expertly weaved through the crowd, parting it like Moses did to the red sea. He didn’t have any difficulty locating Jackson Wang, the host of these parties.

“Jackson!” Joshua called out, the man was sitting in one of the many loveseats, a can of beer in hand and two ladies under his arms, giggling and getting very comfortable with him.

Jackson squints over the flashing lights, eyes widening in recognition after seeing Joshua. “Joshua! My man! Glad you finally made it! Got to say though, that favor of yours was an odd one. But you’ll be able to find him in my room. You know the way.” He waves him off, resuming to talking to the women clinging onto him.

You follow after Joshua, quickly climbing a few sets of stairs to get to the third floor, the entirety of the third floor was just Jackson’s room. He made sure to lock the door behind the both of you when you guys arrived.

The floor was far quieter than the floors below you, and less of a mess than them too. This room felt like Jackson’s actual home, and not like a party den.

Joshua spots Johnny stumbling around the room, nursing a liquor bottle- a few of them.

“Joshua we can’t interrogate him when he’s like this, he can barely even stand!” You said, waving your arms in front of you to point at the inebriated man.

“That’s not a problem, watch this.” Joshua takes long and purposeful strides toward him, once he finally reaches him, he takes his face in his hands and stares directly into his eyes.

You watch in awe and slight confusion, until Joshua speaks up, “You want to tell us everything we want to know, and you will be sober as a priest while you do so.”

Suddenly the haziness in Johnny’s eyes faded in an instant, his brown eyes now have a golden ring around the irises, like a puppet on a string.

“What did you need to know?” Johnny says, no longer under the influence of alcohol.

“Joshua, what did you do to him?” You ask in slight horror.

“Nothing illegal, don’t worry about it.” He said, “Continue your questioning on him, detective, if we spend any more time here Jackson’s gonna think we’re having sex here.”

Not wasting any more time you ask Johnny, “Are you aware that Diane Kamatayan had been assassinated? Do you know any information about that?” Johnny squints before his eyes widen in recognition, “Diane, yeah, her, we dated a bit. I was obsessed with her. But she broke it off when she got big. Yeah, I’m pissed, but instead of doing anything healthy with my time I just chose to shit-talk her on Twitter and drown in alcohol. When I heard the news about her passing, I lost it, went straight here where Jackson just kept handing me bottle after bottle with no questions.”

You look at Joshua, raising an eyebrow, not much of a motive if he didn’t even contact her directly in the entire duration of their time as exes.

You shake your head, back to square one then.

“It didn’t help that she started dating the old geezer of a producer of hers.” Johnny said, eyebrows furrowing in frustration, “That whore, she probably got big because that sleaze of a producer gave her banger after banger for sucking his dick or something, tch.” he said, clicking his tongue and crossing his arms.

“I’m pretty sure it was him who killed her too.”

You and Joshua look at each other in shock, eyes meeting for a second, almost as if communicating telepathically.

“Why do you think that?” You ask, cautious around the increasingly irritated Johnny.

“He’s always been a greedy bastard, worked with him before. Wanted to claim all the royalties of my song, so I sued him. Pretty sure he got threatened by how rich Diane was getting for that hit.” Johnny spat, distaste seeping into every word he said, “Now Diane is dead, and the bastard is getting married to some Slavic model, most likely cashing in all those royalty cheques.”

You and Joshua nod at each other. Joshua snaps his fingers, it’s almost as if snipping a puppet off its strings, the glow around Johhny’s eyes dims and disappears, suddenly slumping over the seat, stumbling drunkenly like he did when you found him.

“Okay, we have a lead.”

[whirligig-girl]

NWR No.1 and SLYM No.11513 at a dual gauge interchange just outside of the city center.

SLYM No.11513 is an Advanced Steam Locomotive native to Gymnome--a coal-burning steam engine operating at high pressure, with technological improvements to allow it to rival the efficiency and ease of use of a diesel locomotive, such as electronic controls, compound expansion of steam, a gas producer combustion system firebox, dual exhaust, and automatic firing and oiling. 11513 was built some time in the 2340s, and survives to 2381 as a museum piece.

NWR No.1 is a much older locomotive and from another planet altogether, built 1915 for the LBSC railway as a one-off prototype for a six-coupled shunter to replace the aging Terriers and to supplement the much larger E2-tanks. NWR No.1 made it to the North Western Railway not long after it was built, having been allocated there for the war effort. It is not clear how a locomotive built 465 years in the past on planet Earth made it intact to Gymnome, nor how its gauge perfectly matched Goo'iw Broad Gauge, at least not without invoking some kind of universe-spanning magic railroad, or perhaps the notion that this is all a simulation being run in some kind of virtual reality in some alien starship.

(no this isn't canon.)

Artist's notes:

Earlier today I doodled this in my sketchbook.

And when I got home i decided, hey, I have my Thomas 3D model, and I have the game model of the Advanced Steam Tank Engine... why not actually stage them together and draw them to-scale. The size difference is greater than I expected--partly I think this is because the Thomas gauge-1 prop was not designed with scale in mind, so it's bigger than British Railways loading gauge. Granted, they are at different gauges (standard gauge versus roughly meter-ish gauge), but the loading gauge on the advanced steam engine is very wide.

My first attempt at the drawing was from a very different angle:

But I quickly realized that you can't actually see the Advanced Steam Engine's wheels, and that's a major design aspect.

So i chose a different angle.

I constructed the dual gauge track before anything else.

And before long (the better part of 2 hours) I had the line art finished.

The Advanced Steam Engine ended up being a hybrid between the original illustration I did of it months ago, and the game model--with most of the geometry accurate to the game model, but with the subtler detailing of the illustrated version.

Thomas was meant to be a sort of hybrid of the Gauge 1 Prop from the TV series and a realistic loco. I prioritized the geometry and simplicity of the gauge 1 prop in most respects, but added details below the running board, in particular brake rigging, sanding gear, and these blade-like protrusions of the frames which i'm pretty sure are some kind of debris deflector, a british version of a cowcatcher. There's also snifters on the cylinder saddle, and the whistle is made of two different lengths to justify Thomas' multi-tone whistle.

The original background was going to be this marshland with (electricity-generating) windmills in the background, a callback to that first shot in the Thomas & Friends opening credits, but I hated how it felt like the middle of nowhere, so I introduced the retaining wall and an alien city scene.

British steam engines are generally given very shiny liveries which reflect the environment in interesting ways, so I made sure to do that justice, using a GWR 14xx autotank as reference.

By contrast, the Advanced Steam Tank Engine is kept in a more workwormlike condition, with a somewhat faded matte paint work and a fair amount of grime.

The original illustration of the advanced steam engine, for comparison.

Finally, a version with faces.

[theyhavetakenovermylife]

hii i love your writing so much! this is my first ever request so sorry if it sounds weird!

can i please request some general dating headcanons for (older) rise donnie? for example, what hes like as a boyfriend, the types of dates he likes, his quirks etc in a relationship!

thank you 🫶💜🐢

Dating Headcanons (Fluff/Angst)

Future!Donatello x reader

A/N: You’re request doesn’t sound weird at all, so no worries💜 Now, I would usually post this with a picture of one of the turtles, with a somewhat matching tone. But since there’s no official illustrations of Future!Donatello (as far as I’m aware), and I don’t feel safe using someone’s art without permission, I’m just going to use this shot of Donnie. Anyway, hope you’ll enjoy💜

Warnings: The Krang future is quite a bit more angst than the good future, so if you’re only looking for the sweet stuff, just head straight for that💜

Krang future:

Dating in a Krang infested world, living in a bunker deep under earth, was not easy for anybody. It is a stressful and depressing way of living, where everyday is about survival, with little no time left for love. Yet, emotional beings always seem to find a way for such things, even in the hardest of times. And so did you and Donnie.

With Donnie being the main reason that the bunker was functioning - having been the one that built the whole thing - your boyfriend was often stuck in his lap, working not just for his own joy, but for the survival of all that called the bunker home. It was not easy for Donnie, as one small mistake could mean the death of all. And so, your job quickly became helping Donnie destress, keeping him above and sane from all that was going on around him. It was your job to make sure that Donnie was able to move forward, even if it sometimes felt useless. And that wasn’t easy for either of you.

Dating in a world overrun by Krangs, isn’t really like dating in a normal world. You don’t go on dates, and rarely have time to actually spend any form of intimate time together. No, dating in a world of Krangs meant finding a person, who you wished to survive with. It meant looking out for each other before anybody else, and at times even giving up rescurses for the one you loved. Which you and Donnie had done plenty of times, giving up food, water and time for each other.

Though Donnie may be tired most of the time, it didn’t make him any less caring. He had his own way of showing it though. He had thousands of ways to check up on your wellbeing, going to somewhat drastic lengths in order to make sure that you were safe in your small home in the bunker. He was absolutely against the idea of you going to the surface with any of his brothers for supply runs, almost getting to the point of panic attacks.

On the rare occasions that you and Donnie actually had time to act like an actual couple, you didn’t do much. You would usually cuddle and enjoy the company of one another, before eventually falling asleep in each other's arms. It wasn’t often that the two of you got to feel safe like that, and it was increasingly rare that you would feel as well rested, as you did after a cuddle session with Donnie.

Good future:

In a world in which you and Donnie didn’t have to worry about much more than whether you should be drinking Coca Cola or Pepsi with your pizza in the evening, the two of you had the time along with the mental and emotional excuse to build your relationship in a healthy manner. Both you and Donnie had your own interests, in which you respected and engaged each other. You would let Donnie talk hours on end about what he had been working on in his lab, and in turn he would do the same for you, often listening while tinkering with what he had just been talking about. It just made it easier for him to listen.

Donnie was for the most part a very relaxed boyfriend. He knew you were a grown adult, capable of taking care of yourself, allowing you large amounts of independence without getting bothered or insecure. However, Donnie could have his random moments of overprotection. The weather had been particularly bad, and it took you a little longer than usual to get? Donnie would start calculating the chances of you having gotten hurt, driving himself to a point of wild worry. That was usually right before you would make it through the door, where your now overly analytical and worried boyfriend would check you over five times, just to be sure that you were in fact okay.

It’s rare that you and Donnie would actually go out for dates. Donnie is generally most comfortable in his own home, and the thought of going out, being around a bunch of people, when your dates were supposed to be about just you and him, just didn’t sit right with Donnie. It was no secret that his social batteries had a tendency to run out fast when out and about, so he would much rather spend the night home alone with you, watching a movie, eating comfort food, or geeking out over something together. And it also tended to be much cheaper, which was a win for the both of you.

Donnie has never been much for PDA. He’s very affectionate when the two of you are alone, but when other people are around and he starts masking, he tends to get physically distant, and will often have a hard time with things touching him. However, he’s always up for a good banter. A small argument between the two of you, with well thought out points, that never went beyond smiles, actually taking joy in whatever back and furth you had, was a kind of affection Donnie often engaged in, no matter who was around. Other’s quickly learned to just let the two of you at it, and that those smiles were actually real. You guys enjoyed it. It was fun, and both of you understood what was going on. No need to spoil a good and functioning thing.

[mari-lair]

hello ! i love your fics and analysis! I was wondering which tbhk ships you think will become endgame?

Anon I have the most white bread of answers but since you asked-

1 - Hananene.

Nene starts the manga by wanting a date. It doesn't matter with who, any hot guy will do. She has many infatuations but isn't in love with anyone, she just want to be loved.

Nene has a lot of small character developments in different areas throughout the manga, but her strongest and most consistent change is her increasing love for Hanako and her acceptance of it.

She is still a girl with a ton of emotions, and she finds hot people attractive BUT now she want Hanako and only Hanako. She rejects everyone she used to have a crush on, there is no doki doki's when she gets the attention of pretty people cause they aren't the boys she wants attention from anymore.

Even Teru doesn't compare to Hanako. She went on a 'date' with him and felt more excited about bragging than the actual 'date'

AND SHE DID NOT BRAG when hanako got back, she just wanted to enjoy that he's back.

I don't even know why I am going so in dept on the couple stablished since chapter 1 but since i'm already rambling: Despite everything crazy going on in the festival NENE'S BIGGEST FOCUS WAS TO CONFESS TO HANAKO. That's something she thinks more about than her own death, like girl- Hanako is her whole world. She will not get a romance with another person.

There is the question of "Will Nene survive?"

If she doesn't, she'll disappear and have no boyfriend but I bet she'll be thinking about Hanako in her death. If she finds a way to become a supernatural in a very wild narrative choice she will be able to stay with hanako in their cursed eternity forever.

In the case she lives and Hanako gets exorcised she won't move on. Aidairo loves tragedies and obsessive love, so I can't see her approaching crushes with the same whimsy after her love dies. And Aidairo would likely preffer to make her suffer in her grief and longing than give her a rebound with some random guy, cause it sure won't be Kou.

2 - Mitsukou

My personal preferences aside, it is clear they are written to have romantic implications. Kou will either die with Mitsuba (As shown in the new timeline), and stay with him in death.

Or live to have an intense homoerotic 'friendship' with him.

He legit can't get mitsuba off his head, he thinks about him more than anything during the manga and he has A LOT of problems to think about.

I can't personally picture an explicit confession but we had a lot of equivalents already. It would be weird for Aidairo to send them to the aquarium, make Kou obsessed with mitsuba (and vise verse), show that they are 'very very close' in this new timeline, keep drawing them star-struck by each other and so on without romance in the head.

Kou is also never able to put his feelings into words, like, bro that's suspicious as hell.

They always get matching art with all the couples in Aidairo's twitter arts too.

That's not queerbaiting, they may not be explicit but by the lord they are not subtle at all, there is never a single "oh Mitsuba is like a brother to me" moment, they don't undo any of the gay implications we see, they double down on it.

Kou may be bi but it sure isn't the Nene route that Aidairo is playing.

3 - Aoikane

Akane has loved Aoi since he was a little kid. Waaaaaaay before he got a clock keeper contract.

He saw that Aoi cared so much about his opinion that she'd break out of her cold persona and burst into tears at the idea of being hated, and he locked in for life.

They are the codependent childhood friends troupe, the "I know you better than anyone" troupe, the "you are a part of my life I can't live without" troupe and they both love each other from the very start of the manga, not showing romantic interest in anyone else.

Nothing has made Akane change his mind about being with Aoi. Not being stabbed, not being rejected many times, not facing how bad aoi is at deling with her issues head on. He'll do anything for her time and time again.

in Akane's own words:

They had many build ups and a whole arc dedicated to their developments with each other (which is a lot considering they aren't main characters and Aoi usually get no focus in this manga.)

Narratively, it wouldn't make any sense to dedicate so many chapters pointing out how much they mean to each other and slowly working through their issues only to slap another ship at the end.

And is not like Aidairo said "They had their arc let's never talk about them again!", the author went out of her way to say "Even in a world where Aoi is in an arranged marriage, she still loves Akane"

They aren't subtle.

From the matching names, to the way they both crumble when they are separated from one another and keep thinking about marriage, they are very devoted. They have already explicitly confessed to the audience that they are in love with each other.

They'll either stay together forever or they'll die together.

[jaehaeryshater]

“You’ll have others”, he said. “Sweet babes, and trueborn.” Lysa had miscarried five times, twice in the Eyrie, thrice at King’s Landing.

Lysa and Jon Arryn, 284 AC, art by @sofikiii

“Her Lord Husband had told her it wasn’t her fault, that the baby didn’t make it. It was the first time Lysa had heard that, that something that happened wasn’t her fault.”

This, of course, is not a real life out of A Song of Ice and Fire, but the general sentiment got stuck in my head about a month and a half ago. After Hoster forced a miscarriage upon Lysa, I doubt that she had heard any words of comfort like that and that wrecks me. I couldn’t get it out of my mind, so I asked my good friend Sofia who I have worked with before if I could please commission this from her.

Lysa, for starters, is not the most morally upright character in A Song of Ice and Fire. Whether or not she realized it at the time, she did have two non consensual encounters at a young age with Petyr Baelish, she ends up killing her husband and aiding to the mental stunting of her young son, and she is very volatile and cruel with Sansa. She’s obviously not in her right mind, although that is not an excuse for all those actions, but there is an interesting story to tell as to why she’s not in her right mind, what led her to her current state of mind when we meet her. The most surface level answer to this (although of course this does not explain her action towards Petyr prior to this) is that her father Hoster Tully forced her to have an abortion because she got pregnant by Petyr Baelish, and then married her off to Jon Arryn, who was 20 years older than him, essentially old enough to be her grandfather. She was around 14 years old at this time. We learn from the text that she is consistently pregnant over the next 14 years and of her children, only Robert survived. With this art, depicting her first stillbirth, I hoped to show a moment in time leading up to her mental decline. My goal is not to justify the things she did because she suffered, but to show a moment in which she is a victim as part of a broader statement of how woman and, quite frankly, girls are treated in Westeros. I also did not want to romanticize her and Jon’s relationship, but given what we know about him, he probably comforted her and that must have been hard for her to internalize and healthily understand because he’s a person that is victimizing her, is older than her father, but she has to cling to in a way, both as a husband and potentially for this love that she is not currently getting from her family. She’s a very young girl in this and that was something else that I wanted to make sure to implement, that she has just gone through a pregnancy so is looking more mature, but she still has baby fat and a lot of childlike elements to it because in a modern sense, she’s still a kid. A kid that is grieving a baby.

As for the detailing in this art, we mostly have blue coloring for House Arryn. I wanted to do some pink on her walls, as this is her chambers instead of joint chambers with Jon (although historically, even if she had shared chambers with Jon, her confinement rooms would be completely separate anyway) and I wanted to really drive home the childlike aspect of it, that she’s girly and frilly and has this wonder about her that comes crashing down. However, we decided it wouldn’t look good with all of the blue detailings so we stuck with different shades of blue. Jon’s outfit is inspired by an outfit in the Princess Bride, I couldn’t tell you who wore the outfit because I have not seen the movie. It looks like this though, which I usually use a reference for Robert Arryn but it works well with Jon too.

The fish is a stuffed animal from Lysa’s childhood in Riverrun. I never decided if Minisa or Cat made one, but I would more so go with that Lysa and Cat had matching ones as children. I think Lysa would probably get rid of most of her things from the Riverlands because of how hurt she was emotionally, but I still liked the symbolism there and how she’s stuck between being a child and an adult. The portrait in the background is of Minisa. Although it would make sense for Lysa to shun most everything from her life before the Eyrie, seeing as Minisa was not involved in anything that happened to her that caused her harm, I do not think that would extend to her. There’s no reason for Lysa not to feel fondness towards her mother, and especially at the age she is in this depiction, it would make sense that she would want to feel her mother’s presence while in her confinement.

Lastly, this is the inspiration for the poses. The art is called Age and Infancy by John Opie.

Thank you for reading all of this and an even bigger thank you to Sofia!! Lysa is so interesting to me, Jon Arryn too just because of how long his life spanned. I love talking about them and commissioning things that I haven’t seen other people work on before.

[cosmerelists]

Nomad Rates Cosmere Planets

As requested by @endervexer :)

Nomad is always on the move--but if he had time to stop and rate Cosmere planets as if they were hotels (you know, rating how clean they are, what the accommodations are like, etc), what would those ratings look like?

1. Canticle (The Sunlit Man)

Place was pretty clean, as the ever-present burning of the sun constantly purified the land.

Food was mediocre. Needed spice.

Accommodations were pretty old and worn down, but clean.

People were polite but not overly friendly, which I count as a positive. Some of them tried to kill me, which I count as a negative.

Entertainment consisted of gladiatorial fights and/or public executions. You can also hear stories. The stories are about ghosts.

BTW, place is haunted.

Overall, 2/5.

2. First of the Sun (Sixth of the Dusk)

Note: I only had time to visit part of this planet. Specifically, the island jungle part.

I would not call it "clean." It is a jungle. It is full of death.

If you like your food fresh-caught and cooked over a fire, you will like the food here. I did not try much of the food, because I was mostly fleeing death.

Accommodations were sparse, unpleasant, and--you guessed it!--not very safe from death.

The people tended to be distrustful and prickly. I did not hold this against them. I was only there briefly, and I was prickly too.

Entertainment was mostly hunting and camping. Although I would not class it as "entertainment" as much as "necessary survival."

NOT an island vacation. 1/5 stars (one star because the chickens there were pretty)

3. Lumar (Tress of the Emerald Sea)

For a place in which water brings death, it was actually pretty clean. Not sparking, but clean enough.

I did not like the food much. Bland. Their sea chickens do not taste as good as land chickens, IMO.

Since most of planet seems to be oceans (NOT water-based), you will find yourself staying on ships if you stay on this planet. What do you want me to say? It's a ship. Even if you have a private cabin, it will be small. It was fine.

People were on the whole friendly but seemed unused to visitors. I don't think this spot is very popular.

Interesting place to sightsee. The oceans are all different colors. The lunagrees (moon aether waterfalls) are worth seeing.

Overall, 3/5

4. Nalthis (Warbreaker)

Planet was generally well kept up--dirty in the way that populated cities or vast snowy landscapes full of woods can be dirty, but nothing major.

Great if you like seafood. Worth seeking out ethnic neighborhoods within the big cities for better food.

Some parts of the planet have better accommodations than others. If you want to stay in a cabin and feel cold and depressed all the time, try Idris. If you want to be a warmer place and like seafood and way too much color, try Hallandren.

If you want culture & stuff to do, try Hallandren. We're talking sports, art, music, creepy statues, pretty much anything you can think of. I cannot emphasize enough that it too colorful though.

This place will take your breath away (just a little Nalthian humor).

4/5 I had to soak my eyes after.

5. Scadrial (Mistborn)

Saw lots of reviewers saying that planet is the dirtiest place they've ever been, what with the constant rain of deadly ash.

Not my experience. Place was admittedly dusty in a "we love our cowboy aesthetic" kind of way, but they've clearly cleaned up since some of those earlier reviews.

Food was okay, but this seems to be more a place you go to drink. If you like whiskey, you will like Scadrial. Yeah I saw the review saying people drink perfume. Can't verify. Didn't see that.

Lots of places to stay, many of which are pleasant enough. If you happen to be speeding through the planet in fear of your life and the life of everyone you've ever cared about, then you'll be happy to hear that your options are many: horses, cars, trains, magic.

(I will ding them for their idiotic train system. Sometimes people don't WANT to go through the center on every trip.)

Entertainment options I saw: ride trains, see giraffes, drink, visit fast-food places, drink, visit the Field of Rebirth, shoot guns, drink.

4/5 I'm just not that into cowboys

6. Sel (Elantris)

Cleanliness varied from "sparkling silver city of the gods" to "battlefield awash in the blood of innocents." Definitely not the dirtiest place I've ever stayed.

Food was a highlight. You can get good spice here. Sweet things are also available for women/ardents.

On the whole, accommodations are solid. Good infrastructure, no weather actively trying to kill you, some places on planet not currently at war.

People can be aggressively religious, but if you avoid people in red armor, it's fine.

For entertainment, I can recommend sightseeing--go see the city of Elantris. It's worth it. Note: reviews complaining about zombies and sludge are old. Always check the date on reviews.

Overall 4/5

7. Taldain (White Sand)

The place has too much sand to be clean. I'm sorry but it has to be said.

The place has too much sand to have good food. I feel like it was always slightly...crunchy.

The accommodations are fine if you like sand.

The people always seem to be subtly wanting to prove that they're better than you. Sometimes it is not subtle. I guess this is what happens when Autonomy is in charge.

If you want entertainment, try the Darkside.

Overall, 2/5 just not my favorite place.

8. Threnody (Shadows for Silence)

Place is quite clean.

Food is bland again. You cannot trust Threnodites to have good food.

Oh, also the place is full of ghosts who will murder you.

0/5

9. Komashi (Yumi and the Nightmare Painter)

Can verify that place is no longer infested by deadly nightmares seeking your death. Travelers no longer need to seek out the few pockets of warmth and light in the sea of encroaching darkness. It's a pretty normal planet now.

Food is pretty good. Ramen place in Kilahito (Noodle Princess) is a highlight.

Good accommodations, tech-wise. Heating, lighting, hion-viewers. If you need that stuff to feel comfortable, not a bad place to visit.

If you're not actively on the run, there is plenty to do, from watching your shows to attending local festivals or art installations, to star gazing.

Pleasant place, these days. 5/5

10. Roshar

Note: I'm from here so my review may be biased.

Can't say planet is very clean. It's always at war, and the rain is full of crem.

Food varies. Soulcast food is not very good. Non-soulcast homemade food is great! (Most food is soulcast.)

Accommodations matter--try to stay in a building that is sturdy on both the east & the west side because the storms here do want to kill you. That is not entirely a metaphor. Are the accommodations nice? I mean, they're fine.

There is a lot to do here if you like war. There is a lot of war.

5/5 This place sucks and I miss it a lot.

[suzukiblu]

WIP guessing game: "Robin"

Superboy has existed for about six months at best (five months, two weeks, and six days, but who's creepily spying on their fellow heroes and vigilantes? not Tim, for sure) and was created in a lab full of extremely niche genetic experiments whose creators very rarely bothered making look human, which is probably why he has some weird ideas about certain social norms.

Tim assumes that's why the guy just decided to drop a very annoyed Catwoman on him out of nowhere, anyway.

"The fuck?" he says, though through his vocoder it comes out more like the incoherent screeching of the damned. That being, well, the whole purpose of the vocoder and all. Superboy grins down at him from the nighttime sky all bright and sunny and weirdly adorable, for being a lab-grown weapon and a guy who is technically capable of disassembling Tim down to his individual atoms with, like, a touch and about two seconds' worth of thought.

Not that Tim has been creepily spying on anyone or said anyone's Cadmus files, again.

Also Superboy might not even know he can do that yet, so it's really not a smart thing to mention right now.

"Hey, man!" Superboy greets cheerfully. "She was breaking into that big museum a couple blocks over, figured you'd care about that. As opposed to, like, breaking into some rich asshole with insurance's penthouse. Figured you would not have cared about that."

"The museum also has insurance, for the record," Selina informs him sourly as she makes an art of getting off her unceremoniously roof-dumped ass while looking like being on this roof was her idea to begin with. Because, like: Selina. "And has not properly sourced the artifacts in their new Bast exhibit."

I know, that's why I was on my way to the museum to keep an eye out for you, is what Tim does not say, since Robin is supposed to be a splintered aspect of a mysterious all-knowing city spirit given human form and not just, like, a really dedicated teenager surviving on semi-legal energy drinks and conspiracy-board detective work and the occasional occult ritual to summon the Batman.

What he does do is jerkily cock his head and say, "Preyyyyy?", and let his vocoder horribly mangle the word into a sound usually best described as "unholy avian screeching". Superboy beams, which is not a normal reaction to hearing Robin's voice. Selina just rolls her eyes, but Selina of course knows about the whole "really dedicated teenager surviving on semi-legal energy drinks and conspiracy-board detective work and the occasional occult ritual to summon the Batman" thing.

Like she's never summoned the Batman for anything, geez. Or "Bruce", as an eight year-old Dick Grayson had once upon a time decided to randomly dub him. Tim still can't call the eternal and unsleeping eldritch protector of their city that without feeling like he's going to spontaneously combust, but it is in fact a thing that the Batman will answer to.

Might as well call Pennyworth "Alfie", though.

Jason was even worse at names than Dick, Tim is pretty sure.

"Yeah!" Superboy says, sounding still more cheerful and floating down the rest of the way to the roof to land lightly in front of Tim. Selina eyes him in a way that would end very badly for anyone who was not functionally invulnerable. "I mean, she seems cool and all but I dunno, figured the Bat wasn't big on Cats in his territory. And also the criming. Definitely also the criming."

"How . . . find Robin?" Tim asks. Superboy doesn't have enhanced senses, as far as he knows, so . . .

"Oh, I've been stalking you," Superboy explains. Tim blinks behind his unblinking mask and feels several ways about that statement. "That's what you Bats all do when you're interested in somebody, right? So I figured you'd like it if I did it back."

. . . Tim feels several ways about that statement.

[anim-ttrpgs]

The Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy October 17th Beta update has launched today on itch.io for free!

Happy Halloween! We pulled out all the stops just to get the update out in time for you to prep and play it for your group’s Halloween game! The free adventure module that comes with it, “Horror Harry’s Haunted House”, takes place on Halloween after all! In it, your investigators will solve a “murder mystery” in a charmingly spooky haunted house escape room. It serves as a sort of investigation and survival training ground for you and your PCs to learn the ropes before jumping into more Call-of-Cthulhu-esque adventures where death is around every corner. (You can even get two more adventure modules over on our patreon)

Download the new rulebook here on itch.io! Even if you download it for free, just checking it out, talking about it, reblogging this post, etc. helps us out immensely. We are a diverse, largely queer team setting out to slay a dragon, we’ve already been working on this for four years, and we need all the community support we can get!

If you’re wondering what Eureka even is, watch this trailer, or read this post if you don't wanna watch a video.

If you’ve ever tried to run a murder mystery in D&D, what you really needed was Eureka.

If you’re coming from the August beta release, which I assume you are, lemme tell you that a lot has been improved. I’ll go over some of the highlights, and post the full changelog under the cut. It’s still free, but if you could throw a bit of money out way on the itchio page, even if you’ve paid before, that would be a massive, massive help. We’re actually a bit over budget even with the relative success of the Kickstarter, plus for one of us this is their primary source of income.

Trait Overhaul

There’s a few new Traits, and nearly every single existing Trait has been redone to make them better and/or more interesting. Each Trait will now have an even more significant effect on your gameplay experience.

Combat Overhaul + World's Best Grappling Rules

Combat in Eureka is now better than ever, and it was already really good - plus, now you can actually comprehend the dang rules! The previous combat rules, I admit, were a dense and confusing slog to read through, even if they worked really well once you understood them. Now, thanks to our editor, you can understand them! Instead of being split across four chapters, it’s now just two chapters. One chapter explains weapons and is mostly just for stat reference, and the other chapter is focused on telling you everything your character can do during “dangerous situations,” which are not just combat, but really just any kind of scenario where a character can get hurt. As a special highlight to the combat overhaul, Eureka now boasts the first ever set of grappling rules that are viable, realistic, and fun to employ at the table! I’m serious when I say I have never seen them done like this before, and think they offer an actual leap forward in something that TTRPGs have struggled with since early editions of D&D! I also put a lot of my own judo and other martial arts experience to work here.

Monster Overhaul

A lot of what I said about the pre-overhaul combat sections of the rulebooks were also true of the monster PC rules. They were dense, hard to reference, and disorganized. Well not anymore! All six playable monsters in Eureka have been completely rewritten using the skills I have gained as a game designer since first writing them, and, like the regular Traits, they have all been at the very least tweaked to be more interesting and have a greater effect on gameplay, and some have been changed entirely with all new subsystems! Witches brew potions now, fairies actually have stuff to do with the names they collect, and more! Plus, speaking of Traits, every monster can have more regular Traits now, to really help flesh out their personality!

CHANGE LOG 

Copy-editing Progress: Thoroughly copy-edited up to p. 302. Half-ass copy-edited up to p. 322.

WHOLE BOOK

Stuck most of the $42+ kickstarter backer submission info into the very back of the book just to get it out of our email inbox and to allow the whole team to be able to more easily see it and work with it. Going to be doing more to integrate this stuff into the actual rulebook soon. 

Changed the headings to hopefully be more legible. Please give us feedback on what you think of this change.

CHAPTER 1

Changed the limitations on how Comfort is used to restore investigator Composure. 

Fixed a typo in the investigation example of play. 

Made it so that Composure rolls for fears in the “Ridiculous” category don’t even always need to be rolled when these things are encountered. 

Moved Character Health and Status, Grievous Wounds, Healing, and Healing Example sections to Chapter 1. 

Changed Partial Incapacitation to give -2 modifiers instead of -1. 

Overhauled the rules for injuries, incapacitation, and grievous wounds completely. A ton of it is changed. 

Added codified rules for medical facilities and what to do in the case of investigator death. 

Added “The Creeps” optional rule. 

Tweak to When is the Party “Split” section regarding how long to go before jumping between groups.

Lots of new art has been added.

Tweaks to Be Prepared to Lose section.

—---------------------------------------------------

Additions to the What is Eureka For section

Changed comforting factors and exacerbating factors for Composure rolls to be +/-2 instead of +/-1 so they make a real difference.

New snoop

Changed the font of the section headings in the Ticking Clock section. Let us know what you think of these headings compared to the other headings, because we are considering changing all the headings to be like this.  

Better clarified some stuff about how Ticks work when an adventure starts at some random time of day.

—-------------------------------------

More art has been added

Made travel take more time and matter more

CHAPTER 2

Changed the CQC skill to Close Combat, as this is more clear and obvious what that means at a glance

Made lots of copy-editing progress. Many paragraphs are shorter and convey the rules more clearly. 

Changed the way the Burnout Trait works. It now causes the investigator to lose flat Composure each day rather than affecting their Composure rolls. 

Changed the Death Wish Trait to not suck.

Changed the Elementary! Trait to use Visual Calculus instead of Social Cues.

Changed Go With Your Gut Trait to not suck. 

Added that wallets and like basic clothing and stuff have a WP cost of 0

Added glasses to item list

Added rope to item list

Added hand warmers to item list

Changed Arithmomania trait to where it only gives a +1 base bonus to Paperwork, and the bonus for having a lower Ignorance of Quantity Tiers of Fear rating is more investigation points. 

Changed Femme Fatale to add a +1 Seduce bonus instead of +2. 

Totally redid the Hardy Trait. 

Added -1 modifier to I’m Okay You’re Okay Trait

Redid the Just Built Different Trait. Now it allows a character “no sell” an incoming Superficial Damage attack once per Scene, reducing the damage to 0, among a few other things. 

Added Renaissance Man Trait. 

Removed Love Me Trait. Might try to reword it another time, but it was too similar to too many other traits and wasn't very interesting. 

Completely reworked Lover Trait. 

Many new snoops have been added.

Changed the Mad Genius trait to be called Lovecraft Protagonist and changed what it does. 

Removed the investigation point cap on Man of Action Trait. Also changed the name to Ask Questions Later. 

Changed My Glasses Trait to only provide bonuses to Knowledge Skill Investigative Rolls. 

Changed Nightstalker Trait so that it provides a bonus to all Interpersonal Rolls while trespassing 

Changed None of My Business Trait to suck less.

Changed Not Finished Yet Trait to suck less.

Changed Showboater Trait to suck less.

Changed Skeptic Trait to suck less.

Smalls is now a real Trait instead of just a joke Trait. 

Removed the +1 Bonus from the Unpredictable Trait.

Changed Wicked Trait to not suck. 

Changed Wizened Trait to suck less. 

Woo-Woo Trait no-longer based on Blacked Out Skill. 

Moved “Deadly Combat, Permanent Consequences” here and changed the title to “Disabilities are Disabling”

Changed Basic Physical Therapy on the Wealth Point Item List from 3WP to 2WP. 

Added new section “People Change”

Made Blissfully Ignorant trait immune to “The Creeps.”

Made the Technically… Trait have a +2 bonus instead of +1.

Updated the Hard Boiled Trait to work with the new way that injuries and incapacitation works.

Moved the Hardened Hearts snoop to be the Wicked snoop instead. 

Changed “Empath” Trait to be “Empathetic” instead. 

Made “Did You Know…” a better and more usable Trait

Made Hard Under Pressure a better and more usable Trait.

Changed how the WP cost of an item affects the modifier for rolling for it in-adventure. The modifier is now half the WP cost rounded down. 

—--------------------------------------------------------

Gave a proper name to the Wealth modifier attached to certain homes and vehicles, it is now called the Property Modifier(PM).

Lowered the price of firearm ammunition by 1WP

Lowered the price of desktop computers by 1WP

Lowered the price of cameras by 1WP

Combined various hand tools into one entry on the item lists and moved them to Misc.

Made hotels something that is prepaid in WP similar to food budget. 

Made Large Apartment less expensive and Tiny Apartment more expensive

Moved Baseball Bat and Axe out of Weapons and into Misc. 

Changed how Food Budget works.

Removed Net Skill Limit mechanic entirely

Edit to the duration of the bonuses for Femme Fatale

Changed Ninja Trait to a +2 bonus instead of +1

—----------------------------------------------------------

Made “Sleep On It” Trait give 1D6-1 investigation points, and still give Composure.

Added “Real Capybara Hours.” Sometimes jokes are just for us.

Added animals to item lists

CHAPTER 3

Moved the section “Deadly Combat, Permanent Consequences” into chapter 2. 

More art has been added.

Moved Character Health and Status, Grievous Wounds, Healing, and Healing Example sections to Chapter 1. 

—------------------------------------------------

Changed the name of Chapter 3 to “Dangerous Situations.” We are planning to put all the combat and other dangerous stuff into one chapter called “Dangerous Situations” and merge combat, chases, etc. into one thing rather than splitting it up and having it in a bunch of different chapters.

Made it so that the Speed mechanic works with Theater of the Mind as well, and removed that other awkward mechanic with rolling Athletics for how many turns it takes for a character to cross a large distance. 

Complete restructure of the way the mechanics for movement and action are explained, as well as defining things as both Movements and Actions. 

Created a Chapter 2.5. In the future when we are ready to shift the chapter numbers, Chapter 2.5 will become the new Chapter 3 and the current Chapter 3 will become Chapter 4. Chapter 2.5 currently houses the statistics of weapons and other combat items. The plan is that a first-time reader will read the weapon statistics in Chapter 2.5 before they read the combat rules in Chapter 3, which will inform the way they understand Chapter 3. 

Changed damage value and special attributes of pepper spray. 

Made brass knuckles do 1 penetrative damage. 

Made stun guns do 2 superficial damage.

Made it so that bulletproof vests do protect against 1-damage weapons. 

Moved and rearranged like everything from chapters 3-6. 

Close range bonus for guns is now +2 instead of +1

Simplified Stopping Power rules (the actual way it works has not changed, we just rewrote it so that it gives the same mechanics in like a tenth of the word count)

Separated open-faced helmets and full-face helmets, and made it so that wearing a helmet along with body armor gives a -1 penalty to incoming attack rolls. 

“Single Load” is now called “Internal Magazines”

Shotguns at extremely close range now have similar stopping power to a rifle, but at 5-10 yards they still have their double stopping power. 

Changed how Rate of Fire works for guns. Just making it a number instead of distinct actions. 

Made it so that Quick Cycling affects basically all guns except automatics, meaning characters with high Firearms skill can now fire semi-automatic pistols at 3 bullets per Action.

Streamlined Stabilization. It is no-longer a roll and instead a penalty that worsens the more bullets are being fired at once. 

Made Bipods give +2 Contextual bonus instead of +1 to single stationary targets.

Changed Reactions and made them more broadly applicable and usable as a rule.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Overhauled Grabs, Throws, Holds, and Escapes to make them a viable option in a lot more scenarios.

Defined “On the Ground” and made it its own section.

Made knock out blows and throws ignore Armor. Knock-out blows are still somewhat penalized by helmets.

Added A Real John Woo Film Optional Rule

More art has been added

Hastily updated the random chase obstacle tables for the new Movement/Action system.

Updated the example obstacles to be more in line with how we designed obstacles for the obstacle tables. 

Redid how Poison works. We meant to make it less convoluted but accidentally made it more granular instead. We did write it better so it will at least feel less convoluted. 

CHAPTER 4

Merged this chapter with chapter 3

CHAPTER 5

merged this chapter with chapter 3

CHAPTER 6

merged this chapter with chapter 3

CHAPTER 7

Added “Psychological Warfare” mechanic. 

—--------------------------------------------------

CHAPTER 8

The Blacked Out Skill has been changed in two major ways. First we made it more obvious that the Blacked Out Skill applies even to knowledge of the supernatural that is not necessarily true. And also rather than working the way that every other Knowledge skill works, the Blacked Out Skill now gives leads to where answers might be found rather than immediate concrete answers. 

THE GORGON IS FINISHED AND FULLY PLAYABLE!

Added that Alt. Witches have to make their supernatural ability composure rolls at +0 instead of +3. The +3 was a typo.

Started work on the complete monster overhaul.

Vampires have been completely rewritten. Most of their abilities and themes are the same, but the way the abilities work has been overhauled and improved in many cases, as well as now being formatted and structured in a sane and easily-referenceable way. 

More art has been added. 

Changed the +2 Contextual Close Combat bonus for the Werewolf Trait to a +1 Base Bonus

Wolfmen have been completely rewritten. Most of their abilities and themes are the same, but the way the abilities work has been overhauled and improved in many cases, as well as now being formatted and structured in a sane and easily-referenceable way. 

Fairytale Witch is currently being rewritten/overhauled. 

Changed Incredible Strength Mage Trait to have a +2 Close Combat bonus instead of +3.

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Clarified that gorgon blood does not heal gorgons.

Changed the way that monsters interact with Composure and their Tiers of Fear during the act of preying on other people. Instead of just ignoring it or having a bonus (i somehow left both of those conflicting rules in and no one told me), a relevant Composure roll is still made when a monster eats someone, but they do not lose Composure points from it even in the event of Partial Success or Failure. This keeps the narrative benefit of a Composure roll to show the monster’s emotional state, but without making hunting numerically pointless.

Finished the complete fairytale witch overhaul. 

Made the Close Combat bonus for superhuman strength be just +1 for the vast majority of instances. The only exception is wolfman forms. They get a higher Close Combat bonus because their transformations actually make them bigger and taller and this helps a lot in Close Combat.

Reduced Athletics bonus of Incredible Strength trait to +2. 

Merged the Alt. Witch with Mage, and made Mage a Misc. supernatural category instead of its own separate thing. This is going to be a really messy transition for chapter 8 so please bear with us. I am making a brief run though the chapter to clean up the biggest discrepancies this change creates, but I probably won’t get them all until the editor and I have time to actually go through and copy-edit it. 

“Mage” is now its own trait, and what were previously called “mage traits” are now called “mage powers”. Mages now have between 1 and 6 mage powers as part of their mage trait, with worse composure rolls the more powers they have. 

When they engage in their True Nature, monsters now have a chance to recoup some or all of the Composure they lost as a result of using their powers to hunt prey. 

—-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fully overhauled the fairy rules. Just one more monster to overhaul! Woo! 

Changed the Curse of Slumber to take effect the next time the victim falls asleep rather than knocking them out spontaneously.

Overhauled the changeling rules to go along with the overhauled fairy rules. 

Clarified something about the vampire’s In Lizard Fashion ability, they wouldnt be able to use this to stop a speeding truck.

Removed the hard limit on how many people a wolfman could eat at once, and also added rules for what happens if they shift to a smaller form with people in their stomach. Made similar tweaks for vampires. 

More art has been added 

Fully overhauled the Thing from Beyond, and that completes the full monster overhaul. All Monsters now consist of a single Trait, rather than needing a pair of Traits. 

Gave vampires’ “wearing the evening” ability a maximum distance of 50 yards and also it is a Movement now 

Made a few more adjustments to some of the monster sections to bring them up to date with the new Movement/Action mechanics. 

Adjusted all instances of poison in the monster sections to account for the new poison rules.

[kamily-art]

Pjo au

Who is each of the turtles (and usagi) godly parent?

Are the turtles still brothers?

Were they still created (either by draxum or a god who wants to start a war?)

hihi!! thanks so much for the ask! i wanted to do a couple doodles to go along with it, and ended up yapping a LOT more than i meant to.... my bad....

the godly parents aren't totally finalized for all of them but i'll tell you what i have for now.

Leo - he's unironically the one i've had the most trouble with, but i think i'm gonna go with Poseidon; it matches what with the blue and all, and i think it would be cool for him to have water powers. i still need all their mystic weapons to work, but i'm thinking of having the weapons' power sources be from something other than their godly parents.

Donnie - Hephaestus of course; he's been building things since he was a kid. i honestly think he'd be the one to resist the knowledge that their parents are gods the most. he doesn't want his talent to be because of some dad who doesn't even care about him.

Mikey - he was the easiest- Apollo. has to be, with all of his art, skill at cooking, charm, etc. he also possesses the gift of prophecy, but no ability to control it (like rachel dare). it manifests in the form of drawings; when he's drawing the future, he is in a trance and cannot move, speak or look out for himself. this has led to his brothers never letting him go anywhere alone, something he's annoyed about.

Raph - it had to be Ares; however i like to think he doesn't fit in very well because of how much of a softie he is despite being strong, etc. he likes hitting things; preferably punching bags or bad guys. he doesn't like war.

have a doodle of him when the turtles first met Usagi. (the rest of the turtles are hiding behind him btw. they just got their asses beat by said bunny.)

speaking of Usagi, his godly parent is Hermes! this AU is not meant to exchange specific PJO characters with rottmnt/Samurai rabbit, but, similarly to Luke, Usagi does end up possessed by Kronos. However, it is not willing.

Someone does willingly join Kronos, however. I won't tell you who.

as for whether they'll still brothers- not biologically! however, they met as toddlers and ended up sticking together. it was necessary to survive, with all the monsters after them. point is, they're basically adopted brothers- which brings us to your next question!

essentially, they started off as human demigods. however, they were kidnapped when they were babies and mutated into turtles (i always thought it would be interesting if the turtles were humans originally); but as they were still demigods, they were still pursued by monsters. they were with draxum for a few years before escaping when his lab was attacked. god knows how they survived. i headcanon (whats this? a hc of my own AU? yes) that they had another sibling originally but she was killed early on. trauma for the boys.

there are loads of other mutants created by draxum, by the way. Usagi's actually one of them! he too escaped during the attack; however unlike the turtles, he was found by the Camp Half-Blood demigods and taken in. when he and the turtles first met, they both thought the others were monsters.

anyway that's the end of my yap! lmk if you have any other questions and sorry for being so longwinded lmao

-karma

[bc-jpeg]

hello i love your art so much, do you perhaps have any tips on character design bc yours are so distinct to me? thank you <3

tysm, anon! I'm glad you like my designs, since you decided to ask me for tips <:D

actually, I don't consider myself very skilled in creating character designs, and I don't really feel like i’m focusing on this in my work, but from the outside view I really like watching this area in my favorite media. I don't know if I can give really working tips, they may not be suitable at all for your creative process and character vision.

here I’ll talk more about creating a design based on an existing image, like minecraft skins, where everything is shown in a very minimalistic way originally and you just have to work from it.

I try to focus as much as possible on the feeling of "is this thing actually suitable for the character or not?", trying to create some kind of composition in the overall design of the character so that everything is in its right place. and that's it, I guess..

I don’t like frequent themed designs that changes every arc/season/smth. in my opinion, yes, it can be beautiful, but it doesn't work at all in my head. some characters TEND to change clothes frequently, sometimes it's literally a character feature that explained by the plot, but it’s not for everyone, I feel. instead, I try to change the original design a little bit for various occasions. especially when you have a base of specific items of clothing, it's a lot of fun to try to keep the same clothes, but changing the shape, details, etc.

I don't like changing the canonical design much, for me it feels wrong by default. but it's still fun to adapt things to your own vision, the main thing is not to get carried away. these frames of the canon makes you think outside the box always, I love it.

logic and practicality are also important to me, simply because that's how I live my life. I’ll obviously choose something practical and comfortable for a daily physical work or a survival games, rather than something fancy. BUT at the same time, I want to do some ordinary practical details fancy still, because it's interesting in the context of practical design.

this doesn’t mean that I’ll assert every detail only on the logic basis, but most often it is so. I like the thinking process itself, how I can adapt a thing so that it works in design both visually and practically and works for the character’s essence.

+ personally, I really like asymmetry in designs, it looks interesting

therefore, I will probably highlight from my entire answer:

— focus on your sense of character, but do not forget about logic and practicality, it’s so useful sometimes.

— try to analyze the character as much as possible so that you can convey many features through their design. shapes and colors are the ultimate basis.

— often look at the design in full picture, so you don’t get some overloaded parts, otherwise the whole design falls apart

[sources with universal advices from professional character designers who have been in their industry for a long time will be useful here, you can find many videos on this topic on youtube]

— references. save as many references as you want, scroll through the pinterest feed at least once a day, there are many unexpected details that can be used to create a character design. artbooks for various media are a very cool thing for this, I dream of a collection of such books.

— if I work on something from scratch, it’s easy to draw a multiple versions of the same design, with some changes, just to see which of them is working the most. also always trying to analyse each of them, “what I like about this version? and what about that?” and etc. after the time you can find a perfect combo of each criteria you like from every versions.

— sometimes also you just have to give it a time, if you doubt some parts of the design.

I tried to think on something more to add here, but for now that’s it-

[loriache]

Thistle & Senshi: Missed Connections

continuing my thistleposting... here is my manifesto for thistle and senshi: friends. In another life 😥

For one thing, they've been unknowing cohabitants for most of senshi's life. thistle doesn't think much of the non-golden kingdom residents of the dungeon, of course - he considers them trespassers and thieves! but there is a difference between trespassers and thieves who mind their own business, and even help keep other adventurers out (he obviously knew about and tolerated the orcs), and trespassers and thieves who make a mess of his dungeon (hateful, to be killed).

which I can't blame him for!

Based on what it looks like when marcille became the dungeon lord, we could assume that creating a dungeon is super easy - just rely on the winged lion for everything! But we see in thistle's flashbacks, that isn't how he did it.

Thistle did a lot of the work of building the dungeon manually. Perhaps because he was trying to build a sustainable dungeon, that could support a large population of living people - who he was invested in surviving themselves, not being replaced by puppets by the demon. They need a functioning ecosystem!

Of course, this is all pragmatic. After working on it for so long, I am sure Thistle is attached to the dungeon and its ecosystem, but more as a means to an end than for its own sake. As we see from the way that Laois defeats him, Thistle isn't really interested in monsters, and doesn't really understand the value of food...

Though I think he once did, and the fact he doesn't anymore is more down to the lion's interference than anything.

Senshi is attached to the dungeon's ecosystem. It's his home, even though he lost his family there, and he's come to care about it in its own right.

There are aspects of it he finds distasteful or dislikes, such as the immortality spell. But overall, if he had a chance to talk to Thistle about his hard work building up and maintaining the dungeon, he'd be greatly appreciative of it - this is his home, and it's a place that Thistle made to be a home.

In fact, Senshi (and the orcs) have been willingly living in the dungeon. Whereas the people that Thistle created the dungeon for have to be kept there by force. I doubt it's something he'd be easily appreciative of, but it's something, isn't it?

I also think it's incredibly cute that they both keep diaries.

Senshi's diaries have drawing, Thistle's have poems... they're both artists! Thistle with his music & Senshi with his cooking, they both have arts that they share with others to make them happy, and art that they keep to themselves.

Based on the diaries, including the ones in the complete Adventurers Bible..... it doesn't seem like Senshi ever learned Thistle's name! This makes sense since they really don't have much interaction - mostly Thistle talks to Laios or Marcille.

I don't think it should have gone any other way, since they're the protagonists and foils, but I do think in a more chilled out setting, Senshi and Thistle could get on.

Like Izutsumi, Thistle's a bit of a brat.

(I love him)

He probably had good table manners once upon a time, but I reckon he is very out of practice.

And we see he isn't in the habit of sharing:

Senshi would disapprove!

Senshi's desire to get everyone living well can be a bit overbearing. He already cleaned Thistle's kitchen for him!

But like Izutsumi, Thistle is another character that Senshi's habit of assuming non-dwarves to be children would be appropriate for. He's much older than Senshi, yeah, but his maturity levels seem to have stagnated along with his physical form in some ways. I doubt that anyone has treated him like a kid since way before he became a dungeon lord. The humans around him didn't understand his age, we can see that from the responsibility Delgal puts on him!

I think it would be good for him to have a person in his life who treats him like a kid, after he's had to be an adult so early and have so much responsibility for so long. And I'd like him to sit down and eat a delicious meal.

Sometimes that does happen! But Senshi would have done better </3

Thistle's ending is sad, but it's cathartic and makes sense. After being consumed by the winged lion, I doubt he'd be able to persist for a little longer, like Yaad - why would he even want to?

But I do think it would be nice if he could have met new people, formed new desires outside of his codependency with Delgal, and eaten a meal together with new people. Senshi could have helped him with that, if he had had the opportunity.

[okiedokrie]

All Is Fair In Love And War (TEASER)

Summary: Joshua is nothing if not determined. If he wants something, he'll get it; not that he even had to try before. But sometimes, like Icarus, he flies a little too close to the sun. But hey, all is fair in love and war!

Characters/Pairing: Aphrodite Incarnation!Joshua x Fem!Detective!Very Mortal!Reader

Genre: smut, fluff, crack, angst if you really squint

AUs/Trope Info: Greek God!AU, Partners In Solving Crimes, Strangers to Lovers, "time isnt linear" trope, "holy shit im kind of obsessed with you" trope

Word Count: 900+ for the teaser, est. 10k≤ for the full fic

Warnings: Depiction of a crime scene (gore, blood, gun, conspiracy), depiction of drug use, character death (major and minor), smut warnings under the cut when full fic is uploaded

Rating: 18+

A/N: This is part of the The 13 Gods of Olympus: A Seventeen collab hosted by @beomcoups and @wooahaeproductions! This is just the teaser, so if you enjoy it, please consider signing up for the taglist. Thank you!!

In the summer of 2000, Joshua Hong was almost five years old. People always commented on how pretty he was for a kid, that he’d surely grow up to be a very handsome man. 

Which is why it was a tragedy when he died from a freak truck accident.

Yes, Joshua Hong died at the age of five. For like, 10 minutes.

The doctors called it a miracle - a small child should not have survived a whole six of the twelve truck wheels, but somehow he was resuscitated, much to his parents’ delight.

This incident caused two things to change dramatically - Californetherlands now has stricter trucking laws and Joshua woke up to memories of literally being Aphrodite.

Throughout the years, from that fateful summer day to the present day, Joshua flopped back and forth between believing that the memories were just fever dreams and genuinely considering that he may be a reincarnation of the goddess. But ever since he got to hone his powers, he’s been more inclined to believe the latter.

By the age of  28, he has mastered the art of seduction. No, not sleeping with people constantly. It was more so the art of getting people to say ‘yes’ to everything he asked of them.

This made Joshua a very powerful and influential figure in Los Amsterdam; You see, the way he dealt wasn’t by out-witting people or being richer than them. He dealt in favors. If you wanted to be a popstar, he’d introduce you to a famous producer, and get you a record deal that would solidify your career - all for the low, low price of free.

In turn,  you’d owe him, like the many powerful people who owed him large favors.

Joshua found himself in downtown LA, in the club that he owned, just under his penthouse. He enjoyed playing the guitar and performing for his patrons, everyone seemingly captivated by his voice, or his beauty, whichever one caught their attention first. He finally strummed the last chord of his song, enjoying the applause of the crowd as the DJ started to play the usual club music. Just as he was about to retreat to the bar, a feminine voice stopped him.

“Joshua! Hey!” She said, hair bouncing over her new fur coat, jumping excitedly, calling him over.

Joshua smiled widely at her - she was one of the people he had helped start her career as a singer. He didn’t do much other than introduce her to the CEO of her current label, it was her natural talent that got her this far.

“Ah, Diana, good to see you!” He said, going over to meet her in a friendly hug, the kind that didn’t touch at all. “How has being a singer treated you? Any good news?” He said, making small talk with an old acquaintance.

“Oh please,” she started, her new haughty attitude showing, “It’s all over the news! I just got nominated for a Grammy!” She said in a sing-song tone. Joshua just nodded Truth be told, he didn’t really have much interest in pop music, but he did try to match her enthusiasm.

“That’s great! I knew you’d make it big.” he said, remembering the first time she came to him, a girl in clothes that almost looked like rags, now decked out in every designer brand you could think of. “So, what brings you back here then? Surely you already have everything you ever wanted?” He said lightheartedly. Even if all of Joshua’s connections owed him favors, it was quite uncommon for them to come back to him after having achieved their dreams.

“Well,” She said, her old, meek bashfulness coming to the surface. “I just wanted to see you again, to thank you for what you have done for me.” She tucked a hair behind her ear. “And I know no matter what favor I do for you in return, I could never break even for just how much you’ve impacted my life. So, thank you, Joshua.”

Joshua genuinely felt relieved to hear her say that - usually, people’s pride and greed got in the way of them acknowledging those who truly helped them along the way, but as he suspected, this girl still had a soul so pure. “Let's get some drinks by the bar and chat some more, yeah? My treat.” He offered, which she gladly took, the conversation between them flowed naturally, Joshua enjoying her tales of success.

It was an hour after the club closed that Diana decided it was time to head home. Joshua offered to see her off, like the gentleman he was, and so they walked to the sidewalk, her hand around his arm.

Joshua opened the taxi door for her, offering her a few bills in cash to cover the fare, “It was nice seeing you again, hopefully, you’ll make time to catch up with me in the future.” he said through the taxi window.

“Yeah, I hope I get the chance to see you again soon. Goodnight Joshua.” She said as she rolled up the taxi window.

Joshua watched the taxi drive until the end of the block, everything seemingly going smoothly, up until another car intercepted hers in the intersection.

It happened so quickly, too quickly for  Joshua to even register the new car’s window sliding down, holding a gun out to the taxi Diana was in. Gunshots echoed through the street, the sound of tires popping and glass shattering but all Joshua could make out was the sound of two sets of four tires screeching against the concrete. Diana’s taxi collided with a nearby lamppost, the taxi flattening and curling around it.

That was the last time Joshua saw her alive.

Sign up for the taglist here!

[utilitycaster]

So you're playing a D&D class

(had these thoughts while thinking about CR character builds, but relevant to D&D in general).

Here's just a brief list of three questions per class that are intended to be helpful if you're playing that class and are working on fleshing out that aspect of your character. Note that I'm only covering officially published classes for 5e. If you're a blood hunter I am just going to assume you know what you're about, and if you're a mystic then you are beyond help or hope. Also, obviously, there's way more to a character than their class! But understanding why the character is that class is pretty crucial to overall character build.

Artificer:

Did the magic come first or did the tinkering come first?

Did you apprentice or were you self-taught?

What do you dream of creating - or if you don't, what outside goal drives your creations?

Barbarian:

Is rage a cultural or family trait, or is this unique to you?

What do you feel like when you rage?

What do you feel your purpose is, outside of combat? Do you have one or are you not sure? (note - feel free to ask this about other martially focused classes, but barbarians skew especially hard towards combat skills above all others)

Bard:

What led you to be able to tap into the echoes of creation (not guaranteed for all artists!)

What is your medium, and how did you come to it/learn it?

You have a ton of skills - how did you acquire them?

Cleric:

What is your relationship with the deity/entity/concept that grants you your powers?

Since many sources have multiple domains, why this domain specifically?

What does your worship look like?

Druid:

Is your relationship to nature cultural, or personal?

What drew you to your circle?

How do you feel about wildshape? Is it a tool available to you, or an enjoyable experience?

Fighter:

Who trained you or how did you pick up your skills?

What led you to focus on fighting? Is there something you wished to attack or to protect?

Fighter is REALLY modular/subclass dependent, so dig into your subclass; if you're a champion, the 'what is your purpose outside combat' from Barbarian may apply, but if you're say, an eldritch knight or rune knight, you may have had two teachers and should dig into that.

Monk:

Who trained you?

What does Ki feel like for you?

Not a question, but: with the caveat that I know very little about martial arts, I do think that having a concept of the martial art style your monk uses is a huge help in bringing the character to life.

Paladin:

What drew you to this oath?

What continues to motivate you?

You're in a very versatile role; which part speaks to you the most- do you see yourself more as a protector? a healer? is the versatility itself what matters?

Ranger:

How did you learn your nature skills?

What is your relationship to your magic?

Why are your favored terrain and enemy what they are?

Rogue:

How did you learn to pick locks?

Did your thievery/stealth come as a necessity for survival, or was it a choice?

As with bard - what specifically led you to develop the skills you have?

Sorcerer:

When did your powers first manifest? If it was not when you were very young, what were you doing beforehand?

Are you interested in where your powers came from? How far would you go to learn about them? Or do you already know?

What would you do if your powers disappeared?

Warlock:

What led you to make the pact - even if it was accidental or a trick?

How do you feel about your patron generally?

Because warlock is truly very modular - that is, extremely reliant on the boon and evocations for flavor, analyze the choice of evocations and boon. If you picked agonizing blast, why specifically did your warlock want to make eldritch blast stronger? What drew your character to the blade vs. chain vs. tome?

Wizard:

What role do wizards play in your society?

How were you trained?

What do you most desire to learn or achieve?