#anyways cow dragons I actually have been doing these for a while

[purpleskelet0n]

After having an. absolute shitter of a day like a full level shart monster of a day you need to draw a cow dragon eat comfort food and watch relatable netflix shows to make it better

[howdeepthegrave]

Nicky and Rio try to teach Agatha how to play Minecraft but in their collective excitement forget to explain the most important part... how the controls work.

note: all-autistic Vidarkness fam incoming and AGATHA REDEMPTION BUT IN A LEARNING VIDEO GAMES WAY

-----

"It's sooo easy, Mama!" Nicky declared.

"Easy when I help you, mijo," Rio said.

"You only help me a little bit! Anyway, Mama, it's so easy! You can do anything in Minecraft. All you gotta do is mine things and craft stuff!"

"And defeat the Ender Dragon."

Nicky nodded, babbling on, and Agatha looked between him and Rio, utterly befuddled. She was not certain if it was the pain meds—damn sprained ankle—or the fact that her son and her spouse so often seemed to communicate in ways she could not possibly comprehend, but most of what was being said was flying right over head.

"Three of us in one house," she grumbled, "and of course you two got the autism that's all matchy-matchy."

Rio rubbed her back gently, taking the video game controller from their son.

"It's easy, mi vida. You just have to..."

The words rattled on, and Agatha tried to take in what was happening onscreen and match it to whatever Rio and Nicky were saying. They had assured her that this would be a fun way to pass the time while they were gone for the day and she was laid up, but she was feeling doubtful. Still, as she watched the action on the screen, a sense of understanding crept in. This might actually be an interesting game. Could be. Possibly.

"Maybe we'll just leave you in creative mode," Rio said, and those were all words that made total sense.

"No, no, I think I get it," Agatha said, "and if I give it a try I'm sure..."

Rio's watch beeped, and she groaned.

"Crap. We gotta go. Here, love."

Agatha found herself in possession of the controller as Rio grabbed the two matching backpacks by the coffee table, tossing the smaller one to Nicky.

"C'mon, mijo. Time to head out."

Nicky hugged Agatha fiercely, and she smiled, kissing his cheek before he could pull away. He was already at the front door as Rio leaned down and kissed Agatha softly.

"Just take it easy today, mi vida. Don't try to do too much. Alice promised to stop in and check on things when she drops Nicky back from school, and I'll be home in plenty of time to make dinner."

"I love you," Agatha said.

"Love you too."

"Love you, Mama!" Nicky shouted, and then "C'mon, Mami!"

Then they were gone. Her baby boy and the love of her life. Of course, they would both return eventually, but still, there was a moment when Agatha's heart shuddered, imagining a world where they might not. She decided it was definitely the pain medication kicking her ass emotionally.

Something on the television made a sound, and she looked to see things... Happening in the game. There was a cow. Okay. A cow was not so bad. She could...

She looked down at the controller in her hands. She studied it like it was vital to a case.

Shit. She had no idea what buttons did what.

^^^^^^

Rio slumped in through the garage. Alice's car was still outside, and that had worried her at first, but she figured maybe her old friend had just stuck around to keep Agatha and Nicky company. Alice was cool like that.

Going to the fridge, she started to pull out the ingredients for dinner, smiling to herself as she heard cheerful laughter and conversation from the living room. Her family was happy. It had taken them a while to get where they were, but...

"HOLY SHIT, AGATHA!"

"Language, Aunt Alice! Go, Mama, go!"

Setting aside the food, Rio decided she had better go and check on things, just a bit.

Agatha was on the couch, just as she had been this morning, injured leg stretched out and elevated, but she was twisted around at an awkward angle, her good foot on the floor as she leaned over the controller in the way Rio normally would playing a racing game. Nicky was in the big armchair, excitedly clapping his hands as he watched whatever was happening onscreen. Alice was sprawled on the floor, cheering Agatha on.

"Hey, how's everything?" Rio asked.

"Mami, Mama's about to get th' Ender Dragon!"

"What?"

"Oh, took me a little trial and error," Agatha said, "but I am about to whomp this thing."

"You... You've never played before today."

"Nope."

"You don't even like video games."

"Oh, I do find Ace Attorney diverting. Otherwise, no, I usually don't."

"So how..."

"I may have looked up some tutorials while I was, you know, figuring out how the controls even work."

"Wait, you..."

"Well, you and Nicky did manage to avoid even telling me how to move in this... Darn game, but eventually I got the hang of it."

"Rio," Alice said, "Agatha is tearing this shit UP!"

"Language!" Agatha and Nicky chorused.

Rio moved around behind the armchair, reaching down to ruffle Nicky's hair and watch as Agatha bulldozed her way through taking out the Ender Dragon. It was, in an odd way, glorious.

Later on, after dinner, after Nicky was in bed, Rio helped Agatha up to their room and sat with her on their bed.

"So, you conquered Minecraft in a day."

"What," Agatha shrugged, "like it's hard?"

"After we didn't even think to tell you how the controls work?"

"Sometimes, if you want something done right, you turn to loud young men on the internet. Well, some loud young men on the internet."

Laughing, Rio shook her head.

"You amaze me, Agatha."

Smiling, Agatha reclined back against her pillows and shrugged again.

"Don't tell anyone, but sometimes, I even amaze myself."

[bokettochild]

⭐️ Crown Admist Courage ⭐️

I'm really enjoying the story so far! 💕🥰

Oh boy!

So, obviously, I REALLY like the Prince Legend trope, yeah?

This fic was mostly born out of a need to write a Legend centric fic again after not having written him a long-fic of his own since, what, Feathered? I mean, other than ABFHP, but that is..... we don't talk about that...

*goes and sobs in unfulfilled ideas and a writing style changed by a years work and no longer what it was for that project*

*ahem*, anyways! Clearly, I wanted to play with something, and I don't remember what it was precisely, but for ages now, I've had this thought in my head of all the knights just...finding out legend is royal and losing their shit. Not gonna lie, the thought of him perched on a throne (not sitting properly on it because he's just Like That) while the rest stand around with swords drawn and Legend smirking his freaking face off at the camera has been haunting me for the last few years.

I like the idea of Legend eventually weaponizing his status when he needs to, although I doubt it will ever actually appear in a fic. That said! After writing Legend as a prince in ABFHP, the idea of playing with it again but this time in the boys' home environment (AKA the outdoors) was sort of itching at my brain.

Honestly, it was probably someone in the LU-Legend community here on Tumblr that inspired the actual fic with some sort of post about Legend and knights or something, but my brain got to working and thinking and eventually I decided to make it an official draft.

I actually put it up to a poll to determine what my next fic would be, and ACAC was one of like, six options I put out there for my next major fic. I think the other ones were a Warriors dies/is forgotten, the boys get trapped in Time's world post LU, and a mix-and-match fic where the boys get separated and paired off with a random princess and have to find each other across time and space again; but now with said princess in tow. ACAC won the poll though, and so I started writing it- um...... *checks calendar* almost six months ago?!?!?!?! Holy cow? Like it's the start of a new month but sweet snap-dragons!!!!

Anyways!

Starting a fic is generally torture for me, at least when I know it's going to be a multi-chap/longfic. The first chapter sets the mood for the whole thing and establishes the interpretation of the characters and all that, so I was wracking my brain for what to do to get this thing off the ground. In the end, I ended up opening a random google-doc and just writing whatever my brain would spit out, wondering where to go and what to do and just rambling out every concept I could think of.

I debated so hard on whether or not Legend would actually know about his heritage or not, but since Feathered used the approach that he was in the dark, I thought it would be fun to do one where Legend's known all along, is totally aware of where he comes from and the history surrounding it, and it just stupidly ignorent to the fact that everyone around him is slowly figuring it out.

I knew we'd have some angst, since the royal-prince theories have been pretty dark since I first entered the fandom, so, for a bit of humor, I decided to go the route of "everyone eventually knows but also assumes they're the only one that knows", so, to any readers who were hoping that the boys would compare notes and use their brains, sorry to disappoint! Nobody is likely going to share their knowledge on purpose. if anything, I think it will be Legend that eventually 'outs himself', but only after everyone already knows. Until then, we'll just have all the boys convinced they are the sole knower of a very important and dangerous secret that they cannot share with the rest of they want Legend to stay alive.

That in mind! I had to start the fic I a way that wouldn't start it too slow, nor too fast.

The first draft actually was done in an echo of Feathered where I would recount about how Legend learned the truth, ages and ages ago, but it set up the imagine of a very innocent, sweet, baby-fied Legend (who, to be fair, would actually have been like nine at the time so it's not too bad) and it would make transitioning to the actual plot really tricky. That, and it just felt like a cheap knock-off of my previous works, and I didn't want that. So, instead, I tried to figure out a way for somebody to learn about the truth, and Sky ended up being the one I wanted to find out first.

I ran a few scenarios in my mind, but in the end, I decided on using the temple/Palace of Hylia plotline that we see in the fic. I figured that having Legend interact with ancient artifacts meant for the gods alone might set it up nicely, and putting them in an ancient building meant that I got to have written explanations dotted about for Sky to see for himself, and read, while the rest likely wouldn't be able to.

Sky coming to grips with the situation, with Sun's help, had many versions. I had them flirting and teasing and assuring each other in every direction, but very little of it was consistent with the point I was trying to drive: Legend is connected to Hylia somehow. I ended up cutting a TON of Sky/Sun interactions/moments in order to stay on track, including a chapter from Sun's perspective on the whole matter. I do like what I came out with though; it feels like a good balance of the plot and some character/dynamic building while also providing substantial lore to set up the story the way that I wanted to!

I was not actually intending on dragging the boys all the way to Warriors time so soon either, because I wanted to have them explore the surface village and meet people, but in the end I ended up cutting that too because it felt more rambling, and really could just be boiled down to a single paragraph instead.

Fun not though about their entrance into the captain's world! The portal is actually made by Lana! Technically speaking, the boys were yoinked across time and space because Lana needed backup and just summoned the first person that came to mind, and he ended up coming with eight other heroes in tow! I intended to make a note of this or otherwise touch on it in-fic, but, obviously, there was a lot of exposition happening and I couldn't find a good way to make it come up naturally. It might still be brought up, but I'm not sure.

Now, obviously, if you've been watching my Tumblr, you probably know that I put out polls to see who would find out next in any given update, and I wasn't actually planning on it being Wars, but what the people wanted, the people got! The appear of having knight drama was just too strong!

Initially, I was planning on leaving it at Warriors seeing the vet use similar magic to Zelda and putting the pieces together and just leaving it at that, but then, while making dinner one night after a few rounds of HW, I ended up just.... accidentally imagining/daydreaming the whole bit with Impa explaining things to Warriors. No lie, I did not plan a single line of that! I thought it and then grabbed for my computer and started typing as fast as I could while the spark was still there, trying to cover everything from the imaginary conversation in my head. In the end, I had to cut the scene in two because it just was so MUCH, but I loved the ideas I came up with there. it is, by far, the best theory I have come up with in regards to the princes' of Hyrule and the royal family as a whole, ever! Enough so that I've started referencing it in other fics too (although to a lesser extent, but TBoHH now has nods to it now, and I'm sure it follow elsewhere as well, going forwards .

Warriors reactions are made to be sort of a mirror to the way that Wild used to act in the memories we see in BOTW, and I actually really wanted to include a scene that sort of mirrors that first memory we locate where Flora yells at Wild for following her everywhere. Chapter 12 was supposed to include Legend shouting some very similar choice words at Wars, but I ended up scrapping it (and the whole chapter draft) when it kept petering out and rambling off into nowhere. I still intend to touch on the parallels there though!

Speaking of parallels, I am loving getting to play with the Flora & Legend parallels! The first time I ever compared them was actually in the OG TBBU series, where Wild observes to Warriors and Time that Legend is very similar to his princess in many ways, and that comparison has stuck in my head since. I have intentionally played into it in this fic, from the first chapter where Wild lends Legend his slate to the present one I released this weekend. The purpose of this is to mess with Wild's head but also to sort of endear Legend to him so that he's not just being a knight, like Wars, but actually uses his experience from being Flora's knight to navigate his supposed duty to the vet better than the captain is. For example, rather than acting stiff and soldierly, he's being friendly and appealing to Legend's interests so that he can manipulate circumstances to let him stay close to the vet and thus protect him better.

Honestly, I love the dynamic potential between the two of them, and having Flora as a sort of a base model for Legend's behavior makes it easier to write him in this AU where he's experiencing things that JoJo's Legend would never actually even see, realistically. It also makes for some great Wild angst/character building, because it plays into his memory loss and issues regarding failure, while also giving him context for new situations and ways to help.

Legend's Magic

I had no intentions of bringing Legend's magic into the fic at all, save a single throwaway line to reference my theories about Legend post-Koholint (do NOT ask me about these unless you want an angst-fest that may or may not have wrecked more drafts than I care to admit, and which might go on for hours/pages). For spoiler reasons for several fics now, I can't explain the magic thing in full, but I really just meant it to be an explanation for why Legend's not freely using holy magic left and right, but you guys seemed to really enjoy the concept, so I've been leaning more into it!

The heart issues are actually a side effect of his magical condition, and I like to think Legend's had poor health his whole life as a result of his magic being too strong for his physical form (much like how Impa spoke about in fic). Being that he's a twin, he's actually the weaker/smaller sibling, and sue to the conditions he was raised in, that was aggravated by a lack of food, medical care, and his early start to adventuring, all of which contributed to making his body weaker even as his magic continued to get stronger.

None of this is the fault of the vet's Uncle, but because Legend's parents died when he was very small, Uncle was left providing for him single-handedly, while trying to fly under the radar of the crown, so they were pretty poor all around and genuinely couldn't afford what was needed to help Legend grow up properly. In contrast, Zelda did have these things and thus doesn't suffer the same issues.

The Plot Going Forwards

Again, I did NOT intend to really delve into Legend's magic in this fic, not much, but I realized over time that, once the boys all find out, it might be nice to have an actual conflict for them all to face, legend of course being at the center of it, and it would be pretty cool if magic/godly heritage ended up being a major plot point. And yes, this line of thought can be blamed entirely on @weepingtalecowboy, who has been flooding my brain, and the LU-Legend community, with killer ideas about the vet and who kindly gave me permission to try my hand at some of them.

Currently, the idea appealing most to me is the boys being stranded in Hyrule's era and having to deal with some cultists, because I've never really played with that before and it would be so fun to really hurt them all via ritual sacrifice and torture >:)

Of course, things might change, and I have no set plans for this fic and really am just going where it takes me.

Epona

Legend's a horse girl and I feel it is a great crime that we haven't touched on this fact more My man used to be able to speak to animals just passively (as per the OoS manga/his games), and while it is hinted this is part of his magic, and thus no longer something he can do in this fic, I really wanted to touch on it.

I fully intend on playing with Epona more in the fic and making her relevant to the story in some way, although HOW, I'm not yet sure. As a result though, I think Twilight might be next to learn the truth about the vet (also because I desperately want to use a fun line/reference in the fic but it only works with Twilight)

Trivia

Legend honestly has so much random trivia related to him that your average LU fan likely doesn't know about. From his knowledge of telephones to the fact that he's canonically a boxer, there are so many little asides, characters, facts, traits, and skills that I so rarely see in fics, and I'm making an effort to lean more into the Legend lore in this story and include them!

So far, I've gotten to include the factoid about Legend's ability to speak to animals, his boxing skills, Ghanti's whole existence, and, of course, the whole technology thing! I want to toss in a few details every few chapters, and maybe bring in a few characters we rarely see in fics, but there's no promise that I CAN. (I will be trying though)

The Princesses

So far, only Sun has really gotten any spotlight, but I do want to include a fair bit about the princesses where I can in this fic, making them actually plot relevant rather than just passing background characters who show up just for a cameo and then disappear again, like they have in my other fics. Again, I have no concrete plans and am sort of winging this whole thing, but I do enjoy having the girls play a role of some kind. I was hoping to have Artemis involved more, before, but Impa ended up taking over instead.

-

And that's it for now! We haven't gotten all that far in the story, technically speaking, and only three out of eight have figured anything out!

That said though, I am just here for the ride, and have no clue where we're going, so who knows what's next and who knows how close/far we are from the end LOL

I wanted to thank everyone who's been reading and commenting though, for their kind words, fun ideas, theories, suggestions, and general encouragement! It's been fun and I hope it continues to be so!

[neixins]

happy gijaeha gtuesday! what’s an underrated moment you love? 🎤

THANK U FOR INDULGING ME LIKE THIS <3 i couldn’t possibly pick one single moment so i’ll just keep going until i can’t add any more images

i’m gonna stick to truly underrated moments btw, so no hot springs bonus chapter, no “if you feel the way i do, that means i can trust you to have my back in battle”, no love potion shenanigans, no “he’s stronger than i am” and adjacent moments, no “it’s refreshing to hear you discuss important things”, no cool battle couple moments, no “if you keep being so reckless, you’ll get yourself killed”, no “you can still live” (and definitely not those last two in relation to each other…... that’s already its own post actually). on that note, i’m also not gonna be including anything i’ve already posted about even if it’d technically count otherwise. was this an excuse to mention all of those moments anyway? perhaps! but u asked for underrated and underrated i shall deliver. ready? let’s go! <3

[transcription note: all the upcoming images are panels from “yona of the dawn”. end note.]

the first moment that comes to mind is this one from ch 135. like gija doesn’t tend to think things through often (he’s far from stupid; he’s just not a Thinker), but this—finding a way to use mizari’s interest in their powers to their advantage, in this case specifically to help jaeha—is just so endlessly interesting to me

[ID: part of a page consisting of multiple panels. mizari is clapping excitedly, saying, “that was incredible! how wonderful! how do you enlarge it? if i trained hard, could i do it too?”; jaeha is breathing heavily, visibly exhausted, and gija watches him before saying, “could you…bring us some meat dishes?”; mizari looks confused as he asks, “meat dishes?”; gija says, “jaeha’s gotten awfully anemic.”; yun adds, “some liver from a cow or a bird would be best.”. end ID.]

i also love it when he’s not using any of those braincells that he clearly has though <3 like this moment in ch 155. it’s also really sweet how he just continues chilling beside jaeha throughout the rest of the scene despite doing an absolutely abysmal job of hiding his hand

[ID: a panel showing jaeha and gija in a hot spring; jaeha says, “another guest, hmm? we won’t be able to leave for a while.”; gija moves to stand in front of him, holding out his arms, and says, “you can hide behind me, then!”; jaeha responds, “you shouldn’t have your hand out where anyone can see it, either.”. end ID.]

married couple behavior from ch 129. leaving out the previous panel so that i can include more moments but this happens after jaeha calls them the beautiful monsters of kohka

[ID: a panel showing gija as he turns towards jaeha to correct him, saying, “the four dragon warriors.”; jaeha responds, “fine, fine. what he said.”. end ID.]

speaking of which, i love it so much when they have basically the same reaction to things (the examples below are from ch 172 but there’s more i’m not including). this becomes more prevalent later on which is just such a cute detail like yessss impact each other’s lives all the way down to picking up each other’s mannerisms <3

[ID: the first panel shows jaeha and gija leaning over the edge of a cart with similar expressions of surprise; jaeha asks, “algira? voldo?!” and gija asks, “why are you here?”; algira shushes them. in the second panel, zeno says, “the fellow sure is popular. when did that happen?”; gija and jaeha are standing beside him, both staring wide-eyed. end ID.]

this bit from ch 203 is soooo unbelievably funny to me. “i can’t take u guys” he says, holding onto gija……

[ID: a panel showing yona and the four dragons. she says, “but…i’ve only just been permitted to see you all here.”; jaeha says, “we’ll go through the window. even if we’re caught, i doubt they’ll try to harm us.”; gija says, “great! let’s go.” as he climbs onto jaeha’s back, wrapping his arms around his shoulders; sinha is clinging onto gija’s shoulder while zeno is doing the same to jaeha; jaeha says, “hey, i can’t take you guys.”; his hands are hooked beneath gija’s legs, holding him up. end ID.]

“woohoo! you’re so cool, gija!” from ch 159. they’re never EVER beating those allegations

[ID: a panel showing gija stepping forward, saying, “everyone, step aside. i’ll handle this.”; behind him, jaeha cheers, “woohoo! you’re so cool, gija!”; they’re both shirtless. end ID.]

love it when jaeha’s like “don’t ruin your pretty face” whenever gija’s acting feral. the example below is from ch 35 but there’s also a similar moment in ch 86.

[ID: a panel showing jaeha saying, “good grief. gija’s going to ruin his pretty face.”. end ID.]

who would i be if i didn’t include a panel where they’re badly injured and covered in blood? :) i’m just obsessed with the exasperated fondness here (also with gija’s chronic fatigue and other assorted issues codedness) (ch 143)

[ID: a panel showing gija slumped against jaeha, the psychomimes indicating that he’s woozy; jaeha smiles slightly as he says, “good grief. you’re nowhere near recovered.”. end ID.]

there are many candidates vying for the final spot but i gotta give it to this panel from ch 225. there are many implications one can glean from this if one is a yaoi scholar like myself but also just look at them. LOOK!!! THEM <3

[ID: a panel showing gija and jaeha asleep next to each other; gija is sleeping soundly and reaching towards jaeha with his dragon hand, poking the side of his face; jaeha is frowning. end ID.]

[snowblack-charcoalwhite]

I think that the misandry by the writers , especially Hess, is something that isn't discussed much. It's much deeper and dare I say, more sinister than just 'men bad women good' because the way she wrote the last episode shows that she wants to convey how Alicent's actions are commendable in a sense that her male children don't deserve her devotion and unconditional love anyway, while her only female child and grandchild do. It's framed as her liberation because she sells her own sons to another woman who is their enemy, but you know, it is good because Rhaenicent and reasons. As a woman, I'm appalled by this. What's worse is that I've seen takes here and on x like "Alicent regained her agency by ditching her sons for the woman she loves, her betrayal is understandable, go girl, you have my support" (and this one is tame compared to some others). Believe me, I'm not exaggerating. And I must be from mars because in my book that's not acceptable, understandable or commendable in any way, just the opposite. The problem, however, lies in the fact that the narrative and the writers' agenda support these vile and delusional takes. You don't even have to be a parent to see how evil and nonsensical this idea is, you just have to be able to understand basic human emotions and family dynamic. The writers and a big chunk of the fandom apparently don't.

Hello!

Thank you for this, really. The writers' (Hess' specifically) misandric agenda is absolutely crazy - and IMO crazy evident as well, so seeing so many people fall for it is baffling, sad and infuriating at the same time.

Don't they see that in HotD the women are the ones to blaim for something only when they side with men in one way or another? Don't they understand how forced, unsubtle and - because of that - cringe all the "you are a woman so you can't rule", "they don't respect me because I'm a woman" and "women suffer while men fight" are? House of the Dragon is one of the most force-feeding shows I've ever watched - and for some reason GA and even some people in the fandom believe it's alright. Media literacy is dead for real.

And the parent-children aspect of misandry you brought up is indeed one of the most atrocious things about the whole debacle. I am not a mother myself - but I have one, just as, I think, the majority of the viewers do. I refuse to believe that everyone who cheers for Alicent to abandon her sons has their own familial relationships so screwed that they are unable to understand the outlandishness of the opinion they are choosing to uphold.

Not to mention that in their quest for showing just how terrible Alicent's sons (minus Daeron - at least for now) are, HotD writers completely destroyed Helaena's personality, even the sparks of it she had in season 1. Now she is all about three things: bugs, clairvoyance and suffering (and I can't believe that the first point has been handled the best development-wise). Helaena is supposed to be good and kind: but what good and kind things have we seen her do? Taking care (kind of) of her crickets, offering a necklace in exchange for the life of her son (oh wow) and saying that she shouldn't really grieve for her child that much because the commoners' kids are dying all the time (how relatable for anyone who actually lost a child, right?). For most part she is just there, staring into the distance and saying something prophetic (or, again, suffering).

Just imagine a real mother saying to her son "You know, sonny, I love you, but you forgot to thank me for the pudding I made for your birthday plus you called my bestie an old cow - so I invited your school bullies to our house so that they could beat the shit out of you, you ungrateful jerk. They are in the backyard, go on, don't make your mommy wait".

Just imagine a real woman whose son has just been brutally killed say "You know what, there are so many children starving to death in the world. Why should I cry over mine?"

Honestly, I am beginning to think that people are steadily losing the ability to connect the things happening on screen to actual human emotional experience - as if the characters (in HotD in this case) are aliens to whom basic concepts that have been holding humanity together for millenia do not apply.

[mythos321]

Decided to remake Part 1 of The Decisive Victory, so that it’s more in line with how I made other parts

(for those first reading, this takes place in the third part of Book 1, with a major change of Glory actually leaving)

the first few bits will be moments from the book that changed

Part 1 redux: Talons of the Queen

Glory was missing, and Clay was desperate to find out why, rushing through the forest looking for her while Tsunami and Sunny followed suit, desperate to find her as quickly as possible

Clay at first thought maybe she was taken by the skywings, until he thought more and realized if they took her they’d have also taken the others as well, and Glory wouldn’t just wander off for a nightly stroll…

“What could’ve happened to her?…Starflight already was taken by the Nightwings, I can’t lose Glory!”

“…Oh this moron.” Tsunami said out loud, as a realization came to her

“…What is it?” Sunny asked her

“Glory left because she got jealous of how you were with Peril. Ugh! That overdramatic crybaby! I swear if we find her, I’m gonna-” As Tsunami continued on, what she said hit Clay like a spear to the heart

Glory left because of him?…Glory left because of him…But didn’t she know how much she meant to him? Evidently, he must’ve not shown it well enough, if he made her feel this way…Glory left because of him, and was out on her own because he wasn’t careful with his words…

Glory left because of him...

**

Clay couldn't believe what he had just heard.

After all these years of wishing to find his family, THIS is who he meets? Someone who sold him for only 2 cows, and permanently ruined what could ve been his life?!

Was today all some sick joke? First Glory left, and now this walking dumpster of a dragon was trying to act as though HE was an idiot for her selling him and him not knowing? Not only that, but that the only dragon who would've left him was already dead, and had been for years.

Just how was he supposed to react now? Walk away? Act like it was all done?...What else could he really do-

"You can't have the cows back!" Was all he heard Cattail yell out, and instantly, Clay was overcome with absolute rage, one last straw broken, as he grabbed a clump of mud with a rock in it and chucked it at Cattails stupid snout, knocking her down in the process. When Clay saw her bleeding snout he almost began to feel bad, before remembering all the stupid words she spouted out, and became overcome with emotion once again, none of the other dragonets were around to see him, so what did it matter anyway, right?...

"GO CHOKE ON THEIR BONES AND BECOME WORM DUNG YOU USELESS PILE OF CROCODILE LEAVINGS." Clay yelled out, as he rushed off to rejoin with Tsunami and Sunny. As he did though, he could have sworn he almost felt a dragon touch his back, only to turn around see a vague drifting haze, and sounds of something rushing away in the mud.

"..." Clay simply walked away, not wishing to investigate the sound, figuring not only was it unimportant, but to be perfectly honest, he wanted nothing to do with this stupid place anymore.

**

Starflight was back, at least they had that to be happy for. Though Clay still felt immense regret over Glorys absent, and held an anger over Cattails actions, he didn't want the others to worry about him and tried to hide it as best as he could, as long as it meant the others could feel safe, he didn't care how he felt. Besides, they now had to look forward to the Sea Kingdom, right? Tsunamis mother would certainly be better than the sorry excuse for a dragon he met at least...Tsunami made that clear at least.

As they all began to fly out, Tsunami began to shout to everyone "Well then! Let's get moving to the sea-"

boom

In the blink of an eye, Tsunami was struck out of the sky by a now shattered boulder. Falling to the ground from the impact.

"TSUNAMI." Clay and Sunny shouted out, with Clay diving down to just barely catch Tsunami before she hit the ground, with Sunny and Starflight close behind him.

Before any of them could so much as verbalize a question however, or even begin fully processing what happened, they felt the sun be blocked out from above

and then felt strong winds...like that of descending wings

And they looked to the sky, and saw

She, whose Strength is Without Parallel

She, who is the Greatest of Dragons

She, who is The Unscarred Warrior

She, who has Never Known Defeat

She, who is Queen of the Mudwings

Queen Moorhen, powerful as she is beautiful, and many times over greater in presence. She exerted power with every wingbeat, as she descended down, and towered over the Dragonets.

"Dragonets of Destiny, you are coming with me as prisoners of The Mud Kingdom, and if fate holds against you, be yet another casualty of The Sandwing Queen Burn.” Queen Moorhen declared, as Starflight was overcome with fear, Sunny overcome with shock, and Tsunami fading to unconsciousness from Moorhens strike.

Multiple Mudwing soldiers began to surround the Dragonets of Destiny, as they stuck close to one another, with only one of them being able to even move.

Clay was scared for his life, but he was far more frightened for the others, particularly Tsunami now that she was in such a broken condition, and with all the strength he had he moved forth, and stood between Queen Moorhen and his friend.

“Wait! Please, is there anything we can do?” Clay asked pleadingly, unsure of what may happen, or even if Moorhen would listen to him.

To his relief however, she had, as she seemed to become enveloped in thought herself.

“For what, exactly?” Queen Moorhen interrogated, questioning to see just what Clay had in mind.

“My friend’s safety! Please! I’ll do anything to even just make it so Tsunami gets medical attention! And I’ll go beyond even that to make sure they’ll all be okay! Just don’t hurt them!” Clay continued his plea, as Queen Moorhen looked down upon him with great pity in her eyes, yet also held a look of thought still, as it appeared she finally came up with what she wanted from him.

“Very well then, I shall allow you a moment of negotiation, come with me.” Queen Moorhen demanded, as Clay walked towards her, with her wings overshadowing him from the others

When this happened however, Clay could have sworn he almost saw Tsunami reaching out before falling back to unconsciousness, but with that, also mild rustling, as though something was hopping from non muddy areas. But that didn’t matter for now, what mattered was Queen Moorhens deal.

“Young Dragonet, allow me to offer you a simple choice. I will let your friends be free within my kingdom, and your friend be taken care of. BUT, in exchange, you shall be taken as my prisoner and tool-” Before Queen Moorhen could finish however, Clay had already knelt down in gratitude

“Thank you! I accept your terms!”

“…I did not even tell you your second choice.” Queen Moorhen spoke

“I don’t need to hear it. I’d sooner die than let my friends be taken.”

“…I see then, well, I advise you say your final goodbyes then.” Queen Moorhen spoke, as Clays decision now began to weigh upon him.

“Final goodbyes?…”

“Indeed. Truthfully, you will most certainly never see them again, nor be allowed to see them again.”

“…I-…I understand, but I want you to swear to me, or make a royal oath, or whatever your highest authority promise would be, that all of my friends will be unharmed by you AND your allies, under all circumstances.” Clay asked, hoping Queen Moorhen would listen

“Very well, I promise their utmost safety. And if they are ever harmed, I shall hand you my head for my compromised word.” Moorhen promised.

“Thank you…now, I just need a moment with the others…”

“Do make it brief.” Queen Moorhen said, as she lifted her wing up to allow Clay to speak towards his friends.

Clay went towards his friends, with Sunny having a face mixed of curiosity and concern as she went towards him, noticing the slight grimace in his face

“What did she say? What did you say? Did something work out?” Sunny asked, as Clay looked down before then giving her a smile

“You and the others are going to be safe Sunny, that I got guaranteed.” Clay told her, as Sunny almost looked happy, before realizing his exact words

“But…what about you?” Sunny asked, as Clay simply looked down and began to go to Starflight to tell him the news, with Starflight having a face riddled with emotions, particularly shock as he tried to talk to Clay about his decision, with Clay simply going down to gently put his talons on the unconscious Tsunami, before turning back to Starflight and the worrying Sunny.

“Sorry this was the best I could do for you guys. Guess I’m a pretty bad friend overall…but, just keep each other safe alright? And when Tsunami recovers, don’t give her too much detail, you know how she’ll get…” Clay told them, as Sunny rushed at him and put her talons on his shoulders.

“Please please please don’t go! We need you Clay! Things don’t look good but I swear we can do something! Please…” Sunny continued to please, as she began to cry, with Clay evading his gaze so as to not initially look her in the eyes, before letting himself do so, and giving her a beaten down smile, lifting her claws off of him

“It’s going to be okay Sunny, no matter what comes next. I know you, Starflight, and Tsunami will be okay…and hey, maybe you’ll even find Glory out there, I’m sure she’ll be glad that I’m gone after I screwed things up…I love you guys, and I’m sorry.” Clay told her, as he began to walk away, with Sunny bursting fully into tears and trying to rush to him, not even stopping as multiple soldiers attempted to hold her back.

Queen Moorhen, fed up with Sunny’s actions, now intervened, putting her talon above Clays head and making him stiffen in place from fear, as her gaze began to break Sunny down.

“One step forward, he dies. If I find that any of you have followed, he dies. IF YOU DO ANYTHING TO CAUSE MASS DISTRESS IN MY KINGDOM IN SOME VAIN ATTEMPT TO TAKE HIM BACK, HE DIES.” Queen Moorhen echoed down, with Sunny finally staying in place, with Queen Moorhen turning her gaze towards Starflight, seeing if he had any plights to echo out.

“…Clay…please be safe out there.” was all Starflight said, seeming lost in thought as he looked down in defeat, as Clay gave a small nod to them, as he turned to Moorhen.

“Take flight, Dragonet of Destiny, we have quite a distance ahead.” Queen Moorhen ordered, as her, Clay, and many soldiers took to the sky, with some staying behind to accommodate Sunny, Starflight, and the unconscious Tsunami.

Unbeknownst to them all however, a camouflaged rainwing followed behind them, determined to save Clay, or at the very least make sure he is not left alone, even with her previous actions…

However, one thing was known to them all, The Dragonets were broken apart, utterly destroyed by Queen Moorhen, with the fate of the war now in The Talons of the Queen

and so begins(in more detail)

The Decisive Victory

[ahogedetective]

YOU!! Look at these plot ideas and please approve them for me!! DOES ANORMAL PUPPY EYES AT YOU 🥺🥺

Vampire Dragon/Striker finding Chef Kaede and going "it's me and it's you. Yes, that e-mail was real, let's go already". Than taking her to the islands.

Hope's Peak takes a break/un - official holiday because of a heavy snowstorm. Penguin Dragon/Short Leap comes down to earth to frolic at the HP's backyard or whatever because. Snow. But than normal Shuichi finds it and goes "Hii?? Wtf are you?"

Bat Dragon/Fallow comes to get Vampire Shuichi. Than they do Vampire things together. Hope he loves cow or horse blood. Or red fruits :]

Traveling archer Shuichi somehow either angers a swarm of bees or gets surrounded by mosquitos and decides to jump into a deep pond as a last choice. Thankfully, Nenufar Dragon/Yarrow had decided to claim that pond as it's resting space that day. İt's very happy that this stranger decided to bring it food. So, Yarrow kills all the bugs chasing Shuichi, than has a conversation with him while munching on bug corpses.

Flickie also finding Kaede when she wants to cook something and going "You need fire power? You want me to heat things up? :}"

Than all four of them (TA!Shui, Vamp!Shui, Norm!Shui, Chef!Kaede) becoming a friend for everyone in the islands slowly. And having keep it a secret from other humans

👀👀👀👀👀 OHHH BEAR, I APPROVE OF ALL OF THESE, OKAY!!! I LOVE THESE IDEAS SO MUCH~!

GHFHGH Kaede still in absolute disbelief that the emails were real!! BUT now she'd be especially curious to see the islands for herself so she'd go along with Striker. After all, who can say they met an actual dragon like she will, huh!!! Plus she'll be super curious about the different kinds of ingredients she will find there~!

GGFGF PLEASE, JUST IMAGINING SHUICHI WAS OUT AND ABOUT AND RUSHING TO THE DORMS, ONLY TO COME ACROSS A DRAGON??? WoulD BE HIS REACTION EXACTLY VHFHGH BUT he would be very intrigued!!! Wondering where in the world Short Leap came from!!

Vampire things together!!! YES: he needs more buddies of his kind, okay!!! GHFHGH I don't think he's ever tasted horse blood and for cow blood, TECHNICALLY from like...bloody raw steaks but you know.... Honestly he'd feel a little hesitant if they're drinking blood from the actual animals cause he'd feel bad hurting them....but if it's like a bag of blood of whatever already extracted from them then he'd be a bit more willing! And YEAH, he loves red fruits so he'd happily eat those~!

Oh my god. FUGKING, archer Shu was probably just trying to collect ingredients and then saw the bee nest he accidentally struck with an arrow/entered the mosquito swarms' space at the last minute 😭😭😭 YEAH, HE'D RATHER BE COMPLETELY SOAKED THAN COVERED IN BEE STINGS/MOSQUITO BITES!!!! And then he encounters the dragon and he's almost worried for a second if he fucked up even worse intruding in Yarrow's domain, but then it's grateful for the bugs and eats them all and Shuichi is very relieved!!!! And grateful!!!! GHFHG the thought of them talking while it's just munching on bugs is so funn y. BUT YES.... as an adventurer, Shuichi would have a lot to talk about with Yarrow! And in turn, he'd like to learn more about them~!

FGFHG Flickie becoming Kaede's assistant, so true!! I like to imagine maybe her stove broke and so she can't cook anythin..so when Flickie offers HFHGH she's Basically like "what the hell, sure", cause she has been!!! Really itching to cook!!!! And cooking with a dragon's fire power!!! It'd be like a new cooking method, kinda/sorta~! All the more reason she'd go for it!!

YEEEEES!!!!! LET ALL OF THEM MAKE AWESOME DRAGON FRIENDS!!! OH definitely, since they doubt anyone would ever believe them, anyway! Plus they'd want to keep their new friends safe, so they'd be willing to keep them a secret!

[changelingsandothernonsense]

not necessarily a quest, but does Sydari ever find Vulthuryol down in Blackreach?

And for a quest, how about hmmm, Forgotten Names down in the Midden Dark?

(I wish I could ask Morrowind quests, but I haven't played the game yet 😓)

Sydari definitely encounters Vulthuryol when she and Josh are in Blackreach. The two are slowly making their way through the cavern, Josh taking notes on everything he sees down there so that he can come back later for a proper expedition when everything with the dragons is said and done. As they approach what Josh translates as the "Silent City" he notices a huge globe light hanging above them. He wonders, excitedly about if it had a component of harmonic resonance to it and Sydari offers to shout at it for him.

The thing rings like a gong, which supported his idea but then they ended up calling down a dragon and suddenly they both have 100 questions about how the fuck did a dragon get down there? Was it related to the lonely giant? Or the strange nirnroot. At any rate, they had a cranky dragon to deal with and the two of them would end up having one hell of an evening.

Forgotten Names is a quest that I think Sydari and Joshi's daughter Vyna would do with her classmates. Sydari's taking care of things in Riften and Josh is planning that aforementioned expedition to Blackreach since he's now the Head of Dwemeri Studies at the CoW. He keeps an eye on his kid and gets to use the college's resources - he thinks that's a good deal. (At this point it's known that the Nerevarine is Talerion of Sunhold and that Teldryn Sero is both. He actually goes by his pen name when he's teaching and running his department at the college).

Vyna starts exploring the Midden fairly early on and starts finding strange artifacts and ritual items within the tunnels. She starts taking Brelyna, J'zargo and Onmund with her on these trips as they start trying to figure out how they all fit together.

Then they find the incident report and the key and J'zargo wonders if they can replicate the spell because "Hey isn't that something I can boast about to everyone".

They find that the rings they need are in the Arcanaeum and Vyna, who obviously inherited stealthy skills from her mother, ends up breaking into the chest they're locked in one night only to be caught by one of the Instructors, who had apparently been up late on the upper level of the library doing research and had noticed her scurrying about. Lucky for Vyna that instructor was her dad, and she has Josh wrapped right around her finger... or she thinks she does. Josh suspects shenanigans and decides to keep an eye on her. He notices Vyna entering the Midden one night with her friends with what appears to be a heavy satchel and decides to follow them, making sure he keeps his distance.

He ends up watching his kid and her friends set up a Daedric summoning circle and he's had enough. He goes to ruin the party.

Of course, that just makes Vyna angry and she shoves the rings on the gauntlet anyway and ends up summoning a bunch of skulls which then call forth some sort of Daedric Pirate Josh hasn't heard of, but he ends up with a gaggle of scared kids hiding behind him as he parlays with Velehk Sain.

Now, Josh doesn't fuck much with Daedra, so he ends up going toe to toe with the guy instead, though first he ends up trapping the kids behind a fire ward as he and Erra's ancestor ghost take the pirate down.

Josh hangs those two Scimitar the pirate was carrying on his wall. He likes adding things to his sword collection, after all. He ends up caving and giving Vyna the treasure map he finds on the guy and this leads to her becoming a treasure hunter for a while.

[lost-technology]

Dumbest-Ass Crossover Idea That Someone's Gotta Do So It Might As Well Be Me, Someday, Maybe: So, given the recent resurgence of popularity of old franchises due to new material, and the nature of this particular fandom (Trigun) on Ao3 that I've noticed with lots of AU fics - haven't read them all, just seen the summaries (I've seen modern, coffee-shop, flower-shop, tattoo-parlor, Wolfwood moves to the Appliachians and Vash is a mysterious creature, one I started reading that was an AU sci-fi that was vaguely Jurrassic Park-ish featuring Wolfwood the game warden, some fusion with Game of Thrones that I started to read even though I've never read or watched GoT but went WTF at and something, something, unlucky twin-births and dragons...and anyway...) Why haven't I seen a Hunger Games fusion yet? Seriously, I'm pretty sure Hunger Games has gotten up into everything by now. I used to see crossovers of it everywhere in multiple fandoms. In fact, I have a giant multi-story series I was doing for a while on both fanfiction dot net and Ao3 where I fusioned it with Super Smash Bros. - which kind of makes sense because SSB is a fighting game, but I really did relish taking the innocent goofiness of Nintendo and making it high stakes where characters actually died gruesomely and had high drama because I am just sick and twisted that way! Anyway, my brain's chewing on Did You Get Trigun in my Hunger Games? Did you get Hunger Games in my Trigun?

Okay, so the biggest hurdle to this kind of thing is - I'd want a young Vash as the main character / arena-victor in the story. How's he gonna get out of it without killing? How's he gonna get out of it without killing and his whole thing of trying to save everyone? Probably will go like canon-Trigun, wherein he tries and fails... I don't want this to take place on Gunsmoke / Noman's Land because I kind of want the setup and lore of the Districts, so it would be an alternate universe in which SEEDS never left Earth and everything takes place in Panem. Because I don't want this to be "just insert character names here," I definitely would want Plants to exist. The Plants were created and different manufacture-types exist in different Districts, as well as backups and relays to support the various District industries and infrastructure. Vash and Knives were born to an energy-Plant operating in District 10, the Livestock / Meat District. Their names make perfect sense in this district, Vash being named for "cow" and Knives being for tools important to the District, respectively. (Yes, the entirety of this fusion idea comes from their dang NAMES)! Rem discovered and adopted them. She's the last survivor of a band of Covey that was separated from one of the main bands when the Districts were unified, her family having been round up in District 10 (distant relations in 12). She still sings her grandmother's old songs. Her full name is Remembrance Red Saverem, going by the tradition of having a color in the name. I'm not sure what ballad her first name would cite, but I could always bullshit a new Panem-specific one. Rem gets hung after being caught on subversive activities while Vash is in the games. Knives has to deliver the bad news when he gets home on the train. Knives goes full in on some of the rebellion-plans that Mom was involved in, but gets a little more mass-murder happy about it. Tesla is a Plant-child born in District 3. That is all I know. Feel free to brainstorm (Especially since this thing will probably never happen, I'm just spitballing ideas).

[the-laughing-lie]

Session 38

Well. I think that was very rude of you. You got my magic all mixed up with Shyka’s magic! And caused a retcon. The nerve of some people. BUT I suppose the task of narrator still falls to me. Be grateful for my boundless generosity.

Circling back to before the end of last time we spoke, Ella and Irena preformed a ritual in some old shrine of Shyka’s that Irena and Tristian may have spent time reconsecrating. Both saw flashes of the past—past lives or merely forgotten. It’s not fair, The Many cheated! You weren’t supposed to get those memories back yet. A weasel indeed!

Anyways, yada yada, Irena’s part devil dragon and Mustella’s a fae again, albeit not entirely her old self. Good. For. You.

Now that the little time blip is out of the way, let’s get back to the proper flow of events. The party hurried out to Tatzlford to learn about the message they’d received about an incoming army from Drelev. They spoke with a young lady by the name of Kisandra Numesti, daughter of a local lord and knight. She claimed that Baron Drelev had betrayed his contract with the Swordlords and had sent an army of mercenaries and trolls to attack Opuleska. She came for help, as her father had been imprisoned a traitor and her sister taken by those Tiger Lords we’ve been hearing whispers about since day one.

Our dear protagonists took action, returning to Belt’s Beacon to get their little kobold army and to grab Amiri and Nok-Nok for the fight ahead. Then they returned to Tatzlford with just enough time to help bolster their defenses. The plan was for the party to swing around behind enemy lines to take care of their cowardly commander, while the Midnight Marauders and those gathered by Mayor Resbin would fight the army proper.

And what a smashing success you had! The mercenaries were cut down, while the trolls were cowed enough to scatter—probably going to lick their wounds somewhere. I’m sure even they’re smart enough not to try that again. Nor will the commander. Alllthough, that has more to do with him being dead than any brains in his head.

Afterwards, Kisandra requested of the party that they save her father and sister, and put a knife between Baron Drelev’s ribs. Ozzy agreed with the first part, but decided a more fitting punishment for the traitorous Baron would be to send him back to Restov, all tied up with a bow on top, for Lady Aldori to handle. Kisandra agreed, and gave the party a ring to show to one Satinder Morne, proprietor of The Velvet Corner and local Calistrian cleric.

Our dear protagonists then sent Amiri and Nok-Nok back home with the Midnight Marauders, telling them to send Octavia and Regongar to Tatzlford to be picked up the next day. And then they teleported straight to Fort Drelev.

Security seemed to have been raised since last time, with four mercenary guards at the front entrance. But there was still a big gaping hole in the wall, so the party used some tricks to make themselves invisible and then made their way inside. With Irena and Ella in significantly changed forms from what their enemies would be expecting, and with Ozzy assuming the form of Mark Striker: Hero in Training, they made their way to the Velvet Corner to meet their contact.

Satinder was serving a group of rowdy mercenaries when the party arrived. Ozzy made a little show of fooling one’s senses, causing him to think his ale was actually a swarm of ants. It would be a prank after my own heart, if I had one.

Satinder brought the party upstairs under the pretext that they were new hires, and then laid out what information she’d gathered over the last few weeks. This included a secret passage beneath the Keep, and the fact that the Tiger Lord’s leader, Armag, had left with the hostages and it was unknown where they were.

Our dear protagonists split up to do some investigating of their own. Irena gathered information in the town square, and managed to evade the suspicion of the guards with her quick Surtovan tongue. Ella flew around the keep to scout through the windows, and found the Baroness’ brother, a wizard with the unfortunate name of Imeckus Stroon. He was looking into a scrying bowl, and Ella snuck up behind him to watch over his shoulder. The scrying eye was watching a man who appeared to be one of the Tiger Lords talking to a woman dressed in black, who wore a holy symbol depicting a single bloodshot eye. As the scrying ended, the Tiger Lord raised his sword in triumph, and entered what appeared to be a tomb of some kind.

Ella’s invisibility had worn off while watching, and as Stroon came out of his scrying trance he heard he behind him, and turned to confront the intruder in his chambers. The conversation was initially tense, with Stroon summoning his dust mephit familiar and Ella warning that he would lose said familiar if he had them fight. Stroon didn’t want to fight any more than Ella did, however, and they eventually came to an understanding. He and his sister were not happy with the current state of things in Fort Drelev, and were no allies to the Baron despite being bound by marriage. He agreed to meet with the party that night, under the condition that he could leave his familiar in the Keep to alert people if Ella ended up betraying his trust. Then a dragon fell out of the sky into the Keep’s courtyard. We’ll get to that.

As this was happening, Ozzy snuck into the Keep through the secret entrance. He got the rusty old gate open just in time to put it between him and some oozes that had made the brackish water in the tunnel their home. He tricked a guard into opening a locked door for him, then charmed him into thinking they were great friends and promising not to tell the Baron he’d been there if asked.

He then slipped up the stairs, following the directions Ella had laid out the last time she scouted. Then he knocked on Lady Quintessa’s door. She bid him enter, and Ozzy confronted her with the fact he knew she was a Daggermark spy. They discussed what she knew about the current situation in Drelev, and she posited that Baron Drelev was not the mastermind behind this—nor did she think it was Armag. She theorized that King Irovetti of Pitax was the most likely candidate for the puppet master behind Drelev’s traitorous little dance, although she lacked the evidence necessary to act on such a belief. After she declined an offer for help being extracted should she find herself in a difficult place with Drelev’s current situation, Ozzy went to the window and leapt out.

Not in a ‘I’m killing myself’ kind of way. More in a dramatically turn into a dragon and cause a scene kind of way. See, I told you we’d get back to it. Love the theatrics, and I’m sure Dahak is absolutely seething about having his name invoked by a lowly human. That’s the cherry on top, really.

And now we return, as the clock ticks towards curfew and a clandestine meeting, and once again the curtain rises, and our players take the stage.

[fancoloredglasses]

[RERUN] Dungeons & Dragons (Gilligan’s Fantasy Island)

[All images are owned by Marvel Disney and TSR Wizards of the Coast Hasbro. Please don’t sue me]

[QUICK NOTE: Unlike most of my other RERUN reviews, very little will change in the latter half of the series since I changed to my current style of reviewing in the middle of all of this; the latter half won't see many changes other than minor edits and updating video clips. However, as I originally reviewed this before the pandemic started, many haven’t seen this. Hope you enjoy!]

(Thanks to retrowhiztv)

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 50+ years, you have at least heard of Dungeons & Dragons (or D&D as many call it) Created in 1972 by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, the role-playing game (or RPG) known as D&D has undergone 4 major rules rewrites (and three “soft rewrites”: Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (or AD&D), D&D 3.5, and D&D 2024), two major motion picture (well…a major motion picture and another theatrical release, anyway), and a number of comic books, novels, and video games. They have inspired numerous other RPGs (including at least two that licensed the rules from earlier editions of D&D to use as the basis for their own games)

And then there’s the Saturday morning cartoon.

(Thanks to Noble Knight Games)

Dungeons & Dragons follows the adventures of 6 youths from modern times (well, the 80s) who become trapped in a D&D realm and are imbued with the abilities of some of the classes (or adventuring occupations to the layman) of the realm and given magic items to assist them as they try to find their way home.

I will be taking an interesting approach to reviewing the series and its episodes: I will be treating this as if it were being run as an actual campaign (or series of interconnected adventures) of AD&D (since a few of the classes being portrayed were not available in D&D at the time, but were introduced in AD&D. Head hurt yet?)

A word of warning: In order to properly review the show (as well as its episodes), a certain amount of basic knowledge of D&D will be required. When I need to cover a new phrase or idea related to the game, I will do my best to explain it.

That being said, let’s meet our wayward heroes, the PCs (or Player Characters: literally the roles the people playing the game will be assuming) [NOTE: a group of PCs is known as a Party]

The party’s leader is Hank, a Ranger who has a magic bow that fires bolts of magical energy that act however the plot demands.

When Hank isn’t around, Diana the Thief-Acrobat (or simply "Acrobat" in the series) takes charge. She is aided by a quarterstaff (or, as she calls it for some reason, a javelin) that can extend its length to assist for high or long jumps.

Sheila the Thief uses her Cloak of Invisibility to assist in her stealthy maneuvers.

Bobby the Barbarian (Sheila’s kid brother) has a club that greatly enhances his strength (and a good thing too, since he looks like he’d need a good windup just to slice through warm butter)

[FUN FACT: The voice actor is the only minor of the cast. He’s the son of the show’s producer]

On their arrival, Bobby found and adopted a baby unicorn the party named Uni (whom many consider the most annoying member of the party. I disagree for reasons I’ll explain shortly)

Presto the Wizard (or "Magician", as they call him in the series) is the only member of the group who doesn’t use his actual name (I seriously doubt that’s what his parents named him) He has a magic hat that from which his spells are cast. More often than not, he’s used for comic relief as his spells almost never work as intended (for example, while attempting to conjure hamburgers for the hungry party, he instead summoned a cow)

Last, but certainly not first, we have Eric the Cavalier, who has a magic shield that can expand its protection like a force field (but for some reason, despite being a warrior class, doesn't carry a sword) Eric thinks he’s better than pretty much everyone and never passes on an opportunity to belittle others’ mistakes or toallow himself to hog the spotlight (which usually fails miserably) Three guesses who I think the most annoying character is.

[FUN FACT: If you are of a certain age, you may recognize Eric’s voice. He was voiced by Donny Most (AKA Ralph Malph from Happy Days)]

Guiding the group on their journey is Dungeon Master, who often gives cryptic advice to start each adventure and sums things up at the end. He's supposedly all-powerful, but generally doesn't help the party (usually showing up after the danger is gone)

In D&D, a Dungeon Master (or DM) is there to craft the story the PCs are the heroes of, assuming the roles of all the monsters and NPCs (non-player characters: pretty much everyone the PCs interact with that doesn’t actively want to kill them) and describing everyone and everything they interact with. For clarity’s sake, the Dungeon Master running the adventure I will refer to as “the DM”, while the character of Dungeon Master I will refer to as “Dungeon Master”. (Dungeon Master is, of course, an NPC used by the DM to attempt to point the PCs in the right direction)

In addition, there are two major adversaries:

Venger (voiced by Peter Cullen, whose voice acting resume is extensive, including Optimus Prime) is the main antagonist. He is looking to take the party’s magic items to add to his power so he may reign supreme in the realm.

Venger’s chief rival (besides Dungeon Master and those meddling kids) is…

…Tiamat the Chromatic Dragon. Tiamat has undergone quite a few changes since she was introduced in 1975. Back then, she was a greater devil and was Queen of Evil Dragons, and her size in comparison to the party is impressive, but let’s look at how the now-GODDESS of Evil Dragons looks in comparison…

(Thanks to Wizards of the Coast)

Definitely intimidating.

Research leads me to believe Tiamat and Venger are on equal footing in terms of power within the cartoon (which makes me wonder exactly where Venger came from if he’s as powerful as a five-headed draconic demigod), which will be important later.

The plot of the episodes are fairly formulaic: The party runs into Dungeon Master, who gives them cryptic clues (usually in regards to finding their way home) The party encounters the adventure and figures out what the clues mean, and usually runs into Venger. The party thwarts Venger's plans, but fail to find their way home.

As I stated earlier, for my review Dungeons & Dragons, I am going to do something very unusual. I am going to treat Dungeons & Dragons like D&D. That is, I’m going to review each episode as if it were an adventure in an ongoing campaign, with the characters growing in power accordingly. But first, two more D&D terms you’ll need to know:

Experience Points (or XP): An award by the DM to the PCs at the end of an adventure. They are awarded for successfully completing tasks such as solving puzzles or defeating adversaries (usually “defeat” = “kill”, but since this is children’s programming I have to be a bit liberal with my definition of “defeat”) As an example: according to AD&D at the time Dungeons & Dragons aired, defeating Tiamat awards 63,580XP. Usually, XP awards are divided equally among the party members (though awards can be given to individual party members for tasks that don't involve the whole party), which would be just shy of 10,600K each. Since Venger is supposed to be on-par with Tiamat, I’m going to assume his XP award would be the same.

Level: AD&D uses the term “Level” to describe at least 4 things. The one we are interested in is Character Level. All players start off at Level 1. When they gain enough XP (depending on their class and current level), they advance to the next level and their abilities increase (this is often referred to as "Going up a level" or “Leveling up”) It should be noted that in AD&D, a character cannot level up more than once per adventure, so if a character gains enough XP to advance two or more levels…well, first we have to question the DM’s competency since they shouldn’t get giving out so much XP in an adventure, but more importantly the characters would only gain enough XP to be 1 point shy of the following level (all the rest vanishes) Don’t worry, this will make sense once the players bitch because they aren’t getting their full XP for defeating Venger at level 1.

The series ran for 3 seasons. I have yet to find a streaming service that has the series, but several fans have uploaded the series to YouTube.

One quick note before signing out: Yhere has long been a rumor of a “series finale” that sent the party home. This is not entirely true. There was an episode written at the end of Season 3 that could have either been a good place to end the series or take it in a new direction, depending on whether the series was picked up for a fourth season, but was never completed or produced.

However, the auto manufacturer Renault (those who grew up in the 80s in the US may remember them as partners with AMC/Jeep before AMC merged with Chrysler) made an unofficial ending to the series for their Brazilian dealerships. Unfortunately, it’s in Portuguese…but enjoy!

(Thanks to Fred Vergano)

One more note: the PCs made a cameo appearance in the most recent D&D film (Honor Among Thieves) See if you can spot them!

(Thanks to Paramount Pictures)

Anyhoo, stay tuned for the beginning of the campaign!

[portmantaur]

Veilguard spoilers, general critical/negativity about BioWare, u kno how it is

I know some ppl are upset about the Major Story Beats and I am too for various reasons, but I don’t agree that this wasn’t where the story was headed — particularly, I see people complaining about the mythal/solas dynamic and im like?? Did y’all never drink of that fuckin pool of knowledge as the inquisitor? The way solas opines, “you are mythal’s creature, now” — baby that was foreshadowing that wasn’t even subtle!!! I don’t LIKE where the story has gone necessarily, especially given how the elves/dalish have been framed throughout the games, but this is DEFINITELY the story outline that was laid out by the time inquisition was over. The writing and pacing are just really bad, so these beats feel even LESS fulfilling than they otherwise would have.

Its interesting bc I’m having fun being back in the dragon age setting, but the writing/structure/pacing is such a distinct falloff, even from DAI — which I still liked, a lot even, with my main Dalish-based caveats still withstanding.

But Gaider and Weekes were ALWAYS like this re: marginalization/oppression. They ALWAYS have been. And I see some ppl being like “this wouldn’t have gone this way if daddy Gaider was here” and I’m like??? Y’all remember the Dalish origin from DAO? Remember how that ENTIRE origin revolves around the blighted eluvian that kills your best friend with the actual literal blight??? This was the plan from jump!! The writing teams were still invested and not unskilled or untalented, so it was a little less opaquely shitty, but not by much. It was ALWAYS going to be a story by white people trying to make analogous statements about real-world oppression, particularly racial oppression, that was ALWAYS going to hit with the twist of “but what if they deserved it/come from Bad People” — because, again, Weekes and Gaider are cut from the same cloth. And they’ve been very transparent about that with their behavior towards fans.

like sorry but this was always going to be the “endgame” so to speak, and my gut feeling/reading of the situation is that mostly what we got with Veilguard is a game that was originally intended to be a live-service game, and the story structure and writing and pacing were never revamped from that intention even after supposedly “rebuilding” the game from the ground up after that decision was nixed (like twice or something, no?). I mean that’s also obviously why the stylistic redesign choice is so obviously Fortnite-y — there were clear clashes with higher ups/execs on what the game was materially supposed to be (fully fledged franchise installment vs eternal cash cow), and BW has been hemorrhaging employees for a while now likely at least in part as a result of that.

Veilguard was always going to be this re: major story beats, but because of the particular development hell it went through, we’ve got a much more obvious case of enshittification across the board. as a live service game, the story structure got incredibly flattened, and no one bothered to make the decision to redo -that- aspect of the game, so we’re getting a peek behind the curtain that hasn’t been as accessible before. But I mean look at it even in comparison to Andromeda — BW has come out and said, afaik, that there are no plans for DLC or expansions at all. They’ve fully thrown in the towel on the franchise, and it would have gone this way regardless of who was in charge of writing, because the story outline, IMO, has very obviously NOT changed that much in many years. The biggest changes came at the executive level of decision making, and someone up top seems to have come to the conclusion that DA isn’t a money-making franchise anymore. Which, yeah, that’s stupid for sure, but that decision is borne of the same frame of mind that thought structuring Veilguard as a live service game in the first place was a good idea.

anyway, I do believe we’re at a crossroads where we are either witnessing BW’s uncomfortable swan song, OR there is going to be a changing of the (executive) guard again in an attempt to revitalize the company. But to revitalize DA as a franchise — while I see it as perfectly doable, even after this mess — would require such dedication and humility on the part of BW that I just don’t see it as likely.

I think the next ME is going to be what really allows us to call it, but I’m putting my bet in now that it’s the nail in the coffin. RIP BioWare, you were a beautiful and awful mess while you lasted.

[serpenttailedangel]

Okay I was thinking about this more. And also being salty about ASOIF because it's basically on this list twice and one of those times affects me more, as someone who likes to write series and knows I'm going to have a harder time breaking into tradpub that way.

I don't really think shows are too impacted by bad endings. TV series running until the ratings drop is not even remotely new. Most people who watch shows already have cable or streaming for multiple different shows, so there's no financial investment in checking out one more. A lot of the time, from what I've heard anyway, the cancellations are less about people not checking out shows and more about audiences not bothering to finish those shows, or sometimes the tie-in products that were meant to help fund those shows not selling well enough.

You could argue that the lack of trust causes people to drop a show before it gets good. Simpsons took like 2 whole seasons to get good before it became a cash cow that was so loved for the next decade that we still get more of it long after it stopped being good. But shows ending disappointingly isn't new. Lost (wasn't that JJ?) and Seinfeld both had contentious endings and people still kept watching TV afterward.

The streaming model of "We need X many people to binge it week 1 or there's no season 2" is a problem because, genuinely, not everyone wants to binge, and if people are waiting a week or two to hear if a show is good before trying it out, then flighty studios who expect day 1 results might overreact rather than giving it a little time to see if traffic picks up. There are movies that don't do as great week 1 due to low expectations, but when word gets out that they're actually good, they see continued sales and eventually beat expectations. Heck, House of the Dragon practically won back all the good will burned by Game of Thrones' ending, even if plenty of people waited to hear that it was doing well before they returned to that world.

The lack of trust is definitely a problem, but it's not that people no longer believe there can be good shows or movies. It's that a lot of them have been taught to wait while for the 'brave few' to try out the new works to see if they're good or not. (And a lot of the high profile flops just weren't good, so that word or mouth wasn't there to bring the holdouts to the table.)

The book situation makes me mad tho. Outside of those two, I've never personally had a story I was tracking where the author quit. Died, maybe, but anyone can die mid-project and you don't see many people wait until a show has had all its seasons just in case the director dies. And aside from Martin apparently saying that no one can finish his work when he's gone, the authors I've known to die mid-story had estates select someone they thought was suited to finish their work so the story could still conclude. Compared to the absolute glut of trash on Netflix, basically every incomplete book series I know of is incomplete because of low sales inciting the publisher to pull the plug, not the author being too lazy to finish.

My favorite author got dropped midway through my favorite work of hers for poor sales. She had to self-publish the second half, and you can see that she wasn't able to bring the same amount of attention to the second half going the indie route that the tradpub half got. I'm grateful that we got the full series eventually, and I would have still call the first three books my all time favorite even if I hadn't had that conclusion to the characters' stories. But it made me so sad to see her stop publishing after that experience. And it makes me sad to know that a lot of other authors might get shafted by people who learned to mistrust other creators and applied that with broad strokes.

I know there's a chunk of people who want to only binge. Can't relate, but I know you exist. It already makes book series harder. In TV, your average binger will skip weekly releases and binge a season at once, but not wait for the entire show to drop before they watch all the seasons in one go. With planned movie series like the second and third Star Wars trilogies, how many people do you know who wait for the full trilogy to release before they watch it, compared to the people who watch a whole movie when its new and then wait for the next one? One whole novel is akin to one whole movie. One whole novel can be adapted into a season of a TV show.

That novel is the season's worth of content you'd binge before waiting for the next season if it were adapted for the screen. The weekly episode equivalent for writing isn't a whole entire book! It's what you get from people who post their stories online chapter by chapter on a planned release schedule!

Please read the books with planned sequels when they come out in the same way you'd binge a season of a show. The publisher needs to know there's interest in book 2 in the same way the studio needs to know there's interest in a season 2.

I see posts go by periodically about how modern audiences are impatient or unwilling to trust the creator. And I agree that that's true. What the posts almost never mention, though, is that this didn't happen in a vacuum. Audiences have had their patience and trust beaten out of them by the popular media of the past few decades.

J J Abrams is famous for making stories that raise questions he never figures out how to answer. He's also the guy with some weird story about a present he never opened and how that's better than presents you open--failing to see that there's a difference between choosing not to open a present and being forbidden from opening one.

You've got lengthy media franchises where installments undo character development or satisfying resolutions from previous installments. Worse, there are media franchises with "trilogies" that are weird slap fights between the makers of each installment.

You've got wildly popular TV shows that end so poorly and unsatisfyingly that no one speaks of them again.

On top of that, a lot of the media actively punishes people for engaging thoughtfully with it. Creators panic and change their stories if the audience properly reacts to foreshadowing. Emotional parts of storytelling are trampled by jokes. Shocking the audience has become the go to, rather than providing a solid story.

Of course audiences have gotten cynical and untrusting! Of course they're unwilling to form their own expectations of what's coming! Of course they make the worst assumptions based on what's in front of them! The media they've been consuming has trained them well.

[calldres]

reposting this story since the blog that reposted the prompt isn't worth remembering

the prompt is a demon is "slain" by a hero, but far later pursued a simpler life, and fights the hero again now that they have something worth fighting for

Queen Velouk Is Dead

Even though the title "Demon Queen" sounds infamously important, to me its never been more than a title. The people in the mortal plain think its a title given, taken, earned by the right of strength and taken from those who held it before you, and that I'm the most bloody of them all. Earned by bloodshead, ruthlessness, and nothing more.

Like most mortal demonology beliefs, its surrounded in speculation and "what ifs" from the mouths of priests too high a rank for others to question. To me, this specific belief is an outright lie. But they did get one thing down to a proper measurable science.

How to kill us.

They learned the power of our blood, and the bond it has with whoever the queen is and her inner circle. They're still wrong about who becomes the queen, however. Our queen is the same as their king. The monarch picks a favorite child, and they rises to power through tradition honored respect alone. Nothing more. The inner circle of trusted leaders is even comprised of the same family

But their holy weapons they planned to slay our queen with this time around was very very flawed. Normally they lure a weaker member of the inner circle to kill, Bind a weapon of choice with their blood so its far easier to kill a related higher demon, then use it to recreate the sound of a ripe melon in the mouth of a biting dragon with our heads. I hear of their newest blind zealot's plan from our seers. he already captured Rouk, our Blood of the Rift, and plan to raid one of the gates he made to come for me next. "Hmmm, that's cute". Sounding indifferent for the sake of the air of confidence is normal for our queens, though I am actually excited for this bearded bastard to attempt to slay me. The throne was never for me anyways, and I plan to leave it for my daughter who is a far better warrior than I will ever be.

My plan is simple: his hammer never worked on me from the start. I'm adopted.

To minimize the deaths in our kingdom, I wait along with our guard and an a member of the inner circle as witness to greet this self proclaimed folk hero at the planar gate Rouk made. It's important for that hammer flailing fool to see which gate to open, and our Blood of the Forge by my side will let him see us plain as day. "Come witness the death of a liar" was a good enough selling point to bring him within spitting distance of my to-be-assailant. The rift is torn in front of us, and an almost 3 meter tall behemoth of a human adorned with the blood, fangs and bones of my brethren steps through the threshold, followed by what I assume to be his trusted brothers-in-arms

I uncloak my staff, and strike the ground to silence the terror of the gathering civilians. That man stands eye to eye with me, and my people expect blood for blood with my guard at my side, right here and now.

"I see you didn't embellish the tales of your feats of strength, that's a first".

Piercing the silence, I attempt to shake the faith of his blind followers. Accusing their leader of lying while being welcomed with the sight of a cityscape far more organized than their glorified cow paths should do it, since it's in stark contrast to the savages they expected to find here.

He greets me with a voice somehow more coarse than rust. "Ironic to hear from you, Queen of Liars"!

Oh is that what they call me now? Was "Bastard's Butcher" not catchy enough? Maybe it didn't sound as good coming from a bard. I know he values that.

I raise my palm, ordering the guards to lower their weapons. Sure I could have this 5 on 5 fight break out, but I don't wish for anyone else to die in my stead.

"I know what you're here for. No need for unwanted bloodshed. This shall be a duel. You slay me and take my horns for your nation as you promised, Or you die here and now, along with your cause. Those are your two options"

His brothers keep their weapons at the ready. They either must not fully believe me, or expect their zealot to order them otherwise.

The ambient chatter and shuffling of the now gathering masses fill the air. He holds his hammer up to his chest with one hand, runs the other over the ritual stained head, and eyes me down to size

He unspeakingly rushes directly to me, past his men in a lunge almost too fast to use one of my few tricks. I was never very good in combat, contrary to my daughter's and court's boasting, But I've mastered geoshaping and phasing arcana well enough to pull of this stunt I've been wanting to do since I've been crowned. He knocks me to the ground, I raise my staff to guard myself, and his hammer rings down to my head as I unveil my trick

I shove my head through the pavement

I hear a cacophony of panicked screams and scattering feet as my people exclaim "Queen Velouk is dead!" with the tonality of a mourning priest watching the temple basin turn blood red. The dread filling air tightens my heart. This will be a day in our history marked with sorrow, but I know things will resolve soon. I now know his bloodlust will drive him to further violence, but he is only here for my horns. He will cut them from my corpse and leave soon. My daughter will want revenge after she is crowned and given the power to lash back, but I know hearing of my swift death will remind her to be less foolhardy in her approach. That savage is a worthy challenge, and I need my dear girl to take her 2time.

My spirit recovers its form after tearing myself from my body head-first, and I wait for the chaos above the obsidan roads to resolve. Once I am formed enough to move, I push myself through the gate and the last step has finally come

I begin a new life elsewhere

More years than I've bothered to count have passed. I no longer bare the horns that pierce armor and hide alike, or the skin to stop blades. I'm the daugher of an elderly farmhand. His daughter was possessed by an exile of my old kingdom and I shunted his soul out her body. took a good while for the father to trust the second new voice he heard from his daughter's mouth, but he learned a few things about demonology humans had wrong this whole time

when possessed, the original person is dead the moment the demon enters them. The struggling and anguished moans come from the demon not being able to control a new body very well, not because the host trying to break free. Once the father understood my words as I struggled to speak, he mourned his daughter's death, but left the body alone. Thankfully hes reasonable enough to see a demon calmly explaining something and understand it as a lack of hostile intent. He may of been grateful for when I banished the demon that did kill his daughter, but he wanted nothing to do with me at first. Nobody in that village did, frankly. What wise person would approach a body ambiently twitching on the barn floor for 2 days? Nobody tells you how hard it is to lose all your muscle memory at once.

Now days, while I may have a family, most folks here don't trust me, but they greatly appreciate having a "mage" on hand that can till soils far faster than any bull with a harness, while also keeping the other demons away. The father on the other hand has actually gotten quite kind with me once I changed my body to no longer be a walking reminder of his deceased daughter. To him, I'm a villager with a working spirit and "a heart of gold" as humans put it.

As the winter bite comes with the new winds, villagers become anxious with what always follows soon after. Tax day, Then a season of poor yield. People are scared of what the new tax will be, Since we heard there was a new king after some bard came through with a band of traveling merchants singing something about "death to the scandalous royal, birth to the honorable king". There was some part where he says "hail" way too much so I usually go to the grain mill to drown out the sound. very annoying, that one.

The peace of shoeing a few horses is broken with the clash of the fence gate. My wife runs with news "A knight is here, and demands tribute for his king"

Tribute? They're normally rather straight forward and call it what it is. A tax. "Whats this business 'bout a tribute?"

Distant screaming rings at the village board, and I rashly break away from the horse.

In the center of town is two knights on horses and a royal in gilded black and gold armor with the crest of crossed fangs adoring his horse's barding, saddle, and a patch on his breastplate. I know this face. Its the lying bastard himself, and that must be the new king

One of the knights grips my son's hair with deathly fear in his eyes. The king's axe is drawn and he addresses the now gathering townsfolk

"With new leadership, loyalty to a dead man is no more, and who takes his place must know who is newly loyal. You are all asked to pay tribute, and I will consider your worth. This boy here felt the need to remind me of the tax of a dead law. I, Bahram the demon slayer, savior of your land, and newly honored king will defend the honorable and reward the loyal. I am not an unreasonable man, and no blood shall run for dishonor. But you must pay tribute for your protection"

There are reasons why the wrath of a higher demon is so feared, even among the few humans who witness it. The soil hardens beneath my feet and the air stills. Our visitors may not know this, but my countrymen know exactly what this means, and cautiously back away. The king eyes down to the forming hole in the crowd, and sees the face of a displeased farmer staring back up at him

"Do you have something to say, dear girl?"

I speak the only words echoing in my head. "Let my son go".

"And who are you to make demands?"

he's evidently lost his knack for spotting demonic activity

Phasing is useful for many things. Few are prepared to fight the push and pull of matter and aether, and a stray breeze of aether through the brain is all it takes to cause a massive spike of anxiety in the living

The horses rear up in vocal terror and dismount all of them into packing the dirt road a touch more flat with the impact. The knight still gripping my son pulls him down as he plummets off his mount. The king rights himself as the crowd fearfully gets very far away from all of us. They know what's about to happen. It's been witnessed before when bandits tried to raid our stores of food, and they will witness violent retribution again.

Fury shoots out of the kings mouth as he declares "Whoever assailed my horses, come forth! Your crime shall be known".

A child exclaims "Raise your horses better"! Nobody hushes the child. There must be some confidence that nobody outside this circle painted by the abandoning crowd will be harmed.

"Very well." and the king waves a flat hand at the knight with my son, and he then kicks in his leg to make him kneel and lowers his head. The king marches over to raise his axe and declare "Then a reminder of who is your king is in order"

Geoshaping is also quite useful. I stiffen my right hand at my side as I eye his armor, unblinking. he does not bring down his axe unto his neck. i don't allow him.

i sustain the order to the two knights so they cannot resist, the other hand crooks the king to face me, like spinning a mannequin. I hear their desperate attempts to twist their body any way their metal coffins are pulling, the slight rustling of the leather and cloth padding under the platemail and chainmail I grip unmovingly

"A mage is in our midst!" I wish for that knight to remain silent, so I tilt his head to the ground fast enough to put him to rest. The king scrambles to have anything eloquent to say to me. I bend his knees so that he now lies at eye level. I glare across to give him a moment. I wish to hear his last words. I do not intend on loosing the life i wanted all this time, but I will not be as uncaring as he is, despite my wrath. I will hear his last words.

the anger and fear within the demon butcher makes the veins in his forehead tighten like they could suspend a bridge. his voice breaks as I pull him to be just before me. Unblinking. Unmoving.

"Unhand me, mage! I reaped the demon queen's horns! I placed them within the holy basin! I fulfilled the prophesy! I am your king!"

He really has gotten rusty

With the authority of higher demons speaking unto him "You never changed, have you? Well despite you butchering my people after taking my horns, I can at least thank you for getting me off of that throne. I can now live a calm life". The strong wash of fear and anger abandons his face in place of full fledged dread. My seers have showed my family and I the countless dangers this man has faced, yet I have never once seen this man completely loose his want for composure. Sorry, daughter. You will need another way to honor those you lost.

I close my fist.

[flightrecords]

The first story brought today comes from the memories of a black cat on the official account.

The author is a young Taoist priest who is taught by a dream, that is, a white-bearded old man in a dream to teach the Dharma. He belongs to a very powerful sect, and I will talk about his life later.

Before I encountered this incident, I was only a myth about dragons, and the dragon scales that the old seafarer showed me when I was in Weifang that could gather water.

I won't talk about the specific location of this matter, anyway, it's either Buyeo or Gongzhuling.

It was winter, and it was more than minus 20 degrees Celsius in late December.

Actually, I still haven't figured out what I'm seeing, and after a long time, I've wondered if it was a dream I had while I was fishing.

At that time, it was not the coldest time, the Songhua River was completely frozen, and there was no one on the river in winter.

I like to go ice fishing at night and set up my own little tent with a pot of shochu and some cakes.

Twenty degrees below zero can freeze everything, such as going to the toilet where you have to bring a small wooden stick to knock on it.

Sitting on the Songhua River, he took out a flatbread from his arms, burned a knife with a mouthful of flatbread, and fished while feeling like a master of the world. At night in the Songhua River, there is a rare sense of tranquility, and the empty sky can easily bring people's minds into an inexplicable realm.

When the wine was out, I suddenly heard a loud noise outside the tent, and the whole river began to tremble violently. I hurriedly ran over to see, and a big hole exploded in the middle of the Songhua River, and several people walked over to take a look.

The hole, about 15 meters in diameter (half the size of a basketball court), was smashed out of the cracks along the surrounding river, like the ice that had been smashed open by multiple heavy blows.

I couldn't help but pinch a cold sweat and knock such a thick layer of ice out of such a big hole. Is there some kind of live firing in the barracks next door, but the shells didn't explode, so I hurriedly ran to the shore.

Before I could get to the shore, all of a sudden, the ice began to shake violently, and I fell to the ice with a stumble, and the huge inertia threw me out half of the river, and I was lucky enough to slip to the shore.

The hairs on my body suddenly exploded, and my hair lifted up my dogskin hat in a daze. In general, when the human body shows such a manifestation, most of them feel a great threat.

It dawned on me that the tremors were coming from under the ice. There must be some huge creature hitting the ice, a 15-meter-diameter hole that even the largest fish can't do.

There were constant sounds in the surrounding woods, and I even saw a snake that was supposed to hibernate rush out and flee deep into the mountains.

In a trance, I seemed to hear a tiger roar from the mountains in the distance, and as the sound of the tiger roar became farther and farther away, the river shook faster and faster.

There was a loud bang, accompanied by a huge splash, and a big hole exploded on the surface of the river, and a pitch-black head rushed out of the ice with a big mouth open, snow-white fangs.

The beast gasped, its nostrils spewing hot air like white mist from a paper mill's chimney, and a huge fishy breath filled the surroundings.

I've never seen a creature that big, and not even a blue whale has ever given me such a big impact. For a moment, I felt as small as a humble bug.

The beast slowly leaked out, and a small body lay on the ice like a huge snake, and a huge pressure swept through my body, and I almost screamed, it was a dragon.

The giant beast's red eyes glanced at me with a hint of contempt, and it made a sound similar to that of a cow, only lower, more penetrating, and directly hit people's hearts, and the sound next to it instantly stopped, and the giant beast slowly sank to the bottom of the river.

I suddenly remembered the snake that broke the laws of nature just now, and the animals that ran, and the tiger roar with timidity, the animal avoids the king, and a dragon scale can make all the insects retreat, let alone such a giant beast.

Maybe this is a dragon, or maybe it's a dragon that is about to turn into a dragon. The environment was dark, so I couldn't see if it had horns or not.

[mojang-officialer]

What mob would do the best job of opening a coconut im asking for friend

so i thought about this a little bit too much and made a list of which mobs could either open a coconut, possibly open a coconut, or could not open a coconut, containing every single mob that has ever been in the game.

details below the cut

first some rules.

i've left out all passive mobs that aren't interesting, because you don't need pages of me saying every fish can't break a coconut.

all mobs are considered to have spawned with default equipment, nothing chance-based like enchanted weapons or armor on zombies, as that would be unfair.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

- Villager/Wandering Trader/Illagers: All of these would be able to break open a coconut. Illagers are proof that villager-type bodies CAN uncross their arms, but simply choose not to. They are also capable of tool usage, and some villages spawn with stonecutters. However, this feels kind of cheap, so I'm putting them here, as it's not really a NATURAL ability to break the coconut so much as it is the tool's ability to break the coconut.

- Any fish: I appreciate the enthusiasm, but no.

PASSIVE MOBS

- Horse/Cow/Donkey/Other hooved mobs: POSSIBLY. While I do think a horse could potentially build up enough force to break a coconut by trampling it, as someone who knows horses IRL, I am also relatively confident that they would also break their leg while doing it, because horse leg bones are made out of paper and glass. Cows and other hooved mobs MIGHT be able to crack it but I doubt they'd be able to build enough force.

- Baby Piglin: POSSIBLY. Babies do not use tools, but gold tools would probably be too soft to break open a coconut anyways. That said, those tusks are pretty strong, and while I'm not sure if a baby could use them to open a coconut, I'm going to say that baby piglins cannot.

- Turtle: A snapping turtle IRL definitely COULD break a coconut. Unfortunately the turtles in Minecraft are sea turtles, which do not have jaws as powerful as the snapping turtle.

NEUTRAL MOBS

- Bee: What's it gonna do, sting it open?

- Cave Spider/Spider: Technically neutral during the daytime. Sadly not able to open a coconut as a spider's mandibles, while effective at eating small insects, are completely useless for cracking open something armored like a coconut.

- Dolphin: This is in the neutral mobs section on the wiki for some reason. Sadly, no. Their jaws can eat fish but that's about it.

- Enderman: This one is interesting. An Enderman hits relatively hard, considering its weak-looking arms, and they are able to carry whole blocks, unique among mobs, but they can only carry relatively light blocks, so that doesn't help them. Their teleportation is obviously useless here. Ultimately, I will say that YES, an Enderman can in fact break a coconut, but with one caveat- they have to be angry. The open jaw of an Enderman is like a nutcracker, and if that closes on a coconut, I am near-positive it would break.

- Goat: A goat's charge could definitely carry enough force to break open a coconut. HOWEVER, it would have to be against a wall, otherwise it would just be launched. So, I'll put goats down as 'POSSIBLY'.

- Iron Golem: An iron golem does damage primarily through gravity, by launching its targets into the air and dropping them. Unfortunately, coconuts are designed to survive long falls from atop coconut trees. Iron golems would not be able to open a coconut.

- Llama: While llama spit does a surprisingly high amount of damage, it is not enough to break a coconut.

- Piglin/Piglin Brute: A piglin would be able to open a coconut. Their gold tools are basically useless in this scenario, but their tusks are not.

- Panda: Pandas can only eat bamboo. They are too weak to eat anything else. So no.

- Polar Bear: Look me in the eyes and tell me a polar bear wouldn't be able to open a coconut. It's heavy, it has claws. One of the few mobs I have to say would ALWAYS be able to open a coconut.

- Wolf: Sadly, wolves are too small to be able to open a coconut. The same goes for all cats.

HOSTILE MOBS

Remember, the goal is to OPEN the coconut, not to destroy it in any other way.

- Blaze: If the coconut is ashes, it is no longer a coconut. It is also not open.

- Zombie/Husk/Drowned: Zombies have such weak hits that it takes a full crowd of them to kill an unarmored player. There is no way those arms would be able to hurt a coconut. This includes zombie villagers.

- Creeper: POSSIBLY. While the creeper's explosion MIGHT open the coconut, it also has equal odds to launch the coconut away or to vaporize it.

- Elder/normal Guardian: It does not have any method of physical attack, and the eye beam and psychic powers, while cool, will not help it open a coconut.

- Endermite: No.

- Evoker: While these do fall under the honorable mentions category from earlier, I felt it was worth mentioning that the metal jaws they summon from the ground are DEFINITELY enough to break a coconut, even without using tools.

- Ghast: Same issue as the creeper, but even less consistent due to their ranged method of attack.

- Hoglin: Hoglins do a COMICALLY large amount of damage. They also have enormous tusks. They would definitely be able to open a coconut, though babies might have a hard time with it.

- Magma Cube: Ashes are not a coconut.

- Phantom: Now, normally I would say that they could break a coconut, as they could pick up the coconut, fly up very high, and drop it from above. Unfortunately, phantoms do not have arms.

- Ravager: Yes. Have you SEEN those jaws?

- Shulker: It would take multiple shulkers to open a coconut, as they'd need to hit it continuously to re-apply levitation, until it was high enough for it to break when it falls. That said, it's possible for a single shulker to break a coconut, just not as consistent.

- Silverfish: A silverfish can bury through stone. They would be fine burying through a coconut. That said, I'm not certain if that counts as breaking it open, so I'll put them down as POSSIBLY, though of course it's open to interpretation.

- Skeleton: An arrow cannot break through a coconut when fired from a bow that small. A crossbow, maybe. But not the default Minecraft bow.

- Slime: Slimes are too bouncy. All the force would just launch the coconut away.

- Vex: A vex alone is too small to open a coconut.

- Witch: A potion of harming cannot break a coconut as it has no physical force.

- Wither Skeleton: Maybe. A stone sword could break open a coconut, but a skeleton can't hit with much force, and most of their damage comes from the wither status effect. Now, if that applied to a plant, it would probably rot the coconut. This is destruction, but it does not break the coconut open.

- Zoglin: Hoglins but even more forceful and evil. They would break a coconut.

BOSSES:

- Ender Dragon: The coconut would fall into the void from the knockback and disappear. Not open, technically. Dragon breath is not physical damage and as such would be useless.

- Wither: The coconut no longer exists.

UPCOMING:

- Warden: Those jaws on its chest are impressive, and the strength of its attacks are pretty strong, too (at least in its current, unfinished state). It would almost certainly be able to break open a coconut, but due to its blindness, would probably have a hard time finding it to begin with.

UNUSED/REMOVED:

- Giant: A giant cannot attack and as such would not be able to open a coconut, except maybe by accidentally stepping on it.

- Zombie horse: Same as horses, but more persistent. Also would break its leg.

- Killer Bunny: While those teeth are great at chewing through flesh, canon (Monty Python) shows it cannot chew through heavier armor or a human skeleton, and as such it would be useless against a coconut.

- Illusioner: Coconuts cannot see illusions because they cannot see.

- Pigman: Pigmen were never actually implemented. Only their textures were in the game, and as such they would not be able to break a coconut due to not having a physical form. The same applies to red dragons.

- Human: A 'human' would only do the amount of damage a player's fist would deal, so no dice there. Opening a coconut with your bare hands without using some kind of tool is impossible.

- Rana (& other humanoids): Rana and other removed early humanoid mobs could not open a coconut, as despite their less-blocky artstyle, they were incapable of holding any object.

...and that should be every mob that has ever been in the game.