#because that's a bit limited long-term and one of those will probably mostly make them really upset. (also you only get to do it once.

[vaguely-concerned]

rook falling asleep on the red couch in the lighthouse dining room while lucanis is making dinner....... they were helping out by keeping him company and peeling and chopping potatoes for a while there but then the potatoes are done and the room is so safe and warm and smells like coffee and good food and lucanis is trying to explain something to spite and his voice is low and soft and good to listen to and rook's eyes only slip closed for a moment. they'll get up to save the world again or whatever in a second just. one moment. while the world is warm and kind. and then they're being shaken gently awake an hour later because it's time to eat and everyone's starting to drift hopefully dinner-wards

[tommarvoloriddlesdiary]

not me updating this post (it's more likely than you'd think)

-

Dust and debris spread like a fine mist through the air. 

Harry can see the storefront across from him. The window’s glass has large looping letters, their outline gilded and just catching what little light shines through the smoke clouds, but he can hardly make out the words. He feels so dizzy.

What’s going on?

At first the world is straight, if a little blurry, and then it is not. He’s tilting—no, falling—Harry is falling; he’s been pushed, shoved? The culprit is running off somewhere into the smog, and he catches himself with his hand on the brick behind him. He thinks it must hurt but can’t really feel it. 

There’s definitely something going on here, Harry nods almost to encourage himself. And he’s sure of it because, even though it‘s painful to look at (now that he’s seen it - he can’t stop staring), spellfire is sparking up and down the alley. Probably a fight, but who’s fighting? And - what’s that?

A large chunk of rubble, he realises. Then he corrects himself—chunks. 

Oh. 

They make an impressive line through all this dust and whatnot to the point where things actually seem visible. And now that he’s sort of able to see and mostly paying attention, Harry’s noticing that the chunks aren’t coming from nearby buildings; they aren’t falling from the sky.

He watches, brows raised, as the ground a bit off in the distance breaks, cracks, and almost crumbles out of itself. The massive stone tears straight up and away, shooting at harrowing speeds towards—something, Harry’s certain. Their mass is being used as projectiles. 

Woah, he thinks and hopes he says it out loud because whoever’s doing that needs to hear this, now that’s wicked. The magical strength required to do that must be enormous, but judging by their wavering and almost wild flinging energy, it lacks in any refinement or skill. Whoever is doing that is desperate. Scared. So, not wicked, probably.

Harry’s tempted to find the poor bastard and give them a pat on the back, maybe take them out for a pint. Hell, he could use one right about now. He’s feeling pretty desperate and—well, maybe not scared—but definitely confused, too. 

Which brings him back to: What’s going on?

Waking up in the middle of an ongoing fight is what Harry had been expecting; what he hadn’t been expecting is waking up in the middle of what looks like Diagon Alley if he squints a bit and tilts his head to the left.

Deciding he’s overstayed his wall welcome, Harry straightens up, cautiously keeping his hand on the brick for steadying. He dusts himself off rather pointlessly and gives his Auror robes a quick pat down. No wand. 

That’s a problem. Nothing he can’t work around, but it’s a problem long term. Thankfully, he isn’t out of practice with wandless spellwork, but it vastly limits what he can do to lend a hand with whatever the hell is going on here. 

And he’ll really have to lend a hand and get out of here as quickly as possible. Ron is no doubt losing his mind with worry, and they still have to take care of some rouge wizards reaping havoc on a small wizarding community in Alfriston. If Harry really is in Diagon, he’s a long way away from there, so time is of the essence. 

Seriously, what happened anyway? What did that wizard throw at him?

It occurs to Harry then that he should probably give more attention to the wizards currently throwing things at him because one of those large pieces of rubble abruptly interrupts his train of thought and sightline. He gathers whatever magic he can and prepares to apparate away from its path, but—

Nothing. 

He tries again. And again. It’s getting closer. 

Then on his fourth attempt he feels something grating against his skin and realises—anti-apparition wards. 

Something is not only going on… but is very wrong. 

Harry’s eyes widen, and he ducks, rolling out of the way and further into the street. The world continues rolling even when he stops, vertigo crashing over him all too suddenly and forcing him to catch his breath; Merlin, Harry feels like he’s dying. 

He only gets this way after portkey travel or long-distance flooing—how he got here does not agree with him at all. And watching as that stone impacts the shop window he stared at earlier, Harry startles at another simple revelation. 

He can’t hear. 

He takes a deep breath and coughs, tries again until he feels calmer and doesn’t choke with every lung full. He can hear, but it isn’t anything substantial, only a low-volume, high-pitched ringing noise that echoes around in his head. He feels nearly delirious. And a bit like he’s going to be sick. 

Mindlessly, Harry steps back and out of the way of a nasty-looking violet spell, its shade almost neon. He takes a moment to assess his body more carefully.

Fingers, toes—check. All limbs, head is on straight, joints are bending the right way—he’s perfectly fine. He doesn’t feel any major injuries but forces a pitifully weak healing charm from within - out. He’s shit at wandless healing even though everyone swears otherwise, so it doesn’t ease up the nausea, but it does fix his hearing. 

He almost wishes it hadn’t.

Screaming louder than banshee cries, whizzing spells, explosions echoing, the dull droning of the wards, buildings breaking, shouts, crying, pleading—the world is so much louder than Harry is expecting, and he flinches, holds his hands against his ears at the onslaught. 

It takes some time, more than he wants to tolerate, and a few more close calls with ugly spells, but when Harry finally gets his bearings, he jumps into the fray. 

It’s hardly a thought to magic away most of the debris in the air, and with it gone, he takes in his surroundings. His head whips back and forth, taking stock of what’s newly visible. Harry’s unsure where to begin and who to ask for an explanation of what is even happening. He can’t spot any familiar Aurors, but there are definitely people scattered about in uniforms…

Harry nearly pauses at that. Yes, there are definitely people dressed in uniforms. Ones that are dark and black and flow like ink and look eerily familiar, and others that look strikingly like Sirius’s old—

“HELP!”

Harry’s eyes unerringly find the source of that scream—a young woman clutching a child. 

Their backs are up against the broken remains of a side alley, and her body is trying to cover the kid, hide them, to the best of her ability. A wizard in dark robes blocks their only way out, wand held stiffly in a tight grip - it’s pointed straight at them. 

Harry’s already moving, but his eyes squint, disoriented as he catches the unmistakable glimmer of silver reflecting off sunlight from the side of the wizard’s face. And this does make him pause. It makes him pause just long enough to feel and humour the stomach-swooping horror of recognition—of wrongness—that sight causes. 

It’s certainly a good thing that Harry has gotten to be so proficient at pushing down and sealing away horrors of all types and that he continues to be fast on his feet, quick on the draw. Helpful, too, that his wandless stupefy is still in top form. 

The wizard crumples to the ground, and Harry’s assist goes unnoticed in all the chaos. Yet the woman finds his eyes anyway, obviously having noticed him earlier, maybe even calling out for Harry specifically. She peers up at him, relieved and overwhelmingly grateful, but stares for a beat too long. 

And Harry, long used to prolonged stares, gives her no mind. He quickly comes over to help escort her and the child somewhere safer. She mutters something as he lifts the mute kid into his arms, their eyes wide and blinking. Harry balances them mostly on his left - his right hand holding their back steady, but he wants to keep it free to cast just in case. 

“What was that?” Harry asks while waiting for the kid to get comfortable and finish tightly wrapping their arms around his neck. He releases his hold on their back once they settle, and he takes a gentle but resolute hold on the woman to help guide her out of the alley and any direct fire. 

She’s shaking violently, but when she repeats herself, her voice is more confident—louder. “I- I didn’t know you had become an Auror, James. I thought you only g-graduated this summer?” She asks.

For a moment, only a moment, all of Harry’s battle-hardened instincts fall away. 

He feels his shoulders drop from their tense hold, and he—he just can’t believe what he’s heard. She doesn’t look anywhere close to his parents’ ages had they still been alive, even by wixen ageing standards. Really, she looks much closer to Harry’s age, maybe a couple of years older, give or take. They had probably gone to Hogwarts together for a while, so then why—

Why does she think he’s his father? James, she called Harry, like they are friendly. Like they know each other. 

Shock. Harry can excuse this as shock. He sorely wants to, but that feeling of wrongness is rearing its ugly head once again. 

So he decides not to say anything at all. Harry stays quiet and focused. He stuns anyone suspicious they come across and brings them both to a mostly unharmed shop out of the way with a blessedly working floo connection in a warded office in the back. 

The kid gives him a big hug before they leave, still mute, still blinking with wide eyes, and the woman turns to Harry, puts one hand on his arm, squeezes him once and says, “Stay safe, James.”

He watches them leave.

Breathe, Harry, he tells himself. And it almost works because he can hear the wet gasp and feel his chest move up and down with it. Yet he remains breathless, his mind whirring and unable to catch a thought long enough to actually think—until his feet start moving.

Harry exits the building and, with a clarity he doesn’t truly feel, rounds the corner. He’s confident that Twilfitt and Tattings should be just here, only a few feet away. When he arrives at the distinct shop front, still standing on what Harry can only guess is unadulterated rich-pureblood spite, the store looks nothing like the clothing shop he’s seen hundreds of times before. 

Unsettled but always willing to take a gamble, Harry sticks to the edges of the alley and makes his way further up Diagon, closer to Horizont. He avoids bouncing spells and crumpled bodies and casts when he has to all the way until he spots the familiar sign of Ollivanders. 

With careful hesitation and a churning deep in his gut, Harry tries something with no small amount of hysteria. He holds up his hand right before the shattered glass of Ollivanders’s main window and says:

“Accio Harry Potter’s wand.”

Harry stands there foolishly for a moment, lingering. Nothing happens. 

A short laugh rushes out of him; vicious relief nearly causes his head to sway, but he can’t help it. For a breathtaking moment, he had almost convinced himself that he’d felt something like a tingle, like a response from his magic that something was about to happen. 

Shock, Harry reminds himself. She was just in shock. 

He shakes his head to clear it of whatever madness had briefly held him and readies to shoulder open the door and commandeer a temporary wand. Even an incompatible wand will be better than nothing if he continues lending a hand to the Aurors on the scene. But before he can even take a step, his eyes catch movement in the darkness of the shop. And—Oh, that’s coming straight at me. 

“Whoa!” Harry ducks and turns to watch as a wand takes an arching turn and bounds straight towards him again. But this time, Harry is ready; he catches it with a smart thwack to the flat of his palm. 

The immediate warmth and pure magic radiating from this wand floods his veins unlike any other—but that’s a lie. It’s exactly like one other. One other wand from when Harry was eleven. His very first wand. 

He looks at the fine holly wood in his hand, feels the blazing heat of what is no doubt a phoenix feather core, and the familiar curves and juts of its crafted exterior, and conjures no happiness at the sight of his old friend. Harry feels dread take hold of his very being, leaving him cold and wrung dry. 

“Tempus,” Harry mutters, and like delicate clockwork, the spell casts flawlessly and more naturally than any spell Harry has cast in ages. The time of day and month are troubling enough, but the year really causes its own upending. 

1978.

Harry takes a deep, steadying breath in. He locks all the terrible and horrible things he’s feeling away in a small corner of his mind, shoving it all into a cupboard under the stairs. And he takes a deep, steadying breath out. 

He nods once to himself and holds his wand in a textbook grip. Logic and Auror instinct, but more prevalent, war instinct, sinks its familiar claws into the still healing scars of his mind. 

He leaves Ollivanders and makes his way carefully up Diagon Alley, distantly acknowledging that he hasn’t done as good a job as he’s hoping at concealing his anxieties. His casting is too accurate and decidedly not as innocent as it’s been. He trades stupefy for spells that may lean a little darker than any Auror really should be using.

He can’t say he has the element of surprise on his side. Still, the terrorists attacking the alley aren’t exactly looking out for an Auror dressed like Harry, so he has a precious few moments of them treating him like a civilian before realising their grave error. 

But, by then, Harry has blasted them halfway across the alley. They’re face down on the cobblestones or missing a limb or two by the time their ah-ha moment of ‘civilians don’t normally fight like that’ echoes in the quiet of their unconscious minds.

As Harry gets closer to the heart of the battle, picking off black-robed wizards one by one and gathering appreciative and perplexed looks from Aurors, he realises that faces are beginning to gain an awful familiarity. He wants to hex himself—of course faces are starting to look familiar. He knows an ungodly amount of wixen who fought in the First War. He’s heard numerous stories of their bravery and seen photographs of them, after all, and Harry really should have known that seeing them would be inevitable, even now—even when he isn’t ready.

But he hasn’t ever travelled this far back in time, so can anyone blame him for being caught by surprise?

Because—there she is.

She’s fresh out of Hogwarts. Classes must’ve only ended a month or so ago. And she’s standing at the heart of the battle. The August sun lends an unfairly clear day to the gruesome attack and shines on the brilliant auburn of her hair, all tied back and away from her face like a flaming whip. Gods, there she is.

Harry is shocked still, eyes locked on the sight of Lily Potter.

And he pays for it with a gnarly gash to the side of his ribs.

Gasping out, he quickly breaks from his trance and curses his inability to stay focused. Harry fires back with his own cutting spell; of course, the much nastier sectumsempra won’t be nearly as easy to bounce back from, but Harry just can’t muster up the fucks to give at the moment. 

Mum—Lily—is the one who stops his next assailant, though Harry doubts she even notices her assistance. It turns out she’s the one ripping stone out of the earth and flinging it at anything silver and moving. And, Merlin, it’s nearly charming. He’s going to throw up.

It takes a blue spell, its colour vibrant and just off enough for Harry to connect that it isn’t anything friendly, barely missing her, for him to decide enough is enough.

Harry centres himself and pulls at his magic. He aims his wand at the ground beneath his feet and chants until small spikes start erupting around them like saplings from the cobblestone. He doesn’t stop until they grow taller and taller until they tower over every head and every thatched roof, and until all the ruined pathways around Diagon Alley have become impractical and claustrophobic. 

Startled cries come from every direction; Harry thinks he hears bones snapping from those who can’t thread the needle before the spikes grow too close, like a dense forest. No one is spared of his sudden anger…

…no one except for Lily Potter, who stands in a small circle of safety. The spikes around her have curved inward, lending shelter. When Harry finally catches her gaze—oh no, oh no, oh no—he finds that her arms are raised. Almost like Harry’s a robber, and this is all just some kind of hold-up. He feels the urge to laugh die as quickly as it comes.

Not a soul moves, but Harry isn’t one for inaction. He lifts his wand and casts a sonorus; he speaks, “If you are a follower of-“ Harry mindfully avoids His name, unaware if the taboo has been enacted, “the Dark Lord, I believe you’ve caused well enough damage today. Leave.”

It’s silent for a long moment. And then, suddenly, the sharp snap of the anti-apparition wards shattering is all Harry hears. He can almost feel the rain of its magic falling down all around them, preceding the sounds of loud pop-pop-pops from the Death Eaters tucking tails and running away. 

Harry is a little shocked that simply demanding they leave works. Then again, turning all of Diagon Alley’s streets into some giant’s version of an Iron Maiden in the heat of his anger is probably something to be wary of. When the last pop fades, and all is quiet once more, Harry transfigures the cobblestones back. Once again, marvelling at the easy control with his holly wand.

It dawns on Harry, now that the battle is cleared up as best as he can manage, that he has no way of returning to his time and nothing to immediately keep that thought from taking hold and consuming him whole. He stands, mind racing and paralysed, as multiple hesitant thanks, thank you so much, you saved us, are whispered his way. And he could really do without the reminder of how irreparably fucked he’s just made the timeline, but, you’re welcome, he supposes. 

Then, through the whirlwind of his breakdown, he feels two gentle hands on his arms, pulling him out of the dark and into the eye of the storm.  

“Excuse me?” Harry looks up at green, sage and fresh like a vegetable garden, like summer’s grass on a quidditch field, like sprigs of thyme on a holiday roast surrounded by family; he looks up at the eyes of Lily Potter and startles at the sound of her voice.

Is this what she really sounds like? Harry remembers her voice clear as day from—well, it’s nothing he wants to think about now. But he doesn’t remember it sounding like this. So bright and so…

“So young…” Harry mindlessly replies. And Lily Potter’s answering frown is enough to leave him sorry for the rest of his miserable life.

She turns her careful attention to Harry’s bleeding shoulder, and he finally realises she’s trying to heal him. He doesn’t mention that he isn’t too worried about it and that the gash on his ribs is way worse because she starts speaking again, and all Harry wants to do is shut up and listen to her voice forever.

“Speak for yourself, firecracker,” she says. “You look about my age and handled yourself better than any of these Aurors.”

Firecracker? Harry mutters soundlessly. He’s bewildered at the idea of his mother giving him a nickname like that, his mother giving him a nickname at all. Something screaming and rotting and twisting in his soul mourns the loss of it until now.

“This doesn’t look as bad as I’d thought. Do you feel any intense pain? Any sharp shooting down your arm or back?” She asks.

Harry shakes his head slowly and in a daze. She hums, doubting, “Well, even if it doesn’t hurt too badly, let’s get you to St Mungo’s and patch you up—“

Harry steps back and out of her gentle hands, shaking his head with much more clarity. “No. No doctors. I can heal it myself well enough.”

Lily’s eyes widen, and something on his face must scream that he’s planning on making his great escape—it doesn’t matter where as long as it isn’t here in front of her of all people—because she suddenly grabs his wrist tight enough to bruise. “Wait! I’ll listen! I won’t force you to see a healer, but please,” she grips him even tighter, “we haven’t had a… a victory like this… in a long, long time.” 

Her eyes pry into him; they search and search, and she must find something because she steadies her panic and softly demands that he - “Don’t go.”

Harry can only stare, horrified, at his own mother standing before him, young and alive and begging him not to go.

He’s saved from answering as they’re interrupted by a loud shout, “LILY!” 

A man full-on tackles Lily Potter with force strong enough to pull Harry with them, but madly, all Harry can think is that - Mum has quite the grip.

And now that he’s so close, Harry quickly deduces that the new link to their growing chain is none other than James Potter.

Harry’s eyes blink slowly; a bone-weary exhaustion takes staunch hold of him as he listens to his father ask after his mother’s well-being. Finally, Lily speaks over him firm and unyielding, “James. I am fine. Where on earth have you been?” 

“I was dealing with some Death Eaters towards the mouth of Knockturn—but that doesn’t matter! What matters is that you promised to stay by me, and in less than two shakes of a fairy’s wings, you were nowhere to be seen.”

Lily scoffs, “I cannot believe you are blaming me right now when you are clearly the one who wandered off first! We agreed to stay near the centre, and, oh wow! Would you look at that? That’s exactly where you found me, isn’t it?”

Harry cannot believe he’s watching his parents have their first domestic argument, and he isn’t even technically born yet. This is cruel and unusual. Wait, are they even married? 

“Okay. Agree to disagree,” James nods. Lily’s got that look on her face that Hermione sometimes gets with Ron, like he’d better say the right thing in the next four seconds, or he’ll get a nasty left hook to the face. Harry feels his stomach drop right out of him at the thought of never seeing Ron and Hermione ever again. Oh god. And then, James continues, “We are both at fault.”

James’ eyes stray towards Harry, looking long and hard at his face. He finds Lily’s tight grip next and asks, “Who’s tall, pale, and ready to be sick standing beside you here?”

“What?” Lily asks, and her eyes fall on Harry, too. Her mouth parts in a horror Harry feels immensely. “Oh my god! I’m so sorry; I promise I didn’t forget about you. It’s just that James is so distracting, and oh merlin, I haven’t even introduced myself—“

“Lily, take a deep breath. And maybe let the man go?”

“James, you have no idea what happened. But you would if you’d have been here.”

Harry clears his throat, “Um,” James and Lily both turn and give him their full attention. Oh, that’s awful. How does Harry simultaneously feel like the youngest and oldest person here? He’s clueless about what to say next but settles on, “Um… I’m Harry.”

“Harry,” James and Lily say it together. Perfect unison. Lily’s eyes are wide, but her smile is wider, and James looks extremely confused and nearly half as put out. His brows furrow until they almost touch, and he comments, “My grandfather’s name was Harry.” He frowns and corrects himself, “Well, his name was Henry, but we all called him Harry.”

Oh. Should Harry have given them a fake name?

“James…” Lily murmurs. She isn’t quiet enough for Harry to miss her following words, “He looks a bit like he could be your brother, doesn’t he? Even a bit like Charlus?” James silently and slowly nods, his eyes still locked on Harry.

“What did you say your surname was again, Harry?” James asks with all the subtlety of a hippogriff, like he’s trying to be slick. 

And Harry, no stranger to risky bets, replies, “I didn’t. But it’s Potter. Harry Potter.”

The silence that follows is the loudest he’s heard yet. Wasn’t he nearly deaf earlier?

Until—“Lily. You got a good grip on him, yeah?” James asks.

“Of course,” she nods like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

James grins. “Hold on tighter, then.”

The sudden gathering of magic in the air has Harry’s hair standing on end. He knows what’s coming but doesn’t truly process it until he catches sight of James’ wand out, and by then, it’s too late.

They apparate out of Diagon Alley.

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

ok sure world building questions here's a few softball ones,

You said Alderbrook wasn't the big leagues, are heroes/villains in bigger ponds much more directly powerful or just more more skillful?

How often is it that someone gets a power that's all downsides?

You said the adVenture crew was in a different town, more or less dangerous than Alderbrook?

Since there are superpowers does the supernatural, or even magic also exist?

Are augments used to treat physical disabilities?

Does the government regulate augments?

Did superpowers change how wars are fought?

Did 9/11 still happen?

Big Leagues -

It's a combination of strength, skill, and MO. Almost nobody in Alderbrook can, say, knock down buildings or effortlessly destroy a semi truck. Even some of those that can have limitations: Arcade's lasers can be very powerful, but realistically he doesn't get time in combat to charge them up all the way.

While the overall mask population of Alderbrook is a bit higher than average, there are few independent heroes and villains in town and those mostly have relatively minor powers.

Of the villainous gangs, the Businessmen keep a low profile and are focused on profits, not trying to take the town over. The Shreds are dangerous, but disorganised and generally kind of shit at strategy. S.C.U.M have a bit of a 'smalltime' mentality: they're rarely making shows of force (and are still recovering from their losses in the Zone)

To take another example, a guy like Scour is in theory really dangerous: he turns into a sandstorm, and that's destructive over a wide area and difficult to combat. However, he isn't interested in being that kind of a problem, he's content being a heavy with a cushy job that pays well for little effort.

The Zone incident basically put Alderbrook on the mask map. It wasn't drawing too many eyes before then.

Except from Hypothesis, apparently.

All-downside powers? -

No, every power has at least some use. They might suck on a day to day basis and have nasty side effects, but nobody's power say, explodes their own ribcage and nothing else.

AdVenture's hometown -

FAR less dangerous than Alderbrook. No villainous gangs, little parahuman activity, a teeny DPR hero team with barely an office. Alderbrook isn't big leagues, but AdVenture's hometown isn't even a blip.

The existence of supernatural, magic -

So I picture this debate morphing, in DYVJ, to "we can't attribute to the paranormal/magic what can be explained by parahuman powers!"

What I can say is that some power interactions (and powers in general) manifest very, very strangely, and where combinations form, one can begin to see effects difficult to explain when regarded purely with the lens of "what do power A and power B do?"

Augments to treat disability /Government regulation on augments -

Cybernetics can be used to aid people with disabilities, yes! There's a distinction - one I should really make more textual - between 'person with an advanced prosthetic' and 'an augment' in the setting. Someone's prosthetic hand isn't equivalent to a militarised bionic arm, you know?

The more potent a piece of cyberware gets, the more likely it is to be regulated, and higher grade pieces have maany hoops to jump through. Anything with an actual combat application is off limits: nobody's walking off the street and getting Enfilade's bolt launcher arm installed, for example.

In any case, if anyone's getting enough cybernetics packed into them to be deemed an augment, it's either with the government's knowledge or completely illicit.

Superpowers and warfare -

Yes, parahumans changed warfare. Kind of a weird tradeoff between, in the long term, probably resulting in less hot conflict, but only because individuals could be so destructive to regular soldiers.

But yeah, I think countries are probably at war less simply cause... if your elite parahumans all got killed in action, who's stopping the villains back home?

Did 9/11 happen?

No.

[earlgreytea68]

I have been traveling recently, and this is an observation I have from using various showers in various hotels over the past week.

My observation is: I think we have gone backwards in terms of shower design.

I know that showers are a waste of water and i do try to be responsible in showering (although also apparently artificial intelligence is using a bunch of water and I, for one, would like to vote against artificial intelligence and in favor of showers instead) but I have to confess that showers are one of the great, little, attainable treats of my life. Like, you know, one of those things that bring great joy, that's a shower for me. I love them and cherish them (especially because my grandmother refuses to shower anymore and people keep telling us that all old people hate to shower and so I especially am cherishing my showers now in case someday I grow old enough to hate them and they lose their joy for me).

ANYWAY. This is all to say. I care a great deal about shower design, and I think we've gone backwards.

To start with, I'm not a fan of the whole rainshower phenomenon, although I fully understand that this is probably a matter of taste. (I don't want to get my hair wet every time I shower, and having the water come from directly above at a ninety-degree angle makes it trickier to only get everything on your body below your head wet.)

But I digress. The bigger issue I have found in these hotels is...neither one of them had shower doors. They had a SINGLE shower door, yes, that covered a little bit of the shower space. When I used to travel more frequently in Europe, that's how their showers were designed, and I never understood WHY, and now, of all the wonderful things we could choose to copy from Europe, apparently we have decided to copy this terrible shower design.

First of all, having the shower mostly open means that there's a constant draft of cold air through the opening, which is not what I like when I shower, but I do understand that maybe some people get hot when they shower and so they want to be able to have cold air coming in at them.

But my other problem with this design is........how do people shower without getting water all over the floor???????? I sincerely mean this. I tried to shower as carefully as possible, keeping my movements very small and limited and squeezing myself into the farthest corner of the shower, and in both of the hotel rooms I was in this week the bathroom floor by the opening was soaked by the time I was finished. I kept towels bunched up on the floor to try to soak up the water, but that cannot possibly be good for...anything. In the second hotel, it wasn't even my showering that made the water go all over the floor. Just turning the shower on caused water to spray through the opening and onto the floor. Even when I shifted the nozzle to point as far away from the opening as possible, it was ricocheting off the walls and still making everything wet. I just....why???? Both of these hotels had clearly been recently redesigned to do this and..........why????? Why not just.......put shower doors onto the shower to keep the water inside the shower??????

Is it just me? Am I really weird? Does everyone else love these showers without doors and hate showers with doors? If so, please tell me what I'm doing wrong, if you know. I mean, maybe you're just saying, "Huh? Why would the water be going through the opening? What's wrong with the way EGT takes showers?" In which case, it's okay, I'll just slink away lol.

Sorry for this very long post but as I said, I think a lot about showers, and it really frustrates me when I can't enjoy them hahaha.

[twostepstyless]

Okay bestie nel @lonelycowgirls got me inspired. Like her I’ve had 7 months of fun and living my best life and also a lot of change of leaving a job and starting a new one (which as an aside I’ve officially passed my probationary period, ya girlies employed employed in something she genuinely loves and wants to do) so I need to come back to myself and I’ve currently got the feeling that I’m not spending my time away from work as well as I could be. So here’s some goals and a lot of waffle to go alongside them for the next 5 months for me to shoot for!

1. Do some conscious, meaningful movement every day, whether that’s a hot girl walk, the slow running club I’m doing with some of my girlies, a swim, a class, cycle, yoga flow, a fucking skipping rope, anything, just meaningful movement. I’ve went from a fairly active job to a mostly inactive role and I am feeling the difference.

2. Stop dipping into my savings. My savings are in a fairly healthy manner and I’m good with my income but I’m getting awfully good at dipping a quick wee 30 quid here and another wee 50 quid there and I’m not helping myself by doing that.

3. Be creative for me again. I’ve been in the trenches of the most horrendous creative block I’ve suffered through since I finished art school during covid. By the end of the year I’d like to have done a few things just to feel that spark again. Those include but not limited or restricted to, finishing at least one painting, do at least one of the embroidery projects I want to do, write something for here?? I’m not even overly arsed about what I’m doing or the final outcome really, I just need to do something with my hands that isn’t for my job.

4. Develop more meaningful connections. This doesn’t have to be romantic, but fuck me I need to talk to more people or develop my relationships with the people I do talk to just now.

5. Get back into language learning. I have been trying to learn Italian well since I was probably about 16, I’m now 27 swiftly approaching 28 and I’m still not overly thrilled with my progress but I bloody enjoy doing it so why can’t I just commit to it. My relationship with Duolingo is frosty right now and I’d like to thaw that out!

6. Be consistent with what I’m putting in my body. Food is a hard topic for a lot of people myself included but I know I need to be more consistent with what I’m putting in my body. I hate the term cheat day but it’s the only phrase I can think of that describes the situation. I’m not a person who can have a “cheat day” because it spirals into cheat week cheat month cheat multiple months and then I just get fucked off with myself. I’m team “everything in moderation” but I need to get better at balancing the moderation bit. I don’t even mean only food as being consistent with what I’m putting in my body either. My water intake while I’m at work is 10/10 I knock that shit out of the park, the second I come home and over the weekend, you’d think I’d have never heard of water and then I feel shite cause I’ve actively dehydrated myself, so I’m actively trying to sort that out.

7. This one is so stupid lmao but I think there’s a lot of value in seemingly simple or easy goals to tick off. Get a new hairdresser. My current one loudly complains about cutting my hair because it’s so long and like girlie I’m paying you? So I’m over that and I want someone fresh to let at my locks

8. And the big one that’s been a goal all year but I’ve just not conquered yet. I’d like to make moves to conquer my driving anxiety. I feel like I’ve spoke about this briefly in the past. I am a good driver and I’m confident driving places I know. However, I am terrified of going anywhere outside that. It takes a lot of pushing myself to get on the motorway and once I’m on the motorway I’m fine. It’s coming off and going somewhere new where I don’t know exits etc or all of it really and I know in my heart of hearts I’ll be fine and can figure it out but I just can’t get myself over the fear to actively do it. So I’d love to make some good progress to tackle that before the year is up.

[thessalian]

Thess vs Multi-Layer Problems

I mean, obviously I love hunting unfeasibly big robot creatures. But a lot of what I love about this game is the little things, and how even a "we're going on a hunt" side quest has ... layers. Not that I started out on hitting a side quest, but ... you know. Limited time, given that I have work in a bit.

Alrighty. Lemme just travel down this coastline hunting up gulls. I need gull feathers.

Well. Lemme get the Clawstriders out of my way first.

And the Snapmaws.

This has been a pretty successful little hunt. I bet that settlement has a workbench.

Tide's Reach, huh? I bet-- Ah, yeah, there's the green exclamation point. But they do have a workbench.

And a hunter kit trader. I can dump some vendor trash!

...You have FROSTCLAW WEBBING! GIMME!

Oooooooh, Utaru Gravesinger armour. Even if I don't necessarily use it, I love the look of it.

(I might use it anyway, though).

Aha! Upgrade 4 for my current armour! And now I just neeeeed ... a ... Frostclaw circulator. Still going to have to hunt one of those little buggers. And Stormclaw bits. Well, at least I know where a few of those hang out.

Okay, now we see about quest. Hey, guys; s'up?

...Oh.

.........Ooooh. Yeah, I have a feeling I know what's up with Garokkah, but a) I doubt Aloy knows and b) that's probably bad in a society that kills the disabled.

Right. I actually set up a shelter near where he was last seen. Good. Saves me the walk.

Okay, Garokkah, where'd you go? ...Oh. Wow. That ... is a lot of traps.

That ... do sod all damage. Why did you use acid traps on Acid Clawstriders?!?

Oh well. Let's save this poor dude. POONK.

You're trying to save ... your squad? From ... an ambush. And ... you don't recognise the term "rebels". And ... you brushed off having stabbed your daughter. And ... yeah, okay, I do know what this is.

...Oh. Ouch. I want to hug this poor dude.

Yes, we will definitely put your memorial back together. I would bet--

Yep. Clamberjaws. FUCK OFF, YOU THIEVING LITTLE MECHANICAL FUCKWITS.

Right. Please don't tell me that you're going to kill yourself to avoid being a burden to your clan (or to do it yourself rather than forcing them to) if I leave you here...

Okay, no. Good. And ... they know about this. And have things in place to deal with it.

See, this is the sort of thing that really makes one think. Because, like they said, in the Tenakth, before Hekkaro and the clans uniting and the Carja raids, life expectancy was minimal. They noticed Alzheimer's in Chaplains because they didn't tend to die in battle, so they thought it was only for Chaplains, and now they're learning different.

Also ... killing the mentally ill ... I guess it depends on the illness. People like Boomer probably not so much, but ... consider. Everything wants you dead - machines, other tribes, the Carja... And then you have someone who's been training for war all their lives, so they're strong and have access to weapons, and if they start getting violent in their own settlements and squads... It's a horrible solution, but without mental health care facilities, what choice do they have? At least now that things are at least slightly more peaceful, they seem to have the leisure to explore more options.

Right. That's settled. Lemme take down a Frostclaw.

Ooh. Rumour. ...Rebel bases. Yeah, I hear you.

Gliiiiiiding down to get that shelter...

Okay, off I go. Huh. What's this?

That ... is a drone. No time now, but I know what I'm doing later.

Right. Hi, Frostclaw! ...Bye, Frostclaw. POONK.

Okay, got my circulator. Gotta hunt some Stormbird at some point. But now I gotta log off for work.

Really looking forward to very long weekend. Mostly because I'm having that "feel like I'm being stabbed" feeling in my left shoulder blade. This is going to be a hard day.

[randomestfandoms-ocs]

Sinday asks 2, 3, 10, 14, 22, 26, 39 & 44 for Cosette

Sinday 2

2. What’s the most amount of sex you’ve had in one night?

She’s probably lost count.  If she’s defining it in terms of partners, probably around 6-7, if she’s defining it as number of orgasms, she definitely isn’t sure because she’s had a lot of nights with orgasms blending together, if she’s defining it as different positions or acts (regardless of orgasms), probably 9-10

3. Do you have a type? What is it?

She doesn’t really.  She mostly sleeps with men and is really into guys with big dicks, but she’s very queer and her experiences when she has slept with women have generally been mind blowing, she *thinks* her type is dominant & powerful & a little bit mean but slowly realizes that that’s not entirely the case, soft and sweet can be just as good and she definitely discovers that she enjoys being dominant just as much as she enjoys submitting

10. What’s a part of the body you really love and why?

I mean she loves dicks and she’s absolutely unapologetic about that (same with boobs and asses) but hands and arms do so much for her.  The forearm scene int he first season of bridgerton, she’d probably cum untouched watching someone roll their sleeves up if their arms looked like that, she gets very horny watching people’s hands and imagining them on/in her.  

14. What’s something you love about sexting?

She loves the tease.  She loves being able to say something really hot or completely shocking and then just stop replying, teasing the recipient with anticipation, giving just a little bit and then pulling away, waiting long enough that her partner isn’t expecting anything more before she sends something else, almost a mental sort of edging  She’d also eventually come to like it as a form of broaching new kinks/ideas, being able to bring something up but there not being immediate pressure to respond.  She’d do it to bring something up for a partner but then give them time to think about it before anything more happens, and she’d like a partner doing that to her for the same reason – especially with her fucked up history with sex, having time to think about something and process it fully *before* having a face-to-face conversation can really help give her the time to figure out her feelings before talking about it, where sometimes in person she feels pressured to have an answer in the moment But mostly she likes being able to tease her partner even when she isn’t near them

22. What’s the age range of people you’d sleep with (oldest/youngest)?

Youngest would be about her age, maybe a year younger at most, there definitely isn’t an oldest (listen, she may have settled on Gaston but Cosette had her eye on Hades first and he’s thousands of years old, the limit does not exist)

26. Favorite lingerie to see other people wear?

She’s into most things.  She’s had very very few partners wear any type of lingerie (there’s not much on the isle outside of what she makes, and sometimes she’ll sell some for extra money or favours, and the three people she’s with in Auradon aren’t really lingerie guys) so she doesn’t totally know the specifics, but just the idea of a partner wearing something special for her would do a lot for her.  She especially likes anything sheer because of the way that it frames the body, but most of her opinions on lingerie are more about herself

39. Thoughts on begging?

Yes.  Regardless of whether she’s begging or a partner is, she’s always so into it.  She loves it, she thinks it’s one of the hottest possible things in sex, she gets a total power trip from a partner begging and she is wonderful at begging (she finds it very fun and also really enjoys the way her words can affect her partner)

44. Ever had bad sex?

So often.  Sometimes deeply traumatic, sometimes just lacklustre or her partner didn’t know how to please her (I think I already know a few of each of those experiences now)

[nonchalant-taste]

I wish I was a better writer. I'd love to write a stuffing fic that focuses on a post game Aki.ra and him coming to terms with his own appetite. A healing kind of fic, you know? I've always hc'd that he has a large appetite, but holds back to be polite / not a bother due to things people have said to him before. He eats out so often with friends and seems to enjoy going all around Tokyo to try new meals, but there's so much commentary in the game about how despite all this, he still doesn't eat properly. From Mor.gana... his actions in Leblanc... And Especially when it comes to post-December. The game even tells you he lost a ton of weight, to the point that it's the first thing the thieves notice. I'd imagine after coming back from jail he'd have a much harder time than before too; probably going so far as to pass up curry in the mornings because he just can't bring himself to.

It'd be sweet to see the thieves band together to try and encourage him and help him get back into old habits. Ryu.ji and Ha.ru probably being *especially* encouraging haha. But yeah, people suggesting to go out to eat for hangouts-- like A.nn raving about a new crepe he has to try, or Ryu.ji dragging him off to a ramen place for a breather-- always pointing him towards seconds if he's up for it. Maybe even specifically picking places they know Aki.ra would enjoy, or at least used to enjoy. Aki.ra probably has no qualms with it when it's someone else wanting to go (And how can he deny seconds when Ryu.ji is so excited for him to try this new flavour like that,) but he won't ever suggest places himself.

They probably take it as a huge W when one day he does ask to go out though. Externally they're all normal about it of course, but there's a huge unspoken sigh of relief. As the months of this go on, it gets more natural for him to take seconds (And even thirds,) without their goading, and he's definitely begun to put on some weight. (Probably by the end of it, more than he started out with. His casual shirts fit far more snugly, but he's too happy making memories and excitedly indulging himself for once with his friends to care.)

He's smart enough to catch on to what they're doing, but I think Aki.ra would be pretty touched by the fact that they're all making a conjoined effort as opposed to upset or anything. It'd probably be a bit embarrassing to learn how they've doted on him (And how he totally fell for it without noticing in those first couple weeks?) but yeah, ultimately he's glad for it. It's hard to stay mopey and away from food when you've got people like Ha.ru offering premium shit. (Aki.ra's a chronic anti-waster and you KNOW she'd take advantage of that. He'd be wolfing down 'leftovers' until bursting with her.)

Ah, I just realized this post doesn't have a lot of stuffing, oops. I'll admit I'm mostly focused on the healing aspect of it, but once Aki.ra realizes the others are accepting (and some even into,) his appetite he'd definitely try to push his limits out of curiosity. Sure, he could put it back no problem when he was younger, but he's grown a lot now and so did his hunger, probably. If he can take down the cosmic tower burger down with ease (Hell, even two of them back to back? I'm still reeling from that bit in one of the mangas where he eats two for Yus.uke. He doesn't even get sick from it. He doesn't even FEEL sick from it.) then just what else can he do...?

whoops. this got long. sorry for clogging up the dash i just needed to get my thoughts out. ✌️ eating and wg as a form of healing is everything to me. Aki.ra, the one who never asks for anything and never takes more than he needs, finally getting the chance to just go all out and enjoy himself is everything to me. Does he not deserve it. Take him back to the Wilton buffet you monsters,

[twilight-resonance]

Trickle

Holy gods, I feel awful right now. Migriane - low-grade, thankfully - for the fifth day straight, which is mostly annoying but not too bad; but I'm hungry, and cold-from-the-inside in a sick way, and just kind of feel... a general malaise. A bit like being sick, but I don't think I'm sick. The smoking gun is that I went to go curl up in the laundry room earlier, with the washer and dryer running. I almost never do that unless I'm feeling truly terrible. What a strange thing.

Maybe I ate something bad? A clementine that had gone slightly off, or a weird vegetable from dinner last night? That's the closest to what it feels like... but I'm not convinced. Maybe it's just one of those days.

Anyway, I'm here to complain about it mostly. As well as to write more, for the sake of writing more. With the hopes of greasing the gears for other writing and other journaling and other work. I should also do one of those journaling-prompt posts; maybe after this.

Quite-some going on the last few weeks. My SIL/BIL/nice (Hearthsnail's sister) were out for Thanksgiving, and that was nice. Went to a discovery museum for the niece - we'll have to go to more if they come out again, turns out there's a lot in the area; and we went tidepooling one day, and mostly hung out. Learned some things about my own energy pacing that week, both as traits that have popped up before but not been solved in the same way. One is pacing energy with my niece - who is four, and still a big sink for attention as all kids that age are. I'm great with kids; and I'm great the first day or two; but I think I over-invest the energy and attention, and burn myself out pretty hard for later in the week. So in the future, I should take some designated time for myself/not entertaining the toddler early/daily so that I can give her more of what she needs sustained over time.

The second is that, apparently, I need time to focus in order to function. It doesn't have to be about anything - it could be work, it could be play, it could just be spacing out; it could be with people or alone; but having a couple hours of just focused time is apparently important to my ability to regulate myself emotionally and mentally. Discovered because the style of hanging out they have is very much not compatible with that. So, as before, taking some focused time for myself every couple of days next time. And also in general. It's not limited to them, it happens on breaks with Hearthsnail and other times too. Just something good to know in general.

Would be good things to note to my therapist, but she is in the ICU. Went for last appointment and she never showed, and got a message from her family not long after. I dunno. It's one of those things that... you know, things can happen to anyone? It's a good reminder of that. I'm fine in terms of my own stability in the interim, I hope most of her clients are in the same place, and I hope she's fine... But it's just. One of those things that happens out of the blue. Also a good reminder that we don't pick when these things happen, they happen when they will. I used to be better about remembering; I've become too comfortable with the ebb and flow of everyday life, I think. In a good way - in a stable way - but I wished I remembered more.

Had a friend over the other day; they introduced us to Dutch Blitz, and I'm so sold. We ordered a copy the same night. It's a simple game, but a good one. Also played Clank Legacy - continued a game we've been playing, that we picked up from an ex-friend group of that friend's. Legacy games are so much fun - the closest I get to playing an RPG, anymore - and, were I to dissect one, probably good professional development too. Given what I do. Given that I have to make up my own training and growth and somesuch things.

Had other obligations later that night - helping a new group of players make characters for D&D. Starting a new game for a group of friends; one wanted to add a new player, but we were already full up, so I suggested starting a new one; and she invited more friends. They were going to do their own character-making session to make it easier on me, but I wanted to be involved to help with some of the world-specific stuff... and it was probably good, at it turned out, that I was there anyway for rules help as well. I was a little uncertain about the whole thing - suppose I still am - for dumb reasons, but I think it'll be okay. Will be interesting hanging out with a bunch of queer folk that are, like, my own age? Rather than high school and college-aged folks? I love them dearly but it's nice hanging out with people a little further along in life, too, and not something I get as often.

Our usual D&D group has a session coming up soon; also doing holiday gift exchange things. Need to pick something out for that. I did a short book last year; don't want to do something directly gaming-related, but something relevant to anyone. Pretty teacups, or something that splits both functional and decorative, feels like the right thing. We'll see. Also need to pick out gifts for my family - which, I'd like to get them nice things this year since we're not coming out and it's a rough year financially - and for Hearthsnail. Others here and there too, but those are the big ones. I like coming up with gift ideas - it's a fun puzzle around what they'll like, what they won't think of themselves, what I know and don't know about the tools they need for their hobbies, etc - but it does take a time and a focus that has escaped me the last week with the migraine. And time is burning low.

Holy fuck, I still feel cold and awful. Took some excedrine a bit ago, hoping that helps; may not have had enough time to kick in yet, might be kicking in right now, hard to tell. One of those shivers just passed over me - again, the sort of sick fevery ones that well up from inside - and, eef. Been doing the work I can the last few days: emails and invoices yesterday, brainstorming for charts I need to make all throughout this week, slack management and character approvals today - but it's not nearly as much as I need or would like or it ought, again given the migraine situation. But we do what we can. I'm doing all right, I think, considering.

This is working, by the way, because it's so loose and rambly and stream-of-consciousness. Just sort of a gentle outpouring, flowing whichever way is lowest. Helping to keep the rest of my focus intact, I think, at least in some ways. And again, leaving space for other more intensive writings later.

Also need to figure out what to bring to snack this week. I know next week - it'll be brownies - but this week is escaping me more than usual. To do with all the stress people seem to be feeling around it, I think. Hearthsnail's co-workers, rather - they do a snack every Friday, but it's been a bit fraught this year for reasons as-of-yet undiscovered. But it will be nice to go spend time with them, and to make snacks. If I can figure out what.

Going to drop this and do a journaling prompt post, I think. Starting to flounder.

[evokersapprentice]

Pros and CON

As a relatively new player who is just about figuring out how the game works, I was wondering if I had any tips for my past self, any wisdom to offer for those just starting out. Funnily enough, my insight may be mostly to do with my lack of Wisdom, given that it just stopped me from multiclassing as a cleric.

It's not necessarily a lack of knowledge. I recently did a deep dive into some of the detail of the game, and I would heartily recommend that, but I wouldn't say it's required. A great thing about D&D is that it can be as complex or as simple as you want it to be. You get out what you put in, but you can still have a lot of fun as a complete novice.

Some of the older heads you hear from get snobbish about people who don't want to do the reading, or are only interested in certain areas of the game, but I'm not keen on all that gatekeeping. Even within my party there are various levels of enthusiasm for various things, and we just complement each other. If they don't care about optimisation and just want to play dress up, that works fine for me.

I got through a good few levels without knowing what a rogue was (although spelling it seems to put me in the top few percentiles of forum users) and it hasn't hurt me at all. The one thing I would say with hindsight, as a wizard, is to think early on about your build if you think there's any chance you'll want to later. You have limited decision points, and they lock you in forever, so when you later know what you're doing you might regret it. Your future self could be grateful for a little forward planning now.

It starts at day one, with your character sheet ability scores. Mine was pre-made, and I've worn those limits ever since. For example, others in the party are now looking to multiclass, and I can't take a level in cleric (or druid, or bard or sorcerer), because I don't have the Wisdom (or Charisma) you need. You may want to think about that.

You then have precious few chances to build on that starting point. At levels four, eight, twelve, sixteen and nineteen, you can either add two points to these scores or take a feat (if you're playing that way). I made my choices at level four without thinking about my overall plan, and that's limited my options now as well. I'm not saying that you need to optimise your character, but there are ways to make them better at whatever you want them to do.

Some of these points are conditional on how long you expect your campaign to last, given that some builds work better in the short term, medium term, long term, or you may just want to get the things you need now rather than planning for the future.

As wizards, I think we're both better and worse off than other classes. We have more decision points, as we get to choose new spells at every level, and unlike most casters we're limited to those spells and can't choose from the whole list each day. Those decisions are locked in, so the random spells you picked early on are two better spells that you now don't know.

But compared to martial characters, our ability scores and even feats don't feel as crucial. Magic can cover over most of our deficiencies, whereas they need to hone themselves into a specialised fighting machine to keep up. If you're a wizard going all the way to the endgame, you probably don't need to worry about power, because you're destined for omnipotence at level 17. You just probably don't want to delay that much with multiclassing.

In my campaign so far, I've been more concerned about the other side. Young wizards are extremely fragile, and with no worries about doing damage I've been mostly looking for ways to wrap my character in cotton wool. You may want to plan around that as well. Investment in AC, HP, saving throws, that kind of thing. Not feeling afraid every time a bad guy looks your way, pleading for the tank to save you. You don't need to be a tank yourself, but you need a little bit of weight so you're not knocked down by a breeze.

For all of their strengths, wizards also contend with a lot of different limiting factors. They can only learn those two spells per level, whereas others get access to a full list, and have to make sure they choose the right ones at the time and for the future. They can also only prepare a certain number of spells per day: at the moment that's 13 for me, which feels like a lot, but there are easily over 13 spells I'd like access to in case they came up, and that list is only going to grow as I keep learning stronger spells at high levels.

Wizards can do so many different things, but you're restricted and made to choose which of them you want to do with your build, and then again on any given day. Then you only have a handful of spell slots, and even fewer at each level. Then there's action economy: everybody is limited to one action per turn, except that some of the other classes get multiple attacks or bonus actions, and wizards are further limited by only being able to cast one levelled spell per turn.

Finally, we have to think about concentration, which seriously limits the number of our more powerful spells we can use to one per combat. Everything has a massive opportunity cost. If I use a fifth level concentration spell, that means a) I use up my action for that turn, b) I can't use a spell as a bonus action, c) I lose a fifth level spell slot, which seriously dents my capabilities for the rest of the day, d) I can't cast any of my other concentration spells whilst it lasts. Any wizard-building may want to look at loosening those restrictions as much as possible.

I would say take all other guidance with a pinch of salt. There's an awful lot of unqualified and unhelpful guidance out there, probably including a lot of what I've had to say. A lot of it's down to subjective opinion: so much depends on your DM, your party, your role, and what you actually enjoy. You'll see discussions of a spell where they haven't actually read the T&Cs properly, or without mentioning that their campaign plays a certain house rule that makes it work.

Even two of the more comprehensive guides to wizardry, from Treatmonk (spells here) and RPGBOT (spells here), can offer massively different conclusions. The former ranks Hold Monster as a mid-tier spell, the latter holds it up as one of the best. I find such guides to be useful as a reference, but I often come away with a difference in opinion. Every game is unique and you can find a niche for whatever build you like. It's just about making sure your choices complement each other, and ideally the rest of your party.

As a personal example, both of those guides are fairly in agreement that the purpose of a wizard is battlefield control, to cast save-or-suck spells to debuff the bad guys and leave them vulnerable for your teammates to finish off. I don't really do that, for three reasons. One, my druid really enjoys that role, and I find myself best deployed doing something else. Second, I was set up as an evocation blaster, and feel that there's an incentive to lean into that. Third, I don't really want to.

In my adventures thus far, I've found that our enemies are either weak enough for us to deal with the old fashioned way (hit them with a load of damage as quickly as possible), in which case save-or-suck is an unnecessary delay compared to blasting, or so strong that they can probably resist me (for example, some monsters have +6 to saving throws against my 16 DC), in which case they're of limited use, especially if they also hog my concentration.

There's a half chance that I'll get them to stick for one round, but then there's another saving throw, and an equal chance that I've achieved nothing at all. I've seen suggestions that aggressive use of Silvery Barbs can make those spells more of a certainty, but a) I'm the only one in my party who knows it, so it's only one re-roll per round b) I'm not made of spell-slots, and c) I don't want to push it and annoy my DM too much.

Then there's dragons to consider. We're in a fairly dragon-heavy campaign, where the big foes who can't be simply blasted aside are often draconic in flavour. All of the adults have Legendary Resistance, allowing them the ability to turn a failed saving throw into a success, three times a day. If they're succeeding at least half of the time anyway, you've got to waste an average of seven or eight save-or-suck spells before one actually hits. At that stage, the fight is over and you could have done 200+ damage instead.

My biggest frustration in combat is wasting a turn, and wasting a spell slot, given all of the limitations above. Wizards don't have enough of these things to throw away, and I want to make them count: perhaps via other forms of battlefield control, perhaps by buffing my friends, perhaps just by dealing damage, but all things which are guaranteed to have some sort of impact.

Given all of the above, my priorities to cover over wizard limitations are as follows:

Gain more spell slots, if possible, or find a way to reduce avoidable spell usage (e.g. Mage Armour each morning).

Raise the cap on the number of different spells I can prepare.

Protect myself from damage. As well as my health, my concentration spells are expensive, and I don't want to lose it.

I sometimes wish I was a Bladesinger (with flowers in my hair), but discovered that subclass long after I'd been assigned Evocation as a novice who didn't know what it meant. I live Evocation, but sometimes I do think longingly about what a cool ability Bladesong is. Adding your INT modifier to both AC and concentration saving throws is tasty, especially as you were going to maximise it anyway (so it's between +3 and +5).

I think you can rebuild it in the aggregate, maybe even better, but at the cost of some of your upgrades. A dip into Artificer would seem to be the ideal alternative. If you start there, you get both proficiency in medium armour and shields and in CON saving throws. It costs you a level's delay in terms of learning spells, but you get to the same place in the end.

The Bladesinger can only wear light armour, so their best bet is probably Mage Armour for a 13 + DEX + INT total. For me that would be an AC of 19 at the moment. The ArtWiz would get the same total with medium armour, a shield, and the same +2 to DEX. They would then save a first level spell slot per day, which as another use of Silvery Barbs (or any better alternative in the moment) is not to be sneezed at.

The Bladesinger has a higher ceiling (they can add another +1 to INT, and keep increasing their DEX if they like), but I think at that stage you're already maxing out AC's usefulness. With the Shield spell up your sleeve, very few attacks are going to be hitting on a 24, and of those there are very few which would then miss on a 25, 26, 27. The marginal benefit decreases the higher that you go.

In addition, as a general point, I think it's worth noting that AC is not as important for wizards as it may seem at first, when you get your character sheet with that big number in the middle. Unless you come across a lot of archers, it's mainly for character who are going to be in melee range, in which case the more obvious solution is just to get out of there.

Wizards will usually lurk at the back of the party, and most of the ranged attacks they face will be of the saving throw variety, like a dragon's breath, which makes AC useless. It's worth having at a decent level for those odd moments, including surprise attacks (like when I got myself surrounded by kobolds and had to self-immolate with a fireball on myself), but pushing it higher and higher will never make you invulnerable.

Whilst we're talking about the Bladesinger's cons, it's important to note that they don't have a bonus to CON saving throws in general, only concentration ones. That's nice, but concentration is sort of a second-order defence: if you're making a concentration save, you've already been hit, so you have other problems. It would be better to stop the damage in the first place. For many ranged attacks, CON or DEX function like AC, so it's worth pumping one or both up in their own right. It might even save your life.

For illustration, a white dragon's breath attack needs a CON saving throw against a 19 DC, or face an average of 54 damage. If it hits, you've got to run a concentration save to beat 27, which is impossible even with a +5 INT modifier. Given a wizard's low HP, you may also be dead. It would be much better to have a +4 to CON in the first place, potentially saving you from full damage in the initial check, and then still get that +4 to concentration if it did come down to that.

I've come across CON saving throws out of combat too, and it would be annoying to lose concentration on my fifth-level summon because the fighter trod on a poisonous mushroom, or have all your preparation taken out by the same dragon's lair effects before they even turn to attack you. Being able to add your proficiency bonus, which scales at least as quickly as your INT modifier will, could be every bit as handy as the AC boost.

You could grab Bladesinger as well as your first level in Artificer, to really supercharge your concentration, but then it would prevent you from enjoying your newfound armour proficiency. Many multiclass builds like to match subclasses which have 'synergy', but there's often a lot of wastage in the overlap because that subclass is supposed to compensate for NOT being a fighter or whatever. You may get just as much by letting Artificer solve these particular problems and going with a different school for another flavour of benefit.

Annoyingly, I can't do either of the options above, and have to settle with third choice: starting at Wizard and dipping into Artificer at a later stage. This still gives me the benefit of armour, but I don't get any sort of CON protection. My only route to that is picking up a feat later on, which I may well end up doing (Resilient and investing in CON anyway for HP and saving throws), but that's still a big opportunity cost.

But ideal timing or not, I still think a one level dip into Artificer is worthwhile. You don't miss out on spell slots at all, you're still INT based, and you get the chance to pick up a decent number of Artificer spells (two cantrips and five first level spells for me). They're all at low levels, so it's sort of a choice between seven weak spells or two strong ones. That already feels like a fair trade-off if you're looking for more flexibility, but there are also three benefits to choosing the seven.

First, it's flexibility on top of flexibility. Artificers don't learn spells like wizards do; they prepare them each day from a much wider list. This means that you aren't actually limited to seven spells, just seven spells on any given day. You can see what you use or not and switch it up. Second, it's much more choice on each of those days. Because you can prepare these spells as an Artificer, they don't count against your ~13 prepared spells as a wizard. You can even re-take wizarding favourites, like Feather Fall or Absorb Elements, to free up space for a higher level wizard spell. This massively loosens one of your main restrictions to future growth.

Finally, the Artificer has access to spells you would otherwise never have access to, such as Guidance, Sanctuary or Cure Wounds from the Cleric playbook. You can always find a way to learn more wizard spells, if you find a library or wizard to teach you, but other class's abilities are usually off-limits. These options let you be a lot more versatile, and allow you to find a use for lower level slots which might have otherwise been wasted.

In summary, armour serves to both protect you from damage (saving both HP and concentration) and spare you your Mage Armour both as a daily spell slot and as a prepared spell. The starting CON proficiency, if you can get it, likewise helps protect you from damage (saving HP once and concentration twice). Artificer spellcasting massively increases your number of prepared spells and widens your options in every way. It's not a bad haul.

Another detail of my planned build is that I took Fae Transportation as a feat. It's only a 'half feat', allowing me to increase my INT by one, which already lessens the cost, and I think that overall it's been worth sacrificing another INT increase. Not only because I got to learn two useful spells which I didn't previously know (Misty Step and Silvery Barbs), but because I effectively gained two spell slots (at first and second level) and two prepared spells (as they don't count against my thirteen). As those limitations start to bite, I feel like that sort of benefit is overlooked.

But concentration is still the thing that holds my attention. I don't want to waste my spells: most people recommend maximising your save DC for that reason, but I want to max my CON too. If I was building a new character, I might start with Artificer, then go Bladesinger, then take War Caster instead of Resilient (due to already having proficiency).

Investing a little more in CON over some of my wasted stats could then give a +11 (+3 CON +4 INT + proficiency) bonus on CON saving throws at this stage, which is enough to guarantee 24 damage doesn't shake your concentration, plus advantage on those rolls to make you pretty safe beyond that. It's just the breath attacks you need to dodge, and there are other ways around those. Blink, Sanctuary, Mirror Image are all non-concentration spells you can cast before a big combat. A Draconic Spirit can lend you a resistance of your choice. A wizard can actually be pretty hard to hurt, which is just the way I want them.

[yoshimonster]

Blog #11: Reaching Next Levels of Existentialism

This past week and a bit has been so strange. I believe I started it by doing a hackathon – which, if you don’t know, is basically a weekend long challenge where you have to make a product or even propose a product by the end of the 48 hr time period. There are also random mingling activities hackathons do, typically a getting to know you type event or trivia nights etc. It’s not a bad idea at all, but typically if you apply with a group you just stick with that group over the next couple of days. I think the socialising towards the end of the hackathon is when things get actually interesting and connections form. Forming new connections always takes time.

I also, since Monday this week, have been watching so many geopolitics of the world videos and it’s gotten me to recalibrate part of my life. I believe I was just looking up some random Kpop news which turned into me googling North Korea, which then turned into looking up world news. A lot of the videos are super history-centric and focused on the aftermath of a series of events … yep I can relate to the aftermath of a series of events a lot. It touches on what I said in earlier entries, where I talk about the exhaustion of navigating through tough situations/putting up a front and how draining that can be. It’s been really interesting how certain world events that happen, especially the really major life changing ones, and then decades later the effects would be felt or people would continue to be hung up about them. I reckon that’s a part of life.

I really used to dismiss the long-term impacts of my decisions which I’m sure is clear from everything earlier and treat life sort of like a video game. You have a challenge you overcome it and then you move onto the next challenge. Despite this, I’ve always been such a fantasy lover and Harry Potter was my entire childhood – I just loved the idea of some mystical external being coming over and whisking me away to a land where I wouldn’t be so hopeless and in fact people liked me by default. Though, I’m not sure that I would’ve handled things are gracefully as Harry did back then – I was given way too much lenciency and freedom as a child that I was almost paralysed with the freedom I had.

I feel like this is quite privileged thing to say; people sacifirce their lives for such freedom and ability to pursue their dreams. But, regardless, that was my experience and it feels wrong to discount the fact that you kind of need a balance between firmness and freedom to deal with things as they come. I remember after a long time of being so confused and not sure of anything, that I got to see people living under such harsh conditions. I, in a weird twisted way, wanted me to live under those conditions … ultimately I would be so much more productive than I currently was. I followed this feeling with the sheer amount of workload I had, but this caused me to fall back down mostly because of having a pretty weak foundation and I really started hating the time that I had lost where I could’ve spent building that foundation. Now, I have considerably less workload and such limited guidance … and I have to forge my own path ahead which is just something to dislike given a still weak foundation. At this point, I’m just convincing myself that this is possible despite everything and I hope that it doesn’t come back to bite me at all. It’s such a hard balance of believing in yourself and also strengthening your base.

I do see these sort of crises effecting other people in my life, but probably to a lesser extent because of a relatively stronger foundation. A lot of my friends at this stage have their careers sorted out but their personal lives are minimal. My parents have pretty much everything they wanted on an individual level anyway and are feeling the effects of mid-life crises – caught in between helping their daughters and needing to set themselves up for a post-employment life. They are simultaneously trying to enjoy their lives while they still feasibly can, look after the family and make a last hurrah in their places of work, given that my career is not sorted out at all. I also see other people my age that have gone through such hard times and have such expansive visions. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it, a lot of those circumstances were more resolvable than mine mostly because the skill gap was considerably less. I don’t know how to feel about it, like on one hand I’m definitely really particular about everything for obvious reasons and definitely thinking more forward than ever, but this isn’t impossible to do if many other things in your life are sorted out. So I believe it’s best to diversify as much as possible, and that usually means there does have to be a semi-strong foundation at the very least. Even though I have nothing, at sometimes it feels like I have so much because of these pains – like some unseeable emotional energy where I can’t afford to take anything for granted (I am still guilty of this somewhat). A nice, cliff-falling type feeling.

-yoshimonster-

[joy-haver]

talking about it from the perspective of anarchist analysis;

An HOA is somewhere between a micro-state and an arm of the state. It’s not really Independent of the larger state powers and uses them as it’s mode of enforcement, but most HOA's aren’t fully incorporated into the system of government in the way towns, cities, and counties are either.

They are a method of power accumulation. Power is the ability to control the lived experiences of others. A state is an institution of power that uses violence to maintain itself. In an HOA, the violence is mostly fines, but it can level up to evictions.

Enclosure, broadly, is the process by which an aspect of reality that was previously owned in common, or not owned at all, is turned to property. State formation is one form of enclosure, essentially the regional enclosure of consequences, punishment, and communal decision making. A state takes away the ability for communities to perform these functions without its involvement.

HOA’s are Micro-states that primarily focus on the enclosure of neighborhood sized communities. The main consequences, punishments, and decisions they are concentrated around are things that effect property values; or at least, things are perceived to.

Part of the trade off that States offer to those who are enclosed within them is some promise of resource sharing and long term stability. This is how it is sold to you. Instead of something being a commons, and being managed by all those involved informally, it becomes State Property. Formal structures of decision making are created for the management of State Property. Additionally. HOA's promise stability by intending to ensure that members property values will rise.

The thing you loose in this trade off are Agency/autonomy, sustenance, and security. Security is both lost and gained. You lose security in that there is now a new entity which can evict you or take away money thru fines. The promise here is that they will also do that to anyone else who threatens the security that your home value provides. The autonomy you lose is veriable, but it can be anything from home color, landscaping, times you are allowed outside, what car you can have at your house, how many people you can have over, how often you can have people over, whether or not you can use power tools over a certain noise level, and whether or not you can do your own repairs. The loss to sustenance is that you probably wont be able to use your property in a way that provides you food or other material goods.

The thing about states is that they do not let you opt out. Once you are in, you are in. In this way, most HOAs haven’t completed there state formation, because they can technically be dissolved. They also haven’t completely enclosed the habitable parts of earth the way countries have, which is good. -

There are many functions that HOA formation has under capitalism. These aren't necessarily intentional, but they are mechanisms that could lead to HOA's becoming more intrenched.

One is that it can help keep the housing market stable. It removes a lot of the risks to the overall market that come from individual choices, neglect, and over unpalatability that many properties outside of an HOA develop.

Another function is that it prevents those who do own land from divesting from the larger economy by becoming more self sustaining. Property ownership is becoming less and less of a viable path to agency, sutainence, and security, which means that people are more relianct on the power structures. _

Just to speculate a bit,

I do think it’s possible that the mass formation of HOAs will be looked at as one of the biggest wins for capitalism, and losses for humanity, of our time. They could expand their rules and their surveillance gradually, and become one of the most granular and day to day arms of the larger power structure.

On the other hand, I think they could be severely limited by legislation or a court ruling. Partly because they aren’t a super polarized/partizan issue right now, I think there is maybe room to step in and get it done without being too much of a media buzz.

But idk really know, and I do not know what to do about it either way. Im just really trying to avoid being in one

Every post I make about lawns leads me back to the reality that the problem is Homeowners' Associations, so I am trying to research Homeowner's Associations (I don't know what they are exactly), and as far as I can tell they are some type of lawn mafia (?)

This website which has "HOA: Everything you need to know" provides this information:

you pay money to them every month

the money sometimes (?) is used to maintain a pool or something that you can swim in

they make up rules for things you can't do in your own house or yard

if you break the rules, they make you pay more money, sue you, or kick you out of your house

People sign a contract that lets the Homeowner's Association control their lives for the reason that they might get to swim in the pool and because of a persistent rumor that HOAs increase "Property Values" (?) although the website says "The data is mixed on whether that's true or not"

This is one of those things where it seems like we would have remembered to make it illegal by now. I live in my house and some stinky punk tries to tell me that I can't paint it a color- the very boards of the side of my house. If I continue, said putrescent busybody then removes me bodily from my home for painting the wall that I bought and legally own, rendering me homeless. This seems to run contrary to many rights and freedoms a citizen is assumed to possess

[obeiii-mee]

Mammon being greedy and constantly hoarding things away from all the others makes sense. That whole ‘scummy second born’ characteristic he has is what defines him as a demon and as a character. He’s the Embodiment of Greed. He does this shit all the time. The stealing, the lying, the gambling- all of it! Even his brothers seem to be under the impression that he doesn’t care about anyone else but himself. Which is just wrong, to put it in simple terms. Mammon does a lot for his family; they just fail to realise that.

Quite a few of the limited edition figurines and anime DVDs sitting on Levi’s shelf are from him, y’know? He made it seem like it was no big deal, that he found them lying around on the ground and he just happened to stumble across them and, out of the generosity of his own heart, handed them to his brother who was obviously excited to receive this kind of rare equipment. And the third born believed him because that sounds like a Mammon thing to do, since why else would he have such precious possessions within his reach? And give it to him no less, when he could’ve sold them for a lot of money??? In truth, Mammon probably went into debt trying to win these things and proceeded to spend weeks trying to get his hands on at least one so he could give the damn toy to his brother already. As an early birthday gift or something, idk what excuse he had in mind because he still has a reputation to uphold so he can’t be caught being a softie now, ya hear?!

Satan woke up with a cat in his room once. No tag, no owner. He swore that was the happiest day of his life simply because this random baby kitten found its way into his mess of a bedroom and he decided it was fate that such a wonderful thing were to happen. It took a while for Lucifer to agree but eventually he had to give in because Satan was being persistent, so he agreed on the condition that it’s just ONE cat and he better not come home to find a million of them sitting in the living room. Yeah, Mammon brought him that cat. He found it on the streets, in an empty alleyway or something, thought Satan might find it cute and then just…brought it home, I guess. And afterwards, he sneaked it into his brother’s room and pretended to act surprised the next day when its discovery was announced. He was also the one to convince Lucifer to let Satan keep it. Also, turns out the cat DID have an owner and Mammon just stole a pet, without even meaning to.

Asmo knows Mammon buys him make up kits and clothes from time to time. What he doesn’t know is that Mammon buys a lot of his jewellery too. To put it simply, the second eldest gets some really expensive looking-ass necklace, shoves it into a lower demon’s hands and tells him to go on and ‘give it to Asmo over there! He’s gonna love it, no need to thank me. You’re gonna earn some brownie points with the Avatar of Lust, good for you small, insignificant demon. Now just do it already!!’ Essentially, he’s too embarrassed to give these gifts himself but this is a regular occurrence that he forces onto others of lower status lol. Asmo comes home every time, flaunting this new gorgeous pair of earrings a fan of his gifted him and Mammon just goes ‘Whoa, that thing must be worth a fortune! Why dontcha hand it over to me, eh? C’mon, older brother privileges’ and the fifth born yells at him to stop being such a greedy asshole. The whole time he’s putting up a font so he doesn’t get found out because it would hurt his ego immensely if the others knew. Rinse and repeat after a couple of days….

The twins are easy because for Beel, all he needs to do is make him his favourite dish as often as possible and take him out to a few restaurants every once in a while to make him happy, which is good enough for Mammon, even if his wallet is screaming at him by the time they’re done. Belphie wouldn’t even notice this, but half of his pillows have either been ordered by Mammon on Akuzon or stolen from somewhere. I would be too afraid to ask where he stole such high quality pillows and blankets but yeah. Actually, those are two of the many things he does for the twins, the others including:

-Doing quite a bit of schoolwork for Belphie when he misses his classes (though he sometimes jokingly asks for compensation) or for Beel who stained his notes after salivating on them in class

-Sewing a few of Belphie’s pillows that he knows his brother used to like a lot before they ripped and had to be discarded of

-Always lets Beel know where his twin is because Belphie has a habit of falling asleep in random places and he doesn’t want Beel to worry about him when that happens so if he happens to spot him, he always tells Beel first so he can go and get him back to their room

-Etc…

Lucifer is last, mainly because Mammon doesn’t really give him a lot of physical gifts. I mean, some of the pricey alcohol the eldest has displayed in his office is from him but for Lucifer, Mammon was mostly there to provide him with emotional support. Especially after the fall happened and they all transformed into their ‘deformed’ demon forms for the first time, unrecognisable from the beautiful angels they once were before. That’s why Lucifer has so much trust in him-it’s because he knows Mammon is the most reliable demon out there and has always been there for him, quietly supporting him from the sidelines because he knew his brother had too much pride to ask for help from others. If I had to guess, Mammon would’ve had to pull Lucifer out of countless nervous breakdowns and self-pitying lines of thought, even more so after Lilith’s death. Honestly, Lucifer would’ve been totally lost and even more closed off than he is in the game at the moment if Mammon’s hadn’t been there for him. Actually, I guarantee you everyone would’ve fallen apart if Mammon was the one to die the Celestial War instead of their sister just because he’s the glue that’s holding them all together.

This post got really long but the point I’m trying to make is that Mammon loves his brothers and none of them really appreciate it enough because they’ve got this painted image of what they thought he should be like in their heads and therefore take all of his actions, as sincere as they may be, with a grain of salt. Obviously, these are just my HCs but I’m sure there are times where Mammon wonders if his siblings care for him at all or if they really dislike him as much as they let on. I know I would start thinking like that if I grew up in an environment where I’m constantly being insulted for the most minor of mistakes, since negative behaviour affects and sticks with you for a long time.

[kitausuret]

Multiples of 4 for SymbiOT3? Only as many of those as you want

For you, Dok, one of the first people on board this ship with me.. I will indulge this. Or at least a few of them.

4. Which one is more protective? Who needs to be ‘protected’?

This one is soooooo funny because @amaronith and I have literally discussed this and the answer is always "they all protect each other" but I feel like mostly Eddie and Flash's instinct is to protect the symbiote. I also though feel that whoever is at that moment bonded to the symbiote is probably more like... aware of the partner who is not being potentially more vulnerable? I think Flash is probably more foolhardy about it though. Symbiote or no he WILL throw himself into the fray. My precious himbo. 💖

8. What happens if one of them gets sick?

So, haha, I have 100% written this already for Flash and the symbiote, but that aside.. If one of the humans is sick, the first call is probably to May Parker because obviously they need her chicken soup recipe. Other than that, if Eddie is the one who's sick, he does not get to work, Mister don't even think about touching that laptop and all. Flash is a little bit more self-aware of his limitations but he gripes about it a lot. If the symbiote gets sick, they probably reach out to Reed Richards if they can because he's probably the closest they can get to an expert opinion while on Earth. Other than that, love and patience and lots and lots of fluids.

12. Do they have many heated arguments? How do they smooth things over?

I'm sure they have their fair share! Eddie and Flash are both pretty bull-headed and while it helps to have a third party, it also makes the symbiote sometimes feel like it's obligated to be a mediator (or tie-breaker). It's complicated when you literally know both of their brains. This sounds silly but they probably fall back on things they've each learned in therapy to de-escalate. 😅 It's important to have growth. They try not to go to bed angry at each other though.

16. Can they stay up all night just talking?

While it's romantic to think that they would I DO think that Flash has a tendency to drop off to sleep as soon as he starts getting tired. He can and will fall asleep to the sound of Eddie's voice. He is just exhausted. When Eddie has insomnia though I'm sure he and the symbiote stay up communicating, maybe silently. Or if someone stirs awake or can't sleep, the symbiote is always there.

20. Choose one song that perfectly describes their relationship.

I didn't want to just say "Dust to Dust" by The Civil Wars again so... "Days of Thunder" by The Midnight. It's about the complexities.

Love is a fatal flaw / Is a broken jaw / Is a burning bridge

24. Who's more likely to give the other a massage?

Honestly the symbiote does it for them out of instinct. Eddie is tensed up like 99% of the time so he usually needs a shoulder rub. Man needs to learn to loosen his muscles or they'll start cramping.

28. What are there thoughts on pet names? Do they have any?

100% on Amaronith for this one but Eddie calls Flash "golden boy". It's that old trope of "this started out derogatory but now it's affectionate". For the symbiote, honestly I will just defer to canon for this ("love", "darling", and "dear" from Eddie; Flash is not very good at terms of endearment so hilariously he might stick to "partner", "friend" lmao but @dyradoodles had the galaxy brain idea of "sweetheart" so. yoink!). I like the idea of Flash calling Eddie "babe" it seems fitting.

For the symbiote, Eddie is its "heart" and Flash is its "light" but I've already explored that here like the SAP I am.

32. Who's the better story teller?

Eddie, probably. He has a natural flair for the dramatic but is also very long-winded. He has a wonderful way with words though and Flash and the symbiote like to listen to him talk. Like he could read the phone book and Flash would just gaze lovingly upon him for ages.

36. Who's more likely to fire up the stove at 2am because the other woke up in the middle of the night hungry?

Flash. Especially if he's having trouble sleeping. However, Eddie might be up at 2AM stress-baking (thanks @cannibal-wings for this HC.. wow, this is turning into a group effort huh).

44. Who would dance in the kitchen making dinner? Would the other join in or watch from the doorway?

Obviously depending on mobility situation, I feel like this is a Flash mood, and Eddie is probably in the doorway smiling. Unless the symbiote drags him over. Unless Flash has the symbiote and a tentacle reaches out and drags Eddie in hehe.

52. Describe their weekend getaway?

I really like the idea of them going upstate to visit Flash's mom regularly and maybe they go to like... a state fair or something that would be cute. They win the mega big prizes for random kids there. The symbiote makes itself sick on fried oreos.

56. What do they do turn the other on/put them in the mood?

Well... I'm not saying Flash can get turned on at the drop of a hat but, lol. Eddie likes to be wooed a little bit more, a build-up from a nice evening together is good. Maybe one of his favorite records. The symbiote might make a few suggestive comments, put a few ideas in someone's head. It enjoys this, too. ;)

60. Who pulls the other closer when they’re sleeping?

The symbiote! It likes to tug everyone together. Except when it's like, 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside. Then it's going to go sleep in the freezer. Eddie himself also tends to gravitate towards a sleeping partner, usually with just like an arm, but Flash will actively seek out warmth. Rudely presses his cold nose against Eddie's back, I'm sure. 🙄🤭

Wow this was so many but I did almost all of them!! Thank you for this though you know I am always weak for the symbiot3.

Ask me questions about my ships!

[designernishiki]

Personally my headcanon is that both Kiryu and Haruka have lasting symptoms of at least mild brain/nerve damage due to some serious head trauma post-y6. Regarding Haruka, it’s exceptionally rare to come out of a serious coma (brought on primarily by head trauma no less) with no chronic medical issues, and Kiryu literally tanked enough hits to the head to kill a man (see: tachibana) and then continued to fight more, get himself shot multiple times in the chest, and come within an inch from death– sure, he could get incredibly lucky and have the gunshots just barely miss some major organs/arteries, but the head trauma? no way of getting around the full impact of that.

For Haruka I think it’d mean chronic migraines, some seizures/epileptic symptoms that she may have to take medication for for the forseeable future, nerve damage/chronic pain considering she was hit by a car and that’s a common issue survivors of car crashes tend to face, etc.

Kiryu likely would have some of the same issues– headaches/migraines for example would be a pretty safe bet for either of them. But unlike Haruka, who I think would have pain in her joints, spine, neck, muscles, etc from a more all-encompassing, but one-time crash, the majority of Kiryu’s issues would be mostly cognitive because of just so many damn repeated blows to the head in one instance, and even more over the course of his entire life. So, that means, on a more mild level, some short term and/or working memory issues, being more prone to vertigo, sleep problems (though I don’t doubt he already has those from psychological trauma), a tremor in one of his fingers/hands that he tries to hide or ignore, heightened sensitivity to light and sounds that could cause disorientation or pain, etc. That’s of course for just the head trauma alone– god only knows what kind of issues might’ve come from all the abdominal wounds.

(more story-esque examples from here)

Long story short, both of them probably live off of ibuprofen and hate loud noises. Haruka has to limit her physical activity during the day in order to not further strain her body and start having muscle spasms or other pains. She’s had a few seizures in the months/first year or so after her coma, which would’ve scared the living shit out of the morning glory kids and Yuta, but they would’ve gotten under control over time with medication that’s now essential to her. Some days she can’t feel her legs, or gets a twitch in her eye that persists for hours or days. Worse days she has full-blown migraines that hurt so bad they make her cry and bury her head in her pillows and not leave her bed until Yuta can get her some pain meds and water– which may or may not help.

She already had trouble sleeping, considering the heaps of trauma she’s gone through throughout the course of her life, but now it’s nearly impossible for her to sleep longer than a few hours at a time– if she’s not woken by nightmares or stress dreams, she’s woken by random jolts of pain down her back or in her legs. It shakes her so hard that Yuta often wakes up and sometimes rubs her back until she can fall asleep again. On the bright side, it makes checking on the baby at night easier, since she’s already awake when Haruto starts crying.

Kiryu may have been dyslexic already, it’s pretty likely actually, considering where the worst of his troubles were in school, but little slip ups when it comes to writing and vocabulary are more common than they used to be these days. It’s not like he’s regressed or anything, more like little bits of information are there in his head– or they should be– but he just can’t access them and the struggle to do so can be agitating at best, painful at worst. He’ll forget the word for something– like most people do from time to time– but being around him enough, it might become noticeable that it happens with him a bit more often than most people. He’s just good at hiding it because of how little he talks and how simple his statements are naturally.

He’s always been averted to loud noises and flashing lights generally, but that’s gotten more significant too. It wouldn’t bother him usually, but it does hurt a bit when he realizes that his nights out at the disco as a young man would be impossible now– he can’t see himself lasting longer than thirty minutes standing in a place like that nowadays before he starts to get disoriented and feel a sharp pain in his temples. It almost seems like shellshock, but he thinks that that concept being in any way similar is ridiculous.

Since 2016 he’s had a tremor in his left hand that’s been worse on some days, better on others, but persistent all-around. It’s not strong enough to be impossible to hide, or to not be able to explain it off as something insignificant– “it’s cold today,” or “had too much caffeine this morning,” etc– but a few people who see him often enough do notice.

Akiyama, for one, is not fooled by the excuse that he’s jittery from “trying to quit smoking”; he knows very well from both experience and observation that Kiryu hasn’t smoked consistently enough in the last half a decade to warrant such a strong withdrawal symptom. He doesn’t push the issue, though, not wanting to make him feel more self conscious than he already seems to be, and just tells him “you’re a better man than me.”

Majima’s not fooled because he, simply, knows Kiryu’s body like the back of his hand after being physical with him for literal decades. Thus, he knows that under any condition– cold, hot, caffeinated, medicated, you name it– this has never been a persistent issue until very recently. He doesn’t brush it off, and instead holds Kiryu’s hand in front of him and starts to tell him how his absent eye will hurt from time to time as if it’s still there and still being pierced through. That he expected it to go away with age, but really it’s only gotten worse and he’s simply better at enduring it. But the way he’s learned to think about it, it’s a reminder that he’s still alive to feel that residual pain– meaning he’s won in a way. Kiryu doesn’t try to hide it from him after that.

is there a comprehensive list somewhere of all the serious injuries kiryu has ever gotten because man am i curious. i want to know the Full Scope of how fucked up this man’s body must be

[flightless-rising]

Made a new Flight Rising iceberg and also wrote an explanation.. man, this took way longer than it should have.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy :D

Iceberg explanation

( If there are any mistakes please let me know and I’ll edit this asap. Also, English isn't my first language so please forgive me for any grammatical errors)

EDIT 28/06: Added some new info! Thanks to everyone who tagged and responded with new stuff to add, I really appreciate it!

The Sky

Naomi

Back in the day, whenever you bought or sold something on the auction house a message would show up in your inbox confirming the transaction. These messages were sent by one of the dragon couriers: Pearl, Spitfire or Edgar.

On January 2016, a strange glitch occurred that replaced the images and names of couriers with the ones of a female fae named “Naomi”.

It goes deeper than that, though: if you looked up her name in the user search menu, a clan would pop up with over 15 million dragons.

It was quickly discovered that all exalted dragons had somehow become part of her clan. Naomi herself apparently didn’t exist, and clicking on her page redirected to an error page. This was later fixed and the original Naomi page can be now visited.

What exactly caused this glitch is still a mystery and today Naomi is still a well-known piece of Flight Rising history.

Missing Tidelord

In the official lore, the deity of the water flight disappeared in early 2018, as described in the short story “Hear Today, Gone Tomorrow”.

In the follow up story (Mixed Elements) posted in April of the next year it is confirmed that the Tidelord is still missing, but alive. This coincides with the fact that the Tidelord account hasn’t made any forum posts aside from festival announcements.

Emperors

Emperors are a type of unobtainable dragon that are formed when several Imperial corpses are left in close proximity to each other, which then fuse forming a multi-headed chimera.

Emperors are described in the lore as having an animal-like behavior and destroying everything in sight. They are extremely difficult to kill, which is the reason why in-universe Imperials have such strange burial rites.

An emperor named Luminax is first described in the Raising a Family short story, and their sprite can be seen walking around on the world map.

The Surface

Old color wheel

Originally, there were only 67 available colors for dragons. On June 8th 2016, 110 more colors were added, meaning that currently there are a total of 177 colors available.

When making a custom progenitor dragon, it is only possible to choose among the 67 original colors because it would be otherwise unfair for those who made their account before the new colors were added.

Imperial breed scrolls

Imperial breed change scrolls are one of, if not the most, rare type of item on the site. They were given only to those who pledged 30 dollars or more on the original Flight Rising kickstarter.

At the time, this was the only way of obtaining an Imperial dragon, which meant that the breed as a whole was pretty valuable. Now that Imperials are abundant this is no longer the case, but First generation Imperials are still extremely sought and probably the most expensive type of dragon on the site.

There were also other items that were only given to Kickstarted backers, namely Skycats, Bonefiend, Golden Idol and Cogfrog familiars, and those are also pretty much impossible to obtain.

Baldwin breed change

When Baldwin was introduced in 2015 he was originally a Pearlcatcher. On September 14th of 2016 however his site art started to gradually change, until his transformation was completed five days later.

In-universe, Baldwin started to change after a lightning strike hit his cauldron during an experiment, which made him slowly mutate into the breed we now know as Bogsneaks.

Trans Fiona

When Fiona was added as a trading post dragon people speculated that she was trans, because the female pose for Skydancers only displays two antennae, while the male one has four.

Since Fiona has four antennae in her site art, many wondered whether it was an oversight or actually intended. Aequorin later confirmed in a forum thread that Fiona is indeed trans.

Boolean

Speaking of rare items, the Boolean familiar was only given to a handful of Flight rising beta testers and as such is extremely rare and valuable.

Plaguebringer coli team

On the Plaguebringer’s page she is listed as being part of a coliseum team.

As of now we have no clue as to why this is, and even more strangely she is the only deity that does this.

Boston & Hope

This story is a bit complicated. I’ve scoured the forums in search of info but it seems like there are still some pieces missing. I’ll try my best to explain anyway.

So, for a long while the Lightweaver was the only deity that had other dragons aside from herself in her lair: these dragons were a Spiral named Boston and a Tundra named Hope. Strangely, they were both Earth dragons and apparently have been there since the beginning (?). When asked why (this happened back when deities would interact on the forums) the Lightweaver responded that they were having a dinner party together.

In August 2014 during a pretty heated dominance battle between Shadow and Light Boston and Hope disappeared from the Lightweaver’s lair.

The Shadowbinder now had them, and both their elements were alsochanged to Shadow. The two deities acknowledged this and changed their broadcast messages accordingly.

If I had to guess this was some kind of inside joke that the admins had, although some people got angry that the Shadowbinder now had both Hope and Boston. Some time later(?) Boston was returned to the Lightweaver and for some reason his element was changed to wind.

I don’t have any more info on the matter but if some of you do I would appreciate it if you tell me.

Shallow Waters

Eyepocalypse

On June 8th 2018 eye type variants were introduced. This update was pretty controversial for a bunch of reasons, and the topic is still discussed today. The majority of people(?) seemed to be upset by the fact the “best” eye types (primarily goat, primal and multi-gaze) could only be displayed on dragons that were born with them, and the fact that every dragon born prior to the update couldn’t have these eye types at all displeased a lot of users.

Another problem was the fact that most of the non-special eye types (i.e the only ones that could be applied to already existing dragons using a vial of Scattersight) were not clearly visible on the grand majority of adult dragons.

A smaller(?) complaint was that two of the primal eye types, Shadow and Plague, were seen as kind of disturbing by some people.

Three years later staff attempted to fix this issue by adding Eye type vials for every available eye type. This resulted in a market crash for special eye typed dragons, as now these eye types could be applied to any dragon. The value of Scattersights also tanked, and the people bought them and hadn’t used them yet lost money as now they were infinitely less useful.

EDIT 28/06: Goat isn’t actually obtainable via breeding, faceted is. Bad mistake on my part.

Also, Scattersights were given away freely by Galore on Flight Rising’s fifth anniversary in 2018 and could not be bought afterwards. I admit that I thought people could be able to buy Scattersights due to how upset people were that the value went down, but whatever.

Courier Breed

The courier dragons (Edgar, Spitfire, and Pearl) are part of an exclusive dragon breed that is currently unobtainable. Even though their eye color still reflects the flight they were born in, in-universe they are considered to be “neutral” and they are granted free access to all domains. This raises the question as to which deity created them, as every other dragon breed (Bogsneaks being the only exception) has been created by one of The Eleven.

Multiaccounting

According to the site’s terms of service, no one is allowed to have more than one account. This is pretty standard for pet sites, as having multiple accounts grants unfair advantages and can mess up the site economy. This doesn’t completely stop people for having more than one account, and the practice as a whole is called “Multiaccounting” or “having multis”.

Some people only do this to have multiple clans or reboot their account without deleting their old one. They mostly do no harm but it is reasonable that the site wouldn’t allow this because of how easy it is exploit.

The real harm of multis comes from a practice called “funneling” which is when someone creates multiple accounts only for the purpose of giving items to their main account. This practice violates the game’s rules and can result in a ban. Funneling is not limited to multiaccounting though, and having an account only to feed another is against the site’s rules whether or not the account in question belongs to another person or not.

Some people fear of being banned for multiaccounting even if they haven’t done so, especially if they share a computer with other people.

Purble

“he purble” is probably among the most famous Flight Rising memes.

In 2016(?) a rant was submitted to the original Dramarising blog by a very angry user that wanted to buy an XXX Purple Ridgeback back when triples were pretty expensive, but got beat by someone else.

I’m not going to copy paste it here because in my opinion it’s one of the funniest Flight Rising related posts ever and I don’t want to spoil the experience of reading it for the first time. You can find it pretty easily by searching it up.

Tert Picking

This is something that refaced recently, even though I’ve seen people talking about this for a while. Some people vividly remember being able to pick their custom progenitor’s tertiary color, even though the developers have made it clear that such thing would be impossible. This is without a doubt just one of those weird situations where a lot of people somehow remember the same thing wrong.

Still, it’s fascinating just how many people claim to remember doing picking their tert.

Swiftwings

Swiftwings were a dragon breed that was scrapped in development. The design was rejected because it didn’t fit the 2 arms 2 legs 2 wings format that every dragon design had to follow before the introduction of ancient breeds.

The reason for this rule is that otherwise it would mess up apparel placement. Although the concept was scrapped, echoes of the design were scattered throughout the site: for example, the empty dragon slots that were present prior to 2019 had the silhouette of a Swiftwings dragon. They are also mentioned in the April Fool’s update of 2018.

“Real” Lore dragons

Most people don’t know that some of the dragons featured on the lore stories are actually real, and you can visit their pages. This is the case for Tetra, Cracklinne, Velya, Liefa, Garote and Mirth, which are currently chilling in Aequorin’s lair.

All of the other dragons in the developers’ lairs are not canon and are used to test bugs and features on the site.

The Middle ground

True deity names

When the site first started the deities used to have actual names instead of titles. Some of these names were based off of the site founders’s usernames on other sites.

The names are the following:

Amogayvhi - Gladekeeper Xhaztol - Arcanist Rhenik - Tidelord Akiri - Flamecaller Thrage - Stormcatcher Undel - Shadowbinder Jhortanas - Plaguebringer Ghurab - Windsinger Artaios - Earthshaker Rhiow – Lightweaver

As you can tell, Xhaztol, Akiri, Thrage and Undel are the usernames of some of the admins of the site, and the flight they are a part of corresponds with the previous name of their deity.

No leg coatls

On January 16, 2015 an iconic thread was posted in the flight rising discussion forum, which displayed a photoshopped image of a coatl with its legs removed. Quickly the thread devolved into a general photoshop thread were people took official site art of dragons and modified it.

The thread was eventually locked due to spam and quote pyramids, but spiritual successors of the original “phoatlshop” thread still exist today.

Dress slot unlocking

A thing that a surprising amount of people don’t know is the fact that when buy an additional apparel slot, the slot opens for every dragon in your lair and not just the one you bought it on.

This is something I also discovered very recently and it’s kind of funny that so many people that have been on the site for very long don’t know this.

Clanbound scatterscrolls

I think the wiki explains it best, so I’ll just copy paste this here:

“Tri-Color Scatterscrolls suffered from an issue where they would only scatter a random range from colors 1-47 (white through sunshine) rather than 1-67 (white through rose). They have been fixed and are now functioning correctly with a random range within the 67 color set. The affected timeframe was from August 15th, 2013 until September 22nd, 2013. The admins allowed users who were unsatisfied with their bugged Tri-Color Scatterscrolls to receive the same amount of them back in the form of Clanbound Scatterscrolls to try scattering their own dragons again with the full color range.”

Beta Mirrors

Ever wondered why they’re called Mirrors?

According to Undel, the main artist of Flight Rising, mirrors originally were supposed to have every part of their body “mirrored”, meaning they had two sets of eyes, two pairs of wings, two tails, and so on.

This design ended up being too cluttered and looked weird shrunken down. The name was kept the same, even though the only mirrored part of the design are the eyes.

Dragons are evil

If you read the “Beastclans on the rise” lore bit, the dragons come across as… very evil, stealing territory from the beastclans when they have been living on Sornieth way longer than the dragons have and killing them for loot.

Furthermore, in the Bounty of the Elements lore bit the Beastclan rebellion guided by Talona is seen by the dragons as unreasonable and wrong even when in canon Beastclans are framed as the innocent party.

The Depths

Scroll of Divorce

In the alpha stage dragons were supposed to be monogamous and could only breed with the dragon they were “paired” with. To break their bond you had to use an item called “Scroll of Divorce” which even featured broken marriage rings in the art.

If I had to guess, this item and the concept as a whole were scrapped because the idea of dragons having “weddings” and needing to divorce before breeding with another dragon felt kind of weird, especially in a game targeted towards teens.

First Festival

The first Holiday festival in Flight rising history was the 2013 Brightshine Jubilee. The items that were available for this festival only are incredibly rare, particularily the Light Sprite which is one of the most valuable items on the site. Apart from that and the fact that the skincent contest only had 6 winners, not much is notable about it.

Offsite drama

Flight Rising has had its fair share of drama both on and off site, but due to the fact that it’s against the site’s rule to discuss user drama on the forums most of the notable drama happened off site (mainly tumblr).

Egg rot

Egg rot was a very early mechanic that was pretty quickly removed from the site. If you forgot to incubate your eggs, they would “rot” and no longer hatch.

It’s the reason why in the nesting grounds the text reads “Eggs healthy” and also the reason why on the stats section of the Account settings it says “Eggs discarded”. The mechanic was removed because it heavily punished casual players and the frequent downtimes of the site meant that even if someone logged in every day they could still have their eggs die.

Also, the images of egg rot look extremely cursed.

Pablo

From what I could gather, Pablo is a dragon which became somewhat popular after user “Desmondtiny” wrote a very long and detailed backstory of them being the Arcanist’s lost boyfriend.

I’m pretty sure it gues deeper than that but I couldn’t find any further information. As usual, if you know something more let me know.

Latest News

On November 12, 2014, a glitch(?) occurred that let anyone post in the Announcements thread. Anything that was posted went directly to the front page, which resulted in quite a bit of chaos.

This was fixed only half an hour later, but the screenshots people have from that time are extremely funny.

Lameforger

On the 2014 Flameforger’s festival announcement Undel accidentally misspelled “Flameforger” as “Lameforger”, which prompted the official account of the Flamecaller to respond aggressively. Lameforger is still jokingly used by users, even after the typo was fixed.

Festival of one (1)

On the first day of the 2014 Greenskeeper Gathering a glitch occurred which switched the site banner for the Starfall celebration banner instead of the Greenskeeper one.

It didn’t end there, in the coliseum Magical shards dropped instead of Bladed Flatleaves, even though skin chests dropped as normal(?).

The weirdest thing about it all was Joxar’s Space inventory, which didn’t display any items at all and had glitched dialogue.

The event was nicknamed by the fanbase “Festival of 1” and even the deity’s official accounts acknowledged the incident.

Vape Juice

As far as I know the original forum thread as been lost, but the vape juice fiasco will always remain cemented in Flight Rising History.

A company called Vape Daugz was making vape juice with Flight Rising dragons plastered on their packaging, completely violating the site’s policy.

The company’s site still exists, and browsing through their products I found that the products that previously had Flight Rising dragons on them still exist, but now feature completely different packaging.

I have no idea whether they changed the packaging spontaneously or staff did something about it.

I think there’s a potentially interesting story buried down there, but we’ll likely never the truth behind the Flight Rising vape juice.

The Abyss

Humans

There’s been some speculation over the years as to whether or not humans are canon in the Flight Rising universe. Some people believe that the “Mages” of the second age in the official lore are actually humans, but we can’t be sure because they are depicted with long robes that cover their whole bodies.

The idea of humans existing in canon has spawned a couple of memes, most infamously Thomas.

Plague healers

Again, I think the wiki explains this one better:

“According to Aequorin, Plague healers are an interesting bunch because rather than administer treatments that counter illness, they use a mixture of magic and contagion that stress the affected dragon further, allowing them to reach a stronger, healed, and resistant state faster than other elements. Plague healers will treat physical injuries with sutures, bandages, and braces, but they won't clean the wounds or apply ointments."

Akitla

As described in the original thread, Akitla was a dragon that user “qunii” saw on the front page, but noticed that she wasn’t accompanied by the username of the person owning them.

After clicking on her, an error page loaded. It was discovered that putting her color combination or ID in the search bar would result in an error page. This was later fixed, and both Akitla and her mate were now displayed as being exalted to the Arcanist. T

here are some theories as to what happened to the Akitla’s user, some think that she belonged to a deleted account, others that it was the result of an incomplete account creation.

As with a lot of things on this iceberg, it will likely remain a mystery forever.

Arcane sprite book

“what is the arcane sprite reading??” is probably one of the oldest still active threads on the forums.

On September 25, 2013 user “Kaadashi” started a joke thread were they wondered what exactly is the arcane sprite reading, and playfully suggested that it could be erotic fanfiction. People went crazy of course, and started to wonder what kind of juicy secrets were hidden within the pages of that book.

I don’t want to say too much because I really don’t want to spoil the experience of reading through this very cursed tread.

Sunshine

Sunshine is one of the most… interesting lairs on the site, and certainly one of the most well-known.

They(?) have a lair (almost) completely full of triple basic sunshine dragons, most of which are Tundras. So far they have collected about 320 triple hundred Sunshine dragons, almost all of which are also named “Sunshine”. They’re not all the same, some of them have apparel, some of them are gened and some have unique art and descriptions.

They’re dedicated and I respect that.

EDIT 28/06: Apparently some people seem to think that the sunshine-dedicated lair is based on a meme concerning the announcement of the color wheel expansion, which became so discussed that the itself site broke. The two things are unrelated however, as the Sunshine lair has been around for much longer.

The announcement of the color wheel expansion was cryptic, with only a few post showing off differently colored coatls and then 3 pages of reserved posts, with no explanation whatsoever.

Simple Farmer

Another very famous thread is the “I am but a simple farmer” thread started by user “someKindOfGenius”. It’s not really about anything specific, it’s just a rather silly thread were people photoshop flight rising dragons onto various crops.

Still, this thread is iconic so I had to include it.

Dragon Deaths

Way back in 2014 former flight rising programmer Thrage revealed on a forum thread that way back before the beta, dragons could actually starve to death if left unfed.

Yep.

Obviously they had to remove this mechanic because it would have been extremely harsh to casual players and make people frustrated with the game.

Zalvador

User “manojalpa” became fairly well-known for the extremely dark lore they(?) had written for their Clan, it was so dark in fact that every single one of their dragon’s bios had to moved to their tumblr where they couldn’t be easily seen by the site’s mainly underage usebase.

Their lore centered around their progen dragon, a tundra named Zalvador, which behaved and had the same powers as a flight rising user: buying dragons off of the action house, having “breeding projects”, exalting dragons, etc.

These things seem pretty normal when done by a player, but when taking them as actual real things that happen in universe… yeah, it was way too morbid for the site.

The Pit

Black linen neck wraps

For some weird reason, the apparel piece “Black linen neck wrap” when put on a male pose Coatl wraps around the dragon’s throat instead of it’s neck. It’s kind of subtle and hard to see, but if you compare it with the female pose the difference is clear. This is probably just an art error, although it’s weird that it hasn’t been fixed yet, since linen wraps are a very old piece of apparel.

Another weird thing about linen wraps in general is that the wing wraps just sort of… go through the membrane? This is not possible. These dragons are in pain.

Icewarden ears

Another very remarkably popular thread is the Icewarden ears thread.

In 2014 user “Llanai” simply makes note of the fact that the Icewarden has teeny tiny ears.

As we have come to expect from these threads, it quickly devolved into nonsense.

Forbidden Snapper lore

Snappers used to have a way different lore section that was changed because it deemed too similar to the lore of another petsite.

This is what the original section read:

"Snapper dragons do not sleep, but exist in a constant state of reverie. They receive and catalogue all experiences and stories told within their dreams. This persistent state of awakened dreaming awards them the longest memory of any dragon species. They are living encyclopedias, and any dragon who is seeking difficult-to-obtain information will have the most luck unearthing it from a Snapper clan - provided they have the patience for it. If you want two dozen quick answers, talk to a spiral. If you want a fully developed answer, camp out around a Snapper. These dreamers move at their own pace, which varies from dragon to dragon. For some, the awakened dream can prove to be more interesting than their surroundings. This leads to a focus upon the dream, and the waking world as filtered background noise. Interacting with these sleepwalkers can be a trying and repetitive task. Other Snappers may be fairly lucid, with a focus upon their surroundings and the constant hum of the dream pushed aside."

Bee movie script

I’ve seen this story around the forums a few times but I’ve never been able to learn the details.

From what I’ve heard someone copy pasted the entire bee movie script into their clan bio in a drop down text format, which completely broke the page for anyone who visited it. This was fixed, apparently, although I have no clue as to who this user is.

EDIT 28/06: Zeus

Zeus is an XXX gold g1 permababy imperial that used to belong to user "happywing".

Their account is now locked because Zeus was created with the use of a duplication glitch on an imperial breed change scroll, which is obviously not allowed (although I've heard some people say that the dragon was hacked in altogether). Before the account was locked, people speculated that Zeus was the most valuable dragon on the site, because an XXX g1 imperial is impossibly rare.

Wegg shaming

On July 2017 user “Dreamnorn” made a thread were they(?) claimed to have a dream where everything was the same except people used the term “wegged” when two dragons would lay only one egg in a nest.

Ex. Aw man! I’ve been wegged again! = Aw man! I bred two dragons and they only had one egg!

The dream ended up being prophetic, as the term catched on and people started to use it unironically.

The practice of “Wegg shaming” I think refers to the trend of people posting pictures of the dragons that “wegged” them in order to “shame” them.

Plague nest skull

The site art of the plague nest features an unique dragon skull that doesn’t match with any currently existing dragon breed or creature: It appears to have two sets of eyes, like a mirror, but also long and curled horns.

It’s probably just for decoration and it likely doesn’t have any significance whatsoever, but personally I believe it would be pretty cool if when they eventually release plague ancient it at least somewhat resembled this skull.

EDIT 28/06: On second thought, the skull doesn’t seem to have two pairs of eyes, It just has the generic shape of a carnivore.

Rock bottom

CAPTAINPLANET

…this is CAPTAINPLANET. Somehow, user “Decres”' managed to overlay a Fae skin on top of a Tundra, creating this horrifyingly fascinating abomination.

I have no idea how she did this, and she seems pretty adamant to tell.

EDIT 28/06: People have pointed out that this skin overlay glitch was actually somewhat common (although I still haven't found another dragon like CAPTAINPLANET). What you had to do was breed change a dragon while attaching a skin to them in another tab.

This glitch has been patched and such thing is no longer possible.

Lair 46264

A cursed lair.

Dreams

I’ve seen a lot of people, both on forums and on Tumblr, sharing dreams they had about Flight Rising.

A lot of people dream of just being on the site, while occasionally weird things happen.

I’ve read of people who dreamed the distribution of a new breed, buying an exclusive item, a new Fiona feat or Swipp trade, or just browsing the forums.

The most common type of Flight rising-associated dream I’ve seen however is being caught multiaccounting and having their account banned.

I’m no psychoanalyst, but I think it’s pretty clear that these nightmares stem from the paranoia of being banned from their beloved petsite instead of showing any actual intention of doing the “crime” in question.

Anyways, I think it’s fascinating how so many people dream about this site, and it reminds me of the dreams people claimed to have about Mario 64 where completely new levels were added or a scary monster appeared.

Dragon Slime

Dragon Slime was an infamous thread which was supposed to be start off point for an ARG.

It was deleted because it was considered too “spammy” and also because ARGs are banned from the forums. The thread has been lost, unfortunately.

EDIT 28/06: Thanks to @randompurple-fr for providing screenshots of the dragon slime tutorial! You can find them here

Cucumber

Cucumber is the only dragon ever to have been exalted with a skin, which is something that should not be possible. This raises some questions as to what exactly did the person that exalted them do to achieve this, but we have no way of knowing who Cucumber belonged to.

EDIT 28/06: Actually, we do know who used to Cucumber belonged to! Its owner was Osiem: an official flight rising artist. I couldn’t find the thread where they(?) acknowledged the glitch though, if someone has it please let me know!