#even if it seems kind of an odd match they may merge into an interesting and potentially unique combination

[canisalbus]

Hey, I’m new to Tumblr, but I’ve seen your characters around the internet and I love them so much!! Everyone has so much love for Machete and Vasco and your art is so cool to see! Do you have any tips for an aspiring artist and creative writer?

Hi! Welcome to tumblr! I'm glad to hear you like my dogs :]

I'm not really a writer, and I also completely lose my confidence when I'm trying to explain my art processes. So this is probably an obvious, unhelpful platitude at best, but one thing I've realized is that you should allow yourself to be self-indulgent. If you're the primary target audience of your own work, it generates passion and keeps you inspired and motivated. I like to believe that people who see your creations are more likely to respond to them positively if they can sense that you're putting your heart and soul to them.

[nananaptime]

Moon Struck

You are all beautiful, inside and out, remember that and never let anyone unworthy of your attention and affections bring you down with unnessecary comments <3 

Moon struck: Unable to think or act normally, especially because of being in love

Masterlist Rules

Genre: Fluff all the way through

Word count: 1 980

Summary: When ones feelings are so intense, letting them out through creativity may be one of the most effctive ways of not getting submerged...

~

Dejun cast one last glance at you before shuffling his books, pencils and papers into his bag as the lecturer dismissed the students for the day. Not that Dejun had paid any attention to the content of the day’s lecture as it was the only class he had with you and not spending it basking in your presence was not an option. He had developed a talent for ignoring the lecturer’s pointy look. As he left the room, he tried pushing the image of you out of his head so he could focus on where he was putting his feet. It didn’t work and he managed to stumble as he glanced over his shoulder to where you were laughing with your friends, captivated by the smile displayed. 

Shaking his head, he reminded himself that he was to meet Kun in the library so they both could help Yukhei pass his economics exam. Why he decidedly chose that as his personal elective was something Dejun had asked himself since he started college. Yukhei was normally more into classes that matched his interests but never had he ever spoken a word regarding economics until he had applied for it. 

With his feet taking him in the direction of the campus library, his questions regarding Yukhei’s sanity soon turned into admiring images of your form, basked in sunlight as your nose was buried in a book. He hoped he wouldn’t run into you at the library, considering it’s one of your favourite places to spend your time, because helping his friend would be a lost cause with you distracting him at every corner. Not only did you occupy his mind every second of the day, but also his notebook in which he spent his time writing song lyrics. During the time it took for him to apply to literary history, meeting you and managing to fall for you every day anew afterwards, his notebook had increasingly turned into a lyric collection about you. He patted his bag, thankful for having somewhere to put it other than in complete visibility. 

The campus library was a building which interior was in Victorian style, with big stairs and an open area in the middle of the whole thing, enabling a view from the first floor all the way up to the seventh. It was bigger vertically rather than horizontally and was, without a doubt, one of the most impressive buildings on campus. Dejun headed for the stairs on the right, glancing over the titles in the bookshelves lining the wall while avoiding the seating areas as to not bump into them. With a polite nod and a smile to the librarian behind the counter, which was located between the two stairs, he ascended to the second floor where he knew Kun and Yukhei would be waiting for him. 

The sight of them had him snickering. In a hushed, library voice, Kun was leaning over the table pointing at a page in a book, his patience wearing thin, while Yukhei sat across from him, a confused expression glued to his face. Kun heaved a sigh as Dejun approached, who was unable to contain his laughter, before he slumped down onto his chair, fatigued by the attempt of pushing economical knowledge into Yukhei’s brain. 

“Hey! Thank goodness you’re here, maybe you can put this into words that Yukhei actually understands.” Yukhei only laughed at the pointed remark while Dejun sat down beside him, bringing the economics textbook towards him. 

Economics was, admittedly, not Dejun’s strongest suit, he was made of more creative components rather than mathematical and logical. Nonetheless, if he could help he would. After a while though, the numbers and strange terms started merging together and soon enough he had to lean back and close his eyes as he felt the days energy drain out of him. He felt Yukhei’s eyes on him throughout the whole ordeal.

“See! Not even Dejun understands this rubbish, how do you expect I should!?” With that, Yukhei closed the book and pushed it down the table. Kun gave him a fiery glare, daring him to continue down his chosen path of communication. 

Their bickering fell on deaf ears as Dejun’s head once again filled with images of you, his concentration ability was severely lacking ever since he entered the literary history lecture for the first time. He was truly looking forward to that class and was determined to pay attention, that is until you entered his field of vision and successfully executed your permanent residence in the middle of his frontal lobe. All the interest he had for literary knowledge was thrown out the window and replaced by imaginings of your life, your current activities and active emotions. It was driving him insane. 

As he felt his heart rate speed up as the images of your stunning features visualised themselves in his brain, he felt inclined to ease the strain on his heart and transfer the affections he had for you to paper. Hence, with the squabbling of his two friends fading further into the background, he opened his bag and reached in for his notebook, wondering whether or not he even had spare pages to write on or if he had filled it to the brim already. 

As he felt around for the familiar spiral binding of his heart’s sanctuary, the panic in his chest increased with every passing second. In a frenzy, he ripped his bag open and shuffled everything around with such vigour he feared something would rip apart, well, except for his state of mind which was already shredded to pieces. Kun and Yukhei flinched away from the table, their discussion long forgotten, as Dejun spilt the contents of his bag onto the table, frantically searching for the distinct yellow colour of his notebook. 

“Ok, uhm, Dejun… What is going on?” Kun reached for his friend’s arm but failed in his pursuit as Dejun lifted his hands and pulled his hair while his breathing became more laboured as the realisation that his notebook wasn’t in the bag hit him straight in the gut.

“It’s not here….” Kun gave him a confused look, silently enquiring for the absent object. As Dejun met his eyes, the reality of the situation kickstarted his functional movement. “It’s not here!” The realisation dawned on his two friends as he started throwing his belongings back into his bag. He barely registered when Kun took the bag from him and Yukhei replaced his hands in shuffling the contents together. 

“Dude, go!” Yukhei gave him an insisting look. “Go check the lecture hall, check everywhere, that is not the way one should reveal their crush on someone.” He pushed him towards the stairs and without another look back Dejun dashed down the staircase.

The lecture hall seemed to contain every other stationery except for his notebook. He checked under the seats, in the trashcan, inside and under the lecturer’s desk, even out the window just in case some disrespectful student had found it funny to see if it managed to stay airborne. 

The panic seemed a permanent state for him at the moment, and it only increased as he ran out of the lecture hall and straight into you. Both your bodies ended up sprawled on the floor, the only difference being you were surrounded by your belongings while he seemed the only resident of his occupied area of the floor. Once Dejun realised the state of your being he scrambled to his feet and offered you his hand, helping you up from the floor, which most likely was dustier than he wanted to admit. Your eyes met for a split second before he leaned down and started gathering your supplies. The fact that you soon joined him in the task caused his heart to pick up its pace once again, a phenomenon which now appeared normal in your presence. 

Dejun found himself blinded by your smile once you stood from the floor and it seemed near impossible to look away from your eyes. As he handed you your pile of books and papers he had collected, his eyes caught onto something similar to the yellow shade of the sun, a shade which he gazes upon every evening before turning out his lights.

All he could do was point and stutter as you accepted your belongings. A small giggle left your lips, Dejun thought his heart might soar away, and you fished his notebook out from between the middle of your possessions and gave it to him. He accepted with trembling hands, hoping against all odds that you hadn’t read anything. 

“You dropped it on your way from the lecture before, I see you with it all the time and thought it might be important.” He tried finding his voice but seemed unable to do so, hence he only stared at you, cautious worry evident in his eyes. “It was open on the floor when I found it and so I hope you didn’t mind that I caught some glimpses of the content.” He lost his breath as he realised what he had written had now been transferred to your consciousness. You smiled as the guilt shone through your exterior and Dejun found himself falling for you even more as he realised your concern for the potential invasion of his privacy. “They’re really good, you know. You have a certain way with words which, in my opinion, you shouldn’t keep locked away in the privacy of your notebook. At the very least, you should show it to the one it’s about. Anyone would be lucky to be on the receiving end of that kind of affection.”

Dejun realised then and there that you had no idea that the lyrics were about you, all of them. It was beyond him, how someone could be so unaware of their own importance, of their own effect on people, of their own beauty. As you gave a small wave and started your journey back to your dorm, he stopped functioning altogether. Without thinking or realising he had moved, he placed his hand on your shoulder, affectively informing you of his need to say something. Yet, when he gazed upon your features, he found himself tongue-tied once again. You giggled at his current state which seemed to pull him out of his trance and, with much difficulty, he managed to find his voice. 

“They’re about you.” You smiled at the shy nature of his being and grabbed his hand, squeezing it as to give him some strength to continue. “All of them, every single one. My concentration level in literary history is non-existent because of your presence. All that is important to me during those hours are to memorise your features so I don’t forget them until I see you next.” He felt some kind of pride as he noticed the blush spreading up your neck and he hoped that maybe, just maybe, you reciprocated these intense emotions which were consuming his everyday life. 

As his words faded out, you brought your hand to his cheek before pressing a small kiss to the one which you weren’t touching. The nerves in Dejun’s body seemed to fry away at the connection between his skin and your lips. A smile of adoration was plastered on your face as you once again grabbed his hand in yours. 

“And here I thought your stares was caused by annoyance at my loud energy, it’s nice to know my feelings are reciprocated rather than rejected.” The sheer happiness which flowed threw Dejun’s body at your words forced him to look down to the floor as the emotions overtook him. 

And if there was something he knew right at that moment, walking down the halls, hand in hand with the love of his life, if he jumped from the roof of the building, he would soar.

[solarcali]

hii love~ i hope it’s okay if i request again? if not, you can just disregard this!! im so sorry for bothering u so much... i can only imagine how long these take, so thank you so so much for all of the time and effort you put into ur requests🥺💓 — if it’s okay, may i request a compatibility ship with jaehyun please? thank you so much again~ i hope u have a beautiful day!!<33

here are my placements again heh -

Hi again sweetie!!! 🌻🌼🌸🌺

Synastry with Jaehyun :

Your Sun and Mercury are in Aquarius with Jaehyun's Sun, Mercury and Venus. His Mercury rules his 7th house of relationships in Virgo, and Venus is the planet of love, so you would be his type. Communication would be excellent, you would enjoy each other's company and have a strong intellectual connection, which would please the Aquarius that you are. 😊

Your Sun is also conjunct his Jupiter. This would please your Sagittarius Moon, ruled by Jupiter. It would feed your desire for knowledge, a spiritual, expansive, positive relationship where you can learn from your partner.

Your Sagittarius Moon also matches the energy of his Aquarius placements, you are both highly intelligent, interested in many things, with a need to explore, you are both open-minded and friendly. You would enjoy a lot of activities together.

His Moon is in Taurus, which his somewhat at odds with your Aquarius placements (and his own!) and your Sagittarius Moon. Jaehyun probably has a very independent side to him (Aquarius) but deep down he needs comfort and stability, a very grounded place to go back to (Taurus). Your Sagittarius Moon and Aquarius Sun need to explore and enjoy change and diversity. But your Moon is also in your 2nd house, ruled by Taurus! It makes you more of a homebody than the typical Sagittarius. Like him you need comfort and security, and a strong physical connection with your partner. And in any case his Moon is ruled by his Aquarius Venus which as we saw, makes a strong contact to your Sun. So it would still work pretty well.

Your Venus is in Pisces conjunct his Ascendant. As a Taurus Moon he would really enjoy it as it would put focus on Venusian things. You would find him really beautiful and pleasant, you would enjoy his company and boost his self-estime which he would find very flattering. He would see you as a bit of a seductress, a siren even since Venus is in the magical and dreamy sign of Pisces. This is a very romantic and loving aspect to have.

His Aries Saturn trines your Sagittarius Moon and your Taurus Saturn is with his Moon and Juno so you would be committed to each other. The Saturn-Moon conjunction in Taurus could be a bit challenging, you would feel very responsible and protective of him but could act somewhat insensitive towards his feelings. The bond would be very tight though, hard to break, especially in loyal Taurus. He also has his Juno in Taurus, the asteroid of marriage and devotion, so he would be very attached to you. He would take the relationship seriously and would see you as an important figure in his life.

Your Mars in Scorpio, which rules your 7th house in Aries, is squaring his Aquarius planets and opposing his Taurus Moon. So it is possible that while you are his type, he may not exactly be yours. You seem to be looking for a very deep and emotional relationship, a merging of the souls. 😊 But his Aquarius Sun is more intellectual and distant and his Taurus Moon is more about sensuality than true emotional merging. But, your Mars is in your 2nd house which matches the energy of his Taurus Moon in his 2nd house too. You are both focused on material security so he would match your needs on that level.

His Mars and North Node are in Libra near your Ascendant, so he would be kinda obsessively drawn to you. Mars and the North Node are two very impulsive, somewhat selfish and hungry points. The Ascendant is what you project at first sight, it is also your body. So the physical attraction would be kind of intense and hard to resist. 😅

So that's it, have a wonderful day! 💖💜💖💜💖

[tabletopjourneys]

Session 29 Notes

Completing fae deals and sailing out to sea with magic whales and a fortune in ambergris. Tags: @aradow @gher-bear @telurin @epimetal

On this day we successfully trick our way into completing Ixayl’anu’s bargain with Diem’s patron without having to fight anything. Said patron then immediately turns around to have Diem hold on to the item retrieved for awhile - the chaotic deck of many things. Diem and Ixayl’anu then deliver the fungus sample and make arrangements for possibly more samples and by-journal communications with the fungus expert, Professor Whitskey. Afterwards, we all set sail the next day for Anesh to continue our main quest. On the voyage, we encounter weirdness that includes a vanishing crew member and a group of whales doing ancient singing magics alongside and under the ship for a part of the voyage. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the meteors though. Ixayl’anu helps us discover and haul in some ambergris that’s gonna be worth tons of $$$$.   *Details below the “Keep Reading” break*

(Additional details noted before we knock on Dima’s door.) We agree that at some point while we’re all in the room, Phi found a good time  to tell us about Averni being run by vampires. This will possibly get threaded into a previous notes session if I find a good place. Either way, it happened.

Phi would have also told us during fae deal planning that Dima is a follower of Selune the moon goddess and that he’s pretty much not very tolerant/caring about other religions/gods/goddesses

Together we all figure out what Selune’s about, slightly a trickster (but not really the aspect Dima follows), for sailors, the moon and the night, etc.

(The visit with Dima - ‘Waiting Room’)

Ixayl’anu walks up to the door, Alfred the butler opens the door and looks at our ragtag bunch, spotting Phi in the back. “Yes, can I help you?”

Phi: We were wanting to talk to Dima, something’s come up.

Butler: Mr. Lenkov is in a meeting with Aristin Pilwickin (cousin 2nd removed) currently, but you can certainly come in and wait until they are done.

Phi: Yes it’s that important, we can wait.

Rest of us: Yeah we’re okay with waiting.

Phi: How’s it going Alfred? 

Al: *steps back opens door, responds*

Phi continues making small talk.

As we walk past the doors down the long hallway, past the doubledoors Phi gets whispered what’s going on because she’s the only one with perception for it and on high alert.

The exterior walls are def stone, but interior walls are plastered wood slats (a note for Rana)

As we reach the room we’re ushered to we see a scholarly blue and white dragonborn and fucked up gnome chick, not related to Phi, def looks like she had a hard life, low London rough and tumble accent.

Phi parses this as odd because she doesn’t really ever see these two together and they were both doing whispery voiced arguing that clams up when we enter.

Gnome lady stays quiet

Payton (scholarly dragonborn): Ah, leaf pick, haven’t seen you in awhile.

Rana gives Phi a confused look because this is like name #15

He’s one of the more stable potion makers of the group (Payton) soooome minor enchantments

Phi: Hey! How ya doin, Payton?

Rana and Diem hug the wall together not feeling great about the group’s chances in this situation.

Phi and Payton have awkward chitchat.

Phi gives Bamfina Lockley (the rough and tumble London gnome) a nod: Hey.

Lockley gives her a cool look in response, something of a glare.

Payton glazes over that about how great it’s going, lots of shipments and good time for working on my projects.

Phi: Have you heard anything about the weird meteors we’ve been having, lots of sciencey people talking about that?

Payton: I have seen them but I’ve been really busy this past week so I haven’t been...why have you heard anything?

Phi: We were talking to some people at the university and it just sounded pretty crazy, right?

Payton: *quetioning look* I didn’t realize you were so interested in astronomy

Phi: New hobby of mine, been spending a lot of time outdoors looking up at the sky and it’s just become fascinating to me.

Neither Payton nor Bamfina look like they know what to do with that.

Payton takes interest in Phi’s friends, we briefly greet back.

Phi asks if they’re waiting to see Dima

No

Oh we’re just gonna go in then

Lockley stroms off

Rana: Bye!

Phi’s cousin walks out from a door in the side hall on the east wall. “Oh, Selphina! I haven’t seen you in forever!”

Phi: Oh, hey *nickname for level 2 familiarity* Small chitchat in the hall about wishing their loved ones well follows.

He gives the rest of us a wtf are these people doing here look as he goes by but Diem doesn’t even notice him until he’s already past them while Rana tries to start obviously awkward conversation with Payton after Phi dropped him like a hot potato. (The meeting with Dima)

Phi knocks on door where Dima is waiting.

Dima: Enter

Phi peeks in “I brought my friends with me this time, is it okay if they come in?”

Dima gives her a look: It’s better than having them in the hall.

It’s a cozy little office with french doors leading into a garden/well area. 20x30 office

Diem comes all the way in and crosses with Phi to the french door area to allow room for Rana and Ixayl’anu, then sits in the chair on that side of the office.

Dima thinks this is unusual that Phi’s brought people in, but she’s not in trouble for it. He casually closes his books and sets them aside as we come in.

Dima: Phi what is this about, I thought we’d spoken earlier?

Phi: Yeeeeah, but it turns out my friends realized they have something to talk to *you* about and so I brought them here to talk about it.

Dima: Interesting *makes go on hand gesture*

Ixayl’anu: (rolls a 10 on persuasion) and she says something to the effect of “I’m on a mission from Selune, and you have something she requires to complete my quest.” Dima is intrigued

Diem doesn’t think he looks intrigued enough and decides to use phantasmal force to convince Ixayl’anu Selune is now talking through her to tell this story, and hopefully Dima that it’s true/help really sell the story. Sleight of hand casting succeeds/Nobody notices Diem cast it, but Ixayl’anu makes her save enough to know what’s going on and let it happen.

Ixayl’anu then rolls a nat 20 on persuasion with the rest of the story, letting herself believe she’s possessed by Selune. Diem adds a little moonlight prestidigitation to Ixayl’anu’s eyes to really sell it. Both trickstery deities involved probably fully approved and thought this was great fun (Dima’s and Ixayl’anu’s)

Dima: Yes, Ixayl’anu, whatever you need, name it.

“Selune”: Ixayl’anu will know it when I see it through her eyes.

He leads us to the basement where there’s a sleeping black dragon it looks up and snorts.

Peace Antimony, (words I missed).

It hisses some toxic green gas and lays back down.

Dima leads us around. “This is just general storage, but I’ve got a vault down here.”

Rana and Phi have been flabbergasted. We all stand back and just act like we’re not interested in snooping. 

1st item: metal globe with protection runes “thaumaturge’s orb.”

2nd item: A staff with a golden hand at the end with one finger extended “Staff of Midas”

3rd item: Multi-faced star-shaped cut glass/shimmery crystal reflecting light in prismy way “The sky crystal focus” about the size of a basketball.

4th item: Beautiful finely made silver circlet with a large multi-faceted, mostly purple gemstone in the middle with 3 little motes of light that float around it in diff shifting colors “Arcanist’s Circlet”

5th item: A tiny hummingbird out of enamel or jade, in flight “Valonte’s vitalium”

6th item: Another orb, jet black with 2 copper bands runes carved into the orb. “Orb of passage”

7th item: A sword longsword with kind of twisted metal and hilt is standard wrapped hilt that merges into the base of the blade like grasping vines, cross blade is thorny “constrictor blade”

8th item: Just looks like a deck of fine playing cards, kinda plain. “The Deck of Many Things”

9th item: Amulet on a jeweler’s bust, inside is a beautiful topaz (yellow), large cut to shine brilliant, around it 2 sphinx’s and a four winged angel on top with sunrays behind it. It looks very ornate. “The Sunheart medallion.”

If Rana was looking she might be able to say more about it, but she isn’t.

Dima: I did just acquire this as well. 

*shows wine decanter sized crystal vial with a metallic, shimmering in all the colors kaleidoscopic liquid, I’m not exactly sure what this does yet, I haven’t had it identified, but it may also be what you seek.

Arcana check of 22 to see if I know any stories about the item names: Enough to Cross off staff of midas, volantes vitaleum, and constrictor blade.

Diem manages to sleight of hand cast message to share not these 3, but my patron said you would know it when you see it, so maybe...communicate with your god in front of each one or something? “You can respond to this message”

Ixie: Maaaybe.

Rolling a d6 at a 5 (for where she’s drawn): Ixie narrows it down to the skycrystal focus, the arcanist circlet, and the deck of many things.

Ixayl’anu tries to use divine sense in front of the 3. It doesn’t tell her any more.

She’s doing the slow loop around the room kinda thing, holding a hand out, dowsing rod kinda passing each one. Loops back around to the deck, decisively points at the deck “That one.”

Dima: Yeah, that completely makes sense, let me unlock that for you.

Phi rolls investigation to see if there’s a magic component to these keys or anything. As he puts in the key and turns it there’s a faint puff of coloured magic smoke that comes out, and she knows it’s just like a simple alarm spell - it would make a noise to alert something or someone elsewhere. Takes out the deck and hands it to Ixayl’anu.

Phi notices the back of these cards is an exact match to the card she’s been carrying. Dima’s deck is complete, Phi got it within a year, but not from Dima. Meta info none of us realize: Vizier: At any time you choose within one year of drawing this card, you can ask a question in meditation and mentally receive a truthful answer to that question. Besides information, the answer helps you solve a puzzling problem or other dilemma. In other words, the knowledge comes with Wisdom on how to apply it.

Ixayl’anu tries to give him a good faith I know it’s not enough token of 100gold

Dima: No, this is between us and the deities. (but he appreciates the gesture)

Ixayl’anu: May her light shine on you.

Dima: And you as well.

We don’t linger and follow Phi out.

He invites us to a drink after with some chitchat. With as little detail as possible and as much truth as possible (not sure what I meant by this statement lol). We get very good bourbon.

Charisma check for how Dima views each of us moving forward: Rana 15, Ixayl’anu 15, Diem: 10, Phi: nat 20 (22 total).

Level up!

We go back to the inn and Rana buys us dinner.

We talk about when we’re doing the professor meeting and will they meet us at night.

We both are like as soon as possible, but we’ll say it’s an emergency.

Rana exchanges a look with Phi.

Diem: What? Wait did you guys get message while I wasn’t paying attention?

Rana: Yes. Phi tells Diem the truth though (no, we didn’t)

Diem talks about maybe appearing on the boat after it’s already set sail - they don’t know how these things work.

Rana: Won’t the captain have questions?

Diem: Well we’re already paid for so it’s not like we’d be stowaways.

Rana and Phi talk about how mad her mentor might be, they talk about not knowing it wasn’t an actual message from Selune and what if Dima finds out. Rana doesn’t for a moment believe Selune was involved. 

Phi: That won’t be explained until the future either and if a catastrophe was averted by then it could make him less mad.

Rana: Let’s hope it was worth it.

Phi: Yeah, let’s take it one day at a time. Cross that bridge when we come to it.

Rana: Let’s just hope we don’t burn that bridge.

*cut to Diem and Ixayl’anu for a deal’s a deal scenes*

Diem does as last time, with the sense Ahrune heard.

Ahrune pops in “That was fast, what have you brought for me?”

Diem: We may have convinced him it was ordained by his goddess.

Ahrune: More interesting than what I had in mind.

Ixayl’anu *huffy*: It wasn’t exactly clear, but I brought you these.

Ahrune: *examines them* Yes, these will do quite nicely *hands them over to Diem* Why don’t you hold on to these for me.

Diem: *thanks in shock*

Ahrune makes us a door directly to the guy, and hands Diem a return portal orb to the inn when we’re done. “Forgive me if I don’t want to stick around for this part.” *disappears*

*Diem tucks the cards into their inner suit pocket before following Ixayl’anu through the door.*

As soon as we walk in he looks up: Oh! Hello I didn’t...office hours are closed!

Ixayl’anu: Forgive the intrusion but I need to talk to you.

Whitskey: You don’t look like one of my students…?

Ixayl’anu: No we haven’t met before, I have an unusual question...well...maybe *looks at all the vials of fungus and thinking maybe not* Wondering if maybe you can identify something for me.

I’m given to understand you’re professor Whitskey?

Whitskey: Yep that’s me.

Ixayl’anu: Do you...I think this question is self evident but do you happen to study lichen and fungus and things?

Whitskey: That is my specialty

Ixayl’anu: I have a substance that I - well a group of us found recently and I was hoping you’d know more about it.

Magical lichen - you understand magical lichen very well?

Whitskey: Yes do you have one you want me to identify?

Ixayl’anu digs in her pack and pulls out the vial to hand over

Diem: before you open this you should know *tells about it briefly and where it was sampled from*

Whitskey: Yeah I recognized it so I wasn’t going to throw magic at it but thanks for the warning.

You said you found this in the shadowood? You’re quite far from home.

One of us: We spoke to professor Leonis he wasn’t sure if it was native here or if they came with the meteors, he kind of led us to think it was native

Whitskey: Professor Leonis, I can’t say that I’m too familiar with him but I don’t get out much. I have heard all this hullabaloo about these meteors but I didn’t realize it would have anything to do with my work.

We talk about it growing directly on the meteor.

Diem illustrates it for him.

Whitskey: Hmmm *adjusts glasses* (has very large eyes behind the glasses)

Ixayl’anu brings up the dwarf too.

Whitskey: There was a dwarf? Tell me more about this.

Diem does a 22 on telling the story again and all the details they can remember.

Whitskey looks at the lichen in the jar and studies it. His excitement continues to grow as he looks up things in books and compares, etc. 

He keeps it in the jar and he brings the mage light closer to the vial. *Diem steps back*

The lichen grows toward the source of the magic with quite a speed, spindly bits and deeper colored. Whitskey quickly separates it out again.

Whitskey: This is quite a find! This is a very...I haven’t actually seen this before!

Diem would let him know what officials in Miova know, what little they don’t, or even the local Miovan professors about this fungus and that he might want to put a team together to stress the importance of this to his local magistrates/officials/etc, asks whether it might be wise to take a protected sample back there as well.

Whitskey: If I’m correct this line is very aggressive. Transporting it could be quite problematic, we’d have to set up a containment field, quite frankly I’m surprised it stayed in this method of containment.

Diem agrees on the point of transporting it back through another, different magical door and that it’s probably best to leave the whole sample with Whitskey after all.

Diem and Ixayl’anu talk about her mission and what they can do if they encounter more of it. Whitskey gets excited about the possibility of more samples then and happily gives us containers of his own.

Tips for future encounters: Bring someone who can create a null field, anti-magic area to contain it, and it is best you get the samples when they’re small, when they’re large they have a self-fulfilling mist about them and they become quite difficult to contain. At that point it can do certain things, take over other living organisms.

Diem: Like that dwarf - oh and maybe those gnolls.

*tells him about the gnolls now too*

Whitskey: Oh yeah some cults do use them to infect themselves with various forms of these lichens to become part of their deities. Usually those cults get found and irradicated. Some small discussion about that. We find out it’s common though with known species and not necessarily tied to this new one.

Diem asks about the care of the vessels

The containers are inert until you open them and put something inside, and once you shut them they become their magical versions and he wouldn’t recommend putting them in magic holding things like bags of holding or anything like that, but near those bags is fine.

(Rana:This guy is totally going to turn out to be evil

Leonis: "I can't just hand out University materials, I'd have to get permission."

This guy: "Take my personal vials.")

We get 3 containment units.

He goes around to the other side of his table and give us a small book of sending so we can keep in touch and we can coordinate how to get samples and such back and forth.

We verify we can send warnings through and not just notes, and he will contact us too about things he learns.

How durable are the contaminants?

More durable than glass, they can break, handle them with care, don’t smash them on the floor or throw them at things. They’re made of magical pyrex. Thick enough to drop from waist height and they’ll be fine.

Whitskey: You’ve made my whole night, my whole year, I have so many things to do!

Ixayl’anu has something else she wanted to ask but can’t think of it right now.

Diem makes sure it’s okay to ask him a question in the book later if she thinks of it.

Whitskey: Oh yes, so long as it pertains to all of this.

Diem: Can this book be stored in a bag of holding?

Whitskey: Yes absolutely.

Ixayl’anu: Anything else you can think of?

Diem: Nope I think we did a pretty good job.

Ixayl’anu smashes the portal and we go back to the room we were in, taking 45 minutes total.

Rana and Ixayl’anu played with their rats. *rewind a little (to prevent potential disaster lol)*

Before we left, Phi brought up that she had a similar card to the deck we got and she tells us it’s a deck of many things that have wildly varying effects that could be really good or really bad and she knows you have to declare how many cards you want to draw and select them. She has an enchanted card to be whatever card she needs and now that she knows this it’s revealed its true nature to her so now it probably doesn’t work as intended.

Phi asks if she can see the deck and Ixayl’anu hands it over (in the velvet bag Dima had tucked them in).

She puts them face down on the table “I have one of these cards that I thought was just a trick card. I use this to turn into a different card *she tells it to change by illustration* the fact my boss had cards like this tucked in his treasure room tells me this is more than just a simple trick.”

It’s def a trickster element to it. Diem realizes they know stories about these cards (21 arcana check), gives some examples of people dying, being lost, become more powerful or rich, getting wishes granted.

Rana makes a face when the wish spell is mentioned.

Phi: Sounds super dangerous but also kind of fun

Diem: Yeah, but also the epitome of fey fun, so it makes sense why you picked that one, Ixayl’anu.

Phi: *tucks her card away and talks about getting it identified*

*Phi and Rana time while Ixayl’anu and Diem are at Whitskey’s*

Rana: So how do you and Dima know each other?

Phi: He’s the head of an organization I used to be a part of.

My family is very involved still so I kinda don’t talk about being involved with it anymore so I kinda just go off and do my own thing but Dima is one of the people who knows I don’t wanna be a part of it anymore. He makes sure I don’t get any heat from not wanting to be part of it now.

Rana: Well your sister seems nice and he seems nice

Phi: He’s NOT nice, but my sister doesn’t know much about it, she’s just a family person, focuses on that. Her job’s not so intense (I have a lot of sisters though).

Rana: What do your other siblings do? *confused*

Phi: You know

Rana: No, I don’t.

Phi: Just stuff that isn’t necessarily on the up and up, you know, like...below the law things that you may not wanna do if you have kids you gotta feed. I don’t know, she’s just a different person.

Rana: Is that why she had so many kids?

Phi: Oh no that’s just normal and they’re not all hers.

Rana: Dima did help us. Well, we tricked him into it but he really did help us.

Phi: Yeah I was actually a little surprised by that. I think he’s just very devout so I don’t think he saw an option to not help if that makes any sense?

Rana: Either way if he’s been supporting you and he’s willing to help us out, he can’t be that bad right?

Phi: Sure. I mean he’s not supporting me out of the niceness of his heart, we made a deal.

*I missed Rana’s response, sorry*

Phi: It wasn’t like a favor it was a trade

Rana: At least we’re not making deals with the fae

Phi: That’s some crazy shit right? I’d never do something like that.

*Back to the present*

Diem stores coffee can sized containers in their bag with a tight fit and takes the sending book downstairs to meet the others after we decide to tell them about the deck in addition to the meeting with the prof.

They are cuddling very fat very happy rats right now when we find them.

Diem: Good news and...interesting news.

*we tell them*

*we go over our primary goal*

We decide to let the local lawmaster know our statement too and told the front desk lady. Rana didn’t come along, she went to bed.

Diem mentioned meeting them again for breakfast because they have last night of potential company.

Phi asks about that on the way and Diem dishes about the sexy librarian with his dark teal skin. 

Ixayl’anu got a 13 on her insight check to the first story she overheard.

Contested against 23, she believed it all, but it was definitely just singing the praises of Teagan and nothing revealing at all about Diem themselves. (Insight checks were arranged after, Phi’s is yet to be determined)

(Getting on the boat)

Next day Diem doesn’t make it to breakfast but they do make it just in time.

Rana on stone: I have your stuff and bringing it with me to the boat, be there.

Diem: I’m already on my way I promise, I’ll be there soon *flying clothes on totally not already on the way*  Diem also manages to get a pearl on the way for their new identify spell.

Rana is a bit grumpy as she eats her breakfast taco

Ixayl’anu tells Rana she has something that might help, even though she seems to have a handle on water forms now *hands over water walking ring*

Rana: If you don’t mind I would like to hold on to this for the journey.

Ixayl’anu: Sure

*brusquely nods*

Diem: Oh my pack is making up, you guys <3

Rana spent all night preparing all the water spells.

Ixayl’anu dumps 4 shark teeth

Phi: What’s with that?

Ixayl’anu: It’s so we have a safe trip?

Diem: What? What’s what about?

Ixayl’anu: Don’t you have anything to give too?

Phi and Diem: No, do we need to?

Ixayl’anu looks worried and gives us shark teeth and tells us to throw them in too.

We do so and I’m totally interested in the story behind it. Tell me Ixayl’anu, pretty please!

Ixayl’anu: You just do it for safe passage from the spirits.

Clearly the guardian spirits of the ocean are the sharks. This just insures nothing that’s beyond the sailors skills will happen on this journey.

Diem talks about that being fair - no shark teeth is probably why they ended up overboard in a barrel their last trip to sea.

*Ixayl’anu hands Diem a small bag of shark teeth just in case.*

Diem: Do I dump all these in now or for later?

Ixayl’anu: Later, you shipwrecked seems you’ll need them. Diem gives a fair point shrug and happily holds on to them.

During all this talk, Rana has tossed in one of the prettier stones from her pocket and while stressing out, is looking to spot it in the water. Rana manages to spot her offering.

Phi tries to distract by asking Rana about her homeland.

Diem internally pouts over not hearing Ixayl’anu’s story about how she lost her body guards the first time around that didn’t go so well, but is also interested in stories about Rana’s homeland (and distracting her). (I think I missed some of the initial talk)

Rana: Don’t wanna be caught out in the desert without protection either from the sun, cold at night, etc.

Phi: Well you just have to trust the experts that know about the place we’re in, like we trust these experts in the ship we’re in.

Rana looks over like “I know what you’re doing” Yes we do don’t we, let’s get on this boat before I change my mind. *Throws in all her shark teeth too*

When we get on, we mostly get ignored by the crew.

(Aboard the ship, talking about Anesh, Rana sees a new animal form!)

Phi does 14 perception, few new faces, mostly the same crew. “Hey how many shark teeth did you throw in the water today?” to the one she knows to be the nicest/most tolerant.

Person looks at her with sheer incredulity “what are you talking about?” and walks away.

Phi 11 retro-active perception checks superstitious stuff among this crew, but hasn’t noticed any.

When shown their rooms, Diem asks Rana if she wants to share a room since there are only 3.

Ixayl’anu attempts to bring her elk aboard and gets a few looks from the crew, but they don’t deny her. The captain is nowhere to be seen. It can roam around 9 or put it in 12 (the actual hold). She bought elk supplies bedding/food for the trip.

On their rush to the boat, I did manage to buy a pearl because my patron tipped me off to check my spell book.

We all hang out on deck, Diem tries and fails to come up with positive ship stories to distract Rana.

Ixayl’anu asks Rana about where they’re going.

Rana rolls 14 history check: She knows it’s a port town (Farford), they do a lot of the trade that comes in from Petarus rather than overland - specialty seeds, various animals (not the metals which come from Bouldergap). She didn’t stick around too much. Before she met us she didn’t stick around anywhere very much, sold her goods and moved on.

Ixayl’anu: What’s it like in Anesh?

Rana: It’s pretty dry, it’s a desert - most of it, near the mountains you have more brushy cover. You don’t wanna go to Lake Nitron.

Phi: Why not?

Diem: What’s wrong with Lake Nitron?

Rana: It’s pretty deadly, only a few birds can survive out there it’s not really a place that you’d want to live. Sunhame is right in the middle of it all but most of the towns are either on the coastline or nearer the mountains where there’s cover.

Ixayl’anu: And that’s where your home is, up in the mountains?

Rana: Yeah, that’s where I learned all my druid craft at too

Ixayl’anu: What do your parents do?

Rana: It’s just my mom, she’s a tailor. My dad died before I was born so I can’t really tell you much about him. My brother is a blacksmith.

Sunhame is not as large as Miova but the rest of the towns are about the size of Budelia.

I’ve been to Sunhame a few times, it’s heavily religious. I spent a lot of time traveling between them all between my mom’s business and my brother’s blacksmithing. We don’t have anything like the shadowood where we’re from though, that’s a you guys thing.

Ixayl’anu: Do you have trees?

Rana: Some, a few up in the mountains scattered near them, but not a lot of them. It’s not as green, you guys have a very green country

Diem: Do you prefer it that way?

Rana: I like both places, nature exists (I missed the rest of this) yeah it’s not as green as Rethwellian but I think you guys will like it, it’s a nice place.

Ixayl’anu: I get the impression it’s really hot though

Rana: Yeah, it’s warm. It’s a desert.

(Established that Rana’s staff is made of hazel, found in the mountains.)

(I may have missed some more things. You’ve probably guessed but even when I don’t note this, it’s probably true even for conversations that seem whole.)

Rana talks until someone stops her, but we’re all on team distract Rana, so we encourage it.

We have occasionally seen the captain if we notice.

Calm sailing so far.

Ixayl’anu rolls a d20 for us for mysterious reasons.

About 3 hours into the day, noonish, we see a pod of killer whales hanging out with the boat. 

Rana ventures closer to the rail by then and adds it to her animals seen list.

Diem asks how her animal form hunting went.

Rana: I found a loud seal.

Diem: Did you try swimming?

Rana: No I just transformed into one so I know I can do it and watched them swimming so I’m sure they can. It’ll be fine.

Diem: Yeah, I’m sure it’ll be just fine. (As text this sounds like sarcasm but it wasn’t lol)

Rana: Yeah we’ll be okay.

Diem: We will absolutely be okay. (Also not sarcasm, but let’s not point out she didn’t try swimming in that form)

(Aboard the ship, Diem has identify now!) 

Before the end of the day, Diem picks a time when everyone’s near enough to hear them to tell Phi “guess what I learned how to do?”

Phi: What?

Diem: *brandishes pearl* I can identify things now!

Phi: And what’s that?

Diem: Oh the pearl I need to cast it.

Phi: So does that mean you could find out what this card can do?

Diem: Maybe, wanna try?

Phi: Yeah *hands it over*

Diem starts trying 

Phi: Oh but I also wanted to ask you how your night went.

Diem: *tries to concentrate on ritual but gives up to just answer the question* do you want to know that now or after I cast the ritual?

Phi: Oh later is fine.

Phi leaves so they can concentrate.

Diem finds it out after 15 minutes instead of just 10 and tells Phi it is the vizier and what it does.

Phi looks disappointed (I think because the card also lost its ability to be any card she wanted at a thought but all I literally wrote here is “Phi looks disappointed scene” and then failed to remember details I was so sure I could fill in later :P) (Aboard the ship: Keeping company with spiderwalking elks, Phi and Diem have a talk)

Ixyal’anu goes to keep her elk company after awhile.

Before the end of the night, Diem and Phi go to Phi’s room to dish the details on Diem’s last night with Teagan. By the time they get there, however, Diem has a more serious, related topic on their mind that alters this discussion (Sorry at the time I was stuck in the “no live awkward rated R details” mode and forgot something happened that would give Diem pause over the “after hours” story time).

Rana casts spider climb on the elk again to make herself feel better.

Ixayl’anu, confused, asks it “did you do this? How do you do this?”

Elk: I’m on the ceiling, it’s great!

Unfortunately realizes he can’t swallow upside down so comes down to swallow his food.

Ixayl’anu: You need to teach me this trick

Elk: I don’t know how I do it, it just happens.

Ixayl’anu insight checks 18 *stares down the elk*

Elk: Sometimes when your friend comes around I can do this.

Ixayl’anu: Which One?

Elk: The copper one

(Aboard the ship - next day shenanigans, I think? Day 3 shenanigans? I didn’t make the timeline very clear in these notes) At some point during the day, Diem snuck in Phi’s room to take back the doll from her packs, then tried to sneak it into her arms that night 20 stealth vs 25 perception, Phi wakes to see Diem looming over her, reaching out. 

Diem quickly hides doll behind their back and is very awkward about this. Rana doesn’t cuddle and I wanted to see if you would.

Phi wants to know what they were doing, why they were reaching out for her face though.

They awkwardly try to explain that there was something on her face.

Phi tells them they’re being creepy. Diem: Oh, and who snuck into my room in Budelia just sitting on the end of my bed watching me? That wasn’t creepy? Deflection fails so Diem shows her the doll and pretends they were trying to get rid of it for her before she woke up and freaked out.  This backfires as Phi gets really really freaked out and Diem decides they can’t go through with that either and admits that they did it, they were actually trying to *leave the doll in her arms* to find later and it’s just one of those normal dolls of the queen they were handing out at the festival.

Phi: I changed my mind, you’re not getting cuddles tonight.

Diem *crushed to lose cuddles*: I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you were that scared of it - What if I throw it overboard right now - an offering to the sharks?

Phi agrees to cuddle after all if Diem throws the doll overboard. We do so and then go sleep in the same room with Rana. Note: I think I forgot to note the passage of some uneventful days mixed up in this trip somewhere because otherwise we’d have only 2 full days out to sea, arriving in the morning of day 3. As such, I went back through the notes to note when an (the?) uneventful day(s?) might’ve occurred. (Ocean Voyage Day ?: What happened to Kelly?)

By the time the rest of us wake up, Rana is probably already on deck sitting miserably.

Diem tries to cheer her up but it’s mostly cause she’s not feeling well.

Ixayl’anu begins to notice how weird it is that this crew is quiet and antisocial

Diem doesn’t really notice but tries to encourage sea shanties. A few look my way (19 persuasion) and catch themselves humming before quickly cutting off and going silent again.

Ixayl’anu starts talking to phi about how strange this is

Diem agrees, noting how the ships they’ve been on always sing shanties and clearly some of this crew knows them…

Ixayl’anu: and they’re usually shouting back and forth about things they’re doing/seeing.

Phi: Maybe they don’t need to communicate like that?

Diem: Yeah maybe they all follow old ones...? Wait that sounded way more ominous out loud than in my head.

Rana is glaring at us.

Ixayl’anu: *Grumbling* it’s usually more lively than this, I just don’t like it.

Phi realizes something about something Tel whispered her: Wait a second guys, I wanna go ask somebody something *goes to find the guy who thought the whole shark teeth thing was weird*

Phi makes a 17 investigation roll, she does not see the person she was looking for, but she had seen him since launch.

Phi returns and tells us she can’t find the guy she spoke to yesterday when we set out.

Diem: Are all the little boats still here?

Ixayl’anu casts divine sense but doesn’t sense any celestial, fiends, or undead: Do you know his name? Maybe you could ask about him?

Phi doesn’t know why we’re worried, but she knows his name (Sean something I missed) and could go asking even though she’s not worried.

Diem messages: Are you really not worried or are you saying that for Rana’s benefit, you can respond to this message.

Phi: Well I’m not worried but I’m getting worried that you’re worried. You can respond to this message.

Phi goes off to ask the captain and knocks, hears sigh.

Cpn: What can I do for you Selphina?

Phi: I was gonna ask Kelly a question but I can’t find him, do you know where he is?

Peter gets quiet and then says “Oh no, Mr Kelly had other engagements and didn’t join us this go around.”

Phi: But I saw him yesterday…?

Cpn: You must’ve been mistaken.

Insight check 10. She knows he’s lying but doesn’t know anything else about it, only that something about this is not right. It’s also suddenly degrees colder in this room.

Phi: I guess I was mistaken.

Cpn: No worries it happens to everyone

Phi: How’s the trip going, are we on schedule?

Cpn: Oh we’re making excellent time, we should be there by morning.

Phi: Excellent

Upon returning to us, Phi: Guys I don’t think we should be talking near the captain’s door in the future, but I was clearly mistaken

Phi actively tries to get out of the conversation and drop it.

Diem suggests maybe it’s this crew’s own superstitions like “quiet passage for quiet passage.”

Ixayl’anu says maybe she’ll be be less worried about it then. (Aboard the ship: Ambergris!)

At some point during the day we see a lump of grey goo overboard about the size of 2 milk crates. Definitely smaller than a chair.

Ixayl’anu notices it first, rolls a 12 on nature check, it’s not something her culture uses but it’s whale vomit and worth its weight in gold.

She points it out, gives fancy ambergris name to us and looks for a bucket, Phi tries to help.

We found a bucket, it’s probably not big enough for this. Ixayl’anu hits the thing, but realizes the bucket is too small.

Rana casts control water to keep it with the ship. Diem runs to get their special rope. 

When they return with rope, it ties off successfully and Ixayl’anu manages to get it up to the boat, with all four of us pulling we successfully get it on board (mostly Rana’s 21 and no thanks to my 2 lol).

It smells not great.

Diem: Oh that’s awful *prestidigitations it to smell like flowers* (Except it’s old enough to be hard and not smell too awful anymore)

We talk about getting it in the black of holding and breaking it in pieces so we don’t rip our bag.

Rana asks about what it’s for, is it part of the meteor?

Ixie: No, it’s...well it’s whale vomit.

Diem: Oh, gross... *looks at their hands and casts prestidigitation*

Rana goes back over to sit where she was before like oh my god as the rest of us talk about it being valuable. She leaves the bag of holding with us to break it and stick it in the bag.

Phi: This is awesome, the best day ever, I’m going to throw shark teeth in the water every time!

Ixayl’anu: *excited* yeah the teeth just show up on the beach it’s so easy to find them. (not knowing if that’s true everywhere).

Diem: Or maybe the whale just saw that doll (as an aside to Phi)? 

Phi laughs.

We have a pleasant evening, no plans.

Ixayl’anu gives a heads up to the elk: Watch listen tonight so you can stay up. Keep your ears open.

Evening perception checks: me (literal 0), Ixayl’anu: (nat 20), Rana: 21, Selphina: 10. (Ancient Whalesong Magic!)

Rana can’t sleep tonight. She hears a low wailing that goes into a series of clicks. She hears it all night long.

Rana goes to Ixayl’anu’s room and asks “What is that?” It sounds like they’re following the boat or just all around us.  A lot of them and very close.

Ixayl’anu: It’s whale song

Rana: Why are they so loud?

Ixayl’anu: Well it’s...I don’t know what they use it for, but it’s communication

Rana: But why are they so loud?

Ixayl’anu: I don’t know *both go above deck to check it out*

Rana makes 7 perception, Ixayl’anu a 14. She knows what to look for - occasionally she sees a spout but they’re not hanging out at the surface, only coming up to breathe and going back down, unlike what she’s used to.

Looking out over the water for a little bit they speak with animals at about the same time. About 10-14 whales.

Rana or Ixayl’anu: What are you singing about?

A whale: We’re working

Another whale: We’re busy

Now that they can hear what they’re saying, it doesn’t make sense at first, it has a weird strange poetic cadence to it, it kinda sounds like chanting or a ritual spell.

Ixayl’anu makes an 8 on arcana check

Rana wants to see if this is natural and rolls an 18 nature check. It seems like a natural thing, these are natural whales.

Ixayl’anu: What’s the song about?

There are words they can recognize, but she didn’t pre-arrange the song (Bless you if you know what I meant at the end of this statement).

19 perception from Ixayl’anu to get the meaning through the overlapping song. It’s about wrapping something around things and tying things together and binding something, repetitive in the round song way (row row row your boat lol) about keeping something together, apart from everything else.

Rana is leaning over the railing intrigued by all this.

Ixayl’anu is looking for any visual signs, 14, little waves, but not enough to disturb the pretty view of moonlight on the water. She doesn’t hear any birds or any other splashing. Very quiet other than the whale song.

Rana excitedly runs below deck to wake Phi and Diem up to experience the whales too! Diem actually does manage to perceive whales. It is very cool.

Rana (to whales): Are you coming with us?

A Whale: No we have our own business to attend to

Rana: Where are you going?

Whale: Here

Ixayl’anu: Are you hunting?

Whale: No, we are not hunting. We are very busy.

Rana: Do you need help?

One of the whales spy hops, large whale between humpback and blue whale (fin whale).

Diem: Wow that is so cool.

Rana gets the sense it’s looking at her and comes back down with a snort: I don’t think you could.

Rana: You’d be surprised. I might be able to help if you need help, but what’re you doing?

Whale: It is old magic for our kind.

Ixayl’anu and Rana ask them more about it, find out they’re doing some kind of binding ritual.

Rana casts locate object looking for pieces of the meteor.

She does not sense anything within a thousand feet of her. 

Rana: Is it about a rock?

Whale: It is about the project

Rana looks at Ixayl’anu with an unspoken question.

Ixayl’anu shrugs.

Whale clarifies: The Great Project

Rana: Good luck!

One whale acknowledges with a little fin wave

Rana: They clarified it wasn’t about a rock

Diem knows of sailors telling a few tales of whales helping shipwrecked people and other species and some people say the whales seem to be very benevolent forces, not really heard of magic, just weird sailor tales.

Diem suggests maybe the great project has to do with the sharks teeth thing.

Eventually over the next half hour we get out of immediate range, but we hear them for the rest of the night.

Phi dozed off leaning against something.

We go back to bed and the whole thing puts us at a later rising time. (Farford on the horizon!)

When we wake up we see Farford in the distance.

We’re gonna get 30k platinum for the amber gris (7500 each)

Next session: Jan 14th 5pm. (But really...tomorrow, it’s tomorrow!)

We don’t need to rp out selling whale vomit.

Phi kept a little jar of amber gris for future trade options.

Ixayl’anu tries to find more shark teeth.

(Omitted notes to self with note of omission so I remember to reference them for establishing some previous details)

Diem promises when they receive their cut of the amber gris, to name their firstborn after Ixayl’anu lol.

[the-lightning-strikes-again]

Hello. I'm Dasha from ao3. As you say, you opened reguests, so i ask a Lion King (first and second cartoons) for Lotor's movies might. Thank you.

Movie Time With TSL Lotor: The Lion King I (1994) and II (1998)Edition

“And this,” Lotor was saying, leaning his elbows against thepillow in his lap, “is another Disney movie, yes?”

Pidge sat on the floor beside the couch, flanked by both Hunkand Lance. “Yep.” The image of the movie’s cover flashed onto the main screen,revealing an image of a hand-drawn lion and the title The Lion King.

Lotor’s white brow quirked. “Strange,” he murmured. “Are youcertain we did not already watch this? What was that children’s programming youintroduced me to earlier…” He snapped his fingers a few times to jog hismemory. “The White Lion, with Kimba.”

“A separate cartoon, but uh, yeah. Lions, man.” Hunk laughednervously. “They’re everywhere.”

Lotor hummed. “I am beginning to think so as well.” Heleaned his cheek in his hand curiously, narrowing his eyes. “Regardless, knowingthat this is Disney, I can assume with a particular level of certainty that theprotagonist is a young one whose parent or parents are in a tragedy of sorts. Thestory will undoubtably pull my heartstrings in some way, regale me with song,and then round back to a message of hope or self-discovery. Does that aboutcover it?”

The three young paladins paused and looked at each other.Lance scratched his chin and said, “Yeah, that’s about right. Way to spoil it,dude.”

The prince shrugged in a light humor. “I enjoy sensiblepatterns.”

But as the movie began, an inspiring call of song rosethroughout the hall. Lotor’s brows raised in interest of the sound, which wasdifferent from the other music he had so far heard from the planet Earth.

Pidge then turned to Lance and whispered, “Ten bucks saysAllura’s gonna fly through that door any second.”

Lotor’s ear flicked, caught between listening to the wondrousmusic and the paladins’ whispering.

Lance whispered back, “I’m so not taking that bet. She’sprobably already in the hall. I give her like, five seconds.”

“I give her three.”

Just then, Allura slammed open the door, eyes wide in a franticexcitement. “Lions!” she called. “Oh, this is The Lion King, how dare you all watch something about lions withoutme. Honestly, the nerve. You know I love lions.”

All four sets of eyes stared up at her—with Lotor’s beingthe widest.

Allura swept in, her regal dress and perfectly set curlsflaring behind her. And then she, with an upmost lack of regality, flopped ontothe couch opposite Lotor. She dared to stretch her slippered feet out, to theprince’s surprise. He stared down in shock, face flushing, as he realized thatshe had propped her feet right into his lap as if such things were perfectly ordinary.

“I…was sittinghere, princess,” he strangled out lightly.

The tips of her slippers wiggled in excitement, the goldthreads catching the light upon the pillow. “And now I am too. I cannot say noto The Lion King.”

Lotor swallowed hard as he gazed upon her excited face.

Hunk broke his maddening race to think of something to say.

“You’ve seen this, like, four times,” Hunk called to Allura.“So we kinda figured maybe you’d be bored or something.”

The princess gasped, raising a hand to her chest. “Never.This movie is precious. And it has talking lions.  I could not ask for more.”

Lotor hesitantly leaned his arms over Allura’s calves insearch of a comfortable position. He had seen the paladins flop over oneanother often—with Pidge falling asleep on top of Lance, Hunk leaning his headagainst Keith’s shoulder, and even Shiro dog-piling on top of them all once in thename of claiming the couch. Such actions were, Lotor believed, signs of deepcamaraderie.

He wondered if Allura’s candid movements were a sign ofincreased trust. He felt a rising sun in his chest at the thought, and theglimmer of stars bursting in his lungs when she did not move away but wiggled abit in all her finery to get comfortable for the rest of the movie.

He could feel her warmth through the fabric of theirclothes.

“If you all must know,” she declared airily, “Nala is my favoritecharacter.”

Lance deadpanned, voice light, “Would have never guessed.”

“Oh, hush, you. Your favorite characters are the laughinghyenas.”

“Hey, those hyenas are legit,alright?”

Lotor’s lips twitched, knowing at a certain point that thepaladins were growing careless in their discussions of spoilers.

——

As the movie progressed, Lotor’s merry smile turned to a suspended,thoughtful expression. The character of Simba was such a curious thing. Like him.But not like him.

The relationship he had with his father was something thatLotor almost felt envious of.

“You are more thanwhat you have become,” said the cosmic Mufasa. “You must take your place in the circle of life.”

Simba returned helplessly, “How can I go back? I’m not who I used to be.”

“Remember who you are.You are my son, and the one true king.”

Lotor felt chills down his body in an odd way, and for a time,he completely disengaged from the movie at the statement.

You are my son, andthe one true king.

He looked down at his emaciated hands. Despite eating enoughfor three people, he was still struggling to regain who he had once been. Helooked up.

“Going back means I’llhave to face my past,” Simba was saying to Rafiki on the screen.

“You can either runfrom it, or learn from it.” And then the baboon took a swipe at Simba withhis staff, and the young lion avoided the strike.

Lotor’s eyes widened in surprise, his previous thoughts fading to the back of his mind. “Ah, I know this tactic.How familiar and strange to see it here. Friends, this is the Galran way of the palen-bol.Learning from pain so that you may avoid it.“

Hunk’s eyes slid to his.  “Ah, yeah, I’ve heard about palen-bol.Interesting stuff.” He laughed nervously.

The prince raised his chin in a quiet delight, to seehimself—somehow, a merrier version of his own people—in the movie.

—-

As it turned out, one movie about lions merged into two, the story continuing with Simba ruling over Pride Rock. Lotor was leaningforward now, brows furrowed in increased interest. So far, he had never seen asequel to a movie. He had not known that humans continued their stories onoccasion.

Now that Simba had ascended and claimed the throne of hisfather, what else was there to his story?

And then, after a short time, Lotor’s furrowed brows relaxed. “Ah, I see wherethe plot is going. This is a romance, with a forbidden element per Scar beingoutcast in the first movie.”

Lance waved his hand. “Romeo and Juliet style, with a lil’lion razzle dazzle thrown in for fun.”

Pidge cut in then. “Except they don’t die in the end.”

Hunk waved his hand and deadpanned, “I mean, nobody’s that heartless with a kid’s show, right? You can totally tell this is going somewhere good.” 

Lotor leaned forward, lightly squishing against Allura’slegs as he grabbed for one of the rolls Hunk had so kindly grabbed from thekitchen. The princess herself had fallen asleep at some point toward the end ofthe first movie—her acts of diplomacy across the Coaltion often exhausted her—andshe grumped lightly at his movements.

Lotor stilled for a moment before hooking his claws into aroll, carefully leaning back. “At least,” he murmured, “a benefit of spoilersis knowing what I’m getting into. I can feel the themes of prejudice in thisstory. I should hate for it to end poorly.”

It was around then that Keith walked in, somewhat dead-eyedfrom a nap. He took one look at the movie screen and groaned. “Seriously, guys?This movie again?”

Lance raised his nose. “It’s a totally valid movie, Keef.”

“It’s so cliché,” the older boy moaned. “Just a dumbromance.” He turned to Lotor and added, “Seriously, if you ever wanna watchreal movies again, just—”  

Lotor lightly set his roll aside and leaned down to clap hishands over Pidge’s ears. “—Best not to speak such criticism before the children,”he called merrily. “They are impressionable.” Pidge squawked. The movements wokeup a bleary-eyed Princess Allura, who found herself staring at the side-profileof a Lotor who was smiling without reservation, his lips wide.  

The princess blinked several times at the image.

Her heart skipped, the sleep wearing away from her as sherealized that Lotor had her feet quite pinned between his lap and his chest.

Lotor seemed to sense her waking state. “Apologies, princess,”he murmured to her, still holding his hands strong to Pidge’s ears while Keithcomplained about the movie. “I believe we are all engaging in…play of somekind.”

Allura rubbed her eyes and giggled a bit. “It sounds likeit.” Her sleep-rough voice softened. “It is such a merry sound, though.”

And on the screen, one Kiara and Kovu stared at each otherin close proximity, awkwardly brushing off their increasing attraction.

Lotor turned to her, a quizzical arch in his brow despitehis merriment. “You would speak so highly of our chaos?”

“Always,” she said softly. And then she teasingly poked her slipperedtoe against his side.  

The prince’s eyes widened as a noise escaped him. For a second,he grew very still. Then he slipped his hands away from Pidge’s ears to graspfor Allura’s foot. “Princess,” he said, voice strained. “You should know I amticklish.”

“I’m not sure you should admit to that around here,” shesaid merrily, still a bit sleepy in her eyes with a lazy smile stretching herfull lips.

He could not help himself.

Without warning, he ran his finger up the flat of her foot.

She squealed, eyes widening as she jerked her feet closer toher, her skirts slipping up her calves. “Oh, what a dirty trick!”

“On the contrary,” he said lightly. “Now I know you areticklish as well.”

Allura forced herself to sit up, her face flushing brightlyas she hid her feet well beneath the long length of her skirts, giving him adirty glare. “Well. At least I know we are evenly matched.”

A glimmer of a smile danced in his eyes. “For all ourdifferences, princess, I fear I must agree with you.”

And back on the floor, Hunk whispered to Pidge and Lance,jerking his thumb up, “You guys getting Kiara and Kovu vibes from these two orwhat.”

“Oh, man. Totally.”

“Not even a question.” Pidge rubbed her ear where Lotor hadlightly muffled her hearing with his hands. “But I worry about what that makesus.”

[littlemisssquiggles]

RWBY Musings #38: A Squiggle Meister’s Views on The Man with Two Souls: The Future of Oscar and Ozpin.

With V5 concluded, it has just dawned on me that Blake has yet to be properly introduced to Oscar as technically Ozpin’s new form and I am pleasantly looking forward to seeing her reaction to meeting the aforementioned Man with Two Souls.  I can imagine this being passed off as an intentional joke at first with Blake possibly nerding out and being uncharacteristically fascinated with Oscar since he’s the living embodiment of a character from a book she read and probably loved. 

Almost like meeting a celebrity; y’know if that celebrity also happened to be the headmaster of your old school whose soul was reborn into the body of a fourteen-year-old farm boy from Mistral.

But then things will ultimately turn dire as unexpected pressing implications surrounding the original tale of the Man with Two Souls are brought into question. To me, it is no mere coincidence that the CRWBY writers introduced this prospect into the story volumes ago.

Yeah sure, we have Ozpin and Oscar sharing a body as the man with two souls. However, the fact that this concept was teased earlier in the story since its first volume and as a book series, no doubt, brings some curious thoughts to mind.

When Ozpin’s curse was revealed, RWBY theorists started speculating that he, or at least one of his prior lives must’ve been the original author of said book.

While I agree with this theory and believe in the high likelihood of it becoming canon, I also have my own take on this particular premise that I’d like to share with you readers. Check this out:

The Wrong Kind of Man

What if...

The original author of the Man with Two Souls story wasn’t Ozpin but in fact one of his previous vessels. Moreover, the man who wrote the manuscript for the story that ultimately became the novel used to be an associate of the man the story was based off of.

I’m thinking that the tale was based heavily on old diary entries from the original composer. Like perhaps Ozpin's original self used to keep a journal or a collection of several journals dictating his traumatic experience with the old wizard in excruciating detail. What if...because this host wasn’t as compliant as any of Ozpin's usual vessels, it was one of the rare occasions when Oz was forced to take over leading to this one particular vessel being driven into madness?

Has anyone else wondered if Ozpin ever had a vessel that wasn’t willing to cooperate with him?

You ever wondered what it would be like for Oz to share something as delicate as a body with someone who refused to cooperate with you? As far as well know, Oz doesn’t get to choose his successors. He's more or less stuck with whoever his soul is merged with next and can only hope that he gets along well with his new host until they merge. 

I wonder if there was ever a point in history where Ozpin shared a form for only a short space of time. Like perhaps he was once partnered with an ill-fit vessel who, rather than conform to the old wizard’s will, the person was instead driven insane by Ozpin's intrusion and attempts at control to the point that said vessel committed suicide in order free himself of his influence.

I know it’s a bit on the dark side of things but it does make me curious of Ozpin's lineage and if he ever did meet a vessel he couldn't work with before. I'd like to think that that was the story the Man with Two Souls was based off of. A man whose own mentality succumbed to the paranoia of sharing a mind with the soul of another person within him and ends up dying tragically because of it.

When we first learned of this book from Blake, she explained to Ruby and Yang that the premise, as she had read thus far, was about a pair of souls trapped in one body constantly at odds with each other for total dominance. 

However at the time, Blake had yet to finish the book. So how did the story end? Did the two combating souls ultimately learn to coexist in harmony or was the conclusion as chillingly tragic as its plot foreshadowed? What if...the Man with Two Souls ends in death; at least the book counterpart does.

I can see Oscar being very curious to learn the full origins of this story with Blake being the one to help him discover it as the owner of one of its published copies. 

Since they introduced the concept of the Man with Two Souls since the start of RWBY and brought it back for the most recent arc by adding Oscar to the cast, I'd like to believe that the CRWBY writers are definitely setting this up to be a point of conflict for Oscar's character. If not for next volume then for an eventual one to come as part of his character journey with Ozpin. That part I can predict with absolute certainty.

Wizard Mind Tricks

I know one of the common concerns with Oscar’s character in the show for most of his fans has been the threat of Ozpin taking full control of his body completely with every shred of the young farm boy’s original personality being erased. As a fellow Pinehead, while I too shared this concern, now that I’ve pondered on it some more, I don’t think that will be the case anymore. Despite his young age, the show has done well to establish that Oscar is a very strong willed individual. 

Yes he's been consenting for the most part this last season however he can also be quite stubborn too; at times even opposing Ozpin when he attempts to take control without his approval. Even if Oz does attempt to forcibly take over a second time, it’s not like Oscar is gonna go down without a fight.

Just because Ozpin got away with this during the Battle of Haven doesn’t mean that it’ll be allowed to happen again; at least not willingly. While assuming control to more or less protect him against the rampaging Hazel Rainart could be argued in good faith, I highly doubt Oscar is going to let this one slide; even if it was for his own good and safety.

It’d be interesting to see Oscar master his own mental capabilities to the point that he perfects how to place mental walls between himself and Oz so that the old wizard wouldn’t be able to pull reigns as easily as he did before. Imagine if...Oscar learns to retract control from Ozpin.   While I’m still holding out for Oscar’s semblance having something to do with his mind (y’know clairvoyance, telepathy, etc), I’ll admit it would also be cool to see the precious farm boy become much stronger in his little mental game with Ozpin. So much stronger that he’s even able to pull the rug from underneath the old wizard. Between the two souls, Oz has shown to be the more superior mind. I guess you can blame it on his millennia-long immortality jumping from reincarnation to reincarnation. But like I said, it’d be pretty sweet to see Oscar master some of those same mind tricks too and start taking control of his mind again, especially during those scenarios where Oz demands control against his will.

Perhaps the mind tricks, as I call them, are reflective of a respective souls’ personality. What do I mean by this? What I’ve noticed is that Ozpin seems to be a very open-minded individual. For the most part, he always optimistic and remains hopeful in spite of all the tragedy he’s witnessed throughout the years. Heck, his confidence and overall fate in humanity at times even border lines naivety; quite contradictory for a man so far beyond his years. I'd like to believe that this is why Ozpin has the ability to take control from his host. I found it odd that Oz is able to pull reigns on Oscar yet the young boy isn't. Sure you can argue that this is probably because Oscar lacks the training/mental strength to do so but...maybe each the two souls possess their own little mind trick that matches their personality, if that makes sense. I’m only theorizing here but perhaps this could explain how Oz can easily take the reins and Oscar can’t. This mental trick is Ozpin’s power and his alone for the time being because it mirrors the same aspect of his character where he's able to reach out to others, taking complete control over a situation even when his help or company might not warranted. And the sole reason why he’s able do as he pleases with this power is because Oscar trusts him.

Before arriving in Mistral, Oz was never shown to possess such an ability to take control over Oscar’s body. What was the difference back then? Oscar was still acting stubborn. Still skeptical. He was very resistant to Oz’s influence and unwilling to accept his presence as part of him.

Perhaps that is what is needed for Oz’s mind trick to work. He needs his vessels to accept him; thus granting him permission to take over whenever necessary. Consider it a form of mutual trust and respect between Oz and his new vessels. That being said, what would happen if Oz loses Oscar’s trust again? Would he be rendered powerless? Become no more than a lingering voice trapped within the walls of Oscar’s psyche; a literal prisoner within the young child’s body? Or perhaps worse? As I mentioned earlier, Oz is open-minded whereas young Oscar Pine is kind of the opposite of him, in a sense. Despite being a like minded soul, Oscar kind be a little narrow-minded at times, going solely off his behaviour after he first heard Ozpin. It'd be cool if the young lad can take that conventional aspect of his nature and transform it into a superpower. Not like a semblance but his own little mind trick for when dealing with Ozpin's advances.

I’ve toyed with this idea before in a previous musing about Oscar and Ozpin. Picture... Ozpin attempting to resume control but just as he does, Oscar suddenly puts up a mental barrier that completely blocks the old wizard. Try as he may, Ozpin can't reach through to Oscar. He can’t take control and to make matters even more pressing, the block even prevents Oscar from hearing neither Ozpin’s voice nor could the wizard read the child’s thoughts anymore. Oscar has completely shut Ozpin out.

Similar to Ozpin’s mental reining; the mental block comes with its own fair share of limitations. Constantly placing walls on his mind to keep Ozpin at bay, would take a lot of concentration on Oscar's part to maintain. Not to mention that if he's not too careful with it, he can place a lot of strain on his own mind which mostly results in physical ailments such as dizziness, mental fatigue and in the worst case scenario, one really bad headache---the kind where the pain is so bad it can cause you to black out. Just envision that for a second here. Wouldn’t that be cool to see done visually in the show?

It’d be interesting to see something like this happen canonically between Oscar and Ozpin. There is some potential for it given the foreshadowing of their character dynamic. Merely a concept but still one that I quite like it.  

The Birth of the Wizard

The inevitable is the eventual fight between these two differing souls. But one idea I wanted to play around with is the unexpected outcome where the two learn to accept each other and merge to become one person with both Ozpin and Oscar's traits so it never feels like one of them is totally gone.

I’m not even thinking it's a thing where Ozpin disappears for good, leaving Oscar as the dominant soul with his memories and abilities to carry him forward. Lately I’ve been considering the possibility of Oscar and Ozpin reforming to become one new being that is neither one nor the other. He is both. A perfect fusion of the two souls.

You can tell that this new individual is both Oscar and Ozpin. He’s such a perfect combination of both minds that it feels like them both while at the same being a completely new and different person. Makes sense?

The best example I have to describe what I mean is the character of Garnet from Steven Universe. Always gotta make a Steven Universe comparison to RWBY, am I right folks?

For us SU fans, we know that Garnet is a fusion of two other gems called Ruby and Sapphire. However at the same time, Garnet is her own character and is treated just so. Sure she may borrow similar traits from  Ruby and Sapphire but at her core, she is still her own gem. She has her own individual personality that never gives you the impression that one fusion gem dominated the other.

She is the perfect fusion and I believe the same fate will be met for Oscar and Ozpin. When the two souls finally become one, they will result in the birth of a new character. This person will be the perfect union of Ozpin and Oscar, retaining attributes from them both while creating something entirely new.

For the sake of this post moving forward, I’m going to simply refer to this perfect Ozpin and Oscar fusion, as the Wizard, for lack of a better term.

The Wizard would retain memories from both his counterparts. Therefore if Oscar harboured any romantic feelings towards Ruby during their time together I’d like to think that the Wizard would also share those same sentiments toward the Silver Eyed huntress. At least, that’s what I speculate mostly.

Since the FNDM never knew any of Ozpin's original forms, we can’t really tell what the merging of the two souls would spell. Does Ozpin’s being completely eclipse the original person becoming the dominant mind or...is it indeed a shared fusion? That’s still left to be determined. Nonetheless, I’d still like to hold onto the belief that this 'changing' Oz foretold of back in V5: Chapter 3 is the merging of him and all of his past selves within Oscar henceforth transforming him into the Wizard; who will be a culmination of them all.

I’d like to think that Oz’s merging with Oscar would be different--- the most unique of any he’s experienced. As a matter of fact, I think Oz’s entire bond with Oscar is going to be significant. I wonder if Oscar is the youngest vessel Ozpin has paired with. Like perhaps in the past, his previous selves were all mostly men or young adults no younger than seventeen or eighteen (the ideal age for a huntsman in training) when Oz first merged with them. Young at heart but still mature enough to comprehend the magnitude of the responsibilities that Oz brought with his mantle; unlike Oscar who, as Lionheart so rightfully put it, is merely a boy. A child.

There is no doubt in my mind that Ozpin’s experience with Oscar is going to be a special one. While I’m unsure of the kind of changes Oscar will bring for his arc with Oz---the good, the bad and the ugly; all I can say is that I’m very much looking forward to seeing their conjoined stories play through. They are my two favourites after all.

Referring back to Steven Universe, in the series, even though Garnet is a fusion of Ruby and Sapphire, she is never treated as being either Sapphire or Ruby. Garnet is seen as her own individual character; completely separate from the two gems she is comprised of. As a matter of fact, SU fans didn’t even know Garnet was a fusion til she was revealed to be one later in the story. And even now, she still continues to be her own character who is made of Ruby and Sapphire but isn’t them.

Garnet’s feelings are her own. Yes, she may share behavioural quirks with her two gem counterparts such as Sapphire’s future vision and Ruby’s weapon of choice. But as I’ll say once more, at her core, she’s her own being. So much so that you sometimes forget that she is even a fusion.

That’s what I’m hoping the Wizard will be like. A new person who shares qualities and abilities with Oz and Oscar but at the same time, is his own person who is like Oscar and/or Ozpin but at the same time, is recognized as being neither of them. Not sure if this is making sense to anyone but this is how I see it.

Oscar + Ozpin = TheWizard: A completely new character who looks like Oscar, sounds like Oscar, talks in the same articulate manner as Ozpin, bares the combined memories of both Oscar and Ozpin and dominant feelings of the two regarding relationships with other characters, shares personality traits and behavioural patterns with both beings who make him up but at the same time, isn’t either of them and is recognized more or less as a new person.

‘...I’m cursed. For thousands of years, I’ve walked the surface of Remnant; living, dying and reincarnating in the body of a like-minded soul. The Professor Ozpin you all met was not my first form and clearly wasn’t my last. It’s an extraordinarily strenuous process on everyone involved...

...So who—what are you?

...I am the combination of countless men who have spent their lives trying to protect the people of Remnant. With every rebirth, my soul is eventually merged with another and I am changed; but my memories stay with me...’

As Ozpin mentioned in V5 Chapter 3, when he merges with his partnered soul, he is changed. He becomes a new person but not in the ominous sense that Ozpin straight up parasites his way into this person’s life and steals his body and identity. I’d like to believe that when this ‘change’ occurs, it is indeed that fusion of Ozpin and his new host coming together to become a whole new self while still sharing the memories of their conjoined past lives; more specifically Ozpin’s centuries of other incarnations.

To put in computer terms, think of it like changing or upgrading your computer’s operating system---like for us Windows users, switching from Windows 7 to Windows 10. The previous OS is completely altered and it might not look or function the same as the older OS in some areas. However all in all, it is the same system you know and love especially since you still get to restore all of your old files and software cause you backed up. At least; this is how I see it. Ozpin becomes an entirely new person. Meaning that once he’s merged, he is no longer the old Ozpin that we knew him to be. He will have the memories of the past lives he’s lived including the form we know him best by, but overall, he will become someone else. He and Oscar will become someone else who looks like Oscar but is not him. He isn’t Ozpin either. He is both of them with the best parts of their personalities but not them at the same time because this new person will be his own character. He is the Wizard or whatever this perfect Ozpin and Oscar fusion decides to call himself from then on.

The Merging of the Two Minds with Ozpin and Oscar learning to better coexist as one is unquestionably going to play a major role in shaping Oscar and Ozpin’s dual character development for the seasons to come. So I’m really, REALLY hoping we don’t get to see the Wizard appear until much later down the line.

Needless to say, the Wizard will make an appearance eventually and I’m very interested to see the kind of character he will be. Not just for how different and similar he will become as the fused persona of Ozpin and Oscar but to witness overall what a true Ozpin fusion looks like to dispense any dark theories centred around Ozpin’s past fusions. You know the ones I’m talking about.

Once upon a time, I toyed with the thought that Ozpin merging with his current vessel also meant changing a part of their physical appearance to symbolize the union. Like inheriting Ozpin’s white hair and golden eyes, for example. While cool as a concept at first, I later debunked it. Oscar suddenly gaining white hair and golden eyes, especially with that lusciously tanned skin tone of his...I dunno, that might make him resemble the vessel of a certain character from another favourite franchise of mine. I’m just saying. 

So yeah, when Oscar merges with Ozpin, I’d love that nothing about his actual physical appearance is altered. While golden eyes would look somewhat cool on him, I quite prefer Oscar’s gorgeous hazel eyes. As a matter of fact, his eyes are the most unique part about him; secondary to his precious, totally kissable freckly cheeks. I wouldn’t mind if they made the Wizard’s eyes glow gold whenever he’s like channelling the memories of a past life or something like that. That would’ve been a cool touch.

However since the series already established that the golden eyes are only present when Ozpin first fuses with a new host, I’d settle for no golden eyes rather than change Oscar’s trademark hazel ones. They are just too pretty and suit our precious farm boy too perfectly. I really want someone in the RWBY main series to acknowledge how striking Oscar’s eyes are. It doesn’t even have to be Ruby or another main character. It could be a side character or a villain for all I care. So long as someone in the actual show verbally concedes this, I will be grateful.

Silver eyes are mysterious and cool and all but have you taken a good look at what’s behind these hazel eyes? 

A Love That Transcends

When the two souls merge, it will literally be a rebirth for both Oscar and Ozpin where instead of one half disappearing while another remains as the sole persona; it’s a mutual blend of the two.

So if Ozpin had a close friendship with Qrow Branwen and the other members of his old inner circle, then the Wizard will share those same sentiments towards his old friends. Just as how if Oscar developed close bonds with other characters such as Ruby, the JNR members and perhaps Weiss and Sun Wukong then the Wizard will feel the same way about these said characters cause he would’ve retained those feelings from Oscar’s memories.

Henceforth, and this goes out to my fellow RoseGarden shippers, if Oscar does end up sharing a close bond to Ruby which eventually leads into our two honest souls forming a blossoming romance. Even after Oscar and Ozpin fuse, his relationship with Ruby will continue to flourish because this new version of him will have those feelings too.

Now I already had this idea in mind when I first composed this musing, but after seeing this ♦fanart for RoseGarden Week created by the talented @tomecko​ it made me think about this potential moment even more.

Imagine...

A scene where Oscar is slowly regaining consciousness. He had blacked out when the fated time to merge has occurred and had been in a coma for some time until those who had devoted their time to stay at his side, noticed him stirring.

It would be the man-child’s first time opening his eyes as a new person so the rest of the team were all apprehensive and emotionally on edge about the kind of person the Wizard would be. The ones who were mostly loyal to Oz were anticipating it to be him fully tugging the strings whereas the few people who knew and cared about Oscar, they were praying that some semblance of the young farm boy would’ve survived the merging of souls. So Oscar opens his eyes---his permanently hazel eyes that bared no sliver of gold symbolizing that the merge was a success. However because the merge was still fresh, the fusion hadn’t gained all of his memories as yet, as he put it. He didn’t recognize everyone in the room, only acknowledging a few familiar faces from each fraction.

For example, he fully remembered Qrow but only recognized Ironwood and Glynda enough to call them both by name without fully understanding how he knew them. Similarly, the Wizard hailed Jaune from the crowd as well however he mixed up Ren and Nora’s names, asking which one was the badass with a hammer that’s also a grenade launcher cause that’s what he remembered. The Wizard remarked that a majority of his past memories were still flooding in so it would’ve been some time till he fully remembered everything. In spite of this setback, he reassured everyone in the room that he at least recognized who they were in some shape or form since he had a feeling of familiarity between all of them. However, the greatest shocker was when the Wizard turns to Ruby Rose and claims he didn’t know her. Ruby, who couldn’t contain her joy of seeing Oscar alive and awake again after spending days at his bedside, practically tackles the young boy in her eagerness to embrace him in a welcoming hug.

But as Oscar looked Ruby square in the face for the first time since his ‘rebirth’, for some odd reason, she was the only one who he felt no sense of familiarity to. 

‘...You...have silver eyes? I’m sorry...but...who are you...exactly?’

Unlike the others in the group, everything about Ruby---her face, her name, even her eyes...which was the first thing Ruby recalled him noticing about her the first time they met---nothing about Ruby rang any bells for Oscar and all the boy was left with regarding her were a jumble of odd emotions he had a difficult time deciphering.

This is especially disheartening to Ruby because before he blacked out, Oscar pulled her into his arms and promised her that no matter what happens during the merging, he would always remember her.

No matter who he becomes in his ‘next life’, there would always be a place for her reserved in his heart. She was his beacon---his guiding light to bring him safely home; even if it took him years to find it again.

So Ruby is left feeling disappointed and depressed over this strange occurrence. However being the person that she was, Ruby forced herself to put on an encouraging smile as she was soon tasked to aid the Wizard---this new stranger who shared the face of the boy she loved but may or may not be him anymore.

So Ruby assists the Wizard with regaining the rest of his memories. At that point, everyone was addressing him as Oz-car instead of officially Ozpin. At least, not the younger huntsmen who all wanted to give Ruby the assurance that Oscar would return some day. At first Ruby was fine with this task especially since it gave her the opportunity to rekindle her relationship with the new Oscar. However when Oz-Car began remembering things about other characters; with the exception of her, little by little she felt her faith in her beloved returning dwindle with the passing days. One afternoon, Oz-car confronts Ruby about his inability to remember her. To help rectify this, he asks Ruby to recall some of her memories with his past life of Oscar in hopes that that might jumpstart any familiar feelings with him. Ruby obliges. She tells the Wizard some of her most memorable experiences with Oscar Pine; some good, some not-so-good in the embarrassing sense. Some funny. Some sad and then, there were the really good ones.

The ones she cherished when she realized she was falling in love with Oscar. While those feelings had initially confused her especially when tied with the complication that part of Oscar was shared by her old Headmaster and mentor, Ruby still considered them fond memories because they were what brought her and Oscar closer as friends and ultimately, more.  

As he listened to Ruby re-educate him about his past self, Oz-car couldn’t help but notice the tinge of sadness that shadowed the young girl’s happiness. It was no doubt or surprise to him that reminiscing about Oscar---the old Oscar weighed heavily on Ruby’s emotions. It was evident that she missed him dearly. However in spite of this, Oz-car unfortunately couldn’t bring himself to tell her to stop because there was this sense of almost urgency for him to know about that part of him that was connected to her. She was the only one whose face he couldn’t pinpoint. The only one whose memories he couldn’t unchain from either of his past lives. And what made it even more frustrating was the strong desire he felt to know. So Oz-car pushes Ruby further to tell him her most cherished memory of Oscar. The one that above all, made her realize that he was a special person to her. So, against her crumbling feelings, Ruby starts off talking about a time when she and Oscar were alone. No teammates. No adults. Even Ozpin was silent. It was just the two of them.

For the sake of this theory scenario, let’s say for some reason they were in a field of flowers, relaxing and naturally the topic of flowers came up in the conversation.

Remember my musing about Ruby and Oscar having nicknames for each other?

In that post, I theorized that Oscar’s nickname for Ruby would be ‘Ru’. 

.So Oscar shares with Ruby that the reason he calls her Ru for short was because of a flower of the same name: Rue. It was a special kind of flower that had many different meanings throughout Remnant depending on where you were from. Most of the meanings behind the flower weren’t quite pleasant. Since rues were a common flower found around the more rural sides of Anima, the People of Mistral decided to adopt their own meanings to give this delicate little flower species a new, more pleasing impact. Haven grown up in a family of farmers; Oscar was able to learn some of the nicer meanings for the flower given by his Mistralian people. He went on to further express that the reason he nicknamed Ruby after the rue was because she made him think especially of two of the nicer meanings for the flower. One of them was ‘beauty in strength’ which Oscar felt suited Ruby perfectly because she was a strong huntress and, he also thought she was a really beautiful person both inside and out. He gave this last part of the explanation while beaming at Ruby---a genuine contented smile that radiated a sincerity that was even mirrored in his eyes and he eyed the red-haired huntress deeply for a few uninterrupted minutes. All before dissolving into a beet red face of flustered embarrassment at the realization of what he just said. Even Ruby herself felt her own cheeks burn at the compliment. At that time, she and Oscar were still only friends. While their friendship and trust has certainly blossomed for the better to the point that she considered him a close and trusted confidant, hearing him flatter her looks made he feel strange for some reason. Not in a bad way but certainly in a way that made her ears burn and her heart skip several beats. When Ruby questions Oscar about the second meaning; this only serves to deepen his embarrassment as he informs her that he can’t quite disclose the other meaning to her in that moment. However, he promised to tell her one day when it would matter. Ruby didn’t understand what Oscar fully meant by that, however as she looked at him closely again with that same sincere expression returning to his freckly face, she decided to trust him and wait for that day when he would be ready to tell her.

This moment was special to Ruby because it was the first time she could remember feeling that initial spark that made her realize that Oscar was more than just a friend to her. It wasn’t a memory she shared with just anymore. She didn’t consider herself to be an entirely selfish person but for that moment with him, she just wanted that to be hers. Though she never got to hear the other meaning of the name he had picked for her, at least, she had that memory of him that she could freeze and hold onto; even as she may never have any new memories with him to gain. It is in that moment where Ruby finally breaks down. It is also within this moment that something inside of Oz-car grapples at his very being. The young man suddenly found himself gripping tightly at his chest and holding his head as he is barraged by an unexpected influx of memories.

Immediately Ruby ceased her tears as she dropped to Oz-car’s side in concern.

When the young huntsman finally caught himself, his hand reached out to touch Ruby’s cheek as his eyes met with hers again. Even clouded by her previous tears, Ruby concluded that he was fine. But there was something different about his face this time. No longer did he wear an expression of strained confusion and uncertainty. Instead Ruby was met with softened hazel eyes that swelled with tears as he gently cupped her face.

‘...The Rue flower holds many varying meanings in different parts of Remnant. The People of Mistral didn’t like some of the other meanings the other kingdoms gave to this small, gentle misunderstood flower so...they gave it new meanings. There are many good ones but...Oscar chose two of the best ones because to him, he felt they suited the most important girl in his life and captured her perfectly.

One was ‘beauty in strength’ which he felt best emulated her power as a huntress and her magnificence as a woman. A magnificence which still astounds him till now. The second meaning was ‘...everlasting love...’ because no matter what happened to him, Oscar knew even back then that he would love this girl forever.

He knew he would love you forever. I...I knew I will love you forever, Ru...’

Finally the last chamber of memories was unlocked and Oscar remembered Ruby.

He remembered everything about her---the beauty of her eyes, the sound of her voice, the smell of her hair, the taste of her lips, the bittersweet memories they shared together mixed in with their dual conviction to protect one another as they faced Salem and the Forces of Evil.

All the things; good and bad that made her the most important person to him! For the second time in his life---this new version of Oscar found himself falling madly in love with the Silver Eyed girl all over again as the fond and beautiful memoirs of their times in each other’s company came flowing back into his heart filling him with the unique kind of happiness that he only felt with her. This time, Ruby didn’t bother to withhold her tears as she wept happily at the return of her beloved.

‘...I thought I’d lost you forever. I thought you forgot me...!’

‘...I didn’t forget you Ru. It just...took me a longer time to find you again and I’m sorry that I made you wait so long, my love. But now that I’m here, in your arms, seeing your beautiful face...I’m finally home and I’ll never let you go again...’

‘Promise...?’ ‘Promise.’ 

As he wiped away her tears and tickled her flushed face with his kisses, in between their shared giggles and warm smiles, Oscar made a promise to never forget Ruby again. Though it took him a longer time to find her, he vowed to continue to love and be by her side for the rest of his lifetime, old and new; forever more.

End scene. Roll credits. Mail me my cheque for my scriptwriting skills RoosterTeeth.

Jokes aside. This is how I depict the RoseGarden ship in the event that Oscar becomes the Wizard. An example I have to back this concept is Urumiya from the manga series: Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden. I don’t want to disclose any spoilers from the series in case anyone was interested in reading it for themselves. Basically the gist is, Urumiya was a character who was once divided into two people. He was once two identical twin brothers with different personalities and at some point, the brothers fused to become one man. The thing is that one half of Urumiya shared a romantic bond with another character in the manga. So when he fused, this new complete version of himself pretty much inherited those feelings too and he was able to continue his relationship with his past lover. So who knows? Perhaps the same will play out for the fate of Ruby and Oscar’s relationship; especially in the event that romance is in the cards for our two honest souls. For now, only time will tell with what RWBY has for us moving forward.

So in conclusion...

Alrighty, I believe I’ve now officially covered all of my theories regarding Oscar and Ozpin; at least the more major ones. Based on the amount of time I’ve talked about them already, I guess you guys can tell that Oscar and Oz are pretty much my two all-time favourite characters in the entirety of RWBY. I mean I straight up mentioned it earlier in this post even. Y’know what’s funny about that? Prior to V5, I didn’t have a favourite character for RWBY.  Sure there were one or two characters I liked and considered favourites. However there was never any defined character from the show that I could directly point out and say ‘There! Character XYZ is my all time favourite character, hands down because of so and so reason’.

This all changed once Oscar entered the story. His introduction into RWBY made me appreciate Ozpin a lot more than I did in previous seasons. I always kinda had this vibe that there was more to Ozpin’s character than the story led on. He was always such a mystery. Kind of a blank slate but still leaving enough intrigue to make you wanna try to connect the dots on what his role in the overall story would be, y’know what I mean? I even remember someone asking me if I thought Ozpin might’ve been a clone or something. Even back in the earlier days of V1-V3, Oz stood out as this person of interest.

I’m happy that the CRWBY writers introduced his bond with Oscar because it led to me finally crowning them both as my two official favourites; especially Oscar. He’s my number one best boy. 

I am so psyched to see what Oscar’s role in the story is gonna be like. I’m excited for his development. I’m excited to see more of him overall. Again it’s funny. When I first saw Oscar, I honestly didn’t care too much for him in the beginning, shameless to say.

I didn’t adopt him until Volume 5.  I’m a terrible godmother. I neglected my precious god son for one whole season. But in my defense, a lot of stuff went over my head for V4. Not gonna lie. It’s not that I considered V4 to be a bad season. On the contrary, I thought V4 was a pretty decent character building season. Wished we’d gotten some more for V5 before going into the Haven Battle but, I digress. There’s always V6 for some more character building moments, yes? I didn’t have a lot of expectations going into V4 and mostly prepped myself to enjoy what I got. And that’s how it was. I genuinely enjoyed what I saw but I didn’t start analyzing stuff until the following season in V5. So I didn’t acknowledge Oscar’s potential until V5. And now that I have, I really, REALLY like him a lot as a character and I’m so undeniably pumped to see what the CRWBY do with him for the upcoming seasons.

I’m stoked to learn more about Oscar’s personality. Learn more on his back-story (i.e. his history and full relationship with his aunt, his parents and any other possible family members) and over all just watch him grow. 

I haven’t been this attached to a character in RWBY since...probably Penny Pollendina. Penny was a favourite. I liked Penny a lot. Probably not to the degree as I love Oscar but Penny was another adopted child. Her murder moment from V3, however, didn’t really surprise me as much as it should’ve since it was pretty much hinted at throughout the season. Plus Penny’s a robot so you know she’s coming back! Don’t think I’m not expecting my girl Penny to roll up like an Autobot for the Atlas Arc. 

Anyways, I’m hoping to see Oscar come out of his shell more; bond with other members of the team, make more friends. Make twice as much enemies. Form close confidants with other characters besides Ozpin. Become less dependent on Oz and gain more confidence in his own abilities. Train. Fight. Eat. Live. Love. Grow stronger while still remembering to have that nice splash of cutesy fluff moments with romance and first crushes that you’d expect during those awkward teenage years. Let my child fall in love for the first time in his seemingly sheltered upbringing and don’t know what the literal f*** to do cause he doesn’t know how to romance. I know he’s a huntsman with the soul of an ancient wizard inside of him. But let him be an awkward teenage boy with raging hormones too. Please. Let him! I want the whole shebang with Oscar. Colour me one big Proud Pinehead. I love my precious farm boy god son and want what bests for his side of the plot. 

I just really cannot wait to see what’s next for his story. I can’t wait for V6 to see how the story progresses with the aftermath of the Haven Battle affecting Oscar and subsequently his link with Ozpin. I think V6 will be the true first chapter to jumpstart Oscar’s Arc with Ozpin; generally focusing on him for a change. I want the series to flesh out Oscar some more---a whoooole lot more. I want to see more of Oscar’s personality shine through like the colour he was named after. I wanna see and know more about him dagnabbit. Apart from being introverted and a hard worker, we’ve also seen that Oscar could be rather mischievous and even playful when he’s comfortable around someone close. I wanna see him be like that with more characters (y’know like Ruby and Team JNR but mostly Ruby).

I’m excited to see the development between Oscar and Ozpin. I’m excited for their transformation into the Wizard. I’m ecstatic to learn more about Ozpin as well; specifically his history with Salem. While I’m on that subject, I actually have my own theories on that too. I plan on visiting this in the next musing post after this one so look out for that if you’re curious. Overall, I stand by what I said where I hope V6 will take some time to concentrate on Oscar before commencing the Atlas Arc. It needs to be done. So long as it gives some important focus on him, I’ll be a happy pining camper.

♦ More RWBY Musings by Squiggles

~LittleMissSquiggles (2018)

[fantroll-purgatory]

Ok, ok. So this is my Highblooded fantroll, Dommih. If your still available, can you please help me out?

Thanks for your patience! As we clear the backlog, your troll caught my eye because of the interesting sprite.

Also, im sorry if its a bit weird, im on the mobile version of tumblr.

FIRST: Alternia or Beforus or some type of AU?

Alternia, my own session of sgrub

Aight, per the rules I gotta be stricter with my sprite edits! I know it’s frustrating but unless otherwise stated we do our best to remain a canon-compliant blog (though the current batch of trolls in the Troll Call have successfully invalidated a number of our former “rules”). In the end I *did* give you a bonus shirtless version since I felt there was detail that went unconveyed with his shirt on.

Name (preferably include how you came up with it and why):

Dommih Presea

The first name i had used a generator. It was one of the only ones that really stood out for me! As for his last name, its was a play on ‘Pixies’ and fish puns, (sea being the pun). I had messed around with the first part for a bit until it started looking somewhat readable. This happened until it is what you see today!

Hmmm I can get down with the last name, but for the first how about Doflin, from the scientific name for the North Pacific giant octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini). It also helps that it kinda sounds like “dolphin,” if you wanna keep going with the nods to oceanic fauna.

Age: 6 sweeps

Strife Specibus: Bident-kind

Fetch Modus: Connect four

If we wanna strengthen the octopus theme, why don’t we go with a MASSIVE Connect Eight? It would be an exceptionally difficult modus from which to retrieve anything, which means Doflin needs to be very quick on his feet! Er, tentacles?

Blood color: Magenta (i would very much love to keep it as it is!)

I’m probably going to adjust it to Feferi’s color which is pretty close to what you already gave me tbh.

Symbol and meaning: his symbol, pictured above, was a twist on Feferi’s own symbol. I simply curved it abit, and added the swirls one end of each side, as you can see!

Honestly I think it fits! I went and resprited it using Feferi’s actual symbol as a base so it reads a little neater but it’s p good. I think you sent this in before the extended zodiac was released, so if you want him further adjusted to fit with the new canon I am more than happy to do so! I personally think Picorn works well because a) I classed him as a Rage player and b) it kinda looks like a tentacle’s sucker.

Lusus: Octopus

I believe all tyrianbloods have Gl’bgolyb as a lusus since there’s only ever supposed to be one at a time, which is just as well since she’s basically a massive octopus anyway. Male tyrianbloods are supposedly exceptionally rare, and trolls are often matched with a lusus of the same gender for whatever reason, so if you’re dead set on having an Octodad in true videogame fashion, it may help to come up with a reason why.

(For example, perhaps Gl’bgolyb gave birth to a horrifying troll-horrorterror hybrid, and Doflin is a test troll who has been given to this hybrid to test if it can be used as a backup parent for backup heirs? It would give Doflin a reason to play in his (presumably doomed) run of SGRUB if he doesn’t have much to do save wait for his antecedent to die, which is unlikely to happen in the near future, and it would also give you a convincing reason for his odd appearance; it doesn’t matter if he’s a mutant since he’s basically a test run who isn’t expected to succeed the Condesce)

Personality: He is a narcissistic troll, who takes pleasure in hurting other trolls and seeing others suffer. He wouldnt care if you were to break your arm, there would be no sympathy. He lies, cheats sometimes, and finally, has stolen from others. However, he only sees it as fun, and doesn’t want to change for anything.

I think the fundamental problem here is that you are describing someone who fits perfectly with Alternian ideals and nothing else. This would be like giving me a bio for a human that said “they like to hang out sometimes!” What does that mean? This doesn’t mean that a character cannot have that trait, but that there needs to be specificity. For example, a character who likes to hang out might do so at a mall, at their friends’ parties, or just invite a person or two to come home and play video games. Each of those details gives a clearer picture of the kind of person it is.

So, give me more details to flesh him out! Does he go wandering around populated areas looking for a fight, or is he the type to meticulously plan a one-man heist? Is this attitude the reason he’s so scarred all over? What’s the story behind that? Answering these questions will help you in the future when you try to stay consistent with his characterization.

Title: Kaiser of Life (i would also love to keep this)

I just looked this up and it looks like, as a fan class, it’s basically Prince of Life but with a higher ranking? It’s my personal bias that most fan classes are easily subsumed by a sufficiently well-explained canon title, but I guess I don’t object to just the cosmetic change. However, the character you’ve described doesn’t seem to be a Life player at all (even one from a destructive class!), especially since your bio doesn’t really specify that he’s a cold-blooded murderer so much as that he’s just…apathetic? I would say he seems more like a Rage player, especially since he’s set in his ways and furthermore narrows others’ options through injury. Personally, I feel he’d make a good Thief of Rage, especially since “high class thief” is a fun trope to play with.

Land: Land of Precipice and Silence

I kinda like Land of Onslaught and Outbursts, an underwater land with active volcanoes that must explode to create a land path to the denizen atop a high mountain. Unfortunately, doing so endangers the aquatic life! It’s a perfect parallel to both his status as a seadweller highblood and is a means of harnessing his own violent outbursts to a greater end.

Dream Planet: Derse (same here!)

I’m always okay with tyrianbloods on Derse, especially since Gl’bgolyb is herself a minor horrorterror.

On to the redesign!

Your sprite was saved a JPEG and much larger than a standard sprite, so I sized it down for comparison and basically made a new one while copying over elements of the original.

Horns - based on your description of his symbol, I figured you were going for horns similar to Feferi’s with minor alterations. So I literally just took Feferi’s horns and added a hook to the end of one of them. I also liked the kind of curly ones you added to the bottom, so I have a miniature version nestled in all that hair.

Hair - I started with a bun base from naphal’s sprite sheet, then merged with with the hair you already gave him, then futzed with it for a long, long time.There’s a new instagram trend called an “octopus bun,” which is basically just a fancy term for the messy bun that we’ve all done if we’ve had long hair that we needed out of the way, but it gave me a good starting point. If you count the tendrils of hair coming off his head, you’ll find that there are eight, and it really does look like there’s an octopus sitting on his head!

Eyes/Scars - I actually just used your existing unscarred eye to create a template for the cleaner ones. The other eye is a little scrunched up due to the scar tissue over it, which I grabbed from this template by fryingpanismyweapon on deviantArt. This is the case for all of the additional scars you see on him.

Freckles - I wasn’t sure if there were freckles on your original troll or just noise from saving it as a JPEG, but between that and the fact that you used a grey tinged with his blood color, I liked the idea of some grey and blood colored freckles on him. I used this template from x_pandatastic_x to get the effect, then messed with the existing ones to get his other freckles. You can see in the shirtless version that I provided that the freckles cover his entire body.

Ears - he’s a seadweller so unless you have a reason he’s gotta have the fin ears.

Mouth - once again, I just took the one you made and cleaned it up a bit! I feel like it has a lot more personality than any sprite sheet template I could conjure up.

Shirt - like I said, if this is an Alternian he still (usually) needs a black something with his symbol on it (though as I mentioned before, recent Troll Call reveals have indicated that it doesn’t need to be as strict as we previously thought). I used naphal’s sprite sheet to give me a base, then messed with it until I got something that resembled a swim shirt. That said, I still gave him a shirtless sprite to show that I kept the chest scars under all that

Fins - I will honestly admit that this is just a spriting limitation for me. I could not for the life of me figure out how to make the fins work on the torso without looking atrocious. I still liked the element, though, so I grafted them onto the backs of his feet with some scar tissue and ripping to boot.

Shorts - I noticed that you did pants for your original sprite, but given his whole concept it really felt like he was more of a swim shorts guy. Once again, I used naphal’s sprite sheet for a base, then added details like the drawstring to try and fit with what you were originally going for. The teal color you used for the majority of the shorts in your sprite didn’t really track for me without a solid reason, so I tried to devise my own color scheme. I came up with the purple pockets to reference Gamzee, the best-known canon rage player, and the blue underlining as a reference to Vriska, the thief. This is much in line with Feferi’s coloring which takes from Jade, the Beta Kids’ Witch, and Jane, the Alpha Kids’ Life player. As a bonus, it looks like that really specific color combo that all those soccer moms wore on their windbreakers in the late 90s/early 00s? I don’t know if you want to go that tacky, but I had a lot of fun doing so, and feel that there’s canon support given that every tyrianblood we’ve seen so far has been notoriously tacky with their fashion choices.

Feet - The barefoot one is from tajazzled/fan-troll’s now-ubiquitous sprite sheet. You used some fairly standard shoes for him, which worked just fine, but after I made the foot fins I wanted to give him footwear that made sense to me. Since one of them is ripped, I figured some scuba flippers would be a good way for him to get around underwater. This one is modified from fantrollartroom’s templates.

Aaaaand that’s it! I really liked your character a lot, and I hope you like the changes I made!

-TR

[wackygoofball]

Gifset: Jaime x Brienne - Traveler AU

Jaime Lannister, manager and right-hand man to the CEO of the company, his father Tywin, lives a life that goes its course almost entirely by itself. From the early beginnings of his life, he was framed to, one day, inherit his father’s “family empire.” And Jaime never bothered, really, being a natural in what it takes to fill in such a position. It just seemed like the most natural conclusion to go with the flow.

Nothing out of the ordinary happens – until it does.

A car accident right outside the family company’s office building leaves Jaime’s right hand permanently damaged. And this experience shows Jaime one thing: He didn’t witness anything exciting, anything extraordinary, and almost died not having achieved much of anything outside the family business.

At first, he is simply depressed, caves in at home, does not show up at work, is done with life. But then, perhaps by a wink of fate, Jaime finds an old map, from the last holiday he took when he was still in college, and bought himself a ticket to Lys out of the blue. He almost completely forgot over business life that this was his last actual holiday, and a good one, actually. And as he sits there, going back over some of the good old memories, Jaime has to realize that he hasn’t taken any time for himself, hasn’t traveled – beside for work – in ages.

In a cloak-and-dagger operation, Jaime buys backpack, boots, tent, and whatever else he can gather, only to wind up by the Citizens Advice Bureau first chance he has to get the papers needed. After that, Jaime takes a taxi to King’s Landing Airport and wants to board the next-best plane he can catch, much to the irritation of the woman sitting behind the counter.

When asked to where he would like to go, Jaime simply replies, “Doesn’t matter. Just away from here. So long I can fly right now, I don’t care what the location is.”

And so, Jaime finds himself walking on Dornish soil soon thereafter.

Already at the airport, as he waits for his luggage to arrive, Jaime gets one confused phone call after the other from his family members, asking him where he is.

“Dorne. What would you want to do in Dorne?!”

“Making holidays,” Jaime replies simply, again and again.

“And you couldn’t have told anyone beforehand?”

“I got the last ticket.”

“When are you going to come back?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?! But Jaime…”

“As I said, I don’t know, and my bag just arrived. I am hanging up now, bye.”

Jaime reckons that the vacation will do him good, but he soon grows dissatisfied. Doing the usual tourist routines has him rather annoyed. Even the prospect of seeing some of the most beautiful sights Dorne has to offer has Jaime shockingly little excited. He thought that this would be it, that this is what he is seeking, but… it’s not.

The realization comes to Jaime one late night, watching a travel documentary on a small TV in his hotel room: He doesn’t need vacation, he needs to travel.

Thus, Jaime gets himself on a ferry to the Stepstones, from the Stepstones to the Grey Gallows, and from the Grey Gallows to Tyrosh, and so forth. On the way, Jaime buys himself a bunch of disposable cameras to take pictures with, and begins to do something that he didn’t do ever since the accident, namely to write – in a leather journal he bought on a small market in Dorne.

After all, no one is going to read his chicken scratch other than him.

However, not all is rosy on that journey, because Jaime has to realize far sooner than later that walking into this completely unprepared comes with a certain kind of thrill, but also a lot of troubles. Ending up in rat holes of hotels, having to camp out in the wilderness when the motels are all overbooked, only to realize that he never put up a tent in his life and thus failing miserably at the task, are only some of the troubles he encounters on that vacation.

At the same time, Jaime is thrilled to see all those new places, meet all sorts of people, taste different foods, and make experiences he never would have made, had he stayed home.

During his stay at Braavos, something catches his interest as he visits the Titan of Braavos, because there is one person in the mass of tourists taking pictures of the statue and following tourist guides around like geese, who seems not at all interested in the monument. The tall woman with blonde hair has not taken a single picture of the statue, Jaime observed, but instead took out her camera to take pictures of rather queer things, at least to Jaime’s mind: An ice cream cone dropped on the ground seems to have her particular interest.

Jaime feels very tempted to talk to her, but as he is about to do it, a youngster falls off the Titan’s toe after he had to climb on top of the statue, and everyone starts to fuss, so that Jaime loses the blonde woman in the crowd.

He travels to the next location, though the woman with brilliant blue eyes and an odd taste in objects of interest, remains on his mind all the while.

After a quite desperate phone call from his younger brother Tyrion, Jaime reluctantly agrees to check on his emails. For that matter, he gets into an internet café, because Jaime cannot properly read mails on his phone, and he purposely left his computer at home before he went on his vacation. After a quick check-in with reality awaiting him back home, Jaime decides that he is not yet ready to succumb to that life again, so he closes the tab and instead decides to use his remaining time at the café to browse the internet for traveler advices, groaning at some things he could easily have prevented, had he bothered to read up on the matter before just boarding a flight to Dorne.

In the course of his research, Jaime stumbles over a blog named The Traveler’s Guide of the Other Kind. And compared to most blogs he scrolled through, which were mostly focused on the person and his or her experiences, lots of pictures with nice InstaBran filters and what not, this blog’s title holds true. This one does not feature any pictures… of the person who is running this blog, let alone clues about his or her identity.

However, the blog is even more curious, because it doesn’t talk about what food to get where, or what sights are worth the voyage. Instead, the blog entries are largely about “The Small Things,” about sunsets in certain locations and at what times the light is the best, quite witty comments on the masses of people all doing the same thing “in strange sort of rituals, hailing statues, bridges, castles, and churches of faiths they do not even partake in, and all that with cameras and selfie sticks,” little anecdotes about people the author saw and observed, sometimes sarcastic, sometimes rather romantic.

Jaime would love to go on, but apparently, he kept reading the blog so long that the internet café is closing for the day. Nevertheless, he remains intrigued, so Jaime starts scrolling through the text posts on his phone once returned to his shabby motel.

Lying on his back in bed, he continues reading the posts that keep captivating him, finding it almost hilarious that some of the experiences and impressions written are so close to his own. Jaime drops his phone right in his face as it literally hits him that the author of the blog apparently features an entry on “The Tristful Chronicles of a Braavosi Ice Cream Cone,” with a picture of a dropped ice cream cone at the top, matching both the day and the location when Jaime saw that tall blonde woman taking pictures of that ice cream cone on the ground.

Jaime reckons that if he took the risk to abandon his entire life to go travelling, he might just as well take the risk to reach out to that woman who has been flitting across his mind ever since he saw her in Braavos.

What is the worse that can happen, right?

Thus, Jaime tries to type a comment, but ends up pushing the SEND-button before he could double-check, thus sending a message that is filled with typos and some really odd wordings. “Stupid hand!” Meanwhile, in a hotel room on New Ghis, Brienne is surprised to get a new comment on her “The Tristful Chronicles of a Braavosi Ice Cream Cone” entry, which did not have too many readers at all.

Not that Brienne bothers. She didn’t start the blog to gain followers, but simply wanted to have a place to gather her thoughts at. The message she receives now has her rather baffled, because… typos and rather a lot of gibberish stuffed into a short comment, but still readable enough for her to understand that the person who wrote this saw her back at the Titan and wondered until s/he found this blog what was so interesting about that ice cream cone.

Brienne is a bit shocked: She never posts pictures of herself, for the plain reason that she is ugly and doesn’t like to have her picture taken anyway. The thought that someone may out her is somewhat frightening to Brienne. After all, she tries to stay anonymous, just travels around, merges in with the background to observe.

Yet, she cannot resist replying, very cautiously so. However, to her even greater surprise, Brienne gets a reply almost instantly, and then another, and another, and she ends writing back each time.

Jaime and Brienne eventually message each other over the private message tool of the blog, which allows them to communicate more privately, discussing their travelling experiences, to where they have already gone, etc.

Sometime later, almost by accident, they find out that they are currently in the same location. So Jaime takes a chance and suggests to meet.

Brienne almost falls off her chair once she reads that message. Because that never happened, and she believed it impossible anyway. Brienne replies, truthfully, that she has to catch a flight that same day, later that evening. Jaime replies instantly that he wouldn’t care.

“We can meet up as long as we can until you have to fly again, I don’t mind.”

And so, they meet. The first handshake is all kinds of awkward once it dawns on them that they are two strangers who decided to meet based on some shared travel experiences. The beginning of the conversation is rather rocky, but once they start talking about journeys again, the two somehow ease into the situation. Jaime eventually find the courage to ask Brienne about why she takes those rather odd pictures and why they are the focus of her online travel guide. And so, Brienne explains: “To me, travelling is about seeing places, about witnessing them. And that is more than tasting the food, looking at the statues, the churches. It’s about watching people interact, about seeing children climb on top what is considered a cultural good. It’s about lost ice cream cones. Couples breaking up and proposing to one another in the cheesiest of ways. You know, I could have done it like most others do, focus on the obvious, the conventional. But I like to think that… that there is something beautiful in the unconventional, just like it is in what seems to be utterly unimportant because it is so very conventional.“

Jaime is thrilled about what he hears.

Suddenly, Brienne gets a call that her normal flight is going to be cancelled, but that she can still catch an earlier flight if she gets to the airport within two hours. Brienne excuses herself, explaining that she always wanted to see Old Valyria at the season, and knows she won’t catch a flight until they close down for the year. Jaime tells her that it’s fine and that he perfectly understands. Brienne is very apologetic – and a bit mournful because she can’t remember the last time she enjoyed a date that much.

As they prepare to part, Jaime tells her that he will be waiting for the next log entry on Old Valyria. Brienne gathers all of her confidence to offer him her telephone number, which Jaime takes more than gladly. The two part with a another awkward handshake, though really, they can’t help but think about one another once they are out of each other’s sight. Despite the fact that both are too stubborn to admit it.

And so, their journeys go separate ways again. Jaime wants to head further North while Brienne ventures through Old Valyria. Jaime is pleased to read an entry that alludes to their meeting and even a quote by him from their conversation. The two now start to talk over the phone, and as they continue travelling, try to beat one another in most unconventional places to have found,  most curious experiences to have witnessed, or weirdest people they met, etc.

"Some boys like a challenge…”

They accidentally meet up again at an airport after both had their flights cancelled, so they are stuck for the night. The two are not sure whether to shake hands or hug, so yeah, it is awkward. They decide to get some drinks at the bar to pass the time. Jaime and Brienne come to talk about his injury and how that was the starting point for him to start that journey. Brienne lets on that she decided that it was time that she left home after Renly died and she had caved in at home far too long that it had her father worried.

“Sometimes you have to leave to find your way back home… I hope, at least.”

Once it’s time to say goodbye, Jaime suggests as casually as he can that they may want to try to end up in the same location some time, surprised when Brienne instantly recounts to where she is going and in what order, only to break out laughing when Jaime takes out his worn journal to see about his flight plans.

“Now, that is what I call old-fashioned,” she snorts.

"I call it traditional. Not all of us run fancy blogs, you know.”

“Well, blogs are also already outdated. Now it’s InstaBran stories that count. So perhaps we have something in common in that regard after all.”

They figure that the location following their next ones actually matches, so Jaime and Brienne agree to a “travel date.”

Then, at last, the time has come, and they are in the same location. They meet up at the airport, get themselves rooms in the same hotel. The two are thrilled to discover just how much they actually have in common, making their very own tours, discussing their boring jobs and their exciting journeys, sharing takeaway in hotel rooms, and watching sunsets in the most curious of places together.

Jaime still can’t believe himself that he just follows through with this new kind of life, almost eloping with a woman he barely knows but feels as though he has known her for years already. He wouldn’t have done things in that way back in the “old life.”

And for Brienne, it’s also the first time she even considered a man in that way after Renly’s death.

Of course, they continue to challenge one another. Jaime has to do things with his right arm upon her insistence, while Jaime takes out his “even more old-fashioned than the journal” disposable camera and challenges Brienne to have him take her picture, one of which he secretly adds to his journal.

And on a journey of self-discovery, they discover each other, eventually giving in to their undeniable attraction for one another. The two want to go on travelling, but eventually decide to go together, rearranging plans so that they can take the same route.

It is like a journey to heaven. Seeing different places, kissing under sights, taking pictures of the small things, reading through each other’s log entries, even lying next to each other in shabby hotel rooms with uncomfortable mattresses feels divine.

However, the journey comes to a sudden halt when Jaime runs into Tyrion, who has tracked him down upon their father’s order, explaining to the older brother that Tywin’s patience has worn thin and that if Jaime does not return any time soon, he will no longer provide for Jaime’s travelling – or anything else for the matter.

“And he is serious, I am telling you.”

Heartbroken, Jaime talks to Brienne about the latest revelation, but he is surprised that she shows such great understanding for his situation, even encouraging him to go back home. “You are loyal to your family. I am loyal to my father. I get this, I do, Jaime. We don’t get to choose.”

While both say that they can meet up again and that Brienne may want to travel to Casterly Rock some time soon, both know that their travel romance has come to an abrupt end.

Begrudgingly, Jaime makes his way back into the old life, feeling utterly miserable about himself, which does not go unnoticed by his younger brother Tyrion, though he does not know about Jaime’s heartache for his former travelling companion, because the older brother did not want to involve Brienne into his family’s mess any more than he already did.

Brienne is not faring much better. Her thoughts revolve around Jaime all the while, too, which she realizes in a number of posts she deletes that almost exclusively speak of heartache and Jaime, Jaime, Jaime. She has to realize that being alone and anonymous is not that great when you finally found someone who knows and understands you. Then, being alone and unconventional seems to ring so hollow.

Back in King’s Landing, Tyrion discovers his brother’s journal eventually.

After some serious deciphering of the chicken scratch, Tyrion must say that Jaime’s journal is an entertaining read, if not a profitable one. He gets into contact with publishers, and they seem to share his opinion, because it is only a little while from now that Jaime’s journal entries are getting published as a travel guide – after some just as serious editing through his younger brother, of course.

Brienne meanwhile, on her continuous voyage towards the Isle of Faces, which is supposed to be her last stop on the journey before going home to Tarth again, stumbles across a bookstore, where they feature a book with Jaime’s picture on the title page. Stunned, she buys the next best copy she can grab, devouring the journal as she roams through the streets of Oldtown.

Not only is she surprised that Jaime apparently went into publishing, after he teased her all the while for telling the whole world about her experiences, “even though you claim to be so shy, wench,” but she is also caught off-guard by some many log entries alluding to her. While the book was edited so not to give her identity away, something that Jaime likely insisted on for her sake, she finds herself near tears at some of the later entries speaking about how the shared voyage with her proved to be the best part of the whole journey.

“It was during that time that I saw in myself the man I wanted to be. That part of my voyage is the one that changed my world – for the better. That one person I met… changed everything, turned my whole voyage of life upside-down, and I loved every second of it. And to this day, I come to regret that it didn’t last longer. I wish I was still out there, every day.”

Brienne calls up Jaime once she is back in her hotel room, to congratulate him on his latest success. Jaime explains rather sheepishly that he didn’t know “until it was too late” that Tyrion took the journal to publishers behind his back.

“Now my own face is haunting me in every bookstore. I think I have to go incognito.”

“Fake moustache?”

“Maybe.”

They talk about Brienne’s plans, and how far she has come by now. Brienne tells him that she is “just that close” to get through with the locations she planned on visiting, to arrive at the Isle of Faces as her “final piece in the puzzle.”

“So? What are you going to do with your newly acquired status as a popular traveler journalist?“ Brienne teases, if only to distract from herself – and her apparent heartache at the thought that she will finish the journey alone, because the two actually made plans to go to the Isle of Faces together.

But then reality called back and all was over.

“Laughing myself silly because I hated reading since a young age, and now I am supposedly a writer. Well, at least you can make some money with those guides. So maybe you should start as well.”

“I think I will pass.”

“Says the popular blogger.”

“I am not popular at all, and I pride myself with that,” she argues.

“Would be too mainstream for you anyway.”

Towards the end of the conversation, Jaime blurts out saying “I miss you… I… I miss us.”

”… Me, too,” Brienne replies hastily. “But… well, travelers undergo voyages. That is what we do. We don’t know where we end up. The journey is the goal. And that means we sometimes end up… in different places, it seems.”

Jaime wants nothing but get out of the family company, his mind keeps going back to the Isle of Faces, and most importantly – Brienne, whereas Brienne’s thoughts on her voyage keep revolving less and less around the Isle of Faces and more and more about the travel partner she lost back when he went to the capitol to return to “real life.”

Things may take another turn when Jaime’s brother makes a proposal, but whether that is going to pan out, only time will show.

Because as corny as it may sound, life is a journey.

And it is yet to be determined whether Jaime and Brienne will get a chance to go on that journey together, or will continue to be swept to different shores…

[amollion]

Newcomers Pt 29

Ceran and Taleena had only short amounts of time to actually see each other, both were pulled away for various things like preparing for the Crowning or being fitted for their attire. Neither was allowed to see the other in what they would be wearing as it was considered good fortune if they waited until the day.

A knock on the door surprised them all and Oolana went to answer it, it was a pair of Humans one male and one female asking to see Ceran and Taleena.

“Ceran!” the male called.

“...Hesky?” Ceran said recognising his voice.

“See I told you he would remember me” he shot at Cathy.

“Well you are hard to forget...unfortunately” she replied grinning.

Hesky went past Oolana to where Ceran was sitting with Taleena and clapped him on his shoulders. “You my boy are going to undertake a very special journey and thus it is a Human custom that on your last night as a single and free man, we do a certain ritual”

“What kind of ritual?” Ceran asked.

“Bachelor party!!!” Hesky cried out “Come, everyone is waiting!” he picked up Ceran and holding under his arm he carried him out the door.

“Wait but I want to stay with-”

“Shut up we're doing this!”

“I'll be back Taleena!” Ceran called as he disappeared out of sight.

“I'm guessing you are here for a similar purpose?” Taleena asked Cathy.

“Kind of, I unlike my husband have gone to the lengths of merging your customs and our customs into one”

“What do you mean?”

“Well I have heard you have yet to meet the ladies of the court, and Human females have a bachelorette party. It's basically the same as what my husband is taking your soon to be husband to right now. But ours will be a little more tame” she held out her hand and Taleena took it when given the nod of approval from Oolana. What was supposed to be a rest day for the two of them had suddenly become another engagement.

“Hesky put me down!” Ceran shouted “A Chieftain can't be seen being carried this way”

“Oh right good point” he said putting him back on his feet.

“Right, so what exactly is a bachelor party?” he asked.

“Well, it is a night where all your friends will come together...and get drunk!”  

“....that's it?”

“Does there need to be anything else? Oh right and dancers lots and lots of dancers!”

“Oh?”

“Worry not my little friend these dancers will be quite different...oh yes....quite different”

Taleena was taken to a rather posh part of the city where she met the wife's of those men who were part of her husband to be court, some of these girls were part of the court themselves having inherited the position when no male heir was able to take the role. Some were the very girls she had competed against to win Ceran's favour.

“Ladies, you all know Taleena I'm sure” Cathy said as they entered a small dinning area.

The girls got up to meet her, curtsying as they would to Ceran but now to her, the looks on the younger girls faces was one Taleena would cherish for all her years and it took every ounce of her control not to rub this moment in their faces.

“Lady Chieftain it is so good to finally meet you” said one of the older ones who was the wife of one of the Elders who had tried to be elected.

“Look at you such a pretty little thing” said another elderly one.

The younger girls were trying to stay quiet and not interact any more than was necessary, they still believed this common girl was beneath them. Taleena was not going to have that.

“Opoli?” Taleena said recognising one of the more mean spirited ones.

“Yes?...Lady Chieftain”

Taleena went up and embraced her “It's good to see you again, we only spoke for  short time before you were called”

“Oh Opoli, I didn't know you were friends with the new Lady Chieftain” said one of the older women.

“Errm...we spoke at the Chieftain summoning” she replied confused and shocked.

“Oh yes” Taleena said “But we became very...VERY well acquainted” Taleena grinned a sinister smile that terrified Opoli making her want to run.

“I'm sorry” Opoli whispered.

“What for?” Taleena said louder “Tearing my dress, trying to mess my hair or the bombardment of insults you threw at me”

The silence was deafening and Opoli went white as sheet, her knees went and she fell with her head to he floor and begged her forgiveness.

“Bloody hell Opoli get up, I'm not angry”

“You're not?” she said looking up.

“No” Taleena helped her up “I just wanted to mess with you” she laughed and sat down with her and the others. The room was full of not just Benemar woman but a number of Human women who had come to wish her well and in her new life. Taleena had never seen so many Humans and Benemar in one place except when her home town came under attack. It seemed odd that even though their peoples were at war here they sat, talked and drank together.

“She is a good match for the kid” Sharn said sitting next to Cathy off to one side.

“They suit each other well, oh god I feel like it's my child getting married” Cathy said.

“If anything it's more of mine as Ceran holds Karen's spirit”

“Don't tell me you've gone native?”

“No I just think it is a beautiful custom and concept” Sharn pointed out.

“You know” Cathy started “For a people that are so warlike they have a lot of customs and traditions that have nothing to do with it”

“Even those forged in war will carry peace in their hearts” Sharn quoted an ancient Human leader.

The evening went on rather quietly with Taleena making fast friends with the woman of the court and her own rivals who had come to actually enjoy listing to her speak of things her and Ceran had in common.

“Ladies!” Cathy called for everyone's attention.

“The evening has been wonderful and we all of course are here to celebrate the journey Taleena and her new husband are about to go on. I also think that the Benemar part of the evening has come to a close and the Human custom can now take place if there are no objections”

She looked around and no one objected, in fact some of the younger Benemar girls were interested on what was about to happen.

“Good, Sharn music please”

Sharn took out a small speaker box that blared a Human dancing song.

“Ladies, may I present the Full monty boys!”

The doors behind her swung open and six Human males came in dancing wearing very little and the music blared in volume. The Human females screamed in delight and even some of the younger Benemar girls joined in.

“What is going on?” Taleena asked a Human next to her.

“Just take this money and throw it at them while calling them dirty whores!”

Hesky and Ceran arrived at a more darker bar in a section of the city where Human soldiers came when off duty, Benemar were welcome and those of the warrior caste would often turn up to swap stories with the Human soldiers.

Ceran and Hesky were welcomed with a loud roar as the entire bar erupted in greetings and cheers, many Ceran did not know but he saw people from his home town and few familiar faces of those he would call friends since coming to Geeda. Of course the Human who had in a sense destroyed his town were there too as they were the first Humans he had spoken to. They were the ones who had told him of their home world and their culture, where he got a lot of his ideas for his speeches from. During that time the Humans had kind of adopted him as their mascot, now he was going to be the Chieftain of a city.

“Here drink this” Hesky said handing him a glass.

“What is it?”

“Brandy, a Human drink”

“Hesky!” Hopkins said taking the glass away “Start him off with a beer first” he gave Ceran a pint.

“So, what exactly happens at these?” Ceran asked innocently.

“Well we drink, a lot” Hesky said already downing his own.

“There will be some singing and story telling and....” Hopkins trailed off

“He will find out later on” Jenkins said slouched in his chair.

“Jenkins? You're here too?” Ceran said shocked to see their commanding officer was present.

“I have to go off the clock too sometimes” he replied a little slurred having started drinking earlier.

“As long as this stuff you call whisky keeps coming I'm happy”

“Father?!”

“Yep we even got him to come” Hesky smiled “Although I admit I almost hoped you wouldn't”

“Well as my son says, only a fool holds open wounds caused by the past”

“You've heard me speak?”

“Son...I was there from the beginning”

“That is very touching, but can we now get the dancers out!” Hopkins shouted “I have so much pent up frustration I need an outlet!”

“Dancers?” Ceran asked.

Hesky grinned “Malthos, I trust you were able to find them”

“Yes, but if my wife finds out she will kill me”

“My lips are sealed”

They sat Ceran down in front of the stage and he was joined by everyone else.

“Little Chieftain” Hesky said “Enjoy your last night of freedom!”

The curtains opened to reveal a trio of scantly dressed Benemar lust dancers who began to dance for him to the shouts and whooping of the crowed.

A large grin slowly crept across Ceran's face as the girls danced ever more erotically as the night went on.

It was the middle of the night when Ceran and his father walked or more like swayed back to their home and almost fell through the door. Ceran had handled his drink a bit better but that was mainly because he had drunk very little. His father on the other hand had drunk like it was going out of fashion and had made Hesky promise that a crate of whisky would be sent to their home.

Taleena was still awake drinking tea at the table and looked up as Ceran helped his father to sleep on the sofa.

“A fun night?” she asked.

“Yes, yours” he replied sitting next to her.

She grinned a remembering the look on the older Benemar woman's faces when the Human dancers began taking off their clothes.

“Apparently the Human have their own lust dancers, and they can be male” she said smiling.

“Oh good, now I don't feel as guilty watching lust dancers myself tonight”

“You did what?” her tone suddenly serious and angry.

“I errr...you just said you watched lust dancers”

“No I didn't, I just said the Humans have them, I didn't say I watched them”

Ceran looked at her shocked and scared then he noticed “You're messing with me aren't you?”

“Sorry, it's just so easy” she said smiling.

He gave her arm a playful slap and she recoiled in mock surprise “How could you strike your wife?”

“You're not my wife yet”

“No, tomorrow though” she rested her head on his shoulder and he kissed her head.

“Today actually, it has just passed midnight”

“We have to be up in a few hours, we should go to bed”

“In a minute, let's just stay like this for a bit” he said putting his arm round her and she put hers round him.

The sun rose over the horizon and already the streets were lined with the people of Geeda both Human and Benemar. The route would take them from one of the main gates and snake through the city before arriving at the Chieftain's tower where Ceran and Taleena would be married and Ceran crowned Chieftain. Ceran and Taleena would stand upon a Human transport that had been modified to look like a great monster from Benemar lore. They would be in the centre of the parade with musicians and dancers preceding and following them. As well as the Human army would march alongside the Benemar force that had been formed to take their place.

Ceran's outfit was made from feathers of jet black, he wore a headpiece that resembled a centurion's from the days of ancient Rome. His face was painted white with a black triangle that started at his headpiece and ended at the tip of his nose to resemble a beak. His cape was also made from black feathers that when he could outstretch his arms to make it look like he had wings. He wore a white tight fitting body suit that fit like a second skin with a small tunic over the top that had small white feathers attached. He was made to resemble a native bird much like how Taleena was made to resemble the female of that species. Hers was a of similar design but she had no headpiece but her hair was dyed pink with the same beak like face makeup as Ceran as well as her face also being white. Her cape though was a rose red colour and she could also outstretch her arms to make it appear she had wings. Her body suit was black with her tunic having black feathers. Their clothes were meant to compliment each other and the dress makers had worked almost non stop since Ceran had been first elected.

Ceran appeared first at the gate where the parade was about to begin, the people could not see him yet but as he appeared the warriors and soldiers stood to attention and saluted him. He looked at them and gestured for them to relax and they stood at ease, it was that moment that he truly felt like he had authority and power.

“We are nearly ready to go” Hesky said smiling in his uniform looking non the worse for all the drinking he did last night.

“Where is Taleena?” he asked.

“Behind you”

He swung round and his jaw almost hit the floor, she stood before him in her dress and looking a little embarrassed to be so over dressed in the presence of the plainly clothed public.

“Do I please you?” she asked.

“Y...you....err....wow!” he stammered and they both laughed.

“Okay you love birds....hehehe get it you both look like birds” Hesky said but they only looked at him “Oh come on that was funny”

“Hilarious dear” Cathy said appearing behind him.

“So what are you two doing here?” Ceran asked.

“Well believe it or not we can sing and rather well and will be doing so during the parade”

“Really?” Taleena asked.

“Don't look so shocked”

Both of their parents were waiting for them at the Chieftain's tower and in their place they had had a multitude of servants dress them, it had taken several hours for them both to be ready.

“Right I think we are about ready” Cathy said looking around.

“I'm nervous” Taleena whispered to Ceran.

“So am I, just hold my hand and we'll be fine”

She grasped his hand tightly and they both mounted the transport which fired up it's engines. There were a pair of thrones for them to sit on as the parade was going to last some hours and standing all that time was going to be taxing, saying nothing of all the waving.

“We await your command Chieftain” called a Benemar warrior.

“By all means, onward” Ceran replied holding Taleena's hand and they raised their heads as the gate opened and a wave of cheers washed over them, welcoming in a new era.

[erratically-present-gengar]

How I derp-art. Alma Tutorial

So a couple of you weirdos keep asking me for help with how to art/draw gengars or what my process is because art is hard. Art is indeed hard and even with gengars can be a pain in the ass and I am mostly bullshitng my way through it, and my process can be stupidly long and I need to work on screwing with it so I can get shit done faster.

BUT

I put a tutorial thingy together, though first ever one I’ve done so more of me not knowing what I’m doing and trying to get things set up right to be helpful.

I put some steps in one image file and idk how tumblr is going to handle it, so if it’s a pain and you guys want the individual files set up somewhere else let me know. Can let me know if you want to know what brushes I use if that’s needed at all, but mostly this is to show how much I bs my way through things.

This is all in photoshop too though, so why I don’t use a lot of info for shortcuts besides the grouping.

To start with I try to get my damn circles/ovals shaped right for whatever I’m trying to do.

Sometimes it takes me a lot of tries to get it, sometimes I just start all over and try something else, sometimes I use the Ellipse tool, and sometimes I give up, find a reference, and start out over that for sketching with general shape because sometimes my brain just is full on dumb.

Eventually I end up getting out a sketch, usually using multiple layers in case I need to move a part or make edits without messing up some other bit. This is also why I like messing with digital more than paper because it makes this part of the process easier for me and can easily hide or delete layers or adjust transparency when needed.

I’ve more or less settled on what to do with Alma’s design, so not necessarily something to do with drawing Gengar in general.

Alma has very large/long ears and a tail compared to the usual for Gengar. I still have no idea what I’m doing with those damn spikes/fluff, but I add extra fluff around the bottom of her ears too. These are all definitely style choices I have for her.

I don’t really bother with the back spikes on her either because I end up having some difficulty getting them to look right to me, and usually blocked off anyways. I just go with the biggest fluff/spikes are on her head and around her ears, and then they shrink as they go down the back and eventually smooth out by the tail.

Arms are just like attaching them to a ball and figure out where they sit. Usually I start around under the ears and around where the mouth is going to be, but it’s a gengar, the things can do some weird things with their bodies so can probably have their arms just about anywhere if you really wanted, though personally I tend to get stuck with realism and wouldn’t be happy with doing too weird of stuff with the arms so just shift them around closer to the front or lower depending on what I want to do or if she’s got her hands in front of her.

Hands and feet I usually just do 3 digits, but can have more or less if you want. Most times I just draw 3 lines for where the fingers may be or general triangle shapes around it. Fingers and toes have their own layers too in case I want to change them and then don’t have to mess with the main limb.

But definitely different shaping compared to the usual gengar shapes. It’s just a personal thing. I don’t recommend copying off Alma’s features for your own gengars, and it would bother me somewhat. First try out figuring out how to work with the basic gengar shape, and then play with the form to figure out how you want to draw it, if you want to go with ball/balloon with limbs and spikes.

Once the main body is done I try out faces, since half the time I only have some idea for what I want to do with it, and I may also figure out something better. There can be a lot of trial and error with this, and a lot of extra sketch layers.

The stylistic thing goes with her eyes and being shaped a bit differently than the norm to soften her looks so she doesn’t look so scary. She can look normal for eyeshape, but as she tries not to seem intimidating most times, it’s normally just different than the usual.

Once  I’ve figured out what I want to do with the face, I group up the Sketch layers and use the pen tool for neater lines, because I am terrible at getting my lines right and clean with a regular tablet, so I cheat for the base part of it.

Each part has it’s own layer, especially if lines overlap so that clean up of the lines is a bit easier. It also helps with making some adjustments for parts I decided that looked odd to me with the lines that don’t get noticed as much with the sketch layer. Even for art that I don’t use the pen tool on I will usually separate the lineart in to their own layers. It can help if I want to change a limb or hand’s/foot’s position, or just minor changes without messing with the rest of the drawing.

Yeah that last part looks pretty terrible, huh?

But I can just go through the layers and erase lines I don’t want, fix up some of the ends so they’re pointed, longer, shorter, or whatever.

When it’s cleaned up I use my main brush for the outside lines and look sketchier and/or add line weight so the lines look more interesting. I’ll also use a smoother brush for the face since a little bit of a harder edge for those parts than the body.

After that I duplicate the group I have for the lineart and merge the 2nd group to help with color borders, slap down my colors, use the selection tool for the outside of the lines layer, and modify/expand by 1 or 2 pixels, move back to the body layer, and then just hit delete to get at least most of it.

Sometimes I remember to clean up around the lines more because my sketchiness can still trap the color where I don’t want it... In this case I didn’t remember until later, but oh well.

After that I make some layers for the other parts that need coloring. In Alma’s case she’s pretty easy since it’s usually just the eyes and sometimes teeth or something involving her mouth. I’ll make some layers for each part’s shadows and highlights, then group those together out of the way.

When I’m done with that I’ll use the pen tool to try to pretend I know what I’m doing with how shadows work and put down some guidelines for shadows. They’re usually not great, but I’ll mess with them afterwards.

New layer for the shadows. It’s a whole lot of bullshitting my way through them and pretending I know how they work. I’ll use my brush at a higher transparency at the start and then lower it to mess with edges and soften them, or use it in areas the shadows may not be so strong. I’ll also do a lot of erasing along parts and usually use the sponge brush for the eraser. I keep playing with it until I figure it’s good enough.

To clean up around outside of the lines I just go to the body layer, fix up the areas around the edges, then select the white space, go to the other layers that need cleaning up, and just hit delete as I go through them to erase the stuff outside the lines.

Next I work on highlights. Again this is a whole lot of me pretending I have any idea what I’m doing. The little brighter ones get their own layers, and the body highlights get another. I’ll move one of my sketch layers up over the color ones sometimes to try to help me figure out where I want to put a highlight over the main body so it looks rounder. I spaced and used the wrong color for highlights at first but adjusted them for using the purple I had for it already. Usually I use the lighten or screen layers for it. One thing I’m trying to remind myself of is the secondary lighting and how light bounces and can highlight the outside of an object too even if that part is otherwise in shadows. It can help separate parts too, though not really needed if you guys don’t want to. I just like it myself. The extra highlights I keep in their own layers too. .... I use a lot of Layers

I’ll usually mess with the floor shadow too, to show if she’s on the floor or in the air, and usually to me it makes the image a bit more interesting instead of blank white, since I usually am lazy with backgrounds and I suck at them anyways.

Just copy the body layer and distort it to wherever it looks good and at least semi matches the main lighting direction.

After that I darken it and, while it’s fine like that, I usually mess with it a bit more for style stuff and have a few duplicated layers to mess with it until I like it, rather than accidentally messing up the main part of it.

When Shadows are done I’ll throw on a bunch of unnecessary bullshit using a grunge brush because I like the idea of a haze being around her, though it’s not needed and more just a style choice and I like using textures. I have a few layers of it until I’m at least alright with how it looks, make some last minute adjustments with liquify for somethings that are bothering me but I’m too lazy to redraw the lineart part of it to fix it, and there I am.

There’s my likely very long process for how I draw Gengar/Alma.

Aaaaand that’s about it for what I do with them.

Pretty much why it takes me forever to get art done when I have the free time, and don’t post daily with art. With the jobs and health I just can’t do it.

and I def need to work on simplifying things.

I have several boards over on pintrest now to help with learning some things like lighting, shapes, etc. It’s largely either objects or people kind of references for most of the boards, but it can still help with learning faces or people if help is needed with that too

https://www.pinterest.com/Kalooeh/

[bleakbot-blog]

The Mysterious Moon

Man, I love the moon. Would you say the moon is masculine or feminine? Spiritually speaking, I most often heard that it obtains female energy; but we have mother nature, full of life and creation, wouldn't that mean that the moon be the father? Yeah, you might think so. However, our celestial father is most defiantly the sun. It's because our father above and our mother below, that allows all of this life to exist- the moon is actually neither; which means it's more like our cousin. But perhaps what's more curious about the moon is that it's existence has never been explained by modern science. Who needs science to explain things? But isn't it interesting that using science we can built nuclear weapons but can not even explain this ancient entity, that floats at our doorstep?

What's more interesting is that the moon is far too big to be a natural satellite of the earth. If I'm not mistaken, there's not a single other planet in our solar system, whose moon's comparison ratio to our own 'earth, moon ratio'. Our moon is actually larger than Pluto. But the current leading theory in science is that something like a Mars-sized planet (possibly Nibiru) like rock came out of nowhere and the hit the earth and then became the moon. And when those physics didn't work out, they came up with a new theory: that said, the same planet like rock like thing hits the planet, bounces around and then hits it again and then becomes the moon. Needless to say, the physics still didn't work. So, what the hell is them all? Well, now that we ponder, have you ever heard of it being... hollow?

In November of 1969, NASA sent a lunar Margie that hit the moon and caused an equivalent of 1 Tonne of TNT. NASA said that, the moon re-vibrated like a gong for half an hour. Then, they did it again; causing an impact of 11 Tonnes of TNT and it rang like a bell for over 4 hours! It vibrated in a way, as if it were hollowed out with giant hydraulic damperstrucks inside of it. Let me tell you something else, the surface of the moon contains minerals like titanium, but also processed metal like brass. Furthermore, it also contains uranium 236 and neptunium, which are both minerals which have never been found to occur naturally. Uranium 236 is long left nuclear waste and appears to spend nuclear fuel. And neptunium is a radioactive bio product of nuclear reactor when plutonium is being created. This means that, at least some of the rock on the moon are synthetic. And while, it's only a theory, I wouldn't say it's illogical to come to the conclusion that it could be artificially created. That's really intense!

Intimately, we also know the crates on the moon: now, craters should vary on depth due to the impact of the very space rocks that hit them, right? We could tell that there was a difference in the meteor sizes, by the diameter of each crater, yet how come all them across the board are of the same depth? 

Let me quote a statement from NASA scientists, Dr. Robert Brett: 

"It's easier to explain the nonexistence of the moon, than to explain it's existence". 

Here's another one from Irwin I.Shapiro (Harvard Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics):

"The best explanation of the moon is observation error. The moon does not exist".

The Zula Tribes speak of the moon being an egg, they symbolizes it to be an egg for good reason. The ancient-African, Sumerians legends talk of two brothers: Wawen and Mapecca, that emptied up the yoke and rode the moon across the sky and closed catastrophic events to take place before hundreds of generations before our time. 

I'm not sure how it fits, but this says here that the rocks of the moon are older than the earth, itself. Ever wonder why we always see only one side of the moon? Why doesn't it spin like other planets? That's a good question to throw against the odds. On the topic to- have you ever noticed that the size and position of the moon is exactly at the right place to create a perfect solar eclipse? You know, the moon actually holds the earth at a side ways tilt, if we didn't have the moon, we wouldn't have the same lengths of days and nights, or experience the four seasons like we do. It also intimately controls the tides. And just like the tides, it even bents the water in our bodies: that's why in the nights of full 4 moon, there's an increase of violent crimes... and probably, passionate love. 

Would you think that these things were deliberately introduced to the earth, maybe for a purpose? Well, it's a possibility. So, what do you think that purpose could be? 

They say that the beings who put it there were bringing a new frequency to the planet; or maybe even provide us with some kind of resonation or gravitational wave that was vital for our survival. I've read that the earth isn't even in the right place in the solar system anymore! The story goes at one point it used to exist between Mars and Jupiter. And may even been slightly larger than it is today. But it was hit, and flew off course, creating the steroid belt, which is mostly frozen water and rock- rounded up in a new orbit, right here. But because of the impact of what happened, the planet was going to die and it needed some help to keep it spinning and keep it's orbit proper. And thus the moon was put there by some advanced 'Alien-race' or some sort of higher form of consciousness, who saw it as a requirement for the planet's survival. Maybe even our own survival, which would explain why the earth and moon ratio are found within the human energy field. Then events- such as the falling of Atlantis and raising back to consciousness could take place under circumstances; that otherwise wouldn't happen. That's really amazing! 

But wait, did you know that the human geometry matches with the Earth and moon ratio? 

In Durnvalo’s Flower of Life Book, he shows these drawings here.

As you can see, this is the Egg of Life, mapped over Leonardo Da Vinci's canned of man, along with the proportionate Eight by Eight (8x8) grid.

Around the Egg of life you see two rings, this is the zona polucita the membrane around the structure. Okay, so we do get that those are important sake of geometry, but we still don't see the link here. We're just getting started.

First, we have to identify the male and female side of the equation. On the top level, we have a circle and square, they freckle down the eight physical spears and the eight by eight grid of squares.

See, how you can draw a circle that fits perfectly inside these circles. And then you get a circle that's slightly smaller than the four circles put together?

It just so happens that it fits perfectly around the edge, balancing between the inner circle and the outer larger circle.

Now, if we take the four squares and use them as a measure, we can create a new circle, slightly larger than the smaller one, which is drew.

If we push it to the top, it punches out beyond the larger circle and what we're left with is the inner and outer edge of the zona pellucid- and the delineation of the human energy field. 

This is the location of the 13th Chakra, by the way. At the very top of our energy field, above our head. 

Now, nobody knows where, this next part I'm about to show you, actually comes from: the earliest source, Lawrence Blare claims that he got it from older work. By using the tip of the zona pellucita as a ratio point between it and the square to create a new sphere; this then delineates the field of the 13th Chakra.

The ratio between this sphere and the sphere based of this square (the physical form of the earth) is exactly the same ratio of that of the earth and moon. 

You'll also notice too, the zona pellucita has merged with the square, around the body and planted to create the Phi ratio (ø). It's a bridge to a higher consciousness. 

So, what's the importance of these numbers? In the circle and square diagram to create the Phi ratio: the circumference of the circle, must be equal to the perimeter of the square. When you calculate the perimeter of the square, that'd be around the physical earth; it comes around 31,680 miles which would be the diameter of the earth times 4.

To get the circle around the earth is a bit more tricky, because you have the Moon's involvement

You have to imagine that the moon is perfectly placed on the circle of the earth without going into it, at all- then we take the diameter of the earth and diameter of the moon, add them together and multiply by π- it comes out at 31,667. Holy Christ!

That's almost the exact same numbers! 

Although, there's a 30 miles difference but it isn't distinguishable by chance that 30 miles is nothing when you consider that the ocean rises nearly 27 miles around the equator! 

So, what does all of these mean to us, anyways? 

I guess, it means that the moon isn't just some random satellite, that has nothing to do with us. It's there for a reason. For a chance. A chance that we might make the most important decision as a specie; and create together a new way of life in this planet. It's up to the collective of mankind. Whether we love or chaos, or war. Maybe a little bit of both, as it looks a bit. But times are changing, this isn't the old world anymore. It's a matter of survival and collaboration. The moon appears to offer us the opportunity to change; to become aware, to grow. But it won't make the decisions for us. It's up to us. 

All these seems to be an evidence of a long lost secret, that has all to do with our evolution. I wonder, if we will ever understand the mystery in this lifetime.