#i also just reworked it right now; it used to draw a card when the 3rd counter was put on it Tumblr posts

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than dreams

Nerfed signposts!

[goqmir]

hey magic the gatheringers, ive been rebuilding my favorite edh decks and hyperfixating on them lately so i just wanted to make a pretty lil post about them offering them to anyone who wants to play em :) these are my favorite decks right now and ive just run through and adjusted the decklists of all of them in the last couple days so they're fresh and ready to perform <3

the first deck is Rocco Cast From Exile!

the third rework of this decklist with the new cards from CLU really cemented that this is my favorite deck i've ever made. Rocco, Street Chef plays kingpin to a unique Naya value pile built around playing cards from exile!

this deck is similar to Prosper, who is unfortunately the face of Cast From Exile-- but unlike Prosper, this commander and the other options for CFE payoffs you get in Naya are super interesting and cool :) you get [[Feldorn]], [[Pia Nalaar]], [[Quintorius Kand]], as well as fun cheapening effects like [[Liara Portyr]] and [[Tlincalli Hunter]] on top of the delightful cascade effects green gets!

you also get to play around with +1/+1 counters (Rocco might be the best commander of all time at like... putting +1/+1s on specific individual creatures honestly??) and the magic that is food tokens (which are getting stronger and stronger each passing set). furthermore, Rocco impulse draws for your opponents, which means you get to encourage them to make tough decisions! do they play their combo piece from exile, feeding your deck? (Rocco is so efficient that they will soon learn that the answer to that question is almost always no... but you can always pretend that you're playing group hug and giving them free cards until they figure that out!)

this deck gets a lot of mana and builds up a monstrous board state very quickly. as far as individual value pieces go, be on the lookout for [[Jaheria, Friend of the Forest]], [[Inspiring Statuary]], and [[Night of the Sweets' Revenge]] for ways to make an unreal amount of mana. [[Herd Baloth]] and [[Faldorn]] will get you tokens for every card played from exile, and i would say are the main things giving you a monstrous board. don't sleep on the cascaders and thieves either-- every extra card obtained from things like [[Bloodbraid Elf]] or the Etalis net you another Cast From Exile trigger!

Naya Cast From Exile is weird and awesome and I highly recommend playing and building in this design space :) there's a lot of Naya CFE cards that work but I cut from the deck, and they give us more cards and commanders for the archetype all the time. this is definitely my favorite deck i've ever made <3

the second deck i'd like to show off is my Oloro Control decklist!

i've always been the interaction player at the table. you might find that these decklists are a bit heavy on the interaction for you actually-- i truly believe disruption is like. so important. especially when you're playing for value rather than combos like i do ^_^

so here is my dedicated Esper Control decklist! Oloro is there to keep you topped off and to draw you cards-- by playing this deck it really does net you anywhere from 10-40 extra life in a given game in my experience just by playing him. and the card draw on Oloro is pretty insane, enabling you to find the necessary ramp and bombs to end the game after you've disrupted every combo at the table :) personally i don't like Oloro the character very much at all-- don't know why, but he's a little difficult for me to look at. i personally have a custom proxy that replaces Oloro with Grusha :3

this Control deck is all about gaining slow and steady value while ensuring the bad things aren't sent your way. there are some stax pieces here, but not very strict ones-- your goal is to remain innocuous while you get the mana and cards to play your bombs and your opponents hopefully go at each other. the bombs in question are things like [[Debt to the Deathless]], [[Expropriate]], [[Torment of Hailfire]], planeswalkers like [[Sorin Markov]], and creatures that amass you value quickly like [[Drogskol Reaver]] and [[Sunscorch Regent]]. you gain life, shut down your opponents, and force unwinnable situations or knock out opponents with big bombs. it's fun!

the third deck is Vadrok Inevitable Betrayal Combo!

Vadrok here is the final fruit of my obsession with the 0 cmc suspend cards I went through a few months back. after toying with pretty much ever one in turn, Vadrok is the one that stuck around because he plays so interestingly and truly warps your table's metagame if you bring him out enough times.

let's get into the weeds: the combo here is a pretty simple one-- Vadrok is one of (and the only legendary) engine that allows you to play cards from your graveyard without exiling them after, done by mutating. [[Inevitable Betrayal]] is a 0 mana cost blue spell that takes a creature from an opponent's deck and puts it onto the battlefield under your control. The combo, then, is a gradual one: use a spell to discard Inevitable Betrayal, and mutate onto Vadrok. each mutate plays Inevitable Betrayal for free, allowing you to cheat out an opponent's creature each time. this is strong.

the deck features a suite of tutors, a variety of ways to discard cards, and every mutate card in Jeskai (except the one whose mutate cost is six mana :P). the combo is surprisingly low to the ground and quick, allowing for turn one/two discards and turn three Vadrok mutates at times. however, it's often worth waiting to mutate Vadrok onto a creature with Hexproof to ensure little interruption as you swarm the board with your opponents' best hits.

this deck, of course, relies heavily on your opponents' decks then. which is why this deck is so metagame-warping-- even at more casual tables, you'll probably see your friends take their funny eldrazi and craterhoofs out of their decks because you're so prone to winning with them. personally, i find that delightful! i tend to cycle deck usage anyway, so it's cute to steal a bunch of things for a couple weeks, have my opponents edit their decklists to remove my hits, lose interest in the deck, and come back a couple months later and steal the good hits in their new decks, repeat :) its fun having a deck that warps metagames with its presence alone.

the final deck id like to talk about is my Silvar and Trynn Humans decklist!

mardu is delightful and for the longest time i couldn't find a mardu commander i ever wanted to build! finally though, i stumbled across these two :) the art on them is so gorgeous! i love ikoria.

this deck is very fun! the only typal deck on the list, humans is a very fun type to build around and you get access to so many bangers in mardu. this deck is all about building a board of as many humans as you possibly can, then sacking them all to put 17 +1/+1 counters on Silvar and start swinging for commander lethal. how that is done is different every game, with so many fun human pieces and interaction pieces that each game feels very distinctly different from the last more so than any of the other decks discussed on this post. furthermore, mardu offers my favorite interaction suite of all time, so it's always a pleasure to play with.

teehee anyway thats my decks ive been hyperfixating on! feel free to give em a try :) sqrrk!!

[slashmagpie]

Blood & Snow

Pt. I

Directory: {Pt. II} {Pt. III} {Pt. IV} {Pt. V} {Pt. VI} {Pt. VII} {AO3}

Welcome to my @hermithorrorweek fic! I spent a while trying to figure out seven different fic concepts based on the prompt, and kept coming up blank, up until I decided to combine them all and write a single fic, with each prompt being the theme for a different chapter. Blood & Snow is the result, and at the time of posting it is not quite complete, but I'm excited to share it with you nonetheless. I'm hoping to post a chapter once per day, but later chapters may be delayed depending on how long it takes me to get them written. Some of this builds off concepts I played with in some of my earlier Decked Out 2 ficlets, which you can find in my writing tag. TWs for this chapter include: non-consensual body modification*, unreality*, panic attacks

I. GAME MECHANICS

Game design is simple, really.

Well, no, it’s difficult—but the principles behind it are simple. Make it fun. Make it challenging. Make it rewarding. 

Decked Out 2 is a game.

To be more precise, it’s a long-running, deck-building, dungeon-crawling game. It’s competitive. It has rewards—bragging rights, for one. Trophies, for another. If you win, you can get crowns, and buy things to make you more powerful, to make the game more fun. You get frost embers, which are used to build the deck, and—

Clank is Decked Out’s central mechanic. Trigger a shrieker, generate clank. Easy as that. Taking your artefact will also generate clank, because it angers the spirits of the dungeon. That’s another important thing about game design: atmosphere. Design. Having something that feels cohesive. So—no, max clank isn’t quite as dangerous as it should be, but very few mobs would work to replace the vex, because, well, they’re not the spirits of the dungeon, and—

Hazard is generated every thirty-seven seconds, roughly. It used to be thirty, but that lined up with card draws, and the sound cues were hard to keep track of. So. Hazard is generated every thirty-seven seconds, roughly. Hazard makes the dungeon more dangerous to traverse, by closing doors, raising pathways, and otherwise making certain routes more dangerous or downright impossible to cross. People underestimate hazard at first, but quickly find out that hazard kills. When clank maxes out, that turns into hazard too, because max clank wasn’t dangerous enough by itself, because the vexes aren’t doing their damn jobs—

There were two older systems that got replaced. Not a lot of people know that. Focus could be built up, would synergise with other cards, but it was just—it wasn’t working. It got reworked. No one would miss it. Delve was a difficulty setting, but it was dumb, just press a button to choose your difficulty, that works way better, and—

Game design is simple, really. 

Decked Out is not a game.

Had it ever been a game? In its first iteration, back in season seven, had it hungered the way it does now? Had it slept, slumbering beneath the earth, soaking in blood that would slowly, slowly bring it to life? When the idea had wormed its way into Tango’s head, a sequel—had that been his own thought? Does it matter if it was?

He’d certainly thought it was. Began drafting up plans, re-evaluating what he’d done in the past and putting better spins on them. Decked Out 2 would be huge, would be the biggest project he’d ever worked on, but it wouldn’t take that long. Surely.

…Thirteen months later, Decked Out 2 opened its doors.

Thirteen months. It had started as a hole, as many things do. A hole, a build, a plan, a citadel—Tango had thrown himself into it like he would with any huge project. And at first it had been—it had been a project. A build, a game. A giant hole filled with promise. A castle built in a week. Just Hermitcraft things. The usual.

When had it started? When he’d dug, and dug, for hours and hours upon end? When he’d carved jagged-looking scars into the landscape and dragged the citadel up from them? When he’d started building level one? When he’d begun assembling the redstone? When the ravagers and wardens began to roam its halls? When did Decked Out come alive?

…Had it always been alive?

Okay, better question: when did—

A frozen shard is placed into the barrel. The door lights up, sounds play. The door opens. The hermit—Joe?—begins to take off their armour and items and set up the game. A difficulty button is pressed. A shulker is placed into its slot. The cards begin to filter through the system. A minecart ride, and a pressure plate—

Decked Out turns on.

The Dungeon watches carefully, hungrily. A shrieker triggers. A hazard door closes. The game is running, the game is alive, the game is always alive—

The Dungeon Master floats, untethered, bodiless, watching, speaking, unheard, unseen. His body stands in the dark, empty, eyes sightless and lungs unbreathing. Why would he need to breathe? Dungeons don’t need to breathe, after all. Games don’t need to breathe. And Decked Out isn’t a game, not really, but it still works on principles of game design, and none of those principles require the game to breathe.

So the Dungeon watches, and the Dungeon Master watches, and Joe runs straight into the blood-stained horns of a ravager, and—

And—

Tango tries to blink. To breathe. A hazard door slams open and closed. The wires are crossed, that’s not—he needs to go—an attempt to step forward dispenses a stack of frost embers into the dungeon. They’re not supposed to do that. That’s a bug, he needs to fix—

He needs his hands—

Stone walls aren’t fingers, but they flex all the same, groaning under the strain—

There’s an itching in his legs. Skulk creeps up the walls. This wasn’t supposed to happen. This isn’t—

It’s dark. A warden sniffs. A shrieker howls. Stone becomes sinew becomes skulk becomes shadow becomes smoke becomes a soul. The Dungeon Master wrenches open his sightless eyes, and the Dungeon sees—

(Buildings aren’t meant to have panic attacks. Neither are dungeons. Nor games. But Decked Out is not a game, never really has been, and Tango—)

Joe and Hypno stare in bafflement at the flickering availability metre outside of the dungeon. “Tango, fix your game!” Hypno cries, and—

Ha.

Here’s a better question: when did Tango become Decked Out?

[purplekoop]

Alright while I'm thinking about it (and in lieu of having the willpower to draw any of it right now), I'm just gonna dump all the semi-solid ideas I have for Role Requeue right now.

The only two heroes I said much about in particular are Tracer as Support, whose time powers are altered slightly to allow her to recall the damage her allies take, and Reaper as a Tank, who's been turned from spooky gaseous ghost man into a big nightmarish part-liquid man.

The only other "officially recognized" of the hero changes so far is Widowmaker as a Tank, as suggested by @daylightcommand3, now is transformed from a mere sniper into a spider-themed cyborg with massive cybernetic spider legs to move around and add to her frame, and the ability to ward off enemies with web-based abilities.

As for the other uh... 35 heroes...

Well, not getting into everybody in just one post, both for the sake of readability and (primarily) because I don't have everybody figured out yet. But, I'll hit the highlights I have figured out.

Let's start off with the obvious ones. Doomfist as a Damage hero. Because like. If it was fine for the five or so years that's how he was, it's fine for this AU. As much as I'd love to entertain the idea of that gauntlet somehow being used to heal people, I'm gonna take the easy out where I can. There's enough fun concepts to toy around with for the other nearly 40 characters, one lame answer is gonna be fine. No major story changes for him either, if his backstory was already considered to work fine as either a DPS or a Tank, then that's okay for my low standards to be lazy.

As for other forgone conclusions, there's a trio of Damage heroes that were already envisioned as Supports in one stage of development or another: Symmetra, Sombra, and Echo.

As long-time fans of the game know, Symmetra was a Support for the first few years of the game's life, but with a catch: she was the only Support in the game's lifespan to never have a direct means of healing teammates. She launched with an ability to marginally increase the health of allies, which was traded out for an ability similar to an automatic version of Sigma's barrier. However, when the game was updated to include a built-in "looking for group feature" (which has since been removed as of OW2 due to. reasons.), the character select screen got some changes to match the changing perspectives of what the playerbase saw in each role. The arbitrary distinction between "Offense" and "Defense" heroes was axed in favor of a simple "Damage" role, and Supports were now all expected to have some means of directly and consistently healing allies, so she was reworked more significantly ever before or since into her Damage role. Symmetra was let back ever so briefly into the Support role as part of an Experimental card update with changes suggested by a select few major community members. Support main streamer ML7 was given the Support role to suggest changes for, and in the most drastic change of the whole update, was moved into the Support role, with the one major change that her turrets were changed to heal allies instead of damage enemies. This concept didn't go too far for Symmetra, but I wouldn't be too surprised if this didn't go to inspire a certain new support with a healing deployable. The fact that there's also a Support who's a former Vishkar student who uses hard light and has repositioning utility now also makes the concept of Support Symmetra in the real game feel... slightly redundant, but hey, while we're dreaming here, might as well indulge myself.

Sombra and Echo meanwhile have only ever been in the Damage role (er. "Offense" in the case of Sombra at her release), but were both at least considered to be Supports at some time or another in their development. With Sombra there's some vestigial remnants of it in her gameplay design, as with Hack she was built to be more of a "disabler" than the assassin she was retrofitted to be in Overwatch 2. With Echo though, the main thing that has me move her to Support is more just her visual design. Her personality and shape language just scream "kind helper", and I'm convinced the only reason she's a Damage hero is because they thought Duplication was "too cool" of an ultimate to be "wasted" on a support, or at least would encourage too aggressive of play to fit that kind of playstyle (I know I'd be a little mad if my co-healer went on the flank to turn into a Reinhardt and drop from the sky onto the enemy backline while leaving me to heal the other 3-4 people on our team). Either way, the rest of her kit has always felt kind of bland to me, and while I can appreciate it now it still feels like a bit of a waste for a character that can hypothetically do uh... anything?

So yeah, those three are just no-brainers for me. I've already made somewhat thorough concepts for them as Supports that I'm likely going to touch up to fit to my newer higher standards. I don't have any major visual or story changes for them either. Again, if I had it my way they'd already be Supports in the current real game, that's how close I think they are to just working as-is.

Again, this is largely a gameplay-focused AU, as unique of a thing that is to see (at least on this site). The story changes are largely meant to be in service of explaining the gameplay changes, because as someone who's honestly not thaaaaat invested in the story side of things (at least by tumblr.com standards) but feels at least moderately qualified to discuss the gameplay part of the... game, it's just what's easier for me to wrap my head around. It's also I suppose closer to how most official heroes are designed in the first place, which satiates my irrational desire for "professionality" or whatever you'd call it.

This post is already getting long so I'll just wrap up this one with more of a... I guess "concept" that makes this AU kind of awkward?

See, full confession here: Damage is my least favorite role by a somewhat considerable margin. Largely because I suck at the super aim-intensive characters, or because my skillset just works better when I have the kinds of buffers built in to the characters who specialize specifically in not dying, but it's also because I kind of just think they're boring, at least in a design sense. There's something special to how Tanks or Supports are designed, but I don't really feel it as much with Damage heroes. Part of the issue is that while the other roles have to balance unique objectives on top of dealing damage (unless you're like. Lifeweaver, he can be helpful enough without dealing damage or damage boosting). Meanwhile Damage heroes just gotta. Deal damage. I mean, their kits are slightly more geared towards confirming kills and being aggressive on their own, but I dunno, it just doesn't have the same "magic" to it. Then again, probably just a skill issue.

But uh, yeah Damage is kind of easy in this AU, because you kinda just. Take away parts of their kit.

Another weird thing about the Damage role here is that because there's 17 Damage heroes, 11 Tanks, and 10 Supports, that means there's a lot of Damage heroes going out from there and into the other roles, but not as much going into the Damage role (considering some Tanks are going to Support and vice versa), which ironically makes the issue of there not being enough Damage heroes in the final roster. I've got some fun ideas for Damage "requeues" (sure we're going with that as the official term for these reworks), but just a heads up that some of them might not be as interesting as others.

Anyways yeah, that's just me getting out some of the basic reworks and more general concepts, next post from me should be briefly going over some of the actual ideas I have. wooooooooo back to back long posts

[vgckwb]

P5R: Rebel Girl (A FeMC Story/P5R Rework) Chapter 224: Who You Are

Thursday, on her way to school, Ren got a message.

Yusuke: Pardon me, but you do remember the exhibit was today, correct?

Ren: Correct.

Yusuke: Do you think you could accompany me once again?

Ren: Of course!

Ren: Should I meet you at Kosei or the museum?

Yusuke: Just head straight to the museum.

Yusuke: I have to be there early to organize a few things.

Ren: Gotcha.

Ren: Do you want the others to come?

Yusuke: Of course! Why didn’t I think of that?

Yusuke: Hold on.

Yusuke started messaging the group chat.

Yusuke: I have an exhibit today. I’ve already invited Ren, but does anyone else want to come?

Makoto: Oh…

Yusuke: What’s the matter?

Makoto: Well, I was just thinking, we need to whip up a calling card for sis.

Makoto: We’re on the cusp of the deadline, and we need to make one soon.

Yusuke: I see…

Yusuke: Well, I can make the design at least and hand it off to Jose to give it to you.

Jose: Are you sure?

Yusuke: Positive.

Ryuji: And I’m guessing you want me to write the first draft once again.

Ann I can come with you to give you moral support.

Ryuji: Thanks babe.

Makoto: So, do you want me to put on the finishing touches?

Lena: She’s your sister.

Makoto: Very well then.

Lena: I have club activities, so I can’t join you today.

Lena: I’ve been learning how to balance everything, but it is a lot.

Sumire: I know what you mean.

Sumire: I’m heading to practice today as well.

Haru: There’s a meeting at Okumura Foods that I promised I’d be at.

Haru: So I can’t join you either.

Ren: Well, we don’t all need to be there.

Ren: I already agreed to accompany Yusuke.

Futaba: I think one of us needs to be at Leblanc in order for Sojiro to let us use it.

Ren You can do that, right?

Futaba: Of course!

Makoto: Well, it seems like we have a plan going forward.

Makoto: Remember: a lot is riding on this. One false move, and everything goes up in smoke

Ren: Right.

Ren: I’m positive we’ve made the right calculations.

Makoto: I sure hope you’re right.

Futaba: Who do you think we’re talking about here?

Futaba: Us Phantom Thieves have done the impossible time and time again.

Futab: We can thread this needle too!

Makoto: Thanks Futaba.

Ren put her phone away, and continued on to school.

After school, she went to the museum as recommended. She looked around and saw the fervor and excitement of the exhibition. Yusuke noticed her from the corner of her eye. He turned to her. “Ah Ren! Perfect timing!” Ren smiled, and headed over towards Yusuke. He smirked. “Behold: ‘A Beacon of Light in The Garden of Madness’!”

Ren looked at it. The edges looked similar to the last painting, desolate, uninviting, and withered. But in the center, there was a beam of light. The area of the Garden that has been touched in light feels calmer, more inviting, more beautiful. “Wow,” she remarked. “You really outdone yourself!”

“Why thank you,” Yusuke replied. Tell me, what do you like about it?”

“I mean,” Ren began, “I see the effort from your last painting, and how you built on that. I can see the vitriol of the world, but I can also see that where there is light, there is comfort, and it really tells me a lot about your outlook. The world may be rotten, but wherever you find your light, the world feels whole.”

“Couldn’t have said it better myself,” Kawanabe said. The two of them turned towards him as he approached. “Really, it’s head and shoulders above what you entered last time.”

Yusuke got defensive. “And I didn’t need your help to do it.”

“Did you now?” Kawanabe retorted.

Yusuke was puzzled. Ren took a second, but she understood. “Wait…You said all of that on purpose to motivate Yusuke, didn’t you?”

Kawanabe chuckled. “Guilty as charged.”

Yusuke was stunned. “So…that was a ploy to draw out my inner artist.”

Kawanabe nodded. “And it seems like it worked.” He looked at the painting once again. “Honestly, it reminds me of back when Madarame made his own works.” Yusuke and Ren were puzzled. “That is a compliment. Although I understand it not coming across.”

“No…” Yusuke said. “I suppose Madarame was a real artist in his own right at some point. I wish I got to see that side of him.”

“Did you know him?” Ren asked.

Kawanabe nodded. “He and I went to school together. Honestly, perhaps I could have stopped him from falling prey to his worst instincts. However, his descent was slow enough where I didn’t recognize it as such until it was too late. Hindsight is 20/20, I suppose.”

“It’s not your fault,” Yusuke said. “It’s nobody’s fault but his. And thanks to The Phantom Thieves, he’ll never do it again.”

Kawanabe nodded. “Are they perhaps your ‘Beacon of Light’?”

“Well, at first,” Yusuke said. “But over time as I started making new friends, and getting more encouragement from that, I have found them to be my ‘Beacon’.”

“How interesting,” Kawanabe said. “Now that I’m thinking about it Madarame used to ask me for help all the time.”

“He did?” Yusuke said.

“But the last time he did so,” Kawanabe continued, “was a while ago.” He looked intently at Yusuke. “He gave me a call because a child he was taking care of was sick. ‘Kawanabe!’ he pleaded. ‘Yusuke is sick, and I don’t know what to do!’”

Yusuke was shocked. “M-Me? He cared about me?” Kawanabe nodded. “It seems like he did. At least for a while. I can’t speak on your living condition during that time as much as you can though.”

Yusuke paused. “It…wasn’t all bad. But I always had fear in my heart. Once everything was said and done, I finally stopped being afraid. But perhaps that’s what gave me my artist’s block. Like a child eating as much candy as they want, only for them to get a stomach ache once everything was said and done. The freedom of not being in Madarame’s clutches let me run wild before I could even define myself outside of that.”

“How mature,” Kawanabe said. “I do have to admit something though.” Yusuke was curious. “Not everything I said at the sushi place was a lie necessarily. If you want, I can still support you through my foundation. Just…a little more hands off.”

Yusuke took it in. He took a deep breath, and said “I’m afraid I must decline for the time being.” Kawanabe was surprised this time. “Right now, I need to focus on what I want. I want to continue to evolve my work on my own terms. Perhaps when I am ready, I may accept.”

Kawanabe smiled. “Well, whenever you are ready, here’s my business card.” Yusuke took it. “Well, I should go. There’s plenty of other talent on display here.” He headed off.

“I’m surprised you said no,” Ren said.

“Well, I was tempted,” Yusuke admitted. “However, I feel like I still need to work on defining myself more. Even though this was a rousing success, I cannot let this go to my head. I need to always be chasing what’s next. And when the time comes where the Japanese Art Support Foundation is on the horizon, I shall chase it!”

Ren giggled. “I have to agree. You’ve become a lot more mature.”

Yusuke smirked, and then pouted. “Madarame is a…complicated person. Obviously, he was a monster that needed to be dealt with. However, I cannot deny that there was kindness in him. As Phantom Thieves, I wish to work with you to cultivate a world that thrives in that kindness, instead of causing others to retreat into bitterness.” He extended his hand. Ren shook it, smiling.

I am thou, thou art I

Thou hast turned a vow into a blood oath.

Thy bond shall become the wings of rebellion and break the yoke of thy heart.

Thou hast awakened to the ultimate secret of the Emperor, granting thee infinite power…

Emperor-Yusuke Kitagawa: Rank 10

Inside Yusuke, a powerful force was manifesting itself. His Persona, Goemon, was changing. Evolving. It froze over before shattering, and his persona grew alongside him, becoming Kamu Susano-o.

How wonderful! Truly a beautiful first step towards a better tomorrow. I shall cherish this moment with all my heart.

Once Yusuke and Ren finished shaking hands, Ren remarked “I have to say, great covering your tracks on that Phantom Thieves question.”

“Hm. Well, you can never be too careful,” Yusuke said. “Let’s look around. I want to see what I’m up against.” Ren nodded. The two of them headed off through the museum, looking at the different paintings, and appreciating them in their own ways.

Meanwhile, after school, Makoto was heading out, when Eiko caught up with her. Hey!” Eiko said.

“Oh!” Makoto replied, surprised.

“Do you have any student council business to attend to?” Eiko asked.

“Well, no,” Makoto admitted. “However, I have…other things.”

EIko was confused for a moment, but then got it. “OH! You mean…” She glanced around, and then whispered “Phantom Thieves things?”

Makoto nodded. “And this one is big.”

“How big?” Eiko asked.

“Very,” Makoto said. “Both for us as a whole…and me…”

“I’m sure it can’t be that bad,” Eiko said. “I mean, it’s not like you’re going after your sister or anything.” Makoto looked at her seriously and nodded. Eiko gasped. “You’re going after your sister?!”

“Shhhhhhhhhhh!” Makoto warned her. She glanced around, seeing no one noticing. “That’s correct.”

“When?” Eiko wondered.

“Saturday,” Makoto answered.

“Yikes!” Eiko reacted.

“But furthermore, there’s a lot riding on this,” Makoto said. “What happens because of this will change the course of the entire country.”

“How?” Eiko asked.

Makoto seemed nervous. “Well…I think it’s better if we explain it once we’re out of here. Besides, I don’t want to keep them waiting.”

Eiko was stunned. “Are you sure?”

Makoto nodded. “I brought you into my house. I shouldn’t have to cause more chaos than necessary.”

Eiko hugged Makoto. “It’s OK. I know you care for me.”

Makoto smiled and blushed. She gave EIko a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks. We should head out.” Eiko let go, nodded, and the two of them left the school.

Once they arrived in Leblanc, Ryuji, Ann, Jose, and Futaba were all waiting there, along with Sojiro behind the counter. “Oh, hey Makoto!” Ryuji said. “Are you ready?”

“Well, almost,” Makoto said. She walked in, and EIko followed behind her.

Ann was curious. “Who’s this?”

“This is EIko,” Makoto explained. “My girlfriend.”

Eiko was shocked. “You told them?”

“I…” Makoto said, nervously, “I had to. I’m sorry!”

“No, it’s OK,” Eiko said. “They’re your friends, right?”

Makoto nodded. “Right.” She sighed. “This is all new to me. I mean, I also had to tell you about The Phantom Thieves, but they need to know who else knows just to be safe, and-”

“Shhhhhhhhhhhh,” Eiko said, pressing a finger up to her lips. “I just said it was OK, remember?”

Eiko backed her finger from Makoto’s mouth. “Right…” Makoto replied. She chuckled.

“Well good for you two!” Futaba said. “But we should get to the matter at hand.”

Makoto nodded. “Right.” She smiled. “Eiko, this is Jose, Futaba, Ryuji, and Ann. And that’s Sojiro. He’s Futaba’s dad.”

“I see,” Eiko said. “Hello.” Everyone greeted her back. Makoto smiled. She sat down. EIko sat down next to her. “So, is this everyone?”

Makoto shook her head. “We’re missing some people. It’s a pretty busy day.”

“And from what I can tell, it’s going to get busier,” Eiko remarked.

Jose looked over at Makoto. “How much did you tell her?”

“I explained the basic overview,” Makoto answered. “But maybe we can walk her through some of the finer details.” Everyone looked at her a little stunned. “Guys, she lives with me. Anything that happens with my sister at least has a tertiary effect on her.”

“Fair enough,” Futaba said. “I mean, when I was in trouble you let Sojiro in.”

“True…” Ann said.

“Oh yeh!” Makoto said. “Did you want anything? This is a cafe.”

“Hmmm,” Eiko said. “I’ll just take a coffee.”

Makoto turned over to Sojiro. “I’ll take one as well, Boss.”

“Sure thing!” Sojiro said. “Comin’ right up!” He went to prepare their order.

“So, how ‘bout I start writing while everyone else fills in Eiko about what’s going on?” Ryuji offered.

“Is it because you don’t know what’s going on?” Futaba teased.

“Hey!” Ryuji snapped. “I know what's going on.”

“Yeah,” Jose added. “He wouldn’t be in charge of drafting if he wasn’t.”

“Thank you, Jose!” Ryuji said.

Futaba pouted. “...I’m sorry.”

Ann giggled. “It’s OK, Futaba.”

“I thought you were here to support me,” Ryuji said.

“I am,” Ann said. “But Futaba needs support too.”

Ryuji pouted. “I can’t deny that…” Eiko chuckled. “What’s up?”

“It’s just,” Eiko said, “you’re all so fun. On the surface, you all seem different, but I can see why you’re all friends.”

Makoto smiled. “Thanks.” Eiko giggled some more. “But I think we should explain what’s going on.” Eiko nodded. They proceeded to explain everything surrounding Sae’s Palace and the accusations laid at the feet of the SIU director, and how they intertwine.

Eiko was stunned. “Wow. That’s a lot…”

“Yeah,” Makoto said. “Honestly I’m a little glad you’re not on the frontlines of all of this.”

Eiko grabbed Makoto’s hand. “If you’re that worried, should I be worried about you?”

“Well…” Makoto said.

“Are you kidding?” Ann said. “She’s one of the toughest members on our team!”

“Yeah!” Ryuji added. “She’s the Fist of The Phantom Star!” Makoto glared at him. “Eeek!”

“Do you have the draft finished, Ryuji?” Makoto asked, intensely.

“Y-yes ma’am!” Ryuji said. He handed it over.

Jose looked over at Ann and Ryuji. “I will say, Makoto and Eiko bring up a good point. How do you two deal with your significant other being in the middle of all of this.”

This caught Ryuji and Ann off-guard. “You two are dating?” Eiko asked.

“Yes,” Ann answered, embarrassed.

“Yeah,” Ryuji agreed. “Well, um, to answer the question, while I do worry, I just worry a lot in general. I mean, I know a lot of the things I went through, and I know what she went through as well. But I know that she’s strong, almost to a surprising degree. When Ann wants something, she is determined to do it. Plus, she’s been a Phantom Thief longer than I have, so who am I to say she should stop.”

Ann giggled. “Thanks, babe.” Ryuji smiled and blushed. “As for me, nothing about this situation is ideal. I mean, we are all putting our lives on the line, but we all agreed to it. Our leader even cautions everyone about the risks, but we still agreed to it. Besides, we aren't alone. We have each other, and that puts my mind at ease. If Ryuji was out there by himself doing this, I’d be pale as a ghost. But with everyone else, I can relax more; relatively speaking, at least.”

Eiko chuckled. “Well, it’s a good thing I’m meeting you all then, huh,” she remarked.

“I guess it is,” Ann said.

“Yeah,” Ryuji said. “I can’t wait for you to meet everyone else!”

“Me either,” Futaba chimed in. “You seem nice.”

“Thanks,” Eiko replied.

“Alright,” Makoto said. “I think I’ve got it. Jose?” Jose handed her the card.

Eiko was stunned. “Do you design the cards?”

Jose shook his head. “That’s someone else. But I go to school with them.”

“You have another kid on your team?” Eiko remarked.

“No,” Makoto said. “He’s actually a prodigy. He goes to Kosei.”

“Ohhhhhhhh!” Eiki replied. “I see.” She turned back to Jose. “Well, you must be impressive.”

Jose blushed. “Well, I do what I can. He he.”

“Woah!” Futaba said. “Be careful Makoto. It seems like you might have some competition.”

Makoto chuckled. “Somehow, I think I’ll manage.”

“Yeah,” Jose said.”I don’t want to break a couple up.” Everyone shared a laugh. They continued talking for a while, eating and drinking as well, while Makoto put the finishing touches on the calling card. However, when evening rolled around, people started leaving. Still, it was a fun and productive meeting.

Meanwhile, after Yusuke split off from Ren to head back to Kosei, she got a text message.

Haru: Um, are you finished with Yusuke’s exhibit?

Ren: Yeah.

Haru: Oh.

Haru: I just got out of my meeting. I was going to try and come by and see it.

Ren: It’ll be up for a bit.

Haru: Well that’s good to hear.

Haru: But as long as you’re available, do you mind helping me with something?

Ren: What’s up?

Haru: I just want to go out and find some books down in Jinbocho.

Haru: But I also have a lot on my mind.

Ren: Sure thing.

Ren: Meet you there?

Haru: Yes.

Ren: Seeya soon.

Haru: See you soon.

Ren put her phone away, and headed out.

A little later, Ren met up with Haru in Jinbocho. “Hey there!”

Haru smiled. “Hello.”

“So, what are we looking for?” Ren inquired.

“I’m here looking for books on management, as well as seeing if I can find some books on growing vegetables,” Haru explained.

“Sounds simple enough,” Ren said. “Let’s go.” The two began shopping around. “So, what’s on your mind?”

Haru paused. “Well… I was in that meeting today, right?” Ren nodded. “It occurred to me that because of everything that happened, I don’t have a grasp on managing the company. I mean, I was set to be married off to someone who would do that for me. How can I guide the company with my vision if I don’t know how to guide a company in the first place, you know?”

“Well…” Ren replied, “I think if you’re giving it this much thought, you’re not going in the wrong direction at least.”

Haru smiled. “Thank you.” She frowned. “I want to be able to do more. All my life, I was told what I could or couldn’t do. I mean, I’ve rebelled when I thought I could get away with it, but I never felt like I had true freedom until recently. But even then, I got a lot placed on my shoulders. I feel like the easy thing to do would be to give up, but I don’t want to give up until I explain what I want.”

“You shouldn’t have to give up,” Ren assured her. “Like you said, you’re only now feeling your unlimited potential. You should have the freedom to choose what you want”

Haru smiled. “Thank you. I’m sorry. I keep bringing you into all of this.”

“What are friends for?” Ren retorted.

“True,” Haru said. “It is nice to have someone to talk to. I have Hiroki, and I’ve had him for a while, but we were never really open with each other. But that’s changed a little now too, I suppose.”

“Again, it’s your life,” Ren assured her. “Whatever you want.” Haru chuckled. They continued looking through the stores.

Upon seeing a gardening book, Haru went to reach for it, when she noticed someone else was grabbing it as well. “Sorry!” She said. She looked over, and saw that the other person was Hiroki

“Oh, uh, it’s alright,” he said. “I mean, I guess it makes sense. You are the one in the gardening club.”

Haru chuckled. “What brings you out here?”

“Well…” Hiroki replied. “Makoto-senpai is placing her trust in me to run the student council next year. So I came here to find books about leadership. Plus, I think I might start getting into gardening again, so I wanted to find some books for help on that.”

“I see,” Haru said.

“What about you?” Hiroki asked. “Are you here looking for gardening books too?”

“Well, yes, but,” Haru began.  Ren snickered quietly. “I’m also looking for books on leadership and management. I mean, I am hoping one day to manage Okumura Foods.”

“Oh. RIght,” Hiroki said. “Boy, this is a coincidence, huh.”

“You’re telling me,” Haru remarked.

“Are you done?!” a condescending voice said. Hiroki’s brother started coming over. “I can only ait for so long. I’m starting toge- YOU!” he noticed Haru. “WHy did your father have the AUDACITY to break off our engagement?!”

“I asked him to,” Haru responded.

“Since when did he listen to you?” Haru’s ex-fiance replied. “Do you really think you can manage a company all by your lonesome?”

Haru glanced away, unsure. “She’d do it better than you any day of the week,” Hiroki chimed in, surprising everyone. “I mean, your only skill is sitting there and looking pretty. You can’t even tell the difference between a stock and a bond.”

Hiroki’s brother glared at him. “Since when did you have a backbone?”

“You’re just now noticing my disdain for you?” Hiroki retorted. “Like I said: sit there. Look pretty.”

Hiroki’s brother scowled. “Oh please. You think you're better than me?”

“No. I know I’m better than you,” Hiroki shot back.

Hiroki’s brother grew angrier. “Wait until father hears about this.”

“Trust me,” Hiroki replied. “It’s not going to be new information to him.”

“Then why does he like me more?” Hiroki’s brother gloated.

“Because you’re a puppet,” Hiroki said. “He’ll tell you to do something and you do it, no questions asked. You say I never had a spine before? When was the last time you talked with dad without bending the knee?”

Hiroki’s brother grew furious. He raised his hand to smack Hiroki, but Haru stepped in and caught it. “Let’s not make a scene!” she demanded. She kept gripping his arm. “You can air out your disdain for each other on your own time. But right now, people are here shopping. I can’t imagine this would look good for you, or your father, if a brawl erupted here.”

Hiroki’s brother glared at her. He broke out of her grasp, shanking his arm, before settling down, at least physically. “You do have a point. Still, I hope you’ll reconsider.”

Haru continued her intense gaze. “I respect you enough to tell you that I think you could be competent enough to run a business. However, you are such a miserable person that I would rather spend time with The Devil himself than with you.”

Hiroki’s brother glared at her some more. “I see those devilish Phantom Thieves got you as well. No matter. We’ll see where you stand when the angels come. Perhaps if you beg, I’ll take you back.”

“Maybe you should go,” Haru said. “Before I decide to ‘make a scene’.” She clenched her fist.

“Hmph,” her ex-fiance scoffed. “I guess I’ll head back to the car then.” He turned to Hiroki. “Hurry up asshole.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” Hiroki replied. “Or do. I don’t care either way.” Hiroki’s brother headed out. Hiroki turned to Haru. “Sorry about all that.”

“It’s OK,” Haru said. “I know he’s an unpleasant person. You don’t have to apologize for him.”

“Well, true…” Hiroki agreed. “But I'm also talking about…well...I know you can defend yourself. I just stepped in because…”

Haru smiled. “It’s OK. I appreciate it. To be honest, I’m not sure how well I’d do managing a business. So thank you for sticking up for me.”

Hiroki was taken aback. “Oh, uh, thanks,” he said, blushing.

“Do you want to continue looking for books together?” Haru asked.

Hiroki paused, and then shook his head. “As much as I want to make my brother write in agony, I think I do need to get going soon. I can pick up gardening books some other time. Seeya!” He started to leave.

“Wait!” Haru called out. Hiroki turned back. “Um, I’m willing to let you borrow any books I find interesting. If that’s OK.”

Hiroki smiled. “Yeah. That’s great!”

Haru giggled. “Talk to you soon, OK?”

“OK,” Hiroki nodded. He left.

Haru sighed. “Hey,” Ren said. Haru looked over. “How are you feeling?”

“Well…” Haru said. “Oddly, refreshed. My father broke things off with my fiance, so I never got to tell him how I felt. This gave me the opportunity. But I’m still a little conflicted.”

“Well, for what it’s worth,” Ren began, “I think this proves you have what it takes to lead.”

“What do you mean?” Haru wondered.

“Well,” Ren answered, “you managed to deescalate a conflict. You said what you wanted, and remained firm throughout.”

“Well, I needed help at the beginning,” Haru admitted.

“Speaking as someone who’s been leading ‘those devilish Phantom Thieves’ for a while,” Ren remarked, “a good leader will admit when they need help.”

Haru smiled. “I see.” She went into deep thought. “I guess I always saw my father as this be-all end-all figure. I didn’t think he was the paradigm of true leadership, but I never understood what exactly his failings were. I suppose that needs some thought given to it as well.” She pouted. “I only have a few months before I graduate to figure everything out.”

“Ehhhhh,” Ren groaned. “I don’t know about that.” Haru was confused. “I’m not saying you’re not smart, but I imagine that you would want to learn more. You know, go to college, get a degree? I don’t think running a business is something you dive headfirst into.”

Haru smiled. “You’re right. I do need to work on taking those first few steps though. If I want to be the leader of Okumura Foods, I need to give people an outline of what the plan is at the very least before I go off to college.”

Ren nodded. “And who knows? Perhaps they’ll be really helpful. You told me you like having people to talk to about things. Maybe talking with them will yield similar results.”

Haru giggled. “I guess you’re right. But like you said a good leader knows when to ask for help, and well, I did ask you to accompany me today. So I think I’m in a better spot than I thought I was. So thank you.”

Empress-Haru Okumura: Rank 5

Haru grabbed the book she and Hiroki grabbed for earlier. “It’s getting a bit late. I think we should wrap up this shopping trip. This has been fun though.” Ren nodded, and the two went to check out, and head home for the night.

[notoriouslydevious]

Canon & Uncanon (Mainly Couples) Things In League of Legends

(Hetero): Xayah-Rakan Senna-Lucian Ashe-Tryndamere Exes:  Illaoi-GP *Viego-Isolde (like.. they WERE married but doesn’t she hate him for bringing her back to life? Like idk what their dynamic is. Divorced? Idfk) LGBTQ:  Vi-Caitlyn Leona-Diana Single Pringles:  Literally everyone else I didnt mention Single Fruity Pringles:  Rell (Bisexual) Neeko (Lesbian) Canon (Runeterra) Crushes:  Ezreal => Lux* (he also has a flirty lines with Xayah, “Well hello, Xayah. You should know I’m pro-Vastayan Rights.”  To Rakan, “So... Rakan, how serious are you and Xayah? Just asking.” Dont know if I’d consider that a crush though) Zoe => Ezreal Neeko => Nidalee, Shyvana, Xayah* (”Neeko might have a thing for birds.. and bird people) Ekko => Jinx (at least apparently he used to, “before she started talking to the gun”) Rumble => Tristana *Lux HAD a crush on Sylas... until he tried to kill Jarvan IV, Garen and then her for not joining his rebellion. (at least that’s how it reads to me) 

Canon Relationships in other Skin Universes:  Zed-Karma (Odyssey, they’re Exes) Ekko-Ezreal (Pulsefire)  Ezreal-Lux (Battle Academia) Yasuo-Riven (Dawnbringer/Nightbringer) Legends of Runeterra:  Garen-Katarina (have multiple interactions talking about secret rendezvous) Nami (Pansexual - Legends of Runeterra, writer confirms two of the cards are her boyfriend and girlfriend. Good for her ♥) Kalista-Ledros (lovers) Shyvana-Jarvan

Unsure/Unconfirmed/Scrapped Before Release/ No Longer Canon: Shaco (bi): scrapped, journal of justice Pantheon-Leona: (scrapped, got retconned after Pantheon rework)  Twisted Fate-Graves (scrapped before release: they were supposed to be in a relationship before release but Riot censored it to just “partners in crime.” Community mainly considers them canon anyway.) Twisted Fate-Evelynn (old journal of justice relationship) Janna-Summoner (journal of justice relationship and “summoners” arent a thing anymore) Taliyah being trans (another instance of scrapping before release, but they still have the line with Neeko saying to her, “Neeko isn’t the only one who changes” so like??? make up your minds, rito???) Taric ..  Riot’s never stated his sexuality (but a lot of people like to headcanon that he is Gay or Pansexual). Seems like the Taric subreddit just thinks of him as a chad who’s too beautiful for anyone (so Asexual?). Fiora: So.. some redditors look at Swain’s line after collecting her soul,  "She's spurned so many suitors. A wonder they did not see why." hinting that she’s either lesbian or aro.  Syndra-Zed (he’s in the backing animation of her withered rose skin, old ship that really doesnt get any love or attention)  Varus: has two gay lovers in him but I dont think the champion in game is gay. Popular Uncanon ships:  SG Lux & SG Jinx Aphelios-Sett  Taric-Ezreal (dont see this ship too much these days though) Zed-Shen Warwick-Soraka Soraka-Ezreal Nami-Nautilus (according to my bf this was a thing waaay back in the day) Kayn-Zed Evelynn-Akali Kai’sa-Seraphine Ahri-Kai’sa Literally everyone in kda with each other, just a biiiiiiiiiig orgy fest Seraphine-Rell Nami-Jhin Sona-Jhin Coven Evelynn - Coven Ahri Coven Evelynn - Coven Morgana Sona-Thresh Sona-Mordekaiser Ashe-Sejuani Kai’sa-Sivir (thank @/ichiro-artosaki) Quinn-Darius Akali-Shen (apparently they didnt have as big of an age gap before her rework, in old lore she was the fist of shadow instead of now her mom?) Ashe-Draven (you can thank @/ask-le-ali-di-demacia for both of these ships) Sona-Lee Sin Sona-Kayn (also @/ask-le-ali-di-demacia) Sona-Ezreal Sona-Jarvan (sona is the katara of league and she’s been shipped with literally everyone at this point) Janna-Yasuo Riven-Yasuo Odyssey Kayn-Odyssey Jinx Heartpuncher Vi-Heartpiercer Fiora Talon-Katarina (ooooold ship that no one draws anymore)  Kai’sa-Ezreal (literally only because of the Awaken Cinematic) Sylas-Lux Zoe-Kayn Ahri-Yasuo Ahri-Yone Lillia-Yone Zac-Riven (apparently when Zac was released a dude, nielspeterdejong on deviantart, commissioned a WHOOOOLE bunch of riven-zac fanart.) Sona-Kayn (kinda because of Odyssey, Kayn searching the galaxy to find her for some reason) Shadow Assassin Kayn-Shadow Evelynn Kayn-Akali (though she does flirt with him in the Zed comic) Ori-Blitz bc robots Veigar-Lulu (I think this ship is absolutely adorable)  Ahri-Sona (saw this a loooong time ago, think it was when they were both like the poster girls of league) Neeko-Nidalee Nidalee-Rengar Kalista-Thresh Irelia-Kayn Swain-Leblanc (someone mentioned that there’s hints in their lore that they’re screwing but idk)  Swain-Lux (knew one person that drew this and I liked their art... sadly havent seen them posting very often since they were outed for tracing)  Viktor-Jayce Gwen-Shaco (Apparently some people were shipping them when she first came out?) Gwen-Viego Viego-Akshan Xayah-Sett Elise-Zyra (ooooold ship, I thought they were cute) Akali-Irelia Talon-Quinn  (BASICALLY literally every champion gets shipped with another at some point)

Adding in this take from Queens of League reddit & AphroQiyana on Twitter:

Source: Queens of League

Neeko’s sexuality was confirmed EVERYWHERE, just not in the client (because countries like China & Russia; wlw & mlm relationships are banned) 

Source: literally just google neeko lgbtq

Source: AphroQiyana Riot says they’re going to put more LGBTQ STORIES out there (can’t make more lgbtq champs bc China) but uk, it is what it is. 

AT THE END OF THE DAY, SHIP WHAT YOU WANT TO SHIP!~ So what if it’s not canon? THAT’S ALL I GOTTA SAY. (also PLEASE LET ME KNOW ABOUT YOUR GUILTY PLEASURE SHIPS!!!)

[clotpole-art]

Retrospective: Illustrated Merlin Alphabet Challenge

Finally finished the Merlin Alphabet Challenge, so here's the artist notes no one asked for! See below the cut for comments on each piece by order of creation. Be warned folks, it's a long post.

Before we begin: credit to @merlin-gifs for the challenge, which can be found here. It's awesome, go do it.

First thing you should know is I did probably 80-90% of these while on phone calls or in Zoom meetings and that's reflected in the simplicity of most pieces -- the compositions aren't complicated, the lines aren't refined, the coloring is slapdash. If you noticed variation in quality of the pieces, that's why!

Second: I tried to focus on trying something new for each drawing. Didn't always happen, but this challenge did succeed in helping me push me out of my own comfort zone.

Without further ado...

A is for Arthur Pendragon

Textures, baby! Brushed metal of his armor, scratchy linen texture of his shirt, wispy softness of hair and skin. I'd recently gotten my tablet out of storage after a year of figuring out where the hell I was going to live and this was one of the first pieces of digital art I spent time on. Glad it was Arthur kicking us off!

B is for the Beginning of the End (1x08)

Fun fact, I did not draw this with my tablet. I drew it with my work computer's touchscreen. It was awful, would not recommend.

C is for Camelot

I wanted to get used to different brushes, so landscape of the castle it was! There are brushes that help with drawing grass; I did not use said brushes and my wrist hurt afterward. That being said, I really enjoyed working on this and it was one of the few pieces I didn't do while multitasking.

D is for Daegal

Also drawn on my work computer's touchscreen, not my tablet. I didn't learn my lesson from B and the experience was even worse. This is my least favorite piece which sucks because it's Daegal so I'm slated to redo this sometime in the near future. Gotta do our boy justice.

E is for Elyan

Oh, I adored drawing this. Elyan often gets shafted in terms of fandom appreciation so I made sure to choose Elyan for this prompt and to participate in the Elyan fest. Plus, I love a good ghost story and figuring out a way to include the druid spectre was fun. Didn't multitask on this piece because Elyan deserved my full attention.

F is for Freya

Ho boy. This piece. I have such mixed feelings on this drawing. Really really didn't like it after I'd decided it was done and very nearly scrapped the whole thing. I had a vision in my head that I just couldn't render into reality and it frustrated me SO MUCH. Looking back, I like it much better than I did when I first created it.

G is for Gwaine

What can I say, he's pretty when he's cold. I didn't stretch too much with this one -- it's my normal drawing style, I was just trying to find a brush that mimicked the softness of pencil.

H is for Hunith

Another one that didn't stray too far from my comfort zone. I was stupid sick and slammed at work, so a motherly Hunith manifested herself. I blame the bad brush choice on the cold medicine.

I is for Isolde

I woke up and chose violence! Tried to vary my figure drawing style a little in this piece but my brain resisted, resulting in... this. Not mad at it, but not happy with it either. Poor Isolde.

J is for Juggling

Ah, this lovely piece was drawn during a particularly vexing meeting at work. Fun fact, there's another version of this line art that's less about Merlin's stress and more about mine.

K is for Knights of Camelot

Continuing the theme of doodling through bad news and shit meetings. Like I said above, normally meeting doodles aren't complex because I'm concentrating on something else. This one was more involved because I didn't want to concentrate on the meeting. I have a few issues with this from a technical standpoint (perspective, my nemesis) but it's still one of my favorites. Tried some funky coloring technique, didn't hate it.

V is for Vibrant Colors

And here is where we said fuck the rules and started going out of alphabetical order! This one was really fun to do and I loved kicking off Albion Party with this as my first submission. The colors were a challenge (as I hoped they would be) and this is the first time I had to do some color tweaking midway though and after finishing the coloring process. Vibrant Arthur, my beloved. This started as a multitask doodle but took dedicated time to finish.

O is for Old Religion

The concept for this one was buzzing in my head for a bit before a quote-prompt solidified it. I adore the thought of more visible, tangible representations of Merlin as the son of the elements, of "magic itself" -- not just sun-gold eyes, but sea-water hair and sandstone-skin. A complement to the vibrant Arthur portrait.

S is for Sorcerers

When I said I wanted to challenge myself, I wasn't kidding. Ho boy, this was fun but frustrating. I wanted to completely illustrate a gif. So I did. Will I do something like this again? Maybe. A while from now.

M is for Morgause

See above -- same illustrated gif style so at least I was able to reuse some drawings. Poor Morgause ended up looking a little wretched here because I was mentally done with this when I was drawing her. Love the concept of tarot cards + Merlin but others are doing it so I won't continue this series.

Z is for Zzzz

This one was specifically done to test out some custom brushes I made in Krita to make abstract background drawing easier for me. I think they turned out well! Plus who doesn't love bb iridescent Aithusa.

L is for Leon, P is for Percival

Quick, minimal doodles of the boys! Mentally, I was going for a Brady's-style retro ensemble cast TV show credits feel. Not mad at it! Some boys look closer to their actors than others (I think my brain broke drawing Percy, my apologies to Tom Hopper).

T is for Tristan

It wasn't until after I posted this that I realized there was more than one Tristan in Merlin. Could have drawn Isolde's bf but I drew Ygraine's dumb jock undead brother instead. Had some fun with dark greys and blacks here regardless.

Q is for Queen Annis

Best royal in Albion, bar none. I tried a different coloring technique here and I kinda like it! may make it my go-to but we'll see. Old habits are hard to break. Also: our queen deserved more badass clothes.

X is for Arthur X Merlin

Oh, be still my shipper heart. Doodled and colored during a meeting. I had hoped to spend more time on it outside of multitasking but alas, work is a bitch. This one is slated for a rework sometime in the future; I adore the concept too much to let it go without creating another version of this that isn't an utter mess.

U is for Uther's Ward

And here's my attempt at forgoing line art. Not fun, do not like.

Y is for Young Warlock

Channeled some pain into this one. Those are the dead eyes of someone who had been told that he'd succeeded when his friend died. That the destiny he'd been expecting to carry on his shoulders into old age was done and dusted before he turned 30. Grief plus the existential dread of the aimless immortal. Oof. One of my favs.

N is for Nimueh, R is for Rising Sun, W is for Will

And we end on this sorry offering. I was away from home for a while without my tablet and I just got tired of waiting. So, pen doodles at the airport. This was a challenge in its own right because 1. pen only and 2. I wasn't able to pull Netflix up for a reference on the fly. Which is why Will's face is obscured and Nimueh looks.... not like Nimueh lol.

In summary: this was a goddamn joy to do. I finished 26 letter prompts in approximately 21 weeks, which exceeded my own unspoken goal of filling one letter per week. I found a good, happy corner of the Merlin fandom after a years-long hiatus away from being a fandom creator. If you did make it this far with me, thanks for reading my inane comments and giving this little project even a moment of your time -- I'm so grateful.

[dynam-patron-of-good-decisions]

Hey, i’ve been thinking way too much about how inscryption would work as a real life card game, so lets get into it

*This is for act 1, and thus only act 1 cards will be mentioned, but act 3 would work very similarly, with changes I (probably) will get into later, i’m not including act 2 as it is already a functioning card game, and doesn’t have anything special I could rework that isn’t in acts 1 or 3*

So, first off, cards. Cards would be the exact same, play something free, use it to summon something with blood or bones such on such forth. Cards would also have descriptions, including what their sigils do the little descriptions leshy gives them when you first see them, and some other important stuff such as ouroburos’s stat buff, the differing elder forms, and how many lives the many lives sigil grants among other things .

Sigils would be almost the same as well, except that it would say how many lives it does have on the card, trinket bearer gets a massive overhaul i’ll talk about in my next segment, fecundity has a max of 5 and ant spawner just lets you search for an ant in your deck. Stinky lowers the enemies attack by the cards attack.

Items are reworked massively, pack mule now also has trinket bearer, and when a card with trinket bearer is removed, the opponment can draw cards from their item deck, pack mules granting 3, pack llamas, a new card I made, giving 2, and the pack rats only having 1. you can hold a maxium of three items in your item zone, a place where your items are stored and shown to both you and your opponment, item abilities that have been changed are listed below, the rest function as their in game counterparts

Special dagger: Tip the scales 4 on your side, you cannot play the last three cards in your hand from left to right order Scissors: Destroy a creature on your oppoments side, unless it has a sigil which would prevent this Pliers: Tip the scales 1 on your side Failiure: Remove one of your opponments items Clover: Redraw a card from your deck Bee Totem: All squirrels now have 1/1 and flying, they also count as both rodents and insects for tribes Third Candle: Restore a life Deathcard: draw three cards, take the sigils, stats, and cost from the three of them and equip them to this card, place this card on the field 

Special Areas are included as item cards, they are listed below

Alter: Equip one card to another, it’s sigils transfer over, including any stipulations (such as the max amount on many lives, (equiping a many lives to a many lives will make the new amount the total of the other two) the ouroborus stat buff, etc.) Gold rush: Choose one card from your opponments hand, it is yours until the end of the game Woodcarver: Draw three cards, choose the class or sigil from two of them, now all members of that class have that sigil, shuffle all cards back in your deck Bag: Draw two more item cards, if they overflow, but them in your hand, they can be used like normal item cards Trapper: If there is a Trader, Gain 2 cards, if not, Nothing   Trader: If there is a Trapper, Give 2 random cards sigils, if not, Nothing Random Card: Draw one card Cost Card: Choose a card in your hand, draw until you find another card with the same cost Tribe Card: Choose a card in your hand, draw until you find another card with the same tribe Mycologist: Choose two cards in your deck with the same name, equip one to the other, as well as this card, When mycologist is equipped to a card, it’s stats double Trial: Your opponment chooses a fair* test, you draw three cards, if you meet the requirments, you gain one card from their field *fair means anything seen in the official game  Bone Lord: Remove one card from your deck, you gain it’s attack or defense as bones, whichever is higher Campfire: Choose a card and flip a coin, heads +1 attack, tails +2 hearts

Both Players ring the bell to signify a turn ending, only times that you have rung the bell count towards bell krakens, both players cannot attack on their first turn, but once that has ended cards can attack as soon as they are summoned if able. 

Changes to cards, new sigils, and other assorted things I added, Changed Cards: Mantis God is 2/2, Stinkbug is 2/1, Kingfisher is 2/2, 3 blood, a rare card and has Fisher New Sigils: Fisher: Can attack cards underwater, given to Kingfisher, Uncuttable, Can’t be destroyed with scissors, given to uralyli Other Assorted things I added: Pack Mules, Super rare rarity, it’s rarer than rare, Given to cards with higher than 6 attack

[nanakibh]

From an interview with Tabata, Nomura, and Kitase in the Final Fantasy Type-0 Ultimania, p.839...

Were you the one who came up with the characters' names this time, Nomura-san?

Nomura: Chiba (the lead scenario writer) was the one who came up with Machina and Rem's names, but I was the one who came up with the names for the rest of Class Zero. I wanted to make them sound like codenames, and when I was looking for a cohesive set of 13, I came upon the names of playing cards. Because "Joker" sounded so enigmatic to me, I thought "This'll be good." I had already drawn the illustrations of the characters, so I applied the names of the cards while looking at each of their faces.

Tabata: The names of King and Nine really fit their image perfectly.

Did you come up with their weapons while you were drawing the first group illustration?

Nomura: That's right.

Tabata: About half of them were strange things at Nomura's request. Typically, you wouldn't think of choosing things like a flute and cards as weapons, right? (laughs)

Nomura: I caused the staff a lot of problems. They were like, "So... How do you fight with this?" I thought of it as an extension of "BC -FFVII-" where each character's weapon displayed their individuality, so I was just concerned about creating too much overlap.

Tabata: I thought "He's going to come up with something really interesting", but the staff on hand weren't familiar with Nomura's personality, so they took everything very seriously and were like, "She plays the flute? Really?"

Nomura: I was very relieved by the fact that Deuce's fighting style makes an impression. I was surprised when I first saw her in motion.

Tabata: Your strange requests became the important hurdle that helped us avoid making the content too conventional.

Outside of Class Zero, Emina is a character who made a strong impression.

Tabata: It was actually Kitase who was in charge of Emina's event.

Kitase: No, it was actually an idea the female staff members came up with, and then I just set up the camerawork. The staff who were involved had their hands full with other work, so they asked for my help. It seems the camera control was complicated in that scene, so it came around to me because I was used to it...

Tabata: The idea behind Emina's event was to "provide content that meets a wide range of tastes." (laughs) We wanted to give players a variety of camera angles so they could choose the one they liked most, but Kitase's first camera was particular to his own specific interests (laughs), so it had to be reworked.

Emina and Kazusa are connected, aren't they?

Tabata: Yes. I didn't say anything about Kazusa and let a few female staff members do what they wanted with him. I just told them to make sure that the content would "stick with players." Because of that, I feel like Emina and Kazusa became sub-characters who stayed in players' hearts.

Even the moogles were memorable this time.

Tabata: They’re cute, aren’t they? To tell you the truth, I actually prepared a scene to introduce the group of moogles known as the Cranberry Knights, but Chiba forgot to put it into the game, so now it's just a memory.

Nomura: That's a shame. As soon as I saw the moogles' designs, I even said, "We should make merch of them right away." (laughs) At the moment, I'm thinking about designing moogles for “FF Versus XIII” that are similar to the ones from “FF Type-0.”

Tabata: I was shocked when I found out that Moglin's official name is a long, foreign name. I heard that it was Nomura's idea, but...

Nomura: The scenario staff were the ones who came up with it. I was also surprised when I heard it for the first time during voice recording. If you look at “Kingdom Hearts” where I've chosen all the names myself, you can tell that I have a preference for simpler names. (laughs)

[techav]

Repairs

I had picked up a VLB Diamond Stealth 64 video card at Computer Reset, so obviously I needed a VLB motherboard to put it to good use.

I picked up 5 bad VLB motherboards.

The first three I knew were not likely to work. They were rare early Pentium boards with both PCI and VLB, but all had the same Varta battery destruction. The other two were generic 486 boards that looked to be in great shape. Unfortunately, both had some unseen damage such that they would only run if flexed in just the right manner.

So I made the trek out to Computer Reset again.

I found one good-looking VLB board, an Asus this time. Unfortunately, no POST. It wouldn't even get far enough to output a failure code on my POST card. I spent far too much time trying to get any sign of life out of it ...

... before finally turning it over and realizing it had some pretty significant scrapes on the underside.

See, I had pulled it out of a large box of other boards. Who knows how long they had been there and where they had been before or who had dug through them already. At some point, something scraped across the back of this board and hurt it pretty badly.

I've never done any significant rework on a board like this, but it's never too late to learn. I started by marking the scratches with a marker, then out came the scalpel and the continuity probes.

The first few wires were easy — short traces between the DIP sockets for cache RAM. Their endpoints were easy to see, and the pins were easy to solder to.

The others were a bit harder. First thing I had to do was scratch off some of the solder mask on either side of the scrape to confirm if continuity had indeed been broken. The traces were too close together for me to solder short bridge wires right across the gap, so I had to follow them back to vias or pins on either end.

When there that many traces that close together, they can be hard to follow. I like to take a fine-tip marker and draw a line following the trace all the way to the end. After I've soldered a wire in place, a little rubbing alcohol cleans up the marker, and I can move on to the next.

In this case, I was lucky that only a handful of traces were significantly broken. A few small scratches I was able to bridge with just solder, patching several nearby with a drag solder technique similar to that used for surface mount ICs.

Once I was done patching, I covered any areas with remove solder mask with clear nail polish. I tried dabbing a bit of hot glue on the ends of the wires to help them stay in place, but it didn't really work well. Next time I'll try something different (more nail polish has been recommended to me by some far more experienced techs).

In the end, the repair was successful. I was able to get it to boot right up after patching those few traces, and didn't even have to break out the soldering iron a second time. I am quite pleased with how this turned out.

I've got some other odds and ends picked up from Computer Reset that should turn this into a nice machine. I've got it running currently with a 66MHz Intel 486DX2, 96MB RAM, the Diamond Stealth 64 VLB video card, and an EtherLink III. Somewhere I know I've got a SoundBlaster to round it out.

I've also got both an Intel and an AMD 100MHz DX4 that I would love to put in this machine. I'm interested to see if my patchwork will hold up to running the board at full speed.

For now though, Wolfenstein.

[v-mundi]

Thar be dragons! Metalseadramon and Seadramon were re-posed by my lovely fianceé, Danielle and she’s also my art and design partner for this project. Snakes are super hard to fit in a square frame. You basically have a couple tricks you can do. There’s the S-shape as seen by Metalseadramon (and old Seadramon). Those old arts were just screenshots of DMO (Digimon Masters Online) cut out by someone, so not great. You have the C shape as Metalseadramon DATA and Seadramon above (C-dramon...?). And you have the corkscrew shape not pictured here. There are more but we are sticking to ones that still give good model visibility through perspective.

That DATA card is a preview for the upcoming TOY set, which has some heavy Dark Masters themes. It’s only appropriate that we rework the design of Metalseadramon as well. In fact, all the Dark Masters will now be present and upgraded. I’ve previously shown off the upcoming TOY set with Fakedrimogemon, so...go digging for it ;D

If you play the game, you may have noticed this DATA has “Any Support Phase” instead of just Any Phase. That’s a change that’s coming down the pipeline for many DATAs. There’s some logic errors with certain effects being literally any time you want them. Confining effects to the Support phase will bring a bit more importance to the choice of playing the card. For example, if you could play this “Any Phase”, then you could wait till the Battle Phase when attacks are revealed before throwing down Triangle to 0. Since this game is based a lot on wagers and bluffing, that goes against the spirit of the game and provides a disgustingly easy shut-down as a hand trap. I do not like hand traps. That concept is from Yugioh and means cards being played directly from hand in response to something, with no indicator that your move will trigger this awful response. Their existence usually leads to hand control, which is a death spiral for metagames. Once people are trying to remove and control each other’s hand, they’re trying to stop the other person from playing the game as hard as possible and that’s no fun for anyone. So just one word makes the difference in an entire game’s death spiral.

For Seadramon and many other cards, I’m trying to make it so mixing types is less punishing. During the base release of the game, there wasn’t a lot of actual support for cross-type decks. The ones that you could make would be creative and good, but limited due to type-limited effects. Ultimately, most of them sought out to make the most broken combos possible which is a nightmare to balance and anticipate. Now that the game has existed for about 5 years, I have some experience with what players are actually abusing or not. I’ve tried replacing most of them with comparable conditions that type has no problem making but others might have to bend over backwards to get. Clever girl.

Lastly we got EBEmon or as the contest winner that created it said “Vademon Kai”. Again, all done up nice and neat by Danielle. If you’re wondering why there’s proportionally way more art from her lately than me, it’s not because I don’t have time. It’s because she’s way faster and better at this than me. She can usually do 3 to 4 poses in the time it takes me to get one right. We actually figured out that brown xenomorph bubble on its head isn’t just a Freiza reference, it’s supposed to be translucent and contain a long brain. No thanks. So...as it’s a rebuilt mecha Freiza...I mean Vademon, I wanted to do some cool stuff with the errata. Originally, it would get a DNA to increase the use of Omekamon’s effect, but instead I realized this is unnecessary since almost every Enigma Level U or M is getting one. So I stuck to the path. Forget DP -20 cost reductions, those are boring. Let’s remove the concept of your own hand size while you have access to draw 2! :D And I buffed every one of its “response probes” in the Passives section. They were all pretty good, since it’s not really a question of if an opponent will do these things but when. But more importantly, you don’t get to choose which ones happen. It’s completely dependent on what effects your opponent has (except the draw). So instead, it has a built-in Attack Chip and Recovery Floppy. Yay! The x3 VS was also reworked. We have cute little element names for each combination of types. When something has an attack that gets powered up versus something else, we give it x3 VS [that thing] mixed from our types, as if they were elemental blocks. Marine + Nature + Metal is “Grand” and refers to planetary things. EBEmon’s gun is a Planet Destroyer. Oh no.

Anyway, enjoy the new art and card preview!

[neni-has-ascended]

A question about "Complete Turnabout"

@athena-cykes-ace-attorney:

Hello Nenilein,

I’d been reading “Complete Turnabout” recently and noticed that there haven’t been any updates for a long time. I’ve also played through the beginning of the game. I’ve been getting into writing fanfiction recently and I just wanted to ask if you’re ever returning to writing Ace Attorney Fanfiction. Did Spirit of Justice just completely drive you out of the fandom and the fanfiction? Or are you just done with that part of your writing?

Hello, sorry for the late reply. So, let’s get into this.

I’m a super flighty nature. It often causes me to start projects and then jump to the next, not taking into account how the new project might divert my attention away from the old projects, especially because I find it hard to even force myself to keep my attention on the old project if I have new ideas. It’s a problem I’ve honestly been working to overcome, especially because I never really abandon old projects. I mean it, I still have every single tiny, useless thing I’ve ever started working on in my Dropbox and occasionally randomly pull them up and make new additions to them or edit them, even if the thing has been dormant for years. Complete Turnabout is no exception there,

The big problem with getting back into actively finishing the Fanfic is... Well, there’s several, actually. And yeah, Even though I still actively think about the fic a lot (like with a million other things), it makes it hard to go back. Here they are, most important to least important:

1.) Complete Turnabout no longer matches my current style of writing and doesn’t reflect my skill level.

The Fic represented a huge turning point (ha ha) for me in my “career” (using the term losely) as an author, since this was where, influenced by an important person in my life, I threw out everything I thought about writing before and gradually came to use a completely different style of writing, one which I’ve kept developing to this day. CT reflects a huge part of this transitional phase in my writing. The thing is, I haven’t stopped progressing as a writer ever since I last actively wrote on it. There’s so many things I’ve started and stopped doing, so many techniques I’ve learned and a lot of humor I found funny back in the day now only makes me cringe. It’s not like I find all of CT entirely unreadable now. But the first 10 to 15 chapters are garbage. Unadulterated and absolute trash. You couldn’t force me to write like this anymore these days. So if I wanted to go back to finishing it, I’d feel myself compelled to rewrite half the fanfic from scratch, which would be a massive undertaking and would clash with my already almost non-existence time management abilities.

2.) The in-fic Court Record is fundamentally broken. 

To me, a huge part of the fic was the reader’s ability to guess along while reading and feel as if they could actually move around through the settings and throw evidence at places and people like in the series proper. Unfortunately, my inability to update the CR properly has turned this into a mess I was deeply ashamed off at latest by chapter 25. If I wanted to go back and continue the fic I would HAVE to rework this feature of the fic from ground up, maybe even program a little web-page to make it work for everyone or something. I want to do that one day, but right now I am a creative garage stuffed to the brim with unfinished arts and crafts projects and I need to take some time to clean myself out and finally get things in order.

3.) OMFG Spirit of Justice

Yeah, as you correctly guessed, that game was like... the straw that didn’t just break the camel’s back but put the camel into a coma that only the most advanced veterinarian science could possibly retrieve it from. It wouldn’t be so bad if I just didn’t like the game, I mean, there’s a ton of stuff I don’t like in Gyakuten Kenji 2, and I still use its characters and concepts quite prominently and passionately. No, the problem is what Spirit of Justice did to friggin’ Apollo! That friggin’ game messed up his character timeline and underlying motivations so badly, I have no idea how to write around this bullshit stuff anymore. I have no idea what the writers were thinking there, all I know is that this is DEFINITELY not the kind of thing Shu Takumi envisioned when he wrote Apollo’s character. The character was envisioned to be young, passionate, but down-to-earth and an everyman. Spirit of Justice turned him into a fully fledged DanganRonpa character, and not the “Ultimate Luck” type. I have no idea how to work with this!!

4.) I really want to do everything ever, now, immediately, all at once, god, give me 20 arms and 5 more brainssssss

As some people following my antics for some time might have realized I have a teeeeensy problem keeping my priorities straight and tend to start, like, 5 new projects every month. I’m working on a TobyFox-multiverse themed comic right now, wrote a script to an A Hat in Time adaptation comic, I have an ongoing Kingdom Hearts fanfic retelling an alternate universe version of Birth by Sleep, I am working on a Youtube Series about the meaning of the Tarot Arcana as used in the Persona games, I sew 3 Cosplays a year and take part in various nerd competitions, I am working on my final University thesis on the application of religious themes in JRPGs, I have been writing on a novel for 3 years, have started working on several different video game projects with friends (all but one abandoned right now), started and abandoned a web-novel project, I draw, I stream, I play Trading Card Games on Weekends, I am actively looking for a job, and, damn for some dumb reason just a year ago I thought getting myself a pet would be a great idea, too!

If it were up to me, I’d finish all these things. Every last one of them. But as it is, I’m forced to set priorities. Right now, I am working hard to at least bring the most important/recent of these (One of the game projects, my novel, the comic project and my Master’s Thesis) to a satisfying finish. After that, I will pick other ideas back up and work on them. But I really, really, really need to learn to not just start things, but also end them.

It’s been a journey, and it will keep being a journey from here on out. But I’m glad there’s people who love what I do. Making people happy with my creativity is my dream, and I’ll fight to keep making it happen, no matter how much effort it takes.

I thank you for being happy with what I’ve made so far. I thank you with all my heart. Here’s me praying that I will make more things in the future that will make you just as happy. And here’s me praying that I will be disappointing people less by not finishing the things that made them happy in a timely fashion.

That’s what I had to say here. I hope it helps. I am sorry if it’s not what you wanted to hear. Honestly, it’s not what I like to hear from myself either...

Still, I thank you, so much,

Many Greetings, Nenilein

[unweavinglies]

Kokichi Ouma, Shuichi Saihara, and the True Nature of the Relationship Between Them.

SO A QUICK DISCLAIMER: Yes, I am very aware that this is most likely not canon, or at least not what the writers intended on being canon, nor am I saying that this is 100% canon and should be considered as such. This is just a fan theory/analysis I came up with for my own enjoyment and wanted to share with others, as I like coming up with theories/analysis posts and reworking canons to make enhanced stories and character development in my perspective. I firmly believe that the idea of making theories isn’t supposed to be a shouting contest to see which opinion is the most loud and correct, but should be something to share with others and find acceptance and understanding in different interpretations, even if you don’t agree with them.

So lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of people debating on the true nature of Shuichi’s and Kokichi’s relationship is, an it got me pretty inspired to do an analysis on the two, how they interact with one another, and bring my own conclusion to the table as to what these two characters relate to one another, and their relationship’s true nature.

Note, this isn’t about shipping, but more so an analysis of how the two characters behave with one another. I will still be tagging this with the ship’s names, however.

So without further adieu, let’s talk about the relationship between Shuichi Saihara and Kokichi Ouma.

Now first and foremost, we have to set some ground rules in order to properly analyze what kind of nature these two characters have with one another, and it’s going to need some ground rules due to different situations and modes.

Here are my rules for this analysis:

We are ignoring the main narrative all together. Aside from Shuichi’s Free Time Events with Kokichi, the main narrative of Danganronpa V3 has no place here. Why? Well to put it bluntly, it is a skewed and unfair narrative for this analysis. You cannot truly judge a relationship’s potential and nature by using the actions and words said during a high intense, stressful situation like a Killing Game. If we want to discover the real, true nature of Kokichi and Shuichi’s relationship, we have to ignore narratives that put them under intense, stressful situations, as people do not think rationally or coherently during such situations, and can make very grave and terrible mistakes they otherwise wouldn’t. So the main narrative just has no place here.

I’m going to be analyzing them, but player input is going to be taken with quite a grain of salt. Because the player is having Shuichi say and act in a certain way, it’s difficult to say which answer Shuichi is the most in character saying. This is an especially important rule for Salmon Mode, since player input is very much crucial to the outcome of the dates/date mode.

Speaking of Salmon Mode, I’m going to probably take Shuichi’s “best answers” (AKA the best routes) as the most critical for information, for a few reasons. The biggest reason is that Salmon Mode’s main objective is to make the other character (in this case, Kokichi) swoon for Shuichi in one way or another. Because this is the main objective, I’m going to take the other answers as obstacles for the player, and not necessarily Shuichi’s true dialogue. Salmon Mode is essentially a dating game, and like all dating games, there have to be ways for the player to “fail.” With this in mind, the other answers Shuichi can give are “ways for the player to fail” rather than “Shuichi’s true dialogue.” 

With these rules in mind, let’s finally start analyzing the relationship between Kokichi and Shuichi! First, let’s start with the Free Time Events.

I’d like to call the Free Time Events part one of a two part journey of Shuichi coming to know Kokichi as a person. Because Kokichi is a compulsive liar and has a lot of walls, there isn’t much to be said about their relationship at all here. Unfortunately, that’s because Kokichi isn’t really letting Shuichi in and Shuichi isn’t used to this kind of behavior. 

Shuichi finds Kokichi’s mind games mentally and physically exhausting and difficult to deal with. Considering the idea is that Shuichi is trying to reach out to Kokichi and Kokichi’s response is to toy with him mentally and emotionally, it’s not really much of a surprise that Shuichi sees Kokichi as frustrating, and is even annoyed with Kokichi for messign with him. Shuichi’s after the fact remarks for the third Free Time Event even has Shuichi saying Kokichi laughed in his face, implying Shuichi thinks Kokichi is making fun of him or being malicious. Shuichi doesn’t quiet yet realize that Kokichi is actually opening up to him, little by little, even if he’s lying and mentally challenging him. 

Kokichi had these “events” planned out from the start. Once Shuichi approached him, Kokichi’s plan was set into motion. He “accidentally” told Shuichi some... not very insightful information about his organization that may or may-not be true in order to make the excuse that he had to “kill” him for knowing too much. The next four events are all carefully planned situations that implies Kokichi’s loneliness: rigging the card game to have two sevens at the top, dragging Shuichi to afternoon tea to try to bribe him to join D.I.C.E., throwing the one-hundred games of rock paper scissors in the fourth, and purposefully cutting his finger during the knife game in the fifth. All of these events, plus Kokichi’s exclamation of how many “events” Shuichi has left in order to win his right to “live,” points to Kokichi adamantly planning these games that are rigged for ties or against himself just to spend time with Shuichi.

The two events I think that have Shuichi just barely starting to understand Kokichi’s true intentions are the last to events--the rock paper scissors games, and the knife game.

Let’s talk about the Rock Paper Scissors game first.

To summarize the main bulk of the event, Kokichi gets Shuichi to play rock paper scissors with him, but they end up playing about one-hundred games, and all of them end with a draw. At first, it might seem like it was all dumb luck, however...

Kokichi reveals the trick, and pretty much also reveals to us that the other games in his events are rigged against him.

Shuichi doesn’t just dismiss this, either. He catches on pretty quickly that Kokichi had been purposefully putting out the same as him to result in the one-hundred draws.

And when Kokichi back pedals into lying and saying Shuichi just has good luck...

Shuichi doesn’t believe him.

Instead of assuming Kokichi to have the most malicious intent (that being him lying about there being a way to put out the same thing in rock paper scissors just to mess with his head) Shuichi actually considers Kokichi’s first admission to be true, which is... a pretty good step in the right direction. 

Shuichi may not reach to a complete understanding by the end of these events, but he is starting to. Most of that is shown in Salmon Mode, so I’ll be getting to those in a little bit. For now, let’s look at the conclusion of the Free Time Events.

I think that these three lines of texts really do stand out as proof that Shuichi is, slowly, starting to understand Kokichi and what it means to be close to him.

Just before this, Kokichi admitted that the “killing him” thing was all just a big lie, and Shuichi is... very rightfully frustrated with him over it. Yet Shuichi extends his hand to Kokichi. It’s a very odd gesture for someone that isn’t truly trying to understand or relate to Kokichi. Shuichi still, unfortunately, isn’t close enough for Kokichi to feel comfortable being vulnerable and honest with him, and Shuichi has come to that realization when Kokichi doesn’t take his hand.

Shuichi is reaching out to Kokichi, but in all the wrong ways. His efforts are appreciated, but going about his relationship with Kokichi isn’t going to work, and that’s what these lines represent. Shuichi has been trying to reach out to Kokichi and understand him, learn the truth about him, but is frustrated when the more traditional methods of getting to know someone aren’t working and it seems like Kokichi is just toying with him for fun, or otherwise not interested in a friendship.

However, through Kokichi’s admission after the one-hundred games of Rock Paper Scissors, and Kokichi refusing to take his hand, he’s coming to understand that if he wants to be friends with Kokichi, he has to try a different approach. That Kokichi wasn’t just doing these things to mess with his head--there was more under the surface, something that Kokichi himself can’t quite reveal comfortably yet, and Shuichi’s demand for openness and honesty is trying to push Kokichi into very uncomfortable conversations that Kokichi very clearly is not ready to have.

This reflects a lot in Kokichi’s Salmon Mode Dating events as well, which I consider phase two of their relationship. The best routes are often where Kokichi is able to keep things at his own pace, where Shuichi isn’t trying to observe Kokichi or trying to piece him together like a puzzle. When Kokichi can freely lie, and Shuichi just accepts his lies rather than take them seriously or fight him, Kokichi has the most fun. 

The worst routes are when Shuichi still tries to get to know Kokichi in the more traditional sense, not letting Kokichi open up on his own terms and trying to force some kind of truth out of him--even like simply observing Kokichi/watching Kokichi makes Kokichi uncomfortable. Things that are also bad routes include: Kokichi feeling under stimulated and bored and Shuichi implying Kokichi is boring him.

The same can be said for the Harmonious Heart Event with Kokichi as well. I already did a full, in-depth analysis on the event here, but the results of the event also correlate with this analysis as well--in that Kokichi and Shuichi’s best interactions are when Shuichi accepts that Kokichi is a liar, will always be a liar, and that’s not changing anytime soon. The worst routes are when Shuichi tries to force Kokichi into being honest with him, disregarding Kokichi’s own personal comfort.

Finally, let’s talk about the Graduation Event.

Kokichi’s graduation event in Salmon Mode, AKA when Shuichi and Kokichi are the closest they can be to one another/the player has the best routes/heart events in Salmon Mode. Meaning to get this event, you have to have the best relationship with Kokichi--which is the end goal/objective of this mode, thus why the best routes/good routes are more valuable here than the bad routes.

The ending to the event is the most interesting and telling of their relationship:

Shuichi seems genuinely surprised by Kokichi’s offer to continue being friends or having this relationship with one another even outside of the school. Considering how distant and closed off to his true intentions Kokichi was, it’s not actually all that surprising that this took Shuichi off guard. Unlike in the Free Time Events where Shuichi was trying to reach out to Kokichi, now it’s the opposite--Kokichi has become comfortable enough with Shuichi that he is reaching out to Shuichi.

Knowing how Kokichi thinks and how he keeps his heart under several locks and keys, this is a very big deal. Kokichi opening up to Shuichi, being comfortable enough with him to reach out to him in his own way, means Shuichi has become someone he has grown to trust. Someone he cares about, and someone he doesn’t want to leave his side.

Once Shuichi stops trying to force Kokichi to be honest with him, and stops trying to pick him apart like a puzzle and learns to enjoy his company, is when their relationship truly starts to shine. The less Shuichi pushes, the more comfortable Kokichi gets with him, and thus the more willing Kokichi is to talk to him about the truth of his past, who he is and open up in a way he hadn’t previously before. With gentleness and patience, Shuichi has earned Kokichi’s genuine, wholehearted trust.

And he seems to understand that--of course, like anyone who wants to get closer to someone, he wants to know more about Kokichi. That’s just a natural instinct, which is why Shuichi was so frustrated in the Free Time Events. He wanted to get closer when Kokichi wasn’t ready to open up and tried to push him in that way, but then realizes that if he wants to genuinely be closer to Kokichi, he has to learn how to be patient and wait for Kokichi to open up to him on his own terms. It’s a privilege he has earned, and he understood that.

Describing the warmth of Kokichi’s hand, and the direct parallels to the Free Time Events in general, show how much they’ve both grown in retrospect to one another. Shuichi coming to understand that patience, open mindedness, and gentleness are necessities when befriending Kokichi, and Kokichi finally feeling comfortable to let down those walls and open up to Shuichi in a way that few people probably have ever gotten him to do. Kokichi being the one to offer his hand to shake, and Shuichi describing the warmth that Kokichi can’t hide represents these feelings for one another. Trust, and understanding. 

So, in conclusion... what is the true nature of Shuichi’s and Kokichi’s relationship?

Well, it’s about the kind of relationship you might encounter when meeting someone anxious, shy, and afraid--and no, we’re not talking about Shuichi here. Shuichi was the one who approached Kokichi, and continued to approach him, trying to reach out to him and befriend him even when Kokichi shut him out in such a strange way, even with the strange push and pull Kokichi had on him--wanting Shuichi to be around, but not get too close. Kokichi is the one afraid, the one that’s anxious about opening up and is quite shy in that regard. Why else would he be so uncomfortable with Shuichi prodding him for information? He’s got something to hide, something he’s not comfortable sharing with just anyone, something that seems to be directly related to how he behaves and acts from how little he is willing to talk about himself. It suggests a potential fear of rejection, or a fear of something in general.

Kokichi is the kind of person that is difficult to befriend if you don’t know how to approach him, and that’s exactly the kind of situation Shuichi finds himself in when trying to befriend Kokichi. Frustrating, lost and confused, feeling shut out and toyed with, but then slowly coming to the realization of what kind of path is necessary when dealing with someone as locked up as Kokichi. Learning to shove down his own curiosity and desire to know Kokichi in a way before Kokichi feels comfortable expressing, finding ways to enjoy his time spent with Kokichi without being too preoccupied with not understanding him entirely, and eventually, that kind of patience being rewarded with trust and warmth, and the promise of truth and openness.

That concludes my analysis on Kokichi and Shuichi’s relationship! I hope you enjoyed my thoughts an conclusions! Either way, have a good day/night!

[vgckwb]

P5R: Rebel Girl (A FeMC Story/P5R Rework) Chapter 42: A Woman, A Child, A Sinner, A Monster

The day after the park clean up, the thieves met up at Madarame’s exhibit after school to look out on the effects of the calling card they sent the previous evening. Madarame had shown up, but a guard was always with him. When he had some free time, he pulled the guard aside and asked “OK. What’s this about?”

“I’m sorry sir” he said. “I was told I had to wait until Captain Ogawa got here.”

“WHAT?!” Madarame screamed.

At that moment, Kosuke walked in and walked up to Madarame and the guard. “What’s going on?” he asked.

The guard was somewhat hesitant. “Well, uh, early this morning, we found these scattered throughout the exhibit.” He took out a copy of the calling card. “We think whoever did this might make a move against Madarame.”

“WHAT?!” Madarame said.

“Did you see who placed them?” Kosuke questioned.

“All the security footage we looked through only showed a black cat” the guard responded

“I see. Do you know who sent it?” Kosuke asked, matter of factly.

“Well, it’s addressed from those Phantom Thieves we’ve been hearing about in the news recently” the guard answered.

“Phantom Thieves, pah” Madarame dismissed. “Why would they go after me?”

Kosuke seethed a little, not enough for it to be noticeable unless you were really paying attention. “Well if you’d like,” the guard spoke, “you could read what the card says.”

“Let me see,” Madarame said, ripping the card from the guard’s hand. He began reading. “‘Sir Ichiryusai Madarame, the egregious sinner of vanity. You pretend to be a noble and kind light in the world of art, when in reality we know you’re anything but. You take students under your wing and abuse them without mercy and steal their art to claim as your own. Then you leave them destitute once you believe they no longer serve a purpose. You also use your immense influence to prevent people from speaking out about it. We are not alone in noticing this. Someone wishes to purge you from your perch and watch as you fall face down into the roaring flames of Hell itself. We cannot allow that to happen, nor can we allow you to continue on your path of destroying people’s hopes and dreams. To prevent both, we will steal your desires and make you confess your sins. From, The Phantom Thieves of Heart.’”

Madarame ripped the card in two. “What rubbish! Slander is what that is!”

“Uh sir?” the guard said.

“What?” Madarame said forcefully.

“Um, it’s just, people around the museum are already talking about it” the guard informed him.

“Well, none of this is true, right?” Madarame insisted.

“Right, uh, sir” the guard said, panicking.

Madarame sighed. “Now I have to figure out THIS PR disaster,” Madarame said.

“But what about the Phantom Thieves?” the guard asked.

“What about them?” Madarame chded. “You don’t believe they exist, do you?”

“Well, uh…” the guard began answering.

“This is just a fairy tale meant to try and scare me and stir up trouble” Madarame said.”Well it won’t work!”

The world flashed, and we see Madarame’s shadow clearly frustrated. “Heh. Those thieves think they can steal my treasure? My security is state of the art. And when it comes to art, no one is better than me.”

It flashes back to reality. Madarame walks off in a huff, pondering over what to do next. Meanwhile, Kosuke had been essentially frozen this entire time. “Uh, Captain Ogawa?” the guard asked.

Kosuke smiled. “Don’t worry,” he said, placing his hands on the guard’s shoulders. “We're the best, right? I’m sure whatever threat these thieves may or may not pull, we can take care of it with ease.”

The guard nodded. “Thank you sir.” He rushed off to prepare for what might come next.

Meanwhile, it flashed back to the darkness with Kosuke’s shadow, visibly upset, but grinning. “You think you can destroy my masterpiece like this? All you’ve done is given me a happy little accident to work with.” It flashes back to reality, and Kosuke walks off.

The thieves conversed among themselves. “Well, it looks like the message got through to them both,” Yusuke noted.

Jose nodded. “Yup. Now all we have to do is follow through with our plan.”

“Is everybody ready?” Morgana asked. They all nodded. “Good. I don’t need to remind you that this is our only chance. I believe we can do this!”

Ren nodded. “Let’s go!” she called. The thieves left the exhibit and went to Madarame’s palace.

At the entrance, Ann lamented “We’re not going to have a short route like last time, are we?”

Ren shook her head.”However, we know the ins and outs of this place. We should avoid detection fairly easily.”

“She’s right,” Morgana said. “We should conserve our energy until we make our play. Now let’s move!” The thieves began sneaking through the palace to get to Madarame’s treasure room. Once there, they all got into position.

Outside the control room, Ryuji was psyching himself up. “OK. You can do this.” He banged on the door. “HEY! There’s an intruder here!” He then bolted.

“What?” said the shadow. They opened the door to try and track Ryuji.

Ann crept out of her hiding space. “You can do it Skull.” She snuck into the control room and went straight for the light panel.

In the treasure exhibit hall, Madarame was standing there with a plethora of guards patrolling. One of them was shot. “WHAT?!” Madarame called out.

He and all the remaining guards look up to see Jose holding his sniper rifle. “Hi,” he said. He fired another shot, taking out another shadow.

Most of the guards tried to confront Jose. However, one took Madarame aside and said “You’re not safe, we must go!” Madarame nodded, and the two walked off. Jose made a break for it, dodging all of the shadows.

Once Morgana was in place, Yusuke gave the signal. Ann shut the lights off while Ren lowered the crane. Sumire kept watch to make sure no one came in that wasn’t supposed to. As Morgana started to head up, Jose used his grappling hook to latch on to lose the guards chasing him and meet up with the rest of the group.

When the lights came back on, the guards were confused. They decided to investigate the control room. Fortunately, Ann had already left, and was making her way to the crane control room. Ryuji lured the guard chasing him away and took care of them discreetly. After he finished subduing the guard, he made his way over there as well.

“Alright! Success!” Morgana cheered.

“Way to go, Mona-senpai!” Sumire compliments.

“Now all that’s left is to sneak out,” Ryuji said enthusiastically.

“Where are they?!” they heard a guard shout.

“Easier said than done,” Yusuke said.

“We did cause a lot of commotion” Ann noted.

“Spread out!” they heard another guard say. “They couldn’t have gotten far!”

Ren smirked. “I know that look,” Morgana said. “You have a dangerous plan, don’t you?”

“I would have said ‘bold’, but yeah” Ren answered. “Follow me.” She headed up to the rafters, with her crew following her. Ren looked down. “I knew it.”

“Knew what?” Ryuji asked.

“The guards aren’t here because they’re looking for us elsewhere” Ren surmised.

“...Yeah?” Ryuji continued.

“So, we can just jump down and rush through” Ren finished.

“OK, OK” Ryuji said. “Wait, WHAT?! For REAL?! No way, look how high we are!”

“As ludicrous as this sounds, I think that’s our only option” Yusuke pointed out.

“Follow my lead,” Ren said. She jumped, and as she was falling, she tethered herself to one of the rafters to swing gracefully down. She let go when she was close enough to the floor, and then proceeded to hit the ground running. One by one, her fellow thieves did the same.

They continued through the museum, hiding from guards and taking whatever shortcuts they could. When they got to the extremely damaged room just passed the broken Madarame statue Morgana tripped. “Woah!” The treasure slipped out of its covering, only to reveal a crude self portrait of Madarame. The thieves stopped.

Ren picked it up. “What the?”

“Hm” they heard Madarame grunt. “So you figured out my trick.” The thieves all looked at him. He was being escorted by two guards. “No matter. I’ll just eliminate you here!”

“You switched the paintings?!” Morgana yelped.

“I wasn’t going to let you steal my treasure so easily” Madarame chided. “If you had left with that I would have let you live. But now, you must perish!” The thieves began drawing their weapons. “But before that, I suppose you deserve a glimpse of the treasure you so foolishly tried to steal.” He takes out a canvas. “Behold, the REAL ‘Sayuri’!”

The thieves were stunned. The white cloud was no longer there. Instead, there was a portrait of a small child. “That…” Yusuke said. “That’s me…” The other thieves looked at him.

Madarame nodded. “Your mother was the true author of the ‘Sayuri’. It was a portrait of her with her child. Unfortunately, she died before she could make it public.”

The thieves were appalled. “You stole his mom’s art?!” Ryuji yelled.

“And I let her die too!” Madarame said. “She was so weak and sickly, no one would have given a second thought to her perishing. So I intentionally took my time calling the ambulance.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Sumire said.

“Because you’re going to die,” Madarame said. “There’s no point in lying to the dead.”

All the other thieves were furious. Yusuke smiled. “Heh” he chuckled. “I see now. You said that Madarame the artist was a facade. Yet I can see now that Madarame the human being is also nothing more than a facade to you.”

“Well put Yusuke,” Kosuke’s voice rang out. The thieves looked around. Kosuke jumped down to get behind Madarame. One his way down he splashed the two guards with ink. After he landed, he created two knives from his ink and threw them at the guards, destroying them.

Kosuke walked over to Madarame. “I used to think that my opinion of you couldn’t GET any lower. But you’ve proven me wrong, yet again. Taking your student’s artwork and claiming it as your own is despicable. But EDITING it? Taking out the most IMPORTANT PART? That’s just downright disgusting.” Madarame was sweating bullets. In a panic, he dropped his treasure. Kosuke cracked his neck. “And now, it’s time for you to DIE!”

Kosuke raised his fist, ready to take out Madarame. However Yusuke jumped in between and stopped him. “I WILL NOT LET YOU KILL HIM!”

Kosuke backed up. Morgana went in and grabbed the treasure, while Ryuji took the fake treasure, slammed it over Madarame, and proceeded to drag him away as well. Kosuke called out. “You've seen his treasure now! You know what he’s capable of! You know he’s beyond redemption! Why do you insist that he live after everything he’s done?!”

Yusuke smirked. “While it’s true Madarame may be irredeemable, that doesn’t mean I have to be. There’s no shame in doing the right thing. Madarame is truly the worst of humanity, and I aim to be the best. If that means not letting the very worst happen to him, then so be it.”

“Grrrrrr” Kosuke hissed. “Very well. If you wanna play hardball, LET’S PLAY!”

The museum around them started to bleed ink heavier. “It looks like Kosuke’s starting to take over more,” Morgana pointed out.

“I guess we’re fighting this guy now,” Ryuji said.

Ren smirked. “Just so you know Kosuke, we play to win!”

They began battling each other. Kosuke was fairly aggressive, but the thieves were doing a good chunk of damage. After a few rounds, the ink distortion started growing stronger. “What’s this?” Yusuke shrieked.

“What’s going on?” Sumire asked.

“Don’t worry!” Ren said, trying to calm down her teammates. “This happened with Kamoshida too! So long as we keep Madarame alive, everything will be fine!”

“Sensei?” Kosuke’s voice rang out.

“What?” Yusuke said

“This happens too,” Morgana informed. “This a memory Kosuke has.”

“What is it?” Madarame asked.

“Why are there countless copies of the ‘Sayuri’ in the back?” Kosuke asked.

“What were you doing back there?” Madarame returned, anger in his voice.

“I was trying to figure out how to get my name back on the piece of art I made!” Kosuke retorted.

“Heh. Did you forget? I made that” Madarame said.

“Bullshit!” Kosuke said. “I made it! You just stole it from me!”

“I made you the artist you are now” Madarame chided. “So anything you make is mine!”

“WHAT?!” Kosuke yelled.

“As for the ‘Sayuri’, it’s also mine so I can do with it as I please’ Madarame continued. “I can forge it and sell it to suckers who think it went missing.”

“You WHAT?!” Kosuke screamed.

“Now, do go back there EVER again!” Madarame insisted. “Or else I’ll have you arrested!” Kosuke could be heard fuming, and stomped off.

“So this is when he figured it out” Yusuke reflected.

“Tell me you wouldn’t react similarly” the Kosuke in front of them demanded. “When the image of Madarame as he presents himself breaks, you’ll see nothing but a horrid creature, meant for the flames.”

Yusuke sighed. “While it is disappointing to see what Madarame is really like, I cannot condone your behavior here either.”

“Very well,” Kosuke said. “Shall we continue then?”

They went back to fighting for a bit longer before another memory started playing. “YOU STOLE THE ‘SAYURI’?!” past Kosuke yelled.

“What are you talking about?” Madarame threw back.

“The ‘Sayuri’!” Kosuke said, forcefully. “You didn’t make it! You stole it!”

“What do you mean?” Madarame obfuscated.

“I went back into that room and found the real ‘Sayuri’” Kosuke said, seething. “After looking it over, the style, the paint lines, and the subject itself, it hit me. The ‘Sayuri’ has Hoshiko written all over it!”

“Hoshiko?” Ann asked.

“My mother” Yusuke informed her.

A smack could be heard. “I told you never to go back there again!” Madarame shouted. “And as for your insinuation, I’ve told you before: ‘I made her, therefore anything that’s her is mine’! But apparently you don’t listen. You should appreciate me. I took you in when you had nowhere else to go!”

“Did you kill her as well?” Kosuke asked, definitely. “Just to take it?”

“IT’S MINE!” Madarame insisted. “You need to listen! Especially to these next words! Leave here, and never return! And if I see even a glimpse of you trying to make it as an artist, I will have you behind bars so fast, the ink will not even have dried on your first stroke.”

There was a bit of silence. “FINE!” Kosuke screamed. “But someday, this will all come crashing down!”

“I have the art world eating out of the palm of my hand” Madarame said, rubbing salt in the wound. “Just how do you think that will happen?” The voices stopped. However, there were some angry footsteps, followed by a slamming door. “Bah. He won’t bother me again.”

There was more silence on the part of the thieves. “I remember that day,” Yusuke said. “I had only heard bits and pieces, but the anger was clear. The door came off the frame after he slammed it. Despite everything, I felt powerless.”

“I felt powerless too,” Kosuke said. “He beat us, stole from us, and yet WE were the ones who would get in trouble if anyone outside of Madarame’s shack heard anything. For too long, Madarame has avoided any consequences. But not anymore! It’s time for him to pay!”

“I agree,” Yusuke said. “Although I’d rather him pay society than the piper.”

“Heh. So quick witted” Kosuke said. “Let’s see how much longer you can last.” They continued their battle for a bit. After the thieves got a few good hits in, Kosuke chuckled. “Heh heh. You guys are powerful. Lucky for me, I have an ace up my sleeve. RAH!” He slapped his hands to the ground. Ink left them, creating little pools. Out of the pools of ink, copies of Kosuke appeared.

“WHAT?!” Ann shouted.

“Heh” Kosuke laughed. “Let’s see how you can handle an army of me!”

“What do we do?” Sumire asked.

The thieves looked them over. “They seem to be color-coded,” Jose noted. “Maybe that has something to do with it.”

“Good eye, Sunshine” Ren complimented. “I think they correlate to the elemental attacks we can do.”

“So we attack the one that matches?” Ryuji asked. “Seems simple enough.”

“Right,” Ren said. “This match is just about over!”

The bout continued for a little while longer. With some expert coordination, the thieves managed to deal with Kosuke’s clone easily, while also doing formidable damage to Kosuke himself.

After a decisive hit to Kosuke, he yelled. “GAHHHHHHHHHHH!” The ink started to melt off his head and hand, revealing his true appearance. He hell to his knees and started punching the ground beneath him. “GAHHHHHHHHHHH!”

The thieves were shocked. While they were expecting something, this was slightly different than what happened with Shiho. Yusuke walked over to him. “Kosuke.”

“Why?” He trembled. “Why am I never strong enough?”

“I beg your pardon?” Yusuke asked.

“My parents...you...everyone else I met under Madarame...I’m never strong enough to protect them,” Kosuke lamented. “Time and time again, I fail! I’m pathetic.”

The thieves remained silent for a moment. Sumire walked over. “You protected us yesterday,” she pointed out.

Kosuke looked up. “Heh. That is you, huh. Heh heh. I guess I am good for something sometimes.”

“I understand how you feel,” Yusuke said. “I’ve had trouble proving my own worth for quite some time as well. While I can’t relate to what you went through exactly, I can understand why you would want to do all of this.”

“You’re not mad at me?” Kosuke asked.

Yusuke shook his head. “I’m only mad at Madarame.”

“HA!” Kosuke laughed. He laid down on his back. “I guess I was being a bit selfish by only allowing me to get my revenge. That’s why you were always the best of us Yusuke. You always had eyes on the bigger picture.” He looked at Yusuke. “What you’re doing will make Madarame pay for his crimes?” Yusuke quietly nodded. “Good. Promise me this: Once all this is settled, I want you to be the best damn artist you can be.”

Yusuke kneeled down to meet him. “I promise.”

“Good. See you on the other side” Kosuke said, fading away.

Yusuke stood up. “Farewell.”

“Now, about Madarame,” Jose pointed out.

“I got it,” Ryuji said. He dragged Madarame out, still trapped within his fake painting. “Yo. We’ll be taking the real deal. You gonna confess, or do we have to mess you up too?”

“I’ll confess!” Madarame said, worried. “I never thought that darkness would return. But I don’t want to face it any more!”

“Darkness?” Sumire wondered.

“Yeah” Ann answered. “When someone takes over, the palace owner faces a darkness that apparently swallows them.”

“Wait a minute,” Ren said. “What do you mean ‘return’?”

“Huh?” Ann said.

“He said he never thought it would return'' Ren said. She grabbed Madarame “What does that mean?”

“I’ve faced it before,” Madarame said. “As an example of what happens when you cross them!”

The thieves were surprised. “Who is ‘them’?!” Ryuji demanded.

“I don’t know all of them,” Madarame said. “But they tell me they’re using this sort of power to help shape Japan. They said I could be among the elite if I helped them, so I did. They wanted to see how a mental shutdown works, and I volunteered.”

“You wanted to be even greater than you are now?” Yusuke said, raising his voice. “Pathetic.”

“I’m sorry,” Madarame said.

“Tell that to the public,” Yusuke told him. Madarame faced with a horrified look on his face.

There was an explosion. “What was that?” Sumire asked.

“The palace is about to collapse,” Morgana said. “Panther!” He threw the treasure to her. He transformed into a car. “Hop in!” The thieves entered the car and they drove off.

Once they got out, the phone sounded. “Location Deleted.”

“Man, that was something else,” Ryuji said.

“You’re telling me,” Sumire said. “I haven’t done one of these before.”

“I didn’t know the metaverse could break like that,” Jose said.

Ann was still breathing heavily. She looked at the canvas. “Huh?”

“What is it?” Yusuke asked.

Ann turned it around. It was still the real “Sayuri”, baby Yusuke and all. “I’m just surprised because last time Kamoshida’s treasure changed shape once we took it out of the metaverse.”

“Huh” Jose said.

“Well, I guess that shows how much influence the ‘Sayuri’ really has,” Yusuke noted.

“No kiddin’” Ryuji said.

“Are we good?” Ren asked.

“I think so,” Morgana said.

“Good,” Ren siad, sighed. “I’m exhausted.

“Wait, what about that thing Madarame told us about?” Ryuji asked.

“I’d like to know more about that too,” Yusuke added. “As well as a few other things.”

“Me too, but” Sumire began, “maybe that can wait for another time.”

“Yeah today was enough as is” Ann said. “We should probably meet up to discuss this when our heads are clearer.”

“Agreed” Yusuke said.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’m beat” Ryuji admitted. “Well, see ya.” He started walking off.

Just as the rest of the thieves were breaking off, Ann stopped Yusuke. “Yusuke.” She handed him the painting. “I think this should go to you.”

Yusuke was surprised. He smiled, said “Thank you,” and headed back home. Ann smiled and she headed home as well.

[slushrottweiler]

Between the Lines - Part 1

How Varric Tethras fell in love with his editor: a story in letters.

Bioware wont let me romance the dwarf, so I’ll do it myself Read on Ao3

9:28 Dragon

To Ser Tethras,

As you have been informed, your previous editor has parted ways with Kirkwall Publishing, leaving the production of your popular serial, Hard in Hightown, on hiatus. I am writing to introduce myself as Serah Lawfield's replacement, and to inform you that we shall re-commence publishing your serial by the end of this month.

My name is Y/N Y/L/N, and I am very excited to begin working with you on developing your story. I have personally enjoyed reading your work, and believe we can work well together. Whilst I have looked over your previous edits with Lawfield, if you have any requests or person preferences for the editing process, please let me know and I shall attempt to adjust my process to suit you.

If I do not hear back from you within the next week, I shall begin edits on your most recent manuscript as per the in-house style manual.

Thank you again for choosing to work with Kirkwall Publishing. We are honoured to help share your stories.

Hope to hear from you soon, Regards Y/N Y/L/N Editor at Kirkwall Publishing

…...

Here is the information you requested on New editor. Had 3 men tail her. Notes are attached

(a collection of papers, written in three different hands. One page had scratchy drawings of flying books and quills in the margins.)

Y/N Y/L/N Employed at MP for approx 18 months. Human. Free-Marcher. Originally from starkhaven. Low-born. Educated.Young Resided above Hightown markets. Small apartment. Well kept. 6pin double key lock. Well-liked at MP. Professional. Friendly. Considered hardworking and talented. Has a rep for being good at dealing with difficult writers. Arrives late. Stays late. Takes her work home. Drinks 5-8 coffees a day. Strong ties to Coterie. More info incoming.

Coterie ties extend back years. Potential child recruit.

Currently information broker for Kirkwall faction Respected, feared. Background in smuggling and forgery. Negotiated trade deals with Carta.

Left home later than should have , looked tired but was smiling. Carrying large stack of manuscripts. Was greeted with smiles and waves at office. Two men rose to help her carry her things. Another woman brought her coffee without being asked. Wears slim-framed glasses when working. Nibbled on the end of her quill. Many messengers stop by her desk. Cannot all be publishing related. Some notes are placed directly into her bag. Some belligerent author just showed up. Did not interrupt until author started insulting other staff members. Only took her two minutes to calm him down. Author just left. Not only agreed to changes, but seems to think the changes are his idea. Stayed back late to finish work. Took home three manuscripts. Dead dropped letter exchange under lower left paved outside blooming rose. Added to Coterie watch list. Seems to have a preference for sitting on her windowsill at home to work. Doesn't wear pants at home. Legs for days.

……

(A letter, attached to a well-bound and heavily annotated copy of chapter 5 of Hard in Hightown)

To Ser Tethras,

Since you are, unfortunately, too busy to respond to my last message, I kept to my word and have completed a standard but thorough edit of the latest chapter of Hard in Hightown.

I have used industry standard mark ups, and left my annotations in the margins for your perusal. I have also included a detailed list of suggestion changes that I feel will help streamline the story and reduce unnecessary clutter. Whilst I thoroughly enjoyed your imagery, some of your metaphors boarded on purple prose and I felt best to remove to maintain the tension.

If you have any questions, or you would like to discuss my suggestions further, I would be happy to arrange a personal meet up at the location of your choice.

If all is well, please send your approved changes to the Kirkwall Publishing office byclose of business Friday.

Kind Regards, Y/N Y/L/N Editor at Kirkwall Publishing.

…….

(A note, hastily written and torn roughly from a notebook)

Dear Serah Y/N

You can bet your sweet Starkhaven ass I want to discuss your suggestions. I don't know how you've conned your other authors into dancing your jig, but I'm not about to rework my entire story to suit your whims.

Since you we're so generous as to offer to meet at a location I choose, I'll see you at the Hanged Man this evening. Unless, you've grown accustomed to life up in Hightown?

Yours reluctantly, V. Tethras

……

Mr. Tethras,

Looking forward to meeting you.

Y/N

……

(a note attached to the second draft of chapter 5 of Hard in Hightown)

As requested, here is the edited manuscript; well before Friday you may notice. All agreed upon changes have been made, and grammar corrected. No need to get all antsy over commas again.

V. Tethras.

P.S. where did you learn to play Diamondback like that? ….

Thank you for getting those edits back to me so promptly Tethras. I'm so glad you agree to cut those flashbacks in the middle, they dragged the whole pace to a crawl. The tension is just perfect now!

As for your enquiry about my gambling skills, I shall only state that I am a mystery and an enigma, one you cannot hope to solve. Bow before my beginners luck.

…….

Tone it down, you silver-tongued brat.

V.

……............................................................................................................

Ser Tethras,

I understand that you and your brother are knee deep in preparations for your Deep Roads expedition, but that does NOT excuse you from submitting your latest drafts on time.

If the latest draft of Chapter Eleven is not on my desk by tomorrow morning, I will come down there and drag it from your ink-stained fingers myself.

Sincerely,

Y/N Y/L/N

Editor at Kirkwall Publishing.

……

Why Silver, formal sign-off and everything. You are mad at me.

Would you forgive your favourite dwarf if I said I was assisting a young and devilishly handsome Fereldan refugee to turn his life around? And that, through working with this strapping lad, I am gathering a whole host of new ideas for later chapters, a perhaps… that second serial you’ve been asking for?

Your humble wordsmith,

V. Tethras

…….

Have the damn manuscript to me by next week.

You owe me V.

Silver

P.S. Stay out of trouble.

……

Dearest Silver,

Stay out of trouble? Why, I am an upstanding and law-abiding citizen of this fine city. I wouldn’t dream of creating trouble in our fair Kirkwall.

Hawke on the other hand…

You’ll break us out of prison, right?

……

(a letter attached to a manuscript, delivered within hours of close-of-business the following week.)

Chapter Eleven, as promised Silver.

And if my courier is as fast as she claims, with a good half-a-day to spare.

Now let me have a few solid nights of drinking before you bombard me with your inevitable critiques. After the week I’ve had. I deserve it.

Your favourite Dwarf,

V. Tethras

……

No rest for the wicked V.

…..

Slave driver.

……

You're the one sending (and likely paying) this young boy to run between my office and the Hanged Man to deliver scathing quips.

Are you so desperate to have the final word?

……

Well yes; but you keep responding, don't you?

…….....................................................................................................................

So I noticed you seem a bit fixated on my latest romance scene. There have to be at least twice as many notes on those pages than the rest of the manuscript combined (what do you have against the humble ellipses? Did it kill your father, insult your mother’s honour? Cheat you in cards?).

Something there must have really caught your attention.

……

If by caught my attention, you mean had me scoffing into my coffee, then yes -- there was plenty to work with.

I don’t know who you’re paying at the Blooming Rose, but no one has ever lasted that long, or had a woman orgasming that many times, without the aid of some very potent potions. Anyone who claims otherwise is better at lying than you are.

Try to be a bit more realistic when penning your explicit material.

Your readers aren’t that stupid.

By the way, I have no qualms with the ellipses. But they are not sugar V, don’t sprinkle them about like the scene is an Orlesian sweet.

……

Obviously you’ve never slept with a dwarf...

What we lack in size, we make up for in …  stamina.

Surely you’ve heard the saying... “Just the right height to give a human girl a good time.”

… V

P.S… sweet enough for you Silver?

…............................................................................................................................

                                             Kirkwall Publishing;                 in association with the Noble Literary Society of Kirkwall,

                                extend their cordial invitation to

                                          Ser Varric Tethras

                                                    to our

                                Annual Satinalia Award Ceremony

                               To be held at the De Launcet Estate                                              10th Harvestmere

                                    Dinner will be served at 6 bells                                  Award Ceremony to begin at 8 bells.

                           Please contact Kirkwall Publishing to RSVP.

( scribbled in the bottom corner of the invitation)

Yes you have to come! You won an award for Viper’s Nest

- Silver

……

My Dearest Silver,

I regret to inform you that I will be unable to attend this award shindig, as I will be busy doing literally anything else. As it if Satinalia and the entirety of Kirkwall will be pissed-up and cavorting around in masks, I’m sure no one will miss me.

Be a dear and collect my award for me. I want to send it to the Merchants Guild next time they try and involve Bartrand and me in their latest drivel. And when you finally grow tired of the snooty bastards up in Hightown, come join us at the Hanged Man. Hawke and I are having a little get together.

Yours, without regrets

Varric Tethras

……

Dear V.

Fine, but you better get your clever merchant hands on a bottle of the honey mead I like.

Try not to pass out before I get there.

- Silver

......

( a message, written on the back of a letter from the Merchants Guild and left on the beside of one Varric Tethras )

I stand correct. Dwarven stamina is a thing of beauty.

You still owe me 3 sovereigns.

Silver

……

Where the all of Thedas did you get that dress! That neckline should be illegal.

You can’t possibly have found it in a store, even I wouldn’t believe that kind of coincidence. Did you show a tailor my author portrait? You must have! Which means you had that outfit planned well before I rejected your precious awards night invite.

So you were planning to what, attend that ceremony with me dressed in a pin up version of my usual clothes? I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted.

This is punishment for all those ellipses isn’t it?

Or were you just trying to catch my attention? I've been called a narcissist before, but never by intelligent company.

Your exceedingly bemused author,

V. Tethras

……

You didn’t seem to mind the dress last night, when I stopped by to deliver your award.

Or did it only cause offence once it landed on the floor of your room?

I didn’t think you noticed, you were very… distracted.

You’ll note my accurate and well placed use of an ellipses.

Your exceedingly well-dressed editor,

Silver

By the way; your pretty elven friend, the one who’s always sneaking into the Hightown gardens. Is she seeing anyone?

……

Hands of Silver. Hawke’s been making doe-eyes at Daisy since he saw her.

Furthermore, asking about my friends the day after you sleep with me! I feel so used.

Your tragically offended friend,

V. Tethras

……

As usual, you force me to repeat myself V.

You didn’t mind being used last night.

Your surprisingly flexible friend,

Silver

……

No fair, now you’ve got me thinking about humans and their long, bendy limbs.

You’d think all that leg of yours would get in the way.

Next time, remind me to hook them over my shoulders. I like the way it makes your back arch.

……

Tempting.

But you still need to send me the redraft of chapter eleven by next fortnight.

- Silver

[inventors-fair]

Our Gift to You ~

Congratulations to @ignorantturtlegaming​, @stormtideleviathan​ and @teaxch​ for winning this week’s contest!

Not only was this contest some pretty limited space, but my goodness, there were a lot of strong entries. Once we get into the nitty-gritty of commentary I’ll extrapolate a bit more on that. Winners and runners this week were chosen based on what I believe are primarily strong gameplay uses of the mechanic. I’m a huge flavor sucker, and again, we’ll get into that more. With a mechanical-based contest, though, it’s important to prioritize what the cards do, and then look at how the cards create flavor. So!

@ignorantturtlegaming​ — Elusive Jewel

I absolutely thought of Commander when looking at this card. Of course there are ways to break it, but mana rocks are always welcome, and the strength of bouncing around and the necessary utility of activated abilities and payoff are strong. This card in general is amazingly strong. The draw especially is radical. Homeward Path and Brooding Saurian might make this card frustrating, but that’s competitive play for you. The spell trigger especially balances this out a bit if you don’t have the right combo. Cast a spell, draw cards, give it away, and then someone else with a better combo can destroy or utilize it. This card is strong enough to be a theoretical staple without breaking the game. I doubt the cost would allow it to be radically impactful in eternal formats. The only nitpicks are that, well, if I’m wrong, there’s no real reason this card couldn’t be either legendary or mythic, and for two, the flavor text really isn’t doing it for me. The card is strong and the mechanics are flavorful enough with the presented subject matter. 

@stormtide-leviathan​ — Shimmersnatch

Oh, this card. That particular text has never appeared on a card before, and I friggin’ love it. I try not to play favorites (except for, well, when I’m choosing my favorite cards for a custom card contest) but this one really did tickle me particularly well. GAIN CONTROL. Of an ABILITY. Ugin ultimate? JtMS ultimate? MINE NOW. ... Except that you definitely need to add a clause that you have to change the new targets. Oh, wait, lordy, Emrakul cast trigger? MINE NOW. I want to play this card, I want to see it played, I want to see it impact standard and modern and eternal and Commander, I’m just utterly blown away. Does it need reworking? Well, yeah, a little poke and prod. Is it flavorful to faeries? Hell yes it is, those little thieving nerds. Is it broken? For two blue, I mean, most people would rather still have Mana Drain or even a solid Counterspell, but the point stands. I’m enthralled. ... Wait, did you cast a faerie spell on me to make this a winner?

@teaxch​ — Sulfur Ring Scratchbinder

Ordinarily, we look at cards and think of the best possible scenario for what they could be used for. For this card, the best scenario is that you get a 3/3 and your opponents, presumably multiple opponents, get a big Devil that’s bound by this handler to scratch each other’s eyes out until someone dies. You can also give other people Devils with Zendruu effects, like Fiendish duo or even Zurzoth, or Donating a Conspiracy/Xenograft/Arcane Adaptation! I know I’m reaching here for optimization. Because also, well, I’m imagining the worst case: each opponent creates a token, then the Scratchbinder dies, and all the Devils are free to do what they want. And I love that. This card is a fantastic example of risk/reward. It’s a fine rare, and I can’t wait to talk about other examples of why risk/reward is important later in the contest. For now, be content that the devil in me hasn’t turned on you. Yet.

Thank you all for your entries! Runners-up and commentary coming tomorrow.         —@abelzumi​