#i am enchanted by the logistics of this

[jellyfitzjelly]

May I request a prompt where Zevlor reacting to shy gn reader (crush) telling him that his eyes are beautiful?

This is shorter than what I usually do, I hope you won't mind!

Eye love you | Gen | AO3

Zevlor was deep in the explanations of the logistics for the goblin camp’s infiltration, exposing to the young adventurer how they could reach the one piloting the attacks on the Grove. He was so engrossed in it, in fact, that when he lifted his eyes to look at them he was surprised to see them stare at him. Their beautiful eyes widened, going red in the face and looking away immediately.

“Is something the matter?” he asked, brows furrowing.

“No! No, sir! Of course.”

That was obviously a lie.

“Have you listened to a word of what I’ve just said?” he asked, though he felt more amused than annoyed.

Zevlor had been charmed by the young adventurer ever since they punched Aradin. They were timid but hid steel beneath that pretty face. They spluttered, looking panicked.

“Am I that distractingly ugly to you?” he teased.

“You’re not!”

Zevlor laughed at their earnestness.

“It’s true!” they bristled. “Your eyes are incredibly beautiful!”

The Hellrider blinked in surprise, taken aback by their forwardness. Tav blushed bright red, seemingly realizing their words.

“I didn’t know my eyes were so enchanting to you,” he said gently. “I rarely am complimented about them.”

“R–Really?” they stammered.

Zevlor took a step forward, letting his gaze drop to their beautiful mouth. He was getting tempted.

“Really,” he smiled.

He slowly bowed down, attracted like a magnet to these lips, those beautiful lips…

“Commander I– Oh, sorry,” Tilses gasped as she entered the cave.

They separated hurriedly, both blushing.

“Yes, Tilses?” Zevlor cleared his throat as Tav scuttled away.

The Hellrider promised himself to take up that conversation later that night in the adventurer’s camp.

[iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia]

full hc request: mc and m6 celebrating holi ?

(i am friendless this holi and i will cry over it)

-🫧 anon

The Arcana HCs: Celebrating Holi

~ most of this is based off of childhood experience celebrating in South Asia, thank you for resurrecting all the fun memories anon! ~

Julian

He loves the concept of it

A community event, full of color and celebration? Heck yeah! This extrovert is pumped and ready to spread the joy!

This extrovert is also a doctor

And this doctor is already gearing up for the aftermath - for all the people who caught cold running around in wet clothes, the injuries from hopping around on wet cobblestones and twisting ankles ...

... the overenthusiastic celebrants falling into the canals and bumping their heads, the kids who always end up licking the color powder and find out the hard way what they're allergic to ...

And of course, the mild panic he experiences for the next week seeing faded stains on his patient's skin and faces and briefly mistaking them for bruising

Seriously, why do bruises turn every color of the rainbow??

But all that aside, he's excited to celebrate with you and will even bend down so you can smear some color on his face and eyepatch

Asra

Oh, they are thriving

This is easily one of his favorite events of the year. This gets more planning and preparation time than ... most things, really

They insist on making (or at least, modifying) all of their own colors and stock up on everything from powder to paste to dyes they can mix with water and spray at passersby with a water gun

Some of them he enchants to be holographic. Others, to hover menacingly in the air and then engulf whoever walks close enough

It's one of the few times when all the kids in the neighborhood flock to them because they know that nobody will kit them out for a proper water fight like they will. It's on

His hair is going to have colors lingering in it for over a month

The magic use does get just a little bit out of control, sometimes - they've been politely asked to stay away from the town square, since the statues still occasionally puke neon rainbows

Will put a spell on you that morning so nothing can stain you

Nadia

Does she enjoy and look forward to this festival? Yes. Is she stressed beyond words? Also yes. She needs a break

The sheer logistics of organizing a national holiday aside, Holi is messy. The streets are full of people, traffic is impossible for the day, injuries are spiking from partying too hard, and the cleanup

Don't get her started on the cleanup

Vesuvia has plenty of white marble statues and fountains that end up coated in the rainbow every year (though it's gotten easier since a certain magician was banned from the town square)

Not to mention the series of legal cases afterwards when some merchant passing through sells a load of poor quality colors

That won't stop her from enjoying it with you. She'll set up the garden and spend an afternoon chasing you around with her palms covered in color, darting out to leave smudges on your cheeks

If she moves a little more slowly to ensure that she gets covered in your colors as well, then. That's for only her and the shrubs to know

Muriel

A festival so exciting and intense that crowds of people flood the streets and smear colors all over each other with abandon?

Yeah, you can count him out

The concept of celebrating color and the triumph of good over evil is delightful, but you both know that if he joins he'll suffer at best and have a full-blown panic attack at worst. Better not

He'll celebrate with you in his own way

You'll find a forest clearing, pull out all the environmentally friendly colors you've stocked up on, and goad him with rainbow fingerprints into a playful game of tag among the trees

His artistic side will make itself known, waiting for you to tire yourself out before he sits next to you and traces swirls and runes all over your arms and face with featherlight touches

Of course, this only works if you're distracted with something while he does, or else your eyes on him will make him freeze up and blush. (the shaky little smudges those cause are the best)

Portia

She adores Holi and she is Prepared

She knows all the tips and tricks to get through the day with as little misfortune as possible. Old, cheap clothes that you don't mind getting stained. Oil on your skin and hair before you go out

And of course, a mom bag stuffed to the brim, half with celebration essentials and half with mischief implements

You look tired and a little overstimulated. Here, wipe your face and hands with this damp towel and drink some water. She packed snacks - do you want a cookie or a sandwich?

You look like you could use an advantage. Here, take this dye filled water balloon and throw it at the nearest street sign - the partygoers underneath will have it in their hair for weeks

Her favorite celebration spots are right in the middle of wherever the kids are having their massive water fight. Nobody can amp up mediate one of those like she can

Will shamelessly cover your clothes in her handprints

Lucio

He loves it for the first fifteen minutes or so

A town-wide celebration that fills the streets? Heck yeah, he is all in and having the time of his life! He has permission to splash color all over random strangers? Awesome! He's going all out -

... until he starts to receive the same treatment, which means his hair is getting messy and his clothes are going to stain and there's dye all over his face and absolutely ruining his eyeliner

Yeah, he's done, and he's going to start sulking if he doesn't get a hot bath nice and soon

Mercedes and Melchior, on the other hand, are having the times of their lives. It's chaos dialed to the max and they love the chance to weave between people's legs and splash colors everywhere

Of course, they also have gorgeous long silky white fur, which gets absolutely saturated with pigments and dyes as they run wild

Bathing them afterwards is a legendary nightmare and the pastel hues linger on their backs for quite a while

[jacevelaryonswife]

MY LOVE MY LOVE MY DARLING MY DEAREST <3333

might i request some jacaerys (our beloved) where jacaerys is made to attend aemond's betrothal party (i don't know how to explain it but like one of those things where the lord's take their unwed daughters to suggest them as a betrothal, please dm if it's confusing I AM VERY BAD WITH WORDS HELP) because you know public united front but maybe someone pulls a prank (lucerys perhaps? trying to make this fit logistically 👀) and blames it on jacaerys so he's just bumbling through before ducking under a table to hide and meets this lady who is trying desperately not to get married and is hiding? THANK YOU FOR CONSIDERING MY ANGEL <333 (sorry if this got too long my love <3)

She’s resplandent, so confident

∴pairing: Jacaerys Velaryon x fem!reader

∴warnings a note: no one, just fluffy. I made some changes in your request to make the story more dinamic. 1,2k words.

jacaerys velaryon masterlist

Courtesy was one of the qualities shared between Prince Jacaerys and you, both externally honored with the suitors presented during Prince Aemond's engagement, but dissatisfied under the kind and grateful banner. In comparison, perhaps your case was worse than the heir of Rhaenyra Targaryen, since your lord father was basically accepting any agreement by your hand, not caring about a suitable age group of the other gentlemen. It was terrifying to sustain a false smile while feeling totally humiliated at that table, so, requesting permission to have some air before another gentleman introduces himself, you were released from your obligations to pick up one of the delights arranged on the desserts table.

So, you saw from afar a lord bearing a silver and blue coat, old enough to be your grandfather presenting himself to your father. For the seven!

Your legs were agile when you sneaked quickly trying to hide, taking advantage of the fact that some tables were empty and the attention was on the dance between the betrotheds (a surprise to see the one-eyed prince being a dancer peculiarly... bold), you hid with a slice of cake under a distant table graced by a black towel that covered it from end to end.

On the other side of the hall, Jacaerys Velaryon enchanted ladies of all ages with his charm and education, a true prince beyond the title. He was aware of his duties and knew that he needed to get married soon and have heirs, and he also couldn’t deny that a part of him was satisfied with the attention received, it was reassuring, in fact, to know that the rumors about his paternity weren’t a hindrance for the butterflies to approach. But at that moment he just needed to rest his lips after kissing so many hands in a short time. And then, approaching the dessert table, he heard a distant sneeze. Strange, there was no one in the direction of the noise. Seconds were spent looking carefully in the same direction, until another sneeze intrigued him sharply and made him go to the source of the noise. It couldn't be...

“My lady? What's going on?" He asked as he stared at your wide eyes.

"My prince!" Your exclamation was low, although scared. "Don't tell anyone, please!"

Jace quickly looked around so as not to draw attention. "Why are you hiding? Did something happen?"

"I cannot say."

"Why?"

"I cannot say! Just... leave me here." You retreated further into the table.

Amazed by the nature of the situation, the prince imitated your condition and infiltrated under the table, to your surprise and horror. "My prince, you don't have to," you whispered.

He felt he needed it, all of a sudden. "Did anyone hurt you, my lady?"

"No, no one hurt me.” Not physically, but you felt hurt and emotionally disgusted.

"Then why are you hiding? I can try to solve it, if you allow me to-"

"It's nothing, my prince, you don't have to worry," you replied, making an upset pout.

He copied your pout, looking at you carefully. Clearly questioning in the traditional way would not work, so Jace opted for a different approach.

"I'm sorry, I didn't want to pressure you. We have not yet been properly introduced, Prince Jacaerys Velaryon,” he raised his hand towards you, “honored to meet you.”

You couldn't believe that Princess Rhaenyra's son was formally introducing himself under a table because of you, seven hells, what a scandal! You presentation yourseld in a low voice, uncertain and worried about what was happening because of your.

"I don't think this is appropriate, my prince, you shouldn't be in this situation," he added.

"Neither do you, my lady, but here we are," he said, "and I would really like to know what happened to make you be here and I don't intend to leave here until I understand.

Oh dear.

"Nothing happened, it's just... my lord father and my lady mother are looking for a betrothed for me, and I just wanted some time to stretch my legs," you started, "and, a lord approached our table just now... an older lord, much older than me, and I panicked."

His mouth opened subtly. "Well... uh... I believe that your father wouldn’t accept, if that is the intention, a marriage between the two of you," he said uncertainly, seeking to reassure you with what he thought was plausible.

“My father would change me for a herd of goats, if I were favorable,” you replied bitterly, looking down.

The confusion and shock were even more evident on Velaryon's beautiful face when he heard that words. Such a fate seemed too horrifying, however, common for some ladies, unfortunately.

"My lady, I..." he stuttered a little, "I'm sorry, I don't know what to say."

"I know, it's okay."

Your weak voice denounced the opposite. Although it had been prepared for the situation, the choice of suitors had not been satisfactory, especially the last one. This was a situation that Jacaerys would not need to go through, since his mother was more flexible about it, however, it did not stop him from helping a lady as adorable as you.

"I have an idea. What if I showed up in your company? Maybe it could be a temporary distraction to your father."

Temporary, well-used term.

“It can work at the moment,” you said, maybe you can save time to find a better suitor. "Maybe... if you, my prince, could grant me a dance, so he can see."

"Well, I should have made that invitation, forgive me for being so slow," he joked, "but yes, I would be able to dance with you, my lady."

He smiled sweetly; soft brown eyes shining towards him, oh, how beautiful and kind he was! A real delight!

You replicated Prince Velaryon's smile and waited for him while analyzing the movement to leave the table without being noticed, however, at the same moment that Jace lifted the towel, Prince Lucerys widened his expressive eyes with the image.

“It's not what you're thinking,” Jacaerys seriously warned him. The heir of Driftmark quietly nodded in confusion, looking at the rest of the hall. "Are there many people close?" Jace whispered.

“No,” Luke imitated his brother's tone, watching him come out from under the table.

You wanted to sink on the ground with the astonished look of young Velaryon on your shrunken figure below waiting for the endorsement of Prince Jacaerys to leave.

"Don't tell that to anyone," he said to dear Lucerys, "let's go, my lady," he raises his arm to lead you to the salon, "where is your lotf father?" He whispered.

"A little further to the right, my prince."

Without looking directly at your family and the old lord who presented himself as a suitor to your hand, you positioned yourself in the hall together with the prince, receiving attentive looks from some ladies, the royal family and your own family. So far neither of you has chosen partners for a dance, so the whole situation was seen as suggestive for Rhaenyra Targaryen and a real dream for your mother, who didn’t bother to hide the surprise when contemplating the scene. "It's Prince Jacaerys!" She murmured to your father, who only expanded his eyes in interest, to the misfortune of the old lord.

“Call me Jace,” he smiled toothlessly at you, making your body tingle in response.

"You honor me, my- Jace, thank you for doing this."

"You're welcome, my lady.”

When the music started, another dragon danced happily with a butterfly that would come to be known as his future betrothed.

—————————————

General taglist: @chompchompluke @fan-goddess @kravitzwhore @partypoison00

[cat-boi-gaming]

Scott smajor… what is he?

Scott smajor is one of my favorite Minecraft YouTuber the series I’m talking about today is the life series

so I’m going to some up the life series for y���all, so we’re on the same page.

The life series is a series created by Grian, you get three lives, a green life, yellow life in a red life. Greens are peaceful, yellow lives are aggressive to greens and reds are aggressive to everyone. Each series within the life series, has a little twist to it. Like last life with the bogeyman in the amount of lives assigned at the beginning, double life with the soul bonds, Limited life being limited by a clock, in secret life where you were assigned tasks to do things along with the bogeyman curse in both limited life and secret life. Scott as a character has a lot of lore when it comes to the life series. He’s been there since third life, and we know he’s pissed off the watchers. The thing that I’m confused about is why was he in third life at least from a lore perspective. The cast of third life had all been on the evolution server, but not Scott. So why was he there? He didn’t have a connection to the watchers for them to have pulled him into the game, so how did Scott get there? That’s the question that led me down this theorizing path.

I couldn’t really figure out a reason why he would be in third life, but I do know this the watchers don’t like Scott. The watchers have said before “he mocks us”. He refuses to do the bogeyman curse, and still wins. Scott is bright, both as a character and intelligence wise. It makes sense for the Waters to have their eyes on Scott and for Scott to have gotten their attention. The problem is pinpointing where that comes from. Obviously, the watcher his attention was drawn whenever he refused to do the bogeyman curse, but if that was the case, why was he put back? Where the watcher is trying to expand the people that they influence so they added more people during last life? Did Scott do some thing in third life that drew the attention of the watchers? Because I don’t think he was a part of the Yandry high school lore so there’s no way for the watchers to have gotten involved there, and even then there seems to be times with that pre-dates when the watchers were causing a lot of problems. he could also have gotten their attention from some of the other series that he’s done, but then why only Scott why not anyone else? What makes Scott so special that the Watchers felt the need to include him in third life

Also, what is up with that Ally blessing.

The ally blessing is a blessing that has surprisingly held out through all of the series. How Scott’s ally blessing works, is, if he’s allied with a person that person will win or he will win. Well, some believe he wasn’t allied with scar in secret life he, in fact was allied with scar. He gave him that enchanted sword, and during the opposite episode on scars perspective, the way he talked implied that he had caught onto what scars task was or at least he understood that he was doing the opposite of what he was saying so when scar said I’m so glad we’re not allies Scott played along. I understand that logistically the ally blessing is just Scott being a really good player and wanting the others to win but I am doing this purely from a lore point of view.

all of this kind of swirled together until I came up with this theory.

Scott is some thing like the watchers. I don’t think he’s a watcher, I also don’t think he’s a listener, I think he’s his own thing, something separate to the watchers in the listeners, so I started calling him a whisper, since we have watchers for the eyes listeners for the ears so it’s only logical the next thing we get is whispers out of the mouth. and when you look at it from that perspective, a lot of the questions I was asking earlier kind of get solved

if he’s a whisper as I’m calling it, it makes sense for him to effectively be an opposite of a watcher or a listener, giving blessings instead of curses or breaking curses for other people in fact, Scott is the reason why the canary curse got broken. Lizzie was attacking Scott when she fell into the void and took the curse,

i’m thinking the watchers knew that Scott was something otherworldly and decided to drag him in along with grain.

I also support this with the fact that Scott is aware of the past lives, he repeatedly makes references to rats smp, witchcraft smp, third life, new life, pirates smp , and so many more. He’s very obviously not an NPC if we’re using Martin‘s lore.

but we also don’t have any conformation that he’s a player like Martin is

but we do know Grain does remember at least some of the past lives

so, using this evidence, I am suggesting that Scott falls into another category of otherworldly beings like the watchers and the listeners

But that’s just a theory

[achaotichuman]

Hello 👋

I hope you're well

Idk if you're taking prompts for fics but if you are, could you please write something for Tarquin from ACOTAR? Could it be something platonic (not sexual at all), him interacting with the other High Lords or yelling at the IC or maybe just expanding on the Summer Court? I feel like there's so little Tarquin-centric fics and i am dying just to get something.

I hope i'm not pressuring you into doing anything tho (and am really sorry if i'm sounding like i am) becoz if you don't want to or want to do something else, that's fine as well. I love your writing and will be happy regardless

Sorry if i'm disturbing you

Helloo!!!

Omg I love this prompt so much!!

Don't ever think you are disturbing me by sending me prompts, I am always happy to receive them!!! And if anyone is ever wondering whether or not I am taking requests, in the pinned post on my blog, it will tell you whether my inbox is open or closed. We def need more Tarquin-centric fics so I am very happy to write this one!!!

Okay so, I definitely wanted fluff and a touch of hurt/comfort, but mostly good vibes. Tarquin's trauma in the books is completely swept under the rug and I absolutely despise it, so here we see a window into him healing from Under the Mountain. Some friendship with Eris and Tamlin, and his relationship with Cresseida and Varian.

I hope you enjoy anon!!

 I’m almost me again, she’s almost you

I got some colour back, She thinks so too. I’m almost me again, She’s almost you. -(Almost (Sweet Music) Hozier

I’m running a circus. Tarquin thought to himself as he watched the three lords around the glass circle table bicker over minor details of the recent High Lord’s meeting. Debating seating arrangements, decorations and who would greet who. Tarquin listened as each Lord gave his opinion, only to be talked over by the other. 

Eventually though, his eyes slid to Cresseida who met his gaze. He gave the slightest of nods, and she plucked a crystal bell from the table. Ringing it loud and suddenly to catch the full attention of everyone in the room. 

Tarquin smoothly stood from his seat, folding his hands in front of him. He said cooly, “We will assess and organise the arrangements as necessary, but first I would like to discuss the logistics of the meeting with my second. For now you are all excused.”

There was a murmuring of ‘yes High lord.’ And general thank you’s for the meeting before everyone began to file out. The door finally clicked shut and Tarquin fell back into his chair. 

Cresseida hid her laugh behind her palm, but couldn’t stop the shaking of her shoulders as she watched her younger cousin practically melt into his chair. 

“What we really need to do is prepare a room as far away from the rest of the Palace as possible. And find some sort of enchanted unbreakable chairs.”

His second nodded thoughtfully, “Perhaps, my lord, we should nail them into the ground so that no one decides it's necessary to use them as an aerial weapon.”

Tarquin faced her with a deadpan expression as Cresseida struggled to reign in her giggles. 

“I swear to the Mother and Cauldron, if anyone ends up getting choked on my floors-”

“We’ll make it mandatory to remove all weapons. And ask Thesan for his spells to ward the room against magic.”

“I think we’d have outrage from the Night Court if we made their spymaster strip off all his weaponry.” He mumbled. 

“Maybe then they won’t come.” Cresseida murmured as she picked at her nails. 

“Cress-”

“It would certainly be a more peaceful meeting then.” She argued. 

“We have to get along with them. If only for Varian’s sake.”

She frowned, “Varian is a love-sick fool. Completely blind, I couldn’t tell you what he sees in her.”

Tarquin waved his hand in dismissal, he didn’t really want to think about his cousin’s love affairs right now. As strange as they may be and as much as he did not understand them. They weren’t his business. 

They were when he found out Varian had been telling Amren Summer’s personal matters. It got him revoked from the Court until Tarquin was completely sure it would not happen again. Since that day, Varian had not been seen in Adriata. And Tarquin didn’t go looking for him. 

“I need a drink.” Tarquin said, standing up and stretching his arms, hearing his joints crack and pop. 

Cresseida stood with him. Her skirts wishing around her ankles. The long, slim flowing blue fabric of the Summer Court billowed in the sea air as they opened the doors. 

Most of the palace was open to the air. The tall stone pillars that lined the hallways, allowing the breeze to waft in. As well as the hot, buttery yellow sun combining with the salt in the air. Tarquin closed his eyes as he breathed it in. 

He had taken it for granted. In his decades before Amarantha came for them, he had taken this all for granted. 

He breathed it in like the salt might burn away the tang of blood which tainted his senses. The thick crimson which had caked Norstrus’ and Brutius’ skin as Tarquin watched them executed. The image was there whenever he dreamt, stained in the sky at sunset, in his the blood rubies he sent to the Night Court after their thievery. 

Tarquin had always hated the colour red, it was too harsh, too cruel, too much like fire for him. It was a stain to the normal whites, blues and gold he wore. 

But after Amarantha, it was a nightmare of itself. 

“Tar?” Cresseida asked, snapping him from his own thoughts. 

Tarquin looked down at Cresseida, her eyebrows furrowed as she watched him carefully.

“Are you okay?” She asked. 

Her eyes were an earthy brown, skin made vibrant and dark by the sun again. She was alive, and so was he. She was breathing and he did too. The scars on her arms from where she had been grabbed by the Attor at times hadn’t faded entirely, and the claw marks down Tarquin’s thighs from when he had been in a grapple with one of the guards who picked on Varian still got sore sometimes. 

But they were healing. They would heal in time. 

“Yeah, Cress.” Tarquin smiled and it was real, “I’m okay.”

She smiled back, and he knew she knew what he meant. 

“We’re both okay.” She took his hand and gave it a loving squeeze. 

“You thought you could escape me.” Her voice was dripping with cruelty as she laughed and laughed, “Did you think I wouldn’t see through your plans, oh Norstrus, you weren’t this dense even when I first entrapped you.”

Cresseida grabbed his hand, squeezing it tight enough to grind the bones, as tears flowed relentlessly down her face. She couldn’t stop them. 

Tarquin squeezed her hand back. 

“I feel like something fruity and full of good alcohol.” Tarquin loudly proclaimed, “And let’s go to the beach, I’ve been in shoes for far too long now.”

Cresseida laughed, “Cousin, you are full of good ideas.”

“Ive more ideas that all of Helion’s libraries combined, you should know this well.” Tarquin grinned. 

Cresseida looked out over their people in the city streets far below, she smiled at what she saw, “Of course, of course.”

Tarquin and Cresseida sat at a busy bar at the beach that night. Tarquin got to lose his shoes and feel the sand under his feet, the sea lapping at ankles. Now he savoured a pineapple drink and watched the ocean sparkling in the deep orange light as the sun began to set. The band of red glimmered at him, Tarquin watched as the colours darkened, the stars beginning to shine from the blanket of darkness high above. 

Cresseida happily sipped on her drink, watching the sunset with her cousin. He wondered if she also saw blood in the sky as he did. 

“I love sunsets,” She said, he looked over to her, to see her eyes trained on the display before them. 

“They’re pretty,” He agreed. 

“They’re unique.” She said, “Not one is the same as another. Just like people, you’ll never see one the exact same as the other.”

Tarquin looked over the sea again, the sky an array of blended colours and dimming light. 

He watched the red as it began to fade, seeing that deep orange-tinted colour as it blended with the pinks, blues, purples, fading into the silvery ocean as the sun fully dipped below the horizon. 

“You know,” Cresseida said, “When you were young, I told you that no sunset is the same and the one we saw that night you would never see again.”

Tarquin rubbed a finger along the lip of his drink, listening intently as he turned to stare into the yellow of his drink. 

“You didn’t like that,” She laughed, “You asked me if we could get on a ship and sail to the horizon, if we could chase the sunset and see it forever.”

He followed the line of his fingers with his eyes, his skin, his wrists, his veins. He saw it all. 

“What did the sunset look like that night?” He asked.

Cresseida sighed dreamily as she thought back fondly on the memory, “It was marvellous, the whole sky was red, even the ocean shone crimson. You were amazed by it. Said it looked like the Mother had dipped a bucket of red paint over the sky.”

He remembered it, he remembered holding Cresseida’s finger with one hand and clutching a stuffed seahorse in the other. He had smiled and pointed at the sky and been upset when Cresseida said he would not see it again. 

Perhaps he had not hated red as much as he thought. 

Amarantha had tainted his memory, dragged jagged claws and left a bleeding scar. 

But blood clotted, and scars healed over. His were no different. 

Tarquin turned to face the sky. He looked at the red band, and saw the Mother’s grand expanse of paints. 

Norstrus’ blood would always haunt his mind. 

But he would look at the sunset, and he wouldn’t be afraid. 

______________________________________________

Music played in the air, a symphony of notes that wrapped around his limbs like hands pulling him forward. The night air was cool, the notes of ocean, fruits and citrus salt blew through his hair and pushed him in all directions. 

Every string was plucked with the celebrations of his lands. Tarquin clutched a flute of bubbling Faerie wine in one hand, watching the dancing Fae, twirling and spinning in long fluttering layers of fabric. A sea of blue and gold, as shining and unbound as the ocean itself. 

The meeting was over and he forgot the stress as he drank deeply from his glass. Swallowing each pale gold drop. A haze settled deep in his bones, making him as free as raging currents coursing through the sea itself. Tarquin didn’t know when or how, but he found himself spinning and twisting in the crowds to the music which wrote and rewrote itself into his soul. Etching this memory into his bones. Burning out the memories of days and nights under a cave’s ceiling, they turned to ashes which blew out into the night with the ocean air, replaced with the view of the stars above, the perfume of his Court, and the smiling, free people around him. 

At some point he spotted Cresseida, she was twirled around by a man he hadn’t met before. She met his gaze and laughed, in a second she was beside him. Grabbing his hands and spinning him around. 

“You got wine on your shirt, dunce!” She laughed, throwing her head back, white curls bouncing around. 

Tarquin stopped his spinning just enough to grab his shirt and look down. And instead droplets had splattered across his pale blue and gold shirt. 

“Oh well!” He laughed with her, grabbing her hands again. 

The night spun away from him, it came back to earth when another set of hands caught his wrists. 

“Cousin!” There was Varian, grinning from ear to ear, drunk on alcohol and the spirit of the crowd. 

“Var!” Tarquin caught him in a tight hug, catching Cresseida’s arm once more and drunkenly pulling her into the embrace. 

The three laughed and danced and drank to their merry heart’s content. Allowing the night to sweep them off their feet, whisking them into the antics of the party. 

At some point, sometime very early in the morning, Tarquin found himself laying across an empty beach, the last rays of moonlight shining down on him, painting the sand in pure silver. The ocean shimmering like the scales of a fish with every tiny wave. His shoes were gone, possibly for good, and his loose pants were rolled up past his ankles. 

He laid supported by his elbows. Watching the horizon as the very first drop of sunlight broke from below the horizon. 

“Well that was a wild night.” A voice he didn’t immediately recognise commented. 

Tarquin looked up to see a head of blond nearly right beside him, supporting a near unconscious pale-skinned redhead. 

“Tamlin,” Tarquin grinned, he glanced down at Eris and raised an eyebrow. 

Tamlin laughed, slowly lowering Eris who swayed with every movement like he’d be sick. 

“Too much Faerie wine for you, Lord of Autumn.”

“It was your terrorising cousin who wished to see me undone who kept shoving a full glass into my hand.” Eris said. 

“Cresseida is a force to be reckoned with.” Tamlin noted, flopping down on Tarquin’s other side. 

“Truer words have never been spoken, Spring,” Tarquin said, letting himself fall back down into the sand. Tamlin joined him. Staring up at the last remnants of the stars. 

“You’ll both come to Spring solstice this year.” Tamlin said, not even an invitation, almost an order. Almost, if Tarquin did not know he had long planned to go regardless of if Tamlin even wanted him to be there. 

“And I’ll be at the Autumn Equinox,” Tarquin noted, “I have to get Eris back for emptying out my cellars by doing the same to him.”

“You’ll never succeed.” Eris responded, laying back with them, looking a little more in control of himself, “If there was anything Beron was good for it was collecting the good stuff. There’s hoards of it that will put your treasure trove to shame.”

“We’ll compare and see who comes out on top then.” Tarquin said with a challenging grin. 

“What new kind of dick measuring contest is this? I’ll have to start my own hoard.” Tamlin laughed. 

“What are you going to hoard Tamlin? Flower crowns? Those would rot in mere days.” Eris snapped. 

“That's why you either dry or freeze them, Eris, then you can keep them forever. I still have the flower crowns my mother had her nieces wear to her wedding.”

“Introduce me to them one day.” Tarquin said, “I’ve heard many good tales about Lady Dahlie Fairburn.”

“My mother was awesome.” Tamlin grinned. 

“Your mother’s awesome? My mother is the most awesome,” Tarquin said, “But your mother can have second place.”

“No, my mother is the most awesome.” Eris said, “Not even a competition, you two can fight over second place.”

“Oh, please,” Tamlin scoffed, “It’s not even a fair contest, Tarquin never even met my mother.”

“What are the three of you bickering over?” Someone else chimed from above. 

Tarquin tilted his head as back as he could to try and make out who stood above them. 

“Mother, you’re just in time!” Eris chimed, clambering to sit up properly. 

Andrea took in a deep breath whilst the observed the three males try and stumble to get up. Dusting sand that stuck to their wine-stained clothes and hair. 

“Come inside the lot of you, you can sleep all this off.” She said, beginning to walk back to the Palace. 

“Wait Andrea! You knew my mother, you can settle this argument.” Tamlin shouted after her. 

Eris, Tarquin and Tamlin got up and started running after the Lady of Day. The soft fluffy sand cold beneath their feet, turning to the stone steps and the rocky cobblestone as they continued to argue. 

Andrea laughed as she listened to the three, her ribs ached as they tried to make her pick who would win their imaginary competition. 

The sun’s rays grew stronger, blue bleeding into the dark as day overtook night. 

Tarquin looked up at the sky and saw the endlessness spread out for all to see. 

Maybe he was stained with the darkness of that depraved mountain forever. 

But right now. 

He was almost him again. 

[steviesummer]

Dealing with Demodogs

written for @steddiemicrofic's December prompt - ‘pine’ also works for today's prompt for @steddieholidaydrabbles - 'Royalty AU' wc: 508 | rated: G | cw: none | tags: pre-Steddie

“Dustin, I though you said you knew the way?” Steve could hear the unfamiliar voice carry through the pines surrounding his home.

Dustin’s voice he knew. “It’s your kingdom, Eddie, shouldn’t you know every place and resident?”

“I’m sorry, did you just suggest that anyone could know everything about the Enchanted Forest?”

Steve’s eyebrows rose, not at the realization that King Eadwine of all people was apparently searching him out, but that Dustin, usually so intelligent, would make such a basic mistake. He may not have been from here originally, but Dustin was usually more knowledgeable. In any case, he apparently had royalty approaching, so he might as well meet them at the door - if only because it made him look all knowing. Especially because Dustin hadn’t quite figured out his little trick.

He heard their arguing quiet as he put the kettle on and opened the door just before they could knock. “Come in, I’ve just started tea.” When the duo just stared at him for a moment, a small smirk found its way onto his face. “Unless I am wrong and you weren’t here to ask for my help?”

That seemed to shake both of them from their shock. “Tea sounds wonderful.” King Eadwine accepted, following him inside. He shooed two of his cats off the table so they could sit.

“So, what seems to be the problem?” He asked. “Unless the problem is Dustin, in which case I can’t help you, Your Majesty.”

“Hey!” Dustin objected, but the King grinned, clearly familiar with the younger man’s quirks.

“Please, call me Eddie.”

“Steve.”

“I wish it were as simple as Dustin’s ego, but alas, I am here to request your help on a slightly more serious matter. There have been reports of strange creatures along the Southern border. Dustin said you had helped him with something similar in the past - four legged with no eyes or fur and their head opens like a flower full of teeth?” Steve frowned, knowing exactly what Eddie was referring to.

“Demodogs. How many?” He mourned the loss of the lighter atmosphere, but shifted easily into crisis mode, already thinking about logistics.

“There have been 5 sightings, though only three seen together at a time. We can’t be completely sure, of course, but it does seem to be a fairly small group of them.” Eddie explained, before Dustin jumped in.

“Max and Lucas went ahead to get more information, but you were the one who actually dealt with them last time. And you know how we only thought there was one but it ended up being a whole pack. I don’t think the situation is the same, but better safe than sorry, right?”

Steve remembered the entire experience far too clearly. So much for an easy favor. He sighed, getting up. He waved Eddie and Dustin off. “Finish your tea. I’ll get my bat and a few other things. I’ll have to let Nancy and Robin know I’m gone as well. The sooner we leave, the sooner its done.”

[storyofmychoices]

Whimsical Walks and Poetic Talks

Valentine's Gift #2 for the wonderful @oh-so-youre-a-nerd! @choicesfandomappreciation

Pairing: Ernest Sinclaire x Tulsi (F!MC) (@oh-so-youre-a-nerd)

Book: Desire & Decorum

Word Count: >550

Rating/Warning: General/None

Synopsis: Ernest and Tulsi take a late afternoon walk around Ledford Park.

This art of Ernest and Tulsi is by @liiyaan!

The orange glow of the setting sun bathed Ledford Park in an amber glow, its warmth welcoming Ernest and Tulsi, who had embarked on a leisurely stroll through the newly renovated garden. The bushes, shrubs, and flowers had just begun to show the first signs of life as spring began ushering in a new season, one which would hopefully allow the couple to put the troubles of the past behind them. 

Ernest breathed in the brisk, cool air settling around them as dusk threatened its approach. He marveled at the colors painted across the sky and how the rays of sunlight danced along the tops of the trees, holding onto the world around them. It reminded him of a poem he had once read. His lips curled slightly, his mouth opening, but before he could share the words of beauty in question, Tulsi had other ideas.

A whimsical query sparkled in her eyes. "If you were a flower, which one would you be and why?"

Ernest paused in his step, not expecting the question. He shook his head; he should be used to her impulsive questions. His guarded demeanor softened as their pace resumed. 

"And keep in mind, there are right answers." She teased, her step light beside him as she eagerly awaited his thoughtful reply. 

His free hand pinched the bridge of his nose, his brow furrowing as he considered his response. "If I must participate—" 

"You must!"

"I thought as much," Ernest chuckled. "Then, in response to your query, a thistle."

"Go on," Tusli encouraged, waiting for his reasoning.

"A thistle is sharp with a protective exterior," he began, watching her reaction. "Some might even describe them as prickly, and yet, they are resilient and can thrive even when faced with challenges."

"I'll allow it." She pressed a kiss to his cheek, his blush warming her lips. "In some cultures, thistles symbolize devotion, bravery, and strength. You, Mr. Sinclaire, possess all of those."

"My beautiful Tulsi, may I regale you with a poem that I am reminded of this evening?" Ernest requested, his eyes brightening at the prospects. 

Tulsi smiled softly, she might not appreciate his poetry as he did, but the way he lit up when speaking those words he held close made every word beautiful. "You may."

His attempt to begin was once more quieted by her words.

"However, as you do, consider what kind of fruit you would be and why," Tulsi added. "Oh, and you cannot say a pineapple. You've already used the prickly on the outside reasoning with the thistle." 

Ernest attempted to stifle the chuckle rising in his throat. There was no use arguing logistics with Tulsi over the questions. It would get him nowhere, and he quite liked the enjoyment she found with these inquiries. He nodded his agreement and then began reciting the poem. 

The cadence of his voice wove a tapestry of emotions, painting the air with the beauty and complexity of the poem's meaning. Tulsi listened, enchanted by the rhythm of his words and the way Ernest's eyes sparkled with passion as he unraveled the layers of the written art. 

They might not find the appeal of the same things, but the love they found in each other, and the appreciation for each other's interests they had, kept their relationship growing with every word they shared.

Thia, I hope you enjoy this little drabble of your Tulsi and Ernest. I hope I captured them in a way that fits your vision. Happy Valentine's Day!

PS-I commissioned the art before I asked about their dynamic 🙈

[hestzhyen]

A Dubiously Useful Character Investment Advisory

Hello internet void... I present this "should I invest in [KB character name]" ramble to you because writing a bunch of gibberish is the only way I know how to understand what I'm thinking about and why.

Seriously though. I usually don't get invested in characters outside of the MC and the folks with him at the start and I'm in uncharted territory here. In an attempt to understand my own deranged thoughts, this will be like that "stock report" that floats around on the subreddit (albeit with far less entertainment value). Starting in order of appearance, skipping dead fodder and obvious bit characters. Note: spoilers for Chapter 40 came out while I was writing this but I'm not going to include them. I am pleasantly surprised by a few things I guessed at though.

More under the cut! But maybe spare yourself instead.

Chapter 1 Kunishige: safe (major). He's dead as a door nail and that won't be changing corpse/spirit reanimation via sorcery to make Chihiro suffer not withstanding. Safe if you like dead goofy dads. His presence has been felt quite strongly despite his absence, which makes sense since his murder is why Chihiro is out kagurabachi'ing all over the place. Every flashback to him is another gut-punch contrast between Chihiro's happier days and his current self, used mostly to help us understand Chihiro's current mindset (and get us emotional because of course). He will keep showing up so we can learn more Chihiro's past self compared to his present, and later on, he'll be a key figure in whatever arc gets into the history of the Seitei war. I'm not ready for whatever Hokazono-sensei has planned but I await it with baited breath.

Chihiro: safe (major). Duh. He has suffered, is suffering, and will continue to suffer, since the story is all about him. Shiba: safe (major). Introduced in Ch. 1 first as an old friend of Kunishige's, then more formally in Ch. 2 as Chihiro's guardian, main support system, and a suspiciously strong fighter. He's our first foil for Chihiro and provides some much-needed levity early on. Shiba's also our main insight into the wider world so far and has connections to the Kamunabi that will keep paying dividends based on how the story's been going. Also Chihiro's strongest (living) connection to his dad and the person who understands him best. There's a lot more to discover about him too (his sorcery power and his past; especially his connection to Azami, Kunishige, and the Seitei war). Only risk is him dying to motivate/further traumatize Chihiro at some point once his plot-relevant PoV is no longer needed. But that's probably a long way off if it even happens at all.

Hishaku sorcerer: risky (minor). The first Hishaku guy we meet is still unnamed and has not been seen since he appeared in a foreboding panel hinting at some nefarious behind-the-scenes plotting. He'll probably come back up as an antagonist in a future arc but he's got henchman vibes since we've met the leader and it's not him. He's the only murderer whose face we've seen so far too.

Chapter 3

Hinao: safe (minor). Our informant and coordinator! The convenient logistical miracle lady! She might be in mortal peril from time to time due to her association with Chihiro and Shiba (RIP Cafe Haru Haru) but she'll stick around to provide exposition and babysit Char and such.

Char: safe (minor). Ultimate woobie and the convenient method for Chihiro et. al. to cheat death when they're inevitably on the run. Her arc was a great way for us to see Chihiro's deeply empathetic and protective nature, and she herself deserves ALL OF IT. She's also our introduction into the underworld that features very prominently going forward, as well as a primer on sorcery and how the enchanted blades (especially Enten) work. Outside of in-universe utility, Char exists to be a permanent way to to soften some of Chihiro's hard edges, and a narrative device to have things explained to the audience (kids are GREAT for that). She's likely to be a background character like Hinao now that her arc is done but we've checked in on her as recently as Ch. 39 so she's not going away for good. Just staying out of the action, very reasonably. She will probably be used as someone for Chihiro to protect and nurture when she's not being cute comedic relief/emergency healing.

Chapter 5

Sojo: inadvisable (minor). The first named villain; the guy who clashed with Chihiro to show us what the rest of the world thinks of his father's work. Gave us a really good idea of what Chihiro was up against not just in the action sense but also in terms of mindset, at least when it comes to the goons that are after the enchanted blades. He died via the same type of explosion that killed Tenri and a report stated his body was accounted for, not to mention the Big Bad separately confirmed he's dead on top of that, but don't let that stop you from believing he can come back. (Basically, bank on the fact that Sojo's past was teased but never elaborated on.)

Chapter 7

Oni mask sorcerer: inadvisable (minor). Made it to the top 10 in the fan popularity poll despite being absolute fodder. At least he lived so he could show up again in the Rakuzaichi arc, for some reason. A hidden villain? I do love it when authors have a unique but seemingly unimportant background character show up a few times until they're revealed to be connected to the plot somehow. That said, probably don't invest.

Azami: safe (minor): Shows up to help Chihiro out of a pinch and to demonstrate the caliber of sorcerer that the government has on hand. He's mostly just delivered exposition and info leaks so far but he'll absolutely be a key player. Not only is he another old friend of Kunishige and Shiba's, he's how we learn about the Kamunabi. There's a ton more to unpack with him in a later arc; he's likely going to be our window into how the Kamunabi, Japanese government, and Seitei war intersected with the Rokuhira's lives (in tandem with Shiba). He's safe for now but once he's done his narrative purpose he could easily die for any number of reasons. Especially if that theory of him being the traitor is true. He's set up for a collision with Chihiro's group just by having allegiance to the Kamunabi in the first place so I'm very excited to see where that goes.

Chapter 10

Ikuto: risky (minor). He's probably going to come back when the story focuses on the Kamunabi, but it's hard to say if he'll have a prominent role or not, much less if he'll be an enemy or an ally with both of his legs missing. He'll probably live but by virtue of being sidelined by his injuries.

Kazane: safe (minor). HEAR ME OUT- Kazane is primed to be another antagonist and foil to Chihiro. He's experienced similar trauma, but he's probably going to have a very different takeaway from it compared to Chihiro if his most recent appearance is any indication. When the Kamunabi get focus he'll probably be core part of the arc and face off against our protagonist to have another clash of ideals.

This wasn't said for nothing, after all. Can't wait to see what comes of it.

Chapter 18

Kamunabi HQ roundtable guys: risky (minor). We don't know their names yet and given KB's penchant for murderizing people with unique designs, it's not advisable to invest too much right now. Wait for a proper Kamunabi arc to see who's worth it. That said, the leader guy (long hair and beard) has shown up twice now so he might be better off than the rest.

Hiyuki: safe (major). She's gonna be the main rival through the series, I can feel it. Similar morality to Chihiro but on a different team to ensure they won't always see eye to eye, and a completely different personality to ensure that even if they do they will still clash in some way. She'll definitely have personal beef with him after the Rakuzaichi arc too. So far she's mostly been a vague threat that could be convinced to ally with Chihiro against orders, so it will be heckin' awesome to see what she does next. MORE HIYUKI PLEASE. I need this violent chaos goblin in my life. She will probably be the character that influences and pushes Chihiro the most through the story, which could make her a compelling love interest if Hokazono-sensei is interested in writing a romantic subplot. I prefer my shounen to be as light on romance as possible but I guess I won't hate it if he gives Hiyuki and Chihiro's relationship the same level of development that rivalxprotagonists usually get. Still want her to be the romantically unattached destruction demon of my dreams first and foremost though.

Chapter 19

Hakuri: safe (minor). OK. Looking at Hakuri compared to the other characters so far, he's most like Char. He gets an arc exploring his circumstances, is saved by Chihiro before paying it back in turn, and is given ties to by the narrative to stick around. (Char: orphan kid with nowhere to go and has a useful ability. Hakuri: disowned guy who can easily choose to stay with Chihiro and has a useful ability.) Labeling as safe but investment levels should be cautious until we know which path he chooses: reforming his family, or helping Chihiro full-time. So far he was Team Goldfish's "in" to the Sazanamis and the auction, fortified Chihiro's resolve multiple times, and proved Chihiro's outlook on fatherhood is the correct one to have. We also learned a bit more about the workings of spirit energy through him, which can be used again if he sticks around and trains his storehouse abilities. After all, after this he'll definitely be the storehouse for the enchanted blades. I rambled at length (>5.5k words worth combined please help I have a problem) about the importance of his emotional support so that's also an option for him. Isou might make him the Cafe Defender instead of a front line fighter, now that I think about it... as cool as it would be to see Chihiro working in "perfect harmony" with a battle partner he could easily stay a mostly solo fighter. Will be interesting to see! In essence, no more doomer for Hakuri. Even if he's not as prominent as I want him to be, he'll be sticking around. The Rakuzaichi was more his arc than Chihiro's in some ways, so I really can't complain about this feast anyway. How many hours of angst putting together this post alone just to conclude the obvious...? Don't worry about it! Don't even think about it! Don't! Fucking! AAAAAH Chapter 20

Tafuku: safe (minor). Hiyuki's main foil at the moment, the Blue Oni to her Red Oni. Her co-worker that grounds her before she ravages everything with Flame Bone and picks her up once she's exhausted herself. Will continue to show up as long as she does. (Hakuri and Chihiro would make a great Red Oni/Blue Oni pair, just sayin'...) Actually, speaking of Oni duos:

Look at this composition! Copium reactivated LET'S GOOOOOOOOO

Chapter 21

Kyoura: inadvisable (minor). He dead af bro, said it himself. But boy howdy did he have an amazing run as an arc villain. Forced Chihiro to take a look at how other prestigious, talented families do things and appreciate the gift of love his father gave him. I also rambled about him at length elsewhere but suffice to say, he's dying as punishment for being the world's worst dad. MFer chose to perpetuate a cycle of abuse instead of breaking it. Yeah, he's a victim too, but he's gotta lose his head as penance for the atrocities he's committed.

Shinuchi's wielder: risky (minor). No name, just a few shots of him sitting in some kind of temple/prison while the Shinuchi is being auctioned off. I assume we'll see more of him soon but can't say in what context or for what purpose yet. Doesn't seem like it will be a positive encounter given how he's portrayed.

Chapter 23

Tenri: inadvisable (minor). Total goner, RIP. Existed to show the ruthlessness of the Sazanami's ideals and the cruelty that their clan has perpetuated on their own flesh and blood for centuries. Also, in my mind, a very clear Bad End preview for Chihiro if he doesn't keep his dad's words in mind:

This came up in Char's arc but I'm not sure we're done with Chihiro's steadfast determination to rampage in his father's memory. He's kept his father's words close to his heart but I feel like Tenri is a warning for him to be ready to change his priorities... or else. Oh and Tenri also helps reinforce the lethality of the datenseki shards too (STAY DEAD SOJO I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU COME BACK-)

Souya: risky (minor). Won't call him a jobber but he definitely existed to make us feel bad for Hakuri first and foremost. Yeah, yeah, he was a symbol of the pain and internalized feelings of worthlessness Hakuri had to overcome in order to realize his latent potential too. Mission accomplished, enjoy getting dominated by Shiba in your crackship. He may or may not be dead after getting his comeuppance; if he lives, I bet we're not done with Hakuri's past quite yet (and the Sazanamis in general since he was going to be the heir). If he's dead, then Hakuri has nothing left to fear within or without himself. And listen, if you can make someone try to jump to their death on reflex as soon as they see you...

... it's OK if you come back to get beaten down even harder the next time. I'll allow it. Especially if it's in the context of revisiting Hakuri and Chihiro's trauma to show how much they've helped each other. Also, it's not lost on my terminally rotten brain that Soya switches from blaming the Ice Lady and Hinao for "tempting Hakuri away" to Chihiro.

(I know he's yelling about Chihiro using and abandoning him here, but I still find it funny.)

Speaking of... Ice Lady: inadvisable (minor). 100% dead for maximum emotional damage to Hakuri. She awakened him to the prison he was living in so that Chihiro could "light his helpless existence on fire" a short time later (oh my GOD Hakuri please).

Chapter 27

Mr. Inazuma (Yuu): inadvisable (minor). Kid's there to tie us to his sister, thus giving some extra stakes to the storehouse fight. Chihiro can't unleash wanton destruction in there and the entire situation can't be resolved until they're reunited. And I guess he's a cute little contrast: kid playing at being a hero vs. Chihiro being That Guy. He could conceivably show up now and again as a playmate for Char but I doubt it.

Chapter 30

Hishaku leader: safe (major). In all ways the major villain until he's defeated or we learn otherwise. He's the guy who's goading Chihiro along for his own reasons. Had his goons kill his dad and steal the swords. Clearly working some kind of machinations behind the scenes that we've only seen a few glimpses of so far. John Hishaku, big bad and mystery man (for now). OK maybe I'm underselling him a little bit because this guy is the one who ripped Chihiro's stoic determinator mask off without breaking a sweat. Other villains had him think and reconsider his priorities and some of his ethos, but Hishaku Leader Guy showed us Chihiro's raw desperation. If there was any doubt left that Chihiro's some emotionless killbot, he erased it completely. Dump everything you have into this guy and wait to reap the profits.

And those are the reasonably noteworthy characters. Why did I write all this? What the FUCK is wrong with me? Well I got to re-read the series for the third time so that's fine. I notice something new each time I do it... Like how cute and boyish Hakuri's posture is compared to Chihiro's more reserved and upright one. So many little details... bless you if you read this.

[tobiasdrake]

Well, we've met the kids. Now we need to figure out where we go from here. Let's plot some mischief.

"Magic seal" here defined as "Big glob of cancerous Dweller flesh". Can we just hit it really hard with moon and sun beams? I have it on good authority that our magic is stronger than this stuff.

...so the answer is yes. Yes, we can just hit it really hard with moon lasers. Don't even need Zale's help to take out this bottom-feeding scrub of a flesh blob.

Though I'm sure the crystal helped. A little.

Gonna go out on a limb and say it concentrates my moon powers into a solid laser of Fuck That Noise?

Concentrates my moon powers into a solid laser of Fuck That Noise.

Are you kids for hire? I mean, I know you work for Aephorul but fuck that guy. I would love to help with your research. If we'd known you existed, your research could potentially have provided another option for solving the problem of Torment.

Even though we've already taken care of that issue, who knows what other secret Unsolveable Dwellers might be lurking out there. Or in other worlds. If your shit can provide new avenues for Resh'an's efforts then that could be game-changing.

Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes

What did I say? What did I fucking say back at the Dweller of Torment? It's almost like uniformity is bad and diversity is good or something.

The biggest weakness of the Solstice Warriors is that we're too insular. There are so many other things out in the world that can benefit us.

I'll be back before you know it.

Alright, team. This is just like Roro's lab.

Plan A: Burglary

Plan B: Civil Negotiation

Plan C: Hostile Negotiation

Plan D: Armed Robbery

We're coming back with that master key. The Watchmaker's level of involvement, willing or otherwise, is going to be up to her.

XD Trying to imitate our time manipulation. These kids are adorable. I want to hire them. The logistics of that would be difficult given their confinement here but I want to.

You know, given that Aephorul himself was responsible for the brickwork, I'm surprised at how much of a shitshow it is. I criticized him before for the fact that he and the Watchmaker didn't understand how each other's stuff works and just did their own thing, but I expected the brickwork to be, at least, good.

That is just a pile of magic bricks. No self-respecting architect worth his salt would leave a pile of enchanted bricks lying around like this and call the structure complete. Have some professional dignity, Fleshmancer.

...okay, she's right there. But I don't think she's noticed us ye--

Holy shit, did you make Wheels!? Is that where I know the name Watchmaker from!? Ma'am, I am a HUGE fan of your game and I--

...am....

...in the middle of robbing you. >.< Shit, Plan A is out.

So. Is that "I will not give you the key because that would be involving myself" taking no part, or "I will not stop you from taking the key because that would be involving myself" taking no part? Centrism can be ambiguous sometimes.

I would remind you that trying to withhold the key from us will involve you in conflict right here in this room, but I think we're still at Plan B so I should hang onto my threats for later.

Okay, it's the latter. No threats necessary. Plan B was a rousing success.

Thank you for the pleasant conversation and nothing else. It has been a pleasure retrieving what we needed from this room while not doing business of any kind with you.

...this might have been too fast for Cael. I hope you'll forgive me if I take a little time to completely fangirl out about your game oh my god I'm such a huge fan.

Can we play a round or two? Please please please please PLEEEEEEASE

._. Okay that's fair.

I would promise to come back later but I'm prophesized to die in like half an hour so I guess this will just have to be a bucket list item never fulfilled.

Yep. Walked in and picked it up off the floor. Piece of cake.

What you got for me? On the scale of "Good" to "Super Good", how loud is this going to make me scream?

Can I see it? I want to see it. I want to know what it does. Tell me tell me teeeell meeeeee.

I want to see it. I wanna seeeeeeee it.

Fine. We'll do this your way, and I can just be surprised. I'm prophesized to die in half an hour so anything other than that is automatically a surprise by default anyway.

[inventors-fair]

Ya Basic - Back to Nonbasics Commentary

It's that time of the week again, folks! Here's the commentary for the remainder of the submissions. One thing I want to mention before getting into the card-by-card feedback is a few recurring themes I noticed; namely, the purpose lands serve in a game of Magic. Ultimately, big, splashy, game-changing effects should be ones that players can interact with. That's why they show up on other card types, and often cost a hefty amount of mana. Lands, on the other hand, are meant to provide you with resources in order to help you play the game. Obviously, they can do more than just tap for one mana apiece, but the line is a tricky one to draw. In the FPS analogy of magic, Torment of Hailfire is the DPS, and your lands are the support roles. Some of the submissions this week cross that line a bit, trying to make lands that are cool and flashy all on their own. And I get it! The very nature of this contest demands that you make something exciting and revolutionary so it'll stand out! But, hopefully as the winners and runners-up show, I will usually give more praise to a "boring" but well-designed card than I will to something that goes all-out on flashiness for the sake of it. Obviously that's my personal proclivity and I can't speak for the other judges, but there you have it. As always, I am available here or on Discord if you want to converse about feedback or pick my brain for reasons unrelated.

Ugh, that was a ramble. Here's the lands!

Astral Canvas by @spooky-bard

So far, we’ve only seen one enchantment land- I assume they’re a bit more dangerous than artifact lands because of the prevalence of constellation effects? Anyways, this seems like a fairly balanced one in that regard. Sure, you get an enchantment ETB, but this is a waste (heh) until you are able to play more enchantments- which are almost always colored, so this doesn’t really help you with mana fixing. I think it’s pretty solid balance-wise. The flavor is a bit generic, but I suppose that’s better than making it the billionth theros-themed enchantment effect. All in all, it’s a very solid card, and was pretty close to winning this week.

Aurora Barrows by @i-am-the-one-who-wololoes

Threshold is an old mechanic for sure, meaning that it was underutilized when it first debuted. This is a pretty simple take on it, but one that makes a lot of sense- it’s the generic rainbow land that turns itself on with the set mechanic. However, I think threshold is just a little too mid-game-y for this land to ever be useful. With conditional rainbow lands, you want to have the possibility of turning them on in the first few turns in order to really get a use out of them, but threshold is hard to hit that fast unless you’re aggressively going for a self mill strategy. Which, hey, every card has its place, but this one just doesn’t seem worth playing to me.

Breathtaking Vista by @snugz

Okay, using inspired as a mechanic to represent literal artistic inspiration is very clever, and you worked the name and flavor text in a way I can really appreciate. I do think there’s some logistical issues with the timing of the trigger and the fact that it’s on a land- this is a really easy trigger to just get absolutely buried in the flurry of actions that is your beginning phase, and I’m not sure if I see an easy way to fix that. This does put me in mind of an art-themed world, however, which is a fascinating concept to me, and one I hope you might expand on.

Cacophonous Catacomb by @izzet-always-r-versus-u

The long-lost sibling of our Threshold land above. This one fixes some of the issues I had with Aurora Barrows- namely, it helps enable itself, delirium is conditionally easier than threshold depending on deck construction, and the reward is a bit greater, with two mana instead of a single rainbow mana. However, I wonder if this might be too good? Not because of the reward, but I can think of a lot of decks that would love a free mill every turn, or four if you hit your playset of these. There is admittedly the tradeoff of not having colored mana from these, but I would like to see how this plays in a strong reanimator shell before passing any real judgement.

Collapsing Peatland by @salamileg

This is one of those cards that I thought I knew what it said, but had to come back and reread it to make sure. The addition of the word “land” here really changes this from a strong enabler card to a balanced dual land, since the opportunity cost of having to pitch another land makes it a big decision. I would personally make sure to include reminder text that it taps for black and green, but that’s a small nitpick. Also, that flavor text is really depressing. Not a criticism, but dang.

Dormant Volcano // Fields of Ash by @helloijustreadyourpost

I missed the transform clause at first and realy thought you put a repeatable board wipe on a land, and I was ready to just shake my head in disappointment. However, it’s a much cleaner design than that, and I never should have doubted you. HOWEVER, there are some logistical issues to be found here. Obviously, you want to hold the board wipe until you can be sure you’re killing as many creatures as possible, since you only have one shot to get this guy loaded with corpse counters. The issue arises when the land transforms, you go to combat, and all of a sudden you’re forgetting the delayed corpse counter triggers since you don’t have that text right in front of you. Since the land is already tapped, I think the easiest solution would be to have it transform at the beginning of the next end step. Little functional difference, but it means that it’ll be easier to remember and track the creatures that were caught in the eruption.

Forsaken Battlefield by @bergdg

Simple, classic, and... maybe not that good? Hey, it would be pretty solid in Limited, and that counts for something. Maybe Prosper EDH would like it. In a multiplayer game, you’re pretty likely to hit this at least once a round, so it’s just a matter of holding up two mana in the hopes of stockpiling more. Honestly though? I think this might play better if you up the threshold to two or three creatures dying, and then remove the mana cost and just allow it to tap. That makes it feel more like a battlefield if multiple things have to die, and removes a bit of the opportunity cost of having to hold another land in reserve alongside this one.

Harmonious Karst by @horsecrash

So, I’m honestly unsure about how to judge this one. I did ask for some consideration of Limited viability, and even if planechase could be made into a draft set (god I want it so bad Wizards please give it to me), this seems like it would be a very swingy land at uncommon, especially if it’s a cycle like the typing implies. Sure, always entering tapped is a downside, but making it so that you have two free rolls of the planar die every turn seems really good in a set built around the concept. Obviously it’s impossible to really judge this without seeing it in action, but I think I would like this better at rare, and maybe as a rainbow land instead of a dual that implies a full or half cycle of these.

Hazardous Warehouse by @0woah

Hoo boy, this land seems pretty straightforward, but I reckon the rules would get FUNKY. What happens if you reveal a Reflecting Pool or Exotic Orchard? Can those lands see the battlefield? Can the game even recognize what mana a land card in your hand is capable of producing? I would definitely have to consult with someone more experienced than me to see if this would work, and the confusion might not be worth it. It’s still an incredibly cool concept though, that’s for sure. The last ability could use some tightening up on the wording, since currently it looks like it can only exile creatures that already have that many time counters on it. Also, if you’re in even a decent shape, that’s essentially just a permanent, repeatable exile on a land, which is... a little scary. Lots of cool ideas here, but temperance is the key to making a solid design, especially a land.

Howling Cliff by @deg99

I do think we could stand to see more of the typal “if you control this creature or have one in hand” lands, like Murmuring Bosk. Wolf/ Werewolf is a dual tribe that makes a lot of sense here, and the first half of the card is great. I’m honestly not sure how to feel about that last ability- I get that you want to make allowances for old and new werewolves, but the way you balanced it, it looks like it was meant to transform a single werewolf, then you hastily added the day/night text because you realized a new werewolf wouldn’t transform- but then forgot to take into account that the ability now transforms ALL your werewolves. What’s more, at 6 functional mana, you’re likely putting most of your mana into this, meaning you won’t be casting spells, meaning the day/night becomes a bit redundant. It’s a tricky one for sure, and I don’t have a solution for you, but it does need some kind of adjustment.

Karbranth Grand Clinic by @mmmmmin

Thought you could sneak a Stormlight Archives reference by me, huh? Huh??? Jokes aside, it is important to bring up the fact that we tend to avoid Universe Beyond cards in the contests unless we explicitly ask for them, such as when we run our IP contests. That being said, I am going to assume this was an act of not knowing the rules, rather than deliberate malice, so I’m going to evaluate the card as though it was just a generic MTG land. I do like how the paying life/ lifelink abilities synergize, allowing you to hopefully regain the life you’ve lost to this land, while not making it too easy with a power boost. The third ability is where things fall apart for me a little bit, since you seem to have gone for flavor over gameplay. Citizen is a very niche creature type, so I think this could have just allowed you to sacrifice any creature. Investigate is neat, for sure- the talk of samples and death implies that killing people gives you clues- but why the coin flip? That just seems out of nowhere, and doesn’t really mesh with the design. A good question to ask yourself at this stage is “what deck does this want to be in?” At the moment, this wants to have Citizen typal, be an aristocrats deck to make the sacrifice worth it, maybe care about clues to some degree, and then also be able to manipulate coin flips. It’s pulling in a lot of different directions, which doesn’t really do it many favours, obscuring the really cool ideas you had. 

Lochthwain, Compleated by @curiooftheheart

Okay, this is definitely one of the coolest “ETB untapped” conditions I’ve seen. It makes sense that “legendary” locations should care about Legendary figures. The different take on Castle Locthwain’s card draw is also pretty sweet, still rewarding you for having a smaller hand rather than being greedy. However, I just don’t see the phyrexian flavor here? This could just be Locthwain 2.0. It has the same card draw, the same life loss, etc, so where is the Compleated part coming from? I guess that might be a little too nitpicky, and I don’t know what exactly I expected, but Compleated made me think there would be some mechanical tangent it would go on to differentiate itself from the OG design.

Marrow Dunes by @certification-wizard

One of our other Desert cards this week, and another one that cares about the graveyard- in a cool way, too. Not only does this provide prime fodder for the cards asking you to sacrifice a desert, but it then gives you more deserts to use for said abilities. It’s a nicely designed card, with one small hurdle- namely, land tokens are a pretty tough sell. The only cards that make Land tokens right now also make them creatures, because it’s all too easy to run into complicated issues with forgetting which lands are real and which are tokens, accidentally shuffling them in, etc. It’s still a very cool idea, and frankly Desert tokens probably have a lot less issues in this regard than basic land tokens would, but it’s worth pointing out.

Migrating Star Scape by @little-red-rabbit

Okay, nitpicks outta the way first- this land is technically white and blue because of the color indicator, and lands should be colorless- plus, watch the ordering of mana symbols: It should be 2WU. Apart from that, this is a really neat Treasure Planet-esque land! Ships sailing the stars, magical ocean creatures swimming in space- there’s a lot of flavor to plumb there, and this does a really good job of it. See above for my comments on enchantment lands in general. However, in a dedicated enchantment deck, that’s gonna be a LOT of unblockable fish. I think the scale needs to be brought down on that, especially since it’s a land as well, and four mana is not a particularly difficult threshold to meet.

Parotia, Wrenn’s Legacy by @marrinara-sauce

Ahh, the classic Planeswalker land. Something many a designer, including myself, have tried to make work. And frankly? You did a really good job of balancing it to make sure it wouldn’t absolutely take over the game if left unchecked. It works pretty much like a land in almost every scenario, which is something to be commended for, that kind of restraint is not usually seen in these designs. However, by their very nature, Planeswalkers warp the game around them. They change the rules, and give your opponents another “mini player” to consider. As mentioned in the intro, lands are the exact opposite of that. They should be playing a support role, not completely changing how the game is played. Combine that with the absolute feelbad of drawing into multiple of these, or losing your land drop to an aggro deck, means that Planeswalker lands are unfortunately a pretty flawed premise. 

Queiscent Summit by @grornt

Interestingly, eight or more lands was the Quandrix subtheme in strixhaven, and I kinda expected this to take on some of that flavor. Regardless, this is a fairly neat manland. It taps for mana, it filters when needed, and it can become a late game beater. I don’t have too much to say about it honestly, since it seems pretty well designed. The one minor detail that slipped by you is that it should have haste in creature form- if this is your eighth land drop, and all of a sudden you have a land you can’t tap for mana right away... it gets confusing. Haste is definitely something this design wants, in the same way that Nissa and her animation spells grant haste so you don’t have to keep track of which lands are summoning sick and which aren’t.

Stallblast Cliff by @dimestoretajic

I definitely have some mixed feelings on this one. I like the idea of a scaling reward based on when you play this, and the basic is a good rider to ensure you’re not just playing this with a bunch of fancy duals. At the same time, though, I think the two/three land threshold is a bit confusing, and this might have wanted the Dwarven Mine templating or something similar. I don’t know, maybe that’s me being too cautious. It’s entirely possible, honestly. Also, it’s worth wondering if a lightning bolt is too efficient for a land. Sure, it’s essentially a mini Valakut, but they have very different thresholds, and four copies of this can go a long way. At minimum, this probably shouldn’t be at common.

Starved Caldera by @bread-into-toast

This is a very cute way to animate a land, and I think a set of these with various “whenever you do this, it becomes a creature” would be kinda neat, especially to juxtapose the deliberate activated ability manlands that are more prevalent. I do think this wants the “triggers only once each turn” templating to make it a little cleaner, but apart from that, this looks pretty good to me. The name is just so evocative and chilling, it’s... whoof. I don’t wanna get on the bad side of whatever is hanging out there. My one other tiny nitpick is that you may wanna have your art and name agree with each other more, since there is a distinct lack of water hanging out in that art. Volcanoes are cool hot though, so I’ll let it slide.

The Font of Creation by @wolkemesser

This one is definitely tough to evaluate. The design you’re going for is a great idea, and you’ve definitely thought to account for corner cases, which is good, but I’ll be frank- this is not a land. This completely changes how the game is played, and forces your opponents to play by those rules as well, which is fine for designs! But this is a high-cost artifact or enchantment kind of design, not one that should be able to be dropped on turn 1 for free. Also with that in mind, trying to evaluate how a card can be broken, and making adjustments to reflect that, is a good way to improve a design. However, the best solution usually isn’t to just tack a new ability on there to prevent that abuse from happening, usually you want to try and reword the original ability to prevent that kind of abuse. Ultimately, this card is just trying to do way too much- the complexity and power level are more appropriate for a more mana-intensive card, and that’s after making some adjustments to clean up the various abilities on here.

Thunderstruck Starscape by @lanabutnotdelray

I really do like how creative people got with untap conditions this week, and this one is no exception. It’s clever, flavorful, and all in all just hits the mark. First things first, blah blah blah enchantment lands, I won’t get into all that again. Second- in a blue-red deck, two devotion seems laughably easy. This is saying “this enters untapped unless you’ve played a spell”, which to be fair is not nothing, but it makes the devotion aspect less necessary. This is me going off of a gut feeling, but I think 3 might be the magic number on this- keep in mind that devotion to two colors is much easier than to one, which is why the dual-color gods have to hit seven instead of five. Likewise, I could see two working for a single color of devotion, but I think for two I wanna see what a threshold of three would look like. Apart from that, love the design.

Tidal Graveyard by @azathoth-the-bored

I do love niche typal lands, they’re fun and often just make for cute designs. This one is pretty standard as far as things go- the costs seem pretty appropriate, especially since Crab is a pretty small type and it’s not known for making a ton of tokens. However, most other typal lands try to lean into the creature type’s mechanical identity. Sometimes there isn’t one, of course, but crabs do have a couple decent identities of high toughness and of milling. Leaning into one of those could have made for an even neater design, since drawing a card just seems like a bit of a generic payoff, as things go.

Undergrowth Tangle by @stupidstupidratcreatures

I am glad that you had the foresight to have the enter unconditionally tapped, since that shows you’re treating mill as the upside it is. Not an incredible upside, granted, but a playset of these will do a whole lot of work in a reanimator shell. Like the delirium design also submitted this week, I would want to see it in action to properly judge, since this could be a big power boost in the right decks.

Unending Sands by @just--a--penguin

Our final desert of the week- interestingly, most of them had to do with exiling from grave instead of sacrificing. It’s an interesting way to make sure they synergize with existing deserts rather than trying to compete in the same space as them, and invokes a really neat hypothetical draft format. Return to Amonkhet perhaps, with deserts as a proper archetype this time? Anything can happen. I don’t have much else to say here- 5 mana for a 4/4 token seems fair, especially when you have to jump through the hoop of getting this into your graveyard first. All in all, it’s a neat design for sure, though maybe the name could have been a biiit less on the nose.

Velis Vel by @sombramainexe

Hoo boy, okay. I don’t want to be too harsh on the commentary for this one, but tribal is a card type that isn’t used anymore for very good reasons. Even a single tribal card is very unlikely, and more likely to be used as a silly callback. However, this makes everything into a tribal card, and doesn’t even give most of them creature types. This would result in a lot of confusion and a LOT of memory issues, as well as some odd corner cases. For example, would Eye of the Storm gain the “Eye” creature type? Some of this could be fixed with templating, but a lot of it is just fundamentally not going to work very well. Also, Tribal lands are a whole mess on their own- even when they originally made tribal, they didn’t wanna mess with it that much. I do think this is an incredibly creative idea, and I applaud you for really pushing the boundaries- because what is this contest for if not to display creativity? However, it’s worth tempering that creativity with design principles- after all, they exist for a reason. This also serves as a great reminder that the hive mind over in our discord is always happy to discuss cards and bounce ideas off of each other if you ever want to refine your design before submission.

And that's that! You are now in the hands of the ever-capable, incorruptible @gollumni- we have five judges once again, so I will see you in five weeks! Farewell!

[notmuchtoconceal]

Yo, bro.

When you're talking to a dogboy, phrase everything like a quest.

Not a task, a quest. A quest is a task with a mythos.

It will teach the dogboy to engage with his literary sensibility from the boots up. It will compel him to think out the mechanics and the logistics of the task more deeply by netting it in a shroud of intrigue.

If you look back, you might notice this was a dominant literary mode for centuries. You send the dogboys out lookin for the holy grail, you tell em they're lookin for a cup, cause they don't know what lookin for enlightenment looks like. They know what a cup is, though.

A magic cup. Maybe the magic cup was enchanted by the Josh's spit like that magic spear was enchanted by the Josh's blood.

The Josh is the ultimate dogboy. The Josh is crowned in thorns and tied up dead and naked to a tree, lashed and welted in his psychic pain aura.

The Josh is a radiant mind of the world, from which all light and grain emerges in a paradoxical unity of give and take, receive and deceive.

Dogboy's gonna go around lookin for that cup, thinkin real good, makin all sorts of connections, and then he's gonna realize -- holy shit, bro!

It's not about my mother-sister's warm hot fertile cunt and how she can bring me back to life after I nut in her, it's like -- that scene in the Last Crusade where you pick the old bronzed dimmed and subtly lustrous antique cup over the big shiny bejeweled cup cause Our Lord Josh was a Humble Servant of the Lord Himself... bro that's like...

Is it like half the story or is it a further obfuscation? Are people gonna come away from that thinkin like ... aw, damn. I got this all wrong. I gotta be lookin at like ... old dingy worn out shit instead of pretty, shiny, shimmering, googling like ... shit that screams "touch me".

Bro, why's it asking to be touched so bad, bro?

It gonna hit me with its venom?

Then it's like... bro, you gotta realize. Who cares what other people do?

If other people haven't yet learned that their desires are an expression of their values (or lackthereof) it's not your place to teach em.

Still got to much left to teach yourself, bro.

Just smack your forehead, explain all your reasoning to big bro, and be like "bro, am i a dumbass, be honest, please? i dunno the truth from lies?"

to which he'll be like "yeah, lil bro you're a dumbass. you ever stop and wonder why your dick gets hard when i call you a dumbass?

it's cause you're so smart not to run and accept it. more you accept and call yourself a dumbass, smarter you're gonna be, lil bro."

and it's like ... damn, bro.

Fuckin preach.

[mareastrorum]

TF&TS Meta: Cree Deeproots's Character Sheet

Since I am posting another chapter later this week, no WIP Wednesday excerpt today! However, I usually throw out a meta post before each chapter to tide people over.

I will post a little late this week! Unfortunately, work has been crazy, and this week continued that trend. I am hoping to update by Sunday evening.

Edit: Unfortunately, I have had to bump my planned posting date for Chapter 8 back to 11/24 due to work going haywire. I am still writing, and I'll post another WIP for the next chapter this Wednesday, as well as another meta post the following Wednesday. I'll hopefully have some reprieve by then and intend to get back to a regular 2-week posting schedule after that.

This post discusses how I developed the character sheet for Cree.

See the directory for other meta posts.

The story itself will get into Cree’s backstory and characterization, so this is going to focus primarily on mechanics and items. Here is her character sheet.

As mentioned in a prior post, Cree was at least level 13 when the Nein first encountered her in Eiselcross because she used Firestorm against Gelidon in 123, then at least 15 in 133 because she used Earthquake. Her holy symbol was the gold/crystal pendant with Lucien’s blood that the Nein first saw in 117. She also had the Cape of the Mountebank, first spotted in the same episode and then used in 133.

Like the rest, Cree is starting at level 14. Unlike the others, I did not roll Cree’s stats. I tried to come up with what made sense narratively. Another wrinkle was that Wizards released an update to Tabaxi in 2022, but I opted to go with the racial features from Volo’s because that’s what Matt would have used at the time of the campaign.

Cree cast slow on the Nein as they escaped in 123, and Fjord successfully made a wisdom save with 19. The highest failure was 14, so spell save DC is 15-19. The DC is 8 plus proficiency bonus plus wisdom modifier, and at level 15, her PB would be +5, while it rises to +6 at level 17. So, assuming she was level 15, her wisdom modifier would need to be at least +2 and no more than +6. If she had been level 17, her modifier had to be at least +1 and no more than +5. Either way, that doesn’t tell us much about her wisdom score, especially if she had an item that could have factored in. Any reasonable cleric would pick wisdom for their highest stat, so unless she rolled shit and never took an ASI, I would expect her modifier to be at least +4. However, since she was an end game mini-boss, I thought +5 seemed reasonable. Thus, Cree’s wisdom score is 20 because it maxed out at some point, and considering that cleric is SAD compared to blood hunters, I think she would have prioritized it. Thus, assuming she got at least one good roll to assign to Wisdom, I chose 18 base, and one ASI was used to raise the 18 to a 20.

Logistically, Cree’s Con score only mattered as an antagonist for determining her Con saves because Matt usually needed to buff health pools against the large party. So, for all we knew, it was 6 and he gave her a ton of HP. However, if we were constructing her sheet as if she was a PC, her next highest priorities were constitution, then dexterity. Blood clerics have some BH-like abilities to sacrifice HP for benefits, so she needed a decent health pool. Considering her self-sacrificial behavior, I felt that a player would have strategized for that, and it made sense narratively if she managed to survive as an orphan in the Run and eat “muster” all the time while out adventuring. Since I gave her 18 for Wisdom, I chose 16 for Con.

Dex was next. Higher initiative and AC were also important. Cree’s AC in her final fight was 19. AC is usually armor mod + dex mod + shield(?) + enchantment/item mods, so that could be all sorts of combinations. Matt didn’t mention she had a shield, but we know her armor was enchanted because he mentioned all the Tombtakers’ armor glowed during a detect magic in 117. Clerics are proficient with Medium armor, but not Heavy armor, and while she could have taken a feat, Matt didn’t mention that she had anything more than heavy leathers and furs—no chain or plate. Medium armor also caps the dex mod at +2, and heavy armor doesn’t add dex mod at all. Thus, she probably had studded leather armor, which is 12 + dex mod + enchantments. If she had +3 armor (possible, but very expensive), then her dex mod had to be +4. If she had a shield (which Matt didn’t mention), then maybe she had +2 armor (reasonable for level 15) and +3 dex. Finally, in the last fight against the Nein, Matt mentioned that Cree rolled a super low initiative, but the lowest the Nein got was a 12. Initiative is normally just the roll plus dexterity modifier, so that doesn’t really tell us anything about her Dex score. Realistically, that meant Cree’s dex modifier was probably around 3-4 and she had items or enchantments to add another 3-4, totaling +7 to her AC. Probably not an additional cloak, a spell caster staff, or a shield because Matt didn’t mention her using them and the Nein only looted the necklace and the Cape of the Mountebank. (Or maybe her holy symbol gave AC?) Tabaxi get a +2 to Dex, so I opted to give Cree a 14 that was then raised to 16.

Strength could have really gone anywhere. There’s no D&D mechanic reason for her to have high/low Str according to what we saw in the stream. Her weapon was a war pick, not a finesse weapon, so it would have been her melee attack stat, and therefore it’s a safe assumption that the mod was at least 0 (not <10). However, she never actually used that weapon. So we just have ~vibes~. Because of how Matt played her (immediately firing off her biggest spells at Gelidon), I decided I would use this as a vanity stat rather than something meant to used regularly in combat. I got the impression that she leaves the melee combat to the rest of the Tombtakers and she stays the hell away from it. Considering her time in the Run meant she would be pretty athletic and I already have her +3 to Dex, I gave her 16 strength to match. That makes her excellent at climbing and jumping even without proficiency in the Athletics skill, which I felt was appropriate for the one tabaxi in the group.

Int and Cha are Cree’s dump stats. Strategically, neither is important for a cleric. Narratively, she’s an uneducated orphan, and Lucien no doubt did most of the talking. Based on how Cree spoke, I don’t expect she had much of a Cha stat, though I doubt it was a negative modifier. She was polite and courteous to the Nein until Lucien was back, and then she was rather jealous/envious. So, she can get along, if she wants to, but I figured her Cha wasn’t higher than Lucien’s. Thus, I gave Int 8 and Cha 9, which received a +1 to 10. The only reason I didn’t give her lower Int was that she would have received some education at the Orders. Most of the things she would have learned with the Nightback Clan were wisdom skills, and she’d have relied upon those in the Run as well, and whatever she didn’t know about the town itself, Lucien did, so there wasn’t much pressure to expand her specialty.

If you think I’m being overly generous about Cree’s stats, maybe take a look at Jester’s level 2 stats. That’s right. Level 2.

Cree’s background was relatively easy to choose, though I had considered Urchin. Her experience as an acolyte at the Claret Orders was far more relevant to her skills and character than her time as an orphan in Shadycreek Run. It also made sense that Religion was the one Int stat she’d be good at.

Feats were interesting. War Caster was an obvious choice for D&D strategy, and it made perfect sense for how she would have been trained at the Orders and her experiences with the Tombtakers. The Vital Sacrifice feat was not available at the time of C2, but the flavor fit her very well. Matt had also let her exceed the mileage limit of her Crimson Bond ability (10 miles), or characters flagrantly and repeatedly lied about her ability to track blood further than that and she used some other spell (Commune?) to hunt people down on the Gentleman's behalf considering Crimson Bond is limited to 2 uses per day. (I exceeded that in this chapter.) The narrative reason is she just has a knack for hemocraft, so she figured out how to tap her own vitality to fuck with people.

Items were a challenge. They had to be sensible for her level and not push her into high-level enemy territory. The most pertinent decision was whether she had anything she'd had in Aeor. The first times we saw Cree with her holy symbol necklace, the Cape of the Montebank, and a scroll of Control Weather were after the Nein caught up to the Tombtakers in Eiselcross. However, as a cleric, she wouldn’t have needed the scroll because she could do that at level 15 (which she also needed to be for Earthquake). And if Cree went so far as to criticize the Nein for being rich kids because of the tower, she wouldn’t have spent the coin on buying the scroll when she could just do it herself. Maybe the explanation was she hit level 15 after that, but then there’s the question of why was she so much lower than Lucien’s level and how did Matt expect Lucien (level 17) to be enough to balance the rest of the Tombtakers against a larger group. Maybe Matt gave her the scroll as a clue that the Tombtakers expected this to be a one way trip, but there were other ways of doing that.

Instead, what made sense to me was that Lucien looted the cape and scroll from DeRogna. Think about it. I don’t know if Cree would have just clung to a rare magic item for the 2 years that Lucien was dead, especially one that wasn’t useful and we had no indication it had sentimental value. Neither the cape nor the scroll made sense for that. But Matt also mentioned that DeRogna’s room had already been tossed and looted when the Nein found her body, so Lucien robbed her on top of taking his book back. What would he steal if his plan was a one way trip to the Astral Sea to become a god? Magic items! But the Tombtakers certainly would have already brought weapons and armor, and DeRogna wouldn’t have bothered, so it had to be other items—like a teleportation cape to avoid danger and a scroll to conserve spell slots. Like a rich person would stock for a trip where bodyguards handle all the monsters. Thus, Cree doesn’t have either of those in TF&TS.

There’s also the issue of Cree’s holy symbol. As I’ve mentioned before, it doesn’t make sense for her to currently have a necklace with Lucien’s blood for her to be a cleric of the Nonagon. He’s undead, and while she is tremendously faithful, it’s a whole extra step beyond worshipping a childhood friend to worship a dead one, and then another step to worship an undead one. I had to be able to reconcile it with the facts that she went to Zadash and never once checked on his grave, then let “Lucien” (Molly) go off by himself with strangers and not checking on his blood vial even once to see if he was okay. She believed the Nein the first time when they returned to Zadash and claimed Lucien had parted ways; if she suspected he was dead, she would not have been so calm or courteous. So she trusts him enough to do as he asks, but with him dying “twice” (though once was actually Molly), I don’t think she would have actually worshiped Lucien as a god by that point in time. There’s also the fact that Lucien’s body is in someone else’s control right now, so there’s a disconnect between undead Lucien and his blood. For the premise to make sense, his blood couldn’t be part of Cree’s holy symbol, and the timeline of events suggests that she didn’t start worshiping him as a god until after he came back to life.

The Raven Queen absolutely would not have worked as Cree’s goddess in this plot either. The Matron hates the undead, so even if Cree had remained faithful to her, that likely would have had perilous consequences for trying to cast any spells while Cree helped Lucien. Any attempt to bring him back as undead would have been an issue too. (Yes, I know that clerics have tons of necromancy spells, especially Blood Clerics, and there’s no mechanic prohibiting it, but this story has to have some logic to it.)

Thus, the Somnovem were Cree’s gods. I couldn’t think of a single reason why a gold/crystal necklace with someone’s blood would be suitable for the Somnovem, so I had to make up a holy symbol. That’s excellent for story purposes because the new one is packed with symbolism. It’s an eye carved into a silver coin with a ruby chip embedded as the iris. It’s obvious to anyone seeing it that Cree had to improvise, that she made it herself, and that she didn’t go overboard with making it especially pretty or ornate. Easy to carry, hide, and hold. Practical and without excess.

Then, where’s the gold/crystal necklace? And why was that one so fancy compared to the coin? Hmmm.

I figured she would keep her Raven Queen symbol, though it likely cracked due to her broken faith. She’s sentimental, and even if she stopped worshiping the Matron, that would have been a huge part of her life. It remains to be seen whether her background feature would still work.

I decided to make the coin a Guardian Emblem because Cree didn’t use her actions to defend/heal the Tombtakers in combat except for one Cure Wounds on Lucien. She plays offense like Jester does, but even more aggressively because she threw out her highest level spells as attacks in her first two turns against Gelidon, leaving her with fewer options when the Tombtakers absconded that night with the bag of holding. Thus, having a reaction to significantly reduce damage taken would be a good option for her so she can still focus on attacks.

Coming up with a second item was such a pain. What would she have kept for so long without adventuring? What would she have bought? Probably nothing, but surely she wouldn’t sell off everything she ever had when trying to hide from DeRogna. Eventually, I felt a Ring of Protection made sense because it’s something that would be useful in the event that anything ever went sour with the Gentleman, or if DeRogna tracked her down, and it would lean into the “stop dying so I can kill stuff” mentality. Plus that gives her some AC.

Cree doesn’t have armor, but she has a shield. Why would she have armor? She’d have sold that for sure, and finding something suitable for a tabaxi in the Empire probably isn’t easy. It would be easier to pick up a shield, or for any of the others to buy for her, on the way out of Zadash than find armor that would fit. Plus there’s the strategy of it: anyone starting a fight in the Evening Nip is going to focus on the bouncers and bodyguards in armor, not the blood lady in a robe and costume jewelry—until she blights them. (She needs to buy some armor.)

Cree had a war pick in Eiselcross, and it’s not the type of weapon someone would choose unless they really liked the feel of it. It has no benefits. There’s numerous other 1d8 weapons that are versatile, finesse, or have other special features that make them better options. No, that was a character choice. Listen, Cree is a blood cleric that formerly worshiped a death god and recently brought her best friend back as an undead because she had nightmares and a madness inducing vision about it. Gouging people with a glorified mining pick is probably the most normal thing about her.

Lastly, Cree has a lot of money. Have you never met a person who suddenly started making obscene amounts of money after growing up poor? If they didn’t start spending it like an idiot, they hoarded it for What-Ifs out of paranoia, at least until the shock of having money wore off. Considering Cree’s behavior, it takes her a good while to get over things, and she absolutely seems like the kind of person to hoard her savings. Thus she’s barely spent any coin other than what was necessary for reagents, like diamonds, diamond dust, silver dust, etc. (You want holy water? It costs how much? We have holy water at home.)

[hollowwhisperings]

Dragonology Tierlist, by series (a work in progress).

S-Rank: individually and collectively cool dragons, lore & logistics-wise, featuring the subjectively Best Dragons Ever.

A-Rank: has cool individual dragon characters &/or interesting dragonology.

B-Rank: some cool ideas but overall kind of "basic".

C-Rank: alleged/decorative dragons.

F: "how did they make dragons boring" &/or "actually insulting".

NOTE: the quality of a franchise's dragons is not indicative of the work's overall quality. good dragons cannot fix a poor story & dull dragonology does not mean a work is ruined as a whole. that said, my S & F rankings are indeed skewed by personal bias. Series within a tier are not listed in any particular order. *marked works are ones I am out of date with or have not yet finished.

RANKINGS

S-Rank: Deltora Quest, How To Train Your Dragon, Seraphina duology, Dragon Age, Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles.

A-Rank: Akatsuki no Yona, The Elder Scrolls (Skyrim), Genshin Impact, Dark Souls, Temeraire*, Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic, Eon duology, Star Wars, Trash of the Count's Family, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic...

B-Rank: Discworld, A Song of Ice & Fire, Tolkien's Legendarium, Harry Potter, Nickelodeon's Avatar, Dragon Ball*, Yu Yu Hakusho, Pokémon*, Oxventure, Fairy Tail*, Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea, Tamora Pierce's Tortall series, Warcraft*, BBC's Merlin, Superman, Netflix's The Dragon Prince, Spyro*, Runescape*, How To Become A Dragon manhwa...

C-Rank: Adventure Time, Kung-Fu Panda, Miraculous Ladybug, God of War, X-Men, Shrek, Fruit's Basket, Jane & The Dragon, Disney's Sleeping Beauty, Digimon, Yu-Gi Oh*, Bleach, Chronicles of Narnia, Barbie animated filmography...

F: Game of Thrones, the Inheritance Cycle, Iron Fist*, Disney's Mulan, CW's Supernatural, James Cameron's Avatar*, Pottermore, Super Mario*...

[erholung-garten]

Enchanting Garden Events in Berlin with Professional Organizers

Garden events in Berlin have become increasingly popular, and with the right organizer, they can be truly unforgettable. As a Garden Event Organiser in Berlin, it's essential to have a deep understanding of the city's unique atmosphere and needs.

Understanding the Market: Berlin is a vibrant and eclectic city, with a diverse range of gardens and outdoor spaces to choose from. From sleek and modern to charming and historic, each garden has its own unique character. As a Garden Event Organiser in Berlin, it's crucial to have a keen eye for detail and a deep understanding of the local market.

Planning and Execution: The key to a successful garden event is meticulous planning and execution. From concept to completion, every aspect of the event must be carefully considered. This includes selecting the perfect venue, designing the layout, and coordinating logistics such as catering and entertainment.

Mid Article Keywords: As a Garden Event Organiser in Berlin, I have had the pleasure of working with numerous clients to create truly unique and unforgettable events. With years of experience and expertise, I can confidently say that I am well-equipped to handle any type of garden event, from corporate functions to private celebrations.

Logistics and Timing: Timing is everything when it comes to garden events. As a Garden Event Organiser in Berlin, I understand the importance of considering factors such as weather, daylight hours, and noise restrictions when planning an event. This ensures that every detail is taken care of, allowing guests to fully enjoy the experience.

Our website is the perfect resource for further details.

Perfect Garden for Any Occasion in Berlin

Garden Party Venue in Berlin

[dk-wren]

Thoughts on the Updated Together Forever Fireworks Show

Last night, Disneyland held a preview performance for Together Forever: A Pixar Nighttime Spectacular. This firework show returns to Disneyland officially starting April 26th (and will run through August 4th) as a part of Pixar Fest and is advertised to include new sequences from recent Pixar films. I found this video and wanted to discuss it, or really share my thoughts on it.

First things first, I absolutely loved the first Pixar Fest Disneyland held in 2018. I am a huge fan of Pixar and their soundtracks (love me some Micheal Giacchino scores), so this fireworks show meant everything to me. I honestly never thought it would come back because it was so specific to the event (not unlike Remember...Dreams Come True or Disneyland Forever, which funnily enough included more music from Disney films than the actual theme park). And now it's back and better than ever (at least to me)! And that makes it all the more sad I don't think I'll be able to see it in person this summer

Logistically (?), last night's performance, which I assume will remain consistent when it officially premieres next week, had a runtime of about 13 and half minutes. This makes it about two minutes longer than its 2018 run.

So, what exactly is new?

(Here's a video from this firework show's 2018 run for reference)

Looking at the list of Pixar films and their release dates, Incredibles 2 should have lined up with the previous Pixar Fest while Inside Out 2 will line up with this year's Pixar Fest. As mentioned throughout announcements and marketing, Turning Red, Luca, and Soul will represent the newer movies to be featured alongside the classic Pixar films throughout Pixar Fest and this firework show.

Sidebar, between Incredibles 2 and now, 7 Pixar films have been released. And it really should not have been as shocking as it was to see that two of those belong to the Toy Story franchise (Toy Story 4 in 2019 and Lightyear in 2022).

Back to the discussion though. So, were these three movies "featured" throughout the firework show? Eh...kinda.

Luca I would say had the smallest portion added. Equal to Luca was Elemental (which I don't know why they are not including as much in the marketing for Pixar Fest). For these two movies, they only had a little dialogue blurb/exchange in the context of a larger segment, which is more than some other movies received (I'm looking at you Brave and Good Dinosaur).

Soul has more of a musical influence than presence in the show, which could leave you wanting for me. My first visit to Walt Disney World was during their 50th celebration, which meant Enchantment was the nightly firework show at Magic Kingdom. They had a section or transition that I absolutely loved with Joe Gardner on the piano. This updated Together Forever has a taste of that. From the original run, what I would consider the second segment started with Wall-E and EVE and that film's score. This is the first section where Soul's soundtrack was infused with the pre-existing show soundtrack, and I thought the two scores complimented each other beautifully.

Soul pops up again at the end of the show during the last build-up and is nicely paired with Joe Gardner on the piano again, followed by Miguel on the guitar from Coco (I don't think I explained that that well and I apologize). So again, Soul's presence was more in the music than the actual scenes/projections.

Finally, with Turning Red, this film had a presence. And while I loved that larger sections were dedicated to Turning Red, both of them felt a little jarring. What I mean is, for me, I did not feel there was a good transition between the previous scene and the Turning Red scenes. The first instance is from a relatively calm and soothing section (the one which included Wall-E and Soul) and then you have Mei Lee assembling her friends. Understandably, the energy needs to be kicked back up, which it does (also, now that I'm rewatching, Luca comes back into play and serves a little better in transitioning between the energy of the previous scene and the next, which focuses on Coco).

This obviously is one of the new sections. Beforehand, the Wall-E section transitioned into the Coco segment. I might be bias since Coco is one of, if not my favorite Pixar film, but I think that transition worked better than this new one with Turning Red. I say this because the score served as that transition from one scene to the next, establishing this section would focus on Coco, before shifting back into the high energy with a song, specifically "The World Es Mi Familia."

For Turning Red's second scene, which is near the end, it felt like a misdirection to me. You have Mei's friends cheering her up by singing some 4-Town, which is a perfect example of this whole Pixar Fest's celebration of friendship. But, it feels like a transition into another scene rather than into the finale. Probably being nit-picky, but this is my post and I'm sharing my thoughts. Again, love Turning Red, so this is probably coming from wanting those scenes to stand out or fit in nicely with the rest of the show.

Interestingly, a section was cut out from the 2018 show to this 2024 updated version. Up until this point, it was mainly additions or small dialogue/projection switches (not full scenes). I thought I was going crazy, but when I went back to compare the two, the 2024 show took out the Cars segment, which featured "Life is a Highway." In the 2018 version, the segments go Coco, Cars, then Incredibles. While there was a stop and go between the Coco and Cars section, "Life is a Highway" transitioned into the "Incredibles" theme/scene. However, in the 2024 version, Onward replaced Cars as the transition between Coco and The Incredibles. And I don't mind it. It works well, with Barley talking about danger and adventure, and I personally believe Onward deserves more love. But also, I feel like "Life is a Highway" is kinda iconic, so there's that too.

Now, for things I want to note that I enjoyed that remained the same across both versions/runs. I absolutely love how you can hear the crowd reacting to the Coco and "Married Life" sections. It remains a fond memory of hearing people get excited when the Coco music started and everyone going "awww" when "Married Life" began, especially since they put that segment after that scene from Toy Story 3. Glad to see people are still loving those bits. And, I think it stayed consistent, but I also love how during the finale, the memory orbs from Inside Out are used as a framing device for other snapshots of Pixar moments that celebrate friendship (but also family too). Again, it works nicely for the projections and this year it's an added bonus that their sequel is coming out in June. Very fun to see that they included the new emotions in some of the finale projections too.

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I think those are the majority of my thoughts on the 2024 version of Together Forever: A Pixar Nighttime Spectacular. Again, love love love this show. I'm so excited it's back, and not only back, but updated to include some love for the newer movies too.

Hope you enjoyed this post and if you read the whole thing, thank you so much!!!

Please feel free to share your thoughts on either versions of the show or if you have any memories of these fireworks, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks again! Gosh, I really can't believe this show is back!

-Dakota Wren 💜

[findjoosoftware]

Harmony in Administration: A Symphony of Association Management Software

In the orchestration of associations, from community groups to professional organizations, the seamless coordination of tasks and information is paramount. Enter Association Management Software (AMS), the virtuoso conductor that orchestrates a symphony of functionalities, bringing together members, events, finances, and communications in perfect harmony. In this creative exploration, we delve into the world of Association Management Software, where technology becomes the composer, and associations dance to the rhythm of efficiency and cohesion.

Act I: The Overture of Member Management

Picture this: a bustling community or a thriving professional group. Members, the lifeblood of any association, need a space where their information is not scattered like notes on sheet music. Association Management Software takes center stage in managing this complexity. It conducts a harmonious ensemble of member profiles, tracking engagement, dues, and preferences. With a stroke of digital brilliance, AMS creates a melodious synergy, ensuring members are not mere spectators but active participants in the association’s narrative.

Act II: Event Coordination – A Ballet of Logistics

Associations often host events, each a choreographed spectacle requiring meticulous planning. AMS steps into the role of choreographer, orchestrating a ballet of logistics. From event registrations to venue management, it ensures every step is executed with grace. The software’s prowess lies in its ability to streamline the complexities of event planning, allowing associations to host seamless gatherings that resonate with participants long after the final curtain falls.

Act III: Financial Sonata – Balancing the Books

Finances, the intricate notes in the composition of any association, demand a conductor with precision and accuracy. AMS steps onto the financial stage, conducting a sonata that balances the books with finesse. It handles dues, payments, and budgeting, transforming financial management into a harmonious experience. The software's symphonic approach ensures that the association’s financial composition is not only accurate but also a melody of fiscal health.

Act IV: Communication Crescendo – Amplifying Connections

In the grand theater of associations, communication is the resonant echo that connects members and leadership. AMS takes the baton in this crescendo of connectivity. Through intuitive communication tools, it weaves a tapestry of emails, newsletters, and announcements, ensuring that every member is attuned to the association’s rhythm. The software transforms communication into a symphonic experience, fostering a sense of unity among members.

Act V: Accessibility Aria – Empowering Members

A symphony is only as impactful as its accessibility to the audience. AMS performs an aria of empowerment by providing members with a portal to engage and contribute. Through user-friendly interfaces and mobile responsiveness, it ensures that members can access information, register for events, and connect with fellow members effortlessly. The software’s accessibility aria transforms association participation into a harmonious and inclusive experience.

Finale: The Enchanting Legacy

As the curtain falls on this symphonic journey through Association Management Software, what lingers is the enchanting legacy it leaves behind. The software, a conductor of efficiency, cohesion, and engagement, ensures that associations not only survive but thrive. In its final crescendo, Association Management Software becomes the composer of an enduring legacy, where the harmony of members, events, finances, and communications resonates through the corridors of the association, creating a melodic tale of success.

In this creative ode to Association Management Software, we celebrate not just a technological tool but a maestro that orchestrates the ballet of association administration. It is a testament to the transformative power of technology, where every click and command is a note in the symphony of association management, creating an enduring melody that echoes through the annals of organized collaboration.