#i like some of the lower tier pieces better than some of the higher tier ones too so im not too disappointed when i dont pull a 4 or 5 star

[kittykatinabag]

Mark my words, the next country/area we're getting in Infinity Nikki is Cicia.

[47crayons]

so, you want to write a musician?

about me: i play viola and have experience in symphony orchestras, string orchestras, string quartets (+ a few other small ensembles), and solo performances. i've done some light composition, and have friends/family who play other instruments. while my musical history is extensive, by no means do i know everything or speak for everyone.

this guide will focus on classical music/how to portray classical musicians and things that aren't as easily researched.

quick overview of instruments in a typical symphony orchestra

upper strings (violin, viola), lower strings (cello, (double) bass; i've seen viola included here too, but it's more commonly classified as upper strings)

strings also technically includes harp and piano

woodwinds (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon)

depending on instrumentation, they may also have piccolo, english horn, bass clarinet, contrabassoon

saxophones are not traditionally in symphony orchestras due to it being a relative newer instrument! but this is changing because more contemporary composes are including sax parts

brass (trumpet, trombone, bass trombone, tuba, euphonium)

percussion (depends heavily on instrumentation, but common instruments are bass drum, timpani, snare, crash cymbal, xylophone, marimba)

some things you should research

where the hands are supposed to go!! i'd recommend you look at pictures of professionals in orchestra settings (ny phil, cso, berlin phil are all top tier). some musicians *coughs at yoyo ma* have less than perfect posture when they're performing solos (for the same reasons famous authors can break "rules")

necessary equipment including reeds, rockstops, different kinds of sticks/mallets, rosin, mouth pieces for whatever instrument you're writing

common misconceptions

loose/photocopied sheet music is not aesthetic—it's annoying and impossible to keep organized. folders and binders are fairly common especially when managing multiple ensembles.

original copies are often expensive and required to perform a piece (legally) for profit or otherwise (though i know a few people who have bent this rule)

not all performers are good composers (i myself have very little formal music theory training), but many composers have performance histories.

not all musicians can sing.

perfect pitch is both a blessing and a curse. notes can be slightly lower/higher but in tune with the context of the piece, which drives people with perfect pitch insane.

having perfect pitch does not guarantee someone will be a prodigy, and people don't need perfect pitch to be a talented musician.

drama in ensembles does exist, but it rarely gets in the way of rehearsal. same thing goes for good friends: if your characters have even a shred of common sense, they aren't going to be talking/messing around during rehearsal.

instruments (especially good ones) are extremely expensive. people very rarely store instruments on the wall or other displays for fear of falling.

instruments are very picky and require tuning every time. every time! it doesn't take long anyway. temperature and humidity can and will make instruments go out of tune or damage your instrument if not properly stored.

some people listen exclusively to classical music, but in my experience, that's definitely not the majority

like with anything, most musicians struggle with self doubt at one point or another.

musician culture

getting excited when we hear a piece we recognize

getting frustrated because we can't remember the name of the piece (after all, no lyrics to search)

being horrified when a non-musician actor is playing a musician. yes, we notice. yes, it's obvious.

if people are joking, it's likely to be about: violas (a quick search for "viola jokes" will tell you all you need to know) or trumpets (a reputation for being overly loud, playing and not)

putting stickers (places they toured, their orchestra, or just purely decorative) on cases is common, but not for everyone. same goes for pictures (of family, past concerts, or anything) on the inside.

scrambling for a pencil when the conductor says to mark something. pencils are a musicians best friend :D

asking (and forgetting) how to split double stops/two parts at the same time. sometimes one stand partner will play the top while the other plays the bottom, and sometimes this is split stand by stand.

this has NEVER resulted in a sexual top/bottom joke. please just. don't. also no g string jokes. it's just unrealistic.

awaiting the obligatory "it's one week before our concert, and you sound like this?!" lecture

not talking about music 100% of the time!!! they have lives outside of music (most of them, at least /j). especially to close friends, music is probably not going to be a conversation topic unless something is out of the ordinary (high stress, something funny from rehearsal, etc.)

bragging/talking about how often they practice is generally not welcomed. great, but other people don't need to hear it!

stages are hot and bright. there's no way a performer can see someone in the audience with the possible exception of the first row.

practicing

three words for you: love. hate. relationship.

slow practice (like really slow lots of people recommend half speed; good for focusing on the right notes, tone, phrasing, smooth transitions)

metronome practice (while playing, it's not annoying at all! it's helpful and requires a lot of focus; when NOT playing, it's annoying and loud because it needs to be heard over the playing)

drone practice (having a machine/website/another person play one note in the background; good for tuning and scales)

and too many more for me to detail

auditions

ensembles may have entrance auditions to determine who gets in and seating auditions to determine placement within the section.

adrenaline does not make us play better; it just makes us make mistakes. and then thinking about those mistakes causes more mistakes.

some instruments, especially those with less repertoire, have common excerpts that come up frequently (i can think of one in particular that i've played for three separate auditions this year).

stopping/starting over is not recommended ever, but if you do, it has to be 10x better. most audition judges aren't looking for perfection!! they want to see how your character can keep going after messing up.

sight reading (being given new music, having ~30 seconds to look at it, being asked to play) is never perfect. i don't care how talented your character is; if they think they nailed it, they aren't experienced enough to see all the phrasing/dynamics that they didn't incorporate. no one gets sight reading perfect!!!

perhaps most importantly, musicians are not all the same! they enjoy it for a number of different reasons and have diverse and interesting lives outside of music!!! more information about specific instrument groups under the cut :)

strings

callouses. with the exception of pianists, most string players (and especially professional ones) have callouses where they press down/pluck the strings. i also have one on my right thumb where i hold my bow. cellists and bassists might have them on their left thumb from playing higher notes in thumb position.

hickeys are also fairly common, though only some people get them. upper strings will get these by under their left jaw. cellists may have one from the wooden body resting on their sternum. some people (including hilary hahn and many many others) use a cloth for comfort and to prevent hickeys.

few people want a hickey, but it might suit a character who is constantly trying to prove themselves.

our fingers do not "glide" anywhere. you can get cuts/"string-burns" from pressing down too hard when shifting. cuts like those are the only reason someone's fingers will bleed, and it's rarer than you think.

upper strings are more prone to back/neck problems from the way they hold their instruments on one side. see also: shoulder pain.

finger cramps happen. they aren't too common, but most if not all strings have experienced at least one.

pianos require tuning every few years or else the chords will be out of tune. few pianists can tune their own instrument because of how complicated it is.

piano parts/accompaniments will have so. many. pages. a page turner may sit on the right of the pianist to turn the page.

woodwinds & brass

spit. so much spit. some instruments clean afterwards with a cloth; others have a spit valve which is as gross as it sounds.

proper embouchure, or how a musician uses the muscles in their face/lips, is tiring, and people actually get strong cheek muscles. they can also easily turn red, but it varies based on a person's facial complexion. see also: good lung capacity.

flute and piccolo are not dainty. piccolo requires as much air as a tuba. an old teacher of mine almost passed out playing piccolo when she was in college.

flutes and piccolos are high, but often not shrill depending on the level of the ensemble.

reeds last a few weeks (less if your character plays for hours a day) and can be expensive to buy.

keys and valves can get sticky especially on older instruments which can result in the wrong note or bad tone.

saxes, clarinets, flutes are more likely to "honk" on low notes.

oboes are more likely to feel "wispy" on high notes.

articulation comes from the tongue, especially for brass instruments, and conductors may ask for "tah" "pah" or "wah" sounds depending on the style of the piece.

percussion

callouses from the friction between hands and sticks/mallets.

there are so many types of sticks and mallets!!! make sure to take a look at what materials are good for what instruments/sounds.

cymbals, triangle, and bass drum are not easy to play, even though they look simple.

percussionists with the exception of timpani may play more than one instrument during a piece, and they're constantly moving around in the back during their rests.

percussion instruments are too expensive for most people to have everything they ever play. practice pads are very common in place of these instruments.

ability to play one instrument doesn't translate to different instruments. for example, many percussionists don't have experience playing set/drum set.

some of the things detailed here are heavily glossed over, so if you have any questions, i'd always be happy to talk about it with you; i may not have answers, but i will try to help as best i can!!!

since you read this far, have my favorite viola joke.

what's the difference between a violist and a large pizza?

a large pizza can feed a family of four :)

tagging some people who showed interest: @writing-is-a-martial-art @ashen-crest @kg-willie @owilder

[bondsmagii]

Hey read (some of) this blog post (long as hell), tries to pick it up where your old scp cult post left off: lackoflepers medium com/scp-is-not-a-cult-196e87ce6b11

(link)

this is insane. I've never written anything that's ever received a full response before, so that's exciting. what's even more exciting is that this piece does raise some really interesting questions, and is very well-written and thoughtful.

the strange thing is, I think we're both in agreement -- but I'm calling it a cult, and the author of this piece is calling it a "fledgling religion". I agree with this outlook, if I'm honest -- but at the same time I can't help but think that this has filled a hole in my cult theory, rather than poked a hole in it.

when I wrote the original cult post, the one thing I couldn't quite equate was the religion aspect. there was a lot of things to consider from that aspect, in terms of cults requiring a certain doctrine, rituals, etc, and while I was able to draw comparisons to the site culture and these things, it didn't quite fit. this article explains and illustrates exactly what all of these things are, and the sheer amount of similarities between the SCP wiki culture and religious fundamentalists. it's absolutely incredible, how it all still adds up.

however, some things are way off. I understand the author has a history with site and with staff, and they obviously understand that there's a complicated relationship between the two. the piece certainly tackles the question from an educated site-critical standpoint, but I can't help but notice some glaring omissions and in some places, assumptions which I feel are quite simply incorrect. under the cut we go, because this is long.

the author seems to be very ignorant of the site's cyclical patterns. one of their main arguments for the wiki's not being a cult is how people like Dr Gears and thedeadlymoose don't have more power over the masses, being such important figures. the problem with the wiki is that it is very cyclical, and big names of one era do not translate over to new eras. big names replace old ones, and the old ones either become fond grandparent figures (like Gears, who had the sense to take a step back before the tides changed against him) or they become irrelevant or reviled (like thedeadlymoose, or pixelatedharmony (Roget).) this means that if the former appeals to the group, they will get essentially a pat on the head and a gentle dismissal, or if the latter speak out they will be silenced, harassed, banned, etc. this is very cultlike behaviour -- if somebody goes against the grain, they become an immediate enemy of the people. the only way to survive fame on the wiki is to retire quietly, at your peak, and keep yourself to yourself.

going on from this, there are also different levels to how a staff member is seen. there have been eras of the site where the site admin might not be as impressive as one of the prolific writers, for example. who these days knows about The Administrator? it's all Dr Gears to them. different authors have different levels of unofficial authority, and the author of the piece doesn't seem to realise that it's a cult of personality as much as anything else. there are constant divisions among staff, even if they present a united front; frequently those not toeing the party line have been ostracised or purged, and this filters down to the average user. just because a person is on staff does not mean they immediately skyrocket to godhood, if we're using the religious metaphor. this is why it seems as though "staff" as a whole isn't uniformly worshipped -- they're not. there are complex currents of power at work here, and it's frustrating because at first glance it seems to invalidate the very real fact that a few site members have all the authority. the staff worship extends to staff members. those in lower tiers will act similarly to those in higher tiers as a new member would act towards all staff.

the author draws attention to thedeadlymoose's impressive efforts to bring the site forward from its 4chan beginnings and make it more inclusive to LGBT members -- something that has undoubtedly had an effect. however, the author does not mention that to date, the site's only successful splinter site (as in, a site that lasted more than a few weeks) is RPC, and while this website came about for multiple reasons, it's undeniable that one of these reasons was because of the fact that the wiki was openly supportive of LGBT people during Pride Month. it's also interesting to note that the author is also a member of the RPC site, so it's odd that this piece of the site's origins is not mentioned.

the acceptance of these pro-LGBT policies also seems to be less wide-spread than the author believes -- most people don't care, there does exist users who are homophobic or transphobic, and -- something I'm surprised wasn't mentioned at all in the piece -- when LGBT members of the site spoke up and said the new logo made them feel pandered to, and the resulting blowout made them feel targeted and unsafe, they were mass banned from the subreddit by a rogue moderator who, incensed by the fact his authority was so challenged, then ragequit and abused people on the threads for several hours. this is a typical staff response to discontent in the masses. so yes, thedeadlymoose did have some significant sway in the attitude changing somewhat, but it was not as widespread (nor as cared about) as the article's author seems to think.

now, I shall move on to specific quotations.

Furthermore, as a gaggle of creators, SCP should never feature the mass conformity of thought that defines a cult; theirs is an ecosystem that predicates itself upon creation, and obsessively on the new and original — that is to say, the different (but tempered).

while the author does elaborate on this idea of creativity and conformity, this is just wrong. again, I blame the author's ignorance in regards to the cyclical nature of the site -- which isn't the fault of the author, in my opinion. such cycles are slow, measuring out in years rather than months, which is insanely long for an internet community. in order to notice them, you would have to have been observing for some time -- which I have been. since I have been observing the site (which has been since its very creation -- I was on the 4chan thread in 2007 when 173 was created and I have seen the wiki from its infancy on EditThis over to wikidot) I have seen this happen countless times. a type of writing, be it style or genre, takes off. it could be LOLFoundation, grimdark, whatever -- it takes off, it runs the site for a year or so, and then it crashes and burns. when it takes off, there are rules for writing it that must be obeyed lest you be downvoted to oblivion. as the attitude turns against it, those who still write it are vilified and ostracised, and the new one takes over. there have been mass purges in the past, and there has always been, since the wiki's inception, conformity of thought. one of my oldest complaints about the wiki is that, for a site full of writers, they have no imagination and absolutely no desire to step out of the approved style.

To put it very broadly, things get accustomed to the status quo in a highly regulated environment, and get better at simply remaining and surviving in that.

this could be a decent rebuff to my previous point, but the fact is that while the SCP wiki harbours cultish behaviour, a vast majority of the users are casual readers who maybe write one or two articles. the stagnation is, at least partially, because of the fact that most users sign up, read some articles, think "cool, I have an idea for one!", write it -- and have it emulate the articles they've read, thus sounding similar in tone and content to the rest of the recent articles -- get a semi-decent response if lucky, and then move on after a few months or years.

the people who power the wiki, however -- who are prolific, who churn out insane amount of articles -- are suffering from what I outlined in my above point. a small percentage of the wiki dictates the direction it goes. it has always been like this -- and people who go against the grain that staff have employed, be it old user or new, will pay for it. this payment is often in downvotes, but occasionally comes in harassment, bans, or deletions, too.

Lastly a cult is really the most extreme version of a religion, it is a religion on steroids.

this is straight-up incorrect. cults began as religions gone hayware, yes, but the idea of a cult as a Jonestown-style compound in the middle of nowhere is outdated. cults are the most extreme version of an ideology -- be it religious, political, or otherwise. they are ideologies on steroids. thanks to the internet, they also no longer have to be in real life spaces. you can be in a social cult on Twitter or on Discord; you can be in a cult of ideology on an incel forum or in a social circle of TERF blogs. all of these things are cults. they have cult-like behaviour and thinking.

this is where the author proves my point beyond all doubt. the author says the following about the wiki's increasingly left-wing inclusive policies:

What was intended to be an executive extension in peace has, due to the force required to counteract the sheer hostility and persecution once leveled at this group at its peak, instead overshot its mark and has become a brutal bureaucratic sanctioning of political identity. (I can hear someone saying that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.)

the biggest shift in this cult-think, for me, was observed when the shift towards Terminally Online Woke Left attitudes began to be increasingly observed. I'm not talking about getting people to tone down the homophobia and whatnot. I'm talking about this culture of purity and suffering that the author outlines very well in the article; if you have read the article, I needn't go over it again. the wiki now holds a monopoly on suffering using the same kind of Oppression Olympics as other spaces devoted to purity culture -- and purity culture is a cult. this is straight-up fact at this point. it is my belief that staff identified the power available to them in a) targeting people from oppressed and vulnerable groups and giving them a so-called safe space and b) using their various oppressions to their advantage.

something that is prolific in purity culture circles is that somebody who is oppressed in any way cannot be held to blame for their actions. they cannot be a bad person. this is ideological armour, and staff wields it. they also use purity culture and apparently progressive ideology to shut down anyone who dissents, and to smear their name and have then ostracised as an enemy. why do they do this? liking the power and fame of their position is a big part of it, as the author outlined, but something major is missing.

throughout the entire article, the author does not once mention the detailed and extensive history of staff sexually abusing minors on the site.

this is well-documented by this point. staff has seen many predators in its ranks, including one of the most prolific site members of all time -- AdminBright, or The Duckman. staff has known about these staff members and has covered it up over years. I myself have heard testimony from countless victims, but whenever we raise enough of a stink, a staff member does an "internal investigation" and nothing comes of it. the fact that the cult-like behaviour of this website can be discussed without one of the cornerstones of cult activity -- using its members for financial or sexual gain -- is astounding to me.

to go on from this, there is also no mention of the SCP lawyer fund, which raised over $30,000 and then faced staff actively resisting transparency as to the case and the funds. financial manipulation is another major example of cult behaviour.

without acknowledging these two things, I do not think that a full argument against the idea of the SCP wiki as a cult can be possible.

the author raises a good point that illustrates both why staff acts the way it does, and why the users are so eager to imitate:

The answer is something that can turn someone into their nemesis; something that would make someone sell their soul for 1000 upvotes; that tragic commonality that binds all individuals who feel the need to write; the need to be received, but more, to be loved for it.

this is a big reason why staff clings to its power, and why people sell out their creativity, and why people emulate this behaviour, and why prolific authors burn out so fast. however, running through all of this at its core -- through the need to be received and loved -- is the power that comes with it. this is all about power.

to mention the specific example of LordStonefish, and his reaction when he found out that his interviewer was enemy of the people pixelatedharmony, now of "burning out, ragequitting the site, and going to talk shit on KiwiFarms" infamy:

[...] it was as if LSF was speaking to a leper, and that the ongoing participation in the salvation of public approval (not to mention site participation as well) was directly dependent upon LSF’s rebuke of pH as a demon who is only worthy of a terrible fate and, as we see in the screencaps, even death.

leaving my personal opinions on Harmony out of this, going from a perfectly civil interview to finding out that the interviewer was an enemy and not only dumping all of his private information to offset doxing, but also going into detail about some highly personal stuff for shock value... I don't think Harmony quite required that treatment. the fact is that, as the quote outlines above, the only way to ensure that he wouldn't be completely ostracised for fraternising with the enemy (KiwiFarms -- of which Harmony is apparently the ambassador) was to behave like a man shunning a sinner. Harmony has sinned -- she rejected the status quo, she defied the group and its authority, and LordStonefish, in order to remain safe from being tarred with the same brush -- has to react with suitable horror to her presence.

it should be noted here that while KiwiFarms has a reputation for being a hive of scum and villainy, its main reputation regarding the SCP Wiki has been for being the one place where complaints against the site are openly discussed, often by defected staff members such as pixelatedharmony and Cyantreuse, and perhaps most telling of all -- the place where a lot of accounts of sexual harassment and abuse have been filed. staff rails against it on the grounds of it being filled with people who use slurs and have questionable ideological beginnings (ironic, coming from a website which began on 4chan) -- but as a leftist myself with extensive knowledge of the wiki, I can confirm that no criticisms I've seen on there have been unfair or inaccurate, and in fact a lot of the evidence and testimony posted there is damning. it would be fair to not wish to associate with the site because of its content in other places, or even its past reputation, but the fact staff rail against it so hard when it's currently one of the only places (and certainly the only public place) where their deeds are on display? it's interesting.

of LordStonefish's reaction, the author says:

This is the behavior of a deeply religious figure.

it is. this is the reaction of a Mormon meeting an old friend who has left the church. this is the reaction of a Jehovah's Witness crossing the street to avoid a shunned neighbour. it is the behaviour, you could say, of a cult member.

in the conclusion, the author states:

And if anyone is to shoulder blame for the creation of this pathology and its complex, it are those true bigots of history and today, who don’t have the spiritual maturity to understand that someone’s sexual preference or identity shouldn’t be enough to categorically separate them from a definition of humanity; to beat, maim, and wish death upon them.

perhaps this might have been true, perhaps this might have drawn a thoughtful and damning line under the whole affair, if not for the fact that this behaviour has been occurring since long before the internet became known for its progressive and now increasingly often, ridiculous takes on inclusion and sensitivity. this kind of cultish groupthink has been ongoing since the wiki's very first inception. the cyclical worship of a group of staff members and other prolific writers (though the group are often one and the same) and their chosen theme or genre has occurred like clockwork since the late 00s. it has occurred when the website was still entrenched in its 4chan days and saying slurs was barely blinked at. it was still there back when staff was predominantly (or at least presumably) cis, white, and male. it was there when being gay was the butt of a joke and being trans was all but unthought of. it has always been there, and while the latest progressive policies and attitudes have had an effect on how the power is wielded, it has not changed the power itself. if the tides ever turn on the Terminally Online Woke ideology, staff will change with it and adapt their policies and ideologies to keep their power.

if anyone is to shoulder the blame for the creation of this pathology, it is the elitist attitude that has allowed a select few to be worshipped unquestionably. it is the power-hungry individuals who seek out fame and respect on a writing website and then use this fame and respect to treat others badly and their fear of a fall from grace to shelter others treating people worse. it is on the shoulders of the staff members who use their position to groom and sexually assault minors. it is on the shoulders of the staff members who keep it silent. as the severity of staff's secrets has increased, so has their attempts to silence dissent and reform at all costs.

the author agrees that this kind of religious think might lead to a cult in the future. the author says the cult will be a cult of vulnerability, but I disagree. I believe the cult is already there, and it is -- and always has been -- a cult of power.

[bullshittierlists]

A few notes before I start: Sorry about the white backgrounds, that’s how they showed up and I didn’t know how to fix them. Also, these summaries are going to be a lot shorter than they have in my last few posts just since there are so many characters. Anyway, let’s begin.

Literally godly, this should be your regular outfit -

Rantaro Amami - I shouldn’t have to be the first person to point out to you that he’s hot. Not to mention that the pink bottoms work wonders with his hair.

Nagito Komaeda - Hhhhhhhh

Byakuya Togami - I will admit, I’m basing this position more off of his appearance in the promo art. I don’t know how much I like this look on his regular sprite, but he’s so hot in that promo art, you don’t even know.

Show me who picked this out for you so I can thank them -

Sayaka Maizono - SHE LOOKS SO CUTE OML. I’d go through each detail, but in short: everything.

Gundham Tanaka - Shirtless Gundham, what more can I say?

Ibuki Mioda - I absolutely adore how her swimsuit doesn’t just go with her hair, but matches it. Perfection.

Korekiyo Shinguji - When the trailer first dropped and I saw the screen with all of the released swimsuits, I immediately started scanning to see if they put Korekiyo in a wetsuit and by God, they did.

Shuichi Saihara - He looks more tired than usual, but I just have a gut feeling his other sprites will look better.

Mondo Owada - I probably should’ve put him in standard, but he looks so good without a shirt on, I couldn’t possibly.

Kaito Momota - Space shorts.

Sakura Ogami - She was actually going to be somewhere in the first tier originally, but I just can’t put her there because of the color. I probably should’ve put her down with the other people with this problem (Uhhh... okay... I guess) but I couldn’t bear to.

Cute!/Cool! -

Chihiro Fujisaki - a;lskdfh;adskfijshdkjc He’s so cute, someone help. I’m drowning in cute. He looks so excited to be wearing it, too. I think this was the best choice they could’ve gone with to not give him something too masculine or feminine, fantastic choice.

Leon Kuwata - This category was originally just going to be “Cute!” but his bottoms looked so cool, I had to put him up here.

Toko Fukawa - Not only does her swimsuit look good on her, but I love the way that they designed her and Genocide Jack to be wearing the same swimsuit in different styles. Super cool.

Tenko Chabashira - I think this was one of the only palette swaps that I actually liked. There are probably a few other swaps that I didn’t even notice, but I like this one specifically because of the color swap. She looks great in pink.

Kyoko Kirigiri - I think I would’ve normally put her in standard, but her gloves are just too cool.

Mukuro Ikusaba - Love the colors and love the pattern. Simple, yet great.

Mahiru Koizumi - Mahiru, your camera. You can’t take that in the water. Mahiru- MAHIRU

Akane Owari - This is actually the swimsuit she wore during chapter 2 in the original game and I thought she looked great both times.

Chiaki Nanami - Same as Akane, so there’s not really any reason for either one to be higher or lower than the other. Peko would be up here too, but it’s really basic.

Gonta Gokuhara - I just really like the pattern and also that he’s still carrying the thing over his shoulder. It’s really weird who got to keep accessories and who didn’t, but we’ll get there.

Masaru Daimon - He just looks so cool in his shorts, I’m sure he’s excited to have them.

Shirokuma - Despite how I may feel about Shirokuma, this is a very cute outfit for them.

Standard -

Kaede Akamatsu - Definitely the best-looking of the protagonists, even if Shuichi’s higher. He’s only higher because I have faith that his faults are because of the sprite choice. If I’m wrong, sue me.

Kirumi Tojo - This is another instance of getting to keep the accessories. She still has her headband on. Why?? It wasn’t crucial to her character or anything. I get that Kyoko has backstory reasons and Gonta and Mahiru’s personalities revolve around their items, but why Kirumi? She had other things that defined her better.

Peko Pekoyama - Like I said before, basic and kinda bland. She still looks good, though.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu - He actually gained an accessory. Why does he have a necklace now? His shorts are nice, though.

Hajime Hinata - O r a n g. Or maybe red.

Maki Harukawa - Basic swimsuit, no color change whatsoever. A nice swimsuit, but nothing special.

Genocide Jack - Everything I said before about Toko’s swimsuit still applies, Genocide Jack’s is just way more boring.

Aoi Asahina - A good color swap, but not good enough to make up for her basic swimsuit.

Monomi - I like that they put her in a one-piece. Very cute. Wish they would do that all the time...

Monaca Towa - I just noticed that she is the only character other than Monomi to wear a one-piece. Why??

Makoto Naegi - The most basic swimsuit imaginable combined with his regular color scheme and pattern.

Hiroko Hagakure - I think I like that she kept her jacket? Maybe? It’s a different jacket, but it still counts.

Nagisa Shingetsu - Black and white bottoms. Okay. You do you, buddy.

Imposter - It’s fine. It’s just fine.

Izuru - I like that they gave him a separate swimsuit from Hajime, but why is it so bland and boring?

I love you, so I’ll forgive it -

Sonia Nevermind - She actually looks great and is so cute. So cute that she’d be in the top tier if not for one crucial fact. If you’ll notice, I mentioned earlier that Peko, Chiaki, and Akane are all wearing the same swimsuit here that they had worn in the original second game. However, there’s another character that appears in the scene I’m talking about that is wearing a different outfit than they are here. That charcter is Sonia, who was seen in a wetsuit in the original game. It was thrown off as a joke, but I still can’t stop thinking about how pretty she looked in that wetsuit. It’s literally my profile picture for my main blog, that’s how pretty she is wearing it. I’m mad because they’re basically agreeing that she didn’t look pretty/sexy in the wetsuit when that couldn’t be more wrong.

Celestia Ludenberg - I literally just wish she was wearing a one-piece, it can be the same style and everything. Honestly a missed opportunity.

Kotoko Utsugi - It’s just a weird pattern. Love the colors, though.

K1-B0 - I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love the floaty, but he still deserves more respect.

Miu Iruma - The pattern is... fitting... but still bad.

Kiyotaka Ishimaru - Taka... sweetie... why...?

Uhhh... okay... I guess -

Angie Yonaga - I like the look, but it’s exactly what she usually wears just without the jacket. Does that mean that she’s always wearing a swimsuit? Why? Even Asahina didn’t wear a swimsuit as her regular outfit.

Kazuichi Soda - I definitely like this color better than the piss yellow he used to have, but it’s still not great. I like that he got to keep his little logo thing, but I’m confused as to why he gets to keep his hat. It’s just like Kirumi keeping her headpiece. I’m fine with it in this case, but why him and not...? Well, we’ll get there.

Komaru Naegi - A lot of the outfits in this tier are just because I like the look and not the color scheme, including Komaru. Yellow’s just an odd fit for the shade of green that her hair is.

Tsumugi Shirogane - The same as Komaru. Nice style, but the yellow and blue clash for me.

Hiyoko Saionji - Surprise surprise, it’s the same thing. I think the style really fits her, but I hate the yellow and green. Not into it.

Junko Enoshima - Ok, we’re out of the color scheme repetition. I don’t know why she’s wearing a tanktop. It just looks a little off, but I can’t place why. I don’t know why she isn’t just wearing the regular swimsuit like she was in the promo art. If she was, I’d probably put her in Standard.

Yasuhiro Hagakure - I’ll be honest, I didn’t notice the alien pattern on his shorts until after I had already downloaded the picture and closed out of the tier list tab. If I had noticed before, I’d probably put him in Cute!/Cool! but I still don’t really like the color scheme. Fitting, but not pleasing.

Kurokuma - The only reason he’s above Kokichi is because he has a water gun and I think that’s cute.

Kokichi Oma - Literally just gut instinct. I like that he kept his checkered pattern and purple color scheme. Something just told me he should be down here.

Monokuma - It just feels wrong, but I can’t place why, same as Kokichi.

Teruteru Hanamura - I probably would’ve liked his outfit better if his shirt was buttoned up at least a little bit. Now that I think about it, Mondo should’ve had one of these, too.

Who signed off on this? -

Usami - WHY IS SHE IN A BIKINI??? SHE’S A STUFFED RABBIT.

Nekomaru Nidai - I can absolutely see him picking this swimsuit to wear, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

Mikan Tsumiki - You know why she’s here.

God no. I hate it -

Ryoma Hoshi - So Mahiru gets to keep her camera, Kirumi gets to keep her headpiece, and Kazuichi gets to keep his hat.. but Ryoma doesn’t get anything? I genuinely had to take a second to figure out who this was the first time I saw him. He can’t even have a sunhat or anything? That would’ve been cute.

Himiko Yumeno - I can’t imagine a world in which she would choose this swimsuit for herself. The color is off, the style is off, I could much more easily see her wearing something similar to Monaca’s swimsuit. Basically, just let some of the girls wear one-pieces. They don’t all have to be in bikinis.

Jataro Kemuri - The pattern. I can’t even stand to look at it long enough to figure out what it is.

Hifumi Yamada - It did take me a second to figure out what his swimsuit was, but as soon as I did, he hit the bottom of the list. Again, it’s definitely fitting, but I still hate it.

[kissmetae]

Right time

x Taehyung

❧ AU: You and your boyfriend try it without protection for the first time, allowing him to finally indulge in his hidden fetish...

|| RAW SMUT | 2.1k | x reader | masterlist in bio ||

❧ Disclaimer: This is fiction. Actions and events in these stories are often exaggerated and to a certain degree unrealistic.  Please have this in consideration when reading fiction, especially if it includes sexual content.

❧ Rating: EXPLICIT || shameless sexual content

❧ Smut features: Impreg fetish, cum fetish, top!Tae, dirty talk, grinding, body worship (towards Tae), detailed, “keeping it in”... it gets weird but sweet, rough, use of cock ring lol, creaming, creampie and more...

❧ A/N: This is raw smut from start to finish. Requested by anon & anon 

His soft pink lips moved slowly over the skin of your neck.

His kisses were delicate, pressing sweetly and leaving with a gentle smacking sound. The round freckled tip of his nose brushed against your jaw as the trail travelled higher.

 Taehyung's beautiful hands were squeezing at your waist, moving your top higher and higher with each kiss.

 His soft breathing tickled beneath your ear and an eager hand suddenly slid up under your top and squeezed your breast firmly.

 He hummed, his deep voice only making you crave him more...

You tangled a hand in his hair and he moved even closer to you.

 You were lying on your back on the large bed and Taehyung was pressed up against your side, gently grinding his bulge against your thigh.

 He was so needy...

In fact he had been needy for days without telling you.

Ever since you had the talk he couldn't get it off of his mind.

It turned it him on...

He knew he had a thing for it, but being in touch with his fetish this close only made him realize how much he had supressed it before and how much it turned him on now when it was out...

 He whimpered against your ear, rubbing himself harder and moving a hand to your clothed lowers to create friction with his palm.

 "Let’s do it" he begged. "Please... I'm so ready... I can't take it anymore..."

 The frustration within him was unbearable.

The ring was tight around the base of his length, making his straining erection even more swollen.

 He had prepared....

Refraining from touch, refraining from your gorgeous body and holding back the best he could in order to build up... But this night he just couldn't withstand it any longer and the ring did the opposite of soothing his aching need to cum.

 It all started a few days ago...

How the topic came about he didn't remember but you ended up talking about sex. He hadn't admitted it but he really enjoyed being able to talk about i comfortably. Maybe it was the knowledge of the topic being somewhat "forbidden" that enticed him.

Regardless, along the way in the conversation the topic was brought up wither you should stop using protection.

He was immediately on board, wanting to feel you raw and be able to cum inside you and knowing your body would keep it and claim it, instead of it being hindered by the condom.

There was of course 'that' risk... but that was the whole point.

You were both ready.

Long-gone ready and as ready as you could ever be to risk 'that' to happen to you. Of course Taehyung wanted it more than anything... but on the other side of it all, his fetish was awaken.

 Call it un-classy and straight up sinfully disgusting perhaps ... but the concept of breeding turned him on beyond his control.

There was just something about it... a sense of pride. A pride that he and only him could impregnate you with his own to create something beautiful.

But right now it wasn't about the beautiful.

It was about the nasty, lust-filled need and longing for the sense of pride to hear you moan as he gave you a part of him.

 He felt himself throb and bit his lower lip hard.

He would break and lose control if he didn't stop now, but the curve of your thigh against him gave the best sensation... but it was nothing compared to the temptation of the unknown sensation.

 Taehyung quickly sat up by your side.

Your thighs were clenched tight and you were well aware of how wet you probably were by now.

The sight and sound of your lover rubbing himself against you for pleasure is nothing but arousing...

The sound of his sweet deep groans as his need grew stronger and the imagines it triggered your mind to have.

 His long slender fingers unbuttoned your jeans and pulled them down your thighs along with your panties. His hands were hasty, rushing to get them off and tossed the two pieces of clothing to the floor.

 You sat up, crossing your arms and pulling your top off your head, tossing it to the floor as well along with the dismissed clothing. As you reached behind to unhook your bra Taehyung grabbed a hold of the hem of his sweats and you couldn't look away if your life depended on it...

You could clearly tell the lines through the fabric and how he wasn't wearing any underwear...

Apart from that his shirt was already long gone on the floor thanks to your eager hands.

 His upper body was a sculpted work of art.

Broad toned shoulders, distinct collarbones and a wide chest shaping the top of his V shaped torso. Soft honey golden skin, huggable and lean with a vague line by the hips and a thin trail of dark short hair leading from his belly button down.

 He was careful in his movement at first, carefully pulling down and helping himself with his free hand before yanking them down his thighs and kicking them off, revealing his long toned legs.

 But your eyes were focused on something else.

 His distinct almost heart shaped tip was a deep shade of pink caused by the black rubber by the base.

Had he been wearing a cock ring? For how long? No wonder he was so needy...

 He felt confident seeing you stare.

He knew you were attracted to him, just like he was attracted to you.

His eyes kept moving from your face to your breasts to your hip and back.

You licked your lips as they began to feel dry...

 The faint veins stood out more than usual and a drop of clear thick fluid was slowly leaking from his tip and down the head.

 Your heart was beating significantly harder, your inner thighs were glistening and your lips were slightly parted.

 He pulled his hair back with a comb of his hand through it and you practically felt ready to faint then and there from arousal and attraction.

 Taehyung swallowed and your eyes moved to his thick neck.

 This was all too much... 

How could someone be this attractive all at once? Not only had his personality captivated you but his appearance was a top tier bonus of its own.

 His hands suddenly reached out and grabbed your shoulders, pushing you back down on the bed with him on top of you on all fours.

No words were spoken but his lips were parted as well, looking more kissable than ever.

 His expression reflected what his lower area clearly showed... lust.

Lust and hunger.

But with a tiny hint of shyness to it.

 But it was all blown away when his lips suddenly came crashing down against yours in a heated kiss.

 Your hands reached for his cheeks, desperate to pull him closer. But the quickly escaped into his black curly locks, causing him to hum against the kiss in pleasure.

 There was no time for nothing more.

 He reluctantly pulled away from the kiss and pushed your thighs further apart so he could get in between them and your heart beat raced even more.

 He grabbed his thick dick with his hand, moving closer and positioned himself by your wet entrance, unable to wait anymore to feel you around him.

 His tip touched against you, pushing against your entrance and sliding in ever so slightly before his hands landed on your hips.

 With a deep groan he pushed.

Sliding in with the tip and half way in, stretching you.

Your core hugged him tight and you were already desperate to feel him fill you fully and deep.

 Taehyung moved to lie down on his forearms on top of you with his hands clinging to your side and nuzzled his face against your neck.

 With a hard thrust along with the sexiest grunt you had probably ever heard he pushed in all the way. Really pushing... he wanted to get in all the way and it was ringing every bell within you and making your arousal leak over him.

 His breathing was shaky and you held your hand pressed against his toned back.

 It felt so much better to feel him raw... the pleasure was the same but the emotional intimacy was on a whole other level.

 He pulled back and out, barely at all and thrusted back in, picking up a steady rhythm of short hard thrusts.

Each one was on the border for him... the pleasure and the ring was going to make him cum too fast, he knew it would...

A few thrusts and he was ready to explode? He shamed himself.

"Pathetic!" He scolded in his head, forcing himself to hold it until you were close at least.

 But doing this only caused him to be more vocal, whimpering loud and long with heavy moans.

To you it felt heavenly.

He thrusted faster, longer stroked but just as deep, making you feel almost euphoric as you leaned your head back.

 You held him pressed close and his head nuzzled against your neck gave you a limited view over his shoulder of his bare behind moving against you.

You had to suggest sex in front of a mirror some time... seeing it was a turn-on on its own.

 Taehyung's movements were greedy.

He fucked you hard, releasing anything and everything with each thrust that had bothered his mind.

"Your body feels amazing." He managed to groan between the heavy breathes.

 You couldn't see, neither could Taehyung but you could feel very well how he had managed to make you cream on his dick.

The thrusts felt more slick and he went even faster.

"Fuck." He groaned.

 "Taehyung..." you pleaded.

 You felt the build up getting heavier and heavier and the muscles in your legs were tensing.

 "I can feel it baby... I'm going to cum so hard." His voice was deeper than usual.

He moaned, hitting his hips harder against you with his lips by your ear.

"You're going to get every drop baby." He ensured. "I'm going to fill you up you up so good."

 His words only made it harder for you to contain yourself and you could feel the tension building up within even more and you were struggling to hold it.

"I... I'm going to cum..." You whimpered, moving your hands to his flexed biceps and squeezing them hard.

 The words alone were a relief for him.

Finally.

He thrusted harder, focusing deep and not daring to pull out any more than half way.

The pounding was enough to break your tension.

 He was letting go, all his focus now was his release.

You moaned his name again and he smirked, hitting a few more times before your orgasm claimed you hard and made your muscles tightening hard around him.

Another cursing fell from his lips, this time in Korean.

 Your breathing was heavy and your release felt like a long awaited hard finish as it all let go. 

Taehyung's thrusted in deep a final time, remaining still and pushing in when his voice failed him and he moaned loudly as he came hard and heavily.

 His breathing was so rapid you were almost concerned that he was hyper ventilating at one point when his body fell heavily on top of you.

 You could feel it...

The warmth and the throbbing...

He rocked his hips gently, letting out the entirety of his release as he began to calm down.

 "Are you ok?" He panted, whispering.

"I feel amazing..." you assured and caressed his messy curls.

"I don't think I've- ever cum this hard." He confessed, still a little out of breath.

 "It feel different."

He nodded and caressed your sides with a soft hum.

"I want to stay inside a little more... to make sure."

"Make sure of what?"

"That nothing spills out... It would be sexy seeing it leak down your thighs but I want all of it to stay in."

"How come?" You asked with a sly smile, still caressing his head.

"I like the thought of my cum being in you... and the risk of making you pregnant with my child..." 

You already knew the answer, but hearing him say it excited you.

"All we can do is hope."

"No. I'll make sure of it..."

 After a while of relaxing cuddling Taehyung carefully pulled out slowly.

As his tip slipped out you leaked slightly, unavoidable of course but Taehyung was quick to grab his pillow and placed it under you to angel your hips up.

The hormones that came with his release had washed over him hard and he turned into an overprotective huggable boyfriend in the span of a minute.

 He placed a soft kiss at your cheek before resting his head against your shoulder and placed his hand over your lower abdomen and began soothingly caressing the area. All while you traced your nails up and down the back of his neck in a relaxing manner. 

[razieltwelve]

Temper (Final Rose)

Mrs Drake was a kindly woman in her fifties who had spent the better part of thirty years teaching at the same elementary school. She had seen all manner of things throughout her tenure, but she had never seen anything quite like this. It was... terrifying.

A bit of roughhousing amongst children was hardly unusual, but she had noticed a trio of girls taking it somewhat farther than was acceptable. As she moved to intervene, the three girls pushed over another girl. The smaller girl tripped and hit her head on the ground. To Mrs Drake’s horror, there was blood.

But even that sight ceased to matter in the face of sheer, overwhelming torrent of Aura that washed over the schoolyard.

It was a suffocating miasma of pure power, the kind that drove every single adult to their knees and had most of the children gasping for air. For a split-second, Mrs Drake was convinced she was going to die, that some awful predator was going to grab her and tear her to pieces.

The moment passed, and that murderous intent, that ravenous desire to rip, tear, and maim focused instead on the trio of girls. They dropped like puppets with their strings cut. Gasping for air on the ground, they thrashed and clawed at their throats and mouths in a combination of terror and panic.

The warm sunshine that filled the playground turned an angry orange, and a small figure loomed over the trio.

It was Diana Yun-Farron.

Mrs Drake had read the file on the little girl. All of the teachers had. It said, in no uncertain terms, that Diana was the equivalent of an A Tier hunter or higher, and that the school was to contact her sister or her parents immediately if she showed any signs of genuine aggression.

Despite the graveness of the matter, none of them had taken it too seriously. Diana a danger? She was a bit quirky, but she was also one of the most cheerful and affable children Mrs Drake had ever met. She was always happy to talk about her pet snake, and she was more than happy to play with the other children despite being smart enough to repair the school’s broken air conditioner on a particularly hot day. Indeed, the scrawny, ragamuffin of a girl was one of the most popular children in school, a position she used to shield some of her less popular friends from bullies and other miscreants.

The child who’d been pushed over was one such friend, and the trio must have waited until Diana had gone back to the classroom to get something to make their move. They probably wished they hadn’t.

Diana might have been tiny, but right now, she was like a giant, her presence towering over everyone else in the playground. Her eyes gleamed like twin pools of molten lava, and instead of pupils, there were strange, twisting spirals of incandescence. She tilted her head to one side in a gesture that was distinctly inhuman, and Mrs Drake realised that she didn’t have hands anymore.

She had claws - long, jagged claws that looked like they’d been ripped out of someone’s nightmares.

Slowly, with those strange, blazing eyes shining like beacons, Diana reached forward...

Chop.

Diana rounded on the threat with a low, ominous growl.

Chop.

“That’s enough.” Averia lowered the hand she’d used to chop Diana over the head. “You’re scaring everyone.” She glanced down at the girl who’d hit her head. “Put the claws away and help your friend instead.”

Diana shook herself, and that aura of overwhelming doom vanished like smoke on the breeze. Kneeling by her friends side, Diana’s hands - and they were hands again instead of claws - began to drip a strange, viscous fluid onto the wound on her friend’s head.

“Mrs Drake,” Averia said, glaring down at the three girls who were trying to get their breath back. “You should do something about these three. It would be a shame if something happened to them.”

X     X     X

Author’s

It’s easy to forget because of how affable she is, but civilians are essentially cannon fodder against Diana, even as a kid. It’s not usually something that comes up because she very rarely looses her temper for real, but when she does lose it... watch out. This is especially true when stuff happens to her friends because she knows how fragile they are. 

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here or on Audible here.

[radiojamming]

This a weird prompt but would you write jonmichael? Asking solely because I want to read Elias and the archives staff dealing with that

good-ish AU where sasha’s still sasha and everyone’s cool with stuff, i guess? :DDD

- - -

The door-that-wasn’t-there-a-minute-ago slams open against the wall, shaking the shelves and knocking one cheap vase to the floor in a small explosion of sad porcelain shards and accumulated dust. Martin lets out a high-pitched, “Jesus Christ!” in surprise as much as raw shock when Jon Sims himself staggers out the door like a teenager doing the walk of shame. Granted, he’s bleeding from his hairline and one sleeve of his sweater appears to just be missing, but he looks more sheepish than injured.

Just as he makes the last step over the threshold-that-shouldn’t-be, Martin sees a vague person-ish shape wobble in the mysterious beyond. And it is, in fact, wobbling, like a bobblehead or one of those playground toys shaped like horses that waver on oversized springs until they fling some unfortunate child headfirst into sand. Extended metaphor it may be, but the wobbly thing gives a high, wavering giggle before cooing, “Don’t forget this, love!” in a voice tiered in multiple pitches like an eldritch wedding cake. Jon turns just in time for an arm-that-shouldn’t-be-that-long-oh-my-god-what-the-fuck to come shooting out of the door, an iPhone clutched pinched between its enormous fingers. Martin might be hallucinating, but he thinks the razor-sharp fingernails are lacquered in sparkly purple nail varnish. 

He doesn’t have much time to dwell on it before Jon gingerly takes the phone with a mumbled, “Thanks,” and the hand recedes back into the hellish landscape beyond the door.

“Of course!” garbles the wobbly thing. Then, with a range of voices topped off with an impressive soprano flourish as light as meringue, it yodels, “Call me!”

As abruptly and shockingly as the door appeared, it disappears with a sharp crack, causing the shelves to slam back into place with a small cataract of old books falling into the pile of broken ceramic.

Jon and Martin stand in the stuffy office, each caught in the awkward position of how the hell do you talk about that? 

Finally, Jon gives Martin the most soul-deep, weary look before quietly beseeching, “Please don’t tell anyone.”

All Martin can do is nod before Jon shuffles out to the hallway

- - -

Sasha sees him at the flower stall again. 

Through the warped windowpane, she watches him scoop up a great, garish bouquet representing nearly every spectrum in the visible rainbow, and some colours that might not exist save for the eyes of the mantis shrimp. When she gets to ground level and sees him semi-properly, he’s just a blond man in a beanie, carefully regarding a sorry bunch of daffodils held together by what looks like clingfilm cinched shut with twine. Rather than being all spooky and mysterious, Sasha thinks he’s actually deliberating. There’s a pinch in his brow as he lowers the daffodils in favor of prodding the drooping lower lid of a sorry little orchid suffering in London’s less-than-tropical climes.

Sasha kind of feels… sorry for him?

Granted, he’s a monster with terrifying monster hands and monster tendencies and apparently a taste for caffeine, but he really looks caught on what to get. That in mind, she does remember that he bought lilies the last time he was around. Maybe that was less of a coincidence and this Michael creature really does like flowers; or he may have some fellow monster friend that he deems worthy of buying flowers for. Honestly, Sasha doesn’t want to think of what kind of friends Michael keeps.

Against her better judgement and sense of self-preservation, Sasha walks across the street to where Michael forlornly weighs his options. He looks up at her approach, and the first impression she gets is that his eyes are more like spinning tops prone to rotate anti-clockwise. She blinks and sees stationary blue eyes regarding her with confusion, and then… relief?

Huh.

“Sah-shah Jaaayymeeesss!” he almost sings, lifting up the dying daffodils like a salute. “What a pleasure to see your radiant face again!”

“Michael,” she replies, a little colder than she intends. Last time they met, there were far more meaty hands and worms involved, and she’d rather get to work unscathed.

If he thinks the reply is chilly, he makes no sign of it. Instead, he flops the tortured flowers around in his terrible hands. “Actually, I was hoping to see one of you lovely little Institute-dwellers around. I think I gave Martin a bit of a fright laaaaast time!”

Sasha frowns, but can definitely picture Martin having to be peeled off the ceiling after a Michael encounter. “Oh,” is all she says.

Michael goes on, gleefully undaunted. “You see, you and I have a mutual acquaintance! And I think he’s in need of a little—” He gives the daffodils a vigorous shake. “—cheering up these days! But I just don’t know what he’d like! Silly me for not being obseeeeervant!”

“I… A mutual acquaintance?”

“Yeeeessss! Your lovely boss!”

“Elias?”

Michael laughs. Well, more like he laughs in a way that sounds like he laughed ten minutes ago and ten minutes into the future, and then layered the sounds over one another like phyllo dough in a hellish baklava. It’s impossible, but Sasha hears it all the same. “Noooo!” he giggles. “Not in a million endless cycles of time or those dimensions yet unperceiveeeeeed!”

Sasha won’t even start on that statement, except that it isn’t Elias, which means it has to be— 

Oh. Jesus.

Grubby, curmudgeonly, insomniac Jesus.

“Jon?” she gasps.

Michael laughs again, louder and higher so that a glass breaks somewhere in the distance. “Yeeeesssss! Poor Jonathan, always working so hard in that dismal cave you call an archive. I offered him office space that would appeal more to a sense of aestheticism, but he… Oh, what did he say? He thought it was a little heavy on the—” And here he speaks in an exact mimic of Jon’s dry voice when he says: “Impossible, improbable, and honest to God, Michael, my brain would shatter into a thousand pieces if I looked at that painting for another minute.” Michael dissolves into a fit of giggles before saying, “It’s just a lost Hieronymus Bosch painting, honestly.”

So Michael McMeatyhands is buying flowers for Jonathan Sims. Sasha’s having a hell of a time wrapping her head around that particular fact. 

The infernal giggling stops and Michael seems to circle (spiral?) back to his previous predicament. Dying daffodils or suffering orchids?

For a lack of anything more to say, Sasha wordlessly points to a bouquet of slightly more enthusiastic-looking daisies, bobbing peacefully in a tin pail of water. “Those,” is all she can manage to say. 

Michael looks thrilled. He actually hums some impossible tune (in full SATB with orchestral arrangement, all localised in his throat) as he puts the daffodils back, scoops up the daisies, and drops four quid into the stall owner’s hands with a wet, meaty thwap that the owner doesn’t seem to hear. Then, Michael swivels back toward Sasha and grins with the corners of his lips somehow curling up near his eyes like a particularly twisty Cheshire Cat.

“Thank you, Miss James!” he says. “You’re a lifesaver!”

“You’re… welcome? I think?”

But Michael’s already walking away, taking steps in a gait that doesn’t seem to match the rhythm of the rest of his body, like two halves of entirely different people drunkenly attempting synchronicity. Sasha half-expects his legs to walk away from his torso.

Toward Jon. 

She sighs and rubs a hand over her face before heading in the direction of the Underground station.

- - -

The boss is dating someone. This, Tim is absolutely sure of. He’s watched Jon like a hawk for a week now, carefully comparing his moods in the morning with how early he left work the night before. Long work nights equal really bad mood. Long not work nights equal better mood with less shouting and calling people morons under his breath. This is good.

This is very good.

Tim is pleased with his enviable knowledge. Whoever somehow won the heart of the boss must be a pretty special person, or at least someone with an endless well of patience. Or maybe they’re Jon’s opposite? Either way, Tim’s got a hankering to send them a box of chocolate as a thank you for chilling the boss out and making him more tolerable to work with. 

He tries to picture who this mystery person is, as Jon’s definitely not the type of person to take his personal life to work with him, inasmuch as he likes to take work home. Tim pictures someone easygoing, like a Margaritaville type. They balance Jon’s stick-up-assery out, maybe giving him massages over the back of the couch while Jon watches dry documentaries about the actual speed of drying paint. In his mind’s eye, Tim gives this person a hideously neon Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, but a winning smile that melts Jon’s ice-locked heart and makes it so he can’t help but smile back.

Tim likes them, whoever they are.

And when he gives Jon a little wink after dropping off a follow-up report, says, “Had a good night?” in a way more than a tiny bit suggestive, he only relishes a teensy bit in how dark Jon’s cheek become and how he ducks his head down. He mumbles something before actually thanking Tim for the report.

Yeah, this is awesome. Tim owes Jon’s mystery partner a thank you card and maybe a cake. 

- - -

“Eliaaaaas.”

“Michael.”

Staring. Lots of staring. Cold, unflinching irises to a set of psychedelic, rotating disco balls set in a grinning face. Behind Michael, blue and purple streaks like the top of a wildberry Pop-Tart flash about and dance madly as Michael gives him the strangest of staredowns. Occasionally, his head appears to flip upside-down a few times on his swirly straw of a neck, and half of his teeth try to glitch through his lips in a way that Elias thinks of as an attempt at a sneer.

Finally, Elias sighs and calmly folds his hands on the top of his desk, ignoring the waves of tangible static pouring out onto the floor and possibly leaving a stain on the carpet. That’s going to be difficult to explain to the janitorial staff. “We may have to set some ground rules,” he says.

“I’ll bring him home by eleven,” Michael cackles in reply.

Elias narrows his eyes just as he feels Beholding roll its great omnipresent gaze in irritation.

“I mean to say that you’re not to interfere in Institute business any further than you are right now,” Elias retorts. “I should completely ban all Spiral-related statements on grounds of personal involvement.”

Michael grins. His smile rises up to his forehead like a crescent moon before rolling down the side of his face and hooking back up into the empty space where a normal mouth should be. “I can make this weirder. I can spiral any statement in this place. Every little word can bend in and around on itself like a pipe cleaner.”

Elias glares. “You won’t.”

“You can’t stop me!” Michael sings. “But I’ll keep courting your Archivist nice and proper as long as I’d like, or he’d like.”

“If this is an attempt to draw him into the Spiral’s influence—”

When Michael laughs this time, it seems to be drawn from every laugh that was ever laughed in the history of the muscular and diaphragmatic spasms that caused them. It’s so charged, so loud and explosive that Elias nearly winces at it. And when it’s over, there’s a vacuum of sound in its wake, so it takes a full minute for Elias to hear anything properly again.

Then, Michael taps his horrible fingers on Elias’ desk, eliciting a sharp tak-tak-tak-tak-tak that repeats in on itself fifty times over. “Not everything is about influence,” Michael hisses through too many teeth. “Not every attempt on a person is to draw them in and mark them, unlike what you do. Maybe sometimes, one of us can authentically like one of them. Is that too hard for you to understand, Man-of-the-Eye?”

Beholding tries to truly See Michael, but something about the Spiral’s nature twists the image. 

“No,” Michael goes on, followed by another round of tak-tak-tak-tak-tak. “I rather like the Archivist. And he likes me. Aaaand if you try to get in the way of us, I will peeeeerrrrsonallyyyyy claw your precious little eyes out of your sockets. Understand?”

Elias doesn’t have time to make a reply. Michael is gone in a gunpowder-bright flash of light and a shock of sound. If there was a door, it’s gone. So he sits alone in his office, staring at the space where the Spiral was, and he feels something terribly empty and terribly familiar.

- - -

Jon picks their next date and opts for something as normal as the last one was strange. He chooses a walk at St James Park, eating ice cream and admiring the pelicans while Michael regales him with some bizarre story that sounds more like a backwards recitation of the Jabberwocky poem. He pauses in between stanzas to eat more of his pistachio ice cream with a delighted gusto before he presses on in gibberish.

Something about it makes Jon feel oddly warm and content, even as the early spring wind chills him.

Their last date was to Annwn, which Jon had originally suspected was in Wales. He was half-right; it was Wales as much as it was also the traditional world of the afterlife in ancient Welsh rites. It was rather lovely and Jon thinks very highly of their honey cakes, although he suspects he probably wasn’t supposed to eat them. 

But Michael looks just as pleased to be in this park as he was to be in ancient Welsh paradise. His Jabberwockish story comes to an end and he finishes the rest of his cone before throwing the little paper ring into a nearby litter bin. Then, he stretches his arms out to the side and sighs in contentment. “Just bonny, as they say!” he cheers before reaching down and taking Jon’s free hand in his. It’s got a mind-boggling weight and an odd texture, while appearing to be a normal hand. At first, it gave Jon such an acute sense of discomfort that he found himself involuntarily withdrawing. Now, it’s just another aspect of Michael that he’s learned to like.

Love, maybe. He hasn’t thought on that overmuch.

Yet here they are, holding hands like all the other couples in the park. It’s so simple, so normal. Jon’s life has been so ridiculous lately that the fact he’s holding a Spiral avatar’s nigh-impossible hand on a date in a park is just… maybe the most normal thing that’s happened so far. Michael’s not trying to kill him or throttle his mind to the point of madness.

They’re happy.

Jon’s happy.  

He smiles, and so does Michael. Yes, Michael’s smile is making an attempt to summit his head like Everest before flickering back into place like he remembers where he is, but he does smile and it’s perfectly authentic. 

It could be weirder, and for once, that thought delights Jon.

[draconivn]

009 | His Little Writer

Summary: Forget being a seamstress, you’re a writer! You’re in the middle of your work and there’s that particular scene that frustrates you to no end. Masamune comes to check in on you and review your work, then he has an idea to try and inspire you. Pairing: Masamune (Ikemen Sengoku) x Reader Warnings: Smut, cockwarming, creampie, implications of master-pet A/N: Shoutout to @cherrydangome​ for co-writing this with me! I decided to try to make this a little more relatable to the fandom by changing from a fashion designer job to the reader being a writer. So you can put yourself better in the shoes of the reader :) suffer with me I’ll also be stopping in putting the ‘creampie’ warning after this. Just... know that there will be creampies but... short fiction may or may not have it, depending on the story.

•• His hands gripped her thighs and held her close to him, ensuring she wouldn't move away.

Everything was getting blurry as the ink stained the paper with my words. My chest was heaving as my left hand released the edge of the desk to slam my palm against the surface, my knees pushing into the cushion I was partially sitting on. I couldn't keep writing. My mind was going blank, and my chest was heaving for air through my parted lips. I couldn't stop the moans from falling from my mouth, the lovemaking portion I had been writing into my newest story becoming a jumbled mess.

"Why did you stop, kitten?" came a voice from behind me, a breath fanning itself between my thighs at my folds.

I shivered, my lashes fluttering shut.

"You're not writing," the voice reminded me.

Just as I had stopped, so did the reason my breath was so short. "M-Masamune…" I whimpered. It wasn't too long ago before I decided to write some sort of action love story, hoping to squeeze in some sort of lovemaking scene once the main couple got together. Unfortunately, it was one of those walls. A stupid writer's block that I forced myself to write through and ended up with the most garbage smut I had ever written. Masamune had taken the grand opportunity to waltz in and soothe me, but when he saw what I was writing, I swore I saw a glimmer of mischief in that blue eye of his.

He cheered me up and cheered me on, saying that I could do it and that he wanted to take me somewhere after I was done.

I was ready to give up but he told me to keep trying. I grabbed a new piece of paper and tried to rewrite the scene, not knowing what he was up to until his hands wandered and my clothing started to hike up.

His reason?

To give me inspiration on what to write.

“Kitten…” came his warning tone. 

“I-I just n-need a moment to think of what to write…” I breathed out, gripping my brush more firmly and dipping it into some ink. My cheeks felt warm as I tried to regain my breath, my brush soon taking to the page. 

•• His breath fanned against her folds, inciting a shiver to run down her spine and he watched her with a hunger that made his tongue

A moan spilled out of my mouth before I could catch myself, my chest starting to press into the desk and the brush in my hand trembled, threatening to stain the page with unwanted ink. I could feel the way he dragged his tongue along my wet folds, flattening to make sure that he had every bit of me covered and dripping into his mouth. Shakily, I craned my head as best as I could to describe what he was doing to me in that third person narrative I pursued in this story.

•• flatten, dragging a long strip from her entrance and up to my clit.

… I stuttered a curse under my breath.

“What happened?” came his low voice, his tongue giving a light flick to my clit and my hips jerked with a whimper.

Once I regained my voice, I answered him as best as I could. “I-I wrote in first person by accident…” It was a mix of frustration and annoyance at myself to get so caught up, but Masamune was more distracting than anything else. I reached for a new piece of paper so I could rewrite what I already had done on the previous sheet before I felt his lips press to the inside of my thighs apologetically. 

“Just use the first paper and cross it out, kitten. It’s a rough draft, isn’t it?” There was no doubt he knew he was right in suggesting that to me, especially when the trail of his lips started to move higher to where it was earlier. He was reminding me that there wasn’t a point in starting all over again, when he was going to “inspire” me further with the tiers that caught my folds and gave a suck.

I gasped at the sensation, quickly pushing away the blank sheet to return to my old sheet so I could scratch out my mistake with a correction on the pronoun of ‘my’ to ‘her’. I started to write again, trying to not get caught up in the sensations of his sucking on my folds, the little wags of his tongue that had me biting my lower lip to try and stifle my noises. He was trying to inspire my writing, and yet, I’m sure he was getting a kick out of it, but I couldn’t give him that satisfaction just yet. My hand moved faster across the page, trying to get my words out faster before my mind blanked.

My chest was heaving by the time I felt his tongue move away, but only for a moment as he gave my folds a sweet kiss that made my legs quiver in his grasp. I used what opportunity to let the spur of writing propel my hand across the page, when my free hand suddenly flew back behind me, tangling in the mess of brown locks and I cried out, arching against the desk.

His mouth was pressed firmly to my folds, parted open with a firmed tongue pressing and wriggling past my entrance, and against my walls. His tongue moved like he was tasting me, a groan muffled and sent vibrations against my sensitive folds, pleasurable electricity coursing through my body at the sensation.

“O-Oh god… M-Masamune–” I gasped, my brush shaking in my hand once more. 

His tongue glided in and out, tasting me like a starved man. His fingers gripped my thighs firmly, threatening to leave marks and his head craned to make sure he could taste everything he could reach. One of his hands had snaked to the front, rubbing two fingers against my clit so well that I was actually thankful I was kneeling on a cushion, my legs already quivering.

My lashes fluttered shut as I lost myself to the pleasure he gave me, moaning more freely, my hips rolling back towards his talented tongue.

His mouth left me a moment later, fingers still rubbing my clit. “You stopped writing again.”

“I-I… I don’t remember what I was writing anymore…”

“Oh? If you stop writing, then I guess I’ll have to punish you.”

His hand shifted between my legs, making sure that he was still rubbing my clit, but with his mouth freed to talk to me, another finger teased at my folds, pushing and prodding. 

“I-If I stop… w-will I be able to touch y-you too…?” I stammered out.

“Write first, touch later, kitten. Or I’ll have to tie you down to the bed.”

I craned my head as best as I could to look at him, despite barely being able to see over the scrunched up material at my waist. “A-Are you going to make love to me in the bed if you do?”

“I’ll make your body sing for me over and over again, kitten.”

For a moment, I bit my lower lip, rolling my hips back onto his fingers even more. “S-Suddenly… punishment doesn’t … s-seem so bad…” My words came out shamelessly, a cry out interrupting me as his finger suddenly crooked deep inside me. I couldn't help rocking my hips needily against his fingers, the ink staining the rest of the page I was using. I could feel his warmth at my back, an arm slipping around my waist and his breath so close to my ear as he kept pushing that finger in and out of me, meeting my hips.

"Your voice is music to my ears, kitten," he breathed huskily into my ear. "I love the faces you make when I touch you like this."

I had lost all sense of proper coherency, like everything was a complete blur and I was losing control of my body just as much. The hand that I once had in his hair fell to rest over his hand on my waist, but less than a moment that I had done so, something was tied around my wrist. 

I was pulled out of my reverie by the movement of my wrists, my walls clenching up around the finger as I tried to focus my vision. The world around me went in every direction possible until I was on my back, the soft material of the futon underneath me and my hands bound by my obi cord above my head. My head craned weakly to look at the tuft of brown hair as Masamune's lips made their way along my now-exposed hips to my abdomen. My chest heaved for air, as he looked up at me with a confident and smug smirk. In all that little scuffle, my clothes had been undone in quick tugs of the complicated knots I made and I was fully exposed for him to touch.

And I couldn't touch him.

With a shift of his body, he propped himself up between my legs, hands running along my thighs that I shivered and mewled. My cheeks were flushed as I looked up at him, so vulnerable and exposed. 

His strong shoulders tempted me to place my legs over them, the thought of being helpless like this was very much arousing. "You look like you want something, kitten," he teased, shifting up briefly to capture the peak of my breast in his mouth.

"I-I…" My body was already arching up against him, the delicious warmth of his mouth on my sensitive buds coupled with his fingers rubbing my clit already making a knot form in the pit of my stomach. My other breast was tended to when he switched, using his free hand so that both sides were not neglected as my pleasure rose. 

But something about the way he touched me made it hard to reach that peak. Like he was holding back, making sure that this would draw itself.

"M-Masamune…" I whined. "P-Please… I-I need… t-to cum…"

"Not yet." He knew me better than that. "But that's not what you wanted to say earlier, was it?"

"I-I…"

"Go on." His finger pulled out of me for emphasis, and he gripped my hips so I wouldn't chase after him. 

"M-May… May I…" This was embarrassing. "May I… put my legs over your shoulders…? P-Please?"

It didn't seem like the request he was expecting, looking surprised for a moment before he grinned and hooked his fingers under my thighs. "As you wish." 

My legs were spread a bit more so he could pull them up over each shoulder while he knelt between my thighs. The position left me angled and slightly off the futon, weak and exposed as his kimono was undone to expose the skin there. 

His hands ran along the expanse of my legs as I shivered with a lidded gaze, his own hunger dancing in his eye as he stared at me. Then he brought one of my legs close to his lips, leaning down a bit to press open-mouthed kisses along my calves.

"M-Masamune-"

His teeth grazed my skin, nipping as he looked at me like he was warning me. My leg jerked at the bite, but he held it firm where it was until I nodded to show I understood. His kisses were reverent yet sexy, ensuring that I watched every single thing he did: from the way his tongue dragged along the underside of my knee joint and closer towards my thighs teasingly.

My demands were only a suggestion, but never the ruling factor when he was in charge. 

And like every time he took charge, he made sure to remind me with his cock that prodded and drove into my walls right then and there. My head tipped back to cry out, my wrists fighting against the cord and my chest arched up off the bed. His cock spread me apart, making sure that every bit of my walls was formed to his shape and the head pressed so deeply that my legs trembled on his shoulders. Without hesitation, he leaned down and planted his hands on the sheets with my legs still dangling, though there was definitely a stretch and a deeper penetration of his cock that I became aware of the moment he rotated his hips in circles.

"O-Oh god…" I gasped out, tipping my head back.

"That's it, kitten. Show me how good I make you feel." His head craned to pepper kisses along my jaw, trailing his way down to my throat in search of that one spot that he always knew to bite down on.

"Mm!" My hands fought against my binds, fingers seeking purchase but it was the way his hips moved, filling me so perfectly that I was undeniably helpless and submissive in this state.

His tongue soothed where he bit, pausing from his thrusts to roll his hips firmly into me while making a necklace of love bites on my skin. His breath fanned against my skin with every lick, his mouth cool against my hot skin until he found my breasts once again. Every movement of his hips, the curve of his cock, the head that prodded me so deeply enough to make me shudder, the sucks of my nipples to make me arch up with a cry, all made sure to remind me that only he could give me this pleasure.

My walls were wet, the embarrassing sound of squelching wetness lubricating his movements to move with more ease as he re-angled himself to start pushing harder and faster. It was like the wind knocked out of me, pushing itself out in a scream past my lips.

He no longer took his time with me, the way his cock was throbbing so deliciously every time he slammed in, to the point that the sound of skin slapping against skin started to join the chorus of our lovemaking. His groans were hardly quiet, the way he grunted and growled sending shivers up my spine.

I wanted to drag my nails along his back but pulling him down and making my legs stretch further wasn't an option when I was weak to his ministrations. I could feel the pleasure knotting and coiling in the pit of my stomach just before he pulled away from my aching breasts, propping himself up on his hands and knees and rolled upwards into me. My mouth dropped with a loud gasp, the way the head of his cock stroked upwards against my sensitive and wet walls. 

I didn't miss the way he smirked, repeating the motion again that I shuddered.

"Tell me what my kitten wants," he breathed out.

I was far too breathless and beyond words to be able to tell him, especially when he loved getting me to this point in lovemaking. He once said I was a vision of ecstasy when I was like this. But I wasn't going to be able to get what I needed by staying silent, for a lack of better words. "P-Please… I-I need…! T-To cum-!" There were other words I could and wanted to say, but my mind was too caught up in saying the straight-forward version.

His cock throbbed against my walls and I tried to shift my hips as best as possible, weakly using my ankles on his shoulders as my leverage. But he retaliated with a pull-out of his cock, leaving only the tip inside me and I whined. "Say it, kitten. I know you want to," he teased, shallowly thrusting. 

I could tell he was holding out until I said it, the colour on my cheeks flushing even more deeply as I knew very well what he wanted me to say. "M-May…" Oh god, that feels so good… just a bit more deeper, please… My words were disappearing until he pulled back and left me whining again.

"Go on, kitten. Tell me."

Biting my lower lip, I looked up at him with needy, yet shaky eyes. "M-May I have… some… m-milk, p-please?"

His smirk grew wider, his hands pulling my legs off his shoulders to spread wide and knees planted firmly to the robes that still hung off my body and had become our temporary bedding. Once he had himself stable, he promptly slammed in, taking my screams and breath with it. He didn't give me a moment to comprehend and adjust, immediately pulling back so he could slam back in just as deep and just as fast. His cock made sure my walls were moulding to him when it could, spreading me open and grazing every spot inside me that had me crumbling.

Then my pleasure crashed down over me like a tidal wave, sending me arching up and screaming out, my head tipped back as my hands fought against my restraints, my body seizing up from head to the toe. My walls clamped down, making him groan at how much harder it became to pull back out like my body was trying to pull him in with every contraction.

His hips bucked and stuttered, his feet shuffling forward as he growled as my tightness welcomed him so deeply. His fingers gripped the underside of my knees so firmly, grinding to make sure he filled me completely with his cock.

I could feel how the warmth of his cum spilled into me, painting my walls. I could hardly open my eyes, forcing myself to try to see how my tiger looked as he orgasmed. I wanted to admire the way his face scrunched up, the drop of his mouth as he groaned then grit his teeth with that sexy growl. I wanted to relish in the knit of his brows, the haze of desire in his eye but the moment we made eye contact, he bucked hard against a very sensitive spot. I was already sensitive from orgasming that the one rough hit was enough to make me tip again, making sure to squeeze every drop of cum from him into my waiting walls.

He growled and groaned loudly, pulling my legs around his waist so he could hold me close and press himself to me. His cock throbbed inside my walls until he could come no more, but the way it was still hard as I wrapped my bound arms around his neck had me breathlessly purring for him.

"Mm… thank you for the milk…"

He chuckled against my neck as he caught his breath, peppering kisses along my skin up to my lips. "Do you feel inspired now?"

"Mm… inspired to write? Yes." I leaned up to press a kiss to plant a soft kiss to his lips. "But I feel more inspired to play with my tiger."

He grinned. "Good. Because I don't think I can handle another hour of you locking yourself in your room to write your stories."

"You do know my door was open, right?"

"I know how you get when you have your inspiration streaks, kitten. Nothing stops you. I was lucky enough to be able to get you when you were frustrated over that scene."

"Mm… yes, that scene," I giggled. I called how upset and pouty I got with him when the lovemaking scene I wrote didn't work out. "But I might just scratch it out even though I feel inspired."

He arched a brow. "Why?" Angling my hands to touch his hair seemed to remind him of my bound hands, his own reaching to bring them in front of him and used his teeth to pull the knot undone. 

My words nearly died on me, the faint chuckle pulling me out of my trance. "Do I want to let the whole world know how the One-Eyed Dragon makes love to me? I think that's information I want to keep to myself, tiger."

He laughed. "Could you live with yourself if you leave that scene as it is?" His laugh grew louder as I looked at him horrified. "I don't think I can downplay how I make love to you, kitten. You turn me on so much that you make it impossible to do a half-bad job."

"I didn't think it'd be possible for you to do a half-bad job, Masamune. You feel so amazing just being inside me…" My voice started to trail off as I described how it felt, looking up into his eye to see the haze of desire clouding over. "M-Masamune…?"

"Hm?" he asked quietly, leaning down to my lips.

"May I… please have more milk?" I asked softly against his lips.

He stopped just short of a kiss, his breath against my tiers. "You can have all the milk you want, kitten," he breathed out, before he took my lips. His hands slid off the robes from our bodies before he sat up and had me straddling him, his tongue pushing into my mouth as I gasped at gravity pulling me down onto his cock. His hands gripped my hips, guiding me against his own moving hips to grind his cock inside my walls.

I was a shuddering mess, my fingers seeking the plains of his back until I was clinging and clawing at his skin, my work lying on the desk, forgotten.

I wanted all of this to myself. I didn't need to write this in.

[love-killed-the-superstar]

i finally finished cass week!! its been lots of late nights but so much fun. thank you everyone whos been reading these. tonight i have some real good cassunzel/unknighted dream content for yall, so enjoy if that’s your thing

CASSANDRA APPRECIATION WEEK DAY 7 - FINALE

How is one supposed to feel, showing up at their girlfriend's wedding to somebody else?

Cassandra has been through the whole spectrum of emotions in the run up to it all. There's been joy, of course, and in abundance – these are her best friends, taking that next important step in their lives. While she... takes her own next step. Alone.

She has poured over detailed illustrations Rapunzel sent her in letters of the various wedding patterns she's considered. It's amazing how much input Cass has had in the whole thing, considering it isn't even her wedding, especially when also factoring in the distance between them. She's helped pick out the flavour of punch while hunched over a campfire on a cold night; she's backed up Rapunzel's desire to forego shoes, even in the royal cathedral, in her underthings while her clothes hung up to dry after she got caught in a flash flood.

Half the time it doesn't feel like her place, and she withholds her opinion. Or she'll write back something along the lines of 'you should ask your future husband, not me'. But then Rapunzel counters that with 'well, you're like my future wife, so your opinion is equally important'. And... well, that just leads to other emotions that are even harder for her to deal with.

The flip side of the coin is the disappointment she feels, knowing that Rapunzel can only marry one person and Eugene is the clear winner, in both the royal family's favour and the court of public opinion. After all, who would come to a wedding where the princess marries the very person that nearly destroyed the kingdom? Cassandra can't fault Rapunzel for making the choice to marry Eugene; he was in Rapunzel's life first, he's begrudgingly grown on the people of Corona despite his shady past, and during the mess that she caused he stepped up and took responsibility. He loves her. He'll do anything for her.

She's happy for them, really. But the whole situation still feeds back into this complex she's worked so hard to overcome these last couple years. Marriage just a... a ceremony, a piece of paper, a legal contract. A wedding is a big, over-dramatic party that she would never in a million years want to take part in anyway. And hasn't she always told herself, since she was an angry little kid rolling her eyes at the Day of Hearts' puppet show, that romance, matrimony, all that bullshit, is something she's never wanted for herself?

It's petty, plain and simple, to have such a sting of jealousy at the idea of Rapunzel and Eugene marrying. They deserve their happy ending! More than anybody! Cass will just... have to figure out a way to be okay with that. Chasing destiny on the open road is her happy ending anyway, and that's no life for a... what would she even be? Princess consort? Duchess?

...Fine. She doesn't need a title or status to be happy. So much of her identity has been clinging to words other people might use to describe her and it can only end if she wishes it so.

All the same – it would be nice, just for a day, if she could be Rapunzel's bride.

…

Cass doesn't mean to show up late to the ceremony, although she's sure that Lance will slide up and make some comment at the reception anyway. Maybe she just didn't want to get up that morning. Maybe it's because she stayed up late last night, camping out at the lagoon, thinking about the vows they took all those years ago. After all, wasn't that modelled after a private wedding, between the two rulers who bound their kingdoms together? A marriage that is recognised in Corona's history books? By extension, aren't her and Rapunzel already married, in their own way?

That should be enough.

By the time Fidella and Owl rouse her, their casual annoyance morphing into urgency as the sun rises higher in the sky, she already knows she won't make it on time. She won't even have time to change, after Rapunzel spent weeks pestering her for her clothing measurements to have an appropriate outfit tailored. Thankfully, Raps knows her well enough not to commission a dress.

Cass rides like she's never ridden before, determined to get there before the vows. What will Rapunzel and Eugene think of her if they look out to the pews and see she isn't there, after all she's done to convince them she's fine with it all? She promised herself, the moment she held the pale lilac wedding invitation in her hands six months prior, that she wouldn't ruin their big day for them. Even if she shows up with windswept hair and yesterday's travelling clothes on, she has to be there, cheering them on.

With her and Fidella's combined determination they make the journey from the lagoon to the castle walls in record time. Standing at the gate, she purses her lips in annoyance as Stan and Pete, in a frustrating display of competence, ask for proof of ID and her invitation.

“Stan, Pete, this is ridiculous. You know me. You've known me since I was a kid.”

“Sorry, Cassandra,” Stan says sagely, as she begrudgingly hands over her Corona citizen identification card. “Rules are rules, and this is a big day for the princess.”

“Besides, we need to be on the lookout for shapeshifters,” Pete adds on, holding her invitation to the light to search for the subtly printed Corona emblem on the paper. “It's a recent thing we've been told to watch out for. A couple years ago there was an incident at the goodwill festival, see.”

“Pete, that was also me,” Cass says flatly.

“Never can be too careful,” he sighs, shaking his head. “Captain's orders and all. We good here, Stan?”

“Yup, everything looks legitimate. Welcome back to Corona, Cassandra!” Stan says, reverting back to his cheerful disposition.

“I am going to kill Eugene for this. Figuratively, of course.”

Stan motions for the gates to open, and as they do, a narrow stream of what looks to be wine rushes past Fidella's hooves. She moves aside slightly, snorting a little in confusion.

“Eww,” mutters Pete, exchanging a confused look with Stan before clearing his throat. “Well, you'd better hurry to the wedding if you don't want to miss the vows!”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Cass wrinkles her nose a little at the trail of wine leading across the bridge, eyes widening as it becomes apparent that there is much more where that came from. As the gates swing shut once again, Cass wonders to herself what the fuck they have just walked into.

The whole kingdom looks to be a mess. There are lanterns flying everywhere, and between them there are doves. Passing through the lower town, it looks like there's been some sort of roof collapse at the old tar works, and the stream of wine gradually becomes a shallow river. Fidella does her best to step around the mess, but it's nearly impossible; even the houses lining the street have been doused. At this rate, the reception will be an extremely sober affair.

Cass picks her way through the winding streets leading up to the palace, passing by a few torn up carts selling imitation merchandise of Rapunzel's wedding attire. She can't help but scoff at the broken shoe cart. As if Raps would wear shoes, even to her own wedding.

The crowd, all dressed in their Sunday bests, look shaken to their cores when she finally reaches the courtyard. The tables that were laid out for the reception are overturned, there is soup everywhere, and no one knows quite what to do with themselves.

She approaches a guard, looking flustered as he tries to set a nearby table upright, and asks, “Uh, what happened here?”

“Some – some horse burst through in a frenzy,” he explains, shaking like a leaf. “It, uh, from a distance it kinda looked like Maximus.”

Cassandra's brow furrows. “Is everything okay?”

“There are no reports of a disturbance in the throne room,” the guard continues. “But as you can see, the decorations have all been tarnished.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Look, I won't keep you, I just need access to the throne room. I have an invitation here, signed by the princess...”

After an excruciating second ID check (she was seriously going to maim Eugene for introducing this ridiculous 'shapeshifter' check) Cass is granted access to the venue, and figuring it's probably best not to draw attention to her tardiness, she slips in through one of the side entrances, with its door propped open to let in some cool air on such a hot day.

Cass hops down from Fidella's back, scratching the side of her head affectionately as Owl swoops down to take her place. He hoots at her curiously.

“Yeah, I don't know what the fuck just went down either,” Cass whispers. “I'm sure we'll find out later. For now, let's just not make a scene?”

Fate has other plans, however. She makes it barely two steps past the doorway before almost being bowled over by a runaway eight-tier wedding cake.

“Woah!” she gasps, stepping out of the way just in time to avoid getting a face full of cake. She reaches around, gripping the sides of the trolley to try and keep it from rolling all the way outside. Fidella steps in to help, blocking the exit with her body, and Cass heaves a sigh of relief as the trolley grinds to a halt, the cake wobbling precariously for several painful seconds before stabilising. Owl hoots in victory and Cass exhales loudly.

“Oh thank god. That could have been a disaster.”

“...Hey, where's the cake?” a voice, unmistakably Eugene's, calls from beyond the edge of the corridor. Cass cringes. So much for quietly watching from the sidelines.

Steeling herself, she slips around the back of the trolley and with some effort, pushes it around the corner and into the throne room. There's an audible ripple of uncertainty through the pews, as the confused guests mutter to one another about why some windswept vagrant is wheeling out a cake that was already in position at the beginning of the ceremony. There's a hoot of laughter (definitely Lance) at Cassandra's dishevelled appearance, a sharp “is that Cassandra?” from three rows away (her dad's voice, for sure), and a few giggles she's guessing are coming from Kiera and Catalina's direction. She can't even bear to look at the king and queen.

Instead, she sees two figures in white. Eugene, looking proud as can be in his very expensive wedding garb that he bragged about to her in several letters... and Rapunzel, face framed by the soft lace veil behind her, looking so beautiful Cass could cry. Her surprise melts into pure glee, and if it weren't for the colossal cake in between, Cass knows Raps would be launching herself at her right then and there, present company be damned.

She passes Max and Pascal and almost chokes. That would explain the sorry state of the tar works' roof, at least. From somewhere behind, she hears Fidella stifle a snort of laughter.

“Well well well,” Eugene says, with a click of the tongue and a lopsided grin. “If it isn't our favourite little gatecrasher.”

It's his teasing, strangely enough, that helps her to find her voice in front of all these people. “Well geez, somebody had to stop this cake from rolling down the hill.”

…

The wedding reception ends up being less of a party and more of a clean-up operation after Max and Pascal's prior mischief, but when the venue has been tidied up and the main courses have been served, Cass slips away right as the king stands up to give a tearful toast. If she times it right she can change into the outfit Rapunzel has had tailored for her and return before the speech is concluded, no problem.

At this point, her room is basically an empty shell with a bed and a wardrobe, so it takes no time to lay out her new outfit ready. Glancing around the empty husk of a room while she starts to undress, Cass wonders when exactly Corona stopped feeling like her home. Maybe about the time she realised it was the people, not the place, that she gravitated back to time and time again?

The new suit doesn't look all too different to Eugene's, minus his father's sash. It's white, with similar detailing, and even some of the same gold accents on the collar. Cass blanches a little the longer she stares at it. God, she's going to look like she's trying to steal his thunder. On his fucking wedding day.

“Why did I let you do this, Raps?” she groans. She can't deny once wearing it, however, that it makes her look really good.

She stares at her reflection in the mirror on her closet door, trying for a smile. This whole situation feels bizarre, and she still can't stop thinking about how stunning Rapunzel looks in her wedding dress.

I wish she was marrying me instead.

The admission, even inside her head, is enough to make her growl in frustration, slap her forehead.

“Enough,” she grits out. “You are going to go out there and be supportive and happy for them because this is their day and you love them so much. Enough throwing yourself a pity party, Cass.”

With nothing else to say to herself, she ties back her hair, shaggier from her foregoing a haircut in quite some time, neatly plaiting it and securing it with a short piece of string from her satchel. Pulling a pair of white gloves on to tie the whole outfit together, she glares at her reflection for a few seconds to compose herself before heading back towards the venue.

“Looking dapper, Cass,” Lance mutters in greeting as she slides up beside him, trying to pretend that she hadn't slipped out in the middle of the king's big speech. He glances over at Eugene, sat beside Rapunzel at the front table reserved for the royals, and then back to her again. “Tell me, which one of you is the groom again?”

“Don't you dare draw anyone's attention to this, Lance. Raps has no idea how petty this makes me look to onlookers.”

He bursts out laughing, which quickly dissolves into a fake cough to deter the few people who turn to stare at him disapprovingly. “Haha, hmm. Uh, you know that was definitely intentional on her part, right? She wants you to feel included.”

“Included? I just feel like I'm third-wheeling a wedding.”

“Isn't that exactly what's happening?”

She groans quietly, before bursting into polite applause as the king embraces Rapunzel tightly and then raises his glass, before taking his seat. Edmund rises, and she can already see Eugene looking nervous at the weird shit he's about to start spouting to the unsuspecting audience.

“I came back here to support them, not to upstage Eugene at the after party.” She chews her lip. “Maybe I should change. D'you think I should change?”

“Look, Cass, Eugene knew about the matching suits ahead of time. If he had a problem with it he would have said something, believe me.” Lance grins and shakes his head. “I was just messing with you before about the third wheel stuff. You're their equal, don't you get that? This might as well be your day too.”

Cass pinches the bridge of her nose. “Don't say this stuff to me, Lance, or I'll seriously start feeling depressed. I need a drink. Is there any booze left, or is it all out on the street?”

“Unless they're planning on breaking out the communion wine, I think we're out of luck.”

“Damn it. Maybe I should just hide in the bathroom for the next six hours.”

As the toasts conclude, Rapunzel and Eugene are called to the dance floor for the first wedding dance. The orchestra rise as Arianna removes the train from Rapunzel's hair, and she and Eugene make their way to the centre of the venue with their hands clasped. Rapunzel's eyes search in the crowd as she walks, finally locking in on Cass as the conductor motions for the band to play.

“I love you,” Rapunzel mouths, and Cass weakly nods before losing Rapunzel's attention to the sweep of the music and the arms of her new husband.

…

“Cass!”

Rapunzel finds her on the steps, having put some distance between her and the rest of the party about an hour ago. After a couple hours of shit-talking bad dancers with Lance from the sidelines, catching up briefly with her father, and downing about a third of the punch bowl in an attempt to avoid conversations with people, Cassandra is all partied out.

Rapunzel's hair is mussed from hours of relentless dancing as she patters down the steps and flops down beside her, uncaring if the dust from foot traffic leaves a mark on the fabric.

“Hey, newlywed. You having a good time?”

“Of course! Oh, Cass, aren't the orchestra just wonderful? They play the classics, for my parents, but the upbeat stuff was a great surprise! When I'm queen, we'll dance like this at every function, mark my words!” The gleam in her eyes only brightens as she adds, “Besides... I keep stopping mid-step and thinking, I'm married now. I get to spend the rest of my life with Eugene. Isn't that just – just wonderful?”

“It is.” Cass offers her the warmest smile she can muster. “I'm so happy for you, Raps, really. You and Fitzherbert are going to have a great life.”

“All three of us are.” Rapunzel scoots closer and rests her head against Cassandra's shoulder. If only time could stop right now, Cass wishes silently, she wouldn't ask for anything ever again. “Cass, you are both my future. It's been so hard to find time to be with you today, and it's driving me crazy! You deserved to be up there with us today, you know?”

“But Corona law doesn't allow it,” Cass says softly, as if saying the words delicately will shelter her heart from fully feeling the weight of them. Rapunzel swallows and nods.

“Mhm. Yeah, it... it doesn't.”

She reaches for Cassandra's hands and squeezes them in her own. Cass can feel Rapunzel's wedding band dig slightly into her index finger, and tears spring to her eyes.

“Well,” she forces herself to say, “it's okay. If you had to marry either one of us, it should be Eugene. He's the more stable presence in your life, after all. He can help you keep this place afloat, while I – while I'm off travelling.”

“Let's not talk about this,” Rapunzel whispers, a pleading tone creeping in. “This... this should be a happy day for us, Cass! The start of something new!”

“You're right. Raps, this is a happy day. And – and I mean it, Rapunzel, I am so happy for you both. My best friends get to be happy together forever. Why wouldn't I be?”

She stands up quickly and holds her hand out, pulling Rapunzel to her feet. Rapunzel stares at her for a heartbeat, face clouded with some emotion too tumultuous to unpack in this moment, before reaching over and wiping a tear away as it spills over from Cass's eyes.

“I know you are.” Her face softens into a smile. “Hey, dance with me? Please?”

“I don't know, Raps...”

“Just one dance?” she asks, biting her lip. “I'm about ready to turn in, but... it wouldn't feel right if I didn't share at least one dance with the woman I love the most.”

“That's sweet of you. How will the man you love the most feel if I take the last dance?” Cass asks, quirking an eyebrow as Rapunzel begins tugging her up the steps by her wrist. “And your father, for that matter?”

“Oh, Eugene won't mind, silly,” Rapunzel laughs airily, marching them both towards the centre of the dance floor as other party-goers begin to stare. “And my father isn't dancing with you, I am.”

There are some whispers as they begin to dance slowly, stepping in time to a waltz; it's more of an open secret than anything, the way Rapunzel and Cassandra are with each other, but it still feels pretty brazen all the same. Cass is a bit rusty on her feet, having gone years since she last danced ballroom-style, but as she stares lovingly at Rapunzel's face, counting the smattering of freckles on her nose and seeing her own flustered face in Rapunzel's eyes, she realises it doesn't really matter. The steps are bullshit; everything is, except the hand clasped in hers and the other curled around the back of her neck.

Out of the corner of her eye Cass spies Lance, grin a mile wide, offering his hand out to Eugene. They start their own dance, a little clumsier, a little more comical than their own. Rapunzel giggles as they waltz past, Lance almost knocking into them as they spin.

“See? Eugene and Lance can make their own fun.”

Cass smiles back, exhaling slowly. There are still a few people watching with rapt interest: Queen Arianna, looking misty-eyed; Cassandra's father, fidgeting a little, his anxieties no doubt feeding off of the nervousness in Cass's own body language; a little girl she doesn't even know, clad in a waistcoat and pants, looking like she's seeing someone who mirrors herself for the first time. But as interest in their dance begins to wane, so do her fears.

“Dancing still isn't really my thing,” she confesses, as they begin to slow down. “It feels... awkward.”

“Oh.” Rapunzel pouts. “But, you know, gotta try everything once?”

“Of course. I can stand it if I'm with you.” She leans in to press a kiss to Rapunzel's forehead, but thinks better of it, leaning back again. “I, uh... yeah, it might be time for me to turn in, Raps.”

Rapunzel's smile fades a little in disappointment, but she nods. “Yeah. It's about time for us to leave too, so...”

“You're leaving tonight?”

“Yeah. No time like the present, right?” Rapunzel winds her arm around Cassandra's, clinging on as she calls over the din of the music. “Eugene! Are you ready?”

“Sunshine, I'll be right with you,” he calls back, in the midst of being dipped by Lance. Once he's back on his feet and says his goodbyes in a bone-crushing hug, he joins the two of them as they make their way to the edge of the dance floor.

“Is... is it okay for us to just leave like this?” Cass asks suspiciously. “You two don't need to make some kind of big announcement, or anything?”

“...Nah,” Eugene says after a long pause, exchanging a look with Rapunzel. “We can let the king and queen deal with that, right? Besides, the ship won't wait forever.”

Before Cass can protest further, Eugene slides up to the other side of her and links his arm in hers, and the two effectively march her down the steps and towards the docks.

“This is lovely and all, but I can't help the feeling that you two are kidnapping me,” she points out, as the three of them march on in silence.

“What! No! We – we just think you should see the boat! It's really gorgeous, and there's apparently an ice sculpture on board,” Rapunzel gabbles, starting to wax poetic in her ear as Eugene stands on the other side of her, equally enthusiastic.

“And get this – they didn't screw up my nose this time!! That's a huge deal, you absolutely cannot miss it-”

This weird pimping of the boat continues as they follow the path down to the harbour, greeting a few puzzled guards on the way as they tag along for protection. Cass can't shake the feeling that something extremely weird is going on. Eugene and Rapunzel have been shooting her odd looks all day, and she thought it was because her complicated feelings were obvious to everyone around her, but as they get closer and the ship comes into view, it definitely feels like there's a bigger story than that.

The boat is beautiful – the wood is dyed a deep cherry red, and the sails are the same rich purple as the Coronan flag, complete with the golden sun crest. On board, true to their words, is an ice sculpture, but as she strains her eyes, the sculpture depicting the happy couple looks suspiciously like a happy throuple, instead.

“Raps... Eugene... what exactly is going on here?”

“Oh, you'll see,” Eugene says under his breath, while Rapunzel giggles gleefully and gives no further answer.

Trunks of their belongings are already being loaded onto the ship when they arrive, and Cass notices a familiar satchel and carry on pack nestled beside one of Rapunzel's cases.

“Are – are those my things? Guys, what is going on?”

Finally, the two of them release her arms and she takes a step back, eyes darting all over as she tries to comprehend what the fuck is happening right now.

“Cassandra,” Rapunzel begins, clasping her hands together joyfully, “we're boarding the ship for our honeymoon, and... we were hoping you would like to come with us.”

She stares. “...But why?”

“Why?” Eugene scoffs. “Why indeed, Cass, let me think. You're our best friend, you're in a relationship with my wife – something as intimate as a honeymoon doesn't just happen with two out of three when it comes to us, you understand?”

“But – but this wedding isn't for us, it's for you,” splutters Cass, still wondering if she knocked her head at some point and woke up in a parallel universe, where things like a honeymoon for three were commonplace. He rolls his eyes, hard.

“Cass, look at us. We're wearing the same freaking suit. You do the math.”

“And we had our own wedding dance,” Rapunzel chimes in. “Even if you didn't really like it.”

“All right, just... stop, okay? Give me a minute to think.” Cass is starting to feel dizzy. “I – I know you both love me – in different ways,” she adds sharply, as Eugene opens his mouth. “But this is... pretty crazy. Even for us. I mean, people will talk about this, guys.”

Rapunzel and Eugene exchange amused glances. “Cass, everyone who knows us knows, and everyone who doesn't have a pretty good guess about what goes on between us three,” Rapunzel says slowly. “You don't have to worry about that anymore, do you understand?”

“It's different now!” Cassandra protests, shaking her head in pure, unfiltered amazement. “You two are married now and it's – adulterous. Probably. Maybe even treasonous? God, my head hurts.”

“So it's not a cut and dry situation, that's fine!” Eugene throws up his hands in exasperation. “But damn it, Cass, you're acting like this is the end of days. If you stuck around more than a few days at a time, you'd realise that the people of Corona really don't care as much as you think they do.”

Cass opens and closes her mouth a few times, unsure of where to even start with protesting everything they've been saying to her. She loses the train of thought anyway once she lays eyes on Rapunzel, with a desperate look in her eyes as she watches Cass, fidgeting with her hands.

“Cass,” she says quietly, taking a tentative step forward, “we can't force you to come with us, but we would really like you to. So we can right this – this rigid law that stops us all from being happy.”

“...Okay, now you've definitely lost me.”

Rapunzel makes a frustrated noise in her throat, running her fingers back through her hair and resting both hands on the back of her neck, like she so often does when she's trying to think.

“Cassandra – once we are outside of Coronan waters, the laws don't apply anymore.”

“...And?”

Eugene half-laughs, half-coughs, and Rapunzel shoots him a pointed look before continuing more gently, “And, when we're out at sea, certain... marriage laws... don't apply either.”

She bites her lip, hoping this will be enough to get the gears turning in Cassandra's head, but she stares on blankly.

“Oh, for christ's sake!” Eugene slaps his forehead and pulls Cass along to stand beside Rapunzel, staring them both down with folded arms. “Cass, I don't know how many times we have to spell it out for you, but this has always been your wedding day too. If you want it to be, anyway.”

The words finally seem to hit home, and she stares between them with eyes as wide as a deer being stalked.

“What?” she squeaks.

“Cassandra, I have wanted to marry the both of you for as long as this has even been a conversation,” Rapunzel explains, and her voice shakes a little with her next words. “Of course this is crazy, everything we do together is crazy! And, Cass? If you don't want to get on the boat and do this... I'll accept that. But – but I hope, after all that we've been through together, that you want to be my wife as much as I want to be yours.”

Time moves slowly as the weight of these words sink in, and Cass glances between Eugene, who is beginning to look emotional just in the presence of this proposal, and Rapunzel, laying her heart on the line just to show Cass how much she matters.

“You'd really do that? For me?”

“With you,” Rapunzel corrects, mouth splitting into a grin as her eyes gloss over with tears. “Cass, I would sail to the ends of the Earth if it meant I could marry you when we get there.”

“Oh god,” Eugene says in a hushed voice. He turns away, hand over his eyes. “You're both killing me here.”

“Can it, Fitzherbert,” Cass says on instinct, before a laugh bubbles up from her throat. “Raps, I – what do I even say to that?!”

“Say yes already, oh my god!”

“Eugene!” Rapunzel shakes her head, giggling helplessly. “Sorry, proposals get to him.”

Cass gives a watery laugh. “I'll bet. What's he going to do when we actually get married, huh?”

Rapunzel blinks a few times, then gasps in delight. “So it's a yes?!”

All Cass can do is nod before Rapunzel throws herself at her, hugging her tight enough to choke. Even with all the oxygen being squeezed from her lungs, Cass feels like she can breathe for the first time all day.

There's the sound of a throat being cleared behind them, and they turn to see a guard looking a little awkward to interrupt.

“Excuse me. Um... the smaller bags, should we load them on the ship, or...?”

“Yes, you should,” Cass says, barely able to contain her cheer. “Wherever these two go, I'm going with them.”

The guard shrugs, quickly turning back to the remaining luggage, and Cass cups Rapunzel's jaw, pressing a quick kiss to her lips before hiding her face in the top of Rapunzel's hair.

“Aww, don't be shy! I loved that!” Rapunzel giggles, pulling her in closer. “I loved that so much. Wherever we go, you're coming too. Yep... that's going in my journal for sure.”

“No,” groans Cass, still giggling despite herself. “Please, no record of anything sappy I say ever again.”

“Too late. See, you should know by now, Cass. Everything mushy we ever say will be immortalised in our wife's notebooks for the rest of our lives,” Eugene sighs, slinging an arm around her. Cass nods, keeping close as they steer her towards the boarding plank.

Our wife. It feels too fucking good to be real.

“This isn't a dream, right?” she asks suddenly, as they're halfway up the plank. “This is really happening?”

“Of course it's real, art can't imitate life!” scoffs Eugene, looking a little offended. “This face can't simply be replicated in dreams, Cassandra.”

“No one is saying anything about your face, Eugene,” Rapunzel sighs, shaking her head fondly.

“You know what, Fitzherbert? You've got a point. If this were a dream your nose would be a totally different shape, for a start.”

“I don't get it! How hard can it be to draw somebody's nose in accurate proportion to their face?!”

As they take their first steps onto the boat and the plank is removed, they turn to see a few familiar faces have gathered. The parents have come to wave their children off, in a quiet moment of finality before the next chapter begins. Arianna waves to them, her aura simply overflowing with joy, Frederic watches on with a stiffer wave, clearly still coming to grips with what's about to happen once the boat leaves Corona. Edmund, stood off to the side, is loudly asking Hamuel why their good friend is tagging along for the journey.

A little further back, Cassandra's father watches on. Upon first glance, she freezes; Rapunzel's arm is still holding her in close, and she nods towards him, trying for a smile. He nods back, slowly at first, before raising his arms to wave.

He is called over by Arianna and sheepishly joins her, his eyes never fully leaving Cass as he does so. Overwhelmed, she glances down at Rapunzel, who is leaning with her head against her shoulder, still beaming and waving at her parents.

“My father knew about this, then?” she asks quietly. Rapunzel shrugs, a shy smile on her face.

“I know we don't need it, but I wanted his blessing. I wanted him to know that you're loved, and you're gonna live a long life and be okay.”

The regal trill of trumpets fill the air, as the small cluster of guards on the dock stand to attention. A few words are read from a prepared scroll, carried away by the ocean breeze before Cass can hear, and then suddenly they're moving. The faces of their parents are growing smaller, the stretch of ocean growing larger, and Cass exhales shakily before turning to Rapunzel and Eugene.

“I think I'm going to puke,” she confesses.

“What?!” squeaks Rapunzel, alarmed.

“Well, now would be a terrible time to tell us you get seasick,” Eugene jokes, clapping her on the back. “Seriously though. You okay?”

“I'm fine. I just... realised how much of what was said happened in front of all those strangers. And then our parents. God, I'm gonna jump.”

“Yeah, no jumping,” Eugene says firmly, tugging her away from the boat's edge by her shoulders. “How long until we're out of Coronan waters.”

“Less than an hour.” The tremors are back in Rapunzel's voice again.

“And there are... aha! Three hours until the clock strikes midnight. You're in luck, ladies. If we play our cards right, this day will go down in history as both our anniversaries. How's that sound, huh?”

“Sounds like everything I've dreamed of,” Rapunzel sighs, melting against Cass. “Doesn't it feel good just to be here and not having to hide it?”

“I mean, we're embarking with a very small crew for a private ceremony outside of Coronan waters,” Cass points out. “Feels pretty hidden to me.”

Rapunzel pouts. “Ah, you're right.”

“You know... I think it's better this way. I wouldn't want it to be some public affair anyway,” Cass says quickly. “But yeah, this still feels like I'm in some sort of fever dream.”

“Want me to pinch you to be sure?”

“If you pinch me I will kill you. And hey, what was all this about a shapeshifter check at the gates, huh, Fitzherbert? I missed your wedding vows just so you could mess with me?!”

“Oh, that. I thought it would be funny!”

The ship sails off, disappearing into the evening sky, and even as she's bickering with Eugene and being held back by an exasperated Rapunzel, Cass can't help believing that this might be the start of her own happily ever after, after all.

[genderfluidtechnoblade]

okay so i get the Concept of vh(also it's such a pretty mod holy shit sometimes i watch just for visuals) but i just have a hard time following along in the moment. like pete will open a crate or get an item and either be disappointed or excited and i have no idea why. i havent grasped the specifics of whats good/bad yknow? i feel like a mobile user while chat is spamming widepepOMEGAKEKHappyChampHands- i get what its supposed to be but i dont See it

AAAH yea thats the part that looses people the most is the specifics of those rare items. i cant go through all of them but i could give a quick run down of any of the more important ones

-during the most recent event, every boss crate had a gear (like a cog) (everyone called them cogs) that were important to the event. those were good, and now they are gone.

-if there is ever a brown square with a question mark, THATS AN ARTIFACT!! THOSE ARE GOOD !! we need 25 unique ones from each player in order to win.

-skill orbs and star cores are very rare, and very good- they are the equivalent of 20 rare vault gems and 9 even rarer gems called vault diamonds that you can't even mine (they rarely drop from a certain mob that's only inside the vault), so getting them for free is good

-large amounts of vault bronze/silver/gold can be used to buy things from vending machines that viewers can give, and those vending machines can have rare items. any amount is good, but if a player doesn't get a good amount of it, it's disappointing

-same deal with skill essence/star essence- you can save up to get a skill point/knowledge point, so any amount is good, but low rolling it is disappointing.

-vault gear is usually good- almost all vault gear is better than diamond armor, and most of it is better than netherite, HOWEVER vault gear has tiers (actually, most things in vault hunters has tiers, according to the way iskall likes to rank things). vault gear goes in scrappy, common, rare, epic, and omega. omega is the best of the best. if you get common+ vault gear, it can only be common rare epic or omega, which is good! if its epic+ thats even better! if its just scrappy+ or even just scrappy, that means there's a really big chance you won't get something that's better than your current gear (since most active players are rocking mostly epic+ gear) so its kinda meh

-levels for the gear are also very important! sometimes you'll get an omega armor which is theoretically the best you can get, but it low rolled on levels/stats, and a lower tier piece of armor can be better. omega just means a better chance of being better, like a sliding scale. so its possible to get something thats theoretically good but still disappointing to the spoiled streamer who has too many omegas that he doesnt know what to do with all of them rolling eyes emote

-idols are also like gear, they can have the same tiers, and getting one is good, but if it doesn't roll anything interesting, its disappointing.

-gems are also sometimes in boss crates- echo is the rarest gem of them all, and pete actually gets more of it than everyone else because of his role in the game. seeing echo is very exciting, because he can trade it with others for things he needs. other player gems are also very important, esp for the players who dont log on as much (players get more of their own gem and all players are meant to trade with each other). other gems are rare and MOST hunters would be excited to see one in a crate/chest, but pete has... uh. a lot of them. so its underwhelming to find a single one.

-everyone loves CATALYSTS. they're rainbow swirly things. fragments are smaller and full catalysts take up the whole item frame box. these catalysts can modify the vault to have very rare things in higher quantities. everyone likes to use them to create super powerful vaults with like, 20x the amount of ores you normally get, or a large amount of chests with good loot.

-a lot of boss crates are also just filler material that can come in handy later, like diamond ore and cake. these things are important but if its mostly that with no Big Shiny Thing streamer is gonna be sadge

the specifics are definitely the hardest thing to explain because of how many specifics there are, and how far everyone is into the season, but tbh i still very recommend vh because if you keep it on and just passively watch for long enough, eventually some of it will rub off and you'll recognize what thing gets used for what and if that thing is good. eventually.

[simul16]

Low Effort in Their Own Way

All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." - Leo Tolstoy, "Anna Karenina"

I've been watching a fair amount of D&D content on YouTube of late, for varying reasons, and if I may paraphrase Tolstoy's famous quote above, I've learned that all good D&D channels make high-effort content, while each bad D&D channel makes low-effort content in its own way.

Low-effort content tends to be:

Content that is or can be created quickly; it doesn't require a lot of prep time (and the presentation usually allows this limited prep time to show)

Content that copies current trends; while a certain amount of response to significant events in the gaming world is to be expected, low-effort channels regularly feature content that basically boils down to 'here's my reaction to whatever rumor or scandal is currently being talked about among the community'

Content that does not spark or contribute to a discussion; when such channels go beyond simply recapitulating a recent event, they frequently spend very little time explaining their own reaction and seldom spend any time at all explaining or exploring contrary opinions except to make jokes or elicit emotional reactions from an over-simplified or straw-man version of the contrary opinion

Now let's start off by saying that I'm not knocking low-effort content per se; anybody who knows anything about online marketing can tell you that low-effort content has a role to play in any marketing strategy. Ideally, though, your low-effort content, the stuff that you can get out the door quickly and easily and get in front of your potential customers, exists to guide those customers to your higher-quality content that convinces them to buy your product, order your service, or otherwise become someone who believes that you have something of value to say. Because it's cheap and easy to produce, low-effort content can be cast far and wide to serve as a net to capture many potential viewers and guide them to the gold mine of the really important stuff you have to say. Unfortunately, when your low-effort content is what you have to say, it very much begs the question of what exactly it is people should be coming to your channel for.

Here are a few but by no means an exhaustive list of the YouTube channels that to me seem to feature way too much low-effort content.

The Dungeon Dudes

The Dungeon Dudes are two guys (Kelly McLaughlin and Monty Martin) who mainly do scripted back-and-forth style discussions of D&D-related topics. I've talked about the Dungeon Dudes before, when taking apart one of their recent videos, but they also stream a D&D game they play in on Twitch (and frequently post recordings of those sessions on their channel), do product reviews, and generally do whatever they can to maintain a consistent pace of content output, generally a minimum of twice weekly. They've been around for nearly four years now, and have amassed about 273 thousand subscribers on their channel, with over 44 million views for their content, which seem like decent numbers for a niche content channel. (Contract with CinemaSins, which exists as a viral content manufacturer, and has amassed over 9 million subscribers and over 3.3 billion views. I'm not trying to say the Dungeon Dudes are the CinemaSins of D&D; if they were, their numbers would probably look a lot more like those of CinemaSins.)

The big problem with the Dudes as content creators is that, despite being a niche content channel, they are clearly in it to try to eke out some kind of income or living from the work they put into the channel: they've got a Patreon, they use affiliate links in the descriptions of their product review videos to gain some additional referrer income, and they do sponsored content when they can get a sponsor. They started back in the summer of 2017 with a very 2016-era plan on how to succeed at YouTube: put together a bunch of short (5-10 minutes, occasionally longer, but go over 15 minutes at your peril) videos and release them on an iron-clad schedule to get people used to coming back to your channel and looking over your new content, and to their credit, they've kept up their content production schedule very consistently over the past four years.

They've also learned a few things during that time and have adapted the channel in response: their videos explaining rules and reviewing new products tend to be more popular, so they work those topics in on a more regular basis. They've learned that the YouTube algorithm has subtly changed over the past few years to reward channels that can provide longer 'engagement' (which gives YouTube more opportunities to run ads), and have expanded their video length to an average of about a half-hour, with their re-broadcasts from Twitch being extra-long videos (between two and two-and-a-half hours) which, while drawing fewer total views, probably draw as much or more 'engagement' from the algorithm for the views they have.

But the need to spit out so much content on such a rigid, unforgiving schedule means that they have to aim for quick-creation and easy digestion: putting subclasses into a bog-standard tier ranking, making 'top five' and 'top ten' lists that seem like they're being cribbed from a more thoughtful resource, and generally getting stuff out the door (like their 'Powerful Spell Combos Using Teamwork' video) without spending too much time thinking about how valuable or even accurate their advice happens to be. More to the point, it seems to be taking its toll on the guys who serve as the hosts of the show: Kelly McLaughlin has a fairly dour expression in general, but lately he seems to have the countenance of a man who's about to post a 'very special episode' discussing the dangers of YouTuber burnout.

The Dungeon Dudes feature low-effort content because they have to in order to support the publishing frequency they've chosen; if they were to take the time to put together a truly high-effort piece regarding one of their traditional topics, their Patreon subscribers would likely be asking why their release schedule had slowed down before their work was even half-done.

Dungeon Craft

The Dungeon Craft channel is run by a fellow who refers to himself as 'Professor Dungeon Master'; I have not yet found any reference in his channel or elsewhere that identifies who he actually is, so I'll just refer to him as Prof. Prof has been on YouTube a bit longer than the Dungeon Dudes, having launched his channel in October of 2016, and has put out 185 'episodes' (as of the time of this writing), thus averaging between three and four episodes per month. Prof's own 'trailer' video explicitly states his channel's concept: "Some channels focus on running the game, others on building terrain, others on painting minis. I do it all!" You might think, then, that this would be a place to find quite high-quality content, especially related to terrain and miniatures painting tips, but it seems like the main effect of Prof making his channel be about multiple topics (and there are plenty of topics he discusses that don't fit into any of those three categories above) is that he can't successfully communicate what his channel is actually about, other than about his specific opinions. Maybe that's the reason he's sitting at about 65 thousand subscribers and just under 5 million views.

However, being at a slightly lower 'tier' of content production than the Dungeon Dudes is not itself any kind of crime or even indicative of poor quality -- after all, one of my favorite D&D lore channels on YouTube is RavenloftTravelAgent, and she's got just over a thousand subscribers and only about 50 thousand views on her videos. No, Prof could have a very high-quality, high-content channel with the subscriber numbers and views he has, but he doesn't.

Prof's issue is almost exactly the opposite of that of the Dungeon Dudes: instead of cranking out a rapid-fire, breakneck volume of content to keep up with an arbitrary content production schedule because that's how you make a living producing content for YouTube and you have to keep feeding the hungry algorithm, Prof cranks out content that's very easy for him to write because he's been involved in the game for a long time and already knows that the way he learned to play the game is the best way. Any topic that comes up related to D&D, he's got an opinion and can spit out a script explaining his opinion quickly because it's the same opinion he's held for decades. Classic D&D didn't have skills, so the next edition of D&D shouldn't have them either. Classic D&D had slow advancement, so slow advancement is better than fast advancement. This becomes even more obvious in the videos that have very little or nothing to do with running a D&D game, such as where Prof explains why he thought Avengers: Endgame sucked, or why he thought Season 8 of Game of Thrones was 'nearly perfect'.

Some of the oddest episodes of Dungeon Craft have to do when Prof makes admissions that make him out to be, well, the D&D channel for 'that kind' of old-school gamer: the ones who can make comments to each other that they can't make in front of their wives or significant others because the latter find the comments sexist, the kind of guys you can complain to about not being able to tell a Polack joke at work, the guys who treated D&D in the 1980s and 1990s the way that guys in the 1950s and 1960s treated golf where they could build a wall between the world as it existed and the world as they wanted to believe it was (and, if we're being honest, the way that they believed it should actually be). Nowhere is this more evident than in the video where Prof starts by discussing the hot, rich girlfriend he had once who tried but never got into D&D who he just had to break up with, and which by the 3 minute mark has him "calling bullshit" on the idea that relationships are built on compromise and negotiation. (I mean, you saw this coming, right? Right there at the end of the last paragraph about how the ending of Game of Thrones was so good? You knew that's where this was going, right?)

And, of course, he's not immune to just jumping on the latest bandwagon to contribute his drone to the chorus of voices talking about things just to be talking about things. It shouldn't be surprising that Prof jumped on the bandwagon of the lawsuit brought by Hickman and Weis against Wizards of the Coast over the upcoming Dragonlance trilogy, which turned out to be a nothing-burger. Even weirder is the tag in the description of that video which says "Analysis you can't get anywhere else", even though the video doesn't contain anything that hadn't already been discussed over the three weeks between the lawsuit and Prof's video other than Prof's own opinions about it. My favorite howler that Prof makes in this video is his assertion that, because Hickman and Weis got a lawyer to file a lawsuit, that means there's definitely fire under that smoke, because "big law firms do not accept cases they don't think they can win", which both ignores the existence of SLAPP suits as well as the existence of authors who seem to take perverse glee in suing rival authors just to drive them out of the industry. He's also responded with multiple videos in response to Cody at Taking20s controversial 'illusion of choice' essay, and his response to Ginny Di's essay on making online D&D suck less didn't include any of Ginny's solid advice on making online play more compatible with an in-person mentality (recognizing interruptive behavior, or using text chat to maintain side-conversations that would otherwise not be distracting in person), but instead gave these recommendations to players:

Keep your camera turned on

Mute yourself when not talking

Don't distract yourself with technology during the game

Nothing specific on recognizing how online play differs from tabletop play and suggesting ways to bring those two styles closer together, just commands because he's the DM and he says so. Or, in other words, low-effort, opinion-based content.

Nerd Immersion

Nerd Immersion, a channel by Ted that started in May of 2014 and has amassed over 70 thousand subscribers, starts his "channel trailer" video by leafing through a book, then looking up and saying, "Oh, hello" as if he'd just noticed that there was a camera on pointing at him while he's sitting in his orange-trimmed gaming chair. That, sadly, is roughly the level of thought that goes into the actual content contained on this long-tenured but seemingly still super-niche channel.

The weird thing is that at some point, it was obvious that Ted put some real effort into this channel. There are defined sections of the channel that focus on particular things, avoiding the Dungeon Craft problem of 'what topic is our channel about this week?' On Tuesdays, Ted posts a top-10 list. Ted comes up with an idea for a series, like 'Fixing 5E' or 'Reviewing Unearthed Arcana', posts regular articles until he's said what he means to say, then ends the series. (There hasn't been a new Fixing 5E video in roughly a year, meaning that Ted isn't wasting his own time and that of the viewer continually beating horses he's long since killed.) And he comes up with some great ideas for series, such as his series reviewing products on the DMs Guild; that particular series comes out somewhat irregluarly, but not so irregularly that you think he may have stopped doing the series without telling you.

Nerd Immersion's big problem can be summed up by simply looking at the list of videos on his channel and noticing that when he puts his own face on the thumbnail of the video, the startling frequency with which he's shrugging or has a puzzled face or just seems to be presenting himself as if he's not sure what's happening in his own video. I mean, I get it -- that's his image, the personality he wants to present to his audience. He doesn't have all the answers (a refreshing change from Dungeon Craft, honestly), but has some things to share if you're interested, so go ahead and take a peek. But then you take a look at those different sections we spoke about earlier and see that the 'Fixing' series all have the word Fixing at the top of the screen, the Nerd Immersion logo in the top left, two images underneath the text, one on the right side of the page and one on the left, separated right down the middle, and they all have Fix-It Felix on the far right. The Top 10 videos always have Top 10 at the top of the thumbnail. The Unearthed Arcana reviews all have 'Unearthed Arcana' at the top, then 'Review' in an odd off-set to the right beneath 'Unearthed Arcana'.

In other words, Ted has a formula, and he's damn well going to follow it.

Now it's not a bad thing to have a workflow -- if you're going to be cranking out videos at the volume that Ted does (not to mention the others on this list), you'd better have some kind of process for making the video, getting the thumbnail on it, etc.; otherwise each new video is a horrible nightmare of effort as you re-invent the wheel for every project. Nobody wants to do that, and the results would likely be unwatchable. Having a process is a good thing. But the Dungeon Dudes clearly also have a process -- they've put out at least two videos a week for three and a half years, so they damn well have a process or they wouldn't have been able to get out that much content. Looking at their channel, though, shows you that while they have a brand, and one that's evolving over time to boot, they're not just making the same video over and over again, or at least you wouldn't think that from looking at the thumbnails.

Ted's most interesting videos are where he's interviewing another person or even just having another person in the video, because having another person around clearly takes him at least a bit outside his rigid formulaic comfort zone. The problem is that those videos are few and far between -- the review of the infernal tiefling is about eight months separated from his interview with Celeste Conowitch about her Venture Maidens campaign guide. Also interesting are his unboxing videos, because Ted clearly likes minis and takes some degree of joy in cracking open and looking at new minis. His unboxing videos aren't as irregular as his interview videos, but they are fairly recent, with the first appearing just a few months ago, so it's still not clear if this is going to be a new regular part of the channel, or just another series that goes until he says what he wants to say about minis and then stops.

Most of the stuff on the site, though, is just, well, stuff, cranked out on a formula and thrown out into the digital void with the same soft-spoken volume regardless of whether it's major news or a press release. As an example, while pretty much everybody had an opinion on the Dragonlance lawsuit, Ted covered when the suit was announced, when it was dismissed by Weis and Hickman, when the actual trilogy that was the subject of the novels was announced, and the official release date of the first book in the new trilogy. When it came time to get ready to announce the newest campaign book, Ted was on the job, posting a video preparing for the announcement, another video later the same day when his original prediction of a Feywild adventure book seemed to be contradicted by other rumors that the book would be a Ravenloft book, then posted yet another video when the actual book was leaked on Amazon at 11:24pm later that same day confirming Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft, posted the video discussing the official announcement of Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft the next day, and then the day after that followed up with more details on Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft revealed in Dragon+. That's five videos in three days, for a grand total of just over 100 thousand views combined. The intention seems like Ted wants to be the CNN of the D&D news scene, but with those kind of distribution numbers, the result is more like your local home town's shopping circular that occasionally also features stories about the latest project to fix the potholes on Main Street. Just like nobody's doing 24/7 news coverage of your local town council, nobody is (or probably should strive to) doing 24/7 coverage of the gaming industry and Wizards of the Coast. At some point it just becomes running a script, pressing a button to upload the next video, because it's news, and while you don't have to think about news to quite the same degree you have to think about more opinion-based topics, once you stop thinking about the process and what it is you're making, all you have left is executing the formula, over and over again, and both the input and the output becomes repetitive.

Repetitive videos, in repetitive formats, with repetitive text, to keep the monster fed for another day. I can admire the effort that goes into it, but the overwhelming presence of the formula involved in cranking out this content keeps me from feeling that it's worth engaging with. It's low-effort, because the effort has been meticulously removed from the process.

I could go on, but I think I'll stop here. There's not really any constructive criticism I could provide to these channels because, as I hope I've pointed out, it seems like low-effort content is pretty much the only thing these channels have to offer or in truth can offer, and anything that might cause their owners to re-consider their channels to improve their content would almost certainly lead to a very different if not wholly different channel. With things being as they are online, there's no guarantee that any new, higher-effort channel would be any more successful than the old low-effort one (remember the RavenloftTravelAgent channel with absolutely miniscule numbers; effort doesn't automatically equate with success). I can't even claim that being low-effort channels necessarily makes these channels bad (despite what I said in the intro); after all, they all have at least some good ideas, especially Nerd Immersion, and they each have subscribers and a following. I guess this is just my way of putting some small amount of effort into explaining why I don't feel like doing more to help these channels succeed, because I'd rather put my support toward channels making higher-quality, higher-effort content, especially because its not the content itself, but people engaging with that content that really drives a channel's success.

[wingsofninewheels]

edit: @yagirlyacchan has brought to my attention that the original 2017 LN release of nr-001 came with tune at dawn and clair’s wish. as of the update, it’s confirmed that the crafting order will include those, NOT singing phoenix and red shoes. sorry for the potential misinformation. i went from both NI and some imgur screenshots from other servers

Return Craft Cost Estimates for NR-001

Under the cut is information that isn’t correct for LN server. Before the cut is updated info. I’ve left the incorrect breakdown on here for a visual--replace the materials in parentheses with items from Clair’s Wish. Because LN uses different suits, the price on LN is about 200 dia greater.* Materials not in parentheses are still correct. (E.g., she still requires Sweetie, Athena’s Armor Purple, Fashion Pioneer Boy, Multicolor Scarf, Water Pearl, and Noble Necklace, as well as all the same items that cost gold, in all the same amounts.)

Crafting is tiered, but doesn’t require completing the previous suit in order to work on the next one. This means you don’t have to finish all of Tune at Dawn to work on a specific piece of Clair’s Wish, and you don’t have to finish all of Clair’s Wish in order to work on a specific piece of NR-001. (So if you only want Hologram Communicator, for example, as far as dia-cost materials, all you need is Clair’s pattern pack, 4 Fashion Pioneer Boy, 1 Dusk Shadow, 1 Boots in Snow, 1 Musical Stockings, 3 Fresh Socks, 1 Floating Dream Island, and 3 Fallen Leaves. It’s a little steep to have to buy the pattern pack if you only want one piece of NR-001 and don’t want any parts of Clair, but it’s better than having to buy the entire previous two suits, or craft NR-001 chronologically like Zashiki+Tengu.)

As of 2020.05.11, NR-001 is craftable, and requires Clair’s Wish and Tune at Dawn to craft.

Clair’s Wish and Tune at Dawn together cost about 1555 dia for V0, as well as 450 dia for the patterns in the User Shop.

Once you have those two suits, NR-001 itself costs 1500 dia.

If you need to buy/craft all three suits, NR-001 will cost 3505 dia.

N.B. NR-001 can be cheaper than this: Some things like Fashion Pioneer Boy can be Princess farmed (e.g., those can drop from 5-1 and 7-S2 for free, if you’re patient). I’m pretty sure at least one of them is a possible Pavilion drop, too. Most notably is Hologram Communicator, which besides the cost of Clair’s boots and hosiery, can be dia-free.

I stuck the info under a cut that’s now incorrect for LN, for those who’re curious.

*  When I say CN NR-001 is 200 cheaper than LN NR-001, I mean “Red Shoes + Singing Phoenix” would have been that much cheaper than “Tune at Dawn + Clair’s Wish.” Once you have the two required tiered suits, no matter which server you’re on, LN-001 still costs 1500.

(Possible) Return Craft Costs for NR-001

If it follows the crafting order of other servers, NR-001 will return for crafting on LN server 2020.05.11; along with it, Singing Phoenix (for crafting) and Red Shoes (to the store). I am sure the exact breakdowns have already been posted elsewhere, but I could only find crafting screenshots, not math, so I went ahead and did it myself. (If someone could confirm whether NR-001 and Singing Phoenix have Starlight Store recipes, or if they’ll be added to the Time Diary, that’d be awesome.)

NR-001 requires Singing Phoenix and Red Shoes for tiered crafting. You don’t have to craft the suits to completion in order to work on the higher cost suit(s), but you do have to have parts of Red Shoes for Singing Phoenix, and parts of Singing Phoenix for NR-001. (E.g., if all you want is the posed dress Code-001, you only have to buy Music Box Dance and craft Phoenix Robe to do so.)

If you need to obtain both of the lower-cost suits, NR-001 will cost you 3345 dia and 548643 gold.

If you already have Singing Phoenix and Red shoes (I often see them in the Secret Shop), NR-001 will only cost you 1500 dia and 121515 gold.

If you have Red Shoes and not Singing Phoenix, NR-001 will cost you 2534 dia and 429883 gold.

If you have Singing Phoenix and not Red Shoes, NR-001 will cost you 2311 dia and 240275 gold.

Additionally, for the lower-tier suits, in case you don’t want NR-001:

If you have Red Shoes and want Singing Phoenix, it’ll cost you 1034 dia and 308368 gold.

If you don’t have Red Shoes and want Singing Phoenix, it’ll cost you 1845 dia and 427128 gold.

If you only want Red Shoes, she’s 811 dia and 118760 gold.

* These costs may vary slightly, because several crafting items are also level drops and able to be pulled from pavilions. I also realize I forgot the 48000 gold for crafting Singing Phoenix, and the 48000 gold for crafting NR-001. (8000 per piece.) And again, I don’t know for certain whether they’re Time Diary recipes, so they might also cost Star Coins.

[drclawsarcanetbcguide]

Dr. Claw's guide for arcane mages in TBC

This is a guide for those that want to play an arcane mage in phase one of TBC classic. It is not intended to convince you it is better than fire. Also, if there is a typo in my simulation code, this will affect the results :P. 

This is an analytical approach, and does not include procs or trinkets, as these are difficult to handle analytically. The simulation-based aproach of Osthyvel (https://cheesehyvel.github.io/magesim-tbc2/) is better for optimizing individual gear pieces, and includes trinkets and procs.

Introduction

Arcane mages in TBC get a new spell called Arcane Blast (AB). When cast it gives you a debuff that increases the mana cost of AB by 75%, and reduces the casting time by 0.33s. The debuff stacks up to 3 times, and lasts for 8 seconds. The default casting time is 2.5s, and this goes down to 1.5 on 3 stacks.

Note that cast time is calculated when you click the button, but mana cost is calculated when the spell is cast. If you start casting while the debuff has less than 1s left, you will cast it fast for cheap.

Also note that the AB debuff increases the mana cost by 70% of the base mana, and is applied after other modifiers (arcane power, tier 5 set). This makes AB benefit more from arcane power than other spells. 

Basic premise The basic premise of the arcane mage is that you have two rotations. One save rotation and one burn rotation. You balance these so that you go OOM (out-of-mana) at the same time as the boss dies. The burn rotation will be an arcane blast spam

The save rotation will differ for arcane-frost and arcane-fire: arcane-frost:     3xAB->3xFrostbolt arcane-frost:     3xAB->Frostbolt->AM arcane-frost:     Frostbolt spam arcane-fire:        3xAB->Scorch->AM arcane-fire:        3xAB->scorch->2xFireball arcane-fire:        Fireball spam (keeping up scorch debuff)

The differences are not huge, but 3xAB->3xFrostbolt is the best possible rotation with arcane-frost, while a Fireball spam or 3xAB->scorch->2xFireball is best for fire (FB spam is slightly weaker, but easier to maintain, the difference is slight). 3xAB->scorch->2xFireball will be significantly better once you get 2 pc tier 5 set. (with any arcane-fire spec you will have to cast scorch to ramp and keep up the scorch debuff). 

Note that if you are arcane-frost, you can optimize your 3xAB->3xFrostbolt rotation by casting AM when you get a clearcasting proc, so long as you don’t drop the AB debuff. This has minimal effect on your DPS (detremental if you have high latency) but is good tip for conserving mana if you spend too much in the beginning of the fight. 

Switching between rotations

Typically you will use your burn rotation relatively early while popping all CDs and trinkets. Using your CDs together with an AB spam gives you the most benefit. Once they arcane power, icy veins and your trinket buffs have faded you may mix and match the rotations as you see fit for the rest of the fight. 

A god tip is to try to match your mana to the boss HP. You do this by inserting extra AB into your rotation to burn any additional mana you may have.

If you get a second Icy Veins (by cold snap) or heroism not matched with arcane power and/or trinkets, you may use the burn or save rotation during this as you see fit. You may think you get more benefit if you use AB spam, but since you balance you mana so that you go oom at the end of the fight anyway it does not matter. (think of heroism/icy veins as increasing the fight duration). However, cycles such as 3xAB->3xFrostbolt rotation does not work with icy veins because AB debuff no longer drops due to the shorter casttime of FB. I have found no obvious way to deal with this, and you may find that you have to do a frostbolt spam or fireball spam, if you don’t have the mana for AB spam.

Balancing your rotations

If you know how long the fight will be, you can calculate how much time you should spend in each rotation. Mathematically this is not complicated, and I have plotted the amount of damage you do from each rotation in the plot below. The x-axis is the total time you spend casting. The blip at 60s is from evocation. Before this the optimal play is to not use evocation, while after this the optimal play is to use evocation. (I do not included wand-dps after you go oom, although that is not shown in this plot. I also do not let you use AP etc. twice)

In practice you will start with the  save rotation until the boss is at low HP and then switch to the burn rotation.

If we divide the total damage by the time, we get the average DPS:

As an arcane mage your average DPS will be higher the shorter the fight is. (although this is also true for other classes/specs due to cooldowns).

Talents and gear: The above plots are calculated with the following talent spec: https://legacy-wow.com/tbc-talents/mage-talents/?tal=2520050300030150330125000000000000000000000000535000310030010000000

and pre-raid, no PVP gear with crafted gems: https://seventyupgrades.com/set/c37P41hxKGNvQkh36a9UYD (I mean this to be an example of early gear, and I ignore the difference in +spllpower for different schools, and the set bonus from the spellfire set. The code supports it, so you may include these yourself.)

Optimizing your gear means finding the right stat weights.  I did this by calculating the derivative of the damage done with respect to the different stats. This will also depend on the fight duration, as you can see in the plot below:

Note how high intellect is. You can see the stat weights I used for the gear at the link above. (spirit will be lower in molten armor)

Arcane fire vs Arcane frost Here arcane fire uses the same stats as arcane frost and the following build:

https://legacy-wow.com/tbc-talents/mage-talents/?tal=2520050300030150330125050500201230000000000000030000000000000000000 You may observe that arcane fire outperforms arcane frost for fights longer than ~160s. This is primarily due to Icy Veins, which you can use twice with Cold Snap. I am assuming you get maximum benefit from this, which may not be possible in fights where you have to move, where maintaining a fireball spam is easier (even if you have to keep up the scorch debuff)

Comparison to Fire

I am assuming you are raid buffed (Blessing of kings, blessing of wisdom, improved mark of the wild, improved divine spirit, curse of elements with malediction, and judgment of wisdom on the boss). You are also using your mana emerald and a single mana potion. (I am using molten armor. At this gear level the choice of armor makes no difference to the DPS of arcane specs, but is significant for fire. At better gear the arcane mages want mage armor) The fire build includes Icy Veins: https://legacy-wow.com/tbc-talents/mage-talents/?tal=0000000000000000000000050520201230333105312510235000010000000000000 With conventional stat weights: https://seventyupgrades.com/set/rognn7N3mUmUT53xFzzxxM

It appears that the difference is not huge. It is easier to see the difference if we just plot the % difference, here with respect to fire. 

The optimal spec depends on the fight duration, and we can see above that arcane is superior for fight durations shorter than ~160 s or longer than ~200s.

Realistically, I expect fight durations between 90 and 180 s (+movement and other phases). I base this on the number of casts our mages do during various bosses in naxx, but other ppl in the community can probably estimate this better than me. We don’t know how this will shake out in TBC classic. For Arcane Fire, the difference to Fire is less than ~ -4% on the negative side. At this point the player matters more than the spec.

Shadow Priest and Innervate

It is somewhat likely that you will have a shadow priest in the raid, and if you do, it should be placed in your group. It is also somewhat likely that a druid can innervate you. The following plot shows the DPS you can expect with one innervate and a shadow priest 1000 DPS (you get 5% of this as mana)

At this point the fire mage will never go oom, and never use evocation. There is a single crossover point at around 180s. We can see more detail in the relative plot. 

Again all three configurations appear reasonable for reasonable fight durations. The take-home message from these plot should be that fire-mages also benefit from SP, as it means they don’t have to use evocation (and take the DPS hit that gives). But arcane mages benefit more. Another thing to note is that arcane-frost is only better than arcane fire due to cold snap. If you don’t use cold snap (and/or if you have the spellfire set) you should consider arcane fire.

Frost spec In TBC frost mages get water elemental, which is a huge DPS up combined with cold snap If you can keep it alive. I am also making the assumption that the WE has enough mana to cast continuously. I am not sure if this is true. (frost mages use same gear as fire)

On paper frost looks decent. However, I don’t expect you to be able to follow this curve exactly, since it assumes 2x icy veins and 2x water elemental, without the WE dying. (but if you can, all the more power too you!)

Why do some players say that arcane is only good after you get t5? Not everyone has realized how important intellect is to an arcane mage. If you gear your arcane mage with focus on +spelldamge (like a fire mage, or as you did all of classic), you get the following result instead:

You can see how fire now outperforms arcane in all (basically) fights.  The key to playing arcane is to select gear with a lot of int! My arcane mage has 497 int, while my fire mage has only 333. A lot of this is from gems. The arcane mage uses Yellow +8 int gems. (these will probably be dirt cheap, compared to red gems...) On the topic of t5: This is what it looks like if we simply add the 2 piece t5 bonus:

Why should you trust this?

You shouldn’t trust this blindly. I have verified my code against a spreadsheet i found online from 2008, and it agrees generally with osthyvls sims. 

You can download my source code here https://github.com/ClawDoctor/TBC_GUI_sim. You may run it with python3 or the executable (TBC_mage.exe included here https://www.dropbox.com/s/6gi620649sdfmdy/TBC_GUI_sim-main.zip?dl=1) on windows. (but you probably shouldn’t trust a random .exe you download from a shady site on the internet...). It looks like this,  

Where the talent configurations are in text files (see the file browser on the left) and the stats are in separate text files in the same folder. You select the mages you want to compare and click ‘run’.

You can also select and compare different buff states, by selecting different configurations:

There may be bugs i still haven’t found, and I will update this post if I discover some

[tristis-333]

Ranking Persona 5 Royal’s third tier Personas

So I’ve wanted to do this for a while. I’ve been making a lot more contemplative post lately and it’s time for something more fun because I have a lot of opinions on these new Personas. So starting off with the worse,

9. Agnes

Agnes is easily the worse design of the new Persona’s because the original form, Johana, beats her out in every single possible category. First off the name, I know she’s based on the historical documents but every time I hear the name all I can picture is Makoto riding in on someone’s grandma. The gold is nice, but the black is very dull in comparison to Johana’s silvers and blues. Why isn’t she navy blue? You know Makoto’s signature color? Then there’s what it does to the symbolism of Makoto’s development. Some people have interpreted Johana transforming to Anat as symbolic of Makoto learning to stand on her own two feet, Anat stands tall like Makoto vows to. So with it turning back into a bike does that mean Makoto isn’t standing on her own anymore? Agnes fails to surpass her’s original and nothing it brings to the table is interesting enough to make it stand on her own. She skids in at dead last.

8 Al Azif

Al Azif is marginally better than Agnes, but suffers again from not taking certain ideas far enough. The colors are much duller, yet again. And while I do enjoy the modern star ship design nothing about it really makes it stand out from anything you might see in Star Trek or any other sci-fi film. I think adding in more of the gothic elements from Necronomicon would have done a lot to amplify the design. Make it more golden to call back to the pyramid that served as Futaba’s palace, and add gargoyles and brighten the lights to neon green to make them pop more. Persona 5 is supposed to be stylish but Al Azif is little more than a shiny pebble.

7. Ella

Ella is kinda of an odd ball among the Personas because while I really like her design she just doesn’t feel like she fits with Sumire. I, and many other people, have complained that Sumire’s thief outfit doesn’t fit with her Persona. This is only made more obvious by the fact that her previous form, Vanadis, was such a better fit design wise. That being said Ella gets points back for just how cool her design is, with the thigh high boots, being made from what seems to be porcelain or china, and even tossing her bouquet back when she casts a spell. Neat design, but just an odd fit.

6 Celestine

I was going to put Celestine higher, but the more I thought about it there were just details in her design that bug me. First I would change the hair to black with red streaks as opposed to the red with blue we got, to draw back to Carmen’s original design. As well as add more frills and leopard prints. Also change the bunny ears on her hat to cat ears. The third tier persona’s should be an evolution on their original designs and Celestine just goes to far from her roots for my liking.

5. Gorokichi

Gorokichi isn’t higher on this list for one reason. The coat isn’t blue. Each of the phantom thieves have their signature color like they’re power rangers, and my baby nerd mind loves consistency with color pallets. I just want all the pink replaced with an icy blue. But other than that, I love him! He’s fierce, he’s loud, he’s ready to back hand slap you for having the audacity to approach him. He’s just one piece away from perfect.

4. William

Not much to say on William really. He’s just a solid evolution and modernizing of his original form. The more I look at him I just love the little details. The year of his hanging on the hood, the skull and crossbones on his back, and the touches of yellow to add color. Give me his jacket!

3. Raoul

Raoul is lower on this list for weird reasons. Atlus, why is the protagonist’s new persona DLC? I’ve been tolerant with a lot of the bullshit you’ve been pulling, but this is pushing it. But I still love the design. Again, give me his fricken jacket. If someone had told me Michael Jackson would come back to us a demon of rebellion I would have said… sounds about right.

2. Diego

I am thou, does thou lift bro!? Diego manages to build on Zorro in everyway I could want. He’s slick and stylish and I love the Velvet Room blues calling back to Morgana’s origins. Not much more to say, except more of this please.

1.Lucy

She’s beauty, she’s grace, she doesn’t have a face. I know I said the third tier persona’s should evolve from their originals and Lucy does deviate a bit from Milady. But her concept is so great I can’t help it. I’ve already made a whole post dedicated to how much I love this design so I’m just going to rehash what I said there.  Haru’s costume is kind of tricky because there is nothing about it that really implies a trickster, but I think that’s the point. Her persona is Milady de Winter who was a clever espionage agent in the Three Musketeers, and I think therein lies the clue to what Haru sees as a rebel. Haru is not an infiltrator but is rather a planter, in the sense she “plants” herself among the enemy hiding in plain sight. Her costume doesn’t look like a trickster because she doesn’t want anyone to realize she’s a trickster. And her new persona Lucy perfectly shows off this aspect of her. Lucy is designed like an undercover woman, with her trench coat, and head scarf. Adding that Lucy doesn’t have a face, it’s clear she doesn’t want anyone to recognize her as she does her spying. Lucy manages to build on her original form and shows us an underlying aspect of her user and is just fun all around. 10/10 All hail the faceless countess.

Hereward is not on this list, because I was so disinterested in anything to do with Akechi by the end of the game, I didn’t even bother unlocking him my first playthrough. And there isn’t much to say. He’s batman…get it? Because Robin hood was sorta kinda like superman so he turned into the edge lord version of that. But, as I’ve stated previously on this blog, Akechi’s not Batman. He will NEVER be Batman.

[unordinary-analysis]

Episode 170

Honorable mentions:

Blyke is pissed at this guy

I’m not sure if I can call the superhero posse the superhero posse anymore because Blyke is kind of doing his solo superhero thing now, but I mean he’s part of the posse, and nothing is really contradicting. Yeah I’ll keep calling them that. The nature of the group changed, but not the basics.

Superhero posse is Remi, Blyke, and Isen btw

At the end of my first paragraph, when I say, “-with the complications of a real world situation,” I am aware that the UnOrdinary universe is not real, lmao. The phrasing I used is to try to convey that the factors of things like actual performance ability in regards to power are the roots of this system. So rather than being presented with a society whose classifications exist just for the hell of it, like it seems with a lot of stories, it is clear in UnOrdinary that the hierarchy is prompted and necessary, which makes it harder to debate the morality of its nature when presented with issues like discrimination or abuse of authority. Just a quick note. Probably should have made that more clear, but I didn’t want to go too off topic lol. I do that too much already.

Tfw you didn’t think you would find much to write about and the all of a sudden you have pages of writing

No clue what to say about the end of the episode. I don’t have any predictions as to what Kuyo might want. His history with Rei could go either way because we still don’t know if he stayed a hierarchical abuser or if he eventually turned to Rei’s side. Until we know that, and maybe even then, I won’t say anything.

^^also just lazy this is long already and I have to write another of these

My eyes are numb to this sorry if the transitions are confusing

Low Tiers vs. High Tiers: Newside and Origin Edition:

So, and I’m aware this is a skillfully awful way to start this post, we’re all aware of how bad the tensions are between different tiers, especially in places like Wellston. But in this episode, and the few before it, there’s finally a chance to explore into this concept outside of the select group of teenagers that make up Wellston Private High School. And, yes, we’ve gotten a few examples outside of this when Remi spent time as a vigilante, and also when the superhero posse got into some trouble at Kovoro mall. I don’t know, Remi just brings out the injustice in people for some reason? Anyway, I’m bringing this up now because I don’t think I’ve really talked about this before even when the other examples were relevant. To be fair, I don’t think I was writing these for most examples and during the first superhero arc (Remi’s), I had just started and my posts were like maximum 300 words long. Anyway, I really wanted to take advantage of this opportunity now. It’s always really refreshing to see outside the small bubble we’re normally confined to as the usual focus of the story is on the hierarchy struggle in Wellston and everything to do with it. Though this Blyke arc is very much centered around his struggle with his power and his goal of advancing in the hierarchy, it also opens a window for us to see out, again, into that underlying concept similar to Wellston’s power struggle, but on a more extreme scale. Obviously, the villain of our story, John, is the main focus in the comic because he is the main character, but the villain(?) of the UnOrdinary universe is painted to be the struggle between low and high tiers. The hierachy’s paradoxical creation of social imbalance and social stability is the underlying focus behind uru-chan’s writing in this comic. This is a comic about class struggle with the complications of a real world situation (see honorable mentions above for clarification).

The social dynamic between the different tiers is magnified in the recent chapters’ events and location. We are already aware and comfortable with the concept of higher-tiers (not like high-tiers but higher) preying on low-tier districts to gain power quickly, so it’s a bit less noticeable, or standout, now, for me anyway. But in comparisons to the power struggle at Wellston currently (Joker situation), the situations in these worse off towns is still significantly worse. I’m just going to summarize what’s happening really fast, but hopefully you already know what’s happening because I’m bad at explaining. So basically: lower/mid-tiers or straight up mid-tiers (no known naturally higher-tiers have done this to our knowledge, but more on that later) pick a district known to be filled with low-tiers (always weaker than the offender) and attempt take over in hopes of gaining authority and power. Because no higher-tier has been seen attempting this, I want to say that the cause of this is the feeling deprivation of it in their normal life, where their ability grants them nothing special. Similar to how John reacted shortly after he gained his powers at first, they want to become the oppressor instead of the victims that they’ve always been. By going to lower-tier districts where around a 3.0 (or with aid, something higher), give or take is stronger than anyone else around, these people become “trigger-happy” for lack of a better word. They take advantage of finally being able to do something that they never have before and take it a little far. I do not think there are many motives other than this, especially because in this episode when Blyke was approaching the Newside woman, she thought, “Does he plan on toying with us, just like Lance did?” Take note of the word toying. From her word choices in her conversation with Blyke, I’ve pieced together that all Lance really did was mess things up around Newside, never really doing anything focused or thought through. He was thoughtless and impulsive. Destroyed their town and terrorized its people only because he could. I’ve also hinted at a little bit the use of ability enhancers. From Remi’s superhero arc, we know that some of these lower-tiers are injecting themselves with this enhancement drug to shoot up in strength to be able to attempt anything like this. This means that even if you are the lowest of the low, you have a chance at tasting power, which obviously stretches the number of people pulling something like this. I’m not too concerned about this today, however, because it’s kind of separate from the topic of hierarchical conflict, or at least enough for me to separate it from this post.

This entire concept of low-tier invasion and takeover is an example, probably the most telling one, of the dangers that come from such a polarizing system as the UnOrdinary hierarchy.

Everything I’ve said really seems to lead to the fact that dealing with both injustice and discrimination around ability and people trying to change who they were born to be is unavoidable in a world like UnOrdinary. Obviously, this ranking system was put into place for a reason as exemplified by Rei’s reign at Wellston. But as the world reaches new ages and innovative thinking, the confines of the hierarchical ladder aren’t as stable and reliable as they used to be. I’m sure in the past, the hierarchy has gone along almost without a hitch, but as violence grows due to the harsh pedestal the hierarchy unintentionally puts high-tiers on, and radical ideals are being placed into the heads of anyone who will listen (UnOrdinary the book), the structure of the hierarchy is becoming more fluid, which is confusingly ironic. It’s like the historical Age of Enlightenment reborn. People as a whole are growing more and more restless.

So, the big question is whether or not the hierarchy is still the best design for UnOrdinary’s society. Because while it has created a cushion for accidental and catastrophic incompetence in a more general, everyday context, it has evolved into less normalized, yes, but harsher clashes between the different ability levels. I will say that I, personally, support the idea of the hierarchy because order, when done right, will always defeat brute force. What I’d like to say is that, with proper involvement with the authorities, I think the hierarchical system would run smoothly. And yet they are caught in this circle of trying to stop revolutionary thinking among its civilians. This is why the authorities are trying to put an end to the superhero movement, not because the heroes are helping to clean up the streets, but because in doing so, the superheroes are disrupting the natural hierarchy. See the irony? The authorities aren’t doing what they need to do to stop the hierarchical uprising because they’re busy trying to stop people from rising up against the hierarchy, which somehow contradict. Now, all of this needs a beginning. This cycle obviously had to start somewhere or else the entire history of the hierarchy wouldn’t be so good and desired. The superhero movement is this start for this cycle and they all stem from the same thing: the revolutionary ideas that came from revolutionary thinkers: the book UnOrdinary. Obviously, before this there were some issues with the hierarchical system (allowing John to abuse his power as king), but the issue is more extreme and relevant as I explained in the second paragraph (the thick one), because of the lower-tiers feeling unsatisfied and acting out on other low-tiers because of that. But I really want to let myself believe that UnOrdinary set off a chain reaction in the UnOrdinary universe leading to the class struggles in the extreme state they are currently in. And as the comic is obviously called UnOrdinary, I like to think that there is a reason for that title rather than something so personal and niche as a sentiment of John’s.

[razieltwelve]

Directive (Final Rose)

Elsa backed away slowly. Averia had overused Saviour, so she was supposed to be catatonic for at least a few more days. She should have been in bed. Instead, she was standing by the window staring up at the stars.

"Averia?"

Averia turned and smiled. It wasn't her smile. "Not exactly."

Ice began to creep along the walls, floor, and ceiling. "Who are you?"

"I think you know." Not-Averia made a show of sitting on the windowsill, her lips curved into a smile that reminded Elsa far more of Diana than Averia.

It took a moment for the pieces to fit together in Elsa's mind. "Saviour?"

Saviour grinned. "Yep." She tilted her head to one side. Elsa was struck by how inhuman the movement looked. There was absolutely zero wasted motion, not a single iota of unnecessary movement. It was like watching a statue come to life. "Averia is… a little occupied right now, so I thought I'd take our body out for a bit of a spin. It wouldn't be good to let it atrophy or anything."

"But… she'll be back, right?"

"Oh, yes." Saviour smiled. "She'll be back in exactly fifty-three hours, twenty-one minutes, and twenty seconds. To be honest, our body would be fine just staying still for that long, but I wanted to have a chat with you."

"With me?" Elsa was still debating calling for the others. Saviour didn't seem hostile, but if the Semblance did turn aggressive, it might be better if the others weren't here. She wasn't stupid enough to think they'd have a chance even if she, Anna, and Claire all fought together.

"Please," Saviour said gently. "Don't be afraid. You are safer here than anywhere else on the planet." Her lips twitched. "Which is actually one of the things I want to talk to you about. You see, Averia really hasn't explained how a lot of this works to you, has she?" Elsa shook her head. "And it makes you worry. Of course, Averia being kind of an oblivious idiot, hasn't noticed that yet, but when she does, she'll feel awful, so I thought I'd just save you both some heartache."

"Is that so?" Elsa found herself relaxing ever so slightly. Despite the inhuman way Saviour moved, there was still enough of Averia's mannerisms in her to put Elsa at ease. "What do you want to talk about?"

"I think the best place to start is by explaining the Directive System. It's kind of what makes Saviour operate the way that it does." Saviour held up one hand. A glass formed, and although it was empty at first, it soon filled with water. "Here," Saviour said. "You look a bit thirsty."

"You just made water." Elsa's eyes narrowed. "I haven't seen Averia do that before."

"She totally could if she wanted to. It's just she only ever bring Saviour out to fight and just making water is such a wasteful way to use Saviour's powers. Technically speaking, Saviour has the ability to transmute matter directly from Aura, so making a glass and some water is not very hard at all."

"Fraise can do that."

"Yep. She got that particular shard of Saviour. Unfortunately, she didn't get the mental filters that go with it, so she's had some… difficulties. Averia was quite upset when she realised that." Saviour floated the glass over to Elsa. The queen raised one eyebrow. "How am I doing that? It's a simple application of force and vector control. Remove gravity's effect on the cup and apply a small velocity vector to it. Easy. It's kind of like how I can shoot objects at relativistic speeds in combat only nobody is getting killed."

"I see." Elsa took a sip out of the cup. "This tastes like fresh spring water."

"Pure water doesn't really taste nice. It's the trace impurities that actually give it a sort of pleasant flavour. That particular batch is based on the stream we stopped at during one of the hikes we took on our honeymoon."

"…"

"Yes, Saviour keeps track of everything - everything - it encounters." Saviour chuckled. "But back to the Directive System. In simple terms, Saviour is driven by goals. More often than not, these are related to combat. For obvious reasons, though, you need a way to settle conflicts between competing goals. The key to that is the Directive System, which sets the rules by which Saviour seeks to achieve its objectives. The directives are basically grouped into tiers. Primary Directives are those that will be pursued, provided they don't entail the death of the person with Saviour. Secondary Directives have lower priority, and they will typically only be pursued if they do not conflict with any of the Primary Directives. Tertiary Directives are those below Secondary Directives. There are more tiers, but you should get the idea."

"Can you give me an example of a Primary Directive?" Elsa asked.

"Sure. Primary Directive #11 states that any powerful Grimm are to be eliminated immediately. In the event that such Grimm are capable of killing or significantly injuring Averia, the recommended course of action is to retreat until reinforcements can be secured. This is contingent on not conflicting with any higher directives." Saviour chuckled. "For obvious reasons, that one doesn't come up very much."

Elsa sighed. "I can't remember the last time Averia fought a Grimm and actually took damage once Saviour was active." She paused. "Higher directives? I assume that means higher Primary Directives, but is there anything higher than those?"

"Very good. I was hoping you'd notice it." Saviour smiled. "Zeroth Directives are those so important that they override all over directives. What makes them especially unique is that they are basically axiomatic to how Saviour views the world and operates. They are, in essence, the things that Averia considers so important that Saviour is under orders to obey them even if it means her death."

Elsa's eyes widened. "What?"

"Zeroth Directives are to be obeyed even if it means her own death," Saviour repeated. "That is how important they are. Thankfully, there's not that many."

Elsa was almost afraid to ask. "What is the oldest Zeroth Directive Averia has?"

"You could probably have guessed it. It was the very first order that Averia ever gave me after she awakened her Semblance. Zeroth Directive #1 states that Diana must be protected. Any and all means are authorised and there are no restrictions, limitations, or regulatory mechanisms in place. In the event that Diana goes berserk in her Ragnarok state, lethal force is not authorised even if it means sustaining serious injury or even death."

Elsa gaped. "Are you serious?"

"Averia would rather be dead than seriously injure or kill her sister. It's a valid concern too since Saviour is probably the only thing that can actually kill Ragnarok once it's reached the level Diana is at."

"That's… exactly what Averia would do." Elsa sighed. "What about the newest Zeroth Directive."

"Hmmm… the newest one is actually one that's been amended fairly recently." Saviour smiled. "Protect Elsa and the children. Again, no restriction, limitations, or regulatory mechanisms in place. The amendment was because Sigrid was born, so she's mentioned specifically in the directive. Basically, if the entire world declared war and tried to kill you and the kids, my response would be to exterminate the entire world."

"That is…" Elsa tried to find the word. It was immensely comforting, yet vaguely horrifying. Saviour was arguably the most powerful Semblance in the entire world. It could wipe out entire civilisations with ease, and Averia had authorised it to do whatever it felt was necessary if she or the children were threatened. "Interesting."

"Not all the directives are that serious. She's actually got a Tertiary Directive in place that ranks her entire extended family's pets in order of how she should try to save them if they're all in danger and she has to choose." Saviour's lips twitched. "The ranking system is actually extremely complicated since there are some amusing cases. For instance, Fury is Taren's chocobo, so he should be right at the top of the list. However, he's also huge and more than capable of taking care of himself, so someone like Professor Radical might go higher than him because he's a hamster and basically cannon-fodder in a fight."

"Any other amusing ones?"

"If it helps, keeping you sexually satisfied is actually a Primary Directive."

"… are you serious?"

"Yep."

"I'm not sure whether to be pleased or horrified that she ranks that up there with saving the world."

"Technically, it's not quite as high as saving the world since she can't keep you satisfied if the world blows up, but it's pretty close."

"…"

"Anyway, that's enough for now. I might be able to come back in a few hours, but there's some stuff going on that I need to help Averia with." Saviour sighed. "There's so much work I have to do to make sure our brain doesn't melt due to information overload."

X     X     X

Author's Notes

Elsa is getting a crash course in how Saviour works… from Saviour. Averia may or may not want to strangle her Semblance when she wakes up.