#love all the volunteers doing their best to fix the error

[messrsbyler]

AO3 IS STILL DOWN 2023 SUCKS

[kelpiemomma]

That's honestly just how male leads tend to go. It's a shounen(?) thing. Some good ones with male leads are Dungeon Nursery, My Daughter is thr Final Boss (less isekai, more regression), Latna Saga (up until s3 :B), and I Have to be a Great Villain (i think the official title is now 'I Want to be the Big Baddie'???)

I particularly enjoyed Latna Saga: Survival of a Sword King and I Have to be a Great Villain. Latna Saga up until s3, due to unnecessary romances, but the main character is yoinked with several thousand other characters and deposited into a 'gaming' space. He ended up with an error that didn't allow him to move behind level five and spent 20 years surviving on his own, fighting demon dogs every day, until the person who first pulled him realized he hadn't moved past the first stage. They attempted to destroy his 'box' but set him free instead. He's insanely OP, can't act for shit, and is a massive himbo but there is a severe amount of deep seated trauma in his mind. He's also afraid of ghosts. I thoroughly enjoyed it until there were sudden and unnecessary romances brought up in s3.

I Have to be a Great Villain is fun (if you look past problematic instances) bc the main character is isekai'd, but he essentially volunteered for it. He accidentally caused the death of himself & his friends on a bus ride, and in order to turn back time and prevent the accident from happening he is assigned as the villain in different stories (he's literally playing the villain role) in several different novels, and he gets points depending on how well he did. He's trying to save up enough points for time reversal. (It's also a BL)

For girl isekai, The Lady and The Beast is again less isekai and more reincarnation. It's interesting. My biggest issue with most isekai is the complete lack of regard paid to how completely unsettling it would be to wake up in a stranger's body. Kill yhe Villainess is fantastic in that after a series of mishaps, the main character actually begins to have a breakdown after she sees "herself" in the mirror and can't remember what she actually looked like.

I've also enjoyed The Perks of Being a Villainess (out MC is creating capitalism, market tactics, and tax evasion in her new world. Her love interest is incredibly handsome and she avoids him because she used to be a major pushover in her past life. He's so intrigued by her business decisions (and the fact his mountain lion pet loves her (the cougar is named Cookie)) that he tries to impress her and doesn't understand why his looks alone aren't enough to do so. His servant mocks him for it, and I just love them so much. They're all stupid in the best way.

An actual comic panel:

The Villainess Flips the Scrip is also very good! The main character tries to bring her nephew up right to make up for his terrible fate in the book she read, except her nephew is also acting mighty odd and not how he should. There's a couple points where you may need to turn your brain off, as with any isekai, but I love Judith firmly.

Becoming the Dark Hero's Daughter is good! The main character doesn't remember she's been isekai'd until the day she's supposed to die, when she manages to get herself adopted by the original novel world's main character. She intrigues him enough that he takes her in and she manages to charm him, his son, and his sister. Her entire family absolutely adores her and the fact she's not related to them by blood doesn't matter at all, she is their baby and they will protect the baby.

There's also The Villainess is a Marionette (isekai'd protag tries to fix the world but her obsessice yandere brother throws it into her face until she decides to go balls to the walls in revenge), I'll Save This Damned Family (protag is isekai'd into the daughter of a family doomed to be executed for treason in a few years time, shes determined to prevent that fate), I Raised a Black Dragon (protag is isekai'd into the body of a villainess, attempts to live a quiet life so she doesn't die, ends up with a dragon egg AND gets her original body back!), The Reason why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion (now being sold in Barnes and Noble! A solid isekai.) and The Villainess's Maker (I really only recommend the first half- the art is better and the story is solid. After they go to the mountains, the original antagonists suddenly become simps for the protagonist and I hated the ending because it made no sense to me.)

If you wanna give virtual reality or dungeon hunting a try, I recommend the Gourmet Gamer (Rice is precious) and I Stole the Number One Ranker's Soul- just look at these panels

Isekai with male protags: "I was a loser on earth but now I'm super fucking strong and gettin mad bitches"

Isekai with female protags:

Reincarnated princess uses earth knowledge to make magitech a thing and romances sad girl

Girl romantically pursues her video game waifu

Girl is tasked to teach actual fucking gods to be more empathetic to humans

Woman reincarnated as the daughter of a magic item crafter uses earth knowledge to advance her trade

"Straight" girl is sucked into a world with zero men and lesbians everywhere and finds out she's sapphic (there's like actual plot but the gay is what matters.... to me)

A ghibli film. Need I say more

Woman reincarnated in video game as doomed villainess desperately tries to change her story

Girl reincarnated as a tiny baby spider kills monsters to level up

Like the male protag one but the lame guy's mom got isekaid with him and she's the op one.

Two normal girls fight urban legends in terrifying danger dimension

[cyoc49]

A Good Man is Easy to Make

I’ve always been the optimistic type. I believe that even society’s worst troublemakers have the potential for goodness buried somewhere within them. It’s a matter of understanding where someone has come from, and where they need to get to for their betterment.

…And of course if I’m able to help them along that path, I always do!

Last week I was walking home after work. As I passed by Miss Minnie’s Pie Shop, a beloved local bakery, I noticed some shadowy figures down the alley to the side. They didn’t notice me as I approached them, but as I got closer I could tell there was 3 men, all roughly college age. Eventually I could see what they were doing: vandalizing the building with obscene graffiti.

Well this was simply shameful! And a prime example of the vagrancy that’s so rampant in our world today. I saw a problem, and by god was I going to fix it.

I cleared my throat, letting the delinquents know I was there. They stopped spraying for long enough to turn and look at me, with confusion followed by pity for the idiot who thought he could win a 1 on 3 fight. Of course, I had no intentions of physically stopping them. Instead I just asked them one simple question:

“Is this really the best you can be?”

In an instant countenance on their faces changed from anger to shock. I knew a pit of worry was now forming in their stomachs, as if their bodies felt something was deeply wrong. Humans have a second nature for detecting threats, but rather than an immediate threat, these boys were feeling a historical threat: a realization of every single poor path they had previously been led down, every wrong decision they had made that had led them to the point where they were vandalizing an old woman’s bakery. And as soon as their bodies realized what was wrong, they lurched to correct the errors. I saw them writhe and contort; they were undergoing the overwhelming but not painful experience of their pasts changing, course correcting every wrong decision into a right one, leading them down the one perfect path that would make them the best possible versions of themselves.

By the time they finished, the three men who stood before me were unrecognizable compared to the wastes they had been before. They now appeared to be far more agreeable fellows.

First was Charlie, the former ringleader of the group. He had grown up in a religious household, with parents who went to church every Sunday. But at the point at the point in time where he had previously refused to go to church and eventually joined a group of rebels in his neighborhood, Charlie instead eagerly embraced the weekly tradition. He loved his Church’s local community and all the good people he met just as much as he loved the sermons & scriptures. He took every opportunity to give back to those in need through service groups & events. Charlie believed in the inherent goodness of people, and used his church community as a personal touchstone to the community at large.

Outside of church, he was one of the most sociable and outgoing people on his college campus. He made a point to know as many people as he could on a first name basis, and people left conversations with Charlie feeling a lot better about themselves. He continued to stay active through several extracurriculars: campus ministry, track & field, choir, and Beta Rho Omega, a fraternity for the most upstanding men on campus. He was the guy everyone got along with… as long as you didn’t mind that he was also the kind of guy who brought his guitar along to every event and retreat.

Charlie was the perfect friend, always encouraging and friendly, though he cared especially for his two best friends. The three were essentially joined at the hip, always volunteering together and supporting each other’s events.

Next was Eddie, now known as Eckworth. Whereas Eddie had always had a taste for music with vulgar lyrics, at a young age Eckworth had discovered a love of reading, which ignited a curiosity for knowledge in him ever since. He had always been the brightest student in his classes, which had (along with his participation in crew) taken him to Princeton on a full ride scholarship. He was studying neurology and one day hoped to go to medical school to become a brain surgeon; his 4.0 and multiple medical internships certainly helped with that. He shared his gift of knowledge with other students when they needed it, helpful but not cocky, and was effectively a tutor for his brothers in Beta Rho Omega.

Raised in Cape Cod, Eckworth was unwaveringly polite and well-mannered, with an old money charm about him. He may be the only college student with a mahogany bookcase in his dorm room, filled to the brim with classic literature, physics texts, science periodicals, and all sorts of other intellectually stimulating reads. He took care to look & dress sharp every time he left the house, allowing his body be another outlet for the intelligence and class he felt inside. There’s no doubt Eckworth was one of the finest young men you’d ever meet.

And finally Thompson, the definition of “Mr. All American”. He had grown up in a small town in Vermont, and in a past life had even run away from that town in favor of living on the streets with a shady group. But Thompson would never do that. He always helped his ma & pa on their orchard growing up, while also trying hard in his local high school and serving as captain of his football team. By the time Thompson moved to the big city for college, he was a hometown hero, doubly so when he was named MVP of Princeton’s football team in his junior year. Outside of this he studied business management and agricultural science, hoping to take the family orchard to new heights one day, and maybe even eventually start a loving family of his own.

He had a small town charm laced with a kind humility, the kind of man who just wanted to make his ma proud. He was a natural charmer to women (and a few fellas too), and always offered a helping hand to his fraternity brothers, especially his two best buds. When he wasn’t at the gym keeping himself in peak physical shape, he was out immersing himself in nature. Whether it was a hike through the forest or a trip to the oceanside, Thompson loved to feel as one with the earth. One time he had even convinced the boys to come out camping with him. For as much as he kept his appearance clean, he had a strong rugged spirit.

Together the trio brought out the best in each other: Charlie offering charisma and leadership, Eckworth providing a voice of reason, and Thompson boosting their confidence and work ethic. They embodied the refined charm of New England, and were model gentlemen. A complete 180 from- well that doesn’t matter now. Let’s let bygones be bygones and pretend those old fellows never existed at all. I like these ones much better, don’t you agree?

As I faced the new upstanding men, they once again stared at me , though this time with much more warmth in their gazes. They helped Miss Minnie out around her shop every Thursday, keeping the premises tidy and organized. They were taking out the garbage when I had run into them.

Charlie offered a pleasant greeting in my direction “Hello there sir! Hope your day is going well.”

“Indeed” Eckworth chimed in with his hands clasped behind his back, “it’s such a pleasant day today.”

I concurred, “complete agreement, good sirs. I hope Miss Minnie is treating you well.”

“Oh, it’s always a pleasure working for her.” Thompson offered with a hearty laugh. “She always offers us goods at the end of the day. She’s really as sweet as apple pie!”

I smiled “She sure is”

I wished them a great day, and headed out on my way after receiving a near-simultaneous chorus of “you too, sir!” from them. I walked away from the scene happy that the world was now a slightly better place. As I said, everyone has the potential for greatness in them, and it is an honor of mine to help them achieve that greatness. I silently hoped another troublesome situation would arise on my way home, so I could continue to keep my community upstanding. After all, a good man may be hard to find, but he sure is easy to make.

[randomshyperson]

Hello, beautiful writer!!! Can I request some Christmassy fluff?! It is for Zooey Kern.

Zooey and Y/n do volunteer work in a hospital (or maybe a retirement home? You decide). At Christmas time they get to meet and end up having a crush on each other 🥺 extra points if the patients tease them about it haha

A/N: My first time writing for Zooey with a slight delay of two months. Welcome to my blog. Hope you liked it.

Zooey Kern x Reader - Love Cookies

Warnings: None, all fluff | Words: 961

Summary: Zooey and Y/n do volunteer work in a hospital (or maybe a retirement home? You decide). At Christmas time they get to meet and end up having a crush on each other. | Requested.

All Works Masterlist || Christmas Specials

--//--

Your supervisor messing up your schedule turned out to be a very good thing when you met the team that would be staying with you. Your shift was supposed to be in the afternoon, at the municipal orphanage, as in previous years, but one type error before, and you ended up at the nursing home on 22nd Avenue, suburban New Jersey.

It wasn't that you didn't like the elderly, it was just that the children had a special place in your heart, and you had even thought of some gifts.

Now, you were going to a different place, but at least you were helping people.

And well, all your previous annoyance turned into a mixture of embarrassment and shyness when you were introduced to the rest of the team.

"This is Zooey, you two will be taking care of ward twelve together." Monica, the head of the place, introduced the blonde woman in front of you with a nod.

"Nice to meet you." She spoke with a polite smile. You were doing your best not to trip over your own words and respond to the greeting.

"Pleasure, I'm Y/N." You spoke extending your hand to her. She continued to smile, and you think you were blushing.

Monica cleared her throat, a funny look at you both, but didn't comment on anything. She went back to reciting the team's duties, and before long everyone got to work.

In area twelve, there were some elderly people with memory problems, and you were trying to get used to the number of times you had to introduce yourself to the same people.

Everything went perfectly well in the first week. You managed to be professional, treating Zooey with kindness and cordiality, and taking care of your duties.

And then, around the second week, you went to set up the tree together.

"That doesn't seem right." You muttered with a frown, checking the instructions on the lightbox - which refused to turn on - again.

A giggle from your side caught your attention, and you raised your eyes to the blonde beside you. "You forgot the most important part, Y/N."

"Which one?"

"The power."

You raised an eyebrow, but Zooey just gave you a little smile and walked over to the small plastic tree, where the electrical extension cord was unplugged.

As soon as she had plugged the item in, she looked up at you again, with a winning expression, and you felt your face flush. Shit, she is so pretty.

"See, problem solved." She teased as she moved around to stay in front of you with an innocent smile.

You grinned. "Alright, that was just a little misdirection. I took care of the lights, so you set up the rest.”

"Technically, I took care of the lights." She tries and you raise your eyebrow, making her laugh. "Alright, boss. I'll finish fixing the decorations." She assured, and you smiled in thanks. But then she made a thoughtful face, and added, "If, you have coffee with me."

A surprised chuckle slipped your lips. But Zooey continued to stare at you, waiting for an answer. "Oh, you're serious."

She smiled, finding it amusing in your clumsiness. You cleared your throat, feeling your face warm as you replied, "I'd love to."

"I'd better set up those decorations then." She retorted with a playful tone, and you couldn't hold back the stupid grin for the rest of the day, even after your shift was over.

Before you left, however, you had one last patient needing assistance, Mrs. Potter in room 104, who was begging for some Christmas cookies.

You were walking back to her room with a generous amount when you bumped into Zooey walking out the door.

"Hey, I just brought these for her" She commented making you raise your eyebrow in confusion.

"But she asked me to pick them up."

Zooey giggled and turned to the lady inside the room, who was pretending not to be listening to the conversation at all.

"Mrs.Potter, it was a courtesy to bring the cookies. It's not fair to try to trick us into getting more of them." The blonde in front of your reprimanded the elderly woman with a falsely serious tone.

Begrudgingly, the woman in the room sighed and crossed her arms.

"Forgive me, would you sweet pea?" She asked. "You and your girlfriend are the nicest girls in this place, and the cookies always run out so fast."

You felt your face burn, but you gave a lopsided chuckle. "She's not my girlfriend."

To make matters worse for you, Zooey just raised an eyebrow at you, and whispered, "Not yet."

You giggled shyly, feeling your stomach fill with butterflies. The old woman inside the room seemed to find it adorable, or at least that's how it sounded when she let out a nostalgic exclamation and commented: "Young love, so very sweet. Like my cookies. Can I have them now?"

It was Zooey's turn to laugh, shaking her head softly in disbelief. "You have enough of them, Mrs.Potter. See you tomorrow."

And she was closing the door after a nod. You stood half-awkwardly in the hallway, hugging the cookie jar against your chest.

Zooey looked at you with interest. "So, how about, if you're free now, you and I can take these wonderful cookies with some coffee?"

"I think that's a fantastic idea."

The blonde in front of you smiled and led the way. Before you even realized it, you two had started a conversation. And the subject didn't end even hours later when the coffees were forgotten, and the package of cookies was empty.

Zooey went back to your place, and you secretly wish that she would spend much more time thereafter Christmas is over.

[ulv-bie]

Alrighty (headcanons below)

+ firstly note: I headcanon them as silly roommates who sit 4 feet apart or less

Starting with the basics, SCC.

Sweet:

- Real/Full Name : Bitmap Byte Rorator

- He/They

- 16

- 4’2

- Has an older brother named Modem, hasn’t seen him or their parents in years

Sweet is a hide and seek champion. They used to hide in small places as a kid just for the fun of it.

He’s friends with the Addisons. He and his brother used to volunteer in their shops during school breaks

Sweet likes to take walks and cook, but they also enjoy making things. Little gadgets, full on machines, anything that can assist their day to day life.

As a kid, his house wasn’t fully functional. The lights barely worked and there were loose wires everywhere. He and the Blue Addison worked together to fix it one day, and that’s how they discovered his interest with electronics.

They met Cap’n one day in the trash dump. Cap had tripped over some boxes that he didn’t notice, and Sweet helped him up. They immediately became best friends, and Sweet helped them navigate the city.

The two met K_K after he fell through their roof. They were hiding from Queen and the Swatchlings, so Sweet and Cap’n let them stay.

Sweet’s favorite food is cookies. His favorite colors are orange and purple

Born and raised in Cyber City

Cap’n:

- Real/Full Name: Captain Ykate-Bridge

- He/They/It

- 15

- 4’10

- He doesn’t have ‘parents’, but the people who raised them are named Kat and Chell-See.

Cap’n isn’t good at typical games. Most board games, card games, etc. He always manages to get unlucky, and has never won a game against Sweet or K_K. They are good at logic puzzles, however. They’re great with numbers and riddles. Trivia games, sudoku, scrabble, and more. K_K and Sweet dread the days Cap’n gets to pick what game they play.

They aren’t that social with the citizens of Cyber City. It’s less a fear of socialization than it is ‘what if they tell my parents I’m here?’. It would probably be friends with Ambyu-Lance if they tried to hold a conversation.

Cap’n likes to write. Sometimes he’ll spend all day writing short stories and poetry, and sometimes they’ll even share them with Sweet. Other than that, they enjoy fixing things. He knows how to sew and use tools properly, which is useful for a clumsy trio.

With two scientist ‘parents’, he was often left alone. Out of boredom, Cap decided to learn how to fix various things around the house (door hinges, floorboards, etc.) through trial and error. It had a natural talent when dealing with wires, thankfully.

[Edit: forgot to add this in before!] Cap, new to the city, was looking around for a place to stay. With blurred eyes he saw someone. Whoever this was, they were intent on meeting them. It tripped over boxes that it couldn’t see, but still managed to make a friend.

K_K saved Cap’n from losing Go-Fish against Sweet. It was a small thing, but Cap is extremely thankful. (Don’t tell the others, but sometimes cap gets a bit jealous of k_k.)

Cap doesn’t have a favorite food, but he has a favorite color. (It’s blue. They’ll write an essay on why, they’ll even bring up old history about the color just to convince you it’s the best.)

Born and raised in Techno Town, moved to Cyber City at age 14

K_K:

- Real/Full Name: Cakes Pop-Swatch

- They/He

- 16

- 6’0

- Made by Queen, but raised by Swatch and the Swatchlings.

K_K is great at card games specifically. They’re decent at board games, but an absolute legend with cards. They end up with the best hand, the best luck, and they always have the best strategy. He’s no longer allowed to play War.

K_K gets along very well with Tasques. Sweet and Cap’n are still trying to figure out how and why.

As their name suggests, yes, they like baking. Cookies, cake, bagels, and sometimes even pie. They also bake jello. You’re not supposed to put it in the oven, but they do. Other than that, they love making short tunes.

Among the many skills the Swatchlings taught him, cooking had to be the most useful. Mostly since no one really needs to know how to make a Jenga tower out of shoes..

One night, K_K gathered up all of their courage. They hopped out of a window and ran as far as they could. They were determined not to let the following Swatchlings catch up. K_K hid on a bridge type thing a bit above ground, but slipped and ended up gaining two best friends.

K_K likes any baked food, but they also enjoy food that Cap n Sweet make. It doesn’t have to be good, but they’ll eat it anyway. His favorite colors are red, yellow, and blue.

Born and raised in Queen’s Mansion, Cyber City.

Various Headcanons:

Cap’s hat and bandana were both gifts from Sweet. In return, Cap’n have him a hat as well. Now they match.

K_K is the one who made the basic design for Cap’n’s glasses, but Sweet is the one who made it (with the help of the Addisons)

They live in Sweet’s house, their shop is a separate building. That being said, the house has very small door frames. Poor K_K.

K_K has a slight British accent, but it changed which specific part it’s from constantly.

Cap’n has a heavy country accent. When he was introducing himself to Sweet, they said the simple “My name is Cap’n.” Sweet, confused, went “..Captain?” (It actually is Captain, but they’ve never been around anyone who pronounced it fully.)

There’s.. a lot of secret crushing going on between these guys. Cap’n is the most obvious. Sweet is the most oblivious. K_K is the complete opposite of both.

Handwriting and Drawing analysis section:

Sweet’s handwriting is very curled/loopy and ‘sweet’. It copies a few letters from cursive handwriting, and the ‘i’s are inconsistent. Sweet doesn’t write a lot, nor do they try to. They’re more of a ‘think, then do’ than ‘think, plan out, then do’ guy.

He does not know how to draw. It’s all stick figures. A single square box with a line.

Cap’n copies a lot of letters from K_K and Sweet. They like the curled letters from Sweet, he thinks it makes him sound fancy. The bold letters are taken from K_K because he wants to stand out a bit. It also writes letters close together and just almost curls their ‘g’s. (Also note: Cap writes large to make people think he writes a lot.)

He can only draw headshots. He’s tried bodies, but they always look wonky. He always draws themself with a smug smile.

K_K has very bold and ‘silly’ handwriting. Bold, bouncy letters, circle ‘lollipop’ ‘i’s, smiles in the loops and circles, etc. K_K writes a lot, they just have a lot to say! And they want people to read it, so he spaces the letters out a bit.

K_K is very expressive with his way of drawing. Adding little emotes to their sentences and inside their letters is a habit of theirs. He draws himself with eyelashes (..which he does not have.).

[whoslaurapalmer]

okay so like. i feel like i should come to terms with my ‘4 seasons of the daily punctilio as the office’ because while i came up with GREAT episode descriptions, and also spent like two months of my life dissecting sitcom structure (which was, admittedly, a lot of fun), it would take the Longest to write and the Longest to post, which is terrible, not ideal at all, so 

the highlights, which might make it into my current vague incarnation of ‘modern AU where vfd is a book club in some way’ -- 

-eleanora poe is the managing editor of the punctilio, and she won possession of the paper in a card game from the previous owner (who was vfd-adjacent)  -moxie is city desk editor, lemony is copyeditor, and then jacques does fashion and ramona does finances -they work the night shift, 4pm-12am  -geraldine is hired in the third episode as the theater critic to great distress of the entire staff 

it’s honestly easier to just, post how i wrote out the episode descriptions to show the vague plot i had mapped out, especially because i’m very proud of them regardless -- 

i hadn’t figured out a and b plots for all of them, so i left the ones i had written down -- 

s1, e1 – the punctilio – eleanora wants to take the punctilio in a new direction.

-a plot – the staff gets used to working with a documentary crew as eleanora tries to push the punctilio in a more honest direction.

s1, e2 – the article – the staff works overtime in an attempt to get their articles done.

-a plot – demeaned by the staff’s antics, eleanora has them work overtime to finish articles.

s1, e3 – the new kid – geraldine julienne is hired as the new theater critic.

-a plot – geraldine wants to prove herself, so she decides to do all her work herself.

s1, e4 – the book club – geraldine finds out the other staff members have a book club and tries to get in.

-a plot – geraldine wants to fit in, so she tries to join the book club.

s1, e5 – the ribbon – lemony and moxie try to find a replacement typewriter ribbon.

-a plot – lemony wants to fix his friendship with moxie, so he asks her to help him get new ribbons.

s1, e6 – the finances – ramona uncovers a filing error.

s1, e7 – the straight man – the staff tries to make jacques laugh.

-a plot – concerned at jacques’s steady impassiveness, the staff tries to make him laugh.

-b plot – lemony and the rewrite crew deal with geraldine’s articles?

s1, e8 – the actress – lemony’s girlfriend visits the punctilio offices and creates a stir.

s2, e1 – the theater night – the staff spends an evening at the theater.

-a plot – because the staff doesn’t understand his relationship with beatrice, lemony invites them to the theater.

-b plot – to prove her position, geraldine tries to get esme’s attention at the theater.

s2, e2 – the banker – the staff encounters eleanora’s brother, who comes to audit the office.

-a plot – the staff, hostile to anyone disrupting the paper, does not take well to arthur poe.

-b plot – ramona fields calls from her mother about replanning the garden.

s2, e3 – the sunglasses – eleanora deals with a theft.

s2, e4 – the pigeon – geraldine inadvertently scares the pigeons.

-a plot – attempting to assert her position and knowledge, geraldine accidentally scares lemony’s pigeons off the fire escape.

s2, e5 – the 3rd annual esme squalor fan club dinner party and salad bar – geraldine tries to bring the staff together.

-a plot – geraldine wants to show she’s sophisticated, and involves the staff in the planning of the dinner.

-b plot – lemony wants revenge on geraldine for the pigeons, and sabotages the dinner.

s2, e6 – the inheritance – ramona returns to winnipeg after her mother has an accident.

-a plot – lemony gets updates from winnipeg as ramona helps her mother.

s2, e7 – the kansas city shuffle – eleanora considers some staffing changes.

-a plot – lemony and eleanora engage in mind games as eleanora shuffles the staff around in ramona’s absence and lemony tries to keep his job.

s2, e8 – the intern – the punctilio picks up a new intern.

-a plot – because he misses ramona, and other personal reasons, lemony shuns the new intern. (bertrand. the intern is bertrand.)

s2, e9 – the replacement – eleanora cements her staffing changes.

s2, e10 – the reunion – ramona returns to the punctilio.

-a plot – not wanting to desert her post and colleagues, ramona returns to the punctilio and has to deal with the changes eleanora made.

s2, e11 – the rival – moxie, geraldine, and eleanora meet someone from jacques, lemony, and ramona’s childhood.

-a plot – desperate not to be upstaged or embarrassed by the appearance of olaf, lemony, jacques, and ramona decide to upstage him?

-b plot – eleanora and moxie, feeling left out, try to figure out what olaf’s deal is.

s2, e12 – the salmon – the staff get together to review a new restaurant.

a plot – in pairs, the staff goes to review cafe salmonella.

b plot – eleanora, allergic to salmon and disappointed she can’t go, fields phone calls.

s2, e13 – the framing, part one – on the tail of a big story that might finally get her on the wall of Best Articles, geraldine accidentally frames lemony for a series of crimes.

-b plot – geraldine wants to be on the wall so badly that she digs too hard into an article. (I had an idea it was about like, since she’s fashion editor, eye tattoos???? hmm hmm hmm!)

s3, e1 – the framing, part two – the staff scramble to clear lemony’s name. (fuck the cold open is like, lemony saying once again, “do I have any regrets? several. …. I left the tea kettle in our apartment on.”) (god the sheer beautiful absurdity of lemony on the run…..followed by a camera crew I’m dying)

-a plot – moxie takes the lead on trying to clear lemony of false accusations.

s3, e2 – the assignment – lemony encounters the punctilio’s previous intern.

-a plot – when lemony runs into bertrand again, he wants to make amends.

-b plot – jacques and geraldine get put on assignment together.

s3, e3 – the costume party – beatrice holds a costume party.

-a plot – lemony is nervous about the party and bertrand, and hides the whole time.

s3, e4 – the trivia night – the staff attend trivia night at a local cafe.

-a plot – jacques is nervous about talking to jerome, and asks lemony to accompany him to trivia night – the whole staff follows.

-b plot – geraldine wants to impress people, and studies up for the trivia night.

s3, e5 – the blues (I guess that’s why they call it) – jacques takes a day off.

-a plot – to cope with being denied by jerome, jacques takes a day off.

-b plot – lemony struggles with his feelings and takes it out on the staff. moxie retaliates.

s3, e6 – the moonlighting – geraldine has a hard time keeping lemony’s second job a secret. 

-a plot – torn between wanting to keep a secret and wanting to tell people bc reporter, geraldine goes to great lengths to try and keep lemony’s playwright job a secret.

s3, e7 – the summer camp gang – moxie and lemony hang out with their summer camp friends. (the sbts crew)

s3, e8 – the book club, part 2 – things escalate in the book club.

-a plot – at the monthly ‘book club’ meeting, things get out of hand when the punctilio is brought up.

s3, e9 – the telegram – eleanora gets a telegram from an old friend.

-a plot – eleanora receives a telegram from the previous owner of the punctilio and her old boss.

-b plot – jacques and ramona wait for a different telegram.

s3, e10 – the game – a flashback to eight years previously, when eleanora got the punctilio.

-a plot – eleanora, much like her employees in the present, wants to prove herself, and engages in a battle of wits to get a newspaper of her own.

s3, e11 – the librarian – moxie gets involved in a dispute between the snickets and a librarian. (dewey.)

s3, e12 – the hustle – after being picked up at the city jail, lemony tells ramona what happened at the pool hall.

-a plot – having called ramona because she’d be the least embarrassing, lemony talks about how pride was his downfall at the pool hall.

-b plot – moxie and jacques get involved in a game of Hell Chess.

s3, e13 – the siblings snicket – jacques and lemony’s sister returns to town.

-a plot – worried about lemony and jacques, their sister, kit, visits the punctilio to check on them.

-b plot – moxie and geraldine become determined to find out about the person who runs the presses.

s4, e1 – the feint – the staff investigates the local mystery of the feint family.

s4, e2 – the cat – ellington and the staff butt heads.

s4, e3 – the anniversary – geraldine’s three year hiring anniversary is derailed.

s4, e4 – the train – the staff finds themselves trapped on a train.

s4, e5 – the candlestick maker – the investigation takes a turn.

s4, e6 – and all of them out to sea – the investigation into the feints comes to an unexpected end.

s4, e7 – the lunch – lemony tries to meet someone for lunch.

s4, e8 – the soda – geraldine gets an offer.

-a plot – geraldine is torn between her love and devotion to the punctilio and her still-there desire to prove herself, especially to esme, when esme offers her a job.

s4, e9 – the reckoning – moxie makes a decision.

-a plot – moxie is startled to find herself upset about geraldine’s offer.

s4, e10 – the fire – eleanora’s telegram from last season comes back to haunt the punctilio.

s4, e11 – the end – lemony, jacques, and ramona reach an understanding.

s4, e12 – the caveat – eleanora fights for her employees.

s4, e13 – the volunteers – geraldine and lemony talk.

-a plot – scared that the punctilio and her friends are breaking up, geraldine seeks out lemony for advice. 

s4, e14 – the punctilio, part 2 – once again, the punctilio takes a new direction. 

-b plot – the cameraman is finally revealed.

[homestuckexamination]

Selfish Vs Unselfish

Jesus. Yeah I have nothing to comment here, I’m going to read this later when I haven’t just woken up.

You know the drill. Put it under ‘Read More’. A matter of perspective it can be, but there can be an objective truth to sort that out. Let me e x p a n d on this matter using Homestuck and some philosophy. And for those who missed the last ask on Active/Passive divide, please do remember that these labels are on a continuum, not strictly boxed categories. “UNSELFISH” or UNSELFISH - The passive classes lean more to this. How? By being group-oriented. Like support classes in RPGs, their asset comes mainly from a drive to benefit others. Roxy is one of the best examples of this. While she was passive-aggressive in her pursuit of romance, she is ultimately willing to put her self aside and bettering herself if that meant making sure the group stays together. She does this by, to quote Dirk, never turning the tables to make a talk about her when she knows her friend needs something.

TG: i was gonna say why i finally quit drinkin TG: i mean if you want to know GG: Yes. GG: Actually, once you did stop, it made me finally realize it was a problem for you for a long time. GG: And I didn’t say anything at the time, but it made me wonder if I wasn’t doing the right thing before. GG: By failing to point out you might have a problem? Or just going along with it and participating in lively banter any time you clearly had too much to drink? GG: Was I just being a bad friend? TG: nah it wasnt your responsibility to fix my shit TG: and anyway i think i made it hard for anyone to come at me like it was a real problem TG: i was always joking around so much and havin a good time like kind of overzealously so TG: that i probably just made people feel like a shitty wet blanket for even mentioning it

She wants to be of use to her group. However, the downside to this is that, as passively Roxy can be, she often needs them as well.

TG: and now dirk knows that too and for some reason letting him down feels like the worst part?? TG: which is equally lame and weak cuz i should care for my own sake not for how it makes a dude see me but it still just really bothers me ???

TG: i didnt want her to meet a sloppy embarrassing mess of a daughter

TG: even if she did like to drink at some point it was kind of a childish idea that doing so myself would make me closer to her or help us bond or whatever TG: anyway i think i might of overestimated her drinkin habits

How would you know if a class is truly passive when a character just been a really selfish a-hole through the story? It’s how they mainly rely on others as well. Let’s use Aranea as the main example of a selfish passive Sylph of Light that tries to emulate a Thief. Aranea says that Sylph is a healer type of class that involves boosting others, even excessively. However, while she claims that she merely wants to help and shepard the Alpha timeline by taking control of it, Meenah says otherwise. What Aranea has been doing is a self-aggrandizing act to get into the spotlight and not sit on the sidelines anymore, much like her fellow Serket. Like Kanaya, she is meddlesome. She asserts that what she does is for the good of all, even if that means doing something others would object to. They don’t want that. But, she does it anyway.

At first, she complies when the recipient refuses, but when it eventually comes to her ultimate takeover plan, everyone else comes second. She may believe that she’s just granting their wishes, but her underlying motive is ultimately selfish- albeit by excessively “helping” others for her own cause. Aranea failed to learn what Mindfang did:

“8ut as I sit here deciding what to do with the damna8le little sphere, I understand my error. It was not in failing to chart a course through future events to turn my fortune’s tide, even so many sweeps from now. It was in 8elieving the future was mind to know, and fortune mine to control.”

Now let’s use Rufioh and compare him to Roxy. Both of them are Rogues. Both of them are group-oriented characters that act selfishly from time-to-time. The difference is that Rufioh is more selfish. He’s extremely affable to the point of being a doormat to please others all while trying to be polite about romantic advances despite being a flirt himself. He’s reluctant to voice his own reason that he wants to leave his matespritship with Horuss. Sounds familiar? He’s the Jake of the love triangle. Rufioh cheated on Damara and never takes responsibility from it, focusing on Damara being a crazed scorned girl.

Passive players that fail to balance supporting others and fulfilling their own desires often end up being thrown in a loop. Forcing your solution solution on others for 'their own good’ is selfish. Your concern on how others perceive you may be sprouted from your own insecurity. Whenever you make a donation to the less fortunate, how can you be certain it’s not without the purpose of staving off guilt, doing it because it simply aligns with your moral code, or because it feels good? 

AG: I decided not to, 8ecause I didn’t want to 8e the one to make you sad about it.

AG: Was that selfish of me? I dunno.

It’s a gem to see volunteers whose instincts are to help people to make life more bearable, mind you. But they’re also doing that because they want to see them better and it’s often their own desire to do so and fulfill that dream.

ENLIGHTENED VS UNENLIGHTENED SELFISHNESS

-I’ve rambled on this a bit. Here’s a recap:

*Unenlightened Selfishness is… pretty much the archetypal self-centeredness that makes people jerks. It’s whenever you do something for yourself with little to no regard to other people’s desires. It’s the greedy shark hoarding all the treasure. It’s when you try to justify your actions with a perspective of “everyone else is selfish, so I’m entitled to be an asshole to everyone too”.

*Enlightened Selfishness or Enlightened Self-Interest is the opposite. It’s when you respect that everyone has their own wants and needs by compromising and coinciding them with your own. It’s like a deal. It’s the Golden Rule. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. It’s when you do things for other people for the good you’ll get from it, even when the payment is simple politeness and being generally nice. Society expects each individual to benefit the community in turn by working. We work with the expectation that others work for us. Unlike the first, this form of self-interest benefits both parties. Another term is Selfish Altruism.

We see an exercise of selfishness burning brightly through Vriska’s arc.

(VRISKA): I’m not a loser though! (VRISKA): I LIKE who I’ve 8ecome. (VRISKA): I actually feel happy and good a8out my life for the first time in… may8e forever?? (VRISKA): Like, ACTUALLY good a8out my life in a way that feels real, instead of forced. Don’t you realize that’s what it was like for us? VRISKA: You don’t have a life! VRISKA: You’re DEAD, remem8er? VRISKA: I’m the one with the life! VRISKA: And I fully intend to use it in a relevant and constructive way to help 8ring an end to all the horri8le shit that’s 8een going on for way too long. VRISKA: Remem8er when you used to care a8out that sort of thing? VRISKA: No, o8viously not. VRISKA: All you care a8out now is 8ullshit hipstery fashion trends, feeling “happy”, and… whatever the fuck it is you’re doing here? VRISKA: Frolicking with some horses in an ugly field or some shit. VRISKA: Just a8solutely disgraceful. VRISKA: How could I have 8ecome so selfish??

Vriska is accusing (Vriska) for being selfish despite being selfish herself. Remember her popular hero quote?

VRISKA: I only ever wanted to do the right thing no matter how it made people judge me, and I don’t need a magic ring to do that. VRISKA: You don’t have to 8e alive to make yourself relevant. VRISKA: And you don’t have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero. VRISKA: You just have to know who you are and stay true to that. VRISKA: So I’m going to keep fighting for people the only way I ever knew how.

VRISKA: 8y 8eing me.

And a few panels after that, she does this.

VRISKA: OHHHHHHHH NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!! VRISKA: OH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! VRISKA: WE’RE G8ING TO LOOK AT WH8T’S IN THIS CH8ST RIGHT N8W!!!!!!!! VRISKA: DO YOU HE8R ME Y8U F8CK? VRISKA: I D8DN’T SCRAPE AND CLAW MY W8Y 8ACK TO RELEV8NCE F8R THIS SHIT! VRISKA: I’M DOING S8METHING F8CKING IMPORTANT! AND WHEN I DO SOMETH8NG FUCKING IMPORT8NT, EVERY88DY 8ETTER D8MN WELL PAY ATT8NTION TO ME!!!!!!!!

Sure, her resurrection got everyone’s attention, but also annoyance. A lot of their personal problems aren’t truly solved, just put on a temporary chokehold by someone with a stubborn, assertive personality. She’s taking charge so that her team won’t be in poor condition for the big fight, but also to, well, be in the spotlight. She doesn’t care how others think of her, she just wants to help… but also because it makes her important, even if that means overpowering her friends, including her moirail Terezi. Vriska’s the active counterpart to Roxy in both class and aspect. A positive part of this is that it’s easier for Vriska and other folks like her to be self-driven.

…

What am I getting at? It’s a matter of intention. Are they doing it to mainly benefit others? Or are they acting to benefit themselves? Even if it’s grey, there’s often a tint or shade that’s lighter or darker that makes someone lean somewhere. It doesn’t matter how they see themselves and how they perceive their own actions, it’s their motivation that defines the line. Accidents don’t count. It’s the will. Looking at one’s intention is a way to objectively sift through the blurriness of it their actions, even when said intention is subconscious. You can also simply take the Active/Passive divide on strictly class roles in terms of RPG abilities alone if you’re not keen on the personalities of the bunch.

[nobodyfamousposts]

I like your Lila takes over class rep head cannon, how long does it take until Lila cracks of the pressure and/or the class figures out that Lila is a bully and a liar?

She doesn’t last the week.

It turns out that Marinette had everything set up to go. The last thing she was waiting on was the OK from the school board to proceed. As such, she had scheduled a meeting with the school board where she would present her plans and get their approval.

But oh, wouldn’t you know it? The class demanded their reelection just days before that meeting was supposed to take place! And Marinette can no longer do it since she’s no longer the Class Rep.

But that’s okay! Lila can just take her time slot and present her own proposal to the board, finally following through on all her various promises to the class. After all, she had been bragging about her ideas and contacts and plans, so surely she can have her own proposal set up in a couple of days. As well as all the forms filled out. And the list of volunteers. And the signed agreements with the various other parties involved in any negotiations and agreements she makes—which have to be signed off on by her mother by the way, since she IS a minor and not legally capable of signing contracts on her own.

What’s that? Lila asks about rescheduling? Well sure! The next available opening for the board is a good three or four months from now, but oh...the school year will be nearly over by then, and past any reasonable timeframe needed to start actually getting anything underway.

Tough break.

Lila’s lies and her constantly feeding the class unrealistic expectations comes back to bite her. They all fully believe Lila will come through despite having only a couple of days to prepare. After all, if Marinette could do it, surely Lila can do better.

Spoiler: She can’t.

And since Marinette announced what each of her plans were to the class when she cancelled them all, that means Lila can’t just reuse her proposal, either. So she’s in a mad scramble those last few days before the meeting to either cobble something together or come up with an excuse that gets her out of this. The class dismisses her attempts though, insisting that she’s of course going to pull through. So she’s begrudgingly forced to at least try to make a plan that at least looks real enough to get approval from the board and still sounds awesome to impress the class before she eventually lets them down with “accidents” and “unexpected cancellations” to excuse not actually following through on any of them.

Depending on your salt preference, the others in the class could try to help only to end up just as lost. Even Alya as the previous deputy isn’t much help since Marinette had always managed everything. Markov is the only one who can direct Lila through filling out the forms correctly. Key word there is “correctly”, as Markov keeps noticing “errors” in some of Lila’s information and plans and points them out.

Marinette is, of course, absolutely no help in any of this. She’s not even gloating. She’s just so damn relaxed now. Just bright and shiny Marinette, being so well rested and happy and just ignoring the way tired and cranky Lila is glaring at her while nursing her huge cup of coffee that is the only thing keeping her coherent at this point.

Oh, did I mention that this last minute change is last minute and thus means that Lila needs extra help to be “brought up to speed” about the Class Rep role? This means her lunch, free periods, and after school time are suddenly much busier while Marinette's is that much more free.

This means Marinette can go to the bakery for lunch again! And her afternoons are free! She has so much more time now! Especially if she invites along a certain love interest.

That love interest may or may not be Adrien, leading to even more anger on Lila’s part when she sees the two hanging out more.

Depending on your salt preference when it comes to Adrien: he may (BIG may) feel bad for Lila, knowing she’s doomed to failure (and that the class as a whole would lose out for it), and try to talk to Marinette to convince her to help.

Also depending on your salt preference, the result can range anywhere from Adrien getting backlash from a very unhappy Marinette for trying to get her to fix the problems everyone else caused by turning on her in the first place to Adrien getting rather easily distracted from any potential “high road” talk by a tray of sweets and savory snacks that Marinette “finally” has the free time to make to just Adrien being...protective of the newfound freedom and happiness that Marinette now has.

After all, she’s been so tired lately and now she looks so awake and happy! And a happy Marinette is a Marinette that feeds him and gives him scritches.

Chatdrien LIKES his scritches.

Lila starts trying to get alone with Marinette to coerce her into helping her? Nope! Adrien keeps running interference so Lila never manages to get her anywhere secluded. Lila tries to approach Marinette? Fail! Adrien intercepts and gets Marinette’s attention first. Lila tries to find some measure of blackmail to use on Marinette to force her to help? DENIED!

So Lila is forced to do it all herself. All of Lila’s free time is being taken up trying to navigate her new role. Remedial lessons to go over her duties. There are also meetings with teachers and other Class Reps, who by the way aren’t quite so impressed with Lila when she’s come in out of the blue to replace one of their best planners and the main person in charge of a lot of the major events for the school (meaning more people she has to lie to, and people who actually know what they’re doing and aren’t as easily fooled). Coming up with a workable proposal to convince the board and eventual excuses to use for the class when the plans fall through. And of course, the forms.

Understandably, and hilariously as far as Marinette’s concerned, Lila starts to crack after a couple days.

[wannabeauthorclive]

Word Find I

Thank you @talesofsorrowandofruin, @zmlorenz, @vellichor-virgo, @fayoftheforest and @nikkywrites all the tags!! I think that each of you have tagged me in two tag games each, so this is gonna have a lot of words. 

@talesofsorrowandofruin words: asleep, misplace, bake, invisible, orchestra, introduce, disagree and sea

Asleep

“What is this?” Silver asks, waving a hand at the candles.

“You were half asleep when I came in here, I thought that the main light would be too harsh when you got out.” Ira answers with a small smile.

Disagree

Ira places a light kiss on Silver’s lips, “To dance, we must have music.”

Laughing, Silver says, “I disagree with you,” She spins and dips Ira, “You don’t need music to dance. You just need the right partner.”

“We may not need music, Love, but I would certainly like it.” Ira laughs as she’s lifted up again.

Sea

She heads to the stern and crosses the main deck to find Tonya. On her way, she passes Braveheart where — she checks their wrist, no bracelet — he is keeping all the ropes in place. “Aye, Captain! Where you off to? Forester is manning ship.” He calls, pulling another rope and opening the sail so they can gain more speed from the light wind. Black doesn’t worry that Forester is at the wheel, just as long someone is, all is well.

“I’m looking for Tonya!” Everyone on the ship talks loud, there’s a lot of noise on sea, with lots of enthusiasm. “You know where I can find her?” Braveheart just smiles, points up, and continues working. Black looks to where he pointed, and sure enough, Tonya is up on the spar doing a handstand.

@zmlorenz words: master, cute, foreign, leak, bite, music, frown, and fresh

Master

“Not at all, gunner!” Soberski is the Master Gunner, he runs the canons and guns, making sure they’re always prepared for a fight. But he also is the resident joker, Black hardly knows if what comes out of him mouth is a joke or not.

“Aren’t you supposed to be working, Soberski?” Canta asks.

Soberski turns to her, “Aren’t you? I got some mental problems that could use some healing.”

“We all have mental problems, Soberski.” Canta is the Surgeon and healer, always there to fix up injuries. She’s also the most soft-spoken, her little contributions mean everything to Black.

Music - TW: implied nudity

She turns on the water on, filling the big ivory tub with warm water and goes to look for the scented soap. She turns on classical music to play in the backroom and she pours the soap in the tub. She sheds her clothes and steps into the tub of bubbles and water. She sighs, letting the warm water seep into her bones. With the low music playing and the scent of jasmine filling the room, she could stay there forever and never leave. She closes her eyes and tries to forget about everything, just for a bit.

Frown

Frowning, Ironside whispers, “Why must we take the job if the last time you lost everyone?”

The darkness on Black’s face turns to fire. “Because I can’t not go!” She snaps. “I don’t want to live in fear anymore! I can’t! Every job we take I am terrified. I can’t be terrified anymore, Sal. Because someone who is afraid isn’t someone you want guarding your back. Someone who is afraid shouldn’t be there at all because…” Struggling to find the words, Black snarls at herself and stomps away, yelling. “Take the damn wheel, Ironside, I can’t fuckin’ do this anymore!”

@vellichor-virgo words: air, safe, water, ache, ink, snap, drift, and braid

Air

“Unless… we…” Another idea starts forming in Black’s mind. “Unless… Unless we were already in the building!” She says excitedly, throwing her arms in the air. “We would have to be in the building. What did Ironside say? About disguises?” Her eyes go wide as realization hits her like a truck and she loses her breath for a moment.

Water

Black tilts her head up to stare at the great expanse of the sky. Mid day and the sun is the normal too harsh blue that never seems to end. Black much prefers the dark blue expanse of the water, constantly changing yet always the same. She sucks in a harsh breath and closes her eyes, trying to forget the sky, the sea, and her past. Just for a moment. A moment to collect her mind and then to stand behind the wheel as the Captain always should. It’s where she belongs.

Ache

She sighs, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the wheel. She loves what she does, she loves her crew and each adventure they go on, she loves days like these as well, where there’s not much to do and everyone is enjoying the sun. But sometimes, her heart aches. As soon as she isn’t bustling about, her heart aches. A sad smile stretches across her face, sometimes she feels that for all that is perfect in her life, somethings missing. She shakes her head, deciding not to question what could possibly be missing. 

Ink

Silver doesn’t respond. She uncaps the ink, unrolls the letter paper, dips her feather pen into the dark ink. She twirls the feather pen across the paper, her handwriting neat and proper as it dances across the paper. Something about the cursive calms her, possibly the way that it’s all connected with no room for errors. And Silver’s print has no errors. She’s done it too long for errors to even have a slim possibility of appearing. She pauses only to dip the feather in ink and to tinkle her chin with the feather in thought.

Snap

“Of course, what must I do?” Ira hands him a glass of wine and he takes with his left hand. His posture doesn’t relax and neither does Silver’s.

“I need you to go to Viras Treasury and steal—,” She holds up the faded paper with the drawing of the artifact and a little note in the corner. She found the paper in a metal box under her parents’ bed. Her eyes snap from the paper back to Desmond when he takes a sharp breath. “Do you know what this is?” She asks, a sharpness in her tone that — with normal people — would make them do her bidding at moments notice, whatever that bidding may be.

Shaking his head furiously, he says in a rush, “No, no,” He seems to regain his composure while Silver narrows her eyes at him. “I do not know what that is. Inform me?”

Drift

“Darling, if you stay in the tub any longer you’ll become a prune.” Ira teases after much time of quiet.

Silver opens her eyes — When did they drift closed? — and looks around the room, hating the thought of even leaving the still warm water. An aggravated sigh slips out her mouth as her pulls her self out of the tub. Ira is there the moment her feet hit the tile with a towel. She looks around as she drys off, just now noticing all the candles Ira lit when she was in the tub.

@fayoftheforest words: edge, cut, knife, point and trace

Edge

After hours of dancing but only felt like minutes to the two of them, Silver whispers, pressing her forehead to Ira’s, “Do you think we’re doing the right thing? Is Desmond our best choice?”

“Darling, Desmond is our only choice. And we’re doing what we must.” Ira reassures.

“What we must.” Silver repeats, “And what is that?”

“Finding closure, love. We are finding your closure. After this, after we get the artifact, you’ll look forward and not back.” Ira assures.

“I don’t want to forget her, Ira, she was the one the saved me.” Tears glisten at the edges of Silver’s eyes.

Cut

Virow is a big city, getting to the mail post may be harder than Black thought. The further she walks from the docks and into the market, the more women and people dressed in fancy dresses and suits. Virow is the second richest place in Viras, right behind their capital, Strexmont. Captain Black stands out like a sore thumb in the sea of the rich dressed Virans bustling about their city. Their white skin and short cut dirty blond hair are their defining Viran features. Captain Black knows she stands out with her long dark blue hair, dark skin, and darker eyes. Her outfit — black trousers, grey loose tunic, long red overcoat, knee high black boots, long black leather gloves and two pistols tucked in the waistband of her pants — is also a far cry from the tight, form-fitting dresses of purples and light blue that most Viran women wear.

Point

They all get stuck in their heads, more often than is good, but Black likes to think that sometimes you need to get stuck in your head to clear it. But for many, their head is a dangerous place to be for more than a few minutes, maybe seconds.

Black stands and walks up to Ironside and gently shakes her shoulders. “Sal, Sal, it’s gonna be ok.” Ironside’s gaze is still set on a nonexistent point far away. Black steps back a few feet and snaps her fingers, not close to Ironside’s face, just close enough to startle. Ironside jumps slightly and shakes her head. “Ironside, Sal, head onto bed. It’s almost ten. You’ve been working all day, you need to be well rested for tomorrow.”

@nikkywrites words: knowledge, beautiful, wood, agree and lose.

Beautiful Beauty

The whole crew looks away from Black and shakes their heads. Black understands why they don’t want to stay on deck, they’ve been aboard for so long and they all have a little pocket coin that she is sure they want to spend. “No volunteers?” No response. Throwing her hands in the air, she says, “Golly, crew! Y’all gonna make your Captain stay aboard to make our beauty don’t get stolen?”

There was a long pause before, Lakoma raises their hand and says, “I’ll stay behind.”

Black shakes her head at Lakoma and the crew, “No, Oma, you will not stay aboard. You need,” She passes a full coin pouch into Lakoma’s hands. “You need to get us food. I’ll stay aboard, no trouble. Just be sure to stay on the look out for anything odd.”

Wood

“This is delicious Lakoma!” Black compliments. And it is, all of their food is. They’re a wonderful cook. To get them to relax a bit more, Black asks, “So what happened while we were caged up in here all day?”

The question works like a charm and the flood gates open. Lakoma is a story teller. Their passion is cooking but they are constantly telling stories without thinking about it. They start waving their hands, excitedly talking about everything that happened earlier that day. From what they cooked for breakfast to the jokes that Soberski told them. They talk about the herbs and medicines that Canta is mixing, the new wood sculpture Forester is carving, the punch that Braveheart was practicing, the tricks they saw Tonya doing on the masts, they talk about how everyone except them slept in. They mention watching people wander about the docks fishing and selling while their newest bread was cooking. Lakoma talks about anything and everything.

Agree

As soon as they leave the room, Black asks. “What do you think the person was looking for?”

“I don’t know, but it’s nothing good.” Ironside responds, her tone somber. They both know that whoever the person may be, he knows who they are and he might just try to ruin their heist.

“I agree.”

“This isn’t good, Black.” The tone of the room changes drastically. It is now rushed and worried when it was slow and nervous a minute ago. Ironside’s voices raises as she keeps talking. “What are we going to do? We can’t send y’all in there when we know someone could be waiting to ambush you! It would be a death wish!”

Lose

Ira stands a bit away, being sure to give Silver her space. While Ira can be close at all other times, when Silver is writing, she cannot. Silver has said that she can’t think when someone watches over her shoulder. Ira respects her wishes and stands far enough away that Silver can think. And only when Silver leans back in her chair and sets the feather down, does Ira go closer.

“May I?” Ira asks, waving a hand at the letter.

Whew! That was a lot of words to find! But I’m glad I caught up on all of them! I love these tags now that I have some writing that I can actually search through!

Tagging (with no pressure): @a-completely-normal-girl @fayoftheforest @mel-writes-with-her-dragons @tiredlittleoldme @teasenpaiwrites @baguettethebooklover @aligned-stars-writing @47crayons @alicewestwater and anyone else wants to!!

Your words are health, cancel, red, error and dear 

[beautifulterriblequeen]

In the scene right after Soren and the troops almost find the assassins, Runaan turns to Rayla with a cutting voice and almost sounding hateful says, “You lied to me.” This scene hurts - she’s like his daughter. What do you think he was thinking? What was she thinking?

You mean this right here:

Where Runaan’s literally baring his teeth at her like he’s about to attack her?

Yeah, he’s very suddenly having a Really Bad Day.

But consider this look as well:

He looks gobsmacked, stunned, hurt even. How could you, Rayla? How could YOU do this? He’s taking her betrayal personally, despite his position as the group leader and Rayla’s boss. His words focus on the team’s immediate problems, but this look that flashes across his face is pure bewildered hurt. A crack in his armor. He loses his cool, and he yells at her. Because he loves and trusts Rayla and she doesn’t come through for him. He doesn’t understand yet that she wasn’t ready, that it’s his error in judgement that’s put them all here. His pride got in his own way, and he walked into this disaster like he stepped on a rake in the yard.

I’ve thought about this scene a lot, because despite how short it is, there’s a lot going on, besides that flash of angry pain on his face.

First of all, no one else says a darn thing. They stay out of it. It’s Runaan’s job as the squad leader to handle disciplinary issues. But you can tell by their faces they’re not happy with Rayla either.

Runaan’s mad about several things at once, because he’s a complicated elf in a complicated situation. He doesn’t know where to direct his anger yet because he hasn’t had any time to contemplate his own failure yet (but he gets there in like five minutes, don’t worry). So all he’s got right now is Rayla inexplicably flubbing up, after all the time and effort they both spent on her training. 

She asked to go with him to avenge her parents’ honor, and then she flopped when he gave her the chance to prove herself early on by killing Marcos. He’s ghosted his best friends and now their daughter is going to get him killed. Ethari said her heart was too soft. His team had to sit someone out so Rayla could have their spot. And on top of all of that, Runaan clearly expects a close and truthful relationship with Rayla, no matter what roles they’re fulfilling at the moment. She’s seemingly betrayed him on just about every level there is: personal, professional, societal, familial.

He’s hurt. He’s furious. He plans his missions carefully and accounts for plenty of variables. But he never once calculated for Rayla letting him down.

Runaan’s sin is pride, and it shows itself in his overconfidence. He’s so certain that he’s right about Rayla that he makes a big ol’ Moonshadow promise to Ethari that he’ll come home safe. It sounds sweet as heck. But though he’s definitely trying to reassure Ethari that everything will be okay, he’s also basically saying “…because I’m right and you’re not.”

Ouch, fam.

Maybe Runaan trusts a little too much in the illusion of success. Just because all the pieces are there–Rayla’s parents’ honor can be redeemed, Rayla herself volunteered, Runaan is exactly who Rayla needs to help her redeem that honor because he’s the leader of the assassins being sent after Harrow, he and Rayla both care about each other and her parents very much, the big gash in their family stability can be mended if Rayla can avenge Avizandum’s death–*sucks in a deep breath* ...doesn’t mean that they have to fit together. 

In fact, the one piece at the center of Runaan’s puzzle, the one critical piece that he absolutely needed to fit in order to hold everything together, was Rayla. And she didn’t fit. That wasn’t the puzzle where she belonged, after all. 

But again, as of this moment, Ruanan hasn’t gotten there yet. Right here, Runaan’s struggling on several levels with the fact that he’s just been surprised. He thought he knew all the variables to this mission. He’s been on emotional lockdown for months, but in general, he seems very much to be an Art of War kind of elf. He thought he could predict the outcome, feels or no, because he believed he understood all of the situational moving parts. But Rayla lied to him, and he didn’t think she’d ever have anything to lie about. Not to him. And yet, there they are, struggling over truth when so very much is at stake.

His mission. Everyone’s lives. Her family’s honor. Their bond of trust. Xadia’s peace. Their family stability. 

It was too much even for his practiced control. He lost his temper and he yelled at Rayla.

We didn’t get to see what happened between the end of S1E1 and the start of S1E2, but I bet it wasn’t more than a few minutes. Runaan didn’t get to be in charge of the assassins by being a hothead who couldn’t focus under pressure. He hopped right back on task, climbed that tree with just one elf–and it wasn’t Rayla–and focused on what to do next. And when we hear him speak in the tree, he’s all calm again. He’s got his temper under control, where it needs to be. His anger–his feelings–aren’t nearly as important as this mission going right. So he sets it aside and thinks his way through with the options he has remaining.

By the time he’s walking Rayla out to her rock, it’s been maybe ten minutes? since Rayla ruined the mission and doomed everyone to probable death. And you know what he does then? He talks softly with her, admits he was wrong, and he says as directly as he can–for a Moonshadow–that this isn’t her fault, it’s his. He misjudged her readiness. (Subtext: Ethari was right.)

Because his feelings aren’t important. He just needed to fix the fact that he lost his temper at his daughter for something that wasn’t her fault. And so he jumped straight into setting things right.

Yeah, he did lose his temper for a hot minute. But once he regained control again, he was so soft with his daughter. He expected to die in battle in a few hours. And yet he stayed calm and focused and gentle with her, giving her a task that would keep her alive and send her home safely to Ethari.

For the record, he never loses his temper again. The next time Rayla disobeys him, he’s cold with her. He knows what she’s capable of now, and he adds that to his calculations before the sun even sets.

And he still lets her go in the end. Runaan’s got a very pretty voice, but you gotta watch what he does to see how he truly feels about people (Tony Stark has the same issue, you can’t change my mind because I’m right). 

There’s no contradiction in being furiously disappointed in someone and loving them so much that you’ll die to save them. That’s called unconditional love, and Runaan has that for Rayla (you can’t change my mind on that either).

But let’s look at Rayla, too, because her perspective is vital here. Not only to this scene, but to the show as a whole, and this scene is one of the defining moments for her early character development.

The very first words Rayla says to Runaan are an apology. She blurts it out in a tumble, needing to get that out first, before she even starts to explain. She’s known all along what could happen. She’s tried to ask him about it, but she was too scared to admit why, and Runaan just interpreted her question as first-mission jitters and reassured her. Which made her feel even worse.

She’s been living in a state of nervous worry all day, afraid of Runaan’s judgment if he found out what she’d done. How she let him down. Even if things went smoothly, his disappointment would weigh so heavily on her. She knows what’s at stake almost as much as he does. But her parents aren’t out here. The Dragon Queen isn’t out here. The Silvergrove isn’t out here. It’s Runaan who’s going to look her in the eyes and judge her if she fails. And he occupies so many roles for Rayla that she’ll feel she’s failed in every single aspect of their relationship.

Rayla already knows she’s in over her head. She’s just trying to hold her breath and survive until someone else can yank her out of the water. But she doesn’t make it, and neither does anyone else.

Rayla’s character arc begins with her not knowing herself. She’s never truly been tested. So she’s scrambling, emotionally and situationally, to cover her mistakes that day, to hide them from Runaan, as if they’re at home and she’s risking nothing more than grounding or extra chores. She truly doesn’t understand yet that lives are at stake, that they’ll be lost. Not until Runaan tells her--yells it at her, really. 

And then, finally, it hits her.

This isn’t the look of an elf who regrets getting caught in a lie. This is the look of a child who’s having a horrible realization about what she’s done. She really didn’t get it until this moment.

In her defense, she probably thought Runaan could save the situation no matter what. She probably chided herself for doubting him as she convinced herself she could cover up her little sins. But then he lost his temper and told her he couldn’t save anyone. Not his team, not even himself.

This is Rayla’s “We’re not in the Silvergrove anymore” moment. There’s no family safety net, there’s no going home and trying again tomorrow. Training’s over. This is pass/fail time, and Rayla just failed.

It seems to come as a bit of a shock to her. I gotta wonder whether Runaan really prepared her for this side of being an assassin. Maybe he assumed she’d just follow obediently wherever he pointed because that’s what would get them home and back to normal as quickly as possible. Maybe he was too self-isolating in his feels and honestly didn’t pick up on her uncertainties. Maybe he just didn’t want to deal with them because they were soft and messy, and he thought he could train them out of her with hard work.

He done her wrong, however that fell out. Rayla was in no way ready to kill people. She was just an angry, scared, devastated kid who missed her parents. And Runaan was so far away from his feelings--by choice--that he turned her into a playing piece on his strategy board, hoping to use her the same as all his other assassins to set things right.

Rayla recovers nearly as quickly as Runaan does after he yells at her, though. She lets him give his speech on the way to the rock, but once he’s gone, she needs about ten seconds before she’s also making a plan to set things right. Runaan’s already angry and disappointed--it can’t get any worse, can it? ahaha oh Rayla And she can get back in his good graces if she can just convince herself to do what she volunteered to do in the first place.

She tries, she tries really hard. But fate gets in her way and we never learn whether Rayla could’ve killed Callum or not. Does Rayla know if she’d have been able to go through with it? I think deep down she does know: Runaan was right. She’d have hesitated again.

And from this utter failure to fit into Runaan’s world, to live up to his expectations, Rayla has to start building her character up all over again. She thought she had a solid identity built up, but it crumbled like a pyramid of stacked cups. With Callum, Ezran, and Zym, she learns who she really is underneath her fear, underneath her anger, her worry, her losses.

Underneath, Rayla’s a hero. And we got to see it rise to the surface. 

Realizations that come packed with emotional punch tend to stick with us longer and harder. Whether we want to or not *coughRunaancough* we run on emotion as much as logic, if not more. So when Rayla got smacked with the truth of what her actions--and her inaction--had caused, it sank deep. And she determined, over the next couple of weeks, to work on fixing that part of her. 

The talk she had with Ezran halfway up the Cursed Caldera really helped her understand that sometimes hesitating doesn’t come from fear, but from a place of disagreement. I think that added a critical piece of development to her character. Lujanne’s illusion telling her “Turn back before it gets you too!” is basically fate telling her not to be an assassin, because that way lies death. And she needs to process that she wasn’t afraid to do what Runaan asked. She just disagreed with him. Rayla chooses to be a hero because it’s the right thing to do. She doesn’t run to it because she’s afraid of becoming an assassin.

The biggest support in Rayla’s journey over the past month was Callum’s. He was right there when Rayla broke ways with Runaan. He knows who Runaan is in Rayla’s life. He knows that she failed him despite wanting to do what he asked. He knows about her parents, the Silvergrove, and the whole mess of Rayla’s emotional battlefield. And he loves her anyway. 

Rayla just needs someone with feels to tell her that it’s okay to be who she is. That could’ve been Ethari, if he weren’t pounding metal all day long to channel his own feels. That could’ve been Runaan, if he weren’t busy being everyone’s rock of support and justice and action and results and focus. But it’s Callum. Because Callum was there, and he made Rayla his priority. Callum doesn’t have a village to support. He’s on his own, adventuring across Xadia. Rayla and Ezran are all he has. And he pours himself into both of them. They’re his village, his world. And that’s exactly what Rayla needs. It’s what she’s always needed.

Runaan sent her off on her character development quest. And Callum was there to catch her at the end.

[lovelyirony]

These lyrics are from a song about a human falling in love with a robot but I think they also apply to Tony and whoever you interpret. "They say you cant feel with a heart made of steel, but who says that steel isnt strong?"

Tony Stark cares. Which is kind of surprising when a person first gets to meet him because he just does things without thinking, which isn’t really associated with kindness in any way. 

Pepper Potts is a young woman (who barely feels like a woman even though she can legally buy wine now) and she is struggling to make it to work on time, has on a hand-(shittily)-tailored skirt, and thinks that accounting can suck it because she actually doesn’t like it as much as she thought she did, mainly because it’s not challenging. 

She spent the last two hours of her last day learning how to knit. 

How to knit. 

So then she switches to sudoku and the New York Times’ crossword puzzle (which, by the way, is stupidly hard for no good reason) and then reviews over other people’s numbers for fun. She never volunteered for that, or never thought she would. 

But then she did and she found out that Sam Wittenger has had some very interesting numbers to report that apparently, no one else has questioned. 

She’s not sure if it’s because she’s stupid or if she doesn’t trust authority as much as the next Tom, Dick, or Harry, but something seems off. 

So Pepper goes to their superior and he basically tells her that she’s just being paranoid. 

“Women tend to be emotional,” he chortles, as if he’s not just invalidating everything she’s bringing up professionally. 

And she can’t even say shit about that because then it’s “oh no need to get unreasonable, sweetheart” and there goes her job. 

But she starts to notice that she keeps getting the worst assignments and then she gets put on job probation. 

On probation. 

Which, by all accounts, doesn’t make sense because you’re supposed to report when something is going on, and she doesn’t get why her boss is being so...something about this. 

So, she emails Tony Stark. Because he might answer. 

Oh, he answers. 

Tony has nothing better to do with the rest of his day and he’s been ignoring Obie’s requests for a meeting with Justin Hammer because that’s just like asking if you want to voluntarily stick a knife up your nose. Gross and entirely unnecessary. 

And then he gets an email from someone from accounting. 

Accounting never has problems that they can’t fix on their own. Ever. So there’s this chick named “Ms. Potts” and she tells him that there’s a mistake on someone’s account, but they won’t do anything about it. 

Tony looks through the numbers. Takes about twenty minutes, but only because everyone in accounting generally does their paperwork on time--except for Gary, but that’s because Gary is paranoid about the government and uses at least three hours out of the day to research aliens. Tony loves him. 

Someone’s been using money for a little bit of extra cushion. Which Tony would get if he was a corrupt businessman who cheats his employees out of health insurance. But he doesn’t. 

And then he finds out that Sam Wittenger likes to entertain models at mansions and while it’s not really putting a dent in anything, it’s more of the professionalism mood that gets it. 

That, and the fact that the SO of the whole accountant unit, Mr. Leopold Smith, put Ms. Potts on job probation. 

For essentially nothing. 

And then Tony does some digging and even if Smith works in a company that is known for technological growth, he’s really not that good at hiding any tracks. 

So Tony pays a visit to accounting on a Monday morning, lays it all bare, and tells them both to get the fuck out so he can start hiring more people. 

“You’re believing a rookie over me?” Wittenger fumes. 

“Yes,” Tony says. “Her newness does not negate her concerns. Besides, should I believe a new employee who shares concerns about the company and errors or the fact that you used your company card for funds transfer and then spent it on two women who are being really obvious about scamming you for spa money? Hmm, really hard decision. So hard, really.” 

Tony then swivels to Leopold. “And you. I would’ve thought you had better morals then that, but it appears you have all the sense of an amphibian that likes snow. So I’m going to fire you. You get the rest of your paycheck and some of that extra pay until you find another job. Hammer Industries is always hiring.” 

The crowd is silent as Tony walks around. 

“Where is Ms. Potts?” 

Pepper doesn’t bother to try to cower or hide. She walks towards him. 

“I’m here.” 

“Excellent work. You’re hired as a PA.” 

“Who says I want to be a PA?” She asks. The crowd murmurs; no one really says no to Tony Stark. 

Tony raises an eyebrow. 

“I see two sudoku books from here, a copy of the New York Times which is just outlandish, and one of your knitting needles is in your hair. You’re bored and I am, and I mean this in a factual way, one of the least-boring people in business. So follow me if you want the chance for the interesting.” 

Pepper does follow him. Because he’s noticing way more and she wants to know why. 

“It’s an unofficial part of my job,” Tony mentions when she asks. “If I don’t notice things about people and what they do, I tend to not do as well with business, and I really don’t like that.” 

So Pepper starts working as a personal assistant. 

It’s fun is what it is. Even if she has to remind Tony about fifty different times that he has a meeting at seven, and yes he’s supposed to get there at six-fifty. Even if she has to chuck a couple of snacks at him. 

“...are these fruit snacks? Pep, I’m a billionaire.” 

“Sorry, the grocery store didn’t have that fancy cheese for three hundred thousand dollars. They were sold out.” She pulls a frowny face and puts a middle finger up to flip him off. 

Tony loves having Pepper as a PA. He gives her an astronomical pay raise within the first three months of her job. 

“Why?” Pepper asks. 

“It’s a Thursday. Nothing really happens on Thursdays.” 

“That cannot be the reason.” 

“I’m a mystery, Pep. No one can figure me out, Rolling Stone said so.” 

“Rolling Stone also said that they thought Bob Dylan was a good singer and I’ve doubted their opinion ever since.” 

Tony gasps in mock offense, and the question is forgotten. 

...at least, until two hours later when Pepper realizes that he never gave her an answer. 

And as she works for him and gets to know him better, she realizes that really? Tony is a caring guy. 

He goes on random trips to send things to Rhodey in care packages: things like toys from fast food chains, one random packet of soy sauce, and a couple of letters and pictures of updates. 

Happy Hogan gets treated to the best pay, benefits, and even is on a friendly enough level with Tony that sometimes they watch boxing matches together and discuss the dynamics of television shows and what should be a rerun and what should be forgotten. 

And he pays attention to things. Like what kind of wine she mentions once in a conversation, or what Rhodey writes about in letters. He’s considerate and caring. 

So when the articles come out about if he truly has a heart, she has to smile.��

“Of course you do,” Pepper says simply. 

“And how do you know?” 

“You get pulp-free orange juice,” she answers. “But not because you hate it. You actually don’t mind that disgusting mess. But I do and I don’t always eat enough for breakfast and you let me raid your fridge to find said-pulp-free orange juice. Which is a very nice thing to do.” 

“Oh.” 

Tony doesn’t say anything, but he smiles after she clicks her heels and tells him that she needs to pick up his dry-cleaning after they finally got back to her. 

[jovialyouthmusic]

Silver Service

The Royal Charity Tour continues with Portaveira’s fashion show - but with no models, what will Penelope do? Madeleine is looking for information.

Word count 3565

A/N No warnings, just some fun and some plot development

17 Stepping Out, Showing Off

Penelope was in a panic, and consulted her best friend, Kiara.

‘It’s going to be a disaster’ she whined, but Kiara rolled her eyes.

‘Calm down Penny’ she snapped ‘Emmeline is asking round for volunteers to model. We still have all the stylists and dressers, and once we’ve got some recruits we can go over the basics of runway logistics.’

‘Runway what?’ Penelope said in a panic ‘I don’t even know what that means.’ Kiara sighed. Penny wasn’t the brightest spark at the best of times.

‘You know, how to walk, how to show off the clothes, that sort of thing.’ At that moment, Emmeline came back into the room.

‘Okay girls, we had six models, but they’re used to changing quickly between costumes. If we try to find at least eight to replace them and take it a little slower we should be fine.’

‘Do you have anyone yet?’ Kiara asked hopefully as Penelope crouched and ran her fingers through Morgana’s curly coat to calm herself down. The little dog nuzzled her hand reassuringly and she reminded herself to breathe into her belly. Her heart rate steadied and she sighed, feeling a little better.

‘I have four from the staff – two maids, one of the kitchen assistants and the housekeeper’s daughter.’ her mother counted them off on her fingers.  ‘I’m having a little trouble finding male models though, so if you have any ideas…’ Just then she caught sight of Sophia passing in the corridor outside. She didn’t know her very well but knew who she was – and she looked just perfect for the job.

‘Miss Turner?’ she called ‘I wonder if I could ask you a favour.’

------

Olivia took her seat next to Liam in the front row next to the runway.

‘Feeling any better?’ he asked, and she sniffed disdainfully.

‘I got hold of a Lythikan remedy’ she said ‘I won’t be feeling queasy again’

‘Are you sure it’s safe to take something like that?’ he murmured.

‘I’m sure it will be fine’ she said ‘and Sophia said she’d get hold of a test for me’ Before Liam could tell her to keep her voice down, the lights went up and a very nervous Penelope and her mother appeared on the stage, the young woman squinting in the spotlight. She held a microphone in one hand and a dog lead in the other. Her little poodles accompanied her and wore outfits that matched her own. They sat quietly at her feet, attracting a few ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ from the audience. She cleared her throat.

‘Good – good afternoon, Your Majesty, Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Portaviera. I’d like to extend very warm greetings to King Liam on his first official visit as monarch to our beautiful county. Many thanks to him for sponsoring this and other events this season, and for travelling to attend in person’ She made a little curtsey, and he stood to bow and wave. Cameras clicked and flashed and the audience made a low sound of approval. As he sat, Penelope went on ‘Ladies and gentlemen, your Majesty, lords and ladies, you may know that last month we had some intense storms, and our coastline was very badly affected. Many businesses have suffered a drop in income or had to undergo expensive repairs, and some of our citizens have been made temporarily homeless’ Her voice shook to start with, but it steadied as she went on. ‘This afternoon we will be seeing some collections from local designers, and our very own Ana de Luca has donated some of her latest pieces to be auctioned here today to help those who have been so badly affected. Already we have sold many tickets toward the cause.  There are no fixed prices, and I hope you will all give generously to help our charities. We have provided lists of the designs and sizes available and you can begin bidding straight after the models finish, so please make notes’ She stopped and looked to her mother, who took the microphone.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, we have a surprise for you today. Unfortunately, the models who were going to show you our exquisite designs today were taken ill, so we have some volunteers in their place. Some of them are from my own staff, and some of them you may recognise.’ There were interested murmurs from the audience. ‘Without any further ado, we will begin. Please give a warm welcome to our volunteers’

Music started up, and a young woman appeared from the wings of the stage as Emmeline and Penelope stepped to the side. She was dressed in a flowing boho dress and strappy sandals and paused for a moment as Emmeline introduced her, before striding out along the runway. ‘Here we have Daisy, modelling a lovely dress by Christiana Kalos’

‘Well, that’s unconventional’ said Olivia quietly to Liam ‘that young woman poured my coffee this morning’ Liam smiled and clapped as the young woman stopped at the end of the runway, posed, and turned back as the next model appeared and was announced. He smiled in recognition

‘And this young lady brought me my shirt’ he remarked. Two more staff appeared in succession as the show went on, and after that Olivia laughed out loud

‘Oh my, that’s Lady Hana’ she said ‘It’s a wonder she’s not showing her own work, I happen to know she made an exquisite dress for Riley’ The crowd clapped enthusiastically to see a noble on the runway.

‘Talk of the devil’ Liam murmured as Riley appeared next, striding out confidently in a figure hugging cocktail dress and stilettos. ‘Oh this is very entertaining’ he chortled as Sophia appeared in a chic fitted blazer and pencil skirt. She smiled down at them as she passed, poised and elegant. The final model to appear before the staff came out again was Lady Kiara, who stalked along seductively with a sultry expression. Liam stared at her, mesmerised until Olivia reached across to hold his arm and squeeze so hard that he jumped and came out of his trance. The eight models went through a few changes before there was a pause and a change in the music to something more aggressive.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, your Majesty, we haven’t forgotten the men in the audience. Please welcome our volunteers, starting with young Jamie, wearing a tuxedo by Germain LePost’

‘Oh, that’s Emmeline’s chauffeur’ Liam laughed, and after that came one of the wait staff.

‘Oh. My. Goodness’ gasped Olivia, as Maxwell appeared on stage with a flourish, dressed in a sharp tailored suit. He threw back his head and strutted to the music, dramatically pausing from time to time to look around and point finger guns at the audience. He took twice as long as any of the other models, obviously lapping up the attention of the crowd, but finally his turn was over, and next…

‘Is that Bastien?’ Liam asked, squinting. It was indeed the Captain of the Guard, posing for a moment, his steely gaze and impassive features giving him gravitas as he posed for a moment in an indigo dinner jacket, bow tie and tailored black pants, his pointed black shoes polished to a mirror shine. He held the ivory topped cane that Liam had given him, and used it to stroll with poise to the end of the runway. He paused and tilted his head, furrowing his brow and looking off into the distance as if the crowd watching him wasn’t there.

‘Well’ said Olivia as he strolled nonchalantly back to the stage ‘I think Mr Lykel missed his vocation’ Liam nodded

‘He’s a natural’ he agreed ‘who would have thought?’

-------

Just before he had joined the King’s Guard, Bastien’s foster parents had suffered a financial setback when his foster father had been made redundant. Money was tight, and to help them out he had applied for as many jobs as he could. A modelling agency had told him he was just what they were looking for, and he had turned up for a photo shoot to find that the product he would be modelling was underwear. He was taken aback, and although he had an interview with the Guard, he had gone ahead with the shoot, hoping it wouldn’t come to light. He had almost finished his initial training when his superior, Jackson Walker discovered the photographs in a catalogue.

He had been certain he would be let go from the training programme, as it could compromise any undercover duties he might have in the future and perhaps bring the King’s Guard into disrepute. Luckily this was before widespread internet usage, Jackson was lenient and had the catalogues recalled for printing errors. Bastien’s file at the modelling agency had been destroyed. It was his first and only misdemeanour before he graduated at the top of his year group, and he still held an otherwise spotless record. Since then, only Lewis had equalled that record, and Sophia was the only person he had ever confided in.

He frowned at her, silently laughing as he changed into the final outfit behind the stage at the fashion show.

‘I told you about my history with the modelling agency in the strictest of confidence’ he scolded in a low tone. Sophia wiped her eyes and drew a calming breath.

‘Relax, Bastien. I didn’t tell anyone – it was Emmeline who suggested you as a volunteer’ she assured him ‘It was long enough ago that nobody would remember, surely. How could it possibly damage your record after all this time?’

‘I suppose it would be okay’ he grumbled ‘I couldn’t very well say no when I knew Maxwell Beaumont had jumped at the chance. If I hadn’t been here to calm him down we’d have had a pantomime instead of a fashion show’ Sophia put her hand on his shoulder.

‘Bas, you’re doing fine. From the reaction of the audience, we’re going to get some really good donations for the flood charities’ He lifted his chin in a gesture of resignation.

‘Well I suppose that’s some consolation. Come on, it’s us next’ The two of them linked arms and at the beckoning of the co-ordinator they stepped out along the gangway for the finale.

-------

That evening Liam and Olivia were relaxing in his lounge after dinner. There was a knock on the door and Sophia and Bastien entered. Olivia got up as Sophia rummaged in her purse and got out a paper bag, handing it over.

‘Thankyou Sophia’ she murmured as Liam shook Bastien’s hand and they started to discuss the security arrangements for the next day. ‘I’m still feeling odd. I’m not convinced I’m pregnant but it’s worth putting my mind at rest. I’ll take it later’ Sophia nodded

‘I’m sorry things are so complicated right now’ she said consolingly ‘How are things going with Anton?’ Liam heard what she was saying and indicated to Bastien that he should pour some drinks for himself and Sophia.

‘He’s asking for his own security team’ he said, tight lipped ‘We’re basically stalling him as much as we can while our teams look for a loophole. Meanwhile Lucretia refuses to say anything else and Anton is still demanding that Olivia visit him.’

‘I take it he wants staff that are loyal to him rather than the Crown’ Bastien said ‘If we ask him specifically who he wants, we can vet them and stall a little longer’ Liam sighed heavily.

‘I’m beginning to think he’s got a good case’ he said ‘If we don’t find something in the next week, we may have to give in to his demands’

‘What do you think he’ll do if I am pregnant and he finds out?’ Olivia asked. Liam passed his hand over his face.

‘Probably accuse you of treason as well, or adultery. I really hope it doesn’t come to that’

------

‘Well done, Penelope’ Madeleine said, arranging her face into what she hoped was a sincere smile. The jubilant young noble bent down to pick up her little dogs and snuffled nose to nose with them. She was just like a poodle herself, Madeleine decided, shuddering at the insanitary gesture. ‘I know I wasn’t very supportive of you when we were competing for Liam’s affections, but I’m sure we can be friends now’ Penelope smiled happily, pleased at the success of the fashion show.

‘Oh Maddy, thankyou’ she trilled ‘I’m so sad you didn’t get to be Queen, you would have done a super job’ Madeleine kept the saccharine smile as she replied.

‘Well, he’s not picked anyone, so perhaps there’s still hope’ She dropped the smile, instead looking serious ‘It would have been so good for you to be one of my ladies in waiting you know’ She gritted her teeth and gave one of the little dogs a pat on the head. It snarled and she snatched her hand back.

‘Naughty Morgana’ Penelope scolded ‘Maddy’s a friend. Now come along, shake paws like a good little doggy’ The creature sat on its hind legs and gave her a sceptical look but obeyed, holding out her little paw. Gingerly Madeleine reached out and gently took it, making two mental notes – one, make sure she had antiseptic wipes in her purse, and two, look for some doggy treats to slip to the dogs when Penelope wasn’t looking.

‘Can you imagine how it might have been?’ Madeleine went on, drawing back her hand and masking her distaste. ‘Of course I understand now how important your little – dogs - are. I’m sure they’d be very cute accompanying the court’

‘Oh do you really think so?’ Penelope answered, her eyes shining, then her butterfly mind fluttered on to another subject. ‘Liam really needs to get an heir as soon as he can, you know’

‘I know’ Madeleine smiled, and moved closer to her, lowering her voice ‘Do you know, he’s been very friendly with Lady Olivia lately. Tell me, are their rooms close?’ Penelope wrinkled her forehead.

‘Actually, he did ask for adjoining suites. After all, Lythikos is a very important duchy. Just imagine if anything were to happen to the new King – she might be Queen instead. It doesn’t bear thinking about. We have to be nice to Olivia, in case she ends up on the throne’ Madeleine didn’t have to pretend her disgust at that thought.

‘Dreadful’ she said ‘You know, it really would be better if I could somehow persuade Liam to make me his Queen. If only I could find out just how close he is to Olivia. Who knows, she might be in league with Anton. I don’t entirely trust that American woman even though she’s smooching with Drake – or the English woman with Bastien’ Penelope looked shocked at the thought.

‘I could ask the maid who’s cleaning their rooms’ she said, slowly, and Olivia widened her eyes in mock surprise. She paused a moment as if what she said next hadn’t been in her mind all along.

‘You’ll be far too busy sorting out the donations and arranging the delivery of the clothes from the fashion show, surely Penny’ she said, pausing again as if her mind was ticking over ‘If you told the maid to report to me it might be better – I’ve not got much to do at the moment’ she said brightly. Again Penelope frowned, and Madeleine almost screamed in frustration as she pictured the cogs turning in her head, but at last her face cleared.

‘You’re right Maddy, it’s so complicated and I’ve got so much to do. Thanks for offering - I’ll call Susan straight away and you can tell her what to do’

-------

Susan was a slight young woman, unobtrusive, quick and efficient. But what Madeleine liked most about her was her inquiring nature. To put it mildly, she loved gossip, and had plenty to tell.

‘That Lady Olivia, she’s so snarky’ she said conspiratorially ‘She doesn’t like me being in her room so I have to clean when she’s out’ Madeleine affected a casual expression of interest – it was all that was needed for her to tell more ‘That’s not difficult’ she continued ‘She barely uses her rooms and you’d think she doesn’t sleep, her sheets are hardly ruffled when I go to change them.’ Her eyes narrowed ‘The King – now his bedclothes are always of a tangle, he must be a very restless sleeper’ Excitement built inside Madeleine – should she prompt her to put two and two together?’

‘Their suites are next to each other, aren’t they?’ she asked

‘Oh yes, Miss Penelope said he asked specific to be close’ she affirmed. Her eyes grew wide. ‘You don’t think…’ her face was a picture of astonishment ‘Oh my, do you think they’re…’ her voice dropped to a whisper ‘sleeping together?’ Inwardly crowing with triumph, instead Madeleine looked shocked.

‘Oh my goodness, just think!’ she said ‘I can see they’re close, but that close?’

‘Look here’ Susan said, drawing closer so Madeleine could smell the bleach she used ‘I can keep my eyes open, let you know what I find’

‘That would be interesting’ Madeleine said thoughtfully ‘After all, if he’s not engaging with anyone else, perhaps I still have a chance to be Queen’ Susan’s eyes grew round. ‘You know, if I was Queen, I’d have Penelope as one of my ladies in waiting’ she went on ‘and I’m sure she’d want a member of her staff to go to the Palace with her…’ Susan nodded enthusiastically

‘I get your drift’ she said ‘You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Leave it to me, I’ll find out just how close the King is to Lady Olivia’

‘It might be as well to keep an eye on the other ladies’ Madeleine smiled warmly ‘You know, the American and the British woman’

‘Say no more – I’ll be your eyes and ears, Lady Madeleine’ Susan asserted, and this time, Madeleine’s smile was completely genuine.

------

Olivia stared at the line in the window of the pregnancy test. Positive. She couldn’t quite believe what she was looking at. A few weeks ago, before she knew about her betrothal to Anton, she would have been happy for this to happen. Now her head throbbed and her heart pounded and her mind raced. Liam waited politely on the other side of the door. It wasn’t fair to him to have to wait, she thought, but she couldn’t move. He had been nothing but supportive since she suggested the arrangement – bear the heir without insisting on being Queen.

Where did that leave her now? If the marriage to Anton was found to be unbreakable, she was guilty – of what exactly? If Anton was King and she, his Queen, was pregnant with another man’s child – not just another man, but the deposed King… She hung her head and tried to steady her breath. Anton could claim more treason – and what would he do with the baby? He was, by all accounts, a very driven man who stopped at nothing to achieve his aims. Would he allow her to come to term? Discard her, have her ‘disposed of’? Her mind raced. Would he adopt the child and subvert it to accept him as its father? Would he have it taken away? A sob escaped her before she steeled herself and got up unsteadily to open the bathroom door. Liam sat by the window, and looked up at her in query. Her face told him all he needed to know, and he leapt up and came to her.

‘Livvy’ he pulled her into his embrace ‘I’ve got you’ he said, his deep tone vibrating to the centre of her being. She loved him, wanted to make him happy, but she wasn’t sure how to do it any more. ‘We’ll face this together’ he said, and another sob escaped her. His hand made soothing circles over her back. How did he know just how comforting she found that, she wondered.

‘Another human being’ he whispered ‘I’d give my life to protect it’ She steeled herself and looked up at him.

‘I really hope you don’t have to’ she said quietly ‘you’re not the only one who wants to fight for him – or her. To my last breath’ She drew away from him and stood tall.

‘I want to go back to Lythikos’ she said. Liam looked alarmed.

‘We have a while before it’s your turn to host the charity tour’ he pointed out ‘We have the polo match in Krona, and the golf tournament in Comery Isles before we’re due to go there’ Olivia’s mind spun. She had to protect her unborn child and her future was uncertain.

‘There’s no reason for us to be together now I’m pregnant’ she said coldly ‘If I’m in Lythikos it will deflect any interest in me for now – and Anton won’t find out. If he’s successful in his bid I’ll find my way out of Cordonia. If he’s not, we can be seen together again.’ Liam’s face twisted.

‘Livvy’ his voice broke ‘I want to be with you…’ She laughed harshly, her heart breaking. All this time, all these years when she had longed for him to say those words. But it was impossible right now.

‘I don’t think we can’ she said bitterly ‘Perhaps when the business with Anton is concluded – one way or another’

@emceesynonymroll @sirbeepsalot @cora-nova @stopforamoment @drakeandcamilleofvaltoria

@drakesensworld @katedrakeohd @pedudley @indiacater @texaskitten30

@be-still-my-aching-heart @hopefulmoonobject @dcbbw @classylady1234 @ladyangel70

@rainbowsinthestorm @nomadics-stuff @gardeningourmet @furiousherringoperatortoad @kimmiedoo5

@bascmve01  @ibldw-main @addictedtodrakefanfic @trappedinfandoms @princess-geek

[seraphinitegames]

It’s that time, guys!

I’m putting out a call for volunteers who would be willing to beta test The Wayhaven Chronicles: Book Two and help me finish it off to be the best it can be!

For people around the last time I did this, it’s gonna pretty much exactly the same process as Book One’s beta test :D

I’m looking for people who:

- Can commit to the time frame (2 weeks, starting 12th October until 25th October).

- Are willing to go through the game multiple times in a variety of ways to catch as many bugs/errors as possible in different variations.

Book Two is LARGE, with A LOT of variation and quite a few branches. It may get exhausting going through it so much, and I really want this to be an enjoyable experience for you even if it is hard work. So please make sure it’s something that won’t stress you or exhaust you. I really don't want that for anyone!

- Will be discreet. Please don’t spoil the game for others by discussing it with others or by posting spoilers/screenshots before the game’s release. This is the most important factor.

- Can communicate through email on a regular basis. Email makes the process much simpler and easier to organise.

- Have a good grasp of grammar, spelling, etc. You don’t need to have English as your first language though! I had two non-native English speakers last testing phase and they helped immensely in making it a smooth read for others whose first language isn’t English.

- Will be willing to provide positive feedback alongside the fixes and errors. Pointing out the aspects you like, as well as the important errors, helps me learn what I’m doing right, as well as just helping keep me boosted during this very nerve-wracking period, hehe! :D

—

If you’re interested in working with me on this, then please send an email to:

seraphinitegames (at) outlook.com (without spaces and an actual ‘@’)

with the subject of Wayhaven Beta Testing. In the mail, if you could just let me know why you’re interested in beta testing, as well as the romance you’re interested in the most (or no romance at all).

Then on Thursday 10th October, if you’ve been selected, I’ll send you a message back with the details of the testing and a HUGE thanks for be willing to do this!

I am really hoping for a range of testers of different genders and sexualities to make sure to get opinions on those intricate romance dynamics between different people so—only if you’re willing—if you could add in when you tell me of your most interested romance about what type as well e.g. Male MC, gay romance, Adam or Female MC, Bi-sexual romance, Nat.

You don’t have to do the above! Please don’t think you have to reveal anything like that if you don’t want to. It’s only if you’re willing, so as I can get a more rounded range of testers :) I will be asking everyone to play through multiple romances anyway, no matter their preferences!

The story is pretty much set now, so things won’t be changing with the plot or characters. The feedback I’m looking for is more technical, coding, or spelling error kind of thing, as well as continuity and flow of story for personalities, genders, etc. Obviously, I would still love to get your opinion on it! Or if you think a choice could be added, or if there are parts that aren’t explained well, etc.

As you guys know, I like to be honest during the process of all of this, and although I’m proud of my work, I think it’s hard not to get worried when showing it to others! And I am incredibly nervous this time round as well, lol.

But I had such an amazing experience with beta testing for Book One, and even made amazing friends out of it!

I can’t wait to hear from you, and start working with you on polishing up Book Two into the final product it will be :D

(Please be aware I won’t be able to accept everyone who volunteers if I get a large number of people! It’s not that I wouldn’t love to work with you, it’s just an issue of organisation and numbers).

[peanutparade]

Someone asked me what my process was, and I’m not sure I gave her a satisfying answer in the PM, so here I will attempt to explain how I make a game from start to finish.

*Please note the the drafts above are not for the same story, but for the purpose of illustration.

**Also please take this advice with a grain of salt. I’m not a published author (though I do know a bit about the publishing industry), and I’m definitely not a perfect writer. This is my process, and the things I try to keep in mind when I’m writing, and you may find this advice to be complete garbage.

Step one: Get an idea for a story. I can’t really give any tips on how to go about doing this. I tend to take inspiration from other works of media (classical literature is my favorite, though I have taken cues from more contemporary sources as well).

Step two: Consider who your characters are going to be. It’s okay if you only have one or two characters in mind at first. I’m pretty utilitarian about my characters, so most of them don’t get created until step three.

Step three: Open a word document and just start typing shit out. (I use Google Drive so I can access it from anywhere, and for another reason which I’ll get to later.) Don’t stop to think, don’t even breathe. Just type. Any idea that comes into your head goes in the document. Some of it won’t make sense with everything else, some of it will contradict other things, some of it will be vaguely defined. You will fix that later. This is the most important part (especially the way I write), because it’s where you’re going to get an idea of how your story starts and how it ends, as well as cement your cast of characters. If you need a scene where your main character goes to a lighthouse, then you know you’ll also need to come up with a lighthouse keeper (see my comment above about being utilitarian with characters. I’m no authority, so if you do things differently, that’s fine, but I don’t like making characters that don’t serve a purpose).

Step four: Annotation, annotation, annotation! (This is the other thing I use Google Drive for, as it has a comment feature that I heavily rely on.) Go through all your scribbling and make notes for yourself. Be a little hard on yourself here, because this is the part where you’re going to try to make everything you’ve written in Draft 1 cohesive. This will be a long process, as you need to think about how all of this is connected, as well as think about what sort of arcs your main characters are going to go through. I read somewhere once that ALL of your characters have to go through an arc, but that’s a bunch of wacky nonsense. Some characters are minor characters, and thus do not require depth. The only character arc that MUST be included is the main character’s arc. Remember: character arc ≠ character motivation. ALL major characters (protagonist(s), love interest(s), villain(s)) MUST have motivation for what they are doing. The motivation doesn’t have to be anything too complex, just so long as the audience understands why the characters are doing what they’re doing. (Minor characters with motivation can make the world feel more real and lived in, but they can also make the story feel bogged down. Brevity is key here, and sometimes less is more.)

Step five: Draft 2 All of that plotting you just did? Throw it away! Just kidding, don’t actually throw it away. BUT you’re going to rewrite your plot outline, tidier this time, and only refer back to Draft 1 when you get stuck. Feel free to come up with new ideas during this time; Draft 1 is not your story’s final form. If you think of scenes or quotes, feel free to include them in this draft, but you’re mostly just outlining right now. (As you may notice in the image above, Draft 2 is also subject to annotation.) Draft 2 is where you should be solidifying the themes of your story. Character arc(s) should tie into and support this theme. This is also the draft where you should be catching any plot holes (especially if you don’t have an editor/beta reader), as once you’ve begun actually writing the story, any problems here will only compound as you go.

Step six: Write the story It’s pretty straightforward. Follow Draft 2 (and any additional annotations you made on Draft 2), and go scene by scene and write. I never skip around, as it makes it hard to keep track of what characters know at what time, but I know of authors that do skip around, and they seem to do okay. You’ll have to figure out what works best for you.

Step seven: Edit, edit, edit! Aside from the obvious (typos and spelling errors), look out for:

Scenes that are too long or too short. Counterintuitively, these may be the result of the same problem: a lack of purpose. Ask yourself, “Does this need to be here?”

Long-winded info dumps. Consider the old adage, “show, don’t tell.” Whenever information can be conveyed through action or reaction, write it that way. If you can convey two things at the same time (i.e. something about a character and also something about the world--bonus if these two things are actually unrelated to each other), do it.

Information that your audience wouldn’t logically have being the key to resolving the plot. Especially in sci-fi and fantasy stories, if the conclusion of the story relies on knowing something--even if it’s something that the characters all know--you need to make sure your audience also knows this, or else they will be frustrated. Keep in mind the Rule of Threes.

And that’s the story portion done. If you’re making a visual novel/dating sim, there are other steps you need to do. (I usually do this stuff while writing the story so it doesn’t get tedious, but if you’re hiring people to do this other stuff, you should probably have the writing done ahead of time. If you’re hiring writers to help you, you should have Draft 1 done, at the least. Your writers can probably take it from there.)

NOTE: Any job you don’t do yourself is something that will cost you money. If you can find other aspiring creators to volunteer their time to your project, good for you, but please do not approach anyone directly unless you plan to offer to pay them (”for exposure” is not payment).

Step eight: Character sprites Major characters are going to need to be represented visually in your visual novel (go figure!), so... draw some people? I know some people make character design sheets, but I just jump right in, and then later, make microedits to the sprites as the mood strikes me. The design sheet thing is probably a smarter way to do it. I use photoshop, and I would strongly encourage keeping hair, clothing, and facial features on separate layers until you know exactly how you plan to code them into your game.

Step nine: Backgrounds Same as the sprites, except places instead of people. I’m bad at this, so I have no right to give anyone advice. I use a 3D interior design app to create a guide for what I want rooms to look like, and then I use that to get my vanishing points and furniture sizing right. This method is 50% tracing, 50% wishing I was dead. I do not recommend it.

Step ten: Audio If your game will have voice acting, get that together now. If you’re composing your own music, you’re more talented than I am. For my first game, I utilized royalty free options (incompetech and bensound), but now I hire a composer (I do still supplement my soundtrack with royalty free options if it’s for something inconsequential). I don’t use many sound effects, but when I do, I just look for free options online.

Step eleven: Coding I use Ren’py because it’s free and easy to learn (provided you don’t want to do anything too complicated). There are tons of resources online to teach you how to use Ren’py, both from official sources and unofficial sources. I’ve never posted in the forums myself, but the people there seem very kind and helpful if you get stuck. (If anyone wants to see how I code, specifically, I’ll do a Part Two for it, but I have to warn you that my games are the coding equivalent car repairs done with bubblegum and duct tape.)

Step twelve: Playtesting Make sure your game works. It’s pretty straightforward. You can even recruit some guinea pigs--I mean, friends to help you. (I don’t have any friends, so I do this part on my own.)

By this point, a year or so will have passed (give or take, depending how long your game is, how much time you have to work on it, and how much of the work you plan to do by yourself), and with any luck, you’ll have a game! Posting your game on itch.io is free, but putting your game on steam will cost you $100.

Like I said to the person on patreon who originally asked me about my process, making a visual novel is a lot of work, but I encourage everyone to at least try it and see if you like it.

I look forward to hearing your stories!  ♥

[mcleaha]

hello lovelies ! i’m bøffy , i’m 20 years old , prefer she/her pronouns , and currently reside in the pst timezone ! uhh . . . i am posting this intro at nearly 5 AM my time , and i would be almost willing to bet it’s littered with errors and it’s . . . probably a bit all – over – the – place since this is very much a new muse ! however , with that being said , if you give this a like , i will definitely contact you via tumblr ims or d!scord ( 𝓲𝓷𝓱𝓪𝓵𝓪 / 𝓮𝔁𝓱𝓪𝓵𝓪#1384 ) to plot !

[  jasmine brown  . 21  .  cis female .  she/her  ] just saw MALEAH AMICK dragging their suitcase up the steps to CABIN 1B  .  good luck living with HER  ,  i hear that that they’re INDECISIVE  ,  FORGETFUL ,  SOCIABLE  & CREATIVE  .  Apparently they’re the ATTACKING MIDFIELDER .  let’s hope the upcoming season doesn’t affect their JUNIOR year of ART EDUCATION .

STATS:

name: maleah amick .

nickname(s): leah .

age: twenty one .

gender identity: cis female .

pronouns: she/her .

sexual orientation: bisexual / biromantic .

birthday: 26 february 1999 .

zodiac sign: pisces .

myer-briggs: esfj .

pinterest: coming soon !

HISTORY:

               born on the 26th of february 1999 in orlando , florida , maleah was the youngest of the three amick siblings . her mother worked as a prestigious board – certified pediatric surgeon at a local children’s hospital , and her father worked as a high school mathematics teacher and volunteered as the school’s unpaid soccer coach , a move that saved the program from ending due to budget cuts ( he claims he was roped into the position as a first – year teacher with no seniority , but while he’s reluctant to admit it , he eventually grew a passion for the sport he had previously known little about ) .

               with her mother’s long shifts and emergency work – related calls , she ultimately became closer to her father and two older brothers while growing up . most knew her father as a man who towered over them at 6’7” , ordering his team to run laps or practice drills ; however , maleah knew him as the man who would crawl around the living room floor playing barbies with her or would prepare fruit and herbal teas as she twirled around dressed as a princess , declaring it time for a royal tea party . just as easily , she could be found exploring the great outdoors or playing whatever sport was currently in season alongside her brothers .

               she practically followed in her brothers’ footsteps . as they approached high school , each brother chose one sport to specialize in , hoping to secure a position on a college team and eventually on a professional team . maleah did not have professional athletic goals , but although she had immaculate grades with limited effort put towards academics , she knew extra – curricular activities were important for college applications . thus , when it was maleah’s turn to choose which sport to pursue , rather than having to weigh the pros and cons and make her own decision ( or perhaps , fearing that she would make the wrong decision ) , she simply chose the sport that her brothers had previously chosen : soccer .

               her high school coach knew the perfect position for maleah . years of informal practice with her brothers in the backyard had enhanced her skills . she had learned how to evade skilled high school defenses by pretending as if she was heading in one direction before bolting in the other .  soccer was one of the few areas in life in which she possessed enough knowledge to make quick and effective decisions ; she could read the field and immediately determine the best course of action : dribble , pass , or shoot . ultimately , she possessed the vision and the creativity necessary to secure playmaking and goal-scoring opportunities for her team .

               with a line of college scholarships , both academic and athletic , waiting for the attacking midfielder’s choice ( unfortunately , none from either of the schools her brothers played for ) , the time came for maleah to make a decision . as deadlines for summer practices , class registration , and tuition payments crept closer , she finally determined a means of deciding . she numbered her offer letters , 1 through 13 , and allowed a random number generator to make the decision for her . thus , mere chance ( or perhaps fate ) led maleah to hollis university .

               her first semester at hollis was . . . rough , to put it lightly . while most freshman shed a few tears as they watched their parents’ car drive off into the distance , homesickness lingered in maleah’s life . coasting through high school with limited effort had done her zero favors ; with no effective study skills , her grades dropped dramatically . between soccer and trying to salvage her grade point average , a social life was virtually out of question . ultimately , she found herself on academic probation , unable to play soccer , for her second semester of freshman year at hollis .

               luckily , she was able to develop effective study habits , and even discovered along the way that maybe pre – med was not the best major for her . when asked what she wanted to do , maleah gave an entire list of generic answers – “i want to help people” and “i want to make a difference” came up quite often , but nothing specific enough to point her in the right direction . thus , she changed her major almost every semester , desperately seeking for the right fit . in the meantime , though it took several letters petitioning her temporary removal from the team , she was able to resume playing soccer during her sophomore year .

               as junior year approached , maleah was almost certain that she was back in her coach’s good graces – no longer viewed with a sense of skepticism . she had proven herself capable , finding her name on the dean’s list nearly every semester and assisting her team in numerous wins throughout the soccer season . however , with hollis’ soccer teams’ restructuring , maleah can’t help but question if her coach views her as a valued athlete or a liability .

PERSONALITY:

               two words : social butterfly . almost to a fault . even if someone has expressed quite literally zero interest in talking to her / getting to know her , she will still make an attempt . kind of a . . . people – pleaser , in a sense , she just wants to be well – liked ?

               avoids ! conflict ! at ! all ! costs ! generally just . . . tries to avoid people or situations that upset her . not very prone to like . . . yelling or crying , but those close to her can definitely sense a change in her demeanor when she’s upset ? just . . . a lot more tense , probably lots of eye – rolling and just . . . subtle , quiet signs that she is over whatever the problem is .

               kinda . . . chill , mellow , easygoing ? she very much lives in the moment , and tries not to stress too much about the future . always down for a drink , a party , whatever – genuinely just around for some fun and some friends !!!

               the kind of person who genuinely gets excited over like those fun facts and jokes that are on popsicle sticks and whatnot – absolutely must share the information with everyone within earshot . honestly , those jokes are very . . . on point with her own personal sense of humor jflakdsj .

HEADCANONS:

               she suffers from a terrible case of youngest child syndrome . ultimately , without guidance , she’s terribly irresponsible . she’s always having to run extra laps because she sets her alarm too late to make it to morning practices on time . she’s always receiving overdraft fees for spending more money than is available in her checking account . forgets everything – from homework assignments to names to grabbing her keys before locking the door on her way out . just . . . imagine a child asking for an adult’s help and her looking around until she comes to the realization that “ oh , shit , i am an adult ” .

               she’s practically always doodling – in the corners of notebooks , on napkins while eating lunch , on her clothing , on her own skin . she loves making art , particularly drawing or painting portraits or nature . ( ultimately , she only decided to incorporate this into her choice of major after hollis threatened to not allow any further changes to her major ) .

               she has a . . . unique sense of style . she has a passion for thrifting and upcycling . practically lives in hoodies and t – shirts that she has purchased from secondhand stores and cropped herself . always adding cool iron-on patches to her clothing . she should be listed as your emergency contact if you’re prone to ripping your clothing because she can definitely fix it .

               she probably thinks she’s good at trash-talking on the field , but she actually sounds like a second grader ( and that’s being kind ) . if you looked at her browser history , there’s probably at least one record of her actually googling “ best soccer trash talk ” .

CONNECTIONS:

friends !! friends she’s met through courses throughout her adventures of attempting every major possible , mayhaps soccer friendships that continue off the field , mayhaps that complicated emerging new friendship state for some who are new to hollis ! unlikely friends ! best friends !!! quite literally those unbreakable ride – or – die friendships !

muses !! i feel like every artist needs that little dose of inspiration , even if it’s simply the inspiration of a work – in – progress portrait throughout the duration of camp ! complaints of “ stop moving ! ” and her stopping every ten minutes to ask what they think and probably at some point , her flinging a brush dripping of paint in their direction (if things didn’t end in an all – out paint fight djlfakds ) .

enemies !! honestly i’m sure there is ?? so much ?? potential for this , bt . . . mayhaps someone’s just . . . fed up w her irresponsibility ? thinks she doesn’t take her soccer position seriously ? maybe someone doesn’t think she takes anything seriously ( they wouldn’t be . . . wrong tbh ) . maybe someone from cali takes that “ california vs florida ” feud a little too seriously jflskdja . idk there’s always bound to be personality clashes !

exes !! relationships that ended badly , so she actively tries to avoid them and who even knows what happens when she’s forced to acknowledge their existence at some point at this camp !!! maybe relationships that ended on mutual terms so they’re still p chill with each other ?? maybe ended relationships that never quite got closure so there’s still unresolved feelings !!

hook-ups !! they are . . . college students . they are . . . college students stuck at a camp all summer . idk i feel like this one is pretty self – explanatory jflakds .

honestly i am tired & want to sleep , bt genuinely i am up for & open to anything ! good influences , bad influences , unrequited crushes , requited crushes , idk the world is y(our) oyster !! these are . . . rlly just some ideas to get the whole process started bc i am actually terrible at . . . thinking of plot ideas on the spot . always open to jst . . . doing a thread and seeing how things naturally flow too !

[mtg-thrill-of-possibility]

A Reflection on Magic, the Pandemic, and the Dark Side of Arena

Hello to all the readers who may stumble upon this in the search for new Magic content. I wrote this mostly to fill a void in my life that has opened up over the last year and more of a mental health thing than some form of Magic related advice but since it is about that, I thought they’d go hand in hand. I love Magic. Or at least I have loved Magic? It’s hard to tell. Like nearly everyone on this planet, I’ve been shut off from in-person Magic and it had/has me left down. I normally volunteer at my LGS and help them organize their tournaments and judge the events and generally whatever else they ask me to do because I really love Magic. I love playing with my locals who don’t spend hundreds of dollars and craft GP/MF level decks. I love watching a group of people playing draft chaff and off beat home brews and where adults and teenagers can compete with one another on that level. I enjoy sitting off to the corner on the store’s EDH night and listening to games and drawing tokens for games in my own corner while I wait for my own games or sometimes my ow turns. I also love traveling with my wife to cities and go compete in GP/MFs where we usually both scrub out of the main event by round 3 or 4 and then hit the vendors and side events as well as explore the cities for new restaurants. I miss Welcome Days where adults bring in kids and I show them the ropes. I love meeting adults who poke their noses in and ask me “Magic is still a thing? I played that in high school” and show them the changes. I can still remember the Theros Beyond Death prerelease last year and thought how much fun it was to not work the event for once and just play. And looking back, boy am I glad I entered the THB prerelease.

February was the start of the downturn. Our EDH night was slightly less full but I just figured it was due to the weather since the winter usually has a downturn in the attendance for every event. But then the rotating cast of 10-15 FNM players was 6; Pioneer on Saturday had 3. The next week, the EDH crowd was down to from the usual 6-8 pods to 2. FNM and Pioneer failed to fire. The news that COVID-19 was starting to creep into the Midwest prompted me to ask the store what precautions we wanted to take and when we were going to stop in general.

I work in chemical research and I have a background in pharmaceuticals and once (or twice) studied the MCATs and considered going to med school. I was definitely concerned but in February it hadn’t reached my state (yet) and I wanted the store to be ready for the imminent shutdown and continued downtick in participation (my LGS and I had been strategizing how to move up in events and the store ranking on the WPN). But it’s a red state. Science denial must be a recessive trait that the Midwest incorporated into its identity for a long time and I was told that I had some freedom but to not go crazy. I thought I’m a volunteer. I’m not spending what little money I have on stuff for you guys. So, I did the best thing I could think of for free, I started a Discord server. I was really excited at the prospect. I had just bought a webcam in case my workplace started working from home and thought how cool it would be to be able to organize events in Arena and talk through Discord when the store wasn’t available. I asked if we could hang up a flyer and tell all the Magic customers that they continue with tournaments and Magic if they joined the Discord I set up in the store’s name.

My LGS asked how much this was going to cost them and I said exactly as much as it costs them now if not a little less since we don’t need the store’s utilities or a cashier behind the counter in the after hours to work the tournament. They were happy and I got the greenlight. Things worked okay at first. Those with Arena accounts showed for a few weeks. Others I knew were interested were convinced that we were overly sensitive to the virus and FNMs continued to limp along with 4-6 people until everything ground down to a halt.

Come mid-March, COVID had finally reached the state and the city. Cases were light, a few hundred people tested each day, single digit cases detected but I again was worried. My workplace had already begun educating everyone on how to wash their hands properly and disinfect every surface and everyone was issued a bleach spray bottle with their name and a serial number on it. While the mayor and governor hadn’t ordered a shutdown yet, I advised strongly that the store go ahead and if they wanted to continue that I wouldn’t be there to assist until the curve was sufficiently flattened.

I’m not sure why but they trusted me and listened. I was glad and I pushed again for people to join the Discord server. Players were reluctant but I assured them that this may be the future for some time and if they get on now, they can still get the Ravnica intro quests and start building up their Arena collections. I got more on my side, we had 8-10 and got them all to try and hook anyone else they knew to join us. However, by the end of March, my workplace had moved to 100% virtual and with my extra time, I had begun to unwittingly shift the power dynamic in the store by accident. You see, I really love Magic. I was now working from home for a job that required me to have direct physical access to hundreds of thousands of dollars or sensitive equipment that need recertification when they get moved 12 inches down a work bench and dangerous chemicals I don’t want near me unless I know there’s an inspected chemical shower nearby. When the campus shut down, I got very bored. I did what research I could from my home portal, attended virtual conferences and webinars every day, but I had tons of down time. That meant watching my wife play Animal Crossing, playing with my dogs, marathon sessions of Civilization but most crucially, I also began grinding Arena.

My local meta had been defined by the understanding that none of us were really Arena players. I had played when the Kaladesh and Amonkhet closed betas were happening, but I was turned off by the fact that all my playing of those formats amounted to nothing when it launched with Ixalan and I would start from square one. Everyone in the group typically shied away from tier 1 tournament decks because to all of us, it was more fun to goof around with RG auras and Tilonalli’s Summoner decks than it was to grind Esper Hero or the new Uro decks. And the limitation that everyone didn’t have all the shocklands meant we were all playing on roughly the same card pools with some variation due to our play styles. So when I suggested we all start playing Arena to replace the tournaments, it worked because it meant we all played the same dumb decks we’d play in person with a few exceptions of having less than perfect mana bases.

But I would find myself grinding Arena everyday where my friends and locals were not. Even though I jumped into Arena at mid-March, I finished the Theros Beyond Death mastery at level 78 when Ikoria began to creep around the corner. I had just begun to get back into Magic when Fate Reforged hit and didn’t realize how much I love wedge color alignments over shards but boy did I love Abzan in Khans standard and now I was in love with Abzan again in Ikoria standard. Grinding the way I did meant I drafted most afternoons for the first month of Ikoria (and forced Temur every time) and started climbing the ranked ladder in the evenings. Ikoria would also mark the first time I spent money on Arena. I’m notoriously spend-thrift in video games and anything you can free-to-play I do religiously because you shouldn’t make a game grindable over the course of years if you give me that option. But drafting took gems and I really love drafting but most people at my LGS are too concerned about rares than learning to do it properly and a lot of younger players feel lost when I draft a zero rare deck and go 4-0 and collect my prizes. By the end of April, I would reach Platinum in constructed and Gold in limited. But now my LGS was far less inclined to play with me. I didn’t brag about any of my rankings but the skill disparity had begun to creep in as well as the difference in our collections. Having played so much Arena, I could see the tells the software gives away that paper Magic doesn’t. I learned to read when the game would hang up on the beginning of combat and end steps because they’re holding potential responses. I began to do the full control shortcut to bluff counter spells and removal. In paper Magic, if my opponent would sequence things wrong or tap their mana wrong, we’d make jokes and rewind it because it’s one of those human errors that we all make and redo it the right way.

But Arena was different; some learned the hard way to not trust the auto-tapper, some didn’t realize that the way they normally stack triggers in paper is backwards and too late to fix after a spell or ability resolved. And I couldn’t help them. And I let them make their mistakes because I can’t change Arena. If they use the auto-tapper and they realize that Arena doesn’t tap the Castle Vantress even though they couldn’t activate it anyway and they lose a dual source, I couldn’t help them. If they have the lethal Explosion in hand but forgot to hit Control in their second main so they can stack the Wilderness Reclamation triggers in their end step, I don’t concede out of pity.

In May, I try and keep the Magic going by suggesting that we shift the format to a draft limited but they’re unconvinced of the website that allows you to simulate an 8-person draft and then import the drafted card lists to Arena. Why? Because they don’t have the cards already and I’ve changed the dynamic. They know I’m much more skilled at Arena and Ikoria drafting. The news has also been reporting that the curve was flattening, and our state was lifting restrictions on gatherings. They want to play EDH and paper Magic, not this digital intangible game. I reluctantly agree but keep grinding on Arena anyway. My friends didn’t want to play Magic on Arena and I couldn’t understand why. I was getting burned out on drafting at this point and the drafts were harder to fire off a month and a half later, work was returning on a limited schedule where I was onsite 75% and virtual 25%, it really did seem like things were returning to normal.

In June I finish the Ikoria mastery and at this point my wife had begun to show more interest in playing on Arena and trying to get her account a little more stocked since our normal paper system is I aggregate everything we typically need and I make her desired deck and hand it off to her to wreck people on FNM but since I didn’t have to judge, I got to play and we couldn’t both play from my account at the same time. I casually start hers and I get the wild hair that maybe I should make a loaner account in the store’s name and if anyone says they don’t have the cards, they can borrow the store’s account for the tournament. I make the account but put the pipe dream on hold when Wizards announces that in-store play can resume with the Core 2021 prerelease. I could read between the lines and see that the curve was trending the wrong way and thought it was a bad idea but at my insistence, everyone would have to wear a mask at all times and hand sanitizer was available every 15 feet and the store had lots of space for players to spread out. The turnout was low which helped as well, and I had everyone who showed up at least aware that I was trying to keep the Discord going and that in case there’s another shutdown that there was another avenue for them.

Well, I got my wish because within a week of the launch of Core 2021, my state had regressed, and cases were exploding and gathering restrictions were sent back in place. Shortly after that, Wizards suspended in-store play again and with that I created the store’s Arena account. At the time, things were pretty good. The locals weren’t playing as much and my server was still fairly empty but most of the Magic Twitch community I interacted with had strongly adjusted to the new paradigm. EDH streaming was commonplace, I had my new Arena account to focus on building up as well as my own. Pro level events and Opens were being held on Arena and the expansion of Amonkhet Remastered gave me hope that Magic was on the mend. But I also think it was with Core 2021 that things started to slide into the negative for me. Grinding the second account was frustrating me a lot. The lack of human interaction was tilting me out for no reason. Some days the server would have me wait a whole minute (the horror?!) for a game and then my opponent would be the world’s slowest red player where everything seemed delayed. There would strings of games I would play where I couldn’t get a third land drop after a mull to 4 and other times where I’d flood out and would have won if it weren’t for generic whiny reason why everyone says they lose.

Maybe it was when I began to see that Arena is not Magic the Gathering as much as it is a video game that it began to really sour on me. For those of you who don’t play a lot of Arena and instead interact with humans over webcams is that Arena is designed for you to not play off beat home brews except in direct challenges with your friends. The game is meant for you to play the best combination of 75 cards and for you to help it machine learn through millions of matches what is and what is not the correct play pattern based on the available information you have. It wants you to play the very best decks in a format against the other best decks. I started to see this in Ikora standard when decks would scoop if you were on the play and went turn 2 Agonizing Remorse. Decks were and still are so linear that they can’t handle that kind of disruption or it’s a matter of the players know it’s faster to accumulate wins by scooping than grinding out a long game.

If you need evidence of whether or not this is true, you should play Arena now and see how often people scoop against the double Ruin Crab opener with a Fabled Passage back-to-back. Or if an opponent against your Lurrus Auras deck will time out when they know they can’t win. In paper Magic, when you drive 4 hours to a major venue, pay your entry fee, you never see your opponent rage scoop unless it’s Legacy and you know what your opponent’s on and you mull to zero so you can see what’s in their deck. You call a judge to your table if they start stalling. Nothing is more annoying that an opponent spamming “Good Game” at you through a match when it’s obvious that you’re not killing them that turn but they’re empty handed and have nothing relevant on board.

I’ll admit myself that what my wife calls “Wizard Chores” for the Daily quests, if I’m 1 red spell short of finishing a quest, I’ll log in for one more game and Boulder Dash my opponent’s creature or cast Shock to face and immediately scoop. Who is that helping? I’d spend the week at work in my down times thinking about what dumb cards I hadn’t played with from a set, start making a list, furiously find the cards on a Friday afternoon and grab dinner with the wife and then race to my LGS for FNM.  Magic used to be something I only got to do twice a week with people in a shared setting and we’d unroll our playmats, shuffle up our jank, and laugh and generally have a good time for three to four hours. With Magic at my fingertips, Arena is a distillation of efficiency at spell slinging combined with the minor rewards system we’ve come to recognize the free-to-play traps to “encourage” us to play different things. If I want to play 100 matches in a day, all I need to do is sit at my computer long enough. If I want to play my old jank on Arena, I can’t even count on the Casual play channel to help since it’s always filled with people with 55 of the 60 cards that make the best deck learning how to play before they commit the wild cards for the deck.

Zendikar Rising has been a pretty dark point for everyone on Arena I believe. It seems like a lifetime ago that Omnath was printed and that I had immediately cashed in four mythic rare wildcards for the deck I would get to play with on Arena for 2 weeks before Wizards realized their mistake. Honestly before I had started writing this in the week before Kaldheim will hit Arena, I forgot that Omnath was part of the most recent set as all I can remember Zendikar Rising giving us is the extremely irritating Ruin Crab and Soaring Thought Thief. The few locals I had left on my Discaord server when ZNR released had lost interest in Arena since they enjoyed the Ravnica standard that was rotating out and Pioneer was not yet available for Arena. I’ve encouraged nearly everyone I know from my LGS to buy webcams since October given that the current state of the COVID world is not likely to go away and the new culture and channels that have opened up in the world to fill the void of EDH has some level of benefit even when in-person play resumes. Not many people play and I’ll search for an occasional game on the official Discord when the craving strikes. Some of my friends have been taking advantage of the webcam world and started playing older formats with me over webcam such as Pioneer and Modern to rekindle their love for Magic and the hope that we can start playing tournaments over webcam. Finishing up the ZNR mastery passes on my two accounts and my wife’s account has been giving me a much-needed break from Arena and honestly, it’s probably done the most to lift my spirits.

I’ve been taking a lot more time to reflect on why I love Magic and I plan on doing in the future. The first thing I know I’m going to do and stick to is not get a Mastery Pass for mt LGS store’s account. They don’t pay for all the work I put into the one already grinding multiple accounts is not good for my mental well-being. The second thing I know I am going to do is relearn how to have fun in Magic again. Not really hinted at in this article so far is the fact I love the art in Magic and I’m often inspired by my own crazy mind to illustrate my own works or reimagine my favorite cards with my own art. Since the release of Rise of Skywalker, I had been working on a personal project of creating a second expansion to the largely underground Star Wars the Gathering card game and ended up making 200 unique, draftable cards. I wouldn’t call myself an artist because I’m still learning and I don’t necessarily aspire to an artist but I would love to improve my skills and one day make a piece that’s so good someone wants on a card. Over the last two years, I’ve been deeply jealous of how amazing and hard working the Magic cosplayers are and that I should put my art to good use and make my own cosplays. And then there’s the playing of Magic. I miss the Gathering part of Magic. So this brings us to the bedrock of this piece. I hope to continue this blog steadily as time moves forward. I’m rarely ever satisfied or have my attention on any one project for too long but 2021 is a new year. And I hope that the title is a hint to the future. Whatever it is; whether it’s deck construction, art alters, or Magic cosplay, story, general discussion, that’s what I’m here for. It’s the Thrill of what I might work on next and I promise because I’m terrible right now at doing so, I’ll be sure to take pictures and try and stream when I can to keep myself honest about the whole deal. I hope you’ll all join me or at least join the Discord to yell at me.