#of tides and dreams

[rook-specter]

time for another AU idea!

Of Tides and Dreams

It takes place in the Subconscapes, where the people who were frozen in time reside. the Subconscapes are. practically fantasy backrooms and the Subcon Sadnesses are the entities. but there's also Figments, based on people who aren't frozen in time.

It stars Nille, Yvon (an OC), Euphrasie, one of the frozen Housemaidens (idk which one yet), and a Figment named Hellion (based on Bonnie)

Figments:

Cheerful - the Siffrin Figment. looks like Siffrin but his mouth is stitched to always be a smile. He's an absolute jokester and they sometimes speak in grayscale GIFs Wilting - the Mirabelle Figment. her face is covered with vines, except for her left eye. a carnivorous plant is visible above her head. She speaks kinda like the Change God but speaks in ⚠️ instead of kaomojis Thread - the Isabeau Figment. he has no face, instead having a large hole instead. one of the nicer and even smarter Figments, but his appearance is very unnerving. Shattered - the Odile Figment. kinda like Isabeau, but instead of a hole, her face is entirely shattered off except for two glowing eyes and glasses. probably the scariest Figment. She's cold and emotionless, and doesn't really talk much. Hellion - the Bonnie Figment. they look just like Bonnie but their bottom half is that of a scorpion, like a scorpion centaur. they're much unlike the other figments, as they act just like Bonnie. The Gentleman - the King Figment. despite being based on the King, he's literally the nicest Figment. he's also a shut-in cuz the people inside the Subconscapes don't really like him

yeah this idea is exciting

[findmeinthefallair]

Obviously I still have so much to still process but, the difference in how the scenes are lit up and coloured was enough to shock me

[vibinsane]

i will never get over how beautiful the scenery is in the game

[hedonistbyheart]

They’re making a fever dream together.

[felassan]

this post is under a cut in case anyone would consider it to be DA:D spoilers, as the things it mentions came from the leak a year ago (spoiler warning for link) that included screenshots and a gif of the game. (the things this post mentions are therefore not new information and this does not reference a new leak)

I'm just thinking again about Rook (which seems to be the PC's name or title) and the imagery conjured by the name. ◕‿◕ this post is just speculation and overanalyzing for fun. also this post is a now-finished draft from my draft section from a while back.

I think it would work as a surname (like "Hawke") or a codename (think Leliana's spies and contacts such as "Butler", "Farrier", "Butcher", "Charter", etc although these are all professions that end in "-er" or "or" iirc). it could also be a title (like Warden, Hero, Champion, Inquisitor, Herald) or a nickname - like maybe it's short for "Rookie", it's a Varric-assigned nickname and it references how the DA:D PC is the newest member of the team after he recruits them?

I think it sounds catchy, and cool - it's snappy and short, Hawke-like in this way. and it sounds like the kind of name a spy or secret agent might have in a fantasy, superhero or sci-fi-type setting.

a rook is a black bird, Corvus frugilegus, a member of the corvid family. rooks have been perceived as vermin and nuisances by people in the past, and persecuted due to this. they bear a resemblance to their crow and raven relatives, both birds which have a large cultural footprint and lots of symbolism in areas such as folklore and art. Hawke obviously also had a bird motif going on from their surname and associated art pieces. corvids also bring to mind the Antivan Crows (assassins, thieves, & spies), reminding of the stuff about how in this game the PC may be trying to operate under the radar, and the reporting on a previous iteration of DA:D which had the game concept as being focused on spies and heists. rook plumage is inky black, bringing to mind darkness and shadow.

from the bird angle, a "rook" sounds neat opposite a "wolf" imo. wolves are obviously another animal that have large footprints in culture, myth and folklore. in the natural world there is symbiosis sometimes between wolves and corvids when hunting/feeding. there are lots of photos of wolves and corvids together.

a colony of rooks is called a rookery. of course, the fortress of Skyhold has a rookery. it's from there that Inquisition Spymaster Leliana operates (operated) sending her black birds on missions with letters and messages to her many agents and spies throughout Thedas. what if Rook is one of Leliana's... "rooks"? a spy or agent of the remnants of the Inquisition.

A rook is also defined as "A cheat or swindler; someone who betrays" [noun], "mist, fog" [noun] and "to cheat or swindle" [verb]. it's also a type of trick-taking card game. these sorts of things bring to mind a rogueish, stealthy aspect, and the shady, shadowy dealings and card-game played in Minrathous Shadows.

a rook is also a chess piece. they're castle-like (since "rook" can also mean a castle or fortification) and usually have their top in the shape of a battlement. they can move in any direction along a rank or file on a chessboard on which they stand (horizontal/vertical, not diagonal). they can also do the "castling" move. in history, rooks have also been called towers, castles, rectors and marquesses. in chess, each player starts the game with two rooks at opposite ends of the first rank. chess itself is a game of strategy and tactics. "the chessmaster" as a trope is a character type who manipulates events, tugging on strings and moving 'pieces' into place on a metaphorical chessboard. [Solas' DA:I dialogue about his past, like the one he has with Sera about cells of spies/agents, hark to this]

in the castling move,

"Castling is a move in chess. It consists of moving the king two squares toward a rook on the same rank and then moving the rook to the square that the king passed over. Castling is permitted only if neither the king nor the rook has previously moved; the squares between the king and the rook are vacant; and the king does not leave, cross over, or finish on a square attacked by an enemy piece. Castling is the only move in chess in which two pieces are moved at once."

castling rules often cause confusion, even occasionally among high-level players. historically the move has its roots in the "king's leap", of which there were two forms and which arose in part it seems due to increasing importance of king safety as other pieces were given increased powers through time as the game developed. "the king would move once like a knight, or the king would move two squares on its first move. The knight move might be used early in the game to get the king to safety or later in the game to escape a threat." basically it moves the king away to safety and the rook to a more active position. there is also kingside castling and queenside castling. I wonder, symbolically.. is Rook more the king's rook, or the queen's rook? (reminds me of the Left Hand and Right Hands of the Divine hh). who or what is the king in this hypothetical analogy? the World of Thedas itself? as a castle or fortress.. Rook is the bulwark against what's to come? [over-thinking ik ik, tis just for fun hh].

by now we're all familiar with the chess game Solas plays in banter dialogue with Iron Bull during DA:I. in the in-world chess game, rooks are called towers. Solas moves his right-hand tower once. at a later point in the game, Iron Bull's "Arishok" piece takes Solas' left-hand tower, getting a check and leaving him feeling triumphant. Bull asks Solas wth he is doing as Bull takes Solas' remaining tower. "Your last tower, by the way". Bull, a spy and liar himself, bears down on Solas' pieces "with his full army", thinking a win is in sight. Undeterred, Solas executes a few moves in a sneaky plan and entraps Bull in a checkmate, winning the game after sacrificing various pieces to enact his plan.

rook also brings to mind the Tower tarot card and its meanings. it's associated with sudden, disruptive revelation and potentially destructive change. it connotes danger, crisis, sudden change, destruction, higher learning, and liberation, as well as adversity, calamity, deception, ruin and unforeseen catastrophe. reversed, it connotes things such as negligence, carelessness, apathy and vanity (vanity.. pride). in this depiction of the Tower tarot, lightning strikes from the sky, striking a crown (hubris) off the top of a tower and setting it alight as people fall from the tower to their doom. this imagery and the upright meanings of the card bring to mind the sudden massive change Solas seeks to bring about (destroying the Veil), the revelations and liberation for some that it might bring, his identity as Fen'Harel Lord of Tricksters (deception) as well as the destruction he seems to think the Veil destroying action will cause ("as the world burns in the raw chaos"...). the 'Tower scene' has also already played out once before in Thedosian history, when Solas created the Veil and sealed the Evanuris away, leading to the fall of Arlathan and its wonders. in modern Thedas, Morrigan and Flemeth (as well as possibly some side 'prophecy' type things) both allude to a big change coming to the world.

in DA:I, the Tower tarot card is ofc none other than Solas' ending card, if he is not romanced. in the DA:I version of the card, we see Solas, cloaked in a dark robe and holding a mage staff under a half-moon or eclipse. darkness seeps from his shadow, stark against the orange sky, and blends with the giant black Dread Wolf, looming ominously and open-mouthed above him with its many eyes. (the Tower tarot card Solas scene is later referenced in DA:D promotional art and DA:D-era in-world murals). it makes sense to have assigned this to Solas given the above discussed meanings of the Tower tarot card, but it's a verrry inchresting choice imo to then give "Rook" as a name/title for the DA:D PC.

and most inchrestingly, there's the symbol from the front of Mark Darrah's mysterious Red Book. this mysterious red book shows "a flaming rook" on the cover. the book was an internal guide for developer and publisher eyes only that summarized the vision for DA:D, in its Joplin iteration. we know that the Joplin project has since been revised to an extent that it was the newly codenamed Morrison instead, but the red book is known to still contain plenty of ideas likely to appear in DA:D. most pages of the book remain highly classified. it's the symbol on the front that's of most interest to us though for the purposes of this post. there is a castle, tower, or rook, like a fortress or the chess piece. above the tower, a fire burns, reminding us of the burning tower from the Tower tarot card imagery and what that symbolizes, as well as Solas' "world burning in the raw chaos" line from Trespasser. inside the fire is a wolf, the Dread Wolf, in a now very-familiar and repeated motif in DA:D art, merch, murals, teasers etc. whatever else "rook" may connote, it feels like it's not an accident at all that the PC's name is apparently "Rook", given this depiction of a fiery rook and the Dread Wolf together.

what do you think? ^^

[egophiliac]

So the final character turns out to be based on Ryugen, but it feels kinda weird how there is also one based on Zangetsu and they aren't brothers

Or what if plot reveals they are brothers and he was actually adopted or stollen

I CAN'T BELIEVE HE'S ACTUALLY RYUUGEN?! I made a joke about it when Toten got revealed but I didn't actually expect... (I'm counting it as a win though, which means I guessed three out of sixteen! ...given how wacky some of these got, I'm actually pretty proud of that.)

he seems very sweet though! I hope he and his secret hamsters are very happy together. 🐹

(also:

THIS WAS MY EXACT TRAIN OF THOUGHT TOO! either this is an incredible bit of meta foreshadowing, or an incredible bit of Takahashi trolling, and I -- I honestly don't know which is more likely)

[han-ban-bam]

A moment from episode 1 of Tide And Bone that rattled around in my brain for a while. 🤔

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I married a lonely octopus to stop him from kidnapping children at high tide. It didn't work.

[i-lavabean]

Still WIP

[jjoneechan]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY ROADTRIP

My favorite song! Can’t believe it’s been three years!

[blocky-tides]

This is a week long writing-based challenge (artists could hop on but I don't how that will work). This will be one (1) singular piece of writing written throughout the week or less if you choose a time based challenge.

You will choose a difficulty level (1-5) to begin. You are highly recommended to not choose Level 5, it is there to be impossible difficulty. Then you will select either a word-count based or time based challenge.

There are no content restrictions and is open to any MCYT community (not just Hermitcraft). I only ask for you to tag appropriately and use common sense.

Decked Out 2 Challenge Week - March 3-9

level one: the frozen crypt - 1k in one week

level two: the caves of carnage - 3k for one week or 2k for five days

level three: the black mines - 6k for one week or 3k for four days

level four: the burning dark - 10k for one week or 5k for three days

level five: beat the dungeon - 20k for one week or 10k in one day

[findmeinthefallair]

Awwwhhh

[nerdalmighty]

First and Last Last Lines of The Owl House: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |

Bonus: 

[groupalpha]

Amalgamation's End

Warning! This comic has topics of death!

Comic under cut!

TA: It's... so pretty up here.

...

TA: I think it's time to do what they wanted.

[LIVE BROADCAST] - [ANNOUNCEMENT] COMMUNICATIONS MANIFEST TO ALL MEMBERS OF GROUP ALPHA

[######### ADDED TO LOCAL GROUP??&%]

################### ######### ############# #### ################ #############################

PRIME ADMINISTRATOR KEY?

...

PROCESSING

PRIME ADMINISTRATOR KEY OVERRULED

[SUNRISE SOLAR STARLIGHT LUNAR ADDED TO GROUP ALPHA]

[ERROR]

[FUNCTIONS NOT PROPER]

[ATTEMPTING TO RESTORE VIA COMMUNICATION TOWERS...]

[REPAIR SUCCESSFUL, BLOCKS REMOVED]

[DISPLAYING RECORDINGS TO LOCAL GROUP]

TA: ... I... guess that's it?

Sunrise Solar Starlight Lunar are now available for asks Amalgamation is no longer available for asks

[lgbtqreads]

Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Adult Fiction: July-December 2024

Peregrine Seas by R.C. Ballad (July 1st) Prince Peregrine couldn’t be happier to be kidnapped by pirates. Peregrine wasn’t cut out for the restrictive life of a nobleman – he’s hungry for adventure, prone to duelling, and his family refuse to believe he’s any kind of man at all. Despite his royal origins, he has more in common with the outcasts and rebels aboard the Cygnus that anyone onshore. He…

[han-ban-bam]

dreams or reality u decide my dears

(( @beyondbendingsky shared some thoughts, and I was Compelled to put them into motion 💖🙏 ))