#second art by Jade (hydrae)

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hello Lady Raven! How do you do? I hope you're having a good day.

I was looking stalking at your blog when I saw your post which contained a world map of the game. This made me really curious: what informations do we have about the countries, kingdoms and other lands that appear in the map? Specially the Land of Dawning, Sunshine Lands and Kingdom of Heroes. Does the world of Twist have other lands that do not appear in the map? Are the shaftlands some sort of Twist Europe (as in; a bunch of countries that signed a agreement to be sort of unified)? And what is that big empty land north of the shaftlands?

I'm really curious about the countries and their cultures in the Twist world, I feel like we don't really have a lot of info on them, and as someone that really loves geography and history, that makes me a bit sad 😂.

I hope you're healthy, thank you for your time!

Oh, the map from this post?

Hello, hello!

Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m able to compile ALL lore we have on all available countries, cities, and towns into a single post (especially when there’s a lot of other questions that have also been posed + need answering in your ask). That’s way too large of a scope for a single post. I did compile lots of food/related lore here if you want to take a look, as I find the food and food customs in a region say a lot about its culture and history. (Plus, I’m just very interested in food!)

If you’re curious about each location, you can find the bulk of information yourself in related hometown events—however, tons of lore tidbits are also dropped in non-hometown events (ex: Floyd talks about land training camp in the second beans day event), voice lines (ex: Dorm Uniform Leona says that in his home land, scars are seen as signs of bravery), and vignettes (ex: In Jade’s School Uniform vignette, Kalim talks about how serving very sweet tea is a luxurious way to welcome guests to your home in the Scalding Sands). There’s lots out there if you’re willing to search for it!!

Please be aware that we haven’t visited most of the areas on the map, so we are still missing a lot of information on them. The Land of Dawning, Sunshine Lands, and the Kingdom of Heroes are particularly lacking in information. They’ve been mentioned offhandedly every so often. Platinum Jacket vignettes feature the boys visiting the National Museum of Art in the Land of Dawning, and there are sometimes bits of lore which mention these lands. The Mermaid Princess that strengthened the bond between merpeople and humans married a prince from the Sunshine Lands, I believe. In his Broomquet card, Idia says there is a place called “Hydra Valley” in the Kingdom of Heroes (which probably is a reference to the place Hercules defeated the hydra at). Finally, Crowley went with Idia’s parents to the Land of Dawning with to discuss important matters yet to be explained to us. The Land of Dawning is also referenced in a call for evacuation in book 7.

The map you see above is definitely incomplete. We don’t see several vital spots marked even though we’ve visited them: the City of Flowers/Fleur City, the Scalding Sands (and Silk City), Clock Town, Fairest City, the Land of Swords, Dawn City, and more. Heck, the continent that contains Briar Valley isn’t even labeled but somehow Briar Valley itself is. We cannot tell if this is even the entire world map or just a portion of it, since Lilia describes “a land to the east”/the Land of the Crimson Long, but the most eastward locations depicted seem to be the Queendom and the Afterglow Savanna. I definitely feel like there has to be more to it than what we currently see.

I would caution against saying that “[TWST location] = irl location” as even though there are oftentimes strong parallels or inspirations drawn between the two, they shouldn’t be conflated for one another. TWST often forms cultures of its own or borrows from many inspirations to create these places and to present them to us. Comparisons can be made, but let’s remain cautious to not veer too much into that since there’s no clear 1:1. For example, the Shaftlands could be interpreted as “twisted Europe”, but not really because the area often considered “twisted Britain” (which is a part of Europe) is seemingly separated and located on the other side of the map. And then you notice that this “twisted Britain” has a collection of islands that very much resembles irl Japan, an eastern country. So… in essence, sure, the City of Flowers/Fleur City resembles Paris, Fairest City feels very European and German, and Harveston is a blend of Nordic inspirations, but at the end of the day, they’re their own thing.

We don’t know what the land right above the Shaftlands is as of right now. For all we know, it could just be even more of the Shaftlands since the country seems to be a large expanse of land with variable weather depending on the region.

[amonrawya]

The Greatest Gift of All

(Inspired by^ for the people who asked :D hope it was worth the wait!)

*

Long before the war, before Captain America or the Winter Soldier, there was simply Bucky and Steve. At least, that's what history says. But they missed out one very important person, a girl called Y/N.

Women in those times often found themselves with little opportunity, and only two easily attainable pathways in life: wife and mother. But Y/N carved out a life for herself that defied all expectations, and it all started in Brooklyn.

She dived headlong into scuffles, usually next to Bucky in defence of Steve. Regardless of the opponent, Y/N stood by them both, and often held her own quite impressively.

Her dress style borrowed from more masculine cuts, and Y/N was never seen without her cap. A lot of people had a problem with this, but she shut them up fairly swiftly.

Everything about this girl drew Bucky in, a battle he fought with little effort. They reveled in each other, flaunting their love at every opportunity. More than a few were jealous that the rough and tumble girl got the best looking boy in town. 

In a way, before even coming of age, they started an adult life together. The three of them moved into a flat. Y/N and Bucky took hard labour jobs, or anything they could get. They had little room to be picky. 

Both managed to hook steady summer jobs at the local docks. They used most of their money to keep a roof over their heads, buy food, and pay for Steve's medical needs. He attended art school, and sold his work every now and then; but physically, he was in no condition to work.

The war appeared on the horizon, just as they started to pull themselves an inch above the poverty line. Y/N saw it coming, the inevitable. She treasured every second they spent together, and dreaded the day when the draft came.

A lot of the older women she worked with were disrespectful, looking down on her pre-marital relationship with Bucky. They claimed she couldn't possibly understand their grief, despite the fact Y/N had seen Bucky off at the docks that very morning. 

In truth, they already planned on being married, but at the time, they simply didn't have the funds. Bucky promised, once the war ended, that ring would be on her finger.

Except, he never came home. Not properly. The person Hydra gave back to Y/N was damaged and jaded, angry at the world, angrier than she ever saw. But still, they loved each other. Though she never forgave them for stealing away his innocence, for trying to snuff out the light in his soul. A part of him would always belong to them, and she hated it.

Refusing to stay home while they risked their lives, never knowing, Y/N trained as an army nurse, working specially with the Howling Commandos unit.

Then one day, she went out to welcome them back from a mission. Every face looked devastated, but none more so than Steve. His eyes, red-raw and streaming, seemed incapable of rising from the ground. At first, the realisation didn't process, the idea simply incomprehensible. He promised.

Dugan was the one to finally break through and catch Y/N as she fell, holding her as the tears poured. Once he shook off his daze, Steve took his place, sharing in her grief.

Her world fell apart so quickly, with no warning and no mercy. Their commanders celebrated the capture of Arnim Zola, while Y/N and Steve sat, staring at an empty place at their side.

Everyone mourned Bucky, and swiftly after, began to mourn Y/N, too. The loss took a part of her...the sparkle, the happiness, the laugh that lit up her face. It all vanished. She worked hard, looked after them all, but only Steve was able to make her smile. Even then, it looked pained.

So when Steve went down with the plane, the very last shred of Y/N died with him. No tears left her eyes, no screams ripped up her throat. A cold numbness took over, freezing the woman from the inside out. 

V-Day came and went. The Commandos stood and drank to their lost comrades, and Dugan silently drank another...for the loss of a bright, fiery girl who had virtually nothing to lose, and still lost everything.

She spent her days as a robot, doing nothing but going through the motions of badly imitating life. The flat was empty and quiet, yet somehow, bursting with the ghosts of her loved ones. Nightmares plagued her, terrible images of Bucky's body, forever trapped in a freezing hell, nothing but food for the birds. And Steve, his body...was it cast adrift in the ocean? Or destroyed, burnt to ash in the belly of a metal beast. 

They were simple folk before the war turned them into soldiers, into weapons. Before symbols and flags stole away their names, driving them to sacrifice their lives for a greater cause.

Y/N knew their fight against Hydra was important...knew the honour behind their sacrifice. But when it's you left sitting at an empty dinner table, it's much easier to be angry and bitter.

She never married, never settled, bouncing around countries working as an army nurse. The Commandos slowly died around her, each one fading to grey as the curtain drew the show to a close. Each death, each funeral ripped open her wounds, bigger and deeper each time. Until eventually, Y/N let the blood flow freely.

Or at least, that's what would have happened. But one choice, one decision, made by a boy she thought dead in the far future, changed it all.

*

Bucky Barnes struggled to find himself again. His memories were mostly all returned, if a bit hazy and fragmented. He had Steve there to right any wrong recollections, and connect with on their shared experiences. But something always seemed to be missing, a piece of the jigsaw that hadn't been found.

He remembered Y/N. He remembered her clearer than anything. She was glowing like honey in the sun when Bucky closed his eyes and brought her back to mind.

Face covered in muck, hair tousled and streaked with grease from the boats, soot on the very tip of her nose and a cap perched jauntily on her head; wearing the deepest expression of concentration as she aimed a hanful of rotten fish guts at the sleezy Connell boy from Fifth, who decided his opinion on her backside mattered. The image shone crystal clear. Her laughter, rolling out from between curved lips, beautiful and full of mischief. 

It never failed to make him smile. Or cry. Or sometimes, both. He missed Y/N than he thought possible for a human being. 

Bucky often wondered about her life, whether she went on to marry, or maybe even have children. Was she happy? Did she bury him and move on? If they met today, would Y/N even recognise the man he was now? 

More importantly, in his mind, something he both feared and longed to know: would she still love him?

Unbeknownst to Bucky, Steve saw all this. Understood, to a degree, his pain. But he and Peggy never got the chance to bond so strongly. He knew Bucky needed him, but Steve also knew he needed Y/N more.

So once his goodbyes were said, he looked one last time at Bucky, and smiled beneath his suit as he vanished into time.

*

The living room looked exactly the same as he remembered. Bucky's coat, slung over the back of the chair, his sketchbooks strewn around the desk. Every rip and chip. His heart swelled with nostalgia, and pain, thinking of the life they were supposed to have.

What must have been in their heads...running off to fight, so eager to throw everything away. And who was left to stare at empty beds and eat breakfast alone every morning? Y/N.

His chest constricted, hearing the keys in the door, the lock rattling three times before letting her in. His nerve faltered for the briefest second, wondering if he was ready to see her again.

"Who the hell are you?!"

Time's up.

Slowly, he turned, and watched as Y/N's eyes widened, all the bags in her hands falling to the floor with a crash.

"...Stevie?" The name came out as a whisper, nearly inaudible.

He grinned, laughing as tears stung his eyes. "Hey, spitfire. Long time no see."

"Steve!" She launched herself at him, arms wrapping around his neck and clinging on for dear life. 

Catching her by the waist, he swung Y/N around, burying his face in her hair. They held onto one another as if they might vanish if they let go. But after a minute, Steve gently pushed her back.

"How? How are you here? What are you wearing? I don't understand, Steve, they said you died! Your plane went down in the ocean," she stammered, hand on his forearm with a grip like a vice.

"I survived. The serum kept me alive in the ice for seventy years," he said, questioning his own sanity momentarily; standing in the flat again made everything that happened seem like a distant dream.

Y/N frowned, brows knitting together. "What? Did you hit your head? Steve, this is 1945."

"I know, I came from 2023. I'm alive," he said, and saw her mentally backing away, so added, "I'm alive, and so is Bucky."

Her head snapped up, eyes immediately filling with tears. A dozen emotions whizzed through them in a second; disbelief, pain, hope. It shone clearly in her face as she stepped closer.

What did you say?" She asked, voice choked as she brought her shaking hands up to her mouth.

"Bucky's alive," he repeated softly, "and I can send you to him, in the future. But we don't have a lot of time. You need to listen to me, carefully, and do what I say."

She spluttered, struggling for words. "I, but...what about you?"

"I've made my decision," Steve said, and gently took her hands in his, "now, please, listen."

*

Bucky watched the machine, feeling a wave of numbness wash over his insides. Nothing was a better deal than the pain, the cruel sting of betrayal fighting to be felt. But he beat it back, unable to allow those thoughts validation.

Steve gave up so much for him, he fought for years to get him here. Steve deserved this. And no matter how wrong those words sounded in his head, he resolutely stood by them. 

The seconds ticked by, noted by Bruce's countdown. A flash of guilt almost made Bucky explain what was going to happen, explain that Steve left them. Left him. But he possessed no energy to speak, they'd see in a second, when no one appeared-

Zap. A blinding flash of light.

There's someone there.

Bucky frowned, hands falling from his pockets. Did Steve change his mind? Did he...

All the thoughts in his head stopped as the figure stepped down. Too small, too lithe for it to be Steve. Bucky's heart rate quickened, something in his unconscious already registering his recognition. 

The suit fell away, and if he weren't frozen in place, Bucky wouldn't have been standing. A quiver shot through him, nearly buckling his knees. Shock, fear and pure disbelief all delayed his reaction.

Y/N looked around, amazed, but turned to stone as she set eyes on him. Her face went utterly blank, a strangled sound leaving her lips.

Wearing her yard slacks, with a small bag on her shoulder, her face covered in dirt, hair streaked with grease, cap perched on-top, slanted to one side...she was everything he remembered, and his heart tried to leave his chest to go to her. To be whole again.

But fear held him back. She didn't know the things he'd done, the person he became after the train accident. What if-

"Who is she?" Sam asked, glaring as he stalked towards her, an accusation rising on his lips.

Bucky answered without hesitation, or thinking; the question had been asked countless times over the years. It always recieved the same reply. "My doll."

Sam stopped short, glancing between them, the way neither took their eyes off the other. He nodded, brows still closely knit, and backed off.

Slowly, Y/N approached, encouraged by the sound of his voice. She reached out carefully, when she got close enough. Trembling fingers brushed his cheek, and a shudder ran through her. 

"My Bucky..." She said quietly, eyes roaming over his face, a small smile tugging at her lips, "...you're here, in front of me. Alive."

He swallowed dryly, heart thundering away beneath his skin. "I'm different...you don't know..."

No sooner had the words left his mouth that her eyes found the cold metal where his flesh used to be. In reaching to hold it, she'd been taken by surprise.

Gently, Y/N took the hand in her own, examing the limb with a careful gaze. Moments passed, and she met his eyes again. Bucky steeled himself for rejection, for the disgust and horror.

Her hand went back to his cheek, and he involuntairly leaned into it. The warmth seeped into his blood. She stood on her tip toes, the smile on her lips blossoming into a bright beam of sunlight. "You've always been my Bucky, and always will be. Metal appendages and all."

He fell apart and dove down to capture her lips, clutching her to him with the hunger of a starving man. She pulled herself in, hands tangling in his brown locks, and both tasted salt on the others' lips.

So filled with joy his heart could burst, Bucky revelled in the feeling of holding his girl again. Laughing through the tears, he buried his face in her neck.

Thank you, Steve, for the greatest gift of all.

[fortheloveoflizards]

Headcanons

Wings of Fire Dragon Culture - Myths and Legends

Darkstalker – Darkstalker has obviously become one of the most infamous legends in Pyrrhia, thanks to his actions both in the past and present. Being an Icewing/Nightwing hybrid gifted with prophecy, mind-reading and animus powers made him formidable and terrifying even to this day. So much so, in fact, that his story is still used as a cautionary tale for young Nightwings. The story goes that Darkstalker’s parents, Foeslayer of the Nightwings and Prince Arctic of the Icewings, fell in love and eloped, though for many years it was believed that the prince had been kidnapped as part of a Nightwing scheme. The most famous part of his story is when he used his magical artefact to force his father to kill himself in a way so gruesome that almost the entirety of the Nightwing tribe fled to a faraway, volcanic island. His downfall came about when his then girlfriend, Clearsight of the Nightwings, worked in secret with his mentor, Fathom of the Seawings, to trap Darkstalker under a mountain forever. Forever, of course, only lasting about 2000 years. The rest of the story is, I assume, pretty well known by the majority of the Wings of Fire fan-base, so details are unnecessary.

Spectre – Not much is known nowadays about the old Icewing legend of a ghostly dragon prowling the Frozen Coast, with piercing white eyes, accompanied by a single scavenger. The basic story tells of an Icewing dragonet disappearing during a particularly dark winter. The dragonet had hatched sickly and weak, and no one had been expecting it to survive. Nor had they been expecting for said dragonet to disappear mysteriously without a trace. It was quickly concluded that the dragonet had been killed, presumably by it’s mother. As the murder of any dragonet, even weak ones, is strictly taboo unless it’s the result of a challenge, the mother of the missing dragonet was promptly persecuted by the rest of the tribe, stripped of her rank in all but official terms, and eventually disappeared, herself. Things died down for an indeterminate amount of time, until rumours among the border guards began to spread inland of a strange, moon pale, translucent dragon appearing and disappearing out of the fog, sometimes even luring guards out to sea. For the most part, the tribe brushed off the stories as outlandish gossip amongst the low ranked in order to amuse themselves. It was only when, on a dark night, during the largest blizzard the tribe had ever seen, an entire platoon of guards went missing, without so much as a talon print or scale left in the snow the next morning. Many Icewings claimed it was a hoax, but enough believed that it was a spirit, come to reap justice upon those that it felt had offended it, for the story to rapidly gain infamy in the tribe. As for whether the spirit was of the missing dragonet, the mother, or something else entirely, well, that changes depending on who’s telling the story. The only things that remain constant throughout all versions, are the pale white eyes and scavenger bodyguard. Although uncommon, it is said that one could tell if Spectre was about to appear upon spotting it’s scavenger; often it would be standing stock still on an iceberg, or half submerged in the surf, but sightings were rarely reported without it’s inclusion.

Hydra – This is a myth that can be found consistently throughout the history and culture of almost every Pyrrhian tribe, as the Hydra was thought to be the creature from which every tribe originated. This belief was only very recently countered, as it was found that many of the tribes did not share common ancestors. Regardless, the story of the Hydra is a beloved one among scholars and students alike. The basic premise was a large dragon with seven head – one for each tribe – who constantly fought for control of the body. The story typically concludes with each of the heads being separated from the body in some way, with a single head being left to control the body. Which head is left, metaphorically, standing changes from tribe to tribe; as does the order in which the other heads were separated. The Hydra is a common sight during festivals of all kinds, and is still viewed mostly as proof that the tribes can’t coexist in peace. Although, since the founding of the Jade Mountain Academy, it’s use as an example of the similarities between the tribes has increased.

Amphithere – As Peril explained in her book, Skywings believe in a form of reincarnation. Through the act of leaving the body of the deceased in a chamber open to the sky, the belief is that the soul of the dragon will then be able to come back as a Skywing rather than any other dragon. The task of ferrying souls to their new life is that of Amphitheres. These are often portrayed as invisible dragon-like creatures lacking legs that are rumoured to guard the wind currents in and around the Sky Kingdom, using their massive wings to stir up gales and tornadoes. Amphitheres are another prominent character in Pyrrhian mythology, although their significance is pretty much completely lost on most other tribes.

Wail/Whalewings – These colossal Seawing monsters are believed to roam the deepest parts of the ocean, luring prey (including dragons) down to their doom by making distressed whale noises. Their description (and the spelling of the word, itself) varies from story to story. The most common draws from angler-fish and other deep sea creatures; translucent glowing white, with the undigested remains of previous meals still visible in it’s gut. The myth presumably originated as a way for Seawing parents to deter dragonets from venturing too deep without their protection. Of course, there is still much of the ocean that remains unexplored, so there’s a possibility of creatures larger than dragons existing. Wailwings aren’t as heavily featured in art as other creatures, as Seawings prefer to keep things bright and happy rather than mysterious. Dark water places scary.

Aura – Icewings don’t seem to have much imagination for the benevolent side of mythology, and tend to be pretty suspicious of just about everything. There are, however, a few exceptions. One such example being Aura; spirits of the Aurora Borealis that appear to worthy dragons in times of darkness to provide guidance and bestow gifts/knowledge. The tribe remains adamant that Aura bear no correlation with the Nightwing myth, Moon Sprites. Icewings will often leave tributes for Aura during coronation and wedding ceremonies. These consist of prey, animal skins, treasure and a special type of candle made from blubber. These candles are used exclusively for Aura tributes, and being found burning one outside of the ceremonies is punishable by exile and even death.

Moon Sprites – As with the Icewings, Nightwings insist that Moon Sprites are nothing like Aura, despite the similar mythology. Nightwings believe Moon Sprites are messengers sent by the moons to grant wishes and deliver prophecies, and supposedly gave Nightwings their powers. Similar tributes are left for Moon Sprites, typically just before times of harvest or the changing from autumn to winter. Nightwings believe that the moons themselves are cognisant, and have long worshipped them as what you might call Gods. As such, it would be fair to liken Moon Sprites to angels.

Dragonflies – Most tribes believe a dragon is either turned into a dragonfly or, in the case of the Skywings, reincarnated as one, as punishment for a varying list of crimes for each tribe (E.g Rainwings believe they are tasked to assist the changing of the seasons and once a certain number of springs has passed their debt is considered repaid, while Mudwings believe they are given a number of “deaths” as a dragonfly, meaning they must die as a dragonfly for that number of times before returning as a dragon, and Sandwings believe they mark when an oasis contains hidden treasure). Despite this mythology, dragonflies are often depicted as symbols of rebirth, justice and second chances.

SeaDragonets(Seahorses) – Seawings believe these creatures embody the spirits of dragonets taken by the sea. Many Seawings believe they watch over dragonets to protect them from meeting the same fate, as SeaDragonets are drawn to the warm water of Seawing hatcheries. Hatchery guards are also in charge of tending to the SeaDragonets, as they give a reliable warning regarding sharks and intruders – swimming around in flurries, causing mini bubble whirlpools. There are two common varieties of SeaDragonets in the ocean surrounding Pyrrhia; the most common, smaller species, which can also be referred to as “Seahorses”, which come in a range of browns, creams and generally more “bland” colours, and the rarer Reef Dwelling SeaDragonets, which are larger and typically white, pink or blue. These Reef Dwelling SeaDragonets are revered among aristocratic Seawings, and kept mostly in the palace gardens and Royal Hatchery.

WyndWyrms – Sandwings and Skywings believe these serpent-like creatures push the sun across the sky, anchored to it by great chains of stars, while Seawing myths say they control the tides. WyndWyrms heavily feature in Sandwing tapestries and Seawing murals. Skywings have a lot of songs about them, and they typically work in tandem with Amphitheres. While not inherently dragon-like, WyndWyrms are usually described as having dragon faces and snake bodies, sometimes even with fur, like legless otters.

The Grand Nightwing – The legend of a massive Nightwing that holds the sky within her wings has long since been written out of almost every history scroll, as it was found to be a story spread by the Nightwings themselves in order to appear more powerful. She was said to have three eyes (the moons) in order to watch over all of dragon-kind. Thunderstorms were her announcement that crimes had been committed, with lightning being her fire, aimed at the offender. Murals of her still endure, mostly on the walls of the old Night Kingdom, though some murals have been uncovered in the desert. While a widely disapproved of story, Nightwings and Sandwings still share the myth with their dragonets.

Pre-Scorching Stories – These are mostly about the foundations of modern dragon society and the early wars that determined the longstanding tribe borders, however there are more than a few stories heavily featuring scavengers. These cast a rather grim light on the many strange metal things found on the ocean floor, in the rainforest and in the desert, covered in strange markings and numbers. Most of these artefacts are all twisted and warped by time and fire, but scholars believe they hint to the existence of advanced scavenger societies, all but exterminated by the Scorching.

Honeysuckle – A Rainwing animus from before the Scorching who supposedly gave the Rainwings their venom. Paintings of her can be found in the old rainforest caves that appear to have been used as shelter. Her most commonly depicted appearance is lavender purple with gold and lime green accents. It is believed that her descendants survive to this day within the tribe.

Cliffhanger – A legendary Skywing warrior said to have successfully fought off 30 enemy squadrons by himself while simultaneously protecting his Queen and wounded comrades. He features heavily in Skywing art, and occasionally in Sandwing tapestries as well (presumably the battle that made him famous was between Sandwings and Skywings), with large, dark red wings and long black horns. The spear that he supposedly stopped from killing the Queen with his own body is kept in the Skywing treasury.

Bullroarer – During the infamous battle between the Mudwings and Seawings over control of Crescent Bay*, the Seawings planned a surprise attack by infiltrating the Mud Kingdom border under cover of darkness. This plan would have worked had it not been for the lowly border guard, Bullroarer, who’s dying roar alerted the entire Mud Kingdom in time for the army to organise. While Bullroarer did perish, his sibs were lorded and moved to the rich inner Kingdom to be part of the Queen’s official guard.

*The bay between the Mud Kingdom and the Kingdom of the Sea on the map of Pyrrhia

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 10 June 2019

Quick Bits:

Age of Conan: Bêlit #4 sets up a rivalry with a high priest from Stygia in this penultimate issue. Tini Howard, Kate Niemczyk, Scott Hanna, Jason Keith, and Travis Lanham guide us through more of Bêlit’s family history and hints of madness.

| Published by Marvel

Age of X-Man: Marvelous X-Men #5 is the first of these minis to reach their end, but it’s far from a conclusion. While the team and Psylocke find out the nature of reality as everything starts unravelling, much still remains hanging, and the conclusion is set for Age of X-Man: Omega. Great art from Marco Failla and Matt Milla.

| Published by Marvel

Amber Blake #4 concludes what has been an entertaining thriller from Jade Lagardère, Butch Guice, Mike Perkins, Dan Brown, and Robbie Robbins. Some nice twists and surprises as this story ends.

| Published by IDW

Archie #705 is part one of “Archie & Sabrina”. I quite like the change to the trade dress to reflect that, giving the appearance of a limited series for the arc, while maintaining the ongoing numbering. Nice Spencer, Sandy Jarrell, Matt Herms, and Jack Morelli do a great job moving through Cheryl’s “Bachelor” plans to hints of things to come, along with impending conflict between Betty and Veronica.

| Published by Archie Comics

Batman & The Outsiders #2 spotlights the battle between Ishmael and the team as he goes for Sofia. Great art from Dexter Soy and Veronica Gandini. The little bits of occult belief and practice Bryan Hill gives to Ishmael are interesting.

| Published by DC Comics

Bronze Age Boogie #3 is another fun issue, pitting Li against Lynda for the Martians’ amusement. The pieces are all coming together nicely. Also, the “Major Ursa” back-up is just about the best thing ever.

| Published by Ahoy

By Night #12 is a bit of a weird one for the conclusion to this series, focusing almost solely on our side of the rift and what happens down the line for everyone. Still, this has been an entertaining series from John Allison, Christine Larsen, Sarah Stern, and Jim Campbell. 

| Published by Boom Entertainment / BOOM! Box

Calamity Kate #4 brings this series from Magdalene Visaggio, Corin Howell, Valentina Pinto, and Zakk Saam to a close. It’s still a bit of a head-scratcher, wondering how much is real and how much is a manifestation of Kate’s issues with her break-up, but it’s entertaining.

| Published by Dark Horse

Detective Comics #1005 concludes the Arkham Knight’s “Medieval” arc from Peter J. Tomasi, Brad Walker, Andrew Hennessy, Nathan Fairbairn, and Rob Leigh. It’s really weird seeing Anton Arcane as anyone’s lackey, but that aside this is still a decent conclusion. The art from Walker, Hennessy, and Fairbairn is incredible.

| Published by DC Comics

The Empty Man #8 is the end of the series. For now at least. It’s a satisfying conclusion for this horror story from Cullen Bunn, Jesús Hervás, Niko Guardia, and Ed Dukeshire, even as it leaves hooks for the possibility of more. Very interesting bits of body horror and ideas about infection.

| Published by BOOM! Studios

The Flash #72 continues “Year One” from Joshua Williamson, Howard Porter, Hi-Fi, and Steve Wands. Once again, the artwork from Porter and Hi-Fi is phenomenal. The layouts, the action, the sheer visual storytelling is incredible.

| Published by DC Comics

Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #7 is the first part of “Feast or Famine” from Tom Taylor, Ken Lashley, Nolan Woodard, and Travis Lanham. It’s May’s grand reopening of the FEAST shelter and it appears as though people are angry that it’s happening.

| Published by Marvel

Gogor #2 is possibly even better than the first issue, giving more focus to the tale even as Ken Garing does more world-building. This is a very interesting fantasy story, with fascinating characters and regions, and beautiful artwork.

| Published by Image

Hawkman #13 gives us a single-issue story from Robert Venditti, Will Conrad, Jeremiah Skipper, and Richard Starkings & Comicraft on the endless cycle of war. It’s a good bit of decompression following “Cataclysm” and Bryan Hitch’s run, using Carter’s endless resurrection to show the toll of battle on one planet.

| Published by DC Comics

Immortal Hulk #19 is another incredible issue in this amazing run, with Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy José, Belardino Brabo, Paul Mounts, Rachelle Rosenberg, and Cory Petit delivering hard on the new Abomination and Harpy. The body horror aspect of this story is ratcheted up even higher.

| Published by Marvel

Infinite Dark #7 looks like it’s building for a catastrophe for the end of this arc at a magnitude even greater than losing the outer ring in the first arc, as the remaining portion of the station gets plunged into the dark here. The level of tension that Ryan Cady, Andrea Mutti, K. Michael Russell, and Troy Peteri are creating here is about to explode.

| Published by Image / Top Cow

Joe Golem: Occult Detective - Conjurors #2 sees Joe brought back to life by Simon Church, against the objections of Simon’s ghost friends, and sets up the road to what looks like might be a new status quo, bringing forth an old direction. Great art from Peter Bergting and Michelle Madsen. I really quite like the murky appearance of the underwater scenes.

| Published by Dark Horse

Justice League Odyssey #10 gets a new logo while the team continues their search for relics for Darkseid. Also, more intrigue as they still don’t exactly know whether they can trust one another. Dan Abnett, Daniel Sampere, Juan Albarran, FCO Plascencia, and AndWorld Design are telling an interesting story here.

| Published by DC Comics

The Life & Death of Toyo Harada #4 enacts Angela’s plan on the rest of the team with explosive results. It’s interesting to see everything burnt to ash along the way. The flashbacks into Harada’s life this issue are illustrated by Diego Yapur and they’re worth it on their own, but you also get the present day material beautifully rendered by CAFU.

| Published by Valiant

Outer Darkness #7 begins the second arc from John Layman, Afu Chan, and Pat Brosseau. We get a little bit of Rigg’s past, more of the crew’s aggressive behaviour towards one another, and a rescue mission as an 18th century mansion tries to swallow another ship. This is the good, weird stuff.

| Published by Image / Skybound

The Punisher #12 begins Frank’s trek back to New York in the first part of “War on the Streets” from Matthew Rosenberg, Szymon Kudranski, Antonio Fabela, and Cory Petit. Great art from Kudranski and Fabela as Frank fights off a squad of Hydra goons on a remote island.

| Published by Marvel

The Ride: Burning Desire #1 returns for The Ride’s 15th anniversary, with a lead story from Doug Wagner, Daniel Hillyard, Laura Martin, and Ed Dukeshire, and a back-up illustrated by Adam Hughes. Nice set-up picking up on where Vega is now fifteen years later. And more depraved cops.

| Published by Image

Silver Surfer: Black #1 is another leg in Donny Cates’ redefinition of the Marvel Cosmic, joined here by Tradd Moore, Dave Stewart, and Clayton Cowles. This reminds me a bit of the George Perez/Tom Grindberg run from ages ago, with some incredible artwork from Moore and Stewart.

| Published by Marvel

Sonata #1 is a fairly imaginative sci-fi/fantasy debut from David Hine, Brian Haberlin, Geirrod van Dyke, and Francis Takenaga. It introduces us to to races of colonizers in the Ran and the Tayans, bringing conflict with them as they try to carve out new lives on Perdita. Beautiful artwork from Haberlin and van Dyke.

| Published by Image / Shadowline

Star Wars: Vader - Dark Visions #5 closes out this series of takes on different perspectives on Darth Vader with a barkeep suffering hallucinations as he tries to flee from Vader’s wrath, from Dennis Hallum, Geraldo Borges, Marcio Menyz, and Joe Caramagna.

| Published by Marvel

Supergirl #31 is pretty much concurrent with Superman #12, though you should probably read Superman first if you’re reading both of them. There’s no need to read both, though, as it stands well enough on its own. This one presents the reunion of the House of El from Kara’s perspective and then continues on the battle against Gandelo.

| Published by DC Comics

Superman #12 reunites the entire House of El amidst the battle with Rogol Zaar and the fleets trying to kill Jor-El. There’s foreshadowing of more “everything you know is wrong!” about Krypton’s destruction and Superman’s origin, which may or may not rub you the wrong way, but I find it entertaining. Especially with the beautiful artwork from Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Oclair Albert, and Alex Sinclair.

| Published by DC Comics

Transformers #7 is part one of “The Cracks Beneath Your Feet”, with Brian Ruckley, Angel Hernandez, Andrew Griffith, Anna Malkova, Joana Lafuente, Josh Burcham, and Tom B. Long picking up again in the present, following up on the second recent murder on Cybertron. It’s fairly morose, as you’d expect, as Bumblebee laments the loss of the new spark, Rubble.

| Published by IDW

Trust Fall #1 is a great debut from the Dead Letters team of Christopher Sebela and Chris Visions, with Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou providing his usual outstanding lettering to round out the team. It’s another crime drama, with the interesting twist of a family member with teleportation powers. Visions’ art is amazing and the hook of the family being set-up to fall right as they’re ready to move on to bigger and better waters is enticing.

| Published by AfterShock

V-Wars: God of Death feels more like a tease than a discrete story. The good news is that you don’t need to have read any of the previous V-Wars stories, as this fills you in on what you need to know, the bad news is that there’s no indication as to anything else coming next. Still, great art from Alex Milne and Brittany Peer.

| Published by IDW

Other Highlights: Accell #21, Age of X-Man: Apocalypse & The X-Tracts #4, Amazing Spider-Man #23, Asgardians of the Galaxy #10, Catwoman #12, Champions #6, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark #6, Event Leviathan #1, Five Years #2, GI Joe: A Real American Hero #263, GLOW #2, The Grave, Grumble #7, Gunning for Hits #6, House of Whispers #10, Invaders #6, Ironheart #7, James Bond: Origin #10, Jim Henson’s The Storyteller: Sirens #3, Jughead’s Time Police #1, Major X #5, Marvel Action: Spider-Man #5, Morning in America #4, Oblivion Song #16, Orphan Age #3, Penny Nichols, Princeless - Book 8: Princesses #4, Prodigy #6, Red Sonja: Birth of the She-Devil #1, Rick & Morty Presents Mr. Meeseeks #1, She Could Fly: The Lost Pilot #3, Spider-Man: Life Story #4, Star Trek: The Q Conflict #5, Superior Spider-Man #7, Symbiote Spider-Man #3, The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion #7, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #45, Unnatural #10, Venom #15, War of the Realms: Giant-Man #3, Wonder Twins #5, Wonder Woman #72, Xena: Warrior Princess #3, X-Force #9

Recommended Collections: Avengers: No Road Home, Dark Souls: Age of Fire, Hawkman - Volume 1: Awakening, Hulkverines, Ice Cream Man - Volume 3: Hopscotch Melange, Lollipop Kids - Volume 1, Road of the Dead: Highway to Hell, Moonshadow, Star Trek vs. Transformers, Swamp Monsters, United States vs. Murder Inc. - Volume 1

d. emerson eddy likes pie.

[galwednesday]

I wish you would write wholesome Shrinkyclinks! Modern AU or WS!Bucky or anything :) especially anything where people take Bucky as super intimidating and seemingly Not For Steve but he's actually soft-spoken and embarrassingly in love with his bf. Also inspiration art, take out the parentheses: coldcigarettes(.)tumblr(.)com/post/155362763256/you-know-how-i-never-do-comics-well-ive-done-one

What I ended up with is a little askew from the prompt, but it is Shrinkyclinks with besotted WS!Bucky and people being surprised Steve is his boyfriend, just with the surprise going the other direction.

Sam did one more circuit in the air just to confirm that everything was under control. The wannabe-despot of the week was being loaded into the back of a SHIELD van in handcuffs, and the three bioengineered chimeras she’d released in Central Park were all safely contained. They were part hyena, part cat, and part…actually, Sam had no idea what the hell was making them glow faintly purple, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t normal cat or hyena behavior.

Fortunately, the chimeras weren’t nearly as aggressive as their creator had hoped. Once the Avengers had herded them into a sunny area by a fountain, the chimeras had settled down to bask on the warm stone, ignoring their creator’s increasingly frustrated commands to make with the rampaging already.

“Can we keep them?” Clint was shooting boomerang arrows from the top of the fountain. One of the chimeras was lying on its back, batting lazily at the arrows passing overhead. “I’ll feed them and walk them and not let them maul any civilians, can we keep them, sir, pretty please with a cherry on top?”

“No,” Coulson said. Sam could see him standing by the SHIELD van, arms folded as he watched Clint.

“I want this one.” Natasha sat on the ground by the fountain, posture relaxed, apparently ignoring the chimera five feet to her left. The chimera ignored her back, except to twitch an ear in her direction.

“No,” Coulson repeated, but only after a pause long enough signal defeat.

Natasha rolled slowly onto her side. The chimera tracked the movement, then put its head down on its paws and half-closed its eyes. “I’m naming her Boadicea.”

“So we’re done here? We’re done here,” Sam said, and turned his comm off before he could get sucked into the argument.

He touched down outside the SHIELD perimeter, where Tony was shedding his suit like a lobster shucking off its shell one segment at a time. Each piece folded up neatly into the briefcase at his feet. The Winter Soldier was standing next to him, his face blank but calm.

The Soldier had been an official part of the team for a few months now. Sam still didn’t have much of a read on him. The Soldier had been invaluable during the whole Hydra/SHIELD clusterfuck, and that was enough to earn him a lot of goodwill, but just about the only things Sam knew about the Soldier were his fighting style and his call sign.

“Hey, Cap,” Tony greeted him. “Where are the spy kids? Let’s do post-battle brunch, I’m starving.”

“They’re trying to convince Coulson to let the mad science experiments follow them home.”

“Good luck to them, but God help them if they try to keep them in the Tower, Pepper put her foot down about pets. You buy out one animal shelter because the cages are too small and all the animals look sad and suddenly everyone thinks you’re a hoarder. I don’t get what the big deal was, we weren’t using that floor of the Tower for anything important anyway. Tacos?” Tony suggested. “I’m thinking that place by Fordham. BattleBot, you in?”

“Can’t,” the Soldier said, typing something into his phone. “I have a date.”

Tony stopped talking for an entire three seconds. “You. Have a date.”

The Soldier looked up and blinked, clearly nonplussed to find Sam and Tony both staring at him. “Yes.”

“With who?”

“My boyfriend.”

“You have a boyfriend. You have a boyfriend?” Tony looked like he’d just walked into a lamppost, and then the lamppost had handed him a birthday present.

The Soldier’s brow furrowed. “Is that a problem?”

“Hey, this isn’t disapproval on my face, this is flabbergast. Flabbergastness? Flabbergosity?” Tony waved a dismissive hand. “I’m just a teeny bit surprised, no need to do that thing with your face where your eyebrows try to merge with your nose. Details! I need details!”

“Tony,” Sam tried.

Tony ignored him. “Is your boyfriend also a former brainwashed Soviet assassin?”

“No.” The Soldier’s stance eased. His phone chirped and he went back to typing.

“I guess that was a longshot. Is he a Marine?”

“No.”

“A fireman?”

“No.”

“Mixed martial-arts instructor?”

“He’s a painter.”

“Pics or it didn’t happen,” Tony demanded.

“Tony,” Sam sighed, but the Soldier was already holding out his phone. Tony barely resisted grabbing it. (People who grabbed things from the Soldier had a tendency to break fingers; granted, they were usually bad guys going for the Soldier’s weapons, but there was no telling exactly how the Soldier would react to a grab in a non-combat situation, and Sam for one would not want to be the first person to test it).

“That’s your boyfriend?” Tony said incredulously. “Him? No way. I don’t believe it.”

The Soldier’s eyebrows were advancing south again. “Why not?”

“Why not? Look at him, he’s adorable.”

“Yes,” the Soldier agreed, mollified.

Sam gave up on resisting his own curiosity and leaned over Tony’s shoulder. The Soldier obligingly held out his phone, which displayed a picture of a short, skinny guy with a neat blond crew cut. He was wearing a plaid flannel shirt and giving the camera a grin and a dorky peace sign.

“When are we meeting him?” Tony said. “Is it now? Can we meet him now? Does he like tacos?”

The Soldier gave them both an evaluating look. Sam tried to radiate friendly acceptance and not show that he was dying of curiosity almost as badly as Tony was.

“Yes,” the Soldier said eventually.

“Yes, he likes tacos, or yes, we can meet him now?”

“Yes.” The Soldier’s phone chirped again. He glanced at it and said, “He’s nearby. He’ll meet us there.”

The Soldier started walking. Tony and Sam fell in beside him, Tony throwing new questions at the Soldier with every step.

“Where did you meet?”

“JDate.”

“Seriously?”

“No.”

“Are you actually Jewish, though?”

The Soldier shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

“Same.” Tony held out a fist. The Soldier bumped it without looking up from his phone. “How long have you been dating?”

“Five months.”

“Five months! You need to tell me these things, this is information I needed to know, I thought we were friends.”

“Why would you think that,” the Soldier said, so flatly that Sam was almost entirely sure he was joking.

“I’m hurt, Ice-T, I’m wounded and distraught. If I ask you about your sex life are you going to punch me?”

“Yes.”

Tony’s eyes narrowed in calculation. “With which arm?”

“You guys hear that?” Sam interrupted. Angry shouts were echoing down the street ahead of them. He put a hand down to the shield at his side to check its position, his wingpack a reassuring weight on his back. A particularly loud yell was followed by a loud thud and the sound of glass breaking, like a waiter dropping a tray of glasses. “What is that?”

A beatific smile spread across the Soldier’s face. “That’s Steve.”

“What?” Sam said, but the Soldier had already broken into a run.

The commotion was coming from the taco place. Sam rounded the corner at a jog just in time to see a tiny guy pick himself up from the ground and hurtle forward into a much bigger man’s kneecaps, tackling him to the sidewalk. The contents of a knocked-over recycling bin were spilling into the street, sprays of glass marking bottles that had broken on impact.

The Soldier dove swiftly into the tangle of bodies and hauled the big guy up by his collar. “What did he do?” he asked the other man.

“Got handsy with a server,” the man replied. His nose was bleeding, but he didn’t seem to notice. He grinned at the Soldier, and suddenly Sam recognized him. This was Steve? “You want to sit on him until the cops come?”

The Soldier put the man in an armlock and didn’t move an inch, no matter how much the man struggled, until the NYPD showed up. Sam adopted his most Captain America voice and reassured the bystanders that everything was under control. The crowd petered out once the fighting was over, not even the spectacle of three Avengers helping with a citizen’s arrest enough to meet New Yorkers’ jaded standards for a free show.

Once the cops had loaded the still-protesting brawler into the back of their car, the Soldier gave Steve a thorough once-over, eyes lingering on the smear of blood under his nose. He pulled Steve into a careful hug. Sam tried not to stare at the novel sight of the Soldier initiating non-violent physical contact. “Ribs?”

“Totally fine.” Steve gave the Soldier an extra squeeze before letting go. “What about you, did you get hurt at all?”

“Strained knee. Your nose is bleeding.”

“Shit.” Steve swiped at the blood under his nose, made a face at his messy hand, and gave Sam and Tony a little wave instead of trying to shake hands. The Soldier dug into one of his belt pouches and handed Steve a wet wipe. “Hey, you must be Bucky’s coworkers. Nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” Tony said. It was more of a question than a statement. “Who the hell is Bucky?”

“Me,” the Soldier said.

Tony and Sam exchanged a look. Steve just cleaned his hands and threw the wet wipe away.

“Is that something we should call you, too?” Sam asked.

The Soldier shrugged. “Sure.”

“And hey, you should’ve said your knee was hurt,” Sam told the Soldier as they filed into the taco place–told Bucky, and that was going to be a weird adjustment. “We could’ve given you a lift.”

“It’ll heal,” Bucky said, entirely unconcerned.

“You guys shouldn’t rely on air support so much,” Steve said, eyes wandering over the menu. “Your team has so many fliers that it’s weakening your ground game.”

“Excuse me?” Tony said.

“You almost lost the third chimera when it went under tree cover because Iron Man and Captain America were both in the air, and Hawkeye and the Soldier were in elevated sniper stands. If the Black Widow hadn’t been in that quadrant already, the chimera would’ve made it past the SHIELD perimeter. Hey, Bucky, have you ever had mole?”

“No,” Bucky said. He was standing sideways in line, his back to the wall–and to Steve, Sam noted, who was apparently allowed inside his blind spot. “Is it good?”

“Yeah, I think you’ll like it. Want to split mole and pulled pork?”

“Yes.” Bucky slipped out of the line and went to stake out a booth.

“I know we make it look easy,” Tony said, “but saving the world on a weekly basis is actually kind of difficult, and we’re pretty good at it by now.”

“Oh, sure. All of you are brilliantly effective at what you do, but that means you’re not working as a group as well as you could. You’re all playing to your individual strengths instead of cohering as a unit. Hi, could I get one order of mole tacos and one of pulled pork?” Steve asked the cashier, his voice abruptly polite.

Sam distracted Tony with questions about Pepper’s latest gallery opening until they got their food and sat down. Bucky had managed to claim a corner booth by the kitchen and was sitting on the bench that faced the front doors. Steve climbed over his lap to get into the corner seat. Bucky slid a little further in after Steve sat down, in a move that Sam interpreted as 30% doting boyfriend seeking closeness, 70% bodyguard blocking potential lines of fire.

“Okay, so you think our ground game is weak.” Tony steepled his fingers over his plate and narrowly avoided putting an elbow in the guacamole cup. “Elaborate.”

“You don’t need two fliers and two snipers on a five-person team. The Iron Man suit is a walking tank, Captain America’s shield is a perfect melee weapon, and Hawkeye and the Winter Soldier are both hand-to-hand combat experts. There’s no reason any one of you couldn’t fight in close quarters. You need to vary your approach before the people you’re fighting catch on and start staging battles in places where long-distance engagement is impossible.” Steve dragged the wadded-up tortilla end of his taco through a smear of sour cream on his plate and passed it to Bucky, who stuffed it into his mouth without comment. “Any time you can’t fight from the air, you’re at a real disadvantage. Bucky told me about what happened in the sewers last August.”

Sam’s face wrinkled at the memory. Clint had almost gotten eaten by an alligator-dinosaur-thing, and the smell had clung to Sam’s costume for weeks.

“Oh, you heard all about it?” Tony said. “Fine, bantamweight, lay it on me. What would you have done instead?”

Steve’s smile went sharp. “Well,” he said, and shoved everything out of the middle of the table. “For starters–”

Sam pulled his taco plate into his lap to keep it out of the way of the rapidly unfolding model of the sewers, which Steve assembled out of straws and sugar packets. Steve moved the salt and pepper shakers (Iron Man and the Winter Soldier) through the grid, while the straw wrapper (Black Widow) slipped ahead to provide recon and a plastic knife and spoon (Hawkeye and Captain America) guarded the exits. Tony challenged every call he made, and Steve pushed right back, questioning Tony’s assumptions and demonstrating his own reasoning. Sam ate his tacos and put in his own two cents whenever he could get a word in edgewise.

Sam’s attention was split between the conversation and surreptitiously watching Bucky. Bucky didn’t react to anything that was said, although Sam was sure he heard every word. He looked more relaxed than Sam had ever seen him, like the sound of Steve and Tony bickering was a zen meditation podcast.

“Huh,” Tony said, halfway through their fifth iteration. “You have a point.”

“Yep.” Steve sat back in his seat and stretched out his back, all that startlingly intense focus draining from his posture. It was amazing how quickly he went back to looking like a nerdy grad student. Sam might have been fooled, if he hadn’t just heard Steve argue Tony Stark to a standstill, and if Steve didn’t have dried blood ringing his nostrils.

“You said he was a painter,” Tony told Bucky accusingly.

“He is,” Bucky said. “He also has a PhD in history with a specialty in wartime tactics and strategy.”

“Seriously, how did you two meet?” Tony asked.

“I saved him from a mugger,” Steve said.

Tony stared at them. “I honestly can’t tell whether you guys are fucking with me right now.”

“I know,” Bucky said serenely.

“Hey, Steve, you want a job?” Sam asked, because unlike some people, he had his priorities straight.

“I already have a job.”

“Come on, don’t tell me you just pulled that analysis out of your ass, you’ve been thinking about this,” Tony said.

“How would you feel about working freelance?” Sam asked. “You could do strategy consulting, be our eye in the sky on missions–”

“Help keep your Bucky-boo-boo safe,” Tony interrupted.

Steve gave him a level look, then turned to Bucky. “I see what you mean.”

“I’m choosing to interpret that as a compliment,” Tony said.

“Yeah, okay, let’s talk terms. Churros first, though. You want churros?” Steve asked Bucky, who nodded.

“I could–” Bucky started, but Steve was already climbing over his legs to get out of the booth.

“I got it.” Steve leaned over the back of the booth and kissed the top of Bucky’s head. He didn’t have to lean down very far. “You take a load off, rest that knee.”

Tony watched Steve go up to the counter, then turned to Bucky. “Okay, nevermind,” he said. “I get it. He’s scrappy, huh?”

“Buddy, you got no idea,” Bucky said, and stole the half-eaten taco right off of Tony’s plate.

[brandonk10]

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1MOAmdC3rcX7WNTQMGAZaNS_FMNDZI7oD

Above are the Images I did this summer that I’m really happy with!

So as a TLDR for the post,

-Animation Compilation below, has OC's in it, whom are credited to the creators.

-My favorite images from this summer that I did, either for commissions or fun, are in the comments with an additional image showing all the character models I made or tweaked in the past year, which tallied to 68.

-I'm fixing the storyboards for Jade's trailer to begin production once I get to college.

-JADE is moving from Remnant to a new world of my creation. They aren't RWBY OC's anymore. Answers to any questions you might have are possibly located in the FAQ part of the post that I'm sharing.

-I'm not going to stop posting here, since it does not break any rules, and have spoken with an admin on a schedule. I will be able to keep my weekly schedule since it is only one post per week, and isn't diverting the group from it's primary focus. But if I do stop posting, then most likely I broke a rule.

Hello Everyone!

So I’ve reached the last week of my summer break before going back to College!  So I’ve got a couple of things to get to.

First of all, I have compiled all the animations from this year that have been posted on this page, but not on my youtube channel.  The finish date has been posted.  I’ve also attached the 3 Commission Animations that I did for Recent Commissions!

https://youtu.be/h0iylBttnTY

Second, here is all the quality images that I have completed this summer!  It contains plenty of OC’s that I did for either Commissions, or as fan art for my friends!  The OC’s and their owners shall be listed below!  On top of that, I did a tally image of all the models I have worked on, or modeled from scratch and rigged in the past year.  That tally reached 68 Models.  Now those OC’s will be listed with their owners below if they do not belong to me.  Now if we were to count models that weren’t rigged I technically have over 100 models, because of some fun requests I did around a year ago.

Thirdly, I am currently working on fixing up the storyboards to be easier to read in terms of poses and action.  I will be finishing up the storyboards over the next few days, and should be able to finish the animatic before going back to College.

Finally, next week I will be releasing a poster to announce the production beginning on Jade’s Trailer.  Now with that will be a visual reveal of something that’ll change how the series functions.  JADE is jumping ship from Remnant, and will no longer be considered “RWBY OC’s”, instead they are going to be characters in a world that I am currently creating.  It isn’t fully completed in concept, but the events of Jade’s trailer will be easy to pin in this world since the concepts of this new world that’ll be present in Jade’s trailer have already been planned out.  There are several reasons for me doing this, firstly, I really adore these characters and would love to make the series to it’s full completion, but unless I work for RT, they green light the show (Which their internship pages have illustrated that they are not looking for a new show concept, unless if you are a higher-up in the company, which is fair), and I’m given creative control on the project, I cannot create the show as into the future as I would love to, while being able to sustain myself without simply infringing on copyright.  Which is, again, a fair point.  Secondly, I am doing this because it would allow me to be more creative with the world, and improve my writing abilities by forcing myself to do research overload, a task I find oh so exciting.  Thirdly, it would probably be more appropriate for the series in reflection, because all drafts of any script or outline for JADE since beginning making RWBY OC’s in general involved me conceptualizing new ideas for Remnant ranging from locales, cultures, aura systems, and aura abilities making those drafts’ only attachment to RWBY seem to be the color team name, aura, dust, and semblance.  

To address some questions before they do come up, as they are fair points.

-I will be doing my best to separate JADE from RWBY as much as possible.  In fact, their team name was never based on a color in it’s origin, it’s actually an inside-joke amongst them.  So if I decide to keep the joke, I’ll keep the name, but if I don’t then the name will vanish.  As a warning for the future of this update, I will be using the Remnant counterparts to the systems in this world.  

-The “Aura” of the world, will not feature a primary defense mechanism, and is currently being conceptualized as an idea that groups people into various classes of combat, and life in general, since it can be used to determine personality.  I’m going to try to enhance upon that so I can differentiate between this culture and Remnant’s.  

-The “Dust” of the world, will not have lead to man’s creation, will not be explosive, will have additional types that will differentiate it from dust, and will need further tweaking to properly distinguish it.  

-The “Semblance” of this world will not be based on a personality trait, but a flaw, since a theme of the story will be about self betterment, or achieving perfection.  So the power is designed to counter-act that key weakness in their character, forcing them to begin to change, but not get the instant answer.

-The “Grimm” of this world, are different in every way I can imagine, as they were designed to, and will take on a more natural approach, as opposed to silhouette-like designs.

-Characters will not be named after colors, there will be birth reasons for it that aren’t related to colors.  Sadly, this is an idea I only realized was an issue recently, so I will be making an effort to properly think this through so it won’t be subject to an accusal of plagiarism.

-All-in-All I’m going to try to make the world as far from Remnant as possible.  

If you decide to stop supporting this project, I hope I’ve entertained you with my Animation, and that you have a fantastic life, and if you haven’t already, go watch NYON Episode 2, it’s just so much fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nXYbPGqVjA&t=447s

All OC’s to the best of my Ability from Left to Right in that Group Image:

From Left to Right (As Best I can):

Auburn Perrault: Aundreya Garcia 

Avena Sharpe: Garrett Calvery 

Noirie, Niya and Mella Mavros, and Jade Tengu: Gabe Chestnut 

Ivori Levina: James Wright II

Dage: Nico O'Gorman 

Marian Loreli: Kristopher Kernan 

Venus Rosebind: Jayden King 

Lavender Fairclough: Dre Taylor 

JC Avatar: https://twitter.com/jcthedawn

Rocco Obsidia: Kyle Duffy 

Kobolt Walthers: Michael Lopez 

Rai Tempest: Jezreel Deity Tuldague 

Artemis, and Yue Hinto: Demetri Li 

Verdell Hydra (Also Chibi), Elroy Minos, Nigel Harbour, and Magenta Rachnera: EL Austria 

Mourvédre Rolandé Vinvalier, and Regynt Richelle: Nico O'Gorman 

Vera: Maevis Tobi Richardson

Silver, Lavender, and Violet: Scott Callahan 

Mika Anuna: Christian Perez 

Grey Korudo: William Raymond 

Mallaithe o'lFreann: Sara Rhys Whipple

All Models were modeled, textured, rigged, and posed/animated by me.

All "Jade" Characters belong to me

I do not own RWBY, all ownership belong to Monty Oum, and Rooster Teeth Productions

If you're interested in seeing my Animations, my YouTube Channel is here: 

www.youtube.com/user/StopMotio…

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[imaginetonyandbucky]

Hi! I love the imaginetonyandbucky blog, there's so much amazing fic and art on here. Prompt: Alpha Tony, Omega Bucky. Can be as G-rated or as smutty as you want, I'm simply flat-out tired of submissive Tony. Give me the alpha who fought off hostile businesses and gold diggers, and the omega soldier who followed orders. Optional Beta Steve.

Combined with:

I’ve seen a lot of alpha!Bucky/omega!Tony, but not much the other way around. Just… Bucky in the 40’s, only dating female alphas because most alpha men were jerks. No respect in the army ‘til he learns to snipe. HYDRA injecting him full of chemicals because an Asset in heat is just inconvenient. Tony being scorned by Howard because he’s too soft, too small. Tony never liking the alpha stereotypes or the reputation he gains because of them… Them meeting their equal but opposite in each other.            

and:

Imagine a switch on the A/B/O where Bucky is the Omega and Tony is Alpha. Bucky gets pregnant.      

and:

Imagine Bucky completely hiding his sexuality in the 40s (if he got arrested who would look after Steve?), 70 years later Tony is his first (male) everything.

No Such Thing as Soulmates (Probably) - Part I of II

The scent hits Tony the moment he steps out of the elevator; sweet, almost cloying in its intensity, settling thickly in the back of his throat when he breathes in too deeply. It’s overwhelmingly strong, and has Tony stagger before he braces himself with a hand against the wall, blinking rapidly and shaking his head against the fog threatening to descend over the more rational parts of his brain.

This isn’t Tony’s first encounter with an Omega in heat, not by a long shot, but it’s the first time since early puberty that his body and hindbrain are reacting in complete, harmonic unison without his say-so. He has to close his eyes, and cup his hands over his nose and mouth, breathing in the smells of a day spent tinkering in his workshop to calm down his racing heart, and soothe his Alpha instincts currently going absolutely haywire.

Once his head feels a little clearer, Tony slowly removes his hands, takes an experimental breath, and lets out a relieved sigh when nothing happens. He considers heading back to his own floor, and scouring his own, much emptier fridge for something to eat, but the sour, distressed note buried under the prominent Omega in heat scent makes him hesitate. Worrying his bottom lip, Tony cautiously makes his way towards the kitchen, but stops in the doorway when he’s greeted with a growl.

Barnes is sitting on the floor amidst a mess of loose tea leaves and shards of a shattered mug, pressed back against the cabinets, legs drawn up against his chest, arms resting on his knees, and face buried in his arms. He doesn’t look up at Tony, but he does make another low warning noise when Tony carefully inches across the room, reminding Tony to keep his distance.

(Watch out for the break!)

Tony concentrates on radiating calm, trying to appear as harmless and non-threatening as possible, but Barnes remains tense and suspicious while Tony gets two new mugs, fills them with water, and puts them in the microwave. He rummages through the first aid kit until he finds the heat pack, wets a dish towel, and then grabs the ginger tea and adds a bag to each mug when the microwave dings.

When everything’s ready, he sits down across from Barnes—who has lifted his head in the meantime, just enough to track Tony’s movements—far enough away to not encroach on his personal space, and puts his offerings on the floor between them. “Hi,” he says, nudging the heat pack a little closer to Barnes, and smiling reassuringly. “These things are great for muscle pain.”

Barnes watches him warily, and Tony can’t blame him. They haven’t had much to do with each other in the month and a half since Steve brought Barnes in, apart from a couple of meetings with Helen and Bruce to discuss the issues with Barnes’ prosthesis—comfort clearly hadn’t been a priority of the goddamned butchers who first installed it—and how to fix them. And now Barnes is in heat, in a bad one from the looks of it, as vulnerable as he’ll ever get, and Tony is an Alpha he barely knows, an almost stranger his instincts are most likely telling him is a possible threat.

Even though Barnes could easily take Tony out with both hands tied behind his back. While blindfolded, probably. Saying as much makes one corner of Barnes’ mouth twitch up, and his shoulders relax minutely, which Tony decides counts as progress.

“The tea’s ginger, it’s supposed to help with nausea,” he says, nodding at the mug. “And we still have some of that mixed flower honey Nat brought back from Switzerland, if you want.”

Barnes shakes his head, and reaches for the towel, draping it over the back of his neck with a quiet hiss. “This is fine,” he says, his voice hoarse, barely above a whisper. He grabs the heat pack, too, and uncurls enough to slip it under his shirt, pressing it against his abdomen. “Thanks.”

His hands are trembling when he goes for the mug, bad enough that some of the tea sloshes over the rim, and he nearly drops it. Tony reacts without thinking, and leans forward to put a hand over Barnes’ to steady him, and they both freeze. Tony’s about to apologise—way to be a pushy Alpha douchebag—when he notices that while Barnes’ scent has flared up, it’s not with fear or anger or defensiveness, but with interest.

Tony feels it a moment later; a warm tingling sensation, fanning out from where Tony’s fingers are touching Barnes’, and slowly but steadily spreading up Tony’s arm, over his shoulder, and down his back, across his whole body. He’s suddenly hyperaware of Barnes, all senses tuned in on Barnes, and Barnes alone.

And he knows what it means, too. They’re compatible.

People less jaded than Tony call it the soulmate phenomenon, and tend to romanticise the whole thing, talk about finding their one true love. It’s a nice idea, albeit an inaccurate one. Some people have dozens of compatible partners, while others have none at all. The only thing being compatible really means is that the compatible parties are biologically and emotionally as close to perfect for each other as possible, and that there’s the potential to form a bond, if the people involved decide to put in the time and work.

“Oh,” Barnes breathes, and lifts his free hand to brush a tentative thumb over Tony’s cheek.

Tony gasps, the skin under Barnes’ thumb flushing and warming, and sways into the touch for a moment before he catches himself. “This doesn’t have to mean anything.”

Barnes’ eyes are wide, his pupils blown when he looks at Tony, but his expression is serious nonetheless. “Doesn’t have to. Could, though?”

Tony would be lying if he said he wasn’t tempted. He sucks at his bottom lip, considering, and watches Barnes’ eyes drop down to his mouth before lazily, unashamedly being dragged back up to Tony’s. “Tell me what you’re thinking?”

“‘M thinkin’,” Barnes says, and puts the mug down on the floor next to them so he can, after waiting for Tony’s nod of permission, settle both his hands on Tony’s waist and tug him closer, “that ‘m hurtin’, and there’s a gorgeous Alpha right in front of me. An’ that he could help me out. That it’d be good.”

“What about suppressants?” Tony asks, even as he moves with Barnes until he’s straddling Barnes’ now outstretched legs. “Spending your heat with an Alpha isn’t the only option you have here.”

That makes Barnes’ bare his teeth, his scent bittering with anger. “‘M full to the gills with suppressants already. Whatever HYDRA did to me, I didn’t have heats while I was with ‘em, as far as I remember. Doctors think my body’s tryin’ to catch up now.”

“Shit,” Tony says, the picture of eloquence. He winces apologetically. “I’m sorry. About, well. All of it.”

Barnes shrugs, dismissive. “‘S not your fault. ‘Sides,” he waggles his eyebrows, but he’s grinning a little, making it look more dorky than sexy, “heat partners are s’pposed to be better than suppressant, ain’t they?”

“Definitely the case when it comes to ruts,” Tony agrees, and lets some more of his weight settle in Barnes’ lap. “That what you want? A heat partner? Just this once, a favour kind of thing? Or make it something regular? Something more?”

To his credit, Barnes takes a couple of seconds to think about it before he answers. “I want someone to do this with me, this time. An’ if it goes well, maybe do it again. ‘M open to more, if you are.”

“So,” Tony says, wiggling in place a little, anticipation building now. “Hot, mindblowing heat sex now, see how it goes, and go from there? You’ve got yourself a deal, Barnes.”

“Mindblowin’, huh?” Barnes teases, and Tony kisses him.

Barnes growls again, low and full of promise this time, and grabs Tony by the back of the neck with his metal hand, tilting his head for a better angle. Tony lets himself be moved, shuddering when he tests Barnes’ grip, which is tight enough that getting away would be a struggle. “Bossy,” he murmurs against Barnes’s cheek, flicking his tongue out to lick at the corner of his mouth. “I like it.”

That makes Barnes pull back a little, brows drawing together into a frown. He flexes his fingers, seemingly fascinated when Tony lets out an appreciative moan. “You do,” he breathes, awed. “I didn’t think—I’ve never done this, any of it, with an Alpha. Or another guy.” He smiles, sheepish. “‘M used to takin’ charge.”

“No complaints here.” Tony winks at him, and ducks in for another quick kiss, before sitting back. “We can take it slow, do as little or as much as you want. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

“I want everythin’,” Barnes groans, eyes fluttering. He pushes up with his hips, grinding his erection against Tony’s ass, and guides Tony back in to bring their mouths back together. “Been waitin’ for so long, you have no idea. Never could, before, was too dangerous. Couldn’t let myself get caught with a Beta guy, or ‘nother Omega, they woulda locked me up for good, taken me away from my family. Couldn’t risk havin’ some shithead Alpha claim me, either, put me behind a stove, force me to pop out a bunch of kids for ‘im.”

Tony pauses at that, and moves back, despite Barnes’ protesting whine. “Have you done any of this before? Alpha women weren’t legally allowed to claim anyone until the 70s, and Beta women can’t—”

“‘M not into women,” Barnes says, pushing his free hand under Tony’s tank to grope at his pecs. Tony has no idea what his face is doing, but he must look pretty close to how horrified he feels, because Barnes winds both arms around him, hugging him close. “Sucked for a lot’a us back then, but it was what it was.”

“So,” Tony asks, burying his nose in Barnes’ hair to breathe him in. “You never dated? Anyone? Or—are you a virgin?”

He feels more than hears Barnes sigh. “Depends on your definition of the word. I dated, had a few steady Alpha girlfriends to keep up appearances, took ‘em out to dinner or dancin’, all very proper. A kiss here an’ there, coupla handjobs. Not sure I woulda managed to do more, anyway.”

“If you want to stop—”

“Does this,” Barnes twitches his hips up again, his cock still rock hard, “feel like I want to stop?”

Tony wants to ask if he’s sure, but swallows the question back. Barnes is a grown man, who’s had more than enough choices taken away from him in the past. Tony’s not going to be someone who makes him feel like his decisions aren’t valid or getting respected. He does press closer, though, and rub his cheek against the top of Barnes’ head, covering him in his scent in a possessive, blatantly obvious soothing gesture.

Barnes hums, amused, and playfully nips at the hinge of Tony’s jaw. “Such a good Alpha.”

He’s being a little shit, the rational part of Tony knows that, but it makes him preen anyway. Barnes laughs into Tony’s neck, sliding his hands up over Tony’s back, scratching softly through his shirt. Tony gently bites at his ear in return, grinning when it makes Barnes breath stutter, and asks, “What do you want?”

“A bed would be pretty nice, for starters,” Barnes says, voice sly, and jostles Tony a little. “Gettin’ heavy there, buddy.”

His knees are definitely happy about getting off the floor, but Tony still shoots Barnes a flat look as he levers himself up. “Too bad you don’t have superhuman strength,” he says, deadpan, holding out a hand. “Up and at ‘em, Barnes, come on.”

Barnes lets Tony pull him up, then links his fingers through Tony’s. “If you plan on stickin’ your dick in me, you should probably start callin’ me Bucky.”

- Potrix

[fantroll-purgatory]

@genesisaberrance

Alternia or Beforus or some type of AU?: Alternia! She straight up wouldn’t work on Beforus.

Name (preferably include how you came up with it and why): Saskia Ivenen. This doesn’t actually have any relevance- Whenever I don’t have any ideas for symbolic troll names, I just kinda… smash two syllables together. While I’m somewhat attached to Saskia now, I’d be very interested in a potential different last name!

I’m really picky about name meanings sometimes, but I know what it’s like to be attached to a name- I think Saskia can be decently kept around. It does happen to be an actual name, but an uncommon enough one that I won’t give you a strike for it. It also means “protector of mankind,” which is a funny contrast to her actual nature. I think it’s a nice call to what her role SHOULD be. Also in the series LOST GIRL, a character named Aife takes on the name Saskia in order to manipulate and trick the main character. So there’s a neat little reference. 

For surname I’m going to do Semele. This is because Semele is the mother of Dionysus, with the added benefit that Semele’s parents, Harmonia and Cadmus, both turned into serpents. 

Saskia Semele also has a nice, snaky alliteration to it. 

Age:Varies, but it’s highly doubtful she lived to be especially old, for her caste or otherwise. She probably died somewhere around 25 sweeps or so, with my personal headcanon being that Rainbow Drinkers are functionally immortal unless something or someone actively kills them and that trolls in general live a lot longer than humans do. Of note is that she’s ancestor-era, not Karkat and crew era.

I definitely agree about rainbowdrinkers being functionally immortal. They’re vampires, after all, and their longevity does make sense. Jadebloods for sure would generally outlive humans, too, but not all trolls do. Burgundybloods, for example, live about 30-60 years, and the lifespan increases in graduated steps. That’s just a little trivial sidenote! But yeah her being ancestor-era would justify her still being on-planet even as an adult. 

Strife Specibus:Undecided, but my current leaning is towards bladekind, with her specifically utilising daggers most of the time. If you’ve got any other ideas, i’d be interested to hear them! 

Daggers are a nice and fast weapon. I think staffkind might be more themeatically sound, because you could have her use a Thyrsus. That’s the neat staff topped with a pinecone that Dionysus used as a weapon. 

Or, hear me out, you could have her use a weighted net like a Retiarius? That’s a gladiator who wielded a specific set of weapons, but I really am mostly interested in the net. You say she likes to avoid fights when she can, so a primary weapon that focuses on escape seems like a good idea. You could still use daggerkind as a Last Resort sort of weapon. I just think she could get into all kinds of neat and unique high jinks with a net. This is a bit of a sloppy connection to draw, but a lot of people associate gladiatorial combat with hedonism- think of the image of the Roman emperor lying back being fed grapes while judging the gladiators. 

Fetch Modus: Literally no idea. No clue. You guys have no idea how frustrating thinking of a fetch modus for my characters is for me, please help, I’m begging, please, snakes have manifested physically in my home, 

Picking a fetch modus is a pretty tricky stumbling block for a lot of people. Don’t worry, it’s why we’re here to help! 

For a funnier jokier modus you could do Peanut Brittle Modus, as a reference to the snake-in-a-peanut-brittle-can goof people like to do. Her item is placed into a can and she has to attempt to open it and get startled by the Fakey Snakes if she picks wrong. …Or real snakes if you wanted. Snakes could literally manifest in her home. You have the power. 

Additionally, you could use a Greed Modus. A modus that requires her to always have something in the inventory and won’t spit an item out if it’s the only thing in there, and that requires her to trade items of equal value. 

Blood color: Jadeblood! She ran away from the Caverns, though, finding them far too restricting and… well, boring. She was pretty young, so it felt like far more of a good idea at the time. 

Symbol and meaning:Her symbol is the alchemical symbol for Sulphur, often associated with Brimstone. My intention was to hint at, but not wholly embrace, a theme of corruption, vice, and sin– Saskia is not a good person, and her hedonism takes some pretty awful forms at places. This is also the intention behind her lusus, and her quirk.

I’ll be updating this to match what we know about the 288 canon symbols, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it down at the bottom. 

Trolltag:dionysusDistilled. Dionysus being the Greek god of wine, fertility, madness, and ecstasy. The fertility part isn’t super important there, and while this association isn’t actually perfect when compared to the literal legends, Dionysus kinda has this place as being kinda-sorta culturally relevant, and the ‘wine and madness’ portions of his domain are far more pronounced in pop culture. Distilled has a dual meaning- both another reference to alcohol, as a sideways reference to hedonism in general, as well as the implication that Saskia takes all the good parts from the god, distilling him down into his core essence. This was intended to hint at her arrogance, but I’ll admit it is a little bit clumsy. 

I do really enjoy the concept behind this trolltag a Whole lot. The meaning and everything is very fitting for the character you’re going for. Another I could potentially recommend might be lilithianApple. Lilith being mythological figure who is sometimes reported as Adam’s first wife and in some tellings of the story might’ve been the serpent to tempt Eve with the apple (thus making the apple a reference to this, but I also intended it as a reference to Eris’ golden apple). Lilith’s name is a reference to being a demon of the night and she’s sometimes portrayed as a cannibalistic spirit, so it fits the whole rainbowdrinker thing, too.

Quirk: Fairly simple one– she doubles every lower-case ’s’, unless it’s already doubled in a word (such as, for instance, ‘unless’, which already has two lower-case s in it)., and she replaces every upper-case S with a dollar sign. The former being to reinforce the snake theme, in turn leaning on the corruption and vice theme, and the latter being an extremely overt and straightforward reference to her enjoyment of material objects and opulence in general.

Special Abilities (if any):Hoo boy, bear with me for a second, because this leans heavily on my own headcanons. So… Saskia has fairly strong hypnosis. It isn’t mind control, and while she can implant suggestions and the like, it typically takes a form more like, uh… you know Kaa, from the old cartoon Jungle Book? That. Maintaining eye contact, she can put people into a trance, and make them more suggestible. Depending on who I’m writing with, this is actually usually a jadeblood thing, albeit not a thing all jadebloods can do- with the Maryams being notable examples of jades who have no latent hypnotic abilities.  Otherwise, it’s just a thing that she can do. I fully expect you might disagree with me on this, but I am pretty set on keeping it.

I dddefinitely have a disagreement with this, but rules Are made to be broken and despite Kanaya stating that jadebloods really don’t get any beneficial psychic powers, it’s Always possible for there to be special cases. I do like the fact that it’s a reference to Kaa. And I DO think it’s an interesting concept. Maybe you could work it as… after she becomes a rainbowdrinker? Vampires in mythology are REALLY OFTEN shown to have charming and even hypnotizing abilities to trick their prey. So she could be a very rare rainbowdrinker who was lucky enough to develop that sort of ability. You could work it as an example of a vampiric power instead of a jadeblood thing. 

Lusus: Giant snake! I flip-flop back and forth between it just being a massive snake, or it having feathers, but ultimately a feathered snake is actually a Thing in certain mythologies, and that thing has nothing to do with Saskia’s themes, so I’ve tentatively dropped it.

Just a snake feels a Little too plain here. I think maybe a hydra? I know they’re very water associated, but they’re still A Snake, so I think it’s alright. The relative immortality of the snake references her rainbowdrinker nature- kill it and it’ll come right back and all that. But the fact that it has multiple heads can also metaphorically represent her being two-faced. 

Personality: Manipulative asshole, basically. She’s pretty much completely amoral, though she shies away from major bloodshed or strife personally due to not wanting to die, and she’s self-serving and narcissistic. Saskia is not a nice person, she makes her living by staying in the hives of the recently-deceased until someone comes around to do something about it, at which point she scarpers. Despite that, she can be pretty charming, needing to manipulate people into just… not killing her, even if she doesn’t succeed all the time in getting them to actively help. Tends to adopt a bit of a drawl, a bit of a ‘giggling flirt’ angle to her demeanour, but that drops the second she doesn’t need it in favour of a more calculating, cold air to her. She’s essentially a scavenger, just one that’s perfected the art of scavenging high quality stuff. Sometimes she’ll stay in high-quality hotels, and simply hypo-charm her way out of paying, but that’s pretty dangerous so she doesn’t do it all that much. 

Interests:  Things. She likes feeling comfortable and wealthy, she likes being pampered, and she likes looking pretty. She’s vain, she’s shallow, and she’s greedy. Also has a fondness for trashy romance novels, more as a source of comedy than wish fulfillment. 

Title: “The Hedonist” fits pretty well, but I admit that it’s fairly generic. I’m interested in ideas! 

You could do The Epicurea for something directly related but a little less generic. Epicurean thought is just a body of hedonist philosophy. The Voluptas could work for similar reasons, Voluptas being the goddess of pleasure/hedonism. 

I’m gonna skip those last two, because she never played sBurb– she died long before the meteors fell.

I’m going to assign her a theoretical title and moon just for the purposes of picking out a symbol for her. I think the game would theoretically REALLY want her to develop and learn… so her role might end up being Seer of Blood. Learning to understand responsibility and relationships, all that fun stuff. She’d also probably be a Dersite player. Everything combined, that makes her new sign: 

Vircen, the sign of the Liable. It’s really fun in contrast with her Behavior And Attitude. 

Art credit goes to carminearts.tumblr.com by the way! Lovely person, I owe her a great debt.

Oh, sorry about this being from an RP blog, by the way– I don’t have a personal, and my OC RP blog is both deeply nsfw and also a sideblog, so I can’t submit from it. 

No worries! 

Thank you for your time, I look forward to seeing your thoughts!

I’ve really enjoyed looking at her! Time to go onto some design notes!:

Horns: I switched them up to match the new symbol as well as the hooked horn for jadebloods rule. 

Hair: I played around with poofing it up a little? I think I still like your original design better, but I do think it could use a little more Troll-brand Spike. 

Mouth: I gave her defined lips because all jadebloods are shown to have them. 

Jacket: So while I was working on this design I realized we’d never really played around with the idea of someone exploiting social rules for their benefit, so I thought this was the perfect place to do that. You said she’s a scavenger who likes scavenging the finer things and I think she could easily use that to get away with slightly more daring fashion approaches. Such as wearing a Violetblood’s jacket to make it seem like she might have a violetblood in one of her quadrants. The jewelry was added for similar reasons, as well as a little Decadence imagery. 

Shirt: And of course there’s her new symbol. 

I like her a lot! Thank you for sharing this rude girl. 

-CD

[thephoenixfields]

Session 5: Aftershock

« SESSION 4 RECAP

The Thieves Guild is in tatters after Harami’s death. Raphael is inconsolable at how he was used by his father for so many years, how he was controlled by his father in the fight against his sister and the rest of the party. He doesn’t want to talk to Dania, doesn’t want anything. Rowan finds a ceremonial dagger on Harami’s belt and picks it up, insighting that it is a dagger that belongs to the head of this subset of the Zhentarim. The party continues to loot Harami’s body before Dania says pointedly, “Is that not our inheritance?”

The party summarily backs off said looting.

Raphael runs to go through Harami’s things back in the thief king’s tent and finds a diary that confirms his plans about marrying Dania off to Karver, as well as details on the slavers who stole Agrona’s child away from her (details that Harami has kept from Agrona for some time now). “You two owe me some fucking reparations,” Agrona hisses at Dania and Raphael.

Rowan offers Raphael the dagger and he refuses it. Rowan gives the dagger to Dania who hangs onto it for safekeeping. Raphael retreats and Rowan follows him with Nemo in tow. The two find him in a tree house his father had built for him when he was a child. Rowan climbs up and Nemo stays at the base of the tree, looking out for any beasties lurking in the shadows of the forest.

In the tree house, Rowan and Raphael have a long heart to heart centered on their mutual feeling of guilt. “If you’re bad, then I’m terrible,” seems to be the theme of the conversation. Raphael feels awful that he hurt the party, that he hurt his sister, and that he was controlled by his father. Rowan is reeling at how her connection to Pelor, her Life Domain patron, has seemingly severed ever since she cast the necromantic spell during the battle with Harami. Rowan decides that she must find a temple of Pelor to reconnect with her patron and Raphael decides that he can make the Thieves’ Guild something different. Something better.

Meanwhile, Sariel and Aeleyn decide to rest after the long battle. Sariel in particular is pretty pissed at the rest of the group (Fen and Julian), who instead of making sure everyone is alright, wanders to a bar within the Thief’s Pocket.

Julian and Fen wander into the bar to get plastered and meet a dark purple skinned tiefling woman wearing what appears to be a grim reaper’s cloak. She also carries a large bag that smells like death and oozes blood and guts on the surface of the bar.

Mathilde, Tiefling Blood Hunter (played by Kendra)

Mathilde is curious when the group talks about using the tunnels from the Hellbor ruins into the city of Soraya and joins the group in getting rather wasted on fine whiskey. Fen is very interested in Mathilde and even druid crafts her a flower as a gift. Julian is confused by the whole situation but probably gets the most drunk out of the lot of them.

Rowan has a terrible dream that night about enjoying the necromantic spell she used during Harami’s battle.

The group gathers once more after a long rest, tensions high after a night of splitting the party up and miscommunications. Julian and Sariel argue about what to do with Harami’s sword, a seemingly dark item. Julian is wary about Sariel touching it, considering her fury powers, and Sariel is hurt by the idea that Julian thinks she would hurt the group. Agrona greets the group and tells them that, like she said before, only members of the Thieves Guild can cross through the tunnel that connects Hellbor to Soraya. Therefore anyone wishing to pass through the tunnel must be inducted by an enchanted marking ceremony.

Each member of the party gets a tattoo:

Fen gets an eye on her arm

Julian gets three birds on his shoulder

Mathilde gets a simple circle on her palm

Sariel gets the sigil of her family’s house, House Goldenstar

Rowan gets an embellished symbol of Pelor on her wrist

Aeleyn gets the word “family” in Elvish on her wrist

Nemo gets the standard Thieves Guild mark on his arm

Agrona pulls Sariel aside and tries to talk to her in reference to her rage-based powers. “I’m not an arcanist,” Agrona starts, poking her stick into the fire, which bites back at her with embers and smoke. “I don’t know magic. I’m trained in assassination, in slitting throats. I don’t know what you are.” Agrona pauses. “But I know the look on your face because I lived with it for years: the rage, the anger. I see the fury in your eyes just sitting here with you.”

Raphael accepts the ceremonial dagger from Dania and says he is going to try to make the Thief’s Pocket into something better. He also gives Sariel Harami’s cloak of protection as thank you for helping his sister. Dania warns the group that there is a riddle at the end of the tunnel that reflects the nature of the ruler of the Thieves Guild: one that measures what the leader of this sect holds dearest. Dania tells them that under Harami, the answer to the code was “Power, Money, Family.”

The group makes their way back to the entrance of Hellbor and instead of delving down into the depths where they traveled before, the group turns right and finds that they have free passage into the tunnel that leads into Soraya.

The sandbag puzzle at the end of the tunnel blocks the ascending staircase into Soraya. The group tries the answer that Dania gave them and it doesn’t work. After a few moments of deliberation, the group realizes that the puzzle must reflect Raphael’s ideals now that he has taken over. The group elevates family first, then money, then power, and the door to Soraya opens before them.

Once they get inside the city, the party disperses much to certain party members displeasure. Mathilde disappears to find her way to her contact within the city, Julian marches his way to the nearest bar with Mazrim and Nemo hot on his tail, and the rest of the party (Aeleyn, Rowan, Sariel, and Fen) all make their way to Grace Court, the area of Soraya that houses the religious sects within the city.

Julian, Nemo, and Mazrim find their way to the Silver Jackal. Nemo recognizes Selene, who is having an argument with a tiefling compatriot. “Orion, there was nothing we could have done,” she hisses at him.

“It’s just that he was going on and on about this group of powerful people who managed to get him inside the city gates so easily. He caught himself a lot of attention,” Orion says bitterly.

Sariel and Aeleyn accompany Rowan to the temple of Pelor. Rowan enters alone and begins a deep prayer in an attempt to reconnect with her god and her magic, a connection that has broken since the battle with Harami. She consults the priest of Pelor who lives at the temple, Father Smythe, who tells her that, “Power is about choice. Perhaps you aren’t connecting to Pelor not because of what you chose to do, but instead why you choose to do it. Are you certain these friends are good influences on your journey towards faith and the light?” After an afternoon of prayer, Pelor sends Rowan a vision of open arms and a sweet, welcoming smile. My daughter,  a voice tells you. You know what is right.

Fen, on the other hand, is drawn to the temple of Ioun by a young boy who stands in the doorway of the temple, beckoning her inside. The boy gives her a choice: does she want to know about her first dream, the one that drove her from her home (the Witchcombe forest) in the first place, or her second dream? Fen asks if Ioun knows anything about her first dream. The boy settles at the altar and begins to speak. “There are stories about an ancient, Chained God,” he says quietly. “Stories that have been kept in the zeitgeist by my god’s sheer force of will. You see, Ioun is the patron of knowledge and prophecy, and I believe your dream was prophetic in nature. We should all be scared if Tharizdun is awakening.”

Mathilde, on her own, makes her way to the gate that divides the bottom ring of Soraya, Lower Soraya, with the Merchant’s Ring (the middle ring of the city). She is looking for Solomon, her contact within the city, who has put out a bounty for the troll’s head she carries in the bag she has with her. The six guards standing watch there give her a suspicious look, and then offer to take her to Solomon’s shop. But instead of taking her to the shop, they deceive her: instead, they reveal that they have taken her to the Ravenwing Royal Prison. The guards draw their weapons on Mathilde as the session comes to a close.

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