#they're not related but found family yadda yadda

[basket-of-cats-and-witches]

Party Banter: Various Wren and Ghil'danan

(This is a fake circumstance in which Ghil'danan, my Mourn Watch Rook, recruits his sister, Wren, a Grey Warden, to join the party.)

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Wren: I can't believe you're sleeping with my professor.

Ghil: Hmmph. As if you didn't know I've pined over him for years.

Neve: I'm sorry, your professor?

Wren: Oh! Yes! Professor Volkarin was my mentor for a time, before I was recruited to the Wardens.

Ghil: Yeah. She was considered a 'promising student' in the Mourn Watch.

Wren: As if you weren't. I'm just glad the professor finally took notice.

Neve: He sure does. He walked into one of those wolf statues the other day because he was too busy watching Ghil swing a sword around shirtless.

Ghil: I- that's- *sputtering*

Wren: *Giggles*

---------

Wren: *coughing*

Ghil: Da'len? Do we need to...?

Wren: I'll be fine. The wetlands are just murder on my lungs.

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Davrin: You've been a little distracted lately, Thorne.

Wren: Oh. It happens from time to time. The blight sings loudly to me. I suspect it's much the same for Antoine.

Ghil: *quietly* Is it?

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Taash: Hey.

Wren: Yes, dear?

Taash: I-

Ghil: Dear?

Wren: I know where you sleep, Ghil'danan. I will de-organize all of your embroidery thread.

Ghil: Now that's just cruel.

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Taash: I was going to say something last time, before Meathead interrupted.

Ghil: Hey!

Wren: Ignore him. What did you need?

Taash: Shathann makes me this honey drink when I mess up my throat. You want some? It helps with breathing.

Wren: Oh...thank you, Taash. I'd love some. I don't think it'll do much, but it's worth a shot.

--------

Davrin: Wren.

Wren: Davrin.

Davrin: It's getting worse, isn't it.

Wren: My dreams are certainly getting more interesting.

Davrin: I can hear you coughing sometimes, when you think people can't hear you. Even Lucanis has started leaving honey out.

Wren: Damn it! I knew it was a little weird. He never leaves things out.

Ghil: Da'len...

Wren: I know! I know. I just don't like being fussed over.

Ghil: You don't like worrying me.

Wren: ...I hate it when you call me out. Yes, it's worse. But it's the blight. The only thing I can do is keep fighting.

Davrin: A good warden knows their limits.

Ghil: Or at least takes a break every once in a while. You want me to draw you a hot bath when we're back?

Wren: I'm not a child anymore! I don't need people fussing over me!

Ghil: So you don't want the bath?

Wren: I didn't say that.

[melodiousmonsters]

Ah monster taxonomy, a confusing system I made primarily to give monsters cool scientific names, secondarily to make it so I don't have to restate shared traits between monster species. Btw if you are wondering why I didn't use the accurate terminations for taxonomic ranks it's because I didn't know about them and I like the names so I'm not changing them.

In universe and in real life the system was developed based off of shared morphological traits as the monster species aren't actually related to each other, so the only way to categorize them is by physical characteristics. As the ranks go down the shared traits get more specific, yadda yadda. Also there will be some general information on monsters after I get through all the ranks.

The first rank is kingdom, which is Monstra, monster kingdom, simple. It's requirements are the most basic qualifications for being a monster. Those will be explained at the end of this post. Next there's the two classes(not element classes, those are different and will be explained in another post eventually), Inorganica/inorganic, and Organica/organic. The inorganic class includes monsters that aren't structured like they are a fully living breathing animal, like just being bones or rocks. Organic monsters are organic and similar to animals of earth.

The order Constructa/constructs are monsters made up of a non-living substance, basically an extension of the inorganic class. Reanimata, a suborder, consists of monsters that are similar to the reanimated beasts of many human and monster world fiction stories. Or perhaps the monster world ghost stories were just of unknown plasma monsters causing mischief, who knows. The family Skeleossis includes monsters made of unliving bone. And Phantasma is made up of monsters made of ectoplasm, a weird gravity defying goop with strange properties like the ability to phase through walls and dissolve any organic matter.

The suborder constructa is different from the order constructa as it only includes monsters that look as if they are constructed of something. Mechina/mechs are robot monsters that grow by building themselves, Geologica/golems are made of minirals and usually grow by eating minirals, and Artizina are monsters made of things commonly found in a craft store, they're weird because they grow like a normal animal but they are made of craft supplies, they also tend to not eat anything.

Beastae/beasts are animal like monsters. Most of the suborders and families are self explanatory, and if they aren't you need to go to a zoo or outside or something. Or you can google them to see what they are as they were directly taken from actual taxonomy and correlate to an actual ranking. To save time I will explain the ones that don't make too much sense. Cartelpicae are cartilaginous fish, Ossispicae are bony fish, and Inkpicae are inkfish/cephalopod-like. Jellatina and Jellatinae are basically rankings where I threw all the monsters that are weird and slime-y or filled with liquid that I'd have to make an entire ranking for slugs or jellyfish despite it only having one monster in it. It's a space-saver. Humimamalia and Humavea can basically be described as fluffy humanoids that are either covered in fur or feathers respectively. Psudoreptillia is for all the monsters with scales that I don't feel comfortable putting in reptilieae for one reason or another.

Mondragora/mondrakes are plant/fungi monsters. We're using pre-1938 taxonomy here plants and fungi are totally not completely different things. Again most of these are self explanatory except Arborae and Noarborae. Arborae means tree and Noarborae means no tree. Arborae are plant monsters with woody bark and Noarborae don't have bark.

Now for what makes a monster a monster. The base classification of an organism being a monster is if it or its species was created by a god using a power element(fire and electricity) to force another monstrous element(natural, ethereal, and magical) to form into a living creature. This concoction of magic functions as a monsters' lifeforce. fire works, but only when the thing being brought to life is also fire. Electricity is the most common and a lot easier and you need a lot less of it. Monsters consider anything with innate musical ability and sapience to be a monster, which isn't the best method of classification as multiple critters fit this classification. There's also a few more correct classification methods in the monsters version of classifying a monster that I shall list and explain if necessary.

A monster is composed of elements that determine its species. Each combination of elements has to be associated with one species, with the exception of thumpies (I'll explain more about how those work in their monstiary page), and no other species can have the same elements as another.

A monster has to be able to breed. In this universe breeding refers to the process of forming an egg out of one's lifeforce and then merging it with another egg formed the same way to form an egg that eventually hatches into another organism. It's basically done how the breeding mechanics work in-game because I don't want the monsters to have sex/sexes in any way, shape, or form.

A monster must have a natural affinity to music or be inclined to learn how to do so. It also must be able to speak monstrous, the language of the signing monsters which is tonally based rather than based off of specific phonetics.

There's also a few more traits most monsters share that aren't really used for classification but are fun and make them unique creatures. Monsters almost all have hypersensitive hearing, by that I mean they can differentiate sounds from each other much better than a human could, the range of frequencies a monster can audibly detect depends on the species. A Monster could easily and clearly identify different sounds all playing at once. They could pick out the sound of rustling leaves while behind a waterfall and with earplugs in. Also, I feel like this is a good place to mention it, but just because a Monster either has ambiguous or non-existent sensory organs, unless it’s directly mentioned that they don’t have that sense, they still function and their bones look  like that organ is actually there ( adding a nose or ears or something would clutter most Monster’s designs, so I’m not doing that to them ). Their bodies also have a higher resistance to sonic vibrations, not for any evolutionary or physics-complying reason, I just felt like it.

The probability for a two handed Monster to be either left or right handed is about 50/50. Monsters regularly have thumbs on their feet as well, so the side their dominant hand is on is also the same side with the dominant foot. If a Monster species has more than two hands the members of said species will most likely be ambidextrous due to different neural pathways and stuff. Because of this weird split with dominant hands and feet, and some Monsters not having thumbs or even fingers, often any tools made will either be very customizable or require basically very little to no intricate hand movements to use.

A decent amount of a monster's internal functions are at least partially powered by their lifeforce. Because of how big these things are the only way they'd be able to function without needing to eat 24/7 is magic. And some of them can’t even eat in the first place because they’re fully inorganic, in which case they run entirely off of their lifeforce. Even then any monster with the means of putting food in their body can consume it, as long as it's organic. As mentioned, magic organs, which means they can digest anything.

Monsters have truly Monstrous digestive tracts. They are able to eat most organic matter and convert every last bit of it into something they can use, typically calories, but some nutrients are absorbed and used to maintain their bodies. Monsters have at least 3 stomachs, the first one is used as a second method of telling if they can actually digest something that they eat, and if they can't, they just puke up the contents of the first stomach. The second stomach has bacteria to aid in breaking down extra tough things, this sometimes extends to the third stomach in some species. The rest of the stomachs contain only acid and absorb a small amount of nutrients. Most of the nutrients are absorbed in their intestines, which also processes anything that wasn’t processed into nutrients into calories,this is partially aided by magic because realistically nothing could actually do that in real life. All Monsters are omnivores, but they are often adapted to be much better at absorbing nutrients from some things over others, leading to them still being able to be malnourished even though they are eating enough food.

If a Monster has vocal cords, unlike normal human-world animals, they can heal damage on them. ( That’s right folks! If you have ever lost your voice, you have had a permanent negative effect on those bad boys, because they don’t get fixed! ) This happens magically and much faster than the regeneration of any other part of their bodies. Due to how often they get used, and that Monsters live on average 250 years, they need to last a while. They are also quite important to the entire reason Monsters exist, which is to make music, which is why it is prioritized to be healed by magic instead of normal regeneration. This magic regeneration also applies to any parts of a Monster that makes its noise.

Also all monsters have a "purring" noise they make when they are happy, usually it sounds more like grumbling or the noise a small dog makes between barks. In some species it's the mechanical rumbling of a motor, but they all purr.

[buggieboyofficial]

Sorry about the delay gang, yadda yadda, work-related excuses.

Anyway, here it is the Fronnie post!

When they first moved into the complex they were the only married couple with Freddy being the main breadwinner as a teacher. Which added a lot of stress for both parties to pay bills on a middle-school teacher's salary.

After Bonnie settled on opening a Bowling alley, things got even tenser for the family. Much of Freddy's paycheck was invested in the business and having a human child that needed food and water didn't make things easier. Not only that but the building needed some serious renovation which took Bonnie away from the house and while he found time for the kids; BB, JJ, and Gregory, he was always too tired to be able to fully communicate with Freddy, and when he did it was sluggish or angry.

That when it happened, after 2 years of renovation and arguments, they divorced officially, leaving their relationship in a tense space. It took a while to get used to seeing each other in the complex again because neither could afford to move away.

By the time Sunny moves in they're 3 years into the divorce. There would be a way to get them back together as in the end their relationship was hurt due to stress and in some forms emotional immaturity.

DEFINITELY gonna post more on their relationship and the kids too because I got some cool ideas for them as well, but I'm super tired rn so this is all you get for now.

[eemoo1o-mlpoo]

A New Generation’s Elements of Harmony (Headcanon)

In the name of spoilers, I've added a readmore.

I haven't seen this be done yet (in other words, I'm sorry if it's been discussed), and this is purely an instalment of inspiration.

This subject is a tricky one. We haven't been told about the Elements of Harmony in this new storyline, and the only thing remotely similar is the Crystal of Friendship, or whatever the buck that thing is called.

See? I'm already censoring myself with horse-related puns.

It's also tricky because we've now got five mane characters instead of six. And, last we all checked, the Elements ended up fusing with the Tree of Harmony (who's spirit I'm still convinced is a Draconequus, but whatever, I'm totally over it).

So, I'm ruling out the Element of Magic. Why? Because it's the odd one out in the 'concepts of friendship' doohickey. I mean- to be nicer about it: the 'characteristics of friendship'.

We've heard 'friendship is magic' a multitude of times, but never 'friendship is kindness' or 'friendship is generosity', yaddi-yadda.

Thus: the mane five of generation five (ohh, I see what they did there) all represent the Element of Magic. They brought friendship back, after all, did they not?

Stereotypically, Pipp - as the Rarity of the group - would be generosity, Sunny - Twilight - would be Magic, Zipp - Rainbow Dash - would be loyalty, and Izzy - Pinkie Pie - would be laughter, because they're the 'carbon copies' of the Mane Six from generation four.

In addition to this, I call horsecrap. The only one I agree with is Izzy as laughter. She's eager to make friends - like Pinkie Pie - and finds joy in most things, in contrast to what the magicless unicorns were (like the rest of the Pie Family).

Let's start with Sunny, though: she was unwilling to give up on the idea of friendship with the other two species. This could put her in Twilight's shoes, but here's one much more fitting:

Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Twilight, Rarity and Pinkie Pie tried to fight the manticore in the Everfree back in the second episode. It wasn't until Fluttershy - who hadn't been participating in such - screamed out that they stopped.

The 'screaming out' in generation five is Sunny reuniting the species with her new friends. The 'attacking' is, well, the war that Sprout had prepared, and the 'not participating' is not giving into the nasty rumours that had been spread.

Abbreviated: Sunny is the Element of Kindness.

Now, for Hitch (who I was actually pretty surprised about not being Sunny's brother. I mean, was that just me? They look more like siblings than Applejack and her siblings ever did, or Zipp and Pipp when their mother isn't present. Like, come on, that would have worked so well!).

He's the sheriff - which could put him in line to be Applejack's counterpart. He was pretty blunt with Sunny about her antics at the mall. But, so was Rainbow Dash. I mean, there was a whole thing in the fandom about her and Applejack not deserving their own Elements, but each other's.

Hitch and Zipp could fill those roles perfectly. But, more on her later.

You could put this down to duty, but as her friend, Hitch never gave up on Sunny, even as his and the town's patience began wearing thin. Plus, wasn't his first-or-second line the cutest thing ever "Don't worry, Sunny, we can play the game your way, I don't mind.", basically showing that he was sticking by Sunny when she got upset because of Sprout's own antics.

And, when he eventually found her in Zephyr Heights (which I so desperately want to be connected to Zephyr Breeze, as well as Zipp's full name 'Zephyrina', even if it is just for a joke) and saw that she needed his companionship more than ever, he stuck by her side, even eventually discarding his own beliefs in the process.

First of all: friendship goals. Secondly: if the writers make one of our leading mares a love interest to him I'll... probably keep watching, but still. (I could tell they were trying to set up some sort of chemistry/dynamic between him and Pipp and him and Izzy, sort of making an Edward-Jacob scenario, and I don't quite know how I feel, yet. I mean, if you're going to ship him with anypony, let it be Sprout!).

Thirdly, this would place Hitch in the loyalty division, and to be frank, I think it fits!

Now, for Pipp Petals. Like Izzy, I think she could shimmy into her counterpart's hooves well. She - although first being portrayed as rather neutral about the whole unicorn-and-earth-pony-ordeal - inevitably gave up her shining spotlight to help her sister, Sunny, and Izzy escape the hullabaloo the revealed wires had caused, even after Zipp had left her quite literally hanging there (which kicked Zipp out of the spot as the Element of Loyalty quite easily) in a similar fashion to how Rarity had cut off her tail for Steven Magnet.

Abbreviation: Pipp stays in the generosity slot.

Now, for Zipp:

She gave up almost everything to reveal the truth. Multiple times, she said that she hated living a lie. She wanted to fly, and if deliberately disobeying her mother and revealing the truth was the way to do that, then so be it.

I mean, the sheer pain on her face when she was looking at that Wonderbolts' poster was just... wow. She faced the truth - she told it - despite how much it hurt her.

It reminds me of Discord's spell over Applejack in generation four's second season premiere. Well, in reverse that is.

You could tell that flying was her passion (like Rainbow Dash, but that doesn't make her a complete carbon copy and place her into the role as the Element of Loyalty), and she often ran to the neighbouring mountain range to play out the closest thing she'd get to actually flying: parkour!.

I could be nitpicking, but I recall Applejack facing the truth after running to a far away cherry farm. It was a problem she overcame, like Zipp had to.

In conclusion: the mane five all represent the Element of Magic - as Friendship - with respective Elements of their own. Izzy Moonbow is the Element of Laughter, Sunny Starscout is the Element of Kindness, Hitch Trailblazer is the Element of Loyalty, Pipp Petals is the Element of Generosity, and Zipp Storm is the Element of Honesty.

What do you think? Did I miss anything?

Do you have any alterations you would like to add? I'd love to hear them if you do.

Oh, and Sprout is Starlight Glimmer. Think about it; he totally is.