#Primarily the ones about storms. Pretty neat

[torithehoshi]

I thought about the Pokemon Sun Pokedex entry for Magneton, because it's one of my favorite dex entries and how a few times, I thought about it with HMS because - you know. Three of them. Although the general idea of drawing them as Magnemite and Whole as a Magneton was also funny so uh. Here.

This is the entry by the way:

Why does Whole suddenly become a shiny Magneton when they all evolve?

When Harmonia shines or something--

[dailydemonspotlight]

Kushinada-Hime - Day 166

Race: Lady/Kunitsu Arcana: Lovers Alignment: Light-Chaos March 3rd, 2025

I'll start this analysis off with a fun fact- did you know that, on March 3rd, there's a Japanese holiday called Girl's Day? Hinamatsuri, also called Girl's Day or Doll's Day, is a festival celebrated every March 3rd wherein families set out several separate dolls to represent a heian-era wedding. This, quite frankly, has barely anything to do with today's DDS, but I just thought it was neat. Every day is a holiday. Not quite Halloween, but if you wanna say every day is Halloween, I'm not stopping you. All that aside, old Japanese mythology separated gods into many different categories, but the primary ones to focus on today are the Kunitsukami and the Amatsukami, two types of beings that are also their own races in SMT, being the Kunitsu and Amatsu races. In Japanese myth, the Kunitsu represent the earth, while the Amatsu represent the sky, and the frequent conflicts between the two are driving forces of many myths. However, the rivalry between these two types of deities wasn't wrought only with conflict- sometimes, love bloomed on the battlefield too. Enter Kushinada-Hime.

Alternately named Inadahime, which will hopefully sound familiar, Kushinada-hime is one of the consorts of the storm god Susanoo. However, she was also the daughter of a pair of Kunitsukami, Tenazuchi and Ashinazuchi. I can't find much about these two outside of their role in the story of Yamata-no-Orochi. Given Susanoo's role as the god of storms and the sea, I can presume that he was an Amatsukami and Kushinada-hime was a Kunitsukami, but it's a bit hard to parse- Kunitsukami refers to kami that were born on earth, while Amatsukami refers to gods that were born in the Palm of High Heaven, but I genuinely don't know which Susanoo was. Given that he was the son of Izanagi and Izanami, though, I'm pretty sure he's an Amatsukami? Okay, I'm getting off topic.

As we've already gone over the story of Yamata-no-Orochi, I won't go in-depth about the story here, but in the story, Susanoo appears to Tenazuchi and Ashinazuchi to ask for their only remaining daughter's hand in marriage- that daughter being none other than Kushinada-hime- and after slaying the great snake through a combination of booze and smart thinking, he takes Kushinada-hime as his wife, which, given the setup I spent the entire last paragraph talking about, means that in a way, he was bridging the gap between the Kunitsukami and the Amatsukami by marrying Kushinada-hime. After her marriage with Susanoo, according to the Kojiki, they had a child together who would turn out to be Okuninushi, being yet another very popular demon in SMT! Yay!

Now, after her marriage to Susanoo, she became a major deity to the Gion cult, as they begun to worship Susanoo as their primary deity. What was the Gion cult, you ask? It was a cult that revolved primarily around shinto belief- the primary Japanese belief system of kami- and as Buddhist and Shinto beliefs separated through the years of the Meiji era, they were mandated to shift over to worshipping Susanoo by the government instead of their other god, Gozu-Tennoh, which is ANOTHER demon in the series. Damn, there's so much to this... Anyway, after her ascension to deity status, she seemed to have become the goddess of agriculture, as her full name, the absolute mouthful that is 'Kushiinada-Mitoyomanurahime-no-Mikoto,' seems to roughly translate to 'princess of the rice fields.' Kushi also basically meant comb, if what I can get from Wikipedia is true. I can't speak Japanese. Still, this does make sense, given that she literally became a comb in Susanoo's hair.

And this setup is what leads to what I think is the funniest aspect of Kushinada-hime's design in SMT. It's COVERED in haircombs. She was only turned into a comb for safekeeping while Susanoo fought a big fucking snake, so imagine being immortalized with something you were temporarily transformed into all over yourself? Past that, though, her specialization in wind/force skills does make sense given her connection to Susanoo and the fact that she seemed to be a goddess of agriculture. I'm just. not over the combs. Like, god, did Susanoo ask her to dress like that? Does she just do that to honor him? Is it out of spite towards Yamata-no-Orochi??? Is she just comb woman?????? I wanna talk to whoever designed her and ask what the thought process was beyond just being a reference to her becoming comb.

hehe comb

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[twixtandshout]

I spent way too long getting distracted by the sparkles that follow my cursor on your blog XD XD XD ANYWAY, you had talked about DnD character sheets for the LU boys and I'm here to ask about them! :D I don't know much about DnD but you were excited and I'm interested so feel free to tell me all about it!

Yes!!! Hi! :D There's a lot on them but I'm proud of them all. I guess I'll just pull out a couple things I think are neat from each of them? (And I'll try to keep things understandable for you, dw!!)

Sky: I don't remember what I already went through in comments, but I know he's your favorite so I'll try to pull out something new and interesting for you. Hm... I've got him with 14 levels of Paladin (swords and a bit of holy magic, sworn to a higher power), 3 levels in Warlock (magic granted as part of a pact with an outside entity), and 3 in Barbarian (hit stuff better when you're angry). Pretty sure I already talked about the storm stuff he gets from the Barbarian side of things – he gets some storm/lightning stuff and it's great – but I've made him a Pact of the Talisman warlock with Sun: his sailcloth is a symbol of his bond with her, and apart from acting as a parachute, it also lets him add a little extra to the roll a few times each day through her power when he fails a check. He's got a bunch of stuff that makes him really good at dueling, plus a couple extra feats that make it easier for him and Sun to talk 💞

Four: Four has. so many classes. I gave him 10 levels in Artificer, for making magic tools; then each Color plus Shadow got 2 levels in another class: Wizard for Vio (learn magic through study), Druid for Red (learn magic through becoming in tune with nature), Barbarian for Blue, Paladin for Green, and Sorcerer for Shadow (obtain magic through genetic accident/tragic backstory/general lottery). Generally Druids' main ability as a class is Wildshape, which is to say animal shapeshifting, but that wasn't the vibe for Red, so he's a Wildfire Druid, which gives him a living fire friend instead. Also, one of the magic things you're allowed to say your character knows how to make when you're making an Artificer is a living robot – I've quietly had him learn that, with the expectation that that's how he got Shadow back. :3 Other than that, he's just got a bunch of elemental spells basically!

Time: Time's got a couple levels in Bard (magic through music) and Ranger, but he's primarily a Sorcerer, with a slightly modified Clockwork Soul subclass – technically the flavor there's meant to be more "the underlying order of the universe" than "messing with time," but I just traded out a couple spells on the list and it works fine for him. :3c His background and his Bard and Ranger subclasses all involve the fey, though. He gets some fun stuff with glamours and charm effects, and, just for flavor, when he casts time stands still and you can hear/see gears ticking around him.

Legend: Lej's got a ridiculous number of classes too, and he doesn't have Four's excuse. (There's not even enough room on the sheet to abbreviate them all like I did Four's, so I just filled in the "class" blank "Yes.") So he's got a bit of everything! Pulling out a few interesting bits: he gets a whole bunch of sneaky stuff as a Rogue, as well as sizable bonuses to spotting lies and hidden objects. As a College of Creation Bard, he gets little visual symbol effects that float around him when he plays, and he can create a medium-sized object out of nothing, like that cane that lets him make boxes for some reason. As opposed to the more heroic Paladins of the Chain, Lej's Paladin subclass is the Oath of Vengeance, which among other things lets him channel divine power through utter a "vow of enmity" against an enemy, making his attacks more likely to hit until it's dead. I also gave him a few feats to really round out the knowledgeable veteran thing – he's really good at dungeon delving.

Hyrule: I gave Hyrule the Circle of Dreams Druid subclass, which is fey-themed and gives him a lot of healing abilities in addition to a little bit of teleporting. (He's got levels in Rogue and Sorcerer too, but apart from "he dodges real good, gets bonus damage for surprise attacks, and can modify spell effects," I don't have much to say on those for him.) Reflecting that he carries the Triforce, I borrowed the Radiant Consumption character feature from the Aasimar – as a bonus action, he can start burning, glowing brightly for 10' and doing radiant damage to everyone (including himself) every turn for a full minute. (A combat round in DnD lasts approx 6 in-game seconds!)

Wind: Wind! 2 levels in Rogue, 18 in Sorcerer. As a Halfling, he can reroll any 1 once. He can fly after casting spells (or grant flight to others), is immune to thunder and lightning damage, and he gets a feature to control storms! He can stop rain in a sphere, control the direction of wind, and hit things with lightning. He's also got Truesight and can make ghosts visible for an hour once per week, and I gave him the Quickfingered and Silvertongued feats, so he's great at pickpocketing and sweettalking people.

Twilight: Twi's largely a Ranger, with Exactly enough levels in Druid to give him Wildshape, because Wolfie. He's a Circle of the Shepherd Druid, which seemed fitting; he gets feyspeak as a language, can talk to animals, and can summon a hawk spirit to fight for him. As for the Ranger stuff, he's a Horizon Walker Ranger – the subclass description says they "guard the world against threats that originate from other planes or that seek to ravage the mortal world with otherworldly magic." He doesn't have a lot of spells – I don't think he'd use most of the ones I gave him, honestly, but the class says he gets some so I made the most of it – but he's really good at navigating, especially in forests, and he gets bonuses to track enemies. He's Also very good at vanishing in plain sight, seeing in darkness, and teleporting up to 10' before each attack.

Warriors: Seven levels of Fighter! Seven levels of Paladin! Six levels of Cleric! This boy is So Good at whacking things with swords, and he also channels magic/holy power as a representative of the god of War. As a Battlemaster Fighter, he's got a lot of tactical maneuvers he can use to set people up around the field or grant bonuses, and although his Paladin oath is baaasically the same mechanically as Sky's, he's an Oath of Glory Paladin where Sky's Oath of Heroism. He has a Peerless Athlete feature, he can Channel Divinity to vaporize low-level undead, and he's very mobile – he isn't slowed by difficult terrain, and he literally cannot be physically restrained.

Wild: He'd have a different level distribution if I kept what he had pre-nap, but I decided he keeps five levels in Fighter and then the rest is Ranger from post-nap. He's a Fey Wanderer Ranger (like Time!) so he gets some glamour abilities, and if something makes him save against charm/fear effects, he can redirect it and make that thing make the save against Him instead. He's great at navigating and disappearing in the wilderness, and he gets a couple teleporty things. He's also got a bunch of skills in cooking and making/finding healing food, and he regains more than the usual hp when he recovers, too.

[aethramusings]

to all my future roleplay partners who muse anna : elsa was wrong .

please note , below the cut is a negative analysis of elsa . i do not think she is a bad character or person by any means , but i think that she was grossly mischaracterized in frozen 2 . this is merely my interpretation of the movie , and it is only an OPINION . this is not meant to upset or offend anyone .

i think a lot of people ( with obvious exceptions ) think i muse elsa because i like her as a character but to be honest i muse her primarily because she ticks me off . her first characterization in frozen was pretty neat , and i genuinely enjoyed her — but in frozen two , it’s like they took all of her flaws and then attempted to romanticize them / justify them because “ oH sHeS tOo DiFfErEnT “ .

elsa neglected anna’s feelings that entire movie . i understand that anna was reduced to “ “ crazy girlfriend “ “ trope or whatever , but either way — elsa ALWAYS ( in the second movie ) prioritized her own emotions over anna’s — whether she intended to or not . even if she was just trying to " protect " anna , she doesn't really seem to stop and think , " does anna understand WHY i'm being so reluctant to this ? " . of course communication goes both ways , but even still . i know that isn't necessarily realistic for elsa's character — but it's just weird that the movie seems to treat how elsa is treating anna as okay and acceptable and never address it again .

in ‘ olafs frozen adventure ‘ , we actually see elsa had the capacity to feel self aware and apologetic , because she literally apologizes to anna for storming out on her . but in frozen two , anna has to literally BEG elsa to come with — after elsa quite literally says “ no , you’re too weak , you might die “ ( didn’t you just think your powers were a burden ? ) .

and it’s not like elsa brings this up once and leaves it at that . she shows it SEVERAL times through her actions by “ saving “ everyone else , and then scolding anna for trying to help her . not to mention , elsa doesn’t seem like the type of person to not analyze a situation before running into it . i’m not saying she wouldn’t use her powers to help ( like she did in the enchanted forest with bruni — pointless plot point , by the way ) , but anna has shown time and time again that she is JUST — if not MORE — capable than elsa to handle herself . and elsa just keeps putting her down .

and it doesn’t come off as “ i want to protect you “ , which i think disney intended it as . it comes off as “ i am better than you , and want to be alone “ — which is a BOLD stance for disney to take , since the message of the first movie was “ you need to let your loved ones love you so you can love yourself “ . and now the message is . . . “ fuck your family , go find yourself you don’t need them ? ? “ i understand that elsa is an inherently independent character who clearly prefers to process her emotions alone , but — while this is valid — this is a REALLY bold take for a . . literate children’s movie to take . and to not address any of the emotional downsides that can come with this .

in the scene with elsa and anna at the shipwreck— elsa essentially makes anna witness an insanely traumatic event ( for what reason ? to ‘ know what happened ‘ ? could she not tell anna what she was planning to do and warn her to leave if she wasn’t mentally prepared to see that , at the very least ? ) , and then when anna is GRIPPING onto elsa for support , elsa . . runs away ?

i know that’s in elsa’s character , to cope with her emotions alone — but the fact that this is NEVER addressed again is insane to me . elsa goes “ they drowned because of ME . “ okay , sure , whatever . they did die trying to find the source of elsa’s powers . but to me , this comes across as incredibly “ this is MY trauma , anna . feel bad for ME . this is about ME . “ is this her intention ? of course not ! ! but it comes off that way to me . anna isn’t allowed to process her own emotions about seeing her parents in their last moments alive ( without her consent ) , she IMMEDIATELY has to put it aside to comfort elsa .

( i can understand the view of ‘ elsa feels more guilt surrounding this since she has trauma regarding her powers and feels like she , in a way , kind of killed her parents . ‘ that’s valid and totally makes sense . but that doesn’t negate anna’s relationship with her parents . she has just as much of a right to grieve and feel things as elsa does . while family should absolutely support each other through a loss like this , this carelessness and lack of regard for how this might be affecting anna and seeing her parents last moment against her will isn’t okay . )

and elsa thanks her , not by explaining to her “ i’m scared i’m going to lose you too , but this journey is really important to me . can we please find a compromise . “ — but instead sending her away on a boat . again , the message of “ i want to protect you “ is totally lost .

anna even addresses that she has every right to be mad — because , she does ! she has been pushed around and brushed off by elsa this entire journey , and all of her efforts are met with elsa belittling her . but the thing that makes me mad is : elsa NEVER sees ANY consequence for this . anna just , forgives her . and all is well .

obviously , i think elsa being the only one who got to see iduna is ridiculous , and the fact that they cut out the scene of agnarr and iduna gushing about how much they love anna is even more stupid , but i digress .

the ending of the movie is what really pissed me off , though . elsa DECIDES that anna “ gets “ to be queen . we never see the discussion , we just assume that elsa says , “ i’m gonna stay here , sooooo . . good luck ! “ sure , anna might have said yes , but what a shitty position to put your sister in ? “ hey , i’m gonna step down from the throne , technically sure you can refuse to take my place but good luck finding an heir BYE ! “ that’s not something you decide on a whim because you want to play horse girl in the woods forever .

and all of this would have been fine with me ! IF IT WAS ADDRESSED . but it’s not ! at the end of the movie , anna forgives elsa and all is well now . because elsa can’t have any flaws , because she’s elsa .

long story short , i roleplay elsa because the second movie REALLY grinds my gears . so , to any future partners i have that roleplay anna , please know : i don’t think elsa treated anna fairly at all . elsa living in the enchanted forest isn’t something that’s canon to my portrayal ( with a few exceptions ) , but i am more than willing to explore queen anna portrayals and how elsa and her navigate their relationship going forward . ( please note that i want their to be a solid relationship between muns before we explore this as angst threads are relatively emotionally exhausting for me ! )

[preemshots]

johnny + the nomads lore

alright, i know this is a screenshots blog but i'm going to go ahead and start dropping some juicy lore tidbits as i dig them up. part of what i'm doing outside of just photo diarying is shard hunting, and BOY is there a lot the game likes to hide in those little shards for idiots like me who like to read so we can write unnecessarily accurate fanfiction! 

full disclosure, i know jack shit about the TTRPG/cyberpunk 2020 rulebook except what i read in the wikis. 

so here’s my lore roundup so far of everything i know about johnny joining the nomads

we know johnny likes to narrate v’s quest objectives. here’s the first mention where he says it himself: 

during the voodoo boys quest "transmission" there's a shard in the maglev tunnels beside the ice bath, presumably from brigitte's research into johnny in the first place:

okay, so the timeline is this: johnny joins the nomads after trying and failing to rescue alt. johnny hides out in the badlands for some years. then he and rogue come back to night city and nuke arasaka tower help alt escape the arasaka subnet by uploading liberator to their network once and for all.

this ultimately makes sense. in alt’s flashback, we meet santiago, who is a nomad/connected to nomads, joins rogue and johnny when they're trying to get alt back, and eventually becomes the leader of the aldecaldos. 

part of santiago’s TTRPG lore is that he, johnny, and rogue have to lay low in the badlands with nomads after they storm arasaka headquarters (i am aware the game takes many liberties with the original lore so who knows the full accuracy of anything from the original rulebooks)

ENDING spoilers: in the rogue+johnny storming AHQ ending, it's revealed that rogue has a son while they're prepping for the job. if you eavesdrop on her calling him while you're at the afterlife, you hear her tell her son to (paraphrasing here) "pull over and look at the stars", which immediately made my brain go to: nomad, badlands, santiago = dad? maybe. (santiago also canonically has a son according to the TTRPG lore)

this immediately reminded me of another interesting shard that i believe you can find in multiple locations around night city: “"what REALLY happened in arasaka tower?“

i love this dang shard. at first i thought it was just a cute conspiracy with some juicy gossip (and i love how 99% of the shards that mention johnny in this game are reminding us that he's not a real rebel, he's a poser) but it brings some interesting shit together

one: it tells us where johnny got his hands on the nukes! he and the nomads jumped a militech convoy and jacked some bombs! 

which is never directly explained, even as saburo arasaka is interrogating him shortly before using soulkiller. very nice of johnny to protect his homies like that. 

...or maybe he didn’t. saburo emphasizes that the dead don’t lie like the living do, and we don’t know what exactly arasaka did to johnny’s construct in mikoshi. 

it also explains why the obvious media narrative is that militech nuked arasaka, a nice neat political bow to the end of the fourth corpo wars, which is an entire section of the TTRPG lore that makes my eyes cross when i read it. 

it also makes the star/nomads ending extremely interesting, because i originally believed it was the ending where V’s journey deviates the most from rewalking johnny’s path... which also has weird implications if the johnny’s nomad era is being kept from v. 

(this also leads into my belief that the star ending/the devil ending are narratively two sides of the same coin, but that’s a WHOLE ANOTHER POST for another day.)

TWO, just straight up the fact that they turned the raid where they actually obtained the nukes into an action flick BD that pretty much ANYONE could watch. who the hell was doing that?? 

well, who else other than the guy who johnny (optionally) punched the shit out of for filming alt's death: thompson, media guy, and according to rogue, “bad luck”. because you know, recording your crimes is straight up evidence that can be used against you.

during the alt flashback we meet thompson, and just after that in cyberspace before meeting alt, johnny tells v that he has no idea what happened to him and that they never worked together again. 

oh, johnny, you lying bastard man

this is blatantly untrue, and if V even had two braincells and better memory than a goldfish they'd know this--in the first flashback sequence where johnny and rogue nuke arasaka tower, thompson is on the comms as they ride the AV towards AHQ, questioning their plans and use of violence. 

which leaves me with some questions, like where the fuck is thompson, why does johnny keep lying about this, why doesn't johnny say almost anything about how you interact with the aldecaldo clan nonstop throughout the game when he himself may have been a member of the family for some time?? is he continuing to protect the nomad clan that saved his ass? we know that a lot of his flashbacks are unreliable at best, that johnny changes shit up as desired when presenting V with his memories.

in 2077, you can also find that there’s a remake of “badlands raid” in the shard “new release braindances” that is pretty much everywhere. that shard doesn’t add much, but does mention something along the lines of “many people don’t know the ending of the original” which probably means johnny punched thompson out for filming again, or something. 

my running theories: rogue ditched santiago and the aldecaldos with johnny and thompson to nuke arasaka tower, and when johnny died she was stuck looking for (heavily implied by johnny here:) corpo sellout ways to survive.

adam smasher obviously has something to do with this since johnny/rogue's vendetta against the guy isn't entirely clear beyond the smokescreen of "he killed johnny and he sucks". i have done 0 research into this though i'm tired of typing okay

i obviously cannot be certain i have found everything related to this in the game as i’m not even done with this playthrough where i’m trying to pay attention, but i hope this is fun for someone else to dig into. 

enjoy, fellow silverhand freaks

EDIT: additional findings

ALRIGHT I HAVE DONE MORE DIGGING AND I AM BACK WITH MORE NOMAD/JOHNNY FINDINGS. these ones are kind of a bummer but VERY interesting.

there’s a shard called “excerpts from a history of the nomads by bb pires” that goes into detail about how nomads came to be

there’s an interesting quote in it: It's hard to imagine a group less inclined to wandering than farmers, but in fact they were the ones who sparked the age of nomads. Natural catastrophes, crops ravaged by bioplagues, armed conflicts and martial law allowing corporations to speculate and privatize land - all this forced them into a life on the road.

when you ask johnny why he wants to take down arasaka, he begins by referencing this himself!!

it’s a little awkward to imagine a nomad V doesn’t also know what he’s referencing, but hey, V is the fool because we are as players and that’s only one life path... so sure.

johnny also has unique dialogue during this scene about a nomad origin V, telling them that he’s been trying to understand how V thinks, and came to the conclusion that “their family was a crutch” and essentially made them stupid because they always had a safety net (lmao johnny calling v privileged basically)

BUT this also may reference why johnny would find it confusing as hell that V doesn’t immediately share the views he does when nomads, in terms of values, seem to be more aligned with johnny than V is. but once again V is the fool for a reason and this is all my own speculation so YOU KNOW.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, at the end of chippin’ in, when you ask johnny what he meant by letting down his friends... santiago is named directly

i thought this was interesting since the only glimpse of their relationship that we get is seeing johnny meeting santiago via the alt flashback for the first time.

so now it’s obvious that while johnny and rogue were with the nomads their friendship developed, and johnny went on to disappoint santiago in some way by being his normal dickhead self

but HOW? how did he disappoint santiago? is santiago even still alive?? did smasher kill santiago and is this why rogue mentions during chippin’ in that she wants smasher to “settle a score” moreso than avenge johnny??

the only additional hints i have are from this shard, which you can find at the aldecaldos camp: “nomads at ground zero”

i’m just gonna transcribe here and bold for emphasis:

It was no secret that Night Corp offered generous pay and, in some cases, free cyberware and biomonitor upgrades to anyone willing to help clean up the crater of radioactive rubble at AHQ ground zero. Some firsthand accounts recall the incessant ticking of Geiger counters, like the loud buzz of cicadas in summer. In retrospect, we can only guess how many "crater cleaners" lost their lives to radiation sickness shortly thereafter. Both the city government and Night Corp have claimed casualties were kept to a minimum, while providing no official statistics to substantiate the claim. That being said, they have never been under pressure to release such figures. After all, most rescue, engineering, and rubble cleanup teams were not local Night Citizens, but nomads. Surprised you didn't know? Don't be. It is a fact many history courses tend to overlook. The city employed hundreds of nomad mercenaries, primarily from clans in Aldecaldo nation. These nomads were hungry for gainful work and the city needed experts who were not only experienced but brave enough to knowingly put their lives on the line - all so Arasaka could one day erect another tower in its place. But history is not without its sense of irony. These nomads, who so deliberately live outside our so-called "system," came to its very rescue. Not for the first time. And not for the last.

a main theme we find in this game is the idea that the system of corps and exploitation cannot be stopped by grandiose rebellious gestures--no amount of samurai songs, assassinating mayors, or even planting nukes in towers will change things. yet johnny, his friends and mercs at atlantis in the 2020s, including rogue, chose to rebel any way they could, thinking it better than not. johnny criticizes her lack of rebellious spirit CONSTANTLY in 2077.

but ultimately, johnny, trapped in mikoshi, didn’t get to see the outcome of what detonating the AHQ nukes did to night city’s fragile ecosystem. rogue, however, did--and likely watched their former allies, the aldecaldos, be forced to take dangerous work at AHQ’s ground zero (from lack of other opportunities as detailed in this shard), then die from radiation sickness throughout the following decades, all as a result of what she and johnny did to try and fight the system. and she also watched all the former mercenaries of atlantis be hunted down by arasaka.

so rogue sees firsthand what the cost of rebellion is and johnny doesn’t. and nomads, considered the most free of any of the factions we encounter in the game, are the cost.

[sarahxalice]

Character Introduction - Meww Hatsune

--Edits/Updates-- --Edited 8/30/21-- Organized body type information into a list rather than a paragraph.

Hello first post here, maybe I’ll try and setup a format or whatever, but I’ll just go with the flow for now. This very first post will be of my Main and very first OC, Meww Hatsune.

--Origin and Inspirations-- Her origins are quite fuzzy a bit as she is by far my oldest character. She originated as either a character concept to either represent myself online and in games, or as a DND character. She was most definitely used as both and for an extremely long time. Of course character development happens over time and isn’t all at once, it’s just a question of when a solid basis was made for her.

Her name is a bit easier to talk about, while my memory is terrible I can at least probably pull a few references I came across that inspired it. One of the main sources of inspiration was Nyu from the anime Elfen Lied. Unfortunately am currently failing to recall other name inspirations, I can recall having around 3 and yet am missing the others. If I can I will edit this post to update this part, if not I will just make a new post later on adding on information.

As far as inspirations for appearance, characters like Lucy and Nyu from Elfen Lied, Zoey from Tokyo Mew Mew and Yuno Gasai from Mirai Nikki. Main inspiration from these characters is her pink hair and eyes. Skin tone and clothing preferences are based on myself and my own preferences.

Inspirations for her personality while partly coming from characters like Yuno Gasai, a majority of it is just something I was taught about when making characters for the first time for a DND campaign. Which was basically to take a personality trait from yourself and just exaggerate it. And essentially it would be close enough to yourself so it would be easy to roleplay while also not being a complete self-insert.

--Appearance-- As for her appearance, she is shown in my tumblr profile image on the left. Going into more detail I will break it up between her physical appearance and her fashion choices.

-Body Type: -Race: Human (Most Commonly), Half-Demon, Demon -Ethnicity: American (Most commonly) -Sex/Gender: Cis Female -Romantic/Sexual Interests: ♥ Girls �� Girls ♥ Girls ♥ (Self-claimed “Super Gay”) -Height: ~5ft 2in -Weight: ~100-110lbs -Physique: Lean musculature (Very fit and active) -Skin Tone: Pale White -Hair: Short, soft, messy/wild Pink hair (Varies between pale pink[255,170,255], neon pink[255,0,255], dark reddish pink[120,0,70] and dark pink[180,50,180]). Eyebrows are neat and moderately thin, usually matching the color of her hair. -Eyes: Tend to be sharp and intimidating. Color usually a bright, near glowing, neon pink. -Age: Typically a young teen to adult, roughly in the range of 16 to 21. -Other: Teeth vary between normal human teeth, adding a fang(s), or razor teeth similar to Soul Eater from the anime Soul Eater.

-Clothing Fashion: For fashion, she typically wears a zip up hoodie, cargo pants, combat boots, and a plain black t-shirt. For some extra details she likes chains, belts, buckles and zippers. Most prominently everything she wears is black, if there is any additional color to her outfit it would be pink as a trim highlight or supplementary color (typically a bright or pale pink). Jewelry isn’t very interesting to Meww, however she sometimes has earrings and is more recently depicted with a ring on her left ring finger and will almost always have it from here on.

--Personality-- She is a rash energetic girl. Hyperactive and proactive, likes to do everything herself. Willing to help anyone she gets along with, willing to take on projects or jobs from others as she likes to just do things herself especially when it comes to fighting. Of course things vary based on the kind of world she is in, in a more fantasy setting she’s typically a fighter/adventurer while in a more “realistic” or modern world, she’s really into athletic fields (commonly things like kendo and track), though combat isn’t out of the question, again depending on the world setting. She has the mindset of a rebel and likes to do things her own way rather than taking orders from another person, though not completely disobedient to anyone, and is not entirely against working with others. She just has a tendancy to lead or go alone on things. She is headstrong, confident, positive, a hard worker, supportive, loving, caring, fierce, aggressive and reckless. Of course she is not without her negative qualities too, some of which have been already named such as reckless and her confidence can be overbearing to outright unreasonable and annoying, and at times even worse. While she is a caring and loving person, she can also be really cruel, uncaring, cold and even sometimes sadistic and heinous. Of course interactions depend highly on the person or situation theyre involved with. As for some more negative qualities, she is very apprehensive and more likely to act negatively towards males than she is females. This as such also affects her romantic interest in people as well, making her solidly a lesbian and having no interest in guys in the least. She’s even hesitant to make friends with the opposite gender and acts very standoff-ish with them (this dislike of males can even be seen with other species such as animals as well). As for females she really loves girls, she loves how they’re all so pretty, beautiful, kind and finds them all amazing. Which kind of skews her views on right and wrong with it. She is way more forgiving to a female who does questionable things and is willing to forgive them or make excuses for their actions. Whereas males she almost is ready to condecend them and look down on them as if they are a bad person before even knowing anything of them. As far as children go she is conflicted on them. She tends to dislike children as well, but can also show kindness and caring towards them. As far as the world around her, she absolutely loves nature and flora. She enjoys fauna too, but not nearly as much, and as far as certain types of fauna, she actually dislikes for example, reptiles and insects. For time of day she loves the night and when its darker out, enjoying gloomy weather as well, such as rain and overcast. She has a neutral feeling towards storms, not particularly enjoying lightning or thunder, but is not disturbed by it. She loves nature to the point of even happy to sleep outside, usually in high places such as in a tree or on a roof. She absolutely loves the snow and snowy regions thus making her favorite season by a landslide, winter.

--Other Information-- Here is where I will put other information that I didn’t feel belonging to any of the previous groups of information, and nor do I believe I could write a whole section on it by itself.

-Relatives: Miku Hatsune (Mother; Yes, the Vocaloid), Teto Kasane (Mother; Yes, the Utauloid), Sylvia Hatsune (Wife), Miku Hatsune (Daughter; Named after her grandmother), Chloe Hatsune (Daughter)

-Allies: Sarah Alice (Close Friend; Soul Twin)

-Likes: Girls, Love, Fighting, Adventuring, Witchcraft, Tea, Cats, Sky, Puns, Sarcasm

-Dislikes: Guys, Not doing anything/Waiting

Fighting Style/Powers: She highly enjoyed close-ranged combat, primarily using her bare hands for hand-to-hand combat, a scythe, a spear, or a one-handed sword with an empty off-hand (rapiers are a particular favorite type of swords she prefers). As far as ranged combat goes, she enjoys and prefers bows, pistols and sniper rifles. As far as magic she uses it slightly more often than ranged weaponry. Prefering the elements of Dark and Ice, while next most commonly used would be fire. Other kinds of magic she has been depicted with is the ability to manipulate blood (while not inspired from, but was rienforced with/from Mirai Kuriyama from Beyond the Boundary) and telekinesis. She thrives on and is extremely fast, being usually one of the fastest people in her world. This also gives her a fairly strong reaction time as well.She sometimes is depicted as fairly strong physically as well, though not usually too far off from average in the world she is in. As far as style, she enjoys and tends to go along with more flair and aesthetic choices in her fighting, sometimes at the cost of efficiency. For strategy she tends to forsake it, while she is fairly intelligent and has the capability to be quite strategic, she tends to more commonly rely on raw emotion and instinct instead resulting in a more feral and sometimes beastial fighting style. As she can be reckless, she is highly aggressive and does not tend to protect herself, sometimes even getting hurt unnecissarily. As she really loves the sky she often dreams of flying, so she usually finds some  way to do so.

Possible Quotes: -”I love you.” -”Fight me!” -”Oh no~ how awful.” -“But why?” -”Meow.”

[wearesorcerer]

[5e] 7th-Level Spells

or “You’re Taking Teleport, Right?”

7th-level spells are like higher level ones in that you only learn one of them (unless you give up better magic) and can’t use it terribly often. Unlike 8th- or 9th-level spells, though, you aren’t outright godlike for using these: they're the sorts of things the most accomplished caster of a generation should be able to, but they are still fundamentally within the realm of fantastical human capability.

So, why teleport? Why are you worrying about this spell above all others?

Teleportation is, by definition, the most effective means of transportation. It ignores all problems specific to transportation except something (or someone) else being right where you want to be. Almost all drawbacks are theoretical -- indeed, they vary from one type of teleportation effect to another, even within works. In D&D, it negates most obstacles in, to, and from a dungeon, making it the bane of many a DM’s existence.

Teleport happens to be the best teleportation spell within D&D.

In fact, most other teleportation spells exist to reduce dependency on teleport. For instance, TSR created plane shift some time after the Expert set (1981); before it existed, teleport could go across planes. Dimension door is the oldest example of a lower-level teleportation spell for the tactical movement aspect -- obviously a major point of appeal. Really, the only teleportation spell that isn’t strictly “teleport, but...” is gate.

Teleport is so handy that after 3rd edition, they bumped normal teleport from 5th-level (as it had been since OD&D) to 7th-level, at the expense of greater teleport (3.5)/teleport without error (2e and 3.0) entirely. Some of this has to do with D&D not being great with sympathetic magic; some of it is how video games deal with teleporting; most of it is 4e. Still, it’s not for nothing that it was this one spell that required so much reworking.

The question is not “What spell should I take?” but “Is this worth giving up teleport for?”

The Main List

conjure hezrou · crown of stars · delayed blast fireball · etherealness · finger of death · fire storm · plane shift · power word pain · prismatic spray · reverse gravity · whirlwind

This level’s list pretty much demonstrates the main parts of the Sorcerer list in general: boom-boom (five dedicated spells), crowd control (four spells), some utility (three), and the occasional other (two summons).

Conjure Hezrou: you summon...a stinky frog demon with a thing for necrophagy; it will gleefully serve as a tank, but can’t do much else, and will turn on you. Did you read my rant? Pass. With extreme prejudice. #killitwithfireball

Crown of Stars: pretty much sunbeam combined with light, but the flavor is dancing lights. Functionally, it has two advantages over sunbeam: it has a longer duration that it doesn’t require concentration (both as light). However, it doesn’t provide true sunlight or affect as many targets. This should be a 4th-level spell at the highest. (I bet I’m going to have to defend that later...)

Delayed Blast Fireball: I’m not really certain what the point of this spell is anymore. I only reference it as much as I do because it works with queuing and casters = fireball users. The main point of DBF was in conjunction with time stop, but since it’s concentration that doesn’t really fly. Otherwise...hooray, a time bomb? I’d rather have this as a metamagic effect.

Etherealness: or intangibility. You probably won’t need it as long as the spell provides, but even there plane shift can outdo this spell. That said, it doesn’t cost you anything in materials and you won’t arrive in a semi-random location. I mean, it’s by no means bad...

Finger of Death: deal lots of necrotic damage, zomble target. This is niftier than the 3.5 version (which was just a save or die effect), but there was a metamagic feat (Fell Animate) that applied to any damaging spell. Ask your DM to convert the metamagic feat for you.

Fire Storm: one of the few spells on this list that is primarily a Druidic spell (you can tell by the bit about it ignoring vegetation). The sculpting aspect of this spell is nice and it’s slightly bigger and more damaging than wall of fire without requiring concentration. This + elemental spell = conscientious blasting. For a boom-boom, not bad.

Plane Shift: the other half of teleport, which is a bit sad given that this is now the level at which you get teleport. Unfortunately, it has a costly material component to it and isn’t a ritual. Depending on the game, this could be as important as teleport or entirely irrelevant.

Power Word Pain: (CRUCIO! -.-) you torture someone and get... minor results? I swear, if you want to be this evil, there are lower-level spells that would let you do it better.

Prismatic Spray: RANDOM! The CC effects are cool, but toned done from 3.5 (in which they’d take effect immediately, rather than over several turns). The rest depends: 10d6 is nice damage, but if you roll the wrong type then you’re just out of luck (and Elemental Metamagic won’t help you much, either). Since charging is now a feat, the range on the cone isn’t bad, but I’d much rather have a burst. I want to like it, but...

Reverse Gravity: this is funnest spell on this list and one of the more fun 7th-level spells period, yet it’s only so-so. It’s mainly there to throw creatures skyward. Wouldn’t it be great if you could just alter gravity in areas and make the game Super Mario Galaxy?

Whirlwind: other than crown of stars, this is my personal favorite for this list -- and it doesn’t come with caveats. You simply create a miniature tornado and destroy people’s lives. HOORAY NATURAL DISASTERS!

If you’re not taking teleport, you might be considering etherealness or plane shift. If you’re not, you’ve got some pretty good options and some...not so good ones. Y’know, like always.

Just remember about conjure hezrou: dishonor!

You got that? Good.

Moving on.

Cleric (Divine Soul) List

conjure celestial · divine word · regenerate · resurrection · symbol · temple of the gods

Conjure Celestial: you summon a celestial of CR 4 or lower (5 if you spend a 9th-level spell slot). CR 4- celestials include the couatl (flying shapeshifter healer) and several winged animals (bull, lion, horse [pegasus]) to serve as combat mounts. (Did you know that Pegasi prior to 5e also had spells to detect alignment? Yep. More than just a mount.) Upping the spell to 9th gets you a battleforce angel (flying paladin), a felidar (sometimes winged cat-thing with truesight to which you could bond if the spell’s duration didn’t prevent that), hollyphant (ridiculous elephant celestial thing), or a unicorn. For the sake of comparison, a unicorn in 3.5 is CR 3 and a 4th-level summoning spell could call one. (Summoning is much weaker in 5e, but lasts a lot longer.) I’m not sure what to say. I mean, the couatl and the unicorn would be nice if you needed healing, but you can probably do that yourself.

Divine Word: creatures of your choice within 30 ft. that can hear you must save (Cha) versus various effects based on HP. This is overall better than the equivalents in 3.5 (which were alignment pole based) and it’s an “I win” button against extraplanar creatures (except aberrations) that fail their saves, which could stop a cult in its tracks. Pretty powerful.

Regenerate: target creature is now a troll/starfish! Woot woot! It’s kinda sad that you have to wait this long for it and that it competes with your second best rez, but you can replace that rez with this once you get true rez (which of course you will). This should be mandatory in a game that uses slashing weapons so much.

Resurrection: holding out for true resurrection is not really a great idea. On the one hand, you don’t want to have to ask someone else for this spell -- and chances are there will come a time when you need it. You can replace this spell with true rez later. On the other, there are so many other things you might want. Need I say more?

Symbol: you spend a buttload of money to make magic traps. Why are these Cleric spells? Dunno. Why are they spells and not magic items you craft? Also dunno. They’re useful, but not so much that I’d want them as anything besides rituals (which they aren’t). -2 Sorcerousness.

Temple of the Gods: holy shit, this is neat. If you need to seal yourself and your party away from the world while still being able to access the world, you want this spell. Like, take Mordenkainen’s magnificent mansion and make it more convenient. Great spell.

S’yeah, lots of lovely spells that you now have to decide upon vs. teleport. I do not envy you in making this decision.

[serendipitybutterfly]

Finally doing Yoongi's birthday year ahead reading too... (at least it didn't take quite as long as it took me to do Hobi's!). Anyway... Let's get right into it...

The message which came to me here is kind of...... Well it seems like a continuation of a past reading I did for Yoongi and I was surprised because I kind of assumed this situation had passed... If you remember, last year there was some strange situation involving a shady woman who came up in readings regarding both Yoongi and Jimin... When I did Jimin's reading I got a bit more clarity because Yoongi's reading I found really confusing and I kept drawing more cards to try to understand the message... I've since realised that with my energy and Yoongi's, it's best for me to stay back and try to understand what's being put forward.

This time I think I better understand what the cards are saying straight away (although I still say that when it comes to Yoongi, for some reason the cards speak to me differently, or rather speak through me to try to give him advice very differently, and it means I have to kind of get in a very different kind of headspace to understand the message at all...

It's hard to explain, but basically I think out of all the members Yoongi is probably energetically the most different to me so his guidance almost feels like it's coming in a different language (imagine big symbolic runes, hieroglyphs or pictures or big waves of feeling instead of nice neat descriptive prose) that I then have to try and interpret... It's interesting but I think by staying back with a respectful distance and just accepting whatever comes without trying to overthink at all (because it's actually kind of direct... Only in a different way than I'm used to) or pry to understand more I'm getting way more from him...

Anyway... My purpose here is to write out the advice reading. I just wanted to preface it with this growing understanding of how I perceive his energy (does anyone else get this with other members?).

Back to business... We have reversed King of Wands and the reversed Ace of Cups signifying this reading. I'm taking this as there being some situations and events which knock his confidence and security in himself this year and that they will likely revolve around his emotions. This is a shame, but I don't actually see it as being Yoongi's own problems primarily that cause this...

To start off with, we have the reversed 5 of cups which I'm actually seeing as his present state rather than advice. I think currently he's recovering from a big set back, a huge feeling of disappointment is here... Reversed strength showing that it's something that made him feel powerless, helpless. Ten of cups reversed and The Moon are telling me that from Yoongi's point of view, this is not just something he's dealing with. BTS in general is taking this setback way harder than they're letting us see. A lot of things are not as they seem and there's a lack of clarity on what they're going to do that leaves them feeling unstable. To me this seems to be pretty obviously talking about the current Corona Virus global pandemic and how it's put a big spanner in the works for Yoongi as an artist who wants to perform for his fans, and of course for BTS as a whole, as they were supposed to be doing a world tour this year. They've been trying to keep up a calm image for the fans, but behind the scenes it's been much more stressful, upsetting and chaotic and this is first hurdle he needs to get over this year. Hard to do with such a lack of clarity.

However, the next cards are talking about something different and something which I think is being built up to either resulting from these setbacks or simply coming later in the year. The five of swords and Queen of Wands sees the return of this strange woman that I saw coming up last year. Again she seems to be a subject of discord... I think between at least three of the members of which Yoongi is one.

From these cards I get a strong impression of distrust from him towards her so I don't think he's actually the one she's messing with... It's definitely a younger member, so not Seokjin either.

The reversed King of Pentacles and Knight of Cups represent how he views this member in this situation; as someone who isn't being sensible or practical, who has lost touch with reality and who's being stupid with money... A fool in love who is being taken advantage of. This, as shown by the Nine of Swords, will cause him a great deal of stress and anxiety... Especially with the three of cups here, it's letting me know this is mainly concern over a close friend's recklessness and that this will mainly involve three people... Probably Yoongi, the younger member and this woman, although I also see three members in particular arguing about it...

The answer or advice on how to handle this? Well, it's pretty simple. The Angel Oracle card I pulled is Grace and Antoinette: To help heal this situation, see the other person's point of view with compassion. This is pretty obviously referring to the latter situation involving someone close to him whose choices Yoongi's probably going to seriously disagree with this year. The message is to try to make peace with him and relinquish the desire to win the argument or control the situation... To try to view the situation with empathy and compassion to find a resolution.

The numerology of this reading comes to 9, completion. We also have the Full Moon: Completion card from the Earth Magic deck. This is something that has to come full circle to resolve itself. The message I get for Yoongi is that as much as he might want to protect his friend, his brother, sometimes people just have to make stupid mistakes in order to grow and learn... That's just part of life and something they have to go through. The overall message for this reading is that you can't control everything... Sometimes you have to just let go and let the storm ride out, let the wave take you... And learn to be ok in the aftermath. Once this situation is allowed to play out, it will actually finally be resolved. It will be over and peace can be regained...

Yoongi should also try to use the instances of setback and delay this year as a chance to take a breath and release... He's actually very intune with the universe and perhaps can already sense that we're building towards a new beginning of some kind... All of us. This can definitely cause feelings of fear and anxiety, but if we let go of the fragile illusion of power and simply accept that a cycle is ending so a new one can begin, we will be able to find a great sense of peace and release as this year goes on and we look into the future.

I pray for the peace and wisdom he needs to get through his challenges this year to be granted to Min Yoongi. 🙏 💜

[fragenherrdoktor]

Thoughts on dirigibles? (I'm sure I spelled that wrong)

Lol, you’re fine and right! Dirigibles (airships, zeppelins, etc.) are neat! 

They play a big role in the history of aeronautics but don’t get much modern use. It was airships that made a lot of the first milestones in flight. When it comes to military usage, they’ve best been deployed for scouting and relaying information rather than direct assault operations. 

Before the 20th Century, dirigibles were used in a few battles or at least commissioned during wartime. In the American Civil war, Union troops used hot air balloons to spy on the Confederate Army. The first navigable balloon was developed during the Franco-Prussian War to improve communications (but wasn’t completed until afterward).

WW1 highlighted the airship’s capabilities as a weapon, and they were used by both the Allies and Germans. The notion of “strategic bombing” targets via airstrike didn’t exist before and has since shaped the future of warfare. Airships also made it far easier to cross the English Channel that usually helped protect the British in the past from invasion—which was scary as hell.

Up until then, no one had ever dealt with being bombed from directly above. Aerial combat allowed the Germans to take the battle directly to the British, sorta. 

Pros of Zeppelins

They can fly very high and far with great fuel efficiency.

They are very light and maneuverable in ideal weather conditions.

Good for hovering for long, stationary periods.

They’re pretty stable in the air; you don’t really get airsick.

Cons of Zeppelins

Because they are so large, they do not travel fast.

They can’t operate in all weather; storms cause operational issues, and intense cloud cover ruins weapon accuracy. 

The bigger it is, the more it can carry, but the harder it becomes to ground and handle effectively. 

At that time, the hydrogen gas used to inflate them was flammable, making them vulnerable to airplanes and accidents.

Zeppelins were scary af in WW1 but honestly didn’t cause that many casualties. They proved to be a better diversion and caused the Allies to pour more time and effort into defense. By the end of the war, airplanes had pretty much replaced the use of airships. In the 1930s, only the Germans were still into developing airships, mostly for passenger service. 

By the time WW2 rolled around, only really the Americans (and I think Soviets?) were actually using airships for military purposes. The U.S. primarily used them to patrol near the American coastlines. From what I understand, some Navy blimps were used in the European theater by the U.S. to locate and destroy German U-boats around the Strait of Gibraltar. But as a whole, airships were going out of fashion leading up to WW2.

Airship = Disaster?

When people talk about dirigibles, they tend to think of the Hindenburg immediately. There’s a long, tragic history of airship accidents throughout the early 1900s, largely due to the use of hydrogen gas, which is super flammable but offers better lift than helium and was less expensive and easier to obtain at the time. 

While there were many other airship accidents, the Hindenburg crash helped end the world’s fascination with them. One, no one wanted to travel in a hydrogen-lifted death-trap. Two, the Hindenburg was finished when the Nazis were in control, and it’s completion was seen as a symbol of the nation’s power, and, you know, no one really wanted to fly in something the Nazi’s used/built.

After the Hindenburg crash in 1937, American and German investment in airships sharply declined. But they were also heavily technologically outstripped by airplanes, which had become a lot more reliable and affordable. 

Modern airships are pretty safe nowadays. No one uses hydrogen anymore. Again, it’s a really green aircraft, so it’s still pretty effective at some applications. I know right now, companies are looking into using them for shipping purposes, which could help cut jet fuel usage. The idea of aircruises is also being thrown around as an alternative to luxury cruise liners. Who knows, as we look for greener alternatives, I think we might see more dirigibles take flight again in the near future. 

Image

[arkt-nehrim-archive]

Thoughts on the actual land of Nehrim?

Soooo many thoughts!  Possibly too many to share in one post, but I’ll try to keep it contained(I make no promises).  I’m still gonna put a break in it so it doesn’t just throw a WALL onto people’s dashes. 

Before saying anything tho, I subscribe to Nehrim’s clock that 1,000 years really did pass between certain events, so I’ll be cataloging my thoughts according to that. 

So the land of Nehrim!  Possibly the single most diverse place on Vyn!  Trouncing even Qyra, since Qyra is still overseen teeeechnically by a theocratic element (Saldrin) for a vast majority of time and is mostly just arid/tropical desert. Sure Qyra is SUPER progressive as far as Vyn’s various territories go, and I dream of a game set on that continent-  AAAH okay, focusing. Here to talk about Nehrim, not Qyra. 

So at one point in time, we’ll say somewhere in the 7200s a.St. by the Light-born’s established clock, Nehrim was a loosely unified place under Erodan. Not in the sense that everybody -agrees- with one another, but y’know, nobody is -actively- at war.  We got the Middlerealm of course, which is the seat of Erodan’s power in which he may or may not have actually -lived- amongst his subjects (given Narathzul is described as being his right-hand dude and the Order of Paladins is stationed -on- Nehrim up north, I’m inclined to think this is true).  Then there’s the North, which wasn’t it’s -own- territory at this point but still definitely had its own diverse culture and possibly still some manner of monarchy specifically loyal -to- Erodan  (not too hard to believe given Erodan is actually a half-breed between “Light-born” and Norman anyway; King Wuran). Then we have Ostian, which only -recently- in lore has been the theocratic dictatorship we see in Nehrim (only existed for 40 years by then), otherwise being described as being a home of art and culture, much like Qyra. A place still recognizing Erodan’s rule, but likely having its own power structure beneath him- again, a lot like Qyra/Golden Queen/Saldrin.  Lastly there’s Treomar!  Which I am fascinated by because it’s a swath of territory -attached- to Nehrim, that is openly -not- loyal to Erodan or the Light-born. From those that live within during Nehrim’s gameplay, one can assume it was primarily, if not entirely a nation of Aeterna, possibly loyalists still to ancient figures like Asatoron and Aeterna from Irdor (which is it’s own whole fuckin’ thing, I’ll share thoughts on that later).  With its geographical location its not too hard to imagine they came from Myar Aranath and landed in what they’d found as Treomar, building this Dalaran-esque (any Warcraft peeps in here?) mage society and aaaaaaaaaah, they’re cool. 

There’s all of this going on and co-existing at least to some degree, with the only other place approaching being that diverse being Arktwend later. I honestly would have looooved to see this Nehrim, before all the craziness and war and murderdeath that results in the country -we- know and experience in the game itself, as back then I’m fairly sure the magic abolition hadn’t been a -thing- yet  (because Aeterna and magic weren’t such a threat to Barateon’s power), so Aeterna would’ve still had rights n’ such, though they were probably still looked down on because of heritage (soooo gonna get into THAT later mmmMMM).  Erodan all in all seemed pretty chill all things considered, which may be owed to his half-breed status, he’s closer to the people on a genetic level, so maybe that makes him inclined to treat people better I dunno.  We only get to see him for like two seconds and -can’t- talk to him!  So!  -shrug-  

OH SHIT I forgot somebody really important!  -Anku-!  Technically speaking that is totally a fifth nation/state, as it encompasses a huuuuge swath of territory (underground) and is ruled by some fashion of monarchy, so -EVEN- more diverse cultures on this continent. The Starlings don’t answer to Erodan, but still exist peacefully within Nehrim within their own lil’ pocket nation and MAN I was sad most of our time spent with the Starlings is in the parts of their territory they don’t actually spend time in. I get it, when we got to see Anku is a time when there’s very few Starlings actually -left-, but still. They’re such a neat race, especially when you consider Nehrim’s lore for them over Enderal’s (which downgrades them significantly from the literal galactic superpower they’re said to be in Nehrim). 

And all of this!  All of this and still the Nehrim -we- see and adventure in is -so -different. Erodan is dead, has been for -centuries-.  Now there’s this grubby, tyrant human in the throne named Barateon, who’s loyalty literally goes only as deep as whatever preserves his life the longest. Credit where it’s due, he’s still a powerful arcanist, extending his years beyond what mortals should be capable of (which is exactly what the myths say the Light-born did so hhHHMMM more on that in another post).  Treomar is destroyed, and much of its history is gone with it outside of specific documentation the Light-born for some reason keep around and guarded instead of getting rid of it- like they -want- people to rise up against them or something. Ostian is a friggen magical radioactive wasteland where the fabric of reality is so damaged now even the skies rage with toxic super storms- and as if that weren’t enough the part of its that’s still inhabitable is now kept under the bootheel of another powerful mortal mage whose roftstomped everybody into a new highly oppressive, morally appalling religion that saw Enderal’s Prophet created from its awful maw.  Like, Nehrim has become, in its centuries outside of -direct- supervision become this tragic shadow of what it once was, and when you actually dig into the lore of how it all ran before, it’s just like auuuughh -man-. It’s so sad. ;_;  It’s tragic that somebody as negligent and awful as Tyr, is proven right, because of how life has degraded in the absence of direct intervention. And I’m not making a case for Light-born tyranny here!  I’m just saying Nehrim 1,000 years ago was pretty cool and I would’ve loved to see it  (I’ll just have to write stories from that era heheheh >>;).  

So yeah uuuh...  OH!  I didn’t even mention the sheer amount of Aeterna ruins all around Nehrim!  Suggesting Asatoron’s empire probably had a decent chunk of it built there when it was still part of the super-continent of Pangora! I would’ve loved to be able to actually -speak- to the clans of Aeterna that took refuge and used these ruins; I want to know so badly -who- Etronar is, I want to know more of the various Aeterna peoples that splintered off and had to find safe corners in Nehrim to exist after Narathzul’s rebellion and subsequent defeat/capture, that is centuries worth of time, a significant swath of history and there’s so much to play with there that y’know, stuff like cutting the timeline apart and whittling it down just makes all the unrealized potential sssoooo friggen unsatisfying, but anyway. 

Overall, I think Nehrim, as a region, is a fascinating place. So much has happened there, absolutely world-defining events that changed so many things; how Aeterna were viewed and treated, how use of magic is policed/outlawed, how the Light-born govern purely from a fear of -what if they rebel again-, I mean they ALL retreated to Inodan after Narathzul and Arkt unleashed their individual rebellions and ruled from a distance, bringing about this era of mystery where the peoples of the world just -forgot- what it was to -see- and -hear- their Gods, leading to no small amount of many just, -not- thinking they actually existed. I mean shit, look at how Jespar thinks, that man came out of an upbringing that tried its -hardest- to instill faith in the Light-born, but without them actually around to -prove- anything for -centuries-, what grounds did they really have to prove to the kid they were legit?  But there I go getting off topic -again-, because I love Vyn way too damn much. 

I love Nehrim. I think Nehrim is awesome, and fascinating, and I feel too many feelings.   xD  

Thanks for the ask @mirogeorgiev!

[elliepassmore]

In the Afterlight Review

5/5 stars Recommended for people who like: dystopian, found families, psychic powers, inner group conflict, impossible decisions After where we left off at the end of NF, ITA opens up in a very distinctly apocalyptic setting. The series has always vaguely had that feel in the way most near-future dystopian books do, but the EMP and bombing of LA tipped the scale further into apocalypse territory. I enjoyed how Bracken really explored the vision of a bombed-out LA and the impacts that might have on suburbs like Burbank. Something about the image of burned, shelled cars and brick rubble and abandoned shops just does something for me in terms of settings, aesthetic, and mood. I think, in this case, it works quite well to set the tone of the first bit of the book. The second setting is pretty neat too. It’s another League location in California, but a bit farther north. The place is like a huge compound with secret rooms as well as tunnels connecting it to different locations. It’s the perfect place to hide a bunch of kids while you’re planning an action against, say, the ‘rehabilitation’ camps Psi kids are kept in. Aside from suiting the purposes of the characters, this second setting also visualizes the divide that starts to occur between what’s left of the League in CA, with some (most) of them hanging out in the Garage, which is separated from the main portion of the compound by a long tunnel, and those that are left mostly sticking to the main part of the compound. The Garage is definitely cooler visually, I’ll say that, but the ideology and plans of those who hang out there is a little too optimistic for reality. With this as the last book dedicated to Ruby’s story, it’s mostly about closing out her arc. After LA, she wants so desperately to do the right thing by everyone and is stretching herself so thin it’s no wonder certain stuff ends up happening. She’s much more in-tune with her powers, though she still doesn’t like using them and still wants a cure. I like how things go for her in this one, for the most part. I feel bad for her in this one more so than the others. She’s so down in the dumps and so few people see it, like, I think Liam picks up on it, but it’s only really addressed when they have some down time together, which is neverand then the only other one to really mention her emotional mood is Zu. So, Ruby basically has a boyfriend who’s as busy and her and a 13-year-old to discuss her mental state with….not great options. With all her issues on her powers and the insecurities that come with that, added into the mess with Jude and dealing with Clancy and the issue with the League agents and wrangling everyone, it just gets to be a lot and I feel so bad for her. One thing I am not too pleased about is her and Liam’s arguments and distance. Like…the entire thing is just so dumb and takes up multiple chapters, and then it’s resolved in one and they’re all peachy-keen again, which makes me wonder if the tension between them really needed to last as long as it did (but I’ve decided to blame exhaustion, stress, and Clancy for this one). Speaking of Liam…I’m not really sure what to think of him in this one. He’s definitely gung-ho for helping other kids and making sure that the camps are shut down, but his plans for going about it lack the teeth that they had in TDM (and, ironically, his OG plans are the ones Ruby builds on and he disagrees with, so…). I can’t tell if he’s just reeling from everything that happened in NF or if it’s just a weird character change that makes him inclined to think that a media storm will successfully bring the camp system down or what. His change in plan combined with his dislike of Cole, his distrust for the League, and Ruby’s own insecurities, just leads to him coming out as quick to irritate in this one. I will give him the fact that having your memory stolen and then regifted would be extremely jarring and invasive. I get why he writes the note, and I get why he’d be touchy and angry about that, but the rest of the stuff is just, I’m pretty sure, just his judgement getting clouded. Not to mention, he’s a hell of a lot more reckless, though we are seeing things through Ruby’s POV and he could always have been exceedingly careful, so there’s that. Outside of those interrelated changes, he is largely still the super sweet, super supportive, protective Liam we saw in TDM and NF. Even when he is fighting with Ruby, or even later with Cole, he still wants to understand and combine ideas instead of dismissing them out of turn. Chubs is once-again stuck between his two friends and hates it, though he does his best to work with them. I feel like Chubs gets a lot more mature in this one and faces things with a wiser attitude than he did before. I mean, he was always the more cautious one of the bunch but he just got an extra layer of professionalism added to him throughout this book. He seems a lot more at ease with life and with himself, which was good to see. On the other side of the spectrum, we get to see a much more emotional Vida than we have before. Sure, in NF we saw her angry plenty, but here there’s a mix of sadness and grief and desperation and camaraderie and support we didn’t get in the previous book. Her walls break down a lot more and she’s willing to admit that she’d prefer to talk about what happened to Jude rather than just shove it down and away like everyone else seems inclined to do. She also starts a surprisingly tight friendship with Zu, and the two of them are definitely a force. Zu comes in about a third- to halfway through the book. I love Zu, she’s such a great character personality-wise, but she also has a way of cutting right to the center of things and helping people. She may be young, only 13 in this one, but she’s go the insight of someone much older. What happened in the novella In Time has clearly impacted her when she first comes into ITA, but she slowly and steadily overcomes it, learning and helping those around her and letting them boost her in return. She grows a lot as a character, and it was awesome to read. Nico is an interesting character, since he was in NF, but it was difficult to really get a feel for who he was as a character in that one. Here, we see he has a lot of regret over what happened in LA, and he’s working to reconcile the Clancy he used to know to the person Clancy is now. Nico’s unflinchingly loyal, but he’s come to realize he put his money on the wrong horse and is struggling to make it up to everyone. Clancy’s still a piece of work and none of his character development comes internally, it’s all external. We do get to meet his mom, though, and combined with what we know of President Gray….well, it just explains a lot. Okay, it’s kind of spoilery, but I absolutely adore the entire thing Ruby has going on once she’s back in Thurmond. She goes back in and she’s struggling so much with the feelings of fear and absolute terror the place instill in her, plus the worry that the plan won’t work because the people on the other side won’t come or won’t come in time, just makes the fact she fights through it all that much better. I wish her reunion with Sam was a little better, though, I did want there to be a bigger thing with them, but whatever, we get that in Beyond the Night. My favorite scene from this collection of chapters is when Ruby’s in the control tower with O’Ryan and just snaps on his ass. It’s great. Of the main three books—TDM, NF, and ITA—this one comes in as my second favorite, with TDM as the first and NF as the last. The settings are, once again, fantastic, and I love a lot of the plot and events that occur in this book. I do think that Ruby and Liam fighting as much as they do only to have an insta-make-up was not great (though I do have my suspicions that they’re issues were exacerbated by Clancy manipulating Ruby. Ever notice how the two times he does it large-scale, she’s also separated emotionally, and generally physically, from (primarily) Liam and the others? My hunch is Clancy saw how well it worked the first time and used his Orange powers to manipulate it into happening again). Overall, ITA is a good ending to the series and I’m pretty satisfied with it all around. Clancy Story in 2018 Edition 5/5 stars The story picks up from when Ruby went to see Clancy at the end of ITA. The collection is basically a run-through of Clancy’s worst moments. There are some of them, like when he and Hayes and Olivia find East River to establish it that aren’t too bad. Then there are others, like the ones where he’s strapped to a table getting experimented on, that are downright awful. Most of them fall somewhere in between. The way it’s set up, I believe it’s a reverse chronological order of Clancy’s memories. The first one is from ITA, when he tells Ruby that she’s the one who tipped off the PSFs about the Sawtooth camp, and the last one is from when he’s pretty little, probably around three or four. I like that, as we progress through the story and the memories, we also get to see how Clancy’s warped mind was built up bit by bit. As a child, he obviously has little malice other than when it comes to protecting himself from others. As time goes on and he’s experimented on, that malice and cruelty grows into what it is in the first memory. Aside from the way we’re seeing each memory erase based on how recent it is, I love how Bracken chose to end each scene with “a heartbeat, and it’s gone.” There’s just something about that line, about the speed and finality of it that I just love. Nico features in most of the memories, so we get to see how Clancy, in his own weird way, does have feelings for the other boy. Clancy doesn’t have full-blown romantic feelings about Nico, or even what I’d necessarily call a crush, but he definitely is attached to him and Nico holds sway. I think this might be my favorite ‘exclusive short’ of the bunch. It’s a combo of the formatting of the piece and the way we get to see inside Clancy’s head and watch his development into the person he is in the TDM series that makes it one of my favorites.

Note: Since Through the Dark is just a bind-up of the novellas, it’s coming out on Saturday and TDL’s review will be coming out next Wednesday

[goldenchocobo]

I’ve been thinking a lot about both Kingdom Hearts (if that wasn’t obvious) and  His Dark Materials lately. Mainly because they’re both series that I deeply love and have helped me get through dark times in my life. So I thought “What if I gave KH characters Daemons? That’d be neat!” then I actually did it and I struggled so much with what Ven, Aqua and Terra’s daemon… I’m not fully satisfied with what they have, but I tried my hardest to give them suitable daemons that have variety and not just “everyone gets to be a dog or cat”.

I’ve chosen to do BBS’ cast rather than the full cast of ‘grown’ characters because I couldn’t nail Sora’s Daemon properly and didn’t want him left out, but I had a decent idea for what his Daemon would be as a child.

Under the cut I’ve put a more detailed explanation as to why I chose the Daemon I did if you’re interested in reading. If not, here are the animals:

 Sora: Blue Morpho Butterfly

Riku: Shaggy Black cat

Kairi: Black Capped Chickadee

Venitus: Gaboon Viper

Ventus: White Rabbit

Terra: African Leopard

Aqua: Lava Gull

Of course your choice of Daemon could be different to mine, and that’s okay! These are just my ideas for them.

Here’s a more detailed explanation for each character and why I think their Daemon would take this shape over others. Please bear in mind that whilst Sora Riku and Kairi’s Daemon would primarily take these shapes, they could also shift into other animals.

 Sora: I chose a Butterfly for him simply because of his carefree nature. Butterflies are seen as peaceful creatures that lull about on sunny days, flitting about in their own freedom. In deeper symbolism, Butterflies are linked with life, death and rebirth. They start off as caterpillars and are reborn as butterflies. Much like how Sora started his journey as a ‘Lazy bum’ and became a competent keyblade wielder. I chose a Blue Morpho because it fit his colour scheme more, but my next choice was the Monarch, as his theme is also kingly.

Riku: It took me a little while to figure out what animal exactly I wanted for Riku. I wanted an animal that’s often misjudged, but smart or symbolize wiseness- since even as a kid, Riku was very smart for his age. Cats are often depicted as being smart, or the wise-Alec and a bit of a trickster. Black cats are also often tied with bad luck and the occult. (Although here in the UK, black cats can seen as omens of good luck) This is all tied to the representation of the darkness that almost took Riku over. If I were to do an older series (if I ever figure out Sora’s Daemon), Riku will have a Crow or Raven, as- like black cats, they are very smart and are considered bad omens, plus it would be a slap in the face to share a Daemon’s likeness to someone you’ve come to resent.

Kairi: I felt that Kairi’s Daemon should be simple. If I were to draw her with a settled Daemon, then she would have a white dove- a symbol for purity and peace. However, because she is young, I felt her Daemon ought to be small and happy. Chickadees are often linked with happiness, fearlessness and friendship, something I think that Kairi represents.

Vanitus: His Daemon is the Gaboon Viper- the fastest striking snake in the world and the snake with the largest venom-to-bite ratio. However, I didn’t see his Daemon as a snake because “duh, he’s the back guy, he’s gotta have a deadly animal!” No, I didn’t choose a snake for him because of that, especially since Gaboon vipers are not very aggressive and will try to flee rather than bite unless absolutely necessary. Given Vanitus’ history with Xehanort, I’d say that his Daemon settled as a Gaboon Viper simply so she could protect him, she was pushed into that form because of the amount of abuse and pain he endured. What was his daemon before? Who knows, maybe because he’s Ven’s darkness his daemon was also a rabbit, but it looked too meek in Xehanort’s eyes.

Ventus: Like Kairi, I wanted something light hearted for Ven. I chose a rabbit because Ven has more energy, but is also cautious. White, again is a symbol for purity and innocence, and Ven has no darkness within him. What his daemon would be before his darkness was extracted, I’m not entirely sure.

Terra: I’m going to say it, Terra is not the smartest cookie when it comes to making decisions or trusting people. His heart and intentions are in the right place, but… his sense is elsewhere. Then, why did I chose a Leopard for Terra? Well- Leopards are known for their strength and independence- something Terra sought after to the point it opened his heart to darkness. That and I’m not sure what else to give him; I wanted a large and strong animal that didn’t work with others too well, and landed on Leopard.

Aqua: The Lava Gull was more of an aesthetic thing at first before I looked into them a bit more. Gulls are actually seen as good luck symbols for sailors, especially those lost out at sea. Gulls in general symbolize the calmness of the sea along with the resistance to battle out a storm. And I’d say Aqua is pretty calm and went through a whole deal throughout the series. Lava Gulls especially are opportunists, and never miss a chance to do something. I link this with Aqua, because I see her as very resourceful and can see an opportunity if one arises.

You made it this far! Well done! Here’s a little extra I have, that I haven’t drawn yet but have written down so I don’t forget:

Xehanort: Verata goat (His theme is very goat heavy. His symbol is a goat, he wears a goat suit and his duplicates wear goat masks). Eraqus: Silver fox (“you sly fox”. Silver for aesthetics)

Lea/Axel: Lioness. (I found a post that described Lea and Isa as the Alchemical symbols for the sun and moon. I meant to read all of it, but didn’t and can’t find it. A Lioness suits him though as lions in general are associated with fire and the sun)

Xion: Kauiai O’o. (an extinct bird that only lives through taxidermy, illustrations and a single recording of its voice. I don’t need to say more)

Ienzo/Zexion: Chinese Water Deer/Vampire Deer. (I see him as a very Deer-y person. Plus the fact that people with a Vampire Deer as a Daemon are often said to have higher senses, it suits him more than most)

 And that’s what I have figured out at the moment. I’m not sure what the Daemons would be for any other character. I’m trying to figure out Isa right now so I can draw him and Lea together, but if I go with the Alchemical theory thing, then Isa’s daemon would be a bat… and I can’t see him as a bat… I see him having some kind of mustelid.

[lindoig4]

The Zephyr - 8-10 July

Today, we are leaving San Francisco and boarding the Californian Zephyr for Chicago.  I think we slept a bit better last night, maybe the jet lag is starting to lag, but we were still up by about 6am and checked out before seven.  As we were checking out, I saw the TV with news of a series of serious earthquakes with a lot of damage and casualties about 300 km from here.  We are fine, but I thought the earth moved a little for me at one stage when we were out walking yesterday.  Perhaps I wasn’t just imagining it after all.

Our train is called the Californian Zephyr, despite it traversing California, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois!

We walked through a dank and foggy San Fran down the hill to the bus station and in due course were transported across the magnificent kilometres-long Bay Bridge to Emeryville where we caught the train.  The bridge is quite wonderful, an engineering masterpiece affording great views of the huge turbid bay and its surrounds with its ships and docks.  We even drove across Treasure Island and although I kept an eye out, I never saw Long John Silver (although I did see two Jolly Rogers swinging from the flagstaffs.).

We followed the shore for quite a long way before crossing a very wide area of marshland where I saw a few birds and even identified a couple.  For the rest of the day, though, we saw very few birds, all too far away, too small, too fast, too fleeting or just too uncooperative for me to identify.  The only ones I did identify were four Canada geese swimming along close to the track when we were travelling very slowly. And the only non-bird animal I saw all day was one lonely white butterfly.

I should make a declaration at this point!  I have already run out of superlatives and the next few days make superlatives pretty pathetic anyway. Please just add as many ‘spectaculars’, ‘fantastics’, ‘brilliants’, ‘gorgeouses’ and so on as you can and I will limit my amazement in my comments and retain it primarily in my memory.  There simply aren’t words or pictures adequately to describe the wonder of some of the things we saw.  But here goes anyway…..

We climbed up into the Cascades and passed through range on range of steep hills and deep valleys, mainly covered by a few varieties of conifers. We transitioned through several landscapes during the day, but after the marshlands, we were very quickly into heavily wooded conifer forest and steep mountains with valleys disappearing into the deep gloom.  There were patches of dirty snow hidden among the trees, still laying around almost in the middle of summer and large areas of pristine snow on the mountains a little further from the train.  Everything seemed so clean, fresh and green, but no doubt cold as well if it were not for the air-conditioning in the train.

Then we were into open grassland that reached the horizon in all directions with just a few stunted trees scattered about.  There were areas that weren’t flat – indeed, where nothing was flat.  It was as if a group of giant children had been playing at mud pies and left lumps of dirt and mud everywhere – often mound on mound with one misshapen lump running into the next.  It was strange to see such a jumble of small round hillocks crowded one on the other and to wonder how in the world they formed and why they haven’t weathered uniformly.

Further on, we were in desert: large flat grey muddy patches in otherwise brownish-grey scrubby expanses.  The bare earth didn’t look sandy.  Rather it looked more like dried mud in such a neutral ‘muddy’ colour that it was indefinable.  And the scrub was almost the same – dull green that was almost washed out of any colour at all. It was real ‘cowboy country’ that we saw in so many Westerns a hundred years ago.  (But wait until tomorrow!)

At dinner time we went through a flooded area, a waterlogged grassland with lots of birds, but again, very hard to identify.  I eventually identified several with a reasonable level of confidence – just enough to claim them – but I will talk more about bird identification later.

During dinner, our bunks were set up by our steward (Maclin – a huge friendly black man and a lot of fun) but they took up so much of the cabin space that we virtually had to go to bed.  I was in the top bunk and it was quite coffinlike.  Not a lot of room between the bunk and the ceiling and I recalled a lot of the Edgar Allan Poe horror stories I read as a teenager about being buried alive or confined in small caves, etc.  The mattresses were rock-hard and we slept very badly with aches and pains, perpetually either too hot or too cold, but we survived the night. We had a very long stop in Salt Lake City in the middle of the night so on our first day, we had crossed California, Nevada, Colorado and half of Utah.

We were up early next day and looking out, I immediately saw some antelope – about 20 or so in singles and several small groups.  I also saw a jack rabbit just outside the window on one of our stops. There were lots of stops, some for small stations, but also for traffic reasons.  They had some extreme heat here recently and there was an amazing rain storm and a couple of hours of continuous(!), completely uninterrupted(!!), lightning on our second night combined with signal problems around Denver and an escaped alpaca on the tracks later on – all contributing to our trip being exactly 7 hours longer than expected. The slow progress due to the heat risk and rainstorm resulted in the crew being over their maximum legal stretch of shift so we sat at one little siding for a long time until a fresh crew arrived from another station to relieve them.  The end result was that instead of arriving in Chicago at 2:10pm, we arrived long after dark sharp on 9:10 in the evening.

In the daylight, Utah was really iconic cowboy country.  Nothing seemed quite as big and grand as Monument Valley, but all the features were there, just a bit more crowded and closer together.  Massive buttes and mesas, unbelievably jagged and craggy rocks, every conceivable structure.  Buttes and long ranges of hard rock with precipitous cliffs falling to great triangles of scree around the base – typical Western badlands landscapes and impressive beyond words.  We sat agape, staring out the windows, clicking frantically on our cameras as each more magnificent vista paraded in front of us.  Did I say ‘Spectacular!’?

Then there was the Canyon country.  We traversed two very long canyons beside the Colorado and Fraser Rivers with towering cliffs on both sides, incredibly rugged, with the rivers roaring past – the Colorado hurtling westward to the Grand Canyon and the Fraser racing eastward to the Mississippi.  The speed of the rivers was breathtaking, especially after an apparently extremely wet season, and the rapids were awesome – many turgid Category 4s and 5s. We saw hundreds of canoeists and rafters – and one long stretch of the Colorado is nick-named Moon River – due to the long-established routine of the rafters ‘mooning’ the train as it passes. We saw an awful lot of (awful) bums over maybe 100km.

We were now well into the Rockies and again, words fail me. I never imagined I wold see them and they are not quite what (or where) I imagined, but maybe even more spectacular. Towering mountains, craggy rocks everywhere, plenty of snow-caps not too far away.  Quite an awesome journey, but equally impossible to describe.  Imagine as much as you can and double it – and then again a few more times!

We continued eastward through Nebraska, Iowa and Illinois, all less awesome, but still fascinating.  Gigantic swathes of corn fields – enough to feed the entire world surely – truck farms and increasing industrialisation as we approached our destination.  Many little towns, all amazingly neat and symmetrical, quite quaint in many cases, but with little to separate them from their neighbours.  Lots of silos, some for corn, but mainly for silage – in goes mountains of grass, it ferments and out comes astronomical volumes of stockfeed.

Because we were running so late, they had to provide an extra meal on the train (everyone got beef stew and veges for that one).  The food was generally very good with about 6 choices for each meal (the same set of 6 each day) and a fair choice of alcohol that we had to pay for.  Staff were exceptionally friendly and helpful – maybe with an eye on their anticipated tips, but they seemed genuine enough.  Tipping is alien to us, of course, but we did what we thought reasonable and hope we didn’t offend anyone or appear too stupid to them.

Chicago at last and a cab ride to the hotel where we checked in and slept in much more comfort than the hard mattresses on the train.

[glassworkspiderlilies]

one step forward, one step back

 Persona 5 | Goro Akechi, Haru Okumura | AO3 Summary: Haru helps Goro through a moment of darkness. It works for the moment, anyway. Notes: Prompt for this one was “hug”! Relevant Mementos dialogue here.

The moment he steps into Leblanc, the downpour starts.

He closes the door quickly, looking back for a moment to observe the sheer force of rain. The clouds had been threatening to break all day—it was lucky that he made it to his destination without being caught within the storm.

“You cut it close, eh?” Sojiro says from behind the counter, a wry smile on his face. “Guess I have two customers for the next couple hours, then.”

As Goro walks to his usual spot, he nods his greeting to the other person sitting at the counter a seat away.

“Hello, Okumura-san,” he says with a smile, which she returns.

“Hello, Akechi-kun,” she replies, “Lucky break out there, huh?”

“Indeed,” he agrees, then notices the little pink box sitting in front of her. “A gift?”

“Of sorts. For everyone, though, not for me,” Haru says sheepishly, opening it and showing him its contents. Inside are cookies shaped like flowers, some of them beautifully decorated with icing. “I was experimenting, and thought I’d bring them for everyone to share, but…”

She looks outside, at the thick sheet of rain obscuring the view.

“It’s probably safer to stay at home today, huh?” Goro finishes her thought for her.

Haru nods.

“Akira-kun and Mona-chan went out to buy some books earlier. Futaba-chan was really excited when I said I brought cookies, but even though she’s just down the street it would probably be better to wait until the rain lets up at least a little bit, if she’s that determined to come by.”

“If she tried right now she’d probably get pummeled and swept away by all that water,” Sojiro chuckles, but then frowns a little as he also gazes outside. “Sheesh, it’s really coming down…business will be slow today. Anyway, coffee for the two of you? And Haru-chan, set aside two of the chocolate and almond ones for me, will you?”

The two confirm their coffee orders, and Haru reaches into the box to pull out the requested cookies and sets them on a napkin. She slides the box towards Goro afterwards with a smile.

“If they’re to your taste, please have some,” she says shyly, “I made a few different kinds and would love feedback, if you’re willing.”

Goro smiles and selects the topmost cookie in the box, which happens to be one beautifully iced with small floral details and lacework. He examines it before looking back at Haru.

“These are…exquisite,” he says, “I’d rather admire it than eat it, to be honest.”

Haru laughs. “The experimenting also included working with royal icing. It’s quite fun, and therapeutic. Well, if the designs aren’t too complex.” She smiles and looks sheepish again. “I confess that is one of the few presentable ones.”

Goro raises the cookie in a bit of a salute before he takes a bite. It’s pleasantly chewy, and not overly sweet despite the icing. There’s another flavor he can’t quite name—some type of spice, surely—but it’s a nice touch.

“It’s delicious,” he says, after he’s finished chewing and notices Haru’s expectant look.

She smiles, but before she can say anything, Sojiro places their coffees in front of them.

“Should be expected,” Sojiro says, pouring a cup of coffee for himself. “Haru-chan’s gotten pretty good at making coffee and pastries.”

“Oh, no, but I’m nowhere near as good as you or Akira-kun,” she protests, though she flushes a little at the compliment.

Sojiro smiles wryly as he lifts his cup.

“I should hope not, you might run us out of business,” he says, chuckling, but then studies her with a thoughtful expression. He takes a sip of coffee before continuing. “You  know, you don’t have to have the same flavor we do, Haru-chan. You have your own touch, and it’s a good one.”

She ponders his words for a moment before tilting her head.

“I’ll…take some time to think about that a bit more,” she says solemnly, and Sojiro chuckles again.

“Alright, then. I’m gonna do some dishes and prep work in the back; you two enjoy yourselves. Give me a holler if you want more coffee.”

With that, Sojiro plucks the cookies Haru set aside for off the counter and brings them with him into the kitchen.

Haru and Goro glance at each other and smile politely. It’s a little awkward—they don’t talk to each other very often, as they don’t seem to have very much in common or any similar interests to bond over more extensively. But they mutually acknowledge that they aren’t going to force a conversation at the moment; Goro turns his attention to the TV, while Haru reaches into her bag resting on the seat and brings out a notebook, textbook, and pencilcase.

They pass about thirty-five minutes in relative silence, save for the background noise. After a while, Goro glances over at what Haru is doing. She seems focused on taking notes, the occasional small diagram littering the page amongst bullet-points of information. She writes quickly and in very small letters—he can’t see what she’s writing, but she also seems to have an eye for leaving white space amongst the page so that they are less overwhelming to look at later.

He smiles a little; it’s method and style that looks terribly picturesque—one that he isn’t used to seeing, though it’s not as though he’s seen several peoples’ notes before.

He has seen Sae-san’s notes, primarily preliminary notes on cases that she prefers to handwrite because it allows her to visualize things better before she types up a final version on the computer. The pages are crammed full of writing, extra things scribbled in the corners in addition to the text on the lines. The majority of the notes are impeccably neat, though the quality starts slipping a little once Sae-san has been working for extended periods of time. Makoto’s is similar—he’s seen her school notes before, when he’s stopped by the Niijimas’ apartment briefly— though her handwriting is a little more fluid, with a little more bend and looping to her letters.

Goro’s own notes are almost unreadable to anyone else—his handwriting looks neat outwardly, but people have trouble actually reading what he’s written. At present, Sae-san is about the only one who can read his handwriting without trouble. But there’s also the fact that he doesn’t organize things particularly well—he knows his own files and papers, knows what his own notes refer to, even though things written on the same sheet might not correspond to one another. Someone else might find it quite a puzzle to piece the information together, were they to take his notes.

That suits Goro just fine.

He hasn’t noticed he’s staring until Haru lets out a little sigh—not one of frustration, but simply tiredness—before she puts her pen down and traces the rim of her coffee cup with her finger.

“It’s good to take a break every now and then, you know,” Goro comments mildly, feeling compelled to say something. His words are hypocritical, he runs himself to the ground as a lifestyle, but she doesn’t know that.

She turns to give him a half-smile, though it comes out more as a wince.

“It is,” Haru agrees, “But there’s so much I need to learn in as short of a time as possible…”

She trails off, but she doesn’t need to explain much more. The general populace knows the gist of her state right now—with her father dead and her being the largest shareholder of the company, Okumura Foods was facing internal strife in terms of people battling for control of Haru’s power, or attempting to make her give it up.

“That sounds…difficult,” Goro says, knowing it is an understatement.

Haru looks at him, silent for a moment, as if measuring him. He blinks, briefly taken aback by her sudden scrutiny, before Haru glances away. She rests her hands on her lap, lacing her fingers together.

“It is,” she admits, sounding pained. “Akechi-kun, how long have you been working as a detective?”

Goro pauses before answering, thinking back to when he could claim he officially became a detective.

“I’d say about two years or so?”

“I see. I am sure that you went through your own difficulties during that time, so please forgive me for saying this—but there is a part of me that is…a little envious of  you.”

Goro raises an eyebrow, curious at what she means, and Haru finally meets his eyes.

“You’ve been at your craft for awhile,” she states, “Detective work is about solving cases, yes, but there are other processes involved in that, with the police and recordkeeping and interviewing. It’s more laborious than people know based merely off of watching your interviews, or crime dramas, or suchlike . But during those two years, I’m sure that you grew as a detective and became more comfortable in the role, perhaps learned knew skills to aid you in your work, and you certainly must have honed existing ones. The longer you work at something the better you become, after all.”

She pauses, gritting her teeth for a moment before continuing.

“I did not have that. All those times I was at my father’s side…and I have nothing to show for it. It is true that some of it could be blamed on my father—after all, I was not allowed to attend meetings of worth or do anything directly in relation to the company. Most of the time, I was for image—to talk to his guests, build connections…to be a bridal candidate for sons of his business partners.”

She sounds a little bitter at the last part, but she sighs and shakes her head.

“But I also could have insisted more—either in learning what he did, or asking him to spend less time at work—had I been less eager to please. I…might have been searching for his approval—maintaining my grades, being charming to his guests…accepting Sugimura-san as my betrothed without complaining. But in doing so, I may have only pushed him further into what he became.”

Haru’s eyes are distant and pained, and suddenly, Goro’s throat is dry, his throat tight. Her story is familiar, too familiar, and he balls his hands into fists to hide the fact that they’re trembling.

(Mothers who aren’t his Mother, fathers who aren’t his Father—what do those words mean, anyway?—eyes, cold and judging, constant and circulating…no one could say he wasn’t smart, not with how quickly he learned to devote himself to an image of himself he created, but intelligence didn’t help cuts or bruises…

Learning to breathe quietly, a fear of dark spaces—yet a comfort in them, which act was better? Which would have made them happier? Had it become like this because he was wrong, because he did it all wrong, could he start over—)

“Akechi-kun!”

Haru’s voice is sharp—not panicked, but geared specifically to get his attention—and snaps him out of the past immediately, but while his mind knows where he is now, his body doesn’t seem to be cooperating.

“I’m sorry?” Goro says, intending for it to be a polite apology for zoning out, but something about the tone must be wrong because Haru’s eyes are even more worried after he speaks. He tries to repeat himself, licking his lips in case their dryness is the reason why his voice isn’t coming out. He fails again, once more, twice more, and he stares at his hands so that he doesn’t have to meet Haru’s gaze.

It takes him a moment to realize that he’s shaking, not just his hands, but his entire body is trembling violently. Stop, he tries to command himself, it’s a sign of weakness, and he knows where weakness gets you—

“Akechi-kun,” Haru says, softer this time, as she slowly slides off of her seat. She takes cautious steps towards him, though he’s closed his eyes and can’t see her anyway.

“Please,” Goro croaks. He can’t bear this public humiliation, even if it’s only the Okumura heir, but suddenly he is unsure of what his own plea means, what it’s for. His breath is coming too fast, or too slow, he can’t tell, only that he needs to stop, before—

“Akechi-kun, will you let me touch you?” Haru asks carefully. Startled, Goro raises his head. She’s standing in front of him now, brown eyes grave, but even with her usual smile gone her manner exudes comfort. It takes him a moment to register what she’s asking. He wants to say no, wants to ask why she would ask such a thing when she barely even knows him. He wants to tell her not to look at him, to leave him be—

“Yes,” he whispers instead, and Haru takes his hands in hers.

The contact is warm, even through his gloves, but she carefully tugs them off and entwines her fingers with his, grip firm. The warmth is almost shocking, but he tightens his own grip as if he can absorb more of her heat that way.

“I was taught a magic chant for ramen the other day,” Haru says quietly. “It went something like…veggie-garlic-extra-extra…”

She says it very slowly, and repeats it once more before Goro catches onto the pattern. He breathes, in and out, in and out, following the rhythm of her words. She says the silly chant until his breathing becomes a little more even, though he’s still shaking. He lets go of her hands soon after, and attempts to straighten his posture.

“I’m sorry,” he says, clearly this time, “I don’t know what came over me.”

Lies, he knows exactly what happened, though he’d never been in someone else’s presence before when it’d happened. Haru tilts her head, her body language inquisitive, but her eyes aware. Goro’s lips tighten, though he knows he must not make a very convincing figure right now at all.

“Akechi-kun, will you let me do one more thing?” Haru asks, and holds out her arms.

Goro looks confused, and mimics her stance, unsure of what it means.

“I…suppose?” he answers, when she doesn’t move without a response.

Oh, he thinks, when she moves in and wraps her arms around him firmly, chin resting on his shoulder. He hesitates before doing the same, hands hovering over her back for a moment until he finally rests them on her gently, completely out of his element.

“I’m trying to grow camellias this year,” she tells him, “I did a lot of research on what kind of soil they prefer, and I  found that they do best in more acidic soil rich with organic matter. I’ve plenty of compost to help with that, and I could obtain extra fertilizer if necessary as well…”

She continues talking and he relaxes in her hold, all but burying his face in her hair. She smells like jasmine, her sweater and her hair both soft against his cheek. He is half-paying attention to the details of what she’s saying, but he knows she’s only chattering for his sake. He’s stopped trembling, and ultimately feels like he’s returned to a normal—or at least manageable—state after a while. But he gives in to himself and stays in Haru’s embrace just a little bit longer before pulling away.

Haru observes him, and he gives her a weak smile.

“Thank you,” he says, even though saying so means fully acknowledging what just happened. He can’t meet her eyes. “I…”

He wants to make excuses again, but before he can begin doing so, Haru slides a finger under his chin and tilts his head up gently.

“Akechi-kun,” she says, smiling softly, the corners of her eyes turning upwards. “I am your friend, and you may ask me for anything you need.”

He clenches his teeth, unable to find the words to express what he’s feeling. Haru releases him, though she doesn’t go back to her seat yet.

“Would you like another cup of coffee? I was going to ask Boss for another one, myself,” she says, and Goro merely nods, though caffeine might not be the best at the moment.

Haru calls for Sojiro, and when he steps out from the kitchen he doesn’t act like he’s aware anything happened since he left the counter, though Goro knows that he must. The café isn’t that big.

He’s thankful for the owner’s silence.

Goro drinks his second cup of coffee a little too quickly, though he appreciates the scalding heat sliding down his throat and into the pit of his stomach. He takes his leave soon after that, claiming that he has work that he should get back to now that the rain has let up, and Haru and Sojiro give him friendly goodbyes.

Just before he closes the door, her glances at Haru, who meets his gaze evenly. She gives him a hint of a smile and inclines her head, and Goro clicks the door shut.

When he gets back to his apartment, he doesn’t bother turning on the lights as he strips out of his outside clothing and into more comfortable attire and throws himself onto the bed. He pulls his blanket over his hand and curls up in the darkness, thoughts swirling, Haru’s words echoing in his head.

I am your friend, and you may ask me for anything you need.

If only she knew. She wouldn’t have said such a thing if she knew who he really was, what he’s done.

He curls tighter once he realizes a tear is sliding down his cheek, burying his face into the pillow. No more weakness, he vows, or tries to. He recalls Haru’s warm hands, how he showed a raw part of himself that she accepted without judgment, the easy comfort that she provided him with no strings attached.

A tiny hidden part of him feels relieved, that perhaps showing weakness isn’t so bad—

No, the greater part of himself says, with gritted teeth and nails digging crescents into his palms. Considering that is already a step towards disaster. If he becomes comfortable with help, then that will lead to seeking it, and it will only bring ruin. Really, he’s already halfway there, with being in this position at all.

He needs to remember what he’s here for and fix the grave mistake that he’s made by shutting that tiny voice up.  

Some sleeping pills and a while later, he falls into a fitful sleep, remembering the scent of jasmine, dreaming briefly of flowers.  

[rancidnanersmtg]

A few words about Death’s Shadow and Modern I guess

I just gotta say another thing that’s cool about my primary deck being something like Death’s Shadow is that it’s a deck with a firm core and idea that can be pretty much any 3c+ combination of colours as long as it has black in it. Isn’t that cool? I play Grixis, but there’s also tons of cool options for esper and jund. Hell I’ve even seen people see success with Sultai DS which makes me incredibly happy. However, despite this variance, Death’s Shadow decks take up a pretty health junk of the meta even though according to mtgtop8 they rest at 9% for the last 2 months and 8% in the last 2 weeks. The format itself is in a pretty good spot right now, and it shows.

Since the printing of Fatal Push, Modern changed in a pretty big way. A card a lot of people thought was great for Jund ended up pushing the deck down in the depths of tier 2. This however gave a huge Push to tons of B/X tempo and midrange decks. Faeries is almost good, Grixis decks started thriving, it was a good time. Hell even Tron started using Fatal Push since they can filter their rocks and trigger revolt to cast it. But of course, the biggest impact is that it was a huge card that basically got Death’s Shadow decks into the spotlight. While of course yes one of the primary variants of DS is Jund, on the whole Death’s Shadow is the new Jund. It’s the top midrange deck of the format that has mostly good match ups and a deck jam packed with efficient disruption and creatures. However the mana costs have shifted down to effectively 0-3. With such a low curve, this allows you to run a short number of lands, usually 18. So the deck becomes even more packed with these sorts of spells along with a mana base that’s comprised mostly of fetch lands. The deck runs smooth as butter as a result and well, here I am gushing again.

Is it my favorite Modern deck? Probably. It definitely feels like it was the deck I’ve been searching for since I started playing the format 4 or 5 years ago. It’s basically what Delver and Jund both were back in their mutually exclusive haydays... but in one deck. The hand hate, bolts (sometimes), counter magic and cantrips, and 1-mana threats. Also Stubborn Denial? Dude... DUDE. Pardon my french but I fucking love Stubborn Denial. Also Kolaghan’s Command? That’s value. Snapcaster into K-Command? Oh fucking man dude. Sometimes I just shit on Affinity with that play and it feels really good. 

I still like Merfolk and Storm. Hell almost every day I think of another Modern deck I want to try out. There’s these two newer decks I’ve seen pop up that are real neat. One is a Temur aggro deck that uses Pongify and Rapid Hybridization to target their own undying creatures giving yourself a 3/3 and evolving your 1-drops twice. It also runs bolt. Another newer deck I have my eyes on is this Mardu* midrange deck with a creature base of only 4 Bedlam Revelers and 4 Young Pyromancers. *This deck really only has white for Lingering Souls and sideboard cards. The deck is primarily R/B to the point where it can even get away with running a 1-2 of mainboard Blood Moon. Pretty cool grindy deck that generates lots of value mid game with the Reveler. If you haven’t had your eye on modern for a while, I strongly suggest give it a peak right now. I really feel like there’s a deck for everybody. 

[esportsrush-blog]

Gameplay guide on Kai'sa in League of legends

Post URL - https://esportsrush.com/gameplay-guide-on-kaisa-in-league-of-legends/

Gameplay guide on Kai'sa in League of legends

Kai'sa is a champion that easily steals the spotlight this season with an overall 49.8% win rate, her upcoming prestige skin and more importantly. . . her presence at worlds. After witnessing some stellar performances of this champion by JackeyLove, Uzi, Deft and Sneaky we decided to pen down a gameplay guide on her and will try our best to do justice to the daughter of the void, so here goes. . . (inhales)   Before we begin this guide, lets take her look at her abilities.

Second skin/ Living weapon

Second skin is Kai'sas passive which allows her to stack plasma onto an opponent, stacks that add up with consecutive auto attacks. Similar in nature to Vayne and Gnar. Each stack deals a bit of magic damage and every fifth auto pops the remaining four stacks and deals a percentage of the targets missing health as damage. Hard cc from allied teammates also stack up plasma, unlike Vayne and Gnar. This passive scales with ap and therefore her passive along with W are the driving factors to any funky ap or hybrid builds. An item that works very well with this is a rageblade. Guinsoos rage is a perfect trigger to melting enemies with your passive procs. We will look at the latter portion of her passive, living weapon along with the other abilities.

Icathian rain

Kai'sa fires a volley of six missiles. This ability scales more with ad than ap and is maxed first on the traditional ad builds. It is a really versatile ability and in the early game is usually a follow up to your E. Your Q along with W is enough to deal a significant amount of damage to enemies who are low in the laning phase. As expected, Icathian rain can be evolved by building ad. The living weapon of Icathian rain can be achieved with a 100 ad. If you are one of those people that enjoys the essence reaver, Icathian rain can be evolved with an essence reaver and a pickaxe. If not as well, a 100 ad is not too difficult to attain. An evolved Q doubles the missile count and adds a bonus flat attack damage. All in all its a nice addition to your kit but should not be the your prime focus. You still have to win that game.

Void seeker

This can go from an Ashe E to a 7.62mm real quick. Your W really shines on a hybrid or an ap build. On an ad build, this can be used to put up plasma stacks, to scout for the enemy team or to chase down a target with your ultimate. This ability puts up two plasma stacks on the target it hits which is quite neat. Also, it provides vision when it hits the target which can provide for some handy early game scouting. On an ap build however its a completely different playing field. It can be used to snipe and burst down enemy champions, sometimes even spawn killing them. Of course, evolving this article requires 100 ap and evolving it applies three stacks of plasma instead of two, and landing your skillshot on an enemy refunds half the cooldown which is really cool and can make for some really insane plays on her.

Supercharge

A big contributor to her mobility, supercharge gives you a burst of movement speed during the cast and increased attackspeed for five seconds after casting. This is indirectly a great boost to your damage since increased attack damage allows you to proc your passive more and items like runaans make this item all the more devastating. This ability can be evolved with a 100 bonus attack speed. As already evident, this is probably the most difficult evolution of all. One of the practical ways to do this is getting a Runaans Hurricane or a phantom dancer along with Berserkers Greaves and a dagger at level 13.

Demonic ascension

Kai'sas ultimate is a long distance dash that allows you to teleport to any target that has plasma stacks on them. Earlier this would be coupled with an essence reaver to give you additional attack speed upon reaching the target. This can be a really useful initiation as well as escape tool warping out of sticky situations or warping in to finish off a squishy target. Her ultimate and supercharge are her primary mobility tools and can be used in many different ways. (To check out the Kai'sa itemization guide, click here)

Runes

Precision: Primary

Fleet footwork Kai'sa is primarily dependent on mobility, weaving in and out of teamfights and that is an aspect that can be fully capitalized on with fleet footwork. This rune allows you to deal additional damage as you kite and is arguably the best primary rune to run on her. Triumph If you decide to run precision, this is a must have rune. The gold it provides is pretty neat, but the 12% health recovery on takedowns it provides can be a lifesaver in messy teamfights and may just make the difference between life and death. Coup de grace This rune simply does the most damage in its category due to it's scaling damage as compared to the other flat counterparts. Probably the most efficent rune anyway.

Sorcery: Secondary

Celerity As mentioned earlier, on a highly mobile champ like Kai'sa movement speed just makes her faster, allows for easy kiting and fleet footwork tears down targets you hit ever so often. Gathering storm The adaptive ad you get every ten minutes is pretty cool. . .  yeah. . . its cool.

Playstyle

Early game:

Level up Icathian rain first, and push for level two. Try to avoid direct trades with the ad carry unless necessary. Focus more on a passive playstyle and try to create a minion advantage. If you are able to force them off the lane, set up a freeze. It's probably the best way to dominate early game with Kai'sa. If you reach level two first, use the powerspike to level up supercharge and initiate on the enemy in your overpowering minion wave. Try your best to get tower first blood in the early game since the gold it provides is quite cool.

Mid game

Kai'sa has a low auto attack range. This makes whittling down turrets all the more difficult, the correct way to siege is to autoattack a couple times, move back , reposition and auto attack a few times again. Mirror your enemies movements and stay out of range since you're probably the most easy and valuable target to catch. Staying safe until your fourth or fifth item before truly commiting to teamfights is probably the most optimal way to play this champion.

Teamfighting

While it's viable to pick off the enemy carries in the teamfighting phase. . . maybe leave that to the assassins. Probably for an adc you're much more dangerous spraying the enemy team, riddling them with auto attacks and ultimately leaving everyone to unfit to carry on fighting . Oh yeah, stay away from enemy assassins. . . they're not nice. Don't auto attack them if you know they have cooldowns up. Just don't. Aaaand that's about it. I hope you liked this guide, do check out the Kai'sa itemization guide it's quite cool too (Phew) That's about it. See you on the rift!  

Gameplay Guides, League of Legends

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[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co