cindersilverandgold

[cindersilverandgold]

Trubbish doodle ✨️

[cindersilverandgold]

I like making collections of screenshots themed around certain ideas. This one is "fortifications"

[cindersilverandgold]

Just got the new rune factory! I can’t believe they made everyone trans it was awesome!

[cindersilverandgold]

Why did it have to be Cats?

Some fanfic I wrote a few years ago for Renowned Explorers: International Society with a few small references to another fictional adventurer archaeologist..

............

“It belongs in a museum, you know.”

Victor gave a long-suffering sigh. “Of course it does. In the Renowned Explorers International Society exhibition hall.”

“No, no, no. In the Louvre at the very least. Can you imagine it , hanging next to the Mona Lisa? Still Life with the Holy Grail and Large Smug Cat?” 

Minet the Impressionist’s eyes were very wide.

Victor considered that. “No”, he said after a long pause. “ I cannot imagine that.”

“Now, young man, what did I tell you about sarcasm?”

“Dad! Stop calling me young man! I’m thirty-seven years old.”

“Don’t take that tone with me , my boy, or I’ll-“

“I’m married! I have four children of my own! Anyway, why are you even here?”

“What a good question! I’ve always believed that I was placed upon this earth to elevate the souls of those around me by attuning their blunted senses to the aesthetics of-“

“I meant why are you here in this canyon on our expedition with us?” Victor took a breath and Minet looked sulky.

“Well”-he nodded at Maria- “She said there’d be secrets. And besides which, I heard this could be your climatic voyage. Your ultimate journey! Your last cr-“

“If you’ve quite finished,” remarked Yvonne “I’d like to collect the treasure some time this century.” 

“What about the cat?”

Yvonne glared at Victor. “What *about* the cat? I assume, Victor, that you are a dog person.”

“Well, they are pleasant enough , I suppose, but-“

“Of course you are” continued Yvonne cheerfully. “Dogs are the animal of choice for tiresome children and ignorant loudmouths the world over, but cats are a different sort of thing entirely. Subtle, sophisticated and altogether superior.  And , of course, they are far too sensible to dote on buffoons. Cats know a buffoon when they see one. Still, this one  needs to be gone. Come along, kitty, get on with you.”

The cat stirred slightly. It lazily opened one eye. It gave a long hiss. And it settled back to sleep.

Yvonne glared at it as well, and behind her Maria hid a smile.

“Very droll.  But if that’s the pinnacle of your wit then I may have overestimated you. Most cats are excellent creatures, but maybe you’re just a little bit below average for the breed, hmmm?”

The cat was certainly awake now. Its back was arched and every inch of its fur was stood on end. Yvonne clapped her hands.

“I knew it. Why, you look practically canine!”

With a howl of fury , the cat flew off the pedestal and launched itself at Yvonne. She struck back with vigour, and the others stopped to watch the fight unfold. 

Victor’s moustache twitched very slightly. “I do believe she’s made a friend.”

“You don’t say?” Maria, Victor realised, was grinning from ear to ear. “ Actually, Victor?  Do you remember back at the beginning of this , when we still hadn’t quite mastered producing cutting remarks to darling Yvonne’s terribly exacting standards and she found us a flock of sheep to practice on?”

“Yes, but-“

“And you remember that one of the sheep put me in mind of a certain beloved captain of ours, and she unaccountably called the practice session to a close when I pointed out the resemblance?”

“Yes, I remember that. Woolly Yvonne?”

“Yes, woolly Yvonne. Anyway, I was thinking that I may have spoken just ever such a little too soon. Look at that, Victor. Do you not think, that at long last, we have found Yvonne’s perfect counterpart in the animal kingdom?”

Victor looked from Maria to the fluffy ball of contempt and fury ahead of them, and finally to the cat. He smiled. 

“You’re quite right, Maria. And if I may make so bold , I do believe this moment deserves commemoration. Now, where has that father of mine wandered off to? I think his muse has made herself known after all.”

[cindersilverandgold]

it's rune factory eve y'all!!!

[cindersilverandgold]

They're so talented :)

[cindersilverandgold]

This person is such a warm, companionable writer with a way of writing that makes you feel like you're sharing a moment with them :) Little Jacket is my favourite, it's such a perfect, self-contained story and I've come back to it several times :)

COME GET YOUR TINY QUEER POETIC GAMES!

Check out my itch.io page or my tumblr tag, #5-minute games.

... and many more! All for free! Earnest, introspective, dare I say, fun? Check them out!

[cindersilverandgold]

Support this group of talented disabled creators! Being disabled brings a lot of extra expenses, and many of us have difficulties getting the support we need. AND we can be an awesome, creative bunch! So this jam was for us to make some amazing things and bundle them together for a good cause (us. It's us). Direct support for disabled creators without a charity as a middle man.

I’ve worked hard to run this, and am putting my heart into all these promotions. I’d love it if enough people decided this was worth it and helped all of us out.

[cindersilverandgold]

Thanks so much for your kind words !!!!! Here is the finished text of the entry if you wanna read it . I hope it's a nice tribute (Also I never asked your pronouns, gah. LMK if you wanna be credited with any particular set)

Creation myths

Creation myths is a really detailed , clever character creation game by GothHoblin that leads your character through an initial adventure and leaves them in a place where their journey can continue with real style and elegance. The game works on a series of questions, each with associated prompts, and the prompts I rolled called to mind the magnificent Pokemon Legends Arceus fanfiction of @waywardstation. So with permission, I decided to create a character as a tribute to those lovely stories and based the major characters on their major characters - two people called Akari and Ingo. In this entry Akari and Ingo are going on an adventure with my OC, an incarnation of Mesprit the Legendary Being of Emotion. I’ve listed the prompts I rolled at the end of each section.  (Doesn’t the world already have a Mesprit? Well, read on and see….)

(All you really need to know about Akari and Ingo, beyond the core premise of Pokemon,  to read through this is that Akari is a fifteen year-girl working for the Survey Corps of the Galaxy Team in a fantasy 19th century setting and Ingo is a member of the “Pearl Clan” that Akari sees as an honorary uncle)

Who are you?

Our story begins when Akari and Ingo are completing a battle at the Dojo where Ingo works part time. Akari hears a odd ringing cry from the back of the Dojo , and finds Mesprit the Being of Emotion curled up under a pile of sacks. This is not as surprising as it sounds. Legendary Pokemon and singular being though it may be, Mesprit's playful , psychic and a bit prone to messing about. It’s when she goes to return it to its home that the trouble starts , because apparently Mesprit is already there. There are two of them now, it seems , one in the village and one in Lake Verity and that definitely shouldn’t be happening. When the new Mesprit catches sight of the other one, it teleports away immediately and spends the rest of the day playing pranks on the citizens of the village- hiding in Bagin’s things, chasing Cyllene’s Abra , stealing Zisu’s broom and so on and sneaking naps whenever it can. It’s a sweet-natured thing and there’s no harm in its games, but Akari’s a little worried for two reasons. The first is that it’s running out of energy awfully quickly for a legendary creature and the second is that its psychic tricks seem much, much weaker than the other Mesprit’s. 

She and Ingo were both strangers in Jubilife Village once and they owed a lot to the locals helping them, so they’d both really like to pay that forward by helping this little lost stranger but neither of them really have any idea where to even start and they both think they work best in a team anyway.  So they decide to call their various role models to the Wallflower, the local canteen, and pool their expertise to see if anyone has any advice. Akari calls in Rei and Professor Laventon, her two seniors in the Galaxy Team and Ingo sends messages to Calaba and Irida , the Pearl Clan’s herbalist and leader respectively. Ingo and Akari both love Beni’s potato mochi, the Wallflower’s specialty,  although neither finds it easy to get since they’re both so busy and their schedules very rarely overlap. So this time they order in for everyone and everyone enjoys the food. Mesprit eats everything put in front of it but doesn’t exactly seem to love anything. And however much it eats , it doesn’t seem to get much stronger….

(Prompts: You think your world is mostly good. What is your favourite food? Are you a lover or a fighter? You have a role model. Are you socially confident? You have an emotional wound)

Your ordinary world

Hisui is the frontier in this time, a land of heroes, adventures and scholars but both Ingo and Akari’s relationship to their ordinary worlds is shaped in large part by the fact that they’re both displaced travellers from a different time. It colours their relationship with local authorities - especially Akari’s. She was held responsible for various things going wrong by the Galaxy Team leadership , and even after she saved the world a certain amount of distrust persisted. There had certainly been a series of mysterious anomalies centred on her , that was true and it was also true that she had resolved them but she had resolved them in mysterious and confusing ways that were centred on her. There was a little distance between her and her colleagues in the Galaxy Team and the Jubilife Village still. And for Ingo, the distance was between himself and his past- he had almost total amnesia after he arrived in Hisui. And both of them have come to the conclusion that like them, this Mesprit is from another time and place as well. It’s the logical explanation, right?

(Prompts : You have a poor relationship with law enforcement , you don’t live in the place you were born, you’re part of a special interest group, you come from a place of heroes)

The Call

When Professor Laventon the researcher sees the new Mesprit looking weak and listless like that, he wonders aloud if it might be ill. The more our intrepid duo think about it the more plausible that idea seems so Akari and Ingo take it to see Pesselle, who is a medic , and she agrees that it is ill for sure but she’s no wiser than they are as it what’s wrong with it. Lacking any better idea, she suggests she keeps it for observation overnight and Ingo returns to the Pearl Clan settlement as Akari does to her unit. In the early hours of the morning, Akari is woken by a rather panicked Pesselle knocking on her door and saying that Mesprit’s vanished .  They agree to meet up at dawn with Ingo, Professor Laventon and his apprentice Rei in Laventon’s office to figure out what to do next. 

(Prompt - A beloved member of your community fell ill, and asked for brave adventurers to help them)

The Companions

And the next day , they head into Laventon’s office to find a new notice for a request that reads

FIND MESPRIT’S FAVOURITE THING

REWARD: LOTS OF NICE THINGS FOR EVERYONE

And under the requester’s name, Akari reads off the signatures of every authority figure she can think of from Laventon to Cyllene to Commander Kamado, Irida , Adaman, three different wardens and even Ginter. The new Mesprit, meanwhile, is waiting happily at the village gates looking innocent.  Nobody is fooled for a moment by any of this but there’s a general agreement that FINDING MESPRIT’S FAVOURITE THING is a job for Akari, the survery corps’ rising star, and so in this way the Galaxy Team is “hired” for the request 

(Prompt- you hired a few able-bodied people to accompany you)

Into the unknown

Akari starts her journey in the fieldlands, and she and Mesprit explore the area from top to bottom but whatever Mesprit’s after doesn’t seem to be here.  Eventually, they come to the Grandtree Arena and Mesprit settles into a tree and starts giving off small motes of light. Akari’s wondering what’s happening for a moment, but she quickly realises that Combee are attracted to the lights and she’s able to collect enough honey to sustain the village for a good long while.  Mesprit doesn’t seem interested in the honey and while Akari is wandering what to do next , Warden Lian approaches her. He says his noble Pokemon, Lord Kleavor, senses something about the strange Mesprit, so if Akari doesn’t mind Lian’d like to travel with her for a bit. They decide to use Lian’s hidden camp in the tunnels to pass the night, but before they can do that Mesprit flutters off into the Crimson Mirelands. 

Rain is lashing down in sheets as they get there, the tell-tale sign of a massive mass outbreak and Mesprit dashes from group to group and place to place so quickly that Akari has to call Lord Wyrdeer for her and Lian to keep up. Eventually they find their way to Cloudpool Ridge where Warden Arezu is looking out at the outbreak from her Brava Arena. She says Lady Lilligant saw them coming and reminded her of the time she compared massive mass outbreaks to gathering of Clefairy. Akari’s research indicates that Clefairy has a connection to the moon and stars so might Mesprit be not just from another time and another place but another world entirely like Clefairy? Akari agrees that indeed this is possible and Arezu asks if she can join them at Lian’s camp and see where Mesprit goes next. 

The three settle down for a good night’s rest , but the problem comes in the morning. Akari has barely opened her eyes and clambered out of her bedroll when she sees Mesprit off at the end of a tunnel. It waves its tails at her jauntily and disappears into the highlands!

Prompts: (You were pelted with rain and thunder. You discovered a new way to hunt small creatures. You discovered a hidden sanctuary)

Tests and trials 

Akari and the two wardens gather their As soon as they reach the crossing to Wayward Cave out of the Wayward Wood though, they’re greeted with someone they’d rather not see. Melli, the obstreperous Diamond Clan warden , is tearing out of Wayward Cave in a panic , saying that a strange pokemon put out all the torches in the cave and then the Alpha Crobat that lives there ambushed them and knocked Melli’s Skuntank out. Akari would dearly , dearly love to tell Melli that’s his problem and she’ll ride Lord Braviary up to chase Mesprit, especially since she had a bad experience in very similar circumstances when Melli himself was the one to put out the torches to give her a scare. 

But that isn’t what her friends , her survey corps colleagues and her family found and blood would want from her , so she takes a deep breath and tells Melli she’ll guide him back to his arena.  She takes Lian’s hand, Lian takes Arezu’s and Arezu takes Melli’s and then Akari closes her eyes and takes another deep breath. “Take care not to come uncoupled, everyone. Onward we roll!” She announces and steps into the cave.

Her heart is racing the whole way and more than once she thinks she hears someone mimicking Ingo’s voice and telling her to run and let the others fend for themselves. But she shuts it out , keeps putting one foot in front of the other and at the top she finds the man himself waiting for her. While he was gathering in the Quarry , Mesprit flew past heading up the hill and he assumed Akari would be close behind him.  As Melli heads off on his way and Arezu and Lian walk a little way ahead, Akari is surprised to feel her adoptive uncle’s hand on her shoulder. He’s never seen anyone drive so safely on such a demanding schedule, he tell her. (His brother) Anyone would be proud. 

Prompts: (You had an opportunity to take revenge for a past hurt, Someone you care for tried to tempt you off your quest , you came across a deeply personal challenge)

The arrival

By now, they have more or less figured out that Mesprit is leading them to Lady Sneasler’s cave , but as they leave the Ancient Quarry heading towards the path up to her hideaway they’re rather surprised to find two enormous statues blocking the path up . 

The first thing Akari notices is that there seem to be stairs built into the statues. The second thing she notices is that the statues look like herself and Rei.  But before she’s even finished explaining that, Arezu is shaking her head. She says they look like herself and Calaba, Lian says they look like himself and Melli and Ingo says they look like himself and (Emmet) someone and at that point they catch on that these are illusions. They still have to pick one to climb if they want to get up there though.  Eventually the little group decides that since they’ve managed to figure out the pattern across the statues , they decide climbing the one that looks each of them like their friend feels like the “Mesprit” thing to do and so off they go. 

The goal

They find Lady Sneasler and Mesprit out front of her cave , each nibbling on a Pep-Up Plant from the little crop that’s grown around the entrance. And for what it’s worth, it does seem to have pepped Mesprit up, it’s zooming around and teleporting from place to place  just like the familiar Mesprit of this world. As soon as it sees the little group of adventurers , it sweeps them up in a burst of psychic energy and for a moment it’s as if they were standing in Floaro Gardens while the Gracidea blooms around them. Then they’re back in the Highlands , there’s a rift above the Temple of Sinnoh and Mesprit seems eager to be off toward it - to go back to its own world.

Akari and the wardens are nonplussed that a Pep-Up plant was apparently enough for this Mesprit to travel between worlds looking for one, and Lian and Arezu need to return to their duties but Akari and Ingo decide to see the request and escort Mesprit to the temple. 

(Prompt: the item you were looking for turns out to be a common plant) 

The return journey 

Ingo and Akari are taking a slightly unfamiliar route to them , because they haven’t had the call to travel this route between these two places before and it very quickly becomes apparent that isn’t going to be their only problem. Space time rifts are flashing up in front of them almost instantly , much smaller and quicker-moving than they’re used to and Ingo’s Gliscor and Akari’s Typhlosion Ember are kept busy protecting Mesprit from the denizens of the rift. And as if to make matters , Akari keeps seeing things out of the corner of her eye- purple-black smoke, red segments moving like a snake, gold-tipped sharp-edged claws. That Pokemon is an old foe of hers and one she’d dearly rather not see again , so she breathes a deep sigh of relief when they make it to the temple. 

(Prompts: Your return journey attracted the attention of an adversary who chases you every step of the way. You traveled through a section of countryside you’ve never seen before. A freak storm ruins your campsite , but provides some spectacular visuals)

The Reward 

When they reach the rift , it’s flickering backwards and forwards as they watch . But as Mesprit approaches, it stabilises and Mesprit’s home universe is visible through it. Mesprit’s home universe is bleak . It looks a little like the modern Sinnoh that Akari remembers , but it’s broken to pieces - buildings leading into pathways twisting up and around and leading into the void. And there’s no sign of any humans anywhere.   But Mesprit smiles happily at the sight of it and turns to face the two time travellers. It makes eye contact with both of them, nods its head and then darts into the rift. In the next moment the rift blinks out of existence and the only signs of it left are three objects on the altar- a cone of rapidly melting ice cream, a rice cracker with a logo of a hotel that Akari vaguely recognises and a single link of red chain. 

(Prompt: After a long return journey , you arrive to find your hometown in ruins)

How Things Changed

Both Akari and Ingo have a lot to talk about on the way home. They’ve learned something about how to care for unusual pokemon , for sure, and they can put that knowledge to use along with the various bits of trivia they picked up. But more than anything, they’ve learned something about the rifts. They may not live in one world with one past and one future , but amid a multiverse of many worlds and travel between them may be both easier and more difficult than they had believed. That knowledge means a lot to both of them..

(Your journey gave you new knowledge or skills that you can put to benefit your community)

What Lies Ahead

Both of the time travellers are beginning to think that Mesprit won’t be the last Pokemon from another world they see, and so some months later neither one is surprised when Lian appears at the Jubilife Village gates with a mysterious little blue horse-like Pokemon in his arms. He says he found it shivering with cold near Grandtree Arena and Akari and Ingo will be able to pep it up, right?

(Prompt : someone you met while adventuring came to find you, bearing a new quest and asking for your help specifically)

hello, I just wanted to ask a quick question. I was building characters for an RPG character creation jam and one of the systems I was using to create a character really reminded me of your lovely fiction. Would it be OK to include characters loosely based on "your" Ingo and Akari going on a nice cozy adventure in my contribution to the jam , with appropriate credit to you?

Hello!!

Wow, that’s so awesome!!! I’m so honored you want to include characters based on my versions!!

You certainly can, thank you SO MUCH for asking and for wanting to do so!!! ;w; <3

[cindersilverandgold]

Thank you so much :) That's perfect and it means a lot that you took the time to give such a thoughtful and detailed answer :) I'm super grateful

Hello :) I stumbled across your blog today and saw the pokemon team assignments and I thought it was the sweetest thing. I'm just getting back into Pokemon after some messy life stuff made me wanna reconnect with stuff that made me happy as a kid and I thought a team assignment sounded lovely, so may I request one?

My favourite things are winter weather and watching live sports like soccer and cricket...and I am kinda sorta questioning my gender identity but I also kinda sorta think I'm too old to be having weird gender feelings...Anyway that is a little description of me...I hope you don't mind..

Hello! Sorry for the slightly late response, but this was really fun so I hope you like it!

Ditto - A genderless Pokemon, they don't need a gender because they can be whatever they want!

Raboot - I feel like they would be soccer/football masters

Grookey - Gives me cricket vibes, amazing aim with that drumming stick

Spheal - An ice-type Pokemon for a winter fan, the rolling also reminds me of a football/soccer ball

Vulpix - Another ice-type Pokemon, looks like a good cuddle buddy for watching sports

Carbink - ANOTHER ice-type Pokemon (I'm sorry-) that is also genderless, also a major cutie-

[cindersilverandgold]

Ah, this video is so cool . I'm glad it crossed my dash today...I really like the way he reckons with the protagonists's role in the plot....Because pokemon game protagonists are really really just a projection of the player in the game world, the barrier between them and the player is thin to non-existent , it's really difficult to envisage a motivation for them that's distinct from the players and cheating NPCs squares that circle *perfectly*...

I dunno about fanfiction exactly...but I do really adore playing and making solo tabletop RPGs and journaling games and that was kinda what this game suggested to me...A journaling game that casts the player as a worldwide pokemon league official, archivist, organiser , something of that sort trying to organise a world tournament or a tour or summit or exhibition or something- wandering around the various regions interviewing people and negotiating over who'll represent what region, what's happening when etc. Sorta an extremely pokemon fan-specific thing but a fanwork-y way to record your playthroughs and headcanons, play with the idea of unreliable narrators and histories in the pokemon universe and give whatever NPCs you liked the best their own side stories if you wanted....I dunno if that idea sounds fun to anyone else , lol. But I kinda wanna write it now even tho it'd be super ambitious..

After watching "Rewriting Pokemon Sword & Shield" by Fudj I'm even more upset at how awful SWSH is. Fudj rewrote the plot a lot which was great but even just the parts that he fixed were such easy solutions like I cannot believe that a team of supposedly skilled and experienced writers worked on SWSH. It's actually so embarrassing it makes no sense.

[cindersilverandgold]

Case of the Contraband Conspiracy- Chapter 7

cn: murder, discrimination in fantasy context, discrimination against the mentally ill, riots, ghosts, magical inference with perception

From a play through of https://yuigaron.itch.io/sworn-by-ghostlight

I repeated the process at the second site, back on Coal Street,  and observed the oddly self-willed imprint and bizarre magical emptiness but that time I had to make a relatively swift exit as there seemed to be an implausibly large number of police officers congregating in the area. I didn’t see Cawley anywhere amongst them and neither did I see any insignia I recognised , so I couldn’t imagine they were there for me. But I decided to set my mind at ease by asking one of the passers-by. 

In spite of the lingering remnants of my trance, I managed to formulate a clear and confidently expressed question and the woman I’d approached gave me a smile that was almost maternal. “Oh yes dearie. They all turned up while you were doing your thing with the herbs. One of those vampire folk had been spotted lurking round the neighbourhood and the officers came to see her off. Nothing to worry about, love.”

“Half-parted” I said without really thinking about it and the woman gave me a blank look. “Not vampires , half-parted. Most of them don’t drink blood.” She blinked, and then to my surprise she nodded. “Suppose you’d know, being in the business and all. Fair enough, half-parted it is. I’ll keep that in mind if I see one in the pub. Speaking of, I’d best be off. Orders waiting , you know how it is. But thanks for the chat , love , and if you’re ever round here looking for ghosts again feel free to drop in for a drink. It’s the Compass Rose just down the road, can’t miss it. See you around, dear.” And with that , she was gone and I made my way to the third site. 

There I made something of a error of judgement . I was fairly certain that the same pattern would repeat at the third site off in a little courtyard , and it did, and so I decided to take a risk in pushing for new information which very emphatically did not pay off. 

I was hoping to see if I could learn more about the presence I kept sensing , or at least get some evidence to confirm that it was an independent, self-willed presence and not some sort of odd byproduct of a spell or my own exhausted mind.  But in order to do that , I had to get its attention and that, it transpired, was a mistake. 

As soon as I made contact with it , I reached out a bit further , pushed a bit harder and then I abruptly felt its power rush in like the tide.  My perceptions warped and spun suddenly and then in the next moment I was caught in the full light of the moon , as it must have been in the incident .   Buildings were burning all round me , the stars were flickering , ghosts were forming and somewhere nearby , Laurie was screaming for my help. By all accounts, I only regained my senses when a helpful gardener found me unresponsive and sobbing. That took some explaining.  But it was at the fourth site that I finally found some new information. 

[cindersilverandgold]

@toxicmons tagged me and I never did this before..I wanna try..

Top 5 favourite pokemon: Hmm, trubbish (who knew), Larvesta , spinarak, turtwig, Kabuto. All little guys with their adorable little faces.. In my head they hang out in the ...em.. waste management facility nearby and I can wave hi to them whenever I go to the supermarket

Favourite generation(s): 4, 5, 8. I love the snowy bits in all of those regions...I have an especial soft spot for Sinnoh cause I spent time in Hokkaido and Galar cause I'm English. Every time I see Scorbunny , I nickname it after my hometown soccer team's players..

Favourite game(s): Legends : Arceus . I got back into pokemon right about when it came out and I think I spent a solid ten minutes just staring at the HQ , going all like I've just been to the IRL equivalent of this place..

If I were a pokemon, I would be a: mmmmm, Aurorus. It's sweet and emotionally expressive , and it's a little bit big and ungainly but elegant when it's in its element.

What introduced me to pokemon: Ahah, I honestly can't remember whether the gen 1 games or the Zelda oracle games were the ones I bothered my parents into getting me a game boy colour for but it was one of those two .... I also have fond memories of gold/silver where tiny me couldn't figure out the puzzle to get the waterfall HM but somehow could figure out how to get Seaking to learn it..

Then muchhhhhh later on, I got back into pokemon after messy life stuff made me want a world where everyone basically meant well and nothing happened that couldn't be talked out nicely..That was also when I realised I felt better being represented by the boy player character these days but that's as far as I've gotten with that bit of information about myself..

I'm tagging: Oh, I don't really know anyone on Tumblr who likes pokemon...I wanna make friends tho ( and maybe even find good homes for some legends shinies sitting in pokemon home...) If you come across this post , take it as a tag :)

[cindersilverandgold]

They are amazing!

Could you make icons with trubbish and a bigender theme if it's ok?

Trubbish bigender icons for @cindersilverangold !

[cindersilverandgold]

Case of the Contraband Conspiracy- Chapter 6

cn: murder, discrimination in fantasy context, discrimination against the mentally ill, discussion of law enforcement misconduct and corruption

From a play through of https://yuigaron.itch.io/sworn-by-ghostlight

Before I set out to the older murder sites , there was one more thing I wanted to do first. Walter had mentioned that the pub he inhabited actually had a living legal owner . Or at least , the site did.  The landlord of the place had died in the Ghostlight Incident just as Walter himself had, and he had very much not been inclined to marriage or children , but he had left an estranged niece behind and as far as Walter knew she still held the title to the land. So I wanted to get her sense of the history of the place, especially in the period following the incident , and even if she hadn’t set foot in the building that was information of a sort in itself. 

Mrs Edith Calloway  , it transpired , was a woman of some considerable means and lived with her family in a well-appointed townhouse up on Emberside and since she was not currently at home to visitors I left my card in her parlour and made my way to the site of the first ebon effigy- a public park a few streets away from the Calloway home. There I settled down on a bench not far from the crime scene and extended my senses outward.

And I got my result immediately. It was the same as Cinder Street in every respect , the same magical dead zone , the same emptiness , the same blank nothing where living minds should be creating imprints and the same terrifying presence as before lurking at the edge of my awareness. This time though, I steadied myself and stayed still . I had to figure out something about this, make sense of it somehow, because it was very evidently important and so I took slow careful breaths and tried to observe. 

It didn’t seem like a ghost, that was my first thought. There are ways you can tell, just like Walter could tell that Laurie was half-parted ,and even in the astral plane there are little hints and clues in the way they appear , the way the magic moves past them , and none of that was there.  But it didn’t seem entirely inhuman either. In fact , the more I observed it the more I came to conclude that it reminded me of the imprinted traumatic memories I sometimes saw around the sites of crimes and horror.  But they of course are neither sapient nor self-willed, they’re nothing more than recordings, and they certainly are not capable of moving from place or reacting to my presence. But with nothing more to find here, and some of the passers by beginning to wonder about my current condition, I broke the trance , smiled as best I could at some of the more curious onlookers and made my escape to the second site. 

[cindersilverandgold]

Hello , I thought I'd make a post explaining who I am xD . I'm Cinders, (he/him or she/her pronouns but only one set at a time :)) and I made this blog firstly to see if I could figure out who I was and where I fitted into the world, but also to get writing practice by publishing my playthroughs of solo RPGS. If you've written a game and you'd like someone to write up a playthrough, then please get in touch :)

My current project is a play through of

https://yuigaron.itch.io/sworn-by-ghostlight

Sworn by Ghostlight's Case of the Ebon Effigies, which I'm calling the Case of the Contraband Conspiracy. You can find them nder the tag "case of the contraband conspiracy"

You can find my games on itch here.

[cindersilverandgold]

Case of the Contraband Conspiracy

cn: murder, discrimination in fantasy context, discrimination against the mentally ill, discussion of law enforcement misconduct and corruption

From a play through of https://yuigaron.itch.io/sworn-by-ghostlight

Once I had explained that I wasn’t possessed , I was ward-linked in the precise manner that  everyone had always taught me to transport ghosts and I wasn’t just helping this specific ghost out of an excess of sympathy that was liable to draw me into danger in the future but doing something practical and responsible because this particular ghost was a material witness to a murder that I was supposed to be investigating, then the ritual to de-link him from me and stabilise his form was simple by comparison. 

The ghostly smuggler, whose name it transpired was Walter, just needed a little bit of magical support to help him restore himself and a safe place to go in the future which was easily accomplished by means of a ward chalked on the wall of my sanctuary . And with that dealt with, Laurie and I boiled a kettle for some tea and settled down into our chairs to talk.  

“The cops did it , then?”

I shifted. “I don’t know. We can’t be absolutely certain that the police officers Walter saw are even related to the murder. There’s no concrete evidence connecting the two things together , just circumstance. It could all be a ghastly, messy coincidence. “

Laurie leaned back in his chair, smiling. “Sure and when a tenement burns down overnight and my dad turns up in the morning with an offer to buy the land cheap, it could be a coincidence. But  I make the obvious assumption, and by  some mysterious alchemy that turns out to have been what happened.”

I grinned. “Yeah and sometimes things are exactly what they seem to be but coppers and lawyers and judges still have this mysterious need for evidence that things happened the way I say they did and they don’t just take my word for it. It is a terrible trial for those of us that don’t have rich and appallingly behaved families but with your unstinting support I expect I will find a way to manage.” I looked away from him , down at my hands and continued quickly. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence. A bizarre murder and a whole collection of bizarre magical phenomena are going to be connected , it’s just a matter of finding out and proving how.”

“Cawley must be in charge of that side of things?”

“Cawley’s working the police angle- getting the duty rosters for the day before yesterday and trying to pin down the mystery officers-“

“He’s not going to be a popular boy then if they really were police” murmured Laurie and I ignored both him and the shiver that ran down my back. “He’s investigated other officers before. He’ll be OK. And I’m gonna head to the sites of the other murders and check to see if there’s the same strange magic happening there. And if we can link the two things- the magic and the police- together, we’ll be in business.”

“You think they’re directly linked? So you think these coppers of his were practitioners ? Doing some sort of ritual ?”

“Dear God I hope not. The situation is volatile enough as is. These murders turning out to be a sacrificial ritual on the part of the police of all people, my God. We’ll be lucky if half the city doesn’t end up in flames. I hope they just triggered something, or set something off. ”

“But that is what it looks like.”

I took a deep breath. “That is what it looks like.”