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purplerose244 · 3 years

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It was always you

Hello everyone!! 😊

I’m a bit late but I really wanted to contribute to the @lukadrien-june event, I hope this is okay! Based on the third prompt, while throwing in some character study for sunshine boy! 💛

Enjoy!! 😙😙

Summary: Love was supposed to be easy, at least in his head. A pure perfect fairy tale... except it was not. Adrien takes probably more time to realize it than other people but he is getting there. Especially not alone.

Read it on the AO3 here

If there was one thing that Adrien wished he had known, before giving up homeschooling once and for all and finally starting to build a life, was that loving wasn’t nearly as simple and dreamlike as his extremely well-developed imagination had led him to believe. He truly wished that he could borrow Bunnix’ Miraculous sometimes, just to head back to that room where he used to spend his entire time on his own dreaming of himself and his soulmate and getting married at sight, and tell him that if living was hard outside, heart matters were even harder.

Love wasn’t that ideal, it wasn’t reductive.

It wasn’t nearly that basic either. It took him a while, but he had figured it out.

It had all started with Ladybug of course, most of his new experiences in the real world had started with her. He had fallen in love with her pretty much two days after meeting her… granted, being stuck into his own house for years thinking of himself as a poor prince in waiting of a savior rather than a knight out to get the princess, might had developed in him a bit of an eagerness for romance. She was smart, beautiful, courageous, resourceful and a hero, what was there not to love? Besides they were Chat Noir and Ladybug, they were meant to be… because… that was Ladybug. The moment he had realized how much he loved that image – if he used to fantasize before looked at him now –, and how he had started to slowly care less and less about knowing what was hiding behind it, that was the dealbreaker. He didn’t want to be in love with a figure, an icon for Paris, because it was what all people had always reduced him to. It would have not been a good way to start, and it would have not been fair for her either.

Getting over all those dreams about the marriage, the children and the hamster – oh the hamster, heart stay still – that he had wished for so intensely had been… easy? Not exactly, but smooth. A strong emptiness and pain that had slowly faded away with time. After all, Ladybug was never going to be far from him, and she cared about him a lot, he knew that much. He could love her, no matter what, no matter in what way.

After that singular and very one-sided experience, a spectacular sequence of disasters had made him slowly and steadily feel aware of how much messier the concept of relationships really was. One thing was dodging Chloe’s overly affectionate tendencies or his fans’ intense assaults over him; the other realizing that Kagami was ready to commit into something he wasn’t sure of, that Lila was still somehow convinced that he wanted something to do with her after all of her lies – for a fox this sly she sure was in denial… why did that sound hypocrite? –, and that Marinette had apparently harbored feelings for him almost as soon as they had met – oh yeah that was why. Life, a real, multifaced, worth living life was chaotic and confusing, it hurt, and it saddened, and he was behind everyone, struggling like mad to catch up.

Rejecting so many people he cared about had been awful. Some of his closest friends, all important parts of his life in different ways, and all because he wasn’t smart enough to understand feelings and his own clearly weren’t right. When Marinette had smiled at him with tears in her eyes, saying that it was okay and that she understood, Adrien had decided that it was enough. He wasn’t going to attempt anything else, if it always ended up with hurting someone he cared about.

He could deal with his feelings on his own, he always did, without paining anyone. There was no problem anyway, after Ladybug no one had ever shaken his heart.

No one, no one at all… and during that time, between slowly realizing that perhaps looking for wedding rings after two days sounded a little unreasonable and somehow managing to hate his face plastered all over Paris even more than before, the Music Festival had occurred, along with the awakening of Captain Hardrock. The famous tripping over the bridge had happened, a goofiness that had somehow gotten him into a band.

Him had happened. The charming, kind, intriguing guitarist of the Liberty, that had welcomed him the moment he had been there.

Luka Coffaine.

… Adrien was starting to hate his heart a little bit.

Luckily or unluckily, around that time he had found himself too caught up in his and other people’s messes to even realize how he had always unconsciously smiled at the boy whenever he was there, and how it had become normal for him to stay with him after band practice, without caring on how father could had reacted to his delay – just how dense was he about his feelings… never mind. It took Lila to finally focus on something other than plotting, Chloe to start paying attention to her own life instead of worsening others, and Marinette and Kagami to begin exchange sweet looks for him to finally find some normality to think – and develop an extremely intense fanboy soul.

Enough to realize that ever since Desperada, with the brilliant introduction of Viperion to the team, Adrien had found himself as Luka’s confidant, the only one besides Ladybug aware of his secret identity. Exciting stories, confessions, insecurities, all while the guitarist was making such an effort to communicate with words, because he trusted him enough not to judge his mind.

And Adrien was enjoying the confidence, the vicinity. A lot. Truly a lot.

… way too much for it to be normal.

It had woken him at night. He had teared up in his bed, curled on one side while Plagg had been purring next to his ear all night. It was the first time that being in love had felt this terrifying. He didn’t want to mess everything up, not again, not with Luka. The freedom he felt with being on the Liberty, the time spent with his friends in the band, the warming welcome he had always received from captain Anarka and Juleka – and by extension Rose, those two always came in pair –, and every single moment spent without having to care about who he was and what did he represent because Luka didn’t care about covers, he cared about the real music coming from people. Everything could disappear in a moment.

With that set of mind, he had spent some of the most tense moments of his life, constantly pondering about what to do next. What exactly was a person supposed to do if he liked another without making a mess? What was the alternative to confess his undying love and hope to plan a wedding at the end of his studies? Was there an alternative??

His anxious attitude had inevitably gotten the attention of his group of friends, that for some miracle hadn’t gotten tired of his denseness, especially Marinette. She hadn’t seemed to care much, especially not while distractively holding the amulet Kagami had made for her – somehow love life had made the fencer even deadlier during practice, like she was fighting was someone, impressive. It had taken them to bribe him with a new recipe of croissants from the Dupain-Cheng bakery to be forced to talk, a necessity that had exploded out of his lips the moment his friends had been gathered on Marinette’s bed to listen. The sweets had been amazing. Just a bit salty… but that was probably because he hadn’t been able to talk without tearing up all over the food.

At the end of the discussion, Marinette had squeaked so loudly his ears had started to ring.

“You have to confess and get together, you two would be a great couple!” To which he had responded that he didn’t want to risk it, especially since he didn’t know how it was going to end.

Alya had slammed her hands over her own knees – ouch –, standing up.

“You have to man up! Don’t think about what could happen, go for it and make him yours!” To which he had said that he didn’t want to be insensitive again in case it didn’t go well – also that that kind of wording was a little confusing, enough to turn him bright red.

Then Nino had looked up from his phone, looking a little baffled. He had changed too, considering that love matters used to make him all nervous.

“Why don’t you ask him out first and see how it goes from there? You don’t have to become boyfriends if it feels too soon.” The table had gone silent, all eyes were on the DJ, who simply arched an eyebrow. “… you do know you can go on a date with someone, realize that it’s not working without actually get together, right?” More silence had followed. Adrien was sure that he had felt a weird mixture of disappointment and relief, while Marinette had looked so very shocked.

In conclusion, Nino was amazing. Like that was new.

Starting from there the blonde had been practicing in front of the mirror every day, terrified of rejection but less tense over how things could go. Despite fans and admirers his past relationships, if those could be called, weren’t giving him much of a booster or a good feeling about how this chance was going to play. Somehow it hardly mattered. Luka was a very reasonable person, he was going to reject him very nicely. It had been almost uplifting the idea of the guitarist treating him with absolute kindness, even while shattering all of his dreams.

One day Luka had called him over for an improv session. It happened often, this artist was extremely instinctive when it came to music, and he had told him that having a more rational and accurate player like Adrien around grounded him to his usual style. It was flattering every time he was called for that same reason, it was an occasion that made the blonde ignore all about his current schedule – of course he was at fencing right now, Kagami could cover- uhm, confirm for him –, to finally focus on something that he really wanted to do. Luka was always waiting over the bed of his room, playing a few notes, stopping for minutes then going again. It was calming and endearing, like Adrien was allowed to hear the inside of his mind.

He had been standing there, legs crossed at the end of the bed while Luka was lying down with the instrument. There had been only sounds for all of this time, without additions or suggestions or anything. It was nice. Really nice. Adrien had wondered what else could he discover out of him just by stay close like this, and how much he wanted to. The need to let those words out had been steadily growing without him realizing it.

“Luka?” Until they were out. “Do you wanna go on a date with me?” Mirror practice had helped, it had come out almost mechanically. There was a spark into his stomach, the adrenaline pouring out. The melody in the air had stopped for a pretty terrifying second.

Then it had come back as a full, real song. It was timid, sweet, and sincere.

“I’d love to.” In his own giddiness, Adrien could admit of being wrong. Yet he was almost sure he had seen the calm and controlled guitarist blush the tiniest little bit.

A single date at the restaurant where Alya’s mother worked at without people in the way – he loved his friends so much – had followed another one walking hand in hand through Rue Montorgueil in disguise – at last he had achieved his long-lasting dream of looking like someone else without the mask –, that had followed another one at a secret party Chloe had organized at Le Grand Paris for her classmates – she had given him such a smirk at seeing his plus one, gossip was coming. It had nothing to do with the dates of his daydreams, the ones he had lived through his head for years: every single time his stomach was so tense it felt like it was burning, painfully, making him question if he really wanted this. Then, the moment they were there talking, engaging themselves into an interesting topic while letting time pleasantly leave them behind, the stress was gone and there were only the two of them.

They had gone like this for months. Some absolutely lovely months. At some point Alya, stopping him at school, had calmly stated that him and Luka combined with Marinette and Kagami were making her feel single, and she had a boyfriend, so it was probably time to make it official. He had agreed with her, of course he had. He liked Luka… yeah right, he loved him. Everything with him felt so real, so close and intense, like he was finally living.

His feelings weren’t the problem… Luka’s were.

Not that he doubted him. Not after all the little orange blossoms left over his keyboard before band practice – they meant eternal love, oh heart stay still once again –, the songs sung for him whenever he felt upset or angry at his father, or the hand kisses at the end of every single date, like he was being cherished every single time. One of the guitarist’s biggest qualities was his sincerity, Adrien was absolutely sure he could trust him and his heart. Just how he had never blamed anyone before, not Chloe, not Kagami, not Marinette, not even Lila, for their feelings towards him.

They had been real, like his own feelings for Ladybug used to be… but they were for Adrien only, the supermodel, Paris’ iconic pretty face and perfect boy. That perfection in him, one he had been forced to practice in order to please his father, that was attracted others, but it wasn’t in any way all that was in him.

What was all the rest? It was also there. But it came out only whenever he wore the mask.

With time, the image he had been forced to wear for the profit of his father had grown into an uncomfortable, old sweater that he hadn’t known it had felt unbelievably itchy until he got the possibility to take it off, to try something else. And that black-leather armor was his absolute favorite. Nothing felt like freedom as that, nothing felt like him as those moments, whenever he jumped into the sky holding hard onto his staff. Thanks to his Miraculous he had discovered himself. Thanks to that he had found out that he liked making jokes, he loved puns, he liked making a fool of himself for the sake to have fun. He liked risking, he liked dancing, he wasn’t too keen on closed places, and he absolutely loved how the moon reflected into the Seine at night after patrol. Everything was him, so vividly him it made him choke a little at the mere thought of it.

Adrien Agreste was another mask, one he was growing considerably tired to wear. He had been through some love experiences now, even though they did not end quite well: there was no point into pretending to be someone he wasn’t, there was no meaning into hiding himself when he truly wanted to establish a bond with someone. He had known this, he knew this.

But if everyone liked Adrien better… if Luka liked Adrien better, how was he supposed to do that?

The tension coming from those thoughts was there only when he wasn’t around his favorite guitarist, making him at least forget about the dilemma coming with. Even so, around those times he had found himself at least wondering exactly what kind of opinion his date had about Chat Noir. He wasn’t sure, they had never talked much in their superhero personas, because of the urge of the moment and because with his lady’s strategic mind and a power like Second Chance it was unfairly easy sometimes to solve the situation – Ladybug needed to start bringing Viperion more often and yes, maybe just a little bit to see more of Luka in sexy snake cosplay. He was fairly sure he didn’t mind him, he seemed to even smile at him sometimes – total heart eyes –, but he wanted to be sure.

It had been night at the Liberty, they had ordered pizza. Sugary drinks made Rose giggle like mad, so Juleka had brought her to her room to take a nap and probably cuddle, leaving the two of them alone. That wasn’t weird. Wondering if the guy Adrien was dating liked his cat counterpart, that was weird. At the end, looking at how relaxed the boy over the sofa was while distractively bending the last pizza crust, he hadn’t been able to do pose a potentially confusing question, asking instead what he thought about Ladybug – he had made a mental post-it to whine loudly into his pillow later.

Luka had brought up stuff he already knew, how she was a great leader, an inspiration, extremely smart and courageous. Despite the failure of questioning him Adrien had smiled, he was weirdly happy they thought the same about his partner.

“She has a huge responsibility and deals with it incredibly, that’s commendable… with that being said, my favorite is Chat Noir.” A boom inside. “He’s hot.” A second, bigger explosion had occurred into Adrien’s head – in a feeble spark of lucidity he had begged his brain not to produce smoke out of his ears. Luka had laughed, playing some more, without looking directly at him. “And he’s such a selfless, reliable person, you can tell from how he doesn’t hesitate to help others or support me or Ladybug. He’s incredibly loyal, and… really funny.”

It had taken perhaps a second too long, in which a thousand of tiny little Adrien running all over his brain had been screaming out loud hysterically about how this handsome guitarist was a Chat Noir fan, and it had been the best day ever. Then he had managed to talk, ask, his voice was a little raspy.

“You… you like his puns?” Luka had scooted closer to him, smirking a little.

“It’s our little secret.” With that he had put a hand around his shoulders, bringing him closer to him. The blonde had abandoned himself into the embrace, trying to hide the giddy smile in his chest.

It got easier to let himself go from that moment forward, knowing that at least some parts of Chat Noir Luka didn’t mind at all. Having Nino groaning like mad after they had all taken their matchmaker ice creams from Andre, with Adrien coming out with a “I scream for an ice cream”, had been worth it just to see the guitarist rolling his eyes with an endeared smile. It had felt good. He couldn’t fully let go, being a model and famous and all that baloney, but he could stop pretending for a moment and embrace a little bit more about himself.

It had hit him much later that perhaps, maybe, possibly, the matter of telling Luka about his superhero identity was meant to come up at some point. It hadn’t seemed an important matter before, he was not supposed to do reveal it anyway according to Ladybug. Then again, this wasn’t a relationship behind masks like that one, it was as open as it could be. Also Plagg wasn’t exactly the biggest fan or rules anyway, he had doubted he would have minded. Hearing Luka talking about his latest adventure with Viperion, basically summarizing everything Adrien already knew from his point of view, made him feel a bit guilty about not coming clean. Still, it was hard to recall that unpleasantness with Luka always ending the discussion making a comment about Chat Noir, probably catching up over the fact that Adrien was also a ‘fan’. Knowing that such a charming boy like Luka considered his pun machine alter ego attractive, stating that the only blondie with green eyes as handsome he knew was Adrien, was definitely a good way to end the day.

Then, that had happened. Apparently, Hawk Moth had thought that the idea of unleashing once again Gorizilla over the powerless city of Paris was a hilarious idea. It had taken them forever to calm him down, the bodyguard had been all agitated since there had been no sign of his protegee – at least for what he knew. Cataclysm, Lucky Charm, Miraculous Ladybug, the script was old and overused and after the most tired pound it ever Adrien had called it a day, sinking into his own bed as soon as he had been home.

The unconscious was a calming place, a pleasant one, just like Luka.

Just like Luka… Luka… the date.

Out of pure will and terror he had managed to get on his feet, realizing with horror that not only he hadn’t just fallen asleep, but he was also late. Two. Hours. Late. Dread didn’t describe properly the feeling that had taken over. Begging a very annoyed looking Plagg he had launched himself into the night sky, running on all four out of pure despair. When he had arrived at the restaurant, miserably closed, Luka was leaning over the wall of the entrance that was off, humming a very mellow, very melancholic melody. And he had dressed up, for once in his life wearing something classy, a white dress shirt and a black jacket without sleeves. His hair had grown a bit in those months, enough for him to pull a little ponytail.

What a waste, Adrien had thought. What a waste on someone like him, this beautiful person lightening up as soon as he was there, running to hug him, saying that he knew there had been an akuma today and he was happy to see he was okay. Except he wasn’t, this wasn’t, it was not okay. He was taking advantage of his position, the fact that there was stuff he was keeping for himself. It wasn’t fair for himself, most importantly it wasn’t fair for him.

“And you’re okay with this?” He didn’t know what he had been implying with those words, he had felt the need to get them out. To be heard. Because Luka always listened.

The guitarist had given him a weird, aware look, holding up his hands.

“I am if you are.” Unfair. Unfair. Unfair. Nothing but that feeling of guilt had filled his heart, and Adrien had rushed in, hugging him as closely as he could. Luka had embraced back, caressing his back slowly and gently as it was his way of being, telling him that they could postpone on a day with a less dangerous akuma terrorizing the city. Adrien had kept his eyes shut, choking silent sobs against his jacket. Thinking that maybe it was okay, maybe they could still keep going like this. H was scared, besides there was no need to change anything, or even better there was no need to say something that wasn’t needed. This was enough, this could be enough.

Adrien had then opened his eyes, only to feel them pinching. From the window of the restaurant, he could see the lonely white table with two dishes and two glasses, and all around… were candles and roses. Luke remembered. He had remembered the mention of the romantic gesture the blonde had done for a girl that hadn’t gone as planned. He had remembered how Adrien had always wished for something like that for himself. He knew how much of a hopeless romantic he was. Luka knew him.

At the same time, he didn’t. He didn’t know him. It was not okay.

It was not okay, and it was not enough.

Mirror sessions were back after that, more frantic than ever but less frequent than he would have liked – he was dense he could admit, not enough to proclaim to his father or Nathalie that he was Chat Noir while in the shower. He had wished it was like preparing for a shooting, or even imagining to be an actor like mom was. The tension was nothing like. The number of warnings coming from all directions was massive, starting from how once again his friends were getting worried about him – he wasn’t going to resist the bribe of chocolate chip cookies for long –, how Ladybug had expressively told him no one was supposed to know about their real identities, how there was no telling how Luka was going to react over the fact that his date was the cat boy with whom sometimes he fought crime with – man that was a weird line to say out loud. He had found it hard to sleep, too tense to get lost into his dreams, questioning his decision all night long.

One night, after a particularly harsh internal battle between him himself and he, he had rolled over a little too much forgetting about his poor little cheese-eating friend. He had been on his way to apologize to the squished kwami, but with a single firm gesture coming from his tiny arm Plagg had gotten him to shut up, eyes widened and extremely pissed.

“You’re telling him.” His eyelid had twitched a little. Right, he had kept him awake as well. “I don’t care what Ladybug says, I don’t care what Tikki says, you’re telling him.”

“Huh, okay?”

“It’s not a question Adrien, it’s an order. Do it or else you won’t find Atlantis that much of a natural disaster.” Wasn’t for experience he would have doubted that this tiny guy was able of much. Good thing he did have precedents, so Adrien had opted to nod and lay down once again. Following orders was still pretty normal for him anyway. “… besides…” Plagg had scooted closer to him, nudging against his shoulder while closing his eyes. “No secret is worth taking away your happiness, kid.” Adrien had found no problem sleeping from then on.

At last, after a bit more of self-convincing, it had all come down on the matter of when. Adrien wasn’t exactly sure if the news was particularly good or bad, consequentially he had no idea if the reveal had to be organized during a joyful or tense situation. Was a date a good idea? Or was it better to simply invite him over, or go to his house and talk? Luka was a great listener, but he didn’t always like to talk much, maybe he was going to feel pressured in the second case. He communicated better with songs… but writing a jingle about how he was a superhero in a leather suit with a ring that could pulverize the Tour Eiffel didn’t sound like a hit – maybe… or maybe it was, he had to ask Luka later if the matter was going to be solved. After so much time pondering, he had been left with nothing concrete, no ideas. He couldn’t ask his friends, nor Ladybug. Maybe this was a bad decision after all – never mind Plagg that was still glaring.

He had been trying to focus on his Chinese homework all afternoon, his mind running miles with him unable to make it stop. Then his phone had lightened up, a welcomed distraction that had blossomed into absolute delight at reading the sender’s name. Despite the migraine coming along with the situation, it was all worth it just for a chance to be with him.

Melody: Hey Sunshine

Melody: If I remember right you’re free tomorrow

Melody: Do you want to come over?

Me: Of course I do :)

Me: My schedule ends early afternoon

Me: Is the evening okay?

Melody: Perfect

Melody: Dress nice, it’s a date

Melody: A special one, for a special day

Me: Why? What’s tomorrow?

Melody: Wanna guess?

Me: …

Me: Thursday?

Melody: Ahah, well also

Melody: But also exactly one year since the Music Festival

Melody: It’s the day you and I met

Somehow while melting into an absolute puddle of tears and adoring whines, Adrien had realized that this guy was too wonderful. In his heart the last thing he wanted to do was ruining something good, especially a night Luka had prepared for him. But this wasn’t about himself anymore, this was about giving him what he deserved. Hopefully they were going to have a date still after this.

Hopefully. Adrien had tried to forget about that eventuality, at least enough to finish his homework. It had taken him a while to fall asleep that night – Plagg had simply whispered “thin ice” in a very grumpy tone.

The next day he had used all his experience as a model to look his best, raised two thumbs up at his mirror, and headed out. He had begged his bodyguard to leave him alone on this one and the big guy had actually agreed, somehow seeing his seriousness and commitment more than his father – granted that the bar was pretty low on that one. The path leading to the Liberty was not exactly short from his house, yet he had felt the absolute need to rethink everything. Perhaps to find it in himself the strength to blame himself for wanting to come clean only now. It had been a year, a year since he had met Luka. He had changed so much, his thoughts, his world, himself. He was there to make just another change and take control, it was terrifying and exciting…

…

… and there he was.

When he saw the Liberty, his stomach did that fluttering again. Pure tension and longing mixed together, because this was about him and it was making him grow terrified; but this was about him, and he loved everything that involved him. The sight of the ship covered in aromatic candles and roses with the table prepared on the bridge, the most romantic place once again, should had not surprised him after all. He still had to close his eyes for a moment to recollect himself.

Luka was waiting on the dock, smiling at him. It was such a lovely view, and when he extended his hand towards him it turned into the perfect view.

“You look amazing. You’re ready?”

He was. He finally was. Adrien sighed, shaking his head.

“I have to tell you something first.” Huh, something was wrong. The guitarist had changed expression, he looked so confused and hurt all of the su- wait. “Ah! No! Not that kind of ‘I have to tell you something’, an actual ‘I have to tell you something’!” He had practiced this moment for so long, how was it possible he had never noticed how off it sounded? Luka let out a nervous laugh. Ah, his hands were sweating already, where was Chat Noir’s confidence when he needed it? “I really need to get this out of my chest.”

“Oh, okay. I’m listening.”

“And if afterwards you have doubts about…” He didn’t like it, but he needed to state it as it was. “… all of this, I’ll understand.” He was in. He was doing it. No turning back. That most likely didn’t sit right with Luka, he wasn’t looking any less distressed.

He reached for him, grabbing one of his hand for comfort. Even though he didn’t understand, he was still doing his best to be there. Gosh, Adrien loved him, so much.

“Don’t jump to conclusions, tell me what it is and then we can talk about it.” He looked for communication in his relationships, he had told him from the start and even before, during the times they used to talk about anything and everything, waiting for the sun to set behind the bridge over the Seine. The blonde hoped they were going to talk too.

He closed his eyes again, took the deepest breath in his life, and nodded.

“It might sound crazy, but please listen to me and believe me.” Luka nodded immediately. “I…” He had composed a whole speech about how much these last months had been amazing, how he was sorry that he had kept quiet over something important for so long, and how he hoped that they could still try and be together for real. A convincing discussion slowly leading to the reveal. “… I’m Chat Noir, and I love you.” Out of all of that he had taken seven words max and blurted them out without a single thought in his head.

The cat was out of the bag, classic cat superhero style. If only that knowledge wasn’t making him feel worse. He was tense, sweating, completely still, waiting for his judgement. Every second was turning into a minute then an hour then it was getting lost into his own misty head.

It was warm outside, even at that hour.

Those long fingers clenched around his hand.

Adrien looked up. Luka was smiling tearfully at him, his blue eyes were mesmerizing. He laughed happily, then he reached for his cheek. Heartbeats echoed into the blonde’s head as he got closer, eyes narrowed but still open as to catch any kind of rejection. It hit him very very slowly that this was actually true, this out of world fantasy was not a fruit of his messed up imagination, and the moment the realization took over Adrien closed the distance between them. Wow. Luka kissed nothing like he would have expected. His hand on his cheek was careful and gentle like him, but his lips were caressing his with want and passion, like they had lost all the patience behind the moment they had met in electric need. Closeness was something Adrien had missed for such a long time and could never get enough of. Luka’s closeness was whole, real, his. He reached for his jacket, just to hold onto something and have another proof that this was happening.

They parted, and then got closer, kissing again and again, happily trapped into a bubble in which time and space couldn’t reach them. When they back away with trembling breaths, Adrien felt his lips getting immediately cold and couldn’t help himself as he reached for one last peck. Luka laughed into it, pressing back then leaning his forehead over his. There was an amount of sweetness into those eyes that it made the blonde want to look away, his sight getting all blurry.

“I love you too.” His hand was still over his face. “Will you be my boyfriend?”

The answer was the clearest of his life. It was screaming from the bottom of his stomach, it was highlighted in neon in the middle of his brain. He was almost tempted to tackle him to the ground and let his actions speak for himself – alright he needed to chill for a moment –, then confusion hit him. He… he said it, he had said it, right? He told him the truth about his identity. Then what was this lack of reaction? Where was the amazement, the fright, the confusion, even the anger? Adrien Agreste had just confessed he made a habit of running over the roofs of Paris in full cat cosplay and this was the reaction?

“I… you… what’s going on?” Luka giggled, probably still caught up with the latest nice mood. Maybe he didn’t believe the blonde, maybe he didn’t hear him at all. For a musician this talented it sounded farfetched to miss a sound, but you never knew. “I’m… I’m Chat Noir, Luka.”

The guitarist blinked, smile slowly decreasing but without disappearing.

“Yeah, I heard that.”

“As the superhero, Chat Noir.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“Then why aren’t you saying anything about that?” A little shrug. The last thing he would have expected was this nonchalance. It was maddening. “I’m a superhero, I’m Chat Noir! Why aren’t you mad? You deserved to know! You should’ve known for a…” Suddenly the guitarist’s eyes were not as easy to find as before. Like they were hiding something. “… a… while…” Again, Adrien was extremely dense emotionally, and some things were harder to understand for him. But he wasn’t stupid, most important, he couldn’t ignore that little guilty grin of his taking over. “… you knew.” The pressure that had assaulted him for the last period disappeared completely, now there was only absolute shock. “You knew I was Chat Noir?!? What in the world, since when?!?”

The guitarist passed a hand over his neck, looking a little reluctant. It was a little weird of an emotion on him, on someone so on track with himself and proud of his persona. He took his hands, gently guiding him onto the bridge. That was one relief at least.

“To be honest, I was never completely sure. If you hadn’t told me I wouldn’t have known one hundred percent… but at some point I started to have my suspicions.” He led him near the rail, the moon was mirroring into the water of the Seine. His heart soared at the view. “It was the kind of thought you pay attention to only when something comes up, so I never actively tried to prove it was real.” He sounded relaxed. Perhaps he had made peace with it for a while.

Adrien nodded absently, feeling a weird limbo between relief that he wasn’t completely recognizable and that there were at least doubts in people’s minds.

“Okay, but there has to be a time when you started to think about it.”

“… there was a moment.” Once more Luka looked guilty, while smiling still. He looked at him, raising his hands. “Again, it was a doubt, not a certainty. I never actively knew for sure you were Chat Noir, okay?” The blonde frowned but nodded. “Well… remember the Desperada incident?”

He gaped, so strongly he almost chocked.

“You have a suspicion for months?!” Luka laughed a little, that managed to calm him down a little.

“An idea, a speculation, call it what you want. It got me and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.” He leaned against the rail, looking pensive. “We were hiding in the lockers, and while I was in there I heard you opening and closing a locker… then opening and closing a door.” Holy Miraculous he was an idiot. “When I found you with Ladybug in the sewer you left, and I got the snake Miraculous. Right after that Chat Noir was back.” He grinned, eyes lightening up. “From that moment the possibility has never really left my mind, and nothing has happened that made me think it couldn’t be real.” Of course not, Adrien was never around Chat Noir and Chat Noir was never around Adrien. It almost made sense – sure, ‘almost’.

Adrien took a few deep breaths, still recovering from that sudden reveal – a confession that did not go the way he would have expected. He looked at this guy who so calmly was taking everything in, a view that was calming like very few other things and, slowly, he smiled, joining him at admiring the Seine. He let his head fall onto his shoulder, closing his eyes for a moment.

“I was so worried about this.”

“I’m sorry, I really didn’t know what to do. On one hand I didn’t want it to be true, because it made me feel anxious whenever I looked at the news and saw another dangerous akuma.” He wrapped his arm around him protectively. It felt so nice. “On the other, it was kind of an endearing thought, that the two gorgeous blondes I knew just happened to be the same person.” Gosh he was going to die, this person did not hold back with compliments with either of them.

Speaking of…

“Wait, if you were thinking about it since back then… were you teasing me on purpose whenever you talked about Chat Noir in front of me?” Whoa, he had to take in the fact that this very zen guitarist was able to make such a suggestive smile. I made his entire face burn. “Oh my gosh.”

“You were always blushing whenever I did it, I couldn’t help myself.”

“For real??”

“It was too adorable. At that point either you were really him or you found him attractive as well… which I would’ve understood.”

“Stooop!!” Adrien covered his eyes, his heart bursting out of his chest, laughing out what was left of his fear. “… you really don’t care? I’m the one who asked you out, not Chat Noir.” A bit a sadness made him step away just a little. “And people like me better when I’m not him…”

“If people aren’t into you when you’re a blonde superhero with a sexy catsuit, maybes there’s something wrong with them. I suggest blindness.” It got him to laugh. Luka brought him closer, arms around him. “Besides, there aren’t two people here. You are Adrien, and you are Chat Noir. Being a superhero is a part of you. And I love it, because it makes you… you.” Truly sincerity was his biggest quality. Adrien didn’t doubt a word that had come out of his mouth. He leaned his head into the crook of his shoulder.

“Are you sure?” Luka nodded, his hair tickling his cheek.

Then he pulled away. He put a finger under his chin, raising it up. Their eyes met. There was such a calm, comfortable world behind those blue globes. It made him want to never leave.

“You’re a rare symphony, Adrien Agreste, one that had been kept hidden for far too long. I wanna hear that song, your soul, finally free to be heard. I want to know its beauty, because the echo alone is astonishing.” He knew him. He knew all of him. “The kind and selfless to a fault, the professional and determinate model, the mischievous and enchanting superhero, these are all notes that play in your life, that make your life. And I wanna be part of that song, if you will let me.” He pressed another, shorter kiss on his lips, as to seal this moment forever into his body, forever into his heart.

There was no way Adrien would have been able to stop tears. Luka gulped. The blonde smiled, a horribly wide, unsophisticated curve that would have made all of his photographers shudder at the same time. Perhaps that was why it felt so immensely good.

“You… y-you’re not allowed to say you’re not good with words after this.”

The guitarist laughed, relieved, holding him closer.

“It’s a yes then, Sunshine?” Adrien smiled, reaching forward again, thinking that there was no imaginary world of his able to replicate this.

“It’s a yes, Melody.”

This was pure, unparalleled, wholesome reality.

#lukadrien #luka coffaine #adrien agreste #chat noir #viperion #miraculous #miraculous ladybug #ml #ml fic #ml fanfic #lukadrien june 2021 #fanfiction #fic

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theghostofashton · 3 years

Note

11 and 12!! idk if ur supposed to specify a fandom on these but if not, do whatever and if yes, glee! since i know you've been posting about it a lot lately.

tbh i oscillate between loving glee and not giving a fuck and being so sorry i am subjecting everyone to glee content in the year 2021 so bless u for putting up w my messy interests thank u for this!!

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

i could say finn but i do think there are a lot of reasons to dislike him that i don't disagree with, so i guess i'll say quinn? i feel like people really hate her bc of how messy her writing is but i kinda don't mind it? like it does suck objectively, but there is so much to unpack w her character that i feel like if people actually took the time to do that they way they do other characters, they would like her more lol

a lot of glee to me feels like deconstructing things like fairytales and "happy endings", and i absolutely adore what they did with quinn - her pregnancy changed everything for her, as it should have, and i really loved the struggle she went through that she didn't even fully understand, through s2 and s3. the inconsistency feels in-character to me, considering she did have a child at 15 and never fully worked through all of that in relation to her family and her old life. idk. i have a really soft spot for her and i wish we'd seen more of her in the second half of the show.

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

sticking with quinn, her whole arc in s2!! i think it's kind of reductive to just see that as "oh quinn the superficial serial cheater" (which i think is a popular fandom opinion), because the entire thing to me just felt so much deeper.

she was clinging onto concrete representations of high school success. whether she wanted to believe it or not, having a child changed everything. being raised in a family that valued image and status, of course she would try to get the popular guy and the prom queen title. her entire life got ruined because she got pregnant, it makes so much sense for her to try and go back to what she knew before the pregnancy, believe that she could be that person all over again and everything would go back to normal. it just didn't fit the way it used to because she wasn't that person anymore, and i don't think she even fully understood that and no adult seemed to give a shit

i love the little moments with rachel, when we hear about her "normal" plan for her life and how terrified she is of high school fading away, and then when things ultimately blow up in her face. i loved how this arc added another layer to her story and that her pregnancy had real consequences. do i wish the show had actually explicitly addressed them instead of making all of this subtext? for sure. but i really liked this (and everything in s3, except the whole stealing a baby nonsense)

#the way i cannot answer anything without rambling wow #thank u again sima!!#neha rambles #quinn fabray #glee

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inventors-fair · 3 years

Text

Mirror-Breaker Commentary

This was a really tough challenge, but you guys brought your A-game. I was really impressed. There was a good mix of ways to fit the challenge, too! Some people had symmetrical effects so you could benefit off your opponent doing things, some people had you steal other people’s things, some people had main-deck cards for the deck that just happen to work when your opponent does the thing, too, and some people just outright said “your opponent can’t do the thing.” All of them were valid, and I was happy to see a nice spread. It also lead to some really wild designs.

The main thing I wanted to focus on this week was one I’ve been preaching for a while: think about the opponent. This was a challenge where you have to design a card for both you and your opponent at the same time. It’s hard to remember that, for every game you play, there’s at least one other player there that your cards are affecting. But enough talk, to the commentary!

@bread-into-toast

At first I was going to say “wow, that feels overly narrow,” but then I realized that, while it does serve the intended specific purpose of denying Winota her triggers, it also shuts down tribal decks! All tribal decks but one of them, humans. Which is actually a very common tribal deck. But hey, it can’t be good against everything! The body also worries me a bit. I think a ⅓ flyer for three mana is way too expensive to see constructed play unless it does a lot of work, but even in the mirror I don’t know if this is worth the cost. I do like how it curves into Winota and how it has evasion so you can get in hits with a non-human more easily, but I think Winota would rather have a token maker or a couple of cheap bodies. I think at two mana this would have been just about perfect. I like what it does for the most part, even if it is really narrow, it just really needs to earn its spot in the deck.

@dabudder - Selective Shields

In the war of tribe vs. tribe, this is what you need. A simple little way to make sure your guys are better than theirs. I also like the cycling, it makes it a little better to main deck, but I still think it’s going to stay in the sideboard, and the cycling is just if the situation to use it never comes up. It’s appreciated, though! Even in a non-blowout situation, sometimes this is just saving one creature from one other creature, or letting one creature not be blocked by another creature. And in those situations, I think this is fine, too! God’s willing is sometimes enough. Spare from Evil even saw a very small amount of play every so often. I also don’t know if the utility of this card pays off more than just playing Brave the Elements, which also protects from targetted removal or damage based wraths. The phrasing of the ability needs to be fixed, though, I think. The reminder text isn’t quite accurate. I think it needs to be phrased “choose a creature type, then choose a creature type,” as dumb as that sounds. I think this card is cool and I like it, but I think there are a lot of better ways to get very similar effects.

@deg99 - Graverobber Cultists

What cheeky little skeletons. They’re stealing my bodies! This is one of the direct hosers, but I think that’s fine. Graveyards decks are one of those things you need to call out specifically in order to interact with. I like the body on this, a 2/2 for two with flash is fine for two mana in either color, but the fact that you need both colors (and that it’s a rare) give you enough wiggle room to power it up just that little amount. Compared to hullbreacher or opposition agent, I like it. It just shuts down the one specific thing you and/or your opponents are doing, but really only once. You brought up that you were a little worried about exhume, but considering the formats that would have that are commander and legacy, I think you’re fine. If you’re not in the mirror, you get some random vanilla creature or a useless combo piece, and if you’re in the mirror this card is good anyway. I don’t really have much to complain about with this card. I think some players would get sick of it like they have with hullbreacher and opposition agent, but considering how rare reanimation is vs. tutoring and card draw, which are also more likely to interact with getting your land drops. Also, art and flavor text are on point, reminds me a lot of what we’ve seen of Modern Horizons two.

@fractured-infinity - Psychic Incursion

This one takes a bit to unpack. The cost reduction is actually less relevant in the mirror, as opposed to most entries this week that do the opposite. The way this would work in a normal game is you pay two to wheel some specific card from your hand if you really don’t like them or if you’re comboing off with persistent petitioners or something. But in the mirror (which is when you’re far more likely to play this), you get to get rid of your opponent’s win condition so long as it’s the same as yours and you have it in hand. It’s going to be very scary to be your opponent when you show them you have the win in hand and they don’t have one in their deck. I like the effect, but the costing is really weird. Four mana is already what you’re paying for cards like Lobotomy and Memoricide, so having the downside of having to have the card in hand feels really steep. We’ve even had three mana versions like Dispossess and Lost Legacy. The fact that this can let you “cycle” a card in your hand is also not super useful, since you still have to cast this card, meaning you’re down a card to swap out the rest. I think you could remove the blue or maybe the black from this and still have it work. I like the idea of it, it’s just a little too hard to take advantage of as-is.

@gay-for-ocypete - Looking-Glass Lurker

I’m interested at your top-down approach to this, at least so far as I could tell. It’s cool that you took the idea of facing yourself to it’s logical confusion. I think this card has some issues, though. At the base, a five mana clone-anything is all good, though a little pricey for only cloning your own stuff, but this one comes with an effect. Good job remembering to put the ability in the copy text and not on the card itself! But I’m not sure if the game can handle it as-is. Choosing what you’re copying is done at a very weird point in the rules, and I’m not sure the game can “notice” when you’re cloning something. I think you could have just said “whenever a creature with the same name as a creature you control enters the battlefield under an opponent’s control…” It technically would have operated differently, but close enough I think, and it would have definitely worked within the rules. I also think the play pattern on this card is a little strange. Let’s say your opponent plays a clone. If they target your best permanent, then you get to flicker this guy and get an extra copy of your best permanent. In that situation, though, you already have your best permanent in play, and you’re just getting an extra one. Feels kind of win-more. If your opponent is ahead, then they’ll just copy one of their own things, and in that case your stuck with what you’ve already cloned. This requires a very specific situation to be relevant, even in the mirror. With that in mind, I think you could have made this 4 mana. It’s better than Mirror Image which is three mana, but the fact that it can’t clone your opponent’s stuff means it’s worse than Clever Impersonator. I think four mana would be perfectly fair. I like the way you fought cloning with cloning, and using the flicker to do it was really smart, but it’s a little too narrow to be worth the cost of playing it.

@ghoulcaclulator64 - Relief Agent

The taxpayer. We have much in common. I like the concept of this card. A simple way to get around random tax effects. I also think in the mirror that’s super important because you need to get down your tax pieces as early as possible, and their taxes will slow that down. I have two complaints about the card. First is the body. The three toughness is nice, even if it still dies to bolt, but the low power and lack of abilities really weakens this I feel. You could argue it’s small enough to get under ensnaring bridge, but then it would really want some form of evasion. There’s a reason “hate bear” is the common terminology: two power really helps it make an impact on the board beyond just being a killable enchantment. The second issue this ties into is the power level of this card. This is a very narrow effect with not a ton of use, and while it is very strong at that effect, it still needs to carry it’s weight somehow. Unlike with some other hate bears like Leonin Arbiter, you can’t take advantage of this one in any way, like by playing a tabernacle or Fade Away or other cards that force all players to pay a tax. I understand why, since saying you don’t have to pay additional costs for yourself would be kind of broken, but the fact that there’s no way to get extra use out of this is a little disappointing. One other thing I’ll bring up is the concern of templating. I know what you were trying to do, but I’m not sure if the game can handle it. I don’t know if the game “knows” where the taxes are coming from when you pay extra. My assumption is that this works for both Thalia and Mana Tithe, though I’m not sure if there’s a clean way to phrase that. Your templating here is a little backwards, and as written would make it so I don’t have to pay extra costs when paying for costs for things my opponent’s control. I wish I could offer advice on how to fix that, but the best I’ve been able to come up with thinking of similar cards is just an ability that gives you infinite mana that you can’t spend on anything you control. But like I said at the start, I love the concept. I like the idea of a card that pays taxes for you. It’s narrow but effective.

@gollumni - Coercive Commander

Oh hey, crafty cutpurse but it’s permanent! And in white, which seems weird, but I’ll let it slide because it’s kind of like a cross between Anointed Procession and Containment Priest, but I still think it’s a close one. I actually remember reading the M-files article where they talk about how crafty cutpurse was a permanent effect but they were worried it would lead to just a bunch of unfun games, and that it was too broad and not focused at specific cards or situations. Your answer to that was making it a once-per turn trigger, and I think that does a lot for you here. Most dedicated token decks have a mix of little token makers (Legion Warboss, bitterblossom) that you can wait to trigger and break the buffer so you can play bigger effects like Secure the Wastes or Saproling Migration. I think you could afford to make this a little tougher to kill in order to make sure the effect goes off at least once instead of getting killed in response, and perhaps to make it a bit more of a body on it’s own instead of just hoping you steal something big enough to make it worth playing a four mana creature with almost no power in a creature centric deck. Four mana is also a tough spot in token decks, since it’s where anointed procession, parallel lives, second harvest, and some other nice token enablers sit at. It’ll hard to hold up four mana in hopes of getting a big hit off your opponent. But I think you did a nice job of making a more fun and useful crafty cutpurse.

@helloijustreadyourpost - Feign Ignorance

Mill, eh? Surprised we didn’t see more mill cards this week. I like how this works. It’s a two mana mill effect, so you will get a benefit off of it no matter what, and two mana mill 6 isn’t too shabby. You can also use it as a very strange sort of tutor, milling some cards but then eventually putting some back. It can also put any type of card back on top, which would be color pie break if this card was just blue or black, but since it’s both, blue can get back spells and artifacts and black can get back creatures, enchantments, and planeswalkers. Lands is the only weird spot, but I think that’s fine. The thing I’m most impressed by is the exact way that the activated ability functions. While the “can’t be milled” clause is clearly there just so you keep your cards no matter what, it also can be used as a sort of counterspell. If you’re targeted with a mill effect, you can activate the ability in response to protect yourself. You can even do it immediately after your draw step and have a whole turn, but at the cost of leaving those cards sit for a whole turn cycle. The other way this is more powerful in the mirror is just that you’ll end up with more to choose from, which is nice, and you can put cards on top if they’re on empty and can’t get those last four no matter what. All that said and done, though, I don’t think this card quite makes the cut. It’s cool and clever, but it just doesn’t do enough. Putting cards on top is just too slow for a lot of mill decks that need a lot of velocity. The way you lose playing mill is if you just can’t do enough milling quick enough before you die. If you play this and spend a bunch of mana to protect yourself, you’ll buy yourself some time, yes, but that mana could be better spent milling! This is a backup plan, basically, whereas I wish it could have been a little more aggressive. I think if the activation was cheaper, or there were a way to recur it, or if it was a little more aggressive in some way it would be more playable. The design is stellar, I just think it’s too slow.

@hiygamer - Recounter of Fables

I’ll admit, when I was first thinking of decks to list as examples of archetypes, Adventures jumped to mind, and I like where you went with it. It’s a card that specifically hates on adventures, but also has one! It’s also makes me happy that the adventure side is so weak in any other situation, because that’s how adventures should be: pretty weak. That said, the creature side is pretty much completely playable on its own. In fact, it might be too playable. It’s a three mana gravedigger in the right deck! Granted, Innkeeper is three mana less than beast whisperer and lucky clover is 5 mana less than swarm intelligence, so maybe the discount you get for having all of your creatures be adventures is that high? I also have some color concerns. Blue can return instants and sorceries, but they can’t return creatures. Adventures are both, but they are definitely more creatures than spells (since you can cast the creature without the spell but if you cast the spell you still get the creature). The adventure half is also hard to judge, since it’s almost closer to discard than anything else, but blue occasionally gets “can’t cast cards” effects. It’s really hard to judge the strength of a card based around one of the strongest themes in the most broken set we’ve seen in a while, but if I just look at what we saw in Eldraine, I think this is on par with what Wizards did. I think it’s a bit of a bend in blue, maybe a break, but I can see the argument at least. Perhaps this card should have been white? White gets to stop players from casting specific spells, and white gets limited creature regrowths. As is, this card is fine, a little pushed but only as much as any other playable adventure card.

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes - Fighting Medic

I have a soft spot for first strike shenanigans, it always makes for really cool mechanics. The downside to them is that they can really get blown out against removal heavy decks, or control in general. But in the mirror, all of the sudden it has relevance! This card is meant to be an amazing blocker. It blocks and kills any two-toughness creature while saving you from taking an extra two damage. I do wonder if it’s worth the effort, though. If this card just had lifelink, I think it would be better in almost any situation. The best use for damage prevention is if they also have lifelink or some other damage-dependent ability, which aren’t as common as you’d think. I think what really would have made this feel great and useful is if it could prevent damage to any target. That would make this feel more fitting in a creature-centric deck, and it would give it a little more utility on attacks. Right now, it seems hard to get an attack in after a certain point, and if you do you aren’t going to trigger its ability easily (or use it, for that matter). As is, this feels a little too complex for what little it does, and I think just lifegain would feel more appropriate.

@misterstingyjack - Wild Challenger

This man really want to fight. Sadly, I don’t know if he’d survive. I think this is meant for big stompy decks, but I don’t know how much they want him. You would need to build this guy big enough to survive the fight, have him survive long enough to attack, hope your opponent has something he can target, and then he might just die after being blocked anyway. You said it works well with combat tricks, but it would require you casting them before players block, which is the worst time to do it, but also if your opponent has a trick it’s such a blowout. This card is either going to do a lot of damage or nothing. Load this guy up with counters and your opponent is screwed. Either you kill their big guy or they only have little guys anyway. I think this guy is enough og a build around you could have pushed him more. Maybe drop his cost by one or give him an ability like haste or trample. I really love the concept, though, I think it’s just not as useful as it looks.

@ozthearistocrat - Flame to Fists

Huh. The best way to beat your deck is to… stop being your deck. You thought I was a burn deck but now I am a goblin deck. Like a little version of Hostility. I think this is an odd mirror breaker because if you both have burn, then you’ll both be making the same change to a creature deck. But the difference is that you’ll see it coming. You can go down on life but save your burn, then drop this and a couple burn spells. Meanwhile they can’t deal that last point of damage to you because you’ve made a ton of blockers and they can’t just burn you out. It’s also great if you have this plus are siding in some other removal like a suffocating fumes or a pump spell like atarka’s command. You can of course also do fun stuff like Marrow Shards when you attack to double your force. Still, I think this is going too far into making a deck into another deck. You’re going to be using this less to combat burn and more to go wide with goblins or go infinite with impact tremors. I think this is a pretty cool card, but not really a good fit for this week’s contest.

@naban-dean-of-irritation - Through the Gates

This is a tough one to judge. While I understand that the point of this card is to fight against suicide black / aristocrats decks, but it’s just way, way better in control decks. This card says “whenever you kill a creature, gain control of it.” Decks built around multiple creatures dying in a single turn are actually better against this card, since this triggers only once. I’m also not a fan of “one or more creatures die” because there’s some weirdness there. If you deal 1 damage to each creature, then kill an Elvish Archdruid with a doomblade, will the llanowar elves dying count as a separate trigger or the same? Doomblade killed the Archdruid, but damage already there killed the llanowar elves, but they both died by the next time a player has priority. So if you would prefer the llanowar elf, can you get it? I think in order to get this sort of effect, perhaps you could get the enchantment to remove itself somehow. Like, by saying “Whenever a nontoken creature dies, you may exile ~. If you do, return that creature to the battlefield under your control, then return ~ to the battlefield at the beginning of the next upkeep.” It would mess with the card a bit, letting people flicker it for Constellation value, but I think it would make some of the templating easier. Currently though my biggest problem is still just how generically good this is. One free Grim Return every turn is incredibly powerful in a lot of decks, regardless of the matchup.

@nicolbolas96 - Beast-Tamer Acolyte

Wow, this card is doing a lot! That first ability is super strong, especially on such a high-toughness creature. Ghostly Prison is strong enough that it hasn’t seen print in standard for a while, so making a strong version on a creature that can be hit by Collected Company is a risky move. Luckily, that last ability isn’t going to be doing much often enough to really affect the power level. But that’s not to say it does nothing! As far as this contest goes, this feels really solid. Casting cards from the graveyard is mostly a black or blue (with artifacts) thing, but it exists in white as well, and I can tell this is very specifically thinking of Lurrus. Sadly, you can’t play it if Lurrus is your commander, but if you’re playing something closer to a CoCo build this guy feels perfect. It’s strong, maybe too strong, but the design is really cool and nicely specific.

@partly-cloudy-partly-fuckoff - Revel Inciter

Sucks to be them. If you’re attacking with a bunch of creatures, only being able to attack half as often sucks. It’ll also make it a lot harder to block, which is good for an aggressive creature deck! If I were playing against this, I’d groan, but it isn’t an instant win. What keeps me from really liking this card is that it just isn’t on color. This is a blue or a white effect, even if it affected just white or blue creatures (though especially if it only hit red creatures). I think blue would be a little weird, but blue aggro is a thing. But if this were a white card with no other changes, I think it’d be awesome. Red white aggro is super common, and this would shut down the opponent’s force pretty dang hard. Fix the color and this card is great. As is, it’s just too off-color of an effect.

@pocketvikings - Swordstealer

Well, that’s to the point. Your opponent has a sword, but now you do! I like how straightforward this is. I also like how it can see maindeck play as a way to attach your Colossus Hammer or whatnot easily, and the flash even has a lot of use there to get around sorcery-speed removal. The rarity seems really odd to me, since even though the effect is clearly very simple, the interactions and situational nature of it does increase the complexity of it. There’s the classic problem of players keeping this card in hand until they see an equipment in play when they really should just be playing it as a body. The fact that this “attaches” but doesn’t actually gain control of the equipment is also going to cause some issues. This has been the case since equipment have existed, but the fact that the card is literally called “sword stealer” but does not in fact gain control of the equipment is going to mislead some people. I don’t think it would have been that bad if it did literally steal it, preferably just until it was unequipped or until this guy died, just so that players wouldn’t get the wrong idea about how this worked. As a whole, though, I still think this card is pretty well made, and the concept of it is right on the money. A good mix of maindeck playability and incredible power in the mirror.

@real-aspen-hours - Sanguine Ignition

I really like this card! Four damage for two mana is one of those things that’s both ridiculously powerful but pretty reasonable. We’ve seen it only once or twice before, ever. 2 damage for two mana, however, pretty bad, but not completely unplayable, as we’ve seen with stomp. I really like this card because it’s really powerful in the mirror, but in the exact way the mirror plays out. You can use this to hit pumped up prowess creatures as well as faces, but have to plan around it just the smallest amount. It isn't’ fancy, it just gives you a great rate on burn. There’s only two things holding it back. First, you can trigger it yourself a little too easily. Simply playing City of Brass gives you access to this. I think that’s a little too easy. A simple “by spells or abilities or opponents control” would have fixed that. The other problem is that it’s both hard to maindeck this card but hard to put it in your sideboard. If you’re building your burn deck, putting extra burn in the sideboard doesn’t really feel good. But at the same time, if you put this in your main deck, you’ll have just a weak two mana shock about half the time, which is not what you want even in standard decks. You could argue that these two problems cancel each other out, and that you can main deck it more easily if you’re playing pain lands and the mirror match just makes it easier, but in that case I think the painland issue wins out and the card’s just too good. However, if you put this in a very specific standard environment with a few ways too deal damage to yourself but not a ton, this card could hit just the right sweetspot of playability. And like I said at the start, I really like this card, and think it’s doing a lot of stuff right.

@snugz - Notus, Trustbreaker

Ah, planeswalkers, They never seem to get along. This is actually a clever way to hate on planeswalkers without calling them out directly (one of the reasons proliferate worked well in WAR was for that reason). I like the first ability, as I’m a big fan of modifying things based on how you did a semi-automated action. I do think it’s a little weird that it still hits you, seeing as how you’re the one building around proliferate, but I guess that’s the tradeoff for a powerful plus ability. The minus 3 is fine but I don’t think it is templated correctly. If a card has different types of counters, it’s unclear how they’re dealt with and by who. I’d say something like “Remove X counters from target permanent or player, where X is half the number of counters on that permanent or player. You gain X life.” Functionally I like it, though. It’s a high cost ability considering how situational it is, but with how powerful the other abilities are I think it’s fine. The ult I think works fine, though I’m not sure if you could do things like put flying counters on players or poison counters on creatures, but I’ll assume the comprehensive rules will update to regulate that. Also, based on how Reverse the sands is phrased and the rulings on it, I’m not sure if you can just suck up every counter. But if I assume the best possible scenario (put any counter anywhere), I like it. Also implementing it digitally would be an absolute pain, but I don’t count that against you. So yeah, in total, the card has some weird quirks that I don’t think make it a bad card but do make its place in a deck feel kind of weird. It definitely feels appropriate this week though.

@starch255 - Grand Minimus

Hoo boy, a one mana 2/2 haste. Those have historically been very powerful! What’s the downside? 2 damage basically very time you cast a spell? Okay, that’s close. Balancing aggressive cards like this is very, very difficult. Burn players already play a lot of ways to hurt themself for now reason, like playing fetchlands in mono-red. This doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch. The alternative, goblin guide, draws your opponent cards, which seems like much more of a downside than this! However, you’re right to put this in the contest this week, since if you play this against a burn deck you’re basically getting a half-price eidolon of the great revel, and if your deck is a certain way you may be able to get around it! My biggest issue with this card beyond the raw power of this in the main deck is how good it is on the play. Burn mirrors are already basically decided by who goes first, and this just makes that issue so, so much worse. If you play this and just go swinging every turn and let your opponent shock themselves over and over means you’re just going to win. That’s going to lead to some sad games. But, I think you were going in the right direction. I just wish this could be used more as a comeback card than a push the advantage card.

@stormtide-leviathan - Dementia Drinker

I like where you’re going with this. Discard tribal is a strong archetype, and making a card that benefits off of either player discarding is great! Maybe too great. For comparison, cards from Amonkhet that cost two mana would have effects like granting +1/+1 until end of turn or a little ability. This grants permanent counters. Playing this into burning inquiry (already a card being played in discard-focused decks) gives you a 7/7 flyer. Yikes! Even though this card is clearly aimed at 8 rack decks, and I do love it’s synergy with Raven’s Crime specifically, I think it may be a bit too much of a powerhouse in any format. But I love the design! Like I said, cards that make both players discard already see a little play in discard decks, so it’s an especially good place to make a mirror-breaker. The escape cost is also really clever, since your opponent is going to want to make you discard this for sure as soon as possible, but you can get it back as soon as they (or you) get enough cards in your graveyard to take advantage of it. So very good job with the card, I think it might just be a little too oppressive to see print.

@teaxch - Magnetic Grips

The equipment that lets you firmly grasp it. If you’ve got an equipment heavy deck, this card could do a lot of work. Free equips are very valuable, whether the memey colossus hammer or the backup plan with a batterskull or just a little extra value with a sword. The fact that this can target opponents' stuff almost feels like an afterthought, but once put in the context of this challenge is anything but! Slowly but reliably stealing equipment from other players is hilarious and terrifying. It’s not an instant win (which is nice), but does feel a little insurmountable, which I think is good for a card like this. My two gripes are that I think it could be a little cheaper considering how little you get out of it sometimes. You need this, a creature, and another equipment, and a reason to not just pay to equip. Though I could see keeping the price, and it just needs something else going for it, maybe a little more P/T or an ability, like haste. I also wish that it would let you steal the equipment until they become unequipped. There’s so many weird interactions, like sword triggers benefitting the players they just hit, except sometimes not? Feast and Famine for example would make your opponent discard a card but they’d still untap their lands. If this just stole the equipment temporarily it would be a lot clearer. I still love this card and this effect, and I think it’s a really cool and clever way of making a card that you would play in your main deck as a combo piece that’s weaker than others in general but amazing in the mirror.

@thedirstside - Betrayer of the Brood

For the Eldrazi mirror, or the tron mirror perhaps more likely. A very expensive and very restrictive counterspell/removal spell, but hey, worst case it’s a 6 mana 5/5 that blows up a land. At 6 mana I think land destruction is fine, especially when you have to build around it, and it’s just weak enough at that that you would really only want to use this in the mirror. That’s what I was looking for! I also like how, despite there already being a ton of hate for Tron in modern, this is a completely different way to do it, and one that’s strong in the mirror (you wouldn’t exactly want to play Dampening Sphere in your tron deck). One awkward part is that, while it can target a spell on the stack, a lot of the bigger colorless spells have triggered abilities when they’re cast, and it would have been really cool if this could have caught those as well. The last thing I’ll say is that it’s very vanilla for an Eldrazi. Once it’s in play, it’s just a 5/5. The triggered ability is also hard to abuse in the decks that would play this, there isn’t a lot of recursion or bounce in those decks. I think this card is pretty well made, but it’s a little too focused on just doing one thing pretty well for a deck that really wants to constantly throwing haymakers.

@vasnirada - Salt Dunes

This is a very narrow card, but as a land I think that’s for the best. A simple land that lets you combo off when your opponent plays a land if you’ve got a landfall-heavy deck. Good against valakut or field of the dead. But I think you’re really underestimating how good this is. You fixed the fact that it goes infinite with itself, but I still think it does too much. For comparison, Ancient Freenwarden, doubles your landfall triggers and costs six mana, though it does have an extra three mana effect. Getting the three mana effect left over with just a land drop is really strong. This card is less of a mirror-breaker and more of just an auto-include in any landfall deck. I like the fact that it takes what your opponent is doing and lets you do it as well, but I think it was a bit too powerful. Perhaps if it specified lands put into play that weren’t played? Like, triggering only off of lands that enter from the library. I think that would cut the power enough to not be broken in a way that keeps its intent as a mirror-breaker.

@wolkemesser - Gluttony

Well, gluttony seems like the logical conclusion to a food deck. At its base, this is a 4 mana 5/5 with a strong ward ability, that’s pretty strong! But the heavy casting cost helps. The triggered ability is what you’re here for, though. It’s got a lot going on. If anybody does it, this guy gets bigger and harder to block, which is good, but you don’t really want to do it yourself because you’ll get hit for some pretty big damage. I’m mixed on that. I kind of like that it lets you just go “y’know what, I’m just not gonna sac my food any more, I’m just going to kill you,” sort of a transformative sideboard. But it would be hard to do that considering how much sacrifice is in the usual sac deck, but hey, you can still sac to grow this guy!... and get hit for a ton. It’s really risky to play this card in the mirror. If they play a Liliana, Dreadhorde General they could end up hitting you for 8 and killing two of your creatures, and possibly taking no damage in the exchange. I think this card could have been just as good and powerful and fun without the damage effect. It just sort of muddies the utility of this card, and it’s already doing me so much. Don’t take me wrong, though, this is a great entry, and you really got the idea of this contest.

Phew! That’s everybody. Good luck next week!

-Mod Mr. ShinyObject

#commentary #mirror-breaker #mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #inventor's fair

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fruitylibrarian · 3 years

Text

quest of the spear live rewatch!

i already spewed my pre call to adventure flynn thoughts all over a text post but I would like to repeat: pre-canon flynn my beloved <3

yes he is a bit of a bastard but he just loves his books and he’s so genuinely just like. passionate and like…. Big? does that make sense? like i mean inside. not literally. bright

flynn’s mom is so fucking funny

and she’s Trying Her Best

you know one thing I don’t understand, I assume that flynn could afford to keep going to college because of like grants and scholarships since he’s all smart and like, even if his mom is well off, no one below the morally bankrupt millionaire line can pay for 22 degrees and not die of no-money-itis otherwise known as Starving

but like. why not become a professor or some other academia position?

you’d be incredibly overqualified and you’re a white dude, so while academia isn’t exactly bursting with new spaces to fill I’m sure you could find something???? and like. a professor in particular, while baby flynn might not be great at the connection part, seems like a natural progression to at least try for considering it keeps you in that comfort zone and familiar space just in a different albeit familiar role, and allows you to go on long lectures people can’t interrupt. and like, professors literally like, part of their job is research and to continue learning, so like. it seems like the natural choice for him to go for?

don’t get me wrong, baby flynn in particular might not be extremely well suited considering his lack of people skills, but plenty of professors are brilliant slightly odd smarties who give long, super engaging theatrical lectures (sounds like him!) but suck at one on one meetings and talking to people or may be accidentally insulting, but like, their class is genuinely interesting and they grade decently so like, I think he could get past that hurdle is what I’m saying

obviously he’d have to work at it and get the skills necessary but you know what that means? MORE SCHOOL, BABY! just in a different direction! like just? it seems like the obvious choice for his situation

ah yes!!! magic letter!!! it’s kind of funny they do this, it’s a great hook and way to make applicants go Uh Excuse Me and want to know more but also like, there’s no proof magic happened either?

although you’d think some people would get obsessive like let me tell you if i encountered real ass magic like that i wouldn’t stop until i had an answer

ah the Incredibly Long Interview Line. it’s kinda how funny how like. Not Special he is but at the same time he is?

“never been treated so badly in my entire life!” what did you say to him charlene

i’m sure he deserved it i just want to know

wait oh no i just realized

all these people are dead

every single one of them got murdered in the first episode of the series

jesus that’s dark

not gonna be able to stop thinking about that one huh

also love how it’s pretty evenly men and women

although it’s still mostly white

fuck that lady just left crying I know they’re doing this to turn up the drama but DAMN, charlene

god he almost gave up. remember the timeline episode where he never became the librarian? weird.

Gkjlfkgjhfglh Where Do You Think You’re Going? (weak gesture like “me?”) Yes You. Get In Here amazing how can she even see him she’s around the CORNER. camera? magical surveillance? why? just to freak people out? amazing.

i do so love charlene, it’s a shame she wasn’t in the show more

also she literally never explains shit. What Makes You Think You Can Be The Librarian he doesn’t even know what that means, charlene

He Doesn’t Even Have A Library Science Degree

oh wow he does actually have librarian qualifications lmao

why did i not remember that

DLKFGJDFG I did remember him sherlocking her tho

wait her MARRIAGE? to WHO?

i thought her and judson were a thing despite jenkins being into her or something?

huh

also why does this qualify him to be The Librarian™ like oh he can sherlock? ok?

maybe it’s just bc he had the balls to do it

well, the sherlock thing is also not completely unhelpful it just doesn’t seem central to his skills, or at least, not the way he uses it (do we see him use it like this again? he usually applies more obscure knowledge then ye classic deduction sherlockian skills if I remember correctly which I may not because my brain is smooth)

judson is such a fucking drama queen

LKDJFGLKDJFGLDKFJG I FUCKING FORGOT HE LITERALLY JUST FUCKING REPEATED HIS MOM’S LITTLE PHRASE AMAZING

also why did he seem to think her sending everyone home meant he didn’t get it why would she stop all interviews because you fucked up

he just fucking walked out of a wall judson you are so dramatic

also warehouse 13 vibes huh. welcome to a world of endless wonder

I could do a whole fucking thesis on warehouse 13 and the librarians or—well that’s a whole other tangent

anYWYA

this interview was remarkably easy tho, it’s not like he wasn’t impressive but it wasn’t mindblowing either????? this coming from a big fan of flynn

the big shiny wonderous eyes as the library lights up……flynn my beloved

also his floofy hair ldkfgjdlkfgj

he’s like this is too good am I being prank’d

why the mona lisa?????iIs the mona lisa magic??? It only became famous because it got stolen why would it be magic??? Is this one of those we make it magic by believing it or some shit things???

Flynn Do Not Open The Random Box In The Library Of Incredibly Dangerous Artifacts

oh hello excalibur !!

oh rip flynn immediately being like “oh im not worthy, trust me” with 100 percent certainty im hurt oof

KSJFLGKDJGLKDJG THE APPLE “the apple from the garden of eden…….” *judson takes a bite* “actually I just left this here”

excalibur hello properly!!!!

judson is such a fucking DRAMA QUEEN he’s so casual!! and cal you too you slippery bitch!

ah the jetpack.

DLFKGJDLKFGJ “it usually takes a new librarian four hours to find the jetpack. you did it in three! congratulations” love the implication that every librarian (at least since it was added to the library) has done this no matter how serious like the bad guy of this movie… *checks notes* edware wilde? jetpack. darrington dare, probably? jetpack. i like to think jenkins did it too (not technically a librarian, but you know)

flynn thinking of himself as embarrassing… ☹

HIS MOM IS SO PROUD OF HIM

part sweet, part funny, part rip

I don’t know what she was expecting when he said librarian tho like. originally he literally looked at shit for FRY COOk degrees don’t always mean shit you know

and librarian is up there with professor in Perfect Jobs For Flynn like what did you expect??? Like even if he’d become an archaeologist (a “cool” job) it’s not like that pays super well either as far as I know??

he was never going to be Traditionally Successful

he’s still the same person he still has the same strengths and passions of course he would go into academia and do something like librarian like????? her reaction saddens me.

just be happy for him!! look at him!!!

ok first of all even normal non magic librarians don’t just put books on shelves and that’s a condescending reduction of the job, and second of all, he is so happy!! he has a job, he’s taking responsibility, he’s meeting people, isn’t that enough??? isn’t that literally what you wanted??? even if it WERE what you think it is why couldn’t it just be a good first step??? like??? fuck??? you did been know that he was doing all those fancy degrees because he loved them not because they’d get him some super fancy job??? I mean egyptology is not the most profitable field you know this isn’t med school or whatever

god.

flynn’s mom, visibly not proud and very upset: of course im proud of you!

ok im being a little unfair, she’s trying and clearly she’s been supportive of him, if not straight up enabling of him, but like this is clearly being presented as like. normal person who is normal forced to take care of freakish strange son who is so nerdy and strange and a loser and she is so tired of his shenanigans and all that WORK she put in and he’s NOT FANCY AND CHANGING TO CONFORM TO HER IDEALS OF A GOOD SUCCESSFUL SON/MAN?

and that’s just all very. sigh.

the snake brotherhood are such obnoxiously cheesy villainous villains they’re even called the snake brotherhood

also I think we’re supposed to recognize him as the previous librarian from the painting but if I didn’t already know that I for sure would not know that

smartass flynn is a smartass

I never got people bringing someone coffee to impress them unless they knew their order like there’s no way you know who she likes her coffee so you could so easily get it wrong—like even if you don’t know exactly how much sugar she wants, you could also just get it entirely wrong like assume she likes black coffee but she likes it super sweet, or vice versa, or whatever. it can go wrong so easily!

or she could go “I Hate A Kiss Ass”

she did take it anyway tho so.

ah i did forget (or just not actively think about) how much like… christian mythology there is in this show :/ I mean we did been knew (excalibur and arthurian legend are pretty important to the mythology)

not that christian mythology is inherently bad it just gets a) annoying, b) boring, and c) y’know, very western centric and all

but then trying to reconcile di—you know what that’s a tangent for another time

then again I do assume no one is going to read this

the library really does just throw new librarians into death and go “hope this is fine!” huh

did they just imply god is canon in the “the librarian” universe

you were so cryptic with the no one thing!! just say NOONE

he’s scribbling in his notebook and mumbling out loud what a mood and I love him. what a nerd

ldfkgjdlkjg god sexy jazz music and a breeze this is so dumb

I do hate the forced love interests in all these movies it’s always like Some Hot Girl Is There And They Get It On!

like he really had chemistry with eve and banter but here it kinda feels like that wish fulfilment and then the nerd gets the hot chick the end and im saying that as the nerd

it doesn’t help that each movie has a different one who immediately is dropped as if she never existed afterwards

maybe it’s not as bad as I remember but. sigh

my instant impression of her is to not like her sorry nicole :/

she’s just so rude? she’s like. hot (derogatory)

i get there’s gender politics here with like. she’s used to being treated like a piece of meat and generally like, why not reap the benefits when you are going to get the creeps too, but like, also she’s just so unnecessarily rude—I mean rejecting his clumsy flirting is one thing but you know—ok I won’t even get into that the point is I just don’t really like her that much even tho I don’t think she’s necessarily a bad person or anything you know

but to be fair I think she got better and I remember her being compelling in her return to the show

and like. I do like how the trend in this franchise is “smart little nerd librarian and badass lady guardian kicks ass” but I do wish that it turned around occasionally. we do get cassandra but like. more lady librarians

wow an air marshal? aren’t they rarely even on flights?

sorry im being nitpicky there for sure lmao. please delete the cinamasins ding my words probably summoned from your brain

I get why shoving him out was necessary but also Wow

Gjklhkjfgh imagine sitting next to some mumbling nerd the whole flight and then you see him fly past the windows

LFKGJDLKJDFG he brilliantly lowers our expectations then jumps without a chute! remarkable!

hilarious or commentary on men getting credit for womens’ competency? why not both

i really thought that she was going to be a lying liar the first time I watched this

ah naïve boy. “uh that’s against the law”

flynn’s greatest strength isn’t just his knowledge but his like. breadth of different topics, just like, passion for learning of any time, and like. the ability to not just know a lot of different things but cross-reference and apply them to each other and use them in tandem to understand a greater whole

and we love that for him!

ah flynn therapizing himself lmao

why would she take him going “this bridge is rotting and physically cant support our weight” as a challenge

or him being cowardly like THE STRUCTURAL SUPPORTS ARE ROTTING

YEAH WHAT DID YOU EXPECT OF COURSE HE FUCKING FELL

ok i lied i like nicole i just don’t love their dynamic

i get what they’re going for i just. not my thing

like with eve there was still a clear mutual respect? i guess? idk

maybe it’s just because i’m more sensitive to mean banter? i don’t like mean banter, even when it’s like, def 100 percent well meaning and not mean spirited and no one is actually offended or hurt

although despite not liking their Thing I do a) think it’s very cute how he looks at her, b) their vibe as they start to get to know each other is Better, c) the end of the movie scene where she rides in for maximum drama? now that was good shit.

oh he’s sherlocking her in a shy attempt to impress her but it’s only going to piss her off, right?

oh she’s just sherlocking him back

KSGFJLDKFGJ LMAO “nerd” and that’s it. fair

Cutting Off His Head damn that’s hardcore

hmmmm cringe,

and more cringe

and cringe.

her waking up to him gone right after telling that story about waking up to her librarian gone and then killed—oof

love the serpent brotherhood lady being like wow!! he’s SO COMPETENT!! (cuts to him screaming)

do these ancient traps just have infinite arrows?

also I do love the whole waltzing across trope what can I say im a sucker

DFLKGLDKFGJLDKJG fucking CHUCKS SOMETHING AT IT and immediately where he would be standing is crushed by a huge rock amazing

he literally just chucked a rock at it and it fell over

ah the classic “let the hero get it for us” move

oh there he is! rip

why does he look like macpherson

not really but kind of

also contrast between the lady always being like “omg the librarian is so smart” and him assuming nicole is the one who did the smart thing

“your tears were perfect” how much more of an asshole can you get

They really could have played him as more sympathetic—“oh, we’re always around these powerful artifacts but we never use them for good! I had to do it, I was sick of sitting back and doing nothing” or like “all those years of danger and guarding powerful things and what good did it ever do me? what do I get for my service?” or anything but nah hes just like “mm power good babes. anyway I love sex and being mean”

to be fair flynn he was the librarian too—a real librarian? I mean yeah edward was corrupted and ultimately failed his duties but he had to have been qualified and actually got the job for a reason

flynn I know you think you sound badass but you really don’t

god not shangri-la again. everything the show did with that was. Bad. yikes

why is—god, I should really learn her name [checks notes] lana fangirling so much?

also following the lamia tradition of “serpent brotherhood second in command who is more interesting than the main evil white guy and also a pretty woc” huh

never got like “this is literally impossible” “well do it or I [generic bad guy threat]” like usually that means nothing lmao

LDFKGJLDKFJLDKFGJ ok first of all god is me? bitch?

second of all. me in english? on this fucking ancient very much not english thing? I mean I guess a) it might not be literal, even though he did say “m, e” by letters, b) it is a christian myth so maybe planted later??? but like?????

dude. giving the super powerful artifact to your prisoner? bad idea. if you’re worried about booby traps have a minion do it.

oh yes your gun is so scary in the face of a temple collapsing

why do heroes always think the whatever is safer with them than the temple that’s guarded it for a thousand years

I get it’s been discovered but like. fuck. still

You Are Going To Crash This Helicopter

SLKGJ HORRIBLE HIGH VELOCITY PIE OF DEATH

flynn and judson…..wholesome

oh here comes more forced romance

just let them be friends who grow to mutually respect each other blease

it is very fucking funny that the mom is like ….. oh my god…. oh my god,,, a WOMAN AJUST ANSEWREDM Y SDONGS PHONE?????????OH MY GOFD?????

he is bisexual. but it’s good he’s getting out

ah floofy hair

cahooting,

Yes You Do Need Clothes

that’s a teleporter sir

god eddie wild is such a boring fucking villain and person

and his plan SUCKS

also the serpent brotherhood (why BROTHERhood?) sucks and hates the library why would they just let this guy, a librarian, literally be their new leader

wow he just stabbed a guy on his OWN TEAM for no reason

great going asshole

love how lana is just like…. O-O

we stan lana. she hasn’t done much and she’s technically a bad guy i just love her

“at last we can be one” what does that even mean

why would lana or any of them want to help him he just killed one of their own for no reason hes clearly tripping on power and leaving yall to die

lfkgjdlkfgj flynn dodging so hard while the others is fight and then PUNCHING A GUY

dfglkjdflgkj wait it’s the professor dude why is that so funny

is he WITH THEM??? I think I just missed something

hold on a sec

yeah I think he just appears??? And flynn just fucking broke his nose iconic

wait so was he with them or is he just here going WHY ARE THERE RANDOM PEOPLE IN MY PYRAMID????????????

oh right he built the—ok I got it

Wait what

I mean I did think lana was neat and she seemed impressed with flynn but what shes just like, in love with him now? that makes zero fucking sense why would she want them to Be Together

Is it just so there can be a catfight between the two hot chicks?

seriously tho? morally pure blonde blue eyed girl versus Evil Asian Chick? really?

for the record NOT THAT IT MATTERS but lana is way cuter im just saying

ah badass judson

THE COMEDY OF THE CAPSTONE CRUSHING HIM DLFKGJDLKFGJ

oh………….pulling out excalibur…. predicable but so good

oh the painting….the very Parenty way of revealing it…… wholesome

oh did NOT like that transition

oh here comes the badass fucking entrance with his gf busting in on his mom trying to set him up with girls

HER ENTRANCE IS SO UNNECESSARAILY DRAMATIC I LOVE THEM

I just love the mom’s face ldfkgjldfkgjdlkfgjdlkfjgd shes like WHAT THEGUFVCJK

again I don’t love the vibes of “oh my weird loser son is finally normal!” but to be fair im exaggerating a bit from just facial expressions it’s just. sigh

but ngl the vindication of him being able to be like. yeah that’s right im a badass now and my gf is cool as fuck is still good

him and nicole do have not terrible vibes at the end but if I remember correctly that mission (time travelling ninjas and hg wells’s time machine) is the one that separated them so rip I guess

overall: good movie! as cringe as I remember but I still love flynn so much

#flynn carsen #the librarian: quest for the spear #going to bed now. perhaps the others tomorrow

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donnerpartyofone · 4 years

Note

how have you been lately?

i guess i’m doing ok. i’m doing better than a lot of other people, for sure. it probably wouldn’t surprise anybody to learn that i thrive under quarantine conditions--if nothing else, i no longer have to make awkward excuses to avoid touching people! i also had the incredible luck of being invited to collaborate on a screenplay with an old friend of mine, for what will be his fourth feature, so i have something to do all day every day, that i love doing, that is best done in my own apartment. i desperately need a *real job*, but i still have some savings, so i’m trying to just keep steady with my applications and not get distracted by how dire the economy is. it doesn’t help to obsess, and my obsessions are much larger in scale, in that area; like i spend a lot of time thinking about whether i should devote a lot of energy right now to researching relatively painless and efficient suicide methods and procuring supplies for them in case an imminent death by secret police or the collapsing environment or war threatens to take place before i just die of whatever i was going to die of without all that. like this is a very real thought to me that becomes more and more detailed as days go by without appreciable change. but i manage to prioritize my immediate real-life issues, most of the time, and not have a nervous breakdown.

during this time when i finally have the space from other people that i crave, and i also have some amazing projects to work on--something that hasn’t happened in many years, if ever, really--i’ve been reflecting on how depression has affected my life. i’ll be 40 next year, and it’s only in the last 5 years or so that i began to feel like my quality of life was somewhere near decent. the common wisdom about the effects of depression is pretty easy to grasp: you miss opportunities because you don’t believe you can succeed; you alienate others because you think you don’t deserve to be loved; your health suffers because you hurt or neglect yourself. but the real shit, that people don’t usually point out, is that depression absolutely destroys time. it just erases the years of your life that you could have spent doing something, or even building up to doing something.

when i was a kid, and then a teenager, i didn’t develop any dreams or ambitions because i was completely preoccupied with feeling pain and trying to avoid more of it. when i got to college, i didn’t know what to do because i hadn’t developed any goal-setting abilities, which would have been an offshoot of the dreams and ambitions and just the ability to DESIRE anything at all, so i wound up with no control over my major and i barely graduated, after 5.5 years or something. when i finally got out, i didn’t have a basis on which to build any kind of career, and basically every job i’ve ever had was a matter of lucky coincidence and the convenient needs of other people. i had almost no positive sexual experiences in my life, largely because i didn’t know how to WANT anything and i didn’t have the ego to defend myself against things i DIDN’T WANT, and so i woke up one day when i was about 30, at the end of a long abusive relationship with someone who made a career out of hating me, realizing that my teens and 20s--those years about which we are all so precious and jealous--had just evaporated without producing a drop of pleasure. i mean i was never ever “hot”, but i could have been enjoying myself, if depression hadn’t eroded all of the time in which that was most possible. the biggest achievement of my life (besides my miraculously great marriage of course) was a nearly decade-long stint at [redacted evil megacorp], for which i was convinced i should be extremely grateful, but which corroded my morals and mental health and made me start drinking at a really threatening and publicly humiliating pace; i had to quit just to avoid having a nervous breakdown. i have a variety of things i like to do--drawing, writing, cycling, studying film and art and etc--and all i can think about is how far along i could have developed my involvement in any of those things, if i hadn’t been so extremely busy feeling pain for most of my life. i’m still depressed but i think i have improved, and i’m trying to just stay involved with the things i’m learning to enjoy, instead of obsessing over how much better they would all be if i could have my 20s back, or my teens, or the years when i was a little kid and just beginning to learn to conceptualize what i wanted from the world, and what i would need to do to achieve it. all those years are gone; i’ll never be competitive with someone who is comparably intelligent or passionate about my interests, but who was feeling good enough during their formative years to actually do something with their life.

i don’t consider 40 that old (and in any case i’m much happier than i was 20 years ago), but in terms of professional development, or development as a self-styled expert in something, or even just development toward internal and personal satisfaction regarding your own self-determined achievements, i’ve lost 2-3 decades of the time in which those things can germinate. it kills me, but i just can’t let myself obsess over it. i can, though, tell other people: if you are depressed, get help, whatever help you can afford, as quickly as you are able. i’m not going to tell you that “it gets better”, because whatever IT is may not ever get better, and i’m not going to tell you how many people love you because i cannot possibly know about that, and i am certainly not going to tell you that your problems are all related to distorted self-esteem or loneliness, which is so common in the popular rhetoric about depression and which i find so incredibly condescending and reductive and ignorant. but i can tell you concretely that depression destroys time. it is an occupation that, for many or most of us sufferers*, is mutually exclusive with the occupation of developing your personality, your skills, and your ability to create a vision for your life. depression is not all about the pain you feel now; it is very importantly about the years that you will awake one day to find missing, years in which you could have done something--anything--with your time on earth.

*i realize that some depressed people are enormously prolific because i guess that’s just how they cope, and i sure wish i had THAT kind of depression--i don’t understand it any better than i understand how heroin addicts have incredibly productive creative careers--but as things are, i can at least speak to people who have MY kind of depression.

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eldritchsurveys · 4 years

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748.

What's the latest youtube channel you've discovered and binge-watched? >> I don’t binge-watch channels, but the latest channel I discovered was one that makes videos that break down FFXIV jobs/classes. I need as much help as I can get because I think something about my brain just doesn’t gel well with certain game mechanics (like complex rotations, parsing what’s happening on a busy screen when particle effects are flying everywhere, interpreting and responding to battle elements on the fly, stuff like that -- which many gamers take for granted that everyone can do without a struggle) and I’m hoping a lot of exposure to the concepts will somehow... make them click. I don’t know.

What's one thing that makes your shoulders hurt? >> Sleeping in a position that makes my shoulders hurt in the morning. Whatever position that is, it’s kind of hard to predict.

Does it snow where you live? >> Yes. I quite hope it’s done doing so until late fall...

Do you think your hair looks better long or short? >> I don’t care how it looks, I care whether it’s easy for me to take care of or not.

Do you look best with or without bangs? >> ---

What stereotype would you say you fit the most? >> Stereotypes aren’t something I aspire to fit. They’re reductive and often crude ways of perceiving individuals.

Do you enjoy editing photos on your phone? >> I don’t edit photos on my phone.

What's your favorite thing to do on your phone? >> Read books or Reddit posts. Or listen to Spotify, I find the mobile app is much better than the browser version.

Which season do you wish would last longer? >> Spring, always spring.

Do you like the name Eliana? >> Not especially.

Do you know anyone named Claire? Veronica? Cescily? Marcella? Miranda? >> One of my former friends’ legal name is Veronica. I don’t currently know anyone by the other names.

Haw many outdoor birthday parties have you had? >> Zero.

How much taller or shorter are you than your mom? >> A few inches taller, last I knew.

Who is your favorite sibling? >> ---

Do you have neat handwriting? >> When I make an effort.

Do you enjoy journaling? >> Not particularly, but sometimes it can get the sludge out.

What is your most recent new favorite food you've discovered? >> I haven’t had much opportunity to try new foods lately, considering.

Do you like sushi? >> Sure.

Have you ever tried seaweed? >> Yeah, I like a few varieties of it.

How often do you wash your hair? >> Whenever it feels like it needs it, and then whenever I feel like I have the executive function to actually do it.

Do you have an actual pig-shaped piggy bank? >> No.

Would you rather hike a mountain or dive into the sea? >> I’d rather hike a mountain, because I can walk but I cannot swim. Also, I do like hiking.

Would you rather grow wings or a tail? >> I’d rather not grow either, those don’t fit with my self-perception.

Which Barbie doll was your favorite? >> ---

Do you prefer cheetah or zebra print? chevron or polka dots? paisleys or plaid? stripes or stars? >> Neither, neither, plaid, stars.

Do you like your natural hair color? >> It’s fine.

What is your natural hair color? >> Dark brown.

Did you dream of becoming famous as a kid? >> Yeah, but of course I didn’t really understand the full implications of fame, so I was mostly fantasising about being really good at stuff and having people like me for it, but also being able to, like, have a private, fulfilling life of my own. Which I doubt most famous people are truly allowed to have.

What show did you want to be on? >> I didn’t want to be on a show.

Have you ever been to a gynecologist? >> Yes.

Do you use the Bitmoji app on your phone? >> Yes. I like sending them to Sparrow and vice versa.

Name three games that you are good at. >> Guitar Hero, the Fable series, Mario Kart (any edition that you can use the wheel adapter with).

What was your favorite board game as a kid? >> ---

If you were a Lisa Frank character, who would you be? >> Again, I still don’t know anything about the Lisa Frank universe. Didn’t even know there were specific characters.

Do you get on facebook every day? >> No. I check it every so often to see if I have messages to answer, and that’s it.

What is your Instagram screenname? >> ---

Do you remember the very first episode of Spongebob when it first came out? >> No.

Did you watch the Kids Choice Awards when you were a kid? >> No.

What was your favorite girl group when you were growing up? >> I wasn’t interested in them. Right now, I’d say All Saints was probably the best one from that era imo.

Would you ever consider naming a child after a family member? >> ---

List three names that sound similar to your name. >> The only one I can think of is “Mildred” and that’s annoying because I hate that name.

List three spelling of your name that you are glad you don't have. lol >> I’m not sure how else you could spell it.

What were you almost named? >> ---

What is your name (first and middle)? >> Mordred Shadow.

Do you like your name? >> Of course, or I would have named myself something different.

What are your top three favorite girl's names? boy names? >> ---

List 10 more girls' names you like. List 10 boys' names you like. >> ---

List 10 names you think would be good for a pet. >> ---

Do you have memories that still make you cry? >> Well, yes. It’s called emotional flashbacks.

What is something you always wanted to do that your parents never let you? >> My parent never let me do anything, so that list is very long. Anyway, I’ve done almost all of it by now, seeing as I’ve been a legal adult for over 10 years.

Do you have any symptoms of COVID-19 right now? >> No.

Have you made your own mask to help prevent the spread of the virus? >> No.

Do you know anyone who has the virus? >> I don’t think so. If so, they haven’t told anyone about it.

What was the last grocery store you shopped at? >> Meijer.

Name three countries you would like to visit. >> Iceland, Ireland, Turkey.

What does your name mean? >> It’s unclear.

Are you proud to be an American? (if applicable) >> No? I didn’t make the choice to be born here or anything, it was just how it happened. There’s nothing for me to be proud of.

What countries have you visited? >> None.

Do you have any regrets? >> Meh.

Do you ever wish you had someone to hug? >> I mean, I do. I just don’t have the ability to enjoy hugging someone.

What color are the slippers you wore last? >> Grey.

Do you ever sleep on your bedroom floor? >> Nah. It’s tempting in the summer, though, ngl.

#surveys #survey #random survey

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hawthornewhisperer · 5 years

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okay! i'm SUPER curious on your thoughts about the more controversial aspects of yen's fertility and the ableism. i've seen so many people who HATE yen talk about it, so obviously i don't trust their judgement. but i know you love her, so i feel like your take will be genuine. that is if you feel comfortable sharing!

Sure thing! But I want to include a disclaimer first: the ableism storyline in particular is not something I have personal experience with, so while I will do my best to express my own personal issues with the way it was handled, my thoughts are in no way a replacement for the thoughts of actual people with disabilities, whose voices should be considered with far, far more weight than mine.

Another disclaimer: I’ve only ever seen the show, so I have no idea what is show-only and what is also drawing from the books. (It’s my understanding her backstory was majorly beefed up for the show, but that’s the full extent of my knowledge.)

(this got long so it’s below the cut. TW for infertility and ableism).

We’ll start with Yen’s infertility plotline. Early on, she sacrifices her uterus as part of her transformation, although now that I’m thinking about it I’m a little unclear about what she got in exchange-- was it “beauty” or “the ability to not age” or “more magical power”? It doesn’t really matter, though, because basically we had a woman giving up her ability to be a mother (via pregnancy and childbirth) in exchange for power, which is unfortunately a very old, very misogynistic trope. It plays into the idea that women can either be mothers *or* they can be powerful, and also that powerful women are somehow unfit to be mothers. None of that is good, quite frankly, but I will say the fact that Geralt is *also* infertile (and the reason he gives for it on the dragon hunt) does help mitigate that a little bit. It also implies that pregnancy and childbirth is the *only* way to become a mother, although it seems the show is aiming to undercut that so I’ll reserve judgment on that front for now.

Then, somewhere around the incident with the djinn, she decides she wants her uterus back. I was super thrown when Jaskier said she was painting an *amphora* on her abdomen, as to me that was pretty clearly a uterus/fallopian tubes/ovaries-- which does admittedly look like a double handled amphora-- and even after having watched the episode twice I’m not sure if he’s supposed to be mistaken or if I am. I went into the show having heard there was a bit of a yikesy infertility plotline, so that definitely colored my impressions. But now that I think about it, I don’t know if her uterus/lack thereof is actually discussed in that episode? She is more interested in the general concept of *power* and is clearly searching for a new meaning for her life, but I’d definitely buy that her desire for a baby isn’t fully articulated until they go on the dragon hunt.

A lot of the critiques I’ve seen of her storyline revolve around the fact that her change of heart comes out of nowhere, and honestly, it sort of does. We have no hint in the first four episodes that Yennefer has particularly strong feelings about children, childbearing, or motherhood. (Full disclosure: I had to fast forward through almost all the scenes with the baby in episode 4 because children in peril, especially babies, is something I just Cannot Handle in my escapist media. Quite possible I missed something there). So in episode six when Yennefer is suddenly desperate for a cure for her infertility, it strikes a lot of people as another echo of an old misogynistic trope: that women who decided not to have children will *always* regret it, and moreover, they must be punished for their choices.

And honestly? I can definitely see why people read it that way and are upset, because our culture tends to be very reductive and paternalistic about women’s choices around their fertility. I have *lots* of cisgender female friends who have never, ever wanted kids and have been told over and over again that they’ll “change their minds” or will one day regret their choice when it’s too late. And that’s super, super shitty, and I get being annoyed when a show seems to play into that exact narrative.

Now, *for me* (a woman who fairly recently gave birth to a daughter, who definitely wanted a child), what saved the entire storyline was the post-coital conversation where Yen admits she just wants to be important to someone. Yennefer is intensely lonely, and she’s never truly belonged to anything resembling a family. I can buy that after several decades alone, she’s sick of it. And I can also buy that she’d think a baby would be a perfect solution, as babies *do* love you unconditionally and goddamn it’s the best thing in the world (to me), and Yennefer has always struggled with people not thinking she’s enough. I see how attractive that solution (trust me, babies think their parents are the *entire world*) would be to a lonely, loner woman, and I like that it gives her a space to acknowledge her feelings have changed over time. Her journey is about finding a *family* and I read her infertility plotline as a first step to Yennefer eventually finding a family in a way she never expected, and so for me, it ultimately worked. But I also get why it didn’t work for others!

Okay, now the ableism storyline, which is a lot trickier for me to parse. Basically, she undergoes an incredibly painful physical transformation to be more conventionally beautiful, which implies there was something wrong with her before or that there’s something innately *lesser* about having a physical disability. It’s presented as essentially par for the course for all mages to go through an “attaining physical perfection” process (Sabrina’s boobs get bigger, right? I’m not imagining that?) but Yennefer wasn’t just making her tits bigger. And when it comes to people with disabilities, this is basically saying “your life would be more worthwhile and you would be more desirable if you were able-bodied,” which is a profoundly ableist way of thinking. It also draws on the “magical cure for disabilities” trope, which I know a *lot* of people with disabilities have spent a lot of time deconstructing exactly how and why that’s painful for them. But for me, it’s enough to know that trope is painful for others, and therefore it’s best to be avoided. (I do think we still need to make space for people with disabilities to invert/twist/deconstruct/use this trope in their own art, but that’s a whole different conversation.)

And honestly? I think the biggest problem is I doubt anyone thought too hard about it. They were going for a big, showstopping transformation moment like Yennefer had at that ball, and they worked backwards from there to engineer a way for that reveal to have as much impact as possible. (From what I’ve heard, there’s some vague references to her having some sort of physical disability in the books but most of it is the show’s invention). They didn’t want it to be just “she has a scar on her face that’s gone” or “her nailbeds no longer suck,” they wanted her transformation to be splashy and astonishing, and were only thinking about it from an ableist perspective that having a physical disability would be the worst thing possible. And that sucks! It’s hurtful to people with disabilities, and I genuinely wish the show had thought through it more.

So yeah, those are my thoughts. Like I said, I’m still grappling with the best way to handle those two storylines in fic (especially in non-canon set stories, which is probably going to be most of my stuff) and so if anyone has any guidance, I’m all ears.

#not gonna tag it for reasons #tw infertility #tw ableism #spacer #one more spacer to keep it out of the tags #the witcher netflix #fireflyxrebel

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monstersdownthepath · 5 years

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Spiritual Spotlight: The Pale Horse

True Neutral Psychopomp Usher of Duty, Revenge, and Beasts of Burden

Domains: Death, Repose, Travel, Water Subdomains*: Psychopomp, Souls, Exploration, Rivers

Concordance of Rivals, pg. 15

Obedience: Perform hard labor for 1 hour while focusing on your shortcomings and how to overcome them. Benefit: Get a +4 insight bonus on saves against death effects and effects which cause fatigue.

(*IMPORTANT NOTE: The Subdomains are my best guess; Subdomains are not listed in Concordance of Rivals. Anywhere!!!)

Our very first Monitor Demigod reviewed! Many Monitors jumped out at me, but the Pale Horse landed four hooves first with his gorgeous illustration and interesting backstory, so I had to. Not all of the Obediences are as simple as this one, nor are all of the benefits, but I appreciate a bit of simplicity now and then. And it’s fitting! The Lash and the Plough exemplifies the pain and the bounty that comes from servitude and difficult work being completed, and to prove your obedience to him you have to break your back for one hour while considering where you’re weakest. Sweat out your faults and failures!

I appreciate that the Pale Horse doesn’t specify what kind of labor, so long as it’s difficult and gives you enough mental space for self-reflection. Break rocks, dig ditches, haul wood, haul your team’s stuff, all that good stuff! You can even technically do something repetitive and non-productive, such as filling a bucket with water before walking around the source and dumping it back in, but that goes against the spirit of the Obedience and may get you in hot water with the Lash and the Plough. There is some difficulty in that this Obedience is annoying to do in areas where manual labor isn’t really available, but your work doesn’t HAVE to be for anyone but yourself. You don’t even technically have to finish your task, just hack at it for an hour. Pull out a shovel and work at digging a hole, or move around piles of junk you see, or work at picking up trash, things like that.

The unspoken side-benefit of this is that your consistent labor regime may earn you a healthier physique. You may not get one mechanically, but think of the roleplaying potential!

The more important portion of the benefit won’t see much use in the early levels, but as you level up and death effects cement themselves further in enemy repertoires? You’ll be glad you take the extra hour out of your day to beat yourself into shape.

Boons are gained slowly, gained at levels 12, 16, and 20. Servants of the Monitors, though, can enter the Proctor Prestige Class as early as level 8. If entered as early as possible, you can earn your Boons at levels 10, 14, and 16. You MUST take the Monitor Obedience feat, NOT Deific Obedience. Monitors grant only a single set of Boons.

Boon 1: Stalwart Rider. Gain Lock Gaze 3/day, Align Weapon 2/day, or Phantom Steed 1/day.

Lock Gaze is a rare spell, one I’d rarely consider actually preparing but certainly welcome the possibility of having. It forces the target to look at you and ONLY you, granting every other creature concealment against the target, meaning their attacks will miss 20% of the time. It’s a decent spell to throw on someone you’re 40 or so feet away from, forcing them to turn and look at you and potentially throwing them off of whatever they were fighting before.

Align Weapon is a bit too narrow in use, UNLESS you know what you’re going up against. Demons? Angels? Inevitables? Protean? If you know you’re facing that day, then Align Weapon will absolutely save you entire rounds of effort trying to hack through their Damage Reduction. Hell, you don’t even have to really know you’re facing specific Outsider breeds, just knowing you’re going to be up against aligned foes in general is enough to keep this spell tucked away.

Phantom Steed, as discussed last week with Desna, is a very nice spell for traveling about, but the fact it only carries one person at a time makes it kind of difficult to justify using if you’re still moving with a team, but it’s insanely useful if you find yourself on your own.

Boon 2: The Will Endures. Upon completing your Obedience, you gain temporary hitpoints equal to your Hit Dice plus your Wisdom modifier. These hitpoints last 24 hours.

Hope you didn’t dump Wisdom! This ability is probably the SINGLE most boring Boon I’ve ever seen, but it’s an extra 14(+Wis) HP for you that grows as you level up. It’s really, really not a whole lot, but it’s free hitpoints and 14~20 is enough to help you resist one extra attack from a powerful enemy, or a lot of attacks from lesser mooks, and it saves resources for your allies. There IS a bit of a ‘cheat’ built in here in that if you perform your Obedience multiple times a day you can refresh these hitpoints, but that requires you taking an hour out of your day to recover. What do you think this is, 5e???

Boon 3: Peerless Defender. You can cast Transformation 3/day.

Transformation turns you into a mean machine, a hulking monster with +4 to Str, Dex, and Con (meaning +2 to attack and damage rolls, and +2 HP per hit dice), +4 AC (actually +6 due to the Dex increase), +5 to Fortitude saves, competence with all simple and martial weapons, and BAB equal to your Hit Dice. Even a wimpy Wizard can suddenly hulk out and start beating people’s faces in with this power, but its strength truly shines if you’re already a martial class. If you decided to class into Proctor, then starting your career as a Bloodrager or Magus (or Inquisitor or Investigator or...) makes this ability a beautiful addition to your kit, though the classes who reap the most benefit are actually the ones that don’t cheat with the Proctor’s accelerated Boon advancement; i.e. full martial classes.

Transformation rarely sees use because it’s restricted to Alchemist, Magus, Sorcerer/Wizard, and Witch, and while the Magus and some Alchemist builds can get great mileage out of it, the others are kind of screwed because Transformation also removes your ability to cast spells for its duration and, I’m not sure if you’re aware, spells are a pretty important class feature for the Wizard and Witch. That being said, while maximum BAB may be redundant if you’re already a Fighter or a Barbarian, a Rogue or even just a buffed Cleric can enjoy the benefits just fine.

It’s a good ability! And it can be used three times a day! And since spell-likes need no components, you don’t need to invest a Potion of Bull’s Strength each time!

So, while we wait for the Archives of Nethys to catch up (EDIT: Link now at the end of this post!), how about a bit on the Pale Horse’s personality? He started life as a daemon, actually, and it’s debated if he was a Harbinger, a powerful daemon, a Horseman, or even one of the Horsemen’s steeds (with Charon being the most likely), as his name and deeds have been struck from all of Abaddon’s records. He gorged on mortal souls until the memories and emotions that came with it induced a painful melancholy in him, and he soon found himself becoming paralyzed by his own decisions and crushed under the weight of the leadership that his position afforded.

In a spectacular show of Outsider Mind Weirdness he realized he hated having to make decisions for himself and wished to be free of the Burden Of Choice, and threw himself at Pharasma’s feet in supplication, hoping for mercy. Taking advantage of this moment of weakness, she turned the Pale Horse into her own watchmen of the River of Souls, a figure that now trots up and down the shores of the River, slaying creatures who would prey on the vulnerable souls within while guiding those who’ve lost their way back onto the trail. He personally trains other guardsmen of the River and even leads charges into daemonic territory to reclaim stolen souls!

Yes, there IS a bit of irony--or perhaps hypocrisy--in his actions and attitude versus what he expects of his followers (the Burden Of Choice was a weight he could not bear, but he expects everyone else to shoulder their own hardships), but I enjoy such looks into the minds of spectacularly weird Outsiders like the Pale Horse.

You can read more about him here.

#Spiritual Spotlight #Neutrality Notes #pathfinder #Dungeons and Dragons

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aelinbitch-archive · 5 years

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unpopular opinion: i don’t like rowan/rowaelin. i’m not here to convince u to unstan lol ppl are allowed to like/dislike things w/o feeling bad about it omg but i hate that some rowan stans are so insensitive when it comes to those who don’t like him! they’re so thirsty for him that they condemn anyone who doesn’t stan him & then excuse his problematic/lowkey triggering actions bc he’s hot and it’s gross. AGAIN not saying ppl can’t like rowan it’s ok lol but it’s more about some stan’s behavior

That’s totally fair my angel. I dislike the vibe that some people are locked out of the fandom for not being a cheerleader for every aspect of the series, and I hope that my followers/mutuals know that if they dislike stuff I like, or like stuff I dislike, expressing their opinions regarding that won’t ever cause me to cut them off (unless it’s like, some truly gross shit, which disliking rowaelin isn’t).

Also I have to say, even tho I do like rowaelin, I understand where you’re coming from about people excusing his actions because he’s hot. I’ve toooooootally seen that. And I’ll just be 100% honest - no shade to anyone, but some of the rowaelin content on this website disturbs me a little bit, in terms what’s considered hot/romantic/acceptable when writing or depicting them in art. I’ve seen some weird stuff defended as hot or even just “not that bad.” Which isn’t necessarily a problem with canon, but your ask was more about stans anyway, so yeah.

A while ago I actually wrote rowaelin meta in response to some other peeps (which was more about Aelin in relation to Rowaelin and how she’s included or not included in discussions of the ship, but it has some thoughts relevant to this ask) so I’m gonna just copy and paste what I wrote below and feel free to read if u want. (It’s like very overdramatic and fiery lmao but anyway).

I agree with a lot of this, but (at risk of derailing ms aelinapologist’s amazing post) I do have a few things to say, which are

1. OP took two whole paragraphs at the beginning of her post to say that the point wasn’t to discourse about rowaelin being abuse or not abuse, it was to talk about how the conversations centering around said abuse consistently display a disturbing lack of empathy for the character who should be the main concern of the debate. So I just find it a bit funny/odd that the replies (including a portion of the one I’m about to make, I admit that) have been like “Yeah great post! And now to discourse about Rowaelin-” but I digress.

2. I have consistently loved reading about Rowan and Aelin and they’re one of my favorite fictional couples. So nothing I’m about to say is intended to be like “GOTCHA they suck and you suck for liking them!!!” Because I like them as well. A lot. And in addition, nothing about this reblog is intended to be shady or confrontational in any way shape or form. I just think this is a great and very needed discussion I’d like to contribute to, so here goes.

3. Even if we look at HoF alone and ignore how things play out later: yes, they are both mean to one another, yes, they are both in a dark place and end up having a mutually positive effect on one another (so I definitely agree that, at least for HoF alone, it’s not a “douchey guy changes for the heroine story”) but. There IS still a power imbalance. I don’t think it’s entirely accurate to say “they were both bad The End” without also bringing up the fact that Rowan is 300 years old and Aelin is 18, and that Rowan is training Aelin and is in a position that gives him a massive amount of control over her, and that he is stronger and more powerful than her physically, magically, and socially (he is a prince and legendary warrior, she is a AWOL teenage princess currently working as a scullery maid).

Maybe I’m reading into it too much, but I really just don’t think that Aelin, a 17 y/o girl going through an unimaginably shitty time, being like “fuck you!!” to this 300 y/o jerk who doesn’t know shit about her is on the same level as aforementioned 300 y/o jerk hitting her, biting her, and telling her she would have been of more use to the world if she’d died when she was eight.

And in addition to that, we see that his behavior effects her a lot more than it effects him. When he verbally tears her down, we see her experience genuine and devastating despair and shame, whereas everything she does and says to him, no matter how snarky or outright cruel, is not having that same effect on him. People always seem to think they’re giving Aelin credit for being a Strong Woman™ by saying “she’s tough! she can handle it!” when in reality… we have evidence for the fact that she kinda can’t handle it. That the way he treats her in the beginning is slowly wearing her down and sending her deeper into a depressive state. And I don’t understand how it somehow reflects poorly on Aelin (or is even misogynist) to acknowledge this. Women, especially literal teenage girls, should not be measured by their tolerance for mistreatment.

All I really wish is that somewhere along the line we’d gotten a genuine apology from Rowan for this besides a throwaway line in KoA about regretting their “brawling.” And again, none of this is to say “see!! it IS abuse!!” it’s just to suggest that, even as an enemies to friends to lovers story, the “enemies” part was not exactly on a level playing field.

4. But with that being said, I could probably forgive the imbalance in their early relationship, mostly because their later relationship, as both friends and lovers, is so amazing and supportive in pretty much every way. And the great thing about enemies to FRIENDS to lovers, like you said, is that 1) none of the assholery occurred during any kind of romantic or sexual relationship or a transition into one, so it was sort of “fair and square” in that way, and 2) they had the opportunity form a solid, platonic foundation of trust and caring before they crossed into the lover territory.

Aaaaaaaaaand then Sarah did a retcon job on HoF which negated… pretty much all of that. I can totally be down with “good old fashioned mutual hatred thaws into caring which grows into love” but once we start hearing shit like “‘Sometimes, you’d be sleeping beside me at Mistward, and it’d take all my concentration not to lean over and bite them. Bite you all over’” and “‘That was the first time I really lost control around you, you know. I wanted to chuck you off a cliff, yet I bit you before I knew what I was doing. I think my body knew, my magic knew. And you tasted… So good. I hated you for it’”……. hhhhhhhhhhh.

I can’t think of many arguments for this NOT contributing at least a little to the “he’s mean because he loves you (and stick it out because someday he’ll figure it out)” trope. And while it might be a bit different because Aelin was quite mean as well, her behavior was just… meanness. Not some sort of weird outlet for repressed sexual attraction/love. I guess I just get flashbacks of “No sweetie, that boy in your class kicks your desk, pulls your hair, and calls you names because he likes you and doesn’t know how to express it.”

And I think this decision on Sarah’s part to go back and say he was into her all along is 1) a result of the mating bond thing she’s so fond of and 2) kind of a panicked backpedalling to the backlash she might have gotten over Rowan’s behavior in HoF? Which is…. so ironic because she made it SO much worse. In my humble opinion, she should have just doubled down on what she originally wrote as enemies-friends-lovers (and had Rowan bring up his early behavior and apologize in some way), and the problem would have been solved. And while I personally feel that I can recognize this for what it is - a shitty retcon - and enjoy the relationship despite it, I don’t think we should talk over people for whom this is a deal-breaker for the ship.

5. I don’t think about all of this and have the reaction that so many “anti tog” people seem to have of “FUCK Rowan he’s ABUSIVE and PREDATORY and I wish he was DEAD!!!” I think there are things to criticize about his behavior and about the way Sarah decided to spin their relationship, but they have had many great moments, especially in the later books, and I don’t think I or anyone else is “shipping abuse” by enjoying that. All of this is just to emphasize how, in OP’s very succinct words, “your inalienable right to enjoy two characters’ dynamic does not outweigh the right to criticise it.” Because there ARE valid things to criticize, and we as Rowaelin shippers (lol.) need to be careful not to conflate ugly hatred with valid criticism when we speak over it.

And because there IS so much ugly hatred for Aelin and her relationship with Rowan on this website, I completely understand why there’s a kind of knee-jerk reaction of jumping to defense of this ship we love. But that impulse, quite frankly, means nothing to me if defense of Rowaelin includes the erasure of Aelin’s canonical experiences. And maybe this is wacky and controversial, but I’m pretty sure we can express our enjoyment of Rowaelin AND keep Aelin as an individual from being swept under the rug.

6. More than saying any of that what I really really want to do (and have been trying to do in the previous paragraphs, but maybe unsuccessfully) is bring the conversation back to OP’s original point which was not “abuse!” or “not abuse!” but about how the ways in which we discuss “abuse or not abuse” often includes a stomach-turning lack of concern for Aelin and some frustratingly reductive arguments. And somehow I have the sneaking suspicion that Rowaelin shippers are reading this post and missing the point, which that this is happening on BOTH sides of the argument.

Everyone is perfectly entitled to ship Rowaelin and argue their opinion about its merits or lack thereof, but when we cover our ears and say “she was mean too she was mean too she was mean too she was mean too la la la la la la la” that’s completely ignoring the genuine pain that she did experience in HoF and the power imbalance that she was subjected to, no matter whether or not we personally feel that it was sufficiently rectified in later books.

And I see this ALL THE TIME, in both the fandom and “anti-fandom”, and I’m honest to god quite sick of it. I’m sick of the willful ignorance of a teenage girl’s pain in order to further an agenda. Yes, it’s more stomach-turning when the agenda is to prove what an evil bitch she is or whatever, but it’s not excusable if your agenda is to prove Rowaelin is great, either! And I don’t understand why we have to throw all nuance out the window and ignore how Dorian hurt her, ignore how Chaol hurt her, ignore how Rowan hurt her, fucking hell, ignore how SAM hurt her, just so we can make our arguments! Because as much as the antis love to scream about “WHAT MESSAGE IS THIS TERRIBLE SHIP SENDING THE TINY GIRL-CHILDREN WHO READ THE BOOKS???” it’s also like, what kind of message is our ongoing discussion of it sending by sweeping a teenage girl’s experiences under the rug when we argue about her relationships?

And like OP said, what have we even got to show for it? No conclusion has been reached, nothing has been achieved besides valuing a romance (or the hatred of that romance and preference for a different romance) over individual characters, namely an individual character who happens to be a teenage girl that has suffered an ungoldy amount - suffered, sometimes, at the hands of male characters we like.

In conclusion, the mass allergy everyone seems to have to giving a shit about Aelin unless its to further their agenda is sickening. If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had to hear about how poor Manon’s character was “ruined” by Manorian (although not directly by DORIAN, of course, because apparently Saint Haviliard can do no wrong) I’d have enough money to buy a lamborghini and drive it off a cliff like I wish I could every time I hear someone’s terrible hot take about how Aelin is complicit in her own alleged abuse. Yet somehow I’ve never heard anyone complain about the damage done to Aelin’s character by any of the male characters, including Rowan. It’s never “Rowan ruined Aelin’s character!!” it’s “Rowaelin sucks and so does Aelin.” In fact, one of the REASONS Aelin sucks in the first place IS Rowan/Rowaelin! What a great implicit message to send to people reading your “critiques”: if you are annoying and #problematic enough, your suffering will be used against you and you will receive no sympathy for it. Cool!

And for other ships, too: it’s never “Chaol and Dorian, while at points a very good for Aelin, also caused her a lot of pain” it’s either “Chaol was right about Aelin in QoS and both he and Dorian are ruined because of her #chaorian” OR, from the fans, who, again, are not off the hook, “Chaol and Dorian and Aelin are BFFs forever #originaltrio.” And as a teenage girl myself, who loves and identifies with Aelin, who is more invested in her story than anyone else’s… I’m just tired. And more than a little appalled. And I wish we could do better.

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thetwistedrope · 6 years

Note

I have questions about apep. I had made contact with him, was called to by him and actually found his presence very comforting. But i know nothing. What is his evil? Chaos, death, and disorder are not deterrents for me, it's actually part of why he showed up at all.

Alright my dudes, it is time to sit down and rip apart the whole idea of isfet and why its not something that you technically should worship.

First off, I really want to pick apart what isfet is. A lot of people seem to just use the titles of various entities within our religion as a sort of “this is an entity and only an entity”, which is a really reductive way of looking at our gods and the surrounding pantheon/structure they live in. Most of our gods are not just a person, but their names are also titles. It’s what allows for so much liquidity btwn NTRW and its why its easy-ish to swap certain gods out for certain other things – because their titles and mantles are more flexible than we give them credit for.

I bring this up because isfet is more of a concept than it is a singular entity. The same way that ma’at is a concept as well as an entity. The way that Khentyamentiu was just as much a mantle as an entity. Or that the Eyes of Ra are all mantles inasmuch as they are separate beings.

isfet is a concept. A container that holds lots and lots and lots of ideas.

You see, within the Nun, everything exists. Good, bad, will be, might not be, will never be, will always be – it all exists in the Nun.

So that means that every fkn awful thing you can imagine exists in the Nun somewhere. Death. Famine. Oppression. Murder. Apathy. All of these things live in the Nun. All of the things that tear at the social fabric of humans – all of these things exist, and they all get labeled as isfet.

Isfet is a container, a catchall for every awful thing that rips humans apart. Its every awful thing that destroys people’s lives. It’s every awful thing that prevents any of us from living a happy, balanced life.

a/pep is literally giving those things form. If isfet is the box that we shove all of the ideas in, a/pep is basically giving all of these ephemeral things form. It gives you a literal target to throw your spear at. a/pep is, in its own way, a catchall. It holds all of the bad things, and gives them a form to direct your ire at.

So, when you look at this, do you really think you were talking with a/pep?????

I mean, honestly. Think about what isfet contains, and how a/pep is those things given form. Do you really think you were working with a/pep?????

You threw out chaos, death and disorder. Congrats, we have several NTRW that all oversee those things. Set is a necessary chaos, a necessary disorder that reminds the rest of the pantheon not to get Complacent. We’ve got Khonsu who is also a harbinger of chaos and death. So is Sekhmet, when she’s not propitiated properly. All of our deities have a darker side.

So if you want to learn about how to be a harbinger of death while also living in ma’at, you could easily talk to one of those NTRW. If you wanted to learn how chaos fits into the larger scheme of Order, you could pick any of our NTRW to learn those concepts from.

So again, why are you so sure it’s a/pep you’re talking to??????

Why tf would an entity that is the literal embodiment of everything holding people back come to you to be friendsies???? It’s a serious question that I’d like everyone who thinks they’re working with a/pep to consider. Because to me, it makes no sense that isfet, the container where we shove all of the things that tear humans down, would give two singular fucks about any of us, if it ever was rendered into a fully sentient being.

It just seems to me that you’re more likely talking with a NTR who is actually invested in bringing people back to ma’at. It is my honest opinion that many of us need compassion for some of our isfetian traits, the things we do to cope that ultimately don’t serve us. NTRW are great at teaching us how to move on from these things, how to let them go without necessarily hating ourselves for relying on them. I have yet to ever see a/pep manifest in the Duat to remind me that my anger has a use. If anything, a/pep is just gonna show up and turn me into the hulk so that I can rip everything apart in a blind rage (sound like a myth we’ve heard before??????)

The NTRW deal with the hell that isfet generates daily, they have seen first hand how badly isfet rots things. It just seems incredibly out of character for an entity that is notorious for tearing everything apart to suddenly decide the they want a bunch of pet humans you know? There is definitely some room for compassion with more personal aspects of isfet and how they manifest in our daily lives, but on a larger scale? Nah.

idk where I’m going with this at this point, but suffice to say, I side eye anyone who claims to have found that a/pep isn’t “all that bad” or anything similar. a/pep isn’t something to be worshipped. We don’t want to give power to the things we shove in the isfet container, aka the shit that rips humanity apart. It’s the last thing we want or need.

If your a/pep is telling you to improve yourself, improve your life, I suspect its someone else wearing an a/pep mask. Not the Poop itself. It’s one of the few things that to this day, I am very firm about, and its not changed >.>; I cannot support anyone who wishes to supply isfet with energy. It literally goes against all aspects of our religion. I’ve been pouring through funerary texts for weeks now. There is literally no place for isfet in our religion. We don’t want isfet to be at our doorstep. We don’t want to give it power. It has no place at our table. It can stay in the Nun where it belongs.

The more things change, the more they stay the same #kemeticfossilelyfe

#gifs #asks #a/pep #isfet #kemetic #we still on this #kemetic problems #kemetic fossil style #a new tag!

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vore-scientist · 6 years

Text

Fool Me Once (In Which There Are Thieves)

[M/m safe, soft GT vo.re]

A Tale of the Mystic Woods

Yonah (the “evil” giant wizard) deals with thieves on a regular basis. They are rather a nuisance but they do taste good!

Almost every encounter with a thief follows a pattern: 1) Thief breaks in to the tower. 2) Yonah catches and eats the thief. 3) Yonah releases the thief and if they accept it, gives them some money for their trouble.

“In Which There are Thieves” is a collection of short stories that all follow that pattern, but each encounter is unique!

Content warnings: the vo.re is soft and safe but unwilling and it’s Yonah’s job to be the big bad giant so expect fearplay. And the thieves don’t know that he plans to let them live. (Especially when he tells them the opposite)

Note: this encounter takes place before Sophia comes to live with Yonah

---

Yonah’s eyes snapped open. He was in bed and hadn’t been able to enter a deep sleep. Something was in his tower, and he had heard it. Thief or Slayer. Thief or Slayer. He lay still and listened. Tiny footsteps outside his door.

A thief.

Slayers wouldn’t make that much noise. And neither did he, as he cast a silence spell around himself so he could get up and get dressed. It wasn’t proper to deal with a thief in his pajamas. He was looking forward to it, a pre-breakfast treat was just what he needed. His stomach grumbled silently.

But how exactly should he deal with this thief… He could just burst into the living room and bellow his lines. Classic, tried and true.

Naw, he wanted to try something else today.

He rummaged through a drawer and found the box labeled SPELLED STONES #3 YH. With a pair of tweezers he took out the stone in 5F. Then he found a very ornate box and set it on his night stand. He got out his reduction spice and dabbed a bit on his tongue and gripping the nightstand with both hands shrunk himself down, and clambered onto the tabletop. The stone in his hands glimmered with possibility. His plan wouldn’t work if he was over 2 meters tall. He placed the stone in his mouth and bit down cracking the stone and releasing the spell.

Examining himself in the mirror he beamed. He was in a plain but beautiful dress with matching flats. He had long blonde hair that fell around his clean shaven face and piercing blue eyes. And he had breasts. He was, as far as anyone knew, a princess. This was going to be fun. The thief would enter the room soon, if they got to the living room their next stop was always the bedroom. He climbed into the box and shut the lid. With one last spell before tucking his staff away, he locked the box.

And waited.

Sure enough the thief entered the room. Even from inside the box, Yonah could hear him. This wasn’t a very good thief. He waited until the thief was clearly on the nightstand when he called out.

“Is someone out there?! Please! Help!”

Oh it was WEIRD to hear the magically generated female voice.

The thief took the bait; Yonah heard them working on the lock and then light hit his eyes.

Jack looked down into the box and sure enough there was a girl in there! A princess! How interesting.

“Oh thank you sir!” She said, sitting up and beaming at him, and he helped her out of the box. She was, taller, than Jack expected. Not as tall as himself but nearly.

“What on earth were you doing in that box?” Jack asked, keeping his voice low. The princess wasn’t as careful and had practically shouted. But he also didn’t want to order a princess to do anything.

The princess looked woeful and stained off into space. “It is that cruel giant! He locks me up whenever he leaves. He does not trust me not to run off.”

Maybe she wasn’t so stupid. If she knew the giant wasn’t around why should she be quiet. Why should he be quiet? This was great news! He had snuck in at the perfect time!

“Don’t worry, you’re free now, and after I loot the place we’ll get out of here right quick,” he said.

“I am not worried sir,” she said, “just lead the way!”

Huh, not a very timid gal. Better for him, he didn’t want to deal with someone who might faint on him.

There was nothing on the nightstand so Jack and his newfound princess explored more of the room. The princess chatted endlessly and Jack tried to tune it out.

“If I may ask” she said, not waiting for Jack’s response, “why are you looting the place?”

“Because I’m a thief,” said Jack, “It’s my job”

“But surely” said the princess, looking into one of the boxes on the dresser, “half of my father’s kingdom would be worth much more than anything here. There’s nothing in this box by the way.” But Jack was sure she slipped something into a pocket. It left his mind as he focused on something else she had said.

“Half the kingdom?”

“Of course! We are to be married! You are my rescuer!” She bounced on the balls of her feet. Her blond hair bounced too.

“I hate to break it to you,” said the thief, “but I’m not into princesses. If you were a prince, well, that would be a different story.”

This did not phase the princess one bit who replied with “Fine then, but you will still be rewarded for my rescue”

She fiddled with her dress “and truth be told, I have a true love already.”

“Oh?” said Jack, more interested in the reward than her sob story. But he let her speak as they moved onto the next room.

“Yes! A cobbler’s apprentice. They may be plain, but I love them so!” She waxed fondly, looking off into space and fluttering her eyes lids.

Despite increasing annoyance he let her go on about her love as he searched the room.

“They’re not the adventuring type, my love, and my father disapproved of our affections so he sent me away! To be rescued by someone he deemed suitable for my hand!”

It was hard to tune out her voice but he treated it as white noise as he searched. But!!! There was!!! Nothing! Arg!!! Just more magic shit! He couldn’t tell what was valuable and he didn’t have a bag of holding, just a normal ass bag.

“Hey do you know where any of the good shit is?”

The princess considered this for a long time. Jack was about to just continue his own search when she finally said.

“There’s a workbench upstairs. I don’t know much about magic, but he uses crystals and stuff, and instruments made with precious metals!”

That’s the shit he was looking for. Gold and jewels! He grabbed her hand and dragged her upstairs. Going up the stairs took a while, each step was nearly as tall as they were. By the time they reached the top they were exhausted.

“Any idea when the giant will be back?” Jack asked, breathing hard, willing his strength back.

“I wish I did. You’re *huff* lucky the wizard *huff* is away at all” she said “I’ve seen-“ she started to shake “I’ve seen him deal with thieves and…”

“And”

“He eats them!” She cried, “I’ve never seen a thief make it out of here alive! Not one.”

“Not-not even one!?”

The princess shook her head. “It’s horrible! And, and I’m so worried, every day.” she started to actually cry, “That he’ll get bored with my singing and eat me too!”

“He would eat a princess! What a monster!” said Jack, “now come on, it’s time to get those jewels and get out of here before he comes back.”

With each other’s help they climbed up the stool and onto the desk. And sure enough, there were gems! Some were ordinary or semi-precious, but they were huge! And imbued with magic, so they had to have value. But there was also a small jar with more precious gems, and one with gold dust. Jack filled his own, smaller jars, with the dust and gems.

“Ready to go?” he asked, taking her hands.

“Yes, but, just one more thing,” she said, and smiled.

The change was instantaneous. One moment Jack was holding onto the delicate hands of dainty royal, looking down into her doey eyes and the next his own hands were engulfed by new hands, the size of dinner plates, and staring at the brightly patterned shirt of wizard robes. He looked up into the face of the tallest man he had ever seen.

If he hadn’t instantly realized this was the wizard, he would have called the man handsome. He had voluminous black locks, and a powerful jaw with a nice amount of facial hair. But the dark brown eyes smiled hungrily down at his own. The wizard licked it’s full lips.

The wizard’s grip was strong and starting to hurt, but then his hands were released and the wizard stepped backwards, off the desk!

With a mighty *POOF* of grey smoke the giant, the giant wizard, towered above him, and laughed.

“Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of the human kind. It matters not the things you stole, I’ll capture you and swallow you whole!” and snatched him up in one of its hands.

Stringing Jack along been delightful, but it was time to end the charade and get his reward for a job well done. Yonah held the thief up above his open mouth.

“it is indeed, time for you to go,” he said.

Finally the thief realized what was happening and screamed as his feet entered the giant’s mouth.

“Fuck fuck FUCK!!” he couldn’t seem to say anything but obscenities as Yonah swallowed him down. He tried futilely to grab onto Yonah’s teeth but Yonah simply flicked the hands off with a finger.

Yonah wasn’t entirely sure if it was the fear, or if this human just naturally tasted really good. Soon enough the thief was in his stomach, and it gurlged happily. /Oh come now!/ he patted his gut /you know you can’t keep him!/. The thief kicked out in protest.

“You tricked me!” he shouted, almost crying, “why!? You could have just caught me right away!”

“This was more fun,” Yonah said, “and it makes for a much more satisfying meal to know you’ve earned it. You tasted amazing by the way, five stars!”

“You’re a sick bastard!” Jack shouted at him.

Even though Jack couldn’t see him, Yonah shrugged. Then he stretched, keeping on hand on his stomach so he could feel the human’s movements. “It’s my job.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better about this?!” the thief was taking his perceived demise rather well, he wasn’t begging for his life or anything. Maybe Yonah had primed him too much with the “merciless man-eater” description, this Jack didn’t seem to think he could persuade him to spare his life.

Yonah scratched his stomach and sighed deeply, “No, but this is.”

“What the-” the thief was cut off as Yonah started the process of regurgitating his captive. This thief was fairly large, he had to practically punch himself in the gut to force the thief out, and even considered reaching into his own mouth to trigger a stronger more innate reaction.

But he didn’t need to. The nearly suffocating mass of the thief made its way up his esophagus, slowly but surely. The thief slid into his waiting hands and scramble to sit up and stare in confusion at Yonah who smiled and licked drool from his lips.

“Feel better now?”

Jack shivered but nodded.

“You- you’re letting me go!? What was all that ‘no thief has left alive’ shit!?”

Oh, a talkative one! Normally they didn’t want to talk anymore. Too scared and ready to leave.

Yonah chuckled, “Surprised you didn't catch on, Jack. If I was lying about being a princess, why wouldn’t everything else be a lie as well!”

“You’re still a sick bastard” said Jack.

He slid out of Yonah’s palms and tried to wipe the spit and mucus off but he was thoroughly soaked. So he stood defiantly and tapped his foot at the now not-man-eating giant Wizard.

“What now?” He asked.

“Oh yes!”

Yonah reached into his pocket and produced a small purse and offered it to Jack. Jack blinked and took it.

“Wait, you’re giving me money!?”

“Well I can’t let you take the gems and gold dust! I need those,” said Yonah. Producing a handkerchief out of nowhere And wiping his hands clean. “And I don’t want you to leave empty handed! All that work sneaking in here would be for nothing. And if I’m right, you don’t have any money. That’s why you’re here right?”

Jack pocketed the gold. “Yes. It is.”

“Now that is settled, Jack, it really time for you to be on your way. I have to have a real breakfast.”

Jack had another idea.

“Actually! If it is not to much trouble, um,” shit he didn’t know his name! For that matter how did the wizard know his!?

“Yonah.”

“Yonah,” said Jack, “could I maybe, wash up? And if you’re making breakfast, I’m… kinda hungry too. No money and all.”

Then he added, “as long as it’s not like, human... meat...”

That shocked Yonah. Thieves asking to wash up… that was rare but it happened. But he couldn’t remember a thief who asked to stay, for a meal no less! Especially since he had just eaten them. This man had chutzpah!

“No, it’s eggs, bread, butter. Oh And fruits and vegetables from my garden.”

Jack’s eyes were going glassy as he described breakfast. When was the last time he had eaten?

“Sure, why not,” said Yonah, and he offered his palm.

The thief climbed on, not scared at all. And Yonah carried Jack back downstairs.

[Thanks for reading! please reblog! for more mystic woods go to vore-scientist.tumblr.com/tagged/+mystic+woods+story or search ‘mystic woods story’ on my blog! I’ll have a tag for thief stories soon. probably “MW Thieves”]

#safe vore #soft vore #gt vore #sfw vore #vore art

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beblebumm · 5 years

Text

lesbian mom

My sister told me I dress like a lesbian mom. With no offense meant towards lesbian mothers because as Chloe put it- if I was a lesbian mom, my style would be closer to cool. But because up to this point in life I have been straight and childless, I’m just an appropriator. Which I definitely don’t want to be by the way, but I'm an American and blind appropriation is the American way. Working on it. I’m in the kitchen in Cedar Falls finding all my last sporadic, traveled with items to shove in my XL backpack* by the time Chloe brings her new opinion up to her roommates, my family. “Cathy, don’t you think Maddie looks like a lesbian mom?” “a what? A lesbian? I didn’t hear you” ...and dad’s reaction: “oh.. did you get a surrogate then?” * (United and Frontier front like they will be strict about charging you based on the sizes of your luggage, but they won't be. Apparently my size of backpack does not count as a personal item (free) but instead a carry-on (not free). It's a glutinous excuse for a backpack. However, they don’t say shit to you when you show up on the day of your flight. In the words of my friend Grace: If it's on your back and not on wheels, you're fine. I have had to repack a backpack once, throwing on a sweatshirt and carrying socks in my hand to make it through. But you know what that was? Free.And Fyi- U.S. airlines alone made 5.1 billion bucks in extra baggage fees in 2018. Don't contribute to that mess.) * But anyways, to come to the defense of lesbian moms, I think I dress with the best intention. I don’t think I have bad taste, but I can have bad execution. It's not entirely my fault though, as I feel bigger boobs make a lot of outfits merge towards mother. Tops are always an issue because you have the possibility of looking tenty, and opposite that- the issue of looking too tucked in. It can make the attempted effortlessness come off as starchy. I also straddle this line of wannabe skater and NOT wannabe school teacher, meaning I would love to come across as someone who deserves to wear Vans and less like someone who is reading to your child over snack time. That one is harder to explain, but has a lot to do with stripes. I don't bother running all of this past her, but I told Chloe that if I was flat-chested she wouldn’t be saying this. She didn’t argue but offered to help pay for my reduction. My dad and I get in the car after I make an everything bagel with some onion flavored cream cheese. A Thomas brand bagel, of course. Because it’s the cushiest and you can find them everywhere. We love a processed carb. He drives me to the airport in his new-but-used Toyota Highlander, which doesn’t reek of cigs like his previous whip. He only likes this new car because it has a cassette player, but the low mileage is a plus. I just want to say that the Cedar Rapids airport is low entertainment. It’s a trade-off because you are through security in seconds, but you have to do things like chase after people to hand them their ID’s they left on the counter to help the employees out because we’re Iowa nice and when in the homeland you have to act right. And people wear really ugly printed leggings and foul footwear. Lots of camo and lots of Hawkeye logos, which I do not identify with despite it being my alma mater. I was caught in a very vulnerable spot with my thick and tall Doc Marten's, (not a good airport shoe but a good everyday shoe so what can you do) hunched over the ‘Get Your Shit Back Together Very Quickly Bench’ that comes after security, when I see this rushed looking, young nerd man in a long black trench coat. He LOUDLY and SO abruptly asks this similarly aged gal he was coming up behind whether her hair was red or blonde. She had long red hair with dyed blonde ends. She said “red?” and he says nothing but “HUMPH” without breaking speed at all. Why did he need to know that and also why could he not see that her hair was both colors? And if he cared so much to know, then why did he not respond? Did he think this was considered to be hitting on her?? Because practically yelling at her to inquire about her appearance is not cutting it. I wish for his sake I could at least call him a boomer but he didn't meet the age requirement. Whatever. She looked around for confirmation that what had just happened to her was so weird, which of course I gave to her by saying: “That was so weird.” The sole restaurant by the gates has Blue Moon so that’s redeeming. But it’s in a tin can which is not so good. I used to prefer a draft pour with an orange slice but I am partial to a cold bottle now, plain- no orange. It’s more consistent this way, as some places don’t clean their draft lines regularly and it shows. I met an icon on my flight today. I, of course, was assigned my usual middle seat as I am certain I paid the littlest amount of airfare out of everyone on the plane. Deals only. But as I step up to my row and make that apologetic eye contact with the dude who is about to have to move and let me assume my usual middle spot, the guy asks me if I want to switch spots with his son- WHO HAS AN AISLE SEAT. YEAH SIR, I DO. And this is how I was seated next to the only stranger I’ve had an extended conversation with on an airplane, ever. At least to the point where I was sure I wanted to be buddies with her. She was not stoked on the middle seat, but it’s the one she had in our row. The icon is named Erin and she said: “I’ve been ignoring people on planes for 20 years but you seem like an absolute riot.” I realized I also tend to spend a lot of time ignoring people on airplanes. I actually spend more time trying not to bother the people around me, aka holding urine in until I am nearly bursting because the awkward fumbling out of my usual middle seat is too much. I did, however, have slight banter with a guy sitting next to me on the way into Iowa from Denver on this same trip. All he wanted to say to me was that he had just been skiing in Vail or something. People love being able to say sentences like this, by the way. "Skiing in Vail". It's supposed to impress whoever they tell. Ok. But later on, he and I would exchange terrified eyes as we watched this awful moment unfold after an older fellow in the row across from us ignored all social rules and played his voicemails on full blast, speaker volume, for about 10 minutes. A young gentleman near us let him know that “We can all hear that!” which I would have never said but was also thinking. Obviously. The Voicemail Blarer says “Oh sorry” calmly but is very caught off guard. I thought- wow. That went well. But the Voicemail Blarer takes all of 30 seconds to stew before erupting. He belly yells that he is a “WAR VETERAN AND THAT IS WHY I CANNOT HEAR OUT OF THIS EAR WHICH IS WHY MY PHONE IS ON SPEAKER AND BY THE WAY IM ON THIS FLIGHT BECAUSE MY MOM JUST DIED AND I AM FLYING BACK TO IOWA FOR THE FUNERAL. PEOPLE LIKE YOU ARE AHHHHHHHHH KDFKSJDFLKJDFLJSDF”... I feel like the percentage of people flying to Iowa for funerals is probably a decent chunk. Either you're visiting your family or someone died. Just speculating. ANyways. The Mourning Vet Voicemail Blarer said some pretty harsh remarks towards the Complainer that I can’t remember because I was so nervous as a witness to this that my adrenaline was working overtime to suppress. I remember being proud of The Complainer as he kept very level and only said a couple words to defend himself followed by: “I’m sorry you’re going through that man but we don’t all need to hear your voicemails.” I see both sides of this interaction. On the younger Complainer dude’s side, it’s not socially courteous for the vet to be playing his voicemails out loud. Especially for ten minutes. I mean Larry David would have lost it. On the other hand, no one was insulting his status as a vet or poking fun at his late mother, but he has obviously been through more life and more challenges than I and plus he’s grieving. I don’t know. I didn’t mind the voicemails THAT much. Back to today- Erin is the second stranger I’ve met who inspired me this month. Technically this year, and technically this decade, too. Happy 2020. From what I saw, she’s a kick-ass, take no shit, lay it all on the table kind of individual. She had a natural openness about her and radiated warmness but is the type to probably gaurd herself just enough. The kind of person who you would hate to see sad. Born in cedar rapids, went to Iowa for Journalism, got her masters at Syracuse. Has lived all over- New York, London, LA (I think she said). Will not donate to her old sorority, Chi O, because she can’t affiliate with that anymore because it’s lame. But she’s loyal enough to one of her sorority besties to fly to Denver and sit with her while she undergoes a chemo treatment. She asks me about work and I say I have enough side hustles to equate to having a real job. She tells me I need a podcast and says I must have been told this before. I haven’t. But If I had one, I would have her guest star immedieately. She oozes content. Apparently, there’s such a thing as coaching people on how to talk on camera because this is her job. It can be split up into different categories based on the size of the screen. Phone, computer, TV, etc. She kept saying things about “inches”. I thought this was wildly specific, exactly the sort of job you wouldn’t think about until you thought about it. Niche. Hopefully future me is doing something niche right now. But only if I'm enjoying it. She also mentioned some clients she has that I should speak to so I can learn how to travel the world for free. I could have clung to her and never let go after she said this, as that would make my life and her encouragement inspired me. Before this though, we agree I need a credit card that rewards with airline miles instead of cashback. It’s third up on my “to-do now” list- which is different than my “to-do” list becasue that one is for things like making dentist appointments. For the things that should not be put off but can and will be. Until they can't. She asks what my sign is, which is Sagittarius. She said of course. She’s a Virgo. I have no clue what this means. People ask me this sort of thing a lot now though so I need to read up. This guy I met recently who works at Wax Trax Records told me not only extensively about my sign but about my rising moon and one other part of it that I can’t remember. Or is it your rising sign and moon sign as separates? Idk. He told me that every girl he knows has an ex-boyfriend who is a Pisces. True. Erin also told me she’s on some board in Iowa City that is currently discussing the ped mall. I had a lot to say about THAT, as I feel the ped mall has turned into wasted space other than maybe one and a half shops. She agrees. It’s not being utilized like it should be, we think. Too many frat bars. Apparently, her family owns the Bluebird cafes or used to, and I said "ooooooooh!" but that I could never get a seat in the Iowa City location because every hungover kid within a ten mile radius is trying to eat there every Saturday and Sunday morning. I also thought of the time they burned my friend Madison Wood’s toast and she sent it back. I didn’t tell her this though. I like Bluebird. And I hate when people at my table complain about the food. She tells me I'm too good to write for random freelances, which I have dipped my toes into doing. Pays like shit. I agree and listen to her tell me about someone she met when she was just one year sober (she is now ten years along) who pushed her to take charge of her own point of view. It sounded to me like she was inspired to trust and invest in herself. I liked that. As if I needed another excuse to stay out of corporate America. Right before she fell into meditation and soon to be sleep, Erin comments on my middle part and my “nice natural eyebrows” which is funny because I helped the brows out right before going through security. (By helped out, I mean makeup-ed. In the airport bathroom, too far away from the mirror, two different pencils- one chubby for careless shading and one skinnier to help the endpoints of my brow that is otherwise dead.) On the topic of my appearance, I tell her that my sister had just told me that I dress like a lesbian mother. She said she loves my sister.

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