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monstersandmaw · 1 year

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Male orc (Rhuarc) x female character - Part One (sfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me.

Thank you to the two people who explicitly expressed interest in this story via my inbox. This one's for you. Here's Rhuarc the single dad orc and his girl, and how they met. I've even got some visuals in this one too!

Content: kidnapping, attempted human sacrifice, violence, some light gore, implied age gap, older male character, single father orc x small human female

Wordcount: 4344

Rhuarc tried not to resent the fact that the Jarl of Markarth’s crusty old steward had looked him up and down as he’d stood in front of the so-called Mournful Throne, and decided that the orc was either entirely expendable or utterly stupid enough to take on an entire Forsworn camp. By himself.

Apparently it was the latter though, because with his two adopted girls waiting for his return in Whiterun, Rhuarc was most certainly not expendable these days. Perhaps twenty years ago, he might have hurled himself at the nearest frothing lunatic disrupting trade routes and abducting travellers off the roads without much care for the damage he took — the fact that he’d lost the sight in his right eye before he’d turned nineteen was testament to that — but these days, his contracts required thought and planning.

Kill the leader of Hag’s End, an old Nordic tomb complex nestled away in the frozen mountains to the northeast of Markarth.

Easy.

By himself.

Less easy.

The place was huge, and crawling with more Forsworn than termites in a mound, and there was every chance he would encounter a hagraven there too. Fuck, he hated those things. Whatever unnatural magic was used to create those half-bird, half-women, he didn’t want any part of it.

His own magic was fairly rudimentary by the standards of the average mage: a few fireballs here, a few healing spells there, and he could make a pretty decent lance out of ice if he had to. After all, orcs were known primarily for how ferociously they could bludgeon something into Oblivion, but magicka did coil its way through some of them too, and his mother had been both an alchemist and a mage.

Now though, as Rhuarc crept up behind the Briarheart warrior who led this bunch of rabid lunatics, and slipped his arm around the man’s throat to hold him still while he ripped the strange replacement heart out of the half-undead creature’s chest, he wondered exactly what kind of magic these people used that let them replace an otherwise healthy man’s beating heart with the poisoned seed of a Briarheart tree. And what special kind of lunacy allowed someone to undergo it willingly. Perhaps it wasn’t willing though? What did he know about these people?

As the orc’s fingers curled around the prickly seed that was about the size of an apple, the magic of it felt at once too cold and too hot; the way white hot metal feels in that moment of pure shock if you touch it by accident before the pain kicks in. He released the disgusting ‘heart’ and it fell with a splatter of gore onto the snowy carpet covering the cosy little platform, from where the man ruled over his clan of Forsworn. Rhuarc would have to find a scrap of cloth to wrap it in so that it didn’t leak everywhere between there and the city of Markarth, but he was looking forward to depositing it directly into the stuffy old steward’s lap as proof of the kill and the contract fulfilled.

The Briarheart warrior went instantly limp in his arms and Rhuarc laid him down silently on the frozen ground, already starting to plan his next move. A shout went up a second later from somewhere to his right — his blind side — and an arrow pinged off the bastion wall beside him. With a curse, he rolled and ducked behind the hide wall of the leader’s large tent, breathing hard. Of course he’d missed one of them, and if she alerted anyone else, or that lurking hagraven, Rhuarc was fucked. He was tired. And cold. His joints weren’t quite what they had once been, and his muscles were seizing with the cold and from crouching in dark doorways and corners on the long and winding way up to reach this part of the secret redoubt.

With a careful peek around the support structure of the leader’s tent, he realised that this new Forsworn hadn’t actually spotted him properly yet, and he hefted the haft of his war axe in his hand. Throwing a weapon away was never a great idea, but he didn’t have a bow on him, and if he called magicka to his hands, a hagraven would certainly sense it. Not a chance he wanted to take, and given that the place was called Hag’s End, he thought it pretty fucking likely that there was one of the bird-legged, psychotic matriarchs of the Forsworn roosting up at the top of the complex on that balcony almost directly above him.

So, he drew back his arm and sent the blade of his war axe whirling away to bite into the breastbone of the Forsworn before she could spot him or cry out again. She fell with the clatter and rattle of bone and fur armour, her silly antlered headdress skittering away behind her, and he was off running immediately to release the weapon from her corpse and seek a new hiding place in case the commotion had drawn others.

As it was, Rhuarc crouched for a long few minutes behind the gruesomely-displayed corpse of an elk that had been partly taxidermied by the cold and stuck on a stake, with his breath billowing all around him, and the stillness of snow in the air. Had he got them all? He was spattered all up one side of his body with blood and even had a red streak in his otherwise white hair that he’d shaved close to his skull above his ears and left long enough to tie back into a ponytail on top. What a mess. Still, it would be worth the groaning bag of coin he was going to get for clearing the whole bloody encampment and making The Reach a little bit safer for travellers.

Just as he’d begun to relax, half thinking of getting the girls each a new dress with his earnings, a scream like nothing he’d ever heard before tore the silence in two and his blood went cold.

It had come from the balcony above him where a spar of stonework jutted out into the winter sky like the bowsprit of a ship, and it hadn’t been the harsh shriek of a hagraven. The scream had come from a woman in blind, abject terror, and the sound of it shocked him back to his feet before he’d even realised it.

Rhuarc thundered up the stone stairs behind him and shouldered open the carved doors of the inner sanctum of the tomb, plunging into the relative darkness without stopping to think.

Not thinking was a sure way to get himself killed, and by some miracle of the fates, he skidded to a halt just in time to avoid a pressure plate in the floor that would no doubt have unleashed some kind of magical or poisoned trap on him. Whoever lived here clearly didn’t let just anyone inside, and blundering around like a panicked mammoth wasn’t going to help anyone.

“Think, you thick-skulled orc,” he growled at himself, chest heaving and heart pounding in his ears like a war-drum. He was only a few heartbeats away from slipping into that infamous, orcish berserker rage, and he never ever wanted to find himself on the far end of a state of mind like that again. Caked in blood and viscera and surrounded by an array of corpses with no memory of how they had been felled… He shuddered and forced himself to steady his breathing before moving on.

What he confronted as he wound his way carefully and methodically through the dark, blood-stained hallways of the upper Nordic tomb proved to be as great a test of his prowess with blade and his magic as any he’d ever faced in his forty-six years.

Savage witches clad in long, magicka-laced, black robes hurled spells and curses at him that he only just dodged or warded in time to sink his axe into their skulls, but what made his skin crawl the most was the hagraven who seemed to be taunting him, letting him get one or two shots in before a swirl of purple and black magic enveloped her and she vanished to somewhere else in the complex.

Was she an illusion? Had he lost his mind or, worse, accidentally imbibed some poison from one of his victims that was making him hallucinate? He’d spotted enough deadly mushrooms growing in the dank corners of the dungeon that the suspicion remained, even as he ploughed on through the coven of crazed witches towards the woman who had let out that heart-rending scream.

Just as he sensed he was gaining the top of the tower, the hagraven disappeared amid a final storm of eerie, flickering magicka, leaving him alone in an echoing chamber at the top of a staircase lined with mortuary shelves.

Over to his left, an arcane enchanting table crackled with residual magicka from a recent use, the blueish runes on its onyx surface glowing in the dim light, and on his right, an ancient monument reared up like a tombstone, carved with a script he couldn’t read. He had no time for any of that, and paused just long enough with his hand on the last door to gather his breath and the last ragged remains of his strength, before shoving all his weight into swinging them open and stepping out onto the snowy balcony beyond.

A blast of freezing air hit him full in the face, but it wasn’t the cold that stole his breath and his senses.

There on a low, wide, stone altar, a Nord woman had been bound hand and foot, stretched out and completely naked, and she was thrashing weakly despite the wounds at her wrists and ankles from the ropes. Tears tracked pale lines through the dirt on her face and her bare chest heaved with broken, choking sobs as she arched her back in futile protest.

Over her prone figure loomed the emaciated figure of a hagraven with a glinting, black dagger raised in her taloned hands.

Rhuarc didn’t think.

He hurled a bolt of ice at the creature, and might have been surprised to find that it had actually struck her right in the stomach if he hadn’t already been concentrating on drawing the ambient moisture into his hand to freeze into another shard of ice as thick as a tree limb. The hagraven let out a shriek that should have made his ears bleed, and hurled a fireball at him for the indignity of him getting a hit in first.

Searing flames exploded all around him and he smelled singeing, though he wasn’t sure if it was his fur armour or his own skin, and he didn’t care. He leapt forwards, diving into a roll in the snow to douse any lingering flames, and as he came up he launched a second spike of ice directly at the hagraven’s weathered, distorted face. Her black, beady eyes narrowed and she bared rotten teeth with a snarl as she clenched her clawed hand and prepared to fling a second fireball at him.

Rhuarc had closed the distance between them in a few powerful strides though, and before she’d finished the spell, he grabbed her by her flimsy arm and felt the snap of it breaking in his grip as he yanked her away from the altar. Before she could even muster a screech, he lopped her head off with his axe. He didn’t stop to watch her abandoned carcass slide over the edge of the parapet, down into the void of snow and cooling corpses below, and turned instead to the woman laid out on the table.

The dagger had fallen from the hagraven’s claws to land beside her right hand and she was reaching frostbitten fingers for it.

“Easy,” Rhuarc said, holstering his messy axe at the loop on his belt and realising he probably looked as frightening as the hagraven had. Six foot six and broad as a barn door at the shoulder, Rhuarc now had blood all up his face from one of the witches, a nasty burn on his shoulder that was only just now making itself known, and a long cut on his abdomen that was oozing blood down his solid paunch. As he’d got older, he’d lost the iron definition he’d had in his youth, but he was probably the strongest now that he’d ever been in his life.

No wonder the woman was staring wild-eyed at him like he was some animal barbarian, but his heart physically hurt in his chest when he saw the welts and bruises standing out starkly on her pale, Nordic complexion. Her long, midnight black hair was loose and lank and greasy, her lip was split and swollen, and there was a vibrant, purple bruise all around her left eye socket. Those dark brown eyes glared up at him with fierce defiance though, and her fingers found the hilt of the knife.

He smiled. “I know I look a sight,” he said in a low, quiet rumble, holding both hands up, bloody palms towards her. “I’m gonna help you though. Let’s get you healed up and out of here. I’m not sure what you can wear though…”

“My… My clothes are in… were in… a chest… in there,” she croaked, twitching her head slightly towards the chamber he’d just left. The swelling in her lip clearly made talking painful, and she sounded like she hadn’t had any water for days. That, or the thick, raw, red line around her throat was responsible, flanked by distinct, finger-sized bruises the colour of a ripe plum. It made his orc blood boil to see marks like that on a person’s body, but he made himself focus on the more immediate task of helping her.

“Alright. I’ll untie you — may I use that dagger?”

She nodded and reluctantly let her fingers go loose again. With the rope lashed so tightly around her wrist, she didn’t have enough purchase to lift her hand free of the hilt, so Rhuarc carefully slid his bloody fingers underneath hers and he eased the blade out.

Concentrating, he sawed steadily through the thick rope, and she hissed as she flexed her fingers when the rope finally sheared and one arm came free. The raw chafing showed him just how hard she’d fought her captors, and he found the warmth of pride glowing in the pit of his stomach for this stranger and her resilience. Methodically, Rhuarc moved his way around the table to free her ankles next before finally cutting the ropes binding her left arm to the cold table, and all the while keeping his eyes off her naked body as best he could.

“We need to get you somewhere sheltered. Can you sit up?”

She tried valiantly when he asked, but her strength failed her in a rush and she slumped back down with a gasp.

Rhuarc dropped the knife to the stone at his feet and stuck his right hand under her head just in time to stop her cracking her skull on the stone platform of the altar, and he cradled her lolling head in the palm of his hand. His already-bruised knuckles clunked against the altar under the full weight of her head as she surrendered at last, spent.

“Easy,” he said. “I’ve got some magic. I’m going to heal you, alright? Keep steady, then we’ll find you some clothes and get you out of here.”

Her dark eyes rolled as the golden light of healing magic washed around her, and she slumped at last into unconsciousness.

Rhuarc picked her up with detached efficiency and carried her out of the biting wind and back into the tower that formed the top part of the tomb’s inner sanctum, marvelling at the Nord’s resilience to the cold. He knew that her people were tougher than most humans in these conditions, but still, with everything she’d been through, she probably should be dead.

Her small body was soft where many Nords were made of hard muscle, and he suspected that she had not been raised to be a fighter. That the Forsworn would snatch her away from whatever battle-free life she’d led before and defile her like this made his blood sing all over again and his hands itched to sink his axe into a nice, crunchy, Forsworn skull. He let the thought go with a growl around his thick tusks and shouldered the doors open.

With her pressed against his bare chest, he felt the tingle of magic in her blood too, and he recalled the way her body had drunk his own restoration magic down like water poured onto dry sand. Perhaps the fact that she was probably a mage had been why the hagraven had been about to sacrifice her in that unholy ritual.

Inside the echoing, stone room with the enchanting table, Rhuarc found the chest she’d mentioned, and he crouched down awkwardly in front of it with her half-draped across his lap, her naked body propped up by his right arm. He really didn’t want to have to use one of the beds in the tower that the witches had clearly slept in, but if the woman needed to rest, then he would stay with her and see that she was safe.

Just as he was fiddling one-handed with the catch of the chest, which luckily wasn’t locked, she drew in a deeper breath and came-to with a mewling sob of discomfort. Her bare legs were touching the floor and the room wasn’t much warmer than the air outside because of a huge hole in the ceiling, but at least they were out of the wind.

“I know,” he said without looking at her. “I’m going to find you something to wear. Just give me a second.”

“Thank you,” she rasped, and the sound became a sob as she squirmed in his arms, trying to curl inwards on herself. Whether that was to cover her naked body better or simply because she was hurting in every way humanly possible, he wasn’t sure. “Thank you. I thought that was it, when… when she… she —”

“Shh,” he said, briefly tightening his hold around her shoulders with a slight curl of his right arm, worried that if she grew too distressed, he might drop her. “It’s over now. You’re safe.”

“Thank you,” she said again, and then added with a little sniffle, “My name is Syl, by the way.”

“Rhuarc,” he grunted, finally lifting the lid of the chest. “This your stuff?”

She peered forward and nodded. An undyed linen shirt and brown trousers had been roughly stuffed into the wooden chest, along with a pair of softly-worn, fur-lined boots, a thick, fur-lined jacket, and a small alchemist’s pouch that fitted on a belt around the hips. He had something similar himself for the road, choosing to forgo the usual traveller’s pack with a bedroll and cooking pot. He hunted or foraged for what he needed and cooked it over an open fire and slept under the stars when he absolutely had to, but mostly, he actually planned his journeys to halt at an inn for the night these days, because he was too damned old now to be sleeping out of doors in the grass like a bloody wild boar. He also thought he glimpsed some linen underwear and wrappings in the chest too, but he didn’t let his gaze linger.

“You… need a hand?” he asked quietly, but she shook her head.

“I can just kneel here for a moment. I’ll be alright,” she said in a steady, if rough voice. “Thank you.”

He nodded once. “I’ll be over there,” he said, gesturing vaguely with his thumb over his left shoulder.

He helped her slide off his lap where he’d crouched beside the chest, and steadied her briefly with a hand at the small of her spine to stop her tipping backwards. Her flesh was still cold from lying out there on the table, but she couldn’t have been out there for too long before he’d found her, or she’d have died of exposure. Even a Nord couldn’t survive naked in the snow for very long.

Only then, with his rough palm pressed against the pale softness of her skin, did it strike him that it had actually been a very long time since he’d seen another naked body, and the feel of her skin beneath the calluses of his palm distantly stirred the cold embers of desire in him that had lain dormant and out of mind for longer than he cared to remember. Even for an orc, he wasn’t exactly short of people showing interest, but it just… hadn’t been something he’d wanted. Then of course, he’d found himself the adoptive father of a pair of ten and eleven year old girls, and all thoughts of romance and the so-called ‘Dibellan arts’ had evaporated completely from his life like autumn mist.

With a sigh, he banished the faint and inappropriate sensation and levered himself stiffly to his feet. As he did, he felt the cut in his lower belly pull with a sharp prick of pain and when he looked down at it, he found it already suppurating. His thick, naturally green, orcish skin had turned a nasty, angry red around the slash and something was oozing out of it that wasn’t blood. Poison. Fuck.

Glancing around the room, he wondered if there were any ingredients stashed way that the witches would have used, but he was in the wrong part of their stronghold for that and anyway, who knows what they might have been brewing in there? Thinking about what limited stocks he kept in the emergency pouch on his belt, he drew out two carefully-sealed glass bottles and tipped their contents into the cupped palm of his left hand. It was hardly ideal, but it would do for now, and he smeared it onto the open wound.

The flash of pain made him grunt, but with a soft fizzing, the powders got to work and nullified the festering poison before it could spread.

“Rhuarc?”

When he turned around at the sound of her voice, he found Syl looking at him from where she was still kneeling in front of the wooden chest.

“Are you alright?” she asked with a frown.

Her alto was still hoarse and rasping, and he wondered if she was still in pain. “I’m fine. Are you? Did I heal you enough?”

At his question, she smiled, and something in his chest slipped sideways when he saw it.

How could a woman who’d just been through the torment she had experienced still find the grace to smile like that? And at an orc of all creatures.

“Yes,” she said, and, now that she was dressed, she stood slowly; cautiously.

She wasn’t very tall for a human, perhaps five foot five at most, and her body seemed somehow even smaller in her loose-fitting, practical clothes. He could clearly see the swell of her hips though, and the definite curve of her breasts, and her dark eyes looked very large as she regarded him. In an attempt to tidy herself up, she had tied her lank, black hair back off her face in a low ponytail, but she still looked like she’d taken one hell of a battering, despite the healing magic.

And yet, there she was on her own two feet, and her resilience was suddenly as devastatingly attractive to him as were her natural good looks. Rhuarc swallowed thickly, utterly floored by what he was feeling for the first time in decades.

“You’re hurt,” she said, eyeing the wound in his stomach.

He felt her open herself up to start channelling magicka, and his own mismatching eyes went wide. “No, don’t!” he gasped, taking an involuntary step towards her and holding out both hands in a kind of warding gesture. “Please, you need to conserve your energy. I’ll heal myself in a moment. I was just waiting for the poison to work its way out first.” No point sealing up the cut with all the vileness still inside, after all.

Syl walked slowly towards him, moving like a black cat along a wall, with her gaze focused on his bare paunch.

Rhuarc’s breath caught and he froze. He couldn’t have moved so much as a muscle then, even if an army of hagravens had descended on him.

When Syl came to a halt in front of him, she brought her fingertips up to touch the fevered flesh around the wound. Very carefully, she let a tiny thread of golden magic seep into him, and he honestly did not mean to let out the noise that left his lips. He hadn’t even known he was still capable of making a sound like that.

Pleasure curled deep and visceral in his gut, both from the whisper-light contact of her fingertips against the trail of hair on his stomach, and from the way her magic coiled and twisted inside him, stitching him up from the inside out and cleansing the last of the poison’s putrefaction in the same deft stroke. She wasn’t just some hedge witch with a little magic: Syl had to be a master of the school of restoration with a healing that skilled.

“There,” she breathed. “Just looks a bit of a mess now,” she added, eyeing the blood that still covered him in a series of spatters and smears.

He couldn’t catch his breath for a moment, but he cleared his throat and stepped back. “Not much different from usual then,” he said a beat too late and painfully aware that his gruff bass sounded far more winded than when he had fought his way through the entire complex to reach her. “Thank you.”

With a long inhale, she let her hand fall back against her side and turned her big, dark eyes up to regard him. “So… what happens now?”

I hope you enjoyed this one? I'm fairly certain most people aren't going to read down to this point, so if you did, please consider reblogging it to help it find more of an audience, and give Rhuarc and Syl some love?

And if you want to learn more about how they fall in love on their journey away from Hag's End, be sure to leave me an ask or a comment! Otherwise I'll assume there's no interest and won't keep sharing it. :)

Masterlist | Ko-fi (tip jar)

#rhuarc the orc #orc #orc x human #male orc x female human #single dad orc #fantasy orc #exophilia #orc boyfriend #monster boyfriend #monster dad

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vintagerpg · 5 months

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I have said before, and I guess will never stop saying, that I can’t quite wrap my brain around the DL-series adventures that make up the initial core Dragonlance experience. It meanders in surprising ways that, at least in this case, was probably expensive to produce. This is DL11: Dragons of Glory (1986). It isn’t an adventure module, but rather a strategy game that encompasses the entirety of the War of the Lance. It comes in a heavy cardstock folder, has heavy die-cut cardboard counters and two very big hex maps that display the entirety of the continent of Ansalon (which, admittedly, are pretty sharp); it doesn’t really look like any other ’80s TSR product.

I can’t really evaluate the actual strategy game without playing it, and I am not gonna do that. It looks…OK, neither particularly deep, no particularly lacking, laid out in just 8 pages. It gets the job done I guess. It also doesn’t mesh with any other of TSR’s available rules for mass combat (War Machine was in the Companion Rules in ’83, Battle System came out in ’85, the hybrid of both was in X10: Red Arrow, Black Shield in ’85, which amusingly, uses the bottom half of the painting that this module uses the top half of for its cover). It’s also distinct from the previous DL mass combat stuff (which was watered down Battlesystem, iirc), though I think all that was tactical rather than strategic? I guess all these things are tactical, now that I am thinking about it.

Regardless, sticking a strategy game in the series here, three modules from the end, seems odd. Did Dragonlance players really want this? Did it enrich the experience of the greater campaign? The action of the novels and the modules takes place in what is really a small portion of the overall war, so I can’t imagine using this as an integrated backdrop for the campaign, as the rulebook suggest. Aside of the fact that, like, most DL campaigns were 2+ years in when this dropped. I dunno. It’s strange.

#roleplaying game #dungeons & dragons #tabletop rpg #rpg #d&d #ttrpg #Dragonlance #Dragons Of Glory #DL11 #TSR #noimport

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tokiro07 · 6 months

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Undead Unluck ch.202 thoughts

[Wake-Up Call]

(Contents: battle analysis - Language/Ichico/Nico, speculation - Feng)

NO! DIGNITY! FOR! FENG!!!

I don't care what happens in the rest of this fight, Feng getting dragged in half-naked, unconscious and drooling is the funniest thing that could have possibly happened in this moment, and I love it. Keep pushin' this man down the stairs, Tozuka, you'll only make me love him more

As much as I want to go on a tirade about how endearing L101 Feng is compared to the psychopath from L100, there's a good handful of details in this chapter that I want to focus on

For me, the detail that stuck out the most in my mind is the fact that Lan created a loophole to circumvent the "N" rule in Shiritori. So long as the Japanese word doesn't end in "N," it's fair game, and I'm willing to bet that even if she does end with the Japanese "N," she'll say that she still has a valid move with the other language word, so it's valid. With this knowledge, the already unbalanced game has tipped even further in Lan's favor, which rang a very familiar bell for me: "You're a UMA and you can't even follow the rules?" Nico once praised UMA conceptually for their adherence to rules, that they must abide by the changes to science that they embody, and yet both Ghost and Language have demonstrated that they aren't above cheating, both in regards to Nico specifically

Lan's ability to conjure things that don't exist with properties that they otherwise shouldn't have (Shenlong is a storm dragon, and yet she made it breathe fire 🙄) pretty squarely lands her among the category of "unscientific Rules," which L100 Nico bluntly declared were "an enemy to science and to [him]." Basically, Lan can just make up whatever she wants; things don't have to be accurate so long as she can imagine them working in her favor. Sure, it's better if she can justify a thought, like creating the Lance of Longinus rather than just a regular lance, but even then, the Lance of Longinus is really just a regular lance that was used in an important moment. I guess maybe it's an Artifact with special properties, but it's noticeably lacking the stylized Fu (不) kanji that is typically indicative of Artifacts, so I think she's deliberately basing it off the legend and attributing special abilities to it because of its notoriety

In short, Lan can just headcanon whatever she wants into existence as long as she can justify it contextually. She mentions the Shinto concept of "kotodama," the idea that words have power in and of themselves, and is using it to enhance her concepts. In the first round, she created a meteor and specified that it was made of iron so that it would have maximum offensive output...for a normal meteor. If, however, she had the opportunity to say a word like, oh, I don't know...Chicxulub Impactor? She would still be summoning a meteor, but she'd also be summoning the meteor. The prototypical idea of how dangerous meteors can be, the accepted cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs! Now, maybe she wouldn't have been able to summon a meteor with quite that much destructive power, or she'd be worried about getting caught in the blast, but theoretically that would have been pretty much a game-ender

Picking a word with a clear definition is one thing, but picking one with a specific connotation? In a fight between imaginations, word association is a powerful tool, which I think is why Ichico's Umibozu ended up being such a weak defense against Shenlong. She was just scrambling for any mythological creature, but she doesn't seem to have any idea what an Umibozu is or what it's capable of. Dragons are associated with destruction and fire and invulnerability, and just about anyone can tell you that, but Umibozu are pretty specific; they sink ships. Ichico doesn't seem to know that, and in fact didn't even imagine the generally accepted shape of an Umibozu, instead making something that looks more akin to an oni or maybe a namahage. Some fans have speculated that Ichico, living in Britain, may be a diaspora and unfamiliar with her Japanese heritage, but regardless, she's definitely unfamiliar with her peoples' mythology. If she had been, not only could she have at least made an Umibozu that was the right shape and size, she might even have chosen something more appropriate for fighting a dragon - from Shen Long's [G], Ichico would have been better served summoning [G]rass Cutter, or Kusanagi no Tsurugi, a weapon associated with the slaying of Yamata no Orochi and which was said to have been used to control wind in order to divert flames, giving it a clear advantage against both Shenlong's scales and fire breath

Buuut that's not what happened, and Ichico's inability to think of a proper word had the narrative utility of A) showing that she could participate too, B) showing how souls can be damaged during this game of Shiritori, and C) giving Nico a bit of a push towards being able to perceive souls. The idea that the imaginary can be made manifest in this game is clearly starting to have something of an effect on Nico's perceptions, and Ichico summoning a knock-off Umibozu without his being aware of it is the most concrete evidence he's gotten so far that Ichico is present at all (aside from moving the Psycho Pods last week). The more evidence he has of her presence, the more willing he'll be to believe in souls, and eventually he'll just accept them and be able to interact with them normally

Once Nico fully accepts souls, he'll have a much easier time damaging Lan; we've already established that hitting her with lightning won't cut it, so nearly any other physical attack is going to similarly fail. However, damaging her soul will be much more effective, since that's a more direct source of her life and power. In fact, she practically told us that her soul is her weakness: "kotodama," the soul of words. The words she summons with her imagination carry her soul in them. Beast summoned, controlled, and assimilated beasts by extending his soul to them and devouring parts of theirs, so it would make sense if Lan's words aren't just summons, but constructs made of her very soul. I'm sure it's a bit more complex than that, since none of Nico's words hurt himself and the meteor's destruction didn't hurt Lan, but at the very least, things that don't already exist seem to tie directly to the user's soul. Feng defeating Shenlong will likely prove this hypothesis next week

Speaking of Feng! While I'm sure many people are upset that Tella didn't end up teaming up with Nico, there really isn't anyone more perfect for this fight now that we understand the mechanics of it

Sure, Feng doesn't really seem to be the imaginative type, nor does he have literally any linguistic capabilities beyond Mandarin, but A) he's the best hand-to-hand fighter in the entire series, making him excellent for both offense and defense against whatever Lan is liable to throw at the team, and B) he's the only other character outside of the current arc to ever acknowledge souls. If the main goal of this fight is to further the collective understanding of souls, then giving Nico access to both of the L101 Negators with explicit understanding of their souls is absolutely the ideal path. Not only will Feng likely give Nico a method of actually communicating with Ichico, but we're also most likely finally going to understand what L100 Feng meant by "I've got the hang of this soul thing." Even if the current Feng hasn't actually learned it though and his line about "having a firm grasp on [his] soul" was unrelated, this is still a fantastic opportunity for him to retroactively learn that lesson

Also! Going back to the idea of kotodama, one common application of the concept that you're all likely familiar with is the kiai, the spirited shout that martial artists perform during strikes. As near as I can find, Chinese martial arts don't have a term for it, but the custom is still practiced, the idea being that the shout invigorates the attacker and intimidates the defender, increasing the power behind the attack. Stating attack names also fulfills this purpose, so even if Feng doesn't understand the core concept of kotodama, merely giving his strikes a name should exponentially increase their effectiveness against Lan, as their identification should give Feng a clearer image of their intended outcome. A Zessho Hohou should be able to pierce right through her body no problem, and a Hakkai Zanko would probably send her to meet Luna

Again though, this is just speculation, and things will likely end up going much differently. Still, if I've illustrated anything here, I hope it's that Feng's presence has a lot more potential beyond "strongest fighter defends physically weakest fighters." Honestly, the thing I'm most excited about beyond the power development is seeing how Feng interacts with Nico specifically, cus that's a duo I never expected to see and I have zero clue how it's going to go down

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

#undead unluck #fouryearsandananime #4y1a reviews #this ended up being a pretty long one and I still feel like I forgot something

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coimbrabertone · 5 months

Text

I Guess We Gotta Talk About Andretti...

So, I've been rather negative when it comes to modern F1 on this blog, and unfortunately, we gotta go there again this week.

So, this week, at Indycar's Long Beach Grand Prix - which turned into a pretty good race at the end - Mario Andretti was interviewed when it comes to his son, Michael's, bid to bring Andretti to Formula One as an eleventh team.

Mario, the 1978 Formula One World Champion, said that he's offended and finds it ridiculous that F1 has rejected the application, that Andretti has worked hard to create a deal with GM, has promised to support drivers in F2 and F3, and that value is added to Formula One by having an eleventh team. Basically, Andretti has met every hurdle that FOM has put ahead of them, and what have the FOM and the teams done in turn?

The teams are trying to get a ten-team limit put into the new Concorde Agreement.

Do I think that Andretti would instantly fix all my problems with modern F1? No.

Do I think F1 would be more interesting with another team? Yes.

Why? Because first of all, so many drivers have been stuck on the outside because there's too few seats in F1. Felipe Drugovich is doing fuck all this season because he couldn't get an F1 drive as a runaway F2 champion. Theo Pourchaire, the next F2 champion, is about to do his second Indycar race this weekend with Arrow McLaren. Mick Schumacher, Callum Ilott, and Robert Shwartzman are all in sports cars after super promising F3 and F2 careers. Marcus Armstrong is in Indycar, Louis Deletraz in IMSA, etc, etc.

Even Oscar Piastri, who has one of the most successful junior careers of recent memory, had to take a year off and ended up debuting with McLaren instead of Alpine.

All of these guys who could have F1 seats are instead doing amazing things in other series. Meanwhile, Lance Stroll has an Aston seat because his dad owns the team, Yuki Tsunoda has an Alpha Tauri seat because Honda wants a Japanese driver, and Daniel Ricciardo is his teammate for reasons that even Red Bull seems puzzled about at this point.

Adding two seats in F1 could improve that situation.

At least one of those seats would likely go to an American, and maybe Logan Sargeant has soured some people's tastes towards that, but hey, if you're going to have three races in the US, you're gonna need American talent to help support that interest.

Haas sure as hell isn't doing a good job of being an American team. Hell, Haas isn't doing a good job of much of anything. They have no ambition, they have two safe, boring, older drivers who will score a few points every once in awhile and let the team collect its prize money check at the end of the season. There's nothing exciting about that, Haas isn't going to have some young charger to breathe life into the back of the grid, Haas isn't going to master the 2026 regulations and give some amazing Brawn storyline, they don't even make their own cars - they have Dallara do it.

Andretti is going to have more ambition than that, I can guarantee that if nothing else. Andretti has three full time cars in Indycar, a bunch of cars in Indy Lights, two cars in IMSA in association with Wayne Taylor Racing, and is potentially laying the groundwork for a move into NASCAR as well.

Marco Andretti is in Trucks while Gainbridge, a major investor in Andretti, has been popping up on the Spire cars, along with rumors that Gainbridge and Andretti wanting to buy into the team.

All of this along with a share in an Australian Supercars team, a Formula E team, and Extreme E. They're a global team that isn't afraid to spend money. They're trying to win championships in series across the world.

F1 doesn't think all of that is good enough.

Why? Because that would mean the teams have to split money eleven ways instead of ten. That's it. That's the entire reason.

Paddock space? Space for twenty-six cars is written into the rules.

Value added? Look at all that stuff above, Andretti isn't coming to F1 to fuck around, and even if it was, half the grid is doing the same thing.

It's all about the money.

As much as I fully believe Andretti is overqualified for F1, I almost want them to say fuck it and abandon F1, put the money into the rest of your series. Marcus Ericsson, Kyle Kirkwood, and Colton Herta are competitive each and every week in an Indycar series where being a few tenths off could put you at the back of the field. The #10 and #40 WTR Andretti cars in IMSA are major championship threats. Plus, if Andretti can get that Spire deal and get into NASCAR, that's a sport that's experiencing its own resurgence in popularity.

I know NASCAR is very much focused in the US but having 4.3 million viewers for Talladega this last weekend is four times the ratings that F1 pulls, and everyone's talking about how big F1 is becoming in the US. F1 is getting all these American sponsors and American races, but whenever it comes to letting more Americans into the sport, there's always this hostility.

Motorsports is more than just F1, and the more F1 turns up its nose at the rest of motorsports, the more it alienates fans like me.

Which is a damn shame, because F1 was my first love in motorsports.

#f1 #formula 1 #formula one #motorsports #racing #indycar #imsa #formula #formula e #formula 2 #formula 3 #Mario Andretti #Michael Andretti #Andretti

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bitchkay · 2 months

Note

The court of darkness tag is looking lonely. Who’s your favorite consort and why?

I'm indecisive😶

I feel like this is common knowledge but I'm so deeply in love with Tino

kaytino is so real

He makes me so fuzzy inside🥰🥰

Tino is just such good soul, it genuinely hard to hate him like if you don't like Tino I don't trust you, im not talking hes just not your taste cus we all like different flavors no like if you genuinely dislike the man just say you hate green flags🙄✋🏽

Tinos just so considerate and accommodating and he has to be cus he deals with Lynt everyday who most notably takes life at his own pace but hes also so incredibly kind with these qualities to back him up

Tinos truely a nurturer at heart and takes great pride in taking care of the people he cares about but hes also a person you can really put your trust in an relax around, you wanna take care of him as much as he wants to take care of you

I think also because hes a person you can really trust is why I wanna fuck him so bad--

NO CUS--

Tino would never hurt me, not intentionally anyway plus Tinos a fucking freak in the sheets I would genuinely let him do whatever he wants to me

And Tino usually nervous and unsure of himself so when he takes control I'm like😳✨✨✨

I need him carnally

Baby girls can also be Daddys🙄✋🏽

Another obvious one but I love love love Rio, hes my man

My man my man my man

Hes so friends to lovers coded and I love me some friends to lovers

Hes so sweet and nice but also so open minded and sure of himself

Hes also a foodie, you cant go wrong with a boy that keeps you fed

Sometimes I feel like we go a little bit far with the whole him being oblivious thing cus hes not fully oblivious, at least to the definition of oblivious like yeah I love my himbo king and I love them when they're a little bit stupid but hes not child, I'd be more concerned with him not understanding the basic mechanics of sex as a grown adult then him just not getting the jist of certain things or cues the first time around

Sometimes it's funny, hilarious even but I digress

I feel like I've said this a bunch of times already but Rio just gives off this nostalgic feeling of new experiences almost like young love but not

Its like a growing feeling, like a love that can only get deeper with age, a love that started from nothing but a seedling into a well nurtured flower

Not just growing but growing together, figuring it out, helping eachother

Hes also so gentle like Rios 6'2 and buff, he knows his strength and doesn't wanna hurt you

My gentle giant♡

I would sit on his

That too anyway--

I would sit on his back while he does push up

And I'd praise him saying hes so strong

I'd be like Rio you're so strong☺️☺️

and hed be like thank you sunbeam and flex his biceps for me♡

Rios also good with kids

Rio would make an amazing father

I would know

Anyway

I also wanna fuck

Rios sexy yall

And hes also a person you can really trust like Rios not the type of person to betray someone trust if anything I think Rio would treat other people's trust as a gift and holds it with pride

In others words if he wanted me to do a split on it IMMA DO A SPLIT ON IT‼ 🤸🏽‍♀️🤸🏽‍♀️

Anyway lastly Lance

My husband

Need it say more I love Lance with all my heart

Its pretty much all here

I love his mind and the way he thinks, I feel like Lance doesn't think hes a good person but in his heart he is, perhaps he doesn't follow the rules all the and talks back but his moral compass has never been wrong

Listen when I say I like bad boys I don't mean the leather jacket motorcycle vandalism type, I mean, would overthrow the government if he had the chance, questions authority and would break the law for a person in need

The leather jacket and motorcycle stuff is a plus tho--

Lance's worldview comes largely from the fact that he spent a good portion of his childhood raised by his mother living out of a beat up tent in the desert and really poor, he was apart of the resistance before he found out he was the son of the king and even then hid the fact that he was a prince from the resistance so he can still help them

Something I really like about Lance is his unexpected kindness, lance is mean, hes rude, he has impenetrable walls built up around himself but hes also respectful to those that deserve respect, and theres not one time where he sees someone that needs help and doesn't do it

He likes animals and animals like him too, children like him, I'm sure old people like him aswell

He kinda reminds me of Ryoji Ryukai from bad boys do it better but with less teenage angst lol and a little less of a tsundere

Also I wanna try Lance's smokes🤭🤭

Irian cigars👀👀

What's their weed like

You're telling me the smoke is purple⁉️⁉️

Lance dosen't smoke much after getting with MC which is understandable however I wanna try it like

I happen to be an enjoyer of oui'd

We can exchange 💨💨

You hit my dap I'll hit your pipe we give each other feedback

I'm talking as if I'm a stoner guys I swear I'm not

Don't do drugs kids😠☝🏽

Anyway

Me and Lance are actually pretty similar in the way we operate and carry ourselves

Very independent and like our own space but a good listener and open minded, opinionated but susceptible to change.

Something I really like about Lance and Mc is that MC is the yapper and Lance is the listener, and I think that's really beautiful I think every yapper needs their listeners and it's cute cus even if he may look uninterested he really is hanging on to every word she says♡

I wanna be his listener♡

I know lance doesn't express himself as much but I know he also has things to say and I wanna be the one to listen to him

Maybe he doesn't have much to say I'll still ask him how his day went♡ I'm interested in you baby, I like to hear your voice♡

I also Lance's I love voice, like every time I hear it I'm like😩😩

I hear on the title screen and I'm done for😵💫

No cus all hes saying is 'Makai Ouji to miwaku no nightmare' but his voice us so deep and sexy I want him

Lance's voice actor really deserves that raise, they feeding the girlies good😌

I also wanna fuck him

Lance is in fact the hottest character in this game I'm sorry I had to tell the truth

If I was to rank the characters on attractiveness I would in fact put Lance at the top yes I would

Cus lance is so fineee

I wanna oil him up and throw him on the bed😩

Or the other way around👀

Either or👀

Lance has never disappointed in an epilogue that's my man right there

Freak in the fucking sheets

It started with his mischief ending.

#kay answers #court of darkness #tino maes #valentino maes #rio voleri #lance ira

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pink-gladioli · 5 months

Text

it has come to my attention that we as a fandom dont talk about axl enough so leave any headcannons/theories/rewrites you have about him!

imma go a rant bellow read more

okay so we all know that axl comes from diggionton or however the heck you spell it right? and he has no last name, my reasoning is that diggington just aint that big so people don't need last names. also most of his family seems to follow the axl name so maybe it kinda works a serionirty thing? like as soon as a son is born the axl name gets passed down onto them and the father becomes "papa" or senior axl.

now when it comes to backstories i feel that axl has a pretty good one, he wanted to become a knight but his dad wanted him to stay home and run the family inn. however i feel like if we were charactize axl as less of a brute, dumb, hungry, pessant boy which lets be honest is what the show paints him as, we would have to a slightly different route. we know that axl was one of the 3 nexo knights that actually wanted to become a knight (lance cleary didn't and aarron doesn't seem to care he just doesn't like all the rules that come with knighthood) so lets use that.

maybe his dad was supportive on him becoming a knight because like we need at least one knight with a good family, it could also show how despite the fact axl wasn't the richest of the group or the most academically smart he was the happiest, but they didn't have the money to pay for the entrance exam or access to a good libary/teacher were axl could learn (remember knighton may be very advance technologically but not socially) so its more of a dream than anything.

however maybe somehow there could be another way to get into the academy and that could be by a recomenidation of a seinor knight. but maybe all the knights in digginton didn't want to bother with writing a letter of recomendation or were just bad knights.

maybe there could have been a grand event were lets say a house caught on fire and no one was willing to go in to save idk whats something innocent, a baby or smth, then boom axl runs in, saves the baby or whatever it is, gets burned in the process and while most of the knights don't admit to the fact that this preteen boy had more guts than them and was willing to risk his life to safe something that couldn't protect itself. lets have 1 knight actually realize how he and his fellow knights of diggonton have lost their values and when axl recovers he sends a letter of recomendation and boom now axl has a chance to get into the knights academy.

cew cutsence of axl working his ass off and boom basic character backstory. but i can already hear that "this sound more like a clay backstory" which yes it would work pretty well for clay but i actually have a different charactization of clay then the show. i think it would be interesting if clay wasn't a knight because it was the right thing to do but instead because he looked up to the ideals of a knight and the determination to get there.

i mean for king halberts sake clay grew up on the streets, he couldn't have gone along carring for every singel person he saw or else he wouldn't have surived himself. and maybe that could be clays main character arc that he realizes that being a knight isn't about doing the right thing because its nobel or honnorable but instead being a knight has it roots in caring and wanting to protect others. and who could he learn that from- AXL BABY! yeah this show needs more of the main five interacting with each other. crap this got long and it probably isn't even readable, oh well

#nexo knights #lego nexo knights #axl #axl nexo knights #clay moorington #clay moorington nexo knights

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thetruearchmagos · 24 days

Note

Alright I have been working on this off and on for months. I need help. I want to decide what rank Alyss had in the Ritanian Army because I have a scene in mind but it depends on her rank how it goes. So, Alyss is from the working class, but has considerably more education than the average person. She enters the army with some weapons training, primarily shooting and polearms from the Church, she can read, write, and do math easily, and she has fire magic which is basically like martial arts training. I am going to assume that she enlists as just a private, but probably gets promoted at least once in the two years of fighting she is involved with. Would it be reasonable for her to be promoted early on to Lance Corporal for her clerking abilities, and possibly up to Corporal? I have no sense for how these things work. You are the expert I know.

HAHAHAHahahahaha yesss!!!

You, have come to the right blog!

Now, I foreshadowed a pretty hefty worldbuilding process to you earlier, but just in case things get in the way of that rabbit hole I wanted to come up with a short-ish, succinct-ish answer to your immediate question. That question being, as far as I can tell;

What 'rank' within the Ritanian Army would Alyss, a skilled commoner, attain by the end of a military career featuring at least 2 years of wartime combat service?

The answer that you seem to have now is 'Lance Corporal, maybe Corporal', and my reply would be that said ranks, or more accurately their equivalents in the Ritanian Army as you'd have it, are absolutely possible, given the details I outlined above.

Truth be told, there's a lot potentially going in favour of pushing her towards 'seniority' in general.

Don't You Know There's A War On?

If there's one thing that's sure to bring about rapid and unexpected career progression in the military, it's war!

Honestly, this accounts for about 90% of why I'm so firm in approving the ranks you've put forwards; if Alyss is even remotely competent, and lucky, there's a non-zero chance she attains both those ranks within the first year. (Lance) Corporal isn't exactly the big leagues, and if the pre-War soldiers holding those ranks in Alyss's unit get bumped off and she shows any talent at all, you could absolutely see her get field promoted to fill the slots mid-battle, albeit within a much-reduced unit. After that, it's a matter of not joining your predecessors.

On this topic, by the way, I recalled a lovely piece of historical trivia that had much to do with young bucks hungry for promotion, this time in the Royal Navy;

(She Has A) Special (Set Of) Skills

A subject I'd absolutely love to delve into the is the broad increase in the ratio of specialists and special skills VS 'the general infantry' in most militaries as they progress technologically. How exactly specialists function in Ritania depends on a lot of things, its state of technology (and magic!) among them, but a general rule is that the fewer people exist in the relevant 'pool' of potential people who could be promoted, the more likely specific (competent) person in it is to get promoted.

If, for example, the Army decides it needs to rapidly expand its corps of 'whatever Alyss's speciality is' (flame-troops, or something, right?) then all the people already in it might get bumped up and given the authority to whip new recruits into shape. On the other hand, if this is the sorta job that gets an above average number of people killed, then the rate of career progression for those still alive is correspondingly faster.

Miscellaneous

Outside of these two factors, there's a whole grab basket of stuff that might potentially work in Alyss's favour. One of them, again, is how relatively low the ranks you specified are; they're called 'junior Non-Commissioned Officers' for a reason, after all. To be quite honest, in two years and with my pretty optimistic guess at her competence I'm surprised she didn't make Sergeant (or equivalent). For comparison, here's something I found on the - peacetime! - US Army for promotion to Corporal, which for them is the 4th enlisted rank from the bottom.

A bit over two years in a 'modern' style of Army, and given what I mentioned above I think cutting down the timeline would be perfectly believable.

There's also some of her pre-Enlistment traits that you brought up. I'm a little suspect on whether most of them would impact her rate of advancement much, since they appear more likely to influence her actual vocation upon joining rather than what happens once she has. After that, a lot of them are likely to never be used or trained on, though that depends on just how specialised the Ritanian Army actually is, which is... something I'd love to talk about.

Literacy, then, might help, but that depends on both how prevalent literacy is across society, and whether or not the duties expected of an 'enlisted leader' would need that skill. Off the top of my head, I recall that one reason for aristocratic officer corps was that literacy was concentrated to that class only; if so few other 'rank' soldiers could be expected to be literate, an Army might just not bother to create pathways to allow them to get into a position where literacy was needed. Of course, if the case is not that extreme, but still one where literacy is limited, then it'd be the sort of trait that a professional Non-Commissioned Officer would need, and thus one looked for in troops. All of that, then, is one way in which the character and substance of a military is heavily dependent on the society that it exists within, a subject beyond the purview of this ask!

Though I will say, I can't imagine 'clerking' working out well for fast promotion, unless you meant 'administrative and organisational talent' more than 'actually being a full time adjudant or staff officer'. That whole track of the profession of arms is a crucial and fascinating one, but you don't often here tales of glory or heroic career arcs coming from those quarters; 'desk jobs' don't get half as much love as they deserve.

The Unknown... For Now!

With my answer in the 'Affirmative!' already given and explained, right now I'd just love to get into the weeds of all this even deeper and worldbuild the everloving crap out of the Ritanian Army and its career advancement process. Here's two questions I came up with that might help with articulating the actual promotion system Alyss would be going through;

Who gets to decide, and 'write down', a promotion? Are they exclusively processed by the Army's central personnel department, handed out by senior or direct commanders of a certain rank and office, or something with inputs from both? At higher ranks, it's not unusual for civilian leadership to oversee this process, but the average enlisted doesn't need to care about that.

What does it take to 'get' promoted? More specifically, is it a subjective process dependent on specific individuals decisions and perspectives, or a rigorous, standardised process with inflexible rules? Keeping in mind, of course, that it is ultimately people who execute such rules.

To end off this answer, which might I add was an absolute joy to write, I'd like to ask for two clarifications;

First of all, do you have a rank structure in mind already? Your use of Lance Corporal and Corporal suggested something pretty in line with how it's been IRL since Napoleon, but couldn't hurt to ask. I'm a bit of a sucker for unusual rank structures - screwing around with the Officer-Enlisted distinction always seemed cool, but as I mentioned above that'd be a whole discussion for another time.

Secondly, and on that topic... would Alyss have made a good officer, or in fact, been able to become one? Taking it very loosely, that is. Is Ritanian officership class-restricted? Literacy, like I mentioned, is the sort of quality that is exceptionally beneficial for long-service leaders. Of course, there might be a whole host of reasons personal and external which make this particular question moot - in which case, I'd love to hear them!

And with that... I'm done!

#worldbuilding #writeblr #writeblr stuff #god this so much fun what the hellllll #a buzz a high a sense of satisfaction in my own 'abilities' I haven't felt in so long goddam this was great #just what I needed to stay sane

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reallyghostlypost · 11 months

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Camilla might be a dark witch - not evil, just dark...

We don't know much about Camilla yet. She's the strongest known magic user alive (maybe even strongest ever), she basically rules Castle Village, she's part of the Ministry of Magic's ruling Council and she has a very irresponsible personality. Anything else we'll discover in the 2.0 update. But there are already some interesting hints about her in the game and in the sneak peeks FlashShifter shared with the community.

(This post will have spoilers both from the late game content and from the extra info FlashShifter posted on reddit, twitter and his patreon. I'm not subscribed to the patreon, so I don't have access to any extra information that's not already public, but if anyone wants to avoid spoilers then it's better to ignore this post)

I always felt like there's something off about Camilla. The way she teleports around the player feels almost… predatory. Sure, she's playful, but in the same way a cat likes to play with her food. Every time we meet her she doesn't take anything seriously, she says nothing about what she thinks or feels, she comes out as almost cold, impersonal, like her playful personality is just a mask.

But the thing that I found the weirdest about Camilla is the way Morgan describes her: "There's a witch that visits us. She doesn't really talk to me. Her name is Camilla. She gives me the creeps." Again, she comes off as cold and dismissive here, like she doesn't care about Morgan's existence, potentially since they're not useful to her. But the last part is the interesting one. Morgan finds her creepy, not odd, not intimidating, creepy. For a good witch it's a very odd description. A kid could easily be intimidated by Camilla's personality and Morgan already finds lots of things in their new home weird, so this line might just be here to emphasize their childlike innocence. But in media kids are often used to tell important information about other characters with the idea that they're still too simpleminded to be tricked by illusions or someone pretending. So this line might actually be significant.

And Morgan is not be the only one who thinks that. Throughout the few dialogues that mentions her it seems the common sentiment is that the other adventurers find Camilla to be pretty intimidating too, even if they agree that she's impressively powerful. Magnus, her friend, describes her in a very odd fashion: "Galdora has many marvels and horrors within its borders. Camilla is just one of them". Both Lance and Edmund imply that no one even questions her, they all just accept her decisions even if they might disagree with her.

And sure, she has huge responsibilities on her shoulders, so her being slightly impersonal makes sense, and her unusually powerful magic could be intimidating to other mages even if she isn't trying to be. And what's the harm in having some fun in the few moments she has some spare time, even if others find it unsettling? Her cheerful personality could just mask how much stress she has to deal with daily. Camilla seems to be the good creepy witch archetype.

But there are hints that there might be more to it. FlashShifter shared a sneak peek with her tower on his reddit and twitter accounts, and it's a really interesting building. There are skulls on the bricks and one tower looks more like a jail, with bars on the windows and door. And while the taller tower is fully lit with furniture and decorations visible through the windows, the 'prison' one is barebones and shrouded in darkness, with deep gashes in the stone walls. What is that exactly? A prison? A place to store monsters? None of the options have good connotations. From the few info you get from FlashShifter's patreon without subscribing, Camilla also has a goblin servant, a thing witches, specifically evil ones, have. She gives off a very weird vibe at this point.

But I discovered the last bit of evidence for my theory only recently. A while ago Flash posted this on reddit. Basically a fun post where he decided to show Camilla as a pokemon trainer. Aside from her creepy sprite her pokemon team is made almost exclusively out of dark and ghosts pokemon with the single exception of Cloyster, which Flash admitted that he picked due to it's unusually strong battling ability and it's creepy sprite. So Camilla would basically be a Dark trainer, and the closest thing to dark pokemon in SVE would be dark magic.

Her odd personality and her creepy tendencies would make a lot more sense if Camilla would actually use dark magic, instead of just researching it. And it would also explain why her colleagues are vaguely scared of her.

Looking back, Camilla's personality is mainly defined in opposition with Magnus's one, a fellow Council member who is very serious about his responsibilities and studies, unlike the fun-loving Camilla who doesn't take anything seriously. The cutscene she had with him shows how different their personalities are, and even the cutscene where she meets the farmer on Sheerwater Bridge contrasts with the way Magnus behaves when the farmer discovers the Void Shard. She doesn't care what the Ministry thinks and will leave in the middle of a meeting while Magnus does everything in his power to act according to what he thinks the Ministry might want him to do. The way he adopts Morgan just because the Ministry ordered him to is further proof of that.

But Camilla might also be defined in opposition to Mr Qi. She tries to protect the town Qi seems intent to destroy and she tries to clear the corruption Qi spreads (maybe?). It's also implied that they are evenly matched power wise. And as another similarity, Qi's personality is also defined through his opposition to Camilla and Magnus, the latter who specializes in plants and forest magic while Qi prefers to use dark/void magic.

Speaking of the Void, one of Qi's defining moments in SVE is when he kidnaps the farmer and places the Seal of Silence on them. Qi teleports the farmer in a pitch black area that is called 'void' in the files. But when the farmer dies in the Badlands and Camilla rescues them she also teleports the farmer to a borderless dark area eerily similar to the void. Between this and her potential dark magic, she's weirdly similar to Qi.

As a final point, if Qi is contrasted by Magnus through a life-death opposition, then it's possible that Camilla contrasts him through a dark-dark similarity. They might both use dark magic, they might both stand out due to their power and magical abilities, and they both have a guarded and mysterious personality. But while Camilla uses her magic to protect thousands of people Qi seems willing to sacrifice them all to further his goals (or for funsies I guess). While Qi works alone in the shadows, Camilla cooperates with the magical community. Even the way they interact with the farmer in their 'void' events shows that - Camilla teleports him there in order to save him while Qi teleports him there to threaten him.

#there's a map called galdoran void in the files and i'm pretty sure it refers to the place camilla teleports you to #the only other badlands areas associated with the void that have their own maps are the slingshot cave and the iridium quarry #and they both have different maps #treasure cave and iridium quarry respectively #so it's not them #didn't add it to the main body because i couldn't confirm it's actually the area i'm talking about either #anyway if i'm right about this then it fits oddly well with the way i imagined void magic working for thad #:D #sve theory #sve camilla

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co-mixed · 7 months

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Daredevil by Ann Nocenti

I was planning on a short review but the more I read, the more details and elements kept popping up and I knew I would be wrong to not point them out. So here it is, a fully detailed review.

Take Your Time

Nocenti took over the title after Frank Miller (and if memory serves me right, several guest writers). It was not going to be easy, especially after the massive Born Again arc, in which after having his life completely shattered by Kingpin (and Miller), Matt returns to Hell's Kitchen to live happily ever after with Karen and opens a legal clinic/addiction hotline. He can't legally practice law, she is definitely not qualified for any psychological help, what could go wrong? Oh well, he's also still Daredevil and Karen still hates it, so there is that. Nocenti had a pretty tough task to rebuild everything and at the same time deliver good stories.

At this point, I notice when a new writer on a title is struggling for the first few months, while they try to establish their own take and find their footing. Once that's out of the way, everything goes smoothly (for most, anyway).

Nocenti's run gets a little chaotic in the beginning, while she starts to set the rules and draw the neighborhood around Daredevil and Karen. And if you expected her to go easy on the characters, you can rest easy knowing that she's put DD through hell. Literally.

Building Hell's Kitchen

Right away she involves some neighborhood kids and gives them all slow-burn arcs. In fact, she includes children in a lot of stories, and they provide a reflection of the dark and complex adult world. They react, they mirror the grown-ups and the things happening around them affect them in an unpredictable way. The arc of the kid who slowly, in the span of several issues, discovered his darker side and ended up being killed by a mob member, is something you barely notice happening at first. And then he keeps coming back, making a small but ultimately wrong choice, which eventually brings him to his demise. All that adds a sense of responsibility and urgency to Daredevil. Something he may have always experienced but didn't necessarily watch happen. Not to imply that no one has suffered from his misguided actions before (RIP, Heather). And not to say that he was responsible for the kid's choices, but said kid came to Matt repeatedly and Matt missed all the signs. If you want to direct the issue back to the kid's parents, I have to point out that most of them were ill-attended. The other kid story is Bullet's son Lance. He doesn't have much to do with DD but he's a reflection of how an impressionable child due to lack of attention can develop a full-on phobia. That's not something that I've seen in superhero comics that often. This darkness is fully developed by Nocenty and if you look closely, has its roots in Miller's stories.

The Origins of Evil

There is a series of one/two-issue arcs with guest stars and seriously messed up villains. And I don't use messed up lightly, I didn't necessarily expect this much darkness from the 80s (which is funny, since I've seen it before). In each story, there's a social issue mixed into the arc and exaggerated to the extreme. Nocenti doesn't just throw a bunch of villains at the hero. Even her minor [evil] characters usually have a rich backstory, which she isn't afraid to share. They can be victims of injustice, bad parenting, or circumstances. And then she gives them a voice and in some cases, it starts to sound reasonable before you actually see where they went off the rails (Not sure if Neya can be called a villain though).

The Main Event(s)

But all these additional stories more or less revive around two main arcs - Typhoid Mary and Mephisto. Mary's arc is very impressive, and not just because it gives tons and tons of drama. Okay, mostly because of that. The worst way for a hero to lose everything is when they get hurt by someone they trusted. But also, Matt walked into this nonsense all on his own (with a little help from heightened senses, sure, we buy that). I've seen Mary before but never really got familiar with her backstory, aside from encountering her in the latest X-men runs when she married Kingpin. But here it's introduction time and literally the best possible way to know all there is to know about Mary. Her two personalities are interesting in her relationships with other characters (she mostly interacts with DD/Matt and Kingpin but only as Typhoid). But arguably the most definitive element is her parts trying to coexist or rather push each other out. Typhoid is a wild, unpredictable, manipulative, and murderous woman, while Mary is a wallflower, sort of like early Karen. They despise each other, obviously. One's qualities are incompatible with the other's. Typhoid manages to almost kill Matt, but ironically, Mary accidentally delivers the final blow. At this point, Matt's mental stability is shaken to the point from which he can't return on his own, so in true DD fashion, he skips town, reviving the Lone Stranger arc from Miller's run. It doesn't help that before he leaves, beaten and humiliated (rightfully, I might say), there's Inferno going on in New York, as in a literal Limbo opening. It takes an encounter with Mephisto and Inhumans to force him to find himself again and go back to New York. But overall, both stories are some of the greatest examples of how to properly torture a character.

I liked Ann Nocenti's take, it was brutal and harsh with the world showing its ugliest colors. She doesn't shy away from a righteous message and she delivers it in a way that resonates. Nocenti also doesn't reduce her female characters to mindless damsels in need of saving. She even outlines it in the arc of Number Nine. In fact, she didn't paint one or the other as the ideal, both Nine and Brandy learned something from each other.

The Big Picture

In my short review of Born Again on Instagram, I mentioned scaling, specifically Miller inviting the Avengers to deal with one of the villains Daredevil couldn't necessarily handle. Nocenti does a similar thing but again, brings it a step further - she lets Human Torch walk a day in Daredevil's shoes. While at first, he believes it's easier than his job in the Fantastic Four, since they deal with Galactus and other massive dangers on a daily basis. But quickly, he finds out that things aren't that simple. What Daredevil deals with, the famous "street level" is different from saving the world, but that doesn't mean it's easier. Saving one neighborhood with limited resources is something he can't handle. This is bringing value to a character that could easily be considered second-tier. Something that's both necessary and impressive.

Other Pictures

But if I get into this, I might end up rehashing everything that happened in the run. That is if I haven't done it already. I want to sum it up, and of course, it wouldn't be even acceptable without pointing out John Romita Jr's art, he was the main artist for the majority of the run and stood out too. It was dynamic and added the perfect amount of emotion to every character and the interiors that surround them.

All in All

See, when I read the first few issues by Ann Nocenti, I was sure I wasn't going to like it. I thought I was missing something so many people saw. But I kept reading and when it ended, I saw exactly what was there and what made it so unique. It's a perfect follow-up to Born Again, in every sense, and it manages to destroy the seemingly indestructible life the characters created for themselves. The best stories are all like that.

#comics #comic books #marvel comics #marvel #long reads #marvel universe #daredevil #matt murdock #ann nocenti #john romita jr.#typhoid mary #comic book review #spoilers

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llumimoon · 8 months

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Pssst Cal in a dndads Voltron AU which teen do you think would control each lion? ,':) (yeah Hermie is included here lol there's 5 lions after all!)

BABA YOU DONT EVEN KNOW ... I ALREADY ASSIGNED ALL THE TEENS LIONS BEFORE. I'VE THOUGHT ABT IT TWICE NOW WITH LIKE A MONTHS LONG GAP BETWEEN..... You came to the right place is all I'm saying JWBEVAJHAHAHA

Okay lets get the most obvious one to me out of the way, which is Link in the Yellow Lion. Like. First of all the fact that Yellow is A LEG and also Yellow representing kindness .... I think he really does support the team and grounds them in many aspects. Also Yellow is bulky like a dnd paladin LMAO it just makes the MOST sense to me? Yellow also being the color I associate with Link so maybe that gives me a slight bias lmaooo

The rest are. LESS clear to me. I HAVE already settled on an arrangement I'm more or less okay with but I could make a lot of arguments for alternative placements !! I will also admit maybe the places I settled on are a little color biased?

The Lions DO kind of have traits associated with each one except its. much less clear in some cases than others and I had to be a little flexible bc in my opinion NONE of the teens r like . smart enough for the Green Lion JWBECWUAGAHAA like they're all smart in their own ways and I do bend some rules a little to make their smarts work as an argument but I feel like Green is more book smart than anything which makes it difficult.

Uhmmm everyone else from here on out has at least two lions I could argue for and then I'll say which one I settled on? But like if you disagree thats totally fair LMAO like I said many assignments can be considered

Scary I mainly thought about the Black or Red Lion... There's the whole. Scary's the leader! Thing and also the idea of power corrupting... but also she can be pretty impulsive which is why I considered Red, also her tendency to have fire based magic mishaps LMAO I think Scary shows a lot of growth and inner reflection and also she has good insight on how the others seem to be feeling even if she doesn't always act on it or use it in the right way, so I could see that as the markings for the beginning of a Black Lion learning to be the leader type arc? Also to be honest shes the Main and practically Only contender for Black so she ends up getting it by default.

Hermie I think could be the Blue or Green Lion. I don't actually remember if they say IN THE SHOW what the Blue Lion stands for, but like. I've read so much Lance fanfic LMAO that to me it stands for Flexibility and what is Hermie if not flexible. Maybe too flexible? In the sense of. She will fill any role that is needed or given to her, like water will. I also thought Green bc to me Hermie is a character who is VERY in his head. Like they overthink to the point of looping back around to stupid again but also shes always playing mind games with other people. Hermie seems to always be one step ahead or at least is good at pretending they are. Also you can say the nature stuff is Hermie in his poison ivy era. Green is also pretty small and easy to damage which lines up with how fragile he is in a fight and maybe you could make an argument for the camouflage being like shapeshifting? idk. Anyways I decided on Green I think.

Normal I think I'm biased bc he's my fav and Lance was my old fav and I already made a post before about how I think they're similar and would get along and ANYWAYS LMAO I think its clear I gave him Blue. Something something, the legs being the support of the team something something water meaning flexibility but also ice can be stubbornness something something how I associate Normal (and lowkey the Doodler) with water (a whole nother thing to get into u can ask me to elaborate later) etc. I also played around with the idea of him in Red as Scary's right hand bc . shakes them . I think it could possibly fit but not as well? Fire isn't really Normals thing. I also briefly considered him for Black bc Normal is usually the one pushing the group towards a certain goal, but also his plans kind of never end up going through so I was like hmm not sure about that one. Blue I think is the best fit for him in the end which is why everyone else ended up where they did.

TAYLOR. Ok process of elimination you probably already figured out that I chose Red for him BUT I also considered Blue and Green. Green is fun bc you can play with his roughish abilities, like hiding and sneak attacks. His knowledge is more obscure facts and survival skills but I think it's enough to be a contender! I cannot explain the Blue stuff its all vibes in my head but trust me . I think also leaning into, Blue and Yellow are the legs that support and stabilize the team thing, Taylor is actually pretty good at keeping a cool head all things considered. Red, yes maybe slightly process of elimination but COME ON ITS BIG SWORD AND ALSO FIRE POWERS!!! Taylor would love that shit. Also going zoom zoom fast. Also the Red Lion is the second in command/right hand of the Black Lion and it just fits Taylor's protagonist vibes LMAO I think he usually is off doing is own thing which is also very Red Lion.

So to summarize: Scary Black, Taylor Red, Hermie Green, Link Yellow and Normal Blue.

Again I could totally see the justification for shuffling them around a bit but this is the assignments I settled on? The colors lining up is also nice I will not lie. I also could see an alternate universe where Normal is Red, Hermie Blue and Taylor Green, I think thats my second most favorable arrangement.

LMAO SORRY I DIDNT MEAN TO MAKE THIS SO LONG I'VE JUST THOUGHT A LOT ABOUT IT BEFORE. AS YOU CAN CLEARLY SEE. I take sorting my characters into categories VERY seriously 😤 enrichment for me.

#ask #babacontainsmultitudes #voltron #dndads #cal rambles #SORRY THIS IS SOOOO FUCJING LONG OH MY GOD #i just have a lot to say all the time always #I've also thought abt the kiddads lion assigments bte #btw*#but I have not settled on those as clearly #there's for sure some fun things going on in the brain tho #u can dm me if u wanna know em

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thisbelongsto-nohbodys · 9 months

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Hey, i like your Leilana story, and i was interested by a point. If i'm correct, human acquired the space tech after retroingeniering the vessel of roswell incident so 1947 in the begining of the cold war. So is the human race now unite under an only governement now or is this just the US and the other country arent't involved or have been invaded ?

Human history on earth is both the same and slightly different. Most events we know did happen for those of us that remain on earth, either by choice or not. We still have a lot of issues to deal with when it comes to each other. Space-wise, there’s a centralized human government that deals with all humans in space and the various colonies. The Space Earth government keeps in contact with the home world one and makes adjustments whenever there’s a major change back home (new leaders, new countries, new technologies etc etc) but for the most part the space side of it has its own set of rules and regulations. It gets confusing, even to lawyers who specialize in it.

The US is a major part of it due to the Roswell Incident and of course the deluge of space propaganda movies released to encourage everyone around the globe to travel the stars (and fight the aliens that wouldn’t let Earth/Humans into the G.A.P., these movies starring Lance’s great great great etc etc Grandfather in a Flash Gordon kind of style). Other major countries have their own divisions of space exploration programs but they all fall under the same space government agency that was formed shortly after the war to get into the GAP.

When it comes to humans born on other worlds, they share dual citizenship with that planet and Earth in general (unless specified by the parents), the colony system was set up to make sure that any new colony was made up of humans from a wide variety of countries so no single country can claim sovereignty over a whole planet (which the US and other major countries tried a few times). Leilana’s dad Ilxton even traveled with and studied the different languages from Earth via these colonies in order to help update the universal translators in case of any new or unknown words not already in the current UTs. It’s these trips that caused him to love humans and their history (despite his family’s bad blood with Earth).

For the most part, Earth and its governments don’t affect much in space unless dealing with them specifically, which most aliens try not to if they can avoid it.

As for how Earth would be now in this setting, it’s pretty much similar but with more advanced technologies, clean energy is normalized, less pollution and less fighting over things like food and such but still we humans would find something to fight over and so conflicts still pop up due to fools in charge. Granted that Leilana takes place in the 3000s, a fun experiment is thinking of which celebrities and such would’ve been in the stars or stayed on earth in our time if space travel was possible.

Hope that answered ur question. I don’t get a lot of chances to talk about this setting and its backstory.

#ask #Leilana gorloxa #kosmosonite

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n7punk · 1 year

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"the long way down" Fic Notes

TLWD is done now so I get to be a little insane about it. I’ve had meta about Outside of the War fics before, but this one… is certainly something Else, so I’ve enough to say to need the structure of a fic notes post.

Chapter 1:

⦁ Off the bat, the Mara thing: again, I’ve said this a couple times, but I don’t think her surviving in the portal is canon. I’m not sure what the timeline of the Heart going off and Mara moving Etheria was, much less what was up with the first version of the portal (something happened from what Razz said, but who knows it if it was the exact same thing), so it’s hard to say if she even would have gotten suspended like that in the first place. It was fun to write that fic, but I didn’t want to carry that continuity into this one. I wanted this idea to stand on its own and Mara being alive would have complicated the hell out of this. She would have known stuff, and either wanted or really not wanted to see the ruins of Eternia, and it just… would have been so many complications, especially if she didn’t go with them on that journey, because then they would have had to debate going back for her or not and…. Yeah it’s just Too Much.

⦁ The little italic preview (something I use so sparingly I think this might be my first time ever) at the beginning of the fic is obviously from the scene in chapter three, but cut down to size because again, sparing. It’s contextless here and half-context wouldn’t have served it.

⦁ It has come up a lot in my fics, but Adora being into cartography is something Aimee (her VA) mentioned at a con as like, a headcanon, and my brain immediately accepted that and went right that’s canon now lol. It just fits really well so it’s come up in my post-canon fics a lot as a hobby, but this is the first time it has been plot-important.

⦁ Catra getting jealous of paper is from a previous OotW fic, return from civility.

⦁ George and Lance literally have a 3D-projection star chart in their library that they show off in the season 2 finale, but the star charts Adora pulls out are very different from that because it’s a 2D inscription of flight paths between systems rather than a chart of constellations, so it wasn’t blatantly obvious what it was until they could start translating things with Adora’s help.

⦁ Let’s talk about the chapter art because you cannot imagine how much work that took! Like it’s stupid! I wanted essentially an “arrow” made from First Ones numbers pointing in the direction of Eternia. I went through a lot of rough drafts before I decided, for simplicity’s sake (my sanity) instead of it literally saying “One thousand four hundred and sixteen” it would say “1416” because god is that a lot to cram into a small space and stay readable, much less connected. I’m like 95% sure what I produced is correct by the guidelines of the language, but it’s a lot of lines to track, so if it’s wrong… I don’t want to hear it. Some details, though. The shadowy background compass has an “indent” in the center of it — that’s actually the letter E, standing for “Eternia,” in the First Ones’ script. Each of the numbers/words gets progressively smaller as it goes on, which isn’t in the rules, but in my opinion it makes it easier to read because you can intuit that you’re supposed to start at least one of the ends, and Clare approved, so I’m keeping it. (Yeah, if you know what post I’m talking about, I’ve been sitting on this fic idea that long. I wrote half the fic then and got distracted by shiny new things lmao). It was really hard picking colors for the image that would show up well on various site backgrounds, but in the end I decided it was impossible to accommodate for most skins, so I should focus on the two most-used ones instead and ended up with the blue and gray that show up decently on both the white and dark mode site skins. It’s not perfect on either, but it’s pretty good on both, and that’s the best I could ask for. I purposefully picked numbers that were one syllable so I didn’t have to deal with multiple syllable branches since making this image do what I want was already so much work lmao. I tried to figure out the words by myself first but I always double-check my First Ones script work with the translator on itch.io so thank you to whoever made that you have been a life-saver multiple times for me <3

⦁ I went back and forth on whether they’d be wives by the time of this one, and then I remembered it’s somewhere around two years post-canon and they’re lesbians. I think they probably got married shortly before leaving. I also stand by the idea of Glimbow getting engaged first but married way later (royal wedding nonsense, it came up in either "to make a home," or "her heart on her sleeve." Maybe both) and since they were getting married right after this trip, that would mean Catra and Adora are married.

⦁ Trolla is a planet in the MOTU. It’s where Orko is from… which means nothing to you if you haven’t watched the original He-man, but google an image of him, because somehow that exact character design pops up in so much shit. I’m pretty sure there’s a character like that in Kingdom Hearts, which means there’s also a character like that in Final Fantasy, but don’t quote me on that. I feel like he and Loo-Kee were pretty equivalent to me when I was a kid and Loo-Kee was at the end of every damn She-ra episode with his little “today’s moral” shtick.

Chapter 2:

⦁ Honestly, part of the reason Catra is wielding a staff in the cult scene is because I did all the research for the dolls and her accessory in that line was a staff. Which… okay sure, but she does use them in canon. Like twice. But it felt right here with the potential flashback stuff.

⦁ I made sure to include mention of the two moons originally shown around Eternia in my Children of the Crystal series. Just a little bit of consistency.

⦁ I thought about the… manufactured planet thing from Mass Effect Andromeda (listen, I haven’t played the game since it came out, I don’t really remember) while describing Eternia, and it got me thinking about how in sci-fi and stuff, structures like this are always in grayscale. They’re gray, or maybe white, but never like… yellow, and certainly not rainbow. The First Ones ruins we’ve seen have all been very colorful, so I thought a vibrant, rainbow planet, indicating life and art and culture, but still from this destructive society, would really be interesting.

⦁ The “ruins incident” is the impotence for a fic I’ve never written and probably never will but damn has that not stopped me thinking it through every few months. The timeline doesn’t even work out because that’s supposed to happen like five years after this but it’s mostly a reference for myself lmao.

⦁ I know Catra and Adora have “memes” personal to them dating back to their time in the Horde and still forming to this day, but I imagine Catra and Melog have their own jokes too that no one else has even the faintest idea about because it all happens in their heads.

⦁ Originally I explained it in the fic before I decided the Gatekeeper wouldn’t know it, but the reason there were only signs of evacuation deep inside was because part of Protocol Zero’s mandatory evacuation was evacuation tiers. It’s the highest threat level possible and that means everybody needs to leave and could clog the skies, making it impossible for anyone to really escape. There’s also bullshit prioritization of “well, these people deserve to get out more than others” so it's stratified to ensure some people (the most important) get out first. First in line was royalty and the highest ranks of the military (to coordinate rebuilding efforts once escaped), then the highest ranks of state-sponsored scientists and nobility, followed by the mid ranks of state-sponsors scientists and high rank state-sponsored artists, and then concurrently mid-level military, more scientists, and high-rank citizens. Finally, the rest of the artists and citizens (aka free-for-all tier).

⦁ The Citadel is a reference to Mass Effect.

⦁ A whole decade ago I saw a post on Tumblr claiming a “moment” used to be an actual measurement of time (roughly 90 seconds) that I never forgot and it turns out that was actually true (this was the era of Alexandria’s Genesis so you know… easily could have been bullshit I never bothered to google) so I threw it in in this fic as a fun fact about medieval sundial measurement.

⦁ Almost nothing works on the planet because it all ran on wireless power, and the transmission towers for that were completely destroyed by the Horde’s invasion. The Horde them pulverized everything else it could find, tracing down every last electrical signal or sign of life and snuffing it out. The only thing that survived were bugs that were hibernating underground or in the rare piece of plant life that wasn’t destroyed. Seeds in the earth also sprouted later, leaving those as the only survivors of the massacre. The Horde occupied Eternia for a while making sure nothing else would pop up, but eventually Prime was satisfied and got the fuck out of there, afraid of their integration of tech and magic and tired of losing clones to lingering mechanical boobytraps.

⦁ Okay the meta for Mara’s painting is that one of the quickest paths to state sponsorship was art depicting the planet. The Eternians really did view it as the ultimate art piece. Mara did something groundbreaking for her time and portrayed it as it originally was before all the terraforming. The establishment didn’t like that. Even worse, she used an ephemeral medium involving a mix of materials that would break down over time, and while it was good and above average, she was far from the most impressive artist that year alone. Mara really did think the transformation of Eternia was awe-inspiring at the time, but doubt set in after she was assigned to the brand-new (not even begun, really) colony on Etheria and started falling in love with its vibrant nature. Eternia still had plenty of it, but it was carefully cultivated through landscaping and terraforming. Ironically, it has become a lot closer to Etheria’s untamed state by the time of the fic, thanks to the lack of direct intervention and partially-damaged terraformers. (Side note: the terraforming system ran on its own network with a million safeties in place because, you know, if they ever shut off the path of the planet around the sun could permanently be altered from its irregular shape. It was Very Important they survive anything, and Horde Prime didn't try to destroy them while occupying it because he also needed it to not be flung into the sun)

⦁ Being a state-sponsored artist basically means you get a salary instead of living commission-to-commission, access to grant programs to create big pieces of art, essentially advertising and general public approval, and access to exclusive display locations, especially in architecture or high-traffic areas (think the mosaics they found). Mara wanted to try, so she applied to the symposium basically fresh out of high school with the plan that if it didn’t work out she would follow in her parent’s footsteps (military family) and join a colony exploration program. If she got approval or even just a grant she would go to art school, but, well, she didn’t. So she ended up training in military academy, bouncing around a few colonies, and then making her way to Commander rank and Etheria.

Chapter 3:

⦁ The “three workshops that they know about” thing is because Catra is sure Entrapta is hiding more questionable experiments from them in the walls. And she’s right.

⦁ The data crystal art says “Final log” on its front and “Distress” (as in, distress signal) in the background. I never really translate that in the fic but it was also going in the final chapter when the fic notes were about to be posted so I wasn’t too worried about it.

⦁ My idea for the crystal was that it would be really hard to find any logs of what happened because, well, everybody who would have made or kept those logs was dead and the Horde destroyed a lot of what they found. This was a transmission that was intercepted at long-range on this smaller mining planet and was basically a portent of their imminent doom to them, the Horde arriving shortly after they received it, leaving this as one of the few logs the Eternians managed to preserve.

⦁ I didn’t actually reference a data crystal from the show for my drawing, I just ran off my memory of what it looked like, so it’s probably a little off, but I thought that would actually fit with the “artistic representation” thing like the planet had. The downward slanting of the words (and especially the descending of the sounds in the word “Distress”) are a visual representation of the signal dropping off and the “long way down” metaphor.

⦁ I didn’t actually intend to have an illustration per chapter for this fic initially. It was just supposed to be the first one. I drew that all the way back in January/February when I first started working on this fic, but as I was describing Eternia, I was like… this would actually be fun to draw. And then it seemed weird to have a drawing for 2 out of 3 chapters, so I added the data crystal, and I like how that worked out since I got to do the “subtle” stuff (so subtle it needs to be explained lmao) with the distress signal in the background.

⦁ Yeah so what’s up with that metaphor, right? I don’t know. Like, okay, I kind of do, but basically that song latched onto this fic and then they fed off each other and I have NO idea why. Like, it fits, but it’s also like… why this. For the people who don’t listen to songs when fics link them (I’ll be honest, I rarely do, even though I discovered my favorite band in the world that way), “Long Way Down” is a song about going to hell. I think the specific story is supposed to reflect preachers and religious folk who espouse how everyone else is full of sin and going to hell, but really they’re just going to end up down there too (“I’ve been fucking around while you’ve been saving the world... from nothing”). It’s not a direct fit in that way, but in the hubris, where you think you’re giants but you’re actually going to fall like all the others? Yeah, seemed fitting for the First Ones.

⦁ Tellus is earth in Latin. Being that the originals are 80s cartoons, Earth is of course canon and there was a Christmas special set there. As I remember it, Earth was some #Isekai shit (okay not really but) where it was just the normal modern world and then He-man and She-ra showed up to take teens on adventures so Americans could teach them the true meaning of Christmas or something. I haven’t watched it since I was a very small child so I could be wrong. I got sidetracked. Yes Earth went kaput in this universe. Yes that had consequences. Yes he was saying “Commander Adam, signing off.”

⦁ Having just come off of CotC where I finally really went into my time travel headcanon… Yeah a lot of people knew this wasn’t going to end well. Honestly, when I initially planned this fic, I had this idea that Adora would touch the console and it would greet her as the lost princess — or even that she would find a recording from her lost twin brother — but either way she would find out that she probably came from the past. The problem was… that also doesn’t match my headcanon? (Refresher/If you didn’t read CotC: my headcanon is that since dimensional portals were cut off in Despondos, only time portals worked, so Light Hope pulled Adora through after spending a long time building one and trying to figure out where to open it to get her. This is why she popped out in the middle of a field: that’s just where she was physically located in the past.) My headcanon is that Adora was a regular child to settlers on Etheria when the Horde attacked and Light Hope eventually made the time portal and snatched her away before she could die. The system back home on Eternia probably wouldn’t recognize her as a random baby in the colonies, so it just didn’t track (especially the princess thing. That was something I thought about when I was first forming the headcanon in 2020, but it didn’t stick. Adora being “normal” is what made sense to me). I did consider having it be some thing where like, well maybe she was still born on Eternia or some major colony where she would be registered in the system, but honestly, that was all too definitive, and I liked the idea of it recognizing She-ra and them learning a little more about Mara.

⦁ Honestly, I don’t think Adora and Adam are even twins in this verse for me. I think cousins makes the most sense here (especially since he was like 20-30 in the recording and Adora would have been Very Small). If he were her sibling, that would make him some random twin she doesn’t know and never learns much about, but this way he’s still important to present Adora because his recording is the one that really made her accept what happened, and isn’t that the kind of thing that older siblings are supposed to do? Take care of their siblings, loving them and telling them the hard truths, through losing their family/home/way of life, etc? Idk, this somehow felt closer to the spirit of the OG canon than giving her a random twin that she didn’t know much about. Her finding a living twin who lives somewhere out in space didn’t feel like the spirit of this SPOP either (especially since they were expressly forbidden to even consider Adam/He-man), so we ended up here.

⦁ This is gonna sound weird but — canonically — I don’t think Adora has parents unless they make a movie. Like the time travel theory still makes sense to me, and if they ever made a movie I feel like finding her parents out in space would be an obvious plot point to get a bit more of a “happy ending” and tie up loose ends from the show, but like… I don’t think the show — in isolation — intends for them to be out there, and I think her not finding them is more tragic if they’re alive somewhere than the time travel thing where they’ve been gone for a thousand years so there’s no chance of recovery.

⦁ After some discussion with a Science Person I determined that it was possible for the DNA changes to be passed down in people who constantly produce sperm, and for people with eggs too if the process also affected the eggs inside of them (since they're only produced once). Also, magic bullshit is floating around helps and all of this is all theoretical anyway so I’m doing what I want lol.

⦁ Edit: Somehow I forgot to talk about this but. The First Ones. Yeah so, in this... I mean they are basically human. Their terraforming (and general tech) processes changed them into something distinguishable, but not all that different. After a thousand years, any First Ones that did survive the original genocide would have to have intermixed with humans to survive. The changes from terraforming would long be diluted and mutated away until humans really are all that's left. Catra's speculation about resettling an old colony planet is the best chance for them still existing, and like she said, they wouldn't even know that they're secretly picking up the genetic signatures of Eternians. I've never been sure if the First Ones are actually different from humans, or just a nationality, or perhaps an ancestor/divergent race from them (I think that question is purposefully left open-ended), so I did... this, which is kind of a combination. IDK, I just thought it was a cool possibility that would explain their humanness while still making them distinct in a (fairly) plausible way. The materials our modern world is made of are causing changes to our bodies (from lettuce insecticide in our blood to earlier hormone development) so something as extensive as terraforming would produce changes that could diverge them enough to be detectable. This leads to things like Adora's puberty being a bit different (unnaturally fast) and her alcohol tolerance being wild (I mean, that's something that varies between people already without a genetic splinter) but leaves her still - essentially - human. First Ones and humans started from the same place but splintered eventually. This isn't like some other things where it's my firm headcanon, but I do think it's a cool idea, so it was fun to do here and it both acts as another hint to the time travel possibility while also explaining how Adora could have parents and there could be "surviving First Ones" in the present. It wasn't part of the original plan for the fic, but I'm really glad it developed as I wrote because it's really interesting to me.

⦁ Catra is right about the cycle wearing on Adora, but it’s a little more than that: Adora could only convince herself to leave Eternia by turning her attention back to their mission, and the moment there was a real pause in it she realized that she didn’t want to keep doing this after all.

⦁ Adora will have questions for a while, and wonder about it occasionally, but she has kind of accepted that what really makes her happy is Etheria. She wishes she knew the answers, but not enough to abandon where she's actually happy and search for them. She doesn't want to fly for a year to some location in far space for answers, she wants her true family, and that's Catra and her friends.

Meta:

Compass art (1416)

Eternia art

Data crystal art

Upcoming:

Uhhhh I really don’t know right now? Could be a lot of things. My brain can’t settle on anything long enough to choose right now so it’ll probably be a week before I’m even sure enough to tell y’all. Check back here I guess lol

#tlwd #ficmeta #fic notes #share post will be up later today since i already posted a bunch of stuff informing yall it was done XD #spread the news ou lol

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starcrossedmoonlet · 5 months

Text

Hello and welcome to this blog!

My name is Comet Yuusonya, and I'm the host here! Feel free to call me just about anything--Comet, Yuu, Prefect, Grim's Mother, whatever works. My friends and I are all here to answer questions, rp, chat, whatever else! A list of everyone included here will be at the bottom of the post.

Come get to know us--ask whatever questions you'd like! Let me set some ground rules really quick.

1. NO NSFW -- Flirting is fine, but no NSFW. A lot of us are minors or freshly 18, and A LOT of us are asexual.

2. Please be kind! I am just a girl, a child, even. Please treat me as you would another human being. I have boundaries and I want them respected. This extends to all my friends.

3. Please be patient! Life's kinda busy, things happen. If we don't respond immediately, we'll get back within a day or two. Please don't bug us about responding to your asks, I promise we see them.

4. We curse here! This means you can to, but if you don't want anything to do with that, probably best to steer clear. I never use curse words to insult another, and neither should you. No slurs either please. Those are my only rules on cursing here. Otherwise be free to say fuck lmao

5. Fellow OCs are welcomed here and encouraged to interact!!! Tell me everything about your OCs I love them all!!!!

6. This is a safe place! No judging others' identities, OCs, requests, etc--including mine.

Here's a masterlist of everyone here, including their main tags!

Comet Yuusonya

Hi! I'm Comet, Yuu works too--I'm the Ramshackle Prefect. I was magicless when I got here, but... now I'm not! Local therapist, Grim's mother, and widely feared for my ability to psychoanalyze people. She/her pronouns, asexual, polyamorous Twisted from Rapunzel and Princess Anna

#comet yuu answers things : questions I answer, pretty self explanitory #comet yuu rambles : if I get kind of ramble-y, I'll add this tag. #comet yuu daily lyrics : for lyrics from songs I either relate to or just like !

Heaven

Greetings, you may call me Heaven. I reside within the halls of Ramshackle, though I come from a realm beyond this one. So long as you do not bring harm to our prefect, you shall be spared. She/her pronouns, polyamorous, has never commented on her sexuality. Twisted from the bride from the Haunted Mansion. #Heaven replies : For when you speak to me.

James Steelclaw From Savanaclaw

'sup, name's james. local jaguar beastman in spelldrive. teachers hate me, learn my secret today! /j He/him pronouns, bisexual, polyamorous. Twisted from the jaguars in Emperor's new Groove. #james speaks : general tag for me. idc if its questions or just me talkin outta my ass.

Lance Everett

Hi, I'm Lance, it's so exciting to meet you! I'm a Savanaclaw student, though I wish I were in Pomefiore with my buddy Emilio... that's okay, though, I enjoy the temperature here. I love animals and communicating with them. Maybe we can be friends? He/him pronouns, unspecified sexuality but clearly likes men. Twisted from Kronk. #Hello from Lance! : Any of my posts!

Buggie Orville

heeeyyyy whazzup name'z buggie, azul AND jamil'z #1 nuisance !!!!!! find me behind Mostro Lounge in my DEFINITELY LEGAL gambling ring and speakeasy ;) don't mind the bugz, they're my budz! they don't bite unlezz i don't like you! :D They/it/he, bug/bugself pronouns, asexual, demi and panromantic, polyamorous. Twisted from Oogie Boogie. #rollin the dice : anything from me <3

Emilio Nowell

Greetings all. Emilio Nowell here, a proud Pomefiore student and pro at chemistry. Should you wish to speak with me, I suppose I shall grant you some of my time. Though, I'd imagine Lance is more fun to speak to... have you tried his spinach puffs? They're simply to die for. He/him pronouns, gay. Twisted from Yzma. #From Emilio : When I am speaking, I will add this tag.

Igni Hayes

uhhh hi whats up, my name's ignacio but igni is fine! um i'm from ignihyde, im the resident goth, cant shut up about flowers, and drama king to the max haha. h. hope we can be friend sorry if i'm awkward it's the social anxiety He/him pronouns, pansexual, polyamorous. Twisted from Pain and Panic. #Ignis replies : for asks #gothichanahaki : my general tag

Jun'ichi Sasaki

Come learn about me yourself. He/him, unspecified sexuality. Twisted from Robert Callaghan / Yokai from Big Hero Six. #Sasaki Junichi : General.

Everest Grove

Hello! Call me Everest. I'm a mushroom fae from Briar Valley, new to Diasomnia and the Mountain Lovers Club. I enjoy sketching and hikes, perhaps you'd like to join me? I'm a little quiet, but I promise I mean no harm. They/them pronouns, asexual, panromantic polyamorous. Twisted from background fairies in the live action Maleficent. #Everests Grove : Anything I post!

Wade Krillis

Yo what's up everyone, name's Wade. I just transfered to NRC not too long ago... I'm in Diasomnia. I'm in spelldrive, but I think I like the arts on land, I'd like to get into that. Please don't be too put off by my style, promise I'm not dangerous! I just like being punk. :) He/him pronouns, unspecified sexuality. Not twisted from any Disney character, but heavily correlated with Octavinelle. #Thoughts from Wade : My posts, whether asks or not!

Comet again! I'll add character info sheets in case you want pictures and more information soon! Until then, thanks for stopping by! Hope we can be friends! Don't forget to drink water! Until next time! Find my main at @elysia-nsimp

#twst oc #twisted wonderland oc

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