#plot number 1: overcoming the monster

[kimkhimhant]

amazed at the number of people who say aftg has no plot or tsc has no plot like idk maybe yall are used to plot driven genres like fantasy or mystery where the plot line is at the forefront & the force driving the characters actions rather than vice versa but these books still definitely have plots. the ravens trying to get neil to sign is plot. the foxes training to win championships is plot. Andrew and Neil's romance is plot. the entire thing with the butcher & his posse – plot. Jean joining a new team and learning how to live and thrive and adjust to the world outside the cult he's been trapped in? plot. just because the story/narration is more character driven doesn't mean the plot isn't there.

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Plot Method

The Save the Cat! Beat Sheet was originally developed by Blake Snyder to help screenwriters plot movies, but it works just as well with novels.

It breaks down the 3-act structure into small, specific sections (sometimes just one scene long).

Each section pushes your story forward in its own way.

The exact word count/page count of each section depends on how long your novel is and what type of story you’re telling, but you can use the colored chart below and the percentages in the instructions as a guide. 

Context Note: This method is based on the concept of the Three Act Structure, which is an inherently Western approach to plot. It can be a useful way to tell a story, but it is by no means the only one.

ACT 1

Opening Image (0-1%)

Show a “before” snapshot of your protagonist and their world.

What is life like before the adventure begins?

It represents the struggle & tone of the story.

Set-up (1-10%)

Expand on the “before” snapshot.

Explore your protagonist’s life, including the internal flaws and external challenges they’ll have to overcome in order to change for the better by the end of the story.

Present the main character’s world as it is, and what is missing in their life.

Also introduce important supporting characters.

Theme Stated (happens during the Set-up)

What your story is about; the message, the truth.

Usually, it is spoken to the main character or in their presence, but they don’t understand the truth/lesson…not until later, when they have some personal experience and context to support it.

Thus, include a scene where a character says something that hints at what the protagonist’s big life lesson will be - how they’ll have to change and grow by the end of the story.

Catalyst (10%)

The moment where life as it is changes.

Examples: It is the telegram, the act of catching your loved-one cheating, allowing a monster onboard the ship, meeting the true love of your life, etc.

There’s no going back to the “before” world from here… What is the inciting incident that pushes the protagonist into the next phase of the story?

Debate (11-20%)

But change is scary and for a moment, or a brief number of moments, the main character doubts the journey they must take.

Show the protagonist questioning themselves and resisting the path ahead - wondering whether they have what it takes, or whether or they should just run home and hide under the bed.

“Should I just…?” “I really shouldn’t because…” “But what about…” Can I face this challenge? Do I have what it takes? Should I go at all?

It is the last chance for the hero to chicken out.

ACT 2

Break Into 2 (20%; Choosing Act Two)

The main character makes a choice and the journey begins.

We leave the “Thesis” world and enter the upside-down, opposite world of Act 2.

They make the choice to begin their adventure/transformation/journey/new thing.

Show your protagonist deciding to plunge into Act 2.

The Promise of the Premise (21-50%)

This is when the reader thinks “Ah, now we’re getting to the good stuff they hinted at on the back cover of this book!”

It’s also one of the longest sections in your book.

Show your protagonist getting used to their new world - loving it, hating it, making mistakes or doing well, meeting new people (see more below) and keeping the reader entertained.

This is when the main character explores the new world and the audience is entertained by the premise they have been promised.

B Story (happens during The Promise of the Premise)

This is when there’s a discussion about the Theme – the nugget of truth.

Usually, this discussion is between the main character and the love interest.

So, the B Story is usually called the “love story”.

Introduce a new character or characters who will eventually help the protagonist learn their life lesson.

Friends? Mentors? Love interests? Nemeses (nemesi?)? Who are they? How will they help?

Midpoint (50%)

This moment is when everything seems “great” or everything seems “awful,” depending on your story.

The main character either gets everything they think they want (“great”) or doesn’t get what they think they want at all (“awful”).

Either the Fun and Games section has lead to a false victory for your protagonist (they think they’ve been doing great so far) or a false defeat (they’ve been having a hard time so far).

What happens in this moment, halfway between beginning and end?

But not everything we think we want is what we actually need in the end.

Bad Guys Close In (51-75%)

Get ready for a bumpy ride. If your Midpoint was a false victory, now things start to go wrong for your protagonist.

If the Midpoint was a false defeat, well, things seem to be looking up, but the bad guys are getting closer and will have something to say.

Note: Bad guys can be actual physical enemies, but they can also be emotional enemies, like doubt or jealousy or fear.

Doubt, jealousy, fear, foes both physical and emotional regroup to defeat the main character’s goal, and the main character’s “great”/“awful” situation disintegrates.

Show the protagonist’s newly-built world beginning to unravel.

This will also be one of the longer sections in your novel.

All is Lost (75%)

This is when something happens to make your character hit rock bottom.

It’s the absolute lowest part of your novel.

Maybe someone or something dies (either literally or figuratively).

The initial goal now looks even more impossible than before. And here, something or someone dies.

It can be physical or emotional, but the death of something old makes way for something new to be born.

What does this moment look like for your protagonist?

Dark Night of the Soul (76-80%)

Your protagonist now has time to react to their “All is lost” moment, to mourn what they lost and wallow in hopelessness.

They’re worse off than they were at the beginning of the novel.

Show how low things have gotten.

Mourning the loss of what has “died” – the dream, the goal, the mentor character, the love of your life, etc.

But, you must fall completely before you can pick yourself back up and try again.

ACT 3

Break Into 3 (80%; Choosing Act Three)

The “aha!” moment; the “lift yourself up and try again” moment.

Show the protagonist realizing what they need to do in order to tackle their problems, both external and internal.

Thanks to a fresh idea, new inspiration, or last-minute Thematic advice from the B Story (usually the love interest), the main character chooses to try again.

Finale (81-99%)

The protagonist does what they decided to do in the Break Intro 3 beat, and (because of all the learning/growing they’ve done and the support or insight from the B Story), their plan works.

This time around, the main character incorporates the Theme – the nugget of truth that now makes sense to them – into their fight for the goal because they have experience from the A Story and context from the B Story.

The Bad Guys are defeated, the world is changed for the better.

What are the battles? How will the protagonist triumph (or not)?

This is another longer section, so you’ve got the space to make things dramatic and intense.

Act Three is about Synthesis.

Final Image (99-100%)

This is the opposite of the Opening Image, the “after” snapshot instead of the “before.”

Show the reader how the protagonist and their world have changed.

THE END

Sources: 1 2 ⚜ Writing Notes & References

[dailyadventureprompts]

See You Back at the Bonfire: Checkpoint Based Resurrection in D&D

Artsource

Between doing a writeup on soulsborne inspired campaign settings and another on the oldschool/newschool disparity between challenge and story, I got to thinking about death and its place in gamified narratives. Darksouls was the obvious influence, but I couldn't help but think of Dungeon Meshi, World of Warcraft, and supergiant's Hades.

Back in the day death was common in d&d, the challenges were unforgiving and the characters were expendable as they were simple. High level might as well have meant "high scoring", as the rewards for overcoming deathtraps and monsters with save-or-die abilities were directly translated into character progression. Death in this instance amounted to a combo breaker, being sent back to square 1 in a roguelike to do it all again. Over time though we started getting attached to our avatars, especially those of us who played primarily for story, leading characters to become too emotionally or mechanically complicated to feed into the blender.

This leaves the modern DM in a bit of a lurch: death by mooks or misadventure denies a satisfying (or heartwrenching) endpoint to the story you're collectively telling with your players. Look no further than Critical Role, where there are a small number of plot-meaningful deaths ( Vexhalia in the Tomb, Mollymauk to the Iron Shepards) and then a much larger tally of obligatory moments where someone fails one too many death saves and requires the use of a spell slot. The DM is forced to play with gloves on much of the time, holding back from creating real challenges because they don't want to kill any of their characters at the wrong time.

What I’d like to propose is that when it comes to challenge vs story we can have the best of both worlds if we’re a little more freehanded when it comes to resurrection. It'll take some tinkering and it won't fit for every story, but as a baseline assumption to the d&d formula, I think it could be quite useful.

How It'd Work: If someone dies before their appointed time , their body can be brought to a local temple to have the gift of life restored to them. Temples of their own deity are thought to work best, but lifegiving deities like Pelor or Illmater are known to be quite freehanded when it comes to raising the dead, and even small countryside shrines are known to work in a pinch. The resurrection may not work if the body is damaged, desecrated, or incomplete, though sometimes the spirit is simply incapable or unwilling to return.

For adventuresome types, this means that if you bite it while exploring the wilderness or some dank ruin you best hope your companions like you enough to drag your corpse back to the nearest altar. Likewise hope that you've kept on good terms with that god. If your entire party wipes, there's a chance for a good samaritan (or enterprising corpse picker) to help you out, though they'll usually help themselves to what's in your pockets in the meantime.

Some temples also sell rare tokens or burnable offerings that can transform any mundane campfire into a one-use resurrection altar, though the expendable nature of these charms mean they are in high demand.

Behind the scenes: what we've done here is turn character death from a plot derailer into a plot generator. Whenever someone in your party dies, it's your excuse to introduce new npcs, questhooks, and worldbuilding. Hades uses this trick to soften the blow of defeat with story progression, and DunMeshi uses it to build out the setting.

We can likewise take a point of inspiration from soulsborne games which use the player's desire to find a safety granting bonfire to spur exploration; What's the first thing the party are going to when hitting a new settlement after renting a room at the inn? Check out the neighbourhood temples to see which of the local gods is sympathetic to them. Same thing with seeking out the shrine nearest to the dungeon entrance before descending lower to face greater threats, which has them engaging with the location's story while discovering a minor questhook to endear themselves to the shrine god.

This is also to say nothing of all the fun adventure-fodder surrounding the mechanics including all the delightful "came back wrong" possibilities.

Finally let's talk about some gameplay assumptions: It's a tricky art building d&d encounters, especially since 5e play tends to default towards having fewer encounters per day, meaning a greater importance on these encounters being more challenging. This is a problem that I and many other DMs have wrestled with; finding the right degree of challenge for the encounter to be meanacing and meaningful, but without going so far as to risk an unexpected character death derailing my game. There's only so many permadeaths a player (and a story) can endure, to say nothing of the narrative killing tpk, which can scrap months of investment and storytelling potential.

Videogame designers figured out this balancing act of narrative and risk a long time ago, bumping characters back to a checkpoint when the player is overwhelmed by a challenge. The Soulsborne franchise built it's reputation on this "If at first you don't succeed, die, die again" mentality, which let them build the challenging ( read: engaging) gameplay the series is known for. Games like Hades go so far as to make this reset a centeral point of furthering the plot, allowing the narrative to expand with each stumble along the player's insurmountable climb.

By allowing characters to be easily revived, we end up with the best of both worlds when it comes to narrative vs. difficulty. The encounters we build can be more challenging in the moment if we know we won't accidently end a campaign if the dice get mean. This also makes players more likely to make big swings and try for optional content knowing the campaign less likely to end if they fuck up.

While some people might take umbrage with the idea of making resurrection commonplace, D&D already allows for characters to be revived though in-game mechanics at the cost of cleric spells and diamond dust. The devs figured out pretty early that even in a game centred around frequent violent clashes, it sucks to have a character you're invested in die unexpectedly, and it's better for the health of the game/narrative to be able to get those characters back at a cost. The problem is that these resurrection mechanics are siloed off to mid/high level characters, when it's the low level adventurers who are most fragile and thus most in need of an in-game safety net.

Secondly, look at the Soulsborne series as the inspiration for this post: part of the reason players are able to "Git Gud" is because the fast respawns allow for players to get right back into the action after making a fatal error, allowing for a "die, die again" playstyle focused on persistence and adaptation. This likewise allows developers to develop gameplay scenarios that are properly intimidating:

[forged-in-paper]

I am no longer working on 5e content, BUT!

So, an amount of time has passed and a number of things have occurred which, skipping past the gory details, has led me to no longer working on content for 5th edition D&D. This sounds like a travesty, but it has given me time to direct that passion elsewhere, an elsewhere which may or may not be relevant to you, so if you would join me for a moment, allow me to take you on a trip back in time for some context.

A few years back, I was fresh off a long-running campaign with some friends and looking for something new to do. I had been running games in vallonde for years and, as much as I love the setting, I needed a vacation from my son, so to speak.

I was in the process of streaming a playthrough of Ogre Battle 64 and thought "Hey, I really love these games and the setting, why not put some effort into making a little setting guide and running an Ogre Battle campaign?" Sounds great, right? Lots of politics, nuanced heroes, villains both relatable and cartoonish...I really could go on about OB forever but I'm going to refrain because that's not what this is about. What it IS about is boring historical events concerning this specific nobody, and in this specific case I spent maybe 2(ish?) weeks combing the internet for everything I could find related to Ogre Battle: Characters, nations, cities, classes, calendars, timelines, and so on, until I had a pretty extensive catalog of content I could start turning into plots and adventures. This was all going really well, and had a lot of promise, until random happenstance caused me to lose it all.

Now I had to make a decision. Did I want to go back to square 1 and start all over again, or did I want to just give up? Apparently the answer was neither because in that moment I had a thought: Why was I putting so much work into collecting all this information and twisting the 5e mechanics into some crazy shape they were never meant to be in when I could just make my own game? At first it was mostly just an itch in the back of my mind but eventually I say down to see if I could reasonably pull of what I wanted, which was essentially a tabletop game built specifically for Ogre Battle games, which utilized the mechanics found throughout the games, as well as things like classes and monsters. After working over some basic designs, I finished the rules for the combat system and knew there was a game hidden inside this idea.

Let's go ahead and bring it back to the present day. I never actually stopped working on content, I've just put all of that time into developing a game of my own design. In that time, I've gone through multiple iterations of a game that has grown far beyond its original aspirations as well as its design as an Ogre Battle TTRPG into something I'm excited to call my own. The project now goes by the name Celestial Solstice and is, more-or-less, done. It's really hard for me to describe the game's focus, but let me try to lay out what makes it special:

A truly balanced pillar trio: The game is built to make every theoretical playstyle a viable path toward advancement. Battle, exploration, and social content all hold the capacity for meaningful advancement.

A game of procedures: Taking a note from the mechanical procedures of older TTRPGs and select board games, Celestial Solstice uses closed, ordered feedback loops to organize the gameplay experience. All three gameplay pillars get their own unique style of play which is supported with character options.

No character limits: There are a massive amount of character options for people who love building characters. A three-tier job system with a total of 6 tier 1 jobs, 12 tier 2 jobs, and 12 tier 3 jobs means you can mix and match to create your own unique class. There are no character levels, and players instead buy character upgrades using EXP they earn for overcoming challenges. These EXP can be used to upgrade attributes, buy new features, and acquire and improve skills.

Gathering & Crafting: A large amount of focus on gone into incorporating gathering of raw materials and the crafting of those raw materials into usable items into the game. Forestry pairs with woodworking, herbalism with alchemy, mining with blacksmithing, and skinning with leatherworking to give players a wide assortment of options whether they want to do some crafting on the side or dedicate their entire character to the concept. There's also a system for enchanting items with magical effects which KINDA counts as crafting, right?

Control an army: The game is designed from the ground up for the recruitment of NPCs as well as the hiring of retainers, mercenaries, and employees. Recruit up to 50 characters which can participate in the game just like PCs do, going on adventures, gaining EXP, and improving over time. There's also a whole player-owned base mechanic which acts as the home for your ever-growing army.

A unique, fast-paced battle system: The battle system is modeled after the unit grid based system found in Ogre Battle 64. Emphasis is placed on battles that resolve quickly to prevent burnout yet allow players to roll lots of dice and make strategic decisions that matter. In this system, strategic unit placement is just as important as good dice rolls.

It's a point crawl system!

Random generation tables EVERYWHERE!

And honestly much more!

This are no plans for this to be a commercial project, at least not any time soon, but with that said it is technically a playable, complete game that is being iterated and improved upon over time. At the end of the day, I'm writing this post as a stupidly long-winded way to ask: Would anyone here be interested in seeing this blog turn into something dedicated to my personal TTRPG system? It's never going to be a 5e blog again, but I'd hate to let it wither away to nothing after such a long history. If so I'll start making posts describing the mechanics of my system and giving behind the scenes looks at how and why some of the design decisions were made, but I understand if people aren't interested in following a project they can't incorporate into the own games. Lemme know, cause I like you guys and would love to share this project that has become so close to me, but I get it, it is what it is lol.

Thanks for reading, and good gaming regardless!

- Forge

[nessatwene-art]

The Poten Project: Prime (TPP: Prime or just Prime) is the prequel to TPP. It follows Emilia (Lucas's mother) as a young adult and leader of special division squad in the Unnatural Hunter Association known as "The Poten Project"

The original poten project was collaborative effort between The Union Institute and the UHA, putting highly skilled potens at the forefront of action between the battle of humans and the highest and most dangerous tiers of Unnaturals.

(left to right) Emilia, Gadiel, Jay, Lottie, Damien, Eira

Prime takes the course of several years as Emilia and her team take on missions and fight unnaturals up until Emilia suddenly goes missing 4 years prior to the beginning of tpp proper.

Through it seemed that the creator of tpp had alternative motives. During the Series Emilia and her team develop a condition known as "over saturation." They possess an extremely higher number of unnatural energy in their bodies compare to the average person. Making the team unique for their unbeatable strength and the way their eyes glow during battle.

but all the power comes with a consequence.

An unnatural attacked the Union Institute, the scientists and UHA were baffled to find out it was not just any monster, but actually Emilia engulfed in an unnatural-like form, completely unaware of the havoc she was wreaking on the laboratory.

Unnaturalfication... the phenomenon of a human growing an unnatural core caused by the over saturation, resulting in experiencing a variety of symptoms.

Stage 1: Eye color change, energy veins appearing around the body, boost in power. Stage 2: Pain, Exhaustion, faintness, lost in consciousness. And stage 3, ultimately taking on a monstrous form. The poten becomes unstable while they succumb to their unnatural instincts until they have the will power to overcome it.

Throughout the series, Emilia deals with the anxiety of not just her and team experiencing unnaturalfication, but her son as well, who has been showing symptoms and gained abilities from a very young age. Her husband, Nick, a research scientist at The Union Institute, works to find a solution as Emilia works to sleuth out who or what could be behind this.

Prime is meant to be a more mature series compared to tpp so I have an avenue to explore adult themes and some of the plot the informs tpp later on. but I also really enjoy these characters and thought a prequel series would be a great way to explore them further.

[kyndredravenstories]

Eyes of Infinity: Chapter 14

Hello, I have been posting my work on AO3 and recently decided to venture here to Tumblr. Please note: This story is 18+. No minors. Please read tags carefully. Link to AO3 below but I will also be posting the chapters here.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/53564641/chapters/151115194

Pairing: Sylus/Female MC with some elements of Xavier/Female MC

Genre: Romance, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Angst, Adventure, Smut, Porn with Big Plot and Big Feelings

Content Warning (For the entire fic): Explicit sexual content, spoilers and alterations to existing lore and cards/memories/tender moments/secret times, size kink, size difference, vaginal sex, cunnilingus, anal sex, fingering, all kinds of fingering, elements of consensual somno, dom!Sylus, jealousy, possessive!Sylus, Mephisto stalking, typical game violence, battle and combat

Summary: To love him meant stepping over the threshold and crossing into darkness. To be with him meant accepting the lure of the shadows. And to protect him from betrayal meant sacrifice. I knew not how, only that I would not let time sever our paths ever again.

Previous Chapters: Ch 1 / Ch 2 / Ch 3 / Ch 4 / Ch 5 / Ch 6 / Ch 7 / Ch 8 / Ch 9 / Ch 10 / Ch 11 / Ch 12 / Ch 13

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Master Felix whips around and slaps Alfie's face. Hard. Alfie had been carrying a tray of glass vials, and he holds onto it with all his strength to make sure none of them fall to the shiny white floor. His small hands shake. It hurts. It hurts so very much. Master Felix likes to slap him when Alfie makes a mistake. Likes to see the tears in his eyes and the welts his rings leave behind when he hits him just right.

"I'm sorry, Master Felix," Alfie mumbles on instinct.

"Do you know what you did wrong, Number Eight?" Felix asks, towering over him in his white lab coat. His black eyes look like the vats of tarry goo in the basement rooms, his white teeth gleaming like a shark's in the pulsing blue lights of the lab around them.

"I wasn't quick enough, Master Felix. I'm sorry. Please don't punish me." Alfie doesn't really know what he did wrong. He had made a mistake, of course. But, what was it? He had to figure it out so Master Felix wouldn't be angry anymore. He brought the vials just like the Master asked for. Maybe he didn't run fast enough. And the guards had stopped him, too. They liked stopping Alfie. Liked it when Master Felix punished him.

"Useless freak." With a sneer, the man licks his fingertips and smooths them over his gray stubble. He turns away from Alfie and back to his writing desk, sitting down in his black chair and sliding close to the desk on its wheels. "Get those vials processed. That's twice you've made a mistake today."

Oh no. One more time and Master Felix will put Alfie in the tank. He hated being in the tank. It's so cold and the frozen sleeping man floating inside likes to whisper things in Alfie's head. Master Felix calls him the Progenitor, but he's more like a monster. He says things and makes Alfie see things while he feeds off of his Evol until everything goes dark and his heart feels like it will stop. It's worse than Master Felix's slaps. A lot worse.

Trying to overcome his dread and fear, Alfie rushes over to the big red spinning machine and starts putting the vials inside their matching colored slots. It's up so high that he has to pull up a step stool. He's careful not to make any more mistakes. He's careful not to break any vials or to spill any of the clear liquid. It's precious, Master Felix says. There isn't much of it, so every drop is important. If Alfie spills even a little, the Master will put him in the tank until the Monster drains every bit of his Evol.

That's how the other kids died. Now the cages are empty, but not for long. Every once in a while, the guards bring more of them to the prison in the basement. They come from all over. Sometimes, they speak words nobody can understand. But, Alfie stopped trying to talk to them a long time ago. It's sad when he makes a friend and they get put in the tank. Nobody else has ever come out of there alive. Nobody except Alfie. Maybe that's why the Master made him his assistant. Maybe Alfie is special.

Once he finishes putting away the vials, Alfie begins cleaning the laboratory. Luckily there isn't any blood to clean today. Seeing blood makes Alfie nauseous. He mops and sweeps, dusting the counters and wiping away anything that could leave a stain. That's what Master Felix likes him to do when he isn't running errands. The lab has to be clean and tidy. Leaving even a spot on the floor or the counters will be a mistake. The Master will be angry, and Alfie will get slapped. Or put in the tank. Or left without dinner. None of that sounds good.

While Alfie is cleaning, Master Felix takes out his blue recorder and begins talking to it. He does that a lot. Usually, he talks about all the things he learned and did that day. Kind of like a diary. He really likes talking to himself, and Alfie likes to listen. He pretends that Master Felix is telling a story, and it helps calm Alfie's fear. Today, he talks about how Malakai came to the lab to ask about the Progenitor. Alfie remembers that. Everyone always acts so different when the man with violet eyes comes to the lab. They say he's the strongest ever and that's why he's the leader of Noxis. But, if he's the strongest, why is he trying to become even stronger by using the Progenitor? 

"The recent failure is a setback, but at least a partial transference was achieved. If only Malakai hadn't been so wounded, perhaps..."

While he talks, Master Felix licks his fingertips a few more times and brushes them against his stubble. He does that a lot, too.

When Alfie is done cleaning, he puts everything away and sits in his place in the corner of the lab between the spinning machine and the computers. It's warm here. He curls into a ball, hoping Master Felix will not notice him for a while. Interrupting his stories would be a mistake. Alfie's attention shifts to one of the screens on the table in front of him. It's a big monitor showing cameras in different rooms. He sees something moving in the basement. In the room with the cages. They're empty now, so why would anybody be there? Nervous, he squints at the screen. More movement. Like shifting shadows. He glances at Master Felix. He can't interrupt him, but he's supposed to tell someone when he sees something strange. Alfie trembles, confused.

"Number Eight," Master Felix calls. Alfie holds his breath as he rushes over to the big black chair. Alfie hates that everybody calls him by his number here. In his mind, he holds onto his name. It's the only thing he can remember before he was brought here with the other kids and put in the cages. 

"Y-Yes, Master?"

"Go to the basement and leave this list with Orla." He hands Alfie a laminated piece of paper with handwritten names on it. "After that, you are free to go to the kitchens and take a meal. If you are not back in one hour, it will be a mistake. Do you understand?"

Alfie nods. "Yes, Master. Thank you, Master. I won't make a mistake, Master."

"Get out of my sight."

Alfie runs out of the lab, tucking the piece of paper against his chest. Orla is the Floor Warden for the basement. Maybe he can tell her about the moving shadows on the camera. Maybe she'll be nicer to him if he tells her something that will make her look good in front of the Master. If he could just talk to her. But, she's so scary. She hates the kids, and she likes to hit Alfie with her cane. She knows how to hit without leaving bruises. Master Felix doesn't like Alfie to have bruises from anything except his slaps.

He makes it to the elevator and presses his thumb to the fingerprint reader. With a green flash and a ping, the double doors hiss open to let him inside. He chooses the basement floor and scans his thumb again. The screen flickers with some letters and a message, but Alfie can't read anyway so he ignores it. In seconds, the elevator takes him four floors down to the lowest place in the compound. When the doors open, Alfie steps out.

It's really dark and cold here. A lot colder than anywhere else in the lab. They have to keep it cold so the bodies don't rot, Master Felix says. Alfie smells the bittersweet stuff the other scientists use to keep dead things fresh longer. He can never remember the name for it; the word is too long. The smell is stronger than usual, which means the scientists must be doing something with the bodies. Maybe they're making more tarry stuff. Or maybe it has something to do with the "failure" Master Felix was talking about in his stories today.

Orla gives Alfie a glare when he walks timidly up to her office. She's an older woman with streaks of grey in her hair and ugly wrinkles. She's wearing the grey and indigo Noxis uniform. Her pants are creased at the backs of her knees from sitting all day and watching her monitors. He holds out the paper as he walks up to her, hoping she'll understand that he's here to run an errand.

"It's from Master Felix," he says. "I just have to give you this list and then I have to run."

Orla stands up and marches the rest of the way up to him; he can hear her heavy breathing. When she's close enough, she takes the paper then steps around and closes the door behind Alfie. He tries to stay calm. She likes it when he's scared, and she really likes it when he cries. If he can just avoid doing what she likes, she'll get bored and maybe let him go with just a few smacks on the backs of his knees with her cane. He hopes he can get this over with fast. Master Felix only gave him an hour, and Alfie didn't have dinner yesterday.

"Looks like Felix wants me to take you to the cages," Orla smiles after reading the paper, reminding him of a picture of a shark he saw once on one of the monitors on the TV in the kitchen. Alfie doesn't believe her, but he can't fight her if that's what she wants to do. She's a lot stronger, especially because Master Felix just put him in the tank last week. He still doesn't have all of his strength back.

"That's not what the Master said," Alfie frowns. "The Master said to give you the list and go to the kitchen."

"You talkin' back to me, kid?" Her cane comes down hard on his back. Alfie doesn't expect it and falls down. She hits him again, on the head this time. He raises his hands to shield himself, confused now and on the verge of tears. This isn't how this normally goes. She's never hit him this hard. Curling into a ball, he screams when she keeps hitting him. She's shouting something, yelling. The more she hits him, the sweatier she gets and the louder her breathing becomes.

And suddenly, the pain stops.

Her voice stops.

Still terrified, Alfie squints open his eyes and looks up above him. Orla has a weird look on her face, like a robot disconnected from its plug. Her face is kind of limp. Her mouth hangs open and her eyes are rolled back into her head. She wavers for a second before a fountain of blood spurts from her neck. Alfie screams as her head falls off her shoulders and onto the floor, bouncing and rolling towards him. Horrified, he scrambles backwards on all fours. When he opens his mouth to scream again, a hand wraps around his face.

"Shh. Don't shout, unless you want to end up like that hag."

"I'm s-sorry," Alfie whispers. "I made a mistake. Please don't hit me. Please don't put me in the tank. Please don't hurt me. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Calm down," another voice says.

Alfie realizes that he covered his face with his hands instinctively.

"Look at me," the same voice demands. The hand leaves his mouth. Someone shifts around him. Alfie moves his hands away, peeking up towards the voice. Two figures are standing above him dressed in all black. Their faces are covered with crow masks. The tips of the beaks are red like they've been dipped in blood. One of their hoods says "06" and the other says "07". Otherwise, he can't tell them apart.

"P-Please don't h-hurt me," Alfie whispers again.

"If you do what we ask, we won't," Six says.

"W-Who are you?" Alfie asks.

Six sits down next to him. "Tell me your name first."

"A-Alfie...I think. I can't remember because..." he stops there. Suddenly, he's wondering if this is another test from Master Felix. The Master is always testing him. They killed Orla, but she liked to disobey the Master and the rules. She liked to hit Alfie and make him cry. He's glad she's dead. He just wishes there wasn't so much blood. He really hates seeing blood.

"Everybody calls me Number Eight. That's who I am. I won't tell you anything," Alfie says, his bottom lip quivering. "I won't say anything. I have to go to the kitchen. Master said to go after I was done here. Please let me go."

Six looks at the headless corpse on the floor then at Alfie again. "We just killed your friend. Aren't you upset?"

"Orla wasn't my friend," Alfie insists. "She hit me and beat me. She was a bad worker. She broke the rules, and she deserved it."

Nobody ever listened to him when he complained anyway. They all just liked to hit him. If he complains to these people right now, it might be a mistake. He might end up in the tank. He has to show Master Felix that he's loyal. That he's special.

"What do you do around here, Alfie?" Six asks him. Seven stays silent, occasionally glancing towards the closed door. Six had said his name. Not Number Eight. His name. Maybe this means Alfie is doing well. Maybe this is a reward.

"I'm Master Felix's assistant. I help him."

"I see. And, do you like helping him?"

"Yes," Alfie answers without hesitation. "Master Felix is amazing. He's smart. He's merciful. He gave me a place. Made me special. A nobody like me can be helpful if I serve him."

"I see," Six sounds impressed. "You must be really important here. Are you the youngest?"

Alfie puffs up his chest. Nobody had ever told him he was important.

"I was before, but not now. The other kids that came with me and after me were put in the tank, so they're dead. They were weak. They weren't worthy of serving the Master."

Six nods. "The tank sounds like a scary place."

"It is," Alfie shivers. Six was really easy to talk to, and he didn't look like he was going to hit him. He liked this. Maybe he could talk to him just a little more. "It's really really scary. It's cold and there's the Progemator. I don't like him."

"Progenitor?" Six asks, correcting Alfie's pronunciation. "What's so scary about him? He's just a floating dead guy, isn't he?"

"No!" Alfie insists. Nobody's ever been this interested in Alfie before, and he doesn't want Six to think he's scared. "The Progemator isn't dead. He's alive, and he gets stronger when he takes our Evol."

"Oh, really?" Six sounds surprised. "Have you been in the tank with him?"

"Yes. Master Felix puts me there when I make a mistake. When I do something wrong. I deserve it, of course. It's all my fault. I deserve to be punished and have my Evol taken."

Seven comes over and sits next to Alfie, too. He crosses his arms over his chest, listening intently. Alfie can't help but feel proud. He's said only good things about Master Felix and the Monster. Only good things. That means he's passing the test, right?

"You sound like a brave young man," Seven says. "After all, you're such an important assistant and you've survived going into the tank."

Alfie's eyes sting with tears. This is the first time anybody's ever given him so many compliments. He hopes this test will go on just a little longer.

"Does that mean your Master trusts you to go anywhere here in the lab?"

"Yes, anywhere he needs me to go."

Seven reaches for Alfie's wrist. "Can I look at something?" he asks.

Alfie hates being touched, but if its for the test, he can be patient. He nods, and Seven gingerly takes hold of his forearm and pulls up his ratty sleeve. His mark is tattooed into his skin; the black ink looks as fresh as though it only happened yesterday. It's the number Eight.

Six and Seven look at each other. They don't say a word, but Alfie feels like they're talking to each other. After a minute, they shift to sit closer together and hold out their forearms to him.

"Wanna see something neat?" Six asks.

"I think you'll be surprised," Seven says.

Alfie hesitates. Is this the next part of the test? He nods, clasping his hands together nervously. In perfect unison, Six and Seven pull up their sleeves to show their wrists. Alfie gasps when he sees the same tattoos on their skin in the exact same place as his: the numbers six and seven.

"Alfie," Seven says, "how would you feel about a trade?"

"T-trade?"

"Yes. In return for taking us to see your Master, we'll take you home with us."

"Take me...to another lab?" Alfie holds his breath, not daring to hope.

"Take you home," Six says, his tone suddenly different than before. "No more labs."

"Away...from here?" Alfie whispers, his eyes going wide.

Seven nods. "Yes, that's right."

This is a test. This is Master Felix's test. Alfie has to stay strong. This is all a trick. The second he says 'yes' someone will come out and hit him. Master Felix will laugh and slap him then put him in the tank. Maybe forever.

"No," Alfie shakes his head. "No, I won't. I'm happy here. I belong here. Master Felix made me special."

A tear runs down Alfie's cheek despite his best efforts to hold it in. It's lies. It's all lies. If he could, he would run away from here. If only these people were real. If only this wasn't a test.

"You don't trust us?" Six asks him. "What reason do we have to lie to you?" He sounds sincere. He sounds real. Alfie takes a step towards him, digging his nails into his palms. 

"If..." Alfie swallows past his fear. "If this isn't a test. If you're not with Master Felix. Then...you killed Orla...and you could kill me too."

"Believe me," Seven says to Alfie's left. "If we wanted to, you'd already be dead."

"But, you won't." Alfie frowns. This is how everybody is. They all want to use him or hit him or hurt him. "Until you're done with me." 

Six chuckles. "Smart and special. I definitely want to keep him now, Kieran."

"He's not a puppy, Luke. Boss won't like it."

Luke and Kieran. Were those their names?

"Boss?" Alfie asks, suddenly curious. Did they have a Master, too? They had tattoos like him and a Master like him. But, they were so strong. And they weren't in a cage. Was their Master nice? Did he hit them, too?

Luke looks over to Alfie. "Yeah, our Boss. Strongest guy you'll ever meet."

"But I thought Malakai was the strongest. He's our leader."

Kieran snorts. "That chump is going to be fish food soon."

"Fish food?" Alfie doesn't understand.

"Yeah," Luke says. "Like getting thrown into a tank but in pieces."

"Your Boss is that strong?" Alfie asks, amazed. He can't imagine anybody stronger than Malakai. "Is he...nice? Does he hit you?"

Luke shakes his head. "Never. We get to play as much as we want as long as we do our work."

"Does he let you go to the kitchen?"

"As much as you want," Kieran says, his arms still crossed over his chest.

"But, what about the numbers? Aren't you his prisoners?"

"He took us from our prison," Luke says. "And gave us the strength to kill all those who hurt us."

Alfie takes a slow shaky breath. All who hurt him. Kill them? Kill Master Felix? Kill the guards that always stopped him and got him in trouble? Killing others was for the strong, and Alfie was weak. He'd imagined so many times what it might be like to hit Master Felix back. To hit the guards that abused him. To take Orla's cane and hit her over and over until she stopped moving. But, he'd always been too weak.

"I can't do that," Alfie mumbles.

"What, kill? You don't look like a softie to me, kid," Kieran says.

"I'm not strong enough."

"You don't have to be strong to fight for your life," Luke explains. "You don't have to be strong to give back an eye for an eye." He reaches out and puts a hand on Alfie's shoulder. "You just have to have one thing. The instinct to survive. Like any beast, really." 

"That's all any of us are," Kieran concludes. 

Alfie wrings his hands together. "Can you...or your Boss...can you teach me that?" 

"We can," Luke assures him.

It was too good to be true. Too good. But, Alfie wanted to believe it so much.

"Then...then..." 

"Do you want to trade now?" Kieran asks, sounding impatient.

"Yes," Alfie breathes, scared and excited all at once. "I want to leave here. I want to kill Master Felix. He hurts me. He treats me like dirt. I hate him. I hate him. I hate him." The last part comes out as a growl, and the walls around him shake with Alfie's anger.

Luke rubs his hands together. "Alright then, it's a deal."

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Felix Blaze is a man of logic and action. His lab ebbs and flows in perfect order. Not a hair out of place. One might say he runs a tight ship. His direct reports don't dare to step a toe out of line. There are no terminations here. At least, not in the traditional sense. Young bloods come to work here to prove themselves to the organization, and one word from Felix is enough to either earn a promotion or earn a place among his cages of test subjects. It's a risk a surprising many are willing to take.

Felix has earned quite a reputation of success in his endeavors and assigned projects. He grew quickly in rank, and in just a few short years, he's taken A.R.C.A.N.E and Noxis to a whole new level. An accident -- something involving an introverted young bookworm working too hard for her own good and a tenth story ledge calling her name -- led Felix to a method of mass producing LUMINIS. With her notebook and knowledge in hand, he was a rising star among his toxic and quite envious collective. A figure of envy.

But, after flying so high, the brilliant scientist's fall is all the more painful. Malakai's failed operation just hours ago is a new stain on his record. While most of his colleagues had gone home for the night, Felix remains alone in his frigid, dark, lab. He sits at a desk, the only light a pulsing blue glow coming from the eight foot tank beside him. His hands move at blinding speed as he scribbles notes and observations in impeccable penmanship. Only Number Eight remains by his side, bringing him hot cups of coffee and carrying out menial tasks.

Foolish naïve little child. An unexpected bonus brought to Felix among a cartload of worthless bodies. He possesses an interesting Evol, one full of the potential to either destroy or to elevate the RE-Birth project. For that reason, Felix keeps him on a tight leash. A prisoner given the illusion of limited freedom. First, Felix had made sure to crush his mind and his spirit. Then, he ensured that he continued doing so. The child must never know his true worth or purpose.

Now if only the other factors of the project could line up as well. Lost in his own anger and frustration, Felix laments that no one is here to witness his heroic actions. If only Malakai could see him now, picking up the pieces after their recent set-back and planning for the next attempt. See how alone he is; how he's clearly the only worthwhile worker in this lab. Damn the other scientists. So what if they'd been working without rest for over 48 hours? They're on the verge of a breakthrough. Doesn't that mean anything to them? Unworthy rats. Not even fit to lick Malakai's boots. They would need to be dealt with soon; their incompetence cannot be tolerated. Every failed attempt puts Malakai's life at risk, puts the Progenitor at risk.

Intolerable.

Disgusting.

So furious his hands shake, Felix reaches up to lick his fingers and smooths them over his growing stubble.

The Master must be informed. There must be another purge of the staff. They can start over; build again. Bodies are plenty to push buttons and fill beakers. After all, it is he - Felix - that is the true mastermind and the brains behind it all. Only men of his caliber are fit to work at A.R.C.A.N.E. Men with ambition, fortitude, and a strong understanding of their role in the great machine that is Noxis.

Hands trembling, he writes up the last of his report. Compiling data for this last attempt isn't easy. Something had gone disastrously wrong. No. Disaster isn't a good word. A glitch. Yes, that's it. Just a glitch. They'd needed more bodies than usual. More of the Blood, too. And still -- still -- Malakai couldn't couple with the Progenitor. His leader had left frustrated and weakened, his Evol unchanged, his memories only partially transferred. If only Malakai hadn't been injured, they could have tried again. But, the wounds needed a Proto-bath treatment to heal.

Again, Felix reaches up, licks his fingers, and smooths them over his stubble.

If only the Specimen hadn't escaped over a year ago. The search for him had borne no fruit, and there were no more Lemurians readily available to pull from to replenish the Blood. At this rate, LUMINIS production would be compromised and the RE-Birth project will need to be put on hold. Unless, of course, Malakai made progress in obtaining a new resource.

The girl.

The Core.

With her, none of these things would be obstacles at all.

So, why did their leader hesitate? Why did he not capture her in this last encounter? A.R.C.A.N.E needed her so badly. No tissue, no cell, would be wasted. Every piece of her body would be put to good use. The Core to power the Progenitor. Her blood for LUMINIS. Skin and bones and organs for research and analysis. She would be reborn; they'd find her, capture her, and use her again. She was perfect. A timeless resource that would never run dry.

Setting aside his notebook, Felix picks up a clipboard and walks closer to the Progenitor's tank. A man floats within, his long black hair waving with the current, his violet eyes closed in repose. One of these days, Felix would see them open. Malakai will succeed in transferring his Evol and his memories to this new body, achieving true rebirth and reincarnation in a form that will be unstoppable. Noxis will rise like a phoenix from the ashes, and the vermin of Onychinus would fade into the shadows, never to be heard from again.

Of course, these are only Felix's ambitions. Malakai has much grander plans, including the slow and methodical elimination of his greatest rival - Sylus. Felix wants to see this, too. Wants the man with the red eyes to kneel before them all and beg for his life. Once, Felix had been a part of Onychinus. Once, he had been the greatest among the ranks of their scientists. Until Sylus had swept in and destroyed his research. All of his life's work pertaining to the Aether Core, gone in a single vicious night of flame and smoke.

Felix reaches up and smooths his moistened fingers across his stubble.

Revenge would be sweet.

And, what could be better than claiming Sylus's body for research and experimentation? A power like his had never been known or seen anywhere. A monster, some called him. Or, perhaps, a result of some machination by an unknown hand. Many feared the unknown, but Felix welcomed it. All mysteries could be solved, and monsters made for fruitful study.

A ringing. Felix's phone. Blinking at the flashing screen, he frowns when the caller ID looks glitched and fragmented. The metal in the walls tends to interfere with calls here. Concerned that it's a summons from Malakai, he picks up.

"Downstairs," a familiar voice says.

"Right away, Sir."

Felix grows worried. Had Malakai's wounds been worse than they'd thought? Was the Proto-bath not sufficient? Were more Protocores required? His breathing quickens as he gathers his things and makes his way outside with his briefcase in hand. Number Eight follows him like the obedient dog he is. On the way, Felix throws on his thick winter jacket. He exits the building with a swipe of his badge, stepping out into a flurry of falling snow. A pair of headlights nearly blind him, and he rushes around the car's front. Someone opens the door for him, and he slides inside. Number Eight follows suit.

"Sir, I --"

He stops. Two men sit before them dressed in all black identical clothes and armor. Their faces are hidden behind crow masks, but somehow even without seeing their expressions, Felix can tell they are smiling. They're wearing hoods with the numbers "06" and "07" printed on them. Recognition flares. His jaw clenches. He swallows past a lump of terror in his throat, for he's heard rumors of these men and what they do at Sylus's side. One of them takes a phone out of his pocket and taps the screen.

"Downstairs," the recording of Malakai's voice plays. "Downstairs...downstairs...downstairs..."

"For a smart guy, you sure fell for this trap way too easily," Seven says.

Felix lunges for the door handle, but he doesn't even make it an inch before one of the men seems to teleport to his side. A gloved hand wraps around Felix's wrist hard enough to break bone. He shouts in pain, but this only seems to amuse his captor.

"Now, now," Seven chides from above him. "You're our guest of honor. Just stay put, would you?"

The man across from him -- Six -- chimes in, "we're not in the mood to play right now."

Felix's eyes snap to Number Eight. Six is holding a glowing dagger to his throat. The boy's bright silver eyes are dead as always, devoid of any kind of human emotion. He doesn't look scared or concerned. In fact, he looks almost angry, an expression Felix has never seen on his face.

"Let me go," Felix demands. "I don't have anything you want. You can keep the kid." He gestures with his head towards Number Eight. "He knows more than I do."

Seven shakes his head, "Speak again without permission, and we'll start removing fingers."

Felix gasps at the threat, but doesn't dare to say anything else.

"Now, if you're a good boy and you answer our questions, we might be merciful and kill you quicker."

"That's not much fun, though, is it?" Six sighs. "And who's this extra?" He shakes Number Eight, but the boy doesn't say a word. Strange. For as long as Felix has known him, the boy was terrified of his own shadow. He'd capitalized on that; had made sure to make his fears much worse. He should be shivering and shaking now, especially with a knife at his throat. 

"Looks like a cute little assistant," Six snickers. "I guess he's a freebie, so I can do whatever I want, right?"

"Boss said we could do whatever as long as the scientist squawked." Seven shrugs. "No mention of the kid, so he's bonus loot."

"Let's take them to the cell," Six whines. "I wanna try out my new kit."

"He needs his tongue to talk," Seven counters.

Felix's body starts to shake in terror.

"Oh, look, he's scared," Seven chuckles, leaning forward until the sharp beak of his mask is nearly touching Felix's face. His voice drops to a low thundering threat. "Is the big bad scientist going to pee his pants?"

"You better not. These are leather seats," Six says.

Felix bites his lip, tasting blood. "W-What...do you want with me?"

The second man's mask tilts down. "Well, those documents in your bag are a good start. But, mostly, we need you to tell us where Malakai is and everything you know about that half frozen clone of his that you've been growing in your lab."

Felix starts to say something when an armored fist flies out of nowhere and punches him in the face. He goes down like a bag of rocks, coughing and sputtering as his vision spins.

"Rule one," Seven says, "no lying."

"Didn't...lie..." Felix coughs.

"You were about to. I can sense that a mile away, you know."

Number Eight whispers something. Felix balks when Six moves the dagger away from his neck and leans down towards him.

"What was that, Alfie?"

"Slap him," the child answers. His silver eyes gleam in the low light. "He made a mistake. Slap him."

"You're right," Seven says then turns and slaps Felix's face. The impact is so severe that Felix thinks he might have broken his jaw. He coughs and sputters past the pain and dizziness, spitting out a mouthful of blood along with a tooth.

"You...little freak..." Felix hisses, glaring at the child. "It was you that led them here?"

How? How was this possible? Betrayal from the child? Felix had done everything by the book. He'd been certain that he'd broken this boy long ago. Yet the silver eyes looking back at him now weren't the same ones he was used to seeing. Had these two men done something to him? Had they influenced him somehow? If so, when? This wasn't something that could have just happened on a whim. 

"Careful, Master Felix," Number Eight says, his face and eyes still dead as rotting pond water. "Don't speak without permission."

Felix flinches back. Six knocks on the pane of glass separating the passengers and driver. The car takes off, and Felix struggles to get his emotions and fears under control. No matter what happens to him here, he cannot give them any information about Malakai and his plans. He glares at the twins, then at Number Eight.

"I think we've got a true loyal pawn here," Seven says. "He looks determined."

"Loyal till we really get started," Six shrugs.

Seven grabs Felix by his collar and pulls him forward. "Hey, just so you know, I want you to fight me. I've been bored lately, and I could use some human dissection to get my mind right again."

A phone rings somewhere behind Felix. Six reaches across the seat and picks up the phone.

"Yeah, Boss, we got him. We're on our way now."

A deep voice says something Felix can't make out.

"Understood, Boss."

When he hangs up, Seven speaks up. "So? What's the Boss-man want?"

"We can't kill him 'till the Boss gets a turn with him," Six practically pouts.

"So as long as we leave his eyeballs in tact, we can do whatever?"

"That was my understanding."

Both men turn to look at Felix, and he comes close to soiling himself despite the earlier warning. All of his earlier bravado vanishes, shrinking and withering like a slug in saltwater. They're taking him to Sylus, and they're planning on torturing him. No amount of fortitude or sanity will be enough to survive that. 

"P-Please...I take it back...I'll tell you anything you want."

The twins both laugh in unison. "Oh, you will," they say simultaneously. "But we'll have some fun first."

[poorsapadvocate]

The Significance of Holding One's Breath

Let’s start with Kinger, because the whole episode was about him. Kinger’s thing is that he lights up when he holds his breath. Yet he is primarily lucid in the dark. This (so far) is the only power to really hold any plot utility; Kinger spends the whole episode guiding Pomni and actually gets her out of an adventure un-traumatized. Kinger’s ability allows him to guide others, both literally and emotionally.

Zooble “turns straight.” The B plot of the episode was about how they have body dysmorphia, probably dysphoria. According to Gooseworx, they use any pronouns because they truly don’t remember what their original body looked like and don’t know what to identify as. Their ability allows them to have some control over their body. Even if it’s not exactly what they want, it’s something they can choose for themselves.

Ragatha’s hair sticks up. This one’s also bit stretchy, but animators often use hair as an extra point of expression to a character to convey emotions, especially in more cartoony works like this. Ragatha is the people pleaser. She’s constantly denying how she really feels—terrified of the adventures, fear of abstracting, probably a little upset at being abandoned by Pomni in ep 1—to keep the peace and hold onto what little sanity she has left. Notably, she also tends to pull on her hair when she’s particularly in distress—mostly in ep 2 when Jax threatens to tell the Candy Monster her hair looks like licorice, but also in ep 1 when she’s describing abstraction. Her ability allows her to express how she really feels—frazzled and freaked out.

Something similar happens with Gangle: her mask spins out of control. Those masks determine how she behaves and feels. We don’t know enough about Gangle for me to say exactly what her masks are a metaphor for—mood swings, depression, masking neurodivergence—but it’s definitely saying something about her mental state. Her ability shows that those emotions are out of control no matter what mask she wears. It could also be a metaphor about how both her comedy and tragedy masks both represent who she really is—a smile is just a frown turned upside down, and comedy is just tragedy plus time.

Pomni changes color when she holds her breath. The use of colors in TADC had already been noted by people smarter than me; every character has a color palette made of up three colors. Pomni is the most evident with the perfectly alternating blue and red piped with yellow—all primary colors that, when mixed, make other colors. It’s subtle and maybe I’m reading too much into it, but her ability connects her to others, which is itself the whole point of the episode and probably the whole series. “Cherish the people around you. You’ll never know when they’ll be gone. And the worst thing you can do in this world is make someone think they’re not wanted or loved.”

I'm not sure if this is an intentional byproduct of the Circus--Cain or otherwise, but it's weird that these were programmed in, right?Perhaps the Circus is a way to compensate for these flaws/provide a temporary relief from them, or a way to overcome them. Or perhaps the Circus is could be tempting them to abandon their humanity and become part of the machine. After all, the only way for Pomni and Kinger to survive the adventure was to forget to breathe, something normal humans couldn’t do outside of the simulation. (I just think Cain forgot that humans need to breathe.)

But my real interest is Jax. I think his ability is invisibility. As the number 1 Jax defender, his behavior to me has always screamed doing things because there are no tangible consequences. If my interpretations are correct, I believe Jax’s flaw is distancing himself from other people and ignoring how much pain he puts them through to preserve his own sanity. He’s also the one that’s the most detached from the Circus and the crew, the one that says that Pomni doesn’t actually need to breathe in said scene where this was all established, and able to bend the laws of physics in general. Being invisible would remove him from the reality of his situation, at least a little bit. But there’s also an element of attention-seeking, especially as he keeps trying to look for the fourth wall (Jax probably knows there’s an audience, that’s besides the point of this post.) I think Jax might fear being forgotten about, becoming abandoned by the crew or becoming just another monster in the basement. It’s better to be hated than be ignored, right?(/rhetorical) Invisibility would also have a tangible utility in an adventure, if the Circus is actually programming these abilities in, and would explain how he keeps sneaking into people’s rooms.

It’s also weird that Cain and Bubble by design don’t have noses or lungs, the things you need to breathe. I mean, they could breathe through their mouths if they needed to, but that’s the thing you have to have shut to hold your breath…

[inktog]

YOU ARE A MONSTER, AND TONIGHT IS HALLOWEEN. It's the one night of the year when you can exist in the open—by passing yourself off as a human in a costume.

Players: Create Characters

What monster are you? doppelgänger, Frankenstein’s, ghost, headless rider, incubus/succubus, mummy, pumpkinhead, skeleton, vampire, werewolf, witch, zombie, other. (Start thinking about your supernatural capabilities.)

Choose your number from 2 to 5. A low number means you’re better at TRICK (slinking, skulking, spooking, scaring, killing). A high number means you’re better at TREAT (boldness, bluntness, upfrontness, playing nice, passing as human).

Write down your character’s name, monster type, pronouns (if any), and number on an index card so everyone can see them.

Players: Choose a Scenario

Decide as a group: You’re trying to

thwart an evil plot,

get revenge on someone,

escape from the human world, or

live it up for a night!

How’d you all end up with each other? What do you already know? What’s the plan? And if it’s not already obvious, why do you need to traverse the human world?

Decide for yourself: What’s your personal stake in this?

What does the evil threaten that you care about?

What’d they do to get on your bad side?

What’s waiting for you back home?

What’s one quintessential human experience you can’t wait to try?

Rolling the Dice

When you do something risky, roll 1d6. You roll +1d if you’re using supernatural gifts (a witch’s magic, a werewolf’s teeth and claws, a succubus’ seduction, etc.) and +1d if you’re taking the initiative (being proactive, not just reacting to danger).

If you’re TRICKing (acting in the shadows), you’re trying to roll above your number.

If you’re TREATing (acting in the light), you’re trying to roll below your number.

Each success is a hit.

If you roll 0 hits, something goes wrong. Brace for the worst.

With 1 hit, you barely manage it. The GM will give you an added complication, harm, or cost.

With 2 hits, you do it well. Good job!

With 3+ hits, not only do you do it well, but you also get some extra bonus effect of the GM’s choice.

Rolling your number exactly is TRICK OR TREAT: you gain a special insight into what’s going on. Ask the GM a question and they’ll answer honestly.

Some good questions: What do they know? Who’s behind this? How could I get them to [BLANK]? What should I be on the lookout for? What’s the best way to [BLANK}? What’s really going on here?

(A roll of TRICK OR TREAT counts as a success.)

When you help someone out or act as a group, each person rolls individually. The number of hits equals the number of people who rolled at least one success on their dice.

GM: Run the Game

Set scenes, roleplay as NPCs, give players challenges to overcome, and adjudicate the rules in the service of fun.

Start by giving the players a lead based on the scenario they chose: some immediate task or relevant info to help orient them at the start of play.

Call for rolls when it makes sense. Interpret the results as the dice dictate; don’t pre-plan outcomes. Let no roll go to waste: even failures should push the narrative forward in new and interesting directions.

Before something bad happens to the characters, show signs that it’s about to happen, then ask them what they do. (“The Pumpkin Queen rushes you, her blade crackling with dark magic. What do you do?” “After you reattach your eyeballs, you see a shocked little boy staring at you—he looks like he’s about to scream. What do you do?”)

Ending the Game

Call it a night when you succeed at your goal or reach an appropriate cliffhanger. If you’re playing more than one session, you can increase or decrease your number by 1 in between sessions (min. 2, max. 5).

If you’re discovered as monster, you attract a mob and are defeated (killed, exorcised, captured for government experiments, etc.). You can also be defeated by other monsters. Either way, you can make a new character to keep playing—as long as your friends are still alive.

Credits

Trick or Treat (by Joy Sherwood) is a hack of Lasers and Feelings (by John Harper) under the CC BY 4.0 license. creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

[votsalot]

16 23 25

16. What is the most over-hyped book you read this year?

Most over-hyped book I read, for me, was The Familiar by L. Bardugo. It wasn't her first publication in the adult fantasy genre that I've read, but I think the last book I truly read and enjoyed of hers was Ninth House. I was bummed out because The Familiar has a lot of elements which should have worked for me, but didn't gel at the end, with some strange turns in the plot which slowed down momentum, and a "happy ending" which filled me with existential anxiety (girl what if you sleep in??? what if you wake up and your immortal dying bf is a pile of dust and you can't bring him back?? how did you learn to keep yourself immortal anyhow, that was kind of unclear??)

But is was different "didn't work for me vibes" than the sequel to Ninth House - Hellbent - which felt more perpendicular than parallel to it's preceding installment. I think it was a consequence of being written in lock down; to be honest I read three stinkers from three authors I typically enjoy and I think the psychological effect of Covid-19 on art produced between 2020-2022 is palpable.

23. What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book?

The fastest time it took me to read a book was ten days - Dec. 1st - Dec. 10th. The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest - a collection of short stories edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, illustrations by Charles Vess.

It helped me get out of my reading slump, and had some scary faerie stories which I loved, because scary faeries are my favorite kind. There's another short story published within an Ellen Datlow curation called "Crick Crack Rattle Trap" by A. C. Wise which also scratched this itch - but that was last year when I read Screams From the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous. And if you're into supremely fucked-up fiction - I recommend "Fabulous Beasts" by Priya Sharma. Do a little research before reading it on my recommendation though, major trigger warnings apply.

25. What reading goals do you have for next year?

Reading goals for next year is....read more! I don't try to set a number of books for myself, I just want to read more books than I did. I read 5 books this year (to be fair, some were 1000+ pages and took a month to finish) which is 1/5th of the ground I typically cover (eugh). I think it's a combo of a somewhat lacking local inter-library loan program. It's respectable for a town/library network of this size but has less selection then where I'd been living. And also feeling dampened from when the city sent me that letter threatening to charge me with a misdemeanor for not returning a book on time ( ° ͜ʖ͡°)╭∩╮

But I overcome. I will read more; I've made a list and written down the names of the authors I've enjoyed in my short story anthologies.

[noahsbookhoard]

📚April 2024 Book Review (Part 1/3)📚

There are only three books in this review but by number of words in the title that evens out with the others. Mainly horror this time with a dash of classic.

The Me You Love in the Dark by Scottie Young and Jorge Corona

Ro, a painter, retires in an old house in a small town hoping to overcome her art block. What she founds inside will turn out to be for more dangerous than inspiring.

My first encounter with Scottie Young is the I Hate Fairyland comics, the story of a little girl who got into Fairyland and who took 30 long years to get out, hating every minutes of it. They are funny, colorful and cartoonishly violent, I loved them so I wanted to check what else he had done. Let's just say this is a radical change of mood.

It is very dark. As in Sometimes You Barely See What's On The Page dark. But most of all it is a horror tale that deals with dark and heavy themes, namely abusive relationship. It has some of the traditional elements of the haunted house story: a woman moves in an old house that hasn't been occupied in a long time. She discovers that something or someone is living inside, hidden. And as any good horror story this won't go well.

But there is an interesting twist: after the initial shock of the discovery, Ro founds that the monster haunting her house isn't as monstrous as she might have thought. There starts a romantic relationship which I first found really worrying but slowly the couple ease into something almost domestic: she paints inspired by the creature, they drinks wine and share a bed. Even other characters comment that she is getting better, that this is the peak of her career.

Maybe I should have kept more on my toes, and Ro as well, because when it evolves into possessiveness and refusing to let her go out or see her manager, Ro yields more and more until it all snaps. She manages to escape but not before her lover show once again the monster he is.

In the end the real horror in this story is the abusive and how it crawls into what is otherwise seems to be a happy couple. With the old house, drawn curtain and many eyes creature I hadn't expected the story to evolves this way but it works really well to bring the reader on edge and spark a feeling of danger.

It has some Stephen King vibes lovers of haunted houses will really like, I think. Trigger warning for the abusive relationship and for more eyes than entirely necessary.

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

The origin story of the eponymous podcast character: spanning from 19th century on the Mediterranean coast to current times in Nightvale: her early life, her adventures with smugglers, her plotting and her death and afterlife as a ghost, all leading her to haunt the home of Nightvale resident, Craig.

I started listening to Welcome to Nightvale around 2018 and I fell in love instantly. This was my first podcast and even now it is still a favorite of mine. I'll admit, The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home (TFOWSLYH for short) isn't my favorite character (I was and will always be a Glow Cloud Stan) but she intrigued me. It is technically the 3rd Welcome to Nightvale novel but it's entirely standalone.

At the first few pages I had to check if I really order the right book: we aren't exactly in 20th century America, but I chose to trust the process and I'm glad I did!

There are two separate story line: one is TFOWSLYH talking at the first person to Craig, the man whose home she is secretly living in. She judges and interferes with his life, his diet, his relationship and sabotage his life. The second one is the story of her life from childhood, to how she eventually became The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. It is full of adventures with her band of mercenaries and plans for revenge until her death and even after that, when she became the character we know and hope isn't living in our home love.

And it all comes together, so slowly you won't even notice before it's too late. The creeping dread of the last few chapters alone made the book 100% worth it. It had been described as "Part The Haunting of Hill House, part The Count of Monte Cristo" and I couldn't agree more.

The writing, I had no doubt about it but it's always worth mentioning, is impeccable. It has the quality the podcast accustomed us to and a masterful pacing to put this plot together. It also introduces a cast of character I would have loved to get more of in adventure novels, TFOWSLYH gets a full crew of swashbuckling mercenaries while never yielding to clichés of the genre.

It's a warm recommendation from me if you love Welcome to Nightvale and want the origin story of the character. And if you never listened, it works without prior knowledge of the podcast. If you want a good adventure novel with some creepy vibes, go for it!

The Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger

Holden Caulfield had just been expelled from yet another school. Not knowing how to come back to his parents and give them the news he will wander through New York and talk, to everyone and no one in particular, about his life, his family, his doubts.

I'm back at the American classic! This one has been in my bookshelves since I was a kid, its french title (L'Attrape-coeurs, literally The Heart-Catcher) got me curious but I never read it. That's a good thing because I probably wouldn't have appreciated it at the time.

I had some trouble getting into it in the beginning. I was surprised by the informal style and the disjointed thought process of Holden. It felt like talking with some of the 17yo apprentice we had at work to who I had to explain that they shouldn't talk about their week-end's fun little misdemeanor to their boss (me) over morning coffee. He rambles on, jumps from current events to things that happened at school, to his family and back to present times, it is a little bit disorentating. And as near fluent as I might be some of the slang was really obscure.

Holden made me want to reassure him that everything would be okay and at the same time to knock some sense into him, which in my book is a solid teenager characterisation. He is awkward, opinionated, and has the feeling cranked up to 11.

But in the way in talks, he seems to take everything with the same casual tone, from his old roommate's habits to his brother's death. At some point it becomes difficult to say if "it kills me" is hyperbolic or not, literal or not. It really broke my heart to how he loves his sister so much and doesn't really know how to show it. Or how scared he seems of growing up since the death of his brother.

I can see why it became a classic, and why parents where outraged that their children where reading it. Overall an interesting book, if not an easy one.

[samuel1q]

fanfictions that i want to try and bring to reality soon (not going to publish according to number):

1.

Will Graham has Regenerative Immortality, wants to live a peaceful life as a boat mechanic but got apprehended for his freaky ability and is going to be used for bait to catch criminals. X Criminal Profiler and cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter who just so happened to have murdered Will four months ago and is now face-to-face with him being shoved to Hannibal as a partner.

- ideally just lots of depressed, sarcastic Will and super fascinated Hannibal.

- main plot, Hannibal helps Will overcome his trauma, Will helps Hannibal not kill and eat anyone else except him.

- approximately 20-30 chapters long. 5k word per chapter :hopeful:

- endgame; Happy ending.

2.

Space-jumper Will Graham works under an organization that fixes space and time, he was sleep deprived one day and accidentally fucked up the wires and is now stuck in an alpha/omega universe for a bit. X Extremely old-fashioned alpha Hannibal Lecter who got interested in introducing himself to the bad-tempered new victi *cough* gentleman next door — who kind of looks like he should be an omega, but smelled like nothing. Literally nothing at all. — and is now desperately horn*cough cough* courting him. This man is literally bending all sorts of bones for Will, holy crap.

- exhausted, overworked, your average office worker Will and old money, elite, passionate in peculiar artistry alpha Hannibal

- main plot; Hannibal has an obsession with strange pretty things and Will checks in all the right boxes. Will is super confused by his suspicious advances but lets him be, all he wants to do is get back to his usual boring old work and not get smacked by HQ for this tiny mistake.

- im going for comedy on this one. I mean, consistently oblivious, bored workaholic Will Graham and creepy sugar daddy stalker possessive obsessive cryptic deeply-in-love serial killer Hannibal Lecter? That's a blatant start to a bar joke, might as well.

- endgame, bittersweet. Like i said, Will is consistent.

- maybe less than 10 chapters, i just want to laugh. 5k words each.

3.

/work in progress/ /i bet this will be like that forever/ /the cognitive process of a horrible writer continues to shatter the hearts of many/

(Scp foundation inspired, but i don't know the lores so im making my own for this fic)

Will Graham is a class d anomaly who thinks he's just another normal hobo in the building, stuck in the mind numbing repetition of interviewing other scps for the sake of [redacted], he has an acute sense of empathy and he can 'enter' the mind of anyone to gain information. He can also essentially adapt and become them, become anyone, really. But no one wants to talk about the frightening part of his skills, that's no bueno. No, no.

This is quite literally just harem. Every character who got more than 10 minutes of screentime in nbc hannibal is going to be so deeply attached to Will (no minors btw) that they literally want to find a way so that Will will never get to leave their room ever again. Basically marriage but with blood and maybe some melting plus sewing into each other's skin and bone marrow type shit.

Everyone in the foundation thinks its rad but piss baby Will is terrified into nightmares, deeply disturbed by the notion of every single haunting creatures here desiring him sexually.

Hannibal the ravenstag (wendigo?) monster of famine and winter as always, fascinated yada yada, you know the drill. Also got ensnared by the quote-on-quote "connection between us." (everyone else got a taste too, Hannibal, move on, he's a paid whore! You're not special, in any way shape or form, literally and figuratively! 😱)

- endgame? Bad ending 100%, no one dies, well, no one important dies. Though no one wins the one and only's heart either.

- Hannibal gets sex appeal priveleges somehow and managed to fuck with Will anyway. (guess which kind of fucking, no wrong answers, all kinds of penetration happens. How the hell does one expect an scp related fanfiction to go? Vanilla?? We're playing around with a flaming rotating tentacle 20 inch dildo here, Jessica, if not by pure logic then get yourself a pinch of creativity in there! My god!!)

Anyway cue mating, like, literal monster mating. Will gets ink coveres stag horns and he loses his mind, this one is also up to multiple interpretation. I can't imagine it not going anywhere but "man, so he has d.i.d?" or "oh so he needs more therapists." but there's more than one person in this world and i know one out of 5 will get innovative enough to think of more.

[linkspooky]

Atsushi: Black and White Stripes

Chapter 88 begins with Akutagawa giving his life for Atsushi, and Atsushi not really knowing or understand why, especially the meaning behind his actions. This is really typical of Atsushi who fights to protect people, and doesn’t really understand them.

1. Akutagawa the Villain, Atsushi the Hero

Atsushi grew up in an environment where he was constantly made to feel like he was a bad person, unworthy of any love at all. Only good people have worth. Only good people who save others are worthy to live. That’s the black and white values the headmaster drilled into his head. 

The headmaster’s extreme black and white values, and the hell he put Atsushi through to try to raise him as a good person, someone who would help others, had the effect of coloring Atsushi’s view of the world as incredibly black and white. 

The world is crawling with monsters. The world has vile, evil people who use their strength to abuses the weak. It’s because he was told these things by the head master who was his only source of information on the outside world, who controlled his life entirely, that he believes them. He divides people, into the strong and the weak. He divides people into the good and the bad. He sees some as worthy of saving, and others as monsters who need to be defeated. 

Perhaps the earliest and most clear version of this divide Atsushi sees in people is between Akutagawa and Kyouka. Akutagawa and Kyouka both kill people for the mafia. However, the number of people Kyouka has killed, all her bad deeds, barely matter at all to Atsushi, because when he first meets her she’s a crying victim who wants to be saved.

When Atsushi believes she didn’t want to kill people, that it wasn’t her fault, that someone else told her to do these things, in his mind she becomes yet another crying victim in need of saving. He simplifies her. That’s also why, when he sees Akutagawa who presents a much more complex idea of victimhood, who also kills people for the mafia, but who unlike Kyouka seems strong instead of weak.

Instead of giving him any chances, Akutagawa conveniently slides into the role of villain in Atsushi’s narrative. He fights Akutagawa with everything he has, and does his best to deny any similarity between the two of them or see sympathy for him.

Atsushi himself is divided. Between the helpless orphan who was abused, and the tiger who rampages around and kills others. He also divides other people, Kyouko the victim, Akutagawa the murderer. 

Even though we know as the audience, that part of Kyouka was angry too. Part of her was empty and just wanted to lash out at the world, and didn’t really care what happened to her or other people. 

That’s why she feels so sorry in the first place, because she in fact... did bad things. Atsushi isn’t capable of grasping that nuance however. Good people save others, bad people use their strength to hurt others. That’s what has been drilled into his head. However, what is this arc but people who are considered traditionally good, doing bad things, even horrible things.

Atsushi asks Goggol the clown why he kills people, and he’s given two answers, the answer that he wants to hear, and the real answer. 

Atsushi is a victim, so naturally he wants to believe that the people who tormented him for so long were just being cruel. If the world is just dvided into villains and victims, then Atsushi can keep fighting as he’s always had to save people and keep on living that way.

However, people who are traditionally considered heroes in this arc turn out to be the villain. The mastermind behind it all is Fukuzawa’s old friend. The hero is also a war crimminal. (Hence, the title of the set of chapters, Hero vs Crimminal). What broke him in the first place was the fact that he had to do horrible things to people over and over again, for supposedly righteous reasons, to the point where he despises people who believe they’re good.

This arc so far plays with and subverts all of Atsushi’s expectations. He’s already dimsissed Akutagawa as a villain, but when he’s all alone, and in need of saving it’s Akutagawa who comes to save him. It’s literally the tagline of the arc within both good and evil, heroes exist. 

However, while Akutagawa has shown up to help Atsushi. Atsushi hasn’t helped Akutagawa yet. Atsushi hasn’t given Akutagawa the same understanding that Akutagawa has given him. 

He still expects Akutagawa to break his promises. To kill. If Akutagawa and Atsushi were to perfectly understand each other and cooperate like Chuuya and Dazai once did, there’s no enemy that should be able to beat them, but they don’t do that this time around. As a duo they’re still incomplete, and I think the growth needs to happen on Atsushi’s end this time. 

They need to grow into something beyond what Dazai and Chuuya are capable of. Akuatagawa neesd to stop living up to Dazai’s expectations, blindly listening to everything he says. 

Atsushi and Akutagawa both trust completely in Dazai for different reasons, but, in their own actions, in their own will,do they trust themselves? And more importantly, do they trust each other? 

We see Akutagawa has now done the opposite of everything Atsushi expected him to do. He showed up to save Atsushi. He kept his promise and didn’t kill. He didn’t betray Atsushi for more power when given the chance. He even sacrifices his life completely to save him, and Atsushi can’t really process or understand why he did any of this.

If Atsushi and Akutagawa were truly working together, if they could face each other, understand each other, then they would have overcome the person they were trying to fight. But, as is often the case, they were fighting themselves, fighting each other first before anything else. Akutagawa and Atsushi failed to come to an understanding, and so this time around they lost the fight. 

It’s interesting now that Akutagawa said: words are unnecessary, only my actions. Akutagawa tried to show his intentions to Atsushi, and Atsushi is just left completely puzzled over his actions. Even though he was saved by Akutagawa, Atsushi can’t really comperehend that because Akutagawa is the villain, he’s not supposed to save people. 

In terms of plot, Akutagawa’s resurrection as a vampire is incredibly symbolic. Esecially since his first victim is Higuchi, someone he has an incredbily complicated relationship with. He’s abused HIguchi in the past, he’s slapped her, reprmianded her, and he’s also thanked her sincerely for his loyalty and apologized for his actions. A complexity that Atsushi probably wouldn’t understand. 

Essentially, he’s become what Atsushi has always seen him as. A mindless killer. A killer without a heart. A monstrous person with nothing inside. Isn’t it ironic, that right after being saved by Akutagawa, the Akutagawa that Atsushi is going to meet next is everything he always thought he wanted to be.

He thought he wanted Akutagawa to be the villain because that would make him good. He thought he wanted Akutagawa to not have reasons behind why he killed people, because that meant Atsushi didn’t have to sympathize with him. 

Now Akutagawa is a mindless monster, and Atsushi is probably going to hate it. This is once again their foiling. Akutagawa only looks at death. Atsushi only looks at life.

So of course, Akutagawa becomes a vampire who sucks on others blood to heal himself. While Atsushi is able to magically regenerate from any wound because of the tiger’s power. 

I think there are two things that need to happen now for Atsushi to win this time. 1) He needs to actually understand Akutagawa and face him head on this time, as a person, rather than a villain.  2) He needs to decide that Akutagawa is worthy of saving too, just like Kyouka. 

Because Atsushi says that Akutagawa can’t be saved, but what he really means is himself. Atsushi doesn’t want to save Akutagawa, because he sees all the bad parts of himself in Akutagawa. However, those bad parts are just as worthy as all of Atsushi’s good parts. 

I think if there is anyone who can bring Akutagawa back from being a mindless monster, it’s Atsushi, and he can do this by reminding Akutagawa of the human he once was. He was a good person, and a bad one. 

It’s only after he’s accepted the black and white of both Akutagawa and himself, that he’ll be ready for a round two. 

[thecreaturecodex]

Demon, Klurichir

Image by Puddnhead, © Wizards of the Coast. Accessed at the Fiend Folio Art Gallery here

[Commissioned by @razzelmire​. The klurichir appeared first in the 3rd edition Fiend Folio, where it is said to be the tool of the demon lords. This is likely a case of one hand not knowing what the other hand is doing--demon lord statistics appear in the Book of Vile Darkness, released the same year. The klurichir sits comfortably in the middle of the demon lords in terms of CR on paper (CR 25 against a range between CR 20 and 30), but even the weakest demon lord in that book has more hit points, a better AC and more nasty abilities than the klurichir. The klurichir also seemed to have gone through several major revisions before publication, leaving it a bit muddled. It has Multiweapon Fighting but only one weapon, claws but no claw attacks, and no range given on its spine attacks.

So my take on the klurichir is plopped in the middle of the CR range for nascent demon lords in PFRPG, weak enough to be a valuable tool for the true demon lords but not their equal. It also streamlines and clarifies their abilities (why did they cast spells as a 10th level sorcerer?) and borrows the malign aura from the D&D 4e version. ]

Demon, Klurichir CR 23 CE Outsider (extraplanar) This hideous fiend stands as tall as a building, with four clawed arms. Two of these arms hold an oversize axe. Its head is like that of a snarling beast, with a pug nose and crooked teeth. Spines cover its shoulders, back and crown. Its skin is a dark, unhealthy green, and its membranous wings are the color of arterial blood. Most horrifying is its chest and stomach—a gnashing maw with multiple rows of teeth and a pair of scissor-like mandibles splits the beast open like a gaping wound.

A klurichir is sometimes called a catastrophe demon, as the effects of a single one of these creatures are truly cataclysmic. They do not form from mortal souls directly, instead being sculpted by a demon lord when it has need of a powerful catspaw, inquisitor or general. They are as strong as or stronger than nascent demon lords. The history of the Abyss is littered with nascent demon lords whose ambitions outstretched their powers and were slain by a klurichir assassin. When not on missions, a klurichir may incite wars between demons and other planes for the sheer fun of it. Some demon lords allow this behavior as a distraction from their own internal plotting, whereas others attempt to stymie it and kill any rogue klurichir they can.

A klurichir is an absolutely devastating combatant. They carry great axes or other two-handed weapons, but prefer to leave some of their hands free in order to grab opponents. The maw set in their stomachs is too awkwardly placed to attack creatures that a klurichir hasn’t grabbed, but it can do overwhelming damage to held foes, even severing heads in a single bite. Opponents that are faster or more agile are barraged by spines infused with negative energy. If facing multiple foes at once, a klurichir uses its impressive magical abilities, in particular its ability to evoke symbols with a mere thought. A klurichir almost never flees from combat once it is joined, choosing to die rather than surrender to mortals.

All klurichirs look almost identical, and they rarely make their allegiances to a particular demon lord clear. Lesser demons scurry for cover at mere rumors of a klurichir’s presence, and are typically obsequious if the beast appears directly. They are fiendishly intelligent and excellent judges of character, and do not tolerate being lied to. Klurichirs lead armies of fiends when their goals dictate so, and even balors bend the knee to a klurichir’s orders (albeit reluctantly). A klurichir considers its greatest enemies to be solars and other klurichirs.

Klurichir                  CR 23 XP 820,000 CE Huge outsider (chaos, demon, evil, extraplanar) Init +10; Senses darkvision 120 ft., detect good, detect law, Perception +35, scent, true seeing Aura malign (30 ft.), unholy aura (DC 28) Defense AC 38, touch 18, flat-footed 32 (-2 size, +6 Dex, +20 natural, +4 deflection) hp 471 (23d10+345) Fort +26, Ref +23, Will +26 DR 20/good and cold iron or epic; Immune electricity, energy drain, poison; Resist acid 10, cold 10, fire 10; SR 34 Offense Speed 50 ft., fly 90 ft. (poor) Melee +3 greataxe +39/+34/+29/+24 (4d6+25/19-20x3), 2 claws +31 (2d6+7 plus grab) or 4 claws +36 (2d6+15 plus grab) Ranged 4 spines +27 (2d8+15 plus enervate) Space 15 ft.; Reach 15 ft. Special Attacks multigrab, planar champion, rake (bite +36, 4d6+24), powerful blows (bite), vorpal maw Spell-like Abilities CL 23rd, concentration +33 Constant—detect good, detect law, true seeing, unholy aura (DC 28, self only) At will—greater dispel magic, greater teleport (self plus 50 lbs. objects only), mass charm monster (DC 28), mass suggestion (DC 26), slay living (DC 25), telekinesis (DC 25) 3/day—quickened blasphemy (DC 27), empowered fire storm (DC 28), quickened greater dispel magic, master symbol (DC 29) 1/day—gate (planar travel only, DC 29), meteor swarm (DC 29), summon (9th level, 1 demon of CR 20 or lower, 100%), wail of the banshee (DC 29) Statistics Str 41, Dex 23, Con 40, Int 28, Wis 28, Cha 31 Base Atk +23; CMB +40 (+44 grapple); CMD 60 Feats Combat Reflexes, Empower SLA (fire storm), Flyby Attack, Improved Critical (greataxe), Improved Initiative, Improved Vital Strike, Point-Blank Shot, Power Attack, Precise Shot, Quicken SLA (blasphemy, greater dispel magic), Vital Strike Skills Acrobatics +32, Bluff +36, Diplomacy +33, Fly +24, Intimidate +44, Knowledge (arcana, dungeoneering, history) +32, Knowledge (planes, religion) +35, Perception +35, Sense Motive +43, Spellcraft +32, Stealth +28, Use Magic Device +33; Racial Modifiers +8 Intimidate, +8 Sense Motive, +4 Stealth Languages Abyssal, Celestial, Draconic, Infernal, Protean, telepathy 100 ft. Ecology Environment any land or underground (Abyss) Organization solitary or warband (1 plus 2-5 mariliths) Treasure double standard (Huge +3 greataxe, other treasure) Special Abilities Enervate (Su) A creature struck by a klurichir’s spine attack must succeed a DC 31 Fortitude save or gain 1 permanent negative level. A creature with a number of negative levels equal to its Hit Dice dies immediately. Malign Aura (Su) No creature can gain hit points within 30 feet of a klurichir. A klurichir is immune to this ability, as is a demon lord. Master Symbol (Sp) As a standard action, a klurichir can trace a symbol in the air, which automatically resolves as a triggered symbol of death, fear, insanity, pain, stunning or weakness. A klurichir is immune to the effects of its own master symbol, and it can choose to attune a number of creatures equal to its Charisma modifier as part of the action made to cast the spell. Creatures can resist the effect with a successful DC 29 saving throw, as appropriate to the symbol represented (Fortitude for death, Will for fear or insanity, etc.). This is the equivalent of a 9th level spell. Multigrab (Ex) A klurichir can choose to grapple a Large or smaller creature using two free arms without taking a -20 penalty for not using its entire body in the grapple. If it has two creatures held in its four arms, it can make rake attacks against them both. Planar Champion (Ex) A klurichir can bypass the damage reduction of all creatures with the outsider type, save creatures capable of granting divine spells, with its manufactured and natural weapons. It has a +4 bonus on all caster level checks made to overcome the spell resistance of outsiders. Spines (Ex) As a standard action, a klurichir can fire four spines. Treat these as thrown weapons with a range increment of 100 feet. A klurichir has an effectively infinite supply of spines, and does not risk running out. Vorpal Maw (Ex) If a klurichir rolls a natural 20 and successfully confirms the critical hit with its bite attack, it severs the head of its opponent. This kills most, but not all opponents instantly, as per a vorpal weapon.

[mvdeanw]

Fair warning: Long Rants.

You know that there are people who didn't watch SPN for the shipping; we cared about the two humans' story,  the Winchester brothers fighting evil supernatural creatures. We cared about their pain, losses and trauma. Yes, I am a Dean girl, but one of the things I loved in Dean was his love for Sam. His devotion and loyalty to his friends. He was willing to die on the spot to defend the ones he cared for even if they didn't always return the favour. We can't mourn because everyone devaluated our feelings.

1) "You are sad because you are a shipper."

2) "You are sad because you hate Sam, or Castiel or basically everyone because you are a hater if you rant about the finale".

3)" You can't accept the finale because you are delusional about the finality of the Show. "

4) "You clearly don't understand that the show is dark. It isn't about the happy ending you dream of."

5) "You dislike the finale because you forget how Sam is the main character. It was natural for the show to ends with Him."

6) " Because you cared only for Dean you refuse to see that he had to die to release Sam."

7) "You apparently forgot the facts: Dean got his happy ending! He wanted to die."

8) "There was no other way, Dean had to die because he never could give up on hunting."

9) " Dean had no dreams, he never wanted a family, Sam always wanted to quit."

10) "  You hate the finale because you forget that it is about the two brothers and it ended perfectly with the two of them."

11) Dean died stupidly because Chuck wasn't protecting him anymore, and also you don't respect the cast for all their years on the show.

1-2: I'm not a hater or a shipper. I watched the show for the plot and cared for each character. The ending mistreated them all. But Dean got the worst ending.

  3-4. I have watched the show since day 1. I cried like a baby when they announced it would end. But I had the time to accept the unavoidable pain. I made my peace with the end of the series; I was ready to say goodbye to see them all dead. I had no illusions.

5. When the show is about two brothers, it's only fair to see them both as the main characters.  I loved them; I love how they managed to overcome so much and stick together. It saddens me when people belittle Dean in such a way. He was an essential aspect of the show and the story. If it weren't for him selling his soul for his brother, Sam would not be alive.

6. Well, yes, I absolutely refuse to see that he had to die to free Sam. To free him from what exactly? Sam was happy with their lifestyle. He could be free since the time he left Dean in Purgatory. But since then he changed his prerogatives. Dean was important to him, enough to take on the trials, enough to get Charlie killed and to free the darkness to save him. Sam's motto was " I need my brother! I will save him or will die trying! "  He could have been free and not look for Dean when he become a Knight of Hell. He could be free when Dean wanted to be locked away with Michael to save the world. Sam didn't let him go. Sam loved Dean, and he wanted him to be happy, not dead.

7-8. Dean never believed that he could get a happy ending, not that he didn't crave one. That's the main difference. He got the end he was always afraid is waiting for him. Dean did accept Sam to go to Hell and him to quit hunting, and he exactly did that. If it weren't for Season 6, Dean would have his rewarding happy ending way back then. He let go of his life for Sam, and to save the world. He didn't wanted to go through another painful episode as he did, when because of his feathered friend's betrayal, Crowley kidnapped Lisa and Ben, And Castiel instead of helping him tried to blackmail Dean that he will look for Lisa after he agreed to stay behind him and his plan to crack the Purgatory. Dean wanted to quit, but he wanted to help others, so he kept on doing what he was best of. Because he cared, he was not selfish. He didn't wished for either wealth or power. He wanted peace and freedom for everyone.

9-10. Dean did dream about a peaceful world without monsters, about the beach; he wanted to be a father. Sam a long time ago said he's happy with their life. In s15 he said he doesn't dream of the apple pie life anymore. And the show didn't end with the two brothers; it ended with Sam. To get their perfect circle to the pilot SPN reduced Sam and Dean to their version of themselves that was non-existent after 15 years. The men in the barn were not the boys from the pilot. It felt utterly detached from the whole Road So Far. Sam is not doing anything to save his brother. Castiel, who's supposed to be alive and much in love with Dean didn't show up to save him, Jack who everyone's claim to be his adoptive son and the New God didn't show up to save him.  Dean's Death was random and silly; it was inglorious. It was a preventable accident.

11. Chuck never did protect Dean! From 4 years old Dean had to learn to fight, to kill, he watched everyone who he ever cared about to die and to leave him. He was tortured in Hell. He was a fighter, a strong and righteous man. Chuck wasn't protecting him; he only watched him suffer. It had nothing to do with Dean's death. Dean didn't become a lesser version of himself in the end. He had years of experience and practices in fighting evil. Yes Chuck did take away their extra luck, but they got that back, so to watch him die like a stunt double number 3 was disturbing. I respect the cast, and I love them for their dedication all these years. I can't even express with words how grateful I am to Jensen for giving me the best ever fictional character! I'm so thankful for his brilliant work; he made Dean real for anyone who loved him. I'm just sad that no one listened to him about the ending. And I'll be carrying my love for Dean, but precisely because I cared because I loved the show and the characters I can't be happy with that ending.  And it's nothing to do with shipping or hate. It's just sadness. Let us mourn; we the non-shippers got nothing from the finale.

[acephysicskarkat]

Redemption, Forgiveness and She-Ra S5

So just to spite the anon who told me to stop posting my opinions, I’m gonna post another opinion!

This will contain spoilers for SPOP, Avatar: the Last Airbender, The Good Place, and Steven Universe.

So the most common take that I’ve heard about S5 from Catra stans is that it’s a story about redemption and forgiveness and that if I’m in any way critical of it then I’m saying abusers can never redeem themselves.

To which I say: the second part is a strawman argument, and the first part doesn’t help because it’s a bad story about redemption and forgiveness.

Part 1: Redemption

The problem with S5′s stories about redemption is that they are, universally, undercooked.  For things that the fanbase had been wanting for months, they’re surprisingly lacking in meaningful impact.

Catra’s is the least bad, because Catra is at least on-screen long enough to tell us that it seems to be sticking, but it’s still not good.  It’s rushed, it’s weightless, and it feels like they didn’t even check what she’d done in the past three seasons that she would need to find redemption for.

At no point does she meaningfully confront her actions (which, in case you’ve forgotten, ranged from bringing about the death of Queen Angella (S3E6), to repeated attempts to murder or permanently harm Adora (S1E11, S1E13, S2E5, S3E4-6, S4E3), to bullying Scorpia (present throughout but most obvious in S4E6), to taking part in a war crime (S4E8)), nor does she really confront the jealousy and spite that drove them.  Indeed, the episodes that could have been spent showing us her character development are spent showing us that she still has a very unhealthy attitude towards Adora (S5E6) and telling us that she underwent her character development offscreen, while we were distracted by Double Trouble (S5E8).

Hordak’s is even worse, because Catra at least admits she wronged people, even if the focus is put almost entirely on Catra feeling bad about it.  Hordak realises, accurately, that being made into a cog in a machine of conquest is bad (S5E13)...but he never makes the leap onscreen to it still being bad when he did it to other people, as he did to Adora and the other Horde kids (S2E7).  It treats Hordak’s decision to break free of Horde Prime as if it in and of itself makes him good, overlooking that the life he’s trying to go back to was the one where he ruled over an empire of stolen children.

I don’t even want to get into Shadow Weaver.

AtLA gave a compelling redemption arc to Zuko by having him confront the consequences of his actions.  SU gave a compelling redemption arc to Peridot by showing us, in great detail, her evolution from antagonist to ally.  SPOP just kinda tells us that characters are good now and expects that to work out okay.

And the really depressing thing is that both these characters actually could have sustained really compelling redemption arcs!  I would have loved to see Hordak meaningfully realise onscreen that the universe does not consist of him, Horde Prime, Imp, Entrapta, and a bunch of largely interchangeable pawns for him to treat as he sees fit.  I would have loved to see Catra wrestle with and overcome her resentment of Adora, maybe come to understand that being Shadow Weaver’s favourite fucking sucked actually.  The show just didn’t bother, and so what we got was on par with a bad fanfic or the backstory for a D&D character.

Part 2: Forgiveness

For my money, one of the best stories about forgiveness in modern media is in a third season episode of The Good Place called “A Fractured Inheritance”.

Explaining it with as few spoilers as possible, protagonist Eleanor Shellstrop discovers that her cartoonishly neglectful mother Donna faked her death and seems to have built a new life where she’s a good stepmother to a child.  Eleanor spends most of the episode convinced that her mother is running a scam, but eventually concludes that this does appear to be sticking and gives up her plan to reveal Donna’s secret, cautioning her not to go back to how she used to be.  At the end, she opens up to a friend about the trauma she sustained as a result of her upbringing.

SPOP could never.

"A Fractured Inheritance” tells a more compelling story about forgiveness in 15 minutes of screentime than she-Ra S5 managed in four and a half hours because The Good Place cares about Eleanor’s trauma.  It’s portrayed as pretty understandable that she has a grudge against her mother, and working through that takes time and sustained proof that Donna has changed.  More than that, forgiveness isn’t portrayed as a magical button that instantly solves Eleanor’s issues; just because she’s letting go of her anger towards Donna doesn’t mean that the harm she suffered as a result of Donna’s neglect goes away.  Her fear of opening up or being vulnerable, stemming from a childhood of constantly being shat on when she did, is still there, even after reconciling with her mother.

Contrast this to She-Ra S5.  The second Catra says she’s sorry, Adora is willing to forgive her and go across the universe to help her (S5E3), even though in their last interaction, back in S4E3, Adora actively tried to kill her for pretty darn compelling reasons (you may remember those reasons from S3E4-6).  Adora gets, like, a brief rant in S5E4 where she seems to be confused about this, but there’s never a point where she meaningfully seems to process the trauma she’s suffered as a result of Catra’s treatment of her, which we know has been toxic, controlling and unhealthy since they were kids (S5E3).

More than that, there’s never really a point where any of the people Catra victimised in the first four seasons gets to deal with that.  Glimmer seemingly never realises that Catra is why her mother is dead (S3E6), which is especially jarring given that the effects of Angella’s death on Glimmer drove the entire previous season; Entrapta barely remembers that Catra betrayed her and sent her to her presumed death (S5E6); Bow thinks someone who’s done nothing but attempt to hurt his friends for as long as he’s known her is adorable (S5E8); Scorpia forgives her before she even finishes saying sorry (S5E13); and both Frosta decking her in S5E9 and Perfuma’s understandable irritation with the woman who bullied her GF in S5E10 are portrayed almost as jokes, the latter never escalating beyond mild rudeness.

This also extends to Hordak, who, after his tissue-thin face turn in S5E13, gets a baffling montage that tries to portray his picking up an abandoned child and indifferently turning her over to an abusive sorceress (S2E7) as somehow heartwarming and a big bonding moment, and then the notion that Mermista might have some grudges against the guy who burned down her home and displaced her people (S5E7-8) is framed as comic.

I’m not even saying that neither of these characters should never be forgiven by anyone!  Just that the forgiveness they get in the show is lacking in dramatic weight, because the actions that are being forgiven don’t feel like they mean anything.  Catra has hurt Adora, Glimmer, Entrapta, Scorpia, Mermista and countless unnamed innocents, and it’s all treated like it has the same impact as borrowing Adora’s Xena DVDs and forgetting to give them back.  Hordak should be considered Etheria’s greatest monster given the number of people who’ve died as a result of his actions and maybe one person is slightly irritated at the prospect of having to send him a Christmas card this year.

(This is without getting into the fact that Glimmer and Entrapta are expected to deal with the consequences of their actions to some degree, with each getting an episode focused around that (S2E2, S2E4).  It’s kind of wild that Glimmer nearly destroying the world because she took a reckless risk in a desperate gamble to try and save the people she cares about from the Horde blitzkrieg, a gambit that she immediately tried to fix when she realised she’d fucked up (S4E10-13) is treated as something that causes a notable rift in her friendships, but Catra nearly destroying the world because she was just that jealous of Adora (S3E3-6) is breezed past with an “I’m sorry.”  Entrapta building the robots causes the Alliance to hold grudges; Hordak waging 25 years of warfare is [shrug] Just Horde Clone Things.)

3. Salvaging These Plot Points

Now, as I implied above, the notion that I think these characters are irredeemable is a bullshit strawman, a thought-terminating cliche that Catra stans use to dismiss criticism without processing with it.  So how would I go about it?

Catra

I would start by having Catra and Glimmer be in the same escape.  Having her attempt to sacrifice herself in S5E3 had some weird thematic issues given her previously established self-destructive streak (S2E5, most of S3).  If we have to keep the bad plot point where Adora recovers the friend who loves and cares for her and immediately goes “well, we gotta leave our friends back home to deal with a colonial invasion while we charge across the universe to save my abusive stalker ex who’s never respected my personhood or autonomy”, I’d probably look at the two biggest missed opportunities in the season: S5E6 and S5E8.

S5E6 is terrible, and should just be expunged mercilessly with fire for its baffling endorsement of the sentiment “yes i abused u but now u hate me so i’m the victim really”.  Its replacement should probably be focused around Adora genuinely processing the harm she’s sustained as a result of Catra’s treatment of her, probably deciding at the end that she’ll accept Catra’s help but is still understandably suspicious of her given the established mistrust (S1E8) and hostility (S4E3).

S5E8 is easy to fix, though; instead of it mostly being the characters bumbling around a haunted house, I’d make the setting actually do stuff for the characters’ arcs.  We already know that First One ruins can bring up memories, so I’d turn it into a reversal of S1E11 where Adora and Catra’s friendship can actually be rebuilt, probably culminating in Catra saving Adora from falling off a cliff as a symbolic rejection of the resentment she would have been struggling with throughout the episode.  This is probably where Adora starts to actually believe that Catra has become a better person.

Basically, the goal here is to show the audience that Catra is working to overcome her issues and become a better person, instead of telling us that it happened offscreen.

Hordak

The problem with Hordak’s face turn is that at no point in the show, including after we’re supposed to treat him as Good Now, does he seem to give a shit about anyone not on a list that contains maybe 4-5 names.  I’d probably put in some scenes earlier where his experiences seem to be actually changing him for the better: maybe his response to Entrapta asking him to spare Catra isn’t to commute her sentence to a suicide mission, or he feels a sudden sympathy with a captive Etherian after the fall of Salineas, as the shared feelings of loss line up, and orders their release.  Basically, the idea is to put in some groundwork so that it actually feels like he might be safe to have around, instead of him betraying his tyrannical overlord because he misses his life where he was, himself, a tyrannical overlord.

I also would not play the idea that people might be a little bit suspicious of a man with a 25-year history of ruthless oppression, colonial violence and unprovoked warmongering as a joke.  Just one of those personal quirks.

4. Summary

In conclusion:

S5 is a bad story about redemption because it doesn’t give the characters being redeemed engaging or compelling redemption arcs, favouring a blind rush to the ending, and it’s a bad story about forgiveness because it treats the actions that are being forgiven as though they don’t mean anything, even when episodes or entire seasons have been built on the effects of those actions.  It’s not that these ideas are bad in general, that these characters axiomatically couldn’t be redeemed or that forgiveness is problematic; it’s just that the execution is bad.

Anyway, thanks, jackass anon, for inspiring me to set down my thoughts in detail like this!

[hiddenwashington]

the antique door closes exactly at 11:59 p.m, the owner believing that teenagers will find themselves entering the store for ancient artifacts that might pair nicely with an ouija board, like a glass of wine pairing with a sliver of cheese. a board game hovers, nearly teetering off the edge, a possibility that ends in fifty-fifty. the old man grumbles quietly, the lights dimmed as he pushes himself through, finger running along the shelves and picking up dust. an antique shop without dust isn’t an antique shop in his opinion. the dust gives it a voice. he moves slowly, careful not to trip over the floorboards that creak beneath his weight. he knows where every divot is, where everything that might trip him, except for the cane that a pair of teenagers dropped once they ran out of the shop laughing about the ‘haunted’ doll that they bought and were willing to hide in a friend's closet. his footing catches, he stumbles forwards, and the hand reaches out, pushing the board game to topple to the floor with the pieces falling. he doesn’t realize until it’s too late, of what had happened. an ancient myth comes to life as a rumble shakes the city at 12:00 a.m. exactly.

it happens overnight. there’s a rumble, commotion being raised as citizens feel the earth shake between their toes, but the moment they blink, everything has quieted. it’s not new, strange things happen all the time here, but it’s different. strange things aren't new when it comes to washington, d.c.; but this time there’s a moment of brief fear, a moment of foreshadowing whispering that it only grows worse..

citizens wait through their moment of paranoia but nothing follows, so sleep takes hold again, washing over all the citizens as if they hadn’t heard anything. it’s not until 3:00 a.m. until unrest stirs. families, friends, couples, find themselves whisked away in different sections of the city. they don’t know how they got there, or why. just one second they were in their beds, the next they find themselves… elsewhere. commotion rises, when something new occurs, something that isn’t understood, panic always rises.

unknowingly, the residents of the city have become pawns in the city. it would have been better if they could stay with those they love, but each section of the city brings them somewhere else. it starts off easy for some, a windstorm that they have to avoid or brave with the risks of the powerful gusts sweeping away memories; the first level. fears come to life, citizens are left to their own imagination as they see their form take shape and form, claws scratching and terrors haunting each and everyone, the second level. there are rumors in the city, that there’s something off in the city. people have always said that the city water can’t be trusted, but slowly, they turn out to be right. powered beings sinking lower and lower, losing their humanity and grip on their world, and darkness peeking through if it overcomes them - the third level.

for some, they might find themselves lucky. through the windstorms, the fear, and the supernatural - some might find themselves surrounded by growing trees and exotic flowers, but no danger in sight. it’s a breath of fresh air, a moment of peace for those who manage to bypass the levels. it’s a break and a reward, where calmness is installed

if you manage to make it through all three levels, you will find yourself in a tropical jungle. it’s not home, but it’s safe enough, a reward for fighting your way through the game. there you will remain until the game is finished, able to get a moment of peace among the chaos. it’s a victory, a shout in the dark, a knowledge in knowing that even in the darkest of times - survival is possible.

welcome to jumanji, try your hardest to survive - if you can. 

-- washington is divided, three levels for the people of dc to fight their way through to survive. but this isn’t unfamiliar territory, it’s things they’ve seen before. a windstorm, citizens rushing to escape swirling whorls of magic that can rip their memories away or return them just as easily. a monster who shows you your worst fears, manifesting them into reality, and setting them on you. and something in the water turning any powered being into a cold, bloodthirsty beast, the darkest parts of them shining through. you can’t escape, but you can watch what happens in the levels adjacent to yours through the barriers between them, unable to keep your loved ones from what’s to come. it’s a gamble where citizens end up, and they can level up at any time. welcome to the jungle.

OOC INFORMATION

hey hi hello friends, and welcome to hidden’s tenth event! yes, that’s right, ten !! we are beyond blessed to be able to bring you guys something so monumental, and to have been here with you all for so many amazingly successful events we decided to pay homage to some of our favorite ones over the past two and a half years, with a bit of a twist! 2020 has been almost scarily similar to jumanji, so why not play into the strengths of this year and get a little wild for the next few days? we cannot wait to see what you all bring to this event, as we’ve been working on it for weeks now. please let us know if you have any questions as you digest the rules of our game! and best of luck surviving the trials set out before you! 

DATES : 

9/12 - 9/21 9/26

this event will last 9 14 days in and out of character !

LEVEL LOCATIONS : 

your characters’ location has been chosen randomly, and we are able to move characters around only if you have too many of your babes in one location. 

find out which level your current characters are on HERE. 

this list will be updated with each new character who gets added so keep an eye on that list to find out where your new babe is located

CHARACTER LEVELING UP : 

each character will begin on the level they have been assigned. they are able to level up, a different way on each level, to move to a new level and face a new set of trials.

the leveling up will be randomized. it does not go in numerical order. once your character has made it through and completed a level, please message the main and we will roll the dice for your new location. 

once your character has made it through all three levels (they do not have to actually complete the game, it’s totally up to you!) they will be transported to the safe zone.

the way to level up in character will be described below, but out of character you must play through each level for at least 2 days, so that people are not changing levels too quickly and they have enough time to play out plots.

RULES OF EACH LEVEL : 

please follow THIS LINK to the full description of each level and their locations in relations to real dc areas!

general level rules 

the barriers between the levels are see through. so you may not be able to talk to your loved ones, but you can see them, you can know what your family is going through. an incentive to level up. 

cellphone service will work between the barriers. but we do ask that you do not make all of your interactions with people over texts or calls or we will be limiting this service throughout the event.

level 1 - the windstorm

characters can’t die on this level, but they can have their memories be tampered with! be it changing from aware to unaware (or vise versa) or taking some memories from them or giving some back! 

to level up, you need to find hidden doors in the barrier, that will then take you to one of the other two levels!

for more information on the original event  click right HERE

level 2 - nightmares come to life

remember to use a read more and tag anything with triggering content!

the way your characters can level up from this event is to defeat their nightmares, this can either be conquering their fears, defeating whatever is shown to them, or facing their nightmares for an extended period of time. 

just be careful, these fears can have real life consequences.

for more information on the original event, click right HERE

level 3 - something’s in the water

all powered humans and non human creatures will be affected by the poison, becoming ruthless, emotionless monsters. for some, it takes slower to be fully affected, but within 24 hours, there’s nothing to fight. 

humans will need to run or fight off the poisoned creatures hunting them down, or die trying

the effect of the poison is not invisible to people. the affected creatures have their pupils showing hints of red, and veins becoming darker on their wrists. the creatures that do not yet show signs of the poison will however have these physical traits slowly appearing.

your characters can kill off any npcs they wish while affected, but be sure to plot out the deaths of any taken characters within the group!

to level up, the humans must defeat one of the attacking supernaturals, and the supernaturals must overcome the poison that’s corrupted them. this is a long process, that can only be achieved through two days of fighting it off

for more information on the original event , click right HERE

level 4 - the safe zone

this final level is a reward for anyone who gets through all three levels

here your characters are able to relax, to recuperate and search for those your characters have been separated from over the past few days.

it’s a moment where they’re finally able to hug those they love, hold them close, and realize that they made it through the worst and survived.

they are able to stay on this level throughout the rest of the event, but once they’ve made it to level four, they cannot return to the game.

CHARACTER DEATHS : 

we are going to be limiting the number of character deaths per mun, that way we can keep track of the updates on the main and make sure that people are branching out with different plots beyond death! 

the limit will be if you have 5 and under characters, you are limited to 2 characters. if you have 5 or over, you are able to kill 3-4 characters! 

you absolutely don’t have to kill anyone if you don’t wish to, it’s just an extra level of intensity if that’s something you’d be looking to do!

if you do plan to kill anyone, please remember to message the main, that way we are able to update the memories statuses of your characters post event!

TAGGING AND PLOTTING :

feel free to begin plotting now!

once the event begins, please hold any and all non event threads. you may pick them up once it’s over, or start fresh with your characters after coping with the aftermath of a trialing time. 

please tag all interactions/starters/self-paras with hwevent10 !!

please make sure that you tag all interactions with which level your character is currently in, that way people are not responding to threads outside their levels! you can use anything from ‘level one’ or ‘the windstorm’!

keep an eye on the main for any more information regarding the event, including after it’s begun!

please remember the event is mandatory for members!

please remember that you are free to take this event in any way you wish, you can have your characters stay on one level the entire time, they can conquer multiple or get stuck, they can complete the game and relax, or spend their time helping those around them! it’s up to you about how well your characters adjust to these new trials they are faced with.

and as always, have fun, get creative, think outside the box and enjoy the chaos of our tenth event!!! we cannot wait to see where you all take this wild ride! please don’t hesitate to ask any questions, we know this is a lot of information to take in, so let us know if you need any help! and again, as always, please like this when you have read it all! ♥