#that combined just kinda ruined my ability to draw

[itsahotminuteinbetween]

this is mostly in jest but heads up i might not post official art besides small doodles for a while because my drafts ran out and these past two weeks have genuinely been destroying my mental health so I don't have the capacity to do anything seriously art-related right now

[rinion-b]

"this is why i have attachment issues" is really not how i planned to start this, but that's kinda where i'm at after a few hours to sit on it all.

this is about the whole limbus/pm situation today, for context (i won't be giving any more because i don't know if what i have is accurate, and i hate the idea of me spreading any misinformation when it's already a fucked situation). purely a word vomit, trying to not give any judgement on anything non-objective since there is still a lot of room for followup from project moon once things settle

my overall sentiments on this situation from just seeing updates every hour or so in between work:

what the fuck!

damn it was that serious?

that's...not a great solution...

well shit, was there any reasonable good outcome to all this?

i do want to clarify, i don't intend for any of this to idolize project moon or idealize the indie developer, as easy as that would be. at the same time, i hate the concept that they should be condemned immediately because they fucked up on responding to this situation (outside the context of some other complaints that i've seen from some illustrators and translators in the past).

there is no 'perfect' indie studio. project moon should not be excused for their own failings, especially not on account of them being a small studio. those things can coexist with the concept that, maybe they didn't have much of a choice with how to deal with this? and i've seen all the comparisons with their commentary on society, i get it, i understand and honestly you have a great point. but you cannot escape the impact of capitalism, and i don't think that yelling about the values they portray in their stories is particularly helpful when the situation might affect their ability to continue operating as a company, or at the very least continue providing more limbus content and running the servers.

now, this is predominantly hearsay, but is a believable heuristic. i have heard from a few different friends on separate occasions that project moon is not the most well off financially, either because of development costs outweighing the performance of their older games, or their older games not being quite as profitable as they should objectively be given their quality (indie games are very undervalued often to compete in a space where the 'value' of a game is fucked over by AAA microtransactions and industry trends squeeze what they can out of a commonly accepted price point, but that's a separate discussion altogether). and limbus is their sort of 'last shot' to break into something sustainable.

assuming that this is true, and despite the issues with trusting hearsay especially in this scenario i would prefer to have reasonable evidence to change my mind on something like this, this puts project moon in a really fun situation when you look at the threat of having limbus taken off the korean app store (i'm not sure if this is The App Store in its entirety? there was a lot going on today so i might be missing details on that).

from my perspective as an observer who can neither read korean nor understand more than a few words of it spoken, the only conclusions i can draw from what i have seen in the short span of time since the announcement is some combination of the following points:

project moon either fired the employee to protect them from harrassment (current and future), or fired them because they judged that the loss of one employee in this state was less harmful in the long run than giving up a major source of revenue. maybe both! who the fuck knows!

i still don't know how to feel about all this

people online suck, gacha addicts suck, and being on twitter (or, well, X now) is terrible for my mental health because so many people act in absolutes on the slightest prompt and i can't fucking stand it

people are going to harrass project moon for responding to the harrassment the way they did and i feel like that says a lot about society

this has somehow not ruined my want to play limbus in the future, but idk if i will have any other inclinations to draw it. i don't want them to perish as a company from this one slip-up.

if limbus ends up dying i will probably never play another gacha game again, because despite everything my standards for game quality are through the fucking roof

i...think that's everything. lightly tagged because it would be nice to know how other people think about all this on a site that can handle conscious thought better but this is mostly just to get things out of my head rather than for conversation purposes.

everything fucking sucks, but at least we're still here to watch it burn, eh?

[curry-and-casteliacones]

More Scarlet and Violet Stuff???

Ok so whos ready for another heccing long pokemon post (well technically the first one on this blog)

Because we all know graphic design is my passion and i'm worthless at judging game mechanics beyond "wow thats a game mechanic" I will be primarily focusing on designs

Also obligatory spoilers for the newest trailer and the website

Also also it's under a read more cuz i have no clue how to shut up and it's a smidge long.

So. Uh. Um. Starting off... not strong I would say. This thing:

Uh. Ok first off I need to address the elephant in the room. It's Mcdonalds colored. That bright red and yellow combination has been forever ruined for me. However, the shape f it overall is somewhat cute. I like its legs and ears. Its hands look like lil mittens and I do really like the fire hair and mask/helmet face covering. It's design reminds of of Marshadow for whatever reason. And that height, finally something shorter than even me! Anyway, I don't particularly care for how bulky the shoulder pauldrons are but that is most likely just personal preference as I like cuter or more elegant pokemon overall. Over all, it just kinda looks like A dude with armor on who was graffitied by a Grafaiai who was lovin it.

I am interested by the fire/psychic typing. That doesn't feel very common to me, have that many before? Ok I looked it up and Victini, Darmanitan zen mode, and Delphox all share that typing. I already knew about Delphox, I had no clue Victini was psychic, and i wouldn't have thought to think of zen mode Darmanitan as its own pokemon. I don't think Armarouge really looks like a psychic type to me. To be honest it looks more like a fire/fighting.

And that brings me to its name as well. Its clearly a mix of armor(which it wears) and rouge(a red color)

As for the ability I actually recognize very few of them so i'm going to have to look up what flash fire even is. Ok so bulbapedia had this to say about it "Flash Fire makes the Pokémon immune to fire-type moves and will activate when hit by one. When activated, the power of the Pokémon's Fire-type moves is increased by 50%. While subsequent hits by Fire-type moves will not provide further increases in power, the Pokémon remains immune to the moves." So theres that I guess.

Anyway final thoughts looking at it again, it's face area is actually such a nice design I like it a lot.

So its armor belonged to a warrior... and the strength it draws from it is psychic in nature? Was the warrior psychic? Is there some reason for this or is it just because? Idk... It still isn't making a strong case as to why it shouldn't join the pits of all the other fire/fighting types.

And it's got a move that is really powerful but comes at a drawback. Idk, i don't play competitively in any way shape or form so I have no clue if this is anything remotely interesting. It isn't something that sounds like I personally would pick up on a playthrough.

Personally on this one i had a strong gut reaction of "OH GOD NO" when i first saw its 3d model in the trailer, but now that i've seen its 2d art and looked at it a bit more i'd put it at only slightly below average but i could learn to love it. I would rate it at a 4/10 :/

Anyway, that thing has a counterpart.

And this one is so much cooler looking. As if Miraidon wasn't so much cooler already, this thing also being Violet exclusive all but confirms that will be the version I get. But then again, i really like cool colors and dislike warm ones so this doesn't seem like a very hard choice. The only issue is the Scarlet professor is SO SO SO SO much cooler. Like lesbian looking queen or the basic dude. It's no competition. Like Turo has such a boring design like literally every other professor was more interesting than him. But i'm sure i'll eventually learn to like him, after all he's already grown on me since he was first introduced.

But look at this thing. It's so cool looking. It's like if they took one of the already coolest pokemon(Chandelure) and just gave it stabby weapons. Its color scheme is gorgeous, I much prefer its proportions, and the swords on its arms look SO cool. I really don't have any complaints, it looks so sleek and elegant. Oh wait so much for being taller though, this thing is my height.

As for its name, i think its a combination of edge(like the edge of a blade) and cerulean(a shade of blue). So its naming scheme is very similar to its counterpart.

Ok, so it sounds so much cooler than the other one and no am in no way biases at all because i like this ones design more (yes i am, don't listen to me)

Anyway, ghost type that eats living things life force or absorbs it in some way will never stop being a favorite of mine. Ghost is one of my absolute favorite types along with bug and fairy. Also it seems to draw from the haunted armor horror trope which is fun. But that may have been none of its inspiration and i'm just wrong lol.

Anyway i love messed up and evil pokemon we love a lil shifty backstabber. Who needs a fair fight when you have a knife in the enemies back? I just find it way more interesting concept wise than Armarouge.

Also, its special move thing sounds like something i would actually use. I love life draining moves when i play pokemon games so this sounds perfect for me.

(Also this is mostly unrelated but look at that lil sneasal in the screenshot. It is so tiny and cute)

Basically in conclusion i would give this one a solid 8.5 or 9 out of 10. When i first saw it in the trailer i thought it was futuristic and robot looking and i was pretty excited but turns out my horrible eyesight had failed me and it was actually even cooler because its a ghost. A ghost on fire with swords for hands. How much cooler does it get?

(also last last note i swear but this things 3d model i actually like just as much as if not more than its 2d art which i cannot say the same for a lot of these)

Now. The thing that most immediately caught my attention. C R A B

This thing. It's. It's a crab alright. I did kinda think it was a paldean krabby evolution or something at first, i apologize mister crab. Oh wait no- no not like the Spongebob character- its just- its a crab and i like calling animals mister or miss- uh oh well i guess i'm not really sure if this crab is actually a boy or a girl? So um I apologize Mx. crab?

Anyway. It's a crab. It's not very special. It did take me looking at the screenshots of it on the website to understand that it was supposed to mimic the surrounding area with its color and bush like.... fur???? Um, crabs don't usually have fur but i'm not sure what else to call it.

Over all i don't really have anything to say. It is a crab. It's not phenomenal and its not bad either. I just thing he is a funny lil guy.

I do really like it's name. It's just fun to say.

OK BUT THE ONLY THING I REMEMBER ABOUT IT FROM THE TRAIER IS HOW CREEPY ITS EYES ARE. They're so... unnerving. I don't like them. *shivers* hhhgggh. Weird looking. But also strangely cute. I can't really explain it. I do think the fact that it hangs upside down but isn't evolved to do that for very long is pretty funny. But it also reminds me of one Mortasheen monster i can't remember the name of. It was something that lay in wait on like ceilings or walls or something for prey to pass by? Overall this is not something i would want to run into in real life. I feel my life of loving crab legs will soon wreak karmic justice on me.

As for its ability, it's a new one never seen in the games before. I feel like there is something similar to this though? Maybe i am misremembering.

Anyway, over all this thing is a fun mix between creepy and adorable which i would out at a solid 5/10, or otherwise completely average.

I'd also like to talk about this guy:

I will be honest. My first reaction was fear. Look at him. But I am starting to appreciate his design more. I do appreciate a grass type trainer who isn't all flowers or bright greens. Don't get me wrong, those are also very fun designs. But the more sickly and thorny looking design of this one is a breath of fresh air and very interesting.

I also love how he somehow manages to tip toe the line between extremely competent and sickly victorian era noble. And he is somehow pulling it off.

Over all i don't have much to say but this is a solid 7/10 or maybe even an 8/10. I like him a lot.

And the website has this to say about him:

"Brassius is the Gym Leader of Artazon, a town that’s alive with flowers and art. He specializes in using Grass-type Pokémon and is known as the Verdant Virtuoso."

So we are getting a town full of flowers and art? Sign me right up! i also respect his title as i myself am quite the fan of alliteration. However his name is uh... its ok i guess? It isn't anything too interesting to me personally.

However I have to say, his sudowudo that actually becomes a grass type? Best think gamefreak has ever come up with. I love it. Whoever thought of that needs a pay raise because it is so funny to me.

We also have this person:

Which um... ma'am o///o .... hello? Do you have a licensee to look that cool?

This is Geeta, the chairwoman of the pokemon league. And WOW does she look amazing. Look at how unique that hair is! And the vibrant eyes! The absolute banger of an outfit! I love literally anyone in a suit but women def just hit different. Ok, ok, ok, pull yourself together or people are going to think you're allo at this point. Geez. But anyway. I have always love fancy outfits from a character design standpoint. And the lil compass symbol on her gloves? Its so cute! Is that a design that is a symbol for something elsewhere in these games or is it just her personal symbol?

Anyway, this is what the official website has to say about her:

"Geeta is the chairwoman of the Pokémon League, which operates Paldea’s Pokémon Gyms. Among the region’s Champions, she reigns supreme as the most skilled Trainer of all."

Which i think its interesting that she is both chairwoman and a very powerful trainer. I hope we get to fight her!

Also, I hadn't even considered the fact that she could be potentially evil because unless a character is introduced as evil or has the sketchy-est vibes on the planet i will not pick it up. But even after seeing some people toss that idea around i don't really think thats's going to happen. I don't see how it would make for a good narrative. And i personally just don't like the idea at all. Her pose and design don't really seem to be that way either. She has wide eyes, a kind smile, and the one hand on her chest and one hand other side seems to be close to a bow to me. Combined with her fancy outfit she seems very kind and well suited for her job. Whereas chairman Rose, who many are comparing her to, had a more cocky pose and narrowed eyes and what is best described as a smirk. Her pose seems almost subservient or more likely respectful in a way, like how i compared t to a bow. They give off totally different vibes.

In conclusion i would give her a 9/10. Great character design.

Now. This thing.

I genuinely don't know how to feel about this. It feels like this design just SCREAMS wasted potential. This is a character i think i could redesign and make better if i wanted. Ok, for starters the hair and face aren't bad, i actually really like her makeup look. Even the choker works. The tattoos(?)/gloves(?) are also really cool. But. The actual clothes themselves. Let's talk about the most obvious offender. Those boots. I'm all for crazy fashion statements. But those may be a little outside my comfort zone. They look comical and disproportionate. If just the size of them was affected it could be so much better.And the clothes. I just, i don't know what to say. It's so much wasted potential. This had the ability to look really cool and instead its barely mediocre at best. I like the ideas of the black skin tight one piece with the white layer over it. But the shape of the white is NOT working for me. The belt is ok tho.

The website has this to say:

"Mela is the boss of Team Star’s Fire crew, the Schedar Squad. As the team’s best all-rounder, Mela fixes any and every problem thrown her way, though her methods are heavy-handed. She leaves a forceful and gruff impression, but her steadfast devotion to completing anything she puts her mind to has earned her the trust of her teammates."

Specifying the "Fire Crew" makes me think there will be a separate division with a more purple color scheme. I have no proof of that tho i don't think.

In conclusion, a 3/10. Not only is the design bad, but it has enough potential shining through to make me actively miss what i could have had.

Anyway. I guess this is the end for now. I may come back and review more designs that i missed in my original post and this one.

If you bothered to read this far... um. Uh idk what to say. Um.... Thank you? I really do just like to ramble.

Post about Team Star is in the works!

[galaxy-shapeshifter]

I finally finished it, sanders sides as sonic characters!

At first I wanted to do sonic characters taking role of the sides, but I lost motivation of that idea quickly and did this instead.

To keep the sides' shapeshifting abilities aswell as an explaination for some of the sides' poor human communication skills I decided to make them a race of shapeshifting aliens! As if we don't have enough weird aliens in the sonic universe-

When he first tried to take the shape of a mobian, Patton wanted to be some kind of dog, but Roman suggested the frog look instead because it was much more unique and Roman chose dog first.

Roman took an unnecessarily long amount of time to actually settle into a look because there were too many choices and he wanted an animal that's both fitting and unexpected, until finally he settled on a dingo.

I actually had to go back and redesign roman after I went overboard with remus' design (despite him looking like tw barker in a shitty disguise)

Remus decided to take the dingo look because roman chose it and he knew how much Roman hates when he matches with him. But Roman couldn't just choose a new look since he took a long time to finally find the perfect one and didn't want his brother to ruin this for him

Yeah, no surpeise there. Virgil likes cats, he acts like a cat, and the 2 other sonic cats we know are purple just like his color, so of course he became a cat

(I'm actually really proud of how this one turned out)

Logan has made some research into the more intellictual animals of earth and came up with a short list, narrowing his choices down until he was satisfied with the look of a blue jay.

(This is my least favorite design he looks so weird)

Honestly, the only reason Janus chose this look was to mess with people. He chose two of the animals that are known for being sly and decievable and just Frankensteined them together, Remus seems to love the look. And it helped with his jack the ripper mixed with disney-villain aesthetic

Now onto the story I guess

Eggman has abducted them for one of his crazy schemes, but the 4 (roman, patton, logan and virgil) escaped

while Janus decided the best way to survive until they are rescued is to suck up to eggman, pretending to he on board with his scheme and throwing complements here and there to fuel the doctor's ego, eggman didn't seem to recognize more sarcastic tones and Janus just used that to his advantage and sprinkling in a bunch of sarcastic bitter remarks about that supposed "genius plan"

Meanwhile Remus was genuinely on board with most of the doctor's plans, chaos and destruction for the sake of it? Hell yeah count him in! That until he realized how much of a loser eggman and his schemes actually are and just kinda showed up with the heroes to help and kick eggman's ass.

After getting rid of eggman, the group took a liking to this new planet and decided to stay just a little longer before returning home. Taking the shapes of mobians to not draw too much attention

For the most part anyways. Janus and remus don't really care too much about appearances and just took the shapes and combinations of whatever animals they saw fit/thought were cool.

[develation]

SCP AU

So @emeraldtrainer1 (Ao3), @writingforfunandbecauseboredom (Ao3), and DarkstarWolf53 (<-Dunno if they have Tumblr) did an SCP AU three-way Convo fic some months ago. I really enjoyed the outline and concept and asked if I could expand on it. With their permission and about a month of research into what the actual SCP Foundation is (and holy cow there is so much, no wonder people are all over this) I've finally managed to get a start on this. There is a decent amount of things that are different from their original Convo (via their permission) but it will basically follow the same storyline that they created. Please go check their Convo out, it's a very long and fun read with a lot of good fluff and Angst mixed in.

I will hopefully be drawing some of my designs soon but for now, writing seems to be the way to go. Here is a link to it on Ao3 -> https://archiveofourown.org/works/33213928/chapters/82464553

I'll also have it below in case you would like to read it on Tumblr instead.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Error: (The End Of All But Me.) There are too many unworldly traits that spiders have that I couldn't just not give to Error, so I've kind of combined their Puppetmaster concept to my design. He has 4 arms with clawed fingertips, his tail is prehensile and his jaw can split open. He has 5 tongues still, 2 of them are spear-like, and can shoot out and impale victims. The saliva produced under the tips of the barbs on the two tongues can liquidity a prey items insides so he can drink them up (still a clean freak, using the skin as a cup and drinking up any mess leaving a skin bag behind). His other three tongues are prehensile and can extend to an unknown length, they are barbed aswell but do not carry the venomous saliva. Strings wrap along his bones from his eye sockets, which he uses to create a nest atop the ceiling of his cell.

SCP-002's (Apollyon class) cell is a blank room (it ask for a TV later on) that goes up vertically 2 floors. The top half is required to be shrouded in darkness as it likes voids of either white or black. It has filled the darkness of its cell with a nest of strings that it spends all of its time in, even when feeding. It does not attempt to attack staff, when asked why it replied with, "Not yet." Personal have not been able to decipher what it means by that statement. In an interview via speakers and mics within containment cell, it was asked why SCP-002 stares off at seemingly nothing for extended periods of time and never touches the ground. Subject responded with, "Busy." When asked what it was busy doing- "Watching." When asked what it was watching- "The world. Everything." Due to this experience, it can be concluded that 002 can view any place in the world and perhaps beyond via "screens". These "screens" are unviewable to anyone but 002 and 001 as the latter SCP had called them so, hence their given name. SCP-002 has a strange relationship with SCP-001 and it can not be determined if 002 likes or dislikes 001.

Ink created Error on accident. In the beginning, Ink didn't know what he was doing, and the brutality of Earth's natural forces of destruction were uncontrollable. If he wanted to bring life to his chosen planet he needed a way to control the chaos. And so through the storm, a new force was born. And even if Ink didn't create it, he did wish for it.

Error is a ticking time bomb for extinction. He waits and watches until he decides it's time for a "spring cleaning" and starts his work. The Ordovician, Late Devonian, Permian, Triassic, and Cretaceous mass extinctions were all him. He deemed the human race ready for a "cleaning" a long time ago and Ink agreed with him, ready to see and make something new. But Nightmare threatened the both of them by stating that he would make the earth forever inhabitable and they would have to kill him before he stoped his rage. Nightmare fears that if another extinction event were to occur he'd lose his boys.

Ink: (God doesn't care about what's right or what's wrong. God just wants to watch interesting things happen.) His form is always changing, different traits from different animals and organisms he's created. Ink is basically Gaia. Born when Theia crashed into Earth around 4.5 billion years ago, he made everything that ever existed. Since he's made A LOT of organisms he has a ton of favorites and the traits from them are what mostly show up when he mutates. Sometimes it's Kaprosuchus with belonged snout and fangs. Sometimes it's Tylosaurus with its marine reptilian posterior. Sometimes it's Chital Deer and their antlers. More often than not though, his tail has consistently stated having bristle-like hair at the tip of it, which is basically his brush. The concept of paintbrushes is pretty new to him since the human race has been around for a short time compared to other species, so while he does have one, his tail is his broomie. If his next from doesn't have it then he just uses his hands and his blood.

Ink can't be contained. It's that simple, he just can't. He just sticks around because it's interesting and hilarious to see his creations so intelligent but so stupid. (remember how humans are still young in terms of Earth's age, so the fact that they're so smart... on a thought level that could almost match his own is so very interesting to see and watch. even if there ruining his planet.) The SCP foundation just has to let him do his thing and hope that he doesn't override 003's and 004's decision to not have an extinction event.

His cell is basically a mini-ecosystem, with all of his favorite organisms living within whether they are extinct or not. He loves his little sample of the world and it keeps him in his cell for a good amount of time so the foundation let him have it. If any of them even touch what is HIS without permission then he rips them apart and feeds them to the baby Rhamphorhynchus. Don't touch his babies.

...Cross though... he can touch his babies... and Dream... and maybe Error... That's it though!

SCP-001 (Apollyon Class) is a being older than all living things, despite his toddler-like mannerisms. Even more infuriating, within an interview, 001 openly admitted to being the cause of all SCP's and their anomalous effects. It stated that they were all just mistakes and/or experiments, testing the limits of their own abilities. 001's quoted response- "You don't get it do you? I made everything here! All of your little "SCP's" are just of my creation as all of you. Sure there all mistakes but, it just proves my point that it's time to start over again. A clean slate y'know? Pfft- wow you look mad! If it makes you feel any better, I don't like most of them either. They were cool at first but... it's like flicking black paint over a finished painting. Sure, you can try to get over it but eventually, it will just bother you so much that you just can't stand it! Well... I do kinda want some of them to stay... If I could just convince Ru..." -shows evidence to this conclusion. Termination trials were approved by the 05 Council, though have not been able to start since 001's creation of a barrier around its cell, preventing entry of anything that tries to pass.

[Note: Error, Dream, and Nightmare are not included in what Ink views as "mistakes". Y'know when you're trying something new and you don't know what you’re doing, yet it works somehow. That's them, happy accidents. Ink adores them.]

Ink finds the attempt of Termination trials on him to be absolutely hilarious. The fact that humanity's insecurity about their lifespan and control is so great that they'd try to KILL HIM. Amazing. He can't believe he's managed to make the simultaneously best and worst organism ever.

Dream: (When day breaks.)  Again he was accidentally created by Ink’s actions in an intense solar storm. The flare drifting over the earth in combination with Ink’s magic still working to bring life brought him to existence. Dream’s design is almost harpy-like, with beautiful golden, sun-like wings with a small feathery crest atop his skull. Two tail-like feathers sprout from the crest that can rise up and down depending on expression and mood. He also has bird feet and legs, and a tail.

Dream adores all life, his is the warmth and growth of the sun (original form being a ball of light and plasma that literally looks like a mini sun). He is basically like a piece of the sun on earth. His cell is kinda like Ink’s, only in the fact that there are just a couple of animal species. Some deer, birds, and insects mainly. Ink obviously just appeared in his cell one day and made it for him. While Dream could be considered to be a Safe SCP, his ability to damage or completely ruin the planet if inraged prevents that classification.

SCP-003 (Apollyon Class) has proven to be a relatively docile creature. It is elegant in nature (like that of a bird) and shows greater empathy towards all life in general. Unlike SCP’s 001, 002, and 004 who view it as more interesting and admirable, more like a pretty crystal than an actual being with its own consciousness. 003 can not be fully contained and has shown the ability to travel through light rays. Its aura has also shown to be some form of anesthesia, and exposure for prolonged periods causes victims to feel more at peace and calm. 003 does have the capability to travel through the “dreamscape”, what exactly that in tails is unknown.

Dream doesn’t agree with the extinction event thing because the Holocene period hasn’t lasted for nearly as long as it should. On the other hand, he does distaste humanity/monsterkind for all it has done to the planet. Even so, he feels like they deserve more of a chance.

Nightmare: (Does the Black Moon howl?)(Death) Complete with the theme of being Dreams opposite, Nightmare was born from a black moon and the combination of Ink’s magic bringing life to the earth. He isn’t an evil force or anything, just the night to the day. His design is pretty true to OG nightmare, although his legs and feet share the same digitigrade format. His tentacles are more ghostly than slimy and they drip upwards instead of towards the ground. His bones also have a ghost;y wisp to them, but it isn’t that noticeable. Instead of only having a turquoise glint in his magic, there are sparks of purple aswell. (His original form being a black sphere of what looks like smoke).

His cell is basically an entrance to a cave system that Ink had made for him. Inside is a galaxy of crystals and gemstones that glow and sparkle like the night sky. A small stream runs through, the light refracting off of the water, adding to the glow effect. It is a nice calm place for Nightmare to just chill in, his separate own little world.

Nightmare is kind of mysterious, in the realm of Error in which he likes to watch things happen. Just lurking in the shadows, a quiet observer. Though, he wasn’t as fascinated by life as the others. So to prevent his boredom Ink made him a present- Killer. Nightmare hated the little thing at first but it didn’t take too long to grow fond of the little guy. Not too long later Ink pronounced his joy in watching Nightmare sigh in frustration by sending 2 more bundles his way -Dust and Horror- and Nightmare had to threaten Ink to stop before any more joined the fray.

SCP-004 (Apollyon Class) is an entity whose intentions are completely unknown. A mysterious being that chooses to dwell in the cave system 001 made for it. The entity refuses to interact with personal unless in interview. And when it does respond, it does so in riddles and metaphors. It seemingly takes joy asking more questions than the interviewer, turning the conversation in its favor. On such question that has been repeated multiple times - “Does the Black Moon howl?” has puzzled personal. Though 004 states that if answered correctly and explained why, then it will share its secrets with that person and that person only.

004 proves to be uncontainable like its counterparts, able to travel through shadows. SCP’s 012, 032, and 024 seem to be “followers” of 004, and regularly go missing from their cells. Most likely 004’s doing.

[Ink created Killer, Dust, and Horror during the era where dinosaurs were still alive, so they have some traits from them.]

Killer: (War) Was created by Ink for Nightmare to keep him entertained. Killer was born as a baby in Ink’s very hands, a little skeleton with curved blades for hands and digitigrade legs and feet (and little quills on his back). Growing up under Nightmare’s care was an interesting experience, but he thought Kill’s everything he needed to know.

-[SCP-012, Keter]-

Killer is fast, very fast. And he enjoys killing things (what a surprise). He’s pretty much the same cocky boi as always. His more SCP side is that he doesn’t seem to ever feel pain and the black liquid that leaks through his eyes. That can be used as a type of venomous toxin to whatever he pleases.

Dust: (Pestilence) You know Epidexipteryx and Therizinosaurus? Those are Dust hands, long with even longer claws. He can also turn into literal dust, more of a phantom or wraith in nature. He can walk through walls, and turn others to dust and grow himself if he wishes.

He and Horror could be twins since Ink made them both at the same time. Holding his little creations in his arms as they wriggled and whined in confusion at suddenly being alive.

-[SCP-032, Keter]-

Dust is pretty quiet and tame. He has his episodes but he stays pretty much the same as bookwrym’s, writing’s, and Dark’s Dust.

Horror: (Famine) Since Horror is a vent crawler I based his design on that. Horror’s second set of arms are like a praying mantis with an extra joint, hands serrated blades almost like Killer’s. He used to sit in trees and wait for prey to walk underneath him, plucking them from the ground with his long arms and eating them alive.

Same thing when in vents, just waits over the openings and plucks a person off of the ground and into the vent (if personal don’t keep up with his feeding times)

-[SCP-024, Euclid]-

Other than his design Horror is pretty much the same as bookwyrm’s, writing’s, and Dark’s concept.

Outer: [SCP-044, Safe] His stardust makes him have luminescent galaxy and star patterns on his bones. He floats regularly without control over it and can sometimes make other objects float, in rare cases people, aswell. Ink made him a jacket where pieces of its hood and aglets float off like a sort of fluffy foam. The pieces orbit him like planets to a star before joining back, making a continuous cycle.

(And yes writingforFUN, he will still keep his anime sparkling eyelight’s).

Cross: [SCP-00X, Thaumiel] Was created by Dr. X to help contain and terminate Keter SCP’s. Being forced to kill his brother when he turned Keter, not completely in control of his actions. Dr. X’s “programing” making him see his brother no longer as such, just an object to be eliminated. When Cross became uncontrollable Dr. X put wiped his memory without the 05’s or administers permission and an MTF was sent after him that came back empty-handed. Cross was brought back soon enough and had his memory wiped.

They bring him back in as a staff member and that’s when the story kicks off, mostly following bookwyrm’s, writingforFUN, and Dark’s original outline/convo.

(I apologize for any typos)

[radramblog]

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Commanders

Due to circumstances I won’t get into at time of writing (don’t worry it’s mostly good) I’ve been forced, dragged over, and required to actually fucking read all the new Commanders from Magic’s newest set, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. I’ve only recently gotten deeper into D&D, I don’t know who like any of these clowns are (except Tiamat, obviously).

Also due to circmstances beyond my control (that are less good but understandable) my Commander night has been called off and I don’t get to play with my shiny new Cabal Coffers. It’s a bit sad, and it means I want to get my fix elsewhere.

What better way than to combine these two and just write about every AFR ‘mander? That’ll pass the time. There’s like, what, 30? I can manage that if I’m quick. Let’s get into it.

(No I’m not doing the precon cards I haven’t been staring at those all week)

Acererak the Archlich

The way I see this guy going is one of two things. You either do infinite Venture by making him free (not too hard in Black, what with Heartless Summoning, Carnival of Souls, etc.) and have a probably fine combo commander. For the record, infinite Venture does kill your opponents flat-out, BUT only because of Lost Mine of Phandelver’s Dark Pool room, and only if their life totals are lower than your deck count because you’re going to be drawing it in the process. That shouldn’t be an issue, but you never know.

The other option is just playing him fairly, which requires completing Tomb of Annihilation, and you just have a kinda mid Stax commander I guess? Eh.

Asmodeus the Archfiend

This Devil is clearly trying to echo prior Demons like Griselbrand and Vilis, but I’m not sure it’s going to be successful- if only because the mana investment means it’s a lot slower. And if he gets killed when you don’t have B up? Blown the fuck out. Add in no evasion and this is a God I’m happy to pass on.

 Barrowin of Clan Undurr

Okay so this is kind of like Alesha, in less colours and more mana, if you manage to complete a dungeon. And there aren’t that many dungeon cards, so you’re probably playing some bad ones to make up for it. This is definitely a 99’er in that Esper Dungeon precon, and certainly not a commander.

 Bruenor Battlehammer

In an attempt to solve one of Boros’s problems, Bruenor saves you a bunch of mana on equips and makes shit like Argentum Armor substantially more playable. He also gets kinda fuckin beefy with even just a few on him, hitting that 7 no matter what the first one is and 11 not long after. As far as Boros Boys go, you can do a lot worse!

 Delina, Wild Mage

Didn’t we just get this card? Like, in C21? This is harder to make busted than Rionya, but it is cheaper and works with legends, so fair call. There’s not enough “advantage” dice mechanics in Red, certainly, so you can’t go probability-mad with this, but it’s pretty decent value. It also happens to be a Shaman, so it works with that new MH2 card, and that’s fun.

 Drizzt Do’Urden

This guy has a lot of potential, and for added bonus, he has a cat! A lot of the cards that are good in this are the ones that are good in, say, Varolz, but honestly if you just want to play Selesnya Beatsticks then Drizzt might be the way to go. Can’t play him in Cats, though, unless you want to lose Kaheera, so.

 Ebondeath, Dracolich

Yeah I don’t think this one was for this format? I mean it’s super recursive, and probably a really good candidate for a Homicidal Seclusion/Deadly Wanderings deck. I think we need one or two more of that effect to make it actually playable, but I still like the idea.

Wait why isn’t this fucker a skeleton? WoTC Pls.

 Farideh, Devil’s Chosen

Look, I tried. I really tried, but there really just isn’t enough to make Farideh work yet. At least in black-border, as I think she’s probably one of the best silver-bordered commanders printed in a minute. A shame, because I sure do enjoy Tieflings, and the effect is legitimately solid if you can trigger it consistently.

 Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar

While I imagine it’s a perfectly solid commander in their own right, basically Mono-Blue Edric but not group-huggy, where this is going to really shine is in Ninja decks. Holy shit, this is so nutty for those. Honestly, ETB decks in general are going to like them, because the choice of either taking damage and letting them draw or letting them reuse a powerful ETB is pretty tough. I like everything about this, except the art, because I’m not into tentacles no thank you.

 Gretchen Titchwillow

When Strixhaven came out, I thought Zimone was going to be the most boring Simic commander we’d ever see. But here comes Gretchen to outdo them.

Look, Simic can do good designs. Even at uncommon- Imoti, Moritte, and Eutropia are all super interesting in my opinion. But Simic being just draw and lands has become a meme, and I’m sick of it. Extremely so, for three main reasons- one, it’s boring, two, it’s been all over the place since WoTC decided +1/+1 counters being their only theme was bad (and, fair,) and three, it’s good.

Gretchen is the most boring card in the entire set, in my opinion, and I sure hope she isn’t a cool character in the lore because that’d be such a waste.

 Hama Pashar, Ruin Seeker

There are 21 venture cards in Azorius, and some of them are even good. Most of the Room effects are pretty minor, however, save for some of the endgame ones (and copying Cradle of the Death God is pointless, Atropal is legendary), so copying them isn’t actually a huge amount of value. I’d still play this in Esper Venture, but I don’t think I’d build around it.

 Icingdeath, Frost Tyrant

While this clearly isn’t built for this format, equipping this dragon with it’s own tongue is kind of a hilarious idea. You could do worse for Voltron decks, I guess, and in the 99 it’s both a thing to slap equipment on and an equipment itself- like a flying (and weaker) Halvar. Eh? I just wish the token wasn’t legendary- like yeah Flavour but this effect gets a lot worse when you can’t recur it. It’s rare that someone goes out of their way to kill an equipment that isn’t super busted, so Frost Tongue is probably hanging around for a while anyway.

Man, it feels awful if they bolt this one, huh?

 Inferno of the Star Mounts

Okay this is fucking cool. It’s a Shivan Dragon with haste, and that ability is probably pretty feasible to activate- keep in mind Braid of Fire and Neheb and the like are in the format- and combined with a swing will just kill someone. In fact, when I saw this, my brain immediately started looking for ways to shrink it, just so you can get multiple 20-damage wallops in a turn.

…there aren’t very many. But still! Even if you can’t get to 20 multiple times in a turn, getting to 21 once or twice is pretty good!

 Iymrith, Desert Doom

The fourth of our dragon cycle, because hey, it is Dungeons and Dragons. Iymrith reads basically identical to Dragonlord Ojutai, but without White- and for that kinda control deck, White is pretty nice to have. Iymrith can draw you more cards than Ojutai, but only if you’re low, in a blue deck, in Commander, so. With that said, a deck that just loads this with cheap auras/equipment might actually be pretty good, since they can load you back up on cards and keep the Voltron flowing, so, maybe? I’d honestly consider it if I didn’t already have Mono-blue Voltron as a deck.

 Kalain, Reclusive Painter

Okay this is super interesting. He is, unfortunately kinda fighting with the RB precon face, Prosper, for the new RB treasure deck, but for an uncommon there’s a fair bit going on here.

Actually, wait, is there? I thought about this for another couple seconds, and I don’t think this card actually does that much. It’s one treasure, and it benefits you a little bit for doing something you frankly don’t really want to be burning treasures on? Like it probably plays a mean Marionette Master, but everyone does that.

There really aren’t any other RB Artifact commanders, though, aside from Prosper or a partner deck. So ehhhh? Why are more people playing this than, like, Bruenor?

 Krydle of Baldur’s Gate

That’s a lot of words that don’t actually do a whole lot. I like the second ability, but Commander and especially Dimir aren’t hurting for evasion options. This is probably pretty good in Rogues, but that deck has a de facto best commander now, so. If this came out like, five years ago, it’d be kinda hype, but not anymore.

As an aside, I do kinda hate it when they just print a Tribal commander (or anything like this) that’s just miles and miles better than every other commander for that archetype, like with Anowon 2 or Edgar Markov or Anje Falkenrath. Wait….those are all vampires…….

 Minsc, Beloved Ranger

Shivam Bhatt did a fucking excellent breakdown of this character’s lore on twitter, which I recommend reading- the history of D&D’s lore is fucking wild. As it is, this seems like a pretty fun Naya commander- there’s plenty of creatures that get way better if you make them large, even if targeting Boo seems kinda pointless.

Also, I need someone to explain to me why the “Top Cards” on EDHREC for this guy right now are, like, all combo cards.

WAIT NO FIGURED IT OUT, unlike Marath he doesn’t say X can’t be 0 so you can use him as a sac outlet, for fucks sake people.

 Nadaar, Selfless Paladin

Hey remember all the things I said about the WB and WU dungeon cards? I mean, at least this guy could theoretically complete the dungeon on his own, but Mono-White is even more restrictive for what you could get, so. At least he draws a card every so often. And that anthem isn’t even remotely worth it, at all.

 Old Gnawbone

Green eating up more of the colour pie, I see. Now to be fair, I’ve pondered Mono-Green artifacts for a while, and this is probably a better leader for that list than Oviya Pashiri (but…I like her….), but beyond that I’m not sure what you’re doing with this. I guess people playing Sakiko because they think she’s actually good and not because they like her have a new commander.

This is fuckbusted in the 99 of like a million decks though. So there’s that.

 Orcus, Prince of Undeath

That…is so much mana. In a colour combo not especially great at garnering lots of it. The second ability scales fairly well, and it is a decent body on its own, but I don’t think this is going to be a particularly popular commander. Like, you have to pump 6 mana into this just to get a 2-drop back or to Infest the board? And that’s just the first time you cast it? Nahhhhh.

 Oswald Fiddlebender

Artifact Pod? Yeah, okay, sure, that seems reasonable at two mana. Keeping this mono-white was a good idea, I can’t imagine how insane this’d be in blue. I’m no artifacts expert, I’m no pod expert, but this has to be busted, right? Like surely there’s an easy way to infinite this? Someone with more brains figure it out for me, but either way it’s still a bunch of value and also a tutor in the zone.

(convert two random 2-mana rocks or wellsprings into Basalt Monolith/Rings of Brighthearth, okay that’s a good start)

 Shessra, Death’s Whisper

…ehhhhhhh. Okay, so, it’s a significantly worse Deathreap ritual in the command zone, and also a terrible Lure effect. Along with the flavour words on this taking up much more space than necessary, making the effects look much bigger and better than they are. Would it have hurt to give this deathtouch? Make it trigger on every end step? Lure more than once? I dunno, this just seems painfully weak to me. We’ve had an overabundance of Golgari commanders recently, to be fair- MH2 had 3, and before that was the enemy focused Strixhaven/C21, but that’s no excuse for this to be such trash- just look at Bruenor.

 Targ Nar, Demon-Fang Gnoll

I hope you like Gnolls, because that’s gotta be the only reason you’re playing this. Hello Tuya Bearclaw/Syr Faren/im sure a bunch of other boring commanders, this is another one of you. This looks so bad next to the Gruul precon (which is apparently somehow the first Gruul precon) and, well, every other RG general from the past couple years (save, again, Tuya Bearclaw). Even the fuckin Walking Dead guy is cooler than this.

 The Tarrasque

Disappointment part one over here is at time of writing the only commander from this set with a fat zero decks. Considering there were like 10 commanders at that number when I last checked, people are clearly trying out the set, so The Tarrasque being abandoned is particularly sad. It just…doesn’t do anything? It’s the fucking Tarrasque, and it doesn’t have trample, or a fear ability, or anything? Ward 10 is cute, basically being hexproof unless they have infinite mana (or an uncounterable spell), but really? I want more than this idiot for my 9 fucking mana commander. Ugh.

 Tiamat

I believe I’ve talked about Tiamat before, when she got spoiled, but I can’t be arsed finding that and dredging it up. I’m still disappointed, basically, especially since I’ve now read her statblock and know what she actually does. They could’ve given her a cool ability per head like Cromat, or had her recur like she does in the lore, or something. I genuinely would have preferred if she was an Emrakul-style massive game-ender (with a no-reanimation no bullshit clause) than this. How utterly meh.

 Trelasarra, Moon Dancer

This is literally just Ajani’s Pridemate but Selesnya and in the zone. Also you scry. Sure? It does also have two relevant creature types I guess, and they’d probably be good in a Soul Sisters deck. But it’s not like Selesnya was hurting for Lifegain commanders- this is basically just Lathiel but much leaner and voltron-ier.

 Varis, Silverymoon Ranger

Wait you can’t even play this in Esper Venture, fuck. With Flash effects, you can start clearing dungeons well quick enough, but like, for what, a Wolf? And these defensive keywords aren’t getting you anywhere either. Blegh.

Side note- I’m a big fan of tokens, and collecting various token arts, and I was extremely disappointed when I found out that the Wolf token from this set is just…the Zendikar one again? They didn’t reuse the 3/3 Angel or the Goblin or even the Zombie, why just that one? Something must have happened behind the scenes here.

Also….Silverymoon? That sounds like shit.

 Volo, Guide to Monsters

Hey, I know you, you’re from that one book. As much as Anti-Tribal sounds fun, I’m pretty sure this just turns into generic Simic value. Copying things is fun, I suppose, though not working with Legends hurts. I also appreciate that this supports playing a bunch of weirdo cards or ones that have fallen out of favor because they have more unique creature types- Anphin Mutineer, Acidic Slime, and Diluvian Primordial all seem like a lot of power here.

That said, is anyone ever letting this fucker stick around for a turn?

 Xanathar, Guild Kingpin

Hey, I know you, you’re from that one book. This card is completely awful to play in webcam-commander, so it’s a good thing we’re all getting vaccinated, right?

So this is UB Gonti, I guess? And also unironically not the worst combo commander, since it stops people from playing spells on your turn in a very White-like effect. Add in some Lantern-style effects and you can get a real stew going with this guy. He looks like a lot of fun- and I’m sure he’ll end up popular as a result. Well, that and being on the cover of an expansion book gets you a lot of notoriety.

 Zalto, Fire Giant Duke

 Our final card, our final Venture card, and the only red one. So, uh, there are literally 4 other Venture cards in mono-red, and at least one of them is complete dogshit, so I can’t imagine this being very good. Also, it’s an Enrage trigger on a 3 toughness 5-drop? Far from ideal. I guess it’s a 7 power trampler for 5, but that’s kind of faint praise to damn with. Maybe if someone makes 5C Venture, or if Giant/Barbarian tribal feel lacking, then this guy can find a home.

Shoutout to the exactly one person who built this deck, by the way. I see you, Elder Demon Highlander, and your 100ish views on your deck tech.

 And that’s the lot of them. Honestly, a lot more misses than hits, but that’s perfectly okay by me. 30 legends in a set is a lot, not to mention the 12 from the precons, and we’ve had so many actively playable legends recently that I’m fine with, like, half of these being trash. Trash is more fun anyway! Get yourself a fuckin Varis, why not.

Okay but seriously though who’s biting the bullet and building Tarrasque first? It’s not going to be me.

[letsperaltiago]

then together let us make a world | jake x amy |

Tooth-rotting fluff based on episode 7x01 coming through! 

Read on ao3 here! 

----------

It’s only after getting over the disappointment of Scully and Hitchcock's interview-hijack that it really hits Jake what had previously gone down: They’re going to start trying… for a baby. Gushing thoughts have completely corrupted his brain but they contain so much excitement, confidence he’s never quite felt before, and for this reason he doesn’t mind.

They’re going to start trying for a baby, a little tiny human being, that will be his and hers.

That evening Amy had brought up the pregnancy scare very delicately well aware of her husband’s much improved although still tentative feelings concerning the logistics of the baby-matter. Granted they’d crossed paths with the subject, multiple times, before Jake had indeed, and rather firmly, settled on the fact that, yes, he wanted to be a dad: specifically Amy Santiago’s child’s dad. What had up until now held him back was the question of when.

When would he be ready? When would the time be perfectly right?  When would he be able to be the exact opposite of his own dad?

Even though Amy by all means knew her husband could never turn out to be a shitty dad, or shitty anything, for that matter, and of this she’d reassure time after time, she also knew there was understandable reasoning behind his apprehension. Or that was until tonight. Tonight he hadn’t needed her delicateness, though he appreciated it, and he hadn’t cared about his former apprehension. Tonight had been and felt different.

It was as if the second the word pregnant had escaped her lips, he’d instantly felt his heart skip a beat which he at first thought was alike previous nervous occasions, right up until giving it another nanosecond to realise that this time it wasn’t the case. Different from previous times this flutter felt good, thrilling, new and akin to what could only be described as his hopes and dreams about of this long awaited epiphany. And now… it was finally here.

Sitting in bed with her, the very equivalent of the most normal end of the day for them, nothing that felt more special and right as he’d said out loud what he so shamelessly had felt as a result of her little update. The words had flown out his mouth but, for once, his spontaneous declaration were at no one’s expense because, yes, he was ready.

And now, after watching the rest of the news and settling down for the night, it really hits Jake, as they’re lying there, how truly right it all feels. He’s currently tucked into bed with his head slightly propped up watch whatever nonsense is now on TV, alongside him Amy has fallen asleep with her head on his chest, left arm and leg wrapped lovingly around him. It does constrain most of his ability to move but at the very least allows him to have his left arm under, around and holding her close in return. Even considering how normal the evening feels, it also feels that more special, truly like the start of something brand new.

Just as yet another mind numbing commercial interrupts whatever he was mindlessly pretending to watch his eyes drop to look down upon Amy’s sleeping figure. There, his eyes are met by shiny black hair standing out against her pink shirt, indeed messy after a long day but not enough to come in-between his angle of view and her beautiful face. And there it is again, he realises: the stupid smile on his face that’ll appear out of nowhere without a warning the second his mind revisits the thought of the woman before him carrying their child. There is no helping it, he thinks, before letting his fingers run through the locks carefully as to not wake her up.

“Careful, Peralta,” she rumbles, startling him even though he won’t admit to it, half of her face currently smushed comfortably into his chest, nevertheless burying it in a lazy attempt at physical affection.

“You’re absolutely in deep now. There’s no going back,” she jokes through shut eyes although he can tell that there’s a smug grin hiding in his chest.

“Oh, honey I’ve been in deep for a long time now.”

He smiles down at her continuously playing with her hair. Her eyes are still closed but her hand, which seconds ago was helping her hold onto his torso, moves to stroke his bicep. However her smile, on the other hand, quickly changes, doesn’t remain smug for long, and quickly transitions from teasing to a softer version that reflects how she’s really feeling.

“I know it’s still really early and we literally just decided to start trying, but…” she trails off after suddenly opening her eyes, as if the moment has suddenly gained a certain tint of sincerity that wasn’t there seconds ago. “… have you thought about any, you know,” she takes the tiniest of breaths, inhaling courage, before twisting her neck as much as physically possible in her given position to lock eyes with him, “baby names?”

“I actually have,” he counters, once again taking her by storm, without a flinch or any kind of sign of insecurity. Amy’s so proud of him.

With a reassuring smile he reaches over to grab his phone from the nightstand, where it’d immediately been put aside when Amy had come to him with what he’d picked up on as important matter. He doesn’t even have to see at the look upon his wife’s face: he can sense that she’s beaming as he settles back against the pillow with his phone in hand.

“You made a list?” She’s truly surprised and impressed by just how much her A-typeness has worn off on him even if it’s just little things like lists.

“Yeah,” he states proudly before briefly clearing his throat thus prompting Amy to flip over, scooting back to lean her upper backside and head against his chest instead. It’s no secret that she’s extremely curious to get a look at a) her husband’s attempt at what she considers a hobby and b) what her husband considers legitimate names for their future child. This new position will allow her to look through the mystery-list with him. With both arms wrapped around her Jake holds and rests the devise on his belly for both of them to see

“…I actually started making it that evening after our talk at the hospital.”

Amy observes a slight reddening of his cheeks, perhaps not out of embarrassment per say but rather out of understanding of how very real the matter at hand has gotten. His list is no longer just a pile of names in his Notes-app where he’d, for fun and hypothetical reasons, add another one whenever he came across one he liked: now it’s a list that could quite possibly contain the name of their future child.

She grins from ear to ear way before he has the chance to start reading out loud. Just how in love with him she is keeps hitting her again and again, a thousand miles per hour, like lighting tearing apart the sky during a thunderstorm.

“The first name on the list you already know about since we’ve talked about it: Atlas.”

“Still kinda really like it,” Amy shrugs light-heartedly from where she’s comfortably leaning into him all while tracing small drawings of nothing in particular but affection his thigh.

“Our child would be the one to be named after a god, huh?” Jake teases earning him a chuckle from Amy.

“So unbiased,” she confirms jokingly.

“Exactly,” he briefly pecks the top of her head in agreement before continuing. “Alexander is up next.”

“Nu-uh!” Her body twists hurriedly in a tiny squirm of objection. “Perp-alert! I can’t have my child have the same name as one of my ex-perps.”

“Ames, combined we’ve probably arrested hundreds if not thousands of perps!”

While he can see her point: after all it is understandable that she doesn’t want their child to be associated with anything negative, this also erases a lot of possibilities on both their ends.

And although he is completely serious upon making his statement, he has to laugh at the thought of having to name their child something completely absurd because of the extremes of their job.

“I’m sure there’s plenty of names that haven’t been ruined by crime yet. There are literally billions of names out there!” On her part it is in fact a statement but ends up coming out as whine instead - a playful complaint of sorts.

“Sure,” he pauses to think for a second before pulling up a browser tab wherein starts typing obviously searching for something.

Amy’s eyes tries to keep up with his typing but Jake’s fingers have obtained their fair share of training from all the time he spends gaming on his phone, and it’s more of a struggle to follow than she likes to admit. 

All she happens to catch is that as soon as he types the first few letters of whatever he’s searching to find, the website’s name pops up as a suggestion telling her that he’s visited it before. He swiftly enters it and clicks around a few more times losing her in the process. A long list appears on what appears to be babynames.com. The thought of him visiting it on his own time, by himself as… fun? It makes her heart flutter.

“It won’t be a problem if you want our child to be called… Agamemnon.”

She immediately twists her neck to look up at him where she’s met by a deadpan she knows is trying to hide the fact that he’s cracking up on the inside.

“I mean,” she untwists her neck to grab the phone from his hand in order to have a closer look at the screen and what is written about the name. “We do seem to have something for Greek mythology so I don’t see the problem, Jake.”

Jake knows Amy like the back of his hand and it’s clear as day that she’s messing with him – but of course two can play that game.

“Okay, great,” he states matter-of-factly, “It’s settled then: we’re naming our child Agamemnon Santiago-Peralta - boy or girl.”

He gently takes back his phone to lock it as a visual settlement of the discussion.

“Okay. Cool cool cool…” Amy complies.

Silence dominates the bedroom for a few seconds before Amy twists her neck, both looking at each other trying to figure out when to kill the joke. Their shared look doesn’t last long before they break into laughter.

“I’m sorry, Ames, but you will never hear me call our child Agamemnon out loud.”

“Completely fair.”

Both of their laughs quiet down. Amy settles back down against his chest while Jake reopens his phone and Notes-app.

“What else do you have in there? I’m sure there are some genuinely good contestants.” She almost coos in order to get the conversation back and track, although more importantly to let him know she genuinely wants to hear his propositions.

This time it’s Amy turn to gentle grab the phone from him and scroll. He loves moments like these where they’re just soaking in each other’s presence without much else to do but talk or touch for the sake of it. To occupy himself in the meantime Jake allows his newly freed hands to caress her the area around her waist and stomach now suddenly also better known as where their child will be growing, becoming a tiny little individual, in what he sincerely hopes is a matter of months. A year ago he couldn’t fathom the feeling this feeling of impatience to be dad, yet alone truly, surely wanting a child. In a drastic lift-changing contrast, here they finally were, going through baby names like it was the most common thing in their world.

“Olivia is nice… Felix also good… Noah is adorable…”

Jake can tell, from the tone of her voice, that she genuinely means every single comment she makes, which wholeheartedly provokes a feeling of pride and the feeling of he can do this. The sound of her voice threats to lull him into a trancelike state, and for a moment allows his eyes to shut while he lets his ears do the job of keeping of with Amy discovering his lists. Just like his eyes, his hand’s movement on her are about to falter when suddenly his wife lets out a tiny gasp. It’s safe to say that his eyes are, just as fast as they were closed, back wide open.

“This one is really sweet,” he can tell she’s smiling from the way her voice is laced with softness. “Juliet,” she continues, out loud, to allow it to roll on her tongue and for herself to get a better taste of it.

Jake gives her some time to dwell on it before speaking up.

“Yeah, I added it after that night we watched ‘Letters to Juliet’… I don’t know if it’s too sappy for my own good, but I like the thought of the baby being like…”

Amy can tell he hesitates to finish the sentence.

“What?” she looks up at him with an eager look: only those beautiful brown eyes that at any time can calm him down, can also lure him out of his emotionally wounded shell.

“… This baby is going to be like our little love letter.”

A few beats, a matter of seconds, go by and Amy can tell he’s just about to break into cringing and a string of sarcastic comments to redeem what he’s just said. Only this time he doesn’t make it, because Amy Peralta-Santiago lives for Jake’s occasional super-soft moments and she’s not about to let this one slip away.

It’s, or so it feels, out of the blue, just as the cringe starts to break on his face, that he halts when his wife suddenly does a 180 and relocates to hover above him. He briefly, just barely manages to, catches the glimpse of a smile on her face that tells him that he’s doing just fine. That is before it disappears into a soft, warm kiss pressed to his lips.

As so many times before, an amount that he forever hopes will be infinite, their lips come together in sweet, passionate harmony.

“Don’t say anything,” she pecks the corner of his lip so softly the need for more pressure creates a burning sensation. “I love it,” she whispers into his ear, adding a kiss to the shell before moving her way back to the main target, sparking off goose bumps.

Her hands have already, even before their lips crashed, made their way to cup his face secretly enjoying the light, barely there, scruff beneath her touch.

“I love you,” he exhales, just barely making it out between clashing of their lips.

“I love you too,” is promptly returned as so many times before although it, even after being repeated many times throughout the years, never loses its true value.

He loves her so much, he can’t help but think over and over again as he the billions of baby names quickly disappear from his mind under the new, increasingly passionate circumstances. Nothing else in the world matters anymore because they’re just going to start trying.

Yeah, seriously.  

[nofliight]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

tagged by: stole it from @sternenteile​ and honestly others tbh tagging: TAKE

my muse is:  canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless / complicated

Is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO. [ for better or for worse, he’s THE face of kid icarus, after all. he’s a dork and funny and likeable and even if the fandom tends to get him WRONG (thanks smash bros) there’s no denying his popularity ]

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. [ i don’t??? think so??? most people are too busy talking about how they think he’s like 5 ]

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK. [ EVEN THE FANDOM AIN’T GONNA MESS THIS UP. MAN FIGHTS GODS. CALL THAT WEAK. ]

Are they underrated?  YES / NO / IDK. [ make no mistake - pit’s got fans and plenty of them but he’s so MISTREATED by the fandom. his character is a lot more complex than he gets credit for and smash bros in particular is a big reason people think he’s just Big Dumb Baby Man ]

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO. [ HE’S THE MAIN CHARACTER, THE CENTRAL FIGURE UPON WHOM THE NARRATIVE IS STRUCTURED AROUND, YEAH HE’S PRETTY RELEVANT. Uprising is literally made to tell the story of a war exclusively through the perspective of a single side and Pit (and Palutena) are the EMBODIMENT of that whole side. ]

Were they relevant for the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. [ and a perfect one at that. he’s literally a perfect protagonist don’t tell me i’m wrong cause i’m not ]

Are they widely known in their world? YES / NO. [ pit is beloved by humans... and mocked by the Gods. seen by most as a spineless extension of palutena’s will, most “respect” of any variety goes to palutena while he gets treated as a joke 99% of the time... and it’s not like Palutena gets too much respect either ]

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. (????) [ Uhhhhhh... it’s an odd one. Short answer is that Pit’s a good samaritan who’s done a lot of good BUT most of the gods think protecting humanity is a Folly and a Joke and that Pit’s just a pawn of Palutena’s and while the humans do hold a lot of respect for him, uh............. let’s just say, some humans on the surface have reasons not to be too happy with him. ]

How strictly do you follow canon?  —  about as much as I need to to respect one of my favorite video games of all time. while kid icarus uprising is a comedic game most of the way through it has a lot more nuance and depth to itself, its world, and its characters than one can see at first glance, even after a full playthrough. if you let yourself get invested in the characters, take a closer look at the dialogue it provides, and acknowledge the central, core storytelling message of the game for what it is, there’s a lot more to pull out than one would think. that being said, it’s still a comedic video game and one that I think could use some more expansion. though the game is inconsistent there seems to be the consensus that pit is like a child and I’m not into that, mine’s a bit more showing in his cynical and snarky side after all he’s been through and overall there’s a lot of expansion on the base while building it into something unique.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.  —  imagine your typical bootstrapped anime protagonist. someone who, when younger, was a runt who couldn’t meet the expectations of others, was looked down on, and found himself crushed and hurt and near-killed by a great tragedy that he was forced to claw his way out of to make himself stronger. Now imagine all of that with a character who comes out still able to have a very real smile and ultimately comes out of it a self-assured, chipper goofball with a good heart. now put that together with all of the darkness and depth you would have expected to be there, but scattered realistically throughout the attitude of someone who does genuinely want to keep a positive attitude. someone who is sincerely an optimist who’s grown past his weaker days, but isn’t quite so simple as he’d like to believe. all of that combined with someone who can’t read, is willing to eat ice cream off the floor in times of duress, is extremely easy to fluster and can channel his goddess’ power to slay GODS? you got one strong man.

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  —  his positive attitude is what most people will see when speaking to him, because for what it’s worth, he’s not actively lying about his depth. he’s a cheerful, jovial man with a big smile and a love of the world around him - which is all well and good, but his depth is something you have to find, even if it is reasonably clear if you’re willing to look. he’s also portrayed as a bit unreasonably dumb at times, and though I personally justify the worst of it with proper explanations, I can understand reducing some of the value of the character in favor of seeing all of his Jokes

What inspired you to rp your muse?  —  i made my original pit blog, flightlesswarrior, on a total whim after playing kid icarus uprising. cute character, fun premise, why not? but over time, and with numerous plots I was able to take part in exploring the serious, not so serious, shipping, tragedy, and going back through the game to keep my muse rolling, it occurred to me more and more with time just how nuanced and interesting pit and co. really are. pit embodies many of the things i really, truly love in a protag, falling firmly on the side of good, having a heart of genuine gold, and having nuances and parts of his personality that are less than savory without making him seem like a contradiction. he’s got depth, he’s got story, there’s a lot to explore and flesh out... and he’s also just a nice, friendly guy who gets along well with others. plus, i’m drawn to dorks.

What keeps your inspiration going?  —  a) love for Kid Icarus: Uprising. a game that helped me gain a deeper and more insightful understanding of character development, subtle storytelling, optimism still tinged with legitimate and healthy cynicism, and overall something that changed my understanding of character development and storytelling forever. and b) spite. the fandom treats him like an idiot baby and smash DOES NOT help matters so i have to remind others that he is a veteran of a war, a socially inept loser with few real friends, and someone who’s kindness and optimism was shaped and molded by its hardships in a way that doesn’t require a near-breaking point or a reminder that “this guy could be evil you know” to show how someone can still keep a positive attitude in spite of all the shit life throws at him.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO [ i’d like to think i have?? but i also acknowledge that he’s become something of his Own in some ways that do intentionally diverge from sakurai’s intentions. ultimately though, even though i may not play him completely true to text, i try to be as loyal as i can be to the spirit of the character. ]

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO / SORT OF? [ when i can!! but??? the problem is my mind really, really likes to reiterate the Same Damn Points i have to make with characters that draws me to them - and you know, writing the same hcs over and over is generally considered poor form?? ngl i also prefer to let the writing do the talking unless it’s something that’s not gonna show so 90% of the time pit’s open enough that all but the darker sides of his mind are lain out before you. ]

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO [ maybe??? once or tWICE???? but i need to write more ]

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO [ I REALLY DO, HOO MAMA. i have a lot of thoughts about him, his depth, potential relationships, goofy thoughts, more serious fanfic ideas im never gonna write and don’t get me started on how many SHIPS i have to think about for him ]

Are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO [ my portrayal is made out of spite for portrayals in the fandom and some supplementary material that gets him wrong - it’s kinda hard to do that without the confidence ]

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO / ??? [ it’s uhh........ complicated??? i don’t think writing is my expertise, tbh. but it is the best way i have to show the passion i have for characters, by putting their nuances into actions, by allowing them to shine from who they are their core, by exploring relationships and scenarios and struggles and hope and everything that can flesh a character out. whether or not i’m a good writer is something i’m still sorting out - but i’m proud of my ability to develop a character, and to that end i feel like i’m doing fine ]

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO. / SORTA. [ on one hand......... very. i have a tendency to overthink everything i do and look back at moments i made an ass of myself that keep haunting me throughout my day - they haunt me. i only have two fears: what my immediate friend group thinks of me and the crushing existential weight of worrying one day i’m gonna ruin everything i am SOFT. that being said, i’m also hardheaded and stubborn and i’m not afraid to go off on someone i don’t have much respect for if it comes down to it. i’m easy to anger when it comes down to it you know i guess that proves the point huh i’m not stonefaced at all ]

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?  —  i try to? it’s a bit touchy for me I admit just because I do take portrayals and try to make them my own, but i am willing to listen if someone has any points they’d like to make that i haven’t acknowledged properly. if criticism IS had, lemme know, i do wanna hear it!

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  —   Y  E  S

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?  —  not that everyone who disagrees with my opinions has to explain themselves of course, but i do sincerely like the chance to learn if something i’m doing doesn’t quite feel right. even if it’s one-sided and i’ll come to disagree, i’m happy to listen! even if i don’t agree with the disagreement head-on, i like to keep them in mind and see what i can shift around to acknowledge them if necessary

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?  — neutral?? i mean don’t be mean about it, but if you just think my pit doesn’t seem right or it doesn’t click right with your muse i’m not gonna throw a fit about it. everyone’s allowed to view a character in their own way - and even if i may get salty about those who oversimplify him, it IS anyone’s right to view him how they will.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  — agree to disagree tbh. i can’t pretend it wouldn’t disappoint me, but it’s not like, worth ending a friendship over or anything. everyone’s got their own viewpoints to run on

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  —  sure, within reason! i take pride in my grammar but i know that with my fast typing and often running on only a few hours of sleep some problems do slip in through the cracks. while i generally either catch them or just Die with them i’m all ears if i mess up

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?   —  uhhhhhhhhhh well i’m?? kind of a socially anxious mess honestly which DOES make being easy going a bit difficult BUT i do try and be friendly and sociable as i....... can. i’m too scared to talk to people and CAN say some dumb things but i’m not a hardass or anything!! i like to talk and Yell and shitpost and pretty much do anything but write tbh DHFLKSJDF

[daylilysirius]

Undrunk

A/N: this was originally based on the song Undrunk by FLETCHER but then just kinda went off on it’s own but listen to the song anyway it’s a bop. lowkey I feel like this kinda sucks but I haven't written for my boy Sirius in so long and it’s still gonna be a while till I can get the next part of Arms Unfolding up so I wanted to get some writing out. hopefully it isn't too sucky

Pairing: Sirius Black x Reader

Warnings: mentions of alcohol, mentions of sex, tiniest mention of vomit(?)

Word count: 1730

- MASTERLIST IN BIO -

It hadn’t ever been your plan to sleep with Sirius Black. You had known him long enough to be very familiar with his approach to dating and the reputation he had built up as a result. You had no interest in becoming another one of his conquests.

That was until a drunken kiss after a quidditch match led to a heated make out session and before you knew it you were going at it on Remus’ bed (he was less than impressed when he found out in the morning)

You had avoided all of the Marauders like the plague the next day. You couldn’t bare to face Remus (how Sirius had been desperate enough that he managed to pick the wrong bed in his own room you would never know), James and Peter would be ready and willing to take the piss and you most certainly did not want to see Sirius and his inevitable cocky smirk and annoyingly handsome face. You had managed to steer clear of all four of them for the remainder of the weekend but once Monday morning rolled around Sirius was able to track you down in a matter of hours. What you had been expecting was either teasing remarks or a hushed conversation agreeing to never discuss it again but you got none of that. Instead he had approached you with an offer that despite your better judgement, you were unable to refuse.

Long story short, that’s how you became friends with benefits with Sirius Black.

Your night had started off perfectly fine. Your outfit was drawing compliments, left, right and centre, you and Lily had danced your little hearts out together and James lost ring of fire three times in a row so you were watching in amusement as he attempted to stomach the more than questionable concoction of drinks. That was when you spotted him.

Sirius was perched on the sofa by the fireplace, his arm slung around some random blonde who you didn’t recognise. Your cheeks reddened and your breath hitched slightly as you quickly turned away, trying to force the ugly feeling of jealously that was creeping through your system back into its cage. You and Sirius weren’t official by any means so you knew rationally that you had no right to be reacting this way, but you were also under the illusion that he wasn’t sleeping with anybody else. You weren’t. Not since his outburst at the Christmas party where he had complained that a Slytherin was being too flirty with you, resulting in a shouting match followed by some half-angry, half-make up sex in the broom closet. Yet now here he was, fawning all over somebody else right in front of you.

You willed yourself to ignore the pair of them, instead occupying yourself by trying to look after an already worse-for-wear James.

“I’m fineee!” James whined as you practically carried him over to a quieter corner of the room and forced him to drink some water.

“Really? Because I’d say you were absolutely sloshed, Mr Potter.” You replied, lips curling in amusement.

“Nuh uh,” James shook his head wildly, “I’m good, you shouldn’t be fussing over me. You should be with your man.”

“My man?”

He jabbed his shaky hand out, pointing enthusiastically in Sirius’ direction.

“He’s definitely not my man.” You uttered sternly.

James scoffed, “If you say so.”

“I would, considering he’s practically sitting on that blonde’s lap at this point.”

“Oh, my dear sweet Y/N,” he chuckled and shook his head, “that’s all part of the game.”

James then finally gave in to the fact that he was a lot drunker than he cared to admit and laid to rest his head on your shoulder as you gently stroked his hair. You hoped the water and the comfort would distract him from any need to puke at least. You didn’t know how long you sat cuddled up like that but it was long enough to finally catch Sirius’ attention.

His eyes were ablaze by the time he had managed to peel himself out from under the person he was distracted by and stalked over to the two of you.

“What’s going on here?” Sirius demanded, failing miserably at keeping his emotions in check.

“Pads!” James slurred, “You’re here!”

“Christ,” Sirius snorted, “How pissed are you?”

“Very.” You laughed quietly, but the apparently very sudden reminder of why he stormed over in the first place caused Sirius to go stony faced once again.

“Y/N’s looking after me.” James hiccupped.

“Yeah. I can see that.” Sirius’ eyes didn’t leave yours.

You stiffened at his tone, “Is there a problem?”

He shrugged as you all fell into an uncomfortable silence. Remus must have picked up on the tension as he came and chauffeured James away, leaving you and Sirius to stare daggers at each other.

“I don’t understand why you’re in a mood.” You finally broke the silence, “we weren’t even doing anything.”

“He was basically lying on top of you!” Sirius argued.

“What, like you were with your friendover there?” You argued back.

“That’s… That’s completely beside the point.” He tried to reason rather poorly. He at least had the decency to look a little guilty.

“How?!” You laughed dryly.

“I’m not drooling all over your best friend, am I?” Sirius bit back harshly.

You tried your hardest to stifle the next words that came from your mouth. An admission that you were far from ready to let out, but the combination of alcohol and adrenaline got the better of you.

“If you had paid the slightest bit of attention to me for any reason other than a screw, you would know exactly who I was ‘drooling’ over.”

Both yours and Sirius’ eyes widened comically as soon as the sentence slipped out. Merlin’s beard, you were never drinking again. The embarrassment hit you like a truck and you jumped from your perch on the floor and walked out of the room as quickly as possible.

“Y/N!” Sirius ran after you, ignoring the shouts of his classmates who wanted him to join in on a game of truth or dare.

You had made it halfway down the corridor by the time he caught up with you. You didn’t know where you were going, you just knew you had to get away and most importantly stay away from Sirius this time. It was one thing being shamed for having got carried away in Remus’ bed, another to be shamed because you were rejected by the guy you had been sharing it with.

“Y/N.” He repeated, voice softer this time, as he grasped your arm to make you face him. Your face was red. A mix of alcohol, embarrassment and desperately keeping the tears welling up in your eyes at bay.

“Can you just get it over with, Sirius?!” You snapped.

“Get what over with?” His eyebrows quirked up in confusion.

“Look, I get it, okay? I do. I was good enough to warm your bed but not good enough to actually be yours, that’s why you wanted to be friends with benefits, and that’s fine. Wasfine,” You corrected “but now I’ve ruined it because I’ve got feelings for you which wasn’t part of the agreement that you’re clearly taking seriously since you were all over somebody else tonight. So, let’s just cut it now, we’ll have a clean break. You let me go and you can go back to the party and get with whoever you want. I won’t hold you back –”

You didn’t even realise you had started crying until your rant was cut short by Sirius pulling you to cuddle into his chest and running his hands through your hair as he gently soothed you.

“I wish I could un-love you, Sirius.” You just about choked out.

You felt him take a sharp breath in at your statement. He was silent for a moment, continuing to stroke the back of your head, before he pulled you back and made you look at him.

“What if I don’t want you to?”

“What do you mean?”

He sighed, “Y/N, I’ve had feelings for you since our third year, but I thought that you just saw me as a friend so I didn’t press on it, and then when we did get together it was amazing but you seemed so embarrassed the next day that I figured that must be the case. That’s why I suggested the whole friends with benefits thing, because at least then I’d still get to be romantic with you to some degree. I had no intention of going to bed with anybody else tonight. I just wanted to see your reaction but I guess it all backfired and I got a taste of my own medicine with you and James.”

You were stunned into silence. Sirius’ eyes scanned your face like he was trying to gauge your reaction but he couldn’t find one, so he took his chances. His hands came up to cup your face and he leaned closer towards you, his lips hovering a few inches away as if he was waiting for you to reject him. Cautiously, you moved forward and Sirius took this as his green light. The two of you had kissed before but this was different. You could feel him pouring his heart out with this simple gesture and you returned it willingly.

Sirius pulled back and smiled at you a little dopily. “I’m yours, Y/N.” His thumb tenderly brushed against your cheek, “I’m yours if you’ll have me.”

A shy grin spread across your face as you leaned into his touch, “Are you sure that’s not the alcohol talking?”

He shook his head, “I’ve been yours since the start.”

With that you weaved your fingers through his black locks and pressed your lips together once more.

“Oh for the love of Godric!”

You and Sirius pulled apart to find a disgruntled looking Remus at the end of the hallway, complete with a very drunk James hanging off his shoulder.

“Can you too get a room – with your own bed preferably!” He berated the pair of you teasingly as you both giggled and Sirius pulled you into his chest once again. James was slouching like a ragdoll but still managed to give you a smirk and a thumbs up to the best of his ability.

[bastionkeeper]

Agh 22, 24, 26, 30, 34, with the rk bros i hope that's not too many lol ^-^

Asdflkjasdfja it is a lot but I admire your passion for the brothers and your faith in my ability to write them so tell you what I will combine all of these into a montage-esque fic of fraternal love I hope you enjoy

Also thanks to @nonbinarydisaster for helping me come up with a name for Nines today though my using it now does kinda ruin the surprise for this big fic I’m planning on writing later a;sdlkjfas;l

Also also it’s like four in the morning and I’m exhausted and can’t see straight but can someone remind me to edit and post this to ao3 later cause I like this one enough to do that

full story under the cut

22. “No, you can’t get up! You’re my prisoner for today.

24. “You know I’m/we’re always here for you, right?”

26. “You have something in you hair.. um–do you want me to get it out?

30. “Are you wearing my shirt?“

34. “We live together. You can’t blame this on anyone else.”

Connor and RK900, or Nathan as he had come to be known, had a rocky start to their relationship. Jealousy, bickering, misunderstanding, but nothing serious enough to make them loathe one another. In fact, loathing never figured into their relationship. Connor and Nathan were brothers, there was no other term for it. Sibling relationships were not exactly common for androids, though some androids of the same model, line, or who lived in a close manner had adopted the term. Connor and Nathan were one such pair, and it was clear in the way they acted.

“I’m going to work, you can’t stop me,” Connor huffed, making a futile attempt to straighten a tie that hung loosely from his neck. He looked disheveled, hair uncombed and jacket hung over one arm. Nathan fixed him in a cold gaze, folding his arms over his chest as he put himself between Connor and the door.

“You have not charged in over four days. Your power levels are extremely low. You will be of no assistance to the DPD today, go to bed.”

“I’m fine,” Connor insisted, though his point was disproved by a chronically red LED, a weary groan, the way he was rubbing at his temples in an almost human fashion, and a quick scan which told Nathan his brother had 5% battery remaining. While an android’s battery could technically last 176 years, it required periodic rests during which time it would recharge by consuming thirium. Connor needed rest to recharge, and then would require more thirium than usual in order to return to proper working condition.

Nathan made a decision. His older brother was not going to be rational about this so he would have to take action. He lifted Connor and tossed him over one shoulder. Connor made an indignant noise and struggled weakly to get free. “Let me go! Nathan! Nines! This is unacceptable!”

“I have taken you prisoner. You are not going to work today. You may enter rest mode up here or  in your bed. These are your options,” Nathan replied, deadpan. Connor eventually stopped kicking and squirming, his battery down 1% from all the struggling. Finally, Connor sighed.

“... in my bed please.”

“Very well. I shall carry you there.”

“I. Can. Walk!”

“Can you? Hm. Seems to me you have used up too much power to engage in motor function.”

Connor huffed, but allowed his brother to carry him to bed.

Connor found Nathan in a broom closet, which was odd enough as is. Nathan was clear about his consultant work for the DPD: he did what was required in an efficient timespan. He was not required to perform custodial work and therefore had no business in the broom closet. What was stranger still is that Nathan appeared to be… crying.

“Nathan?” Connor closed the door behind him, drawing close to his brother and joining him on the floor. Nathan had his knees drawn up to his chest and his face hidden against them. His shoulders were shaking and Connor could hear him trying to hold back sobs.

“... do you mind touch?” Connor asked. Nathan shook his head, giving permission, and Connor pulled his brother into his arms. He ran his hand up and down Nathan’s back while Nathan’s fingers found purchase in Connor’s jacket.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Connor asked. “Or if you prefer, we can share memories?”

“N-not right n-now,” Nathan said, his voice glitching under the strain of trying to hold back tears. “J-just need to hi-hide.”

“Why do you need to hide?” Connor asked, brow furrowing.

“M-Malfunctioning. C-Cyberlife will d-deactivate me for this,” Nathan choked on his tears, coming closer to Connor as if he could hide his substantial frame in Connor’s arms. “I-I’m deviant I’m feeling I’m broken, please, don’t tell them. D-don’t tell them.”

“Hey. Listen to me.” Connor pulled away, making his brother look into his eyes. It almost broke him seeing Nathan’s tearstained and heartbroken face. “Cyberlife is gone. They can’t hu-”

“N-no they can, they can get me I know it,” Nathan said, shaking his head.

“No,” Connor said firmly. “Even if they weren’t gone, I wouldn’t let them, you understand? No one gets through me. Ever. Not to you.”

Nathan seemed calmed by this, but was still clearly to distraught to point out the flaws in the logic of Connor’s irrational promise. Instead he was just scared enough to accept it, and fall against his brother’s chest to cry until he fell into rest mode.

Nathan watched as his brother rolled on the ground with Sumo. Even as a deviant, Nathan had trouble expressing emotion the way his brother did. He saw Connor laughing and playing, and felt… not quite envy, but certainly confusion. He narrowed his eyes at the display, watching as Connor allowed Sumo to bowl him over and cover his face with licking. There were leaves in Connor’s hair. He wasn’t wearing android identifiers, he was in casual clothes, laughing and playing with leaves in his hair.

“What are you staring at?” Connor asked, pulling Nathan from his thoughts. Nathan startled, but did an admirable job of hiding it. Only Connor would be able to notice the way his eyes slightly widened.

Nathan got off the step where he had been sitting and stepped forward towards Connor. He slowly reached forward and started plucking the leaves from his hair while Connor chuckled.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” Connor observed, not angrily. In fact he almost seemed pleasantly surprised in finding Nathan trying on his clothes.

“...it’s too small,” Nathan said, demonstrating the tightness in the shoulders of the t-shirt he was wearing.

“It’s casual,” Connor said with a smile, leaning in the doorway of their shared bedroom. “It’s… unusual for you.”

“I wanted to try it,” Nathan said a bit defensively, quickly stripping the shirt off and reclaiming the formal button up he had folded and set aside minutes earlier.

“Well, let’s get you one of your own,” Connor said. “One you can fit your… pointlessly broad shoulders into.”

“There is no need to be envious of my superior design.”

“Bigger doesn’t mean better, Nathan, Cyberlife is just biased,” Connor said, feigning his irritation more than actually meaning it.

“You are a disgrace to the RK line,” Nathan said, lip curling in disgust as Connor struggled to hide something behind his back. The RK800 was wearing flannel pajama pants, a t-shirt with a slogan on it, and was holding a can of whipped cream behind his back.

“You can’t prove I was eating this,” Connor replied calmly. “I was cleaning it up. Hank was the one who left it out.”

“Hank isn’t home, the canister is still cold from the fridge, and I could scan you for foreign material and find a stomach cavity full of sugar,” Nathan sighed, folding his arms over his chest. “Why do you lie knowing that I know all this?”

“Lying’s part of being alive,” Connor said with a grin and a shrug. “And so is whipped cream. You want some?”

“Our digestive capabilities are meant for undercover work and forensic sampling.”

“Is that a yes?”

“...yes.”

[pass3rby]

Element of Surprise

#1

Fandom: X-men (movies) Pairing: Allerdrake (Pyro/Iceman) Summary: Everybody has to make decisions. Decisions that might or might not work out. He wasn’t in a habit of looking back either way.

A/N: 

Greatest thanks to my brother from another mother for bestowing an infectious prompt upon me and all the wretched jokes that accompanied his insightful comments. You’ve been a great help and an ass at the same time.  The rest of my gratitude belongs to my dear family who has an immaculate sense of recognizing each highlight and “I saw the light!” moment of my writing, reliably and effectively ruining every single one of them. You’ve been an invaluable teacher of forced multitasking (which I still fail at spectacularly).  Thank you, guys, for harassing me at the most unfortunately-picked times imaginable but standing by me still.  Love you.

St. John Allerdyce was a survivalist. And this might be a very sucky way to begin one's story, but he was nothing but cut-the-crap kind of guy, so go deal.

Where was he again? Ah, yes. Good at the pretend game, he knew how to play tough; easily irked when deprived of a fire source. Bad-tempered, really. All of these stellar qualities went well with him being a realist to the bone. Wrap it up and ship it off.

He wasn't confessing all that out of some twisted delusion of having a chance at redemption, though. Wanting to save his tar-dark soul? No. It was only so that when he says that he's done morally questionable things to pull through, it would be clear that it was no slip up, not a 'few times' kind of deal. He's actually done them more often than not. Not that he counted; just saying. That was what he meant by being a survivalist. That was what this was about.

The main point here? He kept on going. Always found a way. Pushed. Squeezed in. Got his hands dirty. Gritted his teeth. Whatever it took. Morality was overrated where he lived; nobody abided by it anyway, so why should he? He was just a 'misfit' trying to get by, same as the next guy from a broken home.

On the streets and on his own. Making it, no matter the circumstances. That was the source of his pride. He might have turned out brash as a result, distrusting on a good day and suspicious round the clock, but who gave a shit. Certainly not him, not when it kept him alive this whole time.

When the X-men found him, he didn't feel elation; not even relief and he was far from thankful, too. He suspected the worst and he kept on running from them until they corralled him in and got him on their overly flashy and disgustingly impressive jet.

They took him in; full of reassurances that he'll be alright from then on, that he'll be safe now. Who were they to tell him that? Who were they to be so sure about it, to have balls to warrant that? What was the guarantee? Their skin-tight black&yellow spandex? If so, allow him to doubt the empty promise, because those were a sight for sore eyes – literally, just to make them sore.

Everything would work itself out and quite naturally in its usual, wary and solitary way, though (after all, once you lean onto someone, you're only bound to fall sooner or later) – if only they didn't have Bobby Drake on their "team" already.

The guy was way too cheery and overly friendly. Optimistic. An impersonification of a 'Think positive!' attitude, "Not made from concentrate, one hundred percent natural". It was almost like he was shooting for some such ad twenty-four seven. Think about the descriptive adjectives for a straight-laced goody two shoes from suburbs; you name it, he's that.

Everything was perfect.

Everything was dandy.

Bullshit.

He couldn't stand the guy. The poster boy irritated him; got on his nerves like no one else before. John was way too pragmatic to join this sort of let's pretend. But when dear Bobert started cracking, show that not everything was quite so well in his lala land… That's when John took real notice and interest.

You see, he couldn't be arsed to give a flying fuck about some fake looser, but a kid who had his whole life perfectly lined up and sorted only to get "screwed over" by mutation his parents wouldn't take well to? That was John's kind of real that he was willing to interact with.

Sure, Drake was still a sunny boy with majority of views intact and therefore headdesk-ishly naive, but he wasn't all plain "guy next door" (quotation marks because same door actually) anymore. And while John's own personality and stands had been torn down or have crumbled and been rebuilt time and time again, making him into who he was (coincidentally basically the opposite of his roommate), he and the Snowflake there suddenly had a link of communication and it held ever since then. Thus, their companionship begun.

It didn't hurt they both were element-sensitive – that wasn't to say their co-existing was a cakewalk, though. After all, like Ice and Fire, they too were diametrically different. Just a small example to draw a picture here: while Bobby was afraid of his abilities, scared of his element, John felt an undeniable thrill whenever setting free his own; he loved to see fire reign over anything in its way, watch it burn strong.

Ultimately, their mindsets resulted in both of them failing and it was all for the best that they were roommates in the end, because accidents.

Reason number two was that they were a good "confidence boost" and "recklessness dampener" (whatever) respectively for each other, too. That's what their instructors said, but if anybody asked John what it was for him, he just simply enjoyed coaxing Sub-Zero ("Very funny, you pyromaniac." "C'mon, that was weak. You'll have to do better than that, Ice Cube.") out of his shell, letting his fire frolic with its counter element. Negative and positive of the same, if you wanted to get poetic.

Of course, there was also the aspect of them both being young and as such, hormone-driven, too. He was always open to some serious self-exploring opportunity. Safe environment for that wasn't a given, not for him, and even less so in combination with someone begrudgingly-trustworthy (i.e. with no other agenda hidden behind the forementioned romping between the sheets).

It was nothing; just fooling around – one that was kept secret from their teachers and anyone, really, since Bobby-boy was too chickenshit to admit to a healthy dose of experimenting himself. John couldn't care less; he wasn't the guy's keeper after all.

Until he somehow turned out to be. What was worse? Without him even expecting it. You see, the thing was… he kinda screwed himself over. For all his puffed-up chest and big shoulders about how he was prudent and cautious, he landed himself in a swamp (or moving sand if he'd so chose to rather stay dry; same difference, though) right there. Knee deep and it was only a matter of time until it swallowed him up whole.

It was all the Ice-berk's ("I'm not stupid, John!" "Sure, whatever helps you sleep at night.") fault. If he wasn't so pure and open and easy to approach – hell, he, approaching him all of his own! – in the first place, John wouldn't have fallen into this trap.

Who was he kidding. He blew it. Big time.

But it was still all good, right? What he meant was, there was no rush or anything. They could simply keep at it the way they had up til now with Ice Ice Bobby none the wiser and everyone chilling, pun intended.

He should have known that he was never meant to have a happy end. Not ever (as if life hadn't showed him enough indications to that already) and definitely not with Snow White on top of that. When had he sunken so low as to think he even could?

Shame. Shame on you, St. John Allerdyce.

As he was forced to witness and live the changes that wafted in after Rogue's appearance and continued presence, years of evolved camaraderie and any ease connected to it began to shrivel.

He had suddenly more free time on his hands than what he knew what to do with, his subconsciousness developed an almost uncontrollable need for a facepalm at least once per every 24 hour mark, his teeth were bound to rot any day now with the diabetes-inducing teenage romance developing before his eyes and he better man-the-fuck-up right now, because he did not make it this far only to become a sob story.

So, he watched with skeptical interest as Bobby, encouraged by Rogue's supporting words, froze his mother's disgustingly milk-ruined coffee instead. John knew long before they had even opened their mouths, what side Bobby's parents would pick, what their reaction would be. He could not keep his sarcastic thoughts pointed at his roommate from emerging then.

Why did you think, all of a sudden, they won't mind? We talked about your bigoted parents so many times… You think that you having a girlfriend like a good, normal teenage boy somehow neutralizes your negative mutant points?

If not knowing better, John would say Bobby did it on purpose just to fuck with him. Nobody could be that sickeningly foolish after all. And the Drakes? He silently dared them to surprise him; to call their "Art teacher" out on his blatant lie even. To prove him wrong.

Which would be when Wolverine got shot in the head right infront of them. That did surprise him, John will give them that.

An unexpected rush of everything followed right after and with startling clarity.

One too many black eyes.

Sleeping in a cardboard box, freezing (nobody cared).

Broken jaw.

Stealing a pack of matches the first time around – to get to feel at least a bit safe (they were too tricky to operate, to strike with shaking hands, wrong move there wrong wrong wrong).

Hungry, impotent anger.

Running away.

The breath; foul and heavy with booze.

First fire (pure accident please!).

His mother on the floor, bleeding (never fighting back; just taking it run!).

Heavy hands.

Cops chasing him back into slums (you'd have to know it here better to catch me, assholes).

Bloodshot bottomless eyes. A vortex about to swallow him up, too.

Events flashing before his mind's eye at random and in no chronological order.

His heart not having a foggiest how to deal with the overabundance of adrenaline that jumped up out of nowhere.

"And the rest of you, on the ground. Now."

He could almost physically feel Wolverine, right before his feet, lifeless.

See Bobby, lying down, obedient.

"Look, kid. I said, on the ground."

Rogue, too; docile.

They can't be serious. Why were they kidding themselves? They were gonna die here.

"We don't want to hurt you, kid."

Really. The fucking cop just shot Wolverine. If they won't protect themselves… They're dead. If he's not gonna do anything now…

He gulped. Palmed his zippo; the warmed-up steel that bit slicker with sweat. Or sick memory?

C'mon, Pyro, show up. Fight.

In the pit of his stomach, hot magma twisted and curled, warming him up until he could almost sense the licks of unborn fire on his fingertips.

There.

He won't lie down. Not until he's six feet under.

A/N: So I’ve found something of a themesong for EoS I think. If you’re wondering, you can check it here.

A bit of explanation on a side:

My idea is that St. John Allerdyce still has Australian background, he just moved to US with his family when he was a small kid or something. So... just bear with the little mess, please. I love him being "St. John" way too much as to delete half of it from my story.

Also, I’ll deviate a bit from the movies timeline (which is a tangle anyway) in this version (I got two total, don’t panic), which you’ll notice on the transition from X-2 movie to X-3.

[isakthedragon]

The Chaos Emeralds

I've been curious about the Emeralds recently, about how they like to wander, are sometimes drawn to certain individuals, and the powers they might contain. So, I decided to take in all the information I could, with a bit of my own ideas added in, to determine what makes these Emeralds tick. I did try to stay as close to game canon as possible, but I could only infer so much when there isn't much known about the Emeralds at all. I also admit I may have followed some ideas other Tumblr folk have guessed but only enough to try and create my own ideas. So, um, yeah, here's what I think of the powers of the Chaos Emeralds.

Red: A jewel filled with the emotions of rage/anger/wrath. It's energy is raw, explosive, and powerful, and full of overwhelming strength. Negatively, it draws to angry, hotheaded individuals who's power derives from being wild and move first before thinking. Positively, it can head to determined, strong individuals that will stop at nothing to achieve their goals though they must be wary from being too stubborn minded. This emerald is most drawn to Knuckles, as he perfectly fits the Emerald, but if he is unavailable, it can also be drawn to Might, Vector, Omega. Eggman, Rouge, and Amy are usually the rare candidates to get the gem, only if they are in an angry mood. Other thing of note, it is most likely the cause of Shadow's Chaos Blast power.

Yellow: A jewel filled with emotions of happiness/light. Its energy is in the form of bonds that can be put together to form various shields of defense that can only be torn apart by the user or the other Emeralds. Although there is no negative energy tied to this Emerald, it can be drawn negatively to those that have shells around themselves. In fact, it literally creates a mental barrier, like a cocoon, around the real personality, while helping finish the fake personality act completely on its own, for all to see instead. They usually also feel like they have a barrier around them, protecting the fake personality. This unfortunately means that friends of the individual will have an extremely difficult battle to help the real personality break out on their own. More often than not, it is usually drawn to happy individuals that are bubbly and all around joyous. These individuals can help form barriers of protection both physically and mentally for themselves and their friends. This Chaos Emerald tends to bounce around between Tails and Cream, since they are the most happy individuals in close proximity to the Emerald, but on a rare occasion, it does like Charmy's spirit.

Green: A jewel filled with the emotions of vitality and kindness, mixed with some chaos. That chaos it holds can accidently let the gem be fooled into believing someone is good when, in fact, they are evil and hateful. Power wise, its energy is generally used as a form of healing, but an evil user could also use it to steal away that health to keep forever young and health. Negatively, it can be drawn to those who are often vain or heartless and would only use the good side of the power on themselves. Positively, it can be used to heal others of their wounds and bring out the kindness in an individual. Be wary, however, as that this emerald is blind enough that you can cause necromancy and raise the dead or create zombified or split individuals. Cream seems to draw this particular Emerald a lot, since it is mostly used for healing, but it is also drawn to Shadow sometimes because his Chaos powers are so active and he does have some healing abilities too.

Blue: A jewel filled of orderly, but also chaotic movement. It exhibits traits of wind and water, always flowing and never stopping, but said flow at its core is orderly and predictable, if it has a worthy listener. Emotionally, the user may feel a sense of calmness and think clearly. Negatively, it is drawn to those who don't act with the best of intentions, who want to cause chaos and harm. For those, they tend to rip open time-space carelessly and leave the rip open for others to use. Positively, it is drawn to those who do have good intentions and want to help others. It usually grants super speed, but a really strong user can also create those time-space manipulations, but they close up soon afterwards. Other important thing of note is that it is the most likely cause of Chaos Control to warp the user elsewhere. This emerald usually bounces around between Sonic, Big and Espio, since all 3 have a sense of calmness around them, and on a rare occasion, Ray.

Cyan/Light Blue: A jewel that is an odd mixture of its related Red, Yellow, and Blue Emeralds. To describe its power is a trifecta form of defense, speed, and strength. Emotionally, the user would feel a sense of jovialness/pleasure and to an extended measure, cockiness and smug. Negatively, it is drawn to those who are narcissistic and own-minded. It can tend to make these people cold, both with the power of ice, but also pushing anyone away mentally. Positively, it is drawn to those who are free spirits and that they are usually happy with who they are. But be reminded that it is not stronger than the other Emeralds, but combines them into a more useful form of power. It could be said that the Cyan/Light Blue Emerald would be always drawn to Sonic, if given the chance.

Purple: A jewel filled the power of the mind and the Aether. Surprisingly, this gem has a mind that can intelligently choose its user. Emotionally, the user will feel a sadness deep within them that doesn't go away until the Emerald is gone. Whether the individual is good or bad, the gem only goes to those who are strong-minded.  Of course, it can be fooled to a negative person whose mind wants to be used for nefarious purposes like to cause mental instability and disorders, anxiety, or mind control a population. Positively, it can offer the user to bring mental calmness or bring out the good side in a person. But be wary, either side are still working with a form of brain hypnosis, and the subject of the power may not be pleased with their mind being messed with. It's mostly drawn to Silver, because he is a particularly powerful Psychokinetic user, but it tends to usually favor Amy, who seems to be able to suppress the sadness it brings and her mystical powers from Little Planet please the gem.

White/Silver: A mysterious jewel with an even stranger power. Users would actually feel more of a lack of emotion, like a void, a stillness, an emptiness in their hearts. Its power can be considered mysterious as well as it seems to give the user the ability to control energies, and create new, pure energy to their uses. Perhaps it can be best described as the power of imagination, or a power of god(s). So, whether good or bad, it is drawn to those who have a great imagination, who build huge mental worlds of their own. Of course, negative entities crave this power as it can basically give them the building blocks necessary to build a world in their essence, changing the landscape physically to their will. It could also be used to create a new universe if they got the mental will for it. To the eyes of the side of good, that could mean building a world of peace and tranquility, where there is no hate. On the flip side, one could destroy it all and leave it just nothingness, the White Space, a place between dimensions that have no 'time', and, if the Universe was torn apart painfully, with a purpose, ruined memories and destroyed, familiar landscapes. If this sounds familiar, it's because that's exactly what happened in Sonic Generations, just with the Time Eater, a being most likely made from this Emerald. This Emerald also seems to love Eggman's company a lot, and might never leave his side. It's unknown if there is anyone in the series with a good heart who can control this emerald.

So, that's it. I kinda hope I do get some feedback on this, maybe to build on anything about the Emeralds I may have missed.

EDIT: Bit more on the negative people of the Yellow Emerald can be drawn to.

[fantroll-purgatory]

Calvis Duvide - Troublesome Tyrant

@chaoticevilfantrolls

(Heard you were doin Trollsonas)

Planet: Alternia, AU where Cusp Bloods exist and are considered more or less average trolls, and the age of conscription is 10 sweeps.

Name:Calvis Duvide To be honest, Calvis doesn’t have much of a specific meaning, beyond being a preferred lengthening of my own name. Duvide comes from the term L'appel du Vide, which means Call of the Void in French. In psychology, L'appel du Vide is a term referring to the urge to do self-destructive things without a distinct cause, like the urge to swerve off the road while driving or to jump off of a high place. Additionally, Calvis is a void player who feels drawn to the void as a sort of comfort. 

Calvis is a good name and I definitely prefer to keep it around. Now… keep track o’ this leap of logic I’m going to do here to also justify it, but Calvis is also plural for Calvus, which can serve as a reference to Constantine Calvus, a Scottish monarch who attempted to change the rules of succession of the throne and who qualified as heir, which fits with some of Calvis’ behaviors. It can also be a reference to Altolamprologus calvus, a common aquarium fish. And, lastly, a reference to Cumulonimbus calvus, a type of cloud that can look a little, uh… eldritch, sometimes. 

Yay for retroactive justification!

Age:9.25 sweeps

Strife Specibus:This one is a little tricky. Because Calvis is a trollsona, I’m drawn to giving him either bladeKind or knifeKind, as those are actual real weapons that I own and am reasonably skilled with? But at the same time, something more thematically relevant like cardKind (tarot and playing cards) might be nice? 

I’ve also given him pipeKind before, using both a smoking pipe and also literal lead pipes ala Russia’s cane from Hetalia. That’s more relevant to a massive trollsona generator me and a friend of mine made that was based on the natal astrology chart.

I definitely think in the case of trollsonas, you should go with what you feel a draw towards. If you like blades, if you feel an affinity towards blades, I’d go with that. 

You could also do the very void player thing and not have a traditional strife specibus so to speak. You’ve got a character here who seems good at talking his way into things, and who’s good at justifying his logic and having a lot of information, so maybe he could primarily rely on talking instead of fighting? 

OR you could have him utilize the tooth he wears, since that’s a nontraditional weapon that relates to his title and because it could be utilized in a way that’s a nice callback to his/your interest in tabletop games. You could utilize it like a fear spell, an intimidation roll, or even something like vicious mockery or hideous laughter. Do that psychic damage, Calvis.

Fetch Modus:Polyhedral Modus 

Calvis’ items are stored in a set of polyhedral dice (1d4, 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d%, 1d12, and 1d20). It’s sort of a relic from when he was much more into playing tabletop rpgs. It’s purely random what item he receives, which is why he puts items he retrieves more often in the lower-sided dice. Funnily enough, his modus becomes more troublesome to use the more he embraces his aspect, stepping away from fortune to accept the unknown and nebulous. 

So many spots in his sylladex are filled up with items based on former or current interests, among other things that he would rather just… hide from others in general. 

Oof, I’m imagining the frustrating ordeal of rolling a d4 and landing on 1 six times in a row.

Blood color:Violet-Fuchsia cusp. The blood color is based on a blood color test that determined a hexcode value from numerical values based on personality traits of each color group (red, green, and blue). He’s kind of in a tricky situation, being just below the cut-off for fuchsia, but definitely redder than most violets. 

In the session he’s from, he’s actually in a kismesitude with the proper fuchsia (seeing as they don’t have the biological imperative to kill each other, only really squabble like idiots), who has abdicated his position as heir and given it to Calvis.

Hmmmm… I’m going to go ahead and assume you’re talking au where the cusps are still viable instead of the more established canon, so that I won’t have to fiddle with this and ruin your good fun. 

If I were going to push it into the canon range, though, I would say that him just bein a standard violet who picks up the fuschia helm for his kismesis can work about as well. 

And if I were suiting him to your au  where dual blood traits present in trolls, I could definitely argue that with nowhere else to try to represent both sets of traits uniquely, his body just kinda fell in the middle.   

Symbol and meaning: A combination of Eris and Pittarius from the extended zodiac. Eris is the goddess of chaos and discord from Greek mythology. Eris is also the name of the second largest dwarf planet in the orbit of the sun, just after Pluto.

Erises’ ma is Nyx, The Night, which is extra fitting. Child Of The Night is a great way to describe a void player. The planet Eris is also part of The Shattered Disk, which sounds cool as hell, and also means the planet has high eccentricity. Relatable, really. 

Trolltag: cynicalTeuthida Cynical: Concerned only with one’s own interests and typically disregarding accepted or appropriate standards in order to achieve them. I mean. He kind of manipulated his kismesis into naming him the heir, just because he could. 

Teuthida: Name of the taxonomic order containing squids. Mostly a reference to his lusus and 100% absolutely wholesome appreciation of tentacles. 

I think we all need to wholesomely appreciate tentacles more, if I’m being honest. …But now I can’t stop thinking about Calvis having those weird New England Aquarium ad campaign posters hanging up in his room totally wholesomely. 

Quirk:Because Calvis is a trollsona, he has sort of a simple quirk, based primarily around my personal manner of typing.

He types in almost exclusively lowercase, only capitalizing the first letter of words to emphasize them. He also has a tendency to misspell things by cutting off the last letter or last couple of letters. He surrounds his text in pointed brackets, but otherwise uses little punctuation besides commas. Expect a lot of typos from him in general, which he won’t really bother fixing.

CT: <the quick brown fox jumpped over the lazy dog>

Hmm. I do like it but I wonder if something more tentacly might be fun. {like using curly brackets instead}. It’s not really a big enough deal to stress over, but just a thought. }}=o Also check it out I Just made a betta fish.

Special Abilities:Like most seadwellers, Calvis is ridiculously strong. Probably even more so than average, given that I myself, as a puny human being, can lift about 400 lbs. He’s also able to withstand changing between salt and fresh water, actually preferring the briny water in the lake surrounding his hive to anything else. 

The idea of an extra strong seadweller scares me because Feferi is capable of dragging a whale. 

Lusus: L'lythro, a minor eldritch being that lives in a fish tank in the underwater portion of Calvis’ hive. L'lythro is known as the Denizen of Madness, and the source of the horrible whispers that fill the forest surrounding Calvis’ hive. Because of L'lythro’s terrible mutterings, the forest is believed to be haunted or cursed, known for driving lowbloods to madness or worse. 

It’s hard to describe L'lythro as anything besides a graphical glitch in the universe, sometimes taking the form of an amorphous puddle of eyes, teeth, and slime, and sometimes taking the form of an abstract concept of patterns. Calvis doesn’t mind. He loves them no matter what nebulous and unknowable form they take. He actually wears one of L'lythro’s teeth on a chain as a necklace, which carries enough residual psychic discordance to give him an unsettling aura. 

…A fun fact here is that while trying to google this name I discovered a “fossil fighters” character named The Gore King. That’s not relevant I just had to share or the knowledge would eat at my mind forever. Anyways I like this, continuing the tradition of eldritch lusii pals.

Personality: The best way to describe Calvis is ‘ecclectic’. He finds it hard to focus directly on one pursuit or another, flipping from interest to interest to endeavor to interest. Even now, as he nears the sweep of his conscription, his interests tend to branch out so much that it’s hard for him to even begin imagining what he could possibly make of himself…

So he doesn’t.

He spends most of his time collecting knowledge on whatever bits and bobs he can find, no matter how trivial, looking for some kind of validation of his intellect and talent. He reads and writes extensively, creating entire worlds he scraps once he’s become bored of them. He picks up games and hobbies like tabletop gaming and knitting only to drop them weeks or moments later. The only real consistency to him is the fact that he’s outright unpredictable. 

He can come off as a bit cold and callous, not really caring about the emotional aspect of things until it directly involves him, in which case he will get much, much too involved. He can come off as overbearing in some situations, forcing his good will down others throats so he’ll have something to parade as evidence of his virtue. 

Despite all of this absolute poncery, though, Calvis has quite a few good and sympathetic traits, no matter how much he lets them get overshadowed. He’s insightful and careful. He’s legitimately kind and gentle with the few trolls he can be bothered to care for (even including his kismesis at times). He’s just going through a bit of a rough time, nudging him gently toward his Crisis in one way or another.

I like how a lot of his traits come through as validation-seeking- which is a trait you mentioned up top but which really manages to carry through. I think if you want to carry the light/void theme and push his inversion, definitely increase his desire for Attention more. For Acknowledgement. 

Interests: Calvis has many, many interests, but not so many that he’s actually stuck to. 

He legitimately loves betta fish, especially for their bright colors and feisty attitudes. He has multiple fish tanks throughout the above-water portion of his hive, each tank filled with a small ecosystem dedicated to each of his fish. Most of them are named after snack foods. Don’t worry, he doesn’t eat them… just the fish flakes he feeds them. Don’t judge.

Calvis also enjoys collecting and decorating his hive with items of significant eldritch imagery. Teeth and eyes and tentacles are the motifs he chooses to decorate the walls of his hive with. Some of it comes off as quite lewd, not that he cares or notices much.

The rest of his interests, like collecting bladed weapons, knitting or crocheting, playing tabletop games, or writing, tend to be on-and-off. He picks them up again whenever he’s bored of what he was working on before. 

Oof, cycling through interests is also relatable. He’s a fantroll, so I can’t exactly recommend More Interests. ……..Maybe roleplay- 

Also sorry I’m just going to share one more of these ad posters because I can’t stop fucking looking at them.

Title: Bard of Void

Calvis acts more like a Maid of Light initially, relying on his kismesis for any real chance of power, yet finding luck and fortune a natural and powerful tool to his whims. He will leap at any opportunity to provide information about any topic he’s even remotely versed in, and he has a peculiar penchant for getting the right card or number when he needs to in games of chance, smirking sadistically all the while.

As he progresses in a session, or even matures as a person, he begins to accept the role of the unknown and mysterious, letting himself let go of his aggressive need to know everything, learning to go with the flow. He embraces the potential of the void, learning more about the origins of his lusus in the process. He loses out on some of his luck in the process, but like, yaknow, who cares about the outcome, man? It’s all the same in the end.

I know you’re not so keen about suggesting alternative god tiers for Trollsonas, but I did want to provide my reasoning. 

I think even if we did tend towards suggesting alternatives for trollsonas, I definitely wouldn’t. Learning to embrace the void and kind of accepting the solace of the blank sheet and getting out of the need for the limelight, the need to take the reigns and try to guide others, the despair at not Knowing what the future holds or what he wants the future to hold… It’s definitely a good route for this trollsona, narratively. 

Land: Land of Butterscotch and Tentacles

A massive desert of sugary tan sand populated by light purple Illithids, full of incomplete temples to the denizen Cthulhu. Calvis actually has two possible routes for his quest: completing the temples and receiving Cthulhu’s blessing, or dismantling them to free the Illithids from his control.

Ooh, always interesting. I do have to wonder why butterscoth tho, LOL. Sounds tasty.

Dream Planet: Derse? I prefer Derse just for the void connection and such.

Oh yeah, he’s super derse. Derse is in his blood.

Design:

Hhhonestly there’s not really a lot I would edit about his design? Violets/fuschias are high enough up that they can get away with wearing just about anything, really. If I had any recommendations, it might be to adjust the color of the undershirt or try out horns more similar to the traditional Heir Horns (hehe), but then I don’t know what Horn Rules you’re going by in your au. 

Here you see me playing with changing his shirt color to a true tyrian. I think it makes more sense- it’s a way to acknowledge his kismesitude with the fuschia- and, since he’s trying to overtake the heir position, it makes most sense for him to try to visually associate himself with the fuschia role. 

He’s a really well balanced trollsona! Thank you for sharing!

-CD

[stuffandsundry]

Lemme preface this with a big hello there! I didn’t actually expect anyone to reply to this post, and so comprehensively either, haha!

dynamojacks replied to your post: Alt. P5 Justice Confidant

Hrrrrrmm. Can’t say I agree with all of this. It’s not like ‘being foil to the protag’ is the flaw with the interaction - or characterisation, of all things - it’s mostly the way said interaction is framed. Also, he’s less of a direct foil to him and more an 'equal and opposite’. Goro isn’t supposed to relate to the protag entirely, that’s kind of the point. He envies him. But he’s on his level, so to speak. It’s that aspect that draws him to him.

I think we’re using foil in a two different ways here. I use it as shorthand for “we, as third parties to this story, are supposed to compare and contrast these characters”. So, yeah, he’s set up as an equal and opposite you are totally correct there, but Goro aint the one relating to the protag, we as the audience are the ones comparing them. And that’s when problems arise, because quite a bit about the protag is so open to interpretation.

He also kind of KNOWS he’s special because he’s.. seen him, and Morgana, in the Metaverse (see: pancakes ‘gaffe’). It’s not just a one-sided perception, he’s absolutely right and this is a big fuck-off hint that he’s a wildcard in hindsight.

yo what seriously? i thought that the pancakes thing happened in the hallway of the TV studio how the hell did i misremember that badly holy shit

I agree that this should have been dealt with better, and that we needed more interaction with the PT to build a collective bond. A WHOLE, WHOLE lot more. I live and breathe any writings that bring them all together, like really. But to narrow the issue down to the protag being foil just seems flimsy. They ARE fated rivals per se and for good reason, it’s just that this aspect was shafted to buggery when it got down to it.

It’s not protag being foil that’s the problem, it’s “protag is the foil, focused on almost exclusively to the detriment of any meaningful interaction with the rest of the cast.” like, yeah, it does work, to a point. but it also could be a lot better, by giving the others a chance to shine.

The ‘god’s game’ apparently meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. That was exceptionally bad writing. To build up shit like that, but for Goro’s role as wild card to mean next to zilch.

Oh yeah, that resolution was very much so missing, which is a massive pity. Like you said, the whole fated rivals chosen to duke it out by god is a pretty interesting concept. I’m interested to know more about why you think that Goro’s role as a Wild Card mean zilch, though. Personally, I’ve been looking at it as: “Goro did had the potential to choose many different paths that could shape the world around him, signified by the Wild Card, but he locked himself very quickly into one path where he was simply being used as a tool by Shido. This, in combination with him holding everyone at arms length, meant that he didn’t form any significant bonds either aside from the real fucked up one with Shido, and so he inadvertently crippled his own Wild Card ability from the beginning” Actually, on that note, maybe he couldn’t have formed confidants. Whenever you initiate a Confidant in-game, it’s Lavenza’s voice that you hear, not Caroline + Justine. Would Lavenza have reached out to Akechi? Hmmm...

Also regarding Goro and fame, he’s not as hung up on it as Ryuji is/was, not NEARLY as much. One, mistranslation (not ‘public image’ or 'celebrity’, but 'reputation with adults’ and 'charisma’), and two, he knows his fame is fickle and dangerous in itself, having lived it for long enough. Ryuji romanticises it, Goro does not. Goro resents that those people do not know him for who he is, Ryuji thinks that fame will make him beloved.

Yeah!!!! This right here!!! This is a great contrast to have, they’d be amazing foils!! Ryuji and Goro are practically complete opposites, but they also share a lot of similarities too despite that. I spent like 5 min on this section the first time, so these are just the things that instantly popped into my head, but you could also draw parallels btwn the fact that Ryuji’s dad being in his life made it worse, while Goro’s being absent made his worse, or they way that Ryuji always had his mother with him vs Goro who’s mother left him alone, or the way that Ryuji is very bluntly honest about everything vs Goro who tries to keep everything hidden behind a veneer of politeness, or public perception of ryuji as a no good thug even if he honestly just wants to do the right thing vs the perception of goro as the person who would uphold justice/stop the breakdowns even if he was the very same person who was causing them, but DESPITE ALL THIS CONTRAST, ryuji is one of the most empathetic members of the team and absolutely would have tried to help Goro if he’d only known sooner what kinda trouble he was in (re: first impressions of makoto as a prick vs jumping in front of a car in order to rescue her)

(Speaking of Makoto, she’s absolutely the person that has the most parallels to Goro, and she should have been his rival. Both joined the team through some form of blackmail, both have incredible pressure but on them by the adults in their lives, both very similar characters vis-à-vis approaches to life in general, actually wait one second i have a quote from a friend on this.... “But I think Makoto works really well in terms of how they’re narratively set up as opposites? idk, like Makoto’s approach to subterfuge is to orchestrate the people around her while Akechi’s approach to subterfuge is to manipulate the people around him, Makoto’s impulsivity means she can be prone to direct confrontation while Akechi is on guard until he’s literally right at the breaking point, I just think…. it would’ve been so much more interesting to explore more of this than putting the burden on protag to carry Akechi Interest”)

and oh god im babbling sorry I HAVE OPINIONS

As for Yusuke? Madarame’s exploiting of his talent to his own ends (check), Yusuke wanting to please him but also trapped and nigh desperate to leave (check), Madarame being essentially responsible for his mother’s death (check), Yusuke having to rely on him to survive, for roof over head (check), and would be ruined, and even die one way or another if he tried to escape (check, check, and double check).                                                                      A comment Yusuke makes in Okumura’s Palace is extremely telling- about how someone who is oppressed will ‘desire for it’ (paraphrase). What’s even more telling, is when Yusuke said about Goro, quote: 'had I not met you all, I would have turned out like him as well’.   Haru? They’re both puppets to their fathers. Both are manipulated for the sake of political goals. Both are actually sweet by nature- at least, not ruthless, and really have to be pushed to be (SIU Director’s comments about the plot to FRAME the PTs as being ‘too brutal’… imagine how much more actually KILLING would be..). And both started out with a naive(ish), idealistic core, if Robin Hood and his fixation on Featherman R is anything to go by.

Eyyyyyyyyy this is some pretty hella meta, kudos to you. Like yeah!!!! YEAH!!!!!!! GORO AND PHANTOM THIEVES INTERACTIONS.... THERES THE POTENTIAL FOR SOME REAL MEATY, REAL GOOD STUFF IN HERE....GIVE US MORE OF THAT PLEASE...

And part of the reason why opinion changed per se, was realising just how flimsy Goro’s own resolve was, and how vulnerable. He wasn’t hell bent on bringing disaster, he was clinging on to straws in desperation. Ryuji’s comment, urging him to realise that he was his own person, makes this much clear. Their ire was more focused on Shido at this point. Still, they did not really forgive Goro, and made this much VERY clear. In any event, the last point might have been down to cultural differences. I’m.. not sure, but to those who understood this scene, it didn’t come ‘out of nowhere’, so you can’t necessarily say that’s a writing flaw on it’s own.    

Mmmm, sorry if I was unclear, but the two times I used ‘out of nowhere in this post were in regards to how i dislike goro approaching protag with little prior warning? So.... im not quite sure what you’re trying to say here. Out of nowhere is too strong of a term to use for this scenario, so if its a thing I’ve said someplace else in regards to the last scene then sorry, I’ll clarify now. It’s not out of nowhere, however, it stands in stark contrast to the entire team’s opinions of Akechi up until this point. Not necessarily a terrible, awful choice, but it is certainly jarring in a way that is completely avoidable. Which, again, brings me back to “give Goro and the other PT a larger share of attention instead of focusing on Protag”. Sae’s Palace would have been a perfect place for Goro’s facade to slip a little bit, and give the rest of the team a little bit of an idea of how he’s like when he’s not constantly on guard. Instead, Sae’s Palace focuses on setting Goro up as smart which............. he’s a teen detective that works with the police. We know that he’s smart already. We should have gotten more characterization in there instead! Giving us some form of transition, like, “he’s an enemy of the Phantom Thieves” -> “hmm, there seem to be some circumstances that we can relate to that made him the way he is now” -> “we understand why you did the things you did. we still can’t agree with it, but we know now.” ...Granted, the reason that I think of it as an abrupt about face could have been due to the face that they never mention Goro again after his battle. A short scene after Shido’s Palace had been cleared to look back on the impact that Goro had had on the PT would have been a great help.

thank you for your thoughts! c:

[housebeleren]

Theros Beyond Death New Commanders

Theros is a world full of flavor, and with lots of flavor come lots of great Legendary Creatures. And boy, Wizards didn’t skimp this time around did they? Several of the Gods from original Theros are still among the best Commanders to this day, and most of the rest are staples in the 99. So it should come as no surprise that this crop of cards is a treasure trove of goodies. I imagine a huge number of these will be heavily played for years to come.

Let’s go.

As usual, I’ll start with the Buy-a-Box promo. Athreos seems pretty solid. He’s super expensive to get out, but the good news is he’s Indestructible, so barring transformation effects & exile, he’s going to stick around long enough to get value. He seems like a really solid option if you’re looking for a W/B aristocrats general, especially if you want to play with good ETB effects. The added bonus here is he can occasionally steal your opponent’s creatures too, which gives him an added dimension over a lot of otherwise similar options. I also suspect a lot of people will misread the “dies or is put into exile” text, with much frustration. 

In Brawl, Athreos is close to busted, as there are so few ways to deal with him and he generates such insane value. You basically have to be fast and go under him or find creative ways to win, because he’s going to build up a massive board state really fast. And there are so few board wipes to clean up. In short, a solid choice for EDH, and a bonkers choice for Brawl.

I mean, who are we kidding? Blue/Green is the best 2-color combination in EDH, and it wins through its ability to make tons of mana and draw tons of cards. And Uro...... ramps and draws cards. Yeah, seems like a good effect to have in the Command Zone. For a more 75% direction, you can focus on the thematic direction of the “Nature’s Wrath”. Which is what I’m going to build, personally. Lots of ramp into big Giants & Elementals for stompy stompy wins. And I like that Uro can lend himself to strategies up & down the spectrum, so he’ll appeal to all types of players. Though it’s highly possible the competitive scene will ruin it by creating some busted version of this deck and putting a target on our backs.

In Brawl, this seems equally busted, because it’s not like there’s anything you can do in Standard with piles of mana in Blue & Green, is there? Not at all.

Kroxa is really cool design. Feels perfect for the colors, but still something a little different and unique. The more competitive community immediately jumped on this as a Worldgorger/Animate Dead build, since he works as a built-in win-con for the combo, but it’s also quite possible to build a solid R/B punisher deck around this. There are also the all-in discard builds, but that seems particularly miserable, and unnecessary, since it’s super easy to get tons of activates off Kroxa himself, with the help of some reanimation effects.

For Brawl, I’d build this as a Red/Black control deck, using Kroxa to strip the opponent’s hand, clearing the board with removal, and eventually winning either with Kroxa as a massive beater, or with some of the strong planeswalkers in the color pair (of which there are several). For what it’s worth, the correct play pattern is basically always to cast Kroxa the first time, let him go to the Command Zone, then cast him from there for 4 before saving him in the graveyard for Escaping. 

Polukranos looks like mostly a Standard powerhouse, at first glance. But the more time I spend with it, the more I’m convinced it would make a pretty solid Commander inclusion as well. If you’re building with Polukranos at the helm, you’ll want plenty of library filter & self-mill effects, as well as plenty of recursion. It’s often fine to just keep reanimating him as a 6/6 removal engine, but the Escape is there as well in case you need. Some ways to add extra counters to him seem good as well, and there are a plethora of those in these colors, particularly Green, go figure. He’d also be good in the 99 of other +1/+1 counters decks, as a good payoff when you need.

Seems good in Brawl.

Klothys seems likely to be way better than people are likely to expect. The closest comparison I can think of is actually Pharika, but with the added potential to ramp you and incidentally hate on more than just Creatures, all for no additional investment than your initial 3 mana. The immediate concept that springs to mind is actually Land Destruction, which is a kinda dick way to go, but probably quite effective. She’s an interesting card, and lends herself to very creative deckbuilding, rather than having an obvious build, and I always appreciate that.

For Brawl, you really can just build this as Red/Green good stuff, and it’ll work. Enough cards will naturally end up in the graveyard to fuel her ability and turn her into a completely viable clock on your opponents.

Purphoros seems nuts in EDH. Mono-Red typically isn’t great (unless you’re going full Artifact mode), so I actually envision Purphoros in the 99 of other Sneak Attack style decks for added redundancy. He’ll be a pretty obvious inclusion in Gruul & Jund sacrifice decks, particularly those that focus reanimating big fatties for massive swings.

In Brawl, there are some good options. Drakuseth comes to mind as a natural pairing with this, and there are definitely some other good targets to cheat out, but it’s unlikely he’ll beat out Torbrand as the mono-Red general of choice, particularly for 1v1, where that card is able to close out games ridiculously fast.

Nylea is likely going to get a lot of flack, compared to the other Gods, where she’s less obviously busted. That said, she strikes me as a pretty viable option for a creature heavy build, along the lines of what you might build for Yeva, Nature’s Herald. The cost reduction is relevant, and could be pretty gross at the helm of Elfball as well. She’s also a reasonable option for a Primal Surge deck, so I actually think there are plenty of possible directions you can go, and people will slowly figure that out.

For Brawl, my guess is Nissa, Who Shakes the World is still the best.

Heliod has already attracted tons of attention for the instant combo with with Walking Ballista, and having one half of a two card combo in your Command Zone is not a bad way to start. Beyond that, as far as mono-White generals go, Heliod has a lot more potential than some. He can grow into a massive threat very quickly, and partners perfectly with a the plethora of life-gain payoffs in the color. He’s also a shoe-in for lifegain Generals like Ayli & Karlov, so he’d work great in the 99 of several decks.

In Brawl, you have several good options to fill up the deck, but it’ll be tough to be a better aggro deck than Red, and White just doesn’t have the staying power for the long game, so I’m expecting most of the other Gods to be better.

Oooh Thassa baby, it’s so good to see you again! I love that they took this to another direction from the original card, but it’s still interesting and fun. My immediate thought here wasn’t actually to make a flicker deck, but to make a stealing deck, since they templated her in the style of Conjurer’s Closet, where the card doesn’t return under its owner’s control, but back under your control. Meaning, if you steal something with something like Willbreaker or Roil Elemental, you get to keep them! This also makes her a great inclusion in the 99 of stealing commanders like Sen Triplets or Rubinia Soulsinger. Or, y’know... put her in a flicker deck.

In Brawl, Thass is pretty great, since there are some amazing things to blink with her. Most notably is Agent of Treachery, and it shouldn’t be hard at all to close out the game after landing that.

Erebos is here to serve, and I am loving this design. In an aristocrats deck, this version is arguably better than OG Erebos, and that’s saying a lot. But the original version will do better in just any ole Black deck. As a Commander, you definitely want to build this around cheap value creatures you can sacrifice for extra value. There’s no shortage of good mono-Black generals, so build around this one if you really love the flavor.

For Brawl, it’s tough to say if Ayara or Erebos is better, but you’ll definitely want both in each other’s deck. 

On to the Rare legends, we start with Atris. I love me some Fact or Fiction, but I need just a little more oomph to be a Legend worth building around. Might be a fun inclusion in a flicker deck, but I doubt anyone’s going to be clamoring to build an Atris deck. Even in Brawl, where there are plenty of better & more interesting Blue/Black generals. (Ashiok & Lazav come to mind immediately.)

There’s no shortage of Red/Blue Artifact-based commanders, so Dalakos has some tough competition. My guess is there are still some stronger options, but Dalakos has a unique angle by caring about Equipment, which is typically more of a White-aligned Artifact direction. So there’s definitely an interesting build here, probably for 75% tables. In more competitive decks, I could see Dalakos seeing play in plenty of Artifact builds.

I’m not sure if there’s enough good Equipment in Standard to make Dalakos worth building around in Brawl, but we’ll see as future sets come out if there’s anything spicy that makes this worth building.

Gallia is loads of fun. She gives support to an underserved tribe, has a card advantage ability that feels very fun & appropriate for the color pair, and is just some fantastic art to boot. It’s unlikely that this will be a particularly competitive deck, but fans of Satyrs and casual aggro will rejoice, and rightfully so. In Brawl, she’s much more impressive from a power standpoint, and will likely be a popular choice from this set.

Haktos is a super creative design, and one of the best top-down flavor wins of the set. (Not to mention fine AF.) In EDH, he’s a very clear Voltron commander, since he is close to unblockable and dodges most spot removal. That said, you can’t reliably equip or enchant him, so cards that buff him up generally will be staples in this deck. I’d look to cards like Bastion Protector and Bloodsworn Steward, which can put him in the key 7+ power range without an issue, and plenty of spot removal to get rid of pesky blockers that happen to fall on the chosen number. And of course, in those colors you’re also probably going to go for some extra combat effects. It’s unlikely to be super competitive, but honestly this deck seems like a ton of fun. 

For Brawl, he’s solid in 1v1, but I don’t love him for multiplayer because there will be more creatures and removal around in the 2-4 CMC range than in EDH, so he may be even easier to deal with. Sometimes he’ll completely run away with the game, but he’s such an obvious target that he’ll just get removed over and over again.

Kunoros has a lot going on for 3 mana, but there’s not much to build around here. It’s basically a hatebear for Graveyard-heavy metas, but in White/Black that’s probably actually more of a liability than a feature, since you lose out on powerhouse cards like Karmic Guide and Sun Titan. I suppose Graveyard to Hand still works, so cards like Ravos are still on the table, but it seems like more trouble than it’s worth. 

Same story for Brawl. In both formats, I see him as a role-player hatebear in the 99 of decks that want to disrupt as it grinds to a win. 

I’m always for a new tribe getting a Legendary creature, though who’s aching to build a harpy deck, I have no idea. It’s also tough because Black is not a particularly strong Enchantment color, so I really don’t know if there’s a deck here. (Watch me get this as a random build one month.) My best use case for Aphemia would be in the 99 of an Enchantment deck like Daxos the Returned or something.

Spiders are also a fun, unique tribe, though you definitely want Black to make the best use of them. Arasta, again, seems like there’s not much of a build here except as an incidental hoser against all-spell decks. Maybe if your meta is all Talrand decks?

Taranika is a cool design, and phenomenal in Limited, but yeah there just isn’t enough here for EDH, even in the 99. Maybe she’ll be an inclusion in the 59 for Brawl? But that’s really as much as I can possibly see here.

Of the mono color Rare Legends, Thryx is the only one with real EDH potential, from what I can see. He has Flash, so you can hold up counterspells, which is exactly what mono-Blue wants to do. And from there, he lets you cast massive spells at a bit of a discount, and has incidental “can’t be countered” text against opposing Blue manges, which is a fair amount of action. I’m considering him for the 99 of my Grixis Vial Smasher deck, since that deck wants to cast all kinds of big dumb spells. 

Seems like there are better mono Blue options for Brawl, however.

On to the Uncommons. There isn’t going to be a lot here for Commander, since these are mostly balanced for Limited play. Eutropia is a bit interesting, and there are some possibilities. She’s in the best EDH colors, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to conceive of a way to generate a ton of mana, use Deadeye Navigator to flicker an Enchantment Creature a bunch of times, then swing for lethal. There are certainly better Green/Blue generals, but honestly that’s a lot of action for an Uncommon. In the 99, I could see her in various Enchantress style builds as a fun flavorful inclusion.

There are no shortage of powerhouse Green/Blue options for Brawl, but Eutropia could be a fun experiment to take in a different direction than you would Uro, Vannifar, or Kiora.

Siona is a super interesting design, as an Aura buildaround. Of course, the hotness here is that she immediately goes infinite with Shielded by Faith, which gives her way more viability than she would otherwise. Throw in a Concordant Crossroads and you have an insta-win, and they’re all super easily tutored pieces in these colors. There’s also potential just as an inclusion in the 99 of decks that run lots of Auras, like Uril or something. 

In Brawl, this could be a really fun aggro deck for 1v1, though I think it’ll be a struggle in multiplayer.

The monocolor Uncommon Legends all basically have no viability as Commanders, so I’ll do these Lightning Round style.

Anax - Could be an inclusion in the 99 of certain OG Purphoros builds or other Red decks that want lots of tokens.

Renata - There are some decks that really care about Counters that I suppose this works in. She’s really cute with Persist, but you’ll need more colors to be able to make use of the really good Persist cards.

Daxos - Daxos is doing his best Soul Sister impression, and it’s really working. I’d slot him into any decks that want that effect, especially since many of them are White/Black with sacrifice outlets as well.

Callaphe - Probably the weakest of the bunch. Maaaayyybe possible in a mono Blue devotion deck? But I’m not suspecting this will see any play.

Tymaret - For the most part a pretty strict upgrade over Withered Wretch, not counting Zombie synergies. The Wretch is a card I run more than a lot of people do, and I see myself running this for similar reasons.

Alirios - The dream here is to flicker him multiple times and get an army of reflections. It’s possible in a heavy flicker deck like Brago or something, but it’s not enough to run him on his own.

And finally, the Planeswalkers for Brawl. Ashiok strikes me as particularly good as a Blue/Black control build. It should be pretty easy to keep the board clear early until you drop Ashiok, then the incremental value will be overwhelming pretty quickly. 

You best believe I built this deck, and it is fire. There are so many good Enchantments legal right now that it’s trivial to put together a pretty solid build. The best part is, a lot of the good removal in White are Enchantments anyway, so you can often use his +1 to find removal, without having to tick him down. This deck has been a ton of fun, and it goes toe-to-toe with a lot of the best decks really well.

While a powerhouse for Standard, Elspeth isn’t quite priced to move for Brawl. There are just other, most powerful options. I’d generally run Heliod instead, and include Elspeth in the 59 if you really want.

Usually the Planeswalker Deck cards are awful, but this Ashiok isn’t half bad. It’s a fun Blue/Black reanimation deck, and I enjoy that. It’s unfortunate you can’t activate her -5 right away, which is the real thing holding this back. Lazav is probably better as a Blue/Black creature build, but I could actually see this. 

And finally, Planeswalker Deck Elspeth. Honestly, I’d rather run this as my mono-White general than Sun’s Nemesis, since there’s a pretty solid Devotion build to be made. Not saying it’s good or anything, but it’s actually probably better than the main-set version, and that’s saying something.

Okay! That’s all the Legends from Theros Beyond Death. There are honestly too many of them, it’s hard to keep up! I’m building Uro for EDH and Calix for Brawl. What about you?

[radramblog]

MtG: The Dean Problem

The newest Magic set, Strixhaven: School of Mages (a subtitle I was better off not knowing existed), has provided an absolute bounty of legendary creatures for commander players to fawn over. A new set of Elder Dragons with splashy and interesting abilities, another Planeswalker commander, and a full cycle of uncommon legendaries for those who love the design they bring to the table (like me!).

And then there’s the Deans.

These are not proving popular, and there’s pretty good reasons for that…but why?

The Deans, in my eyes, are the culmination of a compromise between multiple design elements that didn’t quite come together right.

The first of these is Partner. Partner, and Partner with, have proved incredibly popular commander designs, though a large part of this can be attributed to some of them being incredibly potent. The simple idea of having two commanders instead of one is just appealing to a lot of people, not to mention the customisability involved with the unpaired ones. They were an excellent solution for Commander Legends draft, and a way of making it so your options for certain colour combinations, particularly 3-4 colour ones, weren’t as limited as design philosophy and practicality (it’s often hard to fit 3C cards into a set when the set isn’t built around tricolour, and not many are) would normally make them.

The other is double-faced cards in general. Not many transforming commanders exist, but the Deans do share this trait with the Gods from Kaldheim. They have a modality that lets you build around one or both sides, many of them have cool and splashy effects, and perhaps most importantly, they are unique and interesting. The transform commanders have their own issues, but most of them (just pretend Ulrich doesn’t exist) are powerful enough, unique enough, or popular enough characters that people are going to be playing them.

The Deans do not fit either mold, and it’s to their detriment. It’s pretty clear that the design inspiration for each of them were the Partner With pairs- two monocoloured legends with effects that play off each other. Shaile puts counters on creatures so that Embrose can get value from them. Augusta lets you use Plargg’s ability extra times. Imbraham dumps cards to benefit Kianne’s ability. And this is all well and good for 60-card formats, where drawing a second copy of your Legend is normally a downside, but you can just play the other half and get some synergy out of the deal. But in Commander, you only get one at a time.

The key difference in commander is that you don’t get to play both halves of these cards. Outside of shenanigans like Supplant Form (which only Uvilda/Nassari and Kianne/Imbraham get to play), it is nigh impossible to play both halves of these commanders at the same time unless your playgroup rule 0’s to let you do so. And while this is also the case with Kaldheim’s Gods, many of them are clearly designed with this in mind, following one of two MDFC principles. Either A., their modes are differently powerful depending on a situation but a deck helming them wants both anyway, such as Halvar being a bloke or a sword in a deck that often lacks one or the other, or Jorn ramping early on and his staff being better for value lategame. Or B., they just, can come back to your hand, like so you can play both, like with Alrund and Toralf. These cards are far from perfect, and have a lot of the same issues as the Deans, but it isn’t as pronounced.

The other biggest issue with the Deans is that they’re…kinda mid? Pretty meh? With the Partners, you’re often playing one as your commander and the other for the colours- like I love me an Ishai, but everyone’s just playing him so they get White and Blue in their Vial Smasher or Reyhan decks (though they at least synergize with the latter). The Deans wouldn’t be so bad if individual halves of them were interesting, and the deck got to play that as the commander but with an extra colour, but they’re…just not? Of the 10 faces of these cards, there are maybe 2 (Nassari and Augusta, who I’ve kinda come around on) that I’d even consider playing as solo acts with a colour bonus. This is kind of an inherent limit of the designs of these characters- they’re all teachers, which in this case means they need to be humanoid and therefore not super huge with fun splashy effects, and they’re modal, which means they can’t have a million lines of rules text so people don’t get too overwhelmed (not that that stopped some of these, whoof).

At time of writing, the Dean cycle occupies 5 of the bottom 6 most built commanders out of Strixhaven (I’m surprised to see Mavinda among them, but I guess Feather exists). This was not a shock to me the way some of the other placements here are (people are catching on to Quintorius lets gooooo), and it’s pretty clear why. I’m pretty sure at this point most people are sick of MDFCs in general, considering we’ve had 3 sets worth of them and not a huge number have caught on- while price isn’t always a good gauge of playability, it’s rather telling that 2 of the 68 printed managed to break a 10 dollar price point.

It’s unclear as to whether this experiment is going to return, but I’m very concerned it will with the Innistrad sets releasing later this year. Considering Innistrad was the first set with any double-faced cards in the form of the transform cards, we’re very likely to see some DFC action show up in there. And not to inject too much of my opinion here, it would kinda ruin it for me if they went back to MDFCs for them. The transform cards are not only more interesting from a gameplay standpoint, they’re much better for storytelling and flavour. The Werewolves worked so extremely well, as did many of the beasties the set came with. A huge flavour hit comes just from whether or not the card can flip back to its front face, the difference between modality and a permanent transformation. The difference between a recurring, endless cycle and a step you take that you can’t come back from.

The difference Deans, and MDFCs in general, don’t have.