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udretlnea · 1 year ago

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The Exciting Chronicles of The Shapeshifter & The Eccentric Gentleman

I / II (You're here) / III / IV / V

As a child, you would wait And watch from far away But you always knew that you'd be the one That work while they all play

In youth, you'd lay Awake at night and scheme Of all the things that you would change But it was just a dream

(Warriors, Imagine Dragons)

Words: 2.2k

Weeks would pass since that day. The shapeshifter, who would later be named Mercy, was trained rigorously to utilize their powers constructively; simultaneously, their abilities would grow stronger with some exercises from Numbers Four, Five, and Seven.

Mercy would quit trying to romance Number One. Reading his mind after assuming his form the second time made them realize he didn’t desire romance in general. As someone who became him, naturally Mercy would understand and respect his reasons.

After a month and a half of routine, Mercy became skilled and powerful enough to not only shapeshift into beings of unfathomable power, but also act as them too. To a normal person, they wouldn’t be able to tell the real from fake. Ordinarily, this would take at least a year, but thanks to their intervention it accelerated.

Now, Mercy found themselves sitting in a dark room in front of a screen; Number One finished setting up the projector, turned it on and manifested a pointer stick.

One pointed at an image of a red X. “So here’s the situation.”

Mercy nodded. One clicked and the image changed to a colored sketch for a hulking, green figure. It had a horned skull for a head and three eyes with yellow glowing pupils. Its ‘cloak’ was made out of grass, decorated with various flowers they couldn’t be bothered to try to name. The number next to it told them it was 9 feet tall. Compared to it, they were a measly 5 foot 5 inches.

One poked the screen at it. “I need to get an audience with them.”

Mercy vaguely felt their jaw drop. This…this creature-no, entity was surreal; it looked like it leapt out of someone’s amazing imagination and uprooted an entire garden for its cloak. No, cape…? In any case it looked fantastical. Mercy found it pleasant to look at.

(Art from this fic by the_moon_archives on ao3)

“This is Creator #AQ-120, but refer to them as Eldritch for simplicity. Eldy for short.” One retracted the pointer stick and chucked it behind him. “They’ve been at the ‘game’ for long enough that they know enough about the big picture that their knowledge is critical to my objective.”

Mercy raised their hand. “And what is the big picture?”

One grinned. “I’m glad you asked.”

The slide changed to show the words “SAGAU PHENOMENON” in bold black letters. General questions asking about it were scattered throughout. One pointed to the title. “Finding out what is causing this-this anomaly and putting a stop to it once and for all! I’m confident Eldy already knows what’s happening and I suspect something or other is preventing them from acting on it. So I thought I’d gently ask to take the reins from them.”

One summoned the pointer stick back in his hand. “The problem is Eldy is heavily guarded by cultists and priests. Especially this one lunatic: Rex Lapis. He’s not only a highly dedicated and religious god, but also the oldest and most experienced.”

The slide changed to show a tall, handsome man in white robes and a hood; despite that, two branch-like horns tipped with amber hues poked out of it. His face was immaculately sculpted with a nice jawbone and his captivating eyes with amber irises. He looked like a combination of a dragon and a human, the latter moreso.

Mercy stared into those hypnotic eyes. It was almost a crime how handsome he looked. Fortunately, One changed slides and tapped on an image of an elaborate temple. “This is where Eldy is living, or rather staying. The Temple of the Omnipotent Emperor is usually highly guarded 24/7. Only acolytes are allowed to enter, and the place is crawling with guards.”

Number One sighed. “It would be ideal if we could simply schedule a meeting face-to-face with them, but to them we’ll be perceived as complete strangers with no social standing or power. Furthermore, their guest log is practically full all the time. Scheduling anything with them is an impossibility; we’ll be put on the waitlist if we even try.

And then One smiled like a devious tactician who already thought of contingencies for their master plan. “Which is why we have to resort to more clever methods to set up a meeting. I present to you: Operation: Masked Fools. You’re the mask and I’m the fool, just to clarify.”

Mercy arched an eyebrow. “What an interesting thing to call it.”

“I know! Sometimes my naming sense is genius,” One laughed lightly. Mercy rolled their eyes with an easy smile. “It’ll be simple. We’ll be pulling a Spiderman: into the spiderverse nigh-end scene; in other words we’ll disguise ourselves as one of the acolytes, avoid unnecessary characters, acquire an audience in private, and leave before anyone notices.”

“You’re missing an awful lot of details. Like, what happens if we run into someone like Rex anyway? Or-or what if Eldy isn’t even there in the first place?” asked Mercy.

“Then we hide our presence, or act natural! And if Eldy isn’t there then we ask around, get our answer, and then teleport to them!” One said without missing a beat.

Mercy frowned. They still weren’t satisfied. “What happens if there’s like, an object that cancels my ability to shapeshift?”

“Then you hide while I find it and shut it down.”

“Well, what if Eldy calls us out while we’re disguised?”

“I…teleport us into a private room, put on my charm, and reassure them we mean no harm!”

“Right, like you have charm in the first place,” snarked Mercy.

One put a hand on his chest and spoke in mock hurt. “How dare you! I’m practically oozing with charm, thank you very much!”

“Ha! Liar! I’ve been in your mind. Would you like me to recount the first time you tried to flirt with a woman?” Mercy cheekily said.

One puffed out his cheeks. He didn’t dare say anything to dignify that statement. Mercy smirked with the energy of a cat that had found the bag of cat food all by itself.

“Let’s just move on,” One said, slightly disgruntled. The slide showed what looked like a throne room. “This is where Eldy is during the day. Normally, there’s a translator by their side to translate what Eldy says; they speak in a different language apparently, but it would be better if we were alone.”

“You’re saying…you know how to speak their language.”

“Yes. Next, we need to make sure that nobody interrupts us. To accomplish that, I’ll set up a mid-level perception filter around the room so that nobody will even think of entering. Think of it as a censor for the mind, one that reassures it that everything is ordinary,” explained One.

He tapped his forehead with the stick. “Finally, after I get the answers I need, we teleport out, get back home, and review what we learned. Okay! Briefing over.”

One clapped twice and the lights turned on; the projector turned off as well. One stretched his arms. “I suggest you get a nap and catch some sleep while you can, Mercy. We’ll be deploying early in a couple days.”

“Understood.”

///

That night, Mercy laid in bed awake. They stared up at the ceiling with a thoughtful expression. Memories of today’s briefing stuck with them like a fly caught in a tape trap. It just refused to settle down. They tossed and turned yet nothing seemed to help. Not even counting sheep.

Ugh. Fine. With a defeated groan, they got up and out of their room but not before grabbing a white and black hoodie. Mercy quietly crept down the hallway, down the stairs, and out the door. They shut it silently, then examined the nightly scene before them.

Before them was a place that was still in its early stages; when Noraa (Number Four’s name, given after earning his trust) offered to shelter them, they accepted with a promise to assist him however they could. Thus, they’d move and attach bricks, turn boulders into rubble, and generally clear the way. A dozen buildings, including a moderately sized castle, served as the homes for those who lived here.

This was the Kingdom of Delusion and while Noraa could call it home, Mercy…had a ways to go until they felt settled.

With that in mind, they started trekking along the beaten path. Hopefully all of this excess energy will just go away as I walk…

It would have to be a short walk as they didn’t want to stay up too long. A glance upwards showed the moon nearing its peak in the sky. That and the stars shining above made for a rather beautiful sight. Their chest felt light like a balloon as they let their feet guide them towards a circular clearing in the middle.

This was the site for the future town square. Although only hollow shells for buildings were here, at the very least there was a simple fountain. Mercy sat on the smoothened stone. They looked down at the water below. It was as clear as a mirror.

The shapeshifter (Mercy took to calling themselves that after hearing it countless times from them all) examined their appearance. After several days of experimenting with it, they were satisfied with their current form: A round head with a flat chin, light gray medium hair with bangs short enough that a pair of heterochromatic eyes peeked out; the right was orange and the other was blue.

They had a build that was well-built yet had the right amount of fat (plump was what Number Six described it). Thanks to their head shape they looked androgynous. Overall it felt pleasing to look at.

Mercy shivered. They rubbed their hands to try to warm themselves-

-only to have a coat get wrapped around their shoulders.

Startled, they swiftly turned around to discover a tall young man with short, jade green hair, slightly tanned skin, and light green eyes in his nightwear. He wore a neutral expression as he opened his mouth. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Mercy withdrew into the coat. “...No.”

“Mm,” was all he said. He opened his right hand and a metallic staff manifested. Noraa casually pointed the tip to his left palm and a dotted white beam fired. A cup of milk appeared in his grasp. “Warm milk?”

Mercy stared at it briefly what the f- before moving to take it. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” replied Noraa. He made himself another one and sat down right next to them.

The duo silently drank their cups of warm milk. They savored its warmth and taste as much as they could. Once finished, Noraa took both empty cups and made them disappear via staff. Mercy found themself staring at it.

It looked ordinary enough with a long jade green handle, but near the tip was where it started looking interesting. Inserted into a slot was an orange cube with a diamond gray panel that had five glowing square lights; the cube was big enough like a decently sized watermelon. There was a small barrel at the top where the beam came out of “Where’d you get that?”

The edges of Noraa’s lips pulled up. “Mm. Built it myself. I was inspired after I saw someone else’s.”

“I see. So you basically wanted a cool magic staff.”

Noraa nodded. “Don’t we all, at some point, want to pick up a stick and pretend to cast spells with it?”

“I guess. It sounds fun.”

“It is…” Noraa agreed. They both looked up at the starry sky. Neither said a word for what felt like hours. Mercy felt as calm and clear as a tranquil pond of water completely untouched, unsoiled. It was a nice moment, one they'd treasure.

They inhaled, savoring the pureness of the air when Noraa said something that caught her off guard.

“Mercy,” he licked his dry lips. “If you don’t mind me asking, what will you do after this?”

Blank. That was their mind. Nothing came up immediately so they said that. Mercy looked at Noraa who was still looking up. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just…I thought I’d bother asking since we know this is a one-time thing. This operation will benefit us, but I realize that it doesn’t benefit you at all. I mean, at least in the long run,” he explained. He looked at them with a face that screamed ‘worry’. It was something he did often; it was how he showed he cared. Mercy teased him by calling him dad. That made him stop doing it, at least for a while.

But back to the topic at hand. “I’m content with helping One at the moment. Once I fulfilled my end of the deal, I figured I’d just go out there and find myself. Do it the tried and true way.”

Noraa tilted his head as he processed that. “Yeah…okay. Valid.”

He covered a yawn. “Well, I’m gonna tell ya this right now: If you ever feel yourself in need of a safe space whenever your journey starts to wear ya down, my door’s always open.”

Mercy blinked. “That’s…actually very sweet of you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Noraa clicked his tongue. He stood up and stretched. “Mm, on that pleasant note, I think I’m gonna hit the hay. The milk’s kicking in. Want a lift?”

“Sure.” Mercy hopped off their seat. Noraa put a hand on their shoulder. Thanks to his staff, they disappeared and reappeared inside his house. As Mercy climbed the stairs they called out one final time. “Good night, grass head.”

“Good night to you too, dingus.”

“Snake eyes.”

“Vegetable.”

“That one didn’t make sense.”

“Good night.” Noraa marched off to bed.

Mercy chuckled quietly before doing the same.

///////////

A/N: @idkfitememate

This is mostly a set-up chapter plus some filler. A part of me thought it was a good idea to give a glimpse into Mercy’s bonds with two of the people who helped them adjust to life outside the mirror; after a month and a half of hands-on training it’s only logical for one to forge such a tight-knit bond.

I hope you enjoyed that slice-of-life bit because next is the exciting part. And I have enough action sequences stockpiled to draw upon. ;)

I've been wanting to write more on SAGAU somehow. This was my plan. The SAGAU Phenomenon is an ongoing anomaly where "countless human souls are prevented from passing peacefully; they are instead reincarnated or transported into Teyvat, totally unprepared for any trials. Depending on what kind of universe they're in, they will either thrive or perish." This is an original thing I came up with.

I wanted to make Mercy have an androgynous appearance since they can literally become anyone, any gender, etc. It makes sense from a design standpoint. As the first character I’ve ever written to hold that status, it felt easier since I had sources to draw upon (looking at you Pidge Voltron & Double Trouble She-ra). For their name, I spun a wheel with four choices: Halcyon, Mercy, Mica, and Blake. No guesses as to which one won.

Reblogs, questions, comments, and critiques are welcome (don’t be shy y’all!)

#my ocs #.mine #no beta we die like men #writers on tumblr #creative writing #writer stuff #writer #sagau #genshin sagau #sagau fanfic #self aware genshin au

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otter-chaos-violence · 4 months ago

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Rain: Chapter Three

The changeling looked up, eyes wide with something gentle.

And in the distance, I could hear the dragon bells and heard the woosh of an arrow released from a bow.

Cynt roared, and changed to a dragon, and plants grew at her feet, thorny briars trapping the humans in a cage.

And it grew smaller and smaller, until the seven who’d been trapped were packed in like farm animals.

“Humans… you will let us go in peace, or I will torture you until you die. Your choice,”

And they all said no.

Other villagers began running at us, and my parents grabbed me and pulled me away.

“No… don’t hurt ‘em!” I called. “DON’T HURT ‘EM, PLEASE!”

I broke free and felt something explode out of me. The rain started, and I started roaring as I ran to help them, shifting.

And people backed away in fear as I slammed into the stone mason. I let him live, but not before leaving a long gash on his face. A reminder.

The others began backing away, all but a bard, who changed form to a demon and bowed, before helping us all escape.

And the bard brought his cittern with.

—

“So… Alexander, what’s a Trell doing across the sea?” Xigu asked.

“Wait… what’s a Trell?” I asked.

“Oh. Trells are of the land Treylea. Across the sea, on the westernmost shore to the Xiran Woods. I thought everyone knew about them.” Cynt replied.

“No? Never heard of anythin’ outta Lichens. I didn’t know there was another kingdom.”

“Well… there are many, many more. There’s Kiyeba, the Arrorans, Tempeste, Aqualan, Railen, many, many more, but those are the ones off the top of my head.”

“I- what?”

“Don’t worry… just follow us. Would hate for them to catch up to us and try to free these guys.”

The ones we’d taken captive had been knocked out and the cage was no longer thorns, but branches that obscured everything to them, and their faces to us.

But we could hear whatever noises they made, while they couldn’t hear us, or feel the movement.

We came to a large village, with dragons and humans alike walking around, and we were taken to a big building, that seemed small for the village.

And it took up a whole tree!

The humans were put in a room, alone, and locked from the outside, while the dragon folk took us to a room that smelled like food.

And they had us help them cook, and when we finished, I realized just how much we’d made.

I’d never seen so much food… especially not meat, in my life. We set out a portion for the captives, and began eating.

The changeling seemed to pick at some of the food with sharp claws, very slowly eating. Its shoulders were stiff, and its wyvern looked around, wary.

I could’ve sworn I heard something resembling a language in my head, but a bit off.

It stared at me, then left its barely eaten plate and asked Xigu where it was going to be kept.

“What? Not yet, go eat. Must be starving, you poor thing.”

“No no I can’t… can’t momma says I wasn’t worth feedin’, but murder was worse… I’m full…”

“C’mere then, I’ll give you a hug until you’re ready to eat more, ‘kay?”

He wrapped it in his arms, and the changeling began sobbing.

Xigu hugged it tighter, and tighter, and it whispered, “Please… I want rest…”

“Darling, just eat a bit more and I’ll show you to your room, ‘kay?”

“No! Don’t… don’t leave me alone, they’ll find me…”

“Oh… hmm… Nico, would you mind sharing a room with Jay?”

I stood and left, not wanting to go anywhere near that monster.

“Nico! Wait!”

Xigu ran over to me, holding the changeling in his arms, and said, “May I show you to your room?”

I nodded, warily, and he took me to a room a platform up. It partially left the tree, and it was huge. I couldn’t believe I got all that to myself.

The bed was big and comfy, covered in soft blankets and with a big pillow. I got in, and Xigu asked, “Don’t you want to wash first?”

“I- won’t it be cold? And… doesn’t water make people sick?”

“Darling, magic exists. A friend cast a, well, to you it's a spell, to us it's just a long-form usage of a gift that expends no energy other than what was used to cast, and it helps us get hot water in, and helps us get the water in through a series of tubes. There’s a hot spring under the village that replenishes itself every so often through meltwater and rainwater, and everyone has the pump system. As for the second one, oh, only certain types of water, just don’t use water people shat in or anything. Anyhow, you’ve got a washroom, follow me.”

He took me to a room with tile everywhere, and showed me how to use the pumps.

“We have the water heat capped at about… wait, how do humans measure water heat?”

“If- it’s boilin’ it's boilin’, if it’s frozen it’s frozen, um- we don’t… measure it, far as I know,”

“Oh. Well, the dragons measure it on a zero to one hundred scale. One hundred is boiling, zero is freezing, we have it capped at about thirty six, which is, wait- do you even know numbers?”

“I know up to- um- seventy, that’s how old my gran is. But I ne’er learned past that.”

“Tomorrow, we’ll change that. Now, I’m going to go and help Jay, night!”

I turned on the bath and watched it steam, and I wondered why anyone would willingly go into water. I couldn’t swim, and why in Blessing's golden grass would I learn if there weren’t any safe rivers nearby?

I stepped in and realized it was as warm as a spring day. And I laid down in the tub, soaking in the heat to my cold, harvest-tired bones.

When the changeling knocked.

“Hey- um- Nico- they said that since we’re used to sleepin’ in rooms with other people I should sleep in a bedroll until they can help me get used to sleepin’ without anyone watchin’ me…

I wanted to tell him to piss off, but then remembered that any word the changeling learned could be used in a fae’s curse, so I bit my tongue, instead snapping, “Go away.”

“I- they- they told me… I can’t just disobey, what if they use a cat flail?”

I sighed, and replied, “I’m sure they won’t. Just go voice your concerns.”

“Um- yessir.”

I heard footsteps rapidly scramble away, and stayed in the tub a while longer, before stepping out, carefully. A linen square and night clothes appeared next to me and I felt wind tickle my face, before hearing a soft giggle.

I wondered if the linen was cursed.

I decided not to question it, the dragons didn’t have wind magic. They breathed fire and ate people and some of them could turn into humans as though shedding all their scales at once. Everyone knew that.

And then I realized.

I was with dragons! How could I be so stupid? They were probably fattening me up to make me into a morning snack!

The wind brushed by my face again, and a young boy my age appeared.

“Ugh! So paranoid! Even Jay ain’t that paranoid! Take the linen, we won’t hurtcha, on my honor, or may I be caught and used to guide the sails.”

I didn’t understand the last bit, but I trusted him a little bit.

“So then, already met Jay and Fling. What’s your name?”

“Nico,” I replied.

“Nico? Hmmm… how delightfully human! My name is Briilu. It’s fae for Swiftflood.”

I didn’t know how to pronounce that name, it left my mind the moment it was said.

Swiftflood grinned down at me and bade his farewell, then disappeared in a puff of wind.

I put on the linens and went into my room, then sat on the bed. It was soft and warm, and I bundled myself in furs and dozed off.

First: https://www.tumblr.com/otter-chaos-violence/759028525120503808/rain-chapter-one?source=share

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post-punk-revival · 1 year ago

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Part Two: Alterhuman Community Intro…?

This post will continue to be edited as necessary. This post is no longer our active bio and I've removed it from our pinned post because I don't update it anymore; we now have a full page on our blog for it rather than a post

So I just posted my writeblr intro and since I’m definitely more active in the alterhuman community than the writeblr community I thought it might be fun to have a nonhuman/plural intro? Might be fun and it also occurred to me/us that most of our followers really only know me since I’m the only occupant of the body itself, and don’t know anything about the rest of the system. I will probably delete this someday if I decide once again I don’t like having my ‘types public depending on if the brainmates want to keep their own bios up. It will also probably change a lot because we tend to do that.

Context. We are a non-dissociative system, we do not switch, we were dæmonic originally meaning that I am the body and communicate with them through faux-visual projection and mental speech (which is why I talk like we're a total found family when they never seem to even say anything -- trust me they do, they just don't have access to the keyboard). We/they consider them all to have separate external bodies. We are quoigenic, not traumagenic or endogenic or mixed origins, only refer to us as the former.

Swift

He/it (they/them only under certain circumstances), bisexual, binary male* but only humans are ever men. I use quoi- ahead of all labels (both queer and alterhuman) in addition. POSIC, mildly objectum/conceptum. I have special interests in: biology, the arts, and the change of technology/art/language/media over time and throughout history (example: history of computer graphics 1950s-1990s <3). Psychospiritual, philosophical and narrative alterhuman. Species-wise: I am a common raven (Corvus corax ssp. principalis), an osprey (Pandion haliaetus ssp. carolinensis), a red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamiacensis (ssp. fuertesi?)), common spotted cuscus (Spilocuscus maculatus), sea slater (Ligia exotica), mosasaur (Mosasaurus sp.), and lastly, Musteloidea sub-superfamily cladotherian (procyonids, ailurids, and mustelids). I’m a Novakid, a species from the game Starbound, which I consider more of a fictional kintype than a fictotype (I prefer alienkin or just otherkin over fictionkin for this ‘type). I am also a computer, specifically an IBM 7090. I also consider myself a kind of entity or manifestation of autumn, I’d just call it “conceptkin with extra steps,” the extra steps being conceptual embodiment in a sort of cryptidlike sleep paralysis shadow-man monster. I am questioning: a stomiiforme (viperfish, bristlemouth or dragonfish) theriotype, a house centipede theriotype, a Nectocaris pteryx theriotype, and my relationship to solar eclipses (conceptkin, symbolism stemming from interacts between other kintypes, both, or something else?) I was a ghost. Now I’m not. It was not a kintype and I did not “deconfirm” it. This affects some things. I am a flickerer with two fictotypes (Link from The Legend of Zelda, every canon game, and the Knight from Hollow Knight). I have three heartedtypes (domestic cats, cephalopods, and ghost type Pokemon) and two hearthomes (the ocean and O’Neill cylinders). I consider dragons, wolves and foxes to be paratypes. I have a profound quasi-religious connection to stars & the night sky that I consider at least marginally alterhuman in nature. I am an archetrope; wanderer, and secondarily a "shapeshifter" and "generalist" which I need better words for both of -- as they say language is like trying to nail down the ocean, and I guess it would be more accurate but less concise to describe them as "one who changes, embodies or becomes" and "one who adapts, branches out, survives or opportunizes." If I ever explain these somewhere I’ll link to it here. I have a lot of playlists including my main 9,000 song one but this is my “Swift vibes” playlist. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/40rzRF67ocIDF2L7mLzNVC?si=20945cccc57942c0

Tetri

I’m Tetri, Swift’s dæmon. I CIE on November 11th, 2020. Pronouns are he/him. I’m comfortably settled as of February 21st, 2021, as an Asian palm civet. We believe this represents Swift’s personality well, even if it was coincidental and we didn’t consciously choose it. I’m a pretty traditional dæmon but I’m not 100% by-the-books and definitely more autonomous than most, just because of the general plurality. I’m ‘hearted with cats and I love going to coffee shops and library cafés and getting a pastry. I also like transport like trains and ferries. Please feel free to initiate a conversation with me. I like to offer advice even if I don’t know you very well. Here’s my playlist of music I like https://open.spotify.com/playlist/73IEcIlekV70adyrkLjeY4 Check out these MyNoise custom generators. I think they’re rather nice .https://mynoise.net/Community/user.php?submission=691c051129d33047b53b0e3d1664468885 https://mynoise.net/Community/user.php?submission=691c051129d33047b53b0e3d1654028735 CIE Day: November 11 2020

Ziv

I’m Ziv. I’m a wolf. Specifically a Himalayan wolf, as well as a Spanish imperial eagle. An adult, not a juvenile, even though juveniles for some reason are the image of our species. Pronouns -- zhe/hir. I’m agender and aroace. I’m autistic and I like weaponry as a special interest, especially medieval blades from all over the world. Also wilderness survival. Jewish philosophy, art and history interest me. I am not spiritual and do not put stock in spiritual beliefs whatsoever. I like heavy music, metal, metalcore, rock, especially punk, but also some folk. This is my playlist. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4cL88XYitlbWeb7wnvkT9W Swift wrote the descriptions for all of our playlists but I like mine so I’m not changing it. CIE Day: November 14 2020

Lumi

Hi! My name is Lumi. I use any and all pronounce and I’m big xenogender pansexual hours. Get zany with it. I love snails, video games, and Greek mythology. I have a special interest in Nintendo. Surprisingly, my favorite game is actually not Kid Icarus. It’s Pokemon. I would love to chat with anyone!!! Send an ask for me. I’m a shapeshifter otherkin. I have no base form so I like to be a lot of different things. Animals, bugs, birds, crabs, mish-mash monsters, dinosaurs, Pokemon, all kinds of crazy stuff. It’s like choosing a jacket for the day to me. I associate with clown, bard etc. archetypes, but I don’t know if I’m exactly an archetrope. Still working on it. And I’m fictionkin, I’m a) Pit from Kid Icarus b) Sky from Wings of Fire and c) a Jester from Lethal Company! Swift wants us all to share our playlists because it’s obsessed with music. So now you have context for the last three intros. Look at my playlist boy https://open.spotify.com/playlist/01Xgx5BnmzVXxv2sIoTScZ CIE Day: December 26 2020

Maz

Hi, I’m Mazel, Maz for short. Resident human. She/her. I originated as a male, I’m a woman now, not sure if that makes me trans or something else, the question is not worth my time. I’m a lesbian. I like sci fi movies, NASA and performance art. I guess that’s it. Am I allowed to go now Swift {She's having a blast, guys} Playlist https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0acN0u6kJrYFEFWycCM3gm CIE Day: April 22 2021

Axel

I’m Axel! I’m Maz’s dæmon. I’m not settled but I like to appear as a rat or a rattlesnake or a king cheetah. Probably some more forms in the future. He/him. Technically I am just a thoughtform but I’m a thoughtform with big transmasc energy, I like to think. I’m obsessed with kaiju and other big monsters and superheroes as well as alt scenes. So my playlist should be obvious https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7Ma2bNC0FlnTsb6DtDFhXc CIE Day: June 27 2023

Foxglove

I’m Foxglove, otherwise known as Europa. She/her, if you must refer to me. I am a dragon of silver lineage. I have special interests in psychology, botany and mineralogy. I suppose I am autistic in the context of a physically human brain, but it is difficult to recontextualize that to the culture of a draconic biological worldview. I have a great appreciation for baroque and art nouveau architecture and for the aesthetic of vintage fantasy artwork. I would also say I do not believe in anything spiritual and I do believe that everything can be explained scientifically. If we are sharing playlists, here is mine. It is majority progressive and psychedelic rock. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7vNU0chHir6XWfpt90jjxu CIE Day: September 21 2021

Anser

Swift here again. Anser is a tricky one. She could and probably would write her own intro, but she’s complicated much like V’vohu and I’d rather explain it in my own words, because I’m not sure hers would be… not too vague. Anser is not fae, nor a kitsune, nor a Huli Jing or any other kind of specific fox myth, rather a fae-like fox spirit who seems to embody multiple fox and faerie mythologies. He originated as a spirit. Sort of. When he first appeared, he may well have been a literal spirit visitor, like V’vohu. But he left, possibly of his own accord, possibly something to do with V’vohu. This Anser is a different entity while being the same individual psychologically, fully formed by whatever mental process formed the other headmates excluding V’vohu, but still also fully psychologically a spirit. Literally the exact same individual in every way except not a literal outside spiritual visitor. He still fully believes in magic and is the most spiritual of all of us. It's complicated. Anyways, she usually appears as a red fox with or without various fantastical attributes, and sometimes as a statue. She/her and he/him only, not they/them. I believe she identifies as bigender or genderfluid, not sure which or if gender means the same thing to her at all that it does to earthly people. Here’s her playlist, like V’vohu’s it’s pretty unique. She’s obsessed with different cultures, religions and folklores around the world, so her music taste is mostly comprised of regional folk, devotional and traditional music and nature noises. https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4XIssSbiAwI1e1G3AuiqIX CIE Day: June 13 2022

#this is just going up no categorizing tags #I wrote both of these posts a whiiiiile ago btw and have been excited to get around to posting them mostly bc #look!! it's my friends!! my brain friends that most of my followers don't even know the names of!! :D #they are very important people in my life. except anser and ziv. who are not people‚ but still important.#DON'T tell me the link in my own bio is gone. I KNOW. it's broken. and by it I mean Tumblr

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mimicdragon · 5 months ago

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I didn’t put it in the tags, but I promised myself I’d try working through my list of identities, try to get them up-to-date and more importantly just think about them and what they all mean to me. If things have changed, stay the same, or what more I have learnt.

(This was meant to happen yesterday on dragon appreciation day but life doesn’t like to listen XD)

Looking at the list I have in my pin and I already can see how much I used to mask parts of my identity even to the community itself that is meant to be for being more open about it. I mean I literally wrote I’m going to keep vague on one directly in the post. Which also meant I left a lot of details out surrounding it.

Also it just feels so, oddly done. I don’t really know a good way to list out my identities in a way that feels like it really captures them in an easy to understand way. It’s why I thought typing out my thoughts as I worked on them would probably be very helpful for me and maybe for others who read this.

I’m one of those people whom for a good amount of my types I also identify with the aspects of them a lot too. Not always, but.. most of the time. Enough to make my real list seem so much bigger than its primary parts. Which might be the best way for me to dive into what my identity is and how it all weaves together.

If I remove every “paratype” (in the strictest definition possible) identity from my list (including things that I didn’t list) I’d have this:

(the identity I kept vague) — base personhood as an aseity alter

Alternate Pokémon Universe Creature — fiction kintype

dragon phantom — fictotheriotype

Terios the hedgehog — fictotype

leafeon — heartype

glaceon — heartype

Celesteela — vaguetype

John Constantine — lintype

I think to some that’s already a decent list, but ironically the literal theriotype I themed this blog around isn’t included. At the strictest definition of paratype, even that identity that literally awoken me to alterhumanity as a concept is just only because of something else. Almost everything else I identify with I feel is because of one of the above. Mostly just because of who I am at base.

Paratype is honestly such an amazing word and I’m very glad I was told about it. Through the framing of paratype it really showed me how my identities are mostly all branches splitting off of my base experiences that I didn’t remember at the time or couldn’t cope well with.

There was a post I remember seeing someone showed before, of a graphic showing how a lot of their identities had bubbles of overlap and how ‘high’ and ‘low’ kin in some ways made sense to them because of that feeling. Some are ‘higher’ in part because they had more connected attributes or were in a sense the reason for others. At least… that’s how my brain is remembering the post so long later. I can’t even remember who posted it. In some sense that’s exactly what I’m experiencing.

Part of me is terrified to admit it, but dammit the constant hiding and feeling like I need to move around it, isn’t doing me any favours. So fuck it. I’ll try to stop hiding being the real Mary Sue as they probably say lol.

At my at most base my identity is as a Dean Winchester. I can’t really say I can even recognise the show version of myself. It’s not like I had anything to do with it in my existence. Why I exist, other than it was by aseity isn’t really to do with me (and that’s telling on another mate’s shit so I won’t), but I’m a dark as fuck skinned Dean with curly blonde hair who was born nonhuman, due to a third parent the other two didn’t know about, and was raised human and then John found out and oh fuck did things not go well for me. Easiest simplest bit of it all.

My species as Dean I ended up choosing to call Risen Devil as it best fit. I was angel and devil, not fallen but instead considered holy as shit almost if because of the devil so it felt right. I when younger had vampiric attributes where I drank energy from demons, like a psychic vampire, but after some shit happened it turned into drinking grace from angels. Thus I started calling myself a celestial vampire. More of my life was spent existing with a draw towards grace than towards demon energy, so I never really gained an identity or connection to that aspect of my history but it’s hard not to still bond to general vampire things, especially when grace was basically angel blood for the ones I mostly dealt with.

( as a small aside obviously I was also born a witch, it’s in the family history and I hear even in canon and for us that is a biological species like thing? So I’m like extra attuned to magic with that gene?? I still got genes from my human parents obviously.)

Very quickly even from just that it’s really fast to see where the identities all start to pile on; especially when I never got to identify as the things I actual were in my own home and history. It’s hard not to feel like I want to cling and identify and be proud of what I could never there.

A lot of this I think people wouldn’t have considered paratypes. These would just be the base identities I have. Which I agree! That’s why the quotes around paratype before. But it felt useful to myself to even dissect it to that degree. Because these are aspects of what ‘Dean’ means to me, that no one else would see if I just wrote I’m Dean. So I just.. felt worth a base run down because it felt useful and important to me?

But then you got the genuine, to me, first level of paratypes. The identities I feel like I only have because of my lack of safety in my base history. The most obvious being the Non-Canon Detective Comics character.

I didn’t remember all of this stuff at first. Working through a lot of my exotrauma is what really started to open and make things make sense and things have been more consistent and constant since stabilising and remembering more of myself. But before I remembered I had weird neomatta and memories of a world I didn’t know of. That was the start of the DC fictotype.

I was sharing all these things to my friends about characters I didn’t know, about journeys and long story short it matched a lot of DC things. I was predicting the Gotham Knights game in aspects. Shit ya know.

It ended up feeling solidified as a being known as the Golden Revival, born of Lucifer and The Voice, but unknown to have been born by either. A sheep/goat hybrid creature with one form representing mostly the goat, the devil, young-ness, masculine, and the artist, stuck with the colours of purple, violet, and blue; and another form representing mostly the sheep, the voiced, adult-ness, feminine, and the warrior, with the remaining colours of red, yellow, orange, and green.

The being at point -something- happened that ended up making the Voice punish him by locking away half of his memories (and the similar memories from the world) and the sheep side of himself. Locking him in a mostly basic and close to primal state. Mostly only feeling the primal emotions and scared of becoming known by society. He only ever interacted with his girlfriend and boyfriend who both knew him before it happened. The only real hint of the old memories was the girlfriend often accidentally called him the Golden Revival, instead of just Revival with neither knowing where it came from or why, but there must be a reason.

I can only say that this identity that formed was my subconscious trying to remind me of what I forgot. Even in this base sum up of details, so many things parallel and even more I don’t mention. From one of the parents erasing the memories and identity of Revival, there’s just so much there. It was like this identity was subconsciously using DC comics universe as a way to work through and remember what I couldn’t. It was letting me process and work through my issues.

Similar things I think is why Deep Sea Dragon Mimic is a thing. It also is an identity I feel I gained because of internalised unprocessed trauma and shit and hell it still is a safe identity to stay within. Instead of being such an on-the-nose aggressive neon sign of what I went through it’s like this was my subconscious’s way of letting me safely explore bits without the morals. A pure primal beast, but still with the same aspects of myself. A mimic, hiding in plan site. I pretending to be human to be safe, it instead twisting it into defence to being how it gets food. Turning a passive danger into a show of strength and skill. Living deep in the most uninhabitable spaces allowing me to run away from the hell of living with John and the stress of humans where none may enter. Having the innocent I never got. And I was born the year of the dragon, that’s all the reason to me it was a dragon being not some eel or something. It was the birth of me. Born in the year of the fire dragon but able to survive in the deepest waters. A strength I never felt I had.

The subconscious is a fucking powerful thing okay.

I still have so much more I could talk and go through but I think this is enough for one day. The tears are already flowing hard enough as it is. But it felt nice to actually get this out instead of leaving it in my head.

I should make a site of my own. I don’t want to loose this.

#alterhuman #nonhuman #fictionkin #paratype #long post #ok to rb #ok to ama

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a-rainey-day · 2 years ago

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Content warning: talks briefly of sexual assault, ptsd, birthdays, and just raine rambling

Hey friends! I know I haven’t written much lately but life got busy (I moved out, am attending college, etc etc) but I just wanted to take a moment to talk about today. September 21st is my birthday, and for the longest time I hated celebrating it.

I don’t remember many birthdays, my fiftieth birthday I spent reeling from the trauma of getting sexually assaulted by my partner at the time, and having my feelings disregarded afterwards. I had come home and ate pancakes for dinner with my sister and her boyfriend fighting off a panic attack, I still can’t eat captain crunch pancakes three years later.

My sixteenth birthday I didn’t want to celebrate, I didn’t see much reason to. I was getting harassed and threatened by the local moms for liberty branch for a video of me on a pride float giving my partner at the time a kiss on the cheek. I spent my birthday anxiously watching a school board meeting trying to stomach the cake my parents got me, watching people come to defend a stranger while dealing with my ptsd. My friends eased my anxieties, my friend got breakfast from a gas station on our way to school, other friends bought me small presents and told me I’d be okay. My birthday suddenly felt a little easier to celebrate.

My seventeenth birthday I spent chatting with a guy who was older than me, having fallen into a toxic friend group online and struggling with ptsd. I had dreaded the day for the whole month, but my friends made the day easier. They got me gifts, and I couldn’t go into my classes without my teachers greeting me with a happy birthday and a small gift. I had thought no one would remember, but they did and made an effort to make a day I hated easier on me. I was helping to build a float with the dungeons and dragons club for home coming and when I got to float building the day after I was showered with belated happy birthdays and laughter as we put the finishing touches on the float.

And now, my eighteenth birthday. I’ve been living on my own for about a month now, yesterday I was depressed and tired from working myself too much trying to make rent and dreading my classes. But on my walk back to the apartment I stopped to get myself dinner and the smile of the kind man behind the counter as he took my order and gave me a student discount seemed to snap me out of it (along with the delicious pad thai I got). I was able to call and talk with my girlfriend and rant about my job, and at around 10 I was able to open my birthday gifts a little early (it was a blåhaj, incense sticks, a new holder, and a little book called “pet this f*cking puppy”) and talked with my roommates (two of my longtime best friends) about our days, laughing nearly to the point of tears before going to work on my homework. This morning I got myself Starbucks and when I checked my social media was flooded with happy birthday messages from friends and family. I’m going to go back home to have dinner with my parents and see my girlfriend.

What I’m trying to say is, it does get easier. It doesn’t seem much like it but year by year, it does get easier. Your birthday is something worth celebrating, maybe not to you but to those around you it’s worth it. I promise you, there’s someone who looks forward to your birthday every year it rolls around.

#finn speaks #birthday #ramblings #jus talkin #hope you enjoy

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nannycanes · 2 years ago

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A lot of awesome ideas here, including ones I wouldn’t have thought of. Some questions and comments I have:

• I may or may not have laughed at how you’ve basically taken everything Zonai/Sonau-related and just flung it back into space from whence it supposedly came. BUT! What if instead of being goat-dragon-critter things, the Zonai in this setting were descendants of those who remained in Skyloft? Maybe even a branching culture, since in SS they never had skyloft come down from the sky, just Link and Zelda? That may limit their tech to just the air, but it can also be explained as the Sheikah or Zonai making contact at one point in history. The contact didn’t have to be lasting or meaningful beyond swapped tech, it just explains its presence.

• The ONLY issue I see with a Zelda companion is the climbing. How do you account for her following you up cliffsides and whatnot? Obviously this is pure mechanics, but I think one could handwave the issue with some “light powers” excuse of just teleporting to the top.

• Imagine idling near a pond and watching her pounce after a frog. If she catches it, it’s added to your inventory. Would she also point out shooting stars, or try her hand at breaking ore deposits?

• Vah Narisha/Vah Leviah’s music contains the song you had to learn from him :>

• Do you think those flashbacks would be given in pieces from beating the various bosses? Like you see a flashback after clearing one of the temple enemies, and in the death knell of the miasma, you see it before Zelda banishes it.

• The companions having secret/enigma stones could be enough to simply grant you the power to summon their shades, but I think it’d be more fun and sentimental if they housed that power in a trinket that’s more personal, like Yunobo giving you a Goron belt buckle, or the Zora giving you a bracelet. Maybe even little charms that Zelda inlays in the prosthetic arm itself, so you can see what colors are on it for visual progress!

• idk if you have any ideas yet for it, but if Zonai are completely removed from the equation, how would you personally reassign the Spirit Sage position? Gerudo already have the lightning position, it stands to reason a Sheikah may have the spirit spot IMO. You answered this already nvm

• [EDIT] Consider: Really big brightblooms instead of lightroots. The big point of the lightroots was to give you some place that you could remove the corrupted hearts, but when it comes to making light, maybe it can be argued that you have to do something to care for native brightblooms to make them bloom again- it's rare for one to get so big without being eaten first, and perhaps those large ones came to be in ancient times (maybe even as Sheikah gardens?) idk how the hearts thing can be resolved, I think it a little much to remove that convenience entirely. Then again, I'm a gremlin who has to be dragged out of the depths kicking and screaming half the time, so...

I’d include more but I’m on mobile and in the midst of chores, but I wanted to say somethin’!

totk rewritten (for me, specifically)

since i dont have time to get to drawing it right away AND im worried people might take this the wrong way, i thought i could write out some bullet points about my rewrite of totk (meant as a fix FOR ME not saying its inherently better) to give you a better idea on what im going for:

the core structure largely remains the same, the biggest change is no time travel, thus making zelda your travel companion, and zonau tech being lagerly gone/broken with shiekah tech instead

it is not shown but said in dialog that shiekah tech, such as the ancient furnaces, shrines and towers are either turning off or have flickering power supply and purah having calculated that all their connections point towards beneath hyrule castle

game starts pretty much the same as real totk, most zonau ruins are so withered away that they are barely recognizable and the further you get down theres more and more shiekah tech pipes and occasional a miasma vein, some pipes are broken and spill miasma, others flicker

instead of the room with the wall carvings theres one with old ancient shiekah research remains, old broken tech and prototypes you dont what their purpose was, all documents are too withered to read but zelda finds one that was sealed in a container and takes it with her (she got a backpack now)

theres a structure similar to the bed thingy of the shrine of life from botw but its working in reverse; within it is sealed ganondorf (i gotta work out the details around it still)

(details still missing) it breaks and zelda takes the enigma stone but doesnt touch it directly and puts it within a sealed container (you know kinda like you should do with soemthing you have no idea of what it is and was alsO LOCATED ON A CORPSE)

ganondorf isnt the elegantly talking villain type in this version but more of a mess, talking in different languages both modern and ancient but you cant make out any clear sentences, struggeling with suddendly being awake and half alive after spending thousands of years in an agonizing limbo, having witnessed every second of the passage of time yet also it feeling like everything just happened all at the same time

the ground breaks as he recognizes zelda (bc of her fighting calamity ganon in botw) but also not really, still sees her as a threat (also bc of the enigma stone in the container she still has in her hand) attacks her, link deflects with the master sword, it breaks and damages his arm, zelda drops her torch and pulls link away towards where they came in from and both run as the caves fill up with miasma like a flood with arms starting to reach after them while they both run back through the tunnels (creepy chase sequence anyone?)

cataclysm happens (ground breaks, miasma bursts out of the ground, especially where shrines and towers where since they were still connected to the pipelines) ground shifts massively in some places giving alot of the map a whole new structure; all shiekah tech that was not independent stops working due to power loss

links arm is amputated since otherwise the miasma would spread to his whole body; purah, robbie and zelda work out a prosthetic arm prototype to give to link (protoype at first will be upgraded at halfway point of the game) that can switch between multiple modes, like a hand to hold normal items or a weapon that isnt crafted, and a fusing ability (though maybe limited in the prototype) that lets you make weapons similar to the weapon fusing in canon totk (potential upgrades including an extendable guardian arm that doesnt break, grapple hook anyone??, also the ability to build stuff out of shiekah tech parts, not glue needed you actually screw it together, maybe zelda even helps)

now you are given free roam of hyrule, the goal is to explore and find what has changed and check on people, see what the underground has, new monsters have spawned etc.

zelda is your companion the whole time, she can use the shiekah stone/purah pad to analyze enemies for you, she also carries at least a dagger for her own self defense but doesnt contribute much to the fight (subject to change maybe), you can talk to her anytime and she usually has something to comment on depending on where you are or what you just did, can give you tips and advice IF ASKED FOR IT, when you discover ancient ruins, whether zonau or shiekah, she can either decipher it for you or take photos for later to find out more about everything that has happend and what it means, she also takes part in conversations when you talk to someone, her outfit changes with yours (meaning when you wear the tingle set she wears it too, opens up alot of funny interactions njfkdk)

purah has built new towers but they function different (still working on the details) mainly that they function independent from the energy source in hyrule castle

there are floating islands but they are bigger and in more connected clusters, when reaching them its ancient withered ruins that the ancient shiekah built support around (like the platform used by monk miz kyoshia) to keep them afloat; there are building like observatories and research labs, but all very overgrown due to being up there for so long, theres a titan prototype on one of the islands, its shaped like a whale and zelda deciphers it was called vah narisha (reference to the whale deity in skyward sword) (i havent decided yet if its fully broken and just a big piece of enviroment to explore or half functioning floating around, or maybe first broken but later half repaired so it can fly around at least giving you an easier way to reach other island, you cant steer it tho) some of them are falling bc of energy loss but the bigger ones have independent energy sources (work in progress)

the underground has more diverse zones depending on which part of the map it is located on, there are old mines (for luminous stone) from the zonau but all is extremely withered, in each one its been mostly built over by the shiekah but there are construct remains that were clearly dissected and studied, half built shrines and towers, you can find collectibles and lore there (working on more details, but an idea was to include remains of ancient shiekah tha fled there when they were persecuted by that old king of hyrule, adding to the eery vibe)

some titans (maybe two, and the other are still on the sruface, like vah medoh) feel down during the cataclysm, broken apart or malfunctioning/ possibly being a boss as in they were used by a big cluster of miasma hands like a hermit crab uses its shell, the inside filled with eyes and different sized hands dragging itself towards you like a drowing man grabs after anything to save him)

dongos are your go to transportation here and a little different, when you call one they dig a path to you (not permanent, just so they can always spawn near you) they glow in the dark and can climb on walls (bc why not), and can point you towards the next objective/point of interest, likely where theres a high concentration of luminous stone since that is what they eat and its usually where old mining/construction sites are (still working on a replacement for light roots that are less invasive)

the rat from the trailer is a miniboss/boss you need to defeat in order to get the broken mastersword back into your possession

(im still working on how the sages work, but the idea is to incorporate their abilites for more efficient and reliable use into links shiekah prosthetic, so you can still use their abilities but only when you actually want)

(again still working on details) halfway point of the game is you trying to find out where ganondorf went, not intending to fight necessarily but just to find out more but it devolves into you fighting some sort of miasma monster (either him or some sort of manifestation he made) and you get a bunch of short memory flashes from him, all vague and a wild mess from both the time he was sealed and from the time afterwards, maybe even a perspective shift from when link was fighting dark beast ganon, but from ganons view, from zelda when she was keeping that manifestation in check, random views from the malice eyes from botw, from the blights, maybe even from the fight with the old and new champions, from the point when shiekah built their tech around him while he had to watch not able to do anything etc.)

links arm gets upgraded from prototype to a full prosthetic, opening up more fusing abilites and other things (like the grapple hook, again working on it, im open for ideas lol)

i will reblog this and add more over time if you want, but do let me know if you like it thus far, bc im still unsure if its worth the effort of working more on this QnQ

(also if you dont like just keep scrolling, i dont need to know that you hate it, it literally changes nothing but make me annoyed xD)

#TOTK #loz #TOTK spoilers #Zelda

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sundowncryptid · 2 years ago

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Felt like drawing some cats so have some warriors art

#thought I’d try and branch out from dragons #been so long since I’ve drawn them or read the books so these designs are probably inaccurate #hollyleaf #lionblaze #jayfeather #bluestar #tallstar #ivypool #ravenpaw #warrior cats #warrior cats art #cat art #cryptiddraws

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chipmunkfanno1love · 3 years ago

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Favourite Ship Tag Game

Since tag games are so popular around here, I thought I’d give it a go and make my own. :D

Choose 4 romantic ships (fictional couples and/or fictional characters you *wish* were couples) you love from any fictional source whether it be books, movies, TV shows, mobile/video games, etc. Please also reference the fictional source they come from. The list doesn’t have to be in any particular order.

Give your reasons why you love this couple and/or why you think they’d *make* a great couple. If you can, please include a picture or GIF of the couple.

Tag 5 of your followers to share this game with. You may choose to tag more or less if you wish, but I do recommend choosing 5. No pressure, just please share this game with others for the sake of spreading the word.

Please be respectful of others and there opinions. No abuse please. :( Also, have fun. :D

*Warning*: Story spoilers ahead.

1. Rapunzel and Eugene Fitzherbert/”Flynn Rider” from the Tangled franchise.

I love these two because they are beautiful example of a healthy relationship. They love and support each other selflessly in their goals and dreams and never try to pressure the other into doing what they aren’t ready for. They are always there to support each other and build the other up to become the best versions of themselves.

Rapunzel helped Eugene find the selfless, loving man underneath the selfish, vain thief, while Eugene gave Rapunzel the courage to live her dream and break herself free from the manipulative Mother Gothel’s control and find the truth about her real parents and her being the lost princess. They’re each others New Dream and I love that about them. :D

Mandy Moore and Zachary Levi did amazing in these roles.

2. Branch and Poppy from the “Trolls” franchise

I love these two because they are adorable examples of opposites-attract. Poppy is the bubbly, endlessly optimistic princess turned queen of the Pop Trolls, while Branch is the grumpy but realistic former hermit with a heart of gold.

Poppy helps Branch to see the bright side of things and helps him to find his true colours, while Branch keeps Poppy grounded and realistic when she takes her plans too far and is always there to help her out when she needs him.

I hope these two marry some day and Branch becomes Poppy’s king consort. They make a great team - romantically, plantonically and just generally as trolls.

I also love Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick. Their singing voices are amazing. :D

3. Callum and Rayla from “The Dragon Prince”

A great example of the enemies to friends to lovers trope (though they’re currently on the outs romantically). These two have a beautiful bond that grows naturally over the course of 3 seasons. Despite being estranged due to 2 years apart in Season 4, the two are slowly and naturally repairing their broken bond and I hope in time these two will not only repair their friendship but eventually fall in love all over again and get back together as a stronger and much more mature couple.

4. Simon and Jeanette from the “Alvin and the Chipmunks” franchise

The adorkably nerdy pair and *Smart Ones* of their respective musical trios, The Chipmunks and The Chipettes. Despite being similar in their intelligence levels, the two are still different enough from each other that aren’t clones of the other. Jeanette is more shy and compassionate in temprament to Simon’s more snarky, deadpanned wit. He’s always there to catch her when she falls (most of the time literally, lol) and she’s always there to support him and cheer him up when his inventions are ruined (mostly by his irresponsible brother, Alvin).

Though they are still a bit young and shy to start a serious relationship with each other, it’s obvious this adorable pair were made for each other. They do and will make an adorable pair - romantically, platonically and acemedically.

I tag @16magnolias , @briarosabelle , @creativefictionlover , @psalm40speakstome and @travelinglighttoday . Though anyone can feel free to play if they wise to. Have fun! :D

#tag game #romance ships #fictional characters

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ehlnofay · 2 years ago

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Efri is lying on her back in the grass outside the cave when it happens.

“ – but the ground was all muddy ‘cause it had been raining,” she’s saying, nattering on while her sabre cat friend sits contentedly nearby, “so instead of landing like I wanted I twisted my ankle and got mud all up my dress. It was in my hair even. It was such a mess, I had to go home early and wash everything so my parents wouldn’t see, and Sissel was so worried I was hurt. ‘Course I was fine, but she worries. It mucked up the whole trick, and Sissel wouldn’t let me try to show her again because she thought I’d just get hurt, which meant I never even got to show her, which sucks. I would’ve got it perfect if it weren’t for the mud.”

The sabre cat looks at her, eyes thinning.

“I could show you if you want,” Efri offers, and their ears prick up. “I’d just need to find a good tree with branches I could –”

The sabre cat sits straight upright, their head twisted unnaturally, dead focused on something in the distance. In the direction of Rorikstead, the little smudge of houses at the base of the hill.

“What is it?” Efri asks, sitting up too.

Her friend, unsurprisingly, does not answer. Efri peers hard at their face. Their pupils have narrowed to slits, ears upright, tail curling in spirals across the grass.

The goats are all looking up too.

“What’s wrong?” Efri repeats, and the sabre cat takes off without so much as a by-your-leave. Efri stares. They’re sprinting in circles around the scattered herd of goats, crowding them together and directing them into the mouth of the nearby cave. The goats have learned by this time not to fear them, and they don’t seem scared exactly – not of Efri’s friend – but they seem very willing to trot off into the cave.

Efri watches the sabre cat round up the goats like a herding hound until their lightning-quick running makes her dizzy, and then she stares hard at Rorikstead in the distance, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. She can’t see anything.

But there’s a moment, when the sabre cat and the goats have all thundered into the cave, leaving the plains bare and quiet, where she can almost hear something.

Like a wolf howling from the moons instead of at them. A sound rattling around the sky like dice cast in a bowl.

The sabre cat reappears. “What’s wrong?” Efri repeats, more demanding than the last, and the sabre cat makes that low desparate cow-like noise and starts to approach her.

But Efri’s still looking at Rorikstead.

It’s too far away to see anything clearly – it’s just a smudge at the base of a hill – but something’s lighting up like kindling. There shouldn’t be light there.

The clouds rattle again, and the sparks fly, and oh –

And oh no.

Efri says a bad word, and then she’s scrambling to her feet, and then she’s running.

The sabre cat is half-roaring behind her, but Efri can barely hear it over the blood thrumming in her ears. Helgen, Whiterun, Kynesgrove. A million other places she can’t even remember the names of – it’s not exciting news anymore, not new, just another thing to worry about late at night, like the troll sightings to the south, and the war, and Sissel. Efri remembers Erik’s story about the dragon buried in the hill. Remembers Sissel’s nightmares, the earth cracking open, town showered in flame. Hadn’t she thought, so many months ago when they got the news about Helgen, that the danger couldn’t stay far-off for long?

Rorikstead can’t be another Helgen, Whiterun watchtower, Kynesgrove, wherever else. Efri doesn’t even like it there but it can’t, it’s hers. She can’t even tell if she can hear the dragon or not, because she feels like she can but it might just be her heart thundering in her ears. She’s juddering up and down as she runs too much to make out the sparks. She left her stick behind in the grass.

The sabre cat is howling now, closer than they should be. Are they chasing her? Efri ignores them. They’re a lot faster than her – of course they are, ten times her size and running on four legs – but it doesn’t matter, she needs to get there, to do something, if she’s only fast enough –

Tearing as best she can across the painfully flat plains, dry grass brushing her calves, Efri trips.

There’s nothing to trip over except her own legs, but she manages it, because of course at this most important time something would find a way of going wrong. Her foot feels twisted. Before she can start scrambling to her feet again the sabre cat lands with feet on either side of her body, and then there’s damp breath on her back – and then she’s in the air.

The sabre cat lifts her up by the back of her smock, the fabric of her clothes caught in their teeth, and they start galloping back the way they came. They move so fast, and at any other time Efri would be having a lot of fun.

Efri is not having a lot of fun.

“Put me down!” she screams. “Put me down, put me down, I have to go back! I have to help!” Every time they leap she feels the breath knocked out of her lungs. They’re not putting her down. Efri twists around as best she can, the seams of her sleeves cutting painfully into her armpits, and swings her arms as hard as she can. She thinks her fist makes contact with her friend’s jaw, but if it does they don’t acknowledge it.

She writhes, roaring, the clothes holding her up pulling very uncomfortably on her limbs, managing to kick one shoe off into the dirt but not managing to accomplish much else.

The sabre cat barrels into the cave and drops Efri unceremoniously in the dirt. Efri’s still yelling. All the goats are staring. She begins crawling to her feet, the tendons in her ankle still aching from her fall, but before she can do more than pull a knee up the sabre cat thumps to the floor with a bone-shaking thud and lays their massive paws over Efri’s body, chin resting on her chest. They’re too heavy for Efri to move at all under their weight, and for a brief, hateful moment she wishes she’d never befriended the nice sabre cat from the plains, never met them at all, wishes they’d bled out in this stupid sorry cave.

She’s sorry as soon as she thinks it, but it’s not the most important thing.

“Let go!” she’s shouting, whacking at their paws as they stare sorrowfully up at her face. “Let me go, let me go, let me go –”

But they don’t, and all puffed out from running and with the weight of them on her chest it’s hard for Efri to catch her breath, and it only takes a few minutes for her to scream herself hoarse, throat feeling like someone’s taken a fleshing knife to it. Everything in her body feels raw. She’s crying now. Efri never cries, but she’s crying now.

“Please,” she’s sobbing, voice weak and rough. “Please let me up, please…”

But the sabre cat doesn’t.

They hold her down for who knows how long, blowing steady breaths into her face, damp eyes watching her. Efri’s legs go numb and tingly, after a while. The tear tracks dry on her face. They feel itchy.

The goats stay huddled in the corner in anxious silence. None of them even amble over to chew on Efri’s hair.

She loses some of the time, she thinks. She’s not sure where it goes, because it’s not like she can do much – just lie pressed into the cave dirt, weeping in that high-pitched way you do when you’re trying to be quiet about it, throat too scratchy to talk anymore. She doesn’t even remember what she forgot, but she must have forgot some of it, because when she was dragged into the cave it was high noon and now the sun is beginning to set. She can just about see the golden light cast on the walls near the entrance. Some of the time she spent crying on the ground is fuzzy. She can’t say she mourns the loss of it.

The sabre cat slowly, gently steps back. Efri stays in the dirt.

Efri’s not sure what time by the clock it is that the sun sets this time of year, but it’s been hours at least. What if there’s nothing to go back to?

She needs to get up, she knows, but something in her won’t let her. Maybe it’s better not knowing. If she stays on the ground long enough, moss will grow over her and she’ll stop caring and she’ll never have to know what happened.

There’s a low rumbling sound in the sabre cat’s throat. They nudge her foot with their nose.

“What,” Efri whispers, voice dry, “you make me stay when I don’t want to and now you want to make me leave? Make up your mind.”

It hurts to talk.

The sabre cat nudges her foot with their nose again.

Efri says, “Leave me alone.”

The sabre cat makes a different noise – sounds a bit like a growl – and goes to stand over her, staring her down.

“Go away,” Efri tells them, and pulls the front of her smock up over her face.

There’s a rustling sound. When Efri lets the smock fall back down past her chin, she sees that they’ve laid down next to her, legs tucked up under their body, looking at her.

Efri looks back for a while.

The sunset light shifts on the walls.

“Okay,” Efri mumbles, rough-voiced. “Okay.”

She stands, pins and needles all up her thighs, and staggers out of the cave. Her sabre cat friend follows, faithful as a shadow.

“I need to find my stick,” she manages when they’re outside, looking at the grass, the northern mountains, the sky, anything except Rorikstead. One of the moons is already risen, a vague pale imprint in the bluey-grey sky. Efri stamps her bare tingly foot on the dust. “And my shoe.”

The sabre cat shows her to her stick but doesn’t seem to know where her shoe is, either.

Whatever. It seems so trivial now.

Efri stands with her one leather shoe and her stick, her back to the town, looking her friend in the face. Her friend looks patiently back.

Efri isn’t crying anymore – honest, she’s actually not – but not for lack of wanting to. She thinks she maybe just ran out of tears.

“I’m scared,” she says. “I’m scared it’ll be something I don’t want to find.”

Her friend presses a warm nose to her forehead. They stand like that for some time.

The sabre cat pulls back, blowing out a gust of air like a tired sigh. They bend down, so Efri is standing by their neck, their head almost on the ground. Efri doesn’t move. They nudge into her so she kind of flops, and then they stand up again, and Efri is flopped like a ragdoll over their neck.

“Oh,” Efri says, and readjusts. She’s not sure where to put her hands – she’s already sitting on their long lovely hair where it falls past the top seam of their shirt, she doesn’t want to start pulling at it too – so in the end she just balances her stick over her knees and braces her hands on either side of their neck. The sabre cat has always knocked her down when she suggested she could ride them. She says, “Thank you.”

Her friend chuffs and turns so they’re both facing back to Rorikstead.

There’s no thundering sounds in the skies anymore. No roaring. There’s nothing too different about the look of the place from this distance.

It’s still lit up in sparks and flares. That’s definitely not right.

Efri takes a deep breath. It tears ragged on the coarse insides of her throat.

“Thank you,” she says again, and then, “Let’s go,” and she focuses on the warm solid fur and muscle under her hands as the sabre cat starts to run.

#I have the other scenes for this event all written already so I PROMISE I won't leave you here for long #(unless I feel like it. in which case I might. I am a fickle mistress)#anyway #hope you liked it!#my writing #fay writes #oc tag #efri #kazari #microfic #skyrim #the elder scrolls #tes #rorikstead

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ardentguilt · 4 months ago

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1. To put it simple there are….a lot of animals in my area. In fact it’s a bit of a running joke amongst family that my house is a zoo with all the critters I care for, many being rescues.

Two cats, both siblings from the same litter but on complete opposite ends of the feline body structure spectrum. One is a long slinky noodle and the other…well…she’s a bit of a dumptruck but both a swirl of browns that shine so warm in the sunlight.

Two bearded dragons, one a geriatric rescue who’s been through his own personal wars and one out the other side when nobody thought he’d make it. Now blind, arthritic and at times a little grumpy but still kicking along despite it all.

The other a much younger guy, only just an adult at 1 year 3 months of age, he needed a new home and I had a space for him. Energetic and bright eyed, flecks of yellow bright as the sun through his beard fitting of his name, Apollo. Bold and adventurous, a climber and explorer with an appetite to rival a bear fresh out of hibernation.

There’s a multitude of fish spread across three tanks, a large freshwater community busy with activity and drama, the tetras swarm back and forth, an ever moving cloud of silvers reds and blues, the angelfish pair eternally watchful, letting nothing escape their curious gaze in or out of the tank, the silver dollars hiding away in the plants, large eyes peeking out as they await their much craved biscuits that seem to fall from the heavens, the loach going from 0 to 100 and back again, zipping around one moment and flopped over snoozing the next, the cory catfish trio, two younger males never leaving the side of the grand old albino woman who must have traded her vision for eternal life.

Another tank flashes with bright oranges and pearly whites, elongated tails and the glint of silver, home to an assortment of swordtails and a pair of Siamese algae eaters, a bristlenose pleco lurking in the back corner, bristles branching like the heads of a hydra.

A further tank, lush with greenery is home to a betta, a rescue who now shows his true colors, fluttering white pectorals, body and fins that appear blue one moment and red the next, his frill when displayed a deep blood red, content to inhabit his domain alone.

The outdoors is also full of critters especially when you slow down and take the time to look, insects of all sorts busy with foraging and construction, lizards and snakes of all sorts lounging in the warmth of the sun, an array of birds, some familiar visitors and other more recent arrivals, the rainbow lorikeets with their ear splitting din, the noisy miners living up to their name, the bowerbird lady who steals my tomato’s if I don’t get to them first, the brazen willie wagtails, more boldness than what should fit in such a small bird, often chasing off hales that could so easily turn around and swallow them in one bits, the swallows that come out in the early evening, daring and fast as fighter jets and just as agile as they catch the tiny winged insects midair. More recently there’s been a white cheeked honeyeater stopping by my garden, always perching at the top of the highest stick, sci-fi laser gun call ringing out as if taunting the red wattlebird that also feeds on the flowers.

And there’s something digging up my yard at night on the hunt for crickets burrowed into the ground, I suspect a brushtail possum but clever as it is I’ve yet to catch it on camera.

2. How do I feel? A simple question but one that can be so very difficult to answer. Each of us has a different criteria we measure by when it comes to feeling and for me? I think I’ve still yet to learn what mine is. So many years I’d spent trying to measure feeling by the criteria determined by others and now when I find myself asked ‘how do you feel’ I find I don’t quite know the answer.

For the moment at least my criteria is quite simple. If I’m breathing and not bleeding then I’m ok. And therefore,

I am ok.

3. I’m well aware a great deal of people put no stock in the idea of psychics, I’m well aware to be cautious of who I bring certain things up with lest they think me deluded.

The honest truth is. I do believe. More than that I KNOW. Yes there are some who are false, who use the concept to prey upon those who believe to line their own pockets but there are others who do genuinely have some sort of ability.

I am to an extent one of those genuine sort. Apparently it runs in my mothers side of the family, the ability to see and feel certain things, what has been, what will be and the lingering of those who have passed.

It’s not all fun and games though, sometimes you experience things you’d really rather not have, things that make your blood run cold as you lay there in the dark, not daring to turn your head and glimpse who belongs to that hand stroking your cheek or that weight settled on the end of your bed, the ghostly flames rushing down the hall.

Other times it makes you wonder, who is that woman in the blue dress who wanders across the room at exactly 3 am each morning? Why does she linger here?

Sometimes events of the future come to you in dreams so vivid you wonder if you’re dreaming at all but these future dreams still leave some level of mystery, timing is often non specific, the events occuring anywhere from a day to a couple months on.

Sometimes even you remember things you shouldn’t know, things from past lives, sometimes triggered by encountering an old object, an old German rifle in a museum that leaves you frozen and unable to pass its display case, a memory of your own death, that’s what killed me you say. And you know it to be the truth. That’s what killed me.

So yes, psychics do exist but not all of us are ready to believe, sometimes in order to believe you have to first experience.

4. I don’t particularly have a dedicated writing space, as a child I attended a school that valued speed of writing over anything else, my handwriting as a result isn’t that great. Where possible I very much prefer to type over writing by hand because I find it easier on my hands not to mention more legible.

I don’t write often I’ll admit but when I do it’s mostly in the notes app of my phone though more important writing work such as for assignments or the writing of a book I do on my desktop computer in just a standard libre office writer document, 12pt calibri font.

My desk is admittedly a mess, I do try to keep it clean but bits and pieces seem to pile back up twice as fast as I can clear things away, a water bottle, a desk fan, a mountain of papers, mineral specimens yet to be catalogued, a glittering heap of organised chaos.

5. Much of my free time is spent online to an extent though perhaps a near equal amount is spent offline.

I’m not someone who makes face to face friends easily, as such the majority of my friends reside in the other side of the world and being online is about the only way to interact with them, most of my online time is spent talking with these friends or falling down a rabbit hole of reading up on whatever random topic of interest I stumble across whether that be the origins of Vaseline or how many species of banana there is.

My offline free time is usually spent doing something with my hands like building DIY furnishings for my animals such as a combination scratching post/tree/cave for my cats or ramps, bridges and a custom wheeled cart to improve accessibility for my geriatric lizard in his enclosure and mobility when out and about, more recently I’ve found an interest in creating handmade jewellery using minerals such as a lapis lazuli pendant and a set of peridot earrings.

If I’m not working with my hands I’m tending my garden where I currently grow green beans, sweetcorn, dragonfruit, tomatoes, chillis, strawberries, lemons and blueberries or out and about on a 5-12km walk, taking in nature and keeping myself fit and healthy.

Discussion 3/8/25

1. Write about the animals in your area

2. How do you feel today?

3. Your thoughts on psychics

4. Talk about your writing space(s)

5. Do you spend most of your free time online or offline?

#ooc

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demarogue · 2 years ago

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Fandom New Years Resolutions for 2023

I don’t want to do any of the Year In Review things because...well, it was a really intense, difficult year and I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked. However! I thought it might be fun to lay out my plans for 2023, keep them reasonable (keep them safe) and try to hype myself up to finish.

Without further ado, my list that is likely to shift and change:

DRAGON AGE

Fics

Finish Letters to the Dead

Continue You’re Bad but You’re Mine (maybe even finish!? Who knows!)

Finish and post Something Unholy, a Morgon one-shot that was supposed to be for Satinalia but will now be for a random Andrastian holiday because I vastly overestimated the length of December

Solavellan stuff (DA4 has me in a deathgrip)

Some one-shots: Blackwall + Josephine, Comedy of Errors stuff,

Art

Banners/cover pages for all my fics

Catch up on all commissions/gifts

Finally color my lovely Niva linearts from @dreadfutures

Morgon Tarot card (three guesses which one lol)

Morgon, Niva and Alethea portraits for pfps

ACOTAR

Fics

Finish All of Me Belongs to You (ASAP/early Jan)

Finish A Lily on Thy Brow

Nyx craziness

Past Loves, Lives collection (Young Bats, Amren being Made, Mor’s first time falling for a woman, I’m working on more ideas and for sure would take prompts, hit up my asks!)

A one-shot per month. Probably mostly Elriel but I’m planning to branch out, too

Art

Finish Elriel AU piece for @azrielslight (ASAP/early Jan)

Finish Elriel in the garden piece

Banners/cover pages for all my fics

Feyre slaying the worm

Feyre and her monsters

Buzzcuts in the Illyrian camp/battlefield hairstyle incidents

Some smutty Elriel stuff

18th/19th-century style Portraits of the sisters

RINGS OF POWER/LOTR

Art (Only art because I am not enough of a Tolkein scholar to dare to write stuff)

ALL THE WOMEN. Binders full of em!

also Aragorn and Halbrand. Maybe even together ;)

Lastly, I just want to read more fic. My TBR is so long – if you’re a longfic writer and I started reading and then disappeared into the hills, please know I didn’t lose interest!! I just had A Year, is all. I am excited to return to reading regularly and letting you all know how much I adore you and how unspeakably talented I think you are.

And just for funsies, with NO pressure to join in, I’d love to hear anyone’s fandom resolutions! I’m not going to tag specific folks because I don’t want to be pushy OR leave anyone out so suffice to say, if you can see this I am tagging you in spirit.

#fandom new year's resolutions 2023 #fandom #dragon age #acotar #elriel

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penwiper · 6 years ago

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So a couple days ago, some folks braved my long-dormant social media accounts to make sure I’d seen this tweet:

And after getting over my initial (rather emotional) response, I wanted to reply properly, and explain just why that hit me so hard.

So back around twenty years ago, the internet cosplay and costuming scene was very different from today. The older generation of sci-fi convention costumers was made up of experienced, dedicated individuals who had been honing their craft for years. These were people who took masquerade competitions seriously, and earning your journeyman or master costuming badge was an important thing. They had a lot of knowledge, but – here’s the important bit – a lot of them didn’t share it. It’s not just that they weren’t internet-savvy enough to share it, or didn’t have the time to write up tutorials – no, literally if you asked how they did something or what material they used, they would refuse to tell you. Some of them came from professional backgrounds where this knowledge literally was a trade secret, others just wanted to decrease the chances of their rivals in competitions, but for whatever reason it was like getting a door slammed in your face. Now, that’s a generalization – there were definitely some lovely and kind and helpful old-school costumers – but they tended to advise more one-on-one, and the idea of just putting detailed knowledge out there for random strangers to use wasn’t much of a thing. And then what information did get out there was coming from people with the freedom and budget to do things like invest in all the tools and materials to create authentic leather hauberks, or build a vac-form setup to make stormtrooper armor, etc. NOT beginner friendly, is what I’m saying.

Then, around 2000 or so, two particular things happened: anime and manga began to be widely accessible in resulting in a boom in anime conventions and cosplay culture, and a new wave of costume-filled franchises (notably the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings movies) hit the theatres. What those brought into the convention and costuming arena was a new wave of enthusiastic fans who wanted to make costumes, and though a lot of the anime fans were much younger, some of them, and a lot of the movie franchise fans, were in their 20s and 30s, young enough to use the internet to its (then) full potential, old enough to have autonomy and a little money, and above all, overwhelmingly female. I think that latter is particularly important because that meant they had a lifetime of dealing with gatekeepers under our belts, and we weren’t inclined to deal with yet another one. They looked at the old dragons carefully hoarding their knowledge, keeping out anyone who might be unworthy, or (even worse) competition, and they said NO. If secrets were going to be kept, they were going to figure things out for ourselves, and then they were going to share it with everyone. Those old-school costumers may have done us a favor in the long run, because not knowing those old secrets meant that we had to find new methods, and we were trying – and succeeding with – materials that “serious” costumers would never have considered. I was one of those costumers, but there were many more – I was more on the movie side of things, so JediElfQueen and PadawansGuide immediately spring to mind, but there were so many others, on YahooGroups and Livejournal and our own hand-coded webpages, analyzing and testing and experimenting and swapping ideas and sharing, sharing, sharing.

I’m not saying that to make it sound like we were the noble knights of cosplay, riding in heroically with tutorials for all. I’m saying that a group of people, individually and as a collective, made the conscious decision that sharing was a Good Things that would improve the community as a whole. That wasn’t necessarily an easy decision to make, either. I know I thought long and hard before I posted that tutorial; the reaction I had gotten when I wore that armor to a con told me that I had hit on something new, something that gave me an edge, and if I didn’t share that info I could probably hang on to that edge for a year, or two, or three. And I thought about it, and I was briefly tempted, but again, there were all of these others around me sharing what they knew, and I had seen for myself what I could do when I borrowed and adapted some of their ideas, and I felt the power of what could happen when a group of people came together and gave their creativity to the world.

And it changed the face of costuming. People who had been intimidated by the sci-fi competition circuit suddenly found the confidence to try it themselves, and brought in their own ideas and discoveries. And then the next wave of younger costumers took those ideas and ran, and built on them, and branched out off of them, and the wave after that had their own innovations, and suddenly here we are, with Youtube videos and Tumblr tutorials and Etsy patterns and step-by-step how-to books, and I am just so, so proud.

So yeah, seeing appreciation for a 17-year-old technique I figured out on my dining-room table (and bless it, doesn’t that page just scream “I learned how to code on Geocities!”), and having it embraced as a springboard for newer and better things warms this fandom-old’s heart. This is our legacy, and a legacy the current group of cosplayers is still creating, and it’s a good one.

(Oh, and for anyone wondering: yes, I’m over 40 now, and yes, I’m still making costumes. And that armor is still in great shape after 17 years in a hot attic!)

#costumes #cosplay #fandom history

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ladydamodred · 3 years ago

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“I’d marry you today if I could, you know.”

Moiraine lifted her head and smiled, trying to shake off her melancholy. She picked up her mug of ale and settled back on to the bed, leaning into the curve of her lover’s body. “Would we live here? Have a home in the Fingers of the Dragon?”

“Mmn.” Siuan reached out to run her fingers through fine strands of long brown hair. “I’ll fish and cook for you, we’ll have a garden and raise the juiciest, sweetest fruit you’ve ever tasted.”

“I’d have to learn how to brew my own ale if you insist on drinking this horse piss.”

"Language.” Siuan tugged lightly at the hair wound around her fingers in admonishment. She laughed a little as Moiraine winced, before sitting up to kiss her in apology. “But anything to keep you by my side. Would a life like that make you happy, my love, after all your years in a saddle?”

“When I’m settling down to sleep, stones and branches digging into me through my bed roll and only half of me warm from the fire, that life is what I dream about. A home that we can make together. Being in the same bed every night, with you beside me.” Moiraine's lips curved up in a wry grin. “Hot baths. Our own bathing hut, that no one will judge me for using too long, which will always be scented with oils we like. We can build a fireplace inside, make the heat so intense that it hurts to breathe...”

“Sounds like you dream about that bathing hut more than me.” Siuan noted dryly.

Moiraine pinched the skin on her thigh where the robe fell open, knowing that it was one of her ticklish spots, smiling fondly as Siuan laughed and pushed her away. “Don’t be jealous. I dream about you in the bathing hut too.”

“Well, that’s something at least.” She let Siuan take her mug to set it aside, watching as her lover shrugged off her robe and dropped it on the floor. The other woman got back into bed with her, guiding her down until they shared a pillow. Moiraine swallowed at the look in her eyes, the love obvious in her soft smile as she reached out to trace her brow, her touch gentle and soothing.

“Siuan...” she haltingly began to confess. “The thought of being married to you, having a home together... it’s a dream I almost don’t dare to have. Tarmon Gai'don is coming, and the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills...”

“I meant what I said earlier, Moiraine. One day, we will have more time, either in this life or the next.” Siuan’s voice took on the timbre it had in the Hall of the Tower, the look on her face was incandescent. “Every turning of the Wheel, I will find you. I promise.”

This was the woman she fell in love with, decades ago. She was a member of House Damodred, one of the royal line in Cairhien, yet it had been so easy for her to follow the daughter of a poor Tairen fisherman. Part of it was being hopelessly spellbound by Siuan’s quick mind and the mischievous smile that got them into trouble with the Mistress of the Novices more times than they could count. But it was also Siuan’s strength and conviction, that had her predicting from the day they met that her friend would eventually become the Amyrlin Seat and the most powerful woman in the world. She let that strength envelop her now, feeling safe in a way that she never allowed herself to feel on the road or in her own quarters, and finally slept.

#wotfic #moiraine x siuan #siuanraine #siuraine #drabble #ish?#idea kicking round #since marriage vows #confirmed #moiraine needed #the prompt #from somewhere #and imma #procrastinating

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tiramisiyu · 4 years ago

Video

youtube

Tears of Themis: Xia Yan/Luke 【妄夜之魇】 Looming Nightmare - Date Translation

Translation Masterlist | Xia Yan Masterlist | Unsubbed Video

Transcript below cut:

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Part 1

Forest

In the morning, a group of villagers walked slowly through the forest’s rocks and mud.

Nearby, a young man dressed as a knight noticed them.

Luke: Please wait!

The young man pushed aside the dense branches, rushing over to the villagers.

Villager Captain: You are…?

Luke: My apologies for troubling you all. I’m Luke Pearce, a knight.

As he spoke, he balled up his left hand and placed it before his chest, displaying a standard gesture of courtesy to the villagers.

Villager Captain: So you’re a knight. Greetings, is anything the matter?

Luke: I’d like to ask you all if there is anyone who knows where the evil dragon is?

Villager A: E-evil dragon?!

When they heard “evil dragon”, a momentary fear displayed on all the villagers’ faces.

The whispers among them gradually grew louder, and the originally calm group gradually began to lose control.

Villager A: W-why are you searching for the evil dragon…

Villager B: Why are you asking about that beast’s whereabouts?! Are you trying to get it to come over here again?!

Villager B: O-our village, it…

Villager Captain: Calm down.

The young captain placed a hand on the shoulder of the middle-aged man to calm him down temporarily.

Villager Captain: We were impolite. Sir Knight, none of us have malicious intentions. It’s just…

Luke: Were… you all also attacked by the dragon?

Villager Captain: Indeed…

The young man sighed.

Villager Captain: We originally lived in a nearby village. Three days ago, our village was attacked by that dragon.

Villager Captain: The flames it breathes, and its massive wings that kick up gales when they beat…

Villager Captain: That’s how our houses and fields were thoroughly annihilated.

Villager Captain: Many villagers that couldn’t escape were left forever in those ruins.

Villager Captain: But that dragon didn’t stop there. It… even carried off lots of innocent people.

Villager Captain: That’s what happened to my wife and that grandma’s only daughter.

Villager Captain: We don’t even know if they’re still alive.

The young man spoke until his voice faded. The hands that hung on his sides were tightly clenched, like he was trying to control his emotions.

Villager Captain: Like us, lots and lots of villages and cities have been destroyed by it in the past several days.

Villager Captain: Those attacked by it can only flee in search of a temporary safe place.

Villager Captain: We…

Luke: … I’m sorry for making you recall such horrible things.

The young knight lowered his head in apology.

Luke: On my journey, I’ve also heard lots about its terrible actions.

Luke: When I saw you all from far away, I thought you were all normal passersby. I didn’t think…

Villager Captain: It’s alright. We do have to learn to face this eventually.

Villager Captain: Although, Sir Knight, why are you looking for that dragon?

Luke: Because…

A flash of desolation appeared on the knight’s face.

Luke: Because I’m looking for someone who is incredibly important to me.

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

[Flashback]

Fortune-Telling Location

The fortune-teller fiddled playfully with the crystal ball in her hands. The lights floating in the air moved as she did.

With a sliver of curiosity on her features, she lifted her gaze and looked over her visitor, then placed her hands piously in front of her chest.

Fortune-teller: Esteemed Sir Knight, may I ask why you are here?

Luke: …

The knight’s rigid body leaned forward slightly, an unconcealable urgency and distress in his eyes.

Luke: I want to find someone. She’s vanished, and I have no idea where she is.

Fortune-teller: Oh? Find someone? Who might it be?

Luke: Someone… that grew up with me since childhood.

Fortune-teller: Someone that grew up with you?

Luke: Yes.

He released a deep sigh.

Luke: It’s been eight years since the start of the war.

Luke: The day I left for battle, I promised her that I would return home safely and live with her forever, never to leave again.

Luke: But after the war ended and I returned to the village, all that welcomed me was an empty house.

Luke: I asked everyone around about where she went, but they all said that she suddenly vanished one day.

Luke: Only after did I find out that everyone had thought that I’d died in battle.

Luke: She…

The knight grasped tight on the longsword in his hands. The ruby on the hilt flashed faintly in the darkness.

The fortune-teller leaned against the table, holding her chin with her hand.

Fortune-teller: Have you ever thought that she just couldn’t keep waiting anymore, or that she might have moved elsewhere because she thought you were dead?

Luke: She wouldn’t. We’ve lived together for so many years. I know best about what sort of person she is.

Luke: I know that even if I made her sad or if everyone said I was dead…

Luke: As long as she hasn’t seen my corpse, she won’t give up, and she’ll keep waiting for me…

Luke: … Something must have happened for her to choose to leave without a farewell.

Luke: So, I want to find her. I want to know what exactly happened.

The young knight’s voice gradually weakened, until it was nearly inaudible.

The fortune-teller tittered quietly.

Fortune-teller: I understand. Then, please wait a moment—

She placed her hand on the crystal ball. As the lights and shadows drifted, an image of a dragon occupying the plains gradually appeared.

Luke: This is…?

Fortune-teller: Do you know of the legend of the evil dragon?

Luke: Evil dragon?

Fortune-teller: Yes. This dragon runs amok over the continent, scattering destruction and annihilation everywhere…

Fortune-teller: Its evil reputation is now common knowledge among all people.

Luke: But what does that have to do with her?

Fortune-teller: I am unsure of the exact connection it has to her, but based on the image in the crystal ball…

Fortune-teller: You just need to kill the dragon and obtain the treasure chest it protects to discover the way to find her.

Luke: …

Luke: Are you sure?

Fortune-teller: Of course. My divinations have never been wrong. If not, Sir Knight…

The fortune-teller unconsciously knocked a few times on the crystal ball, and a clear sound reverberated in the room.

Fortune-teller: Then you wouldn’t have come to find me, correct?

Luke: … They say that you are the greatest fortune-teller on the continent, and that there’s nothing you don’t know.

Fortune-teller: Which is even more reason for you to believe me, no?

Luke: …

The knight nodded ponderously.

Luke: I understand. Where is the dragon right now?

Fortune-teller: That’s for you to find out.

Fortune-teller: However, there is something that you must think over first.

Fortune-teller: You are a brave and martially skilled knight, but the path ahead may be much more dangerous than you imagine.

Fortune-teller: Even if so, will you still proceed?

Luke: Yes, I must.

Fortune-teller: Even if the price it requires is your everything?

[Flashback end]

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Luke: So I can only do as the fortune-teller instructed, travelling as I search for clues on the dragon.

Villager Captain: It seems like the person you’re looking for… must have been captured by the dragon too.

When he finished listening to the knight’s story, the captain gave a quick conclusion.

Villager Captain: The young lady you’re looking for isn’t the only one. In the past while, that dragon has already captured many good girls.

Villager Captain: Many noble ladies and wives in the city weren’t even spared.

Luke: Then… has anyone ever returned among those who were captured?

Villager B: No – no one has ever seen them again after they were taken.

Villager B: Whether the dragon has hurt them, whether they’re still alive, or where they’re kept… no one knows anything.

Luke: No one knows anything, huh…

Luke: If no one knows, that means there’s still hope, right?

The knight suddenly lifted his head, looking firmly at the villagers.

Part 2

Forest

In the forest, the young knight faced the villagers, his gaze firm.

Luke: If no one knows, that means there’s still hope, right?

Villager B: This…

Looking at the villagers’ somewhat hesitant expressions, the knight smiled slightly.

Luke: I understand your concerns, but to me, as long as there is still one thread of opportunity, I will definitely not give up.

Luke: So…

Luke: Please, do any of you know anything at all about the dragon?

Villager Captain: …

The villagers looked at each other. The young captain tilted his head as if trying to recall something.

Villager Captain: I don’t know much about the dragon, but…

Villager Captain: Three days ago, when I was fleeing the village, I think I saw that dragon flying towards the highest mountain peak on the northeast of this forest.

Luke: The peaks in the northeast…

The knight looked towards the direction that the villager captain was pointing towards. He could vaguely see the shape of a mountain peak there.

Villager Captain: Yes, but that mountain is farther from here than it looks.

Villager Captain: Plus, there’s also a path full of thorns at the end of this forest that normal people can’t get through at all.

Villager Captain: Currently, not many people have gone there, so I can’t be sure if the dragon is actually there.

Luke: Is that so… but it’s worth a try.

Villager B: Uh… I’ve also heard a little about the dragon.

The formerly irritable middle-aged man, possibly being moved by the words earlier, hesitated for a moment before he spoke.

Villager B: That dragon probably does live on that mountain peak.

Luke: Are you sure?

Villager B: Yes. Two weeks ago, an artisan from the city went with his brothers there.

Villager B: But several days later, aside from a young man, no one in that group returned.

Villager B: That young man said that they were attacked by that beast on the mountain…

Villager B: But sadly, his wounds were too grave, and he passed away a few days later.

Villager B: After that, no matter how much money the city nobles offered, no one else dared to go put their lives on their line.

Villager B: We also…

The middle-aged man sighed.

Villager B: We’ve… given up already.

Luke: …I understand. Thank you all for giving me so much information.

Luke: It’s not that early anymore, and I need to head for that mountain, so I’ll be heading off.

Villager B: Sir Knight, are you really going to look for that dragon?

Villager B: With how massive and brutish that dragon is, it’ll kill you!

Villager B: You don’t know how that young man who returned…

Luke: Thank you for your concerns, but this is a promise I made with her. No matter how difficult the path forward is…

The young knight looked straight at the group in front of him, his voice firm and resolute.

He spoke each word emphatically, answering the question earlier, yet seeming more like he was telling himself.

Luke: No matter how difficult the path forward is, even if everyone has given up, I will not stop moving forward.

Villager B: …

Villager Captain: …

The villagers fell silent for a moment.

A long moment after, the young captain spoke.

Villager Captain: Sir Knight, since you’ve made your decision to go, we have no reason to continue trying to persuade you.

Villager Captain: The road ahead will be difficult, and defeating the dragon is sure to be no easy task…

Villager Captain: All we can do is to pray that you find the one you love quickly and return safely.

Luke: Thank you, everyone.

The knight made a sincere gesture of courtesy again towards the villagers, then turned around and walked into the depths of the forest.

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Plains

After a long trek, the young knight bypassed that rumoured thorny block and arrived at the wilds outside the forest.

Luke: …

Though it was called the wilds, all the plants had long been burned into crisps. Black dust had settled densely over the rocks.

A massive mountain stood at the edge of his range of vision. A dense black fog lingered over the peak, quiet and strange.

At the foot of the mountain, many volcanoes and short rock mounds created continuous undulations, extending to the horizon.

Luke: …

He lifted his head and looked towards the faraway sky. The red light of the pre-sunset sun was harshly dazzling.

Luke: A precursor to the solar eclipse, huh…

Luke: Maybe it really is as the person before said…

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

[Flashback]

Villager B: Sir Knight, before passing, that person who returned said…

Villager B: On the day of a solar eclipse, it seems like the dragon’s strength will weaken.

Luke: Weaken?

Villager B: Yes, that person kept repeating this before he passed, so I remember it very clearly.

Villager B: If you really must get near it, maybe you can choose this day.

Luke: … Understood.

[Flashback]

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Luke: …

Luke: Based on the appearance of the sun, the eclipse will only start tomorrow…

Luke: The volcanoes around look pretty unstable right now. Now is definitely not the best time to act.

Luke: I’ll build a temporary residence near the forest and wait for a chance.

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Temporary Residence

In the wooden hut, the knight was in the middle of pre-battle preparations.

Luke: …

He cleaned his sword in the firelight. When his gaze brushed over the ruby on the hilt, he fell into a momentary trance.

Luke: …

Luke: Soon, I’ll be able to see you again.

Luke: Right?

Luke: …

In the empty room, the only response he received was the crackling of burning firewood.

The young knight lowered his head.

The emotions that he had continuously restrained quietly trickled out where no one could hear, under the comfort of the moonlight.

Luke: I’m sorry… I couldn’t contact you even once for so long…

Luke: You must have been so worried during then…

Luke: …

Luke: I wonder how you’re doing right now, and if you’ve encountered any danger…

Luke: Were you scared, facing that dragon alone? Were you injured?

Luke: Don’t be scared, I’ll save you very soon.

The wind blew past soundlessly. In the quiet hut, the knight’s voice became clearer and clearer.

It seemed as if a burning flame had ignited in his eyes. The moonlight shone in, casting light over the entirety of the room.

Luke: We promised that no matter what happened, you wouldn’t leave, and we’d always be together…

Luke: I won’t let you bear everything on your own anymore.

Luke: It’ll be tomorrow… wait for me.

He smiled, his fingertips brushing over his own reflection in the ruby.

Luke: Goodnight.

The knight placed his sword by his side and sank into a shallow sleep.

Just like all the nights in the past many years.

Part 3

Garrison Camp

Troop Leader: Hey, Luke, you returned with perfect timing.

Troop Leader: Just finished bringing over the new delivery of rations. I brought you the letter from the one at your home.

When he saw the person who was placing the letter on his bed, the knight shook his head helplessly.

Luke: Leader, we’re still in the troops right now. Even if you want to address her…

Troop Leader: Alright, alright. The letter that your wife sent, does that work?

Luke: We haven’t gotten married yet…

Troop Leader: Hahahahaha—

Troop Leader: Hey, honestly though, Miss MC really does treat you well.

Troop Leader: I have no idea how she managed to get that many rations and letters sent over here.

Troop Leader: If I remember right, she’s just a commoner, right? The type without even a fief. Tsk tsk tsk, she really is good.

As he teased him, the leader came up to the side of the bed, jokingly bumping against the young knight’s shoulder.

Troop Leader: Luke, I feel like she’s even more proactive than you. Bring out your knight’s spirit already!

Troop Leader: Though we can’t contact the outside world, I’m cheering you on inside, yeah?

Luke: Thanks, leader.

Luke: Although there’s something you’ve gotten wrong. Though I can’t send her replies…

He layered the letters together, placing them in the closest spot to his heart in his armour.

Luke: This is my answer to her. My heart is always with her.

Luke: The day the war ends, I will return to her side, safe and sound.

Luke: When that time comes, I won’t leave her ever again.

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Forest

Luke: …

When he saw the multiple letters in front of him, the young knight sunk into his memories.

To prepare for the nearing battle, he came to the riverside at dawn to change the medicines on the wounds he received in the war.

Luke: Back then, I thought that I would be able to reunite with you after the war ended.

Luke: We’d then be able to be like thousands of other normal people, living out our lives healthily and safely.

Luke: But I never thought…

He couldn’t help grasping tight on the letter papers.

Luke: Did you know that during those eight years, I kept thinking about you over and over, speaking on my own, just like this?

Luke: I remember every single thing you wrote to me about.

Luke: You said that the neighbouring auntie’s puppy stepped all over the rose garden at the doorway again.

Luke: You said that the honey that a friend gave you was very sweet, and you wanted to see the bee yard too, but you didn’t go because you knew I wouldn’t agree.

Luke: And so much more… I’ve remembered every single thing perfectly.

Luke: I… really… miss you.

The knight couldn’t help covering his face with his hand, as certain crystalline things fell slowly between his fingers.

A few minutes later, he took a deep breath, then put down his hand.

Luke: This is bad, I lost control of my emotions for a moment.

Luke: I wasn’t even that sad last night, but maybe it’s because I saw you in my dreams again, so I…

Luke: Now isn’t the time to be sentimental. I’ve got to bolster myself to face the upcoming battle.

The sunlight shone into the forest, past the gaps between the swaying leaves, falling dappled on the knight’s armour.

Far away, the sun displayed a light that was different from normal.

Luke: Is it coming…

He quickly put on his clothes and grasped onto his sword again.

Luke: Wait for me.

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Plains

Because he had already crossed over the forest once, the knight arrived at the plains much faster than before.

Clouds smothered the originally-blue skies. The roars of the dragon resounded nonstop at the horizon, and the air was heavy enough to make breathing difficult.

Luke: …

Suddenly, the roars of the dragon became unusually clear. A massive black shadow rushed down from the mountain peak, gradually nearing the centre of the plains.

Luke: !!!

Luke: This is my chance!

The knight immediately broke into a sprint towards the black shadow.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

The moment he arrived at the centre of the plains, the dragon was landing with two young villagers in its claws.

The two people tossed on the round tumbled a few times. Tears covered their faces, and their hands were tightly clasped.

Luke: !!!

Luke: Run!

The knight threw a wooden gun towards the dragon, then yanked out the dagger at his waist and threw it backhandedly on the ground near the forest.

He loaded an arrow as he sprinted towards the dragon.

Luke: Take that dagger and get out through the forest now!

Luke: I’ve left markers on the path. Follow those!

Female Villager: O-okay… tha-thank you!

The pitiful villagers tremblingly picked up the dagger and ran towards the forest as they supported each other.

They passed by the young man, kicking up sand and stone. The two sides of the battlefield changed in a flash.

Luke: …

The knight did not look back to the already faraway villagers. He calmly set his hands on the bow.

The dragon roared furiously at him, spitting a ball of fire.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: …

The knight stepped swiftly off the rocks in front of him, resolutely loosing an arrow towards the dragon, sidestepping the close call of the fire.

Luke: This won’t do. It’s too fast.

Luke: I won’t be able to dodge at all with speeds like that…

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: !!!

Without giving the knight room to think, the dragon launched its second attack.

It looked again at the person in front of it and spat out a large amount of fire. The flickering firelight lit up the entire desolate plains.

The knight dodged the attack. The winds surged, the glint of the blade shone, and the surroundings continuously heated up.

Luke: …

Luke: This is how strong it is when it’s weakened?

Luke: If this keeps going, I’ll lose all my footholds.

Luke: What do I do…

His brow wrinkled tightly, looking at the dragon that had built up its power and was waiting to attack again. His hands held his hilt tight—

Evil Dragon: Roar—

The dragon opened its mouth wide, flying towards the young man.

Rocks were sent flying from the intense movements of the two opponents. The knight planted his feet on the shards of rock, both of his hands gripping his longsword.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: Want to kill me? Keep dreaming!

As if he couldn’t hear the dragon’s roars at all, he was completely focused on looking for a chance to attack.

Luke: If it’s the instant before it breathes fire… as long as I grab that chance…

Luke: If I can strike your vitals…

Luke: I’ll still have a chance!

Evil Dragon: Roar—

The dragon threw back its head, releasing a long roar towards the skies.

Luke: Now!

The knight lifted the sword and sprinted up to the dragon, slashing down on the dragon’s neck with all his strength.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Blood sprayed, and the massive creature struggled, writhing, and finally spread its wings, flying off towards the heights.

Luke: Don’t even think about escaping!

The young man ran up, and three arrows cut through the air.

Howling winds blew as the eclipse fully set in. On the faraway peaks, the contours of a black castle could suddenly be seen.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

The dragon dodged the arrows, roaring in pain, then escaped in flight towards the faraway castle.

Luke: It all ends here.

The young knight discarded his longbow and gripped at his sword, planning to chase after the dragon.

However, right then, a pattern of lights shone from the astrolabe he was carrying.

He froze for a moment and thought back on what the fortune-teller had told him before—

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

[Flashback]

Fortune-Telling Location

Fortune-Teller: Wait.

Fortune-Teller: Keep this with you.

The fortune-teller called out to the young man who was on the verge of leaving and handed a metal astrolabe to him.

Luke: This is…?

Fortune-Teller: If the astrolabe starts flashing, it’s a warning from me to stop fighting immediately.

Luke: … I am well aware of when I should stop.

Fortune-Teller: Sir Knight, you do indeed have lots of fighting experience.

Fortune-Teller: But I am the only one who can help you, so trust me, alright?

Luke: …

[Flashback end]

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Luke: …

Luke: Ouch…

The knight frowned in pain, as if he had finally come to his senses from the tense atmosphere, and looked over himself out of habit.

Luke: !!!

The dark armour had long been stained in blood, and some of the parts that were exposed were covered in wounds of all sizes.

Luke: I was… injured this badly?

Luke: Sure enough… that dragon’s strength…

He ultimately decided to stop.

Part 4

Temporary Residence

The knight closed the door to the residence.

He leaned on the wall, like an injured little animal.

Luke: How could this be…

Luke: Is the difference in strength between me and that dragon that big?

Luke: How am I going to save her at this point… I…

The astrolabe beside him shone again. Then, after a flash of white light at the doorway, the fortune-teller pushed open the door.

Luke: It’s you?

Fortune-Teller: Sir Knight, I hope you have been well since our last meeting.

The fortune-teller looked over the person in front of her, her eyes squinting slightly.

Fortune-Teller: Looks like you listened to what I told you. Well done.

Luke: …

Fortune-Teller: This expression… were you not willing to give up?

Luke: None of your business.

Fortune-Teller: None of my business… haha, do you remember what I said back then?

Luke: …

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

[Flashback]

Fortune-Teller: You are a brave and martially skilled knight, but the path ahead may be much more dangerous than you imagine.

Fortune-Teller: Even if so, will you still proceed?

Luke: Yes, I must.

Fortune-Teller: Even if the price it requires is your everything?

[Flashback end]

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Luke: …

Fortune-Teller: Has reality now changed your mind?

Luke: No. No matter when, I will not change my mind.

Fortune-Teller: Will not change? Then… what can you do?

Fortune-Teller: You must have realized the natural difference in strength between you and the dragon from battling.

Fortune-Teller: It looked like you won the battle, but what are the results?

Fortune-Teller: Even while it was weakened during the solar eclipse, the only effective attack you landed was that single slash.

Fortune-Teller: While you…

The fortune-teller looked at the young knight’s right arm, mottled with blood and some burn marks.

Fortune-Teller: You’re covered in wounds already. How much longer can you hold on for?

Luke: …

Luke: I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t give up. I must get that treasure chest and find her.

Luke: I don’t want to think about anything else.

Fortune-Teller: … Is it worth it?

The fortune-teller went silent for a moment, then asked this question suddenly.

Luke: It is.

Luke: I promised her that I’d return to her, that I’d safely tell her that everything had ended, that we would never be apart from then on.

Luke: I think about her every day, and I look forward to seeing her again every day. I’ve reread each of the letters she sent too many times to count.

Luke: She is my everything. I won’t just give up like this.

Fortune-Teller: … So you plan to seek out that dragon again?

Luke: Yes, and I don’t only plan to find it…

Luke: As you said, I will defeat and kill it, no matter what the price is that I must pay.

Fortune-Teller: … I understand.

Fortune-Teller: Then let me tell you one more thing.

Luke: ???

Fortune-Teller: Do you know why that dragon always flies towards that castle?

Luke: Do you mean that the treasure chest is…

Fortune-Teller: Yes. It’s because the box that it values the most is in the castle…

Fortune-Teller: When it is attacked, it will naturally return there.

Fortune-Teller: In ten days, the eclipse will end, and the sky will return to normal.

Fortune-Teller: The skies before daybreak are always the darkest…

Fortune-Teller: In ten days, when the sky is lightening, the dragon’s power will be at its weakest.

Fortune-Teller: It will also lose the ability to breathe fire.

Fortune-Teller: If you must go, go on that day.

Luke: !!!

Luke: Thank you.

Fortune-Teller: No need for thanks, but Sir Knight, let me give you one last warning.

Fortune-Teller: The path you have chosen is full of the unknown. I hope you will not regret this in the future.

Luke: I am sure that I won’t.

Fortune-Teller: That would be best.

The fortune-teller looked at the knight, smiled strangely, then left.

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

After the knight cleaned his wounds, he finally had some time to rest.

Like usual, he stood his sword by his side. When he looked over the ruby on the hilt, he suddenly stopped.

Luke: This ruby… you gave it to me.

He gently stroked it, his warm breath leaving a mist on the gem with his movements.

Luke: I remember on the day I set out, you stood at the very front of those who were sending off the troops, a total mess of tears.

Luke: I was the one who was leaving, but you were even more agitated than me.

Luke: You kept reminding me to take care of myself, to not force myself.

Luke: Then I held your face with a smile, telling you that it wasn’t like I wouldn’t return.

Luke: …

The knight suddenly turned away.

Only when he was able to smile again did he turn his head back, as if everything before had just been an illusion.

Luke: Before I left, you took off a ruby from the mirror you always used and embedded it on my sword.

Luke: You said that a highly skilled person gave you that mirror, and it had magical power.

Luke: Especially these rubies, which represent inextinguishable fire and burning vitality.

Luke: We made a promise together, and then you watched me mount the horse, but I never looked back.

Luke: I thought that I would be able to see you soon after the war ended.

Luke: But now that I think about it, I should have taken one more look at you back then.

A slight bitterness appeared on the young knight’s face, but it was soon replaced by his usual expression.

He laid down on the bed, looking at the fluid moonlight in the sky.

Luke: Did you know that there’s something that I didn’t tell you back then?

Luke: Rubies don’t only represent fervour and life. They also represent love.

Luke: I told myself that after the war, I would confess to you, and let this ruby bear witness to our love.

Luke: So, please wait a little more for me.

Luke: There are still ten days.

Luke: No matter what the price is, I will be the victor.

The knight mumbled as he slowly closed his eyes.

Outside the hut, a black mist rose, then vanished in the silence. The moment that the smoke dissipated, a woman’s quiet laugh seemed to sound from deep within.

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Plains

Ten days later, as the fortune-teller said, the young knight made his way towards the old castle.

But he did not successfully reach his destination, because on the plains under the castle…

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: …

Luke: Are you here to obstruct me?

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: Looks like the fortune-teller was telling the truth. The treasure chest really is in the castle.

Luke: So it must also be true that you’re at your weakest today.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

As if in response to the knight’s words, the dragon snarled in fury. Its massive claws beat heavily on the ground, drawing up plumes of dust.

The knight retreated a few steps, held up his longsword, and stood in battle stance.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: …

Luke: You sure look enthusiastic.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: Perfect, then. Let’s have a fierce battle this time.

Luke: This is the last chance. I won’t let you escape again.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: …

At the edge of the sky, the black sun that had persisted for ten days started to “move”. The light of tiny stars shone through the air, casting light on the person and dragon.

The knight lifted his sword.

Luke: Let’s start.

Dust flew as the shining sword blade cut through. Both human and dragon soon were immersed in intensive battle.

Their battlegrounds shifted several times, from the plains to the mountain peak, finally arriving to the front of the castle’s door.

The eclipse was slowly retreating, and the dark sky was beginning to show its original hue.

Compared to last time, the battle this time lasted for a very, very long time.

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Old Castle on the Peak

Luke: Urk…

The knight brandished his longsword, pushing himself to block the dragon’s attack.

The originally flat field had already been ruined to the point where it was difficult to stand on. Thunder boomed intermittently as dark clouds accumulated above.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

The massive dragon moved again.

Luke: Ow…

Luke: …

This time, the knight’s resistance started to become sluggish.

Scorching blood sprayed out. He lost his footing, falling brutally onto the ground.

Luke: Ugh…!

Luke: No… I can’t fall yet…

He stabbed the longsword into the ground with difficulty and stood staggeringly up again.

He looked at his enemy, his bloodied, dirtied face full of resolution.

Luke: Ha… what sort of battle is this? Just a bunch of mutual killing attempts…

Luke: But did you think I’d be scared? Stop kidding around.

Luke: You have no idea what sorts of emotions I put behind each slash.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: Although, you don’t need to know, because…

The knight suddenly brandished his sword and rushed at the massive dragon.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

For an instant, the heavens and earth shook. Dust and sand flew as the world was submerged in chaos.

Only the knight’s shouts cut through the air, transmitting into each and every crevice.

Luke: Even though – even though there’s no way you can hear this right now…

Luke: But, I’m sorry… I’m sorry!

Luke: I’m sorry for leaving you all alone for these eight years. I’m sorry for letting you face the dragon yourself after the eight years.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: Do you know how scared I was when I returned to the village, yet didn’t see you at all…

Luke: I was scared that I would never see you again. I was scared that I couldn’t save you…

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: Let me see you again, alright?

Luke: Even one instant, one second is enough!

Bang--!

After an enormous sound of collision, the young man was knocked through the air onto the ground, sliding to a faraway cliff, to the very edge.

But this time, it seemed like he didn’t have the strength to stand again.

Luke: …

Luke: Does it… all end here…

Luke: But I… you…

Boom—

A downpour of rain suddenly started.

Part 5

A downpour suddenly started.

Rain struck against the ground audibly, falling on the young knight’s body, flowing towards where the blood and water had accumulated.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: Am I just… going to lose like this?

The knight couldn’t control his gasps.

Luke: But…

Luke: I still… can’t bear to give in.

Luke: I still haven’t found her… I still haven’t seen her… I …

His voice was full of an unrestrained frustration and helplessness.

He tried, or even forced, himself to keep his heavy eyelids open.

Luke: …

Silence suddenly descended.

It seemed like the rain had weakened, and a small sound was resounding through the air.

Luke: !!!

The knight suddenly opened his eyes wide.

Luke: Is that you?! Is that you, MC?!

He struggled, reaching out into the emptiness.

The black mist suddenly surged over from all directions, winding around the knight’s hand, as if in a gentle “embrace”.

The knight suddenly smiled.

Luke: Are you trying to comfort me?

Luke: Mhmm, I’m not scared. Whether they’re happy things or painful things…

Luke: I don’t care about any of that anymore.

He slowly stood his sword upright, staggeringly standing up.

Evil Dragon: Roar—

Luke: I will… keep going until the final moment…

Luke: MC, you are my strength, and I will fight for you until the end of my life.

Evil Dragon: …

The dragon’s movements suddenly stopped.

It looked at the human in front of it without moving in the slightest, and it seemed as if a light had flashed in its terrifying eyes.

Luke: …

Luke: Now!

The knight brandished his sword for the last time, stabbing it deeply into the heart of the dragon.

This time, the dragon did not struggle nor attack back. It remained in its spread-winged posture as it toppled with a boom.

The turbid blood flowed out from the wound, and soon, its breathing stopped completely.

Luke: H-has it ended?

The knight slowly walked up to the dragon’s corpse. After repeated confirmations, he released a sigh, as if he had been freed from a heavy burden.

Luke: Next… I just need to find the dragon’s treasure chest to find you. Wait for me.

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Old Castle Interior

The knight pushed open the door to the castle.

Just as the fortune-teller said, there was a treasure chest placed in the centre of the large room.

Luke: …

He knelt with one knee to the ground, brushing off the dust on the chest.

The moment he opened the chest saw what was inside, he displayed a shocked expression.

Luke: This is…?

A mirror inlaid with ruby sat quietly on the top of the chest.

The knight reached out with both hands, carefully holding the item in front of him.

Luke: Isn’t this the one you usually use…

Luke: Ah!

Suddenly, the gem on the mirror flashed with a dazzling light.

As if induced, the ruby on the hilt of the longsword beside the knight started to shine too.

They shone together, blindingly bright.

Luke: …

Amidst the light, multiple images gradually appeared in the mirror, like a light carousel—

Luke: !!!

In that familiar village, the young woman suddenly lifted her head as she trimmed the plants, her scissors falling onto the ground.

Her face was full of shock and disbelief. Tears slid down her face, finally vanishing.

Luke: !!!

She then left the village on a journey. She walked to all the ends of the world, as if in search of something.

She traversed deserts and snowy mountains, wearing out pairs and pairs of shoes, and her originally fair skin gradually became rough.

But on her face, all there was, was day after day of ever-increasing defeat and pain.

Luke: No… I’m here, I’m still alive! I’m right here!

Finally, she arrived at this castle.

Seeming like she’d lost all hope, she collapsed on the found. Tears and blood fell, droplet after droplet, on the ruby of the mirror’s upper part.

Then, a light suddenly flashed, and the girl in the mirror vanished.

The black mist filled the mirror, and a vicious dragon flew out of the castle.

Luke: !!!

The knight’s entire body trembled.

He dropped the mirror and sprinted out the door, as if he had gone mad.

Luke: No… not possible… no way… it can’t be…

Luke: How could you have been the dragon?! No way, I couldn’t have killed you…

At some point, the storm had started to rage again.

The figure of the dragon had already vanished. What replaced it was a figure that the knight was as familiar with as could be.

Luke: No way… why…

Luke: Why!!!

He held the girl’s corpse in his arms, then howled in despair like a wild animal.

The girl’s body was as covered in wounds as the knight’s was.

The rain struck their bodies, rushing frigidly over each of their wounds, as if mocking them.

Luke: No, no way…

Luke: This isn’t real… this isn’t real…

Luke: MC--!

The knight held the girl tightly. His throat was already raw, and all the light had left his eyes.

Luke: Is that why you stopped right then? Did you recognize me?

Luke: Why didn’t you escape? Why did you wait for me to kill you?

Luke: Please open your eyes, alright, answer me!!

Luke: Why?! Why?!

Luke: Ah--!!!

The rain descended in torrents, finally trickling down to the ruby, which had lost all its shine.

Part 6

The storm raged, and the knight’s heartrending cries never once stopped.

The air distorted for an instant. Right after, the fortune-teller stepped out from nothing, walking up to the sobbing Luke.

Fortune-Teller: Pitiful Sir Knight, you still ended up at this point.

Luke: !!!

Luke: It’s you… it’s you!

Fortune-Teller: It is indeed me, Sir Knight, the one who pointed you down this path.

Luke: Pointed me down this path… right, you know everything!

Luke: Let me ask you, did you already know that she was the dragon?!

Fortune-Teller: Yes, I know everything.

The fortune-teller looked at the young man, her voice gentle and tantalizing.

Luke: Then why did you have me find it - have me kill her?!

Fortune-Teller: I had you kill her? That’s quite an unfair accusation.

Fortune-Teller: I am a mere fortune-teller. All I can see is an established truth.

Fortune-Teller: This is her and your fate – you two are destined for an ending of death.

Luke: !!!

Luke: No way! What fate, what ending – I don’t believe any of it! There must be a way to save her!

Luke: I’ll keep looking. I’ll keep looking. I will definitely find it. I will definitely find it!

The young man clutched at the corpse in his arms and forced himself to stand.

The ground was slippery. He fell one time after another, yet he stood again, one time after another.

Fortune-Teller: …

The fortune-teller stroked the crystal ball, looking at the girl who was gradually getting colder in the rain.

Fortune-Teller: There is a way that might be able to save her, but…

Luke: What is it!

The young man shouted hysterically, but his voice was already so hoarse that he was nearly incoherent.

The fortune-teller paused, then looked at him again, her lips curving slightly.

Fortune-Teller: Simple. Make a deal with the devil, using your life.

Luke: …Deal?

Fortune-Teller: Indeed. As long as you offer your heart, she will be able to live again.

Fortune-Teller: But she will lose all memories of you…

Fortune-Teller: Perhaps she will love someone else and live a happy life, or perhaps…

Luke: What do I do?

The knight cut her words short.

Luke: Can you bear witness to the contract?

Fortune-Teller: … Of course.

Luke: Tell me what I need to do. We start immediately.

Fortune-Teller: … Alright.

The knight’s resoluteness far exceeded the fortune-teller’s expectations. After a simple explanation of the ritual, he finished his preparations.

Fortune-Teller: Will you not say any last words to her?

The fortune-teller placed the crystal ball in front of her, looking towards the silent knight.

Luke: …

The knight lowered his head, looking at the girl in his arms.

Luke: I never would have thought that our last meeting would be like this…

Luke: But at least you can continue to live…

The corners of the knight’s mouth lifted with difficulty. He reached out, pushing aside a lock of hair aside on the girl’s face.

Like a deep, yet wordless, farewell.

Luke: There are some things that I didn’t have the time to say before, but it shouldn’t be too late to say them now…

Luke: I…

The knight closed his eyes.

He slowly lowered his head, solemnly and gently kissing the hair of the girl in his arms.

Luke: Goodbye, MC. I pray that your life from today onwards will be happy and joyful.

He looked at her face, looking as if she were in a deep slumber, and said this to her for the very first and very last time—

Luke: I love you.

Right after he spoke, he stabbed his sword into his chest.

Bright red blood covered the marks that had dried on the sword. Thunder boomed as rain fell in torrents.

His heartbeat’s sound gradually stopped.

Fortune-Teller: …

Fortune-Teller: Hahahaha, hahahahaha—

The fortune-teller suddenly burst into laughter.

A black mist gradually wrapped around her. Her body and clothes changed form, finally turning into the form of a witch.

Witch: Hahahaha, what fate, what ending, what deal with the devil? Utterly foolish, truly, ridiculously foolish!

Witch: Although… thank you both. I found this drama quite the satisfying watch!

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

MC: …

My consciousness gradually awakened.

MC: Luke! Don’t do anything stupid!

MC: She’s obviously doing this deliberately! Don’t get tricked by her!

I tried my best to call out his name, yet I anxiously noticed that I could not even make the slightest of sounds.

MC: Luke!

✼ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ✼

Luke’s Home, Third Floor

*Tira’s note: The date itself said it was the second floor, but his living quarters (the background shown) are on the third floor, not the second.

MC: Luke!

I sprung awake from my dream.

And because of this tiny movement, Luke instinctively popped off the sofa, standing upright on the floor.

I lifted my head and looked hazily at Luke, and my consciousness gradually returned to reality.

MC: …

Luke: …

We looked wordlessly at each other for a few seconds, then couldn’t help laughing together.

Then, Luke gently sat back down beside me.

Luke: What happened? Did you have a nightmare?

MC: Mhmm…

As I gave an affirmative, I moved my body a little, realizing that my arms and legs had become a little numb. My chest also felt somewhat stuffy.

MC: (Huh, was I sleeping in a weird pose? I don’t think so…)

Just as I was thinking, Luke started to rotate his shoulders too.

Luke: Why are my arms this sore all of a sudden… I’m sure that I slept pretty well…

MC: …

Luke: Huh? What’s the matter?

MC: I figured it out…

Luke: What?

The only reason why our arms were so sore… probably was because Luke was holding me the whole time while we had an afternoon nap.

MC: (So that nightmare… probably also happened because of this…)

I felt both a little frustrated and amused, and seeing Luke’s dubious expression, I couldn’t help laughing aloud.

Luke: What’s the matter?

MC: Nothing, I just hadn’t woken up completely from my dream yet.

Luke: Alright, you’re fine now. I’m here with you.

Luke: If you’re still scared, then should I sing a song for our great lawyer?

MC: Sure!

I knew Luke was just teasing me, but I felt like either way, it would be pretty nice to listen to him sing for me again.

Luke: Then sit comfy first.

MC: Mhmm.

I shifted over a bit, and Luke sat down beside me, covering us up again with the blanket.

Then, he gently wrapped his arms around me.

Luke: Then, what does the great lawyer want to listen to? Twinkle Twinkle again?

MC: Yep!

I looked up at him, and then Luke started to tap my shoulder like a metronome as he began singing.

Luke: Twinkle, twinkle, little star.

Luke: How I wonder what you are…

MC: …

As Luke sang, my emotions gradually calmed down.

Amidst this relaxation, I couldn’t help thinking of the scene in that dream again.

MC: (A ten-day eclipse… man, the weird stuff I come up with.)

MC: (Did the earth stop spinning or did the sun just check out of work? So ridiculous…)

MC: (Plus, how could Luke be tricked by someone like that…)

MC: (Although…)

Though that was what I was thinking, I still knew…

Just like the knight in my dream, the love and protection Luke gave to me was always that silent, yet so etched into his very being.

But unlike the dream, we were now walking towards a happy future together.

I would hold his hand tightly, and I would never let go.

MC: …

The afternoon sunlight pervaded the room, and a slight breeze blew past. Everything was as great as always.

On the storage cabinet on the side, the mirror and sword model were stacked together. Under the sunlight, the rubies flashed faintly.

They looked somewhat familiar.

Phonecall

Hi! Good morning, are you up yet?

Ah… I bought a medieval-themed game that looks really interesting, so I wanted to ask if you wanted to play it together.

This game also has dual-player co-op mode. We can hit new game records together, just like in the past.

The game plot? Seems like a knight went on a quest to slay a dragon to find his missing lover.

I feel like this story’s pretty remarkable, and the animations done for the fights with the dragon in the middle were done really realistically…

Huh, what’s the matter? Why do you have such a pained expression on?

You don’t want to play this game… why? Does the plot make you feel uncomfortable?

Huh?! You had a nightmare with the same plot? And the main characters were you and me?! And we didn’t even get a good ending?!

Pfft… silly, it’s just a dream, don’t take it to be real.

Plus, doesn’t everyone always say that dreams and reality are the opposite?

You saw a bad ending, which means that we’ll have a good ending. So don’t be afraid, it’s all fine.

Hm… if you still don’t feel at ease, then how about we work together to beat this game?

I’ll prove to you that we’ll definitely reach the Happy Ending!

#Tears of Themis #tears of themis translations #xia yan #luke pearce #未定事件簿 #tot spoilers #tot luke #suffering whiplash and sugar #the xia yan fan experience

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