#which will be a kelpie at some point

[suis0u]

New WIPs, sketches and stuff.

[horridbeaftf]

I suspect hair is really only important to Marcille’s magic because of who Marcille is as a person. In that maintaining and decorating it helps her to better embody her own Self, and so gives her more to work with. It matters that Senshi’s hair is covered in blood and fat because her soul itself rebels at touching something so yucky. She has to neaten him up a bit first

[parasolcopyability]

I need to give my touchstarved oc a name alreadu

[swampjawn]

Dungeon Meshi Episode 7 was super interesting from an adaptation standpoint - this'll be a little different from what I usually write about (though I do still talk about the animation in the full video).

Studio Trigger have never done a straight-up manga adaptation before - and led by Yoshihiro Miyajima, a big fan of the manga who pushed hard for the adaptation to get made, and who has never directed a full series before, it was unclear if they'd be able to find the right balance between a simple panel-for-panel recreation and making something that's completely different.

And in the first few episodes, you could really feel the tension between the influence of a cautious young creative with great respect for the source material, and a studio with a unique established visual style. It kinda seemed like they were ping-ponging willy-nillily between the two sides of that spectrum.

But this episode showed that Miyajima (and series writer Kimiko Ueno) can take 3 chapters, slice them up and rearrange them into a cohesive-feeling episode while taking into account the differences between screen and page, and using them to their advantage.

Starting with the way the water looks. This line from the manga describes a faint magical glow to the water in this lake and you can see that the cavern fades into darkness above, but Kui's illustration style doesn't really define lighting and shadows very much compared to the cel-drawing style of animation. So the animators took the opportunity to use the water as the light source, and make a whole episode that's lit almost entirely from below. It really gives an otherworldly feeling to this area.

Particularly when the Kelpie shows up, that under-lighting works wonders to define its anatomy within the relatively simple line art.

What do you do when you can't show the immense fuck-off scale of a monster with a beautiful full-page spread like this?

Well you use what you do have: the ability to move the camera instead. This is such a great way to communicate the scale of this thing, AND such a great way to show some of Senshi's anime-original butt-cheeks!

This is one of my favorite shots from this episode - this whole sequence is super hectic, cutting quickly from character to character, but they use tricks like this to keep you from getting confused. This is framed much like it is in the manga, but with the moving image, they're able to use the trajectory of the fish head in the background to lead your eye directly from Chilchuck, right to the point where Senshi pops up in the foreground and transition seamlessly from one character to another!

Now, it's not all good - I am a bit disappointed that they removed Marcille's own Senshi-style soap-making montage, which was the perfect visual representation of the culmination of the character development and understanding built between Senshi and Marcille.

It's a shame to see it go.

I get more into that, what else was cut, and much more in this video where I broke down the entire episode!

Check it out if you feel like it. If you don't, jump in a ditch, cover yourself in leaves and jump out at people as they walk by.

Thanks for reading!

[sunderwight]

Thinking about a crack SV AU where Shen Yuan transmigrates into a horse.

Luckily he is not a normal horse, no! He is a spiritual stallion, a character that was mainly a joke about the novel's genre in PIDW, originally bred on Cang Qiong's beast tamer peak but not actually encountered until Luo Binghe's "raze cultivation society to the ground" phase. At which point there was a subplot about him finding the stallion and letting it loose to run free, as like, an allegorical reference. Occasionally Binghe would find other horses across the years that were obviously descended from that one, as more jokes, until Airplane forgot about the reference and never brought it up again.

Shen Yuan, of course, was always Big Mad that Binghe never got to actually ride this super magical mystical horse, and never got the horsegirl arc he deserved! Where is the man's companion animal? How can someone with nine billion wives and even more nameless underlings be fated for a life of perpetual loneliness??

Naturally, the first thing Shen Yuan does upon figuring out that he's this magic horse is break out of the beast peak and make for Qing Jing. He's not necessarily planning to go bond with the protagonist or anything, but he's not particularly keen to live out his fate as some feral horse that fucks other horses either, and he's extremely valuable so it's unlikely anyone will kill him even if they catch him again. So, might as well take the opportunity to clap eyes on his favorite character before he's doomed to a life of eating hay and whatever, right?

Horse SY manages to arrive on Qing Jing Peak right before the start of the skinner mission, though, just as Ming Fan is telling Luo Binghe that there aren't enough horses. Ning Yingying points out SY and is all oh look, one of the stable hands must have realized the error and brought another, and everyone else is kind of like "uh that is... not a normal horse...?" but then Shen Qingqiu gets impatient and snaps at them to get a move on, and fear of their mercurial shizun overrides everything else to the point where Binghe just clambers desperately onto this mystical saddle-free horse.

Airplane borrowed kelpies for his demon beasts at some point and they are pretty common, so it occurs to Luo Binghe only after he's climbed onto the strange and definitely not normal Horse SY that he might be on the verge of getting carried off and drowned. But SY just kind of rolls with it, and falls into line with the other horses.

Hey, it's an excuse to leave the sect! And practice doing horse stuff! And also, he's not going to buck Luo Binghe off of his back!

Of course as it happens, the specific kind of magical horse that Shen Yuan is comes with a specially bred-for trait where they only bond to one rider. They're usually bred for like, kings and emperors and other highly important figures as status symbols, like magical companion animals but ones with perfectly mundane utilities. He's also got Shadowfax-like stamina and speed, meaning that Airplane can treat this kind of horse as interchangeable with a motorbike, and of course the capacity to cultivate. Which means that when the party finally arrives at their destination, everyone suddenly realizes that Luo Binghe has unwittingly bonded with a horse that's worth a fortune and won't ever let anyone else ride it now.

Shen Qingqiu flips his shit, Shen Yuan bites Shen Qingqiu, Luo Binghe hyperventilates, Ning Yingying gets kidnapped, and the situation basically resolves with Shen Yuan kicking the shit out of the skinner demon in defense of his new BFF the baby protagonist.

Well if he's going to end up letting anyone ride him for the rest of his life, Luo Binghe would be his first choice.

Anyway they get back and Shen Qingqiu is still spitting mad and offers Luo Binghe's head on a platter to the lord of the beast peak, but Beast Peak's people are actually kind of pleased. Like sure it's a little inconvenient, because Luo Binghe is a Qing Jing disciple and not one of theirs, but they were honestly beginning to worry that this stallion wouldn't bond with anyone! It's really hard to manage them when they don't! And SY in particular comes from a long and illustrious lineage that has nearly died out a few times, so they were never planning to sell him off even for a high price anyway. With a rider chosen, the odds of them getting him to cooperate for breeding purposes are a lot higher, plus it will be much easier to take care of him now! Though they will be taking Shen Qingqiu up on his offer of Luo Binghe's time, since "punishment" for this transgression will involve splitting his time between the peaks in order to help take care of SY (all the beast peak disciples are super relieved, apparently before Shen Yuan transmigrated, the horsey original goods was extremely prone to biting and kicking...)

Shen Qingqiu basically tells Luo Binghe not to bother coming back, which fills Binghe with despair, but he gets over it eventually. The beast peak is nice! They give him a cultivation manual as well, in order to help him understand what they do, and it seems that Binghe can understand it a lot better than his QJP one. The peak lord gives him permission to use the dorms as well, since there will probably be times when he has to stay overnight, and no one says much about it when Binghe basically moves in full time. On the books he's still a Qing Jing disciple, but functionally he's a transfer student now. He even sits in on classes and lectures, and a lot of the peak are just under the impression that he was transferred over to their peak in full.

Shen Yuan considers this a big improvement, and expects Luo Binghe to enjoy running around with all the pretty girls on the peak. But Binghe mostly seems to spend his time with him, in fact, asking questions upon questions not only about Shen Yuan's breed, but about his specific background and lineage. The beast peak is overall pretty nice, although sadly it's not full of cool monsters and companion animals as Shen Yuan would have hoped. Mostly the peak specializes in the cultivation world's equivalent of livestock and work animals, training beasts like spirit eagles and horses like himself, and raising animals prized for their meat, organs, bones, or other parts for medicinal, alchemical, or culinary ingredients, or sometimes components for weapons or other spiritual tools. They work the most closely with Qian Cao, Wan Jian, and An Ding.

Being a horse is honestly kind of boring for Shen Yuan, although running is fun, and he at least gets plenty of time to work on his cultivation.

By the time Sha Hualing's invasion happens, he's gotten pretty comfortable in his new state of affairs. Binghe has even figured out that he likes being read to, and has started reading aloud to him from various texts in the evenings! So far no good novels, or even bad trashy novels, but it's better than nothing!

Binghe also takes him for a lot of rides around the peaks (not Qing Jing) which is how they end up caught on Qiong Ding when the rainbow bridge goes down. When Shen Qingqiu tells Luo Binghe to fight, Binghe doesn't even have a weapon at hand.

Actually, he doesn't have a sword at hand.

Turns out having your magical horse kick a demon to death is still pretty effective!

Shen Yuan even manages to avoid getting poisoned too. Rather, Elder Hammer threatens to poison him and Luo Binghe charges at him shouting "stay away from my horse! I'll kill you!" and etc, and does get nicked by the thorns, but only Binghe and Shen Yuan notice and of course the poison doesn't work on Binghe, congrats for unlocking a new hint as to Luo Binghe's mysterious origins!

Yes, Horse SY shows up to help Binghe in the Dream Demon event. He still looks like a horse for it, but it also marks the first time he's able to speak to Luo Binghe, which successfully distracts Luo Binghe from a lot of the tormenting visions of his past because talking magic horse friend has a way of doing that.

So the Dream Demon is like, that's not a normal horse, and Luo Binghe is all "stay away from my horse! I'll kill you!" and Shen Yuan gets knocked out of the dream as usual. Wakes up to Luo Binghe rushing to his stall to check on him and prepare him some nice warm congee and double-check that he can't talk for reals (only in dreams for now, alas).

Anyway Luo Binghe has no reason to hide his demonic cultivation practice from his horse, so Shen Yuan gets to sit in on it as Binghe tries to put Meng Mo's teachings into practice, which he finds super cool. Binghe's normal cultivation also progresses quite a bit, but he's still very much disadvantaged there because the beat peak is only giving him like, half-assed guest disciple status lessons, no personal one-and-one tutelage, and he's unofficially banned from Qing Jing and wouldn't get any help there anyway (apart from Ning Yingying). The beast peak lord isn't really his shizun and Shen Qingqiu isn't going to take Binghe to do things like claim a sword from Wan Jian, either.

Luckily, Binghe can now confer with his horse in his dreams! Shen Yuan has such helpful ideas as compelling various hall masters and combat teachers to dream about their lessons, so that Binghe can insert himself into the form of their students and supplement his tutelage with nighttime training from all around the sect. And also stealing some blank documents from An Ding and forging paperwork to turn over to Wan Jian to make it look like Binghe has permission to claim a spiritual sword without Shen Qingqiu's approval.

What a way to pass the time before the Immortal Alliance Conference!

Horse Shen Yuan would like very much to just carry Luo Binghe away in the opposite direction, thank you, but he does have a system and it is still holding a metaphorical gun to his head about this. Still, there's no force in the world that could keep Shen Yuan in his stable when shit starts to go down, or that could stop him from kicking the snot out of Shen Qingqiu when he tries to throw Binghe into the Abyss. (Binghe's thoughts on the fight: "stay away from my horse! I'll kill you!")

However, Binghe does still get thrown down, and Horse SY runs off whilst weeping crystalline tears of dismay as his mane whips in the wind, imagining a future where a blackened Luo Binghe returns for his revenge arc and symbolically sends his beloved horsie companion away forever to go frolic or some shit, which Shen Yuan is not interested in!

But what can he do? By the time Binghe gets out of the Abyss, his need for a horse will be decidedly minimal. It already went down a bunch when he finally got Zheng Yang (that Binghe somehow almost never flew anywhere on, surely for reasons unrelated to his bond with SY), and with Xin Mo and all his OP talents, even if he did keep Shen Yuan, wouldn't he become as much of a useless background character as countless auxiliary wives in his harem?

No! He won't stand for it! There has to be a way for him to convince even blackened Binghe that Shen Yuan is still the best ride in town!

Luckily, Shen Yuan knows where there are some power-ups that might be able to help him. While he won't touch anything that would be vital for the protagonist, he's more flexible on screwing over random future harem members or side characters, especially when it wouldn't even really harm them all that much. So while Binghe is going through his gauntlet of horrors in the Abyss, Shen Yuan embarks on his own level-up quest to dramatically increase his cultivation, and become more capable of keeping up with Binghe.

When this leads to Shen Yuan being able to take on a human form, he gets really excited, but that's mostly for personal comfort reasons. He can finally hold books again! And talk to people! Who cares if he looks like someone's ponysona gijinka, he can walk over to a stall and order meat buns!

Unicorn form is next, and it's... meh? Mostly it's a boost in his cultivation. The horn looks fun but doesn't really do much.

When he upgrades to being able to take on a pegasus form, now that's really cool. He can fly now! Not only is it crazy good fun, but it also increases his mobility exponentially. Surely riding a flying horse would be more comfortable than balancing on a sword, too?

But that's not enough for his actual goal, he needs to keep going until he finally finds the right bullshit mythical item that will do what he hopes:

Turn him into a dragon!

Unfortunately said bullshit item is in the demon realms, which are a fairly difficult place to navigate as either a horse or a human. Beefing up for the trip takes Shen Yuan just about two years, and requires all of his other upgrades. But he does it, he gets to the demon realms, eats the creatively named Dragon Fruit Plant, and... gets... stuck???

In his new dragon form???

WTF this didn't happen to the random ox that Luo Binghe fed the fruit to in order to create a suitable beast of burden to impress the husband of Wife No.666! Although, thinking about it, maybe it did because it wasn't like the ox ever turned back into an ox afterwards. But Shen Yuan just figured that was because it was a simple beast of burden and saw becoming a dragon as an overall upgrade, why go back? He honestly hadn't really thought about it!

Cue Luo Binghe getting out of the Abyss only to shortly find that a random dragon is following him around. Maybe that just happens here? It doesn't attack him, at least, and he has no time to deal with it (or to sleep) because his first order of business is establishing enough of a foothold in the demon realms to regain access to the human ones, and find out what happened to his horse. And then kill Shen Qingqiu. In that order.

[elains]

Fionn's death, the Bog of Oorid and the Mask

I'm currently on my Sarah J. Maas brainrot era and chatting with my friends earlier, I drew a parallel which soon turned into a deep dive into ACOSF, HoFaS, and some mythology to boot. Worry not, I’ll keep the mythology part to myself first and foremost and this post will mostly revolve around the following: that the current state of the Bog of Oorid is due to Fionn’s death.

Spoilers for House of Flame and Shadow, so be warned. 

In ACOSF, Amren tells us about the Bog of Oorid and how it wasn’t always this evil, accursed place. It used to be a sacred ground, where warriors of the Fae were laid to rest, long ago:

The Bog is a part of the Middle, which is mostly uncharted territory full of dangerous creatures, where Wild Magic runs unbound. A council of Ancient High Lords prohibited any mappings of it. We also learn from House of Flame and Shadow that the Middle was the Daglan's personal hunting grounds, where they unleashed beasts they bred to serve as worthy prey:

We know for a fact that Fionn was in a Marsh - a bog - when he died, with islands and grass and black waters, and we also know that the place was blooming when he was there. Even with the amount of evil and beasts kept in the Middle, the land was still thriving:

This is a sharp contrast to present day ACOTAR. In Silver Flames, the Bog is described as oppressively still and dead, all gnarly, leaflesss branches branches, crumbling trees, thorns. There are no birds, no insects. It's a place of death, of Evil, and it's remarked how it's as if not anything bloomed:

House of Flame and Shadow provides this passage just after Fionn dies:

Also from Flame and Shadow, we knows that the worlds have souls and degrees of sentience, as far as worlds go. Fionn is murdered in a foul act of violence, fueled by nothing but hunger for power by the very people who were supposed to aid him. Fionn, who worked to free the world from the Daglan feeding on its magic. It seems to me that the world was thankful to him for what he did, as it might have also been thankful to Theia.

And you know what's more interesting? That this is where the Mask ends up. We don't know what in the world happened to the Mask after Theia left Prythian; it's not said what she did with neither it nor the crown. Presumably other people got ahold of them (Helion's ancestor?). We don't know where the Crown was, but it's ironic that it ends up where Fionn died.

When approaching the water, Nesta remembers a story her mother told of how a cosuin was killed by Faeries, dragged to the depths and drowned:

Which is actually very similar with how Fionn himself comes to meet his end: bound and gagged and thrown into the water by his wife and general. Shortly after, she meets the Kelpie, who is described as such:

This is also remarkably similar to the creature that ultimately kills Fionn:

This Kelpie speaks to Nesta in the Old Tongue, which hasn't been spoken in fifteen thousand years. It retreated to the Bog thousands of years ago and it was probably the last o his kind. It could very well be the creature that killed Fionn, slain by Nesta, who goes to claim the Mask as he himself did.

Which brings up some questions: how did the Mask end up in the Bog of Oorid? It doesn't seem happenstance that it found its way to a place where death has in its grip and the open grave of the High King. Could it have been Helion's ancestor? His reaction to the mask is strange, visceral in a way the other's aren't. I'm betting that it was Helion's ancestors who took the Mask from Theia and once the power proved too much, discarded it to rest in Oorid.

But the point is that Fionn dies and it's the nail in the coffin for Oorid. The Bog withers to a giant, accursed grave, trapped in a state of perpetual death where nothing blooms.

Therein rests the first and last High King, the evil done to him forever imprinted on the land.

[lovemyromance]

ELs/GAs: "why do you ship Elain with azriel but not Tamlin when Azriel is a torturer he's also an abuser"

That has got to be the stupidest take coming out of this Elain week shit. At this point I think they're just purposefully choosing to act dumb, because I refuse to believe anybody can be this idiotic.

First of all, Azriel torturing people and interrogating people for his job is NOT equivalent to Tamlin abusing Feyre. That is a crazy statement to even try to make. Azriel has a job - which he DOESN'T EVEN LIKE, HAD TO TAKE BECAUSE OF RHYS's Father - and he reluctantly does it. He's not out here committing crimes for the sake of committing crimes.

Hurting those who are evil and pose a threat to the safety of others does not equal abuse.

Abuse is hurting someone innocent for the sake of your own empowerment and toxicity.

That is so insane. That's like if I said "well Rhys dissolved an army to mist" and "Cassian killed thousand in Hybern's war" and "Lucien killed some soldiers in AOCWAR to cross the battlefield" therefore they are all abusers now.

Does that fucking make sense???

Is Nesta an abuser now, for killing the Kelpie and Lanthys? Is Elain an abuser for stabbing the king of Hybern.

Get. Fucking. Real.

If you don't know the difference between violence for the sake of the greater good and in war and ABUSE, then you shouldn't be reading these books. Go back to magic treehouse or some shit, because ACOTAR is for adults and you're behaving like children.

You hate one character (for doing nothing wrong other than NOT throwing herself headfirst into battle and being uninterested in YOUR favorite character) and you use that to behave like illiterate clowns.

Because only a clown would:

1. Liken a character like Azriel to an ABUSER

2. Then turn around and ship that "ABUSER" with Gwyn, a survivor of SA and witness to seeing her own sisters head cut off.

What the fuck are you doing? Genuinely is this the lengths you'd go to just to say you don't like Elain/Elriel?

You know he's not an abuser. So why are you saying all this nonsense?? And it's literally just anti-Elriels. I have not seen any Elriel go around making such awful claims of Lucien & Gwyn.

These are the good guys! SJM is not going to make ANY of them evil or "abusers". What do you think she would say if you asked her right now "wow so azriel is clearly an abuser right? Just like Tamlin?" Do you think she would pat you on the back and agree with you? Or would she look at you like you're fucking insane ?

It's absolutely batshit crazy how you have to go to such lengths to CLAIM THAT IS CANON (it's literally not) just to try to disprove a ship.

Stop acting like children. ENOUGH. Just go take your ship and enjoy it in your corner of the ship war, you don't have to go around making such vile attacks on Elriel and those who ship it just to make yourself feel better about your ship.

[viridianevergarden]

What can be a possible explanation for Azriel’s shadows dancing and singing with Gwyn? Could it be that she’s a lightsinger? What could be the implications of that? Is my boy in danger?

Hi anon! Lots of good questions that are frequently asked but I’ll throw in my two cents here:

The big question, is Gwyn a Lightsinger?

It is entirely possible. Very possible, imo. I’m almost confident.

Throughout ACOSF, SJM made it a point to note that Lightsingers are a thing in Prythian. They exist and like Shadowsingers, they are rare and may be coveted by most. However, unlike Shadowsingers, these individuals do have the abilities to lure unassuming victims.

They are described as ethereal beings that possess pretty faces, friendly faces, and yet when their unassuming victim has been entrapped, they show their true colors before execution.

Now, one thing to note, Lightsingers were only mentioned alongside Kelpies. In the bog. So whether they typically exist elsewhere is a different question. But again, entirely possible.

But moving on. This could just be a harmless ploy by SJM to deepen the lore of ACOTAR but… In this very same book, all of these strange things happen:

Nesta noting that Gwyn glows when she sings.

Nesta also describing Gwyn’s voice as being different, or sticking out from the other singers.

Nesta making it sound as if she was being lured in by the sound and entranced.

The obvious mentions of Lightsingers some time after that. (To possibly slap a label on what she is?)

Then in the BC, yet a second POV noting strange things regarding her, Azriel “could’ve sworn” that his own shadows sang in answer to Gwyn’s song as he was going down the stairwell. Almost like they were being lured back to the source of the song.

So all in all, this is the first book of the series that confirms the existence of Lightsingers. All the while, not one but two people make note on these strange things. Each and every one of them pertained only to Gwyn. No one else.

I don’t think this is a coincidence nor do I think Gwyn just glows when she sings and has this weird ability to lure someone in for nothing.

It’s like SJM is waving her hands and saying “hey! Pay attention to this!”

Which makes me think that she wanted to showcase Az and Gwyn interacting at the end of that BC as a means to further indicate that something IS off with her. And to show how Azriel’s shadows react to those types of things in his head, which they did indeed react.

Is Gwyn evil? Is Az in danger?

I think that while this BC is nothing but a teaser of what’s to come, it cannot be ignored that the end is a red herring.

Now I do NOT think Gwyn is evil. Not intentionally. I don’t even think that she is aware of her possible abilities.

The most that I can think of in terms of her playing a part in some scheme is Gwyn being an innocent puppet while her strings are pulled from somewhere else by someone else. (Koschei?)

I mean, Koschei himself said he’d been preparing for Az. What ever that means, it does not bode well and it is solid foreshadowing.

Azriel is a target for Koschei for some unknown reason.

And Gwyn would be the best unassuming character to utilize as a weapon against him because she is close enough to him to harm him. (Meaning she’s in Velaris and sees him from time to time)

So Azriel could definitely be in danger.

So to conclude, I do think Gwyn is highly likely to be a Lightsinger even if she doesn’t know it yet. Theres just too many strange things about her that two people (or rather SJM herself) have noted regarding her.

It would just be weird to make this linear string of details in one big book and then do nothing with them come the next one.

[oneknightstand-if]

Very excited for the next update! Before then, I have a chapter 1 question for the ROs since it seems many chose polo in that ask before? Of the horse possibilities that MC can have theirs to ride, which of those options would the ROs be the type to choose if they had to spend time with one of them.

Merlin: Midsummer Knight's Dream (because clairvoyance) and also for shits & giggles because they'd be very amused whenever Midsummer would try to buck them off or pull some other shenanigans.

Adrian: You want him to abandon his Foreshadow?! But if he has to switch to one of MC's potential horses, it would be Fly by Knight because Adrian would damn well know the true worth of an obedient polo horse by this point.

Arthur: If he's riding for himself, Queen of the Knight for similar reasons as Adrian, knows horseflesh and what temperaments are needed for what he's trying to accomplish etc (but he's more drawn to magic than Adrian is). If he's going out as High King of the Britons then Knight Rider since that's what would be expected of him.

Percy: He's probably trying to ride all four of them at the same time.

4̷0̴4̶ ̷E̴r̷r̸o̷r̸ ̸N̴o̶t̴ ̴F̷o̴u̷n̷d̶: The bones of Knight Rider.

Cassandra: Definitely Queen of the Knight for... reasons.

Gwen: Also Queen of the Knight because of her name and because she's like the pure white horse out of fairy tales. (Also she's not trying to chew your fingers off like the flashy Midsummer Knight's Dream or Knight Rider).

Vivian: What fuckery is this? She's not going to be riding some mundane mortal horse, it would be a kelpie or each uisge for her or she'd just turn into a horse herself.

Lorelei: Knight Rider. She's used to danger and just likes his type... okay?

Broderick: You want him to be doing what now?! He'd probably end up on either Fly by Knight or Queen of the Knight since they're shorter and that means less height to fall from, right? Also they seem more docile.

[dippedinmelancholy]

For all there is to complain about ACOSF - I am certain huge portions of it were taken out and rewritten. Particularly in regards to Mor. There's a reason the Christmas Special has a focus on Mor, in her perspective, with her memories and emotions. She has a particularly sharp dislike of Nesta, even going so far to say Nesta should be locked away where women are raped, sold, and are viewed as items, not people. She says Nesta would fit right in, but the unspoken bit here is that Nesta DESERVES such treatment for her "viper's tongue", because lets be honest. A cruel tongue is literally the worst of Nesta's sins. She never goes out of her way to hurt anyone, she doesn't care for it, nor does she have a taste for it. Of all the people to talk to Cassian after Nesta initially arrives at the HoW, it's Mor. Not Feyre, to check on how her sister is adjusting. No, it's Mor, who scoffs and laughs at Nesta taking a depressing nap (because that's exactly what it is, at least when you're asleep you don't need to be in your own head). And then. . . nothing. A huge gap between this, and Mor being the one to teach Nesta the Hewn City dances, which doesn't get it's own scene. Nothing between this and Mor requesting to come see Nesta and the priestesses train, and Nesta saying the other girls would like that. It feels so empty and weird that there's no scenes between this. When there clearly could have been some kind of written scenes to show development between Nesta and Mor, especially since Nesta has SO MUCH in common with how women in Hewn City are raised. Her virginity prized and used to secure a marriage, her mother grooming her, her father borderline abusive, being a survivor of SA herself, being willing to sell herself to Tomas to keep her family alive because it was all she had, her body, her virginity. Then, Nesta recklessly fucking the first person she can with no feeling, because in the land of the fae, her body has no worth now. A purposeful scene between Mor and Nesta rather than yet another meaningless smut scene, maybe even directly after Kelpie tried to SA Nesta, followed by the learning new dances scene, could have done so much. It could have proven to Mor that Nesta doesn't want to hurt Cassian, she literally never has. A mirror reflected of the brutality of being a woman, human or fae. An understanding that a mask is just that, a mask. It could have given worth to the "friendship" of Cassian and Mor, rather than Mor is just pissed Mor isn't her plaything anymore. I think that's my core problem with ACOSF. It feels as though so much else could have been written at one point. Instead, there's so much that we're just supposed to accept as "This is how it is now, problems gone!". ACOSF really leans on telling instead of showing, which makes it a really horrible read in a world building way, especially since CC3, and more than likely more books in the future, intertwine with these characters so much, expecting you to believe in them and their bonds.

[em-dash-press]

6 Steps to Create Fictional Creatures

Your newest story idea might require more extensive creative skills when it comes to creatures in mythology. You can use mythic creatures from centuries past or make new fictional species specifically for your plot. Check out these steps to create fictional creatures that feel just as real as any other animal or being.

1. Brainstorm a Big List

There are so many mythical creatures to consider while planning your next story. Some beloved options include:

Dragons

Griffins

Centaurs

Hydras

Harpies

Create a list of every fictional creature that interests you. Make sure to check out various mythologies from global cultures to expand your possibilities.

If you want to make something entirely new, list creatures that inspire you. You can draw from various elements of their backgrounds to invent something new that resonates with readers.

2. Match Creature Characteristics to Your Plot

Picture The Hobbit. Smaug is a crucial part of that novel’s plot. He represents the negative impulse to hoard wealth beyond what you need. That message wouldn’t be represented if Smaug was a kelpie, which represents perfection.

Consider how your creature’s appearance, behavior, and abilities will serve your plot or theme. If they tie together in at least one way, your mythical creatures will feel integral to your story.

3. Draft Creature Backstories

Characters need backstories because real people always have history. You don’t necessarily need to make them extensive, but they’re worth building as you create incredible characters.

Fictional creatures work the same way. They need a history on some level unless your character is somehow creating them in real time during your story.

Give your character’s species an origin. They’ll need an individual history that includes things like where they live and what their motivations are. Does your creature only care about surviving? Do they have a family they want to protect? Is there a dream motivating their decisions or goals?

You may not need to create all of these details for well-known creatures like werewolves, but they do help when you’re making an individual character your readers will get to know.

It’s also helpful to decide how your creature interacts with other creatures or humans. Are they a predator or prey? Do they act aggressively or not? These answers not only inform who they are as an individual but also what roles they can play in your plot.

4. Work on Their Design

There are some great sites for visualizing human characters, like Backstage or Pinterest. AI-generated images aren’t your only option. However, it may feel more challenging to find a generator site for mythical creatures.

You can search for creature inspiration on places like Pinterest or look up your creature’s species at places like Generator Mix. Writers with bigger budgets could also pay an artist they follow on social media to draw what they visualize based on what you’ve already figured out about your creature.

You’ll want a visual reference point for things like your creature’s physical features (plus clothing and accessories, if they wear them). When you’re one year and 200 pages deep in a manuscript, you may forget tiny details like how your creature’s scales look or whether they have mismatched toe nail colors.

A reference picture also helps writers remember how their creature’s appearance may affect their characters. A zombie gnome might terrify one character while they garner sympathy from another character who loves gnomes.

5. Add Magic (or Not)

Will your creature have magical abilities? Why or why not? The answers to these questions point out their purpose in your plot. Maybe they make magical abilities become useless in their presence. 

If your creature gets to use magic, remember to answer the most essential questions for creating a magic system, like:

What does the magic help your character do?

What can’t the magic do?

What are some external or internal limits for the magic users?

Is there a cost to using this magic?

What’s the most important reason your character or creature uses their magic?

6. Assign a Motivation

Even if your mythical creature is only running around in the dark by themselves, they’ll have some kind of motivation. That could be things like:

Finding their next meal

Discovering shelter

Tracking down their enemy

Looking for their offspring

Defending their territory

Seeking their purpose

Chasing a dream

Your creature may need a more purpose-led motivation if they play a key part in your plot. They could also just need to eat, which causes the mayhem necessary to move your plot along.

If you can’t think of a motivation, ask yourself if this creature is necessary in your story. Sometimes we get lost making creatures or characters because it’s fun, not because they’re essential to our plot.

-----

No matter what you want to write, these tips should help you create the mythical creatures your story needs. How in-depth your planning goes is up to you. There’s no required amount of planning for any character. You can always add details to their outline or character profile along the way.

[tyrantisterror]

No Small Feat Artwork Pt 3 - The Heartless Witch Arc

By request, I'm gonna show off some of the artwork for No Small Feat, a Midgaheim story my friends and I told through the TTRPG system Fabula Ultima. I drew a lot of characters and monsters for it, and my friends - in particular, @dragonzzilla, @scatha5, and @dinosaurana - helped line and color them so we'd have cute little sprites to use on our online battlemaps, which really helped sell the whole "we're playing an oldschool turn based RPG" vibe that Fabula Ultima's system is going for.

For this entry, we're going to talk about the characters and monsters I made for the first arc of the campaign.

Fabula Ultima's system has specific rules for Villains, i.e. antagonistic NPCs who are meant to be a significant and, if viable, recurring threat to our heroes. So when structuring this campaign, I designated one Villain per arc, in addition to a couple recurring ones who'd make their presence felt all throughout the story. Our starter villain was Sycoraxine the Heartless Witch. A spellcaster who lived close to the small farm town of Hansand, our heroes learned of Sycoraxine when the locals blamed her for the famine they were suffering. Our heroes of course went to confront her, only to find that she wasn't the source of the famine - though she did have the power to stop it. The hitch, of course, was that she had removed her heart, in both a literal and figurative way, to keep from feeling the pain of being ostracized by her neighbors for so many years. Our heroes recovered her heart and, in a tense and emotional standoff, convinced her to take it back, at which point she saved the town despite their past transgressions, and became beloved for it. A nice fairytale start to things in my opinion.

Finding Sycoraxine's heart was easier said than done, though, as she had her three familiars - i.e. arcane creatures she made a deal with to give her magic powers - hide them for her. Our heroes had to go to Hrumph the Troll, Preyain the griffin, and an incredibly foul-mouthed knucker dragon to find the heart in question, learning more about Sycoraxine's tragic past and connection with the wilderness around Hansand in the process.

There were encounters on the way to those three familiars. The bog home of Harumph was occupied by a Basilisk and a Swamp Kraken, and the beach the Knucker dwelled in had a young Sea Boar in distress as well as some man-eating kelpies. Finally, the mountain where Preeyain dwelled had a feral catoblepas whose oversized head was stuck in a ditch, as well as a VERY ornery phenex at the end of its lifespan who didn't want people messing with its nest.

And that was the first arc - a bit basic, but we were all learning the system and I wanted to give my players and myself the opportunity to experiment and figure it out. It also ended with the reveal of the campaign's big plot hook - Sycoraxine had in her possesion one of seven crown jewels, having found it on the body of a soldier who came to her for help when she was heartless and received none.

See, in Midgaheim, kings aren't just political leaders - they are magically bound to the kingdom they rule, and its health depends on them. Seven years before the start of the campaign, the king of Engelsex was killed in a failed coup, and the crown destroyed in the process. It can only be remade if the jewels are recovered, and in the meantime the kingdom will spiral into chaos as all the magic that would be flowing in the king is now going willy nilly and uncontrolled in all directions, like a river that burst through a damn. Only by reuniting all seven and crowning a new king could our heroes save the kingdom of Engelsex from falling into chaos and ruin, and so they set out with a new mission: find all seven crown jewels and, hopefully, a person who'd be worthy of the crown.

[riley-coyotl]

First Monthly Puppy Report Card for Kelpie!

Now that we’ve had her for a little over a month, here is our first puppy report card for Kelpie (idea yoinked from @kangals!), for her progress from 8 – 13 weeks. Be prepared for these to contain Too Many Notes because that's just how I am. Categories subject to be added to or change as she matures and things become more or less relevant.

Food (drive, appetite, sensitivity): 🟡 - Moderate food drive, she loves to eat but sometimes gets picky with treats and we’re still figuring out what works best to motivate her (flavors, textures, variety?) She also loses interest in most food treats if she’s overwhelmed/overstimulated, which has its advantages and disadvantages re:training. Also, if I give her a chew that’s too big and/or not interesting enough, she won’t usually eat/work on it right away and becomes very interested in finding a place to “bury” it for later. She’s very good at burying things and it’s very cute, but I think sometimes it’s stressful for her feeling like she has to get it buried, and I wish she’d just eat the dang things...makes it harder to occupy her when I need to (pen/crate/separation training etc.) She does have a great appetite for her puppy food though and is always stoked for meal times! She does unfortunately seem to get some tummy upset fairly regularly, I think from when she has eaten too many rich treats at once...see above re:figuring out what works best for training treats. :/

Toys: 🟢 - Super playful, loves to play with toys—with us, with the other dogs, or by herself! She loves tug and has a wonderful natural retrieve which I’ve been encouraging and reinforcing. We’re working on baby toy skills, biting the toy and not my hand, switching between toys, encouraging focusing on the correct toy when playing alongside the other dogs, and gradually improving there. She does still think another dog having a toy makes it more interesting, but we’re working on her staying on her own toy and not stealing theirs, and she’s learning.

Sleeping: 🟢/🟡 - Settles in her pen in our bedroom pretty much right away at night, and will usually sleep for 6-8 hours… BUT in the same pen during the day (and this is a problem because between me and my partner, he sleeps at night and I usually sleep during the morning/day,) she is only able to settle/sleep 2-4 hours at a time before she wakes me up needing to go out. At this point she typically settles in her bedroom pen quickly during the day too but occasionally she’ll be a little restless/whiny first. As for napping during our wake cycle hours (e.g. in the pen in our family room where there is more activity, or on the couch,) she sometimes has a hard time settling and will fight her sleepiness. I think she prefers it to be dark when she’s sleeping, but she is getting better about that.

Crating/separation: 🟢/🟡 - Haven’t done much work with the actual crate yet; kinda introducing it slowly, she’ll happily go inside to earn treats, and she sleeps in it on her own fairly regularly, but I haven’t shut her inside for longer than half an hour here or there while she works on a frozen stuffed snack. That said, for management/confinement we’ve been using puppy pens in the family room and our bedroom instead of crating, and she has become fairly decent at being left in her pen(s) when we leave the room or go to sleep (see above (sleeping) re:her ability to settle in her pens,) which is a HUGE improvement from when we first brought her home and she was constantly crying at any separation whatsoever. She’s also pretty good at entertaining herself with her toys in her pen, but she does sometimes get some FOMO if we’re around/“available” but she can’t be involved, and will whine/yap a bit before giving up and entertaining herself. Also, at this point, we have been able to leave her home in her pen in our bedroom while we leave the house for up to around 2 hours (haven’t tried longer yet,) giving her a frozen stuffed snack, which she happily eats and then settles and sleeps until we return. She’s doing really great with that!

Potty training: 🟢 - Aside from her having a UTI when she was 8 weeks old that caused her to be waking us up every hour to go outside when we first got her, she’s been doing pretty great! She is pretty darn good at letting us know when she needs to go out. Accidents have been relatively few, and she has only pooped in the house I think once in the entire time we’ve had her (and it was entirely my fault for missing her asking to go out.) She has also mostly figured out the potty bells all by herself just from watching the big dogs! She still can’t hold her pee very long when she’s awake/active, and occasionally if she’s busy playing she won’t realize she needs to go until it’s Too Late, but I know that stuff will improve with time/maturity.

General training: 🟢/🟡 - She is really smart and has picked up a lot just by observing things (which she does a lot of observation, she’s a clever little pup!) That said, her attention span for training sessions isn’t that great yet, and I think she’s not particularly good at generalizing behaviors in different environments yet either. So we do not have a lot of behaviors actually on cue yet, and mainly I have just been focusing on play, engagement, handling, socialization, and just foundational skills for the behaviors I want to teach in the future, rather than training specific behaviors. And we’re still figuring out the best treats to use to motivate her in various contexts. That said, I’ve noticed that we’ve already developed a decent language of communication with each other despite not having done a ton of formal training, and I’m pretty proud of that!

For specific behaviors, though I can’t say she “knows” them with any fluency, she’s working on sit, down, stand, touch (nose target to hand,) chin rest (cooperative care foundation,) muzzle (stick her face in a cup,) as well as eye contact, and foundations for drop it and leave it. A few other things too, like basic luring and shaping skills, but nothing is remotely “finished” yet and practically nothing reliably on a verbal cue so I feel a little behind hahah :’) (but I remember feeling the same way about Juni too and it all worked out, slow and steady wins the race!)

Recall/Off-leash skills: 🟢 - Currently don’t have a recall cue aside from “pup-pup-pup-pup!” but she is doing great about that and is pretty reliable at this point, and getting reinforced heavily for responding to that and just for checking in with me too. Does well wanting to stick within a reasonable radius of us on her own.

Leash walking: 🟡 - Haven’t done much actual formal training on loose leash walking, but she’s starting to pick it up anyways. She does try to pull when she needs to go to the bathroom (she wants to get to the Right Spot) or if she’s excited/really wants to sniff/fuck with something, but I’m not too worried about that at this point… She seems to really enjoy walking right at my heel/between my legs a lot (or underfoot) and I have been rewarding that position a lot just any time she offers it, I think it’s going to translate well to LLW as we get more practice.

Biting: 🟡/🔴 - She is a little SHARK! She bites the hardest out of any puppy I’ve had. She doesn’t get bitey as frequently as some of my other puppies, but when she gets in bitey moods she bites HARD. In the first couple of weeks we had her, she broke the skin and gave me a few gnarly little punctures multiple times. That said, she’s gotten a LOT better about it, and is starting to learn not to bite so hard. I don’t expect or try to teach my puppies not to bite at all, I just expect them to learn to be inhibited in their bites so it doesn’t hurt. We haven’t consistently gotten to “doesn’t hurt when she bites” territory yet, but she at least hasn’t made me bleed in a little while, and is starting to respond to me asking her not to bite me...at least a little. 😂 I have also come to learn that if she’s starting to bite too hard during play, it often means she needs to pee and hasn’t realized it yet.

Manners: 🟡 - I don’t really expect much re:manners from her at this point. I over-emphasized teaching and enforcing manners with Maple when she was a puppy and I regret it because it led to her not communicating her needs as actively, so I have kinda swung the other way and tend to let my puppies be a bit wild. So I will give Kelpie a mid grade on this one since she has a strong mischief mode, tries to steal the TV remote, bites ankles, jumps on people/the other dogs, isn’t good at respecting door boundaries yet, has tried to get up on tables/counters for food (thankfully she’s not tall enough yet so we still have time to nip that in the bud,) is still figuring out what is/isn’t For Puppies to play with, and she yaps/barks a lot when frustrated… However, she is also learning to sit nicely for her food (and to politely beg for treats/scraps,) doing well not trying to steal my food when I’m eating around her, and beginning to respond to me interrupting her when she’s doing something I need her to stop. So by my standards here, she’s doing ok! Going to start working on her not jumping on people now that she’s not tiny anymore, and gradually work in other stuff too. Not door dashing is a priority here for me too.

Grooming: 🟢 - We’ve done a lot of basic handling practice, and I feel she is doing very well with it at this point. She’s become very good for brushing and letting me wipe her down when she inevitably gets muddy. Doing pretty well with nail trimming handling. Working on foundations for cooperative care and I think she’s starting to get the picture. Working up to baths/teethbrushing, and she’s doing wonderfully for the foundational work we’ve done towards that. Of course, getting lots of treats for all of this. Started training scratchboard for nails too.

Car rides: 🟢 - She rides great in the car. Occasionally somewhat squirmy when we first get in the car, but typically she just wants to look out the window for a few minutes and then goes right to sleep. She seems to find car rides very comforting. Noticed a tiny bit of carsickness on the ride home from the breeder, but absolutely none since. If we’re out and about and have multiple stops, she typically settles quickly when we get back in the car. She has the makings of an excellent road-tripping dog!

Outings/socialization: 🟢 - She has taken practically everything in stride, bright and curious about her environment, and has recovered super well the very few times she’s gotten spooked about something. That said, she does seem to get a little overwhelmed/overstimulated sometimes. Not afraid/nervous, just...things are So Much. I think this is fairly normal for her little puppy brain though, it’s a big world out there, so I can’t fault her on it. Just have to continue to keep in mind that she is a sensitive dog, not flood her with too much at once, and give her plenty of time to process her experiences.

Dogs: 🟢/🟡 - Very interested in other dogs! She loves Maple and Juni, but is almost too interested in playing with them. She has a hard time disengaging her attention from them or focusing around them (or around other dogs we’ve seen out and about,) but she’s getting better about that, and she doesn’t get over-excited when she sees other dogs in public. Juni is absolutely loving wrestling with Kelpie all the time, to the point where I think she indulges the puppy a little too much. Maple has been less willing to engage in play with the puppy—Kelpie can bite too hard during play, and I often have to step in to “rescue” one of the big dogs (usually Maple) from her when she’s being too rough and not noticing or not listening to mild cues or corrections that she’s being Too Much. She does respect corrections from them when they are more “obvious,” but I don’t like to let it get to that point if I can avoid it. I think they are all still figuring out the best way to communicate their boundaries with each other, and improving on that, but we’re not there yet and still need a lot of supervision to help enforce boundaries.

Humans: 🟢/🟡 - Friendly, curious, interested in watching/investigating people, and happy to meet people who want to say hi, but not overly excited about people if they don’t engage her, which I appreciate. Again like with dogs, she’s not very good at focusing around them though, which we will need to work on. I want to encourage mostly polite neutrality around strangers with her since I don’t like being bothered a lot in public, and because she will be walking with Juniper a lot in the future, and Juni does NOT like being approached by strangers, so Kelpie is going to need to learn that typically if we see a stranger, we are going to ignore them. I did also see her get a bit overwhelmed once when several people surrounded us to fawn over her, so I don’t think she enjoys being crowded (which is of course totally fair,) and that’s something I need to be proactive about because it’s bound to happen because people get starry-eyed when they see a Dalmatian, especially a puppy.

Cats: 🟢/🟡 - Curious and excited, unfortunately to a fault because neither of our current cats is EVER going to want to play with her, sadly. That said, she’s gotten fairly good at respecting their boundaries and their space, rarely tries to chase them, and is starting to figure out that they’re not all that interesting for her. Though, if she’s in a rowdy mood she’ll still bark and play bow at them just out of reach while they hiss at her... Given that neither of our current cats is particularly good at training puppies (RIP Lucy, you were the best…) I think this is about as good as I can ask for at this point. Given her steady improvement, I think she will continue getting more cat-savvy.

Small animals: 🟢 - Interested in watching/chasing, but isn’t obsessive or intense about it. Pretty quickly disengaged from a rabbit that ran away from us.

Bonding/affection: 🟢 - At this point I feel like we’re pretty well attached to each other already. She definitely finds it rewarding to be with us, follows me around and is interested in what I’m doing, and seeks comfort/safety in us when she gets spooked. I’d like to see some more handler focus (rather than “ohhh, environment/other dogs!!” distracting her) but she’s a baby and also not a herding breed like my other two so I think that will develop more with time and I just have to meter my expectations and not try and compare her too much to the sheps.

She’s also a sweetheart and I love her. She loves to be petted, and likes to chew toys in my lap while I pet and cuddle her even when she’s riled up. She enjoys being picked up and hugged and gives really good hugs herself, snuggling her head onto our shoulders. Picking her up for a hug can frequently help calm her down if she’s too amped up, which I find very endearing; literally sometimes if she’s having a hard time settling, turns out what was wrong was just “needed a hug.” She’s pretty cuddly. At one point a few weeks ago I felt like she suddenly stopped being as cuddly and only seemed to want to lay by herself, but I’ve figured out that the main issue was just that she wanted it to be dark where she was napping. And since then she’s just become more cuddly, coming to snuggle up next to me/rest her head on me when she's sleepy and I'm letting her hang out on the couch with me. I think as she gets less of the puppy crazies and more mature, and gets better at sleeping when it’s not dark and quiet, she will only continue getting more snuggly and more handler-focused. I hope so anyways! The cuddly velcro temperament was a large part of why I wanted a Dalmatian in the first place, so I’m happy to see her developing into that.

Overall grade 🟢, I know I might sound a little overly critical of her/myself in some of this, but really she’s a good smart girl and a very fun, happy, playful puppy, and very sweet. I think she is a nice moderate puppy, pretty confident but sensitive, and has a ton of potential. Hoping she continues to improve with sleeping longer and settling easier during the day, so I can start getting better sleep and more rest consistently. I think that will put me in a better position to continue to bond with her and get more into a good groove with her training-wise. Hopefully she starts building more handler focus as she matures as well. Also hoping she continues improving re:being an insane little bitey shark too so she can have more/longer free roaming time in the house with us and the other dogs!

[sword-reborn]

Pinned Post

----

hiya! I'm Blake, a college student from Blueberry Academy, but right now I'm in the Reborn region helping my sister w/ something. you probably recognize me as the kid that was champion of Galar a few years back, or the one that saved Kalos. or the one that saved Unova. yeah uh I've been around to say the least!

here's my current team right now

-Ruben (M Combusken)

-Viper (M Arbok)

-Raiju (F Manetric)

-Kelpie (M Goldeen, shiny)

a few other 'mons not on my main team

-Charcoal (M Bidoof, shiny)

-Cheesey (M Ratatta, shiny)

-Fermata (M Kricketot)

-Kelpsy (F Pachirisu)

-Primrose (F Budew)

-Ragdoll (F Trubbish, shiny)

-Seren (F Pidove, shiny)

-Pea (M Minun)

-Gadget (Klink)

-Beau Jr. (M Woobat)

-Kip (F Goldeen)

-Mercury (Bronzor)

-Rocky (M Onix)

-Leppa (F Happiny

-Tilda (F Spoink)

-Skipper (F Joltik)

-Adrianne (F Frillish)

all of the other 'mons you probably remember me having are back home either at the academy or w/ my boyfriend. er... except my Inteleon Kappa, we got separated during the train crash at Grandview Station. one of the reasons I'm staying in Reborn for now is to look for him. if anyone's in Reborn who's seen him please contact me

---

(( OOC under cut ))

OOC: this is an AU blog for @pinkhairandpokemon where Blake is the protagonist of the fan game Pokémon Reborn! basically, this a fresh timeline split right after the Frozen Over arc (which I know still hasn’t concluded yet, I’m sorry I’m working on it 😭) where Blake travels with their sister to the Reborn region in order to help her with a ranger mission. I’m not sure yet if she’s gonna do an arc on her blog, but you can follow her at @pkmnrangerkaita. they’re also taking on the league as a sort of side thing. basically we wanted to do nuzlocke with Blake n Kaita, so I opted to just make a separate blog for it lol

everything from the normal Blake blog up to this point is still canon! they have the same pokemon, they’re still dating N, etc. also, some warnings and heads up: slight edit, we dropped the nuzlocke thing because we thought "oh okay this game seems kinda challenging to nuzlocke for two folks who aren't used to nuzlocke-ing" but apparently this game has dark themes! I'm going in blind so I don't know what they are but just be aware

there will also potentially be time fuckery? at some point Blake’s gonna realize the timeline split, so… it won’t be a big plot point, will mostly just be used as a funny gag for when they run into their “canon timeline” self on here. but like, just so you’re aware, this blog follows the same “oh yeah the multiverse and alternate timelines are a thing” rule as that one

Magic Anons: Off

Pelipper Mail: On

[drabbles-mc]

Aftermath (Part 2)

EZ Reyes x F!Reader

You can find Part 1 Here

Dedicated to @withmyteeth because I don't know if I ever would've gotten around to finishing and posting a part 2 for this without your encouragement and help creating this chaos. 💖

Warnings: 18+, language, smut

Word Count: 2.2k

A/N: I already know there's gonna be a part 3. I gotta drag out the mess a little while longer I can't help it.

EZ Reyes Taglist: @thesandbeneathmytoes @rosieposie0624 @noz4a2 @queenbeered @choochoo284 @mijagif @anditsmywholeheart @kelpies-shed @louisianalady @gemini0410 @chibsytelford @yourwonkywriter @buckybarneshairpullingkink @amorestevens @garbinge @enjoy-the-destruction @justreblogginfics @nessamc @winchestershiresauce @artemiseamoon @littlekittymeow @frattsparty @fanfic-n-tabulous @beardburnsupersoldiers @justazzi @solidly-indulgent @danzer8705 (If you want to be added to any of my taglists, please let me know!)

Your promise of, “It’s not going to happen again,” lasted about a week. Never again had quickly turned into over and over again. Each time you wound up on EZ’s doorstep, you were expecting it to be the time that he sent you away, but he never did. You thought it’d get old after a while, for him at least, but it didn’t seem like it was.

It was always at his trailer. EZ had yet to set foot inside your apartment since the two of you had picked up your nasty little habit. Any time you knocked on his door, he always let you in without a question or a complaint. A few snarky remarks, sure, but never anything that made it sound like he was going to cut you off. Thank god for that.

At some point you were going to have to find a different distraction. Preferably one that didn’t involve hooking up with your ex’s brother. But this worked too well to be able to hang it up just yet. You didn’t have a single coherent thought about anything when EZ was inside you, let alone any thoughts about his shitty brother and your even shittier breakup.

Even when the light wasn’t on inside you still knocked, and he still answered. You’d always wake up to an empty bed and slink off first thing in the morning without another word about it. By the grace of some sort of higher power you hadn’t run into Angel on your walks of shame. Your luck was surely going to run out at some point, but it hadn’t yet.

You were nose-deep in a book on one of your rare days off when your phone buzzed on the end table next to you. You reached back behind your head without taking your eyes off the page, only diverting your attention to the notification when you reached the bottom of the page you were on. Your brows furrowed in confusion when you saw EZ’s name.

“Busy?”

It only made you more confused. “Why?”

“If you’re free, come over”

You raised your eyebrows in surprise. It was the middle of the afternoon. There was only one reason that EZ would go out of his way to ask you to come over, which also wasn’t something that had ever happened. You were always the one who initiated it. But going over to see him in the middle of the day seemed like the two of you would be asking for trouble. Not that you hadn’t been doing that plenty already.

You thought about it for a moment before repeating yourself. “Why?”

“You know why”

You laughed, rolling your eyes as you did so. Letting your head drop back, you stared up at the ceiling as you weighed the pros and cons of your options. Saying it felt like a bad idea would be redundant. Hooking up with EZ at any hour was a bad idea. However, going over in broad daylight seemed to making it worse for no real extra reward. But he was actually extending an invite for once.

Snapping your book shut, you set it aside and got up off the couch. You’d come up with an excuse for showing up at the yard on the drive over. If you saw anyone, but especially if you saw Angel, you were going to cut the cord on the entire endeavor. But maybe you’d get lucky again and no one would be there.

It would’ve taken five seconds to text EZ back that you were getting ready to head over, but you didn’t. Instead, you changed out of your comfy lounge clothes, just swapping them out for a tank top and a pair of cutoffs before grabbing your keys and heading to your car.

The scrapyard was a ghost town when you got there. There might’ve been a couple guys in the clubhouse, but you weren’t going to go and find out for sure. You quickly walked over to EZ’s trailer, stepping onto the first of the tiny steps and knocking on the door. The rattling of the flimsy metal always seemed so loud.

When he pulled the door open, the expression on his face went from serious to smug in no time at all. You saw the tremble of his body as he laughed, opening the door for you. You stepped inside. “Surprised to see me?”

“No,” he replied without hesitation.

Smug motherfucker. You had no retort for it, though. You were the one who showed up. “Where is everyone?” you asked as you nodded towards the tiny window above the sink that looked out over the currently-vacant lot.

“Most of the guys are on a run,” he replied with a shrug.

You nodded. “That explains it.”

You were halfway to coming up with something else smarmy to say when he leaned in and pressed his lips to yours. Your body had no fight in it anymore when it came to him. The second his skin touched yours, you melted into it. Even though you’d only hooked up a couple times, it felt like he had your entire body memorized.

Your hands came up to cup his face as he continued to kiss you. Your needy whimpers turned into moans when you felt his hands slip past the back of the waistband of your shorts. His fingers dug into the flesh of your ass, pinning your hips against his in the process. You felt your knees wanting to buckle when you felt how hard he already was.

He didn’t give you much time to think about it as he turned you and walked you the few steps back so that your legs were hitting the side of his mattress. You let him push you down and crawl on top of you so that he was straddling you, his lips quickly landing on the side of your neck, teeth greedily sinking into the soft skin there.

Before you knew it he had you spread out across the mattress, stripped down to your bra and nothing else. He had one of your legs hooked over his shoulder, his hand wrapped around your thigh, fingers gripping your hips in a vice as he pounded into you. You balled your fists into the thin sheets of his bed as you tried to keep your moans as quiet as possible knowing that anyone could walk by the outside of his trailer at any moment.

EZ didn’t seem to share your concern for discretion as he pried one hand off your hip and brought it between your legs, his thumb brushing against your clit instantly causing you to writhe against him. Every move and sound you made only caused the smug look on his face to intensify.

You hadn’t been paying much mind to the noise of the scrapyard until you heard the sound of voices. It was a mild distraction, a tiny crack in the false reality you found yourself in every time you were inside EZ’s trailer, every time EZ was inside you. It would’ve been something you were able to push from your mind in a matter of seconds if you hadn’t heard Angel’s voice amongst them. You froze, your body instantly locking up as your eyes widened.

“EZ!” Your whisper was loud, harsh as you tried to move away from him.

“What?” He was good at pretending to be clueless as to why you were so annoyed, but you knew that he wasn’t that stupid.

“You said the guys were on a run!” You were still fighting against the tight grip he had on your hip, one hand now tightly gripping your thigh to make it even harder for you to move.

“I said most of the guys were,” he retorted with a smirk.

“And you didn’t think to mention that Angel wasn’t one of those guys?”

“Why does it matter?” He slowly started to move his hips again. “It’s not like he’s gonna—”

As if your life wasn’t already an infuriating comedy of errors, there was a loud banging against the door of EZ’s trailer. “Yo! Boy Scout!” Angel hollered from the other side. “Guys are almost back. Templo in thirty!”

EZ’s eyes were locked on yours, like he didn’t have a single care in the world as he answered. “Alright!” He turned his head, kissing the side of your calf before carrying on the conversation from opposite sides of the door. “All good?”

Your eyes nearly popped out of your skull, hating the feeling that he was trying to get the two of you caught. You pulled your leg back so that your foot planted against his chest, trying to use whatever leverage you could get to kick him away from you. He wasn’t budging, though, easily thwarting your efforts with a quiet laugh as Angel answered cluelessly from outside.

“I don’t know. Guess we’ll fuckin’ find out.”

You were holding your breath, feeling like you were about to crawl out of your skin. You waited for the door to swing open, for the chaos to ensue, but it didn’t. Neither of you could actually hear Angel walking away, but the fact that he didn’t say anything else led you both to believe that he had headed for the clubhouse.

EZ finally let your leg drop, moving so that he was hovering over you and caging you in with his arms as he did. “Guess we got thirty minutes.”

You rolled your eyes and tried to push him off of you, a mostly half-hearted effort. “No, you’ve got about thirty seconds to get off of me before I—”

“What?” he asked as he reached and lazily adjusted your legs so that they were hooked around his waist.

“What if he walked in?!”

“He didn’t.”

You sputtered out the first half of a few different words, not able to actually string anything together. “Get off me. Get,” you pushed against his chest with both palms, “get out of me.”

You hated that you were fighting the urge to laugh at the fact that it was a sentence that you were even saying. EZ didn’t try to hide his amusement, though, the grin on his face growing as he did the exact opposite of what you’d asked, pushing himself into you until his hips met yours. He felt the way your nails set into his chest, the staggered breath you took, and he knew that you weren’t going to be leaving before the thirty minutes was up.

You were shimmying back into your shorts when you heard the sound of motorcycle engines. If nothing else, EZ was methodical and could time it just about down to the damn minute. He was pulling his t-shirt back down over his head, covering up the scratches you left behind on his chest. Your eyes were glued to him as you pulled on your shoes, watching the way he shrugged on his kutte.

Despite everything that had happened, how cocky and reckless he was being, you were already thinking about coming back again.

When he turned and looked at you, the look in his eyes let you know that he knew exactly what you were thinking. He at least let you save a little face, didn’t comment on it directly. The roar of the engines stopped, and EZ made his way for the trailer door.

“Give it five and you should be good,” he said casually, like he hadn’t just put your body and brain through the goddamn wringer.

“Got it,” you said with a nod.

You shook your head at him when he shot you another grin before going down the steps and exiting the trailer. He shut the door tightly behind him, and within moments you heard him getting wrapped up in conversation with the men who had just gotten back from the run. You weren’t really listening to what they were saying, more just how they sounded, how EZ sounded. With the way he was talking he might as well have just been lounging all afternoon waiting for them to get back. But, the bruises you could feel coming in on your hips were stark evidence against that.

Once it had been silent for a couple minutes, you crept out of the trailer. You left the yard, making your way back to your car on shaky legs. When you got back to your car, you collapsed into the driver’s seat. Pulling your phone out, you went to send a message to EZ. You didn’t even know what you really wanted to say—part of you felt like you should just quit while you were ahead, before Angel actually did walk in on the two of you. But it felt too good to want to stop.

You almost texted Angel, too. Not about EZ, of course. You had the overwhelming urge, though, to send him something scathing and completely unnecessary if not a little deserved after how he’d treated you. Maybe some of EZ’s cockiness was rubbing off on you. Shaking your head at yourself, you wound up doing neither before tossing your phone into the cupholder of your car and heading home, deciding to keep up the game of Reyes Russian Roulette for a little while longer.

[arachnestwilight]

i’d love to hear your reasoning for making the ensemble ponies the species that they are :0 like how you went abt choosing which were earth, pegasus, changeling, kirin, etc!

also i adore the ensemble ponies sm they are amazing ty for creating them <333

I'm so glad you like them, they're always such a joy to work on!! <3

I wasn't sure if you wanted my reasoning for, like, each individual or just an overview of the process, so I have elected to spare you most of the yapping. :V

Some have specific reasons for being the species or races they are, mostly to accomodate different cultures, for lore or to utilise a theme of the original character--some perhaps for multiple of those reasons--but I some definitely ended up with the designs they did, mostly because it looked/sounded right to me and because I wanted a little more variety than just ponies, even if the primary setting is the pony-nation of Equestria, and for the pony population to be divided more or less equally.

In the meantime, I am trying to avoid personality-driven design choices in regards to the different species because I will eternally be put off by how Gen 4 chose to handle its non-pony species (the yaks deserved better </3). This is a little different on the pony race front, because we have, like… a history for each of the main three pony races, and thus it's easier to assume or determine what "common personality traits" may actually be cultural values that were held over--resilience and reliability for earth ponies, intellect for unicorns, and courage and stamina for pegasi. But, like, again, not something that needs to be strictly adhered to, but it is a point of reference.

I think about MLP and this AU too much, can you tell? /rh

Otherwise, pony race decisions were about as sophisticated as "I like this design". That being said, the icorporation of other pony kinds--bat ponies, crystal ponies and kelpies*--was a little more deliberate and lore based. (Even though it's likely "bat ponies"--as in Luna's guards, not Flutterbat--may not actually be a race of pony and instead only be regular pegasi and that may just be what the armour of Luna's guards looks like, since we see Rainbow Dash with the same "bat wings" in The Cutie Re-Mark's Nightmare Moon timeline, but they're iconic to the fandom. </3)

*Note: I think kelpies are a kind of pony, as far as MLP is concerned? I mean, they have cutiemarks, which is explained to be a pony trait. But then again, so does Zecora and she is not a pony, so...????

Beyond the ponies though...

The changelings of the AU are characters who have a notable or difficult relationship with their sense of self or their identity, and their relationships, since that seems like it'd be of a little concern to a species that inherently spends part of their life cycle, and a significant part of their history adopting the identities of other creatures, to parasitically feed off of the love in their environment.

The other species that have a smaller presence are mostly either utilised for lore/backstory purposes or to suit the identity or theming of the character, and sometimes just for plain, silliness reasons.