#handy nation will survive
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don’t be a stranger
#emotionally scarred from dnd. im never recovering from this#iuogohh.g.. ghfguh.. my boys.s...#dnd#wpwt#handy#handy nation will survive#dnd character#art#oc#character design#hiro#andy#barbarian#paladin
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Hi!
I wanna preface this question by saying it is entirely hypothetical, and I sincerely hope it will remain so!!!
But just like I take first aid training while hoping I won't need it, I would like to ask this.
First, background explanation: As I've started in previous questions I've sent, I live in Norway. Until the last handful of years, snakes were illegal to have as pets here, but it was loosened up and some snakes became legal in the second half of the 2010s.
During Covid, lots of people who had previously never owned snakes, bought them. I have no doubt that many were good, well prepared owners who had dreamed of having snakes for decades. However, there were still MORE than enough people who didn't know what they were getting into, and as a predictable outcome, many snakes were returned to the pet stores (who are obliged to take them back) when they turned out to grow and become long bois. (Apparently, people didn't expect animals famously being many feet long to actually BE many feet long - shocking.)
There were so many returned snakes that it was written about in the national news broadcasting service.
And I need to mention that animal rescues/shelters are ...kinda not a thing here. We have vets, and we have organizations dedicated to that kind of thing in GENERAL, but homeless pets that aren't cats are very very rarely a big issue here, so they're only usually equipped to take in cats and have foster homes for cats.
The institution most people know about and call of encountering animals, are wildlife patrol, who can help assess a situation, or relocate an animal, or take them to the vet MAYBE if deemed necessary. But they don't have resources to take animals in like a rescue, and their most well known purpose is usually to track down and kill moose after people hit them with their cars and they run off with broken legs and shit. (This happens several times every winter.)
So on to my hypothetical question:
If I should happen to come across an escaped pet snake, like a ball python or boa or whatever (I don't remember which snakes are legal pets here now, off the top of my head), outdoors, I should get it to a vet or pet shop that sells snakes ASAP. Everywhere like that is closed on Sundays here, so let's say I come across this poor bewildered snake on a Saturday evening or a Sunday.
What should I do? How do I approach it? How do I handle this unexpected snake who probably cannot survive outside in Norway? How should I go about picking it up and getting it into a bucket or box or crate or something, and how can I look after it and make it comfortable until I can get it to a vet/pet shop?
This is a great and very important question!
If you see an unexpected pet snake species, approach slowly and cautiously. Even a pet snake who's used to human contact is likely to spooked by an approaching human when they're outside and likely feeling overstimulated! The best thing you can do is find a long stick to scoop the snake up and get them into a bucket/box/whatever's handy. Most snakes will freeze when you lift them up with a stick, so that's the easiest option. If nothing's handy, slowly sneaking up on them and then putting a box/bucket over them, then sliding a piece of paper or cardboard underneath and flipping it over to trap them inside can work well, too.
Since in this hypothetical you just have to look after the poor confused snake for about a day, it won't be too difficult. Your impulse will likely be to try to keep the snake warm next to a heater - don't do that! Snakes can actually handle being a bit too cold for a lot longer than they can handle getting too warm, so if you just keep them in a reasonably warm room that's comfortable for humans, they'll be okay. Set them up with a bowl of water, and see if you can make a hiding place for them by cutting a doorway in a shoebox or other small container.
Hopefully, it's something you'll never need to do, but you're right that it's always best to be prepared!
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stuff about the taz atla au:
Taako and Lup are the last surviving air nomads (and by extension, elves). Lup is the Avatar. I established Taako as an airbender but I think it could go either way; if he's a nonbender, he's still got the high-dex rogue-y vibes of an airbender for any fighting.
Barry is a waterbender from the Southern Water Tribe, and the one who finds the twins. He's extremely unnaturally gifted at bloodbending, but shit at most other waterbending until they find a master. (He can bloodbend when it's not the full moon, but usually only to shift someone's balance, shove a limb, etc. Can be very handy when used right, though!)
Lup's hardest element is water. She has the instinct to directly blast stuff, which pushes against the give-and-take nature of waterbending. Once she gets it she likes making huge, scary, ocean-like waves. She's progressively faster at learning earthbending and, of course, firebending comes easiest & becomes a favorite.
Lucretia is also water tribe, probably in the North, though I would love for her to be friends with Barry somehow. She may not be a bender, but she's for sure attuned to spirits, especially the moon. Possibly the whole North Pole spirit imbalance is because of some well-intentioned thing she does while they're trying to repel the fire nation.
Prince Kravitz is trying to capture the Avatar but the Avatar's brother keeps flirting with him and it's very confusing. I don't know if I want to make the Raven Queen be the Firelord but if she's anyone she might be Ursa.
Kravitz is accompanied by Davenport (tell me captain "haven't we earned a little wrath" davenport isn't a firebender), a family member or close advisor who has been secretly a traitor/spy for like a decade. He's mostly coming along to keep his own eye on the Avatar and make sure she doesn't get captured or killed. White Lotus member.
Merle is a swamp waterbender with plantbending and, to everyone's shock in a dire moment, healing powers. He was a good friend of Lup's 100 years ago. Also White Lotus.
Magnus is an earthbender, Julia is a Kyoshi warrior. "Why isn't Magnus the token nonbender" well you see this whole thing is an elaborate AU of that one stretch of SC where Taako learned fighting and Magnus learned wizarding (joke)
Magnus is desperate to interact with spirits but is not attuned to them at all. He's excited to meet Lup because she is obviously the bridge to him getting to pet spirit dogs. Might have a pet dog or bear fusion variant.
#taz balance#the adventure zone#taako#lup#barry bluejeans#magnus burnsides#merle highchurch#davenport#kravitz#julia burnsides#text#balance#mine#atla#atla au#taakitz
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Quote: "We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it again and again. The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its 7 October onslaught - ed.] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth. Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it. We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs."
Point 1. incorrect not like they supply much of either anyhow
They do about half the electricity, which the other half should be fine for what is actually needed, not like there's any reason to keep on sending it there for the people that are trying to kill them or anything.
Maybe they should send some ammo too.
Point 2. bullshit, the IDF is a multicultural military with people of all stripes in it from Israeli Jews to Israeli Arabic Muslims, which will probably come in handy with the apartheid lie I assume will show up soon too. Jewish folks are the only group in Israel with male and female compulsory service, Arabs have no compulsory service they sign up all of their own accord.
Gonna be racists in any military, but filled is just going to be a really bad way to put it.
3. this covers churches and schools any civilian structure really
4 white phosphorous isn't illegal, also those images were from Syria when assad was using the stuff if they're the ones I'm thinking of.
5. bullshit, but if you have the stomach you could go ahead and see what hamass did on october 7 by clicking on this link, I strongly advise against it, it will likely make you sick to your stomach and haunt your dreams.
6. now you're just making things up
7. Every thing hamass has done starting with the attack on 10/7 has been a war crime, and before as well considering all the unguided rockets they send in without any concern where they land and if things are military targets or not.
Their idea is to sow terror and fear, thus that would be why the world considers them a terrorist organization.
As for the other list,
1.Bullshit, see point one about continuing and then maybe look up what they actually wanted in exchange
2. from 2014 even, just like the vox headline up there, so it's not like anyone can claim this is new information
Now then later on they'll remove the uniforms and put on civilian clothing, makes it easier for them to stand in the middle of a crowd of people and start shooting because some guy in fatigues is a dad giveaway that someone is gonna start shooting.
(that's another war crime btw) (So is taking civilian hostages, which has been established that they did)
3. They're trying to murder every single person in Israel, and then if they can manage that they'll expand and start hunting down every Jewish person across the globe, hamass has been quite clear about this and for some reason nobody wants to believe them.
If they just wanted to survive they'd stop trying to kill Israeli's at every opportunity.
You know like the ceasefire everyone was clamoring for that happened in November.
They have a incredibly terrible way of showing they just want to survive, if that were the case they wouldn't do this every fucking time they get a ceasefire.
Also see point one about doing 10/7 repeats for as long as they can.
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Pro Tips from a NaNo Coach: How to Keep Writing When it Feels Impossible
NaNoWriMo can seem like a daunting task sometimes, for NaNo newbies and veterans alike. Fortunately, our NaNo Coaches are here to help guide you through November! Today, author Shameez Patel Papathanasiou is here to share her advice on how to set yourself up for noveling success:
National Novel Writing Month is almost over. Some authors managed 50K In A Day (my wrists scream at the mere thought), some are steadily hitting that 1667 daily word goal, and others have fallen behind—and that’s when writing starts to feel impossible.
Don’t. Give. Up!
Even if you’re under 50,000 words by the end of November, you’ll come out with something: perhaps 20 000 words, exciting characters, or at the very least, a new idea.
Keeping at it when you’re juggling a full-time job, parenting, and surviving a pandemic is tough, but you can do it. Here’s how:
1. Sprints
This concept is not foreign to any seasoned WriMo. My personal favorite is a 10-minute sprint because regardless of how busy I am, I can find 10 minutes, be that after I inhale my lunch or the 10 minutes I usually spend creating stories in my head before falling asleep.
With some practice, you can write between 250 and 500 words in a 10-minute sprint, and if that is all you’re doing every day, that’s okay. Consistency is key.
2. Writing-On-The-Go
For years I thought I had to set up my space and get in the zone, but one night, after years of being stuck in bed beside a sleeping toddler, I stopped doom-scrolling and opened a Google Doc on my phone instead. Within months, I had an 80,000-word first draft.
While I realize that some of you use Word or Scrivener to draft, it would help to keep a Google Doc handy for those days you find yourself waiting at the bank, outside your kid’s school, or even for when you’re lying in bed a little bit too cozy to get up and fetch your laptop.
Trust me, you won’t remember the idea you’re promising yourself you’ll remember. Write it down or send it to yourself in a voice note. Your phone is a powerful tool, use it!
3. Writing Buddies
This is another thing that NaNoWriMo has blessed me with. While writing is often seen as solitary, it doesn’t have to be. Having a close group of friends who write not only means they’re there to encourage you and keep you company, but they’re also there to critique your work and to cheer for you on the days you doubt yourself.
4. Don’t Compare
Don’t compare word counts, don’t compare the time taken to get published, don’t compare the number of awards, don’t compare anything. Your writing journey is your own for more reasons than even you know. It will happen when it happens in the way that it is meant to happen. If your writing buddies are succeeding before you, remember that there are also others behind you.
A line from one of my favorite poems comes to mind: If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Which leads me to another line from the same poem:
5. Be Gentle with Yourself (And Your Work)
First drafts are supposed to be messy. They’re your first attempt at a project, which makes it your worst attempt too. And in every revision, you will create something better and more beautiful. Acknowledge this and allow yourself to play around with characters and worlds, to feel joy in the story you’re writing, to vomit out the roughest form of the story you’ll one day share with the world.
We’re almost there, and no one else can write it the way that you do. Do your best!
Shameez Patel Papathanasiou is from Cape Town, South Africa. She is a civil engineer by day and an author by night. Her literary adventures take her to worlds filled with magic, monsters and someone to fall in love with. Shameez fell in love with fiction at a young age. Her parents fondly recall her first handwritten story completed before the age of ten, titled The Treasures of Zombie Island, which surprisingly featured no zombies at all. She has been writing ever since. Her debut fantasy novel, The Last Feather, is out now—it, at the very least, features a feather.
#nanowrimo#writing#nanowrimo 2022#writing advice#writing tips#by nano coach#shameez patel papathanasiou
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POSTER ANALYSIS BECAUSE MY BRAIN REFUSES TO BELIEVE LOCKWOOD&CO IS ACTUALLY BECOMING A REAL TV SHOW
beware: a long post
- SKULL IS HERE SKULL IS HERE SKULL IS HERE
honestly, after "the Golden Blade" character that really threw me off it's good to see this iconic bastard appear on screen. low key sad it's not pulling any faces (yet)
- “Hunt or be Haunted”. this one really took me by surprise. the change of tagline suggests that our smallest agency in London and their business is no longer the only focus of the story. it gives more of a feel of survival story rather then underdogs type of story tho. we'll see where it goes
- the logo is growing on me, it still looks too polished to me, compared to any of book logos which were, well, logos, and here it's just font. but it goes nicely with brutalism aesthetic, sPEAKING OF WHICH-
- yall see this? they are actually going with brutalism for their world?? not a sugar-coated London with beautiful scenery of old european city?? thank you l&co crew i love you for doing your hw.
<...> For a while any object even dimly supposed to have some kind of psychic residue was treated with terror and disgust. Items of old furniture were burned, and random antiques smashed or thrown into the Thames. A priceless painting in the National Portrait Gallery was hurled to the floor and trampled on by a vicar, ‘because it looked at me in a funny way’. Anything with a strong connection to the past was considered suspect, and a cult of modern objects grew up, which remains with us even now. <...>
there's nothing good in what past holds in their world. people are paranoid because no one knows where new outbreak will happen. of course there are blocks of concrete for flats, of course it's cold, of course it's surreal to see London like this. it's alternative London.
- i love these ghost lamps, they are my new fixation. they are so big and so out of place. obsessed even. ufo looking. my love. ghost lamp my beloved
- rapiers, you love to see those
everyone has a unique hilt. im so normal
- last but not least: composition. i think it ties nicely back to tagline change since, yes, it would be nice to see idk Portland Row being shown. but no, characters are in the middle of empty street, looking at something that we can't see. they are agents after all - seeing things outside regular person's comprehension is their thing. they are distressed but got their rapiers at ready. sky is getting dark, ghost lamp (my beloved) is on, quiet city is cowardly seen underneath. f i t t i e s i s b e h i n d e v e r y t h i n g
NOW ON TO THE CHARACTERS
they are all so awkward looking, my divvies
- SKULL
my man got a nice looking prison, i like the handle, it's handy. now i see why Lucy will struggle while breaking this jar with poop statue. now waiting for his cast announcement :/
- Lucy got the biggest wardrobe update, kinda digging it. definitely more practical, but it's sad to see heavy boots go. but now everyone is much quicker on their feet, especially after seeing how fast these ghosts are.
ARE THOSE FLARES ON HER BELT
- not to be that person, but Cameron was born for this role. really aching to seeing more of his acting and his way of bringing Lockwood on the big screen.
also thank lord he's wearing trainers. he already has a safety hazard coat, if there was one more formal piece of clothing he’d died on spot- wait he still has a tie-
credit goes to @lucyjcarlyle for pointing out Lockwood's ring, can't wait to find out it is a family relic and die inside
- George by Ali actually feels like George, right? baggy clothes, bag that weights him, something about his posture - all those things add to recognition of character despite differentiating from books’ description. it’s sad we didn’t get to see him in teaser
- and they all look relatively young! like this thumbnail really captures it
also, im not the only one who sees the iconic @doodlingraka's colour palette everywhere, right? because i dig it and i want more
in conclusion: it doesn’t look perfect, lets be honest here, but Cornish’s interview puts it all together in a perspective. this show is a love letter to horror movies of last century. they were clumsy, too, but they knew how to scare its viewer in a smart way. and that’s what books did, now it’s time to pay a tribute. at least i want to believe so
#lockwood and co#lockwood & co#l&co#l&co. netflix#netflix#analysis#ghost lamps my beloveds#jonathan stroud#lucy carlyle#anthony lockwood#george karim#skull in the jar#the skull#ruby stokes#cameron chapman#ali hadji-heshmati#WHO VOICES OR EVEN BETTER PLAYS SKULL#NETFLIX YOU COWARD#.mypost
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Cling Fast: Chapter Two
by Loysark
The Sandman (Netflix with some sprinkling of comics canon and Gaimanverse)
Dreamling (Hob Gadling x Dream of the Endless | Morpheus)
Unfinished
PG-13 (for now)
Unbeta’d
*
“Remarkable,” Doctor Henrietta Butler says, freezing mid-handshake when she meets Hob’s eyes. “Just remarkable, the resemblance–”
“I’ve heard that a lot today,” Hob tries to interrupt, embarrassed by how much two separate BBC Historics production assistants have already gushed over him in the short walk from the Broadcast House lobby to this back office.
“I imagine so,” Henrietta laughs. She’s a sturdy woman in her mid-fifties, hair long and steel-grey, shot through with the last clinging vestiges of the mouse-brown. Her hands are at least as calloused as his, from so many years of demonstrating cheese presses, and butter churns, and laundry manglers. The smile lines around her eyes are deep, her laughter comes often and easy, and Hob likes her immediately.
She reminds him of his older sister Matilda.
The memory comes with a sudden hankering for Matty’s rabbit stewed in verjuice. He wonders, if he remembers it in enough detail, would Henrietta be able to recreate it for him? Her years of study overlap with Hob’s. Or maybe Morpheus could, in the Dreaming.
“Sit, sit, please,” Henrietta says, waving him toward one of the cushy office chairs. They’re in a well-appointed meeting room, not much larger than Hob’s office at the university, but significantly tidier. It’s staged to look a bit like a gentleman’s study, and Hob vaguely recalls a chat show from the sixties that used similar furniture. He wonders if it’s been repurposed.
It’s the BBC and they never seem to have enough money, so yeah, likely.
Henrietta goes through the deeply British ritual of pouring out the tea that some assistant has left on a spindly little table in the middle of the hodgepodge of leather chairs.
Oh Christ in his Heaven, Hob realizes as he accepts his mug from Henrietta. I’m going to have to live without tea for months. I don’t know if I can go back to posset.
They chat aimlessly about Hob’s journey to Broadcasting House that morning. Henrietta is delighted to learn that Hob walked in from Wapping rather than take the tube. While motorcars and handsom cabs are handy when you want to go far, Hob’s still got enough of the sellsword peasant soldier in him to prefer a good long march to clear his head over a stuffy, cramped, loud journey shoved into a metal can with a thousand other people.
The hour and half’s stroll along the water, through the oldest part of the city, had reminded Hob of what had changed since his time as Robert Gadlen the Third. He’d made it a game with Matthew, who had joined him for part of the walk, to describe what had been there before the Great Fire.
Hob remembers when Chalk Fields was still a field, Forest Gate had a gate one passed through to leave the city and enter a forest, and Haymarket was a place to purchase hay.
Gadlen House had survived the inferno simply by virtue of not being in the fashionable part of town. It’s across the river in what is now the Hither Green neighborhood, overlooking what the National Trust had named Manor Park after the House itself when they’d taken control of the estate. At the time, Hob didn’t care about fashionable neighborhoods, or that it was outside the Walls. It was close to Greenwich and the Depford docks, through which much of Hob’s wealth had passed back then, and that’s what mattered.
And he’d wanted space for his paradise-on-earth. He’d predicted, and predicted right, that the city would one day consume the south bank. He’d wanted to carve out his piece of it before that happened. He’d ensured that there was plenty of room for parkland, orchards, and gardens. Hob had grown up in green and hilly Essex back when his village was so small that everyone could fit inside the church. He preferred space and verdant nature where he could get it, even when he had to live in a city.
He’d done the same when he’d bought the White Horse and as much of the land surrounding it in Wapping as he could winkle out of the estate agents. His current little patch of city has a fine view of the Pool of London (and the Bridge and Tower, if you crane your head up river), but is nowhere near as dominated by buildings and rushing pedestrians and racing cars as the rest of old London Town. On purpose, of course. And despite all the development real estate offers he’d received and turned down (some less politely than others, and one with a baseball bat and a bloody grin when they’d foolishly sent a pack of hooligans to try to intimidate Hob), he intends to keep it that way.
Hob’s walked past Broadcasting House before, too, of course. He's wandered every road in London at one time or another, but its place on Regent's Street between the Thames and Marleboyne means he's walked the Cambridge borough more times than he can count.
Once Henrietta is settled with her own cuppa, Hob jumps straight to his first question: "So where did the historians dig me up? How?"
Henrietta laughs again, easy and generous. “Nothing so difficult–Google, just like everything else in this day and age, I’m afraid. We’d already gotten permission from the National Trust to film at Gadlen House–”
It’s my home, you should have asked my permission, Hob thinks, but the possessiveness flits away as quickly as it had appeared. It’s not his home any more, and that’s something he’s had to come to grips with more than once in his long, long life.
“--and as Glenn and are focused on the downstairs manner of things, we had thought it might be fun to have an actor or two play the upstairs folks, you know.”
“Downtown Abbey-like,” Hob surmises.
“Precisely. But then of course a research assistant was looking into the last owner, Robert Gadlen the Third, sending the portrait to casting directors, and your name popped up in an internet search. Historian at the University of York, same name, remarkable family resemblance…”
Hob tugs on his ear, annoyed again, and aware that there’s no one to blame but himself on this one. “But how did you trace the lineage?” he asks, because that’s the real issue here. The lesson he has to learn from, and the mistake he has to make sure he doesn’t accidentally repeat next time.
“One of the privileges of the show,” Henrietta allows. “They let us get into all sorts of archives and records that the public can’t access. Looks like there was a brother, some years back. Probably estranged, for as little he’s talked of in the surviving correspondence. But he claimed what little fortune there was left of the Gadlen Estate in 1703 and parlayed it into the triangle trade–”
"You mean the kidnapping, murder, and enslavement of other human beings," Hob says flatly. "It's alright—call it what it was. I'm sure my ancestor is as ashamed of it as I am."
Henrietta offers him a thoughtful glance at his bluntness. “I wonder. At any rate, from there it was a matter of following the line of inheritance, and once the researchers realized that your ancestors had a fondness for ‘Robert’ or some variation thereof for their eldest sons, and a chronic inability to spell their own surnames in any sort of consistent manner, it led us to you. Robert Gadlen the Sixth, or thereabouts.”
“And of course, what with my area of expertise being what it is…” Hob finishes that thought with a shrug and a gesture at himself.
“It’s almost too perfect,” Henrietta agrees.
“But who’s to say I’m the right choice of presenter?” Hob pushes. “What if I’m terrible at it? It’d be a huge waste of time and money.”
“I’ve seen videos of your lectures,” Henrietta replies with a cheeky twinkle in her eye. “You’ll do fine.”
“The Everyday Histories series?” Hob groans. “I thought they replaced those videos with this year’s speakers.”
“Nothing ever truly goes away on the internet,” Henrietta reminds him, which is part of the problem. But that's Future Hob's concern. “So what do you say, Doctor Gadlen? Three experts instead of two this time around, and an actual descendant of the original Master of the House to boot. Feels like destiny, wouldn’t you say?”
It bloody well better not be, Hob thinks. He makes a mental note to tell Morpheus to pass on a polite request to Destiny to butt out of his life. He’s already had enough of Despair’s fish hook in the last few centuries. And, though he’s still reluctant to admit it to his Stranger, Hob thinks he’s been the center of Desire’s attention a little too often lately, as well. All that hand-holding is giving Hob ideas that he has to be very careful not to allow to become daydreams around his friend. The last thing Hob needs is the eldest Endless ganging up on him, too.
“If I agree to this,” Hob says, “what would be expected? I mean, I love your work, and my friends Matthew and Morph… Murphy are big fans of what you do, but just because I look like the guy,” here he enjoys the irony of gesturing at the color print-out on the table between them of the portrait of his own face. “It doesn’t mean I have to pretend to actually be him, right? I’m no actor.”
“No,” Henrietta assures him. “We’re not going to write scenes and have you speak as Robert Gadlen. It’ll be the same as Glenn and I, the assumption of a general role and class in society–you as the patriarch and master of the household, Glenn will be the gamekeeper and groundsman, do the gardens, and the orchards, and the shooting, and the like. I’ll be juggling the roles of head cook and housekeeper this time.”
“The cook was an Italian man,” Hob corrects before his brain catches up with his mouth.
“Was he?” Henrietta says, delighted. She sits forward. “Done a lot of research into the Witch Knight then, have you?”
Hob winces at the unkind nickname. "I mean, I know who Robert Gadlen the Third was, of course I do. It's like Anne Hathaway not knowing Shakespeare, even though she's an actor, when she has the same name as his wife. You can't not be aware when it's your field. I just… I guess I never thought that I was actually related to the guy."
Henrietta nods. “Makes sense. I’ll admit I haven’t done the deep dive yet, so I’ll defer to you on that detail.”
I’m going to have to figure out how to back myself up if I’m going to get my way as much as I want, Hob realizes. Any documents or paperwork he’d had in his study the night he'd been dragged away had likely been long ago pilfered or burned up. And Hob hadn’t been in the habit of maintaining a daily journal any more. He’d started one under Caxton, to help learn his letters, but realized fairly quickly that putting proof of his immortality on paper might invite the very accusations and executions that he’d actually suffered.
“I don’t think Glenn wouldn’t mind being the head cook this time, then,” Henrietta says over Hob’s musing. “I can manage the gardens. For the game, maybe we could–”
“I can hunt,” Hob says. “I can ride, too. Though it’s been a while. And I haven’t held a bow since–” –firearms became more ubiquitous in the late seventeenth century– “undergrad.”
Henrietta laughs again, clearly beyond pleased. “And how’s your late Middle English?”
“Impeccable,” Hob says, because you know what? Hob still has an ego, and if he’s going to do this, he’s going to do it right.
*
Once they’ve finished their tea, signed a few non-disclosure agreements, and collected up the folder of reference photos, Henrietta leads Hob further into the bowels of Broadcast House.
Hob feels like a minor celebrity when they walk between the rows of cubicles belonging to the Historics research team. They pop up, one after the other, like meerkats to get a good look at him, then drop back into their seats and whisper about how handsome and uncanny he is in much louder tones than he thinks they realize. Hob wishes Matthew could be here for this, he’d find it hilarious.
Maybe Hob can convince Henrietta that he used to keep a massive, mouthy raven as a pet so Matthew could ride his shoulder around the set.
Hob is led to a back wall absolutely smothered in fabric swatches, photocopies of old hand-written recipes, food lists, architectural drawings, gardening layouts, sketches of Manor Park, lighting references, plans for riding tack, and a multitude of other documents that Hob hasn’t got the experience or time to parse. Dead centre of the board are life-size copies of the three extant portraits of Robert Gadlen the Third.
The first is of Hob alone. He doesn’t remember which year it was or the name of the artist. But he remembers that it was pig-hot in the artist’s salon and that he’d damn near keeled over from heatstroke on the first sitting. That had been before he’d met Eleanor, and the painter had been some former apprentice of Hans Holbien the Younger, and very much in demand. Hob had wanted to wear his Stranger’s colors, for the portrait. He wanted to proclaim his gratitude and allegiance to the creature he’d thought of then as his patron. But the black velvet had been smothering, and the scarlet embroidered trim had crumpled unappealingly, and the starched ruff had scratched so appallingly that Hob had begged the artist to let him take it off if it wasn’t being painted in that exact moment.
The second portrait was of Hob and Eleanor. Hob ignores the scarecrowish figure of himself hovering at Eleanor’s side, in a stately parlor. He holds a glove in one hand to indicate that he is master of his estate, a sword on his hip along with his heraldic badge on his breast to indicate his knighthood, and a view of the shipyards where he’d made his fortune out the arched window behind him. Instead, he focuses on his wife.
Eleanor is plump and buxom, cheeks filled with roses and hair the deep gold color of flax. She looks young, God's wounds, she looks no older than his students. How old was she when they married? Twenty? Twenty-two? And he an eternal thirty-three. But Lord Above in All His Splendor, had he loved her on first sight. Maid-of-a-maid in Elizabeth's court, low-down daughter of a low-down courier, nobody of import. She professional enough to remain quiet and bold enough to openly drink the leftover wine that her mistress had abandoned.
She'd met his eyes over the rim of the goblet, launched a challenging eyebrow in his direction, and that was that for Hob Gadling and his heart.
She’d had a little dog when they married, a dumb fluffy white thing with a heart as generous as El’s but breath like a week-old fish pie. She’d loved the bloody thing like a child. It was sitting by her feet in the portrait, pink tongue lolling, staring up lovingly at its mistress, sporting a ridiculous flax-yellow bow. In her lap, Eleanor cradles the lute Hob had given her as his first courting gift. She'd loved music, but hadn't an instrument of her own, and Hob hated how she'd sighed over how lovely the queen's was.
In the portrait Eleanor's dress is the color of a robin’s egg, and so are her eyes.
(Morpheus' eyes too, Hob realizes with a start as he studies the portrait.)
Hob remembers the almighty row they’d had over the dress, when he’d been handed the mantua-makers’ bill. How it was the first time he’d yelled at El, the first time he’d seen the tears well up in her eyes and the mottled, shamed flush creep up her bosom and neck. And how it had made him feel like an absolute monster.
He’d thrown himself at her feet, literally, right there in the solar, and kissed her slippers and apologized. Then he’d kissed her ankles. Then her calves, and her knees. By the time he’d kissed all the way up, and spent a dozen humid moments with her thighs clamped hard around his ears, she was happy to forgive him on the understanding that he was to never again raise his voice to her. It was a promise Hob had kept, because honor was something he clung to, as well.
If your life was such that sometimes all you could call your own as you moved onto a new life was your name and your word, then you didn't break the latter easily.
And the final portrait was the one from the National Gallery, commissioned just months before his son died. This time, Hob is the one seated, taking his ease with a pair of hunting hounds sprawling at his feet and whose names, he is utterly ashamed to realize, he's forgotten. They are outside, Hob on a park bench, under the great wide apple tree Hob had planted in the Park in private memory of his brother John, and the rest of his lost family. Hob is dressed for leisure, as if he's just walked out of the doors of his study and into the garden, still in his wrapper and cap.
Robyn is the real star of the portrait, as Hob meant him to be.
Standing beside him, leaning on a long, skinny matchlock musket, Robyn looks exactly like he had the day he'd died. He's wearing different clothes of course—fine hunting kit, decorated with more lace and embroidery than would ever be practical in real life. But the rest is just as Hob remembers. The cheekbones finally emerging from the last of his baby fat, the cowl's lick in the swoop of golden-brown hair at the center of his forehead, which he'd inherited from El, the cleft chin, the start of laughter lines around his sparking- dark eyes.
The only difference is that on the night he'd died, Robyn had been sporting his first atrocious, patchy goatee. Attempting to look like his father.
Hob gives in to the urge to run his fingers along the edges of their faces, first El’s then Rob’s. The photo paper is glossy to the touch, but he can remember the smoothness of her cheek, and the peach-fuzz prickle of his. He swallows hard, determined not to allow the emotions throttling him.
"And there he is, our Witch Knight and his tragic family." Henrietta lays a comforting hand on his shoulder. "It must be very moving, to see them now that you know that they are your tragic family."
Tragic family, Hob repeats to himself. He had sometimes wondered if El, and Robyn, and wee John had died so young in payment for his everlasting life. He had not passed on his immortality. The thought that he had inadvertently stolen their years for himself had been hard on his mind in the many decades he'd begged and starved on the streets.
His Stranger had reassured him in 1689 that it had not been the case. Hob, who had not tasted ale or wine in over a decade, and as a result had no longer been in practice being intoxicated, had burst into tears of relief at the table.
His Stranger had let him cry, without mocking or abandoning him. When the proprietor made noises about closing up for the night, Hob had found a purse heavy with enough fantastical coins ("Pulled from the dreams of children on a pirate adventure," Morpheus had explained centuries later) that Hob could pay the evening's tab, as well as for a room and a wash.
Hob had disdained the tub the proprietor's wife had dragged in, with no desire submerged again any time soon, but he'd scrubbed himself and his clothes as best he could. In the morning, he had appealed to the proprietor for work, and when the man had learned that Hob knew his letters, sent him to his brother's vegetable stall in the nearby market. Hob was too old to be a proper delivery boy, but he could read the lists, and assemble the orders, and knew the city like nobody else.
With his feet back under him, and his belly not eternally consuming itself, Hob was able to make himself decent enough to pursue what little wealth may still be in banking for him (or in the little caches he'd buried all over his hometown), and start again.
And look how that turned out, Hob remembers, tugging his ear.
"Must we call him the Witch Knight?" Hob asks, as Henrietta moves off to point out the bits of fabric pinned to the board all around the portraits. "Only, it doesn't seem like a very kind nickname. He wasn't a witch."
"You sound sure of that," Henrietta says, with a little chuckle. "While of course we can debunk it in the show, it is the most commonly known moniker for your semi-famous ancestor. People know it. It's on all the Gadlen House tourist pamphlets."
Uhg, Hob thinks. He should have visited the house at least once since it was handed over to the National Trust. Maybe he could have stopped the nickname before it got popular.
Instead he'd stayed away completely, certain that his heart couldn't take seeing what the courtiers who had been gifted the estate had done to the place. Nor what 'improvements' their own ancestors may have torturously imposed on his paradise-on-earth.
"Witch Knight," Hob mutters, shaking his head.
*
One of the most important things that Hob has learned about his Stranger in the last year is that Morpheus is an absolute sucker for a bet.
Maybe it’s part of being… whatever it is, actually that An Endless is. Immutable, bound to the laws of the universe, and unable to turn down a wager on a cellular level. It seems that all the Endless were like that, based on Morpheus’ sparse stories. As Hob understands it, once an Endless shakes on it, they are pathologically compelled to see their little bets through, no matter how inane or ridiculous, or what harm it may cause one another. Or what regret and rifts in the love between siblings.
So of course the first thing Hob says when he falls asleep that night is: "If you're so keen for me to do this show, I bet you can't find me a book that still exists that I can use a primary source."
"Oh-ho-ho!" Merv had shouts, from where he's trying to shove a massive potted arrangement of red carnations, blue cornflowers, and poppies into a corner of the throne room. It's an unusual combination. Hob doesn't know the language of flowers, but the sharp juxtaposition of the blooms looked a little violent to him. "You're betting the boss?"
"Decorum," Morpheus scolds the pumpkinhead waspishly, but without any real heat. He stands from where he was lounging on the bottom steps of his dias, clearly waiting for Hob to enter the Dreaming. "Your wager is accepted. What do you forfeit if I locate the necessary texts in the Waking world for you?"
Morpheus strides towards the Library, and Hob trots after him, his slippers a whisper against the blackhole-dark marble. "I'll put that homemade spanakopita and saganaki you like on the menu at The New Inn."
Hob's been trying to get Dennis to agree to it for months, anyway, but his co-manager is extremely opposed to dishes that a) take literal hours of laminating and metric tons of butter to create and b) are brought to the table on fire. If Morpheus provides him with government documents, or a servant's old journal, or even letters that Hob or Eleanor had written, though, Hob's willing to throw down with Dennis over his sudden desire to shift the menu from Upscale Pub Grub to Classical Greek in the most literal sense.
Morpheus gets that little starry-eyed (also literally) far-away look he sometimes sports when thinking of his originating culture. Morpheus had, after all, been thought into being when humans were still doing the OG version of the Mediterranean diet. Though he didn't eat, the sorts of foods that might have appeared on his altars—warm olives and flatbread, oil and vinegar, tart goat's cheese and yogurt, grapes and sugared nuts—could always entice him into a nibble or five.
"Hmm, agreed," Morpheus says, holding open the Library door for Hob. "And should the task prove fruitless, what do you ask in recompense?"
A kiss, Hob thinks, and then swiftly squashes it down.
"You invite Death to our next Tuesday hang. I haven't had the chance to thank her properly yet."
Morpheus looks sour about that, the possessive prat, which is why Hob had picked it. He's been hinting that he wanted to meet at least this mysterious sister who whom he owes his immortality for a while now.
"Very well," Morpheus agrees mulishly. "This way."
He leads them towards The Shelves of Books That Are, which is where Hob would have started, too. The Shelves of Books that Were might help too, if Hob could convince Morpheus to allow him to bring a physical copy into the Waking. Regrettably the Shelves of Books That Have Yet To Come and the Shelves of Books That Never Will Be would be off-limits for this little project.
Maybe, if they do have to magick a book back into existence, the Bookseller of Soho could see fit to help him with the little ruse. He’d always seemed the sort of a nice spot of drama, and the Bently Snake was always down for a bit of heist when needed.
They chat a bit about their days—Morpheus about the section of the Dreaming he's building to celebrate the many vivid and creative imaginings of the growing legions of fan writers and artists, and Hob about his first meeting with Henrietta.
"Witch knight!" Hob repeats in disgust as he relays the conversation. "As if I was—" he gestures at himself, and his scarlet silk pajamas darken and spread, like ink in water, until he's wearing the most ridiculous anime-esque spiky gothic armor he can think up.
He's getting better and better at this lucid dreaming schtick.
"Peace, Hob," Morpheus entreats, waving away his nightmarish outfit. His clothes become pajamas once more, though the King of the Dreaming has added a cozy, blowsy banyan in cloth-of-gold. Hob rather likes it—it billows and trails behind him just like Morpheus's own cloak of galaxies. "It was not meant as an insult. It is merely another story."
"But stories hold power, you said so," Hob says, jogging along to catch up with his friend. "And I'd like to find something else to outshine that one."
Morpheus is always taller than Hob in the Dreaming, and far more eldritch too. His pale eyes are instead the deep velvet black of space, filled with a field of stars. He is skinnier, sharper, arms and fingers just slightly too long, hair more wild and clothing always moving as if he has his own private breeze to make sure his cloak is always shown to best advantage.
He probably does, the vain ponce.
He's a gorgeous nightmare, and he knows it.
And so he peers down at Hob from his lofty snobbish height. Then with a dramatic flourish, he plucks a book down off a shelf that's definitely too high up for Hob to reach.
"I win," Morpheus says smugly.
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#hob x dream#dreamling fic#dream#dreamling#dream x hob#dream of the endless#hob gadling#hob x morpheus#morpheus x hob#morpheus#Cling Fast#Losyark#the sandman#sandman fanfic#fanfiction#sandman#merv pumpkinhead#matthew the raven#eleanor gadling#robyn gadling#centennial boyfriends#centennial husbands
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I adore you atla art sm!
But that korra au? 🫥
Please don't take this as hate or anything, I'd just like to know your thought process behind that AU if possible! ❤️
Why is zuko not dead? Katara would've ended him. Why the hell is sokka even talking too zuko?
My gosh the way this fandom cuddles zuko is so fucking annoying, I enjoy zuko, but fandom zuko isn't zuko at all. 🧍🏽♀️
Idk I've read AU's in which aang is killed off early on (and there's so many of these au's, literally for what?), and imo are terrible!
None of these characters would be the same without aang. Why does part of the fandom seem to dismiss aangs part of the story?
I'm not coddling him at all. Season 1 Zuko is a villain for sure. But in the au, Katara would have definitely tried to end him except her bending would be gone by that time probably mid fight since Zuko isn't stupid enough to not defend himself.
I also recognise that Sokka would have been murderous as well, but Sokka would probably be by Aangs side as Katara fought Zuko. He would see that the face being gone and no burn scars couldn't be Zuko's fault and they knew Aang was venturing into the spirit world. While Sokka is quite passionate hes also a strategist. He would have recognised the position they were in with the Avatar literally dead and want answers for that as well as safety for him and Katara. Once she loses her bending it's definitely negotiation mode with Zuko. Especially because Zuko is a powerhouse in season 1, he fought Zhao and won, he has dual blades and is shown to frequently defy the laws of physics in his escapes. Sokka would probably try and use Zuko for free passage back to the south pole, except then Zuko would drop the bomb hes worthless to the fire nation without the avatar.
What I don't include in this au in the pieces I've drawn is that their next best idea is to pretend the avatar is still alive but gone into hiding. Sokka takes Zuko prisoner to stop him from grabbing, Zuko goes along with it because he's literally dead either way and hes not sure what happened to his uncle. They escape on a boat since Appa and Aang are tied together meaning Appa is gone. With no waterbending and now no moon the balance is upset, spirits are out etc...
Zuko is handy basically. Sokka recognises this and I believe he would put survival over vengeance until they got home.
By then? Bonding maybe? I mean, Zuko is pretty harmless without the Avatar to chase. Especially with all the fire nation politics that would erupt from Zhao conquering the north pole.
I hope this answers some of your questions. I, for one, also hate when Zuko is made nicer in some fandom spaces. He's only nuanced because we see his growth as a character and he only becomes who he is in season 3 because he has to hit rock bottom. He is literally living put a tragedy in the first 2 seasons. Thematically anyway.
I like season 1 Zuko because of the potential he has to become the character he is in season 3 not because he's season 3 Zuko wrapped up in a tragic story.
If you guys want more of that au I suppose I could draw more... 👀
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Lance Griffiths
Introduction
Full name: Lance Griffiths
Nickname(s): Lancy, Checkers, Cowboy, Sarge, Lancelot, Stallion
Gender: Male (he/him)
Nationality: American
Place of birth: Fort Davis, Texas, USA
Age: Late forties to early fifties
Callsign: Griffin
Sexuality: Bisexual
Occupation: Fighter aircraft
Squadron: VMFA-312 "Checkerboards"
General Information
Personality: Lance is complex. Not everyone will get to know the same Hornet. On the surface, he's ruthlessly efficient at getting jobs done with military precision and strives to push himself to do better and work harder, although he can unknowingly come off as a bit too aggressive when he puts his mind to something. He has a brutal honesty to him and isn't afraid to say it how it is, which can come in handy in situations that require it. While a very stoic man on the outside, that doesn't mean he can't feel pain and sorrow, he just buries it deep down under a rough exterior. He may struggle to show emotion at times, but his loyalty is unmatched. Lance doesn't let many people see the softer side to him, mostly because he's afraid he'll be left heartbroken again. Once he does let down his walls though, he cares for you unconditionally, whether you're a friend, family, or a lover. Deep down, he's a gentle, kind, considerate and surprisingly affectionate guy who would go to the ends of the earth for those he truly cares about. Another side to him is a little more charismatic. Lance is a total charmer, there's no doubt about it. He certainly knows how to sweep someone off their feet with his soft, crooning voice or a subtle wink.
Hobbies/Interests: Working out, playing guitar, singing, drawing.
Likes: Horses, cooking, fishing, his family, challenging himself.
Dislikes: Sweet foods in large quantities, having his opinions dismissed, laziness.
Voice: Lance's typical speaking voice is very deep but smooth, though he can raise it to a commanding shout when necessary. Throughout the years, he has slowly developed a more typical southern drawl, both from his mother and time spent living in South Carolina. Compared to most of his siblings, he generally sounds more like his mother than his father.
Physical Characteristics
Species: Fighter jet
Model: McDonnell Douglas F/A-18C Hornet
Eye Colour: Dark blue
Shape/Size: He is a very big guy in terms of fighter aircraft sizes. While standing far taller than the average F/A-18 Hornet, he is also very solid, with his build consisting primarily of thick muscle, especially around his fuselage.
Notable Features: Large scarring across left LERX, smaller scars and bullet wounds can be found all over his chest, sides and underbelly.
Interesting Facts:
• Growing up in rural Texas, Lance has always had a bit of an accent, though it becomes much thicker when he's tired, angry, stressed or excited.
• He struggles greatly with severe depression and PTSD, both from the loss of his wife and son, and being forced to fight a MiG-29 to the death for his own slim chance of survival. Lance has spent many nights awake as the nightmares became borderline unbearable.
• He doesn't do very well in situations where everything is completely out of his control. As a first-time parent during Evelyn's pregnancy, Lance was stressed out about practically everything. Similarly, with Dexter, his partner had to assure him multiple times that everything was going to be okay.
• He very much enjoys chin scratches.
• He makes the absolute best apple pie you've ever tasted.
• This man can sing, really well.
Mental Characteristics
Strengths: Dedicated, strong-willed, direct, honest, loyal, charismatic, organised.
Weaknesses: Stubborn, overly dominant, insensitive, blunt, bossy, difficulty expressing emotion.
Fears: Lance has an intense fear of losing those closest to him. He struggles with getting over loss and grief and finds it hard to push past what he can't get back.
MBTI: ESTJ "Executive"
Relationships
Parents:
• Andrew Griffiths (F/A-18A)
• Sabine Griffiths (F/A-18A)
Siblings:
(In order of eldest to youngest. Includes gender and ages in comparison to Lance. All are F/A-18C Hornets.)
• Sadie Griffiths (Female - 1 year younger)
• John Griffiths (Male - 5 years younger)
• Mark Griffiths (Male - 6 years younger)
• Carol Griffiths (Female - 7 years younger)
• Austin Griffiths (Male - 8 years younger)
• Bradley Griffiths (Male - 9 years younger)
• Abigail Griffiths (Female - 10 years younger)
• Lucinda Griffiths (Female - 11 years younger)
• Mason Griffiths (Male - 12 years younger)
• Hailee Griffiths (Female - 13 years younger)
• Riley Griffiths (Male - 14 years younger)
• Thatcher Griffiths (Male - 15 years younger)
• Cassidy Griffiths (Female - 16 years younger)
• Isabella Griffiths (Female - 17 years younger)
• Susie Griffiths (Female - 18 years younger)
Children:
• Harley Griffiths (F/A-18C x PA-34)
• Jesse Griffiths (F/A-18C x F-35B)
Friends:
• Aaron Sullivan (F/A-18C)
• Liam Grady (F/A-18C)
Relationships:
• Adam Haynes - former
• Evelyn May - former
• Dexter Dias-Sherwood - current
#disney planes#disneyplanes#art#digital art#original character#oc#planes oc#lance griffiths#spottylightning art
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One thing you learn about Madripoor is that when you first arrived there, you got a firsthand look and experience on just how handy having a street education here would be. The thieves, killers, and every other asshole around this criminal island nation would've loved nothing more than to sell somebody's healthy limb for a hundred grand and the finest steak that an establishment in Hightown could offer, and that was the ceiling for most folks who tried to make it and survive in Lowtown. You took on whatever jobs and opportunities you could to make it in this place and get paid, and even when you got paid, you had to hope like fucking hell that nobody would actually get the guts to just up and rob you. For someone like Logan, who was ex-military and a whole other list of ex-things that weren't important at the moment, he took an opportunity and he made the most of it. By running some jobs for someone of influence and power named Tyger Tiger, Logan had found a way to actually gain some decent cash and start moving up in the world. Of course, to avoid any type of detection from the outside world and those who might've known him, he took on the identity of Patch, and people who tried to rub elbows with Logan either got shown up or got parts of their bodies cut off, and there wasn't any negotiating with him, even if it made sense. A bit cynical and jaded, he still had a certain sense of honor to him and everything. It was just...untraditional.
Right now though, everything else was unimportant. At one of the more notable Hightown hotels, Logan was getting everything he wanted right now and then some. Her name was Miharu or something to that degree, and while they hadn't exactly traveled in the same circles, they had laid eyes upon one another at one of the blackjack tables downstairs, and that was more than enough for both of them to have the same idea travel through their minds. Upstairs they went, and here they were, with Miharu on her back in one of the most comfortable, luxurious beds Logan could ever recall himself being in, plowing Miharu down with the length of his cock, the heavy metal of the adamantium skeleton he branded weighing down the Korean woman's body a bit more than she might've expected him to. Her hands were pinned right above her head, allowing the Wolverine to control the action here, rolling his hip muscles forward and continuing to thrust into his partner for the evening without skipping a beat. He made sure that their lips connected deeply, feeling heavy breathing exhale through both of their own nostrils at how deeply steamed the anticipated kiss was, only escalating it further with a series of them. "Come on darlin', show me what you can do," Logan taunted her, his length fully entrenching itself into her core, only getting Logan juiced up with momentum and excitement even further.
@vulpuslunae
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I’m still early on in Stultifera Navis, but something about the “Little Handy” has caught my attention. Specifically, the “Housekeeping Assistant Module”, and the implications it has for world history.
We’re fighting the Sea Terrors using Ægir's roombas, and boosting their combat power with a plug-in module for a domestic assistant robot. We knew that Ægir tech was more advanced than that of the surface-dwellers, but since the Abyssal Hunters use deliberately low-tech weapons, our best example so far was an automatic toilet.
Now we’ve got a better idea of their typical product, does it seem a little bit familiar? A device with far more power than its name would seem to justify?
How about a “home-use life functions restoration device” that can power an entire nomadic city while in sleep mode?
I’ve previously theorised that Arknights is set in the post-apocalypse of a technologically advanced precursor human society that was destroyed by the emergence of Originium. As part of their attempts to stop the plague, they spliced their own DNA with animals that were more resistant to the disease. Much of their technology has since been lost, but their designs for nomadic cities have survived.
That’s the case on Terra firma, but what about under the waves? I suggest that the Ægir represent another group of survivors that took on a slightly different path, hiding away on the ocean floor where Originium and its Catastrophes did not naturally reach. Perhaps due to that escape, they managed to preserve and continue the technological legacy of the precursors more effectively than the surface dwellers.
Taking Ægir tech as the closest living relative of the precursor tech, note:
The Abyssal Hunters are spliced with Seaborns, proving the technology for the genetic splicing I theorised does exist.
Ægir technology does not run on Originium and Arts is foreign to their nation, indicating that Originium was something new to the precursor society, not embedded in life as it is now on the surface.
Abyssal Hunters aside, the Ægir themselves are not unmodified genetically: for example, Kirara sports a number of tentacles. (Gladiia’s also made a comment about breathing underwater, but that might just be a Hunter thing.)
The Ægir-precursor cultural link doesn’t change my hypothesis too much, but it gives supporting evidence and a window onto the past through preserved “traditions”. It also suggests why Ægir has remained hidden so far: they could have a lot to tell us about history.
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Flood Walker (Witch Archetype)
(art by Gycinn on DeviantArt)
Witches as a rule are often considered a form of spellcaster more in touch with the primal forces far from the light and safety of civilization (when not outright demonized with actual fiendish associations), and part of that has led to the idea of environment-plus-witch combos. Hans Christian Anderson’s sea witch and certain interpretations of his ice queen, any number of witches living in remote mountains or forests, et cetera.
That tradition carries over into Pathfinder with a handful of environment-focused witch archetypes, many of which we have covered on the blog previously, but now we’re looking at one focused on living in regions with a lot of rivers and a lot of flooding, which can vary from floodplains to the Serengeti to certain rainforests to any ol’ forest with a big river or three running through it and a lot of rain.
That’s a lot of ground to cover, but the one unifying factor is their connection to these floods.
While it’s not expressly stated in the archetype, it’s almost certainly associated with the region in the Lost Omens setting called the River Kingdoms, a large region known for it’s rivers and being a hotly contested wilderness where would-be kings and other rulers try to set up nations, most of which fail or fall eventually for any number of reasons, but probably happened at least once by way of flood (and potentially because one of these witches got pissed and decided to drown everyone).
Oh yes, forgot to mention, the flood walker is one of those “evil only” archetypes, probably because the River Kingdoms are also associated with Gyronna, goddess of hags and malevolent witchcraft.
While this obviously does not need to be the case in your setting, without any modification, some of the primary powers of the archetype literally revolve around subjecting victims to one of the most terrifying ways an air-breathing creature can die, so it could be hard to justify a goodly character, making this mostly the purview of villains and cruel antiheroes.
In any case, when you want to turn water against your foes in a very lethal way, these witches have an answer for you.
As mentioned above, these mystics must be evil since their literal modus operandi is drowning people, and becoming something other than evil causes them to lose access to these powers, either because their patron no longer wants to play nice, or because they actively refuse to use them. Actually retraining away from them takes much more effort though.
Naturally, they gain slightly different patron spells, notably the ability to force victims to only breathe water, suffocate them on dry land, and of course, blessing themselves with superior movement and power while in the water.
Perhaps their most insidious ability is their aura, which expends the air held in the lungs of their victims much faster than normal, putting them at risk of drowning faster than normal, and even subtly altering the water around them to make swimming in it harder, their thrashing cutting through the water while providing none of that handy equal and opposite reaction of movement to get them to the surface, though obviously the most skilled swimmers can brute force it and survive.
The witch themselves need never fear the water themselves, however, as they can simply will themselves to the surface to walk upon it.
Their most horrifying ability, however, is the ability to gain energy, either directly or by the patron rewarding them, when they cause another creature to drown, gaining additional power and vitality each time this happens, giving them plenty of incentive in and out of combat to send others to a watery grave, especially if they do so directly, as the benefits are doubled.
Unsurprisingly, the recommended hexes for this archetype revolve around those that give them superiority in water, the ability to blight foes or strangle them with their enchanted hair, as well as those that can be used to cause flooding by way of torrential rain.
This archetype is begging to be used in a region with a lot of water in it. However, being able to take advantage of the water can be difficult. Only two patrons grant control water as a spell (moon and water), so flooding an area to improve your chances is not always feasible depending on the build. In the hands of an NPC that has no reason to venture beyond their flooded/easily floodable domain is a much more reasonable use. That being said, spells that entrap a foe, preventing movement are good ways to help with their end goal of making them die by way of water. It should be noted for a caster that specializes in drowning enemies is that death by a lack of air is one of the few ways to bypass regeneration to kill something without having a certain damage type, if you can manage it.
We’ve talked a lot about what these mystics do, but not why, and the answers could be quite varied. They might be devotees of a deity like Gyronna who is outright malevolent and expects her followers to endorse her same level of cruelty for the power it gives them over others, or they might be bound to a watery patron that expects regular waterlogged sacrifices. Alternatively, the source of their magic might have nothing to do with it, but the nature of the power is what makes them evil. Perhaps they are sadistic or vengeful and hail from a watery or flood-prone land, viewing the depths as the perfect tool for destroying others. Meanwhile, creating a non-evil version of this archetype almost certainly can’t be done without getting rid of the “gains power and vitality from giving their victims one final, permanent bath” thing. You’d probably be better off using one of the other watery witch archetypes to represent a goodly witch of the river or waves, honestly.
Many legends have held that the Shira River is inhabited by malicious youkai intent on drowning trespassers. While this is no doubt true in some cases, one individual is almost certainly to blame, a tengu hermit who lives by the river, using magic to drag unfortunate victims to a watery grave. The question of why is not on anyone’s mind, but they might simply be a murderous misanthrope, or perhaps sacrifice victims to a malevolent water spirit for the petty magical power they boast.
It may come as no surprise that many boggard witches are flood walkers, using the waters of the swamp to sacrifice air-breathers to their demonic gods. In response, however, Grippli in the same regions often train as witch hunters to single out and destroy these cruel mages as a result.
Curiously, despite their general malice, the Flood Walker witches of Moshin Falls have a particular hate of vampires, using their magic to bring running water to them. However, it’s an ideological motivation, not an altruistic one, and an alliance with such a witch cannot last under most circumstances.
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“Death will come for everyone. For you and me, and for the world we know… That doesn’t mean, though, you can’t make a friend out of it.”
AN ALCHEMIST FROM SNEZHNAYA, currently spending her days traveling around nations and running away from her past. Even though she tried to leave everything that happened behind her, some things just simply couldn't go, not yet. But she didn't mind much. She learned how to live with them, after all.
BLESSED WITH CRYO VISION, the girl's offense of choice was her catalyst... and her rather unique art of alchemy. If one's art could bring live and create, hers could destroy it and break. It was a cruel thing, really. It took its beginning in her parents' death, when a young girl in desperate act of saving her parents from dying, accidentally created bloodlusting monsters and had to put an end to their lives herself, with the divine's gift.
However, GREAT KNOWLEDGE CAN ATTRACT DANGEROUS MINDS and it took no long for the Doctor to find out about the little hobby of hers and kindly ask her to work with, for him, offering all the greatest good an alchemist like her could ever dream of. But she was smarter than to agree, thus that marked her last day of freedom, now having the Fatui willing to chase her to to the very corner of Tevyat, all in the chase for her knowledge.
THERE’S ELEGANCE IN THE WAY SHE SPEAKS, the way she moves, the way she presents herself. Around strangers, she carefully picks her words and gestures, shies away from unnecessary interactions other than polite small talks, but among friends, she lets some of her guard down and becomes more open, direct with her opinions and cracking a joke here and there, but still keeping some of her guard up. She has charisma that she’s not afraid to use for her own advantage, but under the pretty words and smiles, there’s some awkwardness and insecurity, though she does not let it spring to the surface. She gets along with people easily and she has no problems understanding their feelings, which came in handy during her work in the Wangsheng Funeral Parlor. She’s a gentle soul in nature, understanding and playing along with Death. She doesn’t fear it. She waits for the day of its arrival, and when the day will come, she will take its hand and smile.
SHE’S AN ARTIST, smiling kindly to the public and gently waving her hand, all while balancing on a tightrope aware of the blood-starved creatures under, waiting for her tiniest slip. And yet, aware of them, she smiles on, not letting the audience look away from her. Not letting them notice the dangers underneath.
SHE’S PARANOID, TERRIBLY PARANOID. She would, frankly, prefer to die than let anyone get ahold of her notes, her art and her past. These are all things she desperately wishes to protect, even if it meant cutting people off her life for the temporary feeling of false security. Despite how illogical and frantic some of her actions are, she follows a set of calculations in her life, carefully picking what is the best for her. What a stranger is allowed to know and what not, how to act in front of a possible ally, and how in front of the enemy, when to smile and tell the prettiest lies, when to play dumb, what should be known to the public and what not.
But, most importantly, SHE’S ALSO A YOUNG GIRL whose parents died way too soon, from her cold hands. No matter how many masks she puts on her face, it’s a fact she will never hide. She’s just a teenager hurt by the fate, trying her hardest to survive in this world and that will never change. There’s childishness in her elegance, in her smiles, in her words, in her gestures and in all the small things she does.
SHE’S A GENIUS, and yet she doesn’t mind people believing she’s not when it’s convenient for her. She prides herself in her knowledge and skills and, usually, knows when to stay quiet about it and not let people know too much, suspect too much. It is not always the case though, given how much she values her knowledge and is willing to do a lot to defend her honor as an alchemist, which did, in fact, put her in some more or less dangerous situations before. But her notes are not something she is willing to share with anyone, too scared of it backfiring, too scared of someone taking advantage of everything she ever did.
Maybe, one day, she would let herself live freely.
#library entry 𓆩⟡𓆪 original characters#to the new beginning 𓆩⟡𓆪 ms. alchemist#genshin impact oc#genshin oc#genshin impact original character#AHHH MS ALCHEMIST INTRODUCTION#MY LITERAL DAUGHTER#i love my little menace#and a failure of a lesbian#sincerely another lesbian
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Punch Out Women's Bracket OCs (Major Circuit)
The boys have had their turn, now it's time for the ladies! They're back and better than ever!
Name: Min Bong-Cha
Age: 25
Height: 5'4
Weight: 122lbs
Nationality: Korean
Position: #3 Major Circuit
Record: 15-4 (10 KO)
Stance: Southpaw (Left-Handed)
"Bong-Cha is a respectful and very talented young woman who's boxing skills are very impressive for someone who's only at the end of the Major Circuit. She's also a massive stickler for rules, however, and is very strict about sticking to her routines and training regiments. She could actually go beyond her current position but she'd rather keep her placement out of sheer humbleness"
Name: Princess Primate/Nina
Age: Late 20s
Height: 6'2
Weight: 153lbs
Nationality: ???
Position: #2 Major Circuit
Record: 12-6 (8 KO)
Stance: Southpaw (Left-Handed)
"A brave jungle warrior who was raised by a 'tribe' of apes, monkeys and gorillas when she was a young girl, Nina's entire life story sounds like something out of an urban myth. Nobody is quite sure HOW she managed to survive as long as she did in the deep jungle but it sharpened her into a decent fighter with a mischievous tendency of tossing banana peels into the ring to watch her opponent slip around"
Name: Destiny Diamondback/Layaali Anour Bayoumi
Age: 29
Height: 5'11
Weight: 136lbs
Nationality: Arabian
Position: #1 Major Circuit
Record: 14-6 (4 KO)
Stance: Orthodox (Right-Handed)
"This talented young magician was gifted her amazing magical qualities at birth thanks to an unusual gemstone being fused to her stomach. She's capable of levitation, teleportation, non-corporeal cloning and, her specialty, hypnotism. She'll attempt to charm her opponents like a snake while allowing her slithery companions to try and bite at them while they're in a state of bliss... Ideally, have a snake bite kit handy if you're going into the ring with her"
Name: Senorita Caliente/Sofia Valentina
Age: 32
Height: 5'11
Weight: 151lbs
Nationality: Mexican-Spanish
Position: Major Circuit Champion
Record: 15-10 (7 KO)
Stance: Orthodox (Right-Handed)
"A gorgeous, flirty and slightly hypnotic young lady, Sofia is eye candy for all who have the pleasure of being in her presence and isn't shy to show off a little skin for her mostly male-dominated audience. When she isn't boxing, she's either waitressing at her parents' restaurant or performing as a burlesque dancer before coming back home to her lovely girlfriend. You'll feel a severe case of heartburn after stepping in the ring with her"
#punch out#punch out oc#min bong cha#princess primate#destiny diamondback#senorita caliente#major circuit girls#(MAJOR GIRLIES ARE HERE)
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So this is the start.... by this winter, there may be rotating blackouts across a number of European countries (in South Africa we call this load-shedding).
Top tips for surviving all these new ways governments punish citizens.
Get a gas heater if you don't have a woodburning fireplace. You get quite nice, three panel ones that run off an 9kg EPG bottle. On wheels making it easy to roll around. Mine heats a large open plan space very quickly on 3 panels and then I turn it down. If I have it in a smaller room, I run 1 panel.
If you can't replace your electric hob with a gas hob, then at least get a Cadac two plate portable camping gas hob, with a whistling kettle. Mine has been a godsend in this year's heavy loadshedding. I can still drink tea and make food.
Invest in rechargable emergency lights. I have a Maglite in each of my main rooms plugged into the mains and set to come on automatically when the power is switched off. This makes a real difference at night, when all the lights suddenly go off. My house is automatically illuminated.
Buy yourself an inverter generator for running the TV and wifi. I have a rather nice small Ryobi 2200i that is not so heavy that I can't move it around by myself. It can charge your phone, run the TV and a few lights, or boil a kettle. Great as emergency backup. But get a fuel can as well.... The tank is about 20l and I can get about 4 hours of use before it runs out.
Buy yourself some powerbanks. I have at least three. I charge them up alternately and always have one handy to charge my phone, so that if I forgot to charge it before the scheduled outage, I am never stuck with a flat phone.
Set your Netflix account up on your laptop. If my generator runs out of fuel, then I don't miss the end of the show I was watching.
Keep lots of cooler bag ice-bricks in your freezer, or make your own by half filling old cold drink bottles. These help to keep the freezer temperature low and will save you on food wastage.
Follow me for more South African Survival Tips. xx
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(Thinking a lot about languages lately, have a small random headcanon that popped into mind...)
Nanamo had a headache.
Her own fault, really, trying to mediate the most recent round of trade negotiations between the Eorzean Alliance and their various new allies. Trying to keep the Monetarists--represented, of course, by Lord Lolorito--reined in was taking all of her patience.
It helped a few of the former Scions were present; G'raha Tia was along with a Sharlayan Forum member, while the Warrior of Light...well, she'd been roped into it, unfortunately, while visiting to aid Nanamo's pet project.
They were both itching to continue their adventure into the tunnels below the city, but this day's meeting had to be brought to a close first. And that meant surviving this working lunch where the various delegates spoke casually while making their cutthroat deals.
Nanamo noted that Aeryn was watching the proceedings with a thoughtful frown; not one of impatience, the Sultana thought, as she watched her friend's eyes flick around the delegates.
G'raha sidled up to Aeryn, his own ruby gaze taking in the room. Then he spoke, quietly as befit the murmuring tones of the room--though the only word Nanamo thought she could identify was 'Thavnairian.'
As a child ruler, Nanamo had been subjected to moons of language studies, to be diplomatically conversant in a variety of common tongues. She could not claim true fluency in any, but she knew enough of a half dozen languages to get by with the ambassadors sent to her palace, or when she had a need to visit other nations.
Whatever G'raha was saying was absolutely outside of Nanamo's experiences and understanding; certainly unlike any language she had ever heard. It was likely from that other realm he had once pulled his comrades to.
Aeryn's response was more familiar, but too quiet, rapid, and specific for Nanamo to glean more than a basic understanding. Something about the Nagxian delegation.
G'raha nodded and made his way to Lady Yugiri. Aeryn sighed and drank from her glass, attempting to avoid conversation with any of the delegate...at least until the hrothgar bodyguard of the Bozjan leaders stepped up, and she gave him a genuinely warm greeting as he hailed her in his own language.
The Echo was certainly handy in some ways, Nanamo thought, before turning her attention back to the urgently gesticulating Dewlala and whatever Lolorito was up to now.
She was definitely going to need something for this headache.
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