#its great on its own but specifically the way the critters will do stuff | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

zackcrazyvalentine · 3 years

Note

Hiyo! This is gonna be a bit specific so i hope you dont mind haha;;

Would it be alright to request for HC's for Mammon, Beel and Belphie(if you only take one char per request then Mammon's fine!) with a GN! reader, where in the reader is extremely obssessed with bug critters? Like tarantulas, moths, all that jazz and they often have a lotta them in their room

Im a big bug lover myself but it often freaks people out when i show them a beetle i caught but honestly its just pretty funny to me more than anything haha

Sorry for this long ask!! And take care~☆

Oh~ this is an interesting prompt :o

I myself am squeamish with bugs, but very much respect enthusiasts and entomologists!

Without further ado, here’s your request!!

-- -- --

😈💛 Mammon 💰💸

“Yo... think we can sell these to witches for some cash? Y’kow, for their rituals and generally to keep as pets? Think ’bout- OW, HEY!!”

This one I see recoiling back once you show him a bug. Doesn’t matter if it’s trapped in a jar, or held by your hands, he will get surprised if the critter is shoved in his face

Back in the Devildom, if you ever wandered out and somehow caught one of the unique dangerous bugs within, he would freak out and worry about your safety

“WTF [Name], put that down!! Its bite/sting is dangerous and hurts a lot! PUT IT DOWN!” “Relax, Mammon, your panic will distress it and provoke it to attack! I’ve got this.”

However, in the first weeks of your stay with them, he won’t care at all. Remember how he acted all irritated and mad when you were lumped onto him, right? Yeah, that’s it

Things change when Lucifer gave a stern warning, in his own Lucifer way, to keep you safe at all times

“Drop that, you don’t want to anger it” “How many times do I need to tell you to stop with that?! Pesky human..” “Oi, ya dumb mortal! Hands off, no pets allowed!”

Little “I’m not interested” warning will be given, which then morph to “Not worried about you but in reality I very much am” as time goes on and he warms up to you (damn tsundere, this one)

Once he grows fond of you and a friendship is established (and maybe other feelings surface), he will issue the more panic filled warnings

But otherwise, he will admire the little things. The ones with shiny exoskeletons and vibrant colors immediately catch his eye

He will eventually look forward to see what new friends you bring, even more so once you go over to the human world

Just...keep an eye out for his typical Mammon shenanigans of taking stuff to sell. He knows witches who would absolutely love to have some of your critters so, watch out.

You may find him baby talking to a particular bug he’s fond of from time to time (Mammon and the cat audio drama~)

Takes some time for him to stop being squeamish and handle the bugs

Totally the one to look at whichever critter, point at it and go “haha...Lucifer/[any other of his brothers]” (he may have led you to name a scorpion ‘Asmo’)

If he sees accessories or keychains that are bug related, he’ll buy them for you “D-Don’t take it out of context! It just reminded me of [bug] and thought of getting it… totallydidn’tremindmeofyou,no”

Any colorful and/or shiny insects interest him, but I can see him loving centi- and millipedes (and pill bugs too, but those are crustaceans aha)

👿❤️ Beelzebub 🍔🤤

“Ah, I can do that too!” “Beel, don’t! My papers-!!” *cue him buzzing his wings and all documents are blown away*

At the beginning of your friendship? He’d just be like “...cool…” and keep doing whatever he was doing

Not one to flinch away from the bugs (he welcomes them)

Tell him ants or X bug/s are exceptionally strong, and he’ll begin to take interest in your bug keeping shenanigans

He feels for them, the strength of the tiny things. He’s one half of the youngest brothers, and very physically capable, one could say he relates to them (so tiny, but oh so strong = youngest brother, but oh so buff)

His signature animal is a fly, claims he has a special connection to bugs, but this “sense” was previously not explored… until you came to his life~

Out of the three, I think Beel will be the one to get on with the idea faster, even helping you take care of the bugs. Will also go out of his way to catch a particularly eye catching one for you.

“[Name], look! This one was hanging out near me/was on my path when going somewhere, thought of you and caught it” (insert Reader’s heart full of soft feelings for this teddy bear)

He’s the enabler of you keeping dangerous Devildom bugs. He can do the catching if you’re afraid of getting hurt

Just say the word and he’ll help you clean enclosures, feed critters, free them back to nature, anything

Honestly, you may very well wake up a hidden talent and surprise hobby of his

Please, introduce this boy to any and every bug you come across in the human world! Show him pictures and tidbits of information about all of them, but more so the ones you previously told him are so strong

If you introduce him to an ant farm, he will sit down and eat his snacks while observing the colony closely

Not afraid to handle your bugs at all, likes the sensation of their little legs crawling up his arms

Says he doesn’t have favorites, but absolutely does (he sneaks his favs snacks from time to time, it’s so cute) Beetles and ants are in his top 5

Mixed feelings about entomophagy (insect eating)

Congratulations! You now have a bug enthusiast buddy to fan with!

👿💜 Belphegor 🛏️💤

“That one’s fuzzy… Can I pet it, hold it maybe?”

Belphie is pretty chill in general, so I don’t see him making a fuzz whenever a bug is brought up to his face

He may act indifferent to your obsession at first, perhaps Beel’s curiosity rubs off on him eventually

Very curious about your moths and tarantulas, and bees (when you get the chance to introduce him to them)

He’s drawn to the fuzzy fluffy bugs because they look comfortable to pet and hold (and sleep with lol)

Beware: DO NOT wake him up to introduce him to a bug, he WILL be cranky. On the same note, don’t even DARE let a critter crawl on his body while sleeping, won’t hesitate to exterminate the thing

This one… edgy boy… The one to warm up and love your arachnids (technically not insects, but let’s let it slide~ remember you’re talking to a biology nerd here, me)

Introduce him to the deadly insects of your word and he will repay the favor by teaching you about any highly dangerous Devildom bugs he knows about

Butterfly magnet. Let your moths and butterflies free in the room and most likely, they’ll land on him. His calm demeanour seems to attract them

Along with Beel, he will invite yourself to you room to look at the fluttering wings of butterflies “They lull me to sleep”

Perhaps the one that gained a soft spot in his heart is the tarantula. Relates to it in a sense: people are afraid to approach it when it’s actually quite chill (when not provoked)

If you have Madagascar roaches… This was one of the first times you saw him flinch and let out a (very monotone) yelp, the hissing spooked him good

He may buy a blanket with bug patterns on it because it reminds him of you, sleeps with it when missing you

He’s more of taking pictures and sending them to you if cool bugs, spiders, and even snails cross his path. He will text a “Reminds me of you” “Cool bug” “Is this a bug?” along with the pics

Up in the human world: PLEASE catch a jar of fireflies for this boy! His eyes will light up at the amazing little natural light bulbs trapped within

Will want to take some fireflies back to the Devildom bc they remind him of the night sky and its stars

A very chill boy towards your obsession, but will eventually encourage you to keep doing what you love

Thank you for your request~! This was great to think about, if I do say so myself Hope it is to your liking!

You take care as well, anon~ ❤️

147 notes · View notes

askkrenko · 3 years

Text

Krenko’s Guide to Pokemon: Eevee Line

Part 1. Because seriously.

DESIGN:

Eevee was intentionally designed to be some sort of generic wild critter that could exist but doesn’t. Given traits of all sorts of small, furry things, the purpose of Eevee is to be cute, lovable, and evoke the feeling of ‘some animal.’ It is simultaneously known to everyone and completely unknown. Everyone recognizes Eevee but nobody actually knows what it is. Eevee is, above all else, THE ‘normal’ Pokemon.

And honestly, it’s totally freaking adorable. Eevee is the best rabbit dog fox kitty thing that ever was, and nobody doesn’t love Eevee. Its design basically couldn’t be better. There’s a reason this fuzzlewuzzle regularly competes with Pikachu for being the face of Pokemon. Sure, it can’t quite win, but it’s up there.

But the concept of Eevee is really the interesting one. Eevee was the first Pokemon with branching evolutions, and while other Pokemon have gotten such since then, Eevee has always had the most. Starting with three in Generation 1, there are currently eight possible evolutions of Eevee, and there could easily be more on the way. This puts the Eevee line in a really notable position. I always love when a Pokemon has a unique gimmick, and while in combat each Eeveelution might just be another, having an Eevee with so many options to choose from makes it an interesting Pokemon to obtain.

But before we discuss the designs of any evolutions, let’s talk about the non-evolved alternate form: Gigantamax. Like Pikachu and Meowth, GIgantamax Eevee is just a gimmick. The Pokemon’s not strong enough to be used, and Gigantamax Eevee can’t actually evolve, so it’s just there to be big and fluffy and cute… and it just fails at that. It’s not that Gigantamax Eevee isn’t cute- of course it is- but it’s not cuter than Eevee is normally, and the big bushy collar isn’t nearly as fun of a unique touch as Meowth being memes or Pikachu going back to its fat gen 1 design. Sadly, Gigantamax Eevee is a waste of everyone’s time.

And now onto the actual evolutions.

VAPOREON:

Vaporeon is an interesting and unique creature, with large fins on its head and small ones down its back and tail giving it the appearance of a fish, but still with a clearly mammalian mouth and legs. Vaporeon is clearly aquatic and clearly related to Eevee, but other than that it simply doesn’t look like anything. And yet Vaporeon still has a clear design and aesthetic, as something that could maybe possibly be something between a dog, a seal and a dolphin. It’s an elegant, clean design that looks fantastic without looking absurd.

JOLTEON:

Jolteon’s just yellow with spikes. It’s simple, but it works. There’s nothing weird about Jolteon’s design in the least, though admittedly that means there’s nothing overly special about it. Jolteon is just what happens when you take Eevee and make it cool, and other than the bright coloration there’s nothing particularly odd about it. One of the more subdued Eeveelutions, I like it, it’s cool, but I don’t exactly have specific praise for it.

FLAREON:

Flareon looks even more realistic than Jolteon. The red coloration’s a bit bright, but other than that it’s just a big ol’ floofy floof. The shape and color of its fur suggest fire, but unlike many fire types it doesn’t feel the need to actually be on fire. Like Jolteon, Flareon is a good, clean design.

It’s also noteworthy here that the first three Eeveelutions have big collars, like Eevee does. The rest do not. Honestly, I really like this part of the design, but I understand why not all would have it.

ESPEON:

The psychic evolution, Espeon’s purple colors are a bit more out there than the previous three, and my first instinct when looking at it is that it’s supposed to be hairless like a Sphynx Cat, but then it has those huge tufts on the side of its face that are clearly hair despite it not having tufts or even signs of fur anywhere else. They’re too high to be whiskers, too, so they just come across as weird. In fact, everything about Espeon is weird, and not always for the better. The split tail is a cool design, but I don’t understand what it’s going for. The jewel on the forehead I DO understand as a psychic focus, but it’s so obviously artificial compared to the previous Eeveelutions that it feels out of place. In fact, the core concept of Espeon feels a bit out of place. Most of the Eeveelutions are the result of stone or location radiation, and Umbreon happens at night. Espeon levels up in the day time with affection, and somehow becomes a psychic type. A psychic type whose pokedex entry calls the Sun Pokemon.

Eevee’s whole gimmick is that when exposed to weird stuff it transforms, so I have a hard time understanding why a happy Eevee turns into a psychic type during the day. If it was just about the strong bond with its trainer, why does the sun matter? And if the sun does matter, what’s going on with its everything?

Espeon ultimately just doesn’t work for me. It reads wrong as a creature and I don’t understand how it fits in with other Eevee lore.

UMBREON:

Okay, what’s up with those circles? Black fur I get. Gold stripes I get. Floofy tail, red eyes, sleek body, sure sure sure. I am totally on board with that. But those clean, obvious golden rings absolutely take me out of this design. I get that they’re supposed to be moonlight rings or something, but I’d have been much happier if this thing had golden spots instead of such clean shapes, to make it look more like a realistic animal.

As far as actually fitting though, it makes sense as a Night-based Pokemon, but the Moon thing is a bit more of a stretch. It’s not nearly as bad as Espeon and the Sun, but Eevee plus Moonlight should result in a brighter, glowing Eevee, not a darker, more sinister Eevee. Umbreon also has a serious issue of its abilities not being what it says they are. For example, the Pokedex says it’s got poison; Umbreon has never naturally learned a poison type attack. Its rings glowing is supposed to be one of its key features, but none of its abilities reflect that.

This isn’t to say that I dislike Umbreon or Espeon overall. Some of my favorite Pokemon have been Umbreons and Espeons. Their designs just really don’t sell the story that they’re trying to.

LEAFEON:

So, now this is more like what I’m talking about. Eevee + Moss Rock/Leaf Stone = Eevee that’s turning into a plant. It’s still an animal, but with its ears and tail and some of its fur turning into leaves so it can now photosynthesize. Also the leaf is a sword because that’s bitchin’.

Now, while I am totally on board with Leafeon’s concept, I do think the design could’ve used a bit of tweaking. The head and tail are great, but the little leaf things coming off the body look a bit odd, and I’m not really sold on the mostly tan color scheme. I think it’d have looked better with more browns and greens. Specifically, brown legs and belly, green back and neck. Maybe a leafy collar like the original Eeveelutions all had collars. Still, I like it overall.

GLACEON:

I don’t particularly like Glaceon. While it reads as an Ice Eevee it doesn’t read as an Eevee infused with Ice or adapted to Ice so much as it reads as an Eevee with design elements that look ice-like. The sharp diamond shapes over it don’t actually have anything to do with ice the way Jolteon’s spikes are the result of electric charge or Flareon’s floof looks like fire. Further, the addition of what is clearly a hairdo is just sort of weird. It’s too sharp to look like it comes naturally and while it makes for an interesting visual element it doesn’t mean anything or serve any purpose in the Glaceon itself. At least Espeon’s split tail was supposed to be for sensing things. Glaceon just has huge flaps that are definitely a disadvantage in a fight and don’t seem to serve any purpose other than possibly attracting a mate.

Glaceon is a solid design for a creature but not for ‘this is an Eevee mutated by the ice element.’

SYLVEON:

OH MY GOD WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ABOMINATION!?!?

Oh, it’s a cute fairy Eevee that’s pink and blue with ribbons and bows? You’d think so, and I don’t mind the color scheme for a fairy type but THOSE ARE NOT RIBBONS AND BOWS. Those are ‘feelers.’ Those are FLESH. Fur-covered, wriggly, boneless flesh.

This is bad. This is wrong. This is not okay.

This is not a fairy. This is an eldritch horror. Foxes should not have tentacles, and tentacles should not have fur.

And that’s not even getting into how much I hate Sylveon’s evolution method. Eevee evolves into Sylveon when it has affection and knows a fairy type move… but Eevee can just learn Baby-Doll Eyes on its own at level 15, so this isn’t a feat or anything special, it’s just a normal part of raising an Eevee. The worst part is that this is some weird new and special method to explain why you couldn’t have done it before, but the only actual change here is that Eevee didn’t learn Baby-Doll Eyes naturally before, so instead of something being discovered the world has just been rewritten to allow Sylveon to exist.

Because Sylveon is a monster from outside reality that has forced its way in here.

I hate Sylveon. I hate Sylveon so much. And to truly understand how much I hate Sylveon you need to understand that I love Eevee. I have two Eevee on my nightstand- named Artemis and Apollo after my Espeon and Umbreon from Gold and Silver. I make it a point to use Eeveelutions in every game, because I love them so much. One of my oldest RP characters was a Jolteon named Flash. On Halloween, I had one of my video game characters dress up as an Eevee to go to a costume party in an MMO. Which obviously didn’t have an Eevee costume so I had to assemble it. So my hate for Sylveon isn’t just ‘oh, this is an icky Pokemon,’ but I take its existence as an insult to Eevee, who I love so much.

You came to the wrong Eeveehood by Dakunart

TYPING:

What type do you want? Eeveelutions come in eight different types, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. But that’s Pokemon for you. And in the future we’ll probably get even more types. I just hope they have good designs and aren’t disgusting abominations.

STATS OVERVIEW:

We’ll talk about stats of Eeveelutions individually, but for now let’s note what they all have in common: numbers. Every evolved form of Eevee has a 130, a 110, a 95, two 65s, and a 60, for a total of 525 base stats, making for Pokemon that are highly specialized in some areas and very weak in others. This results in all of them having at least a decent stat array, except for Flareon, though whether their array is offensive, defensive, or more balanced varies.

Eeveelutions by Endivinity

MOVES OVERVIEW:

As with stats, we’ll discuss them for individual evolutions, but as they’re all evolved from Eevee they do share a large amount of their move pool. Eevee is notorious for learning Baton Pass naturally, a move so powerful and useful it’s been banned in many formats, and though it requires chain breeding, Eevee’s one of a relatively small number of Pokemon that can learn Wish.

Yawn, Substitute, Protect, and Rest all offer strategic options, and though not available in the current generation, Eevee could previously learn Toxic.

Actual attack forms for Eevee to learn pre-evolution are pretty limited, but an Eevee can learn Shadow Ball and Iron Tail, both of which have their uses.

Eevee does have a number of unique attacks, primarily from Let’s Go Eevee but also the Z-Move Extreme Evoboost. While all of these are viciously powerful to the point of being outright broken, Eevee’s evolved forms can’t learn them, and thus they’re not relevant in most competitive play.

Next time, we’ll start going down the list of forms and discussing them in the specifics. This one’s a doozy.

Eeveelutions by Lushies-Art

#Krenko's Pokemon Guide #Eevee #Jolteon #Vaporeon #Flareon #Espeon #Umbreon #Glaceon #Leafeon #Sylveon #Eeveelutions

23 notes · View notes

whatudottu · 3 years

Text

Okay I have a little more thoughts on Petrosapien biology, and it’s focused around diet and stuff associated with it.

You may think that this would be an awful thought to share, but I found an interesting little critter that has the same proposed diet I want to talk about without the icky gooey extra stuff that comes after. I’m now confident to share and hopeful that this doesn’t come across as too suggestive. There’s implications but I hope you don’t mind all too much.

Besides, Petrosapiens don’t look the type to... do all that anyway.

In my random perusal of the internet, fueled by curiosity and the drive to google those questions, I discovered a pretty little clam. Sure, this clam, a shipworm as it’s called, digests wood and is often found buried within sunken ships, but scientists were recently (for science standards at least) introduced to shipworms that consume rocks by Philippine locals of the Bohal province.

Already a great start.

Okay fine, the scientists aren’t sure if these clams eat more than just limestone or the bacteria in their guts is enough to take nutrients from the stone, but I’m talking about an alien species, and the mere speculation of it in our own earthly creatures just allows me to run for the hills and die on my claim.

So, given that Petropia is really nothing but rock (and any synonyms you may think up) with hardly any form of true greenery, this diet should indeed make sense. Though something makes them different from the ground they walk, which I am honestly stumped myself how to answer, being able to take nutrients from stone and in this case crystal is super important for the growing Petrosapien.

But, for those catching my drift in the intro paragraphs, what’s one to do with any excess scrap that doesn’t have the good bits.

Taking a look back at our little buddy, the article I found details that this clam grinds the stone with its shell (now for Petrosapiens a mean set of grinding teeth), eats and digests the rocks that it eats, then much later expels a fine sand. Not only is this not completely excrement, it’s still sandbased, and guess what babes!

We just found out how our Petrosapiens grow!

So obviously they’re not all just biting down on the same minerals, but, with their digestive systems able to take out the nutrients from crystals, the remaining ‘scrap’ contributes to their own crystal systems. Depending on the crystals, a Petrosapien can develop different levels of mass and personal crystal structure that adds on to the already present colours, textures and shine from childhood, which I will delve into later.

The crystals of Petropia are typically cool colours, spanning from green, blue or purple and a few intermediary shades, blends and vibrancy for ‘special edition’ crystals, think exotic fruits or even drugs. The people are much the same, probably evolving to become the colour crystals that they are. Nowadays a change in diet isn’t going to change the colour of the crystals, because while the crystals themselves may be regrowable (and in that case, technically replaceable if you think mineral wise), the natural colour is moreso determined by the... ‘skin’ underneath, which often filters the excess sand to conform to individual specific crystal structures, on the common basis at least.

Speaking of natural colour, given that I was a little shy to actually talk about reproduction, I want to briefly touch on how children get to have their individual crystals and differ from their parents too.

So, when the parents cloacal kiss each other (but like in an almost fusion type of way because crystalkinesis), some shards from their stomach region disconnects and reattaches to the other. That happens because the crystals themselves do not know the genetic difference between one body from the next (a little headcanon from @karkalicious769 ‘s fanfiction ‘Diamonds are Forever’ over on AO3 if you like Petrosapiens you’ll love the fic), so that when the pair disconnects from each other, they have inclusions from the other.

It’s more obvious if they’re two different colours, which is more obvious than texture and shine, and the inclusions are rather blatant proof of fun times. The child, if successfully made, would take the base colour of the mother and, if the inclusions are different enough, they contribute to a default personal shade. Sometimes though, inclusions don’t quite fuse all too correctly, and some specks are left behind (yes I just headcanoned Petrosapien freckles, yes I think it’s cute and I hope you do too).

Hmm, I think that’s it for today... tonight... whenever. I really do like talking about this stuff, even if I’m not exactly knowledgeable in this area, and I might want to make more. Well, I’d just need to get over my bias of Petrosapiens (which is relatively easy, even if I really do think about them a little more often than what’s considered normal) but that’s all for now.

#petrosapien #xenobiology #xeno #just a little bit #suggestive #but that’s all #headcanon #ramblings #oh hang on #ben 10 #can’t forget that tag #maybe i can #but i like consistency #nevermind my procrastination #and random bursts of inspiration #also you should reall check out that fic #it’s completed so you won’t have to worry about discontinuation

11 notes · View notes

borkthemork · 4 years

Text

Comfort - Kaiju AU Fanfic

Summary: Connie wanted a moment to study at the Temple, and found a friend to pass the time.

Fanfic based off @reverse-monster-buddies!

Word Count: 2,696.

Reblogs are appreciated!

Ao3 Link

-----

Connie Maheswaran had work to do, a lot of it. It was the reason why she had counted her fingers on the bus, watched the horizon awaken through the windows, fog covering the corners of the panes. The morning was early, the skies painted in auburn amidst the blotched white clouds, and the silhouette of the town was prominent, the hallmark of it — the lighthouse on the massive green cliff — was a clear indicator that she was in the right place. The vehicle rumbled, shifting the backpack seated beside her a little. She had planned to stay in Beach City for a few hours. It felt weird to stay at home when the Maheswaran residence didn’t have anyone to occupy it except for her. Knowing her parents, they wouldn’t mind her being out and about on such a gorgeous day, welcomed by warm rays, beach sand between her toes, the secrets of this specific town hers and hers alone.

The rolled landscape from the glass started to slow down, and with it, Connie grabbed her backpack. The engine rumbled to a stutter as the town grew closer until, finally, they halted at the familiar stop.

The bus driver looked at her from his seat. He had a groomed mustache, hair grayed at the scalp, potbelly noticeable even with how far she was from the front. “Typical stop right, little lady?”

“Yep, right here.”

He nodded. Hisss went the door as it flung itself open. She stood up, grabbing her backpack before she forgot about it.

“Stay safe. Don’t want your parents to worry about ya’.”

“I’ll be careful, thank you, Mister Moriarty!”

He gave her a warm smile. “No problem Connie, have a great day.”

When Connie touched the ground she watched the bus drive off, seeing it recede into the size of a pinprick with the growing distance, and then into nothing when the first hillock swallowed its shape. Her eyes started to follow the horizon. She kneeled down to rummage through her belongings. Her laptop was nestled alongside the tied cables, a few thin textbooks bunched in with an Unfamiliar Familiar book. Everything looked to be in order, not a single item out of place. Connie zipped it back up. It was going to be a long day.

Connie made her way to Beach City. She held tightly to her backpack straps, not wanting to let go of the study materials inside. The buildings were covered in waking shadows, the streetlights beginning to flicker off with the rise of the sun. Connie didn’t have many friends in this town. She had always remained reclusive during her study sessions, where she read her books on the shores away from the bustling boardwalk or the shops nearby, hoping to be invisible from many who would possibly judge her or ask her questions. Lately, she had found herself leaning towards more secretive locations, away from the prying eyes of teenagers and adults, and she strode her way to the cliffside, following the crags that lined the beach.

There was the chain-link fence that lined from the ocean to the growing cliff face. On it were two signs, the typical ‘Keep Off Beach’ one would find authorized by police and the peculiar wooden plank with ‘Please’ written in thick black paint. She lugged her backpack over the fence and started to climb. Hidden below the lighthouse, away from the prying eyes of the Beach City residences, there was an opening into the cliffside. The entrance was bordered by delicate stone hands of a statued goddess, eyes void as it surveyed the ocean nearby. Crystals jutted from the rocks, a crystalline warp pad at the center of all this, the door encrusted with a bold yellow star — each gem on the tips of it signifying higher deities that humanity was probably not ready to behold. And somehow these beings, with more technological and physical advancement than the human race, allowed her into their ranks, to relax in their residence as if she was a hearty neighbor.

Connie spotted a few figures at one of the warp steps. A green gem with tufts of white hair was playing around with a twig in her hand. She noted the bundle of purple that wriggled and spun around the Crystal Gem with a yip. Spikes flowed down its back and head, eyes purple in a sea of inky black as it played around, following the direction of the gem’s hand.

“You want it, girl?” The gem cooed and watched the pup bark in glee, wagging its tail furiously. “You want to beat this poor stick up?”

An enthusiastic bark.

“Then here you go!”

She threw the stick out towards the beach, making eye-contact with Connie for a second while the beast sped past her. “Connie, hey!”

Connie walked over to them. “Hey, didn’t know I’d see you guys today.”

She noticed the purple creature come barreling back, its head whipping up at the sight of her. It dropped its stick and gave a joyous bark, bounding over to her without a moment's notice, licking her pant leg with the broad of its tongue.

Connie smiled and pet the corrupted gem’s head, feeling the critter’s scales at her fingertips. She knew who this was, no doubt about it. “Hey Kai, nice to see you!”

Kai nuzzled into her palm. She didn’t change one bit the last time Connie saw her — still happy and hyper as always.

“Connie, I didn’t expect you, at all,” Nephrite said. “Isn’t it six a.m. for you humans?”

“Were you expecting something more punctual?”

“A lil’.” Nephrite stood up from the steps and brushed the dirt off her jacket. For all Connie knew, Nephrite’s attire must’ve had a journey on its own from the scratches and loose ends from it; it wasn’t even hers, but something she found on her previous adventures. “But you’re Connie, you’re always going to surprise us somehow.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Like the time you found me reading behind the fence?”

“Yeah. You had a ‘follow the law’ aura goin’ on with you when I first found you. Didn’t expect to see you breaking one.”

“I wanted peace and quiet, so all I followed was my logic. The fence wasn’t even a certified one, so no law-breaking here.”

Nephrite snorted and ruffled her hair. “Attagirl.”

In their laughter, Connie peered at the cheeseburger backpack on Nephrite’s shoulders, noting how clunky and bulked it was. She raised an eyebrow. “Another mission?”

“A personal one,” she reassured. “Just need to check out something in The Great North.”

Connie went starry-eyed. “Oh! Like corrupted gem business?”

“Ehhh.” The gem shrugged. “Kinda. It’s dangerous though, Kai doesn’t like it when I go on this stuff without her.”

Kai whimpered in kind.

“See? Worries about me a lot. Been trying to get her to sleep or stay but she won’t budge.”

Connie smiled a little. With the current assignments she had, the idea of staying at the beach sounded better than being alone. Kai was like a puppy with the way she leaped at people and took comfort in the silence with them. Connie didn’t mind the idea of being next to her for a couple of hours. “I wouldn’t mind looking after her while you're gone.”

Nephrite’s fists tightened around her pack straps. “You’re serious?”

“Serious.”

She rubbed her chin for a second. “Alright then, I trust you. Kai’s food is in the fridge — just don’t feed her too many donuts or a stomach ache.”

“Wait, I thought you guys didn’t like to eat?”

“Some do. Amethyst does.” Nephrite shrugged. “Kai too apparently.”

After a few goodbyes, Connie and Kai watched the form of Nephrite dissipate in a pillar of light before it all died down back to sunrise yellow. Kai whined at the base of the warp pad, clawing at the facets in wait. Connie sat down near the steps and propped the laptop onto her lap. She clicked her tongue as the computer started up, smiling over at the small gem, who had her head cocked towards her in curiosity.

“Come here, girl. You like head scratches, right?”

The whine transformed into a happy yip.

Connie giggled. “Then come here!”

The hour went by without a hitch. Connie found herself relaxed into a studious rhythm, fingers occupied to the scales of her companion, who crooned next to her as Kai faded in and out from her naps. Connie would’ve found it relaxing if it weren’t for the algebra that plagued her screen, and how no matter how much she used the calculator extension — which promised accurate results, which was a big fucking lie! — the input stopped her with a huge ‘INVALID ANSWER’ box with each impatient mouse click. At this point she might as well throw the tech at a wall; she would have had a higher probability of it surviving than the garbage algorithm doing its work correctly.

Connie halted at the pressure at her leg.

She looked over to find Kai awake, pawing at her pants with wide, gleaming eyes. “Hey girl, you okay?”

Kai gave her a small bark.

“Are you antsy? Anxious? What’s on your mind right now?”

The gem kept her eyes on her and continued to bark at her for a few seconds before settling her head at the dip of the girl’s lap. Connie smiled to herself. Must be excited, but she didn’t know for sure.

“I guess you’re hyper. Don’t worry, I won’t be leaving for a while. I’ve been…”

Connie grimaced at her laptop screen. Even with the online assignments, a great deal of them had been hard to peruse and handle. She wasn’t the type to ditch or procrastinate, but the current circumstances of home left her to toil with the current workload, internet help limited to only her, a few website tutorials, and the math textbook.

“...Dealing with a lot of things, so you’ll have me three hours tops.”

Kai whined.

“Aw, I’m sorry girl, but three hours should be enough.”

Kai whined more.

“Hmm.” Connie frowned. “Are you sad about me leaving or is it something else?”

A bark.

“Oh jeez uh. One bark for leaving and two barks for something else.”

Two barks.

Wow. That actually worked. Connie placed the laptop aside and gazed at the puppy in front of her, who cocked her head again. “You’re smart, so I’m going to find a way to talk to you. I want to know why you’re upset.”

Kai kept going though. She started to bark more at her and nestled her head into Connie’s lap with a whimper. Connie had no clue why she was upset. Or even why Kai continued to act like this. Was this even a sign of being upset or is there something else entirely that she was missing?

Connie straightened her back. Kai still rested her head, now wagging her tail at her, Connie hearing it thump against the ground with dull thuds.

“Bark three times if you understand what I’m saying.”

Three barks.

“Bark twice if you’re upset and bark once if you aren't."

A single bark.

“One bark if it concerns the gems and two barks if it concerns me.”

Two.

Connie bit her lip. “So you’re worried about me.” She said it more to herself than anything, but the pup still responded in kind with an elated yip.

“You think I’m upset?”

Kai gazed at her, and yet it was enough for Connie to realize what was happening. The gem can feel how tense she was even with the relaxing crash of the waves, how her mind was scrambled with thoughts and too occupied to even focus on one thing. Kai whined and pressed her snout to her leg.

Connie rubbed her arm. “Okay, so you do.” She smiled softly at Kai, rubbing the gem’s head a bit. “It’s just me being frustrated over homework. You’d think first semester would be a breeze but I had the honor to get the work-extensive teachers, like, come on.”

She groaned, tensing up at how Kai whimpered next to her, swishing her tail more.

“What’s it like to be a corrupted gem, girl?”

A yip.

“I know you’re hyper all the time but it must be lonely from what Neph told me…”

Nephrite told Connie numerous times of corruption, of the bubbles detained and held in the core part of the Temple. She was never given a tour to the structure’s underbelly but Connie had heard of how frantic and scatter-minded prior gems became because of the war. Sensible warriors have worn down into flight-or-fight, and not one of them were able to be fixed and returned back to normal stasis. The idea of it made Connie’s skin crawl. If it was the same for the contained gems, then it must’ve been the same with Kai, who had proven to be smart like any other attentive being, but still brought to primal tendencies like a scared animal.

“It must be lonely to be in a world of strangers. It must be hard to even make friends.”

A confused yip.

The first time Nephrite told her of Kai, one detail stood out to her when it came to the way; the pup waddled around and growled at everything with incisors leaking of pink fluid, like the world was about to get her in any way she took. Nephrite spent hours trying to befriend and reassure the little creature that she was safe, and Connie couldn’t help but ponder how lonely Kai would’ve been if it weren’t for Nephrite’s compassion. If the gem didn't defend Kai against the remainder of the Crystal Gems then there was a huge chance they would've packed her back into a bubble, in a chamber that is full of her kind but yet so hollow and empty.

“You have freedom but you’re still trapped.”

Kai gazed at her, beady eyes taking in her face, at how she must’ve known how there was heat in corner of her eyes. Connie didn’t know why it was happening, all she knew was that she was thinking too much.

“And you’re limited no matter how much you try to make it better.”

She rubbed her eyes.

“I’m so sorry, this is getting to me. I’m supposed to be doing homework and here I am, crying about nothing.”

She hated crying. The feeling of it brought shame and left her disheveled in the aftermath every time, and it was hard to breathe when it happened. It struck hard even when she held her tongue and carried on, when she had a place to let go when her parents weren’t there to see her.

But the wet snout pressed to the base of her lap made her come back. Through the blur of her vision, Kai’s eyes were still fixed on her, big and round, a little yip building in her throat. Connie wiped the tears away. She was going to worry Kai too, and she didn’t want that.

“Sorry, I’m—”

What surprised her was the pressure that pounced on her and left her being tackled by the tiny gem, who was now licking at the excess salt, made her giggle at the onslaught against her face.

“Wait, haha stop!”

Another excited yip.

Kai lapped at her face, laughter filling the air as she endured the slobber on her nose. She felt lighter, a weight off her when the creature took great care at her tears. She’s going to have to get cleaned up later, but that’s okay. She needed a moment to breathe, to get away from the stress of daily life and the loneliness that accompanied it. Kai knew this, sensed it on her person, and took care to make her smile as a result.

When they settled down, Connie gave the creature a small boop on the muzzle. "I love you, Kai."

Kai responded like kind, pressing their snout to hers.

Connie embraced her in a tight hug and placed a kiss onto the gem's tiny forehead, the other licking her affectionately. Maybe...maybe it’s okay to not work on homework for a while. She needed a break.

#steven universe #su #suf #steven universe future #connie maheswaran #reverse monster buddies au #fanfic

112 notes · View notes

remusthedukeofdeodorant · 4 years

Text

Hey guys, gals, and Nonbinary pals, who specifically happen to have really bad periods.

I am currently in the midst of a severe pain attack. I write to you from a boiling hot bath tub. I want to lend you some advice if you're in as bad of shape as me each month. These are things I use to cope with my problems, maybe they can help you too.

For cramps

Heat is a major source of relief for me. Whether it's my lower back, my pelvic region or whatever that's particular triangle of hell is, or my legs. I own a heating pad, which in winter you'll find in stores, if it's not winter amazon has them. My mother learned this because she has Endomitriosis, something I'll get into later. You can also buy therma cared at Wal-Mart, cvs, where ever really. They're great for on the go use, and come in various sizes. If your cramps are in multiple places, then a hot bath works best. If you don't have a tub, showers don't get that all over soak but they help. Get Epson salt, or bath bombs also contain Epson salt, either works and helps with pain. These are all nonmedicated approaches. For medicine I tend to use Ibuprofen, excedrine, midol, and asperin. Not all at once of course, but depending on pain levels, these things all work a little differently. Pot has also been recommended to me, but I have not tried this approach yet.

For stomach issues

I always end up with some sort of stomach problem on my period. Constipation, diarrhea, nausea, my mother has said she used to vomit. If I'm plugged up eating a little more fiber helps, coffee also works. If it's the other way, gentle foods are the way to go, yogurt, bananas, soups, etc. Seven Up, ginger ale, Sprite, Club soda. Those are good to keep around for nausea. Even at that WATER drink it, i know I visibly have issues hydrating myself, but it is something that helps. Water melon is a good idea, well if you like water melon that is.

Emotional problems

I can never hold myself together during these times. Pms is a little worse, which is hard because according to the world I shouldn't be that bad if my periods due next week. If you're not having stomach problems, gather up some sweets, or if you like natural stuff fruits nice too. Find a place to be alone, where you're welcome to cry for a bit with out judgement. Put on your favorite funny show or video. Get your dog, cat, critter, or favorite stuffed animal. Remind yourself to breathe, especially if you have anxiety. I own a weighted blanket, which was a god send gift for some one like me. The pressure feels nice.

Now if you experience any of this or, any period type problems outside of your period. See your doctor and ask about

Endomitriosis or Endinomiosis

These are a type of chronic pain diseases that plague those born with uteruses. What this is, is growths that latch on to either your uterus, or other parts of your body. Endo grows on your uterus, your bladder, your intestines, your ovaries, kidneys, almost anything in your body that it can get to.

Endi is only your uterine lining, but is just as painful.

Both of these diseases cause various problems for you. I've witnessed almost all of them in my mother. Endomitriosis does not have a cure. Surgery can lessen the pain for a long time before it grows back. My mother once lied fave first in her pillow for a whole day sobbing, the next day she told me it felt as though she was in labor. This is an under researched, yet extremely serious disease. Many don't believe it's real.

Symptoms include

Extremely painful periods

Pain outside of your period

Pain with sex

Longer, heavier periods

Bloated, protruding stomach, as if you look pregnant, various degrees of this

Fertility problems

Various intestinal and urinary problems

And many more that vary person to person

Another thing to look out for is Ovarian Cysts

Ovarian Cysts are basically masses that form in your uterus, or on your ovaries, these can grow and painfully burst. Or get dangerously large to where they need to be removed surgically. These can occur on their own, or in addition to Endo or Endi.

Please do some research on this topic. Birth control does not help, nor does some very dangerous medications doctors try to prescribe, do your own reading first. I will be getting myself checked for this as soon as I can, its definitely something to be concerned about.

Please send DMs or Asks if you have more questions, or if you have anything going on that I didn't mention but may have advice for.

165 notes · View notes

chasseurdeloup-retired · 4 years

Text

Cactus Cats and Conclusions || Bea and Kaden

TIMING: March’s full moon PARTIES: @beatrice-blaze and @chasseurdeloup SUMMARY: Bea might not actually be #werewolfconfirmed. Maybe.

Dia, Bea’s cat, was usually one to greet her owner at the door. From whatever perch the cactus cat had found, she would come down to slyly brush by Bea’s leg. When the cat was absent at the door, her owner didn’t give much thought to it. Sometimes pets didn’t do what was expected. By dinner time Bea was worried. She’d seen Taki, Nell’s cat roaming around, so where was Dia? It took Bea a good hour of wandering around her house with a jar of cactus juice, one of Dia’s favorite treats, to come to the conclusion that Dia was in the woods. Asking for help wasn’t something Bea wanted to do, but her kitty needed her and she couldn’t refuse. She had sent Kaden a message asking for his help, since as an animal control officer he’d know how to deal with these situations. Or at least, she assumed he would. After he had confirmed he would help, she sent him her address, and waited on her porch with a worried expression (and her cactus juice) as she scanned for her cat. Seeing Kaden, she smiled tightly. “Hey! Thanks so much for coming by to help. I know you probably had stuff to do that wasn’t hunting for a cat in the woods, but...” She trailed off and shrugged. “I figured you’d be the right person to ask for help.”

Kaden was so fucking tired. Not sleeping was not going so great for Kaden. But that wasn't going to keep him home on a full moon. Nothing but his death bed was going to do that. And even then. He was gathering his gear, getting ready for the night. All he needed was to wait for his coffee to finish brewing before he headed out. Then he got a message. From Bea. The werewolf. His brows furrowed and he checked his watch. Not sunset yet. She was sure cutting it close, though. She mentioned something about her cat missing. Well he did say to call animal control next time she had an issue but still. Seemed risky. Unless she knew that he knew. And this was a trap. Guess coffee would have to wait. Putain. He packed up and headed to her house. There she was when he arrived, just standing on the porch like the sun wasn't on its way down out of the sky. "Hey. Yeah. Happy to help." Was she really going to act like this was real? Guess so "Uh, where was the last place you saw her?" His brow furrowed as he saw what she was carrying. "And why do you have a glass of green juice?

Bea 's fingers were held tight against the jar. Tonight was a full moon and, usually, she would keep herself and all the animals in the house safely locked in. She didn't know much about werewolves and if they were even interested in chasing around some little critters like the family cats, but she didn't like to take risks with Taki and Dia. "This morning, before I left to run some errands. She isn't usually one of those cats that hide. She's an outdoor cat, but she's usually back inside by sundown." She didn't want to tell him that she was worried because that might have made him ask why and she couldn't keep her mouth shut lately about anything. She glanced down at the juice, an awkward smile taking over her face. "She likes cactus juice a lot... Thought I could lure her out with it, but it didn't work." She had to stop herself from biting her lip, though the urge was there, she didn't like being out so close to dark on full moons. She heard that being bit would make witches lose their powers and she couldn't risk that. She wasn't anything without her magic. "I don't want her out there at night. If she's in the woods."

The crease in Kaden's brow deepened. He wasn't sure what angle she was going for anymore. Either she was an exceptionally good liar or she'd really lost her damn cat. He couldn't tell. Best to keep his guard up just in case. "Cactus juice? How do you find out a cat likes cactus juice?" There was definitely something odd going on. His left hand didn't stray too far from where Harbinger, his silver knife, was stored. "You checked the whole house, right? Sure she's not hiding somewhere?" Kaden didn't take his eyes off her for a second but he couldn't help but notice how quickly they were losing light outside. Any minute now. Was this really where she wanted to try and kill him? On her own fucking porch? Sure the house was mostly in the middle of nowhere but all the same.

"I think her breed likes it. They're common in the desert," Bea found herself absentmindedly telling him as she looked out to the edge of the woods again. She wasn't sure when Dia left the property, but she hoped the cat didn't go out too far. Bea wanted to avoid keeping Kaden in the woods for long tonight, she doubted an animal control officer would know what to do about a werewolf and she wasn't sure she was capable of fending off a fight. "Top to bottom. And Nell's cat, Taki, usually rats Dia out when she's been hiding too long." She found her little sister's cat was very good at running Dia out of hiding spaces when he got too bored to play alone. "I promise I wouldn't have called you out here if I thought Dia was still in the house. I really think she got lost hunting or something like that, I just don't want her out in the forest this late."

Kaden couldn't make any damn sense out of this. For a moment, he doubted everything he'd learned about her so far. Maybe she was just the one protecting the werewolf. Keeping him from hunting her family or friend by distracting her with a cat. Or leading him to the woods just at the right time. Or he could be right still. Sun wasn't completely gone yet. There was still time. For the time being, he'd have to play along. "Alright. Well, show me where she usually leaves the house. We'll go from there." He followed her, still ready to pull out his knife at a moment's notice. He kept his focus on her but made sure to stay alert to his surroundings. Just in case he really had walked into a more complicated trap than he'd anticipated. "Maybe I should have brought Abel. My dog. He might have been able to track her down. Or at least help." Not that he'd had any intention of bringing Abel with him. The last thing he needed during a fight with a wolf was his scaredy cat dog distracting him.

Bea found herself nervously playing with her bracelet. She hated when she fell back into her nervous habits, it really ruined the easy confidence she liked to portray she had. She shoved her hands in her pockets, "She usually leaves from my porch, I'll just take you around back to it." She didn't want to have to make him take off his shoes to walk through her room, just to put them back on. "Probably best not to bring him around, Dia is super skittish around dogs." She let out a soft chuckle as she led him to the backyard. "I guess I get nervous around big dogs too, so another example of a pet owner being like their pet, huh?" Glancing back at him, Bea finally took in his full appearance and had a rather bewildered expression on her face when she realized just how prepared he seemed to be for trouble. "I know last time I saw you in the woods you had a machete, but you seem stacked right now. Planning on getting into a fight with a mountain lion while we look for my cat?" Maybe Kaden knew more about tonight than he let on. Blanche had mentioned French hunters in town.

Kaden walked with her to the backyard and hell if he had a clue how any of this added up. A wolf like her pet cat? Okay, fucking weird. "Abel's a big softy, nothing to be afraid of, let me tell you. And a damn coward at that. Worst hunting dog I've ever seen. Guess pet is a little different from its owner in that case." He figured she'd been aware of his weapons the whole time. They were kind of hard to miss. Merde maybe she really was missing her cat. That made this even more fucking confusing. Did she not know what day it was? "Oh, yeah. I was, uh, out you know. Staking out an assignment. Earlier. In the woods. Reports of, a, uh, coyote or something wandering... around." Hopefully she'd buy it. "Plus, you know, it's a full moon tonight. Anything could happen." He tried to keep his tone light but the comment was still pointed, couldn't hide it. Before he let her reply to that, he crouched down and started to examine what he could see on the porch and in the backyard, looking for any signs of the cat specifically. It would probably be hard to tell if any tracks were new or old but it wouldn't hurt. Kaden kept his gaze soft enough that he could still see her out of his peripheral view, making sure he was ready to grab a weapon if the time came. He wouldn't be caught off guard, wouldn't let it happen.

Bea 's eyes narrowed at his excuse. "Must have been a big coyote to be carrying all that around." She shrugged, trying not to be obvious about the fact that she was considering who he was now, "You're the expert though. You'd know what you'd have to bring. What do you bring on nights like this?" Anything could happen. So he did know what tonight was. Blanche had mentioned Kaden to her before, called him an asshole and told her to beat him up, so she knew that Blanche knew him. She knew that Nell and Blanche weren't the fondest of Alain either, so she had to wonder if the girls just didn't like hunters. And all signs were pointing to Kaden being one of the French hunters that Blanche knew. She could call him out for it, but she wasn't sure she wanted to put herself out there just yet. She knew that he wasn't the witch hunter, but she didn't know where he stood on that matter. Better to be safe than sorry. "How many full moons have you experienced here, Kaden? Seen anything weird?"

Kaden could see her facade slipping away. So he had been right all along. "Pretty big, yeah. Wanted to be prepared, that's all. You know, just in case things got dangerous." He took a quick glance at his watch. Two minutes til the sun was fully down and everything changed. He was shocked she wasn't going to let on completely. "I've seen enough," he said as he stood up, crossing the porch and into the backyard. Might as well drop the pretense of looking for tracks and prepare himself for what was coming. His grip tightened around the blade, itching to pull it out of the holster and get this over with. "You know, it's not just in White Crest that things get weird during a full moon. It can get dangerous wherever you are. But I think you know that." Any moment now, it would happen. He was sure of it. Shame, too. He really didn't hate her.

Bea could feel her heart in her throat as she took in the sight of Kaden's hand going to his blade. Instinctively she took a step back away from him, her fight or flight kicking in as she started to see the full scope of what was going on right now. Did he think she was a threat? She was, of course, she could burn him right now, but he hadn't seemed on edge with her before. Had the witch hunter made a friend? Or did he think she was a werewolf? "Why are you grabbing your knife, Kaden?" She asked, her voice surprisingly soft and scared. She wished Nell was home, her little sister was always good in a fight and she had a feeling she was about to have to fight someone she thought was her friend. "If you want to start something right now, I have the advantage, this my home. I have wards here to protect me," She told him, her voice still soft, but there was a warning laced there.

"Come on, don't play dumb." For a moment, Kaden wondered if she didn't know she was a wolf, that this was her first time changing. But then he remembered the wolfsbane and that book. No, she knew. She had to. Normally by now, if they knew what they were, the wolf would admit it, come clean. Get a good moment of satisfaction of a trap well laid. Or so they thought. "We both know you're about to change. Just fess up, there's no lost cat, right? Just a trick so you could get me to come over and take down the hunter. Sorry to let you down, Bea, but it's going to take a lot more than that to kill me." He braced himself for the shift, ready to attack the wolf he was sure was going to appear. Any moment now. Yup, any second. ...She was going to turn, right? His eyes shifted to the sky, just for a second, not wanting to take his gaze off her for too long. Yeah, it was dark. Sun fully down. Still no wolf. Putain, what the hell was happening? He took a quick check of his watch. Huh. Three full minutes past sundown. Right. "You, uh, are going to change... right?"

As the dawning realization that Kaden thought she was a werewolf hit Bea, she let out an offended noise, quickly followed by a laugh. "You think I'm a werewolf?" She asked, her eyebrows knitted together as she looked at him open-mouthed. She lifted a shaking hand to produce a flame. "I'm a witch, you asshole. And my cat is missing." She truly tried to understand hunters, she knew it was just in their blood to go after certain supernatural creatures, but she was feeling far too offended to see Kaden's side of this whole. "Did you come here to kill me? I thought we were friends." She really had to reevaluate how she made friends, if they were going to try to kill her eventually. "And I swear to god, if you're still about to try to kill me, I will roast you alive," She told him, outraged at this entire situation. She was sure in the future, she would find it funny, but right now, she was just really annoyed.

"Putain de merde," Kaden muttered as he saw the fire in her hand, his eyes growing wider as the reality of the situation started to dawn on him. "You-- But I-- The silver?" It didn't make sense. She'd reacted to the silver. And the wolfsbane. A witch? How? When? What? He shook his head. No, he had every reason to believe he'd been right. "Hey, I thought you brought me here to fucking kill me, alright? I was only going to kill you if you were a--" He sighed and took his hand off the knife finally and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm not going to-- Unless you are a, you know?" Stupid. Witches can't be werewolves. Fuck, his mother's words were coming back to him. Fuck. "It's just, I'm a hunter, it's what I-- And you had fucking wolfsbane and you reacted to the silver. I had every right to think you were a goddamn werewolf. It's not like I wanted to kill you but if it came down to it I wasn't just going to let you fucking tear me to shreds." Merde, merde, merde, he wanted to fucking kick something. He was still chock full of adrenaline and he hated feeling this fucking stupid and... something else. Something worse. That pit in his stomach was back. Guilt. That was it. Fuck. "You still want to find your fucking cat? That's not a fucking trap?"

"The silver?" Bea asked, exasperated at this entire situation. When had he even tried silver on her? He had a point, it would have made sense for her to bring him to her house to kill him, like she said, she had an advantage at her place. While his logic was sound, it didn't make her feel any better. "I'm not a wolf. You don't have to kill me," She told him, her arms crossing over her chest in a manner that mirrored her mother far too much for her comfort. "I guess you're one of the french hunters Blanche was telling me about then. I should figure that out sooner." Her eyebrows drew together again and she let out a frustrated huff of air. "Some covens use wolfsbane for incantations. My grandmother is particularly fond of the herb and I am in charge of keeping the family stocked up." In a way, it was nice to know that he wasn't looking forward to murdering her. She couldn't help but let out a little laugh at the fact that she thought that was comforting of all things. "Glad to know you didn't find me annoying enough to look forward to my death then," She joked before covering her mouth as giggles burst out of her. This entire thing was ridiculous. The tension that she had had was draining from her and now it was replaced by nervous, giddy energy. "No, my cat is really missing," She told him between nervous laughs.

"Putain, of course you know Blanche." Sure, at this point the french curse words were practically a cliche but Kaden couldn't help it. They just kept coming. He looked for a rock, a branch, fucking anything to kick. He saw nothing. He grumbled instead. "But yeah the silver, in your-- on my hand. The ring." He may have been the world's worst fucking hunter in that moment but he still had a feeling telling her he spiked her drink with silver was a bad look. Maybe even worse than trying to come to her own house to kill her. Toss up, really. He sighed and was about to fucking apologize when she started laughing. It was uncomfortable. The fuck was so funny? "You, uh, alright over there?" His brows furrowed together and he hesitated to walk over towards her. He didn't quite trust that she'd come round that quickly to the whole thing. Most people were a little fucking mad when they found out a hunter was trying to kill them in his experience. "Uh, so, yeah. Let's... your cat. Maybe?" He gave the ground around him a quick glance for any tracks, but it was hard to really give it a good look, he was too concerned she was going to break and throw that fucking fire at him for real.

Bea shrugged, "Blanche knows everyone in this town. She's my little sister's best friend, so I usually get to hear who pisses her off. Yourself included in that list. I think I get it now." Again, she found herself narrowing her eyes at him. "In my?" She prompted, though she did remember that awkward handshake they suffered through when they first met each other. "Sometimes I laugh after I get really nervous," She said the words tumbling out of her with no control. "And you just made me really nervous." She knew that adrenaline reacted with people differently, but she had always been the type to laugh after fights or rather traumatic situations. It was kind of embarrassing "I'm still mad at you," She pointed out, even though she knew it was rather hard to tell. The fire in her hand dimmed now as she took control of herself again, "Yeah, let's find Dia before something else does. Do you have a flashlight or do I need to be a human lantern?"

Kaden rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. So she caught that slip up, huh? Merde might as well say it now. This couldn't get any fucking worse. "In your, uh, coffee. Possibly. Maybe..." He almost wished he got the time wrong and that she'd just turn into a fucking wolf right about now and this would just be a simple, clear fight. No awkward laughter, no confessions, no feeling like an idiot. Just hunter and werewolf. Again, not that he wanted to kill her just, this was fucking awful. If he could just run away that'd be great. But no, he had to a fucking off duty house call to find a cat for a woman he was planning to kill a couple minutes ago. "I got it," he said as he pulled out a flashlight. He tentatively crouched down to check the tracks. Yeah, she said she wanted help, but he didn't trust her to keep him in her good graces after this to be perfectly honest. Kaden took a deep breath and focused back on the hunt. The real hunt. A less interesting hunt, albeit, but still. Faster he found her fucking cat, the faster he could find an actual werewolf. Looking at the ground beyond her porch, it was hard to say where the cat went. "Hmm, looks like it might be a little more worn over that way," he told her, pointing towards the left. "Can't say for sure but it might be a good place to start. Better than nothing." He stood and walked on ahead with the flashlight in hand.

Bea 's mouth opened in outrage again. "You put silver in my coffee? Of course, I reacted to it, it's gross!" She considered him for a long moment, "Have you actually ever tried what tastes like in coffee?" Kaden wasn't an idiot, she could tell, so she had to assume that he had never had to taste the silver before himself. She swore to herself if they ever got coffee again, she was going to make him try his coffee with whatever he slipped her. She wasn't sure if she wanted to see him again after this, yet. "So did you just sit with me that day to talk just because you thought I was a werewolf?" She asked tentatively, not sure she wanted to actually hear the answer. She had liked his company, so it would hurt to hear that he was only interested in being around her for his end goal. She supposed she couldn't blame him though. She finally extinguished the flame in her hand as she followed him. "Uh, don't touch her if you find her... She's a cactus cat and she is spikey."

Kaden winced at her words. "Maybe? And uh, no, not really. Why would I try silver in my coffee? I already know I'm not allergic." It only struck him afterwards that she probably asked if he'd tried it for some other reason. Fucking hell, why did he care if she was upset? This was a pretty obvious misunderstanding and she was a witch, she had to understand how this all worked, right? Fuck. Then she had to go and ask that. That fucking piece of shit pit in his stomach was back. Again. God, he used to never feel like this, what the fuck was wrong with him? "I mean... Maybe?" He sighed. "No. I mean, not entirely. I... Putain" He didn't fucking know. Everything was too fucking confusing and complicated. He shook his head and continued on forward, pushing through the bushes and , not meeting her eyes, still. He didn't want to feel any fucking worse than he did. "Let's find your-- Wait." His gaze shot to hers. "A fucking cactus cat? Were you going to tell me ever or just let me figure that out on my own later?" Sure, he wasn't really in a position to be the one outraged right now but that didn't stop him.

"Does maybe mean yes in Kaden speak?" Bea pressed her lips as she looked at him. "Well, you should try it. It's gross. Why didn't you put more in the coffee you got me after?" She knew herself well enough that she would have forced herself to drink that entire coffee had it been just as bad as the first one, simply because she wouldn't have wanted him to feel bad. It was odd to see him struggling with her question, but it was nice to have confirmation that his entire motivation wasn't to figure out what she was, even though she was sure that was his main goal. "It's complicated?" She asked, following after him. She stuck relatively close to him, feeling much more confident in the woods with a hunter than she did by herself (Or when she thought he was just an animal control officer). "I was going to tell you not to grab her! And then... I was going to figure out the rest on the way. I was too worried to make a good plan."

Kaden grumbled. "Maybe." Putain de merde, she had him figured out. And she just kept on asking harder and harder questions. Of fucking course she did. "Because. I just didn't, alright?" If he could get rid of the giant knot twisting in his stomach, he would. Everything was so much easier when he didn't get invested in people or involved in their lives. And here he was, trekking through the woods to hunt down a fucking cactus cat for a witch who clearly was not a fucking werewolf like he thought just a few minutes earlier in the night. And all it took was that one more question to make him snap. "I don't know! Look, I don't fucking know! I didn't spend a whole lot of time examining it. Because this-- I don't--" He stopped himself short and wanted to just yell in exasperation, but then he remembered they were actually trying to track a damn cat. So he let out a frustrated breath instead and tried to calm down. A little. "When you're a hunter and you know how things tend to go, you don't get close to people. Just in case. So I don't fucking know, alright? I couldn't think about it. It would make it too hard to--" As he paused to try and find the words he wanted to say, he heard something off in the distance and put his arm out in front of her to indicate she should stop, too. There was a rustling not too far off. Not sure if she could hear it, but he sure did. He fucking hoped it was the cat. And not something else.

Bea jumped as he snapped at her. She could tell her questions were annoying him, but she hadn't been prepared to hear his voice change like that. She was no stranger to people snapping at her, her sisters did it often enough, though that rarely helped her anticipate when friends or strangers would. She supposed, it should have been expected since she was badgering him with questions. "It would have made it hard for you to do what you had to do if I was a werewolf," She finished for him. "But I'm not so you don't have to worry about me anymore. You know what I am and I know what you are." She hadn't often thought about that aspect of the hunters' lives. Making friends in a town like this must be impossible when there were so many supernatural creatures. She paused when his arm went out and she tensed as she waited for him to make the next move. She really did not want a fight.

Kaden clenched his jaw. She really did have him fucking figured out. She said exactly what he'd been thinking but didn't want to ever say aloud. It was too fucking shameful to admit as a hunter. He could feel the disapproval from his parents at the thought alone even though it'd been years since. All he could do in response was nod. He didn't want to talk about it anymore, hell he didn't want to think about it anymore. Instead he stood and listened for a cat. Or whatever else was out there. Just rustling, something shifting in the distance. Kaden crouched down, free hand going towards the knife he had with him, just in case. His breath hitched in his throat as he strained to hear anything more, any indication. A small mew came from the bushes and he let out a sigh of relief. "I think she's close," he whispered. "That or it's a different lost cat." Or a foireaux cat. Didn't need to think about that possibility right now.

Bea felt for Kaden. She didn't know what led him to White Crest, but it couldn't be easy being here alone, which she assumed he was, and then having to isolate himself. She knew that a lot of people were less social than she was, but she had to imagine even the most introverted of people wanted to have someone they were close to. She made a soft clicking noise with her mouth and called out softly, "Dia." Slowly, she saw her, rather miserable looking, cat emerge from the bushes. Her collar was off, Bea assumed it must have fallen off somewhere between here and the house, and so the illusion that kept Dia looking like a fluffy house cat was gone. A few of the spines on her were broken and Bea tsked at her. "Your little adventure is over, missy," She told the sulking cat as she picked her up carefully. After years of owning a cactus cat, she had gotten good at making sure she wasn't going to get pricked by one of Dia's spines.

Kaden had to shake his head at the sight of a cat with spines all over it. Still, didn't want to admit it, but he was relieved to see the cat was safe and sound. Even if it was a strange fucking cat. He stood up straight and brushed some of the dirt off his pants. He thought about putting the knife away when he looked up and caught a glimpse of that moon. Yeah, better keep it handy. "We should get back. You know, given..." He pointed up to the sky, hoping she'd take the hint. After walking a little ways towards the house, looking straight down at the path in front of him, Kaden finally muttered, "Sorry. For... sorry." That was about all he could manage as an apology. He hoped that was enough. And he hoped he'd get a chance to find a real werewolf later tonight.

Bea nodded her agreeance. She had no desire to be spending any more time outside during the full moon, even if having a hunter present made it a little easier to stomach. She adjusted her hold on Dia to lightly touch Kaden's arm, in what she meant as a reassuring touch. "You're forgiven. What you do isn't easy. Even if it did piss me off at first, I get it." As the house came into view, she felt relief wash over her. She couldn't wait to go inside and have a glass of wine. This night had been entirely too stressful. "And I meant what I said before. You don't have to worry with me anymore since you know what I am. So, if you ever need a friend that you know for certain isn't turning into the big bad wolf every month, you have me."

#writing #chatzy #bea #beatriceblaze #cactus cats and conclusions

10 notes · View notes

sebastianshaw · 4 years

Note

hey, sorry for the off-topic question but are mice good therapy animals? You've mentioned mental health a few times OOC and I just was wondering if they'd be a good pick.

None of my pets are therapy animals or emotional support animals, they’re just pets, but they are good for my mental health. Meds, therapy, and a supportive family are the big three for me, but small furry things to take care of are a very good supplement. Like a vitamin pill alongside dinner---the food is what’s keeping you alive and going, and the pill alone would not, but it does help. I think all pet owners who struggle with mental health---or even those who don’t---find that their pet helps a lot even if they’re not registered or trained specially in any way. That said, I would not recommend mice, or rodents in general, as pets for you mental health, unless they actually are what you need and what you like. For me, I already had an affinity for rodents. I never got them with the intent for them to be a mental health aid, I got them because I just really, really love rats, mice, and all their relations. And as it turns out...they work really well for what I need. Cut for length since this isn’t RP or fandom and I don’t want to clog people’s dash, but if anyone is interest,ed I’m going to discuss the pros and cons of rodents, the importance of assessing your needs when picking an animal, and the importance of the animal’s needs too.

If you need unconditional love and automatic affection, they’re NOT for you. Dogs are great at this. This is why most people have dogs. This is why dogs are the most common therapy/ES animal (well, and being really smart and trainable) Rats will love you, but mice and hamsters do not. Mice and hamsters will learn not to be afraid of you, they will tolerate being picked up by you, but most are never going to be happy to see you and run up hoping to get petted like a dog will. I’m okay with that. I just need something small to take care of and be responsible for, and to hold for a long time each day. I get them to trust me and let me hold them at length, and we’re good. Now, rats (which ARE different from mice, they are MUCH larger, smarter, and different behaviorally/psychologically) will love you back. Maybe not all of them, and not automatically like a dog, but many of mine have definitely loved me. They don’t show affection in the same way dogs and cats (I find a lot of people expect all animals to behave like a dog or cat) but they show it. They’ll run to the cage door when you come down, they’ll watch you in hope you’ll notice them and pick them up, they’ll even adjust their schedule to yours so that they can be awake when you are, even though they’re naturally nocturnal. They’ll snuggle with you, they’ll lick you or nibble you to show love, they’ll groom your hand like it’s a fellow rat (which is a way they show affection to each other) I get a lot out of this. It feels good to be loved by a rat, just like it does by a dog, cat, horse, etc. Now, rats are very individual. I’ve had rats who I believe truly loved me. I’ve also had rats who were indifferent to me. And I’ve even had a few who I think wanted me to just go away, though I’ve NEVER had one that was aggressive or bit (rats are the LEAST likely rodent to bite, though it does happen, I’ve just never had it happen to me in 15+ years of keeping them) But most people who keep rats absolutely find them to most lovable animals, and I concur. It’s why I’ve had so many, despite the heartbreak that they only live a couple years. This is the BIGGEST drawback for rats, mice, and hamsters---the short lifespan. Losing a rat will hit you the hardest too, because they bond with you the most. So, rodents are good for me, because they give me what I need and are an animal that I already like. If you don’t like them, and you need something different from an animal---say, to help you enforce a schedule/routine, or encourage you to exercise more, or something large you can snuggle with and feel safe---then they’re not for you. But if what I’m saying sounds good so far, maybe they are! So let’s move on to the other essential half of thing’s---the animal’s needs, and if you can handle them. As someone who loves animals, I see a lot of people get pets who don’t understand their needs, or ignore them. I’m not saying you would. I’m saying maybe you don’t know, or other people don’t know, so I’d like to talk about since you’ve given me this opportunity. A big reason I don’t have a dog (I love dogs, I used to work in a shelter for two years, and I don’t have an official rate for petsitting, I just let people pay what they want because I love doing it) is the maintenance. Dogs are high maintenance. You have to give them a lot of attention, which I’m fine with, I could hang out with a dog all day. But you also have to walk them and take them out, and it’s best that they get this done several times a day, and at a specific time. I don’t want to do that. I also don’t want to bother with training a dog, and training them is essential. It’s not just about getting them to “sit” or “roll over” it’s about proper socialization with people and other animals, not destroying your house, etc. Speaking of that, rodents stay in cages. Whatever damage they can do is limited to what I give them access to when I take them out. A dog can do a ton more. I don’t want to deal with that. I also don’t want to deal with vacuuming hair, and any other number of small parts of keeping a dog. I love petsitting, I loved working in a shelter, but those things are temporary. When you get a dog, you get it 24/7 for its entire lifespan, same as any other pet, and you have to be realistic about your willingness to provide for it with what it needs. Do I love German Shepherds? Heck yes. Am I prepared to give them the strong leadership, exercise, socialization, and massive amount of mental stimulation they need? God, no. I clean a rodent cage once a week and that’s enough for me. I’m a lazy, low-energy person. Rodents are low-maintenance. They work for me. They‘re also quiet, which is really good for me too. Dogs, cats, and horses also require regular vet care, which can be very expensive. Rodents do not. Rodents do not require regular check-ups, nor do they require getting vaccines. Most of my rodents go their entire lives without having seen a vet. They only see a vet firstly if something is wrong, and secondly if I think there’s a good chance the vet can actually fix it. Most of the time when it comes to small animals, there’s not even anything that a vet can do, even a vet who specializes in them. They are hard to diagnose, and even harder to help. Surgery and anesthesia and dosing are all massive risks to them due to their tiny size. This is why many times, if I have a sick rodent, I still don’t take them to the vet. It’s not because I am cruel. It’s because there’s often no point. Dogs and cats on the other hand, should see vets even when nothing is wrong. Get them checked up, get them checked out, check their teeth and stuff, all that. Especially since that, as in people, finding a problem early in them means they can be treated sooner, and have a better shot. But this is all very expensive too. Small animals overall are much less expensive creatures. That said, they still cost money to take care of properly, there’s no pet that doesn’t. Be prepared for that. There’s a whole world of animals I haven’t even mentioned, such as birds, fish, reptiles, and rodents that I’ve never kept (like guinea pigs, I’ve never had guinea pigs) because I don’t have personal experience with them, but like everything else here, I’m sure they have different needs they’re good at fulfilling, and different needs of their own that you have to be prepared for. Whatever you choose, research its needs THOROUGHLY. There’s a lot of information out there that is WRONG. For instance, rodents should NOT be kept in those tiny colorful cages that pet stores love to sell you. Betta fish should NOT be kept in tiny bowls, or in unfiltered vases with just a plant to eat (they’re CARNIVOROUS fish) Even if you’re keeping an insect, it deserves a good quality of life. They’re completely in your hands, you owe it to them to be responsible for them. My rodents give me so much, and I *want* to give them the best in return because I *love* them, and that actually ends up being beneficial for me too---I would feel bad about myself if I weren’t giving them quality care! So, I’d assess your needs, and check out animals that suit those. Then, I’d assess the animal’s needs. Make a list of pros and cons for each critter you like. Weigh ‘em. Think carefully. It may take awhile, but it’s better for both you AND the animal that it’s something you spend time thinking about. Best of luck!!

2 notes · View notes

erinptah · 4 years

Text

The Secret Commonwealth review: It was...pretty underwhelming, mostly

Finally got the audiobook of The Secret Commonwealth checked out from my local library!

(Here’s my review of its predecessor, La Belle Sauvage, if you want to start there.)

It’s 20 hours long. Whoof.

As for the contents…look, it was well-written prose. I didn’t get bored while listening. (Rereading that last review, I realized I’d written the same thing about the previous book, too.) But in retrospect, there sure was not a lot that happened in those 20 hours. Some notable action bits, in between a lot of padding.

And my reactions mostly consist of…complaints. Not “this is hideous, time to ragequit the series, this is an unqualified anti-rec” complaints, more a low-level churn of frustration.

(There’s one scene I know has made someone else outright refuse to read it, though, and I think it’s totally reasonable. More on that later.)

So I’m gonna try to unpack a bunch of it here. Hopefully in enough detail that, if you haven’t read it yet (and don’t mind spoilers), it can help you make an informed decision about whether it’s worth spending 20 hours of your life on.

Spoilers start here!

The Story

We open with Lyra as a 20-year-old student at St. Sophia’s, a women’s college in Oxford. She’s made some kinda-friends, including former booty calls that she’s still on good terms with, but she’s badly estranged from Pantalaimon.

Their rift is exacerbated by a couple of books she’s read that are popular with young intellectuals lately. One is a philosophy book, one is a novel, both of them seem broadly Ayn Randian in the sense that “teens/college kids get really into these books and decide it’s smart and fashionable to adopt their moral framework, ignoring both the logical failures and the ways in which this turns you into a horrible person.”

She’s been staying at Jordan between semesters, but political drama forces her to move, and that’s when Oakley Street swoops in to make contact. They’re the secret Magisterum-thwarting spy organization that Hannah Relf worked for in La Belle Sauvage. Employees now include Alice Lonsdale and Malcolm Polstead, who fill Lyra in on the events of the previous book.

Lyra crashes at Malcolm’s parents’ inn for a bit, but her fighting with Pan gets so bad that he takes off, leaving a note. He’s going to confront one of the authors of the fashionable/terrible books — who lives in Germany, so this could take a while.

Since Lyra can’t just hang around and go through the motions of a normal life while her daemon is visibly missing, she takes off too. First on a detour to the Gyptians, then on a sorta meandering cross-continental journey of her own.

Along the way, both Lyra and Pan keep uncovering new details about this ongoing side plot:

It turns out there’s a place, I think somewhere in the Middle East, where daemons can’t go — same as the area in the North that witches use for separation ordeals. If a human crosses that area, they arrive at the growing-place of a type of rose that won’t grow properly anywhere else, whose oil has the same effect as the seed-pod sap used by Mary Malone in the mulefa world — you can use it to make a Dust-viewing lens.

This rose oil can also be used to make all kinds of super-cool products, like the World’s Best Perfume and the World’s Best Rosewater, so it’s valuable for lots of reasons. But a few researchers have caught on to the Dust-viewing power, and the Magisterium has caught on that some dangerous research is happening with roses, so they’ve started destroying every rosebush they can find in the general region — wreaking havoc with the global economy in the process.

(They’re also trying to convince the general population that God Says Roses Are Immoral now. If this book had come out 5 years ago, I could’ve made some great connections with “there’s widespread successful Magisterium propaganda about how nobody should like or respect the work of botanists.”)

And there’s a related plot where Lyra’s uncle (she actually has one! Mrs. Coulter had a brother!) is playing a long game to re-consolidate as much Magisterium power as possible under a single individual. It gets us some good dramatic sequences…which I feel no need to break down here, because they’re exactly the ones you would imagine, with exactly the outcome you’re already expecting.

One of Uncle Wannabe-Pope’s employees is Bonneville Junior, the son of the miniboss from La Belle Sauvage. He’s a trained alethiometrist, but is more interested in his personal vendetta against Lyra than his actual job. Takes after Dad in that he’s not very deep or complex, just a straightforward fun-to-hate villain.

Pan eventually makes his way to the Terrible Author’s home, where he discovers that things are weird and creepy, but not very specific. Doesn’t achieve anything in particular, either. Disheartened, he sets off for the Region of the Weird Roses, with the idea he’ll meet Lyra there.

Lyra, meanwhile, has a notebook they recovered from an explorer who went to the Region of the Weird Roses. It includes a list of other (non-witch) people across the world who’ve been separated, because apparently they’re more common than you’d think, and have a secret support network. So she visits a few of these people along her trip, with an endgame goal of Weird Roseville.

Malcolm also makes his own journey toward Weird Roseville. I think it was part of an Oakley Street investigation into “what does the Magisterium have against roses these days?” In the middle of it, Bonneville Junior confronts him (Junior is having trouble finding Lyra, but has a secondary vendetta against Malcolm for killing his dad, so this is almost as good). Malcolm talks him down.

At last Lyra, Pan, and Junior all hit the same “creepy deserted town in the general area of Weird Roseville.” But none of them manage to interact before the book ends.

…In my LBS review, I said it had serious middle-of-the-trilogy syndrome, a whole lot of setup for no payoff. TSC spends very little time following up on any of it. To be fair, the Original Trilogy has happened in the meantime and this book also tries to address some of the events from that, but the vast bulk of it is even more setup for no payoff.

Complaints, Broadly Organized By Theme, In Loosely Chronological Order

Lyra at St. Sophia’s:

I really like how the opening sequence involves Lyra noticing a friend is in distress and helping her out! (Friend’s dad is in the rose-using business, and his company is going under.) And then…that’s the last we see of any connections with female friends her own age. In the entire book.

One of the Terrible Rationalist Books is spreading the idea that “daemons are a collective hallucination.” This is not a “rational” idea in this world! It would be like saying that faces are a collective hallucination!

And Lyra is the least likely person in this world to buy into it, because she’s visited a world without visible daemons, and got empirical proof (via Will’s and John Parry’s separation ordeals) that even under those conditions, they still exist!

I can appreciate the idea of Lyra and Pan being traumatized and scarred and having trouble, but this, specifically, is a nonsensical thing for them to argue over.

The book also gestures (not very hard, thankfully) toward the idea that Lyra is doubting the existence of magic in general. Which, again, is the equivalent of someone from our world deciding it’s rational to doubt the existence of weather.

Also, it seems like Lyra/Pan haven’t had any contact with witch society through these years. Why not? If anyone’s going to have sympathy and understanding and support groups for their separation-related trauma, it’s the culture where every single member formally goes through the same thing! And I’m sure Serafina would be delighted to see them! But they don’t even consider the idea.

Lyra and Malcolm:

Yes, they’re being telegraphed as a future couple, and yes, it’s just as creepy and unappealing as the internet has been saying.

And, look, I’m not going to say “20-year-old Lyra is too young to date anyone she wants.” Not after we got through all of Original Flavor HDM without saying “12-year-old Lyra is too young to go on an interdimensional journey with no adult supervision and save the multiverse.”

But he was one of her teachers when she was 16, and his POV includes remembering how he had to actively shut down sexual interest in her then, and here in the present Lyra still thinks of him as kind of a distant authority figure, and that’s weird, okay?

They only have a couple days’ worth of actual interaction before being apart for the rest of the book. That’s not enough time to believably develop their dynamic into something believably-potentially-romantic. So the narrative doesn’t try.

…but it still has multiple people ask Malcolm if he’s in love with Lyra afterward.

The foreshadowing on Lyra’s side is all in how she keeps thinking about how similar he is to Will. (Cat daemon, killed someone when he was a tween, etc.) Because that’s what we all want for Lyra’s romantic future, a knockoff Will-substitute, amirite?

Separately: Malcolm and friends tell Lyra the whole backstory about the magical boat trip from La Belle Sauvage, but it doesn’t seem like she tells them anything about “that time I went on an interdimensional journey, built a group of allies from multiple worlds and species including literal angels, killed God, and permanently rewrote the nature of death.” I feel like that should’ve come up!

General daemon stuff:

There’s a moment in the early chapters when Pan, wandering alone at night, considers eating some small critter (the kind that an ordinary pine marten would eat). It’s not like he’s going through a species-identity crisis, either. It’s just written as…a thing a daemon might do. So that’s weird.

In the original series, daemon separation is a major, improbable ordeal. Under normal circumstances, a human and a daemon being dragged apart past their distance limit will just kill them. At Bolvangar they figured out a severance method that would leave you physically functional, but dead inside. Witch-style separation only happens at this special daemon-repelling place in the North (you don’t have to be a witch to use it, see John Parry, but they usually don’t tell non-witches it exists), or on the shores of the World of the Dead. So far, so good.

In this series, we find out that there’s another place on this Earth with the same daemon-repelling properties. It’s also remote and isolated and associated with Cool Weird Stuff (the cities in the Northern Lights vs. the Dust-revealing roses). Again, so far, so good.

…And then we find out that random people can just kinda do a separation ordeal anywhere. Okay, it already happened to Malcolm in La Belle Sauvage, but now it’s all over the place. Lyra keeps spotting people on the street without daemons! Pan teams up with a kid who got dragged apart from her daemon in a shipwreck, and it didn’t kill them! It’s too easy. It’s unsatisfying. It undercuts so much of the monumental feeling separation had in the original trilogy.

It also makes it even weirder that nobody was able to hook Lyra and Pan up with a support group. Oakley Street couldn’t suss it out? Her friends among the Gyptians couldn’t catch an underground rumor and pass it on?

Related: when we saw daemonless kids in The Golden Compass, they were treated like horror-movie monsters. Like zombies, ghosts, bodies walking around without heads. But when people clock Lyra as being daemonless here, they treat it like it’s something immoral. Like she’s walking around topless and needs to cover it up.

There’s just a general pattern of rewriting HDM’s established rules about daemons, and not for the better.

And speaking of rewriting established rules…general alethiometer stuff:

There is a New Method for reading the alethiometer. It involves pointing all three hands at the same symbol, which already seems like a gimmick, not a useful way to frame a question.

And somehow, that gets you the answers in the form of…magic visions. No intuition or interpretation needed! The sights and sounds just get funneled directly into your brain!

The reason this isn’t a Plot-Breaking Hack is because it makes the user super-queasy. You can only use it when you’re in a position to be sick afterward, and people would rather not use it at all.

Lyra spends most of the story with the alethiometer, and without all the symbology books that go with it. She avoids using the New Method because of the nausea, but she also avoids using the Classic Method, on the grounds that it apparently can’t get her anything without the books.

She’s been studying these books for years now! Couldn’t she at least try to read it, and make her best guess at the interpretation? Maybe sometimes she gets it right, maybe sometimes she’s wrong and things go sideways and she realizes in hindsight which of the symbols she misread, maybe sometimes she gives up and gets depressed and puts it away without drawing a conclusion at all…but nope, she just flat-out doesn’t interact with it.

Midway through the book, Lyra gets a tipoff about a kind of truth-reading cards. That’s fine; we know there are other methods of truth-reading in the multiverse, including the I Ching and Mary Malone’s computer. Makes sense as a new tidbit of worldbuilding.

But towards the end of the story, someone helpfully gifts Lyra a deck of the cards. And she spends some time trying to infer answers from how the pretty pictures on the cards fit together. More time than she spends trying to infer answers from how the pretty pictures on the alethiometer fit together.

The alethiometer didn’t need a New Method or a total replacement in the narrative…but apparently it’s getting them.

And what was the point of Lyra dedicating herself to studying those symbols, for years, if she can get better and more-accurate data from a set of symbols she’d never seen before until this week?

Pan’s international voyage:

This all started when Pan got the idea that Terrible Author had “put a spell on Lyra and stolen her imagination.” Which sounds like a figure of speech at first, but no, apparently Pan thinks this guy is literally magic.

And yet, somehow, not magic enough to be dangerous, even for a single lone daemon whose only plan is “confront him directly and demand that he fix it”?

Most of the trip is uneventful, since it’s a long string of Pan successfully keeping out-of-sight.

There’s one clever part where, once he’s in Terrible Author’s hometown, he finds a school for the blind to ask for information. That way he can say “my girl is totally standing right over there, don’t worry about it, now, any chance you know where Terrible Author lives?”

…of course, the first person he asks has exactly the right answer and is happy to share. Convenient, that.

As mentioned, Terrible Author’s setup is suitably creepy and off-putting, but Pan doesn’t figure out anything about why. Doesn’t investigate. Didn’t come up with any kind of plan beforehand about how to coax Terrible Author into undoing his evil spell. Pan just confronts him, demands he fix Lyra, realizes this hasn’t fixed Lyra, and leaves.

There’s a bombshell much later on when Lyra finds out that Terrible Author is separated! And, although there’s a daemon who hangs around with him, they don’t actually belong to each other! This is fascinating and disturbing and would’ve been so much more satisfying if, you know, Pan had figured this out and was actively trying to bring the information to Lyra. Or, heck, if anything had been done with it at all.

Shortly afterward, Pan runs into this girl who just happens to be separated from her daemon, and is available and happy to team up with Pan, so they can head off to Weird Roseville together. Convenient. Again.

Lyra’s Bogus Journey:

Lyra has a much harder time staying out of sight than Pan, so she gets a lot more interaction along her trip.

Most of it is a long string of the same convenient “running into people who are helpful and friendly and have exactly the information she needs to move the plot along.” (More details on that below.)

When this happened in the original trilogy, it was the alethiometer deus-ex-machining her in the right direction, which worked! But here it seems to keep happening by accident. (She brings the alethiometer, but, as mentioned, she doesn’t use it.)

The Conveniently Helpful People also keep telling her (with minimal prompting, and what seems like total honesty?) whole backstories. All of which are more interesting than the actual narrative she’s going through.

They also occasionally mention God/the Authority, and Lyra doesn’t have much of a reaction. I wish, just once, she had snapped “it doesn’t matter what the Authority thinks! Or rather, what he used to think, since my boyfriend and I killed him when we were 12!”

The convenience also could’ve worked if Oakley Street agents were being cool and clever and actively tracking her journey in order to help. She does run into a few of them, but that seems to be by accident too.

And it could’ve worked if there was other magic steering her along — she keeps dropping the phrase “the secret commonwealth,” meaning the world’s hidden population of faeries and other supernatural creatures — but as of the end of the book, none of Lyra’s friendly helpers have been revealed to be anything other than human. (Some are modified in exotic ways, but they were human to start with, at least.)

Even farther towards the end of the book, after this long string of people being Conveniently Helpful For No Reason, she ends up in a train car with…and I wish I was making this up…a bunch of soldiers who are Inconveniently Attempted Rapists For No Reason.

That record-scratch moment your brain just did? That’s how it feels in the book, too. The attack comes out of nowhere, there’s suddenly a big action sequence with Lyra fighting back, their CO shows up and makes them let her go, and then she leaves the train and heads almost directly to the next bunch of Conveniently Helpful People.

If anyone wants more detailed spoilers, either to be prepared before reaching the scene or to decide whether you’ll read it at all, let me know.

To be blunt about one thing: from the in-scene descriptions I would’ve said none of these guys actually managed to get their dicks out, but a few days later we get the book’s first and only reference to Lyra having periods. And she doesn’t think “oh, thank republic-of-heavens, I’m not pregnant,” which suggests she knew it wasn’t a risk, but the whole Narrative Reason you write that in after an assault scene is because someone is afraid it’s a risk, so, what are you even doing, Pullman??

Okay, switching tracks.

Some of the people Lyra encounters, usually with personal stories that are way more interesting, and I wish they’d been [part of] the actual main plot:

A guy who meets her at a train station, says he has a friend who needs her help, leads her out into a maze of city streets where she explicitly thinks about how risky this is because she’s totally lost…but she does the mission and it’s fine and he leads her right back to the train station afterward.

The friend is a human who’s been modified by “a magician” to be some kind of fire-elemental person, and wants Lyra to help find his daemon, who was modified into a water-elemental form — a mermaid! This is cool and fascinating and scary and raises so many questions —

— and they get killed immediately after Lyra reunites them, and we never find out anything more about it.

The killer is the magician, who had been holding the water-sprite daemon captive. (And is possibly also the guy’s father? Finally, someone who can beat Marisa and Asriel in a “Bad Parenting Juice” drinking contest.) Which, again, is fascinating and evocative — how do you become a magician? Or are they born, like the witches? How many are there? What kinds of things are they doing in the world? —

— yeah, we don’t find out anything about that either.

Murderous Magician Dad just gives Lyra some helpful plot information, then sends her and the train-station guy off on their way.

A couple of guys who intervene when Lyra is being harassed at a bar.

They steer her outside, she’s prepared for a fight, but they hold up their hands and say they’re friendly, and also, they noticed someone steal the alethiometer bag off her earlier, so here, would she like it back?

They give her some helpful rumors, too. Don’t remember which specific ones, but they lead her to the next plot point.

A rich elderly princess who’s on the Daemonless International Support Group list, because her daemon fell in love (!) with another woman (!!) and eventually ran off with her (!!!).

Lyra thinks to herself that she’s seen other situations where a daemon and their human have different feelings about a romance. Just thinks it in passing, and then it’s gone. I want to see these situations! I want on-page exploration of multiple ways they can work! How do they correspond to the feelings of people in worlds where all the daemons are internal?

As for the princess, I already knew it was going to be a big scandal — two human women in that day and age could never be a couple, at least not in public, and A Literal Princess is a very public figure —

but then, in spite of the scandal, the princess moves in with the woman! And they travel together, they work together, they share a bed, she explains to Lyra that she played the role so thoroughly she made herself fall in love with the woman!

…and then it falls apart for some reason, and the princess leaves, but her daemon insists on staying. So that’s how they get separated. Deliberately walking away from each other.

There’s a brief reference to the idea of him wishing he was the other woman’s daemon, instead of the princess’s. How does that work? How do you get so disconnected from yourself, and in such a skewed partial-match with someone else, that you end up with that kind of yearning?

In case you can’t tell, I want to read this novel. I would trade the entirety of The Secret Commonwealth for this novel. No question, hands down.

Instead: Princess says “if you run into my daemon, tell him I’d like to see him again before we die?” Lyra says “sure, can do, thanks for the brunch.” And then, you guessed it, that whole scene is over and done with and we never get any follow-up on it again.

A pair of agents from Oakley Street, who say “hey, Lyra, have you considered using some basic disguise techniques, like dyeing your hair and wearing glasses?”

And then they give her a lovely haircut and a dye job and a spare pair of fake glasses.

This isn’t anywhere near the beginning of Lyra’s journey, by the way! This is more than 80% of the way through the book. There’s no special reason she needs it more after this point.

It’s like Pullman suddenly realized a disguise might help, wrote the scene at the point he had reached, and then never went back and edited to put it in a more meaningful location.

The stranger on a train who shows Lyra the deck of “exactly the same as an alethiometer” cards, gives her a demonstration of how to use them, and then leaves the whole deck behind for her to keep.

A married couple who don’t share any languages in common with Lyra, and don’t seem to have a lot of money…but feed her and let her stay at their house overnight, for free, even daemonless as she is. They also give her a free niqab so she can move around less conspicuously (she’s still injured from the fight with the soldiers).

A priest who invites her into his church, isn’t bothered when she takes off the niqab, helps treat her injuries, and gives her a motherlode of useful details about highly-illegal dealings he’s not even supposed to know about, but will unveil to this total stranger who just wandered in, because she needs them for the next plot point.

This when Lyra finds out that someone in this region has resurrected the Bolvangar method. But this time they aren’t kidnapping random children for it. No, they’re paying for it. If you’re poor enough, and desperate enough, and can’t spare any more kidneys, these people will buy your daemon to sell on the black market.

The city has a whole secret underclass of illegally-severed people working in the sewers.

Meanwhile, rich people who’ve been deserted by their daemons can purchase a stand-in. This is what Terrible Author did. Of course, it’s not a true replacement, but the dealers boast about their ability to make an excellent match.

There are also people who buy separated daemons for other scientific/experimental purposes. Details left to our imaginations.

This is a horrifying sinister mindblowing discovery, as much of a bombshell as the original Bolvangar was. I mean, it would’ve hit harder if Lyra had uncovered it by spying, or tricking someone into revealing the information, or anything more elaborate than “asking straightforward sorta-related questions and getting this whole sordid story infodumped by the first guy she asked,” but it’s still big.

So it’s gonna shake things up something fierce, right? Maybe Lyra won’t go full-on “calling in the cavalry to tear the place down” until Book 3, but this would be her new “stepping through the doorway into the sky” moment — where the horror of what she’s learned galvanizes her into making a pivotal decision, where she starts laying the groundwork for the revolution —

— no, of course not, this is where she starts going around to the hideouts of various undercover daemon-sellers and asking if they can help her find Pan.

Come on.

And this brings us to the end of the book. One of the black-market daemon-sellers guides Lyra to the creepy abandoned town where the final scene takes place.

In these last moments, the audience (but not Lyra) finds out that this guy has ulterior motives. Which would make it the first time in the whole book when “Lyra or Pan takes a Conveniently Helpful Person at face value with total credulity” turns out to be a bad idea.

(And, I mean, he’s a black-market daemon-seller. If anyone on that list was obviously an unethical scumball who shouldn’t be counted on….!)

Finally, a few things that don’t fit into any neat lists, but annoyed me enough to mention:

1) People curse in this book. Which is notable because they didn’t in HDM, and it wasn’t just the adults watching their mouths around tween Lyra — we got plenty of scenes that only had people like Mrs. Coulter and Lord Asriel in them. Those two would definitely be dropping f-bombs if it was a routine part of their world’s language, and this book reveals that it is.

So every time it happens it breaks your immersion, pointedly reminding you “this isn’t a real world, it’s a fake story where the author can switch the profanity-filter on and off at will.” Does it enhance the narrative in a way that’s worth the tradeoff? I don’t think so.

2) Before I read the book, I’d heard vague spoilers about “a character with a mermaid daemon,” and figured it was someone from a cool magical species — hopefully more expansion/exploration on the fairy from La Belle Sauvage whose daemon appeared to be “a whole flock of butterflies.”

But no, it’s a magically-modified human. His situation doesn’t get explored that deeply before he dies, or connect with anything else in the story. The fairy, meanwhile, does get mentioned when Malcolm tells Lyra about meeting her, but she doesn’t reappear or get any kind of follow-up.

In spite of the title, the only explicit appearance of any members of the “secret commonwealth” is some little glowing spirits, basically wights, that Lyra watches over the side of a gyptian boat one time.

3) There’s a scene where a bunch of people gather in a meeting hall to protest the Magisterium sabotaging their various rose-related livelihoods. A couple Magisterium reps are there. Malcolm is also there, and his POV basically goes “huh, looks like all the exits have gotten the doors shut. And barred. And suddenly they each have an armed Magisterium agent standing in front of them. That’s weird. Gonna keep quietly observing to find out what happens next.”

This guy is supposed to be a cool experienced anti-Magisterium spy! This is basically a giant neon sign flashing COMING UP NEXT: MASSACRE! (It is not a misdirect, either.)

And Malcolm sees it, but doesn’t read it, or take any action to try to subvert it, or even move to defend himself — it’s just like any cheesy horror movie where the audience is shouting LOOK BEHIND YOU at the unwitting character who’s about to get murdered.

Wrap-Up Thoughts

Whatever happens in the final volume of this trilogy, it might reveal things that redeem some of the problems in this book. But I’ll be honest, I’m not holding my breath.

And when I think about reveals that would address these problems, everything I come up with is stuff that should’ve just been in this book.

For example: let’s say the Fair Folk are directly involved after all, intervening to steer Lyra and Pan down the most convenient paths. In particular, the guy on the train who only appears long enough to give Lyra a set of alethiometry cards + a tutorial on how to use them — I really want him to be Fae. It’s so contrived and random if he’s not.

But the readers should know about it! Back in HDM, we would get scenes about the plans and activities of all the other factions at work. It might take a while to discover the exact details of (for example) the witches’ ultimate goal that Lyra was part of, but we knew they had a goal, and were supporting her in service of it. If the Secret Commonwealth is actively involved in the plot, we should’ve gotten that by now.

Semi-related: I feel like, if the rest of the book was better, then I’d have no trouble explaining a lot of the Lyra-specific issues as “she’s super-depressed, not in a place to make great choices or take a lot of decisive action.”

But it’s not like she’s drifting around in a trauma fog that hampers her ability to get things done. Her journey, while not perfect or threat-free, still comes together with improbable smoothness — as if the writing hasn’t noticed that she’s not being proactive and prescient and well-coordinated and overall super-competent about it. Meanwhile, other characters are underwhelming in the same way. (Looking at you, Malcolm “I Can’t Believe It’s Now a Bloodbath” Polstead.)

So it doesn’t seem like a conscious narrative choice to write Lyra this way. It just seems consistent with the complaints I have about everything else in the writing.

…let’s be honest, I’m almost certainly gonna read the third book anyway. I’m enough of a completist that it’ll bother me not to, I don’t have a lot of hard-stop dealbreakers that would make me bow out anyway, and, well, I do a lot of work that requires time-passing listening material. The Secret Commonwealth is nowhere near the most-frustrating audio I’ve used to fill that time.

But it hasn’t left me excited or optimistic or Shivering With Anticipation, either.

Mostly I just anticipate getting some useful stuff done while I listen, and then having a final set of reactions to work through in another one of these posts.

#His Dark Materials #HDM #The Book of Dust #The Secret Commonwealth #tsc spoilers #review

18 notes · View notes

commandertheory · 5 years

Text

C19 Commander Set Review

For each new set, I write an article discussing the new legendary creatures and the nonlegendary cards that I think will be relevant in Commander.

The Commanders of C19

There are 38 cards with madness in this color identity, which means that an Anje deck is essentially 61 cards when you’re running all of them. Having 61 cards in your maindeck makes it much more likely that you’ll be able to assemble combos, and the best one for this commander is probably Worldgorger Dragon + Animate Dead (note that Dance of the Dead and Necromancy also work here).

The way the combo works is this:

Have Worldgorger in your graveyard (Anje can help with this)

Cast Animate Dead targeting the Worldgorger

Worldgorger returns to the battlefield, exiling all your permanents, including Animate Dead.

When Animate Dead leaves the battlefield, it forces you to sacrifice the Worldgorger.

When Worldgorger leaves the battlefield, it returns all of your permanents.... Untapped.

Target Worldgorger with the Animate Dead when it returns to the battlefield, but before it brings back Worldgorger, tap your lands and activate Anje.

Repeat the loop for infinite mana and rummaging.

As long as you have a mana sink somewhere in your deck, you’ll win off of this combo.

The deck is very fast and consistent; check it out here:

Sample decklist

Although the deck is quite strong, I think it’s worth talking about her value as a madness commander. She certainly encourages you to play as many madness cards as possible, but she doesn’t really encourage the madness style of gameplay because it’s much slower and grindier than the efficient path to victory Anje and her Dragon can offer you.

When you play the deck (and I encourage you to goldfish with it), you’re almost never casting your spells for their madness cost. If Anje said menace instead of madness, the deck would play out exactly the same.

Does that make for a good madness commander? I don’t really think so. But it’s a new archetype, so I’ll give her a pass.

The easiest build of this deck treats Atla as a Jalira, Master Polymorphist and just runs a single copy of Blightsteel or some other heinous beater.

But there’s a more interesting angle of attack if you try to build it a little more like Egg tribal. You can run a bunch of changelings (they’re all eggs) and once you have two eggs on the board, you can sacrifice them until you’ve cycled through all the Eggs in your deck and hit Ulamog 1.0. Then you can sacrifice Ulamog to recycle all your used up changelings. Normally, this process would operate at a net loss of one egg per cycle, but Irregular Cohort (and potentially Summoner’s Egg) up your egg count and make it so you can go through the loop as often as you like, netting whatever your sac outlet generates. You’ll also generate infinite Dragons and Birds.

Sample decklist

This might be the commander to use if you actually want to cast your madness cards. An activation that has discarding as a cost will make you want to minimize the downside--which is exactly what madness cards will do. The haste will work if you cast a critter from exile (which is where madness creatures are cast from), and you can discard a card on an opponent’s turn to get the madness cost reduction/timing cheat EVEN IF you don’t intend or are unable to cast a creature from your graveyard. Nice that you don’t have to commit to casting any particular creature when you discard, too. The floor on this is to pitch a creature, then cast it from the graveyard to give it haste; that’s definitely not nothing.

Sample decklist

This just seems like Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain but with White added. This deck runs as many 0-mana artifacts as possible to decrease your effective deck size and draw into one of your combo pieces.

This has a cute (and powerful) interaction with Sensei’s Divining Top; with a 1-mana cost reduction to the Top (Cloud Key, Etherium Sculptor, Foundry Inspector, Helm of Awakening, Jhoira’s Familiar) you can have as many cards drawn (and that many prowess triggers) as you want.

Also, Thought Lash is essentially a one-card combo.

Sample decklist

Gerrard can be used defensively to protect your stuff from your opponents’ board wipes or offensively to break the symmetry on your own. He can also be used with artifacts and creatures that sacrifice themselves for value (or that can be fed into sac outlets) to get a bunch of free stuff.

Some key categories of cards in this deck:

cards to help return Gerrard to your hand or the battlefield when he dies so you can get his trigger without having to send him back to the command zone (e.g., Gift of Immortality, Loyal Retainers, Nim Deathmantle)

a bunch of mass destruction effects that Gerrard can break the symmetry for (of which Nevinyrral’s Disk and Oblivion Stone have the most synergy with Gerrard)

a bunch of sacrifice outlets so can trade your creatures or value and then use Gerrard to buy them back (Ashnod’s Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Goblin Bombardment), and

a bunch of artifacts and creatures that either generate value when they ETB or when you sacrifice them.

The list could use some polish but it’s got a lot of potential; spinning Nev’s Disk every turn is not difficult to pull off.

Sample decklist

Ghired has similar problems to Anje in that the fun thing is not the most effective thing. While the addition of red to a populate deck means that you can make temporary copies of things with Kiki-Jiki or Flameshadow Conjuring, duplicate those copies with Ghired, then keep the duplicates!

Unfortunately, that’s usually slower and less effective than just copying the enormous Rhino he enters the battlefield with. It’s hard to make the case for durdling with copy effects when the alternative is accelerating him out on turn three (thanks to Sol Ring, Joraga Treespeaker, Generator Servant, Mana Crypt, etc etc) and then attacking for 10, 14, and 18 on the three subsequent turns. It’s not even that great to make 5/5 and 6/6 Wurms, as the spells that make them for 4+ mana and you can easily run Cloudshift effects to recharge Ghired’s Rhino for a single mana (often while dodging removal).

It does, however, work very well with other populate effects, since the Rhino is a good enough target most of the time.

Sample decklist

The deck feels like a pretty typical black/red control list with Greven as your finisher (and he’s quite a good one; it’s not hard to build your mana base and suite of control cards so that he reliably attacks for 10 or more without ever having to sacrifice anything). There are a couple of weird cards like Lupine Prototype, Rotting Regisaur, Cosmic Larva, Phyrexian Soulgorger and the Ball Lightnings that are worth running because they’re just such a good ratio of cards to mana.

Sample decklist

I don’t think this adds much to the format. If you want a beatstick commander in Green/Black, Hogaak is much larger and is virtually immune to the command tax. Tech for this guy includes Illness in the Ranks, Plague Engineer, Night of Soul’s Betrayal, and Engineered Plague.

This seems very good with flash granters like Leyline of Anticipation (newly encheapened by its M20 printing), Vedalken Orrery, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, and Vivien, Champion of the Wilds, as you can cast four free morphs per round of turns and draw four cards.

In addition to flash granters, cost reduction effects are pretty good here, especially ones that reduce the cost of your morphs by two or more. Heartless Summoning and Semblance Anvil are big games, but I would also try to make room for Dream Chisel, Obscuring Aether, and Earthcraft.

You don’t need me to tell you that Aphetto Runecaster and Secret Plans are good here.

When choosing which morphs to fit in the deck (and to really get the engine running, you’ll need at least 40), I first prioritized morphs that flip for 1 or 0 mana, to make it easier to combo off with Runecaster and Secret Plans. Then I prioritized Morphs with useful effects and cheap morph costs, like Nantuko Vigilante, Den Protector, etc.

It’s notable that Kadena’s triggered ability works with manifest, so you can hit with a Jeskai Infiltrator and draw multiple cards.

I also like Beast Whisperer as another card draw engine. Unfortunately, draw engines that care about creature type, color, or power aren’t very effective here. Interestingly, morphs have no name, so Guardian Project will always trigger off of new morphs entering the battlefield, even if you already have other face-down creatures.

Win conditions: Triumph of the Hordes and Beastmaster Ascension.

Sample decklist

He’s harder to break than he looks because he can’t cover colorless costs. As long as you build your deck in a specific direction, he effectively generates mana at the cost of life. The life payments can be subsidized with an Aetherflux Reservoir but in order to really go off, you’ll need a way to draw cards (there aren’t that many black card draw spells without generic mana in their costs, other than greed).

The best ways to do this are Null Profusion, Vilis, and Bolas’s Citadel. Let’s ignore the Citadel since it makes our commander unnecessary. Null Profusion can probably get there if you supplement it with lots of card draw spells to make it so you can still combo after hitting a land or two. Vilis works well, but like the Citadel, is so powerful on its own that K’rrik is barely necessary.

Worth noting: there are a couple cards (Shade’s Form, Shade’s Breath) that turn K’rrik into a shade. If you then slap on a Fireshrieker or Inquisitor’s Flail, you can pay a bunch of life to pump him up, then gain it all back with his lifelink.

Anyone remember Basandra, Battle Seraph? She’s one of the least popular commanders in one of the worst color identities, but apparently someone at Wizards thought they could redeem her by shaving off a mana, adding Green to her color identity, swapping flying for an extra point of power, breaking the symmetry on the casting restriction, and changing up how the forced attack ability works. Is this card different enough to succeed where the previous version failed? I don’t think so, but I’m prepared to be wrong.

This could be a pretty solid superfriends commander, as it’s really good at protecting your planeswalkers and the colors offer important effects like extra turn effects, proliferate, Jokulhaups effects, efficient board wipes, etc etc.

Sample decklist

This is an enormous amount of work for what amounts to a voltron commander. I am willing to bet cold hard cash that this will be the second-least popular Sultai commander of all time, if not the least popular.

First off, I love that he breaks symmetry on Earthquake effects.

Second, it’s worth noting that although this is a flashback deck, the ability works pretty well with Aftermath and Retrace cards, as well.

Unfortunately, there just aren’t that many Commander-playable cards with flashback, retrace, and aftermath in this color identity.

Cards that do work: Secrets of the Dead, Finale of Promise, Goblin Dark Dwellers, Mission Briefing, Snapcaster, Torrential Gearhulk, Chandra, Acolyte of Flame) These all point to generic value though, and don’t offer a cool “build” other than Pariah and Pariah’s Shield. The first spell clause means that if you run flash granters, you can get the spell copy effect multiple times per round of turns.

Adding menace makes him unblockable and if you can give him an extra 2 power, 3 players can gang up to ice the 4th. There’s not a whole lot of tech to this guy; just run standard Voltron enablers and you’ll do fine.

Infect creatures and Cold-Eye Selkie, Cephalid Constable, Dreamstealer, and Needle Specter are all pretty good when they have 7 power. The tricky part is, many of those creatures have 1 toughness, which means Volrath’s built-in counter generation isn’t going to cut it.

Unspeakable Symbol, Tetzimoc, Llanowar Reborn, and both Oran-Riefs are decent ways to counter up your dudes, but even a simple Gaea’s Anthem will also do the trick.

The Maindeck Cards of Commander 2019

In this set review, I’ll be using two five-point rating scales to evaluate the nonlegendary cards, one that measures how many decks a card is playable in (we’ll call that “spread”), and one that measures how powerful it is in those decks (”power”). Here’s a brief rundown of what each rank on the two scales means:

Spread

1: This card is effective in one or two decks, but no more (ex: The Gitrog Monster).

2: This card is effective in one deck archetype (ex: self-mill decks).

3: A lot of decks will be able to use this card effectively (ex: decks with graveyard interactions).

4: This card is effective in most decks in this color.

5: Every deck in this color is able to use this card effectively.

Power

1: This card is always going to be on the chopping block.

2: This card is unlikely to consistently perform well.

3: This card provides good utility but is not a powerhouse.

4: This card is good enough to push you ahead of your opponents.

5: This card has a huge impact on the game.

Spread: 3 Power: 1

That this needs to both tap and sac makes it seem too clunky to be a stand-out; it compares unfavorably to Selfless Spirit and Mother of Runes.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

The juice isn’t worth the squeeze until you’ve cast your commander at least twice. I would for sure run this card in a go-wide aggro deck running partner commanders, but this doesn’t seem great in other builds because it’s so bad in the early game, when aggro decks should be capitalizing on their advantages.

Spread: 2 Power: 1

This is slow and weak, even in white decks that want sac fodder. The most interesting thing about this card is the fact that it introduces the Sculpture creature type.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

Despite the timing restriction making it more narrow than Time Stop (and nearly useless against Storm-esque combo decks), it could serve as a pretty effective means to tilt a player off an important turn. At worst, it’ll play as a Fog, and given that it falls short of the “truly excellent” mark, it will likely catch people by surprise when used effectively. In a pinch, you can keep your opponents from casting spells in your second main, too.

Generally, however, I don’t think this effect will be worth a card in most games of Commander.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

This doesn’t have the long-term potential of Sun Titan but it has a couple things going for it. The initial reanimation comes at a much cheaper cost than the Titan’s and flashback reanimation is extremely powerful in self-mill decks. Teshar, for example, runs Mesmeric Orb and the possibility of milling Sevinne’s Reclamation and some key combo pieces that aren’t easily recurred (i.e., noncreature artifacts, like sac outlets) seems pretty good.

Unfortunately, Teshar is the only white deck that’s particularly interested in self-mill. This card would have been a very powerful tool in blue or black decks but it has less to do in this color identity.

This card is best thought of as a narrower Nature’s Spiral that will likely offer a discount on the card you recur.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

It’s expensive and does nothing without (a) a spell to cast, and (b) a powerful token to copy. There aren’t that many cards that produce tokens so strong they can justify this 6-mana enchantment; certainly, there’s not a critical mass of them.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

I am very wary of cards with multiple hoops. This card not only requires you to be casting a ton of spells from you graveyard (which is rare for most decks) but it needs some token support and/or spirit tribal. I don’t believe there are currently any commanders that fit the bill, although Kykar might be a possibility.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

I wouldn’t run this outside of Kadena or an Animorphs deck, as morph/megamorph are still generally bad in Commander and this effect is not worth the five mana you’re forced to pump into it.

Spread: 5 Power: 2

Worst-case scenario, it cycles, but even with a relatively high floor I’m not very excited about this card. Blue has more efficient spot removal (Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, Reality Shift) and in tuned lists, the mana saved is worth more than the card. That being said, this is a pretty solid answer for commanders with shroud/hexproof/indestructible/protection/etc.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

Polymorphist’s Jest sees play in Silumgar 1.0 and Tibor and Lumia decks, and this should also slot into those decks.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

While playing precon Magic at Vegas, I used this to trade a vanilla creature for an In Garruk’s Wake, so I’ve already seen the absolute best-case scenario for this card. Even after having experienced the apex of its power, I think it’s going to be worse than a Negate most of the time. Holding up 4 mana is pretty onerous, and there are plenty of spells for which changing control won’t prevent a negative outcome for you (i.e., mass creature destruction, mass land destruction, etc.).

I will do some more testing with it and see if screwing two opponents at once may be worth the price of entry, but that still seems pretty narrow.

Spread: 3 Power: 1

This is not good. If an opponent drew enough cards to make this vanilla beater a “great savings” you better have a sac outlet otherwise you’re still gonna lose. It doesn’t have evasion of any kind either and is still a dies trigger. Plagiarize is just SO MUCH BETTER.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

A great answer to commanders with shroud/hexproof or good tap abilities, clone redundancy for the decks that need it, and a useful defender for Arcades decks. It doesn’t go in every deck but it’s a solid role player in the right playgroup or build.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

It has madness, keep it in your Anje precon.

Spread: 1 Power: 4

This could be really good in Varina, Lich Queen, since it has a relevant creature type, the tokens are also of the relevant type, and you can use the free mana to activate Varina. I don’t think any other decks are able to discard as many cards as consistently as her, though.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

It’s an autoinclude in Anje because it has madness and it goes infinite with Vilis. Other than those two decks, I don’t think anyone else can use this card.

Spread: 1 Power: 3

A cool take on morph, a weird sac outlet. Will probably only see play in Kadena and black voltron lists, as you often have some floaters to get a bit of gotcha cost reduction and instant speed safety.

Alex: The pseudo-Split Second that the “As you unmorph…” ability gives this card the ability to sneak protection onto your commander without your opponents having a chance to respond. Most opponents will not necessarily think they need to remove your high-priority target in response to you casting a morph.

This could be good in Olivia Voldaren and Judith decks as a way to enhance your pinging and protect your commander. Neither deck should care about the unmorph cost much; as they’ll both have plenty of sac fodder.

And yeah, you’ll run it in Kadena.

Spread: 2 Power: 1

This card does not get there as Black enchantment removal. It’s too easy to keep a creature on the field in Commander and I doubt this is going to be able to come through for you when you really need to remove a Humility or an Omniscience.

Spread: 4 Power: 3

A little strange that it can’t kill creatures with power equal to the number of cards in your hand. Black decks are good enough at filling their hands that I think this could easily be a viable wrath; Black does not currently have a critical mass of board wipes that cost 5 or less so I think it could definitely make the cut in Commander.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

This card looks a lot like Verdant Force, but don’t stop thinking there. According to EDHREC, Verdant Force is mostly played in Slimefoot (played in 600+ decks), Ghave (played in 300+ decks), and Thelon decks (played in 100+ decks), so a lot of its power appears to come from Saproling synergies. This may be similarly limited to decks that have synergies with what it’s doing (Kadena, mostly).

Spread: 3 Power: 2

I talk a lot about how much I love cheap rummaging effects, so you might be surprised to hear that I’m down on this card. To cast it for its madness cost, you need to jump through the hoop of finding a discard outlet, and your reward for doing so is… another discard outlet.

There are diminishing returns to these types of effects, as a hand can only get so sculpted, and losing your entire hand, as opposed to one or two bad cards, is a steeper cost than it looks. It’s also unfortunate that you don’t have control over when it attacks and therefore you have no control over whether you’re discarding your hand each turn.

Spread: 3 Power: 2

If you have anything in your graveyard that’s good this becomes a must-kill target. That said, it’s got to stay alive to attack, and you have to have good stuff in the yard to cast. As just a value engine this seems clunky, but there are very few ways to actually cast cards from graveyards, so I welcome this slow dragon value machine.

Spread: 3 Power: 3

It’s a ritual, it’s ramp, it’s a Goblin, it’s a Pirate. It’s very good in combo decks for which mana is often the limiting factor (e.g., Zada), it’s good in Brudiclad as a cheap source of tokens, it goes infinite with Deadeye Navigator, it just does a ton of stuff for a bunch of different decks. Great card.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I wouldn’t run this if you’re making a random 3/3 (or smaller) token. But if your metagame has lots of small utility creatures and you’re populating huge monsters like Ghired’s Rhino or Omnath 2.0’s Elemental, I’d be into it. I also like this for the commanders that can make weird tokens, like Gyrus, Inalla, Kiki-Jiki, Feldon, Brudiclad, or Riku.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Pretty good in Ghired and Brudiclad, pretty mediocre everywhere else.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

The Red Harmonize. This seems great in any Red deck that doesn’t have access to Blue/Black/Green card draw, especially those that can realistically generate enough mana to flash it back (e.g., Neheb, the Eternal).

Spread: 1 Power: 1

This doesn’t happen that many times in a game, so if I’m looking for self-recurring sac fodder I’d rather run something like Flamewake Phoenix. Also, if I care about sac fodder, I’m probably also in Black, in which case I get a million better options.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

I can’t think of a deck that would want this card. Please let me know if you’ve got an idea of where this could fit into the format.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Well, it’s free value and there probably aren’t that many bad spells being thrown around (although hitting counterspells is pretty painful). I would try running this in a slower red deck with lots of spells looking to grind out long-game card advantage.

Spread: 4 Power: 3

This card is notable because it gives Green a critical mass of mass creature removal. Prior to the Altisaur, Green had Ezuri’s Predation, but it didn’t have any ways to tutor it out, so it was unlikely that you would be able to find it when you needed it. However, because Altisaur is a creature, it can be tutored out by Green’s many, many tutor effects, so whenever you need an answer to multiple creatures, you’ll be able to find it. The fact that you can choose to end the fight-chain, allowing this to survive, and then restart it any time this blocks or becomes blocked definitely adds to its effectiveness. But for nine mana, I suppose it had better be effective!

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I’m going to evaluate these new populate cards as if I’m making Rhinos. 3 for a Rhino seems weak, 5 for 2 ain’t great, 7 for 3 compares unfavorably with lots of other green cards at a similar price point.

Spread: 2 Power: 3

I would happily run this in any green token deck, since your attacking 1/1 is going to pick up a card no matter what. I’d probably also run in green decks that are good at vomiting lots of (nontoken) creatures onto the battlefield, like Sachi, Seton, Reki, both Ezuris, and less competitive Edric lists.

Spread: 4 Power: 2

Nature’s Spiral doesn’t see a ton of play, but putting a commander from your command zone into your hand is a rare enough ability that this might see play for that half of the entwine alone.

It is worth noting that, per the rulings on Command Beacon: “If you cast a commander from your hand, the additional cost based on the number of times you’ve cast it from your command zone (sometimes referred to as the ‘commander tax’) doesn’t apply. Additionally, that casting won’t add to the tax if you later cast the commander from the command zone.”

So not only will this let you cheat the command tax if you’ve been heavily taxed already that game, but if you have a spare slot in your seven-card hand earlier on in the game, you can cast this preemptively to dodge the first round of command taxation.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I don’t love this card. It does nothing in the early game and it’s still pretty situational in the late game, as you have to have a token worth copying and graveyards have to be stacked.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

I wouldn’t jam this in every Green deck, but in decks like Ezuri or Seton that care about its creature types, I would happily run it as “+1 relevant creature, draw 1 or more cards”.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

With Prototype Portal/Mechanized Production, you can swap between an opponent’s turn and your own and lock everyone else out of the game.

However, I don’t think there are many decks that can assemble that combo easily, and most of the time this will be a slower, bad Time Warp.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

This effect is just not worth a card.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

Prismatic Geoscope is fairly analogous, and sees play in over ten percent of certain 4- and 5-color decks (the decks in which it shines the most). In decks that can manipulate the number of counters or are interested in untapping artifacts often (Atraxa, Vorel, lists running both Voltaic and Manifold Key) this is worth taking a second look at. An easy heuristic might be: most lists wanting Astral Cornucopia will probably also want this.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

This seems like a great rate in any deck where your commander talks about tokens. Once you have drawn three times, this card is really overperforming. Around 20 commanders that are dragons have a >10% play rate for Dragon’s Hoard, and this is offering a comparable incentive. The Eldrazi token is probably flavor text, but it is a nice populate target if you get to it.

Spread: 1 Power: 1

This might be the worst Tempting Offer card ever printed. Most tempting offers give you something even if nobody takes the offer. This gives you nothing unless your chosen opponent decides to spend two mana activating this. Why would they ever do that? Probably only good in Zedruu, and only because it saves you the trouble of donating it.

Spread: 1 Power: 2

If it cost three I would seriously consider running this in some colorless, monowhite, and monored decks as a value engine, but casting it on T4 and not getting your first trigger until T5 is painfully slow.

There are enough scarecrows and changelings with CMC 3 or less that I don’t see this making the cut for Reaper King, but both King Macar and Emmara, Soul of the Accord have a bunch of ways to tap this guy so you can put the Tiller to work every turn without risking him in combat. I’ve also heard people talking about putting this in Derevi for repeated tapping and untapping, but I feel like Derevi has better things to do.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

Helps you get an extra Kadena trigger each turn, great with blink commanders as it can help you cheat big mana costs. and it’s essentially a flash granter for decks that don’t care about ETB triggers.

Spread: 2 Power: 2

It’s a solid bounce engine for ETB commanders. Note that it goes infinite with Zacama.

Wrapping Up

Do you disagree with any of my evaluations? Do you see other ways to build around the commanders of C19? Let me know!

#set review #c19 #commander #mtg #edh

49 notes · View notes