#I also have a small little shrine of 4 figures and other cool stuff

[skyboivinauthor]

Mabon blessings

Autumn Equinox, 2nd Harvest, Falls Between September 21 - 23

Mabon, (pronounced MAY-bun, MAY-bone, MAH-boon, or MAH-bawn) is the Autumn Equinox. The Autumn Equinox divides the day and night equally, and we all take a moment to pay our respects to the impending dark. We also give thanks to the waning sunlight, as we store our harvest of this year's crops. The Druids call this celebration, Mea'n Fo'mhair, and honor the The Green Man, the God of the Forest, by offering libations to trees. Offerings of ciders, wines, herbs and fertilizer are appropriate at this time. Wiccans celebrate the aging Goddess as she passes from Mother to Crone, and her consort the God as he prepares for death and re-birth.

Various other names for this Lesser Wiccan Sabbat are The Second Harvest Festival, Wine Harvest, Feast of Avalon, Equinozio di Autunno (Strega), Alben Elfed (Caledonii), or Cornucopia. The Teutonic name, Winter Finding, spans a period of time from the Sabbat to Oct. 15th, Winter's Night, which is the Norse New Year.

At this festival it is appropriate to wear all of your finery and dine and celebrate in a lavish setting. It is the drawing to and of family as we prepare for the winding down of the year at Samhain. It is a time to finish old business as we ready for a period of rest, relaxation, and reflection.

Symbolism of Mabon:

Second Harvest, the Mysteries, Equality and Balance.

Symbols of Mabon:

wine, gourds, pine cones, acorns, grains, corn, apples, pomegranates, vines such as ivy, dried seeds, and horns of plenty.

Herbs of Maybon:

Acorn, benzoin, ferns, grains, honeysuckle, marigold, milkweed, myrrh, passionflower, rose, sage, solomon's seal, tobacco, thistle, and vegetables.

Foods of Mabon:

Breads, nuts, apples, pomegranates, and vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, and onions.

Incense of Mabon:

Autumn Blend-benzoin, myrrh, and sage.

Colors of Mabon:

Red, orange, russet, maroon, brown, and gold.

Stones of Mabon:

Sapphire, lapis lazuli, and yellow agates.

Activities of Mabon:

Making wine, gathering dried herbs, plants, seeds and seed pods, walking in the woods, scattering offerings in harvested fields, offering libations to trees, adorning burial sites with leaves, acorns, and pine cones to honor those who have passed over.

Spellworkings of Mabon:

Protection, prosperity, security, and self-confidence. Also those of harmony and balance.

Deities of Mabon:

Goddesses-Modron, Morgan, Epona, Persephone, Pamona and the Muses. Gods-Mabon, Thoth, Thor, Hermes, and The Green Man.

Mabon is considered a time of the Mysteries. It is a time to honor Aging Deities and the Spirit World. Considered a time of balance, it is when we stop and relax and enjoy the fruits of our personal harvests, whether they be from toiling in our gardens, working at our jobs, raising our families, or just coping with the hussle-bussle of everyday life. May your Mabon be memorable, and your hearts and spirits be filled to overflowing!

Symbols of Mabon

The Cornucopia

The Cornucopia, or Horn of Plenty, is a traditional symbol for Mabon. It is a wonderful symbol for the wealth of harvest and is beautifuly balanced symbol which is both male (phallic) and female (hollow and receptive)

The Apple

The apple is the symbol of the Fruit Harvest. The apple figures significantly in many sacred traditions. It is a symbol for life and immortality, for healing, renewal, regeneration and wholeness. It is associated with beauty, long life and restored youth. The Ogham name for apple is Quert and Quert is the epitome of health and vitality. The apple is at the heart of the Ogham grove and is the source of life. For Pagans, the apple contains a 'secret'. Cut an apple width ways and it reveals a pentagram containing seeds. It is a much loved symbol of Paganism. The five points represent the elements of Earth, Air, Fire, Water with Spirit at the top, and thus also the directions of East, South, West, North and Within.

A circle around the pentagram represents the eternal circle/cycle of life and nature, and of wholeness. In ritual and ceremony the pentacle corresponds to the element of Earth. It is believed to be a protection against evil for both the person and the home, worn as an amulet or used to guard entrances to the home through windows and doors.

Colours of Mabon

From green to red, orange, yellow, brown and gold.

The Mabon Altar

Your altar should be dressed in the very best produce you can find from field, forest and market, from garden and the wild. Apples, pears, damsons, sloes, rose hips, elderberries, blackberries, hawthorn berries, the possibilities are large. If you collect from the wild, be not greedy - always leave plenty of fruit and berries for the birds and wee creatures.

Make an outdoor shrine for the nature spirits in thanks for the bounty they help to provide. Leave one of each flower, fruit and vegetable that you have, as a gift.

Things To Do

Great Feast of Thanksgiving.

Celebrate with a feast for friends and family using as much fruit & veg, locally grown, as you can.

Go Walking.

Go for a walk and collect as much of nature's wild abundance as you can, while respecting the need to leave enough for everyone else including the nature spirits. You will find wild damsons, sloes, rosehips, elderberries, blackberries, hawthorn berries and more. Remember the fruit is the carrier of the precious seed.

Clear Out and Complete.

We think of Spring as the time to clear out but now is the perfect time to complete unfinished projects and clear your home of unwanted stuff. Prepare to hibernate!

Plant Bulbs.

This is an excellent time to plant tree seeds and shrubs. They have all of winter in the darkness to establish and germinate. Plant bulbs which will hide in the earth until early Spring beckons. Make each one a hope, idea or aspiration for Spring and wait until their little green noses show above ground - to remind you!

Buttermilk Bread Charm for Mabon.

You will need:

3 mugs of strong white flour

500 ml of Buttermilk (available from the supermarket)

I teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda

Mabon ribbon in your choice of colour - red, orange, yellow, gold, brown

A handful of dried fruit of your choice - dates, raisins, sultanas, currants

Place the flour and dried fruit in a large bowl. Make a well in the centre. Sieve in the blended salt and soda and pour in the buttermilk. Mix well with a wooden spoon until the dough feels springy. If it feels too sloppy just add a little more flour. Turn it onto a board and cover with a fine dusting of flour. Pat it with your hands until you have a round shape. Take a sharp knife and score lightly into eight sections, one for each festival. Our picture shows the bread cut into five sections, making a pentacle.

Place onto a greased baking tray and pop your buttermilk bread into a moderate oven for about 20-25 minutes. Keep and eye on it. When the bread is ready it will change colour and it will sound hollow when you tap the bottom. Cool completely on a wire rack. When it is cool, tie it with Mabon ribbon.

Take time to concentrate on the bread you have created and turn the loaf three times saying"From the fields and through the stones, into fire, Mabon Bread, as the Wheel turns may all be fed. Goddess Bless."

Now take your bread and share it with your family and friends and pass on the generous blessings of this bright and bountiful festival. Eat it fresh, as soon as it is made if you can.

Recipe donated by the Counter Enchantress. Adapted by the Boss Lady with permission.

The Counter Enchantress is discovering that you can add almost anything appropriate to this simple bread recipe and it STILL WORKS beautifully. You can decide for yourself what the appropriate additions are for a particular festival, in this case dried fruit for Mabon, and just do it. There is much kitchen magic in working with one recipe through the Wheel of the Year just changing it a little as the wheel turns.....

Somerset Apple Cake

We are very blessed here in that we live in the sacred Isle of Avalon, also called the Isle of Apples, in Somerset, England. And we are indeed surrounded, still, by orchards which grow apples both for Somerset's famous cider-making and for eating. One of our family pleasures is a local orchard which grows many traditional varieties of apples. Most of what they grow goes to make apple juice. But just before they do that, local people are invited over a weekend to go pick apples for themselves and their families. And it's such fun to spend an afternoon among the apple trees within sight of Glastonbury Tor. Chalice Well Trust is developing an organic apple orchard on the slopes of the Tor and now also produces small quantities of delicious organic apple juice which are sold to visitors. It's a limited supply and very precious - reserved for very special occasions or ceremony in our household.

Below is an authentic Somerset Apple Cake recipe. Eat it either cold, or warm with cream.

INGREDIENTS:

340gms/12oz self-raising flour

a pinch of salt

225gms/8oz margarine/butter

½ teaspoon cinnamon

170gms/6oz caster sugar

115gms/4oz sultanas

450gms/16oz cooking apples, finely chopped

3 eggs

a little milk

a little demerara sugar

METHOD:

1. Rub the fat into the flour and salt. Add the sugar and cinnamon. Make a well in the mixture and drop in the egg and fruit. Mix well; if the dough is a little too stiff, add some milk.

2. Place in an eight-inch greased cake tin, and sprinkle a little demerara sugar on the top.

3. Bake for one-and-a-half to two hours, in a moderate oven (Gas Mark 4/180°C/350°F), until cooked. Allow to cool slightly before turning out onto a cooling rack.

[jeshikawa]

For my big summer trip, I traveled down to the island of Shikoku to visit one of the least visited prefectures in Japan, Kochi.

At my JET interview 3 years ago, I was asked if I enjoyed history (yes) and if I had a famous Japanese historical figure. I blanked on the spot and blurted out a safe and easy answer-- Sakamoto Ryouma. The Japanese woman at my interview nodded her head approvingly and wrote something down. The former JET asked me to do a demo lesson for elementary school students about him. I fumbled, started over once, and manage to throw something together on the spot. When I left the interview, I joked that if I made it to Japan, I’d go to where ever Ryouma came from as a sort of tribute.

Well, I made it and since then, I’ve been to Kyoto and Nagasaki, two places affiliated with Ryouma’s life. This year, I went to his home prefecture, Kochi for four days. I had a vague itinerary made up. Vague because I had things I definitely wanted to do but some of them depended on the weather (and a typhoon was coming!).

Anyway, below the cut is the details of my trip! 

But the tl;dr version is:

1. Had local food! The specialty ramen is nabe ramen, served in a hot pot with a chicken broth based and sliced chikuwa. The most popular type of ice cream, aisukurin, is a traditional kind based on a recipe from the 1800s. 

2. Katsurahama Beach is easily accessible with a lot of stuff to visit nearby like the Sakamoto Ryouma museum, a cute shrine on a cliff, an aquarium, and places to eat. The Sakamoto Ryouma Museum was A+ super informative and very English friendly.

3. Kochi is the home for some very famous Japanese figures. Sakamoto Ryouma is one of the most famous historical figures in Japan (second only to Nobunaga in some rankings!). The creator for Anpanman is from Kochi and I had the theme song stuck in my head the whole time. The founder for Mitsubishi is from Kochi, too.

4. Kochi is home to the first yosakoi festival in Japan. Naruko, one of the required elements for yosakoi, is traditionally from Kochi and you can make your own at the yosakoi museum.

5. Kochi loves chickens, especially a certain breed. 

6. Kochi Castle was a struggle to climb up to in the summer but the view was amazing. If you go on Sunday, you can visit a 300 year old open market nearby. I saw an 800 yen whole watermelon.

7. Kitagawamura is home to “Monet’s Garden,” a garden inspired by Monet’s paintings and the only place outside France to be allowed to officially use the title.

8. You can get delicious food and eat next to locals at Hirome Market.

9. Not many people spoke much English if at all but oh my god the locals in Kochi were some of the friendliest people I have ever met in Japan and I was so touched by their kindness and willingness to make my trip the best it could be.

Every prefecture has their own style of ramen. Kochi’s is nabe ramen; ramen served in hot pots that simmer when you remove the top. Traditionally, the ramen has a chicken broth base and comes with sliced chikuwa and green onion. I went to one place that specialized on it and they also served the ramen with chicken skin and shredded chicken. 

It was hot so at Katsurahama Beach and Kochi Castle, I had aisukurin. It's ice cream made from eggs, sugar, and powdered skim milk. It’s a little crunchier and lighter tasting than regular ice cream because there’s less fat. I don’t like having dairy in the summer because it feels so heavy in my stomach but I really liked this.

While at Katsurahama, I climbed up a small cliff (which is honestly a lot easier than it sounds!) to visit a small shrine that looked over the beach. The Sakamoto Ryouma museum nearby was extremely informative and very English friendly. When it comes to museums in Japan, I think this one was one of the most English friendly ones with very detailed and comprehensive translations for about 85% of the things on display if you got their audio guide. The only thing that didn’t really have English translations was the new special and temporary exhibit about the women in Ryouma’s life (which was honestly really cool to see). We visited the aquarium that was there and it was okay... I don’t really like a lot of aquariums and zoos and this one didn’t really impress me. But it was close to the shrine and the museum and next to the bus stop so it was convenient. 

Kochi loves their boy, Ryouma. He’s on all of the omiyage, his statue is every where, there are photo op cut outs all over the place, and it’s honestly really cute. Kochi isn’t a very popular prefecture but when your local boy is one of the most famous figures in Japanese history (I’ve seen him ranked as #2 on some lists, second only to Nobunaga!), you run with it. Do you know what else is from Kochi? The creator of Anpanman is from Kochi! The artist designed characters for all of the stations on the train lines and they greet you on all of the signs. Whenever a train leaves Kochi station, you can hear a jingle from the show. In Kochi City, there are statues of the characters every where. The founder for Mitsubishi is also from Kochi and the Mitsubishi logo is based on the crest for the Tosa Clan.

Kochi is home to the first yosakoi festival in Japan. It’s one of the biggest festivals in the prefecture and one of the biggest yosakoi festivals in Japan. At the yosakoi museum in Kochi City, you can make naruko which are a requirement for yosakoi. Naruko originated from Kochi as a tool farmers used to scare off crows.

Kochi Castle was a work out in the summer because it’s up a hill... but the view from the top of the castle was amazing. It was also very informative with a lot of information in English. I learned a lot about Japanese castles. If you go to the castle on Sunday, you can also visit the open air Sunday Market which has been going strong for 300 years. I saw a whole watermelon there for 800 yen. A local told me Kochi is very small and agricultural so things are just cheaper, even in the city.

Near the castle, you can visit the Castle Museum and the Yosakoi Inari Shrine. The Yosakoi Inari Shrine has chickens and roosters running around. Imagine seeing chickens and roosters running around in the middle of a city! People often go to the shrine to pray for a successful Yosakoi festival and season.

Something that was on my Japan Bucket List was visiting Monet’s Garden in Japan. I didn’t realize it was in Kochi until I started planning my trip! It’s the only place outside of France allowed to use the title “Monet’s Garden” and it was designed with cooperation and support from Monet’s Garden in France. If you go in the summer, you can see the lilies on the pond and it really looks like some of Monet’s paintings come to life. It was about a 1.5 hour train ride one way so it was 3 hours all together... and we spent about 2 hours at the garden looking around and eating lunch so this was basically one whole day.

At night, we hit up Hirome Market which is a market place with a ton of food and drink stalls that you can enjoy with locals. You can try tons of delicious food there! Street food like okonomiyaki, karaage, and takoyaki but also full meals like ramen, nabe, sushi, and pizza. I had bonito tataki-- lightly seared bonito. It’s one of the signature dishes in Kochi.

Through out the trip, I hit up a few shrines and temples for goshuin. I didn’t actually do the 88 Temple Tour because those temples are scattered all across Shikoku but I hit up a few temples on the route that were easy to get to. 

It was really a full 4 days! But something that really stuck out to me on the trip were the people. Like I said, Kochi is one of the least visited prefectures in Japan, especially among foreign tourists. While I was traveling with my friend, locals were usually very curious to find out why we were there, especially before the big yosakoi festival. They were always so excited and willing to give us recommendations for places to visit and foods to try. Even if their English wasn’t very good and my Japanese wasn’t great, they were always proud to try and explain things to us. I was in a small mom and pop convenience shop looking for a drink to by and the owner tried very hard to explain the regional juices, sodas, and alcohol for sale. On the train, I saw an interesting building on a mountain and an old man did his best to explain to me it was a temple after I snapped a photo of it. At Katsurahama beach, we ran into a local high school field trip and the teacher invited us to go to the Ryouma museum along with them. One hot day, I went to a restaurant and fanned myself while waiting for food... the restaurant owner gave me a fan. When I tried to return it after dinner, he told me to keep it so I could stay cool on my trip. Even on the plane ride into Kochi, a local woman asked us what we were going to do in Kochi and gave us a few recommendations. it’s really ridiculous how incredibly nice everyone in Kochi was when they spoke to us. It was honestly one of the nicest experiences I’ve ever had dealing with local people.

My trip honestly ended up  being A LOT better than I thought it would go. It’s legit one of my favorite places I’ve visited and a big part of that is just how proud and kind the people were every where I went. It’s very obvious that there are people here proud of their history and culture and they genuinely want to share it with others. This was a great way to celebrate 3 years in Japan!

#jet program #jet programme #visit japan #travel #japan

[vgwriter]

Breath of the Wild: A Review

A Little History

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild came out in 2017 to universal acclaim and helped to successfully launch the Nintendo Switch. While that is far from a surprise, (the Zelda series is one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful franchises of all time) Breath of the Wild does take the series in a much different direction. It's focus is almost completely on exploration and is the most nonlinear of the series. It is the second biggest jump the series has made outside of going 3D. So, does it work? Well, the rest of the world and their mother seem to think so but here's my take on this game.

What I Loved

*SPOILERS*

#1-A Story to Remember

It seems odd to focus on the story when the game doesn't but behind the vast world and great characters is a subtle yet amazingly well executed story. The player finds Link in a DBZ healing pod after he is just awakened from a hundred year slumber of healing. He is told by the disembodied voice of British Zelda to defeat Calamity Ganon but wait, there's more! Turns out Link has amnesia from the fight he had 100 years ago trying to protect Zelda. After obtaining the Sheikah Slate (the games multi-tool), the player discovers there are photos Zelda locked in the Slate to help Link recover his memory. This is how the story is unfolded for the player. The struggles of the Five Champions and Princess Zelda are seen through flashbacks that explain how Hyrule went to sh*t. It is a simple and traditional method but it is effective when coupled with the games minimalist piano soundtrack and isolated atmosphere. It gives a heartbreaking insight into just how lonely and broken this version of Hyrule is and how much Link and the others lost.

#2-The Puzzles

The games dungeons are split up into two catagories: shrine and divine beasts. The shrines are smaller and have a variety of challenges in their 120 locations while the devine beasts are 4 large challenges with several moving parts. Most shrines are designed to be easy to follow but still make the player feel creative. This feeling of creativity stems from the developers themselves that made each level doable in multiple ways. Each dungeon is designed to test the players use of the games mechanics, the player can play it how it was designed or try to tackle it from another angle. One example from my personal playthrough was using a bomb arrow to light fire because I couldn't figure out how to light a torch through a gate. It worked but probably not the way it was designed to. While not every shrine has a variety of ways to solve them (mostly the trial by combat shrines), they are all intriguing challenges designed with fun in mind and feel rewarding when completed. The divine beasts are a similar story with a few minor details. The player must first find the map of the dungeon and then go about reclaiming terminals to free the divine. The map is a 3D rendering of the dungeon with an interactive portion that moves key parts of the beast around. This was a great design choice because it challenges the player to think of the dungeon as a moving puzzle and to consider how moving the pieces will help them advance to the boss.

#3-The World and Character Design

To say the world is stunning is an understatement. The design of the enviroment feels so natural to explore and interact with that finding Koroks is like spoting cognitive distortion in a high school drop outs racist rant on Facebook. I usually find map towers annoying in games like Assassin's Creed but in BOTW they are better integrated into the games exploration. Some towers are actually challenging to climb if Link doesn't have enough stamina or if the player just throws him onto a tower without looking for enemies first. They are like little challenges all their own and it is a great take on something that has been bland and stale since it was first introduced (to me at least) in AC1. Outside of the towers is the vast world that pulls the player into it with rewarding exploration in cute and helpful ways. The shrines are an obvious reason to explore but there are also Koroks, fun and unique side quests, and just cool stuff to find as well. The variety and density of things to do justifies the games gigantic map. It is one of the few games to live up to the idea of an open-world and keep it interesting throughout a 100 hour playthrough.

The art design, oh my cel shaded god, it's amazing. I'm not gonna pretend like I'm some art history major but the regional designs do some pretty interesting things with the enviroment. The five peoples in Hyrule have all appeared in previous titles but have been tweaked in some way for BOTW. The Gorons have a theme of raw strength throughout their entire section of the map, from their weapons to the steel planks on the streets of Goron City. The Rito's design is more centered on their freedom and ability to fly with the entire settlement resembling a nest. Seriously, everything has feathers. The Zora have an elegance in everything they own from the large city built from one large carving to the silver weapons. The Gerudo seem to be a shell of their former selves like the Hylians with ruins surrounding their two settlements. Their quality in construction and bejewelment of everything that shines shows what matters most to them, beauty and effectiveness. The Hylian design is European with a mix of far east in certain pockets. Hyrule castle is a great dungeon that actually lives up to the title of castle. Kakariko village is a weird area that doesn't fit into the Hylian design but c'mon, you can't go wrong with far eastern architecture. Each region has its own design that both fit its surroundings and its people and feels natural, like the people and land are truly living together. It's impressive that Nintendo was able to pull that off because it is not easy to do.

The characters are simply iconic, mostly. The four champions don't get a lot of screen time but they use what they have effectively. Daruk is a stubborn strong man with a great admiration for strength and brotherhood. Mipha is the white mage of the group with a thing for Link (which I prefer to Zelda). Revali is the arrogent prick of the group that comes around eventually. Urbosa is basically the group mom, being the most mature out of everyone. Each of these characters are simple but fill their role effectively and are all quite likeable (even Rivali). Their present day counterparts aren't as memorable though. I mean, outside of Sidon. Sidon makes me feel like I can do anything just by smiling. But everyone else I had to look up for this review. Yunobo is some shy kid that finally lives up to his potential. Teba is a proud warrior but really not that memorable. Riju comes close to being memorable but I still had to look her up. Outside of the champions and their descendents, Kilton made an impression on me. The Bolson company had one of my favorite quests and some of the funnier cutscenes. Each side quest character has that quaint old fashioned rpg vacuum writing. They all live in their own world and interact with Link for one reason.

Overall, the characters and how they interact with the enviroment are what make this game a masterpiece. The mechanics and story are what make it a great game but the world design is that extra step where most great games stumble to me.

#4-The Combat

The combat is simple but has a multitude of uses against the games enemies. Link has three moves: attack, shield, and shoot. Everything beyond this simple moveset depends on how the player equips Link or uses the Slate Ruins. If an enemy is mostly ice, fire weapons are super effective and vice versa. Thunder disarms anyone, including Link. It gets better than simple elemental weapons. If you bring a cucco to a battle and an enemy hits that cucco, a swarm of bird will rain hell on that unassuming bokoblin. Seriously, that alone gives this a 5/5! Also, the enviroment can be used as a weapon if it's set up correctly. If Link fells a tree and lines up the path right, it will attack the enemies. There is just so much to do in this game and it all works off of three simple actions. Perfect.

#5-Misc.

Some other things that stood out enough to mention but not enough to make a paragraph. The crafting is useful and not intrusive. Link can buy a house, which is always fun. The outfits are all great designs and useful in their respective enviroment. There are throwback outfits from previous titles (mostly through amiibos) and that is always cool. Zelda became a scholar and that was a great take, not just on Zelda but on the idea of fictional princesses in general. Link can cut grass. The variety of weapons is astounding. Oh, and uh, all this fits on a small little card no bigger then the last knuckle of my thumb.

What I Didn't Like

#1-The Weapons Fragile Weaponinity

The weapons break way too easy. That's it. That is the only thing I have to complain about this game. That shouldn't be all I have to complain about. I should have two more points to make at least but I don't. Nintendo has made a masterpiece.

The Score

This game shouldn't exsist, it's too good. The gameplay is simple but versatile. The enviroment is peaceful and relaxing while also being desolate and dangerous and this makes it fun to explore. The story and the enviroment fit so well together and compliment each other every time they connect. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a 5/5 and the definitive way to make open-ended games.

#legend of zelda #zelda #botw #nintendo #video games #reviews #spoilers #5/5 #prince sidon #lady mipha #mipha x link #urbosa #daruk

[sierrabinondo]

woodland creatures - day 4 (orlando pt. 2)

was i excited to be on tour? yes. was i also super nervous about going on tour before leaving? also yes.

was i excited to go to disney springs? Y E S. was it the one thing i knew i could look forward to even if i sucked at every fucking show??? 

B I G  Y E S. 

my poor bandmates. i said the night before, “hey, i just realized, we never actually really discussed going to disney springs.” and they were like, “yeah.”

but! we went anyway!!! bless their hearts!!!

the morning after staying up and partying was rough. i had the NASTIEST hangover. my headache was so severe that i couldn’t even fall back asleep following 5 hours of rest. i popped some advil and tried to get a couple more hours in but it was impossible, so i just got up and showered. the guys brought back panera for lunch, and then once everyone was ready we were off to disney springs. i could tell everyone was worried it was gonna be lame, i felt it in the air lmao. i was also worried i was leading them to a miserable afternoon in the hot florida weather. but i figured if they hated it we could always leave.

we pull up to disney springs and there is some semblance of what i remembered from the last time i was there but also a lot that i DID NOT recognize. the parking garages were definitely new. they had sensors over each parking spot that could indicate whether or not a car was in the spot, and it would update an LED screen outside the entrance with how many spots were available on each floor. i thought that was really cool. there were gardens on the sides of the garages too. we then go up some stairs and down an escalator to get in, and hooooly shit i was blown away. there was a brand new area that had a fountain and all of the shops looked reminiscent of spanish architecture. it was so beautiful. 

we got group pictures in front of the fountain, and then i decided to get a happy birthday pin from guest relations lmfao. i wanted to see if i could get any free shit by just waltzing around with a birthday pin on. i was unsuccessful but i had never been in or near disney on my birthday anyways so i just rolled with it. we started to the right and went to world of disney, marketplace co-op, the lego store and the pin trading shop. 

i was completely overwhelmed by how big all of the stores were. there was so much cool shit. i really thought i would have an easy time abstaining from spending money, since my sister was literally just there and got me the one thing i wanted, but i did NOT. at world of disney i bought ANOTHER pair of minnie ears, the rose gold sparkly ones lmfao. not usually my style, but there weren’t any others i was crazy about. joe got a shirt and ryan bought some stuff for his girlfriend christina. i wanted clothes but i decided to wait to see if there might be better merchandise elsewhere.

we moved on to marketplace co-op and i immediately found a disney world long sleeve shirt i loved so i grabbed that. i alsoooo balled out and got a print of the most beautiful mulan painting i have ever seen. it was a depiction of one of my favorite parts in the movie, when she is singing reflection and chops off her fuckin hair, but in the garden instead of the shrine. that movie means very very much to me as an asian american!!! besides that i got emperor’s new groove patches later on in the afternoon and that was all i spent my money on. $138 later. yeesh.

my friends eton and jeri who came to the show the night before wanted to meet up for food and drinks, so i walked over to frontera cucina. i thought maybe my bandmates might join us but they weren’t hungry and it was more of a sit down place, so we parted ways for an hour. i hadn’t seen eton and jeri since they moved down to orlando in january, holy shit. it was so good to hang out with them. we caught up and enjoyed some really good lunch. i ordered a gin and tonic that had a whole ass cucumber peel wrapped around the glass and pork belly tacos. i bugged out bad because eton wouldn’t let me pay nor could i get his venmo from jeremiah to cover my portion. it was so sweet of them to treat me. i met them through jeremiah, i always tell him how much i love his friends and how they’ve become my friends the more we all hang out together. it sucks our time was so damn brief but i’m just glad i got to see them.

after late lunch i met back up with everyone and we walked around a little longer, but i mistakenly let us stay a little later and lost track of time. it was just about time to start heading over to hail the sun. i felt really bad because people mentioned wanting to go swimming or take a nap and i effectively robbed everyone of any allotted leisure activity time by wanting to gallavant around more. i was definitely just as wiped as everyone, but i hadn’t been back to disney in forever. we hurried back to the van and drove back to kissimmee. 

pulses. had been grilling and chillin at the airbnb all day, so they were ready for the gig when we got back. we got back just in time to leave when they did, like 15 minutes before. we both hopped in our respective vehicles and we were off. they always dropped snails in the tour chat and called us with snails ahead because we were slow with the van lmfao but it’s not MY FAULT the shit is SO HUGE damnit. i drove the van to the gig with josef, jaime and kris while ryan and santino stayed home. 

it’s interesting to go to a show in another state, it does feel pretty weird to go somewhere unfamiliar, but it really does feel the same as attending a show at home. people really are pretty much the same everywhere else, just different geographical locations and climates. the gig was really good but the venue was SO SMALL. too small. i like the soundbar but i might like it better if you didn’t have to wade your way through a crowd of swamp ass to get to the bathrooms alllll the way on the other side of the venue opposite of the entrance. plus, it got so packed that it was really difficult to be near the stage, let alone inside the building. for most of the show the 10 of us camped out in a really great spot near the bathrooms that wasn’t getting too much traffic and had its own bar so we stayed there.

we were at the show where sergio broke his headstock. i don’t think i’ve ever seen a show where sergio stands still the entire time, in the dozens of times i’ve seen him play. he was so close to that monitor/the ceiling but i didn’t suspect his guitar was going to break. i completely missed it because i was looking down at my phone (womp) but i heard everyone audibly gasp. that sucks dude. i think that was the only bummer the whole show though besides the heat and some sloppy drunks. pulses. are friends with zach garren so he was hanging out near us here and there throughout the night. daisy came to the gig so she came and found us, we hung out for a good portion of the show, too! it was a really good chance to talk more too after the gig the night before. she told us a lot about what the florida scene is like. we told her it’s infinitely better than the tri-state area LMAO. at least like, people show up to shows and STAY on a monday night which is insane. and then joseph arrington is a friend of ours so he said hi a couple times during the gig, afterwards him and i talked more when it was quieter. 

it is one of the greatest honors in my entire life that joseph arrington sees me as a homie. writing this under the presumption he’s never gonna see this lmao, but i have to pinch myself sometimes. we’ve been friends since we played the last ALLB tour september 2017. i introduced myself and mentioned that we had opened for sianvar’s 2016 tour at webster hall and he actually remembered us. ryan also introduced himself as one of his patreon donors and they talked for like 45 minutes. that show he asked for a CD (and it was years in waiting our older album too yikes lol there’s bangers on there but it doesn’t sound like us anymore) and he messaged me later that night like, “we’re listening in the van right now, you’re a great singer”. we’ve hung out at gigs a couple more times, whether we played together or either ryan or i went to go see him play. the fact he considers us peers is one of the most validating things i have. i’ve learned a lot of helpful insight from him. i have tremendous respect for him and couldn’t be more grateful that he actually likes us as musicians and as people. 

all of the bands of course were awesome, i couldn’t stand the heat enough to be inside for every single hail the sun song but i caught most of their set. it’s pretty insane to see them blow up like they have. they deserve it. and i think donovan is one of the best vocalists i’ve ever heard. that whole camp of blue swan musicians are just so talented. 

josef, jaime and kris graciously waited outside for me to finish talking to joe arrington, and during that time josef actually caught will swan outside. he said he had the chance to tell will swan deathstar is the reason he plays music and it made him very happy to do so. it had happened like a little bit before i came back outside. we then got lost trying to find the van and hilariously passed the actual entrance to the parking garage like 3 times. it was literally across the street and i led them around the block twice. 

we went back to the airbnb for one more swim and we almost had another super late night legit just talking to pulses. kris sat outside editing photos while some of the guys swam, some of us just sat with our feet in the pool. when we got back ryan and santino had been sleeping and i think i maybe saw santino get up once to go to the bathroom. i did really want to go to sleep but ughhhhh i also thought to myself, i can sleep when i get home from tour. i get really bad FOMO every day of my life. so we stayed up and we talked about all things dance gavin dance, blue swan, our local scene, and bein in a band. it’s insane how alike we all are in our way of thinking. i also find it hard to open up to other bands though because it seems like no one else sees playing music and trying to grow a band the way we do. i just wanted to eat up any time i could bonding with pulses., taylor and tyler. thankfully we weren’t up until 4 am again but legit any time up spending time with all of my friends was worth it.

#woodland creatures tour

[hollowincalmo]

The Princess of Emptiness - A Lifepath

I got bored and wrote up a GMD-style lifepath for my OC, Sadako Hayashi, the Princess of Emptiness!

The Princess/Prince of Emptiness

Campaign: Looking Glass Heart Academics Skill: Average Sports Skill: Average Favorite Foods: Mozzarella Sticks, Mochi, and Rose Tea Blood Type: O Animal: Owl Age: 17 Genres: Pastoral, Fairy Tales, Immersive Fantasy

Step 1: Choose Your Name

Hello, and welcome to the world of Looking Glass Heart! You're a brilliant glass-maker, part of the Hayashi family. You easily develop crushes on everyone you meet, and everything in the world interests you! It's all so exciting! Everything's so fun! (The sad secret you don't realize yet though is that before too long, you're going to stop feeling that way about things. The world is going to chew you up and spit you back out, and I'm sorry that that's going to happen to you. Please don't blame me for it!) At your core, you're a simple ordinary Fortitude kid. You work hard, and you help people. You have a place you're keeping, somewhere good and beautiful, where people can come to be accepted and happy and well-taken care. A Good Place. A place where people are safe. A place where people are loved. You fuel this place primarily on your love for the people around you. If this is sounding too normal, I should point out now that there's a lot of weird stuff about you too. Your house is probably haunted. One of your moms was a Rider, so your eyes are full of stars. (Your relationship with your other mom is a bit strained because of that.) You have the magical ability to take people's hearts out of their chests and understand them deeply by looking into their hearts. Everything about you seem normal and mundane, but there's a lot that's hidden that's really weird, and a lot of it is harbingers of what's going to come, harbingers of who you're going to become. But enough about that for now! Are you... • ...Sadako Hayashi, the Princess of Emptiness? • …Jiro Hayashi, the Prince of Emptiness? • ...some other Hayashi altogether? Sorry, Jiro! This book is going to assume you're Sadako Hayashi, a girl. But swap the gender and the name and you should find this a useful document about yourself!

Part 2: Choose What You're Becoming

Remember how a little while back I mentioned that bad things are going to happen to you? Remember when I said the world was going to chew you up and spit you back out? That's going to change you into something that doesn't belong in the world. It's going to change you into something at odds with the world. You're going to suffer, but it's all going to have a point at the end, because what you're becoming has a purpose. And most of all, what you're becoming is what you were always meant to be. Will you be... • ...an Excrucian Strategist (the default option), someone who believes that the world is sick and must be destroyed so that people can exist outside of it and be happy? • ...an Excrucian Deceiver, someone who believes the world is a lie and must be removed to free everyone from it? • ...an Excrucian Warmain, who's still trying to figure out what's the matter with the world, and who is devoted to overturning every stone and examining each and every person to work it out? • ...an apocalypse in human form, a thing that will one day tear down the world? • ...a glass dragon who will eat the world's heart? • …a powerful witch of the Outside who wants to drown the rest of the world? • ...a prophet of doomsday? • …or something else altogether?

Part 3: Choose Your Initial Hobbies

I mentioned before that you get interested in a lot of things, because you find everything beautiful and exciting. That means you're probably already interested in a lot of stuff. We need to define what you're into now (in addition to glass-making, of course) before you decide later what else you're going to get interested in! Are you interested in... • ...sewing? • ...art? • ...cosplay? • …photography? • …plastic modeling? • ...bass guitar? • ...painting? • ...fashion? • ...calligraphy? • ...archery? • ...role-playing games? • ...video games? • ...philosophy? • ...manga? • ...superhero comics? • ...sailing? • ...knitting? • ...animation? • ...scrapbooking? • ...stamp collecting? • ...fishing? • ...or something else altogether? You'll want to pick a few things, maybe 3-5. Doing things excites you a lot!

Part 4: Choose Your Favorite Scenes

Are you most often seen... [Purple]...glass-making? [Purple]...doing chores? [Purple]...spending time with your family? [Purple]...hanging out with friends? [Purple]...tending to things in the Good Place? [Purple]...working at your family's shrine? [Silver]...reading manga? [Silver]...daydreaming about one of your many crushes? [Silver]...worrying about the future? [Red]...looking out at the ocean all starry-eyed and filled with wonder? [Red]...taking care of a friend who's hurting? [Gold]...working obsessively on your newest hobby? [Blue]...experimenting with Heart Magic? [Black]...experiencing surreal harbingers of what you're going to become? Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you might be doing when you're not sure what to do in a scene.

Part 5: Review Your Goals

You've got a lot to work on with your Good Place. You've got a lot of friends to take care of. But that's not the biggest thing you're worried about right now. You're graduating high school in a few months, and you're not ready for that at all. You're going to be an adult, and that has you really scared. Everyone has all these expectations of you, and you don't know how to meet them. People are starting to treat you like an adult already, but you feel like just a big kid inside. Sometimes worry about that overwhelms you, and then it's made even worse when you think about the fact that after you graduate, a lot of your friends are probably going to go their separate ways and you won't see them nearly so often. So right now you're focused quite a lot on figuring out what to do about that. You're trying to make sense of the whole idea of what you're going to be doing as an adult. Do you want to keep being a shrine maiden? Do you want to open your own glass-making shop? Or do you maybe want something weird and unexpected? Maybe you want to go on a great adventure. Maybe you want to destroy the world! (Although you're fairly certain you don't want that last one, at least not right now.)

Part 6: Choose Your Connections

There's a few people you're close to from the start. Your starting Connections are typically as follows: • The Good Boyfriend (or Girlfriend) 3. You grew up with Matteus. He's kind of your rival, but the whole rival thing wears thin at times. You also have a giant crush on him. • Jiro Hayashi (or Sadako, if you're Jiro) 2. You have a little brother (or sister). You care about them a lot, and want them to be safe. • Junko Hayashi 2. You're really close to your grandmother. • Katsumi Hayashi 1. You love your mom, but things are kind of strained with her. You think it's probably because you remind her of her ex-girlfriend, who was a Rider. You can get rid of these Connections later if you don't want them or they start to not make sense. Talk to the other players about your relationship with their characters. If someone agrees that you should feel comfortable around their PC and have a fair amount of knowledge about how to take care of them, you can get a free level 1-2 Connection to their character as well! You can improve these Connections later, if you want. (Knowing you, Sadako, you probably do want!)

Step 7: Review Your Powers

You have the following special abilities. They might be magic, or some piece of what you're becoming that's working within you before you've even become it. Either way, they're things you know how to do. • There's a sense of what you're going to become that lingers on you. People notice it. • You can pick up on little bits of insight from your future self. • You can create blessings based around a theme, small things that you and other can people can do now and then. • You can move around quickly, escaping stressful situations with ease. • You're almost supernaturally good at caring for your friends. • You can sense what's going on with your friends in some capacity, and you can help them a little bit while they're thinking of you. • You can understand someone a little intuitively now and then. • You can sense when your friends need you. • You can help your friends do some really cool stuff. • With some help from your friends, you can do some really cool stuff too!

#sadako hayashi #the princess of emptiness #sadie hayashi #chuubo's #cmwge #jenna moran #looking glass heart #emma renault

[dungeoneering102]

D&D Quest Idea: Nightmare Before Christmas

One of my followers, @chiefswampballs, wanted to find out if there’s a way to run an adventure themed around Nightmare Before Christmas, an animated film by Tim Burton. So I decided to look into it. First: let’s look at the interesting elements of Nightmare Before Christmas.

Interesting Elements

The movie is filled with very cool elements that make the audience excited to watch the movie. To have a game with a similar setting would require one to use these or similar elements, to generate the same feeling. Here are what elements I found that make NBC interesting:

Monster Design. Every monster is very unique and fun to look at.

Settings. NBC hints at multiple worlds, each based on a separate celebration. This very hint gets people’s imaginations going. What does the Easter land look like? Is there a St. Patrick’s land where everyone is drunk? A land dedicated to July 4th? Oktoberfest? Chinese New Year? So many possible setting to explore.

The Music. One thing anyone remembers from this movie are the songs and the tunes. They are just so damn catchy.

The Charming Characters. Jack and Sally are all very fun characters. We root for them all the way through. Even Oogie Boogie, the film’s antagonist, is very fun to watch and listen to.

Some Pitfalls:

When running games BASED on other stories a DM can often fall into pitfalls, namely the non PC Protagonist pitfall. This is when the PCs end up being observers to the main characters of the source material, who are the real heroes of the story. With NBC, a DM might want to show off how great of a character Jack is, but end up having Jack do all the cool stuff (defeating Oogie Boogie, for example) and leave the PCs just wondering around observing. Avoid this mistake. Do not prioritize the NPCs over the PCs. Keep as much of the cool stuff for the PCs as possible.

Game Idea: The Skeleton Who Stole Christmas

Background:

The Party starts in a town of your choice. Simple, medieval town. It’s wintertime and it is the day before Wintercrest. Now I am using Wintercrest as a stand in for Christmas (since my D&D world doesn’t have a Christ). You can have your own name for it. Whatever it is, it has to have these traits:

It is a holiday set during winter.

People get each other gifts during this Holiday.

Santa Claus (or some kind of stand-in for him) travels door to door delivering presents to the Children (ages 16 and below) on the night of this celebration.

The rest of the details you can work out. Now your Party is staying in this town that is celebration their version of Christmas, and they get to witness the preparations for the Christmas Eve. Let your Party participate as well, if they want. Come up with some games (more on that later). Whatever it is, set up the celebration that will happen the next day. Here is where it gets good.

The Party wakes up early morning to the sound of countless screaming children. Their toys are horrific items, small monsters, little quasits, body parts, whatever have you. And there is the hook:

Santa brought demonic gifts to the children. Travel to Santa’s home and make him pay for this mischief.

Now the town Mayor or local King puts up a job posting saying something like

Any brave warrior willing to travel to the frozen wastes of North Pole and punish the mischievous spirit that betrayed our trust on this, most Holy of nights, will be rewarded 20,000 gp. Seek Archmage Duvalt in the court of his majesty.

Keep in mind, all the names, the reward, everything can be tailored to fit your style. Since the Party already has some reputation from being adventurers (start them at level 4-5), the townsfolk quickly go to them asking for them to take up the job. Through peer pressure, the Party agrees to take up the job. Now here’s how the plot will vaguely go:

Party goes to King, accepting the job.

King’s archmage plane shifts them to the Christmas Land.

The Party travels through a sad and gloomy Christmas town, full of unhappy elves, only to come up to Santa’s workshop, and discover that Santa has been kidnapped.

Throw in some clues for the Party here. After investigating the clues the Party figures out that someone from Halloween land was here.

Party goes to Halloween land to find its King, Jack the Skeleton.

Party has to fight through a dungeon of monsters and beasts to get to Jack.

Once they get there they see King Jack, his queen Sally, and his advisor, Oogie Boogie.

Party demands for Santa to be freed, but Jack, thinking they’re just there to ruin his fun has none of it.

Fight with Jack commences. Some 4-5 rounds in, Jack gets stabbed in the back by Oogie Boogie.

Boogie reveals that this was a plan he hatched, tricking jack to give the wrong kind of presents, to get the humans to dethrone Jack so he can get the throne of Halloween Land.

Boogie Man then offers monetary reward to the Party if they finish off Jack and give him the throne.

The Party then decides who to side with, fights the appropriate character. Whoever wins, they agree to hand over Santa, who returns to his home.

If Party sides with Jack, Santa blesses them for their kindness and gives them gifts (magic items). Otherwise, he gets upset with them and leaves them gift-less.

QUESTIONS

What if the Players Don’t Accept the Job?

If you’re not sure weather your PCs will accept the job or not, here are some options:

Tell them, before the game, to accept the job when its given. Most of your players (unless they’re horrible people), will go with it.

Just narrate the intro. Don’t give them the choice of declining. Players like this less, but it speeds up the process.

Have the local king/lord/mayor hear that there’s a band of adventurers in town, and physically come down offering the job. If your Party did something shady in the past, the king can blackmail them with that. Or he can be super nice, and double the reward money.

What Clues should I leave the Party?

When the Party is investigating Christmas Land, only to discover that Santa is missing, they need to find some clues as to where he was taken. These ought to be Halloween decorations. Stuff like: a broken pumpkin, torn paper bat, torn scary mask, a box of candy, whatever.

I also suggest you MAKE these clues (since they’re just decoration you can find anywhere) and give it to your Party. This will make it easier for them to figure out whats going on.

Be sure to have the archmage that teleported them explain that there are other realms, each dedicated to a Holiday. If you don’t explain this, they might not understand what the Halloween trinkets mean. By telling them this, they understand that there is a Halloween land somewhere. If they still don’t understand, have them return to the Archmage and show him the clues. He will then figure out who the culprit is, and send them on their merry way.

Setting

Christmas Land

This place only needs a single town. Have some generic locations for the Party to explore and interact with, such as:

Temple/shrine dedicated to the goddess of winter.

A general goods store

A magical item store

A toys store

Some kind of playground

Be sure to populate this place with elves. It’s up to you if you wanna throw in any elf, or high elves only. I recommend NOT putting drow (dark elves) into this land, and you’ll see why in a bit (even though toys made by the drow would be very fun to see). Make sure the elves are sad and unhappy. Not too gloom and doom, but really bummed and worried. If you want, you can have your Party try to cheer them up, and if they succeed to make the elves hopeful, the elves will gift them equipment to save Santa with

In the end of the town is a mansion. Its empty, ransacked, and that’s where Santa lived. Make it a puzzle for the Party to get into the house. Have some weird locked door. This increases the build up to the reveal.

Halloween Land. Halloween Land consists of two parts: a town and a dungeon.

The town is the same as before, except this time it’s all horror themed. All the items sold are horrific or in some way creepy. For a list of interesting, horror themed trinkets, look into Curse of Strahd, Find the “Gothic Trinkets” table and use that to generate creepy items. There is some information that the Party ought to learn in the town. Namely the Party should learn that...

The town is ruled by Skeleton Jack, King of Halloween, his queen Sally, and his advisor, Oogie Boogie.

King Jack has announced an upcoming “makeover” of the town, to a more “cheery” theme. The residents don’t really like this idea however.

The dungeon is Jack the Skeleton’s castle. It’s filled with ghosts, ghouls, and monsters that have been ordered by Boogie Man to hunt down all intruders. The good news is, since they’re all dead they don’t really die. The Party won’t have to feel bad about “killing” them in the end, when it’s revealed that the Party was being manipulated by Oogie Boogie.

Of course, the final stage of the Dungeon should be the boss fight with Jack/Oogie Boogie.

Final Thoughts

Feel free to modify the info I provide here as you wish. Remember that you can change the names of key characters, so as to not make the source material quite so obvious (call him the Pumpkin King instead of Jack the Skeleton). But here is my take on the whole Nightmare Before Christmas in D&D. I hope you enjoyed the read.

If you guys liked or disliked this post, please be sure to send me your thoughts. I’d love to hear them. Tell me, is there any way you’d change this? What holiday themed D&D games would you run?

The Unfair DM

#d&d #Dungeons and Dragons #dungeons & dragons #dnd #5e #dnd 5e #5th edition #christmas #halloween #marry christmas #happy holidays #skeleton jack #jack the skeleton #nightmare before xmas #nightmare before christmas #monsters #horror #inspiration #quest #dungeon master #dm #party game #rpg #fantasy #role playing #tabletop

[todonintendos]

Top 5 Best and Worst Shrine Quests in Breath of the Wild

A few days ago I listed my favourite and least favourite shrines from Breath of the Wild, however I focused on what was inside of each shrine itself rather than what players must do in order to get to them, and this is where Shrine Quests become important. There are 42 of those in the game, and they’re missions that need to be completed in order to reach or unlock a shrine. For this list, I will be excluding all quests in which the shrine is already accessible before triggering the mission, as I’ve found a lot of those by just randomly exploring, so here it begins!

Also, spoiler alert, just sayin’ you may want to complete all of these quests by yourself before.

#5 (Best) - Shrouded Shrine

To kick off this list I could have picked any of the three mazes, but instead I went for that dark forest north of the Great Hyrule Forest because it’s more original and better designed than any of the three labyrinths. The gimmick is pretty much using whatever you find or is in your inventory to light up your way to the shrine in a completely dark forest. There are many treasures spread around, but nothing too interesting on the chests except a ruby. As you advance, you’ll begin to hear growls that become louder and louder, and when you get to the end the mystery unravels: someone at Nintendo decided it would be cool to put a Hinox right there, but you can just skip it and enter the shrine. 

This shrine adds a sense of mystery and, why not, fear to the game, which you won’t see anywhere else in the vast wilderness of Hyrule, which is mainly why I like this quest.

#5 (Worst) - The Ceremonial Song

I know most of you actually don’t find this quest to be that bad, but it straight up confused me to the point I had to give up and come back way later in the game. The quest triggers when you talk to a Zora girl, and she sings a song containing all the clues you need to solve the quest. I was a bit early into the game so when I read “scale of light” I immediately thought of one of the three dragons, but which one? The question answered itself when I tried putting all three scales on the pedestal without success, only to find out later “scale” referred to the weapon, so I began looking for it when that old Zora told me he dropped it off a bridge... but what bridge? I looked under every bridge on the way to Zora’s Domain, didn’t find anything. He was actually talking about the “bridge” he was standing on, which I don’t even consider a bridge in the first place. 

But this doesn’t end here, the final step was going to the pedestal and doing what the Mipha statue was doing. I don’t think I have to mention how much time it took me to figure out what she was actually doing and what I had to replicate... and that I had to do it from a certain height. As soon as I saw the shrine pop up... ugh... screw this quest.

#4 (Best) - Recital at Warbler’s Nest

Despite the urge to talk about how terribly cute the small Rito are, I’m gonna have to focus on the quest. It triggers when you talk to one of the five sisters at Warbler’s Nest. She will tell you that her four sisters met up to sing with her, but didn’t come, so you’ve got to look for them. All of the missing Rito are in Rito Village (shoutouts to the one sitting on the cliff that literally took me ages to find) and each of them will give you an ingredient, as the green bird won’t go sing unless you prepare her favourite meal: salmon meunière, which you do by mixing the three ingredients you get from the other sisters.

Once this is done, the five sisters will be finally reunited at Warbler’s Nest and they’ll play their song. Now the player must memorize the order in which they sing, and use a Korok Leaf to enter that pattern using the numbered rocks as a reference to reveal the shrine. This quest mixes two of the main attractions of any Zelda game: exploration and puzzles, and the shrine you get is not a blessing one... but it has a huge staircase.

Now that I’m done talking about the quest... please take a minute to appreciate the cuteness of the five sisters, specially during the cutscene in which they fly back to Rito Village. Also my apologies to the blue one for being an unhatched egg, never forget.

#4 (Worst) - Watch Out for the Flowers

The fact that this is one of the first shrines you’ll encounter after exiting the Plateau doesn’t save it from being among the worst. I’m talking about that infamous quest featuring the mad flower woman, who literally takes away part of your health is you step on her flowers too much. And by stepping, I mean just touching one single flower a little bit. Or you can also wait until you get Revali’s Gale and screw all the process up, but that still makes it too cheap. Get frustrated or skip everything, you decide what to do. 

And don’t forget to burn all of the flowers from a certain distance when you leave using bomb arrows. She somehow won’t notice and you’ll feel like you’ve recovered all of the time you may have wasted with this one.

#3 (Best) - The Stolen Heirloom

Unlocking this one takes some time, as you don’t just need to defeat Master Kohga in order to trigger it, but also complete every secondary quest in Kakariko Village. Once you do, you’ll notice something strange at Impa’s house: that big fat orange ball is missing and that girl that gets shipped with Link way to much called Paya will tell you, sobbing, that someone stole it. After falsely incriminating a random woman who just wanted to cry the death of someone he loved (this is your fault Nintendo), if you head to the pedestal that’s next to the Great Fairy Fountain, everything gets suddenly real. Even more if you consider the lore of Kakariko Village.

Basically, the big fat ball was stolen by a big fat Yiga who is suspiciously stronger than the other big fat Yigas. I could talk about the fact that you just have to defeat him in order to unlock the shrine, but it’s the lore what gives the bronze medal to this quest on my list. Dorian, one of the guards in Impa’s House, is a former Yiga member who left the organization to look after his family, so the Yigas killed her wife as a revenge, and as they weren’t done yet they came back to steal the big fat ball which the game likes to call heirloom.

After kicking the Yiga’s butt, the first thing that came to my mind was that boy who was seemingly playing hide and seek with her mother for like, forever. You could think it’s just another NPC cliché, but everything changes when you find out that’s one of Dorian’s children. Then you’ll come across the game’s lore silently cutting onions in a distant corner.

#3 (Worst) - The Lost Pilgrimage

If you’ve played the game, you know what I’m talking about. All Koroks are cute, I must admit, but this one gets on my nerves, Scolting missions in videogames are generally bad, and this one is no exception. This mission is one of the three trials in the Korok Forest, and you have to follow a Korok without letting it notice you and, of course, trying not to lose track of it as he knows the way. And you don’t. The way becomes more and more dangerous as you progress, to the point where he runs back after getting scared without even telling you, and there’s a wolf ready to make things harder. And it’s not a short way.

The first time I did this quest I somehow managed to get to the shrine, but not complete the quest because I didn’t talk to the Korok once I was there. All I can tell you is that I tried again like 100 hours of gameplay later.

#2 (Best) - The Spring of Wisdom

Though you don’t really need to trigger an actual shrine quest in order to unlock the shrine, I just couldn’t miss this one. You’ve probably already seen Dinraal and Farosh flying around Hyrule, but what about Naydra? All the pieces of the puzzle put themselves on its place when you get to the summit of Mount Lanayru: the big blue dragon is possessed by that purple goo thing with eyes. And suddenly, a boss battle appears!

To defeat the evil forces taking over Naydra, you just have to fly next to him and shoot the malicious eyes with any arrows you have. Not too hard, yet not too easy, as Naydra moves and turns pretty fast and you can’t touch its freezing body. Despite the apparent simplicity of the battle, the setting is what makes it unique and different of anything we’ve played so far in any Zelda game. Once Naydra is defeated, you have to take a scale from its body and put it on the fountain to reveal the shrine. Make sure to say hi to Naydra whenever you find it while exploring!

#2 (Worst) - Test of Will

The main attraction of this shrine is three Gorons that don’t even know who you are and aren’t aware of you possessing either Fire Elixir or an entire suit that protects you from extreme heat in your inventory. This quest requires a bit of exploring to find, so you may already have any of the stuff required in your inventory... or you can rely of food, as it somehow prevents you from burning to death.

Now, just stand still for way too long until the Gorons notice you can handle heat better than they do. Don’t worry, they won’t notice you’re technically cheating, but they won’t give you back the five minutes you wasted by simply waiting.

#1 (Best) - Stranded on Eventide

Like if there were any doubts. Stranded on Eventide is the only quest where it just doesn’t matter what weapons or what enemies you’ve killed during your adventure (only hearts and stamina do), so it doesn’t really matter when you do this quest. This quest begins right when you step on Eventide Island for the first time, and the game takes away all of your clothes and weapons so you’ve got to start from zero, using anything you find as a weapon. The aim is to find three orange balls and bring each one to any of the three pedestals.

This is a challenge known for its rather hard difficulty, as it’s not about killing enemies as you’re probably used to do, but about avoiding them. You don’t want to face them though the balls are in the most dangerous locations possible. Heck, there’s even one on a Hinox, and the only alternatives are either climbing to his belly using his hand, or throwing something at his eye when he wakes up. But you can’t deny that the satisfaction of beating this is certainly worth it.

#1 (Worst) - Under a Red Moon

If the main problem with the previous worst quest was waiting, then you’re instantly going to understand why this is the worst quest in the game. You can be lucky and be able to unlock this shrine right away, or be like me and talk to Kass the night after the blood moon happened.

As you might have guessed, all you have to do is stand on the pedestal during a blood moon. And you have to do it naked. Unneeded detail that I bet at least someone missed and got even more frustrated... as unneeded as the quest itself, gotta be honest here.

And that was it! Those were my five most and least favourite shrine quests in Breath of the Wild... hope y’all agree! (probably not, though)

NEXT LIST: TOP 10 HARDEST KOROKS

[scribblyorro]

[i know where my heart lies] deleted bits from ch 7

As it says. Also because I love to talk about my own writing. 

SCENE 1

“Yuuri, this professor is like, a ghost or something! I need this grade. I need to pass. But how can I ask for help if they’re never in their office? Ciao Ciao will yell at me if I fail.” Phichit looks a little faint at the idea of Celestino scolding him and Yuuri wants to laugh because he knows this fear and awe won’t last. Celestino is stern but he’s a softie underneath it all.

“That’s true,” Yuuri says. He’s so thankful he’s done with homework and tests. All he has to deal with is potential crushing failure and going down in flames on an international platform. “Did you ask the other people in the class for help?”

“Eh,” Phichit says. He sets his phone down by his pullover and drags a mat over by Yuuri so he can stretch. “It’s one of those big lecture hall classes. I talk to someone new each day.”

“You don’t sit in the same place everyday?” Yuuri asks.

“No. Are we supposed to?” Phichit asks, blinking at him. He waits for Yuuri to finish his set.

“Uh, no, you can sit wherever, but most people pick a spot and stick to it,” Yuuri says.

“Oh. That makes sense. I’ve probably been pissing everyone off,” Phichit says with a laugh. “But nah, it’s probably they don’t understand me. People say ‘cool’ when I tell them I’m from Thailand and then I never hear from them again.” 

“I get that,” Yuuri says. “But your English is good. Mine was way worse when I first came here.”

“I practiced!” Phichit says proudly. “I watched a lot of YouTube videos. It drove everyone crazy at home because I would repeat them all the time and none of us knew what I was saying. I probably said some really terrible stuff but who knows!”

[I probably could have found a way to put some of these lines in the actual fic proper but once a chapter hits 10k I am Done With It. I really liked the first two paragraphs though.]

SCENE 2

“Yuri has offered to retrieve him.” There’s a pause. “He’s been insistent.”  

“That sounds like him,” Yuuri says with a small smile. 

“Mr. Feltsman, I think he’s more than just insistent,” Yuuri says.

Yakov curses.

“Put him on the phone.”

Yuuri wordlessly hands the phone to Yuri-kun, not needing to introduce Yakov because he starts yelling at Yuri-kun before he can even put the phone up to his ear.

“I’m doing you a favor, old man,” Yuri-kun shouts back in English so Yuuri can understand. “I’m dragging that idiot back to Russia.”

Yuri-kun hands up and hands the phone back to Yuuri.

“I’m hungry.”

“Hello to you too,” Yuuri says.

“Whatever. Where’s your food? You said this was an inn and I want to eat,” Yuri-kun says.

[This scene was originally from Yuuri’s point of view. And it was the first scene instead of Victor’s. I like the exchange Yurio and Yuuri have at the end but I switched it out to something more on topic.]

SCENE 3

Victor forgoes the bath and meal in order to sit down with Yuuri Katsuki, who is just as stunning in person as he is on the ice. But of course, Victor is biased; still, he thinks this Yuuri who is in running gear is a sight to behold. Victor probably should have messaged him on twitter or called ahead of time but he’s much better at winning someone over in person.

[It is actively difficult not to write Victor as being wildly in love with Yuuri Katsuki.]

SCENE 4

“Hi Yuuko,” Victor calls out the moment he sees her. She nods at him but she’s busy explaining to someone their options for figure skating classes. Victor waves at the little girl holding onto her father’s hand and Yuuri doesn’t hide a smile at how the girl stares at them both in undisguised recognition and excitement. He points at himself and then at her. “Autograph?”

“Yes!” she says, peeling away from her father so fast it takes him a few moments to realize it.

“You too, Yuuri,” Victor says, so cheerfully that Yuuri doesn’t even question it.

He accepts the pen Victor hands him and he’s got it to the paper before he freezes. He’s signed hundreds, thousands of these things and he’s never sure what to say. The words all seem rote and flat because how can he say something personal and inspiring to someone who he has never met? 

Yuuri glances at what Victor’s written. It’s just his name. That never seems like enough to Yuuri.

[Ahh, I probably should have kept this scene in, but honestly, I wanted to get to posting. Also it’s too early in the morning for Yuuko to be helping customers out because the rink isn’t open to the public yet. So there’s a Reason it got cut but I’m sure I could have worked around it if I really had my heart set on this scene making it to the final draft.]

SCENE 5

“Oh this?” Victor grins as he rolls the string off and proudly unfurls the paper tube. It’s one of the posters from the train station and he stands up to let it hang. Yuuri stares, mouth agape, and he can’t hide his horror but it doesn’t seem like Victor even notices. “It was too beautiful! I had to get one! I didn’t know who to ask but I found a station worker and I think they were confused by my accent but I just pointed a lot and said ‘Yuuri Katsuki best’ and I think they got that I was a fan and that I really needed one of the posters.”

“O-oh,” Yuuri says weakly because even after years of interacting with fans he’s never known how to deal with the more obsessive types. And Victor is terrifying, to the point where Yuuri is sure that it’s the universe’s way of punishing him for ignoring so many nice, calm fans. 

“You look beautiful in it, don’t worry!” Victor says, rolling it back up. He rubs his cheek against it and gives a dreamy sigh. “I’m so glad I got one. It’s going to be hard to get new posters of you now that you’re retired. I guess that’s good in a way since there’s only so much space on my walls but still! 

“Space? Walls?” Yuuri repeats, and he’s not reached peak terror yet. His stomach sinks as he starts to realize what’s in front of him. A super fan. His face is pale, he knows it, but Victor doesn’t seem to notice.

“It’s not like my whole apartment is a shrine. It’s just my room,” Victor says with a laugh. He pauses and places a finger to his mouth as he thinks. “Although that would be nice, to be able to put all my posters and photos up.”

Yuuri mouths the word ‘all’ but no sound comes out.

[I’m kind of sad I switched points of view on this scene because Yuuri’s terror at realizing what a fanboy Victor is over him was so much fun to write. But the chapter was a lot better, wrote smoother, flowed nicer once I switched character points of view to this order.] 

#i know where my heart lies fic #yuri on ice #these are not in order #i apologize

[tialovestelevision]

Superstar

From wrestling to fame, but oddly the fame story is a Buffy story instead of an Angel story, which means, I hope, less grit and more silly, since the basic strengths of the two shows are that Buffy does silly better and Angel does grit better. We’ll find out, I guess. 1. Apparently we get to deal with the emotional fallout of Riley not recognizing Faith wasn’t Buffy when Tara did. Also, Adam. And Jonathan, who we last saw bringing a high-powered, scoped rifle to school to shoot himself. This sounds like a blast! 2. Buffy, Xander, Willow, and Anya are fighting vampires. They killed one, but then found four eating somebody. So they need to get help. 3. Now they’re at a mansion. The help they went to get is Jonathan. Who gets dime-store Bond music. 4. You know… if they’re going to insert Jonathan into the opening credits like he’s an essential part of the show - which absolutely makes sense given what appears to be the episode premise - they also have to credit his actor in the opening credits. It doesn’t work otherwise. 5. Anya, Buffy, Willow, Jonathan, and Xander are at Giles’s house, getting weapns and drinking milk. Jonathan is training Buffy, and out-sparring her. Jonathan is better at everything than the best cast member at that thing is, so they all kind of act as decoys and backup for him. 6. Wow, he’s patronizing Buffy and she’s taking it and this is uncomfortable. But Buffy also seems aware that this wasn’t as good as she usually is. Slayer magic resistance? 7. Jonathan just caught Spike creeping around. “Wonder Jonathan and his Fluffy Battle Kittens.” Buffy’s one-liners are terrible. Whatever has changed reality hasn’t raised Jonathan up; it’s pulled everyone else down enough to make a barely-better Jonathan suddenly the best. 8. God, Jonathan’s one-liner is also bad. Better than Buffy’s, but bad. 9. … Willow and Tara have a Jonathan shrine and holy FUCK this is creepy. 10. Riley has a Jonathan poster in his room. And… is that a framed picture of Jonathan, too? He’s no Jonathan. Riley isn’t eating Initiative food, and they haven’t been able to track Adam. Buffy doesn’t want to sit near Riley. And she can’t sink baskets. She wants Slaying to be a competitve sport, so they can have figure staking. She left. 11. Buffy is talking to Jonathan about how terribly Faith messed everything up. She also put sugar in Jonathan’s coffee for him, and Jonathan is signing autographs mid-conversation. He’s creepy, but he’s not wrong about what’s upsetting Buffy. Buffy’s not right, though, that Riley couldn’t have known. Tara knew. When Giles was transformed, Buffy knew. Jonathan has a shoe brand. 12. Colonel George Haviland is here, and has taken over the Initiative. They’re having a facility review and also chasing Adam, and have called Jonathan in as a tactical consultant. He’s way shorter than the Initiative guys. Adam doesn’t eat, and is powered by by a small nuclear reactor. He doesn’t need his head and has to be annihilated. 13. A woman is watching Jonathan’s house, but now she’s being attacked by a fuzzy naked demon that’s very gross and ot actually that fuzzy much more mangy. 14. Now Jonathan is giving Riley advice. And shooting apples off soldiers’ heads blindfolded. 15. Now there’s a swing band playing at the Bronze. Anya was calling out to Jonathan when she and Xander were having sex. Buffy thinks Anya can beat Xander in a fight. I’m with her. Now Jonathan is going to sing for Riley and Buffy. He’s… not bad. Not great, but not bad. Buffy and Riley are going to dance, apparently. Jonathan has repaired Buffy and Riley’s relationship. And now he’s playing jazz trumpet from his new album. Xander and Anya are going to have sex. Pretty sure they’ll both be moaning Jonathan’s name. 16. The girl from outside Jonathan’s house is there. Jonathan took her to his manion. Buffy’s there too. Karen’s going to tell them about the demon. It had a mark on its forehead. Riley gave Karen paper to draw it. She gave it to Jonathan, who looks momentarily horrified. He is also hiding the picture of the symbol, and is dismissing the idea of hunting the demon, which he called a monster or an animal. Buffy is suspicious. 17. Adam is at the computer lab. He’s never heard of Jonathan, and says that the pictures on the TV are lies and the world has been changed. Adam knows every molocule of himself. That’s the most interesting thing about him so far, actually. Adam says that the magic that changed the world is unstable and corrosive and will lead to chaos, and he’s interested in chaos. 18. Jonathan has a pair of attractive blonde women asking him to come to bed. But he’s too busy looking pensively at the fire instead. He has a brand of the symbol from the demon’s head branded on his back. 19. Jonathan got the Class Protector award at the Prom. Buffy and Willow and Tara were walking and talking, and Tara went home, so now Buffy’s talking with Willow. Tara’s in her dorm, and hears growling. Doors slamming. The demon is there, attacking her with its claws. She got out of its grip and is is casting a spell, but she’s wounded. She conjured fog to slow it down, and locked herself in a supply closet. Now Buffy’s at Tara’s place, and Tara’s terrified. She was in the closet all night. Describing the demon to Buffy, who recognizes it as the creature that attacked Karen. She apparently saw the symbol, and is showing it to Tara. Willow is disbelieving because Jonathan said they were safe. Does that imply Willow has less magic resistance than Buffy? 20. Buffy is at Xander’s basement to look at his collection of Jonathan stuff. Anya is reading Jonathan’s book. Buffy asks if it’s weird that Jonathan is so good at everything. Anya is trying to make Buffy feel better. Apparently, Anya once granted a wish to make a man fall in love with Bill McKinley, who I’ve been using as my example of what I expect from Presidents for a while now. Anya is describing the kinds of alternate realities magic could make, like a world without shrimp or a world with nothing but shrimp or a freaky world where Jonathan is some kind of not-perfect mouth-breather. 21. Jonathan apparently crushed the bones of the Master, blew up the Mayor, and coached the Women’s US World Cup Soccer Team. And starred in the Matrix. And graduated med school. Riley is backing Buffy up. Buffy doesn’t know what to do. Giles has a Jonathan swimsuit calendar but doesn’t want to admit it. Buffy found the mark on Jonathan’s back in the calendar, but Jonathan just arrived at the house. Whenever Jonathan fights the monster, he gets confused. But he put the mark on his back to remind himself not to underestimate the creature. Buffy basically compelled him to join her in a hunt for the monster or lose face. 22. They ran into Spike, who’s being creepy. Spike wouldn’t give info to Jonathan, but Buffy threatened to cut his supply off, so Spike’s telling them where the monster is. 23. Riley is learning about magic. Maintaining spells takes concentration, but casting them doesn’t always - Xander set his book on fire. He shouldn’t speak Latin in front of the books. Willow found the mark, though… an augmentation spell that turns the caster into some sort of paragon. It also creates a monster to balance the good the sorcerer can do once the spell’s been cast. Xander: “So he did a spell to make us think he was cool?” Giles: “Yes.” Xander: “That is so cool.” 24. Huh. There’s a notable value to this episode - it gives us a decent relative measure of the various characters’ resistance to magic. Adam has the most, followed by Buffy, then Willow and Tara. After them comes Giles and Anya and, I think, Riley, followed at the end by Xander. I wonder if that’ll shift as the show goes on? 25. Anya is worried Jonathan’s going to betray Buffy. 26. They found the monster, and it knocked Jonathan out. Willow and Anya are surprised Buffy is right. Buffy is fighting the monster, then Jonathan gets a stalactite. He knows what the monster does, but is helping Buffy fight it anyway. Apparently, if she hurts the monster, the world will start to shift, restoring her power and knowledge while stripping his. Buffy is remembering how her fighting of evil actually works as she fights the monster. It almost tossed her into the hole, but Jonathan tackled it into the hole and Buffy caught him. Now the spell is broken. 27. They’re talking about it, so they do all remember. Nobody can remember who starred in The Matrix now. Buffy saw Jonathan and went to talk to him. They had an interesting little talk, and now Buffy and Riley are kissing. Looks like episode end. Overall: Wow, do I have mixed feelings about that episode. The episode was the show taking the easy way out of a bunch of heavy emotional stuff for Buffy and Riley, and less so but still significantly among the rest of Buffy’s circle of friends. I don’t actually mind that - television is meant to be entertaining, and frankly the long, rough soul-searching that would have eaten the rest of the season to deal with the fallout of the Faith two-parter wouldn’t have been fun at all to watch. It wouldn’t have even been enjoyable melodrama - it just would have involved watching people we love sticking knives of various sizes into their own and each other’s hearts for like three episodes and nothing really being resolved when it all stopped. So this wrapped that up as nicely as it could have been, allowing the show to move on from a necessary and very good story without getting bogged down in the things that story would have done to people. On the other hand… good God was Jonathanworld creepy. It reduced the overt misogyny the story would be burdened with by having Jonathan reduce the stature of Giles and Riley and Spike nearly as much as he did Buffy’s, but having one of the very few woman-led action shows on TV get taken over by a mediocre white guy even for one episode was still a bit of a gut punch. The cast does a lot of rescuing of the premise here, with Nick Brendon and Emma Caufield bringing enormous humor to every scene they were in and Anthony Stewart Head being utterly delightful in his reaction to the question of if he had a Jonathan swimsuit calendar. I… think this one goes in the list of Good Buffy Episodes rather than Bad Buffy Episodes? But it teetered on the brink of disaster basically the whole way through.

#buffy #jonathan #buffy the vampire slayer #superstar #buffy season 4 #season 4

[hollowincalmo]

The Wild Card - a lifepath

The Wild Card

Campaign: Looking Glass Heart

Academics Skill: Lazy

Sports Skill: I'm the Ace!

Favorite Foods: Noodles

Blood Type: O

Animal: Snake

Age: 18

Genres: Pastoral, Epic Fantasy, Adventure Fantasy

Step 1: Choose Your Name

Yo. I hope you're ready, because it's time to enter the world of Looking Glass Heart!

You're a Delinquent. Note the capital “D”. You're not just any old delinquent.

You're one of the Delinquent Princes, one of the ten deliquents chosen as royalty by your old mentor, Soun Shoujo, who was the Queen of the Delinquents.

There was a war, a couple of years ago, a war between our world and the world behind the mirror. You fought in that war with Soun Shoujo and the others. She was your first friend at School, and you were sort of in love with her.

Then at the end of the war, she ended up trapped in the world behind the mirror, and you were alone. This experience has shaped you in a lot of ways.

And in some ways, it's made you more distant. You were never very good at connecting with people, but since she left, it's been even harder.

You're the coolest of the cool, but you're alone, and nobody really gets how hard that is.

You went into the Outside for a while after she left.

You trained for a year and a day to unlock the true power of your soul. It caught fire from all that training, and that fire drives you, gives you power, keeps you going even when things are looking really bad.

You were always more than a bit inhuman (I mean, you're nearly seven feet tall and you have blue skin and pointy ears!), but you've become even more inhuman since your soul ignited. You're so different from everyone, so far away from them all.

You missed a lot while you were gone. Everybody got caught up in all kinds of Delinquent politics, and you were left out of the loop. At this point, you've decided staying out of it might be good. It's all kind of a mess, and you're better off without it.

But everybody else seems to having such a good time with all the stuff that's going on in their lives. You kind of wish you could be a part of it.

But how does that even work...

We'll come back to some of this in a while though.

For now, are you...

• ...Sora Nathalla, a gender non-conforming girl?

• ...Hayate Katagiri, a gender non-conforming boy?

• ...or someone else altogether?

Sorry, Hayate! This book is going to assume you're Sora Nathalla, a girl. But swap the gender and the name (and put on a dress) and you should find this a useful document about yourself!

Step 2: Choose Your Flaw

You're practically perfect in every way, but there's something you just don't seem to understand about connecting to people. You get worked up and stressed out about this sometimes, and when you do, it gets worse.

What's your problem exactly?

• I get horribly, horribly anxious when I even as much as think about talking to someone.

• I'm bad at communicating to the point that no one can read me.

• I'm awful at reading social cues.

• People are kind of afraid of me, so whenever I try to get close to them, they walk the other direction.

• I don't seem trustworthy, so nobody lets me get close to them.

• I have no tact, so I always end up upsetting the people I talk to.

...or is it something else altogether that troubles you?

I hope you learn to deal with this, I really do! It sucks not having any friends!

Hopefully even if you don't learn to solve your problems, you'll make some friends anyways. Being alone isn't fun for anyone.

Step 3: Choose Your Condition

Within the first few sessions of play, you're going to be picking up some sort of medical condition that helps people understand what's going on with you, why you're struggling with making friends.

This medical condition isn't going to be a fun thing for you, but in the end it's going to be a good thing, because it's going to help people get through to you and get close to you, because it's going to make them realize that you're trying, even if you're bad at showing it otherwise.

Are you going to contract...

• ...Glythia Painta (the default option), which causes you to exude copious amounts of paint from your body when you feel anxious?

• ...Cerberus Cerebra, which is when a small dog roosts inside of your head that starts barking loudly when you're hiding your emotions?

• ...Corporis Lux, which causes you to glow when you're lying?

• ...Mirum Vox, which causes you to blurt out exactly what you're thinking, no matter how embarassing?

• ...Bubblia Caper, which causes your flesh to begin to boil when you're feeling affection-starved?

• ...or something else altogether?

Step 4: Choose Your Corruptor

Remember how we talked a little while ago about the fire in your soul, the fire that ignited in you when you were training in the Outside?

You like that power, don't you?

You'd be unhappy if you lost it, right?

If so, I hope you're sitting down right now.

(If not, I'm questioning your choice of playing The Wild Card, honestly...)

There's someone out there who wants to corrupt your power, and ultimately to corrupt you. They've maybe even already started doing it. If not, they will soon.

At first, it's going to seem like they're helping you. At first it's going to seem like they're making you stronger, and encouraging you to be all that you can be.

They're even going to tell you that they love you, and that they want you to be happy. And to you, the girl who exists all alone, that pitch is going to be more than a bit enticing.

But that's not true at all.

They're trying to make you into something that you're not.

They're trying to corrupt you with bleak intent and turn you against everything you know and hold dear.

Who's corrupting you?

Is it...

• ...Katsuko Vasuki (the default option), a giant snake who might best be described as a goddess, who is imprisoned in a rotting shrine in the Outside and wants you to be her envoy?

• ...Ebrôt Appêkā, an ancient and powerful demon who wants you with her plans to invade heaven?

• ...Teatrix the Deacon, a Magister of the Bleak Academy who wants your help to destroy the world?

• ...Cleanthe, a twelve-winged angel who has saved your life with one of her lotus flowers and bound you to heaven's service, whether you want it or not?

• ...Typhon, a Mystery of the Far Roofs, who wants your help overthrowing the leadership of Town so that she might rule the world with a golden fist?

• ...Anakha Melchior, a hero (or rather villain) of ancient times who has lost her body and wants to use yours as her vessel?

• ...or someone else altogether?

Step 5: Your Rival

You have a rival. They're a lot like you, but more heroic and well-liked - or more villainous, if you're heroic by some chance, but given the fact that you're being corrupted, you're probably not going to get to be super heroic.

They're one of the Delinquent Princes too, and their soul has ignited too.

They have difficulties making friends, which are probably either the same as your difficulties, or the exact opposite.

Whatever your medical condition is, they're probably going to pick up the same condition, or something similar.

Are they...

• ...Ayako Kamiki, a girl?

• ...Itsuki Kamiki, a boy?

• ...or someone else altogether?

Typically your rival is of the same gender as you, but that's not by any means a requirement.

Step 6: Choose Your Favorite Scenes:

Are you most often seen...

[Gold]...getting into fights with other delinquents?

[Gold]...training in an abandoned building or dojo?

[Gold]...stressing over your lack of friends?

[Purple]...protecting younger students from bullies?

[Purple]...working on a painting?

[Silver]...lounging about beneath a tree playing video games?

[Silver] ...painting graffiti somewhere in the school?

[Silver] ...sitting in detention because you pissed off a teacher yet again?

[Silver]...standing around and people-watching?

[Silver]...feeling dismal?

[Silver]...napping under a tree?

[Blue]...experimenting with a new outfit?

[Red]...getting drawn into a strange and exciting adventure?

[Red]...acting as a “bad example” to younger students?

Pick 2-3 favorites to help you figure out what you're doing when you're not sure what to do in a scene.

Step 7: Review Your Goals

You don't have a lot of big goals. You're a simple woman.

You're just a punk who likes to fight.

Also, you're not really that interested in school. You've just got a few months before graduation though, so right now your main goal is trying to make it through those last few months. You need to keep your grades up if you want to graduate. Which isn't that hard, but it's something you have to at least sort of try to do.

And after that, who cares?

You'll figure it out when the time comes.

Step 8: Choose Your Connections

You don't really have any friends, so this section isn't terribly relevant to you!

But so that you don't leave this section empty-handed, let's say that maybe you have the following Connections:

• Ayako/Itsuki Kamiki 1. They're your rival, which means you at least sort of know them, right?

Talk to the other players about your relationship with their characters. If someone agrees that you should feel comfortable around their PC and have a fair amount of knowledge about how to take care of them, you can get a free level 1-2 Connection to their character as well! You can improve these Connections later, if you want.

Knowing you though, you probably don't have Connections to the other PCs, but you'll likely be picking them up in your first Arc or two.

I'm sorry about this! It sucks!

But that's the way it is for you.

Step 9: Review Your Powers

Your soul is on fire. You don't know very much about how to use that power right now, but it's a thing.

• Your flaw gets in the way of you being happy. This isn't so much of a power as it's a bad thing, but there's also some cool stuff that can happen because of it, so let's call it a power, okay?

• You're miraculously good at taking care of yourself day-to-day. You always look impeccable. Your clothes are always clean. Your hair is always perfect. It's almost supernatural. If this doesn't sound terribly useful, that's because it's not, but it'll get more useful over time, as you train and get stronger and stronger.

#sora nathalla #the wild card #chuubo's #cmwge #looking glass heart #jenna moran #emma renault