passingnights

Latest Posts by passingnights

What if we were both immortal and we knew each other for centuries and hated each other's very bones for just as long? What if we made a pact to spend a date together with the condition we'd both die together afterwards? What if I invited you to my cathedral that I built with my own hands just in front of your castle so that you have to see it at all times? What if we sat and chatted and waited for my government assigned pet to decide when we'd die, saying how good of a time we had and how glad we are to see each other killed? What if the last thing we saw was each other's eyes, the last thing we heard was each other's voice? What if death doesn't mean that much to us other than knowing the other suffered? What if I'd be ready to die a thousand times and lose everything if it meant you'd be slightly weaker?

What if we'd find any and every excuse to kill each other, repeatedly? What if the slightest provocation led to manhunts and bloodsheds? What if your death was my favourite sight, my deepest relief, my preferred past time?

What if you were there to comfort me when my son disappeared, to hold me and say we'd find him with enough reassurance to set me upright? What if you were the only one by my side when I had to say goodbye to my daughter, crying as much as I wanted to? What if we were all that's left at the end of the world, only to move on to another one and meet again, and start this whole dance over again?

What if then? What would that make us?

i love you minecraft youtube, i love you minecraft storytelling, i love you improvised minecraft roleplay, i love you non traditional media, i love you block men who have literally made me shed tears, i love you medium that allows for use of imagination, i love you incredible and devastating plots delivered via silly mc mechanics

Taking magic from the marrow, sucking on the sweetness of familiarity— humanity and ribs are inherently attached, a biblical kind of the magic held within that which protects the heart and the stomach, producing of life— the growling for power and the eternal hunger for control that comes at the cost of a rib and the cost of one’s life.

posting these tags from aabria since there's been a lot of discussion about lemli's 206 magic items and the implications: (original post)

#the one thing i'll say about K's rib breaking #and the reason I didn't describe it in terms of magical potential #(same with B-squared's death) #is the word I drilled into them in episode 2 #Intention. #The core of all magic #a wizard's rib breaking isn't inherently magical #but breaking a wizard's rib to take the magic from their very marrow?

Ame is a child when she first wonders through Grandmother Wren’s cottage. She wakes to the stomps of a fierce rooster, the smell of juk, the chorus of small sounds that builds the cottage.

Ame is a child when she falls in love with magic, the scent of it, the purity and the heart that lives at the core of it. Magic, the ability to connect with the earth, to provide for the animals and the trees, for the Spirits and honour their works. To help humans with sickness and mending.

The humanity in magic, the spinning of life to vow service to all that breathes on Umora.

Yet Ame is still a child as other children scowl at her, throw piercing gazes and words, “you’re a witch!” and see nothing but body, a little girl disconnected from the flesh of their own, a witch, nothing but a witch, an orphan, a stranger, a child. All but human.

But Ame had never thought herself anything other than human.

Ame, a child that never was, never could be, and forever will be.

She is a child when she is given to Grandmother Wren. Unwanted, strange child. She is a child when she is othered by the other children. Witch and apprentice, and still a child.

Ame never experiences childhood. She knows the wonders of magic and medicine, of healing and earth. But she never experiences the wonders of friendship, of connections in childhood. Ame never experiences the wonders of playing make belief, the warm hug after a heated argument, the small secrets shared in childhood.

But Ame is a child when finds more to her little family. A wizard, a witch and a wild one. Each child with a deep and profound sadness etched into the core of their beings and yet all too young to form the words to it.

Ame is still a child when she waves goodbye to her best and most True Friend. Tears wet her cheeks and the summer falls to her feet in a sweet breeze and a distant memory unforgotten. Ame is a child when she whispers her final goodnight to her brother, her True Friend, without and fully knowing so. She wakes up to the smell of moss and nothing but moss. She finds the cottage all too quiet.

Ame gains more than childhood during one summer and looses more than it when it is over. She finds fellowship and family in two True Friends. A secret and bond in childhood that cannot be simply broken. A thread that stretches across over water and mountains that no matter how far they are, they know they have a piece of themselves, of a simpler yet complicated summer in childhood somewhere across the lands. A small shard of childhood, of their true humanities stuck in memory of the scent of honey and magic and fur, a time long ago.

I don’t care what story it is, if there’s a small talking fox with infinite wisdom, never ending trust and a love of trickery, I will love them.

The Wizard, The Witch and The Wild One’s Fox

The Little Prince’s Fox

D20 Neverafter’s Fox

The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse’s Fox

All very beloved by me and I’m sure I’m missing a few of them

Listening to WWW and every episode is just:

5 minutes in *jaw drop*, 20 minutes later *jaw drop*, 2 seconds later *hands over mouth screaming*, 30 minutes later *jaw drop*, last 5 minutes *sobbing*

A right hand man. A trusty sword. A friend.

Deli finds comfort in his new acquaintance. Colin Provolone is a sturdy and simple man— quick and skilled in battle, a loyal and reliable in service, and also a good friend. Deli, with boyhood now smudged against the edges of his face, grows into his position of The Meat Lands.

Colin keeps the promise he made years ago to a disgruntled mother in the corner of an expansive hall in Comida. He listens and enacts the advises and discussions made for the benefit of this land far from home. He keeps guard and wrestles the yawns that strangle his throat and eyes as politics are discussed. All standing, never leaving, the right hand of Deli.

Colin watches Deli through the days, this leader guided with a willpower of steel, the love and dedication to the unification of his home watering his quick growth and maturation. Two years and Deli had become a fearsome, confident and ambitious young man.

Then Deli lies a gift upon his shoulders— Skald Colin Provolone, meaning poet (sing the songs of heroes, be my witness, carve my name into history, approve of my works).

And when Deli uses this title, Colin doesn’t question. He only grips his sword tighter, stands straighter, observes steadier. Deli’s sword and shield. His skald, his poet.

And at night he meets a softer, kinder Deli. They sit on the edge of Deli’s bed, talking and laughing about smaller matters. Sweeter things, like childhood and gossip that whisper down the hallways. He watched Deli’s expressions pour out, an innocence that splays across his face. He finds delight in those times, a remedy for a past he tries to forget. Light laughter, “simple is always how we’ve kept things”, and drunkenness fills the air between the two.

Two quiet years. Then comes blood.

And blood and blood pours from a carriage and drips, viscous, hot and real from hands and blades.

A quiet shatter in friendship. A trusty sword clanks at the feet of Deli and the familiar, light scent of cheese drifts far away from the house.

For the first time in two years, Deli is alone. A void renders behind him where his skald, his poet, would be standing.

And then five years pass and Colin sees Deli again. Scars rip at his face and he explains in whispers the ambush which landed him with it. Colin examines Deli’s face and finds little. A hardened and rough man. Colin thinks Deli resembles his mother.

Colin thinks about how he might’ve been able to prevent it, how he would’ve kept his promise, how he would have been able to protect him or die trying. Deli’s sword and shield, his skald, his poet.

There, Colin watches Karna die and the light leave Deli’s eyes. He watches the replaced Skald (and he thinks about the way Deli reached out to her with this title that fit her so effortlessly) shredded into a million pieces and he hears something in Deli die along with it.

This time Colin saves him. He nurses his old friend to stability and yet the “yeah, we’ll talk later” never comes as he watches Deli walk off into the sunset, now a man that would never be the boy, the friend Colin knew five years ago. A man with a cold and lifeless portrait, his soft edges ragged and a heart half rotten.

A sword. A shield. A skald, a poet. Colin keeps a promise to a mother and son made seven years ago. A protector, dedicated and loyal. He swings his sword quietly, precisely, dangerously against the ones who killed all his friends, dead or alive. Colin Provolone, sole survivor of the Saprophus, the poet of dead heroes.

The Rook’s exchange.

A flower, clutched and crushing in her hands, the blue-white staining and eating her fingertips— a cyanotype. She gazes across the battlefield. She sneaks into the bedchambers of a beloved she kept too close, kept too far. 

Karna stands in replaced positions. A Colin sized position. An Ariana sized position.

Her heart skips a beat as she skims over Deli’s haphazardly hidden notes. She finds motes of anger, of resentment, of despair and heartbreak at the corners of rapid heartbeats. She pulls and tugs at them, rearranging herself. Presentable. Useful. Disposable. 

She slides her note underneath the pillows of Delissandro Katzon’s bed. A quiet confession. A hopeful confession. She must survive.

She is dying, she is a child, she is in love. She hopes and she fears as tears crawl down her face and the rot eats her body. She knows the ways of war and the smell of murder better than the scent of a well prepared meal in the comforts of home. She knows the quick breath of death and the slow of a pulse better than the warmth of a family and the embrace of a lover. “She died nine years ago”.

At the bottom of the earth, in the embrace of Heart of the World, her story ends in a realm unknown to the rest. All the fighting to survive, the lies and the murder, the whispering of secret secrets and the blood dripping from the end of a blade. It all comes to a rest. Karna gives in to her exhaustion with an exhale (exhale, exhale). Eyes closed and a prayer to no god. A Hunger greets this tired warrior.

Cold steel rips apart her torn body. She dies and no one will mourn her. She dies and no mother, no sister, no lover will leave flowers by her gravestone, no eulogies sung, an insignificant name. 

She dies and she looks at the face of her lover. A letter remains underneath his pillows. Will he mourn for her?

“The only secret I have left, is that I love you” and in a title that was never made for her— “Signed, Sklad Karna Solara of Scoville”.

The Pawn resigns.

My next analysis has to be about The Ravening War and its allegories to chess.

The dichotomy between dice and its superstitions and randomness with chess and strategy and wit has to be studied under a microscope.

Especially in a story like the Ravening War where the characters each have such a distinct style of movement to clutch power and gain momentum in the story. Not to mention that they make references to the game itself many times!!

Very very interesting.

Amongst a group of a queen, a powerful bishop, a skilled spy and a to be chief, only Colin Provolone, a Dairy Island runaway, really escaped Saprophus.

He whose secret forced him to escape his homeland, stay undercover, speak nothing, want nothing. He whose morality throws his sword at the feet of his good friend, a devotion severed by the burden of death, and to think that war was all he was good for.

And yet, he makes it out of the rot-filled cave. He saves Deli, half-dead, his body lying still at the mouth of the cave, and still half-dead as he walks over the horizon, never seen again. He protected Amangeaux, one who is forever indebted, her regret buried a thousand miles down a cave non-existent, a life owed to a memory of those lost and now lies dead beneath their feet.

Colin Provolone begins this journey a sword and shield. He protects and devotes and craves belonging. His allies are bloodied and shattered and their purpose lies dead, forgotten to war and revenge, names erased to the world they so desperately etched their nails into.

Yet Colin Provolone survives with a purpose so driven. He is a quiet survivor, a noble protector. He remembers his allies, their hubris, their desperation. He swings his sword so that this world may know peace a little longer, that the war may have served a greater good, that the blood spilled may have been worth it.

In nobility, in morality, in wit and in war, Provolone survives the manipulation, the secrets and the ravening war with greater purpose than he started with and more gained than lost.

Knight takes King.

worlds beyond number is sooo good!

the horrors persist but so does brennan lee mulligan and guess what he's got even more horrors for you

Our ragged, bloodstained girl in red. Flesh stained teeth, earth crusted nails. An animal-girl.

Girlhood knows red. She knows of blood and the hollowing hunger that resides in the pit of stomachs. She knows her way around organs and the fresh scent of danger. Girlhood knows of red eyes, red hands, red tongue licking a full, satisfied smile.

Red waits with the Creature resting on her grandmother’s bed. It lies with one paw over the other. It yawns and sleeps and bares its neck. It waits for inevitability. Fear wears the clothes of love.

“If you cannot eat, you will die. This is the Law.”

Tears swell at the corners of the girl’s eyes. Who are these tears for, my child? Humanity lays at the corners of her eyes. She wipes them with the back of her hand.

Hunger and hunger and hunger grips the girls stomach. Starvation. Instincts. Animal.

She lays the iron weapon into the Creature’s skull.

Red Riding Hood devours her shadow. She rips apart fur, finds the critical spot where the meat comes apart the easiest, where the heart pounds and fades the quickest.

She splits the skull apart, pulling the strings that have tormented her Story many times told. She strays the path and follows her instincts. Animal.

She eats. She eats and drinks and swallows. Bright red. Raw meat. She picks the fur and guts out of her teeth. She wipes her mouth on the collar of her white dress and her hands at her thighs. “My teeth were made to eat you”.

Unrecognisable child. People fear you the way they feared the Big Bad Wolf. What have you done? Predator claws and ears grow from her body. Alien, familiar. Maturity, mortality, humanity, innocence— the blood at the end of girlhood.

“I met death, and Death wants me to live.”

Amethar, a little prince of the House of Rocks, so far away from the throne. Lover and loved. He makes choices as a human, before his position as prince. He has never understood the necessity and restraints of royalty. He marries his lover, a commoner. He is young and innocent, and he does it unabashedly, without hesitation and fear.

Caramelinda, Duchess of Merenge falls in love with the blinding brilliance that is Lazuli Rocks, the powerful Archmage of Candia. She knows power, she knows politics, and she knows the importance of unity of Candia. She marries her lover. She cares and loves with more than her entire existence and she achieves peace for her home too.

The Ravening War. Caramelinda finds the lifeless body of her wife scattered amongst the heroes of the war. The sound of her heartbreak deafens amid the devastation of the field. She cradles the body of her lover close to her heart, thumping and thumping yet Lazuli’s eyes remain vacant. The tragedy of our heroes. Caramelinda watches the Rocks sisters fall at the hands of this hungry, bloody war. She watches the line of crowned dominoes crumble and fall at the feet of young Amethar, warrior and sole survivor of The Ravening War.

Orphaned Amethar, Heartbroken Caramelinda wed, both hearts aligned to another. They wed, hearts broken and lost to a war, torn apart and left to a quiet, empty castle.

“Lazuli I loved with all my heart. And this (pointing at Amethar) is just politics.”

Two children are gifted to this loveless couple and they find solace in it. Twins with the beauty and brilliance of their mother and the determination and bravery of their father. Ruby and Jet hear the quiet arguments between their parents, “Amethar, the delay of conversation has been perhaps your most cardinal sin.” They see that their parents do not share the love-filled eyes they shine onto the sisters.

Caramelinda lost her heart years ago on the battlefield and Amethar, his, even before it.

Hi! I’m pluto passingnights!! I’m super into Dimension 20, Worlds Beyond Number and Glass Animals :D

I binge a lot of the D20 campaigns and so I write character studies and analyses here!

I’m always going a little bit insane about the current season I’m watching so I might write more on that but I’ll catch up on the ones I’ve watched before eventually :)

D20 campaigns I've watched:

I yell about other random things, usually untagged, on @plutomn!!

There are certain times of the day where the numbers align in perfect harmony and a familiar glow of magic illuminates the world for that singular minute.

It’s 7:21am and you’re running through the sweet spring fields, far away from home with the hand of your twin sister— your half soul held strong and confident in yours. Both of you dream of a life away from the responsibilities neither of you understand. You leave scarecrows in place of yourself in the classroom of your chocolate bunny teacher.

It’s 3:03pm and this is the first time you smell what you have only have heard stories of. The stink of bloodlust, of a tidal wave war, of screams and the clattering of iron, of a mother’s tears and the crackling fires of revenge. You and your people survive. An assassination attempt was made on your father. You feel rusted gears start cranking, slow and threatening, deep underneath the earth as the wails of the fallen fill your ears.

It’s 8:45am and forbidden confessions echo against the walls of the holy. Words you did not know were capable of escaping your father’s mouth, old and dusty secrets pouring out and you realise you do not know him. Your sister’s hand grip yours and your crowns spilt into two, simple metal clattering against god-forsaken grounds as everything you have known now lies at your feet. You narrowly escape the church. You witness the brutal murder of a friend. “The Bulb cares for no one.” You run.

It’s 10:05pm and you embrace your mother for the first time in weeks. You see the way she looks at your father. You see the way she scrambles to find some resemblance in him of an older lost one and fail to do so. Her soft and love swelled eyes that grace you and your sister does not land on your father and you wonder if she deserves the wordless losses she has dealt with. She demands that you and your friend go to rest but you, your father’s child, see too much, hear too much and you run away from the castle to explore as you did before all this.

It’s 12:01am and you draw your last breath. You feel yourself slip into the mist within the warm arms of your friend, your brother. “Tell Ruby that I love her, and tell her that she did the right thing.” You feel yourself loose the tight grip of your sister’s hand, your mother’s, your father’s.

Your dream of fighting for the world has been fulfilled. No longer princess, instead a warrior in war. And you remember the stories of the soldiers— you feel the warmth of your father’s arms around you, of your mother and sister’s tears soaking the earth above you and you sleep, knowing that you have protected what is most important to you and that they still have the breath to even mourn.

It’s 6:33am and you smile a little smile and sleep— a sister, a daughter, a princess and a warrior.

You bury your child. Distant land, unfamiliar territory within your own homeland, and yet so far from home. You stand at the crown of this insignificant hill, unfit for a princess, your heir, your twin, your friend, your child. And the last time you saw her war-stricken face, you didn't even know it would be your last, and the determination lining the ferocity of revenge and exhaustion in the creases of her eyes, her brilliant intelligence and curiosity lighting a torch down the broad and dark path called Death.

You lay her down in the sickeningly sweet earth, your dwindling people by your side, your queen by your side, your now singular daughter by your side.

“You continue to teach me“ —and the Bulb’s light casts dancing shadows through the trees on a gravestone upon a hill too humble for a King and his family.

And then they sail away from that nameless place, their dearly loved one now lying still, and cold, and so so quiet beneath this land of churning blood and gore and the stink of war in which no tears or love can save her anymore.

Oh there is so so much to say about the ending of Burrow’s End but Tula’s lined up a shot right into the core of my being so;

She’s back in the fields where she found her husband, dead, lifeless, cold. It’s winter and the snow has piled up so high and she runs around after the terrifying sounds of lightning in a clear nights sky.

It’s Blue and icy when she falls asleep, oh so tired and she hadn’t even begun to process the grief. Her mother’s response: “Where were you?” to a “Geoffrey’s dead”. She‘s a mother of two. She gives into her exhaustion. She sleeps. Everything is so quiet in the cold, the Blue.

And a few years later, neither dead nor alive but with a renewed sense of hope and peace, things Tula has never given herself space to feel after her husband’s death, she walks to his resting place and talks about their children. She talks about accomplishments, hopes, about dreams.

“I can’t wait to find out what’s gonna happen tomorrow”, she says. She means it.

(and Brennan as the player breaks just the tiniest bit)

Tula finds softness, she finds comfort. The cold, the Blue melts under spring’s warmth and the grass below finally drinks. She is happy.

ive been thinking about this today and just feel the need to sing praises to it

the last stand fight is literally one of my favourites if not the favourite from D20

and, you know, its probably not the hardest or the most story important one, but god its just so good

like the fact that non of them dropped??? that they didnt even get that injured and yeah on some part it obviously was the dice as it often tends to be in dnd but it was also them showing how well they work together

i feel like they all play into their strengths very well it this fight and they even talk about it in the adventuring party like if it werent for spell casters with area of effect spell the fighters would stand no chance, but also noone else could probably tank all that shit from the purple worm like gorgug

and like the decision from emily axford to disguise herself as the proctor was so good and yeah again luck also played into that but if she didnt do it, there would be no chance at even having that luck

and also her spirit guardians (love that spell) delt so much damage, and adaine coming in with the scatter to move the proctor away, which leads to kristin coming closer to there, which allows her to see kipper whats her face and stop whatever she was about to do

and then theres the exams part which they fully blow out of the park, like im pretty sure there was at least one question from like freshman year like prompts to you for remembering, also them actually attempting the math and essay and the essay actually kind of making sense and being about something that the characters genuinely care about

even if we go back to the dice, fig is struggling it that fight (and honestly the whole season) but because of so many good strategical decisions that emily makes, the impact of the dice is not as big as it could have been, if she had done things differently

also everyones vibe is so good the entire fight, like this fight was not made to be easy, they were probably met to at least drop maybe even multiple times, but they are having fun with it, joking around about the rats and the jellies and honestly its a very on brand fight for the bad kids

i also just remember the amount of nat 20 zac rolled in that fight, like that was insane

It’s me!!

Is it a sign that I'm currently obsessed with top gun and another show I'm watching just made a top gun reference.... I think God wants the brainrot to continue

My little Baron and Fig pins came in!!

I’m so happy I’m going a little bit crazy

AAAAAAAAAAAAAA

acofaf you absolute legend of a campaign

I am absolutely enthralled and if it wasn’t for an assignment I haven’t started and due in (checks non existent watch on my wrist) ahem, less than 6 hours, I would binge watch all the rest of it right now

Emily Axford <3

And the little flower in Brennan’s hair!!

(I started A Court of Frey and Flowers)

"The Years will go by and everyone will find someone that matters more to them than you" is such a way to point out the one fear all ace-spec, aro-spec people have. Thank you Brennan Lee Mulligan

Not me absolutely bawling my eyes out at 3am after a very unproductive day listening to the first 10 minutes of Worlds Beyond Number, The Wizard preview

Podcasts are my least favourite form of content cause purely auditory concentration is my weakest but this is so so good for me and my mental health

The Ravening War 1.05

karna and amangeaux's relationship absolutely ruins me. they both develop in opposite directions until they converge in the finale. amangeaux's struggle sharpening her until she's stone, keeping herself alive through connection in a literal sense. but karna's life post FDA has been better than anything she's ever known. she's been rotting for as long as she can remember, shes living on borrowed time with the people (mainly deli we're talking about deli here) that she loved. her time is softening her, in both an emotional and a literal sense. by the finale they've effectively gone through opposite arcs. even their designs are extremely similar at this point. by the end they've swapped spots. karna at the softest she's ever been. in a literal sense: her body fully rotting away before her death, and in an emotional sense: confessing her love to deli. trying her best to save the one she cares most about in the best way she knows how. amangeaux continues to harden even after the battle. she shifts into karna's place, slipping in and out of shadows and disguises, running on what she thinks is borrowed time.

its about sisterly love to me. its about looking out for the other in the only way you know how. amangeaux WANTS karna to be soft! she encourages her endeavors with deli! she wants her to build relationships and let down her walls. and the opposite is the same for karna. karna wants amangeaux to toughen up. she wants her to be stronger and more secretive and tougher because thats how she knows she won't get hurt. she wants her to be safe. they both care for one another so much but neither of them understand the depths of the other until the end, when they've experienced it for themselves.

very amused by whatever the hell is going on between Zac and Brennan this campaign

bishop takes queen