My cat is a polymorphed wizard

Okay so clearly I've underestimated y'all

So how about we make this more interesting?

Us:

When I made this post, it was supposed to be a joke

I mean, none of my posts ever get more than 20 notes if I'm lucky, so what are the odds of one reaching 666k? Impossible, haha

But then, something happened, something I didn't expect

People actually began to... like it? And... reblog? And comment?

Before I knew it, my notifications were swarmed with comments after comments after reblogs after comments all on this one post

Then, still in the mindset of this being a joke, I realised I'd made the goal too easy, so I upped the stakes

But... the notes just got more frequent from there

And it started to hit me just what was happening

For a while, I was overwhelmed with a feeling

A feeling I wasn't used to

It was like... all of a sudden... I mattered...

My existance was actually noteworthy

People actually... cared?

It wasn't a game anymore, it was a race to assure a stranger on the Internet that they were actually worth something

Hundreds of people all gathering in one online place to help out

Leaving messages and well wishes

Making me smile

Making me laugh

Funny comments

Jokes

Fun facts

Even simple comments

It all suddenly felt so real

This was never a joke to you

This was important

And I won't let any of that go in vain

So... stay tuned I suppose

I'll look after myself, and I'll post proof of it too

I'll catalogue every time I put my health first

Physical and mental

I'll acknowledge my bad days and celebrate my good days

But most of all

I won't forget this

Any of this

Ever

(Tagging all the people in that screenshot)

Leylas is starting to act rash and more violent in temperament because she’s exhibiting signs of typhros, and that’s clearly worrying the court, and if it were anyone but the literal queen, I think that kind of behavior would have already been either corrected or eliminated, because, well, they’re all stuck with each other, and they have to get along, even if that is very superficial.

In that scenario, you end up with family units that stick very closely together and are probably actually overly pleasant (if there are closed family units, which seems unlikely to me, making it even harder to hide particularly abusive behavior). These are people who have spent lifetimes in the same groups, who live incredibly long lives, and who want people to join their groups. They both have to put on a nice face and then keep the peace once they’ve won people over, even if that peace is tenuous and shallow.

That’s also exactly how Essek asks—he’s described as having a “perpetual soft smile” and at surface-level, he’s very accommodating. He is such a pleasant person, at all times, even when he’s under enormous amounts of stress. He had, essentially, one “outburst” toward the Nein that he was narratively pretty justified in, and the next time he saw them he apologized without prompting and took on most of the blame for the issue, which would probably be how I’d characterize conflict within the Dens.

And that’s absolutely still a toxic environment. It’s the type of environment that makes it nearly impossible to release any frustrations, where everyone is emotionally repressed because they haven’t yelled in six hundred years and internalizes any sort of problems as their own personal guilt. But it ensures that the Dens survive, at the expense of any sort of lasting conflict resolution. To be clear, I’m sure there is some amount of conflict resolution, because at the point where you have people together or breaking up after multiple lifetimes, I imagine you need it, but in terms of, say, ideological differences? Especially since this is a religiously-based family bond? I’d guess that that’s the kind of thing where the answer is “grin and bear it and don’t bring it up at the dinner table.”

there’s a reason why essek’s instinct, upon realizing “these people have the means to ruin me,” is to get real close and smile and do favors and win them over - that’s what they do in the dens, that’s what everybody does, all the time.

As with last week, there really is something wonderfully appropriate in who is affected by what Somnovem eye beam, and specifically I’ve been thinking about Essek and the slow effect from Luctus.

Specifically how Luctus evokes intense feelings of grief, not guilt (that’s Culpasi) which would also have been appropriate given his arc, and how that grief I feel is honestly even better than guilt in some ways.

Guilt can be, and generally is, based around regret of your own actions, feeling bad for something you specifically did. Guilt is more singular, more individual. And we know Essek does feel guilt for his actions now, or at least something close to it.

But grief? In a lot of ways I think grief necessitates connection to others. It’s about missing the connections with and between others, about what was, or what could been. Grief comes from caring for or about others, and for Essek, who did not find it within himself to really care for others before the Nein? That’s pretty huge.

And sure, the intense, action and movement slowing grief was caused by the eye, but his utter grief and despair at the end when they failed to rez Molly? His repetition of “It’s not fair”? Essek cares so so much, about someone he has never met, doesn’t know at all, but still cares for because his friends, the people he cares for, care about Molly, so he can care by extension too.

OH

LIKE BEAU!

fuck i knew they had parallels but you just phrased it in just the right way to smack me in the face with it.

because i’ve been constantly saying how beau had so much love in her, just waiting for someone to show her the tiniest bit of affection!

how beau was hurt so much as a kid she made herself not care about things because not caring was the only way to make things not hurt - but she had so much caring just pent up inside, ready to be tapped into as soon as they get past that wall!!

(and like.  beau’s walls were coming down, slowly, but molly’s death honestly just fuckin dynamited them and launched her into BEAU WILL NOW DIE FOR YOU territory.)

but, also - how much of Beau’s problem with essek was projection?  Like we know caleb is projecting his own issues and hubris and such onto him but - how much is beau seeing herself in this?  because beau hated herself when she didn’t care, and the more she’s learned to care again, the more she hates that old version of her.  like she said at molly’s funeral - she once ruined a couple’s marriage, just because she could.  she went around making things worse on purpose and not caring who got hurt and she hates that about herself.  

when caleb worried that cali might cause harm with the tiamat bowl, beau shrugged and said that would be someone else’s problem.  when they tell essek he started a war, he shrugs and says the war would’ve happened anyway.  essek’s early attitude was like pre-m9 beau writ large, and given way more power to fuck things up than she had.

anyway, the caring starts small, just with the m9 and dairon and “hey maybe this can be a better family than i had before” but once she starts caring, beau very quickly starts caring about everyone.  a lot.  beau “i don’t-wanna-be-a-hero, i-just-wanna-get-drunk” lionett is genuinely devastated by the deaths of thousands of civilians she has never met, because beau is full of caring  and now that her walls are down, she’s feeling it all the time.

and it turns out, while the m9 were off doing travelercon, the same thing was happening to essek!  i really thought he might hover around that place of “i care a lot about my friends but not really about anyone else” for a while, but, no!  like beau, once the caring starts, it doesn’t stop.  now he cares about the soldiers at the outpost, and worries about their safety!  now he cares about this person the Nein love that he has never met!  now he cares, even, about the people of the dynasty, abstractly, which he never did before!  it’s very inconvenient!!!  the caring!  he can’t turn it back off!  and much like beau, he doesn’t have any coping strategies to deal with this kind of intense grief, because the way he used to approach life was to not care about anything enough to grieve and he can’t do that anymore.

Big muscles pals and their panic girlfriends 🌈

See more of my art in my instagram!! <3 instagram.com/violetrashie

Fjord- Scythe

It's the crunch, the strategy, the 2+ hour play time. This man is nose to the board, into it. Most of the Nein grumble about it, but Beau and Essek will play it with him and get far far too into it.

Beau- Red Dragon Inn

This appeals to the Beaurebar in her. On the surface, she's got the silly drinking gambling party game. Deeper, she knows how to meta and has a hero that she's very very good with. She excels at stacking everyone else's decks against them. Making it an actual drinking game is a favorite, and she supplies really awful shots when called for.

Caleb- Root

Not only are you the resistance to the Cat overlords, there's resources! Strategies! Conniving! And adorablely vicious forest creatures! Caleb gets very attached to his factions. He likes playing with the Riverfolk expansion as the otters.

Veth- King of Tokyo

Yahtzee but with Kaiju. Veth will rule over Tokyo with an iron fist. There is now a rule that dice rolls that land on the floor don't count. Yeza is always apprehensive when she and Luc want to play, but he tries to be a good sport about it.

Jester- Unstable Unicorns

Fast paced, full of cute unicorns and puns, and there's an NSFW expansion. Jester is here to slam down some cute unicorns, shut down your combos, and cackle maniacally over pumpkin spice Basics.

Yasha- Cascadia

Puzzling together habitats for wildlife. It's lowkey, and Yasha likes to try and make the most realistic ecosystems she can. She'll play it alone for hours, but sometimes she can drag Beau or Caduceus in to playing with her.

Caduceus- Everdell

A sweet game of woodland creatures, resources, and collecting through the seasons. It's a pleasant game to him, and he sometimes he plays single player as a way to connect with the Wildmother. He has all of the expansions and the Kickstarter exclusives.

Molly- Mysterium

A ghost uses dreams in the form of surreal art to point mediums to solve their murder. It's the absolute cold reading bullshit Molly loves. If he's one of the mediums, it's just interpreting tarot cards. He loves helping everyone else interpret their cards and make up bullshit stories about how and why and where and who. If he's the ghost, he equally tries to help people and fuck with them.

Kingsley- Pirates

Stack up crews, steal other people's crews, blow up bases and collect pirate ships, loot, and glory. Kingsley is delightfully vicious at this game, and much like the man who taught me how to play it he wears his big pirate hat and coat whenever they play.

Essek- Sagrada

Sudoku, now with pretty dice and modifiers. The stained glass motifs remind him of Rosohna in the best way, and he finds it soothing to put it all together. Everyone is shocked the first time he swears in Common over someone taking a die that he needs.

Other related headcanons:

Beau, Fjord, Caleb, and Essek get together and play some of the crunchiest Warhammer you've ever seen. Jester paints Fjord's armies and Yasha paints Beau's, Caleb and Essek have dedicated weekly paint nights.

Essek hate drafts during Sushi Go.

There was an attempt to play The Mind once. It was never played again.

Caleb and Essek have fierce Scrabble games. Everyone made fun of them until Beau asked to witness one, and realized they play with four different languages at once and do not hold back about it.

Yasha has the Stardew Valley board game and plays it as often as she can.

Essek and Fjord play chess together. It freaks people out sometimes because they will sit in silence for a very long time until one of them swears violently.

consider this the successor to [this piece]

(inspired by Like a Diamond to the Rough by @spottedenchants)

and if he can't, Essek can float so it feels like it!!! Have a sketch I made some time ago of actually-floating pick-up-kisses