radio414

Chris took a deep breath. He’d spent every waking moment since last night -- save the ones he’d spent fighting for his life, obviously -- thinking about this job. In a way, this would be the most important one he’d ever do. Chris could think of no better reason to do something like this. Of course, he couldn’t think of a worse target either. He had been careful to not outright lie to Estellise. In fact, he had specifically said when and why he was concealing information from her. But that made it worse in a way. He had spent a lot of social credit getting this far, even outing himself as a disgraced nobleman if he had been paying attention, and he was about to burn through a whole lot more. The job didn’t need much, though. Materially, anyway. His entrance had been sorted yesterday, so all that was left was as clean a presentation as he could muster given his circumstances (oh how he hated bathtime growing up, what he wouldn’t do for a proper scrubbing now!), his sword with crest that proved he was who he said he was, and the magic spool and string the dungeon had so graciously provided him. Chris held that last one in his hand, just looking it over. There were a lot of things he did not understand about magic. Really, that was half the point of this job was trying to understand it! To do that, he had to put some trust in some unknowns. He put the spool away at his waist opposite his sword. He was as ready as he would ever be. Ziun was downstairs talking with Hector about something or other. Chris didn’t pay them any mind and hoped they both would be courteous enough to return the favor. He went straight to Fereis Manor. His stomach started to cramp up -- he was nervous! Why would he be nervous? Estellise had told him of some complications and didn’t say what they were, sure, but what could House Fereis do to him once he was already inside? They might be expecting his ulterior motive, but that wouldn’t stop him. It just wouldn’t. This was necessary. Maybe that was why. “Stick to the plan,” he mumbled as he walked up to the manor’s servant’s entrance. He took a moment to tussle his hair, making sure he looked his absolute best, and knocked on the door. “Estellise Fereis is expecting me.”

“‘Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.” -Luke 15:23-24 (NIV)“How are you?” Melissa thought as she idly stirred a cup of tea. What do you mean? Melissa flinched. “I don’t know. I’m just trying to be a courteous host,” she thought. ‘If there is anything that I can do…” We are well. Your continued survival is all that we require. “Okay.” She said that one out loud, though it wasn’t any louder than a mumble. If we may ask, what brought this on? Melissa thought, “I guess- I know it’s been less than a week, but I’m still trying to figure out our relationship. We agree to speak to each other more and then that doesn’t happen. We didn’t meet in my dreams last night either. And that’s fine, but I worry. Trevor’s got this whole thing going on with his book, are we supposed to be like that?” Trevor also implies he is still an apprentice, and his grimoire is his teacher. You believe in guardian angels, do you not? “I’m trying not to think of you as angels, though.” But perhaps it is similar? Melissa took a bite of her food. “I guess I wouldn’t know what to say to my guardian angel, either. And he never was particularly forthcoming with me either. Alright, well, I feel a bit better about all that. You’ll have to understand if I still ask occasionally, though.” Of course. “And we should probably practice that thing I’ve been working on, too. Hopefully, we can find some time for that.” Everyone else trickled in as her conversation wrapped up. Speak of the devil, Trevor was first, though Fen showed up before he could get too far into his lament. Melissa felt she had to step in, though, on one such instance of her summary. “Oh, don’t sell yourself short, Fen. You held your own. I don’t think we would have won without your input. Besides, you beat your half of the Spike Brothers, right? “And Trevor, I’m sorry we didn’t invite you. The message was addressed to us. I guess we just didn’t think about it.” Any further conversation was cut short, though, by the surprise arrival of Aduain. Melissa had only known the fish person for a few days, but she would still recognize that “Heeeeeeeeeeeeey! Team?” anywhere. “Welcome back!” Melissa said as he arrived in the dining area. She got up with Fen and helped him unload his bounty, putting the food away (and the… apple next to the sleeping Bartleby so he could have it when he was ready) and laid out the rest. “These tell quite the story,” Melissa said when it was all finished. “But you can tell it better than this, I’m sure. What’s it like outside of Prana? Besides all the weird fish, I mean.”

Gathering Storm Cassiopeia had not stopped staring at Arcturus since she had walked onto the field. When the conversation turned to memory, Cassiopeia rubbed the center of her forehead. “I remember you, traitor,” she might have said. “I have been waiting for this moment since the day you left.” With a few more motions, “Ophiuchus gave you your name, and I intend to take it back.” Her next motion was not unlike a bicycle kick from a soccer player. It carried no meaning, but as Cassiopeia’s feet left the ground, she began to fall in the direction her feet were pointing instead of straight down. As she manipulated herself further, it became clear that this was a general rule for her person. It was not a perfect rule and subject partially to Cassiopeia’s whims, but it was close enough. Arcturus snarled and sent her energy ball right for her former associate. The explosion sent Cassiopeia in the winged man’s direction, who sent a flurry of razor-sharp feathers her way, but Cassiopeia recovered in time to kick them all away. She stabilized, reducing gravity’s pull on herself and leaving her floating in between the two fliers, eyeing them both. Down below, the thing that looked like Hellhound saw Sibyl running at them and charged back. As they ran, their form shifted, growing bigger until it was nearly twice Sibyl’s size, though still retaining the general shape of Hellhound. They roared too. It was an inhuman, guttural scream that accompanied the Hellhound raising both of their hands up clasped together above their head, aiming to bring them both down on Sibyl’s head. Meanwhile, Thessa immediately saw the man she had chased up to the mezzanine the moment she got up there, though he was not the only thing waiting for her. Behind him was a massive ooze creature, translucent green in color, with a few darker spheres suspended in the gelatinous mass. A single tentacle extended out from the thing and was wrapped around the man’s waist. The man was wearing a mask, but one could tell from the tone of his voice that he was smiling. “I expected nothing less,” he said. Then he raised a finger, pointing at Thessa’s chest, and began another countdown. “Three… two… one…” […+The Buildings They Are Sleeping Now] The casino loomed large over all four capes as they stepped out of the armored car. The trip had been surprisingly smooth given where they were headed, though surely some part of that had to do with the external guard detail Director Sekelsky had assigned to the transport. As they left, one member of the guard said, “We’re headed further West, some sort of activity out near the Shimmer. We’re all counting on you, though.” A.V.D. balked at the comment. “You mean I could have been… I just thought this was the only way to help. I would have volunteered for something else if I’d known. Now that I’m here, it’s a bit too much.” Minos patted the renegade on the back. “Hey, no worries. We’re all right here with you. Here, I’ll make a big show of things, and that way all the attention will be on me, okay?” A.V.D. shook his head. “I don’t want to feel more responsible if you get hurt than I already would,” he said. He managed a few deep breaths. “It’s fine. I can do this. It’s no bigger stress than my first show, or the one with critics in the crowd, or… I managed those okay.” “Override had the blueprints,” Minos said. “We know exactly where we’re going.” She looked down at the ground. “Hate working with asphalt, but it’s only polite to knock.” She knelt down and dug deep into the parking lot, pulling up a wall of the substance that she kicked and sent careening right into the casino doors with a loud CRASH! For a moment, the whole building seemed to shudder, in a way that implied someone might be controlling it, but it wasn’t something Minos seemed overly concerned about. “Alright, let’s go!” she said. “I’ll make more walls if you need cover!” With that, she charged. OOC

yeah that's a lot of fun 8.5/10 embeds ok for me "do you like the way it sounds" is a really easy hook to make a joke about. i won't make it but i want you to know i thought of it. 6/10nearing the time of top 10s and someone reminded me this album exists and i was like "oh yeah" 8.5/10

Chris was the last one into the stairwell, diving through once Estellise had dragged Ziun past the threshold. He popped back up quickly, though, having safely tumbled to protect his head and neck, leaving just a few bumps that, though they would surely bruise, were about to get healed away once they exited the dungeon. There was some part of Chris that wondered if he was being a bit dramatic. He probably could have just turned and ran just like everybody else, but he had already done it, so he’d never know the answer to that question. He pulled himself up all the same. “Everybody okay?” Chris said. He revised the question almost immediately, though. “Everybody okay enough to make it ten paces through a portal?” Walking around without his daggers was an odd feeling. Without one, like, there was still a little bit of weight there, and he could justify it to himself that he had one in his hand all the time, but without both, while he did feel lighter on his feet, he could also feel his right hand drifting to grab something he’d never find. He moved where he kept his magic string and its spool in the meantime, even if it meant that felt weird instead. Lana was also up and moving about. She was the one who got to the treasure first, though she passed on the special item in favor of more coin. Chris held the wand in his hand and fiddled -- though didn’t press -- any of the stones on the side. Unlike the string, which he felt safe fiddling with when he’d first picked it up, the wand felt like something for someone with a little more magic experience to explore, so he too just took a share of the treasure. “I have to get… a whole bunch of stuff, actually,” Chris said. The money could help with some of that. Rent had to get paid somehow. When they all stepped out, the first thing Chris noticed was the time. “Oh, I thought…” Hadn’t the dungeon transported them out just a few minutes after they’d gone in before? And now, the one day where he was counting on such a weird quirk, it decided to not work that way? It was rude, was what it was. All of a sudden, his mental timetable narrowed. “I have to go wash up,” he said. “Estellise, um, I’ll see you in a bit when I don’t have skeleton dust and pain all over me.”

Quinn could find neither Belladonna nor Nathaniel in their ventures through the astral plane that night. Fae could only dream of home. Technically, the house was active. Quinn could see clearly even though none of the lights were on, and she could hear sounds from the kitchen like the hum of a microwave or the occasional crackle of a gas stove coming to life. As ze wandered through the house, though, smaller details stuck out more and more. Despite the noises, the kitchen was completely abandoned, and every countertop had a noticeable layer of dust and cobwebs. The back door was only an affectation of a threshold -- the doorknob did not turn and pushing or pulling produced no results. That was not to say all doors in the house were inoperable. The one to the restroom worked just fine. Quinn noticed that the bathroom mirror did not seem to work, reflecting nothing, acting as a sheet of jet-black metal against the wall. Other reflective surfaces were the same. The sink faucet had a leak that no fiddling with the handles could fix. The door to Quinn’s bedroom was breaking down. It swung open without Quinn even needing to nudge it. This room was in more a state of disrepair than any other. The bed frame was missing an entire leg. It leaned over and the mattress slumped over the side. Books had fallen off their shelves, and the shelves themselves had collapsed. A whir emanated from the television back in the living room -- something was playing even though the screen was off. Quinn reached out and turned the television on, and the screen illuminated the entire room in a bright red light, a light that bled into Quinn’s vision, wiping out everything else. There were words on the screen too, in distorted and wicked black, only just legible: YOU NEVER CAME BACK Quinn woke up from the nightmare. Xe could see the time out of the corner of its eye. It was about three of the clock. Quinn refused to move. The room was unrecognizable to her and ey did not want to disturb it. It was only then that they realized he was not breathing, and e had to manually resume that particular function of their material form, concentrating on that until the unconscious habit returned. Where were they? The memories of the previous day -- of the whole voyage, in truth -- took another moment to return. Quinn started to feel better. The breathing helped too. Still, the energies of the astral plane were against her, that much was obvious. Somewhere along the way, his noumenal essence had split in two. Part of Quinn’s self had stayed behind in Sinnoh, and it was calling across the waves trying to reach out. But no, this was a necessary journey. Not everyone had agreed, but most had not been in a position to argue. A bout of homesickness was but a minor trial. Yet still, as the seconds ticked on, Quinn did start to relent a little bit. Ze inched over to the side of the bed, reached into hir bag, and pulled out one of the Pokéballs contained inside. “Cassiopeia,” Quinn whispered, and the Drifloon came out of her ball with as muted a “Drif…” as she could muster. “Come sleep out here with me, Cassiopeia,” Quinn said. This would help. It was a small thing, but it was familiar. Maybe in the future, they could include Normandie in the equation, and whatever other Pokémon they happened to befriend on their journey, but for now, this was enough.Quinn read and reread Belladonna’s letter, trying to understand it even as Billy explained the additional information he had for them. The morning had seemed so exciting, too. Good omens abounded once her astral self had given up on exploration for the night, and any accompanying visions subsided. The morning sky was exactly as it should be. But perhaps Quinn still needed to work on his interpretations, because such prominent positive symbols blinded zem completely to Belladonna’s departure. How else was it supposed to feel about it? Quinn wordlessly passed the letter on to Nathaniel for him to read. Her final words to Belladonna had proven particularly insightful. Now the land of dreams was the only place they would find each other for the foreseeable future. The sudden Magmortar attack was almost a welcome distraction to keep eir mind off it. “Nathaniel and I can go chasing after this thief,” Quinn said. “That way you can keep your focus entirely on your charges, the Magmortar, this cute little thing, and whoever else.” They looked at the Smoliv, still quivering in Bobby’s hands. Quinn was barely cognizant of the fact she had just volunteered for both of them. It did not particularly matter. Something had to be done. Stolen things had to be returned to their rightful place, after all. It was something Quinn knew from experience.

“No, it was a good idea,” Brian said. “You were thinking outside the box. It just so happened that the room had that thought first.” He walked over the long way back to Carmen. “But I think it’s safe to say the doors aren’t how we’re going to get out of here. Not right now, anyway.” Brian was surprised Carmen had had an idea at all. He still remembered the helpless girl who could barely function her way through dealing with a ghost haunting from just last night. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if that happened again. He might just leave her there, he realized, which was mean, sure, but she’d deserve it. Of course, he didn’t have to make that decision yet -- it was just a stupid thought. In any case, back to the problem at hand. “If the doors are out,” Brian said, “there are six other ways I can think of off the top of my head to get out of here.” He pointed at each of the four walls, then up at the ceiling and down at the floor. He also moved over to a chair and felt its weight in his hands. It was pretty sturdy, which was good. He didn’t want to look around for anything else that was better, tearing the office apart for something that could smash it to pieces. The ideal thing would be a fire extinguisher, but apparently, ghosts or whatever this was didn’t believe in fire safety. That was a thought for a few plans down the line. Brian filed that one away for now. Instead, he put all his energy into running to one of the walls and whacking it with a chair. The results were not great. Even after a couple of whacks, Brian only managed a small hole in the wall. It was progress, but it was a brute-force sort of progress. He put the chair back down. “We’ll call that Plan B,” he said. He rubbed his shoulders and looked up at the ceiling. “Or Plan C or whatever. It’s a plan. My turn to ask you to do something, then.” Brian returned the office chair to the desk he’d gotten it from and hopped up on the desk, brushing away all the little keepsakes and doodads with his feet to create a relatively stable standing space. With that established, he reached up and pushed away one of the ceiling tiles. “A member of my fraternity swears you can do this,” Brian said. “Carmen, you’re smaller than me, you think you can get up there and, uh, I don’t know, find something out that way?”

"when he said, 'as you wish,' what he meant was, 'i love you.'" 6.5/10 yeah seeing this three months ago was cool but also not getting a rating in a music rating thread. i did correct the remix thing from the last post though sorry i mixed that up. 6.5/10 that's a really tempting song name to meme on but i will resist the urgeOP Suggestion: i don't normally listen to noise but i do sometimes dip my toe in and enjoy what i find 7/10

It had only been a half-day’s worth of activities, but Melissa was still glad to return to the apartment. Some of the day's events had turned out to be quite harrowing, and Melissa needed some time to recover. The other feeling she’d had was worry, just thinking about how Bartleby had handled the place by himself. Perhaps such a feeling was unfounded, but he did turn out to be mobile after all, even vocal at Fen’s and her return! It was practically cause for celebration, as Melissa scooped Bartelby up into her arms and carried him around the apartment. She did notice his occasional longing glance at the kitchen, though, and chided him accordingly. “You’ll get your food at dinnertime,” she said. “The person at the store and the instructions on the bag say the same thing. It’s all measured out.” It didn’t stop Bartleby’s wanting, but saying it out loud did help reinforce the schedule to herself. Like all pet caretakers, she wanted to give him a little something, you know, as a treat. Maybe someday, but she wanted to be disciplined for the time being. That night, Melissa placed her new Duel Mon- her new Yu-Gi-Oh! deck, box and all, including the chaff, in her bedside table drawer and lay awake looking up at the ceiling. Her mind whirred at just how similar the world of Prana was to her own, and yet still uncannily different in so many ways. She wondered when the inevitable screw-up was going to happen, that she would make a mistake and it would be meaningful somehow. Socially, perhaps she could fall back on her status as a Guardian, or even use that as a defense, because of course she still didn’t get it, why would she? But there was potential for her to suffer a real, physical cost because of something like this. She didn’t see it, but as she learned from her training with Rei, just because she couldn’t see it yet did not mean it wasn’t there. It took a while, but she eventually drifted off to a dreamless sleep.“Have you ever given orders to the morning, or shown the dawn its place?” -Job 38:12 (NIV)Despite her watch flashing a news report about skeleton attacks, Melissa wasn’t exactly hurrying to get out of bed. There were no blaring alerts. Mauvache had said nothing yet. But tried not to laze about. Instead, Melissa’s movements were more of a deliberate slowness, savoring the morning as best she could. She’d heard that pets and owners slowly adapted to each other, owners becoming more like their pets and vice versa. Perhaps there was an element of truth to that. When she got downstairs, though, the lack of anybody else suggested she was the first one up, which implied differently. She checked on Bartleby, who was also sound asleep, and went over to the kitchen to make breakfast. Just something she could throw together, she thought. Maybe some toast, with butter and jam? That and some tea sounded nice. As her slices of bread magically turned into toast, accursed thoughts crept in. There was something ominous about skeletons. Maybe that was just the fact they were skeletons -- they were perfectly natural parts of the body until they were outside of you and still moving around. Melissa couldn’t help but wonder if there was a reason the news was investigating that, from the headlines, still was just speculation at this point. But she was able to keep such idle ruminations at bay a little longer for now, at least unless everyone else came down and started talking about it too. She hoped there would be something else to distract them so they wouldn’t, but could only guess as to what that could even be.

Chris was surprised his cry of success had not been met with a stampede of three other people trying to get down, especially given all the yammering they had been giving him beforehand, but that was probably for the best. He didn’t want to be trampled. He did want to get out of there as soon as possible, though, even if the darkness was emanating down there below him in a way the stairs in the dungeon had not done so previously, but he was thankful for the moment to collect himself. He stood up and put away his lockpicking kit, making sure everything was in his proper place. Sword sheathed, the magic thread was put away, his daggers… Oh. It wasn’t a big deal or anything. He still had the one dagger to wield in his off-hand when necessary, and he could just acquire a new one later, whether through legal means or not. Surely, Chris thought, he was not the first person to lose something down here. Really, with the way he threw them around so often, it was amazing it took fifteen floors and several desperate flights away from attacking monsters to leave one behind. The sounds of continued fighting rang out behind him, but Chris still faced forward down the stairs. He had plans for that afternoon and night that he had to get ready for. Everyone else would get there when they were ready. They could take care of themselves. But then he thought about every time Lana and he had charged to the other’s defense, or whenever Estellise had gone out of her way to ensure his safety. He thought about Ziun charging in behind him when Ziun thought Chris might be in trouble. They were still a team, and they had to finish as one. He turned back around and saw the thing from earlier menacing Lana with a dagger. His dagger. Chris’ other dagger was out of his hand before he even had time to think, hurtling through the air and chunking into its chest. It staggered and stopped in place for a moment to collect itself, but that meant it was still very much aware of what was happening to it, and pretty soon it was trudging toward Lana again. “We can get out of here,” Chris said, “I’ve got your back if it chases us.”

Casino Royale (2006) “Oh! Right! Sorry!” Minos said as Belle asked about her powers. “Uh, I manipulate the earth. Best way I can describe it is I can pull walls up. I guess I could show you but I can’t do that here, obviously. I also have a really good sense of direction, but Cassie says that’s not a power that’s just proper awareness of my surroundings. Cassie never gets lost either. Have you met her? Cassiopeia?” A.V.D. answered the question as well. “Mine’s kind of a showy one too, but, uh, I do illusions. You know, pantomime sort of stuff. I guess I can-” He held his hand out in front of him and started peeling an imaginary orange, picking at the top before winding around the orange with one long strip. He tossed it into the air a few times, catching it to demonstrate its weight. “I’m not- Other people see it. They tell me I’m good at it. I can’t actually see the stuff I make, so I guess I just have to believe them. I don’t know. I just felt I had to do something, you know?” He looked down at the map of the casino Override provided. “So there’s a bunker underneath this, huh? How do you suppose we get down there?” “Oh, maybe it’s like a movie, we have to break into the vault!” Minos said. “Like, actually, that’s underground, right? At least we know where that is. We just gotta go…” She ran her finger through Override’s projection, tracing a path through the blueprints, down an inclined elevator shaft, and to a large circular room. “Oh wow, that’s got a lot of security stuff already,” she said. “And it’ll be swarming with Gibbons, I’m sure,” A.V.D. said. “I like the vault idea, though. Having both a high-security vault and a panic bunker seems like it’d be overkill, and we’d probably see more evidence of the latter on the map.” Director Sekelsky walked over. “Unlike the other group, it’s a bit of a hike to Hell’s Inferno, so I’ve arranged a transport. It’s an Edison Mark Three, something you --” He glared at Belle as he said this “-- should be intimately familiar with, so whenever you’re ready. Minos looked at Belle also, mostly just following the Director’s gaze out of curiosity, then back up at the director, then back at Belle and Victor. “You asked about how we can support each other,” she said. “Honestly, I’m pretty flexible. Tell me where I need to stand for you to do your best and I can do it.” A.V.D. nodded his agreement. “I’ll do my best,” he said. “But it sounds like we should go.” Battle Royale II: Requiem (2003) The Horseshoe Stadium was named after its shape. Rather than a bowl-shaped stadium that encircled its staging area entirely or the boxy nature of the stadium in the Old North, the primary section was shaped like a U, wrapping around the field only partway, with the final section enclosing the space added almost as an afterthought. It was the biggest construction in Scarlet City, able to seat a sizeable chunk of the population when a particularly big event rolled around. Strangely, neither The Horseshoe nor the Stadium in the Old North were actually located in the district of Skitty called Arena District. The world just had too many different ways to provide a space for a crowd, but it had been that way for as long as anybody could remember, and some of the concerts they hosted during less tenuous times were pretty good, so nobody really bothered scaling them down. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Someone had proposed a set of luxury box seats to be built in that would technically reduce The Horseshoe’s total capacity by a couple thousand people, but that was always getting lost in the process when it came time to allocate funds for it. So somebody cared, but in a weird way, and clearly not enough. The group, Cassiopeia, Sibyl, and Aeon, found themselves just outside one of the Horseshoe’s many entrances. Like the fictional Colosseum they might have read about, this one allowed entrance from any direction to assist traffic flow. This one, though, was special in that its facade was a massive archway that itself had three smaller archways contained within it. At the top of each archway was a single word, and they combined to form a phrase: “OUR TIMELESS BOND.” It would be pretty easy to get out to the field from here. Without security cordoning off off-limits areas, it was just a straight shot down some stairs, through a hallway, and into a tunnel that led right out. Someone could be heard saying, “Here they come!” from inside. “Alright, places everyone!” Cassiopeia made a gesture to Thessa that read, “You said you’d take on all comers, so after you,” and once Thessa’s back was turned, she looked at Sibyl, cocked her head Thessa’s way, and rolled her eyes. The meaning of that, of course, was obvious. OOC

joe is very red here and i can't tell if that's the lighting or if he's just like that anyway not sure how i feel about power metal overall but this was fun 6.5/10 just doin' a little dance 7/10 look i'll listen to anything posted in this thread. i cannot say the same thing for my dms. but i also reserve the right to not finish it or rate it i will rate slag boom van loon remixed by boards of canada though. obviously good stuff to put on some dashcam footage 8/10 OP Suggestion: i didn't update the thread for months which means there's a new king gizz album out it's got normal electronic songs for normal people and then extended mixes for sickos like me 7.5/10

I don't really have one for stories I'm reading or watching or... I guess the word is "consuming" but that feels wrong. I dunno, that's just not where my taste lies. This might be resultant from reading a bunch of old science-fiction novels as a kid -- especially Asimov and Clarke -- who were more interested in the conceptual thing itself than the nuance of the characters exploring it. It's something that has certainly influenced my personal writing, and while I can try and push beyond when I need to and create characters with internality -- I'm currently rewriting and editing one of those now -- a lot of my scribbling revolves around one person telling the story of a weird thing that happened to them. Like, I do try to inject character there. I like the implication that they *need* to be telling their story just so they can make sense of it too, and one person's musings about the hitchhikers they're picking up on the road would be different than another person's seeing aliens fighting by chance through their telescope (real stories). But at the same time I do strip out, say, gender, from them, almost preferring the ambiguity there, even if it made writing workshops in class super frustrating.

Favorite cryptid/mythological creature?

blonde-haired bowsette or red-haired bowsette?

Chris wondered if Ziun had ever picked a lock in his life. It wasn’t just some magic “wiggle some pins in the keyhole around until it works” method (that was reserved for the actual magic tricks -- well outside Chris’ purview), doing something like this under pressure was work! The sounds of the battle behind him obscured any audible clicks from the pins, which left the job of detecting his progress to however delicate his hands could be and a dose of intense concentration. It was enough that Chris didn’t even bother responding to Ziun’s question. There was just a little bit of work left to do. Just like that, he felt the lock give way, and he was able to turn the lock. Chris would have pumped his fist in success if there weren’t so much riding on this and so little time to do it in. He’d noticed before starting that the door didn’t have any hinges, which meant he had to push it. Of course, the dungeon didn’t make that easy either. Pushing shifted the door slightly to the left, enough to realize that it was more of a sliding mechanism with a more complicated deadbolt than he’d assumed. There wasn’t more time to think about that, though. He pushed the door open and saw the contents of the building beyond. That was to say, he tried to see, but all he could make out in the darkness was a passageway leading downward. “Stairs!” he called out. “Door’s open, everyone in!”

uhhhh my mind went to saphira from eragon i guess that was kind of the "first" dragon where i was like "oh she's cool" but i wouldn't say she's my favorite. i think spike from my little pony (g4, didn't watch older gens so idk how those versions were) is underappreciated, like, he has fans, but it's always "the mane six... and spike" which sometimes gets examined but not really. him getting wings was dumb, though. i've got an mtg commander deck that, while it technically has a running stable of possible commanders for it, i still call it my "nicol bolas" deck sometimes. he's pretty cool, just sitting there reading a book and/or plotting to take over dominia. oh i've got this guy on the sleeves of two thirds of my decks actually

(xkcd 2184) Do you have something like this?

what was your favorite avatar fad on (y/n)cm?