#thought it might be a kinda fun way to try to beat my own indecision

[monkeymindscream]

I’m at a crossroads of interests at the moment, so followers! Whether you read my stuff or not, could you do me a solid and click one of the buttons just to give my adhd-havin ass some direction?

#never done a poll before #thought it might be a kinda fun way to try to beat my own indecision #muttering at the void

[thepettymachine]

A Different Kind of Jam Legacy Challenge for TS3

Honestly I just wanted to make another challenge that involved colors and had a theme but then it changed into something completely different so I thought I share. 

The Jam Legacy is a 9 generation legacy challenge based on fruits you can put into jams/jellies and has a specific color palette if you choose to go with it. Each generation is a quirky bunch and meant for some weird gameplay. So if you enjoy weird gameplay, nice fall colors, and maybe 9 generations of fun, this might be your jam.

For those who wish to do this in TS4, @nadzicle​ created an excellent conversion  of this.

Tag: jam legacy or “@” me

Rules:

All requirements that are needed for the generation are in the “Ingredients” section. 

Have fun and do what you want.

Gen 1: Strawberry

Everyone loves strawberries. They are sweet and popular just like you. You love getting to talk and meet new people at every chance you get and everyone loves how friendly you are. But your desire to help people has been the main driving point in your life. As you tend to others, you also tend to neglect taking care of yourself. As a workaholic, your house is a mess, your children don’t get to see you anymore, and your personal life is in shambles. Need to take some PTO if you ask me. 

How to make Strawberry:

Ingredients:

Career: Doctor

LTW: Super Popular

2 Traits - Workaholic & Slob

20 Friends

Skill - Charisma

Directions:

Must have the Workaholic and Slob traits

Have 20 friends and maintain those relationships until the next generation.

Neglect your children’s skills (No teaching toddler skills, helping with homework or teaching teens to drive)

Can only clean the house once a week.

Must cancel any other interaction and no outside help

Master the Charisma skill

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Gen 2: Peach

Peaches are nice and juicy, just like your creative process. You enjoy creating as it brings joy to you and those around you. But as a child, your parents neglected you as they were focused on anything and everything but you. So you found love from others and in other places where you felt like you mattered. You deserve a treat and you also treat your children to whatever they want. They’re spoiled rotten.  

How to make Peach:

Ingredients: 

Career: Self Employed (Painter/Writer/Sculptor)

LTW: Illustrious Author

3 skills - Painting, Sculpting, and Writing

10 Lovers

Found Family

5,000 dollars

Children

Directions: 

Master the Painting, Sculpting, and Writing skills.

Have 10 different lovers throughout your lifetime/at the same time

Go to the spa/stylist once a week because you deserve it

Have a maximum of 5,000 in household funds. Any amount over you spend on unnecessary items/furniture/activities

Have a close relationship with your children (spoil them rotten)

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Gen 3: Grape

You’ve always had a dream where you had a big beautiful ranch that would allow for you to take care of your horses in peace as you flaunt your wealth to those who envy you. But working hard for that money is just too much of a hassle unless someone has already done the work for you. If you want to maintain your dream, I guess you gotta marry big or have them die trying. In the meantime, you invest your money into the local businesses around town and have a side gig for nectar making. Then invite those haters to your ranch only for them to be reminded just how much better you are than them. Have a sip of that wine.

How to make Grape:

Ingredients:

Career: Equestrian

LTW: The Jockey

Skills: Nectar Making, Mixology, and Riding

3 pieces of property

2-3 horses

A ranch

Directions:

Own a ranch/farm that’s worth more than $150,000+

Have 2-3 horses

Master the Nectar Making, Mixology, and Riding skills

Host a big party at least once a week

Own 3 pieces of property in town

Win a competition on the highest level for Racing

Marry a rich sim and have them mysteriously die from unknown circumstances

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Gen 4: Plum

You’ve always believed that the universe has the answers to the questions you’ve always wondered. Like why is the sky blue? What really happened to Bella Goth? Was my parent really killed for the insurance money or the inheritance of the ranch? Sometimes these questions are left unanswered which is why you investigate the truth, supernatural or not, because it is waiting out there to be solved. Might as well document it for the views. 

How to make Plum:

Ingredients:

Career: Private Investigator

LTW: Pervasive Private Eye

Skills: Logic and Social Networking

A 5 star blog

1 death

1 death flower

A death cure (ambrosia & death fish)

Directions:

Master the Logic and Social Networking skill

Have a 5 star blog

Have a death flower in your inventory so you can meet the Grim Reaper and beat death once

Have a sour relationship with your living parent and bring back your dead parent (if you can/applicable)

Be turned into a supernatural and then find the cure to be turned back (optional to be human again)

Be abducted by aliens and have an alien child.

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Gen 5: Pumpkin

There’s always been an obsession with finding ways to tinker and fix things with you. You’ve always  found comfort in creating something with your bare hands and you tend to enjoy your own company and make few friends since you live far away from everyone else. It’s mostly because you need the space for your inventions and experiments with time travel. Wait what?!You also pride yourself by living off your own land and deciding not to feast on your animal companions you find in the wilderness as they are your only friends.

How to make Pumpkin

Ingredients: 

Career: Inventor

LTW: Renaissance Sim

Skills: Inventing, Handiness, and Science

3 children

5 woodland creatures

Trait: Vegetarian

Directions:

Master the Inventing, Handiness, and Science skills

One of your children have to be from the time machine

No more than 3 kids in the household

House must be as far away from the town as possible

Own at least 5 small pets in your home.

Everything you cook must come from your garden, so no grocery shopping from the fridge

Must have the Vegetarian trait.

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Gen 6: Pomegranate

As a child, you’ve always wanted to see the sights and travel from your little corner of the world. But your heart has always yearned for a big family you never received for when you were younger. To have two worlds come together, you decide to do most of your traveling in spring/summer and stay at home in the fall/winter seasons. When you’re at home, you spend time with your children and cook their favorite meals all while joined by the fire. And when you’re not at home, you are traveling those big adventures you’ve always dreamed of doing and to bring home the stories and souvenirs your loved ones will enjoy. What a good life indeed.

How to make Pomegranate:

Ingredients:

Career: Stay at Home Parent

LTW: Seasoned Traveler

5 children

Skill - Cooking

Directions:

Spouse has to be from a different world than you

Have 5 children and have a great relationship with all of them

Master the Cooking skill

Celebrate each holiday at least once.

Cook everyone’s favorite meal at least once

Own a complete collection of artifacts from any destination

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Gen 7: Orange

Listening to stories growing up about meeting new people and exploring new worlds has put the call of adventure into your heart. But with the limited time in this world and so many resources on your hands, you’re kinda indecisive about what to do. So basically you just do about everything on an impulsive whim. Joined a band, check. Streak in public, check. Fought a shark, check. Got eaten by a cowplant and lived, check. Turn everybody into a zombie, thought about it. Go to the future and create a dystopian future, oh there’s an idea. Yeah you’re not settling for a while. Not until you find your greatest adventure.

How to make Orange:

Ingredients:

LTW: Jack of all Trades

1 best friend

10 skills

10 jobs

3 moves

1 great adventure

Directions:

Know 10 skills but never master any of them

Spend your life finding the greatest adventure that no one else in your family has done before.

Greatest adventure is defined by you and what you believe is an adventure.

Marry your best friend as an adult

Move 3 times in your lifetime

Have at least 10 jobs under your belt (but you don’t have to reach the highest level in any of them)

Do the most dangerous inappropriate stuff at least 3 times a week.

Streaking/Skinny dipping/making out with a married person/fighting a child/etc

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Gen 8: Kumquat

You can’t stand the status quo of things and you definitely can’t stand the injustice that society normalizes. So something has to change, rather through art or always fighting the system, you believe in changing the world. One step at a time. 

How to make Kumquat

Ingredients:

LTW: Street Credible

Rebel Status

2 local protests

1 skill - Street art

3 enemies

1 change to the world

Directions:

Pull pranks as a teenager on all your neighbors

Get kicked out of college

Reach level 10 of the Rebel status

Protest at least 2 times a week

Master the Street art skill

Have 3 enemies

Can not have a typical career/9-5 job

Contribute to the future - create a utopia/dystopia for the future, become a politician as an adult or become a teacher to teach the youth. Up to you. 

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇ ◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇ 

Gen 9. Blackberry

Growing up, you’ve learned how to always fight for the things you love. Through the strums of your guitar, you’ve created a melody that others can get behind when they are sad, angry, or happy. It’s the battle cry of your performance and the applause of the crowds that keep you going. It’s just that sometimes you wish you had someone to keep you going when things get rough as well. At least you have your bandmates, right?

How to make Blackberry

Ingredients:

LTW: One Sim Band

Career: Band member/Singer

4 Skills: Guitar, Drums, Piano, and Bass

2 failed relationships

1 comeback tour

1 true love/soulmate

Directions:

Master the Guitar, Drums, Piano, and Bass Skills

Create/Join a Band

Have 2 failed relationships before finding the one

True Love Checklist - Attractive, Compatible Sign, 2 similar traits, and the Virtuoso trait

Become a 5 star celebrity

Quit the band to have a solo career as a Singer

Reunite as elders for your comeback tour

Thank you for trying this challenge. Feedback is always welcomed.

Edit: 10/22/21

#this took me about a month and a half #i was too stubborn to abandon it for something of a simple theme #but i just didnt want to do the nsb and decided to make something different #so enjoy my challenge if it works for you #sims #ts3 #the sims 3 #sims 3 #ts3 challenge #ts3 legacy challenge #jam legacy challenge #this is why ive been mia lately and also cause im tired from work #might play this later

[shakespearessmutt]

The signs as Avatar the last Airbender characters

Aries:Iroh; passionate, a leader, wise, dynamic and adaptable, very warm person, charming, when they get mad they get mad, creative, and impulsive. (Iroh is the wisest character in the show but also bought out an entire market and ate a plant because he thought it might be tea. He was also one of the strongest characters in the whole show)

Taurus:Suki; very intelligent and capable, hard working and dedicated to their craft and cause, well defined style, stubborn and, trustworthy. ( She’s very smart and capable like look at the prison break episode she said i got this bitch hold my beer)

Gemini:Ty Lee; outgoing, friendly, somewhat impulsive and indecisive, easy going, loyal to a fault, big personality, adaptable, and two sided. (Ty Lee on the outside was super perky and friendly, but she could also was not afraid to speak her mind and be blunt/bold. Also she took down Azula!!)

Cancer:Yue; loyal and protective of her people, willing to make sacrifices to help those she loves, compassionate and loving, very intuitive. (She has a very strong sense of duty without being told what she had to do and was traditionally soft, but also very brave.)

Leo:Zuko; Prideful, emotional, kind hearted, determined, head strong, spiteful, and brave. (His entire story arc is trying to reclaim his honor honestly)

Virgo:King Bumi; cheerful, expressive, creative and clever, strong, reliable, observent, smart, fussy, and skeptical. (bumi honestly kinda a wildcard but it also feels like everything he does is intentional. He’s playing a bigger game than he lets on /kinda like a better dombledore don’t at me/)

Libra:Aang; diplomatic, clever, idealistic, tries to see the good in everything, social, non-confrontational, provides balance, self-pitying, and fun loving. (Aang just wanted to vibe and was a child at heart through and through, but that never stopped him from doing what he had to do, and doing things the way he wanted them to be done.)

Scorpio:Azula; Determined, Disciplined, perfectionist, cunning, love to hate her, intelligent, assertive, and competitive. (Azula day one said I’m the best there is and that’s on that. She’s such a badass and a force to be reckoned with.) 

Sagittarius:Mai; Blunt, impatient, caring (i know she says she doesn’t care ALOT but she was willing to fight Azula for Zuko), private, brave, loyal to a point, irritable, and forgiving. i know she’s not a traditional Sag but looking closer she’s kinda a more introverted sag and and absolute baddie. Also very expressionistic in not wanting to be expressive //emo//)

Capricorn:Sokka; sarcastic, highly ambitious, realist, strategist and brains, reliable, and, open hearted. (Sokka has major dad vibes he’s a big goof, but he’s very smart and capable.)

Aquarius:Toph; Rebellious, original, condescending, intelligent, independent, somewhat unpredictable, will call people out, hates authority, and stubborn. (Toph could not have given a single fuck and danced to the beat of her own drum. She ran away and was one of the most powerful benders of all time.)

Pisces:Katara; empathic and emotional, generous, motherly, overly trusting, naïve, and, inspiring. (She’s emotional but also not afraid to fight a mother f*cker. ya she’s the mom of the group but that has never stopped her from just challenging a master to a fight day one.)

#atla zuko #atla #avatar tla #avatar #aang the last airbender #aang #katara #mai #ty lee #azula #bumi #toph #iroh #uncle iroh #sokka #cabbage man #zodiac #zodic signs #astrology

[a-trainers-tale]

Nyz paid request

:: nyz ::  Hello!! I would like to request for a paid pokemon trainer description!! I'm sorry in advance for the long messages that are about to ensue but I hope they can give you a clear depiction of who I am and will make your decisions easier and more precise!! uwu  I'm a 20yo Leo girl who's studying Biomedical Engineering and Arts (with an English major!!) in Syd. I used to be a guitarist in a high school band and am in general more of an independent individual than a leader/follower.   1/8

I'm a shy person but some of my friends say I exude a quiet confidence HAHAHHAH. Other ways my friends/family have described me include: smart, kind, awkward, cute, determined, hardworking, creative and being a happy virus. I generally do well in my studies and am particularly good in Physics and English! However my flaws include: being too playful at times till it accidentally gets someone hurt, usually running late, having terrible mood swings and being a lil too competitive at times   2/?

(esp towards my younger siblings unfortunately) and being extremely indecisive!  I love writing but I have a problem of keeping within word limits. I love spending time with my dogs, being up early and generally don't mind waking up early but I like my mornings quiet and calm as I enjoy my breakfast hahahhah. I tend to work out quite a lot and particularly love cycling! I generally spend a lot of time in my room but I love fun social events like parties and weddings (I'm not sure why??).  3/?

I love cartoons/animated films a lot idk why but they give me a sense of relief from all my stress and they just make me feel good after watching them?? I also love creating random customized stuff like designing a birthday cake for my brother or creating a specialty dish for Mother's Day. Things I don't like include: loud noises, inconsiderate people, snails, being looked down upon, judgemental and close-minded people, presentations in front of large crowds and chocolate (sorry!!).  4/?

Some aesthetics of mine include: the colors of fall, the smell of freshly brewed coffee and freshly baked bread, glass/transparency, deep ideas, hugging a dog (most furry animals), being in the middle of a bustling city, the serenity at dawn, wrapped up in your blanket watching your favorite tv show at night, getting work done at a cafe, hugs, nyc apartments and theme parks.  5/?

My favorite food include pumpkins, Marie biscuits, cereal, artisan bread, almond milk, eggs with runny yolks, tomatoes, brocolli, mushrooms, bibimbap, sashimi salads, deli sandwiches, bruschetta, prawn dumplings, tiramisu, tangerines and flat rice noodle soups. My favorite books include Looking For Alaska by John Green and the Fire and Flood series by Victoria Scott. My favorite movies are Pitch Perfect (1&2 were good but 3 was kinda disappointing),   6/?

The Devil Wears Prada, Wreck-It-Ralph, Inception, Enchanted, Kiki's Delivery Service, the new Jumanji movies and Little Women. Fandom life is a big part of who I am hahhahah. My favorite TV Show is Friends (cliche ik) but also some animated series ahahhahh.  The reason I love Pokemon is probably bc it was a significant part of my childhood and the nostalgia just brings me back to those times when life was simpler(?). Also I ADORE the creativity and thought behind each Pokemon/character and  7/8

how it has created such a vivid, imaginative and yet not so farfetched world for the audience! The fact that it still has such a large and active following also makes me feel connected to a lot of people somehow :) Being a Pokemon trainer has always been a dream of mine for sure!! :')  Thank you so much for taking your time to go through this! I apologize in advance for the length and hope u know you're making one of my childhood dreams come true in a way uwu  Have an amazing day!!  8/8

Trainer class: Fairy tale girl

You walk to the beat of your own drum, but in a somewhat subdued way most of the time. Onlookers might think you to be a bit eccentric but also a bit quiet. In battle, you can be ferocious and emotional but also playful and excitable. You love inserting creativity into your daily life and you love being able to see the best in all pokemon. You have a lot of energy and can come across as being somewhat childish when you are in a playful mood, but when you are feeling more studious you can be an intimidating level of intelligence. Your quiet and playful nature can seem contradictory to some who don’t know you, but your pokemon have come to be able to read your moods quite easily and adjust their own behavior accordingly. You have a very fun relationship with other trainers you have bonded with and you have a very fun life with your pokemon who support you in everything you do. You cook with your pokemon often and you explore new hobbies and interests with them on the regular. You also love to escape into worlds that aren’t your own, so you consume a lot of creative media and chase after intellectual pursuits that suit your interests quite often. Your pokemon love you as a trainer but their also love you as family and would do anything to protect your playful smile and inquisitive mind. 


Starter: Eevee

Your starter pokemon is Eevee. Eeevee is a very unique pokemon and a notoriously indecisive pokemon in the ways that it can evolve. Eeevee is inquisitive and a perfect fit for your excitability. You and eevee are a wonderful match for exploring and learning new things together. Eeevee will never judge you and will always stand by your side when you need it and when you want to have fun. Eevee has a lot of energy, so you might end up spending a lot of your own energy calming it down enough to go to bed at night. Eevee has many different ways of evolving, so it will be a challenge to get it to land on one, but earn its trust and it will love you forever.


Partner: Mareep

Mareep is a very soft pokemon, both in the emotional sense and in the physical sense. You will want to wear gloves of some kind before rubbing Mareep's fur too much, but regular snuggling is welcome and safe. Mareep is a very kindly and considerate pokemon and, if treated well, will grow into Ampharos who is able to act as a guiding light for travelers and lost people and pokemon. Mareep acts as a comfort for you, though it does not participate in any battling that you do since it is somewhat faint of heart. Keep it close to you and it will help you keep calm and support you in return. 

Team: Sylveon (starter), Celesteela, Zebstrika, Exploud, Phanpy

Hometown: Circhester, Galar

Your hometown is Circhester in the Galar region. Circhester is a somewhat large town that a lot of tourists move through. It is a historical town full of statues and buildings that have been around for a long time, but it has also kept up with recent trends enough to not seem old. Circhester is home to the Hero’s Bath, which is the pride of the town. From growing up here, you learned a lot of history and you have learned a lot about all of the people who have lived and moved around in Circhester. This gave you a natural curiosity and an interest in learning more about other people and about what it means for pokemon to be strong and for a trainer to be brave. Circhester gave your interest in bonding with people and also gave you your warm aesthetic sense. 


Battle style: Playful and intimidating

You are quite a rambunctious trainer and tend to go your own way. You prefer the paths that look less traveled, quite literally. You will find yourself lost sometimes, looking for places to find interesting pokemon you haven’t met before or interesting people. You are the kind of trainer that one would run into deep in the corner of a forest lifting rocks to try and find something interesting. Your inquisitive mind and high level of playfulness makes you a very fun person to battle, as long as you aren’t in a competitive mood in which case you can be a fierce and emotional opponent. You have been known to yell and get very into battles, which spurs on your own pokemon and tends to act as an intimidation factor for your opponent’s. You are a strong and independent rival to many other trainers who started at the same time as you, and you compete with them not only in battle but also intellectually and in terms of the knowledge you have accumulated in your travels. You want to find new things to learn but you also dive deeply into new things that interest you, so you have a lot of knowledge about a lot of things pertaining to pokemon and the people around you. You connect with trainers who you battle with, and so you have a large amount of numbers in your phone for people who want rematches or who want to tell you new things they learned. Your energy spurs your pokemon on during battle and brings you new connections with pokemon and with people, never lose your passion and always allow yourself to let lose during battle so that you and your pokemon can have as much fun as possible.

#pokemon #nyz #pokemon trainer #pokemon request #exploud #eevee

[doctorocsid]

THE MAKING OF PHOENIX WRIGHT’S SECOND DAY OFF

Or: The Immense Struggle of Trying to Make Decent Content

A good year and a half. That’s how much time passed between me starting Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off and me uploading it to YouTube. What a hell of a load off my back that was. If you couldn’t tell, making this video was a bit of an undertaking, to say the least. And by “undertaking” I mean “an exercise in pure agony”. So, I figured I’d do a bit of a writeup here so I can get across to you the absolute hell of an experience making this video was.

PART 1: THE INITIAL PLANNING STAGES

The original “Phoenix Wright’s Day Off” was released in February 2018 to, though not a lot of views, a generally very positive response. Despite its janky animation, people seemed to enjoy it for its complete ridiculousness, comedic timing, and overly-choreographed fighting. Not to mention literally being the only Ace Attorney-themed Garry’s Mod video ever made that actually uses the Ace Attorney characters. (I’m still the only person to ever do that as of the time of writing. Woohoo.)

Given the positive reception and the fact that I literally ended the video with a “To Be Continued”, I was ready as I could ever be to start work on a sequel. The first one only took me a couple weeks to make, so surely a sequel wouldn’t take much longer, right?

Oh, how wrong I was. Still, I started planning out exactly how things would go. Throwing around ideas in my head. I needed it to be bigger and better than the original, of course. How was I gonna do that? Well, my initial plan was, uh, misguided, to say the least. What I wanted to do at first was create the sequel entirely in Source Filmmaker, along with giving it a darker, more serious tone to contrast the ridiculous slapstick of the first. Not a great idea for a sequel to a video that mainly relied on throwing ragdolls around for comedy.

https://streamable.com/taxrn

The original intro for PW2DO, based off the intro for “Fargo”. A lot less cool-looking than the final intro I made. (Even though I intended the video to be made in SFM, I made the intro in Gmod solely because I could just film myself driving the car instead of having to animate it manually.)

The final intro was done in a not too difficult fashion - the characters were animated in Garry’s Mod on top of greenscreens, which I then imported into Premiere and changed to solid colors. Added some extra video effects I found in places. Set it to an instrumental of Propane Nightmares. I’m proud of how it turned out, mostly. I won’t deny after I introduced the characters I didn’t exactly know what else to do with it, so I just filled it with some random actiony shots I thought might look cool. Incidentally, this was the only part of the final video that was made in Premiere - the rest of it was just edited together in Vegas Pro. Which crashed many times during editing. Fun.

PART 2: THE PAINS OF INDECISION (AND ALSO SOURCE FILMMAKER)

Nonetheless, I got to work, despite not actually knowing how to use Source Filmmaker. “I’ll figure it out as I go along,” I figured. And over time, more or less, I managed to figure it out. Sort of. And by “figure it out” I mean “become subject to the true hell that is SFM”.

Let me give you some quick background here. SFM has two main editors for animation: The “motion editor”, and the “graph editor”. The motion editor uses a relatively easy-to-understand method of animating: you select an object you want to animate (a prop, weapon, ragdoll, etc), select the span of time in which you want the thing to move to its new destination, and then you move it to the new destination. Sounds simplistic, but can be used extensively to create good-looking animation. (I myself used this method for the bar fight in PW2DO.) The graph editor on the other hand, is much more involved, depending on the tried-and-true method of using keyframes for animation. Some people prefer this one because it allows you to directly edit and fine-tune each little animation curve to your liking. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUXnpk8xDLg

This unfinished PW2DO prototype was animated entirely with the graph editor in SFM.

Really, you can use either one for animating, whichever suits you best. For me, personally, the graph editor feels like something designed in the seventh circle of hell specifically to torture me. Why does adding a new keyframe screw up all my preexisting animation? Why does adding a new keyframe make the ragdoll’s bones stretch out to infinity? Those are just a couple questions I shouted at my computer screen while trying to figure it out.

Eventually, I just gave up. I came to terms both with the fact that I wasn’t satisfied with what I was making, and with the fact that trying to use SFM’s graph editor to animate was making me want to julienne my keyboard. (I hadn’t figured out, or really even considered the motion editor at the time.) “Screw it,” I said to myself. “I’ll do in Gmod, like the last one.”

PART 3: OH RIGHT, GMOD SUCKS TOO

The first PWDO was relatively simple to make, at least compared to the second one. There were two main tools I used: Stop Motion Helper (a tool for animating stuff within Gmod itself without the need for actual stop motion or whatnot), and the classic technique of “throw stuff around in front of the camera”. I had little to no experience doing 3D animation when making it, but it worked out anyway. It let me practice some camera framing stuff, too. All I was really doing for most of it was animating the characters moving along with the camera. But for the second video, I desperately wanted to up the ante. I wanted it to be cooler. More edgy. More cinematic. Turns out, there’s one main reason that proved difficult for me. And that’s that Garry’s Mod kinda sucks for long-term animation.

Here’s the difference between animating in SFM and animating in GMod. SFM is made for animation. GMod isn’t. So, if you want animating in GMod to be anything less than horrendously tedious, you need some addons to help you. Stop Motion Helper is a neat little addon that lets you animate stuff in Garry’s Mod with the “tweening” type of animation. Simply put, you pose something in point A, make a keyframe, move it to point B, and then make another keyframe. Stop Motion Helper will then automatically animate it moving between the two points. Thus, instead of the stop motion method where you have to pose every individual frame, you technically only have to pose the beginning and end. Not that it looks very good if you only do that. Of course, like any kind of animation, it’s still something that requires a lot of effort if you don’t want it to look cheap and robotic. But it works. Sort of.

Doesn’t work too well with vehicles, though.

There were a multitude of small limitations and annoyances, however, that proved to be annoying to deal with in GMod nonetheless.

FIRST PROBLEM: Because GMod isn’t made specifically for animation, resuming a project within it is kind of a hellish endeavor at times. Unlike Source Filmmaker where you can just open a project file and everything remains the same, Garry’s Mod’s saving tool doesn’t save a lot of the addon-related data when you create a save file of whatever scenario you’ve made. That includes stop motion helper animation. While SMH does have its own support for saving animations, you have to save every single animation as its own separate file. Take the scene in PW2DO, for instance, where Phoenix shoots those cops to get the security footage.

https://streamable.com/2ikd1

There are seven moving parts in this scene - Phoenix, the picture frame, both cops, the gun, the shampoo bottle, and the camera. Note how many of these are moving in each camera shot along with how many shots there are (ignoring after the cop goes out the window, because that’s not done with SMH). That’s ten shots, if you didn’t want to count. If I wanted to save this whole scene for potential later tweaking, I’d have to make a save file for the session along with saving the animation data for all ten shots - that’s ten separate animation files for this one scene - and then I would have to manually reapply the animation to each individual moving element. 

On top of that, not everything can be saved at all just by sheer concept. The muzzle flash, for instance. While the flash graphic over the gun was added in post, the actual light emanating from it was something I had to do in-game, and it’s not something you can animate with SMH. Therefore, I had to play the animation in GMod, and then specifically time me hitting a button on my keyboard to make the flash happen at just the right point. That’s just one workaround in a program that, when animating in it, is like 80% workarounds.

But nothing about Garry’s Mod frustrated me quite as much as the final fight scene.

PART 4: THE BAR FIGHT

The final fight scene of PW2DO was the one thing that kept me from releasing the video sooner. Seriously, out of that year and a half or so, I’d say only a month or so was spent working on the GMod portions of the video. The rest was just that stupid, godforsaken fight scene. (And mostly procrastinating on making it.) Allow me to try and outline to you what I went through doing this.

Now, the fight scene went through three specific incarnations. They were all based around Maya and Athena tracking down Phoenix and beating the crap out of him, it just differed on two basic things: the location, and the fight music. The first idea I had was them fighting Phoenix in an alleyway while ABBA’s “Waterloo” played in the background. (i know that sounds silly but i swear i couldve made it work) That one didn’t get beyond planning stages - I’d kinda choreographed some of it in my head, I know Phoenix was supposed to get a crowbar at some point, but it didn’t get any farther than that.

The second incarnation was much more well-developed. The way I figured it was as such: Phoenix, after retrieving the security footage from his office, would go on the run and get on a bus. However, when he got on the bus, it’d be revealed that Athena was driving it, and Phoenix would fight Maya as they went down the road. (No comment on how Maya and Athena got a bus.) This was gonna be set to “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince, inspired by the opening car chase scene from Kingsman: The Golden Circle. (Meh movie, neat fight scenes.) Eventually they’d crash the bus, all go flying out the window, and then Phoenix would get arrested by the cops as he did in the final video. Sounds neat, right? So, what stopped me from doing this?

jesus christ so many things

Everything wrong with this concept centered around one particular problem. I absolutely could not, for the life of me, figure out how to animate a fight scene in a bus that was moving down the road. In SFM that might’ve been possible, but in Garry’s Mod? Good luck with that one. I practically tore my hair out trying to come up with a single working solution to this. Allow me to present to you the various ideas I had and why they all failed miserably.

IDEA 1: Animate the bus moving and the characters moving in it at the same time

This was the fastest-thrown-out idea because the complexity of something like this was just too much for Gmod and an animation addon. What’s that? You want to be able to stay with the scene as it animates? No, that’s basically impossible to do. It’s not like SFM where you could just attach yourself and a camera to the moving vehicle and animate from there. It just wasn’t feasible.

IDEA 2: Create moving textures and place them outside the windows to give the illusion of movement

This one went out the window too, unfortunately, as rotating the camera to any degree kinda just seriously killed the illusion. I could’ve done the scene without the cool cinematic fighting camera movements, but… is it really Phoenix Wright’s Day Off without those?

IDEA 3: Create a 3d video of going down the street in GMOD and paste it onto a greenscreen outside the bus, and animate it rotating properly in Premiere

I don’t blame you if you don’t understand what the hell I’m talking about. See, miraculously enough, there is actually an addon for GMod that allows you to record 360 degree videos within it - and after a decent amount of finicking around with it, I actually managed to make one that seemed to work fine. It was from this point I actually set out and started making the scene - I got about ten seconds in, mostly comprised of driving shots, a neat easter egg with Homestar Runner (not something i’d do nowadays tbh) and a single shot of Phoenix beating on Maya. I was all set to get going.

And then Premiere just refused to work with the 360 video. Don’t get me wrong, I was able to animate it rotating and stuff, but it wouldn’t let me do this at the same time as the normal 2D video that was meant to be pasted on top of it. It frankly just. Wouldn’t let me. And after a lot of struggling, I just. Gave up. That ten seconds of video, trashed.

https://streamable.com/4omnep

I did manage to re-piece it together from the old files on my drive, though. With mostly missing sound effects.

So, that was scrapped. I wasn’t doing the bus fight. What, then, would work out better than a fight scene based off the first fight scene of Golden Circle? Apparently, my mind decided that would be the last fight scene of Golden Circle. Cool.

Thankfully, things went a lot smoother there, but it wasn’t without hiccups. Now, if you’ve seen Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off - I don’t know why you’re reading this if you haven’t - there’s a chance you might’ve found the music choice for the bar fight scene a bit odd. If you’re not aware, it’s a cover of the 1986 Cameo song “Word Up”, by a German country band called The Bosshoss. This is the song they used in the movie so you’re not allowed to question me on this.

Given how western-y the song sounds, though, I had to at least make the context fit. Despite that, I couldn’t really find any GMod maps that had a good enough bar interior for a while - and I really wanted it to be a bar fight. Bar fights are cool. Thankfully, I did eventually manage to find one. This one, in particular: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=806759276&searchtext=

Yes, that’s a My Little Pony based map. I worked with what I had, okay? That was the least of the issues, anyway. By this point I’d had enough of trying to animate with GMod, and as such I’d decided to move back to SFM, but that caused a whole new issue. This map wasn’t made for SFM. And opening it in SFM just. Crashed. I won’t go super into detail of how I fixed this, but essentially I had to download a program called BSPSource so I could decompile the map, re-open it in Hammer, and export it to properly work with SFM.

Still left me with some annoying issues though, as you can see. Not too difficult fixes, though - The first one I just covered up with another corkboard, and the second thing was fixed by typing mat_specular 0 in console. Was a bit annoying that I had to do that every time I reopened SFM, but whatever. It was working, at least. (that’s something you’ll think to yourself a lot if you ever get into using SFM.)

 Anyway, things went pretty okay from this point on. You know, aside from me proceeding to barely ever work on the thing for like a year and a half. I didn’t have many hardships during it other than my own procrastination, so instead take a look at some of the funny tricks I pulled to get this scene to go the way I wanted.

https://gfycat.com/OldfashionedForkedFlatcoatretriever

Engineer telekinetically swooces his shotgun back to himself.

https://gfycat.com/SleepyShadowyLadybird

I had to make Phoenix hover over Engie to let his arms reach him without his legs obscuring the camera.

https://gfycat.com/AptHomelyGoral

The rope was way too short to reach the soldier, so I had to have Phoenix basically throw the rope in order to reach his gun. I also forgot to detach the rope from his hand afterward, so it kinda gets flung around with it off-camera.

https://gfycat.com/AgonizingScrawnyAbalone

Phoenix apparently decided for himself he wanted to go out the window.

Aside from all that, though, things finally went okay. Eventually. I managed to finish up the animation, add some extra ending stuff in GMod, and do a neat credits sequence to David Bowie music. All in all, it went okay.

And that’s it. After all that waiting, I finally managed to put an 8 minute video out from one and a half years of it not being finished. It was quite a load off my mind, for sure, and to this day it stands as my proudest video. It’s silly, has its down moments, but I can at least confidently say it’s the best Ace Attorney gmod video. If only because there is basically no competition.

So, what’s in store next? Not much of anything as far as I feel right now. I could make a third one, one day - I did envision it as a trilogy - but although I do have some ideas for it, I still have zero motivation to actually make it. So who knows. We’ll see how it goes. Maybe Phoenix Wright will escape from prison one day.

So, this was the experience of making Phoenix Wright’s Second Day Off. I hope this gave you something of an idea on how agonizing this video was to make, and totally means you should go and share it everywhere to get me more views because I DESERVE it after the hell I went through.

Seriously, though, thanks for reading, and may this post serve as a warning if you ever decide to do Garry’s Mod or SFM videos. Not a warning against it, mind you, you can make some totally cool stuff. Just be prepared to suffer a bit in the process.

[tenspontaneite]

Peace Is A Journey (Chapter 3/?)

In which there is much ado about camping.

(Chapter length: 9k. Link to ao3 version)

“Ugh. How long does this river go on for?” Rayla groaned, in the tones of a rhetorical question, as she slumped somewhat dramatically all over their bags, her flower-crown lopsided, but held conveniently in place by her horns. And, whether or not she expected a response, Callum found himself thinking of an answer. Pensive, he sat down and brought out his sketchbook, holding it with particular care to avoid the risk of losing it overboard. He flipped through to the map he’d drawn, and inspected the line he’d sketched for the Lune, raising charcoal to trace along the edge of it.

He had a good memory for anything he saw. When his instructors had figured that out, his cartography talents had soared, and it served him pretty well now. Callum drew along the river in a little more detail, mapping out a little circle, and then shuffled over to show it to Rayla. She eyed him, looking vaguely taken-aback by his sudden manifestation at her side with a sketchbook.

“Look, see?” He pointed out the line. “This is the Lune. And the Lodge is there. If we keep going along this river, we’ll get to a small lake - it’s called Kalsa. And if you follow the river out of there, you get to the town of Kalsanis.”

Rayla glanced at the map, and pushed herself up a little, somewhat more alert. “So, your point is…?”

“The river goes through Kalsanis. So, we should ditch the boat a while before that, since we don’t want to be seen in the town, right?”

Understanding dawned in her eyes with an accompanying spark of relief. “You’re saying that once we get to this lake, we won’t have much longer on this thing.”

Callum nodded, lips quirking upwards, and drew in a little dot on the map for Kalsanis. “Pretty much, yeah.” Ezran, who had been sitting with one hand in his bag on the egg for a while now, opened his eyes and looked up at them, curious. He was the only one of them without a flower crown now, since Bait had eaten his about half an hour ago.

“Thank goodness.” Rayla sighed, head falling back onto the boat seat behind her. “So, how far away is the lake?”

“Er.” He frowned down at his map, and then shrugged sheepishly. “Don’t know, sorry. It’s hard to judge how far along the river we are, without any landmarks or anything.” She groaned, so he hastened to add “I’m pretty sure there’s a tributary that flows into the Lune around, er, here?” He traced it onto the map, around three-quarters of the way between the lodge and Kalsa. “So once we pass by that, it’ll be easier to tell.”

She raised her head to inspect the new mark, and then looked up at the sky again. “…It’s getting late-ish in the afternoon now. If we don’t pass this ‘landmark’ in an hour or two, we stop for the night.” She seemed decidedly relieved at the thought.

Ezran perked right up at that, foot tapping excitedly. “Ooh, does that mean we’re gonna put up the tent?” He asked, eager, and leaned forwards to await her answer.

“Uh…” Rayla looked a little bemused at his enthusiasm. “Well, maybe. It depends. The humans I took the boat from will probably have sent out messages about it. If there’s any towns or roads nearby, not sure it would be safe to put the tent up.” She glanced questioningly at Callum.

“Kalsanis is the closest town, and that does have a direct connection to the road to the capital.” He said, pointing out the large line he’d already drawn for the capital’s road. “But this part of the river sorta – bends around quite a long way? So if we do stop at, or before, the tributary – we’ll be pretty far from any roads, and still a long way from Kalsanis too.”

Rayla narrowed her eyes, glancing indecisively between Ezran’s pleading eyes and the map, and sighed. “Alright, we’ll put up the tent.”

Ezran punched the air triumphantly. “Yes!” She watched his enthusiasm and smiled, in a reluctant sort of way, as if she’d been trying to keep the smile contained.

“Why are you so excited about a tent?” She asked, half-exasperated, half-amused.

“It’s like camping!” He tried to explain, waving at Callum as if to get a supporting statement that it was, indeed, like camping. “Before we were just kinda, sleeping on the ground outside? And that’s not really fun, that’s just uncomfortable. And the grass is always wet in the morning. But if you have a tent it’s like you’re camping!”

“So if you add a tent, it’s suddenly fun.” Rayla said questioningly, raising an eyebrow. She glanced at Callum as well, as if waiting for an explanation.

“Probably my fault.” Callum admitted with a laugh. “I used to read him stories, and there was one with this family that went on a camping trip, and they met some wolves – anyway, Ez went through a bit of a camping obsession. Made blanket tents in our bedroom. Kept trying to sneak into the forest to camp.”

Ezran fixed him with a grumpier expression at that, but didn’t try to deny any of it. Rayla laughed, a somewhat surprising sound after how long she’d spent as an unhappy and nauseated ragdoll at the bottom of the boat. “Well, I’m glad you’re excited.” She said, plainly amused, and pushed herself up to sit cross-legged. “I’m sure the novelty will wear off after the first few times, so enjoy it while it lasts – I’ve still got to figure out how these human tents work, anyway.”

That roused his curiosity, and he settled into the bottom of the boat next to her. “So what, are elf tents different?”

She reached out and patted the tent pack, as if to demonstrate. “The material certainly is. Haven’t had a chance to get it all out and look properly, but seems like leather. My tent used a different kind of fabric. And this one’ll be bigger, too.”

“You had your own tent?” Ezran asked, eyes practically sparkling, and he pulled Bait into his lap to listen.

Rayla smiled, just a little awkwardly. “Well, yeah. All of – all of us in the team had our own. They weren’t big, but we had them to ourselves, at least.” She shook her head and quickly changed the subject. “Ours is made for soldiers to share, so it’ll be bigger than mine was. Not sure how much. I think it’ll probably be a two-person tent.” She made a face. “Might be a bit of a squeeze.”

Callum shared a look with Ez and shrugged. “Eh, it’ll probably be fine. Ez is only ten, and it’s not like either of us are full-grown soldier-size either.”

“Suppose.” She sighed, and looked at the tent pack again. “We’ll find out later, I’m sure.”

“Guess so.” Callum said, and after a second, flipped the page of his sketchbook back to the in-progress dragon egg and resumed drawing. He had to pass the time somehow, after all, and he already had his book open.

Rayla’s eyes went to the drawing and stayed there, but she didn’t comment. She didn’t look away either, though, and sort of…settled in, gaze laying idly on the page, watching him draw. It prompted a mild prickle of discomfort along his spine – Callum was by now completely unselfconscious about drawing in front of Ez, and didn’t mind other people watching him draw, but it still wasn’t completely comfortable either. He didn’t really feel the need to object, though, and he was the one who’d started drawing right next to her, so.

He ignored the minor flutter of self-consciousness and settled in for a good, long, careful study of his memory of the egg.

  As it happened, they didn’t reach the tributary in the approximately two hours specified. Rayla seemed a little less wrecked by the boating than earlier in the day, and pretty much just sat watching him draw the whole time – and while he wasn’t sure if those two things might be related, he wasn’t going to ask, either.

After a while, when Callum was putting the final touches on the egg drawing with shadows and a sense of a glow around it, Rayla looked up at the sky and said “We’d best be looking for a good spot to stop.”

“Really?” Ezran asked, looking up from the egg-bag he’d had his hands sitting in silently for like an entire hour. He was a funny kid like that. “Isn’t it still kind of early?”

“Sun will be starting to go down soon.” Rayla said, blinking at the horizon with a sort of narrow-eyed focus. “And while I don’t mind doing camp-things in the dark, I’ve been told you humans don’t see too well at night-time.”

Ez considered that, and nodded. “You were told correctly.” He informed her solemnly. “Are we going to make a campfire?”

“We most certainly are.” She confirmed, and scanned the river banks. After about ten minutes of looking while they drifted placidly downriver, she identified a shallow-looking silty bank next to a small grassy clearing at the forest’s edge, and directed them to get the boat over to it.

Callum and Ezran obediently stepped up to the oars and manoeuvred them over, with some effort. The river was quite wide and fast here, after all. Once they got into the shallows it was easier, and Rayla jumped overboard with the rope to lodge it in the ground with one of her weapons, as before. “Should probably find some sort of stick to hold it instead, really.” She commented, as they began the process of unloading all the bags (and the bunch of cattails) from the boat. She wandered over to the nearest tree and perused the various twigs underneath it until she found a piece of wood that seemed to satisfy her, and brought the fallen branch over to tie the boat down properly.

“So, what now?” Callum asked, settling the last of their bags in a pile a short distance from Rayla’s boat-tether, which she was even now beating into the ground with the sheathed form of one of her weapons.

She stood, hanging the weapon at her side. “Now, we figure out this tent.” She announced, and strode forwards to sweep the tent pack from the ground.

“Yessss.” Ezran cheered, quietly, and skipped up to watch her from close range. Callum stood nearby, watching, uncertain if she’d want any help or not.

The first stage of figuring out the tent, apparently, was to upend the contents of the tent pack onto the ground. There was a large folded leather-looking thing, dark brown in colour, and another large folded thing that seemed more like treated cotton, like Callum’s light travel cloak. A pouch about as long as his forearm also fell out, tied with a drawstring at the top, and then some weird looking metal rods. This last thing apparently caused Rayla great interest, because she picked one up at once, revealing that they were sort of….thin, hollow metal poles with a string running through the middle, which meant as she picked up the first part a load of other sections trailed after it.

“Now that’s different.” She said, intrigued, and backed off to pull the thing out to its full length. Experimentally, she reached out and took two of the sections, pressing them together at the ends, and managed to slot the second into the first with very little difficulty. “Huh.”

“…Different to what?” Callum ventured to ask, made curious by her own clear fascination, and Ezran peered forwards to look at the trailing metal segments, backing away a little when Rayla matter-of-factly started slotting each section into the whole.

“To what I’m used to. These? Are tent poles. They make the sort of…bones of the tent. Hold the shape up. Moonshadow elves have ways of making things that retract and extend, so our tent poles just sort of collapsed into themselves when we packed them up – but this is a pretty good solution too.” She explained, working her way along the tent pole until she had a large and fairly solid-looking metal rod, maybe a centimetre wide at any given part, and lightly curved along its length. She set it down and picked up the next one, setting about assembling that one too.

“That’s neat.” Ezran said, clearly thriving with all of this exciting tent-construction going on in front of him. “Can I try?”

Rayla smiled at him, expression open and easy, and gestured at the poles still on the ground. “Feel free.”

After a moment of watching Ezran work at his, Callum knelt down to have a go on the fourth pole, which seemed to be the last. It was easy to slot the pieces into each other – the metal seemed slightly rusty at the edges of each section, and a bit dented in places, but in relatively good condition. The sections seemed to each have a deliberate curve to them, characterised by a mild bend in two places along each. “This is the last one, I think,” he said as he finished, setting it on the ground next to the others.

Rayla hummed thoughtfully and lined them up next to each other. There seemed to be two different lengths, with two being a fair bit longer than the other two. She bent and investigated the drawstring pouch next, opening it with interest, and grinned at what she found inside. “Now that’s good to see.” She said, pulling one of the items inside out. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking at. It didn’t seem like another tent pole – it was too short, maybe only a hand and a half in length, and hooked at the end.

“What is it?” Ez asked, and took it from her when she held it out for him, looking over it with interest. Most of its length seemed sort of dull, and even had a light layer of dry dirt on it in some places.

“Tent peg.” She answered, dropping the pouch lightly back on the ground. “Keeps the tent grounded if there’s wind, or if you’re on a slope, or loose earth. The tent probably has lines at the edges to put them through.” She picked up the big leather folded bundle now, and stepped back gratuitously, clearing a good amount of space before she started unfolding it.

It became very clear, very quickly, why the tent pack had been so heavy. The full unfolded thing was big, and vaguely rectangular – a good couple metres long on the longer sides, at least. Rayla straightened it all out and walked around it, kneeling to inspect and pull at certain parts, of which there were a lot. All around the edges there were leather loops, and there were reinforced leather strips hanging off in places too, each with their own loops on the end. In one section, there seemed to be a large semi-circular flap secured in place by a number of wooden toggles. And, peculiarly, there seemed to be…tubes, sort of, sewn all along the tent material, two running cross-wise from nearly corner to corner, and one each straight across the width near either end.

Callum bent down to poke his finger into one of them, peering at it. He inspected it for a second, then looked at the tent poles on the ground, and guessed “Are these for the poles?”

“Seems that way.” Rayla agreed, looking satisfied with the state of affairs. “Pass me a pole, would you? One of the longer ones.” Ezran pushed one of them over and Callum conveyed it to Rayla, who took one end and started pushing it carefully into one of the diagonally-running tubes, pausing occasionally to reach over and un-crease the leather, or get the pole unstuck. Once that one was done, she repeated the process with the other cross-ways pole, and then the two on either end of the tent.

“Now what?” Ezran inquired, fascinated, and Callum had to admit to being curious too. While the poles had been lightly curved, and they did arch the tent and give it very slight shape while flat on the ground, it still looked more like a flat rectangle of leather than an actual tent.

Rayla surveyed the shape of it thoughtfully, and beckoned Callum over. “I’ll need your help for this, I think. Grab the other end of this one, would you? And brace it against the ground.”

“Er.” He pressed the end of the tent pole uncertainly against the soil. “Like that?”

She sighed at him. “It’ll do. Just hold it steady while I try to-“ She braced her own end against the ground, and – he wasn’t completely sure what she did then, maybe pushed up on the pole? – but the whole thing sort of arched outwards in a way that seemed like it should have bent the pole horribly, in an astonishingly sudden movement.

“Whoa!” Ez said, flinching back reflexively. Callum, who was much closer to the tent, recoiled similarly, finding half of a tent structure suddenly up in front of him.

Rayla jumped clean over the tent to land next to Callum, showing him a part near the end of the pole which he apparently needed to – click in, or something? It took a surprising amount of force to get it to go, he really needed to push at it, but she seemed satisfied enough once he’d done it.

“Now the next one.” Rayla directed, pointing him over to the other diagonal pole, and he did as he was told. It did the outwards-contorting thing as readily as the first one, but unfortunately, Callum did not manage to secure the clicky-bit at the end properly and it collapsed a second later.

“Sorry!” He called, and she rolled her eyes.

“Just try it again.”

In the end, it took a few missteps and a bit of practice, but he and Rayla (mostly Rayla, really) got all four of the poles arching properly, and all at once their tent actually looked like a tent. It was surprisingly satisfying to stand back and look at it – Rayla was giving it an appraising once-over while Ezran scurried around inspecting every corner delightedly, like she was marking all the various dangly bits and the loops all over the bottom.

“What are you thinking?” He asked, curiously, and she snapped out of her briefly-held reverie.

“How the inner-tent is going to work, mostly.” She said, and then stepped around to where the front seemed to be, unhooking the several toggles around the edge that held the ‘door’ in place. “These are going to be a pain to hook up from inside.” She commented, as she went, the front ‘door’ of the tent flapping out limply onto the ground as she dropped it.

“I’ll…take your word for it.” Callum said, shuffling forwards to look as Rayla crouched and went into the tent.

“Huh.” She expressed, a second later, with a sort of bemused surprise, and he peered in at her.

“Is something wrong with it?” Ez asked immediately, waiting with bated breath. She looked out, an odd look on her face, and shook her head.

She ducked out of the tent and went to get the other material part, picking it up to inspect the edges. “No, nothing’s wrong.”

“Then why do you seem all…surprised?” Callum prodded, raising an eyebrow.

“Probably because I am, in fact, surprised.” She said, with a dry edge of sarcasm, and pulled the remaining bit of tent inside the main bit. “Give me a minute, will you?”

Callum shrugged. “O-kay.” He stepped over to Ez and sat down, watching with his brother as Rayla ducked around here and there inside the tent, seeming to….hang the inner bit around the insides of the outer bit? It definitely seemed to be suspended in there, somehow, maybe from some sort of hook or toggle?

Eventually, she seemed done, and ducked back out of the tent again, straightening up. She surveyed the whole thing from outside again, still with that strange look on her face, and then ducked in to open what was, apparently, a second door-flap on the inner part. That complete, she backed up, and planted herself on the ground next to Callum, staring into the interior of the tent with an almost comical nonplussed expression.

Ez leant forwards to look in, foot bouncing with excitement. “Is it done now?” He asked, eager. “Can I go in?”

“….Yeah. Yeah, it’s done.” Rayla confirmed after a minute, and shook her head slowly. “Just – if you’re going in, take your shoes off, alright? We don’t want to get our inner-tent all muddy.”

Ezran immediately set to work pulling off his shoes faster than Callum had ever seen him accomplish before, staggering into the tent with a hilarious amount of enthusiasm to sit inside, lay down, and roll around the interior with delight. Callum huffed with amusement, and then glanced at Rayla, who…still looked like she’d swallowed a lemon, or something.

He folded his arms. “Okay, what is with that look on your face? Does the tent smell bad or something?”

“Smells fine to me.” Ez reported happily from inside. Making a series of doubtful croaks, Bait hopped up to the tent and stared inside.

Rayla huffed, and shook her head again. “No. It’s just…a pretty decent tent. The poles work well, it’s got a full inner-tent instead of just a ground-sheet, it has storm-lines and a full set of pegs…it’s a good design.”

Callum blinked at her. “And…that’s surprising, why?”

She shrugged, looking vaguely sheepish; the first time he’d seen such an expression on her. “Suppose I just didn’t expect humans to make things as well as elves do.” She admitted, folding her own arms as if to defend herself from rebuttal.

Ezran poked his head out and offered her an unimpressed look. “Well, that’s not very nice.” He told her, though he sounded very mild about it.

“It’s…maybe true, though?” Rayla suggested, pulling one of her weapons from her side to demonstrate. It clicked out into blade-form with an easy motion. “See this? These are made magically. The blades are longer than should be able to fit in the handle, but they all fit together anyway. And you must have heard of Sunforged weaponry.”

Callum frowned. “I think so? Maybe?”

“Not me.” Ez reported, beckoning Bait towards him. After some very dubious looks, the glow toad obligingly hopped into the mouth of the tent, and then again into the internal section.

“Well, anyway…” Still looking somewhere on the verge of embarrassed, Rayla shrugged. “Humans definitely can’t use magic to make things, right? Unless it’s dark magic.” She scowled at that, as if newly reminded of how much she disliked the idea of it.

Callum narrowed his eyes at her, arms still firmly crossed. “Well, I bet you don’t make everything with magic, right? Are elf tents magical?”

“…Not that I know of.” She conceded, flipping her sword away.

“Then why shouldn’t humans be able to make non-magic things as well as elves?” He demanded, a little more insistently. He wasn’t…annoyed, exactly, but…it still felt important to point out. Defending the honour of his species, maybe.

She looked away. “…No reason, really.” She admitted, with a small sigh. “Guess humans aren’t the only ones who have wrong ideas about the other side.”

He eyed her, just a little suspiciously, but felt considerably mollified now that she’d admitted it. He let his arms drop, and offered a conciliatory smile. “Well, it’s a whole lot less insulting than thinking the other side drinks blood, so I can’t really hold it against you.”

She snorted with laughter, very abruptly, and the mild tension broke in a second. “Well, that’s certainly true.” She chuckled at that, and stood up, moving forwards to the tent. “So: I admit it. Humans can put a good tent together. This journey might not be so bad after all.” She looked in, and made a slight face. “…Though it is a tad small.”

Callum blinked, and shuffled over to poke his head in properly. With Ezran and Bait in there, it was easier to see that…yeah, actually, it was a bit cramped-looking. The tent seemed deceptively large on the outside, but that was just the outer-part. The inner section was quite a lot smaller. “…Eh, we’ll manage.” He predicted, semi-confidently. “Better than sleeping outside anyway. We get a lot of rain in Katolis in springtime. Storms, too.”

“A lot of storms.” Ezran emphasised, and he would know, given how thunder always woke him up.

“Believe me, I’ve noticed.” She stood to run a hand along the material of the outer tent. “This leather has been treated. Should be pretty good against rain. The inside…” She felt at that, now, looking uncertain.

Callum checked it himself. “Feels a bit like my travel cloak.” He said, after a moment. “It’s probably rain-resistant, at least.” He stepped back and inspected the whole of the tent critically. It looked….well, it looked like a tent. He wasn’t exactly an expert. But Rayla said it was a good tent, and she probably had a lot of experience with them at this point, so he was inclined to believe her. “What are those….long dangly strap things, all over it?” He asked, reaching out to flap one of them around. They were sewn, very firmly and securely, to near the roof of the tent, and seemed exceptionally long.

“Storm lines.” Rayla said, stepping over to point out the loop at the bottom end. “Extra place to put more tent pegs if it’s windy, basically ties the tent to the ground. Elves use ropes instead of these long straps. Makes it easier to repair if they break. But these are probably fine.” She then tutted, and went to gather the strap up, looping it in on itself and tying it quickly. “Whoever put this away last time was lazy. You’re meant to tie them up.”

Ezran poked his head out curiously. “Should we be using any of the pegs today? Or is it bad-weather only?”

“Usually a good idea to have a few in. Come on out and I’ll show you how you’re meant to do them.” She smiled at him, and he hurried to put on his shoes and come out for the demonstration. Callum watched with his own small smile as she walked Ez through the proper way to do it – at an angle, apparently, with the hook part of the peg kicked into the ground at the end. And all of this, done while still wearing her flower-crown.

She was good with Ez. Patient, happy to show him how to do things, seemed to like him. It went a long way towards warming him to her.

He watched as she tied up the storm-lines and Ez went around putting in every tent peg he could, full of eagerness for the novelty of it, and found himself feeling unusually optimistic about this whole trip. It was a long way, yeah, and would probably be stupidly hard at times, and maybe they’d all be grumpy whenever the weather was bad….and, yeah, Rayla was an elf, which would have been a deal-breaker a few days ago….but, all at once, he really felt like it could all work out. Like maybe they could take this long journey together and get the egg to Xadia without arguing every step of the way, or getting to hate each other, or getting completely sick of the whole thing.

Callum usually tended to overthink and worry too much about everything, so the sudden optimism was a nice change.

He reached up to absent-mindedly straighten his own flower crown, and went to go pull the rest of the bags over to the tent. He could be wrong, but he was fairly sure that the reasonably large space between the outer-tent and inner-tent would be a better place to keep them than by the river. Ez would probably take the egg inside the tent with him to sleep, anyway.

Though she’d been amused at Ezran’s enthusiasm for something as simple as assembling a tent, as the evening went on, Rayla couldn’t help but start to enjoy the process of camp-making herself. Maybe it was just because Ezran was so excited about all of it, or because it was obviously completely new to Callum too, but either way their simple enthusiasm was unexpectedly contagious. She couldn’t help but laugh as the two of them, plus Bait, crowded around the quickly-constructed campfire to watch her demonstrate the use of the spark-rocks.

Making a campfire wasn’t exactly difficult, when you were in a forest and it hadn’t rained for a couple of days. All she needed to do was gather up some twigs and dead leaves, and a few larger bits of rotten wood, and they were good to go. She built it closer to the river and a good distance from the tent through long experience – she’d been taught to never leave anything flammable that you didn’t mind catching fire within a few metres of a campfire, and intended to hold to that teaching.

The sun was dipping low now, with the sky bleeding the clouds into an attractive blend of pinks and pale yellows. And, as much as she hated water, she could appreciate the way the river reflected those colours as she bent over the firewood, spark-rocks in hand.

The first spray of sparks drew a chorus of appreciative ‘oooh’s from her human audience, and caught on one of the dry leaves. She struck them again, and once more for good measure, and then bent to gently breathe life into the fragile embers.

“And that’s all there is to it.” She announced, a little more grandly than was necessary, sitting back to gesture at the fire. “It’ll burn merrily once it takes off properly. We’ll keep adding wood, and that’s that.”

Ezran applauded politely, little hands clapping, and shuffled closer to the fire. “What happens if it rains?”

“Then you lose your fire. If there’s no shelter.” She smiled and went to go root about in the group’s bags while the princes watched the growing flames, picking out the bits she needed as she found them. Jar of greens, yes. Cooking pot, yes. Waterskin, also yes. She located the now-wilting cattails and brought those with her as well, balancing the lot on her arm as she walked back to rejoin the boys.

“Oh, the green stuff.” Ezran noted, blinking curiously up at her as she settled beside the fire, laying everything out, and uncapping the jar. “How are you going to cook it?”

“Just by boiling it, I’m afraid.” Rayla said, apologetically, and they both….didn’t seem to have that much reaction to that. Hm. Did they just….not have any experience with what was done to food to make it taste good? She had no idea how human princes grew up. “It’ll be a bit bland. No spices. But I found some rosemary at least, which’ll give a bit of flavour.”

“Well, at least it’s not more fruit.” Callum said pragmatically, shuffling over to inspect the various bits of greenery she extracted. It was a bit of an eclectic mix, admittedly. Burdock, chicory, cattails, sheep sorrel, and dandelion didn’t really share much of a taste profile other than ‘green’, or maybe ‘leafy’. Some of it was pretty bitter too, which didn’t help.

“I like fruit.” Ez said, frowning, and Callum shook his head at him.

“Fruit tastes good, but it doesn’t really fill you up that well. I’ve been feeling a bit weird after eating nothing but fruit for days.” He pointed out, reasonably, and Rayla glanced at him sharply.

“Weird?” She repeated, eyes narrowing, and stared at him expectantly. “Weird how?”

“Er.” He looked at her, taken-aback. “You know, sort of…jittery? Like when you’ve eaten nothing but sugar all day and you need to find a sandwich, or something.”

She filed away the word ‘sandwich’ to investigate later, and focused on the important thing, which was that she now had confirmation that humans probably weren’t meant to live on fruit alone. She’d guessed, based on how she knew humans ate meat and ‘bread’ and other non-fruit things, but it’s not like she had a lot of first-hand experience with humans. “…Right.” She frowned, and didn’t say anything more.

She considered whether she should say that, technically speaking, she had no idea if these plants she’d picked were edible for humans as well as elves.

…Probably the responsible thing to do. “I should probably mention.” Rayla said, indicating the plants. “These are all safe for elves to eat, but I don’t know if humans work the same. I think they should be fine, but…” She shrugged.

Callum and Ezran exchanged a vaguely alarmed look. “Uh.” Ez offered, a little nervously, and then didn’t seem to know what to say from there.

“…Maybe we should mainly just eat one of a thing each? So if something makes us sick we’ll know what it was.” Callum suggested after a moment, which was actually pretty sensible of him.

“Sounds good. You can start off eating a little bit and waiting a while to make sure, then have the rest of it?” She recalled her lessons on how to identify poisonous plants that she wasn’t familiar with. The basic principles probably still applied to humans.

“…Yeah, sure.” Ez said after a few moments, expression a little nonplussed, but relatively resolute. “What tastes best?”

“Probably the cattails?” Rayla said after a second’s pause, looking over the assemblage of plants. “They’re early growth, which means the heads taste a bit like corn.”

“Neat.” The little prince nodded. “I’ll have those then.”

“Er.” Callum glanced over the plants, then shrugged helplessly. “I’ll have the stuff with the little purple flowers, maybe?”

“Sheep sorrel.” She informed him, amused.

“Yeah, that.”

She inspected the state of the fire, and reached for the pot. “Alright then. Let’s do the cattails first. I think they take a bit longer.”

The daylight gradually ebbed away, leaving the campsite lit by nothing but the fire under the bubbling pot, and the light of the waning moon above. Ezran tried the cattail heads and pronounced them moderately tasty, and Callum made a face at his sorrel but ate it anyway. Half an hour later neither of them were vomiting or experiencing stomach aches, so she felt relatively safe giving them the rest of it.

It was…oddly nice. A friendly atmosphere. Less business-like and serious than she was used to from months of travel with fellow assassins. Though…maybe that wasn’t a good thing? Their mission was a serious one. They had to get the egg home, and stop an entire war. Maybe they should be as serious about everything as the assassins had been. She frowned, feeling oddly guilty for the levity of the camp, and not certain if the feeling was justified or not. Surely it didn’t do any harm to be cheerful – keep morale up?

She couldn’t help but wonder what Runaan would think, of all of this. Making camp with two human princes, testing out new plants on them and watching while they laughed and pelted each other with bits of grass whenever they got bored of waiting for the next batch of greens to boil. What would he think, to look at her here? Would he still call her a fool, for daring to trust them? For daring to think that maybe humans and elves could get along?

She couldn’t help but wonder what he’d think.

….She couldn’t help but wonder if he was alive to think anything at all.

You let him live, but you’ve killed us all, she remembered, and shivered, arms wrapping tightly around her sides.

“Rayla?”

Her head jerked upwards in the direction of her name, and she blinked at – Callum, right. “Oh, er, yeah?” She attempted, in some small hope of disguising that she’d been utterly lost in not-particularly-happy thoughts.

No such luck. “Are you okay?” He asked, his expression all occupied with that sort of…friendly concern again, like when she’d been having a distinctly unpleasant time on the river.

She offered a half-smile to placate him. “Yeah. Just thinking. Nothing important.” She said, and looked up at the dark sky full of stars. “…When is it humans usually go to bed, anyway?” She added after a moment, in a not very subtle effort to change the subject.

Callum looked up at the sky as well, and shrugged. “Ez usually goes to sleep about eight. Me, it depends, but later. I have no idea what time it is now though, but I could probably get to sleep.”

“I’m not tired.” Ezran said promptly, a statement somewhat undermined by the yawn he produced a mere second later. Callum huffed with laughter, and reached out to pat him on the shoulder.

“Sure you’re not, Ez. That must have been a yawn of awakeness and energyhood, right?”

Ezran opened his mouth to answer, but it turned into another yawn.

Rayla’s lips quirked, and she glanced up at the position of the moon, feeling its progression through the sky as keenly as she might the wind on her skin. “It’s somewhere between eight and nine now, if that helps.” She offered.

Callum ruffled his brother’s hair sympathetically. “Bedtime, bud. Come on, you’ll get to sleep in the tent, right?”

That did brighten the boy’s face, and he nodded contemplatively. “That is very tempting.” He admitted.

“Let’s go get set up, then.” Callum stood, helping his brother to his feet, and looked down at her a second later. “…Rayla? Will you be staying up, or…?”

She stared up at him for a few seconds, and slumped. “Actually, I’m exhausted. I didn’t exactly get a full night of sleep, if you remember.”

“I did wonder.” He smiled lopsidedly, and held out his hand to her. She stared at it for a second, then reached out and took it, allowing him to pull her upwards to standing.

“We can use the cloaks as bedrolls, now. It’ll make the ground a bit more comfortable.” She offered, leaving the fire smouldering lowly behind them as she walked in-step with the two princes, Bait hanging from Ezran’s arms.

“Sounds good to me.” Callum inspected the open front of the tent, squinting at the toggles. Was it too dark for him to see, this far from the fire. “So what, we close the outer door-thing first?”

“Once you’re inside the tent, yes.” Rayla agreed dryly, and turned to sit inside the inner-tent with her feet out, to take off her boots. Ezran flopped down beside her to do the same, and for the first time, she started to feel a bit weird about all of this. She’d got so used to having her own tent to sleep in, and have at least a hint of privacy in, and that…just was not going to be a thing, here.

Attempting not to show any sign of the mild discomfort that prickled at her neck, Rayla set her boots next to her bag, in the between-section of the tent, and then untied the cloak to set about assembling her sleeping space.

Then she paused. “Who’s sleeping where?” She questioned, and both boys stopped where they’d been divesting themselves of footwear.

“Er.” Callum said, intelligently.

“Depends on if you’d rather get kicked or talked at.” Ezran told her, cheerful, and laughed at whatever it was her face did in response. “I move about a lot in my sleep. Or Callum says so anyway.”

“Ezran has a talent for kicking me in the shins when he’s sleeping.” Callum nodded, solemnly. “Or sometimes slapping me in the face. That’s happened too.”

Rayla stared, increasingly discouraged. “Erm….”

“And Callum sleep-talks sometimes, but he doesn’t kick so much.” Ez added.

Slowly, she brought up a hand to rub at her forehead, unsure whether the incipient headache was from tiredness or the sudden discomfort of thinking about sleeping arrangements. “…Ugh, whatever, Callum in the middle then.” She sighed, and pulled out her appropriated fur cloak to the right side of the tent.

Ez pulled in his own makeshift bedroll, and Bait, and also the egg of the Dragon Prince. Its glow was more noticeable than usual, in the dark of the tent.

“Your shins will probably thank you for that decision.” Callum said, amused, and shuffled into the tent as well, rolled-up cloak behind him. “Er, do I shut the tent now?”

Rayla sighed again. “That would probably be a good idea, yes.”

All told, it took a good ten minutes of shuffling about and arranging things and closing tent-doors before Rayla could finally think about attempting to sleep, and even then…

Ezran flopped down facing his side of the tent without any apparent care in the world, an arm slung around the incredibly precious dragon egg as if it were a cuddly toy, and Bait settled near his head. Callum didn’t seem to have any compunctions about being squashed up against his brother in the middle either, but-

The tent was small for three. It was very small. They weren’t completely squished in, maybe, but when Rayla finally got herself to lay down – well, her shoulder was brushing Callum’s, and…it was weird. It was weird, and new, and uncomfortable, and she didn’t have her own space and she had no experience whatsoever with being up in other peoples’ space like this, and it was making her skin half-crawl with nerves.

“Night, guys.” Ezran announced, clearly with no compunctions about the close quarters at all, and sounding downright cheery.

Callum…well, he didn’t look as uncomfortable as Rayla felt, but he didn’t look completely relaxed either. His eyes flickered over to her a couple of times, and she was abruptly aware that her own eyes would be visible to him in the dark even if nothing else was, so she turned away on her side and tried not to feel so unreasonably bothered about the sudden proximity.

She lay there, tense, face pressed close to the fabric of the inner-tent, and exhaled slowly. She could feel the light pressure of Callum’s clothing brushing against the shoulders of her own. She could hear the breathing of other people, close to her. When they shuffled and shifted, the fabric of the tent shifted as well, and she felt – directly or indirectly – every small movement they made. She was so, so intensely not used to this. How did people ever share beds without waking up every time the other person moved? Didn’t they feel uncomfortable, sleeping that close to other people? Was it just a matter of getting used to it, like Callum and Ezran seemed to have done?

Moon and stars, but she hoped it was just a matter of getting used to it.

She stayed on her side, still and quiet, and tried to relax. She heard the shift in breathing when Ezran fell asleep, soonest of any of them. She heard the same shift, ten or so minutes later, when Callum relaxed into sleep.

It took her quite a bit longer to manage the same.

  Gren breathed, careful and slow, to keep his composure where it belonged. Even though he was horrified, too. Even though he was upset, and angry, and wished that there weren’t other people around that he had to keep a level face for. He had a job to do. And he would do it.

They hadn’t expected the contents of the letter. They’d been wary of the delay, having expected a missive from the detached forces reporting the arrival of the princes a half-day ago. But they hadn’t expected the message that had come instead. They would never have expected something like that. They couldn’t have.

General Amaya had barely finished sitting the vigil for King Harrow when it came. The loss of a King – a step-brother – was bad enough, but this? He could only imagine how she was feeling.

She’d taken the letter into the command tent, Gren at her side as always. He’d watched her break the seal, unroll it, watched her eyes run over the text. Watched her go pale, hands trembling, eyes widening, face emptying of blood at shocking speed. He’d been signing a question before she even finished the letter, but she hadn’t answered. Not then.

No, she hadn’t answered.

The contents of the command tent had been quite thoroughly wrecked in the outburst the letter had incited. She’d screamed, full of rage and grief and awful despair. He’d never heard her scream before. She hardly ever made any sound louder than a huff of breath – but under the circumstances, he understood the exception. She’d crumpled the letter in her hand enough that it had been hard to read, when she finally passed it over. Her fingernails had dug into her palms hard enough to draw blood, staining the paper with the blood its words carried.

King Harrow was dead. And now….now, it seemed like the princes were, too. Those sweet boys, always so happy to see their aunt, and so kind to Gren, too. They were so young. They didn’t deserve this.

When the letter first came, there might have been some shred of hope remaining. Some hope that the presence of the assassin didn’t necessarily equate to the deaths of the princes. But then the second report had come, solemnly confirming that the boys had still not arrived at the lodge, and were assumed killed.

They didn’t deserve this, he thought again, bitterly, harsh upset rising like acid in his throat at the thought. They were just kids. Lord and Lady, they were just kids.

Still, though, he breathed. He kept his composure. He relayed General Amaya’s orders with every edge of anger and vengefulness that the tense movements of her hands and the storm on her face belied.

They were just kids.

Where were they now? What had the assassin done with them? Had she thrown their bodies off the battlements, to be swallowed by the river? Had she done worse?

“Captain Fen and his unit are ordered to return to the Breach at once. A crow will be sent ordering a reinforcement of the border guard, with additional patrols to be held along the regions where elves are suspected to cross over from Xadia. It is absolutely imperative that the border hold.”

Fen knew enough sign that he probably didn’t need the benefit of Gren’s interpreting. It was a boon for his soldiers, though, who all snapped to attention with the order.

He glanced back at the General every second, well-accustomed to his work, but couldn’t help but hurt at the sight of her face. She often looked determined, yes, and sometimes frustrated, and frequently there was an indomitable sense of will to her that heralded nothing but misfortune for anything that stood in her way. The look on her face now…it was a little like that, but twisted, transformed from inspiring to a tragedy. Her lips turned sharply downwards, pain and fury living in every inch of her, burning out of every movement she made. It was awful to look at.

“Corvus,” Gren said, with the same abrupt and commanding clip to his voice that the General’s sign had. He straightened attentively at the sound and sight of his name, watching intently for orders. “You will ride out ahead of us and proceed as quickly as possible to the last known location of the assassin. If she went to such trouble to steal a boat, she’ll be taking the river, but she can’t hope to take it through Kalsanis without being seen. Find where she moors, and track her from there.”

Corvus bowed his head, face solemn and dark. “I hear and obey, General. I will find her.”

Amaya nodded, sharply, and resumed speaking.

“I know that you will. And when you do, you’ll secure her, and bring her to me.” Gren suppressed a shiver at the look on his General’s face, but didn’t miss a beat. “Ultimately, your priority is to bring her to justice. If you feel you’ll be unable to hold her for long enough, then do what you can to find out what she did to Prince Callum and Prince Ezran, and where she left their bodies, and execute her immediately thereafter. I’ll settle for her corpse if I can’t have her alive.”

“I understand.”

“You’ll send reports as often as you can. I want to know where she’s been and where she’s going. If you lose the trail, you’ll report that too.”

“Of course.”

Amaya exhaled, very slightly, and nodded again. Her next words were signed a little more slowly, with a bit less vicious energy. “I’m trusting you with this, Corvus. You’re the best tracker in the kingdom, and if you can’t find her, I expect you to tell me in time to arrange alternatives.” She waited for his acknowledgement, and finished. “Go. All of you. I’ll have written copies of your orders sent out by dawn.”

Corvus saluted, and so did Captain Fen, and all the lines of soldiers in his unit. General Amaya didn’t stay to see them leave, but whirled on her feet and swept back into the command tent like a hurricane. Gren followed hastily in her wake, sweeping the front aside.

Unlike the loosely wedge-shaped tents assigned to the infantry, the command tent was propped up on all sides, tall enough to stand in. It took a fair bit of assembly, but it was what was afforded the most renowned General in all the Pentarchy.

It was a space that afforded her the loss of her composure.

She collapsed to her knees on the ground and, with hissing, uneven gasps of breath, drove her fist into the earth with an awful, inconsolable force of grief. He hesitated, uncertain what to do, and stepped forward. It was his privilege and his responsibility to remain by her side.

Her face had changed, now. Still angry. Still at the mercy of unrelenting grief. But the expression had fallen open, vulnerable, teetering on the edge of despair.

When her hands moved, they were trembling. “Her boys,” She said, lips pressed tightly together as though to retain some vestige of composure, and he watched her speak in silence. “My nephews. They’re gone.”

He couldn’t help but react to the force of that grief. His shoulders shook as he signed back to her. “I’m so sorry. They were such good boys. They didn’t deserve this.”

Her teeth clenched along with her fists, that terrible fury running wild on her face. “They’d done nothing wrong. Nothing to deserve dying. Harrow, I could understand, but the boys – I can never forgive it. Never, never, never.” She signed this last word three times, increasingly agitated, increasingly vehement, rage bubbling up in every movement.

He bowed his head. There wasn’t a lot he could say that wouldn’t be meaningless.

When she resumed speaking, it was slower. Almost ponderous. He might have thought her calm if not for the black, vengeful hate that was growing on her face, second by second.

“If I have to die to see it done, I’ll catch that vile murderess. Even if I have to follow her to the heart of Xadia, you understand?”

Silent, he signed back: “yes.” He understood. He didn’t know that these were deaths she could survive, without revenge and justice to soothe the void they left. Her family was gone, her family on whose behalf she’d fought so fiercely all these years. Her defence of the kingdom had been unwavering, unfaltering, and her renown had grown with every year. But he knew where that strength had been anchored. He feared what would become of her, now that she was cast adrift.

He watched her as she scowled, eyes staring off somewhere far beyond and removed from the edge of the tent, as if searching for the elven murderer already.

Gren couldn’t even pity the monster, not really. Not given what she’d taken. But he could recognise, grimly, that there was no force in the world that he believed capable of holding General Amaya from her justice now….and that if it were him, fleeing an Amaya driven to this extremity of rage? He’d probably just kill himself and be done with it, rather than suffer finding out what she’d take as the blood-price for the princes’ deaths.

He couldn’t find it in him to pity the assassin for what was coming to her.

But he could regret, deeply and truly, how much this loss would hurt Amaya.

  End chapter.

Notes:

This chapter takes place on 14.05, day 4 since start of canon. Subtract two days to determine how long the kids have been travelling.

Key canon divergences: Amaya is now quite sure that her nephews are dead, and is on a mission of revenge.

On camping: Look, I recognise I dedicated a whole lot of words to tent-assembly this chapter, but like…while future tent-assembly will be considerably less gratuitously described, if you’re not a fan of reading about the kids going about camping/travelling adventures and misadventures, you may have the wrong fanfiction. I’ve been feeling super nostalgic about my own long-haul hiking experiences lately, and by god I’m going to express it.

I’m going to wipe my trekking experience all over this fanfiction, and none of you can stop me.

On the tent: I’m writing their tent as being functionally the same as the tents my trek group used, which were explicitly designed for harsh weather and temperature conditions and terrain, and in its general shape was reasonably similar to the Moonshadow elf tents. The materials are different and I made the tent poles work differently too (mine aren’t bent along the shape, they just….are weirdly flexible), but honestly there’s so much variance in how tent poles work that I don’t really care much about the details there. The main points are: this tent is going to be a fair bit heavier and somewhat less waterproof than a modern tent would be.

On sleeping arrangements: Rayla is not comfortable. She is not comfortable at all. I’m going to have a great time with the progression of her sleeping situation throughout this fanfiction. Callum and Ezran, who are heavy sleepers, will be mostly oblivious to her plight.

Afterword: Chapter 6 is about 30-50% done at this point! I’ve actually written a fair bit the last few days but it’s mainly been far-future scenes, so I am running out of chronologically-arranged prewritten content here.

If you’ve read and at least somewhat enjoyed this, please show it by boosting my story stats in some way. The anxiety when new chapters go up is intense, and good reception of the chapter can mean the difference between me writing 4k the next day or not managing to write anything at all.

#tdp #tdp fic #rayllum #tdp rayla #tdp callum #tdp ezran #piaj #piaj chapters

[survivor-socotra]

RITES OF PASSAGE || JURY

Augusto

You know, I had a pretty wild story this season. At the beginning, it seemed less like “Battle of the Seasons” and more like Battle Against My Season... and that was hard to deal with because I love and miss my Great Lakers! That being said, being able to survive as the only person from that tribe from final 21 to the final 12 was something I never imagined myself doing. To add to that, fate was what got me out and that’s kinda poetic. All in all, I loved this experience for all it was worth and especially my fellow players who allowed me to get as far as I did

Connor 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mJXhEeWhI4

Katie

Can I get a waffle? Can I please get a waffle?

Zach

i love u so much. You were one of my favourite people and i actually was devastated because i was looking forward to playing this game with you, and i’m sorry that my indecisiveness ended your game ASKGLDSGS. We had so many fun moments and considering u were lonely without any of your tribe so for long is a testament to how good u are at this game!! Hope to talk to u after this game x

Ryan

AHHH KING! You and Sam were the people I really wanted to work with the most in this game. Losing you to rocks was so fucking terrible and I can’t believe that is how it ended for you.

Samantha

This game was pretty awesome. I’m always ready to come back for anything related to Tonga. I definitely stumbled my through this entire game but I enjoyed about 80% of it.

Connor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtO6AQ9SI70

Katie

"Hey Tara you want some?" "This b*%th empty. YEET!"

Zach

we didn’t really get the chance to talk much because of tribal lines and just being on different sides, but you are such a sweet person and i have enjoyed our talks!! I hope life is going well, and i wish we could’ve had more of a chance to work together <3

Ryan

QUEEN! God I really wanted to stick with you and Augusto late into this game. I was so confused when they voted you out. We lived through the destruction of our alliance after Adam left because of that snake Michael. Honestly though you’re so fucking good and such an icon that losing you early meant someone else could actually win

Tyler

had a hoot of a time, tragic that i didnt get more time to be a dramatic bitch but what can you do! Thanks everyone for being so fun and the hosts for being grand!

Connor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kT3OQwyvKmk

Katie

What the fuck, is this allowed?, what the fuck is that allowed?!

Zach

i am so sorry that i got crazy (like always) but i just wanna say that you are such a pleasure to talk to and i love u so much. We played a lot of this game together but i just felt like you were too threatenin for my game moving forward and i 100% assume if you did not leave that vote, you would’ve made final five easily. Nonetheless, it was great gettin to play with you again, and you are a brilliant player. Nothin but love n respect x

Ryan

Ahhhhh the flirt of the season. Our conversations were always at least a little interesting. You would have been a killer social threat at the end of the game and you needed to go. Also the first Kuang Si to go, so like, icon.

Ian

My premerge game vs my merge game:

I had a good time playing with you all and my downfall was my arrogance and looking to far ahead while not paying attention to the current round enough. I threw away my idol because I was confident I could win without advantages,  I was obviously wrong! Good game all, Battle of the Seasons was a blast!

Connor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHLHSlExFis

Katie

My favorite screamo band is probably Big Time Rush.

Zach

ian, my man. Ew i said man aJSGDSGK. You know that you are one of my best pals in this community and that i love u with all my heart and enjoy playing with you. You are such a phenomenal player, with a great sense of humour and honestly you’re just so easy to talk to. I made you a promise the day before your vote off that the only way i’m writing your name down was to win, and i stuck to that. Losing u was so sad, though could’ve been good for my game to SOME degree, it was so sucky cause i was wanting to go to the end with you. It was,,, devastating. I’m sorry that happened, i hope we talk when this game is over, and most importantly of all; he has class, he give sass, but most importantly he scream at own ass

Ryan

Hello friend. We didn’t get to talk a lot, and the way merged played out meant that we didn’t really work together either...i would have been into a you/me/sam alliance but then you took her out and i couldnt let you take out my queen like that

Michael

Tumblr Survivor: Socotra was unlike anything else i've done, i enjoyed every second of it. Coming in to it i had resigned myself to the fact i could be an early out but i made it 2/3 of the way through and 8/24 and half bad, i may not have won again but i'm finally on jury duty and i had fun i really couldn't have asked for a better outcome

Connor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3K0RzZGpyds

Katie

So you just gonna bring me a birthday gift on my birthday to my

Zach

u are such a blast to play with because each game is such a different experience. In LV, we weren’t the greatest allies and u wanted me DEAD. in this game we were on the same side and it was such a joy talking to you. Though there might be bitterness because of my craziness and ultimately me leading to the demise of our entire side, i hope you know that it was all for game and that i still hope we remain friends once over x love u lots michael

Ryan

AHHHHHHH i love this man. Honestly I have so much respect for you. Games aren’t fun unless you have an enemy and you were a really fun one to have. You made it difficult for me to get where I got in the game so thank you lmfao

Devon

This game was fun and I really had a fun time with my time omg he game. With a cast as huge as this to get 7th was something I was not expecting. I did a lot of things outside my comfort zone and I have no regrets. This will be a game I remember for a long time.

Connor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga94wVeFBac

Katie

It's a avocadooo...thanks

Zach

honestly it is shocking (in a good way) that we went from lackin convos in kuang si to being non messy kweens who flipped every other round AJSGKDSG. You are such a genuine person and i enjoyed gettin to know u even more and everything. You were a frontrunner to win this game, and though i had like 0 influence over your vote, i think it was somethin that had to be done in order to give me my best shot of winning. But, thank you for makin this experience so much more enjoyable. Ur a lovely person xo

Ryan

Ahhhhh my dad! What a strategic fucking threat huh. Thank you for flipping on your alliance twice. Also grad school is fucking hard and i hate it

Jessica

My biggest move in the game was making an alliance based on salsa preferences and it lasted until the f6. My worst move in the game was caring for 1 second because once I put in more than 50% effort I went home. This just shows kids: never try at anything it’s always a mistake

Connor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjuftKz5ebU

Katie

I love you bitch ... I aint never gonna stop loving you ... bitch

Zach

jessica omg. We started talkin so early in this game and i felt like our connection was my favourite of my new connections and i just enjoyed your presence so ducking much. We’d call so much and just laugh and be on the same page about everything and it was honestly a big help in this game both strategically and mentally. U know how much i appreciate you and respect you as a person/player, and i hope we get to continue our friendship outside the game because i do love u sm. Im sorry about voting u. I thought, on paper, that you were the only person who could probably easily beat me. I might still lose like against anyone ASKGDSG iconic.. But as i said, that was on paper, and i also know that if u had to leave, i wanted it to be iconic n fun, and that’s why i pushed for u to leave w oakleys idol. pls still eat medium salsa ):

Ryan

Here is a link to your favorite song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJebcTXdu7o

Oakley

My second go around I wanted to prove to myself that I could play more rationally and prove that I had more fight and passion to win. And I do know I accomplished both of those goals because I was targeted to leave a lot of the game and I kept fighting to stay alive and made finale in a 24 person season. I couldn't be more proud of what I achieved in this game.

Connor

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRhOJe_7kuI

Katie

"I brought you Frankincense" "Thank you" "I brought you Myrrh" "Thank you" "Mur-dur" "huh...Judas..no"

Zach

OAKLEY. CHOAKLEY? Either or. I love u and we became such a fun duo after ian’s vote and i played this game closely with you since very early on, despite voting differently sometimes… it was so fun callin u like every 2 days just to be like ‘this game sucks’, ‘we’re gonn have fun on jury’, ‘did u call me a rAT????’ ASGKDSGLDS. Ugh, i love u and im glad to have finally played with you after havin a great time hostin u in mykonos. Losin u at f5 was honestly sad because i was with a trio who hated fem gays ): loves u

Ryan

AHHHH MY DYNAMIC DUO! You played a hell of a fucking game and I am so glad I made a friend in you this game. I remember hearing rumors about how good you were at this game and i really saw it with my own two eyes this time around. Never stop being a unicorn. <3

#fearkeepsyousharp