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I totally forgot to include Iximaz! I'm really sorry Ix. I was going through the posts of people who said they played Magic down in the shipfic permissions thread, and I just missed yours!

Unfortunately, I'm not sure what to do, other than tack "and Iximaz was there" onto the story at the relevant points, which is a bit... awkward. Uh.

If anyone else wants to do this properly, feel free.

“Hey, guys!” cried Thoth, walking into the lounge. “Check this out!” He set down the large cardboard box he was carrying on a table. “I have new boosters!”

Phobos ambled over from a nearby table. “Oh? What set?”

“That’s the best part.” Thoth grinned. “These are from Unrealized. It’s an un-set consisting of cards that don’t exist. I got DoSAT to pull it over from like six different alternate realities. It’s gonna be sweet!”

“That actually does sound pretty interesting.” Phobos said. He sat down. “Wanna play draft?”

“That was the plan,” said Thoth. He looked around the lounge. “Granz, you play Magic, right? Are you in?”

The other boarder shrugged, pulling up a chair to the table. “Sure!” He looked around the lounge. “Is anyone else gonna play?”

“Actually, I might.” Another player strolled over.

Thoth wrinkled his brow. “Uh… who are you?”

“Thoth, that’s AC.” Granz said. “Oh… I guess you two haven’t really met, have you…”

“Oh, AC!” Thoth looked down. “Sorry I didn’t recognize you…”

AC gave a genial shrug. “It’s fine. Anyways, let’s get this started! Pass me a booster, would ya?”

~~

It was a tight game. Down to the last round. Phobos was in the lead on lifecount, but there wasn’t a man who had 5 life left. And it was Granz’s turn. He blushed, his tone extremely apologetic. “I’m… really sorry about this… but I don’t know what else to play…”

Thoth looked at him. “Whatever, man! It’s fine! What’s the issue?”

Granz just blushed harder. “Do you mind if things get a bit… Not Safe For Work around here?”

The table was dead silent for a moment.

“Uh… I’m cool with that,” said AC. “Assuming nobody else minds…”

Thoth did his best to conceal a mischievous grin. “Weelll… I’m certainly not complaining…”

Phobos shrugged. “Why not? It’s shipfest, after all…”

At the other players approval, Granz regained a bit of his composure. “Well then,” he said, his voice taking on a silky, smooth tone. He was clearly savouring the moment as he tapped the last of his lands. “I summon…” He played his card, and everyone crowded in to get a proper look.

Daring Incubus {2RR}
Creature-Animal of Desire
When Incubus is summoned, all other players must perform a sexual act with the player who summoned Incubus, or lose five life.
“You dare to summon me? Well then… I’ll be sure to make it worth your while…”
2/2

For a moment, there was dead silence around the table. Then Phobos broke it. “Well… this will be interesting…”

AC just glanced around the table eagerly.

“So,” said Thoth, not even bothering to conceal his grin. “Who starts?”

And trade school isn't college. You aren't going to be getting white-collar jobs without more than an HS education, and the entry-level service industry treats its workers notoriously bad.

Yeah, you got it down perfectly. And I'm glad to see that Shipfest!Thoth continues to refuse to admit that he enjoyed himself. Which he did. Profusely. He can't fool me, I'm him.

Also, I am really glad you enjoyed my weird ship that I wrote while exhausted, and under the influence of having been reading Homestuck. Seriously, there is WAY too much Homestuck in existence. And Andrew seems to have kept the pacing of a Quest even when it stopped being one.

At his face, Doc definitely presents as the type of character Magic would portray as blue. But I tried to look at him the way you looked at those Avengers, by motivation rather than by attributes. He's not reading to gain knowledge, but to be better at his job, and because he enjoys it to nearly unhealthy levels.

—doctorlit only has the "unhealthy levels" part, of course

... eh, sure, why not? ^_~

(At which point there'll only be, what, 13 to go to get the full set? I'm sure you can do it! I believe in you!)

hS

I officially laughed out loud like a total dork at "But I See No Ships," because dammit, I should have seen that coming and it is so perfect yes. And then again at "deeper, throatier, and sexier, while also remaining exactly the same," because it makes no sense out of context, but if you've heard the voice, then you know this, too, is perfect.

And now, I must add the epilogue:

~~

Some time later, Neshomeh made her way to Rudi's, walking stiffly but humming with satisfaction. She recognized the cluster of Boarders already present and ambled over to join them.

"Primarch?" she asked, connecting the dots.

"Primarch," groaned Thoth and 'Plith.

"Primarch!" chirped Calliope. "Which one did you get?"

"Lord Dorn," Neshomeh bragged, sitting across from Cal at the chessboard. "He is Adorable!"

"Ooh!"

Thoth and 'Plith groaned some more and tried not to listen to the gratuitously gleeful swapping of experiences that followed.

~~

I had to. ^_^

Thank you, Thoth, for making this utterly bizarre and fun series a thing and letting me join in.

Just so y'all know, I might do one with hS and Fulgrim. Because hS is an elf and therefore the prettiest, and of course Fulgrim must have the prettiest for himself.

~Neshomeh

*adds tongue-kissing to Thorik ship checklist* *but like, properly, though* {; P

Neshomeh had spent a long day in the archives. The shipfest was on, yeah, but, for the time being at least, she seemed to be out of its focus. As such, she was taking the opportunity to catch up on work. Like organizing the archives. And writing missions. And writing interludes that would be unpublishable until after the missions were published, when the missions wouldn’t be published until after she’d written them, which she hadn’t done, because she was too busy writing interludes.

Oh, and there was poetry and music writing mixed in as well. And all kinds of other work.

Eventually, all of this writing would get into the hands of her eager readers. And she was working furiously on it. It’s just that there was so much of it to work on all at once, and it seemed like everything took forever to get done.

But there were bright sides. It could be worse: at least she wasn’t like Thoth. That kid never seemed to even get started on anything of consequence.

Anyways, yes. She was making use of the downtime quite adequately. She’d even found another way to make more people think about Thoth (the agent) and Derik kissing passionately as they solemnly professed their love to one another. Nevermind how it was possible to confess love when your mouth was full of someone else’s tongue. There was enough impossible, unlikely, or just not-happening-in-this-timeline things happening in that scene that one more couldn’t hurt. This sort of thing was more Thoth’s game than hers, but she enjoyed it nonetheless. Besides, at least she didn’t tease the ship in the middle of other stories where it didn’t even make sense to do so.

The point was, she certainly wasn’t looking for any crazy shipfest shenanigans. As such, the Ironic Overpower would no doubt ensure shipfest shenanigans would come knocking.

There was a knock at the door. Apparently, the Ironic Overpower wasn’t feeling particularly subtle.

Neshomeh sighed, putting away her pen, and went to open it. “Who is-” She paused, gaping at the exceedingly large, exceedingly yellow figure before her.

“Greetings.” said the man, his voice oddly… flat? It was hard to say. “I Am Rogal Dorn.”

Nesh shook her head rapidly clear it. “The primarch… right. Come in, please.”

The giant entered the room, taking a seat upon the floor. “I Appreciate You Allowing Me To Enter Your Domicile, Mortal.”

“You’re… welcome?” The formal speech threw the boarder slightly off-kilter, although it was easy for her to decipher it. “So why are you here?”

“I Have Come To Participate In This Festival Of Ships. But I See No Ships. Only People.”

Nesh gave a small laugh. This was definitely TTS!Dorn. “Ah… wrong sort of ship… this is a festival for… relationships.” Having grown more comfortable, she took in her visitor more fully. His yellow robe did little to hide the strength of his enormous frame. His close-cut grey hair nicely emphasized the definition of his face. And his moustache… Well, it was a very sexy moustache. Very sexy. Nesh didn’t think Dorn was supposed to have a moustache, but if the moustache was going to be this sexy, she didn’t mind.

“I See. Would You Like To Partake In A Relationship With Me?” Dorn’s monotone made it hard to make out the question, but it was there.

“I’m sorry… what?” Nesh blinked. “Why?”

“This Is A Relationship Festival.” Dorn’s monotone become noticeably deeper, throatier, and sexier, while also remaining exactly the same. “And You Have Caused Me To Become Extremely Aroused.”

Nesh smiled, maneuvering herself onto Dorn’s lap. “Well… I suppose it could be enjoyable to have some fun with you…”

“I Agree That Copulation May Provide Mutual Pleasure.”

“Mmm…” Nesh moved her hand up Dorn’s body to caress his moustache. His sexy, sexy moustache. “And where do you think that we should start, Lord Dorn?”

“Please.” Dorn moved in and kissed the eager boarder, square on the lips. He spoke in a whispered monotone. “Call me… Adorable.”

--

You probably will not understand like 60% of this if you haven't seen Rogal Dorn on If The Emperor Had A Text-To-Speech Device. If you have, then you're probably already hearing all the dialogue in his voice. Don't lie. :-P

The only other thing I'm gonna say is that this was stupidly fun to write. Seriously, this might be the most fun I've had all 'fest. Just maybe.

I actually envisioned 30k!Magnus while writing it, but I wasn't properly doing the character at all (partly on purpose because shipfest, partly because it's been awhile). TTS!Magnus fits really well. So this is probably TTS!30k!Magnus. No wings, sorry. :-(

Also, that envisioning is funny. So I'll see if the lightning strikes on writing something worthwhile off it...

I feel like this is definitely TTS!Magnus; I read all his dialogue in that voice, and it worked beautifully. If that's the case, I am extremely jealous of Cal getting to pet his pretty wings.

... I also kinda want in on the Primarch shenanigans? As I started writing this, I didn't think I had a preference, but then I realized I could absolutely see TTS!Dorn being like "I, too, wish to have a shipfic like Magnus', Father," and that amuses me. *g* So that's my request, should anyone feel moved to accept it. Agent!Neshomeh is likely to be found in a small office in the PPC Archives.

~Neshomeh

Character analysis is a hobby of mine, and I spend a fair bit of time thinking about it. That's why this article was so in-depth. I was also writing this for over a month because it was schuled for Feb 15, but got pushed back for a different article. Anyway, let's take a look at what you've got.

I'm kind of surprised that there is not Blue in Doc's colors. Maybe it is just a difference of perspective, I don't know. It's just a color I would associate with you and, by extension, Doc.

I do like your analysis of White in Doc's first paragraph. It seems to be a kind of self-sacrificing thing, and that fits very nicely into White, which believes that the individual is less important than the cause (the animals at the zoo, in your case).

I like that you gave Vania a splash color in Blue. Not all colors need to be fully realized in a character at all times. As a card, Vania would probably be White/Red nine times out of ten. But every once in a while she might be all three, or even White/Blue.

I'm really impressed by your analysis of Paul, in particular. You've really put a lot of thought into why he does what he does. Maybe because you felt no one would know who he was, so you had to go the extra mile? From your descriptions I get a very good idea of who this character is, and totally agree with your color choices. He reminds me of a guy from Season 1 of the Pokemon Anime. The guy with the "gym" where he was training his Sandshrew.

Anyway, I think you have done an excellent job with all three of these characters.

-Phobos

Sorry, I've been working on my new article for a bit, and this got away from me. Let's take a look at what you've got.

Your description of Richard definitely reads as White/Blue. I will say that if he longs to be Chaotic Good, he's a long way off at Lawful Neutral. Needs more of that Red to come out, I think.

White/Black is one of my favorite color combinations, because of all of the enemy color pairs I feel like Black and White are the furthest apart, as far as philosophy goes. That makes White/Black characters have to be a bit deeper to justify themselves.

All in all, I think you've got this down. Well done.

-Phobos

They are so cute. ;a; And it's a very good portrayal of what it's like to live in a badfic (or at least with a very Sue-y character dominating things).

+I would request that you open the door for me.+

Calliope looked up. “Who said that?”

+If you open the door, you’ll find out. I don’t bite…+

Cal opened the door hesitantly. The man behind it was enormous, to say the least. He was dressed simply in a plain white robe, which only drew more attention to his most striking aspect: his skin was a bright red. Furthermore, one eye was missing. There wasn’t an empty socket. It simply… wasn’t there. She nodded slowly. “Magnus the Red, I presume.”

The man nodded, strolling into the RC. “Astute. Although not terribly so. At least you have some measure of learning.”

Cal gave a customary smile. “Well, then, Magnus. What is it you want?”

Magnus smiled kindly, bending down to bestow upon Calliope a gentle kiss. “I happen to desire you. This accursed challenge from my brother means that I was going to seek you out, but having arrived… I think I find you more appealing than I initially believed I would.”

“Thank you,” Cal said, blushing. “So… uh… what are you thinking?”

“Your guess is exactly correct. I’m going to give you what I want. Shall we?”



Cal skipped into Rudi’s, only to be met by the drained (and, particularly in ‘Plith’s case, slightly haunted) expressions of Thoth and ‘Plith. “Hallo, you two! What’s going on?”

Thoth groaned tiredly. “Hey, Cal… what’s gotten into you?”

“Well, you’ll never believe it, but Magnus the Red showed up in my room! And he was amazing. Gave me just what I wanted. Fantastic.” Cal was practically glowing just talking about it.

“Great…” Thoth sighed, giving Cal a mild glare. “Could you… not give us all the sordid details? I don’t need to hear about whatever bizarre, probably gross thing you got up to.”

Cal sighed dramatically. “Fine, then.” She took a seat. “Anyone up for chess?”



Cal purred softly, curling up on Magnus’ chest. “Mm… you’re right. This is exactly what I wanted.”

Magnus smiled, stroking her head posessively. “I know. I would have brought more, but…”

“This is enough.” Cal poured over more of the books. “I’ve never seen anything like these. It’s amazing.”

“Indeed it is. Prospero is a truly wondrous city.”

Abruptly, Leman Russ opened the door and poked his head in. “Calliope… Ah. Very well. Best of luck to you, Magnus.” His tone was even, but Cal thought he could hear a faint growl as he walked away.

Cal nuzzled closer into Magnus. “...you know, I almost forgot to tell you how incredible that sex was…”

Magnus chuckled gently. “I already know. I was there for it, of course…”

--

:-P. That was fun.

After writing all the "serious" ships, I wanted to do some proper goofiness. And stupid levels of meta are one of the ways I enjoy doing that.

I'm glad you liked it.

Is that an EYE or an EEE? I know the muse is EYE, but then, Thalia would be Tha-LIE-a, which no-one I know of does, because Greek. So enquiring minds want to know!

hS

What madness is this?!

hS

Well that's depressing news. God rest, good sir, may you be able to walk freely in the afterlife...

Or a title very similar to that. It wouldn't all fit. Spoilers for pretty much the entire Kingdom Hearts series. I’m specifically looking at Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover and Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-. Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance was also included on the disc, but I had previously played that on 3DS.

Kingdom Hearts χ Back Cover
This is a movie detailing the very earliest parts of the KH timeline. I hadn’t played the mobile phone game it was based on, so it was wholly new information to me.

At the outset of the film, the main focus for me was gleaning what info I could about the details the Master of Masters had left his six apprentices. I was put pretty quickly ill at ease by the slightly manic and aloof mannerisms of the Master—his voice actor did an incredible job of toeing the line between clearly lying scheming and questionably real goofiness—and by the suspicions that were quickly piling up between the five active apprentices. For a while, I did get suckered into thinking that one of them was a traitor—I was suspecting either Jaguar Mask Boy What Investigates Mysteries or Unicorn Mask Man What Is the Leader—but at the point it finally revealed that the info Jaguar Mask had was not taken by him to hide his own treachery, but had been given to him by the Master to ferret out treachery, that I really figured out what was going on. The Master had set them all up to be suspicious of each other. Not only did he suspect that the prophesied Keyblade War couldn’t be prevented, as he had said at the beginning of the movie, but he was actively trying to cause it.

As riveting as it was up to that point, things got even more ridiculous with the final scene. I had been questioning how the Master had gotten a book that foretold the entire future. The fact that it told of the Keyblade War gave it at least some credence, since we know that event took place in KH history. But the revelation that the Master himself wrote it turns everything on its head, because now we’re dealing with an in-universe unreliable narrator: either the foretold traitor incident was made up wholesale to sow distrust among his apprentices, or he was simply writing of his own betrayal of them at the point in history when it would actually manifest consequences. The fact that the eye symbol we’ve been seeing on various weapons throughout the entire series has actually been an augury to spy on the future all along was a little shocking, as it had seemed like nothing but a decorative motif up to this point. It also, however, makes me question where the writers are actually going with this. What’s the implication, if any, that someone who presumably died over nine hundred years in the past has been spying on the events of the rest of the series? Is it simply to confirm that the “seven lights vs. thirteen darknesses” prophecy has merit? Is the Master going to have some influence on Kingdom Hearts III, despite having lived a thousand years previous? Are they setting up a future plot line, since KH3 is said to be the end of the “Xehanort saga,” but not the end of the series as a whole?

Despite all the questions it opens up, it was a good movie. Using the animal masks was smart, as it makes it a lot easier to keep track of the characters, and they all had stupid, stupid names. The voice actors were all good choices who suited their roles well.

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep -A fragmentary passage-
Aqua is one of my favorite characters in the series, so getting a solo adventure to herself, even if it wasn’t quite a full-length game, is most excellent. I’m amused by the fact that it starts her out at level 50, reflecting all her experiences in her original game. Due to the (mostly) lack of other actual characters in the Realm of Darkness, the programmers had no humanoid villains to use as enemies (other than Aqua’s own reflection in the Magic Mirror), but they did a good job of designing all the Heartless to be threatening enough to require you to stay on your toes in every fight. Heck, even the familiar Darkside boss, from the original KH, gets quite a bit of presence as they lurk in the background of the Enchanted Dominion area. And I never would have guessed that throwing a bunch of basic Shadows into a pile and calling it a boss would be very threatening, but man, that final boss was thrilling as heck.

And few characters also means few allies to converse with, but the writers and Aqua’s voice actor did a good job of expressing her slow descent into hopelessness through the infrequent moments when Aqua speaks or thinks to herself. It’s also heartbreaking when she finally meets Mickey near the end of the game, and learns she’s been trapped in the Realm for nearly a decade. While her despair throughout the game was realistic in her circumstances, it felt really good for her older confidence and drive to come back at the end. I also like, though, that the incident with her reflection made her realize that her heart was vulnerable to darkness as well. Aqua had some moral absoluteness issues in her original appearance (willing to attack Cinderella’s wicked stepfamily, for example), and it implied that she was unable to sense the darkness-to-light ratio in people she had spent a lot of time and around and was used to, presumably including herself. I’ve always, therefore, assumed that Aqua assumed she had a heart of pure light, even though canonically that’s only possible for Ventus and the Princesses of Heart. So I do think it’s important for her character going forward that she recognized even her heart had aspects that the forces of darkness could overpower.

I feel like I should have seen it coming earlier than I did, but it was still a very fun surprise when the plot went full Rogue One and bumped up against the ending of the original KH. It’s awesome actually getting to see what Mickey was up to while he was offscreen, and awesome to get some limited control on a real Destiny Islands map once again, rather than just the Sora’s memory version or the data version. It’s maybe a little silly in retrospect that Riku somehow didn’t notice all the commotion behind him while he was running towards the door, and I think the timing is a little off between Riku reaching the door and Mickey appearing, but whatever. As an Aqua fan, I endorse retconning things to let her have a hand in the initial game’s victory.

And I am very excited for KH3 now, and can’t wait to see how this initial storyline gets tied up.

—doctorlit 4D: sequel prequel midquel sidequel Poetic Emotional Metaphor in Nongrammatical Punctuation HD Cinematic: Electric Boogaloo Z: The Rebootening

"Only your heart is hollow enough to be a spoiler." "Only your heart is hollow enough to be a spoiler." "Only your heart is hollow enough to be a spoiler.”

Never mind that I haven't spoken to you before my rejoining this community... ah well. Ships that Pass in the Night, I suppose.

I was actually writing a shipfic as this was being posted this morning. So this fic was actually more meta than even Thoth knew!

(No, it's not a Boarder shipfic. Different 'fic game.)

I quite like this, though. It reminds me of the Very Odd Day stories, with hS wandering through HQ because of a MacGuffin and people randomly jumping into bed with whoever happened to be there. Different premise, same tone of ambling lighthearted goofiness. ^_^

~Neshomeh

A knock sounded at the door to Thoth’s Response Center, leading the technician to stand and open said door. “Hel--”

He paused at the sight of a hulking man outside his door. Hulking to the point of being absolutely inhuman. An inhumanly large man who promptly swept his way into the room, shaking out his roughly-braided blond mane as he went. “Hello yourself, little one. You are Thoth, yes? I’m in the right room this time?”

The techie blinked and nodded. “Uh… yeah. Yeah, that’s me. And you’re--”

“Leman of the Russ,” the primarch interrupted with a nod. “My brothers and I heard of this… Shipfest, wasn’t it?” He waved a hand in dismissal. “Regardless, we have decided to take part. And you, little one, are my choice for the night.”

Thoth gaped in shock. “Wha--but - but I’m - Russ, I’m - I’m honored, really, but I don’t…”

Russ smiled down at him, an odd expression on that face. “You mean the part where you chose my traitor brother’s army instead of my own?” he asked almost casually. He couldn’t quite disguise all of the barb in his voice.

Thoth took an instinctive step back, but knew better than to try hiding the truth from a primarch. “Well… uh… yeah, actually. I mean, it came down to you two, but the Sons just… felt like me more.”

The primarch of Legion VI grinned. “And that, little one, is exactly why I chose you. Either you learn the true glory of the Space Wolves, or I get to lord this over my brother for a millennium. Or both. Preferably both. What do you say?”

After a moment of shock, the technician began to laugh almost helplessly. “You know what, Russ? Sure,” he said when he could finally breathe. “Show me what you’ve got.”

~~~

Several hours later, Thoth trudged into Rudi's almost stiffly before gingerly sitting down at the bar. His eyes were dull and vacant, focused in rather than out, but he still recognized the man sitting next to him.

"Uh... hey," 'Plith said dully. "How are you?"

"Primarch," the technician responded, tone equally exhausted. "You?"

"Same. So… VI or XVth? I can’t imagine it was any of the others...”

“I… don’t want to discuss it. At all.”

The pair sat in silence for a moment or two before 'Plith broke it. "Thoth?"

"Yeah?"

"I think you know what I'm going to say..."

"Can I say it with you?" He roused himself out of his lethargy by the smallest amount.

"Sure."

And the, in quiet, dead-on-their-feet unison, they spoke. "Let us never speak of this again."

---

You're welcome, Birdie. Now to go back and write the middle...

I actually don't really know Twistey; I'm guessing she joined during my forced hiatus?