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  • essayofthoughts sent a message:

    An enrichment question for YOU: do you think Whitestone would have a specific local breed of cat (separate from regular moggies) and if yes, what do you think it'd be like, both appearance and temperament wise? Norwegian Forest Cat, Russian Blue, something like the wild tree-climbing cats that apparently exist in the Parchwood (mentioned in the Briarwood Arc, when they're trying to find the tunnel into the castle) or something else entirely?

    Additionally, how do you think magic might affect both cats and cat breeding, especially the latent divine magic in the Alabaster Sierras due to the godsblood in the whitestone. Do you think you'd end up with divinely magical cats due to magic seeping into the groundwater, plants, and thus up through the trophic levels?

  • Finally getting to this one!

    I’ll first poke at your thing about magic: unfortunately, if the cats are impacted by the magic, the people would be as well. People eat their livestock and game from the forest which would likewise be exposed to any magical effects of the whitestone. We talked about that a bit, but if we’re just going off canon then I don’t think the latent magic of the land would impact the cats much. Its main influence would be on the existence of feral populations at all: with so many monsters in the area, the cats would either have to be decently dependent on humans to survive, or hardy and capable of getting out of reach of their predators.Ā 

    Now to the meat of things: there are two answers to this!

    The first one is the boring, likely one: see, cat breeds are a relatively new thing. Compared to dogs, which have had populations bred for specific tasks since over 2300 years, cats are mostly left to do their own thing. While the idea that cats domesticated themselves is an oversimplification, it’s hard to make a cat better at its job - hunting vermin and being cute. Dogs and livestock and pigeons (people forget so often that pigeons were a big deal and are domestic, but that’s a rant for another day) were all selectively bred for different uses: herding and ratting are different skillsets, as is herding cattle versus herding sheep, and you might not need as much wool in a warm climate and might prefer faster growth or more meat, for instance.Ā 

    So Whitestone likely has a landrace breed of cats - these are cats which were just selected for by isolation and the requirements of their habitat (and some preference for their look by their people). Notable examples of such cats are many big longhair breeds - Norwegian forest cats and Siberians for instance - and some recognized by a quirk of coloration - like the high-white Turkish Angora and Van or the pointed Siamese. Given Whitestone’s climate, they’d likely have cats similar to the original Norwegian forest cats (henceforth NFCs): big bodied, huge paws, a thick double coat, smaller tufted ears. Just your basic big fluffy cat adapted for the cold. Due to the abundant forests, black tabbies would likely be most common - this is the default that tends to get selected for in wooded areas where inbreeding isn’t too bad.Ā 

    To be honest, you could probably just transpose NFCs and dub them Parchwood forest cats and call it a day. Longhair black mackerel/classic tabbies with some white, with smatterings of other colors from rare travelers who brought their pets with them. They even have a fitting backstory, having likely been ship cats for Vikings and acclaimed for their climbing ability.

    image

    (Photo credit: Lynn M. Stone)

    But why stop there?Ā 

    [more under the cut]

    Keep reading

  • Campaign 2 Episode 49: 

    Caleb: on the verge of a panic attack.

    Caduceus: I should do something about that. 

  • [Description: 6 gifs of Marisha Ray, Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, and Liam O’Brien at the Critical Role table.

    Gif 1: Marisha, as Beau, is crossing her arms and looks confused. She asks, “And what is dunamis?”

    Gif 2: Liam, as Caleb, looks distressed and uncomfortable, and just replies with “uh…”

    Gif 3: Laura, as Jester, looks over at Caleb, confused and worried. She asks, “And how do you know them?”

    Gif 4: Taliesin, as Caduceus, has been watching this and looks at Caleb kindly and worriedly. Making a “slow down” gesture, he says, “That’s a lot. You can take your time.”

    Gif 5: Still looking at Caleb with a soft expression, Caduceus continues, “Just as you’re ready.”

    Gif 6: Caleb looks briefly at Caduceus, then down again sadly. He says “Uh…” again.

    End description.]

  • Chapter 4: Embers (Wildfire to Rain Storms)

    Read on ao3, chapter 1

    Percy prides himself on his ability to tell time. That was the beginning of his fascination with clocks, though he hasn't made one in years. But here in the woods, time doesn't seem linear.

    As the days start to tick past, they begin to blur together. Wake up, talk to Vex, fix his tower, eat lunch, talk to Vex, continue work on the tower, read, check on the fire, eat dinner, talk to Vex, read, and finally sleep before the cycle starts all over again.

    Percy busies himself as much as he can. He occupies his time with repairing his tower. The railing, the sink, the rusty spring in his bed, the loose screws on the table, the windows that are stuck in their frames. And when his hands shake too much to get any real work done, he reads. The copy of Much Ado About Nothing he discovered a few weeks ago is incredibly beat up; the pages are waterlogged and some of the margins have almost illegible notes in them but the words are comforting and familiar.

    As he sits reading, curled up in his bed, he can almost imagine himself back in Whitestone Manor. Sometimes the wind catches the cliffside just right and he can almost hear his father's voice a room over. But then his radio will beep or rain will start and he’ll be jerked out of that fantasy far too quickly.

    Some days are worse than others.

    On those days, he can’t put his binoculars down, endlessly scanning the trees and cliffs for a woman with brown hair and a wicked smile, a gun strapped to her hip. He never finds her, of course. But every nerve in his body is screaming at him that she’s there, that any second she’ll find him and make his life hell once again.

    Those nights he sleeps with the chair shoved under the door handle and a pocket knife under his pillow.

    And on days that he’s able to stomach the thought of leaving the safety of the tower, he takes a brisk hike.

    Vex teases him about constantly staying inside so he tries to appease her and take a short walk at least once a day. He has found rather interesting things this way. He spotted a deer that quickly bounded away from him, and a small meadow filled with snowdrops. Not to mention the slow growing collection of odd rocks. He’s not sure why exactly, but he now has seven oddly colored or shaped stones lining the windowsill of his tower.

    As he grew up in the city, he never really experienced nature like this, leading to his almost childlike fascination with the surroundings.

    Vex laughs at him when he tells her about his rock collection, though he does hear a waiver of fondness in her voice. Despite himself, he feels that same fond feeling for her.

    So time marches on and instead of counting by the sunrises or by the hours, Percy counts the time by Vex. He no longer finds himself wrapped in a never ending cycle of days, but rather shorter cycles that he follows between the moments he is graced with her voice through the radio.

    Finish reading on ao3

  • katia-dreamer sent a message:

    👀 💕💕

  • I know everyone and their mother has a historical Perc'ahlia AU, but!! I am still fond of my Filles du Roi au, even if I know I’ll likely never write it due to the research I’d want to do and the prose.

    BUT its just!! It combines my history, one I suspect much of the fandom doesn’t know as non-Canadians (do they learn about the Filles du Roi outside of Quebec even?) with some Renaissance vibes. With the right social class you could waggle your brows at some Regency-type drama. Percy’s Pepperbox would actually be an innovation for the time! The twins’ mixed heritage and independence would be so at home here, and Percy’s trauma too, and Trinket can actually be a bear!

    Just. I have a complex relationship with my home province (it has such a fucked up history that continues to this day to be extremely xenophobic), but I would love to bring some of the fun aspects of it to this fandom (while not shying away from the fact that hey, Nouvelle France was pretty fucked up). I’d get to have so much fun with social dynamics and maneuvering, and the land I grew up on, and its history. And of course Perc'ahlia, which makes everything better, paired with social norms to make an exquisite slowburn AND big stakes due to the location and time period. Depending on the time period I settle on I could even use King William’s War!

    I also played with the idea of Vax also being trans in this AU (though he’d be two-spirit, given they’re Métis, and my white ass would need to do a fuckton of research before touching this with a ten foot pole) potentially allowing them to make off with double the dowry from the king. Trans Vax could be relevant to the plot! He deserves that!

    It’s just not as feel-good as a Regency AU, and I’d be doing a disservice just pretending the genocide and sexism and transphobia weren’t a thing, and I’m not sure if I have the mental bandwidth for that on top of figuring out if, say, this town had more than one road when this takes place.