teaunicorn (Canvas Circle) Such a cute doodle! Nice contrast in reaction, encapsulates all you need to know about august and elizabeth’s personalities. I could criticize that the art’s context is partially incomplete, you wouldn’t be able to tell this is supposed to take place in a haunted house without the caption, maybe if there was something in the drawing that the characters were reacting to? However, that doesn’t make the art itself any less good!

Ashlar (Scribe Circle) This was really a nice short story, charmingly spooky and funny. The leadup was great for setting the tone that was going to be subverted by the end, leading the reader through every move Athreil makes, painting a vivid picture of the gloomy, spooky ruins the story is set in. It perhaps was long-winded at times, but it feels to me like it was in service of the tone so it’s probably fine
(Canvas Circle) A spooked babey boi! The expression and body language are on pointe, this feels like one of those pictures taken at haunted houses that are taken right at the biggest scare and that you can view at the end and possibly buy but who does that. Anyway, really nice, I don’t like direct eye contact but that’s a personal preference and not a critique

Calibris (Canvas Circle) Even if you aren’t fully happy with your linework here, for what it’s worth what you got isn’t too shabby! The details on the clothes—the folds and wrinkles and such—are amazingly good. The body language is the crux of the comedy, and while the anatomy could use some work it doesn’t detract from how well the punchline lands. The way Cali doesn’t even seem to be supported by Michi holding him up, like he’s so scared he’s holding himself up in her arms and she’s so done with his antics she knows she doesn’t even have to try. Really great!

Purr (Canvas Circle) A sweet little shadow friend with a snazzy tie! It’s a simple piece, good use of lighting, shadow and color. however, I would like to raise the critique that the character being the same black as the background shadow makes them blend in too much. perhaps if either the background or Woe were a dark blue instead of black, it would help distinguish the two? Other than that, love everything about it!

Dhanzi gets cold very easily. His go-to solution is to hide under the largest blanket he can find.

Matt copes with the cold via blankets and cats. All those cats aren’t even his. Nor are the blankets, or the futon. <.<

- created the adventure, set the number of players, set the adventure tags, and made it non-canon
- added a one-line description and wrote some embark text
- refined the embark text
- edited the one-line description a little
- renamed node 1
- changed adventurer HP to 100
- wrote some post text for the start command
- created item 1
- wrote a description for item 1
- refined the post text for the start command
- edited the status message text for the defeat command
-
-

Wilde Childe
Wilde, being the fashionable individual that she is, is taking the season’s chill as an opportunity to put a warm look together with the sweater she’s been seeing on social media. Pairing it with fleece lined fitted slacks and over-the-knee low-heeled boots, she’s warm, but she looks hot. The area she lives in hasn’t seen much snow yet, but when she’s leaving the shop in the later hours, she’s nice and toasty <3 Instagram ready!

Yours truly, Pink Chocolate
Pink doesn’t mind the cold at all! You can always add layers ouo Chibi-me is warming up with a hot cuppa chocolate truffle tea—her favorite!—and sporting a warm, cozy sweater with holographic stars on it! Sometimes, something soft and warm, and a hot cup of your favorite drink is all you need to recharge and push on. Tastes even better when it’s made with love <3

Sunspot.

Added a segment to a profile. Feedback is fine.

Started a winter icon for myself, haven’t finished it, but it is what it is. Gentle feedback is fine.

Ferar and Kuina have been living in harsh snow conditions since birth, and they can easily tolerate the cold. And with Vilka, it’s a different story, she can’t stand the cold.

Featuring these bbs

“Wake up.”
Jake groaned and pulled the blanket over his head more. No. It’s too early. Go away. It’s sleep time.
Nora laughed, leaning down over the boy. “That wasn’t a request, kid~” she whispered into his ear.
Ack - Jake immediately rolled out of bed, standing up in a combat pose. “YOU BETTER NOT-!” he protested, ready to throw hands.
Nora laughed, waving away the hailstorm she had conjured around her. “Oh, you’re up! Excellent. Now get dressed, we have a full day today!”
Jake frowned. “Full of what?” he asked, slightly irritated. Was something happening today? Was it not like, just the weekend? Were they gonna sleep more? He would like if the thing was just leaving him alone.
“Oh Jacob,” Nora mused, rounding the doorframe. “Your ability to retain absolutely no information continues to impress me.”
Jake stared at the closed door for a few moments, before shouting a “THANKS!” out at the retreating Nora.
——
Nora snorted as he came down the stairs, pouring a couple cups of coffee. “You might wanna wear somethin’ a little warmer, there, kid,” she said, pushing his cup towards him.
Jake sat down. “Ugh, why, are we going out again?” he pouted, holding the warm cup in his hands. As soon as Nora turned around, he was going to fuck up his cup with sugar.
Nora, who knew he did this, turned around obligingly, pretending to be busy with something in a cupboard. “Today’s the big day! Well, it’s the opposite of your big day, but who’s fault is that?”
Jake blinked. “Huh?”
Nora turned around. “It’s time for us to get to work! We gotta bring in winter!” She smirked. “Time to fuck up the overworld with some snow!”
Oh god, that’s why he needs warmer clothes. “I don’t even think I can help you,” Jake retorted, rolling his eyes. “Unless you want it to be a really short winter. I’m a summer spirit, not a winter spirit, remember?”
“Ah, doesn’t matter. Close enough. And it’s your own fault you’re here, you know!” She sat down across the table. “And maybe if you’re really good, and do a really good job, you might make it back to Tsuyu in time to bring in Summer, eh?”
Jake frowned. “Maybe I don’t wanna bring in either,” he complained. “Y’ever think maybe your job sucks?”
Nora laughed. “It may suck, but it’s your sucky job now,” she said, reaching over to pinch his cheeks, watching him flail to unsuccessfully throw her off of him. “So you better learn how to do it quick, otherwise you’re gonna spend your whole life cold and miserable <3”
“Okay okay leb goooooo!!” Jake cried, his cheeks turning red.
Nora leaned back, picking up her mug of black coffee and taking a swig. “Now go put on some real clothes and get ready, kid. It’s a celebration!”

petnames are my weakness anyways

“Ghighi~! Wakey wakey~”

Ghiaccio groaned and pulled his blankets over his head. He wasn’t a morning person and he wished Fabio wasn’t, either.

“Come oooonnnnn” a pair of warm, soft, fluffy paws playfully batted at Ghiaccio. Fabio wasn’t a bully but when he had his mind set on something there was little that would sway him from his goal.

“Mmmgh…what is it…?” Ghiaccio grumbled into his pillow.

“Christmas!!” Fabio said, voice bursting with excitement. “It’s almost christmas time and we have so much to do! We need to decorate and make cookies and wrap presents and—”

Fabio rattled off his to-do list as Ghiaccio slowly roused himself, begrudgingly shoving off his blankets. “Who…are we wrapping presents for…?”

Fabio paused. “E-each other, obviously!”

“Isn’t the point of wrapping a gift to be a surprise?” Ghiaccio mumbled, eyelids drooping dangerously low.

Fabio only huffed and shook him again. “I’ll just do the gifts, then, they’re surprises for you and Luso, anyway. Hows that?”

Ghiaccio grabbed Fabio’s arm and yanked him onto the bed with a yelp. “Sounds good. We can get right to it after a nap.”

“Ghighiiii it’s almost noon already!” Fabio protested, but Ghiaccio only snuggled him closer and tucked him into the warm bedsheets for an impromptu nap. Christmas wasn’t here just yet, which meant there was still time to rest.

Aran keeping his ghostie buddies warm!

https://www.mycenacave.com/forums/cave-adventures/18779/ghiaccio-rescue-the-polar-bear-cub
ghiaccio tries to find a lost cub

For Seven and Eleven
Gabriel

“What?”
“Christmas Ellie, Christmas!! You know, presents and cookies and roast potatoes?”
Eleven let a small puff escape from her nose. Yes, she knew what Christmas was, and she was sure Seven knew that too. It would be hard not to know, with how much the city ramped up for it in time for the big money making season.
“I do know what Christmas is.”
“Then what’s with the what?”
“Because I don’t get why you’re so excited about it. It’s just a profit machine.”
“Ellie!! Stop being a cynic. I told you. Presents, cookies and roast potatoes.” Eleven raised an eyebrow.
“You can have those things any time of the year.”
“Yeah well, I’ve never gotten them for Christmas. It’s a romantic time of year, you know? I want to cuddle up with someone I love and eat all the food-” Seven made some sort of gesture with her hands accentuating that all the food she wanted was a lot. “I only ever got to watch it on digital stream. Now I’m finally outside, I want it Ellie.”

Eleven held back a grimace at Seven’s final words. Right. This was Seven’s first Christmas outside of Aeon. Ah, she was being inconsiderate again. Seven was pretty good at reminding her of that, no one else really wore their heart on their sleeve quite like she did. Eleven relented, trying to let Seven put her back in touch with her more sentimental side. It was difficult, when she had lived by pragmatism for a long time.

“I don’t even know where I could get cookies.” She’d never thought of trying them really. Seven seemed to brighten up a little at her change of heart though, jumping forward to wrap her arms around one of Eleven’s own.
“We could find them together! Though really…” Seven paused. “It doesn’t matter if we don’t find them. As long as we spend the time together.”
“I’m planning on it.”
“And I want to get you something cute. I know exactly what colour. You’ll wear it, won’t you?”
“Sev…. Eve.”
“Just try it! For me, please? I want to give a present too you know! You’re the only one I’d even give one to.” Eleven knew without looking she’d be pulling that one face she knew she couldn’t resist.
“Just… Just something that has a point, okay?”
“Yes! Something to keep you warm, I saw the perfect store the other day. I’ve been thinking about this for awhile!”
Eleven laughed, one small and a little soft for her. “Alright, I’ll look forward to it.”

When I lived in Hawaii, we celebrated all the time. Mimi would break out the good rum and Pa would round up a band, and everyone showed up for a Makana luau. If it wasn’t us it was some cousin or other, and we’d be showing up for potluck like the rest of the shlubs.

And then I signed up for the army, and we still celebrated when we could, but they were nothing like a home luau. It would be Todd cranking up the volume on his phone, blasting whatever music he was in the mood for, cause Roa’s ma sent a big haul. Or Trish would smuggle in some random alcohol, usually whatever garbage she found on sale, and we’d sit around toasting to The Great British Bakeoff and sharing the cookies her wife sent us. And sometimes we’d sit together with whoever else was in the mood, and watch as movies for an excuse to cry.

I developed a new love for a lot of food I’d never tried before, shipped around the world twice a year for twelve years. I also learned a lot of people’s stories, and sometimes I’d have days where i couldn’t stop thinking about Hiro and his lost love, or Taka and Mara’s morning argument. I learned new dances, songs, and baudy jokes, loved and left, and I changed from a girl at her Mimi’s party, to a warrior of the world.

Then I followed Trish home, and celebrations changed again. We cried less, for one. But it was like luau again, except totally different at the same time. Instead of cousins it was dozens of people that varied by day, different species mingling and sharing food and stories, traditions trading constantly as people came to celebrate with their Alpha. My sister moved in with me, and she wanted to go clubbing so clubbing I went.

I suddenly had to worry about something new though—Trish’s kids, who were suddenly my niblings, two little monsters I’d kill and die for. Which meant kids parties.

Which brings us to the here and now.

“I want to remind you, you’ve never beaten me in a fight,” I said, voice flat. Trish opened her mouth, about to argue, but stopped when I narrowed my eyes.

“I gave you the green one,” Trish tried, turning her puppy eyes on me. Exposure to the very kids we bowed to this day made them useless. Trish pouted.

“You’re buying this weekend,” I informed her. With that settled, I pulled my mask on, readying my heart for what was about to occur.

“That seems fair,” Trish sighed and donned her own mask. Big grey eyes stared at me, soulless in a sea of fuchsia fur.

“Let’s go, Paw-la, come on, Tail-a!” Becky waved us on from the doorway, talking in a bright and peppy falsetto. Perfect for the children, who couldn’t see her face; she was laughing at us inside, and didn’t try to hide it. Becky got the lucky draw; she was dressed as Fae-ra, which amounted to a cheerleader with wings and extra glitter. Becky was still a cheerleader at heart, and would literally take any excuse to add more glitter to her life.

Meanwhile I was the spunky iguana to Trish’s go-getter hyena, main stars of Adventure Pups of the Nile, Danny’s absolute favorite show. There would be video evidence of this for the rest of our lives. Sighing, I embraced my fate and ran out to be mauled by happy children.

For my still unnamed ice princess

Simone ran her finger over the words again, trying to process how such important things could be slipping out of her mind constantly. She tapped the page in a subtle act of frustration.

“Anniversary in a week! Get your plan together!”

Of course, she had known she would forget and had this in her planner from the start of their relationship. However, she couldn’t help but feel kind of disappointed in herself. Felicity brought so much joy to her life how could she…

Simone shook her head. That train of thought was a waste of time. She should focus on how to show Felicity her appreciation rather than spend the week worrying. She pulled out a couple of pens, golds and oranges that reminded her of Felicity’s warmth, and got to listing and planning the special day.

—-

“I already know what you’re doing,” Felicity said when Simone took her hand, prepared to guide her to the first, and really only, stop in the plans.

“I know.” Simone shrugged. Felicity was always so perceptive, so of course she knew. This wasn’t meant to be a secret anyway. “That’s why you’re not blindfolded.” Felicity snorted in response and Simone felt as long as she could keep hearing that for the rest of the day, her plan would be considered a success.

“Alright, then lead the way, Sim.”

“We’re actually not really going that far actually. I just wanted to hold your hand.”

“Showing all your cards today, huh?”

“Well, since you already know everything…” Simone teased. “But before you can guess where we’re going and make me feel like I cannot plan anything you don’t know, I’ll just tell you.” She took their linked hands and swayed them back and forth a bit more while they walked. “You know that new arcade we haven’t had time to go to with finals and all that?”

“Oh, yes! The one that we were surprised was opening since it seems like everyone else is closing down?”

“Ye, that’s the one. I had thought about doing something crazy, but then I realized maybe you would just want to have some fun and wind down. Sooooo, I bought enough tokens for us to hang around until the place closes.”

“It closes after midnight!”

Simone lifted the bag strap on her unoccupied arm higher again. “Why do you think I’ve had to keep adjusting this? It’s heavy now.”

“No way you actually have a bag full of tokens! Plus, you know that’s not what I meant.” Felicity stuck her tongue out at Simone.

Simone laughed. “Yes, yes I know. But we don’t have class tomorrow anyway, so it’s okay if you stay up some today isn’t it?” She adjusted the bag on her shoulder again. “And no the bag isn’t filled with tokens. They don’t use actual “tokens” really. You know, digital era and all that.”

“Hmm, sounds good! I’m excited!” Before Simone could register what was happening, Felicity was tugging her along instead, leading the way into their next year together.

“It’s the Season of Snow Blossoms, Mingyu! It’s here!”

Thirteen sunrises into the month of Sorrow, the first snow of the year had finally arrived.

———

“Sooo…what are we gonna do for the celebration?” asked the girl plodding along the dirt road beside her. 

At her question, Mingyu halted briefly in her steps, turning her head to the side in a sharp, hawkish tilt.

Even with her hands firmly occupied by a heavy bucket of water, Miho carried herself with a sort of sprightly resoluteness that at once seemed both strangely fitting of and starkly at odds with her thin, delicate figure and big doe-like eyes. 

A songbird in a wicker cage, Mingyu had once heard her described, and she supposed that the girl certainly looked the part at present, dressed as she was in a dusty pink robe and with colourful fabric flowers threaded into the bun adorning her head’s crown.

Although, Mingyu mused, eyes falling to the way her outer garment was cinched very practically at the waist by a thick bolt of cloth so as not to get in the way of her task, she has always reminded me more of a pragmatic little pheasant.

“The celebration?” she repeated blankly.

Stumbling to a stop as well when she realized that her companion had ceased movement, Miho dropped her bucket on the ground with solid thunk before the momentum of her watery burden could tip her off her feet.

“Um, yeah. You know,” she said, brushing off her palms, “for the beginning of the Season of Snow Blossoms?”

A pause, flakes of glimmering chipped ice raining down between them.

“Why would we need to celebrate that?”

A hint of silence before the appearance of a storm.

“Because it’s a holiday?! And the start of a new season! The best one!” Miho huffed in unexpectedly childish exasperation, tucking a curl of oak-dark hair roughly behind one pale ear. “Honestly Mingyu, didn’t they ever do anything fun at that monastery of yours?”

The taller woman simply hummed noncommittally in reply, already hefting up her two, much larger wooden buckets with ease and continuing on her way back to the house.

The snow was starting to come down thicker as Miho struggled to catch up with Mingyu’s longer strides.

“Wait! C’mon, I didn’t mean anything bad by that, you know, but you literally come from the snowiest place I can think of! Aren’t you glad to finally see some frost?” 

“I suppose I have missed the snow.” Mingyu remembered loving the snow as a child, playing in the cold stone courtyard at dawn and thinking that if she jumped deep enough into a drift it would swallow her whole. 

“I used to construct frozen lordlings in it, perhaps we could do that?”

“What the heck is a frozen lordling?”

“It is like a little lord, but made of snow.”

“Wait, you mean like a Mr. Snowy?”

“...A what.” 

——— 

At the end of the day, a total of four snowy friends had been made: two lordlings (one big and one small) dressed in stylish furry hats, an astonishingly detailed sparrow carved from a block of ice with the unerring precision of qi, and a crudely formed ice bear with a lopsided raisin smile. To Mingyu’s great surprise, she found that it was obvious to her immediately who had crafted each one.

That night, under a clear winter sky and the light of what seemed to her a million different stars, Mingyu sat among the sculptures in her garden and marveled at the fact that she no longer had to assemble a family from snow.

“It’s barely even snowing. Besides, I’m wearing a hat, it’s fine.”

Twotail does NOT like the cold.  But darned if you get him to admit it—he’ll just claim he gets sick easy so has to bundle up.

Loisl doesn’t need to bundle up, Loisl is big and fluffy enough to keep human warm too

sleepy sheepy

(she doesn’t actually need all the blankets, she just likes them)

Hetia had never been particularly keen on celebrating Solstice, but it was the custom of the northern folk to hold great feasts and festivals during the nadir of winter - a kind of defiance against the cold and cruelty of the season - and her children were vocal in their enthusiasm for that custom. So each year they gathered around the Solstice fires, sang and told stories, gave gifts, made merry. And even as her family laughed around her - a chosen family, against all the odds - Hetia tried not to listen to the howl of faerie hounds mingled in the keening of the wind.

For a young changeling child in the Court of Winter, Solstice had a very differing meaning. Solstice, Winter’s zenith, was the height of its power, when ordinarily cruel fae grew empowered, and crueler. On Solstice night it was exceptionally unwise to be caught away from the protection of silver and iron and salt, even if you were the daughter of the Winter Queen herself. While the Queen and her court reveled in the dance and the hunt (and often those were the same thing), Hetia hid herself away, huddled in a quiet corner, cold iron clutched within her hands.

Once she escaped into the mortal world, she’d seen little point in celebrating the reign of winter. But eventually she’d come to understand that it wasn’t about that, not for them. And so she’d grudgingly come around to the Solstice customs of the northern folk (helped in no small part by Valnan’s tender courtship) even if she had to try, hard, to block out the harsh laughter of the winter fae as it drifted into Anchore. Each winter grew harsher, more reluctant to relinquish its hold over the earth, and Hetia began to fear that each winter might be their last Solstice together.

In time, Hetia’s fears were born out.

Inner Space’s events were always odd. Perhaps because it was less of a multiplayer game and more of a space-themed fantasy experience, the setting just didn’t lend itself well to global events. Still the developers bent themselves backwards to justify why an entire galaxy would celebrate a gift-giving holiday held on Earth, and, truthfully, Dominic was grateful. It gave him an excuse to vanish into VR so he didn’t have to speak to anyone he didn’t want to.

So after saying his greetings to family and family of family, Dominic was able to make his escape. He would get into trouble later, he knew that, but he just…couldn’t. There were just too many people, too many conversations, and sometimes someone asked him a question he wasn’t prepared for, and he could barely answer without wanting to cry. He locked the door and booted up Inner Space. Greeted with the quickly dismissed update logs and event notices, Dominic breathed a sigh of relief. Inner Space was usually empty, but on Christmas the sky was only dotted with the NPC stars serving as waypoints, as the player stars were off being with their families. Dominic picked a waypoint at random and headed towards it. The event revolved around finding a roaming festival planet that could be anywhere in the sprawling galaxy, and those NPC stars would give hints as to where the planet could be found. He hadn’t really paid attention to what was supposed to happen when he found it, but he’d figure that out when he got there.

Predictably, the first star didn’t know where it was, but it knew someone who did. So Dominic headed out to that star. That one didn’t know, so it sent him to the next one. And so on. Dominic found himself falling into something of a trance, even though he didn’t find the planet that day. Eventually, the console started telling him he’d played for too long and he should probably stop. And luckily the house was quiet when he quit. Everyone had gone home, and Dominic could sneak out and harvest leftovers from the fridge. The food wasn’t quite as nice out the microwave as it was freshly cooked, but the former required being social at family lunches and Dominic was happy to take the tradeoff.

• Made a node for the gift-giving mechanic
• Wrote some short flavour text introducing the node and giving some hints as to what it would do.
• Created the command which can drop the following:
  • Actual Magic, a weapon
  • Excalibur, a weapon
  • Your Favourite Food, a health restoration item
  • An Art Book, a stat increase item
  • A Funky pair of socks, a defense items
  • Plastic spiders
  • and very rarely, THE FOZ
• The above was accomplished by setting an if-check to roll a d20 to check if THE FOZ drops, and then rolling a series of d6s to determine which of the items drops. Testing showed that it might not be a perfect 1:6 ratio and it might be biased towards the plastic spiders, but that’s okay.
• I wrote flavour text for all the items, although given that it’s a test adventure, it’s mostly jokey.
• Tested everything to check probabilities; did not pull THE FOZ