Qia

Do You Have RP Pet Peeves?

Man I've never done 1x1 and now idk if I will xD

𝔻𝕠𝕞𝕚𝕟𝕚𝕠𝕟: ℝ𝕖𝕕𝕚𝕤𝕔𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕊𝕦𝕣𝕗𝕒𝕔𝕖

Selene didn’t blend into Esille the way she did in Khia. Here, the air smelled of ionized sterility and overpriced citrus simulacra. Dominion’s sky arched above, a holographic cerulean so flawless it felt otherworldly as if she’d actually done it. Made it to the land Above, that is. Except neon script cascaded down building facades in liquid waves, advertising nano-spa treatments and cognitive uplifts, their hues calibrated to soothe, to sedate. Just a purr of light that made her eyes ache if she looked for too long.

The case hugged her ribs, its lock a cold, mocking eye. Three nights she’d hunched over it in her squat—a crumbling prefab unit masquerading as “artisan housing”—probing its seams with picks and decoders. Nothing. Not a tremor. Whoever had commissioned this job hadn’t just wanted discretion; they’d built a damn sarcophagus. Middleman. Courier. Mule. That’s all she was, the terms hissing in her skull like the devil’s snake around her shoulder. She’d swallowed worse labels for less pay, sure, but this… this felt like being handed a grenade with the pin already gone.

What in the hell was in this thing that was so important? There was probably no point in wondering, yet still, it needled her. The not-knowing. She hadn’t admitted it out loud, not even to herself, but part of her had hoped it wouldn’t be this sealed. That she might, maybe, get a peek. That whoever this buyer was—some slick-spoken contact working out of a clinic deep in Esille’s legal district—might be late or fall through, and she'd be stuck with it long enough to justify a deeper dig. She passed rows of glowing ads—perfume behind reinforced glass, luxury augments promising longer legs and sharper smiles, synthetic chocolates made from a hundred unnamed compounds—and wondered what kind of person wanted something this locked up bad enough to risk a Grey Market buy during a Council crackdown.

And why they’d specifically asked for her to get it.

Selene veered left, feigning interest in a vending kiosk draped in bioluminescent ferns. Their fronds rippled on loop, a perfect mimicry of the breeze. No soil. No roots. Just another illusion. But blending in Esille meant pretending to have a purpose, and that meant loitering with intent. Acting like someone on the cusp of a date. Or a transaction. So she stood in the soft, purple glow of the plant aisle and scanned the area.

And, despite her vigilance, she didn’t notice the shift at first. Just a subtle hush, a tremor in the air like static before a storm. The sort of silence that wasn’t natural in a city like this, especially not in Esille. A silence that pulled the breath from your lungs and said, Run.

Selene didn’t turn her head at first. She knew better than to move too fast in a place where eyes watched from more than just storefronts. But something primal stirred in her chest, and a wet thud fractured the stillness.

A scream rang out somewhere deeper in the plaza. Someone shouted a word she hadn’t heard in years outside of whispers:

“Duskhounds!”

She didn’t freeze. But her spine sure did.

That word cracked through her like a bone snap. Not because she believed the scream, but because of the way it hit. Panicked. Like it hadn’t been meant for the crowd at all, but for the person shouting it. A warning to themselves that came far too late.

Selene shifted her weight and casually stepped back from the kiosk. No rush. No sudden moves. The case remained tucked tight under her arm, ribs-to-metal, as if proximity could protect her from whatever was coming. Her eyes flicked up, past the soft glow of the aisle, past the dazzle of ads and consumer gloss, and locked on a shadow that was moving wrong.

Too low to be human. Too fast to be safe.

Another scream now. Closer. Cut off halfway through.

The crowd was still in that half-stutter between did we hear that right? and we should be running.

Selene didn’t wait.

She turned, boots striking slick tile, and cut through a row of shoppers who hadn’t yet realized the world had shifted. She needed verticality. Noise cover. Anywhere the hounds’ senses wouldn’t reign.

And, most importantly, she needed to ditch this package.

No way they’re after this. Probably not. Hopefully not. Then again, this wasn’t exactly the first time a job had gone sideways in ways she hadn’t predicted.

Either way, there was bound to be a stampede in minutes, and she refused to be among the trampled.

---

Mentions/Interactions: N/A

Realms of Sun & Shadow

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_{Location: Seluna Temple
Mentions: Katherine (@SpicyMeatball), Ramona (@enmuni), Persephone (@PrinceAlexus), Flynn (@The Muse), Amaya (@c3p-0h)}

---

Elara had just finished arranging her final offering when the temple door creaked open once more. She straightened from her crouch, brushing her palms together softly, and turned in time to catch the arrival of another unfamiliar figure—a woman, her arms full with a bundle wrapped in soft fabric. The scent of warm food drifted gently behind her, curling through the cold air like a promise. The stranger’s voice was quiet, reverent, and polite in the way that suggested familiarity with decorum but not entitlement. It reminded Elara of how nobility sometimes presented themselves when they’d grown up on the outskirts of court life—respectful, but not ruled by it. Her gaze dropped briefly to the basket the woman had brought. Porridge pastries, spiced meats, wrapped sweets tucked like secrets among the folds of a winter blanket. It was a thoughtful offering—practical, warm, and clearly given with intention rather than obligation. Elara recognized the difference.

She didn’t linger on the gesture long, however. It wasn’t meant for her, and even if it had been, Elara wasn’t the type to reach for what hadn’t been offered. Instead, she gave the stranger a small, almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgment, then turned back to her alcove.

Elara had just decided to focus on herself and what she’d come here to do when the shift beside her drew her attention. Ramona had claimed the neighboring niche, her motions pared to a liturgy of muscle memory. Elara kept her eyes lowered, honoring the unspoken rule of sacred spaces: devotion deserved privacy, even when performed in plain sight. But the various sounds the other’s actions elicited seeped in, and the handmaiden couldn’t help but glance sideways.

Elara’s eyes lingered on the arc traced across Ramona’s brow, the second across her chin. Another gesture of ritual, she guessed, though not one she herself had ever practiced. Her own family had spoken their prayers with softer hands—her father’s with folded parchment, her mother’s with quiet touches. But something was arresting in Ramona’s formality, something deeply... intimate. As though each word and motion had been hard-earned.

But it was the singing that surprised her the most.

Not because it was unwelcome—Seluna’s name had been carried on song for centuries—but because it was…worn. Like something stitched together with the young woman’s grief. Ramona’s voice crackled through the stillness, paper-thin yet unflinching, and Elara found herself unable to look away.

“Youthful years, oh sweet youthful years,
You stay alive, here, within my spirit...”

The words slithered beneath Elara’s ribs. Her own youth had been a script penned by others, a sieve sifting her wants until only duty remained. And yet, not everything had been sifted away. One memory clung fast: Amaya’s laughter spilling across palace hedgerows, her bare feet crushing clover as Elara trailed behind, clutching their discarded slippers like contraband. They’d collapsed onto grass still trembling with midday heat, shoulders pressed close enough to fuse. A breeze had pried a strand of Amaya’s hair loose, draping it like silk over her cheekbone. Elara’s hand had moved before thought could intervene, tucking it behind her ear. It was a gesture too tender, too telling. Her fingertips lingered, grazing the shell of Amaya’s ear, and for a heartbeat, the world narrowed to that single point of contact. Amaya’s smile then had been a puzzle that needed solving, neither permission nor protest, but a door left ajar.

Elara’s laugh, too bright, had slammed it shut.

The memory flayed her. How dare this stranger’s apparent lament resurrect it?

“That little house, which I remember,
The place where I was born, and was raised...”

She’d left at twelve, dispatched to the capital as a ward of the crown. She hadn’t wept at her departure. Not then. But now, the loss rose like bile, acrid and inescapable.

“And my mother, oh, how I have loved her...”

The breath caught in Elara’s chest this time. Her gaze dropped slightly, eyes burning with a memory she had no desire to shed tears over in public. She remembered the way her mother smiled when she fumbled a healing charm. The softness in her voice, even when correcting her. That death had come too swiftly. Elara hadn’t even been there for her when it happened.

It was…sort of funny, actually. How alike, how close to Amaya it had made her when she’d lost her own mother a while back. When their eyes had met during the royal announcement, Elara had wanted nothing more than to comfort her in the same way her father had done for her, despite his palpable grief. But alas, even then, Elara realized now, there was a gap between them. The prince had already been there, his consolations more than likely smooth as poured honey in her ears.

Inwardly, Elara’s mind rebranded her empathy as intrusion.

Her fists clenched, while her eyes began to water.

Whenever we clasp our hands
Be we though in distant lands
I am still reminded of their warmth.”

She was…she was beginning to tire of this song now. She willed her body to move, to flee the song’s relentless excavation of her heart and mind, but her limbs refused, as though the stone itself had rooted her in place.

“Youthful years, where have you been hidden?
Family, in life we’ve been unbidden…”

Unbidden. That word sat heavy in Elara’s stomach. She had spent so long shaping herself into what was needed, wanted, and expected. Rarely had she asked for anything without weighing the cost. It had never felt like she had the right to. Not when her role was to fade, to support, to endure.

And yet she had asked, hadn’t she? At the window.

Do you want me, or do you need me?

She hadn’t asked to wound. Only to be answered.

_{What is her answer?}

“Seluna, guide me when it’s my turn.”

A tear fell, searing a path to her jawline. Elara swiped at it, but others followed, a silent rebellion her body waged against her will. Ramona’s song coiled around her, a serpent of shared sorrow, and she loathed it. Loathed the way it pried open chambers of her heart she’d bricked shut. Loathed the girl who sang what she could not.

As the final note dissolved, Elara’s feet miraculously stirred.

She stood slowly, as if afraid to draw attention to the act, as if motion itself might betray how deeply the song had touched her. Though she supposed the tears that clung to her eyelashes were a dead giveaway, especially as she made no moves to wipe them away. Let them dry. Let them vanish on their own. No one would look closely enough to see them. Not if she left now.

She kept her gaze fixed ahead, refusing Ramona the satisfaction of her attention, even as the woman’s whispered prayer brushed the air like a parting hand. The alcove’s warmth receded with each step, replaced by the chill of the corridor beyond. Here, the walls bore simpler carvings of the goddess, as if the architects had deemed humility a virtue for hidden passages. Elara leaned into the stone, its roughness a balm against her trembling spine. Her lungs ached, each breath sawing through her like a blade dragged sideways.

One breath. Then two.

The stone didn’t ask questions, and for that, she was grateful.

Realms of Sun & Shadow

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_{Location: Outside Eye of the Beholder
Interactions: Nyla (@The Muse)}

---

Lark surged ahead, a black-and-silver comet against the snow, his paws churning powder into glittering arcs. He hurled himself into a drift with the fervor of a knight breaching castle walls, emerging with his muzzle frosted and eyes blazing triumph. Thalia’s lips twitched despite herself. “Tyrant,” she called, her breath a pale plume. “Leave some snow for the rest of us, would you?”

He shook himself vigorously, spraying diamonds, then circled back to nudge her thigh with a damp nose. Your turn, his wagging tail seemed to insist. She huffed, bending to ruffle the ice from his ears. “I may not be a lady anymore, Lar, but I don’t think it will do for me to just swim in a pile of snow.”

He’d been her shadow through every unraveling. When suitors’ carriages stopped rolling up their drive, when her mother’s letters grew sparse and formal, Lark had remained as a steady weight at the foot of her bed, a silent critic of her failed embroidery. She wondered if he missed the manicured hedges of Evercrest Manor, the well lit parlors where he’d sprawled like a lord. If so, he didn’t show it. Here, he was a creature of immediacy: snow, squirrels, the next thrown stick. No ghosts were in his gaze it seemed. Thalia clung to that fact like a prayer.

They were halfway across the square, making their way toward the half-buried barn, when a voice called out behind them.

“Thalia, yes?”

Not Lady Evercrest.

And it hit harder than she expected. Not because she missed the title. She didn’t. Not really. But because it marked a shift in how the world saw her and, perhaps more tellingly, in how she was learning to see herself. In Aurelia, names were always wrapped in ribbon and expectation. “Lady Evercrest” came with obligations. “Thalia,” on the other hand, was just… her.

Names, she realized then, were cages as much as they were crowns.

Thalia turned, gloved hand tightening on Lark’s collar.

“That’s right,” Thalia said, her tone a careful alloy of courtesy and steel. All the while, Lark sniffed the air, tail slowing to a metronome’s beat. Not a threat, his posture decided. And that was good enough for Thalia to carry on.

“Have we…met?” Thalia asked, head tilting slightly to the side. The woman standing before her had the kind of beauty that didn’t beg for attention. It simply assumed it. Dark hair spilled over her shoulders in waves, a cascade of shadows that seemed to absorb what little light flickered from nearby lanterns. Gold shimmered at her ears and throat, not in the showy, overwrought way nobles wore it, but with the ease of someone used to performing beneath candle glow and firelight. She looked like someone who belonged on a stage, or in the center of a story, never just on the sidelines.

Thalia’s eyes flicked briefly to the basket the woman held and then back to her face.

“I’m…sorry if I’m supposed to recognize you,” she said, the apology brittle. She cursed the stumble in her tone, the ghost of etiquette lessons haunting her tongue. “It’s just… it's been some time since I’ve seen anyone else, really.”

The admission hung between them, raw as a nerve. Lark pressed against her leg, a silent rebuke. Too much, his warmth seemed to chide. Too soon.

Now that she gave it some thought, however, Thalia realized she hadn’t even seen him yet either, the prince whose presence supposedly tethered this whole frozen endeavor together. The one she was meant to coexist with and love in her own way once upon a time. Her mother would have called it disgraceful.

And Thalia? She wasn’t quite sure what she called it. Avoidance, perhaps. On her end, that is. Not that she believed Flynn even remembered her. Why would he? They’d only gone on a couple of dates before fate, maybe even Aelios herself, had decided that she was unworthy of that kind of life. She could still recall the careful way her mother had draped her in silk for their very first one, arranging her hair tidily and murmuring reminders about posture and poise. She’d worn expectations like a second skin. She’d smiled until her cheeks hurt. She’d laughed at just the right pitch, and navigated small talk with the precision of a seasoned diplomat. Every move, every word, choreographed for the brief moments she shared with Prince Flynn.

And yet, despite the weight of it all, Thalia had found herself actually enjoying Flynn's company after some time. He had been refreshingly genuine amidst the calculated artifice of court life, asking real questions, offering real laughter, and seeming to listen, truly listen, when she spoke. She’d liked that about him more than she’d anticipated. Liked that his attention never felt like obligation or charity, but interest. Genuine, unguarded interest.

Then came the Fall. Not the grand, tragic kind bards sang of either.

A misplaced word at a banquet. A priest’s divination etched in black ink. Flynn’s letters, once brimming with wit, dwindled to formal scrolls sealed with a stranger’s hand. The Lunarian princess’s name became a refrain in court gossip, each syllable a needle in Thalia’s ribs.

Almost, they’d whispered. Almost a queen.

She had packed those memories away, stacked them neatly beside all the other might-have-beens in her life—tucked into the same mental trunks they’d hauled north from Aurelia, too heavy to leave behind but too precious to discard. Yet now, standing here in the perpetual twilight of Dawnhaven and faced with someone who knew her, or at least her name, from those fleeting days, Thalia felt something stir inside her chest, uncomfortable and unbidden.

The past, it seemed, wasn’t buried as deeply as she’d believed.

The Cost of Vengeance (rough idea)

@Qia Glottis, perhaps? Simple but threatening when you think about it. It's the part of the snake at the front of it's mouth that allows it to breath even while swallowing large prey.

@ErosSense

Thanks for the suggestion. I might honestly take it from the family name for Vipers (Vipera). Probably something like Vireda.

The Cost of Vengeance (rough idea)

@The Savant Love it! He's the kind of guy I like to see. Though he does have a LOT of expertise... not saying its a BAD thing, it can be a very useful and unique plot-leverage point, but it has the POTIENTAL to be. Aside from that, I don't have any comments on this unless there's something you wanna tinker.

@Qia Love this as well! Though, are you 100% you want her surname to be Drake? Just making sure haha.

@ErosSense

Haha I wanted her last name to be related to snakes in some way, but nothing too on the nose. So it might change if I can think of something good.

The Cost of Vengeance (rough idea)

Cass *Rough Draft*

Name: Cassandra “Cass” Vireda

Title(s): Lead Investigative Journalist, Formerly Senior Crime Correspondent

Nicknames: Cass, “Viper” (media nickname for her ruthless exposés)

Role: Journalist

Appearance: Cassandra stands at around 5'7", with a lean build shaped by years of relentless pacing in newsrooms and crime scenes alike. Her most striking feature is her piercing gray eyes—sharp and probing, like storm clouds, intensifying when she’s dissecting a lie. They’re framed by faint shadows, the kind earned from insomnia and too many 3 a.m. deadlines, and a single thin scar nicks her left eyebrow, a souvenir from a riot she covered early in her career. Her gaze rarely softens, even off-duty, as if every person she meets is a puzzle to solve or a source to mine. Her auburn-brown hair falls just past her shoulders in loose waves that she habitually tucks behind her ears when frustrated. It’s a color that shifts in the light, reminiscent of bourbon, and often looks tousled.

Cass favors tailored blazers in charcoal or slate gray but pairs them with broken-in combat boots scuffed from kicking down doors (literally, once, during a meth-lab exposé). Her go-to fieldwork uniform is a fitted black turtleneck and dark jeans. She accessorizes minimally: a silver serpent ring coiled around her right index finger and a vintage analog watch she never winds, worn solely to check impatiently during interviews.

Personality Synopsis: Cass is ambitious, cynical, and unapologetically ruthless in her pursuit of the next big story. She has a habit of using people and discarding them when they've served their purpose, driven by her thirst for professional success and recognition. Her ethical boundaries are flexible, often prioritizing the sensational over the factual. Deep beneath her hardened exterior, however, lies buried guilt and self-loathing, a seed she suppresses through continued manipulation and detachment.

Background: Cassandra's journey into journalism began at a small-town paper, where her relentless curiosity and sharp wit quickly outgrew local scandals. A scholarship kid from a working-class family, she initially clung to idealism, believing in the media's power to uplift truth. However, a pivotal early assignment taught her the intoxicating rush of acclaim. Yet, when her exposé inadvertently ruined an innocent aide’s life, she rationalized the collateral damage as “necessary,” cementing her cynical turn. Her break came when she leveraged a source’s tip about police misconduct during the original Cleanser Killings, securing her promotion to Senior Crime Correspondent. To protect the scoop, she omitted evidence pointing to the accused’s alibi, ensuring a conviction that later unraveled, a choice that, admittedly, still haunts her to this day.

Motivations: Forced to confront the copycat Cleanser, Cass now seeks answers, initially unwillingly, as the veil of her deceit begins to unravel. She is compelled to confront her darkest choices, facing the reality of her actions and their impact.

Character alignment: Firmly Chaotic Neutral, Cass views morality as a ladder: “Climb first, apologize never.” Yet, confronting the copycat’s victims, she begrudgingly admits, “I’m not the hero here.” Whether this sparks redemption or deeper corruption remains her defining battle, a war between the viper she became and the idealist she buried.

Chance Traits

Perception: 5/6
Manipulation: 5/6
Deceit: 4/6
Loyalty: 0/6
Persuasion: 2/6

Realms of Sun & Shadow

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_{Location: Frostmoon Lake -> Town Square
Interactions: Céline (@Beard Dad)}

---

Orion allowed the silence to stretch, its cadence measured by the muted crunch of snow beneath their feet. The guards, now placated by his proximity to the stranger, resumed their patrol. He wondered if she understood the precarious dance he’d just orchestrated. How his title, casually invoked, had disarmed their suspicion. Dawnhaven’s vigilance was warranted, of course; he knew this. Yet Orion knew too well how fear curdled into cruelty, as it had in Aurelia’s cobblestone squares where he’d once stood cloaked in authority, sentencing souls while his own monstrous hunger lay coiled beneath his ribs, waiting for the necessary ingredients to satisfy it: the blight and his death. The hypocrisy still tasted acrid, even years later.

Céline’s voice, thankfully, pulled him back then.

“My name is Céline,” she said gently. “And how may I address my escort today?” When her eyes met his, there was no deference, only assessment. It reminded him of the few blight-touched, like Willis, who’d dared meet his stare during their interviews. It had not been so much defiance but more so a quiet reclamation of the power they’d lost, or gained for a few, with their acquired nature.

Orion’s lips twitched slightly as he continued to assess her and her responses.“Orion,” he replied evenly, “Advisor to the prince. If titles matter to you.” His crimson eyes shifted briefly to the guards behind them, reassurance silently communicated. “And you chose the right place to change things, if that’s the case. Dawnhaven is still deciding what it wants to be. That gives people like us time to decide too.” He didn’t offer comfort with his words, not really. Just space. But for someone like Céline, maybe that was the rarest kindness of all.

“So, are you looking to stay?” Orion asked after a moment. “Or just passing through? The prince tends to favor those with useful hands. And steady hearts, of course.”

All the while, the two of them moved through the early hush of Dawnhaven’s waking hours. This part of town still bore the awkwardness of new construction—hastily raised beams, half-finished signage, buildings that leaned just slightly until someone stronger could correct them. The paths were uneven in places, too, flattened by traffic and flanked by banks of snow shoveled just enough to form narrow walkways. Yet for all its flaws, there was something alive in it. In the way hands had shaped it. In the way it refused to collapse under the weight of winter and just about everything that had occurred thus far.

“Reckon you’ll find all kinds here,” Orion added.“Farmers. Soldiers. Traders hoping to profit from the apparent end of the world. And those like you and me, I suppose, looking for something similar but…different. A second chance at life.”

Nocturnal Memoirs: An Urban-Fantasy Mafia Epic

As mentioned, I've been incredibly time poor and that unfortunately looks like it'll continue to be that way for the next little while. I'll have to step away from the Beach Episode for now as well. As for running things, I have two options:

A: I run Nocturnia in the background
I remove what characters of my own I can from the game and focus on responding to players and keeping the world turning. Such would be providing direction to players if I'm approached and putting out an update to players actions once a fortnight (I don't think I could manage weekly at the moment unfortunately).

B: I run a new RP to test game systems I'm making
If I'm running a RP that I've created from the start that not only makes my life immensely easier in having full creative freedom but also lets me run an RP and continue project work at the same time. The structure would be very commitment light for players while still providing the option to delve as deep as people currently do in Nocturnia. This would also keep Nocturnia in it's current state until Esty returned while we still had an RP to play.

If people are interested in option B, let me know and I'll put together a little design doc for a more in depth explanation on how it would run.

@flux

I just realized that I read this but never responded after thinking about it. I think I prefer option A but I also understand that it's harder for you as well. If A is honestly too difficult, we can just let things be as they are now until one day things revive themselves perhaps?

The Cost of Vengeance (rough idea)

I'll put thought into it this weekend :)