https://beforewegoblog.com/ten-recommended-new-cthulhu-mythos-novels-ii/
Howard Phillips Lovecraft remains one of the more controversial yet influential genre writers of the early 20th century. A man like his friend and contemporary, Robert E. Howard, who has stood the test of time. His creations in the Great Old Ones, Necronomicon, Nyarlathotep, and Deep Ones have resonated with generations of readers.
Perhaps his most admirable quality as a writer was the fact that he was never afraid to let anyone play with his toys. An early advocate of what we’d now call “open source” writing, he happily shared concepts and ideas with his fellow writers. Howard Phillips would be delighted at the longevity of his creations and the fact that he has entertained thousands of people through things like Call of Cthulhu and Arkham Horror tabletop games or the Re-Animator movies.
Speaking as the author of the Cthulhu Armageddon books as well as participant in such anthologies as Tales of the Al-Azif and Tales of Yog-Sothoth, I thought I would share some of my favorite post-Lovecraftian fiction created by writers willing to play around with HPL’s concepts. Many of these examine the alienation and xenophobia themes while keeping the cool monsters as others address them head on from new perspectives.
I admit my tastes have influenced me to choose the pulpier works over the scarier but it’s not like the former didn’t have plenty of HPL stories (The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, The Dunwich Horror, and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) nor is the latter lacking for advocates. For the earlier Cthulhu novel recommendations, check out this.
10] The War of the God Queen by David Hambling
Blurb: Jessica: a modern woman, thrown back into the bronze age, alone among a strange and violent people.
Amir: a nomad warlord, leading a hopeless battle against monstrous invaders, looking for a miracle.
To Amir, the beautiful stranger is a sign from heaven. And Jessica, though no warrior, has hidden talents even she does not appreciate. When Jessica recruits other women abducted through time, they band together to fight back against the seemingly invulnerable Spawn
The future of humanity is at stake, and Jessica’s supposed friends may be more dangerous than her enemies..
You’ll love this epic fantasy driven by characters facing the challenge of becoming what they could only dream.
Review: David Hambling is a master of fantastic and weird fiction. I am very fond of his Harry Stubbs series and writings in the Books of Cthulhu series. However, this is probably my favorite weird fiction work by him. A feminist tale of a number of time-lost women that have been transported back to the Bronze Age where cthulhoid creatures intend to use them as breeding stock. Well, they have objections. A bit of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court mixed with Conan the Barbarian, mixed with plucky heroine stories.
9] The Statement of Andrew Doran by Matthew Davenport
Blurb: Dr. Andrew Doran has been out of touch with the major civilizations for quite a while. When an emissary from his Alma Mater demands his assistance, Andrew is in such a state that he has no choice but to help. The Nazis have taken the Necronomicon from Miskatonic University’s library. With it they could call upon every form of darkness and use the powers of the void to destroy all who stand in their way of unlimited power.
For years Doran has been at odds with Miskatonic University.
Putting his negative feelings aside, Andrew takes charge and heads straight into the Nazi-controlled territories of Europe. Along his journey from America and into the heart of Berlin, the dark Traum Kult, or Dream Cult, has sent beasts from the void between worlds to slow his progress.
This is adventure and monsters unlike anything the anthropologist has ever experienced, and only with the assistance of the trigger-happy Leo and the beautiful Olivia, both members of the French Resistance, does Dr. Doran have any chance of success. A sane man would flinch. Dr. Andrew Doran charges in.
Review: Sometimes you want a transparent Indiana Jones versus Cthulhu story. I’m a big fan of the Andrew Doran books. Our protagonist is an occult professor at Miskatonic University who is more interested in hunting down cultists, Nazis, and Nazi cultists than he is about teaching class. They’re very much in the Pulp mold of storytelling and perhaps a bit too episodic but our hero runs into every supernatural monster HPL created on his journey to recover the Necronomicon from Nazi Berlin.
8] Cthulhu Reloaded by David Croyden
Blurb: The Stars are Right. Humans… prepare for extinction.
Eldritch gods, cosmic horrors, and weird physics are the enemy, striking from nameless dimensions we can’t perceive, destroying us with strangeness beyond human comprehension. Major Harrison Peel understands these Great Old Ones better than anyone. He wishes he didn’t.
Forced into his latest assignment, Peel must confront an alien Outer God known only as the Impossible Object. Held in a secret facility deep in the Australian desert, no two people perceive it the same way, and it conforms to no known properties of the universe. Then the Impossible Object promises to reveal the secrets of everything, or cause all space and time to blink from existence… forever.
Are humans supposed to choose? And if so, can Peel guess the Impossible Object’s intensions? For the fate of everything could rest entirely in his hands…
For fans of weird science fiction, Delta Green and Charles Stross’s The Laundry, the Harrison Peel series is a collection of interconnected cosmic horror stories that explore the world, and the entire universe, of H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos, stretched across all space and time.
Review: The Harrison Peel stories are a perfect counter for the Lovecraftian ethos that humans should be helpless victims before unknowable horrors. Major Peel is a soldier for the Australian government who is continually roped into supernatural encounters. The stories work because the horror is still alien and unknowable but he reacts as intelligently as possible to dealing with them. He can’t punch or shoot them away like, say, Captain Booth in my books can. You know, except for running away and never thinking about the Mythos again.
7] Ashes of Onyx by Seth Skorkowsky
Blurb: They stole her magic.
They killed her friends.
Nothing in the multiverse will stop her quest for revenge.
Kate Rossdale once held all the promise of becoming Baltimore’s greatest sorceress. But promise is a hard thing to hold when your coven is murdered, your magic is stripped away, and the only solace left to you comes one powdered line at a time.
When she’s offered the restoration of her power by a man she doesn’t know or trust, Kate sets in motion the retribution of her enemies.
Soon she finds herself racing across the globe, and across worlds, venturing into exotic realms of forbidden dreams, to the spires of Lost Carcosa, hunting for the magic-thief who robbed her of everything she held dear, including the most dangerous magic any sorceress can possess—hope.
If you like Clive Barker, Joshua Bader, Shayne Silvers, Jim Butcher, M.D. Massey, and Brad Magnarella, you’ll love this unique urban fantasy adventure!
“Skorkowsky channels heavy themes of guilt, grief, and addiction into a bloody quest for revenge in this explosive, world-spanning urban fantasy. Gruesome fight scenes and wildly imaginative, richly described alternate worlds lend an epic feel to their adventure. Dark fantasy fans will relish this magical thrill ride.” – Publisher’s Weekly
Review: Seth Skorkowsky, one of the best Youtube commentators on Call of Cthulhu adventures, is a good friend of mine. He’s also a very talented writer. This book deals with a substance abusing mage, Kate Rossdale, as she finds herself on a quest that will take her to Lost Carcosa in the Dreamlands. If you like the more mystical and surreal elements of the Cthulhu Mythos then this is the book for you.
6] The Last Ritual by SA Sidor
Blurb: A mad surrealist’s art threatens to rip open the fabric of reality, in this twisted tale of eldritch horror and conspiracy, from the wildly popular world of Arkham Horror.
Aspiring painter Alden Oakes is invited to join a mysterious art commune in Arkham: the New Colony. When celebrated Spanish surrealist Juan Hugo Balthazarr visits the colony, Alden and the other artists quickly fall under his charismatic spell. Balthazarr throws a string of decadent parties for Arkham’s social elite, conjuring arcane illusions which blur the boundaries between nightmare and reality. Only slowly does Alden come to suspect that Balthazarr’s mock rituals are intended to break through those walls and free what lies beyond. Alden must act, but it might already be too late to save himself, let alone Arkham.
Review: While so many of these books go in different directions than HP Lovecraft, it’s nice to do something more traditional. In this case, a wealthy young dilettante has a strange encounter in Spain with a local festival before discovering that a famous artist has taken up residence in Arkham. The link between art and the supernatural is explored as well as the fact that the protagonist is woefully unqualified to deal with any of this. I think the graphic audio version of this book is the best way to enjoy it personally but the book itself is fun by itself.
5] Let Sleeping Gods Lie by David J. West
Blurb: Louis L’Amour Meets Lovecraft
Porter Rockwell, wanted for a murder he did not commit, is hiding out in Old California selling whiskey to thirsty forty-niners. When his friends dig up some monstrous bones and a peculiar book and offer to sell it for a helluva price, Porter can’t resist the mystery.
But when both his night bartender and the sellers are murdered at his saloon Porter has to find out what the mysterious artifacts are all about. With some Native American legends, Sasquatch, Lovecraftian horror, and murderous bandits thrown in, not even bullets and blades can stop Rockwell from leaving a swath of righteous carnage in his wake.
Let Sleeping Gods Lie is a weird western fantasy in the vein of classic pulp fiction and Louis L’Amour books. If you like frontier justice, larger-than-life characters, and witty humor, then you will LOVE the first installment of the Cowboys and Cthulhu series.
~Buy Let Sleeping Gods Lie to get lost in a horrific weird western adventure today!~
Review: I’m admittedly biased into loving the combination of Cthulhu and Westerns. There’s just something about the American frontier and its unique history that seems perfect for ghost stories. In the Porter Rockwell series, the real life figure has his adventures fictionalized as he deals with various supernatural horrors and baddies that contradict his American Christian background.
4] The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
Blurb: World Fantasy Award winner, Hugo, Nebula, John W. Campbell, and Locus Award finalist for Best Novella, and one of NPR‘s Best Books of 2016
Professor Vellitt Boe teaches at the prestigious Ulthar Women’s College. When one of her most gifted students elopes with a dreamer from the waking world, Vellitt must retrieve her.
Kij Johnson’s haunting novella The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe is both a commentary on a classic H.P. Lovecraft tale and a profound reflection on a woman’s life. Vellitt’s quest to find a former student who may be the only person who can save her community takes her through a world governed by a seemingly arbitrary dream logic in which she occasionally glimpses an underlying but mysterious order, a world ruled by capricious gods and populated by the creatures of dreams and nightmares. Those familiar with Lovecraft’s work will travel through a fantasy landscape infused with Lovecraftian images viewed from another perspective, but even readers unfamiliar with his work will be enthralled by Vellitt’s quest.
“A remarkable accomplishment that repays rereading.” ―Pamela Sargent, winner of the Nebula Award
Review: This is an unusual example even for Lovecraftian fiction. Basically, in a women’s college in the fantasy world of the Dreamlands, specifically Ulthar the City of Cats, there’s a young woman who has gone missing. This young woman being the daughter of a god. Vellitt Boe, a teacher there, decides to cross the Dreamlands in hopes of finding them in order to prevent Ulthar from facing the god’s wrath.
3] Miskatonic by Mark Sable
Blurb: Miskatonic Valley holds many mysteries – cultists worshipping old gods, a doctor deadset on resurrecting the recently deceased, a house overrun by rats in the walls – but none more recent than a series of bombings targeting the Valley’s elite.
To Bureau of Investigation (the predecessor of the FBI) chief J. Edgar Hoover, there can be no other explanation than those responsible for similar actions during the Red Scare of the 1920s. But when the brilliant, hard-nosed investigator Miranda Keller is sent to stop the bombings, she uncovers an unimaginable occult conspiracy, one that may cost her both her job and her sanity.
From writer Mark Sable (WAR ON TERROR: GODKILLERS, Graveyard of Empires) and artist Giorgio Pontrelli (Dylan Dog), MISKATONIC is a mix of historical crime fiction and Lovecraftian-horror that dives deep into the American nightmare.
Review: Independent comics are a different breed from independent books. They require a lot more effort in production than your typical ebook or even print on demand work. Still, this is definitely an indie production and a fantastic one at that. Following the adventures of one of the last female detectives of the Bureau of Investigation before J Edgar Hoover fires them, they find themselves neck deep in the Cthulhu Mythos as well as the reactionary politics of the day.
2] New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird by Various
Blurb: For more than eighty years H.P. Lovecraft has inspired writers of supernatural fiction, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and gaming. His themes of cosmic indifference, the utter insignificance of humankind, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history — written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread — remain not only viable motifs, but are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century the best supernatural writers no longer imitate Lovecraft, but they are profoundly influenced by the genre and the mythos he created. New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird presents some of the best of this new Lovecraftian fiction — bizarre, subtle, atmospheric, metaphysical, psychological, filled with strange creatures and stranger characters — eldritch, unsettling, evocative, and darkly appealing.
Review: A well-chosen and smartly edited anthology of such luminaries as Kim Newman, Neil Gaiman, Cherie Priest, Charles Stross, Sarah Monette, and China Mieville among others. There’s some truly great stories throughout this work like “Pickman’s Other Model” which is about a sexualized ghoul in the turbulent 1920s, “A Study in Emerald” which has been rightfully reprinted many times, and “Shoggoths in Bloom” which asks the question whether the shoggoths could ever have been as horrifying as the people who enslaved them.
1] The Brotherhood of the Beast by the Hp Lovecraft Historical Society
Blurb: A hardened archaeologist and a wealthy adventurer join forces to look into inexplicable murders in Boston. Before long, their investigation reveals a nefarious conspiracy, with tentacles reaching from their own past to the furthest corners of the globe. Will the duo and a team of trusted comrades be able to thwart an unholy alliance of dark forces, or does our very world stand upon the precipice of a terrifying doom?
Review: This is a radio play and doesn’t quite qualify as a novel but it’s got all of the enjoyment I got out of the Masks of Nyarlathotep one produced by Dark Adventure Theater. Here, a group of adventurers are caught up in plot to install a reincarnation of the Black Pharoah in as the Anti-Christ-esque ruler of the world. It’s based on the classic Chaosium adventure, The Fungi from Yuggoth and goes in different directions from HPL’s classic tales but I have to admit some of the stories like the opening one with a child murderer in an old lady’s house are just fantastic. I hope they make a sequel someday.

For context - my girlfriend and I wanted to make drinks to go with the semis/finals, and prepared for the EXPECTED top 4 teams… however, oxygen and resolve threw a wrench in those plans.
But with some quick adjustments, I present to you themed cocktails for the EU top 4!
(In order)
Potion of vitality - pineapple, mint, rum, club soda
William’s basil gimlet - gin, lime, basil, simple syrup
Os-kiwi melon Joyo-hito - kiwi, melon liqueur, blue curacao, rum, club soda
The gintlemate - blackberries, gin, cointreau, lime, club soda
Fittingly, the potion of vitality was our favorite :)

I'm looking for some kind of solution that will allow me to remotely control the locally displayed desktop on my server. I'm somewhat familiar with XRDP and VNC, but those seem to only display a separate desktop.
In any case, I'm planning on connecting a projector to my headless box, and I'd like to use my laptop to control the desktop on it. Any ideas?
I'm using Rocky 9 on the server and fedora 38 on the laptop. I'd prefer to stick with it, but if for some weird reason I need to switch distros, I'd like to stick to something RHEL adjacent.
Edit for the bot:
Device information:
Laptop:

[jbnels2@fedora ~]$ neofetch .',;::::;,'. jake@fedora .';:cccccccccccc:;,. ----------- .;cccccccccccccccccccccc;. OS: Fedora Linux 38 (Workstation Edition) x86_64 .:cccccccccccccccccccccccccc:. Host: 17Z90Q-K.AAB8U1 0.1 .;ccccccccccccc;.:dddl:.;ccccccc;. Kernel: 6.6.11-100.fc38.x86_64 .:ccccccccccccc;OWMKOOXMWd;ccccccc:. Uptime: 7 hours, 17 mins .:ccccccccccccc;KMMc;cc;xMMc:ccccccc:. Packages: 7475 (rpm), 25 (flatpak) ,cccccccccccccc;MMM.;cc;;WW::cccccccc, Shell: bash 5.2.21 :cccccccccccccc;MMM.;cccccccccccccccc: Resolution: 1920x1080 :ccccccc;oxOOOo;MMM0OOk.;cccccccccccc: DE: GNOME 44.8 cccccc:0MMKxdd:;MMMkddc.;cccccccccccc; WM: Mutter ccccc:XM0';cccc;MMM.;cccccccccccccccc' WM Theme: Adwaita ccccc;MMo;ccccc;MMW.;ccccccccccccccc; Theme: Adwaita [GTK2/3] ccccc;0MNc.ccc.xMMd:ccccccccccccccc; Icons: Adwaita [GTK2/3] cccccc;dNMWXXXWM0::cccccccccccccc:, Terminal: gnome-terminal cccccccc;.:odl:.;cccccccccccccc:,. CPU: 12th Gen Intel i7-1260P (16) @ 4.700GHz :cccccccccccccccccccccccccccc:'. GPU: Intel Alder Lake-P GT2 [Iris Xe Graphics] .:cccccccccccccccccccccc:;,.. Memory: 14244MiB / 15705MiB '::cccccccccccccc::;,. 

Server:

[root@localhost ~]# neofetch ##### root@localhost ####### -------------- ##O#O## OS: Rocky Linux 9.3 (Blue Onyx) x86_64 ####### Host: 10FLS2HX00 ThinkCentre M900 ########### Kernel: 5.14.0-362.8.1.el9_3.x86_64 ############# Uptime: 3 hours, 12 mins ############### Packages: 1272 (rpm) ################ Shell: bash 5.1.8 ################# Resolution: 1920x1080 ##################### CPU: Intel i7-6700T (8) @ 3.600GHz ##################### GPU: Intel HD Graphics 530 ################# Memory: 2213MiB / 15614MiB 

so unfortunately i don’t think i’ll be seeing sa-io finals performances as a whole 😔. so i’ll just shout out ones from those 4 categories that i liked. i do have sw & iw finals in full so going to fully review those! who asked for this you might wonder…well no one!! i just love the sport lol. since im doing in full, going to talk about every finalist (minus amp), but not going to be like mean or anything. & take this with a grain a salt, i’m just a spectator. &
also, please comment your favs from wgi weekend or shows i should hunt down & watch! if its on yt, lol.
this is LONG OMG…sorry, lol. get a snack or something 😂😂😂

• sa-ia-so-io: i have not seen many but the ones from these that i’ve like loved:
• ayala - LOVED their show! so pretty & great weapon work.
• mbi - LOVED their show as well but they indeed had a like…horrid prelims run. if it were cleaner they could’ve been easy finalist.
• cornith holders - honestly their weapon & flag work is among world class to me. really nice show!
• la voute - they had a shaky finals run but i still thought they could’ve scored a bit higher. very nice show & they’ll be a powerhouse next year hopefully.
• dartmouth - absolutely loved it. i will say…weapon wise, one member did a lot of heavy lifting, but thought their flag work was really good & clean.
• palm desert ms - how can you not respect middle schoolers in open class…that’s crazy! was a sorta shaky finals run but they still did great!
  
• scholastic world:
  
• center grove(so many signs, 81.250): this was nice. im not sure about the like theme & the design & staging of areas seemed meh, but thought weapon work though not the cleanest was pretty good! i would’ve given them a 83.2.
  
• stoneman douglas(sound, 82.7): i liked this! shoutout to the member performing with the boot but that lowkey might have hurt them in scoring since moves couldn’t be done full out. flag work def needed to be cleaner (especially the silent flag section which was good but cleaner would’ve made it more effective)but still, a good showing! i would’ve given a 83.45
  
• flanagan(ethereal echoes, 83.4): hmm…idk. music was low/highkey annoying, lol. i like their use of different flags, mostly solid weapon catches. not my fav though, loved their rock n roll show last year way more. my score, 84.1
  
• miamisburg(colors on the snowy linen land, 84.9): this was quite pretty but not their best showing. timing issues, a kinda shaky run but as the routine went on it got better! my score - 84.85
  
• bellbrook(fellow traveler, 85.25): actually…this was very well done! i really can’t fault anything other than they did a lot of 360 flag tosses & could’ve incorporated something else. great dancing, generally clean, yeah good show! would’ve given a 86.45
  
• northview(it’s a mod world, 86.4): oh the masters of the flag toss ate this! top 3 fav from wgi weekend! i love everything about this! flag work could be a bit cleaner but awesome show! my score - 87.5
  
• warren central(give me strength, 86.5): a comeback year for them. having your whole team do 2 360s under rifle is crazy!! i HATE the girl sitting in a singular spot the whole time emoting…i would’ve had her like moving throughout the tarp & interacting w/ members in the back, just something! but i did like this. very solid show. my score - 87.05
  
• kiski area(it’s all relative, 87.55): def got better has the routine went on. not sure i fully get the theme but i like the work done. nice show. my score - 87.3
  
• fishers(the great american game, 89.25): the 1st show to me to have like…really great moments! overall show was eh to me but still they did a great job. poor girls knee @ the end. my score - 88.7
  
• el dorado(on the outside, somewhat elevated, 91.7): love this tarp. great dancing & movement!! very well done! other than a few timing issues, this was flawless. also 5 members doing & catching a front walkover under a flag toss is very impressive! my score - 93.2
  
• carmel(memento mori, 91.75): this was pretty good. love the blue fabric on that coppecaramel tarp. not the most stand out but everything looked great. would’ve given a 92.7.
  
• tarpon springs(the times, 93.4): oh tarpon…you will be always be famous! LOVE this routine, my fav from wgi weekend! using “history repeating” in your show is so iconic to me. i think the bronze should’ve been theirs… my score 94.5
  
• the woodlands(the light you cannot see, 94.85): hmm…i respect the work done, im just not picking up on theme. i think on yt someone said it’s based on a book. idk, last years show eats this easily. it’s a good routine though. my score - 94.1
  
• arcadia(i’ve seen it all, 96.7): best show design a guard has presented in years! feels like everything makes sense, everything had a purpose, effective design, pretty clean minus a few hiccups. weapon wise they are weaker than like…everyone else here but show design the best of anyone @ wgi this year. my score - 95.5
  
• avon(voila, 99.35): i mean…i liked jane bond more but this show here was really perfection. i only saw literally one mistake, but this is the cleanest they’ve ever been. love the movement & dance elements, along w/ fishers, great music cues. yeah, i mean there’s nothing to fault, this was beautiful! my score - 98.95
  
• independent world:
  
• amp(found semis! coven, 87*prelims): mmm…this was better than i remembered but it gives like…coven-disney version? lol. not their best or most entertaining show but their flag work has gotten so much better! my score - 86.45
  
• icon(my favorite clown, 80.95): they have a lot of potential. weapon & flag work were great for the most part (especially weapon, great tosses!), the theme & song…a chop. i didn’t like understand it @ all & the song was…well my score - 83.05
  
• tampa independent(gravity, 83.05): it definitely picked up 2nd half of the show. they lowkey ate this! i think show & song wise…it’s been kinda done to death but this was really lovely to watch overall. my score - 85.65
  
• ucf(hibernaculum *yes i had to look up how to spell this 😂, 84.7): chile wth is going on…i lowkey kinda like this, lol. if that’s the correct spelling, then they kinda matched the definition with this show, sorta. wasn’t the best run but overall, yeah i’d watch this again & again, ha. my score - same as wgi.
  
• malachi(without you, 83.35): this was good but lowkey kinda of dragged. idk, just didn’t really stand out but they had some great music cues. my score - 83.2
  
• onyx(we’re from here, 84.9): i’m kinda digging it but not fully. i like last years way more. this is def interesting though. idk, some sections look…improvy? some areas look like to random. staging of some areas could be better. the ending flag feature was cool but timing was horrid! i overall mostly like this. i’d say 85.6
  
• vox artium(god save the queen, 87.4): oh i love this! but the music is throwing me off a bit. the billie part is…not what i would’ve went with. when mbi used it, it made sense as the “crash test dummy like coming to life” story, in this show it’s not clicking with me. yeah the billie flag section is the downside of this routine, literally everything else is awesome! my score, 89.25
  
• mirage(the origin of love, 87.85): duet work is amazing! the tricks are getting to some, but these tosses are crazy! song is meh. this grew on me as i kept watching, really nice job. i’d say 88.5
  
• juxtaposition(off the chain, 88.7): did i understand the music selection…no. BUT, thank goodness for this routine! like can we have fun @ wgi?? can we let loose a bit & just vibe @ wgi??! lol. this is prob my fav so far in iw. some drops but overall great job, fun as hell, confusing but good music. my score, 89.5
  
• origins(confide, 89.3): 1st, love this tarp! they are noticeably cleaner than everyone else i’ve seen so far. the song is not for me but it makes perfect sense with this theme. felt like everything had a meaning & everything made sense, so im happy. my score, 91.25
  
• fantaisa(for gabriel, 91.7): the theme………but i’ve seen yt comments saying ppl from the guard know the parents of gabe & this is more so to spread awareness & not just to use his name in vain, so ima respect it. this is a beautiful routine. very pretty, movement was great. did need another like big moment or 2. crowd was iffy on this it seems. my score - 92.3
  
• paramount(the harbingers, 93.4): going by the definition of harbinger, i think they accomplished that. overall not sure how i feel about this. this was good but last year i wasn’t even a fan but it gave winner energy, this is missing something i just dk what. my score - 93.2
  
• blessed sacrament(chaos theory - feel the burn - stang, 93.5): umm…chile. idk what’s going on but the theme is chaos so…i guess good job? 😂 i mean i like everything going on just the lack of structure or like legit reason kinda confuses me but like it says chaos theory. my score - 94.55
  
• etude(those days are gone, 93.6): love the dancing! you can tell they have great training. i guess i’d like more flag work incorporated but overall this was a cute show. my score - 94.3
  
• fusion(so fair so sweet so sharp, 95.4): mmm, interesting music selection. both rifle ripples were so satisfying to watch! they look the cleanest of anyone in this category. yeah…this had the winner energy to it. couldn’t see another team beating this. my score - 96.1
  

** tarpon had my fav from the whole comp easily for the 2nd year in a row! northview was my 2nd fav from the whole comp & ayala was my 3rd. my fav from iw would be a tie between vox & jux. iw could be literally any of the top 5 next year so that’ll be exciting! sw is a mystery as both arcadia & avon shot up this year. the top 6 & maybe even fishers i see as contenders. & justice for west broward!!!

I am new to romantasy, but have taken a deep dive and have been reading like crazy. I am in the middle of throne of glass and am going to be so sad when i finish it. I also loved acotar, i dont really want to get into CC yet bc i would live to branch out to other authors. There are a few that i have read that i haven’t liked; cruel prince being one of them. I don’t mind them being YA but i prefer more mature writing themes (not necessarily smut but more character depth etc). So here is my TBR list and i have no idea what to prioritize!! Especially after TOG. Help me pick top 3!!
The invisible life of addie larue The black witch The shadows between us Serpent&dove To kill a kingdom Once upon a broken heart Caraval King of wrath Divine rivals The book of azrael The serpent&the wings of night One dark window The high mountain court House of ash and shadow Heartless hunter A fate of wrath and flame Dawn of onyx Six of crows Dance of thieves
All of these i know almost nothing about and have just written down after seeing other people talk about them.

My harvest hymn — with added Chinese chemicals
By Jeremy Clarkson (The Sunday Times, April 28)
Many of us will remember that Mungo Jerry song featuring the line, “Have a drink, have a drive. Go out and see what you can find.” And of course we all realise you can’t even think that any more. And nor, really, is it considered acceptable to follow up with: “If her daddy’s rich, take her out for a meal. If her daddy’s poor, just do what you feel.” Times have moved on.
Of course lots of lyrics now feel as if they’re from another aeon. "Clair" by Gilbert O’Sullivan especially. But you might think it’s impossible for the lyrics in a harvest festival hymn to become out of date. “We plough the fields and scatter. The good seed on the land. But it is fed and watered by God’s almighty hand.” Absolute timelessness. It was true ten thousand years ago and it’s true now.
No, it isn’t. God doesn’t water the land any more. The coal-fired Chinese power stations do that. And he doesn’t feed it either. That’s handled by CF Industries, which makes all the chemical fertiliser that farmers use on their fields.
We don’t even scatter seeds any more, because that’s wasteful onanism. We drill them into the ground, at precise intervals and at a precise depth using a computer-controlled, £40,000 seed drill. That’s towed behind a £250,000 Case tractor, which was built in the factory where they used to make Tiger tanks. Not much Goddishness going on in any of that.
There isn’t even any ploughing any more. In the olden days farmers would turn the top layer of soil over using a plough so that the weeds were buried. And because they were deprived of sunlight they died. It was a lovely, natural, rosy-cheeked way of creating the perfect seedbed for the following year’s crop.
But then along came Little Miss Thunberg and her merry band of Packhamites, who decided that 1,500 billion tonnes of carbon is stored in the planet’s soil. And that if you turn this soil over with a plough, all of it will be released into the upper atmosphere in the form of carbon dioxide. Which is bad. So the lovely, natural method of killing weeds had to stop. And instead farmers had to use chemical sorcery from Monsanto, BASF and the Zhejiang Xinan Chemical Industrial Group.
Farmers didn’t mind, if I’m honest, because ploughing is extremely expensive. You simply would not believe how much diesel is needed to drag a two-tonne land anchor through a muddy field. Using weedkiller instead is much cheaper.
Or rather it was. But weedkiller prices have gone up dramatically in recent years. And from where I’m sitting it doesn’t really seem to work any more. Every year Kaleb goes into the fields like a rural Terminator, hosing down the weeds with his ungodly chemical sorcery and then, a few weeks later, Cheerful Charlie walks me through the same fields, pointing out the brome and the black-grass, which is easy to spot because it’s purple and green and completely immune to anything the world’s chemists can throw at it.
So this year Charlie said we should become medieval and plough the fields instead. Selfish? Well, yes, this will shoot a tonne of CO2 into the troposphere and that’s obviously bad. And I’ll use four times more diesel than I would if I used weedkiller. So that’s not good for the environment either. But here’s the kicker: I wouldn’t be pumping any chemicals into the soil.
So that’s the choice — soil or sky? You have to hurt one of them if you want to eat. I went for the sky and rented a plough.
I settled on an eight-furrow monster for two good reasons. Number one: the bigger the plough, the faster you get the job done. And number two: none of Kaleb’s tractors would be powerful enough to pull it, so we’d have to use my 270bhp Lamborghini. Which would annoy him. Even admitting that it’s better than his tractors gives him a hot flush. Sometimes he vibrates with fury when he goes near it.
The only drawback to this cleverly wrought large plough plan was that, because Kaleb refuses to drive my tractor, I’d have to do the ploughing.
This is something I’ve done before. It was on Top Gear about 200 years ago and I did very well. Partly this was because my competitors in the ploughing competition were James May and Richard Hammond. And partly because one of the two judges was a really good friend of my mum.
In real life, though, things were different. I couldn’t hitch the plough to the tractor without help. I couldn’t do a three-point turn when it was attached. And I couldn’t make the tractor move when the furrows were in the sodden soil. All four wheels just sort of spun. So I had to lift the plough slightly, which meant I wasn’t ploughing. Or wiggle the steering wheel, which made big holes and, when it worked, caused me to set off in a new direction. It began to look as if a drunk, blind man with no arms was doing the ploughing.
All the time I was watching the fuel gauge plummet like the depth gauge in a holed submarine, and wondering if it might be cheaper, easier and kinder to the environment to use chemical weedkiller instead.
This is farming. Only last week I discovered that approximately 18 billion slugs have come to live in the fields where I’ve planted spring barley. If I adopt a live-and-let-live rewilding attitude and do nothing they will eat the lot and, next year, there will be no Hawkstone lager. As that makes no sense, I therefore have to pepper the field with slug pellets, which will kill them. Great. But these pellets will also kill all the worms. So what’s the answer? There isn’t one.
Similarly, I have signed up to the government’s eco-friendly grant scheme and will be planting things that aren’t food in three fields. They’re good for the soil and they’re good for my bank balance. But it means I’m not growing stuff people can eat. I know one chap who has taken 60 per cent of his farm out of food production and he’s not alone. So yippee. All that stored carbon and all of that fixed-in nitrogen.
But what if you want some bread? You’ll have to get a loaf made from wheat that was grown abroad. And how’s that good for global warming? And will it have been grown under the same stringent rules that we have here? Or will it have been fertilised with human faeces? You face a choice then. Do you want net zero in the UK? Or do you want to eat a Mexican’s turd?
Do you want lager or worms? Do you want healthy soil or a healthy sky? Do you want bees or orangutans? These are the questions I’m facing every single day. It’s a multiple-choice world of no right answers.
Which brings us back to another harvest festival hymn.
All things bright and beautiful. All birds that must be plucked. No matter what we choose to do, we’re well and truly.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Kaleb Cooper: ‘I’ve taught someone triple my age to do a better job’
The Diddly Squat farmers Jeremy Clarkson and Kaleb Cooper are back for a third series. We put our wellies on to meet the odd couple of the Cotswolds
By Ben Dowell (The Times, April 29)
During filming for the forthcoming third series of Clarkson’s Farm, Kaleb Cooper drove into work and saw Jeremy Clarkson vacuuming a blackberry bush. While the spectacle was “something I am never going to forget”, the sandy-haired, cherub-faced youngster was so unimpressed that he didn’t even get out of his car to ask what was happening.
These two have grown into one of television’s best double acts. For the show’s executive producer, Peter Fincham, there is an “element of Jeeves and Wooster” about them, a delicious odd couple relationship that is all the more gratifying because the team didn’t need to cast Cooper. He was already working on Diddly Squat Farm when the show started.
Cooper is a farmer to the tips of his muddy wellies and has taught Clarkson most of the practical business of farming his 1,000-acre establishment near Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire, as well as how hard the job is and the risks farmers take for little financial reward. Cooper may have just completed a sell-out national stage tour building on his popularity and more than two million Instagram followers. He may have been invited to No 10 to meet Rishi Sunak (more on that later), but everyone on the show — the producers, one of Cooper’s “Chippy” friends I spoke to and Clarkson himself — are clear: the 25-year-old hasn’t changed one iota since the show started airing in 2021.
“I think it’s very easy to be grounded if you don’t leave Chipping Norton,” Clarkson says. His girlfriend, Lisa Hogan, who has become another star of the show, agrees. “How Kaleb comes across is exactly how he is. He is very thoughtful and kind and very bright. His use of language is also very easy on the ear. We could have had a monosyllabic tractor driver and that wouldn’t have worked but we were lucky we had Kaleb.”
He has written two books as well: The World According to Kaleb and Britain According to Kaleb, with a third (Life According to Kaleb) on the way. These ruminations are often spoken into a Dictaphone (supplied by his publishers) during the 18 hours he spends each day alone in his happy place, his tractor cab. The books now sit on the shelves that a ten-year-old Cooper and his carpenter father put up in the local bookshop. Though, of course, one of the running jokes in the show is that he has only read one other book in his life apart from his own, and that was one of Clarkson’s.
There is another moment in the new series when Clarkson and Cooper (who are in competition with each other across the eight episodes) are working a field when they spy someone in the distance on another tractor drilling “his” field. He is Andy Cato of the electronic pop duo Groove Armada, and Cooper seems totally nonplussed, not least because he doesn’t know who or what Groove Armada is. The same probably goes for many of his near-neighbours, who include Joe Wicks, Simon Cowell, Natalie Imbruglia, David Beckham and Amanda Holden. When Cooper bumped into David Cameron (now Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton) in a local eaterie, he wasn’t quite sure who he was either. Strangely Cooper is now as famous as at least a few of these people. His appeal extends across the globe — Andy Wilman, Clarkson’s old Top Gear producer who edits the show, tells me that he rarely hears an English accent in the farm shop as tourists flock to see their agricultural idols.
Since Clarkson’s Farm aired, Cooper told his theatre audiences, he has been offered snazzy haircuts from top-level salons, perhaps to stop the constant mickey-taking from Clarkson. But he still goes to the same local hairdresser.
Brilliant moments are not always captured by the cameras and while the team may wake up with plans, farmers and the show’s fans will know that the weather often has other ideas. “Cheerful” Charlie Ireland, the farm’s land agent and adviser, does pop by a couple of times a day, as he does in the series, often to pour cold water on Clarkson’s latest schemes. But many of these moments are not filmed. Is that annoying?
“Sometimes you think, ‘Oh, that would be really good, that’d be funny on TV,’ but actually [the cameras] are not there,” Cooper says. “But you don’t say these things, to make it up for the TV. I may have taken drama in school, but I got a U in it, so actually I’m not an actor.”
Clarkson agrees: “It is [effortless] because I don’t have to pretend to be someone else. With The Grand Tour, Richard Hammond isn’t as stupid as he’s made out. I’m not as bombastic as is made out and James May isn’t quite as boring as he’s made out. And so you’re playing a caricature, you’re playing a role, you’re there to provoke and be stupid. Here, we haven’t got any of that. So we’re just ourselves. You get up and you just have to be yourself, which is incredibly relaxing. And in that regard it is effortless. Farming is not effortless. Make no mistake, the television side of it is a piece of cake because I don’t have to think, ‘Oh I’d better say something idiotic now.’”
“You do that anyway,” Cooper says.
The two bicker in exactly the same way off camera as they do on. At the press conference for the new series they quarrelled with good humour about their dogs. Cooper says Clarkson’s pair of fox-red labradors (named Sansa and Arya after Game of Thrones characters) are “posh man’s dogs” who “never do a thing he says”. Clarkson maintains that Cooper just locks his dog in his tractor cab. They also bicker about the goats Clarkson keeps. Clarkson likes their eyes and thinks they do a good job mowing his grass. Cooper thinks he should breed and slaughter them in the conventional way and sell goat meat in the farm shop.
There is a similar clash of approaches over the pigs. Cooper doesn’t get as emotional as Clarkson and Hogan when things go wrong (and they do go wrong with the pigs this series). When Clarkson holds aloft a newborn piglet, Cooper calls him a “proud parent”, which feels part mickey-take, part genuinely warm compliment — a common theme in their complex relationship.
Clarkson is learning to be more steely and is, Cooper says, actually now a “good pig farmer”. Is the younger man pleased that Clarkson has come on? Or is there a bit of him who would still enjoy showing him the ropes?
“I think there’s a bit of a proudness of teaching someone maybe triple my age … to go out and do a better job … Hopefully I’ve taught him a lot about it. But he’s taught me so much equally about the television industry.” In fact, Cooper says, he has learnt so much that he cannot watch TV now because he knows how it all works behind the scenes.
He is a voice for farmers, showing us how hard the job of people who put food on our table is, and demanding that we respect it. Cooper has arranged two bursaries of £3,000 plus a work placement for young farmers and is keen that more enter a profession where the average age is 59. When he met Sunak last May he was more interested in the PM’s hair than anything, principally because he didn’t expect much from him.
“Let’s put it this way. If someone invited me tomorrow to go to a farm … if I go to that farm and that farmer says to me, ‘Kaleb, you know what, this week I’m gonna plough that field,’ I know for a damn fact that that farmer is going to go out there and plough that field because he said he’s going do it. If the prime minister or anyone from politics goes to me, ‘Kaleb, I’m going to do this next week,’ they’re not going to do it, are they?”
While he doesn’t have much faith in our legislators making life easier for hard-pressed farmers or for supermarkets to pay them more, he must be pleased that people, especially city folk, now know about farming thanks to him, I say.
“Yeah, everyone knows what a tramline is now, right? And let’s face it, I always say this: it doesn’t matter what phone you’ve got, what car you’ve got, what house you’re living in, what matters the very most is what’s coming across your plate for breakfast, lunch and dinner. And therefore that is the most important thing to me.”
Cooper is open to offers of shows such as I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! but thinks he probably won’t have the time with all the work he has to do. Clarkson called him “easily the most entrepreneurial person I have ever met” and he is laser-focused on his ultimate goal of having a farm one day, which will have to be local, despite the “extortionate” price of land in the area.
“I want to farm here,” he says. “I don’t want to move away from my family and everything I know. This is where I was brought up and this is where I’m going to stay.”
But the show will be with us for a while. It is hugely popular — series four is being filmed and while viewing figures aren’t available, it is believed to be Prime’s most popular programme in the UK by, well, a country mile.
Cooper is engaged to his partner, Taya (mother to their three-year-old son and ten-month-old daughter), but doesn’t know when he will have time to walk down the aisle. He knows he will “have a great party”, and isn’t yet sure if Clarkson will be his best man. But one thing’s for sure, Clarkson has already found his.
The new series of Clarkson’s Farm is on Prime Video from May 3.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
No Sun column this week, but the Guardian (!) has published a long interview with Clarkson: "'Dismissing global warming? That was a joke': Jeremy Clarkson on fury, farming and why he’s a changed man". Let me know if you have problems viewing it.
Clarkson's columns are regularly collected as books. You can buy them from his boss or your local bookshop.

• It's Friday morning @ 10:30. She's just getting started because she went to a doctor? (Really? An actual MD? Eh, doesn't matter, she won't tell them the truth about her condition so moot point.)
  
• She calls the red smears on her eyelids "light makeup" lol.
  
• Oh, she only went to the doc to get her spironolactone dosage increased.
  
• Cringeysplaining spironolactone.
  
• She already made coffee but she's gonna make more. (yay, jacked up crazy bitch incoming.) BREW NOW. It's blackberry shortcake. (As a cafe au lait kind of gal, that just grosses me out so bad.)
  
• Cut to the kitchen where she's about to scream BREW NOW. She has a super busy day (because breathing is hard, yo) She'll be meeting her date at 5 pm. (This is how I am positive she's been screwing him for at least a month. Who goes on a 1st date at 5 pm? Like, no one, ever.)
  
• She's yapping about doing sims videos "but you know me; I change my mind all the fucking time."
  
• She's gonna share the color and incense of the day even though she knows it's of absolutely no use to us, she's gonna do it anyway. (But she doesn't come here lol) Yesterday, the color of the day was pink, incense was cypress and the moon was waning Sagittarius. She's still yapping about how the moon in Scorpio made her horny. (Now, astro girlies, correct me if I'm wrong, but Moon in Scorpio literally has zero to do with being horny. Scorpio Moon is deep, secretive and intense. Right? I mean, maybe combined with the full moon it might be more sexual. Don't mind me, I have no idea what I'm talking about.)
  
• She loves piney incense (I do not...reminds me of the green car trees lol) She's gonna do her journal. Coffee is done. Shoves a giant straw in her gaping maw. "Oh sweet baby Jesus in a manger, that is fucking good." (I fucking hate her. Seriously)
  
• Segue to the mirror where we're eye fucking ourself. She looks, as my grandma would say, "stocky and sturdy" lol. Moth tee, black leggings and those cursed fucking docs. (I hope she gets a blister.) "But fear not!!" that's just her fucking around clothes. (Later, she's gonna don one of those sexy Disturbia dresses, her fancy fishnets, her black Just My Size stretch bra and stun her date with exactly how much black eye makup she can slap onto her eyelids. You know, same old, same old. Second verse, same as the first. If there's one thing we can count on, it's that she cannot change. There is literally no capacity for change in our girlypop.)
  
• She forgot to eat so she's gonna have leftover meatza. (What is with this whole first meal thing? I mean, I know she doesn't read or I'd think she's been binging on The Black Dagger Brotherhood series but that can't possibly be it.)
  
• She's singing at the meatza in the microwave. (girlfriend is seriously awkward. really. just...weird.)
  
• She's talking super fast. Completely manic. She says she's gonna be all hopped up on caffeine. (She already is. She's...fucking weird.)
  
• "Let's say a positive affirmation together. I choose to focus on the love and support around me rather than the absence." (wow. if I had literally no friends, no family, no aquaintances, saying that would make me cry. All she has IS absence.)
  
• She's in the bathroom. @4pm about to get ready. It's pouring. She doesn't own an umbrella lol. She's gonna wear....you guessed it! Her new purple mushroom dress, fancy fishnets and docs. She's rubbing shit on her face. They're going to Rolando's. It's her fav. After that they might go to the Arlington and have a drink at the bar. She's not nervous. She says she's already met him (lol, and his Sword of Damocles too, I bet. Poor bastard.)
  
• "It's just a date guys, it's just a date." Miss Smug Bitch smirkingly thanks all the comments expressing concern. (Fuck her. She deserves what she gets. I'm honestly waiting for someone from AR to post that she's in the news for hooking up with the wrong guy any day now. She's doxxed herself and every single person she knows so...)
  
• She feels in control of herself. (okay so is it normal to go out to dinner at 5 pm? on a date? The earliest I've ever gone to dinner is like 7. Is 5 a thing?)
  
• Shaking eye shadow at the camera. Comes back, heavy heavy heavy makeup. She really wants a lip stain. (so all that black makeup and the fact she doesn't use eye makeup remover is a huge part of why she looks like utter shit in the morning.)
  
• In her closet to get the sexy dress. In the mirror screaming about how cute she is. (not really but go on.) Get closer so you can see how super cute she is. Points out her black onyx necklace. (She looks like an edgy 12 year old) Her Just My Size industrial strength bra is peeking out all sexily (lol)
  
• Putting rosemary oil in her hair. Flips her hair over and teehee "I look completely insane!"
  
• Putting on Happy by Clinique perfume. Screams that she's taken her final form.
  
• She's gonna go out, have fun, come back and keep working on her shit like always. (yeah, no. She has done literally no work on anything ever. Who the hell does she think she's trying to fool?) She'll keep us updated on how it goes.
  
• Vlog was short but she's so super busy!! She's gonna do a mega q&a vlog soon. (oh yay, all the q's without any of the a's)
  
• Thanks, she loves us. Bye gotta go suck some dick in the alley behind the old age home! Laters!
  

I'll start this by saying with I love /halostory and I'm glad there's a place to talk about this stuff.
Seeing that Epitaph was released, I decided to read it and re-install Infinite after a two year break. I was tired of waiting for content and (naively) thought I'd re-install when single-player DLC came out, featuring Offensive Bias and revelations about what the hell happened off screen during Infinite.
Epitaph was a great end to the Didact's story, but it was an end to the Didact's story. I didn't read it as re-introducing him for future use. It looked like sticking him in the Domain to go off on adventures with Forthenco.
I thought maybe Infinite's MP lore had advanced the story somewhat. I read the Precipice and thought it was great - the return of the Assembly, the introduction of the Executors, the reveal of what's being going on with the Created. Great! Can't wait! 'Oh, there's... there's nothing in the game except for armor descriptions. Shit.'
So where are we now?
Since I was a kid, my head canon for Halo's multiplayer was Spartans in VR training against each other. This became canon in Halo 4 and 5 in War Games. Great! What in the name of fuck is Infinite supposed to be?!
Three years on, there's no single-player content. The Infinity is still destroyed (by the Banished, somehow). Offensive Bias is still having a nice big sleep. The Spartan IVs of the Infinity are dead, on Installation 07 eating ration packs, or at Agryna's facility.
On the multiplayer side, we got a cutscene where Agryna tells us we are training 'to endure. To ensure stability. To inspire hope.' Okay... cheesy slogan, tells us nothing. What is the Spartan program even for anymore? The Created seemingly destroyed the UNSC apart from small pockets.
We got one cutscene about lone wolves returning with a Banished AI. We got a cutscene about Onyx that seemingly went nowhere. We got a canon armor core about the Created exploring embodiment to try and exert control/find information after Cortana's death and the disabling of the Guardians (thank you Epitaph for filling in that gap).
This all feels like a gigantic dead end. I'm not saying I treat Halo like an in-depth RPG, but there's always been a core logic that makes a certain amount of sense with the other lore.

• Halo 1-3, we're training to fight the Covenant.
  
• Halo 4, holy shit, Forerunner stuff is waking up and the Covenant is resurgent, these Spartan IV's need to be in top condition.
  
• Halo 5, Created-controlled Forerunner drones are a huge threat to any planet Spartan IVs might be deploying to. Keep sharp against each other and make sure to familiarise yourself with enemy types in Warzone.
  
• Infinite. Laconia station is destroyed. The Infinity is dead. Umm... 'It's really important that you... uhhh... keep ready to fight the Banished... who are a really big threat now! We can't get you there, but, you know, stay sharp. Maybe experiment with making your armor really bright in the sims. Steve's got some great ideas for samurai-themed armor, so don't miss Samurai Sundays! Not during work hours though.'
  

If I was a Spartan IV at the Avery Johnson Training Facility, I'd put in for a transfer to become a comp-tech or something. Better hours, less bullshit sims and PT, I could spend my time reading about discoveries from Requiem or Sarcophagus. At least that's interesting.
TL;DR: I think it's a fairly common opinion that pivoting away from the Didact/Prometheans was a mistake, as was completely abandoning the Created plotline. Three years on from Infinite, it seems like nothing has moved on at all. I was hoping that Epitaph would be a signal that something was going to happen, but it was more of an ending.
Am I missing something, or has the whole story (including the expanded lore) just completely run out of steam?

I've bought a BlackBerry bold 9780, to be used as a second phone and for nostalgia reasons. The original battery is unfortunately become spicy, so I ordered a replacement (X- longer CS-BR9900FX) The battery seems to be a bit too short, but I have it pressed against the metal pins with some folded paper.
When it's on the charger I get the battery icon with an X through it. Like it's not detecting the battery. Pictures in the imgur link.
What could be the issue? Thanks to the folded paper the battery makes good contact with the metal pins, not the cleanest solution I know
Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/W4m2DDI

Hello! My name is Lex (he/they) and a number of months ago, I was lucky enough to find a group of really awesome players to DM for on this sub. Recently, however, one of my four players in our homebrew campaign had to step out due to personal reasons. We are looking for another player to join up in her stead, and to stay for the ride!

Welcome to New Haven

Concept

In the greater country of Aeris lies the fertile river valley known as the Rustlands, aptly named for the region that would become the heart of arcane industrialization. The rigid class structure and expansive market economy led to the founding of the city of New Haven. The year is 1909. Most denizens of New Haven have no concept of history before the city’s founding over a century ago, and only those alive to bear witness remember the world that used to flourish beyond. There was a vast world out there decades ago, replete with cities, monarchs, cultures, and wonders. That world is gone, lost in a cataclysmic cold snap known as the Chill. Jagged ice and hail took hold, as well with it the creatures that now stalk the snow.
Shortly after the onset of the Chill, a three-year skirmish known as the War of Fleeting Warmth took a heavy toll on New Haven. However, not all was lost—It was the technological advancements of war that pushed the city towards the construction of the Veil, a meteorological force field projected around the Rustlands that mediates the effects of the Chill. New Haven and the surrounding Rustlands are now enclosed within a globe of safety, steadfast against the encroaching cold. Hundreds, thousands have flocked here for the familiar sensation of warmth and safety. The city swells, protected. Nothing gets in, but no one gets out.
In the 24 years since the War of Fleeting Warmth, citizens revel in the wake of tragedy, guildsmen covet in the wake of confinement, disciples cry in the wake of salvation, and explorers and archeologists travel past the Veil to uncover the lost history beneath the ice.

Aim

The aim of the party is to uncover the many mysteries that lie hidden within the city's history, whether it be the devious machinations of government-guilds like HopeTech, the crimes carried out by syndicates like the Revelry or Sanguine Court, or the maddening revelations of strange onyx statues that seem to dot the Rustland's landscape.

Tone

This games tone is heavy, anxious, and at times dire. There are light moments almost every session, plenty of fun and games, but the setting's themes are by nature very serious. Crying has happened multiple times, but we love it!

Subject Matter

Intense subjects like murder, war, trauma, and existentialism are common. Please, if you are sensitive to any of these themes, take warning if you decide to apply. On the lighter side, our group has gotten pretty silly with the 1920's themes. Brawlers, speak-easies, guns, jazz, you name it!

As of posting this, The Horrors of New Haven is running 16 sessions strong. It is a homebrew campaign that combines the themes of 1920's Call of Cthulhu with the power fantasy of 5e. The setting takes inspiration from Candela Obscura, Magic: the Gathering, and a number of other horrofantasy content we love. We use Discord to play, D&D Beyond for character sheets, and take audio recordings of sessions for later reference (these recordings aren't uploaded online, just for us!).
The party has yet to be named, and if you play with us, you will understand why quickly: it is a slow burn. This game is very RP heavy, and has lead to some very emotional moments (but also some kick-ass combat too!). Thus, the party has yet to really establish a title. We have a Wizard/Cleric, a Fighter, and a Rogue currently at 5th Level. I'm not opposed to doubling up on classes, but we will see!
Below is a Google Form to fill out if you are interested, as well as a pretty lengthy lore doc my players have access to (DO NOT FEEL OBLIGATED TO READ ANY OR ALL OF IT, it is purely here to establish the setting's themes). If everything checks out on your form, I will contact you and set up a meeting time. I don't want to use the word "interview," but since we are looking for a single player, that's basically what it is.
Finally, if you are interested in hearing part of a session from us to understand the game's vibe, please reach out! I have permission from my players to share our recordings to those who are interested!
Form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScgOf8vexF3w6lYvpGM5cBQM8Wiga4RKv7oRw9LrWfhFWILuw/viewform?usp=sf_link
Setting Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zxP-1zAFfF9SHQDBqNhPDBGTnXVLdioll78WrMSngRA/edit?usp=sharing
Thank you for reading and for applying!

I have been developing some custom magic sets for my players for a while now and just completed what I hope to be close to the final draft for Soralyon, the Mystic Angel. Previous feedback suggested (and I think rightly so) that these sets should not have a slotless item because that doesn't make sense for a "set" but the Onyx Dog is too perfect of a pairing for Soralyon for me to give it up.
The players will be granted the Collector's Boon and Improved Collector's Boons for free. I'm open to all feedback, but I'm particularly interested if anyone has a good suggestions for the multi-item benefits. I've currently based them primarily on domain powers, but IDK if those seem exciting enough. I definitely want to keep the Celestial Obedience feat because that will be a theme for each of the sets. Using domain powers is an easy way to keep the sets similar but I'm just not thrilled with it.

I've always been a girl who loves animals, and now that I have two pet rabbits, both adoped within the last year, I am extra excited about the return of Nui Cobalt's Critters collection! This collection isn't entirely sweet cuddly woodland creatures, but it does have a lot of those, including three of my all-time favorite Nui Cobalts: Little Brown Rabbit, Little White Rabbit, and Lilac Rabbit. When Forest posted in the Facebook group asking which Critters we'd like to see return, or which animals we'd love to see emerge as new Critters, I waxed rhapsodic about the Rabbits and suggested a bunch of other colorings of rabbits that could become amazing perfumes... so I'm hopeful that we might even get a new Rabbit this year. I would just about die of happiness if she really did make a Blue Otter Rabbit after my sweet bun Hazel. She also teased a Ladybug scent for this year, which would be SO CUTE!
Anyway, the Critters are due back this Friday, with the newsletter announcing them on Thursday, and I am excited. As usual, I thought I'd post my thoughts on all the past Critters I've tried in case that might help you formulate your wishlist. And if you've tried any of these, I'd love to hear your thoughts! Was your experience similar to mine?
My preferences: I especially love snuggly scents, incense, golden amber, cardamom, black tea, beeswax, non-gourmand vanillas, and white florals (particularly tiare, honeysuckle and tuberose; sadly I am allergic to lilies and jasmine doesn’t work on me). I don't like hay, overly sweet gourmands, excessive musk, dragon’s blood, leather, patchouli, labdanum, or any really dark scents in general. To my great devastation, Nui Cobalt’s apricot and pear notes don’t tend to work on me, though I haven’t given up hope and I continue to try new blends with those notes occasionally.
Most of these perfumes were provided as press samples by Nui Cobalt in exchange for an honest review.
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Rabbits

Little Brown Rabbit [Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against fluffy marshmallow, cottonflower, pink pepper, and a trace of carrot seed] (this perfume is so popular that it is also in the Continuous Collection and available all year 'round!) - This is one of my absolute top perfume oils. It comforts me on hard days, it cozies me on laid-back evenings, it cheers me on rainy days. My husband recognizes it immediately and honestly I think he finds it cuddly too when I'm wearing it, and it's also his primary frame of reference when he sniffs a new sample I'm trying - "that smells a bit like Little Brown Rabbit" is high praise from him. Wet, it's very strongly nutmeg and caramel, almost mapley, but also with just a bit of pepperish bite from the carrot seed - this is as gourmand as I'm willing to get. Once it dries, the caramel dissipates and it becomes the most marvelously snuggly scent. Having a bad day? Little Brown Rabbit can cheer you up. Having a cozy day? Little Brown Rabbit will make it that much better. Wanting to unwind in the evening? Little Brown Rabbit is my go-to snuggly evening scent. And I think it's the absolute must-try from Nui Cobalt.
Little White Rabbit [Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against cottonflower, white peppercorn, clove, vanilla marshmallow creme, pale blue cashmere, carrot seed, and honeyed almond] - When the news broke that NCD was releasing a new little rabbit variant two years ago, I was SO excited (little did I know that it would seemingly become an annual thing!), and I blind-bought a full-size (something I never do). Especially because Little White Rabbit adds that wonderful cashmere note to Little Brown Rabbit, this one was a no-brainer for me, and my trust was easily rewarded. Nui Cobalt has outdone themselves with this, their most snuggly of perfumes. I expected this to be a lot like LBR only less mapley and perhaps more cashmere-y (and yes, it is both of these things), but truly, LWR feels even more like it's built on a base of Spidersilk vanilla (Starlight and Spidersilk: [Slender strands of cotton flower hung with trembling dewdrops, cold crystalline musk, and tiny black vanilla beans]), with some of the LBR spices (the peppercorn and carrot seed, but I don't sense any cloves) plus the comforting warmth of the cashmere and almond of Silver Fox (see below), another favorite of mine. And then finally, the marshmallow ties it all together into a pillowy cloud of coziness. It's frankly astonishing. Love at first sniff even just from the vial, and on my skin it blossoms into the most comforting scent. Do I love it even more than LBR? I still can't tell, even years later. I love them both. One final note that may be helpful to some of you: the cottonflower is pretty strong with this one, which is part of why it reminds me so much of the Spidersilk vanilla, but if you're not so much a fan of "clean" laundry-like scents, this one might not be quite your cup of tea - go for LBR instead.
Lilac Rabbit [Nutmeg and tonka bean nuzzle up against toasted marshmallow, carrot seed, summerweight cotton, allspice, and pale lilac in a smooth fur accord] - Oh friends, I hoped and pleaded for another new Rabbit last year, and the universe (and Nui Cobalt) answered! I'm not actually all that fond of lilac and I think I have ended up destashing all of my perfumes with lilac notes, but I was willing to risk it for the chance of a floral Rabbit. Lilac Rabbit is gorgeous - but really, did you expect it to be anything else? I get primarily marshmallow, allspice, and cotton. It sits exactly halfway between the other two Rabbits, with the allspice and peppery carrot seed spices of Little Brown Rabbit (but without the maple quality), and also with the silky, slightly soapy fabric aspect of Little White Rabbit. There is perhaps just a touch of musky lilac, but it doesn't really read to me like a floral perfume. Lilac Rabbit is comfortable. The closest metaphor I can think of is a day when you're wearing a new outfit, one that fits perfectly and really suits you, but it's also completely comfy, with no itchy spots or seams that dig in, and it moves with you. It's like a day where you feel perfectly yourself, fully at ease, and completely put-together. This new Rabbit is everything I could have possibly dreamed of, and it immediately became one of my favorite spring & summer scents.

Squirrels

In past years, they've offered a complete set of all the Squirrels, which was how I tried them all a few years ago. (They've since been discontinued, but sometimes discontinued things return again, or perhaps you might run into one in the swaps, so I'll include all my Squirrel reviews here.) All of the Squirrels are built on the same base of almond + apricot + benzoin, and then each one has different additional notes. Like the Spidersilk variants (all built on the same Spidersilk vanilla base but with different additional notes - my reviews HERE), the Squirrels each have an entirely different vibe. Interestingly, the actual proportion of almond to apricot also seems to vary by Squirrel, perhaps because of the interactions with the different added notes, or perhaps because they actually use different proportions in the Squirrel base for each one. It means that they don't feel anything like near-exact copies of each other, but each have a really distinct identity.
Black Squirrel [A playful blend of almond and spiced apricot, grounded in rich benzoin and copaiba balsam, deepened by black oak, black currant, vanilla bean, and myrrh] - When I first put it on, it's very strongly and exclusively almond - a warm almond that reminds me of baking almond cookies, and it must be the vanilla that helps to make that association. The almond veers slightly towards cherry. As the oil warms on my skin, the apricot emerges and then overtakes the almond. It's apricot skin, soft and velvety, rather than the fleshy fruit of the apricot. These two notes, paired with the woodiness of the balsam and (presumably) black oak, makes this a very bookish scent, perfect for the dark academia aesthetic of my wardrobe in autumn. It's not really an incense-heavy perfume; the myrrh just grounds it and gives it a beautiful dark richness. On me it's not terribly fruity (though I know some folks get mostly dark stone fruits; isn't skin chemistry fascinating!) It's the longest-lasting of the Squirrels, too - the second time I wore it, its throw was a bit too high at bedtime so I washed my wrists, and even so, I could still smell Black Squirrel the next morning!
Flying Squirrel [Raw almond, spiced apricot, and rich benzoin borne aloft by lavender, cotton flower, and tart kumquat] - This one reminds me a lot of Napping in a Flower [Tender ripe apricot, Bulgarian lavender, spiced summer honey, plum blossom, daylily, honeysuckle, and ylang], which makes perfect sense since they share a lot of the same notes, but without the honey and honeysuckle that made Napping too candle-y on me. Husband said this reminds him strongly of Little White Rabbit - he said it's the spices that make that association for him, and I suspect he was also picking up on the shared cotton flower and almond notes. I'm finding it easier to compare Flying Squirrel to other NCD scents than to describe it on its own; its combination of notes feels quite erratic and the concept doesn't feel terribly unified. I couldn't classify this as a "cozy" perfume even though it does have a strong cotton flower note, nor is it citrusy enough for me to think of it as a fruity perfume (even though it has the strongest apricot of all the Squirrels), or herbal enough for it to go in my lavender section (in fact, I'm hoping that some aging brings out the lavender more). If you like Napping in a Flower or Little White Rabbit - two perfumes that are really nothing alike! - you'd probably enjoy this one too.
Grey Squirrel [A playful blend of almond and spiced apricot, grounded in rich benzoin and copaiba balsam, softened with cotton flower, cashmere, and teakwood] - This one gives the effect of eating an almond cookie while snuggled in a wool blanket. This one is super cozy - the autumn cousin of my beloved wintertime snuggly scents (Silver Fox, Snow Cat, Chionophilia, all of which also feature almond and fabric notes - see their full notes lists and my comparative reviews HERE). Grey Squirrel stays pretty static, not morphing like Black Squirrel, and the apricot is only barely present.
Red Squirrel [A playful blend of almond and spiced apricot, grounded in rich benzoin and copaiba balsam, warmed with red musk, red sandalwood, and smoldering amber] - This one is pretty heavy on the red musk, and was in fact partly responsible for me finally figuring out that I don't personally enjoy red musk. The almond, apricot, and sandalwood combination does give this a rather gourmand-adjacent feel to it, more so than the other Squirrels. It's a very rich and warm perfume. It's funny how actually "red" this scent feels - it feels like the experience of watching a bonfire die down, even though there's no smoke note at all. "Smoldering" indeed.
White Squirrel [A playful blend of almond and spiced apricot, grounded in rich benzoin and copaiba balsam, cooled with aloe, white musk, and smooth white amber] - Even without looking at the notes, it was easy to identify the white amber in this one, even though Nui Cobalt only infrequently uses white amber as a note. White Squirrel is very like Grey Squirrel, equally cozy but lighter and airier, with that white amber instead of cashmere. White Squirrel is cooler, more standoffish than Grey Squirrel - that "cool" effect must be the aloe - more a wintertime snuggly scent rather than an autumnal cozy scent. Even the now-familiar almond + apricot base feels daintier and even less foody here in White Squirrel.
Overall--

• Grey Squirrel and White Squirrel are the snuggly ones. Wear Grey Squirrel for cozy blanket vibes, and White Squirrel to be even daintier.
• Wear Red Squirrel for sexy outdoorsy gourmandy vibes (is that a thing? I think Red Squirrel makes it a thing)
• Black Squirrel is the dark academia sibling, and Flying Squirrel is the playful cousin

All the other Critters

Akhal-Teke [Fine ecru suede, raw silk, pearl musk, white amber, precious Hawaiian sandalwood, and creamy pistachio] - As someone put it, "super shiny horse". Silky yet fuzzy and soft, sophisticated yet snuggly. I recognize that pearl musk + sandalwood combination from Cancer [Cotton flower, steamed rice, soft sandalwood, vanilla orchid, coconut milk, and pearl musk] and I love it here too. All of these notes, suede + silk + pearl musk + white amber + sandalwood together, are gentle and just the epitome of softness, yet with just enough body and presence to be soft-on-purpose, assertively soft if that makes sense. This is not a wallflower scent. On to more specifics about the literal smell. At first, the nutty pistachio is pretty present, but it melds beautifully with the gentle suede. The silk and white amber give an elegance. I also definitely get the pearl musk and sandalwood, which take more prominence in the drydown when the pistachio dissipates a bit. This is my favorite stage - just soft, gentle, creamy, and absolutely lovely. Akhal-Teke has low throw but high longevity. I should note that after a year of aging, the pistachio amped quite a lot, overpowering that gorgeous pearl musk/sandalwood base that I loved so much. I'm hoping someday Forest might make one that's basically just pearl musk and sandalwood, without any gourmand elements!
Black-Capped Chickadee [Dogwood saplings, cedar resin, the tang of young stone fruits: still tiny and green, sugar maple, pine nuts, and barely-thawed soil] - I'm not one for dirt notes, so I completely passed this one up for several years, but enough really glowing reviews finally convinced me to try it. In the vial, it smells of wood, honeyed fruits, and hay. On my skin, it's soil, slightly nutty and incensey, with plush fruit and some very cedar-forward wood notes - and yet it's surprisingly dainty, and a perfect encapsulation of a black-capped chickadee. There's something about this scent that reminds me of snow-covered pebbles, and also of Shakespeare's poem "The cloud-capp'd towers" from The Tempest. After much sniffing and pondering, I finally figured out why I made that snowy association - the fruits read to me like cranberry, making this feel like a wintery scent. As for "The cloud-capp'd towers," I think I'm getting that Shakespearean reference from the combination of daintiness and dirt.
Blossom Bat [Humid rainforest blossoms laden with nectar, dense moss, passionfruit, black fig, and bamboo] - This was an order freebie that I wouldn't have picked out for myself, but it's so fun, and it went straight into my "Aloe and dewy" section of my summer perfumes, next to Waimea Mist and Aloha from the Big Island summer collection. Blossom Bat is velvety flower petals against a lush background of aquatic notes. I don't often enjoy moss notes (they often turn into honeydew melon on my skin), but here the moss contributes to the especially verdant feeling.
Blue Jay [Sturdy blue spruce and young oak support the bold elegance of white peony, angelica, blackberry bramble, and rhubarb] - In the vial, it's extremely fruity with a hint of trees. On my skin, it matches the description much more closely: evergreens and forest floor, brightened by fruity sweetness and a hint of floral. If you loved None of Your Beeswax [Thorny brambles of blackberry, elderflower, violet, fennel seed, sacred benzoin, and unfiltered honey] from the Bees collection, do give this one a try - Blue Jay is like None of Your Beeswax's summer cousin. I once wore this to a community theater production of Into the Woods and it was perfect.
Copper Fox [Warm chai with steamed almond milk nestled in sumptuous cashmere, crimson musk, sarsaparilla, and budding birch] - I once went on a quest to find the perfect chai perfume, and of course I had to try Copper Fox! Immediately on application, Copper Fox is root beer, spicy root beer - there's that sarsaparilla in a big way. As it quickly dries, the overwhelmingly root beer-ness of it backs off somewhat, and it becomes much more chai spices + the woody birch (and still with an undercurrent of root beer). Chai latte this is not - it's all the spices of chai (cinnamon and black pepper especially, and probably a bit of ginger as well) without any sweetness or milky creaminess. I should note that at this point my skin has a slight reaction to this perfume; this perfume ended up being part of my discovery that like many others, I too have a slight skin reaction to cinnamon. It didn't hurt a bit and the redness went away fairly quickly, but be forewarned, if you're a person that has a reaction to cinnamon, this might be a blend worth steering away from, or at least planning to wear in a scent locket or in your hair instead of on your skin. Finally, several hours later, Copper Fox has a third stage, and to me the most lovely: chai spices backed by gentle almond and cozy cashmere (and at this stage it's clearly a "Fox" like Silver Fox).
Elf Owl [A bright concoction of liatrix, yellow sandalwood, beach-tumbled teak, solar musk, crushed coriander, and a scant pinch of pale cinnamon] - With the teak and cinnamon, and of course the obvious cue of the "solar musk", I was expecting this to be in the same family as Nui Cobalt's Sun, Heliophilia (Love of Sun), and Sunrise on Spidersilk (comparative review HERE!). Those sun-themed perfumes can be a bit too sharp and masculine on me (I tend to prefer snuggly scents or white florals), but as a great lover of owls (and a huge fan of Nui Cobalt's Snowy Owl [Dried coconut flakes, pale woods, frozen tuberose, vanilla orchid, and fluffy feather musk], with which it admittedly shares not a single note), I absolutely could not pass up Elf Owl. I'm so glad I didn't. This actually isn't in the sun-themed family, nor, of course, does it match the highly white-floral Snowy Owl. Instead, Elf Owl turns out to be much closer to Squash Blossom [Cocobolo wood, orris root, carrot seed, sunflower petals, mandarin zest, and acorn squash baked with brown sugar] from the Autumn 1 collection, though much less vegetal. It's a very well-blended perfume and nothing in particular stands out. The overall effect is gentle: gently floral and slightly vegetal, with vanilla and baking spices but without any sugary sweetness. (Liatrix, for anyone who doesn't know what that note is--I had to look it up myself!--is a "sweet, coumarinic, herbal, tobacco-like floral and offers a pleasant vanilla-like scent".)
Fennec Fox [Blush sandalwood, amber resin, antique Egyptian cotton touched with saffron, spiced peach preserves, and sweet cedar resin] - It's gentle, warm, and spiced, with that snuggly feeling that you get with anything that has NCD's cotton note. If you really look, you can distinguish the wood, saffron, and peach, but they meld together extremely well. Surprisingly, I actually get quite a lot of the same sand note as in Flying South [Pink lemonade, warm sand, tiare blossoms, and a flowy cotton sundress] even though sand is not listed. I wear Fennec Fox in autumn on days when I don't feel like a pumpkin.
Glasswing Butterfly [A diaphanous veil of coconut water, elderflower, moonlit gardenia, silver musk, green lavender, and a slender twist of lime] - Nelophilia (Love of Glass) [Elderflower, silver musk, coconut water, cardamom, silk tree, lime blossom, and smooth hinoki wood] is one of my favorites from the Valentine's collection, but it's been discontinued for some time. So I was delighted to see this one because its notes read like a combination of Nelophilia and Queen Bee [Creamy white gardenia and fluffy whipped honey], both among my favorite NCD perfumes. It's not quite - it's not the same almost-spicy gardenia as in Queen Bee - but it is absolutely divine. Glasswing Butterfly is basically Nelophilia with all its smooth, cool, rainy, white floral nature, but here the cardamom is more present (YES! I love cardamom), and with a bit more floral. After a year of aging, it became quite a LOT more white floral; the heady gardenia came out with a KICK, and it's nearly but not quite indolic.
Honey Badger [Black amber, raw honey, smoked maple wood, and cardamom-infused cream] - I mean, duh, I had to try this one just for the cardamom cream. This is somehow so recognizably a NCD scent. Honey straight from the comb, dripping and golden, rich and sweet, backed by maple wood (but not really maple syrup) and a whiff of cardamom spice. Not nearly enough cardamom for my taste - but then, we all know what I'm like! I'm so glad I tried this one. Since its notes list starts with "black amber," I expected this to be quite a dark scent, but while it's quite rich, it's not ominously dark. Husband really likes this one, which is always a special success.
Hummingbird [Darting from oleander to orange blossom with ripe nectarine, hibiscus tea, and traces of tuberose] - White florals with orange and nectarine fruit notes, chirpy and cheerful. It's a juicy but not sugary scent. I love it for warm spring days - it's an absolute staple of my springtime perfumes - though I find it a little cloying in very hot weather.
Opossum [A bold nocturnal potion of Hatian amyris, soft black suede, red patchouli, freshly-turned earth, copal resin, and Peru balsam] - I get suede, red musk, and brown patchouli; meanwhile Husband, sniffing my wrist, gets pine and petrichor. Yet the combination of all these things is surprisingly gentle, not a shouty, in-your-face kind of scent. Absolutely none of the notes we're picking up on are my thing, but just about all of them very much are Husband's thing, so guess what - he immediately snaffled this one.
Orchid Mantis [Ripe Philippine mango, dragon fruit, tamarind, Indonesian teak, clove bud, sandalwood, tuberose, and a touch of ylang] - This one is bit too sweet for me on application - at first it's all sugary mango - but as it warms on my skin, the other notes creep in: more fruit (but less sugar), a bit of sharp clove for balance, and hints of woodiness and florals. As it dries, those hints of clove and woodiness amp further (and at this point, all my husband smells is cinnamony clove). For some reason, this is one of the very strongest of my NCD scents, with high longevity and even higher throw.
Raccoon [Sepia cashmere, guaiac wood, Egyptian amber, Copaiba balsam, golden musk, a twinkle of coriander, blonde oudh, resinous Himalayan cedar, and myrrh] - It's so well-blended that I can't pick out a single note individually, but something about this feels so quintessentially NCD. Right on application, it makes me think of Cheat Code [Windswept teakwood, cedar, coriander and tea are grounded in black tonka with a hint of fine leather], another one I had trouble describing, and it has a similar level of elegance and polish. Meanwhile, Husband smelled a bit of cola or sarsparilla, and noted an almost chocolatey undertone. As it dries, the cashmere and musk come forward, quite woolly and plush and just a touch animalistic. It seems a similar cashmere musk as in Arctic Fox [Soft amber nestled in sumptuous cashmere, steamed rice milk, winter white musk, and snow-covered fir trees]. If Arctic Fox worked for you, you absolutely must try Raccoon. Since Arctic Fox doesn't work on me (my skin amps that cashmere to unpleasant levels), Raccoon ultimately won't win a place in my collection either - which is a bummer because that opening is so pretty. I'll have to stick with Cheat Code for my polished, sophisticated vibes.
Robin's Egg [Dainty forget-me-nots and lily of the valley, a dollop of whipped blueberry creme, and a cozy birch nest tucked into a flowering dogwood tree] - This one has the same amazing blueberry as Grey Cat [Dry smoked vanilla, fluffy marshmallow creme, fresh blueberries, the gentlest touch of lavender and a warm cup of Earl Grey], House of Transcendence [Top notes of wild blueberry and morning fog, a heart of pale lilac and cashmere, with a base of orris and white amber], and Choreophilia [Wild violets, warm Earl Grey, Dominican blue amber, orris root, a handful of blueberries, and a touch of lime marmalade]. This iteration of the blueberry note is juicy and floral. After a few years of aging, Robin's Egg has become even more gorgeous and creamy, with that stunning blueberry and a vision of dainty blue flowers. This one is discontinued and I'm really sad about that (but you could maybe find some in the swaps if you ask around).
Silver Fox [White tea with honey and rice milk, almond macaron, soft grey cashmere and cool woodland musk] (this perfume is so popular that it is also in the Continuous Collection and available all year 'round) - Stunning. Sophisticated yet snuggly. The cashmere is the most prominent, followed by fir, the sweetness of white amber, and NCD's gentle whipped honey note. I also wouldn't have been surprised to read that copal was a note - there's just that little bit of resinous almost-smoke. When it dries, the sweetness goes away and the fir comes forward. This was a freebie with one of my orders - I hadn't actually bought a sample of this for myself, worried that I wouldn't like the rice milk (which, as it turns out, I don't actually smell), but it has since become one of my favorite wintertime scents.
Sugar Glider [Raw cotton, sugar cane, flannel flower, macadamia nut, pearblossom, palest musk, and dandelion puff] - So here's the thing, I'm wary of gourmands (in fact I always sit out most of the April Fool's gourmand collection). Sugar is listed in the notes description in the very second place, but I am a sucker for cute woodland animals, so that's how I ended up with this sample. After a first sniff in the vial, I got a little nervous about it, because it smelled very sugary, but I figured I'd wear it once, review it for you all, and then in a worst-case scenario, destash it to someone who does love sugary dessert scents. But wait! There's something strangely intoxicating about this one, and it's not really a gourmand. Immediately when I put it on, it reminded me a bit of the Sweettart-ness of my beloved Somniphilia (Love of Sleep) [Lamb's wool accord, orange blossom, barely-budding lavender, melissa, green fig, clary, cloud musk, and weightless vanilla marshmallow meringue]. I was pleasantly surprised that Sugar Glider is not at all dessert, instead more sugar + wood, and really rather cuddly. And then when it dries down, it reminds me so strongly of the blue raspberry note in Dewdrops on Spidersilk [Cerulean strands of cotton flower bejeweled with dewdrops, cold crystalline musk, tiny black vanilla beans, frozen blue raspberry, and gentle incense], except it's not "blue" (nor is it raspberry, but neither is "blue raspberry"). How did they achieve this effect? I have no idea, but it's so addictive: such a delicate, cheerful, springtime scent. It really does remind me of the experience of picking a perfect white fluffy dandelion and making a wish as you blow it. Definitely a springtime favorite.
White-Tailed Deer [Soft brown suede, golden musk, wild forest berries, and roasted chestnuts dusted with maple sugar] - I am always hesitant about suede, but was very happy when this was included as a free sample because I'd heard lovely things about it but wouldn't have purchased it for myself. It's an interesting one because my experience is of it is very different depending on distance. When I'm just smelling it as it wafts around me, it's such a warm, cozy scent, the suede mingling with chestnut and brown sugar. When I bring my wrist directly up to my nose to sniff, the suede does get a bit overwhelmingly leathery, and overtakes the other notes. Once it dries, though, that unpleasantly smoky leatheriness dissipates (even right up under my nose), leaving only the highly autumnal coziness behind. It is indeed very "golden" - or maybe a really rich, warm brown. I don't get any berries at all. It reminds me of the very stylized acorns and hedgehogs that fellow autumn-lovers love to idolize. (And for some reason, Husband gets saffron!)

Personally...

Robin's Egg, Sugar Glider, and Elf Owl are some of my TOP favorite perfumes for spring; Fennec Fox for fall; and Silver Fox for winter. Black Squirrel is my favorite of the Squirrels (in fact I ended up destashing all the others since I continue to have some issues with NCD's apricot note) - it's so beautifully dark-academia. And in my opinion, the three Rabbits are absolute must-tries (and I hold so much hope for a new Rabbit this year!). If you try nothing else from this collection, try whichever of the three Rabbits most calls your name - they're all different but all absolutely stunning.
What are you hoping for this year? Any particular animals you're keeping fingers crossed for? Do we think it'll be mostly woodland creatures this year, or perhaps we'll get some oceanic or other Critters too?