Let The Covenant Be Ended

Ivanna/Evie • She/her • Puerto Rican • Choices & Spellfyre

[the-unconquered-queen]

Come join our Choices community!

What is it? Originally named Playchoices Non-VIPs, we are now Choices Wide Release, a space that uses Tumblr's new communities feature to post and chat about Choices books at the pace of wide releases, taking early access spoilers completely out of the equation

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What is it? Choices by Candlelight is a community to discuss everything Candlelight Games-related! With Love & Magic: Spellfyre (aka Project Spellstruck) now OUT, it’s a space for chatting about it the way we've always talked about Choices books

Who is welcome? While Candlelight Games so far appears to share its audience with Choices, we can anticipate that CG will someday pull in players in its own right, which is why Choices by Candlelight was created to foster community among everyone in the middle of that Venn diagram, which means that any and all Choices players who have an interest in Candlelight Games and their project(s) are welcome in our community!

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[the-unconquered-queen]

Secret third option: I don’t give a rat’s ass

[the-unconquered-queen]

You know, I wish we got to see more of the Children of the Flame. It feels like last term, they were a pretty important group that more or less stuck together and had each other's backs, but this term, not only are we down to two featured characters who are Children of the Flame aside from Talyn and MC, but they're very much background characters.

And I think having more of these characters and having them feature more in the story would be great because we'd get to see the different ways they were raised and maybe a diverse sampling of ideologies vis-à-vis the Flamekeepers' cause (come on, some of them have to know more than the bare bones, and I can't believe that none of them are supportive of the vision beyond the violence), and if nothing else, I'd like to see them interact with Talyn more. Because after establishing that he sees them as younger siblings of sorts, we could've at least seen them at his nameday party.

All I'm saying is, we've got this group of roughly 40 students who are ostracized for their parentage which links them to each other—I'd like to know more about them, and I would love to see MC try to build community with them.

[the-unconquered-queen]

Boyfriend-in-law on boyfriend-in-law violence

[chchanging]

It’s so funny playing Iridessa’s quests as someone who isn’t romancing her because girl why are you so upset she didn’t tell you she was betrothed…you didn’t give Rhiannon this much shit when she told you…in the grand scheme of things you haven’t been friends for super long…

[the-unconquered-queen]

Yeah, I've always found MC's reaction so disproportionate and clearly written with only her romancers in mind. And it was such an early quest, too, which means that she was confiding in MC about this when they hadn't even known each other long, so as a friend, how much sooner could she have even brought it up? That's her personal business as far as I'm concerned and non-romancing players should not even have gotten the option to be upset with her.

[the-unconquered-queen]

PLEASE be Windworn 🙏🏼

[the-unconquered-queen]

The actual words out of my mouth were “I’m under the what?” 🥴

[the-unconquered-queen]

If I were to rank things in Spellfyre that peeve me, MC always calling Morelia by her nickname wouldn't rank the highest, but it'd certainly be winning awards for pettiness

Because why the fuck are we doing that?

[the-unconquered-queen]

Which of these is the most valid roommate pet peeve?

They finish the groceries and leave the empty containers instead of buying more

They're a slob who leaves food around and you're stuck cleaning up after them

They're a neat freak to the point where they're just irrationally controlling

They're noisy when you're trying to work and use your stuff without asking

They take up all the available space and expect you to work elsewhere

They risk getting you both evicted by violating the terms of your lease

They're always inviting people over without consulting you

Remaining time: 17 hours 2 minutes

[the-unconquered-queen]

Following that brief talk (or non-talk) with Talyn about the future, I'm giving more and more weight to the prediction that Talyn will end up taking over as Survival professor if/when Windworn takes her position back from Kennard, because of course they're gonna need a reason for one of the main LIs to stick around even after he's graduated (assuming Spellfyre is longer than just one school year). Only thing is how that's gonna play into his planned future of working his way to a leadership position in the military to make change from the inside. It's not that he couldn't do something like that by molding students, but it seems he has something particular in mind. Maybe teaching is a way to get noticed in the long run when he's almost certainly initially passed over for the more prestigious jobs due to being a Child of the Flame.

[bedtimegiraffe]

I'm slowly catching up on the horny side quests and so tickled by everyone apparently knowing the 'lube' spell. I get that it's just a plot convenience thing, but the implications are so funny.

Is this an Erolis spell? Do you need to draw on a memory of a time you were really horny? Or a time you felt slippery?

I don't think they're teaching it in class. Is it a thing passed down informally from older friends/ sex partners? How does formerly isolated Dreadbane know it? Is it just super intuitive? I can't think of any other spells that actually create physical matter, so it seems like a unique one.

[bedtimegiraffe]

@the-unconquered-queen I swear I'm being serious. They say it so quickly and casually, but it's there. Definitely with male MC/ male LI and I think female as well?

[the-unconquered-queen]

Bro wtf is thisssss I just had to use word search on my screenshots and I do NOT have that in my f!MC playthrough. I'm assuming based on the bg it's from a Talyn quest—maybe Fighting Chance? Because if it is, you definitely don't get that with f!MC, because I happen to have screenshot the whole scene with all its variants and it's definitely not there. If it's from Talyn's Call of the Wild, though, I don't have those screenshots, but I would be shocked that I skimmed past that without noticing and I am sure it's not come up in any other side quests, because missing it once is one thing, but missing it several times? No way.

[normal-thoughts-official]

so how do we think this dasek proposal plotline is going to go?

jilla will say no and dasek will turn into an evil incel or something

jilla will say yes but the order will block their betrothal for whatever reason

this just happened so we could get more lore dump on betrothals and won't matter

secret fourth option?

Voting ended on21h

[the-unconquered-queen]

I'm wondering whether it's to build up attachment to them for one of them to get killed soon. For such a dangerous school, not one student we know has died because of the inherent dangers of Elderwood—everyone we know who's died has been because of some Other Plot. It's time they make the stakes personal again.

Otherwise, it might be to expand on the Order and social classes. We know they're oppressive, but they don't often address the specifics beyond the pigs-for-slaughter stuff. Considering that Niel's whole thing is that she's a dirtmage because her father broke his betrothal vow (and that Iridessa is betrothed against her will right now), I would like to delve deeper into the other ways that the Order controls every arcane's life, and, as far as arranged marriages are concerned, to what extent they go (so like if only Austerea does arranged marriages, if it's possible for people to get married without the Order's approval—can't imagine a Dreadbane would ever be voluntarily given consent to marry, whether same-sex couples are allowed to be together given that the whole purpose of the arranged marriages is to sire children, etc.).

[normal-thoughts-official]

could be. and i agree, they should make the stakes personal. they can't tell us a third of students die and have all of them be unnamed characters we've never met!

im kind of hoping it's the second one. the first term deeply disappointed me in that it completely pivoted from the actual issues of the insanely oppressive and cartoonishly evil society we're in to make it about how one (1) resistance fighter is bad. so im hoping this is going to further a plotline in that sense. one of them dying or the betrothal being blocked would both do that

my main issue is, we've gotten scenes with dasek and jilla where she basically told him that their relationship is not that deep. i dont remember the details but they were having a fight about it. i believe it was in niel's ally quest with the time loop. so it seems weird to me that jilla would say yes to a betrothal when she's expressed not being that invested in it in the past, and i kinda don't want them to just recon that because god forbid a woman doesn't want marriage. but idk

[the-unconquered-queen]

Yeah, I thought so, too. They were recently arguing over—I believe—Jilla not being ready to be introduced to Dasek's parents as his girlfriend or something like that. In any case, it appears that they only got together last term, so unless they've been besties for years, it's very soon for an engagement (and even then tbh), so I think there's gonna be some conflict there, but not so much of the "Jilla turned Dasek down purely because it's too soon for marriage" variety because they haven't earned that yet. If it's due to their difference in social standing or due to the Order not approving, that's good, because it's a mechanism to expose us to more of the Spellfyre world, but otherwise, it really doesn't matter, because—did I think Dasek planning to propose to Jilla and being nervous was cute? Yes! Would I be devastated if she just weren't into him like that? No; they just haven't had enough screen time to get invested in their relationship so far.

And if it's not a breakup for societal/Order reasons, when exactly would there be time to witness the drama from it when scenes are so short? There'd be basically no room to explore it and therefore no reason to write it at all. Notice that in that scene today, even if you're with your LI, there is nothing romantic between MC and the LI about it. No chance to use Dasek's upcoming proposal to discuss the LIs' views on marriage, so if it wasn't an excuse for a brief romantic/characterization moment with the LIs, then it must serve a different purpose, and since, again, I don't see how it could be background drama for the sake of background drama, then I stand by the only two possible purposes are either to make players attached or to lay the foundations to tell us something about how this world works. I think if it's the societal/Order reasons, it might be because of the class difference or whatever else, but you mention "god forbid a woman doesn't want marriage", which just begs another question: to what extent is abstaining from marriage even an option in a world that dictates and enforces matchups to continue arcane lineages? There are so many issues we could explore through this side plot, since it surely seems like it's there to serve a purpose in the long run.

[normal-thoughts-official]

so how do we think this dasek proposal plotline is going to go?

jilla will say no and dasek will turn into an evil incel or something

jilla will say yes but the order will block their betrothal for whatever reason

this just happened so we could get more lore dump on betrothals and won't matter

secret fourth option?

Voting ended on21h

[the-unconquered-queen]

I'm wondering whether it's to build up attachment to them for one of them to get killed soon. For such a dangerous school, not one student we know has died because of the inherent dangers of Elderwood—everyone we know who's died has been because of some Other Plot. It's time they make the stakes personal again.

Otherwise, it might be to expand on the Order and social classes. We know they're oppressive, but they don't often address the specifics beyond the pigs-for-slaughter stuff. Considering that Niel's whole thing is that she's a dirtmage because her father broke his betrothal vow (and that Iridessa is betrothed against her will right now), I would like to delve deeper into the other ways that the Order controls every arcane's life, and, as far as arranged marriages are concerned, to what extent they go (so like if only Austerea does arranged marriages, if it's possible for people to get married without the Order's approval—can't imagine a Dreadbane would ever be voluntarily given consent to marry, whether same-sex couples are allowed to be together given that the whole purpose of the arranged marriages is to sire children, etc.).

[the-unconquered-queen]

My real question is how MC has any money to begin with. It can’t possibly be provided by the school, so is it whatever was left of Andros and Lyria’s money that was set in a trust for MC or something? And if it were, who’d even be administering it? Windworn? Someone from the Manor?

[the-unconquered-queen]

My goodness they’re serving looks 😳🤭

[the-unconquered-queen]

“You better not be levitating papa Dreadbane when I get back for Term 2”

Me:

[the-unconquered-queen]

THEY GROUNDED HIM

[the-unconquered-queen]

BY TALOS THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING

[the-unconquered-queen]

Theories on the Spellfyre update feature?