Keith Duggar

Forever Shine, Gentle Soul
Keira River Victoria Duggar

Dandelion sits among Heaven's common seeds,
Offering no scent to please and having few needs;
On dirt or fractured stone, it settles fast and tight,
Against all hardship, still content to bloom and fight.

Less common, the wild rose unfolds in fragrant grace;
With digging roots, it fiercely spreads and claims its space,
But armors itself with leather leaves and sharp thorns
That make a careless hand regret the rose it scorns.

Rare is the orchid, blooming colors painted bright;
Its beauty marks its claim and beguiles all in sight.
No inviting scent, and no armor shields its stem,
A quiet, shining bloom, a more delicate gem.

But rarest of all are seeds of the Gentle Soul;
Softest petals blaze, a diamond fire woven bowl.
Delighting perfume dances freely through the air,
And walkers by vow always they will return there.

A Gentle Soul alighted once on a cold stone,
Covered with different soil none had ever known.
In the spring, her gentle roots found a shallow hold,
And soon she blossomed, happy, beautiful, and bold.

But a creeping vine lying too near caught her scent
And set its path to grow and spread its dark intent;
By summer's end, heat dried and cracked the soil to bone,
And the vine creeped darkly between her roots and stone.

She tried to grow deeper roots for more strength to hold,
But the unmoving stone was too hard and too cold;
The different soil crumbled as the vine pushed through
And fell away from the stone and roots as it grew.

By fall, her blossom opened long past morning light,
And she struggled to close as day gave way to night
When the night wind would rise to blow strong and steady
And pull at her soft, young petals, still not ready.

The vine had invaded her most secret spaces,
Between the soil and stone, through all sheltered places.
And the night wind seemed warmer now than the cold earth,
And with it came scents of Gentle Souls and new birth.

She felt peace in the night wind now and opened more;
Within its soft embrace, she rose and then did soar
From the cold earth and darkly grasping creeping vine
Back to Heaven, where her soul does forever shine.

The winter snows melted for all the years that came,
Washing clean different soil and stone all the same.
But walkers by did protest and vow each hour:
Once upon that spot grew a Gentle Soul flower

That beckoned with sweetest perfume,
That dazzled with beauty and grace,
That touched with the softest caress,
That left our world all too soon.

August 24th, 2006 – October 28th, 2026

The Light shine on you,
River Keira Victoria Duggar.
And may you shelter
in the palm of the Creator's hand.
The last embrace of the Mother
welcome you home.

Adapted from Robert Jordan,
The Great Hunt, The Wheel of Time

@Xaryu I've been pondering your quest for an Arcane Mage third button in @Warcraft Forever. Here is a proposal.

Arcane Mage in WoW Forever currently has a very simple, two-button PvE core loop: build Arcane Blast (AB) stacks, then spend them with Arcane Missiles (AM). Here I propose a true third rotational button, rather than another cooldown ability.

### Arcane Rupture (AR)

**Instant, normal GCD, no cooldown.**

Deals Arcane damage equal to roughly **40% of Arcane Blast** and consumes all Arcane Blast stacks.

Increases your Arcane damage dealt to the target by **8% per Arcane Blast stack consumed for 3 seconds per stack**.

So:

* 1 stack: +8% for 3 sec
* 2 stacks: +16% for 6 sec
* 3 stacks: +24% for 9 sec
* 4 stacks: +32% for 12 sec

Because Rupture itself deals damage, the existing Arcane Blast damage bonus would apply to its initial hit before the stacks are consumed.

The idea is that **Arcane Missiles and Arcane Rupture become competing ways to spend Arcane Blast stacks**.

Missiles gives the highest immediate payoff from the existing +10% damage per Blast stack. Rupture sacrifices that immediate payoff to create a stronger future damage window.

There should be **no cooldown**. The stacks themselves are the resource and gating mechanism. The decision should always be available and ideally viable at any number of AB stacks, depending on the situation:

**Missiles now, Rupture now, or cast another Blast first?**

Four-stack Rupture should have the highest theoretical return in steady state, but lower-stack Ruptures become correct depending on circumstances.

Here are some examples:

* An add only has six seconds to live: 2-stack Rupture may beat spending another five seconds building to four.
* Movement is coming: cash out your current stacks now with Missiles.
* Mana is tight: 3-stack Rupture may be preferable to paying for the expensive fourth Blast.
* Eureka, Arcane Power, trinkets, or an execute phase are approaching: hold Rupture and build toward a 4-stack burn.
* A target is nearly dead: even a 1-stack Rupture provides immediate damage rather than wasting time building stacks that will not be used.

My cursory analysis suggests that **8% per stack / 3 sec per stack / 40% AB initial damage** is strong enough that Rupture would likely enter the optimal sustained rotation, while still creating meaningful and interesting deviations during real fights.

The goal is simple: turn Arcane from

**AB -> AB -> AB -> AB -> AM**

into a three-button resource system where player knowledge, encounter dynamics, mana, enemy lifetime, movement prediction, and cooldown timing all affect how you spend your stacks

My relationship with flame wars:

In my 10s, I watched them.
In my 20s, I created them.
In my 30s, I fueled them.
In my 40s, I trolled them.
In my 50s, I ignore them.

I used AI to turn one of my favorite Tolkien passages into a Venn diagram. Bilbo gives one of the most elegantly convoluted birthday toasts ever written.

“I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring