#// just two female elves getting to know each other and help support one another (or at least that's what Lyna's trying to do)

[starwrittenfates]

✨ Dragon Age Starter Call // @woodcries (for Elian)

While some others of the Dalish may look at the elves of the City a certain way, right at this very moment, none of that mattered. They were equals and Grey Warden's. Lyna was still trying to process all that had happened in Ostagar, but even more so since that moment with the mirror, Tamlen, and Duncan arriving to recruit her. It had been a while ago, but it all still seemed so fresh to her, still trying to find a way through the storm of it.

Glancing at the other elf with concern, the warrior sat down next to her, extending some kindness. ❝ How are you holding up? ❞ After all, she probably had her own story to tell too. ❝ I don't know if I ever introduced myself. I'm Lyna Mahariel. ❞

[startanewdream]

All the time with you

Lily was avoiding him.

Which would be nothing new to James except they were dating for two weeks now and she was his girlfriend - she had said yes when he’d asked her, twice, so James was sure if that - and James had thought everything was fine between them.

It seemed like that when he’d meet her for breakfast - she had kissed him softly on the lips, her eyes closed a second longer when they broke apart as if she was still savouring that kiss and she had beamed at him. They had gone together to Potions class, but then, in the middle of class, when her potion was brewing, she had withdrawn suddenly, edgy on her spot, and she had briefly talked with Professor Slugnorn before vanishing her potion and abandoning class.

That was it. She had left with barely a wave to him, just telling him she would see him later.

But she wasn’t in the Common Room in their next free period and she hadn’t showed up for lunch either. None of her friends seemed to know where she was, which meant James had to resort to search for her in the Marauder’s Map.

‘That’s a little bit stalker, don’t you think?’, Sirius asked, his eyebrows raised and a smirk on his face. He always thought it was amusing when James freaked out about Lily as if he could see something James was blind to.

‘I am worried’, James said, very reasonable. Lily was missing - maybe something had happened, maybe she was in the Hospital Wing, maybe she had met someone who was far more interesting than James and…

Well, maybe he was overreacting a little.

But finding Lily was easy - her dot was still on her bed, alone.

On the one place James couldn’t get to her.

‘Oh, Merlin. This is bad’.

‘What is bad?’ Sirius asked, coming to sit on James’ bed and following James’ trembling finger on the Map. ‘She is in her dormitory’.

‘I can’t go there - don’t you see what that means? She is avoiding me’.

Sirius blinked, not impressed.

‘I think she is avoiding everyone, Prongs’.

It could be, but not everyone was her very concerned boyfriend.

‘Probably she was just tired and took advantage of Slug’s love for her to drop out of the class’.

‘That’s it, Lily loves Potions. She wouldn’t leave class unless there was a reason’.

‘Tired, like I said. Aren’t you two overworking to finish that Christmas event?’

James nodded, hoping there wasn’t any guilt showing up on his face. Sure, the Christmas event was one of the things the Heads had to organize, but he and Lily were taking way longer that it was needed just because they had been too entertained with each other in the past two weeks - it turned out that the Prefect’s Room was empty if all Prefects were out in patrol rounds and it turned that James and Lily were responsible for defining those rounds.

All in all, they were taking weeks to do something that they could have finished in two nights - but it provided them a nice excuse to all these moments together.

‘Yeah, maybe’.

‘Just relax, Prongs’.

He wished he could, but Lily didn’t show up for Charms either - another of her favourite classes - so, under his friends’ amused looks, he went to talk to Mary McDonald, asking if she could ask Lily to meet him.

‘Sure, James’, she said, giving him a funny look. ‘But I think she just wants to be alone’.

‘Do you know what’s wrong?’, he asked, biting his lips. Alone, Mary had said. Alone sounded bad.

‘Oh, it’s just - you know what? I will talk to her and we’ll see’.

That sounded ominous too. He nodded, quiet.

There was another free period that afternoon after Double Charms. They stayed in the Common Room, and James was supposedly finishing an essay, but his head kept turning to the stairs to the girl’s dormitories.

‘You are going to break your neck, Prongs’, Remus noted when James turned once more after hearing steps on the stairs, but it was just two Second Year girls that had come down.

‘I am fine’, he said stiffly.

‘No, you are not’, Sirius disagreed, reaching over to grab the parchment James had been writing on. ‘You got back to doodling “L.E”’.

‘It’s short for Law of Elvendork’, James said. ‘The theory that says every object can be turned into another as long as the elements are proportionally observed during the transformation’.

‘You are making this up’.

‘I am making this up’, James conceded, ignoring Sirius’ look. ‘I am just - I wish there was some way of going upstairs -’

‘I know’, Sirius said, a grimace on his face. That was the only thing they had never managed to accomplish in their seven years at Hogwarts. ‘Maybe we can restart that project - did we try the Confundus Charm on the stairs?’

‘Fourth year’, Peter answered him, without raising his eyes from his essay.

‘How about our animagus form? If -’

‘First thing we did on Fifth Year’.

‘Polyjuice Potion?’

‘We tried to brew on Third Year’, now Peter glanced at Sirius, shaking his head. ‘I looked like Anne MacMillan for three days!’

‘Oh, well, she was pretty’.

‘I had half her body. The left part of her body. I had to hide it for three days!’

James almost smiled at the memory.

‘Half of you was pretty then’, he said to Peter, who rolled his eyes. Then James sighed. ‘Well, I can’t finish this essay today, so I will - Lily!’

He raised immediately, a hand grabbing his own hair nervously as Lily came down the stairs. Her face was pale and she smiled at him when she saw him, but there was something restrained on her smile.

James thought she looked like she was really uncomfortable with something.

‘Hi, guys’, she said, not meeting anyone’s eyes. ‘Can I talk to you, James?’

When he nodded, quiet and still, she raised her eyebrows a little bit. ‘Alone, I meant’.

‘Oh, sure’, he said, looking around for a quiet place, but Lily surprised him going in the direction of the boy’s dormitory. He glanced around, finding his friends equally surprised, and followed her upstairs.

Lily didn’t turn to him until they reached the top of the tower. There, she looked around the room - James was grateful that the house-elves had cleaned up their mess, because the room looked decent - before turning to him.

She wasn’t smiling. That didn’t look good.

James felt something pressing his chest, putting all pieces together in a puzzle he wasn’t sure he wanted to finish - Lily avoiding him, the grimace on her face, the way she was closing her eyes now and then as if to steel herself to do something and her request that they would talk alone, in a place no one could witness their break up -

‘Which one is your bed?’, she asked, stopping his reverie. James blinked, confused, and pointed to the nearest bed. Lily nodded. ‘Control your thoughts, okay?’, she said, sitting on his bed. ‘But lay here with me’.

There had been a considerable number of scenarios that James had imagined Lily on his bed, but on the verge of her breaking up with him was not one of them.

‘I think I prefer to stand up, Lily’, he said slowly.

‘We can’t do it with you like that’, Lily answered him as if it were obvious. ‘Just come here, please, James’.

He frowned, unsure, but he sat on the other side of his bed. Lily looked at him as if James was missing something very important, and when he didn’t move, she sighed.

‘Are you mad at me?’, she asked, sounding tired. ‘I am sorry I went away without -’

‘I thought you were mad with me!’, James interrupted her, shocked. She looked confused.

‘Why would I be mad at you?’

‘Because - yes? What else would you break up with me?’

‘Break up? Did you take that Essence of Insanity in class today?’

‘If you are not breaking up - why did you call me?’

‘Oh’, she blushed, the sweetest shade of pink colouring her face and James imagined he could feel the heat coming from her body. ‘I wanted to cuddle’.

‘... cuddle?’

‘Yeah, you know’, she put her legs on the bed and he saw she had taken out her shoes. Lily laid on the pillows next to him, her hand supporting her head. ‘Mary told me you were worried about me and I thought - instead of being miserable alone in bed, I could be here with you’.

‘You wanted to be miserable with me?’, he asked, but there was a shadow of a grin on his lips now. He took off his own shoes, lying in the bed too, and Lily nestled against his chest, closing her eyes.

‘It’s really hard to be miserable next to you’, she assured him, pressing herself more against him and inspiring heavily. ‘You smell so nice’.

With her lying so close to him, the scent of her shampoo so strong and intoxicating, James thought he could say the same about her.

But he just raised his hand to touch her hair, combing it softly, watching the strands of dark red hair. ‘Lily? Are you ok?’

‘I am, it’s just -’, she paused, unsure. ‘It’s cramps’.

‘Cramps?’, James repeated, confused, and then he opened his eyes. ‘Oooh’.

‘Yeah, sorry about oversharing’.

‘What? No, I - well, I want to know when you are not feeling well or - I mean - can I do anything to help?’

James tried to think of whatever he knew about female biology. His father had explained some things to him a few years ago and he understood the basics, but he hadn’t been paying attention very much if he was honest. Female body looked much more complicated than his.

‘You can keep hugging me’, she whispered and he pressed himself closer to her. 'Sorry about scaring you today. I just wanted to suffer alone'.

'Don't. I mean, I'd rather you don't suffer but - if you must - I am always available for some cuddling'.

She raised her head a little to place a kiss on his neck that gave him goosebumps all over his body.

'I will keep this is mind', she told him warmly. Then Lily sighed. ‘It’s been a while since I have this crisis… I usually take my potions the day before, but - well, I was a little bit distracted yesterday’.

She broke away just enough to wink at him and James suddenly remembered exactly what they had been doing last night on that empty Prefect’s Room - how he had pressed her against the door of the room, his mouth exploring her neck and any exposed skin there, how Lily had moaned softly and how that had driven him crazy -

‘James?’, she called him and he realized he must have drifted off in the memories, judging by how his body was reacting too quickly. He turned slightly, urging his mind to stop recollecting that moment. ‘Maybe now is not the moment?’, she added, a knowing smile on her lips.

‘Sorry’, he said, feeling his neck reddening. James forced himself to focus on the present. ‘I will help you remember next month’, he promised. ‘No distraction, Marauder’s honour’.

‘Maybe just a little distraction’, Lily said, winking at him again. He laughed softly, kissing her forehead, and she rested her head under his chin. ‘I will pay attention next month, don’t worry - I mean, you don’t need to know my cycle, James -’

‘Nonsense’, he said lightly. ‘I already know Remus’, what’s one more?’

She let out an amused laugh, the one that was James' favourite.

‘Well, wait until you experience my mood swings’.

‘PMS? Is that real?’

‘Very real’, she assured him. ‘I may need to hide again -’

‘I hope you don’t’, he whispered, massaging her neck now. ‘I meant it when I said I want to be there with you’.

‘I may get really stressed’, Lily warned him. ‘Like I may want to throw things - it’s better if you are not close’.

‘I have very good reflexes’.

‘Or I may get really sad and cry, and you’ll think it’s because of you, but it’s not’.

‘Then I will give you chocolate’, he promised. ‘Chocolate is the solution for everything’.

Another laugh; James smiled to himself, satisfied with her reaction. Discovering her reactions to him was really his favourite part of the last two weeks of dating her.

‘Well, you can’t go wrong with chocolate’, Lily agreed. ‘And this massage is really good too’.

‘Oh, I have magic fingers’, he teased. ‘I can show you’.

‘James…’

‘I meant a massage in the back, Lily’, he said innocently, and she chuckled once more, not believing him much. ‘Here’.

He sat more upright, helping Lily’s head on a pillow next to him, and started rubbing the base of her neck and then her shoulders, feeling the tension on her muscles and letting it guide him.

‘Hmmm’, she sighed. ‘That’s actually good’.

‘See? Magic fingers’. He kept rubbing her back, feeling her relaxing under his touch. He beamed - even after two weeks of them going out, there was still that disbelief in knowing Lily fancied him back and trusted him and wanted to be with him. ‘So, those mood swings - care to tell me beforehand?’

‘Oh, you’ll notice’, she said distractedly. ‘Two weeks from now probably’.

‘So - two weeks ago you were in one of them?’

‘I guess’.

‘Then our date and all that snogging later - just one mood change?’

‘Oh, it certainly changed my mood’, Lily said, turning her head in his direction and he was relieved to see her green eyes sparkling. ‘There were some hormones involved in kissing you, but I promise you none of them were fleeting’.

‘I’m glad to know’, he answered, grinning too. ‘Or else we would kiss just one week of the month’.

‘That would mean three miserable weeks’.

James laughed. Lily watched him, a smile on her lips that died when she closed her eyes, grimacing.

‘Are you in pain?’, he asked, worried.

‘It’ll pass, just some more minutes for the potion to take effect again’.

He laid down again, this time with her back for him, and Lily curled up against him. He put a hand under her head, careful to entwine his hands with hers.

‘You are so warm’, she whispered.

‘Is that bad?’

‘No, it’s good. I might nap though’.

‘You can - I’ll wake you up later for dinner’.

She sighed softly.

‘Thanks, James - I know this is not how you imagined us being in your bed’.

Her voice was heavier now with sleep, though he could hear her teasing. James let out a soft laugh, kissing the top of her head, and hugging her closer. Lily was quite warm for him too; there was something very cozy in being next to her like that, even if all they were doing was just cuddling together.

He thought of sharing nights with her where they would just do this - lay together, his arms around her, quiet and serene, and somehow those nights looked as appealing as the most creative nights he could dream of.

‘You are wrong, you know’, he whispered, but she didn’t move and James thought she had fallen asleep. ‘I want to be with you in every way’.

And he closed his eyes, letting her warmth and perfume lull him into a quiet sleep too.

[nincompoopydoo]

DEBRIS AND MISERY

CURIOUS MINDS THINK ALIKE ; PART 5 / ?

PAIRING: Loki Laufeyson x Female!Reader WORD COUNT: 3.1k SUMMARY: Through guessing games and walking on eggshells, it’s you and Loki that dance the strange choreography of two curious minds trying to figure out the other. A/N: Slow moving chapter! If any of you speak Norwegian and know that sentence is wrong, please tell me! I took a risk, not sure if it's worth it. Anyways, I promise there’s more stuff coming in the next chapters. Tell me anything about this chapter, what you love, what you hate. Enjoy xo gif from this gifset by@marvelheroes WARNINGS: Swearing? More paperwork. support my writing through ko-fi💖 MASTERPOST ; MASTERLIST

The narration of Miss Minutes accompanying the grainy animated graphics of a training video on how, why, and when a branch of a timeline is reset seems to be the source of Loki’s absentmindedness. If he is typically referred to as outrageously and mostly unnecessarily communicative, it is his mind that beats his mouth—the tumult of his thoughts is loud and overwhelming like the people who amass at taverns every evening to drink themselves silly whilst singing jolly drinking songs until the wee hours of the morning. Except, his thoughts are far from jolly. He, mastermind of language and a silver-tongue, has no words of any language to describe the complexity of his mind with accuracy.

Kraftig regn som faller i en fossende elv.

Like heavy rain falling on a cascading river. Water from the sky on water streaming through the ground—thunderous raindrops from above against the river that strikes every rock of every winding turn.

Those were the words of his mother.

Maybe, that’s how his mind should be described.

It’s the mechanical creaks of spinning wheels against the polished floor that pulls him out of his thoughts and finds that he had been staring blankly at a page of men riding jet skis of a magazine he'd nipped from the stack of junk on Mobius’ desk for the last minute or hour. A second or a day? He isn’t sure.

Time works differently at the TVA.

“Hey Casey,” he hears you chime, the cart squeaks as it pulls to a halt. “Do you have a paperweight or something I could use?”

There’s a sound of rummaging as the clerk searches the drawers. Loki restrains the urge to look.

“Uh, yeah...Here.”

“Thanks.”

Probably an infinity stone.

The clerk then wheels by, pushing the evidence cart as he casts a cautious glance his way.

Right. He did threaten to gut him like a fish earlier on although the threat was not as deadly as he intended but proved to be surprisingly effective. Yet, Casey is probably the type to be afraid of his own shadow, he would comply with any sort of threat even if it isn't death.

Pathetic. But amusing.

The training video continues to play in the background, and Miss Minutes’ stupidly charming and cheery voice is starting to sound like gibberish to him. At this rate, it’s white noise to him—attention elsewhere but somewhat listening to a certain extent. He loves multi-tasking and isn’t afraid to admit he’s great at it though it likely plays a huge factor in contributing to the uproar of his brain. It’s why he doesn’t get any sleep for most nights.

There’s just...so much to think about.

And now, it’s filled with the reminder of how you met another version of him. Somewhere. Sometime. An inferior Loki, obviously.

Suddenly, the jet ski magazine becomes less interesting, his mind fleeting.

Discreetly, he spins in his swivel chair and sees you through inked writings and diagrams on the glass partition of your cubicle. Your coat’s discarded, and you have your sleeves rolled up, looking less formal, less tense than before. Yet, still as fierce with that constant scowl of your brows. He watches you bring your fingers to scratch the left side of your cheek and notices a vague resemblance of a fading scar.

He hadn’t seen that before.

The glowing orange hue of the soul stone sits idly on top of a stack of papers beside you.

Loki makes some sort of contemptuous noise in his mind at the sight.

The TVA is a strange place. The thought of a cosmic organization that overlooks all of the time doesn’t make it any less weird and neither do the uniforms—dull color combinations and collars that never seem to end. And the Time-Keepers, well, he isn’t sure what to make of that. Things are a little too straightforward, too simple for handling such a complex matter of the universe—Time. It doesn't make sense.

You spark his curiosity. You had a connection with him. Another Loki trusted you to a certain extent. He wonders what makes you so special, that Mobius was willing to try everything to convince you to help.

He also wonders what your name is.

The clearing of his throat comes off as a sudden and disruptive sound that resonates clearly through the somewhat silent environment of the office floor. A subtle way to gaining your attention although it's proving ineffective. You continue to flip through documents, scribbling notes on a notepad.

He wheels his chair closer to you. For a moment, he catches sight of a white mug amongst the mess. It says, 'Rocket scientist at work.' There’s no way a person as intimidating as you have that kind of mug.

He clears his throat once more.

Still nothing. It’s like he doesn't exist to you.

Then, he notes your vague attempt to fight down a growing smile.

Oh. Oh. You—

Hm.

He scooches closer and taps on the glass partition a little too aggressively.

“I know you can hear me.”

His tone comes out in a sing-song manner. Finally, your eyes turn up to meet his. They are different from when you first saw him emerged into the hallway. Less angry and shocked. Now, you just look unimpressed.

Loki somehow thinks it’s a great idea to charm his way to you.

A grin finds his way to his lips, curving widely with oozing allure.

Or so he thinks.

“Pardon me, but I believe we haven’t properly met and I didn’t catch your name earlier on.”

You don’t say anything, only blink in response.

Tough crowd.

Loki shifts in his seat.

“...What is your name?”

He articulates his words with care, and he doesn’t know why he finds it a need to tread lightly around you. Like with a touch, you will transform into a fiery beast from his childhood nightmares and eat him alive.

You and Mobius are polar opposites—personality-wise. It’s a wonder how the two of you get along.

Do you scare him? No. Definitely not.

Do you intimidate him? Perhaps. But, he will never admit it.

Maybe it’s the way you’re gazing at him with that constant, deafening deadpan look.

Then, you finally give him an answer.

“Agent.”

And with that, you're back to scribbling notes on a notepad.

Agent.

Loki scoffs silently to himself.

Well, that turned out to be completely pointless.

He turns his back to you, returning to scanning through Mobius' jet ski magazine within his grasp.

Loki doesn’t see how you’re now staring at the back of his figure, tapping your pen against the notepad absentmindedly.

Curious minds think alike.

-

You needed a change of scenery.

With all the noise of the muffling narration of the training videos from Mobius’ desk, you began to feel like you forgot how to do your job. The only job you were created for. The disturbance seems to be putting your brain into a frenzy and it’s preventing you from getting your head straight on report protocols. Trying to think of better words to describe the things you’ve seen on Sakaar that weren’t words that meant trash and didn’t end up sounding unintentionally sexual, is where you draw the line.

Times are hard for the variant turned analyst.

The archives are serene amid your solitude. Extensive tables hidden between shelves of identical-looking binders that expanded throughout the hundreds of floors of the building. The spot that overlooks the three looming statues of the Time-Keepers is your favorite. The occasional swish of a passing elevator calms your nerves from all the frustration and pressure ever since you were released from your arrest. You’re just happy to be somewhere familiar although it’s not home.

Although all distractions are gone, you manage to find new ones as you gaze at the glowing ‘357’ signage from across the building as you decide to let your thoughts run for just a little while. You feel like you’re looking through foggy glasses and your brain feels like it’s about to shut down any moment.

Dream away the pain, then.

Then, you hear a voice from afar. Two voices. It’s Mobius; you’ll recognize that quintessential Texan accent anywhere from the times he would rave about a new jet ski magazine he’d found on a mission...something along those lines.

Much to your chagrin, you also hear Loki with that irritatingly posh accent of his.

You should probably move somewhere else. Run and hide before you're being pulled even more into this mess because you know Mobius is trying to get you to spend as much time with the variant turned analyst to gain trust.

You’re still not sure how it’s helping with his case. Loki has better trust in Mobius than you as far as you’re concerned.

Before you could even gather the mess of your files, the two men you’ve been trying to escape are already by the desk you’re sitting at. You suddenly notice the stack of files on the other end of the desk, not remembering seeing the archivist putting that there.

Crap.

“Let me park ya at this desk and don’t be afraid to really lean into this work...”

You look like a deer caught in the headlights, signaling to Mobius that you really don’t want to share a desk with Loki. He continues to speak to him, ignoring your silent plea. Then, he gestures to the seat across from you.

There’s still time to leave.

Mobius addresses you with the stretch of his pointer finger.

“You, keep an eye on him. I’m gonna get a snack.”

Well, too late.

With a turn of a heel, you and Loki watch him walk away and pass neverending shelves of the archives. Once again, the two of you are left alone in the silence and the white noise of the TVA.

You meet each other's eyes at the same time, struck with the thought that you and he will probably be seeing each other a lot until the Loki variant is arrested. Plus, you’re tired of giving him the cold shoulder although you believe he deserves it.

This is a different Loki. The one who’s still power-hungry. The one who still wants to rule.

Time to start fresh.

You notice he now wears a jacket, a color somewhere between green, grey, and brown with a striking image of the TVA’s official badge above his chest. The lapels of his jacket jut out in an attempt to replicate his sense of pride and confidence.

He must have been on a trip with Mobius to the Renaissance Faire in Wisconsin, 1985. Oh, how you would kill to tag along. Everyone who knows you knows about your obsession with Earth’s music pop culture, specifically the 1980s. It explains the cassettes you have lying around. Your apartment has more of it.

Unfortunately, you're grounded. That's reality.

Thus, you decide that Loki deserves a second chance because he’s also somehow looking at you for some kind of approval. You’re starting to wonder if this is the same Loki that was tapping aggressively on your cubicle earlier on.

With an open palm, you gesture to the empty seat surrounded by stacks of binders and folders. It's the first time he has experienced some kind of acknowledgment of his presence that you weren’t ranting or screaming about. Oddly calm. Oddly inviting. Momentarily, he shifts in his stance, eyes darting between a fading figure of Mobius rounding the corner and to the seat, across from you.

The air is tense. However, still breathable.

Loki slides into the seat, legs shifting under the desk as it brushes against your by accident. You shoot him a pointed look, and he responds with a coy expression, blinking at you innocently. It’s mischievous.

Classic Loki.

You turn back to your case file, ignoring the way his gaze seems to burn holes into the side of your face for a fleeting moment before flipping a binder open from the stack to his left.

-

You snore when you sleep.

Loki wouldn’t describe it as a snore; it's more of a wheeze. Soft and subtle but it’s there, cutting through the ambiance of the archives, drifting and resonating in his ears. Through turning pages, uttering words to himself for his amusement, and having an irritating lady shush him for that, he realized how it became a lot quieter. The grazing sound of pen furiously scribbling words onto the yellow notepad has stopped.

Then, he hears it. Your pathetic snores. Your cheek is unceremoniously pressed against the back of your hand while the other holds the orange pen that’s still pinned down on the paper, mid-scrawl. The tip of the ballpoint pen sits idly, halfway through the curved stroke of the last letter of the word, ‘debris.’ He cranes his neck, face tilting in an attempt to read the chicken scratchings of your handwriting.

0132: L1190 hauls me through the time door and I miserably land on Sakaar, the planet of wastelands and debris.

You are quite...miserable. In a comical way. And he knows how much you hated your time on Sakaar—Mobius warned him of your apparent irritation in reminiscent of being stranded and then having to resume paperwork immediately. He wonders if he, too, is the reason for another boiling rage.

Apparently, you were pardoned on behalf of not only Mobius but the Time-Keepers as well.

You, an agent, are recognized by the holy and almighty Time-Keepers.

You, an agent, who sleeps with your mouth agape.

The statues of the TVA’s creators loom over him like they’re watching his every step. Every movement. Every lingering thought. Right now, he has the urge to uncover, perhaps deduce, the holes within this whole mess. In a carefully calculated and discrete movement, he reaches to prod you on the forearm. You don’t move.

He prods you again.

You still don’t move.

Now, Loki is trying to chat up the archivist who watches him through narrowed eyes, glasses framing the austere and rigid structure of her face, in favor of files that turn out to be classified.

Classified, classified, classified. Only able to gain access to his own file.

His journey from the desk proved to be useless and unproductive although the much-needed stretch somehow made it a little worthwhile.

When he returns, you're surprisingly still asleep, brow twitching and lips still parted.

Aren’t you supposed to be keeping an eye on him?

The pen you held has now left your grasp, rolled over to his stack of binders. He notices the words inscribed on it, ‘Mars is there, waiting to be reached.'

Through your fury and chaos, he knows there’s a part of you that feels, a part of you that loves. And you love everything about the Midgardians’ space program. It's shown in the way you cling to collected memorabilia.

There are dark circles that adorn your shut eyes, barely hidden under your lashes. You’re exhausted, fractured.

Loki is having a difficult time trying to suppress how he likes the way the frizz of your hair glows against the glowing table lamps from the desk behind you. You’re raw, flaws presented on a silver platter for everyone to see. Maybe, that’s the reason why you entice him the way you do.

He’s staring. Right. Back to work.

Loki returns to running through neverending case files, engrossed in the pixelated monochrome images that accompany the monospace typeface of endless reports.

Then, he sees it.

‘Destruction of Asgard’ in big, bold, and red letters. It glares at him sharply, images of his once divine home of Asgard, crumbling at the feet of Surtur. Buildings, people, engulfed in the flames of the fire demon. The prophecy of the end, Ragnarok—it was meant to be.

His home, it still was. Although an untrue Asgardian.

He knows how it ends. He knows he dies. He wishes his true self, the one on the Sacred Timeline, could have done more.

He doesn’t realize the forming tears that linger. He doesn’t realize that in the sense of premonition, you’ve awakened. He doesn’t realize that even with sleepy eyes, you notice the grief that glints in his eyes.

“Are you okay?”

With three words, you’ve struck him with those eyes that seemed all-knowing. You see through the facade he has created, sealing the true nature of what is truly a child that is afraid of his destiny and to lose all he had ever known. His mother, father, and brother. His people. You see through it all.

You know that face. You’d seen it on Sakaar when he sat at the doorstep of your makeshift home, watching the splintered moon drift through the star-lit sky. You’d seen it in yourself through the dusty reflection of the screen of the tempad.

He longs for home. He longs for family.

For a moment, Loki sees Frigga in your eyes.

Then, his world shifts, hauling him back to reality. It’s you who’s across his way, not his mother. Loki blinks, partly to get his head straight with the excuse to blink away the sting in his eye. He shifts in his seat, rolling his neck and squares his shoulders.

“Yes. I’m alright. It’s just...”

Trailing off, he clears his throat. You follow his gaze and from your spot, you catch sight of those deafening crimson letters. Maybe, it was the spur of the moment. You blame your drowsy state, but there’s a growing warmth that spreads across your chest from the pit of your stomach. It’s subtle, a spark, but evident. Before you know it, you’re uttering words that leave your lips faster than your brain could perceive.

“I’m sorry.”

You don’t know when was the last time you said those words and meant it. Loki doesn’t know when was the last time he’d ever heard those words addressed to him, spoken from the lips of a stranger. Until now.

You mean it. He sees it in the curve of your brows.

Loki swallows, nodding curtly. For the first time, he has nothing to say. And as quickly as the moment comes, he brushes it off and so do you. Whatever is reminiscent of a residing unknown feeling, bubbling within, has disappeared.

He sees your hand reach for the pen and for a while, he thinks you’re about to reach for his arm.

But no, you’re back to scrawling notes on the paper and he’s back to studying useless documents.

It doesn’t take long for the two of you to fall back into your normal antics as you find yourself chasing after Loki, who abruptly left the desk with wide eyes.

Curious minds think alike. Mostly.

TAGLIST:

@lareinedususpense

@poubxlle

@mystoragehatesme

@the-maroon-panda

[cherry-valentine]

How Black Clover Gets Lady Characters Right

*Spoilers for most of the Black Clover anime (mostly character related stuff, not much in the way of major plot stuff)*

Black Clover is right up there with Gintama in terms of shows that reward viewers for sticking with them through some mediocre early episodes and arcs. When Black Clover began airing, I was excited. Manga readers had been hyping the series up, and it sounded like the next big shounen fighting anime that would take anime fandom by storm. Then I started watching it, and I was immensely disappointed. I found Asta’s constant screaming almost unbearable (to the point that I started muting the tv when it looked like he was about to open his mouth). The early episodes were totally predictable and cliche. The animation was, at times, embarrassingly bad. But I stuck with it because there were a few elements that kept me interested. One was the absolute bangers of opening and ending themes (at one point the thought crossed my mind that they were entirely too good for this show). Another was Yuno, whom I liked from the start. Then there’s the fact that Asta’s magic, or lack of magic, was the one element I didn’t predict a mile away. I honestly expected him to awaken to some super powerful magic early on. Almost 200 episodes later, he is still magic-free. I really did not see that coming. Still yet, I came close to dropping the series several times during those first thirteen episodes or so.

Somewhere around the time they went to the undersea village (I don’t remember the name of the arc), I began to notice that I was actually looking forward to each new episode. It was a gradual change from being at the bottom of my watch list to being near the top. So gradual it took me a while to realize it. The show still had some problems, sure, but it stopped being predictable. Asta talked more and screamed less. More interesting characters were introduced. The fight scenes were exciting. By the time this arc was over, Black Clover had become a favorite. So, if you tried the series and found it boring and annoying, consider giving it another shot. Like I said, it rewards you for sticking with it.

One of the best things about Black Clover, for me, is how it treats its female characters, especially when compared to other popular shounen fighting anime. It is by no means perfect, and I’ll talk about the show’s minor failings in regards to its ladies a little further down. But overall, it does a phenomenal job.

The first thing that struck me about Black Clover’s women is just how varied they are. There’s a surprising range in their appearances, personalities, and skills. And there are lots of them. Far more than a lot of other shounen fighting anime allow. There are five women in the main squad, the Black Bulls, alone. And we see that each squad has several women as well. Then there’s the all-women squad the Blue Roses. This extends to the villains, as well as the non-combatant supporting cast as well.

Speaking of skills, the women of Black Clover are unusually powerful. The two male leads, Asta and Yuno, eventually get “power-ups”, some kind of new form or transformation or whatever. This is super common in shounen fighting anime. What’s not so common, however, is the female lead getting her own cool power-up/transformation. This is what happens for Noelle, and it was such a great surprise. A little side note here: I’ve been watching the series on a streaming site that allows comments, and I was so amazed by the comments on the episode in which Noelle gets her power-up. The (mostly male, judging by their names) commenters were genuinely happy for her! They were proud of her for getting stronger and cheering her on! I didn’t spot a single comment about her looks or how great of a waifu she is (at the time anyway).

But it wasn’t just Noelle that got stronger. Another Black Bulls member, Vanessa, got an interesting power-up of her own, in the form a cat familiar that basically makes her and her teammates completely impervious to harm for as long as her mana holds out (which has saved their lives countless times). Another lady, Grey, has recently (in the anime) demonstrated some shockingly powerful magic that none of her teammates, or even she herself, realized she was capable of. Then there’s Charmy, who was already quite powerful but gained her own powered up transformation that made her strong enough to defeat an elf-possessed Magic Knight captain. If anything, the ladies have received MORE power-ups than the men.

And while we’re talking about powerful women, I have to talk about Mereoleona. If you’ve watched the show, you know exactly what I mean. If you haven’t, just imagine a character who can curb-stomp a powerful villain who is on a higher level than villains that the main characters were struggling to team up against just a few episodes before, who can then take on a whole group of these powered up villains and remain standing, even after losing consciousness, because they’re just that badass. Now imagine that character is a woman. And she’s so terrifying that one of the elf-possessed enemies (her comrades who had their bodies taken over by elves) remarks that his body froze up because, even though he’s controlling it, the BODY ITSELF was afraid of her. Mereoleona is an absolute beast, the kind of character that is almost always male in these types of shows. And the best part? The icing on this badass cake? The only person who was stronger than her, who could defeat her one-on-one, was ANOTHER WOMAN. Noelle’s mother. And a huge part of Noelle’s motivation as a character is becoming strong like her mother.

On the subject of Noelle’s motivation, I really appreciate that it has nothing to do with her crush on Asta. Sure, she likes him, but it’s not a motivating factor in her life and it’s not even really that important to her story arc. Her arc has always been about HER, about becoming stronger, living up to her powerful family’s expectations, discovering the truth about her mother’s death and then about avenging her, about becoming more empathetic to the common people despite being royalty. Noelle’s story is ABOUT HER. And it’s really sad that this is something remarkable, but we’ve all seen the “heroines” with no real arcs of their own, or worse, their arcs revolve almost entirely around their love for a male character (Sakura from Naruto is the most obvious example here but anyone who watches a lot of shounen can no doubt name many more). And Noelle isn’t an exception in Black Clover. Almost all of the women have interesting back stories and character arcs that have little to do with men (or if men are involved, they’re in supporting roles to these stories and very rarely the main subject).

An exception to this is possibly Charlotte, who is in love with Yami and this plays a big role in her story. However, even this is framed in a way that puts the emphasis on her own growth. It’s really about her learning to be honest with her feelings and getting over her own awkwardness around Yami. A big moment for her is when she admits to her squad that she’s in love with Yami, and they’re all eager and excited to help and support her, like the wonderful ladies they are.

Now, as I said before, Black Clover’s depictions of women are not perfect. There are a few issues I consider minor that I need to address. The first is the tendency the show has of making almost all the ladies be in love with someone. A large portion of the women are sporting crushes, though some of them are quite subtle or mainly used for comic relief, it’s still a little annoying that so many of them are in love. Of course, many of the male characters are in love with someone too (including the protagonist, Asta) and there are several female characters who are totally disinterested in romance, so I can overlook this. Another small issue is that, even though there’s more variety than usual in the body types (one female character is fat and another, Charmy, often gets quite pudgy for extended periods of time, plus a few ladies have more muscular builds), a significant portion of them have very large breasts, including two teenage characters (Noelle and Mimosa). It feels a little unnecessary, to be honest. Though to be fair, it’s rare that any of these characters are used for fan service and the camera never really seems to linger on their bodies. Most of them dress fairly modestly and among those who don’t, the more sexy clothes fit their characters and make sense for their personalities.

The last minor issue I have is that we often get the “designated girl fights”. If there’s a female villain, it’s likely that a female hero will be the one to fight her. This isn’t a rule set in stone, because there are plenty of male/female battles, but it happens enough to be very noticeable. Of course, these lady villains are demonstrated to be just as powerful and dangerous as the villainous men, but it’s still mildly irritating.

Those little nitpicks aside, Black Clover is still a shining example of a shounen fighting anime getting its ladies right. The women in the series are well-written, interesting characters with compelling stories. They’re powerful, have wildly varying personalities and motivations, and never feel like window dressing. They’re not just there to be pretty romantic interests. The show does all this very well, and I think it deserves a lot of praise and credit for it.

[theblurplegirl]

So I had my first bad and overtly sexualized experience when playing D&D last night. And I can't sleep until I write it out.

For context, I had decided to start looking for an other group to meet with (online of course) about a month ago. Within the last week I found a group that was in my time zone, and seemed to be an ok fit. When I added my character to the DNDBeyond campaign page I noticed that my character was the only one listed as female. Now I know that people can play whatever gender of character they want, but just the general vibe I got from my few messages with the DM lead me to believe that the players were all playing characters their same gender. I also learned that I was going in as the least experienced of the group, as well as being the only player who was not able to meet with the DM beforehand to run through character details. I was going in mostly uninformed. I immediately knew that this was going to be a lot more difficult than my previous campaign. I was a woman surrounded by men, playing a game that is gatekept by men, and stereotypically played by only men. My thoughts and mindset to not show weakness or inexperience and to prove that was just as good of a player as any of the rest of them did not however prepare me for the session.

First thing we did was describe our characters after we where given our roles within the group. This immediatly made me have to make some major chapter changes because I had planned for a more light-hearted character this go around, but the position she was given required her to not only be aged up but also her alignment changed. So I was already a little on edge and even more unprepared. I had known before how I wanted my character to act in general situations, but now, my overall plan was thrown out the window. The motivation I had put down for my character no longer applied. If my character had nothing to strive for, did I have anything to play with?

Within the first few minutes of the session, as a new group of people, the DM had our characters go through some "bonding activities". My character and another had an arm restling match, which my character lost in one role (7 to an 11). Two other characters bonded by teasing one of the other members of the group, a high born water genasi. Generally that went well except for the fact that the DM, when describing the towel the two were using to taunt the character with he described it as a rough towel, but not just any type of rough, rough like there was dried cum in it. This comment made me immediatly uncomfortable. We were within five minutes of this session starting (the first of the campaign!) and the DM was already making sexual comments. I think I probably would have still been uncomfortable if my other DM, who I have known for close to 7 years, had made that description. I let the comment slide, hoping that maybe it was a slip up on the DMs part and he would remember he was with strangers.

The next incident that happened was when the party entered the town tavern and there was a fight. Our warlock used thamaturgy to make each punch and slap sound louder than they actually were. The DM initially described this as deafening, what was a perfectly fine description. However, later on in the fight when thamaturgy was used again, our DM described the sounds as lude and as if someone was jacking off. This again made me uncomfortable, but I kept silent.

Another thing the DM made a quick comment about is that the barkeep gave the water genasi a glass of water instead of beer and it was the barkeep being racist. Which was a completely unnecessary thing to say.

A little later while still in the bar, it was discovered that our party's mark was also in the building, and that he was commenting about how he found my character attractive, especially since she was apparently the only women in the bar. (Which not only contradicted the DM's earlier description of "Men, women, and children crowed around watching the bar fight" but also the fact that it was the towns only tavern and we were supposed to believe there were no other women then? Not even barmaids?) It was then implied heavily by not only most of the rest of my party but also the DM that I was supposed to go over and seduce the mark and gain access to his house by doing so. I felt set up and nervous. This was by no means how I had ever intended for this character to be played (she was originally going to literally still be a minor before I had to age her up). To make matters even more uncomfortable the DM insisted on role-playing a good portion of the in bar discussion/seduction between my character and the NPC. I said that I was uncomfortable with the situation, and them tried to use the excuse that I was not good at role-playing and had never done it before, but the DM was insistent. Through out the experience other players kept commenting on different aspects or were just being overtly sexual. I ended the in bar role-play fairly swiftly before my character had to go over and tell the rest of the party where she was going, and for them to follow her and scout the house. One the the other players had his character turn invisible and come also in the house as a scout while the other party members where outside.

When my character got back to the house with the mark, his younger sister was apparently awake and waiting. She was decribed as an young girl looking around the age of 13. This immedatly set off some warning bells, because the oarty was meant to capture her and transport her somewhere, which made me worried about what the DM had in mind. In the moment nothing else came of the little girl except that she tried to shame my character for coming back with her brother.

Next, my character and the mark went to his bedroom, and the DM described the multiple tools and weapons hanging on the NPCs wall, I could have been reading into it at this point but it felt like he was describing them in hopes I would have my character use them in the coming moments. The DM again then had my try to role-play the instruction between my character and the NPC, to which I was fairly bland with my words and sped through the process again. My DM then made my character take a point of exhaustion, which gives you disadvantage on checks. I then had my character leave after the NPC had fallen asleep, to which she was met with the younger sister again, who once again tried to shame her for a sexual experience.

When the DM switched to the POV of the other party members two of the players made the comments that they were pretty sure that the invisible party member who was in the house was probably sticking around and getting a show from my character and the mark.

When our whole party met up later to compare intel from the evening my character was the only one that had nothing to add to the scout mission. She had been purely used as a distraction. She was utterly unimportant to the plot of the mission and the campaign. The only "good" that came out of it was when one of the party members asked if my character could show them what she had done to the mark I replied so quickly with an adamant NO (of frustration and annoyance) that the DM told the other player his character suffered 4 points of psychic damage. At this point I was thoroughly upset, annoyed, and bored with the session and DM. This was when one of the other party members (the one who had played the invisible scout) private messaged me and asked if I was uncomfortable. It felt like I was able to take a breath that I didn't even know I could.

The other player explained to me that he was also uncomfortable with the situation and that he was here to support me. We continued to message back and forth for the rest of the session. I honestly don't think I would have made it to the end without him.

In the middle of the night a man broke into the room my character was sharing with the party's orc fighter. But my character slept through the whole interaction between the two characters, which just made me more uncomfortable, but I at this point I was so uncomfortable with this whole campaign that it was just another layer.

When our party awoke the next morning there were comments from the party about how my character had slept so deeply because of being worn out from the night before. This just caused more annoyance from me. When out party stepped out of the tavern there was a man selling potions on a cart pulled my two humans and two drow elves. The DM stated, after the invisible scout's insight check, that the people pulling the cart were slaves and that the whole region we were in had slavery. The owner of said slaves (played by the DM) stated that they were better than horses because they fought back. This statement made me extremely uncomfortable, even more so than the sexual encounters.

At this point the invisible scout spoke up and said that our characters should free the slaves, in response my chracter was the only one that agreed so we set about to release them. This involved me casting blindness on the owner and then getting shot by his goblin lacky and taking over half of my HP in damage. Then the genasi cast sleep on the goblin (not to help us free the slaves, but to steal something off the cart), which allowed the scout and I to cut the chains and try to let the slaves free. By that point the owner had regained his sight and the slaves had not run away. One of the slaves then glared at my character and said "should I dispose of them master" and honestly I wish he had, because then I would have gotten to leave. Instead, I had to stick around because the owner insisted that I was merely misunderstanding the situation and that no further punishment should come to my character if she worked off the payment of the chains she had cut. There was no mention of the scout being punished. I wanted to cry at this point, out of frustration and annoyance.

The last few minutes of the session involved the party then splitting up to look at different locations around town that we also needed to scout, but at this point I was not paying attention to anything the DM or anybody else said.

Throughout the course of the session the DM and other players also made other unnecessarily sexual and racist comments, but there were so many that I only explained the major ones. By the end, when the DM asked how the session was, I couldn't respond. I felt assaulted. Yes, I had put myself in this situation, but there had been no prior indication before starting the evening that I would be subjected to a multitude of sexual and racist comments throughout the session.

The whole experience was horrible, except for the fact that the invisible scout player and I have continued to talk and have both decided to leave the campaign and look for a friendlier one together. I am just glad that I had him to talk to during the experience because otherwise I probably would have thought I was exaggerating things in my head. I have loved D&D for a long time and this experience has tarnished my love for the game. I just hope I can recover from it and learn to again love the game and the people who play that are truly loving, accepting, and kind.

Ps: If you are 18+ and in either CST, MST or EST and looking for a cleric and a ranger in your campaign, I've got you covered

Tl;dr

I joined an online group of D&D that was full of unnecessarily sexual and racist comments and it was the worst experience of D&D I've had so far.

Sorry for any typos I dont want to have to reread everything, it was bad enough going through it once.

[jacqueline314]

Desirable Greetings

Part 1

Carts, farmers, scholars, and merchants occupies the streets of large and massive, bright structures.

Welcome to Vria. A city, made out of columns of a mixture of limestone, sandstone, and other bright colored materials. There are districts with buildings that look similar to one another, it almost feels like a maze in certain spots of the city. Other structures are consist of columns with no walls, walls with no columns, columns with no roofs, columns with roofs, and walls with no roofs.

The history of this city takes back a hundred years ago. The founders were architects. They come from the distant east, after a kingdom had fallen. They were hired by the remaining survivors of the royal family. Their down fall was caused by a war, and they accept defeat. The architects were paid with a hidden stash of gold and treasure that were passed from generations. They were tasked to locate a land that would be best suited for not just the survivors’ taste, but also where the architects would paint their canvas.

It took a few decade of travelling, maneuvering and surviving to find their canvas. As they set foot to a beach with a cliff side, where the peak could just reach the heavens, and a stable slope from the back, they settled and put their lives’ effort to build Vria from the bottom up. The surviving royal family helped maintaining the resources and financials while building their home. After Fifty years, the city was built. It was then ruled under, the royal family’s most organized sister, Queen Luisa Sevada. And every year, they celebrate on two separate days of the start and end of the harvest season. To dedicate the memory of their new found home. And that is the story of Vria.

With in the middle of the day, a tiefling merchant was selling goods to shopper. His shop consist of dried meats, fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs. He to wards a new face that was approaching to him. He sees a human girl with Short, shiny black hair, olive skin, and dark brown eyes, wearing goggles with magnifying lenses, a brown cloak, studded armor with one glove attachment, modest orange clothing under the armor with only one sleeve that's opposite to the glove and a bag that hangs across her body. Strange to see someone wear any armor, considering that she seems to be over ten years old for a human.

As they get closer, the merchant goes “Hello and what can I get ya?”

She then replies “Hi, what can I get with five copper?” Her voice sounds lightly squeaky.

“Well, that will get you one fruit, half a meat jerky, and a hand full of herbs.”

“What kind of fruits do you have in stock?”

“Umm...just the usual oranges and apples. Oh oh! I just remembered we have one mango left in stock. These are our best sellers.”

The human girl smiles as she says “I will try one then.”

He hands over the mango to her and she pays the five copper. As she walks away from the merchant, peeling the fruit, the merchant goes “Pleasure doing business with you.” As she bites into the mango, she turns around and waves goodbye to him.

“He’s very nice.” She mutters while chewing the mango in her mouth.

He wasn’t kidding about the mango being sold out very quickly. the texture is soft, moist, and the taste is really sweet. Sweeter than any apples and oranges combined. The fruit is very drippy with every bite intake. The juices falls onto her cloak. Other drops slide to her chin and falls on her leather armor. Eventually, her hand will get soaked with the juice when she finishes it.

Amongst the big crowd, she finds a fountain in the middle. She heads towards it to take a seat. She finishes eating the fruit, but she doesn’t know where to put away the scraps. The streets are relatively clean. She finds two families sitting on the fountain as well. One of them are sitting near her and the other is on the opposite side. The human tries to secretly wash her hand and the scraps to get rid of the sticky juice, but the small toss of the fountain water, towards her hand, creates a splash loud enough to get their attention.

They glance over to the human in concern. She smiles at them and says “Hi.”

They continue to watch her as she dips the scraps with her hand into the fountain, washes it, shakes off the excess water, and places it into her bag.

The family then stood up, gather their things and walked away. “You look lovely today.” She said as they left.

A moment passes, then she hears a loud voice that goes “Attention! Attention! A big event has occurred!” It seems to be the Town Crier, giving announcements.

“The queen has said word that the princess’ coronation will be at sundown, today!”

The blacked haired human looks around and sees the surprised discomfort of the crowd. She hears some of them mutter “Sundown?”

“Our attires aren’t ready.”

“Strange.”

The Town Crier finishes handing out the papers and shouts “Alright, go and get ready! The Queen also says that she wants every one to witness this!” And they all rush their walking pace in order to not be looked down upon the royal family.”

As they all nudge and push through each other, our human swiftly maneuver through the crowd, pretty well handedly. After a while, it fells less crowded that it was. In order to not take the chance of being over run, she finds the nearest, stable column that’s short enough to climb on to, but as her hand gets a grip of it, someone bumped into her and she was pushed away from her safe zone. She’s prone to the ground and crawls towards a corner to hide in. People didn’t seem to notice her presence, considering the task at hand. She sit’s there until the sun is about to turn the sky orange.

Carts and horses are tucked away and fed by the owners before they leave for the coronation. The streets are clear of the market stands, that it’s even less crowded than it were previously. The locals are wearing formal attires, some with hints of yellow to intimidate gold. Our human comes out of her corner and walks along the crowd as they all head to the ceremony.

She eventually arrives to the palace. It’s ginormously large, bigger than any other large building she encountered. On what she can see on the front, there are two watch towers on either side, and small statues of Aasimars. One on top of each tower, and center peak of the front. There are also a set of stairs on the base of the palace, and giant columns that support the roof. Upon entering though the iron bolted doors, the main hall/throne room, has many tables and chairs, exclusively for everyone. Torches hanging on the walls and columns. Above there are a couple of large bowls of fire, hanging from the ceiling and interior balconies that over look all the central bottom floor and the opposite side of where the viewers can see. The thrones are located at the back, there are two of which belong to the queen and her mate. And a red curtain behind them.

A lot of people seem to have taken their seats. Our human finds hers as well, located near the second column from the front left. Upon sitting, she sees other people who attended the coronation, not wearing what the locals wear. They seem to be dressed modestly like her. There are mixtures of races within the building. There are Aarakocras, Dwarves, Goliaths, Elves, and a group with a tiefling, a couple humans, a pale soldier, what seems to be an orc, a pink firbolg, and a green halfling. Perhaps it’s an open house party.

Time passes as the tables are being filled. Then, a clinking sound appears from the thrones. The choir sings in a beautiful tune, in front of the thrones. What comes out of the curtained background of the thrones is the king. A Tiefling in his late fifties, with a white color stripe on his beard, wears a blue robe. He bows forward to the audience, stands up, and walks towards his throne that’s on his left, to sit down. Another clink occurs and comes out, the queen. A Goliath and also in her late fifties, wears a pink dress. She bows as well and walks toward her thrown on her right to sit. And after that, comes out the princess. A Tiefling like her father, and seems to be almost in her twenties. Has majestic long hair, a round face, and tanned skin. Wears a green dress, and seems to be holding a scepter with two hands. It’s made out of valuable material and the top of it is in a circular ring shape. There are six spikes around with non pointed shapes, and four chains, linking towards a central jewels, what appears to be a Jasper.

She then clinks the ground with it, and what appears to be an elderly female bishop. The princess then drops the scepter into a compartment, so it will stand in front of the throne. She turns and the bishop hands her, what seems to be a family heirloom. A crystal, covered out of a precious metal. The princess faced towards the audience, and the bishop raises a golden choker with a pearl attached, as the choir stops singing. She chants in a Zemnian language as she lowers the jewelry to the princess’ shoulder levels and as she was about to attach it to the princess’ neck, she finishes her chant by saying “Queen Bree Sevada” And every one in the building cheers in her name.

Then, while the audience clap, our human notices that the bishop twirled the princess’ hair on her right as she placed her hands on her shoulders. A moment passes, and servants came down the stairs on each side of the hall, bringing the guests food and beverages. When all of them were set, Queen Bree says “May the feast fill your desires.” and bows to them, then turns and joins her parents on her own throne that the servants brought to her after the coronation.

The food is consist of pastries, roasted chicken, potatoes, fruit and vegetables. And the drinks are pitchers of water and bottles of wine. Everyone, and our human, starts gathering food and eating their plate. There were not enough chairs for every one, because of tourists, though the former queen had already thought this out. There is a buffet amongst the sides of the main hall, for the extra guests to grab a plate and have their free evening meal.

When everyone finished their dinner, it has turned dark. And all of a sudden, they all hear a tune playing. There are a hand full of people who are just holding their plats while standing in the doorway.

They all looked outside and one of them shouts “There’s a band playing outside!”

One of the guests says “I wanna go dance.” And it encourages more people to go out and dance as well.

Our human stands at the door way, sees the band at the bottom of the stairs, and pairs dancing to the beat.

She hears a couple of guests, sitting on the side of the stairs, one of them tells the other “This is so weird. First the early coronation, and now a band outside? They say that there will be a dance after, but don’t coronation dances take place inside? They even said that the palace has a ball room big enough for all of us.”

It brought concern to her. If that were the case, that would mean they want to watch us dance. As she turned to check on the royal family, she finds no one at the throne area, but she does catch a glimpse of the king and queen walking through a door on the left of the throne. She rushes over them as the echoing sounds of her steps fills the room.

She reaches to the door and knocks on it “Your majesties, is there something wrong?”

The door creaks open slightly, then a voice goes “They no longer hold that title and are very busy right now, please do not disturb.” She can’t see anything from the door crack. There is no torch light in there.

The door closes and she tries to keep the gap open, but her middle and ring finger ends up being crushed by the door. “AHH-” She screamed in agony, but blocked off her sound with her off hand.

She didn’t want the citizens to panic over the disappearance of their new queen.

She then pulled in her fingers and held them tightly to numb the pain. “I know you have a ball room in the palace, why are we dancing outside anyway?”

There was silence, no reply. “I’ll help you with anything, please tell me what’s wrong?”

A minute passes, then the door opens, they waved their hands to for her to enter. She gets in, and the door closes behind her.

The sound of a spark creates a fire to light and the inside is a ten by ten feet room. A door that leads to the back and another door where the human just entered. There is a shelf of brushes and a broom. It seems to be a a cleaner’s closet.

The Goliath former queen and Tiefling former king are wrapping each other with their arms, holding one another. “What’s wrong?” said the human.

“Tell us your name.” Asked the Tiefling.

She replies with “I am Ezuvae.”

“Ezuvae what?” says the Goliath.

“It’s just Ezuvae, madam.”

“You are very young” says the tiefling.

Ezuvae replies “I helped out my master when he needed things like errands and monsters that encountered his home.”

“I see”

“But I want to help you. I have the sense that you’re in trouble.”

The two glanced over at each other and back to Ezuvae. The former queen goes “Our daughter is in trouble.” They then tell what happened two months ago. Bree was studying in her room. She wanted to learn how to solve problems, and help our people. However, she had trouble understanding some particular books she had because they were written in Zemnian. They hired the bishop since she spoke and read Zemnian. It wen’t fine until earlier today. The bishop ambushed their meal with pirates and snatched Bree. She demanded to have the coronation at sundown or the pirates will harm her. Once the coronation was over, they have to draw out the guests in order to have the new queen all to herself. She even told the two to not disturb them.

“Where is Queen Bree right now?” Asked Ezuvae. 

The former king lets go of his wife, and places both hands on Ezuvae’s shoulders and goes “The bishop took her to our room. It has our family’s mark on it.”

Ezuvae is guessing that the mark is in a hexagon shape with what seems to be a weird looking pine tree going through. The trunk is too short & thin, and the leaves and branches forms a kind of tall pyramid separated into pieces. She has seen that mark when she arrived here.

As she starts to turn to the door, the tiefling hold her still and continues “What ever you do, don’t let your guard down. The bishop hasn’t been herself lately.”

She nods to him as the guard, who was holding the door the entire time, opens it and she swiftly heads up to the closest flight of stairs.

Just as soon as she reaches to the top the stairs, a crossbow bold flies pass her face and pierces to the stone wall. She lost balance when she leaned back, but she quickly grabbed hold of the railing and stands back up again. She glances to her right, she sees for a brief moment, what could be the captain, and their crew member.

A deep voice occurs and goes “Get them!” as foot steps are fading to the left.

They are in a 10ft wide/ 180ft long hall way with a set of doors on the right that lead to a room she doesn’t know. and two path that lead to the left

The pirate rushes towards her, swings his hook, but she dodges the out of the way, still holding on to the railings. She then goes pass him, grabs the pirate’s back, leans backwards, sets her feet on him, and launches him across the hall as she rolls to a three point stance. The pirate falls on to his back., just laying there. As Ezuvae stands back up, another pirate takes her swing with a light hammer, but Ezuvae manages to stop it on time. The pirate then disengages, going 10ft backwards into the open path. The other path is an intersecting hall way. The human can see the captain heading into another path, behind the pirate.

Ezuvae force kicks the pirate and tries to punch her, but she immediately gets out of the way. The human tries to kick her again, but she blocked it and punched Ezuvae right into the face. She steps back 5ft. Meanwhile, the pirate that was prone, stands up and sees Ezuvae, backing up from the punch. He rushes towards her from the back. The other pirate takes a swing at her. The hammer hits her stomach. Ezuvae pulls out her dagger and stabs the pirate on the back (literally) By this time, she notices the first pirate rushing. She passes by the other and quickly heads towards the end of the hall way. The two Pirates rush towards her, one of them throws the hammer but it misses.

As Ezuvae was running, she pulls out a small metal barrel with a wooden base and points it at them, it made a small explosion and the wall seemed to be hit my a mysterious force. With that, the pirates stop themselves from chasing. Ezuvae continued on forward into another hall way.

Based on where she saw the captain headed, she follows. Upon looking for the master bedroom, Ezuvae finds an open door. In it, was an alchemist’s lab. There is a lot of equipment, chemicals and elements, fully stocked. She finds a greater healing potion, on one of the desks and a container of sulfur pieces. She takes this opportunity to craft equipment and drinks the potion. After twenty minutes, she has crafted a blasting powder within a pouch. After that, she rushes out to the door, she accidently bumped a shelf, and a weird potion spilled on her. There seems to be no effect, so she continued onward.

Racing against time, she finds the family’s mark on the door. Ezuvae looks around and finds a few paintings on the wall. They’re portraits of the royal family. At least, what’s left of them. She takes Princess Bree’s, the painting before the coronation. Holds up the painting’s back towards the door and kicks it open. As the doors flung open, a bolt appeared on the painting. The tip nearly touches her armor. Ezuvae drops the painting to see the captain standing on top of the bed. He has long hair, wears a purple robe, and welds a hand crossbow with a long sword on his side. The room itself, is large. About 40/50ft. Four columns supporting another interior balcony, two flight of stairs, and a huge window behind the bed. The captain quickly reloads his crossbow then the human hides behind the column. He fires but it misses.

“Just c’mon and give up!” Yelled the pirate.

“Our master promises she will give us great pleasure when she’s done with the queen. She may be old, but she knows how to satisfy a man.”

Ezuvae muttered “Ew.”

He then hops off the bed and walks toward the pillar she’s hiding. He draws his sword as he continues “You might have a taste of her, if you’d stop interfering.”

He stops at the pillar and peaks around, “I promise we’ll go slow.”

And all of a sudden, she quickly draws the barrel and points it at the captains face and *Boom* nothing happened to him, except for the loud sound. He got startled and stepped back.

Ezuvae drops the blasting powder underneath him, runs away from him and points the barrel at the pouch. It explodes, launching him 3ft into the air and prone to the ground. The human rushed over to him, kicks away his crossbow, tries to steal his sword but that was unsuccessful. She then proceeds to punching his stomach and miss stabbing his wrist that welds the sword. She backs up as the captain gets up. Unable to do anything at the moment, Ezuvae stabs him twice but misses, and she grabbed him to head-butt him.

The pirate captain slashes his sword at her, but somehow, Ezuvae didn’t get cut. He aimed at her stomach, so why aren’t her gut spilled out?. With out even thinking, Ezuvae slashes him with the dagger. Her two attempts miss, but the third and punch succeeds. He aims towards her head and misses, but she manages to slash him. She also kicked the back of his leg to fall on one knee.

As he gets up and turns around, he was met with an upper cut. Falling backwards, he becomes prone once again. Ezuvae stabs his wrist, making him let go of his sword. He screams from the pain and then she kicks him in the face. He quickly gets up and grabs his sword with his other hand., but as he stands up, he gets greeted with a kick in the stomach. He manages to keep standing after backing a few feet.

Looking at his condition, he looks really beaten up. Blood is comming out of the stab wounds and from the head-butt.

Ezuvae says “You should be the one to give up.”

Without saying anything, He swings at her, but missed. She then slashes him, and points the barrel at his right shoulder. *Boom* blood splashed on to the floor, and He lies there unconscious.

After a relived sigh, Ezuvae hears a sinister laugh. And behind her are the sound of chains clanking. She turns around to see Queen Bree being lowered down. Her wrists are shackled over her head. Her dress, completely shredded, leaving behind a shoulder piece and strips of her dress. And her one-piece girdle is exposed to see. And her face expresses in a miserable exhaustion. She can see the leftover trail of tears on her cheeks.

Shocked to see her condition, Ezuvae shouts to her “YOUR MAJESTY!! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!”

The voice echoes the room “Ha ha ha ha ha,”

Glancing up, she sees a red humanoid figure falling from the ceiling and circles around her before it hits the ground, and continues saying “She cant hear you. I drained all of her energy. But don’t worry, it’ll return after a few hours of rest.” It then stops and floats in front of her.

What Ezuvae sees the figure with red skin, sharp nails, a pointed tail, giant bat wings attached to the back, and wears the attire of a bishop. Taking a closer look, she realizes that the winged figure is the bishop she saw before. Ezuvae was frightened for seeing a being like this for the first time. The bishop smirked. Ezuvae glances towards the queen behind the bishop, and shrugs off the fear. She then puts away the barrel, holds the dagger with both of hands in front of her. The bishop was impressed. Like it is her first time encountering such bravery.

But she gives Ezuvae a remorse look. “Delicious, but annoying. So, DIE!!!” She then takes her claws and swings it at Ezuvae.

Before the claw meets, Ezuvae felt a shattering force hitting on her back. Then what comes a blue mist surrounding her. The red bishop backs away from the mist, cause it harmed her mildly, and what comes are two individuals running into the bedroom. As the mist fades, Ezuvae sees them in front of her. On her right is a wood elf, welding a staff, wearing a brown robe with the royal family’s marking on the back. And on her left is a tiefling wearing chainmail armor, welding a mace and a shield.

“What was that?” asked Ezuvae.

“I just gave you an upgrade.” answered the tieflng.

Confused, she was about to ask- but was cut off when the wood elf goes “No time for questioning. We have to save her.”

He’s right. Ezuvae positions herself by widening her stance, lowering her body, points the dagger at the bishop, and rests her free hand on the bottom handle.

The elf walks forward to the bed and releases a lightning bolt, from this chest, at the bishop. The strike boils her veins, painfully. Ezuvae then gets closer underneath and throws her dagger, right on to her stomach, and backs away. The tiefling then summons a spiritual weapon next to the bishop. The weapon is in a form of Darlin the Baseball Bat. It takes a swing and hits the back of her head. The bishop leans forward from the blow.

Looking at the bat, the bishop notices Ezuvae and casts a charm spell on her. Evuvae felt her body being paralyzed as the speel takes over. She can’t speack either. All she can do is watch and feel the world around her. The bishop then flies towards Ezuvae. The elf runs toward the human and tries to hit her with his staff, but she dodged the impact. She then kicked the elf and pulls the dagger out of the bishop. But then, *POW* Ezuvae gets hit right at the face by the tiefling’s handle. The hit was able to brake off the spell. As the bishop was surprised, she gets hit on the head again by the magic baseball bat.

Frustrated, she charges toward and slashes Ezuvae and the tieffling with her claws. Ezuvae got scratched on her shoulder, it felt worse than a slap, while the tiefling blocks it with her shield. The bishop scratches the shield, and the tiefling pushes forward, grabs her arm, and the bishop feels her arm being pierced over and over again like salt rubbing her wounds. And then was pushed 180 degrees around the tiefling. As all of that is happening, the spiritual weapon flies over, behind the bishop and smacks her once again. After that, the elf also smacked her head with his staff. The bishop is weaken. The necroticy did a number on her. As she lies prone, Ezuvae kicks her over, pulls out and points the barrel at her beaten face and says, “You’re gross.” And the bishop’s head explodes, leaving a splatter of blood and bits of scorch marks all over the floor..

It’s now over. They won. After a minute passes the elf created a magical hand to unshackle the queen’s wrists. Ezuvae stands underneath Queen Bree to catch her. As the chains are freed, she falls onto Ezuvaes arms. She manages to catch her, but being bearably clumsy, she falls back, onto the bed. The queen lands flat on top of her. Her head rests next to Ezuvae’s, arms still over her head. In a brief moment, her arms contract and wraps them around Ezuvae. She’s still unconscious, but she feels like there’s someone there. Whatever happen to her, whatever she experienced, she holds that person tight and does not wish to let go. She wants to feel safe. Ezuvae felt Bree’s sorrow.

She wraps her arms around her body, holds her in close and whispers “Don’t worry, you’re safe now.”

[gayregis]

boppinrobin replied to your post: “Question. Part 1. Hi. I like your blog and your analytical analysis of books,”

aauuuughhh tysm for ur analysis as always

thank you for reading and liking it!!

arinasassymessi replied to your post: “Question. Part 1. Hi. I like your blog and your analytical analysis of books,”

Thank you again for your response! I wrote anonymously because I was a little embarrassed by my English, but to be honest, I've been reading your blog for a very long time, and I've always wanted to discuss some topics with you. Thank you, I feel more confident now. First of all, I apologize for the fact that I considered this scene pro-life.

The thing is, I've reread the witcher books countless times (mostly because of Regis, lol). And if in the first times I was so fascinated by the plot and characters that I did not notice any obvious sexist/homophobic moments, then after rereading the books more consciously, I caught very unpleasantly, conservative motives, which Sapkowski is not shy about.

I remember that the first time this scene, even though it caused a bit of misunderstanding, still touched me with its warmth and how Geralt emotionally supported Milva, helping her make a rather difficult decision. And the way Regis was pleased with his actions, smiling at him, awww.

But after studying the books in more detail and the messages that Sapkowski puts in them, it seems to me that I began to see a catch everywhere. At first, I was also delighted to learn about Ciri's relationship with Mistle, wow, progressive author, LGBTQ+ representation! But after seeing this relationship "live," I felt cheated, and since then, I have returned to this scene with Milva.

I thought, oh no, isn't everything here the same as I believed? Most of all, I was afraid of Regis because he is my comfort character, the voice of reason, and a progressive medic. Does Sapkowski put pro-life ideas in his mouth?.. After a couple of discussions with friends, this fear only took root.

However, after reading your in-depth analytical analysis, I agreed with it, looking at the facts in a new way, and was glad that my first guesses and feelings from this scene were close to the truth. Now I can rest in peace, lol.

About "medicament/medicine" and "agent." I have read books in Russian, and now I am rereading "Baptism of Fire" in English to practice. I think the difference between the words "medicament" and "agent" in English is somewhat unclear, and it is impossible to say precisely which of them has a negative connotation.

Both of them sound entirely neutral and normal to me, but again, I'm not a native speaker, correct me if I'm wrong. In Russian, instead of the word "agent," we have the word "snadobye" (the closest translation is 'potion,’ and in Polish, it is 'ziola’). And while "medicament" means only medicine, a remedy, the word "snadobye" can also mean medicine, but has more folk properties (?).

It is brewed from herbs and a synonym to a potion/drug — a poisonous, magical, and forbidden drink, usually attributed to witches and wizards. For me, Geralt's refusal to use the word "medicament" — neutral and scientific-medical — in favor of a word that has a more magical/negative connotation seemed rather strange. But again, this is just my guess.

I consider the Russian translation closer to the Polish one because it belongs to the same language group, but I don't have access to the original to check what words were used there. In any case, I think that since Geralt decided to use one instead of the other, they should differ in some way, but it is not known in favor of which word this works. I also like your version.

I also had a lot of questions about Milva and her actions. She's probably my second favorite character after Regis, and I didn't understand her actions until a certain point. She was not satisfied with a woman's position in her society, so instead of the usual role, she decided to participate in Geralt's journey?

I was also not very clear about their conversation and Geralt's conclusion: "someone else's child for your own, life for life." Why? After all, she could stay in Brokilon and give birth, but if she didn't want a child, she could have an abortion (for example, she rather cruelly compared her child to young wasps that eat caterpillar alive).

Recently, the Russian Witcher community posted a short theory that Milva was in love with Geralt and therefore went after him. Milva's thoughts in Brokilon speak in favor of this — she finds Geralt attractive (although she felt something similar for Cahir when they were waiting for Geralt and Buttercup to be released from prison at night).

*not Buttercup (have no idea what is it), JASKIER

Also, their conversation outside Regis' hut at night, when Milva bitterly remarked that Geralt needed another woman — a scholar, a wise one, a beloved one (Yennefer), desire to get emotional support exactly from Geralt and and insisting on his presence during the miscarriage, her further refusal to marry the baron, and perhaps Sapkowski's sometimes ANNOYING idea that any woman should go crazy in Geralt's company. But again, these are just guesses, and I would be interested to hear your opinion.

I also didn't know that tumblr has a word limit in comments, so my replays look pretty stupid now, lol.

yes!! i also read the books first just for the plot and then went back and later, when my mind was clearer, noticed a lot more of political views in the writing. it’s the fact that a lot of sapkowski’s other takes are shitty (re: feminity, lgbt individuals and relationships), or at least come off as shitty because they are not explicit enough to actually be a progressive opinion, compounded with the fact that the scene with milva is not very clear on exactly what regis is asking geralt, why he is polling them, why geralt is upset, or what they even intend to do. i think also, because the subject is so important and people have very intense opinions about it, it makes you nervous to see it come up in a fictional story, even if the author is promoting a good message - it’s the feeling you described of, “oh no, isn't everything here the same as i believed?” 

and yeah, you’re right, in english i’d say medicament and agent both have neutral connotations, “agent” to me sounds more scientific, somehow? like it would be used in an experiment? i think i have usually heard it more in descriptions of products, like “cleansing agent” in relation to something dealing with chemistry... but then again, i am not a scientist, doctor, beautician, etc...

and about milva - agree, i love her too :D!! these are my personal opinions and takes on her character motivations but:

i think her ‘not being satisfied with a [traditional] woman’s role in society’ extends beyond not being satisfied, it’s being disgusted with it - in tower of the swallow, she describes how she as a teenager experienced sexual assault at the hands of her stepfather, and her mother didn’t do anything (assumedly because of the societal roles involved, and you can (unfortunately) see this occur in real life as well, mothers don’t protect their daughters from the men they stay with). milva beats him to death and runs away, and never goes back to that life. additionally, in baptism of fire, she talks about her name - milva, and why she changed it, and she says that her original name, maria, along with a lot of other “feminine-sounding” names beginning with M (this is at least what i got out of it, they sound like sweet names given to peasant girls), get your ass pinched in taverns (this is my best recollection of the quote). 

it’s clear that she has not only experienced discomfort, but really just blatant violence at the hands of “traditional feminity/women’s societal roles,” and so she goes to rely on only herself at first, hunting in lower sodden, and then finally being ‘adopted’ (kind of) by brokilon and eithne, becoming affiliated with them and working for them and the scoia’tael. this makes sense to me, because of course brokilon is a matriarchy, and the elves are mentioned to raise (and thus, treat) male and female elves the same way.

i won’t rule out that sapkowski intended for milva to have romantic interest in geralt, but i think that even if he did, it wasn’t interesting and i disagree with that direction for her character. my takes continued are that:

re:  "someone else's child for your own, a life for life." in this conversation, she talks to geralt about the differences between “milva” and “maria,” her two identities that seem to be at ends with each other. she didn’t want to stay in brokilon to have the child, because by societal means, she is no longer a “woman” in the traditional sense - she’s milva, not maria - she kills, she laughs as she pulls out the arrowheads from corpses, etc., like her chosen name, ‘milva,’ she is a red kite, a bird of prey. 

she doesn’t fit the societal expectations of a woman, and was never trained in being a mother (she ran away from home as a teenager, she hasn’t done ‘traditional woman things’ like keep house and cook, raise and deal with children, weave (?) and work in a house since she was 16, and she is older than that now (i’d say she’s at least past her early 20s, because she is described as a “young woman” compared to angouleme’s “very young woman” in lady of the lake, and angouleme is approx. 18-19). but since she doesn’t fit these expectations, how can she expect herself to raise this child? thus, she likely wanted to drop the baby, but since she was raised in a conservative rural society in which women are expected to bear children and not have abortions, she may have felt guilt and shame for wanting to do so. thus, she wanted to follow geralt - although she would have intentionally lost her child, she would have intentionally saved another, absolving her of her guilt. it’s like as regis described to geralt in the middle of the book, about penance and running up debts, this is a large theme of the book - a baptism of fire, fire which not only purifies, but burns (a challenge which absolves one of guilt, but it is painful). 

these are just my takes, i think sapkowski’s intentions were more along the theory that milva had a crush on geralt, but as i said i think that’s just boring and the “easy way out.” he also did that with cahir and ciri, making heterosexual love the motivation for a noble deed, and it’s just like... these characters have so much other depth and serious individual issues, and you want to reduce their motivations to just simply “they were in love”? okay... so yeah i don’t think sapkowski really may have intended any of the above, or if he did, it was to a lesser degree, but this is my interpretation of it.

[kita-lavellan]

Beyond The Veil Discord OC-Asks

We have an OC-Question-Time channel on our Beyond The Veil Discord, and I keep forgetting to Copy/Paste my answers from there to here, so I’m about to do a single large post! To those of you still waiting on answers from my Ask Box, I’ll get to them I promise ^_^

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Q. Why might someone dislike them? For kita -- From @rivainisomniari A. She's stubborn. She knows she's stubborn, but Kita doesn't often realise when she's crossing the line from stubborn to just being bull-headed. Nel, her sister, is often the one to call her on this behavior and force her to back down.

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Q. What Hogwarts House would they be in? -- From @rivainisomniari A. Kita would be a Ravenclaw

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Q. When bored, how do they pass time? For Kita -- From @rivainisomniari A. Running. Kita loves running. As a child she would spend hours running through the forests and wilds with Nel. She misses it while at Haven, but once they reach Skyhold she often runs around the battlements, people getting out of her way with the assumption she is rushing to speak to an advisor.

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Q. When publishing a book it is wise to make comparisons with well known published works, to help a publisher see your understanding of the market, and also to help them decide on the best way to market your manuscript. So, that thought in mind, whom can you compare (from other popular media) your OCs too? -- From @mrstethras A. Oh nice question!! Kita is a cross between Elsa from Frozen, Loki (Marvel) and someone I'd LIKE to be :D ... Ghilana Mahariel, my Warden, is a bit of a blend with Natasha Romanova (Black Widow from Marvel), and Rupunzel from Disney's Tangled...  Malia Hawke is a Self Insert, but with a dash of Killian Jones from Once Upon A Time for some sassy Hawke-Sarcasm

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Q. What do they value most in others? -- From @noire-pandora A. Honesty! Kita would rather you outright tell her you don't want to speak about something than LIE about it.

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Q. Who is your inquisitor's best friend in the Inquisition?  -- From @rivainisomniari A. Kita's favourite people are Dorian, Leliana and Varric. Dorian wormed his way into her heart very quickly by being so protective of her during the Redcliff mission. She found it amusing, but also sweet and endearing, and the whole mission was a fast-bonding experience for the pair. Watching Leliana be willing to die for her to, washed away the wariness and caution Kita had carried for the inquisition up until that point, but especially for Leli when the woman was so clear in telling her she would do it again, once they're back in their proper time. Varric was the first person, after her sister, to ask how SHE was, which made a soft spot for him, and honestly, who can't like Varric eventually?

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Q. Is there any situation in which they would make a deal with a demon? -- From @noire-pandora A. Tough one! Kita has always been very connected to the Fade and the spirits within! She would probably barter and/or bargain with a spirit, because she is familiar with in her interactions with them, demons are still spirits but corrupted, so she would probably either avoid them or try to help them, especially after she learns more about spirits and the Fade from Solas throughout the Inquisition timeline.

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Q. Name one big flaw for your ocs? -- From @mrstethras A. Kita is slow to trust others, especially humans. She is aware that she distrusts people outside of her clan, but Kita doesn’t see it as a flaw, simply being cautious. Sometimes overly cautious, but she tries to balance her distrust with logic where she can. Ghilana's automatic response to someone showing any interest in her is to be abrasive, abrupt, and rude. She doesn't give people the benefit of the doubt, or chances, if they want her companionship they need to work at it and/or earn it. She comes across as a cold-hearted bitch, but if you persevere and crack that outershell she's a marshmallow. Malia's flaw is thinking she could have stopped or prevented anything and everything that goes wrong around her. Usually something Lydia has done, that she feels she could have predicted and avoided.

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Q. Do they have any family? -- From @rivainisomniari A. Kita has her sister, Nel (@mrstethras‘ Character) and their grandmother, Deshana, other than that, no. their father died when they were young, and their mother died during the War Table mission/attack on wycomb. Ghilana doesn't have any family that she knows of. Her father was killed by humans and city elves, and her mother wandered into the forest never to return when she was a baby. Ashalle raised her, and she considers the woman family, but she's not blood family. Malia has her older sister, @mrstethras‘ Hawke, Lydia. There's also her brother Carver and her sister Bethany, both of whom survive the trip to Kirkwall.

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Q. Are they close to their family? -- From @randomfallout4posts A. Kita is VERY close to Nel. She was fairly close to Deshana, but felt like she had to keep some of her magical talents hidden from the woman, because they weren't strictly "normal". Once she was able to be more free with herself with the Inquisition, and with Solas and Nel in particular away from the Clan, she began to feel less close to her grandmother and more judged for the ease with which she communed with spirits. Ghilana is not particularly close with her family. She struggles with the idea that Ashalle is not her "real" mother, and feels guilty for thinking like that. Tamlen was the closest thing she had to a 'real' family in her mind, and she had to abandon him, it took her a long time to begin to trust Briar and Alistair and instantly latched onto the first elf she saw with tattoo's (Zevran). He becomes her family, and as soon as the Darkspawn Threat is under control, she follows him to Antiva to kick his ass for being gone for so long. Malia... *sigh* She is SUPER close with Lydia, and despite being the younger of the two, she feels responsible for the other girl, especially since Lydia  struggles with their father's death the most. Having no one older to share her magical talents with was difficult too and so Malia did her best to support and back up Lydia as much as she could. She struggled to connect with Carver, and they disagree on a lot of things, but they love each other despite it and they bond particularly closely during the battle of Ostagar, helping each other survive what was otherwise a slaughter of epic proportions. Malia adores Bethany, and coddles the younger girl, giving her anything and everything she can. She picked up pick-pocketing to buy Bethany birthday presents, and it's how she fond her way to learning a rogue's skill set. Malia does not get on with her mother, and often goes out of her way to annoy the woman so that Leandra will aim her vitriol at Malia instead of Lydia.

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Q. Where's their favourite place to be kissed? -- From @mrstethras A. Kita loves the tips of her ears being nibbled on, and the junction where neck becomes shoulder. Ghilana loves the back of her neck being kissed, especially once her hair grows out and Zev has to push it out of the way to reach it. Also kisses trailing down her spine. Malia ends up a shivering wreck if her hips and thighs get kissed, but also the palm of her hand while her eyes are locked with her lovers.

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Q. Your OC’s favourite pastimes when they're not gallivanting, murdering or hunting Dread Wolves? -- From @mrstethras A. For Kita; Running, Reading, and/or singing. Post Trespasser she's learning how to control using a god damned foci, and pretending to be dead, but that's an essay for another time Ghilana's favourite pastime used to be huntng... until she had to spend the whole blight hunting for their party since no one else knew how. How her favourite pastime is annoying Brair, and sitting quietly/stargazing, while Zev braids and/or plays with her hair. Malia's favourite pastime used to be pick pocketing the Templars and Chantry Sisters and redistributing the wealth amongst the citizens of Lothering. Once they reached Kirkwall, she enjoyed hanging out with her friends, and helping them with what they were doing, when she had time. Keeping the patients at Anders clinic entertained until he could see them. Helping Merrill go shopping. Helping Fenris rearrange the furniture in the mansion etc.

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Q. Name one regret of your OC’s?  -- From @mrstethras A. Kita: Not going to Wycome herself and keeping her mother safe. Also, for not doing/saying/being enough so that Solas could feel he could trust her. Ghilana: Not insisting that she search for Tamlen. Ghilana regrets letting Duncan talk her into leaving with him immediately. Malia has lots of regrets, but the biggest one is that she didn't push Anders for more answers, when she knew the ingredients he'd collected were intrinsic components for an explosive.

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Q. Are they tall or short or somewhere in between? -- From @randomfallout4posts​ and @silvanils​ A. For a modern Elf, Kita is Tall. She's on the upper end of the height range for MALE elves at 5'8.... having said that, it's one of the first things that draws her attention about Solas, he's one of the only elves she's ever met taller than her, and he's taller than her by a fair margin. // Kita is tall for a modern elf. Tall for a MALE modern elf. Ghilana is small, around 5'1 and slight. She can, almost literally, hide behind a tree. It helps with her stealth abilities, and her speed, but it's why she focused mainly on a bow to keep a distance from stronger opponents. Zev fixes that, telling her she needs to know how to defend herself, and teacher her to dual weild daggers.  // Ghilana is average for a female modern elf, but she comes across as looking smaller because she's slight as well. Malia is average, around 5'6/7. A little taller than her older sister, but not by much. // Malia is average for a human female.

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Q. Has Varric given them a nickname? If yes what is it and how did they get it? -- From @this-basic-mage​ A. Varric HAS given Kita a Nickname ^_^ It's Satina! She's a night owl, and so often wanders Skyhold late. Plus her whole colour's/aesthetics are blues and silvers.... Satina is, also, canonically the name of Thedas' moon. Malia finds it hilarious the Varric calls her sister simply "Hawke" and it annoys Lydia no end when he starts giving Malia the nickname "Copper". She's considered a bit of a "bad penny" by many, especially whenshe spends a lot of her time in Darktown, and is known to be a prolific pickpocket, but Varric also chose the name because of the burnished copper undertones to her otherwise dark brown hair.

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Q. Pick any god from greek/norse pantheons for your o.c to "be" -- From @rivainisomniari​ A. I'm not sure I know enough about mythology off the top of my head to say for most of them. Kita has some Loki in her, with her playfulness and love of wolves (even before the whole Fen'Harel reveal, she's always admired the Emerald Knights) Ghilana would be Athena, goddess of the hunt. Owls for nightime and stargazing, and the stealth aspects of her character etc. Not sure who Malia would be. Is there a mythological god or goddess of chaos and disaster OTHER than Loki?

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Q. Since the game has them: A tarot card for your o.cs. -- From @rivainisomniari​ A. After some research, I think Kita would be the High Priestess, meaning Intuitive, unconscious inner voice. Ghilana would be the Hierophant Reversed, meaning Rebellion, subversivness and new approaches. Malia would be the Tower, meaning sudden upheaval, broken pride, and disaster. Research Source: https://labyrinthos.co/blogs/tarot-card-meanings-list

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Q. What is it that drew y'all's OC’s to their LIs? -- From @bratwurstprophecy​ A. Tough one because it was me drawn to Solas before Kita was. I think it was the way Solas almost immediately told Cassandra that Kita couldn't have opened the breach. She read it as an elf defending an elf, a mage defending a mage, and it made her respect him very quickly. His opinions on the Dalish were painful but didn't surprise her. At the Keeper's first she's been to the meetings of the clans and knew how unwelcoming some of the other clans were towards outsiders, but it made her want to show him not all Dalish were like that... then she began talking magic and the fade and spirits with him, and a lot of his opinions on those aligned with what she'd always felt but had been told was wrong, and that was it, she was basically a goner. Ghilana was drawn to Zev, despite the fact he tried to kill her, because he was the first elf she'd seen since leaving her clan, and she figured he might be useful, help her hunt for the party (Ahahahhahaha). His warmth and easy going attitude though is what endeared him to her, he easily let her abrasiveness roll off him, and that was something she'd encountered only rarely and valued highly. Malia saw a lot of her sisters in Anders, a mage run ragged hiding from the Chantry, but still a kind soul wanting to help. She wanted to help him, to find a way to separate him from Justice so neither of them became corrupted in spite of their mutual good intentions. She can often seen the glimpses of the man he was before he merged with Justice, and while she loves him as he is, she wishes she could see more of the lighthearted and playful man he was before because it's those glimpses of gentle care and humor that draw her in like a moth to a flame.

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Q. What's your OC's favorite food? -- From @randomfallout4posts​ A. For Kita Lavellan, an Elfroot based stew her mother used to make, and Lemon flavored frilly cakes from Val Royeux For Malia Hawke , she never thought she's miss it, but a simple ferelden vegetable pie brings back happier memories of family meals with her siblings and both her parents in their cosy kitchen in Lothering. Ghilana Mahariel used to love roasted rabbit, but she hunted and cooked so many of them during the 5th blight she now can't stomach the sight of them. She loves exploring antivan spices, and the different flavors they can make when being mixed together in different combinations, and on different meats, so although it's not a "food", Antivan Spices would be her answer.

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Q. CAFFEINE. I must know what your ocs first reaction to coffee was. For inquisitors, their first taste was likely when Bull offers it in the Storm Coast, unless they came from noble roots and got lucky. -- From @lacrymosa-of-lavellan​ A. Kita firmly believes that coffee is a creation of the gods. Perhaps Ghilan'nain. It finally means she can stay awake long enough to get through the stacks of paperwork that Josephine keeps leaving on her desk, and still have enough energy to go and fall asleep read a book on Solas' couch. Ghilana doesn't drink it, unless Zevran serves it up with a metric tonne of sugar, and at least half the cup being made up of milk. Malia Hawke takes coffee as part of her regular morning ritual, but only if she makes it herself. Too many times has she picked up her sister, Lydia’s, coffee, only to splutter on the strong taste of whiskey or rum that's been added to it.

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Q. If you could use a song (or entire album if you like) to sum up one of your OCs in terms of personality and whatnot, or even just similar vibes, what would it be? -- From @bratwurstprophecy​ A. Kita Lavellan would get the Frozen 2 Soundtrack, but specifically "Into The Unknown" or "Show Yourself"

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Q. The most important oc / otp question: Who shares their thinmints and who tells the other to go heck off? -- From @lacrymosa-of-lavellan​ A. Kita would share, and Solas would not. We know he has a sweet tooth! Between Malia and Anders, I think both of them would share. They both know what it's like to go without, and how a little treat can bring someone's mood up. As for Ghilana, Zev would spoil her with all sorts of exotic foods and sweet treats, and Ghilana would not share them (even if he asked) ;-)

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Q. If your oc was in a modern time (or if they're brave as heck in da times) do they have any (non-vallaslin) tats or piercings, and if so, where? -- From @lacrymosa-of-lavellan​ A. Kita would not have a tattoo. Apart from the fact her mother really doesn't like them, Pre-Crestwood her Vallaslin are important and meaningful and she wouldn't want to take away from their importance by getting just 'another tattoo'. Post-Crestwood, when she knows that the Vallaslin were slave markings, she wouldn't want to be permanently marked in that way again. Ghilana does have other tattoo's besides her Vallaslin, all of which were done by Zevran. He has given her a vine that wraps around her ankle and curls up her leg with little symbols hanging from it, like charms, each charm marking an important event in their life together. Zev has also tattooed matching bands on their ring fingers, instead of wearing rings. Ghilana also has one ear pierced, to wear the earring Zev gave her during the 5th blight. It's the only piece of jewellery she regularly wears. Malia Hawke does not have any tattoo's or piercings. Her philosophy is that she does through enough pain without subjecting herself to more of it willingly.

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Q. Wood smoke or ocean breeze? -- From @lacrymosa-of-lavellan​ A. Kita hates the smell of the ocean. She got seasick on her way from the Freemarches to Ferelden, and the salt air always makes her feel a little queasy now. Woodsmoke on the other hand is food, and warmth and comfort and she misses the perfume of crackling pinewood. Ghilana has always loved woodsmoke smell, but when she travels with Zev and on her Grey Warden duties, she learns to love the smell of the ocean. Malia Hawke can take or leave woodsmoke. It's not terrible but after fleeing Lothering with the village burning behind her it has some difficult memories attached to the scent. Living in Kirkwall though, the fresh sea air waking her every morning was something she grew to love.

[raayllum]

parallel trajectory: how rayllum and kataang’s arcs overlap

I have made it no secret that I am a big Kataang shipper on this blog. My Kataang x Rayllum series proves that as well. But one day, my brain went, “Hey, instead of just some parallels here and there, why don’t you look at the overlapping arcs and romantic beats of Kataang and Rayllum’s individual relationship development?” Thus, here we go. 

Quick disclaimer: this doesn’t mean I think Rayllum is going to be canon (I have other reasons for thinking that, since S1). I don’t necessarily think this means that Aaron Ehasz is a Kataang shipper; I take him by his word that he doesn’t tend to ship things at all. If Rayllum doesn’t become canon, I don’t think it means that Aaron doesn’t support/like Kataang either. This is just a series of cool parallels and overlapping arcs that are already common with romantic plots, some that aren’t, and some fun general dynamic things as well. Cool? Cool.

I’ll be doing my best to go in chronological order, but here’s just a brief overview to start.

Magical sibling (Katara / Callum) and non magical brother (Sokka / Ezran) meet a tattooed kid from another culture (Aang / Rayla) and through a series of wild circumstances, the siblings agree to leave behind their home and travel with the other kid to try and restore peace to the world. Being more knowledgeable about the world and its magic system, the tattooed kid mentors the magic kid and reaffirms their bending/magehood. 

The slightly older, slightly more serious/responsible female half of the ship (Katara / Rayla) is linked to the moon, and the slightly goofier, more carefree and younger by a year or two male character (Aang / Callum) is linked to the sky. 

That’s not to say that either of these scenarios is always succinct. As we can see, there are already things and attributes being swapped. However,  as we move forward in the analysis, Katara + Callum, Rayla + Aang, and Aang + Callum are the most common parallels. Without further ado, let’s get into it.

Bond Building

What makes a lasting bond? A significant first meeting certainly helps. This is one thing Rayllum and Kataang have in common, even on the surface their first meetings couldn’t be more different. Katara arguably saves Aang’s life by freeing him from the iceberg and bringing it to the surface to begin with, and Rayla is threatening Callum’s life, so how are the meetings similar? Remember how I said Callum and Katara tend to have the most parallels? This is one of those times.

Simply put, Callum and Katara always believed that Rayla and Aang, respectively, are ‘good’ so to speak. Callum asks why they can’t just make peace with the elves. He argues ethics with Rayla. He sees her as a person: “You know this is wrong.” He doesn’t believe, deep down, that she has to be his enemy. Likewise, Katara trusts Aang right from the start. While Sokka is suspicious, Katara outright dismisses his claims: “Oh yeah, I’m sure he’s a spy for the Fire Navy, you can tell by that evil look in his eye.”

Then, there’s the fact that without hours (or 2-3 days, for Kataang) both couples are making huge changes and leaps of faith for one another. Aang offers to personally fly Katara to the Northern Water Tribe to find a waterbending master for her, although she’s initially hesitant. Aang gives himself up to protect the Southern Water Tribe (and, emotionally, Katara). Rayla offers to fight against her own kind to protect Harrow for Callum’s sake. Callum and Katara both decide to leave behind everything they’ve ever known. When it comes to major risk taking, Aang and Callum both say no.

R: Say the word, and I’ll go back into that tower with you. C: No. It’s up to us now. We have to return this Egg, we have to keep it safe, and carry it to Xadia.

At these displays of strong loyalty, both boys say no to prevent harm - emotional or physical - from befalling their partner, in addition to the greater destiny they are all hurtling towards. Then there are the parallels in each couples differences to one another. For example, the Southern Water Tribe is a heavy meat eating society, and Aang is a vegetarian; elves and humans also have largely different diets, shown through Callum not knowing what moonberry juice is. 

Then, there are the more arc defining differences concerning each world’s magic system. For Rayla and Aang, their powers come easily. Rayla was born connected to the moon arcanum, and Aang is naturally gifted at bending anything but Earth, honestly. Callum and Katara, meanwhile, have to struggle for their abilities for longer periods of time and through ambition alone. While Callum never shows any resentment for Rayla being connected while he is not, Katara does struggle with Aang being better at waterbending, although they work through it and come back to a mutually supportive space (“Hey, you did the water whip!” “I never could have done it without your help!” “Would you two quit congratulating each other and help me out?” oh Sokka, never change). 

What this does highlight is Katara and Rayla’s roles in each relationship as the other’s primary teacher when it comes to the world’s magic system (at least, in TDP, over the duration of Book One). 

K: Calm down, it's going to be okay. If you want, I can try to teach you some of the stuff I know. [...] R: You do know what the six primal sources are, right?

Rayla continues to be a key point of Callum’s magic arc in Book One: Moon as he learns the ropes. She teaches him about the six primal sources, the potential of his primal stone, agrees to get his cube and does so successfully even when things take a perilous turn, he uses his magic to save her on a few occasions, and she’s the one to successfully teach him the fulminus spell. Katara, meanwhile, continues to mentor Aang even into Book Two, teaching him whatever waterbending moves she knows, testing and training with him. 

Tied together with these magic arcs are the consequences from carelessness each couple faces. Callum and Aang both jump at an opportunity to develop their abilities. Callum wants the cube, Aang wants to learn firebending. The trio’s trip to the Banthor Lodge and to Jeong-Jeong’s camp puts Rayla’s life in significant danger, and Aang burns Katara. Both these events and their consequences stay with each boy longterm.

Guru Patik: This Chakra deals with willpower, and is blocked by shame. What are you ashamed of? What are your biggest disappointments in yourself? A: I’m never gonna firebend again.

More than a season later, Aang admits refusal to learn firebending, and another whole season after that, he’s still hesitant to learn or to make his flame grow, since when he lost control, he hurt Katara. Likewise, Callum takes the initiative in any episodes following that when going into human towns or locations that Rayla isn’t hurt. 

C: This is all my fault. We never should have come here [to the Banthor Lodge] ... Okay sure, we might find a dragon egg expert, but we will definitely find a bunch of elf hating humans ... Specifically a captain who doesn’t hate elves.

While both Callum and Aang can be momentarily careless, the consequences of it are things they do not forget. Instead, they remember and grow from them, despite their apprehension at engaging in similar situations in the future because of the harm it did to Rayla and Katara, respectively. 

Now, for a more direct parallel between Rayla and Katara is the way they consistently reaffirm togetherness. Katara does this all the time with Aang in Book One: “We’re your family now” (1x03), “The world can’t afford to lose you to the Fire Nation, and neither can I,” (1x06), “And we need you” (1x16). She cries when she loses him at the Northern Spirit Oasis, is constantly touching him, and is saying she loves him as early as 2x01 (“for the people who love you, seeing you in that much rage and pain is really scary”).

Likewise, Rayla places more on her friendship with Callum and Ezran, specifically Callum, but we’ll get to why in a moment, than the boys do initially. During the fight with Corvus in 1x06, Rayla says, “They’re my friends now, we’re in this together!” She’s horrified and angry by the thought of the princes hating her once they discover the truth about Harrow. But more to the point, “we’re in this together,” is something Callum said when she’d opened up to him, so she’s literally quoting him in this moment (and as we can see from 2x07, not for the last time either). While Callum wants to like her, and does think she’s good, he also can tell she’s keeping something from them, and doesn’t, understandably, fully trust her... and then he does in the most vulnerable possible position he could, later on in 1x06. 

And like Katara, we also know just how much Callum means to her rather quickly: “I can’t lose you like this, you mean too much to me.”

But the main things these couples have in common is that they are both the Enemies to Friends to Lovers trope. I’ve talked about why I don’t really consider Rayllum to be enemies in spite of their first encounter before, but just to reiterate here: 

‘Rayla and Callum do not have a history of personal harm towards each other. Rayla and Callum’s initial negative conflict lasts maybe an hour at most, before they’re deciding what to do about the Dragon Egg together [...] What I’m getting at is that Rayla and Callum are only enemies for maybe two hours at most, not months of their lives.’

What that leaves us with is a strong Friends to Lovers dynamic. By Book Two: Sky, Rayla and Callum have settled and are comfortable in a strong friendship dynamic, which is what fully began post-1x06, and is where Aang and Katara had been right from the very start. Complete with parallels like comforting each other when the other can’t sleep, mourning together, thinking of the other person’s wellbeing even when they’re not, respectful disagreements, inklings of jealousy, working together as a team, the fluttery feelings of a crush developing, and a plethora of other parallels.

Both crushes being teased before the 20 episode (AKA 1/3rd) mark of each series, so right on schedule. But of course, there has to be a few bumps along the way.

Claudia / Jet + Zuko

Claudia occupies an interesting spot in The Dragon Prince’s narrative, and one I admittedly haven’t figured all the way out. There’s a lot of directions her character could go, which makes sense for someone full of contradictions. Claudia cares deeply about what her friends think of her, yet doesn’t mind using them for her own purposes (aka apologizing to Ezran, opening up to him, and then using him to find the deer, for an idea she knows would bother him). For me, the most uncomfortable moment of Claudia’s character is when she knows Rayla is a valued and genuine friend of Callum, and she’s still willing to kill her. With that being said, Claudia parallels Jet and Zuko in Book Two: Sky with the conflict arcs she introduces.

The first, and perhaps more obvious, are her parallels to Jet. Like Jet, Claudia is older, edgier, and more morally grey than someone like Katara or Callum. Both crushes believe that the ends can justify the means, and believe that what they’re doing is right, even if it involves lying or violence. For Jet, that means avenging the death of his parents. For Claudia, that means looking at a world that made her be “born with nothing,” but in which she can “still found a way to do amazing things” with Dark Magic (2x02). 

Not only, like Katara and Jet’s relationship is used to foreshadow Kataang, so is Claudia and Callum’s relationship used to foreshadow Rayllum. Katara makes the hat for Jet, her canon and first so far crush, as a sign of affection. I don’t think that hat would have been necessarily well received — I feel like Jet would have awkwardly stumbled through a thank you, smoothly changed the topic away from the hat, and then never worn it, because it doesn’t exactly match his cool leader persona — but regardless, we never actually see Katara give the hat to him. Instead, in the next few shots, Aang is wearing it. Because he’s Aang and it’s a flower hat, and why wouldn’t he wear it? In spite of the indications that Aang’s had a crush on her since the beginning, he shows no jealousy towards Jet throughout this episode.

Rayllum’s romantic foreshadowing works almost in reverse. Rather than starting off with the romantic implication and then passing it onwards, the drawing scene in 2x07 shows Callum drawing Rayla. Up until this point, the only person we’ve seen him draw is his mother, and I’ve talked more about the significance of this scene here for anyone who’s interested. However, the scene then works backwards, showing that Callum had drawn Claudia, his previous crush, numerous times, causing the audience to link the information backwards rather than forwards. As unlike with the Katara and Aang hat exchange, this scene is already rather tense, as we know Rayla is elsewhere with her life on the line, providing the information in a less streamlined way makes sense, as the scene quickly carries on to focus on other things.

Either way, though, the implication in both scenes is loud and clear through visual storytelling, episodes before a crush of any of the characters is explicitly hinted at.

The point of Claudia’s arc that’s most prominent and similar to Jet, however, is her betrayal of the princes and specifically of Callum. While Callum had already chosen to ultimately trust Rayla over Claudia and Soren, he still wanted to trust Claudia and to know if her offer of help was genuine. It wasn’t, as we know. There’s also probably a complicated swirl of emotions and questions, like whether she was using his feelings for her against him and how much he could trust her about anything else. In addition to her and Soren being willing to kill Rayla even when they know that Rayla is a good and genuine friend of his.

Jet, meanwhile, uses Katara a bit more in his external, underlying plans. He compliments her, ‘trusts’ her, and bonds over the loss of parental figures. She admires him for his leadership, good looks, and fighting skills. They do have a different relationship than Callum and Claudia, as they’re a new relationship, not an old one, but I think the similarity between these two moments cannot be missed. Particularly because moments before hand, Katara and Callum were pleading for Jet and Claudia to not follow through on their plans.

C: Claudia please, don’t do this [pull us down]! K: What? No, that would destroy the town. Jet wouldn't do that.

So we know the parallels between Claudia/Callum and Jet/Katara, but then what are the Rayllum and Kataang parallels? Opposition. I don’t think it’s any coincidence where, despite the fact Callum has more reason to trust Claudia than Soren (who was caught in one lie, and who Rayla brought evidence against) Rayla and Claudia are the ones shown to have the most opposing views. And the fact they have the same aim, of having Callum trust them. I also don’t think it’s an accident that Aang, who liked Jet too, figured out the teen’s plan first and is the one to physically fight him, until he’s saved by Katara (much like how Callum pulls Rayla up onto Phoe-Phoe). 

In the same episode where Katara says, “If anyone’s the leader, it’s Aang,” and she falls for another leader, she sees the harm in someone who’s trying to make a difference who goes too far. Aang, in her own words, “Aang is the bravest person I know. He's done nothing but help people and save lives since I met him.” Aang, who like Jet, has lost much to the Fire Nation, but has never resorted to violence. Aang, who softens the blow of Katara being duped by Jet, because he was too.

And I think that’s the key parallel that each arc presents: Aang and Callum go with whatever Katara and Rayla think. They trust, or don’t trust, who the other does. They listen and learn and fight together. Aang and Katara’s views are far more in tune, but they’re still clever and deadly enough to figure things out. Callum and Rayla stumble a bit more, but they reach the same conclusion in the end, and it’s a bit more of a leap of faith for Callum, so each pair has its own merits for their own situation.

As a final Claudia/Jet note, there is also the parallel “comforting shoulder touch,” from Rayla/Aang to Callum/Katara following Claudia’s betrayal and Jet’s death, as displayed below.

Then, of course, there are the parallels between Claudia and Zuko. This is not to say I think Claudia is going to be redeemed, although I’m certainly not ruling it out as a possibility. Merely, in the parallels they present to each character. 

First, there’s the basic conflict plot: Claudia/Zuko tracks Rayla/Katara with a personal belonging (hair/mother’s necklace), only for Callum and Aang to swoop in and help get their girls out of a tricky spot. That is the basic B plot conflict/resolution of both 1x16 of ATLA, and 2x02 of TDP. 

Then, there’s the way Callum and Claudia work as foils of each other when it comes to being mages, much like how Aang and Zuko function as narrative foils. (I’m not exaggerating when I saw that the latter are some of the most well written literary foils in the past two decades, at least, btw.) Much like how Zuko is a jerk in numerous areas due to his jealousy (the Beach) and anger issues, the one episode where Aang acts remotely like Zuko is during Aang’s lowest point, after Appa is stolen in “The Desert.” 

Likewise, Callum, tempted by Dark Magic in his dreams, acts the most like Claudia are one of his lowest points, when he’s terrified of losing Rayla in 2x07. Callum and Claudia represent two extremely different types of mages. One who sees Dark Magic as wholly justifiable and moral, and one who rejects it so completely he discovers an entirely new way to access the world’s magic system (sound familiar to Aang and energybending in Sozin’s Comet, maybe).

But most of all is the way that Rayllum and Kataang’s relationships regarding Claudia and Zuko are similar, most predominantly in Rayla and Katara’s reluctant trust in the former.

A: Katara? K: [reluctantly.] I'll go along with whatever you think is right. ... C:  If in the morning I can’t convince you that we’re all on the same side, you can fight each other then, agreed? R: Fine.

Whereas in Rayla’s moment, she decidedly doesn’t like Claudia on account of Claudia trying to kill her multiple times, and the girl being a Dark Mage, she is still the first to agree to Callum’s idea, even before Claudia or Soren do. Katara, meanwhile, is vengeful largely on Aang’s behalf, as the last time she trusted Zuko he helped Azula kill Aang, and had sent an assassin after them. Her protective anger is what’s fuelling her. Indeed, you could even say Katara threatening to kill Zuko if he makes her even think he might hurt Aang by the end of this episode is a more intense version of the glare Rayla gives Claudia when she sees her, once Callum comes back crying about Harrow. A how dare you hurt my partner, vibe. And, in both cases, a I’m only trusting you this far because my partner trusts you, for whatever reason, set of conditions.

So yeah, Claudia represents both a Jet conflict for Callum, and a Zuko conflict for Rayla. 

Magic

Then, there’s the magic system. I already touched upon some of the key similarities, although there are others, such as Aang’s block with earthbending being similar to Callum’s block with the sky arcanum, something they want but chicken out of facing at the last second — in their first attempts, anyway. Once again, however, the Katara and Callum parallels shine through, largely in the way their pursuit of their world’s magic system is labelled as impossible.

Pakku and the Northern Water Tribe forbid women from learning combative waterbending. Callum is told as a human he will never be able to do primal magic without a primal stone. In both, Aang and Rayla are their partners key supporters. Aang refuses to learn from Pakku if he won’t train Katara, then later attempts to teach her in secret, and when she loses her temper, tries to minimize the damage, and cheers her on during her fight. They then clearly spend time practicing together, both in and outside of class.

Rayla, meanwhile, lets Callum bounce ideas off her, both in 2x04 in the rain and in 2x07 when he can’t sleep. Although she disapproves of his choice to go into the storm (a test of their relationship we’ll revisit later) she reaffirms how valuable she is to him once he comes back (analysis here). 

When Callum first performs primal magic after unlocking the arcanum, Rayla is there (but more on this parallel, two fold, later). Likewise, when Katara has been accepted as Master Pakku’s teacher, Aang is there. This is another time where the “friends to lovers who are travelling together throughout the series” aspect comes into play, but the fact that Katara’s desire to find a teacher was suggested and kicked off by Aang (“Appa and I can personally fly you to the North Pole. Katara, we're going to find you a master!” “That's... I mean, I don't know. I've never left home before”), and that Rayla is the one to first suggest Callum is a mage, the fact that each partner gets to be there for the culmination of these arcs really is lovely.

However, there are ugly sides to each world’s magic systems, too, and temptation: Dark Magic, and bloodbending.

Callum and Rayla are both presented with a magical alternative, and both are hesitant about it. “I don’t know if I want that kind of power,” Katara says hesitantly. And Dark Magic!Callum tempts Callum with, “You can have unlimited power, and you can choose what to do with that power.” The power that comes from each type of magic, power inherently born of exploitation of another being, is a slippery slope. 

And while Callum has an adamant stance against Dark Magic even after he uses it, he still uses it to save Rayla (for a more in depth analysis, click here.) Katara, meanwhile, walks both a more tragic and thinner line. She uses bloodbending at the last minute to save Aang, who would have been speared by Sokka’s sword otherwise. It’s only later when she’s let vengeance influence her more that she uses bloodbending completely willingly on the guard in the Southern Raiders.

In both scenarios, no one in Katara’s life offers any judgement, nor does Aang of any of Katara’s choices: “But I didn’t forgive [my mother’s murderer]. I’ll never forgive him.” But she didn’t take revenge, and poison herself in the process. Rayla, however, knows that Callum willingly chose and sought Dark Magic as a solution, even if it wasn’t to save her, but her anger quickly gives way to worry and love. 

Family and Generational Parallels

We don’t know much about Rayla’s family, and are primed to learn more in Book Three, but with what we do know, there are still some similarities. Both Rayla and Katara face off with an older, better fighter than themselves (Runaan, and Pakku) who have a familial connection to them, whether known (Runaan raised Rayla) or unknown (Pakku loved Katara’s grandother, and eventually becomes her step-grandfather). 

In both situations, Aang and Callum attempt however temporarily to dissuade these fights. Aang says, “You don’t have to do this for me,” as she went to Pakku to ask him to take Aang back as his student. Callum says, “But,” in regards to leaving her on the roof alone with Runaan. Both of them are dismissed by Katara and Rayla: “I’m doing it for you, someone needs to smack some sense into that guy,” “Just keep [the Egg] safe.”

Like Callum, Katara lost her mother young. Like Aang, Callum has now lost both his birth father and another father (Harrow and Monk Gyatso). But the biggest parallel come in confiding secrets about loss, family, and reconciliation. 

Upon arriving at the Southern Air Temple, Katara knows it’s most likely that all the Air Nomads are gone. However she tries to keep this truth from him in order to protect him, until he discovers it on his own. Rayla, likewise, doesn’t want to tell Callum about Harrow because “I’m afraid of hurting him,” and of losing him. And again, Callum finds out the truth on his own / from a third party.

However, there is yet another parallel, specifically to this ‘Dad’ plot, so to speak. In 1x16 of Book One: Water, Aang receives a letter meant for Katara and Sokka regarding their father’s location. Feeling culturally excluded and scared of losing the only people he has left, Aang hides the letter. The next morning, the guilt gets to him and he reveals what he did and gives them the letter, and in their anger and feelings of hurt, they leave him. This is a parallel to Callum writing a letter to his father, which Rayla comments upon even when she knows Harrow is dead, and her and Callum’s brief separation before they come back to each other.

All three incidences are used to highlight Kataang and Rayllum’s growing bonds, and to help Callum and Aang mourn the respective losses of Harrow and Aang’s people. “Sokka and I,” Katara says, “we’re your family now.” Meanwhile, Callum relates his difficulties of telling Ezran — his brother, best friend, and the only family he has left — the truth to what Rayla must have experienced with him: “When you care about someone, it’s hard to hurt them, even when what you’re telling them is true.”

Last but not least is the way the two shows build generational parallels, and love stories. Generational rights, wrongs, and foreshadowing are very common aspects of the fantasy genre, and one of my favourite things about it. Once again, ATLA and TDP both offer inverse and completely parallel trajectories to the love stories they build.

In season two of each show, romantic love becomes more a focus. 2x05 and 2x06 detail parts of Harrow and Sarai’s relationship and how it ended in tragedy. In 2x02, the story of Oma and Shu and their tragic love is told. The parallels between each tragic couple and their happy ending counterparts, Rayllum and Kataang, are clear to see. 

Not only do Katara and Aang kiss in the Cave of Two Lovers, the musical cue becoming their love theme throughout the show, but it also foreshadows Aang’s death in the Book Two finale and Katara and Oma’s subsequent rage at their lover’s death: “Devastated, the woman unleashed a terrible display of her [...] power” and that the lovers needing to be able to bend the same element is crucial to the story (and that Katara being a healing waterbender is what saves Aang, as well). More on that here, although it’s not my own meta, for anyone who’s curious.

Then, there are all the parallels between Harrai and Rayllum, which I’ve extensively written about here, the most prominent of which being the “I’ll see you on the other side,” and Rayla’s goodbye to Callum in 2x07, “If I don’t come back, you and Ez can get Zym to Xadia. I believe in you.”

So we have two couples who don’t have warring peoples with one another (Harrai and Kataang) and two who do (Rayllum and Omashu). We’ll have to wait for Book Three of TDP, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Aaravos and Elarion were an elf and human who fell in love during peace times, but fell to tragedy as well. 

Where ATLA and TDP converge is that tragic love must be resolved by happy love. Both Omashu and Harrai end with one partner dying due to the war in their world, even if Oma and Shu’s villages are directly warring, and Harrow and Sarai’s peoples are not. Katara and Aang, then, are a couple that meets embroiled in loss and war as survivors of genocide at the hands of the Fire Nation. The war keeps them apart, much like Rayla and Callum, who’s warring people and prejudices don’t keep them from becoming incredibly fast friends. Both fantasy series take place during a war, and the war affects each couple.

I’ll talk more below about how Kataang and Rayllum’s Book Two finales mirror each other greatly, but what defines a ‘star crossed pair of lovers’ isn’t whether the war is between their peoples or not, but whether the war divides them. And for both these pairs, they will overcome the pain of their predecessors, and create a long lasting love with a happy ending.

As for why I think endgame Rayllum makes the most sense for TDP narratively, here’s the short version.

Season Two Arcs & Finales

Equivalent to how Book One of ATLA and TDP focused on Bond Building their couples, Book Two provides precipices, turning points, and parallels. The biggest parallel trajectory in Book Two(s) are the way Aang and Callum’s magic arcs are treated, and Katara and Rayla’s roles play out in the season finales.

Both girls disagree with how Aang wants to unlock the Avatar State, and how Callum wants to connect with the Sky arcanum. Katara doesn’t think that trying to force it is a good idea (“I'm not saying the Avatar State doesn't have incredible and helpful power, but you have to understand, for the people who love you, watching you be in that much rage and pain is really scary”) and Rayla doesn’t think Callum should go out into the storm: “Or it’ll blow you up until you’re dead.” While Kataang’s respectful disagreement is wrought with maturity, and Rayllum still has some catching up to do, the main tenants are the same, especially when Callum disagrees with Rayla about the dragon in 2x07:

R: It’s okay Callum, I’m not asking you to come with me. Protecting that dragon doesn’t just feel like the right thing to do. It feels like the right thing for me to do. K: I can't watch you do this to yourself. I'm not coming tomorrow.

Both young women are level headed in their conviction, making their feelings plain, and that their choice, while influenced by their partner (“I’ve been thinking about what someone once said...”), exists separately from their partner as well. Their disagreements are respectful and calm, but ultimately resolved in quite dramatic and dangerous ways. 

Namely, each scenario has Character A and Character B talking about a moral decision in a situation that has already begun (Aang’s tried a few things to get into the Avatar State, and the trio has already helped the wounded dragon). They disagree. One (Katara, Rayla) character decides to remove themselves from the situation, and leave the other standing alone. Then, when the danger becomes prominent, one character (Katara, Callum) returns to aid and help the other. And it ends with one character (Aang, Callum) being wounded badly (emotionally or physically) by the situation. More than that is the way each scenario plays into the finale of each season.

There are many more comparisons to be made about Callum and Aang’s arcs to the culmination of their powers in Book Two. Both are haunted by dreams and dark versions of themselves (a detached Aang in the Avatar state, and Callum as a corrupted Dark Mage). They involve eye glows and bouts of collapsing. And, in 2x01 and 2x07, they go into these states because of the girls they love. Aang out of rage induced grief, and Callum to try and prevent Rayla from dying.

The Book Two, finales, then, bring these theme of loss and more to full circle. Sarai and Rayla mirroring each other as they hold Callum in their arms is rather self explanatory. Rayla believes she is losing him, and cries over his body. Katara weeps over Aang after he is shot by lightning and holds in her arms. We know from S3 that Katara has connected losing Aang to the loss of her mother as well: “You make one step backward, one slip-up, give me one reason to think you might hurt Aang, and you won't have to worry about your destiny anymore. Because I'll make sure your destiny ends, right then and there. Permanently.” “I think somehow she's connected her anger at [her mother’s murder] to her anger at me.”

And how do Callum and Aang feature more parallels in the Book Two finale, if Katara and Rayla mostly mourn them? Namely, each boy reaches the Ascension of their powers, which Katara and Rayla both witness, and the reunion and rebirth that surrounds it. Aang does what Katara hoped he would, by successfully unlocking the Avatar State... before he’s chock full of lightning. Following it, he and Katara are reunited when she brings him back to life, and the joy on her face that follows.

Rayla is similarly joyful when Callum awakens, alive and well, the new state of things bringing happiness to her even hours later (“Everyone’s packed and everyone’s healthy”). She got to witness Callum’s own moment of truth and near death, and hold him in her arms. Then, there’s also the parallel pointed out by @marauders4vr that Callum’s aspiro perfectly mirrors Aang’s wind blow in 1x14, and Katara’s subsequent romantic epiphany, which Rayla largely had only moments before.

There’s a reason why I’ve always thought the Book Two finale is where Katara realizes she’s in love with Aang, and why I’ll continue to adore Rayla’s almost confession to the end of my days. These couples are both so perfectly suited, set up, and - so far, in Rayllum’s case - executed. 

I can only wait excitedly to see what Book Three of TDP offers in parallels, but now onto the last few parallels.

Closing Parallels

The first three episodes of Book One(s) offer as set up, with 1x04 leading to conflict between Rayllum and Kataang that end with apologies. 

Callum wants to go to the Banthor Lodge, Aang lets attention go to his head, and both come around in the end.

Eventual apologies for being a jerk

“Now I’m going to hand you the egg. I’m sorry if I was a jerk before, Rayla. We’re lucky to have you as our friend. I do trust you.” (1x06)

“I did let all that attention go to my head. I was being a jerk.”

Vigilantes

Freeing the dragon (Rayllum, 2x07)

Destroying the polluting factory (3x03, “The Painted Lady”)

Disguises

Rayla and Aang with their ‘excellent’ disguises, only Aang’s makes Katara laugh (1x15, “The Deserter”) and Rayla’s makes Callum Very Done with the whole situation.

Not Wanting to Leave

Aang wants to stay longer on Kyoshi Island, and Callum wants to stay longer at Lujanne’s. Katara and Rayla both reluctantly relent, Katara more so.

Late Night Talks

Katara comforts Aang after nightmares when he can’t sleep in 2x01, “the Avatar State” with a hand on his shoulder.

Rayla comforts Callum when his fears about not being a mage keep him awake in 2x07, with a hand on his shoulder.

Slight Jealousy

Katara is annoyed by the attention Aang is receiving from the local girls of Kyoshi Island.

Rayla is annoyed by Claudia’s affection and her smoothing down Callum’s hair, with similar faces to boot.

Thoughtful Jewelry

Aang thinks about Katara’s lost necklace and makes her a new one, weaving it together from Sokka’s fishing line. When he sees Katara’s necklace was stolen by Zuko, he makes every attempt and succeeds in getting it back to her.

Callum thinks about Rayla’s wrist binding even when she doesn’t, suggesting in 1x07 that she should go after the sunforge blade to try and get it off. When she’s worried about the dying Egg, Callum assures her that he and Ezran can handle it.

Hero & Respect

Callum and Aang constantly reaffirm the respect they have for Rayla and Katara respectively.

“I’m lucky enough to have a great teacher,” “that was amazing!” “No, I think it’s great, you’re like a secret hero!”

“She’s fearless, fast, strong,” “that was brave, Rayla,” “That’s why what you did was so heroic.”

Shiptease from a brother in the second episode of the show (self explanatory but I’ll always put it here because I love it

Describing Each Other

“Aang is the bravest person I know. He’s done nothing but help people and save lives since I met him.”

“Rayla is kind, and good.”

“Yeah, I liked her too.” / “Hey, I like her too.”

“Just a Friend”

“Aang’s just a good friend, a sweet little guy, just like Momo.”

“What, me and Rayla? No. I don’t think of her that way. I think of her more as… an assassin, an assassin friend.”

Conclusion:

As a final note, I’d like to leave you with this: both of these pairs create the inciting incident in each other’s lives. From the moment they meet, nothing is ever the same, and they consistently put one another first, and on paths to self betterment amid endless support of each other. They’re both beautiful love stories, and I can’t wait to see Rayllum reach their conclusion the same way I got to see Kataang do so when I watched ATLA for the first time over 10 years ago.

If you’ve made it all the way, thank you. This got a lot longer than expected and that was with majorly trimming the last section down. This probably isn’t the last post I’ll make on this subject, but I think I’ve covered a lot of the main bases as well, and I hope you enjoyed it.

—dragons out

[meganlpie]

WIP/Current Requests List

(This can be found on my blog page as well, where I will update it as I get through the requests)

WIPS (Fics I am currently working on to post): These are subject to change based on my moods and inspiration.

Unbreak My Heart: Anonymous asked: So glad requests are open, you’re my favorite blog. Could you do a Castiel and Reader song fic with the sing Unbreak my Heart by either Wheezer or Toni Braxton please? Again love love love your blog (I’ll be honest, this one is taking forever because I really don’t like the song XD)

Tears of the Widow: Another Wattpad request. for avengers, natasha and y/n has been together for a few years, when y/n gets called out for a week mission, and halfway through, something goes wrong and they had to abort the mission and when they get back, Y/n is bloodied and unconscious and natasha freaks and literally blames tony and fury and after a week she finally wakes up and everyone shocked when they see nat cry and when nat cries, so does Y/n and Y/n tells her sorry for making her worry and Y/n pulls natty in the bed and they fall asleep together.

Unique: I have an imagine request. It’s with dwalin because he’s underrated. He asks the reader to marry him in a unique way. Like maybe doing it at a farm sanctuary.

Muggle Healer: Anonymous asked: Oooooo….how about some Snape? Instead of dying, he lives and goes into hiding and ends up in a Muggle hospital where the reader works as a nurse. They get close and he ends up telling her everything. Maybe some romance?

Current Requests (Unstarted fics that are on the list):

Abducted: A Wattpad request. Hey meg ! So i finally came up with a plot , this takes place at the very start of age of ultron and is captain america x reader. So the reader is tony starks younger sister and while shopping she gets abducted by hydra and experimented on . She is isolated and experimented on , eventually she becomes enhanced , her powers are controlling all 4 elements , like an avatar. So when the avengers come to rescue her and retrieve the teseract steve confesses that he can‘t live without her and eventually kissing but tony disturbing. Back in the avengers tower steve never leavs her side and he stays with her cuddling the whole night and talking , the next day they train together and steve really helps her control her new powers and just a lot of steve fluff :)

Mission Memories: Another Wattpad request. I’ve had an idea for a Steve x fem!reader (also inspired by these two lol) only they’re getting ready for a mission (kind of like when Steve and Bucky are talking in Civil War) and he’s reminiscing. I just love Steve so much lol

Stowaway: Another Wattpad request. Howdy! I wish to inquire regarding a request of the Guardians of the Galaxy variety. A Drax x reader where the gang imprisons a stowaway but she convinces Drax to let her out through lies and deceit. Drax is unaware of her dishonesty and announces to the guardians right afterward whilst their mid conversation, “I HAVE FREED THE PRISONER!!” The guardians get her back and Drax distrusts her for realsies this time. Mostly platonic, i suppose…thanks luv! Your writing is a big inspiration of mine

It’ll Get Better: Anonymous asked: I’d love a Steve Rogers x reader with a reader who has depression. Something like a comfort fic ^^ Thanks!

Animal Control: Rocket Raccoon gets picked up by animal control. Requested by @tallguy1130 (that’s my hubby, y'all!)

A Interesting Child: Baby Groot goes to daycare.

Saving Thorin: Another Wattpad request. Could you make a Thorinxhuman female reader. And like, she finds herself in Middle Earth and is really shy and sweet but like saves Thorin??? Thank you!

Incompatible: Thranduil x Human! Reader imagine. Somehow he opens his heart to love a human and it was a good relationship. Until they have a fight about something (maybe he says something about human that hurt reader’s feeling?) and he makes her cry. For him it isn’t a big deal but for her the fight was too much for her to handle. And she starts to think that her relationship with Thranduil was a mistake because she comes from a different race and she is too young for him that she can’t do anything right. The elves also tell Thranduil that she’s not the one for him because she’s incapable to be his queen. She overheard the conversation between Thranduil and the elves and she has decided to leave. But when she confronts her beloved Thranduil, he is flabbergasted to know that she is leaving. You can end it in your own way (maybe she really leaves or stays? I don’t know). I just want an angstyyy imagine because I love crying XD

Cooking: Hi can I request a dwalin x reader please where dwalin falls in love with the readers cooking and gets super shy around her and finally manages to confess with the help from thorin and the company please

Not Human: Hello, love! Please could you write a Lindir x Reader in which the reader is a Peredhil (half human half elf) travelling with the company and she meets Lindir when they arrive at Rivendell? Thank you ❤️❤️Maybe Lindir thinks she’s only human at first but finds out about her being a peredhil when he sees her ears or something?

Support: Anonymous asked: Hi meg! Would write a Thranduil x reader where the reader shows him support (bc of things like doing what he thinks is best for his kingdom/people) A lot of fluff💫

A Picnic with Scorpius: Could u do a Scorpius x reader? ( next generation ) During their 4 or 5 year at Hogwarts? :3  maybe they’re having a picnic by the black lake ?

Breakfast Interrupted: So the harry potter one would be a draco x reader , being a couple & staying at dracos mansion chilling and talking all night (basically just seeing his good and cute side ) the next morning he brings the reader breakfast in bed , but then getting interrupted because the whole „thing“ in deathly hollows happens where harry , hermione and ron get dragged to dracos house and draco has to identify harry but because he doesn‘t want the reader to see this bad dark side of him , he chooses to lie and not tell them that they caught harry

Kids: Would it be possible if I made another request for a marcus flint x reader where they fight in the war for the good side then after the war they get married and have kids who are best friends with oliver Woods kids if that’s OK with youOh and marcus and Oliver hate there kids friendshipand try to break it up then reader gets involved and is angry at them both and threats marcus to sleeping on the sofa

The 2nd Task: Hey girl! I’m in love with your imagines honestly and was wondering if you could write an imagine about a fem Hufflepuff reader who is best friends with Cedric and you’ve had a crush on him for a while but never said anything because you think he is in love with Cho. When it comes time for the second task, you are chosen as the person who will be in the Black Lake for him. (You’re a little annoyed and after Cedric wins the task, you’re forced to take pictures for the prophet.) he tries talking to you afterward but you storm off down the dock, argue, and you finally have enough and admit to loving him. (He stares dumbfounded and admits he loves you too and there’s a wee bit of fluff?) I’m trash at requests but thank you much ❤️ Not sure if this was too little or too much

Suitcase:I saw you started doing Harry Potter one shots and had to get in on that. You’re kind of my favorite one shot artist. I’m so glad you’re back. If its ok, I wanted to request a thing with Newt Scamander where maybe the reader has pretty severe anxiety around other people,but is really good with the animals so maybe, after a panic attack he takes reader into his suitcase and shows her around like the Hufflepuff he is. And all the animals love her. She calms down and laughs, seems reallt happy. Maybe a time skip where they’ve been traveling together a while and realize they love each other?

The Hufflepuff: Requested by @lust-for-pan:  heyy! love your blog💛 can i pls request something with draco? can reader be a hufflepuff pls? reader is quiet/shy and has a bit of a crush on draco. she accidentally bumps into him and rushes to apologize, he’s about to get mad but stops when she sees her? like he’s taken back by how pretty she is maybe? and tells her it’s fine or something? lol srry i’m in that cliche mood rn. do what you want with the request💛💛💛 thank you

Why is He With Her?: Anonymous asked: Okay, I need some Ron from you please. Instead of Hermione, it’s the reader who gets upset at seeing Ron with Lavender and Ron doesn’t get why she’s so upset until Hermione points it out. Then, when Ron is in the hospital wing, Hermione shoos Lavender away so the reader can have some time alone with him

I Knew All Along: Anonymous asked: Can we get some reader saving Snape because she’s known all along that he was a double agent? And maybe some closure between Snape and Harry?

Yule Ball: Anonymous asked: Hi Meg, can I get a Snape and teacher reader where the reader is a teacher for whatever class you want and she looks a little bit like Lily Evans and he asks her out to the Yule Ball please? (This will be changed a little bit)

Winning Her Heart: Anonymous asked: THANK you for opening requests! Can I ask for young Sirius trying to win heart of Slytherin girl?

Pranking Lockhart: Anonymous asked: Would you write something where the Twins prank Lockhart? Like putting hair dye in his shampoo or something in his tooth paste that turn his teeth into different colours? (Perfect if both of them CHANGE colours so they always clash with his clothes.) As some kind of ‘welcoming’ him to Hogwarts? Sorry if this is not enough to work with.

I’ll Be Your Friend: Anonymous asked: Ooooh Harry Potter! Okay, can I request a Fred Weasley x fem!reader? The reader is a Hufflepuff and muggleborn and really quiet and Pansy picks on her, but Fred cheers her up by getting her to help with a prank?

[the-house-of-the-nine]

In Depths Below: Epilogue, Part 2

[ OOC Disclaimer ]  | Over the last year HoTN has put together this story ‘In Depths Below’ it began with Lazarius being taken from Kun-Lai Summit, and the chase to get him back from the Hunters hired by Magister Dawnseeker was unveiled.  Every member eliminated a certain threat, the Order banded together to orchestrate the take down,  and accomplished their mission they’d set out to do.  The events here are what happened during.  This is Lazarius’ side, where he was; and what he’d done.  And just how he and a certain new savior became bonded.  Id like to give a tremendous thanks to @zandalaridruidofgonk for the help in putting this together and making it happen.   And thank you to everyone who has offered support and kind words over the last year.  Without further delay, the conclusion of our 2nd fictional collaboration.  In Depths Below. |

[ L.K ]     She did need him to rest. She needed him to take his time healing and the best thing she could give him at this point was sleep. She had dressed the open wounds which were no doubt a result of hitting coral on the way into the shore, punch marks and bruises around the swollen eye socket and jawline were likely to his encounter with the hunters. But rest would do wonders.

Throughout the night she could hear the sound of his mumbling and sounds gurgling as he slumbered. Lazarius was by no means, a Sindorei. Nor was he Ren’dorei. Those elves were nothing but a flavor of the month in his eyes, pathetic and weak. No Lazarius was something far different. Having entered into a pact with N’Zoth at only the age of a child.

There were many things about him that this troll would never learn, lest they bond. But through that whole night, Jursol could hear the sound of the Shath’yar on his tongue. Sounds that often could never be made out by common speakers. The man was mysterious indeed.

But that would be their night. His tossing and turning, her keeping an eye on him as she tried to rest. Her raptor keeping its eye on him.

The Morning had come. . .

The troll was no fool, and Lazarius was laying on his side facing the wall. He was breathing softly and trying to collect his thoughts, trying to remember where he was. Grass walls, soft bed made of leaves...sticks...the smell of mojo...voodoo or was that hoodoo? He was silent and still.

If Jursol was anything like the proud huntress she seemed she would have never let her eyes move from the man, or had the raptor watching him. He could just sense he was not alone at all. There would be two options here. Move and risk being eaten, or remain still. He opted for the later.

It was hard for him to change tongues, but the Nine did have many different races among them. Trolls were not uncommon. And Lazarius was a brilliant man, where they were and how they were traveling it had to be a Zandalar island.

Plus the smell. This was a troll hut. He would try his best to offer a bit of respect but remained facing the wall hoping to hear an answer. His Zandalari was broken at best but a few trolls had helped him to at least speak broken words.

“ Speak orchish? Common tongue?”. He waited in silence looking away in hopes of a positive answer.

[ J ]     The morning was silent for the most part as Jursol finishes a drink for the elf. She seemed to have managed to get some sleep when the white feathers raptor was on guard duty. It was full of herbs and nutrients he’d need to get his strength back. It’s oddly smell fairly good and sweet. The sound of the elf speaking as best he could in Zandalari caught her attention.

“Ah you be awake!” She said laughing. “I do be speaking common and orcish my friend. You be safe here to take time to rest and heal. A little break from what seems to be a crazy life you be liven. My name be Jursol, the little one is Jimba, and the larger white one outside is Mawa.”

Reaching to grab a cup as she poured the liquid into it.

“Dis be a drink made to help get your strength back. Full of nutrition you need and herbs.”  Making her way to be bedside as she held the drink out to him. Once he got a good look at her he’d notice three small tribal scaring marks on each cheek, golden orange warpaint on her nose, and under her eyes, golden gauges in her ears, as well as small tusk hanging like an earring.

As she smiled it was clear she also had fangs to go with her clawed hands. Somehow she seemed none threatening to him despite all this. Her cloths were made of feathers, leather, cloth, and some beads. Her dark teal hair had leather wraps, feathers and beads as well. Seemed she had a theme going with things.

“Think you can be taking small sip of dis? A robe is here for when you be able to safely put it on.” A smile remained on her face as she urged him to move and face her to sip of the drink.

[ L.K ]     Slow and steady, the man would turn on his shoulder as he began to face the sound of the female troll. Now he was no stranger to the hatred of the Amani and his people. He was also no stranger to the Zandalari and how badly they were treated during the mission in Pandaria. Still they are seen as a bit of a danger. But that was not his fear, his fear was that of being eaten. Or worse sacrificed to some...loa that he was unsure of.

“ Jursol....”. Lazarius said softly as he rolled to face her. At this point she could see the black eyes of the man even more clearly now. He was sure a strange one.

“Lazarius Kashebahl...were you the one to pull me from the shore...”. He was struggling but it would seem that he was nursing more of a fatigue than anything else.

The offer of the drink didn’t make him mad or weird but he would have to decline for a moment.

“If it is all the same to you...I will mend quicker if left to my own device...by tomorrow morning I will be out of your hair.”.

He would finally scoot to the edge of the bed and lower his legs to the floor. He sat there, shameless to whether she cared or not in his nudity. He wasn’t really concerned. But he did peer back at her with a glance.

“Were there any other people on the beach? Anywhere at all, any survivors?”

[ J ]     Jursol seemed pleased to see he was stronger then expected as she pulled a small chair over. She seemed none offended by him declining the drink.

“You be much stronger then others who have seen such injuries. I could swear you were healing over night somehow.”

Setting the drink down on a nearby table as the small raptor leaped into her arms.

“Ah yes it be me who moved you from the beach. I did not see signs of others at the time, but it’s possible some may have washed up elsewhere. The tides here be strange some days. Once you be stronger I can be taking you back to help look for others. If you be wanting to that is.”

A deeper tone yet somehow soothing was how she spoke. Her clawed hand petting the little raptor in her lap.

“You be safe here while you rest. We not be letting harm come to you so easy. I be guessing you be a user of void like some other little elf I be knowing. The veins of yours remind me of hers.”

[ L.K ]     Lazarius would sit there for a moment as he began to think about what she was saying. From the sound of it the rest of them were dead. That was all he needed to know.

“Can you take me back there later this afternoon? I will be fine...I also need a smithy...”.

The chained gauntlets on his hands still covered him. He was unable to use his hands.

“Unless you think you can get these off without severing my hands.”. The Inquisitor would calmly begin to compose himself as he thought more and more how fortune he was to have landed here, to have been rescued like this. Trolls were not always the most hospitable caretakers. Not like dwarfs and gnomes.

At the mention of her knowing another elf like him he coughed out a laugh. Seemed his lungs were still sore from the amount of water he inhaled and spat up.

“You would not be wrong, I am actually regenerating as we speak. Hence why I say this and trust me when I do...you have and will not ever meet a being like me.”.

Lazarius turned around and went to go reach for his robe and was reminded of his shacked hands. She could see four black beak like probes poking out from his shoulder blades about middle of his back and around where his kidneys would be. They appeared to be bone like and black. Had she just missed them before or...was he actually regenerating?

“I need to get back to that beach... and I need you to help me kill anyone who may have washed ashore. They are dangerous men.”

[ J ]     Jursol looked at the chained gauntlets on his hands as she tapped her chin. She pondered if a strong enough acid could eat though then, or if she needed something more. Hearing him laugh she to begin to laugh some as well.

“They be elf like . . . well not be exactly like you, but does have dark veins. Yours be different though, as if your connection is far deeper.”

Looking at his body, and how it seemed to be regenerating already in a way she’d never seen before, she leaned in just a bit looking closer.

“You be regenerating better then any troll I ever be knowing! I have never seen anything like dis before! Truly fascinating.”

[ L.K ]     When she mentioned his regeneration he would make a remark toward her. “It is a cursed blessing....”

[ J ]     “Hmm. . .dat be a common ting. . .now. . .chains be a problem we must deal with. If dis does not work I will be needing some help.” Turning to face he elf with a smile as she moved back his way.

[ L.K ]     Lazarius would keep quiet and the troll went on speaking about others she knew and things she had seen. He was clear now that this must be Zandalari lands or at least somewhere near by if she knew of the elves and other races.

The man shifted his weight and looked up at the much taller being.

“ A parasitic entity has fused with my genetics...my blood; if you can actually still call it that, is a viscous black ichor which reacts to the void. It is currently repairing the damages to the host...being me.”

[ J ]     Jursol listened carefully to him as he spoke about the entity that had fused with him. Thinking it sounded much like a parasite that slowly takes over the host body. Knowing others would have died from such a thing it only raised her curiosity more.

“Dat be. . .ah not so common ting. . .” she smirked

This was no elf anymore when it comes down to it, and she being inquisitive wanted to know more. However trust must be gained not rushed. Plus he seemed fascinating so that was a pro.

[ L.K ]      The elf held his hands outward for the troll so she could apply the acid. He watched with the black galactic orbs sunken in his head, peering and waiting for a change once she did.

[ J ]     As she spoke she made her way to the table grabbing a small vial. The liquid was a neon green color and had a pungent odor.

“Lucky for you though,  I be knowing a smith if need be. He can be getting any chains off anyone. I be using his help when hunters attack the animals on the preserve.”

Slowly she tried a small amount of the liquid on the chains, watching for any reaction at all. She did not wish to use to much if it was useless on those chains.

“Let’s be seeing if dis works. Once they be removed my raptor friend and I will gladly help you deal with any others.”

[ L.K ]      “Very well. . . let us see. . .”

While he waited to see if there was going to be a change in the material or not, his black eyes scanned over the surface hoping to see any fluctuation in its continuity.

“ More...” he reacted and asked for, hoping it would fix the problem.

“ More....”. he commanded again as the molten iron of the chains and gauntlets began to sizzle.  

[ J ]       Watching carefully as the acid seemed to having no reaction as she almost sighed. His voice however asking her to pour more stopped her.

His demands seemed to make her more determined to make it work. Pouring more and more at his command. A sizzle! Her eyes grows wide as she saw this may work with help.

[ L.K ]       “Let me try and generate a bit of reverse combustion from the other side...”. The shadows around the room and the group of beings and raptors would suddenly begin to quiver. He was unable to do very much with his hands covered, it was how he worked through the void.

[ J ]       “Yes! Do whatever you be able to help. Dis acid alone won’t do it, but with help....” She stopped speaking as she noticed her larger raptor shaking, the small one rushing beneath her feet frightened of something she could not see.

[ L.K ]       The air grew cold and silent. There was this stagnant, horrific sense of dread that seemed to emanate from within him as he channeled his power. On his lips she could hear the faintest sound of his words, he was whispering and speaking a Shath’yar the prayer and incantation to summon his energy from within. Clearly this was not anything respectively normal.

[ J ]       A feeling of dread hit her as she felt her body getting chills. No stranger to darker magic but this was far from what she was used to. It fascinated her even more. The feeling only got stronger as she shivered.

[ L.K ]       “More!” he yelled as the glowing cannon shaped gloves protecting his hands began to sizzle from her acid and vibrate from his power.

[ J ]       Gaining her composure hearing him wanting her to pour more acid. Her hands steadied her hands before pouring more of the acid onto the gauntlets. She could not understand his words outside of ‘more’, but knew they were important to what he was doing.

[ L.K ]       The gauntlets appeared to be phasing in and out of existence at this point, so much gravitational weight being channeled within the glove that they were quaking and moving at a rapid speed like they were accelerating in place.

[ J ]       As the gauntlets began to phase in and out of existence, her face took on a true look of awe. Nothing like this has been seen by her before, and she’s lived a good long time by now.

[ L.K ]       Lazarius was dripping a black liquid from his nostril and from both eyes it would run like mascara. It was clearly taxing on him to try and put this much effort in his already weakened state.

[ J ]       His screams and painful old gods words were growing more intense and louder but he would not give in, perhaps it was inspiring and caused her all the more reason to pour the liquid and keep helping him seeing he was not giving up despite the pain.

Her eyes looked to his face for a split second to notice him bleeding from his eyes and nose. This truly was powerful magic, dangerous magic. Something one should not only respect, but also fear. Her focus returned swiftly to pouring more acid. His screams caused her raptors, and some animals outside to react with fear.

[ L.K ]       But then in a flash of energy and purple smoke the gloves would pop and be sent rifling through the side of her hut wall into the jungle, screaming like a gnomish firework as it barreled deeper and deeper into the brush.

Lazarius’ hands were obliterated and badly burned of flesh.  The tissue was separated from bone and visceral ends of what were once his fingers dripped with the black venomous substance. The amount of damage that had been caused would not fully go into his examination and thought process until much later.  But the right hand was missing its pinky finger, and half of the ring.  His left was completely gone save for his thumb and index finger.  The damage was extreme.  

His voice cracked and he cheered a mixture of triumph and pain, the adrenaline from having survived the blast only lasted briefly before feinting and falling back onto the cot from exhaustion.  He lay there, chest rising and falling as he tried to recoup from the activity. He was smiling and laughing as he peered up at the ceiling of the hut.  

“Success...” he said softly to himself and her. The grin spoke more than he ever could.

[ J ]       Within seconds she was temporary blinded by the flash caused by the energy and purple smoke. A pop sound was heard right before the sound of wood breaking, and the gauntlets screaming as they flew deep into the jungle.

Jursol’s sight returned to normal as she looked at his bloodied remains of his hands. It was truly something that was ripped straight out of a nightmare but she had a hunch this was something he’d accounted for.   And normally she worried more over this, but she had seen first hand his regeneration abilities. She decided to aid the best she could by wrapping some fresh cloth around them for the time being, and as he seemed thrilled to be free, she laughed with him.

“You be like nothing I have ever seen before. What you did be something truly amazing. Power like that not be something one messes with lightly. I be impressed with the control you have over it.”

Looking at the home in the side of the hut as she shook her head.

“Lucky it be small enough. Easy to fix.” As she looked down at him resting she felt the little raptor nudge her leg. A clawed hand moving to comfort the little one.

“Once you feel rested we can be going to check for others”

[ L.K ]     The time spent between the two of them here in this interaction may have been sparse and brief but what was being reflected as a very keen bit of information that the two of them could clearly start dissecting. He was very much an alpha. A leader. It must have been clear by the way he spoke, how he acted and what he was doing through the entire ordeal that she must have picked up on it.

She on the other hand, well she struck him as a free thinker. She acted on her own, lived on her own, but saw potential when possibilities that would produce correct results surfaced. She was someone he could have expected to never find. These gifted individuals were scarce to say the least.

"I do whole heatedly apologize for the damage to your home Miss Jursol. It is never my intention to walk in to another persons residence and destroy it like this. But I do greatly appreciate your cooperation under these circumstances."

[ J ]       Jursol really was always one to follow her own path. A free thinker and one to act on her own, she also knew there are times to also listen and follow others. It helped that she was so curious to learn new things.

[ L.K ]     Lazarius did appreciate her tender care to wrap the hands with a soft linen bandage. He was recovering slowly this time. Activities like this such as void bending and gravitational collapses always drained him.  And as was previously indicated by the shipwreck and near death; he was no where near one hundred percent.

As he leaned back up into a sitting position, Lazarius would let his legs support the weight of his elbows as he hunched over.  Black eyes would scan over the damage on the floor once more.  Blood and tissue was slowly being disolved by the parasite, slithering its way back toward him if it were able.  There on the floor in the remains of his fingers were the tragic end of his rings.  The saronite stones, and beautiful black diamonds, and his razored claw.  He sighed.

"Truth be told, I feel like you're someone I can honestly say isn't going to run straight into the arms of the Magistrate in Quel'thalas to let them know I am."

[ J ]       “Ah now I not be turning you into anyone. I myself not be exactly welcome along my own due to what I do. Most be thinking my work be primitive for a Zandalari to be doing. I guess it not be helping I be leaving before years ago. Zul was not to be trusted. I be warning about him but none listened. Leaving be my only chance to survive. I lived among the trolls you know of for a time. Learned about Hoodoo and little blood magic.”

Sighing as she sat on a chair near him as her little raptor leaped onto her lap.  Without any hesitation she would lean forward and collect the various rings and items that he’d lost.  She wouldn’t say anything, and had hoped that he knew she was only going to hold them to make sure he didn’t lose them.

“Zandalari not be accepting of blood magic or hoodoo. Some even be trying to make me leave my home here. I be thinking it be best to do so. My raptors and I be able to live anywhere we be together.”

[ L.K ]     He paused as he watched her do so, he hadn’t said anything.  In fact it was a smile that graced his lips as he watched and listened to her explain her situation here on the island.  He tried to find the words to help, they wouldn't come.  Instead he would steer them back toward what she’d just witnessed, something that would correctly classify himself.

"I appreciate how you can clearly see I am not simply an amateur when it comes to my talents."

[ J ]       Hearing him speak of a chance for her to learn more about him a smile crossed her face.  She would notice how he appreciated the gesture of her taking care of his things; and thusly would be sure she would not lose them.

“Ah learning more about you be something I’d enjoy. You be so different it raises my curiosity. I no be worried about payment for damage. Seeing you use such magic be worth the price.”

[ L.K ]     As he inhaled and exhaled slowly, the elf would glance upward to the very tall female.  She did seem to see the blessing behind the curse.

"Maybe sometime I will be fortunate enough to tell you a little bit about what I am . . .and what I do."

Again he would let out a slow breath as he recovered. The host was allowing himself time to regenerate but she was able to see how taxing it was. Lazarius brought the back of his clothed hand to his nose and slowly wiped it across his nostril clearing away the ichor.

"I feel like all this time has been spent trying to help me. . . your hospitality is exceptional, perhaps there is something I can do in offering to repay you?"

He offered her a toothy, charming grin sheltered with a hint of pain.  

"I'm not handy in the least, so repairing that hole. . .may be out of the question. But I don't think I would be able to leave without offering something in return."

[ J ]       Hearing him apologize for the damage caused her to give a deep sounding soft laugh.

“The damage not be much trouble. Freeing you of those things be the goal no matter the risk.”

Walking over to our up a large bit of foliage to cover the hole for the time being, she saw her white raptor friend standing calmly watching the brush move. Leaping for a small animal as it chopped down to enjoy a snack. Jursol laughed seeing this before turning her attention back to the elf.

[ L.K ]     “So. . . you were saying you do know a bit about blood magic? Fantastic...”. He said as he let out a coughing chuckle. She had brought it up,

It was clear by the way his skin was crawling that whatever organisms were at work here,were diligently trying to mend the body of its host. Lazarius appeared to be in a state of recovery by the grimace and shifting contortions of his facial features.

“Our current Magus is. . .was a powerful blood mage...” - He suddenly hitched those words in his throat when he realized that he hadn't meant to say anything of the Nine, or the order. And hadn’t even bothered yet. Perhaps he should reel back on his words, protect his image and leave this troll oblivious to what he actually knew.

Then again. She did dabble. She was aware and in exile. Perhaps this was an opportunity to bridge a gap between their cultures. Meaning just as the Horde and Zandalari were mutually entering an agreement, it seemed these two wicked wayward souls were on the outside looking in. -

“Jursol...let me ask you something.”.

He had been trying to get himself together all this time. Putting whatever he could onto his person. Pity though, his hands and forearms were going to need to be wrapped like this for the time being.

“Your little family here, you..your raptors, these are the things that you would die to protect? Yes? Your freedom...your sovereignty?”. Lazarius slowly stood from the cot and stretched. He looked almost...normal? Like this was all leading to him being fully restored and it had.

“How far would you go to ensure that no one robbed you of your way of life and freedom to practice your Magic’s? Freedom to be yourself and freedom from this political nightmare of war and malarkey? I myself will not be a tool used by the leaders of the Horde or Alliance to fight a war they think will somehow change something. I myself...will watch the world burn, and protect the freedom that my people have sought...”.

To be Continued in. . . “In Depths Below: Epilogue, Part 3″

[shalandrassil]

This story uses my boyfriend(@buttcollectjellyfish)’s demon hunter, Noitora, as its’ main subject. He didn’t have a name yet at this point as he’d forgotten it along with most of his other memories, so he’s mainly referred to as ‘Felblood’ in this little story. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

He was awake. He was truly awake for the first time in months.

Face pressed to the cold stone of whatever dark place they had thrown him, he found his ankles and wrists encircled with manacles far too large for his own body. He slid his extremities out from the bonds that held him for so long, wrapping his arms around himself in a crude form of comfort. He assumed the fetal position, laying in one of the far corners. 

He was naked as the day he was born, though it wasn’t as though he could remember being clothed. While he had brief flashes of what he assumed was his life before this cool, dank room, he could only remember the faint chill of armor, the sweat on his brow in the middle of the day, the soft caress of a woman’s hand on his cheek—

Hunger pangs seized his gut. With a mewl, he rolled over, cuts all over him stinging. His ribs cried out suddenly, angered at this quick shift of body weight, only now telling him several of them were bruised, and broken. He let out a cry of pain, then, and heard footsteps from one of the far walls. Someone was coming. The thin sliver of light at the bottom of the door was blocked. Then more light. Too much light! He shut his eyes. “Holy shit—“ Whomever was guarding him swore. “Guys—“ His ears twitched at the pitter patter of more feet. More people. The light was blessedly blocked once again. “Aww, he’s so small now.” “What’s wrong big guy, run out of steam already?” “Where—“ His voice cracked, “Who?” “Out of my way—“ A male broke through the crowd. “Oh wow, you haven’t changed at all, despite all this time. Impressive. Lord Illidan will want to see you.” “Who?” He croaked again. The other man leveled with him, kneeling on one knee. He was a redhead. “Lord Illidan. Our leader, Felblood.” The last word was spat with scorn. Spat at me. What did he do?

“The master is out.” One of the members of the crowd crooned.

“Really?” The redhead turned. “Oh. Then you can stay here.” The redhead looked over at him for a moment.

“No wait—“ he started, getting on his knees to crawl after his presumed captors “Please—“ But everyone filled out of the room. The door shut with a resounding bang.

He sat back. Slumped. Closed his eyes and tried to remember.

He was ‘felblood’. He was ‘my love’. He was ‘you there’ and ‘come here’, but he had no name. He didn’t remember.

And now he was crumpled up in the corner of a cell, with barely any memories, naked and afraid. Did the previous version of himself foresee this? Was he attempting redemption for crimes he had committed?

He remembered the faint trills of a beautiful song, as if it were sung by a divine wind chime.

He remembered being called a ‘Sunfury’, whatever that meant. There had been black banners with red hawks embossed on them. From what he remembered, the great bird seemed to have been taking flight.

He remembered putting ice packs on his upper jaw to try and relieve the pain from his fangs growing after nearly two hundred years of stagnation.

Two hundred.

“Happy two hundred and --- birthday —!”

Was he really that old?

The door to his cell screeched open again. The same redhead from before was there, flanked by some night elves and another pale elf.

“Hey there Felblood. Listen, you need to be bound as soon as possible so if you’ll just follow me—“

“I can’t walk.” He mumbled. His legs hurt at the idea of walking.

“Get him up.” The female night elf said, and two other elves entered the cell, though they looked scared.

Scared of me.

They roughly grabbed him by the arms and hauled him to his feet. He crumpled with a whimper. They just repeated the process. This time he swayed, but didn’t immediately fall. He took a tentative step forward and faltered.

The redhead at the door waited rather patiently for him, arms crossed over his chest. The female night elf next to him looked less than patient, however. Her face was stony, nearly unreadable. After he took a few more steps, they both deemed him sufficient at walking and walked out of the doorway, discussing something in hushed tones. He was no longer important enough to pay attention to, not that he minded.

He braced himself against the door frame for a moment before being prodded at from behind by the other two night elves behind him.

“Get moving, Felblood.”

His surroundings were fuzzy. His face felt hot, he felt dizzy and sick. He took his first step out of the door of his cell before his stride faltered once again, swallowing a heave that was creeping up his throat.

The female demon hunter’s voice cut through the haze in his brain. “He’s going to faint--!”

His brain lost focus on his surroundings. When he regained consciousness, much to his confusion as he didn’t remember fainting, he looked around.

He was splayed out on the floor. Everyone was looking at him, but no one was helping him with whatever just happened. Some of them just stared at each other with uneasy expressions on their faces.

Finally, the redhead spoke. “You alright?”

He rolled on to his back with a groan.

“I think he’s dehydrated.” The female night elf spoke up.

“Which one of you were suppose to feed him?” The redhead directed to the other two night elves in the hallway right outside his cell.

“W—we— I didn’t, but he was growling at us Sergeant Felwarden—“

“Was this before or after he got smaller?”

“B-before?”

“And then I told you to check the cell after he turned back, yes?”

The redhead’s tone had shifted rather abruptly from joking and laidback to the voice of a no-nonsense sort of leader.

“Yes..”

“Did you?”

“No.. sir.”

The redhead sighed. The female night elf had scampered off somewhere and returned with a waterskin. She hauled him up and pressed the opening to his lips.

“Drink. You bite me, or make any attempt to run off and I will end you swiftly, Felblood.” She commanded, standing up.

He nearly fell back without her support. He sucked on the water greedily. He knew he should probably stop, but he was so thirsty— why was he so thirsty?

“How long have you two been skipping?” The redhead was astonished.

“It isn’t just us, Sergeant! Everyone’s afraid of it! It tried to eat someone yesterday!”

“Because you two idiots haven’t fed him in three days—“ The woman touched the redhead’s arm.

“We should get him to Tylos soon. We don’t want a repeat of six months ago.” She said. The redhead nodded.

Felwarden. That was his name. The redhead had a name.

What happened six months ago?

On if the night elves behind him hooked their arms under his armpits and hauled him to his feet a third time. He hunched himself over the waterskin as if it were a precious resource— because to him it truly was. Thankfully, his thirst was quenched for now, but the ache if hunger was already gnawing at his stomach again.

As they walked, the two Illidari in front made small talk.

“Hey Rave, you still dating that naga chick?”

“Her name is Ssiv’tessa and yes.”

“Is it the arms? Are there any dudes with nice faces and four arms?”

“Terras that’s so inappropriate and— wow now that I think about it I’m not sure.”

A hound and a spider. Pitiful. They could be ended quickly with my help.

He flinched. Those weren’t his thoughts— were they?

“Alright here we are. Tylos’ll get you all fixed up and then we can take you to medical.” The redhead-- Terras, as the female had called him, said.

Do not listen to them. They deceive you. These are the people who chained you, hurt you, treated you like a dog--

“Felblood? Come on dude.” Terras beckoned. The other elf seemed so sure that he would follow him into the room, as if he knew him.

The hound, your jailer. He and his associates seek to hold you down once more.

He found himself taking a step back.

He didn’t know who gave the order to grab him, but he suddenly found himself in the hold of several pairs of arms. He was manhandled through the doorway, but he didn’t start to actively fight until they placed him on a long, hard metal board, barely cushioned with any sort of fabric.

“Wait--” He tried to say, flat on his back now as someone secured his arms and legs. He felt exposed, completely naked for everyone to see, and now he was bound, and no one was coming to save him. “Wait please what are you doing--”

“I just need to wet the ink, keep him calm.” A voice came from out of his strange field of vision.

He breathed hard, it felt like he was hyperventilating. The face of the redhead came into view again.

“Hey big guy. It’s gonna be alright, trust me, every fledgling goes through th--!” Before Terras could finish his sentence, he managed to headbutt him right in the nose.

“Ow! Fuck!”

“Did he bite you?”

“Not this time--”

“Hold him steady for me--” The voice that he had heard only once before, the one who was wetting ink-- ink, why did he need ink? --was coming closer, telling them to make him be still. He shook.

Fight back, imbecile! Free us from these bonds and tear these aggressors apart!

Something soft came in contact with the skin of his abdomen. For a moment he felt silly for resisting as lines were traced onto his skin in what he could feel was most likely a pattern for runes. How did he know that?

She liked runes. She used to trace them on his back when he couldn’t sleep--

A line was drawn on either side of his ribcage, and then the person drawing them-- this, ‘Tylos’ as the others had identified him as, began to draw on his shoulders. When he was satisfied, he said;

“We’ll do his back tomorrow. This should be enough to keep him turning in his sleep, once they’re complete.”

They weren’t done. Now he felt stupid for believing just having symbols traced on his skin would have been the end of it.

Free us! Now!

“What’s happening--”

Sharp needles came into contact with his skin. He breathed in, holding for a moment. It was just needles, it was just needles, they were just tattooing him.

Or they were branding him. Tattooing someone with runes, he’d heard that before, from somewhere, from before he woke up in that room, he could just barely remember someone telling him that runic tattoos could do-- something.

Needles came into contact with his ribs and he gasped, both in pain and from the cacophony of angry screaming in his head from whatever was inside of it.

“Stop--” His pleas turned into threats, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill all of you, I’ll maul you all to death and leave your corpses to rot in the toxic air of this cursed rock--”

“Fight him, Felblood. You’re stronger than this.”

“Fuck you!”

“Hold him--”

And then he couldn’t remember anything else.

He woke up to the taste of acid.

He wasn’t in a cell anymore, as far as he could tell. He was on a threadbare mattress, laid out on his back. Iron manacles encircled his wrists, smaller than the ones he had first woken up to.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and let out a groan as a stinging ripple traveled through his abdomen and shoulders. He laid back, legs still hanging over the side of the cot. He cursed whomever thought tattooing him was a good idea.

Instead of trying to get back up, he twisted his head around every which way, taking stock of the entire room. He felt an odd, swooping sensation in his gut when he realized that this room didn’t have any windows, just like his cell. He was chained, just like in that cell. He was alone, behind what he assumed was a locked door.

He was in a cell.

[techno-dystopia-druid]

we don’t belong. we do not have a place in this system.

we are told we will have a life. males are told they will live under the boot of other men, but they will have a woman. women are told to just worry about taking care of a man and sticking by his side.

this deal has been a terrible one for women. it’s also been a pretty bad one for men. they recognize the ways they suffer, but they have a hard time blaming the actual guilty party (other men) so the blame circles back to the easier target - women. the males don’t mind the boot on their neck, but they DO mind not having access to their promised female.

this causes a split by “unsuccessful” men into two groups - those who never get laid, and those who become that which they wish to possess (they become trans, though a minority are gay males wishing to escape their own homophobia)

Females, of course, do not desire this deal. Those who attempt to escape have two roads - radical feminism, or becoming trans men.

the human condition is to want love. we have a compelling instinct to breed and couple. incels do not understand how they have failed. they think that nature cheated them by not allowing them to be chads (warrior archetype) and get “stacys” (stereotypical feminine women). but that was never their destiny. they are already born desirable - they are the sensitive lover/artist archetype, most have just not come into their own. but the pain of life and reality warps them, like the Elves of middle earth being twisted and mutilated into orcs. they cannot face themselves, they cannot see any other path than the one they feel was closed to them. or they simply become locked in a negative mental feedback loop with no help out.

of course, one of the failings of radical feminism is that not only does it NOT help women to see this, many branches actively discourage attempts to rehabilitate or even interact with males. and maybe the philosophy is right, maybe even if i wanted to help others see the truth, it would waste far more time than it would be worth spending. it feels like in our own way, radfems are also just punching the weakest target by lashing out an incels.

and yet... sigh

I don’t know what to do of the gender specials. they seem lost to a cult. they were one of us, of that i have no doubt. but trans ideology is a potent force within the mind, like religion. i think they might be able to willingly leave the maw, but i dont know if anyone can go in and save them. god knows the radfems already try on every platform. they also receive approval from authority and mainstream representation. as long as they play along with that game, and help reinforce the notion that womanhood is submissive domestic behaviors, they will stay supported and endorsed.

we don’t try with the incels, though. we don’t even engage. same with them on the other side. we give each other disgusted looks across the ideological room and never speak. i wish we would.

but one of the issues with incels is that their entire world becomes the very things that poison their thoughts. even if they desire to be emancipated from the darkness in their minds, where do they go? anime, most mainstream media and culture, most other males, porn, are all deeply infected with the same misogynistic mindset that traps incels.

incels share radfem views on trans people - that they are confused and in need of treatment - as well as holding hatred for the system we are in. but they understandably place the blame on the easier victim to punish. most humans do. rather than question a system that encourages them to dominate a subordinate and force their submission, they could have one that encourages true equal love.

both radfems and incels have a reaction to patriarchy that teaches us to hate one another, even though i think we ultimately need one another to take the system down. both communities are fun yet miserable. i wonder if any of them have ever thought to themselves that they would viciously fight for their own rights if they had been born female instead of male. sadly, i doubt it. i’m sure pornography has done a more than adequate job programming them to see us as subhuman. and thus is the crux of the issue. they have literally be conditioned against being able to love us.

it is so sad to think that the more sensitive and intelligent of the millenials and later generations that, due to their very nature of being more perceptive and having higher emotional acuity, resist what helps them to fit in and thus fall into lives of loneliness and lack of fulfillment. pitted against our potential soul mates, ugly in each other’s eyes, hating one another with a burning that should be reserved for the system itself and those who rule it.

i think if radblr saw this post they’d collectively vomit then shoot me

[sotnosen93]

Making a new version of my Fantasy AU post containing both the abridged version and the more detailed version, for simplicity’s sake. Abridged version can be found below, full version under the read more. See also these two posts for more details on the Creek parts.

The Elven and Human Kingdoms were in peace until the Grand Wizard King Cartman decided to invade the elves for reasons I honestly haven’t figured out myself.

The Prince of Elves Kyle managed to escape the attack with his little brother Prince Ike, his bodyguard Stan Marshwalker and the Royal Bard Jimmy.

The four took refuge in the forest and have now formed a small rebel group out to overthrow the Wizard King, also consisting of Tweek (secretly a runaway noble), Craig (adopted into a group of assassins when he was a baby), Timmy, and Dovahkiin (the Wizard King’s former chief assassin, I will always fight for the New Kid’s inclusion in fanworks).

On the Wizard King’s side is Butters, “Princess” (actually Prince) Kenny, Bebe (a traitor to the elves), Heidi, Token (the King’s very unwilling new chief assassin), Wendy (leader of a mercenary group, only on his side for money), and Scott.

The Wizard King is currently trying to negotiate an alliance with the dwarves, of which Clyde is the prince and Dougie is a prominent engineer and inventor.

Full version below.

Contrary to human popular belief, elves aren’t actually any more naturally long-lived than humans. They do, however, have access to a magical potion that can greatly slow down aging, along with other powerful magical remedies. However, since this potion requires some very rare ingredients, it’s only affordable to the royal family and their closest circle. Thus, most elves actually live lives very similar to those of the humans. Since the elves are rather reclusive and stick to their own business, the royals are the only ones the general public would even hear about, so they assume what applies to them applies to all elves.

Cartman is the Wizard King, who invaded and razed the Elven Kingdom prior to the start of the story, after he was made king. Unfortunately, I don’t have any real ideas regarding him, what life is like under his rule, or why exactly he attacked the elves. Only that there was peace between the elves and the humans before, and that he was the one who broke that peace for reasons I’m not sure of myself. Possibly to get to the magic remedies mentioned above?

Kenny is the “princess” of a matriarchal kingdom allied with the Wizard King. He’s actually a prince, but as the people wouldn’t accept being ruled by a king and his mother was too fragile health-wise to survive another pregnancy, it was decided that he would be raised as a girl instead. He lives in the Wizard King’s castle along with his handmaiden Lady Karen, who is one of the few people who know his secret. They grew so close that they decided to unofficially adopt each other as siblings.

Prince Kyle is the oldest son of Queen Sheila and King Gerald of the elves. When the Wizard King attacked his kingdom, he barely managed to escape capture along with his younger brother Prince Ike, his lifeguard and childhood friend Stan, and the Royal Bard Jimmy. He now lives in the forest with a small group of rebels, constantly moving to avoid capture and trying to collect allies wherever he can in the hope of one day ending the Wizard King’s tyranny and rebuilding his kingdom.

Stan is a human who was found abandoned in the woods by Randy and Sharon Marshwalker, an elf couple close to the royal family, as an infant. They took him in as their own and he was raised to be the crown prince’s playmate and lifeguard. He has as his battle companion a wolf-dog named Thunderbolt, whom he nicknamed Sparky.

Paladin Butters is the Wizard King’s right-hand-man, captain of the guards, and enforcer. The King manipulates him into doing his dirty work by taking advantage of his idealism and chivalry to paint his enemies as “villains” who need “smiting”. He’s also starting to grow quite a bit of affection for the beautiful foreign “princess” staying in the castle, whom he was tasked to protect whenever he is not out on missions.

Craig is the biological son of a soldier and a young, naïve priestess said soldier had an affair with on an excursion to a distant land. Said priestess was part of a bloodline said to possess a certain monster-repelling magic… When the soldier returned home, he took the baby with him so he could have a “civilized” upbringing. As you may have surmised by now, dear reader, this soldier was a bit of an asshole, and soon after he came home he found himself targeted by assassins after disgruntling the wrong people. He barely survived the first assassination attempt and gave the assassins after him the baby in return for his own life. Though they originally intended to raise him just as an apprentice, they soon came to see him as their son. Many years later, the elven prince, feeling he needed all the help he could get, used some of his last remaining resources to hire young Craig to steal and fight for him for a year. After the year was over, Craig chose to stay with the group on his own accord, as he was starting to develop a strong bond with a certain archer…

Thomas and Laura are members of a group of assassins for hire who are also trained in the arts of theft and straightforward battle. Thomas is a poisoner while his wife works with blades. As he grew older Craig decided he felt more comfortable with his mother’s way, though that’s not to say he doesn’t know a thing or two about poisons should he need to use them. They grew so fond of their new role as parents that they a few years later decided to have a biological child together. Tricia (or to call her by her code name, Ruby) prefers her father’s methods.

Tweek is the son of a pair of nobles who once got separated from the guards who were supposed to be watching him during a trip to the city when he was a child. He found himself in the poor districts and was shocked to discover how some people were suffering while he was living in luxury. Even after he was found, he never managed to put those images out of his head. Whenever he mentioned his concern to his parents, they just told him he should spend his time thinking about more important things, like the family business. As his teens began and he got more involved in the family trade, he started feeling even more ashamed when he found out his family had an indirect hand in what the people were going through. This eventually became too much for him to handle, and he started secretly making some survival equipment and an outfit modelled after the hero in one of his books. He pretended to have a picnic in the garden one day (carrying his outfit/equipment in the basket and having hidden the bow in a bush earlier) and, as soon as he was out of sight, climbed over the wall and ran away before anyone knew what was happening. After a few very tough months of learning to fend for himself in the wilderness, he started stealing from the rich and giving to the poor as a way of making up for things, staying in the shadows and trees or otherwise hiding his face to avoid being recognized whenever he robbed someone who might have seen him on social gatherings. He eventually came into contact with Prince Kyle’s rebel group and decided to give his services, figuring that it would be a good way to help people on a larger scale. In battle, he still keeps to the trees and provides his friends with support via arrows.

The Tweaks are nobles loyal to the Wizard King, and aid him by distributing a mild mind control serum that makes the people more loyal to him and less likely to rebel. They’re currently working on a new, stronger version, trying to figure out how to make it work without people losing all sense of self and capacity of advanced thought, which is rather inconvenient if there’s no-one to tell them what to do or if they’re needed for learned skills, knowledge, or art.

Jimmy was the Royal Bard at the Elven court, and one of the founding members of the rebellion. He generally prefers staying at camp keeping people’s moral up, though when he does go into battle he can use his lute to cast magical spells to aid his allies and weaken his enemies.

Token is a prince from a distant land (not to be confused with the distant land Craig’s biological mother is from. This is a different one.) trained in both stealth and medicine, working as the Wizard King’s chief assassin after the last one deserted him. However, he actually holds no loyalty towards the King whatsoever. The only reason he works for him is because his wife Princess Nichole is held hostage in the dungeons.

Clyde is the Prince of Dwarves and, as part of his royal training, follows his father to all political and diplomatic meetings to watch and learn. He finds this extremely dull. However, one day he came with to greet a diplomatic delegation there to discuss a possible alliance between the dwarves and the Wizard King. It was there he first laid eyes on Bebe of the Blood Elves, and was instantly captivated by her beauty, grace, and boobies.

Bebe is the leader of the Blood Elves, a splinter group who betrayed the Elven Kingdom and joined forces with the Wizard King, enticed by the promise of wealth of status. However, as she finds herself growing closer to the Prince of Dwarves, she starts to have second thoughts about what she really wants in life…

Wendy is the leader of the Shieldmaidens, an all-female mercenary group in the employ of the Wizard King as his elite battle forces. She once captured Stan Marshwalker, or Stan the Great as he’s more commonly known, and delivered him to the Wizard King. As she guarded him in the dungeons, the two started small-talking to pass the time, and hit it off right away. When the day he was scheduled to be executed came, they had gotten so close that Wendy got cold feet and freed him at the last minute, lying that he must have outsmarted her somehow and escaped.

Dougie is a dwarven engineer who spends much of his free time working on new inventions. During the alliance talks, he struck up a friendship with Paladin Butters and agreed to make inventions for his use exclusively, in exchange for Butters taking care of the potentially dangerous field testing.

Dovahkiin (Dovah to her friends) is the Wizard King’s former chief assassin, who deserted him after Prince Kyle managed to show her all the harm the King really does. She joined the Elven Prince instead and is now part of his “Illicit Acquisition Force” (his thieves) together with Craig and Tweek. She actually possesses an unexplored magical power, unknown even to the King, allowing her to win people’s loyalty through barely any effort of her own. Her parents smuggled her away and raised her as a boy in an attempt to fool a politically neutral group of wizards out to exploit her power for their own means. Whenever she’s part of a big job, she likes to snatch a piece of jewelry or other trinket to take with her as a trophy. She’s childhood friends with Paladin Butters and to this day he’s still the most important person in the world to her (though they have no romantic feelings for each other). She’s very reluctant to do anything that might have negative consequences for him, and wishes he could be convinced to join Prince Kyle like she was. Would probably have a lot to talk about with “Princess” Kenny, if talking was a thing she actually did. She secretly envies Tweek and Craig’s relationship and wishes she could have something like that.

Heidi is the Witch Queen, wife of the Wizard King. Before she was arranged to marry Prince Eric, as he was known then, she had a burgeoning romance with Prince Kyle, back when there was still peace between the elves and humans. He still secretly holds a candle for her. She does genuinely have feelings for the King at this point, but this is mainly because he hides the more morally black things he does, while explaining away the morally gray ones as “unfortunate necessities”.

Ike is Prince Kyle’s younger brother. He’s considered a prodigy in matters such as tactics, mathematics, and art, but couldn’t inherit the throne, being the younger heir (plus some rumors that he may not be biologically related to the royal family). Now, he’s the rebel group’s chief tactician and planner. He managed to save his favorite horse from the attack on his kingdom, and fights from its back with a lance whenever he has to get involved in battle.

Scott is the Wizard King’s Royal Keeper of the Stables, which is a fancy term for “he takes care of the animals”.

Timmy is an old friend of Jimmy, who invents new tools, weapons, and other improvements for the rebel group. He even made himself an old-timey version of a wheelchair that also functions as a miniature catapult, with which he throws spiked balls, potion bottles, and other small projectiles. He also takes care of the more basic upkeep, such as sharpening and cleaning, of the reserve weapons.

[adlegend21]

Dalish Sera and how awesome it would’ve been.

Disclaimer: I love Sera, she’s one of the sweetest romances in DAI and I bring her everywhere on every Inquisitor. 

That said, I think it would’ve been a great thing if Sera had been a Dalish elf, with the intention of showing a POSITIVE light on the Dalish for a change. So here’s my meta for the concept of Sera Lavellan.

For starters, she’s brown like her concept art, and maybe she’s got a Mythal design for her face tattoos, maybe in a shade of green. She’s a hunter from Clan Lavellan who, like in the Lavellan origin, sent her to spy on the conclave.

Sera’s there even if Inquisitor Lavellan is chosen by the player in which there’s some unique dialogue of her staying there to make sure the shem didn’t do anything funny to Lavellan while they were unconscious. For non-lavellan Inquisitors, she’s fighting with Solas and Varric and Varric stays behind after his intro and you meet him back at Haven.

Sera provides the exposition for Clan Lavellan, they were near Kirkwall after Anders blew the chantry and they fought bandits, rogue Templars searching for mages, and eventually made their way to the conclave because of how important it was and that’s why Sera (and Inquisitor Lavellan) are there.

Also Sera’s still a lesbian only love interest, not changing that, don’t need to, but she’s still good friends with male Lavellan’s, even more so if they’re a rogue because they were a team of hunters.

She and Cassandra don’t get along because she feels Cassandra is too keen to make The Herald of Andraste a thing (even more hostile if Lavellan) and pushes for Lavellan to be called The Herald of Mythal (hue hue hue for later in the game) in banter.

She and Solas don’t really get along either because it shows how he feels pity for the Dalish due to his “studies of the fade” but eventually with some input from the Inquisitor in banter and conversations with Solas they can become amicable.

Her beef with Vivienne is mostly due to her being a court member of Orlais and how she doesn’t use her power to help as many people as she can despite being a mage and she counters Vivienne’s dismissive opinions on anti-circle rhetoric, openly chastising her for saying Dalish ship off mages into the wild if they have too many, DOUBLEY SO for Mage Lavellan’s saying how revered and respected mages are in Dalish culture and how she should really broaden her horizons when it comes to magic instead of being so defensive of the chantry rhetoric.

Sera is a big proponent of Clan Lavellan’s actions of helping people. They helped people in the free marches, they helped people in Northern Ferelden, and she’s staying with the Inquisition to help people (even if Lavellan isn’t there) and that leads into the mission IN WYCOME that's set up on the war table where (stop the purging of Wycome's elves) becomes the playable mission.

In the Fade the Nightmare preys on her fear of losing her clan saying something along the lines of “Your clan is weak without you Sera (and Inquisitor Lavellan) how do you know they will be there when you return for them?” and her tombstone is “losing her culture to humans”

For Wicked Eyes and Wicked hearts, if she’s brought she’s announced as “Sera Lavellan, Master Hunter of The Dalish Clan Lavellan” if you complete the Wycome mission before she’s announced as “Sera Lavellan, Master Hunter of Dalish Clan Lavellan of Wycome” and the Nobles comment on her status in ambient dialogue. She also mentions Leliana personally giving her pointers on the game so she doesn’t let her hatred of the Nobles get in the way of the mission. She GREATLY APPROVES of having Briala control Gaspard and mentions to Briala that she has the support of Clan Lavellan for non-Lavellan Inquisitors and for Lavellan’s she has a war table quest to forge an alliance with Briala’s people and Clan Lavellan.

And of course, What Pride had Wrought, she and Morrigan clash because, even as a Hunter, Sera has incredible knowledge of Mythal and her practices, often talking over Morrigan to explain things to non-Lavellan inquisitors, and shifting the conversation to Lavellan saying the exposition.

When it comes down to the well decision (she approves of sparing Calpernia by telling her of Corypheus’ plot btw and killing Samson) she actually is a choice if she’s in the party. Her vallaslin is for Mythal and she feels that the well belongs to the Dalish. She greatly disapproves if a Trevelyan takes it but the post-mission conversation can be used to get some approval back and she just disapproves of Morrigan takes it. She Greatly approves of Lavellan taking it and is neutral on Cadash and Adaar.

If Sera takes it then she’s the one who mentions Morrigan and Keiran going into the Eluvian so she’s present at that Mythal reveal, if Morrigan is alone she’s a require companion on going to the reveal and naturally she is over the moon to meet FleMythal who says she (and Inquisitor Lavellan) “Do the People proud and have come far” making her the happiest Elf this side of Thedas to have the approval of one of the creators.

For Trevelyan’s they can explain to Sera why they chose to take the well and regain some approval, mages have an easier time because they can say that the Well’s knowledge will be used to help mages throughout Thedas and Sera will be okay with it.

Sera’s cutscene conversations show her kinder side and her ambient dialogue shows that she gets along with the elven members of the Inquisition really well, some were even rescued by her in the chaos.

Her romance is flipped and it’s easiest to romance her with Lavellan’s as they’ve got history together as opposed to it being the hardest. The Hardest romance path is Trevelyan because of Sera’s grudges against human nobles, less so for Mage Trevelyan’s because she’s aware of the plight of circle mages. Adaar’s are still easy because she saw a few female qunari in the free marches and still goes “woof” for them. Trevelyan gets a special conversation where Sera wants to know if they really love her or if she’s just an elf they want to have sex with and Trevelyan can soothe her fears on that in the conversation as well.

She is also the ONLY person with a quest post-Corypheus defeat where, with high approval, or a Lavellan, you get to meet the Clan in a social space like Val Royeux when Wycome is saved as opposed to the earlier quest to save it.

If Sera is not romanced by The Inquisitor she has a few things that happen. She flirts with Cassandra in banter after Haven but gets shot down. In Ambient dialogue from Leliana, her agents let on about Sera having a crush on her to which Leliana shoots her down if romanced in DAO and if not then she’s on the fence about it before Sera gives up. Dagna mentions getting a gift from Sera to welcome her to the Inquisition. Josephine even visits Sera while the two have tea together in the tavern and go on a date if neither is romanced but nothing comes of it. Ultimately if unromanced Sera and Charter become an item in Trespasser.

Speaking of DLC’s Sera is amazed at Ameridan being an Elven Mage and she has dialogue where she asks him questions to get his exposition. The post story convo with The Professor auto selects revealing that Ameridan was an Elven mage if Sera is present because she won’t allow you to lie about him being a human noble (why would you anyway???)

She also talks about dealing with Darkspawn during The Descent in her travels with Clan Lavellan, even having a funny story about doing so with Inquisitor Lavellan.

Also, Tempest Specialization is revealed to be Elven in origin, something she learned from the Keeper and the NPC for the specialization is another Elf from her Clan Lavellan (that makes THREE) and Sera approves of Cadash, Adaar, and Lavellan’s taking it, but is neutral on Trevelyan’s depending on her approval with them.

Sera is IMPOSSIBLE to remove from the Inquisition. She will not leave because the Dalish need her as a voice for change in the world and you cannot tell her to leave. Her disapproval scene is her chastising you (gotta screw over the dalish clan in the exalted plains, get clan lavellan destroyed, take the well and tell her off as Trevelyan, conscript the mages, and banish Briala and keep Celene on the throne or something along those lines) and saying that after you defeat Corypheus that she hopes the dread wolf takes you. speaking of the dread wolf.

Sera has a crisis during Tresspaser. When it's found out about the Evanuris being mages that held slaves and warred upon each other and that Fen’Harel punished them, she doesn’t know what to do about it. It calls into question everything the Keeper taught her, but after the initial shock, she wants to know more. She’s furious after going to the library because of the last words of the Elves you hear when the world falls apart because the fade is beyond the veil, and she wants all the answers behind everything that happened and Lavellan can agree with her on that.

This changes Trespasser just a bit because Solas welcomes the entire party you bring with you to the final conversation with various pieces of input. He reveals that he is Fen’harel, the Dread Wolf, and Sera is stunned. The Dread Wolf was around her the entire time and she didn’t know, but Solas says it’s by design. He feared her wrath and wanted to help, and after meeting mythal he commends both Inquisitor Lavellan and Sera because they changed his opinion of the dalish from when he woke up. He still has the goal of returning the world to its previous state and to everyone’s surprise Sera agrees with him and takes the option from the Inquisitors response to agree with him, though he denies her because he sees the anger in her desire to join him and he takes no pleasure in what must be done whereas she might. He takes the Anchor from the Inquisitor and tells the party not to follow (he also give you back your gear) and you return to make your decision of the Inquisition’s fate.

Sera’s epilogue slides have her return to clan Lavellan with the news of fen’Harel’s return and the truth about the elven gods and it leads to the first major meeting of Dalish Clans across Thedas so that they as The People can decide what to do going forward.

So that was a long piece of writing and I may make some addendums down the line, but so far, that’s how I would have done Dalish Sera

[marypsue]

beautiful thieves

I'm also on AO3 as MaryPSue!

...

(this is how Barry remembers it -)

There are two of them; one male, one female. They present themselves as beautiful elves, impeccably dressed. Unnaturally so. There's no hint of dirt or wear on their incredibly stylish outfits from the road or the wilds.

That's the first thing that gives them away.

"Looking for something?" the male asks, and there's just enough of a hint of mocking laughter in his tone to set Barry's internal alarms off. He was a fat kid who loved science fiction all through school, he knows when someone making a seemingly innocent request is actually making fun of him or setting him up to be the butt of some joke.

"Nothing you can help me find," he says.

"Well, isn't that a shame," the female says, with a sideways glance at the male. He returns it like he's reading her mind, and it strikes Barry how much alike they look. They could be twins. "Because that's what we specialise in, helping people find what they're looking for."

"There's no cost to you," the male says, picking up seamlessly where the female had left off. Barry gets the feeling that he's being presented with a sales pitch they've used many, many times. "But you will be, mmm...tested."

"The Felicity Wilds are not kind to trespassers," the female agrees. "And, of course, if just anyone was worthy to possess their heart's desire...well, everybody would be doing it!" Her laughter is like the tinkle of shattering crystal.

"Worthy?" Barry asks, and despite the seemingly-elvish creatures' knowing smiles, despite his own instincts insisting he should know better, he's suddenly interested in what they have to say. "What do you mean? Who are you?"

"Lydia," the female says.

"Edward," the male says. "We're...guides."

"Of a sort," Lydia agrees, with a sidelong glance at - he has to be her twin. Has to be. "And you are?"

Barry pauses.

"Sildar Hallwinter," he answers. "What kind of significant pause guides?"

...

They call themselves Lydia and Edward. They claim to guide people through Faerun on a quest for their heart's desire, but that they will only reveal the true location of the - object, artifact, experience, depending on the person - if that person passes a series of 'tests' set and designed by them, Lydia and Edward. They don't tell Barry what kind of 'tests'. They don't tell him how they came to be significant pause guides. They don't tell him how they come to possess knowledge of how to reach an individual's heart's desire.

It takes an embarrassingly long time before Barry realises who they remind him of. Like Taako and Lup, back at the press conference, before everything that had befallen them, a little cold and closed off from everyone but each other, seemingly careless but always, always watching. 

It's a scam. He knows it as soon as he makes the connection. He's watched the Taaco twins hustle enough losers to know what it looks like. Only, this time, Barry's the loser.

"Tell me," he says, watching the creatures that look like elves closely, "how many people have actually passed your 'tests'? How many people claimed their prize?"

Lydia and Edward look at each other.

"Well, it's sad to say that it's becoming very difficult to find someone who is pure of heart these days," Edward says, glancing over at Lydia every other word.

"But we do boast a success rate of - oh, counting that Cohen guy... Thirty? I would say a solid thirty per cent," Lydia says. Barry knows she's lying. She's got that too-sincere look Lup likes to use on him when she wants something.

"Tell me the truth," Barry says, and Lydia's face...kind of freezes. Like an animation that's only halfway loaded. "You never give anyone what they're looking for, do you?"

Edward laughs. Barry might be imagining the nervous edge in it. Lydia’s gaze is piercing, and it never leaves Barry’s face.

“What is it you’re looking for?” she asks.

“Something I don’t think you can give me,” Barry answers, thinking of Lup’s eyes, quicksilver in the light behind the conservatory. He reaches down, resting a hand on the hilt of the short sword he wears on his belt, under his robe. 

Lydia’s eyes narrow, and there’s something that flashes behind them that makes Barry’s grip tighten on the hilt of his sword. Something he recognises. 

It’s a strange suspicion, but - Barry already knows that these two aren’t what they appear to be. He throws out a quick Detect Magic and is nearly overwhelmed by the waves of necrotic energy pouring off of the creature - the lich - before him.

Barry adjusts his glasses, and Lydia’s perfect features crease in a frown for just a second before she turns away.

“Well, in that case, if you’re not interested in obtaining your heart’s desire -” she starts, but Barry interrupts her mid-sales pitch, turning to Edward.

“Do you know she’s a lich?”

Both Lydia and Edward freeze, staring at Barry. Then their eyes flick to one another.

“Whatever gave you that impression?” Edward says, but he sounds rattled. Lydia’s mouth is drawn, and Barry’s pretty sure it’s not his imagination that her eyes just spat red sparks. 

“Well, your girlfriend’s already losing her control and starting to break down into a creature of pure dark magic and homicidal madness,” Barry starts, but Edward holds out a hand, palm towards Barry, shaking his head seriously.

“Lydia is my sister.”

“Okay, fine. Didja know your sister’s a lich?”

“Of course he does. We both are,” Lydia snaps. “How do you -”

Barry shrugs one shoulder, and releases his grip on the short sword. “Takes one to know one,” he says, and both Lydia and Edward visibly relax. “Those aren’t real bodies, are they?”

“They’re constructs,” Edward says, waving a hand. “How else could anyone ever look this impossibly good?”

“And what would we do out in the wilds if we didn’t have all of our power at our disposal?” Lydia continues, eyeing Barry with an uncomfortably knowing look. “Faerun is a vast and very dangerous place. You never know what - or who - might cross your path.”

“Or what their intentions towards you might be,” Edward says, also giving Barry the hairy eyeball.

Barry thinks for a minute.

“Tell you what,” he says, at last. “You tell me how you’re maintaining yourselves like this, without flesh bodies and without going nuts, and I’ll tell you what I’m doing out here. Sound fair?”

Lydia and Edward exchange a glance that somehow holds an entire conversation, and Barry thinks again of Lup and Taako, holding a silent argument with each other over the breakfast table before Taako had scooped up his plate of eggs and stormed out of the kitchen in a huff.

“Sounds fair,” Edward says.

“Not really our area of expertise,” Lydia goes on, “but they do say that a change is as good as a rest.” Her smile is sharp and catlike. “So tell me, Sildar, what’s a nice lich like you doing in a place like this?”

...

Barry tells them his story. The condensed version, of course. He was part of a team of explorers who became stranded, far from their home, and were being hunted by a powerful enemy. He and his - lover, wife, soulmate - became liches to protect their family, in case their enemy found them again. He leaves out the part where this happened on another world. He leaves out the others' names, the location of the Starblaster, anything that might identify them. He leaves out a lot of things.

Lydia and Edward tell Barry their story, too. The condensed version, of course. They became liches in a desperate, failed bid to save their younger sibling - Barry nearly hands over the bell then and there - and started out supporting themselves through their sibling bonds. Then, when they discovered they needed more to sustain their sanity, they devised this significant pause guiding scam.

“There are so many delicious emotions experienced throughout a quest for one’s heart’s desire,” Edward says, a dreamy look on his constructed face. “The yearning...the fear that they may not ever reach it...the frustration, as the quest drags on and on...”

“The tests simply draw out more emotion for us to feed on,” Lydia agrees. “And keep the quester from getting too suspicious. If you tell them that the reason why they haven’t reached their goal yet is because they’re not yet worthy, because their heart’s not pure enough...well, it’s amazing what some people will do.” Her smile reaches her eyes, this time, and Edward gives a little chuckle. Barry's forcibly reminded of the time the twins replaced all of Lucretia's ink with key lime gogurt.

“So most of the time, you don’t even know where the thing they’re looking for actually is,” Barry says, and Edward looks thoughtful for a moment before nodding. “What happens to these questers, once they figure out there’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow?”

“Oh, they don’t usually,” Lydia says. 

“They don’t often have a chance,” Edward agrees. “Adventuring is a dangerous pastime, Darry - can I call you Darry? You just seem like a Darry.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Barry says. “What, you just kill ’em?”

Lydia pantomimes shocked offense, pressing a hand against her gold lamé blouse with all the fingers splayed, like a spider. “If we did that, we wouldn’t be in business long, would we? Like my brother said. Adventuring is a dangerous business.” She pulls her hand away from her blouse, stretching out her arm to inspect her fingernails. “Usually we don’t have to.”

"Because they tend to get discouraged and give up after a couple rounds of being told they're not pure enough of heart," Edward clarifies. 

Lydia nods. "Usually it's on a multiple of three, too. I've never considered why that might be before now."

Barry nods, chewing on the thought.

"You won't go around telling people about this, of course," Edward continues, and despite his casual tone, there's an edge of threat to his voice. "We're telling you this in strictest confidence. Lich to lich, you know. If it got out that we never deliver, well...there is such a thing as bad publicity."

"Of course, of course," Barry agrees.

“So what brought you to the Felicity Wilds, again?” Lydia asks, leaning over Barry’s shoulder. He thinks of Lup's habit of draping herself over his shoulders whenever she's tired or wants affection, and shrugs her off.

"You got me. I'm looking for something," he says.

"Well, that's so vague as to be completely meaningless," Edward says. "What, exactly, are you looking for?"

Barry considers, carefully, what to tell them. The Animus Bell hangs heavy in his pack.

"I'm looking for...a guardian," he says, at last. "Or...guardians. For a very powerful, very dangerous artifact." 

Lydia and Edward exchange interested glances.

"What kind of significant pause guardians?" Edward asks, after a moment.

"The kind of significant pause guardians who won't let anyone who isn't worthy get their hands on the artifact," Barry says. He grips the hilt of his short sword, lets it go, worries the strap of his pack in one hand. "Look, you two are pretty good at keeping people from getting things they want, right?"

"Oh, we're the best," Lydia says, her lips quirking up into a smile.

Barry nods.

"How would you like," he says, carefully, "to be able to actually put some truth into your advertising?"

Lydia and Edward exchange identical, shark-like smiles.

...

Barry doesn't see them again, after that. Amidst the destruction and devastation that the Grand Relics cause down on Faerun, he can't distinguish anything that's obviously the work of the Animus Bell. Taako's and Lup's relics, ironically enough, tend to grab the most attention.

And then Lup vanishes. And then Lucretia betrays them, and Taako kills him, and then Barry is alone, in a way he hasn't been for over a century. He's used to having a home. A family. Lup. And now? Now, Barry J. Bluejeans has nothing.

It's almost a relief to be able to slip into his flesh body, to forget.

At least he has one comfort. The Animus Bell still hasn't surfaced. There's no sign of it wreaking havoc in Faerun. At least Barry made the right choice.

At least, this one thing went right.

...

...

(this is how Lydia remembers it -)

They took the bell off some idiot in the Felicity Wilds, some idiot who hadn't seemed to know the true potential of what he was hiding. She'd only mentioned Keats, and he'd folded like a house of cards.

Sentiment. She still can't believe how easily it makes people weak.