#[looks for logic in the magic space wizard game]

[thoughtfulrobot]

I'm replaying The Final Shape for the third and a half time and once again, I have a single question that's bothering me about the whole thing.

How can Cayde play that harmonica?? He literally doesn't have lips?? And being able to create an airtight seal with your lips is kind of really important for playing such clean notes on a harmonica??

[metatemu]

Who Am I? An Introduction: Setting the Game Board.

“You are the only Yuugi Mutou in the whole world.” 

This is, perhaps, the most important line in the series. A penultimate affirmation, a triumphant declaration. There is, in this line, the knowledge of standing across from someone, and being able to see them as themselves. To be able to know the answer to “who are you?” To look at someone, and be able to answer that question. 

“Who am I?” 

“I am the only Yuugi Mutou in the whole world.”

This is the axis in which this world turns, to answer the questions “who are you,” and “who am I?” Taking a lens to this question--that is, the question of “who am I?” and how it is explored through the series Yu-Gi-Oh!--lands on the walking metaphor of identity, memory, history, and personhood that is the Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle, and how this character is used as a lens of identity--particularly in contrast to the main character himself, Yuugi Mutou. 

This essay series itself will seek the answer that question for the Spirit of the Puzzle, not in a literal sense (for his birth name, Pharaoh Atem, is well-known enough of a spoiler that Duel Links features his name in the DSOD map, spoken by Yuugi) but in a sense of identity exploration, relationship exploration, thematic exploration, as well as a literal history and personality exploration that the series keeps purposefully vague, in the name of presenting the character the same way he is experienced by the characters in the story--as a person whom is gradually uncovered. As the heart of a mystery, as the unanswered riddle of the majority of the story. 

(“Something you can see, but you can’t see.”)

This is the riddle at the heart of the story, answered in different ways and by different characters, 

and one of the ways this riddle is answered is by the name Atem.

But first, every game has rules. 

First and foremost, this world is simply not the same as our own. Nightmare Masterclass put it better in his video on “This House Has People In It,” (which I advise for understanding the lens of magical realism, and how it is used in the genre of fiction) but I will be working in the genre of magical realism as a way to analyze this story. I simply have no interest in doing a CinemaSins style ding! for every time the world of Yu-Gi-Oh! does not match with the understanding of our own world. Going into this story, you simply have to accept that Seto Kaiba has the influence and money and resources to buy out an entire city for two days, build a space station with a space elevator, and hold a death tournament on live broadcast and walk away without a care in the world. You have to accept that Destiny Draw is a duelist skill in this world, and that it is a recognized thing within the setting. You have to accept that every game is an expression of a battle between wizards over destiny, and that there is no such thing as a casual game between friends as long as magic exists in this world. You have to accept the roving Yo-Yo! gangs, children getting their hands on guns and holding people at knife point over toys, and the fact that the systems we know about (mental health, law enforcement, government, etc.) simply do not come into the picture at any point in this story. There will be no speculation on why this is, or why the characters did not act on these systems. Any discussion will be a pre-emptive argument on why these systems were not used or acted upon in the minds of characters or the powers in place that would, in our own world, step in. The world, as it is set in Yu-Gi-Oh!, is a world where games decide the outcome of the fate of countries, governments, and the fate of humanity itself. It was laid out on page one. This world runs off of games, all other systems of power come secondary to the mystical and magical nature of this world system. 

Following that, the story will also be analyzed with an understanding of the logic of the world and characters determined by their own thoughts, feelings, and actions, as well as the system that the story decides to judge characters on, and why it is done that way. It will be up to the reader to decide why and how a character should be judged. For example, a reader might find Sozoji (the bully from the karaoke chapter) much more sympathetic than Pegasus, because Sozoji objectively did less damaging things than Pegasus. However, that is purely up to the reader to decide. This series of essays will not be written to lecture a person on characters, whom a person should like, whom a person should dislike, or, following that, any judgment on a person based on that. A person’s own values are determined by their own life circumstances, by their own truth, and by their own heart. A person’s past and future are things that are only held inside themselves. That is what I wish to uncover and explore. Through understanding someone in their totality, you tend to understand yourself better. That is the thing I find most interesting, and what I want to explore--the difficult process of understanding yourself through understanding someone else. Yuugi came to understand himself better by helping Atem recover his identity. This is the thing I wish to present to you, any thoughts and opinions or feedback is very welcome. I am not seeking to convince you of anything--only seeking to tell you and share with you the love I have for this series, and how much it has given me.

I will be engaging with this series through both the Watsonian perspective, and the Doylian perspective, and I will try to make it clear when and where I am using both lenses to engage with the story. For example, I take into account what Takahashi says often, which puts a lot of commentary on the series into the “Doylian” perspective. I also, naturally, try to engage with the world in the view in which the characters see it, which is the “Watsonian” perspective. The author’s views are invaluable as a look into the story. I will be taking interviews, Takahashi’s comments on the new releases, and Takahashi’s comments on the original volume releases into account. I will also be pulling from as many sources as possible to be sure on the proper translations. Quite a lot of fan translations exist online, and I’ve used quite a lot as well, but the only objective source I can use would be the Viz Media release for the original run in Shonen Jump!, since I have no access to any more sources that are not unofficial or fan released. I love reading commentary on fan translations, but I cannot fully rely on them, so the best I can do is use the official release. Another important thing to note is that I, of course, am not an expert. I have never met Takahashi, never worked for Konami, and the most I can do is read the intentions of the author, and interpret them. I am not an official source for canon, and I will not be speaking as an official source. All I can do is present my findings, and trust that someone will find them worthwhile.

I will be exclusively using the manga as a source for all of this work. The anime has some great supplements (I am a particularly huge fan of the additions given to Mana and Mahad in the world of memories, as well as the Capsule Monsters spinoff) but I will not be using any other source for any official writings. I do have my preferences to some changs (putting Mana, Mahad, and Atem in the same age group, as well as the theme of making Dark Yuugi into Yuugi’s literal shadow in the Toei adaptation) but those are adaptations based on the original source material. The source material, and the source material alone will be the basis of this writing. I may look at the second anime adaptation later, but for this essay series, I will not be looking any further than the manga. 

All of that being said, I will be releasing the parts slowly over time. I am doing a final reread of the series, and I have compiled my topics together. After this final reread, I will be releasing the first topic: Atem’s relationships with the core friend group (Jounouchi, Anzu, Honda, Otogi, and Ryou) followed by an analysis on the truth behind Memory World. 

I hope you enjoy it!

[mbistuff]

My reply to this seems to have been eaten by Tumblr, so I'm gonna do it as a reblog.

I'm probably considered less enfranchised than many people here, having started at Strixhaven. I tried Magic Arena on a pure whim, and it quickly ended up becoming a daily ritual for me. Since then, the game's progressed from "Well it's free to play, may as well play it" to "This next set looks really cool, guess I'll check out the story" to "May as well pick up a commander deck or two and check out the local scene" to "Travelling over an hour both ways to attend drafts and prereleases".

Magic turned out to be the card game I'd always wanted. I fell in love with the mechanics, the world, the characters, the stories and the way the company running it seemed to actually communicate with their players. Magic felt like something truly special.

I had my gripes, of course. I vastly prefered formats with smaller card pools, with the two 5-card standard sets I got to experience being some of my favourite times to be playing Magic. When WotC announced the change to rotation, I was disappointed, but understood the logic and still defended them.

Universe Beyond always felt wrong to me, and while I didn't play any of the formats it was present in (besides the occasional commander game), it still felt like I was being advertised to. Still, I simply played less furing the summer months when they were the new Tentpole set on Arena, feeling pretty safe knowing that I never needed to interact with the cards. After all, Wizards had promised that I wouldn't need to.

The pace of new product was too much. I was able to ignore much of it, but it felt like each set was getting less and less time in the spotlight. A set felt new and we were already seeing previews for the next shiny new thing. Every set just started feeling disposable, just one in the long line of new product. Still, again, Wizards said they were aware of the issue.

The last few sets definitely felt more hollow than most had in the past. Unlike many, I actually mostly enjoyed and defended the story, especially those written by Seanan McGuire. It was the cards themselves that often didn't live up to the world that the writing had created. Still, I looked more towards what I did enjoy, rather than the things I thought mixed. Wizards seemed to be listening, and these mistakes all felt pretty fixable. I was actually feeling optimistic about the future of the game until Friday.

Friday was crushing. I feel like my trust has been entirely misplaced.

For a start, six standard sets a year is way too much. Even outside the absurd pace, it means that over the the course of this decade, Standard is going from a size of 5-8 sets to 14-19 sets, with one of these sets being double in size.

Universes Beyond in Standard is the big thing. Companies digging up old IP is everwhere these days and quite frankly, I'm sick of it. It feels like everything is a reboot or a crossover or a nostalgic tie-in. Magic felt like something special, something that for the most part could exist as itself in a media landscape turning increasingly derivitive. Now, with outside IP replacing standard Magic sets, it just feels like an advertisement, it just feels like everything else. The magic of Magic is gone.

Then there's my specific problem with Final Fantasy. I've had this franchise in my backlog for years, with me avoiding spoilers this entire time. Every year, I play through one or two jRPGs as blindly as possible, with one of my goals being to experience every main Final Fantasy jRPG game. These past few days, I've seen multiple spoilers for the franchise, just by being in general discussion spaces for Magic. Magic has become an obstacle to me enjoying Final Fantasy.

But what gets me most is the lies. In 2021, WotC promised that UB wouldn't come to Standard. As the company works three years ahead of time, we know that it took just a single year to internally break that promise. You could have came clean about the change of plans at any time since then. Heck, I recall recent statements that UB would remain something being done in addition to the regular output.

How the hell am I supposed to trust anything the Magic team says again, having knowingly left lies on the website for three years? My faith in Magic has been broken, and I don't even know what it would take to fix at this point.

I'm going to leave off by saying that since your promises mean so little, why not abolish the Reserve List? From my experience, the sentiment is that all it does is gatekeep new players from higher power formats. It seems very much the will of the playerbase at large (who are aware of it, at least) to see it gone.

I’ve always felt the core role of this blog has been one of information. We make a lot of choices in design, and I try to use my various communications, including Blogatog, to walk the players through what we were thinking when we made key decisions.

The challenge with this approach is that it’s very logic-focused. It uses intellectual justifications to explain actions. But the problems I’m often responding to are emotional in origin. I have a good friend who’s a psychologist. He refers to this (using the words of author Robyn Gobbel) as an owl brain solution to a watchdog brain problem.

When someone is hurting, hearing about why the thing that is causing them pain is the result of intellectual decisions falls flat. That’s what has been causing some tension lately here on Blogatog.

It’s clear that for some Question Marks changes over the last few years represent the loss of something key to what makes Magic special to them. To them, the game is losing its heart.

While I can’t necessarily do anything about that, I want to better understand what you’re going through. So I’m using this post to ask players who are concerned with the recent changes to help me understand their feelings. Let me hear your stories about how your lives have been affected by these changes.

[dailyadventureprompts]

Villain: Peyton Dolor,  Agonized Erudite 

“ I’ll hand it to you D, none of my other students figured out my “read the whole book without blinking” trick.... I’ll have to do better with your next lesson. Oh here, let me get the next page for you, wouldn't want you dropping those pretty blues of yours on the dirty ol floor, would we?“ 

Adventure Hooks: 

When magical shenanigans raise their misshapen head in the party’s early adventures, it seems logical to ask around to see if there are any arcanists nearby willing to give some advice. The villagers report that their local hedgemage has been missing for weeks, last seen headed towards the abandoned village on the spooky side of the woods.

The party discovers a small arcane workspace while exploring a minor dungeon, scattered about with a few interesting trinkets. Investigating the space eventually leads them to an arcane tome that appears normal on the surface but once open reveals itself to be stained through with blood, a severed human tongue used as a grisly bookmark on illegible red pages. Later after returning to town, the party hears a farmer complaining about some wild beast that broke into his farm and ripped the tongues out of four of his goats. What a strange coincidence. 

Seeking a blessing, or perhaps just wanting to engage in a bit of tourism, the party seeks out a shrine dedicated to Farhana of the red lilies, a hero and virtual saint who ended a great battle fought some four decades ago, saving the region from plundering invaders. Grievously injured in the defense of her home valley, the gods were said to have put the hero into an enchanted slumber until such a time as her wounds could heal. When the party get to the shrine however, they find that it’s attendants have been mostly scared off, and those that remain are being kept from the shrine by an invisible elemental force. So far no one has been seriously hurt, but anyone who approaches the  Saint’s resting place is quickly choked out and deposited at the base of the approaching stairs. 

Setup: In the ruins of a village abandoned since the last war,  a devil plays out a grisly thought experiment with a hapless mage as his subject. How much suffering is is immortality worth? That’s the question that’s brought together the sadistic fiend known as Descallo and Peyton Dolor, a hedge wizard who’s fallen far in the name of duty. 

Peyton never used to be a dark wizard, in fact if you’d asked him he’d say that he was very happy wandering from village to village as an itinerant hedge mage using mostly simple magic to solve mostly simple problems for mostly simple people. What Peyton’s neighbors never expected is that their local wizard happened to have fought alongside Farhana during her glory days, and was charged by her with keeping the valley safe in her absence.  Long years of quiet and dutiful service ensued, until Peyton realized that his hair was beginning to grey, and that despite all his learning there’d be no one to look after his home or his eternally sleeping friend once he was gone. 

Enter Descallo, a fiend summoned by Peyton rumored to possess the secret to eternal life and known to exact terrible prices on those who ask. Bored of the usual soul for wishes song and dance, the devil has already given the wizard the immortality he sought, on the caveat that Peyton endure an endless series of torturous “lessons” until he can understand how the devil did it to him.  Needless to say the wizard could not survive these lessons without the gift of immortality, and Descallo eagerly devises new horrors to push the mage to his limits. Will Peyton give up on the task and his supposed altruistic goals for the sake of sparing himself pain? Or will his the grisly lessons darken his spirit even as his determination holds out? It’s all fun and games and presuppositions for the devil, who’s eager to draw out his tutorage for as long as possible. 

Further Adventures: 

While it may seem that the only person he’s hurting is himself, the dark energies released by Peyton’s research have a bad habit of attracting undead and other dark spirits to that region of the forest, which invariably spill over into other people’s lives. With mass graves and sites of slaughter left over from a decades old war, there’s sure to be plenty of evil do be drawn up. 

Peyton is an interesting villain in that he is both perpetrator and hostage. A good natured soul torturing himself for what he thinks is a selfless act, brining increasing harm to both those around him and his own person with each bit of “progress” he makes. 

The hedgemage didn’t just fight in the same battles as Farhana, he was her traveling companion, her plucky wizard sidekick barely out of his apprentiship and willing to move heaven and earth if it’d make the brave warrior’s life easier. Peyton was the one who wove the spell of eternal sleep after Farhana fell, unwilling to let his hero pass on and hoping to give her body time to heal.  After clearing the guardian he set to defend her shrine duing his “sabbatical”, the party will encounter her eidolon, a ghostly echo of the saint’s heroism that knows that the only way forward is to help her old friend let go, perhaps by violence if necessary. 

The Hard Way

wonderous item, (rare), requires attunement. 

Left behind ( or possibly gifted) after the party encounters Descallo, this sinister tome contains hints at all manner of magical secrets. Written in infernal and reinforced with iron, this weighty volume contains numerous “volumes” that must be understood in sequence should one wish to obtain its true power. Each week the tome is in their possession, a character may attempt to “decode” a volume in order to gain it’s benefit. if a new character comes to posses The Hard way, they must start at the beginning, though progress with each attuned character remains constant. 

A dc 20 religion check: attunement to the Hard way grants the ability to speak infernal and three cantrips off the warlock spell list

A riddle: the attuned creature gains expertise in one skill of their choice 

An advanced coded formulae involving alchemy and knowledge of magical forces: The Character gains one warlock invocation of their choice

One of the Attuned character’s arms falls off (50% chance of either), The Book becomes a +2 magical focus. 

A complex dissertation on hell’s legal minutia gives the character a long term madness that “flares up” anytime anyone (including themselves) attempts to decipher a volume of it. Character gains another warlock invocation. 

A dc 15 investigation check: Character learns one of Descallo’s secret names, and is able to cast “contact other plane” with him as the target once per week. (Descallo also learns about the attuned creature and passes on the information to some of his infernal buddies) 

The book is true polymorphed into a high level fiend ( cr 9-15) that is hostile to the party, using it’s teleport ability to go elsewhere. The Hard way cannot be unattuned while the fiend lives, and must be slain to return it to its book form. The fiend has all the benefits previously unlocked for the item. When defeated, the Hard way may finally be read and grants the attuned creature a wish spell, at which point it returns to Descallo’s possession. 

[kunosoura]

So...how about that science fantasy? 😏

Alright, here goes

Science fantasy is a little hard to pin down. For me, if science fiction has, like, psionics but it's treated like any other technology, that's just science fiction to me (biotics in Mass Effect being one example). And if a fantasy story has a bit of a technological edge (like, steampunk aesthetics placing it during an industrial revolution) but it still largely explores fantastic themes, it's just fantasy that doesn't take place during the middle ages.

So to list some science fantasy I like:

Dune by Frank Herbert is more on the science fiction end of things, and a lot of the more mystical elements of it are deliberate in-universe fabrications... but there are still elements of the setting refusing to be explained scientifically (science-fiction scientifically), and even though the fantastic elements are fabricated, the effect they have on the world and narrative end up all too real.

Star Wars is probably the main example of Science Fantasy thrown around; it has all sorts of fun with its robots and space ships and AI, but the core of the story, at least for the main movies, is still a very mystical one regarding the Force. I'm not gonna tell you to go watch the movies, they're a mixed bag and they'll be fine without my cheerleading them, but I still really like the Knights of the Old Republic games. If you do explore the expanded universe, Legends especially, there's a lot of stories about people living average lives in this universe and reckoning with both the mass of technological civilization weighing over them and the mystical elements that dictate the conflicts in their lives, but the EU is another mixed bag (and it's honestly been too long since I've engaged with it).

Speaking of CRPGs, Arcanum is all about a fantasy world that's reckoning with an industrial revolution; as it turns out, a world with magic isn't all that compatible with a world run by the logic of technology, and the world itself is undergoing a sort of reckoning with its nature as a science fantasy world. It doesn't deliver on this as much as I'd like, but it's still a really good an interesting game.

Another one in the more fantasy-world end of the spectrum, The Iron Dragon's Daughter is one of my favorite books of all time. Taking place in an unseelie realm that irrevocably reflects all the worst aspects of our own, technology and magic become inseperable. Birth control medicine is an antifertility ritual, Dragons are steel death machines that resemble nuclear bomber planes as much as they do creatures, a fae child experiencing prophetic visions while on the verge of death from a beating rattles off Mcdonald's commercials; Magic Is Technology Is Magic and both dictate our lives in ways we can barely grasp. It's science fiction less in the sense that there are sweeping shots of space and more in the sense that it's extremely concerned with the relationship between humanity and technology. Maybe a border case but I genuinely look for every excuse to recommend it.

If you like weird old animation and can stomach Ralph Bakshi in particular, Wizards is an offbeat adult animated movie VERY concerned with the relationship between fascism and technology as they encroach into a fantasy world. One of my favorite endings to any movie, ever.

If you want something where the scifi elements feel more like Jules Verne, check out the His Dark Materials series. It's a little Young Adult in its prose, but as it goes on its themes become increasingly Gnostic.

Here's another videogame recommendation, if you like roguelikes (or want to try them out) - Caves of Qud is all about finding yourself on a world ripped straight out of an old scifi adventure, with dangerous fauna, ancient technology that you can tinker and fuck around with but never truly Get which indelibly shapes the landscape. Also, you can become a psychic so powerful that reality begins literally warping around you wherever you go, and assassins begin slipping in from other dimensions to kill you. Very atmospheric and evocative for a roguelike game.

oh um. does cave story count? there are androids and curses and witches.

There are more, but those are some of my favorites!

[wistfulrat]

a 4-part rec list of my fave drarry fics - the thrillers, dramas, soft bois, and wankbanks getting me through 2020′s shitstorm

[the soft boi list is here and truly i’m not surprised this rec is going to be the longest bc if there’s one thing a bitch is going to do, it’s yearn.

as always! if you love a fic, follow the authors, leave kudos & comments, send them nice msgs bc free art is still labor xoxo]

part 3: soft bois

mood: for when I need respite, a balm to the all-consuming shittiness of life

includes: fluff, comfort, low-stakes, slow-burn fics. a wistful look, a rainy morning, an unexpected grace, a stupidly disarming joke. i could live inside these fics. the smallness of human lives removed from the site of that which hurts & irreparably changes. the story-equivalent of a deep breath after a long day. pregnant silences & pensive mundanity & shy smiles. banter with bite but without the cruelty. the color lavender. weirdly whimsical. soft fics are not necessarily conflict-averse (no drarry fic rly can be, considering the context) but, they offer the reader a generous distance from the initial harm. they’re the quiet cleaning up after a storm. sometimes healing is an exacting surgical knife and other times it’s a slow scabbing. you read these fics to be reassured that the way forward is not always ruthless. and honestly?? they deserve a semblance of peace godDAMmit.

The Way Down by @letteredlettered - 65k - T “and I thought that if someone talked to you as though you were a human being you might—maybe you could act like one” --the way i think about this line daily. the characterization of draco in this fic is one my favorites bc he’s earnest and neurotic and tired of harry’s shit. which is to say, he cares so so much. and harry doesn’t know what to do with that bc he’s got a monster in his chest and lives as a recluse. but they both humanize each other in ways no one else can. “you’re just a person” has to be some kind of drarry ethics of belonging and it makes me CRY. -

Little Deaths and How to Avoid Them by @greaseonmymouth and dustmouth - 96k - T “Maybe it’s not about deserving it? Maybe you just get to have it anyway. . .I’m allowing myself to want something and to let myself have it and to fight for it.” --harry runs a daycare and also works at a library. draco spends a lot of time in said library. they bond over sci-fi books and therapy anecdotes and quiet philosophical conversations held over cafeteria soup. and harry’s struggling to understand his asexuality. draco’s learning how to live with anxiety and depression. they both want to be deserving of love. incredible fic with beautiful art by dustmouth. - 

Open for Repairs by @drarrytrash - 35k - T “A few leaves rustle in the gutter and the muggle world pays no mind to them, to two lost boys holding on for dear life.” --all of their fics feel exactly like this. like you’ve been allowed to look at something private, tender, unexpected. draco, known abba fan, is a repairman in the muggle world & harry can’t stop breaking thrifted things in order to see him? say less, i'm thERE. also “I think I have a crush on you” goddddd  - other faves by them: Counting Down By Ten - 2k - T: draco’s stepped outside of the party for a smoke. harry follows him bc of course he does. i could read this 100 times and not get tired of it. - Clouds That Veil the Midnight Moon - 36k - E: FUCKING HILARIOUS I CACKLED THROUGH THE WHOLE THING. draco’s wolfy problem and harry helping him and harry being flustered by how much he likes draco and draco’s hot heroic moment. shutup it’s perfect. “He almost asks if Draco ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit all the time, but he knows that he, personally, never ever gets tired of being a miserable complaining shit.” and “It’s the traumas,” Harry says gravely” --lines that live rent free in my head -

Harry Potter and the Future He Doesn't Really Want, Thanks by seefin - 70k - E “That was the only logical thing to do here, wasn’t it? It was the next step, it was the end of hurting each other and the beginning of the exact opposite.” --harry lives with luna and neville and also he dreams about the future sometimes? and he keeps running into draco. draco thinks this is sus as hell, until he doesn’t. feat. taxi rides, museums, cinemas, rooftop conversations beneath a lunar eclipse, mid-sex innocuous banter, draco and harry discussing nicki minaj. this fic charmed my ass off. seefin writes the most effortlessly hilarious dialogues. i smiled at my phone like an idiot at least 7 times. -  other faves by them: Wild - 93k - E: “he liked feeling needed, for the things that he was needed for back at the house in Ireland. For cooking and gardening and driving. Easy things.” --this shit makes me cry it’s so good. harry lives in Ireland with these three brilliant, hilarious, wandless witches and draco’s a potions student who's come to study under one of the housemates and the boys have so much shit to work through but their love becomes so tender and honest. draco yells at harry a lot and harry lets him and they both keep each other grounded in something real and fuCK.  - Divination for Dickheads - 7k - G: “I’m terrible at having crushes. I’ve never played anything cool a day in my life.” -- oh harry, we knOW. a bus ride, a fortune teller, an aquarium birthday party. god i love this fic. -

Modern Love by @tackytigerfic​ - 61k - E “But we’ve worked so hard at this, haven’t we? Yeah, I know it’s a horror to have to talk about it, but fuck it. We’re friends now, but it took so long to get here. Have you ever had to work so hard at something before?" --the steady blossoming of their friendship in this fic is so goddamn beautiful i want to yell. it’s draco and harry learning to trust each other and the whole thing unfolds so slowly, in this whimsical mix of london streets, wizarding politics, church halls feat. a Hot vicar, and a magical antique shop owner who’s married to literal poseidon?? goD the environment of this fic. immaculate. [also there’s a tender shower scene that makes me cry every single fucking time so if you read this fic pls dm me so we can be embarrassing about it together tbh] -

Nice Things by aideomai - 22k - M “He kept waiting for the weird shock of touch to not knock him clean out of his head, leave him quiet and warm and happy.” --8th year. harry forms an unlikely friendship with draco that begins with smoking weed on a windowsill. harry is touch-starved and draco touches him like he touches all his close friends - like it’s easy. the quiet affection in this fic, the way harry burrows himself into touch bc he’s been without it for his entire life. reading this is like being held. -

Running On Air by @tinyhistory​ - 74k - T “do you remember when we were eleven?” --alexa play coldplay’s the scientist it’s sad girl hours and we’re about to fucking yearn. you’ve seen this fic rec on every drarry list under the sun and i'm here to be redundant. the hype is so goddamn real. this story is a lyrical masterpiece held together by lines that act as refrains that will rattle around your brain until you die, probably. draco’s been missing for 3yrs. harry goes to find him. it’s their odyssey of homecoming. -

Title of Their Sex Tape by @cibeewastaken - 12k - T “But Draco, Draco was everything but boring. Draco made sitting in the rain watching an empty house fun.” --auror partners pining and draco being eccentric and harry being very earnestly gay about draco’s eccentricities!! god this fic is so genuinely fun skskd feat. undercover missions, murderous faeries, a book heist, a stunning navy dress, harry’s eyelashes. -

How We Throw Our Shadows Down by @thistle-verse - 14k - T “Draco is about to say something else— to thank Potter for what he’d done, however poorly— but Harry is smiling at him again, and it’s so soft and perfect that Draco holds in any inadequate words, lest he spoil it.” --draco collects tea cozies and of course harry has the one he wants. the sad and tender gays are at it again feat. conversations in the rain at a train station, melancholy Blaise, muggle photos, wizarding e-bay, the Dursleys.  -

Helix by Saras_Girl - 92k - E “Draco sighs in his sleep and Harry clings on to consciousness, needing to hold on, to give this tiny, insignificant moment the attention it deserves” --I think maybe you can describe every soft Saras_Girl story as giving tiny, insignificant moments the attention they deserve. like, this is an 8th year fic about snails and it’s full of whimsy, grief, compassion, and easy humor. an absolute must-read author in this genre if you want languorous, episodic fics full of distinct OCs and affectionate creatures. - other faves by them: Light up the Night Sky - 98k - M “Draco, sometimes you make my head feel like soup” --the one where harry is a fireworks artist and has a pet chameleon named ken. draco is on the wizarding arts council. they both pine like hell. - Headlights in the Snow - 71k - M “they stare at each other in silence, Harry’s heart beating so loud in his chest that he thinks the biddies must be able to hear it over the sound of their card game.” --the one where draco drives the knight bus and carts around the biddy club, a group of rambunctious old ladies who knit and drink tea and gossip. harry can’t help but fall in love with the everything about this. -

Follow the Water by @xanthippe74 - 38k - T “Harry’s heavy thoughts lift at the sight, like dark clouds blown away from the sun by the wind. The tent doesn’t feel so cramped and stifling now. It feels cozy. And safe. It’s the same feeling that Harry gets when he’s at the Burrow for Sunday roasts, when a group of people who care for each other deeply are crammed into too-small a space.” --harry wanders to the lovegood house on a sunday afternoon. he’s baffled to see that luna’s taken pansy, greg, and draco under her wing. what follows is a summer of forest walks, scavenger hunts, gardening, water fights, odd cakes, faerie rings, and picnics. so many picnics. i love the pace of this fic, the innocent return to childhood things, the way luna brings out the best in all her friends. reluctantly soft slytherins are just *chefs kiss*!! -

Going Postal (A 125pg comic) by dustmouth - T what. a. beautiful. ass. comic. the wizarding fashion, the textures, the character design!! harry travels a lot for his job as a resourcer. draco works in the regulations dept. they pine like a bunch of lovesick idiots via field report notes. god i love dustmouth’s art. -

All the Earnest Young Men by @tepre​ - 29k - E “Draco is twenty-seven layers of personality wrapped up in drama and humour, and a wit so sharp it still stings when he doesn’t see it coming. But there is something below that, too. Something that makes Harry ache just looking at him.” --the way i would lay down my little life for tepre’s characterization of draco, whom invented the word earnest. he’s a magical art theory expert and portraits are disappearing all over London and harry’s the auror assigned to this case. and well. they’re both so very avoidant about how gay they are for each other and it’s like!! shutup and kiss!! which they do in fact, shutup and kiss.  -

Trenches by sara_holmes - 3k - M “Somewhere in the distant part of his mind that hasn't frozen solid, he thinks that maybe he and Draco are about to become more than auror partners, smoking buddies, wine-mates and co-inhabitants of a snow filled trench somewhere in western Scotland.” --the plot line here is literally “it’s cold and i need a fucking cigarette” but let me tell you how I never tire of the shared loaded-silences of two emotionally repressed gays. -

The Years Before Love by lomonaaeren - 13k - M “That’s one of the meanings of peace, he thinks, as Hermione hugs him...That he can do things slowly, softly, without worrying that they won’t be there tomorrow.” --andromeda taking harry under her wing and harry finding solace in teddy. narcissa and draco showing up and the tentative relationships that slowly develop in the quiet calm of andromeda’s house. found families and kisses in the snow and special xmas gifts ugh what’s not to love -

The Moon Looks Lovely Tonight by Omi_Ohmy - 35k - M “I want this to be a house where people are welcome, where they don’t have to be any one way or another” --in which harry collects lost things--owls, best friends, inept bakers, potions experimenters--and turns the mausoleum that is grimmauld place into a home. feat. your fave drarry tropes like shared-beds and reluctant waltzing partners. -

[part 1: thrillers | part 2: dramas | part 3: soft bois | part 4: wankbanks]

[cryinginthebackseat]

you’ve got more poison than sugar - part i

AO3    part ii

Fandom: Call Of Duty 

Pairing: Russell Adler x Bell

Words: 4.009

Summary: Russell Adler should have known better that it wouldn’t take an entire nation or continent to bring him to his knees.

Warnings: just swearings, sexual tension, blood, mentions of past abuse and brainwashing. adler being that manipulative asswipe like usual. 

Author’s note: i don't know what i'm doing. one moment, i was watching the walkthrough of the new call of duty game, found myself curious, acutely curious by that guy with the scars and shades on- a younger, shadier (no pun intended) Robert Redford in Spy Game and oh my... fast forward to 2 weeks later, here we are.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

A house somewhere on foreign soil,

Where ageless lovers call,

Is this your goal, your final needs,

Where dogs and vultures eat,

Committed still I turn to go.

I put my trust in you.

A Means To An End - Joy Division (1980)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It's mystifying how little she talks. Or when she does, it's always in fragments. Like a crossword puzzle in your local newspaper, but several letters are missing. He initially thought maybe MK-Ultra fucked her head or worse, if it hasn't worked at all, but the more he watches her, the more he realizes it's just the way she is. And it's ironic because he named her Bell. He expected her to chime like a goddamn goldfinch yet here they are. 

But he won't be fazed. Russell Adler is a man who's stopped at nothing in getting what he wanted before, he sure as hell won't stop now for a close-mouthed science project.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“We've got a job to do, Bell."

It intrigues him, every time, the way the words trigger something deep within her psyche, the way her eyes change, her body stands a little straighter, like a machine ready to function at his disposal. It reminds Adler of one of those cartoons he watched when he was a kid about wizards and magic words, except there are no musical dance numbers playing in the background or a talking cricket perching on his shoulder. This is his power over her, over the USSR, over Perseus. That monstrous filth. It really does take a beast to tame another. 

Although he surmises calling Bell one would be superfluous. 

She barely looks like one, but Adler knows too well than to underestimate her. Just because Bell hasn’t shown her set of claws, that doesn’t mean she’s harmless, delicate, like a miniature China Doll in his breast pocket.

Bell never offered him her reply before, but now, now, she nods, head almost bows, obedient pretty thing, and says:

“Yes, Adler.”

So it goes.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It takes West Berlin for Adler to realize she’s left-handed. 

She wears her watch on her right hand, smokes with that same said hand only when she’s writing or moving her pieces for an impromptu late-night game of chess against Lazar. And she always wears her gloves all the time- leather, black, lined with silk and pretty, small buttons on the cuffs, covering those striking red nails underneath. Whether it is for the theatrics or an old habit of hers, he can't really tell.

He doesn’t know why he begins to take notice of these mundane details about Bell, but rationalizes because he’s never been in the same room with this version of her, post-brainwash Bell, for more than 10 minutes. And for all intents and purposes, there’s still a lot of question marks surrounding her character; who is she? Where did she come from? What is her connection to Perseus? 

Are they in a possession of a walking, breathing bomb about to destroy them all or the West’s only salvation?

He supposes he’ll find out soon enough.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Adler hears Bell from his table, typing busy on the computer- barely blinking- all soaked up in that caffeine-infused energy at 1 am. She's always like that, he learns, when it comes to working, always with that steel determination, pulling out all the stops as long as it gets the job done- that Soviet discipline at it's finest.

Reminds him a little of himself when he's young.

Adler walks up to her. 

“You done for the night?” A shake of her head is her only response. He sighs. “You should go home, Bell.” 

“You go. I’ll lock up behind you,” Bell replies, low and monotone; that youthful stubborn.

If she was any other person, he would probably commend her for such fierce willpower, but she is Bell, the walking conundrum, his ace in the hole. Call him paranoid, but the idea of her having the safehouse for herself does nothing but raises every alarm in his head.

“No, we’re going home,” he says instead, tone brooking no argument and she frowns at the screen, her fingers stop moving then looks up at him with those goddamn empty eyes. "Come on, it's late anyway."

She doesn't say anything. Adler wishes he could read her mind- or crack that lovely skull on the back of her head, dissect her brain, learn its secrets and answers. 

Adler has his gun with him. It wouldn’t take long. A quick, true shot to the heart to keep the brain intact. He’d have Hudson contact one of his people inside BND and he'd deliver the brain himself if he has to. They could do it. He heard they’ve been studying inmates' brains for decades now, anyway. 

Before he has a chance to entertain the idea further, though, Bell nods once and rises up from her seat. 

Bell walks past him. Her scent, like honeysuckle on ice, hits him like an uppercut in the face. Adler inhales, as if against his will. 

He thinks he could get drunk on it.

“Hop in. I’ll drive you back to the hotel,” he says once they’re outside, regretting the decision the moment the words left his lips, but he knows he can’t just leave her on her own at this late hour.

The irony isn’t lost on him, though, considering he just thought about unspooling her brain a few minutes ago.

Bell complies without a protest. Getting inside the passenger seat, wordless still, fingers toying with the radio. An angry, krautrock music comes blaring all over his car. Adler winces, but at least the riot is loud enough to muffle the one's brewing in his head. 

"How's your memory these days?" 

Bell shrugs. "Nihil novi sub sole." There's nothing new under the sun.

Good, he muses. The least she knows about herself the better.

Though that doesn't mean he's out of the woods yet.

"Listen, from now on, I want you to keep me informed if there's any new progress about your memory or if you've developed any new symptoms. I want to know everything." He steals a sidelong glance at her, making sure she is listening (she always does, but Adler needs an excuse)

(An excuse for what?)

"Alright, Bell?"

"Of course," replies the woman in question.

"Good." Adler shifts his attention back to the road. "Good." Taking a long drag, he considers trying to appeal to her sentimental side. It's not something you'd improvise last minute- at least not with someone you brainwashed to believe you are her mentor/confidant for the past decade, but he's itching to know where he stands with her.

"You know, I'm just tryin' to look out for you, kid."

Her lips twitch but the rest of her visage remains impassive and faraway, more like a flick knife than a woman. The correlation is uncanny.

That's when she inches closer. The space between them bridged. He freezes. Hyper-aware of just how dangerous this is, but can’t bring himself to pull back, to look the other way. Not when her hand reaches out to pluck the cigarette from his mouth, eyes still glued to his, and curls her lips around the filter. One heavy pull, and then she rolls down the window and tosses it out on the side of the road.

"Thought I'd reciprocate the sentiment."

And with that, she leans back in her seat before Adler could even process what has just transpired.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Welcome back to the land of the living, kid,” Adler greeted her, about a month ago. 

Park had insisted that he had to be there for her when she woke up (naturally, Adler had balked at the idea, but at the English woman’s fact-of-the-matter explanation, also because it had somewhat dawned on him last minute the logic behind her machinations- “both of you are supposed to have known each other for years now. If she doesn't see you by her side, she’s going to wonder why”- thus, here he was)

“How are you feeling?” 

Bell blinked owlishly and stared at the older man with those bottomless, cat-like eyes that had haunted him since January.

Her gaze eventually softened as recognition flickered across her face.

“Like someone just hit me in the chest with a bulldozer,” she said hoarsely. “Where are we?”

“St. Dismas’ hospital, Pittsburgh.” Adler got up and fetched her a glass of water from the table. “Although not a bulldozer, but bullets did. That, and you hit your head really hard on your way down. Thought we’d lost you there, Bell.”

Bell drank in silence. She’s still watching him, thinking. This was the first time he realized that he couldn’t exactly read her expression and somehow that threw him off.

“What happened?” she asked, one hand mid-air, like she was deciding which to touch first, hesitating and abandoned the idea. 

“You don’t remember?” She shook her head. Adler pretended to look remotely distressed about it. “The doctors warned me about this. It must have been because of the fall- heck, I could even still hear that sickening crunch from here.” He dragged his chair closer towards her bed.

“We were in Amsterdam. Remember Fohler?” she shook her head again. “Well, we’d been tracking this son of a bitch for months, but we were chasing him in Amsterdam. He was running away and climbed up some scaffolding. You were about to go up after him,” he recited the fabricated story he, Park and Hudson had crafted. “He shot you and you fell and hit your head against the pavement.”

Bell looked away first, silent. Her hand gingerly touched the back of her head and winced, albeit only slightly. 

Adler was almost impressed, if not, disarmed by how calm and composed her reaction was to all of this. But then again, after having had witnessed first-hand how the woman barely flinched under any kind of interrogation technique they threw at her- a personality built for wrestling tigers- he really shouldn’t be surprised. 

“Bell, what is the last thing you remember?”

Bell frowned. “Not much. I remember ‘Nam, but-”

“Vietnam? Kid, that was thirteen years ago.” Adler watched the way her throat bopped, like she was swallowing her own blood and the color drained from her face, just like the first time he’d seen her, and proceeded to drop the bomb:

“Bell, the year is 1981.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Bell dear, would you mind taking a look at this?" 

Park's voice sails from across the room. She says it like it's a compound word: Bell-dear. Like the two words belong together. Bell-dear. 2 syllables, 1 word, 9 characters and that just might be the weirdest thing he hears this year and he heard many things.

"Bell dear?" Adler asks much later, his gravel-and-smoke voice reduced to a whisper, when she delivers a document to his table.

Park shrugs as if that explains everything. "What? I like her." 

He's tempted to say you really can't put a term of endearment and someone you brainwashed into submission in the same sentence, but what else is new?

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

They wind up in a bar. It’s called Die Stube and the place’s brimmed with artists and all sorts of leather-clad, Bowie-esque dramatic, chromatic blue eyelids young people chattering over a dirty cloud of smoke.

The two of them colonize a lone booth in the back. It’s dark and the quietest. She orders a beer and he, a scotch and they drink in silence. There are moments where her head would twist to the side, as subtle as a needle and survey the phantasmagorical scene before them, like studying something from a petri dish. 

While he’s watching her.

Only to tear his gaze away to the nearest object he can find.

It lands on his watch.

"It’s almost ten. Hudson's contact should be here soon," he announces, if anything to distract himself. She nods mutely in reply, as always, and runs a finger around the rim of her glass.

"The place ain't much of your scene?" 

She shrugs, like it's self-evident. "I didn't know this was a scene, though."

"Well, that’s West Berlin for you. A worry-free playground for the hedonists, hipsters and proto-electro NDW enthusiasts with drugs on tap," Adler says, sipping his drink in practiced nonchalance. "Always makes my head spin."

"I guess I remember it differently," Bell replies, tinged with something akin to begrudging. 

That warrants his full attention. "What do you remember?”

Bell shrugs again and lights a cigarette instead, menthol, one of those long, skinny cigarettes they only market for women; biding her time, making him wait. She lets the smoke flares from her nostrils so her eyes are veiled.

"It’s hard to explain, but I suppose it’s grittier?” she gesticulates, searching for the right word like she’s skim reading the entire Oxford dictionary in her head. “Bizarrely, infinitely grittier and dimmer? Like being in an underground tunnel and there's not much to see."

Interesting. Maybe she’s recalling one of her ops for Perseus or her mind is confusing her with the world on the other side of the wall.

“Maybe you’re remembering one of our clandestine ops here. It was a few years after Vietnam,” Adler supplies, passing over the tale like bait.

She falls for it, hook, line and sinker.

“Ah, I guess that also explains my fluency in German.”

“I taught you that.” It’s only logical, he decides, that she learned from him. She’s supposed to be his protégé after all. 

An elegant brow quirk. "You did?"

"Yeah, though you were already fluent in Latin, Russian, Vietnamese and Portuguese when we first met anyway. You have quite a natural ear, kid.”

She gives him a look. He really can’t categorize it, but it makes it a whole lot harder to fight against her stare.

 “What else did you teach me?” 

If they were anyone else, the lines could have a potential to entice, to seduce, that winsome, catty-eyelashes coquette, but they aren't anyone else and Bell does not voice it like that. Yet the implication behind the question stirs something in the pit of Adler’s stomach anyway, that tight knot of confusion as it is buried with something else and he finds himself, once again, uncharacteristically speechless.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

That particular question of her stays, even hours later, unbidden. Interspersed with her scent and face. 

His emotions are a minefield whenever she’s near now. It evokes that newfound rush of terror within him, like walking on a tightrope or being thrown into the pit to face hundreds of hungry lions, bare hands. It makes Adler questions his every decision, and he can’t have that in his line of work. 

Adler lights his sixth cigarette, contemplating everything, nothing. Anything to distract him from her. It's 4 am and he’s exhausted, but his mind won’t stop whirring. This isn’t like him at all- like he's lost somewhere in a Dali-style labyrinth that is his head and he wonders if this is a byproduct of his fear or fascination or confusion for the young woman.

He fears it is all of them.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

(They're only 10 minutes away from East Berlin when he senses it, something akin to burning on his peripheral vision, pulling him like weight.

Bell is staring at him from across the seat.

He cocks his head slightly to the side.

Adler catches the quick, telling quirk of her lips, like she's about to smile but lights a cigarette instead.)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“Did you hear that?”

Krauss has just crossed the wall and their soles are slippery from the rain. She's panting. Her breath is white like a fog. Adler muses it must be from the running, until his iris trails down to where her hand is clutching his jacket sleeve, the leather creasing like a modulation signal.

“What is it?” Adler asks, hushed. There are no Stasis here, but even one can't be too careful.

“The TV.” She’s gaping at the broken TV next to them. Adler looks at the said object, frowning, then back to her. “Y-you didn’t hear it?”

"Heard what? Bell, the thing's dead."

Bell withdraws from him. Stepping back until her back meets the walls, her eyes seeing and unseeing, like a lens finding focus in the dark, then she closes them, as if trying to regulate her breathing. Adler has never seen her scared shitless of anything before. The sight confuses as it intrigues him. 

"Bell, what's going on?" Adler steps closer, but he dares not to touch her. 

She shakes her head, dismissive. In just a span of seconds, Bell dons that mask she likes to wear again; deadpan and frustratingly distant. A spike of annoyance drives through him. Just when he thinks he can get through her, there she goes again, retreating behind her palisades.

"Nothing." Bell turns away abruptly and she’s walking again."Let's just go. The others are waiting for us."

He doesn't pry about whatever she heard on the TV- Adler knows better than to beat a dead horse, thank you very much- not even after they save her from Volkov's clutches, after she bashes his head against the steel door and reeks his blood all the way home, it seems superficial at the time.

Until two days later.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The day starts, as it mostly does for the team, with a briefing. 

Fifteen minutes in and something like a gasp pulls his attention to her. 

That’s when he notices it; her hands are shaking, coffee spilling out of the mug over her hand. A shatter follows. Her mug smashes to smithereens at her feet. She’s swaying, near collapse, like a house of cards about to fall, a hand on her nose.

Adler catches her before she tumbles to the floor.

“Bell!” His arm around her waist tightens, trying to keep her steady. Lazar rushes to their side in a flash and helps him move her to a nearby chair. 

"Jesus Christ," he curses, more to himself than to her as he watches blood, a bead of angry red, trickling down her nose. "Sims, get me a washcloth from the bathroom."

He kneels before her once Sims returns with a damp cloth. Nicotine-stained gloved fingers tentatively grasp her chin, holding her still. 

“Kid, you alright?” Adler asks, worry bleeds into his voice without him realizing it. He firmly presses the cloth under her nose, his other thumb touches the pulse at her throat- it's almost sickly affectionate. “Bell, talk to me."

Bell looks at him, discombobulated, like he's a figment of her imagination, then blinks. Again and again until she heaves a deep breath.

"I-" she hisses. One hand flies up to her head. "Fuck. My head.”

Adler’s eyes immediately search for Park’s. A knowing look passes over her face and he knows without saying that she's thinking the same thing, like they're attached to the same brain-wire:

MK-Ultra.

There’s a fraction of pause, then Lazar asks, "Should we give her something?” 

Before Park can voice her answer, Bell beats her to it. "I already took an anticonvulsant this morning. It should have helped.”

“Wait, this has happened before?” Adler asks.

Bell looks away, a hesitating look shadowing her face. He fears the worst.

“Bell…” he tries again, a slight warning to his tone.

She sighs loudly, as if mentally preparing herself before walking into a storm. 

“Yes. Two days ago."

His mind instantly refers to East Berlin, the TV. Trying to connect the dots in his head. It seems far fetched, but now he wonders if she saw something that triggers this. Although he's never read about this on other subjects before, the correlation is just impossible to ignore.

Fuck. He heaves a breath, willing himself to calm down, to think. They can't afford complications at times like these. Not when there's so much at stake right now.

Adler snaps his attention back to Bell when she tries to scramble awkwardly to her feet, swatting his hand away. The hand on her neck immediately reaches for her waist again and pushes her back down onto the chair. His grip's tight enough to leave marks on her skin, but he doesn't care.

"Bell, for fuck's sake, stay still or so help me," he says, exasperated, not letting go of her waist. 

"I feel better now." Stubborn little shit.

He is tempted to scream at her face and grab both of her shoulders and shake. “The hell you’re not. Stop fighting it. You’ll only make things worse.”

Her face sours, if only for a millisecond before it morphs into guilt. “I’m sorry.”

Adler watches her for a long moment. It’s only now that he realizes that he’s still holding her waist and the cloth on her face. 

He backs away from her like he’s been burnt. 

“You should have told me. I thought I made it clear the other night to keep me informed regarding this,” he scolds. 

“I’m sorry,” she utters again and she looks so pliable like this, a blank canvas perfumed with obedience and lethal mind. It makes him almost feel sorry for what he has in plan for her once the shit show is over.

“Look, just go back to the hotel and take a day off.” Her mouth cracks open. He raises a silencing hand. “That’s an order, Bell.” But she merely scowls, looking more like jagged ice than a person. Hudson may have just met his match, after all.

“I told you I’m fine.”

“That’s not how it looks to me.”

“It is. It’s my body and I know what I’m feeling, and I’m telling you, I. Feel. Fine.”

His jaw clenches. “Are you disobeying a direct order, agent?”

Bell doesn’t answer, but her whole face remains challenging and hard. Undeterred.

Adler holds his breath. He feels the whole room collectively does the same. It’s like staring down the barrel of a gun and there’s an awful sort of danger to be found in that. 

Just when he thinks an imaginary bullet would dig itself into his skin, however, Bell utters, “Of course not.”

And so the woman resumes to her normal, docile self at a drop of a hat. Even when Park steps in and whisks her out of her seat, drives her back to her hotel with Lazar on shotgun. 

It doesn’t assuage his worry, though. He’s still restless throughout the day, like a roaring ocean inside a bell jar. She’s never done this before, openly rebels against him. Now, the situation is just bad. Not casually bad or almost-got-shot bad, this is the-entire-Europe-could-turn-into-a-nuclear-wasteland bad, an-armageddon-waiting-to-happen bad. 

What if this is the beginning of her old self trying to scratch her way out of the surface? Adler’s blood goes cold at the thought. He is going to have to keep a close eye on this development.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

West Berlin - 1 am, local time.

“How is she?”

“Stable. I’ve administered another dose of Propranolol before I left the hotel. She should be fit as a fiddle in the morning.”

“Tell me, what do you think happened to her?”

“My theory? Traumatic brain injury. A cumulative product of torture, trauma-based mind control and chronic stress. I've read reports about cases like these before in MI6. None of them is still alive to recount the tale, unfortunately."

Adler grips the phone. 

“How long do you think we have?”

“Theoretically, 2-3 weeks tops.”

“But?”

He hears Park sighs on the other line. “But then again, none of the subjects I’ve encountered before were like her. So, I suppose it’s still a little too premature to determine at this point."

Adler kneads his temple, feeling the start of that familiar Bell-induced headache forms in his head. Can things just be fucking simple for once? 

“We don’t have that much time anyway, Park. And if Hudson gets a wind of this, he’ll want her gone by morning. I can’t let that happen. Not…” he pauses. “Not when we are this close.”

"What are we going to do about her, then?" 

Adler sighs.

"Raise the dosages of her drugs,” he says. “And keep an extra eye on her. I think we may be heading into uncharted waters now.”

Tagging: @mvalentine cause you said to tag you with everything i write so  👁👄👁

[darkpoisonouslove]

Winx Club Rewrite Is a Go

I don’t know how I ended up here because I’ve always maintained that rewrites aren’t my thing (and I still kinda do) because it feels a lot like reading the same thing over and over again and to me it can be annoying. Yet, here I am with my very own Winx Club rewrite.

I started writing the first episode today but I have A LOT planned out already. Seasons 1 and 3 are pretty solid already even if there is still a lot of character work to be done and logistics to be figured out. I also have some structure for seasons 2 and 4 and I figured out the backstory of the Wizards of the Black Circle yesterday and that gave me an indescribable feeling which is pretty much what I took as a sign that it’s time to talk about this project.

To explain what I am doing - I am taking everything and changing it while keeping it the same. If that doesn’t make sense, then imagine that I am keeping the major plot points and most of the episodes (I have removed some because they are just irrelevant) have the same starting and ending point as they do on the show but there are big changes between those. Seasons 5, 6 and - you’ll find out in a sec - are going to have a lot more changes. I have removed transformations and switched around some of the transformations so that they are earned at a different point than in canon. I have picked a place to end this already and I have arcs for each season.

Now when it comes to the seasons, I have removed season 7 which will be done as a “movie” and will have additional plot still because there really is THAT little to season 7. Season 8 becomes season 7 in my rewrite and is the last and final season. It is the end of Winx’ journey and I think it is a satisfying end to a pretty long story. I am keeping the movies but:

1) There will probably be “movies” after seasons 1 and 2 as well just to make the structure make sense and because I feel like there is enough to be talked about between the seasons.

2) SotLK is majorly different from canon because there was no sense to that movie and only plot holes instead. I’ve saved what was salvageable from it and mostly put it in season 3 to free the whole movie for more interesting and logical stuff to happen. The end goal is the same, though - bringing Marion and Oritel (and Domino) back.

3) Magical Adventure is the least changed but there will be several changes here as well. The plan is to make the movie relevant on a wider level than just to Winx and the Specialists but I still don’t have that clear a vision of it. Just some things that I want to see but need piecing together.

3) The “movie” after season 5 will deal with the season 7 plot instead. I have switched them around. There will be Kalshara and Griffin and Faragonda and some major Bloom drama as well. I need to make these pieces connect, too, but this one feels almost coherent at the current time.

4) Politea is saved for the last movie that is after season 6. You’ll see why. Anyway, major Daphne and Bloom feelings are planned for that movie... and I don’t know what else yet. We’ll see.

I am currently working on all of the seasons and all of the movies at once so it is a bit of a mess. I write down and rewrite ideas. Everything is one big map in my head that isn’t completely translatable to someone else. Anyway, you can find everything I have posted about this in the “wc rewrite” tag. You can ask me questions if you have them and I’ll see how much I’ll share while trying to resist the urge to spoil everything because I have been at this for about 5 months now and I have so many ideas that I adore and want to talk about. Despite that I have no idea how quickly I can work on it. This is bound to take years which was the hardest part of this project for me to reconcile with but I really want to do it. So let’s see how that goes.

I want to say that I am planning on doing one episode a chapter but because I have decided to both develop the characters and be self-indulgent, that will make the chapters long. I don’t think that they are devoid of tension or action, however, because this thing is packed with so much stuff happening. Here’s a little sneak peak from the first episode:

“Bloom, honey, wake up,“ Vanessa’s mellow voice reached her through the colorful explosion into which her dream was retreating.

“Just five more minutes, mom,” Bloom mumbled as she wormed her head under the pillow to block out the interruption. She reached for the fairy princess in her dream with hair of liquid light and a touch like sinking through the reflective surface of a mirror that showed none of Bloom’s own features to her. She’d lose not just the way but her own self if she let go of the figure in front of her.

“You’ll be late for school, sleepy head.”

The woman evaporated in a heap of steam with a nasty hissing sound that rattled Bloom’s bones as she jumped into bed. Vanessa’s apologetic smile came into focus to draw a groan out of Bloom’s parched throat as she threw her head back.

“Not funny, mom,” Bloom grabbed her fallen pillow from the floor and plopped herself back down on her mattress, eyes wide open as the image of the fairy burned in her mind. “I wanted to see where she’d lead me!”

“Who?” Vanessa sat down on the edge of the bed.

“The fairy from my dream,” Bloom covered her eyes with her free hand to narrow her focus to the woman. “I’ve seen her before, I just...” she threw the pillow next to her on the mattress. “I can’t remember where.”

“Well, I’m not surprised. You’ve read every book on fairies that you could get your hands on. It’s only natural that they’ve started blurring together,” Vanessa chuckled.

“Yeah, but it’s not that.” Bloom shot up once again, her vision spinning for a moment from the sudden action. “She’s not a character. She’s something... someone else.” She twisted a strand of hair around her finger looking for the warmth enveloping her at the presence of the mystery fairy. It couldn’t be the first time she’d dreamed about her but she couldn’t recall more than that. “Grandma always said that dreams are important.” Another reason not to let go of the fleeting imagery in her head.

“I’m pretty sure she meant the other kind of dreams,” Vanessa’s amusement was more of a ghost itself now that Bloom had mentioned the newest loss in their family. It was her who had to stay open and talk to Bloom about Mike’s mother when he froze every time the topic was brought up until Bloom could no longer bear to cause him that. “Did you finish your art project last night? I sure hope it was inspiration that kept you up so late and not the lack of it.”

Bloom beamed despite the deflection. “I did!” She jumped out of bed as her mom made space for her to launch herself at her desk where her masterpiece was covered by stray sheets to keep her parents from peeking without her there to see the reactions. Finals had really inserted themselves in all areas of her life–including dreams–to throw a wrench in her works. Finishing a drawing she’d been sitting on for over a month had let her breathe fresh air again. “Here it is.” She pulled two sheets from the pile. “This is the sketch I did during spring break.” She’d spent a whole day wandering Gardenia looking for the building to put her vision into. “And here is the one I’ve reimagined.”

Vanessa gasped, hands flying to her mouth as her eyes gleamed with unformed tears. Not unlike her response to Bloom’s first steps in art back when she’d been three but, somehow, her reactions had developed to match Bloom’s growing skillset without giving undue credit.

Bloom’s heart swelled in her chest with pride boosted by the trust she had in her mom. Her work was almost complete now that it’d accomplished the desired effect with one parent. She’d been in awe herself by the alterations she’d made to Earth architecture to make it elaborate and alien enough for a fantasy... something. She still couldn’t decide what format she wanted to create her world in. Comics were a handy option but a vision of an elusive deal for a TV show still reared its head every time she reached for a pencil and a blank sheet of paper. And there was, of course, the popularity of video games accompanied by her lack of skills or contacts when it came to coding. There was always one more step to the door of her fairy utopia but she had to focus on the art for now.

“I hope that keeping this up will be easier after school is done stifling my inspiration,” Bloom chewed on her lip as she waited for her mom to collect herself enough to give the verdict of whether a summer job was about to take over that function now.

“Uninspired? You?” Vanessa shook her head in disbelief. “Honey, you have the imagination to create worlds and I am sure that one day you will,” Vanessa reached out cautiously towards the museum Bloom had created for her fantasy world. Her fingers barely brushed the paper to leave no traces of their presence and the bittersweet look on her face was too much for Bloom to stand. Her art was not meant to be an untouchable monument. It was supposed to be a temple, a home. Maybe her yearning had come through too well.

[lairofsentinel]

Talking about the smidgens we saw of Gale, the wizard of Waterdeep.

[Baldur’s Gate 3 Early Access Spoilers]

Updated, AGAIN, because the hell of new aspects we saw when some bugs were sorted out. Warning:  all this analysis was done for game versions 4.1.83 and 4.1.84

Well, I had to rewrite all this because the explorations of dialogue options and the bugs being, somehow, solved, allowed me to see small details from Gale that stand out or end up being more than curious to me. I'll list his main features to make things short (hopefully), and useful for... eventual fics:

Gale is a char who approves any good treatment to animals (and creatures in general). He has a cat, a Library, and writes poetry sometimes.

He doesn't like gratuitous murdering which is implied in the anecdote he told us about how he stopped a massacre in a Waterdeep city inn just by buying a round to everyone. It is also implied in his approval in most situations; even in the one with the ogres having sex.

He gives you disapproval most of the time if you use violence and intimidation as your first approach in solving a situation. He prefers eloquence, diplomacy, and negotiation. However, he is flexible enough to approve a performance-intimidation in front of goblins to avoid bloodshed. Point (2) is primary. So... he truly is a pragmatic char. It's not white and black: “never use intimidation/lie” or that kind of over-simplistic view.

He likes logical and reasonable conversations. An action that earned his disapproval can be undone if the main char (MC) talks to him and explains their reasons. You can disagree with him without having approval penalties most of the time. You can question many situations and, as long as it remains a mental exercise, there are no penalties. That surprised me a lot. Most characters disapprove you if you wonder about a potential situation, but Gale no. He is the scholar, he will allow a safe space to think around things without being too judgemental. We will see if this attitude lasts in the full game. No wonder some players see in him “the Teacher” archetype. Quite so.

He was an Arch wizard while being Mystra's Chosen One, and fell from grace when she put him aside. What is hard for me to grasp is if he remained Chosen One and therefore able to cast silver-fire during that intermediate period when he stopped having Mystra's whispers and his folly with the netherese taint. We know that in that moment Mystra removed herself from his life completely. But before, she has only stopped whispering and sleeping with him. So far I understand, being her Chosen One doesn't imply sleeping with her, most of the time.

He was a teacher (not surprising, since his over-explanation vices and details such as the pronunciation of “Trashj” make us suspect it), and had some students that he could not keep longer since their ineptitudes irked him. 

Unlike the stereotypical “scholar” type, he knows how to cook, since he has been doing stews for the party in the camp. He also loves baths. A bit siding with the stereotypical “scholar” type, but a nice change for a “standard adventurer” type, in which most of the time it is implied that they are stinky with “animalistic” scents and uglier descriptors. No, Gale likes his lavender-scented baths. Good. 

He is an over-thinker strategist. And also a char who takes responsibility for his own mistakes to the point that, when he dies for the first time, a programmed image is activated to help anyone to revive him. Despite the fact that he is dead and can give a shit about that, he is still responsible of the catastrophe that may happen if that weird magic orb stuck in his chest erupts.

He is also forcing me to check the dictionary like no other game has done in a while... the fucker uses uncommon words a lot of the time. Smidges? really? Gale is a hard char for a non native English speaker.

We can assume that during his teenage time, he was a pretty prideful peacock to the point to be blind at the reality (well, yeah, he romanced a goddess; if that doesn't give you a hell of a ego boost...) He remembers his young self's pride with a thick level of regret. He is now a mature scholar that, for a change, does not patronise you or thinks of himself better than anyone. Sure, he over-explains a lot, but that's something that most scholars/teachers do when they are worried that, maybe, they won't be understood.

He is confident in his years of study (for that reason he is a capable wizard despite having lost Mystra's favours), but he acknowledges his limits. Which is a nice change to see in the “scholar” archetype, the typical know-it-all. He knows a lot, he knows that he knows (it would be ridiculous to hide his knowledge), but he is human, and like he says: “humans are fallible”. However, it’s more than obvious that he has a big ego for everything he does, which makes sense since he follows a motto in his life: “try to excel at everything”. High accomplished scholar lifestyle, indeed.

If you don't share the Weave with him, he will state that nights are lonesome. It seems he truly is looking for some connection with a keen fellow mind. Probably it's this loneliness which triggers his urge to see Mystra's face during the night. We also know he, in general, lives in constant fear due to the Netherese taint in his chest. So, very lonely, and very scared. 

I don't know if this is his poet side unable to be switched-off or it's another implication of how he sees sexual encounters: he never says sex (at least in my many runs, he never did it). He always gets around the word: love-making, art of the body, intimacy. For a scholar who is so prone to use the technical word for everything, and has already stated he is not coy at all, the use of these metaphors make me wonder if it's because he always conceives sex as something more than mere physical pleasure. For him, it seems to come with a more emotional connection (which makes sense if we think he will only sleep with those who connected to him through the Weave). Another small detail that may confirm this is when he asks the MC if the “other night” was wonderful. If MC claims it was “fun”, Gale shows a certain degree of uneasiness by that word choice, making us infer that he certainly doesn’t see sex as “fun” but as something else, deeper. 

His tadpole dreams are about Mystra (rather obvious). His most desperate desire is forgiveness. Mystra's forgiveness.

Mystra was his first love. The affair did not last long. And since soon after her abandonment he looked for the Primal Weave book and was infested by it; one could assume he has been focused on solving his problem for the rest of his life than putting some energy in romance, especially if we think about (13). It's hard to say with certainty (especially with banters like these), but since he is a char that you can only sleep with if you share a mind-connection through the Weave, it seems less plausible that he could encourage into casual relationships during all this period of his life looking for a solution to the Netherese orb. If he got previous relationships, they may have been meaningful, but clearly not enough to win over the goddess’ and his urges to see her, lol.

He did not mind Mystra having many other lovers besides him. It seems to be the same with the MC, since he will insist in sleeping with them even after the party and even after the MC slept with someone else (however, that only occurs if the romantic connection through the Weave happened.) This fact combined with (13) and (15) make me wonder if he certainly wants to be with the MC too badly, even in an open relationship. We need to see the rest of his romance to be sure.

Since he looks for forgiveness so desperately, he is a char who will forgive most mistakes made by the MC if they acknowledge them.

He is a char who knows how grey and complex situations can be. This is inferred by the way he speaks of the tiefling girl who tried to steal the idol in the Grove: “She is not innocent, but that doesn't mean she is guilty.” (of course there is a lot of self projection there). This is also implied in his (surprising) approval of raising Mayrina's husband and giving her the control wand to search for a solution in Neverwinter. That shows that he can accept the fuckest weirdest situations, recognising that “sometimes we can’t choose situations but we can try to do our best, not always having the best results”. Also self-projection.

He appreciates his privacy to the point to leave the MC if the abuse of the tadpole power continues. However, and honouring (4), you can abuse of these powers and convince him with reasons: if you don't lie to him and explain that you have a responsibility with the group to know what happens with his secret, he will understand, and despite disapproving the MC actions, will remain without major troubles.

Certainly, as long as you give him reasons and logical concepts, he can almost understand everything with no disapproval or at least little one.

Consent and negotiation are vital to him, apparently. However, this aspect reaches a flaw. He was too angry with Nettie when she almost killed the MC, and he made a short speech about how nobody has the right to decide your options for you. Yet, in his romance scene, we see that he deliberately hid his true relationship with Mystra and his bomb-condition in order to sleep with the MC. In fact, during the party, if the MC tells him that doubts if he is the one they want, Gale will drop a curious argument: “That’s because you’ve yet to find out what your’re missing” (implying that he himself is what you need), followed by his most curious “Doubt is a spoilsport. Cast it aside”. That coming from a scholar is rotten, lol. He tries every convincing argument to sleep with the MC (if they shared the moment of the Weave, of course)

This happens in every variation of the path: whether the MC sleeps with him in the party, or afterwards, Gale will always wait for sharing a night with the MC before speaking the truth. It's hard to read this aspect since, he is a char who, apparently, needs a mind-connection with his partner for intimacy (see (12) and (13)); so this terrible strategy is like his way of trying to guarantee that the MC will not abandon him. I guess there is something along those line, specially if we keep in mind the book he explained: a book which is not only about the art of the body and the night and sex, but of other things such as conversation, exploration, and acceptance of oneself and the other. He is expecting with this night to reach the MC to a certain degree of intimacy in which, despite the raw truth, the acceptance will prevail. Remembering (16), he truly wants to sleep with the MC, baaaadly. And somehow everything feels like he wants to push things in a subtle way to a certain degree of commitment. Following the concept in (12), I think he has been alone for too long, and desperately needs someone in his lonesome nights and in helping him to deal with his burden. Finding someone who connected to him through the Weave (such a personal experience for him as it is) made him a bit desperate or eager. We know his emotion for the MC may have grown over those days since the connection with the Weave. In two occasions he or the MC can ask if both of them think about that moment. Gale says yes with such enthusiasm, that it may imply...that maybe, he has been thinking about that more times than he truly wants to tell the MC. The Weave moment had such a strong effect on Gale that, if the MC spent the night with another companion and rejects Gale’s proposition later, he will trail off a sentence that implies he was convinced that the MC and he were heading into something serious and deep.

Of course, once he sleeps with the MC, he confesses the truth right afterwards, accepting--without approval penalties--the harshest responses that the MC can give. He clearly knows that such manoeuvre was truly disloyal, especially contrasting it with all his speech of consent and rights to know about the true situation one is in. In the next morning, he acknowledges it was a rotten thing to do and apologies. But this shows that his principles can be bend and even be broken when it comes to emotions. I'm still a bit wary of his emotional stability, what can I say.

Mystra is more than an ex-lover for him, it’s magic. And Magic is everything for him, even more than life. I wonder if, given the opportunity, Mystra forgives him and asks him to return to her side, would he accept it without second thoughts leaving the romanced MC? It's true he also acknowledges that all that fascination he had with the goddess was a product of his youth; he knows he was a plaything in her hands. But I don't see he got over with it. He still idealises her, as such a good poet does. Idealisation, especially when a Goddess is involved, is a terrible thing to fight against for the next partner. No matter what speech of loyalties and consent he states during the whole game, the MC knows that magic and Mystra are Gale's Achilles’ heel, and factors in which they  can’t predict his behaviour.

We also know that, because his bomb-condition, he tries to take all the opportunities to enjoy the little things of life that make him human.

Gale is a straightforward and honest (mostly, let's say) char. But we can see that he prefers to be honest in most situations, except in his Achille’s heel. Even when he wanted to hide all the stuff about the bomb in his chest, he did it by explicitly warning us that he was hiding something he did not want to talk about. Which is an honest approach considering the hardcore burden he carries and the immediate rejection it can mean if the truth unfolds too quickly among strangers.

When it comes to concepts, Gale has the symbol of the storm attached to him. So far, we see he talks comparing things with storms or storm elements: his lack of knowledge to explain why they are not Mind Flayers yet: the silence before the storm; the fear that rushes into his body when the Weave orb asks him for magic to consume: the thunder of a storm reverberating in his soul, the day it will erupt: the lightning striking, the consumption of magic: water running through a sore throat, Life itself: a tempest. When he asked the player if they were a wizard, he explains that he needs an Arch wizard and compares them with a Tempest. If we see the main image of Baldur's gate 3, it's clear that his main element is electricity/storm... so... full witch-bolt-guy here.

[updated later] The Weave moment is important to romance Gale. Leaving the moment in ambiguity will give the MC another opportunity to make their intentions clear during the scene of the Loss. However, remaining vague will lock Gale into a friendship path. What happens during this scene may suggest that the ambiguity in the Weave was enough to keep Gale thinking about the romantic possibility, but he will not engage into it by his own, which confirms (15). Unless the opportunity presents itself clearly before him, he will not pursue the MC. Further details [here].

Last moment detail: Gale says “I cherish you” when he explains he will await death alone if the Netherese orb goes out of control. I was not sure if that meant something more or less than love or like (I can’t not overlook the subtle meaning of the words coming from Gale’s mouth, he is a poet and his word choices matter). Checking the dictionary I found that “cherish” (in a relationship) is defined as to hold or to treat as dear, to feel love for and to care for someone deeply and tenderly. This man went straight into a commitment relationship without thinking it twice, and without (I believe) the MC knowing it either xD. 

Let's see how these characteristics shift or develop deeper once the full game is out there. Now we have to wait a lot :(

To see videos where all this stuff is inferred or explicitly said, you can check [here]

More videos added later [here] and [here]

More content of bg3 in general [here]

[tronrpg]

what are Sirens?

what are Sirens? we just don't know.

but i'm getting ahead of myself.

To my knowledge, there has never been an officially-released Tron pen-and-paper RPG. There certainly would have been a market for it around the original film's release, had it done better at the box office. And assuredly there have been dozens of homebrew splats and rulesets shared between fans and friends over the years. The Fract, in an ideal world, would eventually be a complete RPG system, enough to fill up a corebook and run a game. But in thinking about worldbuilding, I've run into a storytelling problem that, if not unique to the world of Tron, is certainly still a sore-thumb kind of issue.

Tron--that is to say the OG 1982 Grid, the New Grid, and whatever metatextual setting that the Fract takes place in--is neither science fiction nor science fantasy. For those who aren't clear on the delineation between the two, the plainest I can describe it is to say that "Star Trek" is (generally) science fiction, and "Star Wars" is (generally) science fantasy. Science fiction is nominally supposed to adhere to scientific rules or at least bend them to a reasonable degree in order to tell a story. Science Fantasy bends and breaks those rules, sometimes with impunity, because space wizards waving laser swords around speaks for itself.

The setting of Tron, taking place as it does outside the Grid, is a simulacra of a modern-day "real world" as we know it, with science and computers behaving the way we know they normally do. Except for in the Grid itself. We have to assume that both the Old and New Grids were special in some way, or at the very least that Grid-like systems with sentient programs are few and far between; because computer systems and programs as we know them do not behave like they do on either Grid. If they did, why would Flynn have bothered to create a new one if there are Grids within every computer in the world?

And that's where the science fiction of Tron falls down. Stephen Lisberger and Bonnie MacBird were not computer experts, and they wrote the original screenplay during a time when computers were widely known but not widely understood, particularly by the common person. They can be forgiven for leaning hard on the fantasy and spirituality elements that make Tron a work of more consequence than oh, say, Computer Warriors. But by the time Legacy was released, the world was a very different place, and the ubiquity of computers and technology meant that the average person had a basic knowledge of how a computer works and what it can do; and the OG Grid does not fall into those parameters. So it's hard to say that Tron is strictly science fiction, where rules have meanings, or science fantasy where rules are up for grabs, because each of us carry around a real-world analogue to the Grid in our pockets all day and by now we are all pretty sure that Google Chrome does not, in a metaphorical or spiritual sense, fight for us.

(This, incidentally, is where I feel Legacy did the right thing by having Flynn starting from almost-scratch with the New Grid instead of attempting to apply real-world IT logic to the Grid like Tron 2.0. Divorcing the fiction from things like emails and spreadsheets allowed Legacy to retain some of the spirituality and potential of 1982; and inasmuch as Tron 2.0 is a great game that I intend to revisit soon, I find the "real computer" stuff to be kinda cringey.)

And here's where we come around to Sirens, finally. What the hell are they? Aside from being conventionally-attractive female-coded Programs in white vinyl outfits who appear to have largely representational or ritualistic roles in the New Grid, it's not entirely clear what they do or what separates them from a garden-variety Program. We see Gem and the three other Sirens in Legacy, there are a handful of Sirens in Uprising, including Lux, who appears to have been a...battle Siren? Maybe?

When it comes to putting together an RPG, you have to lean on rules. You have to nail things down and say, outside of GM fiat, a dice roll does that and a stat means this and an attack is performed thusly. So in thinking about squishing the world of Tron into an RPG format, which unlike most video games does not contain a single linear storyline; you have to think about making the world digestible and processable by squaring the edges and making definitions. You want the players and the GM to be able to exercise the vastness of their imaginations, but you want to set the parameters of the playing field, or else why have a themed RPG at all?

That's where I started thinking about how Tron's mish-mash of science fiction/fantasy elements make it a unique challenge to format as an RPG setting. Would it be better to emphasize the fantasy theming, or would players prefer a more grounded approach with real-world computer elements? Is it possible to have a balanced approach? How do you color in the missing information about how the Grid and Programs work, the stuff that the original works never really explained? Just what the HELL are Sirens anyway? Is there some sort of unspoken caste system in the Grid? Are there male-presenting Sirens? Can they suit up and play in the Games? Can they all do that synchronized-walking-backwards thing? Do Sirens just show up when Programs are about to compete at something? Why so much eyeshadow? Why does it rain in the Grid? Why did Flynn serve Sam and Quorra a roast suckling pig? Why does Clu 2.0 look more like Lord Farquahd than Jeff Bridges? WHAT HAPPENED TO RAM? IS HE PART OF THE JUNKY RECOGNIZER NOW OR DID HE TURN INTO THE BIT OR WHAT? KEVIN FLYNN, WHERE ARE YOU NOW?

...okay, got that out of my system, thanks for bearing with me. The point is that there are a lot of fill-in-the-blanks when it comes to worldbuilding lore in the Tron universe, and that may be by design. I love Star Wars, but the industry that has been built up over the last 40+ years to make sure every puppet, alien and CGI blob with a nanosecond of screen time has a full backstory and Wookieepedia entry, I find, largely detracts from the magic of the original movies. Not having everything explained adds to Tron's lasting allure. On the other hand, it makes a project like the Fract a product of guesswork and blue-skying.

So let's say I was creating a Tron RPG, like you do. And I wanted to make Sirens a playable class (which I intend to). Based on the information given to us by the canon, which isn't much; I'd say that Sirens are, first and foremost, specialists. They have specific skills that they hone and adhere to and do not deviate from to take on other roles, which makes them in-demand as bodyguards or enforcers but their specialization limits a players' build choices. They are also largely recognized in the Grid as having ritualistic or shamanistic public roles, perhaps representing the link between Programs and Users. (Maybe Dumont was a Siren 1.0. He could have had on a white vinyl singlet under that getup, who knows?) Maybe they're like priestesses or shrine maidens, maybe they take vows like nuns. This might make them like Monks in D&D.

You see how narrowing the possibilities of what Sirens are in order to fit them into an RPG character class box also reduces their potential in canon--but of course canon's not being contradicted here; this is a fan work and is not intended to overwrite the creative work of others. I just hope that if it ever gets completed, it plays enough like the work that inspired it, so that other fans can get the same rush of imagining what it's like to be on the Grid.

[magic-and-moonlit-wings]

Chapter 50: Insecurity Abounds

Becoming The Mask 

Why wasn't it working?!

Jim ducked the fire jets and somersaulted out of their path.

The Forge floor tilted, sending him sliding back to where he’d started from. He braced his feet against the pop-up turret that spewed fire and launched himself up to grab the next turret, the one that shot darts. He used the higher turret to swing himself back to level ground. Jim blocked the darts that followed him with his sword.

Gunmar’s Eye hadn’t had any noticeable effect on the Amulet yet.

Jim wove through and around the pendulum axes.

When he’d put the Heartstone chip in the Amulet, he’d been able to summon a knife in minutes.

He threw several knives at a target and used his sword to cut another in half.

Of course, he’d been actively hoping for a knife when he’d cleaved that stone, and he didn’t have any solid idea what this new one was supposed to do.

Jim made it to the Soothscryer and inserted his hand.

The Forge’s mechanisms shut down. The past Trollhunters did not draw him into the Void to advise him on how to find out the properties of a newly cleaved stone.

“Okay, let’s break down the possibilities,” Jim said out loud, in case the Ghost Council decided to chime in after all. He paced around the Soothscryer. “It’s supposed to help defeat Gunmar. It’s an eye, so … insight to his strategies? Can I spy on him through it somehow?”

Except, hadn’t Vendel said there was a stone for that already? A glimpse into your enemy’s mind …

Well, a backup would be helpful to have if it turned out they did the same thing.

“Or is it like those old superstitions where you can use a piece of somebody to harm them remotely?”

Some human cultures advised caution in disposing of one’s shed hair and nail clippings for that reason. Jim didn’t know if any other trolls had analogous beliefs, but since stone flesh was literally magical it did come up among Changelings sometimes.

“Or like magnets. Can he not touch me if I armour up with the Eye in the Amulet? Not like I can test that, or like it’ll be any use in letting me kill him.” And the Triumbric Stones were supposed to be key to defeating Gunmar, not having a stalemate with Gunmar.

“Or is the legend just inaccurate?”

Not the most appealing thought, but now that it had occurred to him it would be stressing Jim out. What if they put all that time and energy into tracking down and cleaving the Triumbric Stones and they didn’t even turn out to do anything?

“Any time you guys wanna weigh in on this,” he hinted at the previous Trollhunters.

Jim sat on the Forge floor, leaned back against the Soothscryer, and closed his eyes. The Soothscryer dropped into the floor, sending Jim sprawling back with a yelp.

“… Very funny.”

“Jim?” AAARRRGGHH entered the Forge. His steps were slow at first, and then Jim heard him hurrying across the bridge. “Jim okay?”

“Yeah, just, aggravated.” He knocked on his breastplate beside the Amulet. “Stricklander got Gunmar’s Eye for me, and Vendel taught me how to cleave it, but I – I can’t figure out what it does. I thought it would – would make me stronger, or tougher, or give me a new weapon, but – nothing! I’ve been training for hours and, and I haven’t been able to do anything I couldn’t before, and apparently the Ghost Council wants me to figure this out on my own, so they’re no help.”

“AAARRRGGHH help,” said the bigger troll decisively. He picked up the human-shaped Changeling and plopped him on his shoulders. “Jim tired. Sore. Anger-vated. Hard to think. Need rest.”

And he started carrying Jim out of the Forge.

“… Where are we going?”

“Library. Quiet there.”

AAARRRGGHH was tall, and his fur was thick. Jim was mostly hidden by it. He wasn’t sure anyone noticed him as AAARRRGGHH walked through Trollmarket.

Why was AAARRRGGHH carrying him? Jim had been sure AAARRRGGHH no longer trusted him that much, but here he was, giving Jim easy access to his scruff, his neck, all the vulnerable spots on his back …

Inside the library, AAARRRGGHH did not shrug Jim off. He simply settled into his usual corner – a space relatively clear of shelves, so AAARRRGGHH wouldn’t block access to anything important if he dozed off – and opened one of the larger, less delicate books to where it was bookmarked.

“Rest,” he said. “Talk when ready.”

It was always sort of comical to see AAARRRGGHH reading. Even the tallest and widest volumes, books that the humans had to leave on tables and turn pages of both-handed, looked small in his hands.

Jim climbed further up AAARRRGGHH’s back to read over his shoulder. AAARRRGGHH noticed, and repositioned the book so they could both see it better.

It was one that Blinky had written. Possibly one he’d written for AAARRRGGHH, considering the dimensions. It was about Blinky’s observations of human culture. The current chapter was about different gardens Blinky had seen around human homes, identifying some plants that were beneficial or harmful to trolls, and speculating on the purpose of the others.

They read in silence for a while.

“It’s just,” said Jim, when they reached the end of the chapter, “I can’t afford to mess this up.”

AAARRRGGHH moved the flattened strip of braided leather to its new place and closed the book.

“I can’t take Gunmar in a straight fight, which leaves assassination. So if there’s a specific weapon I need to kill him for real, and nothing else is gonna work, then I have to know how to use it. And I have to get it right the first time, because I probably won’t get a second shot.”

And because, if Jim failed and Gunmar realized a Changeling was behind the assassination attempt, then all the other Changelings still trapped in the Darklands were as good as dead.

“And … and if I can’t unlock the first Triumbric Stone, what does that say about my chances with the other two? And what if I messed up cleaving the Eye, so now I can’t unlock that stone, and Gunmar’s gonna live forever and it’s my fault?”

“He won’t,” said AAARRRGGHH. “Wizards live long, age slow, but can die.”

“… I don’t suppose you know any weaknesses of his?”

“Hm … Not good at trusting, so won’t have guards to sleep.”

“Huh. You know, I honestly never realized he slept? Like, logically he has to, but I’d never thought about it. I’ve only ever seen him on his throne or leading hunting parties. If the stones really do give me a new weapon, that would probably be my best shot at him.” Jim sighed and sagged. “If.”

“Maybe stones only work with all three,” AAARRRGGHH suggested.

“That could be it. I hope so.” Jim drummed his fingers against the Amulet. “I’m going to take the Eye out and train some more without it. Just in case it’s messing with my head. Would you hold onto it for me?”

“I help.” AAARRRGGHH shrugged. Jim nearly fell off his shoulder. “But Eye very small. Might leave with Blinky instead.”

“Where is Blinky, anyway?”

“Doing errands,” said AAARRRGGHH in trollish. “Haggling takes time.”

+=+

Tobias Domzalski, ‘Toby’, age 16, sophomore student at Arcadia Oaks Public High School. Orphaned age two, raised by paternal grandmother Nancy.

Closest friend, boy from across the street, Jim Lake; no close friends besides that, though occasional mentions of friendly acquaintanceship with classmate Eli Pepperjack.

Fond of geology, video games, stage magic. Natural predisposition to showmanship.

Family history of clinical depression. Personal history of emotional eating, being mocked by peers for braces and weight. Probable fear of rejection/abandonment.

Next appointment rescheduled to earlier date for unclarified reasons, severe enough for guardian to call in at 5:30 in the morning but not severe enough for guardian to feel immediate emergency response was needed.

“Good afternoon, Toby. Come on in.”

“Hi, Doctor A.”

He wandered over to the window first. There was a tree between the building and the parking lot. She wasn’t sure which, if either, he looked at.  He sat in the squashy armchair.

Dr Tiffany Archenn had three chairs in her office besides her desk chair, with various degrees of softness. There was a well-stuffed armchair that the sitter noticeably sank into, a stiffer but still upholstered one, and a sturdy wooden armchair that patients with joint problems invariably chose because it was the easiest to get up from.

“Anything in particular you’d like to start with today?” she asked, in her cultivated gentle tone.

“Well, I’ve made some new friends.” He smiled, showing a glint of metal. “Some girls from school decided to start hanging out with me and Jimbo. One of them, Claire, had a crush on him at first, but they kept having lunch with us after he turned her down. They’re a lot of fun.”

Tiffany nodded. After centuries of practice, writing notes was like knitting for her; she no longer needed to look at what she was doing, though sometimes she did anyway if a patient was bothered by prolonged eye contact.

“What sorts of things have you been doing together?”

“Well, lunch, like I said, and Darci and I have been playing Mobile Go-Go Sushi. Sometimes we all go out and explore – uh, the trails around town, or the museum, or, like, little stores we’ve never been in before. And we’ve been … LARPing. That’s ‘live-action role play’.”

She knew that already, but she just nodded.

“It’s a fantasy game. Jim’s the most into it. He was actually doing it solo for a while before we found out, but now we’re all involved.”

‘Before we found out’. Not ‘before he told us’ or ‘invited us’. Now that was interesting.

How was Toby handling his closest friend having done something alone instead of sharing it with him, until Toby and the new additions to their social circle became involved all at once? How was he handling suddenly having to share his friend?

“Are you enjoying this game?” she asked leadingly.

“… Mostly. It can get pretty intense sometimes.”

“How do you mean?”

Toby twisted his hands in his lap. There were some fidgets on the windowsill and the side of the desk her patients sat on, but he didn’t use them often anymore.

“A couple weeks ago, we had a school play,” he said. “Claire and Mary were in it. Claire’s character died. Seeing that was like – like the stakes of, of the game, just got real. I had a nightmare that she died for real. It shook me up a lot. That’s when Nana called you.”

“I can see why that would be distressing.”

Emotional conflation was different from delusion, so this was probably not a sign that Toby was beginning to struggle with telling fiction from reality. Fearing for a friend’s wellbeing in a play or game and having that spill over into genuine concern for that friend’s safety was more likely related to Toby’s fear of abandonment.

She was surprised the fear was centred around one of the new friends rather than around his friend of longest standing, but it sounded like the death scene in the play had been the tipping point.

“Has this changed how you’ve been acting in your game?” Dr Archenn asked. “Or how you’ve interacted with your friends in general?”

“I’ve been more careful. Taken my training more seriously. I switched weapons – picked one I could actually use now instead of just the one I thought was coolest.”

“Has that helped?”

“A little.”

“Would you prefer a different game?”

“I couldn’t!” He shook his head. “Jimbo’s gonna do this with or without us – I can’t just leave him.”

Okay, now Tiffany was wondering if ‘LARPing’ was really a cover for some illegal activity these kids had stumbled into. Stupid Walter, leaving town right before she needed intel on some of his students.

“You don’t feel able to change overall aspects of this … game, only how you play?”

“… Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.”

“And you’re confident that your friends wouldn’t” – or can’t – “drop it to play something else?”

“Jim’s committed.” Tobias’ eyes widened at his own words. “I mean, he’s like, really emotionally invested in this fantasy world, you know? He’d feel really bad about giving it up. I can’t ask him to do that.”

Okay, so clearly Tobias’ friend Jim was the key to all of this. Considering the boys had been each other’s only friend for ten years, it was unlikely Tobias would be easily convinced to let go to save himself. He’d said twice in five minutes that he could not abandon Jim to whatever they were really doing, nor extract Jim from it.

She might be reading too much into this, Tiffany reminded herself. Toby might be being entirely literal, especially since he’d already volunteered so much information with so little prompting.

“Tell me some more about this game you’ve been playing.”

“Uh … well … it kind of started as Jim trying to write a fantasy novel, I think. He’s, like, this destined hero, a magical knight chosen to defeat an evil troll king. The rest of us are, um, fellow questers who’ve joined up with him. He wants to protect us by fighting alone, but …” he trailed off.

But you don’t want to be left behind by being cut out of something your friend is investing time in? Tiffany did not suggest. It would distort the accuracy of her analysis if she put words in her patient’s mouth.

“But none of us want to give it up,” Toby settled on.

He didn’t say more. Maybe the tension between Jim and Toby was because Jim had wanted to write this story alone and resented his friends inserting themselves into the narrative? Tiffany set out another prompt.

“You mentioned you chose a new weapon recently. Do you all have weapons?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a warhammer. I had one to start with, I just, switched to a lighter one. Because, um, my character stats meant I couldn’t lift the first one yet. Jim and Mary both have swords, Claire’s got a spear, Darci has a crossbow.”

“No spellcasters in your party?”

Toby laughed nervously. “Sometimes there’s magic artifacts, but, no, no spellcasters.”

+=+

Claire got her bleach and developer out of the cupboard, adding them to the rest of her materials.

“Whatcha doin’?” Not Enrique asked her.

“Seriously? Do you have no concept of privacy? I’m in the bathroom right now!”

“You didn’t shut the door.” He tapped the join between the hardwood floor he was standing on and the bathroom tiles.

Okay, fair point, not that she’d being saying so to him.

“I’m touching up my roots.”

“I got no idea what that means.” He stood up on his back legs (or just ‘legs’? He went on all fours most of the time, like AAARRRGGHH, but most trolls Claire had seen were bipeds) and squinted past her. “You got a plant in there?”

“No, I mean my hair.” She crouched on the floor and tugged her blue streak. “It’s growing out, so I have to dye the parts that don’t have colour yet.”

Not Enrique just blinked at her. “You … kill your hair to change its colour? But, Ma and Pa take me with ’em to the hairdressers sometimes, and none of the stuff on the floor turns different colours.”

Claire grit her teeth at hearing him refer to her and Enrique’s parents like they were his too.

“It’s not that kind of dye. Dee-why-ee, not dee-eye-ee. It’s like a paint.” She sighed. “Look, I’ll show you.”

She pulled on her rubber gloves and separated her dyed streak from the rest of her hair with foil.

“I’m just bleaching it today. I have to do that a couple of days in a row, because it takes a while to get it light enough for the colour to show up.”

She mixed the bleach with the developer, which helped bleach to penetrate hair, and some red-gold corrector, which made it more effective on dark hair. Claire carefully painted the goop into her hair.

“In about half an hour, I’ll wash this off, and the hair it was in will be lighter brown instead of black.”

“Wild.”

“So, what, did you think some of my hair was just naturally blue?”

“Yeah? I’ve seen lots of humans around with more than one hair colour.”

“… Fair point,” she admitted. Between the people with hair streaks like her, and anyone starting to go grey, and people with fully-dyed hair whose roots were showing, not to mention how technicolour troll hair could be, he’d have no reason to suspect some human hair colours or patterns were unnatural.

Claire folded the foil around her hair and carefully clipped it so it wouldn’t slip off. She wiped out the bowl she’d mixed the bleach in using paper towels and wrapped them in a bag to throw in the trash, rather than dumping bleach down the drain. It wasn’t good for the local water table. Claire took off her gloves and tidied everything else away. She set her phone timer so she wouldn’t damage her hair by leaving the bleach in for too long.

“What was that you were saying earlier?” asked Not Enrique. “Bout the different kinds of die. Dee-why-dee-eye?”

“They’re spelled differently,” said Claire. “So if you see it written down, you can tell which kind somebody means. It’s called a homophone when a word’s like that,” she remembered from an elementary school grammar class on the different kinds of words.

Claire left the bathroom. “Come on.” She went to their – her – mother’s home office, and took a sheet of paper and a pen. She wrote ‘die’ and ‘dye’ on the paper and handed it to Not Enrique, who held the page upside down. “Other way up. See the difference?”

He flipped the page. “Which one’s for hair and which is for killing?”

“D-Y-E is for recolouring stuff. It’s not just hair, you can do with cloth too.”

He pointed at the correct word. “That one’s the Y? Like in the alphabet videos.”

“Yeah. You know what?” Claire decided. “I’m gonna teach you to read. I know, I know, you’re picking it up,” seeing his insulted look, “but you’ll learn faster with a teacher.”

“You just wanna use me to spell-check the trollish homework Blinkous gives you.”

“Like you’d be useful for that when I’m the one teaching you.”

+=+

Previous Chapter (Jim gets and cleaves the Eye of Gunmar)

Table of Contents

Next Chapter (Visiting the Quagawumps to ask for the Killstone)

I learned how to dye hair streaks for this chapter! I’ve been thinking about doing them in my hair for a long time but never bothered because my hair’s really dark brown and all the bleaching sounded like a nuisance. Now that I’ve looked into how it’s done, it still sounds like a nuisance, but I might try it.

Dr Archenn does not suspect Toby knows about real trolls yet, because ‘fighting an evil troll’ is pretty standard fantasy fodder. Even if he’d mentioned Jim being ‘the Trollhunter’, that sounds like a generic term, so she wouldn’t get truly suspicious without further evidence. If he’d mentioned Gunmar by name, on the other hand, that would have been enough for her to call in some favours and put this kid under surveillance.

So, how about Wizards, huh? Deya’s portrayal gave me a bunch of ideas for her portrayal in this fic! Since I am not going with the idea of her being the first Trollhunter, I’ve also developed a whole bunch of backstory that will be revealed later about the Trollhunter job’s origins in this timeline. I’ll be sticking with some plans I already had as to the timing and motives of Morgana inventing Changelings.

[hello-im-not-a-possum]

You caught my attension with the "Bad end Wizard Wally" Au, what else goes down in there?

A lot of things anon, a lot of things:

-Instead of even so much as humoring the thought of telling Conner, Wally straight up quits and gets a job elsewhere.

-A few years later both Wally and Henry get letters asking them to come to the old studio; one from Joey asking Henry to ‘come visit the old workshop’, the other from Thomas begging Wally to destroy the machine because he can’t do it himself.

-Henry and Wally show up to the inked studio.

-Curiosity leads the pair to activate the ink machine. (Wally thought that Thomas was referring to the other ink machine, not the one suspended by chains.)

-The Ink Demon breaks down the boards and chases them through the studio before the floor breaks beneath them.

-Post-machine activation: the studio fucks with Wally’s magical powers, often having spells backfire on himself. (i.e. if he tries to make something levitate, it automatically flings itself into his face.)

-Due to the fact that Joey found out how to successfully make living cartoons out of people early on, there are no searchers in the studio.

-The Lost ones are still here but they’re much rarer, they flee from sight whenever you see them, and they aren’t made by the machine like canon implied, instead they’re human beings who drank the ink.  

-The two unwilling heroes try to escape via the music department’s flooded stairwell, but they get stopped by Sammy and dragged deeper into ink hell.

-Sammy doesn’t worship the Ink Demon in this AU. In fact, his mind and body are not affected by the ink at all.

-Instead, his mental decline is brought on by his own psychic abilities which he became aware of due to Joey’s meddling. He can’t even think about the past and present anymore, only the future.

-Thus, the man’s new role is not of a desperate madman clinging onto a false savior, but instead a cold and calculating wildcard of an oracle who constantly stalks the two heroes from the shadows and throws wrenches in their escape plans, but also keeps them safe from the wrath of the ink demon whenever he can.

-Boris is still a friend, but he’s a little less chipper and much more on edge than canon.

-Either Wally or Henry can find a tape recorder buried in Boris’s stuff that was made by a gofer who’s talking about the fact that while the living cartoons came out of the machine looking exactly like their animated counterparts, they often try to change how they look, behave coldly and are hostile towards everybody, and are especially hostile towards Joey Drew.

-“The Cameraman is probably the worst out of all of them, it’s almost like he’s trying to make everybody quit their jobs!”

-You know how dogs sigh like they had the roughest time in the world? The only noise Boris makes is that sigh and he only makes it when that tape recording is played.

-Who attacks our heroes if searchers aren’t in the enemy roster? Simple: a hoard of deformed toons.

-We’ve got our classic Butchered gang members, Sliced-Split-n-Stitched Back up SSSB members, and Woolly troubled trios.

-But these appear in the music dep, Bendyland, the village, and the administration offices. Instead of being regular deformed, the enemies in the Heavenly toys department have seemingly been forcefully fused together.

-This makes them slower and weaker, but they also have three times as much health now.

-Susie is referred to as “Twisted Alice” in the studio. This is because she doesn’t look like a more human-proportioned Alice Angel with a deformed face, but instead a mashup of Alice Angel and Miss Twisted.

-Looks like misery loves company.

-Instead of seeking ‘perfection’ Twisted Alice sends Wally and Henry to do tasks for her because she’s trying to make herself be one or the other, she doesn’t care which one she’ll end up as anymore but trying to be two (technically three) different people at once is really messing with her.

-The tasks she gives are still the same, instead of the swollen searcher task, that’s instead replaced with “Gather thick ink from the flooded level”.

-You know how the Projectionist is already scary?

-Imagine him with the ability to raise the dead.

-Like, Henry and Wally are in level 14 gathering severed hearts...

-And then an ear-splitting scream echoes through the area.

-And.

-Then.

-The.

-Fucking.

-Corpses.

-Of.

-The.

-Dead.

-Toons.

-Start.

-Rising.

-And.

-Attacking.

-Norman’s ‘I sees everythang’ tape is slightly altered to include more corpse puns.

-When all the chores are done, Twisted Alice does keep her word and lets Henry and Wally up.

-When they’re *this* close to seeing daylight again, *BAM!*

-The Elevator drops like a hot coal.

-Was it sabotaged? Was it just old and dangerous? Was this just bad luck? That’s up for interpretation depending on who you believe first.

-Boris is kidnapped by a much more Miss Twisted-looking Twisted Alice while the old men are out.

-Intentional murder to commit dog theft, or Miss Twisted being opportunistic?

-Giant cavern? Lame carnival minigames? Air vent maze? Nah, screw that, instead Bendyland gets some more rides.

-Fight off foes in the ferris wheel!

-Avoid killer bumper cars with running chainsaws attached to them while trying to get the haunted house’s power back on!

-Can’t forget Bertrum! In the fight, if he puts down all four of his arms and pushes down hard enough, he can actually walk around the room.

-Kinda like a giant mechanical spider with only four legs.

-This makes it harder to hit his weak points and makes it easy for him to fucking stampede over “Joey”, which is why he does it. But it takes a lot out of him, so he can’t do it for very long.

-And he can’t do it anymore if two or more of his arms are ripped off.

-The Projectionist’s section is the same but with more toon corpses around.

-And if you didn’t get caught in his light or touch the hearts, when Wally and Henry pile into the miracle station and The Projectionist is *just* about to open the door until getting interrupted, instead of screaming at the ink demon and getting into a fight, the Projectionist opens the door and fucking squeezes himself in there.

-Not very comfortable, but better than the alternative.

-Congrats to Henry and Wally, who graduated from ‘trespassing thieves’ to ‘weird but sorta okay flesh things who didn’t take my hearts again and let me in their safe territory in spite of me trying to kill them’.

-Boris actually can be saved.

-Did you give the dog a bone back at the safe house?

-Good, now give him three more.

-The Janitor and the Animator have no fucking clue why throwing bones at this deformed, beefed-up version of Boris managed to melt off the excess ink and junk, or why he can speak now, but they’re not going to look a gift wolf in the mouth.

-Did somebody say back-to-back boss battle?

-I did!

-Sadly, it’s kind of a short fight as it can range from ‘three on one and one of them is a fucking wizard (just because recoil is hell doesn’t mean it’ll stop Wally in dire situations)’ to ‘four on one and one of those four can bring back the dead by screaming’.

-Allison and Tom wrangle the team up and stick ‘em in the “guest room”.

-Tom chews Wally out for re-activating the ink machine, Wally can’t take him seriously when he’s that fucking small and sounds like a mechanical snob.

-It’s even funnier when the Projectionist has been befriended.

-Let him have his tiny camera-headed son back, Allison.

-The river boat chase is longer and there seems to be more than just one hand coming out of the ink.

-Wally swears he sees a bunch of teeth in the river while the hands are down.

-In the village, the group are immediately attacked by a swarm of deformed toons when they approach the boarded up hovel.

-They shout things like “STAY AWAY FROM THE PROPHET!” and stuff like that in their garbled voices.

-When all of them are gone, peering through the boards in the hovel the team approached in the first place reveals that Sammy is indeed in there, just staring off into space and muttering about something the team can’t quite make out.

-Breaking down the said boards might seem logical, but it triggers a brutal boss fight against him. That musical bastard is fast and hits like a freight train. Also psychic powers, you have to be the luckiest person in the world to win a fight against a man who sees your every move before you can even think of it.

-Just... leave him be... and focus on getting outta here.

-The administration maze is as annoying as ever thanks to not having any weapons and the maze itself being magically disabling.

-Beast Bendy gets some bigger legs to go with his giant torso and head.

-Now he’s even faster and more annoying!

-but can’t do shit against the team.

-Good Ending: getting the biggest team you can in game, breaking the machine and punching Joey in the face for doing ...that. It sucks that everything got this bad but at least you helped the others make it outta there.

-Neutral ending: “Come by the old workshop, there’s something I need to show you”

-Bad Ending of the ‘Bad end Wizard Wally Au’  (Worst possible ending): Henry and Wally have fully succumbed to the ink through a path of violence, evading death by the toons, and have fully lost themselves, they do not remember their lives and families before the ink anymore. And Joey couldn’t be more tickled pink! It’s a shame that making perfect demon toons is such a complicated process compared to making an object-headed toon, a ‘human’ toon, or an animalistic toon, but all the trouble was worth it as a trip through the machine later, Joey finally has the last two he needs: A Perfect Papa Pluto and a Perfect Bendy.

[save-the-spiral]

Wiztober Day Eleven: Darkness

Welcome to day eleven of Wiztober! One character is pointedly not named. I don’t like writing down or coming up with deadnames for trans characters, it makes me extremely uncomfortable (though they are misgendered, it’s from the perspective of people who don’t know they’re trans, or the character themself doesn’t know they’re trans). My first time writing more about actual cultures, and also a trans femme character more in depth. Feel free to send an ask and correct me if need be. (ALSO. I can explain the names in another post. the intersection of culture and gender comes into play). My content warning are specific but! they need to be. Sorry if it’s awkward! some things would be specifically upsetting to me if faced with them out of the blue, and I’d like to note them.

Content warnings for perfectionism forced upon children from their parents, physical and verbal bullying, ableism (towards a ‘weird’, not openly autistic person), chronic pain mention (endometriosis), attempted murder, injury mention, and like, two lines of implied racism, though it could be interpreted otherwise.

(link to prompt list)

Quyen and Phuong Jade were close siblings. Born only a year apart, Quyen was a good older brother, going out of his way to protect his two younger siblings, but with a soft spot for his sister Phuong. In the beginning they were three sons from a good, ‘normal’, Vietnamese family, even with an adopted youngest child. Now Quyen, Phuong, and their younger brother were wizards, and not all of them were sons, and they had left their home on Earth behind years ago. They had all left their names as well.

Quyen chose Celyn, and Phuong went by Morelle, and they chose the last name Jade together. Quyen was thirteen, Phuong twelve, and their younger brother ten. This youngest brother didn’t get input as to their new last name, and his first name was already western, given by parents he never knew. He saw himself as an afterthought most of the times, the adopted baby to be taken care of as Quyen and Phuong acted like twins, mischievous yet hard working together.

Celyn was eighteen, now. He never faltered when responding to his western, fake name. He was a year ahead of Morelle, and yet she spent more time helping him with his homework in their study sessions than the other way around. Morelle was also taller than him now, a consistent point of good-natured ribbing.

He was still supportive and protective, though his brother had insisted on being given space in his moodier teenage years, now fifteen with a steady girlfriend and a need to prove himself. So Celyn gave him distance, checking in sometimes but always being pushed further away. Morelle insisted that their brother needed to find his own friends, find himself, because although he seemed ungrateful, he still loved his siblings. They had to. They would always be family.

Morelle was seventeen, and even more outspoken and strong than before. She still had dragged Celyn with her to (almost) every doctor’s appointment as she transitioned, genuine when she looked him in the eye and said she needed someone to know, and care. Celyn already cared, and he found rare books on the magic used to help in her transition, and left them in her dorm.

Celyn always loved rare books, and had a skill for finding them.

That, one could suppose, is as good a start as any, though it goes back two years ago.

Celyn had been given a tip by a grateful acquaintance about where he could find rare, even forbidden, books in Wizard City. Just had to have the right key, and go behind the right waterfall, and be prepared to pay the price if caught.

Since he was sixteen Celyn had been sneaking into Nightside, slipping between abandoned streets and alleyways in the dead of night, wearing a dark cloak, carrying a dagger, maybe being a bit too dramatic. He had found some of his best finds in empty houses and bookstores, and even once grabbed a tome from the library, though that felt too actually criminal for him to attempt again.

At first it was just extra reading material, he and his siblings were all great life wizards, but they could always be greater. They strove for perfection as children back on Earth, and even now without parents to scold them, they still felt a frantic need to be the best, the kind that left them pulling all-nighters and waking up in a panic over tests already taken..

Morelle was fifteen when she started tutoring a pretty girl in life magic. The girl was known around school as quiet to the point of unnerving, never getting social interactions right, so the myth wizard had been labeled as ‘weird’ by the majority of people and written off as smart but too freaky to befriend. Morelle, who looked at this girl and couldn’t help but blush, who found her intriguing now that she noticed her, was thankful she had been assigned to tutor her.

Morelle and Morae became quiet study partners after that. Morelle came to Celyn for help with her rapidly growing need to get to know the girl, to speak to her and find a way to connect where no one else had tried before.

Celyn decided to find some esoteric myth tomes for Morelle to give to her new friend. That was when he found a book on Shadowmancy.

He kept the strange, unique book, shoving it under his homework an interest to pursuit later. He passed on the myth spell books and Morelle came back later, gushing about how Morae was from Earth like them, though on the opposite side of the globe, and then she said more and more until Celyn realized it indeed was a crush.

Celyn met Morae. She was as quiet as rumors said, though there was a logic to it, and Celyn respected that. They both relished in a silent, calm environment, and both enjoyed having someone outgoing and wild like Morelle to pull them out from time to time. They rarely spoke, aside from Celyn giving Morae advice about wooing his sister, and Morae asking clarifying questions about Morelle and how to interact with others without coming off as always aloof, when in reality she was actually rather excited or happy.

Something Morae was startlingly quick to divulge was that she was in nearly constant pain, and kept a blank face as a habit so she wouldn’t scowl at everyone. Then, she would forget to smile. When asked further, she just shifted, pressing a hand to her lower back, and muttered that it was chronic, and even magic didn’t have a cure, so she took standard medication imported from Earth.

Celyn wasn’t one to adopt others as friends quickly. That was Morelle’s forte. But something about Morae opened up his heart, and while his brother pushed him away, he felt like he was gaining a second sister rather quickly. He answered Morae’s questions, he kept and eye out for interesting books Morae would like. He even picked up food for her to try, although she was quick to dismiss things with unpleasant textures, it was something he did to add variety to her life, as she admitted living by routine was soothing, but sometimes monotonous.

It was a month or so later that Celyn actually delved into the book that had gotten lost in his shuffle of books and homework. Shadowmancy was interesting. It spoke of other schools of magic Celyn had never heard of before, ones concerning the Moon, the Sun, and the stars. Some part of him burned with a cold resentment that such lost knowledge was buried in abandoned shops and homes, that it could have been lost to time, even though students would always be eager to discover and learn a new school. He had to know more.

As Morelle grew closer to Morae, Celyn fell into isolation, only studying for school, and for this new magic he had found. Months passed, and the only times he left his dorm were for class or seeking out more books in Nightside’s forgotten corners, then dropping off books for Morae and Morelle during group study nights.

Things progressed. Now, Celyn is eighteen. Morelle and Morae are seventeen.

Celyn would graduate in a few weeks’ time. Morelle and Morae had been dating for half a year, still tentative, barely doing more than some adventurous hand holding in public.

The world shifted when Morae showed up to one of Celyn, Morelle, and Morae’s group study sessions with a bruised face, and couldn’t speak. Morelle instantly went to her girlfriend’s side, emotional but trying her hardest to not raise her voice or cry herself.

Celyn sat there, watching it happen, and felt like he was grinding his teeth into dust. Anger surged, as if someone flipped a switch inside him, and his usual pleasant and sometimes coy demeanor became nothing. His face was devoid of emotion, his green eyes, something so different from his siblings’ plain brown, were dull.

He saw nothing but the shadows, and the shadows saw him. Life magic had no solution for this aside from soft words and healing spells. Shadow knew how to twist circumstances in one’s favor, how to change the game and make others regret.

Morelle told him the next day before a shared lecture. Morae had allowed her to confide in him, and so his sister told him that there were some very persistent bullies seeking a response from Morae. That they had been doing this for years, and were just now escalating to physical actions. After that day, he spent more time with Morelle and Morae, supporting them. She would show up to their usual meeting spots with a random bruise or two, insisting it was nothing. He was trying his best to remain calm and not lash out at the entire world for allowing harm to come to Morae.

Instead he watched, waiting, but still he felt tense. A bow string pulled past its limits, cold with righteous fury that must be sated eventually. He became less orderly, forgetting some of the last assignments in his school career, dressing in ink stained theurgist robes, no longer tying his hair back.

Morelle joked that they looked like twins more than ever, and Celyn grinned at that. Their sharp smiles were identical, and Celyn knew he could bring Morelle in on the only secret he had ever kept from her, if only from omission.

So on a night where Morae wanted to study on her own for myth school exams, Celyn invited his sister over. He showed her the books he had accumulated, hidden behind his driest, most boring textbooks. She was interested, downright fascinated, but only drawn to what Shadowmancy could do to make her a better healer and protector.

Celyn had been drawn the violence. He was always of the opinion that the best defense was a swift and ruthless offense. Morelle had a better sense of when to play fair, where he was more ruled by anger. He probably should have guessed what facets of this school she would find entrancing.

She knew this about him too, and vocalized it when she noticed how much fewer his books on healing and protecting were. Morelle simply teased him, smiling as if it was something as commonplace as her razzing on Celyn over his height. Celyn smiled back, and knew Morelle was better at predicting him than he was at reading her intentions.

Celyn even brought her along on a visit to Nightside, where she could scope out and pick books of her own, and they didn’t sleep that night. It was amazing, the adrenaline of a heist combining with the giddiness of their old mischief making them carry twin smiles.

They were not careful. They were seen.

Those who saw them knew who they were. Who their few other connections were. A distanced, adopted brother who was busy being dragged around by an overbearing girlfriend anyway, and wasn’t consequential. And then Morae, the same girl they had been harassing, that they were so keen on finally getting a reaction out of.

So that was how things came to a head. Threats were made to Morae about getting the only people who cared about her kicked out of Ravenwood. Morae was angry, very angry.

All her life, Morae had been passive. She was quiet, sensitive. A good girl back at home on Earth, who kept quiet and did everything asked of her, even when that meant failing school to take care of siblings, even when that meant smiling and pretending she didn’t understand the insults, even if she was fluent in English as well as her native Spanish. She was different no matter how silent she was, her large afro of hair and Vitiligo always easy to point out.

Then Morae was told she had to potential to be a wizard, to go learn fantastical things. She took the chance, because when she asked her parents, they said they didn’t care either way, and tried to guilt her, but she didn’t get that they were trying to guilt her, and so she just left. She cut her hair close to her skull, the texture finally no longer a constant pain just under her skin, and became a myth wizard.

And for years, she still acted the same. Quiet, passive. A good girl. Until she reached out and asked to be tutored in life magic. And she found someone worth being herself for. 

Almost two years of being friends, almost six months of being girlfriends, and Morae had found her spine, confidence wrapping around her like a heavy, anchoring blanket. When threatened, anger rose up for the first time since she was very young. Anger made her fists clench around the strap of her school bag. It made her look up from her shoes. It made her pay attention and want to defend what was hers.

So Morae looked the bullies in the eye, standing at her full height of six feet, and scoffed. The eye contact was uncomfortable, but it was worth it for the bullies’ discomfort, as they noticed just how tall she was, how severe her face could look, even in the dappled sunlight outside the myth school. She told them she didn’t care, that they could bring it because nothing had worked yet, and she was getting bored.

Then she left, and within a minute she had interlocked her fingers with Morelle’s, and she kissed the girl on the cheek, spontaneous enough to leave them both giggling.

Morae told Morelle and Celyn about her confrontation that night when they were supposed to be studying, her eyes bright as she rambled on, open and honest and excited about this new development, as if it were idle yet juicy gossip, and not a serious threat.

Morelle knew Celyn was angrier than ever, though it was because he was scared, and he knew if they got caught it would be his fault. Morelle knew what kind of person Celyn was, and that her brother would take the punishment for the both of them if he could figure out how. And she wouldn’t let that happen, not when they could control the situation. In the past few weeks her studies in shadow magic pushed her towards thinking like this, and she found it very beneficial.

So Morelle, that night, told Morae about the school of shadow magic. Morae, who had already gone to the limits of her magical prowess mastering life magic alongside her first school of myth, was interested, but unable to learn it anyway aside from maybe a spell or two. Celyn, understanding what Morelle was going towards, helped her plan out what they were to do next.

What neither of them considered was that plans always fall apart the moment one comes in contact with the enemy.

And so this was where they were.

A day before graduation, and Celyn’s dorm was being searched after he was accused of attacking some students who may or may not have a reputation for bullying. He did attack the students, but it still felt unfair. Of course they found the shadowmancy books too, because Celyn didn’t exactly think things would get this far, and in his defense, he was eighteen, and thought a few stuffy textbooks would be a good cover for contraband. He was expelled, and then exiled, quickly and quietly. He was leaving through the Spiral Door before anyone knew what had taken place that morning.

Morae was missing. Morelle was frantic and looking for her, a lime green aura of powerful life magic fluttering around her, lighting up all the dark spots as she scoured everywhere one would expect Morae to be.

Someone, like a god damned serial killer, had slid a note halfway under Morae’s door sometime after Morae had searched her girlfriend’s dorm that morning.

It had just a location, and Morelle was on a warpath. If those who caused this, whoever Celyn had missed in his little vengeance mission, were still there, they would regret it.

Luckily for those people, they weren’t there. Morae was.

She had been thrown from the edge of Ravenwood, down into Nightside.

It was a gorey scene. If Morelle hadn’t been medically trained, she likely would have been unresponsive when faced with something so awful. She did all she could with her life magic, straightening broken limbs and bandaging open wounds, staring helplessly at obvious internal wounds. She even managed to conjure a stretcher, the fabric and wood a deep green, her magic too emotional to bother with proper colors as it glowed and levitated, illuminating Morae’s injuries in a sickly color.

Morelle ran as quickly as she dared, the stretcher following her, Morae’s breaths wheezing and shallow, filling the small cave entrance behind the waterfall when Morelle stopped for breath, in her mind trying to construct any plan.

There was no plan for this.

So Morelle walked out of the fine mist of water from the waterfall, using her magic to shield Morae’s body as the stretcher floated through. The busy students preparing for the graduation ceremony tomorrow stopped and stared from their places scattered about the Commons. Once shock turned to alarm, people began yelling and crowding around, more and more coming as they heard the others, and Morelle only got as far as the courtyard right before the tunnel to Ravenwood when she snapped.

Instead of lime green life magic, Morelle’s magic darkened. It became a forest green, still surrounding and shielding Morae, what little healing magic she had left being slowly fed into her body, trying not to overload her.

But around Morelle herself that forest green darkened further. She shouted for people to back off and clear the way, but still the crowd shifted, fellow theurgists offering their aid and conjurers offering faux sympathy after years of ignoring their peer, one of the best of them.

Then, ink falling into water, blood falling onto cobblestones, Morae falling into Nightside, Morelle’s ambient magic became a deep, unfathomable black. It absorbed light around it, filling out and circling like a predator, a deep chirruping hum of interest as it built a barrier.

Then Morelle’s shadow stretched, rising, holding a scythe she didn’t own yet. Shadow didn’t care for time, it knew who Morelle was.

And, as Shadow always does, it broke the rules.

There were limits to magic in healing, the potential to make magic spill over as if the wizard body was a cup and magic was water, and it was infuriating to many healers. Shadow could overflow, and still stay, all that magic anchored and solid, as if frozen and still rising, leaving bit by bit as the body absorbed it and truly healed.

Morelle’s hair rose, long black strands twisting and warping as she merged with her shadow, a sentinel and seraph in one form, armor clad in indigo and black, wings protectively curled where they became one with the barrier around her.

Next Morelle knew, she was in a daze, and it was the dead of night, and she was told of her expulsion, a key in hand as she entered the Spiral Door.

Next Morae knew, she was waking up as healthy as she could be, told of her girlfriend’s expulsion, and girlfriend’s brother’s exile. How those who were attacked by Celyn and those who she knew had thrown her off a cliff were getting off with no punishment for their bullying, or for their actual crimes of assault and attempted murder. And she was angry, and spiteful, but this time she was willing to wait for a better plan.

She would complete her last year of school in only months of time, and find her girlfriend. She would return to Wizard City one day, Morelle at her side, with a plan that wouldn’t fail.

So Morae smiled softly, if not a little tearfully, and quietly thanked the life student in the clinic who was known to rip up the homework of those he disliked. Morelle and Celyn had such interesting gossip from the secret hierarchy of life wizards.

There were many secrets in Wizard City. Morae would just have to find the right one to make Ambrose regret his choices. She would bide her time, but when the time did come, she would make eye contact no matter how painful, just to see that soft sparkle in Headmaster Ambrose’s eyes to fill with stark terror.

[angelholme]

May, Myself and I -- Year 3, Day 26 : Apocalpyse

"Oh, I feel it in my skin, the walls are closin' in and I'm tired of living in these burned-out buildings. Gotta shake the rust Before I turn to dust -- if I still had some faith, I'd pray"

"I, myself, have been going out with him since the 12th century. Or possibly since last week - it's hard to keep track. Because how are you supposed to measure time with the man that you want to spend the rest of your life with? What would make sense? Centuries? Nanoseconds?"

I know there is a time when she wasn't a part of my life -- I mean logically there must have been a part of my life where I didn't know her, where she wasn't in it, where we didn't share everything, talk every day, do all the things we do that have made my life infinitely better and infinitely more bearable in a way that I hadn't even realised I was missing before she came into it -- but as you probably have realised, she is so much a part of my life (although even that doesn't do what I am feeling justice) that I really can't remember a time when she wasn't a part of it. Or if I do, it just seems like a dream, or a life that belonged to someone else.

My entire life has been split into two parts -- my current life is split into two parts as well, but I will come back to that in a moment. My life has been been split into two parts -- the part before I met her, which doesn't really exist any more, and the part since I met her, which is really when I feel like my life began.

And now my life exists in two parts -- the part of my life I have when I'm not with her, not in her arms or by her side, and the part of my life when I am in her arms or by her side.

When I am not with her my life seems empty. I mean -- I have a job that occupies me, I have writing, I have reading, I have video games and a plethora of other diversions, but that is all they really are. Things to divert me, to keep me busy, to make me stop missing her as much as I do.

(If I am giving the impression that my life is somehow bad, or terrible, then I am giving the wrong impression. It is far better than most. As I said -- I have a job, I have a house, I am seldom cold or hungry. And while there is the whole medical thing going on -- which has had a considerable impact on my life -- my life, without her, is on average...... average).

But when you compare it to the part of my life when I am with her, it is -- as I said -- empty.

Because when we are together, even if we are just sitting together doing nothing, life seems better. Just spending time with her, no matter what we're doing, is nice. And I realise I sound vague, and a little like I am not explaining it well, but this is one of those things that can't entirely be explained -- that if you can break it down and explain it properly then it would stop being as magical and wonderful as it is.

I see her, and I smile. I can't help it -- I want to say it is Pavlovian, but that just sounds weird, even to me. (Although at least in that circumstance I am the dog and she is the bell, because in my long life I've learned comparing your girlfriend to a dog is never a good idea. Though now that I think about it there is a song from The Spinners where a guy compares a woman to a battleship which is truly bizarre).

People have written essays, studies, books about how music has the ability to change people's mood (and since the last but one word for this year's "May" is on that topic I will be returning to this subject later on) but just taking her hand and walking down the street can give me more happiness than anything else.

Without her, the world is painted in shades of grey (not like that! I think some phrases -- shades of grey, who you gonna call, the greater good, me and my shadow -- that I am never going to be able to take seriously again) but the moment I am by her side it explodes into colour. Like The Wizard of Oz just with far fewer drug references and wicked witches.

By now you may be wondering what my love for my most beloved has to do with the apocalypse, and I can see why that might be confusing.

I could give you a quote from "Heathers: The Musical" that "Our Love Is God" (We can start and finish wars, we destroyed the dinosaurs, we're the asteroid that's overdue. The dinosaurs will turn to dust, they'll die because we say they must, the new world needed space for me and you) but that would just be a rationalisation -- albeit a good one.

I could also give you a romantic comment about how a life without her now would be the end of the world for me, but then I might sound like Cilla Black.

No -- the truth is that amongst the many talents my most beloved has is picking out random films while we are out shopping. She sees them and thinks "they look fun", so we just pick them up and take them home. (We pay for them first -- while we are a couple, and we are truly in love, we don't want to be the next Bonnie and Clyde). From this we've found a large number of films that have been very good, including -- amongst others -- "Mom & Dad" (a film about parents killing their children -- which is far funnier than it sounds), "Life After Beth" and "Anna and The Apocalypse" -- a zombie Christmas musical with a burning tree.

It is, as films go, very good indeed, and one of my favourite and I am pretty sure I wouldn't have watched it if it was not for my most beloved.

[maximumsnow]

Back from the Dead v.2

No specific fandom here because this is mostly OC work. Very loosely D&D inspired since this was a different approach to something that happened in game a year or so back. I can’t find a place to properly end this story since this feels like a section out of a novel that I didn’t intend on writing, and this has been sitting in my documents for almost a year now.

Warnings for injuries and death. Note that this also happens in a d&d esque world, so the gods sort of work similarly here. 

The only sound in the small room was the crackling of the torch that Terjon held. After a short but quiet debate, it had been decided to be less risky than wasting magic for a light source. It was his turn to hold the torch while Abby guarded the entrance to the tunnel that lead to the rest of the mine.

Their eyes were much less suited to handling the dark than their companions who had scouted ahead, so they had elected to stay behind and guard their backs. It didn’t mean that it was any less nerve wracking than exploring the dark. Even Abby’s general optimism had dimmed as they spent more time waiting.

It didn’t help that the mine itself was about as quiet as an old house in an echo chamber. Random things would creak and drip, and the sound could carry for miles. The sounds were so distorted that the skittering of bugs or rats could be something bigger running towards them.

Wait.

Tap tap tap tap taptaptaptaptapTAPTAPTAP

That was too consistent, and it was getting louder. Terjon shifted to a proper standing position; Abby’s name on his tongue when she held her hand up. The order to stay quiet and still was obvious, and while he obeyed, he still kept his free hand on the mace and prepared to fight. Abby’s own hand adjusted her grip on the deceitfully sharp wooden sword, and she backed away slightly from the entrance to stand to the side. It took a few more minutes before the cause of the running footsteps careened out of the darkness and straight towards him.

It was only because he recognized Isolde’s mottled gray cloak that he didn’t immediately swing his mace down. She stopped and collapsed in front of him with sharp breaths, and Abby was immediately kneeling beside her.

Isolde was trying to speak, but between the run and her frayed emotional state, all that was coming out were disjointed words between gasps.

“Vi-vitaly. Chest. Trapped. Ran.”

Just hearing their friend’s name spiked Terjon’s anxiety even higher, and it took most of his self control to not bend down and shake the full story out of her.

Abby’s calming presence was much more conducive in this situation, and she waved him to guard the entrance while she helped Isolde slow her breathing down.

He had to obey. He knew that logically, but his mind was running with the vague words. The question of where Vitaly was was still unanswered, and he really did not like the sound of the word “trap.”

While they tried to keep their voices down lest nearby enemies hear, he still heard the story. They had found a strangely well kept room with personal effects in it, and suspecting that it might belong to the cult leader or another higher up, they investigated.

It all went sideways when Vitaly opened a chest, and he dropped.

“What?” Terjon couldn’t help turning and asking. The question came out more forcefully than intended, and Isolde’s flinch kept him from striding back towards them.

“I-I think he’s… dead. I couldn’t- I couldn’t stop it. He just dropped to the ground, and I… I know what dead eyes looks like.” She muttered while shaking. After a moment of deliberation, she forcibly leaned against Abby who gently wrapped an arm around her.

Brown eyes ordered him to stay quiet long enough for Isolde to recompose herself, and it was Abby who finally asked, “Where is he?”

Isolde shifted back to a solo sitting position and answered in a sturdier voice, “I dragged him out of there and to a corner but… I couldn’t carry him. I just grabbed his bag.” She pulled out a rucksack that they recognized as his. “I know he had one of those powerful scrolls, but… I can’t read it.”

“It’s a Divine Scroll, it’s not meant for anyone to read,” Terjon recited hollowly. “Even if you were a wizard, it wouldn’t make sense to you. Vitaly studied them under Father Jude, which was why he could.”

“… And you’re a cleric, which is why you can,” Abby said as she stood back up. “… Can you use that Raise Dead spell here?”

“Yes. The scroll already has almost everything we would need.” He could see where she was going with the line of questioning, and he felt his dread build.

“What doesn’t it have?”

“… My god’s guaranteed approval.”

The gears in both women’s heads were all but visibly turning. “Why would it have to be yours? Why not his?”

“Because I’m the one asking.”

Abby’s determined gaze faltered when the pieces fell into place. Someone who lived outside the law would not be received well by a deity who valued law and order above all else. Shaking her head, she said, “Prepare anyway. I’m going to get him, and… We’ll have to try.”

Isolde had taken her time standing back up, but once she was on her feet, she was itching to go back. “I hid him as well as I could, but I don’t know who else is in here. Be careful.”  The last two words were directed towards Terjon.

“I’ll manage, you be careful as well,” He said in reply. He backed up so that they could pass through easily, and once they were gone, he shoved the torch into a corner and forced it to stand up. He stayed on alert as he dug through Vitaly’s bag, and after getting frustrated digging through everything stored in it, he upended it so that he could properly see it all.

It still took a while for him to figure out which scroll was which, and more than once, he cursed Vitaly’s tendency to hoard magical items and heal spells to great excess.

He was truly lucky nothing wandered by the tunnel at this point.

Scroll in hand, he read through the Celestial writing so that he would know what exactly he had to say to start the ritual. He couldn’t afford to delay any longer than necessary; the longer a soul dwelled on the other side, the more difficult it would be to bring it back.

The others returned with heavy breaths and found him with items strewn across the floor, and Terjon nose deep in the writings. Despite the fact that Abby had made no attempt to hide her footsteps, she still startled him when she asked, “What do you need?”

When he looked up, his eyes immediately locked onto the pitiful body she was holding, and the dull ache in his chest suddenly turned into a much sharper pain.

He was grateful for whoever shut Vitaly’s eyes; the illusion of sleeping was a lot less painful than seeing the dull eyes of death.

Abby nudged some of the items around so that there was a big enough spot to lay Vitaly down, and Isolde grabbed them to shove back into the empty bag.

Once there was enough space, Abby gently placed the body in the center of the small cave and backed away to the entrance. As she passed by Terjon, they shared a look. He never understood how she could have so much faith in him, and he only wished he could share that conviction.

Isolde fluttered around and picked up any remaining supplies, and while the nervous movement would have normally annoyed him, he found himself almost grateful for the distraction. As if sensing being watched, her head sharply turned towards him, and she muttered, “Sorry,” before hoisting the bag on her tiny shoulders and following Abby out.

While his companions were still close, he was finally alone. He couldn’t back out of this now.

He didn’t even know when he started reading the spell aloud, but he immediately felt a heavy presence in the room. His voice, normally loud and strong, didn’t echo as he finished the words. The words written on the scroll glowed brightly enough to illuminate every corner.

I’m here.

The presence should have been comforting. It used to be.

Why are you afraid?

It wasn’t angry or accusing, just confused. Fearing the answer would only anger it, he stated, “I need to bring this man’s soul back from the land of the dead.” The formal speech was the only way he could get the request out even as he tripped over the words.

Simple enough. The words on the scroll vanished, plunging the cavern back to dim lighting, and his eyes took a moment before he could see again.

Tentative hope started to climb in his chest. Was it really that easy? Would-

The presence came back with enough weight that he staggered against the wall.

Why would you want to bring back someone who went to The Abyss? The accusation was almost as weighty as the presence itself. I should not even entertain-

“PLEASE,” Terjon all but shouted. The impending refusal tearing a hole in his chest. “He was on the right path! He was trying!” The irony that he was arguing with his god was not lost on him, but he couldn’t think on that right now.

The presence was shockingly not angry and tried to argue back. The one who reigns there wouldn’t accept-

He cut it off. “She has a sadistic streak even with her followers, of course she would drag someone there who didn’t deserve it.”

He has her mark. Only those who accept her ideals have it.

“He doesn’t anymore. He hasn’t in years.”

It was almost… amused. Prove it. You once wanted to bring him to justice, but now you want him saved? Why?

There were a lot of things that he could bring up; Vitaly was truly Father Jude’s ward, but Terjon himself had seen them as ploys only a few months ago. So he cited the thing that had changed his mind. “He saved me. Even though he almost died for it. And then he talked me out of-” He cut himself off there. Admitting to his god that he had faltered would not be easy, and could cost him Vitaly’s life.

Even though you promised to throw him in jail, he talked sense back into you. The voice’s calm surety made Terjon freeze. It knew.

There was a pause as the god deliberated, and in the silence, Terjon thought he could hear his own heartbeat.

Breaking down, he all but begged, “He has been trying and succeeding to be good, doesn’t he deserve the chance to change his fate?”

… You have made your case.

That was all the warning he had before blinding light once again filled the small space, and even though he couldn’t see, he could hear Vitaly sit up with a cry.

The pain in the other man’s voice scared him. “Vitaly?”

“Terjon?!” Vitaly’s voice shook. “What? How are you here?”

He wasn’t sure what Vitaly was actually asking, so he responded truthfully. “I never left? I was supposed to guard until you came back.”

As Terjon’s sight was restored, he could see Vitaly’s head turning to the side as if he couldn’t believe that he was looking at a cave wall. “I’m… Back?” His head turned back to look at his hands as he flexed them. He then let them fall to the floor. And then he asked, “… Are you okay?”

Terjon hadn’t noticed that he was still breathing heavily, and the rush of adrenaline from earlier was fading. There was always a price to pay, and his energy was gone. He managed to guide his drop to the floor as opposed to simply flopping, but there was still a heavy thump.

Vitaly was still confused, but Terjon could see the gears turning. “You- You brought me back?”

Long explanations were too exhausting. “Yes.” He was already cringing at the thought of answering all the questions the curious man was going to ask.

He was grateful when Isolde rushed back in. Her face lit up with relief and it fell almost as quickly. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know what was in there, I should-”

The distraction of needing to address Isolde turned Vitaly away from the questions he likely had for Terjon, and with the knowledge that his friends were okay, he let his mind drift off. When Abby’s melodious voice joined the background chatter, he finally succumbed to sleep.

He wasn’t sure how much later it was, but it still felt too early when he felt someone shoving his shoulder. When he woke up, they were back at the edge of the town they had last visited. Confused and on edge, he tried to jump up and nearly fell face first.

Two sets of hands kept him from falling, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Abby was in front of him, he would have fought more. “Vitaly teleported us out of there, but we have to walk to an inn,” she informed him before a mischievous smile took over. “You can get your beauty sleep there.”

He rolled his eyes. “At least it was just an energy price.”

“Yeah. Anyway, you’re hard to carry, or we would have let you sleep more.” There was concern but she had already gone to one side of him and made him throw an arm over her and started walking into the town proper.

It took him a minute to realize that Isolde was walking back towards them while carrying a basket with food, and that the other set of hands that supported him was Vitaly.

He tried to shift away from the shorter man. “… You can let go now.”

“Not after you almost lost to gravity again.” On one hand, the fact that Vitaly was able to make jokes was a good sign, but on the other, Terjon felt awkward and wanted a little distance.

He tried to argue, “You just came back from-”

“Don’t remind me.” All humor was gone, and Vitaly’s voice grew icy.

The silence that followed was awkward, and Abby tried to fill it as they started slowly making their way towards the inn in continued silence. Terjon was too tired to think of a way to broach the topic again, and Vitaly was not going to bring it up on his own.

Once they had eaten and gotten to their rooms, it wasn’t long before Terjon passed out again.

The morning proper came far too quickly for his liking.

He sat up in the serviceable bed when he heard someone knocking politely at the door, and called for them, “You can come in.”  He tried to smooth down his hair that had escaped the tie he usually kept it in as Isolde entered.

The way she looked to the side and grabbed her arms made him focus squarely on her. At the flinch, he softened his voice before asking, “What’s wrong?”

“We can’t find Vitaly.”

“What?!” He swung a leg towards the edge of the bed and started to hastily stand. No longer looking at her, he started to rant, “He should know better than to wander off like that. Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”

Not letting herself get run over in the conversation, she stated, “You were out cold. We tried.”

When he tried to stand, up, his legs gave out on him, and he crumbled back onto the bed. “Damnit!”

“You still need to rest if you can’t even stand up for long,” She chided. “I’ll go get Abby, and we can try figuring out where Vitaly is from here.”

“No, I can-” he argued.

“Fall over?” She walked closer to the bed and lightly shoved his shoulder. The fact that he almost couldn’t hold himself upright with the slight pressure convinced him. “You’re drained, I think literally. You might need something a little stronger than just rest to recover. We can see what Abby can do, but we really need Vitaly...”

“Who is missing.”

“Yes.”

“And I’m the one of the few people who can find him even when he’s actively hiding.”

“… Yes. Just. Wait.” And with that order, Isolde finally exited the room and shut the door behind her. Terjon almost couldn’t bear the silence until he thought he heard Abby and Isolde’s voices coming down the hall.

Abby’s heavy knocking was very quickly followed by a request to come in, and Terjon sighed before giving the permission.

Before any banter started, Terjon cut to the chase. “When did Vitaly disappear?”

Abby and Isolde looked at each other before Isolde said, “Before sunrise. I had gotten up for my own reasons, and didn’t see him. I didn’t think too much on it because sometimes he sleeps in, but after… that I’d think he’d want to see the sunrise.”

“We’ve tried looking in the usual places, like up on the roof, but there’s still nothing. If he’s trying to hide, I don’t know how to find him,” Abby added on.

“Is there a temple or shrine here?” Terjon asked.

“Yes, I looked there next, and I couldn’t find any sign he’d been.”

Terjon then dropped his face into his hands as he tried to think of anything else. “I’m not even sure where to tell you to start. I can’t go myself, and, no offense, but tracking people is my thing. And I’m not sure how to explain it.”

“We’ll go through town to see what we find, and you can stay here in case he comes back,” Isolde finally said with a shrug.

“Yeah, maybe he’ll come back to check on you? He’s almost as bad about mother henning as I am.”

That was the only plan they could even attempt with Terjon out of commission.  He hated it, but if standing was out of the question, then he wouldn’t be any help to the others.

His slumped shoulders gave them an answer before his words did. “Fine. Take care.”

At first, Terjon had tried to stay awake in case Vitaly came back, but his exhaustion won over after about an hour of fighting it.

When his eyes opened again, it was much darker in the room. Did I sleep through the whole day? He wondered. He was a little hungry, but he didn’t feel like he had slept through more than one meal. And he knew that Abby wouldn’t have let him.

“You’re up, I see.”

The voice made him jump. Even with protesting muscles, he managed to sit up to look Vitaly in the eye. He was sitting in a chair in plainclothes; the adventuring gear obviously put away so he could blend in better.

“Where have you been?!” All of the worry and fear came out in a chiding tone that Terjon couldn’t help.  “Abby and Isolde have been looking for you!”

Vitaly’s arms crossed. “I didn’t want them to find me.”

Gobsmacked, Terjon asked, “Why? They, no, we have been worried about you.”

“Yet you’re sleeping despite all that worry.” He gestured at the bed.

“I tried to get up, and it didn’t end well. That’s not the point though; they’re still looking for you.” He quickly waved the dig away before getting back to the point.

Vitaly refused to look at him, but even Terjon’s tired mind could see the struggle written on his face. “I’m not sure if I want them to right now,” Vitaly muttered.

“Why?” The book that contained Vitaly’s spells was nowhere to be seen, now that Terjon noticed it.

Quickly, Vitaly said, “I shouldn’t be traveling with you. They’ll just try to talk me out of it, and I’m not-”

“What the hell are you going on about?! What makes you think I’m not going to argue that?” The mere suggestion brought Terjon’s ire out. Was he being ridiculous? They needed him.

“You weren’t happy with me traveling with them at first.”

The very true statement made Terjon wince. “That’s from months ago, and I haven’t said a damn thing since you talked sense into me.”

“Well, even then you weren’t exactly happy with me either.”

“I will fully admit to being an ass back then, and that wasn’t your fault. I was going through a lot of things and while you were a part of it, it was something I needed to address.” Right. Wrong. Good.

Evil. The areas of gray all in between.

Terjon narrowed his eyes. Vitaly was hiding something. “What is this really about?”

Even though Terjon couldn’t compel Vitaly to speak the truth, the question made him flinch, and shame, anger, and finally, sorrow, flashed across Vitaly’s face.

“Was it even worth coming back? I’m… Never getting away. From Her. I thought I’d be able to after shaking off Her chains a few years ago, but when I- when I died. I was right back. Nothing I do in life will get me away from that fate.” Vitaly’s grip on his arms tightened as the torrent of words came out. By the end, he was shaking.

Despair colored his words.

It felt familiar.

Too familiar.

And Terjon was ill equipped to handle it.

“There has to be a way.” Even as the words slipped out, even Terjon flinched at how woefully inadequate the words felt.

“That’s what Father Jude said! And this still happened.” The bitterness cut deeply. The fact that he could refer to Jude in such a way didn’t bode well for Vitaly’s mental state.

“If I was able to convince my god to bring you back from the Abyss, then there has to be. Nothing is set in stone.”

“That’s-” Vitaly was ready to retort, but he paused as he fully processed the first sentence. “You convinced yours to do that?”

“I had to. I don’t get to pick and choose. He let me. If he didn’t think there was a chance… Well...”

The thought that he had been deemed worthy enough to retrieve baffled Vitaly. “I don’t… understand.”

“You’re a good person.” The statement was simple but full of conviction.

“But I did everything physically possible and still ended up there. How can I not be evil?”

“She doesn’t like letting go; nothing more than that.”

Vitaly still didn’t look fully convinced.

“We… I enjoy traveling with you, and you’ve done more than enough to prove yourself,” Terjon said as he started leaning back. The argument took more out of him than he had realized.

“Shit… Sorry, are you okay?”

In a simple selfish plea, he said, “Please don’t go,” before passing out again.

[onlytaylor]

Pansmione + Pizza and Halloween! 🎃

October 31st brought about an expectedly empty eighth year common room. Most students were either out partying somewhere hidden in the castle or heading out to Hogsmeade for a butter beer. All except Hermione, who was feeling oddly homesick.

Her father used to share his love of slasher movies with her, and every year they’d spend copious amounts of time in front of the TV indulging on classics like Halloween and Nightmare on Elm Street.

This year, she’d felt inspired, and with a bit of magic and a lot of research she’d managed to spell a muggle television to work in the confines of the castle.

She grinned to herself, slightly smug at her success as she hit the power button. The solitude usually wouldn’t bother her, but she almost itched to share this with someone, as her father had done with her.

Within a few moments, the title screen began to flash with the flickering of Halloween’s famous Jack o’lantern. She relaxed on the common room couch, spelling the lights down and settling into the pillows.

Her focus was so dedicated that she didn’t hear footsteps emerging from the dorms behind her.

“Hey, Granger. Want to explain what you’re doing all alone in the dark?”

Hermione jumped, already spooked as Pansy Parkinson came to stand in front of the couch.

“Hey, Pansy, I’m, um, just watching something.” She was slightly startled by the fact that this girl was here on Halloween night and not out partying with the rest of the former Slytherins.

“Is that- is that a television?” Pansy cocked her head, arms crossed. “We learned about them in Muggle studies. How in the hell did you...?”

Hermione nodded,trying to find words as the credits continued to dance across the screen.

“I just- magic.”

Pansy rolled her eyes, crossing her arms and taking a seat next to her.

“No shit, Granger. You’re amazing, you know that? I can’t imagine how complicated that must’ve been.”

Hermione felt herself blushing. She would usually agree; she was used to reminding Ron and Harry that if they studied harder, their marks would reflect her own. But something about the cool manner of Pansy Parkinson and her compliments sent her head reeling.

“Thanks,” she managed to squeak, returning her attention to the screen to distract herself from their proximity.

“So, what are we watching on this frightful eve?” Pansy wiggled her eyebrows facetiously.

“We?” Hermione asked, finding brown eyes focused on her own.

“Duh. What else would I be doing?”

Hermione shrugged. “Anything else?”

At this, Pansy laughed. “Nah. This will be ten times more fun than any Halloween shenanigans. I’m done with the nonsense. We’re adults now.” She winked, illiciting a relaxed chuckle from Hermione.

“Okay, then. We’re watching Halloween.”

“Is it good?”

“Of course it is.

“Then I’m game. What are we eating?”

“Eating?”

“Yes, I’m starving.”

Hermione pondered the idea. It only made sense to eat Muggle food while watching a Muggle slasher fic.

“Pizza.”

“What the hell is that?”

Hermione gasped. “You’ve never had- oh my gosh, you grew up in a Wizarding family! Of course!”

“Apparently, I’ve missed out on a lot.”

“Trust me, you have.”

Hermione pulled out her wand, flicking it and transfiguring a bubbling hot pizza from thin air.

Pansy’s mouth dropped. “I fucking told you you’re amazing! No one can just transfigure food! Especially not food that looks this good!”

Hermione could feel the heat flooding her cheeks. She reached forward, handing a slice to Pansy and taking one for herself. She held it up.

“Cheers?”

Pansy nodded with a satisfied smile. “To spending Halloween in the best way possible.”

Hermione couldn’t help the smile that broke across her face. She lifted her slice before Pansy took the opening bite.

Her eyes widened, and her face scrunched in a way that made Hermione question her transfiguration skills. But in the next moment, Pansy was grinning, mouth still obnoxiously full.

“Granger, this is amazing! Like, what the hell is in this? Magic?”

Hermione laughed. “No, it’s pretty much just pepperoni, cheese, and tomato sauce.”

Pansy swallowed. “Whatever it is, Muggles are doing it right.” She turned her attention to the TV before taking another bite. Hermione pondered her statement, reveling in Pansy’s complete change of heart since the war. She was a whole new person, it seemed, and Hermione wished she would’ve known the potential she held sooner.

Without another word, Pansy scooted closer on the couch. Their sides were touching, and Hermione gulped. Pansy didn’t seem to notice, completely engrossed now that the movie was beginning.

Hermione has seen this movie a hundred times, but now she couldn’t seem to recollect what was happening. She was too distracted by the steady rhythm of Pansy’s breath, her body shifting with each expiration against her shoulder. She quickly devoured her pizza and reached for another piece, and Hermione felt overwhelmingly proud.

Pansy liked pizza. Hermione’s pizza. Michael Myers was making his first kill, and Pansy jumped at the sudden orchestrated stabbing. Her body subconsciously turned toward Hermione’s, and now they were closer, and she couldn’t breathe.

How had they gone from acquaintences to friends to this? Hermione tried to be logical about the situation, as she did with everything, but there was no real explanation for this. For the way that suddenly her heart was hammering in her chest at Pansy’s touch. For the indescribable nervousness that came with her presence; it was a feeling she’d never dealt with before. It was both sickening and utterly elating, and Hermione had no idea what to do with herself.

“Granger, that guy’s fucking crazy. He just- MERLIN!” She jumped again, this time wrapping her arms around Hermione. Again, she pretended that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, eyes fixed on the screen. Hermione tried to hide her uncontrollable hyperventilating which had absolutely nothing to do with the thrill of the movie.

“P-Pansy,” she finally choked, but her gaze didn’t falter from the screen.

“Yeah?”

“Your arms- your arms are around me.”

“Uh huh.”

She didn’t move. Hermione relaxed a bit, testing the waters. She laid her head to rest against Pansy’s shoulder, and Pansy shuffled closer in response.

“Hey Granger?”

Hermione looked up and was shocked when Pansy turned her face toward her own.

“Yes?” She whispered, unable to make a sound, lost in the moment.

“Thanks for Muggle movie night. I think I’m a fan.” Pansy smiled, and she was so goddamn close, her breath tickled Hermione’s nose.

“You’re welcome.” Another whisper. Pansy’s eyes flickered to her lips, a gesture that didn’t dare go unnocited by Hermione.

“You know what’s better than pizza?”

Hermione didn’t answer, contemplating the question and coming up dry.

Pansy giggled at Hermione’s perplexity.

“It’s you, silly.”

“But you really liked the pizza,” she piped, still alarmingly confused for being the brightest witch of her age.

“Yes, Granger. And I really like you.”

Hermione’s breath caught, and suddenly Pansy was leaning forward, bold as she was, to close the space between them.

Their lips pressed together, and Hermione’s brow furrowed in that way that Pansy thought was absolutely adorable. Hermione felt whole, and right, and she completely forgot for a moment that there was a movie playing and pizza to be eaten and it was Halloween-

“AHHHH!” The TV blared as Myers made another kill, and it was Hermione who jumped this time.

Pansy giggled. “I thought you’d seen this before.” Her eyes were suggestive, confidence unwavering.

“I have, I just- you distracted me!”

Pansy’s laugh continued. “I like distracting you, Granger.”

“I don’t think I mind it too much myself, if we’re being honest.”

“Good.” Pansy pulled her in for another kiss, and Hermione sighed, agreeing wholeheartedly that this was indeed the best way to spend Halloween. Cheers.