#Adaine wanting Aelwyn to be her big sister

[20dimensionsoftangerine]

Fabian and Gorgug (tanks) - "I would die for you"

Riz and Fig (damage dealers) - "I would kill for you"

Adaine and Kristen (support) - "okay but would you live for me?"

[can-i-roll-for-it]

Scenes from somphermore year I think about all the time

Kristen telling Tracker she wanted to marry her

Fig and Adya sleepover

Gorgug and Kristen hugging and telling each other "I love you" when both their gfs where mad at them

Fabian with the fire elmental "Thank you for my life"

Gorgug giving Fabian and Ragh oranges when they were sad

Adaine and Aelwyn sleeping next to each other after they first recuse her and Aelwyn weaking casting shield around them

Adaine being like "I know a secret~" when she learnee Fig and Adya kissed

"I would really like for you to be my big sister" Adaine and Aelwyn in the nightmare forest in Adaine's mind

"Gorgug I died again!" "I know! sorry I wasn't there"

Riz being like "Kristen something bad always happens when it's just us"

Fig reviving Riz while flirting with Adya and Riz coming back to life and immediately being like "Am I interrupting something??"

And many more

[rellsingsovern]

In my notes during this whole season I’ve kept track of loose ends and just other plot points I think could make for a great senior year (which now seems likely that we will get down the line in the future) and this finale gave me almost everything I wanted and more so here’s what I think we’re gonna see (plus things that I just rly want to see lol)

-first and foremost, BARON IS STILL IN RIZ’S BRIEFCASE!!! the spectral mordred manor probably is not there as that was a haven sent out by cassandra during all the divine interventions in falinell and the bad kids dove in as a last second decision, but baron is still definitely there. ‘I am somewhere always close to Riz Gukgak’ and while everyone’s journey with their sexuality happens on their own time and Riz shouldn’t have to come out if he doesn’t want to yet, now that he’s coming to terms that his friends might not always be together in the way he wants to I think it would be healing for him to fully confront and accept his aro aceness and have support with that and realize that even if they can’t be physically together his friends won’t leave him for other relationships

-Fabian is getting a new baby sibling, but that is not the only sibling he’s ever had. James Whitlaw made references to his half siblings from Bill that he killed and ate, I am POSITIVE that at least one is still out there and probably has it out for Fabian (as Bill married Hallariel, raised Fabian, and dragged his ship into solace to give him a new life) and an arc where Fabian has to defend himself against an older sibling while growing to love his younger would be amazing to see

-kalina, bakarath, bobby, and buddy ofc, I’ve been wondering where kalina has been this whole time, and I want to see more of bobby getting what he deserves. Cassandra’s been through a fucking lot this season but her familiar apparently might be a big bad along with arianwen again so sorry cass but the cat’s gotta go. she still directly got pok killed riz deserves to hunt her down and avenge him a second time

-speaking of, Arianwens been making moves in sylvaire! Adaine and aelwyn will surely kill her but from the looks of it even though she got her magic taken away she may have some sort of power. Cant wait for these sisters to be able to live immortal lives without their parents looming over them

-BUCKY APPLEBEES!! bucky, a paladin of cassandra, gathering the courage to ask Kristin for help getting bricker and cork out of the Applebees residence, maybe moving into mordred and everyone immediately being enamored with these cute little boys who honestly might turn out to be mumple instead of wanting to attend the adventuring academy and Kristin being so happy they aren’t being raised in a pressure cooker anymore and affected like she and bucky were affected, happy that they can be normal kids (and in being around Kristin’s other sisters, adaine and fig, Kristin ends up getting that sister she always wanted in bucky too)

-I’m so happy Fig is getting what she wants and realizing she doesn’t want to finish Aguefort, and it would be awesome if she got a new character and the bad kids took on a new party member for the year played by Emily so all the intrepid heroes are still together, but Fig could be hanging out between mordred and Seacaster and leviathan and Hell, writing music and helping Kristin spread word of the cassandra/Ankarna pantheon through it, and since in sophomore year we saw Penelope dayne daybreak and Johnny spells all kicking it in hell maybe Jace (who ik was a minion mostly but hey he could be evil on his own) is down there with some other bad kid nemeses

-more Galicea and Sol. Sol canonically was all for bringing Ankarna into the pantheon of himself, his sister galicea, his other sister cassandra, and his son helio. It was Sol’s followers who saw Ankarna brought in as another god of the sun and brought about the ruin and corruption of Ankarna alongside the house of sunstone in order to get more power for themselves with just the one solar deity existing. Both Sol and Galicea (and maybe helio) have been hardcore shaped by their followers, Galiceas wolfish side being repressed by the high elf state of falinell and being brought back through wolfsong, and Sol with the human clerics of highcourt scheming to make him the only god with a sun domain despite him officiating and welcoming Ankarna as his sister in law through the marriage. Plus if we get galicea arcs we defo get Kristin and tracker messy lesbians arcs

-Gorgug perfecting his new subclass he invented and Kristin enjoying being student body president! She deserves it, I hc that the only academic sort of thing Kristin cared about before this year was the lgbtq+ club and now she’s extending that energy into everything with the help of Riz, who cannot get off of coffee someone help this poor boy. And since Ragh and shellford have graduated I want more Torek Railgrinder, she’s so cool let’s flesh her out more. Gorgug thinking about how to teach other multiclass barbarian/artificers and perfecting all his awesome inventions (and dating both Unit and Mary Ann bc it’s what his poly ass deserves)

Basically the potential plot I see for senior year is almost a mirror of sophomore year: baron getting out and fighting Riz and the bad kids defeating him for good, the bad kids heading to leviathan after hearing rumors of a pirate calling themselves a child of Bill Seacaster looking for Fabian, heading to falinell to see what’s new with wolfsong and tracker and maybe seeing some changes in Galicea or Sol, heading to hell and meeting up with Fig for a portion (she doesn’t go to their school anymore! she ain’t gotta go on this senior year spring break quest!) who’s been hanging out in hell, tracking Jace and other enemies, establishing her power as an archdevil of the first layer of hell, writing awesome music, and finally back to sylvaire to figure out what the fuck is up with kalina and arianwen and this weird new god buddy has and they all graduate and head their separate ways but they still love each other and see each other all the time they’re family and they’re badass and they’re perfect

[im-a-vertebrate]

Remembered a post I saw about how stupid Porter was for not realising how useful Adaine would have been with all her pent up rage if she had been rage starred.

It is highly likely someone has already considered/written about this, but imagine:

Porter realises what an asset Adaine would be after hearing about her killing her father. As a result, he arranges something, perhaps a trap set at a meet-up with Oisin as a honeypot, maybe a fake meeting with Prof. Runestaff, or even a private chat where Porter expresses his admiration for Adaine killing her father to lure her in so he can strike. In any case, the shatterstar finds its new home in Adaine's chest.

In this timeline, Oisin has outlived his usefulness, and his body rots in the woods alongside Lucy’s. His friends mourn him, but they would never mess with the Big Guy.

So the Bad Kids gradually watch Adaine become more angry and more violent after Spring Break, which they hypothesise might be related to her parents but they’re not sure. Adaine's not usually so rageful, and they don't want to hurt her. They ask Aelwyn, but she doesn't know either. Aelwyn tries to talk to Adaine, who completely goes off on one at her. Aelwyn is shocked and hurt, especially after so long in prison, after being subject to endless torture. Her sister who saved her is screaming at her and Aelwyn hates it.

The worst thing is how much she is reminded of their mother when she looks at Adaine.

They go to Jawbone for help, but by then Adaine is gone.

She goes back to Sylvaire to kill her mother, fuelled by the power of rage, but Porter stops her and gives her a personal rundown on how exactly the hierarchy of their conspiracy operates. After he’s finished, he heals her with some of his ‘barbarian healing’, the Rat Grinders welcome their new party member Adaine Abernant.

She completely blanks the Bad Kids. The entire school has no idea what's going on. Ayda tries to talk to Adaine, but she lashes out and Ayda flees back to Compass Points to desperately read every book she can in the Friendship Section and stockpile oranges. Jawbone's attempts to reach out to Adaine are met with nothing but anger.

Boggy is not resummoned. The Jacket of Useful Things ends up in a rubbish bin in downtown Elmville.

The Night Yorb escapes and the Bad Kids (or most of them) are forced to rush off again to save the world, leaving Adaine behind.

The rest of the Rat Grinders are terrified of their new party member. She's brutal and angry, so much more than them. They miss their nerdy dragonborn wizard and their kindly genasi cleric. Their new 'friend' clearly isn't there out of the kindness of her heart. They can see hate in her eyes aimed at something. Someone.

The Rat Grinders get a new assignment over Summer too.

In the middle of the Wastes, as they're tracking down the Night Yorb without their wizard, the Bad Kids suddenly hear the news: Sylvaire is burning.

Adaine is tearing apart Sylvaire with every ounce of magic at her disposal. She is annihilating vast swathes of forest, razing the ground itself, drawing on the great reserves of power provided by Ankarna's tormented semi-corpse. The Oracle sends her adventuring party and any bystanders that she can bend to her will out into the forest to find Arianwen Abernant and bring the woman, alive, to her. Cassandra's home is on fire, she needs help. She summons the Bad Kids, Aelwyn, anyone or anything she can find to help her, to save her. To stop Adaine. But desperate times call for desperate measures.

The Nightmare King and the Oracle of Rage battle over the Forest of Sylvaire as it burns.

Idk, thought this might be a fun idea.

[jq37]

Would it be possible for you to briefly outline the gist of the Bad Kid’s relationships to each other in terms of individual pairs (i.e. Fig and Kristen, Riz and Fabian, Adaine and Gorgug, etc)? And if that’s too much, maybe specifically the Fig ones (I’m trying to get a sense of her friendships because they are so important to her).

This is SOOOOO late but I didn't have the time to write it when you sent it and then I figured I might as well wait till the end of the season to get a full picture and give the best answer. Hope it was worth the wait!

-----------------

Fig and Fabian: Fig and Fabian are the two that most closely fit the classic "cool kid" archetype (though obviously we know Fig is mainly a big sweetheart and Fabian is a loser no matter how high he rolls). As far back as S1 they were playing the party faces and schmoozing Penelope together. I think their friendship now is exemplified by the fact that when Fabian wanted to threaten his banker, Fig was there as his first mate to help out, no questions asked and no payment required. They're each others, "I can count on you to do this bullshit with me," friends.

Fig and Riz: I think Fig knows she doesn't necessarily have as much in common with Riz naturally as she does with some of her other friends but she obviously respects and deeply cares for him. The main reason she started taking her classes seriously Junior Year is because the whole party passing together was really stressing him out and she spent some of her very limited downtime sending Riz a, "Thinking of you" not to lift his spirits (though she signed it from Gorgug because she can't help being chaotic). Similarly, I think Riz obviously cares a ton for Fig even though he finds 70% of what she does crazy. Think about him following behind her to clean things up as she pretended to be a doctor and had to do surgery in Freshman Year. But I think she's helped him lean into his chaotic side a bit more as well--I always think about their side mission to hell in Soph year and her going, "Hiss at her litigator!" And at the end of Junior Year, he comes to the conclusion of, "I gotta let her do her own thing and not pressure her to live by my standards." So lots of mutual respect.

Fig and Gorgug: Fig and Gorgug have been besties and bandmates since Freshman Year. I've always had the sense that Fig has some big sister style protective feelings towards Gorgug since he's often the gentle giant of the group and this season, she hyped him up a ton with his Barbificer stuff. I would argue that, besides his parents, Fig is Gorgug's biggest cheerleader.

Fig and Adaine: Fig ALSO has sister energy with Adaine but it's less "protective older sister" and more "odd couple playfully clashing". Think them burning spellslots to fight for the best rooms in Mordred in Soph year and Adaine foaming at the mouth to get info about her crush on Ayda. They're living under the same roof so we have to assume they have a lot more interactions that we don't see and I feel like Adaine probably really enjoys that she gets to have closer to a normal sibling relationship with Fig since her blood sister is Aelwyn and that relationship is intense and meaningful but nothing approaching normal. The teasing is there but so is the genuine love--remember how devastated Fig was when Adaine was taken to Falinel in Soph year despite their best efforts? And her long hug during the Baron fight this season even though they were VERY MUCH on the clock. And Fig was Wingwomaning hard (along with the rest of the Bad Kids) to help her notice Oisin. Also think about Fig having a whole crisis of self during The Last Stand and turning to Adaine for reassurance and Adaine just going, what? Girl, no you're awesome and painting an arcane bullseye on her target so she could smite like crazy. Despite the playful ribbing, they have very supportive sister energy. "Absolutely my king, whatever you want."

Fig and Kristen: I think Fig and Kristen have two big things is common. One is they're both very chaotic people and the other is they have both gone through kind of intense rebellious periods spurred by or resulting in family trauma. Because of that, I think they likely get each other a bit better than the others might (and we can see that Fig followed in Kristen's footsteps a ton this season god-wise). Fig also decided to take on the protective, German Shepherd role over Kristen this past season which I think is partially for the bit, partially about personal development, and partially about just how much she genuinely wants to help protect Kristen.

Fabian and Riz: Classic jock/nerd friendship. The original Bardy Boys. The kind of friendship that is made special by the absolute lack of obvious commonality between the two parties. "The Ball" is a friendly nickname now. Oh how the turns have tabled.

Fabian and Gorgug: Fabian started out the series by attacking Gorgug for no good reason while he was being gifted a tin flower and midway through this season he was like Gorgug, you're quitting Bloodrush? I'm gonna miss you :(((((( even though they're still fully in a party together and spend so much time together. The bro energy has completely solidified. It's also funny that Fabian texted Gorgug like, "Congrats on making it with Mary Ann!" and Gorgug was like, "You do know I've had sex before, right? I come from an extremely sex positive household and I had a steady girlfriend for two years who also came from an extremely sex positive household." Fabian has all the aesthetics of a cool kid but Gorgug is actually about that life, lol.

Fabian and Adaine: This is another pair that I think has serious sibling energy (and not just bc they both have posh high elf backgrounds). I'm thinking about Fabian yelling for Adaine's help during The Last Stand (even though she was like why am I the one you're calling for help right now???). I'm also thinking about Adaine being like Fabian hit me :( during the Baron encounter and Fabian being outraged at the thought that he would ever hit her. I think if you asked Fabian, he'd say his best friends are Riz and Adaine (which is really funny considering they're the nerds of the group).

Fabian and Kristen: Bad decision buddies with no game who are still somehow getting their kisses in.

Riz and Gorgug: I think that Riz was one of the Bad Kids who realized how smart Gorgug really is the fastest. He's always like, "Nice one Gorgug," when he offhandedly comes up with a connection that helps solve the mystery and I feel like they have to work on gear and gadgets together. I think the fact that Riz believed Fig's lie that Gorgug wrote him the encouraging note says a lot and the fact that Gorgug immediately made him a real present (the Medal of Wit) also says a lot.

Riz and Adaine: Party nerds, investigation buddies, voices of reason with specific things that get them unreasonably angry. They are the only ones who were excited that there was an academic portion of The Last Stand. Riz made Adaine a folder with nothing in it at the beginning of Junior Year to say, "I'm not worried about you but I want you to be included anyway." Adaine in a conversation to I don't remember who said that she knows that at the very least she and Riz are going to college together. When everyone was wasting questions questioning Bakur, Riz told everyone to shut up except for Adaine and himself. They are the braincells of the operation and they have party nerd solidarity.

Riz and Kristen: I think Riz has a similar relationship to Kristen that he does to Fig. This season he was her right hand man with campaign stuff but ended the season like hey, do you. I don't want to put pressure on you. And Kristen in turn I think appreciated his efforts a bit more by the end of the season. I feel like it's easy to feel like their relationship is unbalanced but I think Riz is a lot like his dad and he not only feels weird when he's not working but also shows his love by working so it's more symbiotic than it may seem at surface level.

Gorgug and Adaine: Gorgug and Adaine don't interact the most, but I feel in my heart that they have a lot of chill, lo-fi study time together. This is me extrapolating a bit but I think they kind of inherently balance each other out. Gorgug being mechanically big and full of rage but really sweet. Adaine being small and polite but full of so much rage. In-universe you know she spends a ton of time standing directly behind him and casting spells while he soaks damage. That's gotta give you a special kind of camaraderie.

Gorgug and Kristen: Whenever I think about Gorgug and Kristen, I always picture them in Sophomore Year, Going Through It with their girlfriends at the same time, lol.

Adaine and Kristen: I think Adaine and Kristen's whole relationship is best summed up by three actions. (1) Adaine casting Friends on her to make her go to school so she won't fail and then Kristen giving her the Help action to be charmed. (2) Kristen making the effort to be mean-nice to Aelwyn because presumably Adaine told her she likes that better. (3) K2 being sent way and Kristen being like, "I did enjoy having a sister" and Adaine immediately going, "I'm your sister." (Which, from her history, you know isn't something she'd say lightly). I think Adaine is often exasperated by the insane shit Kristen does (see eg: ribbon dancing) but she was also right there hyping her up and helping her cover during the "Passed the test to give me new spells" fiasco at the food trucks. At the end of the day, Kristen respects the hell out of Adaine and Adaine is ride or die for Kristen.

[dullgecko]

Little bad kids headcanons:

Fig: used to hold her breath if adult weren’t paying attention to her. If Gilear and Sandralynn were having a conversation and she was trying to say something but they didn’t hear. She’d hold her breath until they realized she was standing there. Once she managed to go purple before Sandralynn glanced down and pat her on the back to get her to open her mouth.

Fabian: used to copy his parents mannerism, it’s why even though he spent more time with his father, he got his mother’s accent and sass but also his father’s confidence and daring behavior. If his father was in a meeting and he leant back in his, Fabian would also lean back (he fell back the first time), If his mother tilted her chin up while talking to someone, he’d do it too.

Adaine: wanted to dress just like Aelwyn. She thought Aelwyn was pretty. And even though her sister had a wider variety of clothes than her, she still tried her best to match. Her parents caught on after a bit and started only buying her school uniform-esc clothes. Which is when Adaine started sneaking stuff from Aelwyn’s closet. Aelwyn knew, she could have step up some kind of ward but she didn’t.

Gorgug: was mesmerized by his parents work. As a kid he’d always wanted to be an artificer, but he was worried he’d just end up breaking things. (Non verbal Gorgug headcanon!!) Gorgug used to walk up to them randomly with tools to ask what they were called or what they did. He also once tried to fix something he broke with tape and glue because he felt bad. He hid it in his room for a couple days before leaving it on the table without saying anything because he was embarrassed.

Kristen: loved talking, this is true now but it used to be more true back then. She used go on and on about silly things like the sky, or corn, or books. When she was asked to give speeches as the chosen of Helio, she would go off topic and eventually go over the allotted time just talking about how she thinks the sun is pretty but she hates sunburns, but how sunscreen is annoying to put on. Eventually she was told to not talk as much and it stuck with her for a bit, but not very long.

Riz: Used to “work” with his mom and dad, if they were sitting on a table doing paperwork or thinking about a case. He would scoot an extra chair over, grab some pens and paper and just writing stuff down. Sometimes it was his own ideas, him trying to help, other times he’d just doodle and say it’s work. He’d insist on staying up if one of his parents hadn’t finished yet. He’d also once attempted to make his mom coffee (he just mixed milk and coffee grounds like hot chocolate.)

Fig as a little kid would be one of those children who were SO dramatic over every little thing. She gets in trouble for doing something bad and decides to 'run away from home' because NOBODY loves her she'll just go live in the woods. She packs her favorite toys, some snacks and some clothes into one of her blankets and ties it to the end of a stick before marching out the back door. She makes it halfway across the yard before she's sitting on the ground bawling her eyes out and apologising.

Fabian and his dad would definitly have matching outfits when he was little. It was incredibly cute, he was the mini captain with all of Bills confidence but Hallarials accent which made it adorable. Bill would tell him what he needed to say to their crew whenever he took his boy sailing, and you'd just hear this tiny voice yelling the commands while Bill looked on all proud. He got his mothers attitude because Bill would be away for work sometimes, so Hallariel would take Fabian around to all her appointments when she wasnt drunk.

When Adaine was little she wanted to be just like her big sister. This was before her parents started trying to drive a wedge between the two girls and their relationship went sour. Aelwyn even used to dress Adaine up in her old outfits but once her parents started getting involved she was banned from doing so (people will think we're poor if she's running around in your hand-me-downs).

Gorgugs parents were very supportive of his efforts to help them with their artificer work. Plus he was stronger than they were at age five so he liked to come down and watch his parents work on things, then helped them move stuff around their workshop whenever asked. He picked up a lot of his knowledge via osmosis which is part of why he did so well when he started learning at school. It was all stuff he'd been absorbing since he was a todler.

Kristen was a very chatty child and it weirded a lot of kids out. Their parents used to force them to hang around her once she was chosen but they would inevitbly start tuning her out when she got a bit rambly. The difference between her old friends and the bad kids is pretty obvious, because even if she bounces between a billion different topics the bad kids are still obviously listening to her. Sometimes one of them will bring up something she said in passing weeks ago and she feels all warm and happy inside.

Riz's first 'clue board' was a little corkboard he had in his room that he'd pin his drawings on that he made while helping his mom and dad work. The Gukgaks never really bought coffee grounds, prefering the cheap instant coffee in the big jars, but the first time Riz made his mom one he miscalculated just how much coffee you needed to put in the cup. He put so much in that it could have fueled a rocket, heated it to boiling in the microwave, and made a huge mess. His mom still drank the remnants though because he was crying, but even the quarter cup that was left after it went everywhere gave her heart palpitations.

[crickit-song]

@graveyardparade look what you've done to me.

They wrote a lovely post about how justifiable Riz's fear of being alone is as an Aroace person who's only seen financial stability in romantic couples, I'll link in at the bottom.

~~~~~~

Adventures end, and Riz is terrified of the inevitable settling down of his party. One day, the Bad Kids, all grown up now, finish a campaign and leave for separate houses, and Riz just knows it'll be the end. They'll fall apart, like Lydia Barkrock's party did, and he'll be alone. He fights tears tooth and nail that night.

Then, it happens like this:

Fabian's never not lived in a big ass house, why change that? So he buys that big ass house and immediately hates it. It's lonely. He stumbles through an awkward, fast confession style explanation of this to Adaine and both of them hear an invitation when it's over.

Adaine's living in a shitty apartment with Aelwyn. This Elvin Oracle gig still doesn't pay. Adaine loves her sister so much, but damn does that woman not take care of herself. She's ace and comfortably single, and she immediately agrees to move in. He's got a tower, come on, that's her thing.

Neither Fabian nor Adaine remember when Kristen decided to stay. Grown up though she is, she's still a fucking mess when her relationships end, so crashing the guest bed and crying about her ex girlfriend eventually turns into fully living there. Kristen remembers. She'd had thought that she'd never been happier, and started calling it home the next day.

Eternally stable mechanic Gorgug and his chill partner buy the more orc acessibly sized place across the way, and they eat dinner at the house Fig lovingly calls Bad Kids Headquarters, or BKHQ, nearly every night.

Fig and Ayda don't settle. Both of them want to travel the world, and Aydas got her nest in Compass Points already, but there's a door from the HQ that goes straight there, and they come and hang at least once a week. Fig has a bi-weekly jam sesh with Gorgug, and her room has a rad four poster bed.

When Riz gets back from his (admittedly a little time-fucky) undercover gig for Angel Dad, a guest room's been converted to an offic space. It's got one door to five places (Bastion City, Leviathan, Fallinel, home in Elmville, and Gravalvia in the Baronies, which Fabian thought would be funny) and another door to the conjoining room, also redone. Said room includes a second and third murder board, a desk, a fully stocked mini fridge for the hyperfocus hours and no bed. All the walls are decked out like a cat tower with plenty of places to obsess, theorize, scramble around, and hunker down when sleep finally comes to catch him. His friends smile at him when they tell him it's his. Kristen and Fig drag him around the rooms, pointing, and Adaine tells him about spell building with Ayda for the Howl's Moving Castle style office door, while Fabian grabs his suitcase and Gorgug mentions the Small size accessibility stuff they'd just finished installing.

Riz was wrong. As if his friends (no hey, The Ball, we're family, don't you know that by now?) sorry, family would ever give up on him.

Riz cries. It feels better than he thought it would.

Link to the post that inspired whatever the fuck that was:

[your-enby-antihero]

Aelwyn Abernant Might Go Blue Dragon(born) Hunting

———————————————————————— Summary: What if The Rat Grinders got revivified and Oisin had a crush on Adaine. Well more so what if Aelwyn knew all the shit he put Adaine through and she wanted to send a message.

Also available on Ao3

————————————————————————

Aelwyn Abernant, a woman reformed, hadn’t thought of murder in like two weeks. Which honestly was a super big deal for her, had she done a shit ton of extorting and taken like six people’s bones to try and find the one pirate in Leviathan that dies if you pull out their bones, well maybe. But who can blame her? It's how she was raised. But now she was starting to slip back into old habits. 

The whole world was saved once again by her beautiful baby sister and the rest of The Bad Kids. Aguefort had come back and fixed all the weird shit that had happened, though the school was closed for the rest of the year so everyone just had to take the Last Stand to try to pass the year. But one of the many unfortunate things that happened, in Aelwyn’s opinion, was that those stupid Rat Grinders were revived. Adaine had said something about second chances and manipulation and corrupt adults and blah blah blah whatever. Something about them failing the year and doing remedial classes monitored by the Bad Kids to make it up or you know. Aelwyn knew all about villain reformation, being a reformed villain herself, but something about the Rat Grinders set her teeth on edge. Especially that waifish nerdy-looking Dragonborn, he was giving Adaine a look that Aelwyn found disturbing. Aelwyn was well aware of Adaine’s fleeting crush on the boy, though, after the whole Porter-Ankarna debacle, she was so very sure that the crush had faded. Even when Aelwyn tried to tease her about it Adaine looked absolutely disgusted.

“Why the fuck would I fancy some old money turncoat? He literally was just using any affection I had for him to end the fucking world. I’d punch that spoiled bitch in the face again just like I did with the dragons he sent to ruin Fabian’s birthday,” she spat.

It started over that summer, Adaine and some of the Bad Kids had taken to “tutoring” the Rat Grinders on how to adventure properly. Adaine had brought Oisin over to the tower in Mordred to discuss some sort of thing to do with Adaine’s mephits, the ‘Dry Guys’ if Aelwyn recalled correctly. Before she had left for work Aelwyn had made sure to bolster the Nemesis ward in Adaine’s room before she left. She would not be having that boy mess with her baby sister, not in a millenia. Aelwyn spent the next hours of her shift at the Compass Points feeling the arcana of the ward for anything amiss. Though she felt nothing that didn’t stop her from texting Zayn to peek in on Adaine and Oisin to see if he was pulling any funny business. She received a photo back from the ghostly fellow of Adaine looking down at a piece of parchment on the floor of their shared room, quill tip set between her teeth in concentration. Next to her was Oisin, who sat cross-legged with his face leaning up against his clawed hand gazing doe-eyed at her sister. God, Aelwyn could see that look that now followed Fabian whenever he talked about Mazey. She looked at the clock and decided that the library would just close early that day because she had a pest to scare.

As she walked through the door back into Mordred she was greeted by Sandra-Lynn and Jawbone before she stormed up to the tower, rocketing past Fig and Kristen who coincidentally were also spying on Adaine. As she walked through the door she did so calmly, years of repressing any feelings other than jealousy and pettiness really did give her a good resting bitch face. 

“Adaine, I see you have a guest over,” she smiled, though the glare she was giving Oisin was anything but subtle. 

Adaine of course shot her a dirty look as Oisin’s scaled face blushed purple, “Aelwyn I thought you were working late tonight. I didn’t expect you to be back so early with Ayda not being there to run it today?” 

“Adaine you’re so funny, dear sister. Now let me have a look at this spellcraft, you know I’ve always been so good with these things.”

Aelwyn sat down with the two, purposely placing herself in between the teens. Adaine had taken it in stride, literally nothing about the interaction changed for her. Aelwyn truly just joined in on their spell crafting, she could tell Adaine was grateful for the extra set of eyes. However, Oisin was notably more shut off. He really kind of just ignored Aelwyn, trying to lean in toward Adaine when he was asking questions about Adaine’s rune work. The night went well otherwise, she had successfully defended her sister from the boy clearly all moony eyed over her. 

As Adaine sees Oisin out the door Fig and Kristen both leap at Aelwyn in the halls.

“So what happened in there Aelwyn, why did you come home early? What. Did. He. Do.”

She is bombarded with all the possible questions and observations that Fig and Kristen had made and in return dishes out all that she noticed back. She hadn’t remembered the last time someone had fancied Adaine but Kristen and Fig did. Apparently, the last person was that freak Biz Gilitterdew. Aelwyn shuttered in disgust and mentally noted to take a trip down to Hell to kill the tiny little pipsqueak basement scum for trying to put the moves in her sister even when they hated each other and she was evil at the time. She also got the download about all the history with Oisin that Adaine had conveniently left out when Aelwyn had pressed to know about the boy her sister fancied. So to say that Aelwyn was contemplating hunting Dragonborn for fun wasn’t a lie. From what she got from Fig and Kristen was that Oisin had used the cover of being a love-struck idiot (or maybe he was a love-struck idiot) to lead Adaine on so that he could plan a bunch of arcane whatever to make Seacaster Manor go airborne. Then after he had supposedly tried to cover for his friend for being assholes and then killed one of his party members he had said that she ‘must not be a very good oracle’ because she didn’t forecast that there was going to be a storm at Fabian’s birthday. Now that was something that Aelwyn could not forgive, not only was she the only one who was allowed to tease her sister about oracle things but he wasn’t allowed to say those exact words to Adaine, especially about storms and oceans. Aelwyn knew what Adaine saw in the Nightmare King’s forest and she knew that anything about the previous oracle and storms haunted her sister. 

Adaine soon made her way back up to where the little cabal of the girls of Mordred Manor had been gossiping. She yelled indignantly and threw a book at Fig when she started teasing. Aelwyn could tell from the look on her sister’s face and her voice, no hot flush or any enamoured quiver in her voice, that she really had gotten over Oisin completely and that this was all just in the name of sister bonding.  

“Kristen was the one who said we should try to fix the Rat Grinders, I’m just doing this so that they won’t join another teacher’s weird cult,” Adaine shouted indignantly. 

— — — — — — — — — — — —

It had been many weeks since Oisin had started to come over for tutoring, of course, the ever patient Adaine Abernant was gracious to the fool even while he was literally (to Aelwyn) staring at her like a lost puppy. Aelwyn made a habit of always crashing their little study sessions. Sometimes it was a text to Adaine telling her to get away so that she could gossip and other times it was Aelwyn straight up just coming home early. 

Every time Oisin gave her a smile that she could tell was laced with the ‘you ruined my life’ vibes, not that he’ll ever be able to pull off that smile like Penelope Everpetal. He was always polite but always insisted that he and Adaine were fine on their own.

“I’m sure you have so much stuff to do, me and Adaine have got this one.”

“Oh I’m sure my sister has everything under control but you seem to be lacking- I mean look at your rune for conjure elementals. This linework- here let me.”

Most of their interactions were passive-aggressive at best and outright venomous at best, Aelwyn had offered to see Oisin out one night, and Adaine had to take care of business relating to Gilear and some cursed object he had found at a yard sale. 

“Sorry Oisin, good work today! By next time I’m sure your party is going to be fine during the Last Stand,” Adaine shouted as Fig was literally pulling her out the door.

The room was silent, just Aelwyn perched on her bottom bunk holding Boggy in her hands. Oisin got up and started to pack his things, heading for the door. As he did, clawed hand on the doorknob to leave. With a click, Aelywn pushed the door closed with a mage hand.

“Hakinvar, you and I have something to discuss.”

Aelwyn didn’t look up, her eyes glowed as did the runes she had lovingly, carefully painted onto the floor. Oisin didn’t move, frozen in fear as he let out slow fearful breaths. 

Aelwyn set Boggy down, scritching under what she assumed was the frog orb’s chin, and motioned for Oisin to move away from the door. He did. Stiff as only a body once caught by rigour mortis could. He faced Aelwyn, just slightly taller than her due to his ancestry. 

“I can see you getting all ensorcelled by our dear oracle but as her older evil sister, I will have to intervene. You know the last guy who messed with her had his fingers shot off by her little rouge friend. I heard that Gorgug cleaved your ass into two. They brought you back because they are good moral people. Had it been up to me, well I’m sure you know I worked with Kalvaxus and The Nightmare King so I’m sure such a capable wizard like you could figure it out. I know what you’ve said to her, what you’ve done to her, and I’ll have you know that I can be very tricky if you cross me.”

She draws her fingers along the ground tracing the nemesis ward with a manicured hand.

“You are aware of what this ward means, yes?”

“Yes, I know what you mean,” Oisin finally replied.

Aelwyn smiled, “Good then I’m sure you’ll be far more careful in future when it comes to that blabbering mouth,” she allowed the glow to cease, picking up Boggy as she rose. 

Oisin practically bolted out of the room, nodding as he collected his gear. Aelwyn nuzzled the perfect familiar as she followed. Good, always good for people to know their place.

[found-family-tournament]

Found Family Tournament Round 1 Part 10 Group 50

Propaganda and further pictures under the cut

The Bad Kids: Riz "The Ball" Gukgak, Adaine Abernant, Fabian Aramaris Seacaster, Gorgug Thistlespring, Figueroth "Fig" Faeth, Kristen Applebees (& Ragh Barkrock)

Drawtectives: Gyorik "York" Rogdul, Grendan "Grandma" Highforge, Rosé, Jancy True, Eugene Finch

Submissions are still open!

The Bad Kids:

before i start the pictures below are by isawiitch (https://www.tumblr.com/isawiitch), victor rosas (https://twitter.com/SirVictorThe2nd), and m0nomercy (https://www.tumblr.com/m0nomercy) respectively check them out they're very cool and also that middle guy did the official art for fantasy high its very cool

Mods note: said middle picture is a .webp. And I sadly can't add those. But the others are below

anyways all of these dumb teens are just god they complete each other they're the most important people in the world to each other like fabian and gorgug meeting with a punch to the stomach and going on to share a hug in an evil forest and "DO YOU WANT ME TO BITE IT OUT FOR YOU" "the ball, wait" -riz and fabian and kristen's really bad inspiring speech (they're gonna get inspiring real soon) but they are inspiring because they're from the best and sweetest friend in the whole world and gorgug getting razzed a little for thinking random people are his dad and the sheer joy everyone felt for him when he met his real parents and RIZ THE BALL GUKGAK AND FABIAN SEACASTER THE DUO OF ALL TIME and adaine learning to be a normal teen and fig swearing she's not an open person when she pours her heart out to her friends every chance she gets and riz and adaine being the only two non-horny members of the team and bonding over that and being smart but terrible in social interactions together and "its called being gay, when you're here you're family" -kristen applebees, 2019 and fig starting a band with gorgug, one of the more socially awkward members of the party and "what would riz do" "you bite down hard on a piece of glass" and adaine's actual worst fear being what she would become after her friends passed and the KILL YOUR DAD chant and its gorgug keep going and all of them feeling each others' overcoming of fear in the forest of the nightmare king no matter how far apart they are and riz shooting off an incel's fingers for being weird about adaine (there was other stuff going on but you can't convince me that it wasn't at least partially because of that) and the gang not really letting gorgug and kristen forget that one time they died (they got better and were psychologically okay with it after a bit so this was lighthearted jabs and not straight-up reminding them of a big traumatic moment) and "my friends were warmer to me on the first day that we met than you were to me in my whole life" -adaine abernant, 2020

AND that doesn't even include all the crazy stuff with bad kids-adjacent found family members like gilear faeth getting his life back together thanks to these teens and jawbone o'shaughnessy being the dad of all time to the point where he actually adopts adaine at the end of sophomore year and aelwyn abernant holy shit (she's harder to justify here because her main important interactions are with her sister, unlike gilear who is technically fig's stepdad but is a core part of the found family in all directions) aelwyn abernant is trying so desperately hard to be better and ayda aguefort and adaine swapping homemade spells named after each other (adaine kills her dad with hers its a good time) and ragh barkrock getting over his internalized homophobia

SO IN CONCLUSION these guys have changed each other so much and every single combination of them, be it a duo or a trio or whatever has a distinct dynamic thats so so important to me. they're all family to each other, some of them more than even their real families. they are the guys of all time and my blorbos even and are a wicked good found family

Sometimes a family is the kids who all got detention together on the first day of school at adventuring academy.

And sometimes that family is:

A Half-elf-Half-Pirate rich boy who killed toxic masculinity by learning how to dance, and mercy-killed his father by stabbing him with a sword.

"The Greatest Wizard of this Age" (actually a Barbarian who took a level in artificer to boost his cellphone-reception to call and apologize to his satyr girlfriend) Half-Orc drummer who was adopted by Gnomes;

A bisexual Punk-rocker Tiefling who thought she was a wood-elf until her horns came-in & caused her and her adoptive father to discover that her biological father is actually an Archdevil;

The Elven Oracle (later just "The Oracle"/"Everybody's Oracle") who was adopted by the school's Werewolf Guidance Councilor after her evil parents disowned her (she later punched her evil bio-dad to death in a single round of combat, despite being a magic caster);

An aro-ace (un)licensed Private Investigator Goblin who carries a briefcase and ate the face of the dragon that ate his father;

And a lesbian ex-fundie human who met the corn-god her family worships, found out he sucks & left the church and her family, CREATED HER OWN GOD (of Buzzfeed listical symbols, known first as "YES!" then later "YES?"), only to then abandon that god to become the Saint of the long forgotten Goddex/Goddess of Mystery, Night and Magic.

(Optionally, add in the Half-Orc repressed-gay bully they befriended and helped come out)

And sometimes, that found family becomes a literal family, because over the course of the series:

Fig's mom starts dating Adaine's adoptive dad,

Fig's adoptive dad gets engaged to Fabian's mom,

Fig's biological dad starts dating Riz's mom,

Kirsten starts dating the niece of Adaine's adoptive dad/Fig's mom' boyfriend.

(Gorgug is the only one who still isn't related to the others, but he did find his biological parents. And although he still lives with his adoptive parents, he is now in the famous band "Fig and the Cig Figs" along-side his bio-parents, Fig, and Fig's bio-dad)

Currently, Fig, Adaine, Kirsten, Fig's mom, Adaine's adopted dad, Kirsten's GF, Adaine's biological older sister, Adaine's sister's ghost fiancé, Ragh, Ragh's mom, and Fig's Half-Phoenix librarian/pirate GF all live in one giant haunted old Victorian-style Manor.

Drawtectives:

They are so silly and cute <3 Three strangers bond over solving a murder mystery as interns to a tired detective/mom figure. In s2 they pick up an amnesiac guy and adopt him as a son (despite one of them being younger than him). Everyone pls watch Drawtectives it's so fun and there's lots of wacky drawing shenanigans involved

they are SILLY they are BESTIES they are in a POLYCULE they LOVE EACHOTHER 🥺🥺 (eugene is their son who is also their age and jancy is their mom. dw its not weird) (art included is all by karina @dilfosaur of drawfee)

[voxmilia]

Tell me about Adaine :D

Send me a character and I'll ramble

Ily, thank you for indulging my hyperfixations! 🥰

Also tagging @ghostlyeris and @shackld bc they also sent in Adaine jhdalshd loving Adaine is my brand ig (it's an excellent brand)

Under the cut bc I rambled so goddamn much

My first impression: "oh...oh wait help her voice is so soft, oh she had a panic attack at her entrance exam? Oh baby 🥺"

My impression now: "that's my GIRL, that's my GIRL, she's got a gun and a magical punching spell and she's gonna kill everyone who hurts her or her friends"

Favorite thing about that character: She's so endlessly caring. She's been put through the absolutely wringer and yes, she's guarded about it. But she's so, so kind. She has downtime and she offers to clean her friend's closet or throw an ice cream party. She uses her jacket that can produce anything (under 10 gold) and 90% of the time uses it to get stuff for her friends. She's three for three on helping redeem wizard antagonists, she's amazing

Least favorite thing: It's more least favorite in that I love her so much, I want her to have nice things? But narratively, it makes sense. She's so guarded and independent because she's had to be. And so that means now she struggles to accept help and open herself up especially to parental affection. And it just breaks my heart, seeing how far she's come but how far she has to go to let herself be loved the way she deserves.

Favorite line/scene: Her and Aelwyn in sophomore year is imprinted on my brain forever. In Fallinel wizard jail, holding the broken shell of her big sister in Kei Lumenura, the confrontation in the nightmare forest. "I do not love our parents and though you have not earned it? I do love you." TEARS. EVERY TIME.

Runner up goes to any scene with her and Jawbone - the iconic "You're not a coward, Adaine, you're just sick, you need medicine!" and the equally iconic "You're easy to love. And anyone who couldn't figure that out is a real bozo."

Third place goes to the ping pong table scenes, both of them. The amount of times I quote "ONE GUY OFFERED ME DIAMONDS AND I RAN AWAY" in dms is so funny

Also obviously "MAGIC IS REAL AND SO IS MY FROG!!!!!!!"

Favorite interaction that character has with another: beyond the above examples with her and Aelwyn, her and Jawbone, and her and Oisin? It's so silly but I'll always have a soft spot for her and Zayn in the opening to sophomore year. "You may absolutely tread upon my sanctum santorum!"

Also ofc any interaction with her and Ayda so I'm SO glad we got that moment in junior year where they were shading each other. Their friendship means the fucking world to me. They made each other spells, I'm forever tender about that

A character that I wish that character would interact with more: After junior year, I have to say Sandra Lynn! Their scene was incredibly sweet!! She's her dad's girlfriend and the closest thing to a mother figure she has, they deserve to have a moment! Also in a similar vein, Tracker! Tracker is not only her adoptive cousin but also her former roommate - she lived with Tracker nearly as long as she's lived with Kristen and about as long as she's lived with Fig, I'm so curious about their dynamic.

Another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character: it's not at all a one to one but my immediate thought was Annette Dominic. Just? Idk something about incredibly studious girls who don't know how to relax and just be kids, who had to grow knowing they were abandoned or neglected by their parents and had to find the love they deserve in a group of school friends? Idk!! I think they'd be friends. Adaine would offer to kill Gilbert

A headcanon about that character: Though it's her legal name, Adaine doesn't really refer to herself as an O'Shaughnessy, mostly out of habit. At her college graduation ceremony, she insists on being announced as Adaine Abernant-O'Shaughnessy. Jawbone cries.

A song that reminds of that character: So I haven't started her playlist and didn't wanna just pull something from mine and Nick's ship playlist for her and Oisin, so I just looked on Spotify and 🥺 Someone gave her Waiting on a Miracle from Encanto and that breaks my heart, so I have to say that one.

An unpopular opinion about that character: I'm ambivalent on the glasses. I like her with or without them. I know most folks seem to think that's just canon but personally I'm way more team "Riz definitely has a tail" than "Adaine definitely has glasses"

Favorite picture: HOW DO I CHOOSE, let me highlight a few of my faves:

the absolutely iconic princess mononoke moment with oisin,

this heartbreaking art of adaine and aelwyn while aelwyn is still imprisoned in sophomore year

this gorgeous bad kids group shot that I use currently as my tupperbox icon for adaine

this stunning and tragic parallel with adaine and the previous elven oracle

[kyonite]

I'm forever emo thinking about aelwyn during fantasy high freshman year, about to do something she knows is evil, and she takes just a little time to create a reset point. a place where adaine can reach her no matter what. and then she goes to a house party and gets defeated by her little sister and taken into custody and she knows, she just knows, that this is it for her. finding just a little bit of solace in the fact that no matter what happens there's still a little piece of her saved for adaine. because she wants to be a big sister so fucking bad. god. aelwyn fuckin abernant.

[re-reclass]

Honestly while it was hard to take all the news in a single episode, most of the popular NPCs leaving makes sense even outside of the idea that Brennan wouldn't want to use comfort NPCs as a crutch.

Historically Brennan's always needed to find excuses to keep the Agueforts out of the season's main conflict until the end. Arthur and Ayda are just so powerful that they trivialize a lot of the stakes if the heroes can call them up at any time. And while Arthur was eccentric enough to maybe tell them to handle it themselves, Ayda would absolutely get involved the second Fig asked.

Assuming the theory that Gilear's bad luck passed on to Fig is true, it makes sense to remove him from the board. Gilear's sad sack bit is where a lot of his humor comes from, and also it would telegraph that potential plotline way too much if we see his memetic bad luck evaporate. And if Gilear's leaving, it makes sense for Halariel to go too since they're dating, plus that facilitates an arc for Fabian having to be emotionally self-sufficient.

While more Aelwyn and Adaine bonding would be cute, it's more satisfying for me to see her starting to get her life back together after all the abuse and trauma. Adaine isn't the only one of the sisters who needs room to spread her wings.

Zelda... I admit I'm pretty confused about the timeline. I thought the Seven takes place during Junior Year? And I thought the Seven mentioned her being in a relationship with Gorgug, though I can't recall if Zelda herself said so. Maybe they broke up but she never found the right moment to tell her friends? That would totally be in-character. In either case, her not being in this season would make sense as she'd either be on her GED quest, or if Junior Year has a big timeskip at some point, she may already be a full-fledged adventurer.

All that said... I do miss my favs! It's going to feel weird without them around.

[courtney-deserved-better]

okay ive got fantasy high on the brain so here's a little fantasy high td au that i will never write. spoilers for like. all of it that's been released so far.

the bad kids:

right off the bat, sammy and amy as adaine and aelwyn. don't have much to say on this besides i think they fit pretty well. amy would have to be a bit smarter for aelwyn's place in the story but other than that i think they fit pretty well. sammy as a wizard with anxiety but who also desperately wants to fuck up the ppl who wrong her once she gets treatment for that anxiety. also i like to think in this au that amy would have a redemption arc and she and sammy could learn how to be somewhat functional sisters.

lightning as fabian. they are both egotistical athletes with a ridiculous amount of pressure from their shitty parents and i would love lightning to have an arc where he makes friends and learns to overcome toxic masculinity

dj as gorgug! he has the capacity to rage but he doesn't want to unless its necessary which disappoints people who expect someone as big as him to be a fighter. but he just wants to give tin flowers to his friends! maybe his love for cooking turns into a love for creating and that's how he becomes an artificer. he would definitely make little mechanical animal friends. also that makes his moms wilma and digby

hear me out. priya as kristen. big worshipper of helio thanks to her parents/being his chosen one but as she goes through the world without that strong of an influence she realizes how wrong they are and breaks away from that mentality. a bit of a chaotic being as she goes through life trying to find structure again but dedicated to her friends and whatever deity she's worshiping at the time

kitty as fig. she loves her friends so so much. she wants to try so many different things. she has issues with an authoritative female figure in her life (emma/sandra lynn). i think she could rock the punk/devil aesthetic while still being so friendly and silly.

i had such a hard time figuring out who would be riz but i'm gonna say shawn. they're both conspiracy theorists who probably drink way too much coffee and get way too little sleep. i can see shawn's obsession to surviving the zombie apocalypse be turned into an obsession with solving mysteries in this world. i think it'd be funny if that made sanders sklonda because she already sorta has tired single mom trying her best energy and is (unfortunately) a cop

others:

chris as aguefort. truly a facilitator, manifester, and being of chaos. alternatively i could see him being the jace to chef's porter

millie as ayda!! she would sooo be a librarian who doesn't understand friendship and the chaos that comes with it but wants to be loved so bad but doesn't understand how to get that love and is generally insecure while coming off as knowledgeable and somewhat aloof

if kitty is fig then i can see emma as sandra lynn in an "older sister who's been raising her younger sister and who knows who her real dad is but won't say" i think there's some delicious sister angst there especially with kitty pulling away once she realizes they're actually half sisters and emma knows who kitty's dad is because she's older but won't tell her. not sure how gilear factors into the situation

dave as biz. has his nice guy thing with sammy instead of sky.

zee as zaphriel/the hangvan. just chill vibes dude.

scary girl as baron!! she's already lowkey got the aesthetic in different colors all she needs is the puppet/mask/mirrors stuff. she would haunt the shit out of shawn

raj as ragh!! starts out as a bit of a bully jock but once he gets over his toxic crush, is rescued by the bad kids, and comes out he's so much happier and nicer while still being a total jock. not sure how wayne would fit into the equation but maybe he could just be raj's friend on the bloodrush team

duncan as jawbone is really funny to me because yeah he has this crazy past as a drug dealer but now he's a high school guidance counselor who's super dedicated to helping kids and has embraced the domestic life?? kinda have a hard time seeing it for duncan but i do think it would be really funny

alejandro as garthy. don't have much to say on this just the vibes if alejandro wasn't evil and wanted to chill on a pirate ship he would be garthy.

leonard as sprak they're both so silly

i think putting trent as gilear would be so funny. local normal guy is just cursed to have the worst day every day. make that man the lunch lad

ennui as zayn purely bc of the tall goth aesthetic

beth as cathilda. i like to think she's generally small and helpful but could kick so much ass if needed

the rat grinders:

courtney as kipperlilly there's truly no other choice.

scarlett as oisin bc she seems like the nicest, most reasonable rat grinder and then bam she's been scheming with their most evil plot

crimson as mary ann bc she is so expressionless 24/7 but can fuck you up without blinking

julia as ivy. mean girl time!!

mal as ruben. he thinks he's so edgy and cool when he's just a high schooler who sings in an emo band. kitty would enjoy psychologically tormenting his as wanda chillda

bridgette as lucy!! she and courtney were once best friends until she was the one rat grinder who chose to die rather than be overtaken by rage and courtney is left alive and grieving and betrayed by her best friend

emma (td) as buddy, actually a pretty nice person who is being influenced by a toxic mindset and suffers greatly at the hands of people using her as a pawn

gotta go be a functioning human being in society so that's all i got for now

[adaines-furious-feast]

hello. ive (finally) had another jace thought.

jace goes on the sophomore year quest. he's in leviathan, slowing down the bad kids to help arianwen as much as possible. and who does he see?

kir and angwyn, trying to kidnap adaine.

jace cares more about adaine than the other bad kids and has a role to play here. but angwyn will tell arianwen what he's doing when he realizes who it is. and maybe jace has some hangups about fighting his sister.

adaine still gets taken away and jace knows exactly where she'd be. he's not in touch with his family, but he's not stupid. he knows where his sister works. the court of stars is a *bragging* right in his family.

and jace is fine with cutting off his family to get adaine back. but then there would be questions. why he knows of this place, why he's so angry at angwyn and kir. why he cares so much.

and jace tries not to unravel as it feels like his past is unweaving itself just to all come together at this moment.

and he saves adaine and aelwyn. of course he does. but he has to send aelwyn off to her mother, after a year of torture from his sister and her own father. and he has to keep up more charades.

but it's all a bit tiring, isn't it? to have everything that you ever put emotional stakes into come as a frenzy. and you wish you could just be with arianwen, but you're in too deep and you're trying to save the family that doesn't know you're trying to keep together.

and it's tragic, being jace stardiamond. but hasn't your life always felt that way?

Ah! You read the last chapter!

Kir, not just his sister but the replacement. The one his father could be like "look how good a relationship I have with my wife. Yes, we are having a third child."

I think after the Row and the Ruction the rest of the bad kids are like "oh, that was far more personal for you than it should have been, wtf". And there's obviously no way he's going to reveal why he wants Angwyn dead yesterday, but he is considering telling them about Kir.

And then they go to Kei Lumennura and Telemaine obviously recognises the embarrassing step child of one of the Muses. Telemaine doesn't do gentle and is like "oh, you brought with you the Elemmire that was created beyond these immortal shores. If the muse finds out your have brought her humiliation with you... that would be bad..."

Jace does come clean about that. (I imagine he's not on Adaine retrieval team, so he doesn't get to see Kir banished twice but takes some joy in hearing about it afterwards).

And yes it is very tragic, and I will say again that I think whatever Jace was doing during the Spring Break in canon would actually be infinitely better for him than being along for the trip.

The other side of things would be kind of funny.

You're fresh out of university, going on your first real big mission as part of the Court of Stars to retrieve the Elven Oracle from a pirate city of all places. And who should you run into but your brother.

Your brother, who you have only seen a handful of times and have learned to be ashamed of. How the fuck does this guy know the Elven Oracle? Mother and Father are going to go insane when they find out.

And he's trying to stop you because of course he fucking is. That sounds like the Jacin your parents (and more your older siblings) have told you about. But he's not a wizard and you're better than him (You have to be. You were quite literally born to be better than him. If you can't beat him, your parents will cut you off).

Once you get Adaine to Fallinel, she's just as difficult as Jacin is (is it a Solace thing? Does he have some kind of relationship so he's rubbing off on her?). But you're feeling cocky, push the button for the way of pain, and ruin your own life in the process. Maybe you're more like Jacin than you thought.

[akannuoli-aatteet]

Do you think Adaine's school uniform fits her like a glove or not? (I have only seen S1, no spoilers!)

On one hand a too big uniform would symbolise her not literally fitting into her old lifestyle, not fitting in the fancy school, not fitting her parents' expectations.

On the other hand, a fitting uniform would symbolise everything that is expected of her. It would also show her wealth. It would allow for her jean jacket to be loose and have a much softer look on her and a different silhouette.

It would make sense for her uniform to fit her super well because her parents are rich and want their family to seem perfect so they could have paid for Adaine's outfit to be well tailored to her measurements.

On the other hand, Adaine's parents don’t care about her like they care about Aelwyn. Aelwyn is the older sister and she also went to the same school so Adaine could be wearing her sisters old school uniform. So it might be slightly ill-fitting.

Then there is also the possibility that Adaine does wear Aelwyn's old uniform but it fits perfectly. Almost as a reminder to Adaine that even though she despises her sister, they still share the same genes and body type.

Then the funniest option of Adaine having her own "tailored" uniform but it's done so shittily that it still doesn’t really fit and her parents just don’t care enough. Not very visually interesting though, just a fun idea.

[jq37]

So, that lady FH episode was amazing and all, but...

Hoo boy, I already see the discourse around the Ratgrinders' fates forming and it is going to be painful. Be careful around the fandom space.

(I mean, resurrection is still on the table for them, but that's based on if the players feel like it and right now, we're looking at 50/50 odds at bests)

Yeah, don't worry about me. This isn't my first rodeo and also I post a lot about D20 and respond to asks I get but I don't actually personally engage with any of The Discourse (tm).

And I'm not really surprised at the reaction. I know people have been opinionated all season in two main camps (that have a lot of overlap): people dissatisfied with the narrative direction and people deeply sympathetic to the Rat Grinders to the point of being mad at the Bad Kids.

The first camp I mostly understand. I get wishing the cast would explore a certain storyline more. For example, I've been on the Aelwyn redemption arc train since literally the first episode of Fantasy High so I was a little disappointed that when that finally came to a head in Freshman Year, it was a big fight and then very little aftermath/unpacking because Aelwyn was sent to jail right after. And Sophomore Year hadn't been announced so I had no idea that she was gonna get another shot. But I wasn't upset or anything. Adaine at that point still hated her sister. She had no reason to want to reach out. And at the end of the day this is other people playing a game. Brennan presented them all the possible plot threads and they were most interested in self discovery, hanging out with each other, doing Shenanigans, and playing Tomb Raider re: Ankarna. Those are all options they were presented and it's not like they were doing crazy off-roading. It's well within the parameters of what D&D is. If you're gonna watch a show like this (or honestly any show), you have to accept that what's most interesting to you isn't always going to be the most interesting thing to the people in the driver's seat.

So yeah, I feel like this side of things I get (even though I'm fine with how things turned out).

The other camp--people being legit mad at the Bad Kids (and in some cases the actual cast) for treating the Rat Grinders like antagonists instead of victims that they were responsible for empathizing with and redeeming--I find kind of wild.

Like…you're mad at the kids who go to Child Murder School for killing kids who want to end the world and kill them specifically? Literally the first day of school the principal of the school says that adventurers are violent wanderers who engage in shenanigans and enact violence. This is the exact assignment they were given and that's what they're doing.

I think it's wild to at the same time believe that the Rat Grinders (who have killed people) are not responsible for their actions and deserve to be talked down while in the process of causing an apocalypse because they're just kids who were manipulated while at the same time calling the Bad Kids evil lunatics for trying to stop them by killing them (in a world where Revivify and Resurrection exist) even though they are ALSO kids who are doing what they've learned at Child Murder School. The Bad Kids have to be mature enough to thoroughly investigate the situation and have nuance about it but the Rat Grinders don't have any responsibility to not join a shady evil murder plan*? And do the Bad Kids really hate the Rat Grinders to the point where they're doing some overkill in this fight? Absolutely. But it's not like they're killing them because they hate them. They're killing them because they're trying to end the world--and they also happen to hate them. Are we forgetting that Kipperlilly killed Buddy--her own teammate--with a gleeful smile on her face? That was so out of pocket.

They're adventurers! Not guidance counselors! If Jawbone was like, "We need to kill these kids," yeah that would be weird but why would the Bad Kids extend an olive branch to the kids who (1) famously hate them, (2) killed at least one maybe 2 of their own party members, (3) endangered the entire student body population an hour ago, (4) are currently trying to end the world. Hell, Adaine was ready to be mean to her own sister in elf jail literally up until the point Brennan described how rough she looked from the torture and that's when she changed her mind. The Power of Love and Empathy is on the menu but it's a special item you only can get if you know the chef. Everyone else is getting a serving of These Hands. Just because you can find a vegan solution to a problem it doesn't mean you're obligated to.

This all comes down to, "Maybe teenagers shouldn't have godlike powers and the ability to play judge, jury, and executioner" but that's literally the premise of the entire show so you can't get around it without rejecting the show's entire premise. If they were like, "Hmm the systems that underpin our world are questionable and we should change the power structures" instead of, "Let's kill some bad guys!" then that's a totally different thing we're doing here!

And, idk man, this show has always had a Who Framed Roger Rabbit style morality where the normal rules of ethics stop applying when it's funny. They beat the crud out of Ragh and then lied to him that he shit his pants just for the bit. A pirate was rude/kinda racist to Riz so they scared him into killing himself. Riz ate the remains of the sentient (albiet evil) dragon he killed. That's all unhinged behavior but none of that is meant to be serious. Getting upset about Fig sending Ruben to hell to me feels like getting mad that Jerry hit Tom with a cartoonishly large mallet.

None of this is new so I have to assume that people are having a big reaction because they relate to the Rat Grinders or just really like them so it feels bad that the Bad Kids are treating them like fodder rather than beloved NPCs.

But again, this is a world where you can bring people back from the dead and the Rat Grinders have showed intent that is grievously neglectful at best and insanely murderous at worst so I can't muster a lot of sympathy for the fact that the Bad Kids are just taking them down without remorse. I don't think you have to try to empathize with the people who are trying to harm you if you don't want to especially while they are in the process of harming you.

(*And we still don't know how voluntarily they joined this plan. We don't know if they were killed and basically forced into resurrecting with rage or if they just leapt at the chance to join a plan that would let them get one over on their rivals. It literally could be either. We've had kid villains on this show strong armed into being party to evil plans by threat of harm (Aelwyn) as well was kid villains who just had their own selfish motivations and weren't tricked at all (Penelope and Biz). We actually don't have any clear answer on how culpable they are. We don't know if they all have rage crystals (except for Buddy). And we don't know how much having a Rage Crystal effects your actions. The best indicator we got is in this latest ep when Brennan said that there was a mechanic where Porter was going to call anyone with a rage crystal to fight for him but that says to me that he's only directly puppeting them when he uses that action and otherwise they have free will and are just angrier. The Bad Kids don't have a reason to believe definitively that the Rat Grinders are just unwilling puppets even if that is the case so of course they're treating them like enemies. Anyway, this is a whole lot of "I don't knows" but that's only because I've seen a lot of people talking like the Rat Grinders literally aren't in control of their actions but that's not info that we have. It could be true but we don't actually know that so it's not a good argument.)