#Guarded by an evil (fucking HOT) wizard!

[sunshine-and-moonshine]

So hungry for Gaz right now that I’m considering rewatching once upon a time for Elliot Knight’s Merlin scenes

[f4y3w00d5]

looked thru my old characters again and now im wondering whod wanna rp with them, so im gonna pick a few out and give brief backstories

YOUNG INDUSTRIES (A former rp I did)

Description: Evil guy Seth kidnaps innocents and experiments on them, no one could ever escape.

Lets start with the characters from the Abyss, the Abyss was where the inmates who angered Seth/were dangerous were. there was the upper and lower parts of the Abyss, ill specify what each character was.

Oliver (Green eyed) and Alvirum (demonic). Oliver was to be a sacrifice, but ended up possessed by a young demon, and their souls were bonded. Oliver is mostly in control, although when threatened Alvirun takes over. Olivers mostly sweet but Alviruns mocking. They count as 11. Upper levels of the abyss.

Annie. hahaha fucking shit was she hot- Shes some sort of angelic type being, crossed with a siren. Shes a fucking jerk. I love her. Upper levels.

I loved Rax but he didnt go well with the industries. Condescending but flirty vampiric asshole. he has minor hypnotic powers, too. He got put into the upper abyss for pissing Seth off

Skylar!!! The darling was so sweet, I love him. Some sort of siren, but he was cursed by a cousin to only be able to speak the truth and the whole truth. hes also a sorcerer and knows quite a bit of magic. He probably insulted Seth and got sent down

Zayne. Psychopathic yet human serial killer. Potentially made a deal with the devil. Highly dangerous and his drive for blood outways nearly everything else. Lower abyss, one of the most dangerous.

Ive already got one for Jacob, one of the others in the lower abyss, and Zanthia would be hard to roleplay....

(thats him, hes 19)

Upper Levels This is the main part of the industries and where the safe inmates are

Abby. I didnt get much done for her, but shes some sort of wood elf and utterly adorable. easily scared and very quiet.

Alyce. Early version of Faye, part demon part human, hangs out with some other dude i forgot the name of... wait nevermind its Haydyn!! she was a killer before being captured and shes rlly bright and bubbly

bored dead inside ghost, friends with Alyce, murdered, sorta goth. tired constantly but hes nice

Celestia. Some kind of human mixed with an eldritch abomination. she cries constantly. shes grey and black and white. tragedy. her voice sounds like multiple people talking on top of each other.

Tethys. Already got an account for her. Sweet little cow girl with abandonment issues. Shes currently staying at @monsterfucker-research-wizards place.

Xander (red) and Shane (blue). Pair of brothers, Xanders the responsible one, Shane is the eternally horny masochist one, twin vampires looking for their baby sister, Evelyn.

Evelyn, 16. Technically from the abyss, but that was just to keep her secret. Been locked in a room all by herself for 10 years. Shes sweet.

Anya, some sort of deer-elf thing. Shes sweet. very shy and helpful, i love her....

Next we have the ones that were guards at the Young Industries

She doesnt have a name, or a personality yet

also unnamed and personality-less but she looks cool

then theres the ones from the library, they get their own account

The mother, Cecilia, her 9 year old daughter, May, and the first (and only one ive thought of) resident of the library, Alora. Cecilia and May are... god knows what. some kind of immortal being, teleporting around with a sanctuary for the broken, known as the library. Alora was the first one who escaped from the Young Industries and is VERY traumatised, also shy.

Then lastly just random ones

Adonis, human murderer, hes badass. not much on him yet

Erika, also badass... maybe her and Adonis are siblings

@akronus-the-redeemed @gobodegoblin @monsterfucker-research-wizard @the-cherryblossom-system @ibuildblasters @good-wizard @annotated-catastrophe @drew-bard-for-hire @wasteland-wooferbaby @blooper-malte @be-gentle-with-littluns-2 @slymewitch

[dreamcrow]

I need some Hot Crow Takes on what was the worst example of Villain Decay throughout ToA. also on what Leonora Janeth uses in her hair

send me a meta prompt (currently closed); thank you for the ask!

the arcane and esoteric mysteries of janeth's haircare regimen are beyond my humble (straight-haired) supposings. but for the villain decay? oh, morgana, hands down. 

gunmar is spooky, but a bit of a ham. for most of trollhunters, he’s also relatively distant. bular is a lot closer, and much more of an immediate threat, but he’s always ultimately subordinate (either to stricklander or his father) and he does, in the end, get got by a teenager. angor is initially presented as terrifying, and rightly so, but even if he becomes sympathetic he’s always formidable; stricklander starts out pretty nefarious (especially if you think about some of the implications of e.g. feeding bular a human security guard) but is of course, in proper gdt fashion, domesticated by wuv. obviously i have niche side blorbo brain fungus re: the arcane order but it's hard to assess their actual "villain decay" without having to think about That Film. at any rate, i don't think they're actually the worst example in toa: despite a concept/design that fucks so absolutely severely, once they get on screen, they're not actually built up all that much (or...well). it takes them less than the space of an episode (22 minutes) to go from "dread, ancient terrors that even merlin is afraid of" to "merlin shooing away them, the green knight, and their evil floating skull castle with less effort than he usually spares to criticize douxie." but that's another post.

morgana, though. part of what made her such a compelling villain was how little arthur figured in trollhunters. the existence of merlin implies the existence of arthur, of course, but in trollhunters arthur isn't there at all. instead, we get the negative space of him: his right hand (merlin) and the anti-arthur (morgana). obviously this is partly her role in arthuriana proper, but it also strikes me as pretty deliberate here: merlin's liege vs. merlin's student (and that liege's sister); humanity's last best hope vs. the queen of the otherworld; the king under the mountain vs. the witch under arcadia. i was not very tuned into morgana when i first got into trollhunters, but looking back over the series for this ask, the parallels are so obvious. and so tight! i wouldn't be surprised if some of this was even deliberate.

and the thing is: trollhunters has enough space as a series that its antagonists don't really have to pull their punches. morgana was nasty in trollhunters. pale lady, baba yaga, eldritch queen, mother of monsters—holy shit, right? and she's creepy, too: all muttering whispers and dread ancient magic! she takes angor’s soul, and then his free will. she taunts stricklander while possessing the body of one of his students (while threatening the permanent exile of two more to the depression dimension), and then in the guise of the human he's in love with. speaking to her faithful children—who only exist through morally dubious, unpleasant processes, for which she is implied to be responsible—via institutional heirloom phonograph! she's so much more connected to the shadow realm, here, probably the most compelling justification for reading shadow magic as dangerous. she's the big bad behind angor and gunmar (while playing them both against each other). she absolutely feels evenly paired with merlin, and (rightly) kicks his ass through most of the battle of the eternal night. she's evil but charismatic and even despite all that still a little human: when she taunts jim for not knowing merlin used her hand for the amulet, it isn't without a shadow of what must have been an ancient hurt.

and then. wizards. jesus christ (tired ben affleck smoking dot jpg)

[ » read the rest of the essay on ao3 ]

[queenbol-of-baldurs-gate]

Feed my BG3 hunger.

I wanna know for those playing with CustomTavs that will romance someone in the game, who are they wooing? And why? How do you imagine their dynamic? In tags or reblogs are fine! I'll start;

Delight- Warlock, Tiefling, Criminal

I literally cannot unsee her romancing Astarion.

Their pasts just line up and mirror so well, as do their current situations, and while she's not outright cruel she's definitely not a Good Guy. She finds him funny and over the top, and is entertained by his poor lying but drawn in by his vulnerability. He finds her contradictory but also funny (laughing together about the walking undead husband was a sweet moment between them lmao) and is starting to find her smartass comments and teasing endearing. They don't just become good lovers, they become good friends, and they will be wonderfully morally grey and chaotic together.

Briallen- Half-Orc, Sorceror, Folk Hero

This bitch can fit so much Survivor's Guilt inside her!! I think she will really fit well with Halsin all things considered. She is, down to her core, a genuinely good person who wants to protect and help, even if she sees her heroism as a selfish act to punish herself. I can see her being drawn to Halsin's strength, confidence and wisdom and I can see him drawn to her bravery, selflessness and serenity. But hopefully he will be able to curb her extremely low sense of self-preservation and she will show him that she will accept him in his entirety with no strings. Two folks who really admire each other slowly falling head over heels for each other!

Iker- Human, Ranger, Soldier

Gale. Not just because he's a magebreaker and I love the whole enemies/rivals to lovers, but because Gale is a wonderfully complicated person and turns out Iker finds complicated hot. I can see Gale intially finding his standoffish and straight up cunty behaviour annoying/vaguely amusing at first, but become increasingly curious about the person he used to be before everything. Iker looks at Gale and they think "Fuck. He's hot. Damn mage." and becomes fascinated with the fractured man beneath the perfect veneer. Idk about Gale, but Iker is actually the devoted type and in the future won't care what he does as long as he lets them stay by his side. Unhealthy obsessions all round let's get on it cunts.

Rowan- Half-Elf, Wizard, Scholar/Sage

I am truly a bit stumped with them BUT I can see them making poor decisions and falling for Wyll. He's got secrets and they're a curious sort who naturally wants to uncover them, for good or ill. They trigger Wyll's protective instinct, as they are particularly a bit naive about the wider world beyond their studies and dig sites and he's as soon to find them crouching down in the middle of a battle protecting a suspected artifact as he is to find them completely closed off to the world with her nose in a tome. He would find their completely objective opinion about his situation surprisingly refreshing and they want to study him under a microscope (oh and he has a very nice smile they can't seem to say no to). They'll make him better, he'll make them worse lol.

Zlatan- Githyanki, Cleric, Outlander

Oh Shadowheart for sure. Not only does he find her beautiful, he's intrigued with the fact that such a kind person (objectively) worships such an evil goddess. He's always been fascinated with outlier cultures and beliefs, like the drow. She would obviously be wary of him at first, but will be pleasantly surprised by his easygoing and cheerful nature yet shocked by his daredevilry and adventurousness. When she finally lets down her guard and they get closer, I can see them having actually quite a romantic dynamic between them.

Delshad [Name WIP]- Dragonborn, Fighter, Noble

I'll be honest, I was inspired by the Panel to make a hot af dragonborn to sweep Karlach off her feet. I'm weak. He is literally Just Some Guy. He's polite, he's softspoken, he likes embroidery and he will Fuck You Up when pressed. He would find Karlach very, very cute once she trusts him with her more romantic side and he can withstand her sparky tendencies with all his scales. She would appreciate the fact that he's pretty non-conforming in terms of his status and his gender stereotype and that he's only a gentleman with her FOR her. Very sweet, very soft relationship ahoy!!

Tav [Name Undecided]- Gnome/Deep Gnome, Rogue, Urchin or Charlatan?

Now this Tav is very much a recent and underdeveloped idea, because I saw The Prettiest gnome Tav the other day and I had this image of a cute gnome lady Absolutely Down Bad for Lae'zel because she loves big strong hot mean women. I imagine a very messy, horny dynamic since this Tav despises any authority on principle and Lae'zel comes from a society very much built upon obeying authority, but I can see Lae'zel finding Tav's dedication to chaos and getting things done her way or no way quite attractive.

[nukuome]

Aaaaalllllll righty then

PART 48 LIVEBLOGGING!!

(Spoilers, obviously BUT FIRST THE PRE-BLOGGING)

OKAY so the episode releases in 2.5 hours. I hope jarthur split up into separate bodies. OR AT LEAST ARE ABOUT TO (im coping so fucking hard man). Because like. They're in the castle. The cult castle. With the cult in it. The cult. The cult that already tried to separate them before. They tried to separate them before.

(Haven't started the episode) I think this is the season of the John Doe.

ITS DONE DOWNLOADING OKAY LIVEBLOG STARTS NOW

uh oh

SPITTING BLOOD?????? ME WHEN TEBURCULOSIS

Are they just wandering the castle???

Woag. Other people.. that's really weird.

ARTHUR YOU ARE FUMBLING ALREADY YOURE SO COOKED

He sounds like Oscar 🥺🥺🥺🥺 my baby..

RED‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

Dawg.. get a fucking tissue or something

MUSIC. MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

CULT?? CULT LADY?????

Hehehehe cult. Oh nvm just a garden lmao.

Hot...

STOP STOOOPP HARLAN WHY DO YOU TORTURE ME LIKE THIS

Five-some would be CRAAAAZY I love these guys

MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC

Hmmmmm...... also I love how John is taking lead here

AH. HIS EYES HOLY HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT

MUSIC

Evil fucking wizard...

So like. This is the creation of the order of the fallen star right?

Oh. Oh no Arthur fits this description TOO well.. that's not good.

GUY WHO BUILT THE UNDERGROUND CITY??????

The.. cracks, huh? Like.. like in season 3???? The episode the cracks???

BLACK STONE‼️‼️‼️‼️

Wait. The order is already established okay..

AAWWWWW MAAAANNNNNN I hope Arthur gets to touch that rock.

Awww that was a cute little nervous laugh <3

LIKE A LAMB JOHN STOP DESCRIBING THIS TWINK

Lmao why is John so impressed with these knots??

MUSIC MUSIC MUSIC

oh. Oh no arthur.

Holy shit this is cool.

Uhhhh.. okay so they're all gonna try to kill each other okay then

This is what it feels like to wear a binder too long

Football caught me very off guard

MURDER! MURDER! JEKYLL AND HYDE MURDER! MURDER!

Oh he did it.

Woag.. hot French voice..

OOOOHHH FUCK YOU FRAIER

Thank you frenchie <3

YIPPIE!!

Oh my god they're all gonna be like "Why were you so far behind??" ANNNND YA

Woah. Harassment much?

Yeah, he has teburculosis man lay off.

Okay I kinda love this man a little

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?? ALSO ARTHUR WHAT WAS THAT. OKAY, JAMES. What was that little breath?? 🤨🤨🤨🤨🤨

Woah now THATS a good visual

Oh wait. Where's yorick? Where's my son?

OH MY GOD ARTHUR YOU CLEVER BITCH I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU SO I LOVE YOU SO MUCH

AZATHOTH???????????? AZATHOTH PLEASEPLEASSPLEASEPLEASAAAAAAEEEAASE AZATHOTH

eugh.

Yaaaaassss slay witch seer queen

Ouch. Cold.

[swervinonalatenight]

Unearthed Fanfic Idea Part 3: The Characters

Magic Eaters:

Saunders McClellan: Best agent among the Magic Eaters, with a perfect mission record and scores of rouge wizard kills and captures to his name. Each Magic Eater agent has their own unique style, in both fashion and fighting, with no set uniform standards among them. Saunders style is a high mastery of full body MM and high movement, keeping his opponents off guard and frantic as he is constantly darting around and ambushing. Even if a spell were to hit, his body is covered in a light but full body suit of magic eater metal armor. His gauntlets all end in long, sharpened claws with serrated blades going down the forearms. His legs too are armed, with blades of magic eater metal running up the length of his shins and protruding from his heel. On his back is a long, but thin cape covering only one shoulder and half his back. On it, is emblazoned the words, in English, "DESTROY ALL EVIL" His helmet is crafted out of magic eater metal, and is mechanized to collapse into the suit when not in use. It is made to look akin to a snarling demon, but in a modernized, sleek look.

Saunders is reserved, quiet and brooding individual. Think someone trying to imitate a stereotypical Batman. In truth, he is a huge fucking nerd who went REALLY hard into comics and made that his thing, to where his personal room is lines with bookshelves of comics and statues of superheroes, mainly Batman. When not in his "batman" persona, he's an easily embarrassed dork who hides his passions out of embarrassment and is VERY socially awkward, only having adopted the persona to be able to disassociate himself from his fear. He keeps this secret from the rest of the Magic Eaters.

Navin Dhebar: Leader of the Magic Eaters' "Hit List" squad, a team solely sortied out on kill orders. His style of fighting involves the use of two urumi, an Indian style of whip-like sword of thin, flexible metal, each hilt holding five separate, six foot long blades made out of tempered magic eater metal. He fights in an overwhelming and hard hitting style, where in the blades are in constant motion, seeming to come from everywhere at once. His main outfit in sorties is a dark purple bandh gala suit and black undershirt. In it is small cables of magic eater metal sewn into the suit's fabric, providing only a basic level of magical protection and no outward effects upon a magical being. On the back of the suit jacket, emblazoned are the words, "सभी बुराइयों को नष्ट करना"

Navin is a very suave and composed man. A natural flirt and womanizer, he uses his good looks often and isn't afraid to show them off or use them for his own gain. He can sometimes get arrogant and foolhardy, often leading to him getting into hot water with others, especially women. On missions, he is a natural leader and is extremely proficient at leading his squad and in combat.

Hannah Bjerke: she took the name from the ancient Valkyrie. Born in Sweden, she was kidnapped and experimented on by rouge wizards, trying to make new strains of lycanthropy for different animals. She was the only survivor, and infected with a strain of lycanthropy for the white-tailed eagle, though the transformation is semi-permanent, with eagle wings having developed on her back as a constant, but can transform into a 'were-eagle'. The experiments did render her mute, mutating her vocal cords to uselessness, and her feet are more talon like than human. She's entirely reclusive, preferring a solo route but offering to work with Navin and Navin only. She uses magic-eater metal wing attachments, turning the edges of them into razor sharp blades, and two claws on each end of the wing, and a spear of magic eater metal. The wings do not allow her flight, however. Her Magic Eater "uniform" is a mix of magic eater plates, chainmail, leather and fur armor. She is mildly muscular, and her blonde hair is feathery and cut short.

Kiryu Tarenaka: Former Yakuza turned Magic Eater. After a fallen onmyōji, the Japanese form of sorcery, slaughtered his family to use in a ritual to bind an oni. He survived and beat the sorcerer to death with his bare hands, and was brought into the Magic Eaters due to him performing rampant witch hunts that endangered the Statute of Secrecy. His design is that of a typical yakuza, tailored suit with popped shirt collar, slicked back hair, light stubble, and he’s athletically built. He has a scar going across his forehead from where the onmyōji bled him for the ritual. His magic eater style is unique in that he doesn’t carry a weapon, preferring a brawling style of fighting. His magic eater metal is actually infused into the tattoo ink of his irezumi, which takes the style of a ronin slaying a demon disguised as a priest. The Metal has infused with his body, increasing his strength and making him resistant to even high tier spells, and can even nullify transformation spells entirely.

Von Rhines:

Leonine Gladio Von Rhine: Scion and heir apparent to House Von Rhine, and the strongest Von Rhine seen since Sir Rupert. While Von Rhine Magic is limited to combat magic, he has adapted many forms of spells, curses and hexes to be advantageous in battle, such as reworking the Imperius curse to make an opponents movement's sloppy as they have to fight against their own body. Loud, brash, and immediately the center of attention just by walking into a room, his actions are to earn his place as the next head of the House by killing Voldemort, as no prophecy, nor the tides of fate would hold back House Von Rhine from glory.

Aimory Girard Von Rhine: Father of Leonine and current head of House Von Rhine.

House Le Fey:

Morgan Le Fey: The original Morgan Le Fey, sister to King Arthur. The eternal head of House Le Fey which was founded after the fall of Camelot and battle of Camlann.

Grisandoles Le Fey: A member of the Le Fey family, and a direct descendant of Morgan Le Fey. A quiet person, who rarely speaks, their features are hidden underneath large, ornate robes and hoods. Their magic capabilities are at such a level that regularly perform high level magic without a wand or any form of regular catalyst. Their hope is to continue their magic education at Hogwarts as Hogwart's version of a graduate student, if there were anything left for them to learn.

Jaunine Le Fey: Member of House Le Fey. AFAB, he used magic to change his sex to that of a man. In lieu of traditional spell casting catalysts such as wands, he instead uses a large sheet of woven succubus hair, with magic infused gemstones quilted in. His magic is based around pocket dimensions created using the sheet as a gateway, and is a foremost expert of apparition and disapparition.

MISC:

Dr. Vincent Alighieri: Descendent of Dante Alighieri, the Father of Daemonology. He has an iffy view on Dante, as he is aware the founding text of Daemonology, The Divine Comedy, is the most accurate depiction of the Nine Circles in terms of layout, if not culture and hierarchy, is full of Dante patting himself on the back most of the time and praising Vergil too much. He is a very cocky and self-assured individual, having multiple demons, angles and even a minor god bound to him. His teaching is a very hand on approach, but still has EXTREME safety measures in place during lessons. He is brash, has little respect for authority, and can be an open flirt of both an annoying or endearing kind, depending on weather or not he wants to piss someone off, or is actually trying to flirt, and he's pan. His outfit normal consists of a pinstripe suit and a black shirt and dark grey vest, often open along with the jacket. He has a chain on his pants, and his sleeves are rolled up on both his shirt and jacket, where his arms show tattoos of texts and symbols in various languages and scripts, of which are demonic and divine names, which he used to bind demons and divine beings to himself. The ink used is a mix of demon, divine and his own blood. His hair is short and black in an undercut. He has small gauges in both ears, along with multiple other piercings in his ears.

Rourke Helglan: Supreme Leader of the Brotherhood of the Magi, anti-muggle extremist and wizard supremacist, he is solely motivated by hatred against muggle kind, dresses in black robes and wields a staff made of dogwood with a core of chimera bone.

[beevean]

I believe there are two factors at play

One is the framing of the story itself. The story wants you to pity Dracula. He and Lisa are the first characters introduced in the show, while the protagonist Trevor is introduced at the tail end of the episode. Dracula is the guy we're meant to sympathize with. The peasants are stupid, because CHURCH BAD. Dracula is smooth, charismatic, has a deep voice, and sells you his pain with lines such as "Kill for the endless time of hate before me". In S2, Dracula is painted as a poor man bereaved by grief, and it's a common theme that he's just "writing the world's longest suicide note" - with little focus on how said "suicide" will involve killing off the entirety of humankind and vampirekind. He wants the world to fall silent before he dies, but he also cries because he's killing his boy. The story is very much slanted to see the drama from his perspective, long before even considering the heroes'.

It's similar to Isaac killing innocent people for petty reasons. Objectively, he is a cruel mass murderer who slaughtered dozens of people offscreen in a month, defiling their corpses to make demons out of them, and throws a temper tantrum when guards won't let him and his demon army through. But the show wants you to think he's cool. That he's logical, philosophical, just misguided, and that it's not his fault he's so evil because he just needs others to be nice to him first 🥺 the guards are the stupid ones, instead, challenging an evil wizard, and the biggest theme of the show is that stupid people deserve to suffer and die.

It's similar to how Carmilla's plans of expansion are mostly framed around how they make the council feel. Striga and Morana won't get to cuddle as much. Lenore won't get to play diplomat anymore. We never even see Styria as a region: we barely see the impact of her terrible plan, a plan apparently so terrible Hector would rather resurrect Dracula than let Carmilla live. And Isaac stopping Carmilla is mostly about him playing the part of the hero. The humans? They're no concern. They're just livestock. They're mere peasants. The real protagonists of the series called Castlevania are the vampires.

And the second factor... Dracula is hot. Dracula is a very specific fantasy of having a dangerous man totally devoted to you. It's the same principle as things like mafia AUs, like imagining to have a mobster who would murder dozens to keep you safe. This sort of terrible love feels gratifying, if you put yourself in the woman's shoes. Wouldn't you like to win the heart of a monster, to see the man inside, and know that he'd rain hell and brimstone for your sake? Wouldn't you enjoy, feeling this protected and cared for, being special to him?

Again, similar to how Lenore stans gloss over the objectively horrible things she did because they fantasize about being cared for by a cute woman. They want to be Hector, submitting to a dom gf who keeps them nice and safe - to the point that I read with my own eyes men who call Hector ungrateful for betraying her, because how dare he reject living in a nice castle and being pampered by his cute domme (who also happens to be attractive enough to fuck)?

And these fantasies are perfectly fine to have! ... but they shouldn't get in the way of analyzing a story. Sure, you'd like to have a monster violently avenging you if you were hurt, but Dracula is deliberately going against Lisa's wishes and she too was so terrified of what he could do that she said that he's worse than Satan. Sure, you'd like to belong to a cute vampire mommy, but Hector was betrayed, dehumanized and turned into a tool/sex slave against his consent.

In short, no, obviously the NFCV fandom isn't made of genocide and rape apologists. But there is a certain blindness and trust of the framing I notice.

Seems like NetflixVania fans can't stop defending genocide. Don't you just love being on the same site as people like this

You know what? I hope people like this see their loved ones die before dying themselves in gruesome ways at the hands of some powerful guy who's only reason for doing so is that he's sad. Maybe then they'll understand that it's not fair that they had to suffer because of the actions of someone else.

Obviously I'm exaggerating, I don't actually wish harm upon anyone. But this is getting seriously infuriating. Just because it's fiction doesn't mean you get to pull this bullshit over and over again. I love Dracula from the games, but it doesn't keep me from recognizing that he's a fucking monster.

The most laughable aspect of this is the fact that Lisa and Dracula shared ONE scene together before their deaths. Literally ONE and it was the day they met. Afterward we only see them separately until they reunite in hell. Yet those people act like they were the greatest couple and loved each other so much and oh it's so sad what happened to them! When we don't know shit about how their relationship was, we can only guess. Why are you so damn sad for this stranger but not for any of the victims who were either children or not even present during Lisa's execution??? Why does the misery of ONE guy, a very rich guy, a VAMPIRE (the KING of them, too!), matters more to you than those of WAY less fortunate and much more vulnerable humans??? Because he actually has screentime?? Because he's hot???

And EVEN IF the people were evil. EVEN IF they did deserve to die. LISA HERSELF WAS AGAINST THIS GENOCIDE. Her whole death scene was about defending the people and begging Dracula not to harm them!! Her whole character was about helping said people!! THEY MET BECAUSE SHE WANTED TO BECOME A DOCTOR, THAT'S HER WHOLE THING, SHE LOVES PEOPLE. The fact fans are so eager to jump in and defend Dracula, while completely ignoring the wishes of the one who actually died is franky disgusting. So you care more about the husband's feelings than those of his wife, huh? Good to know.

[sexy-opium-ravioli]

hiya!!! mind writing a fern x gender neutral! reader scenario? maybe the reader is a wizard n they need to get some stuff from a dungeon, so fern comes with n they both have some fun moments together!! maybe its vault of bones styled? thank u!!! [also btw, the anon button is off!!]

Oh my goodness, I am so sorry! Anon feature is now switched on babes, so feel free to send in requests to my decrepit, dank and dusty inbox.

Anyways, here you go!! I hope you enjoy you freakin honey bun.

This work has vulgar language, moderate, nondescript violence and descriptions of menstruation and endometriosis. Dw, reader is still gender neutral.

Note: This and other works (unless directly specified) are to be as inclusive as possible. If there is any sort of undue coding for any race, gender or sexuality that has not been requested, please tell me! :)

Title: Dungeons and Fern

Considering how many things there were in Ooo, one would think that there could be a cure-all potion for cripplingly low self-esteem. Or, at least some sort of medication for said problem.

Alas, Glob was more detail oriented than goal oriented. You could see sentient mountains whining at violence and grow rock-scale skin from drinking gruel, but intrinsic personal problems? Those were still a mystery.

You wish you could give Fern a potion to make him happy. A tincture for all the wounds eyes cannot see. You feel like your boyfriend has done so much for you, and seeing your favorite grass man spiral does a number on your own self-esteem, to be honest.

Anyways, that's codependency for another day. Right now, a dungeon needed exploring.

A cave. A little darkness, and then, light. Being a wizard was handy sometimes. Fire in your palm, you lit the way.

Walls were lined with red words, little orange cones and yellow stripes on the ground that were just at the threshold of ditches with long, metal tubes. You knew what trains were, but the trains down here looked more like metal coffins. They were eerie. So were all the skeletons at your feet.

You looked back at Fern. You smiled, and he blushed. His eyebrows were furrowed.

Ah! A map, how handy. It wasn't too hard to figure out, too!

'You Are Here,' Follow the red dot, and then the blue line, and you could get where you're going. You jumped into the pit, and vanished into the dark tunnels. Fern trailed behind you.

"You're quiet today. Anything wrong?" It was a hushed question you spoke. There was A Vibe in these old tunnels you did not want to mess with too badly. After awhile, you learned to appreciate them, all the colorful graffiti scrawled on them too.

"I'm evil," His words crept to your ears like perfume. It was there, and then gone.

"We've been over this. You're not,"

"There's literally a demon inside of me," A little louder this time. Perfume turned to smoke.

You stopped in your tracks and turned around fast enough to see Fern's pupils still having to adjust to the lighting change. There was a moment of tenseness you both felt, slightly predatory and preylike on both ends.

"That demon does not constitute who your whole self is. A part of you is formed by the new experiences you go through, and some of that in your personality is completely isolated from what you've been born as," Your wizard mind liked to go on tangents and force your mouth to voice them. Sometimes they helped Fern in his journey, and sometimes they did not.

He still looked conflicted, damn.

"I'm evil," Smoke turned into a thick fog.

"Prove it, kill me." A gamble, sure. But you knew your bet had won when Fern's face went from anger to shock.

"I-I'd never!-" His voice got a lot higher when you said quick stuff like that. When you disarmed his defenses in less than a second. To be fair, you do the same thing when roles are reversed.

"Then you aren't evil, dingus. C'mon," You grabbed his hand, interlaced his fingers with yours, and gave him a kiss. You always liked how his grassy lips tickled yours. He's such a sweet man, how you've fallen in love with him. "Let's go explore the rest of this stupid station,"

...

'Oh my GLOB what the FUCK is that-' This is your first thought. There is no time for a second.

The thing, made of shiny steaming hot tar swung at you. You had enough wits to dodge, but you still screamed in terror while doing it.

Fern was immediately at your side. A grass sword, mighty and green as he, grew out of his arm and before one could blink, a chunk of tar monster was separated from the host.

'Tar, tar, dude what spell is even good against tar?' This was the forefront of your thoughts against the backdrop of Fern holding the thing at bay.

"Hey, babe, mind retreating for like three seconds? Gonna teleport this thing to the Fire Kingdom," Such important words spoken in such a casual tone. There was a moment where Fern wondered how much life you had been though to earn such eccentricity in such a stressful situation. He loved you.

When Fern stepped away, you did as you said. The last thing you heard before closing the portal was a fire guard screaming "What the GLOB-"

"...I, I didn't go too far this time, did I?" His voice, back to perfume.

"No! No, not at all!" You gave him a forehead kiss that he would appreciate more than you would ever know.

You both giggled to yourselves before continuing.

...

"Ah! Finally!" The joy in your voice was palpable enough to grab out of the air and eat. Fern turned towards you and-

"...Train tickets?" There was a hint of annoyance in there. You simply knew it.

"Yeah, I know, right?" You chuckled nervously before continuing, "I need it for a potion for Marceline. Endometriosis is really a fucker sometimes and this can help with that,"

You both walked in silence as you felt sunlight on your faces. Smelling fresh air after breathing in so much stale made you feel a special type of joy. "That really wasn't too much for you? I know you need to photosynthesize every once in awhile and I just don't want-" He kissed you. It was your turn for your face to get warm.

This silence was peaceful, as you two walked to your home in the forest. It overlooked grassy plains and was just at the edge of a thick line of trees.

"My love?"

"Yeah?" You adored his nicknames for you.

"What's endometriosis?"

[aelwynrights]

Oh Aelwyn?

aelwyn abernant...... i care you...

for you, kes, i will be discussing why aelwyn being an abjuration wizard is SO much. first of all, the simple fact that she’s a wizard (works for her spells, chooses her subclass) is so important because like. the abernant aren’t sorcerers specifically. they Choose what they’re Up To it’s not just inherent aelwyn specifically looked at magic and said i will use this to protect.

and at FIRST! she’s just protecting herself! because she needs that protection! i am constantly thinking about aelwyn abjuration wizard abernant versus anguin enchantment wizard abernant because FUCK enchantment and also GD imagine. or don’t imagine bc that’s rough but recognize growing up with so much external pressure to begin with and then a father whose whole. Thing is mind control. gross. it’s SO natural for her to choose something that builds a wall around her and her mind.

but in doing that, she shuts herself off from other people - the shield she’s built is propped up by a facade and that facade becomes all she is. the golden child, the perfect daughter, the rebel after dusk, the bitchy older sister. like her whole Personality IS created AS a protective shell

and then. the tower. she uses it to make a shield for her mind - she’s been doing that all these years, but it’s stronger now.

and then. after the tower. that night in the van aelwyn unconscious and exhausted building the weakest little shield around them, protecting her little sister in the way that is not instinct because that’s the whole point is that it wasn’t instinct for aelwyn to protect, it was choice, but now that protection is so deeply ingrained in her.

i’m skipping the bit when she’s evil again it’s hot but that’s not what we’re talking about except. except. aelwyn abernant is SO powerful that the wizards at the tower couldn’t even find her hidden in there and she let her little sister in to drop her guard. okay now i’m done talking about it sisters hhhhhh

and then again. in the forest. it’s not quite instinct is the thing because she has to work so hard for it (and she does, she writes until her hand cramps and reads until her eyes burn) but it is something she doesn’t think about anymore because fuck it, she’s GOOD at what she does, she barely needs to move to send a shield up in front of her sister and adaine is just a baby! and babies need protection! and no one protected aelwyn when she was that small so she learned to protect herself but that was Wrong and she shouldn’t have Had to and she’s going to be that protection for someone else.

this got really long but basically. abjuration wizard aelwyn abernant good.

[docholligay]

Please rant/rave (well, we already know which one it will be here) about Harry Potter!

GEE I HOPE THIS WAS WORTH WAITING FOR

OH MY GOD. The level of hatred I have for Harry Fucking Goddamn Potter, the culture around Harry Fucking Potter, extending its poisonous tentacles even to the concept of young adult fiction, fantasy, and the United Kingdom as a country and people. 

When you being on this, you may think, “Oh, Doc will explain that Harry Potter sucks because JKR hates trans women” and I will say, oh no, dear reader, that is a fantastic reason to hate the author, and I really suggest we all continue to hate her, and perhaps not purchase the QUEEN’S TONNES of officially licensed merchandise and movies and theme parks that give her stupid little fucking hands all that cash, but no, that is not why I hate the work. There are a number of great works done by terrible people, and the further out the lens of history gets the truer this is. 

I hate Harry Potter because it fucking sucks, and mentally stifled an entire fucking generation. 

“Well, Doc, Harry Potter was really there for me when--” Oh my god I could not fucking care LESS about your personal emotion connection to “orphan wizard boy turns out to be a rich aristocrat yet somehow less woke than Cinderella though” I have personally emotional connections to hot fucking garbage pails of media properties, and if someone came barreling through talking about the myriad ways in which they were horrible, I would be like, “Oh, you aren’t fucking wrong, pal” 

Harry Potter gained wild ass popularity in part due to its magnificent sorting system of Smart, Brave, Evil, and Other, because there’s nothing liberals like more than being able to put everyone’s personality into an easily labeled box, which is why astrology is so popular, or for the intellectuals, Myers-Briggs, which is just as fake but with the veneer of science. This allowed people to give into the tribalism they so desperately liked to pretend they did not possess, and also allow them to write thinkpieces about “The misunderstood Hufflepuff” or “Slytherins aren’t all bad!” or really anything that allows them to write a very real piece about their very imagined oppression for being a part of a totally fake house in a children’s book. Excellent use of your sociology degree, Kai, I thought the addition of phrases like, ‘Content of socialization” and “axes of oppression” really spoke to the struggles you face when wearing a green and silver scarf. 

The other reason it became popular is that it’s essentially wallpaper paste formed into characters. I have read all of the books, and I could not tell you even remotely what Harry’s defining personality traits are other than “protagonist”. In American, at least, a large part of it was the fascination with all things British, with the idea of boarding school and prefects and uniforms that aren’t inexplicably chinos and polo shirts for nine year olds. It allowed children to project onto something so bland that it could be anything. And for children, THAT’S FINE. There is a great deal of bland media made for children, but what I’m speaking to is the fandom, which is largely well over the age of 18. 

Because if we look at the books, are they...actually good? Was it good, or did I experience it as a child? I mean, honestly, on a literary level, are they, or was it just like we all watched Friends, we did it because everyone else was doing it, because I have a distinct memory of a series that involves such greats as “magical geegaws with poorly defined rules that are quickly forgotten despite being able to solve later problems quickly” or “Everyone loves Harry or is a bad guy, or secretly loved Harry all along” 

Oh, speaking of, man, if this was an actual well-written book, wouldn’t it have been wild to have Snape’s whole thing be to teach us that sometimes people do good things for the wrong reasons? Instead of naming your fucking child after the guy who ‘protected you’ because he still wanted to bone your mom? “After all this time” “Always.” 

While all this could have been explained, we have Quidditch added into the mix instead because 20 pages of the goddamn Puppy Bowl is exactly what I was looking for while I was waiting for JK to move the goddamn ball on literally any of these actual magical concepts. 

Harry Potter is a fucking trust fund baby, star quarterback, who grows up to be a cop and marries his high school sweetheart. (Speaking of, why were we shocked that JKR turned out to be a piece of shit when this was and always has been the conclusion of Harry Potter? Why are liberals so fucking into this series that upholds structures like it ain’t no one’s business? It’s a series that opines that those beneath us “Muggles” should be kept in the dark from us) Literally, he finds out he is a wizard and has a dragon-guarded fucking VAULT OF CASH. At 11. It’s such a series for little tyrants, you are special from birth and need do nothing to prove it, here is a letter certifying as such. Oh, not only are you rich and the greatest seeker and have excellent quips, but also your parents were not only rebels, but the best of rebels, and so deeply involved that your parents were killed by the big bad personally, again, because you are so special. His mother’s love literally saves his ass over and over again, because he was SO SPECIAL. He fought Voldemort FROM THE BEGINNING, and WON.  It’s literally the most privilege baby fantasy in the world. 

“But Doooooooooooc, it’s for chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiildren” 

A) Yeah, and you’re 32, you’re making my fucking point about Harry Potter setting an entire generation up for intellectual failure to launch. 

B) Okay, and? I can think of a bunch of kids’ books off the top of my head that in no way require specialness to be given by birth so as to roll out the red carpet for master protagonist. The Hunger Games. Watership Down. A Series of Unfortunate Events. The Chronicles of FUCKING NARNIA, about which I have only a small handful of particularly kind things to say. I’ve never read Percy Jackson, but it’s my understanding that despite his being a literal demigod, the attitudes of the supporting cast are allowed to fall between the extremes of “Appreciates Percy” and “naughty or will learn” Harry does nothing to improve himself even after knowing that he is HUNTED BY THE BIG BAD! “I won’t do this because I don’t like Snape”. So There” which, again, if this series were written with the slightest bit of care or know-how, could be a humbling fucking plot point! BUT NO THAT WOULD BE NAUGHTY. 

But the real reason I hate Harry Potter so much has everything to do with the fandom surrounding it, and how it intellectually stunted a generation of adults. The promise of Harry Potter was that it was supposed to make a new generation of readers, and so the popularity of them was pushed, and so there was discussion of teaching them in schools, but I tell you fucking what, I know a whole lot more folks who grew up reading Harry Potter that never advanced beyond reading YA, or even just rereading the entire series every year and that’s pretty much them done and dusted. 

In the attempt to recapture whatever it was about Harry Potter that attracted children (A lot of it was your peers doing it. I read them all as they came out, and it was literally the equivalent of watching the game so you could talk at the water cooler. That was never going to be recaptured) people, who by this time were likely in their teens, kept getting recommended stuff at the same and same level. No one ever felt pushed to read things that are challenging, to read things that have some of the concepts or themes of Harry Potter but maybe complicate. I know FAR more adults who read adult books that aren’t into Harry Potter, even if they were as children, than the reverse. 

But Doc, why is reading only books meant for 14 year olds a problem??? I mean I suppose I can’t convince you that comfort is not the job of literature or of life, it is the job of an easy chair, because Americans especially are decadent as fuck about being comfy cozy all the time and if anything causes them distress or pain it should be immediately avoided. But Maybe I can convince you that you’re fucking up these books for actual ass children who deserve to have their own writing section without adults bringing their fucking asses into it. They deserve their own spaces. There’s a number of YA editors who have talked about the difficult space YA now occupies because since Potter’s blowup, it’s no longer a niche category, but basically “adult easy reads” and so they have been buying books that are more about the tastes of adult buyers than of literal 14 year olds. 

Is that not...sad? To anyone else? Honestly, and this is not part of the essay because it’s a broader reaching problem, but CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS NOT FOR US. CHILDREN’S MEDIA IS FOR FUCKING CHILDREN. The fucking 40-23 set really needs to get their shit together and grow up a little bit and engage in some fucking adult media, and maybe, if we support what we’re actually looking for FOR ADULTS, it will come to us. No one is saying you can’t read Harry Potter or watch some Cartoon Network show, but like, search your heart and come the fuck on. Engage in something more complex. If not for yourselves, for the kids getting shoved into simplified adult stories. It should not be about us. 

ANYWAY, my larger point is that it was Harry Potter, a badly written series about a magical boy who was chosen and magic and also rich and also a favorite of the headmaster and also more clever than most adults and also spoke the same magical snake language as the big bad and was also star quarterback, but at least there was a system in which you could buy a scarf in block colors and feel like you belonged to a team. 

(But not a sports team! lol handegg! I’m cool I don’t get into sports! Except Quidditch.) 

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

for the quiet night in ask: how did Grima make his way into your heart? And why do you ship him with Eomer? I've been meaning to inquire about this for long hehe (also I love your theme! think this is the first time I see it)

I am so sorry, you’re getting an ESSAY. 

I’ve been wanting to talk about my Grima feels FOR SO LONG. 

HE SNAKED HIS WAY INTO MY HEART. 

Um, tl;dr I have a soft spot for the bad guys who clearly have a complicated history with those they are opposing and I think Eomer/Grima have a fun opposites-attract dynamic and I love a good redemption story. 

I don’t touch on literacy and Grima in this because that’s strictly the films and it’s worthy of it’s own post entirely. 

-

I’m trying to think best how to break this all out, because it gets a bit long and rambly. I’m using both book and films for this, as a note. Since I tend to mash up different aspects of those Grima’s in my head, give the guy some eyebrows, and call it a day. 

So, first off, his history. Now, we don’t really have anything to go on in canon here. All we know, in both book and film, is that Grima “was once a man of Rohan” (ROTK). In the book, Gandalf says: “This here, is a snake. To slay it [Grima] would be just. But it was not always as it is now. Once it was a man, and it did you service in its fashion.” 

Grima evidently has served Rohan for some years at this point. We know that Theoden’s enchantment/possession began three years prior to TTT. In the books there is no possession. Theoden’s enchantment relies on the powers of words and their suggestions. Something Tolkien was well aware of carrying great weight and import in Anglo-Saxon culture. You tell a man he is old and infirm, he will become old and infirm. 

I understand why Jackson went the possession route - explaining Anglo-Saxon engagement with galdorcraeft/witchcraft and the power of words etc. and how that influenced the development of Rohan in the span of like 7 minutes of screen time wasn’t happening. Possession works for the same purpose, but in a language the modern audience is familiar with - especially in visual mediums. Grima is circa 40 when TTT happens, same age as Boromir for reference. So, let’s say he’s been an advisor for 10/12 years at this point. He has therefore been a good servant of the king longer than he’s been a traitor. 

Hence, the outreach. And, in Brad Dourif’s wonderful acting, Grima’s clear desire to go home to his king. In the book it’s more subtle. Grima chucks the palantir out the window at Orthanc and it’s stated that he wasn’t sure who he was aiming for, Saruman or Gandalf, because he couldn’t decide who he hated more. 

Honestly? Legit. I would also hate the guy who reduced me to “it” pronouns. But maybe that’s my gender identity stuff playing up ;) 

(Granted, in the full quote Gandalf reverts back to “he”, for context. And I’ve said this before, in another post, that it makes sense for Gandalf and as a writer, I agree with Tolkien’s decisions for that scene.)

Now, for some speculation. Not that I haven’t spilled a tonne already. MORE SPECULATION. This time bringing you long term effects of bullying and never having loving relationships modelled for you! Because LOTR, at the end of the day, is all about trauma and how maybe not to deal with it. 

So - motives. 

We know Saruman’s motives. Indeed, he tells them to us in FOTRK: “[to] have power, power to order all things as we will, for that good which only the Wise can see” and to achieve “the high and ultimate purpose: Knowledge, Rule, Order; all the things that we have so far striven in vain to accomplish, hindered rather than helped by our weak or idle friends.”

Great. Super straight forward. And from the man’s own mouth. 

Grima’s though, always come to us second hand. In the books it’s Gandalf telling us (Gandalf can mind read, so yes, maybe he is accurate). In the films, it’s Eomer guestimating. 

But Grima never actually tells us, himself, what his motives are. 

(a quick aside: if some dude is shoving me up against a pole and threatening me, and I hear someone walking by, of course I’m going to look over at them and it by no means indicates my desire to shag that person. Now, of course, we know from other scenes this is the case. I’m just saying. It’s natural to look over at the person walking by while you’re being jumped by the Third Marshal of the Mark who is twice your size. anyway.) 

So what are his driving forces for treason? What made him go to this point of no return then keep going even when people offered him a way back. 

It is important to note that his treason required him to forswear his oath to his liege lord. I don’t know how to convey what a big deal that would have been, in modern terms. But it would have been huge. Forswearing/reneging on oaths was a massive cultural taboo in Anglo-saxon [AS] England (and general, early medieval Europe). 

And, as Rohan is based on AS England (I forget if Tolkien was cagey about this. He was sometimes a dumb shit and coy about things so was like “noooo it’s not STRICTLY AS England….but it’s clearly AS England with more horses and a light dusting of vikings and the Danelaw”), we can assume it carried as much weight for them as it did for the historical people. 

(Indeed, it’s implied, if not directly stated, in the text what a big deal oath breaking is. Don’t say “oath breaking” too loud or the Silmarillion fandom will come out of the woodwork)

The big takeaway: BIG DEAL TO FORSWEAR YOUR OATH. 

And he did it! Which is why I don’t buy the “it was because of Eowyn and like some nice jewels.” You don’t betray your country, you don’t forswear your oath to your king, simply because you’re hot on the king’s niece and Saruman might give you a raise. 

And, as a liege man to Theoden, he was part of Theoden’s household so would have eaten, worked with, lived with everyone else in the household (Eomer, until he becomes Third Marshal; Eowyn; Hama; Theoden’s guards etc.) 

So, you live with these people, eat with them, drink with them, spend all your time with them, for circa 10 years then you do a bunk and betray them? Something happened. I suspect it was years and years of things happening. 

Overall, I think it to be a combination of things. As is usually the case for these sorts of crimes. In this case, a nice mix of fear, desperation, greed, resentment, anger and desire. 

Fear/Desperation: So, to Grima’s mind the world is ending. Why wouldn’t he think this? Hell, even the Wisest and the Fairest (i.e. wizards & elves) think it’s ending. Why wouldn’t this poor bloke from some small country nearby to Mordor not think it an existential threat to an unimaginable degree? 

Grima is sat here in Rohan looking at Mordor going "oh fuck" then who are the leaders left? Denethor (slightly bonkers) and Theoden (past his prime and lacklustre, like his father and grandfather). 

This is not a man with a strong moral fiber. Or...any moral fiber, let’s be real. He does not have the fortitude to stick it out through hopeless situations. And it would have been hopeless to his eyes. And those around him (see: Eomer’s do not trust to hope… Sure Saruman was a problem, but he wasn’t just talking about the white wizard).  

Gandalf’s plan, which none of these people were ever wholly aware of, was a goddamn Hail Mary pass and it worked. Barely, but it did. NO ONE had reason to believe it would, though. And those are people in the know. Not someone like Grima who has no fucking clue what Gandalf et al is up to. He sees Gandalf then like … Nazgul torture him on the planes of Rohan (Unfinished Tales). He sees Gandalf then bad things happen. 

Lathspell indeed. 

Greed & Desire: I don’t think I need to go into these ones too much. They’re pretty self explanatory. Grima and Black Phillip hung out and the goat asked Grima if he wanted to live deliciously and Grima, like any normal person, said: um, yes please? Also, Eowyn was around being badass, beautiful and untouchable. 

Resentment/Anger: Alright, more probing in the dark. I suspect, for one reason or another (and these reasons would vary depending if you’re looking at books or movies), he was someone who was always treated as other/differently, teased, picked on, isolated, overlooked, doesn’t measure up to Rohan’s military ideal of masculinity. All of which creates an underlying resentment issue.

And nothing festers quite like resentment. 

On top of that, I also suspect he was always told he was a snake/untrustworthy/not worthy etc. and if you're told something enough, and you don't have anything or anyone else telling you the opposite, there is a strong chance you become that thing.

It's a chicken and egg: the face you wear to the world tells the world how to treat you; the world tells you what you are and that is how you shape your face.

THEN you add in Saruman. Who is clearly, in the text, abusive. Which, if there were any inferiority/bullied etc. issues that are informing Grima’s actions, Saruman is just going to amplify it. 

“You are a traitor because you’re a snake, and you’re a snake because you’re spineless, weak, nothing more than a creature that crawls on its stomach on the ground. Snakes are bad, evil things. Which is all you’ve ever been. Barely deserving of the good treatment I give you etc.” <-- all of which is basically a summary of what Saruman has been saying to him for a few years at this point (in the book, it’s only tangentially implied in the movies). 

So Grima sort of morphed himself into what he believed himself to be, fuelled by that perversity resentment causes: Oh you think I’m a snake? I’ll be the best goddamn most poisonous snake you ever did see. Just watch me. 

He is trapped in this situation. A hutch to trammel some wild thing in. 

Which leads me to an interesting point that I think gets lost sometimes: Narratively, he and Eowyn are similar in what they are experiencing. Isolation, being overlooked, misunderstood/misrepresented, don't fit into societal roles and expectations etc. They just go in very different directions in how they respond to it.

I think that's why, in the film, it was smart to have her give pause and listen to him because what he's saying resonates. He is, in some ways, speaking as much for himself as her. But then, of course, he's also just trying to shit disturb and make mischief so of course, at the end of the day, any sympathy he is attempting to convey is laced with poison.

I do wonder, too, if he's the first person to see her fear and her frustrations and acknowledges them out loud. Which is powerful. To have someone see you. Damn shame it's Grima. Still, Eowyn (in the film) paused and listened for a reason.

-

A brief aside on my idle, ill founded thoughts on gender and Rohan: 

One of the reasons I think Eowyn and Grima go in diverging directions, is that Eowyn is performing masculinity, in her society's accepted interpretation of it. Masculinity, in Middle Earth, is clearly the norm. And in Rohan, it’s a very particular iteration of military-focused masculinity that is idealized (you can bet, men who killed like 10 orcs were awarded places in court above Grima who served as advisor for like ten years but hasn’t killed an orc ever).

Eowyn’s desire to live/perform this more masculine ideal caters to the subconscious thing of “Masculinity is Natural Neutral Ideal” so of course you would want to be more like A Man. Whereas Grima is the opposite, not performing masculinity according to Rohan's accepted view of it.

And gods, in Anglo-Saxon culture (therefore, Rohan’s, most likely. I see no evidence to the contrary) is that a difficult position to find yourself in. Back in AS England, being called argr, unmanly, or to be accused of ergri, unmanliness, was one of the worst insults you could throw at a man (indeed, some laws said you could kill a man in retaliation for calling you such things). I would bet my shirt that people used such insults about Grima in this world. Which is all kinds of messed up.

-

Now, my interest in him is my general love for a good redemption arc for the most hopeless of characters. It’s why I struggle to call Boromir’s arc, when he’s written as living, a redemption arc. Because I don’t know he has much to redeem himself for. In his own mind, sure, yes, but externally? Not in my view, at least. He has things he’s done wrong and needs to make amends for. But that’s different from redemption.

Grima, on the other hand, is one whose walk-back from evil would be a full on redemption arc. And I like it because he’s not nice, he’s not pleasant. He will never be nice or pleasant or cheerful. But learning how to love and be a good person doesn’t require niceness. 

Saruman could be plenty nice. Sauron could be plenty nice. Look what they turned out to be.

And in my writing, I do hope I’m treading that line between creating an understanding of who Grima is without Kylo-Ren-ing him. Or, woobiefying him, as the old parlance was. That’s the line I’m really aiming for. I want people to not hate him. I want them to understand him. Oh, still condemn him, still judge him, disagree with him, acknowledge and know he did bad things and isn’t a nice person. But the end game is to add some understanding and nuance.

Shades of grey.

Also I’m a sucker for challenging redemptions.

--

Why Eomer/Grima? 

Because I am an agent of chaos. 

More seriously, I was never overly taken with the Grima/Eowyn approach, personally, which is obviously popular (um...within the Grima world), and closer to canon. There are some beautifully written fics and art out there for the two of them, so if you’re into that. The creators in that nook of fandom are top notch.

I always liked the drastic opposite of Grima and Eomer. As I noted above, Grima and Eowyn are two sides of the same coin. Both bitter and resentful and trapped. And that’s a lot of fun to play with, and i get it. But for me, I love a good strong contrast of personalities in my pairings. (If that uh … isn’t readily apparent.)

I think both Eomer and Grima would have a lot to teach each other and in some really interesting ways that neither would expect. I can see both getting under each other’s skin in that way where you’re sort of always thinking about them.

Grima is also someone who has had very little love in his life (I suspect he wants it, he just doesn’t know how to give or receive it). Eomer is someone who has lost a lot of people (parents, quasi-uncle for a few years there. I think it’s why he’s so controlling over Eowyn. Didn’t want to lose her). And I think there’s something in there where they could help each other grow. But I’m a sucker for some beauty to be there, in the end. Some hope.

Mostly, though, I think it boils down to their dynamic and the angst potential. Eomer is this brash, forthright, fiery third marshal of the mark who may or may not think things through. Big of heart, dumb of ass. Then there’s Grima who is quiet and reserved, cynical, critical, always has a plan or five, gets by via his wits etc. Lots of fun potential there. 

[the-mic-drop]

Shonen Jump Rap Cypher by Rustage

Lyrics below the cut

If anyone wants to break down some lines that you think not everyone will get, please feel free!

Monkey D. Luffy- One Piece (Performed by Rustage)

Starting with the number one, hey

How’d a pirate get this long, hey

‘Cause I eat the gum-gum, see them run run

when I hit that gun, hey

Sailin’ I’m taking no breaks when my crew’s on the move as we pillage the grand line

Looting the treasure we can find

I’m blowing up like a landmine

Going gear second, I reckon that I’m a weapon

I’m wrecking up those who threaten in messing with my own brethren

Stay reppin’ look where I’m headin’

No question the Yonkos sweatin’

I’m bettin’ in words I’m yellin’

I’m the king and there’s no forgettin’, UH

Gon Freecss- Hunter x Hunter (Performed by Fabvl)

I’ll jump the competition, really there’s no contest

Channeled future Nen and most of y’all ain’t even bomb yet

It’s nonsense

Pro exams completed as a child

Hisoka, I think these clowns are living in denial

So don’t make me power up, I’ll call the thunder at my right hand

If you want the strongest Shonen, then you called the right man

They might stan

Treat you all like Pitou, it won’t take long

Name is Gon and this time, I’mma make sure that you stay gone

Naruto Uzumaki- Naruto (Performed by None Like Joshua)

Oh, better believe it’s Naruto

Who’s the best hero? All of you know

My legacy is happening, I got a type of running named after me

while you’re slow

Can’t keep up with my chakra flow

Except Hinata, I’m her Ho

Kage

All I did was call her and I told her to come over ‘cause my parents are not home

Out of these ninjas, you can watch my dub

Even all my filler is so far above

When it comes to Boruto, why y’all givin’ up

like I did with simpin’ on Sakura?

Killer B’s rapping, but I get the encore

With the power that I bring, I don’t really want yours

‘Cause I came from the swing, everybody shunned more

Now you’re looking at the king of this Jump Force

Yami Yugi- Yu-Gi-Oh! (Performed by Connor Quest!)

I’mma master, you be

practice newbies

That’s a doozy

for Yami Yugi

Puzzle did something like a hadron tunnel

‘cause now I got Atem through me

Champ of the match see fans fawn, no matter what hand’s drawn

I’m kicking up dust, metal tanks in land form

When we d-d-d-d-duel there’s sandstorms

Cards are flippin’ I need an answer quick

and I might find my Dark Magician

If I wish, and believe hard enough in the heart that’s in ‘em

(Heart of the cards)

I see Seto’s fear

Pull the fifth part of Exodia

Guess it’s all came to a head, so clear

that your deck’s gonna get X’d, oh dear!

Asta- Black Clover (Performed by Eddie Rath)

Welcome to the magic

It’s a tale that’s tragic

Filled with a pain that’s harder than plastic

especially when you discover you don’t have it

When I started I was less than amazing

But now that I’ve been chosen by the Grimoir, I’m rising to the occasion in a blazing flame of

Magic

Ain’t no Hocus Pocus and Abracadabra

Not a wizard you joke with

This is not Gandalf the Grey, but you shall not pass hopeless

Better be ferocious

Was the poorest orphan living in darkness

but now that I’m focused, I be thanking all my hardships

Ichigo Kurosaki- Bleach (Performed by IBDL)

Uh, hittin’ back with that Bankai

Got that power like I came out of the Dangai

Pops passed the torch; now I’m the fam’s Don guy

Think you Aizen, but you lookin’ like that Don guy

Y’all like Soifon, your raps barely sting

My bars are Getsuga Tensho, got that masterful swing

They say, it ain’t over til the fat lady sings

But you’ll know it’s really over when that black lady sings

Koro-sensei- Assassination Classrom (Performed by CDawgVA)

Mach speed

Blow up the moon and now I’m making these children write essays

Comin with tentacles teach you a lesson in why you don’t mess with the sensei

I amaze

Used to be the Reaper, now I run this class

I can turn a loser to assassin, do it real fast

Light Yagami- Death Note (Performed by Zach Boucher)

I think I’ve been out of my head

Gift was given, made some poor decisions, that I wish I didn’t, but I’d do it again

Feeling different, I was on a mission to achieve my vision with a page and a pen

Sit and listen to the words I’ve written

I ain’t even finished ‘til I see that they’re dead

Don’t even try to pretend

There’s no malicious intent

Stay in my thoughts, stick to the morals I’ve got,

and kill everyone who is not

Just never get caught, ‘til every criminal rots

They’ll consider me as a god

At whatever cost, that’s how I excel

Cannot be stopped, even if I fell

I’m taking them off if you couldn’t tell

I gave up a lot to give you this L

Shoyo Hinata- Haikyuu!! (Performed by Shwabadi)

Yah, here comes Hinata

When I’m on the court the enemy has got their guard up

Never gonna fall off, bet I’m gonna pop off

Way short, but I’m packing punches like a sawnoff

Hot like a sauna, this ball of fire don’t know nada

but I’m gonna chase desire to go farther

every jump will take me higher

They put walls up, so I had to learn to fly

Putting up points, spiking it, or clearing the way

Best decoy, got a little something to say

to anyone that doubts that I’m here to stay

Only got one goal, that’s to play the game

Underestimated, I’m the ace, you just wait

when I spike it past the net, you might take it to the face

Izuku “Deku” Midoriya- My Hero Academia (Performed by Divide Music)

Coming in with 100% of me

I got you all trembling

Oh just with a flick of a finger

put you back where you’re supposed to be

I’m not, holding back

I got you so calculated. I’m

one step ahead, One for All gon’ be demonstrated

Get it? Got it? Good.

Nothing better and you should know

Started at the bottom

but I made it to the top so

Step aside, I’m climbing to great heights

with All-Might by my side

Reppin’ U.A. with pride, oh

Yusuke Urameshi- Yu Yu Hakusho (Performed by GameBoyJones)

Giving you the finger, Spirit Gun

Send you off with Botan, then you done

Hit you with the stick, and I didn’t need a grip when I’m pulling from the hip, then click!

Because I’m, locked loaded, the clip is ready to go

Got a, shotgun in my hand that’s ‘bout to blow

Cause I’m hittin’ you quick fast

givin’ you whiplash

wearing these Spirit Cuffs

You could be human or demon, cause honestly, I just don’t give a fuck

If you’re looking for the best, just know there’s no other

‘cause I’m flexing out here like I’m the youngest Toguro brother

Gintoki Sakata- Gintama (Perfomed by Shao Dao)

They call me, Gintoki, slim not stocky

Lemme Shonen Jump on your leg and your body

Odd Job Gin, don’t mess with my possee

If you touch my hair, then you will be sorry

Ne, boge (Hey, bloke)

Nanikore, uruseena (what is this? Not good.)

Cause you’re way too sloppy

Got a silver soul, Shiroyasha

Swing my sword and Amanto scatter

Gintama, not Kintama

Tell Shinpachi we need money

If Kagura or Katsura bring more trouble, we keep running

Pay rent? That’s a waste of time

That weather girl, I will make her mine

You can beat me up and that’s fair and fine

But if you hurt my friends, then prepare to die

Tanjiro Kamado- Demon Slayer (Performed by DizzyEight)

Look, slayin’ demons that’s what we do

If you filled with evil, then my blade is highly lethal

If you comin’ at my people, pray to god I never meet you

Ever mess with Nez, you KO’d when I see you

I’ve grown stronger from that fateful day they found me

I trained hard to hone the skill, the progression so astounding

My style like breathing water, that mean you can never drown me

Whirlpool, that mean I’m slicin’ everything around me

Emma- The Promised Neverland (Performed by FrivolousShara)

E-M-M-A 63194

Listen to what I’ve gotta say

The others walked, seems now we’ve gotta run away

Don’t you talk, adults are the enemy

You can break every bone in my body, I won’t falter

and if the plan fails, the idea simply alters

Ah, these demons scheming, but they ain’t the only monsters

Our combined IQ breaks the safe, strength in numbers

Now we’ve woken from the slumber

Never ending perfect Summers

Across the farm, you can’t help but wonder

Soma Yukihira- Food Wars! (Performed by DiggzDaProphecy)

See I’m the anime Raekwon

The chef baby, stay calm

You can’t stand the heat

Stay out the kitchen, get a day job

Word, and the finale’s superb

I take a sec, put on my band, an’ I’ll be happy to serve, uh

So ma, tell me what you like and I can hook it up

Ya boy’s got them recipes the best couldn’t cook it up

And she gon’ bust from the taste of my meat

Chef, boy are these boys always cookin’ up heat

Jotaro Kujo- Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (Performed by Dreaded Yasuke)

It���s my go, they call me Jotaro

Don’t get me mad, I’mma go fat only with jabs you go through silos

Got that drip from Cairo, girls will simp my silhouette

I know think it’s a typo fighting with a platinum psycho

None of y’all is a threat

What you gotta say in your breath

Better speak with a bigger chest

Now you lyin’ down with my pet,

while Iggy piss on your neck

All types of disrespect, what you expect?

Go against a vet, better get your techs

wanna get swept through the complex,

now who is next?

Bobobo- Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo (Performed by BassedOlaf w/ ThighHighSenpai)

Bobobo making the foes stare

Call me the master of nose hair

Look at the hair on the heads of these anime characters,

brother, it’s no fair

But I’m better than these guys, don’t you understand?

I came second place at screaming face-to-face with desk fans

Afro is full of surprises, look at my power’s immense

Leaving beauty screaming-

(Bobobo, that makes no sense!)

Hunting hair hunters, Saitama, I’m coming for you

Don Patch a better Super Saiyan God than Goku

Son Goku- Dragon Ball (Performed by DaddyPhatSnaps)

Oh they went and called Kakarot

had to be danger

Leave em flat-footed like they in the gravity chamber

I’m just looking for a challenge, can you battle me stranger?

Shonen legend in the saddle and the power is major

Level up on the track, flow Ultra Instinct

Bye bye bye fusion dance is always in sync

Wink

And they wonder why I’m last on the song

‘Cause when all of y’all were talking

I just formed a Spirit Bomb

[xiubaek-13]

Definitely Not Hogwarts

Prompt: Baekhyun + “You taste like fucking candy.” + “I was just hoping that y’know… you’d fall in love with me.”

Setting/AU: Magic

Warnings: innuendo, magic, completely non subtle references, swearing.

Word Count: 7,173 (it’s still a drabble, let’s pretend it isn’t this long)

A/N: I hope you enjoy it, you kind of get everyone in this as an added bonus for me taking so long.

If there was something you hated more than changing schools mid-year you had yet to encounter it. Why had you agreed? Because it was a great opportunity. So great that you’d accepted the offer knowing full well that you’d be moving in the middle of the year, packing all of your belongings into boxes - ones to take with you and ones to go into storage, and starting in classes that had already set their dynamic up for the year. Would it be easy? Not at all. Did you still want to do it? You bet your ass you did.

The school was in the middle of nowhere so you had to live on the premises. You’d never been to boarding school before so this concept was somewhat daunting but you were choosing to think of it as a hotel for the moment. All of the students lived in dorms and boarded for the year, only going home at the end of each term, and the teachers lived in separate wings of the school. Yes, wings, because the school was a goddamn castle.

Until a couple of years ago, they had never taken on a teacher’s aide before, but the powers that be had made a treaty between the gifted and the non gifted (god forbid the humans actually use the word magic, apparently that made it seem childlike and not the absolute danger to society that the government liked to portray it as. Magic was neither childlike or the demise of society as we know it but you digress). In the two years following that they had taken on a handful of aides, always non gifted, and usually morally opposed to the concept of magic, a choice that made you think that the wizard in control of the school was in fact, enjoying this whole ‘play nice with the humans’ thing far too much. The aide who had been chosen this year had vacated his position without notice at the end of the second term due to a spell gone wrong. Or something. The particulars were unclear. All you knew was that on one late summer morning you received an offer and should you have accepted that offer (you did, but you made sure not to sound too desperate when accepting it) you would have three days to prepare and move.

Those three days had been a complete and utter whirlwind. Your friends were ecstatic for you. You were the first aide they had selected that had actually had a positive attitude to the concept of magic. First and foremost you believed in science, but you were open to the idea of there being something more out there and if it could be applied to positively benefit human society then you were all for it. Plus, who wasn’t curious about what these kids were being taught?

Your work was sad to see you leave but thankfully you were only employed casually so you didn’t have to adhere to the standard procedure of giving two weeks notice or break any contracts in order to accept your new role, one of the bonuses to being a university student who was unable to work full time. You’d never been happier to not have job security.

Upon arrival to the castle school you were ushered to your wing (the north one with the big spire) by an overly enthusiastic pair of seniors, one of which kept cracking terrible jokes that you guessed were meant to put you at ease but they were just making you cringe, something that the taller senior - you were pretty sure he said his name was Chanyeol - found hilarious. The two showed you to your room, if you could call it that.

You felt like you’d been transported to the world of one of the many books you read while you were growing up - the princess or assassin (your parents made sure you didn’t reach adulthood believing that some man was going to come whisk you off your feet and solve all of life’s problems for you. They gave you books where the women took charge and fucked shit up as well as the damsels in distress, and ones with useless protagonists and ones with good men) living in the tower of a castle, waiting for the unfairly attractive prince or guard to appear so that hijinks could ensue. Your “room” was more of a suite, if castles could have suites. You decided they could, because you couldn’t fathom calling this a room, it was a bit too grandiose for that. You had a bedroom, private study/office, bathroom and tutoring room.

“As you can see, you have space for smaller lessons or tutoring.” Suho explained as you entered the small space, only a few desks and chairs decorating the room. “It’s mostly seniors who will come to you to go over homework, assignments, and anything they’re stuck on.” He added.

“But I’m just here as an aide, not as a teacher. Why would they come to me?” You asked.

Chanyeol replied. “A few reasons. First, if they don’t want the teacher to know that they haven’t fully grasped what was covered in the lesson, the school is super competitive so no one ever wants to let another student see an area that they are weak in. Second, you’ll be marking homework and assignments so they’d come to you if they want clarification around grades. Third, some will come to you to try and scare you. It’s like a sport for some of the students. They see how long the new non-gifted will last before running for the hills.” Your face must have dropped because he instantly waved his hands as he tried to lessen the blow of his statement. “N-not that all students are like that, there’s just a select group who do it. Most of us welcome the initiative to have humans in our school so that they can see that we’re not the evil witches and wizards of their childhood stories.”

“The castle and long robes aren’t helping that, just saying.” You deadpan.

Suho makes a sound akin to choking on air but when you look at him you see that he’s laughing. He looks at Chanyeol as he tries to calm himself but he keeps laughing while trying to speak. “I like her. I don’t think she has anything to worry about with that attitude.” The look the other senior gives him is one of pure exasperation and you have to do all that you can not to crack up at his face.

“Hyung…” he starts but then thinks better of it. His long legs carry him through to the next room, he clears his throat before continuing to speak. You leave Suho, who is still chuckling to himself, in the tutoring room. “This room is your office. It’s kind of a half library, half office. You can do your own research in here and organise all of your work in the room. If you ever need the fire lit just ask me to come and do it. I’m proficient with fire, most students can conjure fire but some would mess with you and light a fire that emits a stench, or one that burns too hot, one that talks to you, you get the idea.”

You nod and make a mental note to ask him to light the fire in winter for you if you haven’t come across any other trustworthy students by then. The proficiency stuff is new information to you. You knew that the gifted could conjure elemental magic but you didn’t know that they had proficiencies for certain elements.

    “I apologise for Chanyeol, he always forgets that the non-gifted don’t know about the proficiencies. I’m assuming that’s why you look confused?” Suho leans against the door frame as he speaks. He pushes off and enters the room once you nod. “To cut a long and dreary history short, gifted - as you refer to us - have the ability to wield elemental magic. Certain families have a proficiency with certain elements which allows them to have superior control over that element. In Chanyeol’s case that is fire. In mine, water. There are nine such students at this school but if we go by our history books there are twelve families with proficiencies. We can do greater things with our elements and we take extra classes to hone our skills with them. Normal students can cast a spell to light a fire in here for you but Chanyeol could click his fingers and a fire would light, or he could create a flame in his hand and have it hover for you.”

“Can he hadouken too?” The words leave your mouth before you can stop them. Chanyeol folds in half, slapping his leg as he laughs. Suho looks less amused. “Or do you guys have special rings? Can your powers combined conjure Captain Planet?” Chanyeol is struggling to breathe because of how hard he’s laughing.

“That’s… that’s not how the elemental magic works.” He begins.

“Suho, I’m kidding.” You interrupt. “You need to brush up on your human pop culture circa the 1990’s.” You smirk. “Just doing my part to help eliminate the dark, evil wizard stereotype all of you have going for you.”

He chuckles at that, shaking his head as he moves towards the next room, lightly shoving Chanyeol as he passes. “This next room is your bedroom. You’ve got one of the better rooms. You should see the aide’s room in the East Wing, it’s like a shoebox. (You thank all that is good for giving you something better than a cupboard under the stairs.) It has your bed, wardrobe, lounge and adjoining bathroom. It’s the only aide room that has that actually, all of the other wings have a communal bathroom for the aides but you lucked out with a private bath.”

You wanted to make a witty remark about that but all words died on your tongue as you stepped into the room. This was far too grand to be called a bedroom. You had a giant four poster bed to one side, a lounge suite by the fireplace, a couple of wardrobes and shelves, a table with four chairs and a little kitchenette. This was more like a studio apartment but in a castle. Everything was ornate, it was like medieval meets industrial aesthetically, which worked far better than you imagined it would.

“It’s pretty nice isn’t it?” Chanyeol remarked. “Like we said, you got pretty much the best aide room out of the lot.” He scratched the back of his head as he pondered what to say next. “Uh, that pretty much concludes the tour of your room. We’ve both got class to get to but Xiumin & D.O. will come by to take you on the tour of the grounds. They’re two of the other students with proficiencies as well, and they’re both trustworthy so you’ll be in good hands.” The two students bowed and waved farewell to you, wishing you well on your first week at the school before they left.

The other two students turned up not long after Suho & Chanyeol left. One arrived while making voice notes into his dictaphone and the other while cleaning his glasses. It wasn’t difficult for you to guess that these two would be top students, they just gave off the ‘we study a lot and it shows in our results’ kind of aura. You had been informed that all of the senior students who would be showing you around were high achievers but where Chanyeol and Suho were a more relaxed and reserved levels of intellect, these two exuded it.

The two students bowed to you and introduced themselves. The one with glasses was D.O. and the one with the dictaphone was Xiumin. You swallowed the urge to make a Harry Potter joke to D.O. but with that style of glasses he was on borrowed time before you blurted it out. You were, after all, supposed to be professional. You might only be a few years older than these seniors but you were an employee of this establishment, not the new kid. You didn’t have to fit in or be classified as cool. You had the feeling that until you actually started working you’d have to keep reminding yourself of that fact.

“So we’ll be showing you the grounds so that you have a general layout of the school. If you get lost you can always ask a student but to be on the safe side I’d recommend a fellow teacher or a student whom you recognise. Others might find it fun to mislead the new non-gifted aide.” D.O. explained. Why were these seniors painting this school like it was filled with miscreants? Did the students not respect their elders or were humans looked down on that much? Were you just a temporary plaything to them or something?

“Do the students have issues with treating the non-gifted aides with any modicum of respect?” You asked.

“It’s not that. The majority of the student body welcome the integration of humans into our school, we have just as much to learn from you as you do from us if our kind are to coexist moving forward.” Xiumin replied. “But there are a select few, as there are in any setting, who will only find pleasure in making your life difficult. They will take any chance they get to embarrass and ridicule you, to trick you and to eventually send you running from this school. Their primitive thought process is that if they have enough aides flee the school that the whole initiative will be discontinued.” He shook his head as he finished speaking, showing you just how dumb he thought this select group of the student body were.

“What Xiumin is trying to say is trust your instincts. Don’t blindly trust a student because they act kind towards you, feel them out and work out if they are playing you. We’ve been through a few too many aides this year and that group think they can send anyone away. For the most part, don’t react to them. If they think their tricks have no effect on you hopefully they’ll just get bored and leave you alone.”

“Or, they will escalate their antics and put me in actual danger.” You rebuked.

“They’d get caught and punished if it came to that.” D.O. deadpanned then added. “I’m sure you’d be fine. While we’re out Lay, another senior, will be putting up warding magic on your room to prevent any hijinks from happening there.” Hijinks? you mouthed but before you could say anything back to the half blood prince wannabe he started walking down the hall.

Xiumin chuckled under his breath and motioned for you to follow. “You’ll get used to him. He’s blunt but he’s not unkind. He doesn’t like his routine being messed with. Normally he’d be running a study group so he’s a little off kilter today. Just work with it please?” You nodded and followed the other male as he set off after not Harry Potter.

The tour was pretty informative, with both boys giving you some history for the different areas which you found fascinating. They also showed you the areas of the school you’d be frequenting the most - the main hall, the teachers lounge, kitchen, and a small selection of the classrooms you’d be in. They marked these locations on a map for you and went over the easiest routes for you to follow. Both of them were very polite and patient with you as you very slowly got your bearings. Xiumin advised for you to memorise the paths rather than any objects in the halls as they had a tendency to move. D.O. eventually led you to a large set of double doors and guided you down towards the grounds at the rear of the school. This place was massive and your brain hurt from trying to remember everything.

“The sports grounds, gym, amphitheater, horticulture and agriculture areas are spread out here. The easiest ways to know the borders of the grounds are the lake at the back, forest to the left and mountains to the right. You’re perfectly safe if you remain within those boundaries. We’ll quickly take you down to each building but you won’t have to come down here too often so don’t worry too much about memorising them.” He stated.

Xiumin added, with a grin on his face. “You’ll probably only come down to watch sporting matches. Even if you don’t really care for sport, adding magic makes the games much more interesting. Occasionally a class will be held down here if they are using spells that require a lot more space than a classroom offers.” You were going to have to witness this if only to put a real image in your mind of what that looked like. Until you did, it would be every tacky wizard movie you’d ever seen playing on repeat, which would drive you batty. The two of them continued showing you everything, adding fun facts and tidbits of history along the way.

“So, uh, forgive my ignorance but we really only have mainstream media to go off here. Do you guys use wands?” You ask.

D.O. scoffs indignantly. “We absolutely do not. Wands are for children and idiots.”

“What he means to say is that we use our hands and minds. Wands exist but are not widely used since they require far less skill and are less accurate.” Xiumin adds.

“Your mainstream media is dumb.” D.O. says.

You raise your hands. “Hey, no disagreement from me here. I know it’s incorrect with its portrayals 99% of the time which is why I asked.” Xiumin chuckles as he calms D.O. down. You hadn’t expected his outburst to be over a fucking wand but hey, weirder things were surely still to come.

Eventually the three of you approached the large doors that would lead you back within the main building. D.O. smiled when you looked to him to lead the way back. “Oh no. You’re going to lead us back to your room as best you can. Consider this a test of your short term memory.” He chuckled as your face fell.

“Fine.” You grumbled. How hard could it be to follow a map back to your room anyway?

Harder than it looked was apparently the answer. You made it back after a few wrong turns. Part of you wondered if this was some cruel joke where they got to laugh at you leading yourself in circles while futilely trying to reach your destination. The other part just wanted you to hurry up and work out how to get back to your room. When you spotted the stairs that led to your hallway you sighed in relief. Both boys smiled brightly at you. “We consider our tour a failure if you can’t find your way back. You might have made a few missteps but you got back without needing any assistance. You’ll know the grounds like the back of your hand soon enough.” Xiumin smiled.

The two of them led you the rest of the way back to your room before bidding you farewell. “We’ll see you in class.” Xiumin said as he bowed, a small smile on his face. He definitely didn’t look old enough to be a senior but who were you to judge? You were in a freaking school of magic, for all you knew he was 400 years old. Or maybe there was a portrait of him hidden in an attic somewhere.

“Thanks for the tour, you both helped me out a lot. I will definitely be using this map over the coming days while I get my bearings. There is a lot of history here,” You gestured to your surroundings. “and it’s fascinating, I know you barely scratched the surface with the small insights you gave me but it was very informative and enjoyable.” You smiled.

D.O. chuckled. “I’m glad you didn’t fine it too boring. Most of the aides that come through here don’t even listen to half of the tour we give.” He paused. “Actually, before we go I have a question for you.” His head tilted to the side as he appraised you, as if looking for some answer to his yet unasked question.

“Go ahead, it’s the least I could do after such a lovely tour.” You replied.

“Well, the least you could do would be nothing but -”

“Let’s not debate semantics right now.” Xiumin interjected.

D.O. huffed, but acquiesced. “Fine. We’ll ignore the idiosyncrasies of the english language for now.” Xiumin rolled his eyes, this was clearly not the first time he’d had to deal with the other nitpicking at insignificant details of the language. “My question is in two parts. Firstly, where do you stand on the issue of magic? and secondly, why did you accept this role?”

Well that wasn’t the question you were expecting. You didn’t know what question you were expecting but it sure as hell wasn’t one this bold, especially not from a student. “To start with, you know I don’t actually have to answer you right? You are technically my students.”

    “Of course. Will you answer it though?” He asked, his gaze locked on yours. The balls on this kid…

“I will, but the point is that I don’t owe you, or any student an explanation like this.” They both nod at you and wait for you to continue. “To answer the first part of your question, I believe in science. Always have and always will, but I’ve always had an interest in magic. It was this mystical thing that appeared in the storybooks of my childhood, and I don’t mean the propaganda that litters the homes of the non gifted, these books had the gifted as heroes, as people who saved the day. I watched the change happen. All it took was one world leader who realised the gifted were real and they feared the abilities you have over non gifted. Suddenly all of the children’s books had evil wizards and witches who would trick you and eat you. I was never swayed, my interest only grew once I realised that the mystical wonders from my childhood books were real. I think that in order for gifted and non gifted to coexist, they need to work together and not look at either side as less than or evil. There are terrible gifted and non gifted people but there are also wonderful gifted and non gifted people. We fear the unknown but if we work together, that fear lessens.”

You pause to take a breath, noticing how wide Xiumin’s eyes have gotten as you’ve been speaking. “As for the second part, part of it has surely been answered in the first part of my response but aside from general curiosity and a belief in our kind working together I also want to be a part of that. It’s not lost on us that most non gifted selected for the program have been heavily against the concept of magic and view the gifted as the devil incarnate. I know I’m probably one of the first to be selected who has no negative preconceptions of what goes on here and I want to do my job, help students and be able to provide workable ideas for the future of our kind coexisting. I believe that if we can work together, science and magic combined will result in wondrous things.”

Finally, he cracked a smile, his whole face changing into that of a bright young man. “You are a welcome change. You’re not wrong when you say that the other aides have a dislike of our kind and of magic as a whole. I think our kind chose the wrong approach by attempting to make a non gifted who was fundamentally against everything that we stand for change their mind by simply existing with us. It was never going to work, and even if it did your government could scratch it up to stockholm syndrome. Just.” His face hardens but his gaze softens as he looks at you. “Keep your wits about you and don’t be fooled by rose coloured glasses.”

***

Your first few days went by without too many hiccups. You’d been thrown into a wide array of classes; apothecary, history of magic, potions, magical law, spellcasting & defense magic. The classes were overwhelming but oh so interesting, to the point that you had to keep reminding yourself that you were supposed to be reading up on the syllabus and grading homework against the guide sheets you’d been given, not giving your full attention to the teacher. That was easier said than done once the topic of dragons came up. It took all of your self restraint not to blurt out “Fucking hell, dragons are real?!” but maintaining your professional facade took priority. You made a note to read up on them later because they were even more fascinating than your childhood stories had hinted at.

You met most of the other proficient students thanks to Suho & Chanyeol introducing them to you. You’d run into Xiumin & D.O. again when they were on their way to their extra credit classes and asked them about their proficiencies, apologising for forgetting to ask the first time you’d met. They’d let you know that Xiumin’s proficiency was ice and D.O.’s was earth. You didn’t get to ask much more about it because they ran off to class, not wanting to be late and have that mark on their records.

“Good Afternoon Chanyeol, what can I do for you?” You’d asked when he approached you with two other students trailing behind him.

He grinned and gestured to the two behind him. “I figured I should introduce you to these two. They’ll either annoy the shit out of you or be model students.” You raised a brow at him. “They’re younger than most seniors, thanks to their proficiencies.” He stage whispered at you.

“You know we can hear you right?” One of them remarks.

To his credit, Chanyeol ignores them and continues talking. “Whilst they are young and immature, they possess a lot of control over their elements, Kai in particular.” He gestures to the boy to his left, who smiles shyly at you and waves. “They figured they should get him through school, disciplined & bursting at the seams with morals before he got too old. His proficiency is teleportation you see, so everyone does what they can to steer him away from a life of crime.”

You nod. “No ill gotten gains for you then.” Kai chuckles. “Can you only teleport yourself or can you take people and objects with you?”

“I can choose. I have to be touching whatever I want to take with me but if someone grabs me I can choose to teleport alone or with them.” He replies.

You lean forward on your desk. “How large an object can you move?” You ask.

He grins at you. “Not telling.”

You sigh dramatically. “Chanyeol, I fear that he might have already given in to a life of crime.” For a moment Chanyeol looks confused until the synapses connect and he realises that you’re poking fun. “If you do a dramatic pose when you teleport then I think you’re well on your way to the criminal mastermind title.”

Kai laughs loudly. “I like her.” he states before wandering off to find his seat. You just hoped the military never found out about him, they’d abuse his power wherever possible and he seemed far too kind for that kind of life.

The other male clears his throat to remind Chanyeol that he is still waiting for his introduction. Chanyeol’s eyes widen and then narrow in frustration. “This is the youngest of the proficient, Sehun. He likes to think that the universe revolves around him but we keep him grounded, figuratively and literally…once or twice.”

You glance past Chanyeol to Sehun. He looks like he has a chip on his shoulder, and the resting bitch face isn’t helping him not seem like a jerk to you but you give him the benefit of the doubt. “Hi Sehun, what is your proficiency?”

He gives you a very slight, like blink and you’d miss it kind of slight, smile as you feel a light breeze wash over you. “Wind.”

You ponder for a moment and bite your tongue to prevent another Captain Planet reference from coming out. “Wind would be the broad term though wouldn’t it? You control air right?” You ask.

He nods. “Yes. I can control and manipulate the air, it’s velocity and molecular structure.”

“Are they trying to prevent you from a life of crime as well by fast tracking your schooling?”

He smirks. “Something like that. I had a huge amount of power but no control over it so I was pushed through school to better harness my power.”

Chanyeol interjects. “His power used to be based off his emotions so he’s had to learn to control himself and basically relearn how to use his power.”

“That’s pretty impressive actually.” You reply.

Sehun actually smiles at that. “I like her too, for now. Nice to meet you.” He nods then also heads to his seat.

Chanyeol smiles warmly. “He caused himself a lot of harm while he was learning. Lay, you haven’t met him yet but he’s proficient in healing, had to patch him and quite a few of us up on several occasions. He seems cold and aloof but he needs to be in order to keep his ability at a safe level.”

“Thanks for introducing me, that’s 6 of you I’ve met so far so I still have 3 to go? Lay being one of them. Who are the other 2?”

You hear the groan in his voice. Clearly he isn’t a fan of these two. “Chen & Baekhyun. They are probably the two who will give you the most grief. Too clever for their own good and they are sneaky as all hell. They control lightning & light. Don’t be fooled by their lost puppy eyes. In fact, ask some of the other aides, I’m sure they have stories.” He glances up as the teacher enters the room and ducks off to his seat.

You’re left to wonder about these two supposed wicked students. What do they look like? (Probably should have asked that in hindsight) Are they really that charming? Had the other aides exaggerated with their stories? You were going to find one after class and learn more about these two. You wanted to be prepared for whenever they decided to show up in your vicinity.

***

“Baekhyun? Is he here?!” The aide shuts the door quickly, looking around the room frantically.

“Woah, woah, calm down. He’s not here. I was just asking about him.” You try to calm the spooked aide. Christ what did this student do to the aides?

“What did he do to you?” She asks quietly.

“Huh? Nothing. I haven’t met him yet.”

“Keep it that way.” She says quickly.

“The better question is what did he do to you?” You take a step towards the aide, determined to get answers. She seems truly afraid of this student. Is she vehemently against magic? Yes. Does that warrant this level of fear? You’re not sure.

“He’s evil.” She whispers.

You roll your eyes. “Come on now. I know you aren’t exactly pro magic but evil? In what way?”

Her eyes widen as she grabs the fabric of your shirt over your shoulders. “He toys with you. He’ll be the sweetest student you ever meet until you do something that he doesn’t like. Then he’s your worst nightmare.”

“So a teenager with an out of control ego. That’s not so bad. You had me thinking he’d be murdering kittens on my doorstep or something.”

She shakes her head. “You don’t understand! He’s proficient in light, sounds lame right?” Maybe it sounded lame to her but you had already put some thought into that power. Manipulating light and dark, controlling shadows - that could be a terrifying power. “It sounds like a nothing proficiency compared to the others but once you realise that light is necessary to everything, it becomes terrifying. He shouldn’t be.” She shudders.

Maybe that attitude is why he doesn’t like you. You think to yourself. Out loud, you attempt to change the subject. “And Chen?”

She scoffs. “He’s a trickster but there is no malice in what he does. He messes with you because he can. Compared to the other one, he’s harmless.”

You bid her farewell and head back towards your room. Another aide stops you down the corridor. “He knew she had a fear of the dark so he manipulated the shadows so that she felt like she was perpetually being engulfed in darkness for the better part of a month. She’s been a nervous wreck around him ever since. All because he didn’t score higher than Kai in class.”

“He sounds like a right jerk.” You state.

“He is. He’s ruthless once he’s decided that you aren’t useful to him anymore. The others are all probably like this but he’s the only one not hiding what an evil monster he and his kind truly are.” The aide leaves before you can give him a piece of your mind. Armed with more information on the remaining two proficient students than you’d had an hour ago, you head back to your room. Lost in thought you fail to notice a student the student that brushes past you.

***

The rest of your day goes smoothly. You attend two more classes and are given homework to mark for each. Sehun comes to you for tutoring after his magical law class. He’d told you he understood the concepts they’d covered but didn’t understand why any of it mattered. You’d done your best to explain the notion of risk and consequence in relation to magical law, using his own grasp on his proficiency as an example. Once he left another student came knocking on your door, one you hadn’t been introduced to yet.

“Are you a senior?” You asked.

He nodded. “You’re our new aide.”

“Your powers of observation are second to none.”

“Hey now, that’s not how you should talk to students!” He exclaimed as he entered the room. You’d figured that he was one of the 3 remaining seniors you were yet to meet, you just didn’t know which one he was. The upturned shape of his mouth screamed ‘I’m mischief incarnate’ so you ruled out Lay.

“Most students would announce themselves upon arrival. Forgive me, I don’t believe we’ve been introduced yet.” You don’t hold out your hand, a tip you were heeding since Xiumin mentioned it.

“I’m Chen and I suck at apothecary. Please help me teacher-nim. I need to be in the top tier of the class so that my parents will get off my back.” He dramatically drops to his knees and overacts begging for help, making you laugh loudly.

“Get up, dear lord. Chen… lightning proficiency right?” He nods. “Do you just invoke it or can you direct it wherever you want it to go?” You ask.

Instead of answering he flicks his wrist and a small electric shock strikes your thumb. It’s similar to when you get a shock from your car or if you touch something after shuffling on carpet. You look up at him to see him smirking. “I can control it, and make it as strong or as delicate as I please.” He waggles his eyebrows at you.

You choose to ignore what he’s implying and continue to question him. “Just lightning or all electrical currents?”

“Oooh we have a smart one this time. Everyone else tried to work out my proficiency based off norse mythology.” He grins, that smile as disarming as you expected it to be.

“Oh please, you’re more shock mouse than god of thunder.” You blurt out. “Though I hear that you aren’t dissimilar to another norse god - Loki.”

He laughs loudly, the sound is music to your ears. “You are not what I was expecting but I’m not mad about it yet.” He settles into a seat at the desk across from you. “But seriously, I need help with this class. Can we work on that now and exchange smartass lines at each other later?”

You laugh and nod, settling back into teacher mode. So far Chen doesn’t seem as bad as the reputation that preceded him but you make sure to keep your wits about you. You know one thing for certain though, this student is a tragic flirt.

***

You’re exhausted after the extra tutoring sessions and the marking. Your bed has never looked so inviting and you cannot wait to slide under the covers and drift off to dreamland. Your alarm had rather rudely pulled you from a particularly salacious dream last night and you were hoping to return to it tonight. You packed away all of your stuff, making sure to lock the students work in your private office. You’d been informed that there was a nullify spell over the room which rendered everyone’s skills, no matter how proficient, useless. Once you were done packing up you made your way to your bathroom to wash up for the night, taking your time to complete your skincare routine and brushing your teeth.

You refrain from rushing to your bed because you are not a child but a sigh of pure joy escapes your lips once you finally crawl under the covers. You think back to the dream you had left this morning and sink into the pillows, closing your eyes. The image of the log cabin in the snow coming back into view. You feel the cozy warmth of the blanket wrapped around you as you wait for him to return. He’d gone to fetch more hot chocolate and sweets so that you could finish watching the movie you’d started just over an hour ago.

Vaguely you recalled him being more built in this mornings dream but as long as he was bringing you sugar who were you to judge. What did alarm you was the sudden change in sensation of the blanket against your skin. Before you felt cozy as it had warmed your clothes but now you could feel it against your skin. When had you suddenly become naked?

Then he appeared. He didn’t look as sweet as you recalled. Rather, he looked annoyed for a fraction of a second before his face transformed, a kind expression now showing on it as he climbed back onto the bed next to you and handed you a mug of the aforementioned hot chocolate and placed a bowl of sweets in front of you. “Thanks babe.” You smiled as you picked up a toffee and put it in your mouth.

“You’re welcome.” The words sounded forced. Like he didn’t want to say them.

You do your best to ignore it and continue watching the movie as you sip your drink. You feel like he’s staring at you and not in a ‘I want to kiss every inch of you before I ravage you’ kind of way. “What?” You ask as you look at him.

“Really? ‘You taste like fucking candy?’ That is the smooth line your subconscious came up with? You need to get out more.” His tone is full of judgement and disgust.

“What?! What are you talking about?” You exclaim, confused. This dream isn’t like the one you wanted to return to.

“In your mind we keep watching this movie and then I lean in to kiss you and say that line.”His judgemental tone is really starting to grate on you.

“Who the fuck are you?” You ask exasperatedly.

“I really thought you were smarter than this.” He chides as he gestures to himself as though he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread. “I’m Baekhyun.”

“What the fuck are you doing in my head? I’ve never even met you!” You clutch the blanket around you as you remember your nakedness. Was this still a dream? It felt a little too real to be a dream. There were details missing and if you were dreaming up Baekhyun then you needed to have some stern words with your subconcious about cockblocking you. The dream was supposed to start cringeworthy and saccharine sweet but then twist into a filthy romp. You knew the lines were cheesy, but they were supposed to be. It wasn’t so sweet when your face was planted into the rug about 20 minutes from now.

He shrugs. “I’ve had no reason to seek you out in person, not with everyone painting me as some sort of antichrist to you.”

“So what? You just decided you’d appear in my dream?” You choose to go with this no longer being your dream. You figure that he’s somehow invaded it and that alone is pissing you the hell off.

“I wanted to see what you were like and my proficiency allows me to do this so I figured ‘what the hell’ and popped over for a visit.” He grimaces. “I was not expecting ‘I’ve come to clean ze pool’ levels of dialogue though.”

You close your eyes and shake your head. “You need to get out of my dreams. I didn’t fucking invite you here.” It dawns on you that he must be able to dream walk and that thought somewhat terrifies you. Suddenly the frantic fear that the other aide had doesn’t seem so dramatic.

“Push me out then. Consider this a lesson in defense against wizards. Your mental barriers are weak. I can see everything.” He leans against the wall of the cabin as though he hasn’t a care in the world. You don’t have a clue at how to push him out because why would you? You try to imagine kicking him out of your head and locking a door behind you but he simple laughs at you. You try visualising a vault, and locking away your precious thoughts and memories, slowly filling the vault with more and more items.

He laughs. “Oh you are tragic. I thought the candy line was bad but this, this is just ripped from a poorly written romance novel. ‘I was just hoping that y’know… you’d fall in love with me.’ Excuse me while I barf.”

“Fuck you.” You grumble. You are going to evict this smug prick from your mind if its the last thing you do.

He looks you up and down and smirks. “Non-gifted aren’t usually my thing but I’d make an exception for you.” He winks. “The bit after all of the terrible dialogue isn’t so bad now that I look forward. My, my, you are filthy.”

You want to punch him.

[eveningcatcher]

Main six + courtiers playing D&D part 1

"Alright, now that everyone's here," you said as you were looking over your papers, "Let's get started, shall we?"

"Wait, wait," Vulgora said, swinging their character sheet in the air, "How did you calculate any of these things? Why the fuck is here +5" she pointed at their intimidation stat, then moved her finger to the persuasion stat, "And here it's +3?"

"It's because you've added your proficiency bonus there," Nadia explained as she stirred her coffee.

"Proficiency?" they asked, frowning.

"That coloured dot," Julian said.

"Ohh, ohhhh, that makes sense now," they put the paper down and took the large gulp of their beer, recklessly spilling it over the white sheet of paper.

Valerius moves his chair away from the pontifex, as well as his character sheets, "So, I can leave in three hours, right?"

Read the whole chapter here

"Why would you want to leave so soon?" you asked them, pouring them a glass of wine.

"Because there is no fulfilment in wasting time with filling these sheets and sitting idly, spending the precious time in useless chatter about non-existing worlds and their non-existing characters going into non-existing journeys," quaestor added as they pulled a chair in between Volta and Vulgora, "If your heart yearns for such journeys and adventures then why don't you go on and experience them on your own?"

"I see you've done some research," Portia adds as she put a huge tray of food next to the procurator, "Ilya remember when we used to play D&D?"

Julian gave his sister a wide grin, "Oh, I remember when you started yelling at me whenever I would be a DM."

"Well that's because you would never let me do anything I wanted to," she put a cup of tea next to the praetor, "Careful, it's still hot."

"So how long do we play this game?" Vlastomil asked, "I need to take care of my dear Wriggler. Oh, how sad she was when I left," he frowned, quickly wiping a single dear, "She must be worried sick, wriggling around, eating her sorrows away..."

"Oh, I can completely understand her, yes I can," Volta rose her head from her food, giving the praetor an understanding look, "I always eat when I'm stressed and anxious."

"You always eat, though," Asra commented before facing Julian, "Did I fill this right?" they asked him.

"Hm, let me see," he took the papers, along with the player's handbook. He would list through the pages, not bothering to check the book content, only stopping when he needed to check the papers.

"Here," he pointed at the skills, "You can check another stat you want."

"Oh, thanks," they took the pencil and checked insight, adding the proficiency bonus.

"So, shall we begin then?" you asked as you raised DM's screen.

"Why do you have that?!? Where is mine?!?"

"Yeah, I want some too!" Lucio demanded.

"But I am the DM, players can't have this."

"Can we just begin already?" Muriel said something for the first time, "I just want to leave."

"Alright, fine. I hope you've all made yourselves comfortable because we won't take a break for a while."

"Oh, that's no good, no, that is terrible," tiny procurator said as she was chewing her food, spilling some of it out, "What about the food? We're almost out!"

"Don't worry dear," Nadia said, as she was taking one of her rings out, cleaning the emerald with her sleeve, "Food will be brought over the time, so let's just begin already."

"Alright, alright, let's begin now," you said as you gathered magic in your hands, letting it poof and cover the top of the table, "The story begins in a small tavern on the northern side of the human village-"

"Let's smash their skulls and claim all of their things!" Vulgora said as they smashed their fist on the table, moving the mist away.

"I mean, you could do that," you said, putting your finger on your lips as you gave their idea a bit more thought. Once you've come up with the satisfying idea, you started to control the mist, folding it to your liking, until the mist turned into an inside of a tavern, with all of their characters sitting on one table, some of them drinking, others talking(more like arguing) and others playing a game of cards.

Amongst them, there is one certain Dragonborn who can't seem to calm down. They stand up, walking over the table, then announcing their idea loudly enough for the other PC's to hear:

"Let's kill everyone in this stupid village!" the Dragonborn said.

"I don't know, I kinda like it here," Julian's PC said as they took another glass of beer.

"Oh, I love this magic smoke!" he said as he grabbed a handful of popcorn, munching on it as he tried not to spill it.

"I'll try my best to make it as realistic as possible," you said, as you stopped motioning with your hands once you were sure the magic will last, "But anyway, any other thoughts on Vulgora's idea?"

"Absolutely no." Nadia and her character said in unision.

"I have to agree with the countess," Valerius said as he went through his character sheets, "The guards will kill us all."

"No they won't," Vulgora responded sharply, "There are so many of us, we will kill them all!"

"We are all first level, so I doubt it," Portia said, taking the tray of food and setting it in front of hungry Volta.

"Wait, there are levels here," praetor asked, his head buried in the player's handbook, not understanding anything.

"Yes, twenty of them, apparently," Valdemar added calmly, clearly bored; "Um, is that supposed to happen?" Muriel asked as they pointed towards a figure walking towards their PC's.

With a sly grin, you started to tell them your story. Altering your voice to what you believe a tall, middle-aged sorcerer would sound like.

Everyone looked at each other as if they thought that the other knew what was going on. Once they realised that this is most likely something about your story, they looked at the fog and listened to the old sorcerer.

"So... you must be the adventurers who want to," he quickly took a glance at the other people in the tavern, leaning towards the table the group was sitting in, and, with a low voice, said, "Kill the gods?"

"I, uh," Muriel stuttered, not knowing how to react, however, Asra started talking, moving the attention to them and, with a sly grin, said "Yes, you got the right people."

"Oh, ho, so it is indeed you," he chuckled, "What an... interesting bunch you are... reminds me of the last adventurers who have tried to do what you long for..." he smiled, "Ohh, those were the times, yes indeed they were."

"Tell us more about them," Portia insisted.

"Ohh, they were, you know, quite the colourful bunch," he said, "Though not as big as you are. Just a small group of three, a human, tiefling and a..." he stopped talking for a moment, taking the time to run their bony hands through the beard, "A, hmm, was she a pureblood, or a human too... I can't quite recall," he shrugged it off with a simple gesture of hands, "It doesn't matter. The important, and a quite interesting part, is that they were all wronged by the world and-"

"Oh, please make it quick, I don't care about them!" Vulgora's PC said.

"I use my cantrip prestidigitation to muffle out their complains," Asra said.

"Okay, you succeeded," you said, through a giggle as you muted Vulgora's endless number of complaints.

"," Vulgora tried to say something, but no words could be heard from their lips. However, this couldn't stop them, so they signed to Asra a few words, probably the only ones they knew how to sign: I'll crush you, wizard boy!

"Sorry about that my good sir," Nadia's PC turned on her chair, calling a taverner, "Could you please bring us some ginger ale for this gentleman?"

The sorcerer chuckled, satisfied with the free drink and continued, "Well then, where was I again, ah yes," he stroke his long beard as he recalled the lore, "Those three were, quite a chaotic bunch to say the least. They all hated this society, but they didn't blame the government, no no, they blamed the gods who have created this world. So anyway, what is the reason behind your decision?" he leaned to Muriel's druid, "Is it power, glory and praise? No, you don't look like the type who desires such things..." he muttered, leaning towards the evil Tiefling, "What about you, oh I think I know!" he nodded with satisfaction, "You seek the answers, young one, don't you? Or maybe it's the curiosity; what would the world be like with no god? Oh, ho, ho..." he sat back to his chair, just in time as he was handed the beverage and took a huge gulp, choking on it. With a few loud coughs, he calmed down and continued, "Well then, I must warn you, everyone who tried to kill a God has met the same fate, so I truly hope that your reason is worth it."

"Of course it is!" Lucio exclaimed, happy that the attention finally focused on him, "If we kill Gods, then everyone would be forced to become an atheist, and the only person that they could worship would be me!"

Everyone took a moment of silence to think through his preposterous statement. Julian and Portia tried to muffle their laugh, while Vugora, who finally got the ability to talk again stayed silent.

"Well, I mean," the old man started, "I guess it's not that bad. There wouldn't be any cultist attacks anymore..." he stayed silent after that statement as he, slowly this time, took a sip of the drink. Once he had drunk it all, he stood up, "Well, thank you, my children, for the drink, in return, I offer you the map to three of twelve artefacts that you'll need to kill a god."

"Wait, what are we supposed to do after we got them?" Volta asked as she chewed on a sandwich with excitement in her eyes. She was certainly enjoying this a lot more than she had expected to.

In response, the sorcerer chuckled, but this time, there was something odd in his voice, "Oh, please, only two people have gotten all three of the artefacts," after that bold statement, he seemed to have realised that he might have sounded a bit too dark, so he changed the tone, giving the group a warm smile, "But I'm sure that you could get them. Oh, ho, ho, after all, there is eleven of you, I'm sure some of you could be lucky enough."

With that, he dropped them a scroll and slowly walked towards the exit. "So," you said, "What will you do with the scroll?"

"Read it, obviously," Valerius responded, trying to sound as though he was bored.

"Alright. Nadia, you have opened the scroll, however, you can't understand anything it's written. However, you Valdemar seem to understand it. It's written in Infernal."

"Very well, then," they extended a hand to Nadia, "Give me the scroll."

"Um," she looked at you, as you gathered fog in your hands, forming a scroll with some unreadable words to her, but, when she handed it to Valdemar, they seemed to be able to read it. They didn't read it aloud, instead, they simply rolled their eyes.

"Come on, read it already!" Valstomil demanded.

"Very well then," they started reading a scroll, with a dull voice"Hot elf moms in your area are looking for a good time. No need for a pouch, they just want your big-"

"WRONG SCROLL, WRONG SCROLL!!!" the sorcerer rushed into the tavern, snatching the scroll, replacing it with a lot older one, a bit ripped at the side.

Everyone, excluding some burst into laughter. Portia's face has gotten so red that Julian laughed even louder, pointing at her, even though he didn't look any better. Asra tried to hold in the laugh, knowing that this is not the joke they should laugh at, while Muriel innocently asked Volta what was the big thing elf moms wanted. Neither one of them knew the answer, so they asked Vulgora, who gladly responded with: "Elves want the di-" they stopped as soon as they saw the Countess' disapproving look.

"I swear if this one is also a 'wrong scroll' I'm leaving," Valerius said.

"Alright, alright," you said, a bit disappointed that not everyone enjoyed the joke as much as you did, "Here you go, Julian" you handed him another scroll.

He took it and, with a bit of scepticism, started reading in a dramatic voice, accenting a random word that he found interesting: "The first artefact is Abaddon's dagger. It lies untouched in the Saint Milu's church, slowly rusting away, waiting for its owner to return, or perhaps, for another champion worthy of them..." he stopped for a moment, taking a deep breath and asked in a normal tone: "So, how was that?"

"Perfect Ilyushka!" Portia said with a smile, "You can read the scrolls from now on!" she shifted her gaze to you, "So, how are we supposed to find that dagger?"

"I don't know," you sulked into your seat, "You're supposed to think of an idea," you slowly straightened your posture, "But, if you get stuck, I guess I will help you out."

"Shouldn't we go ask some people about that church?" Volta asked as she bit on cherry cheesecake.

"That seems to be the best option," Nadia concluded, "Then, let's go, shall we?"

Before they left, Julian took a d20 and said with a smirk, "I roll sleight of hand check to see if I can steal some money from that dude drinking beer," he pointed at some random guy sitting next to the exit.

"Alright," you said, "Go on."

He put the dice in between his hands, pretending to pray and rolled it. The dice hit Volta's plate, to which she flinched, and then finally, the dice stopped. It rolled on 16.

"Yeah, you succeeded," you started as you grabbed some popcorn, "You took a little pouch, containing 2gp."

"I walk to the gentleman and inform him that his pouch has been stolen by this terrible man," Valerius said with a sly grin as he sipped his wine.

"Dude NO!" Julian shouted.

Before you could determine the outcome you turned to see if Valerius is still sure about his decision, to which he simply nodded. Amused by the way this is going so far, you said: "Well, you've told the man about the stolen money," you shifted your hands up, moulding the fog to your imagination, then continued talking in a masculine voice, "That rascal! Thank you, my man, at least some of this youth is still polite," the man stood up, walked to Julian, slapped him right across the face and took the old pouch from his hands, "How disrespectful, did your mother teach you that?!?!"

Asra giggled like a highschooler while Muriel looked amused as he listened to Volta commenting about how, if he were to steal her food, she would have given him more than just a slap.

"Roll a d20 to see how bad the imprint looks," you took the d20 that still laid next to Volta's plate to Julian. This time, he didn't do anything fancy, instead, he just rolled it expecting to get some low number.

"Natural twenty," you snorted, hiding your face in your hands from laughter, "Oh my god," you felt your face getting redder and redder from the lack of oxygen, "Yeah, that will defenetely leave a mark," you shifted the fog towards Julian's face, imprinting a red handprint across his left cheek.

"You look like a fucking idiot!" Vulgora laughed their ass off, pointing at Julian's face.

"Serves you right for doing such a crime!" Vlastomil added, along with Volta who just nodded in approval, too busy with eating to respond.

"Was it really necessary for you to be a snitch, consul?" Nadia asked, "After all, I believe that the point of the game is to do anything you want."

Valerius, in response, gave an ironic smile, lowering his head as if he were to bow, "But countess, I am simply acting according to my," he raised his sheet, "Alignment."

"Can we beat our teammates?" Portia asked.

"Why not," you smiled, still thinking about Julain's scar.

"Okay, so, consul," Portia turned to Valerius, "If you decide to be a snitch again, " she put her hand on Asra's shoulder, "We will beat you up!"

"Just take all of his possessions and give it to the poor if he likes helping so much," Muriel commented as he peeled lemon as if it were an orange.

"Muriel," Portia walked to him and gave him the tightest hug she could, "You're a genius! MC, give him 50gp for such a brilliant idea!"

"Sorry, but I can't," you shifted in your seat as you arranged some of the papers, "But I can continue with the story!"

"Finally, I was getting bored," Valdemar said, "When can I summon the dead?"

"When you reach the third level, I believe," you gave them a quick response and then continued talking about the campaign, "So anyway, you leave the tavern with Julian. who is still dazed by the slap-"

"You'll make this a permanent scar, won't you?" he asked as he pointed at his face.

"Of course I will. So, you left the tavern and noticed a bleeding beggar on the side, what do you do?"

"Valerius, this is your chance!" Asra said mockingly.

"Can we help them?" Volta asked, looking at the fog, "She looks like she hasn't been eating for days!"

"They're bleeding and you're caring about that," Lucio turned to Volta, then to others, "Why should we do anything? MC is probably just messing with us."

"Like with that scroll!" Vlastomil agreed.

"Do they have anything valuable that we could take?" Valdemar asked.

"Oh, I'm glad you're finally getting the hang of roleplaying, quaestor, but no, they don't have anything useful."

"Hm," the quaestor was silent for a moment, then they responded with a gleam of delight in their eyes, "I need components for my spells, no?" they didn't give you the time to respond, "While she may not have any valuables, she still has bones, doesn't she?"

"Valdemar no!" Nadia said.

"Why not, after all, the point of the game is to do anything you want, isn't it?" Valerius, said, still a bit salty.

"Shut up, all of you!" Portia said as she slammed her hands on the table, which made you flinch, "At this point, she'll bleed to death! Julian do something!"

"Why me?"

"Because you have Cure wounds! Use it to heal her!"

"But then I'll spend my slot."

"BuT tHeN I'lL sPeNd mY sLoT," she said as she mimicked him, "I don't care, do it, or else I'll give you a matching scar on the other cheek!"

"Fine... I use my spell on the beggar."

"Okay, you succeeded, the beggar is not bleeding, what now?" you asked.

"I give her some of my food rations," Volta said.

"Alright," you changed the fog to show a healed beggar with some food in front of her, "You've helped her, congrats, but she doesn't say anything, instead, she just stares at you."

"Let's just keep going," Asra said, "We've done enough."

"I agree, let's go for that dagger!"

"But we don't know where it is," Vlastomil said.

"Let's just snoop around then," Portia said with a smile.

"You're in a town," you pointed at the fog which showed their PC's walking around the village, "What now?"

"We ask the NPC's if they know where that church is," Asra said as his PC walked to one woman, "Excuse me, do you know where..." he stopped for a moment to think, " Saint Milu is?"

"Why I do," she said, "But, are you sure you want to go? It's very dangerous."

"Of course we do!" Vulgora added, "Nothing is too dangerous, you're just making a fuss over nothing!"

"Well, if you're so confident, then if you do go there and return alive, I'll tell my dad and he'll reward you."

"Um...sure?" Asra said, a bit reluctant.

"But I need proof that you were there!"

"Sure, what do you want?"

"How am I supposed to know that?" she pouted, "I've never gone there myself. I told you it's too dangerous, remember?"

"Alright, alright, we'll bring you a battle trophy, just tell us where to go, goddammit!" Vulgora said, clearly losing their patience.

"Alright, alright, sheesh," she said, "Just go north from the city's shop. It's the last house in the village, just straight forward," she extended her hand in front of herself, "You can't miss it!"

"Thank you," Julian said, "By the way, has anyone ever told you you look dazzling?"

"Why thank you, " she smiled, "Too bad I can't say the same for your face," she giggled and went her way.

"OH MY GOD!!!" Portia snorted, unable to sustain the laughter.

"You'll keep doing this to me, won't you?" Julian asked defeated.

You nodded and continued., with the narration: "You've walked to the small shop. Do you want to stop by to buy some things?"

All of them agreed and went inside.

"Oh, travellers, I haven't seen any of them in a while. Greetings, greetings, how may I help you," he turned to Vlastomil and Valdemar's PC, to which he immediately shouted, shaking in fear, "Oh GOD, please, please don't kill me! I don't have any valuables, nor do I have much money, plus I'm not tasty, see?" he pointed at himself, "I'm only skin and bone! I barely have anything to feed my son with, please, please spare me!"

"Um, sir," Nadia said, "We are not here to kill you... we just want to buy something."

"You do?" the man straightened himself, grasping at Nadia's hands with tears of joy, "Oh thank you, thank you! I thought this was going to be the last day of my life! Please, ask for anything that you need!"

"Do you have healer's kit?" Volta asked.

"Why I certainly do, my dear," the shopkeeper responded, "That'll be 7gp."

"But isn't the price for that 5gp?" Portia asked.

"It is," the shopkeeper said, "However, I had to buy this in the town and to go all the way to here. Plus I'm also the only shopkeeper in all of the nearby villages."

"Could you give us a special price," Julian asked, "After all we are the adventurers, so we'll surely buy many things!"

"Are you buying the healer's kit for him, dear?" he asked Volta, "I doubt that will be enough to help him," before Julian could protest about the rude comment again, the shopkeeper clapped his hands and said, "But I sure know what could help you!" he bowed down and took a little bottle, "Mommy's kiss!"

"Mommy's kiss?"

"Yes, mommy's kiss is a powerful cream that can clear your skin from any acne, blackheads and, most importantly, scars! Suitable for any race and any skin type! My son loves it!"

"If that's the only thing that will remove this scar, then sure. How much for Mommy's kiss?"

"Well, this is a rare cream that can remove any skin imperfection, but for you, my fine gentleman, I'll lower the price to 200 gp!"

"Two hundred gold pieces for that tiny bottle!?!"

"Well, it is Mommy's kiss, after all."

"Sorry, but I'll have to pass."

"But I'll take the healer's kit," Volta said.

"And I'll take five arrows," Portia said.

"Why does the Great axe cost 30gp?!?" Lucio asked.

"But I only have 10!!!" Vulgora said, "How can we get the money?!?"

"Well, if you go to the Saint Milu, you'll get some money," you said.

"Ughh, fine..."

"Excuse me, sir," Valdemar leaned to the shopkeeper who nervously sweated, "Do you, by any chance, sell bones of the humanoids?"

"Eek!" the shopkeeper said.

"Okay, so, Valdemar, the shopkeeper is terrified of you," you started, "Because of that, you have an advantage on rolling intimidation check. So if you want to force them to give you something, feel free to try."

"Oh, how fun," Valdemar's eyes glowed with joy, "Are there any scrolls here?"

"I, I do have some scrolls," he said, visibly shaking.

"I'll take the one with the inflict wounds spell," they said.

You threw two d20 at them, "Roll them, the AC is 15."

They rolled the dice, where one dice landed on 4 while the other one on 14.

"Is your intimidation at least +1?"

They took a glance at the skills table and gave you a toothy grin.

"You got the scroll, however, the shopkeeper told you to get out or else he'll call the guards."

"Too bad. Looks like you're not going to get Mommy's kiss, Ilyushka!"

"Fear not, we're going to find you Mommy's kiss in some other shop," Lucio said, laughing mid-sentence.

"So, because Muriel has a keen mind feat, he leads all of you north."

"You go Muri!" Portia cheered.

"...Thanks."

Read the whole chapter here

[ask-the-crimson-king]

Tales from D&D: Skin to Bone

[Hello. Have not done a Tales from D&D in a hot minute. Thought I’d do one now.

This one is from the Icewind Dale campaign that I am playing, and because of it, there may be SPOILERS FOR ICEWIND DALE below the cut. 

I am also going to be tagging @luwupercal because I think they may enjoy hearing about the fate of Barnaby and the fucking feels train this campaign has become. 

Before I get into it, this is the cast:

LYDIA - Vampire spawn warlock. Chill as fuck. Just wants to be able to either cure herself or stop having to run from her new self.

RHOZAL - Hobgoblin Artificer with a lot of emotional baggage. Blacksmith and feelsy baby. Protect him. Has a crush on Lydia. [The feelings are mutual on both ends, however the characters are being COWARDS-]

BARNABY BUSSELTON - Anarcho-capitalist gnome wizard. No longer a PC. Relevant to the beginning of this tale. Will explain.

CHARLES NOLAND - Halfling druid. Was vibing in the snow for 2 months. New to the gang. 

AND FINALLY, MY DUMB ASS AS-

Hakkerskaldyr Strigr, but known as FREYR - Goliath Paladin who worships the Allfather. Lost an eye. And a character that I’ve lost interest in playing. We’ll get into that.

We begin our tale with a TPK in some caverns.  Note: The party is Level 3.

The enemies were a frost giant skeleton, a hag, and a wil-o-wisp. 

Lydia makes it to the hag first. Rhozal and I, Freyr, try to follow her to provide assistance while Barnaby tries to kite the skeleton away from us. 

We get to the room with the hag. Lydia isn’t doing too good. 

The giant stops following Barnaby and comes for us.

Rhozal is put down in one blow from the giant’s axe. Freyr is able to use the final spell slot and put down a smite on the hag, killing it. Lydia, who had been grappled by it, is now free.

Freyr was at 5 hp. The giant needed to do 35 damage for Freyr to be killed instantaneously.

The DM rolled a 7, an 8, and an 11. The giant had a +6 to the attack.

The giant had done 34 damage. One more and I would have been out. BUT THAT WASN’T THE END! Because on the next turn, the wisp used its ability where a creature put down to 0 needs to make a DC 10 con save or die instantly. 

Made the save.

Lydia flees, and now the giant skeleton is fighting this wisp. Barnaby is hanging back, letting them fight it out. Lydia does her Form of Dread and finds Barnaby, takes out a shadowblade, and kills him. Freyr’s axebeak, Ishe, is on her way to try and retrieve Freyr. Lydia tries to mount her, but is bucked off. 

Barnaby’s turn is next and he gets a NAT 20 TO THE SAVE, POPS UP, SAYS “SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKER” AND DOWNS LYDIA WITH A LEVEL 2 MAGIC MISSILE.

Ishe then pecks his ass and puts him back on death saves. Which he got another nat 20 to in two turns. 

SO, TPK. Wonderful. Rhozal then releases a snake called Xipecoatl unto the world in exchange for his life. The snake kills the skeleton, and Ishe comes in to grab Freyr and run. Barnaby gets up and makes a deal with the snake.

Freyr goes to the nearest city with Ishe, once he comes to, for help from the guard. With a nat 20 to persuasion, he gets it.

Barnaby starts making traps around the caves, including alchemist’s fire and rockfall traps. I am sent into secrets corner, alone, FOR 45 FUCKING MINUTES while Barnaby talks. 

Finally, I’m able to get back into the main call, and Freyr takes up his weapons, and the guards, and he makes his way into the caverns. Man checked for traps all the while, but they were disarmed. Barnaby left a note. Rhozal is fucking worried and wants to pursue him now. Barnaby has captured Lydia. 

We resolve to fucking kill him.

Thanks to Lydia being a fucking madlad, we’re able to locate him hiding out in the snow. He hears the sled dogs that are with us. Rhozal is given a scroll of fireball (reward for the quest we were on), and he uses it to cast fireball on Barnaby. Takes 11 fire damage.

I go, and I try to Vow of Emnity his ass. Can’t. Fucking illusion. GREAT. 

Turns progress and the guards can’t hit him because of this illusion. Lydia is not doing well on death saves. She needs to be saved now.

On Barnaby’s turn, he takes out a fang, and teleports away.

“Let this be known as the day you almost caught Barnaby Busselton!”

He also ignites the oil he had planted around Lydia. Due to a Secret, Freyr has fire resistance, so he was literally thrown into the fires to help her. After cutting himself so Lydia could be stable/healed, he hauls her up and out of the flames.

Barnaby is now a DMPC, and will eventually be hunted.

We all leave and get a room in the nearby city of Easthaven. We spent the night there, we had some very nice heart to heart moments. Rhozal now feels empty. But we all cement our bonds with each other, and Rhozal and Lydia become very cute and adorable. I don’t want this post to be a million miles long, so I’ll leave it at that.

I will try to summarize the next few sessions. Essentially, we found a magic cauldron in those caves (its a Cauldron of Plenty) and the Speaker (mayor) of Easthaven was willing to pay 3500gp for it. So we planned to give it to him, but it was stolen in the time period the speaker had told us it would take for us to be paid. We find Charles in the Speaker’s town hall, and we ask him if he knew anything. The answer was ‘no’. So we head downstairs and we find the Speaker beat to shit, along with his guards. 

It is at this point we find out who stole the cauldron, a dwarf woman named Torgga, and we head out as soon as possible. The Speaker offers 1000 more gp for its retrieval.

So we head off to Targos, the last town that we knew Torgga frequented. We go to Luskan Arms, a Tavern, and we find her sleds. But the cauldron is gone. We head inside and we see her heading up to speak with someone. Lydia turns invisible and leaves her familiar, a pseudodragon named Signum (who is also constantly pointing in the direction Lydia is in), with us. When Signum squeaks, it means she’s in danger. 

Lydia is able to eavesdrop on a situation. The Speaker of Targos plans to starve out Easthaven. GREAT. POLITICS. Makes Torgga fear him. He is a corrupted cunt, essentially. 

Torgga is let out, and Lydia remains in the room with the Speaker. 

She then decides to attack. Signum starts squeaking. Me and Rhozal’s player are aggressively signing (because we had been muted for this entire altercation) that we are FUCKIN GONE, we are DASHING AWAY-

But Lydia CRITS ON THE BITE. C R I T. NATURAL. T W E N T Y.

Combat ensues. It takes Freyr and Rhozal forever to try and get to her. Rhozal is able to just yeet his ass upstairs, but then there’s a locked door in the way. Freyr is being pulled back by a tiefling (one of the Speaker’s lot), and even with a FUCKING 21 TO ATHLETICS, I couldn’t break free. FOR LIKE FIVE FUCKING ROUNDS. NO, I did not hit this person, BECAUSE MY PALLY BOY WAS JUST THINKING “don’t hurt more people than you have to, that’s just going to cause more trouble”. 

But anyway he gets upstairs but Lydia is unconscious. Rhozal cannot pick the door. So we start breaking it down.

We break it down.

The Speaker ties up Lydia with manacles. We break into his room (after Rhozal gets poisoned by a Cone Snail doorknob), see Lydia is awake (nat 20 to death saves baBY), and that the Speaker is missing.

He escaped through a hidden door. Freyr watched him do it. So he tries to find the exit, but fails. 

His next turn, this motherfucker opens the door and says “Hello!”. Makes 3 attacks.

Misses 2.

CRITS. ON THE THIRD. FOR FUCK SAKE-

Freyr is down. AND. AND. HE HAS THREE SPELL SLOTS THAT HE CAN USE. AND ALL OF HIS LAY ON HANDS POINTS. BUT HE IS DOWN. FUCK.

Rhozal is also downed, but Signum arrives to save the day! Signum stings him. Speaker rolls a nat 1 to his con save, so he is now unconscious for an hour. Freyr gets healing potion’d, then he res’s Rhozal, and then Rhozal starts tying up the Speaker. Charles had been kinda holding back the tide downstairs (Dire Wolf wild shaping is fucking insane at level 3), so he hauls ass to come help us. 

However, about 5 other people are following. FUCK.

We try to find a way to escape. We also need proof the Speaker is a corrupt fuckhead. Which we THOUGHT we had, because the Speaker wrote a letter that essentially said “Ah yes, I am Evil and Corrupt, muah ha ha.” However. The DM then proceeded to reveal that he didn’t have the letter on him, when he told Lydia that she saw him take it.

Fucking. Damn. It.

We headed into his secret hallway and we try to find a way out. 

The hallway is trapped, however, and nearly takes us out because of those traps. How fucking LOVELY. 

We hear the guards calling for someone, who finds the oTHER END OF THIS HALLWAY AND THEN SNIPES FREYR. Down. AGAIN. 

Then Rhozal is put down. 

Charles and Lydia are able to flee. 

Rhozal and Freyr are taken captive. 

We awake to find ourselves imprisoned. Manacled, in nothing but ragged clothing. The Speaker wants to make a deal. He literally says “Ah yes, I am corrupt and power hungry. Work for me.”

Look. Freyr is not about that life. It’s complicated but it has ties to his backstory.

Rhozal wants to say yes. Freyr is a vehement no. This guy thinks of him, Rhozal, and Lydia as precious pieces on his board. Weapons he can turn against the people of Targos and Ten Towns. Things for his own gain. Freyr would rather choose death before dishonor.

The Speaker then says that Freyr would be imprisoned, and let out once he became more useful. 

Rhozal fears he will be killed. 

It is at this point that I and Rhozal’s player go into the Secrets chat so Rhozal and Freyr can argue their points. 

Meanwhile, Charles and Lydia go to find some acquaintances the party made in Targos. Marianne, a Changeling healer, and Mimosa Halfglass, the chief healer in Targos. They start planning a prison break.

In our bickering and imprisonment, Marianne comes to us. We tell her to sneak out our things. She’s disguising herself as a guard. She then leaves. 

Rhozal’s player and I are then brought into the general vc and muted. 

Lydia ends up speaking with the Speaker alone, offers a counter-offer, and also offers to try and convince Rhozal and Freyr to take his deal. He allows her to try and do so. Lydia is shackled and put into the same cell we are. 

The session ends here. However, in the background, Lydia, Rhozal, and Freyr all end up talking. 

I will say this now. I am feeling... stuck with my boy. I love Freyr. I really do. However, I don’t feel... inspired to play him anymore. So the DM has told us we need to make a decision -- take the Speaker’s offer, or don’t. And in this decision, I have a second one, that being; do I continue playing Freyr, or do I introduce a new character. 

I feel like, while the others have ideas and plans, Freyr doesn’t have many. Not many plot things that he feels relevant to or connected by, outside of this prophecy he was given to by Odin in the session he lost his eye. However, that feels like a very late game thing, and I feel like I’m kinda... twiddling my thumbs while the others have things to do. 

My next character I have basically planned out. I know how he talks, how he thinks, his mannerisms, everything. And I really like him. Haven’t quite decided on a name yet, but I incorporated that aspect itself into his character. 

I already know that Freyr is a vehement ‘no’. Lydia and Rhozal tried to convince him otherwise, but my boy is stubborn. But the DM told me that things do not have to end there. 

So my decision by Wednesday is now -- who’s story do I play? Freyr’s, or this new character?

I’m still torn. But I am leaning more and more towards this new character. He feels dynamic, and the character is a class I’ve never played before. Plus I think he’ll get along well with Lydia, Rhozal, and Charles. 

It’ll be a heartfelt goodbye if he leaves. But I feel like his chapter has come to a close. Besides, I feel like he’s a bit too... third wheel-y for what Rhozal and Lydia have going on. He feels too awkward. I don’t like his dynamic too much anymore. 

But who knows, maybe I’ll regret the decision either way. However, I do believe it’s time for my paladin to say goodbye. At least at the time of writing. I’ll provide updates when the fateful day comes.]

[starkerforlife6969]

Starker, Tangled AU Part 1

Based off @starker-au‘s gorgeous aesthetic to be found here ft Evil witch Hela, hired bandit Tony, and lost prince Peter 

TW Peter is 17, obviously some background mild stockholm syndrome (Peter loves Hela at first) and mentions of kidnapping.

Tony’s been lying on the roof of the spire all morning.

As damp and dewy (read: slippery and difficult) as it had been to get up here, now that he’s in prime position, it’s all about waiting.

He has a pretty good view of the inside of the room if he hangs down low enough. The midday sun is beating hot onto his back and he can see the boy inside- nose buried in a book of poetry- but he knows better than to try and take him now. He’s been staking this place out for a while, and soon enough- the witch will come.

He resits the urge to scratch the sunburn forming on the back of his neck, instead he keeps poised and still, because right on time the witch arrives.

Tony grins, shaking his head, goddamn this was almost too easy.

A few months of searching and he’s found the lost prince- the King and Queen are going to lavish him with money and he’ll leave the Kingdom, maybe buy his own, become the ruler of the land.

It’s not bad for a 25 year old outlaw.

Of course, he’d been surprised when King Richard and Queen Mary had summoned him. Although, ‘summoned’ was a little…alright, fine, they’d caught him. And Tony had thought for sure he was going to be executed, but instead, he’d been taken to the Royal Court and told that if he were to find the missing prince, not only would he get his freedom, but he would be gifted with a thousand jewels.

Turns out that 15 years of the most intense search by the royal guard hadn’t turned up anything.

And it’s taken Tony two weeks.

He’s feeling pretty smug about it.

Oh, sure, maybe it was lucky that he fell down that ravine in the woods and ended up here- but it’s not about how, it’s about the fact that he’s here.

He’s pretty sure the 16 year old he’s been watching for a few days is the lost Prince.

Well, this is the first time he’s close enough to really see. He’s been staking out in the shrubbery, hidden amidst the long grass and near the creek. But now that he’s scaled the tower, spent the whole night doing it and nearly broken his leg, he can see the boy up close. He’s a gorgeous little slip of a thing, and he seems well cared for, and the witch that comes up into the tower treats him well.

Tony’s glad of that, at least. He wasn’t sure what he thought he’d find- wasn’t sure if the prince was even alive, but this boy is beautiful and he has his mother’s curls.

Even if he’s not the prince, by some obscure chance, Tony’s pretty sure he could convince the parents that he is.

Right on time, he catches the long dark hair of the witch.

Tony cringes back a little on the spire, and watches as she comes to the foot of the tower and calls up:

“Peter, darling! Mommy’s home!”

Not a second later, Peter- dressed in silky lavender robes- comes smiling and red-faced to the window. “Mom!” He chirps happily, and throws down the rope.

This woman cannot be the boy’s mother, Tony thinks. As she rises, he sees her more clearly- there’s magic radiating off her- green and sickly- and Peter is so pure and sweet-

When she steps into the room, Tony waits a beat, before poking his head down just a little to try and see.

Peter’s room is perfectly circular, and utterly gorgeous. With grey brick and vines everywhere, there are flowers well cared for, and paintings everywhere- all of landscapes and lights- and a dark wooden wardrobe and a small bed absolutely bursting with pillows.

Tony watches as Peter and the witch talk. She fusses over him, almost lovingly, which is…confusing. She cards her fingers through his hair and urges him to eat the berries she’s brought him from her basket.

Tony watches as Peter sits cross-legged on the chair by the table, his mother (not mother, the witch) opposite him, and tries not to make a sound.

“Tell me, darling,” the witch croons, even as she’s grinding up some sweet smelling fragrance into a little copper mug. “It’s your birthday next week. Whatever you want, it’s yours.”

Peter sucks on the red juices staining his dainty fingertips, and Tony tempers down any attraction he feels because that would be- just no. The boy shrugs a little, looking shy. “Nothing, mom,”

“Oh come,” the witch urges, evidently done with her little concoction, and she turns to the mirror, and starts smearing it onto her face. “There must be something, darling. Mommy just wants to make you happy.”

Peter glances at the window, and for one horrible moment Tony thinks he’s been spotted, but the boy sighs and turns to her. “I was thinking, maybe…” his voice is sweet and quiet, “for my seventeenth you could take me to…” he looks down at the berries and Tony leans forward; intrigued, “...see the lights?”

The witch stops her movements immediately. There’s a suspenseful stillness. Before she turns, slowly, and her glance is cold. “Peter.” She chides, patronisingly, “you know you can’t leave here. They’d hurt you terribly and you’re out of your mind if you think I’m letting my darling boy get hurt.”

“We don’t have to talk to anyone!” He hurries eagerly, “I swear, just me and you- we can- we can hide! Somewhere out there, just to watch them! They always come on my birthday, mom, surely we can-“

“Peter.” She snarls, and there’s no room for argument in her voice.

Tony hates her. The boy sinks into his seat and nods sadly, picking at his food.

She seems to deflate after a moment, standing and wrapping her arms around him as he nuzzles into her stomach. “Sweetie, you know I’m just trying to protect you. You know I love you, don’t you?”

Peter nods, but doesn’t look up.

Tony watches as she cups his small face in her hands and forces him to look up at her. “My darling boy,” she sighs, “look at mommy. Give me a kiss on the cheek, sweetheart,”

Peter dutifully cranes upwards, and presses a delicate kiss onto her cheek and-

Tony nearly falls off the roof.

Where Peter’s lips touch her skin, streams of gold spread under the witches skin, and before his eyes- she seems to get younger. Firmer, more beautiful, and it spreads over her, until she looks as if she’s lost ten years.

Tony can’t close his mouth.

What the fuck?

The kid is- magic- what the fuck? This doesn’t- he must be the witch’s son, then, the boy’s a wizard or something, but-

But no. His birthday is the day they do the light memorial in the Kingdom. He has Mary’s hair and Richard’s eyes. He’s kept locked in a tower-

Tony stills.

What if this was why the boy was taken?

The witch had said people would want to hurt him- she’d taken him- to stay young-

And the boy doesn’t even know.

Doesn’t know he was taken- that he’s being lied to- used-

Tony tightens his hands into fists and grits his teeth. This isn’t right. He has to- he has to take this boy home. He has to save him.

He watches as the witch coddles her captive, and Peter bids her goodbye as sweet as a humming bird, before she’s lowered gently to the ground with the rope.

He watches as Peter tides the rope away, and then goes and sits by his easel, foregoing the paintbrushes, and just dipping his fingers straight into the paint, and setting to work.

It’s hypnotising to see, but Tony has to make his move. He lowers himself onto the ledge, grunting- grip excruciatingly tight so he won’t fall-

and by the time he manages to flip inside, he’s so cock-sure and arrogant, so relieved to be out of the heat, a smug grin on his face- that he doesn’t even see it coming when the frying pan whacks into his head.

*** There’s a sharp pain on the right side of his head when Tony blinks to awareness, but as he takes in his surroundings, everything’s dappled in an early afternoon light so he figures he hasn’t been out for too long.

And then he flexes and he nearly snorts. The bindings aren’t very good, but that’s okay, he looks around and catches sight of Peter, still brandishing his frying pan, and half hidden behind a painting.

It’s a good painting. Tony’s a little distracted by it.

There are splotches of gold lighting up the night sky, but they’re too big to be stars-

oh.

“Who are you?” Peter says, voice quivering a little, but he’s clearly trying to be brave and Tony just…god, he feels bad for him. But he's a little impressed by the kid’s moxie. “Have you come to steal my magic? Well you can’t have it!”

A ginger cat hisses at Tony and he jumps a little in surprise. “No, kid, listen,” he tries, wincing when the movement of his jaw makes him a little dizzy. His voice is a little rough too. “I’m here to-“

“My mom’s gonna deal with you when she gets back.” Peter informs primly, all cream skin and huge hazel eyes and-

mom. Oh god. Tony…he’s not sure he can. He’s not sure he can say it all and have Peter believe him, so-so- he does what he’s done best for a long time. He lies. “Listen, kid,” he tries, “I was just out for a walk when I saw this tower, thought it might have a few supplies, I thought it was abandoned. It clearly isn’t, so, I’ll be on my way. Back to town.” He waits a beat. “Gotta get back in time to see the lights.” Too thick?

Peter’s eyes snap up, and Tony bites back his smirk. Hook. Line. And sinker. “The lights?”

“Yeah, the lanterns.”

“Lanterns!” Peter gasps, turning to look at his painting. “That’s what they are! Oh, sir,” he turns back, eyes alight with a thousand ideas and it’s- goddamn, it’s a little endearing, “will you take me?”

Tony opens his mouth to say ‘yes’ when Peter cuts him off-

“No, you have to take me, or I’ll tell my mom you broke in and she’ll turn you into a frog.” He beams, rosy cheeks and sparkly eyes, and curly hair, and Tony thinks:

fuck.