#I've moved them to this modern verse

[stingslikeabee]

The time they get to spend together is far too short, in Wes's opinion, and doesn't happen nearly often enough. But tonight, she isn't working, and he took off from work early because he knew she'd be free. He didn't have anything special planned, he just showed up at her place with a bottle of brandy, some chocolates, and set to making her dinner. He doesn't get to cook much anymore, but he's always enjoyed it.

Now, they sit together on the couch, glasses in hand, her head leaned against his shoulder while he idly runs his fingers through her hair. Some shitty reality show goes to commercial, and he lets out a slow breath. It's relaxing, which is different than how his nights usually go, but with Mel, he can really just let work leave his mind, and he actually watches the show rather than letting it be little more than background noise.

"If she chooses Alexander, I will personally sue her," he says as he takes a drink. He doesn't care about the show, won't even pay enough attention to future episodes until he catches one with her again - if they opt for it again - but, in the moment, it's something akin to entertaining to talk and speculate.

He thinks they should take a vacation together, leave work for a while, get away, just the two of them. But he'll ask later.

unscripted asks . always accepting

There had always been something about Wesley Jade that set him apart from most of the people Melissa mingled with; he lacked the usual behavior traits of the men she used to provide services for - he was not a stuck-up wealthy bastard with an ego that needed constant validation. Wesley was also not a business savvy person such as the managers of the restaurants and hotels she partnered up with, having a more direct approach than the elusive (and oftentimes slippery) way of closing deals.

It was not until the modern day madame found out about his real job and mostly about his sister that she understood it all - Wesley (or just Wes) treated her like a person because he saw Melissa like one. No matter what the brunette used to do for a living - or helped others do in recent times - he did not think any less of her. The detective was never ashamed to see her in public, nor disguised their meetings as anything else but as a moment of clear fondness for someone who had turned into a friend.

It had been convenience, at first, that brought them together; but now the woman was glad that he had gone beyond the usual playful games of drinks and seductive conversation. That flirting routine meant nothing to a woman like Melissa - but being comfortable to share her own address, getting a homemade meal and enjoying some horrible reality show?

That was worth more than anything in the world when one lived off appearances.

Slowly, her own madame persona was discarded; there was very little left of the glamorous lady that keenly watched over her employees from fine scenic bars with impeccable make-up and expensive dresses. Instead, she was comfortably decked in sweatpants and an old t-shirt purchased as a souvenir from an amusement park years ago, visage free of any make-up and hair at Wes' full disposal. The soft caresses made her snuggle closer, and Melissa laughed when he remarked on one of the protagonist's poor choices in that episode.

"I know - he's such a bastard. But that's life, Wes. Some guys think their fancy surname makes them some sort of god's gift to women. So fucking annoying," the woman snorted, and even her language changed around him. No demure, polite madam - just a girl having a good time with someone she trusted enough to be intimate with.

Not of the sexual kind - well, not only; but emotionally.

"I'm rooting for Ben, but I don't know. He's too nice; girls sometimes make bad choices too," she sighed dramatically against him, moving a little to grab the chocolate nearby to munch on one of the remaining pieces. And out of nowhere, while appreciating the sweet flavor that it left on her tongue, Melissa moved closer to Wes and pressed a kiss to his cheek, inhaling softly afterwards as if she was attempting to preserve that feeling in her memories.

"You're my good choice, though," a chuckle followed for some added levity to that suddenly intense declaration, "You and your cooking skills and your very comfortable chest."

[yuelun]

/takes a little breath amidst a quiet dash. Starter call!

Though I have threads/asks to get to, I'm curious if one of these would catch anyone's attention. I know sending in sentence starters isn't always up everyone's alley and it's a little harder when it comes to interacting with a character who's canonically dead in present day, like mine. Although (I need to write up the details for the first iteration of it) I do have her resurrected in a present timeline (see tags). If you're interested in me either coming to you, or fishing up something with a bit of a red line, give this a like and I'll see what I can do! Trust me when I say, if we're mutuals, I'm interested in writing with you. See this as a little cheat to grab my attention if you want it!

[madmaryholiday]

question for dracula nerds:

i know the current section of dracula daily is meant to be full of foreshadowing and tragically missed clues and whatnot, but does anybody know how this section of the book would've landed when it was written?

because to me, a modern reader, i keep getting annoyed that these great strong men wouldn't think to keep an eye on mina after her bff was slowly murdered by the count. van helsing, especially, is supposed to be a vampire expert!

i get that the signs of a vampire bite are similar to general nervous symptoms, but you'd think the boys would at least make mina wear a crucifix 24/7 to give her a little protection.

is this how people would have read this section when dracula was first published? or would it have come across as more that mina's lethargy and pallor was so indistinguishable from ordinary anxiety that the men would have no reason to think anything else was wrong? is the point that the count's methods are so stealthy that it takes great cunning to even uncover them, or are our heroes meant to be tragically not seeing the obvious signs before them?

i'm just curious because, well, i'm not super well-versed in the attitudes of the 19th century. i mean i've got the basics down, but i don't know enough to know what "common knowledge" was like or what the specific parts of society our main characters move through were like at the time.

and i mean, death of the author and all that, but i'd like to understand more what was intended by stoker so i can compare it to my modern take on the text.

[birds--daily]

welcome to birds daily!!

this is my blog where i draw a bird every single day! the idea was completely ripped off from one of my best friends of all time, @fish-daily !! please go check him out :0)

my name is sunny and i'm a wildlife biology major and art minor from michigan. i'm 21 years old and i use they/them pronouns!

i'm here because i love birds so much, and i'm assuming if you're following then you do too!!

IMPORTANT INFO BELOW!!

what to know before you request

please check if i've drawn a bird before you request it! if you don't want to scroll through everything, all my birds are tagged by order. don't know the order of your bird? look it up! the IOC world bird list has a great resource for this.

i tag them by name, but some birds have multiple common names.

i also have a spreadsheet of every bird i've done so far! but i can definitely see myself forgetting to update this, so it's best to double check.

any avian dinosaur archaeopteryx-and-beyond can be requested! many ornithologists consider avialae to be the cutoff for "modern" birds.

i can't guarantee full-accuracy of prehistoric birds as i'm not very well-versed in paleontology.

please keep asks to only one bird! feel free to send multiple asks though. if you include multiple birds in an ask i'll just pick one. when i answer the ask to post it, the other birds will be gone forever...

i will prioritize requests in the order i received them in, but a couple times a week i might draw a personal pick instead.

not accepting duplicate birds doesn't mean you can't request a different version of the same bird, which leads me to…

sexual dimorphism and seasonal plumage!

yes! you can request different plumages and sexes of a bird i've already done! want to see a female ruddy duck? of course! want the breeding plumage of the willow ptarmigan? absolutely!

i have sex, maturity, and plumage recorded on my spreadsheet, but i'm bound to make some mistakes on there. once again, double-checking my blog is your best bet to getting accurate bird info!

if you don't specify anything, i'm going to assume the basic mature male with breeding plumage that you come to expect from a bird.

breeding and non-breeding plumage can also be called summer and winter plumage. some birds also have special names for their plumage forms. just to keep things consistent i'll be referring to it as breeding and non-breeding!

final notes

my main blog is @eggpathy if you're interested in any of my other art! i forget to post there a lot. most of my art is on my twitter under the same name (trying to move here though)

i'm a full-time college student with a job, so some days i won't be able to get a bird out. sometimes i might even have to take a few days to a week off just to keep my sanity. this doesn't mean i'm not having fun and enjoying drawing birds! it just means i'm busy and maybe need time for other things

i'm also still human. this means i WILL MAKE MISTAKES! i have not finished my degree yet and i'm still learning! one of the big reasons i made this account was to help myself learn my birds! i take extra time out of my day to find facts to post with my birds, and sometimes those are wrong. if you see me post misinfo, please kindly correct me with a comment, dm, or tag!

any post that isn't a daily bird will be tagged #not birds. any post that is a daily bird will be tagged #birds.

please feel free to add extra fun facts, info, and generally any other silly comment in the tags. i love reading them and they make my day!

asks don't have to be request-related! feel free to ask me anything :0)

thanks for reading! peent!

[gffa]

The latest ending of Ahsoka really made me realize one of the big problems with Felony's writing and why so much of the Masndo-verse and Felony's modern writing falls flat compared to OWK and Andor. Shock value. A BIG twist cliffhanger that leaves us all mouth open and HYPING up the next episode in hope and filling the forums with discussions in anticipation. Understandably, he can't write what we wrote in our heads for 7 days and top that. 1.

2. But once that shock is gone when the story has moved onto the next big thing, or you watch it again when you know what it pays off in, or watch the whole series or season again, it just doesn't hold up. It's empty. Vapid. Because it's all about the shock. The twist. The discussion. The hype fodder. It's not saying anything or adding anything. OWK and Andor was a lot better at that, without the use of the nostalgia baiting that Felony relies on. 3. It becomes an endless circle of low lows and high highs, while OWK and Andor both slowly built up to the crescendo of discussions and speculations and both have stayed in the fandom consciousness alot longer thanks to that. And because they have something to say, both to the world and to the viewer. While with the Felony and the Fraudrou verses, it's just a constant barrage of oh wow, moving on, what's next? ehh, it's over, let's move on.

I feel like one day I'm going to do a longer analysis on why exactly Filoni's writing feels weak to me (where I try to be more fair than I'm usually feeling about his writing), because I don't think he's without a lot of talent and there's certain things he really does get about Star Wars, but I think so much comes back to that he's a writer who is caught in a difficult position--playing in someone else's sandbox but has to now establish his own new corners of that sandbox and I'm not sure he's strong enough to be a big picture kind of guy when he works better in smaller focus. His work on TCW and Rebels is content that we do come back to again and again for analysis, during my rewatches of both those series, those shows hold up! But I think they're ones where he had stronger guardrails up, and he was forced to stick to things in one place. I think live action has been bad for Filoni's writing because of the way so much is structured, that there are multiple series going on and I feel like his writing doesn't have the patience to actually tell a story in a single space, that's why we get Grogu's story being split between The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett, that's why we get Mandalore's story being splintered across Rebels, The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, and now Ahsoka. We still haven't even seen half of the events that happen in the Mandalore bigger story! And you're right that he and Favreau both lean too hard on the cameos and echoes/rhymes for nostalgia's sake. And those reference points are often extremely fun in the moment! And I'll grant that the Luke episodes are ones I go back to fairly often, because I think there's some really good content in there about what attachment actually means. But I don't think it's that surprising, looking back, how quickly the Favroni shows fell apart for us and how it doesn't feel like they're establishing anything that can support a bunch of books and comics. I suspect that Disney's not allowed to have books/comics/etc. based on Favroni's shows because they want creative control over those characters while they're still actively writing for them, but also I look at the OT and the PT and look how much was built off those movies+TCW as a foundation, I look at how much you're able to still watch those and find new things to analyze, and I just don't feel that with Filoni's writing anymore, not since Rebels, not to that level, anyway. (I'll grant that I've been a lot more excited about the Ahsoka series and what we can say about it/find in analyzing it than I expected, I expected nothing but shitposts like we did with Mandalorian s3, but I've had fun with serious meta in Ahsoka! I was genuinely excited to come on-line after episode 4 and talk about themes and structure and how well Filoni did with that there!) Ultimately, I think Filoni (and Favreau) both have a lot of talent, but I think they're being pushed too hard to make too much too quickly and that it shows that they're making this up as they go along, rather than that they had a vision they've been crafting for years and any kind of idea of where they want the end goal to be. Like, yeah, Lucas wrote some stuff on the fly, he changed his mind about things along the way, but he had an end point in mind for his story, so the echoes/rhymes felt more resonant for me. Favroni don't feel like they have any idea where they're going and so much winds up feeling like shock value and self-reference for nostalgia bad for me instead of something that's Going Somewhere.

[effypcfcwrites]

The Owl House

(Originally posted on my personal Facebook dated April 25, 2023)

This is probably the first time I'll be posting a detailed review of a piece of media that I like, so witness me sing all of my praises for this animated series from the House of Mouse, because wow, I've never been so invested in a Disney show after rewatching Gravity Falls.

For those unfamiliar, The Owl House revolves around Luz Noceda, a teenage girl who stumbles upon a portal to an alternate world called The Boiling Isles, meets a witch named Eda Clawthorne, learns magic under her tutelage and eventually enrolls in Hexside, a magic school where she makes many friends and goes on multiple adventures.

I binged this whole show in a span of weeks and even stayed up all night on my day off to finish it up to Season 3, the first 2 Seasons being on Disney+ and the latter on Disney Channel's YouTube page.

Simply put, I love it so much! I love how it reminds me of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, and, dare I say, Harry Potter, which it even poked fun at, at times. Well-deserved, considering J.K. Rowling’s transphobic views and HP’s underlying anti-Semitic undertones.

I loved the pop culture references to Thor: Ragnarok, Howl's Moving Castle, Metal Gear Solid, and even Hades, among many others! I thought those were very clever and funny, and just a treat for fellow nerds, geeks, and fans of fantasy stories, anime, and video games.

I love the LGBTQ+ representation all throughout the show, which was such a bold move considering Disney’s iffy stance on the subject. None of them were antagonized for it, and it was treated as something normalized in both the Human and Demon Realms. The show featured 2 gay dads, non-binary and aromantic-asexual characters, and one of the internet’s favorite sapphic/WLW couples Lumity, which is the ship consisting of canonically bisexual Luz and implied lesbian Amity Blight, whose rivals-to-friends-to-lovers relationship was just so wholesome, so natural, and very healthy, considering they're both teenagers. Suprisingly, there was very little melodrama, not once were they petty towards one another whenever either party did something wrong, and they never got tired of showing affection towards each other. I found myself shamelessly gushing over how cute, adorable, and supportive they were together, and tearing up a lot during key moments of their relationship, especially when they both found themselves in dire straits as the story progressed.

I love the writing and the character development of them all! None of them felt static, they all grew throughout the series, maturing, getting better, and healing from their own insecurities, trauma, and guilt. The humor and comedic timing was a nice touch, and I was really taken aback by how S2 ended on such a dark cliffhanger with all stakes raised to the roof, similar to A:TLA S2 and The Empire Strikes Back, as mentioned earlier. That season wasn’t afraid to have such a grim ending, with such a great payoff by the end of S3 which is worth celebrating.

I love the animation and art style, which blended colorful and whimsical with eerie and ominous in just the right amounts. As a sucker for animated movies and series such as Adventure Time, The Prince of Egypt, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, it was just such a delight watching it.

I love the overarching message of the show, which is to be truly yourself, to embrace your quirks, and never to limit yourself and your potential based on what the majority of society and the powers-that-be expect from you. All throughout, you’ll find the characters challenging pre-established norms and roles, and it’s just so satisfying seeing them all win.

11/10 top-tier show. Don’t @ me, it’s hard for me to find something I disliked about the series. It's definitely a must-watch, especially if you're sick and tired of all the bleak nihilism of modern adult animation, and you just want to baby your inner child and escape to a whimsical fantasy world with characters you can all relate to. Betting my bottom peso you'll all be hooked, like I was.

[sky-scribbles]

Playlist for my Aeor longfic

I failed to figure out how to do a fancy spotify embed like the kids do but uh. Here's the playlist for Gravity!

I listened to this while planning and writing, and there are even a few shout-outs to the songs in the fic... Songs are arranged chronologically, so you should be able to hear the story happening, hopefully :'D

Further yelling about song choices under the cut!

A Matter of Time - This one is... sort of the fic's opening titles in my head? I wanted to start out with an instrumental, to capture the vibes of the months before the fic opens - Essek and Caleb apart, thinking about the T-Dock, and each other. Wondering. Waiting.

Horse to Water - Essek in Chapter 1, knowing his life as the Shadowhand is ending, waiting for Caleb to come and take him away to whatever comes next. (I'm normally very picky about not putting songs that reference modern day stuff on fantasy playlists but this one's vibes were too perfect)

Dear Fellow Traveller - Two wizards heading into Aeor together.

Conquest of Spaces - A song for Aeor. A dark, beautiful city, the remains of a people who lived by greed and power. (And two wizards in the ruins, trying to draw closer to each other.)

Neptune - This is mostly for Essek's breakdown in chapter 5, as he worries he'll never break out of his Shadowhand manipulation, wanting to be closer to Caleb and not knowing what that would even look like. And it's a little for Caleb in chapter 6, too, grappling with his feelings for Essek and his fears that they'll ultimately be bad for each other.

Please Don't Say You Love Me - ... and as they move past those fears, this song is for them tentatively acknowledging what they might be to each other. Not yet. But maybe soon.

Woodwork - This is for the chapters 6-9 span, as they learn more about Brashaar's plan. The pressure of a crisis has an odd way of making them realise just how deep their trust and care for each other runs.

Two Evils - Since we're at the point where Brashaar shows up, she gets a song now! This is pretty much her internal monologue during her confrontation with the wizards (though she really should have paid attention to 'if you're not careful, you will lose her' in reference to Quaera...)

Winter - Travelling northward, and yearning. Wishing they had more time.

Mind - A song for a young Quaera, slowly forming a personality, wondering about who she is and how her identity forms...

The Tower - ... and having their own breakdown.

What Could Have Been - I love me a good villainous breakdown, and this is a song for Brashaar's. This is how I imagine she feels during the final confrontation, raging against the gods, against Caleb and Essek, against Quaera after they turn from her. Not quite able to let go of what she thinks Aeor could have been. What, in her eyes, the world is meant to be. (As a bonus, I think the second verse sounds a bit like a retort to her from Quaera...)

Everybody Wants to Rule the World - This is such a fun cinematic cover, and I can't tell you how many times I've imagined a mental AMV of the final battle with Brashaar set to it :'D

Ori, Embracing the Light - I wanted an instrumental here too, because... Essek is dead, Caleb is in shutdown, and Essek and Quaera are communing with the Luxon, a being that doesn't really speak with words. Also, 'embracing the light' is exactly what Quaera does at this point.

Would That I - I know we all use this as Caleb's 'learning to live and love again' song... and I am no exception. This is for him after the T-Dock, finally fully acknowledging his grief, and his love for Essek.

First Day of my Life - Just two wizards realising that they have a future, and agreeing to slowly work at what's between them.

Ready to Call This Love - This one speaks for itself, honestly.

Five - Both of the wizards in the final chapter, but especially Essek realising how isolated he's been from the world, and letting it all in so he can feel it. (Also, studying the universe is a love language - )

Gravity - Gravity is a metaphor for love!!!!

[caesarflickermans]

I’ve followed you for Years and I find it so funny how you went from shipping Hayffie to not and then it’s me that went from Not to shipping them ajaj. We switched! I grow up and I tend to love more adult ships especially very much complicated and almost doomed adult Dynamic. I should stop cause in every show/movies/books the adult ones don’t get much happiness. I should have known tho since Kane & Abby (they started it!!)

I so fondly remember Kane and Abby!! I shipped them back when I was watching the first few seasons of the 100 too :')

Adult ships have equally interested me more than teen ones even when I was a teen. There seemed to be so much drama around them that I much preferred calmer ships with characters that felt more settled rather than teens going through journeys discovering themselves. Funnily, in recent years I've felt more appreciative toward teen stories & teen ships—I enjoyed Alice Oseman's Radio Silence—and I've enjoyed thinking about modern high school verses for the Capitol rebels :> Me adding Cressida & Fulvia to the 'cast' is also moving down in age ranges, although they are both mid twenties.

And hmm! I think I've just gotten fed up with the movie version of Hayffie. While I understand the enjoyment to have Effie in 13, she seemed to be there for some light-hearted moments in an otherwise bleak movie. I wish they would have made her endure true hardships to really settle a character's journey, because to this day I don't see why Plutarch would've taken her along, why she did go unpunished in 13, or her truly GAF about the rebellion. It seems that for all the development they had her go through in CF, there was little beyond that in both MJ movies.

Overall, movie!Hayffie felt so rushed and ignorant to the journey these characters have had. Haymitch and Effie spent years at odds with each other. Whenever they were in contact, Haymitch was drunk trying to ignore the fact he was part of an entourage dragging two kids Effie picked to the Capitol who would inevitably die, and whose parents he might or might not have to face for the rest of his life. This all happened while Effie yapped about how boring, uneducated, or downright uncivilised she thought these children were. These characters are at such strong odds that I do not see them moving past that in the span of a year and a half.

We were robbed of a slowburn we were never going to get because these were side characters whose love story was never planned until fans asked for one.

Hayffie needs a truthful slowburn to properly work, and the kiss at the end of MJP2 was a final nail in the coffin for me. The flirtations were already a little too frequent, but this kiss clearly was not their first, and that indication did not at all align with my need for a slowburn Hayffie. The fact that the actors were the ones who pushed for this, and that I don't like E-Banks, makes this less a thought-out storyline and more a "well, let's smooch, this feels right!"

The issue with Hayffie is that, after the end of MJ, they aren't really forced into contact with each other anymore. I don't see why Haymitch would care enough for Effie to stay in contact, and I don't really think Effie's life centres around a guy who she appeared to be disgusted by for the whole two to three weeks per year she was forced to spend her time with (and to everyone who might say that, no, Haymitch is a looker: He had been abusing his body with alcohol for two decades and did not seem to bathe often).

That's not to say that, in such a potential slowburn, Effie cannot realise that she cannot shake off the horrors that happened to her in the book. She might end up getting in contact with Haymitch, but she also sort-of really needs a reality check about how her ignorance made her selfish, because I don't see any evidence anywhere that Effie felt any semblance of guilt for her participation or felt grief for the previous tributes.

So a rather rough phone call might make her think, re-watch, and re-evaluate her past actions. That doesn't happen overnight, but takes months and years to come to terms with.

This is the central aspect I think is amiss in the Hayffie canon story and in most ideas that I was surrounded by. Effie needs to apologise, and it needs to happen from genuine growth that I find doubtful to happen during the canon book timeline.

From then onward, maybe a friendship can develop with some calls ever so often, maybe Effie sending him a gift by the next train as a thanks for a particularly rough call. While I don't necessarily see Effie as too bound to the Capitol due to potential trauma after the book time in MJ—she might live in some of the "better" Districts—I struggle to see her move to Twelve. And I don't see Haymitch leaving his home, ever.

So whatever they might—maybe, with an abundance of what ifs attached—become is going to be reduced by distance and, frankly, age and health. I'm sorry to Mr. Abernathy, but his alcohol abuse is not guaranteeing a long life. By the time that Effie might come around, I think he won't live much longer. Even in this version they don't end up in a romance, but at least I can see some platonic affection and appreciation—once Effie actually understands and listens.

I've also seen more Hayffie content I did not enjoy than enjoy (which was... fairly little) and just. realised that discrepancy. My issues with the portrayal of these two in the fandom were that I've often seen them reduced to stereotypes, phrases, and punchlines. There's only so many times that Effie telling Haymitch "Manners!" is funny, especially if we link this back to the never-addressed undertones of colonialised-colonialser here. I've also at some point realised that this is one of the ships where the dynamics are that of damsel-helper, whereupon Effie's trauma was a frequent and serious topic while Haymitch's drinking problems were the bottom of jokes.

But maybe I've also grown old and cynical so sayonara

[mary-laib]

I'm thinking of writing a very long, multi-chapter human!au fic about Alastor (might be the caffiene talking and tomorrow I'll forget to go through with it lol) but I've got a ton of headcannons and have been thinking about a timeline for this thing for months now. Only thing is, I'm making a lot of ocs for it (keeping only Husk and Mimsy in the story) and I want the characters to be as era-accurate and culturally accurate as possible, so I was wondering if anybody here wanted to help beta it while I'm writing out the timeline and details.

I'm doing a ton of research, but I feel like for some of it, it's best to get real-person explanations on things, so here are some of the characters and details about them that I'd like to hear people's personal experiences with:

•Alastor's mother's side of the family:

African American with a lot of cultural roots in their history, such as their practice of Voodoo, and Fijian ancestry (I'd like to reference or even introduce a Fijian character, but I mainly add this piece of info to give Alastor some background with Cannibalism, not necessarily to introduce a character that actually practices). I'm p sure I have most of this down (outside of voodoo, which I'm still researching and will be putting a fantastical twist on) but if anybody has info or personal experiences they'd like to share, please reach out to me.

•Alastor's father's side of the family:

Alastor's father was non-religious, but grew up with an older sister in a catholic household. My dad's catholic so I'm p certain I can work with this, but again, help is welcome.

•Gay Muslim character that appears later:

I know a decent amount about Islam (more than I do about judiasm and I have jewish family lol) but I'd appreciate some tidbits on writing him since I'm def not Muslim myself and plan on writing a lot about this character's experience with discrimination, going to mosque, daily prayers and duties, and Qur'an lore, specifically relating to angels and armies in the afterlife/end of the world.

•Gang characters:

I'll admit that I'm not well-verses in early 1900's gang etiquette, but it's my hyperfixation rn so this is what's happening.

•Russian Husk:

I have some knowledge of Russian culture (specifically in a historical context) but am also looking for info relating to other east-European countries (such as Germany and Slovakia) since his background is going to have him moving around a lot before coming to the US.

•New Yorkers:

A lot of these characters come from New York (due to immigration, city-backgrounds, entertainment industry, etc.) and I'm p confident in my historical knowledge of the city and state, but fun facts are appreciated nonetheless.

•The Queers:

I'm planning on adding multiple gay/lesbian/bi characters to interact with Alastor's ace-ness to kind of compare to. I know some about old-time gay clubs, but if anybody wants to lmk more about them, I'd love to hear it.

•Tech:

I have no idea how modern tech works, so if I'm gonna write about Alastor starting his radio biz through mechanical work, I think I should know a thing or two about how it works lol

Anyways thanks! Might add more later!

[lemon-wedges]

Do you have any fic recs for any fandoms you’re currently obsessed with?

Hmmmm well the three main fandoms I kinda rotate thru currently are The Great Ace Attorney(brry), Metal Gear(otasune), and Dungeon Meshi (labru)

I put it under cut cause I kept getting side tracking talking lol

I can start with labru but I actually haven't read that many fanfic? Mostly cause when I first looked up the tags I was suprised there wasn't much fic at all. But also not suprised cause the anime hadn't even revealed kabrus 1 secret (and the anime wouldn't even touch his 2nd secret this last season 🥲) so I thought I'd just wait till fics start accumulating before diving back in (if anything I need recs lol)

Accurate Models of course. Its the first fic recc's to me and it even inspired some fanart lol modern au. Kabru becomes obessed with the youtuber that does monster dildo reviews

Let's see for otasune....well I'll warn u. Mgs is probably the least friendly diving in blind given that that the lore is just Insane. But also like some in game info reveals are just so so special....it flavors the lore....

Half Way Hungry which I thought was real cute. Post series. Laios finds out Kabru has feelings for him and starts?? Writing in a journal studying him like one of his monsters?????

Aaandddd

Currently waiting for Games People Play and Empyrean, From the Summit to update (cursed laios who needs to get married or else he DIES and painter who takes interest in kabru...)

Anyways.

Hello World series. A Lot of pre-slash build up. They grow together, they trust each other, they love each other and oouuuggggg

to me otasune really is about 2 dudes surrounded by insane people and situations find each other and??? Proceeding to have a normal, stable loving relationship....and I cry cause canonly they just stay together forever buhuhuh....sorry I got caught in my feelings where was I

And then Baroryuu. Which....probably has the least amount of fics between all these ships but the one I want to just dump onto u lol

Anything by bosstoaster honestly. In Other Words for something silly. Moving Forward Using All My Breath for developing relationships in snapshots. And fuck it Feel This Static for abo porn ahaha AND THEIR BEAUTY AND THE BEAST AU

(What can I say. Toaster never misses)

(Also I think any other recs after this might be just porny feeling one shots.....)

Theophany . THEEE FIC FOR BAROK BEING WEIRDLY RELIGIOUS ABOUT RYUu and ryuu being like.....cool 👍

Shizi also one of my favs. IT'S so sweet and moody and bite sized, established brry pretending they're newly weds hehehehe

Judicial Assistant Barok Van Zieks. Barok visiting ryuu in japan decides to help ryuu with his confidence by becoming his assistant

Chaper and Verse is one currently ongoing. It's baroryuu book club!!! (With ryuu torturing Barok with his book choices )

The Fanged and the faithful. WEREWOLF AU WEREWOLF AU WEREWOLF AU.

With Claret Conviction which is also ongoing (and im definatly biased because it's the exact phantom au spin on them I've been wanting)

Grinding my teeth cause I want to add more but also maybe this is getting too long so I'll just....leave it there OTL

Anyways I hope u find something nice to read in any of this :D

[sunburnacoustic]

Muse full gigs

Some full shows that are available, for anyone who wants to partially relive the Muse live experience.

I figured no one's made lists in a while.

La Cigale, Paris By-Request gig 2018

rarities + I guarantee I'm gonna fuck up Space Dementia + water spitting + Matt and Dom playing Grammy hosts in the way they announced the winners of the by-request polls

Some cool and noteworthy gigs:

Live Lounge 2012

The Mayan 2015 (performance wise this gig was stunning)

Royal Albert Hall 2008 (Teenage Cancer Trust charity gig - Megalomania on the pipe organ!)

Reading Festival 2011 (10 years of Origin of Symmetry - played the album start to finish)

AOL Sessions 2006

Reading 2006 (Muse's first time headlining if I remember right. Plus, Matt's moves!)

Glastonbury 2004 (first Glasto headline and a must-watch! Of the iconic mad-scientist, white lab coat era. Muse had called it the best gig of their life so far, at the time) (*Ruled By Secrecy was played live but wasn't included in the concert footage DVD and isn't in this video upload either)

Montreaux Jazz 2002 (height of piano maniac-ery days. Would also recommend Pinkpop 2002 but they don't. have. the footage anymore :( Space Dementia at Pinkpop 2002 was phenomenal. 2004 is also good, but I never found 2002 again. Speaking of which,)

Pinkpop 2004 (most songs are in, a few performances missing unfortunately)

MCM Café 1999 (marvel at what a good live act this young band aged 21 already was—with about 4 years of gigging experience under their belts. Insane how good they are.)

Wembley 2007 (H.A.A.R.P. The first band to sell out the newly rebuilt Wembley Stadium. 90,000 people. You need to understand, seeing Chris lift up and point his bass at the crowd at the end of the slightly modified Jimmy Jam riff before Time Is Running Out was a religious experience that changed me and we're lucky enough to live in an age where you and I can witness it over and over and over again and I'd suggest that you do)

Rock Am Ring 2018, uploaded to the Internet Archive by the Muse Historical Society!

Austin City Limits 2013 Philipshalle 1999 Philipshalle 2001 (all suggested in notes, check out the crystal clear gifs from @hotbellamy! :O )

A few additions I remembered after publishing: Eurockeennes 2000 (opened with a then-unreleased New Born. Matt playing a full gig in red sunglasses. Treat to watch. Link's stretched up to fit modern screens but if you want a bit of clarity and don't mind the late 90s ratio stretch, here's a different link) 2002 (quality's a bit shit but that is literally what telly used to look like)

Shepherd's Bush Empire 2006 (Early gigs are always interesting because over time Muse develop different ways of playing songs that are fresh off new albums. The way they work through Take A Bow live is a bit different here, Dom's the one controlling the opening verse synths! During the Abso tour, Matt would play that bit on the piano as an intro to Space Dementia and if I'm remembering right, he does now on the pianos (correct me—this was on the ST tour as well). Also, Starlight in Bm at this gig)

Big Day Out (Australia) 2004 | 2007. Muse's first tour Down Under, 2004. If you're impressed by Muse's riffage here, know that you aren't alone, Metallica's Kirk Hammett was as impressed as you are. Also I've linked 2007, presented by the V channel, featuring Matt asking a male interviewer, 'Do you feel sexy now?' and famously proclaiming that they'll look sexier in their 40s, which has been true.

Rock Werchter 2023 (Muse play Rock Werchter in Belgium almost every year, except for the pandemic and 2012 I think, but this year's was a bit special. Best performance of Madness I've seen in a while, I love what he does in the outro! MOTP returns to the set. Muse had tech troubles at the end that caused them to restart Knights of Cydonia twice, to no avail. They finally cut it back for a guitar-bass-drum-vocals-only performance of Showbiz, and Matt's voice sounds exceptional on it— the best in recent years)

Bizarre Fest 2000 (BLESS SOMEONE HAS RESTORED THIS FROM VHS TAPE IN HD, this is so much better than back in the day!! If the falsetto at 1:13 doesn't do it for you, you're into the wrong band, nothing else will help. What an electric performance this was!)

Buenos Aires 2019 (livestreamed Simulation Theory-era gig in Argentina, because the set was changed at the last minute because of adverse weather, Muse gave the audience a choice of song between Bliss and Showbiz. The crowd chose Showbiz, which the band played for... the first time since 2006 I think??)

Gigs from WOTP 2022/23 festivals tour last summer:

Nova Rock Rock In Rio Ejekt Fest Isle of Wight ALTer EGO Jan 2023 (as Muse had talked about in that iHeart Radio IG Live) Hurricane Festival 2023 (a festival at which Matt once complained that Muse's set was cut short by... hurricanes. But the audio mixing at this gig was really good!)

These are in no particular order, and obviously not complete, I just realised no one had put together a gig archive in a while so I thought I'd give it a stab!

Will edit and add others whenever, there are obviously glaring omissions still!

[scotianostra]

Robert Garioch Sutherland was born in Edinburgh on 9th May 1909.

His father was a painter and semi-professional fiddler and his mother a music teacher. Young Robert was educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, and the University of Edinburgh, graduating MA (with honours) in English Language and Literature in 1931. He won the Sloan Prize for verse in Scots in 1930.

During the Second World War Garioch served in the Royal Signals, but was a prisoner of war between 1942 and 1945 - the subject of his moving memoir, ‘Two Men and a Blanket’. Both before and after the war he worked as a school teacher in the London area, a profession he later took up when he returned to Edinburgh until the mid-1960s.

Robert Gairloch then became a lexicographer on the 'Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue’, and was also a transcriber at the School of Scottish Studies. He was appointed Writing Fellow at the University of Edinburgh in 1971.

Garioch had met Sorley MacLean at Edinburgh University, and poems by both appear in 17 Poems for 6d, published by Garioch. Scots was spoken in the family home and Garioch wrote mostly in Scots all his writing life, but as somewhat of an outsider to the Scottish Renaissance – he was never part of MacDiarmid’s crowd. His Scots was not dictionary-bound in the way MacDiarmid’s was but while he based it on his spoken Edinburgh Scots dialect, he was happy to borrow whatever he thought appropriate. He cared deeply about the craft of writing and was adept at many different verse forms, especially the sonnet, which he used ‘with unsonnet-like tonalities’

Not only writing about Edinburgh, he also tackled larger themes. ‘The Wire’, for instance, is a long allegorical poem on death and imprisonment, based on his time as a prisoner of war; ‘The Muir’ explores science and religion. Both a wee bit too long for the poems I like to read.

His main impact was achieved through his well-crafted shorter poems. My type of verse, nothing too challenging, that keep my attention, which I admit often wavers, my school reports a testament to this, often had the words “Easily distracted” written on them.

Serving as wry observations of Scottish life, especially in Edinburgh, the poems retain a large fanbase to this day, and Garioch is remembered with an inscription in Makars’ Court outside the Writers’ Museum. The Aberdonian poet Roderick Watson said Garioch’s poems “(were) ‘the brilliant fusions of Humanist and modern observer which have established his reputation as one of the greatest of modern Scottish poets.’

He died 26th Apr 1981 in Edinburgh aged 71.

I've cosen this poem because I too have spent many times in Canongate Kirkyard at this Edinburgh Makar's grave.

At Robert Fergusson's Grave

Canongait Kirkyaird in the failing year is auld and grey, the wee rosiers are bare, five gulls leam white agin the dirty air: why are they here?  There's naething for them here.

Why are we here oursels?  We gaither near the grave.  Fergusons mainly, quite a fair turn-out, respectfu, ill at ease, we stare at daith - there's an address - I canna hear.

Aweill, we staund bareheidit in the haar, murnin a man that gaid back til the pool twa-hunner year afore our time.  The glaur

that haps his banes glowres back.  Strang, present dool ruggs at my hairt.  Lichtlie this gin ye daur: here Robert Burns knelt and kissed the mool.

[theabstruseone]

Wizards of the Coast, Dungeons & Dragons, and the Open Gaming License (OGL)

So this story has broken out of the tabletop roleplaying community and gotten into the mainstream and, due to outlets covering the story who aren't well-versed in the RPG industry, there's a LOT of misinformation going around. So I'm going to try to clear up what's going on. Short version: The new OGL is a shitshow, but people are treating speculation and rumor as fact and a lot of people are focusing on the wrong problems.

Oh, and if anyone wants to know why they should listen to me about this: I've been covering the tabletop roleplaying game industry for almost a decade and it's been my primary job for over six years. I've also done extensive research on the history of tabletop roleplaying and made several videos about small aspects of it.

First a bit of history.

Side note: Pretty much every sentence in this part is an entire whole-ass Story on its own, so I'm glossing over a lot of stuff to stay focused on the Open Gaming License.

In 1974, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson wrote a new game based on the Chainmail miniature wargame called Dungeons & Dragons. This is widely considered the start of the tabletop roleplaying game genre. The game was published by a company called TSR Inc., which was taken over by the heir to the Buck Rogers publishing fortune, Lorraine Williams. By the 1990s, TSR dug itself into a deep financial hole. It was on the verge of bankruptcy before being purchased by Wizards of the Coast, the makers of Magic: The Gathering.

Wizards of the Coast launched a new Third Edition of Dungeons & Dragons in 2000 and, as part of the launch, released the Open Gaming License (OGL). This license allowed third-party publishers to create their own products based off of D&D 3rd Edition with some restrictions (they couldn't use specific intellectual property of Wizards of the Coast like the Forgotten Realms setting or some monsters created specifically for Dungeons & Dragons rather than based on myth or folklore). This launched a boom of third-party publishers creating their own products under the "D20 System" label.

The primary reason for creating the Open Gaming License was that we almost lost Dungeons & Dragons altogether. If TSR had fallen into bankruptcy, the assets of the company would be divvied up by creditors and likely auctioned off. Meaning the rights could be scattered to the wind or picked up by a company with no intention of developing a new game or keeping old material in print. Or worse, the rights could have been chopped up so that it became a confusing quagmire to figure out who owns what precisely. This actually has happened in many cases in tabletop roleplaying over the decades with several games currently (and likely permanently) out of print because nobody knows who owns the rights to them.

With the OGL, it was ensured that, at least in some capacity, Dungeons & Dragons would survive.

When Wizards of the Coast decided to update the game to the 4th Edition, they decided not to release 4th Edition rules under the OGL, but offered publishers an alternate but more restrictive license called the Game System License (GSL). This license was so unpopular it's difficult to even find a copy of the license online anymore.

As part of this move to 4th Edition, Wizards of the Coast canceled their contract with a company called Paizo to create the official D&D magazines Dragon and Dungeon. Paizo, who were also publishing campaign collections called Adventure Paths under the OGL, decided they wanted to keep making material for D&D 3rd Edition. So they created their own version of D&D called Pathfinder. Pathfinder became very popular in the gaming community as an alternative to D&D 4e. For modern fans, the home campaign that eventually became Critical Role started out as a Pathfinder campaign.

Due to a combination of factors, Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition was not as successful as Wizards of the Coast's new owner, Hasbro, hoped it would be. It was not a "failure" in terms of a tabletop roleplaying game as it sold very well for a TTRPG and maintained its spot as the highest-selling RPG in the industry through mass-market channels throughout its lifetime (even if Pathfinder did spend a year out-selling it in hobby channels like comic book and game stores). But Hasbro is a multibillion-dollar corporation and they expected D&D to perform as well as their other large brands and it underperformed to that expectation.

So when Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition was in development in 2014 under the name "D&D Next", expectations from Hasbro were lowered and far more realistic. They were more hands-off and less focused on aggressive monetization of the brand. This meant that D&D 5e was released under the OGL. A new boom of third-party content resulted. Several companies ran Kickstarter campaigns for D&D 5e-compatible material, some raising hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars.

Then, thanks to huge gains in the audience from live streaming, YouTube, and podcasting, Dungeons & Dragons became a major hit again under 5e. The game experienced a revitalization and managed to meet the high expectations that Hasbro had for 4e.

The New Open Gaming License

In 2022, Wizards of the Coast announced they were "refreshing" D&D 5e with a new product codenamed "OneD&D". This would not be a new edition, just an update to the previous edition. All 5e material would still be compatible with the new "OneD&D".

In December of 2022, rumors started floating around that Wizards of the Coast was going to "abolish" the Open Gaming License. These rumors were based on pure speculation and "insider information" which turned out to be only partially accurate. Just before Christmas, Wizards of the Coast made a blog post on D&D Beyond (their online portal for D&D) explaining that OneD&D would still use the Open Gaming License, but an updated version of the license.

This new version of the license would function less like the GNU Public License for open-source software on which the OGL was based on, but more like the license that Epic uses for its Unreal Engine for video games. Companies could still use the OGL, but would have to register their sales if they make more than $50,000. If a company makes more than $750,000 a year in gross sales, it will have to pay a royalty to Wizards of the Coast.

In January, "leaks" of this new OGL appeared online via YouTube channels reading select pieces of it. Speculation and rumors ran rampant once again that Wizards of the Coast is "revoking" the OGL.

After almost a week of this, the actual Open Gaming License v1.1 document was also leaked. This was sent to some third-party publishers to get feedback and make them aware of the changes in advance of a public announcement under NDA. The document was split into two sections, the actual License itself which was written as a legal document and a commentary section that is not-legally-binding explanations of the intent of the legalese in that section.

Much of the speculation was based on early leaks, which focused on the not-legally-binding commentary section rather than the actual legal terms of the license. The one that caused the most concern was a statement "de-authorizing" all prior versions of the Open Gaming License.

This story broke out of the tabletop roleplaying news outlets and online community, who began to cover the story as well including outlets like Gizmodo, iO9, Polygon, and Forbes. In many cases, these outlets do not normally cover TTRPGs and Wizards of the Coast had yet to comment, so they ran the story with the version full of speculation and rumor framed by people who had a long history of criticizing Wizards of the Coast (for reasons justified and less so) because it was the only story they had.

Legal experts began to weigh in as well, with a decided split between those who believe that Wizards of the Coast COULD revoke the OGL and those who believe that Wizards of the Coast could only do so for those who agree to the new OGL v1.1 but NOT for people who did not agree to this license.

In the fallout of these events, several tabletop roleplaying companies began making announcements to stop producing third-party material for Dungeons & Dragons. Some announced a new focus on their own original systems, and others stated they planned to develop a version of D&D that they could legally publish without using the OGL.

And, as of January 11, 2023, this is where we're at. Wizards of the Coast only released a "We're working on a statement, please be patient" style statement only posted as a tweet, but no other comment since December.

So...CAN They Revoke the OGL? AKA I, Someone Who Is Not a Lawyer, Explains Legal Issues

When the rumors started in December, I spoke with a couple of lawyers I know, one of whom works in the TTRPG industry as a side-gig and one who works often with open software licenses. Other legal experts have weighed in as well. And the answer to that question is "...maybe?"

The entire case for revoking the OGL is based on a single clause in the original Open Gaming License that allows for the updating of the license. This cause states that, if the license is updated, creators may use any "authorized version" of the license.

However, the license itself does not state who authorizes the license or a process for making a different version of the license no longer authorized. Also, the OGL v1.0a (the older version) only has a process for revoking the license if one party violates the license. There are no other conditions for revoking the license listed in the OGL v1.0a. Also, case law exists for companies attempting to revoke rights under the GPL and other open-source software licenses where they were not legally allowed to.

However (again), the OGL states that the license is "perpetual", meaning it does not have an expiration date. It does NOT state that it is "irrevocable". Meaning that some legal experts believe that it CAN be revoked.

However (again again), when dealing with lawsuits over licenses and contracts, there are two things to keep in mind. In general (and varying on jurisdiction), ambiguity in a contract is generally interpreted as the fault of the side who drafted the contract and so, if the terms of a contract are unclear, the courts will generally side in favor of the one who did NOT write the contract. Yes, I said "generally" a lot because it all comes down to details and we won't know for sure how this will play out unless it goes to court.

Secondly, courts will examine things like industry standards when determining the validity of an interpretation of a contract, and the established industry standard within the TTRPG industry is that the OGL could not be revoked, a standard established by Wizards of the Coast themselves in 2006 when they stated so clearly in a FAQ about the license (formerly on their website, now only available via the Wayback machine...and this isn't because they're trying to hide it, but because they revamped their entire website several years ago and a whole lot of posts and documents from the 2000s were removed).

Finally, the Open Gaming License is used by companies beyond Wizards of the Coast. I don't even mean like Paizo (Pathfinder/Starfinder), Pelgrane Press (13th Age), and EN Publishing (Level Up) who made D&D derivative games, but systems like Basic Roleplay from Chaosium that powers Call of Cthulhu and RuneQuest, FATE which powers the licensed Dresden Files RPG, D6 System used by West End Games before that company collapsed for Ghostbusters and Star Wars, and several others. The systems released by these companies have NOTHING to do with Wizards of the Coast or Dungeons & Dragons, so "revoking" the OGL would directly affect them despite not interacting with Wizards of the Coast's IP in any way.

So CAN Wizards of the Coast revoke the Open Gaming License? Maybe, but probably not. But the bigger question is...do they actually WANT to do it? I mean, yeah, they probably WANT to, but what I mean is do I think it is their actual plan to revoke the OGL?

What I Think Wizards of the Coast is Actually Doing AKA It's Bad in a Different Way

Wizards of the Coast purchased D&D Beyond, a website that acted as a character builder and digital storefront for official Dungeons & Dragons material, last year for several million dollars. They also announced their own virtual tabletop (VTT) is in the works, a system that allows people to play RPGs remotely by simulating the tabletop experience on a computer or tablet. They also have a licensing deal with OneBookShelf (the company that owns the VTT Roll20 and the digital storefront DriveThruRPG) for Dungeonmasters Guild, a site that allows community content creators to make their own D&D products under a license more permissive than the OGL in content (you can set your adventures in Forgotten Realms or Ravenloft and use characters like Drizzt and Raistlin) but that requires payment of royalties to Wizards of the Coast.

I believe that Wizards of the Coast wants to encourage third-parties to sign the OGL v1.1 in order to gain access to their walled garden digital storefronts. Because D&D Beyond and the VTT are first-party products and Wizards of the Coast has a far larger marketing budget, they can easily create an environment where the vast majority of the tabletop gaming customer base uses their marketplaces. Meaning if you want access to millions of customers, you HAVE to go through Wizards of the Coast and agree to their royalty terms.

After a few years, this would give Wizards of the Coast the same dominance in the online tabletop gaming space as they have in the mass market space through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, and other mainstream retail stores. And when the eventual Sixth Edition is released that is no longer compatible with 5e, they can release that document under the OGL v1.1 and cut off anyone from creating products without agreeing to the terms.

However, I don't think they want to eliminate the OGL v1.0a for ALL creations. It would be an iffy legal case and, as you've likely seen, would be a public relations nightmare. It would also be a bad move for Wizards of the Coast as the company (like all TTRPG companies) relies heavily on freelancers. Freelancers who typically get experience by writing and publishing on OGL material. I'd be utterly shocked if there was anyone working at Wizards of the Coast right now in a game design capacity who did NOT, if not getting their start in OGL material, at least published something under the OGL for D&D 3rd Ed, 3.5, Pathfinder, or 5e.

Not only would revoking the OGL v1.0a entirely be a costly endeavor, it would be a fruitless one. You may have seen in the various discussions the phrase, "You can't copyright game rules". This is true - game mechanics are covered in intellectual property law by patents, not copyright. You cannot copyright a set of game rules, you can only copyright the expression of those rules.

Side note: This is also the reason why every online recipe starts with an overly-long blog post about the recipe's role in the author's life - they can't copyright the actual recipe because it's just a list of ingredients and a description of the steps. They CAN copyright the story surrounding the recipe though, so if some bot steals their blog post and reposts it, they'll know because the story that IS protected under copyright was likely stolen as well.

While it isn't necessarily an easy process because it requires interpreting what is and is not a "creative expression" of describing the rules, it IS possible to recreate pretty much any game's core system in a way that is perfectly legal under copyright law. Kit Walsh wrote about this for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (though I disagree with some of her other conclusions here, that part is a pretty accurate explanation).

Side note: The EFF formed thanks to tabletop roleplaying games. The US Secret Service raided Steve Jackson Games, the publishers of GURPS who eventually went on to create the card game Munchkin. A group of lawyers represented SJG in their lawsuit against the government, and those lawyers decided to form the EFF as an organization to continue defending digital rights. I did a video about it a few years ago.

The OGL's primary value is that it addresses this hole in intellectual property law. While it's possible to publish compatible material for a game system without a license or even recreate the entire game system, it's not exactly easy. There are many ways that creators can accidentally violate copyright without realizing it.

For example, many Old School Rennaissance systems attempt to re-create the rules from older editions of Dungeons & Dragons which were NOT released under the OGL by using the material that IS in the OGL. However, they are limited in using some terms because they are too descriptive rather than functional, therefore falling under a creative expression. Like in previous editions, each level of a character class had its own title. Like Thieves in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 1st Edition went from 1st level Rogue to 2nd level Footpad to 3rd level Cutpurse and so on. Those cannot be reproduced, but most other aspects of level advancement can.

The OGL solved the problem by giving clear guidance on what could and could not be used. Meaning Wizards of the Coast didn't have to worry about a dozen different versions of the 5th Edition of the D20 System popping up under different names -- completely bypassing their core rulebooks -- because it was unnecessary.

So I don't think Wizards of the Coast plans to announce a complete unilateral revoking of the OGL v1.0a nor never intended to do so. I think the plan was to introduce the royalty-based license first, using access to their walled garden as the benefit, then eventually switch entirely to the new license for Sixth Edition a few years down the line.

So What IS So Bad About the License?

The Unreal Engine license from Epic is a godsend for independent developers. The number of patents, copyrights, sublicenses, and so on involved in a video game engine make it necessary to obtain a license. A license with no up-front cost that only charges royalties after a certain level of gross sales is AMAZING for small developers because they can start working on a game and take risks because of lowered start-up costs of obtaining a license. It also means that, if the game isn't a big hit, the company isn't still on the hook for royalty payments off the paltry sum they make in sales.

None of that is the case in tabletop roleplaying games.

All this license does is allow Wizards of the Coast to start skimming profits off of other companies. If a creator's product makes more than $750,000 in gross sales, they have to start paying royalties on amounts over that. So say my Kickstarter takes off and funds for $800,000, I only owe royalties on $50,000 not the full $800,000.

However, part of the license makes clear that ALL FUNDS RAISED through a Kickstarter have the license applied. The thing is that most of the TTRPG Kickstarters that make over $750,000 do so through selling things other than the game product itself. Miniatures, sculptures, t-shirts, art books, personalized videos, creators running the game for backers, stuff like that which are products that ARE NOT licensed under the OGL. They don't include any material from the game so are not OGL material. BUT under this license, Wizards of the Coast gets to skim money off of those unrelated products.

On top of that, the license includes a sweetheart deal for Kickstarter. If you use Kickstarter to crowdfund your game, you only have to pay 20% royalties rather than the normal 25%. This comes on the heels of multiple competitors to Kickstarter gaining traction, such as BackerKit and GameFound. This is anti-competitive behavior.

Finally, if you don't pay royalties on time, you have to pay interest. Okay, sure...but the rate is 1.5% PER MONTH. That is a 19.56% per year interest rate which would be shitty for a credit card, let alone just for late fees on a royalty payment. If you screw up and underpay by 10% or more (easy to do when there's two royalty rates for different outlets between Kickstarter and all other sales), you're responsible for paying the costs of Wizards of the Coast auditing the account to determine the amount. How much these costs will be is not stated.

The OGL v1.1 also changes how material is used. While the OGL always had a share-a-like aspect to it so that, if you created an awesome class or feat or whatever, Wizards of the Coast could use it as well in their products...so could anyone else. For example, if I made a really cool Pirate class in my OGL book, you could use that Pirate class in your own book. Under the OGL v1.1, this is no longer the case. The flow of content is one-way ONLY to Wizards of the Coast. THEY can use any material created under the OGL, but no one else can.

This specific clause also causes problems for companies making licensed work. For example, Cubicle 7 released an OGL 5th Edition version of their Doctor Who roleplaying game, while Free League Publishing came out with a 5e Lord of the Rings RPG. Because of this clause in the license, those products would be impossible to make because Cubicle 7 doesn't own Doctor Who. The BBC does. Free League doesn't own Lord of the Rings, the Tolkien Estate does (technically, Embracer Group bought them, but that's a whole other mess). Cubicle 7 and Free League does not have the right to give Wizards of the Coast access to that intellectual property, but the OGL v1.1 REQUIRES that they do so.

OGL games using licensed properties have been a staple of the OGL since it came out. In the 3rd Ed era, there were D20 System RPGs for Babylon 5, Farscape, Warcraft, Stargate SG-1, Conan the Barbarian, and a lot more. It was a good way for smaller companies to grab licenses that weren't used and make a big splash as well as to allow customers access to games set in their favorite fictional settings without hoping Wizards of the Coast would show interest (as they did, making D20 versions of Wheel of Time, Star Wars, and a few other licensed properties during this era).

Further, there's a clause that allows Wizards of the Coast the right to revoke the OGL at their discretion. This is framed as allowing them to revoke the OGL from anyone publishing offensive material that's racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. but that is NOT spelled out in the legally-binding section of the document. Meaning that if someone at Wizards of the Coast doesn't like something a creator has posted on social media, they can pull the license. This clause also eliminates all rights to challenge this: You cannot sue and there is no arbitration. Wizards of the Coast decides what material is and is not offensive.

And even if it WAS enforced as stated, there have been recent controversies with "ethics clauses" like this being enforced against women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+ people, disabled people, and other marginalized groups describing the bigotry, prejudice, and oppression they suffer under claims it violates the terms of the license. I'm not saying Wizards of the Coast WOULD do that, but at the same time, they don't have the best track record in these matters...

Then there's a new Indemnity clause. This means that if a creator publishes something under the OGL that gets them sued, Wizards of the Coast can decide the creator isn't defending the lawsuit well enough, take it over, and then bill the creator for all legal fees. It would be a rare situation (someone would have to work hard to get a claim that would involve the OGL itself in court), but the fact that Wizards reserves the right to take over a lawsuit and stick the creator with the bill isn't a good thing.

Then there's the "Other Products" section that expressly forbids the use of the OGL in the creation of any product other than a tabletop roleplaying game product. The comments section (the "not legally binding" bit) clarifies a list of products this covers including "videos, virtual tabletops or VTT campaigns, computer games, novels, apps, graphics novels, music, songs, dances, and pantomimes."

Of all of these, the only ones in which the OGL would even remotely apply would be virtual tabletops, apps, and computer games. And even that would be very specific cases where they recreate game rules from D&D. A novel doesn't include game rules. A video doesn't include game rules. A song doesn't include game rules. NONE of this stuff requires using the OGL in the first place so I have no idea why any of this is included (or rather, excluded) unless there are some further legal shenanigans planned for the future that affects Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok.

So yeah, this license is a garbage fire that's not good for creators and not good for the long-term health of Dungeons & Dragons as a game. Even if I don't believe that Wizards of the Coast plans to eliminate the OGL v1.0a and destroy a large portion of the tabletop roleplaying industry in the process, I do think their plan is detrimental to the hobby and reflects long-term plans for further anti-competitive behavior.

What Happens Now?

As of right now (early afternoon in North America on January 11, 2023), we're still waiting on an official statement from Wizards of the Coast. Until they make some official move, everyone in the industry is in a bit of a holding pattern or making plans for the worst.

For the vast majority of Dungeons & Dragons players, none of this means anything. There are millions of people who just play their regular game, use material from the core books, and that's it. They don't follow the industry, they likely don't even know that dedicated tabletop game stores exist let alone ever been to their local store because they bought their books from Amazon or Barnes & Noble and their dice from Target or Dollar General. They've never been on DriveThruRPG, aren't aware Pathfinder exists, and have put exactly as much consideration into following Wizards of the Coast accounts on social media as they have in following Starbucks.

However, the online tabletop RPG community has made a LOT of noise about this. Like I said earlier, more mainstream outlets have picked up this story. Hashtags related to it have been trending off and on all week on Twitter. People like @wilwheaton and Gail Simone are talking about the controversy. Some of these players, who make up the vast majority of the customer base for Dungeons & Dragons, might get curious. They won't understand what the OGL is or why it matters, but they'll come away with the impression that Wizards of the Coast did something that hurt small publishers and people don't like it.

Whatever happens, keep your friendly game designers in mind. Even the ones working for Wizards of the Coast. Many publishers have serious questions about their ability to continue as a business, and many creators are facing stress and burnout seeking off-ramps out of tabletop RPGs. Some other independent creators and their fans are taking the opportunity to be assholes by gloating over the situation, something which helps nobody. Designers who work for Wizards are being harassed even though this is very obviously a corporate-level decision that the people writing the game have absolutely no control over.

In short, the future is uncertain and it costs nothing to be kind to the people suffering right now.

Edit for a Post-Script: I've seen a post floating around Tumblr about this situation that tries to play off this situation as Good Ackshually because the OGL always involved signing away rights to gain access to something you already had. I want to reiterate a point I made above: "You can't copyright game mechanics" is far more complicated than a simple statement. Even the post itself explains all the legal pitfalls with that assumption by pointing out issues of mingling and other ways rules can be protected under copyright law. What the OGL did was allow independent creators with no budget - which is every single tabletop roleplaying game company outside of WotC, Paizo, and maybe a handful of others owned by large companies like Edge Studios (Azmodee/Embracer Group), White Wolf (Paradox Interactive), and a few others and even THOSE are tiny subsidiaries in a larger corporate umbrella. Pretty much every other roleplaying game company on the planet is under 10 total employees (often just one or two) and a bunch of freelancers.

This industry does not have the capital to hire a lawyer every time they want to release a new product to ensure the IP doesn't violate the law. The OGL allows those companies a clear framework to publish compatible material with the game system used by at LEAST 80% of the customer base of the industry without fear of legal threats. This is the difference between theory and practice. In theory, publishing without a license is better but in practice, it's a money sink and legal minefield. And telling publishers and professionals who have been working under the license for two decades now they should be thankful the entire industry is under threat of being upended is condescending at best.

Edit Part 2: I knew I'd forget some things that are terrible about the OGL v1.1

First, there are now two licenses, a Commercial and a Non-Commercial one. I still haven't figured out the purpose since it's the same license only the Commercial one has all the bits about royalties. It seems redundant because if someone's not making money, they wouldn't meet the threshold for reporting gross sales anyway since they don't make money.

Anyway, to the actual issue I forgot: Information gathering!

You have to register every single product you release under the OGL v1.1 with Wizards of the Coast. You must describe the product, state where you will offer it for sale, what price you will charge, provide contact information, and "filling out a form" (they don't state what other information will be on this form). There are no restrictions whatsoever placed on how Wizards of the Coast can use this information. Even the most benign version of how this information can be used is anti-competitive as it would give Wizards of the Coast free market research - if all products have to be registered but only products that make $50,000 in gross sales must have their sales reported, then Wizards of the Coast knows what products are selling and which ones are not.

The RPG industry has horrible market research information. There are only a handful of places to track what people are actually buying or playing. Few companies release sales information. All you can do is check Kickstarter yourself for what products are crowdfunding well, use ICv2's reporting which is limited to physical sales only at participating hobby game stores in North America (leaving out any store that doesn't participate, mass market outlets like Amazon, direct sales through a publisher's website, digital or print-on-demand sales from DriveThruRPG, etc.), and quarterly user reports from virtal tabletops Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. That's ALL we have to judge where the market is. Having access to that kind of information would give Wizards of the Coast an even larger edge in the RPG market, which they already dominate.

And that's the benign reading. For example, there are no restrictions in the OGL v1.1 against selling that information to third parties. Granted, the European Union would have some things to say about that. Also, remember that the OGL v1.1 flows one-way. Wizards of the Coast can republish anything they like with no compensation or even credit provided to the previous author. If they see a particular product is selling well, they can just republish it themselves.

Edit 3: Wizards of the Coast FINALLY released a statement and...fuck me, I did NOT expect them to give up on the royalties. I figured that was the primary motivation for the license update. They're also changing the terms to make clear that Wizards of the Coast does not have the ability to publish material from third-parties (that part of the license was meant to protect them in case of convergent design, where somebody's third-party published adventure or sourcebook coincidentally has the same elements as a new sourcebook or one of the new big-budget TV/film/video game projects and just overreached according to the statement).

They still don't address the actual "open" part of the open license that would allow third-party publishers to share their material with other third-party publishers. There have also stated that content already released under the OGL v1.0a will not be affected by the change to a new OGL license (rumors are they're changing it from "OGL v1.1" to "OGL v2.0" but that's not in the statement), but have NOT stated whether they believe they have the right to unilaterally prevent anyone from continuing to use the OGL v1.0a if they do not agree to the new OGL. Both of these are major concerns with the new license.

However, we DO have a good update: Paizo is spearheading a new open license called the Open RPG Creative License or the ORC License. You can read about it in the link, but the primary points are that Paizo will NOT own this license nor will anyone else who makes money publishing RPGs - it will be managed by a non-profit to ensure that no company in the future can exact unilateral changes that affect the entire industry. The license will be perpetual and irrevocable. So far, major TTRPG companies participating include Paizo (Pathfinder, Starfinder), Chaosium (Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest), Kobold Press (prolific 5e OGL publisher), Green Ronin (Dragon Age, The Expanse, Modern AGE), Atlas Games (Ars Magica, Over the Edge), Legendary Games (third-party OGL publisher of 5e, Pathfinder, Starfinder, and Savage Worlds), Pinnacle Entertainment Group (Savage Worlds, Deadlands), Rogue Genius Games (Owen K.C. Stephens' company), and I don't know how many others since the announcement was made.

We won't know for sure how this will shake out for the industry until the terms of the new OGL and the terms of the ORC License are made public, but either way, a trust has been broken as a multibillion dollar corporation came after small publishers trying to scrape together enough to make any money at all off their games, and the industry won't forget that easily.

EDIT FINALE

It's now January 29, 2023, and there's been a huge update that should close out this entire saga.

A couple weeks ago, Wizards of the Coast released a draft of the OGL v1.2 along with a survey for public feedback. The new version dropped the royalties entirely along with any claims of ownership to content created under the license and the registration requirements. It did keep the "morality clause" that was vaguely worded and overly broad allowing them to revoke the license from any company producing a product they considered "harmful", "obscene", or "illegal" without defining those terms. Meaning they could revoke the license from a company if LGBTQ+ content is deemed as "obscene" (which has happened before with licensed D&D content), or "illegal" if it includes queer content in some countries or "Critical Race Theory" in some American states, or "harmful" as "this is harmful to our profits because it's selling too well". The new version of the OGL also maintained that the OGL v1.0a would be "de-authorized".

The other attempt to placate critics was releasing 58 pages of the SRD 5.1 (the document that outlines what parts of the rules for Dungeons & Dragons were considered Open Gaming Content under the OGL v1.0a) would be released under a Creative Commons license. The pages included rules for combat, ability checks, monster abilities, and a few other aspects of the game but would NOT include races/species, classes, backgrounds, spells, magic items, or monster stat blocks. Basically, these 58 pages were functionally useless on their own as they referenced rules that were not included in the CC-licensed content. It would be impossible to create adventures (no monsters or treasure) or sourcebooks (no classes, races/species, or spells) under this license, which makes up the vast majority of third-party OGL content for 5e. I should also note the SRD 5.1 is over 400 pages long, meaning they released just over 10% of the already-stripped-down rules.

The survey went out about a week ago and, on Thursday, D&D Beyond announced on Twitter the results were pretty obvious the OGL v1.2 wasn't helping matters. And on Friday, January 27, the company announced that the survey would be closed early (it was originally scheduled to run until February 7) because between 85% to over 90% of people participating responded negatively to the questions posed in the survey. In response, Wizards of the Coast stated:

The Open Gaming License v1.0a would be left in place completely untouched as it has been since 2000.

The SRD 5.1 would be released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.

This is not a "we will do it at some point in the future pinkie swear" thing. As of that posting, the SRD 5.1 is now available under the Creative Commons license.

So the situation is resolved. Not only did Wizards of the Coast back down from their plans, they released more of the game to the public than was originally released.

This won't stop Wizards of the Coast from trying something similar in the future, but they'll have to do it with an entirely new and incompatible edition of the game. Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is now freed as the rules are permanently and irrevocably part of the Creative Commons with no legal method for Wizards of the Coast to take it back.

[karatekels]

Heirloom - Chapter 3

I'm having so much fun with this story! I'm still anticipating only one more chapter, and then an epilogue, but I definitely want to build out a Valek-verse at some point so I hope you all enjoy what I've got so far!

[No trigger warnings for this chapter!]

Previous Parts:

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

---

Reader’s POV:

Valek had returned to the tower to speak with you late in the afternoon the next day, though you had awoken late in the morning (having fallen asleep just before dawn) to a large bowl of fruit on the vanity. You had initially been hesitant to eat at first, before again reminding yourself that no one here needed to poison you if they wanted you dead.

The knock at the door startles you, before your brain becomes fuzzy and you feel yourself moving on autopilot, covering the windows by suspending the blankets from the heavy iron curtain rods, keeping them pinned in place by the vanity and one of the armchairs. The castle’s interior had clearly been renovated to be somewhat modernized; you had been grateful for the luxuries of the contemporary bathroom in particular. You try not to dwell on what may have happened to the building’s residents.

Looking around as best you can in the darkness, you don’t see any pinpricks of light, and the sense of urgency forced on you by the mesmerization fades away.

“Come in?” you say hesitantly, unsure if you were meant to.

The door opens, and in the time it takes to swing shut again two candelabras are fully lit and placed on either side of the room, bathing it in a soft orange glow. Valek sits in the armchair you had pushed back against the window, lounging in it like a royal would upon their throne. You stand awkwardly in the middle of the room, unsure of what to do or say.

“I think there is a light switch in here,” you offer weakly. The shadows cast by the candlelight make the dark parts of him seem to disappear at times, and it unnerves you.

“I prefer candlelight. It has been over a hundred years since electricity became commonplace, but I still find the false sunlight to be rather unpleasant.”

Your lips twitch in amusement at his description of “false sunlight,” and you think of the daylight bulbs that some buildings used. Unlike the warmth of true sunlight, they always seemed to bright and clinical, and often gave you a headache.

“Fair enough,” you reply, shrugging nonchalantly. You’re still unsure of what to do with yourself, and Valek doesn’t seem inclined to speak. “Thank you for the fruit, by the way. It was very… considerate of you,” you say graciously. He inclines his head.

“Cassandra suggested that we find food for you. I often forget how often humans need to feed.”

“Well, er… thank her for me then, if you would,” you stammer, and again he merely looks at you in silence. Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Valek decides to inform you of the reason for his visit.

“I would like to ask you more about Jack Crow,” he tells you, his tone leaving no room for debate. “Why don’t you sit?”

You take a seat on the edge of the bed closest to him, crossing your legs underneath you. The mattress’s added height makes you a lot closer to eye-level with him.

“The way you speak about him, I assume that you’ve met my father?” you ask, hoping that you won’t get in trouble for the question.

“We have had several… encounters in recent years,” he replies vaguely, but you’re rather grateful for the lack of detail. You’re sure that whatever had happened between them had been violent and bloody.

“You’ve probably spent more time with him than I have,” you tell him, and again the twinge of abandonment that you felt whenever thinking of Jack Crow hits you, making you bite your tongue. “But I will do what I can.”

“When did you see him last?” he begins, starting with the easiest question, and you think back, trying to remember.

“I think it was around two years ago; it was right after I ‘graduated’ from Slayer training. He had come to Monteriggioni to recruit new members for his team, I think. I don’t know, I think he may have said five words to me while he was there.”

“And before that?”

“Probably five years ago; it was much of the same.”

“Why does your father not speak to you?” he asks, seeming frustrated.

“I wish I knew,” you remark bitterly, moving your legs to bring them up to your chest, arms wrapped around your knees. You truly think you would have been better off being on the streets as a teenager. “You’ve met him – did he seem like the paternal type to you?” you ask, raising your eyebrows at him with a bitter smile. Valek looks back at you with an unfathomable expression before moving on.

“And what of your mother?”

The topic makes you swallow thickly, and your hands clench into fists, your nails digging into the tender flesh of your palms.

“She died when I was a girl,” you inform him quietly, looking down at the floor. “If she were still alive, I don’t think I would be here, or know any of this.”

“You miss her.” It isn’t a question.

“Of course. She was my best friend.”

“And now?”

You look back up at him, tilting your head. “And now what?”

“Who has taken on that role in your life?”

You shrug. “No one, really. I spend most of my time taking care of the younger children who can’t start their training yet.”

Why was he so concerned with your personal life? Hadn’t you made it clear that you didn’t know anything of value? Unless…

“Oh,” you say with a frown. “Are you trying to figure out if there will be anyone wanting to avenge my death before you kill me?”

“No.”

“Because I’m pretty sure it won’t upset anyone in particular.”

“Miss Crow–”

“No more than any other Slayer being taken out by a vampire, anyway.”

“Y/N!” Valek hisses, snarling your name, and you fall silent, fear flowing through you at the sound. He takes a deep breath before continuing his interrogation.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asks, frustrated.

“I don’t know what you mean,” you tell him honestly.

“Why would the Scholars of Monteriggioni take a child of impressive Slayer lineage and put her through the training only to not make use of her for the purposes she was raised for?”

“I don’t know. I’ve tried to figure that out myself. Maybe Jack thought that this would happen, that someone would take me to use me against him.”

“There must be more to it than that,” Valek muses, and you’re not sure how to answer, or if he even wants you to.

“If there is, I don’t know anything about it,” you mutter, mostly to yourself.

“Not yet,” Valek replies meaningfully, looking at you thoroughly, as if the answers could be found on your skin. “But we will find out. Until we do, you need not fear. We have no reason to kill you unless we are certain that you have nothing to offer.”

He rises from his chair, making for the door without another word.

“So what, I’m just stuck here?!” you exclaim, frustration and panic evident in your voice.

“I will have food brought to you regularly,” he tells you, as if that solved your problems.

“That’s not what I’m worried about!” you hiss, sounding almost like a vampire yourself. “I can’t just stay in here with nothing to do, I’ll go crazy!”

Valek pauses, turning back to look at you with an amused expression.

“I am sorry to hear the accommodations are not to your liking. Are you expecting some form of entertainment?” he asks, arching an eyebrow as he looks down at you like you were a child throwing a tantrum. You fold your arms across your chest, glaring at him.

“Did… do you know if the people that live… lived here had any books or anything?” you ask desperately. Maybe he thought you were being dramatic, but you did need to have something to occupy your time and your mind if you were going to be trapped in this room.

“Can I search the rest of the castle for some? I won’t do anything, I can’t make trouble, please…” you beg him, and you think you may see a glimmer of compassion in his pale eyes.

“I cannot allow you to leave this room, for your safety,” he emphasizes his reasoning, and you could almost be touched by the gesture, if this whole situation wasn’t his fault in the first place.

“I will see if anything suitable can be brought to you,” he says finally, leaving without a word, locking the door behind him.

Letting out a growl in your frustration, you immediately move to tug the blankets away from the windows, tossing them back on the bed. Scowling, you spend the remainder of the daylight hours sitting by the window, feeling like Rapunzel trapped in her ivory tower.

The next morning, an entire corner of the room is filled with piles of books, stacked as tall as you.

Two weeks later…

--- Valek’s POV ---

You were practically nocturnal these days, seeming to want to play catch up for your years without the night. It suited Valek perfectly well – he didn’t have to fear exposure to the sunlight to speak with you this way.

He visited your tower for hours at a time, every day, telling himself he was only looking for a reason to keep you here and alive, though it was never clear how these casual conversations were relevant to that pursuit. He would often bring gifts with him, items he gathered that you would enjoy based on your conversations with him. This week, you had mentioned the gardens of Monteriggioni as being one of the only things you missed about the place you’d been made to call home, and he had been bringing potted plants that were now gathered around the windows, soaking up the sun during the day. They were flourishing in the tower, and you had seemed more content with something to take care of.

Cassandra had taken a liking to you as well, treating you as a sort of surrogate child. Valek knew that in addition to the loss of her husband, she also mourned the inability to have children of her own, and having a living human to care for – even one older than herself, in the mortal sense – had brought out her maternal instincts. She would prepare meals for you in the evenings, when the others had left to feed, grateful for the opportunity to cook again and provide for someone, and would visit you often as well.

It wasn’t until the fifteenth day of your capture that Cassandra had come to him, alone in the dungeon of the castle to avoid the rays of the sun.

“What information are you hoping to find, Jan?” she asks him quietly, reclined on a chaise lounge across from him in one of the larger rooms they shared. He had been poring over old tomes as of late, searching for… something. Valek looks over at her, pale eyes narrowed, wanting her to just come out and speak her mind rather than taking this needlessly convoluted approach to the topic.

“Do you really think that there is anything special about her? That she has been confined to Monteriggioni for some crucial reason without her knowledge?”

“It would only make sense,” he says emphatically, closing one of the dusty volumes about the more deeply guarded secret rituals of the Catholic Church.

It truly made no sense to Valek to keep a perfectly capable, intelligent human hidden away for no reason. It was a waste of life, something that he did not appreciate after centuries of living as the undead.

“Would it? Or is that only what you want to believe, dearest?” Cassandra coos in her high soprano.

“What exactly are you suggesting, darling?” Valek retorts, his lip curling upwards as he hisses out the term of endearment.

“You care for Y/N.”

Valek raises an eyebrow.

“I am not the one who spends my nights preparing meals for her like a doting mother.”

“No, you spend your nights speaking with her, or else listening to her from beneath the tower during her waking hours,” she fires back with a smug smile. Valek closes the distance between them in an instant, tugging the small woman roughly by the hair to stand on the chaise, closer to his own eye-level.

“Peace, dear one,” she purrs, stroking his arm with a tiny hand in a calming gesture. “I care for her as well.”

“If we share the sentiment, then why mention it at all, Cassandra?” he demands, releasing her hair. She perches on the back of the chaise now, seeming to float in the air.

“We have not made a move on Monteriggioni in a fortnight, despite now knowing how to enter the city undetected,” she points out. “The others are growing restless.”

“The others will wait as instructed,” he snarls, and she holds her hands up as if in surrender.

“But what are we waiting for, Jan?” she presses, and he knows that she’s being the reasonable one but does not want to continue along this line of conversation.

“They will come for her,” he insists in reference to you. Even though you were apparently not bonded to the Slayers, to Jack, by the ties of familial love – a concept foreign and strangely disappointing to him, being devoid of family for so long himself – you were still a Slayer, and he knows that they will have been planning to rescue or avenge you since discovering your absence.

“They will come for her, and in doing so split their soldiers between us and Monteriggioni,” he explains to Cassandra. “It will be far easier to defeat them when their ranks are divided.”

“And what then?” Cassandra asks, forcing him to confront the part of this whole situation he had been struggling with the most.

“What will you do after all those she has known have been slaughtered, Jan?” she pushes. “Would you keep her alive through that only to kill her afterwards?”

No, he didn’t want you dead. He certainly didn’t want you aware of his role in murdering everyone within the walls of the city you have called home for half of your life. What other options did he have? He walks back over to the desk, looking at the stacks of books and wishing the one with the answer would jump out at him.

“We could Turn her,” she suggests, and a heavy tome jets across the room at her, thrown by Valek’s own hand before he could blink. She barely catches it before it strikes her in the chest, her dainty fingers leaving indents in the vellum.

“No,” he snarls. You would not be subjected to a life of eternal night, of being frozen in time. Not if he could help it. Despite your isolation and loneliness, you were a being that radiated warmth and life, that helped all living things around you thrive. He had watched you feed crumbs you had saved from your meals to birds that flew past your windows the other day, for Christ’s sake! The life of a vampire would not suit you.

“I like having her around,” Cassandra tells him plainly, not beating around the bush. “She could be an excellent scholar, she could help us find other relics…”

All valid points, it was true. But Valek knows that they aren’t his reasons for wanting to keep you with them.

“You don’t need to hide the truth from me, Jan,” she murmurs, looking up at him knowingly from under her eyelashes. “I know love when I see it.”

He rises up to his full height, glaring down at Cassandra. They were not having this conversation.

“Hold your tongue, Cassandra,” he snarls, and the woman bows her head in deference to him, though Valek knows she will not be dissuaded from her opinions, especially given the fact that she was, in all likelihood, right.

“Y/N is not a familiar, she’s a person. And she has lived enough of her life under the thumb of others. I will not condemn her to our fate.”

“Would you just release her into the world then, with nothing and no one? She has no experience moving through the human world on her own!”

“No,” he responds, sounding almost petulant, like a child.

“Then what’s it going to be, Jan? She’s not a Slayer at heart, she can’t survive on her own in the real world, and you refuse to Turn her. What remains but to kill her?”

“I don’t know!” he growls, his voice a far departure from its usual smooth baritone.

Cassandra falls silent, contemplating the situation you were in, and Valek does much of the same.

“You could ask her,” she offers after a few minutes of deliberation. “Ask her what she wants, I mean. You said yourself that Y/N hasn’t had the opportunity to be an independent person, in charge of her own life.”

“You think that I should ask what she would like to do once we have slaughtered everyone she has ever known?” Valek asks, raising an eyebrow.

“No, though I imagine she has already come to that conclusion herself. She is clever, and has likely determined why we have remained so close to their city,” Cassandra says, her tone almost proud as she compliments you. She had become nearly as fond of you as Valek himself over the past couple of weeks.

Nearly.

“We could ask her hypothetically, though she may see through the ruse. Either way, you’d have your answer.”

Valek considers the option. It did seem like the fairest alternative for you.

“Very well, but it can wait until after I’ve confirmed that she does not have some larger role to play for the Church. We cannot let a potential threat–”

His words die out in his throat when a bone-chilling sound echoes through the castle.

“VALEK!” your scream is so loud and piercing that it manages to reach him through the layers of stonework between you.

He and Cassandra move so fast that the other vampires in the castle could hardly see them running past as they sprint up the stairs to your tower, their feet barely touching the stone. He makes to open the door, but your voice rings out again.

“No, don’t come in! I haven’t covered the windows!” you exclaim, and he immediately lets go of the doorknob as though it burned him.

“Y/N, what is it? What’s going on?” Cassandra demands, her voice wild in panic.

“The Slayers, they’re coming! I can see their trucks from my window!” you cry out, and through the battle lust that immediately starts to thrum through him, Valek also notes with no small degree of pleasure that you sound scared rather than relieved. Perhaps the affection he and Cassandra had come to have for you was at least somewhat reciprocated, after all.

But there would be time to dwell on that later.

“Cassandra, go inform the others that we will soon be under attack. Lock down the castle, make use of all of the iron doors and shutters; we cannot allow them to get inside or expose us to the sunlight. Do everything you can to conceal the Berziers Cross.”

The small woman briefly places a hand against the wood of your door, as though hoping she could transfer comfort to you, before nodding and disappearing down the steps.

“Y/N, I will leave the door unlocked. Come downstairs and we will find somewhere to keep you.” He flits down the steps after giving you the instructions, knowing that you would obey. Sure enough, you come running down the spiral stairs a moment later, nearly tripping in your haste. He steadies you, his arms reaching out to catch you without him even considering it, and you look up at him with a concerned expression.

“Keep me where? What are you going to do?”

“We only need to hold out until nightfall; after that, we can get you somewhere more secure before staging our counterattacks.”

“Counterattacks?!” you repeat incredulously, emphasizing the plural. Your eyes flit from side to side as you process the information, trying to put the pieces together. He sees it on your face the moment you register what his plans were; he had known that you were clever, after all.

“You’re going to attack Monteriggioni?!” you his at him, your ire and horror bothering him more than they should. “Valek, you can’t! Most of the people there aren’t active Slayers! What about the children?”

You had clearly not lived through the brutalities of war, your skin turning pale as you come to the correct conclusion.

“Valek, no…” you whisper in a horrified, broken voice. “Please, you can’t do this! They didn’t do anything wrong!”

Yet, Valek thinks, though he does not speak.

“Cassandra!” you scream, and the woman appears by your side at an instant, seeming concerned. “You can’t, you can’t kill all those children, it’s not their fault! They had no choice!” you sob, pleading with the woman. Valek has to give you credit; you are certainly adept at using the information gleaned from others against them, targeting Cassandra’s longing for motherhood. Sure enough, the shorter woman hesitates, her eyes flicking from you to Valek.

“Please, leave the city alone,” you beg, your eyes staring into his, and he finds himself compelled by the emotions stirring within them. “Leave the children alone. You’re not a monster, Valek, I know you aren’t.”

He loses himself once more in your eyes, trying to decide on the right course of action. Finally, he comes to a conclusion that best serves his interests.

“We will not lay siege to the city,” he begins, and your eyes light up in response.

“…provided that you accompany me to parlay with your father. It would appear that you are more valuable to him than you thought.”

He could have mesmerized you to achieve the same result, he knows that, but it was important that you be clear-headed for the conversation so that he could determine where your loyalties lay. It also helped that he knew you would agree to any terms he set if it meant sparing the lives of the children.

“Anything, Valek,” you promise him immediately, looking up at him with gratitude and relief. “Just please don’t hurt the children.”

“Very well. Cassandra, go and tell the others that we will be keeping our forces united and focused on protecting the castle.”

The woman flits away again, and Valek looks down to you, offering you his hand. You take it without hesitation, and he pulls you close, his other arm curled around your body, holding you to him. He feels your heartbeat rapidly increase at the sudden movement, or the proximity to him; he’s not sure which.

“And you are going to have to trust me, little one,” he croons, and you lean further into him despite yourself, the magnetism his species had on your kind taking hold. The dazed longing that fills your eyes is due to nothing more than the chemistry and biology of predator and prey, but he cannot deny that he enjoys the sight of you gazing at him in such a way.

“You will make an effective bargaining chip after all.”

---

Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Epilogue

[mutable-manifestation]

Hello, I’m Ameera a 23 years old Muslim lesbian who is trying to come out, I’ve been in the closet with my girlfriend for way too long, because of how dangerous and hard it is to come out as a lesbian to a religious Muslim family, but me and my girlfriend have decided to do whatever it takes and risk it all to come out, do you mind supporting and encouraging us?, though I know we all have what we dealing with, so I’m not imposing we just need all the support and encouragement we can get, check my pinned post for more information on how you can support, if you are a Muslim queer and you are out, please help with tips on how to make it less complicated, any word of advice is also really needed, we really wanna come out but we need y’all 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ pride please come through for us, I believe pride is for all

Hi Ameera!

I saw on one of your other posts that you already have an exit strategy and are prepared to move out and cut contact should that be necessary for your safety, so I don't see any reason why you shouldn't come out if it's what you want!

I shall be wishing for your family to surprise you with acceptance and support, and for your contingencies to be unnecessary.

I am a Christian rather than a Muslim, so I can't speak to the specifics of your situation, but - if you haven't already - I'd recommend looking into what your religious text(s?) say about the LGBT+ community.

The first thing I did when I realized I was a lesbian was research.

The most I'd ever heard about gay people growing up was "gay marriage bad >:(" and even that only seemed to crop up around when gay marriage beginning to get legalized, so I looked into all of the relevant verses and tried to reconcile my sexuality with my faith.

I didn't want to go looking for validation, I just wanted answers, information, so I could gather my thoughts from there. So I looked at both sides.

The arguments I found that explained the bible as not against LGBT+ were all rooted in study and logic - meanings of words that were oversimplified in translation, historical contexts that I had been lacking prior, etc. All of it was rooted in trying to understand the original texts as and when they were written.

The arguments against LGBT+ all seemed to parrot the modern bible and "homosexuality is a sin" with no other arguments - or at least, no other arguments that could be applied only to homosexual people (example: "but gay couples can't have children!!!" yeah okay neither can infertile/sterile people and they can still get married/it isn't a sin for them to be in relationships). They were also all written with a hostile, hateful undertone (or overtone in some cases). Which. Christians are supposed to be known for our love, so any rhetoric based in hatred... and not even logic to back it? yeah. No.

The arguments explaining gay = okay were all based in love, compassion, and understanding - in logic and research.

So.

It was easy enough for me to reconcile my faith and my sexuality because, as it happens, there was nothing incompatible about the two!

(To any side b or x christians who may read this: this isn't an invite to debate, you literally cannot change my mind and also I will simply block you. This is not my Theological Discussions account)

I'm not quite sure how Islam sees the LGBT+ community in terms of religious rhetoric - from my (very) brief research the only thing I could find was a quote or two about Sodom and Gomorrah, which I've seen plenty of break-downs regarding, though what the Quran (or other Islamic texts?) says may differ.

Once you've done your research and come to terms with the information as needed (again, if you haven't already), I'd write a list of common questions and arguments you're family might make and come up with responses.

I don't know your family. They may shut down and simply tell you to get out and never return. (the worst case scenario [I hope - I don't know your family but if you think there is any possibility of physical violence I would definitely recommend either a video call - so you can see facial expressions - or staying near an exit while coming out])

They might ask you for space to think (okay scenario - kinda in limbo here).

They may surprise you with acceptance (best case scenario)

But they may ask questions and try to argue (middling case scenario).

They may ask things like why you're gay, argue that it's against your religion, etc. In this case, you have a chance to talk them into being supportive.

So.

Lists.

Brainstorm questions with your girlfriend - as many as you both can think of - and go through them. A lot of answers will be easy, some you might need to think more about/do research on (at least, that's my experience). But at least you'll both be armed with all the information you might need in the middling scenario (and it makes it harder for them to make you doubt yourselves, if that's something either of you might struggle with).

Of course, if you've already accepted the possible need to cut contact and gotten ready to move out you might've already thought of all this. Still, I hope this has been of at least some help to you, even if that's just by serving as a reminder that you aren't alone in this and that there's a community out here that supports you.

I'll be wishing you luck; I hope both you and your girlfriend get the best case scenario :)

[amplifyme]

Fannish Year Review - 2023

1. Your main fandom of the year: The X-Files, Beauty and the Beast 1987, A Song of Ice and Fire (specifically SanSan). Can't narrow it down to one.

2. Your favorite film this year: Barbie. America Ferrara's monologue on the rules women are expected to follow made me laugh and then sob. Been there, trying my best to no longer do that.

You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can't ask for money because that's crass. You have to be a boss, but you can't be mean. You have to lead, but you can't squash other people's ideas. You're supposed to love being a mother, but don't talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman but also always be looking out for other people.

You have to answer for men's bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you're accused of complaining. You're supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you're supposed to be a part of the sisterhood.

But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful.

You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. It's too hard! It's too contradictory and nobody gives you a medal or says thank you! And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.

3. Your favorite book this year:  Wayward, Chuck Wendig's sequel to Wanderers. Read these! Chuck is the modern day old-school Stephen King. Not to be missed.

4. Your favorite album or song this year: Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit's Weathervanes. Every album these guys put out is better than the last, and they're all superb. Jason Isbell's lyrics are always a revelation. Best songwriter of his generation.

5. Your favorite TV shows this year:  The Last of Us. Humanity and inhumanity all wrapped up into a heartbreaking and uplifting package. Best show of the year. Long, Long Time will live with me forever.

6. Your favorite Tumblr community this year: Don't have one. I love all the different 'verses I move within.

7. Your best new fandom discovery of the year:  That's hard to say, what with the age of my favorite fandoms. They're all getting on in years, which makes new discoveries rare.

8. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year: None, really. Well, maybe the weirdness of the SanSan fics I've seen posted lately. Hopefully that will soon pass.

9. Your TV/movie boyfriend of the year: Gotta go with Vincent from Beauty and the Beast. He never disappoints. And everything he does and why he does it is the epitome of what it is to be human. And to be alive. 🥰

10. Your TV/movie girlfriend of the year: Weird Barbie. She is me.

11. Your biggest squee moment of the year: Introducing @randomfoggytiger to the BATB universe through Nan Dibble's writing, and soon after that the show itself, and her getting it. Best feeling in the world, to bring a new fan into the fold.

I'm tagging @randomfoggytiger @nobodysuspectsthebutterfly @kateofthecanals @storybycorey @baronessblixen @littlefeatherr @enigmaticxbee @xxsksxxx @lilydalexf @ladytp @daisies-cats-and-spacemen @musingsofaquietmind @settle-down-frohike

No pressure. Only play if you want to.