#The Children's Patron

[gu6chan]

meant to post this like. a month ago but before i go to bed (part ONE of) my little dod 1.3 oc.... Some factoids

They're known and regarded as a doctor and they do occasionally give out cures (albeit, experimental ones that are only offered as being anything close to a cure according to their interpreter but they largely seem to do the trick... maybe?) for those who ask them, but the truth is, they're much more of a scientist at heart and consider themselves as such. Their main focus of study is on the possibility of overcoming the negative effects Dragon's Blood has on the human body, mind, and soul — particularly where the soul is concerned.

They don't have a known name, voice, appearance, gender (though they're largely assumed to be a woman by stature alone) or even much of a "known" personality, but they do seem to be gentle and well-liked by the children they travel with.

They are the leader of a travelling scientific troupe, consisting mainly of children taken from a variety of circumstances — some found, others given up, others who willingly sought to join the troupe — and a few interpreters. Under their care, the lost children are fed and cared for in a surprisingly stable environment for a travelling troupe in midst of a war. This has earned them the only title by which they are known — "The Patron of Children", or in some cases, "The Children's Patron".

The interpreters they travel with, and assumedly the Children's Patron themselves, are the only adults in a troupe now growing past a hundred. While there are some guesses it may be to find more children, what they travel for or where they may even be headed is unknown.

Because they do not speak (Whether this is an impossibility for them or they simply choose not to is unknown), they have a particular sign language they invented themselves for the purpose of direct communication — though, this usually only finds its use in communicating through their interpreters and children due to their frequent travel leaving them unable to form many other "long-term" bonds. A great sign that one is considered an elusive "friend" of the Children's Patron is the gifting of your very own "Sign", used to refer to your name, being presented for use.

Among the few interpreters who follow in the steps of the Children's Patron, there is only one who had apparently known the Children's Patron before they began their work. They prefer not to speak of it, out of respect for their wishes.

Being an extremely reclusive and, if rumours are true, cowardly person, the Patron of Children will always conduct their research in private. None of their interpreters know anything relating to the subject, nor will they allow any visitors in the midst of it. In some regards, both to the Patron and her children themselves, they are much more like bodyguards than simple interpreters.

[abombihoney]

hey y'all ever remember that Al is the fucking hotel manager.

[wellthebardsdead]

My Paladin: *spares the spawn and breaks his oath after devoting his entire existence to lathander* …

Astarion: darling? Are you okay?

My Paladin:

[sleepy-writes-stuff]

DP X DC WRITING PROMPT #9

(An idea I had late last night when I should have been sleeping)

(#) = Notes at the end of post

(*) = Just me building off of other ideas

✦

Lost Children Saved by the Lost

After being rejected by his parents and almost captured for experimentation, Danny escapes into the Ghost Zone. He wanders listlessly for nobody knows how long. It could have been days, months, years, but he wouldn't know how much time had actually passed.

He missed his friends, his sister, hell even his bully. However, the longer he wandered, the more he began to forget their voices, their facial features. Everything. He couldn't even remember what his obsession was. He wandered so long that the only thing he remembered was the aching and devastating feeling of his parents rejection of half of himself.

Eventually growing bored of the neverending expanse of the Ghost Zone, he takes a random portal and winds up in the DC Universe. Although, not in modern times. He finds himself hundreds of years in the past but couldn't find it in himself to care.

At least until he hears the cries of a child in distress. He goes searching and finds a little boy, weeping while curled up on the filthy ground, begging for his parents. The boy was emaciated, clearly not having had food in a very long time. His core jolted and ached at the pitiful cries. Was this his obsession? What was he supposed to do?

He only hesitates for a moment before he approaches the crying boy.(1) The boy flinches at the movement of shadows before looking up to meet the aurora green eyes of a man made of starlight.

"Hello, little one." He greets softly, automatically speaking the boy's language he heard only moments before. (2) "What's wrong?"

The boy is quiet as he wearily examines the man before him. Long hair the color of snow illuminated by moonlight. Olive skin that seemed to have a blue tint to it. The pointed ears and the loose, black clothes that seemed to have the cosmos playing across them. The most striking of all the man's features, however, were the rays of blue-green light flowing from his back like the tails of comets racing across the night sky. Despite the light they exuded, the wings seemed to absorb the heat from the air, letting off a cool but pleasant temperature. (3) The boy gazed cautiously into the man’s eyes, looking past his odd features, and found only kindness as well as a strange, deep-seated sadness. No matter how his mind said no one can be trusted, his gut said the man meant no harm. He decided to respond to the strange man's question.

"My parents," he began, stopping to wet his painfully dry lips. "They don't have money for food. They left me here because I am too much of a burden to keep."

The boy looked down, avoiding the man's eyes as if ashamed. His words made the man's core ache even more than before, vague and foggy memories flashing briefly behind his eyes. His core pulsed in his chest, urging him to do something. He didn't know what exactly, so he simply said the first thing that came to mind.

"Now that won't do. How about we look for others who would take care of you instead?" He said as he gently picked up the small boy and carried him cradled in his arms. The boy stares up at him as the man walked with his head held high and looking forward.

"Who are you, mister?"

The man's eyes became clouded as he mulled over the question before answering, carefully measuring his words.

"I've long forgotten what my name was. It's been so long since anyone's called me by it." He said, with sadness coloring his tone. They walked in silence for a couple of seconds before the man seemed to brightened a little. He looked at the little boy with soft, green eyes and a smile. "Why don't you choose a name for me, little one?"

The boy gained a look of concentration as he took the request seriously. The man continued walking in silence as he let the boy think, eyes forward as he searched for a family to take the boy in. His core was tugging him towards one particular house, practically singing as he came to a stop in front of the door. (4) He leaned down to gently set the boy on his feet before he himself kneeled to the boy's level.

Hands on either side of the boy's face, he kissed the child's forehead. Silently, he placed a blessing on the boy, a faint glow that went unseen to mortal eyes. He wished for the boy to know true love and happiness. For his parent's abandonment to leave no scars on his mind or in his heart. With that, he stood up once again and knocked on the door.

"Goodbye, little one. I've done what I can." He said as he turned to walk away.

"Wait!" The boy called out. The man stopped and looked back with a curious light in his eyes, the stars on his clothes seeming to briefly brighten as well. Once the boy saw he had his attention again, he continued.

"I thought of a name for you. If you'd like to hear it?" He askes hopefully.

The starlit man smiled, before nodding. "I'd be happy to hear what you've come up with."

The boy brightened up before opening his mouth to speak once more, hurrying as he heard footsteps approaching from the other side of the door.

"What do you think of..." (5)

✦

Whelp. That was interesting.

Notes:

(1) Should the boy be an actual character that's established in the DC Universe or just a random child?

(2) When I thought of this, I was thinking Danny wound up somewhere in Ancient Rome. So, I think he'd be speaking Latin here.

(3) Comets are made of stardust and ice, which means they are also cold instead of hot. At least until they're warmed by the sun. I thought it was quite fitting, honestly. They also are often seen to give off a blue-green color! How cool it that? Ha!

(4) Danny's obsession is so ragged and starved after wandering for so long that it latches onto the first thing it could to give it a jumpstart. Protecting lost children (lost in one way or another) and leading them to families who would actually care for them. He is the one who urged Martha and Johnathan Kent to adopt Clark. He helps Billy Batson eventually find a forever home. This even plays a role in how Bruce meets each of the Robins. Jason will be the first and only child Danny ever fails to give a permanent home to because of Jason's feelings towards Bruce over his death. Danny adopt Jason?

(5) When I was thinking of what the boy would name him, I immediately gravitated to the names of stars, which seems pretty obvious considering how I described Danny here. Anyway, what I chose was Regulus because it's a blue-white star and the brightest one in the constellation Leo, also called the Lion's Heart. Not only that, but the Latin meaning of Regulus translates to "little king" or "prince". Not to mention it's also a common name among Saints. You don't have to use the name Regulus tho! Come up with anything you want to call him!

(*) Should Danny just be an immortal patron saint of orphans and lost children, or should he be upgraded to a patron God?

[elfqueen006]

Was it odd that when the second demo of Sunny Day Jack came out and it was reiterated how heavily consent was going to be a factor in the game I was thinking about all the noncon/dubcon fics people were going to make?

[sparklecryptid]

I had no patience for people policing other peoples ships before i went to library tech school and library tech school has make me a little bit pissy about the entire thing actually.

[spooky-activity]

Animated this for my dnd group.

Audio is tom cardy's Perception Check

[unobjectionableurl]

[r3dvlvet]

Too bad Siobhan isn’t there to translate “In nomine patris et filii et Santo Patron”. Wouldn’t break Brennan nearly as bad as “No Day Shall Erase You From the Memory of Time” but I feel like it would still get him

[wonder-worker]

"[Elizabeth Woodville's] piety as queen seems to have been broadly conventional for a fifteenth-century royal, encompassing pilgrimages, membership of various fraternities, a particular devotion to her name saint, notable generosity to the Carthusians, and the foundation of a chantry at Westminster after her son was born there. ['On other occasions she supported planned religious foundations in London, […] made generous gifts to Eton College, and petitioned the pope to extend the circumstances in which indulgences could be acquired by observing the feast of the Visitation']. One possible indicator of a more personal, and more sophisticated, thread in her piety is a book of Hours of the Guardian Angel which Sutton and Visser-Fuchs have argued was commissioned for her, very possibly at her request."

-J.L. Laynesmith, "Elizabeth Woodville: The Knight's Widow", "Later Plantagenet and Wars of the Roses Consorts: Power, Influence, Dynasty"

[takaraphoenix]

No, actually, I’ll not just be generally vaguely upset about the framework that pisses me off, I will also be specifically pissed off about the way he’s trying to pat himself on the back and rewrite history.

So having a gay character be brave by coming out and that bravery be an inspiration to other queer characters so they can be brave and come out too is something that comes off poor on its own already - because of the shallow framework that our existence alone is already oh-so brave of us and that others wouldn’t have dared come out if not for Major Queer Character who did it first.

But there is something particularly twisted and nasty about Riordan using this for Nico di Angelo, actually.

Because Nico di Angelo didn’t come out.

Nico di Angelo didn’t get to be brave or inspirational.

Nico di Angelo was forced out of the closet.

Nico di Angelo was outed against his will, in front of others.

Eros forced Nico to come out in front of Jason.

And, quite frankly, the way it was handled further was just as poor. To make this repressed teen from the 1930s, who up until mere days ago was dealing with severe internalized homophobia and couldn’t even admit his own feelings to himself, confess his crush in public, in the middle of camp...

Both of these events really just showed that Riordan is a straight man who doesn’t know this, and didn’t do his research beforehand.

And people just love giving Riordan the benefit of the doubt. Love giving him a pass and clapping him on the shoulder for the inclusion and for trying. And you know what! Yeah, I do love that he includes the gays. I do not think he should get excused for handling representation like shit though.

And this? This is in his newest book? You should think authors grow. Best selling authors should do more research. Get consultants. Stuff like that.

Instead, we’re going back and rewriting history. That forced coming out? Now a moment of bravery and inspiration for others!! Look how great and amazing that is!

Nico di Angelo didn’t get to choose that he was ready to come out, it wasn’t a moment of bravery. Not the kind of bravery that it takes when you are ready to face your personal truth and willingly take the step to own it. It was a moment of fear and desperation. And it was the bravery to face that fear and desperation.

And it really makes me sick to now learn that we’re looking back at it and pretending otherwise, in-universe.

[gu6chan]

The Children's Patron Part Three - The Dragon's Blood (Click here for Part Two and here for Part One~ :3)

The blood of a dragon is a powerful thing. For even adults with the most fervent wills, the destruction of the mind, body and soul is only a matter of time. And for the effects of such a horrific curse placed on a child....

(Note: Nudity under cut)

Part One - Mayhem

The child was left at the edge of their life following the destruction of the Village of the Green Dragon. Paralysed from the waist down and left to bleed out on the ground, they managed to hold onto life just until the Union had turned their backs...

Having seen the destruction and madness brought by those afflicted with the dragon's blood was enough to reinvigorate the child to find a cure to such a curse, even in their broken state. With their burning desire, and no other options left to their wish to live and complete their goal, they took matters into their own hands — If they were correct, the dragon's blood could only be "controlled" — or rather, it's erosion of the self delayed — by the strength of one's soul... Their will. With this knowledge, the child was determined their drive towards science would prevail them long enough to find a cure. Or at the very least, even if it meant their life, they would be the one to see and document the effects of the dragon's curse for themselves. Crawling across the ruins of the village and taking the leftover devoured remains of the Green Dragon in hand, the child took only a small bite from the dragon's corpse. With it's blood consumed, they immediately began to vomit their stomach acid until falling unconscious.

......

As it had turned out, they had not been the only one left alive — other residents of the village, both those young and incapacitated, and older adults who had not been ascertained in their death, were left behind. Unable to move, and with no capable caretakers, the other survivours could only lay and wait as starvation slowly began to eat at them.

...However, the child could not help the others left behind. Their injuries had healed, but they had still found themselves paralysed from the blood now coursing through their veins — for days, they could only sit there, and each day, something new would leave their stomach and be regurgitated to the ground below... Her liver. The small intestine. A lung. But still, even as she looked upon the scattered mess of organs around her lap, she had found herself unable to die. Was it her will that caused it?

Part Two - The Elf

On the third day, the mutations had begun to take place. It began with a numbness of the extremities, and over time, she found her arms and legs began to grow stiffer. By the fifth day, an unbearable pain began to spread throughout her stiffened limbs... But, even while in complete and utter agony, the child still watched these changes with interest. If she was correct in believing the destruction of the mind and body both traced back to the soul as it's source, could it mean her soul was already being destroyed...? Furthermore, could the extent of these mutations be due to her susceptibility as a child? While she had a plan in mind on how to fix the growing issue at stake — the destruction of her soul which she suspected gave way to the destruction of herself — she still found herself unable to move.

In this time, a travelling elf who had roamed for weeks in search of the village, not yet aware of its destruction, had come across its ruins. While devastated, his attention was soon drawn to not just the few survivours left slowly perishing on the ground, but the horrifying visage of a girl with twisted limbs surrounded by what appeared to be an array of discarded entrails. Despite the horrifying visage, she appeared to be the only one still sociable — the girl warmly regarded the elf, who carried her to a bonfire he had started for warmth. After making some conversation and explaining the current state of the village, the child makes a request: To cut off her deformed limbs.

Seeing the elf's reluctance, the girl explains that while she had initially let them grow and mutate out of pure scientific curiosity, she grew concerned with the pace of the spread possibly overtaking the rest of her body before she could make any concrete conclusions with her research — thus compelling her to find a way to rid herself of any psychical attachments with hopes it would possibly at least be enough to slow the deterioration of her body.

The nauseating procedure was eventually carried through, and shortly after both arms and legs were removed, the child made one last request that he keep her limbs before falling unconscious.

The elf, as was the rest of only the handful of survivours in the village, was awaken to a horrifying scream. To both their shock, a new psychical mutation had occurred with the loss of her current limbs: A pair of human-like arms sprouting from her back. With knowledge her will and drive had once again exerted itself with her decision, the girl made a new hypothesis: That the "adaptation" formed in place of her missing arms and legs was a result of a reinvigorated will. While the role of her susceptibility as a child was certainly to take into account, could one find means of "controlling" the deterioration of the dragon's blood according to their needs?

With the theory pushed quickly to the back of her head, the child continued with the most important step of her plan at present - a first, and if it had went poorly, final test of her hypothesis on the soul. With her newfound limbs, the girl dragged her limbless body to the closest living body she could find...

"When you die, come back to me."

Part Three - Patron

One by one, the last handful of those who had survived were taken into the child's consciousness - but with each soul that merged within her, the child gradually began to lose more and more of themselves. The "being" that held these different souls, now wearing the voice and body of that little girl, became an amalgamation of memories, muddled perspective, and dreams. The fiery flood of the dragon's blood began to course through their veins once more, and before long, the objective of that young girl to cure and save the world from the potential destruction caused by the dragon's blood by growing to understand it's properties no longer existed.

What took that dream's place instead was a different goal: A goal to curve the onset curse and madness not for the sake of preventing destruction, but for the sake of harnessing it's power as means to further progress humanity.

The young girl's hypothesis, "If the soul can be believed to be the root of the body and mind, the longevity of one's soul can prevent - or slow - the destruction of both", hadn't accounted for the ramification's her method of "enlarging" one's soul had in tow. Not only had she completely lost her "self" in the process, having become a new being entirely, but the souls of the children that had chosen to become one with her in death had all burned with a passion for life.

They had transcended humanity, having become the incarnation of human will itself.

Epilogue

The scrap metal collected by the elf, with great effort, was eventually welded and transformed into fixtures the child would use to attach their amputated limbs back to their body. After gathering the necessary materials and regaining their strength, the two set off from the ruined village, their sights set towards the pursuit of the research that would save mankind...

[sonicenvy]

one of my favorite library kid encounters this weekend was a with a little Greek three-year-old named Andromeda. She and her mom came up to get her beads for SRP, and, as is pretty common, they start telling me about what they've been reading. Friends, this child and her mother have been reading the Odyssey in Greek together. The mom and the kid chat back and forth in Greek together about the Odyssey while picking beads (and counting them in Greek), translating bits and pieces for me as they go along.

Apparently, Andromeda's favorite character in the Odyssey is Penelope, which, uh, girl I see u!!!!! Obsessed with the vibes of this toddler who read the Odyssey in Greek with her mom FIVE times this summer because that's her favorite book! GOOD! FOR! HER!

Additionally the mom was like, "yeah we also read the Iliad this summer."

no notes. impeccable. there are days when i love our kids so much y'all.

[fanficmaniatic]

Careful: Once you start she/her-ing Wukong there is no coming back.

[rottenn-angel]

really wish Christian’s would stop saying ‘god bless you’ to me. i dont want your hateful god anywhere near me, thanks

[indigo-flightly-falls]

@thenopequeen wanna make our deity personas canon to the dogwarts seasons au as a half joke?

also was the plot to kill Snider the spider successful?