#actively tries to murder the other two (raised in a cult basically)

[spotlightstudios]

Ehehe~ I think about one (1) beloved moot will recognize these guys, but that won't stop me. I love these three ♡

[strunmahalok]

So I was sitting and thinking about the weird things we do and don’t consider child appropriate. And I was also wondering if I ever read anything as weird as Animorphs apparently was and yeah actually I think I did.

Do y’all remember “The Guardians of Ga’Hoole” by Kathryn Lasky? Those random owl books that were apparently popular enough to make into a movie? I read all 16 of those and they got wild. Spoilers btw

The series starts with our protagonist, Soren, who is a baby. He wants to practice flying, his parents tell him he’s still too young he doesn’t have the right feathers yet. They leave to go hunting and Soren sits at the edge of the nest, fantasizing, thinking about trying it anyway, before he decides he slips and falls to the ground. So he tries to hide and wait for his parents to come save him, but he gets kidnapped by a group of owls called St, Aggie’s Orphanage. Who take children and brainwash them. These kids are forced to be active and doing stuff during they day (they are owls) and then at night instead of sleeping their forced to march in circles in a special chamber until they get “moon sickness” Eventually, Soren and three other kids teach themselves how to fly and escape searching legendary Guardians of Ga’Hoole to help them take down the evil orphanage. And that’s literally just the first book.

speedrunning the rest of the books, Soren is reunited with his old house keeper, a blind snake named Mrs. Plithiver, who tells him his parents have been murdered by an owl eugenics cult and his older brother and younger sister are missing. I am not kidding when I say eugenics. They were called The Pure Ones. They had an entire cast system built around around the tyto owl genus, with barn owls being the most “pure” and every other speices being increasingly dehumanized (deowlfied?) and if you weren’t tyoto at all you basically had to die, So any way, Soren finds he didn’t fall, he was push by his brother as an intiatian into the pure ones and rises through the ranks to become their leader. The pure ones and the orphanage decide to team up, the Ga’hoole go undercover, and in book six both organizations are basically reduced to nothing. Also somewhere in there there is something about iron filament putting off enough magnetism to mess with how their brains work in it’s very not good. But finally Soren gets to retire to be a dad.

Book seven we get a new protagonist. Coryn, the kid who was being groomed to be the heir of the now defunct eugenics cult. Despite them being basically nothing anymore his Mom is still raising him like the pure one can make a come back (think Kovu from the lion king 2). But something happens that Coryn decides that this is not for him, and he runs away to find out what the world is actually like. Okay, so these next bits I had to read the wiki to figure out. Coryn has the ability to see the future when staring into fire, he decides he needs to catch a special kind of coal from an active volcano, which he does, and then he takes it to Ga’Hoole to become their king. Also he kills his mom by shoving her into the path of a rabid wolf. There’s a lot happening their the the wiki is not jogging my memory enough to put any of that into context.

books 9-11 are a prequal arc about how  coal catching became a thing, the developemnt of back smithing in owl society (those two things have been happening the entire i just haven’t felt the need to bring them up) and how  Ga’Hoole was founded to fight Hagsfied, magic demon owl/crow hybrids. And some  worldbuilding on how dire wolf society works, That has also been in the background the entire time. Note sure when it was introduced but was really important in Coryn’s section I guess

Back into the present Coryn and the original four owls we followed go looking for a magic book used by an Arch-hagsfied, Meanwhile back at Ga’Hoole, owls start worshiping the special ember Coryn caught like it’s a golden calf. They make  up increasingly elaborate rituals and they built a prison overnight for anyone who is blasphemous towards it. The Band + Coryn come home, are horrified tear everything down and the special coal is thrown into a pile of less cool coals but nobody seems to beable to tell the difference and grab it out.

Book 13 a secret owl kingdom is discovered. The band, Coryn, and another owl named Otulissa are guided there for a visit by a blue owl  called “The Striga”. Turns out all of the owls there are blue, but some of them have weird long feathers and can’t fly without the assistance of kites. The last remnants of the pure ones apparently stalked our protags to the new kingdom. Striga kills one of them which is a big no no, so he gets banished and our heroes take him home with them.

Ah, from there on out things become very, there is “no war in Ba Sing Se” As Striga gains influence over Coryn. The Band is banished and mass book burning are instituted. The Band tries to figure out how to fix this and discover the hagsfied are not gone, Striga is one of them. And the blue owls from the secret kingdom lived very specific lifestyles to keep the hags from remembering there were evil. It’s why to no bloodshed rule was important, it maybe woke his magic? IDK the wiki is really bad for this book, some of these discoveries were maybe made in the previuos one? And the next book in the wiki is hyper detailed and I tl:dr-ed it because it’s 1am.

Anyway, anything that comes from the secret kingdom is bad new. Coryn’s mother is actually not dead and teams up with them. I guess there’s another war. The Ga’Hoole recruit a bunch of other species to help them fight the combined forces of the hag owls and the pure ones, and some where in that Coryn drops the sacred ember back into the volcano they got he it from.

And the last book is a prequel about Ezylryb. A famous in universe blacksmith.

This post was not supposed to be this long. It was supposed to be a"wow adults let me read a 16 book war series about way eugenics is bad actually and it wasn’t considered to dark for children?” But I ended up summarizing the whole series ‘cause it’s even weirder than I remember. And now this post is too long and I don’t want to get started on the spin-off series “Wolves of the Beyond” which is a six book series about why ableism is bad actually. Wolf society in these books is very ableist even in the owl-centric books it comes up decently often.

So yeah, this was one of my favorite series when I was kid and I think I started reading them when I was seven. I eagerly awaited the next book coming out and I legitimately don’t think my Mom ever checked what they were about. They were just the owl books I liked.

[a-tired-narwhal]

Tell me more about your feelings about the details of Caleb's backstory!

Okay listen anon. LISTEN. This is going to be LONG. Did I immediately rewatch/go back through the entire wrap up to take notes? YES I DID. Anon I'm sorry this is so late, I didn't see your ask until after the stream. I hope this finds you (*＾3＾)/～♡

----

Caleb fucking Widogast. Liam O'Brien always creates/portrays characters that CAPTURE ME. And it is purely the undertow of SUFFERING that I crave.

As a survivor of an abusive childhood, specifically with manipulation, neglect, and physical trauma, and having a controlling abuser in a position of power over you - I was surprised and delighted by Liam's playing of Caleb, and I'm sure that I'm probably not the only one, but Caleb's backstory just had me nodding along. Was not surprised at all by what was revealed about the blumentrio's relationship being trauma-bonding and probably why I'll never be an avid shipper of them. Nothing about Caleb's backstory left me gasping - because it's a relatively common abuse survivor story, except it's in the world of dungeons and dragons with high fantasy and magic and more common place murdering than today in places where most Critters presumably live.

Let's break it down.

Caleb was born as Bren to a less than well off family, who wanted their child to have a better life than them. Bren is a gifted child, and this will immediately put a bullseye's target on a child's back, make no mistake, for abusive persons. Now, I don't know if it's a pretty obvious that parents would trust in a teaching figure to take their child for that child's betterment, because I don't have parents who wish for my betterment ¯\_(ツ)_/¯, but I like to think that Bren's parents handed him off hoping for his brightest future.

Trent is basically the textbook example of a Cult Leader. Beyond the experimentation he did on his students; everything he put the Blumentrio through is how you beat down and brainwash people, especially children/adolescents. Textbook. TEXTBOOK. It was the dnd equivalent of the Hilter Youth. Now my personal experience featured the tool of isolation, so I didn't have two childhood friends to pour myself into and have threesome's with, but that's actually smart of Ickythong, because when you're left alone with your whirling brain for too long, and there's no one to hold over your head - we start thinking those rebellious thoughts, and at some point we decide we have nothing to lose, and we will do ANYTHING to shake that control. No, he left them in that abandoned tower together so they would be forced to bond with each other, as well as allowing them not to die of exposure alone.

Trauma-bonding CAN be a manipulation and used against you. Now. We have three adolescents trying not to freeze to death by being as close as physically possible. For those that don't know; sharing body heat works best skin to skin - ya get naked and THEN you wrap up together to stay insulated. Awkward groping is going to happen, and it's more than likely accidental. But when you add raging hormones to the mix, yo it's not going to stay accidental for very long (that in no way indicates non consent, it can be either way), and the feelings can catch hard when you're young and physical and EVERY HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP YOU HAD HAS BEEN TAKEN FROM YOU, IF YOU EVEN EVER HAD ONE. (I do not know Eadwulf or Astrid's home lives so your guess is as good as mine. We should probably ask Liam)

So you've got horny teenagers, with above average intelligence, being systematically abused... Bam. Trauma-bonded Blumentrio.

BUT HERE'S THE THING. Trauma-bonding can only get you so far. And they are children, actively being raised to NOT HAVE THEIR OWN THOUGHTS AND IDENTITIES. The relationship they built, the romantic and sexual, are based off of a shared hostile environment and survival needs. And when those circumstances are no longer there, the relationship tends to fall apart.

I love that Matt talked about Astrid for a bit, sad we didn't get more on Eadwulf - but Matt didn't really spend a lot of time roleplaying Wulf compared to Astrid, so he'd have more insight into her. I also find it interesting that the Blumentrio took 3 very different, but again SO COMMON, paths in dealing with their abuse. But that's a different rant.

Focus with me now on what Matt said about Astrid. She was actively seeking power throughout the campaign, looking always to climb that ladder to the top, for her own purposes which were not stated, and was willing to do anything, sacrifice anyone, to get that power. Was it a burden to her? Yeah I think so. Did it weigh on her? Again I personally think it did. But she was goal-oriented and she wasn't going to let anything stop her, not even herself, and she hated Trent. Matt implies that all three of the Blumentrio did/do. Astrid, Wulf, and Caleb were wildly different people - I don't think they would have stayed together even if Bren had stayed Bren instead of becoming Caleb.

I know A LOT of people were miffed over how Liam and Matt showed Caleb's and Essek's love for each other; and I am SO glad that Liam touched on this; Essek reminded Caleb too much of Astrid and Eadwulf. Now I know we love to joke that that Redhead Dirt Wizard has a Type (smart, ambitious, vaguely amoral), and believe me I LOVE THE JOKE, but Caleb pumping to brakes on Hot Boi makes THE MOST LOGICAL SENSE AND I WAS SO DELIGHTED WHEN LIAM PLAYED IT THAT WAY. Caleb was still trying to heal himself; WHY THE HELL WOULD HE JUMP INTO A MESS CALLED ESSEK? That's some mf UNHEALTHY, TOXIC romance trope ya got there. People fix themselves, not each other. THAT'S WHY CANON SHADOWGAST IS SO GOOD. THEY ARE WORKING TO IMPROVE THEMSELVES FIRST. THAT'S SO HOT.

Ahem.

So the Blumentrio hangout in Astrid's room to sex and study, in threes and twos (I have weird polyam questions, Liam). Now, I'm foggy on the exact timeframe that was together at Academy > kill your parents > Bren is chucked into the Sanitarium; but it's clear that after the murdering of parents, Bren is tagged as the "weakest link" - maybe he broke because he actually loved his family/had a loving family, maybe the manipulation spell from Ickythong didn't sit on him as well as Astrid and Wulf, maybe boi wasn't made for killing (a lie, the boi is a total killer, you have to be in most dnd campaigns), who knows. But he broke, and Astrid and Wulf handed him over - it would be dangerous for them if they tried too hard to protect him.

Because in that environment, in those circumstances, in that set up; you do what you have to, to survive. You hurt people you love, you hurt people you don't know, you even hurt yourself if it means improving your own odds. It's instinct. It's not your fault. You are doing the best you can with what you have available.

I don't hate Astrid and Eadwulf; I just have more emotional attachment and investment in Caleb, and prefer the color purple on him.

Which is actually a great segue into THE WOMAN AT THE SANITARIUM WHO FREED HIS MIND; Matt Mercer you beautiful man, thank you for giving us a Moonweaver connection, my lil widomauk heart was sent aflutter! So, here's the thing. Places like that, sanitariums, psych wards, etc - if you are not certifiably insane before you go in, you will be eventually. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest is not a fucking joke. But the thought of some forgotten Moonweaver Cleric recognizing Bren's torment and just, poof, dissolving that spell? *Chef's kiss* glorious, wonderful, everything I needed.

Anon, I don't know if this is what you wanted or expected - but here it is, my sincerest apologies 🐳

[scripttorture]

My question is basically: in the scenario I describe, do you think I should go with or without torture as a referenced thing that happened? The situation is this- my character’s father has been dead for seven years, but I thought that what if, instead of being killed by the monster he was faced with at the time, he was injured by it and then captured by a group of bad guys. This is set in the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild universe and the bad guys in question are the Yiga Clan, (1/9)

who alternate between a comical and threatening presence in the game. They are presented as a tribe of assassins, but the reason why they decide to take my character’s father alive is that they saw him using a rare kind of magic and either want him to teach it to them or want to get him to use it for them. (It’s hereditary so he can’t teach it to anyone but his daughter, but they don’t know that and he will neglect to inform them that anyone else has the same abilities.) (2/9) Most likely they want him to do something with his magic when their idol (Ganon, The Big Bad) returns or possibly something that they think would help him return. Where the question of torture comes in is, I need him to still be alive and capable of going with an escape attempt after seven years. So, whether or not they get the notion to try torturing at any point, it obviously can’t be super regular or prolonged over this period. I thought maybe one or two incidents toward the beginning (3/9) of his captivity, which were ordered to stop when they realized they would have to keep him alive for an undetermined amount of time and that’s easier when you aren’t treating extra injuries, but I’m not sure that would really add anything other than acknowledging the fact that someone in there probably got the notion to go “hey if he won’t teach us that magic what if we punch him and ask again” and may not have been turned down. Or they may have, (4/9) or they may not have brought it up at all because the Leader didn’t ask them to. Alternately, I could lean into their comical side and say that, while they got the idea to try “torturing” they don’t actually know how to do that. They’re assassins, they usually just kill, they don’t really know what to do with prisoners, it’s been a long time since they split off from another group that may have known torture techniques in the service of the now-destroyed kingdom. In which case it would be (5/9) things like “ohoho what if we give him his food... WITHOUT ANY bananas? he’ll be MISERABLE” (they are obsessed with bananas) played for a weird kind of humor. On the other hand I don’t want to imply that if they’d tried “REAL” torture it might have worked. Possibly the punching and asking again was tried once toward the beginning, then the comical “no bananas” one was tried later and neither one accomplished anything? I don’t want to say he spent seven years underground (6/9) surrounded by a comical murderous weirdo cult and “nothing really happened” in that time until his rescue but I don’t want to shoe in something like Actual Torture Attempts when it isn’t necessary. I could fill his time with escape attempts and/or trying to get information. Final thing: his daughter is going to break him out with the help of the Hero and a friend who defected from the Yiga Clan. This friend’s mother is going to take leadership of the clan but is meant to reform somewhat. (7/9) My character (the one whose father is imprisoned) could funnel her anger at his imprisonment towards the previous leader but if she finds out he was tortured (or weird attempts were made at it) she could have more trouble coming to a grudging, still pretty angry acceptance that her friend’s mother exists and is the way she is and probably shouldn’t be magically lit on fire. Or she could compartmentalize and say the friend’s mother never ordered anything like that, or may have even (8/9) turned a blind eye to her father’s final escape. This was a lot of detail but again the main questions are: does that seem like torture attempts would add or detract, and would it be in poor taste to include something like the “no bananas” scene? (9/9)

-

While I’d never played a Zelda game when I got this ask I am now one of Those People who got a switch in response to not being able to go outside. (They had pokemon, I was weak). And I’ve put a lot of hours into Breath of the Wild since. It’s a beautifully realised setting and I can see the appeal of writing something set in that world.

 Humour is a very subjective thing. Whatever we do there are always going to be people that the jokes don’t land for. I’ve (mostly) got positive responses to my humour but I have had incidents both here and on my AO3 page where people took exception to it. And that’s a lot more likely to happen when we’re dealing with serious topics.

 That said, I do think that we need humour about the things that scare us. There’s nothing quite as potent and satisfying as making our fears ridiculous.

 If you’re considering using humour in a torture/kidnap/POW situation (whatever you decide re torture the story definitely contains some of these elements) then the main thing to consider is this: what are we actually laughing at?

 This kind of humour is mostly likely to backfire or be outright hurtful when it can be interpreted as laughing at the victims. Or at the existence of traumatic events. And it’s most likely to work consistently when it’s aimed at the abusers.

 From the way you’ve described this it sounds like the joke is on the Yiga clan. As it is in the game itself. (I have enjoyed the assassination attempts by enraged ‘banana salesmen’.) If you wanted to continue the pattern the game set I think a lot of fellow fans would enjoy this humour.

 But the main question here is about when we should use torture in a story. And how we judge whether it’s adding anything.

 Personally I start by thinking about the tone and themes of the story. The kind of atmosphere I want to capture and kinds of character interactions I want to write.

 Then I try to think through the impact torture would have on the narrative in terms of knock on effects. So, symptoms in victims/survivors, witnesses and torturers but also effects on culture, community and organisations.

 It would probably be easiest for me to break this down with an example or two.

 I’ve talked briefly about both of these stories before. One of them takes place about two decades after a military coup ousted an absolute monarchy. Ilāra, one of the major characters, was embedded in the old regime and tortured people. They were also tortured by the regime and helped make the coup successful.

 And part of the impact torture has on the story is in Ilāra's symptoms. But it’s also in the way other characters relate to them. Normal people are afraid of them or disgusted/enraged at the sight of them. They’re ostracised by their own community and treated with contempt by their military superiors.

 One of the major themes running through the story is the question of how we deal with people we love when they’ve done horrific things. And how countries, cultures, move on from atrocities.

 Most of the major characters aren’t Ilāra's generation, they’re the kids who came afterwards. The people who just about remember the Revolt but grew up in a world without the monarchy. They’re navigating a legacy of blood and bitterness, things that aren’t their fault but nevertheless have shaped the world they live in.

 Part of it is about how the children Ilāra helped raise respond to this personal (and national) history. How they try to square the fact that this person was good (and in some ways defining) for them, while being monstrous to others.

 I felt that torture would add to this story because the point of it is those fault lines. In society at large and in personal relationships. It’s about exploring how we try to bridge or heal those fault lines and how, sometimes, we make them deeper.

 Torture (and indeed the other atrocities that are part of the country’s legacy) serve to raise the stakes. They deepen that initial emotional trench between the characters. And they also… Pull the camera back I suppose? The story may be about a single family but it isn’t an individual story. It’s about how larger patterns of abuse effect everyone in a society. Torture serves to make it about the culture, the country, instead of just the individuals within it.

 There are similar ideas in the other story I’m working on, societal divides and how we bridge them, but I think there’s a slightly different focus.

 Both of these stories are fantasy stories, but while Ilāra's story is in a sort of circa 1900s past Kibwe’s is in the future. It’s extrapolating the political oppression and systems from the places I’m interested in (in this case India, the Philippines, Kenya and Nigeria.)

 The story takes place across generations starting when Kibwe was a teenager but continuing to his daughter’s formative years and into his children becoming independent adults.

 And there’s torture in this story because the entire family is involved in politics. Because I grew up knowing that the natural consequence of acting for major political reform/justice was arrest and torture.

 The story is about trying to change unjust systems and generational violence. It’s also about the unhealthy ways people can engage in activism, putting the theoretical good of the community above their health and their families/friends.

 I didn’t really have to think about including torture in any depth, it was a natural fit. In fact I’m not sure I could talk about politics in any meaningful way without talking about torture.

 So some more specific questions that might help with your story. Is the structure of the Yiga clan important to the story? Is the effect they have on society at large important to the story? Is this primarily an individual/personal story or one with a wider focus?

 There aren’t ‘wrong’ answers to those questions, it’s about what you want to write.

 Do you want a more personal focus with the relationships between the major characters being more important then the world at large? I think of this as a character focused (as opposed to a character driven) story.

 For instance in the Lord of the Rings trilogy while we care about every member of the fellowship the important thing throughout, the focus, is the destruction of the ring and the systems that are harming all of Middle Earth. By contrast in Howl’s Moving Castle we care about the war and the fate of the missing Prince, but the important thing is what happens to the girls from the hat shop.

 Both of these approaches to a story can include torture in a meaningful way. It can add to both kinds of stories. But it’s generally adding different things.

 In a character focused story (with the kind of plot you’re writing) torture is mostly adding a sudden change to all of the relationships a character has. There might be focus on symptoms, a recovery arc, character development etc but the first and most obvious thing it’s adding is a major change to how these characters interact.

 In a story that’s more focused on the big picture of the world torture can add world building elements and it can be used to map out divisions and allegiances in the societies you write.

 Part of the reason I’m making this distinction is that in this scenario you can very easily tell a character focused story with trauma-recovery and not have torture. Kidnap and seven years imprisonment is enough to be traumatising.

 That doesn’t mean torture couldn’t/wouldn’t add anything to that story. But it might not be necessary for the story you want to tell and the focus you want it to have.

 On the other hand if this is primarily a broader story about communities and cultures growing and changing, the decision of whether or not to include torture has much more potential to direct the plot. It could create opposition to reforming the Yiga clan, both inside the clan (wanting to stick with how things are) and outside it (with people wanting it utterly destroyed).

 Different factions and cultures might band together on the basis of shared opposition to the Yiga clan. And the clan’s reformation could effect those allegiances.

 There could also be knock on effects based on where the clan operates: cultures that have been targetted by them in the past might not want this new ‘reformed’ (and more obvious) Yiga clan on their lands. And that in turn could stir up trouble within the clan because hey they’ve been here for generations it’s their home too!

 There are lots of ways torture could add to this plot and these characters. It could also feed in to broader themes.

 For instance the main character and her father haven’t seen each other for seven years. The difference between how we remember or idolise someone and the way they actually are is a theme you could add to here. The Yiga clan is going to end up reformed: what does it take for people to accept that reformation and forgive? The main character is friends with a former Yiga assassin: how do we process the fact people we care about might have hurt others?

 That isn’t an exhaustive list, I’m just throwing out ideas to see if anything interests you.

 In terms of timing and character being physically able to escape I think you’re already hit on a pretty good idea.

 Torturers don’t tend to stop when ordered to. Part of the reason a lot of organisations reject torturers is because they… tend to disobey orders. A lot.

 So if you wanted to write a scenario where this character is initially tortured and then held for a much longer time without torture the realistic way to do that is to have the character transferred from the ‘care’ of one group of Yigas to another. Torturers tend to exist in groups as sub-cultures within larger organisations. Which means that their presence in an organisation does not necessarily indicate that everyone in the organisation supports/carries out torture.

 You could even have the Yiga’s take a (perhaps half-hearted) anti-torture stance and have them punish the torturers.

 Wrapping up, the decision of whether or not to include torture is up to you. I can see ways it could add to your story but the points and themes I’ve spoken about might not be things you’re interested in.

 Just because an element could add to a story doesn’t necessarily mean it’s adding something you want. There’s nothing wrong with deciding that an element doesn’t interest you, takes the story in a direction you like less or causes more stress then you want as you write it.

 Ultimately the question is whether you want to write torture. And there’s no wrong answer to that question.

 I hope that helps. :)

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[whitecatindisguise]

Not Tangled content, but this is something I've started working on few years ago and just... stopped.

It's my original story. For anyone interested, you can take a look at what I've created so far, which is two scenes and a basic plot.

Don't expect seeing anything else of it. I lost the inspiration to write it a long ago. I was just looking through my WIPs and found this one, thought I might as well share it.

<><><><><><><>

The Caretaker

When you think about a caretaker, what do you think about? You’d probably see a person who either manages a building, or takes care of children, when the people responsible, for some reason can't do it themselves. That's what the caretakers usually do, right? Well, not this one.

People call him The Caretaker. No one knows his real name, his age, nor his appearance. He looks different every time people look at him, and no one knows how he does that. All they know is, he will take care of anything they can't or don't want to do. And it's literally anything. Be it simple things like delivering a package, or more dangerous and illegal jobs like smuggling, treason, even murder. You name it. He's been at it for years. No one knows when did he start his "activity", but at this point there are little to no people who didn't use his services at least once.

His prices are not small, but hey, he’s doing the things others won’t, so that’s understandable. He’s pretty satisfied with his job and doesn’t mind getting his hands dirty when the job’s calling for it. He’s never been and never will be caught. He has this one special point in the contract his clients are signing upon their first meeting. And it says ”The Client is not allowed to damage The Caretakers’ reputation in any way, be responsible for his capture or death, nor speak about the details of the meetings with anyone”. And paying the heed to the fact he has contracts signed with everyone who is someone in the whole world, he’s practically untouchable. 

---

“What’s your name, mister?” the little girl is bouncing up and down next to the man.  

“I live in the shadows, no one sees me. I don’t need a name” he replied mysteriously. The girl looked at him confused. Now he looked a little bit different than before.

“What do you mean, mister? I can see you” she said tilting her head. 

“You can see, but you can’t see” came the answer. The girl blinked. This person was so confusing. And looking differently again. How does he do that?, she thought. 

“But still, isn’t it sad, not having a name?” she asked, deciding to let the topic of being seen (or unseen) drop. This was too much for her little brain. “I would be sad, if I wouldn’t be Patricia. Or Patty, for short”

“I didn’t say I don’t have a name” the man said passively. “I just said I don’t need one”

“So you have a name? What is it? Tell me! Tell me! Tell me!” the girl was bouncing up and down again with excitement. 

“You have no need for it, so I won’t” came the reply, and the girl puffed her cheeks in annoyance. 

“Well, I have to call you somehow, mister” a devious smile found its way onto the girl’s face. “Unless you want me to give you one. Something cute and fluffy and lovely and sweet and-”

“They call me The Caretaker” he cut off in the middle of the girl’s rambling. “And you can stick to that”

“Ooh, I know who’s a caretaker” the girl said in a cheerful voice. “They take care of the house or a child”

“I’m not that kind of caretaker” the man denied. 

“I didn’t know there were more types of caretakers” the girl said. “What do you take care of, mister Caretaker?”

“Things other people can’t or don’t want to do” he answered.

“What kind of things?” Patty asked curiously.

“Different things” The Caretaker replied, to which Patty puffed her cheeks again. “Let’s go already”

“Okay…” the girl nodded and bounced forward, keeping close to The Caretaker. The man was confusing her so much. They went on for quite some time in silence, before Patty spoke up again. “Where are we going, mister Caretaker?”

The man sighed internally, annoyed by the girl’s curiosity. 

“To Lyon” he replied briefly, hoping the answer will satisfy the child. 

“Where is that?” she asked, earning a quiet groan from the man. 

“In France, Europe” came the answer. 

“Why do we go there?” - “Some people asked me to bring you to them”

“What people?” - “People you don’t know”

“Why-“ 

“Enough!” the Caretaker cut in, not shouting, but raising his voice high enough for the girl to get startled and stop talking. “No more talking. I prefer silence”

“But-“ the girl tried to argue, but one look from the man’s eyes was enough for her to close her mouth and drop her head, looking at her shoes. He nodded approvingly and they went on in silence. 

--- (basic plot)

The Caretaker got the job of delivering Patty to some cult people. During the journey, they somehow get close to each other, and The Caretaker starts to care about Patty. He opens up to her (just a bit, but still). During the travel they are attacked many times by the assassins, who target Patty and don’t want her to be delivered to the cult. Finally, they learn that the cult wants to use Patty’s powers to sacrifice every citizen of the world (basically - a massive homicide). The Caretaker rescues Patty and kills all the cult members. Then he gives up his job to become Patty’s guardian (she’s an orphan).

--- (some quote from inside the story)

“It’s funny…” the man said, wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth. “She was designed as a weapon. And yet, I’m the one fighting to protect her” 

--- (Last scene)

(at some store, street, or whatever; Patty basically became famous as the girl who almost killed all people in the world)

“You there” someone called out. The girl turned around and looked at the said person. It was another journalist. They’ve been coming and going a lot lately. “You are Patty, right? The girl who almost killed the whole world?”

The question sent another shot of guilt to the girl’s heart. She didn’t want to do that. She was made to do it. Can’t anyone see it? They were just going around and blaming her for the whole situation. 

“Can you just stop putting everything on the little girl?” a familiar voice sounded from behind Patty. She turned around relieved to see The Caretaker making his way toward the journalist. “She’s only 8 years old, for goodness sake! She couldn’t have possibly meant to do anything evil with her powers, yet alone murder the whole world! Which 8-year-old would have thought about that?!” he stopped only millimetres from the journalist’s face and looked him straight in his eyes. “Name one, and I’ll let you continue” he challenged. The journalist gulped, and straightened his posture to make him look more courageous than he really was. 

“A-And who you might be?” he asked, but didn’t manage to hide the stuttering. 

“I’m The Caretaker” the man before him replied in a dead voice. “Her caretaker”

The journalist’s eyes went wide open upon hearing the name. He turned around on his feet and left as quick as he appeared. The Caretaker was looking at him leaving, death in his eyes. Suddenly, he felt a pull on his sleeve. He looked down to see Patty holding him with slightly trembling hand. 

“Mister Caretaker…?” she asked quietly, unsure of his reaction. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath, before opening them again.

“Let’s go already” he smiled a little at the girl. Her eyes sparkled with joy as she bounced up and down while nodding. He chuckled a little at her reaction, but didn’t say anything. He just started walking, and she followed him. Like she always did. 

[fluffyseapancakes]

I wish you would write a fic where… Peter Parker finds out the Reader, the big, scary bully of the school, who's usually cold and intimidating, is completely weak to tickles. Whenever she's tickled, her tough exterior breaks, and she becomes flustered, shy, giggling, snorting mess, and Peter begins to fall for this side of her. He begins to fall HARD

Your wish is my command! That is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard and I just HAD to write it out. I hope you like it!

______________________________________

Students cowered when you walked down the hallway, you heard them whisper about you and stare like you had three heads or something. You really didn’t start out as the school bully, but your brutal sarcasm and short fuse scared everyone away. It didn’t help that you enjoyed wearing t-shirts of death metal bands and was a little heavy handed on your eyeliner, you also had what your brother called a “resting bitch face.” Your parents were shocked when you were accepted into the Midtown School of Science and Technology, and immediately pressured you to attend even though your family couldn’t afford the tuition. Thankfully you were awarded a partial scholarship and your parents happily sent you on your way to find a cure for cancer or whatever. Now let’s recap.

Resting bitch face? Check.

Acne? Check.

Awkward sense of humor? Check.

Wardrobe full of black clothes? Check.

Scholarship student? Check.

You knew you were easily going to be targeted by all the students. At your old public school, you were able to blend in because everyone was more or less similar to you. But at MSST, you knew you were in huge trouble.

On the first day of school, you expected the students to laugh and tease, but to your surprise, they all looked at you with…what was it…fear?

“What band is that?” A dorky looking kid in chemistry pointed at your Cannibal Corpse t-shirt.

“One that your ass can’t handle,” you replied snarkily, not thinking about the words that came out of your mouth. You immediately felt guilty at the hurt expression on the boy’s face but it was too late, the damage was done. Most of the class heard your reply and word spread throughout the school that you were someone not to be messed with. At first you were hurt and ashamed by it, but then you realized, it was better to be feared than to be in fear.

Rumors spread across the school about your history and life at home. The most popular one was that you were part of a Satanic cult and you lived underground where you held ritual sacrifices. Another was that you murdered your family and broke out of a psychiatric unit for criminals and changed your identity. The truth was you lived in a suburban neighborhood with your parents, an older brother, and a younger sister that you loved dearly. Your mom worked late hours waitressing at a diner and your dad was a construction worker, so you essentially raised your sister and your brother dropped out of school to be a mechanic to bring in some extra money. Your family was extremely close-knit and played boardgames every Tuesday.

But of course, no one at school knew the truth.

There was one kid who never contributed to the rumors or looked at you with fear. He was the dork that you snapped at on the first day of school in chemistry class. Other students picked on him often, but you tried to avoid hurting his feelings again. His name was Peter Parker and was the smartest in your classes, you felt his eyes on you every time you entered the classroom or walked down the hallways, it wasn’t the feelings of fear or disgust in his eyes, it was more like curiosity. He was cute in a dorky sort of way and was always kind to everyone, even after getting beaten down by awful words and insults, he had that aura of confidence around him.

“Everyone please partner up, it’s time to do a group activity,” your anatomy and physiology teacher instructed. Your stomach dropped, group activities always brought that shameful and embarrassing feeling when you were the only one left out and the teacher had to put you in a group. You looked around the classroom, seeing that almost everyone had partnered up and were sliding their desks together. Almost everyone except Peter Parker.

“I guess it’s us two,” he chuckled awkwardly. You watched him as he dragged his desk next to yours and sat down on his chair.

“I know that band by the way,” he nodded to your shirt, “Nirvana right?”

You tried not to look impressed and you replied quickly, “Everyone knows Nirvana.”

The week’s unit was on the sensory system and your teacher instructed the groups to touch different areas of the body to decide what type of senses and receptors were used to interpret the stimuli. Everyone started the assignment but you and Peter sat quietly, deciding who was going to make the first move.

“Hold your arm out,” you groaned and picked up your pen. Peter slowly held out his arm and you lightly dragged the tip of your pen across his fair skin. You saw goosebumps appear on the surface and you wrote down your observations on the assignment.

“Okay um, don’t move,” Peter reached out and scribbled his fingertips against your neck, you instinctively scrunched your shoulders and a soft giggle escaped from your lips before you could stop it.

“What was that?” He grinned, writing down something on his page.

“Nothing,” you snapped, “you just surprised me.” You flicked Peter in the forehead and he flinched. “What was that for?” He laughed, you almost smiled at his childish voice but you quickly stopped yourself. “Well it’s the assignment,” you wrote down your observations, “your turn.”

Peter thought for a second and before you could make another harsh remark, he reached over and tweaked your side. You jumped nearly out of your seat and covered your mouth to mute the squeal that escaped from your lips. You heard Peter laughing and he continued to squeeze and poke your sides. You felt laughter bubbling up from your chest as he gained enough confidence to dig into your belly. You slouched over on your desk, shoulders shaking from laughter threatening to burst out from behind your hand.

“P-Peter quit it,” you barely managed to whisper out, squeaking as he tweaked your ribs.

“We need to complete the assignment Y/N,” Peter grinned cheekily, that was the first time you’ve heard him say your name and for some reason that made a warm blush spread onto your cheeks.

You were a giggling mess and what made it worse was that you couldn’t move away or get up without the entire classroom knowing. The last thing you wanted was everyone to see you cackle like an idiot.

Peter shifted his hands back to your sides and dug in a little harder, he heard muffled laughter coming from your mouth and suddenly a snort. It wasn’t loud and he barely heard it, but it was definitely the cutest snort he’s ever heard in his life. He stopped tickling you and you slowly raised your head to look at him, the happy smile and red cheeks made Peter’s heart skip a beat and his cheeks matched the same shade as yours.

“Enough information for you?” You were still giggling hysterically and instead of sounding scary, you ended up sounding like a flirty school girl.

“Yeah,” Peter coughed, you noticed that his face was bright red and his legs were getting twitchy under the desk.

“That’s enough for today, please turn in your assignments at the front and have a good weekend,” your teacher clapped his hands loudly and announced to the classroom. Peter shot up from his desk and basically ran out the door, tossing the assignment haphazardly on the table. You were left sitting there confused. What is wrong with him?

Peter escaped from the classroom and took a deep breath, he still felt his face burning as he texted Ned: dude i think i like y/n.

[bornoffireandwisdom]

What are your OCs?

My favourite OC 1. Vincent Mercelc Belladonna: The Omen Child, a boy born with violet eyes, one could say he was marked by death. Horrible things always seem to happen when's he's around.. In reality, he's just a little orphan who wants a family. However his odd demeanour and his 'gifts' usually scare people away. Age: 8.

-Game: Skyrim.

2. Raven Antonis: My very first Skyrim OC. He grew up in a coven of necromancers, who are seeking to bring back an old cult known as: 'The Order of the Black Worm' (the order is real in the Elder Scrolls games) Basically Raven is an optimistic, happy-go-lucky Necromancer protege, with snow-white hair and lavender coloured eyes. Ever since he was a toddler he could raise the dead, making him seen as God-like among the others in the coven (Which has been re-building for two hundred years. Making then have many members) Due to constantly witnessing death since he was small, he became completely desensitized and extreme naive. He believes that the murdering and kidnapping of humans for sacrifices is for the greater good, due to his mother constantly lying to him. (She is the leader of cult.) He has a little brother, who didn't have powers suited for necromancers, instead his powers were much more suited as an assassin. The child wasn't naive like his older brother so he tried to convince Raven that their mother was not to be trusted. So she took him outside the cave they used as a hideout and took him into the cold of Winterhold. Leaving the small boy for dead, he was only six. Raven was seven. The fate of his little brother is unknown, though many have claimed to see a strange boy, every now and then. Searching for the hideout to rescue Raven. (Actually I've been building onto that story for two years, but there's way too much to talk about so I need to get on with the others.) (Due to a large time-skip) Age: 17 but should be 18 soon.

3. Tevylin Gavori: A dark elf, 18 years of age. His mother and father were murdered by the Morag Tong (Although I'm not sure if the Morag Tong is still around in the events of Skyrim do it might just be the Dark Brotherhood instead), along with his twin brother. He was five at the time. Due to the dark elves having a natural gift for fire-magic, he burned the house down with the murderers still inside. Escaping with his baby sister Ilmeia Gavori. He and his twin were happy little pranksters before the killings. He went through a complete personality change after, going from a sweet boy into a grim and depressed individual. His little sister is now 15 years-old and she was striken blind during the fire.

There are many other Skyrim OCs but some of them have names that are hard to spell. Lol 😆

-Game: Fallout 4.

C6-37 (Simon): An escaped synth from the Institute. He made friends with a vault dweller from vault 81, in the commonwealth. Loves fancy lad snack cakes. Tries very hard to keep the fact that he's a synth a secret, for the fear of his friends thinking that he is a spy from the institute. Often has to hide from institute Gen 1 and 2 synths, and sometimes Coursers. Biological age: 19.

Charlie Evans: Vault 81 dweller. Decided to leave to explore the commonwealth with his friend Isabella. Eventually meeting the synth named Simon. (he came up with it himself) They met when they were he and Isabella were exploring an old pre-war ruin, deciding to sleep in an abandoned house for the night, since it was in pretty good condition. Accidentally stumbling upon the synth who was hiding there. Becoming fast friends. Age: 17.

I still have more but it's just too much to write. Lol 😆

Sorry if these characters are really stupid.. lol I have a very active imagination. Though seriously I'm very sorry if these are OCs stupid..