#again i would like to stress this is just a sample. there are so many other fics i could've recced (and still might!)

[alaynestone]

FIC RECS for @spnficrecfest - august 10-12 aus and crossovers

i'm attempting to limit myself to just one small sample of the fics that could be recced in every category so that my list is more easily digestible. it's a given that many good fics will be left out but if we keep this up they will have their turn later.

always-a-girl dean winchester

carmen and the devil by glorious_spoon (gen) John raises his daughters in the life.

you feel your heart taking root in your body by paxlux (sam/dean) Then, he can see again, she’s stepped away, taking her little hands with her.

everlovin' baby series by paxlux (sam/dean) This is like premeditated murder. This is like a crime of passion. This is like a suicide pact.

denial series by badbastion (sam/dean) This is another stupid game to her, Dee teasing her little brother. It’s a prank, it’s a game of chicken, just… upped uncomfortably to include sex.

you're the only one that's mine by riyku (sam/dean) Dean gets injured on a hunt and Sam has to patch her up. Things get a little out of hand.

bloodletting by adastreia (sam/dean) Sam's jonesing for blood. Deanna's on her period.

madonna by hellhoundsprey (sam/dean) Things used to be easier. This is on Sam.

my heart's staying put by grim_lupine (sam/dean) It's like Deanna’s been asleep for four years, traversing the highways of her life on autopilot, every joy and every pain muted and numbed. In the months since she got Sam back she's been coming to life slowly, with the pins-and-needles tingling of a deadened limb awakening.

take off my flesh and sit in my bones by oxoniensis (sam/dean) Tiny breasts, like sandcastles washed over by the tide, tan soft and warm like sand; body still bones and promise.

long as i remember (the rain been coming down) by phoenixflight (sam/dean) Deanna’s cycle had always been obvious to Sam.

buccaneer by deadlybride (dean/crowley, dean/omc, sam/dean) With a new Knight of Hell at his side, Crowley should be attending to business. Instead, he's focused on one thing.

the shout of heavy guilt by astoryandasong (dean/castiel) Sometimes you have to live the story.

as we go along and making it up by aesc (dean/castiel) The world didn't end, and sometimes that freaks her out.

like it's the end of the world by xxamlaxx (sam/dean, john/dean, dean/others) Fifty sentences that span pre-series up to the end of season 3.

everybody else's girl by mona1347 (sam/dean) Back when they were kids, Dee would hold and rock him, pseudo-motherhood awkward and too big on the little girl she was.

daddy's little girl series by amiwritesthings (john/dean, sam/dean, sam/dean/john) John and Deanna, through the years.

a simple motion by chinablue (john/dean, dean/others) But watching her - watching her is different. Watching isn't touching, and there's no law against that.

i'll be your mirror by chinablue (john/dean) The girl in his bed isn’t quite his wife, but in the glowy relative darkness she has room to morph.

the found song by necrotype (dean/rhonda, dean/others) It takes a long time to feel content (a disjointed story in five parts).

[studentbyday]

how to survive a full course load in uni as a highly-sensitive person

wanted to try this kind of "advice" post / letter to past me as a premed student who also happens to be an HSP that sometimes struggles to regulate her emotions and is frequently overwhelmed by little things... this is a combo of things i'm glad i did in uni and what hindsight tells me i should've done... i hope that if any of this sounds relevant to you, whether you feel like you're an HSP or not, that you're able to take something useful away from it. and please feel free to reblog with your own tips/advice if you feel i missed something here! i'm just a sample size of 1.

part 1:

If you felt overwhelmed by your course load in high school, for the love of God, don't take the maximum (or “recommended���, which is the maximum at my uni) course load in your first year just to “graduate on time.” Take enough courses each semester that you feel the tingles of a challenge, but don't go overboard. You must feel the “tingles” so that you will be forced to find ways to adapt (i, at least, find it very diffcult to make myself get out of my comfort zone unless given no other option), but don't go to the extreme of taking on too much that you're silent screaming in panic more than you're getting things done. If you're not sure how many courses to enroll in, enroll in as many as you want, and if you find it too much, you can drop as many as you need to by the appropriate deadlines. Also, you may feel resistance to “lowering your standards” as you switch up your study methods to account for the much greater amount of material you need to cover, especially if you're an HSP who struggles with perfectionism, but just stick with it for a little while. You're so much more than a number or letter or percentage mark on an assignment or test, and you may find you're still able to consistently achieve all that you had wanted to in the academic realm. Perhaps you'll even find you're able to complete your work with greater calm and ease if you stick with it long enough. i say this as an hsp who still gets stressed by school but now has enough confidence to more easily calm myself down because i know i can still make it with imperfect study methods and because of that, i can do things with greater ease and apparently get on the dean's list not once but freakin’ twice during my degree?!?!?! i just got the email this week! and whaaaaaaa

If you followed tip #1, try slowly increasing the number of courses you take per semester. You're capable of more than you think. Life will throw you so many more curveballs and responsibilities as you get on, and the overwhelm may be demoralizing but you were meant to live. So, the earlier you train yourself to stop freaking out about each addition to your plate*, the easier it will be and the more confident in yourself you'll feel. In first year, I was overwhelmed with 3 courses per semester, and so in second year, I dropped to 2 and found it to be too little. In third year, I did 3 per semester and found it to be just right. Now, I'm doing 4 per semester and it's like first year all over again except I'm handling a fuller plate. And experimenting with taking 4 courses per semester and finding it's not the death sentence I thought it would be is giving me the confidence I need to take 5 courses per semester next year, my final year. ☺️ Ideally, I would've stuck with 3 in my second year and started on 4 in my third year, so I could even graduate sooner, but still, that's growth right there! And if some rando on the internet can do it, you can too! (* okay, you might not stop freaking out but you will be able to calm yourself down faster the more you practice, which is such a big ace for anyone, hsp or not!)

Please don't feel pressured to do all the social things immediately like joining all the clubs and societies and and high-energy social gatherings/parties. Please also don't feel guilty or blame yourself for not engaging in any or all of these, especially if you feel like you aren't living the “uni life” you want. You'll be here for what, 2, 3, or more years? That's a ton of time! Gradually add the extracurriculars as you feel ready (as in your academic life doesn't feel like a game of hot potato) and only as you feel so called to it that you're sure you're gonna regret it someday if you don't take the chance.

On a related note, don't feel like you have to do everything all at once. Some people take the maximum course load and somehow excel in a bunch of extracurricular activities at the same time while functioning on 5-7 hours of sleep. If that's not you, don't sweat it. Maybe you can adjust your schedule so that in one semester you focus more on academics and in the next, you focus more on the extracurriculars you need to feed your soul and boost your resumé.

SELF-CARE IS SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT THAN (some) PEOPLE GIVE IT CREDIT FOR — DON'T YOU DARE DROP SELF-CARE IN FAVOR OF “PRODUCTIVITY.” (tbh i still struggle with this, BUT!) Ignore all the people who brag about how little sleep they got the night before the exam. Ignore all the people who brag about not having time to take care of their health in favor of completing another assignment or participating in some coveted extracurricular. Make an exercise plan for the kind of workout that rejuvenates you and follow through on it (except when too ill and tired...you'll know when you need to take a rest day, so listen to your body), whether it's yoga, dance, HIIT, slow pilates, weights, or whatever! And sleep a tonnnn. Sleep earlier than you feel you "should" (given that uni students seem to love to keep odd hours...and that habit may rub off on you as it did on me). Give yourself at least an hour to wind down from all the stimulants of the day (tbh sometimes i need 2 or more hours to finally feel relaxed enough after a long day)... don't subject yourself to the stimulant of your phone (if you happen to see this during your wind-down time, take this as your signal to GET THE FRICK OFF THE PHONE 😂). Take naps or just lie down and relax in bed as needed, especially if you feel you're fighting the flu or covid or whatnot. Take the time to have a nice, hot (or cold, depending on your personal preference 😅) shower or a simple, relaxing bath. Meditate when you need some quiet time, maybe try it in the dark if you feel you just really need to soothe your senses. Journal. Every. Day. At least for me, even if I feel my thoughts are mundane, somehow it helps keep me sane, especially when I have no one to talk to because everyone else around me is busy... (If even for one week I neglect basic self-care, I feel physically terrible which makes me feel mentally terrible and then I'm of no use to myself or anyone else! It isn't selfish or narcissistic and it definitely doesn't have to be expensive. Self-care really works wonders for stress levels and sustainable functioning, sometimes in really subtle ways.)

part 2: (did not know about tumblr's character limit for a single block. that's the only reason this second part exists otherwise it would all be in the same list lol)

When on the verge of panic-crying in defeat but you still need to push through or miss important deadlines, try studying to calming music/ambiences that are still stimulating enough to occupy the frazzled part of your brain that keeps you from functioning 😅 I suppose it's like a lullaby except for studying... 😅 One that worked for me last night was this one and a favorite since my high school days was this one. (What Elaine Aron said about water being really calming seems to be true for some reason and I have no idea why it works so well but it does so I'm rollin’ with it.)

Find small, low-effort creative outlets to release the restless energy that comes from creative needs neglected. Especially useful if you feel stuck in “left-brain” activities for most of the day and don't have much energy for your preferred creative outlets that ask more of you (also yes ik the whole left brain/right brain thing is a myth but idk how to concisely describe the bodily feeling bc it does feels like different parts of my brain are used for logical vs creative activities lol). I like to make wallpapers on Canva using the too many pics I download from the internet (istg I've probably changed my wallpaper at least once for every week since the start of term lol) and I guess I also make ugly comics when the mood strikes 😂

Take frequent, extended breaks from social media. This probably doesn't apply to only HSPs but I find that on the days I scroll a lot, create content for, or consume a lot of social media content in addition to all the things that go on in my real world, I get extra frazzled and tired. I think because of the depth of processing that comes with being HSP, we need to be extra mindful of where we put our energy and attention. Some of the mental health benefits I wasn't sure were true for me before I did a social media detox: at least for me, the peace and clarity of mind I get from it is unmatched! Imagine a world with less FOMO/toxic comparison, less guilt resulting from that, less of feeling like you're just very unaesthetic and dull irl, less guilt resulting from that, less time wasted, less guilt resulting from that. Less extraneous emotional clouding -> better judgment. Such a weight off just by hitting “sign out.”

Clean your workspace either before you study or after you study to have a clear mind. (Yeah, that's another a cliché but we HSPs tend to be more affected by our physical environments and we just gotta accept that and so keeping clean and, for me at least, minimalist, does wonders for my peace of mind 😊)

Don't be afraid to ask for help. You might feel like since you're a legal adult, you should be able to do everything by yourself all the time and not have to bother anyone. But the wise who have been legal adults for ages know that they can't do it all alone. So: do you need an extension on an assignment? Do you need help balancing your chores and schoolwork? Ask for help when you need it! It is not a sign of failure.

If you can, it might help to find yourself an inanimate study buddy 🧸 if you feel you need extra cozy/calming chemicals in your brain while you study 😅

Last but not least, if you have trouble regulating your emotions and fall into the pessimistic trap like I do sometimes, this may help:

If you would like a wallpaper version, here are two for different phone sizes lol:

[thecapricunt1616]

Kinktober Day 6 🎃

𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐫𝐛 (𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐮𝐭): “The- the letter- the letter you sent me, ‘I’m too broken to love you anymore’ ‘you need someone who can love you how you love me’ ‘find something better’ “ you repeat, tears brimming your eyes and he crinkles his brows in that way you missed so much. He shook his head quickly 

𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞: Eeee! Welcome to day 6 of Kinktoberrrrr! Thank you so much for all of the heartwarming love on the fics so far! If you'd like to see my schedule/masterlist for this celebration click right 🎃here🎃; & if you'd like to also check out my masterlist for Promptober 2024 click right 🦇here🦇. & If you'd like to be added to the taglist for either celebration, comment on the according masterlist & I will add you!I kind of hate this one but fuck it lol! 𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭:1.2k 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐖𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: Angst, Implied Smut, Swearing, No use of y/n 𝐃𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐭𝐬: @/𝐒𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐢𝐤𝐚-𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐬

You sighed deeply as you unlocked the door to your new apartment, conveniently the box you were holding full of new pottery samples you’d made fell off your hip to the floor and crashed with an awful cracking glass noise. 

“FUCK!” You shouted in frustration, looking at the tiny broken pieces spilling out of the cracks in the box. The door next to yours cracked open. 

“What the fuck how many times have I said I work until fuckin 3 in the-“ he stops when he meets your eyes. 

“Bunny” he said softly. You felt equally as frozen, staring at him wide eyed and gawked. 

“B-bear?” You stuttered out. 

Your first love. 

“What the fuck ‘re you doin’ here, Bun?” He breathed, the most confused he’d ever sounded. 

“Uh- um- what are you doing-“

“I live here?” He said defensively and your cheeks feel a rush of heat. “Fuck- I-I’ll call the landlord first thing M’sorry- I-I’ll cancel this I’ll get an air bnb when he gives me my security back- I’m so sorry- I won’t bother you p-please I’m- I didn’t follow you- I’m not- I’m not what you think I am” you unlocked your door with shaking hands and quickly open it. 

“See? Empty! Wasn’t a plan! Gonna move out asap” you pick up the lease agreement from the counter, ripping it in half. “Null and void- I promise Carmy, I promise” you assured, walking forward and gently nudging him out the door where he followed you. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He breathed, grabbing your wrist as you went to shove him back into the hall again. You stilled, shocked. 

“What are you talking about?” You asked, resting your hands by your sides, panting at the stressed enraged feeling that had bubbled inside of you seeing him again. He had send you a letter, a long, painful, letter- in short about how he can’t ever heal the pain of being rejected by his father so viscerally, He couldn’t ever get passed Mikey’s death- and that means someone like you who was so kind and understanding didn’t deserve someone like him who ‘couldn’t love you properly in his brokenness’. 

It absolutely crushed you to receive it, you cried, and cried, reading it night after night, wishing he would call you and change his mind. 

That never happened though, and in his letter he specifically asked you to never call, or try to reach out- because it would be better for you, and your biggest fear was him now thinking that you followed him, after learning that he was back in Chicago- even though you just were learning now that he was back. 

“What - what fuckin letter - what are you talking about?” He asked genuinely confused and you shake your head, putting your hands up in confusion 

“The- the letter- the letter you sent me, ‘I’m too broken to love you anymore’ ‘you need someone who can love you how you love me’ ‘find something better’ “ you repeat, tears brimming your eyes and he crinkles his brows in that way you missed so much. He shook his head quickly 

“No. No. I- I never sent that-“ he muttered “I- I never sent that. I - I left that in my desk- at home-“ he swallowed thickly. “When did you get that?” He stepped forward and you took a step back, shaking your head and swallowing, nearly breathless as tears fall down your cheeks. 

“I- I got it when you moved - like 3 weeks after you left me. And you didn’t fucking say anything like- like we meant nothing. And that’s when I knew. You really didn’t fucking care” you sniffled, quickly wiping your tears and anger growing. 

“Bunny- I never would have sent it. It was just- it was just in case. I couldn’t fucking bring myself to do it” he took another step forward “you have to believe me, bun” he said softly. You shook your head again and push past him, rushing to the kitchen to get a glass of water before you threw up. You had grieved, you had been angry, you had fucked random people to simply get over him. And here he was, standing in your apartment, telling you that he never meant it. 

“Who sent it?” You asked after you downed half a glass, slightly panting from stress and gulping down so much at once. 

“I don’t fucking know- I- I left it, in my fucking desk right next to my school shit- my yearbook…it- it had all the shit, it was addressed it had a stamp- I just couldn’t fucking do it. It had to have been mom.” He came over, gently touching your arm and you flinch away, knowing if you let him touch you, that you would break. 

“Why did you never call?” You asked, voice weak and quiet. 

“I thought you wouldn’t pick up- I- I wasn’t thinking when I left, I thought you’d fucking hate me.” He reached out and touched your arm. “Y’gotta believe me, Squish” he said and your lip began to quiver. 

“You stopped loving me when you left, Bear” You whisper and he shook his head, pushing your hair back from your shoulder. 

“Nothing could ever make that happen.” He gently wiped your tears “I’m so fucking sorry I hurt you” he said softly. You shut your eyes, taking a deep quivering breath, taking in the scent of his new unfamiliar cologne and the same American spirits that come in the yellow pack. 

“You don’t wear 4711 anymore” you looked up at him with teary eyes and he swallowed thickly. 

“Can’t uh….I can’t. Not anymore, yeah.” He cleared his throat, stroking your jaw with his thumb. “I’m sorry- you gotta believe I’m sorry” he said softly and you wrap your hand around his, curling your fingers around his palm and you sniffled 

“Is what you said true, you never stopped?” You whispered and he looked down at you for a long moment before leaning in, resting his forehead on yours 

“Let me show you” he muttered before bringing his lips to yours. You practically melted into him, the feeling of his lips on yours again after so long sending sparks of lust and joy and love shooting through your chest. You could barely hold back the moan that fell from your throat at the feeling.

You couldn’t stop yourself from wrapping your arms around the back of his neck and giving in, once he touched you again, it felt like you never wanted him to let go. The kiss got more heated, more hot, more needy. When you finally disconnected your lips to breathe, he got straight to work kissing down your neck with fevor, nipping and sucking at the skin.

“Please baby - let me show you - I missed you so fuckin much” he breathed into your neck, rucking up your fall sweater and running his calloused hands over your ribs and hips, squeezing the flesh of your love handles - you couldn’t help but whine. You were torn, he could up and leave again- he could tell you right after the entire thing was a mistake, that he really never wanted to see you again, but if this was your only chance to get a proper goodbye, you would take it. 

“Fine…Show me how sorry you are” 

Fin

Tag List: @carmenberzattosgf - @daysofyellowroses - @mouseymilkovich - @gallaghersgal - @carmybrainworms - @maggiesarchives - @l4long-winded - @babyspiderling - @southsideserendipity - @djlnkaled

[qm-vox]

Man Who Talk To God Have Difficult Life - Playing Clerics In D&D

(St. Nokta Kinslayer, whom you'll meet further down in the article. Art by the esteemed @druid-for-hire who quite frankly cannot be thanked enough!)

Guess who's back motherfuckers. When they ask how I died, tell them, still angry. After the paladin article I asked around about classes to cover "next" and got a lot of requests; rogue, warlock, sorcerer, so of course I have elected to be a good friend by losing my will to live for months on end and then doing none of those. Let's talk Clerics, shall we? I'll not lie to you, this is going to be an angrier article than the paladin one, in no small part because it's inevitably going to go into contentious ideas like alignment, fantasy religion, and others that the player base has been knife fighting about since mammoths still walked the Earth. There are going to be moments when I look y'all in the eyes and say with my metaphorical human mouth that the problem is you Doing It Wrong, and I can only ask that you hear me out. Not to assign you homework about my fuckin' cleric article or anything, but the one I previously did about The Many may be helpful here as well. There's going to be a bit of a focus on D&D 5e here, and I'll be frank about that: most people are playing 5e these days, and as I'll be arguing further down, Pathfinder's take on Clerics and more broadly on faith are a worthless poison that actively worsens the world.

This article's title is drawn from Small Gods by the esteemed Sir Professor Terry Pratchett. As always, credit goes to Afroakuma for teaching me a great deal of the examples I'm going to give, though citing specific sources are going to be difficult as many of the books in question have been out of print for decades and I am neither an academic nor a machine.

Now for the obligatory Content Warnings. We're looking at discussion of fantasy religion & comparisons to real-world religion, violence, discussions of atrocities such as torture, desecration of the dead, and destruction of culture, as well as traumatic deaths/backstories for the sample clerics at the end. As mentioned above, there is also going to be some alignment discourse. You have been warned; do as thou wilt.

Without further ado, let us begin with...

O Mighty Smiter - Clerics Through D&D's History

We begin the obligatory text wall.

Clerics have been here since the beginning. They were around back when "Elf" was a class, and while their history is complex it has, eternally, been colored by the bit where Cleric has an inherent identity problem. In many ways it is, as a class, too broad, so wide-open that getting something coherent out of it is an exercise in frustration or even futility. It'll be easier to talk about what Clerics aren't than what they are, and oh boy, will I. A brief note here: while Druid is going to come up in the context of 1e and 2e, and again a bit later when I start talking about priests (yeah, that's a separate conversation, we're gonna get there), this article is not otherwise dedicated to Druid. I'm gonna need a significant amount of whiskey for both me and my priestess before we god damn go there.

AD&D 1e and 2e: Deus Vult - Do the world a favor if you ever pass near Gary Gygax's grave: piss on it. Ol' Gary G rooted Cleric in his classic blend of obsession with medieval ideas and piss-poor research, invoking many myths about priests of the Crusades and applying them as a one-size-fits-all vision of war-clergy of Every God. He would personally run into problems with this in his own writing before he got out of the game, and rather quickly at that, as he tried to write faiths whose imagery and ideals did not fit the Crusader Priest ideal, but since he was, and I cannot stress this enough, a hack with all the morals and emotional intelligence of mustard gas, he never quite solved those problems for himself. I'll hop off my screed now, I just want this said up front, especially since it's the fundamental evil that chases Cleric to this day.

The O.G. Cleric was described as a melee combatant that took a close second-place to Fighter in that arena, with proficiency in heavy armor and a variety of useful weapons, though they were forbidden from using "edged weapons that spill blood" (there's those Crusader myths). Random fun fact, the very first incarnation of Cleric only had spells up to 7th level, but the level tables for their class went up to level 29 or so, and man, ain't that just wild. As your Cleric gained levels they also became more highly placed in the church of their god, eventually hitting High Priest and just kinda sitting there as they leveled up. Interesting note here: Clerics couldn't be Neutral (that is, not Lawful, Chaotic, Good, or Evil) back in the day, and instead anyone wanting to run a Neutral Cleric had to take a subclass you might have heard of by the name of Druid, which in turn eventually had to face other Druids in SINGLE COMBAT in order to level up past a certain point. Why? I don't know. Summon Gygax's ghost and ask him between rounds of spiritual torture. This original version of Cleric had Turn Undead, a feature that's been attached to almost all Clerics by some name or another in all of their incarnations, and boy, Turn Undead used to be fucking wild. Roll a dice, consult a table based on your result and your level, and end up Turning or Destroying a number of very specific kinds of undead. AD&D 2e would put "undead gods" on this list starting at 13th level or so, and let me tell you: this came up in published material more often than you might think. Last but not least, like most characters back in 1e and 2e, Clerics eventually got to run a building full of people. At first the Cleric attracted about 20-200 "fanatics" who would work for free and help them build a shrine (no word on how TF you feed and water these fanatics) but eventually was given the right to build a proper castle-temple and produce 1 silver per month per resident via "trade, taxes, tariffs". Ladies and gentlemen, D&D.

Aside from the aforementioned alterations to Turn Undead, AD&D 2e introduced a concept known as Spheres to Cleric casting. Now, stop me if you've heard this before: each god gave access to 1 or more Spheres, which were specific lists of spells that their Clerics had access to (fun fact, Paladin casting was "as Cleric of 9 levels lower", but only with access to specific Spheres). So if you worshiped, say, Lathander, you had access to Healing, Sun, Divination, and IIRC a couple of others, and that's it, that's the whole ticket. Now, you may remember Kits from the Paladin article, and Clerics did have some of that action, but more than that they had "specialty priests", a sort of even-more-hardcore version of this whole proto-Domain deal; a Specialty Priest had different class features in comparison to normal Cleric, and access to different or more Spheres, both of which were determined by their god. Each Specialty Priest was, in its way, its own separate subclass of Cleric and if you published a god back in the day you had to get one of these installed. Were they all good? No. Fuck no. God no. Are you kidding me? But they were often very distinctive.

This doesn't get talked about a lot, at least not until we hit Pathfinder, but Clerics have had codes of conduct like Paladins for as long as they've existed, sort of atomized across their various gods. The rules around these have always been vague, and rarely culturally enforced in the player communities, but they did and do exist. A cleric of Kelemvor raising a zombie has done a bit of a blasphemy; raising a ghoul or vampire probably entails divine retribution, a reduction in character level, or even the loss of their powers. Oh, and other gods are probably trying to court you since clearly you're looking for new management and a trained cleric is a resourced that's hard to pass up.

No version of Cleric has ever particularly had a strong identity, but this original version may have been the closest to having one...because it's bad. To the credit of 1e and 2e, the eventual installation of Nonweapon Proficiencies, later to become the Skills system, did let them be competent as actual like, priests? Cleric got access to the stuff needed to actually minister as a spiritual leader with some extra socked away to practice sacred arts related to their god (ex. bookbinding for a cleric of Denier) and maybe even some god damn hobbies too. But outside of the ever-more-niche & esoteric arena of specialty priests, themselves presented as particular fanatics, agents, or chosen ones, every cleric was a Crusader, and every god's clergy were war-priests. And that's weird, right? And so now we must move on to the demon that never dies.

D&D 3.5: The Word Of My God Is 'Begone' - Quick question, have you ever wanted to roleplay someone perceptive but otherwise deeply stupid and utterly incompetent to move unsupervised through human society, who is, nonetheless, OMNIPOTENT? Welcome to the 3.5 Cleric, one of THE casters of all time in the absolute Caster Supremacy Edition. I hope you came ready to hear casual mentions of mechanics that would make a Victorian occultist cry. If you go looking at the class page for Cleric you might notice there's both jack and shit there, and for my readers who got into D&D at 5e the following might be a bit of a shock: Cleric was one of the strongest classes in 3.5.

In terms of the actual mechanics related to Cleric in 3.5, Turn or Rebuke Undead and spontaneous casting were some of the big ones. Well, "big" ones; Turn Undead qua Turn Undead was actually kind of shit and would often just not actually like...turn...the undead, but the charges of Turn Undead a Cleric kept around could be used for many other options that permitted alternate spending, notably here to include Divine Metamagic. These alternate spends were better than using Turn Undead for its actual intended purpose more or less always, and Divine Metamagic (DMM) in particular was an unholy monstrosity that underlied a lot of Cleric's power later in 3.5's run, letting them customize their prepared spells on the fly without having to use up higher-level spell slots. Now, I really cannot stress this enough: Cleric was one of the most powerful classes in core alone, without adding any supplements. DMM and similar options made Cleric even stronger but they were very much gilding the lily, to be frank. "Hey Vox why are you saying this," you would not believe the number of ignorant pricks who made a literal moral crusade out of going to "core only" in 3.5 claiming it made for a better balanced game. The good version of 3.5 has never existed, destroy anyone who claims otherwise.

Where was I - spontaneous casting, yes. Now, Clerics were still prepared casters, they had X spell slots every day at very specific levels and had to pick specific spells to fill them. That is, if you want to cast create water more than once in a given day, you need to memorize create water more than once that day. However, Clerics could convert a spell of any level to either cure wounds or inflict wounds of the same level, depending on the alignment of the Cleric (Good Clerics Turn Undead and cure wounds, Evil Clerics Rebuke Undead and inflict wounds, and Neutral Clerics not otherwise restricted by their god get to pick one for their entire career). This gave 3.5 Cleric a lot of flexibility, very valuable flexibility in a game environment where casting a heal mid-combat was basically always the wrong move, but out-of-combat healing was still an invaluable resource. RIP to Evil Clerics though, inflict sucked ass.

Lastly, we have domains. Now, if you check through the domain list on the SRD you may notice that they are rather less defining than the 5e Domains, granting a single power apiece and a list of spells you get access to. Most gods in 3.5 granted access to 3+ Domains, and their Clerics got to pick 2; together, these are the "kind" of Cleric you are, the aspects of your god that you kinda embody which then shape your power. Clerics got special extra spell slots solely for Domain spells in addition to their usual progression, and could memorize these Domain spells in normal slots as well. 3.5's list of Domains was deep and wide to the point of self-parody, and the power that gave a player to customize their Cleric's aesthetic and mechanics could be immense. Sure, many Domains were much weaker than others (Magic Domain is bonkers and that asshole is in core) but ultimately every Domain is stapled to Cleric, and since Clerics don't learn spells, only memorize them, there's a floor as to how weak you can possibly be.

So, what are your restrictions on Cleric? Not many. Non-War Domain Clerics had a sort of mid list of weapon options, sure, but if you're not casting you're playing wrong already so who gives a shit. Heavy armor and full access to shields meant a lot of build flexibility as far as that goes, so no problems here. The biggest thing is that a Cleric needed to be, and remain, within one alignment "step" of their god, plus or minus any other specific restrictions. That is, a Cleric of Liira, who is Chaotic Good, must be Neutral Good, Chaotic Good, or Chaotic Neutral; becoming Lawful Good, True Neutral, Chaotic Evil, etc would result in losing all Cleric powers and being unable to take Cleric levels until they fixed their shit or found a new god. Strictly speaking, these Clerics could/would still Fall a la paladins if they sufficiently blasphemed against or angered their god, but in practice this sort of thing was just...not common.

This is the section where I would talk about other divine classes in 3.X but honestly they were all so god damn weird and specific that no comparison really could be made. Shugenja, for instance, just isn't cognate to Cleric. The closest thing is the Healer class, no points for guessing what their deal is, but the thing with Healer is they have more in common with paladin, so like. Cleric or bust baby, welcome to fucktown.

Which brings us back to what Cleric was like narratively, the answer to which is: confused. The thing is...Clerics have always, likely will always, want high Wisdom, which makes them perceptive, good at detecting lies, weirdly talented at handling animals, competent to navigate the wilderness, and also I just described a Disney Princess. The trouble is, nearly everything else is strictly secondary. Every caster wants and needs Constitution in 3.X so they can make those Concentration checks and also, you know, not die, so okay, you're perceptive and you can hold your liquor, but after that nothing else matters. On the one hand, this makes for a great deal of versatility in terms of your ability scores, but on the other hand Cleric had 2+Int skill points per level on the most dog shit skill list in the game so being a very smart Cleric rarely bought you anything. Higher Charisma could be cool, but hey, see that skill list? It's still shit, and if you aren't also buying Intelligence you quite literally can't afford to keep up the social skill tax. A true war-priest wants Dexterity so they can act before their enemies and command the battlefield but that's more or less all you buy out of Dexterity on Cleric so congratulations, you're an almighty quickdraw and also illiterate. "What about Strength," what about it.

I really cannot overstate the paralyzing nature of that skill list, because priests - which 3.5 wanted Clerics to be, which it thinks they are - need more of them than most people think. A proper spiritual leader needs to buy up Insight, Knowledge (Religion), Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (Nobility), and Persuasion at a minimum, and they sure do also want Intimidate and Perception. You get two of those. Two. Just two. If you buy up Intelligence after you eat your vegetables like a good player, you maybe get to buy four of those. And that's it, that's all you fucking get. Clerics are not competent to be priests, which is going to be true of them going forward from this edition on. Now, I'm painting with a relatively broad brush here, and there's definitely religions on Earth these days which did, or still do, separate out roles that might reasonably be called a priest & Cleric vs. those roles that are community leaders and interpreters of doctrine and law, but there's a shocking amount of "here's my vision of what priests are and do" that Cleric wants to be, and isn't, because of this whole fucking deal.

But while 3.5 was extremely blind to the bit where Clerics just were not what it thinks priests are any more, it was very much not blind to the terror and power of their spellcasting. A high-level cleric, in the narrative of any given setting, is a terrifying force - an army unto themselves, a one-woman political bloc whose existence is an implicit threat of violence on a civilizational scale. I didn't spill all that ink about the power and mechanics of Cleric up there for nothing; 3.5 was very interested in how those mechanics could manifest within the narrative, how they are inextricably bound to said narrative. Hell, in Expedition to Undermountain alone the backstory of the dungeon includes one non-relevant sect of Clerics who was, in-universe, trying to game the spell slot system, alongside another unrelated sect that the PCs trip over by accident and fight inside their half-constructed fortress of partially undead bone which they control via Rebuke Undead.

Lemme say that again just for emphasis: there's an adventure where an accidental encounter is a long siege through a half-animated evil fortress that can be controlled through pure divinity, which was invented because its builders, in-universe, were trying to optimize their power and create an advantage they could control but their enemies couldn't. And this is just my favorite example, it's hardly the only one. Even the fucking novels got in on this sort of thing. We all joke about how wizards have no rights, because they don't, but watch a Cleric hit level 7 or so and you'll realize quickly that they are becoming something to which mortal laws are more like polite suggestions. Nor is this necessarily solely the sign of greater favor and thus potentially restriction from their god; indeed, a Cleric has to bring things to the table themself, narratively speaking! Divine spellcasting is a real skillset that you get better at with practice and experience, and part of the reason higher level Clerics get so much attention from other gods - aside from the obvious "this person can solo an army and still go home in a mood to have sex with their wife" angle - is that a skilled Cleric is a rare resource worth stealing.

Overall, 3.5's vision of Cleric is perhaps the one that suffers most from Cleric's identity-draining lack of specificity. Its Clerics were powerful, but they were also largely all the same; they could change their spells every day, but that only really meant that your list of spells doesn't really matter beyond personal preference. Domains offered some customization, but they didn't go far enough, and indeed if they were to go far enough the all-consuming might of Cleric would only be even more flagrant. So let's return to the most honest edition of D&D, shall we?

D&D 4e: Healer Calls The Shots - There are a lot of reasons that D&D 4e was born dead, and a big one is that classes with healing abilities were labeled 'leaders'. This seems absurd these days, especially if you're into esports at all; the support player being the team leader has become accepted strategy in a variety of games, in no small part because one simply cannot win without them, and yet at the time the D&D fanbase - still in an awkward transitional period of nerd masculinity that I don't have the time or the PhD to write about - rebelled against this concept with fountaining violence. The "girlfriend classes", leaders? Absurd. Preposterous. Clearly Sir Dipshit the Fighter with no mental stats or applicable skills is the leader.

I'm not fucking bitter, you are.

So what was Cleric's deal, exactly? Cleric qua Cleric was a Leader, as mentioned before, that could primarily be built either as a scrappy melee type or a more hard-support implement caster. "What's an implement caster?" glad you asked; back in 4e you had to hold a casting implement to cast your spells, something like a rod, staff, wand, holy symbol, your mother's haunted skull, whatever, and these had specific mechanical effects that altered your abilities. Some classes, like Cleric, could also or instead use a weapon as their implement, but in practical terms the strict wealth-by-level guidelines meant you got one or the other and would build your stats accordingly. Keep this in your back pocket for later, it's going to come up again. Also for your back pocket for later: these implements were, well, implemented as part of 4e's item progression, and the expectation was that you would spend your available resources (in this case, gold/phantom gold, collectively Wealth By Level) on better implements that would make your abilities work more work-y. Limited wealth meant that while in theory you could have both a magic weapon and a magical implement, in practical terms you get one or the other 'cause there's other shit you gotta buy.

What Clerics did with these implements was sell healing and healing accessories. While 4e introduced the concept of Radiant damage (used there as especially good against fiends, undead, and other forces of evil) and Clerics did indeed have access to some of that as well as buff abilities, their main thing was being the ranged healer par excellence, able to heal or cause healing far in excess of their peers in the role such as Warlord. Here, then, we return to the throughline of the divine healer which stretches all the way back to fucking BECMI, and which modern audiences may recognize more readily as the JRPG archetype of the White Mage - itself rooted in BECMI again! This hobby is an ouroboros, I say, with love.

Joining Cleric here are a selection of other classes with divine powers who take on a similar conceptual space. I talked a bit about Invoker during the Paladin article so I'm not gonna go over them again (this shit is long enough as it is), so we're gonna talk about Warpriest and Runepriest.

Introduced in the Essentials line, Warpriest was - like most Essentials classes - a simplified take on Cleric meant to be more accessible to new players. It shifted just about everything towards Wisdom in terms of writing one's character. Warpriests were these tanky all-around characters who gave up some of Cleric's team support for better attacks, and notably did not select powers on level-up, but rather got a progression based on their Domain. Readers familiar with D&D 5e might see some similarities here.

Runepriest, on the other hand, was a weird freak of a Defender whose thing was projecting offensive or defensive Auras that they could amplify with their support abilities and swap out every time they attacked. Their primary stat was Strength, drawing on a similar idea to the later revised 5e Barbarian or, perhaps more familiar to y'all, Beast incantations in Elden Ring. Very much not simplified, Runepriest offered some initial build diversity but didn't get a lot of support as the gameline continued, ironically ending up as very limited despite seeming intentions of breadth.

Narratively, these classes were somewhere in the range of 'village preacher with a hidden badass streak' to 'war missionary' to 'literal thug for the literal god of literal fascism'. 4e here stands out for being the first edition to acknowledge that a Cleric is not really a priest as such, and is much more like...a chosen one, a conception that very much fit well into 4e's idea that adventurers are inherently freaks who do things no sane person would ever consider. If you're thinking, "gee that sounds odd, why wouldn't there be like Clerics just existing inside cities", I point you at works like Dungeon Meshi who advance this same idea. Fundamentally, the skills one uses to break into ancient tombs full of undead are not skills you develop while working as a spiritual leader or a bureaucrat or even as a military officer. Adventuring is not a career you get into because your life is going well.

Of course, as mentioned, D&D 4e was born dead, so now we need to talk about the demon that ate its corpse and was, for a time, the unquestioned king of the TTRPG space by dint of its treachery and malice.

Pathfinder: Deus Vult Part II: World Holy War - Keep Pathfinder in your back pocket next to casting implements, they're gonna star in the religion section later as I express a fundamental anger that borders on inhuman rage. You have no earthly idea just how much I'm cutting out of this section alone considering that like many, I was there for Pathfinder during the beta and thus got in on the ground floor of a great deal of incompetence, malice, cruelty, outright betrayal, unexamined double-think, and egotistical bullshit.

That said, let's actually talk about Cleric.

In terms of Cleric qua Cleric, you may be noticing that the table there looks a lot like 3.5's Cleric, and indeed in many ways they're pretty similar. The biggest immediate difference is the addition of Channel Energy, which lets a Cleric become a healing bomb (or harm undead bomb, or vice versa) a certain number of times per day linked to their Charisma modifier. This is in addition to spontaneous casting, so it's a strict addition; further, it being a 30-foot burst means a channeled heal might actually be worth your Standard Action at some point in your career. It won't be, but it might. Additionally, Pathfinder Clerics are proficient in the Favored Weapon of their god by default (more on this later), which - by contrast - was often much harder to access in 3.5.

Like D&D 3.5, Pathfinder has a dizzying array of Domains to go with a default setting packed full of gods (more on this in the religion section later), ranging from things as broad as 'all magic ever' to things as embarrassingly specific as 'ambushes as laid by kobolds specifically'. Seriously, look at this list, it's absurd. And while by sheer numbers and specificity it's roughly equivalent with 3.5, I'm not about to claim 3.5 has the high road here, Clerics in Pathfinder get more abilities from their Domains and thus your choice of Domain and/or Subdomain is far more important to your Cleric than it ever was in PF's parent game.

Indeed, option paralysis is going to be the name of the game here. Clerics in Pathfinder, in addition to Domain and Subdomain and their choice of god, also get to pick out variants on the Channeling ability that I talked about and, like all Pathfinder classes, have access to a dizzying array of Archetypes. These Archetypes in turn range in scope and concept from variations on how one has trained as a Cleric (such as Crusader, keep that name in mind for later) to like, race essentialism as class features such as Fiendish Vessel. Sit on that statement for a bit. Really internalize it.

Now, while the rules for Pathfinder give provisions for older versions of Clerics such as Clerics of ideals, Planar Clerics, etc, in practice Pathfinder is very much married to its one-and-only setting, Golarion, and to its particular vision of Clerics as the dedicated priests of a single god. This is a difficult vision to accomplish, as they still aren't competent to be priests, but it's also one that adds another layer of information a player has to juggle, as Golarion makes a much bigger and yet somehow much smaller deal about Clerics falling and losing their powers; each of its gods has a published code of conduct, Obediences you can perform for mechanical benefits, and sometimes even exclusive spells. I said I was gonna cut my beefs with Paizo out of this section but I really cannot resist just one: this is from the creators who made their first bones by arguing that mechanical bloat was the cardinal sin of 3.5 and advertised a return to the purity of Core. It would be funny if it weren't so fucking infuriating. If you can't hack it as a Cleric of your god, you lose your powers until you either start hacking it, or find a new god that agrees better with your current behavior, and those gods are very much in the market to hire.

In addition to Clerics as the hypothetical main priests (both as PCs and NPCs), Pathfinder introduces Inquisitors, Oracles, and Warpriests and we're gonna have to talk about all of them so I hope you weren't doing anything else with your day. Let's start with Inquisitors. Meant to be to Cleric what Ranger is to druid, Inquisitor is a wildly revealing take on how Paizo thinks about religion and ethics. To wit:

"Grim and determined, the inquisitor roots out enemies of the faith, using trickery and guile when righteousness and purity is not enough. Although inquisitors are dedicated to a deity, they are above many of the normal rules and conventions of the church. They answer to their deity and their own sense of justice alone, and are willing to take extreme measures to meet their goals. Role: Inquisitors tend to move from place to place, chasing down enemies and researching emerging threats. As a result, they often travel with others, if for no other reason than to mask their presence. Inquisitors work with members of their faith whenever possible, but even such allies are not above suspicion."

James Jacobs would like to tell you, with a straight face, that this is a normal and expected way to engage with religion, to think about religion, and that Inquisitors as presented here can be of any alignment and serve any god, all of whom will keep them around on purpose. In a related story, James Jacobs is a sniveling wretch. In another related story, the aesthetics and proficiencies of Inquisitor are very much like, the Hugh Jackman Van Helsing. I do not say this as an insult to either Inquisitor or to Mister Van Helsing, his aesthetics slap, but do keep that in mind for what I'm gonna say later.

Mechanically, Inquisitor drops a lot of control and damage, gleefully sacrificing most of the support a Cleric offers in favor of singling out particular targets and persecuting them to death. They also get a surprising amount of out-of-combat utility, adding their Wisdom modifier to Knowledge checks to identify "monsters" ("hey what's a monster" good FUCKING question), gaining bonuses to tracking like a Ranger, and adding a FAT bonus to Sense Motive (this becomes Insight in 5e) & Intimidate checks. Their combat style is a mix of hard control spells and self-buffs to damage so they can sandpaper their enemies to death; very functional, but also very much a particular vision of a holy warrior. And lest we leave this unsaid, Inquisitor spells were very much concerned with rooting out "heresy", heterodoxy, and punishing "sinners" within their own faiths, which is a wild-ass statement when you remember, again, that they can follow any god. You wanna tell me the god of revolutions runs secret police whose job it is to murder heretics? You wanna tell me that, James Jacobs? That's what you're telling me? Fucksake. Adding to this is that while Inquisitors can take Domains, they more commonly take bespoke Inquisitions that, well, make them better at being the secret police. You know how the god of the harvest runs the Grain Gestapo and they're the good guys somehow? Like that.

This, however, is where I drop the other shoe. Look at Inquisitor's skill list. Look at their skills per level. Are you seeing what I'm seeing? They're competent to serve as spiritual leaders, indeed, infinitely more competent to do so than either Cleric or Warpriest are or ever will be. The rest of their abilities make that idea just a little bit absurd, but if you don't mind every local village priest being an apprentice serial killer on their off hours Inquisitor is the only divine class that can do the job. The only one. There are no others. The next-closest candidates are fucking Bard and Rogue.

Which brings us to Warpriest, I think. I will not mince words here: Warpriest fucking sucks. Pitched as one of the many so-called "hybrid classes", Warpriest's parent classes are Fighter and Cleric, and it really got the worst end of both. Cleric is cracked enough that even with 6th level casting Warpriest evens out to doing fine, but my fucking god. Warpriests get some minor buffs to their weapons and armor, allowing them to customize those items and granting a phantom buff to the budget they can assign to them, as well as access to Blessings, their particular spin on Domains. These are good ways to extend their spellcasting but are, essentially, equivalent to a secondary pool of spells and buffs; likewise, their Fervor ability is a pool of healing/harming in theory, but in practice you burn Fervor to self-buff as a Swift action (Bonus Action for you 5e folks) or you're doing it wrong. The problem here is that Warpriest is just...worse Cleric. The phantom buffs to their weapons and armor, as well as their pool of bonus Combat feats, do not make up for the bit where they swing less accurately, less often, than an equal level Fighter, Paladin, Ranger, etc. You're casting or you're failing, and if you're already a hard caster, you're a Cleric - and Clerics, y'know, are already war-priests.

Oracle is the weird one out of this list. A spontaneous and Charisma-based divine caster, Oracle stands out for having a more limited list of spells that they get to use more often, and for having flexibility with their use of Metamagic feats the way a Sorcerer does. "What if I don't want to use Metamagic feats," I'm afraid you'll need to go fuck yourself, this is what you're doing. Oracle was an instant smash-hit with the player base of Pathfinder for its strong aesthetics and customization; where most Clerics are essentially the same with minor differences, every Oracle is, in some way, different. In particular, each Oracle has a Curse which makes them like, literally & textually disabled in some way but also grants them power, ranging from "you're just deaf, that's it that's the curse" to "you've been infested by an alien hive-mind from literal space, good luck fucker", and also pursues a Mystery that gives them themed abilities and further customizes their spell list. Unfortunately this is still a Paizo class; in terms of the actual mechanics, most Curses are essentially meaningless, with a rare few either being so bad that they're unpickable or so good that you kinda have to justify why you didn't take them (Deafened is the latter, incidentally) and most just being nothingburgers that matter not at all.

Now, notable here before I talk about Mysteries is that Oracle, like Cleric, is living that 3/4th base attack bonus life and can natively wear up to medium armor. Unlike Cleric they are not natively proficient with their god's Favored Weapon but otherwise they're fronting as a gish (spellblade for you youngbloods, a character that mixes magic and melee). The thing is, while that 3/4 attack bonus is great for spells that make attack rolls - here Oracle is handily beating contenders like Wizard or Sorcerer in terms of accuracy - they are, you know, ninth-level casters. The correct move for your turn is "I cast a spell". There are not exceptions to this. In an extremely related story, most Mysteries are full of not-spell things to do with the actions you would normally use to cast spells, and while some of them - such as the endless parade of ways to boost your Armor Class - replace certain spells, essentially saving you a slot, many of them are just kinda...weak blasts or control abilities that don't meaningfully compete with, again, "I cast a spell". And like, the flip side of your choice of Mystery often not mattering is that you're free to pick something that seems thematic to you, but riddle me this: if you never use the abilities you pick up, does it matter that you have them?

There's some obvious winners in Mysteries, as there always is. Lore and Time are cracked as hell, and you can get away with something like Metal that has mostly passive abilities, but here we need to talk a bit about the theme and flavor of Oracle. Paizo sold the class on the idea of mysterious connections to the divine, a sort of divine mirror to their Witch class whose associations with the otherworldly are potentially unknown to them and move them without their consent. They then immediately abandoned this faster than my father abandoned me; every published Oracle is the Oracle of one god in particular, Mysteries are associated with gods the way Domains are, and this means that in all ways Oracle is a Cleric who can get laid. I am, perhaps, disproportionately angry about this, both on a professional level (lying to your readers is a bit of a dick move) and on a personal one (I wanted the Oracle they sold and did not receive it). And that's...a bit of a let-down, right? Paladins are already god-locked in Pathfinder too, so at this point Oracle, while having strong imagery, is not meaningfully different from its peers in a way that you can really latch onto. I dunno. It's a waste, y'know?

Overall, Paizo's vision of its divine classes is not able to be separated from its vision of religion as a zero-sum holy war in which everyone is desperate for converts, no one trusts anyone else, and rooting out one's own flock for heretics and heterodoxy is considered normal and morally acceptable behavior. Paizo deadass thinks the Spanish Inquisition are the good guys, if not literally, then in spirit, and that is, not to put too fine a point on it, disgusting. Mechanical innovations are present here, but to be frank the signal-to-noise ratio is awful, and it's very much not worth the effort to pillage their work for the few good ideas that have managed to survive.

Which brings us, at long last, to:

D&D 5e: The Power of God And Anime On My Side - I apologize for nothing and I will do this again.

So, right here up front, before I talk about anything else, anything else at all, Fifth Edition Clerics are, for the first time, both not priests and not trying to be priests. To quote Pages 56-57 of the 2014 Player's Handbook: "Not every acolyte or officiant at a temple or shrine is a cleric. Some priests are called to a simple life of temple service, carrying out their gods' will through prayer and sacrifice, not by magic and strength of arms. In some cities, preisthood amounts to a political office, viewed as a stepping stone to higher positions of authority and involving no communion with a god at all. True clerics are rare in most hierarchies.

When a cleric takes up an adventuring life, it is usually because his or her god demands it. Pursuing the goals of the gods often involves braving dangers beyond the walls of civilization, smiting evil or seeking holy relics in ancient tombs. Many clerics are also expected to protect their deities' worshippers, which can mean fighting rampaging orcs, negotiating peace between warring nations, or sealing a portal that would allow a demon prince to enter the world.

Most adventuring clerics maintain some connection to established temples and orders of their faiths. A temple might ask for a cleric's aid, or a high priest might be in a position to demand it."

Merciful fucking Illmater, we made it y'all. Not that the player base, by and large, has noticed; many people continue to play clerics as priests, to think of all clerics as priests and spiritual leaders, and to expect them to be such. And they are not priests. As I've argued already they've never been priests, but 5e does have a firm vision of Clerics - they're shonen protagonists. The chosen many, as it were, and that vision is clearer and more thematic than Cleric has been since mammoths still walked the Earth. Y'all are doing this wrong. Please stop.

Anyway, mechanics! The more things change, the more they stay the same; Cleric still has a dog shit skill list, they're still a mid-armored all-rounder with anti-undead features, they're still pretty good at resisting mind control. The Optimal Cleric(tm) is rocking high Wis and Dex so they can act first and get off their powerful control spells, which in turn implies light armor in an unusual first for D&D, but I'll be real with you: Cleric has one of the best spell lists in the game, as long as your Wisdom is high you can do whatever you want and never be punished for it. Notable here in comparison to previous editions are the flexibility of the Cleric's spell slots in 5e - you can cast any spell you have prepared out of your slots rather than locking 1 spell to 1 slot - and Ritual Casting, a feature most people associate with Wizards but which is very, very much available to Cleric and gives them similar out-of-combat utility. Turn Undead and Destroy Undead return, both more functional than they've been in decades, and are now linked to rests of any kind and also used to charge Domain features. "What about Divine Intervention -" what the fuck about it.

Which brings us to Domains. And the thing about Domains is there's still a lot of them in the context of 5e; the Player's Handbook alone published seven of them, and just about every player-oriented book after that had 1-2 more, sometimes as many as three. Cleric is feasting, and while most of the food is decidedly mid it still doesn't matter because it is, again, stapled to Cleric. Like I could wax poetic, at some considerable length, about why Domains like War, Trickery, or Grave are bad options, but y'know, the thing is, they're still fucking Clerics, they'd be doing fine with no Domain at all. I'm not gonna go into a massive breakdown of the pros and cons of any given Domain, but in general you'll have the most harmonious time with Domains that don't expect you to be spending your actions doing things that aren't casting spells. War, for instance, is gonna be a let-down because it really wants you to be making weapon attacks and you do not have the tools to make that remotely worth it; conversely, Grave also sucks, but it mostly fills in actions that your spells can't or won't, so you'll have a much smoother time playing Grave. For those wondering, the hands-down winners of the Domain list are Knowledge, Life, Light, and Tempest, though an extremely dishonorable shout-out goes to Order as a control & utility pick that is completely unaware of its own existence as a cosmic fucking horror story. See the sample Clerics below for that shit.

Now, remember when I told you to keep implements in your back pocket? 5e also has them, but they're introduced a bit...unevenly. Magical items do exist that do what magic implements used to do, namely, boost your spell DCs and spell attack modifiers - the caster equivalent of a magical weapon - but not many were ever published, and the ones that were are mainly for arcane casters. Fans of Critical Role may be recognizing items like the Spire of Conflux or the Hand Cone of Clarity as taking this role (and indeed quite a bit of Mercer's world and mechanics draws influence from D&D 4e), while players of Baldur's Gate 3 are pointing at the screen and naming some of their favorite caster-focused shields, gloves, and helmets right now. Any of these are a pretty neat way to engage on this idea as long as you keep things under control (you don't wanna exceed a total of like, +3/+3 here), but you as the DM, or you and your DM if you're a player, can and will be making this shit up yourself for your Cleric.

So, what's 5e's vision of Clerics, narratively? Well...see, the thing is, the text I quoted above is mainly it. D&D 5e is remarkably lore-light on the player-facing end, instead investing a lot of its lore writing in wild reworks of various cultures such as drow or gnolls, which I will not comment on because I do need to end this article at some point and I'm still in the fucking context section. There's a soft sympathy towards the position that 5e's Clerics, as they level, are holier Clerics, rather than more skilled Clerics (again, see above), but even that is a very tepidly held position, one which in novel writing and related media is far from consistent or primary. That said, I couldn't walk out of this section with a straight face if I didn't talk about the WILD fucking Domain assignments 5e makes for its gods, which in some cases is an artifact of many more specific Domains no longer existing, but in other cases appears to be the product of some of the most ignorant Protestant bullshit you can possibly imagine when thinking of the gods in question. Again, see the existence and flavor of the Order Domain as an example here, but like, in what fucking universe is Helm associated with the Light Domain? Since when was Wee Jas a Grave Domain kinda goddess? Not to hype this up twice in two paragraphs, but you will notice when we get there that I have chosen to ignore this whole affair for many of the upcoming sample Clerics and when I do there'll be some discussion about it. I do these things to myself and I really wish I didn't but this is who I am as a person now.

Going to the Land Of Context is like going to the Underworld, it takes you three days no matter how fast you travel. But at long last we have arrived, and we can conduct the actual fucking article. May Oghma pity me, for I myself will not.

Gotta Go, The People In The Important Pajamas Are Mad - Clerics At Your Table

Before I say anything else, that headline is not my original line but I cannot for the LIFE of me remember what early aughts webcomic it's from. I am likely misquoting it but if anyone on this hellsite recognizes it and can point me back to it for a proper credit I will be quite grateful & also get the citation in.

The following section is meant to help you in fleshing out a Cleric concept to play or even to use as an NPC. While some of this advice is edition-agnostic and indeed when we get to the religion section we're gonna return to some Takes Through The Editions and I will be very sad and also angry, a great deal of it will be slanted towards 5e because, let's face it, that's what people are playing. Make of this what you will. Also covered here will be same-paging (again), Clerics & alignment, and common pitfalls of playing Clerics (and suggestions of how to avoid them). So, without further ado:

Same Paging - In Which I Blow The Meta Joke About This Being In Any Class Article I Do Early Like A Damn Fool

Same-paging is the practice of talking to your group in a way that helps set mutual expectations, and it’s something every RPG group should strive to do regardless of the system they’re playing in. You’ve probably done this to an extent before, as part of being pitched a game (”We’re going to do a dungeon crawl through the deadly halls of Undermountain”), during character creation, and the like. If this opener to the section sounds familiar, it's because I copy-pasted it from my last class article and there's nothing you can do to stop me. In the specific case of Cleric, the elephant in the room you need to explicitly talk about and not just assume shit about is the sort of relationship you're looking to develop between your character and their god(s) and, y'know, any themes or ideas about spirituality that you explicitly would like to see included or, conversely, very much need to not see included. We're gonna get into it more in the religion section later but man it truly does fucking blow chunks if you're looking to have, say, a serious exploration of your character's faith and its relationship to society, but the rest of your group is on some Reddit Atheist shit, right? Hell, it's not even pleasant if you unexpectedly end up doing the inverse. In addition to this, if you're looking to explore ethical or doctrinal dilemmas (i.e. if you're really into the idea of playing a Cleric of Eldath as a dedicated pacifist, or dig into the conflicts that might arise between the Orders of Denier who preserve knowledge vs. some kinda magical infohazard), this is the time to say it and chew it over with your group. And again, as long as everyone's having fun and not hurting someone else any way you play it is fine - a kick-in-the-door style campaign is a perfectly fun campaign to have. The point is to set expectations up front, not to like, ensure that the group is playing in the one ordained way to play. Which is bold words considering how many times in this article up to this point I've deadass accused people of playing wrong, but I do mean it. I contain multitudes.

One Day, A Tortoise Will Learn To Fly - Making Your Cleric

The Pratchett quotes will continue until morale improves.

Once you and your group have communicated your expectations to each other, it’s finally time to start sketching out your concept! There are many ways to do this, though the two primary schools are mechanics-first and narrative-first. That is to say, opening up with something like "Using the Knowledge Domain to pick up proficiencies on the fly sounds fun to me," works out great, as does opening up with something like, "My Cleric learned her ex-wife was literally a goddess about three weeks ago and is having a wild one about it." However, this article is about to be long enough already without me trying to write a mechanical guide to 5e Cleric, let alone any other Cleric, so we're gonna focus on the narrative approach. If you need a mechanical guide, I promise you that the player base of whatever edition you're into has made several and that the author of each one has some kind of passionate beef with the authors of all of the others. Consider the following questions for your Cleric:

Why Did You Become A Cleric? To be a Cleric is to be of the chosen many; inherently, you're gonna be a bit weird. That weirdness may be because of the conflict between your perceived social station vs. who you are as a person (to wit, people might expect a Cleric of Oghma in the Forgotten Realms to be a stuffy scholar and be surprised when he shows up to strongman competitions or turns out to be one of the Sword Coast's most prolific authors of erotica), but in all honesty odds are much higher that you're a freak. Incredible divine power doesn't erase the bit where adventuring is not a career one takes up because one's life is going well. That said, just because you're a chosen one doesn't mean you didn't also get to choose. Did your Cleric pursue Clerichood for some reason, and if so, why seek that power? If they didn't seek it out on purpose, how do they feel about this change in their relationship to divinity and the burgeoning power within them? This is where you can get both characterization and plot hooks; a Cleric forged when she swore herself to the Red Knight in a desperate attempt to defend her farm from bandits is a very different beast from one who sought power and station from Bahamut so they could enact reforms in their society. Look for connections to the game world and reasons to care about it.

How Did You Learn? There's some obvious things to answer here - your Cleric learned how to wear up to Medium armor, the proper use of shields, and basic combat techniques - but the more interesting question to dig into is your spells. D&D has actually had many different schools of thought here, some of them co-existing or competing with each other. D&D 5e, as mentioned above, breaks on the idea that a higher-level Cleric is a holier Cleric, and that their casting is an almost intuitive process of seeking intercession or requesting miracles in advance in case they need them. Many people play their Clerics this way, but here I will once again climb atop my mountain of old-ass lore and offer an alternative: divine spellcasting as a skill you actually have to learn and practice. In this school of thought, a higher level Cleric is a more practiced and powerful Cleric, and is intrinsically attractive to "rival" deities not simply because they are a great champion of their own but because they are a potent resource. For those in the audience wondering how this makes any fucking sense, I will point out, gently, that this idea is actually still prevalent in Japanese media and its White Mage archetypes, as well as in popular videogames like Elden Ring. These Clerics learn spells from somewhere, and the "somewhere" has a broad variety of answers; they unlock the secrets of their rites through cryptotheology, they experience divine revelation, their god teaches them personally, they're mentored by more experienced Clerics. Indeed, Ms. Jester Lavorre of Critical Role fame engages on her divine casting in this mode, often expressing that the Traveler has been telling her about new spells or teaching them to her personally, and while this is set up as something suspicious about the Traveler in her story it's actually a quite storied idea of Being A Cleric with deep roots in many D&D settings. Regardless of your choice here, though, consider this next question:

How Do You Relate To Your Power? This is another arena with a lot of unquestioned ideas that do not necessarily like, relate to how Clerics have been historically or even what they could be if we took only 5e as gospel. In most cases, people take a very Protestant slant to their Cleric; their spells and powers are divine gifts which can and should be revoked at the whim of their god, who is in turn a being of higher morality who intrinsically knows better. And like, I'ma get into this in the religion section here in a bit, but this is a wild idea when you actually look at the gods in question, let alone when you remember that to be a Cleric is to build a relationship with one's deity. Pious service as thought of by Christians is a way to relate to your deity, sure, and there's even some hanging around that are into it (Torm, f'rinstance), but like, Waukeen would find such a relationship distasteful, would say to such a cleric, "Girl, you're selling yourself short." So put some real thought into this, and you may come to surprising answers for your Cleric. Do they see their divine power as bringing forth the holiness intrinsic to the world? As an outflowing of their own passions and obsessions? Could your Cleric read as a grim cynic to others because they view their spells as not fundamentally different from arcane magic, and caution sternly that power is power regardless of source? Are they gifts from the world of wonder and horror, which anyone could use if they knew the right way of seeing? Your Cleric's abilities are not like a second layer on top of their personality, they're part and parcel of who they are as a person; give it consideration.

What Are Your Values? Hear me out; this seems like an obvious question, something every character should ask, but here I'm going to introduce an argument that I'll elaborate on later - gods in D&D are, essentially, worldviews. And while the worldview embodied by your Cleric's god(s) is obviously the one most important to them - they did become a wholeass Cleric about it - D&D has some specific-ass gods. A Cleric of like, Azuth (god of spells, patron of wizards) is not getting a party line about a whole lot of basic ethics and kinda has to figure that shit out for himself. So ask yourself not just who your Cleric believes in, but what, and how this might relate to their faith or grow from who they are as a person. A Cleric who is the fourth child of a noble house (kicked out to a life of adventure because they ain't inheriting shit) may well have opinions about noblesse oblige, politics, and power that have absolutely nothing to do with their chosen god; likewise, D&D has a rich tradition of Clerics of fairly evil gods such as Auril, Loviatar, or Umberlee who are out here selling the wonders those dark powers have on offer because they genuinely believe in helping people or, you know, have Standards, the thing professionals are supposed to have. A frontier Cleric may well have opinions, for better or worse (traditionally worse, D&D has a long history of being friendly to empire) about the colonial project they're a part of, or a Cleric up from the Underdark might be spending her free time in academic knife fights defending the beauty and splendor of her home's ecology. Your Cleric is a real person in a real reality, not an extension of her god; that's the kind of thing that gives a person some fucking opinions, no?

What's Your Relationship To Your God(s) Like? And in a related story, this point! Unless something really odd is going on, your Cleric is not a divine being free from mortal needs or the burdens of history; it therefore follows that she is not about to be a perfect incarnation of her god(s) ideals. That's, y'know, the neat bonus you get for having an afterlife. Let's leave alone for a moment that there is a pretty strong possibility that your Cleric is so uneducated and/or fucking stupid that they don't know the textual dogma of their own faith (though please, do not forget this, it's one of the funniest things about Cleric); the ideals of that faith, and of their god in particular, are something they are probably growing into. This really should not be a controversial take, not after Critical Role blew the fuck up with the likes of Caduceus Clay and his spiritual journey in the name of the Wildmother, but you might be surprised. It is, genuinely, okay if your Cleric is kinda bad at following their god(s) in some ways! Maybe even many ways! A dwarf Cleric who's out adventuring instead of at home using their magic to help their clan is already failing at least one major ideal of the dwarven pantheon, for instance. Clerics and even priests of Sune Firehair (goddess of art and beauty, a chaotic and capricious foe of evil whose mantle is the splendor of the living world) have a partly-deserved reputation as shallow hedonists who reify existing beauty standards; the entire faith of Lathander has a serial inquisition problem that they haven't stopped having an ongoing civil war about since the fucking Dawn Cataclysm. So how does your Cleric see the divine ideals to which they are meant to aspire? Is their deity their teacher and guide? A stern master to be obeyed? A distant and dazzling figure almost disconnected from matters of dogma in the Cleric's mind? Their literal actual lover? There can be many answers here, and while I don't want to downplay the delicious angst of a well-done "I'm a bad worshipper of my god and I'm guilty about it" arc...well, the signal-to-noise ratio there is real bad, let's say. More on this in a later section.

Hobbies? Pick some. I really should not have to be saying this and honestly it's a dependent consideration with the whole 'what are your values' thing but if I see one more Cleric whose entire life and job is religious service with no interests outside of it I'm going to drop the moon on Europe and whatever happens will happen. Fucksake, this isn't even a 'many D&D players are culturally Christian' thing, this is just lazy writing and historical illiteracy. Did you think all those monasteries and temples in like, Redwall and such making beer or growing crops was just the authors having a fuckin' laugh? Come on.

Playing With The Big Boys Now - Cleric Aesthetics

You may be remembering this section as where the Paladin article talked a bit about refluffing. This is...sort of like that. As one of D&D's full casters, Cleric is deep in its particular idiosyncrasies, and using the Cleric kit to make a non-Cleric thing, while possible, is still going to have a...a particular shape, let's call it. If, for instance, your setting doesn't have any separation of arcane and divine magic & "clerics" are just a different school of magical study, you're probably fine. If you're trying to do a fully technological setting where "spells" are high-tech gadgets, you're gonna run into a bigger set of problems much faster. All of that said, though, there's still quite a bit to talk about in terms of bringing out unique flavor for your Cleric, some of which are habits that the 5e player base has already rushed ahead to hold up as good practice and others which are rarely thought explicitly about. I do hope you came ready to learn about obscure TTRPG audience drama that has never wholly died out. Let's start with the easy one first, shall we?

Spell Aesthetics - I'll not lie to you, I should probably be angrier about this topic but the convoluted history of the player base's relationship to "what do your spells look like?" is too fascinating for me to really build up the fury it deserves. There has been, indeed, in some senses still is a shockingly vitriolic argument within D&D circles about whether or not all spells of the same name look the same, and while I am vastly simplifying the two perspectives generally break down into "they need to look the same so that they are identifiable for balance reasons" vs. "having your own personal brand is sick as hell". The latter has traditionally won by default in terms of the overall body of D&D's work, especially in the spaces defined by the novel-writing, though the influence of CRPGs like Neverwinter Nights who break on the side of spells looking the same for everyone (for obvious reasons) shouldn't be downplayed. D&D 3.5 had a Feat for this that makes your spells a little harder for people to recognize via the Spellcraft skill but mostly just gives you absolute reign to customize the look of your casting; Pathfinder, by contrast, doesn't want you customizing jack shit (and indeed late in its run also edited Silent Spell and Still Spell so that your casting of spells is still detectable to the naked eye, cowards that they are). That said, and to the surprise of absolutely fucking nobody, I break very strongly on the side of "having your own personal brand is sick as hell", as do many of the major works of modern 5e, here to very much include Critical Role but also many other actual plays such as Dice Shame or Planet Arcana.

So, what goes into deciding what your spells are like? First things first, the mechanics; an aesthetic that doesn't do what the spell does, or have the components the spell uses, is right out. It's one thing if your group handwaves certain ideas for ease of play or because they don't interest y'all (see here the common practice of replacing expensive material components with just subtracting the gold from your sheet when you cast), but like, your guiding bolt fires Something that requires an attack roll, it deals Radiant damage, and it causes some kind of light that clings to an opponent. Verbal components, mechanically, must be spoken in a clear voice. Somatic components...exist. To be perfectly honest no one has had a clear idea of what Somatic components are ever aside from a vague idea that they require your hands (this is mechanically explicit in 4e & 5e) and even then there's exceptions, dishonorable shout-out to the scene in War of the Spider Queen where a wizard casts with his fucking feet. Notable here is that casters in 3.5 through 5e can replace non-expensive material components with a focus/implement/character feat, such as a staff, orb, wand, crystal, or in the case of Clerics, their holy symbol; these implements are touched, invoked, involved in the somatic components, or otherwise pretty obvious. The next bit of this is gonna be all about selecting your own aesthetics but I do want to reiterate first something I have said before and will continue saying over and over and over and over and over and over and over again: in any conflict between the narrative and the mechanics, the mechanics win by default. This is because they are the tools with which you actually engage with the game world. When your Cleric of Umberlee casts flame strike, there is some manner of dealing Fire damage involved. Maybe it's boiling sea water, maybe you hit a motherfucker with an underwater volcano, maybe you just go "the classic burning column of fire is fine", but you can't bitch slap people with that spell and then say it's actually the cold ocean depths. Alright? Alright.

So when you're looking at "what do my spells look like" there's three places I like to interrogate. The first and most obvious is, what's the deal with my god? This can be a pretty broad thing to look at; gods are worldviews, and those can be interpreted very differently. Not to return to a super famous example here or anything, but when your friend and mine Caduceus Clay (Critical Role) has spiritual guardians that look like swarms of beetles and manifests his damage spells as aspects of decay, another Cleric of the Wildmother may well lean into vines and trees, or their guiding bolt might appear as hurling a whole-ass rhino at your face that then explodes into light. Here, then, we roll into the second question: what domain is your Cleric? This is the aspect of your god or your faith that you're the closest to, which is dearest to your heart, and will therefore manifest in the act of spellcasting - which in turn is derived from your relationship with the divine. A War Domain Cleric of say, Eilistraee, may well emphasize the martial prowess of that goddess in their spells, manifesting spiritual armor, blades of moonlight, mighty shields, numinous warriors, while a Twilight Domain Cleric of the same goddess is gonna be all in on the moon and stars, the sky at night, crescents, and the like.

Lastly there's the physical action of spellcasting to consider, and here I would like to hasten to point something out. While it is common practice to simply use one's holy symbol as a divine focus, it is not required. Many faiths on Earth have holy symbols or something cognate to them, but there are also many that do not, and for those looking to explore a faith in a D&D god which doesn't practice that sorta thing Clerics are, like all casters, perfectly empowered to use a Component Pouch and cast spells in a more formal, ritualistic fashion than the typical image of calling out to one's god and seemingly producing a miracle without actually casting a spell (but more on this in a bit). Is your Cleric a student of divine magic, going through carefully-practiced forms? Are they intuiting their way through spellcasting, a razor's width away from being something like a Sorcerer? An almost saintly figure, whose spells appear for all the world as miracles (and if they are how do you square that with the dumb plans the average adventuring party engages with)? Do they speak their spells in a booming voice, announcing the presence of the divine? Are the rites they chant almost business-like, a concession to the needs of the casting but perhaps not seen as properly holy or reverent? What language are you casting in? Give it some thought.

Turn Undead & Other Features - Surprise bitches, there's old-ass lore about this too. While all Clerics can Turn Undead no matter how little sense it makes (look my in my lich eyes: what the fuck does Azuth care about undead?) and this is for Doylist reasons of legacy design, how they've gone about doing so and why have multiple interpretations. Way back in AD&D 2e this was something you were encouraged to think about and design for your cleric (see: The Complete Cleric's Handbook & The Complete Paladin's Handbook), both in terms of the physical action and what the power looks like. The classic wave-of-radiating-force look, displayed in Baldur's Gate 3 and used extensively in Critical Role, is indeed an old one with a lot of pedigree, associated with Clerics of sun deities such as Pelor or Lathander, but also with militant deities like the Red Knight, Bahamut, or even Wee Jas (it might seem weird that the goddess of necromancy is out here sponsoring Turn Undead but for the Ruby Lady specifically it's less 'begone, unnatural horrors' and more 'behold, my eviction notice'). Going with this has traditionally been some kind of plainly-spoken invocation or prayer; 'disperse and dispel', 'back to dust', 'return to sleep', that sorta thing.

However, this is far from the only possible look or interpretation. Indeed, popular these days is simply lifting one's holy symbol and calling upon one's god, which I have some objections to - it's not appropriate for every god, and it's also just kinda unoriginal - but is perfectly serviceable. Turn Undead as a sort of spell, with obscure incantations or formal rites for gods like Azuth (here making one's Turn Undead similar to dispel magic rather than any intrinsic divine abhorrence) could fit your Cleric, as could Turn Undead as a power move where you assert your god's greater authority over the undying (excellent for many non-nature Evil-aligned gods, and hilarious for gods like Loviatar). Likewise, Turning or destroying the undead can and should be flavored by your god and Domain; a Cleric of Chauntea that Turns Undead may well terrify them with the reminder of the grave, the bounty of the earth that will grow from their stolen bones, while a Cleric of Mystra simply unbinds the magic that holds them together (and, again, the eternally hilarious Clerics of Loviatar manifest the power of their goddess to beat the shit out of the undead). One move might even be to say your Cleric of a god who doesn't give a shit about the undead is actually drawing on another god from their pantheon who does; the aforementioned Cleric of Azuth is actually invoking his vassal, Velsharoon, who has authority over necromancy.

When it comes to one's Domain powers, you kinda live and die by your brand here. Every Tempest Cleric in 5e is gonna have the exact same fucking power list, so if you're not making your Tempest Cleric of Umberlee different from a Tempest Cleric of Gruumsh what the fuck are you even doing. While the way your god interprets these themes is obviously important - your character chose to follow them for a reason, after all - perhaps more important is the way your Cleric relates to them. A Chaotic Neutral Cleric of Umberlee who has a love of the terrible beauty of the sea conjures storms of sublime awe, like something out of a Gothic novel, while a more traditional Chaotic Evil one may well lean on storms as instruments of vengeance and punishment, sharing in her goddess's petty malice. When your War Domain Cleric takes that attack as a bonus action, is he seizing a moment, or drawing on berserk rage? What kind of Light or Life do you have? The opportunities are here y'all, seize 'em.

Radiant and Necrotic Damage - These are relatively young as far as D&D goes, and while they have bones in with earlier kinds of damage they're actually a bit thematically confused. Just to give you an idea here, Radiant damage is dealt by guiding bolt, the Light Domain power, ACTUAL FUCKING LASER RIFLES, and also flame strike. It has replaced instances of "this damage derives from pure divine power and cannot be resisted", Positive Energy damage, and also just fire damage for some fuckass reason. So when your Cleric is dealing Radiant damage, something all Clerics do, what is it? Nearly any of the above is a potential option, though I'll admit that I'm a sucker for the Positive Energy damage where you give living beings super-cancer that devours them in moments and/or unbind and dispel undead. Complicating this is that in the 5e paradigm, Radiant and Necrotic damage are both associated heavily with divine classes, and have nearly equal claim to holy power.

Which brings us to Necrotic damage, which is dealt by inflict wounds, as well as spells like blight, and also associated with Evil Clerics via spiritual guardians and similar spells. This one is derived from Negative Energy damage historically - that is, pure entropic power, not just death but "stop", "cease", "still", "silence" - but this is not always the case, and it very definitely has been used in 5e to represent things like blood drain, soul drain, pure unholy power, and also flaying someone alive. Similar considerations to Radiant damage apply, but they apply especially when you're out here casting Necrotic blasts when you, say, worship a nature or life god. What exactly are you doing? Why is it you're doing it that way? How is this, too, a miracle?

I May Have Started Worshiping Umberlee Because The Priestesses Are Hot - Clerics & Alignment

So here's the thing. As I mentioned above in the 69 page long context section, Clerics have had Falling mechanics for awhile, even if they have been consistently downplayed or ignored in comparison to Paladin. There's also been a very long time in which Clerics were required to be close to their god(s) in alignment, and there's something to be said there; how can one build up a deep and intimate relationship with a divinity that you have nothing in common with? But there are many groups that don't want to fuck with alignment (I'm gonna do that alignment article one of these days and on that day I will die), settings where alignment and worship are less connected (see: Eberron), and of course in 5e these ideas are no longer formally connected in that fashion, with alignment requirements being removed. Hell, books like Xanathar's Guide to Everything and Tasha's Cauldron of Everything introduce some wild-ass ideas on the random fucking tables like "your Cleric has an ongoing relationship with an imp she doesn't fuckin' like". That seems pretty functional, so, why am I talking about it? Glad you asked: I'm an ancient-ass lich and a bit of an alignment apologist, and also this is my article and I'll infodump about alignment bullshit if I want to.

Now to make a proper run at this I'd really need to actually do that alignment article, so I'm gonna ask you instead to journey with me to an imaginary land where everyone is engaging on alignment in good faith and understands two foundational principles that the modern zeitgeist has kinda left behind; the first being that alignments are broad categories that describe beliefs which have things in common, and the second being that any given one of the nine alignments has room for many, many variations on those beliefs. Not to put like too fine a point on it but just as one f'rinstance there are no less than three different Outer Planes you can point to and say "this is Lawful Good" and each and every one of those three separate dimensions of Lawful Goodness contains its own internal array of differing beliefs and expressions of what it means to be Lawful Good. And in that sense, your Cleric's god is going to be a worldview that is included in their alignment, but is not necessarily, often, or even ever a generative force for that alignment. Evenhanded Tyr is not a fount of Lawful Goodness from which mortal beings drink to become more holy; he has a worldview, beliefs, and dogmas which one can describe as being Lawful Good, and he/his church seeks to teach them. Likewise Umberlee, the famous Bitch Queen, is not Chaotic Evil in the sense of 'overthrow all governments' but in the sense that the sea recognizes no master, is sovereign in itself, and will not be denied; that she is friendlier to Chaotic worshipers comes down to a sort of mutual comfort and expectation. A Chaotic person might not like that her goddess is a divinely infamous bitch, but she like, gets it, y'know?

So when it comes to your Cleric and alignment, there's an easy ask: what is it about their faith that attracted them to it, and in what ways are they aligned with that faith & in what ways are they lacking, opposed, or still have things to learn? The gods of D&D are stranger and wilder things than people give them credit for, to be sure, but the thing is that being a perfect embodiment of your god(s)'s worldview is one of those neat bonuses you get for being a dead person, not something people generally pull off while yet living. And, not to leave this bit on the table, not all or even most of those conflicts are necessarily what one might call a dealbreaker. It can be something as simple and doesn't-need-to-be-solved as like, a follower of Azuth spending time running for political office (a Lawful/Lawful disconnect; Azuth doesn't really give much of a shit about mortal law), something profoundly wrong but understandable (a follower of Oghma who passionately hates certain kinds of literature or poetry; Oghma is the god of all language and written art), or even really major which can form the core of an arc where either the character or god has to give (Shadowheart in Baldur's Gate 3 goes through this, but for the one person on Earth who hasn't played yet a different example might be a worshiper of Bahamut who ended up joining the colonial invasion of Chult, directly angering his god because he has failed to understand some fundamental fucking lessons here).

All of this is a lot of words to re-argue a previous point; your Cleric is not a sovereign being, capable of acting without reference to the real reality or by pure ideal alone. They have baggage, they have community, they have or had a family, they have beliefs shaped by being a real thing in a real reality. Look at the ways these aligned beliefs both touch and conflict with their church, their god, or both, and you will find a bounty of characterization and plot hooks. Keep in mind as well that the gods of D&D are fallible beings; they are students of their own ideals as much as they are teachers of such, and there are, indeed, perfectly usable hooks to be found there as well. Your Cleric is not a saint or a savior, usually; they are a student and teacher of divinity who seeks to understand it, and going on that journey together with one's god is something that has been lost in the current paradigm of the D&D audience being friendly to fucking Reddit atheism.

Call It A Girlfriend Class One More Time Motherfucker - Common Cleric Pitfalls

I'm not bitter, you're bitter.

D&D is a snake devouring itself, and like many such ongoing communities and fandoms it therefore has a lot of cultural baggage which is, how do you say, completely disconnected from objective fucking reality. This section covers some common pitfalls people walk into when making and playing Clerics. If some of these end up sounding like personal callouts...dunno what to tell you. Examine your shit.

Healbot.exe - Yeah we're starting off with the big one. Look me in my eyes. Look me directly in my fucking lich eyes. Clerics are not healers. No one in D&D is a primary healer. There have been exactly two effective primary healers in all of D&D history; the first is the Vitalist, a Psionic class published by Dreamscarred Press as part of a third-party supplement for Pathfinder 1e, and the second is Life Domain Cleric in 5e. That's it. End of list in all of history. "But what about -" no. I promise you, whatever you're thinking of is not a primary healer in the fashion you think it is. This is an ancient misconception, rooting all the way back to when only divine-type classes could heal (Cleric, Druid, Paladin, Ranger), but even back in that day healing was valued more highly than its actual effectiveness; the archetype of a videogame healer, someone like Mercy in Overwatch who can turn the tide by keeping vital people alive long enough to make big plays, that has never been part of D&D - at least not before players have access to the spell heal, which radically flips the math by itself. Much like the question of alignment, I do not have the page space or the fucking game theory degree to give this topic the attention it truly deserves, but the very short version is that PC hit points are very low, damage is quite high, and healing doesn't solve either of those problems. When you burn your action, Bahamut fucking forbid your one spell per round, on a heal what you have done is a few things: failed to advance the combat towards a conclusion, failed to meaningfully mitigate damage, burned a spell slot that could have done one of those first two, and quite possibly put yourself out of tactical position. There are cases where a heal is the right call - the spell heal as mentioned already, or in 5e getting someone to stop making Death Saves - but in general if your options are healing or doing literally anything else, pick literally anything else. Am I coming at this very strongly? Yes, but the thing is that the perception of Clerics as being "healbots", expected to memorize primarily healing spells and cast the same, has been an equally ancient and infamous perceived drawback to playing Clerics; indeed, there was a time when tables would offer incentives to someone for playing the Cleric because "someone has to be the healer" and nobody wanted to be. Does that sound like a fun experience to you? Is that the future you want to keep having? No? Good, STOP FUCKING HEALING.

Now, I said I don't have the game theory degree to unpack this, and I don't, but that was aggro as hell so I do owe a bit of an explanation. Healing being bad in D&D comes down to a few incentives, some of which I just mentioned above, but there's another big one - the only hit point that matters is your last one. Your PC, and indeed NPCs/monsters, are just as effective at 1 hit point as they are at 100 as they are at one thousand as they are at one million. Meanwhile, especially in 5e towards which this article has a significant bias, average NPC/monster damage is more than double that of an on-level heal until, again, heal; therefore, a cure wounds or healing word for someone who isn't unconscious has, at best, bought them half a turn of being alive, and given that the real swing is much larger than actual average damage the odds that you get that half a turn - pathetic in and of itself - are not in your favor. Your party does not need to be healthy, only alive; this, then, is why you only start healing once they stop being alive. Area-of-effect heals like mass cure wounds change this math a bit especially in response to area-of-effect damage which is typically lower than single-target damage, but here I will finally hold to my repeated statements that I lack the education to unpack this; if a mathematician wants to compare a devil's fireball to mass cure wounds in the notes here, please, be my guest, genuinely.

Zealotry - Welcome to the Cleric version of "stop making your paladin a cop", which readers may remember from the Paladin article. Here I need to cut a fine line; the average D&D player likely has a pretty strong idea of a particular kind of person when I say "zealot", and that kind of person is the scum of the Earth. And, indeed, while masterful roleplaying and acting might make running a fanatical missionary interesting for your play group, this is a common failure mode and I do not fucking encourage it unless you're really sure that you are, in fact, the god-king of Big Dick Mountain. However, this mode of like, the Baptist preacher is a very narrow and specific kind of zealotry and passionate belief, and I am here to make the argument that a good Cleric is, indeed, a zealot on some level, at least in part because odds are good that you, person reading this article, are yourself a zealot on some topic or other! The esteemed Kendrick Lamar, for instance, is a zealot of hip-hop. I am a zealot of old D&D lore. Ed Greenwood, praise fucking be, is a zealot of anthropological worldbuilding. To be a Cleric, one of the chosen many, is to have a deep and passionate connection to the ideals of your god; it is to care about those ideals, and to learn them further, to be a student and teacher of them, to be a disciple and practitioner of them, and that indeed is a kind of zealotry that has nothing to do with trying to convert people or oppress them (usually). Kill the part of you/your Cleric that cringes; if you're running a Cleric of like, Sune Firehair, right, pour in your passionate opinions about art and beauty and love. Go on rants about proper trade and taxes when you're running a Cleric of Waukeen. Get fuckin' homoerotic about the ocean with your Cleric of Umberlee. When your Cleric is moved to share their wisdom with others, look for ways in which these lessons are relevant to their lives, and commit to the fuckin' bit. These are the things which are, definitionally, most important to your Cleric, closest to their heart. By all means, act like it, yeah?

Slapfights And Other Bad Ideas - Way back in 1e, D&D described Cleric as a secondary weapon-user, competent to fight in melee but lesser than Warrior-group classes. This is a lie. This has always been a lie. 5e furthers this lie with the Divine Strike class feature, but the thing is that while you are not technically doing nothing by making a weapon attack you really are not doing much and should be looking into doing literally anything else; if you're not casting, you're doing it wrong. There are going to be levels in which Divine Strike edges out a Cantrip, but ultimately you are not a weapon user and should not be acting like one. Going further here, the sanctioned action for Cleric is to bump your Wisdom as fast and hard as you can, because it controls all the Cleric things you do. Here I again return to my statement that in any fight between mechanics and narrative, the mechanics win by default because they are how you engage with the game world. Once you eat your vegetables, then you can go off doing wild shit like taking strange Feats. If you need to see this in action, look no further than the oft-cited Ms. Jester Lavorre of Critical Role fame (Campaign 2, The Mighty Nein).

St. Dipshit the Illiterate - Man I hope you're ready for a third version of this joke when the inevitable Druid article happens. Like with the Paladin article, this isn't so much a pitfall as it is a for-your-consideration; Intelligence has long been a real easy dump for Clerics, and that's gonna shape how they move through the world. While D&D 5.5 (the 2024 releases) went some distance here by giving Clerics the ability to add Wisdom to their information-style checks, for every other Cleric you have someone who is very attuned and attentive to the living world (high Perception, Insight, and Survival), but very bad at formal learning, academic study, and the like. Does your Cleric compensate for this by seeking aid when they need that kind of intellectual rigor? Taking more time (that is, making more rolls) so they can correct for their own shortcomings? Do they embrace the intuitive knowledge they can gain via their Wisdom-based skills rather than attempting to record or examine? Of course, I should not leave this on the table either; as of 5e, Charisma is also an extremely easy an attractive dump stat, and since CLERICS ARE NOT PRIESTS exploring a low-Charisma Cleric who can only really show her troth through works rather than words could be quite interesting, should you be inclined.

The People In The Important Pajamas - "Cleric" NPCs

Again, if anyone can track that webcomic down my life is yours.

You may remember this section from the paladin article and be wondering what the scare quotes are about. Following through with my argument that Clerics aren't priests, some of the potential NPC roles I'm about to outline aren't Clerics, strictly speaking, but would have been Clerics back in 2e (when they could be priests) or 3.PF (when everyone was in fucking denial). Our first entry is going to cover a concept that you could pillage for worldbuilding purposes, and then the rest are potential Cleric roles. Ready set GO!

Adepts (Revenge Of The Old Lore) - Introduced by this name back in D&D 3.0 and rarely used by Dungeon Masters or, if we're being honest, the game writers, Adepts were an NPC-only class back when PCs and NPCs were built using similar rules. Sorta like a Cleric, and sorta like a Druid, and sorta like a Wizard, but absolutely dog shit at all three of them, an Adept is the spellcaster who is worse than other spellcasters at everything; that is, they're meant to suck shit, but can be competent to, say, buy a remove curse from, to manufacture magical potions, to help enchant divine-type magical items, and the like. Notably, being an Adept means you're not part of the chosen many - this was the class associated with people who put in the work to learn divine magic the hard way, or who for one reason or another could not commune with their god in a manner that might be more associated with a Cleric. As little use as it saw, this is a concept that could use some bringing forward - many, many D&D settings, here to include Greyhawk, the Forgotten Realms, and Eberron, blithely assume that these services are on offer, and indeed that in a big enough city you might even be able to buy raise dead or stronger magic. You know who sells that but isn't qualified to be the kind of freak an adventurer is? Adepts!

Retiree - Of course, sometimes Clerics do survive being adventurers, often "intact" for a given value of that (having regeneration in-house saves you a fortune on prosthetic limbs). This kind of Cleric-as-NPC are going to be famous figures, perhaps thrust into positions of spiritual or communal responsibility they might not be equal to; after all, Clerics aren't priests. Make an NPC a lot like a Cleric, turn them middle-aged or old, call it a day. Someone like this may have taught a PC Cleric, especially if they caught said PC early on and intervened to try and ensure this youngblood doesn't die screaming between learning the difference between "my god is with me" and "I'm invulnerable."

Rival - As a PC Cleric gets more powerful and starts, you know, slaying fucking dragons and shit, the strength of their legend may well give their word weight on dogma, doctrine, and ethics. Someone more happy with the status quo of their faith, or someone with a differing vision, these can be great Cleric NPCs, rife with potential for social conflict and always able to be tapped for an epic caster-on-caster showdown. Your goal here is to make someone who could be a player character, they just aren't; bring in passionate ideals, think through their reasons for supporting the vision of faith they do, and, oh yeah, don't forget the weird pile of magic items endemic to all adventurers.

Cackling Villain - Did you know Clerics have been either the best or second-best necromancers in D&D for nearly every edition? They're third-place in 5e, behind Necromancer Wizards and Oathbreaker Paladins, a first-time event for them, but quite literally every Cleric of 5th level or higher can wake up in the morning, decide to raise an army of the dead, and then do that. They can just do that! Even outside of strict necromancy Clerics have that combination of zeal, competence, perceptiveness, and, let us not forget, terrifying magic that can make them excellent setpiece villains or even non-villainous antagonists. Your party thinks a wizard is behind this bullshit? They're gonna wish it was a wizard.

Religion In D&D Part 1 - Context Part II: Revenge Of The Context

Do I need to break this up into two headlines? Strictly, no. However, this thing is already a fucking doorstopper, I might as well give a place where people can pause.

So remember, eighty years ago, way back at the top of the article, when I said this was going to be an angrier article than the last one? Despite writing that warning myself I have, during the course of this, been shocked at how salty and aggressive I've gotten about things thus far, and this is coming from someone who knows he has anger issues in the first place. I genuinely did not realize the depths of passionate opinions I have on offer about Cleric. However, that warning was for these next two sections, as I'm very, acutely aware of my beef here, my deep well of bitterness, and my years of confused rage that have become a kind of formless hate for the way the discussion on fantasy religion across the genre, but especially in D&D, has been discussed. Y'all got a lifelong atheist out here about to tell you that you're being harsh and reductive about religion as like, a concept, and to make matters worse the behavior of the D&D audience in general has been such that I am now in a position where I need to do apologetics for known genocide enthusiast Gary fucking Gygax. Do you have the slightest idea how little that pleases me?

So let's start this off right. A lot of folks operate on incomplete, incorrect, or just plain nonexistent ideas of what faith has, historically, looked like in various D&D settings, so I'ma play the hits here and then we're gonna get into the next section where I make some suggestions. Alright? Alright.

Greyhawk: Weirdly Coherent - Commonly and incorrectly hailed as the first D&D setting (rest in peace Blackmoor & Dave Arneson), Greyhawk (known in-universe as Oerth) was written primarily by Gary Gygax, though shaped heavily by his home games and the players thereof. Now, I'm not gonna veer into a hit piece on Gygax (and even if I wanted to better ones already exist), but notable in the context of his writing on fantasy religion is that Gary Gygax was a fanboy for the Crusades, but also a massive (and half-educated, poorly researched) fanboy for ancient Celtic legend. Some of the oddities for this strange mix have already been mentioned, such as how the original Cleric is based on Crusader priests and the modern Cleric is still feeling that influence, but this - alongside growing up very culturally Christian in, you know, the United States of America - was also very much influential on how Gygax would come to write his fantasy faiths and also run up on his own limits with the same.

Faith in Greyhawk is polytheism as brought to you by someone who almost sort of understands the idea of polytheism. Genuinely, Gygax made a good run at this and kinda tripped over his own shoelaces at the end...well, his own shoelaces and his unrelenting race essentialism, thanks for the racial pantheons buddy. Greyhawk is home to many faiths, which worship and/or fear and/or oppose multiple gods (for example, Erythnul is associated with the so-called New Faith of the Flaeness but is more of a demonic figure of evil than a god you are, socially, expected to 'worship'). For your average person, the buck stops here. While an individual god may have greater prominence in a given region for political, social, or mythological reasons (for example, the relative prominence of Boccob the Uncaring in the Free City of Greyhawk in no small part due to the influence of the legendary Cleric known as Riggby) and therefore have a grand temple or dedicated cults in their name, this isn't the norm everywhere. When the Church of St. Cuthbert of the Cudgel installs a building in your frontier village they're here on a mission, it's weird, and you should be worried. On a normal day, your average lay member performs acts of worship as part of their day-to-day life, calling upon the god(s) who are relevant to their endeavors to give thanks, to ask for blessings, to honor them, or to plead mercy. Clerics, in turn, while socially conflated with the more specific cults are often pantheistic Clerics, drawing upon many gods as representatives of the overall faith. Dogmas are typically a little light on details when it comes to the afterlife, in part because the idea of an unearthly reward for one's faith is often seen as a little distasteful, and in part because going to the afterlife of a particular god is actually pretty rare on Greyhawk. Your average person is drawn to the Outer Plane that most aligns with their worldview, and goes on their spiritual journey in the hereafter without reference to a particular god.

Which is where we get to the weird shoelace tripping, because you only get an afterlife related to your faith if you've developed an intimate and intense relationship with one god in particular. When this relationship has become a defining, perhaps the defining part of your life (whether or not you're a divine caster), then you go to that god's afterlife when you die. The typical case here is someone with a deep passion for work that falls under the purview of a god, such as a master thief ending up with Olidammara, or a mountain man passing into the dominion of Elhonna. Clerics, though rarer, are prime candidates for this sort of afterlife, but also like...the fuck were you on, Gygax? Admittedly not all faiths in the real world particularly concern themselves with the hereafter or claim to have answers about what it might be like or what it entails, and in that sense Gygax's Planar afterlives as soft mysteries and a sort of default state aren't entirely out there - it's the strange dash of monotheism at the end that gets me. And, not to leave this unsaid, Gygax is not a particularly good fantasy anthropologist, so sometimes he just. Wrote shit. That he perhaps should not have written if he wanted to retain the chunk of his dignity that he lost by publishing it. I'd say to do a shot every time he writes something weird about women as gods or women in faith but you'd get through one book and be dead already.

Forgotten Realms: The Original Sin - Ed Greenwood you are this hobby's cool grandpa and also mine and I'm so sorry that I need to put you on fucking blast here. I can only hope that you've heard all this already; it's been being bitched about for twenty years, after all.

Statistically the first D&D setting that you personally have encountered, the Forgotten Realms (the continent of Faerun on the planet Toril, in-universe) was originally written by Ed Greenwood and has been contributed to by a list of other authors entirely too long for me to cite without dying of starvation at this keyboard. Most commonly known for its gonzo locations, intricate worldbuilding, and being absolutely riddled with famous high-level NPCs engaged in high-level bullshit with one another and the world at large (a status encouraged by the staggering array of novels and videogames set in it), the Forgotten Realms is also infamous in the audience for requiring that people worship a god that is their closest and most favored god and to be true to that god or face punishment in the afterlife. Those who are False to their faith face an eternity of civil service in the City of the Dead, while the Faithless end up mortared into the Wall of the Faithless to suffer until eventually becoming one with the Fugue Plane. It's very easy to point the finger at Ed Greenwood's Catholic faith when it comes to these worldbuilding elements, and while I'm certain that has something to do with the state of affairs I need you to take a walk with me.

The Forgotten Realms is a land of miracles and wonders. It is lousy with gods; indeed, if you ever go look up a full list (do NOT fucking use the FR Wiki) you may well spit your drink at the screen. Faerun is home to gods native to the world, interlopers from other Primes, gods from human cultures that ended up here when their faithful were kidnapped across the Planes (here to include gods from Ireland, Egypt, and Finland, raise your hand if this sentence is how you learned that there are gods native to Finland), alien horrors from beyond the stars, Planar luminaries, ascended mortals, and more. These gods gather into pantheons, though to be frank that relationship is often quite uh, feudal, or familial. Trying to claim the gods of someone else's pantheon don't exist or are lesser than your own god on Faerun is a real fast ticket to getting your ass beat by said gods while your own gently asks what you've learned from this experience. Among other things, though, this means that "converting" within your own faith basically isn't conversion; if you grew up in a family of Chauntea worshipers and you get real into Mielikki this event, socially, is fucking nothing, it's a non-event. It might be a different story if you turned around and started worshiping Mystra, but even then that question is very much mediated by one's culture and geography; converting even far outside one's current or native faith is a non-event in, say, Waterdeep, but it might be a little more surprising in Neverwinter.

Here's the thing: the Forgotten Realms does not experience a separation of "religious life" from "normal life". This is gonna be a hard idea for my American readers in particular to grasp, but while Jane Average Realmswoman has a single patron deity and she is trying to emulate that god's example as much as possible, it is perfectly normal for her to pray to other gods, ask for their favor, and interact with their worshipers, and this is in no small part because they are inescapably bound with Jane's everyday life. The local cults of Azuth and/or Mystra bankroll the parchment makers who print the novels Jane reads (because parchment is required for scrolls, and both churches are also in heavy on magical industries), the fishermen who catch the food she buys offer fearful worship to Umberlee who is both their provider and their destroyer, the faithful of Sylvanus, Chauntea, or Eldath maintain the city parks and fight tooth and nail to keep them wild. When she feels lost in her life and needs guidance, the temples of Selune are open at all hours of the day and night and are the closest thing the Realm has seen to A. therapists and B. benevolent therapists. The weird BDSM club she goes to every now and again opens every party with a hymn to Loviatar. The Temple of Illmater doesn't run a fucking bake sale once a month vaguely for poor people in general, they go forth amongst the downtrodden and help them every god damn day, offering food and potable water, healing, healing again, healing a third time it's a bit of a theme, a listening ear, and campaigning for their interests in the political arena. Jane herself is a worshiper of, oh, let's say Deneir, she runs a bookstore and dedicates herself to the Goddess of Libraries; she goes to the temple of Deneir for copies of their holy texts to give away to those who ask, to verify rare tomes or donate them for the public good, and for those rites which are held in the temple, but when she went and got married a few years back she and her wife were joined in the temple of Sune Firehair, goddess of love. These gods and the organizations they run have been part of Jane's community since that community was founded, and each advances something in the living world that they see as holy and worth having; they are entwined, active, earnest. You've gotta be chill about people worshiping another god or being part of another faith entirely or your social life is going to just fucking explode.

This, then, is the full and glorious flower of Ed Greenwood's zealous dedication to anthropological worldbuilding, and unfortunately it has been sorta softly hidden and scraped under by years of corporate writing. Back in AD&D 2e, the books Faiths & Avatars and Powers & Pantheons went in deep on this subject, digging on all levels into how these religions practice and their role in everyday life, but from 3.0 onward this theme has seen less importance alongside a plethora of other writers who did not understand the vision, not that I'm looking at any RA SALVATORE YOU FUCKING HACK in particular. The end result is that the average player for 20+ years has been introduced to the part of faith in the Forgotten Realms that is deeply weird monolatry, and has reacted to that vision, but been denied the full view of a strange but very functional polytheism whose bones are still in the setting. That vision of strange monolatry is also one that other settings have been copying for a dog's age, here to include our next subject, Pathfinder. Strap in, I am going to say a lot of things and none of them are kind.

Golarion: World Holy War - Originally written by James Jacobs and contributed to by a plethora of freelancers and internal staff members at Paizo, Golarion is a shallow theme park of a setting characterized by incuriosity, disinterest in the human condition, incompetent homages to other, better settings, and thoughtless, distinctly American sympathy for empire. Like with many things James Jacobs claims to love but refuses to understand, Golarion's model of divinity is very much based on what people think the Forgotten Realms model is, and even in the context of that already-corrupt shadow, Golarion's is much worse. Much of the worldbuilding around divinity and cosmology is utilitarian; for instance, Mr. Jacobs is on record stating that gods on Golarion empower Clerics and other champions because direct miraculous intervention would set off a chain of mutually assured destruction that would leave no mortal life behind. Other bits are clearly more personal; as a key for-instance here, gods on Golarion are generative forces for alignment. That is, a god defines what it is to be, say, Lawful Good or Chaotic Neutral, and to defy a god is to have your alignment changed (see: Wrath of the Righteous). It is for this reason that the churches of Golarion concern themselves to an extreme extent with orthodoxy ("right thought", contrast orthopraxy, "right action"). Sharp-eyed readers may be recalling that I talked about paladins in Golarion being expected to root out heresy; this situation is also why every god on Golarion supposedly maintains Inquisitors, as seen prior in this article. Further, these literal thought police deploy spells like castigate which punish and humiliate victims, primarily those of one's own faith, into confessing their "sins", which, while we're right here, how did the literal god damn Catholic remember that not every faith has sins or engages with the idea of sin and James Jacobs fucking couldn't pull that shit off?

Churches on Golarion do not have broad faiths that include multiple gods. Any given god may have divine friends, allies, or slaves, but ultimately the churches they run all have missionary work & attempted conversion in common. There was a good chunk of time in which Sarenrae, goddess of redemption, was running a fucking slave empire into swordpoint conversions, and only as of Pathfinder 2e has that been being fixed at all, in no small part because, again, James Jacobs does not understand the things he claims to love and dug his heels in when readers told him to his fucking face that this was a bad look. Likewise, these churches are separated from "normal" life quite a bit, being a place where one walks to in order to get one's worship on before returning to the rest of one's life, a particularly Protestant model of worship reproduced so thoughtlessly that I'm shocked Mr. Jacobs didn't achieve a state of no-mind and escape Samsara. Sometimes they sponsor religious organizations such as knightly orders or wizard colleges but these are exceptions, not the rule, and even then "oh hey the Hellknights are coming to town" isn't exactly a day to day kind of fuckin' event, is it? Mechanics like Obediences attempt to walk this back, but the thing about requiring you to spend resources to get mechanical benefits from worshiping your god is that you've turned around and made this a strange thing. Praying and honoring, say, Shelyn every day is no longer something you just do, it's something weird freaks do and they get divine power from doing it. There is no escaping the blade of the ludonarrative; mechanics win all conflicts because they influence the actual game world.

Now, while I sincerely hope my complete contempt for James Jacobs has come across here, I do have an obligation to be evenhanded. Pathfinder 2e has walked some of this back, but the root problems remain. The second edition of Golarion has, for example, removed Alignment entirely, which certainly solves one problem, but it also replaced castigate with crisis of faith, a Cleric spell designed to kill other Clerics by making them doubt their gods. Likewise, Pathfinder 2e has been mum on certain cosmological revelations from late in Pathfinder 1e, one of which being the idea that only one god will survive the end of the universe and they get to be the supreme god of the next one, which is given as the motivation for them being so far up on the nuts of getting converts. This idea is, to me, completely repulsive, but it's also just such a revealing take on what Paizo thinks gods are and what they think of faith. And unfortunately, the broad zeitgeist of the current D&D audience is very sympathetic to that idea, which brings us to:

Religion In D&D Part 2 - I Cannot Believe I Of All Fucking People Have To Tell You To Stop Being Such A Cynic

Man the little icon on the scroll bar is gettin' real fuckin' small at this point. This will be the last major set of arguments for the article; following this section will be one sample Cleric for every Domain published in 5.0 (5.5, released in 2024, is a bit young for me to bother just yet), so just stay with me here y'all. It's been a long, angry, bitter journey, and yet there is this final hill to die on.

So, what's this broad zeitgeist I was just talking about? To be frank, it's a combination of thoughtless American Protestantism and some r/atheism bullshit. As the audience for D&D has gotten more left-leaning and queer, in no small part due to the wild successes of shows like Critical Role and Dimension 20 (and WotC's weak, half-done, and yet unambiguously open support for including queer players, players of color, and others traditionally gated out of D&D), there has been a...conflation, shall we call it, of the fictional religions in various D&D settings with, not to put too fine a point on it, real-world Evangelicals and others who perpetuate harm in the name of faith. And, y'know, I get it. I'm a whole-ass bi dude from the edge of the Bible Belt, I used to get fuckin' jumped every other day or so, I lived in Kansas for six mother fucking years, I get it. But uh, remember when I said I'm a bit of a zealot for the old lore? Remember my consistent theme in articles of not liking it when things with great potential are left on the table because there is an Approved Way to view them? Yeah. So. Let's talk. We're gonna lay out some arguments and some suggestions.

Everything Old Is New Again - "But Vox," the strawman who teleported into this sentence is saying, "you yourself have said that the stuff you're into is old! Surely there needs to be an accounting for the changes in play culture, let alone real-world culture?" And like yeah, sure, but here's the thing: edgy-ass immature atheism (I say, as an edgy atheist) is also old as hell in D&D. Like, old-old. Late-game AD&D 1e old. Older-than-me old. Now, D&D's first serious and nuanced internal conversation about the nature of divinity and its role in mortal lives was part of Planescape, whose bones remain in all modern settings to this day (even Exandria, primarily written by Matthew "I Am In Every Videogame, Yes, Even That One" Mercer), but like a lot of settings it was very...inconsistently brought forward during 3.X, leading to the loss of a lot of its strangeness, its philosophy, and even its earnest willingness to simply be cringe but free. Though this was by no means confined to Planescape, as many writers of D&D novels were extremely willing to question the utility, motives, or even divinity of the gods - here to include Paul Kidd (author of the novelizations for White Plume Mountain, Descent Into The Depths Of The Earth, and Queen of the Demonweb Pits), who I usually claim as my gold standard for D&D novelizations but whose attitude here is, quite frankly, embarrassing in its confident thoughtlessness and cynicism. The ideas that gods are super-predators, that they are a class of abusers, that they are false idols, that they cannot claim divinity because they are limited/can be killed, these ideas are, statistically, likely to be older than you are. Better writers than you have been fumbling this since before you learned how to read.

Jesus Christ Is An Outlier And Should Not Be Counted - So here's the thing. The idea that a god needs to be a transcendent being, with attributes that render them sovereign from the living world, removed from time and supreme in all senses? That's just Christianity. If you go talk to like, a rabbi, an imam, if you can have a frank conversation with a Hellenic pagan or a Zoroastrian or a follower of Voudoun, they'll offer quite different perspectives, often a number of different ones from within their own faiths. There are more conceptions of what it is to be divine, to be a god and to worship gods, than there are cultures that have believed in gods, and to be frank the best advice I have for you here is to go outside and touch grass. Then, take some of the grass with you and have some fascinating & frank conversations with anyone who is not Christian. Even Gary Gygax, fanboy of the literal fucking Crusades, tried to handle his shit here and got more than nowhere in terms of success. When you insist that the gods of D&D need to be like the god of Christianity, you are both limiting yourself creatively and engaging on a great deal of art in bad faith, bringing with you your own baggage which you are failing to question. These conversations are gonna be difficult! You're going to feel ignorant; you may try the patience of the people you're seeking to learn from. But to learn is an unalloyed good, and here I am speaking of far more than the hypothetical benefit it's going to bring to your Cleric in your happy elfgame time.

The Lord Is God Of Both Good And Evil - Surprise bitches it's a second alignment section. First tings first, I want to repeat again that gods in D&D are not generative forces of virtue; rather, they are worldviews. This changes if you're playing Pathfinder, but if you are playing Pathfinder, stop immediately. And this argument can seem like I'm splitting hairs, but it changes the game quite a bit; a lot of players and readers wonder why, say, Liira isn't out here trying to solve all of the world's problems, but that is not Liira's fucking job, y'know? Her job is to be the goddess of joy, the pure light and laughter of seeing the world of wonder, to be god of delights and surprises, and it's not exactly fair to ask her to be something else. If your character is a Liiran and you have some concerns about, I dunno, the homelessness problem in Waterdeep, that's on you to work towards.

Broadly, though, there is a problem in the fanbase that was laid out excellently in The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, written by the esteemed Ursula K. Le Guin; people find it very easy to assume that if something is described as good, as benevolent, as truly kind and compassionate and full of wonder, there has to be some kind of catch. There is a hidden evil, there is a dark cost, there is an ulterior motive. And like, look, the gods of D&D are fallible beings, they make mistakes, but the thing is that when D&D tells you a god is Good, it like...means it. Does the writing always bear this up? No. The writing is often friendly to things that are in fact bad. But even figures like Bahamut or Tyr, infamous for their associations with fantasy cops, they're trying to be the gods of like, Sam Vimes, not the gods of police brutality. Likewise gods are not the primary drivers of the battle between good and evil - they are prosecuting their worldviews, and those worldviews relate to a Prime Material Plane that is of both wonder and horror, that is full of the creations of many gods and even many mortals. It is the law of the living world that wasps lay their eggs in living things, but so too is it the law that the land is bountiful, that a shocking number of alien beings would love you to pet them, that the sunrise after a storm is uncommonly beautiful and glorious.

As far as evil gods go, let me link my article there again so I can expand on it. Broadly, evil gods in D&D can be thought of as part of two camps; Greenwoodian evil, and Dickensonian evil (shout-out to my close friend and priestess - don't question it - the Celt for this framework). Greenwoodian evils are parts of nature, unrelentingly bound to the living world, who are gods over things that are terrible but necessary. Talona (goddess of plagues), Umberlee (goddess of the sea), Auril (goddess of winter), Loviatar (goddess of suffering), these are Greenwoodian evils, and if you're noticing that most of these are women, well, Ed Greenwood seems constitutionally incapable of writing a woman who is not, at worst, both glorious and terrible, and this is a compliment. Now, Greenwood has gods that don't fit this conception - look no further than Bane, god of tyranny - but the great joke at the expense of these gods is that they are not, contrary to their own belief, sovereign from the living world, they are not above it, removed from it. They are, instead, bent, defeated, broken, and beaten down until they service the natural order, and each time they attempt to shatter the cage the world of wonder has woven around them they lose some part of themselves in the process.

Now, Dickensonian evil is named for the works of Seth Dickenson, which concerns itself with the Sword Logic, the logic of empire. The argument it makes is that reliance on others makes you vulnerable, and only through becoming a sovereign being can you be safe and complete; the ideal being, in the conception of Dickensonian evil, interacts with others not at all, or, if it must, interacts with them only to consume them for resources. Bane is a Dickensonian evil, as are Bhaal, Myrkul, Gruumsh, Hextor, and the like, and the thing about the Sword Logic is that it is persuasive, powerful, and wrong. However, while it is ultimately self-defeating, the harm done to real people in the meantime is an incalculable tragedy, and thus it needs to be opposed at all times. As edgy bastards say constantly: you can't let God do all the work. This style of evil appeals to people who are, themselves, cruel, ruthless, and inclined towards consumption, but it also appeals to people who are hurt, who have been betrayed, whom the world has let down, and in that sense there is quite a lot to explore here. The ordinary person does not give in to the logic of empire without cause.

For gods of both good and of evil, the question at the root of it all is this: why do people willingly worship them? What worldview is on offer, and why are you sympathetic to that worldview? What would it mean to change, adopt, or oppose that worldview? If you take nothing else from this section, take that and ponder it.

Death Is For The Dead - Going with the above, holy fucking hell y'all the cosmology is not as important as you think it is. There is a vast emphasis placed by the player base upon the afterlife, one which sometimes bleed into the writing (in Starfinder, published by Paizo, "choosing your own afterlife" is seen as the ultimate expression of religious freedom) but you know what most people know about the afterlife? Nothing useful! Jane Average Realmswoman knows that she will in some way be with her goddess when she's dead and that it'll probably be pretty cool and that's about it, and as far as these things go Jane is correct. People tend to react with shock and horror when they learn for the first time that the usual spiritual journey someone goes on in the afterlife will end with them becoming one with the Plane and/or god they're associated with, and to an extent I have some sympathy for this. Lifelong atheist, remember, the idea of "losing myself" to become part of something greater sounds terrifying...but is that what's fucking happening? If one is to experience an afterlife, that is, a form of life, one must be able to change. There is no escape from eventually changing so much that you would be unrecognizable as the living person you once were, and for those who want to try we have undeath on offer (except we don't, undead also experience those sorts of changes and as a result there is truly no escape from being a real thing in the real reality). And in this cynicism for the afterlife people miss the forest for the trees. When you end up, say, in the divine realm of Oghma and are filing books in his infinite library, Oghma isn't using your soul for slave labor here. You're a newly dead person who needs time to acclimate to not having the needs of the living, and moreover you're a newly dead person whose greatest, most ardent passion was language, poetry, prose, nonfiction, the glory of writing in all its flower, and now you have unlimited access to such, an endless opportunity to truly understand and grow closer to this thing that was so important to you. I'm not saying not to involve cosmological themes or to not take adventures to divine realms, don't mistake me, but...maybe try to open your mind to the idea that this thing which is supposed to be good and natural is, in fact, good and natural.

Gods & You - This is more or less re-stating some arguments from above, but put some thought into the churches and faiths your character has a relationship with. Are they part of a broader faith? Is such a faith big where they live, and what does that mean for them? What sorts of interactions and opinions, right or wrong, do they have with the local religions and why? It doesn't have to be anything huge, but the faithful are, again, inescapable. People's lives in these settings are religious, and that faith infuses their day-to-day; so too does it infuse your character's. And while I'm right here, having beef with those faiths and/or the gods behind them? Legit. Not just legit, but on the table to be consummated; there is a long and strong tradition in D&D of killing gods with your own two hands, and while gods can be hard to keep dead (look at Bane), killing them always means something. Maybe you can take their place and try your hand at being a better god than they were. Maybe you're just trying to stop their evil schemes. Maybe they slept with your mom and you take some exception to this. Whatever it is, these sorts of conflicts both have bones in with real-world religion and a storied history in D&D itself, and they shouldn't be considered outside the scope of your ambition if you really wanna go for it.

Y'all, it's been a journey. If you've made it this far thank you for reading, and as always I remain open to feedback and criticism. Please don't let the incredible length of this piece or my unrelenting, undying fucking rage intimidate you; I wouldn't be making articles like this if I wasn't trying to have a legitimate dialogue with my audience, y'know? Now, I have one last bit for you. In an effort to be helpful, to fucking flex with my writing, and as a little treat, the following section will present some example Clerics. All but one (Matthias Winters) are from the Forgotten Realms. If you make the egregious mistake of looking up the Forgotten Realms wiki, it will tell you that Matthias's god is an aspect of Velsharoon; this is incorrect, and the first person to try to tell me otherwise will be turned into a bowl of spaghetti and served up at a high school dance. This is the one thing I will be entertaining no arguments about. That said, please feel free to take these characters as inspiration, mine them for ideas, or even just to play them yourself if you're inclined to indulge my staggering arrogance in such a fashion.

One last note; you will notice that I have often disregarded the Domains associated with various gods in the books. This is in no small part because WotC did those assignments with incredible, mind-blowing fucking incompetence, and also because a great deal of their former Domains or Spheres no longer have adequate representation. I have chosen to ignore them on purpose and with malice aforethought.

Now, without further ado, may I present:

The Chosen Many - Sample Clerics

Our sample Clerics will be formatted as follows:

[NAME]

Species Domain Cleric [Background]

General pitch of their concept & plot hooks

Personality Traits: [HERE] / Ideals: [HERE] / Bonds: [HERE] / Flaws: [HERE]

Matthias Winters

Human Death Cleric [Guild Artisan]

Mattie was only an apprentice when the monsters came to his village, ravening things set loose by an unwise summoner. People he knew died, until the Shrouded Lady came and destroyed the beasts with a dark and divine grace he had never before encountered. This Lady did not ask for money, and she did not ask for favors, but of the proud and simple people of the village she did ask two things: to let others know that they had a friend in the lich-god Mellifleur, Friend of Heroes, and for Matthias's services as her apprentice. Both were granted, with many tearful goodbyes and promises to write, which have been, it must be said, kept. It's a strange life, working as a Cleric to the Lord of the Last Shroud. Matthias isn't terribly educated, no, but he's no fool: he knows his god is evil, far more vile and underhanded than Matthias himself would ever want to be. And yet, "Friend of Heroes" seems to be no empty title. Matthias is sent on odd errands all across the land, all of them ominous and to some nebulous good. Go here, says the Shrouded Lady, and warn the town that a drow raid is coming; go there, and deliver these potions to the Moonstone Four, who will have need of them. Matthias has guarded caravans, healed the sick, slain the wicked, and placed far more magical items into chests within crumbling ruins than he ever thought plausible. During less pressing times, his work as a smith still sees use, crafting items of unusual make and odd, threatening beauty for more powerful spellcasters to enchant. One day, the Shrouded Lady has promised, his training will be advanced enough to create his own.

Mellifleur is evil. Matthias knows this. But does it matter so much, if Matthias is still helping? Does the promise of lichdom for himself really matter, if he can do more right by the world with all that time? He thinks about this, between hammer strokes, and he has no answer yet.

Personality Traits: "I tend to work when I need to think." & "I ask people what they think of death." & "I eat big and hearty; quality is a distant consideration." / Ideals: "If you've helped others, the method shouldn't matter [Neutral]." & "Professionals have standards [Lawful]." / Bonds: "I might uh, be in love with the Shrouded Lady." & "I seek a lost artifact of Mellifleur that can divine the plots of other evil gods." / Flaws: "When I don't know what to do, I take the first order I'm given that sounds right." & "There is no kill like overkill."

Elrissa Morrowmoon

Drow War Cleric [Soldier]

Born on the surface as the first generation of her family to be so born, Elrissa was raised in a community devoted to Eilistraee, actively involved in shepherding escapees from Lolth's dominions. She grew up idolizing the warrior-priests of her goddess, their grace and confidence, their surety, but never felt that for herself; big for a drow, hell, big even in comparison to a human, she despaired at ever achieving her dreams of becoming one of Eilistraee's paladins, even as she trained every day with gritted teeth and tearful eyes. When her community was found and raided in an attempt to capture the escapees as sacrifices to Lolth, Elrissa lost her father, and the very next night she stormed into the sacred grove and screamed her demand for vengeance up to her goddess.

She was answered.

In a sick way, Elrissa feels sometimes it might have been better if she wasn't. Now she's a holy warrior, now she knows she has the favor of her goddess and none can deny it, but she's still the plodding, clonking, clanging thing she was before, hunting the faithful of Lolth in her plate armor like an army of pots and pans. She lacks subtlety; she lacks grace. But while Elrissa is still in some ways the little girl who was never good enough in her own eyes, watch her change when the innocent are threatened, or when the priests of the Spider Queen are within striking distance. She does not leave survivors. She will not heed surrenders. She is coming, in a tide of moonlight and hateful sorrow, until no brick stands atop another.

Personality Traits: "I am very earnest and forthright." & "I get easily distracted by nature." & "I maintain my own equipment; no one else gets to." / Ideals: "People get better when they're offered love and support [Good]." & "For drow to have a future, Lolth must die [Neutral]." / Bonds: "I will find the ones who killed my father and repay them in kind." & "Sacred groves, even those of other gods, are worthy of my protection." / Flaws: "My hatred of Lolth can blind me to practical realities." & "Alcohol isn't a problem, it's a solution."

Gemma Rivergard

Half-Elf Forge Cleric [Noble]

Gemma acquired her vocation the way she gets most things: she bought it. As the fourth child of the noble Rivergards, who make their money in trade, her life was always a bit of a loose end. On a dare, she walked into a temple of Waukeen, laid out a spread of gems and gold and art pieces from the family vault, and announced her intention to purchase the exalted station of Cleric. She was as surprised as everyone else when the Goddess of Coins agreed.

Gemma is still a bit of a loose end. Waukeen blessed her with the power to make the goods her family merely trades, and much more besides, but lacking a specific holy mission she's taken to traveling, and it's broadened her horizons. One walk down a poorly maintained road might lead to a quest to cull the monsters threatening it, or politics with a greedy lord who has forgotten the value of commerce. She's set predatory contracts to rights, fought to the death against slaver rings, and purchased a truly concerning amount of amateur art from various goblins. And yet while she's happy with her growth as a person, Gemma still feels like she's lacking a purpose. Surely she can't purchase that.

…Surely not?

Personality Traits: "Is this some kind of peasant joke I'm too rich to understand?" & "You not understanding if I'm joking kinda is the joke." & "That really updated my journal." / Ideals: "To broaden one's horizons is to improve oneself [Good]." & "Every man has his price. That's not always a bad thing [Neutral]." / Bonds: "I haven't left my family! I'm still looking out for them." & "I still keep up with the goblin artists I've bought paintings from. I'm kinda their patron." / Flaws: "You bet I can't? Hold my beer." & "I forget sometimes that my experiences aren't universal."

Neela Wagonborn

Halfling Trickery Cleric [Haunted One]

So, here's the thing. This isn't Neela. Neela is not here at the moment, and you can't leave a message. Neela, you see, was captured by a Thayan looking to build a better Mirror of Opposition, and the wizard's experiment spit out Aleen, the Lawful Evil reflection of the original Neela, who had spent her life to date as a Cleric of Liira, Goddess of Joy. The mirror's enchantment, normally used to compel the summoned copy to kill the original, did not do this to Aleen, who was swiftly captured herself, brutally experimented upon, and then turned loose with the promise that her "creator" would be watching.

She's been hiding for all her life is worth, posing as Neela and playing a nerve-shredding game of balancing distance from Neela's loved ones with staying close enough to not arouse suspicion. Who knows if she'd survive getting killed in this Faerun, which is so unlike the one she knows? Praise be to the gods both above and below, though, Aleen here has an excuse: she's been receiving revelations from Liira, which are guiding her on a quest whose objective is unclear to her, but which has enabled her to become more powerful as a Cleric. If she's tricked the Lady of Illusions…well, that speaks well of her odds, right?

Liira has not been tricked. This journey of self-discovery into the world of beauty and wonder is about to be the funniest prank the Lady of Mists has pulled in fucking centuries.

Personality Traits: "The road calls! Immediately!" & "I remember those who wrong me." & "I have a weakness for musicians." / Ideals: "A deal is a deal [Lawful]." & "Everyone else is looking out for themselves first. Why should I be better? [Evil]." / Bonds: "That Thayan needs to die. Screaming." & "No one can find out who I am. No one." / Flaws: "I'm a good liar, but not as good as I think I am." & "My cruel streak can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."

Fila Firetouched

High Elf Tempest Cleric [Entertainer]

Descended from a long line of Waterdhavian elves, Fila broke with family tradition by converting to the worship of Sune Firehair, goddess of beauty and patron of the arts. During their more youthful years they lived down to the stereotypes of the many lay members, producing a frankly embarrassing catalogue of love poetry, ex-lovers, and amateur paintings, but after the loss of their sibling to a sea storm their art took a rather more gloomy and Gothic direction. Storms and landscapes featured heavily, and with their newfound focus Fila was praised as an artist to watch, with a keen eye for the sublime. Their parents and community did their best to support Fila, but they were determined to process their grief in their own way, seeking to capture the "true heart of the storm", which they feared, hated, and also loved.

It was atop a hill in the Dessarin Valley, during a savage spring storm, that Fila was struck by lightning while trying to paint. They died in an instant of eternal agony, but it was not to be their end. Rather than claim Fila's soul, Sune Firehair offered them the chance to return, to continue their art and seek out others whose beauty was hidden by the cruelties of the world. Fila accepted, and returned to a body branded by the storm and crackling with divine power.

The plate armor is still taking some getting used to, as are the odd glances and awkward greetings from the church, but the storm, oh, the storm…

It feels like an old friend now, beautiful and terrible. It's all too happy to help with Fila's work.

Personality Traits: "Hold a moment, I need to sketch this for later." & "There is a party person in me that comes out sometimes." & "The amateur poetry will continue until morale improves." / Ideals: "The world is good, the world is beautiful, the world is worth fighting for [Good]." & "If you don't challenge norms and expectations, people will never examine them [Chaotic]." / Bonds: "I don't always get on with my family, but I'd still do anything for them." & "I haven't forgotten any of my ex-lovers; they can ask a lot more of me than I care to admit." / Flaws: "My resurrection was a miracle, but sometimes when people say my scars are a curse it still feels like they're right." & "I may be a little too excited about my newfound powers of violence."

Nattie Kells

Human Order Cleric [Hermit]

Nattie's family likes to say she was born morose; a depressed and somber child, she never quite got on with the people of her river town, and made few friends, not even during her wild years of late adolescence when she carved her way through every interested lass available only to seemingly lose her passion. Oh, yes, people tried to help, but the things they found meaning in just didn't quite resonate with Nattie, and she dabbled with this church and that career and suchlike before, inevitably, dropping them in favor of her only seemingly eternal passion: reading. Eventually she scraped some money together to go traveling, looking for anything that could speak to her, and she found a long-abandoned shrine to Jergal, the Last Scribe, assistant to Kelemvor and Lord of the End of Everything. It wasn't meaning, not exactly, but the idea that all would be ash one day, that meaning was not required, it had a comfort to it.

She was 23 when Jergal came to her in her dreams and requested her services, which would necessitate a return to lands where other people dwelled. Nattie awoke to find a pile of equipment near her, along with a holy symbol, and she set off, learning the ways of divine magic in her dreams as she made the long and pointless trek back to "civilization". Now, as the Quill of the Last Scribe, Nattie enacts what she thinks of as fate. A charm spell here, a nudge there, and things happen; a man meets his future husband by taking a road he would have walked past, a goblin scout is devoured by an owlbear he would have avoided, a horse spooks and kills its rider. Nattie has hurt people. She has saved people. She tells herself it doesn't matter, but beneath the layers of lassitude and nameless sorrow there is an uncertainty. What is she becoming?

This, too, is Jergal's design. Nattie is determined to live in misery, but the Last Scribe can wait for her to realize better. He can always wait.

Personality Traits: "Ugh. People." & "Primary sources motherfuckers! Write some! Keep them safe!" & "Nobody talk about the kind of person I am around furry animals. I mean it." / Ideals: "It means something, that you were here, and that you were alive [Good]." & "People return to dust eventually. It doesn't matter if they return to dust faster [Evil]." / Bonds: "My lonely home in the shrine is sacred to me." & "The bookstore I used to go to as a child was nearly going out of business, but as long as I keep spending adventuring money there it will never die." / Flaws: "I don't really have any bad feelings about people dying. People die all the time. They're very good at it." & "I wish I felt more blessed by the attention of my god, but he's such an aggravating little bitch. Why's he gotta be so annoying?"

Dagill Tapper

Shield Dwarf Knowledge Cleric [Background]

The son of miners, Dagill quickly proved to have a keen interest in learning, if little talent for academia. For much of his youth he found employment running books for the clan's mines, until - on the advice of the local priests of Moradin - he was sent to Neverwinter to be educated in magic, as the gift was in him and his home had little resources to explore it. Wizardry did not work out for Dagill, despite his passion for the Art, but that passion saw him into the worship of Azuth, God of Spells, and eventually he was chosen as a Cleric.

Dagill's interests lie in the recording and advancement of magical knowledge, and his new faith keeps him busy. Between expeditions to recover lost knowledge and study traditions of spellcraft, he assists in scribing scrolls and seeks out potential mages in under-served populations. Though his clan doesn't approve of his conversion, he's still a dwarf's dwarf, with a deep love for the gods of his people, who returns home often and pays his dues in gold, labor, and knowledge for the good of his people. They'll come around eventually. They must.

Undiscussed with most is Dagill's dearest ambition: to find one of the lost scrolls penned by the very gods, and cast it with his own hands. What else could bring him closer to his new god?

Personality Traits: "Have you heard the good word about how great wizards are today?" & "Despite it all, I'm still a dwarf's dwarf in a lot of ways." & "I make a big deal out of Azuth. All the time! People should appreciate him more!" / Ideals: "The advancement of the Art is meant to help people [Good]." & "We have obligations to truth, and to history [Lawful]." / Bonds: "I still send money to my clan, and I should visit again soon. I might have an arranged marriage coming up." & "The wizard who tried to teach me is a good woman; I need to repay her kindness." / Flaws: "I have a bit of an inferiority complex about wizards." & "I am easily distracted by puzzles and riddles."

St. Nokta Kinslayer

Goblin Life Cleric [Outlander]

Honesty can change a life, you know. Nokta's warband came up against a pack of tall-folk adventurers, as goblin warbands sometimes do. She was a soldier, then, seemingly destined to be smeared beneath a mercenary boot, but when she was captured the adventurers said: talk, and we will let you live. She talked, of course she talked, Maglubiyet teaches survival at all costs, but her fellows found out, and intended to kill her along with the adventurers during an ambush.

The tall-folk fought like demons to save Nokta, because they had said she would live, and they meant it. Despite their best efforts she died, to an arrow in the throat, only to wake with the battle still raging, brought back to life by diamond and spell and the tall-folk shaman in his metal armor. Three times did Nokta die, and three times was she brought back, only to watch the tall-folk shaman take a blade to the heart. Gripped by something she couldn't name, Nokta raced over, and took his diamonds, and tried to speak his spell, fervently calling out for his strange tall-folk god to spare him.

Nokta was answered in the name of Illmater, the Lord on the Rack, god of mercy and of self-sacrifice, and has served him since. For dying and returning, her new church calls her Saint, but her people call her Kinslayer, and the Traitor Shaman, and more besides. There will be no peace, and though Nokta knows her suffering reduces that of the world, this cannot continue. If the Fire-Eyed God wants her head, there can only be one recourse: break his priests until the cost of war sickens Maglubiyet , and he accepts peace. Saint Nokta is unafraid, and she is unmerciful.

Personality Traits: "What, tall-folk - uh, I mean, yes, my child?" & "I don't hate vegetables, I love meat." & "The Tall God says His blessings are for all. For some reason." / Ideals: "Peace for peace, wrath for wrath [Neutral]." & "I don't understand the compassion I was shown, but I do treasure it [Good]." / Bonds: "The adventurers who fought for me have my service for the asking." & "I'll drop everything to fight the servants of the Fire-Eyed God." / Flaws: "I don't know what this 'love' is, and 'trust' is also still pretty difficult for me." & "My fears drive me to violence far more often than the Tall God likes."

Jelka Threebones

Orc Grave Cleric [Acolyte]

Jelka came to live amongst the Sky Pony tribe of the Uthgardt as a young adult, one of several political hostages exchanged between her own tribe and the Sky Pony as part of a peace agreement; with both in the shadow of the Kingdom of Many-Arrows, wise leaders on both sides sought to cool traditional conflicts between them in favor of looking to the greater threat to their mutual north, and Jelka was selected for her cool head, proud bearing, and great foresight for such a young orc. The story might have ended there, if the Cult of the Dragon hadn't moved into the area looking to pillage the spirit mounds and burial grounds of both tribes' warriors to secure a supply of corpses for their necromancies. Outraged at this desecration and disrespect, Jelka called upon Gruumsh and Tempus in the name of both her peoples for the power to revenge herself upon the defilers, and her prayers were answered.

Today, Jelka continues her campaign of revenge in the name of Gruumsh, hunting down those who raise the dead, defile graves, and bend the minds of warriors. Her list of enemies is long and only growing longer, and she is keenly aware that she is not yet mighty enough to face down the likes of dracoliches or, say, the entire sovereign nation of Thay. But she will be. She must be. Wrongs have been done, and she wades into battle chanting the litany of them in an endless roll of accusation and reprisal, screaming hateful hymns alongside her chosen allies. Her new mission has made for strange bedfellows, but for all her outward fury Jelka remains the curious and level-headed young orc she was when she was selected all those years ago. Perhaps there are other enemies she might make peace with, to gain the satisfaction of her almighty vengeance.

Personality Traits: "Raise a cup with me! We should celebrate!" & "I'm very curious about new cultures, sometimes to the point of being annoying." & "I love a good story." / Ideals: "The world will hit you hard. If you don't take revenge, all you'll get is hit again [Evil]." & "If you don't have the guts, you don't deserve the glory [Chaotic]." / Bonds: "My word of alliance, once given, is absolute." & "I have siblings in my first tribe who should be adults soon. If they need my help, they have it." / Flaws: "I never forget a sleight." & "I pick fights I can't win sometimes."

Kellard Frosthalt

Rock Gnome Nature Cleric [Folk Hero]

Kell should have been a druid. He knows it, his clan knows it, druids know it, there's even odds that mushrooms in Menzobarrenzen know it, but he's always had a deep phobia of shape-shifting, so for a long while he was content to study nature…academically. Sure, his papers were trite, but the man published and that's not nothing. When he was hired to catalog finds for an expedition into Netherese ruins, the team found an ancient shrine to the goddess now known as Chauntea, and beset by undead guardians. Unwilling to let the sacred place be defiled, Kell took up arms for the first time, and found himself blessed with power.

Now Kell spends his time in lost places, seeking revelation and tending to the needs of rural communities. His new position is intimidating. More than many other followers of the Lady of Waving Grain, he understands that his goddess is an ancient and persistent foe of evil. Only…can something better truly be grown from her foes? Is Kell ready?

Personality Traits: "I love nature! Let me tell you about this parasitic wasp!" & "I know it doesn't fit my station, but I just, I need to be dressed sharp, okay?" & "I tell jokes with a completely straight face." / Ideals: "There are no pointless things; all things of the world have a treasured place in it [Good]." & "Generosity is the highest virtue [Good]." / Bonds: "Fuck Netheril, fuck the Netherese, burn their ruins and salt the ashes." & "After that first fight in the ruins, a peasant family took me in. I owe them my life." / Flaws: "I have a deep and abiding phobia of having my body changed against my will." & "I never, ever, ever, shut the fuck up."

Dolly Bookchild

Half-Drow Peace Cleric [Investigator]

Most half elves lose their human parent first, but as the child of two adventurers Dolly wasn't exactly surprised when her drow mother bit the big one doing battle with a demon accidentally released from an ancient binding. Seeking to understand her loss, Dolly started spending time in the sacred libraries of Deneir, and eventually converted after falling in love with learning. Academia isn't exactly her strong suit, but Dolly has a lot of practical knowledge that isn't often written down in an accessible fashion. Her new church was proud to fund the publishing of Dolly's Practical Survival Guide.

Still, a new love of learning isn't closure, and Dolly yearned to be an adventurer like her parents. After her second book went off to the printers, she stayed up in vigil to ask Deneir for a cleric's power, vowing to use it to find and advance knowledge, and to protect the ignorant. Her wish was granted, and now she bears the peace of the library wherever she goes. Every day is a lovely day for learning.

Hopefully one of these lovely days Dolly will figure out that the demon isn't done with just her mother.

Personality Traits: "It's a beautiful day to learn something new, isn't it?" & "Ah, the great outdoors!" & "I skip when I'm happy. No really. No, really." / Ideals: "Knowledge belongs to everyone [Lawful]." & "Extend grace to the ignorant; they truly do not know better [Good]." / Bonds: "Dad's getting on in years. I need to make sure he isn't worrying about me when he passes." & "I still return to my temple pretty often; it feels more like home than home does." / Flaws: "Sometimes I forget that my fun adventures can have deadly consequences." & "I'm from the big city where my heritage isn't a big deal, so it's surprising every fucking time that it's a big deal elsewhere."

Jonas Cobbler

Aasimar Light Cleric [Urchin]

So here's the thing. Jonas had a bit of an odd childhood. Raised by a then-single mother who is a devout follower of Lathander, Jonas was maybe six, seven years old when he mentioned in his prayers that he's a boy and asked for some help being a boy because he knew Mommy worked very hard and didn't have a lot of money. His first direct experience with divinity was his god's gentle voice in his mind saying: yes, my child, your new dawn is upon you. He had some explaining to do the next morning, and his mother was happy for him and seemingly cross with Lathander, for some reason?

It wasn't until Jonas was about seventeen that he got answers to that particular mystery; he came home to find his mother, her partner, and a golden-haired stranger waiting up for him. His mother introduced the stranger as Jonas's father...

...Lathander.

Maybe running away from home in a bit of a panic was the wrong move, but uh. Jonas has at least one parent looking out for him now, right? It'll be fine. It'll be fine. It's all gonna be fine.

Personality Traits: "I am extremely food-motivated." & "Let me teach you my secret handshake!" & "Uh, I've got, a spell for this, uh - fuck - uh, in the name of the new dawn uh -" / Ideals: "You don't need a reason to help people [Good]." & "The best time to be a better person was yesterday. The second-best time is now [Good]." / Bonds: "My old friends mostly went off to real careers, but we still stay in touch." & "There's a hidden place in the old neighborhood that I take care of." / Flaws: "I cannot walk into church any more without thinking, holy shit this guy slept with my mom." & "I am embarassingly weak to a pretty face."

Freddie Wright

Human Twilight Cleric [Criminal]

Hailing from a family of Selunite wererats in Yartar, Freddie used to have a fairly exciting life spying on Zhentarim operations, right up until she blundered into a cell of Sharrans in the sewers. They pushed her into a portal to see what would happen, but not before somehow stripping her of her lycantheropy to ensure she would suffer and die. Freddie arrived in Undermountain with nothing but her faith, and in her time of need the Moonmaiden answered. Against all odds, Freddie survived, scrounging up equipment, learning the traps, and eventually staggering out of the Well into the Yawning Portal Inn. She still has nightmares, but Freddie is grateful every day that she's alive to have them.

Now the former wererat stalks the Sharrans up and down the Sword Coast, seeking the return of what was taken. She hates her heavy armor and despises being caged in one body, but despite her snappish ways she takes her duty as a guide very seriously. That's part of the problem, actually. The dead of the Underhalls haunt Freddie and beg her intercession so that they might move on, and with every ghost laid to rest her prey gets further away. But what's a girl to do, ignore them? No. Freddie has faith. This righteous path must, will, make her whole again.

Personality Traits: "Time is money, hurry it up." & "Sometimes I overcomplicate things because I'm biased against direct solutions." & "Hey that reminds me of something that happened in my family -" / Ideals: "If you give people what they need to grow, they become their best selves [Good]." & "No one else can walk your path for you [Chaotic]." / Bonds: "Yartar is still my favorite city, and I stop by to do good by it when I can." & "The dead of the Underhalls that follow me have none other to speak for them." / Flaws: "Do you have any idea how much this stupid monkey body pisses me off?" & "I've got a vengeful streak that is not uh, approved Selunite behavior."

[klausinamarink]

Oop let's try this again; for the birthday fics: “Because you’re a jinx!” angsty Steddie established relationship, chasing fame Eddie and some guy Steve who gets discovered while Eddie's band keeps being passed over? Platonic hellcheer and platonic Stobin.

I couldn’t find a way to put in the platonic ships but it’s still Steddie. Enjoy the angsty flavour electric boogaloo.

It was supposed to be Eddie’s lucky day.

This was supposed to be his time. The moment when the rich suits would look at Eddie and immediately offer him the contract that finally pushed his music to fame.

But it was just another fucking mediocre performance. Only a few people out of the dozens in the crowd cheered, but that was worse than getting no response at all. Nobody even went up to them for an autograph, their numbers, Instagram handles, music samples, anything that would’ve made the night worth it.

Eddie stayed silent and seething for the whole drive home. The rest of the band left on their own respective vehicles, though Jeff had lingered longer to say something that Eddie mentally filtered out. Probably some shitty encouragement or a call to quit. 

His hands tightened around the wheel. Eddie felt the pulsing headache crawl to the back of his eyes. Goddamnit, he needed to sleep.

Maybe in Steve’s arms, but for once, Eddie just wanted to be alone for tonight. 

After he parked the car and trudged the stairs back to his apartment, Eddie bit his lip until he tasted the sting of copper. 

He was so tired. Not just physically, but in very foul shape that took its claws into him. It was the apathetic crowds and uninterested advisors. How the rest of the band delayed practice more and more. The bland methodical act of cutting up another piece of his shrinking soul as a muse for his lyrics. 

But still. He was close to that single star of recognition. Eddie had to taste it.

Unlocking the door, Eddie kept himself from collapsing until he dropped his guitar case and landed face-first on the couch. 

In the bedroom, he could catch some muffled conversation, the floor creaking as Steve paced back and forth inside. 

Eddie frowned and checked his phone for any missed messages. Steve hadn’t texted him since five,  soon after Eddie had left for the worst night of his life. It was almost eleven now. So why was his boyfriend still up and talking to someone?

Before Eddie could try and get up, the door opened and Steve came out, his phone in hand. Steve glanced up and stopped in his tracks when he saw Eddie. He gave a bright smile.

“Hey, babe! You okay?” 

Eddie groaned. If he had the energy, he could scream into the pillows.

The floor creaked as Steve approached and gently laid a hand on his back. “Was the band okay?”

Eddie groaned again, unable to hold himself back from pressing against Steve’s hand. He could really use a fucking massage. Or some quick, stress-relief sex. “It’s fucking awful. It’s always fucking awful.”

Steve made a sympathetic noise, “I’m sorry to hear that, Eds.”

Eddie lifted his head up and peered at Steve. Despite his words, there was an odd light in Steve’s eyes and his lips were fighting desperately not to smile.

“What is it?” He asked.

Steve had the nerve to look spooked, “Uh, well, I don’t want to ruin your mood-”

“What is it?”

Steve stared at him for a moment before he sighed like it was the start of a serious discussion.

“You know that audition I did back in Chicago two weeks ago?” Steve bit his lip. It only revealed the cracks of excitement on his face and Eddie already knew what he was about to say. “Well, my agent called and said that I’m officially casted. I’m gonna be in a HBO show!”

Record scratch.

Eddie only stared at Steve as the news hit him with the speed of a truck. When he saw Steve’s smile in full glory, he only saw blank faces who spat at him with rejection and disappointment and ‘try better’s. 

How the fuck does Steve get so many gigs when Eddie could barely find an open venue in advance? And now he’s going to work for fucking HBO, Jesus Christ-

Steve was frowning at him, “You- are you not happy?”

“Of course, I am!” Eddie said quickly. It felt hard to speak when there was something now stuck and burning in his throat. He got up from the couch and walked to the kitchen. He needed a drink. Maybe not alcohol, though tempting. But some actual water but he was too exhausted and sober for this shit. 

“I’m always here to support my wonderful and talented boyfriend who never misses an audition. Who always gets a spot in whatever he plays in, even if it’s a fucking diaper commercial or a glorified extra who gets five more cents than his less impressive boyfriend.” 

As he spoke, his words became more tinted with venom. Eddie took an empty glass and filled it under the tap. He almost choked from gulping it down in one go. It cooled his throat, but the burning simply expanded through his veins.

“Okay, you’re mad.” Steve said slowly, now behind him.

Eddie laughed bitterly, “Yeah, no shit, Sherlock. They taught you that in acting class or was it a trick from your last ex?”

“Jesus, okay, Eddie.” Steve put his hands on Eddie’s shoulders but Eddie shook him off with more force than necessary. “You’re obviously in a bad mood and my news isn’t making it better, but you did ask and-”

Eddie whirled around. He was seeing red at the corners of his vision. “And now it’s my fault?!”

Steve backed away, his hands up in a plea of surrender. His face pinched with concern and hurt. “Eddie, let’s, let’s just go to bed. Take a shower-”

“Stop treating me like I’m a child!” 

“Fuck, even a child would tell me what’s making them this upset!”

“You wanna know why I’m so upset? Huh?” Eddie smacked a hand against Steve’s chest, pushing his boyfriend away. “Take a guess with your ‘subtlety’ talents and maybe you can fucking figure it out.”

“No, I- Eds, baby-” Steve stopped to take a breath. He looked back at Eddie with more firmness, but he saw the way Steve’s ego was crumbling in his eyes. “Can you please just tell me why are you acting like this? Was it because I did something or-?”

Eddie’s anger flared. It touched the back of his mouth so he spat it all out like a dragon. “Oh, everything you do with your squeaky clean and easy career is the reason why I’m pissed at you. You get all of these stupid roles to play some stupid character Twitter would make discourse for while I have spent the last three years trying to find someone who’s willing to listen to my band play in a goddamn studio! But I keep missing these opportunities for some reason that I’m starting to think that we’re cursed or shit.”

“Eds, it can’t-”

“And don’t you say you know how it feels like because you never knew how to fucking fail, Stevie! Everything you do is just rich executives giving you silver platters. I bet they all want that Harrington blowjob.”

Steve gasped softly and shook his head. He now had his arms around himself like it would protect him. “That’s not true- Why are you even saying these things to me?!”

“Because you’re a jinx! Because you’re Steve Harrington and I hate your dumb luck!”

Eddie’s words echoed across the apartment as he breathed heavily. He wouldn’t be surprised if it went out the windows and into the streets. 

Steve held an unbelievably idiotic expression. Mouth half-open, a slack jaw, glossy eyes that just stared at Eddie without any more light shining in them.

Finally, he spoke so quietly that Eddie had to strain to hear, “Okay… I’m going to Robin’s.”

With that, Steve hurried out, having some decency to not slam the door.

And then it was just Eddie, alone in the kitchen with the nasty thoughts and words that would soon bite back at him.

[besobendito]

"Shepard?"

"Bzzt- Yes, Commander Moss?"

"Start a new log recording will you? I need to settle my thoughts."

Log Number #14 Cycle: 10 Planet: PNF-404

"Despite exhaustion creeping into my very bones, I find myself unable to rest for the night. I need to note what has been happening- to convince myself that I haven't completely lost it... There is something.... strange about this planet, and for each day that passes the feeling grows even stranger. Small mistakes like misplaced items, something that Oatchi and I are very careful not to do- We have been rescuing for how many years and all of a sudden we can't seem to find where the ropes has been placed? Whatever we lose ends up right back in its proper place hours after we've lost it. Shepard clears it with me each time this happens... Those items have never moved from their spot on the cameras. Our frantic search shows up, all the crew members searching high and low- and we just... don't see them...? ......Ah, I don't know exactly how to explain this one. Oatchi joked that I might be haunted by the glowmin("Some invisible variety we haven't discovered yet!" he said) but I can see it in his face. It's happened to him too. We are all walking around... Something. Stepping to the side in an empty hallway, looking down and over my shoulder as to not bump into...Nothing? I keep feeling like there's something missing on the ship, something I can't quite remember. I've tripled checked my things and asked Shepard to list everything out in our inventory just in case. I just can't shake this feeling that...

-that I feel like I'm mourning... and for the love of everything, I don't know what. It's maddening.

I was ready to push it all to the side and continue the mission. The list of castaways only seems to be getting longer and we can't have campfire ghost stories to distract us! That is until I found a log not written by myself in my tablet...... Hmph. See, this is what's stressing me out so. No one but me has access to this tablet, it should be impossible!

The log is... Well it's creepy! From what I can tell, it's taken phrases from one of our Procedure Manuals("Bzzt- It would be the Distress and Urgency Procedures") and the logs from an unknown writer and spliced them together. I've been trying to make sense of it but- yeah I need the others to see this first. My theories wont help now. I'll have Shepard add it to this log for now, might as well...(sigh) Just what is going on...

Mm, right. I already mentioned this in the End of Day report- but I'm not done rolling this over in my head.

The castaway we picked up today- the one who limped out of that dark tunnel towards us. His clothing- you don't see pilot gear that old anymore, and the- the liquid? that fell off of him... I sampled what I could so I wont know for sure untill tomorrow, It looked like gold. I hope he wont mind sharing where he found a pool of gold to roll around in. It would be nice to be able to cover the cost of all the repairs... (Yawn) Ah- right there we go, ok I'm done for now. Have to get ready for- 'Everything' tomorrow, hope I don't sound too crazy. This is Commander Moss, Sleeping snug like a bug on a rug... (Yawns again) - - - Log Number: +#3@##0?/ Cycleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Planet: PNF-404

(a) If distress [ ] If urgency [ ] Someone or something [ ] a loud BANG echoed throughout the cave. [ ] (b) Name of station addressed [ ] natural enemy [ ] (c) I got careless... [ ] (d) Nature of distress or urgency. and all the Pikmin perished as a result. [ ] (g) Present position [ ] Horrified, I made my [ ] ; or if lost, last known position, time, and heading since that position. Fuel remaining/Number of people/other useful information [ ] accidentally thrown to their demise [ ] crushed on hard surfaces of by some creatures' teeth [ ] I [ ] Me [ ] My [ ] Do not change frequency or change to another [ ] Fly a course toward the destination which the hijacker has announced. [ ] keeps leading me completely off track [ ] adorable leaf at the top of her [ ] (4) If unable to provide this information, [ ] trusty partner.trusty partner.trusty partner. PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN, PAN-PAN. [ ] I am so very tired... [ ]

[cnestus]

If you don't mind me asking, what exactly is your job and degree? Getting into the field of entomology is a bit intimidating and I would appreciate any any advice.

i tend to be a little cagey about my exact job since my field is quite small and there's enough people following me that the chances of someone deciding to take offense to something and Get Weird at me are nonzero, but that's probably excessive paranoia on my part. then again beloved internet bug person mossworm got recently sacked from their job on account of weirdo online tattletales so maybe not.

anyway i can say i work for a government agency identifying insects from a pretty wide geographic range, looking for new exotic species and potential pests. during the busy season i spend most of my time processing huge volumes of raw trap samples, pulling out insect groups of interest, mostly woodboring beetles, for myself or one of the other entomologists in the lab to identify to species. during the off-season when we're not getting tons of new samples i get a little more free reign to work on other projects of my own design, so for example lately i've been working on my bee identification skills and am slowly putting together a large reference collection of native bee species that i reserved from years of insect trap by-catch.

i got my PHD in entomology without a specific career in mind but knowing i wanted to do something that wasn't just about developing products and methods for killing unwanted insects which seem like the main entomology jobs anyone wants to fund anymore. in a perfect world i'd love a entomological curation job in a museum but those positions are rare and in-demand and i didn't have the mental fortitude to do the kind of academic work in grad school to make me competitive for that field. but then i went ahead and got a job that lets me do some curatorial work anyway so i sort of won? my position is still at least on paper about controlling unwanted insects but in practice i rarely have to do much of that work, at least directly.

i get semi-regular requests for advice on getting a job as an entomologist and i often feel like i don't have much constructive or encouraging to say, since it's hard not to feel like it's one of the many disciplines being squeezed to death by the iron hand of capitalism. more and more positions in the government and academia are being cut or downsized by bureaucrats who don't see the benefit of taxonomy or any other research that doesn't directly result in their department or some corporation making a bunch of money. whole subdisciplines are dying out as the elder entomologists who were the sole sources of knowledge about them die off. there are entire groups of insects and other arthropods that are effectively impossible to identify to species now because the one taxonomic wizard who specialized on them died without having anyone to pass that knowledge onto. Donald Bright, the only living expert on bark beetles in the preposterously diverse and morphologically subtle genus Pityophthorus, died a few months ago without an heir that i'm aware of.

also most of the taxonomic research that is being done these days is all molecular systematics which i have Opinions about but this post is way too long already.

sorry. that was a bummer. i guess i'm proof that it is still possible to get a job like this today, even if i can't help but feel like it was mostly luck that got me here. plenty of the others in my academic cohort (that didn't burn out from grad school stress) also went on to get degrees in their field of study or at least adjacent to them. and again there are still plenty of entomology jobs in other sectors like agriculture, public health, nonprofits and NGOs and stuff like that. you also don't necessarily need an advanced degree in entomology for a lot of these, and a lot of people in the entomology field came in sideways through related disciplines like ecology, evolutionary science, general biology, or even things like viticulture and forensic science to name a couple examples from my own cohort.

looking back, that was mostly a lot of vague grumbling and not much concrete advice, but to be fair asking for "any advice" is a hard prompt to go off of so i tend to default to the kinds of grim thoughts that are usually rattling round in my brain. i may also be in an especially dour mood at the moment because even though my job isn't to my knowledge at any risk of being eliminated, my lab is currently being passively if not outright antagonized by higher-level bureaucrats for genuinely mysterious reasons and i will not elaborate on that any further for reasons i mentioned at the beginning. anyway! i am always happy to at least attempt to give more specific advice but i can't promise there won't be at least a little grumbling in that as well.

[daceydeath]

A Work Proposal (Part 8)

Pairing: Felix x Reader Word Count: 2.9k Genre: Smut 🔞 Warnings: 18+, minors DNI, unprotected sex (don't be dumb), loss of virginity, hand job, creampie, soft dom reader, pet names (baby boy), dirty talk.

You had been working with Stray Kids for a while now and after a long day at work turns into a very unexpected but intriguing proposal. Will this change your world or end your career?

You had waited almost a week stressed about what could occur but nothing happened with Eui's departure, there were no rumors about Chan or the kids, none about you within the company and most telling, for you, no media articles claiming anything had happened. You even received a grovelling apology from the higher ups that had doubted you which was a very strange thing to receive, and you were pretty sure it had everything to do with how angry Chan had been. For their part the kids had been exceptional at telling anyone who would listen about the psycho that had been so infatuated with Chan she was almost stalking him and how many horrid things she had done to you and others in the company which would make any allegations all that more unbelievable. Once the girls from Itzy had heard about it they came rushing in to see you flustering the boys greatly as they hugged you and gave you endless compliments before telling them how lucky they were to have their noona and they would take you back if the kids didn't look after you better from now on.

"They will steal you from us?" Jeongin asked wide eyed "Can they do that?"

"No Innie, they can't and I wouldn't leave you anyway" you smiled fondly at him still laughing to yourself at how sweet the girls were.

"You sure, you seem very happy with them?" Minho teased making you smirk at him.

"They aren't as good in bed Minho so I would have to say no" you sniggered sending some of them into giggles and the others into blushing messes.

Chan had done his best during the whole turbulent time to make sure that regardless of what happened you would come out of every situation clean of any trashy rumors and he had kept his word, you discovered, when one of your friends from the legal department emailed you a copy of the NDA that Eui had been asked to sign before her termination making it impossible for her to tell the press anything without the threat of massive legal action. Everything had started to run smoothly again and as winter break approached you hope everything would be finalized for the new year to start again.

"Jagi?" Felix grinned looking at you with bright eyes "Did you want to come shopping with me tonight? I need to pick up some gifts for a few people"

"Course Felix, that sounds like a fun distraction as long as none of the presents are for me" you smiled genuinely at him.

"What if instead of a present I bought us snacks?" he chirped looking happy that you had agreed to go with him.

"Snacks are acceptable" you beamed collecting up your tablet and photo card samples that you had brought down to show them "Did you want me to meet you back down here later or should I just meet you there?"

"Back down here is fine we can head to the dorm the go if you want" his eyes shone as he spoke making you melt for him, Felix had that effect of most people if he was happy everything was good in the world.

You left for your desk feeling like you at least would have something fun to keep you feeling positive and playing the role of Felix's assistant while he shopped sounded more enjoyable and less taxing than anything else you were likely to do. Making your way back down to the dance studio you found yourself taking a seat waiting for the guys to finish up, you watched them go through one last song before Felix grinned at you and hurried off to shower and change so you could leave straight from the company. This left you with Hyunjin and Minho who immediately took advantage of your presence to show you a piece that they had been working on for a few months.

"This one is just for us" Hyunjin smiled dazzlingly at you "its just the three of us, and its different to our usual sort of things"

"How so?" you asked tilting your head slightly confused but your interest piqued.

"It's far more sensual than anything we would do as a whole group" Minho smirked as he went to start the music. You watched mesmerized as the two of them moved noticing the space that Felix should be occupying and trying your hardest not to give in to the temptation to stare too longingly at the pair of them. They watched you as carefully as you watched them, their eyes mapping your every facial expression, every lip bite and every time you licked your lips.

"Jagi?" Felix called as he walked back into the studio his hair done and his clothes changed into more street ware, black jeans that made his legs look amazing, white t-shirt and a black leather jacket he always looked so effortlessly sexy.

"Looking handsome Felix" you smiled teasing him a little and watching his cheeks warm up.

"I'd say you look good too but you always look beautiful" He smiled back warmly walking over to take your hand and lead you from the studio to the car waiting for you both.

"Such a flirt" you giggled making him laugh with you.

"Did you like the choreography? were going to work on a few projects as units so this is the beginning of ours" he explained letting go of your hand but guiding you through the hallways with his hand on your lower back.

"It's very sexy, or maybe it's more sensual than sexy but still it's hot" you fumbled your words trying to imagine him doing the same moves you had just watched Hyunjin and Minho perform.

"We can show you all together some time if you like" he teased his hand dipping lower on your back momentarily and squeezing your arse making you gasp.

"I would love that. A lot" you mumbled before taking a breath to steady yourself "What did you need to get today anyway? You only said gifts this morning".

"I want to pick up some sneakers for Innie, a bracelet for Bin and there was a shirt that I thought Hyunjin would really like but I need your opinion on" he listed "and if I see anything for Chan that would be great but if we manage these three I will be happy". You smiled at him as he opened to door of the car for you to step into asking the driver to take you to the mall and leave you there until he was needed again.

You had been in the VIP area of luxury boutiques before, the Itzy girls had always had you tag alone with them when they shopped, but it was strange to be treated like you were the same as Felix not just as his assistant. You had been treated like a princess by the staff at both Chanel and Saint Laurent, each going above and beyond to show you endless jewelry, bags and clothes as Felix tried on the shirt he wanted to get for Hyunjin, noting anything you particularly liked on a tablet that was located on the sided table by the door, making you a little suspicious.

"Do you think Hyunjin will like it?" Felix's voice broke your train of thought making you stand and walk over to the changing area, Felix looked incredible in the black silk button up shirt that he was wanting to get for Hyunjin "Jagi?" he giggled.

"Sorry...I think he will love it" you smiled bashfully biting your lip in embarrassment at being caught looking at him so longingly in public.

"So cute Jagi" he whispered leaning forward to tenderly press him lips to yours cupping your cheek.

"Felix" you warned playfully which just made him grin and deepen the kiss his tongue caressing yours as he pulled you tightly against him.

"Can't help it Jagi, you look too good" he smiled letting you go as he stepped back from you allowing you to walk back out of the dressing area so he could change. After leaving behind Saint Laurent and approaching Dior you felt the need to press Felix on what was happening.

"Felix, why are they treating me so well?" you whispered hoping not to be overheard by the security that had been assigned to escort you between the designer stores.

"Oh, I told them you are my girlfriend and need to be treated well" he blushed slightly biting his lip.

"Girlfriend?!" you whisper yelled looked confused.

"Yeah well that way you are allowed wherever I go and you get to see all the clothes and things you want, I get to kiss you and tease you" he smiled his usual sunny smile replaced with something more cheeky making you relent with your questioning. "Besides everyone has been keeping track of what you like so that we will know what to get you for presents, its win win really"

"Lee Felix!" you scolded quietly "didn't I say no more presents? you do know good boys are supposed to listen" making him laugh softly and take your hand, intertwining your fingers together. The same thing happened in Dior and then again in Prada which only made Felix grin every time he caught your eye. Finally after buying the final gift in Prada Felix led you back to the car to take you home again.

"Would it be alright if I leave a couple of these with you? Innie is really bad at searching for gifts" he chuckled rolling his eyes.

"Of course Felix, did you want me to just take them up or did you want to bring them in yourself?" you asked softly not wanting to seem like you were pressuring him for more time if that isn't what he wanted.

"I'll bring them up" he smiled brightly as the driver opened the door for you helping you from the car.

You walked into your apartment, flowers that Minho had sent you were sitting on your coffee table, the blazer Jeogin had bought you draped over the back of the sofa and the purse he and Han had gotten you hanging securely on a hook beside your door making Felix smile more.

"I'm glad the others take good care of you" he murmured placing the shopping bags on the couch turning back to you to cup your cheek stroking your cheek bone softly "Am I allowed to kiss you again jagi?"

"Of course Felix you are allowed anything you want" you whispered softly as he dipped his head to press his lips to yours gently caressing your lips with his own in a sweet kiss that made you see stars.

"Anything huh?" he teased stroking your sides with his hands causing you to shiver against him "Can we go to bed?" he breathed against your lips as he kissed you again.

"Yes Felix if you're sure you want that" you mumbled "I would love that".

He pulled you closer against him, pressing your hips against his as he pressed his pretty lips to yours silently groaning as you slipped your tongue into his mouth. Kissing Felix was one of the things you enjoyed the most he was so careful with you so sweet and loving that it made your heart swell every time his lips were on yours. You wrapped your arms around his neck one hand sliding into the hair on the nape of his neck pulling him closer against you, of all the guys he was the only one who seemed to want to treat you like you were made of glass, the others could be tender with you treating you gently as they made love to you, but it didn't ever feel like this Felix had a way of making you feel like he actually loved you.

"Jagi" he whined softly against your mouth hid hands wandering your hips and arse squeezing and kneading your curves "Need more of you" you pulled away to see a cute little pout grace his beautiful face making you giggle as you led him to your room and playfully pushing him down on your bed making his face flush the prettiest shade of pink you had ever seen.

"You need more of me pretty Felix?" you teasingly smiled biting your bottom lip as you straddled him his hands instantly coming back you squeeze your hips as his mouth opened in a gasp. You remembered what he had told you he only participated in oral sex he hadn't wanted to go any further than that before, you felt yourself getting wetter at the idea he might want you to be his first, out of everyone he could easily have he might want you. Either way you were happy to tease him before you blew him if that was all he wanted from you.

"Yes please Jagi, need all of you" he whimpered pulling you down against his chest and connecting his lips to your neck and kissing his way up to your mouth his kisses getting more heated by the moment. You pressed your hips down against his crotch faintly rolling them against him to see his reaction, he groaned sweetly against your lips his length hardening beneath you.

"All of me?" you purred your fingers sliding up and down his clothed chest.

"Please jagi" he gasped as you began sliding your hands under his shirt to trace the muscles of his abs and chest hitching it up until you pulled it over his head to reveal him to you.

"Do you want jagi to take care of you?" you continued to tease him, beginning to press yourself harder against him and move your hips a little faster making his head drop back.

"Yes jagi, please jagi" he mumbled panting slightly.

"I've got you baby boy" you smiled down at him before standing up and undressing yourself slowly as he watched with half lidded eyes, licking his lower lip as you started on his jeans. "You tell me if it's too much Felix, I want to make you feel good" you murmured kissing you way along his thighs as he shivered under your touch.

"Already do jagi, you make me feel so good" he groaned his cock already hard from just the little teasing you had done to him "Just want to make jagi feel good" he whined again when you kissed your way past his member and across his abs causing you to chuckle as he writhed below you from teasing stimulation. Slowly you wrapped one hand around his cock pumping it slowly as you continued to kiss your way across him flicking his nipple with your tongue making him hiss and squirm.

"Such a needy baby" you cooed kissing his throat as his looked up at you with such innocent eyes.

"Wanna touch you, can I touch you? taste you? please" he asked softly his breath hitching in time with the hand you were using to pleasure him.

"Where you you want to touch me baby?" you smiled kissing his lips gently.

"Everywhere, anywhere" he mumbled between kisses letting you move yourself off of his chest and straddle his hips again, brushing your slick core against his length "Fuck please".

"Show me where you want to touch me baby boy" you purred again wanting to let him have enough control to tell you how far was enough for him.

Felix dragged his hands along your thighs as he sat up, a dazed look still lingering on his pretty face as his fingers danced around your hips to pull you further against him grinding your wet core against his cock slowly the tip rubbing against your clit perfectly. His lips were on you again, more demanding than before his tongue sliding against yours and sucking on your lower lip, groaning when he felt you growing wetter against him.

"Jagi, want to be inside you" he moaned his head dropping to your shoulder as he shuddered slightly.

"Alright baby boy, let jagi take the best care of you" you whispered into his hair removing his hands from your hips and lifting yourself off of him just enough to take hold of him and guide him to your entrance. Intentionally slowly you lowered yourself down on him letting him feel every inch of your walls as his cock slowly filled you making him moan deeply as you took all of him and sat back on him.

"Jagi, ah, fuck" he muttered his eyes closed as you rolled your hips softly his hands going back to where they were on your hips as you started to move.

"Such a good baby boy letting jagi ride you" you mewled enjoying the stretch you felt as you rocked your hips his dick brushing against you g spot perfectly. Placing one hand on his chest to keep your balance you cupped his face with the other kissing him tenderly. He groaned softly his eyes rolling back as you squeezed him with your walls.

"Fuck, you feel so good, your so tight and hot and fuck" he yelped as you started increased your tempo you knew he wouldn't last as long this time and you wanted to make it as good as you possibly could for him.

"I can't wait until you fill me up baby boy, fill me up so I'm full of you cum" you whispered against his lips kissing him again his thighs were tensing harder now so you knew he was getting close as his moans got louder.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck" he yelled as he pushed you harder onto his hips thrusting up into you as he lost control of his composure "Jagi" he cried as he reached his peak emptying his balls into you.

You kissed him softly holding him against you as he pressed his damp forehead to yours, his breathing was ragged but the prettiest smile sat upon his lips. You stayed still allowing him to soften fully before you lifted yourself off of him, his cum starting to drip out of you and onto your thighs.

"That was amazing" he mumbled blinking lazily but still grinning.

"I'm glad you enjoyed it Felix I wanted to make sure it was good for you" you smiled back as he opened his arms to cuddle you which you instantly allowed letting him pull you onto his chest while he drew patterns on your back until his breathing returned to normal.

"Jagi can we go again?" he mumbled into your hair as you felt him growing hard once more.

"Always Felix" you giggled as he rolled you under him.

A/N: Thank you for reading my loveliest loves! Once again any likes, comments or reblogs are adored and cherished xx

Taglist (open): @christopher-bangnaldoskzz, @symptoms-of-moonlight, @septicrebel, @ayoitschannie, @krishastumblernow, @tangerminie, @elizalabs3, @armystay89, @septemberkisses, @stay-bi, @seolarflare, @damnyouficc, @eastleighsblog, @wohaku, @bakedlilgoonie, @roamingpolar, @tara-skyhold, @queenmea604,

[letstalktea]

Content: amab!medical student!Harper, afab!doctor!reader, dubious consent, hypnosis, medical play, vaginal fingering, mind break

Word Count: 2.2k

You looked over his charts one line at a time. There weren't any abnormalities or concerns. If anything, he was too healthy. Honestly, that was probably for the best given that he was only a few months from finishing his residency, which would really take the piss out of him. Soon he'd have to manage his own caseloads without someone there to help when things got tricky, so it was best he had the mental and physical aptitude to deal with the stress. Hopefully he wasn't one of the many, many doctors that picked up smoking in order to cope. It'd be a shame to ruin those healthy lungs of his.

"The good news is that everything looks good," you told him as you leaned back in your seat. "Same old, same old. You're fit as a fiddle and everything is working right as rain. Your vitals are good, although your heart rate is a little high. Nothing dangerous, but you should probably focus on your cardio a little more."

"Really?" He grabbed a pen from the edge of your desk. "Mind if I fidget?"

"Go ahead." You knew it was a habit of his. He wasn't your only patient who needed something in his hands while he spoke.

But he was the only one that insisted on tapping it against your desk. The slow, rhythmic pattern reminded you of the clock ticking in the background of your office. Steady, calculated, and easy to let fade into the back of your mind without a second thought.

"Of course, the lab still needs to run your blood and urine samples, but I doubt anything out of the ordinary will be found."

"I hope not," he said with his tapping serving as a kind of metronome for his words. "I'd hate to learn I have an issue right before I start a new job."

"Oh? Did you get an offer?" You knew he was looking since he seemed to update you every time he visited, but this was the first time you'd heard about an actual offer.

"As a general practitioner."

"Congratulations." You were genuinely excited for him, even if the sudden tiredness in your head made it hard to express the sentiment. "Where is it?"

When he said the name of the hospital and the town where it was located, you didn't recognize it.

"It's a small town; a blink and you'll miss it kind of place. I used to live there when I was younger."

"So you're going back to your childhood home? You must be excited." Again, you felt an uncharacteristic wave of exhaustion wash over you.

"In a way, I suppose I am. They've already promised me a rather… generous position because of my other talents. But in other ways," his eyes looked you over, lingering far too long on your chest as a small smile crept across his face, "I'm anxious."

You nodded. "That's normal. Moving from your residency to a full position can be nerve-wracking, but you'll do fine. Just keep a level head and do what you think is best for your patient."

"Are you sure, Doctor?" The background noise seemed to fade out as he spoke, leaving only his voice spinning in your head.

"Do you have any doubts in yourself, even after all the work you've already done?"

He chuckled. "No doubts, per se. I still have a few concerns though. Would you mind helping me through them?"

His voice burrowed deep into your mind, drowning out even the one in your own head. Whatever he said, it felt like they were your own thoughts. But… it made sense, what he was saying. 

If he needed help, weren't you the best person to turn to? After all, you were his doctor. You and he had a semi-casual, if albeit professional, relationship.

"What do you need help with?"

His eyes sparkled with mischief for a split moment, but you quickly put it out of your mind. "I'm still not entirely confident with my ability to conduct an examination, especially when it comes to female patients."

"That's a rather large concern given that's a basic skill all doctors should have." It was the very thing you'd just done for him. 

"I'm aware." He sighed. "If only someone more knowledgeable could walk me through it to make sure I know exactly what I'm doing."

"Would you like to practice with me?" The words were pulled out of your mouth before you could process them. 

As soon as they were spoken, they felt wrong. You couldn't quite place it, but the offer left a bad taste in your mouth. Still, it sounded right to your ear. After all, you were a doctor. You knew exactly what he needed to do and could guide him through it step-by-step. Plus, he trusted you. Who better to learn from than you ?

Still, there was a sinking feeling in your stomach that made you question yourself.

But all your doubts faded off somewhere far away as he placed a hand against your shoulder and stared down at where you still sat. "Thank you, Doctor." When had he gotten up? When did the noise in the room disappear? Why did you feel so weird?

"I feel like I should look the part before we begin." He pulled you up to stand on your own feet, unwrapped the stethoscope from around your neck, and helped remove your lab coat before putting it on himself. It didn't quite fit his frame, but it looked right draped over him. "What do you think? I look like someone you should obey."

"Yeah," you agreed without hesitation.

"Good," he hissed as he claimed the seat you had just been sitting in. "Go ahead and strip everything so we can start the examination."

"Traditionally, you would leave the room while your patient undresses. You'd also allow them to keep their underwear and provide a gown for them." Everything you said was the truth, but the throbbing and spinning in your head you felt as you contradicted him made you feel like you were saying something wrong.

"I know that, but this is supposed to be educational. It's better if I see everything." He smirked as he tapped your pen, but you couldn't hear it hitting the desk. All you could hear was him.

And you agreed with what he was saying.

If you were going to help him get more comfortable with examinations, you needed to show him everything from start to finish.

Your fingers fiddled with the buttons running up your midsection until your shirt came loose and you could pull both sides of the fabric apart to let your chest breathe, then you dropped it to the ground. Your black slacks were the next thing you undid, pulling out one leg then the other to let the pants pool on the floor beneath you right beside your top.

Harper inhaled sharply at the sight of you standing in front of him in nothing more than your bra and underwear. He leaned back as his legs spread and a hand came to rest between them. It was when he started rubbing himself while staring directly at you that you realized just how clearly unready he really was. After all, how could he expect to work with female patients if this was his reaction to something so mundane as seeing them semi-nude?

"Continue," he ordered through shaky breaths. "Take off everything before we start."

You reached around behind your back to unhook your bra. The straps went slack so you could peel it off and toss it in the pile with everything else. Then, it was quick work to finish up by hooking your thumbs into your waistband to pull off your panties.

You stood straight before him now completely naked. "Do you know what comes next?"

"Yeah." He was still rubbing the bulge forming in his pants as his eyes flickered across your entire body. "Sit on the table."

It was cold as you took a seat on the paper covered exam area. You were sitting a little higher than Harper now, giving him an eye level view of the space between your legs.

You were a professional, but something about this was embarrassing. All you were doing was helping train him, but the way his eyes ate you up felt predatory. You didn't want him to keep staring. You wanted to get down, get dressed, and scream at him for reasons you couldn't understand.

"Calm down and open your legs wider."

As soon as he said that, all of your anxieties melted away. It was just an exam. You had no reason to be nervous. He was just doing what he was supposed to when he looked you over. This was exactly what you had offered to help him with.

You obeyed and spread your legs further apart allowing the cool air of the small room brushed over your sex.

"I need to see deeper. Spread your pussy for me."

You tsk'd at his vocabulary even as you did as he said and used your fingers to open yourself up for him. "It's a labia. You're going to be a doctor. Call it by its proper name so there's no confusion when you talk to a patient."

"I think we should use layman terms so our patients understand us better." Harper chuckled low in his throat as he stood from your chair, showing off the bulge straining against his pants at he came to his full height. He grabbed a pair of purple gloves from the disheveled box on your desk and slipped them on as he repositioned himself between your legs.

His hot breath ghosted over your clitoris as he closely examined you. "Go ahead. Call it a pussy."

Again, your head was swimming.

"You look wonderful. We should make sure everything works down here though," he said with a smirk on his face as you looked down at him. "This will feel good."

Slowly, he began to rub his gloved fingers over your slit, teasing your folds and prodding at your twitching hole. Your legs began to tremble with only the simplest of touches, as if every part of you was suddenly hypersensitive. Every place he touched sent a hot jolt straight to your brain that had you restraining a cry of pleasure in order to keep your professionalism in tact.

"Don't hold back." He moved his fingers up to stroke your hot, swollen clit in small circles. "Tell me what you're feeling so I can do a proper examination."

"Yes," you sighed in rapture as you dropped the last of your defenses at his command. "My pussy feels hot. You're making me so wet that I can't think."

"Thank you for the feedback." He breathed heavily as he spoke, just before shoving the first of his fingers inside of your heat. "I need to test your stamina, so don't cum. You'll want to though."

"Yes!" You tossed your head back and tried not to roll your hips against his hand.

He was so thorough as he pumped his finger deep inside of you, twisting it around to scrape at your inner walls and massaging any place that had you whining for more. He was so careful with everything he did, but no matter how amazing it felt your body couldn't come. It was tortuous.

"What do you think of my skills, Doctor? Am I ready to see my own patients?"

You nodded. "You're amazing. After this, you shouldn't be nervous about your skills. You're going to be a great doctor."

"Thank you for the compliment." He shoved another finger inside of you and it felt like heaven and hell were fighting over your body.

"Your pussy is always so pretty," he mumbled as he leaned in to bury his face against your abdomen and run his tongue over your greedy clit. "Thank you for working so hard to train me."

That… didn't sound right. You were his doctor, but this was the first time you'd offered to help him.

Wasn't it?

"Instead of cumming, you'll go limp. Then we'll start the last part of your exam."

Fuck it.

You didn't care if you were forgetting something right now. Harper was doing such a good job at making sure your pussy worked that you didn't care. You were proud of him putting everything he'd learned in medical school to good use.

That's why you didn't fight it when your muscles suddenly stopped working and you fell backward against the exam table. It felt too good to worry or question anything.

You wanted to pout when he slipped his fingers out of your hole, but you couldn't muster the ability to. Instead, all you could do was watch as he stood up between your legs and removed the gloves coated in your juices.

"I'm going to miss you, Doctor," he said as he reached down and unzipped his pants to free his throbbing cock. "I need to use this to reach even deeper and make sure you really are healthy. It's perfectly normal to feel good during this exam, so don't worry if you end up cumming once or twice."

Then, he shoved himself inside of you and you could only feel endless pleasure and he rubbed along your soft, squishy, sensitive walls and overwhelming pride in just how dedicated he was to being the best soon-to-be doctor he possibly could. If this is what he was going to be like in his own practice, you knew he'd be someone of great renown.

[cellsshapedlikestars]

gonna ramble a bit because I'm having a DAY but putting it below a cut, beware I will be talking about cat health issues/bodily functions/death

So last year around September, I first started noticing Beatrix not eating. 2 months later, she was dead.

Then, when I finally brought Beauregard to the vet again in January, I discovered he has hyperthyroidism. Treatable, but I needed to wait 7 months for the permanent treatment and until then, he's on a twice-daily pill.

I got Sophie in February, and everything is fine.

Last month, I woke up in the middle of the night to Beauregard screaming in the litterbox. He spent the day straining to poop, so I took him to the vet, who told me he wasn't blocked and that it was probably some issue with his urinary tract because he's a 10 year old male cat. Switched me to a different food. I let it go because Bobo pooped again after and I thought everything was fine.

Then I find there's something wrong with Sophie's anal glands. I take her to the vet on Friday, and they express the backed up gland and I'm given a probiotic to feed her.

Then Sunday, Bobo starts straining in the litter box again, but he does poop so I don't think anything of it, until I go to scoop and I swear I see blood.

So I call the vet this morning and the clerk tells me they'll leave a note for the vet. Doesn't sound overly concerned, so I feel better.

Until I get a look at Sophie's butt today and there's a tiny white string hanging out of it - and I had JUST seen a kitten lady post about tapeworm. So I look up more pictures of tapeworm and it looks exactly like what's going on with Sophie.

The vet clerk said to bring in a stool sample, and if one cat has it, they both have it. Which would explain Bobo's poop issues, the blood in the stool, and even Sophie's anal gland issue.

When I say I genuinely felt like I was going insane, like why were my cats having so many issues back to back, what was I doing wrong? And it doesn't help that I still feel a bit traumatized from losing Bea so quickly and so young, even though I feel ridiculous for saying that because it's just a cat, you know? Except they're not, I love these stupid things more than most humans.

There's a part of me that DOES hope it's tapeworm, because then that means there's an explanation for everything. But then - how did they get it? Sophie got a dewormer from the SPCA before I got her, and it's been 4 months since then and I'm only just now seeing issues? I've also given both her and Bobo flea treatments since then (which is apparently how cats get it)

Anyway, I want to cry because I hate this and I'm supposed to be working but I don't care and I'm also vaguely paranoid that they somehow transferred it to me even though apparently that's highly uncommon but I could barely eat my lunch thinking about it

Either way, I need one of these cats to poop so I can take it for testing. Going to spend the rest of my work day stress crying.

also, the next chapter will probably be delayed because I'm in a mood.

[everygame]

Star Wars (Arcade)

Developed/Published by: Atari Released: 05/05/1983 Completed: n/a Completion: I’ve played it hundreds of times…

It’s been a tough few weeks here at exp. Towers with a lot of stress and sadness for a variety of reasons (though the book launch has been fantastic: I’m so grateful to everyone who picked up a copy!) I feel pretty bad that I wasn’t able to post an article last week (and even this one is showing up, technically, a day late.) There just hasn’t been that much time–any time–for gaming. So let’s go all the way back to the beginning.

The very first game I ever played.

I’ve talked about this before, but this is the very first game controller I ever held:

It is still one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. In fact, I’ve often considered picking up a GRS Flight Yoke so I can touch one whenever I want (or even do something absurd like try and play through X-Wing with it or something) but it’s a bit cost prohibitive.

[“Hang on. You’ve been saving your pennies to pick up a XE-1 AJ Cyberstick because it can be set up left-handed and you regret that you never got the first re-issue, and that’s basically as expensive. Consider your priorities, man!”--Ed.]

Wow, rude–though I’d probably use the Cyberstick… more? (Though looking at how well the yoke works with a variety of games on MAME, I'm conflicted.) But to get back on topic, the original Star Wars arcade release is very special to me. At some point in the 80s, but a bairn, on a visit to the Magnum, Irvine’s long gone (long gone–it’s just a field now) leisure centre, my dad sat in the “cockpit” version of the arcade cabinet popped me on his knee, put in 20p and I was transported into Star Wars.

It really had everything. You’re flying an X-Wing towards the Death Star. The music you know is booming, the actual characters from the movie are cheering you on with voice samples, you get to shoot tie fighters, do a trench run and even shoot the exhaust port. Even with your dad gently guiding the controls, it feels incredible. You are never the same again.

And in many ways, neither were video games! Released in early 1983, I think that Star Wars represents the first true “thrill ride” arcade machine in its cockpit form as a game that absorbs the player totally in an (albeit slight) narrative. There had been sit-down arcade cabinets before–Atari themselves had released Hi-Way as early as 1975, but this wasn’t just a racer. 

It’s interesting to consider that this is also likely a key release that proved the value of a licence to a game (surprising, perhaps, as I’ve just written about the two previous Star Wars games and even liked one of them.) Licences had existed since Sega licensed… the Fonz(!?) for an arcade racer, though they’d have existed earlier if Atari had managed to get the Jaws licence (in an amusing example of Nolan Bushnell’s underhandedness, after not getting it, Atari released a game called “Shark Jaws” with “Shark” in tiny letters, and he made sure to release it under a unique subsidiary to not get Atari sued into oblivion.) 

Despite that history, licensed games were few and far between–as likely due to high fees as both licensees and licensors not really having an idea what to do with X or Y concept as a video game. Which is a bit sad, really, when we think of all the late 70s IP we could have experienced in the form of extremely crappy video games. Kojak for the Atari 2600, or something. Though I suppose we did get several The Electric Company games for Intellivision?

There’s a strange sort of luck to Star Wars, too, as it would be released mere months after E.T. The Extra Terrestrial was released for Atari 2600, a game that did so badly despite being licensed from (at that point) literally the highest grossing movie of all time that you’d assume no one would ever try to do something like that again. However, Star Wars had been in development since 1981 and would be released right before Return of the Jedi, hitting the zeitgeist bang on.

(There’s an even stranger bit of trivia here too. Atari CEO Ray Kassar is quoted saying of E.T. “I think it's a dumb idea. We've never really made an action game out of a movie” when a Star Wars action game would have been in development for about a year by that point. Executives: they definitely know what their company is up to!)

Ultimately, Star Wars was the right game in the right place at the right time, and in many ways, the industry has been chasing that high ever since.

Can I say something though?

It’s…

It’s not really that great, is it? It is the prototypical video game thrill ride in its best and its worst aspects. The big, flashy cabinet (designed by Mike Jang, detailed by The Arcade Blogger) masked a game that is both limited and extremely repetitive.

I’m sure like many kids who experienced it for the first time in the arcades (but only briefly), I made sure it was one of the first games I got for my home computer (via the same mail order club I got The Eidolon from, actually) and when you’re faced with just the steak without any sizzle–and the Amstrad CPC port is surprisingly faithful–you are done with the game in about five minutes. Even if you’re literally five yourself.

Because Star Wars really lacks any strong “hook” to the play that you can hang onto. Composed of three segments–the open space shooting gallery, the surface tower battle, and the trench run–each simply plays out for a set length of time that you can’t affect, and each features a very limited amount of patterns. There are no quirks or tricks or surprises in the play; you get a small amount of movement beyond the cursor so can shoot or dodge enemy fire and that's it. After you’ve run through the stages a couple of times you know everything you need to do, you get it completely, and the only thing that keeps you going (or kept me going) is getting to do the trench run, the most fun, interactive and thematic part. But you keep asking: is there anything else?

Though the game does change a bit–the surface tower battle most memorably isn’t in your first loop and uses bunkers in the second loop before switching to towers–there really isn’t. I suspect that high level play of this is largely memorisation, and I suppose you might be able to get into a Pac-Man like hypnotic flow; considering high-score records in this game have ranged from seven hours to five days some people must enjoy it. Though I think the analogue rather than digital nature of the interface makes it a less predictable and therefore less satisfying game to "solve" and for me, returning to it via emulation showed me that really, there’s nothing there. It needs the sizzle to be something—in fact, it shows just how incredible the sizzle was.

That isn’t the end of the world; Star Wars is temporarily fun, iconic and unarguably influential. But if I want to actually enjoy it… I guess I gotta go buy that flight yoke after all!

Will I ever play it again? So… of course I will! I’ll always play the cockpit machine any time I see it. Just the once each time though, for old time’s sake.

Final Thought: As well as a lot of great history on the development of Star Wars, The Arcade Blogger has also dug up some extremely fun videos that reflect just how badly Atari needed Star Wars to be a success, including a bizarre segment on a New York-area Saturday Morning show where they have to plug the machine in after they wheel it out and then the designer, Mike Hally, hasn’t been informed he’s supposed to leave the shot at the end of the segment!

Every Game I’ve Finished 14>24 is OUT NOW! You can pick it up in paperback, kindle, or epub/pdf. You can also support Every Game I’ve Finished on ko-fi! You can pick up digital copies of exp., a zine featuring all-exclusive writing at my shop, or join as a supporter at just $1 a month and get articles like this a week early.

[itsradiogoblin]

a reminiscence - fleshspace au

i don't really post my writings so why not.

cw: blood and gore. its a horror au

Wisps of cigarette smoke snake up into the sky. An unfortunate habit, fed to him by cultists and the ache of stress, a privilege among all the misery. It's hardly a beacon to where he is, he's settled into that fact after a while of survival, but it feels like the outstretch of a desperate hand.

Desperate hands that they see every time their eyes shut.

Without sleep, dreams are almost lost to them, turnt to mere visions under the dark squeeze of their eyelids. Images of tainted bodies and pools of red. A figure of white light among it all. Every life in the universe is turned to face the holy image, silent pleas and hands reaching for the untouchable. Their crown of antlers and unmarred form are such a stark contrast to the horror of everything else. If he could rest, he wonders, what more would he see? The silent wailing of the damned thrums deep in his soul as he takes another breath of smoke.

Who is he to have such privilege? They hardly deserve it at all. Drawing blood in exchange for his talents. Keeping tabs on so many demons that each file only makes them feel more lost. They wonder if one day they will stop seeing everyone else as people, as they presume the gods did. Is that the purpose of the crystal? To bring down all divinity and replace it with it's own? Or perhaps it's simply a curse, as he has muttered to himself again and again, the price for tampering what shouldn't have been tampered with.

The figure of light shines under their eyelids again, and they swear they catch the scent of incense and a holy choir. Just like the inside of a church, but like the cult, it brings such little comfort. He holds onto that thread. Another piece either to mock him or warn him. And if it is a warning, it is one far too late for someone as damned as himself.

They found flesh growing in the caves under Blackrock. He and Subspace, being Biologists moving in the same circles, were unfortunately eager candidates to study the phenomenon. They remember their own caution and Subspace's lack of it. How the gore squelched underfoot, allowing blood to pool up for sampling. Then how it returned to itself as if nothing ever happened. It disturbed Medkit, but Subspace... Either she was accustomed to such a unnerving scene, or she was far too prone to the sway of the cave itself, they might never know the answer. But where he kept wandering deeper into the underground labyrinth, Medkit was convinced to follow.

All for their research. The deeper they go, they more they'll find for the betterment of Blackrock. He repeated as such in his head, again and again and again, trying to comfort themselves as the wetness of the cave sprawled across every ugly formation.

Time was lost to such a place. So long they wandered the darkness, and then... It blessed them with light. A pale crystal wrapped in veins, bright despite the blood caked across it's surface. They felt such an unnatural attraction to it, and while he tried to steel his mind, Subspace gave in to it. Gloves forgone, claws splitting apart it's gory wrappings, Subspace sought to take it in such an animalistic manner.

It horrified him then. It still horrifies him. He watches flesh start to sprawl and warp across the cavern, and all he can do is lunge forward to fight Subspace over it. They don't want to die here, not from this anomalous crystal in a labyrinth where no one will ever find their bodies to bury. They're both screaming. Medkit, Subspace, and the crystal that weeps silently as if it lives... And then shatters.

Whatever life such a jewel had, what it did, what it could do, it's lost forever. A shower of light sprays across the cavern, and he dies for just a moment.

When they open their eyes, they are far closer to the entrance of the caves, shaken up by concerned worker. Subspace isn't there, no, Medkit sees them again a few days later as if nothing ever happened. A shining teal crystal has wrapped itself about him, and a gleaming pink one has made Subspace it's own.

They recognize that now, that moment Subspace took her first step in the cave, was also the moment that she was beyond saving.

As if he ever even tried to.

He crushes what remains of the cigarette underfoot, wordlessly returning to the inner walls of his home. How ironic it is as he glances to the unconscious subject laid in such a shoddy bed, glancing over their file once and then twice. Ironic that he, a miracle healer, gets to partake in such an unhealthy habit.

Damn him again and again too for being immune to it's effects.

They groan, and prepare their tools for drawing blood. Another study for every medicine that hates is his destiny.

[tealincubusspeckles]

Concept Card

To those in the Seduce Me Community who are uninspired here are some concept ideas that you can chew on.

Overarching Theme: What made you fall in love with your love interest in the first place? Can you put them in a situation where that attribute shines through in a different scenario?

Concept A “Comfort Collaboration” Main Theme: Break the dependency 1. People like comfort characters. 2. Yet, they do not ask themselves “How can I make my partner more comfortable with me”? 3. Possible MC motive: Person who like comfort, but disregards their own boundaries to help others. Or they lack confidence to comfort another. 4. Possible resolution: the brothers or LI help MC to realize she is not as shy as she once was around them.

Concept B “Hold Down The Table” Main Theme: When Dungeons & Dragons gets weird or when players fail successfully? 1. MC, the dungeon master, gathers the brothers to test a new story on the boys. 2. MC wants to see their reactions, but also to make note of possible routes other players may choose in the story. 3. Comedy/surprising twist: Damien often rolls to seduce the most. 4. Whenever Sam attempts to flip the table the other brothers have to hold it down. “It's just a game bro! It's not that serious”. (+5 emotional damage, -3 hp) jk.

Concept C “Language Soup” Main Theme: Knowing or Lack of knowing multiple languages as a mixed raced kid. 1. MC is a mixed raced kid. 2. Often people used to tell them “You should be able to speak [insert language here]". 3. The MC knows how to a small degree. 4. Or sometimes MC forgets the correct phrase or word when stressed so they refuse to speak. Or instead of going silent they swap in another word from another language they know. Example: "Usted es kawaii" 5. The brothers are interested in learning how many languages the MC knows. 6. MC and the boys journey to building confidence in speaking the other languages. 7. Soon it becomes a week day or a weekend challenge to see who can hold the longest conversation in a certain language.

Concept D “Birthday Windows” Main Theme: Is leaving home all for love worth it? 1. Takes place after SM2 in Sam's route. 2. MC never thought she would never see her friends again. 3. Although, she is far from them and they probably forgot her by now. She can still find similar things in the Plains that remind her of home. 4. Sam surprises her with a stone/crystal slab that works like a video call! It helps her get in contact with her friends or Sam's siblings. 5. Before she uses it Sam could explain the basics of how it works. Or He can "call" Matthew up to explain it. The slab can create illusions so Mika or the background looks "human". 6. Of course! This means Mika has to lie about where she is and how she is getting "wifi". But hey! Friends! 7. Mika cannot use the slab often since it requires tons of Sam's magic to do so. 8. It was Matthew who created the idea of this method. Erik who executed the original spell. James designed the "device" and instructions to send to Mika's friends. Damien was the one to deliver said "device" saying it was a sample product Mika wanted them to be the first testers. 9. *Keep in mind dog tags reached the Abyssal Plains and Diana knows the laws of the worlds. Why? Demons know a little about human culture and trinkets.

Concept E "The Boat Is Sinking!" Main Theme: In the game "The Boat Is Sinking" players who fail to group loose (sink). 1. MC gets stuck in an old elevator alone when visiting Thr Anderson Toys Company. 2. The elevator soon drops. MC gets nervous, faints, then hits her head. 3. Mika's starts dreaming (plot hole?) 4. She gets whisked away onto a pirate ship! 5. Here she meets Captain James, Quartermaster (Second Captain) Erik, Boatswain Sam, Pilot (Navigator) Matthew, and Master Gunner Damien. 6. MC also finds out that she is a captured mermaid they kept in a tank to make a deal. 7. Apparently before she passed out she told them she could make them happy. 8. The brothers are seeking a way out from their engagement with a foreign princess. 9. How can MC help all 5 of the brothers out of the engagement. What can a mermaid not related to mermaid royalty do? Maybe some animal friends can help? Or maybe the fact her grandfather was a shapeshifting mage?

If you use any of these concepts here, AO3, fan fiction, or whatever else please tag me or comment. I would like to see them in a story at some point.

[whoslaurapalmer]

me, earlier: oh government, please do not call me back while i'm at the bank the government, calling me while i'm at the bank: hi, we're returning your call. me: .................................well at least i came prepared for this

The Government was actually a very easy phone call and they said they'd get back to me within 10 business days, although i actually have to call them again tomorrow to find out ~where~ they will send my monthly government money for december, because one of the tasks at the bank was 1) getting my accounts in only my name 2) pinging The Government to alert them to put the money in my account 3) closing the account tied to my mom's it was going in, BUT! all of it was handled really really easily!!! and the woman at the bank was so nice. it was really nice. i appreciated that a lot. because my anxiety occasionally peaks to Horrible, Horrible levels while doing things about Managing Everything About My Mom. so. the car ride home was minorly stressful and now my brother has to deal with my anxiety. but he was really good about it. which i greatly appreciated. he went into the pharmacy for me to get my prescriptions because for some reason that was what was literally making me feel ill. the thought of going into the pharmacy. and asking for my prescriptions. thanks, joel vandelay. (although they did not have the fucking freestyle libre 3!! they're on backorder!!

my brother: i'm like.......so sorry to have to give you this information while you are already in tears. me: THAT'S OKAY! I CAN JUST MESSAGE THE ENDOCRINOLOGIST AND SEE IF HE CAN GIVE ME SOME OR SOMETHING the other day he said, we always have samples!! until we don't have samples!! my brother: ............well. he's not wrong? me: it sounded more believable when he said it..............)

in general i am always so. surprised that there are so many people in the world who want to help. i don't know why!! i always thought!!! everything would be. seen as a bother and people would immediately yell at me and tell me i was. doing everything wrong. but. everyone has been so eager to help. and so helpful. and there are so many Forms and things to help, which is fascinating. and people who know The Forms!!!!!!!!! i am so intrigued by paperwork.

[jules-has-notes]

collaboration spotlight — Twenty One Pilots mashup by Kurt Hugo Schneider & VoicePlay

VoicePlay fans sometimes joke that the sounds these guys can make are so incredible as to be inhuman. This production took that assertion one step further. Kurt had them record their vocal parts as they normally would, then he sampled and remixed those voices to create something very cool. The result is more electronic than their usual sound, but there's no denying that it's an innovative twist.

This is a video I rarely watch just once, since it can be a lot of fun to pay close attention to what each guy is doing individually and how they all fit together.

Details:

title: Twenty One Pilots mashup (ft. VoicePlay)

original songs / performers: all songs by Twenty One Pilots — "Heathens", "Ride", & "Stressed Out"

written by: all songs by Tyler Joseph

arranged by: Kurt Hugo Schneider

release date: 2 November 2016

My favorite bits:

setting the scene and premise while layering in each vocal part

Layne occasionally glancing toward the others to see if they're going to try to escape the situation

Eli's smooth delivery of the "Stressed Out" intro

Geoff doing some lowkey animation moves in time with his ♫ "wub-wub-wub" ♫ bass line

those crunchy stacatto harmonies on ♫ "I know. it's hard. sometimes." ♫

the ramp up in tension created by the frequency increase on Earl's ♫ "ri-e-i-e-i-e-ide, ri-e-ide, ri-e-ide, ride ride ride ride" ♫

Layne's breathy high-hat line (and whatever cool thing Kurt did to enhance it)

Geoff being able to actually hit the deep tones for ⇓ "Watch it!" ⇓, but still having the fun post-processing distortion to match the original sound

baby's first featured subharmonic drop!

Eli's big old belts and riffs in the final "Heathens" section

Earl bounding into the stratosphere for that last ♫ ⇗ "any sudden moves" ⇗ ♫

each of the guys "shutting down" as their parts end

Trivia:

This video racked up a million views in just three weeks!

The audio track is exclusively available through VoicePlay's Patreon.

Like so many of VoicePlay's prosthetic makeup effects, the coaxial plugs that turn the guys into input / output devices were created by Andy Wright at Makeup & Creative Arts in Orlando.

I'm not sure if they intended for there to be narrative significance to the placement of the plugs, but having Layne and Geoff's near their vocal chords, Eli's in his noggin near the parts of the brain that handle analytical tasks like reading and math, and Earl's near the Superman tattoo on his muscular arm all seem potentially symbolic.

A fan was inspired to draw fanart of the guys a couple months later, which they very much enjoyed.

VoicePlay had released their own full version of "Ride" earlier in the year as an installment in their PartWork series.

Layne and Tony had created a much sillier music video for "Heathens", featuring the Sanderson sisters from Hocus Pocus, as their Halloween offering from PattyCake Productions the month before.

The guys (including J.None) collaborated with Kurt again almost a year later for a rendition of "Waving Through A Window" from Dear Evan Hansen that was released in January 2018.

[raptorladylover6969]

Again back to my last EOA post, and a comment I saw on a repost of it, I am 1000000% on board with the idea of the whole plot of Elena of Avalor, and some of the things in it, being a whole metaphor for Elena trying to keep herself from being driven to insanity aka becoming an evil dictator. Based on the personal research I’ve done, and connecting the dots to Elena’s character, I’ve noticed some key things in the show that sort of represent many “symptoms” of what a “clinically insane” person goes through.

Elena witnessed her own parents death right in front of her eyes. This alone should be traumatizing enough, but not even like 5 minutes later, Shuriki blasts her, but the amulet pulled her inside of it to save her. (Or at least, I like to think she did die, but her soul was sucked into the amulet, thus her possessing it, Five Nights At Freddy’s style). Elena is now sitting in the amulet, in what I think was a sort of state like Locked In Syndrome? Because when she did get out the amulet in Secret Of Avalor, she looked like she was sleeping, AND she forgot how to walk, hell even move around. So I think since she was in there for so long, she started “fusing” with the amulet, thus falling into a sort of coma, but still highly aware of whats going on around her + outside the amulet, but thats besides my point. She spends 40+ years, isolated from the world, with no one to talk to, no source of brain stimulation, no form of movement, just NOTHING. Shes trapped in a void. (*Void by Melanie Martinez starts playing*). Now looking at irl facts, there is no absolute way Elena didnt go insane in the amulet.

Looking at neuroscience, and the world of EOA, we can see the way Elena interacts with the world, and apply those statistics to Elena herself. In an article from The Royal Society Publishing, The Article titled “Perceived Social Isolation, Evolutionary Fitness and Health Outcomes: a LifeSpan Approach.” Written by Louise C. Hawkley, and John P. Capitanio states: “A sampling of recent studies shows that socially isolated housing of various social animal species at various stages of life and for various durations results in altered behaviour (e.g. anxious, depression-like, aggressive, passive, cognition/memory), physiology (e.g. changes in basal or stress–reactive corticosterone, blood pressure, inflammation, immune responses, hippocampal function) and mortality (e.g. post-stroke outcomes)” In the show, we can see Elena suffer through majority of these affects. Especially when it comes to her cognitive ability and critical thinking skills. We see her struggle hard in the show to solve problems, regarding the kingdom, and when communicating with other people.

I will also talk about the fact Elena can see ghosts, and Spirit Guides. I know, she has this power because “The amulet gave it to her.” But think of it this way: The amulet; her trauma, and Elena had to face “the trauma” for a LOOOOONG period of time. Another key factor when it comes to isolation, hallucinations. An Israeli adventurer/author Yossi Ghinsberg spent 3 weeks stranded in the Amazon rainforest (they actually made a movie about him‼️) Ghinsberg stated, due to him being isolated from society without any social contact/interaction, he experienced hallucinations. So what if metaphorically, Elena seeing the Spirit Guides, and ghosts, are her having hallucinations from spending 41 years away from society?

Elena’s dress. That goddamn dress. Its mentioned earlier that isolation can affect the brain’s cognitive abilities, and emotional health. So you basically would have trouble regulating your emotions, and your emotions would be all over the place. RING ANY BELLSSSSS⁉️⁉️⁉️⁉️ Her magic dress is a metaphor for her decline in her cognitive skills.

I now conclude my essay on how crazy I am about this damn kids show. I love Elena sm shes such a complicated character and I LOVE ITTTTTTTTT