#character-driven plots

[ancientroyalblood]

Plot Twists and Turns: Keeping Readers Guessing

The allure of a gripping narrative often lies in its ability to surprise and captivate readers through unexpected twists and turns. Delving into the art of crafting these surprises, this exploration uncovers the techniques and strategies that authors employ to keep readers on the edge of their seats. Understanding the Essence of Plot Twists: Begin by dissecting the anatomy of plot twists.…

[keferon]

Monster hunter au part 11 (final? I think?)

Did you want to see Drift in a nurse costume?......ahahahahha

Orion: God himself couldn't stop him.

Meanwhile, Ratchet walking into God's room: Polish your glasses and get your robotic liver ready, I've got drinks to share and a great story to tell

Previous

[absolutely-not-my-main-blog]

They put something in Pacific Rim that makes it grow on your brain like a beautiful luminescent hive-minded fungus you can't stop thinking about even if you didn't really like the movie itself that much, and that something is Charlie Day

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

love how Solar Opposites started out as a sitcom about two aliens who can't stand each other, stuck with their teenage clones (whom they also can't stand) & a toddler antichrist (whom they view as a sort of self-sufficient free-roaming hamster?) on a stupid planet they can't stand

and 4 seasons later it's a sitcom about a family of genderqueer aliens, headed by a gay couple in a happy & horny open marriage (with a graphic off-screen sex life, despite their canonical lack of genitalia?) teaching themselves to be okay parents to their 3 kids (whose Sci-Fi Antics now slightly-less-frequently revolve around wreaking havoc on human bystanders, and slightly-more-frequently revolve around alien-clone-sibling-bonding*), to the point that the central plot point becomes "We need to provide our toddler antichrist with a stable home environment."

(also the grumpy alien husband is too busy ingratiating his family with their suburban neighbors to even remember whom or what he dislikes. what is this show)

[stardustedknuckles]

It's looking like there's a growing divide between Campaign watchers and Tlovm watchers in terms of like. We're here for the characters. 12-episode seasons aren't. They can't be. I'm already making peace with everything we'll lose in the Mighty Nein show, and I know I will enjoy it for what it is but I also know that almost nothing that made the story so special will translate to the screen, because turning it into a show automatically means (in this day and age) that plot must be the number one priority. They've already come out and told us it's going to be different, the characters we know and love but new stories.

Because that's how this has to work. And I feel bad for campaign one lovers, because while it is certainly the easier of the two to translate to a big, overarching story, even though it's a more "traditional" high fantasy story with easier archetypal characters, the archetypes and the plot aren't what cemented most people's love for the campaign. So much of the love for critical role is stored in the interpersonal dynamics and the payoff that comes from hundreds of hours of tiny interactions that one day become cornerstones of development and even affect or dictate the plot.

There's no room for that. There's no room for Bard's Lament in a story that cannot afford to remove and replace a main character. A lot of tlovm is for people who have been here for all of campaign one. Most of it, however, isn't. It's for a new crowd. While CR may have creative control, you can bet your ass that there were months and years devoted to figuring out how to map a character-focused love of the show into a plot that hits the right beats to be viable in the show market.

And it worked. Tlovm has consistently high viewing numbers, and its popularity has brought and will continue to bring new people into the universe who have never interacted with CR previously. That's not a bad thing - imagine finishing your favorite show and discovering it has another FIVE HUNDRED HOURS of the equivalent of behind the scenes content. That's incredible for these newcomers. But man, it is in many ways a loss for us.

[saintshigaraki]

my reading list currently looks like....2025 edition

orbital by samantha harvey

creation lake by rachel kushner

beach read by emily henry

the safekeep by yael van der wouden

incidents around the house by josh malerdam -- DNF

i who have never known men* by Jacqueline harpman

crying in hmart+ by michelle zuaner

the power by naomi alderman

we used to live here by marcus kliewer

the wedding people by alison espach

the vegetarian* by han kang

chain-gang all-stars by nana kwame adjei-brenyah

normal people by sally rooney

earthlings* by sayaka murata

big swiss by jen beagin

assassins quest by robin hobb

the school for good mothers by jessamine chan

the dangers of smoking in bed* by mariana enriquez

+ = nonfiction, * = translated work

[bogkeep]

i keep running into comments saying the choices you make in pentiment don't matter very much, and i am Certain this is just a tragic case of "does not see character driven storytelling as a valuable form of storytelling" and i should just move on with my life, but... the themes... won't SOMEONE think of the THEMES...!!!

1) if your choices don't matter, then why do i agonize over them so? the story spans 25 years, and the things i say in act I ripples through all the way to act III. words i say can put someone in danger, or convince them to pursue happiness. every character in tassing matters to someone else and partakes in the community in some way, however small. wherever i point for the sword to fall, the void left behind is felt sharply. you're taking part in history.

2) and yet, many choices are out of your hands. andreas is a man, not god. did you not converse with illuminata about the restrictions of your circumstances? what choices do women have, besides marriage or the abbey? why do peasants dream of kingship? choices are taken away from you by those with more power. you can't prevent a death from occuring, only point the finger. is it not arrogant to think you alone could change the world? is it not a relief?

3) the Regret: none of the choices are more correct to make than the others, they are simply the choices you made, and the ones you must live with - and you do have to live. sometimes you were not given a choice, and still you must live. time will pass, and you must live.

[send-me-a-puffalope]

ooooo y’all wanna read my movie Vanessa centric fanfic so bad. ooooo you think it’s so interesting to combine a potential FNAF 2 movie plot with Sister Location ooooooo (this fic is genuinely my pride and joy and I never talk about it enough)

Excerpts for anyone interested under the cut!!! (out of context but yknow)

[everythingiguess]

Thamepo is just so interesting to me. I enjoy this show a lot and I need to talk about it.

It may seem like a pretty common plot —which could have something to do with the fact that it had been in the works for about 5 years before its actual release- but personally I feel like that's what makes it so enjoyable. You can't really go wrong with this kind of plot if it's handled correctly.

And I actually love all the main characters, which is something I usually have trouble with. In most cases I start liking them a lot but as the show progresses I notice that I don't really know all of them as I would like to.

And that's not the case with Thamepo! It makes me so happy; the fact that the show took its time to let us know each of them individually is one of the best things they could've done. This gave them a strong foundation to tell their story.

I know some people feel frustrated about Thame and Po not having scenes together as much as other bls, which is understandable, but I think that with a show like this it's the right way to go. I feel like it was necessary to focus on establishing the whole story and the environment, otherwise it wouldn't be believable. That includes getting to know all the band members, the people around them and the roles they play in their lives. Now that it's all established, they can focus on Thame and Po's relatioship more, which is what it looks like they're going to do; I remember seeing a clip of the actors talking about how surprised they were fans were so invested in the first half of the show because they thought people would start tuning it for the second part, so I'm guessing it's because that's where we have all the romance.

It's great and I love it because once Thame and Po are in a relationship, their dynamic will be very different from those in other shows; Thame is a popular idol and Po is not and that's a problem. This by itself should let us know that they will have a lot of difficulties and we've been given a glimpse of it in the Pepper-focused episode. Once it all begins, as an audience we'll completely believe in everything that happens because we're now immersed in the story and how everything works for people like the Mars' members. They won't need to explain every single thing to us because we already know and understand their situation.

We know because they took their time with the story, and they've done it so naturally. So of course I love it, and I think a lot of hard work has gone into this series and it shows.

I'm confident that if they hadn't done it like this it would have felt weird, absurd and careless.

[sprnklersplashes]

two veronica lines I'm still mad about them cutting from the off broadway version are "I didn't kill heather, I know that but I still feel bad. but not as bad as I should and that makes me feel even worse" and "dear diary the irony of this is that I didn't get a chance to write my own suicide note".

why did they try to clean up my little gremlin girl? why wouldn't they just let her be a morally grey little gremlin who doesn't feel overly bad about the murder she accidentally committed.

[thesecretherstory0]

i loveee character-driven stories, what’s the plot??? doesn’t matter, give me 5 pages of a character’s internal conflicts, describe their emotional state and tell me about their feelings in details, also 20 pages of the characters relationship with each other, a chapter of the character’s backstory, tell me how they think, tell me their opinions and how they live and why the preferred lifestyle

[asnowdriftsomewhere]

Wild Heart

An OC character study

Helion/Oc

Read on Ao3

Summary: The grand, final ballad was reaching its crescendo and I didn’t want to miss one note of it. This last perfect song that played along his skin, it danced through his hair and whispered in his eyes. I heard it now, the chords I'd been looking for all my life… It wasn't a melody at all but a soul that matched my own. This male, whose name I did not know, belonged to me, and I would destroy myself before I let any more harm befall him.

Warnings: HURT/COMFORT, angst, War, mention SA, mentally disable character, aphasia, suicidal thoughts, mention torture, abuse,

(let me know if i should add others)

Word Count: 3619

A/N: takes place in that little pocket of time just before Amren destroys the Hybern army and before Feyre and Rhys fix the Cauldron.

I hope you all enjoy it! Let me know what you think!!

Beta read by: @queen-vessaraia-ashlynne

Sometimes, the beginning is not the beginning. Sometimes, the beginning is the middle, and the story is told in both directions at the author's will. Sometimes, the beginning is the last ordinary day lived before everything changes, when life is not happy, but peaceful and quiet. Sometimes, the beginning is war and blood and chaos. The complete destruction of serenity. Sometimes, the story begins with the shattering of a soul. The rending of a person's psyche until they are not who they were before but are born again within the shadows. Until they are reforged by the fires of hell and emerge as something new, something to behold.

And sometimes, sometimes the story begins with the end. When the author has woven their tale and the tapestry can no longer be altered. When the players have been sealed within their fates and cannot be saved.

Sometimes, there is no happy ending, only the beauty of the story told along the way.

My story began with amber eyes meeting mine across the killing field. He was on his knees, the Hybern Commander above him preparing the killing blow of a magic so great that it turned my head, even amongst the chaos reigning around me. I didn't know what it was, I didn't understand what pulled me into the middle of the battle like a siren's song sung to my soul, a call to the hunt that I could not ignore. But I stumbled through the dirt and the mud, the bodies and viscera coating my bare legs in blood and gore as I moved mindlessly through the violence unfolding around me.

Steel clashed against steel. Fae males and beasts alike roared their fury into the skies - but I wasn't listening to them. There was music in the death blooming like a field of wildflowers around me, a song in the rage like the ash in the wind. I felt it in my bones, and I followed it through the fighting until I saw them. Two fae males locked in a battle of magic, a mountain of bodies between them. The lives of those foolish enough to step between the wielders of fate were now nothing more than corpses, ragdolls at their feet as they faced off against each other and bent reality to their will.

The magic was a melody I'd been waiting to hear for what felt like forever. My fractured mind watched their spells like they were notes of a chord that surrounded and enveloped me. It soothed my sensitive skin and eased some of the weight I felt hanging heavily around my heart. I followed it like a light in the shadows until there was only a few scant yards between us.

The Hybern Commander I recognized. His was a face I saw in my nightmares; I knew what his hands felt like on my body, what his magic did to my being, and I smiled softly at the disheveled state of him. He was bruised and bloody, a trail of rubies leaking from his nose and down his throat. I wondered what gems he would spawn if someone split his skin from ear to ear. I wondered if his bones would shine like ivory or were they black as sin beneath his robes. Who would he beseech when I peeled the flesh from his limbs? Which of his Fae gods would he beg to intervene on his behalf? After all, he knew I had no one to cry out for when he entered my cell night after night. He knew there was no one to save me as I was dragged through war, from camp to camp. Thrown into his tent as a personal plaything, a gift from the King himself. I wondered if he would beg, as I had, to see just one more sunrise. I wondered if he would dream of possibility. If he would marvel at the birth of a young god or ponder when his story began - when the end would come.

Something was building in me as I considered what shape his screams would take, if his fear would heal some small piece of my sundered spirit, if - in the end - it mattered at all. Like a tidal wave cresting through my body, I plucked the notes from the skies until a shattered refrain danced around me, ready to impose just a fraction of the pain I'd suffered onto the male who had inflicted it. I walked across the bottom of an ocean and dragged the weight of it behind me like a cloak of retribution to be unleashed upon the world which had scattered me to the winds.

The other male fell to his knees before the Commander. Blood was splattered across his dark skin like rose petals, staining his white robes. His hair was braided back, a ribbon the color of sunbeams tied at the end, drifting in the wind that circled him. It matched his eyes.

Eyes that were staring at me.

Everything stopped. The universe held its breath, and the music changed. The song of war and reckoning that had led me here faded, and a new melody played between our souls. A softer chord to caress my jagged edges and cradle my fractured mind. This male was the beginning of me, the sunrise that promised possibility, and the song I could always hear but never find. Like a dream brought to life, the music shifted and settled within me and the Hybern Commander drifted away like a fine mist in the wind as the world began again.

He watched me, amber eyes locked with mine as we studied each other. The war raging around us was little more than white noise compared to the song singing in my blood. My heart was a drum in my chest and my breath came in ragged pants as I stood frozen amid the death. The shattered refrain around me still hummed in my veins and I felt it crash against my edges. It was a force that would not be ignored, that demanded to be unleashed. It would turn everything around me into dust - as it had done to the Commander - only now I didn't want to recklessly rip apart this world that had destroyed me. I didn't want to kill this male who felt like hope when there had been none for so long. I didn't want to extinguish the life and joy his eyes promised me before I even got the chance to know him.

The refrain bent and groaned within my iron grip and a scream shattered my bones as it ripped its way out of me. I shoved the music back down, drowned myself in the ocean of my power and collapsed into the mud and gore as my blood turned to fire and smoke poured from my lips.

“Release it!” A voice I didn't recognize shouted as hands clasped my shoulders and my head snapped up to see amber eyes so close to mine. For a moment, I felt like I was walking across the surface of the sun. Like a solar flare had wrapped around my body and ran fingers through my hair. I felt like I was adrift in a sea of warmth and care, where nothing could hurt me and music flowed like a promise. But the hands that gripped me squeezed and shook and a baritone breeze danced down my spine, “Release the magic, or it will kill you!”

And wouldn't that be fine? To die among the dirt and the chaos of a war I tried to stop? My mind flashed to a dark, deathless room and a power that prowled along its edges, as if deciding who it would strike. I'd just watched two women be thrown into the Cauldron like lambs slaughtered in sacrifice. I'd watched from my place at my sister's feet, bound and gagged as the Spring Lord was across the room, tears streaming down my face as I saw my failure unfold before me. I had tried to stop this, tried to get my sister to see reason, and when that failed I had tried to take her crown and put an end to it myself. But she discovered my treachery, she put me in irons and dragged me here, saying I'd understand once we were made Fae. Once we became young and beautiful forever I would be grateful for all that she did to get us here…

The Cauldron's waters felt like ice in my veins. Like the cold of a winter that would never end crystallized along my bones and ripped my mind to shreds as it screamed in agony. Something had been taken from it. So it took something from me in return.

My mind, once a steel trap of facts and knowledge, fractured like light through a prism. A kaleidoscope of color and emotions that crashed against itself from one moment to the next, it never settled long enough to take in the picture - to understand the thought - and words became weapons pointing in. Sentences were a blade against my throat and my broken brain couldn't comprehend why they couldn't understand. Why did they look at me like what I was saying didn't make sense?

It wasn't until the first Queen emerged as a withered old crone that they realized something was wrong, that the Cauldron was taking more than it was giving and that I was not whole where I lay curled into myself on the floor. The Prythian Fae had long since fled, and Hybern had no answers for my sister who demanded them. I watched her and the other Queens gather to leave - she did not reach for me, and in that moment my rage erupted around us.

The stone beneath me cleaved in two and the wind that whipped through the room stole the air from their lungs. Lightning crackled at my fingertips and through the water soaking into the floor; no one dared to come closer to try and stop me. I would have torn the castle down around us. I would have buried myself and every monster I saw so deep into the earth that there would have been no chance of anyone surviving.

But that clever King would not go quietly into the night. He waved his hands in front of his body, and I watched as he plucked magic from the rock and wind and the dark places around us. I saw the melody he composed unfurl around me, a noose at my neck, until my fury evaporated like smoke in the wind and I shattered once again as the blackness consumed me. When I woke, I was in a cell with a Commander watching me from beyond the bars and that was when I learned what the ‘hell on earth’ truly meant.

And now here I was, so many months or years or weeks later, dying as the magic I'd spent all that time gathering to me burned me from the inside out. I refused to unleash it, so it turned that destructive force inward. I could feel it as, cell by cell, piece by piece, I died in this male's arms. He looked so… panicked, so fearful of something- I didn't know what, but he pulled my small body against his as if he hoped to warm my chilled skin. As if he believed he could squeeze life back into me now that the sun was setting on my final day.

It was so silly - and he was disrupting the song. The grand, final ballad was reaching its crescendo and I didn’t want to miss one note of it. This last perfect song played along his skin, it danced through his hair and whispered in his eyes. I heard it now, the chords I'd been looking for all my life… It wasn't a melody at all but a soul that matched my own. This male, whose name I did not know, belonged to me and I would destroy myself before I let any more harm befall him.

“You are mine,” he whispered against my cheek. “Do not leave me when I've only just found you. Let it go.”

Something like a whimper shuddered through my body and hot liquid dripped from my lips. I can't, I wanted to tell him. I can't control it, it will kill you- I can't… But my words were trapped as they had been since my mind fractured apart that day in Hybern. I felt them on the tip of my tongue, but my mouth would not do as I wished. I screamed into the wind as smoke billowed out of me.

“Thesan!” my male made of sunbeams, shouted into the chaos. Tears like diamonds streamed down his cheek as he frantically searched the killing field. “Kallias! Help!”

“Helion?” Someone I couldn't see spoke and my body twitched as lightning sparked in my veins. “Who-”

“She's burning up- the magic- she won’t release it,” he spoke quickly, sharply. Every word was a blade turned into a bird that flew into the wide open eternity. I watched them land on a fae male carved from ice, his blue eyes like stars. He knelt beside us in the mud, cold finger clasping around my ankle as his brow furrowed in concentration.

“Let me see her,” another voice, a voice like the first rays of dawn, approached and I was shifted until my head rested in my male's lap and my body was accessible to these strangers. I might have begun to struggle then. My feet kicked and my nails scratched until he took my head in his hands and he leaned closer to place his lips to my temple.

“Be still my Wild Heart,” he whispered to me. “They only want to help.”

They can't help, I wanted to scream even as my body obeyed the dominance in his tone. I will die. No one can change that. The sun was setting for the last time, and all I wanted was to watch it vanish in his eyes.

A noise like a murmur hissed through my lips and two new songs joined the chores. The first was a melody of ice, inching its way across my skin and seeping into my bones. It was light and airy, like the chiming of bells on a clear winter's day. The second was deep, the drumming of magic through all living things. The rhythm of a healthy heart and a spirit unbroken.

“If she doesn't release her power then the magic will boil her alive,” the male of the dawn grimaced, his hands glowing like tiny suns as they passed over my bruised and broken form. “We can only maintain this for so long before our magic is depleted-”

“You must let it go, Little Light,” he ordered me as he sat up so his perfect face above me was all I could see. “The magic will kill you-”

No, I thought, fighting against the instincts to listen- to obey. The new fae part of me that bowed to power beyond my own wrestled with my human soul and a snarl came out in response. Two wolves rolled through the trees behind my eyes. One was made of light and life and the other of shadow and doubt, and they ripped and clawed and bit each other until they both lay in pieces around me.

“She can’t control it.” A voice like the darkest part of the night enveloped us and I felt star kissed talons glide across my mind. Instinctively, the storm of magic in my bones shifted to wrap around my psyche and force the intruder out into the sky. Like a stone returned to the child who'd thrown it. “She can't speak. The magic will destroy everything in its path and she doesn't want to hurt you, Helion.”

My male's eyes shot to mine, understanding blooming in these amber depths like a rose unfurling in the light. He lifted me so that I was sitting in the mud across from him, knee to knee and soul to soul. “I can control it,” he whispered, a dagger appearing in one hand before he sliced a fresh wound across his palm and reached for me. “You let it go, and I will make sure it doesn't hurt an innocent soul.” My gaze narrowed on the rubies dripping down his arm and I almost didn't notice as he cut a matching line into my hand before pressing our wounds together.

The sun erupted as the storm burst out of me and there was only us. Me and him and the song of our souls colliding in the daylight.

Butterflies of light danced at the edges of my vision as I sat before him. Our hands clasped together, the magic passed through our bodies and the rain fell in a deluge that soaked us to the bone. I pressed my brow to his, inhaling his scent of sandalwood and dragon's blood. I let him cloud my senses, absorb my thoughts, as he pressed his free hand to my face. His thumb stroked my cheek and I felt a smile like a warning bell pull at the corners of my lips.

And I saw us, saw us sitting atop golden thrones, books and scrolls passed like secrets while he held my hand in his.

I blinked and we were lying in bed amongst the clouds, limbs tangled beneath the sheets and bliss reflected in our faces.

I blinked again. My male was sitting at a desk, his chair turned to the side so his hands could roam my pregnant belly as I stood beside him and smiled.

Images of a life, a promise of eternity, played out before my eyes and all the while the melody of us swelled in my ears. I could hear the inevitable end, fast approaching even as the magic was siphoned out of me and my body was healed.

The sun was still setting.

The beginning was the end.

Fate had already been written.

And I knew it wasn't fair, but I knew that what was broken inside of me was too much for anyone to have to bear. It could never be undone, I would never be whole as I appeared in those visions of the future, and I would always be a burden to this male made of magic and sunshine. My wings were stuck - clipped before I'd ever had the chance to fly.

It was not for myself that I reached for the knife he'd discarded in the dirt beside us. It was for him, to free him from my shattered melody so that he would never know hardship at my hands. Music sang between our souls, but even that could not overcome all that lay between us.

Fast as lightning, I turned the dagger to my own heart - only for the Lord of Night to grasp my wrist and twist until I let go of the blade. A hiss of outrage slipped from my throat as I flashed my teeth at the male. “Let the fire fly away,” I snarled and his expression softened. I growled with frustration.

Words! They were just words and yet my tongue was a foreign entity in my mouth. A stranger that refused to translate and my mind was a cage around me. A collection of colors with no discernable pattern and the rain slowed until it stopped.

I closed my eyes as the flames in my lungs turned to flowers blooming up my throat and I choked on the petals. My male cupped my face in his hands as words drifted out of me like dandelion fluff and I wondered if he could see them fly away like clouds of wishes into the summer sky.

He looked at me like I was a miracle.

I looked at him as if I were already dead.

“They threw her in the Cauldron after Nesta,” the Night Lord murmured, snatching his hand back as I reached for the dagger once more. “It broke her mind like it took the Queen's youth and beauty.”

“Gems dance in the light,” I growled, lunging for a nearby sword only for my male to wrap his body around me, pinning my arms to my sides.

“What was broken can be healed,” He whispered fiercely into my ear and the song between us thrummed in answer. “And if not healed, then accommodated. You are mine, body, soul, and fractured mind. So be mine, my Wild Heart.”

“Wild Heart,” I answered, my voice as soft as a diminuendo and I closed my eyes to listen. The war was ending, the songs were changing. And this male in my arms was a sunrise of possibility that I reached for in the dark. A thread of gold that guided me towards the light - that I followed through the fire and shadows until I emerged, reforged into something new, something to behold.

Wild Heart, he called me - and it felt like the name of a young god pulling me out of hell and into the light of day.

A human soul, a shattered mind, locked within a fae body - but these things did not feel like a weight around my heart while I was cocooned within his arms. It felt like strength, like the promise of another sunrise and another sunset and an eternity to learn how to unclip my wings. It did not feel like the end - the tapestry could still be altered, our fates were not yet sealed.

We were a beautiful story, waiting to be told.

And this…

This was only the beginning.

[sashannarcy]

I think the reason Amphibia's seriousness is so shocking for the kind of media it is is bc unlike a lot of other similar cartoons it just. doesn't lean into the supervillain/supernatural element as much for the seriousness. like it does but when you look at it on a level of "okay when were the most serious bits" it's not ALL "super high stakes fight that leads to tragic moments", it's also "a 13 year old bully just tried killing himself on screen" it's "another 13 year old just revealed they kidnapped their closest friends for two seasons because they were lonely" it's "10 year old reveals that his parents died when he was younger and he didn't think he was allowed to miss them" it's "main protagonist openly says she didn't love herself" it's "main protagonist becomes next in line to be god of all creation because she chose to be kind" it's "main antagonist lets himself become nearly obliterated because he chose to believe in change and loss at the request of his long-dead love" it's "but of the things you let go you'd be surprised what makes its way back to you" essentially I'm saying that Amphibia is about humanity as it always has been

[kitkat-the-muffin]

Parkour Civilization is a masterclass in plot-driven storytelling that rivals the character-driven storytelling of most SMPs

[ripk0l]

his blog is not up yet but if anyone wanna be affiliated ( ahem ahem witchies witchies witches ) to my new lover dorian.